Articles by RT
We found 3826 results.
Defaulting Rescued Argentina. It Could Work for Athens Too
Heather Stewart – The Guardian,
11 Jul 2011
Struggling under an impossible burden after its IMF bailouts, Buenos Aires knew its one hope was to stop paying its debts and become a pariah – and so it proved.
→ read full articleOn Flotillas and the Law
Lawrence Davidson - Reader Supported News,
11 Jul 2011
Civil Society Movements vs. Corrupt Politics – Most of us are unaware of the potential of organized civil society because we have resigned the public sphere to professional politicians and bureaucrats and retreated into a private sphere of everyday life, which we see as separate from politics. This is a serious mistake. Politics shapes our lives whether we pay attention to it or not. By ignoring it we allow the power of the state to respond not so much to the citizenry as to special interests.
→ read full articleVictim Blinded In a Post-9/11 Hate Crime Now Fights For His Attacker’s Life
Daily Mail Reporter – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jul 2011
Mr Bhuiyan, a devout Muslim who says he learned to forgive Stroman years ago, told MSNBC: ‘I’m trying to do my best not to allow the loss of another human life.’ He was a 26-year old recent immigrant when he encountered Stroman. It took him years to recover from the gun shot, and he still carries bits of metal embedded in his face. Mr Bhuiyan lost the sight in one of his eyes, but did not suffer brain damage. He did lose a fiancé in the ordeal but earned a degree in aeronautical engineering and works as a technology professional in Dallas, although he says he wants to go to journalism school and study human rights, after trying to save Stroman’s life.
→ read full articleRussia, Iceland & Afghanistan Stand Alone as the Only Nations with International Arrest Warrants out for Bankers Who Committed Fraud
stacyherbert, maxkeiser.com – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jul 2011
This is our single most urgent concern in all the banking disasters around the world – justice. Without justice, these banking crime waves will not stop. The Bank of Moscow fraudster is hiding out in London and will no doubt live it large there thanks to London’s safe haven status. Icelandic bankers are also hiding out in London after fleecing their country with ‘loans’ to close friends and family.
→ read full articleA World Overwhelmed by Western Hypocrisy
Paul Craig Roberts – Information Clearing House,
4 Jul 2011
The International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank are violating their charters in order to bail out French, German, and Dutch private banks. The IMF is only empowered to make balance of payments loans, but is lending to the Greek government for prohibited budgetary reasons in order that the Greek government can pay the banks. There is nothing left of the American character. Only a people who have lost their soul could tolerate the evil that emanates from Washington.
→ read full articleThe Painful Collapse of Empire: How the “American Dream” and American Exceptionalism Wreck Havoc on the World
Robert Jensen – Information Clearing House,
4 Jul 2011
Even tragic heroes can, at the end, celebrate the dignity of the human spirit in their failure. That may be the task of Americans, to recognize that we can’t reverse course in time to prevent our ultimate failure, but that in the time remaining we can recognize our hamartia, name our hubris, and do what we can to undo the damage. That may be the one chance for the United States to be truly heroic, for us to learn to leave the stage gracefully.
→ read full article9/11 and the Orwellian Redefinition of “Conspiracy Theory”
Paul Craig Roberts – Global Research,
27 Jun 2011
A “conspiracy theory” no longer means an event explained by a conspiracy. Instead, it now means any explanation, or even a fact, that is out of step with the government’s explanation and that of its media pimps. For example, online news broadcasts of RT have been equated with conspiracy theories by the New York Times simply because RT reports news and opinions that the New York Times does not report and the US government does not endorse.
→ read full articleChomsky: ”The West Is Terrified of Arabic Democracies”
Ceyda Nurtsch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2011
There are constant democratic uprisings. They are crushed by the dictators we – mainly the US, Britain, and France – support. So sure, there is no democracy because we crush it all. You could have said the same about Latin America: a long series of dictators, brutal murderers. As long as the US controls the hemisphere, or Europe before it, there is no democracy, because it gets crushed.
→ read full articleUK: Victory in the Campaign to Ban Circus Animals
Martin Hickman – The Independent,
27 Jun 2011
MPs voted to ban wild animals in circuses last night [23 Jun 2011] after David Cameron’s attempts to bully Conservative backbenchers into voting against the measure backfired and ended in a humiliating public defeat. In a decision hailed by campaigners as an “historic victory for animal welfare and protection”, MPs of all parties unanimously backed a ban and the Government signalled that it would introduce one, ending forever the days of lions, tigers, elephants and other wild animals in the big top.
→ read full article90 Percent of Petraeus’s Captured ‘Taliban’ Were Civilians
Gareth Porter - Inter Press Service-IPS,
20 Jun 2011
In August 2010 Gen. David Petraeus released figures to the news media that claimed spectacular success. A total of 4,100 Taliban rank and file had been captured and 2,000 had been killed. Those figures were critical to creating a new media narrative hailing the success of SOF. But it turns out that more than 80 percent of those called captured Taliban fighters were released within days of having been picked up, because they were found to have been innocent civilians, according to official U.S. military data.
→ read full articleJournalism 101 – How to Avoid Being a Propaganda Tool
Leslie Griffith - Reader Supported News,
20 Jun 2011
It’s been a long, slow slide for CNN. The once-proud cable news pioneer has consistently crawled under the media’s lowering bar, but this week it blazed a new trail to the bottom.
→ 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 articleWhy the Pentagon Papers Matter Now
Daniel Ellsberg - Reader Supported News,
20 Jun 2011
“While we go on waging unwinnable wars on false premises, the Pentagon papers tell us we must not wait 40 years for the truth. Don’t wait until thousands more have died, before you go to the press and to Congress to tell the truth with documents that reveal lies or crimes or internal projections of costs and dangers. Don’t wait 40 years for it to be declassified, or seven years as I did for you or someone else to leak it.”
→ read full articleSlain Writer’s Book Says US-NATO War Served Al-Qaeda Strategy
Gareth Porter – Inter Press Service-IPS,
13 Jun 2011
Al-Qaeda strategists have been assisting the Taliban fight against U.S.-NATO forces in Afghanistan because they believe that foreign occupation has been the biggest factor in generating Muslim support for uprisings against their governments, according to the just-published book by Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Pakistani journalist whose body was found in a canal outside Islamabad last week with evidence of having been tortured.
→ read full articleA Fatally Flawed Recovery Plan: Greece Back on the Brink
Manfred Ertel, Christian Reiermann and Anne Seith – Der Spiegel,
13 Jun 2011
Greece needs even more money — EU officials estimate that a new bailout will cost over 100 billion euros rather than the previously assumed 60 billion. It will get the aid, even though the rescue strategy adopted so far seems doomed. The economy is shrinking, and ambitious privatization plans are illusory.
→ read full articleBankers and Politicians Have Turned Food into a Betting Game
Aditya Chakrabortty – The Guardian,
13 Jun 2011
The Result Is Soaring Prices and Starving Children
→ read full articleLandmark Agreement on Amazon Oilfields Shows Indigenous Movements’ New Power
Darrin Mortenson - Truthout,
13 Jun 2011
The twist on an otherwise old story was that, after several years of violent protests over resource extraction throughout the Amazon, this group of 18 Quechua Apus, or community chiefs, confidently strode into the government building wearing face paint and headbands, flanked by a team of lawyers, anthropologists and media, and demanded to see the governor. They walked out three days later with a contract for new schools, doctors, and other infrastructure, as well as a government pledge to conduct blood and water tests that could be used as evidence in a possible lawsuit. And, with Gov. Iván Vásquez, they seemed to have made a powerful new friend.
→ read full articleUndefeated, Freedom Flotillas Expand
Eva Bartlett – Inter Press Service-IPS,
6 Jun 2011
Flanked by flags of various nations whose citizens have sailed to the Gaza Strip to highlight the all-out siege on Gaza, the memorial’s inscription bears the names of the Turkish solidarity activists who died one year ago by Israeli commandoes firing onto the Freedom Flotilla, killing nine, injuring over 50, and abducting over 600 civilians in international waters, Gaza’s harbour bustles with people and energy. Undaunted by last year’s massacre, international activists have organised the Freedom Flotilla 2, due to sail in one month’s time with at least 10 boats and over 1,000 activists. Canadian and U.S. boats will join those of Europe, Turkey, and other nations.
→ read full article‘The People Don’t Want War’
Jim Albertini, Center for Nonviolent Education and Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2011
Truth From An Unexpected Source – ”Why of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” – Herman Goering, Nazi Germany
→ read full articleWorld’s Food System Broken
Cahal Milmo, Chief Reporter – The Independent,
6 Jun 2011
Doubling of prices and 70 per cent rise in demand means millions more will go hungry.
→ read full articleWho Cares in the Middle East What Obama Says?
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
6 Jun 2011
President Obama has shown himself to be weak in his dealings with the Middle East, says Robert Fisk, and the Arab world is turning its back with contempt. Its future will be shaped without American influence.
→ read full articleChiquita Bananas Fund Terrorists
Curt Anderson, Associated Press – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2011
The Chiquita lawsuit cites a number of AUC massacres, including a July 1997 operation in the town of Mapiripan in which at least 49 people were tortured, dismembered and decapitated. In February 2000, about 300 AUC troops tortured dozens of people and killed 36 people. In 2001, Chiquita was identified in invoices and other documents as the recipient of a shipment from Nicaragua of 3,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 5 million rounds of ammunition. The guns and ammo were unloaded by Chiquita employees, stored at Chiquita warehouses, and then delivered by trucks to the AUC, court papers said.
→ 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 articleLots of Rhetoric – But Very Little Help: Obama’s Speech
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
23 May 2011
Well, this weekend is Netanyahu’s weekend and the Israeli settlements – more were flagged only hours before Obama spoke – will go on as before. And by the time Obama ends up swearing eternal loyalty to the Israelis, the Arabs will forget yesterday’s posturing. And the reference to the “Jewish state” was obviously intended to make Netanyahu happy.
→ read full articleWhy No Outcry over These Torturing Tyrants?
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
23 May 2011
It is all about our fear of Saudi Arabia. Which also means it is about oil. It is about our absolute refusal to remember that 9/11 was committed largely by Saudis. It is about our refusal to remember that Saudi Arabia supported the Taliban, that Bin Laden was a Saudi, that the most cruel version of Islam comes from Saudi Arabia, the land of head-choppers and hand-cutters. Yes, our other friends. The Saudis.
→ read full article
Iraq’s Abandoned Children (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Jane Arraf reports from Baghdad – Al Jazeera,
23 May 2011
Iraq is full of street kids; children with one or both parents killed, or some who have merely been abandoned. It has been estimated that there are now over a million orphans in the country. But there are just four small orphanages in the capital, Baghdad – none of them filled to capacity. The Iraqi government says that relatives would rather abandon children they are unable to take care of, than bear the shame of bringing them to an orphanage.
→ read full articleWanted Dead or Alive
Robert Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
President Obama’s attempts this past week to call forth a heightened sense of national unity around Osama bin Laden’s assassination is a devil’s bargain because the need for more violence will never end. However, this need — for the next war, the next political assassination — always seems so reasonable. And as part of the bargain, “The meaning you’re making around violence is your own goodness.”
→ read full articleA Moment of Silence, Before I Start This Poem
Emmanuel Ortiz – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
Before I start this poem,
I’d like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
Press Release-UN High Commission for Human Rights: Palestinian Nakba
Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
On May 15 2011 the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Mr. Richard Falk, marks the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophic beginning of the Palestinian tragedy of dispossession and occupation, with the following statement.
→ read full articleIgnorance Is Strength: Americans Are Living In 1984
Paul Craig Roberts - LewRockwell,
16 May 2011
For those who haven’t read Orwell’s classic prediction of our time, Big Brother, the government, could tell the ‘citizens’ any lie and it was accepted unquestioningly. We Americans, with our ‘free press,’ are at this point today: ‘What is really alarming is the increasingly arrogant sloppiness of these lies, as though the government has become so profoundly confident of its ability to deceive people that they make virtually no effort to even appear credible.’ A people as gullible as Americans have no future.
→ read full articleThe Other BRIC in Latin America: India
Jorge Heine and R. Viswanathan – Americas Quarterly,
9 May 2011
India emerges as a major partner for Latin America. Welcome to the new kid on the block.
→ read full articleWas He Betrayed? Of Course. Pakistan Knew bin Laden’s Hiding Place All Along
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
9 May 2011
I met the man [bin Laden] three times and have only one question left unasked: what did he think as he watched those revolutions unfold this year – under the flags of nations rather than Islam, Christians and Muslims together, the kind of people his own al-Qa’ida men were happy to butcher? While the Arab dictators ruled uncontested with our support, they largely avoided condemning American policy; only bin Laden said these things. Arabs never wanted to fly planes into tall buildings, but they did admire a man who said what they wanted to say. But now, increasingly, they can say these things. They don’t need bin Laden. He had become a nonentity.
→ read full articleOsama bin Laden: Everyone’s Missing the Point
Barry Lando - Reader Supported News,
9 May 2011
Indeed, from the point of view of America and many of its allies, the most menacing symbol in the Arab World today is not Osama bin Laden but another Arab who recently met a violent death – Mohamed Bouazizi, the 26-year-old Tunisian fruit vendor who chose to set himself on fire. His act, of course, ignited the storm that has spread across the Arab World and proven a much more serious threat to America’s allies in the region than al Qaeda ever was. Ironically, his sacrifice probably also dealt a far more devastating blow to al Qaeda’s fortunes than the assassination of Osama bin Laden.
→ read full articleChina in Latin America
Americas Quarterly – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2011
Interview – Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Li Jinzhang on his country’s plans as it increases economic and political ties to Latin America.
→ read full articleA Guide to ALBA
Joel D. Hirst – Americas Quarterly,
9 May 2011
The Bolivarian Alternative – What does ALBA actually do? A guide to President Chávez and Fidel Castro’s regional project.
→ read full articleReflections on Brazil’s Global Rise
Celso Amorim – Americas Quarterly,
9 May 2011
The man who led Brazil into its new global era discusses his diplomatic vision and Brazil-U.S. relations.
→ read full articleHaiti’s New President: Welcome to the Toughest Job in the Americas
Robert Maguire – Americas Quarterly,
9 May 2011
Haiti’s next president must put the country on a path to real development.
→ read full articleOsama bin Laden’s Useful Death
Paul Craig Roberts - LewRockwell,
9 May 2011
As the Guardian and European newspapers have revealed, the photo of the dead bin Laden is a fake. As the alleged body has been dumped into the ocean, nothing remains but the word of the US government, which lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda connections, about yellowcake, about Iranian nukes, and, according to thousands of experts, about 9/11. Suddenly the government is telling us the truth about bin Laden’s death? If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I’ll let you have for a good price.
→ read full articleSupport the Palestinian Unity Government
Jimmy Carter – The Washington Post,
9 May 2011
This is a decisive moment. Under the auspices of the Egyptian government, Palestine’s two major political movements — Fatah and Hamas — are signing a reconciliation agreement on Wednesday [4 May 2011] that will permit both to contest elections for the presidency and legislature within a year. If the United States and the international community support this effort, they can help Palestinian democracy and establish the basis for a unified Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza that can make a secure peace with Israel.
→ read full articleA Human Right to Resist
Maciej Bartkowski and Annyssa Bellal – Open Democracy,
9 May 2011
Civil resistance – popular nonviolent struggle waged by ordinary people against dictatorship, foreign intervention, colonial occupation, corruption, or injustice with the use of diverse methods of nonviolent action – is by no means a new phenomenon. It has been practiced in a strategic manner for at least two centuries…
→ read full articleAll the WikiLeaks Fit to Print
Robert Scheer - Truthdig,
2 May 2011
Why indeed is Manning the one behind bars and not the government officials who kept hidden unpleasant truths about this nation’s policies that the public has a right to know? And why do leaders of our constitutionally protected free press now seek to distance themselves from news sources that have performed a great public service? A service documented by the fact, as tallied by The Atlantic magazine, that more than half of the issues of The New York Times this year have carried stories that relied on WikiLeaks’ disclosures.
→ read full article‘US to Recoup Libya Oil from China’
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts – Press TV,
25 Apr 2011
Press TV has interviewed Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former assistant secretary of US Treasury from Panama City, who gives his insight on the revolution in Libya and why US President Barack Obama needs to overthrow Qaddafi when no other US president did.
→ read full articleTriumph of Right-Wing Populists: How Dangerous Is Finland to the Euro?
Sven Böll and Maria Marquart – Der Spiegel,
25 Apr 2011
Will the election of right-wing populists in Finland derail the euro rescue package? A Helsinki veto would indeed be expensive for the rest of the euro zone, particularly for Germany. Experts are also warning that other European countries may follow suit if Finland decides to pull out of the euro bailout.
→ read full article(French) Le Socialisme Cubain, Cinquante Ans Après
Renaud Lambert – Le Monde Diplomatique,
25 Apr 2011
« Cuba, c’est comme une telenovela de cinquante mille épisodes dont chacun pense que le prochain sera le dernier », résume Fernando Ravsberg, journaliste à la British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Avant d’ajouter, dans un sourire : « Mais elle continue toujours. » Cinquante-deux ans après le « triomphe de la révolution », le volet qui s’ouvre en 2011 débute par un événement et un double anniversaire.
→ read full articleLiberal Imperialism: The History of ‘Humanitarian Intervention’
Adam Curtis - BBC,
11 Apr 2011
Even if one’s instincts are to help those fighting Gadaffi, it is no longer enough just to see it as a struggle of goodies against baddies. For it is precisely that simplification that has led to unreal fantasies about who we are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
→ read full articleObama Raises American Hypocrisy To A Higher Level
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Apr 2011
“Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.” This from the Great Moral Leader who every day murders civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia and now Libya and who turns a blind eye when “the great democracy in the Middle East,” Israel, murders more Palestinians.
→ read full articleReducing Armed Violence the Asian Way
Fred Lubang and Robert Muggah – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Apr 2011
Whilst armed violence affects every country, some societies are more affected than others. In South and Southeast Asia, countries such as Afghanistan, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand are affected by on-going armed conflicts within and across their borders. Others such as Cambodia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka are emerging from war. Meanwhile, Bangladesh and Indonesia, along with virtually every other state across both regions, are confronting simmering urban violence due to growing organized crime and gang activity.
→ read full articleThe New Colonialism: Washington’s Pursuit of World Hegemony
Paul Craig Roberts – Global Research,
4 Apr 2011
What we are observing in Libya is the rebirth of colonialism. Only this time it is not individual European governments competing for empires and resources. The new colonialism operates under the cover of “the world community,” which means NATO and those countries that cooperate with it. NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was once a defense alliance against a possible Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Today NATO provides European troops in behalf of American hegemony.
→ read full articleBe Consistent—Invade Saudi Arabia
Robert Scheer - Truthdig,
28 Mar 2011
In the glaring light of the democratic currents sweeping through the Mideast, the contradictions in supporting one set of dictators while toppling others may prove impossible for the U.S. and its allies to effectively manage. The recognition, widely demanded throughout the region, that even ordinary Middle Easterners have inalienable rights is a sobering notion not easily co-opted. Why don’t those rights to self-determination extend to Shiites in the richest oil province in Saudi Arabia or for that matter to Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza?
→ read full articleA System Designed to Crash
David Korten – Yes! Magazine,
28 Mar 2011
Why a Money System Dependent on Constant Growth Can’t Last – The problem appears to be a lack of money, even though the total money in circulation is far more than enough to cover real-wealth exchanges in a rational real-wealth economy. The money, however, is locked up in the Wall Street casino economy rather than circulating in the real Main Street economy. Pouring public bailout money into Wall Street serves only to reflate the bubble. It does nothing to revive the real economy.
→ read full articleHow Will the Arab Spring Reshape the Middle East?
Patrick Martin – The Globe and Mail,
21 Mar 2011
The Islam-is-down, secularism-is-up theme is one of three common notions about what the aftermath of the upheavals will bring. The second assumption is that greater democracy will emerge. The third is that, as far as the two non-Arab states that compete for influence in the region are concerned, the Iranian regime’s fortunes are looking brighter, and Israel’s much darker. It’s too soon to tell what exactly will emerge from this remarkable revolutionary period, but it’s not too soon to question some of these popular notions.
→ read full articleIran ‘Using Child Soldiers’ to Suppress Tehran Protests
Robert Tait – The Observer,
21 Mar 2011
Armed children as young as 14 are said to have been deployed alongside riot police.
→ read full articleOn the Brink of Meltdown: The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
Robert Alvarez – Institute for Policy Studies,
14 Mar 2011
In the aftermath of the largest earthquake to occur in Japan in recorded history, 5,800 residents living within five miles of six reactors at the Fukushima nuclear station have been advised to evacuate and people living within 15 miles of the plant are advised to remain indoors. Plant operators haven’t been able to cool down the core of one reactor containing enormous amounts of radioactivity because of failed back-up diesel generators required for the emergency cooling.
→ read full article‘You Are No Longer My Son’: French ‘Refuge’ Helps Muslim Gays
Annika Sartor – Der Spiegel,
14 Mar 2011
For many gay and lesbian young people in France, Le Refuge is a lifesaver — literally. Since 2003, the organization has helped hundreds of desperate youths, most of them from Muslim families, who have been rejected by their families and forced onto the streets. But the charity is overwhelmed by the number of people seeking assistance.
→ read full articleLivni’s Guidance on Arab Democracy
Robert Grenier – Al Jazeera,
14 Mar 2011
Tzipi Livni’s disingeuous calls for a “code” on all democracies.
→ read full articleDecline of Honey Bees Now a Global Phenomenon, Says United Nations
Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor – The Independent,
14 Mar 2011
The mysterious collapse of honey-bee colonies is becoming a global phenomenon, scientists working for the United Nations have revealed.
→ read full articleAmerica’s Secret Plan to Arm Libya’s Rebels
Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent – The Independent,
7 Mar 2011
Desperate to avoid US military involvement in Libya in the event of a prolonged struggle between the Gaddafi regime and its opponents, the Americans have asked Saudi Arabia if it can supply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi.
→ read full articleNED Arrives in Egypt
Philip Giraldi – Campaign for Liberty,
7 Mar 2011
Those who are aware of the insidious activities of the National Endowment for Democracy or NED, an ostensibly private foundation that spreads “democracy,” and is largely funded by the government, will not be surprised to learn that it is already active in North Africa. NED, which has a Democratic Party half in its National Democratic Institute, and a Republican Party half in its International Republican Institute, was the driving force behind the series of pastel revolutions that created turmoil in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism.
→ read full articleLibya: The Rest of the Story
Tony Cartalucci - Pravda,
7 Mar 2011
Libyan opposition literally running protests from Washington.
→ read full articleRestorative Justice after Mass Violence: Opportunities and Risks for Children and Youth
Laura Stovel and Marta Valiñas – UNICEF,
28 Feb 2011
There is growing interest in the role that restorative justice can play in addressing mass atrocities. This UNICEF paper describes the associated principles and practices within juvenile justice systems and in societies emerging from mass violence. It also examines the meaning, opportunities and limitations of restorative justice in transitional societies, particularly in relation to the needs of young victims and offenders.
→ read full article(Castellano) Democracia y Exclusión Social: No se Trata de Administrar la Desigualdad, Sino de Eliminarla
Osvaldo Martínez – CubaDebate,
21 Feb 2011
El tema de la democracia no suele ser abordado por economistas. Sociólogos, politólogos e historiadores son los que frecuentan este tema, aunque es evidente que en el modelo económico tiene el debate sobre la democracia un componente sustantivo.
→ read full articleMohamed Heikal: ‘I was sure my country would explode. But the young are wiser than us’
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
21 Feb 2011
The old man’s voice is scathing, his mind like a razor, that of a veteran fighter, writer, sage, perhaps the most important living witness and historian of modern Egypt, turning on the sins of the regime that tried to shut him up forever. “Mubarak betrayed the republican spirit – and then he wanted to continue through his son Gamal,” he says, finger pointed to heaven. “It was a project, not an idea; it was a plan. The last 10 years of the life of this country were wasted because of this question, because of the search for inheritance – as if Egypt was Syria, or Papa Doc and Baby Doc in Haiti.”
→ read full articleThe Shame of Being an American…
Paul Craig Roberts – Global Research,
21 Feb 2011
The United States government has overestimated the amount of shame that it and American citizens can live down. On February 15 “the indispensable people” had to suffer the hypocrisy of the U.S. Secretary of State delivering a speech about America’s commitment to Internet freedom while the U.S. Department of Justice (sic) brought unconstitutional action against Twitter to reveal any connection between WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning, the American hero who, in keeping with the U.S. Military Code, exposed U.S. government war crimes and who is being held in punishing conditions not permitted by the U.S. Constitution.
→ 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 articleAn Urgent Call: Return Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti
Jean-Bertrand Aristide – Hayti.net,
7 Feb 2011
In support of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (currently in exile in South Africa), hundreds of signatories to a petition have demanded that the United States, the United Nations and the Haitian government stop blocking the leader from returning to the land of his birth. A letter from Aristide himself precedes this call.
→ read full articlePesticide Linked to Bee Deaths Should Be Suspended, MPs Told
Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor and Josephine Forster – The Independent,
31 Jan 2011
A new generation of pesticides is implicated in the widespread deaths of bees and other pollinators and should be suspended in Britain while the Government reviews new scientific evidence about their effects, MPs were told yesterday [26 Jan 2011]. Neonicotinoid pesticides are linked by “a growing weight of science” to insect losses, and the assessment regimes for them are inadequate, the Labour MP Martin Caton told the House of Commons.
→ read full articleFreedom Is Not Compatible with Government’s Initiation of Force against Innocent People
Robert Higgs – The Independent Institute,
31 Jan 2011
In yesterday’s [25 Jan 2011] New York Times appears an op-ed article by Edward L. Glaeser, a professor of economics at Harvard. Glaeser’s article is remarkable because arguments in favor of freedom, insisting that economic analysis implicitly rests on a moral presumption that individual freedom has fundamental value, do not appear every day—or every month—in “the newspaper of record.” So, I am glad to give two cheers to Glaeser, one for his theme and another for his courage in placing the argument in such a hostile outlet.
I cannot give Glaeser a third cheer, however, because toward the end of the article he inserts a concession that I find wholly inconsistent with the rest of the argument.
A New Truth Dawns on the Arab World
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
31 Jan 2011
The Palestine Papers are as damning as the Balfour Declaration. The Palestinian “Authority” – one has to put this word in quotation marks – was prepared, and is prepared to give up the “right of return” of perhaps seven million refugees to what is now Israel for a “state” that may be only 10 per cent (at most) of British mandate Palestine.
→ read full articleNew Jerusalem Settlement Hits Peace Process
Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem – The Independent,
24 Jan 2011
Israel is moving ahead with a project to build 1,400 new homes in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, a development that critics claim will deliver a death knell to the already faltering peace process.
→ read full articleThe Brutal Truth about Tunisia
Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent – The Independent,
24 Jan 2011
Bloodshed, tears, but no democracy. Bloody turmoil won’t necessarily presage the dawn of democracy. The end of the age of dictators in the Arab world? Certainly they are shaking in their boots across the Middle East, the well-heeled sheiks and emirs, and the kings, including one very old one in Saudi Arabia and a young one in Jordan, and presidents – another very old one in Egypt and a young one in Syria – because Tunisia wasn’t meant to happen. Food price riots in Algeria, too, and demonstrations against price increases in Amman. Not to mention scores more dead in Tunisia, whose own despot sought refuge in Riyadh – exactly the same city to which a man called Idi Amin once fled.
→ read full articleTribute to Patrice Lumumba on the 50th Anniversary of His Assassination [17 Jan 1961]
Carlos Martinez – Pambazuka News,
24 Jan 2011
Why was Lumumba killed? Because he was a relentless, dedicated, intelligent, passionate anti-colonialist, Pan-Africanist and Congolese nationalist; because he had the unstinting support of the Congolese masses; because he stood in the way of Belgium’s plan to transform Congo from a colony into a neo-colony.
→ read full articleWhy Socialism?
Albert Einstein, Monthly Review – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Jan 2011
Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Boaventura de Sousa Santos: “Os mercados cometem crimes contra a humanidade”
Filipa Martins, ionline – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Jan 2011
Para o sociólogo, Portugal está a ser vitima de um ataque especulativo não justificado dos mercados internacionais.
→ read full articleIke Was Right All Along: The Danger of the Military-Industrial Complex
Rupert Cornwell – The Independent,
24 Jan 2011
Fifty years ago, President Eisenhower warned of the danger of the ‘military-industrial complex’. The huge budget and reach of America’s modern defence industry has proved him correct.
→ read full articleFox News: The No. 1 Name in Murder Fantasies
Steve Rendall - Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting,
17 Jan 2011
This report is not new; it was published by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting two months ago. We thought it was important to republish it, as it shows a pattern of recklessness at Fox News. Recklessness that contributed to Saturday’s [8 Jan 2011] tragedy in Arizona.
→ read full articleIs Lockheed Martin Shadowing You?
William D. Hartung – TomDispatch,
17 Jan 2011
How a Giant Weapons Maker Became the New Big Brother: After all, it received $36 billion in government contracts in 2008 alone, more than any company in history. It now does work for more than two dozen government agencies from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s involved in surveillance and information processing for the CIA, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Pentagon, the Census Bureau, and the Postal Service.
→ read full articleWhat’s Happening On The Korean Peninsula?
Prof. Martin Hart-Landsberg – Global Research,
10 Jan 2011
What’s happening on the Korean peninsula? If you read the press or listen to the talking heads, your best guess would be that an insane North Korean regime is willing to risk war to manage its own internal political tensions. This conclusion would be hard to avoid because the media rarely provide any historical context or alternative explanations for North Korean actions.
→ read full articleThe US Media Hit on Helen Thomas
Danny Schechter – ConsortiumNews,
3 Jan 2011
Editor’s Note: Last June when the mainstream Washington press corps rode the 89-year-old journalistic icon Helen Thomas out of the news business on a rail, a key count in the professional “indictment” against her was that she lacked “objectivity” with her impertinent questions to U.S. presidents and in her criticism of Israel. However, for years among big-time U.S. journalists, “objectivity” has been a principle most noticeable in its absence, especially on the sensitive issue of Israel, the topic that touched off the furor that ended Thomas’s career, as Danny Schechter notes in this guest essay.
→ read full article2011
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts – Information Clearing House,
3 Jan 2011
”Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors.” — Lewis H. Lapham. The lawlessness of the U.S. government, which has been creeping up on us for decades, broke into a full gallop in the years of the Bush/Cheney/Obama regimes. Today the government operates above the law, yet maintains that it is a democracy bringing the same to Muslims by force of arms, only briefly being sidetracked by sponsoring a military coup against democracy in Honduras and attempting to overthrow the democratic government in Venezuela. As 2011 dawns, public discourse in America has the country primed for a fascist dictatorship. The situation will be worse by 2012. The most uncomfortable truth that emerges from the WikiLeaks saga is that American public discourse consists of cries for revenge against those who tell us truths.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks Exposed US and Hillary’s Hopelessness
Robert Fisk – Belfast Telegraph,
3 Jan 2011
That Clinton should want her State Department slaves to play secret agents on the poor old UN shows what an utterly worthless institution the US State Department has become.
→ read full article(Castellano) Crecen los Huertos en las Azoteas de Gaza
Eva Bartlett – Periodismo Humano,
20 Dec 2010
El gris del cemento de los campos de refugiados de Gaza contrasta con el color de los huertos de verduras de las azoteas. ”En los campamentos no hay espacio, ni árboles, ni parques públicos”. La “zona de exclusión” impuesta por Israel en las fronteras ocupa un tercio de las tierras agrícolas de la franja.
→ read full articleThe Roof Is Now the Field
Eva Bartlett – Inter Press Service-IPS,
6 Dec 2010
“We grow on our roof because we are farmers but have no land now,” says Moatassan Hamad, 21, from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza Strip.
→ read full articleFabricating Terror
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
Why does the FBI orchestrate fake terror plots? The United States of America, “the city upon the hill,” “the light unto the world,” has become Nazi Germany. The Obama regime is in the process of completing Dick Cheney’s dream by legislating the legality of indefinite detention. American law has collapsed to the dungeons of the Dark Ages. This Nazi Gestapo policy is now the declared policy of the US Department of Justice (sic). Anyone who thinks the United States is a free society where people have liberty, “freedom and democracy” is uninformed.
→ read full articleAfrica Is Resisting the Threat of Europe’s Free Trade Agreements
Martin Khor - The China Post, Kuala Lumpur,
6 Dec 2010
The economies of Africa, the world’s poorest region, are under severe threat from free trade agreements that they are under pressure to sign with the European Union, the world’s richest region. Under these economic partnership agreements (EPAs), Europe wants Africa to open up its economies to European goods, services and companies. But the African countries are understandably worried their small industries and service operators will not be able to survive free competition from giant European companies, banks and commercial firms.
→ read full articleEXCLUSIVE: Controversial Drug Given to All Guantanamo Detainees Akin to “Pharmacologic Waterboarding”
Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye - Truthout | Investigative Report,
6 Dec 2010
The Defense Department forced all “war on terror” detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison to take a high dosage of a controversial antimalarial drug, mefloquine, an act that an Army public health physician called “pharmacologic waterboarding.” The government has exposed detainees “to unacceptably high risks of potentially severe neuropsychiatric side effects, including seizures, intense vertigo, hallucinations, paranoid delusions, aggression, panic, anxiety, severe insomnia, and thoughts of suicide,” said Nevin, who was not speaking in an official capacity, but offering opinions as a board-certified, preventive medicine physician. “These side effects could be as severe as those intended through the application of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.'”
→ read full articleNow We Know. America Really Doesn’t Care About Injustice in the Middle East
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
6 Dec 2010
It’s not that US diplomats don’t understand the Middle East; it’s just that they’ve lost all sight of injustice. Vast amounts of diplomatic literature prove that the mainstay of Washington’s Middle East policy is alignment with Israel, that its principal aim is to encourage the Arabs to join the American-Israeli alliance against Iran, that the compass point of US policy over years and years is the need to tame/bully/crush/oppress/ ultimately destroy the power of Iran.
→ read full article(Italian) Stati Uniti, il Dramma Silenzioso dei Reduci
Alberto Tundo, PeaceReporter – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
Il numero dei soldati che si suicidano ha superato quello dei militari morti in Afghanistan dal 2001.
→ read full articleU.S. Military Suicides Kill More Than the Battles
Alberto Tundo, PeaceReporter - Pravda,
29 Nov 2010
The number of soldiers committing suicide is higher than that of the soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001. The list continues to grow inexorably. It contains the names of those who returned home from the trenches of the war against terrorism, but lost control of themselves, a war that has left more dead than the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
→ read full articleOn Korea, Here We Go Again!
Robert Parry – Consortium News,
29 Nov 2010
If American journalism should have learned one thing over the years, it is to be cautious and skeptical during the first days of a foreign confrontation like the one now playing out on the Korean Peninsula. Often the initial accounts from the “U.S. side” don’t turn out to be entirely accurate.
→ read full articleNew Myanmar Is the Hell-Hole Old Burma (Part 1)
[Nobel laureate] Amartya Sen – Democratic Voice of Burma,
29 Nov 2010
The country has steadily fallen in the economic ranking of poor countries in the world and is now one of the absolutely poorest on the globe. Its educational and health services are in tatters; medicine is difficult to get and educational institutions can hardly function. There is viciously strict censorship, combined with heavy punishment for rebellious voices. The shocking litany of different cases of arbitrary imprisonment, terrifying torture, state-directed displacement of people and organized rapes and killings. When the population faces a catastrophe like Hurricane Nargis in May 2008, the government not only does not want to help at all, its first inclination is to ban others in the world from helping the distressed and destitute people in the country.
→ read full articleThe Stench of American Hypocrisy
Paul Craig Roberts - ICH,
22 Nov 2010
Unlike in Burma, where Aung San Suu Kyi fights for human rights, the sheeple in Amerika submit to the total invasion of their privacy and to the total destruction of their civil liberties for no other reason than they are brain dead and believe without any evidence that they are at the mercy of “terrorists” in far distant lands who have no armies, navies, or air forces and are armed only with AK-47s and improvised explosive devices. The ignorant population of the “Great American Superpower,” buried in fear propagated by a Ministry of Truth, has acquiesced in the total destruction of the US Constitution and their civil liberties.
→ read full articleMight Is Right
Paul Craig Roberts - ICH,
8 Nov 2010
Khadr’s prosecutor, Jeffrey Groharing, declared that Khadr’s sentence “will send a message to Al-Qaeda and others whose aims and goals are to kill and cause chaos around the world.” The irony in this assertion escaped the tamed NPR. The deaths that can be attributed to Al Qaeda are tiny in number compared to the deaths inflicted by gratuitous US and Israeli naked aggression against Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Pakistan, Yeman, and Somalia…. What message did 15-year-old Khadr’s sentence send? To insouciant Americans only that finally a terrorist got his comeuppance despite the liberal media. To the rest of the world the message is: the US is a morally bankrupt, self-righteous country that believes that might is right.
→ read full articleThe Shaming of America
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
1 Nov 2010
Robert Fisk delivers a searing dispatch after the WikiLeaks revelations that expose in detail the brutality of the war in Iraq – and the astonishing, disgraceful deceit of the US.
→ read full articleThe War On Terror
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts – Global Research,
25 Oct 2010
The “war on terror” is now in its tenth year. What is it really all about?
→ read full article(Italian) Stati, Stati Nazione e Legittimità
Giuliano Martignetti – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Oct 2010
Della ricca relazione tenuta dal prof. Galtung a Torino in occasione della giornata dedicata a festeggiare il suo ottantesimo genetliaco, mi sono annotato due osservazioni particolarmente interessanti. La prima è che oggi nel campo delle relazioni internazionali il diritto di veto deve considerarsi superato. La seconda che in tutti gli stati del mondo (192) ben 176 contengono delle minoranze nazionali più o meno ampie. C’è un nesso tra le due affermazioni? Vediamo.
→ read full article(Castellano) Nosotros, los Gitanos
Agustín Vega Cortés – InSurGente,
18 Oct 2010
El aumento de esta gitanofobia, es el fruto de la criminalización que sufrimos por parte de la mayoría de los medios de comunicación que, voluntaria o involuntariamente, han conseguido que se identifique al conjunto de los gitanos con los grupos más marginales y conflictivos que, a pesar de ser una minoría, son visto por la opinión pública como el paradigma de la identidad gitana.
→ read full articleEconomics: Doing Business As If People Mattered
Robert Jensen – Common Dreams,
11 Oct 2010
When politicians talk economics these days, they argue a lot about the budget deficit. That’s crucial to our economic future, but in the contemporary workplace there’s an equally threatening problem — the democracy deficit.
→ read full articleThe Collapse of Western Morality
Paul Craig Roberts – Global Research,
27 Sep 2010
In hopes that I will be permitted to make a point, permit me to acknowledge that the US dropped nuclear bombs on two Japanese cities, fire-bombed Tokyo, that Great Britain and the US fire-bombed Dresden and a number of other German cities, expending more destructive force, according to some historians, against the civilian German population than against the German armies, that President Grant and his Civil War war criminals, Generals Sherman and Sheridan, committed genocide against the Plains Indians, that the US today enables Israel’s genocidal policies against the Palestinians, policies that one Israeli official has compared to 19th century US genocidal policies against the American Indians, that the US in the new 21st century invaded Iraq and Afghanistan on contrived pretenses, murdering countless numbers of civilians, and that British prime minister Tony Blair lent the British army to his American masters, as did other NATO countries, all of whom find themselves committing war crimes under the Nuremberg standard in lands in which they have no national interests, but for which they receive an American pay check.
→ read full articleCountdown to Sudan’s Referendum
Lazaro Sumbeiywo and John Danforth – Al Jazeera,
20 Sep 2010
With four months to go until a referendum on self-determination, Africa’s largest country is at an historic crossroads.
→ read full article‘Largest Flotilla Yet’ En-Route to Gaza
Ynet reporters – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Sep 2010
Ships from Britain, Morocco, Qatar to rendezvous in Syria, sail toward el-Arish Port in northern Sinai Peninsula; activists plan to enter Gaza through Rafah Crossing, deliver humanitarian aid.
→ read full article