Ten months into Mohammad Mursi’s presidential term, Egypt remains divided, volatile and severely economically-challenged. Confidence in the president’s ability to turn the country around is sapping month-on-month. Whereas 78 percent of the population supported him following his first 100 days in office, according to a recent poll conducted by the Egyptian Centre for Public Opinion Research, a mere 30 per cent (mainly Muslim Brotherhood diehards and people living in rural areas) said they would vote for him again. Continue reading →
Have you heard the latest on Obama’s Justice Department secretly subpoenaing the telephone records of AP editors and journalists, and tracking their ingoing and outgoing calls? Continue reading →
Pakistan’s elections come at a key junction in the region’s geopolitics, with the public firmly opposed to the US ‘war on terror’ being conducted on Pakistani soil with no regard for its sovereignty. Pakistan’s new prime minister has a mandate to take his country in a new direction, but will he use it? Continue reading →
Once again (just as in the recent US Embassy bombing in Ankara) a spectacular terrorist attack takes place in Turkey and the government immediately blames another obscure Marxist terrorist group, that they have conveniently resurrected from Turkey’s distant past. Continue reading →
First, you find two or more young, disgruntled immigrants and/or U.S. citizens, preferably from countries that have been violated by the U.S. or another superpower, like Russia. They might have been taken to the U.S. by parents who were refugees, looking for asylum from some part of the world like Chechnya, split by civil war, brutal repression of the larger power, seeming to breed terrorists who had already been creating attacks against civilians, including schools, movie theaters, public events, within that larger power. Continue reading →
Swing state Ohio mocks the very idea of democracy. As it so often does, Ohio reflects a national trend: this one the plunge toward corporate one-party state governments very much at odds with what the public thinks and wants. Continue reading →
The UN has announced that in 2010–2012, including the Great Horn of Africa Drought period, at least 250,000 Somalis starved to death. Continue reading →
The soldiers were trapped between slow moving clouds of the grey-green poisonous gas. Those closer to the chlorine cylinders felt a distinctive peppery-smell and metallic taste before the poisonous element stung their throats and chests. Those of their friends standing further away panicked as the green-death silently swallowed their friends. Continue reading →
The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
DALARNA, Sweden—The word ‘surreal’ was the first which came to my mind, what I witnessed during the last third of April indeed seeming best described by it. Of course, too much has too long been overblown, the strongest of adjectives too frequently employed to mask the weakest of circumstances; but, in this instance the word ‘surreal’ seems appropriate, although what brings it to mind are events that indeed seem ‘overblown.’ Continue reading →
What more time-honored practice in the long history of state sponsored servitude than the institutionalization of prisoners? Incarceration for offenses against government laws is a cornerstone for power and survivability of any regime. Prisons may have been hellholes over the centuries, but seldom has the internment of convicted lawbreakers been a growth industry for private profit. It almost makes one wonder exactly who are the crooks. While most hard-pressed citizens want a safe and secure society, few ever give even a passing thought to the insatiable corporatist criminalization of the criminal justice system. Just how many Americans agree with the proposition, if you did the crime, you need to serve the time? Continue reading →
Iraq expert and author Jeff Archer recalls, in one of his columns, an Iraq which existed once. Continue reading →
Europe’s anti-austerity popular revolt is not benefitting the political parties of the authentic left that should be reaping electoral support from disaffected workers, pensioners, and students. Instead, the parties of the far-right, which are in lockstep with the corporate-fascist goals of multinational banks and corporations, are gaining in strength. Continue reading →
America will never be a “no drone zone.” Continue reading →
On Sep. 17, 2012, Ismail Haniyeh, Prime Minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, made another appeal to his Egyptian counterpart, Hisham Kandil, to consider setting up a free trade area between Gaza and Egypt. Continue reading →
On Tuesday March 27, 2013, Kofi Annan gave a speech at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. In his usual careful and diplomatic tone, Annan spoke firmly against Western calls for more direct military intervention in Syria. Continue reading →
In 2011, before he was the Republican nominee for vice-president, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) proposed a federal budget. He called it, “The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America’s Promise.” Continue reading →
Governments must accept that the root causes of poverty, inequality and climate change will never be addressed without substantial reforms to the global economy. In the meanwhile, the post-2015 development goals need to be much more ambitious about preventing avoidable poverty-related deaths within an immediate timeframe. Continue reading →
Pressure is mounting on Canada to finish up a long-delayed trade deal with the EU. Despite outstanding issues that still must be settled, there is a final push to try and complete an agreement this summer. Continue reading →
Given Canada’s neo-realpolitik internationally, it is no surprise that Canadian domestic affairs are following an identical logic. In the past, Canada appeared to stand apart from such settler colonies as the US and Australia in dealing more fairly with its natives. John Ralston Saul argues for the “originality of the Canadian project”, that contained elements of a rejection of the Enlightenment project of Europe/the US, which was based on secular rationality and liberal revolution. Continue reading →
Canada’s role in the postmodern imperial world is as a poster child for promoting formal electoral democracy—at home and abroad. Internationally, instead of offering peacekeeping troops to the UN, as in days of yore, and promoting grassroots development in the third world, it takes orders directly from its US-Euro masters, helping them invade countries if necessary to set up the mechanisms for elections, and ignoring for the most part the real problems that the poor of the world face. It uses its foreign diplomatic service not to promote peace and social justice, but to support the needs of Canadian corporations abroad and facilitate their quest for profits. Continue reading →
This month marks the 10th anniversary of the decision by the Bush-Cheney administration to invade the country of Iraq and initiate what can be called a war of choice. This is a good time to briefly look back at this unsavory historical episode. Continue reading →
The government of Pakistan claims that there are “red lines” which drones and ground soldiers dare not cross (US urged not to cross ‘red line’ in Fata). This is another lie. In reality, US drones (and possibly “private contractors”) cross those lines every day. Just another day in the multi-faceted psychological war games, that are fought-out in FATA every day. Continue reading →
The timing of the Israeli air raid early on January 30 on a Syrian target, that has yet to be identified, coincided with hard to refute indications that the “regime change” in Syria by force, both by foreign military intervention and by internal armed rebellion, has failed, driving the Syrian opposition in exile to opt unwillingly for “negotiations” with the ruling regime, with the blessing of the U.S., EU and Arab League, concluding, in the words of a Deutsche Welle report on this February 2, that “nearly two years since the revolt began, (Syrian President Bashar Al-) Assad is still sitting comfortably in the presidential chair.” Continue reading →
The British security firm G4S is set to rake in massive profits thanks to crises in Mali, Libya and Algeria. Recognized as the world’s biggest security firm, the group’s brand plummeted during the London Olympics last year due to its failure to satisfy conditions of a government contract. But with growing unrest in North and West Africa, G4S is expected to make a speedy recovery. Continue reading →
Thinking ahead is one thing. Preemptive thinking is paranoia run wild. Continue reading →
I should have known better. Both Jim Fetzer and Kevin Barrett claimed, on the Internet, that Sandy Hook was a false-flag op. Yet, out of some naive urge that Americans couldn’t be that cruel (mea culpa), I tried to give a more reasonable explanation of what Jeff Prager had questioned and written in an article posted on Barrett’s Truth Jihad Radio, mainly that Chief Medical Examiner D. Wayne Carver II, MD, of Connecticut, acted and answered strangely in a press conference flanked by Connecticut State Police. Continue reading →
A reductionist discourse is one that selectively tailors its reading of subject matters in such a way as to only yield desired outcomes, leaving little or no room for other inquiries, no matter how appropriate or relevant. The so-called Arab Spring, although now far removed from its initial meanings and aspirations, has become just that: a breeding ground for choosy narratives solely aimed at advancing political agendas which are deeply entrenched with regional and international involvement. Continue reading →
In his inaugural address on January 21, U.S. President Barak Obama made the historic announcement that “a decade of war is ending” and declared his country’s determination to “show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully,” but his message will remain words that have yet to be translated into deeds and has yet to reach some of the U.S.’s closest allies in the Middle East who are still beating the drums of war, like Israel against Iran and Qatar against Syria. Continue reading →
If you’re one of those who equate the worlds of Washington and Hollywood—the standard joke: “Politics is show business for ugly people”—then a presidential inauguration is the Oscars, Golden Globes and Emmy Awards combined, right down to the parties, balls, extravagant wardrobes and goody bags stuffed with swag. Continue reading →
The military-dominated politics pushed by Hafiz Saeed are identical to those of the actual “Taliban,” who were nice enough to provide America with a convenient excuse to wage experimental techno-warfare in Afghanistan (SEE: Rightwing alliance is revived; Pushing Pakistan’s Buttons–or Shit Rolls Downhill). Continue reading →
The US Code defines terrorism as a crime that appears to be intended to (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping. Continue reading →
What does a Palestinian farmer who is living in a village tucked in between the secluded West Bank hills, a prisoner on hunger strike in an Israeli jail and a Palestinian refugee roaming the Middle East for shelter all have in common? They are all characters in one single, authentic, solid and cohesive narrative. The problem however, is that Western media and academia barely reflect that reality or intentionally distort it, disarticulate it and when necessary, defame its characters. Continue reading →
