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Marjorie Cohn – 40 Years On, the Vietnam War Continues for Victims of Agent Orange

The war in Vietnam resulted in the deaths of more than 58,000 Americans and more than 3 million Vietnamese. Twenty years ago, the United States and Vietnam normalized diplomatic relations in an effort to put the terrible legacy of the war behind them. But for the survivors—both Vietnamese and American—the war continues. About 5 million Vietnamese and many U.S. and …

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The Republican Path to the Dark Side

“Fear,” a great Jedi master named Yoda once said, “leads to anger,” which leads to hate, which leads to suffering, which, of course, leads to the Dark Side. And while Yoda’s warning was directed at the long-ago problems of a galaxy, far, far away, we’d do well to take it in stride right now in the United States in 2015. …

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Gathuru Mburu – Decolonizing Our Minds and Our Lands

Recolonization is happening. There is a second scramble, not just in Africa, but across the global South. Corporations started it. We need to name and shame these corporations – Monsanto, Syngenta, Cargill, and the program promoting them, AGRA [A Green Revolution for Africa] – to take this battle to the next level. The wars [of conquest of Africa] have not …

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Steffen Bohm – Trading Carbon: How Paris Set Us Up for Failure

The Paris Agreement has mostly been greeted with enthusiasm, though it contains at least one obvious flaw. Few seem to have noticed that the main tool mooted for keeping us within the 2C global warming target is a massive expansion of carbon trading, including offsetting, which allows the market exchange of credits between companies and nations to achieve an overall emissions reduction. …

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Dutch Experts and Council of Europe Slam Ukraine’s “Investigations” Into MH17 and Killing of Pro-Russian Protesters

The largest Dutch newspaper – De Telegraaf – noted yesterday (English translation): The reliability of evidence in the MH17 research is in question by the sinister role of the Ukrainian secret service SBU in corruption and crime scandals. Criminal Experts predict problems for the future criminal proceedings against the mass murderers of the MH17 passengers, it now appears that the intelligence which resulted in all kinds …

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Moustafa Bayoumi – It’s not just Trump – the US is gripped by anti-Muslim hysteria

The New York Times reported last week that climate change is forcing environmental researchers to seek cold-water refuges for imperiled salmon. This raises an obvious question for Republican candidates in the US presidential race: how do we ensure no Muslim salmon are swimming among the pink refugees? Clearly, we need a religious test for lox. The idea is absurd, of course. Climate change …

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Pepe Escobar – You Want War? Russia is Ready for War

Nobody needs to read Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s 1997 opus to know US foreign policy revolves around one single overarching theme: prevent – by all means necessary – the emergence of a power, or powers, capable of constraining Washington’s unilateral swagger, not only in Eurasia but across the world. The Pentagon carries the same message embedded in newspeak: the Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine. …

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Andre Damon – The climate crisis and imperialism

The outcome of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which concluded over the weekend in Paris, has been hailed almost universally by politicians and the press as a triumph of international collaboration that will pull mankind back from the brink of ecological disaster. The New York Times called the deal a “historic breakthrough.” The British Guardian declared that it demonstrated “just how much …

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CORY DOCTOROW – America’s permanent, ubiquitous tent-cities

Homelessness in America dwindled away after WWII, when the GI Bill and generous social programs seemed to finally get on top of a problem that had been with the country since its inception; but starting with Reagan’s mass de-institutionalizations and cuts to social services, homelessness has only grown, a phenomenon America answered by criminalizing being alive, and pretending not to …

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John Feffer – Obama: The Fairy-Tale President?

In fairy tales, the hero makes a wish. After a few trials the wish comes true, and everyone lives happily ever after. But only in this Disney version of fairy tales is wish fulfillment so straightforward. In Goethe’s modern fairy tale, a scholar dreams of knowledge and power. A stranger grants his wish, but the ambitious Faust must pledge his …