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News Items

  • 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. That’s one camp. The people of Egypt (most of them now) are the other. The Americans want Mubarak to stay on for longer while they look for a suitable successor that would be best for U.S. interests. Mubarak’s tactic is to make Egyptians choose between…

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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 that principle, in the Arab/Muslim region it has generally supported radical Islamists in fear of secular nationalism (as has the UK).  Familiar examples include Saudi Arabia, the ideological center of radical Islam (and of Islamic terror), Zia ul-Haq, the most vicious of Pakistan’s dictators, Reagan’s…

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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 over Egypt. As citizens, we expect our president to uphold those values. For thirty years, our government has spent billions of dollars to help build and sustain the system the Egyptian people are now trying to dismantle.

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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 ago.”

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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 the protests. Mahmoud Saad, a popular TV host, has told other journalists that his disappearance from his daily show, Masr El-Naharda (Egypt Today), comes in protests against pressure to defame protesters as rioters “destroying the country”. The state is clearly starting to launch a media…

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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 worse if you use violence” many journalists were telling police officers outside the building. In the industrial city of Mahala, police virtually cordoned off the city. My sources in the city tell me the police ordered early dismissal of textile factory workers to preempt any…

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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 street in the center of the city. There have been minor clashes with protesters in various parts of Cairo, as well as in Assiyut – a city to the south. At the moment, security forces are cordoning off Tahrir Square. Private security guards in the…

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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 frequencies were not legally authorized. But critics, including many from abroad, have accused the Kiev government of using the case as a way to bludgeon a troublesome media voice into silence. … [See full piece on consortiumnews.com]

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  • Antisemitism: Does Israel Really Care?

    “For an Israeli diplomat to compare college students defending Palestinian human rights to a mass murderer is reprehensible, insulting and frankly dangerous. Criticising Israeli policy or defending Palestinian human rights is not in any way antisemitic. However, employing white supremacists, as Trump and other politicians have done, is indeed antisemitic.”

  • Why Doesn’t the U.S. Stop Supporting Saudi Attack on Yemen?

    “The United States has been actively at war in Yemen since 2015, yet [Sec. Pompeo and the State Department] are acting like concerned, neutral observers by urging ‘all parties’ to end the war. Why not announce an end to the U.S. role in the war instead?”

  • “Antisemitism Sits at the Root of White Nationalism”

    “Eleven American Jews were killed because their synagogue embodied the Jewish values of supporting refugees and immigrants. Eleven American Jews were killed after a week of conservative leaders pushing the antisemitic lie that paints Jews like [George] Soros as responsible for the Honduran migrant caravan  —  and paints immigrants and asylum seekers as a danger…

  • America’s Secret Water Crisis

    “In several communities, water has become unaffordable, forcing families to choose between it and other essentials, like food, medicine and transportation. Detroit and New Orleans stood out in our survey. A typical water bill in those cities exceeds $1,000 a year, putting this critical service beyond the budgets of low-income households”

  • The Violent Consequences of Antisemitic Bigotry

    “”The damage done by conspiracy and vigilante violence alters the fabric of democracy, and our collective capacity to understand what is going on in our world, to trust each other. The degradation of politics and attacks on the vulnerable, now proliferating, did not start with Donald Trump, but he rides its wave.”

  • Brazil Elects Far-Right Authoritarian

    “We will have very difficult times ahead in Brazil with increasing intolerance, violence, racism, sexism, homophobia and repression against progressive movements, universities and indigenous communities, stimulated by a discourse of hate that characterizes Bolsonaro and his supporters. At the same time, we saw a new wave of hope for progressive politics in the campaign of…

  • Bomb Suspect Arrest

    “As editor of CHD’s newsletter, The Dignity Report, and principal writer and analyst on a series of articles and reports, he helped to shape understanding and arm the resistance to antisemitism, Holocaust denial, the Patriot and militia movements, anti-immigrant xenophobia and anti-LGBTQ politics. In 2004 Gardiner received a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Cornell University for…

  • Disinformation and Anthrax Mailings

  • Trump Decries Violence; Will He Denounce Saudi Maiming Children in Yemen?

    “President Trump insists on selling weapons to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have repeatedly used U.S. missiles to kill innocent Yemeni civilians. Prolonging the war in Yemen has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in a country where 14 million people are now on the verge of famine. Is President Trump prepared to denounce the maiming and killing…

  • Illegitimate Regime is Fueling the Honduran Refugee Crisis

    “Honduran and other Central American immigrants are refugees and therefore should be treated as such by U.S. immigration law, border patrol and ICE as well as the Mexican government. Many are escaping weak neoliberal and militaristic governments, such as the one in Honduras, where narcotrafficking and narcomenudeo have thrived under the U.S.-backed Juan Orlando Hernandez…

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