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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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  • “Daniel Ellsberg Has Passed Away. He Left Us a Message”

    Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, published two articles today commemorating the impacts made by Pentagon Papers whistleblower and peace activist Daniel Ellsberg, who passed away on Friday.

  • Biden Rebuilds Ties with Saudi Arabia, Sanders Silent on Stopping Yemen War

    The Biden administration has recently made efforts to reconcile with Saudi Arabia. The US has been complicit in the war Saudi Arabia has waged on Yemen, being the former’s largest weapons supplier. Sacc Evans-Frant, a member of Action Corps said, “Bernie’s apparent silence — as the historic leader on the Yemen War Powers Resolution in…

  • A Tale of Two Espionage Act Defendants: Trump and a Drone Whistleblower 

    Institute for Public Accuracy’s executive director Norman Solomon, and whistleblower Thomas Drake who was indicted in 2010 under the Obama administration, commented on Donald Trump’s recent indictment and the use of the Espionage Act. Speaking in regards to Daniel Hale, a drone whistleblower serving a 45 month sentence, Drake said, “Daniel Hale held faith to…

  • NATO Playing with Fire

    Benjamin Abelow, author of “How the West Brought War to Ukraine: Understanding How U.S. and NATO Policies Led to Crisis, War, and the Risk of Nuclear Catastrophe” said recently, To say that the U.S. and NATO provoked the war could mean two different things. Do I mean that they wanted a war, and that they…

  • “Austrian Censorship of Peace Conference Is an Outrage”

    President of the board of World BEYOND War, Kathy Kelly, made a statement about the cancellation of the Summit for Peace in Ukraine conference in Vienna. She said, “This is not an isolated incident. Western liberal ideals have long asserted that the best answer to mistaken speech was wiser speech and more of it. We…

  • Widespread Loss of Medicaid Coverage

    Since April, upwards of 600,000 people have had their coverage terminated. Early data shows that the vast majority of enrollees have lost their insurance not because they are ineligible for it but because of “paperwork issues,” ie. procedural disenrollments.

  • Influential House Dem “Open to” Cluster Munitions for Ukraine 

    Regarding Adam Smith’s (D-Wash.) recent comment speaking favorably of potentially providing Ukraine with cluster ammunitions, Norman Solomon says, “As a leading Democrat on military matters, Rep. Smith is putting forward an attitude toward cluster munitions that could have notably pernicious effects. But he’s hardly alone. The moral corrosion — reflected in the current Capitol Hill…

  • Peace Groups: The State Dept. Should Talk to the Russian Ambassador

    Director of World Beyond War, David Swanson, has launched a campaign urging the United States government to communicate with the Russian Ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov.

  • Upcoming Election in Sierra Leone

    Chernoh Alpha Bah, founder of Africanist Press, is living in exile in the United States for exposing corruption within the ruling and opposition parties in Sierra Leone. One way the country’s leaders have tried silencing Bah is by hiring an Israeli firm to spy on him.

  • Risk of Heart Disease in Younger People

    Over half of young adults in the U.S. have cholesterol levels high enough to increase their lifetime risk of a heart attack. But just 20 percent of young adults with high cholesterol are aware of it.

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