POWERFUL MULTI-NATIONAL AGRIBUSINESS CORPORATIONS AND A COMPLIANT AND CORRUPT LOCAL GOVERNMENT: RECIPE FOR WORLD LAND GRABS. (Foreign Policy in Focus) Recent protests in African country of Sierra Leone highlight a world pattern: the acquisition for mono-culture cultivation of tracts of land removed from the control of local farmers. Around 20% of the country’s arable land [...]
The world’s most popular — and profitable — social networking brand is increasingly coming under fire for its questionable tax practices even as it is earning praise and adulation from Wall Street on the day it becomes a publicly traded company. The Facebook stock IPO (initial public offering) has become a media and market phenomenon, [...]
“WHAT WE’RE GIVING YOU ARE FACTS AND CONCLUSIONS BASED ON SOLID INTELLIGENCE.” (Global Research) These ominous words—uttered by Secretary of State Colin Powell before the UN Security Council and dutifully trumpeted by a compliant media in the run-up to invasion of Iraq in 2003—are being surfed today in another journey on a war path; this time with [...]
A “LAKE SIDE SETTLEMENT” IN AFRICA HAS “MOVED” 22 KILOMETERS FROM THE BANKS OF THE CONTINENT’S LARGEST WATER RESERVOIR. (Africa News) Lake Chad in Nigeria and Chad continues to dry up at an alarming pace. The extended drought put the lives of 30 million people in the Sahel region at risk and precipitates an intense struggle [...]
The darkest and most frightening echoes of the 2008 financial crisis that rocked the global economy were stirred over the past week as mega-bank JP Morgan Chase broke the news of a stunning $2 billion loss in a trading debacle similar to the kind that conspired to wreak the American economy only three-and-a-half years ago. [...]
WHAT’S THAT IN THE SKY? A BIRD? A PLANE? “NOPE, JUST OUR LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENT’S 25-POUND DRONE…” (Business Week) Unprecedented police control of the nation’s skies appears imminent after the Federal Aviation Administration and the Obama administration gave hearty approval to the request of undetermined “public safety agencies” to place unmanned drones weighing up [...]
FIGHT AT THE SUMMIT: IN THIS CORNER ANGELA MERKEL; THE DARK ANGEL OF DRACONIAN AUSTERITY MEASURES—IN THE RED TRUNKS FRANCOIS HOLLANDE; THE SOCIALIST PRESIDENT OF FRANCE. AND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RING THE U.S.A.; BATTERED ON ALL SIDES BY A STRING OF NEVER-ENDING DISASTERS FROM ITS VAIN IMPERIAL ASPIRATIONS (Counterpunch) This how Gabriel Kolko “calls” the struggle today for international [...]
HOW DOES A CAPITALIST COUNTRY DEAL WITH A CRISIS IN EMPLOYMENT? BY CUTTING UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS, OF COURSE. (World Socialist) A political “deal” between the Obama administration and a Republican congress is now coming home to roost as some 200k American workers are slated to be cut off from “extended” unemploymet benefits—half of them in the [...]
While the undeniable ramifications of a warming planet are hard to ignore in the first months of what many say will be the hottest year in recorded history, some leading scientists and climate experts argue that important policy decisions that would perpetuate American reliance on fossil fuels could truly mean “game over” for climate change. [...]
WHILE THE U.S. SUPPORTS THE PROTESTS AGAINST “OUR ENEMY” (THE SYRIAN GOVERMENT) IT TOASTS ONE OF “OUR BASTARDS” (THE KING OF BAHRAIN) IN HIS CONTINUED SUPPRESSION OF PRO-DEMOCRACY PROTESTS IN THAT COUNTRY. (Asia Times) The Crown Prince of Bahrain receives full state “honors” on a visit to Washington just as a Bahrani leader says that the government will [...]
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