31 August, 2007
Pakistan’s
Musharraf –Bhutto Deal
By Javed I. Chaudry
During the last several months, Musharraf –
Bhutto deal has been in the air with all kinds of speculations to explain
what it means and how would it impact Pakistan. Apparently all charges
against the exiled ex. Prime Minister of Pakistan are being dropped.
Also, it seems that General Musharraf is ready to give up the uniform
and the control of the armed forces. Now this is a big change and one
wonders who or what is behind this grand plan?
A
Mother Of Seven Prisoners
By Hekmat Bessiso
Latifah Naji Abo Homeed, 61 years old, lives in
Al Am’ary Refugee Camp in the city of Ramallah – Palestine
. Of her 10 children, one killed during 1994 by Israeli military and
seven have been imprisoned by Israel . She longs to see them but has
only their photos for comfort. She has asked to be taken to prison herself
so that she can live with them
Green Voices:
Some Aspects Of Ecological Criticism
By Dr. Murali Sivaramakrishnan
Introducing ecocriticism into our hard-core curriculum
would thus mean a rereading of our intellectual and cultural inheritance.
Perhaps we could reintegrate our value systems and regain our sense
of balance and harmony. Not through a strategy of homogenisation and
universalisation but through a recognition of difference and an understanding
of the many. Passion and compassion are at the core of ecocriticism
Two
Years Post-Katrina
By Jordan Flaherty
Two years after the devastation of New Orleans
highlighted racism and inequality in the US, the disaster continues.
New Orleans’ health care and education systems are still in crisis.
Thousands of units of public housing sit empty. Nearly half the city’s
population remains displaced
The Social Toll
Of The US Home
Mortgage Crisis - Part 1
By Andre Damon
Predatory lending practices, speculation and widespread
fraud cannot, however, fully account for the scale of the foreclosure
crisis. Rather, the ultimate causes lie in long-term trends; the stagnation
of wages, the lack of affordable housing and the growing indebtedness
of American households
Families Of
Detainees Losing Hope
By Ali al-Fadhily
Hopes are fading for early release of the large
number of Iraqis detained under the so-called surge.The number of detainees
held by the U.S. military has increased by more than 50 percent since
the U.S. administration announced the surge six months ago, bringing
the detainee population to at least 24,500, according to U.S. military
officers in Iraq. The officers have said the detainee population was
16,000 in February of this year
Labor Day Hypocrisy
By Stephen Lendman
On the first Monday each September, USA "remembers"
working Americans with a federally-mandated holiday in their "honor."
Who's celebrating when it's disingenuously commemorated at a time worker
rights are threatened, ignored, forgotten, and uncared about by heartless
governments beholden to capital
What Does Labor
Day Mean Today?
By Mary Shaw
On Monday, September 3, Americans will celebrate
Labor Day. This annual national holiday was created more than 100 years
ago as a tribute to the American worker. To most Americans these days,
however, Labor Day seems to be more about end-of-summer picnics, beach
excursions, and an extra day off from work
Bt Cotton And
Economic Drain In Punjab
By K Jayaram
The much hyped Bt Cotton and increased yields,
reduced plant protection costs were fall flat with the Mealy bug infestation
on Bt Cotton in Punjab. There is a huge economic drain from Punjab due
to cultivation of Bt Cotton. The honeymoon of Bt Cotton was over and
trouble started now
The Fight To
Save The Rocky Mountains
By Joshua Frank
The battles rage on by a courageous few to protect
the freedom of the wild in these desolate, iconic parts of the Rocky
Mountains. If the courts don't side with the legally-inclined environmentalists
who want to preserve this wilderness for black bears and not for vacationers,
Red McCombs and his investors can be certain that other radical activists
will take to the Forest Service roads to confront the development of
our untrammeled public lands
Punish The Criminals
In Khaki
By Harsh Dobhal
Bhagalpur is back in news again. Same Bhagalpur
where in a barbaric act, policemen had poured acid in the eyes of 31
undertrials in 1980, blinding them tortuously. The incident had shaken
the nation's conscience then. Twenty-seven years later, television sets
grabbed our eyeballs with shocking images of a 20-year-old man being
dragged by a policeman riding a motorcycle, with his hand and legs tied
29 August, 2007
US
Military Bombards
Targets Inside Pakistan
By Peter Symonds
In an aggressive new step, the US military shelled
and destroyed targets across the Afghan border inside Pakistan on Sunday.
While it has received scant coverage in the American and international
media, the attack foreshadows more extensive US cross-border operations
that have the potential to further destabilise Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf’s uncertain grip on power
On Market Predictions
In The Current
Chaotic Environment
By Richard C. Cook
No one can predict how deep the decline in Western
economies that is underway will go, because there is so little transparent
information. Within the U.S., the government is hiding the severity
of the crisis in order to prevent a collapse of consumer confidence
The War On
Working Americans - Part II
By Stephen Lendman
Organized labor is struggling to remain relevant
and claw its way back. The enormous obstacles it faces are reviewed
below as well as the condition of working Americans today in a globalized
world affecting their lives and welfare heading "south" in
the "land of opportunity" offering pathetically little
The Forgotten
Holocaust
By Robert Fisk
The killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman
Turks during the First World War remains one of the bloodiest and most
contentious episodes of the 20th century. Robert Fisk visits Yerevan,
and unearths hitherto unpublished images of the first modern genocide
Fallujah Finds
A False Peace
By Ali al-Fadhily
Fallujah is quiet these days. After all the fighting
and destruction of 2004, U.S. and Iraqi forces call this success. Many
residents are not so sure
America And
Violence
By David Truskoff
US Children are ten times more likely to die from
gunfire than in 25 industrialized nations combined. For young black
males in the US guns are the leading source of death…In 1995 one
in 12 students reported carrying a firearm or some other weapon. In
2004, 81 people were shot dead every day in the US according the US
center for decease control. 29,569 were killed by firearms that year..
Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reveals
that every day; nearly eight children or teens are killed by gun violence
in America which adds up to about 235 each month
'Jesus:The Guantanamo
Years'
By Beena Sarwar
Meet Abie Philbin Bowman a.k.a. Jesus returned
to earth in his controversial, provocatively titled one-man political
satire 'Jesus:The Guantanamo Years'
28 August, 2007
What's
Happening To Our Weather?
By Michael McCarthy
The pattern of increasing heat and wet weather
has been visible all around the globe, with temperature and rainfall
records broken in many other countries, from Australia (record drought)
and India (record monsoon rains) to Greece (record forest fires)
Two Years Of
Katrina
By Bill Quigley
The Ten Most Important Lessons Learned
How the Bush
Administration Is Turning
The USA Into A Subprime Borrower
By Heather Wokusch
Much in the same way that US investors were "steered"
into rip-off mortgage loans, the entire country has been "steered"
into an economic crisis. The question is how to get out of it
The Great
Iraq Swindle
By Rolling Stone Magazine
How Bush Allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors
to Invade the U.S. Treasury
What
Do Palestinians Really Think?
By Ali Abunimah
Nevertheless, whatever doubts there are, this poll
merely confirms that Palestinians under occupation remain united on
the fundamentals of their cause. Despite the conspiracy they face to
starve and brutalize them into giving up their rights, the Palestinian
people are steadfast in defending them
The Language
Of Force
By Uri Avnery
In order to accommodate President Bush's request,
Olmert is now ready to cooperate with Abbas in writing something like
a "framework agreement" that will lay down the principles
of an agreement that may be achieved later on - but without details
or a time-table. According to the leaks, the agreement will repeat more
or less Ehud Barak's proposals at Camp David, including some of the
bizarre ones, such as Israeli sovereignty "beneath" the Temple
Mount. The Palestinian state will have "temporary" borders,
with the "permanent" borders to be fixed some time in the
future
Identity For
Kashmiris
By Dr Shabir Choudhry
A look into the identity crisis that Kashmiris
living in Britain face
27 August, 2007
Punjab
In Ecological And Health Devastation
By Umendra Dutt
There is not a single village in Punjab which has
not witnessed cancer deaths in last five years.Every village has faced
cruelty of deaths- young, old, married, single, man, women, rich, poor,
farmer, laborer – there is no distinction. Even children are not
spared. No discrimination at all. The death count starts from 4-5 and
goes upto 60 or even more in a single village and one can find same
number of cancer patients too
Grave Crisis
Over India-US Nuclear Deal
By Praful Bidwai
The confrontation between the United Progressive
Alliance and the Left over the India-United States nuclear deal has
ballooned into a major crisis, which could potentially dislodge the
government
A Few Great Parliaments
And
A Few Un-Elected MPs
By Jawed Naqvi
In his zeal to clinch a controversial nuclear alliance
with the United States, which though not mandatory lacks a majority
support in India's parliament nevertheless, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh has staked everything which should be dear to him — his
reputation as a supposedly sagacious leader, his government's stability,
his party's future and, of course, his country's sovereignty. His spin-doctors
have tried every trick in the business to prove the parliament wrong
and incompetent
The War On
Working Americans Part I
By Stephen Lendman
As Labor Day approaches, what better time to assess
the state of working America. It's under assault and weakened by decades
of eroding rights in the richest country in the world once regarded
as a model democratic state
Profit Of Doom
By Jason Miller
Capitalism, as Malcolm X suggested, is in its twilight.
Under this egregiously malevolent and brutal system of economic organization,
we have “evolved” to a point where corruption is so pervasive,
the divide between the “haves” and the “have nots”
is so vast, and the imperial wars for resources are so frequent and
destructive that as it is imploding, capitalism may take most of us
with it
Why Has Congress
Failed Americans?
By Joel S. Hirschhorn
Why has Congress failed Americans? Because Americans
have allowed it to fail them. Now is the time for Americans to assert
their sovereign constitutional power and take back their country. That
means YOU!
The Resurrection
Of The Trojan Horse
By David Truskoff
Today in 2007, people like Soros, Murdock, and
Bertelsmann of Germany are all still vying along with the Russian oligarchy
for the minds of the people of Eastern Europe. The effort today is to
keep the masses from slipping back to socialism. Gorbechev opened the
doors and mind spinners poured out of the Trojan Horse and stole the
minds of the people of Eastern Europe. And so, it is now on to China.
Who controls the media rules
Made Love,
Got War
By David Swanson
"Made Love, Got War" is the title of
Norman Solomon's latest book, an autobiographical account of the peace
and disarmament movements in the United States over the past half century.
The value of the book lies in the lessons it provides for current and
future activism, the accounts of pitfalls and seductive detours encountered
in the past, the insights gained, and the analysis of how one can push
on without hope or optimism or the desire for them, all as told by one
of the most morally decent people we are privileged to live alongside
today
In Defense
Of Pluralism
By Ram Puniyani
A debate has been raging in the society about secularists
being anti Hindu. Numerous examples are cited, their stance on the culprits
of Godhra train burning, culprits of Bane family burning in Radhabai
chawl, and to cap it all their insensivity to the plight of Kashmiri
Pundits and security of Hindus in Kashmir. What is the truth?
Straight Lines:
Muddy Water's Murky Politics!
By Firdous Syed
Whom should one believe: Chief Minister of Jammu
and Kashmir who has day-in and day-out tirelessly been emphasising near-total
return of normalcy and people "defeating the nefarious designs
of militants", or the Governor who wants us to believe that there
are thousands and thousands of Kashmiris waiting in the wings to pick
up the gun again?
26 August, 2007
Even
I Question The 'Truth' About 9/11
By Robert Fisk
Why have the officials involved
in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been muzzled?
Why did flight 93's debris spread over miles when it was supposed to
have crashed in one piece in a field?
Kashmir: Struggle
For Independence
Or A Proxy War?
By Dr Shabir Choudhry
It was never our struggle. We people of Jammu and
Kashmir never had any control or say over it. Be it talks with India
or militancy, control has always been in hands of Pakistan; and this
causes anger and frustration in minds of even most pro Pakistan Kashmiris.Evidence
shows that it was a proxy war and not a war of liberation; and lesson
from history is that you cannot win a war of liberation by becoming
a proxy for another country, especially when that country also has territorial
interest in that state
Opportunism
Trumps In Palestine
By Ramzy Baroud
The rash and self-defeatist behaviour emanating
from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his close circle
in the West Bank cannot possibly be intended for the benefit of the
Palestinian people or for their internationally sanctioned struggle
for human rights, freedom and equality. Abbas, and his self-serving
Palestinian elites seem hell-bent on exploiting the unfolding Palestinian
drama to further cement their status and position, even if such an attitude
will lead to the total decimation of any little hope of recovering Palestinian
rights
Obstacles To
Counter Global Warming
And Climate Change
By Abdul Basit
If we postpone and continue to debate, we will
reach a stage were the only viable topic to debate will be whether we
are headed for the end of the modern civilization or we are passing
through sunset of human existence on the face of the earth
“Scheherazade”
Painting, Heroines
And The Bush War On Women
By Gideon Polya
The War on Women and Women’s Rights continues.
Peace is the only way and the Pen is mightier than the Sword - but words
having failed, I have asked the question: is the Brush mightier than
the Pen?
We Can't Get
No Educashion:
A Critique Of US Public Schools
Part I
By Emily Spence
We are a land that supposedly supports "liberty
and justice for all". In practice, though, we have an educational
caste system of the worst sort imaginable. It is just one more scandal
(along with the treatment of the victims from Hurricane Katrina, our
military invasion of Iraq without sufficient provocation and evidence
of myriad other woes) plaguing our so-called great country
Down In The
Trenches, Anecdotal
Evidence From The Classroom
By Emily Spence
We Can't Get No Educashion: A Critique Of US Public
Schools - Part Two
The Elvira Arellano
Endgame
By David Howard
Elvira Arellano’s deportation is a wake-up
call for America. It’s time to say, ¡Basta ya! We’ve
had enough exploitation, abuse and exclusion. It’s time to say
“Sí, se puede” – We can do it!” to working
families’ rights to healthcare, education, liberty and legalization
What Freedom?
What Democracy?
By Siv O'Neall
The idea that the United States is the freest and
most democratic country on the planet has forever been force-fed into
the minds of Americans. Where is the democracy in a country and in a
world that is being run by transnational corporations? Where even the
Congress is tied down by bonds of dependency to Corporate America, Republicans
and Democrats alike. Where the rulers have not even been freely and
honestly elected by the people?
The Shrinking
Space For Dissent
By Nighat Gandhi
The Hyderabad incident accorded yet another victory
to Taslima in the worlds’ eyes and plummeted the global perception
of muslims as an intolerant, violent, and reactionary community a notch
or two lower than it already is. I hang my head in shame because Indian
and South Asian muslims are resigned to accepting the leadership of
men like the Owaisis. Where is the alternative, enlightened, egalitarian
leadership for muslims?
24 August, 2007
Why
We Are Against India-US Nuclear Deal
By Sandeep Pandey, Aruna Roy & Medha Patkar
While US Congress took a year and a half to discuss
the proposed change in the US laws, permitting nuclear commerce with
India, the process in India has been totally undemocratic
Credit
Crunch Fallout Begins To spread
By Nick Beams
While stock markets have stabilised—at least
for the time being—the effects of the credit crunch sparked by
the crisis in the US subprime mortgage market are now working their
way through the banks and financial institutions and the economy as
a whole
Britons' Personal
Debt Dxceeds Britain's GDP
By Martin Hickman
Britons have racked up so much debt on loans and
credit cards that the total borrowed now exceeds the entire value of
the economy, new research shows today. The financial consultant Grant
Thornton is forecasting that gross domestic product (GDP) will hit £1.33
trillion this year, less than the £1.35trn which was outstanding
on mortgages, credit cards and personal loans in June
Market Efficiency
Hokum
By Stephen Lendman
Astute observers continue to speculate and comment
that the housing bubble and resultant current financial market turmoil
came from deliberate widespread malfeasance aided by considerable cash
infusion help from the Federal Reserve in the lead on the scheme
Subprime
Loans = Primetime For Vampire Lenders
By Jim Hightower
Let's recognize that the need for "subprime"
mortgages is driven by our low-wage/no-benefit economy and by our country's
growing scarcity of affordable housing. It's not merely a low-income
mortgage system that must be fixed -- our leaders' pursuit of a low-income
America must be stopped
A
Boycott Of Israel:Something Has Changed
By John Pilger
The courageous Israeli historian, Ilan Pappé,
believes a single democratic state, to which the Palestinian refugees
are given the right of return, is the only feasible and just solution,
and that a sanctions and boycott campaign is critical in achieving this.
Would the Israeli population be moved by a worldwide boycott?
Why Cheney Really
Is That Bad
By Scott Ritter
“Bush’s Brain” may be gone, but
his “Soul” lives on. It is high time all of America put
Dick Cheney fully in the spotlight of collective accountability, purging
our nation of this scourge which has harmed us in so many ways. If there
is any case for impeachment to be made against any member of the Bush
administration today, it can be made against a vice president who has
shamed our nation, destroyed our moral standing and broken our laws
Haitian Prisoner
Of Conscience Returns
By Bill Quigley
Pere Gerard Jean-Juste, an outspoken Haitian voice
for human rights, economic justice and democracy, returned to Haiti
last weekend for the first time since being hustled out of a prison
cell by heavily armed guards and put on a waiting plane to Miami in
January of 2006
Will U.S. Be
Final Victim Of Its Global Dance Macabre?
By Gul Jammas Hussain
With a huge economic, democratic, and moral deficit
since World War II and a tainted conscience, ironically the United States
may lose its superpower status while trying to pull off another 'democracy
promoting' project
Ah, Democracy,
We Hardly Knew Ye...
By Sheila Samples
It is madness to stand upon the precipice of a
Constitutional crisis and even consider for one moment plunging into
the abyss by giving Bush additional time to spy on Americans, to torture
and kill innocents abroad, and to abandon an exhausted and ill-equipped
military on the killing fields of a nation embroiled in the spiraling
violence of civil war
A Climate
Change Wiki
By Bill Henderson
Building a wiki could be the democratic innovation
we need to finally adequately address the climate change problem - a
wiki could at least put us all on the same page - and may be a very
useful tool in managing man so that a sustainable future is possible
Book Review:
Fair Trade For All –
How Trade Can Promote Development
By Jim Miles
A book with major flaws that reveal much truth
Prisoner Of Its
Own Doing
By Firdous Syed
Only an honourable settlement for Kashmir, amicable
for India and Pakistan, has the potential to usher not only an era of
peace and stability in the region but also a process of reconciliation
between the people of Kashmir, India and Pakistan. And who knows, even
the dream of borderless South Asia could become a reality in future
22 August, 2007
Pakistan
Under Siege
By Zia Mian
Military rule and puppet politicians have brought
Pakistan to its present dreadful state. Rather than keeping Musharraf
in power, the world must demand that Pakistan’s army yield control
over government and economy once and for all. Only a freely elected
and representative government that can actually make decisions can pursue
economic development as if people mattered, confront the Islamists,
and make peace with India
War Psychiatry
And Iraq Atrocities:
How Killing Becomes A Reflex
By Penny Coleman
The values, standards and behaviors they have absorbed
over a lifetime from their families, schools, religions and communities
are scorned and punished. Using cruelty, humiliation, degradation and
cognitive disorientation, recruits are reprogrammed with an entirely
new set of learned responses. Every aspect of combat behavior is rehearsed
until response becomes reflexive
The Struggle
To Free The Jena Six
By Jordan Flaherty
The case in Jena is textbook proof that there are
still two systems of justice functioning in this country, one for Black
people, and one for white
Another U.S.
Military Operation,More Unrest
By Ali al-Fadhily
New U.S. military operations across Iraq appear
to be worsening the situation
Why Iraqis Oppose
U.S.-Backed 'Oil Law'?
By David Bacon
The USA said it went in to liberate Iraq. The ‘oil
law’ they seek to ram down the Iraqi throats proves the intent
all along was to control its oil
America And
Venezuela: Constitutional Worlds Apart
By Stephen Lendman
Although imperfect, no country anywhere is closer
to a model democracy than Venezuela under President Hugo Rafael Chavez
Frias. In contrast, none is a more shameless failure than America, but
it was true long before the age of George W. Bush
The Power,
But Not The Sense?
By Rand Clifford
Government of, by and for corporations (CorpoGov)
is closing the noose, while recourse for The People in post 9-11 America
lie eviscerated to the point of simple dissent becoming a crime. So
how might we temper CorpoGov’s assault on our Constitution, us,
the world’s people—even the natural systems that support
life on Earth?
Taslima, Hussein
And Liberal Ethos
By Ram Puniyani
The reaction to the attack on Taslima Nasreen in
Hyderabad, where she came for release of Telugu version of her book
Lajja, (9th August 2007), led by three MLAs of MIM party of Owaisi came
as a jolt to the liberal human values, to the values which Koran preaches
and to the democratic liberal values which we cherish
21 August, 2007
North
American Integration And
The Militarization Of The Arctic
By Michel Chossudovsky
The Battle for the Arctic is part of a global military
agenda of conquest and territorial control. It has been described as
a New Cold War between Russia and America
Peru: The earthquake
And The vultures
By Hugo Blanco
We recommend to those who are donating that they
directly watch over the destiny of their donations. Those who can utilise
the route of some NGOs should do so, in general they are guaranteed
routes. What is certain is that the governmental route is full of vultures
who will devour the large part of the aid
Starving
Gaza
By Chris Hedges
Gaza has become the Sarajevo of the Middle East.
Israel, in an action similar to that of the Serbs in Bosnia, has surrounded
and cut off nearly a million and a half Palestinians in the Gaza Strip
since the Islamic militant group Hamas took control in June. Electric
fences and watch towers manned by Israeli soldiers keep the Palestinians
trapped inside the strip
Political Fallout
Of Indo-US Nuclear Deal Turns Severe
By Praful Bidwai
The United States-India nuclear cooperation agreement,
tabled in India’s Parliament on Monday, has precipitated the worst-ever
political crisis for the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) government since it was formed a little over
three years ago
Stumbling Toward
Another War
By Uri Avnery
The miscalculation spoken of is not a beauty queen,
but a queen of ugliness: a war between Israel and Syria that may break
out any minute - not because Israel wants it, nor the Syrians, but because
one side misjudges a provocative act that will push the other into war
Oil Wars: Fueling
Both U.S. Empire And Ecocide
By Dan Brook
The war will end. U.S. troops will return home.
The empire is running on fumes and will eventually stall out. The only
questions are: How many more people will have to die before that happens?
How many more billions of dollars will have to be wasted?
Want To
See Change In The Country? Don’t Vote!
By James Rothenberg
You may feel that you vote freely, but ask yourself
why you don’t feel free to vote for a minor party candidate. Ask
yourself why you don’t want to “waste” your vote,
yet instead reward with it the very parties responsible for this state
of futility
Padilla Jury
Opens Pandora’s Box
By Paul Craig Roberts
Jose Padilla’s conviction on terrorism charges
on August 16 was a victory, not for justice, but for the US Justice
(sic) Department’s theory that a US citizen can be convicted,
not because he committed a terrorist act but for allegedly harboring
aspirations to commit such an act. By agreeing with the Justice (sic)
Department’s theory, the incompetent Padilla Jury delivered a
deadly blow to the rule of law and opened Pandora’s Box
John Doe Padilla
Convicted Of Conspiracy
By Bob Higgins
The government on Thursday convicted "John
Doe" of three counts of conspiring to participate in terrorist
acts. They can do the same to me, more importantly, they can do the
same to you
Mealy Bug Infestation
In Punjab : Bt. Cotton Falls Flat
By Umendra Dutt
Pesticide Companies, who had practically closed
shop, are upbeat in Punjab right now. They have sold pesticides worth
Rs 500 crores in last two months. The intense attack of mealy bugs has
demolished the infallibility of Bt cotton in just three months. With
thousands of acres of Bt cotton in Malwa region facing attack, desperate
farmers are resorting to intensive pesticide sprays
Talk-shop In The
Name Of Assembly!
By Firdous Syed
For the past 11 years, the Assembly has not worked
for more than 100 days [in Srinagar].Now if it is not a joke in the
name of democracy then what is it? Can a legislator do justice to his
job in such a little time? Does this genuinely not cast shadow on the
working of this all-important democratic institution in the state?
20 August, 2007
Brutal
Lessons From An Antarctic Summer
By Meredith Hooper
What can dying penguins tell us about the future
of the planet? Meredith Hooper spent a 'ferocious' summer in Antarctica
and discovered a living experiment going horribly wrong
The Worth Of
The Individual
By Emily Spence
The options that individuals elect to take, in
an irrevocable fashion, change the way that the future unfolds. Nothing
would quite be the same without each and every one of us contributing
whatever we foist into the world at large, regardless of whether these
affect offspring or create change on some larger scale
Old America
Is Sinking
By David Truskoff
We are producing less and less product and stealing
more and more. We are sending more jobs out of the country every day
The UN: An Instrument
Of Terror
By Ghali Hassan
On 10 August 2007, the United Nations Security
Council has voted to give the UN an “extended role” in U.S.-British
occupied Iraq after more than four years in which the UN was ignored
and considered irrelevant by the U.S. and its few willing allies. The
new UN Resolution, sponsored (as usual) by the U.S. and Britain, is
a propaganda designed to manipulate the public and legitimise ongoing
U.S.-British terror in Iraq
Iraq Progress
Report: A Time To Assess And Reflect
By Stephen Lendman
In the end, Iraq may surrender as Vietnam did and
lose everything now being fought for. How this plays out will only be
known in the fullness of time. Millions of Iraqis hope equity and justice
will triumph over greed and are betting their lives on it. May their
struggle not be in vain
Iraq, The Unavoidable
Global Trauma
By Pablo Ouziel
So while as westerners we count the number of "our"
soldiers wounded or dead as a measurement of success or failure in this
immoral war, we tend to ignore the fact that all those Iraqis dead,
injured or displaced are having a long-term impact on our everyday life.
If we wait for our governments to decide when the killing has gone on
long enough, I cannot help but wonder whether in the not so distant
future, we as westerners will be facing a moral trial and the subjugate
trauma attached to it
Caught Between
The U.S. And Al-Qaeda
By Ahmed Ali
The major U.S. military operation in Baquba city
north of Baghdad has ended, but it has left continuing suffering for
residents in its wake
Dutiful Daughters...
By Layla Anwar
And there are also, dutiful daughters lingering
in overcrowded prisons with no trials, waiting for their names to be
called to the gallows. And of course there are dutiful daughters being
hunted down.One of them is Raghad Saddam Hussein Al Majid. The daughter
of the legitimate President of Iraq
The White Man’s
Burden
By Jim Miles
Book Rview: The White Man’s Burden: Why The
West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little
Good. William Easterly. Penguin Books, New York, 2006
Penetrating The
Retail Sector In Bengal -
The Reliance Juggernaut
By Partho Sarathi Ray
The latest neo-liberal onslaught on the lives and
livelihoods of working people in India is taking place in the retail
sector
Genetic Engineering
Approval Committee's
Poor Record Of Regulation
By Bhaskar Goswami
How does one countenance a regulator that does
not adhere to the law of the land and is also unable to protect the
interest of one group against another? The Genetic Engineering Approval
Committee itself needs to be regulated to ensure it plays a balanced
role
19 August, 2007
The
“Crash Of 2007-8” Is Underway
By Richard C. Cook
As the house of cards comes tumbling down, the
leading question on financial websites and blogs is how deep will the
decline go. Will it stop at the level of the recessions of previous
decades, including 2000-2002, with a decline that is reflected in the
DJA of somewhere around thirty-five percent from its peak? Or will it
be the “Armageddon” scenario which would take us to depression-level
conditions? Of course there are multiple possibilities based on a decline
somewhere between a recession and a depression that would share some
of the characteristics of each
Corporate Capitalists:
Government
Comes To The Rescue
By Ralph Nader
The corporate capitalists’ knees are shaking
a bit. Their manipulation of the sub-prime housing market has led to
a spreading credit crunch and liquidity crisis. So it is time for them
to call on Uncle Sam – the all purpose bailout man.Only don’t
call it a bailout yet. It is just an injection of over $200 billion
in the past week to stabilize the heaving financial markets by the European
Central Bank and our Federal Reserve. Governments to the rescue –
again.
Entering The
Tough Oil Era
By Michael T. Klare
A spate of high-level government and industry reports
have begun to suggest that the original peak-oil theorists were far
closer to the grim reality of global-oil availability than industry
analysts were willing to admit. Industry optimism regarding long-term
energy-supply prospects, these official reports indicate, has now given
way to a deep-seated pessimism, even in the biggest of Big Oil corporate
headquarters
On Behalf
By Gunther Ostermann
The race is on, to claim and exploit the Earth’s
treasures, by many nations in the northern hemisphere, May I suggest
a resolution by ALL nations, ON BEHALF of future generation, who cannot
speak for themselves, to declare the whole region beyond the 85th latitude
a legacy, off limits to all gas, oil and mineral exploitation
The Empire And
The Independent Island
By Fidel Castro
The history of Cuba during the last 140 years is
one of struggle to preserve national identity and independence, and
the history of the evolution of the American empire, its constant craving
to appropriate Cuba and of the horrendous methods that it uses today
to hold on to world domination
The Ghost of
Pinochet Haunts
The Campaign Against Chavez
By John Pilger
In Washington, the old Iran-Contra death squad
gang, back in power under Bush, fear the economic bridges Chavez is
building in the region, such as the use of Venezuela’s oil revenue
to end IMF slavery. That he maintains a neoliberal economy with a growth
rate of over 10 percent, allowing the rich to grow richer, and described
by the American Banker magazine as “the envy of the banking world”
is seldom raised as valid criticism of his limited reforms
Censoring Pearl
Jam: A Call Of Save The Internet
By Joshua Frank
Last week Seattle based Pearl Jam accused AT&T
of censoring lead singer Eddie Vedder during a live webcast of the band's
Lollapalooza show on August 5, which was provided online as part of
AT&T's "Blue Room" concert series. Vedder, performing
a cover of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall", included
the following substitute lyrics that he repeated a number of times:
"George Bush, leave this world alone."
"George Bush find yourself another home."
Rethinking The
Development Of Latin America
And The Caribbean For The 21st Century
By James Petras
The specific transformative packages of measures
and the timing should be reflective of the specificities of each country
— but the immediate goal is to hasten the transition from a pre-national
to a national economy. This involves transforming a speculative real
estate market to a socially based public housing program and a rent,
interest, royalty and profit remittance economy based, on overseas payments,
to a self-financing, domestic market linking local resources and regions.
Export sector windfall profits should lead to strengthening domestic
production and exchanges which expand productive sectors and local consumption
based on egalitarian norms which equalize popular political participation
Looking Back At
Lebanon
By Robert Fisk
The conflict in Lebanon ended a year ago this week.
Robert Fisk reflects on the human misery and destruction inflicted on
the country – and on how lucky he is to be alive after more than
30 years of reporting from some of the most dangerous places in the
world
Managing Consent:
The Art Of War,
Democracy And Public Relations
By Ramzy Baroud
Edward Bernays's direct influence is long gone,
but his ideas continue to define the relationships between the corporations,
the American state, and the consuming citizen, and even the relationships
between the state-corporations' union and the rest of the world. The
carefully managed relationships have undermined democracy and unleashed
sadistic wars and uncontrollable violence, of which Freud had warned,
but which his nephew shamelessly exploited
Of Taufel, Howard
And An Apology
By Salil Kader
On the same day that Simon Taufel issued an apology
for handing out Sachin Tendulkar a faulty decision we had another Australian,
the continent’s Prime Minister John Howard, ruling out an apology
to the Indian doctor Mohammad Haneef who was detained on charges of
“recklessness” and “providing support to a terrorist
organisation.” These charges were subsequently dropped as they
were found to be false
16 August, 2007
Why
‘Peak Oil’ May Soon Pique Your Interest
By David R. Francis
World oil production peaked in 2005, says one expert,
and that presents serious problems in the future
The Second Lebanon
War, A Year Later
By Jonathan Cook
Many significant developments since the war have
gone unnoticed, including several that seriously put in question Israel's
account of what happened last summer. This is old ground worth revisiting
for that reason alone
Boycott
Movement Targets Israel
By George Bisharat
Our leaders, from the executive branch to Congress,
have dithered, or cheered Israel on, as it devoured the land base for
a Palestinian state. Their collective irresponsibility dooms both Palestinians
and Israelis to a future of strife and insecurity, and undermines our
global stature. If politicians cannot lead the way, then citizens must.
That is why boycotting Israel has become both necessary and justified
Two Legs Good,
Four Legs Equal
By Jason Miller
Treating non-human animals as objects for our convenience
(hence subjecting them to horrendous suffering and abuse) is certainly
one of our most shameful misdeeds. It is also one for which each of
us can readily begin making amends. One simple step we can take is to
refuse to consume meat or products from the fast food industry, a hideous
manifestation of capitalism that catalyzed and necessitates factory
farming
Hide And Seek...Again
!
By Layla Anwar
I maintain that the Iraq Body Count figure of 70'000
is shameful to say the least.I have also said on numerous occasions,
that even the Lancet figure of 655'000 Iraqis dead is obsolete by now.
I was slightly relieved to see that some websites did publish the more
accurate figure of 1 million +. I reiterate yet again, the figure is
greater than 1 million+.
Runaway Climate
Change : 20 Attempts
To Model The Emergency
By Bill Henderson
I'm no expert and this modeling of possible reaction
to the emergency is by no means definitive - just an attempt to get
past denial to action
Shaping A
Child's Gender Identity: The Role Of School
By Simon Bhuiyan
Looking at the whole system of functioning of schools,
it seems like schools are the factory of creating patriarch. When are
talking of equality among genders, creating policy and law to uphold
quality, how can we talk about all these without looking at our present:
the children and their social process of learning. Can we really bring
equality among genders through laws and policy without looking at changes
in the basis of learning?
15 August, 2007
Manifesto
To Counter Global Warming
By Abdul Basit
As we move recklessly forward with the so called
economic progress ignoring the signs of nature and the writing on the
wall, its time to address some basic questions about the goals and objectives
set by ourselves as individuals and nations. We must also reconsider
whether the present way of economic growth and development will lead
to our true progress or to the total destruction
A Day Of Reckoning
For Americans
Who Lived Beyond Their Means
By Joseph Stiglitz
The pessimists who have long forecast that the
US economy was in for trouble finally seem to be coming into their own.
Of course, there is no glee in seeing stock prices tumble as a result
of soaring mortgage defaults. But it was largely predictable, as are
the likely consequences for both the millions of Americans who will
be facing financial distress and the global economy
A "Slow
Motion Train Wreck"
By Stephen Lendman
Jeremy Grantham's persuasive evidence suggests
we're watching an unstoppable "very slow motion train wreck"
likely to be pretty ugly on "impact." By his reckoning, it's
probably too late to undue the enormous damage done no one will escape
from. His advice is that to be forewarned is forearmed to prepare as
best as possible although for most people it's practically impossible
Bush’s
War Czar Floats Call For Military Draft
By Bill Van Auken
The senior military officer tapped by President
Bush to serve as his “war czar” declared in a radio interview
last Friday that Washington should consider the reimposition of a military
draft to relieve the extreme pressure that the ongoing wars and occupations
in Iraq and Afghanistan are inflicting on the US military
Lebanese Militants
Vow To Take
Battle Outside Camp
By Robert Fisk
It was a familiar routine. Just as the Lebanese
army boasted of another "victory" amid the wreckage of the
Nahr el-Bared Palestinian camp - its al-Qa'ida-style rebels still holding
out against the state authority - one of the Islamists' spokesmen announced
in an audiotape that some of the gunmen had escaped and were planning
a "black day" for the government
Deconstructing
The Jordan Option
By Osamah Khalil
Resurrecting the Jordan option, in which the West
Bank and possibly Gaza would be united in a political and economic confederation
with Jordan, demonstrates not just the poverty of ideas in Washington
and Israel, but their desperation as well
Sans Brain,
Bush Will Be A Better President
By Gul Jammas Hussain
The brouhaha raised by political commentators,
columnists, and editorialists over the news that George W. Bush is going
to lose his "brain" at the end of this month when Karl Rove
retires is unwarranted
South Asia Monsoon
Crisis Presents An Opportunity
To Learn And Prepare For Future Crisis
By Brian McAfee
Is the South Asia monsoon a harbinger of things
to come and will we be ready next time around?
August 14, 2007:
Beginning Of The 61st Year Of
The Slavery Of Salves In Pakistan
By Abid Ullah Jan
You are a slave of the salves. When you live under
a government that serves not you but its foreign masters; that takes
your wealth and your children to serve the interests of Washington,
and lies to you to keep you docile and terrorise you to keep you obedient,
how can it be otherwise?
Menacing Mail
By Aftab Alexander Mughal
Christians, Hindus and Sikhs of Peshawar city of
North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Pakistan are living under constant
fear after the latest threatening event in which they were asked by
the militants to convert to Islam. For last three months, Christians
of Peshawar, Charsadda and Shantinagar have been receiving threatening
letters from militants in which they were asked to leave their religion
or ready to face the dire consequences
14 August, 2007
Arctic
Sea Ice Set To Hit New Low
By Mark Kinver
Arctic sea ice is expected to retreat to a record
low by the end of this summer, scientists have predicted. Measurements
made by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) showed the
extent of sea ice on 8 August was almost 30% below the long-term average
Naive Or
Cynical: Terminator Tactics
In Fighting Climate Change
By Bill Henderson
Arnie's whole climate change program is completely
within the presently configured economy; incremental change is carefully
spun as good for business, as a growing future economy. How naive can
a leader, can a politician, can a general public be?
The Ugly Face
Of Capitalism: A Blight On The World
By Emily Spence
We cannot expect our governments to provide for
us the necessary changes to improve the quality of life for the majority
of humanity. It is up to us to do so and, as Eleanor Roosevelt so rightly
points out, doing so IS an ethical imperative!
Bush's Brain
Goes Missing As Karl Rove Retires
By Leonard Doyle
To Republicans, he is a brilliant strategist who
kept their man in power. To Democrats, he is a ruthless manipulator
whose machinations banished them to the sidelines. Now Karl Rove is
retiring
Iran Ties
Weaken Government Further
By Ali al-Fadhily
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's increasing
ties with Iran have triggered a splintering of his government.Several
groups, both Sunni and Shia, have followed the Sunni al-Tawafuq bloc
(Iraqi Accord Front) in quitting the U.S.-backed government. But Maliki
refuses to make the concessions necessary to bring his "unity"
government back together
Bush's Booming
Economy For The Rich
By Sheila Samples
"The economy is good -- if you're rich. For
the rest of us, there's not much to write home about."
Attack On
Taslima:Love Of Islam Or Love Of Power?
By Asghar Ali Engineer
It was shocking that three MLAs of Ittahidul Muslimin
in Hyderabad gatecrashed into the book release function of her book
Lajjai translated into Telugu on 9th August and tried to beat up Taslima
and shouted slogans using unbecoming words, even using abusing language.
And all this in the name of Islam as if Islam stands for such hooliganism
Education In Madhya
Pradesh
By Sachin Kumar Jain
If one wants to get equity and respect in life,
then education is the basic requirement, but in Madhya Pradesh, education
itself has turned into a challenge for the children
13 August, 2007
India's
Agrarian Martyrs: Are You Listening?
By Jessica Long
In 2003, 17,107 farmers committed suicide. In the
last few years, the number of documented suicides in India's rural areas
has skyrocketed. These suicides have become so commonplace that they
are mystifying a nation and polarizing the debate over biotechnology
A
Palestinian Miracle At The UN?
By Ramzy Baroud
The miracle was of course no miracle at all; Palestinians
had clearly utilised the same mechanism that Israel had used for years
to block the mere possibility of bringing attention to the plight of
Gaza. One hates to invoke the proverbial idea of Palestinians being
their own worst enemy, but very few terms can describe the unfolding
travesty, compounded by the fact that the Zionist lobby at the US Congress
is now actively lobbying on behalf of Abbas
Oslo
Revisited
By Uri Avnery
Fourteen years after the signing of the Oslo agreement,
it is again the subject of debate: was it a historical mistake?
Let's Call The
Whole Thing Off
By Layla Anwar
I just read in the Observer, the Guardian's sister,
that the US army in Iraq is crippled by fatigue. The article says that
those poor soldiers are suffering from sleep disorders, the proverbial
PTSD, conjugal problems, exhaustion, lassitude and bouts of acute superstition...
They also live on "Red Bull" and "Rip it"
A Disneyland
Of Militant Ignorance:
The American Normalization Of Mass Murder
By Phil Rockstroh
Given the nation's tottering infrastructure, imperial
overreach abroad and vandalized constitutional process by a lawless
executive branch, what will it take to scare the general public, mainstream
press and political classes into immediate action to bring about meaningful
change?
No Nukes For
Peace
By Praful Bidwai
August 9 was the 62nd anniversary of the atomic
devastation of Nagasaki. It is an appropriate, if sad, occasion to look
at the military as well as energy implications of the India-US nuclear
agreement
Route Map
Of Imperial Army
By Ram Puniyani
Despite the claim of Pakistan establishment, George
Bush did not rule out military strike in Pakistan. This clarification
was issued by the White house officials in the aftermath of the phone
call by Bush to Musharraf
Need For An Uncensored
History From 1857 To 1947
By Jawed Naqvi
The 60th year of our independence is as good an
occasion as any to take stock of our mistakes and dream about a better
future
'The Disappeared'
By Zia Ur Rehman
As the world commemorates August 30 as the International
Day of the Disappeared, we too must remind the government of the hundreds
of missing people in Balochistan and elsewhere
Tsundur : A
New Milestone In
The Movement For Dalit Emancipation
By Subhash Gatade
As rightly noted by an analyst the victory ( albeit
a partial one) at Tsundur has come as breath of fresh air in the already
smouldering world of dalit oppression. And it is high time that its
fragrance is spread far and wide, so that people are told that oppressed
people united would always be victorious
Make Children’s
Dream Come True
By Sachin Kumar Jain
Even after 60 years of independence, one can not
have joyful celebration of Independence Day, remember 6 out of 10 children
in Madhya Pradesh are malnourished and 7 out of 100 children under the
age of one year die without enjoying their first birthday due to various
causes
12 August, 2007
Bush
And DU: A 4.5 Billion Year Legacy
By Jeff Berg
The result of the use of thousands of tons of DU
munitions in Gulf Wars I and II has been to spread trillions of micron
sized particles of Depleted Uranium into the sands and air of Iraq.
At least that is where it started its life or rather better said its
death march. The Middle East is after all rather well known for sands
and dust and winds and so where it will stop its 4.5 billion year journey
nobody knows
The
Cracks In Saddam's Dam
By Patrick Cockburn
As world attention focuses on the daily slaughter
in Iraq, a devastating disaster is impending in the north of the country,
where the wall of a dam holding back the Tigris river north of Mosul
city is in danger of imminent collapse
Myths Of Mideast
Arms Sales
By William D. Hartung
The Bush administration’s proposal to send
$20 billion worth of arms and $43 billion in military aid to U.S. allies
in the Middle East has been promoted by repeating a series of time-worn
myths that should have long since been abandoned. With a shooting war
in Iraq and a war of words with Iran well under way, the last thing
the region needs is a new influx of high tech weaponry
La Trobe University,
“Bundoora Arabesque”
And Australian Aboriginal Genocide
By Gideon Polya
The World should be watching. Tell everyone you
know about the horrendous, continuing Aboriginal Genocide and the resurgent,
bi-partisan-backed, politically correct racist (PC racist) New Racist
White Australia
Beijing Olympics:
To boycott Or Not
By Mary Shaw
One year from now, the 2008 Summer Olympics will
be taking place in Beijing, China. The media have already started covering
the preparations and glamorizing the whole affair. But, hidden away
from the eyes of the world, far away from the glitz and the pageantry,
is a much uglier side of China - its long and horrible record of human
rights abuses
Politics
Unmercifully Trespass
Humanitarian Borders In Gaza
By Nicola Nasser
The major political players who are involved in
sealing off 1.5 million Palestinians into an open air prison in the
world’s most densely populated 360-square-kilometre area of the
Gaza Strip are unmercifully trespassing humanitarian borders there;
they perceive in the collapsing economy of the Mediterranean coastal
strip, which is rapidly developing into a humanitarian crisis, a political
“window of opportunity.”
Left's Volte-Face
Will Stoke Public Wrath
By Harsh Dobhal
The Left spouts anti neo-liberalism slogans in
public rallies, but practices that very strategy at home. West Bengal,
Orissa, Chattisgarh, and now Khamman in Andhra Pradesh: the political
colour of the rule in these States might differ, but across the political
spectrum, neo-liberalism has been embraced unconditionally. Mass uprisings
are inevitable if the State continues to allow industries to grab agricultural
land
US Hegemony
Spawns Russian-Chinese
Military Alliance
By Paul Craig Roberts
The US has not been able to occupy the Iraqi city
of Baghdad despite 5 years of efforts; it most certainly cannot occupy
Russia or China. That means the conflict toward which the neocons are
driving will be a nuclear conflict
Welcome To
The Jungle: US Military
Psychological Operations And You
By Heather Wokusch
We must become more vigilant about the ongoing
use of military PSYOP and misinformation - the Pat Tillman case is a
perfect example. Holding the Defense Department and media accountable
for every mislead regarding the Bush administration's military adventurism
is more important than ever
Straight Lines:
Crisis Of credibility And Hope!
By Firdous Syed
Even when the separatist leadership of all hues
and colours has lost much of its appeal today, the cause of Azadi (freedom)
is as popular as it used to be. In fact given the immense sacrifices
including indignities braved by the common people in the Valley, the
sentiment of Azadi is more deep-rooted today than ever before
What About Bombay
1992?
By Aijaz Zaka Syed
Getting back to Bombay, action against those responsible
for the 1993 outrage is welcome, even if it's done under a draconian
law like Tada under which you are guilty until proven innocent; and
even if questions have been raised about the justness of the system
under which they have been prosecuted. But bring those responsible for
the shame of 1992 to account too. You do not have to look far to find
them. They are right there in Bombay and everyone, including the powers
that be, knows them. For justice, as Eleanor Roosevelt argued, cannot
be for one side but must be for both
11 August, 2007
Iraqi Government
On Brink Of Collapse
By James Cogan
The political survival of Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki is in doubt following the withdrawal from his cabinet of two
political blocs that derive the bulk of their support from Iraq’s
Sunni Arab population. A variety of sectarian and ethnic cliques in
Baghdad are reportedly involved in discussion with the Bush administration
over ousting Maliki and forming a new government when the Iraqi parliament
resumes in September
Subprime
Or Subcrime? Time
To Investigate And Prosecute
By Danny Schechter
The "subprime" credit crunch is really
a sub-crime ponzi scheme in which millions of people are losing their
homes because of criminal tactics by financial institutions
China's Threat
To The Dollar Is Real
By Paul Craig Roberts
The Chinese made no threats. To the contrary, one
of the officials said, “China doesn’t want any undesirable
phenomenon in the global financial order.” The Chinese message
is different. The message is that Washington does not have hegemony
over Chinese policy, and if matters go from push to shove, Washington
can expect financial turmoil
Why The Government
Tests Few Chinese Imports
By Joel S. Hirschhorn
Massive amounts of Chinese imports are threatening
public health and safety. Many food and consumer products pose risks.
Lead in children’s toys and jewelry. Toxins in foods for pets
and humans, and in toothpaste. Unsafe automobile tires. Many prescription
drugs made with few safeguards. The list is endless. The federal government
is not safeguarding American citizens through thorough testing of imports.
Why? Simple: The Chinese have us by our budget-deficit balls
Mahmoud
Abbas' War Against
The Palestinian People
By Ali Abunimah
Abbas' policy of colluding with Israel to starve
his own people is having its effect. The United Nations agency for Palestinian
refugees UNRWA issued a desperate appeal for the borders of the besieged
strip to be reopened.All 600 garment factories in Gaza have shut down
because they cannot import raw materials and 90 percent of factories
involved in the construction industry have closed
Can’t
Possibly Get Any Better
By Rand Clifford
A CorpoMedia masterpiece has recently been published
by Michael Barone, senior writer for U.S. News and World Report. The
title: New global study points to hope. The study in reference is the
Pew Global Attitudes Project’s poll of 47 nations. The Pew Resource
Center, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, likes to call itself a
Washington Fact Tank
Muslims Demand
An Apology From MIM
By Mike Ghouse
“We were all set to kill her”, said
Majidullah Khan about Taslima Nasrin. It is an atrocious condemnable
statement. it is time to reflect and figure out how to prevent this
from happening now and in future. The incident happened in Hyderabad,
India on August 9th
In Defense
Of Taslima Nasreen
By Michael Deibert
On the deplorable attack on Taslima Nasreen
Magic Seeds
By Harsh Dobhal
A farmers' collective revives traditional farming
systems and hundreds of varieties of grains and pulses
10 August, 2007
Focus
On Carbon 'Missing The Point'
By Eamon O'Hara
Focusing on the need to reduce CO2 emissions has
reduced the problem to one of carbon dioxide rather than on the unsustainable
ways we live. Is it not time to recognise that climate change is yet
another symptom of our unsustainable lifestyles, which must now become
the focus our efforts?
A Perspective
On Global Warming
By Jean-Louis Robert Turcot & Emily Spence
The solution might be, in the end, quite simple
It just may be that 'The more we take care of each other, the more the
Earth will take care of us,' or, to put it more succinctly, the more
that we allow more life to live with a reasonable prospect for survival,
the more Gaia may tolerate our presence and work with us to continue
our individual species, a species that is just one of ever so many currently
at peril from our all too human inhumane actions
Credit Fears
Spark Stock Market Plunge
By Patrick Martin
Stock markets worldwide slumped Thursday amid mounting
fears that the crisis in the subprime mortgage lending market is leading
to a more generalized credit crisis. The Dow-Jones Industrial Average,
the most widely followed stock index, ended down 387.18 points, its
largest loss in six months and the fourth triple-digit movement in five
days, an indication of the increasing instability in financial markets
The Empire
Shudders And Shakes
By David Truskoff
When people can not afford to make their mortgage
payments and are taking money out of their children’s education
fund to pay their bills, When they can no longer afford to buy houses,
no intervention by the Government can save the market or the empire
Those Summertime
Blues
By Layla Anwar
Fridges, freezers, air coolers, AC, fans, ventilators,
forget it...only in the Green zone. Only in the comfort zone of the
Brothel.Thirst, infants dying of thirst and the river still eaten up
by the brothel holders...
European
Hypocrisy
By Saifedean Ammous
Europe's policy with regard to Palestine/Israel
is so racist, short-sighted, counter-productive and hypocritical that
it could almost pass for American policy
Between The Lines
By Jim Miles
Review of "Between the Lines – Readings
on Israel, The Palestinians, and the U.S. War on Terror” Edited
by Tikva Honig-Parnass and Toufi Haddad
Democracy Lives!
By Adam Engel
Our Masters will vote on when and where the next
WAR will be, and THEY will vote on when to finally withdraw any semblance
of democracy from the masses as surely as they’ll vote on how
much sugar to pump into your kid’s breakfast cereal. The masses
never would have known (or cared about) “democracy” in the
first place if not for a few do-gooder meddlers in the Courts and Congress
rewriting the Constitution to include, of all people, the PEOPLE
Putting Your Foot
Into Your Mouth!
By Firdous Syed
Addressing a public meeting at Langate in Kupwara
district on Tuesday the 24th of July, Syed Ali Shah Geelani said "majority
of non-state subjects were professional criminals and they should be
driven out of Kashmir in a civilised and dignified manner". As
if taking a cue, militant organisations also joined the fray, and taking
a step further, issued dead-lines and ultimatums to the migrant labourers
to leave Kashmir
Park Of Pollution
By K A Shaji
The residents of a Dalit village in Kerala's Kanjikode
industrial belt have been dying a silent death
09 August, 2007
Wild
Weather A Taste Of Things To Come
By Marc Kaufman
The year still has almost five months to go, but
it has already experienced a range of weather extremes that the UN’s
World Meteorological Organisation says is well outside the historical
norm and is a precursor to much greater weather variability as global
warming transforms the planet
Asia By DU,
Africa By AIDS
By Hamid Golpira
Asia by DU, Africa by AIDS, and we can add South
America by hunger and poverty. If this is not a world depopulation program,
what is it?
Uncle Sam,
Your Banker Will See You Now
By Paul Craig Roberts
If Western financial markets are sufficiently intelligent
to comprehend the message, US interest rates will rise regardless of
any further action by China. At this point, China does not need to sell
a single bond. In an instant, China has made it clear that US interest
rates depend on China, not on the Federal Reserve
Iraqis Oppose
Oil Privatization
By Aaron Glantz
A new public opinion poll has found nearly two
thirds of Iraqis oppose plans to open the country’s oilfields
to foreign companies.The poll found a majority of every Iraqi ethnic
and religious group believe their oil should remain nationalized. Some
66 percent of Shi’ites and 62 percent of Sunnis support government
control of the oil sector, along with 52 percent of Kurds
Sectarianism Splits
Security In Diyala
By Ahmed Ali
Militia from the Shia organisation Badr have taken
over the police force in Diyala province north of Baghdad. The government
led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is believed to have backed such
infiltration, and this has reportedly led to clashes with U.S. military
leaders
America's Shame:
Two Years
After Hurricane Katrina
By The Sacramento Area Black Caucus
Two years have gone by, and Black America has failed
to respond in any coherent fashion to the catastrophe that we call Katrina:
the death of a Black city. It was in that place that the United States
proved, once and for all time, that Black life had no value, and that
the loss of Black life was considered an improvement of the social condition
Reviewing Marjorie
Cohn's "Cowboy Republic"
By Stephen Lendman
Marjorie Cohn's latest book just published, and
subject of this review, is titled "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the
Bush Gang Has Defied the Law." It provides a thorough, impressive
and incisive account of the most important ways the Bush administration
defied, defiled and weakened the rule of law and by so doing hurtled
the nation toward tyranny. This book is an essential guide to their
lawless record, its threat to the nation and world, and the desperate
need to confront it, challenge it and remove it from office before it's
too late
Nandigram
Violence A 'State Sponsored Massacre'
By People's Tribunal On Nandigram
In its final report the People's Tribunal on Nandigram
has called the violence of 14 March 2007 a 'pre-planned, state-sponsored
massacre' carried out 'to teach a lesson' to people opposing the SEZ
project on their land. It has strongly recommended continuation of the
CBI investigation, initiated by the Calcutta High Court on 15th March
but wound up in just a week
Sixty Years
Of Fake Freedom: The South Asian Story
By Partha Banerjee
Moreover, in sixty years of a fake freedom, we
South Asians ourselves have been successful to raise an apolitical,
apathetic generation wilfully ignorant of our own history and way of
life -- political, economic and cultural.Thanks to the freedom 60 years
ago, we are now completely colonized
'Whose Law And
Whose Order?'
By Mubasshir Ahmed
Justice is not a word but a complete sentence.
The Indian Muslim has only heard the word 'justice' and yet to see the
completion of the sentence. Time and again, he has been promised by
the so-called 'secular' Congress party that the sentence will be completed
by implementation of the Sri Krishna Commission report
Xenophobia, Kashmiri
style!
By Arjimand Hussain Talib
Kashmiris have always been thought as the last
ones to be chauvinists. But why are today flocks of migrant laborers
being driven out from the Valley? How did a people who are celebrated
and cherished throughout the world for their warmth and hospitality
are today feeling insecure and reacting?
07 August, 2007
US
Arms Sales Preserve Israel’s Edge
By Thalif Deen
When the United States sells state-of-the-art
weapons systems to Arab nations, it invariably provides even more lethal
and sophisticated arms to its steadfast ally, Israel, in order to help
counter the firepower of its neighbours
White Elephants
: Bush's Middle East Arms Deals
By Uri Avnery
Saudi Arabia is unable to maintain the weapons
that are flowing to it. It does not have enough pilots for the airplanes
it is buying, nor crews for the tanks. The new weaponry will collect
sand in the desert, like all the expensive weapons it has bought in
the past. So what is the sense in buying more weapons to the tune of
20 billions?
A Reflection
On Hard And Obvious Realities
By Fidel Castro
Commercial advertising and consumerism are incompatible
with the survival of the species. After all possible calculations, you
will realize that natural resources, space, climate, weather, and the
system cannot yield any other outcome, given their pace and the direction
in which they are moving
Concerning Catastrophes
And Cooperation
By Emily Spence
In the end, we, all of us, have to ask ourselves
whether we wish to have more of everything (manufactured goods, vacation
homes, holidays in far away locations and so on) in the short term or
do we want to stretch out our use of resources to give the Earth a break
to heal and to try to help ensure that future generations can more easily
survive
Reviewing Ferdinand
Lundberg's
"Cracks In The Constitution"
By Stephen Lendman
Lundberg's book was published twenty-seven years
ago, yet remains as powerfully important and relevant today as then.
Simply put, the book is a blockbuster. It's must reading to learn what
schools to the highest levels never teach about the nation's most important
document that lays out the fundamental law of the land in its Preamble,
Seven Articles, Bill of Rights, and 17 other Amendments. Lundberg deconstructs
it in depth, separating myth from reality about what he called "the
great totem pole of American society."
Geopolitical
Concerns Behind United Nations
Intervention In Darfur
By Chris Talbot
There is certainly a worsening humanitarian disaster
in Darfur—a recent UN report stated that more than half a million
people out of a total of 4.2 million affected were cut off from humanitarian
aid. But the driving force behind the proposed intervention is the interest
of the United States and the Western powers in taking more control over
this strategic region and its oil wealth
Fighting For
The Right To Learn
By Bill Quigley
The Public Education Experiment in New Orleans
Two Years after Katrina
Do Not Cry For
The Bombay Riot Victims!
By Subhash Gatade
The conspiracy of silence over the Bombay riot
victims is nothing surprising
Charging
Anti-Semitism To Silence Dissent
By Ida Audeh
Can Israel's supporters support a state in which
Jews, Muslims, and Christians have equal rights as citizens? Surely
the goal of equality among all Semites in Mandate Palestine is worth
pursuing by those who claim to be appalled by anti-Semitism
Defending Human
Rights In Palestine
By Sonia Nettnin
There are an estimated 100 unrecognized Arab villages
inside Israel. In this context, unrecognized means the Israeli Government
does not recognize these villages on any Israeli maps. Even if the people
in these villages pay taxes, most of the villages do not have paved
roads and/or access to electrical services and water
Ecuador: The
Indigenous Movement And Correa
By Federico Fuentes
Today the indigenous movement faces some real challenges.
However forging unity between this process of change and the indigenous
movement to help push forward and defend Correa as his government comes
under heavy attack from imperialism will have an important impact on
Ecuador's destiny
A Response To
Maxwell's Silver Hammer: Syracuse University Enlists In The Global War
On Terror
By Katherine Hughes
Thank you for publishing "Maxwell's Silver
Hammer: Syracuse University Enlists in the Global War on Terror"
by Linda Ford and Ira Glunts. The concern expressed in this article
is well founded
04 August, 2007
The
End Of Cheap Food
By John James
It looks like the era of cheap food is over. The
price of maize has doubled in a year, and wheat futures are at their
highest in a decade. The food price index in India has risen 11%, and
in Mexico in January there were riots after the price of corn flour
went up fourfold. The floods in England and India have devastated crops.
In nearly every country food prices are going up, and they are probably
not going to come down again
What Would The
World Be Like At 2°C?
By John James
That's when the biosphere begins to absorb less
of the CO2 that we produce, and that is a point beyond which we can't
do anything more about it. 2°C global warming leads automatically
to 3°, because of positive feedbacks. 3° leads automatically
to 4°. Once we get to that point, we wash our hands of it. There's
nothing more we can do. So we must not get to that point. That is critical.
We can't allow 2°C of warming to happen
Alberto Gonzales
And Coup Against Democracy
By Ramzy Baroud
The name of Alberto Gonzales is rapidly becoming
synonymous with all that has gone wrong under the Bush administration
Bush And Bridges
By David Swanson
Bush is visiting the site of a bridge that collapsed
in Minneapolis . He and Cheney and Congress have spent $488 billion
on the illegal occupation of Iraq, which works out to $10.7 billion
from Minnesota, or $1.2 billion from Minneapolis and St. Paul. Think
you could fix a bridge with that?
Addling Us
Not So Softy
By Rand Clifford
The first thing people think when something happens
like the bridge collapse in Minneapolis the other day: TERRORISTS! Later,
when ragheads with long scraggly beards have been ruled out as a cause,
we can sheepishly approach the reality of our infrastructure decaying
all around us while we lack funds to address the hyper-overdue problem
because there are so many foreigners with resources we covet that we
have to blow to bits
The Minnesota
Bridge Collapse:
One More Indictment Of The Profit System
By Barry Grey
Occurring during the run-up to the second anniversary
of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, the bridge disaster has once more
left people in the United States and around the world wondering in shock
and horror how it is possible that the richest nation in the world enters
the twenty-first century with a social infrastructure that is thoroughly
decayed
Bravery, Tears
And Broken Dreams
By Robert Fisk
Mount Ararat will never return to Armenia - not
to the rump state which the Soviets created in 1920 after the Turkish
genocide of one and a half million Armenians - and its presence to the
west of the capital, Yerevan, is a desperate, awful, permanent reminder
of wrongs unrighted, of atrocities unacknowledged, of dreams never to
be fulfilled
Obama Calls For
US Attack On Pakistan
By David Walsh
Speaking to the Woodrow Wilson International Center
for Scholars, Obama called for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan,
threatened unilateral attacks against Pakistan and pledged to strengthen
the US military and intelligence apparatus
British Woman
Watches In Shock As Israeli Bulldozers
Raze Her Home West Of Occupied Jerusalem
By Jennie Matthew
Six months pregnant and exhausted, British mother
Jessica Barhoum is still shocked that Israeli authorities ordered her,
her husband and their baby out of bed at daybreak and pulverized their
home
Double Standards:
Punishing The Culprits Of Violence
By Ram Puniyani
We seem to be heading for two sets of justice system
as a whole. The ones belonging to minority community, suffer maximum
in the communal carnage. They get killed, their properties are destroyed.
The guilty in these cases are generally not punished. Those aiding and
abetting these crimes get away with it and sometimes even promoted
03 August, 2007
Russia
Claims North Pole
By Anne Penketh
Russia has taken a giant leap for the Kremlin by
planting its flag on the ocean floor under the North Pole in a politically
charged symbolic gesture to claim the rights to the sea bed which could
be rich in oil and gas
A Nail In Maliki
Government's Coffin?
By Ali al-Fadhily
The recent resignations of Iraq's Army Chief of
Staff and several of his council military leaders underscore a continuing
decomposition of Iraq's U.S.-backed government
Israel’s
Jewish Problem In Tehran
By Jonathan Cook
More important than the welfare of Iranian Jewish
families, it seems, is the value of Iranian Jews as a propaganda tool
in Israel’s battle to persuade the world that coexistence with
the Muslim world is impossible. For those who want to engineer a clash
of civilizations, the 3,000-year-old Jewish legacy in Iran is not something
to be treasured, only another obstacle to war
Return Of The
Robber Barons
By Paul Craig Roberts
As the Bush Regime outfits B-2 stealth bombers
with 30,000 pound monster “bunker buster” bombs for its
coming attack on Iran, the US economy continues its 21st century decline.
While profits soar for the armaments industry, the American people continue
to take it on the chin
Maxwell's Silver
Hammer: Syracuse University
Enlists In The Global War On Terror
By Linda Ford & Ira Glunts
My alma mater now informs me that to be a citizen
of Syracuse University Maxwell School is to support continual and all-out
war against a vaguely defined “terrorist” enemy, to condone
lethal collateral damage to civilians, and to team up with Israeli military
institutions in order to learn the methods that they have found “successful”
against the Palestinians, a people they have occupied and suppressed
for over 40 years
Why Does Saudi
Arabia Need Military Aid?
By Mark Steel
Here's something they sneaked out this week with
hardly anyone noticing - the Americans have announced a "military
aid package" of sixty billion dollars for their allies in the Middle
East. This is $250 for every living American, $10 for everyone on the
planet. Are they taking each weapon out individually for a meal at the
Ivy? And $13bn of this is for Saudi Arabia. Because if there's one family
on this earth in need of financial aid, it's the Saudi royal family
Demand Destruction
- Market Failure
By Bill Henderson
Demand destruction will occur in those countries
that can't afford oil.Demand destruction will occur in farmers fields
and Third World slums. America will eat turkey, watch football and give
thanks to the Lord while millions starve, while millions starve outside
a privileged world where oil is still fungible
Migrant Workers:
Slaves Of The Twenty-First Century
By Abdol Moghset Bani Kamal
As soon as Murad Bux arrived, his 13-year-old son
and 17-year-old daughter were introduced to him. He hugged them and
wept. He was a servant of an Arab Shaikh in Qatar and his master had
allowed him to visit his family after 12 years for a duration of two
months. When he was asked how his life had gone in Qatar. His reply
was: “For me, each day has been as long as a year. As if the time
was hanged and the globe had stopped revolving around the sun”.This
is the story of thousands of Pakistani migrant workers in the Arab Sheikhdoms
Little Dreams
In Young Eyes
By Anil Gulati
Children like Rohit, Nadeem, Kanchan and Rajni
do add to the income of their respective families but they have left
their childhood far behind. They have their own little dreams in their
eyes. Many of them may not want to sell vegetables and have an ambition
of doing something big. But the big question here is who will provide
them the opportunity—opportunity to study, opportunity to grow,
opportunity to get jobs and the list is long one. Or they would end
up doing what their parents are doing and will never be able to realize
the dream, their little eyes see
Debates In Education
In Rural Tamil Nadu
By Vrunda Prabhu
Tsunami-affected community and Arunthatiars Of
SathyaMangalam
02 August, 2007
A Metallurgist’s
Insights Into
The Minneapolis Bridge Disaster
By Joel S. Hirschhorn
The incredible collapse of the Minneapolis bridge
will send a message to the nation that has been repeatedly sent for
decades, but that our political system has refused to effectively respond
to. America’s physical, engineered infrastructure has been in
desperate need for massive spending to repair and replace, but the multi-trillion-dollar
cost has been rejected by local, state and federal politicians
Climate
Criminals And Climate Genocide
By Gideon Polya
The Western world is dominated by lying, racist,
Bush-ite media who are still giving the climate criminals a free run
to pollute the planet at the expense of the Developing World. The words
of the world’s most eminent scientists, technologists and economists
are failing under the weight of corporate Mainstream media lies and
spin
An
Appeal To America's Jewish Leaders
By Thomas Daly
You hold the key to world peace in your hands and
I urge you to act now to bring about the needed changes to accomplish
this goal. Throughout the Middle East there is one, and only one prominent
problem which affects the entire region. The resolution to this problem
will bring peace to the region and greatly enhance worldwide peace efforts.
The problem is the ongoing, unresolved Israeli/Palestinian Conflict
Time To Run
For Change, America
By Pablo Ouziel
On July 25th the International Herald Tribune ran
a piece titled; "Teens march across America in lonely opposition
to war." The article talked about nineteen year old Ashley Casale
and eighteen year old Michael Israel who started their 3,000-mile walk
from San Francisco to Washington opposing the war in Iraq and hoping
that others would join them. The pair did pick up a third marcher, nineteen
year old Tom Garrett, but the masses were absent; What happened to them?
What happened to all those Americans opposing the war?
In Our Name
By Rand Clifford
Iraq is such a perfect example of CorpoGov’s
style: Based on lies we annihilated their infrastructure, perpetually
poisoned their environment with depleted uranium (DU) projectiles, killed
outright 1 out of every 45 of their population that weren’t among
the lucky millions to flee the country, and branded Iraqis who fight
the invasion and occupation as "insurgents" or "terrorists".
Now we are piggishly trying to charge them for restoration of infrastructure
we destroyed—even while demanding they surrender 75% of their
oil revenues to Big Oil for at least 30 years
Bursting Of credit
Bubble Underlies
Stock Market Turbulence
By Barry Grey
The sudden volatility on stock exchanges resembles
the fever chart of a delirious patient. It reflects fears that the near-collapse
of credit markets linked to subprime US home mortgages is spreading
more broadly and leading to a major contraction of credit throughout
the economy
US War On Terror
And Muslim Response
By Usman Khalid
The US war on terror is indeed unprecedented. It
is unprecedented in its scale which is global. It is unprecedented in
the intensity of the slaughter it entails. But there is light at the
end of the tunnel. The narrative of the resistance is simpler, more
viable and sustainable almost indefinitely. The narrative of America
has run into sand already. Without an exit strategy, it is doomed
Lal Masjid Storming:
A Beginning To Musharraf's Exit
By Jaspal Singh Sidhu
The Lal Masjid crackdown has already triggered
a bloodbath in NWFP while the Interior Ministry sounds a warning for
armed forces that hundreds of 'suicide bombers' are stalking around
to avenge the 'sacriledge' of the masjid
An Open Letter
To Dr. Manmohan Singh,
Prime Minister Of India
By Nishikant Waghmare
The Government of India must hand over the management
of one of the Holiest Shrines of world the Mahabodhi Temple, amending
the Management Act of 1949. Millions of Buddhists across the world are
upset as non-Buddhists have the control over the Holiest Shrine of Buddhists.
We Buddhist must have control over the management
01 August, 2007
US
Unveils Huge Arms Package
By Patrick Martin
The Bush administration dispatched
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates to the Middle East Monday after announcing plans to funnel a staggering
quantity of US military aid to various client regimes in the region.
A total of $63 billion in arms will be sold or supplied to Israel, Egypt,
Saudi Arabia, Jordan and five Persian Gulf sheikdoms
Reclaiming
Palestine
By Osamah Khalil
Today, Palestine and the Palestinians are divided
as never before. The West Bank and Gaza are geographically and politically
separated, and Israel's Apartheid Wall is carving the West Bank into
isolated cantons. These divisions are exacerbated by the political rift
between Fatah and Hamas and the specter of civil war
One Week In
July
By Sonja Karkar
It is the ordinary people who are suffering nearly
every human rights violation imaginable at the hands of Israel's army,
the fanatical Jewish settlers and Israel's policy makers and spin doctors
who have never seen the Palestinians as human beings
Why My Landlord
Is Expecting The Worst
By Robert Fisk
The news is all bad. Across the Middle East, it
is all bad. From the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan to the hell-disaster
in Iraq, from the mini-civil war in the Pakistani north-west frontier
to the chaos of Gaza and the occupied West Bank. This is not a time
for a "sense of possibilities". My landlord is right. Weld
the iron door to the entrance of our homes
The Resort To
Indiscriminate Killings
By Ghali Hassan
Thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians were killed
every day in one of the most premeditated and unprovoked acts of aggression
in history. Why the U.S. is resorting to indiscriminate killings of
Iraqi civilians?
A Little Easier
To Occupy From The Air
By Ali al-Fadhily
Many Iraqis believe the dramatic escalation in
U.S. military use of air power is a sign of defeat for the occupation
forces on the ground
Reviewing Linda
McQuaig's "It's The Crude, Dude"
By Stephen Lendman
Her book is divided into 10 tantalizingly titled
chapters. It was written in 2004, updated in 2006, and is just as relevant
now as when first published. Some of the story is known, but much information
covered isn't common knowledge and key parts aren't discussed at all
in the mainstream
Do We Want
A President Pelosi?
By Alex Wolfson
We must not repeat the same mistakes over, of which
the drive for impeachment is one. We must not loose sight of our real
goal, which is to end as much suffering in which we are complicit as
we can, not the removal of one or two specific men. We must continue
to fight against Bush and Cheney as tools of U.S. hegemony without ever
forgetting that the problems go far beyond any one person, one administration,
one party. The fight isn’t against them; it is against the system
of oppression itself
Wither Kashmir:
Short-Term Glory
Or Long-Term Solution
By Ather Zia
The UN Resolution albeit updated with a third option,
is the only means to pave way for a permanent solution for Kashmir
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