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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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  • Beyond Foley

    ROBERT PARRY Editor of ConsortiumNews.com and a former investigative reporter for AP, Parry’s latest piece is “Why Capitol Pages Fear Retaliation,” in which he writes: “For generations, American parents have sent their high-school-age children to Washington to serve as Capitol Hill pages and to learn about the real world of politics. In the scandal surrounding…

  • Gun Violence

    ZACH RAGBOURN A spokesperson for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Ragbourn can address various aspects of gun violence in the United States, particularly problems with illegal guns. More Information JEREMY HOBBS DAVID KING Today, Oxfam released (with Amnesty International and International Action Network on Small Arms) the report “Arms Without Borders: Why a…

  • Ellsberg Named for Right Livelihood Award

    Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, was announced today as a recipient of this year’s Right Livelihood Award, sometimes referred to as the “alternative Nobel Peace Prize.” The award jury noted about Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers: “In October 1969 he started copying this and passing it to Senator Fulbright, Chairman of the Senate…

  • NIE Issues: Terrorism, Iraq and Afghanistan

    ROBERT DREYFUSS Dreyfuss wrote the piece “Beware the NIE” this week about the latest National Intelligence Estimate controversy. He is author of the book Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam. More Information CAMILO MEJIA A former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, Mejia served nine months in a U.S. Army jail for…

  • Non-Proliferation: Critical Analysis on the Hill Today

    Hans Blix, the head of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Committee, is testifying on Capitol Hill this afternoon before a subcommittee on weapons of mass destruction and proliferation. The following analysts will also be testifying as part of the same proceedings and are available for interviews: Amb. THOMAS GRAHAM Jr. Graham is a member of…

  • Specter Denounces Presidential Signing Statements

    Sen. Arlen Specter this afternoon challenged the constitutionality of the president’s practice of adding signing statements to legislation. Specter, who is chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the practice “is inappropriate under the Constitution, which provides that when Congress passes legislation, the legislation is presented to the president and if the president doesn’t like…

  • The Amnesty-for-Torturers Act?

    NAT HENTOFF Hentoff writes in his column in today’s Washington Times: “Little attention is being paid to Section 6 of this Warner-McCain-Graham bill that denies the right to a habeas-corpus hearing not only to Guantanamo Bay prisoners, but to any alien detainee outside the United States designated by the president as an ‘enemy combatant.’ ……

  • Torture Deal

    NBC is reporting: “The rift among Republicans over the treatment of terrorism detainees appears to have closed, with maverick GOP Sen. John McCain telling NBC News on Friday that a deal reached with President Bush will lead to fair trials and interrogations but not torture.” But based on details of the plans thus far made…

  • Facts Beyond the Bush Speech at the UN

    HOWARD ZINN Zinn, author of the bestseller A People’s History of the United States, is available for a limited number of interviews beginning Thursday afternoon. He said today: “The U.S. government used deceit to go to war with Iraq and in very similar fashion it is now propagandizing the U.S. public about Iran.” More Information…

  • Bush at the UN: Peace and Prosperity?

    President Bush’s address to the United Nations today followed his statement yesterday that “the goals of this country are to help those who feel hopeless, the goals of this country are to spread liberty, the goals of this country is [sic] to enhance prosperity and peace.” NOAM CHOMSKY Available for a very limited number of…

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