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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  • Palestinian Elections; “Salvador Option” for Iraq

    MICHAEL BROWN Author of a recent oped in the International Herald Tribune — “Palestinian Elections: Voting is Good. Freedom is Better” — Brown is the executive director of the nonprofit organization Partners for Peace. More Information ALI ABUNIMAH Abunimah is founder of the Electronic Intifada. He said today: “The election in the occupied territories is…

  • Gonzales Confirmation Hearings; Ohio Vote Challenge

    MARK DANNER Available for a limited number of interviews, Danner is author of the new book Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror and of an opinion piece in today’s New York Times, “We Are All Torturers Now.” In that op-ed, Danner wrote: “Through a process of redefinition largely overseen by…

  • Perspectives on Tsunami Disaster

    ALFREDO QUARTO The Wall Street Journal recently published an article titled “On Asia’s Coasts, Progress Destroys Natural Defenses.” Quarto, executive director of the Mangrove Action Project, said today: “The severity of the current tsunami disaster is beyond comprehension. The tremendous force of the 9.0 earthquake that occurred off the coast of Sumatra caused extremely powerful…

  • Oil for Food: What’s the Real Scandal?

    DENIS HALLIDAY Former head of the U.N. Oil for Food Program in Iraq and assistant secretary general of the U.N., Halliday resigned in protest in 1998. Currently in New York City, he is available for a limited number of interviews. Halliday said today: “The Oil for Food ‘scandal’ is not a scandal of the United…

  • Social Security: The Manufactured Crisis

    The White House is hosting a two-day conference on the economy with special emphasis on Social Security starting tomorrow. MARK WEISBROT Weisbrot is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press). He said today: “The following facts have…

  • Reporter Who Examined CIA-Contra-Cocaine Link Dies

    AP reported this weekend that “Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who wrote a controversial series of stories linking the CIA to crack cocaine trafficking in Los Angeles, has died at age 49…of an apparent suicide.” AP wrote: “Webb’s 1996 series in the Mercury News alleged that Nicaraguan drug traffickers had sold tons of…

  • The Election in Ohio … and in Ukraine

    EVAN DAVIS SUSAN TRUITT Co-founder of the Citizens’ Alliance for Secure Elections (CASE), Truitt said today: “The Citizens’ Alliance for Secure Elections has organized a rally to demand that every vote be counted accurately from the November 2 election. We demand a full recount of Ohio’s votes and a thorough investigation of all reported irregularities…

  • Bhopal: 20 Years After the Disaster

    A series of events are planned this week as human rights, legal, environmental and other experts are demanding that Dow Chemical, the current owner of Union Carbide, be held accountable for the Bhopal disaster, which took place 20 years ago in India. On Wednesday, Dec. 1, at 1:00 p.m. ET there will be a media…

  • Bush in Canada

    MAUDE BARLOW Barlow is national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization with over 100,000 members. The group has done extensive work on examining various policy issues around U.S.-Canadian relations. More Information MICHAEL MANDEL GAIL DAVIDSON Mandel is a professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School in Canada and author…

  • Thanksgiving: * Supporting the Troops * First Thanksgiving * Buy Nothing Day

    MIKE HOFFMAN Co-founder and national coordinator of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Hoffman said today: “For Thanksgiving, one can expect President Bush and others to pontificate about the troops and the sacrifices we’ve made in Iraq; but what has he actually done to support us?” Hoffman is currently near Philadelphia. More Information ROBERT W. VENABLES…

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