When I was a child my grandfather, whom I knew as a man who had driven cars for the rich and conversed with the famous in his youth, once told me “making money is easy — if that is all you want to do”. As an eight-year-old that sounded very profound although at the time it made little sense to me. Personally I must confess, money has really meant very little to me. I worked as a youth to earn pocket money so I could go to restaurants or buy books. However I never had that sense of thrift that …
Sometimes you don’t get a warning before all hell breaks loose.
Imagine it, if you will: It’s the middle of the night. Your neighborhood is in darkness. Your household is asleep. Suddenly, you’re awakened by a loud noise.
Barely ten seconds later, someone or an army of someones has crashed through your front door.
The intruders are in your home.
Your heart begins racing. Your stomach is tied in knots. The adrenaline is pumping through you.
Hybrid Bt cotton, the only commercialised GM crop in India, has failed conclusively. Based on this failure and the evidence on GM crops to date, the Union of India’s proposal to commercialise herbicide-tolerant (HT) mustard will destroy not just Indian mustard agriculture but citizens’ health.
There have been five days of intense hearings on this matter in the Supreme Court (SC) — the GMO Public Interest Writ filed almost 20 years ago in 2005 by the author, which ended on 18 January 2024.
In these last 20 years, piecemeal hearings have dealt with submissions relating to individual crops like hybrid Bt cotton, …
The daily grind of atrocities committed on the Palestinian people continues with one trajectory ─ extinction as a people and realignment into disbursed communities. Civil protests against the destruction, heroic actions by confrontation with the oppressor, dedication to the concepts of justice and freedom, and physical and monetary sacrifices by millions of people in the world have not deterred the killing machine from its proscribed purpose. Much is said of what is being done to the Palestinians; less is said of what needs to be done for the Palestinians and prevent their genocide. Are the Palestinians doomed?
Palace coups have become a seasonal tradition in Australian politics. Between 2007 and 2018, Australia had six prime ministers, four of whom were overthrown by their own parties, the first five never being allowed to complete their first term in office. In contrast, between 1983 and 2007, the country could count on the dry, solid stability of three leaders. The change of heart led to the irresistible description of Australia being “the coup capital of the democratic world”.
In the Westminster system of government, where the executive is drawn from the representative chamber, prime ministers are at the mercy of party …
WASHINGTON — Five peace activists were arrested today as CODEPINK and other organizations disrupted the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing titled “UNRWA Exposed: Examining the Agency’s Mission and Failures.” The protest aimed to draw attention to the urgent need for humanitarian aid in Gaza.
The disruption comes in the wake of the International Court of Justice’s recent ruling, which found South Africa’s charge of genocide against Israel to be credible. The court issued provisional measures demanding that Israel cease the killing of Palestinians and restore the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Despite these urgent calls, Israel has retaliated by accusing …
During the evening of January 25, Kenneth Eugene Smith, having failed to convince the US Supreme Court to delay his execution, became yet another victim of judicial, state-sanctioned murder. A previous, failed effort, using lethal injection, had been made in 2022. On this occasion, it was the state of Alabama which sought to bloody (or gas, in this instance) its copybook at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. The method of execution: nitrogen hypoxia.
Smith was convicted in 1989 for murdering Elizabeth Sennett, the wife of a preacher’s wife, in a murder-for-hire killing. His life, taken in turn, succumbed …
The New York Times recently published a piece describing the horrible rape and murder of an Israeli woman who attended the Nova Music Festival that came under attack by Hamas. Except, as her family insisted after the article ran, there is no evidence that the woman was raped and the Times misled family members about the substance of the story.
Jimmy, along with Due Dissidence host Russell Dobular and Americans’ Comedian Kurt Metzger, discuss why the Times would insist on lying about the case and whether such propaganda demonstrates that Israel is losing the media war over Gaza.
An old friend with years in the purchasing department of a leading consumer products conglomerate once told me that the active ingredient in washing powder is actually a minuscule component in those huge boxes of famous brand soap powders from which US daytime television dramas derived their sobriquet. The rest, he said mockingly, is just to make suds (foam). His point was that the consumer pays for the suds.
I retorted that although the deception did not surprise me, he underestimated the importance of foam. Although I am no chemist, unlike my friend I have been washing my own clothes for …
There is only one rule in warfare. There are no rules.
by Robert Malone / January 29th, 2024
Cognitive warfare is no longer science fiction. Cognitive warfare is a fact of the modern age and everyone, whether civilian or military, is a potential target. Cognitive attacks are aimed at exploiting emotions rooted in our subconscious, bypassing our rational conscious mind. This is achieved by exploiting biases, fallacies, emotions and automatisms, but also through nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology.
— Commander Cornelis van der Klaauw, Royal Netherlands Navy and Strategic Communications
The five domains of warfare are land, sea, air, space and cyberspace. The core technical components of Fifth Dimension …
Imperilled, tormented Palestinians in Gaza had little time to celebrate the January 26 order of the International Court of Justice. In a case brought by South Africa intended to facilitate a ceasefire and ease the suffering of the Gaza populace, Israel received the unwanted news that it had to, among other obligations, ensure compliance with the UN Genocide Convention, including by its military; prevent and punish “the direct and public incitement to genocide” against the Palestinian populace in Gaza and permit basic services and humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip.
Within hours, Israel, bruised and outraged by a body its …
Or what happens when legal proceedings at the ICJ expose Western media bias and Israeli state propaganda
by Rami G Khouri / January 27th, 2024
This month, the world watched South Africa initiate International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearings on the genocidal acts Israel committed in Gaza. In a two-day session on January 11 and 12, the court heard the extensive evidence the South African legal team had gathered to support their case against Israel, and the rebuttal by the Israeli team.
The hearings were historic for two reasons. First, this was the first time that Israel’s decades-long aggression against the Palestinians was articulated in detail for the world to hear, without having to pass through the distorting lens of Western …
by T.P. WilkinsonEconomic history has its overt and covert sides. Now the State has been almost completely privatized, i.e., conveyed to the so-called hedge funds. It may be safe to say that the West has been converted into one huge financial derivative system.
To understand this without drowning in jargon it is easiest to describe the structure as global extortion or blackmail. As Whitney Webb has shown the murder of Jeffrey Epstein was probably a blunt attempt to eliminate one of the visible faces …
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on Wednesday kicked off “Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024,” its largest military drills since the Cold War. Approximately 90,000 troops from NATO’s 31 members and Sweden are participating, with the associated exercises running until May 31. Russian media said NATO has openly admitted for the first time that the exercise is in response to a “Russian attack” and aims to convey to Western populations that “this war is inevitable.”
The exercise comes at two crucial junctures – the Russia-Ukraine …
There were 17 judges ruling on this case, including one from South Africa and one from Israel. Both of those two judges were not regular members of the Court but were included only because this ‘International Court of Justice’ was treating this matter as-if not “justice” (in criminal law — which this case was supposed to be about) but instead equity (in civil law — which is irrelevant to this criminal case) were at-issue (and therefore needing to be ‘balanced’, instead of to …
Even the smallest of towns can see sparks of radicalism. Solidarity movements exist in several forms, from honoring the picket lines of striking workers to anti-war protests in solidarity with the innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. Student movements all throughout history have been characterized as displays of both solidarity and resistance, acting against wars, egregious abuses of power, and other entities characterized as unjust and disagreeable. In the village of West Winfield, New York, anything in the news focusing on students primarily relates to school sports, homecoming weekend, graduation, and similar events. In the mid-1930s though, students from the …
The great powers — the leading players in the imperialist system — have always required a source for the energy to drive their economic engines. They needed energy resources to build and empower their military might; they needed energy to grow their national economies and power their vessels of trade and transportation. Indeed, their socio-economic systems would have collapsed without ample and available energy sources.
At the dawn of the capitalist industrial era, that source came mainly from coal. Coal powered the machines that grew the productivity of labor to great new heights. It is reasonable to think that only those …
In a case that has captured the attention of both legal experts and the public, Willie Jerome Manning stands convicted of a crime that he did not commit. The conviction of Mr. Manning who was sentenced to death for the murders of two Mississippi State students, now faces scrutiny due to newly discovered evidence pointing toward his wrongful conviction. This isn’t the first time evidence has been presented to the court based on untruthful testimonies about Willie Manning by witnesses eager to cut deals with the state by providing false testimonies.
Exonerated for the Elderly Mother and Daughter Murders
On January 26, legal experts, policy wonks, activists and the plain curious waited for the order of the International Court of Justice, sitting in The Hague. The topic was that gravest of crimes, considered most reprehensible in the canon of international law: genocide. The main participants: the accused party, the State of Israel, and the accuser, the Republic of South Africa.
Filed on December 29 last year, the South African case focused on its obligations arising under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of …
The ICGSP encourages governments and global social movements to demand that provisional measures are enforced immediately
by Black Alliance for Peace / January 26th, 2024
In its provisional ruling issued today on the South African Genocide Convention case against Israel, the International Court of Justice (ICJ—also known as the World Court) demanded Israel stop killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure and medical facilities; prevent and punish incitement to genocide by its top officials; and permit the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. The International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine (ICSGP) applauds the Court’s Order as a crucial first step toward forcing Israel and its primary sponsor and strongest political ally—the United States—to end the months-long brutal assault on Gaza, and the decades-long denial to …
The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel must cease its warmaking in Gaza — cease committing and inciting genocidal acts — and that the case charging Israel with genocide must proceed.
This was a make or break moment for international law, or rather a break or make-a-first-step moment. There is hope for the idea and reality of international law, but this is only a beginning.
The president of the International Court of Justice, who read the ruling, is Judge Joan Donoghue, former top legal advisor under Hillary Clinton …
The lessons of the South African nuclear weapons program are deep, profound and largely ignored by non-proliferation dogmatists. They show that a regime, even one subject to sanctions and exiled to the diplomatic cold room, can still show aptitude and resourcefulness in creating such murderous weapons. The white regime of Apartheid South Africa was marginalised, the globe’s notorious pariah, yet managed to chug along, developing a formidable arsenal with external aid and local resourcefulness. Where there is a pathological will, there will be a way.
The South African example also shows that members of the nuclear club are an easily rattled …
Consider this paradox: without the Soviet Union (U.S.-designated nemesis since 1917), the United States would have never succeeded at placing the planet under its unilateral grip—often referred to by U.S. imperialists as the “new world order”. Or, rephrased differently, a world whereby the U.S. wants to rule unchallenged. This how it started: first, forget the Soviet Politburo—Mikhail Gorbachev practically annulled its role as the supreme decision-maker body of the Soviet Communist Party before proceeding to dismantle the Soviet state. In sequence, he, his foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, other anti-communists in …
The 2023 German film Paradise went virtually unnoticed by commentators on the socialist left. Yet, it is amongst the best dystopian anti-capitalist films produced in the decade.
The film follows the life of Max, an employee of Aeon, a company that buys life years from the poor to give them to the rich. Yes, you read that correctly, the life of the working poor (especially the large migrant populations – a phenomenon, as Immanuel Ness shows, integral to modern imperialism) is literally sold to the rich. Max is one of these salesmen. He is exceptional …
