CounterCurrents.org Archive 2005

31 October, 2005

US Admits It Has Counted 26,000 Iraqi Dead
By Daniel Howden and David Usborne

The Pentagon has admitted for the first time that it is keeping track of civilian casualties in Iraq. The figures, slipped into a bar graph in a lengthy report to the US congress this month, show that the daily number of Iraqi casualties has more than doubled in the past 18 months

One Is Not A Bogus Number
By Linda Zoblotsky

A Response To Michelle Malkin's article "2000: A Bogus Number, A Bitter Cause"

Applauding A Military Refusenik
By John Pilger

A British officer is facing court martial because, after two tours of Iraq, he has concluded it would be illegal to return

The Political Implications Of The Libby Indictment
By Barry Grey

Friday’s indictment of I. Lewis Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Justice Department probe of the outing of a CIA agent has shaken not only the White House, but the entire political establishment in the US

Delhi Bomb Blasts And The Lashkar's
Jihadist Agenda
By Yoginder Sikand

If indeed the Lashkar was behind the Delhi blasts, it indicates that the bombastic anti-Indian and anti-Hindu appeals of the Lashkar are no empty rhetoric and that it is deadly serious about its designs of exporting terror beyond Kashmir into the rest of the country, inflaming Hindu-Muslim conflict and making the solution to the Kashmir dispute even more intractable

Stranger In Their Own Land
By V.B.Rawat

150 kilometer away from Vishakapattanam towards Orissa in the Akru Valley and Anantgiri Mandal areas, Malaria has emerged as a major epidemic killing about 2000 people in two months

30 October, 2005

Get Real On Climate Change
By Tony Blair

International unity on climate change is a must this time, says the British Prime Minister

Government For And By The Dead
By Robert Fisk

All over the globe, our leaders seem to be suffering from a severe bout of infantilism .As someone who has to look at the eviscerated corpses , I can only shake my head in disbelief

Kashmir Quake, Delhi Bombings And Our Response
By Yoginder Sikand

Yesterday's devastating blasts in Delhi have added a new dimension to the humanitarian crisis in Kashmir. It is possible that the blasts might make relief work in Kashmir by NGOs from outside the state even more difficult

Voting In Afghanistan
By Mike Whitney

The recent parliamentary elections demonstrate beyond a doubt that America's involvement has only strengthened the most reactionary and brutal elements in Afghani society. This is a clear sign that it is high-time for us to withdraw our troops and to reconsider the use of military force as the primary means of achieving foreign policy objectives

The Financial Imbalances Of A “Bizarre World”
By Nick Beams

How much longer can the imbalances in the world economy continue to grow before they give rise to a major crisis? That is the question being increasingly asked in leading financial, academic and government circles

Iraq War Is The Real“Underlying Crime”
In The Libby Indictment
By Bill Van Auken

The indictment in the CIA leak investigation of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, has deepened the political crisis of the Bush administration, while further exposing the methods of criminality and conspiracy that extend from the White House on down

29 October, 2005

A Visit To The Quake Ravaged Kashmir
By Yoginder Sikand

At the moment the most urgent need of thousands of families in the Tangdhar and Uri areas is suitable temporary shelters to help survive the harsh winter snows that are due in two weeks' time. People can no longer continue living in the tents and shacks that they have set up, and it is feared that unless they are able to make suitable temporary shelters (of tin sheets and wood) many of them, especially children, face a certain death

Two Months Later, Katrina Survivors
Are Losing The Battle
By Medea Benjamin

Two months after Katrina, the residents of New Orleans most traumatized by the hurricane and its aftermath are now traumatized in their battle to return home. And many of the city’s poor, black “Katrina survivors” are losing this second battle

Treasonous Liars And Warmongering Murderers
By Sheila Samples

Oh, yeah. I forgot. That attorney is Harriet Miers who, in my humble opinion, disqualified herself the instant she said George Bush is "the most brilliant man I have ever known..."

Now It’s About The Niger Forgeries
By Jason Leopold

Rove and Cheney caught in Fitzgerald's web

Libby's Indictment: A Window Into
The White House Cesspool
By Bernard Weiner

With Scooter Libby's indictment, the first shoe has been dropped in the Plamegate criminal case. Whether there will be other shoes is problematic

Communal Riot in Mau: A Report
By Roop Rekha Verma & Nasiruddin Haider Khan

Report of a fact finding visit to the riot hit city of Mau

28 October, 2005

The Hottest October 27 Ever
By Steve Connor

Just four days before Hallowe'en, Britain was enjoying the warmest 27 October since records began in 1880

Global Warming Threatens
Drought For Mediterranean
By Steve Connor

The Mediterranean region is the most vulnerable in Europe to climate change because of its sensitivity to drought and rising temperatures

Afghan Opium And 50,000 American Drug Deaths
By Gideon Polya

Another UK-US-linked, non-reported mass mortality reality is the post-2001, US Administration-complicit opioid drug-related death toll of about 50,000 Americans. However the Anglo-American corporate mainstream media will simply not report the Coalition-complicit drug-related deaths of tens of thousands of their own people

I Am A Very Dangerous Subversive
By Cindy Sheehan

If I go before a magistrate tonight or tomorrow after my next arrest, I will tell him/her: If you believe in what you are doing, give me the stiffest sentence possible. If you don't, then resign

Waiting For Fitzgerald
By Niranjan Ramakrishnan

Warm though it may hearts long distressed by the extent of domestic and international mayhem wrought by the confluence of incompetence, low cunning and habitual dishonesty that so characterizes the Bush-Cheney administration, the hubbub over the Fitzgerald investigation only highlights the arteriosclerosis of a polity in general decline

The Epic Crime That Dares Not Speak Its Name
By John Pilger

The attack mounted against a defenceless country offering no threat to the US or Britain, has a precedent in Hitler's invasion of Sudetenland; the lies told to justify both are eerily similar

Where Is The Grand Inquisitor When You Need Him?
By Jason Miller

Conversations on the Post 9/11 World (featuring David Barsamian's interviews with Noam Chomsky)

Prosecutor Secures Indictment In CIA Outing Case
By Jason Leopold

The prosecutor investigating the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson has secured at least one indictment in the case from a majority of the 23 grand jurors, lawyers and intelligence officials close to the case said Wednesday

Needed A Google Earth For History
By Sorit Gupto

It is said, science and technology helps human beings know about themselves, solve the mysteries of nature and understand things better. At the same time, democratic dissemination of scientific information has always disturbed the state. The ongoing hue and cry over the google earth website is a case in point

27 October, 2005

Global Warming Strengthens Hurricanes
By Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel

Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma made clear to the public there is a link between global warming and the power -- not frequency -- of hurricanes. Warm water in the Gulf of Mexico helped transform three mild tropical storms into the most powerful category of hurricanes possible

Global Temperature Management
By Prof. Chaim Scheff

A cost effective solution to global warming

Dutch Windmills At Risk From Climate Change
By Anna Mudeva

Windmills, one of the Netherlands' trademarks, may go idle because of less wind as a result of climate change, Dutch scientists predict

The Legacy Of Rosa Parks
By J.L. Chestnut Jr.

Rosa Parks passed October 24, 2005. She was an unassuming, remarkable woman who came to symbolize the black struggle in this country, and by refusing to get up out of a bus seat this humble but grand black woman taught black Americans how to stand up. She gave birth to a movement that changed America

2000, Why? Not One More
By Cindy Sheehan

Unfortunately the 2000th American death in Iraq is tragically coming up too soon. In addition to the wasted young lives in Iraq, 246 of our brave men and women have been killed in Afghanistan. Our troops and the war in Afghanistan get even less attention than Iraq, if possible

Mr. "Bring 'em On"
By Dahr Jamail

I wonder how many of those military wives recall what Mr. Bush said 1,794 dead US soldiers ago when he proudly announced, "Bring 'em on" back on July 2, 2003?

War Crimes In Afghanistan
By Eric Ruder

Shocking images from Afghanistan have again exposed the racist barbarism of the U.S. "war on terror."

Iraq Referendum Produces
A Divisive And Illegitimate Result
By James Cogan

The result of the October 15 referendum in Iraq endorsing the draft constitution will only deepen the catastrophe caused by Washington’s attempt to establish a pro-US client state in the country

'We Don't Need Al-Qaida'
By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

Abu Theeb is the leader of a band of Sunni insurgents that preys on US targets north of Baghdad. Last week he openly defied al-Qaida in Iraq by actively supporting the referendum. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad spent five days with him - and uncovered evidence of a growing split in the insurgency

Dead Fishes On Juhu Beach
By Subhash Gatade

The immersion of idols causing irreparable damage to the environment is not the only example which demonstrate how rituals of a section of people can become nuisance of sorts for the wider populace or for that matter the ecosystem itself

26 October, 2005

Iran, India And The US
By Conn Hallinan

Why was India lining up with the United States and the EU against Iran, especially since it risked alienating essential domestic allies? Why would India jeopardize its relations with Iran while it is engaged in high-stakes negotiations with Teheran over a $22 billion natural gas deal, and a $5 billion oil pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan?

Condi Rice And Syrian Regime Change
By Paul Craig Roberts

Someone should tell Condi Rice that the gig is up. With the Bush administration dissolving in illegalities committed by key officials in their attempts to protect the lies that they used to justify the US invasion of Iraq, the secretary of state is trying to ramp up war against Syria

Casualties Of A War A World Away
By Jamie Wilson Washington

Elaina Morton's is thought to be the first confirmed case of a war widow committing suicide, and as the US toll in Iraq yesterday hit the grim 2,000 landmark her death is proof of the immeasurable emotional toll that the conflict has put on families of servicemen and women

Climate Change 'Could Ruin Drive
To Eradicate Poverty'
By Steve Connor

Britain's most senior independent scientist has warned that global warming threatens to ruin the international initiative to lift Africa out of poverty

Polar Regions Take Centre Stage In Climate Crisis
By Jeremy Lovell

World scientists are aiming to spell out in graphic detail the threat of flooding faced by millions of people from America to Asia as global warming melts the polar ice caps

Al-Jazeera: The New Power On The Small Screen
By Paul Vallely

It only started broadcasting in 1996 but the Qatar-based station has already changed the face of broadcasting. Now even the BBC World Service is launching an Arabic-language channel

25 October, 2005

Escaping The Road To Extinction
By Bill Henderson

Those concerned with both global warming and peak oil must be innovative to free up governance so that necessary change is possible, so that more futures are possible. Freeing up our ability to make needed change is the first challenge and then - How do we rapidly evolve the governance framework to manage man and create a sustainable economy so that we don't destroy the natural systems humanity is ultimately completely dependent upon?

The House Of Cards
By Dan Benbow

The severe weather disruptions over the past decade have come from a gain of just one degree Fahrenheit over the last century. The next century will bring an increase of one degree minimum, and probably more, as oil consumption in the United States and developing countries continues to grow. Reputable climate science predicts more of what we’ve already seen and worse

Global Warming Takes Toll On Africa's Coral Reefs
By Reuters

Global warming is taking a toll on coral reefs off east Africa, which will likely be killed off in a few decades if sea surface temperatures continue to rise, a leading researcher warned

Australia Threatened By US State Terrorism
By Gideon Polya

Australia is irrationally expanding draconian civil rights-abusing anti-terror laws in response to right-wing media and politician hysteria over “non-state terrorism”

War, Peace And Arms Control In The Bronze Age
By Stephen Edward Seadler

Since Wars Begin In The Minds Of Men It Is In The Minds Of Men That The Defenses Of Peace Must Be Constructed.This is also about combatting racism, religionism, ethnicism and all manner of malignant ideologies of oppression. And about building genuine Peace -- for the first time in hominid history. Where there is no vision, the people perish

Set Back To Amity Initiatives In Ayodhya
By Ram Puniyani

Under the influence of VHP a section of Hanuman Garhi mahants filed a case in the court that Roza Iftar is against the by laws of the temple, and court ruled in their favor. Also, many a VHP activists sat on a Dharna in front of Hanuman Garhi to oppose the Muslims entry into the temple premises for the Roza Iftar party

Untouchability In A Flat World
By Kancha Ilaiah

My visit to the famous Wheaton College in Chicago to deliver two lectures on caste and untouchability was an eye-opening experience. It struck me how students remained ignorant of the world around them even in a globalised world. It is an alarming thought that these are the future citizens of the world

23 October, 2005

Invading Iran: Who Is ToStop Them?
By Joshua Frank

If the Bush administration wants it, they'll get it. The threat of hurricanes and indictments isn't going to stop these crazy guys. Nor will the Democrats, France, or that fallible United Nations. Nope, nothing is going to step in their way. Even if what they want is war on Iran

Attack Syria? Invade Iran? By What Constitution?
By Jeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith

Regimes facing military embarrassment are notorious for expanding the theater of war – witness Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam war into Cambodia. And the same delusions that got us into Iraq – from imaginary threats of illicit weapons to dreams of welcome from cheering crowds – are being repeated about Iran and Syria

20 October, 2005

Legal Lynching Of Saddam Hussein
By James Cogan

The trial of Saddam Hussein that began yesterday in Baghdad, under the auspices of the US-created Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (SICT) and the US-sponsored Iraqi government, is a legal travesty

Again Children The Worst Sufferer
By Joseph Gathia

Thousands of children in regions devastated by South Asia's earthquake are at risk of death from cold, malnutrition and disease

Civilization And compassion At The Dawn
Of The twenty-First Century
By Aseem Srivastava

Three earthquakes, a genocide, three invasions and a world war

Kevin Zeese's Antiwar Campaign
For The U.S. Senate
By Joshua Frank

Lawyer and antiwar activist Kevin Zeese is taking on the two war parties by seeking an open US Senate seat from Maryland

Cheney Under Scrutiny
By Jason Leopold

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is trying to determine whether Vice President Dick Cheney had a role in the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame-Wilson

Where's The Party?
By Todd Huffman

Six weeks after Katrina, rescuers are still reporting no signs of the Democratic Party. Even back in Washington, where mobs of rich, white Republicans are amassing atop the Capitol building frantically awaiting Coast Guard airlifts out of a city awash in a flood of cronyism, corruption and incompetence, Democrats are nowhere to be found

Surrender is Not An Option
By Jason Miller

Regardless of what happens, the millions of Americans seeking sanity, justice and peace need to disregard surrender as an option. We owe our unwavering perseverance to future generations, the rest of the world, and to ourselves

The Bush Nemesis
By Sidney Blumenthal

Rightwingers in the US are still not satisfied by the most conservative president in decades

17 October, 2005

Planet Sees Warmest September On Record
By Associated Press

Worldwide, it was the warmest September on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday. Averaging 1.13 degrees Fahrenheit (0.63 degree Celsius) above normal for the month, it was the warmest September since the beginning of reliable records in 1880, according to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center

Not To Be Sneezed At
By Mark Honigsbaum

Bird flu could kill 1 billion, or it could peter out. Whatever the outcome, we must be vigilant

Hugo Chávez And The Politics of Race
By Nikolas Kozloff

As the war of words heats up between the Bush White House and Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, the firebrand South American leader has boldly sought to forge ties with poor communities of color in the United State

The Silence Of Writers
By John Pilger

Harold Pinter recently won the nobel prize for literature. John Pilger reminds us that While other writers have slept or twittered, Pinter has been aware that people are never still, and indeed are stirring again

Good Amrican's- Democracy's Grave Diggers?
By Sheila Samples

Good Americans, like their 1930s German counterparts, have already racked up a legacy of despair, misery and unbearable shame their children -- and ours -- must ultimately bear. It does not matter if Good Americans sit on the high court, if they are members of Congress, if they are propaganda conduits in the media, or if they are military ordered to turn on the very people they are sworn to protect, they are gravediggers of freedom and democracy. They will be the death of us all

The Mindless American: A Tragedy In The Making
By Doug Soderstrom

The most dangerous thing one can do is to tell the truth…… the sentence for which, one way or the other, is always death!

Death Of A salesman
By Amr Ismail

It is not only enough to lead G. W. Bush in handcuffs, but also to remove corrupt corporate magnets and religious zealots, who continue to write the job description for the position of the White House salesman, from the social and the political spectrum

16 October, 2005

Iraqis To Vote On Neo-Colonial Constitution
By James Cogan

The referendum today in Iraq on the draft constitution is a cynical and, for the Iraqi people, humiliating event. Far from an exercise in self-determination, it is the next stage in a US-crafted, but increasingly crisis-ridden process aimed at turning Iraq into an American client state in the Middle East.

The Referendum...
By Baghdad Burning

Iraqis are going to be voting according to religious clerics and, in some areas, tribal sheikhs. They aren’t going to be voting according to their convictions or their understanding of what is supposed to be a document that will set the stage for Iraqi laws and regulations

Man Will 'Wipe Out' Rare Creatures Of The Deep
By Severin Carrell

The deep ocean is one of the world's last great wildernesses. But not for long. Two kilometres below the surface, scores of rare and exotic species are being wiped out at a dramatic rate

Opportunity Knocks
By Remi Kanazi

Formal talks between Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were put on hold this week. The first face to face dialogue between the two since the "disengagement" of the Gaza Strip was sidelined for a second time because of a difference in "objectives."

Daniel Ortega: A victim Of U.S. Power
By Leigh Saavedra

Every night I say the equivalent of a prayer that Hugo Chavez doesn't eat anything that hasn't been tested. His is a country of hope now, and I look at it and remember Nicaragua and realize that there is no end to what my own country will do to people who dare to seriously dream of freedom, who dare to question whether the U.S. way is the best way for the rest of the world

No Burial For Balakot
By Pervez Hoodbhoy

Four days later, they are still not even trying to extricate the dead in the town of Balakot, flattened by an earthquake that hit Northern Pakistan on the morning of October 8. From under the rubble of collapsed buildings, a gut-wrenching smell of decaying corpses now fills the town

RSS And The Politics Of Disaster Relief
By Ra Ravishankar

Not surprisingly, if there is one set of people that's smugly delighted with the earthquake that has devastated Pakistan, it has got to be the Hindu fascists owing allegiance to the RSS ideology. RSS apologists routinely point to its alleged relief work during disasters (as if this could compense for its numerous crimes), but a peek into the Hindutva listservs offers a different reality

Against The flow
By Joe Athialy

Commodification of water is increasingly being resisted

10 October, 2005

Iraq And Peak Oil
By Bill Henderson

What then were the real underlying reasons for aggression in Iraq? And, removing the fig-leaf of self-defense, why does it matter to Americans and the rest of us global citizens now?

How The US Erase Women’s Rights In Iraq
By Ghali Hassan

Since the U.S. invasion, Iraqi women’s rights have fallen to the lowest level in Iraq’s history. Under the new U.S.-crafted constitution, which will be put to referendum on the 15 October while the bloodbath mounts each day, women’s rights will be oppressed and the role of women in Iraqi society will be curtailed and relegated to the caring for “children and the elderly”

A Horrid Reality
By Sheila Samples

Because of world opinion and media coverage, we lucked out on this one, but the next "national emergency" -- possibly a flu pandemic -- could be democracy's last hurrah. Bush is already boasting of using the military to "quarantine" those affected. And it won't be in our homes

We Can’t Let It Happen Here
By Jason Miller

In 1935, Sinclair Lewis published It Can't Happen Here, his depiction of a "democratically elected" US president imposing a tyranny on Americans. In 2005, life is imitating art. However, there are those of us who are willing to sacrifice and endure whatever is necessary for the cause of a more humane and just government and society

Leveeathan
By Niranjan Ramakrishnan

Disdain for the simple and the drowning of American pragmatism

Earth Book I: Walden-Thoreau's
Emergent Deep Ecology Intratext
By Chuck Richardson

There are many valid readings of Henry David Thoreau, most centering on Walden. But the two most common these days seem typified by Leo Marx, an MIT professor and book editor, and Lawrence Buell, an ecocentric Harvard English professor

Defining Minorities In A Democratic Setup
By Ram Puniyani

By asserting that only Jews and Parsis are minorities,RSS chief Sudarshan wants to do away with the safeguards for weaker religious denominations, especially Muslims and Christians, who are the major victims of RSS progeny's Trishuls and Lathis

08 October, 2005

God Told Me To Invade Iraq
By Rupert Cornwell

President George Bush has claimed he was told by God to invade Iraq and attack Osama bin Laden's stronghold of Afghanistan as part of a divine mission to bring peace to the Middle East, security for Israel, and a state for the Palestinians

Bush Responds To Political Crisis With
Lies And New War Threats
By Bill Van Auken

President George W. Bush’s speech Thursday on “the war on terror” constitutes a sobering measure of both his government’s desperate political crisis and the threat that it will try to extricate itself from this crisis through escalating militarism

The Illegality Of Iraq’s Constitution
By Dahr Jamail

US influence in the process of drafting a constitution for Iraq is excessive and "highly inappropriate", a United Nations official says

Climate Change And Human Health
By Paul R. Epstein

Extreme weather events, we are witnessing today, reflect massive and ongoing changes in our climate to which biologic systems on all continents are reacting

Has The Age Of Chaos Begun?
By Mike Davis

The good parent in me, however, screams: How is it possible that we can now contemplate with scientific seriousness whether our children's children will themselves have children? Let Exxon answer that in one of their sanctimonious ads

Foreign Capital Pours Into China’s Banks
By John Chan

A flood of foreign investment into China’s largest state-owned commercial banks (SCBs) since last year has signalled the start of a process that will have major economic ramifications

07 October, 2005

Martial Law And The Advent Of
The Supreme Executive
By Mike Whitney

This is the essential vision of the globalists who currently control all the levers of state-power in Washington. They've now articulated their intention to use any conceivable national tragedy to achieve their objective of colonizing America through force of arms and establishing the supreme authority of the president

Bush Seizes On Flu Threat To Press For Martial Law Power
By Bill Van Auken

President Bush Tuesday seized on the threat of a global bird flu pandemic to press yet again for the legislative changes to grant him power to deploy US combat troops in police operations on American soil

Leading Indian Daily Calls For Suppression
Of Strikes And Unions
By Keith Jones

The New Indian Express, one of India’s leading English-language dailies, published an extraordinary editorial in its issue of Friday, September 30, calling for the outlawing of strikes and trade unions

Is the Dollar Still Falling?
By Robert Pollin

The historical transition away from 25 years of neoliberal ascendancy will only come when the "no" to neoliberalism votes, such as in France and the Netherlands, can be transformed into positive and successful programs and movements throughout the world

In Defense Of Lew Rockwell
By Joshua Frank

Recently Jacob Laksin over at the ridiculous Frontpagemag.com snapped at Lew Rockwell, the libertarian-minded editor of the popular LewRockwell.com, for aligning himself with the most "unhinged elements of the far left." AKA Cindy Sheehan, Stan Goff et al

The Discrepancy Between Missing People
And Confirmed Fatalities In Mississippi
By Dr. Ben Marble

There has been a considerable discrepancy between the 1172 individuals reported as 'missing' in Harrison County, MS. and the 96 confirmed fatalities

Crony Contractors Clean Up On Katrina
By Charlie Cray

FEMA has given out huge no-bid contracts for post-hurricane debris removal and reconstruction: contracts guaranteeing that many of the companies now looting U.S. taxpayers in Iraq will be cleaning up from the Gulf Coast disaster

IMC-USA Convention A Huge Success
Press Release

The third annual convention of the Indian Muslim Council - USA, an advocacy group dedicated to protecting the rights of minorities and promoting pluralism, was a huge success

05 October, 2005

Bush Wants Right To Use Military If Bird Flu Hits
By Charles Aldinger

President George W. Bush asked Congress on Tuesday to consider giving him powers to use the military to enforce quarantines in case of an avian influenza epidemic

The Iraqis Rights To Be Free
By Ghali Hassan

With the continuing US attacks on Iraqi population centres, the Bush administration appeared more desperate than ever to force the new US-crafted constitution on the Iraqi people

Daniel Ortega: The Washington Post's
Target Of The Week
By Leigh Saavedra

Yesterday, The Washington Post did it again, published a "warning" propped up by blatant lies that refer to Daniel Ortega as someone who tried to install a "Marxist dictatorship." It's an editorial in the October 3 edition, called "Nicaragua's Creeping Coup"

Air Raids Terrorize Gaza Residents,
Target Key Infrastructure
By Jon Elmer

Israel’s first major air campaign against Gazans since its August departure from the Strip has ruined important facilities, injured noncombatants and introduced sonic booms as a new tactic

Friday Night Lights: Game Time In Gaza
By Remi Kanazi

For now, terror's light switch is turned off, but it is only a matter of time before Israel decides to turn it back on. Meanwhile, Palestinian life remains on edge and inconsistent. Those in Israel must come forward and denounce the decisions of Ariel Sharon, if not the switch to peace will remain off indefinitely

The Gold Star Mother And The Silver Star Senator
By Linda Zoblotsky

Cindy and the thousands who marched in DC last week-end were trying to tell the hard headed capitalists on Capital Hill and the hard headed Senator from the Grand Canyon State, that it is going to take a grand change of heart and mind to pause and see where we are headed in this war against a nation that did not attack us

Are Liberal Abortion Laws
Responsible For Female Foeticide?
By Pavan Nair

When the state whether by default or intent encourages the use of abortion as a method to restrict the number of children in a family, then the law can be misused to have children of the preferred gender. This is exactly what has happened in India

Ali Anwar's Struggle
By Ali Anwar &Yoginder Sikand

Ali Anwar is the founder of the Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz ('Marginalised Muslim Front'), Patna, Bihar, a union of several Dalit Muslim and Backward Caste Muslim organisations. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand, he talks about his involvement in the struggle for the rights of the Backward Caste/Dalit Muslims

Internet, Global Resistance And Meghbarta
By Anu Muhammad

Celebrating seventh birthday of internet patrika, webzine, www.meghbarta.org , the first of its kind in Bangladesh

04 October, 2005

Melting Planet
By Andrew Buncombe & Severin Carrell

Climate change threatens the survival of thousands of species - a threat unparalleled since the last ice age, which ended some 10,000 years ago

Preparing For Global Warming
By Carl Pope

After Katrina, our country has never been more ready to embrace a new energy future to make us more secure in every way. In failing to recognize this, our leaders in Washington have exposed themselves as dangerously out of touch

The Party Is Over
By Jeff Berg

The reality of today and the future of tomorrow is not limitless but bounded. Bounded by geology, hydrology, emissions and sinks. Bounded by soil salination, population, desertification and we had better not blink. It is time for us to put our eyes back on the ball. (one will no longer do) The party is over, our leadership has failed us, it is past time to put public opinion back into public policy

Viewing Terrorism Through A Different Lens
By Jason Miller

A true victory in the “war on terror” would involve eradicating the US terrorist state and criminally prosecuting those who have perpetrated the associated war crimes. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and many others in that foul administration belong in Guantanamo Bay with those they have deemed to be terrorists

Bali A Soft Target
By Marianne Kearney

Lulled into a false sense of security by the logic that lightning does not strike the same place twice, thousands of tourists had been returning to Bali over the past two years, only to be caught up again in another attack

How The World Was Duped:
The Race To Invade Iraq
By Robert Fisk

When Colin Powell made his notorious final pitch for war at the UN Security Council, Robert Fisk was there. In the latest extract from his explosive new book, he recalls a tragi-comic occasion

Who Gave Lynndie The Leash?
By Lucinda Marshall

The Scapegoating of Private England

Constitution Conversations...
By Baghdad Burning

Most of the people who do want to vote, will vote for or against the constitution based not on personal convictions, but on the fatwas and urgings of both Sunni and Shia clerics

I Like Women Like Me!
By Sruti Bala

Palestinian women bring sexuality onto the political agenda

Hurricane Gaza
By Yacov Ben Efrat

As a unilateral act, Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip raises basic questions for both sides in the conflict. For Israel, there is the question of how to define its deed: “Should we declare that the occupation of Gaza is over?” No less important are the questions Palestinians are asking: “Is this a victory? If so, who should get credit?”

What The Gruesome Images Say
By John Chuckman

How utterly reckless to just casually start wars without realizing that releasing the human monsters from their cages always is part of what you are doing. If Americans ever come to understand that simple fact, the world will be a better place

02 October, 2005

Is Time Running Out For Iran?
By Abid Mustafa

After having spent nine months supporting Germany, Britain and France (EU-3) in getting Iran to surrender her nuclear ambitions, America finally took one step closer towards confronting Tehran and controlling Iran's vast energy reserves

Does Breast Cancer Awareness Save Lives?
By Lucinda Marshall

It would seem logical to start by asking why the incidence of breast cancer keeps increasing despite advancements in early detection and the continual development of new treatments

New Orleans Prisoners Left To Drown
After Katrina Struck
By Fergus Michaels

A statement issued by Human Rights Watch reports that the New Orleans Sheriff’s Department abandoned hundreds of prisoners in the Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) compound for several days after Hurricane Katrina hit on August 29

The Gladiators
By Uri Avnery

The contest between Binyamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon in the Likud Central Committee resembled a duel between two gladiators in the Roman arena. The more so since many of the Committee members behaved like the Roman rabble who screamed, rioted and demanded blood

Australian Government’s Forestry Package Fails
To Protect Leatherwood Honey Industry
By Rich Bowden

The Australian state of Tasmania’s much publicized Community Forestry Agreement, jointly announced by Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon in May, does not go far enough in protecting Leatherwood resources to guarantee a viable future for the state’s honey industry according to an industry expert

Roman à clef
By Sue Summers

In the first interview since he won his libel case against Vanity Fair, Polanski talks exclusively about his new version of Oliver Twist, which echoes his own childhood growing up in the shadow of the Nazis in Poland

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