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…

    Read more »


  • 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]

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.”

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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:

    Read more »


  • 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]

    Read more »


  • Why Pope Francis is “Reaching More People”

    “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case…

  • Corbyn’s “Political Earthquake”

    “Just after his victory address before the Labour Party, Corbyn spoke at a rally for refugees: ‘We need to have a thought as to why people end up in such desperate situations. I’ve been in parliament a long time and I’ve seen many decisions taken. And in moments of clamor and moments of fervor, decisions…

  • Regime Change Refugees

    “Fences cannot contain the desperate multitudes. A few billion euros in economic assistance to the countries of origin, recently proposed by the Germans, are unlikely to buy away the problem. Only a clear understanding of the origins of the crisis can lead to an answer, but European leaders do not want to touch this hot…

  • Will the DOJ Finally Go After Corporate Criminals?

    “Instead of holding top level executives accountable, the Department has allowed corporations to throw lower level executives under the bus in exchange for lenient treatment for the corporation. Now the Justice Department is saying they want to focus on individuals. But what about the corporation? Yes, individuals matter. But until the Justice Department addresses its…

  • Iran Deal: “Nonsense” and Realities

    Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Khadduri argued that, contrary to what the Bush administration and others were claiming, the Iraqi nuclear weapons program had been dismantled in the 1990s. In a November 21, 2002 article, a few months before the invasion, “Iraq’s nuclear non-capability,” he wrote: “Bush and Blair are pulling their public…

  • Government Considering Increasing Public Exposure to Radiation

    “’If implemented, the hormesis model would result in needless death and misery,’ says Michael Mariotte, NIRS president. The current U.S. requirement that nuclear plant operators reduce exposures to the public to ‘as low as reasonably achievable’ would be ‘tossed out the window. Emergency planning zones would be significantly reduced or abolished entirely. Instead of being…

  • Obama-Saudi Meeting: War and Sectarianism

    “By 2014, the sectarian Sunni-Shia character of the civil war in Syria was bemoaned in the United States as an unfortunate development. But in December 2006, the man heading the U.S. embassy in Syria advocated in a cable to the Secretary of State and the White House that the U.S. government collaborate with Saudi Arabia…

  • * Ousting Guatemalan President * Icebreaker Gap? * Denali and Native Names

    “If the movement develops further, if it spreads more fully to the Mayan heartland of the country, then the issue could move from corruption to justice, because the reason the Guatemalan elite, like General Pérez Molina and Vice President Baldetti [who was forced to resign and is now being held on fraud charges], have been…

  • China: From Demonization to Dialogue

    “As the state visit of President Xi Jinping draws nigh, his demonization at the hands of the media, many members of Congress and most of the presidential candidates will make it difficult for the Obama administration to suggest a much more cooperative than confrontational approach to U.S.-China relations.”

  • Obama in Alaska: PR to “Greenwash his Climate Legacy”?

    “On climate change, President Obama has been good, but not good enough. The U.S. commitment to reduce carbon emissions by about 30 percent in the next 15 years is about half of what is urgently needed. It is like we are on a sinking boat, taking on two gallons of water a minute, and we…

Mastodon