GovBlog: UC Berkeley » Middle East

United States Congressional Serial Set Now Available through LexisNexis Congressional

Jesse Silva — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:38:56 +0000

UC Berkeley has recently acquired full-text access to the United States Congressional Serial Set (1789-1969) through LexisNexis Congressional. The Serial Set contains the legislative history of United States, and also includes many historic agency annual reports, House and Senate Reports, and many other official government documents (for a more complete summary of what is contained in the Serial Set, click here). Prior to this acquisition, citations to the Serial Set found in LexisNexis Congressional had to be searched in the Readex United States Congressional Serial Set database. With this purchase, you can now search LexisNexis Congressional for all your congressional research needs. Off-campus access to LexisNexis Congressional is restricted to current UCB student, faculty and staff, though anyone in the Library may access the database.

New Database: LexisNexis Statistical Datasets

Jesse Silva — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:25:29 +0000

The Library has just subscribed to LexisNexis Statistical Datasets. The database provides fast and easy one-stop shopping to more than 5.3 billion (and growing) data points from licensed and public domain datasets. Sources of data include local, state and international governments and organizations. Datasets allows you to customize the data by selecting subjects, variable(s) of interest, and the ability to view your data in side-by-side tables, charts and even maps. Datasets also provides quick graphs and chats for statistics in the news, and when you download or print, you are given citation information from where the data originated. Anyone may access LexisNexis Statistical Datasets from the public computers in the Library, however, off-campus access to is restricted to current UCB faculty, staff and students through the proxy server or VPN.

Rice admits to White House Talks on “harsh interrogation methods”

Jesse Silva — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:21:10 +0000

According to an article in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, Secretary of State Condolezza Rice participated in meetings at the White House from 2002-2003 to discuss the use of “harsh interrogation methods on Al Qaeda detainees.” This news comes from a written statement Rice provided to Senate Armed Services Committee investing the use of torture. Present at these meetings were Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, David S. Addington, the vice president’s counsel. According to the article, the State Department “would not comment on correspondence between Rice and members of Congress.”

Foreign Policy Association

Susana Hinojosa — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:17:44 +0000

The Foreign Policy Association (FPA) “is a non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring the American public to learn more about the world. Founded in 1918, FPA provides independent publications, programs and forums to increase public awareness of, and foster popular participation in, matters relating to those policy issues.” Supporting the focus on key current policy issues, the FPA website features blogs that discuss international events and also daily postings from foreign policy experts. Sections such as Explore by Region (with map) and Explore by Issue are very useful. Currently the Explore by Issue section includes: Iraq, European Union, Diplomacy, Russia. Defense & Security, Latin America, China Trade, Philanthropy and more. The Latin America listings include Spring Updates (post-Fidel Cuba), Recommended Readings, and a Latin America Blog. A key item on the FPA site is the video content which features clips from the FPA’s Great Decisions television series and also lectures by prominent scholars.

Securing, Stabilizing, and Rebuilding Iraq: Iraqi Government Has Not Met Most Legislative, Security, and Economic Benchmarks

Glenn Gillespie — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 21:01:20 +0000

View GAO report

Catalog of US Government Publications Maintenance Aug 26

Jesse Silva — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 20:58:23 +0000

The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) at http://catalog.gpo.gov may be unavailable for a brief interval of time Sunday evening, August 26, as the Government Printing Office performs routine maintenance. If you encounter the period of down time, please try again later.

Pakistan: Significant Recent Events

Susana Hinojosa — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:46:43 +0000

Â The report, Pakistan: Significant Recent Events, March 26- June 21, 2007, provides a chronology of major recent events. Starting soon after President Musharraf suspended the chief justice (March 9th), the listing chronicles the challenges facing Pakistan’s relationships with the U.S. and neighboring countries: Afghanistan, India, Iran, and China.

Source: Secrecy News

Senator Lugar’s Speech on Course Change in Iraq

Susana Hinojosa — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 19:01:05 +0000

On June 25th, Republican Senator Richard G. Lugar, gave a speech on the Senate floor on the need to change course in Iraq. A short quote of this speech, “I rise today to offer observations on the continuing involvement of the United States in Iraq. In my judgment, our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond….” While critical of the current strategy in Iraq, Senator Lugar does not ask for troop withdrawals. Read (or hear) the entire speech on Senator Lugar’s website.

New Report on Muslim Americans

Jesse Silva — Tue, 22 May 2007 19:01:44 +0000

The Pew Research Center has just released a new report entitled Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream. According to the website, this report is “[t]he first-ever, nationwide, random sample survey of Muslim Americans finds them to be largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world.” More information on this report, including a summary, can be found here.

U.S. Military Blocks 12 Popular Websites

Jesse Silva — Tue, 15 May 2007 16:22:16 +0000

As of yesterday, the Department of Defense (DoD) is blocking access to the following websites from government computers: youtube.com, pandora.com, photobucket.com, myspace.com, live365.com, hi5.com, metacafe.com, mtv.com, ifilm.com, blackplanet.com, stupidvideos.com and filecabi.com.Â Citing bandwidth issues, the decison was made by the Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations (JTF-GNO) , which “directs the operation and defense of DoD’s Global Information Grid to assure timely and secure capabilities in support of the departmentâ€™s warfighting, intelligence, and business missions.”Â Soldiers have used these sites to communicate with family and friends in the U.S. from abroad.Â According to the American Forces Press Service article, the decision to block these sites â€œis in no way a comment on the content, purpose or uses of the Web sites themselves…It is solely a bandwidth/network management issue.â€