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.…

    Read more »


  • 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]

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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:

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • German Parliamentarian: “Global NATO: Expansion and Escalation”

    Dagdelen is a member of the German parliament, the Bundestag, and is on the foreign affairs committee. She speaks tonight at Busboys and Poets in D.C. She is the author of a book on NATO. She spoke at a rally outside the White House on Monday. She said: “At its Washington summit, NATO intends to…

  • NATO, Israel and Militarization

    Salim is a Palestinian graduate student at George Washington University with family in Gaza. He has lost over 100 members of his extended family. He was a speaker at the recent No to NATO, Yes to Peace summit. He said today: “Israel is one of several partners of NATO. It can be seen as the…

  • * French Election * Hannibal * Lancet: Estimated 186,000 Dead in Gaza

    An article in the Lancet, “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential,” states: “Armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases.…

  • “No to NATO, Yes to Peace”

    In the piece “Confronting NATO’s War Summit in Washington,” Medea Benjamin writes: “The details of NATO’s agenda for the Washington summit were revealed at a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Prague at the end of May. NATO will drag its members into the U.S. Cold War with China by accusing it of supplying dual-use weapons…

  • NATO “Increased Rather than Decreased Instability”

    “It is evident that neither Joseph Biden nor Donald Trump have any solution to the terrible war in Ukraine, now in its third year.”

  • Is the President Above the Law?

    On Monday, following the Supreme Court decision Trump v. United States, President Biden said from the White House: “No one is above the law, not even the president of the United States.”

  • The Supreme Court and Working People

    A new report from the People’s Parity Project contends that U.S. federal courts pose an “urgent threat to economic justice and worker power.” 

  • Biden Debate Disaster and Step Aside Joe Campaign

    “Joe Biden’s dreadful performance in the debate underscores his severe liabilities as a candidate.”

  • Retrospective Memos on Trump Presidency

    The Revolving Door Project released a set of “retrospective memos” that detail the corruption and mismanagement of executive agencies during Trump’s presidency.

  • Oct. 7 Lies: Beheaded Babies and the Hannibal Directive

    In response to questioning from Sam Husseini on Tuesday regarding the Hannibal directive, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller claimed: “I am not familiar in any way” with “that supposed directive.”

Mastodon