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31 January, 2010 

India For Selective Assassination Of
It's Own Citizens?

By Trevor Selvam

Recent statements from Indian leaders and police officers gives away the new strategy on the war on Naxalism. To make the movement "headless" by carrying out selective assassination of its leaders with the help of Israeli operatives

Why Does The US Turn A Blind Eye
To Israeli Bulldozers?

By Robert Fisk

Both the United States and Europe now stand idly by while the Israeli government effectively destroys any hope of a Palestinian state; even as you read these words, Israel's bulldozers and demolition orders are destroying the last chance of peace; not only in the symbolic centre of Jerusalem itself but - strategically, far more important - in 60 per cent of the vast, biblical lands of the occupied West Bank, in that largest sector in which Jews now outnumber Muslims two to one

Mitchell: The Kangaroo
By Uri Avnery

George Mitchell looks like a kangaroo hopping around with an empty pouch. He hops here and he hops there. Hops to Jerusalem and hops to Ramallah, Damascus, Beirut, Amman (but, God forbid, not to Gaza, because somebody may not like it). Hops, hops, but doesn’t take anything out of his pouch, because the pouch is empty

Petition! Civil Rights For Palestinian Refugees
In Lebanon

By Palestine Civil Rights Campaign

Please sign and circulate this petition! It involves an innovative twinning initiative. Each signer will be twinned with a person living in a Palestinian refugee camp located in Lebanon. The number of signers required to secure a personal twinning with each refugee is 433,000. Express your views to those who govern Lebanon and to the persons living in refugee camps. Civil rights should not be denied to any refugees!

Cancel Haiti's Debt
By Sarah van Gelder

There's a growing movement to cancel Haiti's foreign debt as a way to return to the Haitian people the authority to rebuild their lives and their country

30 January, 2010 

Tony Blair Testifies Before Inquiry
By Chris Marsden

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s testimony before the Chilcot inquiry into the 2003 Iraq war marks him down once more as a war criminal. His testimony made clear that he collaborated in preparing an illegal war of aggression, in line with the policy of pre-emptive war elaborated by the Bush administration in the United States

Blair The British Neo-Con
By Alan Hart

Without understanding why, I never thought Blair was Bush’s puppet. Now, thanks to the access Blair gave us to the workings of his mind for six hours, I do understand. He was ahead of Bush in the war on terrorism game because he is a neo-con, the real thing, whereas Bush had to be won over, conned, by America’s mad men. Blair didn’t. He was always with them in spirit. After 9/11, immediately after it, probably while the towers were still collapsing, their agenda was his agenda

On The State Of The Union
By Ralph Nader

Watching President Obama's speech the other evening before a joint session of vociferous members of Congress, quiet Supreme Court Justices and military brass, I jotted down a few items for the White House to consider

Another Intrusion Called Cargill
Changes Food Market

By Abid Shah

One of the main factors behind sky-rocketing prices of food stuff all over the country has its roots in the entry given by Government to world’s certain mighty food corporations in the domestic grain market

India's Agriculture Minister Fiddles, While
The Country Faces The Heat On Food Prices

By Devinder Sharma

The media has finally woken up to the gross incompetence of the Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar that has led Indian agriculture into a mess

A Year Of Lalgarh
By Partho Sarathi Ray

The movement in Lalgarh still continues, and is expected to gain greater heights as the Indian state goes into an all out war against the people in the entire adivasi-populated region of India. The state might consider Lalgarh to be the laboratory for such an operation, but it might finally prove to be the mortuary of the same. Terrible oppression, daily firings and indiscriminate arrests of people have not been able to subdue Lalgarh. The people of jangalmahal have stood up, and they will not bow down again

Paid News Culture And Indian Media
By Nava Thakuria

India has finally woken up to the menace of 'paid news' culture in the mainstream media. The practice that involves money in acquiring unethically media space by the beneficiaries remained an important issue in India for many years. But lately a number of influential media persons' organisations have shown their concern with the ill practice of journalism in the country

India Shining: Passages To And From My Country
By Pubali Ray Chaudhuri

In this new redefined India, the poor were no longer victims. They occupied a more complex role: they were squatters on their own land, impediments in the path to progress, stubbornly hanging on to their forests and rivers and the earth and her treasures – bauxite, aluminum ore, uranium. All there for the taking, if only we could do as our new overlords the West had done for centuries – get rid of the natives

29 January, 2010 

NATO To Provide $500 Million
To Bribe Taliban

By Juan Cole

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown may have called the London Conference on Afghanistan for domestic political purposes, as a sort of publicity stunt. But the nearly 70 nations that gathered there unexpectedly took advantage of the meet to plot out a NATO exit strategy. Of course, how realistic it is remains to be seen

London Conference On Afghanistan:
Occupation Will Last For Years To Come

By Chris Marsden

The London conference on Afghanistan laid down a scenario for the country’s military occupation stretching over at least 5 years and, according to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, as long as 15 years

Afraid Of The Dark in Afghanistan
By Anand Gopal

In the secretive U.S. detentions process, suspects are usually nabbed in the darkness and then sent to one of a number of detention areas on military bases, often on the slightest suspicion and without the knowledge of their families. This process has become even more feared and hated in Afghanistan than coalition airstrikes. The night raids and detentions, little known or understood outside of these Pashtun villages, are slowly turning Afghans against the very forces they greeted as liberators just a few years ago

Israeli Militarism, Local Conflicts Driving
Palestinian Children Crazy

By Kathlyn Stone

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders reports that short-term psychotherapy could be an effective treatment in specific psychiatric disorders, especially in children

Hell And Hope In Haiti
By Bill Quigley

Hope is found in the people of Haiti. Despite no electricity, little shelter, minimal food and no real goverment or order, people are helping one another survive

The Obama Retirement Trap Has Started!
By Ron Holland

Mandatory IRAs just proposed by Obama Administration on 1/25/10 is the 1st step in stealth nationalization and forced investment of our retirement benefits to support the treasury debt market!

Obama's Outreach To Americans:
Empty Rhetoric, Business As Usual

By Stephen Lendman

The response to Obama's first State of the Union address was predictable. Democrats loved it. Republicans were skeptical to critical, while the media tried to have it both ways

Who Will Build The Ark?
By Mike Davis

The single most important cause of global warming—the urbanization of humanity—is also potentially the principal solution to the problem of human survival in the later twenty-first century. Left to the dismal politics of the present, of course, cities of poverty will almost certainly become the coffins of hope; but all the more reason that we must start thinking like Noah. Since most of history’s giant trees have already been cut down, a new Ark will have to be constructed out of the materials that a desperate humanity finds at hand in insurgent communities, pirate technologies, bootlegged media, rebel science and forgotten utopias

Your Disappointment In Obama
Is Your Teaching Moment

By Carolyn Baker

The affair is over, and you don't know whether to cry, rage, get drunk, stay stoned, or rethink leaving the country. You've married a prisoner; you've made another bad choice. You feel bitter and perhaps a little self-loathing. In fact, you want to take a shower because you feel dirty all over

A Tribute To American People’s Historian -
Howard Zinn

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

With the death of Dr. Zinn there is no doubt that the anti-war and peace movement in the USA has lost one of its best activists and an honest historian that the public trusted

Saudi Arabia vs. The Houthis:
A Senseless War Winds Down

By Rannie Amiri

The senseless war in Saada waged by the Saudi government was meant to send an unmistakable warning to any in the Kingdom who might espouse similar beliefs or demands as the Houthis: do so at your own peril

Avatar: A Parable About The Encounter Between
Capitalism And Indigenous Peoples

By Rohini Hensman

This is not a film review of Avatar, more a comment on its politics, and on other commentaries on its politics

28 January, 2010 

Goodbye Howard Zinn
By Peter Rothberg

Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and the author of the seminal A People's History of the United States, died today at the age of 87 of a heart attack in Santa Monica, California

A Memory Of Howard
By Daniel Ellsberg

A tribute to Howard Zinn from a friend and fellow activist Daniel Ellsberg

Foreign Affairs In Obama's State Of The Union
By Juan Cole

Caught between the Utopian and the Propagandistic

Again!
By Case Wagenvoord

At one point in his State of the Union speech, Obama noted that the American people have lost confidence in their government. This is to be expected when you have a Congress and a White House in which the mentality is that of a gaggle of arrested adolescents

The Kidnapping Of Haiti
By John Pilger

Not for tourists is the US building its fifth-biggest embassy. Oil was found in Haiti's waters decades ago and the US has kept it in reserve until the Middle East begins to run dry. More urgently, an occupied Haiti has a strategic importance in Washington's "rollback" plans for Latin America. The goal is the overthrow of the popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, control of Venezuela's abundant petroleum reserves, and sabotage of the growing regional co-operation long denied by US-sponsored regimes

Haitians Are Helping Haitians
By Bill Quigley

Haitians are helping Haitians. Young men have organized into teams to guard communities of homeless families. Women care for their own children as well as others now orphaned

Presidential Assassinations Of US Citizens
By Glenn Greenwald

Just think about this for a minute. Barack Obama, like George Bush before him, has claimed the authority to order American citizens murdered based solely on the unverified, uncharged, unchecked claim that they are associated with Terrorism and pose "a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests." They're entitled to no charges, no trial, no ability to contest the accusations

‘Lost Tribe’ On Fast Track To Israel
By Jonathan Cook

The Israeli government is reported to have quietly approved the fast-track immigration of 7,000 members of a supposedly “lost Jewish” tribe, known as the Bnei Menashe, currently living in a remote area of India. Under the plan, the “lost Jews” would be brought to Israel over the next two years by right-wing and religious organisations who, critics are concerned, will seek to place them in West Bank settlements in a bid to foil Israel’s partial agreement to a temporary freeze of settlement growth

It’s Not A New Turkey, It’s The Right Time
By Ramzy Baroud

Turkey’s united and constant stance in support of Gaza, and its outspokenness against the threats against Lebanon, Iran and Syria show clearly that the old days of “warmth” are well behind us. Turkey, of course, will find a very receptive audience among Arabs and Muslims all over the world who are desperate for a powerful and sensible leadership to defend and champion their causes. Needless to say, for the besieged Palestinians in Gaza, Erdogan is becoming a household name, a folk hero, a new Nasser in fact. The same sentiment is shared throughout the region

Apology For The "F" Word And War
By Mary Hamer

I apologize for the “F” word, war, nuclear bombs and all human cruelty and violence. I withdraw my name from the human race. I will not participate in these Homo Sapien: Irrational beliefs, cognitive distortions and emotional disturbances

Genocide Book Review: “Denial. History Betrayed”
by Tony Taylor

By Dr Gideon Polya

“Denial. History betrayed” by Tony Taylor (Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2008) is a very well written, well annotated and well referenced book that deals with the phenomenon of “holocaust denial” and, in general, the denial of horrendous abuses of humanity. This is an important book that should certainly be read by everyone and should be in every library

There Is No Constitution In Chhattisgarh Anymore
By Harsh Dobhal

Anybody can be picked up, branded as Maoist and jailed, beaten up, smashed, charged with dubious cases, ordinary people are killed, tribal women get raped and assaulted, no peaceful protests are allowed, journalists, academics and filmmakers are followed, terrorised and not allowed to go inside villages, a general reign of fear stalks this poverty-stricken landscape

The Other Face Of ISI
By Zafar Iqbal

Recently Muzaffarabad-the capital of Pakistan administrated Kashmir sparked with protest demonstrations against the human rights violations by Pakistan’s security agency- Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) whose officials were blamed for detention and torture of four local citizens. Hundreds of veil- clad old aged women and young girls took protest rallies against, what they called ‘atrocities of the ISI by tortoruring and kidnapping our sons and brothers’. At the first time in the history of the region, streets and roads of Muzaffarabad echoed with the feminist but vociferous slogans against the ISI and government of Azad Jammu and Kashmir

Research Based Teacher Promotion
Key For India’s Knowledge Capital

By Suhail Masoodi

To aspire to be an economic power, India needs to become a knowledge power first

Pakistan: Pity The Nation .....
By Mir Adnan Aziz

History teaches us that if a nation fails to make the necessary efforts to control its destiny, its fate is decided by others who bring unpredictable and unwanted ways of lives. We have to rewrite our history tainted with slogans of Pakistan first and Pakistan khappay. It is me who is at fault; it is for me to seek redemption by striving for a better Pakistan because after all, I am the nation

27 January, 2010 

When Scholars Join The Slaughter
By Dahr Jamail

The US military has sent shock troops - anthropologists, sociologists and social psychologists - with their own troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan, who also donned helmets and flak jackets. By the end of 2007, American scholars in these fields were embedding with the military in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a Pentagon program called Human Terrain System (HTS), which evolved shortly thereafter into a $40 million program that embedded four or five person groups of scholars in the aforementioned fields in all 26 US combat brigades that were busily occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. The program is currently comprised of approximately 400 employees, and is actively seeking new recruits

Soldiers Are Being Forced To Choose Between
Their Children And the Military

By Dahr Jamail

Soldiers who face unexpected parenting hardships and are unable to deploy are supposed to be honorably discharged. Instead they are being slapped with criminal charges

Should Arab MP Be In Auschwitz?
By Jonathan Cook

An Arab member of the Israeli parliament has sparked controversy among Jews and Arabs in Israel over his decision to join an official Israeli delegation commemorating International Holocaust Day today at a Nazi death camp in Poland

Anti-Israelism: Why Zionism Doesn’t
And Can’t Get It

By Alan Hart

There is no doubt it. More and more people all over the world, and probably many of their governments behind closed doors, are beginning to see the Zionist state of Israel for what it really is - not only the obstacle to peace but a monster apparently beyond control; and they, more and more so-called ordinary folk everywhere, are beginning to turn against it

The Constitution Of India As A Tool Of Resistance
By Bobby Kunhu

It has become important to read the history of the Constitution of India as being rooted in the Poona Pact, re-appropriate the Constitution of India as a document representing the aspirations of marginalized communities, be it Dalits, Adivasis, religious or sexuality minorities, women or whomsoever and use it as a tool of resistance against subversions by State and non- State actors!

Fixing A Bad Supreme Court Decision
By Joel S. Hirschhorn

Sensible, intelligent Americans are furious over the recent Supreme Court 5-to-4-decision referred to as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that struck down limits on corporate spending in presidential and congressional elections. Those of us who wail against the corpocracy with its corruption of government could hardly believe that this decision could in any way be justified. A major reaction has been a number of groups calling for a constitutional amendment to fix the problem

Indian Republic At 60- Am I Indian First
Or Muslim First?

By Syed Ali Mujtaba

I know it’s a very philosophical question 'who am I'? However, without going any further, let me try to handle this. It’s like seeking answer to; are you child of your father first or your mother first? The answer is both. I am born in India and I am an Indian and it’s a geographical term. I am born in Islamic faith and so I am a Muslim, and it’s a religious term. I am an "Indian Muslim" is the short answer

Poverty And Domestic Violence
By Aditi Paul

Domestic violence perpetrated by partners and close family members on women has long been a matter of silent suffering within the four walls of the home. Aditi Paul enquires about the correlation between poverty and domestic violence

Canada's Long Road To Mining Reform
By Cyril Mychalejko

Rape. Murder. Corruption. Environmental contamination. Impunity. These are just some of the charges and incidents that have plagued Canadian mining operations abroad for years. Now one Canadian lawmaker has taken on the Herculean challenge of legislating mining reform in a country that has traditionally acted like a parent in denial

Torture Never Stopped Under Obama
By Shamus Cooke

A year on, the Obama administration continues to look the other way when it comes to full disclosure of and remedy for human rights violations perpetrated by the U.S.A. in the name of countering terrorism

26 January, 2010 

World's Glaciers Continue To Melt At Historic Rates
By Juliette Jowit

Latest figures show the world's glaciers are continuing to melt so fast that many will disappear by the middle of this century

Glaciergate Was A Blunder, But
It's The Sceptics Who Dissemble

By Robin McKie

Inaccurate claims predicting Himalayan meltdown have handed gainsayers a big victory. But nothing material has changed

The IPCC Is Not Infallible
By Real Climate

All that the "Glacier Gate" tells is that like all human endeavours, the IPCC is not perfect. It is important to realise that the error doesn’t mean that Himalayan glaciers are doing just fine. They aren’t, and there may be serious consequences for water resources as the retreat continues

Arctic Methane Emissions Jump, Hint Of Warming
By Alister Doyle

Arctic emissions of a powerful greenhouse gas jumped 30 percent in recent years in a worrying hint that global warming might unlock vast stores frozen in permafrost

Climate Change, The Himalayas And India
By Marianne de Nazareth

“Climate change and the effects of atmospheric pollution will continue to affect the world during the coming 50 years.” An interview with Dr. Andreas Schild, Director General of the International Centre for Integrated mountain Development

Wanted: Tony Blair For War Crimes.
Arrest Him And Claim Your Reward

By George Monbiot

Chilcot and the courts won't do it, so it is up to us to show that we won't let an illegal act of mass murder go unpunished

Obama With Blood On His Hands
By Nicolas J S Davies

The entire United States Congress with 5 exceptions as well as the entire governing apparatus of the United States has the blood of a million Iraqi citizens on its hands. That is the count provided by Lancet the prestigious English Medical Journal

The War On Terrorism And The Countdown
To The 2010 Olympics

By Dana Gabriel

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics will be the largest security operation in Canadian history. It will include more than 15,000 Canadian Forces, private security personnel, along with the RCMP and other police agencies. The U.S. will also provide security and support for the Games. With the Olympics fast approaching, the fear of terrorism is back in the public’s psyche. Although there has been no specific threats to the Games, more than anything, it is the danger of terrorism which is used to justify the huge security operation

Lebanon And The Middle East Continue
To Reject AIPAC’s H.R. 2278 As Tensions Rise

By Franklin Lamb

The Lebanese continue their opposition to H.R. 2278 widely seen as an American-Israeli assault on more than 400 TV channels based in Lebanon, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen

Wanted: Two Miracles
By Guy R. McPherson

We urgently need two miracles. First, we need a miraculous comprehensive substitute for crude oil. Then we need a miraculous removal of carbon from the atmosphere. We need the first miracle right now. We need the second within a generation

Doomed Education
By Rahul Chandran

The concept of deemed university has redefined education as a commercial profit-minded business, degrading its quality. The move to derecognize these institutions has come at the right time, but what is the plight of the students admitted into these universities?

Toxic Habit
By Case Wagenvoord

The truth is that Obama is as much of a prisoner of momentum as his predecessors. He has fallen into a raging torrent that will sweep the country along until it is reduced to a trickle. Some call it history; others call it madness

25 January, 2010 

Washington's Militarized Takeover Of Haiti
By Stephen Lendman

After its worst catastrophe in nearly 170 years, millions in the country need everything, not Marines - food, water, medical care, shelter, and deep compassion at their greatest time of need. Instead, the country is occupied, militarized, denied aid, and taken over for greater exploitation. General Ken Keen, in charge of forces, says US troops will "be here as long as needed," signaling an open-ended commitment for years

We Send Doctors, Not Soldiers
By Fidel Castro

In the midst of the Haitian tragedy, without anybody knowing how and why, thousands of US marines, 82nd Airborne Division troops and other military forces have occupied Haiti. Worse still is the fact that neither the United Nations Organization nor the US government have offered an explanation to the world’s public opinion about this relocation of troops

The Humanitarian Myth
By Richard Seymour

Richard Seymour, the author of The Liberal Defense of Murder, analyzes the propaganda manufactured to justify U.S. actions in Haiti after the earthquake

Delaying Aid For A Photo-Op
By Jesse Hagopian

Jesse Hagopian, a teacher from Seattle, was in Haiti with his wife (who works on HIV education in the country) and one-year-old son when the earthquake hit. Here, he looks at the U.S. government's priorities on display in Haiti right now

Great Television/Bad Journalism:
Media Failures In Haiti Coverage

By Robert Jensen

How many people watching Cooper’s mass-mediated heroism on CNN know that U.S. policy makers have actively undermined Haitian democracy and opposed that country’s most successful grassroots political movement? During the first days of coverage of the earthquake, it’s understandable that news organizations focused on the immediate crisis. But more than a week later, what excuse do journalists have?

Making Haiti: Survival, Sacrament
And The Marketplace

By Farzana Versey

“I survived by drinking Coca-Cola. I drank Coca-Cola every day, and I ate some little tiny things,” he said. Wismond Exantus’s tale of survival conveys a larger lesson about charity franchising. As someone who worked in the grocery store in Port-au-Prince, where he was found after 11 days, his recollection of Coca Cola as opposed to “little tiny things” indicates that the miracle his brother spoke about could have something to do partly with this beverage and the conglomerate idea it stands for

Israel Creates First ‘Army-Owned’ University
By Jonathan Cook

Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, approved last week the upgrading to university status of a college in a settlement located deep inside the West Bank, a move certain to further undermine Palestinian confidence in the peace process

The Liebarak
By Uri Avnery

The decision to upgrade the Ariel College to a University has dealt a severe blow to the peace process

The Drone Surge
By Nick Turse

When it comes to the drone surge, the years 2011-2013 are just the near horizon. While, like the Army, the Navy is working on its own future drone warfare capacity -- in the air as well as on and even under the water -- the Air Force is involved in striking levels of futuristic planning for robotic war. It envisions a future previously imagined only in sci-fi movies like the Terminator series

Is Israel Preparing To Attack Lebanon?
By Salim Nazzal

The headlines of the London based Al Sharq Al awsat last week reported high alertness in the Lebanese resistance towards a possible Israeli attack. The paper added too that Syria has called some of its reserved forces apparently for the same reason

"Why Is Nasrallah Demonized
In The Western Media?"

By Mike Whitney

An interview with Franklin Lamb

From Jai He To Jai Ho
By Neerja Dasani

Another Indian Republic day and another nationalistic spectacle of military might. The incongruity of the spectacle is best captured by the strains of the ‘national anthem’; a tribute to the universal spirit that has been trapped in the armoury of a nation-state. As we enter the year of the 150th birth anniversary of its creator, Rabindranath Tagore, the question arises: what would Gurudev have made of all this?

India's Farmers Set To Beat Ploughs Into Swords
By Anuj Chopra

Indian farmers fighting the industrial conglomerates to save their farms being taken over for industrialisation

23 January, 2010 

US To Hold 50 Guantanamo Prisoners Indefinitely
By Barry Grey

The US Justice Department has determined that nearly 50 of the remaining 196 detainees at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are to be held indefinitely, without charges or trial, according to a front-page article published Friday by the Washington Post

How I Fought To Survive Guantánamo
By Patrick Barkham

For nearly six years, British resident Omar Deghayes was imprisoned in Guantánamo and subjected to such brutal torture that he lost the sight in one eye. But far from being broken, he fought back to retain his dignity and his sanity

Climate Sceptics And The Himalayan Glacier Melt
By Marianne de Nazareth

A huge furore has erupted over whether the Himalayan glaciers are melting or not. Here is a rebuttal by Syed Iqbal Hasnain one of India’s foremost glaciologists from TERI who is now at the heart of the controversy

Can Sudan Marriage Be Saved?
By David Morse

Sudan, the largest country in Africa, is a time-bomb set to go off next year. 2011 was the date specified under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (widely referred to as the CPA) signed five years ago by the warring North and South. On that date, the South can vote to secede from a confederation that everyone acknowledges is a marriage of convenience, at best

Dealing With Peak Oil
By Salvatore Cardoni & Dr. Brian Schwartz

Peak oil is going to fundamentally change the way we live. We will be dragged there kicking, screaming, and resisting, but we will get there nonetheless. We will live in different communities, in different houses, eat differently, get around differently, and get our energy from much different sources. I think much of what is coming will provide us with benefits – better diets, better health, stronger communities--so I am not a pessimist about this issue

A Global Push For Renewable Energy
By Alice Slater

With 142 member nations already signed on, the new International Renewable Energy Agency is promoting a fast, global transition to clean, safe, and renewable energy

Perseverance
By Timothy V. Gatto

It takes a long time to defeat entrenched interests, but we must not shirk this duty to try. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to change the makeup of the political system in America. Dogged determinism should be the phrase of the day. Sooner or later we’ll catch a break or make one. We have no other choice but to change what is to what should be

Free Idiots: An Indian Amir's New Stooges
By Partha Banerjee

A review of the Bollywood blockbuster " 3 Idiots"

In The State Of Telangana
By Kalpana Kannabiran

At the time when the movement for the State of Telangana reaches its peak, and even as the leaders of this movement craft the contours of this state that is one step towards liberating the people of this region from a history of economic, political and cultural oppression, it is important to think about which way we would like to go

Frescoed Words
By Prabhat Sharan

Review of Amit Sengupta's book Colour of Gratitude - A compilation of selected writings

22 January, 2010 

Haitians Dying By The Thousands As
US Escalates Military Intervention

By Bill Van Auken

The US-based medical aid group Partners in Health has warned that as many as 20,000 Haitians may be dying daily due to infections such as gangrene and sepsis that have set in, as the majority of the injured receive no medical care or are treated in facilities that lack the most basic supplies

The Siege Of Haiti
By Rachel Cohen & Alan Maass

The ring of mighty warships off the coast of Port-au-Prince is a stark symbol of the true intentions of the U.S. government in its "humanitarian" mission following Haiti's devastating earthquake. The Navy and Coast Guard vessels aren't there with food or water or rescue teams. They're on patrol to make sure that Haitians don't escape the disaster and try to get to the United States

If Corporations Were Human
By Scott Klinger

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case removes all limits on large corporations to finance and influence federal elections. In its ruling the Court reverse a decades old ruling barring companies from using their general funds to fund political campaign, and guts pieces of the popular McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation

It’s Time!
By Case Wagenvoord

Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court gave Congress back to its corporate handlers when it ruled that Congress could not place restrictions on corporate contributions to political campaigns. The argument was the same fallacious argument that has allowed our corporate oligarchs to befoul our democracy—corporations are people and have the same rights under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as human people

Last Decade Warmest Ever: NASA
By Agence France Presse

The past decade was the warmest ever on Earth, a new analysis of global surface temperatures released by NASA showed Thursday. The US space agency also found that 2009 was the second-warmest year on record since modern temperature measurements began in 1880. Last year was only a small fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest yet, putting 2009 in a virtual tie with the other hottest years, which have all occurred since 1998

Now Fire Geithner And Summers
By Richard C. Cook

The new restraints on bank lending for speculation proposed yesterday by President Barack Obama follow the advice of former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker but will be much more credible if the president now fires Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers

A Mistake Over Himalayan Glaciers Should Not
Melt Our Priorities

By Bob Ward

Climate science has suffered another blow to its credibility after it was revealed that a claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that Himalayan glaciers will probably disappear altogether in the next 25 years was wrong. It is only a matter of time before the lobbyists who peddle climate change denial for their own political ends start to overstate the significance of this episode

Layperson’s Guide To Counting
Occupied Afghanistan Deaths

By Dr Gideon Polya

Assuming for "bad outcome" Third World countries that "under-5 infant mortality" is numerically about 0.7 of the "avoidable mortality", we can estimate that the post-invasion avoidable mortality in Occupied Afghanistan = 2.7 million/0.7 = 3.9 million

Disdain Versus Democracy
By Joel S. Hirschhorn

That strange sound you hear if you listen closely is Senator Ted Kennedy spinning in his grave. Could he have possibly imagined a worse consequence of his departure from the Senate when health care reform was so close? Absolutely not. When he was alive he probably was not even aware of Massachusetts state senator Scott Brown. Though Kennedy deserved a better outcome, Democrats richly deserved the Republican win in Massachusetts

The Audacity Of Nope Rewards The Party Of No
By Robert S. Becker

The Mass. vote could be, per Arianna Huffington, a blessing in disguise. But not likely, as post-election WH denials attest, with no talk of new personnel or new leadership, just “combative responses” that promise staying the course that clearly isn’t working

The Lessons Of Boycott, Divestment And Sanctions
By Stephen Lendman

Boycotting Israeli products successfully needs a transition to Palestinian ones, but much work is needed to achieve it, including effective promotion

Independence Or Accession?
By Dr Shabir Choudhry

If we want peace and stability in South Asia then we need to resolve the Kashmir dispute; and we cannot resolve the Kashmir dispute by making it a Muslim problem or a problem of water and resources. It is deeply disturbing that despite enormous sacrifices by the people of Jammu and Kashmir the Kashmir dispute is still perceived as a dispute which has to be resolved by the governments of India and Pakistan

Rajapaksha Is Killing The True Identity Of Sri Lanka
By Nilantha Ilangamuwa

President Mahendra Percy Rajapaksha is progressively killing the humane character and the identity of Sri Lanka. The country has been relegated to an inferior state in the world map only to be praised by him and his minions that Sri Lanka is becoming a super power country after defeating the LTTE

Rape Of The Hills
By Prabhat Sharan

The mineral and bio-diversity hot spot of Konkan region, last month witnessed one of the major conflagration wherein a handful of villagers from a small hamlet Asaniye dotting the tip of Mahrashtra-Goa border forced the State to back out from a public hearing posted for declaring a green signal for mining operations

21 January, 2010 

US Military Operations Block Relief Efforts In Haiti
By Alex Lantier

US forces who have taken over the Port-au-Prince airport are denying humanitarian flights permission to land. US helicopters also landed troops yesterday, who took over the ruins of Haiti’s Presidential Palace. Roughly 10,000 US troops will be in place in Haiti in the coming days

Haiti Needs Water, Not Occupation
By Mark Weisbrot

The US has never wanted Haitian self-rule, and its focus on 'security concerns' has hampered the earthquake aid response

In Haiti, Words Can Kill
By Rebecca Solnit

I’m talking about those members of the mass media whose misrepresentation of what goes on in disaster often abets and justifies a second wave of disaster. I’m talking about the treatment of sufferers as criminals, both on the ground and in the news, and the endorsement of a shift of resources from rescue to property patrol. They still have blood on their hands from Hurricane Katrina, and they are staining themselves anew in Haiti

Why So Many People Died In The Earthquake...
And Why The U.S. Can Do No Good In Haiti

By Li Onesto

No human being could have stopped the earthquake that hit with such killing force on January 12. But so many of the people who have perished in Port-au-Prince did not have to die

Why Haiti Has Never Been Allowed To Prosper
By Sean Fenley

The abominable Ronald Reagan had to kill a socialist country like Nicaragua, because you cannot give any hope to such countries as Haiti and Nicaragua. If you give these nations and peoples ‘dignified poverty’ as Aristide has called for in Haiti, others like them will get the same idea!

Israel Starving Gaza And Help Haiti?
By Salim Nazzal

Is it compassion or propaganda to clean up the brutal face of Zionism?

US Economy: A Crash or A Soft Landing?
By Richard C. Cook

For those who are habitually against everything the government does, I’d like to say that there are actually a few caring and intelligent people in authority these days who don’t want to see the total collapse of the U.S. as a nation, an economy, and a society. The U.S. remains the world’s largest consumer economy and the dollar the predominant currency. But the rest of the world has caught up. The Anglo-American Empire is seeing the sunset, and the choice now to be made is whether it will end peacefully or in a bang

Political Earthquake Rocks Massachusetts
By Stephen Lendman

Obama provided continuity, not change, a bogus democracy under a repressive police state apparatus, militarism, and permanent wars at the expense of vital homeland needs. His record is betrayal and failure. Perhaps that's the Massachusetts message - not just opposition to Obamacare as state polls show, but a rejection of the entire Democrat agenda and a demand for real change, promised but not delivered

Massachusetts Calling
By Gary Corseri

Harnessing independent's anger and disillusionment to for a 2nd (ie, non-corporate) party

The Coming False-Flag Terror Trap For India
By Feroze Mithiborwala

Another false flag terror attack will be used by the pro-US Indian elite to mobilise hundreds of thousands of youth to go to war in Afghanistan, maybe even Pakistan and Iran. Indian soldiers have been used in the past by the British Colonial power to fight their wars across the world, especially in Middle East and North Africa. Once more the US Empire seeks to use our People

Iran And Latin America: The Media States Its Case
By Ramzy Baroud

Should the United States be concerned about Iran’s determined efforts to reach out to Latin America? Or, as was suggestively described in the Economist, by the Ayatollahs’ strategy of cozying up to Latin America?

The Merchants Of Fear: Israel’s Profiting
From Homeland Insecurity

By Maidhc Ó Cathail

The day after 9/11, Benjamin Netanyahu let slip that the deaths of almost 3,000 Americans was “very good” for Israel. In particular, the mass murder was very good for an emerging sector of the Israeli economy. In “Laboratory for a Fortressed World,” Naomi Klein detailed the post-9/11 “explosion of Israel’s homeland security sector.”

Dial ‘P’ For “Encounter”
By Prabhat Sharan

The recent arrest of police inspector Pradeep Sharma is a case in point of the mediocrity that has seeped inside the media. The rise of Sharma and his ilk were not due to their achievements. It was purely because post-1993 serial bomb blasts period- the mid-nineties witnessing the collapse of organized crime- gave a section of police officers play with silly underworld stories lifted from C-grade novels and films, and dole them out to gullible and by-line crazy scribes, desperate to fill space and time slots

19 January, 2010

Outsourcing War: A Threat To USA And The World
By Stephen Lendman

Given the Pentagon's transformation since 1991, the number of services it privatized, and America's permanent war agenda, what will conditions be in another decade or a few years? How much more prominent will Private Military Contractors (PMCs) be? How much more insecurity will result? How soon will it be before hordes of them are deployed throughout America as enforcers in civilian communities outside of conflict zones, with as much unaccountability here as abroad? What will the nation be like if it happens?

The Sweet Serenity Of Modern Warfare
By Case Wagenvoord

A savage brutality once drove war. Now it is driven by the serene barbarity of the civilized

Your Wall Of Shame Is Complete, Mr. President
By Ershad Abubacker

An Open Letter to President Barack Obama on the first anniversary of his assumption of office

US Military To Enforce State Of Emergency In Haiti
By Tom Eley

The Haitian government declared a state of emergency on Monday, six days after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake laid waste to much of the nation and its capital, Port-au-Prince, killing at least 200,000, according to the latest estimate

The War Against Nature Resumes
By George Monbiot

2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity. The Welsh assembly is celebrating the occasion by launching a project to exterminate the badger. I won't pretend that this story ranks alongside the catastrophe in Haiti or the meltdown in Afghanistan, but it casts an interesting light on humanity's continuing impulse to conquer nature, and shows how, even when cloaked in the language of science, our relations with the natural world are still governed by irrationality and superstition

The United States, Israel
And The Retreat Of Freedom

By Ali Abunimah

The world is suffering from a "freedom recession" according to a new report from the American think tank Freedom House. Freedom House's approach to Israel provides the starkest example of the abyss into which liberal thinking has fallen on the relationship between colonialism and freedom. Israel, we are told, "remains the only country in the [Middle East] region to hold a Freedom in the World designation of Free."

Israeli Democracy Or Hypocrisy
By Stephen Lendman

An October 2007 Haaretz editorial titled "Democracy or hypocrisy" contrasted the "occupying Land of Israel to the democratic Israel" in calling for a "debate about Israel's control over the lives of Palestinians deprived of civil rights," saying its democracy is flawed and not addressing it is hypocrisy

Anti-Whaling Australia Threatens Whales
By Global Warming

By Dr Gideon Polya

Australia leads the world in condemnation of the annual killing of 1,000 whales by the Japanese. However Australia is the world’s worst annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter and man-made global warming with consequent loss of Antarctic sea ice is a major threat to declining krill stocks and hence to the whales that feed on krill

Imperial Senate Foils Constitution More Than
Climate Change, Terrorism, Or Rogue Sarahs

By Robert S. Becker

Across all issues, the Senate now marries glaring elitism with reactionary defenses of the status quo, a greater menace to progress and humane government than terrorism, climate, or that bevy of fake rogue politicians. Any notion of Senate philosopher-kings is thwarted by crass favoritism and partiality, passions and privilege, ego and seniority, operating somewhere between a zoo and an asylum

Jyoti Basu's Legacy
By Partha Banerjee

With demise of Jyoti Basu and his era of politics of on-the-ground coalition-building, chances to put the country back together are now ever so remote

Trade, Corporate Market And Indigenous People
By Goldy M. George

The Copenhagen drama is over. Nothing came out of it. It was predicted the same by many expert and many intellectuals, activists, professional experts kept a distance from this proscenium. But what is that concerns the ordinary people of this nation? How does market and market values related with people at large and particularly the Dalits, Adivasis and the exploited sections of Indian society? What is the correlation between trade, corporates, market and indigenous communities of this land who still have the noble quality of surviving on a minimum basis?

Dalit: Towards The Search For
Alternative Strategies

By Rajkumar

This paper argues for the need for some strategies that suits the emerging scenario in the given context of democratic space available in the Indian and the mass psychology. I try to portrait a frame of analysis for this argument which needs further debate and refinement at various circles and level

A Manual To Manage Drought In India
By Siba Sankar Mohanty

In a knee-jerk reaction to demands for creating interventions to face an evolving drought situation in the country, the Union Minister of Agriculture, Mr Sharad Power on 4th January, released a Drought Management Manual that is expected to prove an effective practical guideline for administrators, experts and civil society in implementing drought mitigation and relief measures and for alleviating distress of the drought affected people

Taliban Threat For Kashmir
By Zafar Iqbal

Recent surge of violence in both parts of contentious state of Jammu and Kashmir has fuelled the concerns about the expansion of Taliban network in the Himalayan region

18 January, 2010

US Military Tightens Grip On Haiti
By Alex Lantier

Amid the humanitarian tragedy following the January 12 earthquake in Haiti, Washington has concentrated on establishing indefinite military control of the country. Fearing mass protests and riots by desperate Haitians against inadequate rescue efforts, US logistical efforts are focused on massing tens of thousands of troops for use against the population

Cooperation Spirit Is Put To The Test In Haiti
By Fidel Castro

Haiti will put to the test the endurance of the cooperation spirit before egoism, chauvinism, ignoble interests and contempt for other nations prevail

Disaster Capitalism Headed To Haiti
By Stephen Lendman

Haiti faces crushing burdens - deep poverty, vast unemployment, overwhelming human needs, severe repression, poor governance, Washington dominance, a burdensome debt, and much more before the January 12 quake. Now the disaster, militarization by the Pentagon, and disaster capitalism soon arriving besides what's already profiteering

Witness To A Nightmare
By Jesse Hagopian & Eric Ruder

Jesse Hagopian, a teacher in Seattle and contributor to SocialistWorker.org, was in Port-au-Prince with his 1-year-old son to visit his wife when the earthquake hit. His wife, an aid worker, works until the evening on most days, but by sheer luck, she came to the hotel where they were staying early on Tuesday--just minutes before the quake struck at 4:53 p.m. This spared Jesse and his family agonizing hours or days trying to find one another amid the chaos. Jesse got a crash course in treating severe injuries--broken bones, head wounds and more--as people desperate for help kept arriving. Jesse spoke with Eric Ruder via telephone from Port-au-Prince on January 15 and 16 about the crisis unfolding around him

What You Can Do For Haiti

Donations and aid are desperately needed in Haiti. Here are some organizations with connections to the grassroots movements in the country

We Are A Forgotten People
By Olden Polynice & Dave Zirin

Olden Polynice played center in the NBA for 15 seasons. During that time, he distinguished himself as more than a hardnosed rebounder. He was the most visible Haitian athlete in the history of U.S. sports. Polynice spoke with Nation and SocialistWorker.org columnist Dave Zirin about the post-earthquake calamity in Haiti

Martin Luther King's Legacy And Israel's Future
By Ira Chernus

Every year, apologists for Israel’s occupation of Palestine eagerly await Martin Luther King Day. Then they trot out these words, spoken by Dr. King shortly before his death: “When people criticize Zionists they mean Jews; you are talking anti-Semitism."

A Second Gaza War Around The Corner?
By Hasan Abu Nimah

Israel's recent assassinations of Palestinian resistance activists look ominously like the aggression that preceded last winter's attacks in Gaza

Obama's Yemeni Odyssey Targets China
By M.K. Bhadrakumar

Most important for US global strategies will be the massive gain of control of the port of Aden in Yemen. Britain can vouchsafe that Aden is the gateway to Asia. Control of Aden and the Malacca Strait will put the US in an unassailable position in the "great game" of the Indian Ocean. The sea lanes of the Indian Ocean are literally the jugular veins of China's economy. By controlling them, Washington sends a strong message to Beijing that any notions by the latter that the US is a declining power in Asia would be nothing more than an extravagant indulgence in fantasy

Ethiopia Commits Genocide, Eritrea Gets Sanctioned
By Thomas C. Mountain

The UN inSecurity Council has done it again in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia has been committing genocide in the Ethiopian Ogaden and in response the UN Security Council, in a closed door meeting, passed sanctions against...Eritrea?

Why We Can’t Wait: Reading Dr. King
In The Age Of Obama

By Billy Wharton

Today, Barack Obama is held up as the logical outcome of the movement King led. Such a claim avoids a basic fact of American history. Elections do not deliver much in the way of social change. More often they provide sleeping pills – skillfully crafted illusions meant to de-mobilize, to dull the senses and to prevent serious demands for justice from emerging. King understood this process well

Remembering Jyoti Basu
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Jyoti Basu lived upto his convictions, a truly Marxist, an atheist and a firm believer in science. He donated his eyes and his body will be used by medical science student for research purposes. What a contrast when you see the cremation of political class and I do not want to say just upper castes but of every religion. Jyoti Basu has debunked all those who feel that India can not be a country of non believers. Even when millions of believers are coming to Kumbha fair and destroying the Ganges, the conviction of Jyoti Basu need to be applauded

Nehruvian Foreign Policy: Misplaced Criticisms
By Ram Puniyani

While Tharoor’s press conference seems to have exonerated him from the axe of the blind venerators of Gandhi-Nehru, the deeper issues raised by Parekh-Tharoor and also BJP line on these issues is what needs to be debated and proper perspective of Gandhi-Nehru ‘moral running commentary’ needs to be understood in the light of the holistic needs of the nation at that point of time

17 January, 2010

Why The US Owes Haiti Billions
By Bill Quigley

The US has worked to break Haiti for over 200 years. We owe Haiti. Not charity. We owe Haiti as a matter of justice. Reparations. And not the $100 million promised by President Obama either - that is Powerball money. The US owes Haiti Billions - with a big B

The Lesson Of Haiti
By Fidel Castro

The tragedy has genuinely moved a significant number of people, particularly those in which that quality is innate. But perhaps very few of them have stopped to consider why Haiti is such a poor country. Why does almost 50% of its population depend on family remittances sent from abroad? Why not analyze the realities that led Haiti to its current situation and this enormous suffering as well?

The Right Testicle Of Hell:
History Of A Haitian Holocaust

By Greg Palast

A friend of mine called. Do I know a journalist who could get medicine to her father? And she added, trying to hold her voice together, "My sister, she's under the rubble. Is anyone going who can help, anyone?" Should I tell her, "Obama will have Marines there in 'a few days'"?

If It’s That Warm, How Come It’s So Damned Cold?
By James Hansen, Reto Ruedy, Makiko Sato & Ken Lo

The past year, 2009, tied as the second warmest year in the 130 years of global instrumental temperature records, in the surface temperature analysis of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). The Southern Hemisphere set a record as the warmest year for that half of the world

For Israel, A Reckoning
By John Pilger

A new global movement is challenging Israel's violations of international law with the same strategies that were used against apartheid

“Kill Another Turk…”
By Uri Avnery

Turkish television aired a rather primitive series, in which Mossad operatives kidnap Turkish children and hide them in the Israeli embassy. Valiant Turkish agents free the children and kill the evil ambassador. One can ignore such an obnoxious story altogether or protest mildly. But our illustrious Foreign Minister thought that this was the right occasion to demonstrate to all and sundry that we are no longer abject ghetto Jews who take everything lying down, but proud, upright Jews of a new breed

What Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
Might Say To Bono And US!

By Eileen Fleming

Two years ago, Israeli President Shimon Peres invited Bono to attend a conference in Israel marking Israel's 60th Anniversary and to honor its contributions in medicine, science, and conservation. Bono didn’t make that trip, but this summer he is scheduled to perform in Israel

Dr. Martin Luther King Was
More Than Just A Dreamer

By Sharat G. Lin

Speech delivered at a celebration of the 81st birth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. held at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library in San José, California, U.S.A. on 14 January 2010

Iraq Political Fissures Widen As March Vote Nears
By Dahr Jamail

National elections in Iraq, originally scheduled to take place this month, but postponed until March 7, rather than possibly bringing greater stability to war-torn Iraq, now threaten to reignite a powder keg of political tensions that has been simmering for years

Israel And The Threat To Middle East Peace
By Salim Nazzal

It is not difficult to conclude that this generation will not hesitate to apply the theory of destroying the temple on all. This is the platform of the cultural atmosphere of next wars in the Middle East. Drawing on the fact that the past decade witnessed two wars with the state of Israel, it is not difficult to anticipate that the 21 century will be the century of horrific, decisive and devasting wars with the Zionist state

My Grandmother And Bt.Brinjal
By Suma Josson

Suma Josson ruminates on an age when there was no threat of Bt Brinjals and terminator seeds

16 January, 2010

US Troops Deployed In Haiti
As Popular Anger Mounts

By Bill Van Auken

The first contingents of a US military force expected to reach 10,000 troops arrived in Haiti as anger mounted over the failure of international aid to reach the millions left injured, homeless and destitute by Tuesday’s earthquake

Ten Things The U.S. Can And Should Do For Haiti
By Bill Quigley

Do not allow US military in Haiti to point their guns at Haitians. Hungry Haitians are not the enemy. Decisions have already been made which will militarize the humanitarian relief – but do not allow the victims to be cast as criminals. Do not demonize the people

Wake Up World!
By Bill Quigley

Unless there is a major urgent change in the global response, the world may look back and envy those tens of thousands who died in the quake. Wake up world!

Haitian Earthquake: Made In The USA
By Ted Rall

Earthquakes are random events. How many people they kill is predetermined. In Haiti this week, don't blame tectonic plates. Ninety-nine percent of the death toll is attributable to poverty. So the question is relevant. How'd Haiti become so poor?

The Big One Devastates Haiti
By Stephen Lendman

Decimated by unimaginable hardships and depravation, they're on their own and out of luck because of the callous disregard for their lives and well-being

Why Is The American Press Silent
On The Israeli Role In NW Flight 253?

By Patrick Martin

The Israeli connection has been widely reported in the Israeli and European press. In addition to Ha’aretz, the Jerusalem Post noted the role of ICTS in Amsterdam in an article December 27, and Israeli television interviewed a company director, who confirmed that Abdulmutallab had been given a security screening. But there has been nothing in the main American media outlets—nothing in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal or any other major daily newspaper, and nothing on any of the television or cable news networks

666 To 1
By Nick Turse & Tom Engelhardt

The U.S. military, al-Qaeda, and a war of futility

What Brit Hume Doesn't Know About Buddhism
And The Sorry State Of US Christianity

By Eileen Fleming

Recently on the Bill O'Reilly show, Brit Hume advised Tiger Woods that he should turn from Buddhism to Christianity.The truth is that the best Christians are also Buddhists

Buying Ourselves To Death
By Case Wagenvoord

The left is going to have to lose its ideological fragmentation if it wishes to be any sort of a counterforce to the Right. Right now it is too fragmented as individuals occupy their private ideological castles and refuse to leave them. You can neither organize nor fund-raise from a computer. We will only cure this fragmentation if we are willing to leave our castles and engage in a political process that has been described as a process of compromise and conciliation between conflicting groups in a pluralistic society

The March Of Refugees
By Srestha Banerjee

As the climate conference in Copenhagen becomes a part of “conventional” history, the much debatable yet extremely urgent issue continues to remain the centerpiece of global policy discussions. The issue does no more solely have the emblem of the cute polar bear, looking desolate and desperate in its endangered habitat, but the emblem has become human faces: the "climate refugees", standing in the barren lands of our "enriched civilization"

In Defense Of Chavez’ Call For A
Fifth Socialist International

By Ann Robertson & Bill Leumer

Critics who have planted themselves firmly on the sidelines, have been lobbing all kinds of disapproving missives at President Hugo Chavez’ call for a new international, urging others who have been carried away with enthusiastic support to join them on the sidelines. The laundry list of complaints is extensive: Chavez is the head of a bourgeois government; Chavez only pursues reformism, not genuine revolution; he made his call in the presence of an audience that included avowed supporters of capitalism; and so on

13 January, 2010

Iranian Scientist Assassinated
As US Steps Up War Threats

By Bill Van Auken

Massoud Ali Mohammadi, one of Iran’s leading nuclear scientists, was assassinated in Tehran Tuesday, just two days after the top US military commander in the region announced that the Pentagon has drawn up plans to bomb Iranian nuclear sites

Washington Moves To Control Iran’s Revolution
By Shamus Cooke

If Obama were sincere about helping the people of Iran, he would leave the country in peace, instead of making threats and beating the war drum, a drum he’s pounding in the exact same rhythm that Bush played in the march to war with Iraq

Regime Change In Tehran? Don’t Bet On It… Yet
By Dilip Hiro

Were the Western powers, for instance, to succeed in ratcheting up economic sanctions against Tehran through the United Nations Security Council, the opposition would undoubtedly cease its protests and cooperate with the Ahmadinejad administration to face a common national threat under the banner of patriotism

Invitation To the Peoples’ World Conference On
Climate Change And Mother Earth’s Rights

By Evo Morales Ayma

Invitation To the Peoples’ World Conference On Climate Change And Mother Earth’s Rights to be held from April 20-22, 2010 – Cochabamba, Bolivia

The Ends And Means Of Climate Change Mitigation
By Stephen Roblin

Confusion over the means and ends of radical left activism can be potentially fatal for the causes we strive to advance. And for the case of climate change mitigation, confusion can be fatal, literally speaking, for the human species. Given the potential opportunity to enact binding reductions in carbon emissions at the Conference of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Mexico next year, any confusion that plagues the Left must be lay to rest immediately in order to ensure we play our indispensable role in combating this threat

Us vs. Them: On The Meaning Of Fascism
By Roger Tucker

Pretty much everyone nowadays rejects fascism, but nobody seems to know quite what it is. The words "fascist" and "fascism" are frequently flung about, but they seem to be applied to all sorts of different and unrelated people and things. But what really is the meaning of the term, fascism?

Israel's New Rocket Defence System
By Jonathan Cook

Israel unveiled “Iron Dome” last week, a missile-defence system that is designed to strike a knock-out blow against short-range rockets of the variety fired into Israel by Hamas and Hizbullah. In the short term, Iron Dome is supposed to herald the demise of the rocket threat to Israeli communities near Gaza four years after Hamas won the Palestinian elections

Israeli Prohibitions Against Free Expression
And "Enemy Alien" Contacts

By Stephen Lendman

In September 2009, Adalah, the legal center for Arab Minority Rights issued a report titled "Prohibited Protest" and it exposed how Israel's law enforcement authorities restricted free expression protests against Operation Cast Lead

A Request On Dr. Martin Luther King Day
By Jennifer Jones Austin

Jennifer Jones Austin, Activist, Needs Bone Marrow Donor

12 January, 2010

The Holocaust We Will Not See
By George Monbiot

The greatest acts of genocide in history scarcely ruffle our collective conscience. Perhaps this is what would have happened had the Nazis won the second world war: the Holocaust would have been denied, excused or minimised in the same way, even as it continued. The people of the nations responsible – Spain, Britain, the US and others – will tolerate no comparisons, but the final solutions pursued in the Americas were far more successful. Those who commissioned or endorsed them remain national or religious heroes. Those who seek to prompt our memories are ignored or condemned

Insouciant Americans
By Paul Craig Roberts

The "war on terror" is a far greater threat to Americans than all the terrorists in the world combined. This is so because the "war on terror" has destroyed the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights

Nablus Executions: Shoot First, Ask Questions Later
By Bridget Chappell

The brutal killing of three Palestinian men by Israeli military forces in Nablus on 26 December 2009 sparked grief and outrage across Palestine and brought the northern West Bank city to a standstill as thousands mourned the lethal attack. However, their voices are drowned out yet again by a well-played hand of Israel's propaganda machine and repeated by the mainstream media

Could The Pakistani Government
Fall Over Karachi Violence?

By Juan Cole

The ongoing political turmoil in a major Pakistani city to which few Americans pay much attention could nevertheless prove pivotal to the Obama administration's AfPak project

Battle For Mediation: The Political Price
For The War In Yemen

By Ali Jawad

The participation of the Saudi and Yemeni establishments in their war against Yemeni Houthis has been a catastrophic error – so catastrophic, in fact, as to verge on political suicide. After months of blind bombing raids, the prospects of any decisive victory disappear further into oblivion with every additional sortie

The Death Of Liberalism In The United States
By Shamus Cooke

It’s no exaggeration to say that President Obama was the Democrats’ last chance to maintain some level of political legitimacy in the eyes of working class Americans. Now, after a year of solid pro-corporate policies, it’s obvious Obama has failed; and with him the Democratic Party

Behind The Veils Of Power: Hope For Progressives
By Bernard Weiner

There is citizen rage roiling in the polity based on what we've all witnessed in the past few years as the Veils of Power have been lifted. Are we progressives finally going to organize ourselves and help shape that citizen anger? Or, out of ennui or fear or laziness, do we cede the battleground to the extremist right?

11 January, 2010

The Horror State Of Chhattisgarh
By Nandini Sundar

Ujjwal Kumar Singh, Professor of Political Science, Delhi University and Nandini Sundar have just returned (January 1st) from a visit to the police state of Chhattisgarh. A firsthand account from the belly of the beast

The Jan Sunwai That Never Was :
Listen To The Voices From Chhattisgarh!

By Peoples Union for Democratic Rights

In Dantewada a team of around 30 activists from NAPM and other organizations, Medha Patkar and Sandeep Pandey among them, were heckled, pelted with eggs and sewage and attacked by a large gang of tribal youth, accusing them of being Maoist sympathizers on Saturday

India's Inhuman Gunmen
By Gladson Dungdung

When the people of the entire world were greeting to each other, bursting crackers and enjoying delicious food on the occasion of the new year 2010, the police of Chhatarpur, Town and Sadar police stations of Palamu district, (which is the most Maoist infested area according to the government and the media reports) in Jharkhand, were engaged in humiliating, torturing and beating to death Rajendra Yadav of Telaria village (Chhatarpur) alleging him as a Naxalite

The Recession Is Over, The Depression
Just Beginning

By Stephen Lendman

Looking ahead in 2010, the state of the nation for most people is dire and worsening, and 2011 looks no better. City mayors are on the front lines dealing with it. So are governors at their state levels, but increasingly they're getting less help from Washington from an administration with priorities leaving them out and the millions they serve, on their own and out of luck

Prepare Now To Escape Obama’s Retirement Trap
By Ron Holland

The retirement trap I'm writing about is only a proposal at the present time and since it may well begin in the latter years of the Obama Administration assuming the Democrats can somehow maintain their majorities in Congress, I'm calling it the "Obama Retirement Trap". But make no mistake, the government need for current revenue and their frenzied search for a short-term fix to fund a backstop of liquidity to buy future government debt obligations when no credible investors will buy them is an unspoken quest of both political parties. The establishments of both political parties will do anything to stay in power and this will include raiding and pillaging your retirement funds

Carolyn Baker And Keith Farnish Dialogue
About The Great Transition

By Keith Farnish

Carolyn Baker And Keith Farnish in dialogue about peaki oil, climate change and the end of industrial civilization

The Shadow War
By Tom Engelhardt & Nick Turse

Making sense of the New CIA battlefield in Afghanistan

The Question No U.S. Official Dare Ask
By William Pfaff

My question is the following. Has it been a terrible, and by now all but irreversible, error for the United States to have built a system of more than 700 military bases and stations girdling the world? Does it provoke war rather than provide security?

The Art Of Unnecessary Warfare
By Case Wagenvoord

The first rule of unnecessary warfare is that when you have a goose that is laying golden eggs you keep it off the dinner menu. It is imperative that you keep it fat and healthy, no matter what the costs. The priority in such a war is not a healthy army, it’s healthy defense contractors, and if you have to hollow out your army to keep them healthy you do so

“Honouring Dalits With Blood”
By Pardeep Singh Attri

A look into the increase in the number of Khap Panchayat’s illegal decrees, ‘fatwas’ against Dalits

10 January, 2010

Lessons From The Holocaust
By Silvia Cattori

85-year old Hedy Epstein is back in the limelight. Last week in Cairo, she embarked on a hunger strike to protest the ongoing blockade of Gaza. A Jewish Holocaust survivor whose parents perished in Auschwitz in 1942, she emigrated to the US in 1948 and first visited Palestine in 2003. Revolted by the Israeli Government’s oppression of the Palestinians, she has devoted her life to drawing public attention to this reality. Back from a visit to Palestine, she was interviewed by Silvia Cattori

A Year After Losing A Father And Sons,
A Gaza Family Copes

By Rami Almeghari

"Four months after the martyrdom of my husband and two of my sons, my granddaughter Lina was born -- the daughter of my martyred son Basel," said Fathiya Abu Jbarah. Fathiya is the widow of Jihad Abu Jbarah and mother of Basil, 30, and Usama, 21 who were killed on 4 January 2009 by an Israeli missile that struck their home in al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. Their home was hit during Israel's 22-day air and land attack that killed more than 1,400 persons and wounded thousands of others

The Quiet American
By Uri Avnery

The Quiet American resembles Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust, who defines himself as the force that “always wants the bad and always creates the good”. Only the other way round

The Other Side Of Oslo Peace Process
By Ershad Abubacker

The post-Oslo Palestine has been a deep scar running deep in to the map of humanity. The tenacity and vision of world leaders behind Oslo and Camp David did promise a new beginning, but for ordinary Palestinians, it was the beginning of a new form of Israeli domination over the Palestinians

Congolese Women And Girls
Suffering The Insufferable

By Emily Spence & Brian McAfee

Heavily armed militias are trying to increase the very same kinds of turmoil that charitable groups are striving to remedy. They are doing so in order to gain control of four main minerals: tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold that garner an estimated $180 million in revenues each year

Marriage vs. Civil Unions: Separate Is Never Equal
By Mary Shaw

The New Jersey State Senate recently rejected a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage in the Garden State

Thoughtherding And The 'Alternative Media'
By Sean Fenley

A critique of the online progressive media

Farmer Suicides In Vidharbha Come In Handy
To Promote Bt Cotton

By Devinder Sharma

I draw your attention to a front page news in The Indian Express today: First time in 4 years, annual suicide tally in Vidharbha is below 1,000. The blurb below spills out the business connection. It says - Key to the dip: Rs 1,300-crore loan waiver, Bt cotton crop, market prices. Now this line played up by the newspaper will leave an impression on you that Bt cotton was the saviour

09 January, 2010

Egypt Bans Gaza Aid Convoys
By Aljazeera

Egyptian authorities have announced that all aid convoys travelling to Gaza will be banned from travelling across Egypt after a riot broke out at the Rafah border crossing earlier in the week

Gaza Freedom March: Detained At The US Embassy
By Ali Abunimah

Having been held hostage, we were forced to negotiate our own release. It was a lesson -- if we needed one -- that when it comes to the siege of Gaza, the United States government is not part of the solution, but an active part of the problem. And, the United States is not beyond relying on the repressive police tactics of the Egyptian state to protect itself from the opinions of its own citizens

Will Egypt's Underground Wall End
The Gaza Tunnel Trade?

By Lina Attalah

Self-protection is the argument in use by the Egyptian government in explaining the wall construction, besides reaffirmations that the wall is built on Egyptian land, and hence it is a sovereign act. But the Egyptian opposition and Gaza activists dubb it as "the wall of shame"

Cancer - The Deadly Legacy Of The Invasion Of Iraq
By Jalal Ghazi

Cancer is spreading like wildfire in Iraq. Thousands of infants are being born with deformities. Doctors say they are struggling to cope with the rise of cancer and birth defects, especially in cities subjected to heavy American and British bombardment

Overcoming The Copenhagen Failure
By Joseph E. Stiglitz

Pretty speeches can take you only so far. A month after the Copenhagen climate conference, it is clear that the world’s leaders were unable to translate rhetoric about global warming into action

The Meaning Of Copenhagen
By Richard Heinberg

Copenhagen was a watershed event. Climate change has become, in many people's minds, the central survival issue for our species, and the Copenhagen talks provided a pivotal moment for addressing that issue. The fact that the talks failed to produce a binding agreement is therefore of some significance

The Next Decade's Top Sustainability Trends
By Warren Karlenzig

What trends are likely the next ten years? One thing for sure, 2010 through 2019 will be one day looked at as 1.) the turning point for addressing climate change by using effective urban management strategies, or it will be remembered as 2.) the time when we collectively fumbled the Big Blue Ball

Fight Climate Change: Live The Good Life
By Colin Beavan

Low-carbon living isn’t a sacrifice. Colin Beavan says it’s the good life

Is The World's Oil Running Out Fast?
By Adam Porter

BBC report from the Peak Oil conference in Berlin

Complaint To ICC re US Alliance Palestinian,
Iraqi, Afghan, Muslim, Aboriginal,
Biofuel And Climate Genocides

By Dr Gideon Polya

The following detailed formal complaint was sent on 8 January 2010 to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over various US Alliance involvements in ongoing genocidal atrocities against Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Muslims, and Australian Aboriginals, and against the Developing World in general through the worsening Biofuel Genocide and Climate Genocide

The Mushroom Effect
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

One could be forgiven for thinking that the neoconservatives who nudge us towards war with Iran are under the effect of the magic mushroom. Obsessed with Iran, their trips take on the shape of a 'mushroom cloud'. Christopher Hitchens is one such example. Writing for The Australian, one of Rupert Murdoch's papers, Hitchens' Mullahs indubitably fancy a mushroom betrays a sly mind that lacks lucidity

Yemen: A Closer Look At The “New Frontier”
By Ali Jawad

As President Ali Abdallah Saleh’s control over Yemen falters with popular movements in the north and south increasingly gaining momentum, the Al-Saud royalty is acutely aware that it would be the first to feel the after-effects of its backfired policy, as it comes under increasing threat from the same quarters it once funded and used to buttress its global standing. The US is likewise very cognisant of this threat, and acknowledges that any de-stabilization of the kingdom would immediately diminish the empire’s regional clout

The Issue Of 10,000 Disappeared Persons
Haunts Pakistan Government

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Rocking the unpopular US-client government of President Asif Ali Zardari, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has reopened the cases of thousands of missing or disappeared persons during General Musharraf’s regime

08 January, 2010

Israeli Air Raids Kill Gazans
By Aljazeera

Israel has launched air raids against at least seven targets in the Gaza Strip, killing three people, Palestinian medics say

A Victory For Viva Palestina
By Eric Ruder

Eric Ruder reports on Viva Palestina's success in bringing humanitarian supplies to Gaza, despite a harrowing assault by Egyptian police

"No Army, No Prison And No Wall Can Stop Us"
By Abdallah Abu Rahmah

Whether we are confined in the open-air prison that Gaza has been transformed into, in military prisons in the West Bank, or in our own villages surrounded by the apartheid wall, arrests and persecution do not weaken us. They only strengthen our commitment to turning 2010 into a year of liberation through unarmed grassroots resistance to the occupation

My Husband: Jailed For Protesting Israel's Wall
By Majida Abu Rahmah

On International Human Rights Day in 2008, my husband Abdallah Abu Rahmah was in Berlin receiving a medal from the World Association for Human Rights. Last year on the same day, 10 December, Abdallah was taken away at 2am by Israeli soldiers who broke into our West Bank home. Abdallah was arrested for the same reasons he received the prize -- his nonviolent struggle for justice, equality and peace in Palestine/Israel

Is Anyone Telling Us The Truth?
By Paul Craig Roberts

What are we to make of the failed Underwear Bomber plot, the Toothpaste, Shampoo, and Bottled Water Bomber plot, and the Shoe Bomber plot? These blundering and implausible plots to bring down an airliner seem far removed from al-Qaida’s expertise in pulling off 9/11

The Melting Of America
By Orville Schell

We Americans, too, seem to have passed a tipping point. Like the glaciers of the high Himalaya, long familiar aspects of our nation are beginning to feel as if they were, in a sense, melting away

Black America's Economic Freefall
By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

The American economy has gone through what has been called the Great Recession. But the crisis in Black communities across the U.S. constitutes an outright depression--spurring desperate conditions that have gone largely unreported because of the racist indifference of the government and mass media

Letter From Climate Prisoners In Denmark
By Climate Prisoners

Something is rotten (but not just) in Denmark. As a matter of fact, thousands of people have been considered, without any evidence, a threat to the society. Hundreds have been arrested and some are still under detention, waiting for judgement or under investigation. Among them, us, the undersigned

Five Reasons To Be Hopeful About 2010
By Mike Gaworecki

Despite the epic failure of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, I think there are plenty of reasons to be hopeful that 2010 will be a banner year for achieving new and lasting environmental protection. Here are the top 5 reasons why

A Farming Model To Sustain The World
By Devinder Sharma

Ten years from now, in 2020, when we try to look back, Indian agriculture and for that matter global agriculture can be transformed into a healthy and vibrant system where farmer suicides have been relegated to history, where distress and despondency has been replaced by the lost pride in farming, where agriculture becomes truly sustainable in the long run, and does not add heat to the global environment

Sri Lanka Execution Video Authentic
By Aljazeera

A UN human rights official has urged Colombo allow an impartial investigation after he concluded that video footage allegedly showing Sri Lankan troops executing Tamil Tiger fighters last year is authentic

07 January, 2010

Viva Palestina Convoy Breaks Gaza Siege
By Aljazeera

Members of the much-delayed Viva Palestina convoy began passing through Egypt's Rafah border crossing into Gaza on Wednesday, waving Palestinian flags and raising their hands in peace signs

Viva Palestina's Bumpy Road
By Dr Hanan Chehata

Egypt has had every opportunity to redeem and to recast itself in the role of the hero. Instead they have needlessly and voluntarily cast themselves in the role of villain

Palestine Uniting Humanity
By Salim Nazzal

What a fantastic view we are witnessing these days. People from the four corners of the earth are marching towards Palestine. They are peoples from 17 nationalities among them Americans, Arabs, Africans, Australians, Britons, Canadians, French, Malaysians, Norwegians, Turkish, Swedes, Venezuelans, and a Jewish woman. The occasion is sad, because it comes at the first anniversary of the Gaza onslaught, but the warm solidarity is converting the sad occasion into time of showing support and love towards the besieged Palestinians in Gaza

Israeli Theft Of Palestinian Property
By Stephen Lendman

For over 60 years, Israel has disposessed Palestinins of their land, incrementally, systematically, and illegally, intending at most to leave Palestinians cantonized and surrounded in the least valued portions, the rest being exclusively for Jews

Media Vultures Are Coming:
Freedom Of Expression At Risk

By Ramzy Baroud

The coming year might go down in history as that of major media consolidation, as in concentration of media ownership in the hands of a few large conglomerates and powerful media moguls. Predictions regarding mergers of media companies are very bleak, and to a degree frightening

The American Elite
By William Blum

Mothers, don't let your children grow up to be Nobel Peace Prize winners

War Against The People And The Historic
Lalgarh Movement

By Amit Bhattacharyya

The ongoing struggle in Lalgarh is totally different from any other recent movement in our country. In both Singur and Nandigram, the parliamentary parties played some role, although in the case of the latter, the Maoist party that rejects the parliamentary path did play some role. In the case of the Lalgarh movement, on the other hand, parliamentary parties were actually rejected by the people and the Maoist party played a major role

India Is Divided Into Three Nations:
Manhattan, India And Bharat

By Devinder Sharma

The urban-rural divide in India is no longer to be seen through the lense of the popular two-nation concept: India and Bharat. The geographical borders of the country now comprise three nations: Manhattan, India and Bharat. Manhattan are the Special Economic Zones (SEZ), an euphemism for princely Estates that are being carved out in the name of economic growth. India comprise the urban centres, and Bharat of course denotes the poor and backward rural countryside

Indo-China Diplomatic War Over Kashmir
By Zafar Iqbal

Historically, since the partition of British India, Kashmir has been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan, who have fought four wars, in which China mostly remained on Pakistani side, nevertheless, recent Sino-India confrontation over Kashmir demonstrates that this lingering Kashmir conflict could also trigger the animosity between two emerging superpowers, which also poses alarming repercussions for the stability and peace of the region

The New Iron Man – S M Mushrif –
Author Of Who Killed Karkare

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan

To tell a truth in front of a tyrant ruler is the biggest crusade in the sight of Lord. And perhaps, this saying sounds so true to Mr. S M Mushrif (retired IAS officer – former IGP Maharashtra) when he wrote his book, ‘Who killed Karkare ?’ published a couple of months back

06 January, 2010

Lethal Clashes At Gaza-Egypt Border
By Aljazeera

At least one Egyptian border guard has been killed and two Palestinians shot and wounded along the Gaza border during fierce clashes with Egyptian security forces

Blocking Freedom Marcher/Viva Palestina
Aid To Gaza

By Stephen Lendman

Viva Palestina calls on friends and supporters to protest by any means possible and demand that the entire convoy be granted free access to Gaza. The situation remains fluid, so new developments are likely after this article is published. Follow them at vivapalestina.org and web sites reporting their progress, or lack of it

Gaza And The Path To Accountability
By Sunera Thobani

In seeking to protect Israel from the Goldstone report and Israeli politicians from the threat of arrest in the UK, the British, American and Canadian governments might well be engaged in a battle to save their own skins in the face of an emboldened legal activism. Gaza may well be the gateway to anti-imperialist accountability in the 21st century

Message To Obama And Brown:
How About Asking WHY?

By Alan Hart

In their refusal to ask the question of why, really, Muslims are being radicalized, President Obama and Prime Minister Brown are no different from their immediate predecessors

The World Half A Century Later
By Fidel Castro

We are living a new era that resembles no other in history. In the past, the peoples fought and still fight with honor for a better world with more justice but today they must also fight –with no other choice—for the survival of the human species

The World In 2020
By Michael T. Klare

By the end of the second decade of this century, however, our world is likely to have a genuinely different look to it. Momentous shifts in global power relations and a changing of the imperial guard, just now becoming apparent, will be far more pronounced by 2020 as new actors, new trends, new concerns, and new institutions dominate the global space

The Coming Fury Of An Angry America
By Aetius Romulous

A tiny part of a tiny part of the population of the earth will set the terms for the future of all humans. A tiny part that is broken, spent out, and increasingly disillusioned. That sliver of humanity is the broken, spent out, and increasingly disillusioned American middle class, burdened with the task of spending all America out of catastrophe. When they break under the weight of desperate impossibility, how will the heartlands good citizens react, and what will they do?

Stoking Anxiety For Fun And Profit
By Case Wagenvoord

Faced with the threat of exploding underwear, the Beltway has expanded our “Long War” to include the small country of Yemen. This is encouraging news for our Corporate-Military Infrastructure as Iraq winds down and as we move closer to declaring victory in Afghanistan and splitting, thus threatening to close off two of their revenue streams

The Butthole Bomber: Dick Cheney's
Next Terrorist Threat

By Irving Wesley Hall

A political Satire

The Architect Of The Adivasis’ Misery
By Gladson Dungdung

Nehru is the architect of modern India, but it is also the fact that his modern temples of India, industrialization process and corporate model of development are the main reasons of the Adivasis’ pains, sufferings and sorrows. Indeed, he is the architect of the Adivasis’ misery

05 January, 2010

Earth Itself Has Become Disposable
By George Monbiot

Consumerism has, as Huxley feared, changed all of us – we'd rather hop to a brave new world than rein in our spending

Climate Change Has No Time For Delay Or Denial
By Rajendra Pachauri

It is becoming increasingly clear that the spread of knowledge and awareness would be a critical driver of the transformation that is required to move human society towards a pattern of sustainable development. This would also be the most effective means of thwarting the efforts of skeptics and vested interests, who will do everything possible to maintain the status quo. As the science in the IPCC Fourth Assessment report clearly demonstrates, there is no leeway for delay or denial any longer

Wars "R" Us: Making The World Safe For
American Domination

By Emily Spence

Wars are big business, most notably for investors and employees in the aerospace and defense industries. The related purposes, like the ones guiding most corporations, are hardly humanistic. Instead new sources of revenue, cheap resources from conquered lands, and new markets for products and services are the sine qua non

Obama Adds 675 Million Muslims
To The Ultimate US Terrorism List

By Franklin Lamb

On January 3, 2010, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) issued new security directives to all United States and international air carriers with inbound flights to the U.S. effective January 4, 2010. At midnight Washington DC time, January 3, it went into effect and placed 675,000,000 (675 million) more Muslims and Arabs on yet another ‘Terrorism ‘list. Also added were Nigerian and Cuban Christians but they were not the target

Religious Wars: Still Fracturing A Shrinking World
By Robert S. Becker I

s it mere chance then our government unilaterally wars against four Muslim nations, with more coming? Did not W. represent a fearful, uninformed majority that trusts its western God to approve belligerence against infidels? As Noam Chomsky observes, “Three quarters of the American population literally believe in religious miracles. The numbers who believe in the devil, in resurrection, in God doing this and that -- it's astonishing. These numbers aren't duplicated anywhere else in the industrial world.” Ditto death panels, Creationism, the Rapture, Armageddon, or the end of times

For A New Dawn In India-Bangladesh Relations
By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

If I were Prime Minister of Bangladesh what I would have said to my counterpart in India

Israeli Use Of Painful Shackling
As A Form of Torture

By Stephen Lendman

Public Committee Against Torture in Israel reviews the "serious phenomenon" of shackling Palestinian detainees "in a systematic manner and throughout all stages of detention and interrogation." Its purpose is to dehumanize and inflict pain, suffering, punishment, intimidation, and discrimination as a way of lawlessly extracting information even though experts acknowledge that torture is ineffective, counterproductive, and, of course, illegal under all circumstances at all times with no exceptions allowed ever

Avatar: An Extension Of White Supremacy
By Frederick Alexander Meade

Regrettably, movie goers often fail to recognize the incessant inane and divisive ideas promoted by such productions as Avatar and subsequently are subliminally compelled to accept false notions in regard to either the superiority or inferiority of various groups and their subsequent essential value. Such has been the case far more often than the public is perhaps aware

Microfinance Meltdown In Bosnia
By Phil Cain

A market-led lending scheme some hoped would be the driving force behind economic revival in Bosnia after the civil war ended in 1995 is facing meltdown

Response To Microfinance Article
By Devinder Sharma

Devinder Sharma's reply to an article by Lokesh Singh, CEO of Sanchetna Microfinance, critiquing Mr. Sharma's criticism of Microfinance

Salvador Option Fomenting Civil War In Pakistan
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Borrowing a page from Al-Anbar experiment, the US has advised Pakistan to enlist tribal leaders in the border areas in the fight against the Taliban, as part of a broader effort to bolster Pakistani forces. The proposal is modeled in part on a similar effort by American forces in Anbar Province of Iraq where American commanders have worked with Sunni sheiks to turn locals against the militant group. This has been hailed as a great success in fighting insurgents there

Jammu And Kashmir's Employment Policy
Misses Viability Strategy

By Bilal Hussain

The Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, Omar Abdullah, recently unveils the employment policy. The policy document gives a good reading, mentions exploitation of most economic sectors of the state and generation of huge employment. However, like most of the state’s policy documents it too misses the much needed viability strategy

04 January, 2010

Obama's War On Yemen
By Stephen Lendman

Besides waging direct or proxy wars on multiple fronts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, the Philippines, Sudan, Eastern Congo, elsewhere in Africa, and likely to erupt almost anywhere at any time, Yemen is now a new front in America's "war on terror" under a president, who as a candidate, promised diplomacy, not conflict, if elected

Questions Mount Over Attempt To Bomb
Detroit-Bound Jetliner

By Patrick Martin

Ten days after the failed attempt to explode a bomb onboard Northwest Flight 253 as it approached Detroit—an action that, if successful, would have killed nearly 300 people—there are mounting questions about the actions of US government agencies

What To Watch For In 2010
By Tom Engelhardt & Nick Turse

According to the Chinese calendar, 2010 is the Year of the Tiger. We don't name our years, but if we did, this one might prospectively be called the Year of the Assassin

Obama And Iran's Opposition
By Mark Vorpahl

The Obama administration is being forced to walk a narrow path between its aims to put a more compliant regime in Iran and navigating away from the threat of a militant popular movement which will put the needs of the vast majority first rather than the domestic and foreign capitalist interests. Obama's fine words regarding the protests on December 26-27 cannot be taken at face value. They are an attempt to cover up an inevitable betrayal

The Chilcot Inquiry: Britain’s 9/11 Commission
By Maidhc Ó Cathail

Just as the Zelikow-directed 9/11 Commission suppressed evidence that the main motive for the September 11 attacks was American support for Israel, Freedman’s presence on the Chilcot Inquiry is a clear indication that there will be no inquiry into the role of Zionist insiders in taking Britain to war against Iraq—a country that posed a threat not to British interests but to Israel’s regional hegemony

On The Way To Copenhagen We Added
A World Food Crisis

By Robert Palmer

What would our economy and climate change look like today if we had not chosen to build, build, build the Alaska Pipe Line? Imagine if the US, the largest polluter in the world until 2007, had prevented billions of tons of CO2 from reaching the atmospher

Apology To The Earth For Nuclear Bombs And War
By Mary Hamer, M.D

This Apology to the Earth essayexplores the negative impact of humans on the Earth by Nuclear Technology and War

Gaza Freedom March Marches In Cairo
Against Blockade

By Sharat G. Lin

Delegates of the Gaza Freedom March were defeated in their desire to travel to Gaza, but, as a result of the struggles in the streets and embassies of Cairo, they were more determined than ever that the blockade of Gaza by both Israel and Egypt must be lifted. Bitur Nabi Tammam of Bahrain saw the bright side, “Even if they don't allow us to cross, I think it has accomplished the purpose that from all over the world you see people left their families, left their homes, to come here to say 'freedom for Gaza,' 'freedom for Palestine,' 'open the gates!'”

Coal And Its Ruptured Landscape;
Navigating The Ruins Of Appalachia

By Frank Joseph Smecker

Along the backbone of the eastern United States, better known as Appalachia, a relatively new trend in coal mining is underway. Mountaintop removal (MTR), a process through which the ubiquitous hankering for cheap energy, harnessed by the coal industry and, combined with explosives to blow tops of mountains into a state of environmental and socio-economic ruin, has been plaguing Appalachia for decades. Industry giants like Peabody Coal Co., Horizon Resources LLC and Arch Coal Inc. (among others) have taken advantage of coal mining legislation to advance the efficiency of coal extraction through MTR

Gilgit Baltsitan: The Dawn Of Democracy Or
The Continuity Of Blemished Political System

By Zafar Iqbal

The election of Northern Areas Legislative Assembly has completed the most considerable constituent of the Constitutional Package enforced by the Government of Pakistan to empower the local population in Pakistan Controlled Gilgit-Baltistan region, however, allegations of massive procedural irregularities, government interference and rigging have been levelled against the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) which emerged as the single largest party in the election

Salute To Women Liberator - Savitribai Phule-
On Birthday, 3rd January

By Pardeep Singh Attri

It is indeed a measure of the ruthlessness of elite-controlled knowledge-production that a figure as important as Savitribai Phule fails to find any mention in the history of modernIndia. Her life and struggle deserves to be appreciated by a wider spectrum, and made known to non-Marathi people as well

03 January, 2010

Cairo Declaration To End Israeli Apartheid
By Gaza Freedom Marchers

Gaza Freedom Marchers approved a declaration aimed at accelerating the global campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israeli Apartheid

The Iron Wall
By Uri Avnery

As an Israeli, I protest against the Israeli blockade. If I were an Egyptian, I would protest against the Egyptian blockade. As a citizen of this planet, I protest against both

Three Approved GMOs Linked to Organ Damage
By Rady Ananda

In what is being described as the first ever and most comprehensive study of the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers have linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto's GM maize

Bt Brinjal: Jairam Ramesh Trying To Legitimise
The GEAC Fraud

By Devinder Sharma

In what appears to be a massive cover-up operation for the scientific swindle perpetrated in the case of the controversial approval granted by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) to India's first poisonous food crop -- Bt brinjal, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh is now trying to legitimise the fraud

The Origins Of Modern Socialism
By Shamus Cooke

This democratic aspect of the Venezuelan revolution is the key to the potential success of 21st century socialism. If the above contradictions of capitalism are resolved by the active, democratic participation of the working class in Venezuela and beyond, then a viable alternative to capitalism would be visible to the international working class, which would instantly recognize it as a superior form of social organization

Gangs And The Truth About
American Interventions

By Timothy V. Gatto

Many of the young people that are active in these gangs are probably following the example that is presented to them every day. In this case I'm talking about the example that the United States government presents on the worlds stage. At this point one may ask oneself if the behavior of the United States doesn't present the same type of modus operandi that gangs display

Obama: When Empire + Militarism Equals Peace?
By Sean Fenley

I found Obamas speech, at Olso, to be a justification for U.S. hegemonism and military power, short and simple! The man loves his empire and he has a thirst for blood!

01 January, 2010

Iraq 'To Appeal Blackwater Verdict'
By Aljazeera

The Iraqi government will push to appeal a US court ruling dismissing charges of murder against five security guards of the private Blackwater firm

Obama Administration Prepares Public Opinion
For Attack On Yemen

By Patrick Martin

Five days after the unsuccessful attempt by a Nigerian student to set off a bomb aboard a Detroit-bound passenger jet, US military and intelligence officials are said to be preparing expanded military action against targets in Yemen, the Arab country where the student allegedly received terrorist training and was equipped with an explosive device

The Northwest Flight 253 Intelligence Failure:
Negligence Or Conspiracy?

By Bill Van Auken

In the five days since the abortive attempt by the 23-year-old Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to detonate an explosive device onboard Northwest Flight 253, information has surfaced that indicates an ostensible breakdown in US intelligence and security that is extraordinary in both its character and scale

Welcome To Orwell’s World
By John Pilger

Obama's lies over the Afghanistan war remind us of the lessons of Nineteen Eighty-Four

New Year, New Hope?
By Alan Hart

With the dawn of a New Year is there any reason to hope that it will see real progress on ending the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel and stopping the countdown to catastrophe for all?

On Gaza Drivers, Rumours And Egypt’s Steel Wall
By Ramzy Baroud

News of an enormous metal wall that Egypt erected at its border with Gaza has come to the fore. Palestinians, including some in the Hamas government never cease to refer to Egypt and Egyptians as “Sister Egypt” and “Egyptian brethren”. Why then are Sister Egypt and the Egyptian brethren taking part in this injustice and allowing Israeli violence to perpetuate? Money? Political validation? Attempts at regional relevance and fear of dismissal if they dare defy Washington’s will?

Israel's East Jerusalem Linked
Settlement Expansion

By Stephen Lendman

On February 1, 2009, the International Solidarity Movement reported that Israel continues its E 1 area homes and infrastructure work that includes linking its Ma'ale Adummim settlement with East Jerusalem and other settlements around it. It said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, while in office, promised to expand E 1 development - the land northeast of Jerusalem, west of Ma'ale Adummim comprising about 12 square kilometers, all of it illegally annexed

Buy An African Baby,Bomb Some African Villages
By Thomas C. Mountain

Asmara, Eritrea: Did anyone ask movie star Angelina Jolie how much she paid for the Ethiopian baby she adopted? Or should I say how much she “donated”, most of which ended up in the hands of the national crime syndicate known as the Government of Ethiopia. Just about anyone can buy a baby in Ethiopia these days, you know what I mean, “adopt”? It costs about $30,000. Cash.. Some reports say over 3,000 were sold...adopted, last year alone

“The System Worked”
By Tom Stephens

We’re between the rock and the hard place. In spite of the risks, it’s time to change – indeed completely overturn and junk - a system that works for the fat cats and the power brokers, while it abuses you and me and billions of ordinary people. In the mean time, thanks to Ms. Napolitano for timely and publicly providing the awful 2000 -09 decade with a fitting moniker: The Decade that the System Worked

The Australian Ombudsman
By Ghali Hassan

The case of a Muslim student who was excluded from the University of Western Sydney (UWS) early this year is particularly instructive. The student was racially abused and assaulted by one of the University’s unskilled Anglo staff. Despite overwhelming evidence of racially-motivated assault and the fact that the staff has admitted using racist language and violence, the University concocted and used baseless allegations to justify the student’s exclusion. The student's appeal to the ombudsman too fell on deaf ears

America Fights; China Prospers
By Case Wagenvoord

Finally we know the real reason we’re in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our military’s mission is to prepare the way for China’s commercial interests. First, China and Russia squeezed us out of the oil concessions in southern Iraq. Now, The New York Times tells us that China has won the rights to mine one of the world’s richest copper deposits near the village of Aynak in Afghanistan

American Disappointment
By Joel S. Hirschhorn

Here’s a resolution for the New Year: As a US citizen I will act responsibly and do everything I can to get strong reforms of our political and government system. Start with becoming a member of Friends of the Article V Convention at foavc.org

A Hope For The Year 2010
By Mirza A. Beg

For those who choose a better tomorrow, not only for themselves, but for all, this is the time for a momentous change. It is a time to raise our voice against the voices of hate within our own countries, societies and religions to usher the hoped for new millennium

1st January, 1818: ‘The Battle Of Bhima Koregaon’
By Pardeep Singh Attri

January 1st 1818, when everyone around the world was busy in celebrating the ‘new year’, when everyone was in cheerful mood, but not for a small force of 500 untouchable soldiers were preparing them to for battleground. Who knows this battle is going to write future of ‘Brahmin Peshwa Baji Rao-II’? It wasn’t just another battle; it was a battle for self respect, esteem and against the supremacy of Manusmriti. This battle is important in history, as everyone know that after this battle rule of ‘Peshwa Rao’ ended

Tribal Rights
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

I can only wish if the tribal had their own Kanshi Ram who could have made them emerge as an independent entity and not look for messiahs. Dalits in India salute Kanshiram for this political contribution that he has made them an entity where they can stand at their own in this democratic polity. Tribal need political leaders who can stand at their own and fight their battle at their own and not look for imported messiahs. Once they have this, they will win the democratic battle and their own survival as their political class will not remain unaccountable as it seems today

 


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