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30 June, 2014

Anger Follows Facebook's Secret Study To Manipulate Emotions
By Jon Queally

New details surrounding how Facebook allowed academic researchers to conduct a secret experiment on nearly 700,000 of its users to determine if digital manipulation of their emotions could be achieved has spurred widespread condemnation and new fears about the power of such systems when turned against the millions of people who use them on a daily basis

So, You Think You Know Iraq?
By Hussein Al-alak

As for ISIS being a “Sunni” uprising, the word alone seems to apply legitimacy to it’s aims and dubious ambitions, but with Iraq, like Syria, being predominantly Arabic speaking countries, the presence of fighters from Chechnya, Libya, France, Somalia, The United Kingdom, Pakistan, Malaysia, Turkey, Germany, Spain and America to name a few, seems to indicate that of a “Sunni” trend of Islam it maybe, but as for it being an “uprising” in the interests of Iraq, or Iraq’s people, it most certainly is not!

The Malaysian Link To Terror In Syria
By Chandra Muzaffar

Since April 2014, the Malaysian media has carried numerous stories of Malaysians who are directly or indirectly linked to terrorist groups operating in Syria, and to a lesser extent, Iraq. We are told that they see themselves as “jihadis” who are fighting for an Islamic cause. There are unconfirmed reports that some of them have been killed in the on-going conflict in Syria

Sustainable Development Goals Face $2.5 Trillion Funding Shortfall
By Sophie Yeo

The UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) will fail unless governments and businesses find an extra US$ 2.5 trillion a year to support them. The World Investment Report 2014, which the UN launched recently in Nairobi, found that between $3.3 trillion and $4.5 trillion would be needed in the developing world to deliver the goals as they appear in drafts so far

Jean-Claude Juncker: The Gravedigger Of The European Union
By Dr. Ludwig Watzal

The EU leaders have chosen the worst of all options and confirmed Jean-Claude Juncker as the next President of the EU Commission. Against massive opposition from Britain’s David Cameron and Viktor Orban from Hungary, Juncker was pushed through against all the odds. For an organization that is close to collapse, an alcoholic and heavy smoker is an optimal choice to lead the EU in the abyss

California Teachers Take Another Hit From Politicians
By Ann Robertson & Bill Leumer

With Democratic Governor Jerry Brown in office since 2011 and the Democratic Party winning a supermajority in the state legislature in 2012, one might think that organized labor was secure and riding high. At least, that is the impression organized labor projects during campaign season. But the Democratic politicians have used their supermajority to serve up a cruel bill of fare to working people, who are still trying to digest it

The Neo-Liberal Model And Its Sycophants
By Anu Muhammad

The Parliament of Bangladesh has passed the budget of 2014-15 on 29 June. Every year the budget episode appears as source of fear for the people in general. There is tension about another wave of price rise, along with the rise of tax burden. This year was no exception

The IB Report: A Potential Threat To The Real National Interest And Security
By Sukumaran C. V.

If you peruse the 20 page IB report, you will feel that even if the IB is very poor in its linguistic skills, it is very rich in its unconditional support to the corporate giants that destroy the Environment and the livelihood of the vast majority of common people of this nation and are potential threats to the national security and wellbeing, if national security means the security and wellbeing of the common people

29 June, 2014

US Escalates Intervention In Mideast Crisis
By Patrick Martin

The Obama administration has stepped up its military involvement in the civil war that has spread from Syria to Iraq, further fueling the slaughter and heightening the level of destruction and human suffering throughout the region. On Thursday, the White House asked Congress to authorize $500 million for direct US military training and equipment for Sunni insurgents fighting the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad

America Seems To Be Losing Ukraine's War
By Eric Zuesse

Indications Its Kiev Regime Is Crumbling. Blowback to America Could Be Substantial

Cold War Renewed With A Vengeance While Washington Again Lies
By Paul Craig Roberts

Washington is organizing the world against Russia and China for Washington’s benefit. On June 27 Washington’s puppet states that comprise the EU issued an ultimatum to Russia.The absurdity of this ultimatum is obvious. Militarily, Washington’s EU puppets are harmless. Russia could wipe out Europe in a few minutes. Here we have the weak issuing an ultimatum to the strong

Chaos, Destruction, Death And Refugees: The Decades Long Failure Of US Wars
By Arshad M Khan

The refugees have multiplied ... millions from Iraq to Syria then elsewhere as Syrians themselves, again in the millions, flee their own country; refugees from Libya, from Somalia, and earlier from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos ... in a world of whose making? Now there is Ukraine, so far a trickle but an increasing daily reminder Since many of the world's refugees are a direct result of American policy, surely we can provide more assistance towards their upkeep

The Hounds Of War: A Dedication To Our Leaders
By William A. Cook

Obama's obviously failed approach to Iraq does not lead Obama's supporters to demand his exile. The demand that people like Kristol and Wolfowitz disappear is not based in a noble regard for realist foreign policy. It is an expression of the increasingly desperate effort to hold on to a formative weltanschauung, one which was forged in Iraq and is now dying there

Protest Against Illegal Spying: Groups Fly Airship Over NSA's Utah Data Center
By Electronic Frontier Foundation

The environmental campaigning group Greenpeace, digital rights watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Tenth Amendment Center (TAC) joined forces on June 27, 2014 to fly an airship over the NSA's data center in Utah to protest the government's illegal mass surveillance program

Courage: Showing Solidarity With Whistleblowers and Defending Our Right to Know
An Interview with Sarah Harrison

Sarah Harrison is a British journalist, legal researcher, and WikiLeaks Investigation Editor. She works with WikiLeaks and is a close adviser to Julian Assange. Harrison accompanied National Security Agency whistleblower , Edward Snowden, on a high-profile flight from Hong Kong to Moscow while he was sought by the United States government. She is Director of the new Courage Foundation which seeks to defend whistleblowers as well as our right to know

No US Sanctions Against Venezuela, Say Asia-Pacific Socialists
By Green Left Weekly

We, the undersigned parties and organizations in the Asia region, condemn the moves by the United States government to impose sanctions on Venezuelan citizens it deems to have “abused human rights”

Ecology of Fear
By Countercurrents

Fear isn't just a human emotion; it's also a powerful ecological phenomenon. Geoff Trussell, professor and director of Northeastern's Marine Science Center in Nahant, Massachusetts, has been studying the ecology of fear since he first came to the university back in 2002. He's discovered some surprising facts: When prey living in the intertidal zone sense a predator nearby, they are much less efficient at converting energy into growth. They produce so much nervous energy in the form of elevated metabolism, stress hormones, heat-shock proteins, and antioxidant enzymes that there isn't a lot left over to build new tissues

Climate Crisis: Nothing Substitutes For Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions
By Countercurrents

The politically expedient way to mitigate climate change is essentially no way at all, finds a comprehensive new study by University of Chicago (UoC) climatologist Raymond Pierrehumbert. His study, published in Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, brings together findings from the scientific literature with new research and analysis. Its conclusions are clear. Among the climate pollutants humans put into the atmosphere in significant quantities, the effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the longest-lived, with effects on climate that extend thousands of years after emissions cease

Elbit: Exporting Oppression From Palestine To Latin America
By Scott Campbell

One of the top occupation profiteers in Israel is the defense firm Elbit Systems. The largest non-governmental defense company in the country, its revenue stood at $2.83 billion in 2010. Using knowledge and expertise gained from assisting in the occupation of Palestine, Elbit has made millions exporting surveillance and defense materiel worldwide – and increasingly so to Latin America

Get On The Bus: 100 Years Before Rosa (Know Your History)
By Mickey Z.

To credit Rosa Parks alone not only involves ignoring some crucial history about collective efforts, solidarity, and 1955 -- it also erases the name of Elizabeth "Lizzie" Jennings from radical Big Apple lore. We are just days away from the 160th anniversary of when Lizzie Jennings -- a 24-year-old schoolteacher setting out to fulfill her duties as organist at a church on Sixth Street and Second Avenue -- fatefully waited for the bus on the corner of Pearl and Chatham

Watchdog or Lapdog : How Media ‘Covers’ Modi
By Subhash Gatade

Thanks to social media especially Twitter that the world at large came to know how PM Modi addressed Bhutan as ‘Nepal’ and later Ladakh in his maiden tour outside India and his speech to the National assembly there when members of the assembly as well as other dignitaries were listening with rapt attention. Not very many media outlets even reported this incident and thus saved him from many embarrassing moments

The Pervesion of Identity Politics: Dhemaji Blasts 2004
By Priyanka Dass Saharia

I would like to take the readers back to 2004 , Independence day, when amidst a jubilant parade of children and adults celebrating 57 years of independence were bombed to death right near the college gates by a remote controlled bomb attack. It was in the remote district of Dhemaji in the north bank of the river Brahmaputra. To quell the precipitating chaos of the situation, the police opened tear gas and lathi charges. 13 people were dead; 10 children and the rest being women

How To Create The Ideal Government And Society
By Roger Copple

This article is not specifically about the exploited working class, the disappearing middle class, or the still-controlling ruling class. Instead, it is about describing how local, state, and the national governments can be improved, preferably under a new national constitution

Religious Pluralism And Dialogue
By M. M. Abraham

Religious plurality has been a fact throughout history. In the past, various religions existed in isolation from each other and without serious encounter. They were almost indifferent to one another as long as they were faced with no serious threats to their existence from others. Today, however, the situation has drastically changed. There is an increasing awareness of the plurality of religions in almost every part of the world

Honour Killing In South Asia
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava

Honour killing is rampant in South Asia where in its core countries India and Pakistan each about 1000 killings take place every year according to Honour Based Violence Awareness Network (HBVA) . It means about six women are daily killed in the name of protecting honour of the family and society or caste or groups

27 June, 2014

Region-wide War Threatens As Iraqi State Disintegrates
By James Cogan

The war raging in Iraq between a Sunni uprising led by the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad—and the effective disintegration of the Iraqi nation-state it has caused—has drawn in not only the United States but, inexorably, countries across the Middle East and around the world

Tweet This! ISIS And Social Media
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

What is the purpose behind tweeting gruesome images of mass killings in Iraq; proposing that Westerners are being recruited, and in some cases, ‘ordered to go back to Britain' to continue the ‘jihad'; prompting the British PM David Cameron to warn that ‘jihadist were planning to attack Britain' ( The Telegraph )? Regardless of where these tweets are being originated, one must surely wonder Cui bono?

The Syrian Election And ISIS In Iraq
By Judy Bello

Let the Iraqis and the Syrians have a chance to restore their countries and their lives. We don't own them. We haven't earned even the privilege to call ourselves their friends. Let us give them the freedom to make their own choices and solve their own problems. Cede to them their right to self determination. That is what we really owe them

ISIS (DAASH) Now Recruiting In Palestinian Camps In Lebanon--Who Are Those Guys?
By Franklin Lamb

Both the Zionist poll and the informal one done in Palestinian camps in Lebanon find broad support for popular resistance against the Zionist occupation seen as having a positive impact by most respondents in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. These activities include stepped up demonstrations, building more support for the BDS campaign, strikes, marches, and mass refusals to cooperate, though various acts of Resistance to confront the Zionist occupiers

More U.S. Killings And War Crimes in Iraq ? HELL NO!
By Larry Everest

The rulers of this country have brought incalculable death, suffering, and oppression to the people of the world. How long will we tolerate a world like this!? What do we need to be doing now?

A Revolution Of Ideas Is Needed: The Time For Change Is Now
By Graham Peebles

Worldwide, life is dominated by an unjust economic model – beloved by all colours on the political spectrum, which has infiltrated every area of life. The preeminent concern of 99% of humanity is the practicalities of daily living – how to pay for food and shelter, education and health care, water and sanitation. There is no time or energy for living, for creativity and self-enquiry, for exploring one's nature and the world

4 % Annual Global Wealth Tax To Stop The 17 Million Deaths Annually
By Dr Gideon Polya

An annual global wealth tax of about 4% would yield US$16 trillion annually and enable raising all countries to annual per capita incomes equivalent to the $6,000 per person per year of China and Cuba, countries for which annual avoidable mortality is zero (0) . This is a feasible option for stopping the Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust

Fighting Sexual Violence In A Country Whose Police Doesn’t Respond To Distress Calls
By Samar

Harsher laws is not going to curb sexual violence in India. Only thing that can is radical restructuring of the criminal justice system by making it responsive and responsible. Having dedicated teams to respond to emergencies might be a beginning but until and unless impartial investigations ending in speedy convictions become the norm, nothing will change on the ground

26 June, 2014

US Economic Output Tumbled By 2.9 Percent In The First Quarter
By Andre Damon

The US economy contracted at a 2.9 percent annual rate in the first three months of this year, the sharpest quarterly fall in output since 2009, according to data released Wednesday by the Commerce Department. The figure was the second revision to the gross domestic product (GDP) estimate released in late April, and is the biggest such revision on record

A New Recession And A New World Devoid Of Washington’s Arrogance?
By Paul Craig Roberts

A final number for real US GDP growth in the first quarter of 2014 was released today. The number is not the 2.6% growth rate predicted by the know-nothing economists in January of this year. The number is a decline in GDP of -2.9 percent. The negative growth rate of -2.9 percent is itself an understatement. This number was achieved by deflating nominal GDP with an understated measure of inflation

Child Labour: A Global Scourge
By Ashley Tseng

In its latest report on the issue, “Marking Progress Against Child Labour: Global Estimates and Trends,” the International Labour Organization (ILO) said that in 2012 at least 168 million children were working in conditions that fell under its definition of “unacceptable” or exploitative child labour

Recollection Of Things Learned: Remembering Socialism By Gaither Stewart
Book Review By William Hathaway

An excellent book for understanding our times

Is There No Hope For The River Ganga?
By Marianne de Nazareth

The Ganga Action Plan could be called a knee jerk reaction begun as a "cleanliness drive" but its effectiveness could however be stamped for posterity, if the measures are integrated within the long-term objectives and master plans of the cities, which are constantly being formed without adequate attention to the disposal of wastes. It IS possible, rules must be structured and forced into place and the public must be sensitised on their role in the scheme of a cleaner and purer mother Ganga

Innovation In Indian Television: Connecting Lives Across The Border
By Ravi Nitesh

An Indian television group has launched a new television channel. The specialty of this channel is that it caters Indian audience with Pakistani content. This channel is presenting handpicked stories from Pakistani writers. These stories revolve around the everyday life of people in Pakistan

Lest We Forget The Emergency
By Avneesh Kumar

In Indian history, there are many instances that have largely been forgotten and one among them is the turbulent moment of emergency of 1975–1977, and that is despite its voluminous significance in the current state of things

25 June, 2014

Kurdish Region Rebuffs US Appeals For Unity With Iraqi Government
By James Cogan

Talks yesterday between US Secretary of State John Kerry and the leadership of Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region, ended with another fiasco for the Obama administration

Who Will Save Iraq?
By Shamus Cooke

The Middle East elites used ethnic and religious divisions and foreign intervention to defeat the pan-Arab movement, but the outcome for the Middle East has been nonstop catastrophe. The Middle East cannot be saved outside of a new ideology of political and economic unity, similar to the principles that drove the revolutionary pan-Arab socialist movement in the past

Can Putin’s Diplomacy Prevail Over Washington’s Coercion?
By Paul Craig Roberts

June 24, 2014. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is trying to save the world from war. We should all help him. Washington’s neoconservatives are jubilant. They regard Putin’s diplomacy as a sign of weakness and fear, and urge stronger steps that will force Russia to give back Crimea and the Black Sea naval base

Reverting To The Ummah: Who Is The ‘Angry Muslim’ And Why
By Ramzy Baroud

The alienated ‘angry’ Muslim youth is hardly a mystery, but a fully comprehendible historical inevitability. For many of them, even if they insist otherwise, the Ummah and Caliphate is more of incorporeal spaces than actual geographical boundaries. It is an escape to history, from poverty, alienation, oppression and foreign occupations. To understand that is to truly tackle the roots of violence. Ignoring it cannot possibly be an option

Global Economic Sharing: The Most Important Debate Of Our Time?
By Share The World's Resources

The implications of moving towards a global sharing economy are immense, but there are many reasons to embrace this simple concept - which is far more radical and urgent than it may at first seem. As a primer from STWR makes clear, the necessity of sharing the world’s resources is central to the most critical issues that face humanity in the 21st century

Uphold Sustainable Development! Condemn `Foreign Funded’
Destructive Development Promoted By IB!
Statement By Concerned Citizens

We, the following organizations and individuals are deeply shocked at the dubious methods used by the Intelligence Bureau of the Home Ministry of India, to discredit many important social activists in this country who have committed their lives in social action for years

Mohsin Sadique's Murder And The Solapur Jigsaw
By Siddharthya Roy

The randomness of the killing and the question it entails “who next?”, has been hard to digest for many

Don't Make The Return Of Pandits A Hindutva Issue
By Abdul Majid Zargar

It is of utmost importance that the return of Pandiths to their land is not tagged as an “Hindutva issue”. Their return must be graceful sans communal overtones & destination original homes & not separate ghettos. An important caveat is that Kashmiri Muslims have no issues or dispute with them & hence any talk of reconciliation, as put forward by various NGO’s, is simply not applicable

The Despicable State Of International Solidarity:
Bolivia Decorates And Cuba Hails Genocidal Sri Lanka
By Athithan Jayapalan

The Latin American bloc's deplorable endorsement of genocidal Sri Lanka has once again been illustrated with the arrival of President Rajapakasa on the 13 th of June 2014 in Bolivia to attend the summit of head of states and governments of the Group 77 (G77). The summit which brought together several heads of states from the developing world was ironically termed, with Rajapakse as a chief guest, ‘For a New World Order to Living Well'

The Great Human Delusion: All Parents Love Their Children
By Robert J. Burrowes

If you love your child, then listen to their feelings and let them do what these feelings tell them. That is what evolution intended. It had a few billion years to work it out

The Real Value Of Labour
By Janet Surman

It is on the juxtaposition and meaning of these words within the system we inhabit currently and the alternative system we may choose for the future that I intend to comment on here; price, cost, labour, value, money

24 June, 2014

In Baghdad, Kerry Threatens US Military Action
By Patrick Martin

Speaking at the end of a day-long series of meetings in Baghdad, US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Monday that President Obama could order military strikes against Sunni militants without waiting for the political restructuring of the Iraqi government that Washington has been demanding

The New Oil Wars in Iraq
By Michael Schwartz

Events in Iraq are headline news everywhere, and once again, there is no mention of the issue that underlies much of the violence: control of Iraqi oil. Instead, the media is flooded with debate about, horror over, and extensive analysis of a not-exactly-brand-new terrorist threat, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). There are, in addition, elaborate discussions about the possibility of a civil war that threatens both a new round of ethnic cleansing and the collapse of the embattled government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki

So That's Why They Kept The Drone Kill Memo Secret
By David Swanson

The memo admits that calling something a war isn't good enough; the targeted victim has to have been an imminent threat to the United States. But who gets to decide whether he or she was that? Why, whoever does the killing of course. And what happens if nobody ever even makes an unsupported assertion to that effect? Nothing, of course

Egypt's Gulag
By Justin Podur

Despite the recent electoral exercise, Egypt is currently ruled by the same military establishment that ruled it for decades. Since the 1970s that establishment has depended on Western support. Kerry, and months before, Baird, have renewed their support at a time of kangaroo courts, persecution of journalists, and mass death sentences

Egypt’s So-Called Justice System Is The Guilty Party And The World Should Act
By Alan Hart

The conviction of Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy and Bahar Mohamed for allegedly supporting a terrorist organization has nothing whatsoever to do with justice. It’s all about sending a Zionist-like message to the world – “The truth is whatever the masters of Egypt say it is and anybody who tells and spreads an alternative version of events will be punished.”

Syrian Refugees In Turkey
By Lilly Martin

But, the Turkish government said “You can not go home.” That is when they put up the barbed wire and guard towers. I hope at the same time they also told their guards to STOP raping. The refugee camp turned into a concentration camp. Women wanted to go home to Syria, but Turkey could not allow it, because they needed the refugees in order to send an international message that: #1. Syria’s government is so bad on the civilians, that they have to flee to Turkey; #2. The refugees are coming more and more, proving the crisis is getting worse, not better. #3. Turkey is the savior of poor Syrians

Remembering Fouad Ajami
By Prof. Francis A. Boyle

Fouad argued that the Bush Jr. War against Iraq was a “just war” and a “noble cause.” He had already sold out his soul years ago for Fame and Fortune to the Neo-Nazi Neo-Cons

Israel Can’t Force-Feed Occupation To Those Who Hunger For Freedom
By Jonathan Cook

Belligerent occupations – especially ones where no hope or end is in sight – engender evermore creative and costly forms of resistance, as the hunger strike demonstrates. A physical act of resistance can be temporarily foiled. But the spirit behind it cannot be so easily subdued

Presbyterian Divest: Bad News First Then Good News
By Mazin Qumsiyeh

In the past 10 days, Israeli occupation soldiers murdered 7 Palestinians (including a 13 year old child), injured dozens, kidnapped nearly 400, demolished many houses, destroyed contents and broken doors on hundreds of homes invaded in the middle of the night, blocked travel to hundreds of thousands, and continues to imprison thousands many on hunger strike for being held without charge for months. One of the people they kidnapped is also Samer Aleisawi who is famous for having the longest hunger strike in history as a political prisoner

Withdraw And Evacuate Puerto Rico Immediately
By Prof. Francis A. Boyle

Statement by Professor Francis A. Boyle Before the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization on Behalf of the National Sovereign State of Borinken, June 23, 2014

Who Is Watching The Watchers?
By John St. Lawrence

There needs to be a national conversation about an emerging police state, and who is watching the watchers. We either do not understand what is happening or refuse to acknowledge it

Teachers, Unions, Students Build Trinational Movement Against Neoliberal Education
By Roshan Bliss

Resistance to the global corporate education reform movement gained momentum last month as nearly 200 educators, students, and community allies from Mexico, Canada, and the US gathered in Chicago for the 11th Trinational Conference in Defense of Public Education. The conference was primarily attended by delegates from some of the most militant teacher unions from each of the three countries – all of whom have been fighting similar battles to defend against attacks on public education

Release Prof. G.N Saibaba
By Dr. Paramjit Singh Sahni

An open letter sent to Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare regarding medical treatment of Professor G.N. Saibaba

Love Thy Neighbor: Nawaz Sharif’s Trip To India
By Ram Puniyani

As far as Pakistan is concerned, more the democracy becomes strong there; the hold of army may weaken and peace process will become stronger.Stranglehold of army in Pakistan is inversely proportional to health of democracy and friendship with India. While in India the democratic ground is stronger, a positive attitude to the democratic Government of Pakistan will empower it vis a vis the feudal-army-mullah forces there, in turn strengthening the peace and making us focus more on basic needs of the people related to health, nutrition, education, employment rather than increasing the defense budget. It will help us to focus more on bread and butter rather than on guns and ammunition

Iraq And Global Humanity: How To Make Peace And Stop Bloodshed?
By Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja

American leadership statements typify what can go wrong when political imagination and policies are restricted to egoistic interests and exploitation of Iraq 's oil resources. There is no moral role model in a morally corrupt-moral political administration. Tyranny and transgression do not win the hearts and minds of people

23 June, 2014

US Moves Inciting Sectarian Warfare Throughout The Middle East
By James Cogan

The Obama administration is responding to the uprising in Iraq led by the Sunni extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) with intrigues and provocations that can lead only to yet more death and destruction in both Iraq and Syria, and risk triggering open war with Iran

Activists' Quick Opposition To War In Iraq Can Stop The Next War
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

Take action: We can stop the next Iraq War. A majority of Americans oppose a military attack. Contact Congress tell them to warn President Obama: a military attack violates the Constitution and is an impeachable offense

GMOs, Corporatocentrism And Economic Plunder: The Right To Challenge And Refuse
By Colin Todhunter

Across the globe, powerful corporations and their compliant politicians seek to sweep away peoples and their indigenous knowledge and culture in the chase for profit and control. They call this ‘development'. They will allow no one to stand in their way

The Power Of The Religions And The Helplessness Of The Leftists
By Saral Sarkar

The passages that follow were written in December 2004, after an Islamist young man in Amsterdam killed the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh because the latter had insulted Islam and the Muslims in general and because, in particular, in a film he had projected a verse of the Koran on the naked back of a woman. The contents of these passages however are as valid today as they were in 200

India's New Prime Minister: Does He Belong To The Times?
By Graham Peebles

As millions worldwide respond to the tone of the times and demand freedom, justice and a new, fairer civilsation, we ask: is Modi of the time? Is he the kind of man who will be able to empathise with the people; does he possess the vision and imagination needed to create a new way of living; is he kind and inclusive?

Modi Sarkar And The Threat To Constitution Of India
By Mukul Dube

What prevents Modi from saying, at any time now that he is in office, that as the previous governments were all right for their times, so the Constitution of India was all right for the past but now must be changed? It takes no genius to predict that soon enough this is what will happen. We have no reason to believe that the RSS has changed its view of the Constitution. It has been patient for long, and the time has now come for it to strike

Preventive And Rehabilitative Measures For Drug Addicted Youth
By Firdous Ah Sheikh

A Sociological Study of Rural Youth of Kashmir Valley

Know Your History: Remembering Lolita Lebrón
By Mickey Z.

When early American revolutionaries chanted, “Give me liberty or give me death” and complained of having but one life to give for their country, they became the enduring heroes of our (sic) history textbooks. Thanks to the power of the U.S. media and education industries, the Puerto Rican nationalists who just as passionately dedicated their lives to the cause of independence are known as criminals, fanatics, and terrorists. Case in point: Lolita Lebrón

22 June, 2014

Terror In Iraq; Roots And Motivation
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

As of writing this essay, it has become public knowledge that the group referred to as ISIS was trained by the United States to topple Syria’s President Assad. The purpose of this article is to give a comprehensive, chronological overview of events leading to the present day crisis, which by necessity may repeat some of the points raised in various excellent articles on ISIS

Will ISIS Create al-Sham Caliphate And Liberate Palestine?
By Franklin Lamb

It is unlikely that Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, among other countries in this region, are going to look much like what George Bush and Dick Cheney and their still active neocon advisers had in mind when they were beating the drums for a U.S. invasion of Iraq, Libya, and now Syria and Iran

In The USA, What Is Our Anti-War Option?
By Robert Barsocchini

What is our option if we want nothing to do with this obscene global murder, terror, and shakedown racket? There is only one realistic option: mass, non-violent mobilization and action

Sexual Violence- The New Normal
By Samar

Sadly, all South Asian countries witness conviction rates of less than 25 percent in cases of sexual assault. The only way out is radically restructuring the criminal justice systems of these countries. This would include of course mean making laws consonant with international standards – the Hudood ordinance must be repealed from Pakistan for instance. But even more importantly it would mean making the policing accessible and incorruptible, ensuring a robust witness protection system, and weeding out corruption from the judiciary. Till we achieve this, a gender just South Asia is a utopian idea

Tough Going For AAP In Punjab
By Jaspal Singh Sidhu

The AAP is being perceived as a movement, which needs people of zeal and commitment for demolishing the entrenched, the political class. Otherwise, the people of Punjab will stop fancying the AAP as a party different from other political dispensations

A Report And A Decision – More Than Meeting The Eyes
By Joe Athialy

In the past when governments ran out of reason, to discredit, divert resources and attention, and mount human rights abuses, it often resorted to accusations of taking foreign funds against all kinds of organisations. During the cold war period, ‘CIA funded’ was more fashionable. This time, the same arguments and intend is redeployed, but to test the ground as well. It’s sure to face stiff resistance

Black Oak Down
By Shepherd Bliss

A loud, crashing sound startles my young farm-hand Emily Danler awake in the dark of the night. She camps out in order to start picking berries at sun-up. My dog, inside, barks. I sleep through it all. Looking down the boysenberry field to the bottom of Kokopelli Farm that morning, tears come to my eyes. The tall, old black oak had split right down the middle of its deep, wide trunk. Though on my neighbor’s farm, it anchored my farm. It now lay slit down its center, broken, crashing across the fence. It evoked fear of my own death. Being old myself, 70 this year, I lamented the loss of another old creature

A Conversation With Henry David Thoreau
With Gary Corseri

It was a lazy, hazy day in June, and I had walked much around the Concord and Lexington Commons and the Concord Bridge where the “shot heard round the world”—igniting the American Revolution--had been fired. I gazed long at the humble stone-slate-slab. I sat and gazed and wandered back in reveries. A fly buzzed; I dozed….

22 June, 2014

Washington Escalates Intervention In Region-Wide Middle East War
By Bill Van Auken

With nearly 600 Green Beret “advisors” and other US troops in or set to be sent to Iraq over the coming days, the Pentagon announced Friday that it is negotiating rules of engagement that the regime in Baghdad rejected two-and-a-half years ago, before the final pullout of the American military. Key among these provisions, according to Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby, is blanket immunity from Iraqi or international law relating to the slaying of Iraqi civilians or other war crimes

Syrian Elections, Iraq Crisis - Impact on India, Regional & Global situation
By Feroze Mithiborwala

US interventionist policy in Iraq, Syria & the region leading to an impending disaster

Leaving Baghdad And Those Whom I love (Letter from an Iraqi Exile)
By Nesreen Melek

Baghdad is sinking. Who will save it...who? To the people who have big hearts, I send this letter and ask you to please help the Iraqi people before it is too late. Please

Iraq, ISIS, And Intervention : Just What Is Going On?
By John Chuckman

As so often is the case in foreign affairs, we will never know with precision what is happening in Iraq. The governments involved have reasons to disguise what they are doing, and a number of governments are indeed at work there. The press doesn’t spend the resources needed to discover the facts, thus saving government considerable embarrassment and themselves a good deal of work. But, if you look carefully, there are enough bits of information scattered around to gain an adequate picture of events, just as you might detect what people had been eating from the crumbs and splashes left on a dinner table

20 June, 2014

The Democratic Push To Bomb Iraq Again
By David Swanson

People forget the extent to which Democrats, who controlled the U.S. Senate at the time, pushed for and supported the 2003 attack on Iraq. Remember them or not, theeeeeeeeeey're back! The Center for American Progress, the head of whose "action fund," former Democratic Congressman from Virginia's Fifth District Tom Perriello, slipped through the revolving door into a State Department job in February, is now pushing for "principled" bombings of Iraq. Principled or not, the Center for American Progress is funded by Lockheed Martin and other huge war profiteers

Who Won Iraq?
By Tom Engelhardt

Lost Dreams, Lost Armies, Jihadi States, and the Arc of Instability

ISIS And Regime Change In Iraq
By Shamus Cooke

Is Iraq following Syria into the genocidal abyss? There have already been reported massacres on both sides, and more should be expected as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) seeks to consolidate its victories while the Iraqi government mobilizes to reclaim what was lost

Iraqi Hydrocarbon Prize Of U.S. Invasion In Danger
By Nicola Nasser

Since Great Britain granted Iraq its restricted independence in 1932, the nationalization of Iraqi oil wealth was the national and popular battle cry for complete sovereignty. It is now the battle cry of the armed opposition. Iraq has been targeted by western powers since the “republic” under the late Abd al-Karim Qasim enacted law No. 80 of 1961, which deprived foreign companies of the right to explore in 99.5% of the Iraqi territory, but mainly since the Baath regime led by the late Saddam Hussein decided to nationalize the hydrocarbon industry on June 1, 1972

Professor Francis Boyle on Impeachment of Bush And Obama
By Paul Craig Roberts

In my day if an experienced professor of international and constitutional law, such as University of Illinois Professor Francis A. Boyle, called for impeachment of a president, it was a serious situation for the president. But no more. Today an American president can ride roughshod over constitutional lawyers, the US Constitution and US statutory law without any danger of impeachment. To avoid impeachment today, all a president has to do is to avoid having a sexual affair with a White House intern in the Oval Office, or is that the Oral Orifice

All Praise Belongs To George Dubya And His Pals!
By Fazal M. Kamal

All indications are that neither the vicious civil strife in Iraq nor the contentious debates in the United States will settle soon or lead to anything constructive. It’s more possible that that unfortunate country will find some settlement after splintering into three parts

Why Blocking The Revolving Door Won't Fix Human Rights Watch
By Kieran Kelly

A recent open letter decrying the links between Human Rights Watch ( HRW) Western powers was signed by two Nobel peace laureates and over 100 scholars. Belén Fernández wrote an outline of the problem – the “revolving door” which surely has a corrupting effect. However well-meaning most HRW employees are, and no matter how much of HRW's work is well-meaning, the organisation is tainted and it is not independent. The same is true of Amnesty International

MNCs In Bangladesh: Corruption, Commission And The Company men
By Anu Muhammad

The present government of Bangladesh seems to have become more aggressive than it was in its previous tenure about finalizing and signing agreements, and implementing big projects in energy and power, and in transport and communications sector. Expensive and risky projects, sometimes clearly against national interest, are being finalised without any parliamentary discussion or public consultation, any consideration of the consequences, and importance given to criticism and/or opinion from independent experts. Who are actually making decisions about these projects? How are these projects? Why is such haste?

Biometric National Population Register (NPR) Is Aadhaar By Another Name
By Gopal Krishna

How Rajnath Singh is wrong about Biometric NPR, the Prime Minister is right. No lessons being learnt from misuse of electoral database and census data by Big Data companies

Criminalising Dissent
By Colin Todhunter

The leaking of the IB report is timely. The new Modi administration seeks to speed up projects and the opening of India 's economy to private interests and to more fully embrace the tenets of neo-liberal economic doctrine (18). The report signals that even tougher times lie ahead for civil society and ordinary people who seek to hold officialdom to account as it continues to acquiesce to powerful corporate interests

The Ghosts Of 1984
By Priyanka Dass Saharia

The Indian State has been quick to harness economic benefits from its regional pockets but does it ensure an equal protection of their cultural, social and legal rights. Several Congress leaders were under the radar for allegedly inciting mobs towards communal violence which probably explains the silence of the legal machinery of the nation behind these riots. Courts relied on fabricated and manipulated statements made by the police rather than words of living witnesses of the massacres

18 June, 2014

Forty Indians Abducted In Mosul As Iraqi Security Forces Fight Back
By Countercurrents.org

40 Indian citizens had been kidnapped in the violence-hit Iraqi city of Mosul. The men are construction workers. India had not received any ransom demand. Meanwhile Iraqi security forces have battled rebels targeting the country's main oil refinery and have claimed to regain partial control of a city near the Syrian border

Sectarian Monster Reawakened: Redrawing The Map Of Iraq, Again
By Ramzy Baroud

The systematic political marginalization of Iraq's Sunni communities is both senseless and unsustainable. A new political and social contract is needed to re-order the mess created by the US invasion, and other foreign intervention in Iraq, including that of Iran

Who Are Iraq’s Sunni Arabs And What Did We Do To Them?
By Juan Cole

Sunni Iraqis had been in the 20th century cosmopolitan and often modernists. Many were liberals yearning for democracy. From 1968 they turned to more of a Soviet model, a strongly secular one. They have turned in desperation to rural fundamentalists who want a medieval caliphate only because of the vast reversal in their fortunes resulting from the Bush invasion and occupation, and the unfair policies of the Shiite government, which has turned them from an elite into an underclass. They are capable, trained, educated people. They aren’t going to put up with that, and if turning to al-Qaeda is the only way to avoid that fate, they are often willing now to do it

A Brief History of Iraq For Westerners
By David Swanson

During the 8 years of U.S.-led occupation people mistook purely irrational violence that had been bubbling under the surface for centuries for resistance to the occupiers, and now some imagine that part of the violence against the puppet government is motivated by grievances against that government

The IB Report Generously Promotes Foreign Interests
By Vandana Shiva

Intelligence agencies are supposed to protect the safety and security of a nation and its citizens from external threats. Tragically, we now have a report from the Intelligence Bureau that promotes the very foreign interests that are threatening our seed and food sovereignty, the livelihood of our farmers and the health of our citizens. The IB report, which was commissioned by the UPA government but submitted to the newly elected NDA government, blindly promotes genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). GMOs are the source of genetically modified foods

Foreign Hand In The IB Report?
Statement By Vandana Shiva, Aruna Rodrigues & Kavitha Kuruganti

India’s Sovereignty, Security and Freedom at risk- Is the IB being used by foreign corporations to take over India’s vital seed sector?

Antagonizing Palestinians: Australia’s Linguistic Blunder Snowballs
By Nicola Nasser

Reacting to antagonized Palestinian snowballing protests to her government’s decision on June 5 to reverse a 47-year old bipartisan consensus on describing eastern Jerusalem as “occupied,” Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on June 13 denied any “change in the Australian government’s position.” On June 5, Australian Attorney-General George Brandis in a statement said: ''The description of East Jerusalem as 'Occupied East Jerusalem' is a term freighted with pejorative implications, which is neither appropriate nor useful.''

Sardar Sir Passes Away
By Farooque Chowdhury

Sardar Fazlul Karim has passed away on the early hours of June 15, 2014 in a Dhaka hospital. He was 89. To many, the National Professor was Sardar Sir, a teacher. And, many knew, he was a communist to his last breath. He had no confusion about humanity’s journey to communism

Greatest Generation In Action: Zoot Suit Riots, June 1943
By Mickey Z.

Racist scapegoating is an enduring American tradition. White supremacy is a dangerous reality and continues to be a dangerous reality. Harking back to the “good old days” is neither a helpful nor revolutionary choice. It’s long overdue for those who benefit from this oppressive and corrupt system to recognize and reject the normalization of their subsequent privilege

State Intolerance Must Be Stopped
By Devika Mittal

Instead of working to curb this culture of intolerance which leads to enmity and riots, the government is only encouraging it. The state is becoming intolerant of dissent and in doing so, it is challenging the very spirit of democracy

Biometric NPR Makes Indians Worse Than Prisoners
By Gopal Krishna

Subject-Biometric NPR makes Indians worse than prisoners, violates Citizenship Act, Census Act and constitutional rights. An open letter to Rajnath Singh, Union Minister for Home Affairs

17 June, 2014

President Obama Orders US Soldiers Back To Iraq
By Jon Queally

As widespread unrest and civil war takes hold inside Iraq, President Barack Obama has told the U.S Congress he is sending combat-ready troops back into the country. Around 170 of those forces have already arrived and another 100 soldiers will be on standby in a nearby country such as Kuwait until they are needed

Washington Seeks Alliance With Tehran As Civil War In Iraq Intensifies
By Chris Marsden

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that Washington was willing to talk to Iran about collaborating to beat back a Sunni insurgency led by the Al Qaeda offshoot Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. ISIS has already gained control of most of Iraq’s Sunni regions in northern and central Iraq and is threatening Baghdad

A Voice From Kassab
By Judith Bello

An interview with Lilly Martin an American living in Syria with her Syrian husband

The Devil's Dynamo
By John Scales Avery

Why is the military-industrial complex sometimes called “The Devil's Dynamo”?

How To Forgive Your Torturer
By Ariel Dorfman

According to an Amnesty International Poll released in May, 45% of Americans believe that torture is “sometimes necessary and acceptable” in order to “gain information that may protect the public.” Twenty-nine percent of Britons “strongly or somewhat agreed” that torture was justified when asked the same question. For someone like me, who has been haunted by the daily existence of torture since the September 11, 1973 coup that overthrew Chilean President Salvador Allende, such percentages couldn’t be more depressing, but perhaps not that surprising

Love In The Time Of Cholera And Hélène Cixous
By Mara Ahmed

While I cannot deny the spectacular genius of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I’m left wondering if most great literature is filled with problematic representations of women and how they relate to men. I have to meditate on how quick we (men and women) are to justify female stereotypes: oh, it's a reflection of the times, it's symbolic, it’s a metaphor, an abstraction, it’s deconstruction. It seems almost provincial or petty to mention the fact that literary (and artistic) devices and explorations mostly play out on the bodies of women

Rethinking Rule Of Law In The Times Of Rape Bid On A Judge
By Samar

An attempt to rape a judge, that too in Judges’ Compound in Aligarh which remains under twenty four hour vigil of the Provincial Armed Constabulary speaks volumes about the status of law and order in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of India. Who will be safe on the streets when even a judge is not spared by the rapists? No one, in fact is, as evidenced by the recent spate of incidents of sexual violence against women from marginalised and dispossessed backgrounds

‘Boys Will Be Boys’...Hang The Women?: An Insensitive Uttar Pradesh
By David Lal

The statements of the political representatives concentrate on issue of security. However, the call for social change for gender equality and issue for patriarchal control over women rarely comes up. Further, various forms of violence against women doesn’t even becomes part of public discussion as if they don’t exist. It is argued that violence against women, until dealt in its complexity, will continue to exist

16 June, 2014

Civil War Escalates In Iraq Amid Reports Of Sectarian Massacres
By James Cogan

The Sunni extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), supported by Sunni-based tribal militias, continued its offensive over the weekend to incorporate large areas of north-western Iraq into the territory it already controls in neighbouring Syria and Iraq’s western Anbar province

Open Memo To War Criminal Tony Blair
By Alan Hart

I think those who described you as a “Bush puppet” and an “American stooge” were wrong. You are a neo-con. And it’s my guess that you colluded with America’s neo-cons to push President Bush to war. Could that be why you and your American neo-con associates don’t want the Chilcot Inquiry to publish the transcripts of your conversations with Bush?

Genocide, Great Wars, And Other Human Depravity
By John Chuckman

As for the idea of “Never again!” when it comes to human depravity, it is best to remember that the words are just a slogan – as we've conclusively proved over fifty years - and, like all slogans, it is selectively applied to sell something

Want To Change The World? Read This First
By Richard Heinberg

Do you want to change the world? More power to you. Start by identifying your core values—fairness, peace, stability, beauty, resilience, whatever. That’s up to you. Figure out what ideas, projects, proposals, or policies further those values, but also fit with the infrastructure that’s almost certainly headed our way. Then get to work. There’s plenty to do, and lots at stake

Fresh Water, Growth, Degrowth, And The Steady State Economy
By Geoffrey Matthews

One of the major reasons the concept of a steady state economy is not gaining traction is the omission of the role of fresh water in the production and maintenance of all its ecosystem and economic goods and services

Never Again? The Semantics of “Holocaust”
By Mickey Z.

More and more, I have witnessed anger, outrage, disbelief, and mockery from non-vegans in response to words like holocaust, concentration camps, slavery, rape, incarceration, and murder used in reference to non-humans, so I must ask: As activists -- as advocates for the voiceless trillions -- is it more important to be semantically correct or to be effective? What do you say?

Learning From Each Other Is Important: India & Bhutan
By Ravi Nitesh

With the first foreign tour of Indian Prime Minister to the neighbor country Bhutan, millions of eyes are looking towards this small country that is part of South Asia and situated between India and China (the two comparative big countries). The possibility of this high profile visit is being seen as diplomatic visit on economic purpose

Hate Crimes And Communal Polarization
By Ram Puniyani

The Modi Sarkar has been installed in power from last three weeks or so (May 16, 2014). While there is lots of hope from this government by sections of society, there are other types of fears which have started getting actualized and the consequences of that are being felt with great amount of horror. The culmination of this was the public lynching of an IT professional, Mohsin Shiekh, an IT manager from Sholapur, a resident of Pune

The Cuban Five: Terrorism As A Weapon Of Hegemony
By Chandra Muzaffar

Once again, the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) joins hands with the people of Cuba and justice-loving people in every nook and cranny of the planet, in demanding the immediate release of the three remaining prisoners from the Cuban Five who are still languishing in US jails, after 13 years

15 June, 2014

Hawks Push For Iraq War, The Rule Of Law Prevents It
By Kevin Zeese

The same people who got the US into the mistaken Iraq War are now urging President Obama to use military force in Iraq again. Republican hawks are using the violence in Iraq as a political tool that is escalating pressure for US military intervention. But, if the US follows the rule of law — both US and international law — the president does not have the authority to attack Iraq without Congressional and UN authorization

Letter From Baghdad In The Growing Shadow Of War
By Nesreen Melek

I will never forgive the Americans for the atrocities they committed in Iraq. The ones who are still here are protected in their Green Zone castle. For them, Baghdad has become another American city. I had lunch a week ago by the river Dijlah (Tigris), and there was a long wall—the Great Wall of America—facing the restaurant. I told my friend that it will be hard for me to swallow my food knowing that my people’s killers are facing us and are safe behind that wall

How Obama Lost Iraq And The War on Terror
By Shamus Cooke

The secular nations of Iraq, Libya, and Syria were virtually free of terrorism before U.S. military intervention, and now they’re infested. The war on terror has done nothing but destabilize the Middle East, create more terrorists, and drain the U.S. economy of billions of dollars it could have otherwise used towards jobs and social programs

Iran versus The West: The Oil And The Nuke
By Akbar E. Torbat

Iran has had two major disputes with the West that involved international legal organizations' scrutiny: its oil nationalization case in early 1950s and its nuclear program controversy in the past two decades. In both cases, Iran was put under economic sanctions while pursuing its national interests

From Egypt To Afghanistan : Electing Our Own Slavery
By Sherif Samir & Dr. Hakim

While people know that perpetuating the unequal status quo dominated by a greedy and militarized elite is enslaving for the human spirit, a helpless feeling prevails that we can't do much but vote once every four of five years

U.S. Resumes Drone Attacks In Pakistan After Six Month Lull
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

The United States Wednesday (July 11) resumed drone strikes against targets in Pakistan with two successive strike in North Waziristan killing 16 people

That Much Petroleum Is That Much Bullshit
By Nicholas C. Arguimbau

China Won the Oil War, and the Shale Oil Revolution is About to Shrivel Up

After The Harvest: Learning To Leave The Planet Gracefully
By Robert Jensen

The days of plenty are over, the high-energy phase of human life is coming to a close, and we have not yet learned all that we need to know — about ourselves or the world — to adapt to a new era

We Must Fix Civilisation To Survive
By Lionel Anet

Humanity is about to commit the greatest possible crime on all living things including ourselves

Why The U.S. Must Not Arm Syria’s Opposition: In Disagreement With Robert Ford
By Taj Hashmi

Paying heed to not-so-responsible advice to arm groups to topple the Assad regime would be disastrous and counterproductive. America should not ignore Russia, Iran, and Iraq (among others) who have geo-politic and other interests in Syria. It is time to work for restoring order in both Syria and more so in Iraq, in collaboration with others, including Russia, China, Syria, Iran, and Iraq

Syrian Students Restore Our Global Heritage, Tesserae by Tesserae….
By Franklin Lamb

. The people of Berhalia, like so many other Syrians this observer has met, feel deeply connected to their cultural heritage, and they pled their case to fighters on both sides of the conflict. Spare the country’s antiquities from the ravages of war—this was their message. An eyewitness reported that the hardened fighters appeared somehow moved, and soon a delegation of specialists in archaeological preservation left Damascus for Berhalia village to investigate

Foreign Policy Bait And Switch
By Jack A. Smith

President Obama chose to ignore the most important strategic aspect of U.S. foreign policy in his major address May 28 at West Point graduation ceremonies. It was perhaps thought politically wise to emphasize current events rather than military preparations for a possible major future confrontation with China

Boko Haram And The Crisis Of Authority In The Muslim World: The Shariah's Lost Soul
By Maryam Sakeenah

The founder of Islam had no time for extreme zealotry. ‘May the fanatics perish,’ he once commented. If he detected extreme or hateful behaviour in anyone he would condemn it immediately. Present-day leaders recall this, as they struggle to find ways of fighting terrorism

America To Watch Entanglement In Iraq’s Bloody Saga
By Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja

The informed and mature global community looks towards to those thinkers, educated and honest proactive leaders enriched with coherent unity of moral, spiritual, intellectual and physical visions and abilities to be instrumental to rescue the mankind from the planned encroachment of the few global warlords

A Few Minutes With The Iron Lady Of India
By Ravi Nitesh

An interaction with the world’s longest hunger striker

Report Of The 14 May 2014 Accident At The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant
By VT Padmanabhan,R. Ramesh, V Pugazhendi,Raminder Kaur, Joseph Makolil

AERB's accident analysis released by the PIB of the Government of India is not convincing as it does not tally with the available evidence. Incidentally, the 14 May accident was a culmination of the events that began on 9th May 2014, a day after the Supreme Court of India refused to order an independent investigation of the affair-la-KKNPP, on the strength of the assurances given by the AERB

Is Maharashtra Caste Blind or Caste Prejudiced?
By Anand Teltumbde

Maharashtra is far from being a caste blind progressive and secular state. It is the state, which is as badly prejudiced against Dalits as any other. The self-worn soubriquet of Phule-Ambedkarancha Maharashtra (Maharashtra of Phule and Ambedkar) has only served to fool the people

IB Report On Activists, People's Movements And NGOs An Attempt To Criminalise Dissent
By PUCL

People's Union for Civil Liberties condemns the attempt, in the guise of an Intelligence Bureau (IB) report submitted to the Prime Minister of India, to intimidate, slander, throttle and terrorise the voice of various citizens' groups, NGOs and individuals, who raise people's issues relating to the violations of their fundamental human rights guaranteed by the Indian constitution, concerns over violations of rights relating to their life, livelihood and well being and the life - threatening impact of `destructive development’ programmes adopted all across India

A World Of Indras And Akalyas
By Maharathi

A deserted mill, a dilapidated building, a crowded bus, train, market, theatre, temple, beach.... and now social media sites... women are dogged by the archetypal Indras always on the prowl for penetrating into Akalyas

12 June, 2014

Sunni Militant Army Vows To March On Baghdad
By Jon Queally

The al-Qaeda breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which has been seizing territory and key cities across eastern and north-central Iraq in recent days has vowed to march on the capital city of Baghdad, according to various news agencies

People Of The World Needs To Cooperate As U.S.A Fails In World Leadership
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava

There has come a time to organize a people movement at global level to arrest the spread of orthodoxies .When nations, leaders and global organizations have failed then people of the world must come together otherwise Mosul will be repeated in many countries

The Militarized Realities of Fortress America
By William J. Astore

I’ve been out of the military for nearly a decade, and yet I feel more militarized today than when I wore a uniform

#NotAllSoldiers?
By Mickey Z.

It takes more than obscene amounts of taxpayer subsidies to keep this criminal enterprise afloat. It also takes more than the volunteers willing to be paid to wage illegal, immoral, and eco-system-destroying wars. The DoD is be able to maintain its crime spree because most of us continue to unconditionally support the troops

The Legacy of World War II
By Elliott Adams

Returning to June 6th and what it means, the veterans and people I grew up among in the shadow of World War II did not talk about winning another war, they believed the world could not even survive another war – they talked about Nuremberg, what it meant and the hope that Nuremberg brought. As we remember that day, D-day, let us not loose sight of what all those lives were lost for, of what the people who lived through that war did to keep the scourge of war from ever consuming our world again. Make June 6th your day to study the Nuremberg Tribunals

Given The Lessons Shouldn't War Be Obsolete?
By Arshad M Khan

Through wars, often of doubtful legality, and a retreat from adherence to the rule of law, society has undergone a climate change to nobody's liking. Checking this one is easier ... we just have to hold our governments and elected leaders responsible

The Shame of Mental Health Care In The US
By Fazal M. Kamal

Here are some illuminating numbers: 1) 40 percent of the estimated number of adults with serious mental illness in the US doesn't receive mental health services. 2) $100 billion is the annual economic cost of untreated mental illness. 3) 63 million is the number of visits to physician offices, outpatient facilities and emergency rooms associated with mental health disorders each year. 4) 1.25 million is the estimated number of prison inmates across the US who have reported mental health problems. What's worse is that numerous people with psychological problems are incarcerated instead of being provided medical assistance

So You Want A Thatcherite Revolution? Free Trade,
Corporate Plunder And The War On Working People
By Colin Todhunter

Prior to the recent national elections in India , there were calls for a Thatcherite revolution to fast-track the country towards privatisation and neo-liberalism. Under successive Thatcher-led governments in the eighties, however, inequalities skyrocketed in Britain and economic growth was no better than in the seventies

Resisting Modi Through Mass Struggles
By Praful Bidwai

Unless the Congress rebuilds its base among the Dalits, Adivasis, lower OBCs and the urban poor, by agitating for their livelihood rights, it’s likely to go into steep, possibly terminal, decline – especially if it loses the coming assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana, as seems likely

11 June, 2014

Al Qaeda Offshoot ISIS Captures Mosul, Tikrit From Iraqi Government Forces
By Barry Grey

Iraq plunged further toward full-scale civil war when Sunni insurgents of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) took control of most of Mosul and Tikrit after four days of fighting. ISIS (also referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) seized government buildings, television stations, police headquarters, prisons, military installations and the airport in the country’s second largest city of Mosul when Iraqi army and police forces abandoned their posts and weapons and fled. Militants took control of the Iraqi city of Tikrit and freed hundreds of prisoners on Wednesday, police said, the second provincial capital to fall in two days

The Fall of Mosul And The False Promises of Modern History
By Juan Cole

The fall of Mosul to the radical, extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a set of historical indictments. It is an indictment of the George W. Bush administration, which falsely said it was going into Iraq because of a connection between al-Qaeda and Baghdad

Sexual Violence In Sri Lanka Deserves World's Attention
By Bianca Jagger

Why has the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict forgotten the Sri Lankan survivors?

I Too Have A Dream: That Life On Earth Shall Not Perish, But Rather Thrive Forever
By Glen Barry

I too have a dream, shared by many, that life on Earth shall not perish, but rather will thrive forever. I dream that all human beings and kindred species will be valued, loved, and revered. I dream we all may quickly learn to see our oneness with fellow humans, kindred species, and with the living biosphere. I dream this motivates us to come together and act swiftly and fearlessly to protect Earth

Frank Denial From A Leading Global Statesman
By Bill Henderson

The choice is indeed stark. Most of you know what we should do, what would be the right thing to do, what would be responsible. But we are in denial, implicatory denial; it is madness, but our PM does speak for Canadians. The choice is indeed stark but instead we are going to pretend that we take climate change seriously while doing everything in our power to grow the economy by ramping up the production of fossil fuels

What Palestinian Unity Is All About - The Real Task Ahead
By Ramzy Baroud

Palestinians are yet to achieve national unity despite the elation over the ‘national unity government’ now in operation in Ramallah

Hamas-Fatah Reconciliation: Unity On Israel’s Terms Won’t Help
By Jonathan Cook

Palestinians will not benefit from a PA that polices the occupation simply because it becomes more “unified”. Rather, their struggle to attain real freedom will grow that bit more daunting

Coalition-Ruled Apartheid Australia Backs Apartheid Israel & Rejects
Descriptive “Occupied” For The Occupied Palestinian Territories
By Dr Gideon Polya

All decent Australians, and especially all anti-racist Jewish Australians, will vote 1 Green and put the Coalition last

Kidiad Massacre In Gujarat
By Abdul Majid Zargar

A plain reading of the book “The Fiction of Fact Finding-Modi & Godhra” written by Manoj Mitta raises a fundamental question. If an ordinary Journalist, employing simple investigative tools, can unearth such a huge damming material sufficient enough to indict all & sundry in Gujrat, then why could’nt a Govt at centre with all resources & investigative agencies at its command do the same during its tenure of ten years to put behind bars those responsible for the carnage

The Game Begins
By Anand Teltumbde

Many felt that perhaps, given his background, having come from an ordinary backward caste family and independent demeanours, Narendra Modi may really be more sensitive to the poor and oppressed. At the least, he would be sensitive to the Muslims, who have not voted for him and Dalits, who have massively voted for him, the communities who mainly constitute the subject of his dedication. Two prominent incidents happened during this week, among of course a spate of rapes and murders of dalits, tend to belie these expectations and create a contrary impression that perhaps the old games have begun

Badaun Case And The Conspiracy Of The Upper-Caste
By Devika Mittal

The tragic badaun case wherein two Dalit girls were gang-raped and their bodies were hanged from a tree has created an uproar in the Indian public sphere. There are widespread protests, regular media reports and debates on this case. It has also found 'concern' internationally. It has managed to touch upon the 'sensibilities' of the upper caste urban Indians but not without their hypocrisy. While they are 'sympathetic' and consider this as 'tragic', they sniff over the mention of the caste of the victims. Why to mention the caste?

The Journey To Self-Awareness
By Robert J. Burrowes

Self-awareness is your birthright: don't let your fear take it from you

09 June, 2014

Poroshenko Pledges To Militarise Ukraine And Crush Rebellion In The East
By Mike Head

With US Vice President Joseph Biden in the audience, Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire confectioner, was formally sworn in Saturday as president of Ukraine. Delivering a bellicose speech, he pledged to confront Russia, suppress the separatists in Ukraine’s east and fully militarise the country. At the same time, he alluded to his plans to impose brutal austerity measures on the Ukrainian working class

The World Cup And The Corporatization of Soccer
By Eduardo Galeano

For many years soccer has been played in different styles, unique expressions of the personality of each people, and the preservation of that diversity seems to me more necessary today than ever before. These are days of obligatory uniformity, in soccer and everything else. Never has the world been so unequal in the opportunities it offers and so equalizing in the habits it imposes. In this end-of-century world, whoever does not die of hunger dies of boredom

A Common Vision – The Abolition of Militarism
By Mairead Maguire

It would make a world of difference if peace work no longer be scattered attempts to modify the military. Each activist should see their effort as part of a great, global endeavor. Across all divisions of national borders, religions and races, one goal should be clear: to be an alternative, insisting on an end to militarism and violence. This would mean, for each one, an entirely different chance to be listened to and taken seriously

Saving Threatened Species
By John Scales Avery

We must not commit crimes against future generations. We must not commit crimes against the other living creatures with which we share our beautiful world. We must save threatened species. We must save ourselves

Integrating Ecology And Economics
By Herman Daly

Ecological economics should seek to develop the steady-state vision, and get beyond the dead ends of both economic imperialism and ecological reductionism

Is Edward Snowden A Radical?
By William Blum

Apropos Snowden’s courage and integrity, it appears that something very important has not been emphasized in media reports: In the interview, he took the Russian government to task for a new law requiring bloggers to register – the same government which holds his very fate in their hands

Discontent Is Becoming An Epidemic
By Tim Gatto

Those who control the media and the government believe they can game the system forever. It will be too late when they realize nothing lasts forever

Don’t Give Us This Balderdash, Mr. Obama
By Taj Hashmi

In view of Obama’s volte-face – as a Senator he opposed the Iraq invasion, and soon after his election he promised peace and justice for all – it seems America’s Military Industrial Complex is still calling the shots; another Cold War is in the offing; and in the coming years, the world is going to be a more dangerous place than today; and durable and just peace will remain as elusive as ever

The Syrian Vote: The People Reject Regime Change
By Chandra Muzaffar

If one is sincere about resolving the bloody three year-old conflict in Syria, one would regard the outcome of the presidential election held on the 3rd of June 2014 as an opportunity for working out a viable solution

NSCC Meets Bhagana Rape Victims
By Ratnesh Katulkar

In a significant development in Bhagana case National Scheduled Caste Commission (NSCC) Vice Chairperson Dr Raj Kumar Verka met the victims of Bhagana at his office on 5 th June 2014. Owing to the seriousness of the matter he immediately ordered stern action against the culprits and issued an order for relief and rehabilitation of the victims

Incredible India And The Ever Increasing Number Of ‘Mistakes'
By Sukumaran C. V.

In April this year, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who remote controls UP through his son the puppet CM, remarked that boys are boys and rape is only a mistake committed by them. He made this insensitive and highly misogynistic remark at an election rally, referring to the capital punishment awarded to the accused of the Shakti Mill gang rape case. If this is the attitude of the politicians about rape—the most atrocious and heinous crime among the humans—before long the word rape may be replaced with the word mistake in our criminal procedure code

Badaun And Pune, Where The Fault Lines Of Indian Democracy Revealed
By People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism

People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (P.A.D.S.) statement on the murder of three young persons in Badaun and Pune

Women: The Less Represented in Indian Politics
By David Lal & Abhiruchi Ojha

As the elections for 16 th Lok Sabha has concluded with a voter's turnout of 66 percent, highest recorded after 1984 across the country by men and women electorate. With the increased voting percentage of women there were expectations running parallel for an increased women's representation in the Lok Sabha. In the 15th Lok Sabha, there were only 10.9 percent women representatives which are now increased to 11.2 percent with an addition of two more women MPs

Role Of Buddha and Ambedkar In Strengthening People's Movements
Vidya Bhushan Rawat Interviews Tilak Pariyar

“The revolutionary people's movement can only be strengthened with scientific temperament and spiritual experiences of Buddha and Ambedkar.” - Tilak Pariyar, Secretary, Central Advisory Committee, CPN-M

The Game of Tigers And Lambs
By Gouthama Siddarthan

Don’t criticize the functioning of the social structure; raise your voice against any particular issue in isolation and do not criticize any social happening from the perspective of its intrinsic and complex connection with the societal structure. Do not ferret out its multi dimensions and do not try to go down to its roots. Enough that you focus on the linear aspects of a particular issue. This is what is the outlook of the mass media of post-colonial countries such as India

07 June, 2014

Latest IEA Report Tells Us 'Fossil Fuel Party Is Over'
By Richard Heinberg

It will require $48 trillion in investments through 2035 to meet the world’s growing energy needs, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday from Paris. IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said in a statement the reliability and sustainability of future energy supplies depends on a high level of investment. “But this won’t materialize unless there are credible policy frameworks in place as well as stable access to long-term sources of finance,” she said. “Neither of these conditions should be taken for granted.”

Global Justice, Sustainability And The Sharing Economy
By Rajesh Makwana

If the sharing economy movement is to play a role in shifting society away from the dominant economic paradigm, it will have to get political. And this means guarding against the co-optation of sharing by the corporate sector, while joining forces with a much larger body of activists that have long been calling - either explicitly or implicitly - for more transformative and fundamental forms of economic sharing across the world

Obama's Syrian Policy Vetoed By Assad Election Victory 
By Shamus Cooke

Perhaps the deepest truth the Syrian elections exposed is that, were it not for the U.S. and its allies, the war in Syria would have long ago ended, and tens of thousands of lives spared. Millions of refugees would not be homeless

The Story Of 68 Palestinian Families In Lebanon
By Franklin Lamb

Predictions about the likely course of events in this region, including occasional ones by this observer, have a way of not panning out as expected. But one prediction I offered recently to Palestinian friends in Syria—namely that Lebanon’s “media” would fail to inform the world about an important Palestinian victory achieved in late May—has so far turned out to be accurate

With Friends In High Places, The GMO Biotech Sector Is Kicking Open The Door To Europe
By Colin Todhunter

The proposal to hand back some decision powers to member states of the European Union regarding GMO approvals is currently being discussed. It will be voted on by member states on 12 June. According to Corporate Europe Observatory, biotech firms regard it as an opportunity to break the stalemate and finally get their GM crops growing in Europe 's fields. The proposal has the biotech lobby's fingerprints all over it

Pro-gas Obama's EPA-based Plan To Reduce Coal-based Pollution
Amounts To Climate Change Inaction
By Dr Gideon Polya

The worsening climate crisis has finally been recognized as a major issue by the Obama Administration. However the latest policy announcement on climate change by President Obama - 30% off 2005 greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution of America's dirty power plants by 2030 enforceable by the US Environment Protection Authority (EPA) under the Clean Air Act - represents too little too late and falls far short of what is needed to address the worsening climate crisis

Australia's Former Prime Minister Howard Accused Of War Crimes
Before The International Criminal Court In The Hague
By SEARCH Foundation

John Winston Howard, former Prime Minister of Australia, has been accused of war crimes before the International Criminal Court for sending Australian military personnel into, over, and into the waters of, the Republic of Iraq, pursuant to a 17 March 2003 decision of the Australian Cabinet to join in the invasion of the Republic of Iraq."

Redefining "We The People" - SCOTUS And The PlutocRATS
By Rowan Wolf

Corporate personhood plus corporate protections plus plutocracy equals the construction of “super citizens,” and the end of the democracy as we think it is

Terrorism Is Degenerating Mankind: How To Change The Future?
By Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja

There's no question that this "war" will continue indefinitely. There is no question that US actions are the cause of that, the gasoline that fuels the fire. The only question - and it's becoming less of a question for me all the time - is whether this endless war is the intended result of US actions or just an unwanted miscalculation. Why would anyone in the US government or its owners have any interest in putting an end to this sham bonanza of power and profit called "the war on terror"?

Materialism And Misery
By Graham Peebles

We live under the omnipresent shadow of a political/economic system, which promotes materiality, selfishness and individual success over group wellbeing. It is a model of civilisation that is making us miserable and ill. Dependent on continuous consumption, everything and everyone is seen as a commodity, and competition and ambition are extolled as virtues. Together with reward and punishment this trinity of division has infiltrated and polluted all areas of contemporary life, including health care and education

The Lies Grow More Audacious
By Paul Craig Roberts

If there were any doubts that Western “leaders” live in a fantasy make-believe world constructed out of their own lies, the G-7 meeting and 70th anniversary celebration of the Normandy landing dispelled the doubts

D Day June 1944 Done Earlier— An “Ounce of Prevention”
Which Could Have Been “Worth A Pound of Cure”
By A D Hemming

It all seemed to be going so well for the anti Nazi coalition plan on that day in June 1944 in England and in the English Channel to stage the invasion of the northwestern part of the European continent to liberate it from the clutches of the Third Reich and take pressure off the Russian bear. What could have made it even better? What about this same second front opening up at the very first part of January 1943 if not in 1942? This is what the Britiish military chiefs approved in April 1942 with the backing of no less than Dwight D Eisenhower and George Marshall as this reveals.  How many millions of lives could the Anglo US Russian alliance have saved? That's a crucial point

Clean Chit of Power
By Nirmalangshu Mukherji

With the elevation of Narendra Modi as head of government, Indian justice system faces an uphill task to catch up with him. Hundreds of millions are waiting. Anxiously

Ten Thousand Pairs of Shoes
By Mallika Kaur

Finally talking about June 1984—30 years later—will honor the dead and protect the living

Punjab Must March On Without Concealed Hatred And Prejudices
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

It is time for Punjab to rise and challenge all those who want to deviate from the path of its glory by using religion for political gains. It is time to marginalise those regressive political social forces who have kept Punjab subjugated for long

05 June, 2014

Hate Crime In Pune Shocks The Nation
By Concerned IT Professionals From Pune

A 28 year old IT professional Shaikh Mohsin Sadiq was thrashed to death by a group of people suspected to be connected with a radical Hindu outfit called Hindu Rashtra Sena. While offering our deepest condolences to the bereaved family members and friends of Mohsin, we extend our heartfelt solidarity to each and every member of minorities/disadvantaged communities in struggle to preserve the values of democracy, secularism and justice

Re-visiting The People’s Report on Bangladesh Environment
By Farooque Chowdhury

A temporal comparison, revisiting the People’s Report on Bangladesh Environment 2001 (PBE), is made here to identify the changes in the realm of environment movement

The Glue That Holds Us All Together 
By Vacy Vlazna

Abandoned for 66 years by the international community to Israeli war crimes, Palestine needs friends

Understanding Israel's Corrosive Influence On Western Democracy
By John Chuckman

The corrosion of democracy in Western governments afraid of ever saying no to Israel and too willing to add to party political coffers in exchange for favorable words and acts is real and palpable, and it is going to do nothing but become worse. The situation is best characterized as a race for the bottom

Reporting The Middle East: Please Go Back To The Streets
By Ramzy Baroud

Unlike Mohamed Bouazizi, the Fatimas and Mostafas of the Middle East should not have to set themselves ablaze to become worthy of a news report. Their constant struggle and resistance is a story that must be told. In fact, it is the only story that should have mattered in the first place

How Egypt's Generals Sidelined Uncle Sam
By Dilip Hiro

Among the regional and world leaders who telephoned Sisi to congratulate him on his landslide electoral triumph was Russian President Vladimir Putin. No such call has yet come in from President Obama. For Washington, still so generous in its handouts to the Arab Republic of Egypt and its military, trailing behind the Russian Bear in embracing the latest strongman on the Nile should be considered an unqualified humiliation. With its former sphere of influence in tatters, the last superpower has been decisively sidelined by its key Arab ally in the region

Egypt: Journalism Is Not A Crime Against The State!
By Nilantha Ilangamuwa

Journalism is not a crime in a country where democracy is functioning in its true meaning. But unfortunately there are few places on this planet where people enjoy the privilege to enjoy the freedom of expression. As a result of this, journalists suffer tremendous stress and live in chaotic situations because they practice of the responsibilities of their profession

Turkish False Flags And The Invasion That Almost Was
By David Boyajian

A leaked audiotape caught Turkish officials plotting to stage ‘false flag' military attacks on their own territory and blame them on Syrians. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, General Yaşar Gürel, and Intelligence chief Hakan Fidan planned to use the attacks as an excuse to invade Syria . The title of this article could easily apply to that plot

Piketty, The Wall Street Journal, And Rational Conservatives
By Thomas Riggins

Thomas Piketty's book, Capital in the 21st Century, has almost had the effect of a tsunami on economic thinking here in the United States after its translation from French into English washed up on our monoglot shores. In France itself it has been treated as more or less just another economics book-- no big deal

‘Am I Not A Citizen Of India’? An Inner Cry From A Dalit From The Heartland Of India!
By George Abraham

‘Why I am asked about my caste when I go to the police? Am I not a citizen of India’? The father of one of the girls gang raped and brutally murdered asked the Samajawadi Party leader and Badaun member of Parliament Darmendra Yadav. It is time that this pertinent question needs to be answered not just by few politicians across the party lines but by the nation itself. What happened in Katra village in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh is a horrific crime of brutality against women

What’s It To You? Women, Caste, Politics And Toilets
By Maharathi

For all the multi-dimensional nature of the episode, the parents of the Dalit girls whose grief-stricken portraits were published in the Mailonline are living with broken hearts, bereavement gnawing at their hearts. The nation is simply watching mutely like Bheeshmar, as our Draupathis get stripped of clothes, dignity, and life too!

04 June, 2014

Mayhem In Ukraine: Kiev Regime Commits War Crimes
By Countercurrents

Kiev's military operation in eastern Ukraine has left 181 people killed including 59 of ruling regime troops, and 293 injured, according to the country's prosecutor general Oleg Makhnitsky

Ocean Acidification Rate May Be Ten Times Faster Than Ancient Time
By Countercurrents

Some 56 million years ago, a massive pulse of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere sent global temperatures soaring. In the oceans, carbonate sediments dissolved, some organisms went extinct and others evolved. Scientists have long suspected that ocean acidification caused the crisis -- similar to today, as human made CO2 combines with seawater to change its chemistry. Now, for the first time, scientists have quantified the extent of surface acidification from those ancient days, and the news is not good: the oceans are on track to acidify at least as much as they did then, only at a much faster rate

Join Us On June 5th To #ResetTheNet
By Nadia Kayyali

On June 5th, Reset the Net is requesting everyone to help by installing free software tools that are designed to protect your privacy on a computer or a mobile device. Reset the Net is also calling on websites and developers to add surveillance resistant features, like HTTPS and forward secrecy. Don’t wait for your privacy and freedom. Start taking it back

Wholesale Dealers Of Death And Destruction
By Sukumaran C. V.

Our culture of exploitation is making the whole world a violent and bloody one. The ozone layer which protects life on earth is fast depleting. In the Antarctic Peninsula, summer ice is melting at a faster rate than at any time in the last 1000 years. If we continue to be ‘developing' like this, will there be an earth which sustains any form of Life, let alone the humans, in 3014? It is really difficult to answer the question in the affirmative

The Boomers "Failed" Us: Climate Activist Tim DeChristopher On Anger, Love, And Sacrifice
By Sarah van Gelder

First the anger, then the love—overcoming generational anger to find the courage required for the difficult work ahead

Pope’s Unbalanced Neutrality In Holy Land
By Nicola Nasser

Pope Francis’ “”pilgrimage” to the Holy Land last week proved to be an unbalanced impossible mission. The pontiff failed to strike a balance of neutrality between contradictory and irreconcilable binaries like divinity and earth, religion and politics, justice and injustice and military occupation and peace

UK Being Referred To International Criminal Court Is "One Small Step" For Humankind
By Robert Barsocchini

The UK being referred to the International Criminal Court is a positive step for the international community

Left Forum Conference Betrays MLKjr, Ignores US-NATO Genocide 
By Jay Janson

Left Forum, “largest annual conference of left and progressive intellectuals, activists, academics, organizations and interested public.” This year's theme seems to have been: MLK was Wrong!: Americans CAN make a better USA, WHILE continuing to kill the poor overseas in spite of cost in human and financial resources. Harry Belafonte, Angela Davis, Cornel West, others focused on injustice to Americans, ignored US-NATO genocide

03 June, 2014

In Earth's Silence Lives Ghosts Of Tiananmen
By Srestha Banerjee

Two very important days approach us, one carrying the torch of democratic rights, the other advocating the rights of environment and the people who live with it. On the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen square on June 4, and the 41st anniversary of the World Environment Day on June 5, we possibly need to reflect on both with much deference

Finally, The US Gets Serious On Climate Change
By Saleemul Huq

President Obama’s declaration today on limiting emissions of carbon dioxide by a third from coal fired power plants in the US is a major step in the right direction and marks the tipping point in US engagement in tackling the global problem of climate change

Reducing Emissions Will Be Primary Way To Fight Climate Change, Finds Study
By Countercurrents

Forget about positioning giant mirrors in space to reduce the amount of sunlight being trapped in Earth's atmosphere or seeding clouds to reduce the amount of light entering earth's atmosphere. Those approaches to climate engineering aren't likely to be effective or practical in slowing global warming

June 5: Join Fight Against Mass Surveillance: Reddit, Greenpeace, Amnesty
Unite In Anti-NSA Hit Campaign
By Countercurrents

Fight against mass surveillance is gaining strength. People across the world are invited to join the fight. It's a fight for democracy, fight for freedom. It starts on June 5, 2014 . It's #ResetTheNet campaign. About 200 websites have joined the #ResetTheNet campaign, urging internet users, developers and content providers to use “NSA-resistant” software, and tools to protect the global net against intrusive government surveillance

An Empire Without a Military Strategy for a Military Strategy Without an Empire
By Thierry Meyssan

This speech is only a facade of verbiage trying to hide an irreversible decline. He stunned the audience which understood dreams of conquest are at an end. Against all odds, less than a quarter of the 1064 graduates of the Military Academy at West Point applauded the president, while the majority remained unmoved. The Empire is slowly dying

Persecution In Universities In Iran , Students And Academics
Detained, Barred From Studying And Teaching
By Countercurrents

The Iranian authorities have waged a ruthless campaign of repression over the past three decades against students and academics who are routinely harassed, detained or barred from studying or teaching because of their peaceful activism, views or beliefs, said Amnesty International in a report released on June 2, 2014

A Conversation With Paul Craig Roberts: Transitions; Morals; Alliances And Dissolutions
By Gary Corseri

What's the matter with you? Why didn't you take the easy path? What kind of credo drives you?

Eco-Capitalism: Can It Work?
By Saral Sarkar

I think a good society of the future, one with a sustainable economy, must be a socialist society. But this time an eco-socialist one

Pope Francis Has Visited Palestine
By Dr. Ludwig Watzal

How could allow Vatican diplomacy Pope Francis to make such a political Faupax? Not even the heads of state visit Herzl’s grave and lay down a wreath in his honor. “It is not the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris”, as Uri Avnery rightly mentioned. Herzl is not only considered the spiritus rector of the State of Israel but also of its racist Zionist ideology. By his visit, Pope Francis has not only paid tribute to this racist ideology but has devalued his grand spiritual gesture toward the Palestinians. Was Pope Francis ill advised by his religiously naïve acolytes or was his visit done with intent?

Dear Makhmalbaf! There Is Iranian Cinema Even In India
By Gouthama Siddarthan

There is Iranian cinema even in our country; but no directors, unfortunately to depict it

02 June, 2014

NSA Collects Facial Images Of Hundreds Of Millions Of People
By Patrick Martin

In the latest exposure of the US National Security Agency based on documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the New York Times reported Sunday that the agency collects images of hundreds of millions of people by intercepting global telecommunications and Internet traffic. This data is used as part of an enormous program using facial recognition technology to identify individuals of interest to the US intelligence services. The images captured by the NSA include those embedded in e-mails, text messages, videoconferences and other forms of Internet messaging and telecommunications

We All Must Become Zapatistas
By Chris Hedges

Subcomandante Marcos, the spokesman for the Zapatistas (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, or EZLN), has announced that his rebel persona no longer exists. He had gone from being a “spokesman to a distraction,” he said last week. His persona, he said, fed an easy and cheap media narrative. It turned a social revolution into a cartoon for the mass media. It allowed the commercial press and the outside world to ignore traditional community leaders and indigenous commanders and wrap a movement around a fictitious personality. His persona, he said, trivialized a movement. And so this persona is no more

People Protest In Turkey
By Countercurrents

Police used tear gas and water cannons on May 31 against hundreds of demonstrators in Istanbul , Ankara , Adana , Antalya , Muğla and other cities across Turkey . Defying heavy police presence the people were marking the anniversary of last year's nationwide Gezi Park protests

Turkish President Pointedly Asked, How Do You Sleep With Blood On Your Hands?
By Countercurrents

“How do you sleep at night when people are dying in Turkey ? Aren't you ashamed to be at the head of such a state?” Dr. Emrah Altındiş, a medical specialist at the prestigious American university, asked the Turkish president during a panel at the school

#YesAllWomen Changes The Story
By Rebecca Solnit

The Feminist Battle of the Story in the Wake of the Isla Vista Massacre

Nobody To Negotiate With In Israel And Why
By Alan Hart

In a sense Netanyahu is correct. There is nobody in Ramallah for him to negotiate with but that’s because Israel’s “minimal set of conditions” require the Palestinians to abandon their struggle for justice and accept crumbs (a few Bantustans here and there on the occupied West Bank) from Zionism’s table. It really does seem to me that Netanyahu learned much from the Nazis

Strategizing Climate Change
By Dr.S.G.Vombatkere

People and society as a whole react to sudden or quantum increase in matters which affect general safety or welfare, but are neglectful of slow changes. Global warming and consequent climate change have on-going effects which are gradual or creeping but very real. The long-term effects are known and accepted as meriting serious consideration. There are many anticipated effects of climate change, but possibly the best known is the melting of polar ice (and additionally in the Indian context, recession of Himalayan glaciers) and consequent rise of sea level

Non-Violent? Don’t Flatter Yourself
By Mickey Z.

Industrial civilization is built on and based on and functions on overt and covert violence. Any discussion of non-violence that ignores this reality is a counterproductive exercise in deep denial. Yet, almost every such discussion fast devolves into a purity pissing match between those who claim (falsely) to be pacifists and those who posture about their undying devotion to direct action

Obama Regime's Global Sponsorship of Terrorism Highlights Anti-Humanitarian
Motive Behind Proposed Sanctions of Venezuela
By Robert Barsocchini

The Obama regime is considering using the economic power the US gained after WW2, partially by amoral design (search word 'bleed' on this page), partially due to all US competitors being destroyed, to target Venezuela. Using history as a guide, the USA will make this another of its innumerable terrorist attacks, targeting Venezuelan civilians, as the USA targets or targeted civilians, to murder them, with genocidal sanctions in Iraq , Iran , Cuba , and elsewhere

The New Telangana: Can It Become A Trend-setter?
By Dr.K.Vidyasagar Reddy

Indian Union has at last responded to the Trend-setting movement of new state formation quite positively and thereby created a new state, a regional one indeed! Thanks to the supreme sacrifice of its students and youth, the new Telangana became a dream come true. Thus, a trend-setting event has happened in the recent past. With the success of such a democratic movement, many more new state movements might emulate the Telangana path

Remembering Suniti Ghosh
By Sumanta Banerjee

I shall always remember and respect Suniti Ghosh as a Communist who remained uncompromising in following his principles, honest in pursuing his political beliefs, and courageous in practicing what he believed in. Those sterling qualities that marked his character – and which should characterize every Communist intellectual – are fast disappearing from the political milieu of the Left in India

Army Entered Golden Temple 30 Years Ago: Pain Persists Among Sikhs
By Jaspal Singh Sidhu

Thirty years have elapsed since the Indian Army attacked the Golden Temple, Amritsar in June’s first week of 1984. The wounds of the tragedy are still afresh so as the anguish and pain persists in the Sikh consciousness

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