Baroud: Articulating the Unprintable: Ramzy Baroud Discusses Media Response to His Book14 Nov 2007Ramzy Baroud, veteran Palestinian-American journalist and Editor-in-Chief of the Palestine Chronicle, recently completed a speaking tour of the United States’ East Coast to promote his second book, The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, 2006). The Second Palestinian Intifada is a far-reaching account of key events of the past five years that transformed the political landscape not only of Palestine and Israel, but of the entire Middle East.
Petras: Venezuela: Between Ballots and Bullets14 Nov 2007 Introduction Venezuela’s democratically elected Present Chavez faces the most serious threat since the April 11, 2002 military coup. Violent street demonstrations by privileged middle and upper middle class university students have led to major street battles in and around the center of Caracas.
Hayden: An Appeal to Barack Obama14 Nov 2007“The Democrats have been stuck in the arguments of Vietnam, which means that either you’re a Scoop Jackson Democrat or you’re a Tom Hayden Democrat and you’re suspicious of any military action. And that’s just not my framework.
Lendman: Torturing Palestinian Detainees14 Nov 2007B’Tselem is the conservative Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories with a well-deserved reputation for accuracy. A group of prominent academics, attorneys, journalists and Knesset members founded the organization in 1989 to “document and educate the Israeli public and policymakers about human rights violations in the Occupied Territories, combat the phenomenon of denial prevalent among the Israeli public, and help create a human rights culture in Israel” to convince government officials to respect human rights and comply with international law.
Szczepanczyk: The Forthcoming DTV Tsunami14 Nov 2007On Wednesday, February 18, 2009, all analog over-the-air TV broadcasting in the United States ceases, and will be replaced with an all-digital broadcasting setup. The ostensible reason for this conversion to digital television (DTV) is to improve television.
Sainath: One farmer’s suicide every 30 minutes14 Nov 2007Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh have together seen 89,362 farmers’ suicides between 1997 and 2005. On average, one Indian farmer committed suicide every 32 minutes between 1997 and 2005.
Bohmer: 10 Days That Shook Olympia14 Nov 2007 “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!” —Mario Savio, the steps of Sproul Plaza, UC Berkeley, December 2, 1964
Karkar: The Deadly Dance for Peace14 Nov 2007With the beating of war drums sounding louder by the day, the US is nevertheless engaging its Middle East protagonists in an elaborate dance for peace that it hopes will resolve the Israel/Palestine conflict after a November summit. But, in all the flurry of preliminary talks intended to establish a joint statement of principles, Israel is showing no signs of good faith.
Kashef: Genetic Drift13 Nov 2007Ever since scientists discovered “the secret of life” embedded in our DNA a half century ago, the study of human genes has sparked debate about the nature of race. The question seemed to be settled in the early 1970s when biologist Richard Lewontin compared variations in genes within and among different population groups.
Hetland: Venezuela’s Hopes and Contradictions13 Nov 2007In downtown Caracas the contradictory forces at play in Venezuela today are readily apparent, literally on the skyline, where glitzy new skyscrapers vie with gigantic billboards proclaiming “Venezuela: Rumba al socialismo”. Images of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro can be found on walls and t-shirts throughout the country, and hardly a day goes by without a fervent proclamation from President Hugo Chávez about “socialism of the twenty-first century”.
Fonseca: Canadian Residential Schools13 Nov 2007“It suffices for us to know … that of a total of 1,537 pupils reported upon, nearly 25 per cent of ex-pupils are dead, of one school with an absolutely accurate statement, 69 per cent of ex-pupils are dead, and that everywhere the almost invariable cause of death given is tuberculosis.” With these words, Dr.
Harmon Snow: Trafficking in Children in Chad?13 Nov 2007The French “humanitarian” charity NGO Zoe’s Ark (L’Arche de Zoé) involved in Chad and Darfur is reported to be under investigation by the United Nations, France and Chad for trafficking in black children in the widely under-reported “L’Arche de Zoé affair.” However, the French President intervened to secure the freedom and evacuate French nationals from Chad without even a trial.
Mishra: India’s Belated, Yet Insufficient, Realization13 Nov 2007On the 8th of November, the Eleventh Five Year Plan was given and approved by the full meeting of the Indian Planning Commission, presided over by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, its ex-officio chairman.
Schell: Are You With Us… or Against Us?13 Nov 2007The journey to the martial law just imposed on Pakistan by its self-appointed president, the dictator Pervez Musharraf, began in Washington on September 11, 2001. On that day, it so happened, Pakistan’s intelligence chief, Lt.
Martinez: Latin America’s New Petro-Politics13 Nov 2007In his 2006 State of the Union address, President Bush famously stated that “America is addicted to oil.” He soon followed that proclamation with an announcement that his solution to the addiction is to diversify U.
Klein: Latin America’s Shock Resistance13 Nov 2007In less than two years, the lease on the largest and most important US military base in Latin America will run out. The base is in Manta, Ecuador, and Rafael Correa, the country’s leftist president, has pronounced that he will renew the lease “on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami–an Ecuadorean base.
ZNet