Latest articles
by Gareth Porter / November 15th, 2013
IPS — Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov revealed a crucial detail Thursday about last week’s nuclear talks with Iran in Geneva that explains much more clearly than previous reports why the meeting broke up without agreement.
Lavrov said the United States circulated a draft that had been amended in response to French demands to other members of the six-power P5+1 for approval “literally at the last moment, when we were about to leave Geneva.”
Lavrov’s revelation, which has thus far been ignored by major news outlets, came in a news conference in Cairo Thursday that was largely devoted to Egypt and Syria. …
by Goran Tepshic / November 15th, 2013
You shouldn’t worry about your government spying on you if you have nothing to hide.
That’s what people would say to me when the NSA leaks started happening, when I first started talking about the dangers that these revelations pose to businesses, both small and large. That’s like saying that if you aren’t a criminal, you shouldn’t mind being treated like a criminal.
Imagine if a tuna fisherman caught millions of dolphins in his net for each tuna that he brought back, he would never have the chance to leave port again. So how can anyone justify the government spying on billions of people …
by David Swanson / November 15th, 2013
Germany had planned to buy a fleet of “Euro Hawk” killer drones — perhaps in an effort to bring the European Union up to speed with certain other Nobel Peace laureates.
But something happened on the way to the celestial colosseum.
Of course, Captain Drone Man himself undoubtedly learned the news first, unless the NSA misplaced some of Frau Merkel’s emails under a pile of exchanges among nonviolent activists planning the upcoming drone summit in DC.
What happened was public pressure within a nation dedicated to peace and — at the moment — more resistant than Japan to being turned back toward war. …
Do You Support the Call for Prosecuting War Crimes by the US?
by Jay Janson / November 15th, 2013
What has been clear to survivors of America’s heartless bombings, invasions, occupations, and covert violence for a long time is that American intellectuals, university professors, widely read authors and journalists, who speak against this carnage, never seem to say or write that Americans should be brought to justice for it. Monopolized corporate media hails and stimulates American demands for 9/11 justice beyond reason and limitless vengeance. Though Americans have taken the lives of many millions in what presidential candidate Ron Paul called undeclared, unconstitutional and therefore criminal wars since Korea onward, the idea of justice for these nations seems inconceivable.
Former …
by Hakim and the Afghan Peace Volunteers / November 14th, 2013
On the 22 October 2013, the Afghan Peace Volunteers (APVs) in Kabul, Afghanistan, had a Skype conversation with peace activists at Gangjeong Village on Jeju Island, South Korea, during which they shared solidarity in saying ‘No!’ to the U.S. war apparatus in Afghanistan and South Korea.
They represent the ‘small people’ of the world, ordinary Afghans who are opposed to the establishment of nine U.S. military bases in Afghanistan through the Bilateral Security Agreement currently being negotiated, and ordinary South Koreans opposed to the construction of a Korea-U.S. naval base on Jeju Island.
They understand that these bases will serve …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / November 14th, 2013
The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.
— J. Edgar Hoover,1895-1972
Since the fairy tale about weapons of mass destruction that can be launched against Western targets “within forty five minutes” is well past it’s sell by date, the trans-Atlantic hasbara industry has dreamed up a new Grim Reaper for Syria, their latest quarry: chemical weapons.
Stephen Zunes’ succinct quote that “ U.S. policy regarding chemical weapons has been so inconsistent and politicized that the United States is in no position to take leadership in response to any use of …
Snapshot of American Culture (sic)
by John Steppling / November 14th, 2013
The series Homeland is now in its third season. Apparently the once flagship drama for Showtime, has hit the ratings skids this season, but not critically, and that remains troubling. This is an overtly, nakedly, proudly, racist bit of police state propaganda. That’s in no way hyperbole. The show never misses a chance to stigmatize the standard villains of the day (as if Dick Cheney, Bibi Netanyahu, and Eric Holder were script advisers), while valorizing and justifying torture, entrapment, illegal surveillance (I know, quaint idea), and racial profiling. Not to mention extra-legal murder.
That even leftist (sic) cyber publications such as Jacobin can write “thoughtful” …
Time to end the failed experiment with rigged corporate trade and put in place fair trade for the people and planet before profits
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / November 14th, 2013
Momentum is growing in the campaign to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Yesterday, the TPP was dealt two blows. Each could be lethal but the TPP, and its Atlantic counterpart, called TAFTA, are not dead yet. It is time for the movement of movements that formed to oppose the TPP to stand in solidarity, defeat these agreements and end the era of rigged corporate trade.
Yesterday’s first blow came from Wikileaks, showing once again that when government works in secret with big corporations, exposure by whistle blowers is critical to changing the corrupt direction of government and the economy. Wikileaks published …
A Vast Wasteland of Expended Effort
by John Chuckman / November 13th, 2013
I read that six thousand people have been killed by sectarian violence so far this year in Iraq, surely a good rough measure of what America’s invasion achieved there. In Afghanistan, America’s chosen man publicly disagrees with America’s ideas of what withdrawal means, how many occupying American forces should remain, and the role the Taleban should play. Killing remains a daily occurrence, including regular instances of American special forces murdering civilians, drugs flow freely through the country and out to the world, and most women still are forced to wear the burka. Libya is reduced to rag tag bands engaged …
by Deepa Kumar and Arun Kundnani / November 13th, 2013
The show Homeland began its third season with record-breaking ratings. The show’s creators Alex Ganza and Howard Gordon, who previously collaborated on the wildly popular series 24, seem to have worked out a successful narrative for the War on Terror during the Obama era. If 24 reflected the Bush administration’s cowboy, shoot-em-up (and torture them) style, Homeland is about Obama’s “smarter” war.
New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley commented, “Homeland is 24 for grown-ups.” Not surprisingly, President Obama loves Homeland, listing it as one of two “must-see” shows. Dick Cheney also seems to watch the …
by David Macaray / November 13th, 2013
News report (from The Guardian, November 11, 2013): Red Square has seen a lot over the centuries, from public executions to giant military parades, but a performance artist broke new ground on Sunday when he nailed his scrotum to cobblestones in a painful act of protest.
Once we got over the initial shock of seeing the photograph, which was plastered all over the Internet, there were several ways to respond to this. An objective observer might say that the young man (Pyotr Pavlensky) had an over-developed social conscience. Another observer might accuse him of having an inflated sense of self-importance.
Another might …
Halliburton's Elixir and the Fracking Truth
by Bill Annett / November 13th, 2013
It’s not generally known, but we maintain a hard-hitting investigative reporter (we call him a rapporteur for added class). Rap formerly distinguished himself when he was embedded as a mole in the famous RCMP Musical Ride, where he served undercover as shovel man. With this unique rear-view perspective, Rap produced a tour de force that narrowly missed winning him a Pulitzer Prize, disqualified only because the subject was of absolutely no interest to Americans and also because Rap is a dwarf.
Nevertheless, because of his experience north of the 49th Parallel, we dispatched Rap …
Union Solidarity Slow as Molasses
by Paul Haeder / November 13th, 2013
I have to preface the very good argument below on the Humanities (scroll down-down-down) with a few things tied to higher education. First, the crisis in higher education leads to Humanities, and to other fields, like sociology, history, political science, almost anything that has nothing to do with business crime, drone warfare, learning how to administrate us into hell, High Tech/Low Ethics, anything to do with pushing the greed to the top and subjugating us, the 80 percent. There is a crisis in the humanities because America wants Breaking Sons of Anarchy Bad Reality TV Cop-land-Nerd-land Jon Leibowitz …
Why A Winning Palestinian Narrative is Hard to Find
by Ramzy Baroud / November 13th, 2013
In an initially pointless exercise that lasted nearly an hour, I flipped between two Palestinian television channels, Al Aqsa TV of Hamas in Gaza and Palestine TV of Fatah in the West Bank. While both purported to represent Palestine and the Palestinians, each seemed to represent some other place and some other people. It was all very disappointing.
Hamas’ world is fixated on their hate of Fatah and other factional personal business. Fatah TV is stuck between several worlds of archaic language of phony revolutions, factional rivalry and unmatched self-adoration. The two narratives are growingly alien and will unlikely ever move …
Contamination in biodiversity will burden following generations
by Paul Haeder / November 13th, 2013
Note — This is a preface to just more bad news when it comes to genetically modified organisms and the powerful lobby, and conspiracy, working to ply these dangerous, toxic, anti-biodiversity things into every square meter of the planet.
Below, a piece from the UK with British grammar and style, which I will not change. As the idea of diversity must be applied not only to biology but to all aspects of humanity and nature — including education, economics, culture, and society.
I’ve been reading the local rag, the Oregonian, and the prognosticators writing (sic) their flippant, shallow analyses of the recent …
by Nicola Nasser / November 13th, 2013
More than two years on since the “revolution” of February 2011, the security crisis is exacerbating by the day threatening Libya with an implosion charged with potential realistic risks to the geopolitical unity of the Arab north African country, turning this crisis into a national existential one. Obviously the status quo is unsustainable.
“Libya is imploding two years after the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi” was captured and killed on October 20,” Patrick Cockburn wrote in The Independent on last October 10.
Libya’s oil industry has become the target of violent attacks and civil protests, closing export terminals in east and west …
by Bill Purkayastha / November 12th, 2013
We better kill’em all and kill’em fast — before the Russians or the Chinese or someone catches up to us. Wow, just like the old days of the Space Race and Arms Race. The thrill of victory, the agony of dead meat!
An Interview with Charles Simmons
by Tolu Olorunda / November 12th, 2013
Last week, voters in Detroit elected a new mayor, Mike Duggan, to carry on the work of the emergency managers and governor in rebuilding a “new Detroit.”
Duggan is self-branded as a “turnaround specialist,” for his work at the Detroit Medical Center, which he “saved” from shutting down during his tenure as president and CEO in 2004. A year ago, the former prosecutor moved from Livonia to Detroit to file for Mayor. Months later, a Michigan appeals court ruling deemed the candidacy ineligible, failing to meet residency requirements. He was, however, able to secure a write-in ballot and in the April …
by Jonathan Cook / November 12th, 2013
It seems there are still plenty of parties who would prefer that the death of the long-time Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat continues to be treated as a mystery rather than as an assassination.
It is hard, however, to avoid drawing the logical conclusion from the finding last week by Swiss scientists that the Palestinian leader’s body contained high levels of a radioactive isotope, polonium-210. An inconclusive and much more limited study by a Russian team published immediately after the Swiss announcement also suggests Arafat died from poisoning.
It is time to state the obvious: Arafat was killed. And suspicion falls squarely on …
by Peter Breschard / November 11th, 2013
Anyway you want to slice it, it comes down to the same thing. Usually it’s a young boy/man with a gun. Or a bazooka. Or an explosive. Depending upon the delivery system or the target, he’s either a brave pilot or a crazed suicide bomber.
And they’re all trained to kill. And equipped to do so.
Support our troops. Support our gunmen. Support our terrorists. Support our guns.
There isn’t anything much more heartrending than the sight of some poor kid who’s suffered permanent damage to his body, inflicted upon him while he wore a uniform and carried a gun. Entire communities will …
A Remarkable Little-known Model
by Ellen Brown / November 11th, 2013
In Costa Rica, publicly-owned banks have been available for so long and work so well that people take for granted that any country that knows how to run an economy has a public banking option. Costa Ricans are amazed to hear there is only one public depository bank in the United States (the Bank of North Dakota), and few people have private access to it.
So says political activist Scott Bidstrup, who writes:
For the last decade, I have resided in Costa Rica, where we have had a “Public Option” for the last 64 years.
There are 29 licensed banks, mutual associations and credit unions …
The Australian security state is collecting intelligence on a scale never seen before
by Murray Hunter / November 11th, 2013
Through rapid technology advances the Australian security apparatus has grown to an Orwellian scale. This has not necessarily been at the design of any elected government but something the Australian bureaucracy was forthright in promoting.
The executive government has only superficial control over the Australian surveillance system. It is fully integrated with the NSA apparatus which immediately brings up an issue about sovereignty. This is not about a country’s sovereignty over land, but knowledge. The international exchange of security information is a challenge to human rights of Australian citizens that has to be grappled with.
Consequently, it is not in the interests …
In Secret Negotiations, U.S. Officials and Corporate Representatives Trade Our Human and Constitutional Rights for Corporate Profit
by Christopher Fisher / November 11th, 2013
When “Everything That’s Fit to Print” doesn’t include the content of a proposed trade agreement, who represents the public interest at the bargaining table?
The New York Times – likely the most influential newspaper on the planet – last week editorialized in favor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade and investor rights agreement currently being negotiated in Washington D.C. by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and eleven other nations which border the Pacific Ocean. Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam are all currently participating in the talks.
The Times’ editorial is of great …
American Kids and the World Pay the Price
by John Stanton / November 11th, 2013
Could there be any connection between the size of those corporate profits and Washington’s patriotic dedication to eternal warfare? That great transfer of wealth helps explain how the gap between rich and poor in America has become an ever widening canyon. The financial dynamics of war-making are rarely mentioned in connection with America’s woes but from the profiteer’s point of view widening income inequality might be seen as a contribution to national security. During the past 12 year of wars defined from the start as endless the ranks of the poor have increased exponentially while public services like the education …
by Bill Purkayastha / November 11th, 2013
Happy Veterans Day. Support Our Troops! (no matter what they do, or who they’re sent to kill, even if it’s YOU).
by Kevin Coleman / November 11th, 2013
… and a Guaranteed Profit for the Corporations and Bankers regardless of the opinions or outcomes of public protests.
A Tale of Milk and Honey from the UK/EU Homeland
Did you read the one by George on the TTIP negotiations?
Yep, so did I.
Worried?
Me too.
That makes two of us. But would you vote against it. Assuming we get a vote, which according to all the rumors flying around we won’t anytime ever. It’s a closed door, secret society. A totally classified and utterly controlled set of negotiations.
Negotiations which will create the biggest set of changes to our democratic freedoms for hundreds of …
by Medea Benjamin / November 11th, 2013
Jeh Johnson, President Obama’s pick to replace outgoing Secretary Janet Napolitano as head of the Department of Homeland Security, will appear before the Senate Homeland Security Committee this week for his confirmation hearing. Johnson is an obscure figure to the general public, but his likely confirmation does not bode well for human rights, or your civil liberties. Johnson is a civil and criminal trial lawyer who made millions defending corporations such as Citigroup and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. His government positions included a stint as New York assistant US attorney and general counsel for the Pentagon from 2009 to 2012, during …
by subMedia / November 11th, 2013
This week:
1. Herman Wallace RIP
2. The KGB’s in da house
3. Mexico never forgives
4. Brazil’s Black Bloc
5. Pussy Riot
6. Who are the warriors?
To start, click on the above video box.
by Ludwig Watzal / November 11th, 2013
Benyamin Netanyahu’s hyperventilated fury didn’t surprise anybody. Even before the first outlines of a possible long-term agreement between Iran and the West on Iran’s nuclear program were publicized, Israel’s Prime Minister categorically rejected any such agreement. This irrational behavior disqualifies him as a serious partner to other heads of states. His extremism goes even as far as to promote further sanctions against Iran. Netanyahu wants Iran to capitulate and abolish its entire nuclear industry. He announced that Israel does not feel bound by the agreement. Netanyahu arrogates Israel a right to override decisions by UN Security Council members.
That Western leaders …
by John Andrews / November 11th, 2013
There can be few more sickening and obviously provable examples of the psychotic nature of British foreign policy than the recent court martial of three Royal Marines charged with murder.
This event concerns the slaughter of a defenceless Afghan by a Royal Marine who, going on the available evidence, was at least partially encouraged by two of his colleagues. The evidence takes the form of video and audio clips of the incident which if authentic – and there’s no reason to think they’re not – is damning. The murder is bad enough, obviously, but concealed in plain sight (which is …
