News Items

  • 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 in the Mideast: angryarab.blogspot.com; the new journal jadaliyya.com;  merip.org; juancole.com For Tunisia and generally: #Sidibouzid (refers to the town of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who on December 17 was the first of several in the region to immolate himself in protest.) Egypt: #Jan25…

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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 Republicans alone who sought to balance the budget on the backs of the poor. But Obama’s 2012 budget takes us to the brink of a new bipartisan consensus against low income people. Will progressives go along? Mink is co-editor of the two-volume Poverty in the…

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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 wealthy and can buy off large segments of the population. It can rule more autonomously than Ben Ali or Mubarak because it is less dependent on foreign aid. It can endure a political crisis far longer. The regime has also been weathered by a far…

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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 minister of Interior Habib El Adly. Process not transparent. Parliament has not been dissolved. Nor has the Shura council. etc. Aida Seif El Dawla is with the Nadeem Center for Victims of Torture in Cairo. She was profiled by Time magazine as a global hero…

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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, and spokespersons for social and economic constituencies to forge a new, responsible, transparent, democratic system of civilian governance.

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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 has been closely tied through much of his career, the CIA. During the war on terror, Suleiman headed Egypt’s foreign intelligence agency and as such he was the key contact for the CIA in a number of activities, particularly including its highly secretive extraordinary renditions…

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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: Arabic and English. See some Twitter feeds: #Jan25 (referring to the Egyptian protests which began January 25); tweetchat.com/room/jan25; feed from Cairo; @avinunu (who is in Amman) set up a Reporters in Egypt list. Philip Rizk @tabulagaza; blogger arabawy.org at @3arabawy; blogger arabist.net at @arabist; Al Jazeera…

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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 with US Ambassador Margaret Scobey, as well as Major General FC “Pink” Williams, the defence attaché and director of the US Office of Military Cooperation in Egypt. Livingston and Miner were lobbyists employed by the government of Egypt, helping them to open doors to senior…

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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 handmade crafts sold to tourist, was where I went. Here’s what I found out:

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  • Hillary Clinton’s “Faux Feminism”

    “Clinton’s biggest policy contribution as first lady of the United States was in the area of health-care reform. There she played a critical role in narrowing the national policy discourse — by disavowing a single-payer system, which would lower costs and ensure that everyone could have access to care, as in Canada. … This is…

  • AP Calling Nomination a “Disservice to Democracy”

    “Superdelegates — who have a role in the Democratic nominating process based on their institutional positions rather than being chosen by voters — do not vote until the Democratic National Convention, to be held on July 25. They can declare their intention to vote for one candidate or another, just as voters can tell pollsters…

  • NSA, Trump and Clinton vs Snowden Facts

    Wheeler said today: “Emails released to VICE News reveal that multiple Edward Snowden colleagues reported discussions about privacy or the Constitution — but NSA deemed those conversations not to rise to raising concerns. The emails also reveal NSA’s previous story, that Snowden had submitted and received a response to a simple question from NSA’s General…

  • Latino Vote in California: Trump’s Divisiveness and Clinton’s Policies

    “The protest at a Clinton event in East Los Angeles on May 5 represented an elevated political consciousness where we’re not reacting to divisive rhetoric but seeing policy for what it is, and if Hillary Clinton wants to continue in the ‘Deporter-in-Chief’s’ [President Obama’s] footsteps, that’s something that’s caused a definite form of activism from…

  • Clinton Foundation Opaque “Fundraising Arm of Campaign”

    Silverstein said today: “The Clinton Foundation is a de facto fundraising arm for the Clinton family, its cronies and of Hillary Clinton’s political campaign. It’s a way for people — especially foreign leaders and wealthy individuals — to curry favor with unlimited money that is incredibly opaque. It is only able to operate because of…

  • Are New Payday Reforms Meaningful? Is Postal Banking a Solution?

    “The CFPB’s approach seems to be more concerned with getting tough on borrowers rather than lenders. Poor people don’t need more discipline. They need access to credit and inexpensive financial services. The rules will make it harder for people to access the short-term cash they need to get through tough spots at a time when…

  • California Frackin’

    “Last Friday, the Obama administration released two reports that would allow renewed offshore fracking in California after the Center for Biological Diversity filed suit for lack of environmental review. The two reports claimed that offshore fracking poses no significant environmental impact, despite new peer-reviewed science that demonstrates that fracking chemicals, and the oil and gas…

  • Clinton Caters to the Military-Industrial Complex

    “She is counting on such voters to be scared of Trump. Watch out! He might get us into war through what she calls his ‘reckless risky talk.’ Such talk is bad. But reckless risky actions are worse — especially when they lead to war, as [Clinton’s] have already done. The disastrous Libyan regime change war…

  • Bill Kristol’s Foreign Policy Record

    “…neoconservatives believe that spineless liberals, military weakness, diplomatic appeasement, and American isolationism are ever-present threats that must be fought against at all costs. This is an integral part of their worldview, and you can often hear it in their polemics. For them, the importance of maintaining overwhelming military power — or what they call ‘peace…

  • Turkey’s Hidden War Against the Kurds

    “The battle against the Islamic State had made the downtrodden Kurds into heroes. … [F]ighters aligned with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K. — long branded a terrorist group by Turkey and the United States — became the central protagonists in the defense of Kobani”

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