15 September, 2004
Iraq:
A Descent Into Civil War?
By Luke Harding
The recent surge of violence in Iraq reveals a
grim truth about the nature of evolving insurgency: Iraqis are killing
Iraqis
"Take Pictures
- Show The World
The American Democracy"
By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
On Sunday, 13 Iraqis were killed and dozens injured
in Baghdad when US helicopters fired on a crowd of unarmed civilians.
G2 columnist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who was injured in the attack, describes
the scene of carnage - and reveals just how lucky he was to walk away
Why
Ignore The Whys Of Suicide Bombings?
By Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi
Media reporting of suicide bombings in Israel and
the occupied Palestinian territories are rightly given much coverage,
but the necessary context and background information are almost always
totally absent
Hell In Hebron
By Am Johal and Devorah Brous
There are clusters of Israeli soldiers on every
street corner of Al Shuhadah Street for a 5km periphery around Hebron's
Old City and the holy burial grounds, the Cave. Welcome to Hebron, the
frontline in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict
Caught In Historical
Cliches
By Praful Bidwai
The Sangh Parivar's tirades against textbook reform
reek of obscurantist communalism and its glorification of Savarkar legitimises
his pioneering of the Two-Nation theory and poisonous Hindutva
Student Loans
And Suicide
By Ajit Kanitkar
Engineering student Rajani's suicide is a wake-up
for India's banking system, and is also a clear signal that we need
to urgently address issues of equity in our educational system
13 September, 2004
'Why
I Turned Against America'
By Jason Burke
The confused psychology of the Iraqi resistance
and meets a Sunni guerrilla who welcomed the Americans at first but
is now happy to have black GIs in his sights
God
Wills It!
By Uri Avnery
Many of the most heinous crimes in human history
were committed in the name of religion. May God protect us from those
who would speak in His name
Of Figures
And Indian Fascists
By J. Sri Raman
We have heard of chemical warfare, of biological
warfare, not, however, of population warfare. It has been left to the
fascists of India to discover this new dimension to unconventional warfare
Population Growth?
Who Cares!
By Surjit S Bhalla
We are all economic animals first, and religious
identities second, and political entities third. Perhaps this reality
has struck our fundamentalists, which is why they so often resort to
demagoguery, rather than facts
12 September, 2004
Disastrous
Weather Will continue
By Geoffrey Lean
Disastrous weather is set to continue for at least
another six months.The US government confirmed that a new El Niño
is about to strike, bringing torrential rain and droughts around the
world
Devastation Linked
To Global Warming
By Gaby Hinsliff and Robin McKie
Scientists are claiming that the unprecedented
ferocity and frequency of the hurricanes that have battered the Caribbean
this year can be blamed on one factor: the unexpectedly warm water that
has been building up in the Atlantic over the past year
We Should Not Have
Allowed 19 Murderers
To Change Our World
By Robert Fisk
Any cop, confronted by any crime, looks for a motive.
But confronted by an international crime against humanity, we were not
to be allowed to seek the motive
Look Beyond
The Camel
By Dr Rafiq Zakaria
Hindus and Muslims must pursue the path of reconciliation.
Prejudices and suspicions are counterproductive; camaraderie among them
is essential for both development and integration. Each has to help
the other to make the country strong and prosperous
Indian
Census - After the Xenophobia,
The Report Card Of The Communities
By John Dayal
Releasing a false report on the religious divisions
and growth data from the 2001 census smacks of of a conspiracy with
the Hindutva Parivar
11 September, 2004
Global
Warming Will Decimate Arctic Peoples
By Stephen Leahy
Climate change will soon make the Arctic regions
of the world nearly unrecognisable, dramatically disrupting traditional
Inuit and other northern native peoples' way of life
Global
Warming Powered Ivan Hits Hard
By Chris Bunting
Towering waves the height of two storey buildings
and winds of more than 100mph announced the arrival of Hurricane Ivan
in Jamaica last night after wreaking havoc in Grenada, where 29 people
lost their lives and 90% houses were damaged
Sorry, Wrong
Number: Venkaiah Naidu
And The 247-Year Hitch
By Shankar Raghuraman
If the present growth rates were maintained for Muslims to outnumber
Hindus in India, it will take 247 years and by that date India's population
would be about 158 billion!!! So the sangh parivaar can exit the panic
mode
Manufacturing
Hysteria: On
Census-Inspired 'Nationalism'
By D.Jayaraj and S.Subramanian
The misinterpreted data on the population growth
rate of India has become a tool in the hands of Hindu nationalists to
whip up hysteria against the nation's minorities
Look
Again, Gandhi
By Jonthan Cook
Arun Gandhi who was recently in Palestine to preach
non-violence and his supporters fail to understand is that a non-violent
struggle requires specific conditions that are not present in this conflict
10 September, 2004
The
Optimism Of Uncertainty
By Howard Zinn
The struggle for justice should never be abandoned
because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who have the guns
and the money and who seem invincible in their determination to hold
on to it. That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable
to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars
What
The IDF Is Doing In Nablus
By Kole writing from Nablus
The testimony of a soldier in the Israeli Defence
Forces serving in Nablus
BJP Back On
Aggressive Hindutva Track
By Asghar Ali Engineer
It seems secularism is becoming a distant dream
in view of increasing communalisation of our politics. Those who strive
for inter-religious harmony will have to face increasing challenges
in coming days
Living With Floods
By Naren Karunakaran
In Bihar, Indias most flood prone state,
a new understanding, basically harking back to traditions
of yore- the concept of living with floods is finding greater
acceptance amongst the populace
09 September, 2004
Nuclear
Energy The Only Alternative?
By George Monbiot
The politicians are once more revving
up the debate that only nuclear power can save the planet
The Bush Crusade
By James Carroll
"Crusade. I remember a momentary feeling of
vertigo at the President's use of that word, the outrageous ineptitude
of it. The vertigo lifted, and what I felt then was fear, sensing not
ineptitude but exactitude. "
The
Myth Of Gandhi And Palestinian Reality
By Ali Abunimah
The fact that the Palestinian leadership has never
seriously sought to use mass, organized nonviolence is yet another example
of its monumental lack of creativity
Forget Terrorism,
Chechnya Is Putin's War
By Gwynne Dyer
There may be a few foreign volunteers from other
Muslim countries involved in the struggle, but this is not part of some
international terrorist conspiracy. It is not even a Russian-Chechen
war, really. It is Putin's war, and you can't "decontextualise"
that
08 September, 2004
India:Promises
Betrayed
By John Pilger
India's growth rate has leapt above six per cent,
but this is about capital, not labour, about liberated profits, not
people. All the talk about a new high-tech India storming the barricades
of the first world is based largely on myth
How
Are You, Non-Violence?
By Uri Avnery
As long as the Sharon government, with the active
encouragement of President Bush, goes on enlarging the settlements,
building the Wall and all the other actions of annexation, there is
no way to convince Palestinian public opinion to turn its back on violence
Uma And Her
Mad Sisters
By Sagarik Ghose
The woman politician in India is sadly anti-democratic
Despair And
Hope Of The Mahadiga
By Chandrabhan Prasad
Will there be a Dalit film festival, say by 2020?
By our standards, that would be a milestone in the history of the Dalit
movement, albeit half a century behind the Black movement
Michael
X, The Desperate Sectarian
By S Anand
A rejoinder to Harsh Sethi's review of Chandra
Bhan Prasad's book ''Dalit Diary 1999-2003 -Reflection on Apartheid
in India''
05 September, 2004
Shared
Values Of Fragile Humanity
By Mary Riddell
The aim of every parent is to forge a world in
which their children can find peace. The impact of the Beslan crime
goes beyond horror for the murdered, or pity for the living. We see,
in the agony of strangers, the threat to all our tomorrows
Living In
Baghdad
By Kevin Williams And Helen Williams
This is my third day back in Iraq. The country
is still in chaos and deteriorating. There are far more blast blocks,
mass unemployment, and the security situation is far worse
Dronacharya
Mindset
By Gail Omvedt
Western "management gurus" have recognised
the value of a diversified work force and management structure. In contrast,
Indian companies continue, by and large, to operate in terms of traditional
values; even as they begin to compete in the world, their feet remain
mired in the mud of centuries of privilege
04 September, 2004
Russian
School Siege Ends In Carnage
By Richard Ayton and Oliver Bullough
Russian troops stormed a school on Friday, blaming
Chechen hostage-takers for a bloody battle in which more than 200 people
-- dozens of them children -- were killed and hundreds were wounded
Putin's
Iron Fist Has Failed
By John Kampfner
The carnage in Beslan school shows that Putin's
hardline policy towards Chechnya is in tatters
02 September, 2004
Blood
Ballot Of Chechnya
By Roshan Muhammed Salih
Alu Alkhanov's "victory" in the Chechen
presidential elections on Monday was a farce that will not solve the
region's political and security crises
Bush Reloaded
By Satya Sagar
Weep, buddy, weep. Im gonna vote Bush
and I hope he comes and bombs your ass
Getting Ready
For World's First Women's-Only Mosque
By S. Anand
A group of Muslims in Tamil Nadu is set to build
the world's first women's-only mosque
01 September, 2004
Jewish
Voters: Bush's Secret Weapon?
By Ciro Scotti
George Bush's strong Israel tilt has won him surprising
support from a small but significant bloc. It could even be the margin
in Florida
Imperial America
By Gore Vidal
This article is excerpted from Gore Vidal's latest
book, Imperial America
No Space
For The Dead In Sadr City
By Aljazeera
The doctors of the Imam Ali general hospital in
Sadr City struggle against supply shortages and risk death to treat
both the wounded and the many suffering from disease in the slum, where
pools of sewage fill potholes and dead animals decay in the streets
An
Officer In Court
By Uri Avnery
The Berlin wall was smashed and the debris sold
as souvenirs to foreign and local tourists. A really sharp operator
would now be applying for a concession to sell off chunks when this
walls time comes
The Indian
Media And Unity 2004
By Chandrabhan Prasad
Wouldn't it be in India's interest to have dozens
of Dalits as editors, news channel heads, columnists, anchors and another
thousand in the newsrooms?
Crime, Politics
& Hypocrisy- BJP's Comeuppance
By Praful Bidwai
There is more than poetic justice in the way in
which the law caught up with Ms Uma Bharati through a Karnataka arrest
warrant, forcing her resignation as Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister