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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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  • Bush to “Honor” Gandhi?

    White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley announced that, while in India, President Bush plans to participate in a “wreath-laying ceremony in honor of Mahatma Gandhi.” ARUN GANDHI Co-founder (with his wife, Sunanda Gandhi) of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, Arun Gandhi said today: “India is seeking business from the U.S.; the U.S. wants…

  • Zogby: Troops Want Out

    JOHN ZOGBY Pollster John Zogby, president and CEO of Zogby International, said today: “A first-ever survey of U.S. troops on the ground fighting a war overseas has revealed surprising findings, not the least of which is that an overwhelming majority of 72 percent of American troops in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country…

  • Bush and Nukes in India

    President Bush will be visiting India and Pakistan this week. A major agenda item is a nuclear agreement between the U.S. and India. The following analysts are available for interviews. (India is 10.5 hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time.) M. V. RAMANA Faculty member at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development in…

  • Sectarianism in Iraq: Roots and Alternatives

    HADANI DITMARS Ditmars is the author of the just-released book Dancing in the No Fly Zone: A Woman’s Journey Through Iraq and has covered Iraq since 1997. She said today: “Pre-invasion Iraq despite the twin tyrannies of sanctions and Saddam had been a cosmopolitan, multi-cultural, multi-faith, multi-lingual society. The people self-identified as Iraqis first, not…

  • Port Security

    Dubai Ports World, a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates, is slated to buy a British company, Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which runs major commercial operations at ports in six U.S. cities. PRATAP CHATTERJEE Chatterjee is executive director of CorpWatch and was in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates last month. He…

  • Execution and Medical Ethics: “Do No Harm”

    AP reports that the execution of Michael Angelo Morales, scheduled for 12:01 a.m. Tuesday in California, was delayed “after two anesthesiologists refused to participate because of ethical concerns about their involvement.” COREY WEINSTEIN, M.D. A doctor in private practice in California and a correctional medical consultant, Weinstein said today: “I was on the American Public…

  • Abu Ghraib

    AIDAN DELGADO Delgado was with the 320th Military Police Company at Abu Ghraib; he is now a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. More Information JENNIFER HARBURY Harbury is the director of the Stop Torture Permanently (STOP) Campaign and author of the recent book Truth, Torture, and the American Way. More Information LILA RAJIVA…

  • · Haiti · Iran · Egypt

    BILL FLETCHER Fletcher is the president of TransAfrica Forum and is available for interviews about the Haitian elections. More Information MUHAMMAD SAHIMI Sahimi is professor of chemical engineering at the University of Southern California and co-author, with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, of the recent op-ed “Defusing Iran with Democracy.” More Information SHERIF HETATA…

  • Response to Katrina: “One Failure After Another”

    MALCOLM SUBER Suber works with the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund. He said today: “It wasn’t Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans, it was the government failure on the levees. And it’s been one failure after another since. The government has failed to ensure that people can return to their communities and now FEMA is evicting…

  • Medicare: Rich HMOs, Sick Patients

    STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER Associate professor of medicine at Harvard University, Woolhandler said today: “The Bush health agenda is to privatize Medicare — to shift the taxpapers’ money away from sick patients and toward the drug and insurance industries. The Medicare Part D bill included over $40 billion in excess payments to HMOs. Because the Medicare Part…

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