30 April, 2008
Food
Crisis To Impact
Women And Children Heavily
By Thalif Deen
The spreading food crisis -- triggered primarily by rising prices, declining outputs and growing scarcities worldwide -- is threatening to impact heavily on the most vulnerable in society: women and children
US
Escalates Siege In Baghdad’s Sadr City
By Kate Randall
US forces continued their siege against Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood on Tuesday, leaving dozens dead. The US military said a four-hour firefight broke out around 9:30 a.m. between US forces and militiamen as a US soldier injured by small-arms fire was being evacuated
War
With Syria? The Military Option
By Uri Avnery
War with Syria? Peace with Syria? A big military operation against Hamas in the Gaza strip? A cease-fire with Hamas? Our media discuss these questions dispassionately, as if they were equivalent options. Like a person in a showroom making a choice between two cars. This one is good, and so is the other one. So which should one buy? And nobody cries out: War is the height of stupidity!
The
Lords of Capital Decree
Mass Death by Starvation
By Glen Ford
Having crushed the planet's peasants and converted food into just another commodity for global manipulation, the Lord's of Capital have unleashed upon humanity the threat - no, certainty - of mass starvation. The criminal mega-enterprise is centered in the United States, the former "breadbasket of the planet" whose massive conversion to biofuels has caused staple crop prices to skyrocket beyond the reach of hundreds of millions of the world's poor. The death of millions translates into profits in the trillions for the Lords of Capital, killers on a mass scale whose only talents lie in "the production of overlapping calamities, each more lethal than the last."
America's
University Of Imperialism
By Chalmers Johnson
This essay is a review of Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the Rise of the American Empire by Alex Abella
Another
American War–Look Out Earth
By Jim Miles
Without a greater awareness of all the relationships between global warming as a symptom, and environmental over-consumption and over population as the underlying cause, an American “war on global warming” is sure to be another fiasco
The
Supreme International Crime
By Max Kantar
Iraq has been crushed beyond recognition, with over 1.3 million human beings butchered (Oxford Research Bureau), over five million people driven out, and tens of millions of lives ruined. This supreme international crime and slaughter is being carried out in our names. We can turn the other cheek, or we can stop it together. You decide
USA:
Fastened To A Dying Animal
By Phil Rockstroh
A short jeremiad regarding that affront to the nation's dignity known as the US election process
Canada's
Shameful Legacy Of Aborginal Abuse
By Dave Bennett
According to the received wisdom, Indians were simple people. They couldn’t handle liquor, and they certainly weren’t mature enough to vote. They needed -- and benefited from -- our protective custody. In the prevailing culture of good Christian arrogance these were givens. In such a climate we stole the birthright of Canada’s aboriginal peoples
Carter,
Israel, Hamas And The Truth
By Timothy V. Gatto
I feel that Carter did what he believed he had to do. History may see him as a weak, indecisive President, but I feel that history will also see him as the one President that did more after leaving office than any other. I can only hope that the concessions that he managed to get from Hamas will spur some serious dialogue between the two sides of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute
Halliburton
Bribe Case Haunts Cheney
By Jason Leopold
Dick Cheney’s tenure at Halliburton ended eight years ago, but a federal investigation of alleged bribes from a company subsidiary to Nigerian officials lingers from the Cheney era, raising questions about what the Vice President knew or should have known
Kabul
Attack A Virtual Replay Of
1981 Assassination Of Anwar Sadat
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
In a virtual replay of the 1981 assassination of the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the Afghan militants attempted to assassinate the Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a military parade in Kabul last Sunday (April 27, 2008)
A
Prize For The Prisoner
By P. Zachariah
Binayak Sen has just received a major international award but is still in jail. P. Zachariah applauds his former student
Governing
Human Rights Violation
And Dr. Binayak Sen
By Arpita Banerjee
The unethical detention of Dr. Binayak Sen is one of the many glaring examples of state repression. On May 14th 2008, it will be one year since Dr. Sen was arrested under various sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and the Crimes Against the State Chapter of the Indian Penal Code. The Supreme Court of India has denied the bail petition, ironically on the International Human Rights Day on December 10, 2007
Alas..!!
Women
By Pardeep S Attri
Though the top most position of India (President) a woman is occupying but it would be one of the biggest misconceptions “by this women society is going to be empowered” as being claimed by the most of the political parties. We can only hope that Mrs. President will do something for empowering or making women society to live with dignity. Before this let’s see past record of last six to eight months
One
Tight Slap!
By Arasu Balraj
I don’t even have a trace of belief that these whiz kids of globalisation will ever care our words. But the vast masses of India who are getting marginalized as waste by the same globalisation, will definitely arise against this system which is nearing by, thanks to the price rise and inflation. On that day, all Nero’s guests will be paid back in Bhajji’s language, one tight slap!
29 April, 2008
Mother,
Four Children Amongst Victims Of
Israeli Gaza Strike
By Al Mezan
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killed four children and their mother when they shelled their home in Ezbet Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip today. Another man was killed in the attack which occurred during an IOF incursion in different parts of the town of Beit Hanoun
Climate
Change Could Force One Billion
From Their Homes By 2050
By Nigel Morris
As many as one billion people could lose their homes by 2050 because of the devastating impact of global warming, scientists and political leaders will be warned today. They will hear that the steady rise in temperatures across the planet could trigger mass migration on unprecedented levels
Food
Crisis And The Failure Of The Capitalist Model
By Ian Angus
Food is not just another commodity – it is absolutely essential for human survival. The very least that humanity should expect from any government or social system is that it try to prevent starvation – and above all that it not promote policies that deny food to hungry people. That’s why Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was absolutely correct on April 24, to describe the food crisis as “the greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model.”
Food
Crisis Adds To Women’s Burden
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
As if the burdens they shoulder are not enough, Asia’s women are being compelled to bear the additional weight of rising food prices, say women’s rights activists from across the region
Hunger
Plagues Haiti And The World
By Stephen Lendman
The Haitain crisis is so extreme it forces people to eat (non-food) mud cookies (called "pica") to relieve hunger. It's a desperate Haitian remedy made from dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau for those who can afford it. It's not free. In Cite Soleil's crowded slums, people use a combination of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening for a typical meal when it's all they can afford
The
Global Food Crisis…And
The Ravenous System Of Capitalism
By Li Onesto
Unless and until this system is abolished through revolution, and is replaced by a new socialist system, there will continue to be massive hunger and starvation... and some people will continue to be forced to eat “mud cookies” and drink pesticide out of horrific desperation... in what could—and should—be a world of shared abundance for everybody
Breaking
The Silence: Israeli Soldiers Speak
By Stephen Lendman
May 14 is the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding. Commemorations there and in the West will celebrate it. People of conscience won't participate. Refuseniks may not either. Use this time to demand an illegal occupation end and that Israel no longer be allowed a pass on the international law it disdains
Green
Scare State Terrorism
By Stephen Lendman
Post-9/11, future prospects look grim with fear prevailing over reason, a bipartisan effort exploiting it, and convictions more important than justice. If friends of the earth and animal rights champions are targeted, so can anyone. Governments today won't protect us and neither do courts that defer to their lawlessness. As a result, expect lots more innocent people hurt because those in power want unlimited amounts of it and won't let anyone stop them from getting it. It means hard times ahead when the law won't protect us, dissent is a crime, and the greater good is sacrificed to benefit the privileged
Banned!
By Timothy V. Gatto
So go ahead and read you “Progressive” sites and remember that people that don’t agree with their perspective are banned from writing on these sites. Think about the meaning of the word banned. I do, I’m living with it
Why
Do The Republicans Oppose Fair Pay?
By Mary Shaw
I wonder what Cindy McCain thinks about the fact that her husband doesn't want to guarantee fair pay for their daughters, because their daughters might then be able to sue if they are paid unfairly. Does she even care? And, if so, would it matter?
28 April, 2008
Indian
Food Crisis?
By Mukesh Ray
Our production has not declined till now (we might experience low production in the khariff, due to untimely rain), we hardly produce any biofuel and our per capita meat consumption is below one kg, which is one of the lowest in the world (it is 50 kg for US). So the question remains intact; why is the price of cereals rising?
Financial
Speculators Reap
Profits From Global Hunger
By Stefan Steinberg
A series of reports in the international media have drawn attention to the role of professional speculators and hedge funds in driving up the price of basic commodities—in particular, foodstuffs. The sharp increase in food prices in recent months has led to protests and riots in a number of countries across the globe
Mixed
Priorities: Why Palestinian Unity
Is Not An Option
By Ramzy Baroud
While such noble efforts by the UN’s John Dugard, former US President Jimmy Carter and Bishop Desmond Tutu have brought much needed attention to the plight of Palestinians and Gazans in particular, PA officials are too busy attending donor’s conferences and issuing empty statements which few even bother to read. They act as if they are a neutral party caught in the middle of religious fanatics and Israel. Their fight no longer seems even remotely related to Palestine or its people
When
Right And Left Agree,
Something Is Happening!
By Timothy V. Gatto
The political situation in the United States is different at this particular time than in any other time that I have witnessed in my 57 years on this planet. This is the only time in my life that I can ever remember when the right and the left agree more with each other than the so-called “centrists’” of the GOP and the Democratic Party
Poverty
Gets The Survivors
By Maki al-Nazzal & Dahr Jamail
More than a million Iraqis were lucky enough to flee into Syria. But in this relatively safe haven, there is no getting away from poverty
Black
Hole In Bush's Brain
By Peter Chamberlin
Judging from the campaign rhetoric coming out of both camps, whoever wins the Oval Office will be inclined to continue the failed military policies in Iraq and to pursue a confrontation with Iran. Apparently it does not matter to either party what will follow those actions, or what these disastrous policies have produced as they played-out in Iraq and Afghanistan. It does not matter who gets elected, whether it is "bomb, bomb Iran" McCain, or "obliterate/massive retaliation" Clinton, nothing will change
But,
I Thought We Were Friends
By Rand Clifford
A fictionalised monologue an educated conservative
18 April, 2008
Iraq:
Chaos Hardening Sectarian Fiefdoms
By Ali Gharib
There are an estimated 2.7 million Iraqis who have been displaced within their own country. No house; no food; no security. Who do they turn to for help? The international community's humanitarian organisations? The occupying United States government? The central Iraqi government based in Baghdad? According to a report released Tuesday by Refugees International (RI), none of these has been able to provide sufficient assistance to the most vulnerable Iraqis
War
And Pain: Nothing New Under The Sun
By Gaither Stewart
I have begun examining Greek classics for confirmation that human beings are not as innovative as we like to think. A recent look at Greek ideas on Power subsequently led me step by step to considerations of how Power in the time of the Greeks of 2500 years ago led inevitably to war, as it does today
But
What Is Good About Biofuels?
By Julio Godoy
The German government decision two weeks back against increased use of biofuels was based on technical reasons -- more than three millions vehicles cannot burn biofuels without risking engine breakdown. But this reason might be the least important of all. Environmental experts have been warning that biofuels, far from reducing greenhouse gas emissions, actually have a negative environmental footprint
The
Ethanol Apologists
By Robert Bryce
It's time for the ethanol apologists to face the facts: The ethanol and biofuels mandates that have been foisted on American taxpayers are not just fiscal insanity, they are immoral. And over the coming months and years, the people in the developing world will pay a heavy price for Congress's scandalous approach to food and energy policy
Hansen's
Climate Change And
The Mobilization Solution
By Bill Henderson
Mobilization nationally and globally. And practically such mobilization governance innovation must begin and be led by the US, the world's foremost economic and political power. This essay will explore this possible solution: this radical but compelling vision of all of our futures, our immediate futures. Mobilization first and foremost to get us below 350 ppm before the polar ice melts completely
No
Peace Without Hamas
By Mahmoud al-Zahar
Former US President Jimmy Carter's sensible plan to visit the Hamas leadership this week brings honesty and pragmatism to the Middle East while underscoring the fact that American policy has reached its dead end
Venezuela:
Democracy, Socialism And Imperialism
By James Petras
Venezuela ’s President Hugo Chavez remains the world’s leading secular, democratically elected political leader who has consistently and publicly opposed imperialist wars in the Middle East , attacked extra-territorial intervention and US and European Union complicity in kidnapping and torture
Updating
Sami Al-Arian - His Ordeal Continues
By Stephen Lendman
The Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice supports Al-Arian proudly, it's backed him from the start, and it urges everyone of conscience to contact their elected officials, DOJ and DHS to demand that justice delayed him no longer be denied. His imprisonment term ended April 11, yet he remains confined. His plea bargain stipulated that his long ordeal end and that he be deported expeditiously
Wars
Begin In High School Cafeterias
By David Swanson
Citizens in a number of school districts around the country have dramatically reduced military recruitment through simple procedures that anyone can do. No marching or civil disobedience is required. You might, however, have to chat with a principal at a football game or write a couple of letters. Why aren't more of us doing more of this?
Nepal:
An Interview With Baburam Bhattarai
By Prateek Pradhan, Ghanashyam Ojha & Puran P Bista
Dr Baburam Bhattarai is not surprised by the results of the CA election. He argues that the CPN (Maoist) has changed the country’s ground realities. Dr Bhattarai spoke with Prateek Pradhan, Ghanashyam Ojha and Puran P Bista of The Kathmandu Post on how the CPN (Maoist) would proceed with its economic and political agenda
India:
Rot In The prisons
By Colin Gonsalves
Applying even the most retrogressive standards, Indian prisoners are the pits — a level of perversity matched only by our pious, moralistic and sanctimonious preachings abroad. In the land of Gandhiji and non-violence, prisons remain depraved and brutish. Internally the prisoners rot
The
Tikait Treatment
By Ravikiran Shinde
Jat leader Mahendra Singh Tikait finally surrendered meekly before the court after resisting arrest by UP Police. The dust has finally settled two weeks after his castiest remarks but it has raised a serious question. How 'normal' is the casteist abuse in day to day life of Dalits? If a chief minister can be abused publicly, what does it speak of common Dalits?
Who
Would Wipe Professor Sanaullah Radoo's Tears?
By Subhash Gatade
Perhaps it is high time that the honourable Prime Minister is told that 'Dr Haneef' is not just the name of doctor who was wrongly apprehended in Australia rather it is another name for a phenomenon which is quite rampant in this part of the earth. And the case of Pervez Ahmad Radoo is one such important case which demands his immediate intervention. Such a move only can bring back the smile on Professor Sanaullah's face !
17 April, 2008
Gaza:
The Holocaust Continues
By One Democratic State Group
The latest Israeli war crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip have resulted in the brutal killings of 21 Palestinians, including 6 children, within the last 12 hours. More than 40 have been injured. Fadel Shanaa, a Reuters cameraman, was amongst the dead. His visibly marked car was targeted by an Israeli missile in an attempt to cover up crimes committed in day light
No
Child's Play In The Occupied
Palestinian Territories
By Kim Bullimore in the West Bank
Today I witnessed, for the first time, a Palestinian child being abducted by the Israeli Occupation Forces. This, of course, is not the first time that a Palestinian child has been abducted insuch a manner. It happens every single day in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Shame
On Arab Petrodollars
By Khalid Amayreh
A day’s revenue of Arab oil and gas can solve all the Palestinian people’s financial problems. It can enable Palestinian authorities to pay for the salaries of all civil servants and help poor college students continue their education for an entire year. It can also serve to subsidize basic consumer products such as bread, sugar and cooking oil, especially for the most impoverished segments of society
Israel
Doesn't Want To Know Carter Any More
By Peter Hirschberg
Three decades after he brokered the first-ever peace treaty between Israel and an Arab country, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter has become persona non grata in the Jewish state. Both Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister Ehud Barak refused to meet with him during his four-day visit here. So did former prime minister and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who accused Carter of holding "anti-Israel views in recent years."
Carter's
Visit With Hamas' Meshal
By Hasan Abu Nimah
It is unlikely that Carter would come out of a meeting with Meshal fully convinced of the Hamas program, but he may not adopt the notion that Hamas is merely a terrorist organization and an obstacle to peace that no one should ever talk to. Indeed, in an interview with Haaretz, he stressed that to make peace you have to talk to everyone. That possibility alone is frightening enough for an Israel that has no interest in genuine negotiations or an end to conflict that requires it to recognize the rights of the Palestinians
Electoral
Revolution In Nepal
By Gary Leupp
It ought to be the ballot heard 'round the world. It ought to be front page news. But chances are you haven't yet learned that the Maoists of Nepal have apparently swept to power in an election that international monitors acknowledge was free and fair
Peter
Hallward's "Damning The Flood" (Part II)
By Stephen Lendman
This is Part II of Peter Hallward's masterful account of recent Haitian history and what may lie ahead for its beleaguered people
Beyond
The Speed Of Lies
By Rand Clifford
Obvious murder, "mysterious" plane crashes, "suicides", freak accidents—or simply ruined careers for the lucky...since 9-11 they continue to whittle away at opposition to America’s plans for world domination via perpetual war. We are losing the battle for our nation largely because few even realize our only real war is internal. Our options to "the unthinkable" are so few now, though not gone. A new American blitz for truth kicked off by telling CorpoMedia where to put their "news" could help
16 April, 2008
The
End Of The World As You Know It
By Michael T. Klare
Oil at $110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon. Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionable price levels. Jet fuel so expensive that three low-cost airlines stopped flying in the past few weeks. This is just a taste of the latest energy news, signaling a profound change in how all of us, in this country and around the world, are going to live — trends that, so far as anyone can predict, will only become more pronounced as energy supplies dwindle and the global struggle over their allocation intensifies
Financial
Meltdown And The Madness Of Imperialism
By Raymond Lotta
As serious and potentially destabilizing as this crisis may become, it is also possible that U.S. imperialism could turn this crisis to its advantage. We live in an age of “endless war” and environmental devastation. We live in an ever-more globalized capitalist system that thrives on the toil and agony of the great bulk of humanity but that cannot escape the anarchy that lies at its very foundations. There is necessity and freedom for the imperialists. And so too for the people
Global
Hot Spots Of Hunger Set To Explode
By Thalif Deen
As food prices continue to escalate worldwide, some of the poorest nations in the developing world are in danger of social and political upheavals. The unrest, which is likely to spread to nearly 40 countries, has been triggered largely by a sharp increase in the prices of staple commodities, including wheat, rice, sorghum, maize and soybeans, according to the United Nations
Credit
Crunch? The Real Crisis Is Global Hunger
By George Monbiot
A food recession is under way. Biofuels are a crime against humanity, but - take it from a flesh eater - flesh eating is worse
"Why
Do You Want Us To Have A Civil War?"
By Dan Glazebrook & Robert Fisk
Western journalism and the Middle East conflict: an interview with Robert Fisk
The
Left And Europe’s Religious Roots
By Gaither Stewart
Pope Benedict XVI, the Bavarian Conservative Joseph Ratzinger, arrived in the USA today asking forgiveness for the pedophiles in the repressed ranks of the Church he largely fashioned: the reactionary, retrograde and still restive Roman Catholic Church. In America, as in Italy, in the world, his message is a return to the obscurantism of a bureaucratic religious order and more temporal power as seen in the Roman Church’s battle against divorce, birth control, abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, same sex marriage and women’s rights. Centered on opposition to Islam, his major thrust today is the primacy of religion over the secular and its centrality in the roots of Europe
The
Most Powerful People In America
By Joel S. Hirschhorn
The most powerful people are US, American consumers that account for over 70 percent of the economy. It is exactly now, when the economy is in the toilet, that consumers hold the maximum power. So why are we the people still deluding ourselves that the path to a better future rests on electing a new president?
The
Next Election or. . .What?
By James L. Secor
A crisis or war will occur, martial law will be invoked and elections will be suspended in the name of national security and we will have a new Hitlerean rule. Is it possible? Nuclear warheads at Barksdale AFB, home of the 8th Air Force and staging area for all points in the Middle East. Bush and Co. could care less about intelligence findings on Iran; invasion is still on the table. Dick Cheney goes off on a Middle East tour suspiciously similar to that undertaken just prior to the invasion of Iraq. The Tibet-China-Olympics affair is cloud cover, a wagging of the dog--what is going on behind the scenes as our attention is diverted?
FBI
Email Says Bush Signed Exec Order
Authorizing Harsh Interrogation Methods
By Jason Leopold
President George W. Bush’s comment to ABC News – that he approved discussions that his top aides held about harsh interrogation techniques – adds credence to claims from senior FBI agents in Iraq in 2004 that Bush had signed an Executive Order approving the use of military dogs, sleep deprivation and other tactics to intimidate Iraqi detainees
My
Perspective On Modern World Events
By Mitchell Valentine
There is recently a mass uprising all over the world about the current relationship between Tibet and China and I begin to ask myself a lot of questions being a resident here and all. There is mounting concern that the 2008 Olympics may be affected by the flack that arises. From my perspective on the ground here I have come to a few observations on what is really going on here
Searching
For Soul In The Progressive Wasteland
By Case Wagenvoord
A system is collapsing, and nobody knows what will arise from its rubble. All we know for now is the smell and the sound of structural and systemic failure. Our leaders are tap dancers in a burning theater, tapping gamely away with frozen smiles on their faces, denying the fire even as its flames engulf them
Condoleezza’s
Snarling Poodle
By Irving Wesley Hall
What if Condoleezza, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld personally had to torture the prisoners they ordered waterboarded? The following prophetic spoof was written before ABC's stunning April 9 revelation that Grand Inquisitor Rice chaired the secret star chamber that micromanaged the torture regimen for each U.S. prisoner
The
Return Of Land Hunger
By Mritiunjoy Mohanty
Sixty years after Independence, the challenge facing India is implementing the radical economic and political agenda inherent in the Constitution of 1950, a movement that must be propelled by political mobilisation from below
Advani's
Autobiography Is RSS Version Of Events
By Ram Puniyani
What is most frightening about the book is that communal common sense manufactured by RSS shakhas and propagated by various other means has been presented as a sugar coated pill by this wily swayamsevak turned politician in the service of Hindu Rashtra
15 April, 2008
Why
Food Costs Are Climbing
By Eric Reguly
For the first time in decades, the spectre of widespread hunger for millions looms as food prices explode. Two words not in common currency in recent years — famine and starvation — are now being raised as distinct possibilities in the poorest, food-importing countries. Unlike past food crises, solved largely by throwing aid at hungry stomachs and boosting agricultural productivity, this one won't go away quickly, experts say. Prices are soaring and stand every chance of staying high because this crisis is different
Let
Them Eat Ethanol!
By Sharon Smith
Mainstream economists have usually described the global food crisis as a food “shortage”, but the shortage has been greatly exacerbated by the merciless laws of the free market. In many cases, the problem is not an immediate shortage of food but merely a shortage of the money to pay for it
India:
Rising Food Prices
Threaten Social Calamity
By Kranti Kumara
Concerned about India’s soaring food prices, the country’s Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government imposed a ban on all rice exports earlier this month
Tibet
Exposes Genocidal
Australian Human Rights Abuses
By Dr Gideon Polya
Australia and other Western nations have been properly chiding China for human rights abuses in Tibet. However Australia has an appalling human rights record as assessed by the horrendous avoidable deaths of its domestic and overseas Indigenous subjects. Indeed White Australia’s appalling and genocidal human rights record has prompted formal complaint to the ICC over Australia’s involvement in ongoing Aboriginal, Iraqi, Afghan and Climate Genocides
What
Is Really Behind The Furore Over Tibet?
By Sharat G. Lin
So why are "human rights activists" in the West demanding what the Dalai Lama himself is not? This fact alone is consistent with an exogenous Tibetan separatist movement, not a true human rights movement that supports the aspirations of Tibetan people. The exogenous separatism is driven by the external influences of the U.S. and other Western governments. Now intervention in Nepal is yet another hidden agenda in their quest for a "free" Tibet
Recession
Takes Hold In US
By Barry Grey
GE’s results shook the financial markets because they indicated that the impact of the housing and credit crisis was spreading beyond the housing and banking sectors to broader parts of the US economy. GE’s report came at the beginning of the first-quarter earnings report season, and seemed to confirm the worst fears on Wall Street that profits will drop sharply nearly across the board
Recession,
Depression, Collapse:
What's Fear Got To Do With It?
By Carolyn Baker
The world we wanted to have is not within our reach; the world we deeply dread is upon us. Meanwhile, the world we have known, ugly as it may be but nevertheless familiar, is vanishing before our eyes. Herein lies an opportunity to experience deeper layers of who we really are and what we are really made of. Collapse is compelling us to confront these issues, whether we want to or feel ready to do so or not. While I do not welcome the suffering this will entail, I do welcome the transformation of human consciousness and thus the evolutionary quantum leap it may offer us
Yankee
Ticket Prices And Fossil Fuels
By James Hansen
Fossil fuel reserves are overstated. Government “energy information” departments parrot industry. Partly because of this disinformation, the major efforts needed to develop energies “beyond fossil fuels” have not been made. The reality of limited supply forces prices higher. Eventually, sales volume will begin to decline, but fossil fuel moguls will make more money than ever. They will continue to assert that there is plenty more to be found, aiming to keep the suckers (that’s us) on the hook
Kurt
Vonnegut: Anarchist And Social Critic
By Gaither Stewart
Remembering Kurt Vonnegut
Losses
Mount In Chinese Export Industry
By Alex Lantier
Light export industries in China are continuing to face massive losses, shedding jobs and moving operations either abroad or to lower-wage regions of China. The immediate triggers of the downturn—the political and commercial consequences of the US financial crisis—are exacerbating working class discontent over low wages, pollution and poor working conditions
Peter
Hallward's "Damming The Flood" (Part I)
By Stephen Lendman
Peter Hallward's newest book, "Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment," is the subject of this review, and here's what critics are saying. Physician and Haiti expert Paul Farmer calls it "the best study of its kind (offering) the first accurate analysis of recent Haitian history." Noam Chomsky says it's a "riveting and deeply-informed account (of) Haiti's tragic history." Others have also praised Hallward's book as well-sourced, thorough, accurate and invaluable. This reviewer agrees and covers this superb book in-depth
Basra
Battles: Barely Half The Story
By Ramzy Baroud
When it comes to Iraq, reporters appear intent on omitting or fabricating news. The latest battles in Basra, Iraq's second largest city and a vital oil seaport, furnished ample instances of misleading and manipulative practice in corporate journalism today. One commonly used tactic is to describe events using self-styled or "official" terminology, which deliberately confuses the reader by giving no real indication or analysis of what is actually happening
From
One Dictator To The Next
By Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr Jamail
Many Iraqis have come to believe that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is just as much a dictator as Saddam Hussein was
Five
Years On, Fallujah In Tatters
By Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr Jamail
Fallujah remains a crippled city more than two years after the November 2004 U.S.-led assault. Unemployment, and lack of medical care and safe drinking water in the city 60 km west of Baghdad remain a continuous problem. Freedom of movement is still curtailed
Jim
Hansen, The Big Ice Melt
And The Mainstream Media
By Bill Henderson
Thousands of mainstream media articles and commentaries on TV, in newspapers and magazines, inform about climate change Scenario A, but there has been minimal, almost nonexistent mainstream coverage of Scenario B even though its main proponents - James Hansen and his NASA climate science team - have released several papers explaining this nonlinear vision of climate change focusing upon the unpredicted rapid melting of the polar ice caps
Will
The "Great Indian Middle Class"
Show Up, Please?
By Partho Sarathi Ray
So, we finally find that our "great" middle class, for whom malls and multiplexes are built, rail fares are reduced, airports are constructed, and "Nanos", stained with the blood and tears of evicted farmers, roll off assembly lines, is more like the legendary Cheshire cat of Lewis Caroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. If you look at it deeply and deconstruct it using statistics, it slowly disappears until what remains of it is its smile, suspended in mid-air as a macabre joke on the Indian people
Iraq
War Costs Skyrocketing, But Congress
Unable To Scrutinize Spending
By Jason Leopold
Nearly all of the $516 billion allocated by Congress to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has come in the form of emergency spending requests, a method the White House has abused, depriving Congress the ability to scrutinize how the Pentagon spends money in the so-called global war on terror
The
Three Trillion Dollar War
By Jim Miles
Book Review: The Three Trillion Dollar War – The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict By Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes
Pakistan:
Where Billions Vanish
By Pervez Hoodbhoy
Instead of over-funding universities and research, we need to focus resources on creating good quality schools and colleges. We need to encourage creative and skilled people to become school and college teachers, and for this we need to pay them well. We need teachers who can educate young people into becoming good citizens and with skills valued in the economy, and who can train the few going on to higher education
10 April, 2008
India:
Disappearing The Poor
By Jeremy Seabrook
As if to demonstrate that poverty is now a residual issue in the world, the poor are being slowly eliminated from the imagery of the busy global media. “Nowhere in Bollywood films do you see a poor person,” says Pandurang Hegde, activist in the forests of northern Karnataka. “There is no place in the iconography of the new India for anything that suggests impoverishment and loss.” Nor on the majority of TV stations which have flooded India with their unblinking radiance. The poor have become peripheral figures, with scarcely walk-on parts in the great drama of liberalisation
A
Daughter’s Plea
By Shikha Rahi
The 'Naxal threat' has suddenly surfaced in Uttarakhand. It is a state government’s ploy to demand crores of rupees from the Centre. To bolster this claim an innocent journalist, Prashant Rahi, is arrested. His daughter Shikha Rahi writes
Food
Shortages An Emergency -FAO Chief
By Ranjit Devraj
Jacques Diouf, director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), on Wednesday described spiralling food prices as an "emergency" that demanded concerted global attention
Congressional
Hearings Set Stage For
Wider War—Inside And Outside Of Iraq
By Bill Van Auken
As the mass media’s attention remained focused Wednesday on the rerun of testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker—this time before two House committees—a sparsely attended hearing on the Senate side heard a key architect of the year-old “surge” in Iraq tell Democrats that there ultimately isn’t much difference between their position and that of the administration
BBC:
Imperial Tool
By Stephen Lendman
At a time of growing public disenchantment with the major media, millions now rely on alternate sources. Many online and print ones are credible. One of the world's most relied on is not - the BBC. It's an imperial tool, as corrupted as its dominant counterparts, been around longer than all of them, now in it for profit, and it's vital that people know who BBC represents and what it delivers
The
Failure Of A Civilization
By Maryam Sakeenah
When a civilization, preoccupied with sustaining the culture of Narcissism is unable to see its descent let alone stop it, it is a failed civilization. When all you have of 'civilization' is trapped within brand labels and sophisticated technology, in highbrow rhetoric justifying unjustifiable warfare, yours is a failed civilization
Jesus
Knows A camel When He Sees One:
We Are NOT Passing Through The Eye Of
That Needle, America….
By Jason Miller
As a nation premised on savage capitalism, we are the antithesis of a Christian nation. Collectively we are an abomination. May God and the rest of the world have mercy on us all as our precious empire crumbles
Is
Google Keeping The Gate In America?
By Case Wagenvoord
Blogspot has notified Case Wagenvoord, who writes a dissenting blog, that the blog “has been identified as a potential spam blog” and that, “You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog
Winds
Of Change
By Pablo Ouziel
The problem for the common people is that there is no ‘us’ and ‘them’ because we have no say in what is happening. The people in power are laughing at our individual indifference, if we can understand that, then things can change. I have no answers, I just have one question: Where are the winds of change?
Colonised
Epistemologies
By Ashok Agrwaal
I would ask the following questions. Is there any sense in opposing monoculture? Would you like to see Eucalyptus take over the Indian terrain? Would you like to have just one variety (the Monsanto one) of rice, wheat, etc grown on Indian farms? If not, then why would you like to have western epistemology as the only one available? Is it because you believe that other epistemologies are incapable of "expressing modernity"?
Vanunu's
Fifth Year Of Restrictions
Begins And Norway Caves
By Eileen Fleming
On April 7, 2008 Mordechai Vanunu, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee for the last twenty-two years learned that Israel has continued the restrictions against his right to leave the state or to speak with human beings if they are not Israelis. On April 9, 2008 it was reported that now Norway has joined Sweden, Canada and Denmark in refusing asylum to Vanunu
They
Only Know How To Kill
By Pervez Hoodbhoy
Drones, machine and human, have drenched Pakistan with the blood of innocents
07 April, 2008
Gaza
Running On Near Empty
By Mohammed Omer
Gaza needs 850,000 litres of fuel every week, says Mahmoud al-Khozendar, vice-president of the Petrol Station Owners Association in Gaza. Israel allows in just 70,000 litres of it. He said Gaza also needs 2.5 million litres of coal gas a week. Only 800,000 litres per week comes in
There
Are No Checkpoints In Heaven
By Ramzy Baroud
"I am sick, son, I am sick," my father cried when I spoke to him two days before his death. He died alone on March 18, waiting to be reunited with my brothers in the West Bank. He died a refugee, but a proud man nonetheless. My father's struggle began 60 years ago, and it ended a few days ago. Thousands of people descended to his funeral from throughout Gaza, oppressed people that shared his plight, hopes and struggles, accompanying him to the graveyard where he was laid to rest. Even a resilient fighter deserves a moment of peace
Barack
Obama: Operation
Board Games For Slumlords
By Evelyn Pringle
Barack Obama has a long history of working with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and governors of Illinois, including the current Governor Rod Blagojevich, in doling government funding for housing development in Chicago. His history is hardly a model of success, except for the hundred of millions in profits made by the chosen few slumlords
Destroying
Public Education In America
By Stephen Lendman
A new Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center report released April 1 is revealing, disturbing but not surprising. It states only 52% of public high school students in the nation's 50 largest cities completed the full curriculum and graduated in 2003 - 2004. This compares to the national average of 70%
The
Protests In Tibet And The Discontent Below
By Li Onesto
The main character and contours of these protests are hard to determine at this point because of the difficulty in getting reliable reports. And an analysis of this is beyond the scope of this article. But some things can be said at this point about the different class forces that are a part of this upsurge
Romancing
The War
By Mustapha Marrouchi
Iraq, the seat of the glorious Abbassid period , which gave us the Golden Age of Islam, is a contaminated place, full of dust, blood, and stench
Israel's
60th Approaches, But Israeli Minister Of
Public Security Can’t Even Secure Himself!
By Cherifa Sirry
I am astonished that this item of news has not been headlines since it happened 2 days ago. Public Security minister Avi Dichter was shot at broad daylight and the shooting was even filmed
Zakariya
Zubeidi, Number One Most Wanted:
Then And Now
By Eileen Fleming
My chance to interview Zakariya Zubeidi, then still commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Jenin, was nearly nine months ago. On April 4, 2008, Haaretz reported their interview with Zubeidi
The
Zoo On The Road To Nablus
By Jim Miles
Book Review: The Zoo on the Road to Nablus – A Story of Survival from the West Bank By Amelia Thomas
Kashmiri
Nation- An Identity Of Their Own
By Rizwana Abbasi
If the Kashmir issue is not resolved promptly, the growing expansion of defence capabilities in the region will have catastrophic results. In a war between India and Pakistan – a war which we are told is ‘unthinkable’, but which is still possible given the posture of the two armed forces and the political establishments -- Kashmiris will fall the victim of the first use of nuclear arsenals in the sub-Continent. This is an outcome which sixty years of fruitless negotiations to date ought to have taught us to avoid at all costs
Women
Behind The Bylines
By A Shaheen
Book Review: Taking an introspective look at a profession that has a significant presence of women today (in terms of numbers though), Ammu Joseph's Making News: Women in Journalism chronicles the experiences of more than 200 women journalists, reflecting upon gender and gender-related issues
04 April, 2008
US
Lawmakers Have As Much As $196 Million
Invested In "Defense" Companies
By The Associated Press
Members of the U.S.Congress have as much as $196 million (126.2 million) collectively invested in companies doing business with the Defense Department, earning millions since the start of the Iraq war, according to a new study by a nonpartisan research group
Wanted
- Homes For Small Island People
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
A rapidly warming planet may soon create a new class of refugees -- those fleeing climate change in their homelands
The
Water Thieves
By Steve McGiffen
looking at the way the EU's mania for privatisation is standing in the way of a solution to the growing crisis of water supply in Europe and beyond
Is
It Time For The Peace Movement
To Start Protesting Senator Obama?
By Kevin B. Zeese
In the last two weeks Senator Obama has been sounding rather hawkish. Perhaps he believes he has the Democratic nomination wrapped up and now can start running to the center-right. The peace movement needs to let him know his positions are not acceptable
Saving
The American Left:
The Case For A New Progressive Creed
By Bernard Chazelle
The American left is in the throes of an existential crisis. Some say it's a failure of nerve, others a loss of belief. It is the latter. Neoliberalism has sucked the oxygen out of the left by deflating the political sphere to the economic one. The left must articulate a new creed around three principles: empowerment (the economic is ancillary to the political); social justice (the disadvantaged have an unconditional claim upon the collectivity); and decency (the state may not humiliate anyone). To make its case, the left must redefine that most exalted form of self-interest, patriotism, as pride in a society that grants all of its members the means to belong
Bush
Snubbed At NATO Summit
By Stefan Steinberg
At this week’s NATO summit in the Romanian capital of Bucharest, US President George W. Bush has faced concerted European opposition to his plans for a further eastward expansion of the alliance. Only a last minute compromise allowed the American president to save face. German politicians in particular were reported to be angry and disconcerted at the insistence by the American president on the speedy inclusion of Georgia and the Ukraine into the ranks of the NATO
Lynne
Stewart's Long Struggle For Justice
By Stephen Lendman
It was the fourth injustice against a woman who spent a lifetime advocating for society's most disadvantaged. It followed two falsified indictments, a kangaroo court proceeding, and an unjustifiable conviction on all counts. Combined they represent an outrageous miscarriage of justice
Building
A Legal Framework For Torture
By Jason Leopold
Earlier this week, the Defense Department turned over an 81-page document to the American Civil Liberties Union in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that provides further insight into the extraordinary Executive Branch powers granted to President George W. Bush following the 9/11 attacks
White
House Query Led Lawyer To Write Memo
Saying Bush Could Ignore Fourth Amendment
By Jason Leopold
Eleven days after 9/11, John Yoo, a former deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, drafted a 20-page memorandum that offered up theories on how Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures would be applied if the U.S. military used "deadly force in a manner that endangered the lives of United States citizens."
Bad
Samaritans
By Jim Miles
Book Review: Bad Samaritans – The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. Ha-Joon Chang. Bloomsbury Press, New York, 2008
Mayawati's
Burgeoning Wealth: Who Gains?
By S.R.Darapuri
In April, 2007 while filing her nomination papers for Assembly elections Mayawati had declared her assets to be worth Rs. 52 crores. While filing her income tax return for the assessment year 2008-09 she estimated her income to be Rs. 60 crores and had deposited Rs. 15 crores as advance tax. The actual income is likely to exceed this estimate at the end of this financial year. Now the question arises as to what are the sources of her income and what are the consequences of this amassing of wealth by her. It is also pertinent to discuss as to apart from Mayawati who else are the beneficiaries of this money game. What is the loss and gain of Dalits in this game of exchange of money?
Pakistan:
Befriending Oppressors,
Alienating Masses
By Mir Adnan Aziz
Nobody more than the people, as one, yearn for peace. A strong, stable and vibrant Pakistan is somethinfg the nation longs for, imperative as it is for peace and stability in this region. It is equally important we find our own remedies to achieve this objective. With a representative government in place a new day beckons. Let us all hope they succeed in mending a shattered national psyche and a tattered societal fabric
Gujarat:
Cry For Justice!
By Ram Puniyani
Fresh Probe Ordered in to Gujarat Carnage Cases
Toronto18
Suspects Undergo Trial By Media
By Beenish Gaya
The trial of the only remaining youth in the Toronto 18 case commenced last week in a Brampton courtroom. The new details disclosed in the Crown factum filed in the case elicited depressingly new emotional lows in all of the accused and their families. Reminiscent of that fateful day in June, 2006, the media sensationalism started all over again, with the reporting of incomplete evidence and outrageous headlines
02 April, 2008
This
'Bombshell' Took a Year Falling
By Adam Morrow & Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
A recent article in Vanity Fair magazine "exposing" a U.S.-planned coup attempt against Palestinian resistance movement Hamas last year has ignited a storm of debate about Washington's Middle East policies. Yet for more than nine months, details of the plot were reported in the independent Arabic press -- and elsewhere -- leading some observers to ask: where was the mainstream media?
60
Years of Nakbah
By Adalah-NY
Saturday’s Land Day protest at the Madison Avenue jewelry store of Israeli billionaire and settlement mogul Lev Leviev highlights the sixty-year Israeli campaign to displace Palestinians from their land, and Palestinian defiance and resistance – from the Nakbah, or Catastrophe, in 1948, when around 800,000 Palestinians were driven from their villages by Israeli forces to become refugees; to the original Land Day protests in 1976; to present day settlement construction by Israeli settlement builders like Lev Leviev in Bil’in, Jayyous, Jabal Abu Ghneim and Maale Adumim
Empire
Or Humanity?
By Howard Zinn
What the Classroom Didn't Teach Me About the American Empire
Propagandizing
Human Rights In Colombia
By Garry Leech
It happens time and time again. Following the killing of Colombian peasants, the government immediately blames guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the mainstream media in both Colombia and the United States dutifully report the allegations. In most cases, evidence later emerges showing that the Colombian military or its right-wing paramilitary allies were the actual perpetrators of the crime
Iraq:
'Handed Over' To A Government Called Sadr
By Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr Jamail
Despite the huge media campaign led by U.S. officials and a complicit corporate-controlled media to convince the world of U.S. success in Iraq, emerging facts on the ground show massive failure. The date March 25 of this year will be remembered as the day of truth through five years of occupation
Who
Are We Fighting For?
By James Rothenberg
The US military says 4,000 US soldiers have now died in Iraq. The White House regards all these deaths as “tragic”, and the enormously greater number of Iraqi civilian deaths as “regrettable”. Any other reckoning might make us seem heartless. The White House prepares for annoying milestones such as this with equanimity
Open
Letter To Hillary, Obama, McCain
And News Editors TV, Radio and Print
By Eileen Fleming
We the people in the land of the free and home of the brave, actually have some power before we elect another president who will maintain the status quo. Yeah, we can. We can do that, we can elect a politician beholden to the Military Industrial Complex, corporate interests, lobbyists, the religious right. Or we can say, no, not this time
