Blog

  • 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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  • Over 100 Journalists to Blinken: Stop Arming Israel

    News outlets, press freedom organizations, and more than 100 journalists, including four Pulitzer Prize winners, have written to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urging the U.S. to immediately cease sending weapons to Israel amid the country’s widespread killing of journalists in Palestine. The letter (which can be found here) was initiated by the Courage…

  • Israel’s Assassination Program and Its Ties to U.S. Intelligence

    “For decades the U.S. and Israel have had highly secret intelligence-sharing arrangements that have included ‘frameworks’ dealing with the topic of providing assistance for assassinations”

  • Activists Demand Action from UN to Stop Genocide

    “As many members of the UN Security Council said in their meeting on Tuesday, they must move to action. The Algerians and Palestinians talked about sanctions. We have a resource page on that and have been urging states to take bilateral necessary actions. Of course, the U.S. government’s veto prevents the Security Council from doing…

  • No Harbour for Genocide in Greece

    “All UN Missions with Mediterranean ports were formally advised on August 6 in a letter signed by dozens of top international legal experts that permitting these vessels to transit through their territorial waters or to provision them at ports within their jurisdiction amounts to complicity in grave violations of international law, including apartheid and genocide.…

  • Routines of State Control in Israel: Imprisonment, Torture and Mass Death

    “When you read the 94 pages of the B’Tselem report, which causes you to lose sleep, you understand that it wasn’t an exceptional incident, it’s the routine of torture, which has become a policy.”

  • Public Universities and Gaza

    A tenured political science professor at Indiana University was suspended from the university, potentially as retaliation for his criticism of the administration’s immediate response to October 7. Sinno’s suspension reflects the climate at public universities across the country. A law was passed this spring by the Republican supermajority in the Indiana state legislature, effectively abolishing tenure…

  • Opposing Israel’s Dangerous Gamble Before It’s Too Late

    Israel’s failure to comply with international treaties and humanitarian law signal an acute need for other countries to organize weapons embargoes, cease trade deals, and provide support for civilian peacekeepers to bring about a permanent ceasefire.

  • Sinwar Named Leader of Hamas After Beirut and Tehran Attacks

    It is widely expected that Iran and Hezbollah will retaliate against Israel. The State Department has refused to acknowledge that Iran has a right to defend itself.

  • AIPAC Misinformation Targets Cori Bush

    “On the ground in St.Louis the amount of money being poured in to smear Rep. Bush and misinform voters is astonishing”

  • The Pregnancy Police

    A new book, The Pregnancy Police, details how pregnant Americans have faced arrest and prosecution for supposed crimes against fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses since long before the overturning of Roe v. Wade. 

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