15
June, 2004
More
Land Grab In West Bank
Under the smokescreen of the widely-reported plan
for an Israeli intended disengagement from the Gaza Strip,
Israeli have started to annex 150 kilometers in the northern West Bank
while plans are underway for building a new illegal Jewish settlement
south of Jerusalem
Rioting Follows Bombings
That Kill 21
In some of the worst rioting since the fall of
Baghdad, hundreds of Iraqis threw stones at U.S. soldiers, burned an
American flag and danced around the charred body of a foreign contractor
Report
From Baghdad: What Went Wrong In Iraq
By Mark Juergensmeyer
As I discovered in a recent visit to Baghdad, Iraq
is in dire need of reconstruction -- not only from the miseries of Saddam
Husseins long dictatorship, but also from the failed policies
of the one-year occupation by Americas Coalition administration,
which has left demoralization, humiliation, and a weak security and
economic infrastructure in its wake
Americans, Iraqis
Vie For Control Of Security Forces
By Dahr Jamail
Even as authorities for the US-run occupation cede
a greater share of security responsibilities to Iraqi forces, spokespeople
for the Iraqi police and paramilitaries in many areas of the war-torn
country say they lack the legitimacy and tools necessary to carry out
their duties
EU Elections: A
Disaster For Ruling Parties
By Andrea Noll
In the EU elections ruling parties on a national
level faced weak, sometimes disastrous, results - no matter if Socialdemocrats
(f.e. in Great Britain, Germany, in most of the new EU member states)
or Conservatives (f.e. in France, Italy, Malta)
The Anti-War Vote
In Great Britain
By Victo Kattan
Blair will need to get a grip on this country if
racial tensions are not to spill out onto the streets. New Labour has
been shaken. It can no longer assume that a third term is inevitable
Social Stratification
Among Muslims In India
By Salil Kader
The Muslims of India have gained the dubious distinction
of sustaining a highly prejudiced and devious system of social stratification,
which is nowhere to be found in the rest of the Muslim world. The community
would do itself a great favour by purging this evil from within its
character
How The Bharatiya
Mundan Party
Took The Experience Of Defeat
By Githa Hariharan
Even a leader like Milosevic appeared on national
television in October 2000 to make a gracious speech conceding defeat.In
the elections of 2004, we witnessed a somewhat different kind of response
to defeat a response that ranged from sulky silence to farcical
theatrics
14 June, 2004
Red
Cross Ultimatum To US On Saddam
By Jonathan Steele
The International Committee of the Red Cross has
asked that Saddam Hussein must either be released from custody by June
30 or charged if the US and the new Iraqi government are to conform
to international law
Violence Engulf
Baghdad
By Dahr Jamail
Several of us are sitting in the hotel room having
lunch, watching the news trying to keep up with the violence daily engulfing
Iraq. Let me give you a quick rundown from the last 24 hours
Myths About
Private Sector Reservation
By Chandrabhan Prasad
The Congress' "national level dialogue"
slogan, and the Maharashtra government's legislation on job reservations
in the private sector have infused new blood and hope among the unemployed
Dalit youth.What is, however, missing in this euphoria is the limitation
of the "emancipatory" role these jobs can play
Can Science
Be Women-friendly?
By Kalpana Sharma
Each time a woman becomes an aeronautical engineer,
or a nuclear physicist, or excels in some area previously considered
a male preserve, she is applauded and celebrated, but strictly as an
exception
13 June, 2004
Use
Of Dogs Was Authorized
By Josh White and Scott Higham
The Washington Post releases new prison torture
and abuse pictures
I Can
Still Remember Their Screaming.
By Dahr Jamail
Overshadowed by more dramatic stories like car
bombs and heavy fighting, the silent suffering that has become the daily
reality here just isnt catching much attention
The Fallacy of
Righteous America
By Ghali Hassan
My advice to Americans is to take a hard look in
the mirror, and ask yourselves why your country is committing horrendous
terrorist acts on the soils of other countries
Baghdad Fumes
As The Americans Seek
Safety In 'Tombstone' Forts
By Patrick Cockburn
The US army is paralyzing the heart of Baghdad
as it builds ever more elaborate fortifications to protect its bases
against suicide bombers
Sharon, The
Enigma?
By Samer Elatrash
Sharons disengagement plan is
no proof that Sharon is willing to pay the painful price
for peace, but it is evidence that in Sharon, the State of Israel has
again found a Prime Minister who is willing to pay the price for gaining
timetime to allow the repression of the Israeli army and the creation
of more facts on the ground to lead to an irreversible situation,
which would rule out the establishing of a viable Palestinian state
west of the Jordan River
12 June, 2004
Civilian
Death Toll Rises In Sadr City
By Dahr Jamail
According to Dr. Ali Jumali at Khadasiyah Hospital,
the only facility in Sadr City with a morgue, 221 residents from the
area who died as a result of the fighting were brought to the morgue
between May 4 and May 31. Dr. Jumali said another 100 bodies were sent
to Adnan Hospital in central Baghdad during the same time frame
Holiday In
A War Zone
By Dahr Jamail
Even up in restful Kurdistan the symptoms of war
and unrest remain. One must be patient at the checkpoints and be wary
of where one parks the car
A Torturer's
Charter
By Richard Norton-Taylor
Secret documents show that US interrogators are
above the law
Interview
With Noam Chomsky
By Noam Chomsky and Timo Stollenwerk
An interview with Chomsky about theimplications
his writing and activism have on European countries, especially Germany
10 June, 2004
BBC
Starts Worrying Over Peak Oil
By Adam Porter
If you think oil prices are high at $40 a barrel
then wait till they are four times that much
Bush Still Screwing
Iraq And America
By Sam Hamod
Not only did Bush succeed in putting his puppets
back into the governance of Iraq, he also stabbed Brahimi and the UN
in the backall to the detriment of Iraq
Bush's Anti-union
Record
By Joel Wendland
A recently released AFL-CIO report on the Bush
administration's record titled "Bush Watch" shows the White
House occupant to be a dismal failure as well as decidedly anti-working-class.
Not a big surprise, right? Let's look at the record
'They Want Us
To Emigrate'
By Dan de Luce
Thanks to Makhmalbaf and Kiarostami, Iranian cinema
is acclaimed around the world. But can its film-makers survive Iran's
new conservative censors?
The Gender
Experience At
Aligarh Muslim University
By Nazia Y.Izuddin
Aligarh Muslim University is a romantic dream for
Muslims all over the world. But for the girl students of the university
it is not so romantic when they are discriminated for their gender
09 June, 2004
US
Ignorance Is A Threat To Humanity
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
In the case of a superpower, ignorance is not bliss;
it is a threat to Americans and to humanity
Questions With
No Answers
By Ali Abunimah
Does UN Secretary General Kofi Annan think that
Palestinians have a right to defend themselves against the kinds of
violent attacks and destruction Israel is carrying out in Rafah refugee
camp?
08 June, 2004
Fake
Sovereignty For Iraq
By Ghali Hassan
The so called sovereignity is merely a name change,
IGC to IIG. Mr. Negroponte, the American Proconsul (aka "U.S. Ambassador")
will replace Mr. Bremer after June 30th
Who
Is To Run The World, And How?
By Noam Chomsky
We have just passed the first anniversary of the
President's declaration of victory in Iraq. I won't speak about what
is happening on the ground. There is more than enough information about
that, and we can draw our own conclusions. I will just mention one aspect
of it: What has happened to Iraqis?
More On The Destruction
Of Rafah
By Gideon Levy
One of the 120 homes demolished by the IDF in the
Brazil refugee camp belonged to architect Manal Awad. This was the third
time since 1948 that her family has been left homeless - and the second
time that Ariel Sharon was responsible
Riding
Bicycles
By George Monbiot
Oil is running out, but the west would rather wage
wars than consider other energy sources
07 June, 2004
To
Drink From The Sea Of Gaza
By Uri Avnery
"By the end of 2005, not a single Jew will
remain in the Gaza Strip!" claims the new Gaza disengagement plan.This
reminds us of the classic Jewish joke about the Polish nobleman who
threatens his Jew with death if he does not teach his beloved horse
to read and write
Pollution Chokes
The Tigris
By Dahr Jamail
With reconstruction of a highly inadequate water
treatment and distribution system at a near standstill throughout much
of Central Iraq, some residents of Baghdad are left with little choice
but to drink highly polluted water from the Tigris River
The Euro's
Big Chance
By Niall Ferguson
The dollar's reign as the world's undisputed reserve
currency could be drawing to a close
06 June, 2004
Global
warming: Skating On Thin Ice
By Norm Dixon
Hollywoods latest blockbuster, The Day After
Tomorrow, has triggered the release of vast amounts of hot air from
fossil-fuel industry funded greenhouse skeptics. They fear
the film will focus peoples political concern on the very real
dangers posed by increasing industry-induced global warming
Scouting
For Foot Soldiers In Dhaka
By Anu Muhammad
US Defense Secretary, Donald H Rumsfeld, arrived
in Dhaka in search of foot soldiers for the US war machine in either
Iraq or Afghanistan
Pattern Emerges
of Sexual Assault
Against Women Held by U.S. Forces
By Chris Shumway
Well publicized images of US soldiers torturing
and humiliating male Iraqi prisoners may be overshadowing evidence gathered
by several human rights groups and Pentagon investigators indicating
US military personnel have raped and sexually abused Iraqi women held
at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities
Dalits Cheated
Once Again
By Chandrabhan Prasad
Buy diluting the promises made to the Dalits in
their election manifesto in the the Common Minimum Programme, Congress
has dented its own image among the politically conscious section of
Dalits. Even Sonia Gandhi is perceived as a suspect, howsoever unfair
it may be
New Secular
Government And Its Secular Tasks
By Asghar Ali Engineer
The government by the United Progressive Alliance
inspires confidence among minorities and the poor. However, this initial
confidence has not only to be sustained but strengthened through proper
action
05 June, 2004
No
Special Effects With Nature
By Renato Redentor Constantino
The Day after Tomorrow is science fiction, but
global warming is real. Will the movie end up trivializing the impact
of climate change and thus increase indifference? Or will it spur more
people to take action? Too early to tell. Is reality more frightening
than Hollywood? With nature there are no special effects, only consequences
Pope
Lectures Bush On America's Duties
By Peter Popham
Pope John Paul II read President George Bush a
stiff public lecture on America's duties in the world during an audience
at the Vatican. Mr Bush listened to the Pope's words with eyebrows raised
and an expression of frozen geniality on his face
The Horror Of
Mere Listening
By Dahr Jamail
Even just listening to the horror stories told
by Iraqis is a harrowing experience. We end up crying with the victims
I Have Been In
Torture Photos, Too
By Gerry Adams
The Abu Ghraib images are all too familiar to Irish
republicans.Gerry Adams , president of Sinn Féin and MP for Belfast
West recounts how he was treated in jail
The
Price Of Failure In Iraq
By David Hirst
The US Iraqi enterprise was meant to transform
the entire Middle East to the benefit of the Americans. Ironically,
it is the US failure now that threatens to spread elsewhere
Welcome UPA, Without
Illusions
By Praful Bidwai
Unlike the common minimum programme of the United
Progressive Alliance, government formation has been messy and driven
by exigencies. P Chidambaram is an ideologically driven neo-liberal
who, like many other Harvard Business School graduates, remains dedicated
to "free-market" doctrines. Neither Mukherjee nor Shivraj
Patil can be accused of being imaginative or firm in adhering to principle
04 June, 2004
Rafah
- Hell On Earth
By Chris Mcgreal
Last month, Israeli troops swept into the Rafah
refugee camp in Gaza, bulldozing hundreds of homes and leaving around
60 dead. Israel says it was looking for terrorists, but by the time
the army withdrew, 1,600 people were homeless. What happens to the people
whose houses are destroyed? Chris McGreal asked six families to show
him what they salvaged from the rubble
Rafah Counting
The Dead
By Laila El-Haddad
At least 1650 Rafah residents were made homeless
here within a span of 72 hours. Fifty-five Palestinians, mainly civilians,
were killed and at least 200 others injured. Almost all were unarmed
Priest Stands Up
To The Wall
By Larry Fata
The Santa Marta dei Padri Passionisti monastery
is located at the confluence of East Jerusalem, Abu Dis and Al-Izariyyeh
(Bethany), the latter the biblical home of the sisters Mary and Martha
and their brother Lazarus.The Israeli authorities want to build their
wall right through the monastery grounds
Violence In
Baghdad,Wordplay In Falluja
By Dahr Jamail
Car bombs are becoming a daily occurrence in Baghdad,
and there is nothing the locals can do about it
Auto Emissions
Killing Thousands
By Julio Godoy
Unrestrained consumption of fossil fuels is killing
tens of thousands of people in Europe, new studies say.In France alone
automobile emissions kill up to 10,000 people per year
That's Not The
Democracy We Want"
By Tariq Ali & Tareq Al-Arab
Tariq Ali, author of "The Clash of Fundamentalisms"
and renowned critical intellectual, talks about Islam and the West and
about reforms in the Islamic world
India Is Not
Shining For The Dalits
By Neelesh Mishra
The lower castes, 80 percent of India's 1 billion
people by government estimate, are still at the bottom in most social
indicators -- education, income, employment, asset ownership and debt.
It is extremely rare to find a Dalit software engineer, scientist or
bank executive
03 June, 2004
Iraq's
New President Just Figurehead?
By Dahr Jamail
Al-Yawer has earned a reputation among Iraqis for
standing up to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) when he felt
it necessary. But the presidential role to be filled by Al-Yawer is
ironically an all but powerless one under the mandate of the interim
government
New President,
New Car Bomb
By Dahr Jamail
Rather than celebratory gunfire for the appointment
of a new president, we have a car bomb, a huge mushroom cloud and whaling
sirens in the center of the capital city today
Neo-Con
Collapse In Washington And Baghdad
By Jim Lobe
Fourteen months after reaching the zenith of their
influence on U.S. foreign policy with the invasion of Iraq, neo-conservatives
appear to have fallen entirely out of favor, both within the administration
of President George W Bush and in Baghdad itself
Iraqi
Death Toll Amounts to a Holocaust
By Gideon Polya
The actual Iraqi death toll is not being reported and publicly discussed.
Ignoring mass human mortality in Iraq amounts to holocaust denial. pdf
file
Who Is Negroponte?
By Ghali Hassan
The White House has just approved the appointment
of John Dimitris Negroponte to be United States ambassador to Iraq.To
appoint a Jew as ambassador to the Arab country that has been devastated
because of the will of a cabal of Jewish neocons headed by Wolfowitz
is like trying to put off a fire using buckets of gasoline
Barbarians At
The Gate
By Nick Pretzlik
The occupation of Palestinian land, and the harsh
methods employed to maintain it, have corrupted Israeli civil society.
Poison, which entered the body politic and infected the head, now contaminates
the nation as a whole
Sonia Gandhi And
The Hypocrisy
Of The Saffron NRIs
By Vijay Prashad
In the darkest of nights, the stars are seen clearest.
The rule of Hindutva was a dark night, and the struggles of India's
people had the luster of stars. Let us hope that these stars will rule
their leaders, egg them to justice and refuse to entertain intolerance
and cruelty again
02 June, 2004
Oil
Price Strikes New High
By Reuters
The latest price rise has raised doubts about whether
an expected increase in supplies from a Thursday OPEC meeting in Beirut
will be enough to tame prices
Desperate For
Food
By Dahr Jamail
The increased number of women and children begging
for dinars on the streets of Baghdad shows, more than anything else,
how desperate the Iraqis are for food
Celebrating Life
In Rafah
By Ramzy Baroud
A Palestinian friend of mine, who is living far
away from home, told me that as she witnessed the images of the victims
of Rafah, she felt a strange and overpowering sense of pride. She said,
If I had not been born Palestinian, I wouldve wished to
be.
Visit To
Kashmir: A Kind Of Normalcy
By Rakesh Shukla
Human rights groups can keep asserting gross human
rights abuses and the Government can keep denying the killings and rapes.
However, it is the almost invisible, intangible humiliation suffered
in everyday life which in a major way contributes to the alienation
of kashmiri people
01 June, 2004
Media
& Market Jihad
By P. Sainath
Whose interests do we give priority to? Voters?
Or `The Market'?
Victory Of Secularism
By Asghar Ali Engineer
The minorities should have full faith in the Indian
democratic system. Many Muslims had despaired that no change is possible.
Some even joined BJP out of this desperation. All of them have been
belied
Celebrating The
BJP's Departure
By Praful Bidwai
The UPA's mandate is not just for growth or development.
It is for equitable growth and for development which has people right
at its centre. It is for healing and repairing the secular fabric of
India, which has been severely damaged by the NDA over the past six
years. It is for reintegrating the values of humanity and decency into
the very core of Indian politics
USA:
An Empire Of Denial
By George Monbiot
"Many parts of the world," he claims,
"would benefit from a period of American rule." The US should
stop messing about with "informal empire", and assert "direct
rule" over countries which "require the imposition of some
kind of external authority". But it is held back by "the absence
of a will to power".
Meet
The New Zionist's
By Matthew Engel
The members of the Christian Coalition of America
are some of the most passionate defenders of Israel in the United States.
There's just one catch: they want to convert all Jews to Christianity
Tommy's Granny
By Uri Avnery
Sometimes a person "buys his world in one
moment," as the ancient Hebrew saying goes. This was done by the
Minister of Justice, Yosef ("Tommy") Lapid, when he uttered
the words: "This old woman reminds me of my grandmother!"
31 May, 2004
'We
Only Want Westerners'
By Patrick Cockburn
It was the latest in a series of ruthless attacks
on foreign workers in Saudi Arabia, targeting the employees of foreign
oil companies. In each case the gunmen have aimed to slaughter as many
non-Muslims as possible
Iraq Rapidly
Disintegrating
By Dahr Jamail
Iraq has been shattered. And now, today, over a
year since the horrible regime of Saddam Hussein was overthrown, what
is left of the country seems to be unraveling more and more with each
passing day
On Their Way
To Abu Ghraib
By Mike Ferner
As the U.S. now releases hundreds of men from Abu
Ghraib prison, another question, why were so many Iraqis locked
up there in the first place? Visit the village of Abu Siffa 30
miles north of Baghdad, and find out how 83 men were taken on the night
of December 16, 2003 and locked up in Abu Ghraib
Colonial Violence
Against Women In Iraq
By Ghali Hassan
Western Women's movements stood silent when tortures
and rapes of Iraqi women detainees came to light. Western "feminists"
are ready to attack with ferocity Moslem "fundamentalists"
and community leaders, but they failed to lift a finger when innocent
Iraqi women and girls are detained, tortured and raped by sick colonial
soldiers