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.…

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  • 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]

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  • 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…

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  • 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…

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  • 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…

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  • 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…

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  • 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…

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  • 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…

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  • 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:

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  • 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…

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  • Assange: Guilty of Journalism

    “The Assange case was the most high-profile press freedom case of the 21st century, and U.S. prosecutors came closer than ever to putting a journalist and publisher through an Espionage Act trial in a U.S. court.”

  • AIPAC Spending $17,000 per Hour to Defeat Bowman

    “To stop this trend, AIPAC — backed by millions from Republican donors — quickly became the top outside spender in Democratic primaries, dropping $26 million in 2022. This year, AIPAC plans to spend a cool $100 million, and the group’s top target is Bowman, whose primary is Tuesday, June 25. “'[I]n barely a month, an…

  • Israel Escalates Control and Attacks on West Bank

    The Guardian reports: “The Israeli military has quietly handed over significant legal powers in the occupied West Bank to pro-settler civil servants working for the far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich. … Smotrich and his allies have long seen control of the Civil Administration, or significant parts of it, as a means of extending Israeli sovereignty in…

  • Hezbollah Warns Israel Against Wider War

    “Washington is not telling truth about the Gaza pier” that the World Food Program “announced that it ‘paused’ distribution of any more humanitarian aid from the pier due to security concerns after a U.S.-backed Israeli operation killed nearly 300 Palestinians the day before.

  • * U.S. “Complicity” Grows * Shift in Israel

    “We know the many varied ways the U.S. has been complicit in Gaza genocide. The billions in weapons, intelligence, UN vetoes, etc. In fact, U.S. Predator drones provided crucial information enabling the IDF to mount the Nuseirat massacre. The U.S. has also sought to locate senior Hamas leaders to enable the IDF to assassinate them.…

  • Biden’s Executive Order on Asylum Seekers

    “The current numbers [of border crossings] are much lower than in 2023, but still higher than 2,500 daily. These new quotas exclude various groups, including people who arrive with previously-scheduled appointments made with CBPOne App, the app used by Customs and Border Patrol. People from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela also have a special [Temporary…

  • Nuclear Peril: One Year After Death of Daniel Ellsberg

    The one-year anniversary of Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg’s death on June 16 is being marked by Daniel Ellsberg Week and the release of a new documentary directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Judith Ehrlich, with never-before-seen footage of Ellsberg warning about heightened dangers of nuclear war. Now premiering online without charge, the 37-minute film “A Common…

  • Biden Allowing More Israeli Atrocities

    A London Times investigation recently found: “The Israeli government insists that Hamas formally sanctioned sexual assault on October 7, 2023. But investigators say the evidence does not stand up to scrutiny.” The piece quotes Orit Sulitzeanu, the executive director of Israel’s Association of Rape Crisis Centers: “The politicization of rape by the Israeli government was…

  • U.S. Jury Holds Chiquita Liable for Colombian Death Squad’s Murder of Banana Workers

    Common Dreams reports: “U.S. Jury Holds Chiquita Liable for Colombian Death Squad’s Murder of Banana Workers” that: “In what case litigants are calling the first time an American jury has held a U.S. corporation legally liable for atrocities abroad, federal jurors in Florida on Monday found that Chiquita Brands International financed a Colombian paramilitary death…

  • U.S. “Ceasefire” a “Ploy to Sabotage the Rule of Law”

    Reports indicate that the U.S. government is pushing for a vote in the UN Security Council today on a resolution it drafted. UN whistleblower Craig Mokhiber commented: “A distorted U.S. draft that would (1) divert diplomacy from the UN to a U.S. controlled process (2) compel Hamas to accept but not Israel (3) dictate to…

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