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  • Uprisings: Online Resouces

    With protests continuing, here is a partial list of online resources: For Libya: #Feb17; CNN’s Ben Wedeman; @EnoughGaddafi; For Bahrain: #Feb14, @OnlineBahrain; For Yemen: #Feb3; @JNovak_Yemen; Palestinian: #Mar15 Gulf: @dr_davidson, @tobycraigjones For Saudi Arabia: on Twitter: #Mar11; Webpages and blogs: rasid.com, ysoof.com/blog/?p=242, saudiwoman.wordpress.com, alasmari.wordpress.com, saudijeans.org To translate: translate.google.com Based in the U.S., but with extensive contacts…

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  • “A New Bipartisan Consensus Against Low Income People”

    The president’s budget is a prosaic austerity plan that inflicts disproportionate pain on low income Americans. Fundamental questions about the costs of war and the fairness of tax cuts for the rich have been avoided by the decision to narrowly target non-security “discretionary” spending to bear the weight of deficit reduction. It used to be…

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  • Challenges for Change in Algeria

    Tunisia and Egypt are relatively centralized states, Algeria not so, neither politically, nor culturally, nor geographically. Historically, the interior has been difficult to control, and there is no guarantee that the rest of the country would rally to the protests taking place in the capital as in the case of Egypt. The Algerian regime is…

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  • “Mubarak has fallen. The regime didn’t”

    CAIRO — Mubarak has fallen. The regime didn’t. We still have the same cabinet appointed by [Mubarak]. The emergency state is still enforced. Old detainees are still in detentions and new ones since the 25th of January remain missing. There is no public apology for the killing. We hear several executives are being prosecuted, including…

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  • Time to forge new, democratic system

    CAIRO — Last night, February 11, Cairo was the scene of what may well have been the largest street party in world history.  It was incredibly powerful and moving.  Of course, the night’s festivities marked both an end and a beginning. Now is the time for Egypt’s judges, other legal professionals, diplomats, other negotiators, intellectuals,…

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  • Our Man in Cairo

    With Mubarak’s departure, the focus now falls on his chosen successor, Omar Suleiman. According to a classified American diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, Suleiman was Israel’s pick to succeed Mubarak. But there’s little doubt that he was also the choice of the United States, or at least of one particular American agency with which he…

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  • Online Resources on Egypt and Beyond

    With protests against the Egyptian regime continuing, here is a partial list of resources: A critical Facebook page is “We are all Khaled Said” — also see the associated webpage elshaheeed.co.uk. (For background on Khaled Said, see IPA news release.) See: egyprotest-defense.blogspot.com; live updates at guardian.co.uk; Al-Jazeera English live blog and video, or via YouTube:…

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  • Hungry Gazans Feed Egyptian Troops

    RAFAH, Feb 9, 2011 (IPS) – Mustapha Suleiman, 27, from J Block east of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, crosses through gaps in the iron fence on the border carrying bread, water, meat cans and a handful of vegetables for Egyptian soldiers stationed on the other side. [See at Inter Press Service]

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  • Egypt’s military-industrial complex

    With US-made tear gas canisters fired on protesters in Cairo, Washington’s role in arming Egypt is under the spotlight In early January 2010, Bob Livingston, a former chairman of the appropriations committee in the US House of Representatives, flew to Cairo accompanied by William Miner, one of his staff. The two men were granted meetings…

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  • Uprising Pays Off -– Sort of

    Today I went to a town only 23 kilometers south of Tahrir Square. The plan was to see if the 11-day uprising in Egypt has produced any benefits so far – just by way of finding something different from the insecurity and chaos in Cairo. Kirdasa, a small town known for its flower nurseries and…

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  • Activism Roiling Hill

    CINDY SHEEHAN JUAN TORRES TIFFANY BURNS AMY BRANHAM Sheehan, Torres, Burns and other peace activists interrupted a news conference as Congress member Rahm Emanuel was speaking Wednesday. They shouted “De-escalate! Investigate! Troops home now!” [Video] Today, they dropped two banners in the Senate’s Hart Building. Sheehan, Torres and Branham are members of Gold Star Families…

  • Iraq: · Fostering Civil War? · Domestic Disconnect

    NIR ROSEN Available for a limited number of interviews, Rosen has spent a total of two and a half years in Iraq since the invasion; he returns to the Mideast in ten days. His most recent piece is “Hijacking Eid and Hanging Saddam: Timing and Hostile Repartee Creates Further Division,” which notes: “For Sunnis [the…

  • Legacies of Kissinger and Ford: · Kurds · East Timor

    SUREYA SAYADI, MD An Iraqi Kurdish doctor and academic now living in the U.S., Sayadi said today: “Kissinger eulogized Ford today, but he could have eulogized Saddam. In 1975, Kissinger brokered the Algiers agreement whereby Iran ended its support of the Kurds, leaving them alone to be attacked by Saddam. I was actually in a…

  • Journalists Sought for Testimony in Military Hearing

    The U.S. Army is attempting to compel testimony from journalists for the prosecution of 1st Lieutenant Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. Independent journalist Sarah Olson has been subpoenaed to testify at a Jan. 4 pre-trial hearing and a February court-martial about her May 2006 interview with Lieutenant…

  • · Lebanon · Bethlehem · Oaxaca

    BASSAM HADDAD Assistant professor of political science at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and visiting professor at Georgetown University, Haddad is editor of the Arab Studies Journal and was in Lebanon earlier this year. He said today: “The recent monumental protests by the opposition indicate that in any future elections the support for the current…

  • U.S. Buildup Against Iran

    The New York Times is reporting on its front page today: “The United States and Britain will begin moving additional warships and strike aircraft into the Persian Gulf region in a display of military resolve toward Iran that will come as the United Nations continues to debate possible sanctions against the country, Pentagon and military…

  • Troop Levels

    CINDY WILLIAMS Principal research scientist at the Security Studies Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Williams is editor of the book Filling the Ranks: Transforming the U.S. Military Personnel System. CARL CONETTA Co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives, Conetta said today: “Unless you are planning more invasions like that of Iraq, or you…

  • Accountability and the Bush Administration

    In a piece today, Editor & Publisher reports that Sean Penn “hit the media and called for impeachment of the president in receiving the 2006 Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award from The Creative Coalition Monday night in New York City.” In his speech, Penn said: “Now, there’s been a lot of talk lately on Capitol…

  • Questions for Colin Powell

    Yesterday, as Colin Powell left his interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Accuracy asked him about claims he made regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in his speech at the UN Security Council before the invasion of Iraq. Powell was asked by IPA about his speech’s citing of…

  • Iraqi Unions Attack Oil Privatization

    United Press International is reporting: “Five Iraqi trade union federations have condemned federal oil law negotiations for being too corporation-friendly.” The wire service quoted Hasan Jum’a, president of the Federation of Oil Unions, as saying: “This law has a lot of problems. It was prepared without consulting Iraqi experts, Iraqi civil society or trade unions.”…

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