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By Patrick Cockburn $16.08
By Karen Armstrong $18.45
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 U.S. Navy / MC3 Phillip Pavlovich
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Press representatives at the White House and the State Department are using the same vague phrase, “additional measures,” to describe the administration’s mystery plan for addressing the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
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 Jessierocks (CC-BY)
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For “once again becoming a maker of history” two sleepy decades after political soothsayer Francis Fukuyama declared Western liberalism the end point in the evolution of human society, Time magazine named “The Protester” 2011’s Person of the Year.
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 michael baird (CC-BY)
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By Nick Turse —
As the Arab Spring blossomed and President Obama hesitated about whether to speak out in favor of protesters seeking democratic change in the Greater Middle East, the Pentagon forged ever deeper ties with some of the region’s most repressive regimes.
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 ericwagner (CC-BY)
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By Juan Cole — If you are wondering why outraged young people around the globe are chanting such similar slogans and using such similar tactics, it is because they have seen more clearly than their elders through the neoliberal shell game.
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 Flickr / photosteve101
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The 2011 uprisings in the Arab world showed the Internet’s potential as a tool for both liberation and oppression. Protesters logged on to organize rallies that toppled dictators, while some leaders commandeered the Web to silence opposition. (more)
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 Wikimedia Commons / R. D. Ward
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He wasn’t present to hear the verdict in person, but Monday a local court found Tunisia’s deposed president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, guilty of embezzlement and making personal use of public funds, according to The New York Times.
Posted on Jun 20, 2011
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 AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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Addressing the upheavals that have occurred and transformations still in progress in the Middle East (except for one notable omission), President Barack Obama put the big shifts that the Arab Spring brought in a broader context during a major speech on Thursday ... (more) Updated
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.jpg) Flickr / André-Pierre
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Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is reportedly set to sign an agreement that would bring his 33-year rule to an end, making him yet another victim of the “Arab Spring” that began in Tunisia last December and raising questions about the future of al-Qaida in the Middle Eastern country. (more)
Posted on May 18, 2011
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.jpg) Flickr / Muhammad Ghafari
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In the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, President Obama will address the Muslim world to herald the democratic movements that have swept the Middle East and North Africa in recent months and warn against religious extremism. (more)
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By Barry Lando — The jubilation of Americans and Western leaders at the death of Osama bin Laden, though understandable, misses the point. In many ways, the figure gunned down in Pakistan was already irrelevant—more a symbol of past dangers than a real threat for the future.
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By William Pfaff — The struggle is under way to re-establish American control over the successors to those despots whom popular uprisings have ousted from Tunisia and Egypt, threatening the careers of still other abusive absolute monarchs and presidents-for-life (and their offspring).
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 AP / Ben Curtis
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By Juan Cole — The claim that George W. Bush’s war of aggression against Iraq somehow opened up the Middle East to reform is an affront to the brave crowds that have risked their lives to change the American-backed order in that part of the world.
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 DoD / Cherie A. Thurlby
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U.S. ally and oil-rich Middle East monarchy Saudi Arabia has responded to domestic dissent by slapping a ban on public demonstrations.
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 news.bbc.co.uk
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Following huge protests Friday and Saturday that left at least three people dead, the Tunisian interim prime minister, Mohammed Ghannouchi, has announced he will resign his position.
Posted on Feb 27, 2011
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 AP / Salah Habibi
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Protests continued into the weekend in Tunisia as huge crowds turned out in Tunis to demand the resignation of the country’s interim prime minister, an ally of ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.
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 AP / Libyan State Television
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Longtime Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s grip on power has been significantly shaken by protesters in recent days, but Col. Gadhafi made it clear Monday that he wasn’t ready to go the way of his former counterparts in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt by ...
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 Al-Jazeera English
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Protests continued Sunday across the restive Middle East. New clashes in Tunisia pitted demonstrators against the interim government, while thousands took to the streets in Morocco. In Libya, meanwhile, government security forces pressed a violent crackdown on protesters, reportedly killing dozens of people.
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 AP / Vincent Yu
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Jittery Chinese officials, mindful of the political upheaval in Egypt and elsewhere, moved quickly on Sunday, detaining more than 100 activists after a call went out on an overseas website for a “jasmine revolution” in the world’s most populous country.
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 Flickr / seiu_international
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After the White House let Bahrain know on Wednesday that its friends in the American government would be watching the protests over there “very closely,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made good on that advance notice by expressing ...
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By William Pfaff — Revolutions are known for devouring their children, but the people making the current revolution in the Middle East may prove indigestible.
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 AP / Hasan Sarbakhshian
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Ever at the ready with a grandiose metaphor, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the latest efforts of protesters in his country clamoring for regime change, claiming Tuesday that they were “going nowhere” and out to “tarnish the Iranian nation’s brilliance.”
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 Wikimedia Commons / Decap (CC-BY-SA)
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In a move that has a little to do with the Egyptian revolution, or at least lip service is being paid to same, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad announced Monday that he will be swapping out his Cabinet for a new one in the next couple of weeks.
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 AP / Elio Desiderio
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A humanitarian emergency has been declared in Italy after boatloads of migrants from revolution-racked Tunisia began arriving on a tiny Italian isle in the Mediterranean.
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 AP / Burhan Ozbilici
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Rumblings in Tunisia of a plot to bring back President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali has led the country’s new interior minister to suspend all activities of the former ruling political party.
Posted on Feb 6, 2011
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On Wednesday, yet another longtime leader of a Middle Eastern nation in turmoil addressed his nation, and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh followed the Egyptian example by claiming that he too would perhaps step down sort of soon.
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By William Pfaff — The events in the Arab world during the past three weeks have ended the era of American-Israeli domination/intimidation of the region.
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 AP / Ben Curtis
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By Chris Hedges — Our failures in the Middle East have consequences. We are soaked with the stench of these regimes.
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 AP / Amr Nabil
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Amid a new wave of protests across Egypt comes news that the country is now under curfew, military vehicles prowl the streets, and opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei has been placed under house arrest.
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 youtube.com
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As protests continue to rock Yemen, Tunisia and Egypt, add Jordan to the list of troubled Arab states, as thousands of people took to the streets of Amman on Friday to demand political change and more freedom.
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 AP via YouTube
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The recent Tunisian uprising has apparently had an effect on nearby Egyptians, as thousands took to the Internet and then to the streets of Cairo and around Egypt on Tuesday to demonstrate against President Hosni Mubarak’s long-standing government.
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Juan Cole examines the psychological torture of accused whistle-blower Bradley Manning in light of the collapse of Tunisia’s brutal regime. The “monarchical national security state” created by George W. Bush and his cohort can abuse, torment and punish the unconvicted with the best of them.
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 AP / Christophe Ena
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The uprising that sacked Tunisia’s government is continuing to echo through the region, with Egypt, especially, looking over its shoulder and fearing instability that could scare off foreign investors.
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 AP / Ramon Espinosa
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By Barry Lando — There’s a certain irony in the fact that as one bloody, corrupt dictator headed off to ignominious exile, thousands of miles away another returned.
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By William Pfaff — Dictators do not usually die in bed. Successful retirement is always a problem for them, and few solve it.
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 AP / Thibault Camus
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By Juan Cole — Every state and movement in the Middle East is reading into the events in Tunisia its own anxieties and aspirations.
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 Flickr / Georgio Monteforti (CC-BY)
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A spokesman for Tunisia’s central bank denies a Le Monde report that the wife of ousted Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali left the country with almost $60 million worth of Tunisia’s gold reserves.
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 AP / Christophe Ena
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By Barry Lando — American officials were for Tunisia’s ousted despot before they were against him. Across the Middle East and Central Asia it’s the same: U.S. allies are invariably corrupt dictators, maintained in power by lavish patronage and the military.
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 AP / Hedi Ben Salem
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The Tunisian government is in upheaval after weeks of violent protests over high unemployment and skyrocketing food prices. Al-Jazeera reported that the prime minister had taken the reins of government after President Ben Ali left the country.
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 AP / Hassene Dridi
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Protests over unemployment have led to the deaths of eight people in Tunisia. The government said police opened fire in self-defense after rioters took to destroying public buildings in the northwestern towns of Thala and Kasserine.
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In Tunisia, an independent magazine has dedicated a series of articles to homosexuality—an uncommon initiative in the Arab press.
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