Bidwai: Carbon culprits: South is fast catching up23 Dec 2007With Indian emissions rising three to four times faster than the world average, it is time to end the government policy of hiding behind the poor to defend elites who enjoy Northern levels of consumption. NOTHING exposes the bankruptcy of “GDP-ism”, or obsession with gross domestic product growth, better than India’s and Pakistan’s performance where it matters — h.
Meister: “You’ve Got To Cheat”23 Dec 2007What’s been largely ignored in the furor over baseball players’ illegal use of steroids is the crucial fact that cheating of one kind or another has always been an important part of the game. It wouldn’t be baseball as we know it without cheating.
Landau: The NIE Watergates Bush23 Dec 2007(20 December 2007) The intelligence report served to discredit Bush, which reduces chances of an imminent war with Iran, but don’t fool yourself—it doesn’t change fundamental U.S.
Early: A Presidential Year Confession – & Prayer23 Dec 2007While millions of other Americans have somehow managed to minimize the impact of the 2008 presidential election campaign on their collective consciousness, the candidates from both parties have had a transformative effect on me. They’ve made me a ‘militant atheist.
RAWA: Communiqué on Universal Human Rights Day22 Dec 2007The US and her allies tried to legitimize their military occupation of Afghanistan under the banner of “bringing freedom and democracy for Afghan people”. But as we have experienced in the past three decades, in regard to the fate of our people, the US government first of all considers her own political and economic interests and has empowered and equipped the most traitorous, anti-democratic, misogynist and corrupt fundamentalist gangs in Afghanistan.
Bello: The day after…22 Dec 2007The single-minded focus on getting Washington on board at the UN climate conference in Bali resulted in the lack of firm targets for reducing emissions. (Bali, Dec.
McCormack: Japan as a Plutonium Superpower22 Dec 2007Introduction For 60 years the world has faced no greater threat than nuclear weapons. Japan, as a nuclear victim country, with “three non-nuclear principles” (non-production, non-possession, and non-introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan) and its “Peace Constitution,” had unique credentials to play a positive role in helping the world find a solution, yet its record has been consistently pro-nuclear, that is to say, pro-nuclear energy, pro-the nuclear cycle, and, pro-nuclear weapons.
Worthington: The Guantánamo Britons and Spain’s dubious extradition request22 Dec 2007Celebrations by the families, friends and supporters of the three British men who returned from Guantánamo on Wednesday – Omar Deghayes, Jamil El-Banna and Abdulnour Sameur – were abruptly cut short when the Spanish government immediately requested the extradition of El-Banna and Deghayes for alleged ties with terrorists, even though the supposed evidence in Deghayes’ case was comprehensively demolished nearly three years ago, and, in El-Banna’s case, is strenuously denied by his lawyers. In March 2005, image recognition experts, commissioned by the BBC’s Newsnight, concluded that the figure in a grainy video of a Chechen training camp, which was supposed to be Deghayes, was in fact a militant named Abu Walid, who had later been killed.
Escobar: Embedded with power – Part 122 Dec 2007Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian born journalist and writer. He has reported from many different countries and conflicts over his career so far, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, the US and China.
Campaign for Peace and Democracy: Release Iranian Students from Prison Now!21 Dec 2007Open Letter from The Campaign for Peace and Democracy to: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, PresidentGholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie, Minister of IntelligenceAyatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, Head of the JudiciaryAyatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, Leader of the Islamic RepublicGholamali Haddad Adel, Speaker of ParliamentTehran, Islamic Republic of IranWe are writing to strongly condemn the arrests in early December of students in Tehran involved in courageous protests against repression; a key target of their protest was the arrest in May of three student leaders: Ehsan Mansouri, Ahmad Ghassaban and Majid Tavakkoli.We call for the immediate release of the imprisoned students, as well as all others .
Lendman: Holiday Season Hypocrisy21 Dec 2007Christmas is observed December 25 by Christians and others celebrating the spirit of the season while for those of the Eastern Orthodox faith the holiday falls on January 7. It’s to honor the birth of Jesus Christ even though it’s widely acknowledged not to be his birthday.
Bond: Jacob Zuma’s Election20 Dec 2007Congratulations are due Jacob Zuma – apparently far more Machiavellian than even his arch-opponent since 2005, Thabo Mbeki – and the tireless band of warriors from the Congress of SA Trade Unions, SA Communist Party and African National Congress Youth League who kept his political life support on when everyone else declared him dead. But after his election as ANC president on Tuesday, the disintegration of his voting bloc is not far off.
Baroud: Politicising Gaza’s Misery20 Dec 2007Intense debate over Gaza is subsiding as the status quo is delineated—predictably—by those with the bigger guns. But to what extent can human suffering be politicised, turned into an intellectual polemic that fails to affect the simplest change in people’s lives?Hamas’s political advent in January 2006 as the first “opposition” movement in the Arab world to ascend to power using peaceful and democratic means was successfully thwarted in a brazen coup, engineered jointly by the United States, Israel and renegade Palestinians factionalists.
Klein: Zapatista Code Red20 Dec 2007Nativity scenes are plentiful in San Cristóbal de las Casas, a colonial city in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. But the one that greets visitors at the entrance to the TierrAdentro cultural center has a local twist: figurines on donkeys wear miniature ski masks and carry wooden guns.
Zinn: A Violent Cartography20 Dec 2007[This essay serves as the introduction to Bomb After Bomb: a Violent Cartography, a collection of drawings illustrating the history of bombing by elin o’Hara slavick. o’Hara slavick is a professor of art at the University of North Carolina.
Porter: Algeria: More Violence and “Normality”19 Dec 2007 In spectacular fashion, the latest suicide attacks in Algiers confirm that nothing basic has changed in the political dynamics of Algeria. The immediate horror of apparently 70 or more deaths and 200 wounded in two truck bomb attacks on December 11th was smothered by the “normalization” response of the government and the establishment “political class” in the days which followed.
Walia: “Second Komagatamaru”19 Dec 2007Laibar Singh is a 48-year old paralyzed Dalit Punjabi refugee claimant who is facing deportation to India. He had taken sanctuary on July 7 in the Abbotsford Sahib Kalgidhar Darbar Gurudwara.
Milne: Poisonous and Dangerous19 Dec 2007This week’s forensic exposure by the BBC programme Newsnight of the apparent fabrication of evidence underpinning an inflammatory report into British Muslims by the Tory-linked think tank Policy Exchange has revealed the soft underbelly of what has become an increasingly poisonous and dangerous campaign. Throughout this year, a steady stream of hostile and sensationalised stories about the Muslim community in both press and television – often based on research by apparently reliable think tanks – has helped feed anti-Muslim prejudice to the point where Britons were found this summer by a Harris opinion poll to be more suspicious of Muslims than Americans or citizens of any other major west European country.
Andoni: Managing the occupation19 Dec 2007On the face of it, the one-day international donor meeting in Paris was a fantastic success. Billions of dollars were promised in aid to the Palestinian Authority to salvage its ailing economy, and all the while political rhetoric flew about in support of Palestinian statehood.
Gordon: Sowing Seeds in the Vast Wasteland: The Birth of The Real News19 Dec 2007Paul Jay, a veteran Canadian documentary filmmaker, news producer, and CEO of Independent World Television (IWT), was in the midst of a globetrotting four-year quest to change the nature of television news when he explained his mission to a Chicago taxi driver. “I said we’re building a new TV news network,” Jay recalls.
Kfoury: The Struggle for Iraq’s Constitution19 Dec 2007A new Iraqi constitution was ratified by a referendum two years ago, on October 15, 2005. Eager to give the impression of progress against a backdrop of relentless violence and devastation, US officials trumpeted the event as a key step in planting democracy in the Arab world.
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