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30 April, 2010

Why Would Big Oil Ignore Its Own Demise?
By John James

Denial that there is a problem until the last moment ensures that a few corporations will exercise long-term political and financial control over the globe and everyone on it. Its not about money, its about hegemony and power!

God, Golem, UID: Singularity
As An Object In The Mirror

By Binu Karunakaran

With the advent of the UID, citizens will cease to be individuals and their relation with the state will be drastically altered forever. From individuals with power over our destinies we will turn into dividuals in perpetual cybernetic slave mode. Our 'databased selves' acting as our body doubles conditioning our behaviour in realtime and transforming our physical selves into zombies

Gulf Oil Spill Threatens Economic,
Environmental Catastrophe

By Shannon Jones

Oil is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico from the well beneath where a British Petroleum (BP) drilling rig exploded at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day, a rate five times greater than earlier estimates, the US government reported late Wednesday night. US Coast Guard officials said a scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had reached the conclusion based on aerial surveys of the slick

Warning Shots
By Guy R. McPherson

Here’s a thought: How about starting to prepare for a world without ready access to cheap fossil fuels? That would entail securing a personal supply of water and food for you and your family. For the rest of your life, and theirs. If that’s simply too daunting a task for your lizard-like brain, you can take the route pursued by about half the people to whom I speak: “I’ll save a bullet for myself.” Really? Evolution suggests otherwise

Sea Ice Loss Driving Arctic Warming Cycle,
Scientists Confirm

By David Adam

Study identifies cycle of ice loss and temperature rise that could see Arctic's icy cover disappear sooner than expected

The End Of The Long Summer
By Sherry Boschert

It’s time for each of us to have a talk with our inner economist. If humanity is to survive the hardships that lie ahead due to climate change, we’ve got to abandon the now universal, but originally Western, ethos of economic growth. That onward-and-upward, more-is-better paean to the accumulation of individual wealth and to the idea of Earth-as-tool has led us blindly into a very tight spot. If we don’t abandon those notions and change the way our societies operate, we may face utter collapse

Fahad Hashmi And Terrorist Hysteria In US Courts
By Andy Worthington

Fayad Hashmi may have decided that a plea bargain provided his only opportunity to avoid a 70-year prison sentence, but whatever the truth, his treatment over the last four years, and the paucity of the evidence against him, appears only to demonstrate that the overreaction of the Bush years in relation to the perceived terrorist threat is as exaggerated as ever

Breaking The Middle East Impasse
By Ali Abunimah

Margaret Thatcher once said that partitioning South Africa to create separate black and white states would be like “trying to unscramble an egg,” and could lead to tremendous bloodshed. It is time to recognize that this truth also applies to Palestine/Israel and to seek political solutions similar to the one here, or the settlement in Northern Ireland, that embrace rather than attempt to deny diversity, equality and justice for all who live in that land

Volvo Equipment: Israel's Weapons
To Destroy al-Walaja Homes

By Adri Nieuwhof

ActiveStills photographer Anne Paq witnessed Volvo equipment being used to destroy a home in the nearby village of al-Khader. Two days earlier she had taken pictures of Volvo and Caterpillar equipment working between the road and the fence of Har Gilo settlement, just a few meters away from Palestinian houses in al-Walaja

The Big Bad (Israeli) Wolf Is Nothing But A Coward
By Joharah Baker

I consider myself lucky. Yes, my 10-year old has seen the occupation up close in the form of checkpoints, the separation wall and even demonstrations outside of Al Aqsa. He has inhaled the suffocating odor of teargas wafting into our windows during the most violent clashes in our quarter. But thankfully, he has not been so unlucky as to have been hurt or scarred by seeing some of the awful violence Israel's army perpetrates against Palestinians every day

European MPs And Ministers Assess Gaza Today
By Stephen Lendman

Palestinians continue to suffer and die, out of sight and mind of world leaders who largely don't give a damn. Why else would they tolerate nearly three years of medieval siege that's slowly starving 1.5 million people to death, a holocaust they refuse to acknowledge or prevent

Insulting The Memory Of
An Anti-Apartheid Activist

By Vivian Tabar

In recent years, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) has announced its plans to rebuild a section of the Birya forest, located in the Galilee, and to name it after the late Coretta Scott King, the renowned civil rights and anti-apartheid activist and wife of Martin Luther King Jr

Southern Poverty Law Center, Palestine,
And The Definition Of Genocide

By Tim King & Nahida Izzat

I have always thought a great deal of this group, hearing their stories of championing the rights of black people and Jewish people in the country's southern states, but as I increasingly become aware of the constant daily suffering of the Palestinians, I learn that they are still a cog in the wheel of racism. Really it is worse than that, as SPLC is little more than a pro-Israel political operation

Boycotting Arizona’s Racism
By Amy Goodman

Close to 30 percent of the Arizona population identifies itself as Hispanic. It was a boycott that eventually forced the state to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It is a shame that similar tactics are needed again

Secret Baghdad Prison Detainees Describe
Brutal Torture, Rape, Humiliation

By Little Alex

Dozens of men corroborate extensive torture toward false confessions during their prolonged, indefinite detention in a Baghdad prison—kept secret for months—after village raids from September through December 2009 by the Iraqi government, interviews with Human Rights Watch reveal. The men were kidnapped during raids in Sunni Arab areas in Nineveh

Seven Deadly Sins In Afghanistan
By David Swanson

If we could establish that funding an escalation of war in Afghanistan was illegal, immoral, against the public will, economically catastrophic, counterproductive on its own terms, and a cynically motivated intentional failure, well then nothing would change. Unless people use that information in pressuring their representatives to vote No. Because most of this is pretty easily known. Nonetheless I think it's a good place to start, so let me take these points one at a time

How Wars Are Born: China vs. The U.S.
By Shamus Cooke

Behind the military jockeying for power are economic interests. Controlling the U.S. economy are powerful corporations, who rely on the U.S. military to ensure them super profits overseas, including domination over whole regions — the Middle East, Latin America, the Pacific — that are viewed as the “exclusive economic zones” of U.S. corporations. The fact that China is now declaring itself master of its own zones is intolerable for U.S. corporations, which will stop at nothing — including war — to maintain U.S. military dominance over the globe

Interview: From The Sodexo Strike At Tulane
By Billy Wharton

The following is an interview with Lauren Elliott, an activist with United Students Against Sweatshops. Lauren organized support for a one-day strike carried out by cafeteria workers at Tulane University. The strike was one part of a larger “Clean Up Sodexo” campaign which aims to protest work conditions created by the French multinational corporation Sodexo. While Sodexo runs public relations campaigns about being a responsible employer, its employees face low-wages and discrimination on the worksite. Strike actions against the company have now spread to the University of Pittsburgh

Resisting MNC Greed
By Raja Jaikrishan

By launching Operation Greenhunt—the people’s government is fighting its own people; Salwa Jhudam —setting Advasis against each other—the government is trying to satiate the MNC greed

U.P. Tops In Encounter Killings
And Custodial Deaths

By S.R.Darapuri

This State has won the notoriety of killing the maximum number of suspects in police encounters for the last many years. As per the statistics available during 2006, out of a total of 122 encounters for whole of India, U.P. had the figure of 82. In 2007 out of a total of 95 for whole of India, U.P. had 50 % i.e. 48. In 2008 as against 103 for whole of India U.P. had reached a figure of 41 and in 2009, U.P. attained a figure of 83 which puts the state on the top in encounter killings

Monthly Tata Sponsored Devastation Of
Baligotha Village (Jajpur district) By Government?

By Surya Shankar Dash

A month long wave of repression that still continues is a sign of the times we live in and the shape of civil society. Leaders of opposition parties are nowhere in the picture after being beaten & chased away by Tata goons & BJD cadre. All along the media remains silent and its unclear if they are mourning or if they have been gagged or they prefer to stay quiet. Like all other pillars of democracy even media in Kalinga Nagar seems to have crumbled. Of course there are a few individuals everywhere doing whatever they can but will that save the tribals of Kalinga Nagar?

Patenting The Entire Food Chain. After Soybean
And Maize,It Is The Turn Of Pig And Meat

By Devinder Sharma

While you were oblivious to the threat of patent monopolies, or should I say while you were sleeping, multinationals have gained (and are in the process of gaining) control over the entire food chain

Sohrabuddin Case And Narendra Modi’s Rule:
Fair Is Foul And Foul Is Fair

By Mustafa Khan

In a democracy like ours the judicial process is coming around Modi like the silver bullet and the sooner it gets around him the better

29 April, 2010

Humanity : Ahmed Deeb Is Killed
By Eva Bartlett

An SMS informs me that the young man from Sheik Radwan who was shot by an Israeli soldier today is dead. A visit to Shifa hospital confirms it. Ahmed Deeb, 21, was among protesters closest to the border fence at the former Nahal Oz crossing, east of Gaza City, when he was targeted in the leg. The ‘dum dum’ bullet hit his femural artery, exploding inside and severing it, causing massive bleeding, said Dr. Abdullah el Attar at Shifa hospital

US Soldier In WikiLeaks Massacre Video:
“I Relive This Every Day”

By Bill Van Auken

Iraq war veteran Ethan McCord, who is seen running with an Iraqi child in his arms in the video posted by WikiLeaks of a July 2007 massacre of civilians in Baghdad, talked to the World Socialist Web Site about the impact of this and similar experiences in Iraq

Life Is Hell For Iraqis
By Layla Anwar

The title on the Al-Jazeera English website is mild --- they call it "Life is Difficult for Iraqis". Bullshit and a thousand bullshits!!! Life is Hell for Iraqis and it's been on ongoing Hell since 2003...year of our so-called "liberation"

18 Veterans Commit Suicide Daily
By Bill Van Auken

An average of 18 US military veterans are taking their lives every day as the Obama administration and the Pentagon grow increasingly defensive about the epidemic of suicides driven by Washington’s wars of aggression.The stunning figure was reported last week by the Army Times, citing officials in the US Veterans Affairs Department

Please Endorse: Citizens Against UID
By Citizens Against UID

Government of India's Unique Identification number (UID) which is one of the greatest threat to Indian democracy. Please endorse the statement by clicking here

The South Reduced: How The News Promotes
A Mistaken View Of The World

By Ramzy Baroud

The western media will continue to reduce non-Westerners, for they have a vested interest in doing so, and it has become habitual. A first step in overcoming this would be to empower our own local and regional media, and to create rapports amongst them. We can only challenge the abhorrent narratives about us when we start to present our own truth and experience, and support others to do the same

Oil Crunch: Act Urgently
By Damien Perrotin

Time is exactly what we lack presently. Our job is not to prevent the collapse from happening for it is now impossible. It is to prepare the future and make sure that enough people adopt a sustainable vision of the world while preserving what is worth preserving of the heritage of the last two centuries, so that whatever emerges from the ruins is both viable and humane

Iraq's Political Turmoil Could Lead To Civil War
By Firas Al-Atraqchi

The decision by an Iraqi court to disqualify dozens of candidates -- including one winner from the Iraqiya coalition led by former premier Iyad Allawi -- for alleged ties to the Baath party could push the country closer to civil war

Iraq: Detainees Describe Torture In Secret Jail
By Human Rights Watch

Detainees in a secret Baghdad detention facility were hung upside-down, deprived of air, kicked, whipped, beaten, given electric shocks, and sodomized, Human Rights Watch said today. Iraq should thoroughly investigate and prosecute all government and security officials responsible, Human Rights Watch said

World Peoples’ Conference On Climate Change
And The Rights Of Mother Earth

Indegenous Peoples’ Declaration

Cochabamba Declaration: Mother Earth can live without us, but we can’t live without her

Cochabamba Postscript: Lessons, Reflections,
And The Road To Cancun

By Jason Negrón-Gonzales

There are plenty of reasons to be excited about the alliance gathering around grassroots solutions

Fix The Economy, Not Wall Street
By David Korten

Why regulate a broken system when we can build a better one? Welcome to New Economy 101

Gates’ ”Slavery Blame Game” Misses The Point
By Frederick Alexander Meade

In recent days an enormous discussion has taken from within many American quarters, as Dr. Henry Louis Gates has once again weighed in on the question of reparations for African Americans

The Freedom Flotilla Sails To Gaza In May
By Free Gaza Team

On May 24, 2010, the Freedom Flotilla sets sail for Gaza determined to, once again, challenge Israel’s blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians trapped in an open-air prison. Under the coordination of the Free Gaza Movement will send three cargo ships loaded with reconstruction, medical and educational supplies. At least five passenger boats with over 600 people on board will accompany the cargo ships

Fomenting Armageddon: Jerusalem's Colonization
And Western Apathy

By Dr. Ahmad Yousef

The Israelis are instigating a Jewish holy war staged in Jerusalem; and they are playing a superb game of propaganda painting the Palestinians as the “real” fundamentalists, despite the fact that the Knesset has more active right-wing political parties than any state in the civilized world. It’s a strategy that has caught the West by surprise as they continue to react with template disappointment

A Middle East Peace That Could Happen
(But Won’t)

By Noam Chomsky

In Washington-dpeak, “Palestinian State” means “fried chicken”

Gaza Death Zone: Israelis And Egyptians
Are Killing Palestinian Youth
Who Challenge The Siege Of Gaza

By Ann Wright

The Palestinians in the Death Zone called Gaza are being slaughtered again as Israel and now Egypt kill and wound more innocent civilians who challenge their illegal siege, blockade and quarantine

PRC Report On Israeli Mass Expulsion
By The Palestinian Return centre (PRC)

The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) in London issues a report on the recent Israeli order of mass expulsion

Why Judges Can’t Free Torture Victims
From Guantánamo

By Andy Worthington

As a result of Obama’s capitulation not a single one of these 60 men is leaving Guantánamo anytime soon, and it seems clear, therefore, that it doesn’t matter whether Saeed Hatim — or any other Yemeni, for that matter — wins his habeas petition, as they will remain in Guantánamo until someone in the administration decides that releasing them is politically appropriate. This makes a mockery of habeas corpus

Tunneling For Life In Gaza
By Max Ajl

A report on the risky tunnel trade in Gaza. According to the Mezan Center, in 2010 so far five men have died in tunnel collapses. In 2009-2010, Israeli strafing killed 10 Palestinians in the tunnels. 141 men have died. 353 people have been injured. Not all men. Four of them were children

The Israel Lobby's Big Problem:
People Aren't Afraid To Criticize Israel Anymore

By Ira Chernus

AIPAC knows that its old fear-based tactics may still work, but not nearly as well as they once did. Netanyahu knows it too. So does Obama. That’s why the rules of U.S. – Israel relations are changing, even if only slightly thus far

What If The Tea Party Were Black?
By Tim Wise

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters descended on DC armed with AK-47s. Would they be defended as patriotic Americans?

Arizona’s Act of Vengeance
By Eugene Robinson

Arizona’s draconian new immigration law is an abomination—racist, arbitrary, oppressive, mean-spirited, unjust. About the only hopeful thing that can be said is that the legislation, which Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed Friday, goes so outrageously far that it may well be unconstitutional

US Military Escalates Its Dirty War In Afghanistan
By James Cogan

The New York Times reported Sunday that American special forces units are operating in and around the Afghan city of Kandahar, assassinating or capturing alleged leaders and militants of the Taliban resistance ahead of the major US-NATO offensive scheduled for June

If A Superpower Afghanistan Invaded
And Occupied A Tiny US Would
Americans Cooperate?

By Jay Janson

If an omnipotent superpower Afghanistan Invaded the United States, how many patriotic Americans would cooperate with an Afghan occupation and help the invaders kill American bad guys? We certainly have a lot of bad guys

Are You An Extremist?
By Sean Fenley

If one listens to the corporate media and/or ‘political mainstream’ — which one should never of course do — one might find that s/he is an extremist. If one is for peace, like Jesus of Nazareth; s/he might be an extremist. If one is for racial and economic justice, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; s/he is probably an extreme radical

Growing Public Anger In America
By Stephen Lendman

Pew Research Center's findings reveal growing public anger in America

National Public Radio's (NPR) Pro-Israeli Bias
By Stephen Lendman

NPR and other US major media operations take full advantage, keeping their listeners and readers in the dark and uninformed, while Palestinians are systematically persecuted, out of sight and mind, except for people concerned enough to learn the truth and tell it

Exposing The Politics Of Terror In The Age Of Imperialism And Zionism
BY Feroze Mithiborwala

The government must appoint a ‘National Judicial Commission of Inquiry’ to investigate the truth of 26/11. The truth of 26/11 will strengthen the anti-imperialist movements across the South Asian region

Whither Maoists?
By Saroj Giri

The recent guerrilla action killing 76 CRPF jawans seems to show that the Maoists are not only here to stay but can also hit back and unnerve the state machinery. Its fall-out seems even graver now that dissensions within the Congress on the Maoist question are out in the open

The Dark Underbelly Of India Inc
By Devinder Sharma

The dark underbelly of Tata's and for that matter scores of Indian and foreign business concerns is at the root of the naxal uprising. We cannot muffle the voices of the people by setting up a school here or a health center there under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), a concept that the UN promotes. The corporate social responsibility must begin where it actually sows the seeds of revolt

Indian State's War On People And
The Assault On Democratic Voices

By Forum Against War On People

In a public meeting organised by the Forum Against War on People at the Gandhi Peace Foundation on 24th April 2010, various organisations and individuals unequivocally demanded an immediate and unconditional stop to Operation Green Hunt and the plunder of people's resources

Brazilian Peasants Protest Against
Operation Green Hunt And
The Persecution Of People In India

By Icawpi.org

The demonstration occurred on April 19th, 2010 in front of the Indian Embassy in Brasilia, and was organized by LCP-Liga dos Camponeses Pobres (League of Poor Peasants), as part of the International Campaign Against War on the People in India

Custodial Death Of Gangula Tadingi Arrested
In Connection With CMAS (Narayanpatna)

By PUCL

Gangula Tadingi, a poor adivasi man, aged about 40, died on 12th April 2010 in judicial custody, reportedly of Tuberculosis. He was an under trial prisoner kept in Koraput District Jail. Tadingi was one of the 133 people arrested in connection with the alleged attack by the Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha on Narayanpatna Police Station on 20th November 2009 in which two adivasi people were killed and many more injured in police firing

Interview: Iqbal Ahmad On Dalit-Muslim Unity
By Yoginder Sikand

Bangalore-based advocate Iqbal Ahmed Shariff is an activist associated with the Bahujan and Dalit-Muslim unity movements. Author of numerous books in Urdu, he was also the editor of the Urdu and Hindi Dalit Voice. In this interview he talks with Yoginder Sikand on a wide range of issues, including Dalit-Muslim unity and the problems of the Muslim leadership in India

Police State Canada 2010 And The G20 Summit
By Dana Gabriel

The G20 summit will be held on June 26-27 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre preceded by the G8 summit which will take place in Huntsville, Ontario. The secretive meetings will be attended by world leaders, finance ministers, central bank governors, along with thousands of other delegates. It will be the largest security event in Canadian history exceeding the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Downtown Toronto will be turned into a security fortress with fences, barricades, checkpoints and street closures thus greatly affecting local residents

Sharab, Shabab And Shayari –
The Chronic Misinterpretation Of Urdu Poetry

By Gagan Rism

Like any poetry, Urdu shayari is no exception to the general rule that the words are mostly used metaphorically in it. Depending upon the context, words demand a symbolic rather than literal interpretation. Like any poetry, therefore, Urdu shayari too deserves a rational and non-prejudicial understanding of the same

Who Cares For Norms Here?
By Dr Shura Darapuri

In present times when our siblings are becoming innocent patrons of violence it is time to become alert! They have to be diverted lovingly to the path of morality. They have to be taught to be truthful, honest, tolerant, compassionate, forgiving and non-violent. For peaceful coexistence and for translating democracy into reality these are the values to be inculcated in every child

27 April, 2010

The Insanities Of Our Times
By Fidel Castro

Although humanity is facing unprecedented threats to its existence and survival, the most powerful nation on earth is in purusit of ever more poweful weapons

I Want To Tell The World
By Nahida

A poem for Palestine, illustrated with pictures

A Nation Born In Deception
By William A. Cook

As Israel attempts today to gloss over the reality of its birth 62 years ago with a sweeping public relations campaign extolling the miraculous “resurrection” of ancient Zion in contemporary times, a new nation seeking only peace with its neighbors, it might be enlightening and valuable to examine the truth

Water Crisis, Palestinian Genocide
And Climate Genocide

By Dr Gideon Polya

Each year about 16 million people die avoidably from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease (2003 data). The latest data from the UN Population Division indicate 22 million avoidable deaths annually, with global warming, drought, shrinking aquifers, decreased agricultural productivity, water-borne disease, malnutrition, illiteracy, lack of primary health care, lack of sanitation and lack of potable water all contributing to this avoidable carnage

Prague Pact
By Farooque Chowdhury

Another START, a non-start in practice, has been produced in Prague

Iraq Today: Afflicted By Violence, Devastation,
Corruption, And Desperation

By Stephen Lendman

Seven years under occupation, Iraqis still cope with what Refugees International calls "a dire humanitarian crisis that sees huge numbers of displaced (and other Iraqis) struggl(ing) to survive," a situation "for which the US bears special responsibility" but does nothing to correct

Syria’s Scuds, Israel’s Security
And One Big Smokescreen

By Ali Jawad

In the self-sensationalising world of modern media, some truths are better witnessed than told. Over the past fortnight, major media outlets have converged on Syria’s alleged delivery of scud missiles to the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah. By examining how the story first came to limelight, as well as the manner in which media sources have uncritically covered the story, one can begin to notice the vastly degenerated state of today’s media and its deeply polarising effects

Why Azad Kashmir Is Called Azad?
By Dr Shabir Choudhry

There are hundreds of independent countries in the world, but no country write independent with its name, as it is understood that they are all independent. However with Kashmir Pakistani authorities have included azad (independent), it clearly means there is something wrong – daal main kuch kala hai – something sinister is at play; and they have something to hide. This word is included to fool people of Jammu and Kashmir, just to give them false sense of independence

A Rendezvous With Quality Education
By Dr Shura Darapuri

Long awaited educational reforms initiated by HRD ministry have at last breathe in a fresh lease of life in the education system. But getting them implemented is the ‘ultimate trial’. The past experience has shown, that most welfare measures fail the ‘acid test’. Best of the reforms find it difficult to reach and benefit those whom they are meant for and breathe their last in the files and soon get buried under more files! Right to Education Act, should not suffer the same fate

Economic ‘Reforms’ And India’s Growing Inequality: Reshaping ‘Elite’ Behaviour And Human Relations
By Prayag Mehta

India is presently characterized by contradictory economic and social situations. GDP growth wise, it is rising, but socially, sliding. The country has recorded an impressive economic growth. The GDP per capita grew by 3.95 percent per year between 1980 and 2005. Since 2004, India has grown each year at 6.4 to 9.7 per cent.(1) However, on human development, India, already pathetically low at rank of 124 (out of 177 countries) in 2000, fell to 127 in 2001, 128 in 2007 and 132 in 2008. In 2009, it further slipped to the 134th position among 182 countries

A Note For Political And Economic
Empowerment Of Backward Muslims

By Anis Ansari

The root cause of decline of Muslims in India after independence is their under-representation in the political institutions and bodies of governance such as Parliament, Assemblies, Govts. and Panchayats etc

Indian Muslims Should Emulate Super 30 Model
By Syed Ali Mujtaba

There is a view among a segment of Indian Muslim that instead of seeking favors from the government and hankering for reservation for shedding the burden of backwardness, some members of the community should come forward and emulate the Super 30 model of Bihar to uplift the fellow members of the community

26 April, 2010

Anger Builds Over Arizona Law
By Angela Stoutenburgh

Within hours of Arizona's racist immigration bill being signed into law on April 23, thousands of people across the state began taking to the streets against SB 1070--the strictest immigration law in the country

Terrorizing Immigrants
By Stephen Lendman

America's homeland is repressively militarized and unsafe. Habeas rights, judicial fairness and other constitutional protections are ignored. Lawlessness prevails. Everyone is vulnerable. Freedom is at risk. Police state repression is deepening. Knowing the dangers is a wake-up call for action. Latino immigrants, people of color, Muslims, and anyone called a threat to national security are most vulnerable

Arizona - The Hate State?
By Mary Shaw

In the past, I never imagined that Arizona was a state full of xenophobic right-wing extremists. But recent events seem to suggest that it is -- at least inside the State Capitol and law enforcement circles

The New Secessionists
By Chris Hedges

What all these movements grasp, however, is that the American empire is over. It cannot be sustained. They understand that we must disengage peacefully, learn to speak with a new humility and live with a new simplicity, or see an economic collapse that could trigger a perverted Christian fascism, a ruthless police state and internecine violence

Real Sustainability Not Advanced By
One Earth Day

By Robert S. Becker

Can humanity put Humpty Dumpty back together in roughly the same time it took to push him off the wall – 100-150 years? That's a generous estimate for many top experts before tipping points take us over the edge. We can't complain Mother Earth isn't blaring forth countless warnings, as glaciers dissolve and temperature rises. We're getting, but not hearing the earth's blatant 9-1-1 calls

What Mother Nature Doesn't Care About
By Tim Murray

Passionate, defiant, compliant, passive, devout or agnostic, we have no bargaining power with Mother Nature. We need her, but she doesn’t need us. We either get with her program, or we don’t get anywhere

How Hollywood Hides The Horrors Of War
By Slavoj Žižek

For all its mystifications, Avatar clearly sides with those who oppose the global Military-Industrial Complex, portraying the superpower army as a force of brutal destruction serving big corporate interests. The Hurt Locker, on the other hand, presents the U.S. Army in a way that is much more finely attuned to its own public image in our time of humanitarian interventions and militaristic pacifism

Israel Expels Beersheba Man To Gaza
By Ma'an News Agency

Israeli authorities expelled Ahmad Au’da Abu Shalluf, married to a Palestinian woman from the Israeli city of Beersheba, and deported him to the Gaza Strip on Sunday

Gaza's Calm Determination
By Norman Finkelstein

Norman Finkelstein's visit to Gaza six months after Israel's invasion

Israel’s Big And Small Apartheids
By Jonathan Cook

The meaning of a Jewish state

A Danger Called Israel
By Gideon Spiro

We must demand that Israel sign the Nonproliferation Treaty and open the Dimona reactor to international inspection, as preliminary regional confidence-building measures. Only true friends will make such demands, and stick with them even if Israel howls and screams “anti-Semitism!” The time has come to stop getting excited at the manipulative way official Israel uses that issue. Only thus can Israel’s security be ensured in the long run, as well as that of its neighbours

Canadian/Israeli Stamp Of Shame
By Dr. Elias Akleh

Canada had declared the issuance of a “Canada-Israel Diplomatic Relations” commemorative stamp to celebrate 60 years of relations between the two countries. This stamp will serve as a historical witness and reminder, for many future generations in the whole world, of the inhuman, unethical and immoral Canadian association with and support to the ultimate religiously racist, self-worshipping, rogue, international-law-breaking, murdering, genocidal, ecocidal, and terrorist bastard state of Israel

What Works, Maybe: Individual Options
By Guy R. McPherson

What’s an individual to do, in light of the imminent collapse of western civilization? In addition to hastening the collapse, some tools for which I’ve listed before, I describe four points along a continuum for your own, individual, post-carbon future: (1) transition towns, (2) agricultural anarchy, (3) hunting and gathering, and (4) traveling. I will describe each approach, briefly, as a means of generating thought, action, and perhaps even discussion

The Tea Party? Where's The Peace Party?
By Sean Fenley

We need to once again see that Peace Party that emerged under George W. Bush, that could see through the lies of weapons of mass destruction; and that knew this was just the same old tired practice — of a once American allied dictator turning against his estranged former colleagues

Reclaiming The Red Fort
By Sourav Chatterjee

The State must respond not with unthinking violence, but with diplomacy and humanism towards its own subjects, who have been wronged for the last sixty years. The use of military power without a functional democracy in place is not the hallmark of a People’s State, but that of a military dictatorship, the last thing that the founding fathers had wished for this country

From Jihad To Ijtihad
By Asghar Ali Engineer

Our attention must now shift from ‘jihad’ to ‘ijtihad’, which means to strive intellectually to comprehend problems facing the Islamic world and find their solutions in keeping with the basic principles and values enshrined in the Quran. Ijtihad has been called by many scholars, including Allama Iqbal, the dynamic spirit of Islam and Islamic law

25 April, 2010

India Heading For A Bloodbath
By Rohini Hensman

Unless there is a powerful intervention that spells out a practical basis for a durable ceasefire, we are almost certainly heading for a bloodbath. The most urgent requirement is that both government and the Maoists should declare a ceasefire which is unconditional on both sides, and then engage in negotiations aimed at arriving at a more permanent compromise

In The Name Of Zionism
By Uri Avnery

If one speaks in Israel of “Zionism”, one means “not Arab”. A “Zionist” state means a state in which non-Jewish citizens cannot be full partners. Eighty percent of Israel’s citizens (the Jews) are telling the other twenty percent (the Arabs): the state belongs to us, not to you

No, We Can't Have It All
By Derrick Jensen

We can't have it all. The belief that we can is one of the things that has driven us to this awful place. If insanity could be defined as having lost functional connection with physical reality, to believe we can have it all -- to believe we can simultaneously dismantle a world and live on it

Sacred Economics
By Charles Eisenstein

Sacred Economics offers a fundamental analysis of what has gone wrong with money; it describes a more beautiful world based on a different kind of money and economy; it explains the collective actions necessary to create that world and the means by which these actions can come about; and it explores the personal dimensions of the world-transformation, the change in identity and being that I call "living in the Gift."

From Neptune To Gaza
By Ramzy Baroud

In excerpts from a speech prepared for the Hetherington Memorial Lecture, Ramzy Baroud argues for a history of the people, by the people and for the people

What Threat Did I Pose The Israeli Soldiers?
By Eva Bartlett

The latest in a growing number of non-violent protesters shot by well-armed Israeli soldiers, three unarmed demonstrators –two Palestinians and one international–were injured this afternoon by Israeli soldiers’ firing with live ammunition at a protest east of El Meghazi, central Gaza Strip

The Wall/Fence In Bil'in: 2005-2010
By Eileen Fleming

The fifth Bil'in International Conference “on popular resistance to network and strategize in support to end the Israeli occupation and free Palestine”concluded on Friday, April 23rd with five demonstrators arrested and one Israeli activist taking a direct hit into the forehead which fractured his skull after Israeli soldiers shot him with a tear gas projectile

Palestinian Mother Recounts Detention Of
13-Year-Old Son

By Ma'an News

"He was shivering and crying hard, he grabbed onto my nightgown and looked at me terrified, as sniffer dogs and armed soldiers scrabbled around me," the mother of 13-year-old Ahmad Salim As-Sabah described.

2010 US Spending Priorities: 58% To Military
By Rady Ananda

Recently, Live Science published a chart showing that the US spends about one-fifth of its budget on the military. But this aggregate view hides how Congress prioritizes spending, when you consider what is discretionary and voted upon each year. A more salient view of these figures segregates 'discretionary' spending from 'mandatory' spending. During the severe economic downturn of the past two years, how has Congress prioritized spending?

Yes, We Could... Get Out!
By Tom Engelhardt

Why we won’t leave Afghanistan or Iraq

Praveen Swami’s Not So Fabulous Fables
By Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association

If there is one infallible indicator of what the top Indian Intelligence agencies are thinking or cooking up, it is this: Praveen Swami’s articles. Each time the security establishment wishes to push a certain angle to this bomb blast or that, Swami’s articles appear magically, faithfully reflecting the Intelligence reports

Why No Dalit Personal Law?
By Prabhat Sharan

Recently in a seminar “Modernity, Tradition and Resistance in South Asia,” organized by Mumbai University, during an informal talk, a radical sociologist, Dr. Neshat Quaiser from Jamia Millia Islamia Central University, raised a startling proposition and a query. Dr. Quaiser’s proposition was that since Dalit community has always been outside the realm of Hindu fold and the Brahmanical structure, Dalits should have their own Personal Law since they have an independent identity

“Voices Of Hindutva: Creating
And Exploiting Religious Binaries”

By Sameer Malik

The rhetoric of many Hindutva organizations creates and demonizes a religious other. In contrast to the majority of Hindus and the majority of Indians, leaders of a number of Hindutva elements use language that creates pervasive religious binaries, which are instrumental in the recurrence of violence. The political success of Hindutva groups in Gujarat therefore complicates peace-building efforts, as illustrated by the dynamics of responses by local non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) to the violence

May First: High Noon In Nepal
By Jed Brandt

National assemblies of radical students, artists, intellectuals, ethnic federations, women, unions and trade organizations convened widely during the month of April. All sectors are receiving the same message: The Maoists will not return to the jungle, or replay a guerilla struggle. They will not retreat. The conflict will be decided frontally in the cities

Industry Thrives On Massive Subsidies
By Devinder Sharma

What made the wealth of the richest actually multiply were the bailout packages. It is as simple as that. In other words, the world follows an amazing economic prescription: “Socialising the costs, privatising the profits.” You and me pay for the bailout packages, and the rich pocket it neatly. What we don’t realise is that it is the people who actually subsidise industrial growth. There is no bigger fool than the average citizen, who refuses to understand the corporate manipulation of what is actually his due

Mysterious Deaths In Kalinga Nagar
By Forestrights Listserv

Tata Steel Plant Foundation being led with mysterious murders a forceful demolitions in Kalinga Nagar

24 April, 2010

Cochabamba's New Direction
By Jason Negrón-Gonzales

Decades from now, 2010 will be remembered as the year that Earth Day took on new meaning—the year that humanity turned a corner in our relationship to Mother Earth and began struggling along a new course

Why You Should Care About
The Americans Held In Iran

By Scott Campbell

Thursday, April 22, was the most recent visit to the hikers by the Swiss - the first since October. Sarah - who is in solitary confinement - told them she is suffering from depression and a severe gynecological condition. Shane, originally also held in solitary but now sharing a cell with Josh, told them he is enduring a stomach ailment. The three of them are considering beginning a hunger strike, despite their poor health and isolation

Judge Rules Yemeni’s Detention
at Guantánamo Based Solely on Torture

By Andy Worthington

Judge Kennedy stated: The Court will not rely on the statements of Hajj or Kazimi because there is unrebutted evidence in the record that, at the time of the interrogations at which they made the statements, both men had recently been tortured

Immigration Fight At The AZ Corral
By Greg Guma

Arizona is in the grip of an anti-immigrant fever. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose popularity has been built on his tough enforcement tactics and willingness to defy the federal government, is on the edge of a run for governor. But even if he doesn't, the state has a controversial new law that requires police to determine the status of anyone if there is a "reasonable suspicion" they are in the US illegally - and arrest them if documents can't be produced. Hiring day laborers off the street has also become a crime

Arizona’s Plain Old Politics
By John Cheney-Lippold

Even before Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the racist, anti-immigrant SB 1070 into law Friday, the climate around the debate on immigration in that border state had been saturated by politics. Plain old politics, the world of white men and corruption and corporate pillow talk. Plain old politics, the ideological place from which we should expect a bill like SB 1070—one which legalizes the profiling of brown people, with or without documents and with or without cause—to spring, and to which it should be summarily thrown back

Sanction Against Iran Is An Act Of War
By Congressman Ron Paul

This legislation, whether the House or Senate version, will lead us to war on Iran. The sanctions in this bill, and the blockade of Iran necessary to fully enforce them, are in themselves acts of war according to international law. A vote for sanctions on Iran is a vote for war against Iran. I urge my colleagues in the strongest terms to turn back from this unnecessary and counterproductive march to war

Can You Pass The Iran Quiz
By Jeffrey Rudolph

The quiz is an attempt to introduce more balance into the mainstream discussion of Iran

Sympathy For The Oil Industry:
Diminishing Returns Start To Hit Home

By Matthew Wild

Non-Opec oil is in serious decline, and the majors are struggling to find large scale deposits. The UBS report is just the latest in a series of business-page reports illustrating that the easy-to-find, cheap oil is gone, and the only way to obtain new deposits is through risky ventures such as expensive offshore drilling and questionable investments such as the Canadian oil sands

What Is The Social Cost Of Carbon?
By Frank Ackerman

In the United Kingdom, where carbon pricing and cost calculations have a longer, better-researched history, the latest estimate is a range of $41 to $124 per ton of CO2, with a central case of $83. We believe an expanded calculation of carbon prices for the United States should at least explore prices in this range, and should consider the policy options that such prices would open up

Make Everyday An Earth Day… And Fight Like Hell
By Frank Joseph Smecker

Where's the justice? It is found in resistance to global corporate privatization and in defense of a rekindled love for the natural world we are a part of. Make every day a damn Earth Day and fight like hell for the future of this planet. Step 1: Start deglobalizing and begin relocalizing

Earth Day In Israel: Apartheid
Showing Through The Greenwash

By Stephanie Westbrook

On April 22, as part of the global Earth Day celebrations, homes, offices and public buildings in 14 Israeli cities turned out the lights for one hour in an effort to "increase awareness of the vital need to reduce energy consumption." The irony was not lost on the 1.5 million residents of Gaza who have been living with daily power outages lasting hours on end for nearly three years due to the Israeli siege on the coastal territory

Mainstream Green Groups Cave In On Climate
By Gary Houser & Cory Morningstar

With climate scientists warning that we are in a global emergency and tipping points leading to runaway catastrophe will be crossed unless carbon pollution is rapidly reduced, one would expect groups identified as environmental defenders to be shifting into high gear. Instead, we are witnessing the unspeakably tragic spectacle of a mainstream environmental movement allowing itself to be seduced and co-opted by the very forces it should be vehemently opposing

Spare A Thought For A New Generation Of
Palestinian Refugees

By Avigail Abarbanel

Next time you go through a big life change like moving or changing jobs please spare a thought for those people who are made into refugees for no fault of their own. Please do whatever you can to make sure that international support for Israel stops. It’s the only way, because Israel is so single-minded about its mission and so steeped in traditional Jewish fear of annihilation, that it is unlikely to stop of its own accord

Israel's Criminal Water Policy
By Fawaz Turki

By robbing Palestinians of their resources, Tel Aviv intends to see that they will wither away or emigrate into oblivion

Rabbinic Letter To Goldstone
By Adam Horowitz

Your report is a clarion call to Israel and the Jewish people to awaken from the slumber of denial and return to the path of peace

Palestine: Six Decades Of Dispossession
By Khaled Amayreh

Founded on ethnic cleansing, erasing the Palestinians remains the modus operandi of the state of Israel, writes Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank

Nuclear Weapons And Interceptor Missiles: Twin Pillars Of U.S.-NATO Military Strategy In Europe
By Rick Rozoff

The two-day NATO foreign ministers meeting in the Estonian capital of Tallinn on April 22-23 focused on the completion of the military alliance’s first 21st century Strategic Concept and on the war in Afghanistan, the near-complete absorption of the Balkans into the bloc, and the expansion of operations at the Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence established by NATO two years ago in the same city

"Fabricating Terrorism:" Victims Of UK Injustice
By Stephen Lendman

All 29 detainees were innocent and uncharged, yet were victimized by horrific torture, abuse, and the involvement of their own government - serious crimes against humanity under Fourth Geneva's prohibitions against "violence to life and person (including) cruel treatment and torture" as well as provisions for the rights of "protected persons."

Khap Panchayats Asserting
Caste-Gender Hierarchy

By Ram Puniyani

What these Khap Panchayats are doing is to put a control on the freedom of adults to choose their life partners and their style of living. Simultaneously they are attempting to control the lives of women, the core of patriarchal politics, a politics which is presented as nationalism and glorious tradition, by those doing politics in the name of religious identity

Why I Hate The IPL
By Dr. Shah Alam Khan

The money and its earthy use in the IPL is a matter of shame for each Indian. We all love cricket but surely not in a way in which Lalit Modi packed it for us

Only 1411 Tigers Left: Where Do We Go From Here?
By Syed Ali Mujtaba

The media campaign should move from making the noise that there only 1411 tigers left. It’s the duty of the media drum up new the agenda for the conservation of the Tigers. The common man should identify with these solutions and should volunteer to monitor the changes taking place on the ground. Unless something drastically is done to change the discourse of Tiger conservation, nothing is going to come out from making noises that there are only 1411 Tigers left

23 April, 2010

The Imminent Crash Of Oil Supply:
Be Afraid, Very Afraid

By Nicholas C. Arguimbau

A graph drawn by the United States Department of Energy, and the United States military's Joint Forces Command indicates that world oil supply is going off a cliff. Not in the distant future, but in a year and a half. Production of all liquid fuels, including oil, will drop within 20 years to half what it is today

Cochabamba Summit Calls For International
Climate Court

By Andres Schipani

Cochabamba conference closes with call for rich countries to halve greenhouse gas emissions and set up a court to punish climate crimes

Cochabamba Moots World Referendum
On Climate Change

By Franz Chávez

A world people's referendum on climate change will be held in April 2011 for the earth's peoples to decide how to address this global problem

A New Climate Movement In Bolivia
By Naomi Klein

Bolivia's climate summit has had moments of joy, levity and absurdity. Yet underneath it all, you can feel the emotion that provoked this gathering: rage against helplessness

The State Of The Earth, 2010
By Rebecca Solnit

We're in a very bad way. But we also know the solution would make most of us richer—even if not in the ways we are presently accustomed to counting as wealth

Every Day Ought To Be Earth Day
By Ann Lovejoy

No matter how dark the future looks from here, we cannot know what is really going to happen. Whatever you do, don't worry; it eats the spirit and diminishes our capacity to stretch and grow and live well. Bobby McFerrin was right; worry is wasteful, so don't worry, but do act and be happy. Let each of us live so that our lives are a light to the world and let us offer our loving service with a smile

From Globalization To Re-Localization
By Megan Quinn Bachman

By meeting our most essential needs closer to home our communities will be more resilient in the face of global economic and ecological shocks. Being more self-sufficient means we will be less dependent upon centralized, energy-intensive industrial infrastructure and energy-devouring long-distance transport

Why I Hate Earth Day II: The Road To Hell
In Baby Steps

By Sharon Astyk

A number of commenters to my previous post argued that I'm being unfair to Earth Day - of course, there's greenwashing. of course people are cashing in, but underlying the greenwashing, there's something good and serious and worthwhile there and I'm being churlish to deny it

The People's Climate Dialogue And Convention
At Oaxaca's Encounter for Autonomous Life

By Javier Sethness

At the Encounter for Autonomous Life that took place between April 8 and 11 in Oaxaca de Juárez, México, there was launched the People's Climate Dialogue and Convention, an initiative that, according to its founding document, seeks to “build a movement for climate justice that promotes urgent action aimed at avoiding the catastrophes presented by climate change”

The Unshakable Truth In Haiti
By Jesse Hagopian

Jesse Hagopian, a teacher in Seattle and SocialistWorker.org contributor, was in Haiti with his wife, who works on HIV education in the country, and one-year-old son when the earthquake hit. They spent the spent the next week trying to help with makeshift rescue and relief efforts. Three months later, he looks at how the forces of poverty and genocide shaped not only his own personal background, but the lives of millions of Haitians who suffered through the quake

Hasmas Will Not Permit Deportees Enter Gassa
By Maan News Agency

The deportees will not be permitted to enter Gaza, but will rather be housed at the tent while international rights groups insist that they be permitted to travel to the West Bank, where their families are, the de facto prime minister explained

Bulldozers Destroy Children’s Playground
In Beit Jala

By International Solidarity Movement

Israeli bulldozers today destroyed a garden and children’s playground in Beit Jala, and 100 fruit and olive trees in Al Walaja, both in the Bethlehem district, to make way for the continued construction of their illegal apartheid wall. Soldiers present used violent force to remove Palestinian, Israeli and international activists who attempted to prevent the destruction. Two Israelis were arrested immediately, and six internationals were later arrested

Gaza: Watching The Invasion Unfold
By Eva Bartlett

Documenting an Israeli army incursion into a Gazan farmland, destroying harvest ready lentils

Israel Winning Its War On Goats
By Eva Bartlett

Farmers struggle to raise sheep and goats in Gaza in the face of Israeli blockade

Palestinian Right Of Return Not Negotiable
By Ahmed Moor

Washington insiders are now touting a misguided Obama-dictated plan to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Most recently, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Stephen Solarz took to the pages of The Washington Post to float the idea of an imposed peace, which largely undermines non-negotiable historic Palestinian rights. The authors call for the annulment of the Palestinian right of return, and the creation of a "demilitarized Palestinian state."

Israel's Open Secret: Nuclear Armed
And Dangerous

By Stephen Lendman

For many years, Israel's open secret is that it's one of eight known nuclear powers. Israel maintains a double standard. It won't let another Middle East state acquire nuclear weapons, but will never give up its own or the right to use them preemptively

How To Feed The Hungry
By Devinder Sharma

At a time when granaries are overflowing, and stockpiles of food are rotting in the open, India is preparing to bring in a National Food Security Act. Saddled with the world’s largest population of hungry and malnourished, the draft bill certainly provides a ray of hope for the hungry millions. If enacted properly, it can turn appalling hunger into history. But if the intention is to only repackage old wine in a new but broken bottle, it will turn out to be a historic blunder

22 April, 2010

Five Ways You Can Help Save Life On Earth
By Tara Lohan

40 years after the first Earth Day, we're still staring down the barrel of environmental catastrophe. Here are five big approaches we can take to saving life on the planet

Why I Hate Earth Day
By Sharon Astyk

I bloody hate Earth Day. No offense to those of you who love it, and I know there are some awesome Earth Day programs out there, but by the time we get there, I'm spending my days hiding under the covers, because every freakin' time I open my email inbox a wave of the most nauseating spew of greenwashing comes flowing out

India's Shameful Paradox of Plenty
By Devinder Sharma

There is no other country that presents a more shameful paradox of plenty- grains rotting in the open while millions live in hunger. At the same time, no other country allows its staple food to be exported while the population of hungry and malnourished continues to multiply. It can happen only in India

Palestinians Deported To Gaza
By Aljazeera

Two Palestinians have been deported to the Gaza Strip from Israel, raising fears that more expulsions could follow under a controversial new Israeli military order

21st Century Mass Expulsion
By Nasim Ahmed

Briefing on the Israeli Order regarding Prevention of Infiltration (Amendment No. 2) and the Order regarding Security Provisions (Amendment No. 112) passed on Tuesday, April 13 2010

Reflections On Eyjafjallajokull: Let’s Not Waste
Another Wake-Up Call

By Rob Hopkins

Now we have the grounding of the entire UK air fleet, and still the press coverage focused on newly-weds stranded in their honeymoon locations, or school choirs stuck in the US, rather than questioning how utterly reliant we have become on aviation, and how perilously unresilient we have grown as a culture. One minor interruption and everything starts coming unstuck at the edges rather quickly

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Eruption of Eyjafjallajokull
By Tom Whipple

The bottom line of the last few weeks is that there will be many more factors shaping the end of the oil age than a simple geologic reduction in the amount of oil that can be pumped. We already know about "above ground factors" such as wars, nationalism, lack of investment, and their affect on global oil production and the price of oil products. It is now becoming apparent that Mother Nature in the form of droughts, earthquakes, hurricanes and erupting volcanoes is likely to have a significant voice in how the oil age ends too

Economic Superstitions
By John Michael Greer

Most of what passed for economic policy in the last sixty years or so amounted to attempts to figure out how to make use of unparalleled abundance. That’s still what today’s economists are trying to do, using pretty much the same habits they adopted during the zenith of the age of oil. The problem is that this is no longer what economists need to be doing. With the coming of peak oil and the first slow slippages in worldwide conventional petroleum production, the challenge facing today’s industrial societies is managing the end of abundance

The Middle Class Game Is Up: We're
Heading To A Slave Labor Planet

By Joe Bageant

Thanks to globalization, the American, Australian and European promises of middle-class prosperity are on their way to extinction

Memo To America: Stop Murdering My People
By Malalai Joya

Amid increasing civilian deaths and resurgent warlordism, Afghan women's leader Malalai Joya writes that Hamid Karzai and the U.S. are losing credibility in Afghanistan day by day

The Anatomy Of America's Defeat In Afghanistan
By Mohammed Daud Miraki

With the long awaited decision by the Obama Administration in regards to the new strategy for Afghanistan, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated to the point that the US commanders started using the word 'defeat’ in their report to Washington. The word defeat has rarely been uttered by military; however, Afghanistan is the exception, where defeat is a realistic outcome

Women and Birth defects, Assassination of
Iraqi Academics, Torture and Detainees
(Prisoners of War)

By Malak Hamdan & Abdulmunaem Almula

A comprehensive PDF report

'I Listen As A Lost People Tell Of Their Woes
In A Kind Of Trance'

By Robert Fisk

Listening to Palestinians in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

10,000 Palestinians Homes
Razed By Israel In 10 Years

By Palestinian Information Center

Al-Maqdesi foundation for society development said that Israel demolished more than 10,000 Palestinian homes in the neighborhoods of occupied Jerusalem during the past 10 years

Israel Is 62 Years Old And Its Indigenous Citizens
Still Have Second-Class Status

By Senussi Bsaikri

Israel's Citizenship Act of 1952 prohibits any Palestinians - even those born in the territory now called Israel - from obtaining Israeli citizenship unless they were "registered" as such before 1952. This law deprives all rights of citizenship to around 80% of those who were driven from their homes in 1948 to make way for Jewish immigrants; it also prevents them from returning to their land

My Investment In Israel
By Vijay Prashad

I also write about Israel in the hope that others will join in the campaign to end our subsidy for its human rights violations, this both from the U. S. taxpayer and from the Indian government (in the arms purchases). Israel is dependent on the U. S. taxpayer. Its military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is only possible because of the U. S. disbursement. Absent our monetary support, it will be not able to continue in the current manner

Imprisoning Palestinian Women
By Stephen Lendman

Since 1967, over 700,000 Palestinians have been incarcerated, including 10,000 women. Daily, from 15 - 20 men, women, and children are arrested

End Israel Lobbies Pervasive And Damaging
Influence In US Politics

By Debbie Menon

Support for Israel is not only tragic and immoral, it is also extremely damaging to Americans

Has Obama Gone Kill Crazy With His
Predator Drones?

By Takahiro Sasaki

Try to visualize for a moment a world where your children have to live in constant fear of being annihilated by unmanned aerial vehicles that patrol the skies day and night. Well that world you just imagined exists right here on planet Earth in a country known to us as Pakistan

10 Million Reasons Why UK Must Vote
Liberal Democrat And Dump Labour

By Dr Gideon Polya

British Labour and the Tories have been variously involved in supporting genocidal US Alliance atrocities in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories that have been associated (so far) with about 9 million violent and non-violent avoidable deaths. A further about 1 million people have died world-wide over the last 8.5 years due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 6% of world market share in 2001 to 93% currently. There are accordingly 10 million reasons why British voters must vote in the Liberal Democrats and Dump Labour

Why Sharks Should Not Own Sport
By John Pilger

The murky side of sport, from Tiger Woods, world cup football to IPL

Grin And Bear It: Profiting From The Prophet
By Farzana Versey

I don’t think teddy bears are mentioned anywhere in the Quran. Therefore, is the animated satirical series ‘South Park’ well within its rights to portray Prophet Mohamed dressed in a bear suit? What was the pressing need for such a depiction? The latest bit of news is that in the episode they have added the word Censored and replaced the image of the Prophet with that of Santa Claus in a similar suit

Americans Deserve Recall Power
By Joel S. Hirschhorn

Nothing is more powerful in a democracy than fed up citizens lawfully yanking public officials out of their jobs. It is wise to consider how much better American democracy would be if citizens could recall members of Congress, the President and even Supreme Court Justices. In a world moving at faster and faster speeds why wait for the usual ways to fix government, especially when none of them seem to work?

I Won't Vote for You If You Vote to Escalate War
By David Swanson

Congress is about to consider whether to vote for another $33 billion, not to continue but purely to escalate the level of war in Afghanistan by sending more troops and contractors. A No vote needs to be rewarded, and a Yes vote punished. So I am committing to vote for the reelection of any incumbent who votes No and against any who votes Yes

The New Gandhi
By Mary Hamer

Will this new leader be American, European, South Asian, Russian, Australian, African or South American? Will this person be a child, an adult or a senior citizen. Will this person be a man or a woman? Is this new Gandhi alive now?; Or has this world teacher passed on (such as Howard Zinn) awaiting discovery by the living?; Or is this new marharishi still unborn? I believe there is a potential in all of us to be Gandhi-like in our lives

Transfer Of Sovereignity As The Consequence Of
Social Contract

By Sandeep Jalan

This Article seeks to unearth historical relationship between State & Citizens; and general apathy of modern State to deal with citizens’ recording complaints to them; and probable solution to deal with this menace are provided in the end of this Article

Malegaon Blasts And The Structural Flaws
In Intelligence Gathering

By Mustafa Khan

The fuzzy investigation into the 2006 blasts created more doubts and raised more questions than the police have been even prepared to answer. There is eerie silence on their part. The ruckus at the cash transaction at the Mamco bank in the centre of the city minutes after the blasts, the involvement of a well known gray yarn merchants, the disappearance of the body of the fake bearded man, the identity of the two sketches issued by the police, the police interrogating twenty Hindus and then suddenly changing the track, and not the least the close proximity of the Mufti and Rajwardhan

Growth Of Muslim Population -
No Case For Rejoicing

By Dr. M.I.H. Farooqi

According to a recent report from US-based Pew Research Center, there are 1 billion 570 million Muslims living in the world today, and thus every fourth person on this earth is a Muslim. Is this report a good reason for rejoicing? I do not think so. On the contrary Muslim should do some exercise for self appraisal after this report. Why with 25 percent (1.5 Billion) in this world they are scientifically and technologically backward, politically marginalized and economically poor

General Theory Of Cruelty And Disgust
By Ravi S Ghosh

The concept of cruelty varies from person to person and place to place. What is considered unacceptably cruel at one point on earth may just be fine or even fun at another. Looking at various forms of pitilessness in inflicting pain/harm or termination of life, a general pattern emerges about what we human term as cruel and what not

21 April, 2010

NATO Forces Kill Four Afghan School Children
By Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Afghan officials said Tuesday that NATO forces shot dead four Afghan school students. The incident happened around three kilometres south of Khost city, the capital of the south-eastern province of Khost. All the deceased were civilians who were driving in a vehicle that failed to stop at military checkpoint

IOF killed 13 Gazans, Injured 62
In The Past Three Months

By Palestinian Information Center

Al-Mizan centre for human rights issued its quarterly report on the Israeli violations of international humanitarian law against the Gaza people during the first three months of 2010. The center said that 13 Gazans were killed by the IOF during the reporting period and 62 others were injured, 11 of them were children

Bolivian President Blames Capitalism
For Global Warming

By Environment News Service

Bolivian President Evo Morales said capitalism is to blame for global warming and the accelerated deterioration of the planetary ecosystem in a speech today opening an international conference on climate change and the "rights of Mother Earth."

Capitalism And Plastic No, Mother Earth
And Indigenous Products, Yes: Evo Morales

By Jan Lundberg

At the People's World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, the consistent message is ecological, indigenous, communitarian and anti-corporate. The great majority of speakers sound radical and have the support of the thousands of attendees. The message is welcome at the top, in the person of Evo Morales, the indigenous Aymara former farmer and union organizer who is Bolivia's president

The World At 4 Degrees Celsius:
Last Call On Climate
(PDF)
By Andrew Glikson

A warning from the past and a blueprint for an emergency CO2 draw-down effort

Democracy And Depleted Uranium
By R. B. Stuart

Soldiers, like my sister, return from Iraq gripped by cancer. The US military says cancer isn't a war wound

Thailand, Kyrgyzstan, And Revolution
By Shamus Cooke

Are revolutions happening in Thailand and Kyrgyzstan? Are they instead “uprisings”? Does it matter? The distinction is important insofar as it helps to educate others inspired by these recent events, with hopes to radically change their own political and economic systems

Zionist Occupiers… Heed My Call
By Nahida

Zionist occupiers heed my words; Our problem with you is not a “conflict” between two warring parties. The problem is one of aggression, oppression, colonization, theft, and occupation on your side, and one of being oppressed, exploited, and occupied on our side.It’s one is of a crime of theft of a whole country and the ethnic cleansing of a whole nation by your people on the one hand and a displaced and dominated population on the other It’s one of a CRIMINAL THIEF and a DISPOSSESSED VICTIM

Their Homes Reduced To Rubble
By Nora Barrows-Friedman

Israeli forces carried out several major home demolition operations on Wednesday, April 14, within three separate areas in the occupied West Bank. The demolitions left dozens of people homeless in Hares (near the northern town of Tulkarem); and the towns of Beit Sahour and al-Khader near Bethlehem

Israeli Military Orders “In Breach of International
Human Rights Law”, Warns UN Special Rapporteur

By Richard Falk

The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk, warned Monday that two Israeli Defense Forces Military Orders may be in breach of the fourth Geneva Convention and violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Deporting Gandhi From Palestine
By Jamal Dajani

The Israeli government's recent announcement of Army order No. 1,650 was just the latest act of provocation in a series of calculated measures to derail any possible resumption of peace negotiations. Under this new draconian measure, anyone who doesn't have a "permit" to be in the West Bank is to be considered an "infiltrator" and subject to expulsion or risk up to seven years in jail

The Ugly Side Of Israel's Independence
By Joharah Baker

For Palestinians, some things can never be forgotten. On the contrary, we would not dare allow ourselves to forget them lest we do a huge injustice to our people and to our history. This week, as Israel prepares to commemorate 62 years of independence, we Palestinians also mark the flip side of that celebration, that terrible anniversary of Al Nakba, which will always be scorched in our memory as a reminder that some injustices will remain so, irrespective of the years that have passed

“Introducing The MV Rachel Corrie”
By Free Gaza Team

MV Rachel Corrie, the 1200-ton cargo ship bought by Free Gaza Movement is getting ready to sail

Iraq: Imam Assassination Sparks Fears Of Violence
By Abdu Rahman & Dahr Jamail

The assassination of Sheikh Ghazi Jabouri, a prominent Sunni Imam in the Al- Adhamiya district of Baghdad, has raised fears of renewed sectarian violence in the wake of the Mar. 7 elections

American Kleptocracy
By William J. Astore

How fears of socialism and fascism hide naked theft

The Arab Sector: Israel's Springboard
Into The OECD?

By Assaf Adiv

Every few months politicians and economists beat their breasts over the fact that Israel's 1.5 million Arabs have so little share in the economy. They are 20% of the population, but they contribute only 8% to the GDP. The low participation of the Arab sector has recently come up again—in the form of criticism by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which Israel wants to join

The Real "Non-starter": Obama
And The Imposed Solution

By Yacov Ben Efrat

Any peace agreement that does not create a sovereign Palestinian state, equal to all other states in the region, a state including not just a police force but an army ("That's a non-starter!" says Israel), with an independent economy, with free access to the rest of the world, and without a direct security relationship with Israel, will go the way of the Oslo Accords—like them, it will not be worth the paper it's written on

Imprisoning A Courageous Whistleblower:
The Case Of Bradley Birkenfeld

By Stephen Lendman

Bradley Birkenfeld commenced serving a three-year and four-month sentence in federal prison on January 8, 2010, a direct result of blowing the whistle on one of the largest tax fraud schemes in US history

Kalinganagar: Repression Continues Even When
People Are Dying For Want of Medical Care

By Prasanta Patnaik

Since 30 March 2010, Kalinga Nagar of Orissa has been out of bounds for the rest of the world with all roads leading to the devastated village being guarded by Tata goons, BJD cadre and the police. High profile politicians like Jual Oram of BJP and certain Congress members have been attacked and not allowed to visit Baligotha. In one of these attacks three journalists were beaten up, their cameras were snatched and their valuables were looted

The Biggest Reservation Of All
By Anandi Sharan Meili

The present is bleak. The future is bleaker. All we can do is face it together by booting out the mafia and bringing in those who defend the land rights of the landless, of the tribals, of the forest dwellers, of the agriculturalists, of women, and of dalits. It may well be as the intellectuals argue that India is ready for a democracy based on justice and not on reservations. But for that the biggest reservation of all must first be abolished: the reservation by the UPA government of the country’s land for the rich

The Barbaric Ways of Micro-finance
By Devinder Sharma

The ugly face of micro-finance was never in doubt. But now even the dark underbelly is coming out in the open. I wonder how much more evidence is required to put a stop to this barbaric activity that goes on unchecked in the name of empowering the poorest of the poor

Cochabamba, The Water Wars And Climate Change
By Amy Goodman

15,000 people from more than 120 countries have gathered in Cochabamba for the People’s World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth

Exaggeration of Iranian Threat
Could Have Dire Consequences

By William Pfaff

Once more, the threat is a polemical invention, intended to frighten American and Israeli (and European) voters and to prompt a preemptive attack on Iran. The reason Gates expressed his uncertainties to the president is that he, too, recognizes that the conflict with Iran is constructed from fictions—which, as with the lies about Iraq, may turn into another war, whose consequences are sure to be worse for all concerned than the fiasco and tragedy of America’s invasion of Iraq

20 April, 2010

Anybody's Son Will Do
By Bill Willers

In 1983, the National Film Board of Canada produced a 57-minute film, "Anybody's Son Will Do". Arguably the best anti-war film ever made, and tailored for public television, it scared the hell out of the U.S. military machine, which has done its best to "disappear" it. For years it has been nearly impossible to find a copy, but some kind soul has posted it on YouTube where it can be seen in six segments

A 'Watershed Month For The Truth About Peak Oil'
By Matthew Wild

By any measure, March was a watershed month for the truth about peak oil. Estimates on the timing of the peak have narrowed dramatically, and now center on the 2012-2015 time frame. The range of estimates on the peak rate of production remain a bit broader and shrouded in caveats, but they are rapidly drawing closer to 90 mbpd. And the globally averaged, post-peak annual decline rates are settling in around 2%

What Links The Banking Crisis And The Volcano?
By George Monbiot

We rely globally on over-complex, over-strained systems. Act now, or wait for the much more brutal corrective of nature

The Center Cannot Hold: Rekindling
The Radical Imagination

By Noam Chomsky

I am just old enough to remember those chilling and ominous days of Germany’s descent from decency to Nazi barbarism, in the words of the distinguished scholar of German history Fritz Stern, who tells us that he has the future of the United States in mind when he reviews “a historic process in which resentment against a disenchanted secular world found deliverance in the ecstatic escape of unreason.”

Guantánamo Habeas Week: Exposing Torture,
Misconceptions And Government Incompetence

By Andy Worthington

In an attempt to raise awareness of the importance of the rulings being made in US courts on the habeas corpus petitions of the prisoners held at Guantánamo (as authorized by a significant Supreme Court ruling in June 2008), I’m devoting most of my work this week to articles covering the 47 cases decided to date (34 of which have been won by the prisoners), as a series entitled, "Guantánamo Habeas Week."

Bush Insider Reveals Guantanamo Deception:
Hundreds Of Innocents Jailed

By Bill Quigley

Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, provided shocking new testimony from inside the Bush Administration that hundreds of the men jailed at Guantanamo were innocent, the top people in the Bush Administration knew full well they were innocent, and that information was kept from the public

Israel Celebrates Its Independence From Humanity
By Steve Amsel

In reality it was not only Britain that Israel declared its independence from, on that day Israel declared its independence from all of humanity. At the very moment Israel’s independence became official, Palestine ceased to exist. Both sides of the partition that was meant to be became Israel’s, a situation that has thus lasted for 62 years

Beit Sahour: A Microcosm Of Israeli Colonization
By Ben White

While today's gaze is fixed on colonies like Ramat Shlomo -- home to the 1,600 new housing units announced during US Vice President Joe Biden's visit -- or right-wing settler expansion in Sheikh Jarrah, little has been said about what has since happened to Har Homa, the colony which caused a stir during Netanyahu's previous time in office

Independence Day: 26,6356; 3,500, 1,500, 1,455
By Baha Hillo

When Israel’s minister of defense stands to deliver his speeches, he will not think of the Palestinians he personally killed, nor the Palestinians who were killed by those under his command. He will repeat 26,653, not 3,500, the number of Palestinians killed in the Sabra and Shatila camps in Lebanon as the Israeli army looked on; or 5,901, the number of Palestinians the Israeli Army killed during the Second Intifada; not 1,455, the number of Palestinians killed during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza

Begin Was Right, Deportation Is A Nazi Policy
By Daoud Kuttab

Order number 1650 of 13 October gave Palestinians six months to get their act in order. However, few Palestinians were even aware of this military order until an Israeli reporter quoted Israeli human rights organisations saying that the six months were to expire on 13 April, putting tens of thousands of Palestinians in danger of imprisonment, fine and deportation

A Birthday Present
By Uri Avnery

President Obama should come to Jerusalem and address the Israeli public directly from the Knesset rostrum. He should do the same in Ramallah and address the Palestinian public. He should make a speech in the Old City of Jerusalem and address all the peoples of the Middle East. To all these audiences, Obama should submit an American peace plan

Can Lebanon Come In From The Cold?
Part II: Resistance And Rebuttal

By Franklin Lamb

Continuation of the discussion of the historic drive to secure civil rights for Lebanon's Palestinian refugees

New York Airport 'Blind' To El Al Racial Profiling
By Jonathan Cook

Two Israeli Arab brothers have won $8,000 in damages from Israel's national carrier, El Al, after a court found that their treatment by the company’s security staff at a New York airport had been 'abusive and unnecessary'

Psychiatric Drugging Of Infants And Toddlers
In The US - Part II

By Evelyn Pringle

Of all the harmful actions of modern psychiatry, "the mass diagnosing and drugging of children is the most appalling with the most serious consequences for the future of individual lives and for society," warns the world-renowned expert, Dr Peter Breggin, often referred to as the "Conscience of Psychiatry."

24 April Public Meeting : Indian State's
War On People And The Assault On
Democratic Voices

By Forum Against War On People

A publich meeting will be held in Gandhi Peace Foundation, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, ITO, DELHI on 24th April against Indian state's war on people and the assault on democratic voices

My Father Was A Freedom Fighter: Review
By Jim Miles

Ramzy Baroud has written what should become an icon of historical-cultural writing for the people of Palestine. My Father Was a Freedom Fighter is an amazingly powerful and wonderfully well written tapestry of the modern history of Palestine, combining a family history focussed on the individual of Ramzy’s father Mohammed with the overall history of the Jewish-Zionist/Palestinian-Arabic conflict in the area

If Not Us, Then Who?
By Timothy V. Gatto

The Jewish people also suffered under the Nazi’s. This may have been a factor in the way they violently removed the Palestinians from their homeland and the many senseless killings that contributed to the formation of the Jewish State. The question I have is that 65 years after the end of WWII, why does the carnage against the Palestinian people persist? How long does it take for a people to realize that violence begets violence? The sad truth is that it wasn’t the people of Palestine that committed the atrocities against the Jews, but the Nazi’s

Goldman Sachs: Master Of The Universe
By Stephen Lendman

The SEC filed civil, not criminal, suit named Fabrice Tourre, charging fraud. GS, in turn, called the accusations "completely unfounded in law and fact (and would) vigorously contest them and defend the firm and its reputation" - indeed so with all the legal talent billions in ready assets can buy, and no shortage of top tort attorneys willing to line up and take it. Watch for more suits to follow, but is Goldman sacked? Don't bet on it in what for sure will be long drawn out proceedings, including appeals that will drag on for years

Pakistan's Dalits Demand Their Rights
By Zia Ur Rehman

Long accustomed to discrimination, Pakistan's Hindu Dalits are fighting a new form of harassment that is driving them from their ancestral villages in the Tharparkar District of Sindh. About 70 Dalit families have left to protest the growing incidence of kidnapping of their young women. The kidnapping typically leads to rape or forced conversion to Islam and marriage

Comic Fascism: A Funny Bone To Pick?
By Farzana Versey

I have watched some of these with bearded guys taking potshots at themselves, their religion, their image as terrorists. Is it to mock the society that pushes you into a corner? I am afraid the effect is quite the opposite. It becomes an apology, quite akin to efforts to counter terrorism, to say, hey, we are the good guys, see we can laugh

19 April, 2010

We AreThe People Of India Too
By Himanshu Kumar

Jana Gana Mana Adhinayak Jaya he? Are all these people in their tattered clothes and burned homes not one of “We, the people of India”? The day the police raise their guns for the poor and the victimized, there will be no need for Naxalism

U.S. Soldiers From Wikileaks ‘Collateral Murder’
Video Apologize

By Josh Stieber & Ethan McCord

Two former soldiers from the Army unit responsible for the Wikileaks "Collateral Murder" incident have written an open-letter of "Reconciliation and Responsibility" to those injured in the July 2007 attack, in which U.S. forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees

Noam Chomsky Has ‘Never Seen
Anything Like This’

By Chris Hedges

“It is very similar to late Weimar Germany,” Chomsky told me when I called him at his office in Cambridge, Mass. “The parallels are striking. There was also tremendous disillusionment with the parliamentary system. The most striking fact about Weimar was not that the Nazis managed to destroy the Social Democrats and the Communists but that the traditional parties, the Conservative and Liberal parties, were hated and disappeared. It left a vacuum which the Nazis very cleverly and intelligently managed to take over.”

Pentagon Alert From ... 2008:
"Towards A "Severe Energy Crisis"

By Matthieu Auzanneau

The report of the United States Joint Forces Command, the Joint Operating Environment for 2008 already offered the same diagnosis, word for word (p. 17): By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD

WhenThe U.S. Energy Secretary Spoke Of
"Peak Oil" ...

By Matthieu Auzanneau

The U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, knows and understands the issues of global peak oil production. During a talk he gave in March 2005 as director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory, Steven Chu advanced the hypothesis of an imminent decline in world production of liquid fuels

Peak Ego And The Ego Descent Plan
By Bob Banner

For me it appears to be a logical result to speak of peak ego, especially since cheap oil gave rise to affluence which in turn gave rise to more separation, separation in the meaning that affluence has offered us NOT to need each other the way tribal communities in the past did but a lifestyle that separates us from the inherent wisdom of interdependence. When we have reached the ultimate separation perhaps we have reached peak ego. How more separate can one become? How much more ego can we have before the level of “happiness” runs out?

Forever And A Day
By Kurt Cobb

Talk with many green technology advocates and you might get the impression that we have forever and a day to make the transition from an unsustainable society to a sustainable one. But the most critical question is how much time we have to make the transition. A fully equipped hospital with on-duty surgeons and staff may be the ideal technology for a critically injured patient. But they mean little to such a patient if we are in the position of having to build the hospital and train the surgeons and staff before administering treatment

Nuclear Terrorism And Nuclear Weapons
By Chandra Muzaffar

In some circles, ‘nuclear terrorism’ is linked to the acquisition, possession, proliferation and utilization of nuclear weapons by terrorists. However, for the victims of a nuclear attack, it does not matter whether the perpetrator is a terrorist organization, or a state that possesses nuclear weapons. A nuclear attack is nuclear terrorism

Humanity And Its Absence
By David Kennedy

A letter sent to Franklin Lamb in response to his letter to his wife, "A Letter To Janet About Sabra-Shatilla"

Diversity Dead-End: Inclusiveness
Without Accountability

By Robert Jensen

Calls for diversity and inclusiveness from people with privilege (such as a white man with a professional job living in the United States) are meaningful only when we are willing to address the systems and structures of power in which inequality and discrimination are rooted. But because such a critique strikes many people as too radical, crafting a response to those who want to avoid that analysis is crucial to the struggle for progressive social change

Will Not One But Two Guantanamos
Define The American Future?

By Karen J. Greenberg

As yet there is no sign that the notorious eight-year-old detention facility is close to a shut down. Worse yet, there is evidence that, when it finally is closed, it will be replaced by two Guantanamos -- one in Illinois and the other in Afghanistan

The Return Of Christian Terrorism
By Mark Jurgensmeyer

Threats of right-wing violence have doubled in the past year. What is behind the latest upsurge in the movement to create a Christian theocratic state?

India, The United Nations And Kashmir
By Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai

There is but one fair, just, legal, and moral solution to Kashmir which was provided by the United Nations. The procedures contemplated at early stage of the dispute at the United Nations for its solution may be varied in the light of changed circumstances but its underlying principle must be scrupulously observed if justice and rationality are not be thrown overboard. The setting aside of the UN resolution is one thing; the discarding of the principle they embodies is altogether another. So the settlement has to be in accordance with the wishes of the people; impartially ascertained; in conditions of freedom from intimidation

Boldness vs. Bullets At The Gaza Border
By Max Ajl

The spectacle of Israeli sniper bullets cutting the air around me as I stood on Palestinian land remained with me when I sat down at my computer that evening. Ethan Bronner, bureau chief in Jerusalem for The New York Times, had written an article about Palestinian nonviolence. Perhaps he was going to extol the efflorescing nonviolent mobilization in the West Bank? Or he had heard of the recently burgeoning Ghazzawy nonviolent marches for security in the buffer zone? Maybe not

Postcard From Gaza
By Flora Nicoletta

The problem in Gaza is not the lack of food or the humanitarian crisis. The major problem in Gaza is how to keep his sanity

Medical Solidarity With Gaza: In Conversation With Mads Gilbert
By Stefan Christoff

Ahead of the English publication of his book Eyes in Gaza (co-authored with Dr. Erik Fosse), Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert recently spoke with Stefan Christoff about what he witnessed during Operation Cast Lead, Israel's three-week long assault on the Gaza Strip starting in December 2008, during which more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed and thousands more injured

Ninety-Four Percent Of Kandaharis Want
Peace Talks, Not War

By Gareth Porter

An opinion survey of Afghanistan's Kandahar province funded by the U.S. Army has revealed that 94 percent of respondents support negotiating with the Taliban over military confrontation with the insurgent group and 85 percent regard the Taliban as "our Afghan brothers"

State Violence In Kalinganagar, Orissa
Concerned Citizens Committee On Kalinganagar Firing

A fact finding report on Baligootha firing on peaceful protesters of Vistapan Virodhi Janmanch

The Rs. 1500 Crore “Maoist Empire”
or How The Police Plants Stories In The Press

By Partho Sarathi Ray

A quick internet search traces the story about the Rs 1500 crore “empire” of the Maoists to an article that appeared in the intelligence agency-run blog Naxal Terror Watch on 6th June, 2009. It is clearly a news story that was planted by the intelligence agencies (which the Mumbai Mirror divulged) with the connivance of reputed national newspapers, as a piece of propaganda to malign their adversaries, the Maoists

Kirity Roy's Arrest
By Tusha Mittal

Activist Kirity Roy's arrest is a reminder of Shrinking Democratic space in India

Psychiatric Drugging Of Infants And Toddlers
In The US - Part I

By Evelyn Pringle

The United States has become the psychiatric drugging capital of the world for kids with children being medicated at a younger and younger age. Medicaid records in some states show infants less than a year old on drugs for mental disorders

A Culture Of The Unreal
By Case Wagenvoord

Every once in a while I catch “Modern Marvels” on the History Channel, which is a celebration of technology. From time to time a voice-over intones, “Welcome to the twenty-first century. Things are going to be different.” It’s a pity how pop culture remains ignorant of its irony

A Lesson On The Oklahoma Bombing Anniversary
By Mary Shaw

April 19, 2010, marks the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, in which 168 people died (including 19 young children) and more than 680 people were injured. Crazed Muslims? Actually, no

Richard I. Fine's Judicial Lynching
By Stephen Lendman

The state Supreme Court disbarred Fine. Superior Court Judge David Yaffe jailed him for allegedly practicing law while being inactive and refusing to answer questions about his assets to pay court-ordered attorney fees in connection with a Marina del Rey case

Harmful Effects Of Prolonged Isolated Confinement
By Stephen Lendman

Besides Wall Street bailouts, foreign wars, and a growing national security apparatus, what better economic stimulus than to lock up poor blacks and Latinos, Muslims called terrorists, then target political dissidents; human, civil and anti-war activists; and courageous opponents of Washington and corporate malfeasance

The Story Of India Remains Embedded
In TheTussle For BPL, APL and IPL

By Devinder Sharma

The Shashi Tharoor resignation drama coincided with another development that did not evoke the same kind of media frenzy. More than 1.1 crore poor people (or 11 million) have been added to the list of Below Poverty Line (BPL) families who are eligible to receive a monthly entitlement of food ration

17 April, 2010

Chidambaram's Dominoes Are Beginning To Fall
By Trevor Selvam

The sons and daughters and the grandchildren of freedom fighters, of Gandhian activists, of Sarvodaya activists, followers of Vinoba Bhave, of the Congress Socialists, of the followers of “Nehruvian socialism”, of the followers of JP Narayan, of those the British chose to call “terrorists” and old-style retired Communists from the Tebhaga and Telengana period, know where “the buck stops.” They may not be supporters of the Maoists, but they know that this time around, something is going terribly wrong and this mad race to “modernize” India has only one group of takers—those who salivate over the glam and glitter of Ratan Tata, Narendra Modi, the Ambanis, the Jindals, the Mallyas and their main backers, Chidambaram, Ahluwalia, Kamal Nath and a handful of others

Can Capitalism Fix The Climate?
By Simon Butler

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It has taken capitalism about 250 years to generate enough waste and pollution to press dangerously against nature’s limits. With such a damning record, there should be no grounds to expect a different outcome in the future. Yet the mainstream discussion about how to tackle the climate crisis still assumes that, this time around, capitalism can be made sustainable

Hedy Epstein’s Emotional Speech In Support Of
The Divestment At UC Berkeley [VIDEO]

By Hedy Epstein

Video of an emotional speech by Holocaust surviver Hedy Epstein speaking out in support of Divestment at the Universtity of California at Berkeley, California

A Letter To Janet About Sabra-Shatilla
By Franklin Lamb

Dr. Franklin Lamb is an American who has dedicated the best years of his life and more to the service of Palestinians. This is a letter to his wife Janet, that was published in Counterpunch, on the anniversary of the Sabra & Shatila Massacre, on Sept. 14, 2007

Mystifying Male Power As Domination:
Theological Roots Of Child Sex Abuse

By Carol P. Christ

Not only “the Holy Father” but all fathers and indeed all males benefit from the mystification of male power as domination. It is hard for victims and other witnesses (including wives and mothers) to believe that allegedly all-powerful males are doing something wrong. A church that teaches that God is male is responsible when children and adults conclude that the male is God

Is US Embassy In Lebanon Squandering Its
Diplomatic Immunity?

By Franklin Lamb

Tensions are rising in Lebanon between elected representatives in Parliament, 'Unity' Cabinet members and the American Embassy, as the 27th anniversary of the attack 1983 attack on the US Embassy approaches and the Embassy issues another warning for Americans to leave Lebanon

The Natural World Vanishes:
How Species Cease To Matter

By John Waldman

Once, on both sides of the Atlantic, fish such as salmon, eels, and, shad were abundant and played an important role in society, feeding millions and providing a livelihood for tens of thousands. But as these fish have steadily dwindled, humans have lost sight of their significance, with each generation accepting a diminished environment as the new norm

Let's See Ourselves
By Gustavo Esteva with Juliette Beck

The fight against climate change has begun to reflect the colonial, top-down worldview that contributed to the problem in the first place. Mexican activist and storyteller Gustavo Esteva on a new vision—one that is radically bottom-up

Local Economies Close The Distance Between Us
By Stacy Mitchell

How can we support neighborhood businesses that slow the pace of life and encourage people to get to know each other?

No Interest In Saving
By Ralph Nader

Within the burgeoning tonnage of business press—print and electronic—precious little has been written about the near zero interest paid on savings and money market accounts that total trillions of dollars

A Nation Behind Bars: Palestinian Political Prisoners
In Israeli Detention

By Reham Alhelsi

While the whole world demands the release of the Zionist soldier Shalit, who was captured by Palestinians while he was on a mission to kill and destroy, the so-called "free world" continues to ignore that the Zionist entity holds a whole nation hostage

Palestinian Women And Children Behind Zionist Bars
By Reham Alhelsi

Since 1967, Israel detained over 700,000 Palestinians including tens of thousands of children. Since the outbreak of Al-Aqsa Intifada in 09.2000, more than 8000 Palestinian children have been detained, of whom 337 are still in Israeli detention

Palestinians Face A Third Wave Of Expulsions
By Oraib Rantawi

The Order issued by the military and Israeli courts to expel about 70,000 Palestinians who live in their own land on the occupied West Bank is intended to erase all traces of previous agreements between the Israelis and Palestinians

My Mother, The Infiltrator
By Mohammad Alsaafin

Going back to live in your hometown is now infiltrating. Marrying a Palestinian with the wrong ID gives the army the right to split up your family. You don’t decide where to live, or with whom. You can’t see your spouse or your children at will. And when someone in the occupation army decides to change the rules overnight, you know another aspect of normal living will have become criminalized

"In The Eyes Of The State, We Don't Exist Here"
By Nora Barrows-Friedman

In addition to destroying homes in three areas of the West Bank this week, Israeli forces this week invaded villages inside Israel and bulldozed and handed out further demolition orders

Global Peace And Justice Groups
Threaten Israel's Legitimacy

By Stephen Lendman

Saying global peace and justice groups threaten Israel's legitimacy, Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute's recent series of articles, policy papers, and presentations counterattacked - a combination of damage control and rethink despite legitimate criticism showing Israel delegitimizes itself, and no amount of policy paper makeover will change it. Only Israel can do that, but in its 62 year existence never tried

Polish Holocaust, Afghan Holocaust
And Western Holocaust Denial

By Dr Gideon Polya

Don't allow the racist Zionist and US Alliance mass murderers the privilege of a “clear conscience” – tell everyone you can about the Palestinian Holocaust and Palestinian Genocide, the Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide , the Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide, the Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide and the worsening Climate Holocaust and Climate Genocide that is predicted to kill 10 billion non-Europeans this century due to unaddressed man-made global warming . History ignored yields history repeated indeed

An Insignificant Yemeni At Guantanamo
Loses His Habeas Petition

By Andy Worthington

Such is the prevailing disregard for the fate of the remaining prisoners in Guantánamo that last week, when Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, the chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, submitted a declaration in a case brought by a former prisoner, in which he stated that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld all knew--and didn’t care--that "the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent," almost no one noticed that one of the remaining 183 men had just lost his habeas corpus petition in a US court

Allawi’s Mean Streak
By Greg Guma

Those in the US who consider the current president a dictator might want to consider how a real “strongman” operates. To do so, they need go no further than the “fragile” democracy installed in Iraq since the US invasion and take a good look at Ayad Allawi, slated to become the country’s next prime minister. With a pre-election resume that includes coordinating “hit squads” and allegedly shooting handcuffed prisoners, he makes Dick Cheney look like Gandhi

The Crisis In African American Leadership
By Frederick Alexander Meade

The procurement of universal prosperity for those of African ancestry will only find its expression when such populations are guided by those principled and loyal leaders, who dare to bring forth such a dream, by any means necessary

Orissa : Police Attack Villagers Protesting
Against Tata Project

By Times Of India

Armed police on 30th March allegedly raided a tribal village in the vicinity of Kalinganagar, fired bullets and set houses afire. Panic-stricken villagers of Baligoth fled to the nearby forest to take shelter after nearly seven of them, including a woman, Gurubari Ghagarai, sustained injuries

We Don’t Need No Thought Control
By Rona Wilson

JNU's bid to curb freedom of assembly in an 'operation green hunt' on campus

Narendra Modi: Travails Of Travel Abroad
By Ram Puniyani

A group of German MPs justified the denial of visa to Modi. They advocated a ban on his visiting Europe. This parliamentary delegation was on a two day visit to the city of Ahmedabad to study the state of minorities in Gujarat. It concluded that the European Union (EU) decision not to grant visa to him was justified. They went to the extent of banning his trip to Europe in near future. They pointed out that “the Chief Minister of Gujarat has a radical tone to his politics and is described as dictatorial. He has a wrong perception of religious freedom.” This four member team has been closely following developments in the Gujarat riot cases

Muslims And Their Contribution To
The Formation Of Congress And Freedom Struggle

By Asghar Ali Engineer

This year hundred twenty fifth anniversary of its founding is being celebrated. All people of India, irrespective of their religious persuasion richly contributed to the freedom movement through the Indian National Congress. However, due to majoritarian attitude of our leaders and narrow outlook of those who devise our educational curriculum, minorities' contribution has been totally forgotten

Riots After Riots: It Happens Only In India
By Syed Ali Mujtaba

Communal riots have become part and parcel of Indian social life. The birth pang of the country was on the throes of communal riots. The history of last sixty years or so to a section of the Indian society, who has been on the receiving end of communal riots, is nothing but a history of wanton destruction of their lives and properties. The year 2010 so far has witnessed two communal riots, one in Bareilly a small city in Uttar Pradesh, the other in Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh

Atrocities Of Pakistan’s Mercenary Army
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

More than 70 civilians were killed and scores injured in an air raid on April 10 by the Pakistani jet fighters in the tribal region along Pakistan’s northern border with Afghanistan. According to eyewitness accounts, a bomb was dropped on a house in the remote village of Sara Walla in the Khyber tribal agency. The fighter jets returned as villagers tried to dig out people from the rubble two hours later

The Strategic Dialogue Between Reluctant Allies:
The United States And Pakistan Today

By Dr Sohail Mahmood

The first ministerial-level strategic dialogue between Pakistan and the United States took place on March 17-18, 2010 in Washington, D.C. It was said that the United States badly needed Pakistan for a victory in Afghanistan and therefore, Pakistan’s position was strong in the dialogue. However, the outcome of the two-day dialogue amounted to little of any meaningful substance

FATA: Humiliated Once Again
By R.A Toori

While politicians are engaged in celebrating their success on 18th Amendment, the people of FATA are uncertain about their future in Pakistan. Sixty three years have gone by but Pakistan could neither bring FATA in the mainstream of the country, politically or constitutionally nor improved the life of common man there

16 April, 2010

Maoists Forced Into Violence: Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy Interiviewed By Sagarika Ghose

You got to look at the every death as a terrible tragedy. In a system, in a war that’s been pushed on the people and that unfortunately is becoming a war of the rich against the poor. In which rich put forward the poorest of the poor to fight the poor. CRPF are terrible victims but they are not just victims of the Maoists. They are victims of a system of structural violence that is taking place

The Maoist Way Of Suppressing
The Para-Military Forces

By Sumanta Banerjee

The stark reality is that the confrontation between the recalcitrant Indian state (which is adopting an oppressive neo-liberal model of development ) and its opponents (the rural poor and tribal villagers who are facing displacement by that model) is fast acquiring the dimensions of a civil war. In such a war situation, the liberal-bourgeois pacifists can condemn both the disputing parties, and wash their hands off, shouting: “plague on both houses.” But can we afford to withdraw and refuse to take sides in this war ?

Bastar : Business As Usual
By Siddhartha Mitra

The local people including the tribals and the villagers who do not live in the Salwa Judum camps have been declared Maoists. So people who are planning to work with them would automatically get branded similarly, wouldn’t they? And in the wake of the recent slaughter of the CRPF jawans, can one not imagine that the government is going to leave no stone unturned to see that all such people are either eliminated or entirely removed from the area?

Peak Oil: Surveying The Field And Charting A Course
By Guy R. McPherson

It’s all the rage to talk about a double-dip in the industrial economy. That would be an economic trend in the shape of a W. I think an M is far more likely. The assumption of never-ending growth underlies all neoclassical economic assessments, but I think that assumption is about to break up on the shore of resource limitations

Tea Partiers: White Nationalism On The March
By Glen Ford

What the Tea Partiers really oppose is a social contract among all the resident peoples of the United States. In this, they are indeed the direct political progeny of the Founding Fathers and the great mass of white settlers, who found the very concept of full U.S. citizenship for Africans and Native Americans monstrously repugnant, a devaluation of their superior white selves

Can't Buy Me Love
By Annie Leonard

It's Tax Day, which means the Tea Party will be railing against government spending on programs like health care, Head Start, environmental protection, consumer product safety inspectors and food stamps. Try as I might, I just can't understand the logic of opposing government programs to ensure that our air, water and baby bottles are safe, children aren't hungry and everyone has access to a doctor

The Tea Partiers' Racial Paranoia
By Joan Walsh

No surprise, they're white, and they think President Obama is doing too much for black people; some surprise, they're wealthier than the average voter -- with a less-covered University of Washington poll that finds they also doubt the hard work, intelligence and trustworthiness of black people

Our Man In Kabul
By Alfred W. McCoy

From Ngo Dinh Diem to Hamid Karzai. So is President Karzai, like Diem, doomed to die on the streets of Kabul or will he, one day, find himself like Thieu boarding a midnight flight into exile?

An Immaculate Conception?
By Joseph Massad

We seem to already know the name, weight, ideological color and the physical make-up of this "baby;" nay we even know the political structure, and the foreign policy of the fruit of Fayyad's womb: a tiny Palestinian "state" that recognizes Israel as a "biblical" Jewish state. The time of birth will be determined by Fayyad as both mother and midwife. While the last immaculate conception that took place in Palestine was in Nazareth, it remains unclear if what is unfolding in Ramallah is a second immaculate conception, as no paternity tests have been scheduled as of yet for this illegitimate baby

Israel's Manufactured Outrage Over
A Presidential Palace

By Stephen Maher

Israel's hysterical reaction -- and the US support of it -- to the building of a Palestinian Authority presidential compound on a street named after a Hamas military commander, is hardly surprising. Of note however is the double-standard exhibited by Israel and its patron, the US. The assumption throughout is that Israel's actions are just, defensive and in pursuit of peace for all. Conversely, Palestinian actions are aggressive and evil, and worthy of worldwide condemnation

Adding Torture To Injury
By Pam Bailey

It was bad enough that Ahmad Asfour was severely maimed by an Israeli drone strike outside his house on 9 January 2009. But, his search for advanced treatment landed the journalism student, now 19, in Israeli prison where he remains

People's Memorandum To The Government Of India
On The Cochabamba Climate Conference

By People’s Movements, Networks & Organisations

We demand the Government of India join the Cochabamba Climate Conference and meaningfully participate in it at the highest levels

No Police Officer Penalized For HR Violations In J&K
By Shruti Oza

Jammu and Kashmir government has neither punished nor prosecuted police officers allegedly involved in 168 cases of human rights violations which includes cases of custodial killings and enforced disappearances in which state government had ordered magisterial inquiries and judicial probes

Role Of Economy In Deconstruction Of Conflict
Or Construction Of Self Sufficiency In Kashmir

By Inshah Malik

The state government of Jammu & Kashmir treats the economy in the state as one of the imperative factors in driving the youth for the so called contructive growth and empowerment but to subside the demands of the educated youth the state government has considerably failed time and again

Kagan Gets Fire From Left: White House Responds
By Michael Kranish

Solicitor General Elena Kagan, the former Harvard Law School dean who is a leading candidate on President Obama's list of possible Supreme Court nominees, is facing opposition from some pockets of the political left because of her past statements on executive power and detentions, as well as her warm welcome by some conservatives

Next Supreme Court Justice To Solidify
Right Wing, Neoliberal Control

By Stephen Lendman

America needs no more Scalias, Alitos or Kennedys. It needs another Thurgood Marshall, William Brennan or William O. Douglas, more then to follow. Instead, Obama will likely shift today's extremist Court even further to the right, for sure if Elena Kagan is appointed or others with similar credentials

Daniel McGowan
By Robert Meeropol

Daniel McGowan is one of more than a dozen “green scare defendants” now serving time in Federal prison. During the 1990’s several groups of young, militant environmental and animal rights activists engaged in property destruction actions such as burning SUV’s or destroying a horse slaughterhouse. After the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, and more recently, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, federal prosecutors have been arresting those supposedly involved, treating them as domestic terrorists even though no people or animals were killed or even injured in any of their actions, and imposing long prison sentences upon them

The Pentagon Papers Are Public This Time
By David Swanson

If a new Daniel Ellsberg were to release a new pile of Pentagon Papers exposing the lies behind the Afghanistan War, or even the past few decades of misdeeds by our country in that one, the result would differ from what happened to Ellsberg in a number of stark ways. No newspaper would touch it. The whistleblower would go to prison. Little of substance would be added to what we already know and tolerate. Nobody would be impeached. And no war would end

Ambedkar Jayanti Hijacked By Mayawati
By S.R.Darapuri

Ambedkar Jayanti on 14th April has been celebrated by dalits in Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) and other parts of the country at fixed venues for the last many years. But this time it has been hijacked by Mayawati in Uttar Pardesh. It was allowed to be celebrated at the places fixed by Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) only and that too in the form of a political protest rally against the Central Congress Government. This undemocratic act of Mayawati has deeply hurt not only the Dalits but other sections of society also

15 April, 2010

Israel's Declining Sperm Quality Tied To
Depleted Uranium Exposure

By Tim King

Israel's population is facing a dire threat: a drastic depopulation, from the use of weapons that leave behind Depleted Uranium (DU). Depleted Uranium leads to the word Omnicidal, as DU kills everything in the food chain, everywhere the wind blows. Experts say the dramatic drop in Israel's sperm count could eliminate their ability to reproduce

Can Cochabamba Pick Up Where
Copenhagen Failed?

By Sarah van Gelder

President Barack Obama's offshore drilling announcement is bad news for efforts to stop runaway climate change, especially following December's failed climate talks in Copenhagen. But there is hope — and a whole new approach — coming from an unusual gathering later this month. Representatives of 50 governments will meet with ordinary people and social movement leaders from around the world in Cochabamba, Bolivia, to work on solutions to what may be the biggest threat ever faced by humankind

Only 'Global Democracy' Can Prevent
'Climate Tragedy'

By John Vidal

Evo Morales says talks will give a voice to world's poorest and encourage governments to be ambitious after Copenhagen

Dispatch From China: Number 15
Has Left The Building

By Ramzy Baroud

To fight climate change the media should be reconsidering the entire business model. Those who are sincere in wanting to educate, engage and influence the public sphere need to first liberate themselves as far as possible from the controlling grip of corporations. Only then will they be able help us to act upon the challenges facing our world as a result of man-made environmental disasters

Chomsky Warns of Risk of Fascism in America
By Matthew Rothschild

Noam Chomsky, the leading leftwing intellectual, warned last week that fascism may be coming to the United States. “I’m just old enough to have heard a number of Hitler’s speeches on the radio,” he said, “and I have a memory of the texture and the tone of the cheering mobs, and I have the dread sense of the dark clouds of fascism gathering” here at home

The Democrat's Mea Culpas
By John A. Murphy

There is good reason to be afraid. We must not however confuse fear with cowardice. In the final analysis we either stand up for our convictions or we stand for nothing. The continued voting for the lesser evil has not, nor cannot save this country; it can only hasten a total collapse. Those who are too afraid to voice their conscience and make it felt politically, by any means, are already slaves; they simply have not yet heard the rattling of their chains

We Are All In This Together
By Timothy V. Gatto

Sinclair Lewis said “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross”. It looks like there are many out there that believe that that would be just the ticket

Why Are Corporate Groups Funding The Tea Party?
By Shamus Cooke

Fascism becomes a social force when society is ridden with class conflict, when income inequality soars, and when corporations and the working class and the unemployed cannot find a stable equilibrium during prolonged economic crisis. Fascism comes onto the scene to aid the very wealthy with brute force, while creating new organizations and political parties to pursue a radically right-wing path outside of the existing political structures (tea partiers seem split between forming a new party or attempting to further radicalize the Republicans)

Chidambaram’s Crocodile Tears
By Gladson Dungdung

Our CRPF personals were made to pay the heavy price for the corporate interest in the name of the national security and Chidambaram’s resignation is just a drama to shield his failure, bury the mistreatment of the CRPF personals and also to emotionally mobilize the middle class sentiment for the corporate interest. Indeed, the buck stops at Chidambaram’s desk for what has happened in Dantewara and will continue to stop but will he ever be punished for what he has done to the security forces?

Working Group Report On Center-State Relations
Non-Committal On Autonomy

By Syed Junaid Hashmi

Contrary to general impression, Justice (Retd.) Sagheer Ahmed working group report on crucial subject of centre-state relationships has neither recommended nor rejected proposed autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir but urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that controversial issue of granting certain constitutional guarantees to state be debated further for a possible consensus

76 US Senators Sign On To Israel Letter
By Ben Smith

More than three quarters of the U.S. Senate, including 38 Democrats, have signed on to a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton implicitly rebuking the Obama Administration for its confrontational stance toward Israel. The letter, backed by the pro-Israel group AIPAC, now has the signatures of 76 Senators

Hamid Karzai's Rebellion
By Robert Dreyfuss

The idea that the urbane Karzai might join the Taliban is highly unlikely. Although he is at best an imperfect vehicle to represent nationalist opinion, Karzai is accurately reflecting the feelings of an increasing number of Afghans about the US occupation, now in its ninth year--feelings no doubt inflamed by recent Afghan government allegations that US Special Operations forces tampered with evidence to cover up their killing of civilian women near Gardez

The ‘Other’ Terrorism: Militarism And Violence
Against Women

By Lucinda Marshall

In order to fully understand militarism, it is necessary to view it from a gendered lens and ddress the question of what it is about militarism that places women at particular risk

America’s Loose Nukes in Israel
By Grant Smith

Israel decided this week to send Minister for Intelligence Affairs Dan Meridor to the Nuclear Security summit. This U.S. bid to secure vulnerable nuclear stockpiles against non-state actors is both closely watched and furiously spun. Israel avoided exposing Prime Minister Netanyahu to embarrassing scrutiny of Israel’s clandestine nuclear weapons arsenal

Why Does The U.S. Let Israel Get Away With
Having a Nuclear Arsenal?

By Ira Chernus

The Obama administration says it wants to reduce nuclear weapons, yet it goes along with Israel's evasions, blocking the path to a nuclear-free Middle East

Nukes And Temples
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

Evidently, American presidents wish to continue to guard Israel's nuclear "secret". If the motivation is thought to be a simple case of double standard, surely one must be deplored by the submissiveness of the general community. On the other hand, the more inquisitive mind would prod deeper and question the drive behind the guarding of this "secret"?

Hamas Should Be Treated As A Political Actor:
Richard Falk

Dr Hanan Chehata, interviews Prof Richard Falk

Interview With Prof. Richard Falk the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied , since 1967

Lawrence Wilkerson Demolishes Bush, Cheney,
And Rumsfeld’s Lies About Guantánamo

By Andy Worthington

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson last week submitted a declaration (PDF) in a lawsuit seeking compensation from the U.S. government that was filed by former Guantánamo prisoner Adel Hassan Hamad. In the declaration, Col. Wilkerson, who served in the U.S. military for 31 years and was chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from August 2002 until January 2005, stated that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld all knew — and didn’t care — that “the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent.”

Obama’s Record On Guantanamo
Just As Shoddy As Bush’s

By Lt. Col. Barry Wingard

It pains me to say that nothing has changed since Obama became President. In fact, people are questioning whether we can believe that any change will ever come. On February 5, 2008, Obama said, "change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time." He is right. We are not waiting for a new administration to bring about a false sense of hope. We are asking this administration to stand strong and bring the change it promised because it is right and not just a little better than before

Endless Casualties Of Israel’s “Buffer Zone”
By Eva Bartlett

Mahmoud Shawa, 19, is the latest victim of Israeli aggression against Gazans in Israel’s “Buffer Zone”

Fighting American Wars From On High
By Tom Engelhardt

In the last week, we’ve seen -- literally viewed -- a modern example of what it means in our day to act from the heights, and we’ve read about another striking example of the same. The website WikiLeaks released a decrypted July 2007 video of two U.S. Apache helicopters attacking Iraqis on a street in Baghdad. Without a doubt, that video is a remarkable 17-minute demo of how to efficiently slaughter tiny beings milling about below

Deja Vu: Vanunu, Kamm And Blau
And The Fragility Of Freedom

By Eileen Fleming

Twenty-four years after the Mossad kidnapped Mordechai Vanunu from Rome after luring him from London, they have returned to track down another who followed his conscience but has been labeled a traitor by the state and a public who view truth tellers as a threat to their sense of security. The prey this time is Uri Blau, an investigative journalist for the Israeli daily Haaretz, who went into hiding after writing a series of reports exposing lawbreaking approved by Israeli army commanders

Did Banned Media Report Foretell Of
Gaza War Crimes?

By Jonathan Cook

An Arab member of the Israeli parliament is demanding that a newspaper be allowed to publish an investigative report that was suppressed days before Israel attacked Gaza in winter 2008. The investigation by Uri Blau, who has been in hiding since December to avoid arrest, concerned Israeli preparations for the impending assault on Gaza, known as Operation Cast Lead

Accelerating Fascism In Israel
By Stephen Lendman

Israel has no constitution or specific laws guaranteeing equality or free expression. Yet its Basic Laws protect human dignity and liberty as fundamental democratic values, more rhetoric than fact given its persecution of journalist Anat Kam and Haaretz's national security reporter Uri Blau

Peace Activists Extend An Olive Branch
To The Tea Party To Talk About War

By Medea Benjamin

On Tax Day, Tea Party members from around the country will descend on the nation’s capitol to “protest big government and support lower taxes, less government and more freedom.” CODEPINK, a women-led peace group advocating an end to war and militarism, will be sending some representatives to begin a dialogue. While we come from the opposite end of the political spectrum and don’t support the goals and tactics of the Tea Party, there is an area where we are seeking common ground, i.e. endless wars and militarism

Learning To Listen
By Case Wagenvoord

The American left must win back the working class. Either we get them or the Tea Party does. This means our days of ideological prissiness must end

Pro-Life Killers
By Mary Hamer

This essay is about the False claim humans make in stating that they are: Pro-Life. Homo Sapiens are Not Pro-Life, they are Pro-Life Killers. My mission statement is to break the Code of silence that humans hide behind: Humans pretend that they are the Superior species -- when the truth is that Humans are a Violent species – Humans are violent to other humans, to animals & the Earth

Israel's Infiltration Prevention Bill
By Stephen Lendman

Along with the Infiltration Prevention Bill, potential mass Palestinian deportations and/or imprisonments takes Israel a step closer to full-blown fascism. It's already well along like its close Washington ally

The State vs The Activist
By Tanveer Ahmed

A little over a month ago on the 4th of March, Shafqat Ali Inqalabi filed a petition in Pakistan’s apex court questioning the legitimacy of the State Executive’s “Empowerment” and “Self-Governance” Order for Gilgit-Baltistan (formerly referred to as “Northern Areas”), on September the 9th last year. Pakistan’s ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) and IB (Intelligence Bureau) have constantly hounded Shafqat Ali Inqalabi - directly and indirectly - over the phone, since the petition

J & K Budget 2010-11: 'Fancy Rhetoric'
By Bilal Hussain

The budget 2010-11 is an attempt to appease all. But unfortunately it couldn’t gather decent points on public scoreboard as this time expectation were too high. The denizens of Jammu and Kashmir were made to believe that the budget would address the hardcore issues like burgeoning unemployment, shortfall in power, price rise and like

Oligarchy With An Indian Flavour
By Jagdish Keshav

A question that arises now is that whether these oligarchies should be given an unabated run to rule and be protected by the government or in the true sense of democracy, should these mining & other companies must be nationalized to provide true benefits to these masses of people who have not yet seen justice they deserve?

Whose Development! The Political Economy Of
Land Grab Under SEZ And Associated Costs

By Srestha Banerjee

This article attempts to critically analyze the political and economic dynamics of land grab incidents in the name of development, and the effects they have on our environment and social structures

Ambedkar’s Idea Of A Humanist India
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Ambedkarism is an idea for all democratic struggle who are fighting for social justice and support equality, liberty and fraternity. Let the tribes of Ambedkarites grow and work for social change and human rights

In The Dubious Battle On Terror:
Advani, Thackeray And Purohit

By Mustafa Khan

The dubious battle on terrorism is paralleled by “politics of dementia”. LK Advani’s ire against the Maoists is that they are “irreligious and anti-national.” By this description Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit and Sadvhi Pragya cannot be terrorists because both are devout Hindus. Perhaps this was why he met the Prime Minister when the sadhvi was imprisoned. Why did he not cry foul when Purohit wanted to establish Hindu Rashtra because that also would involve abrogating the Constitution?

No Longer At Ease From Dinakaran To Koda
By Bobby Kunhu

Let me set out with the caveat that I do find corruption abhorrent, but what I am trying to do in this essay is question the paradigm in which the discourse on corruption is framed. From Bangaru Laxman to Koda, most of the people who have had to receive some form of social, legal or political sanctions for corruption related misdemeanours come from certain marginalised identity groups

Demand Justice For Dr.Siras
By Concerned Citizens

An Open Letter to the Democratic and Progressive Groups and Individuals in Aligarh Muslim University and Other Universities in India to Demand Justice for Dr.Siras. Petition campaign

Appeal From Bhopal Survivors' Struggle
An Appeal

We are writing to you for your active support to our campaign demanding the setting up of an Empowered Commission on Bhopal (ECoB) by the Indian government for long term medical care and rehabilitation of the people of Bhopal poisoned by Union Carbide – Dow Chemical. As you know we urgently need the ECoB to be set up to stop the ongoing disasters in Bhopal that are still killing, injuring and maiming the unborn

13 April, 2010

Arundhati Roy: Pulp Fiction
Or A Concrete Analysis?

By P.A.Sebastian

Arundhati Roy has concretely narrated what she observed in Dandakaranya, not in sleepwalk but in full and sharp awareness

A Butterfly Flapped Its Wing In Dantewada
Causing an Earthquake

By Bobby Kunhu

On 26 January, 2010, India's Republic day Piyush Sethia an activist from Tamil Nadu was arrested for distributing handbills against state-sponsored extra-judicial terror that he had observed in Dantewada, Chattisgarh

Iraq Vet From WikiLeaks Video Unit:
"This Is What War Looks Like"

By Liliana Segura

Josh Stieber on the truth behind the WikiLeaks video: "Compared to things that I was being taught in basic training ... the language in the helicopter was relatively mild."

Iraq Vets: Coverage Of Atrocities Is
Too Little, Too Late

By Dahr Jamail

The WikiLeaks video footage from Iraq taken from an Apache helicopter in July 2007 showing soldiers killing 12 people and wounding two children has caused an explosion of media coverage. But many Iraq vets feel it is too little and too late

When "Barack" Decides To Head A Barrack
By Kourosh Ziabari

In his latest interview with CBS news, American President Barack Obama refused to rule out the possibility of a military strike against Iran by harking back to the famous catchphrase of former U.S. President George W. Bush who once devised, regarding Iran's nuclear program, the popular sentence of "all options are on the table"

Gazans Gassed By Silent Killer
By Mel Frykberg

As a result of electricity shortages Gazans have resorted to installing emergency generators, many of them poor quality Chinese brands smuggled through the tunnels from Egypt, in their homes in a desperate bid to be able to cook, wash and have water to drink. Generators have become part of the furniture in many Gazan homes, but without people being aware of the dangers involved

The Injured Continue To Suffer In Gaza
By Stefan Christoff

Thousands across Gaza live with severe injuries: youth war amputees, mothers severely burned by phosphorus bombs, countless Palestinians coping with physiological wounds, all injuries stemming from the disaster wrought on Gaza by the Israeli military assault in the winter of 2008/2009

Israel Resorts To More Gestapo-Like Measures
In West Bank

By Khalid Amayreh

The Israeli occupation army has introduced a set of draconian measures in the West Bank aimed at uprooting more Palestinians from their ancestral homeland as well as suppressing prospective Palestinian protests against the enduring Israeli military occupation and apartheid

US Troops Attack Afghan Bus,
Killing Four And Wounding 18

By Keith Jones

US troops opened fire on a passenger bus travelling on a highway in the Zhari District of Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province early Monday morning, killing at least four people, including a woman and a child. Eighteen other passengers were wounded

Whistleblowing Israeli Journalist Treated As
‘Fugitive Felon’

By Jonathan Cook

The Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, said it was treating Uri Blau, a reporter with the liberal Haaretz daily newspaper who has gone underground in London, as a “fugitive felon” and that a warrant for his arrest had been issued

America's National Epidemic of Violence
By David Swanson

If teabagging wakes us up to the realization that our approach to war is based on a bunch of glaze-eyed drooling madmen in search of elusive self-worth, perhaps it will have done us an important service. If Americans will stop killing Afghans because they now think it makes them Karzai's punks, then let's stop the killing and work on thinking clearly later

NYC Doorman’s Strike Threatens
The Upwardly Mobile

By Billy Wharton

Wall Street stockbrokers opening doors for themselves? Rich widowers hauling their own trash to the basement? A trust fund twenty-something hailing a cab? Is the end of the world near? No. Just the latest demonstration of the power of working people as 30,000 New York City apartment building workers prepare to go on strike

University Of Ottawa Activist Student Persecutions:
The Case Of Marc Kelly

By Stephen Lendman

On October 21, 2008, for the first time in school history, the University of Ottawa (U of O) Faculty of Science, without cause, deregistered undergraduate Marc Kelly, an exemplary student, expelling him for the semester and preventing him from completing the final three courses he needed to graduate for publicly supporting tenured Professor Denis Rancourt

Dawn Johnsen Is A Victim Of The War On Terror
By Mary Shaw

On April 9, Dawn Johnsen, President Obama's nominee to lead the Office of Legal Council (OLC), withdrew her nomination. Her nomination had been in various stages of limbo for more than a year

Mayawati’s Mega Service To The Nation
By Anand Teltumbde

Every other move of Mayawati has shattered the sanitized sensibility of middle India and left it gasping for the expression. It invariably ended, “Oh, it is too much!” Whether it is her mega memorials or her rallies, her style evokes stunning responses of this kind. The point to ponder is whether, beyond her deliberately designed-for-Dalit demeanour, there is anything essentially novel or unique. The answer would be in definite negative. Mayawati is essentially the product of the system and she represents it in full measure albeit in her inimitable way. Insofar as it appears excessive, it only helps us to see the system in its naked form

12 April, 2010

US Military Warns Oil Output May Dip
Causing Massive Shortages By 2015

By Terry Macalister

Surplus oil production capacity could disappear by 2012, says a report from US Joint Forces Command. Shortfall could reach 10m barrels a day. Cost of crude oil is predicted to top $100 a barrel

How Much Oil Is Left
By Lars Schall

Interview with Richard Heinberg

Israeli Forces Surround School
By Ma'an News

Israeli forces surrounded the Yasser Arafat School in the west end of Azzun, a town east of Qalqiliya on Monday. Troops demanded children evacuate the school so boys accused of rock throwing could be detained

Divesting Is The Right Thing To Do
By Archbishop Desmond Tutu

It was with great joy that I learned of your recent 16-4 vote in support of divesting your university’s money from companies that enable and profit from the injustice of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and violation of Palestinian human rights. Principled stands like this, supported by a fast growing number of US civil society organizations and people of conscience, including prominent Jewish groups, are essential for a better world in the making, and it is always an inspiration when young people lead the way and speak truth to power

Gaza Students To Margaret Atwood:
Reject Tel Aviv University Prize

By Palestinian Students’ Campaign

Open letter, Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel

Weiss: Holocaust Survivor – Why I Support
Palestinian Rights

By Suzanne Weiss

Holocaust Awareness Week is an appropriate time to review our proud history as Jewish universalists, welcoming and encompassing humanity. We, as Jewish supporters of the Palestinians, stand on the finest traditions of Judaism, its great contributions to human religion, philosophy, science, and solidarity through the ages. The rights we expect for the Jewish people, we demand for all humanity – above all, for the Palestinians that the Israeli government oppresses in our name

Israel Finds A New Way To Play The Victim
By Ira Chernus

A report released by the United Nations last year says that Israeli settlers, angered over the destruction of Jewish outposts, could exact revenge on up to a quarter million Palestinians in the West Bank

Talking Palestine To Power
By Sonja Karkar

The world lacks courage from government leaders, acquiescent mainstream media, nongovernmental organizations dependent on government support, academics looking for tenure and populations too long fed on a diet of Zionist myths. People are terrified of being labelled anti-Semitic. Palestinians too, afraid of being further shunned and disadvantaged in countries that give them refuge, so often remain silent. Not only do people fear repercussions, but speaking the truth or even just hearing it has a way of taking people out of their comfort zones

Gaza: Affecting And Affected
By Eva Bartlett

Dangerous work. Being a medic hardly seems dangerous…anywhere else. But in a place like Palestine, medics have to contend with more than tending to the injured or bringing in the dead. They have to be aware of Israeli soldiers’ shooting, shelling from Apaches, F-16s, tanks, the sea… Story of three medics in Gaza

They’ve Stolen Our Road!
By Peter Balaam

We sat with Jamal and Susan and in their home in Shufa. Their seven children peeped in from time to time, daring each other to go and speak to the foreigners. Jamal explained how the road to their village has literally been stolen by some Israelis who live in a nearby illegal settlement

Alarming Racism In Israel
By Stephen Lendman

Civilized societies accept all citizens as equals, or are supposed to. Israel rejects that standard, including for disfavored Jews, shunned for more privileged ones the way America treats minorities, the poor, disadvantaged, undocumented Latino immigrants called illegal, and Muslims persecuted as terrorists

Dangerous Coal, Neglected Lives
By Mary Shaw

Is there really any good reason not to move money, people, and other valuable resources away from coal and other outdated fossil fuels and invest instead in the development of clean, renewal energy?

People's Tribunal Jury : Interim Observations
And Recommendations

By People's Tribunal Jury

The jury heard the testimonies of a large number of witnesses over three days from the States of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa as well as some expert witnesses on land acquisition, mining and human rights violations of Operation Green Hunt. The immediate observations of the Jury are as follows

Muslim Women In Kashmir:
Family, Separatism And Militarization

By Ms. Inshah Malik

Muslim women in Kashmir are silenty playing their roles without being sufficiently trained as to how to deal with the complicated situations outside. It is these silent deaths that they are living and in reaction to that government is ready to send more and more army as and when required to fight a war against its own people and the biggest demon of security threat from Pakistan that seems to be satifying the ego of the larger government system

BJP And Congress In The Dock
For Communal Violence

By Ram Puniyani

A demand is coming up from a section of Sikh community that a similar SIT should be formed for the anti Sikh pogrom also. The demand has all the merit, despite the lapse of long years after the pogrom. While one does not hope BJP can keep aloof from communal politics, one hopes Congress gets over its crime of 1984 in an honest way

Mainstreaming The Margin
By Shivani Chaudhry

Amit Sengupta's book Colour of Gratitude is Green presents a vivid, fascinating, multi-hued trajectory of the history, politics, and contradictory reality of the Indian subcontinent and beyond

11 April, 2010

P. Chidambaram, Whose 'Home' Minister?
Just Plain Resign And Go!

By Trevor Selvam

Mr. Chidambaram is a lawyer, a business executive, a one time academic, expert in corporate representation, suave spokesperson for collapsed megalomaniac organizations like Enron and enviro-pillaging Jurassic outfits like Vedanta. How can he be a Minister for “Homes”? It is time for Mr. Chidambaram to go! He has failed the nation, the first citizens of the country and the hopes and aspirations of the majority of the people who have not benefitted an iota from the neo-liberalist onslaught that he and his mentor, the Prime Minister of this country, have unleashed. It is better that he cuts the drama now and walks away

IDF Order Will Enable Mass Deportation
From West Bank

By Amira Hass

A new military order aimed at preventing infiltration will come into force this week, enabling the deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank, or their indictment on charges carrying prison terms of up to seven years

Who Turned The Light Out On Paris?
By Salim Nazzal & Kate Howarth

The Municipality of Paris has announced that on April 14th they will open ‘The Ben Gurion Garden’ in honour of a mass murderer

Salam Fayyad's Big Gamble
By Uri Avnery

Fayyad believes, so it seems, that the Palestinians’ only chance to achieve their national goals is by non-violent means, in close cooperation with the US. His plan is to build the Palestinian national institutions and create a robust economic base, and, by the end of 2011, to declare the State of Palestine. What will happen if Fayyad’s gamble proves to be an historic mistake? If the pro-Israel lobby wins against the statesmen and the generals? Or if some world crisis diverts the attention of the White House into another direction?

Clerically Institutionalized Pedophilia:
Another Nail In Civilization's Coffin

By Carolyn Baker

One of the opportunities collapse of civilization may offer is a return to the application of indigenous, earth-based wisdom disavowed two thousand years ago by patriarchal Christian theologians. In my opinion, this knowledge must sculpt the new paradigm that begs to be created by and for the earth community in which neither children, animals, soil, seas, forests, mountains, and rivers are exploited

My Beautiful Palestine
By Samah Sabawi

Bigger than land on map, Palestine is the name of all universal struggles for a better world, writes Samah Sabawi in Melbourne

Apartheid Australia Jails Refugees Fleeing
Afghan Genocide And Tamil Genocide

By Dr Gideon Polya

What can decent, anti-racist people in general do in the face of worsening Apartheid Australia racism, climate criminality, war criminality and other gross human rights abuses? Decent people must (a) inform everyone they can and (b) urge Sanctions and Boycotts against Apartheid Australia as were successfully applied to Apartheid South Africa and are increasingly being applied to Australia 's friend, genocidal, racist Zionist-run Apartheid Israel

Batla House ‘Encounter’: Who Is
The JP Trauma Centre Shielding?

By Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association

Days after the startling revelation of the post mortem reports of Atif Ameen and Md. Sajid, which conclusively nailed the lie of the Delhi Police claims that the two boys were killed in cross fire, the security establishment has swung into damage control to ensure that no further information is made public

Dimensions Of The Revolution Against Casteism
A Preliminary PROUT Synthesis

The UN Human Rights Commission in October 2009 declared casteism as a form of human rights abuse and has begun the process of criminalizing casteism. However, this will not end casteism in South Asia. The UN can only create a little pressure internationally. To annihilate casteism (jati pranasha), an internal revolution is required

A Foreclosure Story
By Barbara Ann Jackson

The merciless suffering to which I have been / and am being subjected to is because: (a) I would not cooperate with unlawfully losing my home; and (b) the n___r bitch, as I was called, needs to know her place

An Open Letter For Justice And Peace
By Diane V. McLoughlin

To: Members of the Senate; Members of Congress; Vice President Joseph Biden and the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama: Regarding Our participation in the oppression of the Palestinian People

Targeting Activist University Of Ottawa Students
By Stephen Lendman

Introducing two courageous persons who took on University Of Ottawa

K.P. Sasi: An Activist First, And Then A Filmmaker
By Devapriyo Battacharjee

In times when documentarists are making eulogistic corporate films and government-sponsored documentaries, there are people who are willing to bear the cross and carry it all alone. Documentarist and filmmaker K.P. Sasi is one of them. No wonder he calls himself, “…an activist first and then a filmmaker.”

What Is The Killer Powder?
By Mustafa Khan

More than one and a half years after the arrest of Lt Col Shrikant Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya, Sudhakar Dweidi as well as the recovery of the laptops of Purohit and Dweidi, the Maharashtra government has announced that it was in the process of obtaining some knowledge about the killer powder

10 April, 2010

Peak Oil: Are We Heading Towards Social Collapse?
By Emily Spence

We collectively have to stop our delusions about perpetual economic growth and find another way to live from this point forward. We need to stop pretending that all is well because our myopic view of life shows no oil or other major shortfalls in the very near future. If we do not face up to the truth, the repercussions are clear

The Peak Oil Crisis: Countdown At The Guri
By Tom Whipple

Water flow to Venezuela's great Guri dam this past summer has been dismal. Any fall in electricity generation from this dam can have devastating consequences for America's petroleum import from Venezuela

The High Cost Of Cheap Coal
By Brooke Jarvis

The West Virginia mine explosion is, unfortunately, only the most recent reminder of the true price of so-called cheap coal

'As I watch The Footage, Anger Calcifies
In My Heart'

By Haifa Zangana

A novelist and former prisoner of Saddam Hussein's regime gives her reaction to the Wikileaks Iraq video

George W. Bush 'Knew Guantánamo Prisoners
Were Innocent'

By Tim Reid

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times

Occupied Washington DC
By Stephanie Westbrook

As a visitor to our nation's capital, I cannot tell you how disconcerting it is to step off the metro and find yourself face to face with a F-35 fighter jet. Where you would normally expect to find ads for cell phones or museum exhibitions, Washington's subway, the second busiest in the country, instead displays full color backlit billboards for some of the most deadly – and expensive – weapons systems ever produced

Deir Yasin Massacre, 09.04.1948
By Reham Alhelsi

“They used to enter houses and kill women and children indiscriminately”

Deir Yassin's Inextinguishable Fire
By Dina Elmuti

Today, I commemorate the 62nd anniversary of the Deir Yassin Massacre. Deir Yassin, which catapulted the Nakba, our catastrophe, is an undeniable marker of unabashed injustice, and it will continue to deter any prevarication and the notion that "ignorance is bliss." Deir Yassin signifies that Palestinians existed and still exist, and we will never give up without a fight

The Persistence Of A Palestinian Family
By Antoine Raffoul

This is a Palestinian odyssey spanning over 62 years since these five brothers and one sister . These children were expelled with their parents and grandparents from Haifa, Palestine by the zionist underground forces as they swept the country looking for more people to kill, more booty to steal and more land to conquer. The family boarded a truck heading north to the Lebanese border

Two-thirds of Gaza Without Power
By Ma'an News

The sole power generator in the Gaza Strip has completely closed down, the head of the electric company announced Saturday, following a day of unheeded warnings that a humanitarian crisis was at hand

Annie Leonard on Life After Stuff
By Annie Leonard

Annie Leonard reveals what gives her strength, even as she and her popular film, The Story of Stuff, are attacked as un-American

Indispensable IslamOnline Must Not Fail
By Ramzy Baroud

One can only hope that IslamOnline will find its way back, with its current employees and current editorial line intact. The success story must not be allowed to end. Individual ambitions cannot stand in the way of this rare generational mission that is now simply indispensable

Anat Kamm: Spy or whistleblower?
By Jonathan Cook

What is misleadingly being called in Israel the “Anat Kamm espionage affair” is quickly revealing the dark underbelly of a nation that has worshipped for decades at the altar of a security state

Nine Myths About Socialism In The US
By Bill Quigley

Glenn Beck and other far right multi-millionaires are claiming that the US is hot on the path towards socialism. Part of their claim is that the US is much more generous and supportive of our working and poor people than other countries. People may wish it was so, but it is not

Imprisoning Palestinian Children
By Stephen Lendman

Each year, about 700 West Bank children, under 18, are arrested, detained, interrogated, and prosecuted in Israeli military courts, in total about 6,500 since 2000

Obama's Brave Nuke World
By Stephen Lendman

At the same time the Pentagon issued its new Nuclear Posture Review, Obama officially ordered the murder of a US citizen, Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki - accused of terrorism and an Al Qaeda connection without evidence

Making All The News That’s Fit to Print Fit
By Case Wagenvoord

In the wake of the WikiLeaks.org video showing the gunning down of Iraqi citizens by U.S. Apache helicopters, The New York Times ran a soothing “There, there” story in effect explaining that “boys will be boys.”

Turkey’s Henchmen: Mass Media
Butcher The Armenian Genocide

By David Boyajian

Most reporters and other journalists in the mass media failed to do due diligence and misled their audiences regarding last month’s US House Foreign Affairs Committee vote in favor of Resolution 252, which would reaffirm the Armenian genocide of 1915 - 1923

Why India's Dalits Dont Trust The Maoists
By Thomas C. Mountain

When asked why they distrust the "Naxalites", the common term for the Maoist movement, they point out, to start, the fact that almost all the rank and file fighters in the Maoist movement are Dalits or tribals and that almost all the leadership are "high caste". The Dalits I know have had first hand experience with just how casteist the "Naxalite"/Maoist leadership is

The Fall Out Of Dantewada
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Need ttribal voices for their rights to counter corporate propagandist nationalism

08 April, 2010

US Military 'Cannot Find Iraq Tape'
By Aljazeera

The US military has said it cannot find its copy of a video showing two helicopters involved in a deadly attack in Baghdad in 2007. US military lawyers are also reviewing the video and, depending on their findings, could reopen an investigation into the incident, Pentagon officials told the Reuters news agency

How Wikileaks Shone Light On
World's Darkest Secrets

By Archie Bland

How does a website run by just five full-time staff generate so many scoops? Archie Bland investigates

Iraq War Vet: "We Were Told To Just Shoot People,
And The Officers Would Take Care of Us"

By Dahr Jamail

The recently released video footage clearly shows an unprovoked slaughter, and is shocking to watch whilst listening to the casual conversation of the soldiers in the background. As disturbing as the video is, this type of behavior by US soldiers in Iraq is not uncommon. Dahr Jamail has spoken with several soldiers who shared equally horrific stories of the slaughtering of innocent Iraqis by US occupation forces

How Many Americans Does It Take To Slaughter
A 3rd World Child?

By Jay Janson

How many Americans have been involved in the collateral slaying of children in America's wars and bombings within defenseless populations of the so called underdeveloped world since the end of World War Two? How much effort, by how many Americans, has gone into producing each child's violent death during undeclared wars in Third World nations?

Obama Administration Authorizes CIA
To Kill US Citizen

By Jason Leopold

Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim cleric born in New Mexico but now living in Yemen, may be the first US citizen targeted for assassination by the CIA under a counter-terror policy established by President George W. Bush and since embraced by President Barack Obama

Is Murder The New Torture?
By David Swanson

President Obama has ordered the murder of American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki. Like the innocent but tortured Abu Zubayda (innocent at least of any of the crimes he was accused of), Awlaki is now the mastermind terrorist of the universe. And once he's dead, who's to say he wasn't? Who can demand a trail or access to documents? He'll be dead. See the beauty of it?

Israel Destroys Gaza Dairy For Second Time
By Rami Almeghari

It was not a chemical plant, nor a nuclear facility, nor a manufacturer of weapons of mass destruction. But almost all the rubble of the entirely destroyed factory was covered in white, with white chunks everywhere. These were pieces of cheese, butter and yoghurt -- some of the products made by the Dalloul dairy factory in southern Gaza City. Israeli warplanes bombed the factory shortly after midnight last Thursday through Friday night, 1-2 April, leaving the building, all its equipment and the distribution van completely destroyed

Cameras And Kuffiyehs:
Palestine's Video Resistance

By Don Duncan

For the past three years, the Israeli human rights NGO, B’Tselem, has been providing cameras and training to young Palestinians as part of its "Shooting Back" project – a bid to document and collect hard video evidence of abuses and misconduct by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Today, there are 150 cameras all over the West Bank and Gaza for this purpose and most of the footage captured – some 1,500 hours so far – ends up on the floor-to-ceiling archive shelves in the Jerusalem office of Yoav Gross who directs the NGO’s video project

Israel Knows Apartheid Has No Future
By Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi

After decades of military rule over Palestinians and theft of our land, Israeli leaders are increasingly seeing the writing on the wall. They are at least acknowledging reality, if not yet grappling with the consequences

Under The Beautiful Valley
By Danny Felsteiner

While the world's eyes are riveted to the diplomatic arguments over Israel's settlement facts on the ground, Israel is covertly tightening its grip on Wadi Hilweh and al-Bustan neighborhoods in Silwan in a literally underground fashion. Danny Felsteiner writes from occupied East Jerusalem

Indoctrinating Israeli Youths To Be Warriors
By Stephen Lendman

Israeli militarized education starts early in overt and symbolic ways to condition young minds to accept service as natural, vital, and an honor for Jewish citizens. The "educational system is so committed to (promoting) military service that it (fails) to consider" the harm to new youth generations who grow up thinking wars and violence are natural, peace unattainable, Arabs inferior, and Palestinians enemies

A New Wind Blows In Egypt
By Rannie Amiri

Defying the Egyptian government’s ban on non-state sanctioned public gatherings, ElBaradei is attracting increasingly large crowds as he takes his message of reform to Cairo’s streets and most recently, to the Nile Delta. Decrying the West’s support for the region’s authoritarian regimes in the midst of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s security services is also no small undertaking, but ElBaradei has done it with poise and courage

Grameen Bank Uses The Poor To Bail Out
Adidas From Its Financial Crisis

By Devinder Sharma

Nobel laureate Muhammed Yunus is planning a joint venture with German sports apparel maker Adidas to provide cheaper shoes for the poor. Bangladesh's newspaper Daily Star reported on March 21: The two sides have signed a memorandum of understanding and are working together on how to bring the products into market tentatively by the year-end, said officials of Yunus Centre, the hub of his social business activities. At a meeting at Yunus Centre, Yunus was quoted as saying: "The shoes will be cheap and affordable for the poor. It will protect people from diseases."

Ghost In Shadows
By Prabhat Sharan

What happened to the dancing damsels of Mumbai after the closure of the dancing joints?

One More Reservation
By Anand Teltumbde

Anand Teltumbde questions the efficacy of the women's reservation bill and calls for a national debate on these issues than rush with stereotypical solutions

Begging Prohibition Act
By Ravi S Ghosh

It is a man's biological responsibility to do whatever needed, moral or immoral, ethical or unethical, clean or dirty, to protect his life, to feed his body. One's life is of supreme importance and this responsibility comes much ahead of the former. Everything is justified in order to the save the body from destroying, to propagate the genes

07 April, 2010

Iraq Outrage Over US Killing Video
By Aljazeera

Families of Iraqi civilians, seen being shot and killed by US forces in a leaked video, are seeking justice for their deaths. Victims' relatives have said that they want the military personnel responsible for the deaths to be taken to court

Collateral Murder
By Amy Goodman

We need courageous journalists and media workers, like Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh, and we need whistle-blowers and news organizations that will carefully protect whistle-blowers’ identities while bringing their exposés to public scrutiny

"After Hiroshima And Nagasaki,
There Was Fallujah"

By William Blum

The United States takes the matter of three-headed babies very seriously

Sustainable Tourism: An Oxymoronic Delusion?
By Tim Murray

Why "must" there be a stronger nature tourism industry, with "more people enjoying our parks"? Why does nature "need" the travel industry to survive? How does a "sensitive and well-managed tourism industry help preserve the national environment"? In fact, why does healthy biodiversity require people at all? If we were to go extinct, would not biodiversity be on the road to recovery? I know that I need to enjoy nature. But I don't why nature needs me to enjoy it

The People Of The Brook Versus
Supermarket Splendor

By Jan Lundberg

The return of tribal, communal living will not be a walk in the park, but once we get there we will appreciate it as the superior, kinder culture we have sorely missed. This view is dismissed today oftentimes as romanticism, but there seems to be only one working model of sustainability to point to: living close to nature

The Major Jewish American Organizations
Defend Israel’s Humiliation Of America

By James Petras

When Israel announced a major new Jews-only building project of 1600 homes in occupied East Jerusalem, it was not only “spitting in the face” of visiting Vice President Biden, it was demonstrating its power to humiliate America and Americans. Netanyahu was sending a message to world: Israel backed by its billionaire-financed Presidents of the 51 Major American Jewish Organizations, leads the US by the nose

The Strange Love Affair Of The U.S. And AIPAC
By Dan Lieberman

Why and for what reason do government officials cater to AIPAC? Don’t they know AIPAC’s inglorious history and its one-sided purpose? Actually, government officials have many reasons to distance themselves from AIPAC and no reasons to associate themselves with an organization whose thrust depends upon spurious reasoning and outrageous statements

“Job Creation”–Stupid Is As Stupid Does
By Richard C. Cook

Today’s economic crisis is actually the mismanagement of nature’s bounty in an age where technology has solved the problem of scarcity if it is properly viewed as the heritage of all mankind, not the cartel of financiers, corporate oligarchs, military strongmen, and politicians who have the world at the throat in order to safeguard their own wealth and power. Instead they should relax their grip and realize that they too would benefit from a world where all could breathe freely in an economic environment of peace, dignity, and sharing

Abu Zubaydah: Tortured For Nothing
By Andy Worthington

When it comes to dealing with Khaldan, the stories of Abu Zubaydah and Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi not only demonstrate the Bush administration’s legacy at its most toxic and self-defeating, but also at its most cruel and pointless, from which, it seems clear, there is no easy way out

The Sun Behind The Clouds Gives
A Voice To Tibetan Dissidents

By Billy Wharton

Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam's The Sun Behind the Clouds is the latest offering in a long line of documentaries about Tibet. The distinctiveness of this edition derives from its willingness to portray the internal debates of the Tibetan movement and in the movie’s attempts to give voice to Tibetans living in Tibet

Census, Sex aur Dhoka
By Taha Mehmood

In the Indian context fingerprints originated to track and convict criminals. Numbering and profiling to contain a cold blooded murderous cult which claimed more than 50,000 lives by some accounts. Till a few years back these technologies of identification were used for the purpose of keeping troublemakers in check. Why is it then, that many people in India seems to be excited about using these technologies of identification to track, tag and measure common citizens? Why is it becoming okay for everybody to be turned into a suspect identity?

Implications Of Registering, Tracking, Profiling
By Usha Ramanathan

Data collection, including fingerprinting, for the National Population Register has been launched alongside the 2011 Census exercise and under different statutes. This is no innocent data collection in a vacuum. Set amidst NATGRID and UID, it conjures Orwellian images of Big Brother

06 April, 2010

Collateral Murder In Iraq
By Wiki Leaks

WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded

Israel/Palestine: Rule By Law or Defiance
By William A. Cook

How unfortunate that the sympathy of Europeans and Americans for the plight of the Jews at the end of WWII, indeed of the community of nations that compose the United Nations when they offered them a home in Palestine through Resolution 181, should have been turned by deceit and propaganda into an apartheid state that has ruthlessly subjugated the indigenous population as they appropriated their land and imprisoned them behind concrete walls and electrified chain link fences making impossible a normal life

Reversing Faux Legitimacy
By Paul Balles

Strangely ironic, the Israeli treatment of Palestinians as illegitimate under the occupation is coming around to the realization, by increasing numbers, that the illegitimate party is Israel

Was Israel Ever Legitimate ?
By Jeff Gates

The history of Israel as a geopolitical fraud will fill entire libraries as those defrauded marvel at how so few deceived so many for so long. Those duped include many naive Jews who—even now—identify their interests with this extremist enclave

With The Exception Of Israel
By Alan Hart

Does President Obama understand that the best recruiting sergeant for violent Islamic fundamentalism in all of its forms is the double-standard that drives American (and actually all Western) foreign policy on the matter of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel?

How The Corporations Broke Ralph Nader
And America, Too

By Chris Hedges

Ralph Nader’s descent from being one of the most respected and powerful men in the country to being a pariah illustrates the totality of the corporate coup. Nader’s marginalization was not accidental. It was orchestrated to thwart the legislation that Nader and his allies—who once consisted of many in the Democratic Party—enacted to prevent corporate abuse, fraud and control. He was targeted to be destroyed. And by the time he was shut out of the political process with the election of Ronald Reagan, the government was in the hands of corporations. Nader’s fate mirrors our own

Globalisation And Terror
By Helena Norberg-Hodge

To really understand the rise in religious fundamentalism and ethnic conflict, we need to look at the deep impacts of what might be described as the jihad of a global consumer culture against every other culture on the planet. Doing so not only allows us to better understand the September 11 tragedy, but to see a way forward that lessens the violence on all sides

Why There Are No ‘Israelis’ In The Jewish State
By Jonathan Cook

A group of Jews and Arabs are fighting in the Israeli courts to be recognised as “Israelis”, a nationality currently denied them, in a case that officials fear may threaten the country’s self-declared status as a Jewish state

Pope, Archbishop, Catholic And Anglican Churches
Ignore US Alliance Mass Murder of Muslim Children

By Dr Gideon Polya

Neither the Pope nor the Archbishop of Canterbury made any reference in their Easter Messages to the topical issue of clerical sexual abuse of children, a glaring omission that has been noted by the Mainstream media. Yet the Mainstream media also ignored an even more outrageous omission: that the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Catholic and Anglican Churches ignore US Alliance mass murder of about 1,000 Muslim Children every day in the American Empire under Emperor Obama

Shhh!!! What If It Was Reported That
They Are Spraying Aluminum?

By Michael J. Murphy

Could a Ban of Transparent Reporting at the Asilomar Conference be an Attempt to Cover-Up World-Wide Contamination From Stratospheric Aerosol Geo-Engineering Programs?

A Dead Past Lives
By Case Wagenvoord

America’s past became frozen with our victory in World War II, a victory that has turned out to be democracy’s swan song

Latest Pedophelia Scandal Rocks The Vatican
By Stephen Lendman

Because this scandal is longstanding, widespread, and in the open, the church worries most about losing its moral authority. Its main concern should be top to bottom reform, new leadership, and a changed mindset that compromised priests and complicit officials, including the pope, be fully accountable for crimes demanding punishment. No longer are cover-ups, ducking the issue, defending the indefensible, forgiveness, or immunity permissible, nor should judicial authorities allow them

US-Committed Atrocities In Afghanistan
By Stephen Lendman

After General Stanley McChrystal took charge of US/NATO Afghan forces last June, systematic atrocities escalated sharply after promises of kinder, gentler killing (an oxymoron), winning hearts and minds, and fewer civilian casualties as a "paramount" objective - now much higher the result of more than a fourfold increase in night raids, targeting civilians, including children, while they sleep

Cleansing The Maoists?
By Gladson Dungdung

The thanks giving tradition is found among all the Adivasi groups. Unfortunately, it was out of imagination for many of them this time. The India’s Home Minister P Chidambaram’s gunmen (security forces) involved in the so-called ‘operation green hunt’ did not allow them to celebrate their auspicious festivals (Baha and Sarhul) in those villages, where the operation is being carried out. They were prevented from offering their thanks to the super natural God, they were stopped dancing together and they were also forbidden from having the community feast. What kind of operation is this?

The New Indian Middle Class
By Neerja Dasani

It is the inherent insecurity that might explain the passivity of the new Indian middle class, content to watch from the sidelines the spectacle of democracy but unwilling to enter the ring for fear of losing its seat, writes Neerja Dasani

When Modi Met Caesar’s Wife
By R.B Sreekumar

The Gujarat CM’s summon drama has further dipped the SIT’s credibility

Coke: Black Spring In Plachimada
By Prabhat Sharan

Not many knew about Plachimada 10 years back. But today it has become a sign of a Goliath vs David clash

Reservations: Dilemmas Galore
By Ram Puniyani

Heated debate has been generated around women’s reservation bill (WRB) with both sides having their inflexible positions. On one side there are those calling for its implementation and on the other those who are opposing it. This is a superficial view of debate. As such the debate is, on side are those saying that it should be implemented as it is and on the other side are those who say that there should be quota for OBC dalit, minorities within the quota. There are very few who are totally opposed to WRB, there are many willing to support it if quota within quota is accepted, so to paint them as being against Women’s reservation is unfair

05 April, 2010

Israel Is Illegitimate
By Alan Hart

It can be said without fear of contradiction (except by Zionists) that what de-legitimizes Israel is the truth of history. And that is why Zionism has worked so hard, today with less success than in the past and therefore with increasing desperation, to have the truth suppressed

The Palestinians Are Winning The Legitimacy War:
Will It Matter?

By Richard Falk

It is up to all of us dedicated to peace and justice to do all we can to help the Palestinians prevail in the legitimacy war and bring their long ordeal to an end

Total Boycott Against Total Occupation
By Antoine Raffoul

As this occupation is total and unmerciful, so must our universal approach to fighting it and ending it be

Social Costs Of Globalisation
By Helena Norberg-Hodge

With those in the industrialised world using ten times their share of the earth's resources, it is a criminal hoax to promise that everyone in the 'undeveloped' world can do the same. The global spread of this fantasy has been profoundly destructive to people's ability to survive in their own cultures, in their own place on the earth. It has even been destructive to its most privileged beneficiaries. America's children are telling us we need a very different dream - one shaped by culture and nature, not by corporate greed

Not Just Guantanamo: U.S. Torturing
Muslim Pre-Trial Detainee In New York City

By Bill Quigley

The trial of Syed Fahad Hashmi is set for April 28, 2010 in New York. Till then he will continue to be tortured by the U.S. government whose star spangled banner proclaims it to be the land of the free and the home of the brave

Collapse Competitively
By Dmitry Orlov

We are heading toward economic, political and social collapse, and every day that passes brings it closer. But we just don't know when to stop, do we?

War or Peace on The Indus?
By John Briscoe

I have deep affection for the people of both India and Pakistan, and am dismayed by what I see as a looming train wreck on the Indus, with disastrous consequences for both countries. I will outline why there is no objective conflict of interests between the countries over the waters of the Indus Basin, make some observations of the need for a change in public discourse, and suggest how the drivers of the train can put on the brakes before it is too late

03 April, 2010

Beyond The Monoculture: Strengthening
Local Culture, Economy And Knowledge

By Helena Norberg-Hodge

Despite the fact that almost every news item today brings information about the seeming endless list of crises there is hope that we have the power to turn things around. Localisation is a positive and realistic alternative to economic globalisation. It is the best way to ensure our future wellbeing and that of the planet

James Lovelock's Climate Change Pessimism
Is Unhelpful

By Chris Huntingford

James Lovelock's argument that we ought to suspend democracy to fix climate change is less than constructive

We Can't Save The Planet: Lovelock
By BBC

Professor James Lovelock, the scientist who developed Gaia theory, has said it is too late to try and save the planet

A Call For America To Divest Its Heart And Stomach
From Feedlot Beef

By Bill McKibben

We’re flat out of predators in most parts of the world, and it’s hard to imagine, in the short time that we have to deal with climate change, ending the eating of meat and returning the herds of buffalo and packs of wolves to all the necessary spots. It’s marginally easier to imagine mimicking those systems with cows

Post-Peak Oil Reality Trumps Right Wing Trend
By Jan Lundberg

As we cannot control collapse that must stem largely from the loss of cheap, abundant energy -- a process already begun -- it is time to put our "political" energy into building local economies and forming our family-neighborhood tribes for the tough future and eventual sustainable culture ahead. This will help prepare everyone for the post-peak oil dissolution of the U.S. as we know it -- no matter who next holds the White House or is kissing the ass of today's Wall Street elite

Neo-Cons, Fundies, Feddies, And Con-Artists:
Bush To Obama

By Professor Francis A. Boyle

Do not send your children to the University of Chicago where they will grow up to become warmongers like Wolfowitz and totalitarians like Ashcroft! The University of Chicago is an intellectual and moral cesspool. As J.D. Rockefeller, the Original Robber Baron and Funder of the University of Chicago once commented about his progeny: “It’s the best investment I ever made.” Still is

Who’s Afraid Of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories?
By Maidhc Ó Cathail

It’s hardly surprising that some of the most obsessive critics of 9/11 “conspiracy theories” have ties to Israel. If Americans ever find out that their “staunchest ally” had anything to do with the mass murder of their fellow citizens on September 11, 2001, the would-be conspiracy debunkers have good reason to be afraid

Ongoing Aboriginal Genocide In Apartheid Australia
By Dr Gideon Polya

9,000 Indigenous Australians die avoidably each year out of a total Indigenous population of about 0.5 million – and this is happening in one of the richest countries in the world

Vietnam’s Forgotten Victims
By Geoffrey Cain

Four decades on, Agent Orange continues to ravage the children of those exposed

Lines Of Occupation: The Post-Zionist
Poetics Of Yitzhak Laor

By Joshua Cohen

Book Reiview of The Myths of Liberal Zionism by Yitzchak Laor

China's Documentation Of US Human Rights Abuses
By Stephen Lendman

China's is accurate and revealing. It could have included more, but presents a disturbing account of the real America, not the fictional one portrayed daily on TV screens, films, major publication accounts, what's taught in schools or preached in houses of worship - a sanitized version of what growing millions experience daily and what Blacks, the poor, Muslims, Latino immigrants, and Native Americans have known all their lives as well as America's global victims

Advancing The Transatlantic Agenda
By Dana Gabriel

Although there is a need for Canada to expand its trade horizons, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) currently being negotiated with the European Union (EU) appears to be based on the flawed NAFTA model. Many view it as an opportunity to decrease its trade reliance on the U.S., but it could serve to accelerate the corporate takeover of the country

The Myth Called The Islamic World
By B. R. Gowani

This portrait of menacing Islamic World ready to take over the world is conjured up by the western governments and media to maintain unity and peace among the elite populace within the Western countries to unite against a perceived enemy. On the other hand, the Muslims all over the world are led to believe that there is something called the Islamic World which is not only a powerful force but which can also challenge the western hegemony. This myth is also used by the leaders of the Muslim countries to hide their own shortcomings and weaknesses. This leads some Muslims to join the militant movements hoping to counter the United States

If Not Quota, Then How?
By Yoginder Sikand

Only rigorous affirmative action can address the problems of Muslims

02 April, 2010

Moscow Terror: CIA-Saudi-Mossad Operation?
By Feroze Mithiborwala

The Moscow terror attacks could be a CIA-Saudi-Mossad Operation. The political and strategic objectives are diverting attention from Israel's illegal occupation and murder in Palestine and to rally the world opinion in favour of sanctions on Iran and an eventual attack on that nation

Palestinian Woman Dead After Struck By Settler Car
By Ma'an News Agency

A 21-year-old was killed instantly Friday when a settler struck her with his car west of Ramallah, the latest in a rapid series of violent incidents. The woman, identified by relatives as Summar Saif Radwan, was killed on the road leading to Al-Lubban Al-Gharbi, sandwiched between Israel's separation wall and the settlements of Ofarim and Bet Arye. The woman was pronounced dead at the hospital

There Really Is Only One Kind Of sustainability
By Tim Murray

Like the word “green”, “sustainable” or “sustainability” has become the buzzword of the millennia. Corporations and governments of the left or right feel compelled to dress up the most ecologically invasive development proposal or economic activity with assurances that it is “sustainable”. But there is ultimately only one “sustainability”. The sustainability of the whole, not its constituent parts

Killing By Drone And Proud Of It
By Afshin Rattansi

The White House is considering sending them to the Somalian government. Texas Governor Rick Perry wants them deployed on the border with Mexico. Pakistan is developing one. Israel is developing more and more of them. The ratio of civilian to military deaths in wars has been steadily rising and we can expect it to continue

What Does Murdoch Want?
By Jim Fuller

I don't know. I do know that in addition to being enormously powerful, he is enormously dangerous to countries that want to live by rule of law, and to people who want to live where ordinary men and women have influence through democratic processes. He's pushing the rule of the rich for all he's worth, and in financial terms he's worth almost unimaginable sums

Life Of An Iraqi Blogger
By Wamith Al-Kassab

Help Iraqi bloggers, with support and protecting. Do not leave us fighting windmills alone, because we will fight like heroes and die without trace. Help us leave a trace in this struggle

Red Cross Iraq: Coping With Violence
And Striving To Earn A Living

By Nur Hussein Ghazali

The beginning of 2010 was marred by acts of violence that claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians, mainly in Baghdad, the central governorates and Najaf. In Mosul, families fled violence and sought refuge in safer areas. Although recent violence-related displacement has been sporadic, there remain some 2.8 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Iraq who had to leave their homes over recent years in search of safety

More Dark Truths From Guantánamo,
As Five Innocent Men Released

By Andy Worthington

After eight years' imprisonment without charge or trial, five former Guantanamo prisoners are beginning new lives this week — two in Switzerland and three in Georgia

Creative Movements For Change In Palestine
By Laura Flanders, Remi Kanazi & Phyllis Bennis

Remi Kanazi & Phyllis Bennis with Laura Flanders on Grit Tv discuss Palestine and the growing BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement

What The Shin Bet And Israeli Court Cannot Gag
By Eileen Fleming

On March 27, 2010, the U.S. based, "Global News Service of the Jewish people" the JTA, Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that Anat Kam, a 23 year old journalist has been held under secret house arrest by Israel since last December based on allegations that during her military service she leaked classified documents suggesting the Israeli Forces violated laws dealing with targeted killings

Progress In The Face Of Climate Catastrophe?
By Javier Sethness

Some reflections on Theodor W. Adorno’s account of progress

Targeting Academic And Speech Freedoms
By Stephen Lendman

The case of Canadian professor Denis Rancourt

Reaping The Harvest Of Hate
By Ram Puniyani

Kandhmal violence has been the most ghastly communal violence in the Adivasi areas in India. Close to two years after the violence the tragedy of the area continues, the victims of violence, the rehabilitation, the justice to victims, most of these are no where close to what they should be. Debaranjan Sarangi, a social activist and writer has effectively caught the Kandhamal carnage in his short but comprehensive film with great amount of sensitivity and objectivity

Jalgaon On The Itinerary Of David Headley!!!
By Mustafa Khan

How come Jalgaon did not figure in the schedule of David Headley! News emanating from Jalgaon but quoting government intelligence agencies indicate otherwise. They would place Jalgaon as the hotspot of terrorism

Viva La Woman Power
By Shobha Shukla

It had to take the grit and determination of a woman (nay two women) to bring to books the culprits in an honour killing of a young married couple (Manoj and Babli), on the orders of a khap(caste) panchayat in Haryana. Their crime was to marry for love despite belonging to the same gotra (lineage), which so enraged their family members and local community that they were abducted and murdered

01 April, 2010

Gaviotas: Village Of Hope
By Seth Biderman & Christian Casillas

For three decades, the village of Gaviotas has worked to build a sustainable, imaginative community in the eastern savannahs of Colombia. They have planted 20,000 acres of pines, creating shade and soil that has nurtured the return of hundreds of species of native plants and animals

Easter 2010: Way Past Time To Break Silence
On Militarism

By Gary G. Kohls, MD

Martin Luther King Jr. pointed toward a very different future in 1967. At that time, many Americans considered his vision too idealistic, the task too great, the obstacles too imposing and no will for the churches to reverse age-old religious dogmas. But many of them probably wish now they could turn the clock back and give King’s path a try

Harvard's Gitmo Kangaroo Law School:
The School For Torturers

By Professor Francis A. Boyle

H.L.S. President Obama’s elevation of the H.L.S. Neo-Con Kagan to the Supremes would cement the Federalist Society’s Neo-Con stranglehold over the U.S. Supreme Court for the next generation. As for another publicly touted Supremes candidate, the Neo-Con Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago Law School and Harvard Law School, who is currently working at the White House as Obama’s Disinformation and Infiltration Czar, would be just as lethal as Kagan to the American Constitution and Republic if sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court. Time for the Ordinary People of America to get organized against these Neo-Con legal elites!

China's Global Shopping Spree
By Michael T. Klare

Think of it as a tale of two countries. When it comes to procuring the resources that make industrial societies run, China is now the shopaholic of planet Earth, while the United States is staying at home. Hard-hit by the global recession, the United States has experienced a marked decline in the consumption of oil and other key industrial materials. Not so China

The Opium Wars In Afghanistan
By Alfred W. McCoy

Can anyone pacify the world's number one narco-state?

Mirrored Delusions: Right-Wing Nightmares/
Progressive Dreams

By Mary Lynn Cramer

Both Left and Right predictions are based on an unreal understanding of how our economic system works. US Capitalism is facing the worst depression in history, one that has been building up and dragging on for decades in spite of occasional “bubbles” and government interventions. The task at hand is to reallocate as much of the national wealth and resources as possible away from social consumption and into the pockets and profits of the private sector. The working agenda is privatization of everything from schools and hospitals to prisons, the military and social security. Increased profitability is the goal. And the health reform bill is a big step toward that goal

How Private Health Insurers Purchased
Healthcare Reform

By Billy Wharton

In a moment of frank political revelation, Firedoglake reports that Senator Max Bacchus has confirmed that former WellPoint Vice President Liz Fowler wrote substantial portions of the recently approved Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Left-wing opponents of the bill had already claimed that private insurers exercised significant influence on the proceedings in the House and Senate. Bacchus’ revelation takes these claims to a new level as they prove that the private health insurance lobby literally wrote the bill that is being passed off as a “reform” of the healthcare system

A Rare Voice Of Courage:
Journalist Gideon Levy Interviewed

By David Cronin

Gideon Levy is a rare voice of courage in an Israeli media generally supine towards the political establishment. Since 1988, he has written the "Twilight Zone" column for the Israeli daily Haaretz, documenting unflinchingly the myriad cruelties inflicted on the Palestinian people under occupation. In his new book Gaza, a collection of articles which has just been published in French, Levy utters phrases that, by his own admission, are considered "insane" by most of his compatriots. The Electronic Intifada contributor David Cronin spoke with Gideon Levy about his background and journalism

Iran, Israel And An Obama Miscalculation
In The Works?

By Alan Hart

President Obama’s apparent desire to move forcefully against Iran with new sanctions within weeks, not months, makes me wonder if he is calculating that he will be in a better position to put some real pressure on Israel, and possibly bring about regime change there, if he can successfully bully Iran into playing the game his way. If that is what Obama is thinking, he could be setting himself up (or is being set up?) for another humiliation

Palestine's "Turbulent Priest" Delivers
A Blistering Easter Message

By Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood views the Easter message of Gaza’s courageous Fr Manuel Musallam in which he delivered a blistering attack on Israel’s occupation and its rape of the holy sites, and a damning indictment of the silence of the cowards in the West

The Lobby vs America
By Ramzy Baroud

Those individuals in the US government, military and media that have the courage and the platform to confront Israel must take the opportunity. They should not succumb to intimidation or fear, nor should they be swayed by Netanyahu’s lies. The fact is, Netanyahu will continue to lie; it’s what he does best. The onus is on those US politicians who readily and barefacedly continue to give the professional liar a standing ovation following every statement he utters. And it is only really they who give any power to the ‘powerful’ lobby

Defacto State
By Jim Miles

Part of the dilemma in Palestine is that the more the “peace” process is delayed, moving nowhere, the more Israel gains in the way of confiscated and settled land. There are two basic solutions: either a one state solution (whether bi-national or otherwise); or a two state solution with Palestine existing on some remnant of land left over from Israeli settlement. A recent combination of events/ideas has left me wondering if the one state solution is perhaps the only remaining solution if not the de facto situation now

Mahmoud Abbas’ Humiliating Plea
By Rannie Amiri

Abbas naively hopes Arab League countries will come to Jerusalem’s “rescue” while Egypt abets the inhumane siege of Gaza by keeping its Rafah crossing closed—and hardly a one objects. Similarly, the underground barrier being constructed along Egypt’s border with Gaza is being lauded by the Israelis

You're Waging War Against Iran
By Kourosh Ziabari

Tittle-tattles regarding the possibility of a military strike against Iran are being renewed these days. All of what's happening right now resonates with the developments which we've been a witness to two years before the invasion of Iraq

Abduction or Defection: The Case of
Iran's Nuclear Scientist

By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

In June 2009, Shahram Amiri, one of Iran's nuclear scientists disappeared in Saudi Arabia while on a Muslim pilgrimage. Soon thereafter Iran pointed the finger at the U.S. and accused it of kidnapping one of Iran's finest. Washington denied any knowledge of Amiri. Until now. Today, in an ABC exclusive, contrary to previous statements, the U.S. admitted that Amiri had "defected to the CIA" in what it termed as an "intelligence coup"

Dancing With Wolves And Media Praise
On Vietnam Veterans Day

By Jay Janson

Media Praises Vietnam Veterans On Their Own Special Day across America. In New York, in North Dakota , in Tennessee And in California. Vietnamese wonder. Praise for killing us? Why aren’t they still killing us? Our government is still the same communist led one as back then. Our flag is red

Australia: Look Different And Risk Being Assaulted
By Ghali Hassan

The ongoing, racially-motivated attacks on international students and people from non-Anglo-Saxon backgrounds, and concerted efforts by the Australian Government and the media to downplay racism, prove that Australians are unable and unwilling to live as a civilised society without racism. In white Anglo-Saxon Australia, it remains as deeply-entrenched as ever

Aafia Siddiqui: Victimized By American Depravity
By Stephen Lendman

After sentencing, her next journey may be to isolated life confinement in federal Supermax hell - according to the US Department of Justice National Institute of Corrections, intended for the most dangerous criminals, guilty of "repetitive assaultive or violent institutional behavior," the worst of the worst who threaten society or national security

Bogus Washington-Proposed Financial Reform
By Stephen Lendman

Both House and Senate bills empower existing authorities, lets them run newly established ones, so reform amounts to old wine in new bottles, leaving bankers in charge and the public as vulnerable as before to a certain future crisis they'll have to pay for again. Shah Gilani's December 30 moneymorning.com article explained it up nicely, saying: Proposed "financial reform (is) just camouflage for Wall Street's latest power play," leaving ordinary people sitting ducks to be scammed again with the full faith and blessing of Washington

Drought And The Women Of Mariakani In Mombasa
By Marianne de Nazareth

There are few areas on the planet that do not face serious water availability or management problems like the village of Mariakani in Kenya. But although water is a global issue, the problems and solutions are highly localized

Shocker! Elections Bestow Legitimacy –
Not Birther Hallucinations

By Robert S. Becker

Non-patriots can concoct their own opinions, not their own facts – nor get away with denunciation of what drives democratic legitimacy, namely elections. When rage, victimhood and racism fuse, mass hysteria will embrace not just preposterous conspiracies, but lunacy and violence against the very values phony patriots extoll

Gujarat, Assam, Orissa, UP: Two Weeks Of
Brutal Attacks On People's Rights

By Campaign for Survival and Dignity

Clashes have erupted across the country as the forest authorities and other agencies move to crush those who are trying to uphold democracy, people's control over resources, and the law. In Gujarat, Assam, UP, and Orissa, people are being falsely arrested, police opening fire and houses being burned (on March 21st, March 30th, March 16th and March 30th respectively)

In The Name Of God: Sex And Sanctity
By Farzana Versey

Just when the Catholic Church is dealing with a frisky priest and a young Indian godman has been caught on camera in a sleazy video with some female devotees, the Supreme Court of India makes a supposedly progressive pronouncement. All’s well? Not quite. It uses god