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Soundtrack to a revolution: interview with Asian Dub Foundation's Chandrasonic
February 23, 2011 -- British-born South Asian punk-dance band Asian Dub Foundation (ADF) released their latest album A History of Now just as the revolution in Egypt was starting to build. Someone unknown to the band edited news footage of the revolt to the album’s title track and stuck it on YouTube (above).
Bahrain: Appeals for protest and solidarity
Bahrain authorities open fire on protesters on February 18, 2011. The protesters are chanting "peacefully, peacefully".
Australia: 'Green Left Weekly' celebrates 20 years!
One of the despairs of our time is a corporate media that speaks for authority and power, rarely for its readers and viewers. One of the excitements of our time is the means by which we can now circumvent the old gatekeepers. WikiLeaks is a new creation, but Green Left Weekly has been a pathfinder for 20 years, no less. Congratulations!
— John Pilger, renowned journalist and filmmaker.
Over the course of the past 20 years, Green Left Weekly has emerged as a focal point of the world green left movement, its leading weekly guide to theory and practice. Long may its flag fly!
— John Bellamy Foster, editor, Monthly Review.
What better birthday present could Green Left Weekly have asked for than the Egyptian people’s taste of freedom? Congratulations to all at GLW. Onward!
— Raj Patel, independent journalist, author and activist.
France, WSF, Korea ... International left solidarity with the Egyptian people's uprising
Below are a number of statements and reports of solidarity actions around the world following the overthrow of the US-backed Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. They include a statement from organisations attending the New Anti-Capitalist Party congress in France, solidarity from the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal, a statement by leaders of the Socialist Party USA and a report on trade union organised protests in South Korea. Check back for more.
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Statement from left organisations present at the New Anti-Capitalist Party congress
February 12, 2011 -- The overthrow of Ben Ali and Mubarak change the political situation not only in the Maghreb but on the international scale.
The Egyptian Revolution: A Democracy Now! special on Mubarak’s resignation
The Egyptian Revolution: A Democracy Now! special on Mubarak’s resignation
February 11, 2011 -- Democracy Now! -- As news of Hosni Mubarak’s resignation breaks, Democracy Now! broadcasts live reaction from Tahrir Square and beyond with senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous and correspondent Anjali Kamat.
"People are holding their hands up in victory", reports Kouddous. "This will be a day that no one will ever forget." We are also joined on the phone from Cairo by Egyptian activists Mona El Seif and Salma al-Tarzi, blogger Alaa Abdel-Fattah, feminist Nawal El Saadawi, acclaimed writer Ahdaf Soueif, and Egyptian Historian Khaled Fahmy, who tells Amy Goodman, "I never really thought I would see this glorious moment in my lifetime."
Tariq Ali on upheaval in the Arab world: An Arab 1848: Despots totter and fall
February 4, 2011 -- Counterpunch via Radical Notes -- He can’t stay any longer because the military has declared that they will not shoot their own people. This excludes a Tiananmen Square option. Were the Generals (who have so far sustained this regime) to go back on their word it would divide the army, opening up a vista of civil war. Nobody wants that at the moment, not even the Israelis who would like their American friends to keep their point man in Cairo for as long as possible. But this, too, is impossible.
Egypt: Historian Joel Beinin on the role of the labour movement; Democracy Now! interview
February 10, 2011 -- Democracy Now! -- Egypt’s pro-democracy uprising is surging after striking workers joined
in the protests nationwide. Thousands of Egyptian workers walked off the
job February 9 demanding better wages and benefits. Strikes were
reported in Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor and the Suez Canal. We speak to
Stanford University Professor Joel Beinin, who, as the former director
of Middle East Studies at the American University in Cairo, has closely
studied the Egyptian labour movement for years. “This is huge, because
there has been for the last 10 years an enormous wave of labour protests
in Egypt”, Beinin says. “In the last few days what you’ve seen is tens
of thousands of workers linking their economic demands to the political
demand that the Mubarak regime step aside.” Click HERE for the program transcript. Intervew continues HERE.
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Uprising in Egypt -- Democracy Now! Two-hour special (Feb. 5, 2011); Al Jazeera's 'Egypt Burning'
On Saturday, February 5, 2011, Democracy Now! aired a two-hour "Uprising in Egypt".
Eyewitness Egypt: Ahmed Shawki on `Day of Departure' demos -- `A tipping point has been reached'
February 4, 2011 -- Democracy Now! -- Video report: "Battle for Tahrir: An inside look at how pro-democracy activists reclaimed Tahrir Square after attacks by Mubarak forces. Sharif Abdel Kouddous reports live from Cairo.
International Socialist Review editor reports from Cairo on the mass demonstration that shifted the balance away from the violence unleashed by the dictatorial Mubarak regime on February 2 and 3. Click here for Shawki's first-hand account of the attack by the regime's goons.
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February 4, 2011 -- Socialist Worker (USA) -- Anti-Mubarak demonstrators gathered in their hundreds of thousands today, in Cairo's Tahrir Square, in Alexandria and in cities and towns across the country for a new day of mass protest against the regime.