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31 July, 2014

US Resupplies Israel With Weapons As Gaza Death Toll Hits 1390
By Ma'an News Agency

The United States confirmed it had restocked Israel's supplies of ammunition, hours after finally sharpening its tone to condemn an attack on a United Nations school in Gaza that killed 16 people sheltering there. Israeli airstrikes and shelling continued overnight and into the morning leaving 27 Gazans dead and dozens injured, bringing the 24-day death toll to 1,390 with 8,000 injured, according to the Ministry of Health. The Israeli military confirmed that 20 "sites" had been hit overnight

 

Video Shows Israeli Shelling of Shujaiya That Killed Gaza Journalist
By Ali Abunimah

On Wednesday, Israeli forces shelled the Shujaiya neighborhood of eastern Gaza City, killing 17 Palestinians at a market where people had gone to shop during what they thought would be a four-hour “humanitarian truce.” This video uploaded to YouTube shows the shelling. It is titled in Arabic “Shujaiya massacre and the targeting of a journalist and the injury of the Manara News Agency’s photographer.”

World Watches Idly As Israel Bombs Gaza School And Market
By Yousef Al-Helou

As each day brings new horror in Gaza, Palestinians in the besieged Strip have become largely cut off from the outside world as Israeli bombing has badly damaged the electricity infrastructure and telecommunications network. The bodies of at least sixteen Palestinians were pulled from the rubble after an Israeli strike hit a United Nations school in Jabaliya refugee camp on Wednesday. Approximately 3,300 displaced people were taking refuge in the school

"We Have No Power And No Water," Warns Gaza Physician Dr. Mona El-Farra
By Nora Barrows-Friedman

We don’t have power at the moment. We don’t have water,” physician Dr. Mona El-Farra told The Electronic Intifada from Gaza today. Dr. El-Farra works with the Palestine Red Crescent Society and is the director of Gaza projects at the Middle East Children’s Alliance. “We receive every day an increasing number of patients coming from the schools, people who took shelter in the schools or with their relatives,” she added

Israel's Gaza Massacre: 55 Anti-Racist Australian MPs
Condemn Israeli War Crimes And Occupation

By Dr Gideon Polya

While the pro-Zionist, US lackey Australian Coalition Government and the pro-Zionist, US lackey, Labor Right-dominated Australian Labor Opposition are appallingly united in their support for Apartheid Israel, 54 Australian MPs and the former conservative Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser have signed an Open Letter condemning Israeli war crimes in Gaza

Should Israel Teach The Holocaust Less?
By David Swanson

To say that people are behaving like Nazis is not to say that they are exactly identical to Nazis, any more than to say that your child's piano playing is exactly like Mozart. Without question, Nazism is a source of imitation for rightwingers around the world, including in Israel. Might a lesser focus on its significance be helpful? Would a greater emphasis on peace studies do any harm?

There Are No Good Wars
By Vincent Di Stefano

The thousands of families in Afghanistan and Pakistan who continue to grieve the loss of their loved ones from past volleys of air-strikes, and the thousands of women and children blown apart in Gaza from Operation Cast Lead in 2008/2009 to Operation Protective Edge at the present time are all tragic witnesses to the fact that it has all gone horribly wrong

No One Has Right To Kill The Innocent Ones In Gaza
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava

All world leaders should press Israel to stop this act now. US should stop all support to Israel now

Global Ecosystem Collapse
By Dr. Glen Barry

The global ecological system is collapsing and dying. Humanity wantonly destroys natural ecosystems and climatic patterns that provide all life's environmental habitats. Our one shared, overpopulated, ecologically diminished, abjectly unfair biosphere is careening toward scarcity, war, disease, and social, economic and ecosystem collapse

The Era of Mega-Arbitration: International Court Rules Against Russia in $50 Billion Decision
By Kavaljit Singh

On July 28, 2014, an international arbitration tribunal under the auspices of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (The Hague) announced that Russia must pay $50.02 billion (Rs.300120 crore) in damages to former shareholders of the now defunct oil giant, Yukos Oil Company. The compensation amount of $50 bn is the largest international arbitration award to date. It is more than 20 times bigger than the previous record of $2.4 bn Award won by Dow Chemical Company against the Petrochemical Industries Company of Kuwait in 2013

Union Budget 2014-15: Continuing With The Capital-Centric Approach
In Spite Of “People’s Verdict For A Change”

By Communist Ghadar Party of India

Presenting the budget of the Government of India for the fiscal year 2014-15, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley began his speech in Parliament on 10th July with the following words: “The people of India have decisively voted for a change. The verdict represents the exasperation of the people with the status quo.” However, the budget presented looks almost exactly like the previous year’s budget that was presented by Chidambaram of Congress Party

Pakistan: Strange Democracy At Work
By Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja

Pakistani politics is hub of intrigues and backdoor conspiracies. Democracy stands no chance to take roots in the current highly volatile and disruptive political culture. Feudal lords turned politicians would have hard time to define the democratic norms and principles in a rational manner. The take-over of Islamabad by the military is unwanted and unwise

30 July, 2014

Over 70 Palestinians Killed In Gaza On Wednesday; Death Toll Crosses 1300
By Ma'an News Agency

At least 70 Palestinians have been killed and 110 injured in Israeli attacks since midnight Wednesday on the 23rd day of the Gaza offensive, according to the Ministry of Health. The latest killings brought the number of dead since the start of Israel's assault on Gaza to more than 1,300, according to health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra

Israel Bombs Gaza Back To Stone Age: Razes Only Power Plant
And Plunges Strip Into Darkness

By Juan Cole

While one can argue about whether this mortar fire or or that aerial bombing was justified, the destruction of the power plant and therefore of civilian water-purification is certainly a war crime. Babies in particular are vulnerable to dirty water, and often take revenge on their parents for the inability to give them clean water by dying. Israel is, as Rashid Khalidi argues, collectively punishing the entire Palestinian population of Gaza to punish it for being insufficiently cowed and for refusing to accept being ethnically cleansed from what is now Israel

 

Artists, Activists And Nobel Peace Laureates Stand Up For Palestinian Rights In New Video
By Jewish Voice for Peace

A diverse group of celebrities, artists, and activists that includes American Jews and Palestinians are speaking out for Palestinian human rights in a video released online today. The video is a first of its kind expression of support for Palestinian freedom, equality and justice and features celebrities such as Chuck D, Jonathan Demme, Gloria Steinem, Wallace Shawn, Tony Kushner, Mira Nair, Roger Waters, Brian Eno, Nobel Peace Laureates Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Desmond Tutu, Jody Williams, Rigoberta Menchu Tum , activists and artists like Mira Nair, Anand Patwardhan, Ken Loach, Naomi Klein etc holding signs with the names and ages of Palestinian civilians recently killed by the Israeli military in Gaza

Joint Declaration By International Law Experts on Israel’s Gaza Offensive
By International Law Experts

The International Community Must End Israel’s Collective Punishment of the Civilian Population in the Gaza Strip

Call From Palestine: Free Gaza, Hold Israel Accountable
By Citizens From Palestine

As Gaza is forced into darkness and devastation, we must speak on her behalf. Our friends and family members in Gaza call on you to demand the lifting of the siege on Gaza, the immediate provision of medical and humanitarian aid, and holding Israel accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity

Open Letter From Javier Bardem About The Massacres In Gaza
By Javier Bardem

Yes, I’m outraged, ashamed and hurt by all of this injustice and human beings getting killed. Those children are our children. It’s horrendous. I can only hope that those who kill will find it in their hearts to show compassion and be cured of this murderous poison which only breeds more hate and violence. That those Israelis and Palestinians who only dream of peace and coexistence can some day find a solution together

Recruiting To Kill - It Is Not Just An Israeli War On Gaza
By Ramzy Baroud

It is one thing to fail to stop war crimes from being committed, it is a whole other level of failure to defend, finance and take active part in carrying out these war crimes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not the only leader culpable of Gaza's bloodbath; others in western capitals should also be held to account

Israel Is Stealing And Murdering Its Way Through Palestine
By Paul Craig Roberts

There is only one take on the current Israeli slaughter of Palestinians, which Netanyahu, the demonic Israeli leader, declares will be a “protracted campaign” this time. We are witnessing yet again Israeli war crimes that are supported by the Great Moral West that is so concerned about the deaths of 290 passengers on MH-17 that they are about to drive the world to a major war, while Palestinian casualties pile up so fast that they are out of date by the time you put the numbers in a column. So far more than 1,200 deaths, with injuries to 2,000 children, 1,170 women, and 257 elderly

Kandhamal Cultural Activist Calls For Action on August 25th
By Kandhamal Human Rights Watch

Bolli Anarsingh, who happened to be a victim of anti-Christian communal violence in Kandhamal during 2008, urges people all over the world to take action for justice and peace for survivors of Kandhamal violence

New ICHR Chief Is A Communal Ideologue
By Ram Puniyani

Prof. Y.Sudarshan Rao, not much known for his academic accomplishments in the discipline of History, has been appointed as the chief of ICHR (Indian Council for Historical Research). Prof. Rao has been working on proving the historicity of epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata. In addition rather than peer-reviewed research papers, he has been speaking his mind through blogs, which are reflective of his ideological moorings. Though he claims not to be part of RSS, his outpourings do show the inklings of agenda of Hindu Rashra inherent in them, the glorification of caste system, the glorification of Hindu past and it’s being tarnished by alien Muslim rule

An Invitation To Remember: The Lightning Testimonies Comes To India
By Shivani Kaul

Amar Kanwar's video installation "The Lightning Testimonies" is exhibited in India for the first time this year

U.S. Holds The World Records of Killings Innocent Civilians: Prof. John McMurtry
By Kourosh Ziabari

A world-renowned Canadian philosopher argues that the United States is the world recorder of illegal killings of unarmed civilians and extrajudicial detention and torturing of prisoners who are detained without trial

29 July, 2014

More Than 108 Killed In Gaza, Death Toll Crosses 1,200
By Ma'an News Agency

At least 26 were killed and 241 injured across the Gaza Strip on Monday night as Israel resumed its bombardment of the Gaza Strip from air, land, and sea. Gaza Ministry of Health Spokesman said over the last 21 days, a total of 1,088 Palestinians have been killed and 6,470 have been injured. Of the dead, 251 have been children and 50 have been elderly, while 1,980 children and 259 elderly have been among the injured

“Why Do You Continue To Kill People?”
By Alan Hart

The question of my headline was asked by an exasperated and quietly angry Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the UN during his diplomatic effort in the Middle East. Because Israel is doing virtually all of the killing I think it is more than reasonable to assume that the SG’s rhetorical question was addressed primarily to Israel’s leaders. The answer to it can be very simply stated

Humanize Palestine
By Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh

Palestinians lives are lost that are irreplaceable and faith in human dignity tarnished as western leaders were forced to defend an ongoing genocide so that they can please their Zionist lobbyists.The price paid by all humanity is far too high

"In Gaza There’s No Studying, No Children Are Left There", Sing Joyful Israeli Youths
By Ali Abunimah

A video that was posted on you tube shows an Israeli mob singing in celebration of children’s deaths in the style of a soccer fans’ song: “In Gaza there’s no studying, No children are left there, Olé, olé, olé-olé-olé.”

Open Letter To The Conscience of Humanity
By Roger Tucker

Roger Tucker's reply to the OpEd written by Moshe Feiglin, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, and head of the Manhigut Yehudit ("Jewish Leadership") faction of Israel’s governing Likud party, entitled My Outline for a Solution in Gaza and published in Arutz Sheva on July 15th, 2014

Deleted BBC Report. “Ukrainian Fighter Jet Shot Down MHI7″, Donetsk Eyewitnesses
By Global Research News

TheBBC Russian Service has deleted a report by their veteran reporter Olga Ivshina in which every eyewitness interviewed indicated the presence of a Ukrainian military aircraft right beside the Malaysian Airlines Boeing MH17 at the time that it was shot down

MH17 – Sacrificed Airliner: The New Cold War
By Andre Vltchek

After the MH17 tragedy and after the way it has been handled by the Western mass media, there is no doubt that we are back to the Cold War again. It is not just a war against Russia. The war is reflected in the arms race that is being accelerated by the US in Asia, from the revolting, racist anti-Chinese propaganda, and from the attempts to overthrow our socialist governments in Latin America

American Twilight
By Jason Hirthler

America faces the emergence of a multipolar world—and a check on its self-delusion

Gadkari Bugging Scandal: Is "Saheb"Listening? 
By Shehzad Poonawalla

There is certainly more than what meets the eye in the "bugging controversy" that has hit the Narendra Modi government recently. Will it be India's 'Watergate Scandal' with a slight twist?

28 July, 2014

Israeli Shelling Kills 2 Palestinians, 7 Bodies Pulled From Rubble
By Ma'an News Agency

The death toll in Gaza increased by nine on Monday as two Palestinians were killed by Israeli shelling in the north and seven bodies were pulled from rubble in the south, a Ma'an reporter said. The latest deaths and discovery of bodies brought the total death toll up to 1,044 on the 21st day of the offensive

Not Just Numbers: Online Memorial Publishes Names, Faces of Palestinians Killed In Gaza
By Ali Abunimah

Afraid that the names of those slaughtered by Israel would get lost in the staggering statistics of death, two women have set up the website Humanize Palestine (humanizepalestine.com) as an online memorial to Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks

VIDEO: In Memory of Salem Shammaly
By International Solidarity Movement

In honour of the memory of Salem Khalil Salem Shammaly, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) has published all the raw footage, taken by Mohammed Abedullah, of Salem’s murder

To The family Of The One Thousandth Victim Of Israel’s Genocidal Slaughter In Gaza
By Ilan Pappe

I pledge myself to work for justice, full justice, restorative justice. This is what I can pledge — to work to prevent the next stage in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza

Watch: Al Jazeera’s "Massacre at Dawn" Gives Glimpse of Horror in Shujaiya
By Shahd Abusalama

My body shakes as tears fall out of control after watching the first minute of Al Jazeera’s 22-minute documentary on the Shujaiya massacre which Israel committed in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood a week ago today, killing dozens and flattening the entire are

Israel/Palestine Lexicon For Mainstream Media
By Justin Podur

With these guidelines, you should be able to stay out of trouble with pro-Israel advocacy organizations, your editors, and politicians. Your job will be safer and you will be able to write about Israel/Palestine in a way that helps your career. Follow them carefully. Avoid any media that don't follow these guidelines – they are to be considered BIASED

Israel’s Fraudulent Claim of “Defending” Itself
By William Hanna

Because of the glaring disparity between the blockaded, ill-equipped Palestinians and the U.S. backed/financed Israelis, it would be ludicrous to attempt any comparison between their respective weaponry and resources. Equally ludicrous would be the suggestion that Israel was “defending” itself

Sorry For Palestinians But Not Calling For Nuremberg Laws Prosecution of Israelis
By Jay Janson

List of articles which fail any intention to bring the law down upon the perpetrators of genocide in Gaza, a continuation of the colonial crime against humanity in Palestine, that forced creation, through a fomented war, of a new colonial state in British occupied territory. UN as successor to the League of Nations was obliged to respect and bring democratic independence to in fairness to all its residents

Wishful Thinking About Natural Gas
By Naomi Oreskes

Why Fossil Fuels Can’t Solve the Problems Created by Fossil Fuels

Klaus Kinski – Toshiro Mifune – Dhanush Kasturiraja: State of Madness And Art of Madness
By Gouthama Siddarthan

An exploration into the madness of acting

China’s Strategic Aggression Through Sea, Land And Air
By Mousumi Roy

Asia is the world’s most resource-poor continent in the world. Overexploitation, overpopulation, urbanization, industrialization, resource crunch, decline in crop yields, potential shortage of fresh water supply mainly leading to concerns over resource crisis, environment crisis and climate crisis. China’s emergence as the Asia’s largest economic power, coupled with its ambition to become super power creating disputes with many other Asian countries. China’s strategic aggressions to establish its dominance through sea, land and air could be seen as main factors

Panthers In The Hole: French Angola 3 Book Illustrates US Prison Crisis
By Angola 3 News

Amnesty International France and La Boîte à Bulles have published a 128-page French language graphic novel entitled Panthers in the Hole . The book's co-authors David Cénou and Bruno Cénou present with visual art what Amnesty France describes as “la tragique histoire des Trois d'Angola” (the tragic story of the Angola 3)

Yes, I Am a Woman…..
By Shalu Nigam

Yes, I am a feminist and an activist and I take pride in it. No, I do not shy away from my identity which has given me an understanding to fight for my rights, to strive for justice, to struggle for freedom and endeavor for my self-respect. I dare to exhibit courage, confidence, audacity, till women in this country truly achieve independence…

27 July, 2014

Resumed Israeli Strikes Kill 6 Palestinians In Gaza, Death Toll 1,058
By Ma'an News Agency

Six Palestinians were killed and several others were injured Sunday in Gaza after Israeli forces resumed attacks. Separately, a Palestinian child, Fadi Baraka, had succumbed to his wounds in a hospital in Egypt, and Baha al-Din Ahmad Said succumbed to his wounds in al-Maghazi refugee camp, bringing Gaza total death toll to 1,058

"Our Village Has Become A Ghost Town": A Distressing Phone Call From Gaza
By Charlotte Silver

The extreme cruelty of Israel’s actions is underscored later that night. Just hours after I leave the Abufayyads’ house, Israel bombs an UNRWA school in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. At least sixteen people are killed

The Court Of World Opinion
By John Scales Avery

I believe that the few ineffective rockets recently fired by Hamas were damaging to the Palestinian cause. They did no real harm to Israel, but they made the case far less clear. Israel, an apartheid regime far more evil than it South African counterpart ever was, justifies its genocidal atrocities by claiming that it “has a right to self-defense”; and the clarity of the situation is lost

Trust Us Says Government, But Can We?
By Arshad M Khan

'Trust us' was essentially (US State Department deputy spokeswoman) Marie Harf's response when pressed by a reporter to back up the claims blaming Russia for the downing of the Malaysian airliner in Ukraine. But how far can we carry that trust? Her prior experience has been with the CIA, first as an intelligence analyst, later developing CIA media strategy and responses to reporters queries

U.S. ‘News' Media Propagandize For War Against Russia
By Eric Zuesse

This two-faced, two-conservative-party, system, is mere mockery of a "free press" in a "democracy." Americans should be outraged, no longer accept it, but just reject the conning of America by the aristocracy's two political parties, and by the "news" media that the aristocracy control

The Empire Economy Does Not Serve The Economy Or People
By Kevin Zeese & Margaret Flowers

As US Empire fades, we must choose our path forward

The Seminole-African Alliance
By Mickey Z.

Part of that message is the urgent need for deeper solidarity and broader coalitions within the struggle for justice. As activists, we must rediscover our history. We must never forget those whose shoulders we stand upon. We must recognize that there’s a lot more to our revolutionary heritage than rich and/or charismatic white “leaders.” We must embrace collective efforts towards collective liberation

The Only “Single Issue” Is Collective Liberation
By Mickey Z

Angela Davis—a high-profile vegan who most definitely breaks the patriarchal mode—has said that being a vegan is “part of a revolutionary perspective—how we not only discover more compassionate relations with human beings but how we develop compassionate relations with the other creatures with whom we share this planet.” This is the kind of message vegans should be conveying and representing: inclusive, holistic, accessible, uncompromisingly revolutionary, and not dripping with privilege

Petition Filed Against The Attempt To Communally Polarize Moradabad
By Shehzad Poonawalla

Shehzad Poonawalla files a petition to concerned authorities against offensive and illegal set of tweets by Mr.C T Ravi , General Secretary of the BJP in Karnataka and a member of the National Executive of the BJP, who is not only an MLA but has been a former Minister

26 July, 2014

Entire Gaza Family Killed Prior To Ceasefire, As Death Toll Tops 985
By Ma'an News Agency

The bodies of 85 Palestinians buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israel have been recovered since the beginning of a 12-hour ceasefire Saturday morning at 8 a.m., as medical authorities accessed areas that had been off-limits due to shelling. Minutes before the humanitarian ceasefire went into effect in Gaza on Saturday morning, meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike left at least 20 members of a Palestinian family dead in Khan Younis refugee camp

"Dad, When Will These Attacks Stop?"
By Rami Almeghari

“Dad, when will these attacks stop? I want to go back to Maghazi, I want to go back. When can we go back?” My son Munir, who is 15, asked me these questions yesterday. Along with my other children, my son has stopped his daily routine during the holy month of Ramadan

The Gaza Massacre Is The Price Of A “Jewish State”
By Ali Abunimah

The massacre in Gaza is at the extreme end of the spectrum of abuses necessary to maintain Jewish sectarian rule in Palestine, but it is part of the same policy that requires employment and housing discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel, and outright land theft and ethnic cleansing in the Naqab (Negev) and the occupied West Bank

Open Letter by 50 Israeli Army Reservists on Why They Refuse to Fight in Gaza
Petition By Israeli soldiers and reservists

There are many reasons people refuse to serve in the Israeli Army. Even we have differences in background and motivation about why we’ve written this letter. Nevertheless, against attacks on those who resist conscription, we support the resisters: the high school students who wrote a refusal declaration letter, the Ultra orthodox protesting the new conscription law, the Druze refusers, and all those whose conscience, personal situation, or economic well-being do not allow them to serve. Under the guise of a conversation about equality, these people are forced to pay the price. No more

When BBC Calls, Don’t Answer..
By Richard Falk

My advice to the media savvy, is that if you have caller ID, and you can tell that it is BBC calling, don’t bother answering. I hope I have the good sense to follow my own advice should the phone ever ring again!

The Palestinians’ Right To Self-Defense
By Chris Hedges

If Israel insists, as the Bosnian Serbs did in Sarajevo, on using the weapons of industrial warfare against a helpless civilian population then that population has an inherent right to self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. The international community will have to either act to immediately halt Israeli attacks and lift the blockade of Gaza or acknowledge the right of the Palestinians to use weapons to defend themselves

Gaza: Syllogism of Death
By Dan Lieberman

The media emphasizes the emotional aspect of tragedy, and the public responds with tears and regrets, rarely giving attention to the illogic that caused the tragedy. When illogic is a governing factor in the violence against people, it elevates the calamity to a criminal action. Feeling sorrow for the victim is warranted but insufficient; thought must complement emotion and enforce justice against the perpetrator

Samantha Power And The Age Of Genocide; Rwanda 1994 vs Gaza 2014
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

Two decades later, again, prior to November elections, the US is careful to avoid the “G” word. As Israeli law makers call for genocide and indiscriminate killing of Palestinians under siege, and with calls of rape of Palestinian women, the massacre continues with the full backing, arming and and funding by the United States

Refutation Of Mainstream –Accepted Racist Zionist Lies
Behind Israel 's Gaza Massacres And Palestinian Genocide

By Dr Gideon Polya

As of 26 July 2014, about 900 Palestinians have been killed, 6,000 injured, 150,000 rendered homeless and most of the 0.9 million children in the Gaza Concentration Camp have been traumatized [1]. Yet the World, and the US lackey West in particular, fails to act. That inaction is bolstered by widespread Mainstream media and politician acceptance of numerous utterly false Zionist and pro-Zionist one-liners used to support the ongoing Apartheid Israeli Palestinian Genocide. Indeed an appropriate anagram of ISRAEL is E-LIARS. These false Zionist one-liners are refuted below

Solidarity With Palestinians In Gaza Begins In Lebanon’s Camps
By Franklin Lamb

Gaza isn’t the only open air prison; Lebanon has 12 of its own. And the people there are denied the most elementary right to apply for a job in more than 50 professions. Worth noting also is that the US Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 could mandate a cut-off of all American aid to Lebanon due to ongoing violations of their human rights. Solidarity—credible, genuine solidarity—is within our grasp; let us reach for it

Does Russia (And Humanity) Have A Future?
By Paul Craig Roberts

Europe is complicit in its own demise

MH 17: Who Stands To Gain?
By Chandra Muzaffar

The Russian military has released military monitoring data which challenge allegations circulating in the media pertaining to the MH 17 crash in the Donetsk Region of Eastern Ukraine on July 17 2014. Questions have been raised about Kiev military jets tracking MH 17, Ukrainian air traffic controllers and the deployment of Buk missile systems. Kiev should also release military data on the circumstances leading to the crash. So should the Pentagon which reportedly has relevant intelligence and satellite data

Regulator's Approach To GMO Contamination: “Don't Look, Don't Find”
By Colin Todhunter

GMO maize, rice, cotton and oilseed rape have uncontrollably spread in regions and countries such as the US and Canada , Central America , Japan , China , Australia and Europe . In many cases, GMOs have escaped far beyond the fields into the environment and have even moved into populations of wild relatives . Commercial cultivation and experimental field trials are responsible for much of this contamination. However, losses from the import and transport of grains for food and feed production are also an important source of uncontrolled dispersal

Kashmir: The Agony Of Conflict
Book Review By Bilal Shaheen

Shahnaz Bashir's The Half Mother is the latest attempt to tell the heartwrenching story of those women who lost their fathers, brothers and sons to custodial interrogation by the Indian army, only to be found never again

Opening Doors Wider To Foreign Direct Investment Is A Dangerous Course
Statement of the Central Committee of Communist Ghadar Party of India

BJP led NDA government is gambling with the fate of our country to serve the imperialist drive of Indian capital to join the global big power club

25 July, 2014

26 Palestinians Dead On 18th Day Of Gaza Offensive
By Ma'an News Agency

Some 26 Palestinians have died as a result of Israeli attacks on Gaza since midnight Friday, as reports of a new ceasefire proposal surfaced on the 18th day of the offensive on the Strip. Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman for the Palestinian ministry of health, said that the latest deaths brought the death toll since the beginning of the assault to 825

Israel Used Fabricated Images To Justify Bombing al-Wafa Hospital
By Nora Barrows-Friedman

The Israeli military on Wednesday completely destroyed the al-Wafa rehabilitation and geriatric hospital in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shujaiya after weeks of missile strikes on the hospital and the forced evacuation of the patients, caregivers and hospital staff last week. The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the Israeli military claimed the hospital buildings were “being used as a Hamas command center and rocket-launching site.” However, the hospital director, Dr. Basman Alashi, says that Israel has targeted the hospital based on false and misleading claims

War Crimes In Gaza? Genocide?
By Prof. Francis Boyle

I read the entire Navi Pillay Letter to the Human Rights Council. She said that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed and need to be investigated. So what? That’s exactly what [Richard] Goldstone did after Operation Cast Lead [in 2008-9] and nothing came of it. An appropriate legal remedy is to apply the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Palestinians have been victims of genocide by that treaty's definition

Who Wants All Your Attention on “Hamas” And “Rockets,” And Why
By Robert Barsocchini

The world has endured many campaigns of extermination of “savage” indigenous peoples by “superior” races, from the USA to Canada to Australia. One such campaign is being carried out by Israeli colonizers against the indigenous Palestinian peoples. The campaign is being illegally funded , indeed, made possible , by US taxpayers

A Concocted History: With Present Relevance
By Gauri Lankesh

Palestine: A parable from India

Washington Is Escalating The Orchestrated Ukrainian “Crisis” to War
By Paul Craig Roberts

Despite the conclusion by US intelligence that there is no evidence of Russian involvement in the destruction of the Malaysian airliner and all lives onboard, Washington is escalating the crisis and shepherding it toward war

Obama's Ukrainian Ploy Collapses; Ukraine Now Seeks Direct U.S. Bailout
By Eric Zuesse

The Ukrainian leadership has resigned, because of their unwillingness to impose the IMF's terms, which would impoverish the population within months. That impoverishment would be extracted from the Ukrainian public in order to repay the IMF's loans, which had been skimmed off by Ukraine's oligarch billionaires into secret bank accounts in Switzerland and other tax-havens

Redrawing of The Borders in Greater Middle East
By Shams uz Zaman

The speed, with which ISIL (or ISIS) conquered northern territory of Iraq, came as a surprise to everyone. It still remains unclear that for how long the organization would be able to control this newly established Islamic Emirate, as it may gradually fizzle out like of the Arab Spring which although had promised a lot but fell much short of expectations just adding more to the chaos. Whatever the case, first, the blame of this bloodshed and chaos stretching across the Greater Middle East rests primarily on the shoulders of the neo-cons at the Capitol Hill who crafted reckless plans to invade Iraq on false pretext and that too without a comprehensive plan

“Betrayal of People's Trust” - Green-lighting GMOs in India
By Colin Todhunter

The Indian government is facing strong opposition for its decision to allow field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops. The Coalition for a GM-Free India is calling the approvals ‘hasty' and has asked the Minister for Environment, Forests & Climate Change to cancel them. Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM) is the economic wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) - the parent body of the BJP party. It has termed the decision of the Narendra Modi BJP central government as a “betrayal of people's trust.”

Post Rana Plaza: A Failed System of Accountability in Global Scale
By Anu Muhammad

Fifteen months have passed after Rana Plaza disaster that housed five garments factories, killed 1135 and injured thousands on 24 April 2013. Even after so many days main concerns of workers conditions have changed little. We have heard loud promises, but little progress on the ground

Strengthen Actions on Kandhamal Day on August 25, 2014
By Dhirendra Panda

National Solidarity Forum is a coalition of various organizations, artists, film makers, writers, academicians, legal activists and human rights activists, which has undertaken various actions on the issue of delayed and undelivered justice to the victims and survivors of communal violence in Kandhamal in Odisha in India. We have appealed to the civil society in India and abroad to observe Kandhamal Day on August 25, 2014, when Adivasi and Dalit Christian survivors of 2007 and 2008 violence are still waiting for justice and perpetrators violence are roaming free

24 July, 2014

Dozens Feared Dead As Israel Shells UN School In Beit Hanoun, Gaza
By Ma'an News Agency

Israeli forces have shelled a UN school in Beit Hanoun, with at least 17 dead and 200 injured as many more are feared killed among the hundreds who had taken shelter there with Israeli coordination. The shelling of the school, which is affiliated with the UN's Palestine refugee agency UNRWA, is the fourth time in two days that Israeli forces have bombed schools serving as shelters for the displaced in the besieged Gaza Strip

Medical Workers Killed, Injured As Israel Targets Gaza Health Infrastructure
By Rania Khalek

“The Israelis are using a wide variety of sophisticated modern weapons against a basically naked civilian population,” said renowned Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert in a phone interview with The Electronic Intifada on Tuesday, 22 July. “This is state terrorism at a very sophisticated and very high level,” he added. Speaking over the phone from al-Shifa hospital where he is helping to treat the wounded, Gilbert described the horrors he has witnessed in Gaza in recent days as the bodies of mostly Palestinian women and children are brought to the hopsital torn to shreds by an Israeli arsenal deliberately aimed at civilians

Video: Palestinian Woman Risks Life To Rescue Injured Youth In Gaza
By Ali Abunimah

Dramatic photographs and footage capture the moment a Palestinian woman ran into a firing zone to rescue a youth injured during relentless Israeli gunfire and shelling. Meanwhile, another video has emerged showing Israeli soldiers and religious mystics dancing as they adorn artillery shells with blessings

Al-Shujayeh: Palestine’s Saigon
By Haidar Eid

Any talk about improving the conditions of oppression (and even this is seen as too much for us) in light of the great sacrifices is a betrayal of Palestinian martyrs. Let’s start discussing radical solutions away from the “interim program” and the Bantustan-like state, and adopt a clear slogan: end the occupation, end the apartheid, and end settler-colonialism. This way, the families and lives that have been lost in Gaza would not go in vain. Otherwise, we shall turn it into Palestine’s own Saigon

Q/A on Palestine
By Justin Podur

Didn't Hamas start this fighting by provoking Israel?

America's Nazi Allies in Israel And Ukraine
By Eric Zuesse

The U.S. is now the chief sponsor of two nazi, ethnically cleansing, nations. In one of them (Ukraine), the U.S. President, Barack Obama, himself placed nazis into control there; the nazi control was imposed by him, via his agents . In the other (Israel), nazis have controlled for decades, and Obama merely extends their control by continuing American support

Holocaust Legacy - Britain’s New NAZI’s
By Hussein Al-alak

The first Holocaust of this century is taking place in Mosul, Iraq, and the British Government is strangely silent. Churches have been destroyed, the population branded like the Jews of NAZI occupied Europe and now, for the first time in 2000 years, Iraq’s Church bells have fallen silent

US Intelligence: Russia Didn’t Do It
By Paul Craig Roberts

After days of placing hostile blame for the downing of the Malaysian airliner on Russia, the White House permitted US intelligence officials to tell reporters that there is no evidence of the Russian government’s involvement

Putin Warns The US And Draws A Line In The Sand
By Colin Todhunter

While the mainstream media in the West set out to revive the Cold War mentality and demonise Russia as the aggressor and threat to world peace, Putin's speech makes clear what most informed people already know: US neo-con strategists on behalf of their powerful corporations are seeking global hegemony and regard Russia (and China and indeed ordinary working class people – the bulk of humanity) as obstacles in their way [5]. These criminals with their warped US ‘exceptionalism' superiority complex have complete disregard for human life (apart from their own). Putin's speech is an attempt to draw a line in the sand

The Affinity Between Iraqi Sunni Extremists And The Rulers Of Sauid Arabia
By Dr. Peter Custers

Has the US’s prime Middle Eastern ally Saudi Arabia ever been chastised over its systematic discrimination of Shias? Has it ever been put to task for its cruel oppression of heterodox Muslims? And has the US ever pondered over the implications of the trading mechanism of disparate exchange it sponsored - for the future of democracy, food sovereignty and people’s welfare in the Middle East?

Remembering Prempatiji..
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

The passing away of D Prempati is a great blow to the movement for social justice as he was a friend, philosopher and guide who was always ready to help and go to any extent to support the cause of Dalit OBC and minorities

23 July, 2014

32 More Palestinians Killed In Gaza, Death Toll Reaches 680
By Ma'an News Agency

Israeli warplanes on Wednesday bombed a central Gaza City hospital after the army claimed militants opened fire from the premises, while a UN human rights chief warned that abuses by Hamas did not justify possible war crimes by Israel

The Lancet : Leading Doctors And Scientists Denounce Gaza Violence
Press Release

More than 20 leading doctors and scientists from the UK and Italy denounce ongoing Israeli military aggression in Gaza in a letter to The Lancet. “On the basis of our ethics and practice, we are denouncing what we witness in the aggression of Gaza by Israel,” write the authors. “We ask our colleagues, old and young professionals, to denounce this Israeli aggression.”

Palestinian Authority Parrots Israeli Claims on Gaza Attack
By Jalal Abukhater

As death and destruction in Gaza reach new heights, the reactions of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority sound like something out of a farce. A considerable number of major PA officials in the occupied West Bank and abroad, including the president himself, seem to be rallying against the desire of Palestinians facing the daily terror in Gaza

What, Really, Is (or Was) Netanyahu’s Game Plan?
By Alan Hart

It could be that in Netanyahu’s vision of the future Dahlan as Palestinian “president” would be prepared to use whatever means were necessary, including force, to compel his occupied and oppressed people to abandon their struggle in return for crumbs from Zionism’s table – a few Bantustans here and there on the West Bank which they could call a state if they wished. In other words, the Dahlan of Netanyahu’s vision would bring about a Palestinian surrender on Zionism’s terms

US Plays Decisive Role In Israel's Attack On Gaza
By Jonathan Cook

But of far greater concern should be the Obama administration’s decision to back Israel to the hilt and the US media’s silence on the matter. There can be no hope of a peaceful solution ever gaining traction – or these bouts of blood-letting in Gaza coming to end – unless Washington is finally unmasked as Israel’s abettor-in-chief

Israel/Palestine: Some of What The Media Ignores
By Mickey Z

The information presented here may or may not change your perception of this long-standing conflict but I like to hope it’ll inspire some deeper analysis and a more useful response than: “Israel has the right to self-defense.”

Afghan Children And The News Merry-Go-Round
By Judy Bello

What can we do better? How can we end these atrocities? I don't have any answers today. One thing is clear, though. At the center of all is U.S. Imperialism and drive for world dominance. People don't like to hear that, but until we address it, nothing will change

Sacrifices To The Deities Of Geo-Politics
By Fazal M. Kamal

“This makes you wonder what kind of world we are living in!” exclaimed an exasperated and astounded Dutch relative of one of the victims of the Malaysia Airlines calamity. Given the extant circumstances, from Ukraine to Palestine, not to mention Syria, Iraq, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Nigeria and some others, many people would certainly like to wish that one day soon the entire population of the world would wake up and discover that it was only a nightmare. The reality, however, is that predators have been let loose across planet Earth, and as often happens, there’s precious little the powers that be can do to end the marauders on a dime

‘Gurdwara Act’ Invites Indian State’s Interference In Sikh Religion
By Jaspal Singh Sidhu

Why not the present election system that involves government interference should be changed into a ‘selection system’ allowing truly religious Sikhs to choose ‘ religious people’ (not stark politicians) to run Sikh affairs?

22 July, 2014

Gaza Death Toll Rises Above 600
By Ma'an News Agency

The death toll in Gaza rose above 600 on Tuesday as emergency teams pulled dead bodies from the rubble of homes destroyed by Israeli strikes on the 15th day of the assault. The deaths brought the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire on Tuesday to 31

Israel Is Being Defeated In Gaza As It Was In Lebanon
By Ali Abunimah

Israel’s great “deterrent” threat was always the ground invasion of Gaza. A deterrent is often more effective as a threat than as a reality. If it is used and proves to be a bluff, it no longer works. Now Israel has gone into Gaza, and Israelis are shocked at the extent of the losses they are suffering. Israel has so far admitted to 25 dead soldiers in just four days of ground operations. That’s a higher daily casualty rate than it suffered in Lebanon

Diary of An Israeli War
By Haidar Eid

Should we accept an Egyptian ceasefire initiative calling on us to surrender to Israel? A ceasefire that will result in the continuation of the siege? An initiative that calls our resistance to occupation and apartheid "hostilities"? Why are people dying? For the status quo to remain as is? No! Gaza, the Sharpeville, the Guernica of Palestine will become our Saigon! We cannot afford despair!

Why I Vowed Not To Have Children in Gaza
By Omar Ghraieb

Can you imagine the devastation of a father who is holding his child dead in his hands? Can you imagine his loss? And how ashamed and guilty he feels for not being able to protect his child? That’s why I vowed to never, ever to have children here. I will not bring them to this world and fail to protect them. I will not watch my children die. It is too painful watching other children die and their parents weep; I can’t handle going through it myself

Gaza’s Resistance Will Not Be Crushed
By Ramzy Baroud

Just by taking a quick glance at the history of this protracted battle - the refugees versus the Middle East’s ‘strongest army’- one can say with a great degree of conviction that Israel cannot possibly subdue Gaza. You may call that a historical inevitability as well

How Obama Is A Direct Accomplice To Israeli War Crimes
By Shamus Cooke

The fact that Israel is actively committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip is not open to debate, since a cursory glance at the conflict obviously exposes them in practice

Israel’s Modus Operandi: Blackmail, Bribery And Bullying
By William Hanna

The insidious cancer of AIPAC is also being spread (with more free junkets) by “Friends of Israel” groups in most European parliaments; by the Australian Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC); and by the recently formed South African Israel Public Affairs Committee (SAIPAC) which will endeavour to silence criticism by a people already familiar with the iniquities of Apartheid

Complicity In Ethnic Cleansing
By Ron Forthofer

There must be an immediate end to the killing as well as an immediate lifting of the illegal siege of Gaza. Without an ending of the siege, the is little-to-no-hope for the people of Gaza or for stopping the rocket fire into Israel. If the killing and the siege continue, more people will join the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. Israeli crimes are the things that are destroying its legitimacy and continuing its crimes today will speed this destruction

How American Propaganda Works
By Paul Craig Roberts

Why hasn’t Washington joined Russian President Putin in calling for an objective, non-politicized international investigation by experts of the case of the Malaysian jetliner?

Harassing The Drones
By Kathy Kelly

On July 10, 2014, in New York State, Judge David Gideon sentenced Mary Anne Grady Flores to a year in prison and fined her $1,000 for photographing a peaceful demonstration at the U.S. Air National Guard's 174 th Attack Wing at Hancock Field (near Syracuse) where weaponized Reaper drones are remotely piloted in lethal flights over Afghanistan. Dozens have been sentenced, previously, for peaceful protest there. But uniquely, the court convicted her under laws meant to punish stalkers, deciding that by taking pictures outside the heavily guarded base she violated a previous order of protection not to stalk or harass the commanding officer. Mary Anne is a 58 year-old grandmother of three, from Ithaca, New York, where she is part of the Upstate Drone Action

Sometimes The Border Crosses You (Know Your History)
By Mickey Z.

According the Washington Post, Texas Governor Rick Perry “reportedly plans to dispatch the Texas National Guard to the U.S. border with Mexico” to deal with “the continued surge of young immigrants, most of them from Central America, crossing the border.” "If the federal government does not do its constitutional duty to secure the Southern border of the United States, the state of Texas will do it,” Perry explained. Hmm… I smell a history lesson brewing

Elite Insanity on Display in Ukraine
By Robert J. Burrowes

For those of us interested in understanding what is driving the conflict in Ukraine, now seriously complicated by the shooting down of a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet – which has raised the potential of the conflict to explode into a nuclear war with devastating consequences for humanity – it is worth delving into the psychology of key parties to the conflict and particularly those elite individuals and their agents in politics, industry, academia and the media who are driving it

Postcard From The End of America : Wolf Point
By Linh Dinh

It was already dusk when I rolled into Wolf Point , for my train was seven-hour late. In this town of 2,700, downtown is just three blocks and visible from the station. Flanked by modest, two-story buildings, Main Street was mostly empty, and I encountered no other pedestrians as I passed Missouri Breaks Brewing, a movie theater then the Elks Lodge. That's two bars already within one block, but after crossing 3rd Avenue , I quickly spotted three more, Dad's Bar, Stockmans 220 Club and Arlo's. Though these seemed more promising than the first two, I couldn't decide, so I asked the only other person in sight, a short, squinting man who was smoking a cig on the sidewalk, “Which one should I go in, man?”

J&K Children: Right To Life Is Compromised?
By Ravi Nitesh

With the teenager’s death at Kulgam (J&K) by police firing, it is once again proved that life is not safe at all if you are in J&K. It becomes more vulnerable for children and women as cruelty never identify them for any kind of relaxation

Killing of 7 And Detention of 2000 People By Branding Them as Red Sanders Smugglers
Fact Finding Report

Fact Finding Report prepared by National Campaign for DNT Human Rights (NCDNTHR)

21 July, 2014

Heavy Gaza Attacks Kill Over 50 Palestinians, Death Toll Crosses 500
By Ma'an News Agency

Israeli forces continued airstrikes and artillery assaults on the Gaza Strip Monday for the 14th day, killing multiple members of three extended families as the death toll tops 500. In Khan Younis, at least 26 members of the Abu Jami family were killed by Israeli shelling, after more bodies were pulled from the rubble. An Israeli airstrike killed 11 members of the Siyam family in Rafah, including an eight-month old baby and two other children

 

War Crime: Video Shows Sniper Killing of Wounded Gaza Civilian
By Ali Abunimah

A video has emerged of the targeting and killing by a sniper of a Palestinian civilian in Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighborhood where Israeli shelling killed dozens of civilians and caused massive destruction early on Sunday morning. The video, documenting a war crime, was uploaded to YouTube by the International Solidarity Movement

Pain In Gaza
By Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh

It is hard not to cry watching the unfolding horror in Gaza, children with heads blown off, pregnant woman with body torn by a shell, babies with missing limbs, targeting of playing children, targeting hospitals, targeting ambulances, and even a handicap center killing two handicap children

Anti-Racist Jewish And Non-Jewish Figures & Nobel Laureates
Demand Arms Embargo On Apartheid Israel

By Dr Gideon Polya

Numerous eminent humanitarians from around the world, including Nobel Laureates and leading anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish figures, have written an Open Letter protesting the horrendous violence by the state of Israel against its captive Palestinian population and concluding “We call on the UN and governments across the world to take immediate steps to implement a comprehensive and legally binding military embargo on Israel, similar to that imposed on South Africa during apartheid”

Veterans To Deliver Letter To Israeli Ambassador
By Veterans For Peace

Members of Veterans For Peace will deliver a letter to Israel's Embassy, 3514 International Dr. NW, Washington , D.C. 20008, at 1:30 pm Monday afternoon, July 21. The letter calls on the government of Israel to immediately halt the bombing of Palestinian civilians and to withdraw all its troops and military assets from Gaza. Colonel Ann Wright, who has visited Palestine and Israel several times, will head up the delegation

The Arab Collusion in Israeli Massacre of Palestinians in Gaza
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

"Gaza ceasefire hopes switch to Qatar as Arabs divided over Israeli offensive," this headline of the Guardian of July 20, 2014 best reflected the collusion of major Arab states in the Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.

The Middle East: Leaders Who Could Not Lead
By Mahboob A. Khawaja

The contemporary Arab world is devoid of educated, intelligent and effective leadership. Those occupying the helms of power are mostly the former traditional loyalists tribal agents of the European colonial era uplifted to kingship and absolute authoritarianism to protect the vested foreign interests in the new age of the 21sy century politics

US Empire Reaches Breaking Point - Time To End It
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

The people of the United States must work to end the interventionist violence of the U.S. Empire

Competition Corrupts Minds And Actions, Cooperation Is Needed
By Graham Peebles

Cooperation and sharing unites, encourages trust and builds relationships; competition divides, it sets people against one another and denies that essential ingredient to peaceful living – ‘right relationship'. For social harmony and peace to come about, social justice is essential. Cooperation and sharing are key requirements in bringing this about. Conversely, “there can be no peace, no enduring happiness for man as long as we – the individual, the group and the nation – accept this competitive existence as inevitable.”

A Discourse on Isms And The Principle of Sharing
By Mohammed Mesbahi

How can we bring about an awareness that sharing is the solution to a planetary crisis, and our last remaining hope for rehabilitating a divided world? Central to this question is the problem of 'isms', in which our complacency has intellectualised itself in order to justify its existence as being normal

The Truth About Ukraine
By Timothy Gatto

If the United States wants peace, they should talk to Putin and the Ukrainian Government and institute a cease-fire in the region. Let the people of Donetsk and other provinces vote to succeed or to join Russia. This would be the legitimate thing to do. Let the people exercise their right of self determination. This is also the democratic thing to do. Still, that fact doesn't enter into the West's "Big Game"

Peoples Tribunal Demands The Repeal Of UAPA
Press Release

A two day’s People’s Tribunal was held on cases mainly under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in Kozhikode. The programme was organized by Solidarity Youth Movement on July 14th and 15th. The tribunal heard a range of cases under which people have been booked mainly under UAPA. The accused, family members of the accused as well as lawyers presented the facts, documents as well as their experiences to the tribunal. On the basis of these presentations and after perusing the police and court documents, the tribunal made some recommendations

20 July, 2014

Israeli 'Massacre' In Gaza City Kills At Least 66
By Ma'an News Agency

On the 13th day of the ongoing military offensive against the Gaza Strip, residents say invading Israeli forces committed "a new massacre" in the Shujaiyya neighborhood of Gaza City. At least 66 people have been killed and hundreds have been injured in the eastern neighborhood, medics said Sunday. The death toll is expected to rise as more bodies are uncovered, while the day's total across the Gaza Strip has surpassed 90. Spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health Ashraf al-Qidra said rescue teams evacuated 50 dead bodies from destroyed houses including 17 children, 14 women and four elderly people. More than 200 injured people were taken to al-Shifa Hospital

#GazaUnderAttack: Israel Committed A Massacre Against Innocent People In
Al-Shijaeyya In Gaza Killing At Least 60 And Wounding Hundreds

By Shahd Abusalama

The Israeli occupation endorsed a two-hour ‘humanitarian’ truce starting from 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm, and within these two hours they committed a terribly atrocious massacre against our people in Al-Shijaeyya, killing at least 60 innocent people

The Boy Who Clung To The Paramedic: The Story Behind The Photo
By Belal Dabour

He was extremely lucky: his neck injury was just an inch away from a major artery, his chest injury penetrated all the way through but failed to puncture his lung, and his abdomen was struck by shrapnel that just missed his bowel. He had a stroke of luck denied to many that night. The medics performed heroic measures in a remarkably short time, and the little boy’s life was saved

Devastated Family Remembers Cheerful Boy Cut Down By Israeli Fire On Gaza Beach
By Rami Almeghari

The massacre, witnessed by international journalists at the nearby Al-Deira hotel, caused outrage around the world and drew attention to the horrifying death toll among Gaza’s children

On 'Human Shielding' In Gaza
By Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini

Since hi-tech states can and do kill hundreds or thousands of civilians, they have to provide moral justification for their action in order to preserve their standing in the international arena; they have to demonstrate that they are protecting the principles of liberal democracy. It is precisely within this context that we should understand the series of posters recently disseminated by the Israeli military through its Twitter account, Facebook and blogs

‘The Worst Are Full of Passionate Intensity’
By Sukumaran C. V.

As the corporate onslaught against the Environment in the name of progress and development, and the war against humanity by the so called democratic States and by the fanatics all over the world sideline and marginalize people’s movements that try to build a sustainable and pacifist world without having wars and riots, fanatics and terrorists; I see, as Anne Frank saw 70 years ago, the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness

What Happened To The Malaysian Airliner?
By Paul Craig Roberts

Washington’s propaganda machine is in such high gear that we are in danger of losing the facts that we do have. One fact is that the separatists do not have the expensive Buk anti-aircraft missile system or the trained personnel to operate it. Another fact is that the separatists have no incentive to shoot down an airliner and neither does Russia. Anyone can tell the difference between low-flying attack aircraft and an airliner at 33,000 feet. The Ukrainians do have Buk anti-aircraft missile systems, and a Buk battery was operational in the region and deployed at a site from which it could have fired a missile at the airliner

MH 17: Release Military Radar Data
By Chandra Muzaffar

In the interest of finding the answers, the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) calls upon the authorities in Kiev, Moscow and Washington to de-classify and release the raw military radar data manifest for the incident area on that ill-fated day. This vital information should be studied by an independent international panel of experts. The panel’s findings should be made public immediately

To End War - Our Peace Proposal
By Alan Johnstone

Both in the Gaza and the Ukraine (and many other places in the world), the international "community" and its leaders have been slow to interfere for fear of jeopardising their political and economic interests. The victims are pawns in a power struggle over resources, and the economic advancements these make possible

Idiocy As Scholarship
By Subhash Gatade

Question arises what is the import of discussing the 'P N Oak saga' when the appointment of Prof Y Sudershan Rao, at Kakatiya University, as Chairman of the prestigious Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) has become a cause of concern in the academic world ?

19 July, 2014

37 Killed In Israeli Attacks On Saturday As Death Toll Rises To 329
By Ma'an Nws Agency

The death toll on Saturday morning hit 37 after Palestinian civil defense rescue teams pulled ten bodies out of the debris of a home in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip as Israeli forces continued their military offensive against the Gaza Strip by air, sea, and land for the twelfth day

Bloody Friday: 12 Children Among Dozens Killed In Israel’s Merciless Slaughter
By Ali Abunimah

At least 61 people, at least 12 of them children, were killed on Friday alone, the second day of Israel’s ground invasion of parts of the Gaza Strip, and the twelfth and bloodiest day since Israel began bombarding the territory with airstrikes and land-based and naval artillery. Eight members of a single family, the youngest six months old, were killed when a missile struck their home

The Jews In Palestine
By Mahatma Gandhi

Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every country is their home, including Palestine, not by aggression but by loving service

Make The Connections: Anti-War, Animal Rights, Collective Liberation
By Mickey Z.

While photographing a #FreePalestine rally in NYC on July 15, I ran into many friends. That's no surprise for me in my hometown but what does stand out is how rarely I ever encounter any of my vegan/animal rights (AR) comrades at such human rights events

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 Atrocity And Ongoing Apartheid Israeli Gaza Massacre
By Dr Gideon Polya

The world has been utterly horrified by the destruction of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 (298 dead) on 17 July 2014 by a sophisticated surface-to-air missile launched either by Government Ukrainians, or Rebel Ukrainians (the latter less likely because it can only damage their cause, they have not been supplied with such missiles, and lack the required skilled Buk system operators). This appalling atrocity coincides with, and has diverted world attention from, the deadly escalation of the Israeli Gaza Massacre (about 300 Palestinians killed so far) involving actual ground invasion by the war criminal Israeli Defence Forces (IDF)

Climate Change: Will A Disaster Wake Us Up?
By John Scales Avery

In order to prevent a tipping point, after which human efforts to prevent drastic temperature increases will become ineffective, it may be necessary for ordinary people to replace their oligarchic governments with true democracies

18 July, 2014

30 Palestinians Killed As Israel Presses Gaza Ground Assault
By Ma'an News Agency

At least 30 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by airstrikes and artillery fire since Israel launched a ground operation late Thursday, medics said. Ahmad Abdallah al-Behnsawi was killed by shelling in Beit Lahiya, medics said, while the bodies of Saleh al-Zgheibi and Alaa Abu Shabab were found under rubble in eastern Rafah. Three children were killed in a targeted shelling on a home in northern Gaza. The bodies of Ahmad Ismail Abu Musallam, 14, his sister Alaa, 13, and their brother Muhammad, 15, were taken to Kamal Adwan hospital. The children were killed when a shell hit their bedroom

Israel Ends “Humanitarian Ceasefire” With New Massacre of Gaza Children
By Ali Abunimah

Four children were killed when Israel resumed its heavy bombardment of the occupied Gaza Strip after the expiry on Thursday afternoon of a five-hour “humanitarian ceasefire” requested by the United Nations. Another child died of injuries sustained in earlier Israeli attacks

Doctors Evacuate Patients After Israel Bombs Gaza Hospital
By Nora Barrows-Friedman

After a week of threats and “warning rocket” fire last Friday on the al-Wafa rehab and geriatric hospital in eastern Gaza City, the Israeli army heavily shelled the building just hours ago and caregivers are scrambling to evacuate the most vulnerable patients

The Dementedness Destroying Israel
By William A. Cook

Today as the current spring rain of missiles pours down on Gaza, the intent arises from a totally different cause, a manufactured cause created by Netanyahu's government directed at the Israeli people to elicit unconditional support to destroy Gaza

Sanctions And Airliners
By Paul Craig Roberts

Washington’s empire is beginning to crack, a circumstances that will bring desperate action from Washington. Today (July 17) I heard a BBC news report on National Public Radio about a Malaysian airliner being shot down in Ukraine. The reporting might have been honest, but it sounded like a frame-up of Russia and the Ukrainian “separatists.” As the BBC solicited more biased opinions, the broadcast ended with a report from social media that separatists had brought down the airliner with a Russian weapon system

MH 17 And Iran Air 655: A Medal For Terrorism
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

On July 3, 1988, in an unprovoked move, US carrier USS Vincennes fired two missiles at an Iranian passenger plane, Iran Air flight 655 that was on route to Dubai. All 290 innocent civilians perished. The passenger airliner, so recognizable even from the ground was “mistaken” for a jet fighter (jetfighter is two-thirds smaller than the passenger). The United States called its own act of terrorism ‘a regrettable accident”. Listening to the media news surrounding the ML 17 incident, one cannot help but conclude that the USS Vincennes captain, Will Rogers III was too dumb and blind not to see the easily recognizable passenger plane, or else, he was/is a terrorist

Israel’s Golden Gift
By Hussein Al-alak

Israel has given a golden gift to the British Anti-War and Left Wing movements, by carrying out its actions against the Hamas in the Gaza Strip. As a result of the bombardment of Palestinians by the Israeli’s, the global focus of attention has now been diverted away from Iraq and Syria, and refocused itself on the ongoing conflict between the two waring sides

The Political Objective And Strategic Goal Of Nonviolent Actions
By Robert J. Burrowes

Whether or not activists achieve their political objective is strategically irrelevant. This is because an effective nonviolent action is designed to achieve its strategic goal, irrespective of the response of opponents or the authorities to the political objective of the action. Whether or not activists achieve their strategic goal, however, is always strategically determinative

Raise Your Voice, Not The Sea Level
By Anitha S

As we stood out in the open on World Environment Day after planting many trees, we were convinced about the need to conserve this green lung. We can Clean and Green more but not to compensate for the trees planned to be cut. The bus bay and shops can be built else where. But we cannot ever create this atmosphere that the 100 trees, 80 species of herbs and innumerable birds and butterflies have made for so many years. This is my thought for the World Environment day. And I will raise my voice against the move to cut trees

BRICS Bank Is First Step Towards New International Economic Order [NIEO]
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava

World is changing. US domination will decline in financial sphere if it does not change its strategy of exploiting and suppressing the poor countries in the name of globalization, free trade and proclaiming irrelevance of demands of developing and Least Developed Countries. Strength of NIEO has been expressed and is likely to continue

17 July, 2014

8 Palestinians Killed Ahead Of Gaza Truce
By Ma'an News Agency

Israel killed eight Palestinians overnight before a five-hour humanitarian truce came into effect at 10 a.m. Thursday, bringing the death toll in Gaza to 230. Shortly before 10 a.m., Israeli artillery shells killed three Palestinians from the Abu Sneima family and injured four others in eastern Rafah. Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said three bodies, including a woman, were removed from a Rafah home. Earlier, five Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks

Four Children Die Playing Football In Gaza Beach
By Ali Abunimah

On Wednesday afternoon, in an horrific attack witnessed by international journalists stationed at the Al-Deira Hotel, shelling from an Israeli gunboat killed four children from a single family as they played football on a beach near Gaza’s seaport. The four victims were Ahed Atef Baker and Zakaria Ahed Bakr, both ten years old, Muhammad Ramiz Bakr, eleven, and Ismail Muhammad Bakr, aged nine

An Open Letter To Israelis And Jews!
By Dr Salim Nazzal

You are stronger militarily, but we still resist, you are stronger in the media and capable to make the black, white, but our voice is getting through, and get louder and louder .You do all this terror as if you will have the upper hand all the time. But this is illusion; your fate will be like all colonial powers

Krugman's Illusion: We Becoming Richer, But Not Damaging The Environment
By Saral Sarkar

I read an article by Paul Krugman (Nobel Laureate in Economics) in the New York Times (17.04.2014) entitled Climate Change:Salvation Gets Cheap. Referring to the glad tidings on the cost of saving the planet coming from the IPCC, Krugman wrote he thinks the climate threat is solved. He went even further. He wrote: “… there's no reason we can't become richer while reducing our impact on the environment .” Is it really possible?

How America's Policies Sealed Iraq's Fate
By Dahr Jamail

As Iraq's disintegration into darkness progresses, it sickens me to think of all the Iraqis I met and became friends with, who have since been killed, disappeared, or have become refugees. What is left of Iraq, this mess that is no longer a country, should be considered the legacy of decades of U.S. policy there, dating back to the moment when Saddam Hussein was in power and enjoyed Washington’s support. With Maliki, it has simply been a different dictator, enjoying even more such support (until these last weeks), and using similarly barbaric tactics against Iraqis

Did Brazil's Poor Protesting Painful World Cup Capitalism Affect Its Team's Morale?
By Jay Janson

Did Brazil putting the World Cup above improvements in the lives of its poor ultimately affect its team's morale? Organized poor have elected socialist presidents in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay Nicaragua Cuba Paraguay Chile Guatemala, Guiana, Dominican Republic, Haiti and Honduras. Asking Maradona to again raise his voice against injustice murderously emanating from a Wall St. center of plundering First World power

Washington Is In A State Of Immobility
By Fazal M. Kamal

The Obama administration's socio-economic-political ambitions are evidently in limbo though, under the circumstances, he himself maybe feeling that he's in a Sisyphean state

Climate Crisis Increases Risk Of Flooding Across 70% of Asia
By Countercurrents

Climate crisis increases risk of flooding across 70% of Asia, shows a new map launched by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office on July 16, 2014

16 July, 2014

Israel Warns 100,000 Gazans To Evacuate Their Homes, Death Toll Passes 200
By Ma'an News Agency

Israel urged 100,000 Gazans to flee their homes on Wednesday, but the warning was largely ignored despite an intensification of the military's nine-day campaign. So far, Israel's campaign, now in its ninth day, has killed 208 Palestinians, with a Gaza-based rights group saying over 80 percent of them were civilians

Gaza Health Ministry Declares State of Emergency
By IRIN

As Israel continues to bomb hundreds of targets in the Gaza Strip, hospitals are facing a shortage of medical supplies. Pre-existing shortages are being exacerbated by heightened need and by the border policies of the Egyptian government, which continues to limit entry into Gaza

‘For What Cause, Did I Die?’
By Nazia Nazar

The Palestinian women, children and elderly are alone in their sufferings. The poor children are being deprived of their right to live, grow and enjoy a bright future. More than 35 children have been killed in a week. They don’t know which crime they are punished for? They were unaware of the politics going on between Hamas and the Israeli army. Those little souls never thought that the UN and the big powers would never come to rescue them. Their shattered body parts are still waiting to be collected and buried in a grave, as the funerals are also attacked in this land. Alas, we couldn’t give them a peaceful life; let’s give them a peaceful burial

Ravaging Gaza: The War Netanyahu Cannot Possibly Win
By Ramzy Baroud

A true Palestinian unity culminating in a massive popular Intifada is the kind of war Netanyahu cannot possibly win

WANTED – A New Strategy For Palestinian Resistance
By Alan Hart

Handing complete responsibility and accountability for occupation back to Israel would not only concentrate the minds of the leaders and governments of the major powers. It would also enable activist groups of all faiths and none which campaign for justice for the Palestinians to sharpen their focus and be more effective

BRICS Bank Established: Beginning of Financially Multi-Polar World
By Countercurrents

BRICS Development Bank has been established on July 15, 2014 in the now-going BRICS summit in Brazil . It is an epoch-making event for the global south. A financially multi-polar world begins with the establishment of the much-hoped BRICS bank. It is the beginning of the end of US dollar-dominance and the dominance of the Bretton Woods institutions – the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Establishment of the bank surpasses all on-going incidents around the world

Obama’s Influence Abroad Is Evaporating
By Shamus Cooke

As the U.S. government resorts to its trump card of military intervention to maintain its foreign power, working people in the U.S. will raise increased demands to use the hundreds of billions of annual tax payer dollars to instead fund schools, health care, infrastructural projects, and the rest of long-neglected U.S. civil society

Indonesia, A Proudly Nazi Nation? Mass Murderers Are Ruling!
By Andre Vltchek

Indonesians have voted and what votes they have cast! Either they have chosen an outright Nazi, or a populist supported by a bunch of Nazis! The results are actually too close; it appears that almost half of the active Indonesian voters have endorsed either the Mayor of Jakarta – a former furniture salesman and populist known as ‘Jokowi’ – or a former general of the National Special Forces – Prabowo Subianto

The Rising Global Movement That Calls For #NoTTIP
By Adam Parsons

TTIP is the latest bid to capture policymaking by the profit-making interests of the 1%, with dire implications for anyone who upholds a vision of a more equitable and sustainable economic order. But campaign groups and activists are working hard to expose this trade agreement for what it is, and to build an overarching global movement that can prevent this massive transfer of power to transnational corporations

Atoms For Peace And Iran Nuclear Talk: The Theatrics Continues - From Eisenhower to Obama
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

In spite of the numerous obstacles placed in its path, Iran has demonstrated to the world that it wishes to pursue peace and transparency. It exercised ‘heroic flexibility' to cooperate with the P5+1 and consistently and tirelessly demonstrated its goodwill, transparency, and cooperation. But as with the Eisenhower era, Iran's cooperation has demonstrated to the world that it is not a threat. Its peaceful agenda is the greatest threat to Washington's agenda

Prasanna Vithanage: A Political Proof of Western Cinema
By Gouthama Siddarthan

Tamil Nadu is witnessing a spate of spicy critical theories being floated about Prasanna Vithanage’s film, ‘With You, Without You’. As a matter of fact, the film is a proof or an evidence of how the Western films have seamlessly impacted the thinking process of the creative artistes in the Third World

Wazirpur Struggle Continues, As Factory Owners Refuse To Honour Written Agreement
Press Statement By People's Union for Democratic Rights

PUDR condemns the attitude of the factory owners and demands that they honour the agreement arrived between them and the workers. The State should take strict action against the errant factory owners and ensure that the workers are guaranteed minimum benefits as laid down by the law

15 July, 2014

Israel Claims New "Legitimacy" As Attack On Gaza Resumes
By Jon Queally

Fulfilling fears and suspicions that an Egyptian-proposed "cease-fire" agreement put forth late on Monday would not last and may have simply been a pretext for Israel to bolster a narrative that it was Hamas and other militant factions that refused a settlement, the Israel military—after a brief respite—resumed its aerial bombing of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday with a massive show of firepower

Israel Firing Experimental Weapons At Gaza’s Civilians, Say Doctors
By Rania Khalek

Doctors treating patients in Gaza have accused Israel of using experimental weapons on Palestinian civilians. Addressing reporters at a press conference on Sunday, Youssef Abul Resh, undersecretary of the health ministry in Gaza said, “Medical teams have registered injuries consistent with those caused by DIME [dense inert metal explosives] and other banned weapons.”

The Overwhelming Silence of Gaza’s Streets
By Rami Almeghari

Everyone in Gaza is a potential target for Israel’s warplanes. We can all be killed — whether we stay at home, go to work, go to a marketplace or pray in a mosque

Israel Student Union Sets Up “War Room” To Sell Gaza Massacre On Facebook
By Ali Abunimah

As the death toll from Israel’s savage bombardment of Gaza continues to climb, Israel has once again turned to students to sell the slaughter online. “Although they haven’t been called up to the army yet, they’ve decided to enlist in a civilian mission that is no less important – Israeli propaganda [hasbara],” Ynet’s Hebrew edition reported about a massive initiative organized by the Israeli student union branch at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC Herzliya), a prestigious private university

Israel’s Template For The Globe’s Future
By Satya Sagar

For all those who think that Israel is run by the most despicable, racist and repressive regime in the world here is some very bad news indeed. Not only are the Israeli state and its ruthless methods here to stay they could also be, very frighteningly, a prototype of our collective global future

Journalism of Horror And Helplessness
By Jay Janson

How many of us working, with former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark's support,[1] to seed confidence that Nuremberg Principles law will soon come down on citizens of US, of NATO nations and of allied nations, including the still contested state of Israel, which exists primarily on seized, stolen and ethnically cleansed land, are freaking sick of reading, even during ongoing genocide, excellently and professionally written, moralistic journalism of horror and helplessness

The Gaza Massacre: The Underlying Motives
By Chandra Muzaffar

Massacre has become a habit. Every two or three years, Israel launches a massive military assault upon largely unarmed Palestinians in Gaza. It did this in December 2008 to January 2009. It did it again in November 2012. On each occasion hundreds of Palestinians are murdered and thousands more maimed

The "Peace Process" Dies Again
By Gary Corseri

There is no “peace process.”
There is peace… and the absence of peace—
The gnawing hunger for it,
The desperation of the vanquished

Jordan Reluctant To Host Expanded Proxy War Against Syria
By Countercurrents

Jordan, where the Central Intelligence Agency has been covertly training Syrian rebels for more than a year, is reluctant to host an expanded program in what is likely to be a significant step back for Barack Obama

Postcard From The End of America : Williston
By Linh Dinh

The Amtrak route that goes from Chicago to Portland , Oregon is called Empire Builder, and it was on this train that I saw Williston , North Dakota for the first time. With so much freight traffic coming in and out of Williston, the Amtrak train is always delayed, from several hours to half a day, and so the conversations on board often focused on fracking as we approached the Bakken Shale Play. The conductor said, “Yes, this is a hassle, but I also look at it as our country's future!”

Observe Kandhamal Day On August 25, 2014
By Ram Puniyani & Dhirendra Panda

We call upon all secular and human rights activists and organisations to express their concerns on the forthcoming Kandhamal Day on August 25, 2014. We feel that such expressions of concerns, public expressions, dissent and pressure on the present day governance is too important to see to it that such communal violence with the protection of State will not be repeated in future – either in Odisha or elsewhere in the world. Therefore, we appeal to you to join hands with our actions with the demand for justice for the survivors of communal violence in Kandhamal in as many ways as possible

Education In Confined Spaces
By Priyanka Dass Saharia

The physical space of a university added a huge dimension to the overall life of a student. The unfettered freedom to explore shaped one’ sensibilities and broadened one’s curiosity; for the sheer spirit of the soul to learn more, know more was enhanced by the knowledge that one could if one wished to. The element of choice gave way to the development of one’s inclinations to different things

UNIMOGP: Vacate Delhi Or Vacate India
By Abdul Majid Zargar

Indian Government has asked UNIMOGP office in New-Delhi to vacate the premises allotted to it forty years ago free of cost. It has given two reasons for its marching orders. One that UNIMOGP presence in India has lost relevance in view of the Shimla agreement and two that it wants to tighten its belt in the budgetary season

'Patriots' of Our Times !
By Subhash Gatade

India is a land of surprises, say many. And how can Bihar, which they say has been witness to a glorious past, be an exception. Of course nobody could have imagined that 'surprise of surprises' or (should I call) 'mother of all surprises' would be reserved for the Bihar police. In fact it was one life time experience for all of them there where they found how 'Rs 50,000 can balloon into Rs 1.14 crore'

14 July, 2014

Israel Escalates Attack On Gaza
By James Cogan

The Israeli military continued to escalate its assault on the Palestinian Gaza Strip over the weekend, carrying out hundreds more air strikes and its first ground incursion into the territory. It claims it has conducted over 1,300 air strikes in Gaza over the past week. Israel is openly targeting the private homes of officials and leading members of the Islamist Hamas organisation, which governs the densely-populated strip of land, regardless of who is residing in them. The assassination attempts have killed at least 167 people so far, the vast majority of whom were civilians, according to United Nations representatives. At least 19 women and 29 children under the age of 16 are among the dead

Israel’s Incremental Genocide In The Gaza Ghetto
By Ilan Pappe

The killing of three Israeli teenagers, two of them minors, abducted in the occupied West Bank in June, was perhaps in reprisal for killings of Palestinian children. But for all the depredations of the oppressive occupation, it provided the pretext first and foremost for destroying the delicate unity in the West Bank but also for the implementation of the old dream of wiping out Hamas from Gaza so that the Ghetto could be quiet again

Israel's Dissenting Voices Get Lost In The War Echo Chamber
By Prof. Neve Gordon

Israeli politicians across the political spectrum appear to support the attack on Gaza

Gaza: A War or A Brutal Massacre?
By Dr. Ludwig Watzal

The international media outlets speak of a new Middle Eastern war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas organization, which rules a tiny strip of Palestine adjacent the Mediterranean Sea that resembles rather a large open-air prison than a state-like entity. Are we really witnesses of a “war” or an attack by a brutal colonial regime against a defenseless and helpless community of people in the Middle East? In order to provide its criminal operations with a veneer of legitimacy, the Israeli government is using war terminology

Israel Is Captive To Its ‘Destructive Process’
By Chris Hedges

A mass movement demanding boycotts, divestment and sanctions is the only hope now for the Palestinian people. Such a movement must work for imposition of an arms embargo on Israel; this is especially important for Americans because weapons systems and attack aircraft provided by the U.S. are being used to carry out the assault

Israel Is Deliberately Targeting Civilians In Gaza
By Rania Khalek

The UN says 77 percent of Palestinians killed in Israel’s relentless bombing campaign on the besieged Gaza Strip have been civilians. A report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs details Israel’s current assault, now it in its sixth day. With over 150 killed, including an alarming number of women and children, and the death toll in Gaza rising by the hour, Israeli officials insist they are doing all they can to avoid civilian casualties

Israel, Muslims, And The Israel Lobby In America:
Local Dynamics And Global Ramifications

By Taj Hashmi

We have reasons to believe that the first Arab-Israel War, which led to the creation of Israel in 1948, signaled the beginning of another “Hundred-Year War” in world history. And America can play the most decisive role in ending, what appears to be, a never-ending conflict in the Arab World, which has already spread to other parts of the Muslim World and beyond, and is potentially capable of destabilizing the entire world for decades

US Concerned With Proxy Fighters In Syria
By Countercurrents

Eric Holder, the US attorney general, is concerned: Fighters from Europe and the US who are supporting the Syrian intervention are joining forces with Yemeni bomb makers

Calling the European Commission To Account: Clamping Down on Institutional Corruption
By Colin Todhunter

The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU) is a coalition of about 200 civil society groups, trade unions, academics and public affairs firms. It campaigns against the increasing and massive influence exerted by corporate lobbyists on the political agenda in Europe. As Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) prepare to quiz the president-elect of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker on Tuesday 15 July, the coalition is calling on them to ensure that improvements in the areas of ethics, conflicts of interest and lobby transparency are placed high on the agenda of the new Commission

“God's Warriors” Against The Secular State – On Boko Haram And ISIS
By Saral Sarkar

Nowadays, something is happening before our eyes that is difficult to understand. But we must understand it if we still want to work for our political vision

Here's Where The Illegal Immigrant/Refugee Children Should Be Sent
By John Spritzler

The illegal immigrant/refugee children arriving at the southern U.S. border from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, should be sent to Beverly Hills, CA and Greenwich, CT and other super rich communities like these

Patel’s Idolization And Need For Libraries
By S.R.Darapuri

Now if BJP is bent upon spending public money on memorial of Sardar Patel let it be not in the form of a statue with which India is already over flooded, it will be much beneficial to set up Public Libraries in his name all over India

13 July, 2014

18 From One Family Killed In Gaza
By Eva Bartlett

Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip killed 52 people Saturday, including two severely handicapped women in a care facility, medics said. The toll made Saturday the bloodiest day yet in the five-day conflict, and hiked the overall toll to 157. The deadliest strike came in the Tuffah district in eastern Gaza City, where 18 people were killed in strikes that hit a home and a mosque

“Wake Up My Son!” None of Gaza’s Murdered Children Are Just Numbers
By Ali Abunimah

Sahir was killed on Friday afternoon when an Israeli warplane bombed his family home in the Tal al-Zaatar neighborhood in northern Gaza. “He was playing and smiling next to his mother when missile shrapnel divided his head”

Israel Fires "Warning" Missiles At Gaza City Geriatric Hospital
By Nora Barrows-Friedman

Israeli warplanes fired a series of “warning rockets” at the al-Wafa Geriatric Hospital in Gaza City on Friday, sending patients and nurses into a panic

Urgent Call From Gaza Civil Society: Act Now!
By Palestinian Civil Society Groups

We Palestinians trapped inside the bloodied and besieged Gaza Strip call on conscientious people all over the world, to act, protest, and intensify the boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel until it ends this murderous attack on our people and is held to account

Israel’s Attacks Against The Population Of The Gaza Strip
By Dr. Ludwig Watzal

The international media outlets speak of a new Middle Eastern war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas organization, which rules a tiny strip of Palestine adjacent the Mediterranean Sea that resembles rather a large open-air prison than a state-like entity. Are we really witnesses of a “war” or an attack by a brutal colonial regime against a defenseless and helpless community of people in the Middle East? In order to provide its criminal operations with a veneer of legitimacy, the Israeli government is using war terminology

Save Gaza Today; Tomorrow May Be Too Late!
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

As Israel is set for a ground invasion of Gaza, the alarming call of a Holy War is heard from an Israeli commander who tells his soldiers that they are engaged in a war to “wipe out” an “enemy who defames” God. Jewish extremism has always been concealed, and with it, the dangers. But the threat is very real – and very well understood even by those supporting this growing danger

Israel/Gaza: UN Must Impose Arms Embargo And Mandate
An International Investigation As Civilian Death Toll Rises

By Amnesty International

Amnesty International is calling for an UN-mandated international investigation into violations committed on all sides amidst ongoing Israeli air strikes across the Gaza Strip and continuing volleys of indiscriminate rocket fire from Palestinian armed groups into Israel

25 Most Fragile States: Gifts From The Global System
By Farooque Chowdhury

The world's 25 most fragile states have been identified. The Foreign Policy magazine has released the annual ranking of the least-stable countries, now known as the Fragile State Index (FrSI). Up to last year, the name of the index was the Failed States Index (FaSI). The FaSI/FrSI is created by The Fund for Peace

What Would A Psychiatrist Call This? Delusions Of Grandeur?
By William Blum

Question asked: “Which country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?”
Replies: United States 24%, Pakistan 8%, China 6%, Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea, each 5%, India, Iraq, Japan, each 4%, Syria 3%, Russia 2%, Australia, Germany, Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Korea, UK, each 1%

Jordan: Kingdom Of Shadows And Submissiveness
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek

Country of some 8 million is producing close to nothing, but many locals are living high life here, thanks to their collaborating with the West and with Saudi Arabia. To be on good terms with Israel is another lucrative business. And to have US military bases on its territory, and to have US army and air force ‘visiting’ Jordanian bases, is also one great way to get cash. Refugees, old and new, are great business. Not for the poor Jordanians, not for the majority, but for the elites

The Myths of Big Corporate Capitalism
By Ralph Nader

Large corporate capitalism is a breed apart from smaller scale capitalism. The former can often avoid marketplace verdicts through corporate welfare, strip owner-shareholders of power over the top company bosses and offload the cost of their pollution, tax escapes and other “externalities” onto the backs of innocent people

Overwhelming Evidence: Organic Food Higher
In Antioxidants And Lower In Toxic Metals And Pesticides

By Colin Todhunter

Consumer demand for organic foods is partially driven by perceptions that they are more nutritious. Now a peer-reviewed study just published in the British Journal of Nutrition [1], a leading international journal of nutritional science, has shown that organic crops and crop-based foods are between 18 to 69 percent higher in a number of key antioxidants such as polyphenolics than conventionally-grown crops

The Natives Play No Football
By Satya Sagar

Watching the football World Cup games in Brazil offers many simple lessons in history for those Indians who think that the ‘Hindus’ are original inhabitants of India while Christians and Muslims are ‘foreigners’

Vindictiveness And Autocracy: "Achhe Din" Defined
By Anshul Kumar Pandey

Ever since the BJP led NDA government took charge on May 22, its leader and our new Prime Minister hasn't stopped preaching to us the value of working together to build the nation. That's all fine. However, if one were to analyze his words and deeds over the past few days, it would reveal a gap so vast as to make the Grand Canyon look like a small crevice

UK Rushes Through Invasive Surveillance Laws As Intelligence Agencies Go On Trial
By Amnesty International

Amnesty International and Privacy International have accused the UK government of trying to rush through legislation in an attempt to deflect from a landmark hearing starting Monday, challenging the validity of UK spy agencies’ justification for mass surveillance of British citizens’ social media use

12 July, 2014

Ongoing Israeli Airstrikes Kill 14 In Gaza, Death Toll 121
By Ma’an News Agency

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes across the besieged Gaza Strip have killed 14 Palestinians since midnight Saturday, bringing the total death toll to 121, Gaza medical sources say

The Mindlessness of A Manifesto
By William A. Cook

Today’s invasion of Gaza is but a repetition of Israel’s savagery under Sharon and Olmert; I’ve written about this before. How horrible that we must revisit such horror! All I can do is to reassert what was true in Rafah, Jenin, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine again and again and again since 1947 and ’48

Horrendous Palestinian/Israeli Death Ratios - World Must Stop Latest Israeli Gaza Massacre
By Dr Gideon Polya

The world must urgently put a stop to the latest war criminal Apartheid Israeli massacre of Occupied Palestinians in the Gaza Concentration Camp that has, so far, killed over 100 Palestinians and wounded 700 as reprisals for Gaza rockets (zero Israeli deaths) and the murder of 3 Israeli teenagers who may well have been killed by Israeli state terrorists in a “false flag” operation to justify a further Gaza Massacre and other Apartheid Israeli excesses

Facts All US Citizens Need To Know About Israel and Palestine
By Robert Barsocchini

Germany, Japan, and South Africa went from being the most reviled countries on Earth to being some of the most admired. Maybe Israel could undergo the same transformation, but not unless we, US citizens, help by ceasing to enable Israeli terrorism and war crimes by illegally supporting them

Can Hezbollah Prevent DAASH (IS) From Pulling Lebanon into its Caliphate?
By Franklin Lamb

Bedawi Palestinian camp, North Lebanon: The answer to that question is—perhaps. But for a number of reasons, some suggested below, it’s not a happy picture, and it won’t be a walk in the park

TPP: A Thoroughly Predatory Pact
By Ron Forthofer

U.S. transnational corporations are working behind the scenes to change the rules governing them. You may say 'big deal, this doesn't affect me'. However if you use the internet, view movies, take pharmaceuticals, want a clean and safe environment, believe in democracy, etc., you likely will be negatively impacted

US-Europe Trade Deal: Corporate Power Grab
By Megan Darby

Protest is ramping up against a transatlantic trade treaty critics say could weaken environmental protection. The Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership is intended to boost commerce between Europe and the US , by cutting tariffs and aligning regulations. Green groups on both sides of the ocean have expressed fears this could mean watering down environmental safeguards and increasing fossil fuel consumption

Climate Crisis May Bring More Kidney Stones
By Countercurrents

As daily temperatures increase, so does the number of patients seeking treatment for kidney stones. In a study that may both reflect and foretell a warming planet's impact on human health, a research team found a link between hot days and kidney stones in 60,000 patients in several US cities with varying climates

Pearls of Wisdom of A RSS Leader, ‘Elections equivalent to Independence Struggle’
By Subhash Gatade

Suresh Soni broached another controversy by his utterances while addressing 161 first time BJP MPs at a two-day training camp organised by the Party at Surajkund near Delhi. He has compared BJP’s recent electoral victory with India’s freedom struggle

11 July, 2014

Gaza Death Toll Hits 100 As Israel Continues Assault
By Ma'an News
Agency

Thirteen Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes since midnight on Thursday, Gaza's Ministry of Health said, bringing the death toll in Israel's military assault to 102

Israel Warns Of Imminent Ground Invasion Of Gaza
By Mike Head

Israel yesterday told an estimated 100,000 Gaza residents living in cities near the border with Israel to leave their homes immediately, in a clear warning of an imminent ground invasion of the densely-populated enclave that houses nearly two million Palestinians

CNN: Palestinians Want To Die
By David Swanson

In a video from Thursday on CNN, Jake Tapper interviews Diana Buttu, a former advisor to the PLO. After failing to persuade her of Israel's complete innocence, he tells her that Hamas is instructing women and children to remain in their homes to die as Israel bombs them. She responds by expressing doubt that people want to die. Oh no, says Tapper, Palestinians live in a culture of martyrdom; they want to die

Gaza Rhymes: Bombs, Pain And The Resistance
By V. Arun Kumar

In Gaza, history rhymes. The aggression of Israel rhymes, the sound of bombs dropped by Israeli aircrafts rhymes and the agony of Palestinians rhymes. And so does the great Palestinian resistance against oppression rhymes, which rhymes in a musical tone of struggle and hope. One day Palestine will be free!

Israel’s Gaza Genocide Redux
By Professor Francis A. Boyle

Professor Francis A. Boyle delivered the following Oral Argument before the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal Commission for the Indictment of Israel for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity on November 21, 2012 during Israel’s genocidal Operation Cast Lead II against the 1.7 million Palestinians living in Gaza. The analysis and conclusions remain the same today during Cast Lead III

The Nation Magazine Plays Dumb About Obama's Nazism on Ukraine Policy
By Eric Zuesse

No matter what so-called "progressive" magazines might say about so-called "Democrats" such as Obama, he's a war-criminal and a hyper-protector of the biggest crooks on Wall Street, and any publication that soft-peddles his evilness on account of his being a “Democrat,” isn't progressive; it's not even decently liberal; it is garbage

Humanitarian Crisis In South Sudan Is Spiraling Out Of Control As Aid Fails To Arrive
By Countercurrents

South Sudan is currently Africa 's worst crisis with nearly 4 million people, a third of the country's population, at risk of severe hunger. Aid effort in South Sudan has only so far reached half of those-in-need

Gringo Bond With Love From Washington : Germany Catches US Spies 
By Countercurrents 

The United States is caught up in a spy-net in Germany . And, the US spying operation is creating pressure on its relation with the NATO ally. The US president Obama and the German chancellor Merkel are engaged in a spy flap

Shell Is Failing To Account For Climate Risks, Finds Study
By Megan Darby

Shell was accused of “Orwellian doublethink” in its attitude to climate change as an influential think-tank published new analysis on July 9, 2014. In the latest installment of the “carbon bubble” debate, the Carbon Tracker Initiative (CTI) highlighted flaws in the oil major's optimistic assessment of its future profitability

“Letter To Young People Over $220 Trillion Carbon Debt: Revolt (Peacefully)”
By Dr Gideon Polya

Young people in Australia and around the world are thoroughly disenchanted with anti-youth, anti-environment, anti-future, pro-One Percenter, pro-Ten Percenter, neoliberal and Corporatist governments. It is time for young people to REVOLT (peacefully of course) to ensure that Humanity reverts to a decent and safe course of sustainability and social humanism involving maximizing human happiness, dignity and opportunity for everyone. To that end I have written the Open Letter to young Australians

Amerikistan, Not Afghanistan, Warocracy, Not Democracy
By Dr Hakim

Abdullah Abdullah's phone call with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry who arrived in Kabul today, shows that it is the U.S. government, and not Afghans, who run this country

Iraq And The Military-Industrial Complex versus A True Cost Economy
By Brent Blackwelder

A true cost or steady state economy can never be reached in a society consumed with perpetual war, especially warfare over oil. A steady state economy must have its energy supply based on renewable sources like solar and wind. To reach a true cost, steady state economy, the resources currently devoted to waging war must be transformed, and the use of natural resources like oil that are causing wars must be shifted

Doublespeak, The Transatlantic Trade And Investment Partnership
And The Corporate Hijack Of Europe

By Colin Todhunter

Tom Vilsack is the US Agriculture Secretary. In an attempt to support giant agritech and food corporations' aims to eliminate all ‘unnecessary' barriers to trade and investment between the US and EU via the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Vilsack has stated in public that he wants “sound science” to underpin any rules governing food trade

America's Creative Extortion
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

Admittedly, America has always devised creative means to execute its vast array of crimes against other nations – coups, wars, occupation, exploitation, terrorism, genocide, and so forth. One crime often neglected is America's creative extortion. America has made a legal judgment to rob Iran of $1.75 billion

Immigration In The Time of Imperialism
By Gaither Stewart

With each of America’s wars in its Middle Eastern-East European expansion strategy the waves of immigration swell: Libyans, Tunisians, Egyptians, Syrians, East Europeans aim at (once) rich Europe. The bill for centuries of colonialism and exploitation and now current US imperialism has fallen due. Africans and Middle Easterners are here to collect that bill. Sooner or later, there is always a payback

Accession And Article 370: In Response To Adarash Sen Anand
By Abdul Majid Zargar

Mr. Adarash Sen Anand, former chief Justice of India, has written a two installment article titled “Accession of J&K, a constitutional view” which appeared in daily Chandigrah Tribune of 2nd & 3rd July 2014.In the first part of the article he has dealt with the historical perspective of the Accession of J&K State to Indian Dominion and in the second part about the history & legality of Article 370 of Indian Constitution. The article appears to be a part of the wider debate started by BJP on Article 370. If the debate remains serious & civil, devoid of heat & Jingoism generated by right wing extremist elements-it is welcome. The write-up by Mr. Anand is factually incorrect on few points & economical in content & substance on few others

Bokaro Rape Case: India Needs To Abolish All Illegal Bodies
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava

Now the time has come to abolish the local Panchayats, Khap Panchyats, religious bodies which act as kangaroo courts in Indian society.This thoughtful demand emerges from the fact that in the country the decisions and fatwas of such bodies are degrading the human dignity, a goal which Indian constitution never aimed for, it had although aimed for providing the respect to human dignity

10 July, 2014

Israeli Airstrikes Kill 33 Palestinians In Gaza
By Ma'an News Agency

Israeli airstrikes across the besieged Gaza Strip killed 33 Palestinians overnight Wednesday and Thursday, including a family of eight

Death Toll Mounts In Israeli Attacks On Gaza
By Patrick Martin

The latest atrocity overnight Wednesday was the killing of at least eight people at a café in Khan Younis, a Gaza neighborhood, where spectators were watching the World Cup match between Argentina and the Netherlands. That bomb injured at least another ten Palestinians

Israel's Genocidal War On Gaza, Palestine - The Third Intifada Begins!
By Feroze Mithiborwala

This is the time for the "Global Palestine Solidarity Movement" to take to the streets across the world to stand in solidarity with the courageous resistance. Globalise the Resistance, Globalise the Intifada!!

An Open Letter To The Israelis And Palestinians
By Dr. Alon Ben-Meir

I have been writing about your conflict for more than three decades. Invariably, I find myself delving into the same themes time and agaihemes time and again. The nature of the conflict remains the same. You coexist, and short of self-inflicted catastrophe, you are destined to coexist until the end of time. You must now choose to live in harmony and peace, or in self-consuming enmity and hate

The Unabated Devastation In Palestine
By Fazal M. Kamal

The recent murders of three Israeli and one Palestinian teenagers---and the merciless torture of another Palestinian-American teen) are unquestionably barbaric, beyond tragic and comprehensively reprehensible. No rational person can even come close to condoning any such brutality. But if one follows the trail it leads directly to the door of Israel’s leaders and primarily to Benjamin Netanyahu who, partially but not wholly, to appease his extremist supporters has been for months spewing hatred utilizing constantly the language of violence, intransigence and belligerence while punishing an entire people

The Deteriorating Economic Outlook
By Paul Craig Roberts, Dave Kranzler, and John Williams

The third and final estimate (until the annual GDP revisions) of first quarter 2014 real GDP growth released June 25 by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis was a 2.9% contraction in GDP growth, a 5.5 percentage point difference from the January forecast of 2.6% growth. Apparently, the first quarter contraction was dismissed by those speculating in equities as weather related, as stock averages rose with the bad news

Remembering Thangjam Manorama On The 10th Anniversary Of
Her Rape And Murder By The Indian Paramilitary

By Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression

Ten years ago, in the early hours of 11th July 2004, the bullet riddled body of 32- year old Thangjam Manorama Devi was found in Laipharok Maring of Imphal East district of Manipur. She had been picked up by the paramilitary Assam Rifles from her home in Bamon Kampu Mayai Leikai and was raped and killed

Contributing To A Culture Of Mutual Peace And Understanding : Zindagi Channel
By Devika Mittal

The Zee network has recently launched a new channel by the name of Zindagi. With the theme of “Vasudeva Kutumbkam” or “The whole world is my family”, Zindagi channel promises to bring in stories from around the world. The channel theme and the tag line “Jodey Dilon ko” or “to connect hearts” clearly indicates that this channel has a clear mission. It is trying to use the medium of television to create a culture of peace

Activist Endurance: A Look Back At The 2004 RNC
By Mickey Z.

Even in the face of urgent, ecocidal issues, dissent is a marathon, not a sprint. With authentic solidarity, a daily ego check, and an enduring willingness to evolve, we can each find our pace and help make a difference

Iraq: Whose Fault, Obama’s or Maliki’s?
By Taj Hashmi

As Bush was responsible for the ongoing, post-invasion civil war in Iraq, so is Obama responsible for the messy situation in Syria, Iraq and the entire region. History has proven Bush wrong

Obama's Failure And Richard Perle's Whitewashing of The Iraq War
By Ramzy Baroud

As Iraq stands on the verge of a complete breakdown into mini sectarian states, former leading neoconservative and Iraq war advocate Richard Perle made a sudden appearance on Newsmax TV. His statements in the interview were yet another testament to the intellectual degeneration of a group that had once promised a ‘new Middle East', only to destabilize the region with violent consequences that continue to reverberate until this day

Washington’s Arrogance Will Destroy Its Empire
By Paul Craig Roberts

It is difficult to imagine a country as wrong as the US, where government serves not the people but a tiny handful of the one percent, a government incapable of delivering any kind of justice, a government that if it uttered truth would destroy itself. Washington reeks of evil. And the world is beginning to realize it

Let's Remove The Rich From Power
By John Spritzler

Unless we start thinking and writing and acting (yes, acting in our own neck of the woods, with the people who also live there) with a focus on removing the rich from power, then all we really are is a bunch of observers, with no effect on what actually happens. We're not helping Palestinian victims of Zionism or anybody else. The ruling elite know it. Isn't it about time we did too?

USA's Multi-Decade Campaign of Imperial Terror Against Afghanistan
By Robert Barsocchini

This is an update to my examination of the USA's decades-long campaign of brutal imperial violence and terror against Afghanistan

'Movie ‘Punjab 1984’-Its Content And Intent'
By Ajmer Singh

Before analyzing the movie, one question that really needs to be answered is, how ‘well thought’ was the name of the movie; ‘Punjab 1984’? With all fairness to the hardworking team of this project, let’s safely presume that it was pretty well thought out. And, after that presumption, my immediate reaction is that the contents, the story line and the message of this film has no relevance to its title what so ever. It is, perhaps, manipulatively misleading

09 July, 2014

12 More Dead In Gaza, Death Toll 35
By Ma'an News

Twelve Palestinians were killed Wednesday in the ongoing Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall death toll since Monday to 35 and 300 injuries. The most recent deadly airstrike was reported in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip killing 40-year-old woman Sahar Hamdan al-Masri and her teenage son 14-year-old Ibrahim. The two were killed after an Israeli missile hit their house

Eight Children Killed As Israeli Warplanes Relentlessly Bomb Gaza
By Maureen Clare Murphy

Twenty-five lives have been claimed by Israel in Gaza since Monday, including at least eight children, as warplanes bombed areas across Gaza, whose 1.7 million Palestinian residents live under a tightly-enforced siege and are unable to flee and have nowhere to seek shelter

Israelis, Not Palestinians, Excel At Vengeance
By Jonathan Cook

Shock and anger have engulfed Israeli and Palestinian societies since they learnt last week of the barbarous murder of children from their communities. Hours after three Israeli teenagers’ bodies were located, long after their abduction, a Palestinian youth, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, was kidnapped, beaten and burnt to death, apparently as revenge. These horrifying events should serve as a lesson in the obscene futility of vengeance. As a relative of one of the murdered children observed: “There is no difference between blood and blood.”

Changing The Israeli Mindset… Is It Really Possible?
By Alan Hart

In a recent article with the headline Charting A New Course, Alon Ben-Meir made the statement that “Only the Palestinians can modify and subsequently change the Israelis’ mindset.” The essence of his case is that the Palestinians must recognize that the average Israeli believes they do not seek real peace and are still committed to Israel’s destruction. That is indeed what most Israelis have been conditioned to believe, so the key question seems to me to be something like this. What could be done and by whom to open Israeli minds to the truth?

The Giant Methane Monster Is Lurking
By Thom Hartmann

There's something lurking deep under the frozen Arctic Ocean , and if it gets released, it could spell disaster for our planet. That something is methane

15 Countries Hold Key To Avoid Dangerous Global Warming, Finds Study
By Sophie Yeo

Climate experts have presented the UN with a report on how countries can club together to avoid world temperatures soaring to dangerous levels. The report, delivered to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on July 8, 2014 in New York , lays out technical pathways on how the world's 15 major emitters can make the deep decarbonisation needed to keep the planet below 2C

Record Levels Of Solar Ultraviolet On Earth's Surface Hit South America
By Countercurrents

A team of researchers from the US and Germany has measured the highest level of ultraviolet radiation ever recorded on earth's surface. The extraordinary UV fluxes, observed in the Bolivian Andes, are far above those normally considered to be harmful to both terrestrial and aquatic life

Our 21st Century Energy Wars
By Michael T. Klare

Global conflicts are increasingly fueled by the desire for oil and natural gas––and the funds they generate

Bowe Bergdahl And The Voice of War
By Kathy Kelly

Bergdahl listened to conscience; listened to the best he knew of the United States; and, heedless of the danger to himself, walked away from war. His military superiors knew that he was troubled, that his platoon was barely functional, and that he needed to find a way out, but they weren't listening to the voice of compassion. They were listening to the voice of war

The Great Corporate Swindle: Agribusiness Leading The Way In Setting The TTIP Agenda
By Colin Todhunter

According to the official language, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and EU plans to create the world's largest free trade area, ‘protect investment' and remove ‘unnecessary regulatory barriers'. Cut through the rhetoric and it becomes clear that the treaty aims to weaken labour, social, environmental and consumer protection standards. Masterminded by the ‘ High Level Working Group on Jobs and Growth ', this group has been accused of constituting nothing but a bunch of unelected and unaccountable, notorious pro-free-trade bureaucrats from both sides of the Atlantic

Why Are Most Human Beings So Powerless?
By Robert J. Burrowes

Human beings stand at the edge of extinction and yet few of us are mobilized in defense of human existence. Why is this? And what can we do about it?

Debating Secularism In A Communalized Society
By Ram Puniyani

In the aftermath of the recent elections Congress, Communist parties, Samajvadi and Lalu’s RJD, which can be called secular in some sense; bit the dust. In the review of defeat the major opposition party Congress, which has been in power for maximum number of years, one major opinion from its top leader A.K. Antony came forth to say that the secularism practiced by Congress was seen more as an appeasement of minorities (read Muslims) and so the large sections turned against it emasculating it to a mere 19% votes with 44 seats in Lok Sabha. In a free for all; different opinions on secularism, and failure of Congress are coming forth

08 July, 2014

Death Toll Reaches 14 As Israel Targets Northern Gaza
By Ma'an News Agency

Israeli airstrikes on the northern Gaza Strip killed three Palestinians on Tuesday evening, bringing the total death toll in Israel's latest assault on the besieged enclave to 14. At least 100 Palestinians have been injured since late Monday in military action dubbed Operation Protective Edge, with Palestinian security sources putting the number of airstrikes at more than 70

“Operation” Bomb-the-hell-out-of-Gaza-this-has-nothing-to-do-with-security
By Eva Bartlett

The Zionists are again bombing Gaza, in another sadistically-named “operation” which I will not repeat, out of respect for the Palestinians of Gaza. Why bother with the names, just be honest: bomb-the-hell-out-of-Gaza-this-has-nothing-to-do-with-security # XXX

In The Case Of Israel: Western Hypocrisy At Its Best
By Ludwig Watzal

The crocodile tears of Netanyahu for the murder of the young Palestinian are hypocritical. For the record: Netanyahu and his extremist predecessor Ariel Sharon have not moderated a mob at a demonstration in Jerusalem, who slandered Rabin as a “traitor” and carried Rabin dummies in Nazi uniform, one of the most despicable symbols in Israel. Shortly after, Rabin was assassinated. Not without reason, Lea Rabin has refused Netanyahu’s condolences at the state funeral. Therefore, one should not belief the political arsonist, which calls for the fire brigade

Clinton and Kerry Call On Snowden To Submit To Sham Security State Trial,
Snowden Should Refuse to Play “Alice in Wonderland”

By Kevin Zeese

Edward Snowden submitting to prosecution in the United States, would be like Alice going into the courtroom in Wonderland

Boiling Point: Multiple Crises And The Democratic Deficit
By Kumi Naidoo

Kumi Naidoo, the International Executive Director of Greenpeace, was interviewed by Allen White of the Tellus Institute about fixing the current democratic deficit and pushing for system change and system innovation

Pakistan Faces ‘Environmental Cataclysm', Warn Officials
By Nivedita Khandekar

Governments in Islamabad and Delhi are not preparing for potential climate impacts, says new research

Greenpeace Protests Chevron Fracking In Romania
By Countercurrents

Greenpeace activists have staged a protest outside a controversial Chevron shale gas exploration site in Romania . They insisted the use of fracking technologies could harm the environment there

The Promise And Pitfalls of BRICS $100 Billion CRA
By Kavaljit Singh

Brazil will host the leaders of Russia, India, China, and South Africa for the 2014 BRICS Summit during July 15-17, 2014. This BRICS summit is expected to launch the $100 billion Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA) and further details on soon to be established BRICS Development Bank will be unveiled

The Safest And Fairest Way To Have A Constitutional Convention
By Roger Copple

When the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling was passed in 2010, corporations and the wealthiest one percent were granted even more power to finance politicians than they had before. Therefore, everyone is encouraged sign the Move to Amend petition to reverse the Citizens United decision through a constitutional amendment

$10 Trillion Annual Carbon Debt Increase For Young People On A Threatened Planet
By Dr Gideon Polya

Humanity and the Biosphere are increasingly threatened by man-made global warming but climate change inaction means that it may soon be too late to act to prevent catastrophic global warming. This climate change inaction is associated with a $10 trillion annual increase in the Carbon Debt for young people and future generations. Young people must urgently reclaim their future from the terracidal, climate criminal One Percenters who are destroying the planet

 

07 July, 2014

US-Backed Regime Retakes Slavyansk, Threatens Bloodbath In Eastern Ukraine
By Alex Lantier

Over the weekend, after indiscriminate artillery bombardments, forces of the US-backed Ukrainian regime retook the cities of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, which had been strongholds of armed opposition to the government that emerged from February’s fascist-led putsch in Kiev

Obama's Ukrainian "Afghan Trap" Plays Out
By Robert Barsocchini

If protecting Russian-speaking people was the true top reason for re-accepting Crimea, then Russia would also staunchly and overtly support independence for Donetsk and Slavyansk, where civilians are being bombed by the fully US-backed, junta-integrated Ukrainian government's military and neo-Nazi paramilitaries, to which Obama has given full diplomatic and material support, including tens of millions of our dollars, after assisting in the neo-Nazi led overthrow of the elected government of Ukraine

NSA Target: Ordinary People Outnumber Foreigners
By Countercurrents

Ordinary Internet users including Americans far outnumbered legally targeted foreigners caught in the US National Security Agency surveillance. Nine out of 10 people identified in a large cache of online conversations intercepted by the US surveillance agency were ordinary Internet users and not foreign surveillance targets

India Government Must Value Migrant Workers For More Than
The Billions They Send Home, Says Amnesty

By Amnesty International

The lack of effective regulation of visa brokers and rogue recruiting agents makes Indian migrant workers vulnerable to serious human rights abuses, said Amnesty International India today in a new report focusing on migrants from the Indian state of Kerala working in Saudi Arabia

A Law Suit Will Probably Trail Obama: State Of A Bourgeois Democracy
By Farooque Chowdhury

A matured bourgeois democracy’s crisis-condition comes to light with the announcement of a plan for a law suit against the president of the democracy, Barack Obama. The law suit being planned probably will trail the president of the US

Sacred Treason: Palestinian-Israeli Security Alliance
By Vacy Vlazna

Cicero asserts that treachery “rots the soul of a nation”. It doesn't apply to Palestine because the members and employees of the PA/PLO/FCC have no souls. They are not ‘Palestinians'. They are Zionists. Not one of them has an iota of the thriving soul and sumud symbolised by the likes of Samer Issawi, Hanan Zoabi, and Ahed Tamimi

Virtual Economy’s Phantom Job Gains Are Based on Statistical Fraud,
And More Fraud Is in the Works

By Paul Craig Roberts

Washington can’t stop lying. Don’t be convinced by last Thursday’s job report that it is your fault if you don’t have a job. Those 288,000 jobs and 6.1% unemployment rate are more fiction than reality. In his analysis of the June Labor Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, John Williams (www.ShadowStats.com) wrote that the 288,000 June jobs and 6.1% unemployment rate are “far removed from common experience and underlying reality.” Payrolls were overstated by “massive, hidden shifts in seasonal adjustments,” and the Birth-Death model added the usual phantom jobs

A Discordant Note on The Dowry Order
By Samar

The Indian Supreme Court’s decision to disallow blind arrest of the accused in dowry cases seems baffling at first sight. In fact, the judgment is not a standalone order of a bench breaking the norm. It falls in line with another recent order of Justices Vikramjit Sen and S.K. Singh that prohibits auto arrest on allegations of rape that follow live in relationships gone sour. The Bombay High Court and many other lower courts have regularly expressed similar concerns

Roy: 'Civil Rights Activists Focus on Americans Promote Continuing US-NATO Genocide' 
By Jay Janson

A 4th of July remembrance and rededication more appropriate to one's own humanity would be for Americans to awake themselves from the farcical deadly and insidious false propaganda seeded and psyoped into the minds of children that the killing of the poor in their own beloved countries overseas is a good thing, and to call to call for prosecution of citizens responsible and participating in US-NATO's sixty-five years of crimes against humanity and to call for compensation and reparations court mandated for the millions of US-NATO's victims. This is an American value your author was taught at his father's knee, in school and in church

Iraq Background: What's Behind the Escalating Sectarian War and U.S. Intervention?
Where Could It Go? Where Do Our Interests Lie?

By Larry Everest

The U.S. 's goal in all this is to attempt to protect the region's oppressive ruling forces and its subordination to imperialism. In other words, whatever particular tact the U.S. takes, its actions will only bring more horrors for the people

06 July, 2014

Genocide In Ukraine: Eye Witness Account
By Vera Graziadei

British Ukrainian Russian actress and writer Vera Graziadei interviews an American photographer in Kramatorsk about life under bombs: "The civilians are dying here and something needs to happen to stop it"

Ukraine May See 'Total Hell Breaking Loose: Prof. Francis Boyle
By Voice Of Russia

A total of 110,000 Ukrainians who have left for Russia in an attempt to save their lives probably just want to visit their relatives and then travel back, State Department spokeswoman Mari Harf said at a briefing, thus calling into question the tremendous number of people reported to be now seeking asylum in Russia. The United States generally doubts the UN figures on Ukraine refugees, endorsing Petr Poroshenko's decision to resume the punitive operation in Ukraine's southeast. Meanwhile, the so-called ceasefire is something that never happened, stresses Francis Boyle, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law

WikiLeaks, Bringing The First Amendment To The World
By Dr. Nozomi Hayase

The battle of free speech continues and organizations like WikiLeaks are at the frontline in this battle. This is an experiment of democracy and we are now seeing the unhindered revolutionary force of the First Amendment. What could happen if we start exercising the right to freely speak and associate with one another to claim our own uncompromising power?

Reactionary Islamic Fundamentalism And The ISIL (or ISIS )
By Larry Everest

The last 12 plus years of the “war on terror” show that imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism reinforce each other, even as they clash. Supporting either ends up strengthening both

Monsanto's Roundup And Regulators With Something To Hide
By Colin Todhunter

In 2011, Earth Open Source said that official approval of glyphosate (the main ingredient in the weedkiller Roundup) had been rash, problematic and deeply flawed . Its comprehensive review of existing data suggested that industry regulators in Europe had known for years that glyphosate causes birth defects in the embryos of laboratory animals. The review raised questions about the role of the powerful agro-industry in rigging data pertaining to product safety and its undue influence on regulatory bodies

In The Struggle For Health Care Justice: Interview With Marianne Hoynes
By Mickey Z.

Hoynes has learned firsthand what it’s like to be sick in America today and advocates for healthcare justice for Single Payer bill HR-676. Such a change, she declares, will allow “all Americans to have the exact same access to affordable health care, despite their illness or economic circumstance.”

A Cri de Coeur
By Steven Earl Salmony

Activities such as hand crafting, tool making, home building and farming need to be localized not corporatized. Families and communities need gardens and food markets. Increases only in the size of the human population, locally and globally, must be limited humanely. Another way of living in the world we inhabit is already visible on the far horizon

Vindictive ‘Democracy’
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

A government must not carry forward the agenda unleashed by Manmohan Chidambaram-Montek team of corporate agents. Narendra Modi became Prime Minister with a huge mandate from the people and he definitely owe it to the people that he will not let them down in their expectations and hopes

Who Is Responsible For Climate Change?
By Countercurrents

Calculating the cumulative cost of carbon dioxide emissions gives new insights into the question of who is responsible for climate change. One of the major reasons for the failure of the 2009 Climate Convention Conference in Copenhagen was the issue of carbon debt

India Faces Climate ‘Isolation’ Warns Ex Minister
By Ed King

India faces isolation at UN climate change negotiations unless it relaxes its famously hardline attitude towards accepting greenhouse gas emission cuts

US Independence Celebration Reality-Check Chronology Of
US Speculative Investment Banking Instigated Genocide

By Jay Janson

A chronology of genocide meant to remind those carried away by criminally deceiving, military promoting TV that there is a horror of horrors truth which will in time come out. Nuremberg Principles law has been not thought of as applying to the US and NATO, but the inevitable shift in the balance of economic power will probably produce a reconstituted UN capable of creating a court to try citizens of US and NATO nations

05 July, 2014

The U.S. Elite Run A Ukrainian Genocide While American Public Are Ignorant of It
By Eric Zuesse

On Wednesday, July 2nd, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko resumed unlimited war against the residents of southeastern Ukraine, whom he calls “terrorists” for their wanting not to be killed by his troops. European leaders (especially Merkel of Germany, Hollande of France, and Putin of Russia) urged him not to resume his bombing campaign against the southeast, but the U.S. (specifically President Obama) supports the bombings, and that’s enough for Poroshenko; so, he did it. As the U.S. State Department said, “he has a right to defend his country.” Reuters reports that Poroshenko gave as his reason for the resumption, “to rid Ukraine of ‘parasites’.” Adolf Hitler had given the same reason for ethnically cleansing his country

Why America Hates And Despises Victims
By Eric Zuesse

Here are photos of residents in southeastern Ukraine and of their homes that we bombed yesterday, and you see the corpses, and the grieving survivors. But Americans call them "terrorists," even though these people never were that, and even though America is funding the terrorism against all the residents in southeastern Ukraine, to force them to either die or else flee, so that they won't be able to vote in future Ukrainian elections, and so that the government we installed in a February coup in Kiev will stay installed, even if Ukraine becomes again a democracy

Ukraine: Your Tax Dollars at Work, In a Far-Away Land
By Eric Zuesse

This Is What Ethnic Cleansing Looks Like (After the Cleansing)

Washington’s War Crimes Spread From Africa And The Middle East To Ukraine
By Paul Craig Roberts

A person might think that revulsion in “the world community” against Washington’s wanton slaughter of civilians in eight countries would have led to War Crimes Tribunal warrants issued for the arrest of presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and many officials in their regimes. But the vocal part of “the world community”–the West–has become inured to Washington’s crimes against humanity and doesn’t bother to protest. Indeed, many of these governments are complicit in Washington’s crimes, and there could just as well be arrest warrants for members of European governments

Israel Bombs Gaza Strip, Masses Army On Border
By Patrick Martin

Israeli warplanes struck the Gaza Strip , hitting at least 15 targets in the blockaded Palestinian territory, causing extensive damage and wounding at least 10 people, including a pregnant woman and a 65-year-old man

HARDtalk — An Intellectual Ambush Masquerading As Truth
By Prof. William A. Cook

Dr. Pappe fortunately is diplomatic, forthright, and capable of avoiding Sackur’s strategy to condemn his work as non-academic and biased toward the Palestinians. Sakur’s questioning continues to interrogate Pappe as one sided pointing out that after all “stuff happens” in wartime, borrowing a phrase from our own intellectual wizard, Donald Rumsfeld. Pappe’s response is both truthful and honest and it that fractures Sakur’s deflection of the real history Pappe records in his work

On A Critique of Ilan Pappe By Gilad Atzmon
By William James Martin

Gilad Atzmon's crticism of Ilan Pappe for his Hardtalk interview misses the point

One Percenter Corporatocracy And Huge Global Deaths -
Make 4 July Independence From America Day

By Dr Gideon Polya

An egregiously One Percenter-threatened World should urgently make the Fourth of July Independence from America Day. Make no mistake, the World loves and is inspired by the best of America, and notably by the best of its entertainers, sportsmen, writers, scholars, scientists, musicians, artists, actors, heroes and activists, and in particular we love American ideals as expressed in the American Declaration of Independence and the small community values of friendship, goodwill, tolerance and altruism. However America has progressively fallen into the hands of the Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist One Percenters with dire consequences for Americans and the World

The Fourth of July— The Spirit of 1776 And The Celebrations
By A D Hemming and Bati Ahmed

Celebrations will be coming up to “celebrate” the Fourth of July across the USA the fourth day of this month with bands playing, militarism glorified and implicitly the imperialism never mentioned at such parades. What’s wrong with this picture? Everything!

Out-Of-The-Box Thinking
By Janet Surman

Inside the box we are trapped with our vision limited by firmly entrenched outlooks on life and all that we have been persuaded to believe throughout our lives which repeatedly reminds us there is no alternative. It may sometimes seem pointless to even begin to imagine – 'yeah, but - ' do I hear someone say?

Burning The Witches
By Priyanka Dass Saharia

Bihurama Ganju, a resident if Gurunjuli village along the Assam-Arunchal border was beaten to death on 3rd July by the villagers for allegedly practicing witchcraft. The villagers believed the practice to be the real cause behind the long spell of diseased faced by them, and though the 40 involved have been arrested by the police, this incident is simply one in a hundred similar alleged ‘witchcraft’ lynching that goes on in the area

The Rivers In Spate: Wrath Of The Elements
By Sukumaran C. V.

A poem composed in the backdrop of the June 2013 Uttarkhand flash floods that claimed more than 6000 human lives

Sri Lanka: Not A Society At Peace But A Society Of Plunderers
By Nilantha Ilangamuwa

My main question is that what will happen if Mr. Tony Abbott, continues to ignore the fact that a family outside the elite clan which grabbed the power and resources in last few decades maintains impunity while de-establishing the very idea of the state, in Sri Lanka? Will the Honourable Prime Minister have an answer to this question?

Should International Refugee Law Accommodate Climate Change?
By United Nations News Centre

Can the United Nations help to protect people seeking safety abroad if their homes and jobs are destroyed by prolonged drought, rising sea levels or other climate change-related phenomena in the same way as if they were displaced by war or human rights abuses? The short answer, today anyway, is no

Terror In The Skies
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

On July 3, 1988, in an unprovoked move, US carrier USS Vincennes fired two missiles at an Iranian passenger plane, Iran Air flight 655 which was on route to Dubai. All 290 innocent civilians were killed. The Untied States did not apologize or admit to wrongdoing. Washington has always maintained that the shooting down of the passenger plane was an accident. But was it?

03 July, 2014

46 Indian Nurses Made Captive In Iraq
By Countercurrents.org

46 Indian nurses stranded in the militant-controlled city of Tikrit in Iraq have been moved "against their will" to another location and are in ISIS captivity

July 4th Militarist Bunkum (an encore by request)
By Paul Craig Roberts

Did you know that 85 to 90 percent of war’s casualties are non-combatant civilians? That is the conclusion reached by a nine-person research team in the June 2014 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The deaths of soldiers who are fighting the war are a small part of the human and economic cost. Clearly, wars do not protect the lives of civilians. The notion that soldiers are dying for us is false. Non-combatants are the main victims of war. Keep that in mind for July 4th, which is arriving tomorrow

Dramatic Decline Of Caribbean Corals Can Be Reversed
By Marianne de Nazareth

The massive explosion of our human population seems to be taking an adverse toll on every corner of the planet. Even the beautiful corals of the Caribbean have not been spared. Frightening, considering that, we humans do not realise that life is a complex web of all species of flora and fauna. Unless there is a balance of everything, we are doomed to a future which is bleak and unsustainable

Deforestation Remedies Can Have Unintended Consequences
By Countercurrents

When it comes to fixing deforestation and forest degradation, good intentions can lead to bad outcomes, finds a new study by two University of Florida scientists

Climate Crisis Migration Is Increasing In Africa
By Countercurrents

Climate crisis is forcing people to migrate, leave their homes and occupation. It's being observed in Africa and in the Pacific island states

Price Tag To 2° Celsius Target: $800 bln Additional Annual Global Investment Needed
By Countercurrents

To limit climate change to 2° Celsius, low-carbon energy options will need additional investments of about US $800 billion a year globally from now to mid-century, finds a new study published in the journal Climate Change Economics

“This Land Is Your Land”: The Forgotten Verses (Know Your History)
By Mickey Z.

If you were to open your mouth and belt out the words “this land is your land,” you could rest assured that someone nearby would add: “this land is my land.”

Bangladesh: The Enduring Legacy
By Fazal M. Kamal

In spite of its complete hold on all branches of government, evidently, the enduring legacy of the present administration in Bangladesh is going to be its abject failure to ensure safety and security for people’s life, limb, liberty and property. Aside from its inability to solve murders and disappearances over the years the ruling party has been in office, now what is obvious and scary---and worse still---is the degeneration of many members of what are purported to be law enforcing units

The Hindu Extremist Agenda Of Residential And Social Segregation
By Vegetarian Supremacy And Caste Bigotry

By Iniyan Elango

There are very many flat complexes, gated communities, residential neighbourhoods and townships all over India which are openly advertised for “Brahmins Only” in the Indian printed and web media

Uttarakhand: A Disaster, Conveniently Forgotten
Sushmita

I had written this article after our visit to Uttarakhand post disaster for a study on the impacted livelihoods of the people, initiated by Tata Institute of Social Sciences. I never published this. But the recent reports on the situation of Uttarakhand and rehabilitation measures (not ) taken so far are disturbing and hence I found it relevant to publish some of my observations from the fateful months that had followed the disaster

On Ramadan, Socialism And The Neighbor’s Beat Up Car
By Ramzy Baroud

Ramadan was an exacting platform through which poverty and deprivation were devalued so that when Ramadan was over, we felt grateful for the little we had, before we resumed our struggle for the rights and freedoms we truly deserved

Acquiescing To Big Biotech: The Drive To Force GMOs Into Britain Is Relentless
By Colin Todhunter

A report just published by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee on food security in Britain supports Environment Secretary Owen Paterson's plan to push ahead with growing genetically modified (GM) crops in England . However, it doesn't mention which crops would actually be grown

Pakistan : New Postcard From Hell
By Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja

Once in power, recent Pakistani politicians act like kings and queens with marked indifference to the public interest. By their sadistic thinking and vicious design, they have created a new Hell for the masses to be entrenched in warfare. Pakistan needs a Navigational Change for its FUTURE and a new political system of governance to be articulated by the new educated and proactive visionary generation of the people

Pay No Attention To The Apocalypse Behind The Curtain
By David Swanson

Having accepted war, we try for cheaper wars, better wars, even more one-sided wars, and what do we get? We get warnings from respectable war supporters that we're beginning to make war the norm and risking continual warfare

When Indira Gandhi Wanted To Acquire A Plot Of Land In Srinagar
By Abdul Majid Zargar

In May 1962, Indira Gandhi, while on a visit to Srinagar along with her Prime Minster Father Pandith Nehru, expressed her wish to Sadri-Riyasat , Karan Singh to acquire a plot of land in Srinagar. Singh readily offered one from his own estate of Karan Mahal adjoining Shankracharya hills, free of cost. Nehru agreed to the arrangement provided no rules or regulations had to be changed

01 July, 2014

Hindu Nationalism In The USA: A Report On Nonprofit Groups Released
By J.M.

This report compiles publicly available tax records, newspaper articles, and other materials on non-profit groups in the United States affiliated with the Sangh Parivar (family of Hindu nationalist groups) from 2001-2014, documenting a segment of the projects and priorities of U.S.-based Hindu nationalism. This report discusses the strategies and activities of Hindu nationalist groups in the United States in four areas of mobilization

Israel Attacks Palestinian Territories After Bodies Of Missing Youth Discovered
By James Cogan

The bodies of three Israeli teenagers were discovered overnight, buried in a shallow grave in a field northwest of Halhoul, a town inside the West Bank territory of the Palestinian Authority. Halhoul is only a short distance from where they were last seen hitchhiking to a nearby illegal Israeli settlement on June 12. According to initial media reports, Naftali Fraenkel and Eyal Yifrah, both 16, and Gilad Shaer, 19, were most likely shot shortly after they disappeared

In The Death of 3 Israeli Teens, The Occupation Itself Deserves Scrutiny
By Juan Cole

It should be fairly obvious that if you take adolescents into the middle of the Palestinian West Bank and steal Palestinian land and build houses on it and shoot at Palestinians trying to harvest their crops nearby and bulldoze down their homes or dig tube wells so deep as to cause the Palestinian wells to run dry– if you engage in this settler-colonial enterprise, then you are exposing those adolescents you drag with you into it to danger

Whose Security? How Washington Protects Itself And The Corporate Sector
By Noam Chomsky

As we are all surely aware, we now face the most ominous decisions in human history. There are many problems that must be addressed, but two are overwhelming in their significance: environmental destruction and nuclear war. For the first time in history, we face the possibility of destroying the prospects for decent existence -- and not in the distant future. For this reason alone, it is imperative to sweep away the ideological clouds and face honestly and realistically the question of how policy decisions are made, and what we can do to alter them before it is too late

Iraq Crisis And The Oil Situation
By Tom Whipple

It looks as if there will be higher and possibly much higher oil and gas prices coming soon. If ISIS decides that the way to finish off the Shiite “infidels” is by cutting their oil revenues, then a bombing and terror campaign against southern Iraqi oil installations and oil workers would be a likely result. It would not take much to send the foreigners running. The Chinese are already moving out some of the 10,000 oil workers they have in southern Iraq, and others are likely to follow as we have seen in so many other places

Pity The Children
By Chris Hedges

People maimed physically or psychologically by the violence, especially the Iraqi and Afghan children, will never escape. Time and memory will play their usual tricks. Those who endured war will begin to wonder, years from now, what was real and what was not. And those who did not taste of war’s noxious poison will stop wondering at all

Key Book Review: “Capital In The Twenty-First Century” By Thomas Piketty
By Dr Gideon Polya

“Capital in the Twenty-First Century” by French economist Professor Thomas Piketty (Paris School of Economics, France) is a very readable, information-rich, must-read book about the basis of capital accumulation inequality past, present and future

Plastic Debris On Oceans' Surface Enters Food Chain
By Countercurrents

Plastic debris in the ocean has started entering ocean food chain

US Supreme Court Sets Powerful Limits For Cell Searches, Fails To Protect Internet Streaming
By Electronic Frontier Foundation

In a groundbreaking decision on cell phone privacy, the court set powerful limits for police searches of cell phones, ruling in two consolidated cases that law enforcement must get a warrant before accessing the data on an arrested person's cell phone

Sexual Assault On Four Girls In Haryana In The Context Of Dalit Rights To Common Land
A Status Report on Bhagana by AFDR, PUDR and WSS

The incidents in Bhagana are a perfect example of the impunity that the powerful and dominant caste groups enjoy when they commit crimes on the oppressed and marginalised sections of society. Their confidence that they can get away with anything they do makes them repeat these crimes again and again

Striving For Gender Justice: Overcoming Obstacles
By Ram Puniyani

The recently released Nikahnama (Marriage Norms) by Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) is one such leap by Muslim women to overcome the shackles of patriarchal grip on the Muslim women. Model Nikahnama released by BMMA (June 23, 2014) is an important step in this direction, in the direction of empowering Muslim women This tries to give the solution to various problems faced by Muslim women. It outlines the various steps for which the large section of Muslim women is longing for

 




 

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