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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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  • Analysts on Korea Crisis

    CHALMERS JOHNSON Author of Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire and Okinawa: Cold War Island, Johnson is a specialist on the politics and economics of East Asia and a veteran of the Korean War. He said today: “Bush came into office saying that he did not want to negotiate with North Korea. Even…

  • “Global Apartheid” for Christmas? * Africa * Iraq

    SALIH BOOKER Over the weekend the White House announced the cancellation of President Bush’s January trip to Africa. Booker, executive director of Africa Action, said today: “The administration thinks they’ve addressed enough Black issues with the replacement of Lott and so they callously dump Africa again. The Bush administration is disinterested in Africa aside from…

  • Interviews on Fallout From Iraqi Disclosures

    JACQUELINE CABASSO ANDREW LICHTERMAN Cabasso is the executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation, a nuclear disarmament advocacy group in California; Lichterman is the program director. They have co-authored a series of papers on nuclear weapons and related high-tech weaponry; the most recent is “The End of Disarmament and the Arms Races to Come.”…

  • * Penn’s Words Distorted * Views on Dissent

    The following statement has been released by Sean Penn’s office: In sharp contrast to some misleading claims — primarily emanating from media outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch — the statements made by Sean Penn about Iraq have been clear and straightforward. In his open letter to President Bush, printed in The Washington Post on October…

  • Sean Penn Arrives in Baghdad for Three-Day Visit

    The actor and director Sean Penn arrived in Baghdad on Friday morning at the start of a three-day visit to Iraq. “By the invitation of the Institute for Public Accuracy, I have the privileged opportunity to pursue a deeper understanding of this frightening conflict,” Penn said in a statement released in Washington and Baghdad on…

  • Afghanistan: What’s Happening?

    MARC HEROLD Herold, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, is the author of the just-released report “A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States’ Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Accounting.” He said today: “More than 3,700 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan directly from U.S. bombs since Oct. 7. For example, on…

  • Iraqi Documents and U.S. Response

    HANS VON SPONECK Former head of the United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq, Von Sponeck was recently in Iraq and is currently in Geneva. He said today: “The U.S. government’s actions amount to a campaign of severe political harassment. They should give Hans Blix the time to assess the documents. Bush disparaging Iraq when it…

  • Iraq: * Medicine * Inspectors * ‘No-Fly’ Zones

    DANNY MULLER RAMZI KYSIA In Baghdad: KATHY KELLY Muller, Kysia and Kelly are members of the Voices in the Wilderness campaign. The U.S. government has given Voices delegates until tomorrow to pay $30,000 in penalties for taking medicine to Iraq. More Information ALICE SLATER Director of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, Slater…

  • Behind the War Lobby

    JONATHAN GRANOFF Director of the Global Security Institute, Granoff said today: “Richard Perle’s recent statements that the U.S. is determined to go to war regardless of Iraqi compliance with the weapons inspectors subverts the international system as well as the Constitution.” The Mirror in London reported on Nov. 20 that Richard Perle, head of the…

  • Iraq: Oil-For-Food; War No Matter What?

    DENIS HALLIDAY Halliday is former head of the UN oil-for-food program and a former UN Assistant Secretary General. The Security Council was expected to extend the oil-for-food program today. Halliday said today: “It’s good under the circumstances that the program is being extended for another six months — it keeps people alive — but it…

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