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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 Crony Justice?

    MARJORIE COHN Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild. She has written a piece titled “Harriet Miers: Bush’s Pit Bull,” which will be posted on TruthOut.org today. She said: “Bush has nominated his Texas crony as a stealth appointment. Although the Senate will…

  • Crucial Issues from New Orleans

    WILLIAM ARKIN An intelligence analyst, Arkin writes a blog called Early Warning on the WashingtonPost.com website. He has written extensively on the role of the military during emergencies and recent calls for the curtailment of the Posse Comitatus Act as well as responsibility for the lack of proper governmental action in the aftermath of Hurricane…

  • DeLay Indictment

    CRAIG McDONALD Director of Texans for Public Justice, McDonald said today: “On March 31, 2003, we filed a formal complaint with the Travis County District Attorney requesting an investigation into what appeared to be unlawful uses of corporate funds by Congressman Tom DeLay’s Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC) to influence Texas’ 2002 legislative…

  • Does the Buck Stop at Lynndie England?

    A military jury has sentenced Army Pfc. Lynndie England to three years for her role in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. ORLANDO TIZON Tizon is the assistant director of Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International and a survivor of torture under the Marcos regime in the Philippines. He said today: “Lynndie England was convicted…

  • War Powers: The Hijacking of the Constitution?

    PETER IRONS Author of the just-released book War Powers: How the Imperial Presidency Hijacked the Constitution, Irons said today: “There’s no question that John Roberts is an advocate of virtually unlimited executive power. He has already voted on the circuit court to allow the president to hold alleged enemy combatants indefinitely, for example in Guantanamo.…

  • Stories Breaking Today: · Civil Disobedience and Arrests in D.C. · FBI Killing in Puerto Rico · Al-Jazeera Reporter Convicted in Spain

    CINDY SHEEHAN STEVE CLEGHORN NANCY LESSIN AL ZAPPALA Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq in combat, founded “Camp Casey” in Crawford, Texas. Cleghorn and Lessin are with Military Families Speak Out. Zappala’s son Sgt. Sherwood Baker was the first Pennsylvania National Guardsman to die in combat since World War II. They are engaging…

  • Perspectives on Iraq War and Protests

    Major protests against the war in Iraq are planned in Washington, D.C., this weekend. The following activists and analysts are available for interviews: Rev. GRAYLAN SCOTT HAGLER Rev. Hagler is national president of Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice. He is also senior minister of the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington,…

  • Prisoners of Conscience Against the War

    TINA GARNANEZ Currently in Washington, D.C., Garnanez was in the Army for five years and was a medic in Iraq from July to December 2004. She said today: “A lot of us would ask, What are we doing in Iraq? Eventually, my higher-ups would say it’s for oil — to make rich men richer. But…

  • With Wolfowitz at the Helm, World Bank Meeting Along with IMF

    The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are holding their first global meetings after the G-8 Summit in July in Gleneagles, Scotland, where a debt cancellation deal for 18 very poor countries in Africa was announced. NEIL WATKINS DEBAYANI KAR Watkins, national coordinator of the Jubilee USA Network, said today: “The G-8 made a promise…

  • Hurricanes and Global Warming

    KEVIN TRENBERTH Head of the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Trenberth said today: “There is no doubt that environmental changes related to human influences on climate have changed the odds in favor of more intense storms and heavier rainfalls. A reasonable estimate of the effect of global warming on storms,…

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