Home

Subscribe

Popularise CC

Join News Letter

Read CC In Your
Own Language

Editor's Picks

Mumbai Terror

Financial Crisis

Iraq

AfPak War

Peak Oil

Alternative Energy

Climate Change

US Imperialism

US Elections

Palestine

Latin America

Communalism

Gender/Feminism

Dalit

Globalisation

Humanrights

Economy

India-pakistan

Kashmir

Environment

Book Review

Gujarat Pogrom

WSF

Arts/Culture

India Elections

Archives

Links

Submission Policy

About CC

Disclaimer

Fair Use Notice

Contact Us

Subscribe To Our
News Letter

Name: E-mail:

Printer Friendly Version

28 February, 2010

South Yemen Launches Intifada For Independence
By Aljazeera

Residents of three provinces -Abyan, Daleh and Lahij - took to the streets on Sunday for the second day in a row to press their demand for the independence of the country's south

Yemen: USA Are Fighting Against Democracy,
Not Against Al-Qaeda

Interview With Mohamed Hassan
By Gregoire Lalieu & Michel Collon

A pair of trousers catches fire in an aeroplane close to Detroit and missiles rain down on Yemen. Is this is what is called the butterfly effect? Mohamed Hassan explains what is really at stake in Yemen: i.e. undermining democracy in the Gulf in order to keep control over its oil

Female Blogger Arrested In Iraq
By Layla Anwar

Finally the Iraqi government has acknowledged the arrest and imprisonment of Hiba Al-Shamaree, Iraqi female blogger whose real name is Dr.Hanan Al-Mashadani. She had been missing for several days

Remembering "The Highway Of Death"
By Malcom Lagauche

Nineteen years ago, one of the most diabolical slaughters in war history occurred in Iraq. Despite the assurances of the Bush I regime that retreating Iraqi soldiers would not be attacked, just the opposite happened. Iraqi soldiers and civilians were massacred after Saddam Hussein called for their exit of Kuwait. More than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed in five weeks, the majority during the 100-hour ground war

Iraq: Poor Selling Their Votes For Cash
By Nizar Latif

The March 7 election may be a critical event in the contest to decide Iraq’s future, but for some of the nation’s poor, the right to vote does not mean having a say in who leads the country; it means having something to sell to make desperately needed cash

$2000 Per Dead Afghan Child
By Francis Shor

$2000 per dead child! That's the amount of compensation offered by the Pentagon for the "collateral damage" which it has caused in Afghanistan. As the war escalates and more innocent victims of Washington's aggressive actions accumulate in number, the US military calculates what it will take to placate grieving Afghan parents

We Must Never Forget Gaza
By Khalid Amayreh

Despite a slight improvement in the general humanitarian situation, the Gaza Strip remains a disaster area. In fact, in terms of the sheer destruction of homes and infrastructure, the coastal enclave can be compared to quake-stricken Haiti, with the main difference lying in the fact that while the Caribbean island’s calamity was a natural disaster, the Gaza disaster was inflicted by the criminal Israeli regime

North-South Divide And Tackling Global Warning
By Helena Norberg-Hodge

As signs of climate instability increase, radical and rapid action is becoming ever more urgent. One of the biggest obstacles to global collaboration, however, has been the foot-dragging and obstructionism of the US government, much of it based on the fear of giving Southern economies a ‘competitive advantage’ if they are permitted to emit greenhouse gases at higher rates than the North. Yet even within the environmental movement there is no unanimity on this thorny question: should the countries of the South have the right to increase their emissions as they industrialize and ‘develop’?

“Getting Rid Of Hope And Faith”: Abe Osheroff
On The Struggle For A Better World

By Robert Jensen

The damage to the ecosystem may mean that a large-scale human presence on the planet cannot continue much longer. The obsession with self-interest cultivated by capitalism may be so deeply woven into the fabric of contemporary identity that real solidarity in affluent societies is no longer possible. The deskilling and dependency that comes with a high-energy/high-technology society has eroded crucial traditional skills. Mass-media corporations have eroticized violence and commodified intimacy at an unprecedented level, globally. None of this is crazy apocalypticism, but rather a sober assessment of the reality around us. Rather than deny the despair that flows from that assessment, we need to find a way to deal with it

The Monoculture Of ‘Human Rights’
By Satya Sagar

The standards of human rights should in fact be seen as being like the ethics of the medical profession. Just as no ethical doctor can refuse to treat a patient because of his own or his patient’s personal political beliefs so is the civil or human rights activist duty bound to oppose all rights violations irrespective of who its victims are or who commits them. This is the minimum standard that has to be established- defending the fundamental human rights of even your political opponents if necessary

Indian McCarthyism
Press Statement

The Delhi Police produced its charge sheet against Mr Kobad Ghandy in the Tees Hazari Courts New Delhi on 18.02.2010. This document has baselessly alleged unlawful activities against a number of individuals and legitimate democratic organisations working in the public domain

M.F. Husain Episode: Indian Talibans
Have Triumphed

By Syed Ali Mujtaba

It’s a major victory for the Indian Talibans as they have forced MF Hussein to accept a foreign nationality. It’s a real shame for those who uphold liberal, secular, plural and democratic values that failed to keep its national icon in its motherland

Palestinian Cafe Owner Faces Threats
For 'No Uniform' Policy

By Tim King

A Haifa cafe called 'Azad' is facing closure, and its owner violence, even death threats now, because one seemingly spoiled young Israeli soldier with family connections to government, couldn't enter and force a violation of Azad's no uniform policy which applies to all uniforms, not just those worn by Israeli soldiers

Yvo de Boer Is Positive About Mexico
By Marianne de Nazareth

At a specially convened press conference held during the 11th Special session of the governing council/ global ministerial environment forum Bali, Indonesia, Yvo de Boer the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, spoke on a positive note with reference to Mexico where the next COP16 is scheduled to be held from 29 November - 10 December

27 February, 2010

Giant Iceberg Breaks Free From Antarctic
In Collision

By Steve Connor

An iceberg the size of Luxembourg has broken away from the Antarctic continent and is drifting towards an area of the Southern Ocean that plays a critical role in driving the world's ocean circulation – the global "conveyor belt" of circulating sea water

White Lie
By Uri Avnery

This coming Wednesday, the Supreme Court of Israel will consider an application by a group of Israeli citizens to compel the Interior Ministry to register them as belonging to the “Israeli nation”.The Israeli Interior Ministry recognizes 126 nations, but not the Israeli nation. An Israeli citizen can be registered as belonging to the Assyrian, the Tatar or the Circassian nation. But the Israeli nation? Sorry, no such thing

Going Local
By Helena Norberg-Hodge

Today, the planet is on fire with global warming, toxic pollution and species extinction, with fundamentalism, terrorism and fear. The most powerful solutions involve a fundamental change in direction - towards localizing rather than globalising economic activity. In fact, “going local” may be the single most effective thing we can do. Localisation is essentially a process of de-centralisation - shifting economic activity back into the hands of local businesses instead of concentrating it in fewer and fewer mega-corporations

Elinor Ostrom Wins Nobel For Common(s) Sense
By Fran Korten

Elinor Ostrom was an unusual choice for the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. What made this award particularly special is that her work is about cooperation, while standard economics focuses on competition. Here is an interview with her on her philosophy and experiments

Finance Minister And Budget 2010:
Khao And Khilao Exercise

By Devinder Sharma

Instead of passing on the burden to the masses, Finance Minister could have gone in for a more drastic cut on the stimulus package for the industry. More than Rs 3.5 lakh crore has been doled out to the industry in the name of economic stimulus (which is actually a subsidy), and the FM could have easily taken out Rs 1 lakh crore from this stimulus. But he didn't do it, because his advisors and the industry lobbied hard for retaining it. Instead he passed on the burden to the people

Democrats Vote To Renew Patriot Act
By Bill Van Auken

With almost no debate, the Democratic leadership in Congress pushed through an unamended extension of the USA Patriot Act’s most notorious provisions, granting sweeping powers to eavesdrop and seize library, Internet and other personal records of US citizens

What is Neo-liberalism, Practically?
By Deepankar Basu

The ideology of neoliberalism: trickle down theory of growth and distribution. The reality a tad different: the gushing up of income and wealth

Copenhagen Climate Summit :
The Role Of India’s Rulers

Editorial from Aspects of India’s Economy

The Copenhagen Climate Summit of December 2009 has brought out starkly the price to the Indian people of the Indian rulers’ aspirations to ‘global power’ status, and the real character of that status

Climate Refugees, ‘Hotspot’ Case Study: Mexico
By Alexandra Deprez

Now that Chile has just been visited by a huge quake, the world has good cause to harbor grave apprehensions over a situation where no region is spared good grounds to fear the consequences of such phenomena. The second segment of this research document identifies Mexico as an environmentally-induced migration ‘hotspot,’ discusses development impacts in Latin America, and speculates on potential responses from Washington

What Alfred Nobel Might Say To The Peace Prize
Committee Regarding Mordechai Vanunu

By Eileen Fleming

I imagine Alfred Nobel might tell the Committee to grow a backbone and award Mordechai Vanunu the 2010 Peace Prize and thus ignite the dynamite that will open the doors of the Dimona to International Atomic Agency Inspectors and blow the roof off of Israel’s hypocrisy

Why Iran? Give Iran A Break!
By Debbie Menon

There are parallels, between the western media rhetoric about Iraq’s nuclear threat prior to the US invasion and the rhetoric about Iran’s nuclear programme today. In repeatedly misinterpreting the statements of Iran’s Ahmadinejad, the US-Israel media paints him as the Hitler of the Middle East. There was no reality check before Iraq and there is no reality check now

Mitteleuropa- The Making Of
America's New Cold War

By Gaither Stewart

U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke declared on February 20 that al Qaida is moving into former central Asian constituent parts of the Soviet Union, such as Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. Holbrooke is soliciting U.S. bases in these former Soviet republics under the guise of the ever-expanding “war on terror.” Such moves are extremely dangerous, as they could easily ignite another arms race, with unpredictable consequences for humanity

America's Supremes: Court Over Constitution
By Stephen Lendman

Michael Parenti calls the Supreme Court an "autocratic branch" of government. Its members are appointed, serve for life, and have great power for good or ill, nearly always supporting institutions of power, including corporate America. Even during the 1930s, "the Supreme Court was the activist bastion of laissez-faire capitalism" until public and White House pressure got it to accept New Deal legislation

M.F. Husain’s Exile: Battle For Art Or Religion?
By Farzana Versey

M.F.Husain is not an Indian anymore. He has accepted to become a citizen of Qatar. Why did he do it? The general answers you get are that he was hounded out of the country with threats to his life and his art by Hindutva fundamentalists. True. But he is not the first one. Fundamentalists of all stripes force out dissenters, whether they are political, for the field of art or literature

The Dirty Truth Behind Clean Coal
By Joshua Frank

If you've tuned in to the Winter Olympics this past week, you likely sat through repeated showings of a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign paid for by Big Coal regarding the potential laurels of "clean-coal" technology. The premise of the 30-second spot is simple: Coal can be clean and America needs to wean itself off of foreign crude and create jobs back home by tapping our nation's vast coal reserves

Abuse Of Immigrant Workers In South Korea
By Ben McGrath

An Amnesty International report, entitled “Disposable labour: Rights of migrant workers in South Korea,” documents the abhorrent working conditions that immigrants face. The study, released last October, clearly establishes that while South Korea was one of the first Asian countries to formally recognise the rights of foreign migrant workers, its Employment Permit System (EPS) does nothing more than legitimise the brutal exploitation of cheap labour from poorer countries

26 February, 2010

9/11: The Road To Armageddon
By Paul Craig Roberts

The morons in Washington are pushing the envelope of nuclear war. The insane drive for American hegemony threatens life on earth. The American people, by accepting the lies and deceptions of "their" government, are facilitating this outcome

Listen To The Heroes Of Israel
By John Pilger

In his latest column John Pilger reminds us of the struggle by an extraordinary few in Israel against the repression and lawlessness of the occupation of Palestine. They are the inspiration to break the loud silence in the Jewish diaspora

If Fossil Fuel Reserves Rise Carbon Should Be
Left Where It Belongs: In The Ground

By George Monbiot

Peak oil should be good news for the environment, but not if it stimulates investment in even dirtier sources of energy

Indian Budget 2010-11:
Strapped And Shackled By The Past

By Dr Subramanian Swamy

Indian economy had a set-back not because of financial contagion spreading from US, or because of the interdependent global trade system, but because of our own perfidious financial derivative called Participatory Notes [PNs] compounded by an anti-national agreement with Mauritius to permit even $ 1 paid-up companies incorporated in that country to invest in Indian stock markets and not be subject to capital gains tax. This was a “gift” from previous Finance Ministers, Yashwant Sinha and P. Chidambaram. This illegal practice was not reversed even in this budget

The Economics Of Happiness
By Helena Norberg-Hodge

Global warming and the end of cheap oil demand a fundamental shift in the way that we live. The choice is ours. We can continue down the path of economic globalisation, which at the very least will create greater human suffering and environmental problems, and at worst, threatens our very survival. Or, through localisation, we can begin to rebuild our communities and local economies, the foundations of sustainability and happiness

Iraq Election: Poll Shows Al-Maliki's Party Getting
1/3 Of Seats

By Juan Cole

Al-Hayat reports via AFP Arabic on the poll just released by the National Media Center, which reports to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office. According to this Maliki's party will get 1/3 of seats in parliament, with Allawi's Iraqiya at 1/5

Challenging History: Why The Oppressed
Must Tell Their Own Story

By Ramzy Baroud

It was the death of my father (while under siege in Gaza) that finally compelled me to translate my yearning into a book. My Father was a Freedom Fighter, Gaza’s Untold Story offered a version of Palestinian history was not told by an Israeli narrator – sympathetic or otherwise – and neither was it an elitist account, as often presented by Palestinian writers. The idea was to give a human face to all the statistics, maps and figures

Forged Australia Passports, Zionist Lies
And Israeli State Terrorism

By Dr Gideon Polya

Australia – otherwise known as Apartheid Australia because of its horrific race-based laws against Indigenous Australians – is a “good friend” of the race-based state known to the civilized world as Apartheid Israel . However the recent Israeli use of 3 forged Australian passports to murder a Hamas official in Dubai has excited great anger in the extreme right wing, pro-war, pro-Zionist Australian Government. The pro-Zionist UK Government has similarly reacted angrily to the Israeli use of forged British passports to commit a terrorist outrage in Dubai

Egypt’s Nuclear Option: President ElBaradei?
By Rannie Amiri

Mohammad ElBaradei returned to a hero’s welcome and the jubilation of thousands at Cairo’s International Airport last week. Some carried signs reading, “ElBaradei is the whole nation's hope,” and “ElBaradei for president of Egypt” while others chanted, “You can’t go back, we need you!” and “We want change!”

Climate Migration In Latin America:
A Future ‘Flood of Refugees’ To The North?

By Alexandra Deprez

Relegated to less productive lands, small farmers in Latin America face undeniable economic hardships as their produce customarily has to compete against strongly subsidized American and European agricultural goods. The migratory pressures already in place due to these hardships will most likely be cemented by climate change, and the inequality in land distribution only further underscores the disproportionate influence it is bound to have on the poorer sectors of Latin American society

Compassion VS. Antichrists
By Eileen Fleming

Jesus has been hijacked by the right wing fundamentalists and the time has come to liberate him. Christ was no Christian, that term was not even coined until three decades after he walked the earth. But, Christ was a social justice radical revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who rose up/intifada and challenged the job security of the temple priests by claiming there was no need for ritual baths and animal sacrifice to be OK with God, for God loves all, just as they are!

U.S Started A War Of Aggression Against
Afghanistan Over 30 Years Ago

By James A. Lucas

Over three decades ago, there were social movements in Afghanistan to improve the standard of living of its people, to provide greater equality for women, and there was a functioning, if imperfect, democracy. However the U.S., using subversion, weapons and money was able, as the leader of coalition of nations, to stop progress in these areas of human welfare. In fact, the gains that had already been made were actually reversed

Aristocrats At The Tea Party
By Nicole Colson

Nicole Colson reveals the insiders, lobbyists and corporate interests that well entrenched in a movement that claims to be grassroots and populist

Avatar: A Deceptive Saga Of Reaction
By Joe.M.S.

The reactionary element of the whole oeuvre is visible even in the title of the movie, Avatar. It smacks of idealism of dangerous proportions for its genesis in the Brahmanic( read fascistic) lore, which was institutionalised in the thought process and body politic of a country to subjugate the subaltern for thousands of years. The organic link of the western ideological escapism to philosophical orientalism, refurbished and re-articulated in ideological apparatus of eco-metaphysics, proves as a reactionary instrument of oppression against the liberation of the natives, even now

Tackling Communalism
Interview With Shabnam Hashmi
Interviewed By Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander

Eminent human rights activist and founder of Act Now For Harmony & Democracy(ANHAD) Shabnam Hashmi in conversation with Srinagar-based journalist Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander on Hindutva, terrorism, communalism and Muslim issues

A Corporate Restructuring Of Healthcare
Fails The American People

By Billy Wharton

At the President’s Healthcare Summit today, the American people witnessed a debate between the bad proposal for healthcare reform and the even worse one

Only Plastic Between Haiti Homeless And Storms
By Olesya Dmitracova

Seasonal rains and hurricanes spell trouble for Haiti in the best of times, but with hundreds of thousands of people living in flimsy makeshift shelters after last month's earthquake, this year the dangers are much greater. The rainy season begins in earnest in early April and the hurricane season in early June, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Both can be deadly

Pune Blast: The Real Story
By Sadia Khanam

The Media wasted no time in concluding that the involvement of Indian Mujahideen seems to be evident in the blast. However, Many other facts and figures reveal that this might be another attempt to put the Muslim image on radar while at the same time targeting the proposed India- Pakistan Dialogue. Sadia Khanam (The Eastern Post - Kolkatta) analyzes the facts and details of the unfateful incident with the help of Feroze Mithiborwala and Kishore Jagtap, well known socio-political activists of Awami Bharat of Mumbai

The Blue Carbon Initiative
By Marianne de Nazareth

Here in the beautiful island of Bali the Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, Dr. Fadel Muhammad and the Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Dr. Achim Steiner launched a joint Blue Carbon initiative to emphasize the important role being played by marine and coastal ecosystems in being carbon sinks

India Leads The Way- Joins
UNEP’s Billion Tree Campaign

By Marianne de Nazareth

India pledges to plant 2 billion trees. India’s two billion trees will bring the International Campaign launched in 2006 to the 10 billion mark

25 February, 2010

Mainstream Media Questions Inaccuracies
In 9/11 Story

By Tim King

The mainstream press is showing interest in a taboo, however glaring subject; the inconsistencies in the Bush White House 9/11 account.The Washington Times published yesterday a story questioning official account

The Truth About 9/11
By Elizabeth Woodworth

In the past year, in response to emerging independent science on the 9/11 attacks, nine corporate, seven public, and two independent media outlets aired analytic programs investigating the official account. Increasingly, the issue is treated as a scientific controversy worthy of debate, rather than as a "conspiracy theory" ignoring science and common sense. This essay presents these media analyses in the form of 18 case studies

After Copenhagen: How Can We Move Forward?
By Tom Athanasiou

For all its complexity, the core of this problem can be stated simply enough: What kind of a climate transition would be fair enough to actually work?

The Attack On Climate-Change Science
By Bill McKibben

Why It’s the O.J. moment of the twenty-first century

Climate Change: Greening The Economy? Monkeywrenching Collapse?
By Bill Henderson

Monkeywrenching collapse is an alternative path but impractical and possibly the catalyst to a fascist reaction. If the neocons were still in power and given the scale of climate change danger and scientific bottom line, there would be plans to depopulate Asia

Open Letter To Bill Gates
By Gunther Ostermann

Your dream in cutting CO2 to zero by 2040 is praiseworthy, but much more than that needs to be done to save our planet, and it’s just not happening. Since several attempts to contact you previously have failed, I’m trying with this open letter to reach you, as it is urgent, since, as Stephen Hawking also said earlier “the Doomsday Clock advanced to five minutes to midnight.”

"The Future Of Our Cities Lies In Their Integration
With The Environment”

By Interview With Daniel Lerch

A conversation with Daniel Lerch, author of Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty, to understand how we can build cities that are resilient to climate change and able to meet their own energy needs without depending on oil

10 Ways To Stop Corporate Dominance Of Politics
By Fran Korten

It's not too late to limit or reverse the impact of the Supreme Court's disastrous decision in Citizens United v. FEC

Knesset Criminalises The Commemoration
Of The "Nakba"

By Middle East Monitor

A new law in Israel makes it a crime to commemorate what Palestinians call the "Nakba", the "catastrophe" of their dispossession by the creation of the Zionist state in 1948. The Knesset, Israel's parliament, has passed "The Nakba Draft Law" after just one reading. Penalties will be imposed on anyone showing signs of sadness and mourning within the (undefined) borders of Israel on 15 May; Palestinians remember on that day the creation of the refugee crisis that remains after 62 years

Ethan Bronner And Conflicts Of Interest
By Jonathan Cook

Do you have to be Jewish to report on Israel for the New York Times?

The Mossad Hit And Israel's Path Of
Self-Destruction

By Hasan Abu Nimah

Even if the countries harmed by Israel's latest brazen act do not hold it properly and adequately accountable -- as they must and should -- it appears that it is on a path of self-destruction. The great fear is how much more harm it will do to others on the way

US Using Iraqi Political Discord To Justify
Continuance Of Occupation

By Dahr Jamail

As Iraqi national elections on March 7 approach, violence and political discord in the country have escalated dramatically. On February 22, Gen. Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, announced that the US was preparing contingency plans to delay the withdrawal of all combat forces from Iraq if violence or political instability increases after the national elections scheduled for March 7

Global Sweatshop Wage Slavery
By Stephen Lendman

In today's globalized economy, capital is highly mobile, free to go anywhere for the highest return by fleeing locales with high taxes, strict labor laws, or rigorous environmental protections yielding lower profits by raising costs, the main one being labor that's easy to get cheap in developing states eager to grow and needing to new businesses do it. The result is a race to the bottom

24 February, 2010

Darfur Deal Signed
By Aljazeera

A number of Darfur's armed groups have begun informal talks in Qatar, attempting to find a common platform to engage the Sudanese government in a move towards ending the seven-year conflict. Discussions were under way on Wednesday between the Justice Equality Movement (Jem) and some of the smaller Darfur factions, a day after Jem signed a ceasefire deal with the government

The Darfur Crisis: Blood, Hunger And Oil
By Mohamed Hassan

Is the first genocide of the 21st century happening now in Darfur? This Sudanese province is the theater of a conflict on which the international opinion is rallying. As for any struggle on the African ground, we receive the same images of misery: men are tearing, children are crying and blood is flowing. Africa is however the richest continent in the world. Mohamed Hassan unveils the origins of the African paradox and remembers us that if Sudan shelters different ethnics and religions, it has above all an abundance of oil

Dubai Murder: Police Identify 15 More Suspects
By Aljazeera

Investigators in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) say they have identified 15 more suspects in the assassination of a Hamas official at a Dubai luxury hotel last month. Wednesday's announcement by Dubai police brings the total number of people believed to be involved in the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh to 26

Getting Away With Murder
By Aijaz Zaka Syed

The question is how long will Israel get away with murder? And how long will its Western friends and allies protect it because of their own so-called historical guilt or whatever? Why do we have two sets of laws and standards for Israel and its Arab and Muslim neighbors?

The Gaza Ghetto At 2010
By Avigail Abarbanel

Most people would agree that what the Nazis did was monstrous and wrong, that ghettos were inhumane and should never have been allowed to exist in the first place. So why is the Gaza ghetto allowed to exist in 2010? Why is Israel allowed to dehumanise, control, humiliate and murder 1.5 million people and get away with it? Israel is breaking every human rights law conceivable in the way it treats the citizens of Gaza, and no one stops it

Up Against The Wall: Challenging Israel's Impunity
By Jamal Juma

Inspite of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that Israel's wall is illegal, until today, neither foreign governments nor the UN have joined the Palestinian communities who have been destroyed by Israel's wall in their efforts to dismantle it. Still, Palestinian villages show incredible perseverance and creativity in protesting the theft of their land and tearing down pieces of the cement blocks or iron fencing. They do so in the face of overwhelming repression

Israeli Environmental Terrorism In The Holy Land
By Tammy Obeidallah

Israelis have duped much of the Jewish and Christian religious communities into accepting their claim to Palestine is based on a belief that the land is holy—that their spiritual and emotional connection to this land reaches across millennia. Yet through the willful decimation of natural resources along with its native inhabitants, the Zionist establishment has proven that in the Holy Land, nothing is sacred

Charisma And Hospitality
By Eva Bartlett

It’s a silly story, poking fun at Palestinians themselves, something people here are very ready to do, admitting that while victims of repeated expulsions, repeated invasions, demolitions and massacres, and an ongoing occupation, they can still admit fault when fault is present

U.S. Allies In Europe Begin To Pull Back
By William Pfaff

Last Friday five NATO governments made it known that they want American nuclear weapons removed from their territories. They include the Benelux three, together with Germany and Norway. The five reportedly will ask that all the European NATO governments endorse their position before a meeting in New York in May

Haiti: The Aid Racket
By Ashley Smith

Ashley Smith documents how the NGOs in Haiti have provided the means for the U.S. government to circumvent the Haitian state and impose neoliberal polices

Avatar: The Prequel
By Michael T. Klare

What will Cameron, who has already indicated that he’s planning to write a novel based on Avatar, do for a screen encore? As it happens, I have a suggestion: skip the sequels on faraway Pandora’s sister worlds, and do the prequel

Pharmaceutical Pillage
By Joel S. Hirschhorn

There are good reasons to detest the pharmaceutical industry. Besides raping people with onerous prices for prescription drugs, corporate greed coupled with ineffective government regulation and oversight is actually killing Americans through unsafe drugs

Money Isn’t Money When It’s Spent On Defense
By Case Wagenvoord

We may rest assured that no politician will have the courage to even suggest that a good place for some vigorous deficit reductions would be the endless corridors of the Pentagon. This simply wouldn’t do. Besides, reducing defense spending does nothing for Wall Street while privatizing Social Security does much. And we all know whose going to be wielding the scalpel when it comes time to slash expenses

The Legacy Of Che Guevara:
Internationalism Today

By Dr Peter Custers

Not all youngsters buying a T-shirt with Che’s image in the North will immediately connect the image on their shirt with the spirit of the actions staged against the institutions of global capital, in Seattle (1999), in Prague (2000), in Genua (2001), and on other occasions since. Yet a connection there certainly is. Which is borne out by the flags, the banners and T-shirts with Che’s image that shape each of those protest events, writes Dr Peter Custers in conclusion of an essay serialised in two parts

The Headley Trail
By Subhash Gatade

We should raise this simple question with childlike simplicity 'Why there are bomb blasts whenever there are attempts to break the ice between these two countries and which are the internal forces/formations and their external friends which are engaged in building walls between these two peoples and are hell bent on demolishing already existing bridges

Global Ministerial Environment Forum
Begins In Bali

By Marianne de Nazareth

The 11th Special session of the governing council/ global ministerial environment forum Bali, Indonesia 24-26th February 2010 was opened by the President of Indonesia Dr.H. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono this morning in beautiful Bali

UNEP Launches Global Campaign To Strengthen
Synergies In Chemicals And Waste Management

By Marianne de Nazareth

Over one hundred thirty governments from the world have attended the “11th Special Session of the Governing Council/ Global Ministerial Forums and the Simultaneous Meetings of the Conferences of the Parties of Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm Conventions” over six days from 22nd to 26th in Bali, Indonesia in order to strengthen ties between the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions, the world's three leading treaties promoting the sound management of hazardous chemicals and wastes

Iran And The West
By Kashoo Tawseef

Why this prejudiced approach towards a sovereign country like Iran that has its own constitution and way of administering its own affairs. Threats and sanctions are going to prove counterproductive and are going to destabilize the whole Middle East and especially the self-reliant state of Iran

23 February, 2010 

Another Massacre In Afghanistan
By Bill Van Auken

The massacre took place near the border between Uruzgan and Daykundi provinces. Initial reports cited 33 people dead and at least 12 others wounded. Later, Afghan officials revised the death toll to 27. Among the dead were four women and a child. It appears to be the worst attack on Afghanistan’s civilian population since September 4, when a German commander ordered an airstrike on a fuel tanker truck surrounded by local people, killing 142 of them

Five Questions For The Afghan Surge
By Juan Cole

Gen. David Petraeus, a straight shooter, admitted on Meet the Press Sunday that the Afghanistan War will take years and incur high casualties..The Marjah Campaign, the centerpiece of the new counter-insurgency strategy, is over a week old, and some assessment of this new, visible push by the US military in violent Helmand Province is in order

Saudi Arabia Preparing For Oil Demand To Peak
By Tarek El Tablawy

A top Saudi energy official expressed serious concern Monday that world oil demand could peak in the next decade and said his country was preparing for that eventuality by diversifying its economic base

America’s First Suicide Bomber
By Paul Craig Roberts

Joseph Stack, frustrated American, flew his airplane into an Austin, Texas, office building. He was one of the 79 percent of Americans who have given up on "their" government. Indications are that Joseph Stack was sane. Like Palestinians faced with Israeli jet fighters, helicopter gunships, tanks, missiles and poison gas, Stack realized that he was powerless. A suicide attack was the only weapon left to him

How I Lost My Faith In London
By Balaji Ravichandran

The cold indifference of other Londoners to my racist attack shows how systematic discrimination gets ingrained

Pentagon Quietly Explores De-Citizenship Of
US Citizen Terrorists

By Steve Clemons

At the highest levels of the US military, a quiet discussion is going on about putting in place a legal framework that would permit the US government to strip American citizenship from terrorists

Take Israel To International Criminal Court
By Sayed Dhansay

It is imperative that the international community view the Israeli response to the Goldstone report as a blatant attempt to whitewash its crimes in Gaza, and refer the matter to the ICC without further delay. To do otherwise will only continue to encourage Israeli intransigence and its crimes against the Palestinian people

Scattered In Death As In Life
By Nadia Hijab

At no time is the loss of Palestine more piercing than at a loved one's passing, reinforcing the realization that, Muslim or Christian, Palestinians are as scattered across the globe in death as in life

Dubai And "Stupid Israeli Spies"
By Eileen Fleming

Israel’s most recent stupidity exposes once again that their rule of law has more in common with the law of the jungle

Lalgarh - Lalmohan Tudu And Two Others
Murdered By CRPF

By Partho Sarathi Ray

The joint forces entered the house of Lalmohan Tudu, senior leader of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), at around 11 pm, while he was preparing to go to bed. He was killed along with two of his relatives, Yubaraj Murmu and Suchitra Murmu, husband and wife. They were murdered in front of his mother, wife and only daughter

The Silda Attack: Understanding The Role Of
The EFR Camp In Reoccupation Strategies

By Sanhati

There has been a recent attack on a Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) camp in Silda in West Midnapur district, West Bengal, in which 24 EFR jawans have lost their lives. It is necessary to examine the function of this particular camp and its relation with local politics, to understand the tactical reasons behind the attack conducted by the Maoists

To Get Away With Murder, Chhattisgarh Style
By Javed Iqbal

A blow by blow account of the Gompad massacre and its aftermath

Police Killed Villagers, Say Gompad Witnesses
By Aman Sethi

I have been following the Gompad case for the past month and a half, and have been surprised at every turn. The issue is centred on the deaths of 12 villagers on October 1 2009 in Chhattisgarh. The matter is currently sub judice – so I would prefer not to comment on what I think happened, but this is my most comprehensive piece on the issue till date.- Aman Sethi

The Legacy Of Che Guevara:
Internationalism Today

By Peter Custers

Che’s legacy, as even the briefest summary of his life brings out, is the legacy of internationalism. Quite independent from other successes he achieved in a short and intense life of barely 39 years, Che embodied the spirit of internationalism as it existed in his own age. More than anybody else of his epoch, Che Guevara embodied the ideal of solidarity with oppressed people struggling to achieve their own emancipation worldwide, writes Dr Peter Custers in an essay serialised in two parts

The Drive To Eliminate Social Security Accelerates
By Shamus Cooke

Tackling Social Security has been on the to-do list of the corporate elite for years, and they’re not waiting any longer. After years of promoting this cause, conservative think tanks have now garnered solid support from the political establishment as a whole, which includes the Republican and Democratic parties

Mythic Truths Unify, Mythic Lies Fragment –
“A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand”

By Robert S. Becker

If America fails, don’t blame outsiders but internal contradictions, institutionized greed, and massive breakdowns in communal beliefs, with tectonic implications

Two 'Iraq War' Movies Compete For Awards
By Mamoon Alabbasi

James Cameron's "Avatar" and Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker", in their own ways, 'touch on' the Iraq war, a theme that still haunts the world of politics, almost seven years on since the US-led invasion

Swan Song Of The Sena
And Cabaret Of The Congress

By Anand Teltumbde

For the last couple of weeks, Mumbai is turned into a theatre of the absurd around the high-pitched themes of Marathi and patriotism, which although too familiar to all, are sounding like a swan song of the Shiv Sena. The kind of bewildering responses it has been receiving from the ruling Congress party at the centre as well as the state however have been purely entertaining as to be likened to the cabaret- political cabaret-- on the stage

Beheading Islam In Peshawar
By Dr. Shah Alam Khan

The news of beheading of two Sikh youth in the Peshawar region of Pakistan has not come as a surprise to the world. What more can we expect from a rabid race of Talibanis, born and brought up on the fodder of hate and violence. The news in fact brings to light the hollow rhetoric of the Pakistani establishment when they claim to have contained the menace of Taliban

Indo-Pak Peace Talks And Taliban Provocations
By Ram Puniyani

Today to talk of Jizya is a political abuse of worst order; those using this language need to be restrained in the democratic society. The million rupee question remains, will civilian rule prevail over the fissiparous forces operating within Pakistan. Indian Government must take up the issue of protection of minorities in Pakistan without any compromise

22 February, 2010 

Methane Levels May See 'Runaway' Rise
By Michael McCarthy

Atmospheric levels of methane, the greenhouse gas which is much more powerful than carbon dioxide, have risen significantly for the last three years running, scientists will disclose today – leading to fears that a major global-warming "feedback" is beginning to kick in

CO2 Mass Extinction Of Species And Climate Change
By Andrew Glikson

The release of more than 370 billion tons of carbon (GtC) from buried early biospheres, adding more than one half of the original carbon inventory of the atmosphere (~590 GtC), as well as the depletion of vegetation, have triggered a fundamental shift in the state of the atmosphere

Bullying, Lies And The Rise Of
Right-Wing Climate Denial

By Prof. Clive Hamilton

Clive Hamilton tracks the progress of climate denialism in Australia. He reveals how it works, who organizes it, where the raw material that fuels it come from, how popular perceptions are diverging from scientific facts, and what the effects are on politics and public debate. He begins by exposing an ugly campaign of cyber-bullying directed at leading scientists

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Crunch
By Tom Whipple

An interesting sidelight to the new report's official launch was that Chris Barton, the government official responsible for Britain's energy security, showed up and answered questions about the government's position. In what can be best characterized as backing down the flag pole, Barton acknowledged that the government really does not know when peak oil will occur but acknowledged the risks could be serious. For a government that until recently had been in complete denial that is more evidence that the message and dangers of peak oil are sinking in

The Battle Of Ideas, Part 1;
Private Property vs. The Commons

By Tom Stephens

The vicious circle of private property destroying human rights and the commons is becoming clearer all the time, as their system collapses and fails to deliver

What Did Mossad Get Wrong?
By Alan Hart

But even if there’s to be no punishment, what happened in Dubai has been deeply damaging to Israel’s already badly tarnished image in the world (I mean the world of so-called ordinary people if not that of their governments). It adds to the correct impression that the Zionist state’s leaders have complete contempt for international law and what the world thinks, and that the state itself is becoming, if it is not already, a monster beyond control

Mossad’s Murderous Reach:
The Larger Political Issues

By James Petras

Thanks to Israel’s use of British passports to enter Dubai and murder an adversary, every British businessperson or tourist traveling in the Middle East will be suspected of links to Israeli death squads. With elections this year and the Labor and Conservative parties counting heavenly on Zionist millionaires for campaign funding, it remains to be seen whether Prime Minister Gordon Brown will do more than whimper and cringe!

Gaza, Living In The Dark
By Hussam El-Nounou

Gaza survives on a minimal amount of electricity, leaving residents without power for the most part of the day. No television is one thing; no street lighting and hospital equipment is another

Gaza Fishermen Fight To Keep A Way Of Life Alive
By Pam Rasmussen

Ten years ago, Gaza's approximately 3,600 fishermen were hauling out approximately 3,000 tons of fresh fish a year, supporting an even larger 30,000 people in Gaza. Since then, violent clashes with - and ever-tightening restrictions by - the Israeli army have virtually destroyed the once-booming business. Today, just 20 percent of Gaza fishermen are still able to make a living in the industry most of them grew up with, and their total catch is three to five percent of what it used to be. And those who stick it out are putting their lives on the line

The New McCarthyism In Israel
By Jonathan Cook

The Israeli government and its right-wing supporters have been waging a “McCarthyite” campaign against human-rights groups by blaming them for the barrage of international criticism that has followed Israel’s attack on Gaza a year ago

Explain Something To Me
By Tom Engelhardt

Fixing What's Wrong in Washington... in Afghanistan

Chandra Muzaffar On ‘Allah’ Controversy
In Malaysia

By Yoginder Sikand

In this interview with Yoginder Sikand, Chandra Muzaffar talks about the ongoing controversy in Malaysia in the wake of a recent court ruling permitting the country’s Christians (and other non-Muslims) to use the term ‘Allah’, which many Malaysian Muslims fiercely oppose

American Genocides: Is Haiti Next?
By Stephen Lendman

For over 500 years, it's been victimized by severe oppression, slavery, despotism, colonization, reparations, embargoes, starvation, unrepayable debt, as well as natural and perhaps engineered calamities, the latest for plunder and exploitation - Haiti's centuries old curse, perhaps greater than ever going forward

Bill Gates $10 Billion Vaccine Scam
By Thomas C. Mountain

“Donating” a billion dollars to develop a malaria “vaccine” could turn into 10’s of billions of dollars in drug sales in Africa alone, and Bill Gates, through his drug company investments, will quietly pocket more African blood money

Venezuela’s Revolution Faces Crucial Battles
By Federico Fuentes

Decisive battles between the forces of revolution and counter-revolution loom on the horizon in Venezuela. The campaign for the September 26 National Assembly elections will be a crucial battle between the supporters of socialist President Hugo Chavez and the US-backed right-wing opposition

Avatar: Addressing The Attending Confusion
By Frederick Alexander Meade

I undertake this journalistic excursion in response to a published article authored by Rohini Hensman entitled, “Avatar: A Parable About The Encounter Between Capitalism And Indigenous Peoples,” (Counter Currents.Org, Jan 29th 2010) in which the writer took liberty in critiquing my thoughts as expressed in an article I wrote entitled, “Avatar: An Extension of White Supremacy.” (Counter Currents.Org, Jan 5th 2010)

India And Pakistan Talk Again
By Dr Shabir Choudhry

They are once again around the table and this is good. But question is are they meeting because they want to resolve all the outstanding issues or they have internal and external pressure to sit down, even if that means sitting for the sake of it

Santorum Continues Bashing Gays In The Military
While Ignoring A Real Threat

By Mary Shaw

Even though we the people of Pennsylvania finally voted ultra-conservative Republican Rick Santorum out of the U.S. Senate in 2006 in favor of moderate Democrat Bob Casey, Mr. Man-on-Dog continues to find new platforms from which to spew his senseless hatred and fear of gays and lesbians

The Suspension of Dr. Siras For Moral Turpitude Misconstrued Collision Of Principles
By Mirza A. Beg

Dr. Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras, reader and chairman of Modern Indian Languages at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) was suspended for the moral turpitude of consensual homosexuality within the privacy of his home.There are many principles, religious and secular at stake here, and they are not in conflict

Plight Of Muslims Under Terrorism
By Mustafa Khan

Obama has authorized operation Af-Pak; and Marjah in Afghanistan has been baptized in fire. The fall out of this can and does affect situation in India. Muslims as a community in India are unconnected to the war on terror either in Afghanistan or Pakistan or even in Kashmir valley. The Af-Pak strategy and the Pakistan's strategic depth into Afghanistan primarily bring the US into the subcontinent. Every drone attack or ground advance beyond the Khayber pass means more bomb attacks in Pakistan and its spill over into India

PUDR Expresses Outrage At The Killings In Jamui
By PUDR

Peoples Union for Democratic Rights is outraged by the massacre of 12 people, including women and children, and wounding of 50 others on 17 February in Phulwaria-Korasi village of Jamui district of Bihar allegedly by the CPI (Maoist)

21 February, 2010 

Bank Of America And Barclays
See Looming Oil Crunch

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Bank of America and Barclays Capital, two leading oil traders, have told clients to brace for crude above $100 a barrel by next year, before it pushes relentlessly higher over the decade. "Oil has the potential to flirt with $100 this year. We forecast an average price of $137 by 2015," said Amrita Sen, an oil expert at BarCap

Joe Stack And Likely Coming Attractions
By Carolyn Baker

Most of us have heard it by now-software engineer torches his own house then crashes his private plane into an IRS office in Austin, Texas on February 18, 2010. In the same week as Stack's rampage, an Ohio man so enraged about his home being foreclosed upon, bulldozed the house so that the bank would not be able to repossess it. It doesn't take rocket science to grasp that these eruptions of vitriolic rage are most likely, previews of massive civil unrest worldwide, as individuals and families awaken to the current ghastly global transfer of wealth

An American Attack On Iran Would Lead To
US Collapse Says Top Russian General

By Juan Cole

Russia's General of the Army Nikolay Makarov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, warned that an American attack on Iran now, when the US is bogged down in two wars, might well lead to the collapse of the United States. He said that such an attack would roil the region and have negative consequences for Russia. And, he said, the Russian military is taking steps to forestall such an American strike on Iran

Taliban Resistance Fading In Marjah
By Aljazeera

Taliban resistance to a military offensive in the Afghan town of Marjah has begun to ease amid reports that the group's fighters are running out of ammunition

Human Rights Violations In Jammu & Kashmir
By Independent People's Tribunal

Independent People's Tribunal Interim Report

Aman ki Asha - People To people To people
By Ather Naqvi

The upcoming talks between foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan in New Delhi have once again raised hopes of these war-hating people of the two countries. Most Pakistanis and Indians see no reason why the two countries cannot leave their bitter past behind and live in a conflict-free region where economic prosperity is a priority

20 February, 2010 

Kidnapping And Trading In Iraqi Children
By Layla Anwar

This criminal activity is taking place throughout Iraq and according to some of the figures obtained from Lieutenant Dia Sahee of the Ministry of Interior responsible for investigating such crimes : from January 1, 2009 until October 1, 2009, there has been 177 REPORTED cases of child kidnapping in different provinces excluding 72 reported cases in Baghdad alone

Dubious In Dubai
By Uri Avnery

The Dubai affair is reinforcing the image of Israel as a bully state, a rogue nation that treats world public opinion with contempt, a country that conducts gang warfare, that sends mafia-like death squads abroad, a pariah nation to be avoided by right-minded people

Lessons From Howard Zinn
By Anthony Arnove

Howard Zinn was a compelling example of someone committed to, and enjoying to its fullest, a life of struggle

The Urge To Secede: A Rebellion In Progress
By Greg Guma

At least 16 secession organizations are currently organizing throughout the United States and almost a dozen states have active movements. Even more state legislatures are debating laws that could “nullify” federal actions in areas from gun control and health care reform to marijuana possession and overseas troop deployments

Communal Violence Bill: How Useful To Victims?
By Asghar Ali Engineer

The present Bill already cleared by the Cabinet, seeks to give more power to the police. In fact police has always been the part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. And if you empower police more in such circumstances, as the present Bill seeks to do, one can very well imagine what havoc it is going to cause. It is victims who need to be empowered, not the police

India Seeks Jail For GM Food Critics
By Devinder Sharma

I am not sure whether you would believe your ears. You can't probably imagine that any sensible government (except for USA, of course) can try to gag your voice. If you thought that your fundamental right to speech and freedom is guaranteed under the Constitution, you need to think again. The proposed National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority (NBRA) bill is actually trying not only to silence the opposition to GM foods, but also has provisions that can put you in jail for a minimum of six months

A Dalit Woman's Fight Against Bias
By BRP Bhaskar

Chithralekha, a young Dalit woman making a living as an auto driver, came under renewed attack from a trade union which has been harassing her ever since she ventured into the male-dominated profession

19 February, 2010 

Thousands Of Tamils Still In Detention Camps
By Subash Somachandran & Kamal Rasenthiran

Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians, who fled the fighting in the final days of the military’s offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), remain in squalid detention camps in northern Sri Lanka. The official total is 106,000, with around 80,000 people still in the Manik Farm camps near the town of Vavuniya. After the LTTE’s defeat last May, the army rounded up 280,000 men, women and children and put them in detention centres surrounded by barbed wire and armed soldiers. No one was permitted to leave

Three In A Million - Voices From The Haitian Camps
By Bill Quigley

The United Nations reported there are 1.2 million people living in “spontaneous settlements” or homeless camps around Port au Prince. Three people living in the camps spoke with this author this week, before the hard rains hit

The Sleeping Catastrophe: HIV/AIDS
In An Already Devastated Haiti

By Matayo Moshi

With the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince, now in ruins and the vestiges of health care infrastructure all but destroyed, little care is available to those who need it most, especially those requiring specialized assistance, this includes the 120,000 Haitian people currently living with or affected by HIV/AIDS

A Military Occupation In Disguise
By Arun Gupta

Arun Gupta, the founding editor of The Indypendent newspaper, looks at the efforts of foreign interests to reshape Haiti after the earthquake

Wall Street Oligarchs Eying Social Security
By Paul Craig Roberts

Wall Street has got away with its raid on the public treasury. Now, pockets full, it wants to pay for the heist by curtailing Social Security and Medicare. Having deprived the working population of homes, jobs, and health care, Wall Street is now after the elderly’s old age security

Selling Out America To Wall Street
By Stephen Lendman

Expect a deepening global depression; protracted economic, political, social, and institutional upheaval; mass unemployment, poverty, homelessless, and hunger; and severe repression to curb public anger. Blame it on decades of political influence buying yielding unprecedented returns for the privileged, but economic wreckage and catastrophic life changes for the rest. The price of excess is pain, lots of it for the world's disadvantaged, the ones who always pay for rich peoples' sins

Western Media, Not Israeli Hasbara
By Ramzy Baroud

With the dreadful threat of yet another Israeli war in the Middle East looming, Israeli propaganda machine is likely to go into full gear. In fact, trial balloons have already been sent out bearing supposedly unrehearsed comments by former Israeli Army general and current Minister Yossi Peled, suggesting that another war is on its way. More recently, Israel's ultra-right and unabashedly racist Foreign Minister Avigador Lieberman threatened to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad in case of a war

The Brutal Truth About With God On Our Side
And The Ninth of Av

By Eileen Fleming

Many Christians ascribe to a theology that teaches that the Jews have a divine right to a piece of real estate and thus, uncritically support the Israeli government’s policies that privilege any Jew without any historical tie to the land at the expense of the indigenous Palestinians, and this is the fuel of much of today’s Anti-Semitism and distrust of and anger at America

Zionism And Nazism: Is There A Difference
That Makes A Difference?

By Roger Tucker

This disarmingly simple formula, Zionism equals Nazism, is analogous to the famous assertions of Galileo and Copernicus - demonstrable but so heretical in their contemporary context as to unleash a deafening chorus of outrage from defenders of the conventional wisdom

Israeli Abusive Administrative Detentions
By Stephen Lendman

Israel uses administrative detentions repressively, in violation of the letter and spirit of international law. In all cases, security considerations must be balanced against individuals' rights to due process and judicial fairness. Used indiscriminately subjects hundreds of Palestinians to injustice. It's an old story from a state affording it only to Jews

"Mass Casualties": The Dark Underbelly Of
Occupation, An Army Medic's Account

By Dahr Jamail

"Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception and Dishonor in Iraq." is more than a simple memoir about a difficult experience. It is an insider's scathing testimony of an ongoing illegal and unethical military action in a distant, once-sovereign state, by the US. Perhaps, this fresh account will raise some outcry over an issue that has all but dropped out of the American public's radar

The “ Shia Crescent ” Revisited
By Rannie Amiri

The regimes believe that if a “Shia crescent” was to take shape and become reality, their authority, power and influence might be swept aside by the people as quickly as was the Shah's

India Tribes To Fight On
After Vedanta Suffers Setback

By Nita Bhalla

Indian tribals campaigning to stop Vedanta Resources (VED.L) from mining their ancestral homeland vowed on Thursday to persist with their fight as another investor sold its stake in the company over ethical concerns. Britain's Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust sold its 1.9 million pound share in the London-listed corporate, citing concerns about Vedanta, which it said was "pushing industrialisation to the detriment of the lives of local people."

Dump Both Political Parties
By Timothy V. Gatto

These are not the Democrats your parents voted for. They are just as corrupt as the Republicans. The few honest voices in Congress aren’t recognized when they speak truth to power. Pelosi and Reid should be tarred and feathered

Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno is free!
By Scott Campbell

A hard-fought victory was achieved in Oaxaca, Mexico today when Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno emerged from the Santa María Ixcotel prison a free man. Juan Manuel had been held since October 16, 2008 - 490 days - charged with the murder of U.S. Indymedia journalist Brad Will

King Had A Dream, But Blacks
Now Face A Nightmare

By Chris W. Bell

When was the last time you heard anyone express outrage over the fact that up to half of the black kids in major cities are high school dropouts? Black America is in a state of crisis, and not only are we being ignored by those for whom we vote, but we are also being ignored by the press and the "civil rights movement"

Hillary Clinton’s Final Offer To Iran: “One More
Bundle Of ‘Crippling Aanctions’-One More T List!’

By Franklin Lamb

The lady came to declare that there will be no dialogue whatsoever- nada- until Iran’s nuclear program is history and it’s our way or take the bitter consequences

Bollywood Wakes Up To 9/11
By B. R. Gowani

The Indian film industry in Mumbai has now come of age, because in recent years it has demonstrated it can tackle diverse and controversial subjects away from their usual family dramas

18 February, 2010 

Dubai Accuses Mossad Over Mabhouh Assassination
By Aljazeera

Israel is coming under increasing pressure over the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas commander, at a luxury Dubai hotel last month. The National, an Abu Dhabi government-owned newspaper, quoted Dahi Khalfan Tamim, the head of the Dubai police force, as saying that the investigation into the killing "reveal[s] that Mossad [Israel's security service] is involved in the murder". Tamim told the publication's website on Thursday that he "is 99 per cent, if not 100 per cent, that Mossad is standing behind the murder"

Mounting Evidence Mossad Behind
Dubai Assassination Of Hamas Leader

By Chris Marsden

There is mounting evidence that Mossad, Israel’s secret service, organised the hit squad that murdered senior Hamas official Mahmoud al Mabhouh in Dubai on the evening of January 19. The assassins used the stolen identities of six British citizens and faked at least five other European passports. Not only does this fit a pattern of previous Israeli operations, but five of those whose identities were used live in Israel

Need To Throw The Net Wider
To Catch Pune Bombers

By Mustafa Khan

There is a belated realization that the Pune blast of February 11, 2010 is a different kettle of fish. It bears the hallmark of another group. It was not for nothing that some conscientious people felt sleepless over the readily prepared and readily available explanation for every next bomb blast on the way . Could the other group be the still elusive one responsible for Malegaon blast of 2006?

Battle for Marjah: The US Has Already Lost
By Dave Lindorff

The fighting is still underway in the town of Marjah, in what is being described as the first battle in Obama's War in Afghanistan, or alternatively as the biggest battle of the US War in Afghanistan. But already, the US has lost that battle. It lost it from day one, when troops fired missiles in to a Marjah house, killing 12 civilian occupants--half of them children. And it lost it further when another three more civilians were blown away by US-led forces. Finally, it lost the battle as much of the town has been simply destroyed by the fighting

U.S. – Iran Power Struggle Over Iraq
By Nicola Nasser

De-Baathification, which was originally a U.S. trade mark of Paul Premer, the first civil governor of Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, is merely a pretext to disqualify whoever opposes Iran or its sectarian agenda in Iraq. A pro-Iran sectarian regime is evolving to exclude not only secularism and democracy but to cement an Iranian power base in Iraq that will sooner or later spread sectarianism all over the region, instead of turning the country into a launching pad for democracy in the Middle east, as promised by the U.S. neoconservatives to justify their invasion of the country seven years ago

Real, Uglier American Unemployment
By Joel S. Hirschhorn

Can you trust national averages? As bad as the jobless data you hear are, you have not been told the whole truth. If you think the terrible impact of America’s Great Recession is shown by an official unemployment rate of about 10 percent, think again

The Bank Of The Fed Is Closed…Forever
By Robert Singer

The Federal Reserve isn’t evil because they print our money and make us pay interest on it; they are evil because they are in a metaphysical war with mother-earth (Gaea)

Clowns, Casinos And Men Full Of Cash
By Charlotte Laws

Over the years, Vegas has shifted from big spenders to tourists in order to stay afloat. The scores of “high rollers” from the 1970’s and 1980’s have either stopped coming due to the deteriorating economy or have gotten snapped up by competitors, such as Indian casinos

Peace And Justice Elie Style
By William A. Cook

The Unstated Script of the Wiesel Open Letter to President Obama

Iran And A Bellicose United
By Timothy V. Gatto

Iran is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty that gives participating nations the right to enrich uranium up to 20% for domestic use in medical research and fuel for reactors. Iran has done nothing illegal here

It's An Honor To Be Part Of
The 'Loony' Left In Amerika

By Sean Fenley

As the American political center spirals farther and farther down the road toward barbarism, it truly becomes a greater and greater privilege and an honor, seemingly by the day, to be condescended to as just one of the nonsensical ‘moonbat’ lefties!

17 February, 2010 

America’s Global Weapons Monopoly
By Frida Berrigan

In 2008, according to an authoritative report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), $55.2 billion in weapons deals were concluded worldwide. Of that total, the United States was responsible for $37.8 billion in weapons sales agreements, or 68.4% of the total “trade.”

Obama's Atomic Blunder
By Harvey Wasserman

Obama has announced some $8.3 billion in loan guarantees for two new reactors planned for Georgia. Their Westinghouse AP-1000 designs have been rejected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as being unable to withstand natural cataclysms like hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes

Obama’s Nuclear Option
By Amy Goodman

President Barack Obama is going nuclear. He announced the initial $8 billion in loan guarantees for construction of the first new nuclear power plants in the United States in close to three decades. Obama is making good on a campaign pledge, like his promises to escalate the war in Afghanistan and to unilaterally attack in Pakistan. And like his “Af-Pak” war strategy, Obama’s publicly financed resuscitation of the nuclear power industry in the U.S. is bound to fail, another taxpayer bailout waiting to happen

The End Of Obama’s Vision Of A Nuke-Free World
By Scott Ritter

When one looks past the grand statements of the president for policy implementation that supports the rhetoric, one is left empty-handed. No movement on ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). No extension of a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia (START). No freeze on the development of a new generation of American nuclear weapons. Without progress in these areas, any prospects of a new approach to global nuclear nonproliferation emerging from the May 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference are virtually zero

Sparks In The Blackness
By Maryam Sakeenah

What is heartening, in fact, is that in the midst of this murky abyss is the presence of these many, many dissenting voices, many narratives of resilience, resistance and courage. I can spot sparks in the pitch blackness that can illuminate the far horizons quivering in the translucence of tomorrow. The darkness may be oppressive and stifling, but the tiny sparks flicker ardently and boldly. It is these that matter in the long run

America—A Country Of Serfs Ruled By Oligarchs
By Paul Craig Roberts

America is on its way to becoming a country of serfs ruled by oligarchs

Whatevergate
By Real Climate

Since the emails were released, and despite the fact that there is no evidence within them to support any of these claims of fraud and fabrication, the UK media has opened itself so wide to the spectrum of thought on climate that the GW hoaxers have now suddenly find themselves well within the mainstream. Nothing has changed the self-evidently ridiculousness of their arguments, but their presence at the media table has meant that the more reasonable critics seem far more centrist than they did a few months ago

Israel's New Strategy: "Sabotage" And "Attack"
The Global Justice Movement

By Ali Abunimah

An extraordinary series of articles, reports and presentations by Israel's influential Reut Institute has identified the global movement for justice, equality and peace as an "existential threat" to Israel and called on the Israeli government to direct substantial resources to "attack" and possibly engage in criminal "sabotage" of this movement in what Reut believes are its various international "hubs" in London, Madrid, Toronto, the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond

How Israeli Policies And Attacks Have
Ravaged Gaza’s Agricultural Sector

A Video

Biofuels: Driving Over The Hungry
By Devinder Sharma

EU companies have taken millions of acres of land out of food production in Africa, central America and Asia to grow biofuels for transport, according to development campaigners. The consequences of European biofuel targets, said the report by ActionAid, could be up to 100 million more hungry people, increased food prices and landlessness

Don’t Mine Us Out Of Existence: Bauxite Mine
And Refinery Devastate Lives In India

By Amnesty International

Communities living in south-west Orissa in eastern India – already one of the poorest areas of the country – are at threat from the expansion of an alumina refinery and plans for a new bauxite mining project. Both the refinery and mine involve subsidiaries of UK-based company Vedanta Resources Plc. Don’t Mine Us out of Existence: Bauxite Mine and Refinery Devastate Lives in India, a new report from Amnesty International, describes how local communities have been effectively excluded from the decision-making process, and the land these people live on is or will soon be used to make profit for others

Jayaram And Tamil: Some Scattered Thoughts
On The Anti-Black Mass Culture In Kerala

By Joe MS

The recent ‘jest ‘of film star Jayaram against the Tamil as black skinned , buffalo like and therefore less human has been taken as just a joke by the cultural scene of Kerala. Not only that sympathy was expressed for the poor victim that he is, inadvertently cracking an innocent joke and thereby exposing himself to the ire of ‘violent’ Tamil,even solidarity was expressed with the right to crack such jokes by the ’ordinary folks’. The latent ideological and cultural premises hidden behind this whole controversy needs to be enquired into to understand the reality

16 February, 2010 

Meet Maryam Ruhullah:A Victim Of MK-ULTRA
By Stephen Lendman

MK-ULTRA was the code name for a secret CIA mind control program, begun in 1953, under Director Allen Dulles. Maryam Ruhullah explains the torture she experienced as a victim of MK-ULTRA experimentation

More Civilians Killed In Marjah
By Aljazeera

Three more Afghan civilians have died during the assault in Helmand province, taking the total killed since the start of the operation to 15

The Enlightenment That Killed
By James L. Secor, Ph.D.

Nature is a part us. We must be in harmony with our world. We must nurture it and be nurtured by it because we are part of it. We need an ethos. Enlightenment philosophy has stolen this from us and needs to be put back in context

Arroyo's Desperate Scheme: Torture Of
Morong "43", A Rehearsal For Emergency Rule

By E. San Juan, Jr.

What needs careful analysis and vigilant monitoring is the way events are unfolding in seemingly wayward but tendentious fashion in Philippines, as the May election looms. The majority of Filipinos remain cynical: “guns, goons and gold,” the mantra for political success, will determine the May elections for president and senate

Arabs Of Jaffa Face Settlers As Neighbours
By Jonathan Cook

Although Jaffa is only a stone’s throw from the bustling coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv, Arab residents say their neighbourhood has become the unlikely battleground for an attempted takeover by extremist Jews more familiar from West Bank settlements. Small numbers of nationalist religious Jews, distinctive for wearing knitted skullcaps, have begun moving into Jaffa’s deprived main Arab district, Ajami, over recent months

Israel Bombs Gaza's Agricultural Sector
To The Brink

By Eva Bartlett

Since the first constraints of the siege on Gaza were imposed nearly four years ago, the destruction of Gaza's agricultural sector and potential to provide produce and economy to a severely undernourished Strip has dramatically worsened

Defending Palestinian Children:
An Interview With Rifat Kassis

By Adri Nieuwhof

Defence for Children International-Palestine Section aims to protect the rights of children and minors living in occupied Palestine. Rifat Kassis was elected as president of the executive council of Defence for Children International (DCI) in 2005 and is currently serving his second term. Adri Nieuwhof recently interviewed Kassis about DCI-PS's work and the special situation of Palestinian children growing up under occupation

Why Are Jews Liberals?
By Timothy V. Gatto

I can’t for the life of me understand why Israel should not be condemned. They used white phosphorus against civilians, bombed the American University in Gaza as well as the U.N enclave. They used tanks and infantry with automatic weapons indiscriminately against women and children. There were 2,500 deaths with only a handful of those dead being Hamas members. It was a massacre against an urban area that has a median age of 14 years old

Somewhere Over The Rainbow
By Case Wagenvoord

America's ride into the sunset

Climate Change As A Major Geological Event
By Dr Andrew Glikson

Major mass extinctions in the history of Earth were related, among other factors, to runaway rise in the level of atmospheric CO2

Haiti: A Victim Of Naked Imperialism
By Ghali Hassan

As Haitians began the grim task of burying their loved ones after the January earthquake, the U.S. military used the pretext of providing “humanitarian aid” to invade and occupied a defenceless Haiti. It is clear, Western “humanitarianism” has nothing to do with humanitarian aid, but much to do with U.S. imperialist exploitation and domination

The Great Bi-Partisan Deception
By Shamus Cooke

The two party system is reshuffling to pursue a joint mission. Policies that the corporate elite have been planning for decades are in the process of being implemented. The recession is being used as the ultimate excuse to gut Medicare, Social Security, public education and other social services while expanding war, corporate tax breaks and corporate health care

15 February, 2010 

Rockets Kill 12 Near Marjah
By Patrick Martin

In what is likely to be the first of many such atrocities, two US military rockets slammed into a house near Marjah, the target of the current offensive, killing 12 people. US military authorities admitted that the victims were innocent civilians sheltering in their own home, as they had been advised to do by US and NATO officials

IPCC Errors: Facts And Spin
By Real Climate

Currently, a few errors –and supposed errors– in the last IPCC report (“AR4″) are making the media rounds – together with a lot of distortion and professional spin by parties interested in discrediting climate science. Time for us to sort the wheat from the chaff: which of these putative errors are real, and which not? And what does it all mean, for the IPCC in particular, and for climate science more broadly?

Copenhagen Failed Us. What Do We Do Next?
By Nicholas C. Arguimbau

Is it hopeless? Apparently so if we are going to be dependent on the governments and the corporations. Yet in taking that position, we are putting aside an "inconvenient truth" - inconvenient because we might rather put responsibility on irresistible forces out there in the universe than on ourselves

Viral Collapse
By Guy R. McPherson

Even as the greatest economic implosion in world history accelerates, the underlying cause — peak oil — remains chronically under-reported. Nonetheless, Sir Richard Branson finally is warning that the peak-oil crunch will be worse than the credit crunch (thereby failing to recognize the importance of the former in creating the latter), the Wall Street Journal is warning us to prepare for peak oil, and British oil companies and CEOs are sounding the alarm

Open Letter To NYT’s Roger Cohen
By Alan Hart

Over the past few months I have saluted your courage in seeking to open the eyes of New York Times’ readers to some of the differences between Zionist propaganda and what the facts on the ground in Israel/Palestine are telling us

US Brags Haiti Response Is A 'Model'
While More Than A Million
Remain Homeless In Haiti

By Bill Quigley

Despite the fact that over a million people remained homeless in Haiti one month after the earthquake, the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, Ken Merten, is quoted at a State Department briefing on February 12, saying "In terms of humanitarian aid delivery...frankly, it's working really well, and I believe that this will be something that people will be able to look back on in the future as a model for how we've been able to sort ourselves out as donors on the ground and responding to an earthquake."

Haiti Is Open For Business
By Stephen Lendman

Haiti is called "the Republic of NGOs," with over 10,000 operating (according to World Bank estimates) for its nine million people, the highest per capita presence worldwide in all sectors of activity and society, many with sizable budgets. Yet their numbers beg the question. With that abundant firepower, why is Haiti the poorest country in the hemisphere, one of the poorest in the world, and one of the most oppressed? Why were so many Haitians starving pre-quake? Why now are conditions catastrophic and worsening?

Hold Onto Your Underwear: This Is NOT A
National Emergency

By Tom Engelhardt

So the next time a Flight 253 occurs and the Republicans go postal, the media morphs into its 24/7 national-security-disaster mode, the pundits register red on the terror-news scale, the president defends himself by reaffirming that he is doing just what the Bush administration would have done, the homeland security lobbyists begin calling for yet more funds for yet more machinery, and nothing much happens, remember those drunken drivers, arsonists, and tobacco merchants, even that single dust devil and say: Hold onto your underpants, this is not a national emergency

GM Crops: All That You Want To Know
But Were Never Told

By Devinder Sharma

The historic decision not to introduce Bt Brinjal in India has opened up a can of worms. Agricultural scientists and the private seed companies have come under a clout, and therefore an orchestrated media campaign has been launched. It is therefore important to explain some of the hotly debated aspects of the decision, which are getting lost in the media trial. Let me answer some of the frequently asked questions

14 February, 2010 

Afghanistan Nato Operation 'Meets First Objectives'
By Juan Cole

BBC reporting British advance from north, met 'minimum interference' from Taliban.US Marines were brought into Marjah city by helicopter. Four small firefights going on Saturday evening but in the city, as well, resistance seems less than expected. Taliban are guerrillas who know they are outgunned, so the whole point of being a guerrilla is that one fades away rather than standing and fighting. They may also fear public backlash if they are blamed for substantial damage to the city

Climate Science In The Spotlight
May Not Be Such A Bad Thing

By Dave Stainforth

The recent scandals demonstrate a wide misunderstanding of climate science, and of science more generally

Putting A Value On Nature Could Set Scene
For True Green Economy

By Pavan Sukhdev

Much environmental damage has been caused by the way we do business. Is there a way of changing our economic models from being part of the problem into part of the solution?

Iraqi Appeals Court Upholds Ban On Secular,
Nationalist Candidates:
Bombings Target Campaign HQs

By Juan Cole

A string of bombings on Sunday targeted political offices of those parties willing to contest the March 7 parliamentary elections, including secular Sunnis. The violence comes as one more worry in the course of Iraq's most controversial election. Over a hundred (145) candidates for parliament were disqualified from running by the Appellate Board for their alleged ties to Baathism

No Nukes
By Ralph Nader

All Americans better get informed soon, for a resurgent atomic power lobby wants the taxpayers to pick up the tab for relaunching this industry

What Do Empires Do?
By Michael Parenti

From ancient times to today, empires have always been involved in the bloody accumulation of wealth. If you don't think this is true of the United States then stop calling it "Empire." And when you write a book about how it wraps its arms around the planet, entitle it "Global Bully" or "Bossy Busybody," but be aware that you're not telling us much about imperialism

A Stink Bomb
By Uri Avnery

Netanyahu has decided to teach Abbas a lesson. For three days, day after day and program after program, Channel 10 (Israel’s second biggest TV station) has broadcast shocking “disclosures” about financial and sexual scandals at the top of the Palestinian Authority. These programs accuse the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and the Fatah movement of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars and committing disgusting sexual offences. The “disclosures” may endanger the very existence of the Authority and Fatah

Reclaiming Gaza’s Land
By Eva Barlett

Local Initiative has been leading demonstrations in the Israeli-imposed "buffer zone" –a 300 m stretch of land flanking Gaza's border with Israel from north to south, but in reality extending up to 2 km in some area. Israeli authorities say anyone within 300 m of the border fence risk being shot. In the tradition of Bil’in and Ni’lin, in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian and international protesters march non-violently on Palestinian land, in protest of Israel’s unilateral annexation of this land

Questioning Our Special Relationship With Israel
By Stephanie Westbrook

I have to wonder why US taxpayers are doling out $3 billion a year in direct military aid to a "regional economic power." In August 2007, a Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Israel was signed committing the US to give, not loan, $30 billion to Israel over 10 years. US taxpayers are directly funding close to 20% of Israel's annual defense budget. No wonder Israel is able to invest in R&D!

Murder Of Shahid Azmi, Assault On
The Heart Of The Indian Democracy

By Mirza Akhtar Beg

The murder of Shahid Azmi is not a murder of an individual only, it is a brazen effort to intimidate and ultimately obliterate the idea of justice and silence the voice of the Indian conscience. The central government of India should do its utmost to bring the murderers to justice, because it is an assault on the soul of the Indian constitution and state, much more grave than the terrorist that kills individuals or the thief that prowls in the darkness of night

Shahid Azmi, a Career Produced
And Consumed By Judicial System

By Mustafa Khan

Shahid had been the product of the judicial system of Mumbai. It nurtured him like a mother. But in the end the by product of it claimed him. That by product is the reactionary dark forces unleashed by those who do not want to accept its verdict or countenance it with equanimity

Peoples Resistance To Posco
A Film By Nrusingha Behera & Debendra Swain

12 February, 2010 

US Military Noose Tightens On Marjah
By Patrick Martin

Thousands of US Marines and Army troops have moved into position on the outskirts of Marjah, a town in central Helmand province, identified publicly by the Pentagon as the first major target of the offensive authorized by President Barack Obama

U.S. Poised To Commit War Crimes In Marjah
By Robert Naiman

The United States and NATO are poised to launch a major assault in the Marjah district in southern Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians are in imminent peril. Will President Obama and Congress act to protect civilians in Marjah, in compliance with the obligations of the United States under the laws of war?

Building Cultures Of Peace
By Riane Eisler

If we are to build cultures of peace we have to start talking about something that still makes many people uncomfortable: gender

It’s Time For A Solar Revolution
By Senator Bernie Sanders

Senator Bernie Sanders and 10 others (Senators Whitehouse, Cardin, Gillibrand, Merkley, Lautenberg, Leahy, Boxer, Menendez, Specter, and Harkin) has introduced the Ten Million Solar Roofs Act. The legislation will rapidly increase production of solar panels, driving down the price of photovoltaic systems. It also would mean the creation of over a million new jobs. The passage of this bill would dramatically reorient our energy priorities and would be a major step forward toward a clean energy future for the United States

Zero Point Of Systemic Collapse
By Chris Hedges

We stand on the cusp of one of humanity’s most dangerous moments

Globalization Is Killing The Globe:
Return To Local Economies

By Thom Hartmann

Globalization is killing Europe, just as it's already wiped out much of the American middle class

Haiti: A Creditor, Not A Debtor
By Naomi Klein

The very idea of Haiti as debtor needs to be abandoned. The west should pay arrears for years of violations

30 Hours In Gaza
By Mohamed Madi

It's not the broken, dilapidated hole some think it is. It's a place that strives to be normal, and while the airstrikes and the drones and the blockade are daily reminders of how fragile the peace is, there's nothing fragile about Gaza's will to carry on

Israel’s War On Protest
By Jonathan Cook

Army used to deport activists against the Wall

Chutzpah, Thy Name Is Zionism
By Maidhc Ó Cathail

Chutzpah, a Yiddish word meaning “shameless audacity,” has been famously defined as “that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.” Considering Israel’s increasingly outrageous behaviour, perhaps it’s time for a new definition. The one that springs to mind is “that quality enshrined in a state, which having induced its ‘allies’ into a disastrous invasion of Iraq, then urges them to attack Iran.”

Zionism Unmasked
By Jeff Gates

While Zionism is clearly a nationalist ideology, that narrow framing does the term an injustice as it is so much more. Zionism is more accurately described as a strategy for targeting thought and emotion as a means to influence behavior. Naïve Jews were its first victims when induced to identify with an enclave in the Middle East that President Harry Truman, a Christian Zionist, was induced to recognize as a “state.”

"Breaking The Silence:" Women Soldiers Speak Out
By Stephen Lendman

On January 31, a new publication was released titled, "Breaking the Silence: Women Soldiers' Testimonies," a collection of 96 stories from dozens of women who served in the Occupied Territories since 2000

Green Hunt: The Anatomy Of An Operation
By Aman Sethi

Depending on the definition, Green Hunt either began in July 2009, September 2009 or November 2009. Speaking off record, senior policemen confirmed that the intensification of “search and comb” operations in Chhattisgarh began as early as July last year. In September 2009 the press reported on the progress of “Operation Green Hunt”: a massive 3 day joint operation in which the central CoBRA force and state police battled Naxal forces in Dantewada

Dodgy Development: DfID In India
By Richard Whittell

India is the biggest single recipient of British aid, with £1 billion spent between 2003 and 2008 through the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID). This article, written for Corporate Watch, introduces a series of short films and interviews about the DfID in India to be published over the coming weeks, which were shot by Whittell and Indian activist Eshwarappa M during a trip to various parts of the country affected by British money

What's Wrong With Keith Olbermann
By Wilson Blair

Whether you agree with him or not, Keith Olbermann is entertaining. And that makes him all the more dangerous. There is nothing more threatening to the survival of freedom in America than the legions of Countdown and Daily Show watchers who believe themselves to be informed citizens. You don’t become informed by being entertained. You become informed through self-motivation, self-restraint and a commitment to independent thought

11 February, 2010 

The Coming Oil Crunch
By Jeremy Leggett

Warnings of a crash in oil production are no longer limited to a prescient few individuals - major British companies and oil CEOs are now sounding the alert

The Case For Climate Action Must Be Remade
From The Ground Upwards

By Ian Katz

With the science under siege and the politics in disarray, it may fall to civil society to keep this still crucial fight alive

Zionism Unmasked: A Fairy Tale
That's Become A Terrifying Nightmare

By Alan Hart

The Arab word for the catastrophe of the original dispossession of the Palestinians is Nakba. In my view, Zionism’s Nakba denial is as obscene and as evil as denial of the Nazi holocaust

Gaza's Defiant Tunnellers
Head Deeper Underground

By Robert Fisk

They are threatened with drowning by the Egyptians and punitively taxed by Hamas. Robert Fisk meets the Palestinian smugglers bringing oranges, car batteries and bottle tops to a territory under siege

Why The Oscars Are A Con
By John Pilger

Why are so many films so bad? This year’s Oscar nominations are a parade of propaganda, stereotypes and downright dishonesty. The dominant theme is as old as Hollywood: America’s divine right to invade other societies, steal their history and occupy our memory. When will directors and writers behave like artists and not pimps for a world view devoted to control and destruction?

Somalia: How Colonial Powers Drove A Country
Into Chaos: Interview With Mohamed Hassan

By Grégoire Lalieu & Michel Colon

Somalia had every reason to succeed: an advantageous geographical situation, oil, ores and only one religion and one language for the whole territory; a rare phenomenon in Africa. Somalia could have been a great power in the region. But the reality is completely different: famine, wars, lootings, piracy, bomb attacks. How did this country sink? Why has there been no Somali government for approximately twenty years? Which scandals stand behind those pirates who hijack our ships? Mohamed Hassan explains why and how imperialist forces have applied in Somalia a chaos theory

From Copenhagen To Port-au-Prince
By Michael M'Gonigle

The planet's fate balances on a knife edge, two cities on either side. Which offers hope? You may be surprised

The World Bank’s Role In Haiti
By Marty Goodman

Keeping Haiti politically dependent on the World Bank and Western capital are loans from the World Bank and imperialist governments that come with political strings attached, as do the "structural adjustment" programs. Today, over 50% of the almost $1 billion Haitian budget originates from so-called foreign aid

Holocaust: Israel's Ultimate Red Herring
By Khalid Amayreh

Whenever Israel's image suffers a setback, mainly because of its manifestly criminal treatment of the Palestinians, Israel invokes the holocaust. Israel does not openly link the Nazi-like brutality meted out to the Palestinians to the holocaust.However, the implied message in highlighting holocaust commemorations is inescapable. The message is that what Germany did to European Jewry in the course of World War II justifies whatever Israel has done and is doing to the Palestinians

Israel Gets Away With Murder… Again
By Tammy Obeidallah

Another Hamas leader is killed in Dubai, most probably by Israeli agents

Guantanamo Detainee Deaths: Responding
To The Defense Department's Whitewash

By Stephen Lendman

Political persecutions, extraordinary renditions, secret detentions, kangaroo court justice, and torture remain official US policy as part of the administration's permanent war agenda and continued "war on terror," renamed the "Overseas Contingency Operation."

Court-Martial For Soldier Who Wrote
Angry Song About Stop-Loss

By Dahr Jamail

Army Specialist and Iraq war veteran Marc Hall was incarcerated by the U.S. Army in Georgia for recording a song that expresses his anger over the Army's stop-loss policy. Now he waits to be shipped to Iraq to face a court martial

US Says It Has Right To Kill American
Terror Suspects Abroad Without Trial

By Sherwood Ross

Aping the assassination tactics of Josef Stalin, the U.S. has created an illegal “hit list” of Americans abroad marked for murder

Elections In Sudan: Chaos Before Stability
By Savo Heleta

In the present situation, with so many issues unresolved around the country, Sudanese national elections would not lead to pluralism and democracy but rather to instability and post-election chaos. The elections as currently planned would be a logistical nightmare for any country, let alone Sudan, leaving too much room for post-election manipulation of votes

Politics, War And Yes Love!
By Aakanksha Mohan Sharma

Recently, Indian media reported about an avalanche in Kashmir which killed few Indian security officials and injured few of them when it made an Army training camp its target. They covered it in details but they forgot to report about the teenagers who got killed allegedly by Indian security forces in the same week. Earlier this week Wamiq Farooq was hit by a tear gas shell in his head when police was throwing tear gas shells on the protestors. Zahid Farooq also fed to death by a gun shot when he was playing cricket. Another teenager named as Inayat khan was also killed in such incident in the same week

Intra Civilization Clash
By Mustafa Khan

The clash of civiization theory is wreaking havoc the world over. India also is no different

10 February, 2010 

The Economics, Politics,
And Ethics Of Non-Violence

By Radha D’Souza

Are we prepared to be party to an economy founded on cheap labour and confiscated land? Are we going to allow our land and people to be auctioned in the global bazaars? Are we people-of-the land? Or, are we not?

Climate Scientists Hit Out At
'Sloppy' Melting Glaciers Error

By David Adam

Experts who worked on the IPCC report say the error by social and biological scientists has unfairly maligned their work

Haiti, Forgive Us
By Amy Goodman

The global outpouring of support for Haitians must be matched by long-term, unrestricted grants of aid, and immediate forgiveness of all that country’s debt. Given their role in Haiti’s plight, the United States, France and other industrialized nations should be the ones seeking forgiveness

Can Capitalism Save Haiti?
By Shamus Cooke

For Haiti to become self sufficient it must be allowed to determine its own destiny. U.S. troops must leave Haiti, and Aristide must be allowed to return. Without these two conditions being met, any solution to Haiti’s problems becomes a distraction and reinforces U.S. interventionism. Hands off Haiti !!

The 700 Military Bases Of Afghanistan
By Nick Turse

After nearly a decade of war, close to 700 U.S., allied, and Afghan military bases dot Afghanistan. Until now, however, they have existed as black sites known to few Americans outside the Pentagon. It remains to be seen, a decade into the future, how many of these sites will still be occupied by U.S. and allied troops and whose flag will be planted on the ever-shifting British-Soviet-U.S./Afghan site at Shinwar

US Pushes For New Sanctions Against Iran
By Peter Symonds

The Obama administration is pressing for the rapid imposition of new punitive UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programs. As a pretext, the US seized on Sunday’s announcement by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the country would begin enriching uranium to the 20 percent level needed to fuel its research reactor in Tehran

India Says No To Bt Brinjal
By Devinder Sharma

As Jairam Ramesh enshrines his name permanently in history, for the exemplary courage he demonstrated in standing up for truth and honesty, for putting society before mad science, for protecting environment from genetic pollution, and thereby showing the pathway for a better world, I am sure the ripples would be felt across the continents

Everything You Need To Know
About Iraq's "Elections"

By Layla Anwar

Ground reality from Iraq's most famous blogger

Fighting For An Education In Gaza
By Jody McIntyre

The travails of a Gaza youth for higher education

Gaza: Abu Taima’s land
By Eva Barlett

It’s like spring and we’re visiting the Abu Taima region. The different Abu Taima brothers and cousins speak of their land, all in or near the Israeli-imposed "buffer zone" (officially 300m in which Palestinians cannot enter without fear of being shot, killed; but in reality a land-annexation which extends even up to nearly 2 km, driving farmers off their land and rendering land un-used…a waste of space in a Strip that has no space to waste)

Howard Zinn: The Historian
Who Changed The History

By Pankaj Prasoon

Howard Zinn challenged the academic establishment by boldly emphasizing that “there is no such thing as impartial history. The chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lie. It is omission or de-emphasis of important data. The definition of important of course depends on one's values.” Zinn decided to choose side; and he chose to take side of the oppressed, exploited and the toiling masses against the bourgeoisie regime

Women Who Dared
By Asghar Ali Engineer

In my 40 years of investigating and monitoring communal riots in India I have not find a single instance in which any woman plotted and executed riots, much less killed any Hindu or Muslim. It was only in Gujarat that one Maya Kodnani is alleged to have instigated men to kill innocent human beings in Narodia Patia. I have found no other instance

Another Round Of Jihad Is To Start Soon In Kashmir
By Dr Shabir Choudhry

The last ‘jihad’ in Jammu and Kashmir started in 1988/9; and that brought death, destruction and loss of a generation. That ‘Jihad’ or a ‘proxy war’ further divided the Kashmiri people, as it communalised the Kashmir polity and divided people in name of religion. The wounds of that ‘jihad’ which has not ended yet are still fresh; and signs are that our ‘friends’ in Pakistan want to add a new chapter to the ‘Jihad’ in Kashmir

To Tea Or Not To Tea
By Joel S. Hirschhorn

We need a populist Second American Revolution. Populism yes; Republicans and Democrats NO! Recognize this or die still waiting for the change you have been waiting for and suffering with a delusional democracy

09 February, 2010 

Jerusalem Mayor To Raze
200 Palestinian Homes

By Jonathan Cook

Jerusalem’s mayor threatened last week to demolish 200 homes in Palestinian neighbourhoods of the city in an act even he conceded would probably bring long-simmering tensions over housing in East Jerusalem to a boil

A Mother's Grief
By Rami Almeghari

Nejoud al-Ashqar is a 30-year-old mother from the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya. Two of her sons, Bilal, 5, and Mohammad, 6, were killed during Israel's invasion of Gaza last winter. Al-Ashqar also lost her right arm in the assault

Haiti: Hunger Sparks Growing Protests
By Bill Van Auken

On Sunday, Haiti saw one of its largest protests since the January 12 earthquake, as four weeks after the disaster, frustration with continuing hunger and homelessness mount

Haiti Numbers – 27 Days After Quake
By Bill Quigley

Some disturbing and shocking numbers about Haiti, 27 days after the quake

Take Back Your Education
By John Taylor Gatto

More and more people across America are waking up to the mismatch between what is taught in schools and what common sense tells us we need to know. What can you do about it?

The Terror-Industrial Complex
By Chris Hedges

The conviction of the Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui in New York last week of trying to kill American military officers and FBI agents illustrates that the greatest danger to our security comes not from al-Qaida but the thousands of shadowy mercenaries, kidnappers, killers and torturers our government employs around the globe

It Is Now Official: The U.S. Is A Police State
By Paul Craig Roberts

As our Founding Fathers and a long list of scholars warned, once civil liberties are breached, they are breached for all. Soon U.S. citizens were being held indefinitely in violation of their habeas corpus rights. Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, an American citizen of Pakistani origin, might have been the first

Sri Lankan Government Arrests
Opposition Presidential Candidate

By K. Ratnayake

Sri Lankan military police last night detained General Sarath Fonseka, the common candidate of the main opposition parties in the country’s January 26 presidential election. The arrest is a marked escalation in the government’s crackdown on political opponents over the past fortnight and foreshadows widening intimidation and repression in the lead-up to parliamentary elections expected to be called this week

Growing Hunger In America
By Stephen Lendman

About 5.7 million people (or 1 in 50) get emergency food aid from the system in any given week, an increase of 27% since 2005, and one in eight Americans (37 million people, including 14 million children and three million seniors) are food insecure, meaning they don't get enough to eat. As a result, they need emergency help from food banks throughout the country

The Useless Logic Of Round Numbers:
War Is Criminal Any Day

By Ramzy Baroud

Before we giddily gather to discuss Obama’s legacy the next time another round number is celebrated on our television screens, let’s remember that for an Iraqi father, frantically searching for his son’s remains in a Baghdad street, numbers matter little, whether even, odd, round or in any combination. A massacre is a massacre, and a war of choice is a crime, any day, any time

NY Times: No Conflict Of Interest -
With The Conventional Wisdom

By Robert Jensen

The New York Times’ public editor wrestled this week with conflict-of-interest charges sparked by the revelation that Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner’s son had joined the Israeli army

Double Doom Deflected:
McCainiac And Sarah Sycophant

By Robert S. Becker

Even if McCain hadn’t stayed well beyond his prime, demonstrating the unreal McCainiac was the candidate himself, I still trust historians will vilify him for picking Sarah Palin. That is even more the case if she gets within hailing distance of the White House

Imagine
By Case Wagenvoord

Progressives have no imagination; the right has plenty. This is why, on every issue, the right constantly out frames the left. The left remains mired in statistics and dry facts while the right soars on imagery, and the fact that the right’s imagery is grounded in distortions and falsehoods in no way diminishes its effectiveness

The Unwritten History Of Genocides
By KK Abdul Raoof

The latest reports of Survival International apparently serve as death knells for the original inhabitants in several parts of the world. Modern man’s selfish deeds have resulted in their near-extinction. Leading a life in harmony with nature, these exploited lots now stand to be wiped out of their own land for good

“Love Jihad” Was No Farce
By Mukul Dube

The Central Government squarely blamed the media, and only the media, for publicising the hoax that had an obvious malign intention. The “Love Jihad” affair had all the marks of a farce: but we will be foolish to brush it aside with laughter

08 February, 2010 

Destabilizing Pakistan
By Pratap Chatterjee

Could Pakistan 2010 go the way of Cambodia 1969? It would be a sad day if the drone strikes, along with the endless war that the Obama administration has inherited and that is now spilling over ever more devastatingly into Pakistan, were to create a new class of fundamentalists who actually had the capacity to seize power

Aafia Siddiqui: Victimized By American Injustice
By Stephen Lendman

Justice is again denied, Siddiqui another victim, a human tragedy, portrayed by the dominant media as a jihadist, and getting public sentiment to agree because disturbing truths are carefully suppressed

Aafia Siddiqui:The Truth About US Justice
By Yvonne Ridley

Many of us are still in a state of shock over the guilty verdict returned on Dr Aafia Siddiqui. The response from the people of Pakistan was predictable and overwhelming and I salute their spontaneous actions. From Peshawar to Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and beyond they marched in their thousands demanding the return of Aafia

The "Shock Doctrine" For Haiti
By Ashley Smith

The U.S. intervention in Haiti shows that the US wants to reverse its setbacks of the last decade, reassert its geopolitical dominance and re-impose its economic program--the "plan of death"--throughout the region

Christmas Day Crotch Bomber Tied To Israel, FBI
By Jeff Gates

The Christmas Day "terrorist" is the latest in a series of staged incidents meant to make The Clash of Civilizations appear plausible and "the war on terrorism" rational. The storyline does not hold together. Not even a little bit. As usual, the source of this media-fueled fear campaign traces directly to Tel Aviv-with a supporting role by the FBI

In Tea Party Address,
Palin Stokes The Anti-Rights Fire

By Mary Shaw

In Sarah Palin's keynote address at a tea party convention in Nashville she said that the would-be Christmas airline bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, stopped talking after he was read his Miranda rights. The right wing likes to use that talking point to further their belief that terrorism suspects deserve no rights

Shahzad’s Arrest And Goebbels’ Lies
By Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association

Shahzad Ahmed the most recent prize catch of the Delhi Police is being charged with the murder of Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma during the Batla house encounter

07 February, 2010 

Fear Of Attack On Anti-POSCO Movement
By POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samithi

The threat of state and company sponsored violence looms large over hundreds of farmers sitting on an indefinite dharna at Balitutha in Jagatsinghpur district against the Orissa government’s pet POSCO steel project. “We are expecting police action any time soon including an attack on our leader Abhay Sahoo by goons hired by the company,” said a spokesperson of the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samithi (PPSS), which has spearheaded the agitation against the project for the past five years

Ground Zero
By Dilip Bisoi

Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik may have assured South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak that the land acquisition process for the $12-billion plant in Orissa’s Jagatsinghpur district will be speeded up, but at Ground Zero, things don’t look so easy. Posco-India still doesn’t have an inch of land, though the final forest clearance came through in December, on the eve of Lee’s visit to India as chief guest for Republic Day. Of the 4,004 acres identified for the project, 2,958.79 acres is forestland

The Claws Of The State
By Jyoti Punwani

The war on Maoists is backed by a parallel war on rights activists

Hunting Adivasis In Mineral Corridor
By Gladson Dungdung

“Naxalites are our stray brothers and sisters therefore we will address the issues of Naxalism through dialogues”. These are the holy words of Jharkhand Chief Minister Sibu Soren, who repeatedly told us even after swearing in as the guard of the state for 3rd time. He took u turn and attended a special meeting with our ‘Corporate Home Minister’ P. Chidambaram in Delhi on January 27th on the issue of so-called ‘Operation Green Hunt’. After his return from Delhi, he started dancing in different tune, saying, operation green hunt will be started if the Maoists do not abjure violence

Education For The New Economy
By David Korten

A new economy requires a new approach to education. David Korten discusses how we can rethink our goals, reskill ourselves, and teach Spaceship Management 101

A Four-Letter Word
By Uri Avnery

Many important struggles in Israel are calling out to people of conscience

The Sabeel Experience
By Eileen Fleming

Sabeel’s 5th International Young adult Conference: 12 Days in Israel- Palestine July 21st – August 1st Jerusalem 2010 is for young adults between 18-35 years of age with an open mind and ready for a REALITY TOUR of Israel Palestine and an alternative pilgrimage experience to the Holy Land that emphasizes active engagement with nonviolent Palestinian Muslims, Christians and Israeli Jews

As Sea Level Rises So Does The Level Of
Climate Change Denial

By Andrew Glikson

Most of all those who criticise the IPCC ignore the fact that, to date, the IPCC reports have UNDERESTIMATED ice melt rates, sea level rise, feedback effects and the proximity of tipping points, not least the looming release of hundreds of GtC as methane from permafrost, lake sediments and bogs

America's Dark Side
By William Blum

In America you can say anything you want — as long as it doesn't have any effect

Walk A Mile
By Sheila Samples

It's time for Obama to put aside empty, soaring speeches and come to grips with who his enemies really are. It's time for him to step onto dry land and walk a mile in his own shoes -- while he still has a pair

Three Idiots: A Film With A Message
By Dr. Shura Darapuri

The film “Three Idiots” is a great satire on the education system and the attitude of society. It tells us rote learning can be very harmful and why and how a casteistic eduactional system promotes it

Pre-Marital Sex And Freedom Of Speech
By Syed Ali Mujtaba

The five year old statement of Tamil film actress Kushboo on premarital sex and virginity after making rounds in lower court and High Court has reached the Supreme Court of India

Understanding Islamic Feminism:
Interview With Ziba Mir-Hosseini

By Yoginder Sikand

Ziba Mir Hosseini, an anthropologist by training, is one of the most well-known scholars of Islamic Feminism. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand she talks about the origins and prospects of Islamic feminism as an emancipatory project for Muslim women and as a new, contextually-relevant way of understanding Islam

06 February, 2010 

Defusing The Methane Greenhouse
Time Bomb

By Christopher Mims

Could methane-digesting bacteria and an Arctic cap of fresh water prevent a climate catastrophe?

Tibet Temperature 'Highest Since Records Began'
By Jonathan Watts

The roof of the world is heating up, according to a report today that said temperatures in Tibet soared last year to the highest level since records began. Adding to the fierce international debate about the impact of climate change on the Himalayas, the state-run China Daily noted that the average temperature in Tibet in 2009 was 5.9C, 1.5 degrees higher than "normal"

The Expanding US War In Pakistan
By Jeremy Scahill

As the situation in Pakistan becomes more volatile and the US military presence in the country expands, it will become increasingly difficult for the Obama administration to downplay or deny the reality that a US war in Pakistan is already underway

America’s Silent War In Pakistan Unmasked
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

The killing of the three US soldiers was a deep embarrassment to the US client Pakistani government of President Asaf Ali Zardari. The Pakistani public has been increasingly upset about the alleged activities of the US military and Blackwater (Xe) in their country

The Curious Case Of Dr. Afia Siddiqui
By Farzana Versey

Had it been ‘Lady Al Qaeda’, she might have raised her hand and screamed, “Out, damned spot!” Is Afia Siddiqui a Lady Macbeth metaphorical clone, a “psycho”, anti-Semitic as she is being accused of and which reveals the febrile mindset of those indicting her? Did she carry chemicals that would make bombs? Why did the judge often throw her out of the court accusing her of outbursts, which is a strange reason indeed?

My Visit To Iran
By Azita Ebrahimi

As a conscientious citizen of this world and a mother two boys, I am tormented by the ways things are in the USA, Iran, and other parts of the world. Let us try for a second to see the big picture here for a change; let us try to see humanity as whole for a change; let us try to see in ourselves others for a change

Please, Mr. President, Stop Talking Nonsense
By Alan Hart

There are no more concessions the Palestinians can make for peace. President Obama’s statement that they must is absurd and obscene. Unclear is whether he was speaking out of ignorance of real history or from Zionism’s script

Remember Zinn By Organizing
By Ralph Nader

How about drawing on the large, national constituency whose lives he has informed honestly and helped improve to support the establishment of the Howard Zinn Institute for Advancing Peace and Justice? Thought and action in a seamless flow toward returning the definition of “freedom” back to the words of Marcus Cicero as “participation in power.”

Why I Am A Man
By Dr. Shah Alam Khan

Female upliftment is the sine qua non of social progress. The civil society of India needs to understand the dynamics of sexual equivalence. The likes of SPS Rathores can only be kept at bay if we start loving our daughters and treating them at par with our sons

Bring Science Under Public Scanner,
As Jairam Ramesh Has Shown

By Devinder Sharma

Whatever be the outcome of the national consultations on Bt brinjal , the fact remains that Jairam Ramesh has initiated a public consultation process that will go down in India's history as the rightful approach to decision making

Shiv Sena Ire Against Shah Rukh Khan
By Ram Puniyani

Shiv Sena and its offshoot, Maharashtra Nav Nirman Sena, both thrive on the divisive sentiments. The spirit of National integration is being attacked by the actions of these regional forces. We should not target our citizens in the name of religion or region. The encouragement of Hate against Pakistan is shortsighted and is playing to the crude emotions, ignoring the deeper causes of terrorism

05 February, 2010 

Sovereign Debt Fears Trigger Plunge In
Global Markets

By Patrick O’Connor

Stock markets in the US, Europe and other regions plunged yesterday in response to growing fears over the size of sovereign debt in several countries. Greece is on the verge of national bankruptcy and international investors are sceptical about the government’s ability to implement the savage cuts to wages and social spending required to lower its deficit from 12.7 percent of gross domestic product to just 3 percent by 2012. Portugal and Spain face a similar situation

Haiti - Still Starving 23 Days Later
By Bill Quigley

You can walk down many of the streets of Port au Prince and see absolutely no evidence that the world community has helped Haiti. Twenty-three days after the earthquake jolted Haiti and killed over 200,000 people, as many as a million people have still not received any international food assistance

How The U.S. Could Help Haiti
By Helen Scott

Helen Scott, an author of numerous articles on Haitian history, looks at what the U.S. could be doing--but won't--to lift the burden for earthquake-ravaged Haitians

On Talking To Our Kids About The Future
By Nadia Herman Colburn

How do I talk to my children—five and nine—about the state of the planet, about hope? The question is worth asking, and revisiting, not only for the sake of the children and the future they will both inherit and create, but also because thinking about things in ways that children can understand can open up a new clarity for ourselves, as well

Top 10 Problems With America
Assassinating Americans

By David Swanson

The director of U.S. national intelligence told the House Intelligence Committee the government has the right to kill Americans abroad. Here are 10 problems with this

Mr. Obama, You Need To Forcefully Take The Lead
By Emily Spence

You cannot leave critical matters for future administrations to sort out in a meaningful manner. Despite vicious backlash for your stance, you must vigorously work to change our collective course now rather than continue the same old policies that your predecessors in office had and that, obviously, do not work

Human Rights Abuses In Israel
And Occupied Palestine

By Stephen Lendman

Free expression is targeted, and Israeli Arabs threatened, denied equality, education, employment, and their citizenship without "declaring loyalty" to Israel - in other words, on condition they abandon their national identity, culture, language, and historic heritage that's the equivalent of asking Jews to renounce Judaism

Meet The Radical Homemakers
By Shannon Hayes

How families are achieving ecological, social, and economic transformation... starting under their own roofs

A Decade Of Denial
By Hamid Golpira

The first decade of the twenty-first century just ended, but what just happened in those ten years? All of the analyses seem to have missed the point that it was a decade of denial

A Squeamish Surreal Charade
By Prabhat Sharan

Sixty-three years of ‘Independence,’ and sixty years after declaring itself a republic state, a democratic egalitarian society continues to remain an illusion for India. A pie in the sky

Telangana State Formation:
Age-Old Demand Under Process

By Dr.K.Vidyasagar Reddy

Unlike before, the other opposition parties in the parliament and state assembly have already extended their support for Telangana. The democratic component of the Telangana demand will keep the telangana movement energetic in the days to come, of course till the old state is revived once for all

04 February, 2010 

Israel Stole $2bn From Palestinian Workers
By Jonathan Cook

Over the past four decades Israel has defrauded Palestinians working inside Israel of more than $2 billion by deducting from their salaries contributions for welfare benefits to which they were never entitled, Israeli economists have revealed

Israel Rewrote The Rules Of War For Gaza
By Eileen Fleming

On February 3, 2010, The Independent reported that a high-ranking officer who served as a commander during Operation Cast Lead, admitted that Israel’s army went beyond its previous rules of engagement on the protection of civilian lives

Gaza And Lebanon: Beware The Iron Wall,
The Coming War

By Ramzy Baroud

Will it be Gaza or Lebanon first? Israel is sending mixed messages, and deliberately so. Hamas, Hizbullah and their supporters understand well the Israeli tactic and must be preparing for the various possibilities. They know Israel cannot live without its iron walls, and are determined to prevent any more from being built at their expense

The Holocaust In Israeli Political Discourse
By Yacov Ben Efrat

It is taboo in Israel to compare the suffering of the Palestinians with that of the Jews in the holocaust. Anyone who does so is at once ostracized. The latest is film director and producer Yonatan Segal

Rethinking “Where Are You Going,
Where Have You Been”

By William A. Cook

For as far back as the Pied Piper stalked the streets of Tucson, a series of Israeli administrations have spurned the international community, illegally stealing land, mercilessly killing Palestinians, invading neighboring states, confiscating and occupying their land, laying claim to their water, claiming immunity from international law and literally compelling the successive administrations in the United States to acquiesce to their crimes. How like the citizens of Tucson, to ignore the reality that seduced their children because their silence was “inexplicable.”

America's Third War Revealed
By Juan Cole

The fragile Pakistani government of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and President Asaf Ali Zardari was deeply embarrassed Wednesday when a massive bombing killed 3 US soldiers on the ground in that country. The Pakistani public has been increasingly upset about US military and para-military (Blackwater/ Xe) actions in their country. On Tuesday, several US drone strikes killed a total of 29 persons. The controversy over whether the US is actually fighting a third war, in Pakistan, may have been settled by the troop deaths

Haiti: Three Weeks After Earthquake,
Angry Protests Over Aid Delays

By Bill Van Auken

Three weeks after the January 12 earthquake leveled most of Port-au-Prince and claimed the lives of over 200,000 people, anger in Haiti over the slow pace of relief and the impotence of President Rene Preval’s government has erupted into protests

No Apology From IPCC Chief Rajendra Pachauri
For Glacier Fallacy

By David Adam & Fred Pearce

The embattled chief of the UN's climate change body has hit out at his critics and refused to resign or apologise for a damaging mistake in a landmark 2007 report on global warming

The Corporate Takeover Of U.S. Democracy
By Noam Chomsky

Jan. 21, 2010, will go down as a dark day in the history of U.S. democracy, and its decline. On that day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government may not ban corporations from political spending on elections—a decision that profoundly affects government policy, both domestic and international

India: Descent Into Darkness
By Colin Gonsalves

In the 61st year of the republic, surely, India has transited into Kalyug. Surveys of the Union of India as well as expert reports published by the Arjun Sengupta committee and the NC Saxena Committee appointed by the Central government reveal that almost 77 per cent of the population in India are below the poverty line in terms of the food intake minimum standard of 2,400 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day, a standard set by the Planning Commission in 1979

03 February, 2010 

The Crisis Is Not Over
By Paul Craig Roberts

The threats to the U.S. economy are extreme. Yet, neither the Obama administration, the Republican opposition, economists, Wall Street, nor the media show any awareness. Instead, the public is provided with spin about recovery and with higher spending on pointless wars that are hastening America’s economic and financial ruin

Obama Budget: War, Debt
And Cuts In Social Services

By Patrick Martin

The Obama administration’s budget for the 2011 fiscal year, unveiled Monday, projects massive US government deficits for the next decade, fueled by gargantuan military spending and the impact of the financial and economic crisis of American and world capitalism. The US national debt is projected to more than double over the coming decade, increasing by $8.5 trillion

The Iraqi Oil Conundrum
By Michael Schwartz

The end is not in sight and the outcome still unclear. Will the vast Iraqi oil reserves be developed and sent into the hungry world market any time soon? If they are, who will determine the rate of flow, and so wield the power this decision-making confers? And once this ocean of oil is sold, who will receive the potentially incredible revenues? As with so much else, when it comes to Iraqi oil, the American war has generated so many problems and catastrophes -- and so few answers

Is US-Iran Rivalry Driving The Exclusion Of
Candidates In Iraq? Was Allawi The Target?

By Juan Cole

An end-game drama is playing out in Iraq between the United States and Iran, and possibly among factions of Americans in Iraq, over the likely leader of the next Iraqi government. I am going to argue that the disqualification of 500 candidates, some of them prominent Sunni Arabs, was not a sectarian measure, but a strategic strike at a single candidate

In Port-au-Prince, Life Goes On, As Does Suffering
By Tanya Golash-Boza

The accumulated human suffering in Haiti is unfathomable to me. Although I have now left Haiti, images of destruction run like a slideshow through my mind. The fact that many of these deaths were preventable makes it worse. For these reasons, I am committed to doing what I can to ensure that this destruction does not reoccur. For that to happen, we cannot turn our eyes away from Haiti once the cameras are gone and the blood dries up. We must work to build a better Haiti and a better world — one in which people do not die because of poverty and inequality

Truth Amidst The Rubble In Haiti:
The U.S. Is The Problem, Not The Solution

By Li Onesto

This moment in Haiti—where the whole future of the country and the people hangs in the balance—poses sharp questions. How did Haiti come to be so poor? Why was there no infrastructure in the country? Why were 2-3 million people out of a population of 9 million living in the capital city of Port-au-Prince? And will the aid and economic development that the U.S. is offering really help the people and rebuild the country?

Child Slavery In Haiti
By Stephen Lendman

Pre-quake, Haiti had about 380,000 orphaned children. The number now is incalculable. Many are on their own own to find food, shelter and medical care, making them vulnerable to traffickers for profit and exploitation

Arab Politicians Face Tide Of ‘Persecution’ In Israel
By Jonathan Cook

Leaders of the Arab minority in Israel warned this week that they were facing an unprecedented campaign of persecution, backed by the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu, designed to stop their political activities

Obama Provokes War Against China And Iran
By Shamus Cooke

The possibility of yet another U.S. war became more real last week, when the Obama administration sharply confronted both China and Iran. The first aggressive act was performed by Obama’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who “warned” China that it must support serious economic sanctions against Iran

Israeli Occupation Supportive Companies To Boycott
By Stephen Lendman

The way to beat organized oppression is with organized boycotts against Israeli companies and global corporate giants allied with its government's war machine

Letter To Australia re Climate Denialism,
Biofuel Genocide And Climate Genocide

By Dr Gideon Polya

The taxpayer-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has given extraordinary coverage to the views of a visiting UK climate change denialist Mr Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

Riffs On A Good Read
By Case Wagenvoord

An appreciation of Gaither Stewart’s article “Symbolism, Ideology and Revolution”



 

 


 

Subscribe

Feed Burner

Twitter

Face Book

CC on Mobile

Editor's Picks

 

Search Our Archive

 



Our Site

Web