Al Jazeera reports: “The decision comes two months after Gilani, the nation’s longest-running prime minister, was convicted of contempt for refusing to ask Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. … The allegations against Zardari date back to the 1990s, when he and his late wife, former president Benazir Bhutto, are…

LACY MacAULEY, lacymacauley at gmail.com, @lacymacauley MacAuley is an Occupy D.C. activist currently at the People’s Summit in La Paz, Mexico. She said today: “La Paz is the closest that activists can get to the G20 Summit. The town of Cabo San Lucas is under heavy security. No one can travel to or from Cabo…

RICHARD WOLFF, rdwolff at att.net Wolff is author of the new book Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism. He is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and currently a visiting professor in the Graduate Program for International Affairs at the New School University in New York City. He said today: “Recent elections…

The Guardian headlines their Mideast blog “Egypt’s Transition Plunged into Chaos.” The Wall Street Journal reports: “Egypt’s highest court ruled on Thursday to allow a former regime loyalist to run in presidential elections starting Saturday and to dissolve both houses of Egypt’s parliament, in verdicts that could add another pressure point to Egypt’s already fraught…

Los Angeles Times reports: “The ‘King of Wall Street’ returns to Capitol Hill today, this time to explain how JPMorgan Chase & Co. sustained a $2-billion hole in its ‘fortress balance sheet.'” THOMAS FERGUSON, thomas.ferguson at umb.edu Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute,…

ELAINE HAGOPIAN, echagop at verizon.net Hagopian is a Syrian-American sociologist, a professor emeritus of sociology at Simmons College in Boston and political interviewer for Arabic Hour TV. She said today: “The situation in Syria has intensified. The regime is determined to defeat the militarized opposition and the fractured and incoherent militarized opposition, which is trying…

The New York Times reports: “The recent financial crisis left the median American family in 2010 with no more wealth than they had in the early 1990s, erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity, the Federal Reserve said Monday. The median family, richer than half of the nation’s families and poorer than the other half,…

BBC is reporting “The UN says it has evidence that a rebellion in the Democratic Republic of Congo is being fueled by recruits and support from neighboring Rwanda.” Human Rights Watch reports that “Rwandan army officials have provided weapons, ammunition, and an estimated 200 to 300 recruits to support Ntaganda’s mutiny in Rutshuru territory, eastern…

ANDY KROLL, andykroll at gmail.com Kroll, a reporter for Mother Jones magazine and an associate editor at TomDispatch.com, just wrote the piece “Getting Rolled in Wisconsin,” which states: “The energy of the Wisconsin uprising was never electoral. The movement’s mistake: letting itself be channeled solely into traditional politics, into the usual box of uninspired candidates…

TODD MILLER, toddmiller70 at hotmail.com Todd Miller has researched and written about U.S.-Mexican border issues for more than 10 years. He just wrote the article, “Bringing the Battlefield to the Border, The Wild World of Border Security and Boundary Building in Arizona,” which states: “William ‘Drew’ Dodds, the salesperson for StrongWatch, a Tucson-based company, is…