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  • Mubarak, Army, U.S., Israel vs Egyptian People

    [As government forces have attacked peaceful protesters in Tahrir Square, Emad Mekay from Cairo reports] Mubarak is clearly backed by the Americans. He took some moves after speaking with Obama and a visit by a former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner. Mubarak, the army, the Americans and the Israelis are clearly on one side.…

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  • Unrest Spreads to Sinai

    A Bedouin youth casually spreads out a piece of cloth before a police headquarters in Sheikh Zwayyed town in Sinai, the vast desert area to the east of Cairo across the Suez. “I will leave when Mubarak leaves,” he says. [Full piece from Inter Press Service]

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  • Chomsky: Strategic and Economic Objectives, Not Anti-Islamization, Drives U.S. Policy

    [While many are claiming that a central goal of U.S. policy is to minimize influence of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Noam Chomsky contributed this to our blog] It is well-established, including the major scholarly literature, that the U.S. supports democracy if and only if that accords with strategic and economic objectives.  Following…

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  • An Open Letter to President Barack Obama

    ————————————————————————————————————————— [To sign; for recent news releases on Egypt from the Institute for Public Accuracy] Dear President Obama: As political scientists, historians, and researchers in related fields who have studied the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, we the undersigned believe you have a chance to move beyond rhetoric to support the democratic movement sweeping…

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  • Report from Cairo

    From Alex Ortiz in Cairo: “The army is beginning to come into Cairo … tens of thousands converged in midan al-gala’ coming from three different protest marches. Total communication blackout. Reports of senior police officers ordering their men to stand down and not beat or fire tear gas at protesters in Midan al-gala an hour…

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  • Report on Latest from Cairo

    CAIRO, Egypt [11 p.m. local time] — 1-Some government media figures appear to be joining ranks with the protesters. Mahmoud Saad, a talk show host in the Egyptian state-run TV, has announced that he will no longer appear on TV starting tonight after he came under pressure from top government officials to report “untruths” about…

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  • Police in Cairo Beating up Jounalists

    [From 9:28 a.m. ET]: Police started beating up journalists protesting outside the Press Syndicate in downtown Cairo. They beat up women journalists too who were screaming and crying for help. “Do not club women. Do not club women,” some of the men rushed to the police asking them not to target women. “You’ll make things…

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  • From Alex Ortiz in Cairo

    [The Egyptian government has apparently block Twitter, Facebook (as of Wed. morn U.S. ET) and other internet tools, though apparently some people are able to get around such restrictions. Email from 8:45 a.m. ET:] Downtown Cairo today remains in a state of high alert. There are many security forces and plainsclothed policemen visible on every…

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  • Video from Cairo

    Phone lines are intermittent and Twitter has reportedly been blocked in Egypt. Here is a live video feed: ustream.tv/channel/cairodowntown [update: ustream has been blocked, streaming now intermittently at livestream.com/cairowitness — further update, now at: www.justin.tv/cairowitness] Here is a YouTube video from earlier today:

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  • Ukraine’s Assault on a Free Press

    In Ukraine, where media diversity is often defined by which powerful oligarch controls which TV station, one network, TVi — known for its independent investigative style — is under intense legal pressure, with its owner not part of Ukraine’s power circles. TVi faces a court hearing on Tuesday over a legal claim that the station’s…

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  • Clinton: Emotion and Policies

    KATHA POLLITT Columnist Pollitt just wrote the piece “Hillary Shows Feeling, Is Slammed,” which states: “Hillary Clinton, long criticized as cold, shows a bit of feeling and is attacked as overly emotional. It’s the latest installment of the ongoing double bind in which if she wears a black pantsuit she’s too masculine and if she…

  • U.S.-Iran Confrontation in the Gulf?

    CNN reports: “Five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats ‘harassed and provoked’ three U.S. Navy ships early Sunday in international waters, the U.S. military said Monday, calling the encounter a ‘significant’ confrontation.” AP reports that: “Iran’s Foreign Ministry says weekend incident between Iranian boats and U.S. Navy ships in Gulf was ‘something normal’ and was resolved.” The…

  • Behind the Conventional Wisdom on Clinton, Obama & Edwards

    * Clinton’s “Experience” * Obama on Racial Justice and Africa * Edward’s Corporate Friend JUNAID AHMAD President of the U.S.-based National Muslim Law Students Association, Ahmad was last in Pakistan this August. He just wrote the piece “What’s Behind Bhutto’s Assasination?” Ahmad said today: “At the ABC debate on Saturday, Clinton called Musharraf ‘the elected…

  • Veterans in New Hampshire

    WILLIAM HOPKINS An Iraq war veteran, Hopkins said today: “I joined the New Hampshire National Guard in May of 2001 at a time the World Trade towers still stood; it was not at all unusual to talk to fellow guardsmen who had been in for 25 years or more and not been deployed aside from…

  • Examining Candidates’ Foreign Policy Advisers: How Real a “Change”?

    KELLEY BEAUCAR VLAHOS Vlahos wrote a piece for The American Conservative titled “War Whisperers: The 2008 hopefuls promised a change in foreign policy then hired the old guard.” ALLAN NAIRN Currently in New York City, Nairn is available for a limited number of interviews through Monday. A noted independent journalist, he runs the new weblog…

  • Beyond Iowa to “Super Stupid Tuesday”

    ROB RICHIE Executive director of FairVote, Richie said today: “The Iowa caucuses showcased two principles of voting not available to many in the U.S. despite their common use around the world: proportional representation and second choice, ‘instant runoff’ balloting. “[In this case] proportional representation meant that the delegates were awarded relative to the number of…

  • Why Did the U.S. Back the Kenyan Election Results?

    GERALD LeMELLE Executive director of Africa Action, LeMelle said today: “The U.S. government initially expressed support for the government-announced outcome of the election despite overwhelming evidence that something was wrong. There seemed to have been some disconnect between the U.S. embassy in Nairobi — which has taken a relatively cautious approach to the crisis —…

  • “Who Would Jesus Bomb?”

    FRANK CORDARO A member of the Des Moines Catholic Worker and a former priest, Cordaro said today: “[Mike] Huckabee claims to follow Jesus, but he has shown his true allegiance is to empire. He has more in common with the empire that put Jesus on the cross than the Jesus of love and peace who…

  • Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan

    SHAHID MAHMOOD Mahmood was the editorial cartoonist for Dawn, a national newspaper in Pakistan. He is now internationally syndicated with the New York Times Syndicate. He recently wrote a piece titled “The Dream That Was Benazir Bhutto,” which states: “I too was swept-up in that initial euphoria and as a budding political cartoonist remember drawing…

  • Pakistan

    SAMEER DOSSANI Director of 50 Years Is Enough, a group that scrutinizes major international financial institutions, Dossani, a Pakistani-American, said today: “While the death of Benazir Bhutto is the latest in a long and tragic line of blood that has been spilled in Pakistan’s history, it should not detract from our analysis of her legacy.…

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