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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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  • Behind the Trump-Macron Alignment

    “Now, both Trump and Macron seem to have changed, for the worst. Trump seems to have given up his ‘America first’ policy and aligned itself completely with Israel, also on the necessity of destroying Syria. In doing so, he has worsened his relations with Russia. But Macron has followed a similar change. So, on the…

  • The U.S., Macron and Syria

    “It’s certainly notable that France is so pro-intervention in Syria while it is the former colonial power there during the mandate period — between World Wars I and II. But France is mostly being used by the U.S. government as dubious international cover right now. While Germany has focused on building its domestic economy, France…

  • From WikiLeaks to Whistleblowers: “Assault on Truth Telling”

    “Our society is faced with an assault on truth telling. From the DNC’s reckless lawsuit against WikiLeaks, which could have a far reaching impact on journalists who publish newsworthy information, to the continued criminal prosecutions of whistleblowers, those in power have made it clear they will punish the messenger to keep the people in the…

  • AUMF “Reform”: Codifying Perpetual War?

    “Now, under the guise of fulfilling its constitutional power to authorize military force, Congress is poised to consider legislation that would give the president a blank check to make war. A bipartisan group of Senators has introduced a new AUMF that would authorize the president to use military force, with no limits, in at least…

  • Syria Attack: Seeing Through the Propaganda

    The OPCW announced on Thursday, April 12 that they would begin their work in Douma on April 14. This announcement received minimal media attention in the U.S. at the time. Trump announced the U.S. attack on Syria from the White House on Friday, April 13.

  • Claims about Syria Attack “Unraveling”

    “The official version of the U.S. missile attack on Syria is already unraveling. The supposed chemical weapons factory bombed by the U.S. didn’t leak chemicals. There have been no independent confirmations that the bombed sites had any connection to chemical weapons. In 1998 President Bill Clinton directed a missile strike against a ‘chemical weapons’ factory…

  • Syria Bombing “Illegal,” Likely to “Prolong” Syrian War

    “The Trump-May-Macron bombardment of Syria did not kill many people, and it has not caused World War III. What more could anyone hope? Far from ending the war in Syria, it is likely to prolong it.”

  • * Inspectors in Syria * Resisting Illegal Orders

    “Veterans have longer memories than the press and the politicians. We remember how we were lied into the Iraq War with false reports of ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ U.S. wars throughout the Middle East have caused millions of deaths and destroyed entire societies. Our soldiers and their families have also paid an extremely high price.”

  • Syria: UN Independent Expert Warns About Propaganda for War, Rush to Judgement

    “Violating the prohibition of the use of force stipulated in article 2(4) of the UN Charter could entail not only the crime of aggression under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Law, but would almost certainly lead to crimes against humanity and war crimes. There must be no impunity for those who use chemical…

  • Attacking Syria “Impeachable”

    “Any U.S. attack targeting the Syrian government or its forces would clearly violate both U.S. and international law. When Obama was in a similar position in 2013, his advisor Ben Rhodes [see below] has since commented that they turned back largely because they were afraid of impeachment. That fear is well founded. While the prospect…

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