By William A. Cook Last month, Stuart Jeffries writing in the Guardian, observed, ‘Capitalism is in crisis across the globe – but what on earth is the alternative?’ In 1840, Orestes Brownson in his essay ‘The Laboring Classes,’ asked the same question, ‘…what shall government do? … Its first doing must be an undoing. … [...]
Wimpish In America – OpEd
↧
↧
US Government Links Sovereign Citizens To Police Murders In Louisiana
Authorities now believe that some of the suspected gunmen from last week’s shootout near a Louisiana trailer park are members of the sovereign citizen movement, a collective described by the FBI as domestic terrorists. Two Louisiana deputies were killed and at least two others were injured following what authorities have described as an ambush at [...]
↧
Who Really Wages The War In Syria? – OpEd
By Boris Volkhonsky As reported by the Sunday Times, British intelligence on Syrian troop movements is helping rebels launch successful attacks on regime forces. The newspaper quoted a Syrian opposition official who said that British authorities “know about and approve 100%” the intelligence from their Cyprus military bases being passed through Turkey to the rebel [...]
↧
Less Than Half Serbs Now Want To Join EU
By Marija Ristic A new survey shows that support for EU membership has now dropped below 50 per cent – but the percentage of those opposed to EU membership has also dropped, presenting a mixed picture overall. If a referendum on EU membership bid was held now, 49 per cent of Serbians who took part [...]
↧
Burma Abolishes Pre-Censorship, But Forbids Criticism Of State
By Hanna Hindstrom The Burmese government announced on Monday that it has abolished pre-censorship of its media, but local papers say they have been issued a strict set of guidelines that forbid them from criticising the state. “Censorship for all local publications is lifted from August 20, 2012,” said a statement on the Ministry of [...]
↧
↧
Eid Al Fitr Doesn’t Stop Violence In Syria
New fighting erupted in Damascus and Aleppo (north), said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), adding that 16 people were killed, including eight civilians, Monday morning across the country .On Sunday, the first day of Eid al Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, at least 84 people were kiilled , according to the [...]
↧
Identity Politics Shape Middle Eastern And North African Soccer – Analysis
Hany Ramzy returned to Egypt from this month’s London Olympics a soccer hero and a model in a country and a region in which identity politics rather national identity often governs the beautiful game. A Coptic Christian and one-time legendary national soccer team captain in a squad whose former national coach Hassan Shehata established Muslim [...]
↧
Liberals Give The Least To The Poor – OpEd
Liberals are the least likely to help the poor. That’s the inescapable conclusion of the Chronicle of Philanthropy new study, which states where people participate in religion at a high rate are also the most generous; conversely, the least generous states are also the least religious. Importantly, nine of the ten least generous states voted [...]
↧
Capitulation To Militancy: A Pattern In Pakistan? – Analysis
Whether targeting suspected nuclear weapons was one of the objectives of the eight Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) suicide attackers who engaged security forces at the Pakistan Air Force (PAF)’s Kamra base in a two-hour long night raid on 16 August is debatable, the attack did underline two crucial points. One, it was carried out before the [...]
↧
↧
Australia: Shell Increases Browse Equity Stake
Shell Development (Australia) Pty Ltd (Shell) and Chevron Australia Pty Ltd (Chevron) today announced that they have entered into a binding agreement for the exchange of Chevron’s 16.7% interest in the East Browse titles and Chevron’s 20% interest in the West Browse titles with Shell’s 33.3% interest in the Clio-Acme titles. In addition to the [...]
↧
Maldives: Countdown To CoNI – OpEd
By Daniel Bosley Two hundred and four days will have passed by the time the Committee of National Inquiry – or CoNI – delivers its report on the events surrounding the resignation of the Maldives’ first democratically elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, on February 7. The controversy of the transfer of power led Nasheed’s successor, and [...]
↧
China Takes Over IFC: A Silent Coup? – Analysis
By Kandaswami Subramanian What has happened at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) is a silent coup which has not been much publicized in the media of emerging economies like India. On 10th August, President Jim Yong Kim of the World Bank announced that Cai Jinyong, a Chinese national, has been appointed as the new executive [...]
↧
Sri Lanka: Moving From Tamil Eelam To Eelam Tamil – Analysis
By Col. R. Hariharan Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK) leader M Karunanidhi seems to have quietly acquiesced to New Delhi’s pressure to shift the focus of his widely publicized “Eelam Tamils’ Rights Protection Conference” on August 12 from ‘Tamil Eelam’ to ‘Eelam Tamil.’ The exercise was more than semantics; except for two – Thol Thirumavalavan of [...]
↧
↧
Europe Stockpiling Oil As Iran Conflict Looms
(EurActiv) — European governments are rushing to boost stockpiles of crude oil and fuel, anxious to comply with new EU rules and amid reports that Israel is preparing to launch an attack on Iran. Belgium and the Netherlands have issued tenders to import a total of around 250,000 tonnes of diesel and gasoline for delivery [...]
↧
Absentee Ballots Create A Market For Votes – OpEd
The secret ballot used in contemporary American elections inhibits a market for votes because there is no way to assure someone who pays you for your vote that you actually voted as you promised. That mechanism for preventing vote-buying is being undermined by the widespread use of absentee ballots, because voters can sell their votes [...]
↧
Washington Eyes Iran Proxy War Through Israel – OpEd
By Ismail Salami The Israeli narrative of launching an attack on Iran’s nuclear plants has been so overpoweringly hyped up and taken for granted by Israeli media that one achieves certitude that such an attack will happen and that Iran will sit idly in the manner of a befuddled, thunderstruck and petrified nation. Strangely, western [...]
↧
Fix The US Minimum Wage – OpEd
By Elizabeth Rose In most states, working full-time in a minimum-wage job pays $7.25 per hour. That’s just $15,000 a year for full-time work. It’s not enough to live on. In fact, a breadwinner for a family of four earning the minimum wage would be a full $7,000 below the federal poverty line. It’s been [...]
↧
↧
Pakistan’s Descent Into Chaos – Analysis
By Gurmeet Kanwal Embroiled in continuing political turbulence, judicial activism, internal instability and a stagnating economy, Pakistan appears to be hurtling inexorably downhill. The terrorist strike on Minhas airbase in Kamra on August 16, in which one Pakistani soldier and nine terrorists were killed, is but the latest manifestation of the state’s inability to protect [...]
↧
Notes On Globalization and Class Struggle: Latin America, Europe And Asia – OpEd
Latin America 1. Globalization was in large part a product of neo-liberalism harnessing information technology and the ascendancy of financial capital. Neo-liberalism’s two foundations are de-regulation of capital and privatization of public enterprises. 2. Neo-liberal policies and accompanying institutions are a product of class struggles “from above”. The capitalist class and its state defeat of [...]
↧
Let’s Start A Medicare And Social Security Action (MASS Action) Party! – OpEd
If you want to know how moribund the Democratic Party is, how completely owned by Wall Street the president is, and how sick our national politics have become, just consider Social Security. The president, earlier in his term, convened a “blue ribbon” panel, supposedly composed of a “broad spectrum” of opinions from liberal to conservative,” [...]
↧
More Pages to Explore .....
