US blocks Al Jazeera TV newscasts

Al Jazeera has an item up about how censored their news broadcasts are in the United States.

” . . . Egyptian president Mubarak closed our offices, confiscated our equipment and arrested our journalists. The Egyptian government has removed Al Jazeera from NileSat, the state-owned satellite carrier, delaying our ability to be easily found in Egypt and North Africa. We have reappeared through other carriers, while instructions on how to find us go viral across the internet.

Elsewhere, in the United States, Al Jazeera faces a different kind of blackout, based largely on misinformed views about our content and journalism. Some of the largest American cable and satellite providers have instituted corporate obstacles against Al Jazeera English.

We are on the air and on the major cable system in the nation’s capital, and some of America’s leading policymakers in Washington, DC, have told us that Al Jazeera English is their channel of choice for understanding global issues. But we are not available in the majority of the 50 states for much of the general public. . . “

article – http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201121121041735816.html

It may be time to ask your  cable provider to stream the Al Jazeera station.

WATCH  AL JAZEERA TV LIVE STREAM HERE – http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

WikiLeaks: Horrors by Mubarak Assisted by USA

from WSWS.org

WikiLeaks exposes US complicity in murder, torture, by Egyptian government

” . . . . The documents, diplomatic cables from the US embassy in Cairo from 2009 and 2010, make clear that the Obama administration was well aware that the Mubarak regime held onto power by terrorizing the population. But Washington tacitly supported the dictatorship and its crimes because Egypt is considered the most important component to US strategy for a wide region encompassing the Middle East, the Maghreb, and the Horn of Africa.

Perhaps the most damning cable is from Ambassador Margaret Scobey, dated January 15, 2009. The letter calls police brutality “routine and pervasive” and states that “police using force to extract confessions from criminals [is] a daily event.” Embassy informants “estimate there are literally hundreds of torture incidents every day in Cairo police stations alone. . . .” (more)

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/wiki-j29.shtml

UPDATE –        [ Feb. 1]

The cable quoted in the above article is here –

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/187359

More Egypt/USA embassy cables can be found by sorting near the date Jan. 30, 2011 at this compilation page from the Guardian – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/us-embassy-cables-the-documents

PHOTOS of the uprising.

US is 2 Faced in North Africa turmoil

the World Socialist Website says –

US pursues two-track policy to suppress protests in Egypt and Tunisia

The United States is working intensively to suppress mass protests in both Tunisia and Egypt and prop up the local ruling elites that are entirely subordinate to American imperialism. It is using different tactics in the two countries, dictated in large part by their relative strategic importance to US ruling class interests in the Middle East.

In Tunisia, Washington backed its long-time asset Zine El Abidine Ben Ali until it concluded that his position could not be salvaged despite weeks of violent repression against anti-government demonstrators. Just days before Ben Ali was driven from the country, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States was “not taking sides” between the dictator and protesting workers and youth.

It has been widely reported that the US instructed the Tunisian military to refuse Ben Ali’s orders to fire live rounds into mass demonstrations in Tunis and other cities, effectively pulling the rug out from under Ben Ali and making the military leader, Gen. Rachid Ammar, the political arbiter within the country.

The US undoubtedly engineered the formation of a so-called interim unity government following Ben Ali’s January 14 flight to Saudi Arabia.  . . . (more)

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/egyp-j27.shtml

Egypt: Reports of ‘massacre’ in Suez

From RawStory.com

Reports of ‘massacre’ in Suez as protests in Egypt move into third day

Anti-government protests in Egypt moved into their third day early Thursday, with unconfirmed reports of police “massacres” of civilians in the port city of Suez.

In Cairo, protesters “played cat and mouse with police” into the early hours of Thursday, Reuters reported. Opposition groups reported on their websites that electronic communications had been cut off in the city center, and parts of the city were experiencing blackouts…. (more)

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/reports-massacre-suez-protests-egypt/