Articles by The New York Times
We found 300 results.
The President on Mass Surveillance
Editorial – The New York Times,
20 Jan 2014
Jan. 17, 2014 – The collection of all this data may not be making us any safer, concluded the president’s review panel, as a federal judge ruled the program unconstitutional, and an extensive report by the New America Foundation found that the program “has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism.”
→ read full articleEdward Snowden, Whistle-Blower
Editorial Board - The New York Times,
6 Jan 2014
When someone reveals that government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of the same government.
→ read full articleIn No One We Trust
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences – The New York Times,
30 Dec 2013
Trust is becoming yet another casualty of our country’s staggering inequality: As the gap between Americans widens, the bonds that hold society together weaken. So, too, as the 1 percent ascend to ever more distant heights, this vital element of our institutions and our way of life is eroding.
→ read full articleN.S.A. Spied on Allies, Aid Groups and Businesses
James Glanz and Andrew W. Lehren – The New York Times,
23 Dec 2013
While the names of some political and diplomatic leaders have previously emerged as targets, the newly disclosed intelligence documents provide a much fuller portrait of the spies’ sweeping interests in more than 60 countries.
→ read full articleThe Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder
Alan Schwarz – The New York Times,
23 Dec 2013
The Number of Diagnoses Soared Amid a 20-Year Drug Marketing Campaign – “This is a concoction to justify the giving out of medication at unprecedented and unjustifiable levels,” Keith Conners, a psychologist and early advocate for recognition of A.D.H.D., said of the rising rates of diagnosis of the disorder.
→ read full articleBoycott by Academic Group Is a Symbolic Sting to Israel
Richard Pérez-Peña and Jodi Rudoren – The New York Times,
23 Dec 2013
An American organization of professors on Monday [16 Dec 2013] announced a boycott of Israeli academic institutions to protest Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, signaling that a movement to isolate and pressure Israel that is gaining ground in Europe has begun to make strides in the United States.
→ read full articleOfficials Say U.S. May Never Know Extent of Snowden’s Leaks
Mark Mazzetti and Michael S. Schmidt – The New York Times,
16 Dec 2013
A senior N.S.A. official has told reporters that he believed Mr. Snowden still had access to documents not yet disclosed. The official, Rick Ledgett, who is heading the security agency’s task force examining the leak, said he would consider recommending amnesty for Mr. Snowden in exchange for those documents.
→ read full articleWho Is Watching the Watch Lists?
Susan Stellin – The New York Times,
2 Dec 2013
The federal government’s main terrorist watch list has grown to at least 700,000 people, with little scrutiny over how the determinations are made or the impact on those marked with the terrorist label.
→ read full articleAbuse Accusations Overshadow Commonwealth Meeting in Sri Lanka
Malavika Vyawahare - The New York Times,
18 Nov 2013
Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, tried to pre-empt criticism of his government’s human rights record on Friday [15 Nov 2013] as he welcomed leaders of Commonwealth countries to a summit meeting in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, that was overshadowed by persistent allegations of state-sponsored abuse during a long civil war by the Sinhalese-dominated government against ethnic Tamils.
→ read full articleNo Morsel Too Minuscule for All-Consuming N.S.A.
Scott Shane – The New York Times,
11 Nov 2013
From thousands of classified documents, the National Security Agency emerges as an electronic omnivore of staggering capabilities, eavesdropping and hacking its way around the world to strip governments and other targets of their secrets, all the while enforcing the utmost secrecy about its own operations. It spies routinely on friends as well as foes, as has become obvious in recent weeks.
→ read full articleMyanmar’s Drive for Peace
Maung Zarni – The New York Times,
4 Nov 2013
Based on my experience working with the generals as an unofficial advocate for Western re-engagement with the country, I know that the military leaders who may be inclined to compromise hold an instrumentalist view of reconciliation. For them, peace is not a worthwhile goal in and of itself but a means to another end: financial reward.
→ read full articleIs Glenn Greenwald the Future of News?
Bill Keller – The New York Times,
4 Nov 2013
The disruptive power of the Internet raises profound questions about what journalism is becoming, about its essential character and values. This week’s column is a conversation — a (mostly) civil argument — between two very different views of how journalism fulfills its mission: Bill Keller and Glenn Greenwald.
→ read full articleInequality Is a Choice
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times,
21 Oct 2013
It’s well known by now that income and wealth inequality in most rich countries, especially the United States, have soared in recent decades and, tragically, worsened even more since the Great Recession. But what about the rest of the world?
→ read full articleNetanyahu Pushes Back on Iran
Editorial Board – The New York Times,
7 Oct 2013
It could be disastrous if Mr. Netanyahu and his supporters in Congress were so blinded by distrust of Iran that they exaggerate the threat, block President Obama from taking advantage of new diplomatic openings and sabotage the best chance to establish a new relationship since the 1979 Iranian revolution sent American-Iranian relations into the deep freeze.
→ read full articleAdobe Announces Security Breach
David Kocieniewski – The New York Times,
7 Oct 2013
Hackers infiltrated the computer system of the software company Adobe, gaining access to credit card information and other personal data from 2.9 million of its customers, the company acknowledged on Thursday [3 Oct 2013].
→ read full articleRich Man’s Recovery
Paul Krugman, Economics Nobel Laureate – The New York Times,
16 Sep 2013
Basically, while the great majority of Americans are still living in a depressed economy, the rich have recovered just about all their losses and are powering ahead.
→ read full articleA Journalist-Agitator Facing Prison over a Link
David Carr – The New York Times,
16 Sep 2013
Barrett Brown makes for a pretty complicated victim. A Dallas-based journalist obsessed with the government’s ties to private security firms, Mr. Brown has been in jail for a year, facing charges that carry a combined penalty of more than 100 years in prison.
→ read full articleA Plea for Caution from Russia
Vladimir V. Putin – The New York Times,
16 Sep 2013
World’s reaction: if you cannot count on international law, then you must find other ways to ensure your security. Thus a growing number of countries seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction. This is logical: if you have the bomb, no one will touch you. We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement.
→ read full articleWhat Is Economics Good For?
Alex Rosenberg and Tyler Curtain – The New York Times,
10 Sep 2013
It’s easy to understand why economics might be mistaken for science. It uses quantitative expression in mathematics and the succinct statement of its theories in axioms and derived “theorems,” so economics looks a lot like the models of science we are familiar with from physics.
→ read full articleBradley Manning’s Excessive Sentence
Editorial Board – The New York Times,
26 Aug 2013
35 years is far too long a sentence. Government lawyers presented vague and largely speculative claims that Private Manning’s leaks had endangered lives and “chilled” diplomatic relations. Much of what he released was of public value, including a video of a military helicopter shooting at two vans and killing civilians, including two Reuters journalists.
→ read full articleChina Takes Aim at Western Ideas
Chris Buckley – The New York Times,
26 Aug 2013
Communist Party cadres have filled meeting halls around China to hear a somber, secretive warning issued by senior leaders. Power could escape their grip, they have been told, unless the party eradicates seven subversive currents coursing through Chinese society.
→ read full articleThe Charitable-Industrial Complex
Peter Buffett – The New York Times,
5 Aug 2013
I’m not calling for an end to capitalism; I’m calling for humanism. Is progress really Wi-Fi on every street corner? No. It’s when no 13-year-old girl on the planet gets sold for sex. But as long as most folks are patting themselves on the back for charitable acts, we’ve got a perpetual poverty machine. It’s an old story; we really need a new one.
→ read full articleJapanese Nuclear Plant May Have Been Leaking for Two Years
Hiroko Tabuchi – The New York Times,
22 Jul 2013
The nuclear power plant at Fukushima has been leaking contaminated water into the ocean for two years, ever since an earthquake and tsunami damaged the plant, Japan’s chief nuclear regulator said on Wednesday [10 Jul 2013]. In unusually candid comments, Shunichi Tanaka also said that neither his staff nor the plant’s operator knew exactly where the leaks were coming from, or how to stop them.
→ read full articleThe Criminal N.S.A.
Jennifer Stisa Granick and Christopher Jon Sprigman – The New York Times,
1 Jul 2013
We may never know all the details of the mass surveillance programs, but we know this: The administration has justified them through abuse of language, intentional evasion of statutory protections, secret, unreviewable investigative procedures and constitutional arguments that make a mockery of the government’s professed concern with protecting Americans’ privacy. It’s time to call the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs what they are: criminal.
→ read full articleText of White House Statement on Chemical Weapons in Syria
The New York Times - TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jun 2013
Following is the statement issued by the White House in the name of Benjamin J. Rhodes, deputy national security adviser.
→ read full articleNightmare in Portugal
Paul Krugman – The New York Times,
3 Jun 2013
Don’t tell me that Portugal has had bad policies in the past and has deep structural problems. Of course it has; so does everyone. How can it possibly make sense to “deal” with these problems by condemning vast numbers of willing workers to unemployment? The answer to the kind of problems Portugal now faces, as we’ve known for many decades, is expansionary monetary and fiscal policy.
→ read full articleThe Banality of ‘Don’t Be Evil’
Julian Assange – The New York Times,
3 Jun 2013
“The New Digital Age” is an attempt by Google to position itself as America’s geopolitical visionary. Without even understanding how, they have updated and seamlessly implemented George Orwell’s prophecy. If you want a vision of the future, imagine Washington-backed Google Glasses strapped onto vacant human faces — forever. But this is essential reading for anyone caught up in the struggle for the future, in view of one simple imperative: Know your enemy.
→ read full articleBill Keller Has Completely Misread Syria’s Red Lines
Robin Edward Poulton PhD – The New York Times,
20 May 2013
What makes Bill Keller or John McCain or any other gung-ho armchair warrior in Washington think that an Al Qaeda-related Sunni regime in Damascus led by Al-Nusra or by the militant Muslim Brotherhood would be good for America, or Lebanon, or Israel?
→ read full articleThe 1 Percent’s Solution
Paul Krugman – The New York Times,
13 May 2013
Two big questions remain. First, how did austerity doctrine become so influential in the first place? Second, will policy change at all now that crucial austerian claims have become fodder for late-night comics?
→ read full articleIndisputable Torture
The Editorial Board – The New York Times,
22 Apr 2013
The report found that those methods violated international legal obligations with “no firm or persuasive evidence” that they produced valuable information that could not have been obtained by other means. This blunt language should help end a corrosive debate that has broken down on largely partisan lines. The panel further details the ethical lapses of government lawyers in the Bush years who served up “acrobatic” advice to justify brutal interrogations, and of medical professionals who helped oversee them.
→ read full articleTaping of Farm Cruelty Is Becoming the Crime
Richard A. Oppel Jr. – The New York Times,
15 Apr 2013
Several states have placed restrictions on undercover investigations into cruelty. On one covert video, farm workers illegally burn the ankles of Tennessee walking horses with chemicals. Another captures workers in Wyoming punching and kicking pigs and flinging piglets into the air. Now “The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act” prohibits filming or taking pictures on livestock farms to “defame the facility or its owner.” Violators would be placed on a “terrorist registry.”
→ read full articleHunger Strike at Guantánamo
The New York Times, Editorial - TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Apr 2013
5 Apr 2013 – The hunger strike that has spread since early February [2013] among the 166 detainees still at Guantánamo Bay is again exposing the lawlessness of the system that marooned them there. The government claims that around 40 detainees are taking part. Lawyers for detainees report that their clients say around 130 detainees in one part of the prison have taken part.
→ read full articleHot Money Blues
Paul Krugman, 2008 Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times,
1 Apr 2013
Whatever the final outcome in the Cyprus crisis — we know it’s going to be ugly; we just don’t know exactly what form the ugliness will take. The truth, hard as it may be for ideologues to accept, is that unrestricted movement of capital is looking more and more like a failed experiment. Global capitalism is, arguably, on track to become substantially less global.
→ read full articleState-Wrecked: The Corruption of Capitalism in America
David A. Stockman – The New York times,
1 Apr 2013
The United States is broke — fiscally, morally, intellectually — and the Fed has incited a global currency war (Japan just signed up, the Brazilians and Chinese are angry, and the German-dominated euro zone is crumbling) that will soon overwhelm it. When the latest bubble pops, there will be nothing to stop the collapse. If this sounds like advice to get out of the markets and hide out in cash, it is.
→ read full articleMystery Malady Kills More Bees, Heightening Worry on Farms
Michael Wines – The New York Times,
1 Apr 2013
A mysterious malady that has been killing honeybees en masse for several years appears to have expanded drastically in the last year, wiping out 40 percent or even 50 percent of the hives needed to pollinate many of US fruits and vegetables. A conclusive explanation so far has escaped scientists studying the ailment, colony collapse disorder, since it first surfaced around 2005.
→ read full articleMajor Grocer to Label Foods with Gene-Modified Content
Stephanie Strom – The New York Times,
11 Mar 2013
Whole Foods Market, the grocery chain, on Friday [8 Mar 2013] became the first retailer in the United States to require labeling of all genetically modified foods sold in its stores, a move that some experts said could radically alter the food industry.
→ read full articleDrones, Kill Lists and Machiavelli
Desmond M. Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate – The New York Times,
18 Feb 2013
Do the United States and its people really want to tell those of us who live in the rest of the world that our lives are not of the same value as yours? That President Obama can sign off on a decision to kill us with less worry about judicial scrutiny than if the target is an American? Would your Supreme Court really want to tell humankind that we, like the slave Dred Scott in the 19th century, are not as human as you are? I cannot believe it.
→ read full articleMakers of Violent Video Games Marshal Support to Fend Off Regulation
Eric Lichtblau – The New York Times,
14 Jan 2013
With the Newtown, Conn., massacre spurring concern over violent video games, makers of popular games like Call of Duty and Mortal Kombat are rallying Congressional support to try to fend off their biggest regulatory threat in two decades.
→ read full articleHSBC to Pay $1.92 Billion to Settle Charges of Money Laundering
Ben Protess and Jessica Silver-Greenberg – The New York Times,
17 Dec 2012
US authorities decided against indicting HSBC in a money-laundering case over concerns that it could jeopardize one of the world’s largest banks and destabilize the global financial system. Instead, HSBC announced on Tuesday [11 Dec 2012] that it had agreed to a record $1.92 billion settlement over accusations that it transferred billions of dollars for nations like Iran and enabled Mexican drug cartels to move money illegally through its American subsidiaries.
→ read full articleEurope’s Top Health Official Quits, and the Bloc Has a Mystery on Its Hands
James Kanter – The New York Times,
29 Oct 2012
The top health official for the European Union suddenly resigns. His plans to place marketing curbs on tobacco companies are put aside. The offices of antitobacco groups are burglarized. There is talk of cash payments of tens of millions of dollars by Big Tobacco. In his latest public comments, Mr. Dalli said on Wednesday [24 Oct 2012] that the European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, had given him 30 minutes to resign.
→ read full articleAmid Cutbacks, Greek Unemployed Denied Medical Care
Liz Alderman – The New York Times,
29 Oct 2012
Until recently, Greece had a typical European health system, with employers and individuals contributing to a fund that with government assistance financed universal care. Things changed in July 2011, when Greece signed a supplemental loan agreement with international lenders to ward off financial collapse. Now, as stipulated in the deal, Greeks must pay all costs out of pocket after their benefits expire.
→ read full articleBoy Scout Files Give Glimpse into 20 Years of Sex Abuse
Kirk Johnson – The New York Times,
22 Oct 2012
Details of decades of sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America, and what child welfare experts say was a corrosive culture of secrecy that compounded the damage, were cast into full public view for the first time on Thursday [18 Oct 2012] with the release of thousands of pages of documents describing abuse accusations across the country. “The secrets are out,” said Kelly Clark, a lawyer whose firm obtained the files as evidence in an $18.5 million civil judgment against the Scouts in 2010.
→ read full articleElephants Dying in Epic Frenzy as Ivory Fuels Wars and Profits
Jeffrey Gettleman – The New York Times,
10 Sep 2012
This is the first installment in a series of articles that will explore how the surge in poaching of African elephants both feeds off and fuels instability on the continent. In 30 years of fighting poachers, Paul Onyango had never seen anything like this. Twenty-two dead elephants, including several very young ones, clumped together on the open savanna, many killed by a single bullet to the top of the head.
→ read full articleGangs’ Truce Buys El Salvador a Tenuous Peace
Randal C. Archibold – The New York Times,
3 Sep 2012
They had faced off many times before, on the streets, with guns in their hands. But when top leaders of two of the hemisphere’s most violent street gangs sat across from one another in the stifling air of a maximum security prison here this year, the encounter had a very different aim: peace.
→ read full articleNo Crime, No Punishment
The New York Times, editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Aug 2012
When the Justice Department recently closed its criminal investigation of Goldman Sachs, it became all but certain that no major American banks or their top executives would ever face criminal charges for their role in the financial crisis. The shameless pursuit of Wall Street campaign donations by both political parties strengthens this perception, and further undermines confidence in the rule of law.
→ read full articleLoading the Climate Dice
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times,
30 Jul 2012
Climate change denial is a major industry, lavishly financed by Exxon, the Koch brothers and others with a financial stake in the continued burning of fossil fuels.
→ read full articleRegulators and HSBC Faulted in Report on Money Laundering
Nathaniel Popper – The New York Times,
23 Jul 2012
The global bank HSBC has been used by Mexican drug cartels looking to get cash back into the United States, by Saudi Arabian banks that needed access to dollars despite their terrorist ties and by Iranians who wanted to circumvent United States sanctions, a Senate report says.
→ read full articleAfter MF Global, Another Brokerage Firm Collapses With $200 Million Missing
Azam Ahmed – The New York Times,
16 Jul 2012
After discovering accounting irregularities, regulators on Monday [9 Jul 2012] essentially shut down PFGBest, a prominent player in the small world of futures trading. Now, banks accounts with customer funds appear to be short more than $200 million, regulators said. On Monday [9 Jul 2012] morning, according to a statement to clients, the brokerage firm’s chairman and chief executive, Russell R. Wasendorf Sr., tried to commit suicide.
→ read full articleIs Our Patriotism Moral?
Gary Gutting – The New York Times,
9 Jul 2012
At the beginning of Plato’s “Republic,” Socrates asks what justice (doing the morally right thing) is, and Polemarchus replies that it’s helping your friends and harming your enemies. Moral behavior was the way you treated those in your “in-group,” as opposed to outsiders. Socrates questioned this ethical exclusivism that led most major moral philosophers (for example, Mill and Kant) to conclude that morality required an impartial, universal viewpoint that treated all human beings as equals.
→ read full articleA Cruel and Unusual Record
Jimmy Carter, Nobel Peace Laureate – The New York Times,
2 Jul 2012
Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended.
→ read full articleNuclear Operator in Japan Exonerates Itself in Report
Hiroko Tabuchi – The New York Times,
25 Jun 2012
The much vilified operator of the tsunami-hit nuclear power plant at Fukushima released a report on Wednesday [20 Jun 2012] that said the company never hid information, never underplayed the extent of fuel meltdown and certainly never considered abandoning the ravaged site. It asserts that government interference in the disaster response created confusion and delays.
→ read full articleSecret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will
Jo Becker and Scott Shane – The New York Times,
4 Jun 2012
This was the enemy, served up in the latest chart from the intelligence agencies: 15 Qaeda suspects in Yemen with Western ties. The mug shots and brief biographies resembled a high school yearbook layout. Several were Americans. Two were teenagers, including a girl who looked even younger than her 17 years.
→ read full articlePsychiatry Giant Sorry for Backing Gay ‘Cure’
Benedict Carey – The New York Times,
4 Jun 2012
A draft of the letter has already leaked online and has been reported. “You know, it’s the only regret I have; the only professional one,” Dr. Spitzer said of the study, near the end of a long interview. “And I think, in the history of psychiatry, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a scientist write a letter saying that the data were all there but were totally misinterpreted. Who admitted that and who apologized to his readers.” He looked away and back again, his big eyes blurring with emotion. “That’s something, don’t you think?”
→ read full articleThose Revolting Europeans: How Dare the French and Greeks Reject a Failed Strategy!
Paul Krugman, Economics Nobel Laureate – The New York Times,
21 May 2012
The French are revolting. The Greeks, too. And it’s about time. Both countries held elections Sunday [6 May 2012] that were in effect referendums on the current European economic strategy, and in both countries voters turned two thumbs down. It’s far from clear how soon the votes will lead to changes in actual policy, but time is clearly running out for the strategy of recovery through austerity — and that’s a good thing.
→ read full articleChinese Insider Offers Rare Glimpse of U.S.-China Frictions
Jane Perlez – The New York Times,
9 Apr 2012
China views the United States as a declining power, but at the same time believes that Washington is trying to fight back to undermine, and even disrupt, the economic and military growth that point to China’s becoming the world’s most powerful country, according to the analyst, Wang Jisi, the co-author of “Addressing U.S.-China Strategic Distrust.”
→ read full articleFinanciers and Sex Trafficking
Nicholas D. Kristof – The New York Times,
9 Apr 2012
The biggest forum for sex trafficking of under-age girls in the United States appears to be a Web site called Backpage.com. This emporium for girls and women — some under age or forced into prostitution — is in turn owned by an opaque private company called Village Voice Media. Until now it has been unclear who the ultimate owners are. That mystery is solved. The owners turn out to include private equity financiers, including Goldman Sachs with a 16 percent stake.
→ read full articleA Boy to Be Sacrificed
Abdellah Taïa – The New York Times,
2 Apr 2012
I began by keeping my head low all the time. I cut all ties with the children in the neighborhood. I altered my behavior. I kept myself in check: no more feminine gestures, no more honeyed voice, no more hanging around women. No more anything. I had to invent a whole new Abdellah. I bent myself to the task with great determination, and with the realization that this world was no longer my world. Sooner or later, I would leave it behind. I would grow up and find freedom somewhere else. But in the meantime I would become hard. Very hard.
→ read full articlePain Without Gain
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics laureate – The New York Times,
27 Feb 2012
Last week the European Commission confirmed what everyone suspected: the economies it surveys are shrinking, not growing. It’s not an official recession yet, but the only real question is how deep the downturn will be. Look, I understand why influential people are reluctant to admit that policy ideas they thought reflected deep wisdom actually amounted to utter, destructive folly. But it’s time to put delusional beliefs about the virtues of austerity in a depressed economy behind us.
→ read full articleDespite Safety Worries, Work on Deadly Flu to Be Released
Denise Grady – The New York Times,
20 Feb 2012
The full details of recent experiments that made a deadly flu virus more contagious will be published, probably within a few months, despite recommendations by the United States that some information be kept secret for fear that terrorists could use it to start epidemics. The announcement, made on Friday [17 Feb 2012] by the World Health Organization, follows two months of heated debate about the flu research.
→ read full articleIn Nigeria, Boko Haram Is Not the Problem
Jean Herskovits – The New York Times,
9 Jan 2012
Governments and newspapers around the world attributed the horrific Christmas Day bombings of churches in Nigeria to “Boko Haram” — a shadowy group that is routinely described as an extremist Islamist organization based in the northeast corner of Nigeria. Indeed, since the May inauguration of President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the Niger Delta in the country’s south, Boko Haram has been blamed for virtually every outbreak of violence in Nigeria.
→ read full articleAfter Fukushima: Enough Is Enough
Helen Caldicott – The New York Times,
12 Dec 2011
Children are innately sensitive to the carcinogenic effects of radiation, fetuses even more so. Like Chernobyl, the accident at Fukushima is of global proportions. Unusual levels of radiation have been discovered in British Columbia, along the West Coast and East Coast of the United States and in Europe, and heavy contamination has been found in oceanic waters.
→ read full articleAs Myanmar Reaches Out, Old Conflict Flares Within
The New York Times – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Dec 2011
The new government of President Thein Sein has reached out to the country’s minority ethnic groups, which have a long history of conflict with the central government and make up about one-third of Myanmar’s population of 55 million. Last week there were reports of a ceasefire deal with another rebel group, a faction of the Shan State Army. Myanmar’s majority ethnic group, the Burman, have dominated the army and held the highest posts in government since the country, formerly known as Burma, won independence from Britain in 1948, while the non-Burman minorities have sought autonomy.
→ read full articleU.S. Agents Launder Mexican Profits of Drug Cartels
Ginger Thompson – The New York Times,
5 Dec 2011
The high-risk activities raise delicate questions about the agency’s effectiveness in bringing down drug kingpins, underscore diplomatic concerns about Mexican sovereignty, and blur the line between surveillance and facilitating crime. As it launders drug money, the agency often allows cartels to continue their operations over months or even years before making seizures or arrests.
→ read full articleConcerns Are Raised About Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes
Andrew Pollack – The New York Times,
7 Nov 2011
Researchers on Sunday [30 Oct 2011] reported initial signs of success from the first release into the environment of mosquitoes engineered to pass a lethal gene to their offspring, killing them before they reach adulthood. But the research is arousing concern about possible unintended effects on public health and the environment, because once genetically modified insects are released, they cannot be recalled.
→ read full articleConfronting the Malefactors
Paul Krugman – The New York Times,
31 Oct 2011
There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear, but we may, at long last, be seeing the rise of a popular movement that, unlike the Tea Party, is angry at the right people.
→ read full articleThe Path Not Taken
Paul Krugman – The New York Times,
31 Oct 2011
“But a funny thing happened on the way to economic Armageddon: Iceland’s very desperation made conventional behavior impossible, freeing the nation to break the rules. Where everyone else bailed out the bankers and made the public pay the price, Iceland let the banks go bust and actually expanded its social safety net. And there’s a lesson here for the rest of us: The suffering that so many of our citizens are facing is unnecessary. If this is a time of incredible pain and a much harsher society, that was a choice. It didn’t and doesn’t have to be this way.”
→ read full articleDemocracy NOW! – A Grass-Roots Newscast Gives a Voice to Struggles
Brian Stelter – The New York Times,
31 Oct 2011
Operated as a nonprofit organization and distributed on a patchwork of stations, channels and Web sites, “Democracy Now!” is proudly independent, in that way appealing to hundreds of thousands of people who are skeptical of the news organizations that are owned by major media companies. The media, Amy Goodman said in an interview last week, can be “the greatest force for peace on earth” for “it is how we come to understand each other.” But she asserted that the views of a majority of Americans had been “silenced by the corporate media.”
→ read full articleAnti-Wall Street Protests Spreading to Cities Large and Small
Erik Eckholm and Timothy Williams – The New York Times,
10 Oct 2011
Publicity surrounding the recent arrests of hundreds in New York, near Wall Street and on the Brooklyn Bridge, has only energized the campaign. This week, new rallies and in some cases urban encampments are planned for cities as disparate as Memphis, Tenn.; Hilo, Hawaii; Minneapolis; Baltimore; and McAllen, Tex., according to Occupy Together, an unofficial hub for the protests that lists dozens of coming demonstrations, including some in Europe and Japan.
→ read full articleS&P and the USA
Paul Krugman – The New York Times,
8 Aug 2011
On the other hand, it’s hard to think of anyone less qualified to pass judgment on America than the rating agencies. The people who rated subprime-backed securities are now declaring that they are the judges of fiscal policy? Really?
→ read full articleUS Expands Its Presence in Mexico, Ramping Up Drug War
Ginger Thompson - The New York Times News Service,
8 Aug 2011
The United States is expanding its role in Mexico’s bloody fight against drug trafficking organizations, sending new C.I.A. operatives and retired military personnel to the country and considering plans to deploy private security contractors in hopes of turning around a multibillion-dollar effort that so far has shown few results.
→ read full articleA Tainted Water Well, and Concern There May Be More
Ian Urbina – The New York Times,
8 Aug 2011
“There have been over a million wells hydraulically fractured in the history of the industry, and there is not one, not one, reported case of a freshwater aquifer having ever been contaminated from hydraulic fracturing. Not one,” Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of ExxonMobil, said last year at a Congressional hearing on drilling. But there is in fact a documented case, and the E.P.A. report that discussed it suggests there may be more. Researchers, however, were unable to investigate many suspected cases because their details were sealed from the public when energy companies settled lawsuits with landowners.
→ read full articleTroops March in San Diego’s Gay Pride Parade
Associated Press (AP) – The New York Times,
18 Jul 2011
About 200 active-duty troops and veterans wearing T-shirts advertising their branch of service marched Saturday [16 Jul 2011] in San Diego’s gay pride parade with American flags and rainbow banners, marking what is believed to be the first time a military contingent has participated in such an event in the U.S.
→ read full articleAs Wall St. Polices Itself, Prosecutors Use Softer Approach
Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story - The New York Times,
11 Jul 2011
“Traditionally, a bank would tell the Department of Justice when an employee engaged in crimes, but what do you do when the bank itself is run by a criminal enterprise?” said Solomon L. Wisenberg, former chief of a Justice Department financial institutions fraud unit.
→ read full articleIn Israel, a Tsunami Warning
Noam Chomsky – The New York Times,
11 Jul 2011
Dan Gillerman, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, warned participants that “the morning after the anticipated announcement of recognition of a Palestinian state, a painful and dramatic process of Southafricanization will begin”—meaning that Israel would become a pariah state, subject to international sanctions.
→ read full article‘Safety Myth’ Left Japan Ripe for Nuclear Crisis
Norimitsu Onishi – The New York Times,
27 Jun 2011
Shika, Japan — Near a nuclear power plant facing the Sea of Japan, a series of exhibitions in a large public relations building here extols the virtues of the energy source with some help from “Alice in Wonderland.” “It’s terrible, just terrible,” the White Rabbit says in the first exhibit. “We’re running out of energy, Alice.”
→ read full articleCall Off the Global Drug War
Jimmy Carter, 2002 Nobel Peace laureate – The New York Times,
20 Jun 2011
In an extraordinary new initiative announced earlier this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some courageous and profoundly important recommendations in a report on how to bring more effective control over the illicit drug trade.
→ read full articleThe Unchanged Path to Mideast Peace
Jimmy Carter – The New York Times,
30 May 2011
It was not a new U.S. policy concerning the borders of Israel, nor should it have been surprising to Israeli leaders, when President Obama stated: “The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”
→ read full articleRating Agencies Face Crackdown
Ben Protess – The New York Times,
23 May 2011
The Securities and Exchange Commission proposed sweeping new rules on Wednesday (18 May 2011] to overhaul the rating business — regulations that would force tougher internal controls, potentially curb conflicts of interest and even mandate that the agencies periodically test the competence of their employees. The rating agencies in recent years became a target in Washington, as regulators and lawmakers blamed them for feeding the mortgage bubble by awarding top grades to bonds backed by subprime mortgages. The investments later soured, driving the economy to the brink.
→ read full articleSecret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder
Mark MazzettI and Emily B. Hager – The New York Times,
16 May 2011
Mr. Prince, who resettled here [United Arab Emirates] last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.
→ read full articleCulture of Complicity Tied to Stricken Nuclear Plant
Norimitsu Onishi & Ken Belson – The New York Times,
2 May 2011
In 2000, Kei Sugaoka, a Japanese-American nuclear inspector who had done work for General Electric at Daiichi, told Japan’s main nuclear regulator about a cracked steam dryer that he believed was being concealed. If exposed, the revelations could have forced the operator, Tokyo Electric Power, to do what utilities least want to do: undertake costly repairs. What happened next was an example, critics have since said, of the collusive ties that bind the nation’s nuclear power companies, regulators and politicians.
→ read full articleThe Guantánamo Papers
The New York Times, Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2011
Innocent men were picked up on the basis of scant or nonexistent evidence and subjected to lengthy detention and often to abuse and torture. Some people were released who later acted against the United States. Inmates who committed suicide were regarded only as a public relations problem. There are seriously dangerous prisoners at Guantánamo who cannot be released but may never get a real trial because the evidence is so tainted. Hampered by ideologues and cowards in Congress, President Obama has made scant progress in healing it.
→ read full articleA Morning at an Israeli Checkpoint
Alain Salomon and Katia Salomon – The New York Times,
11 Apr 2011
As we entered this narrow space I looked at the barbed wire further on. We are Jewish, and began to weep. How was it possible that our own people, who have gone through such suffering, can inflict this ordeal, intended to humiliate and intimidate another people?
→ read full articleIn Search of Monsters
Maureen Dowd – The New York Times,
21 Mar 2011
The Iraq war hawks urging intervention in Libya are confident that there’s no way Libya could ever be another Iraq. Of course, they never thought Iraq would be Iraq, either. All President Obama needs to do, Paul Wolfowitz asserts, is man up, arm the Libyan rebels, support setting up a no-fly zone and wait for instant democracy. It’s a cakewalk.
→ read full articleWhen Democracy Weakens
Bob Herbert – The New York Times,
14 Feb 2011
As the throngs celebrated in Cairo, I couldn’t help wondering about what is happening to democracy here in the United States. I think it’s on the ropes. We’re in serious danger of becoming a democracy in name only.
→ read full articleBlackwater Founder Said to Back Mercenaries
Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt – The New York Times,
24 Jan 2011
Erik Prince, the founder of the international security giant Blackwater Worldwide, is backing an effort by a controversial South African mercenary firm to insert itself into Somalia’s bloody civil war by protecting government leaders, training Somali troops, and battling pirates and Islamic militants there, according to American and Western officials.
→ read full articleThe Finite World
Paul Krugman – The New York Times,
3 Jan 2011
So what are the implications of the recent rise in commodity prices? It is, as I said, a sign that we’re living in a finite world, one in which resource constraints are becoming increasingly binding. This won’t bring an end to economic growth, let alone a descent into Mad Max-style collapse. It will require that we gradually change the way we live, adapting our economy and our lifestyles to the reality of more expensive resources. But that’s for the future. Right now, rising commodity prices are basically the result of global recovery. They have no bearing, one way or another, on U.S. monetary policy. For this is a global story; at a fundamental level, it’s not about us.
→ read full articleCorporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter
Catherine Rampell – The New York Times,
29 Nov 2010
The nation’s workers may be struggling, but American companies just had their best quarter ever. American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday [23 Nov 2010]. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or noninflation-adjusted terms.
→ read full articleEating the Irish
Paul Krugman, Economics Nobel Laureate – The New York Times,
29 Nov 2010
But Ireland is now in its third year of austerity, and confidence just keeps draining away. And you have to wonder what it will take for serious people to realize that punishing the populace for the bankers’ sins is worse than a crime; it’s a mistake.
→ read full articleWar and Conscience: Expanding the Definition of Conscientious Objection
James Dao – The New York Times,
15 Nov 2010
Since Vietnam, the military’s rules governing conscientious objector status have effectively required service members to declare themselves pacifists in order to qualify. Conscientious objection, as defined by military regulation (pdf) is “a firm, fixed, and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms.” That phrase, “war in any form,” has meant that people who objected to war X, but not war Y, were almost certain not to receive objector status. In recent years, some service members filed for the status arguing that they were willing to serve in Afghanistan but not Iraq. Their applications failed.
→ read full articleMaking Ignorance Chic
Maureen Dowd – The New York Times,
25 Oct 2010
Casanova’s rule for seduction was to tell a beautiful woman she was intelligent and an intelligent woman she was beautiful…. As Palin tweeted in July about her own special language adding examples from W. and Obama: “ ‘Refudiate,’ ‘misunderestimate,’ ‘wee-wee’d up.’ English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!”…. In Marilyn’s America, there were aspirations. The studios tackled literary novels rather than one-liners like “He’s Just Not That Into You” and navel-gazing drivel like “Eat Pray Love.” Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” paired cartoon characters with famous composers. Even Bugs Bunny did Wagner. But in Sarah’s America, we’ve refudiated all that.
→ read full articleTheir Moon Shot and Ours
Thomas L. Friedman – The New York Times,
4 Oct 2010
We’re out of balance — the balance between security and prosperity. We need to be in a race with China, not just Al Qaeda. Let’s start with electric cars.
→ read full articleTorture Is a Crime, Not a Secret
The New York Times, Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Sep 2010
All too often in the past, the judges pointed out, secrecy privileges have been used to avoid embarrassing the government, not to protect real secrets. In this case, the embarrassment and the shame to America’s reputation are already too well known.
→ read full articleThe Poodle Speaks
Maureen Dowd – The New York Times,
6 Sep 2010
Even in the thick of a historical tragedy, Tony Blair never seemed like a Shakespearean character. He’s too rabbity brisk, too doggedly modern. The most proficient spinner since Rumpelstiltskin lacks introspection. The self-described “manipulator” is still in denial about being manipulated. The Economist’s review of “A Journey,” the new autobiography of the former British prime minister, says it sounds less like Disraeli and Churchill and more like “the memoirs of a transatlantic business tycoon.”
→ read full articleWho Cooked the Planet?
Paul Krugman – The New York Times,
2 Aug 2010
There will be no climate bill. Greed, aided by cowardice, has triumphed. And the whole world will pay the price.
→ read full articleTurkey Goes From Pliable Ally to Thorn for U.S.
Sabrina Tavernise and Michael Slackman – The New York Times,
14 Jun 2010
For decades, Turkey was one of the United States’ most pliable allies, a strategic border state on the edge of the Middle East that reliably followed American policy. But recently, it has asserted a new approach in the region, its words and methods as likely to provoke Washington as to advance its own interests.
→ read full articlePENTAGON SEES A THREAT FROM ONLINE MUCKRAKERS
Stephanie Strom – The New York Times,
18 Mar 2010
To the list of the enemies threatening the security of the United States, the Pentagon has added WikiLeaks.org, a tiny online source of information and documents that governments and corporations around the world would prefer to keep secret. The Pentagon assessed the danger WikiLeaks.org posed to the Army in a report marked “unauthorized disclosure subject […]
→ read full articleGOLDSTONE AND GAZA
Jimmy Carter – The New York Times,
8 Nov 2009
Knowing of the ability of Israeli forces, often using U.S. weapons, to strike targets with pinpoint accuracy, it was difficult to understand or explain the destruction of hospitals, schools, prisons, United Nations facilities, small factories and repair shops, agricultural processing plants and almost 40,000 homes.Judge Richard Goldstone and the United Nations fact-finding mission on the […]
→ read full articleHOW LONG IS LONG ENOUGH?
Bob Herbert, The New York Times,
1 Jul 2009
No one seems to know how old Mohammed Jawad was when he was seized by Afghan forces in Kabul six and a half years ago and turned over to American custody. Some reports say he was 14. Some say 16. The Afghan government believes he was 12.What is not in dispute is that he was […]
→ read full articleWHO ARE WE?
Bob Herbert - The New York Times,
26 Jun 2009
Proof of guilt? In 21st-century America, there is no longer any need for such annoyances. Human rights? Ha-ha. That’s a good one. Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House. One of the most disappointing aspects of the early months of the Obama […]
→ read full articleRARE TREATMENT IS REPORTED TO CURE AIDS PATIENT
Donald G. McNeil Jr., The New York Times,
15 Nov 2008
Doctors in Berlin are reporting that they cured a man of AIDS by giving him transplanted blood stem cells from a person naturally resistant to the virus. But while the case has novel medical implications, experts say it will be of little immediate use in treating AIDS. Top American researchers called the treatment […]
→ read full article