Blog

  • 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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  • Cartoon Controversy: Beyond the Caricatures

    AS’AD ABUKHALIL AbuKhalil has been writing extensively about the cartoon controversy on his blog. He said today: “The double and triple standards of Western governments are quite clear, even if you take ‘freedom of expression’ as a criterion of analysis. Al-Manar TV, for example, has been banned from Europe and the U.S. … [but] European…

  • No Oath for Gonzales; No Law for the President?

    JONATHAN TURLEY Turley is a professor of Constitutional law at George Washington University. He said today: “Alberto Gonzales has been claiming national security to avoid answering basic questions about the program. For example, when asked if he revealed information from the program to the FISA court, he refused to answer under the absurd claim that…

  • Iran and IAEA

    The International Atomic Energy Agency is scheduled to continue to meet this weekend on the case of Iran. The following are available for interviews: WILLIAM PEDEN Currently in Vienna at the IAEA meeting, Peden is a Greenpeace International nuclear analyst. The group has recently released a statement titled “Nukes, Iran, the UN: A Grave Mistake.”…

  • Budget Cuts: Costs and Consequence

    AVIS JONES-DEWEEVER Study director on poverty and income security at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Jones-DeWeever said today: “Following Hurricane Katrina, President Bush stood in New Orleans and made the strong statement that ‘we have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action.’ The budget that passed the House of Representatives last night,…

  • Responses to State of the Union Address

    IPA has a PDF critique of the State of the Union for public distribution here. CELESTE ZAPPALA A member of Gold Star Families Speak Out, Zappala’s eldest son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was the first Pennsylvania National Guardsman to die in combat since World War II. He was killed in action in Baghdad on April 26,…

  • Assessments of the State of the Union Address

    The following analysts and activists are available to critique various aspects of the State of the Union address. IPA will be producing a PDF critique of the State of the Union for public distribution by Wednesday morning, available here. FRANCES FOX PIVEN Author of the book The War at Home: The Domestic Costs of Bush’s…

  • Oil Profits

    ExxonMobil announced Monday that in 2005 it made the biggest annual profit on record for a U.S. corporation — $36.13 billion — up 42 percent from the year before. The following analysts are available for interviews: STEVE KRETZMANN Executive director of Oil Change International, Kretzmann said today: “While ExxonMobil is posting $10 billion profits in…

  • Scrutinizing Bush’s Claim That NSA Spying Could Stop More 9-11s

    In attempting to justify the government’s use of warrantless domestic spying by the National Security Agency, Bush administration officials have argued that such surveillance would help prevent another attack comparable to 9-11. MELVIN A. GOODMAN Now a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, Goodman was with the CIA for 41 years, serving as…

  • Hamas Victory

    EDWARD L. PECK EUGENE BIRD Peck and Bird are on a delegation observing the Palestinian election. Peck is a former U.S. chief of mission to Iraq and was deputy director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism in the Reagan administration. He said today: “Many are talking about Hamas’ victory without mentioning Israel. [Israeli…

  • The Filibuster Option

    ROBERT PARRY “With the fate of the U.S. Constitution in the balance, it’s hard to believe there’s no senator prepared to filibuster Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, whose theories on the ‘unitary executive’ could spell the end of the American democratic Republic,” ConsortiumNews.com editor Parry writes in a recent article, “Alito Filibuster: It Only Takes…

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