Egypt’s peace with Israel may be short-lived

The former head of the UN atomic body (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei returned to Egypt last Thursday just before the rioting broke out. Now Egyptian opposition groups have called on ElBaradei to negotiate with the government of the embattled president Hosni Mubarak. This includes the Muslim Brotherhood, whose leading member Essam el-Eryan has said the opposition […]

Taxes are so taxing

Simply put, one way or another, we pay taxes on almost anything and everything we do. Consider the “tax trail” on a few common daily items: Gasoline – The taxes on a gallon of gas start as soon as the oil comes out of the well. In the United States, companies pay a royalty of […]

Omar Suleiman to follow Mubarak in Egypt?

Hosni Mubarak, the man who still claims to be president of Egypt, swore in the most preposterous choice of vice-president in an attempt to soften the fury of the protesters. – Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s chief negotiator with Israel and Mubarak’s senior intelligence officer, is a 75-year-old with years of visits to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem […]

Mubarak Egypt regime United States double standard

In a country like Egypt, it’s not easy to get people to put down their names and government ID numbers on a document calling for fundamental democratic reforms, yet a million people have done just that. You in the West have been sold the idea that the only options in the Arab world are between […]

American Foreign Policy Folly

The U.S. keeps Mubarak in power—it gave his regime $1.5 billion in aid last year—mainly because he supports America’s pro-Israel policies, especially by helping Israel maintain its stranglehold on Gaza. [Israel and Egypt alone receive 1/3 of America’s total American foreign aid!] The U.S. supports Mahmoud Abbas for the same reason: he is seen as […]

WikiLeaks: Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll Saudi style

“The full range of worldly temptations and vices are available — alcohol, drugs, sex — but strictly behind closed doors.” If you want to get your readers’ attention, it’s not a bad way to start. The language comes from a short but tantalizing U.S. diplomatic cable sent last year from the consulate in Jeddah in […]

Nearly 50 Million Abortions Have Been Performed in U.S. Since 1973 Roe v. Wade

Abortions in the United States remains a prevalent form of birth control in the United States and around the world. The pro-abortion rights Alan Guttmacher Institute reports that there have been nearly 50 million abortions performed since 1973, the year the Supreme Court issued the Roe v. Wade decision ushering in legal abortion nationwide. In […]

The Palestine Papers and the Dream of Statehood

The Palestine Papers are the largest leak of confidential files in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a cache of more than 1,600 documents encompassing the most recent decade of negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. Among other things, The Palestine Papers make it clear that part of the Palestinian Authority — […]

The Revealing Palestine Papers

The Palestine Papers give the world an unprecedented look inside the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, as well as provide a fly-on-the-wall view of how key senior American officials never take any position to which an Israeli government might object. The series of six documents show just how willing the U.S. is to acquiesce to Israeli demands […]

All Web Surfing to be Tracked?

The US Justice Department wants Internet service providers and cell phone companies to be required to hold on to records for longer to help with criminal prosecutions. “Data retention is fundamental to the department’s work in investigating and prosecuting almost every type of crime,” US deputy assistant attorney general Jason Weinstein told a congressional subcommittee. […]