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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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  • Military Loved Ones Converging on Crawford

    CINDY SHEEHAN Cindy Sheehan, co-founder of the group Gold Star Families for Peace, is the mother of Casey Sheehan, a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004. Cindy Sheehan is in Crawford and is determined to meet with President Bush. She said today: “I met with Bush two and a half months after…

  • Mother of Slain American Soldier Determined to Meet Bush in Crawford

    President Bush is currently on vacation in Crawford, Texas. Cindy Sheehan, co-founder of the group Gold Star Families for Peace, is the mother of Casey Sheehan, a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. She is currently in Dallas and will be going to Crawford on Saturday morning (expected to arrive there at 11 a.m. Saturday local…

  • 60 Years After the Decision to Use the Atom Bomb

    GAR ALPEROVITZ Alperovitz is the author of The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb. He said today: “New research into Japanese decision-making now suggests that the atomic bomb played only a secondary role in Japan’s surrender. … Studies by historians Tsuyoshi Hasegawa and Pulitzer Prize winner Herbert Bix tie in with long-established evidence suggesting that…

  • Atom Bomb 60th Anniversary: * Japanese Survivors Speak * Censored Footage Unearthed

    August 6 and 9 will be the 60th anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. SATORU KONISHI AI MAEOKA Konishi is a Hiroshima survivor. He stated: “Nuclear arms are the very height of violence and cruelty. We condemn the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; however, we have never demanded ‘retaliation.’ But from…

  • 9/11 Families on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Anniversaries

    August 6 and 9 will be the 60th anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The following members of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows have been visiting Japan. ANDREA LEBLANC LeBlanc lost her husband, Robert LeBlanc, Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of New Hampshire, on United Airlines Flt. 175. Today…

  • * John Bolton * King Fahd

    JOHN GERSHMAN Gershman is director of the Global Affairs Program at the International Relations Center. The Center features in-depth material on Bolton available online: . Gershman said today: “President Bush’s recess appointment of John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations places a Bush administration loyalist opposed to the United Nations and international law…

  • * U.S. Soldier, Following Conscience, in Prison * “Operation Withdrawal Scam”

    MONICA BENDERMAN Monica Benderman is the wife of Kevin Benderman. She said today: “The Army has found Sgt. Kevin Benderman not guilty of Desertion, but guilty of Missing Movement, and has sentenced him to 15 months confinement, reduction in rank, loss of pay and dishonorable discharge. Sgt. Kevin Benderman will serve his time, but he…

  • * AFL-CIO Resolution Critical of War * Iraqi Labor Leaders in Chicago

    In a major change of course, the AFL-CIO yesterday passed a resolution calling for U.S. troops to be brought home “rapidly.” The following U.S. and Iraqi labor leaders are in Chicago for the AFL-CIO convention and are available for interviews: GENE BRUSKIN Bruskin is co-convenor of U.S. Labor Against the War, which has worked on…

  • CAFTA Vote Nears in House: Access to Life-Saving Medicines Under Threat

    The House is expected to vote this week on the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement. A very close vote is expected. MARK WEISBROT Weisbrot is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He said today: “NAFTA did not create jobs as promised, and in fact we continue to lose manufacturing jobs,…

  • Unions and Divisions

    The AFL-CIO is holding its convention, through Thursday, marking the 50th anniversary of the merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Yesterday, the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union broke with the AFL-CIO. Anna Burger, president of a new organizing coalition called Change to Win, said: “Folks, the…

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