In late February, a Baltimore-born, self-proclaimed freedom fighter named Matthew VanDyke beamed [2] into Greta Van Susteren’s Fox News show from Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region. A few days earlier, he had announced [3] on Facebook that he was in Iraq to “raise and train a Christian army to fight” ISIS and that he had formed a company called Sons of Liberty International (SOLI) …
Stop Calling the TPP a Trade Agreement – It Isn’t – Dave Johnson
This is a message to activists trying to fight the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Stop calling the TPP a “trade” agreement. TPP is a corporate/investor rights agreement, not a “trade” agreement. “Trade” is a good thing; TPP is not. Every time you use the word “trade” in association with the TPP, you are helping the other side. “Trade” is a propaganda …
War leaves 16 million Yemenis without clean water: Oxfam
Almost two-thirds of the population of war-torn Yemen have no access to clean water, two months into the Saudi-led air campaign against rebel forces, relief agency Oxfam said Tuesday. “Ongoing air strikes, ground fighting and fuel shortages mean that an additional three million Yemenis are now without drinking water, raising the total number of Yemenis without a clean water supply …
Here’s How Much Corporations Paid US Senators to Fast-Track the TPP Bill By C. Robert Gibson and Taylor Channing
decade in the making, the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is reaching its climax and as Congress hotly debates the biggest trade deal in a generation, its backers have turned on the cash spigot in the hopes of getting it passed. “We’re very much in the endgame,” US trade representative Michael Froman told reporters over the weekend at a meeting of …
Blundering Tony Blair quits as Middle East peace envoy – only Israel will miss him – ROBERT FISK
For Arabs – and for Britons who lost their loved ones in his shambolic war in Iraq – Blair’s appointment was an insult Tony Blair’s time as Middle East envoy representing the US, Russia, the UN and the EU has finally come to an end. Eight years after he took up the role, Blair tendered his resignation and left one question: …
Israeli army commander recorded ordering attack on Gaza clinic – Charlotte Silver
An Israeli military commander has been recorded ordering troops to shell medical facilities during the 2014 attack on Gaza. Nerya Yeshurun, a lieutenant colonel, instructed that a clinic in the Shujaiya neighborhood be fired upon on 23 July last year to “honor” an Israeli soldier who had been killed a day earlier. His statement amounts to a clear, though perhaps unintended, admission of war crimes. Targeting civilians as …
Who’s Really Paying for Our Cheap Clothes? – Lorraine Chow
Can the fast fashion industry ever truly be sustainable? Earlier this month, H&M released its 110-page Conscious Action Sustainability Report, its 13th annual review of its green practices and efforts towards fair wages within its factories. Although many of its figures and initiatives are commendable (e.g. its in-store recycling program brought in around 13,000 tons of clothing; it aims to use 80 percent renewable electricity …
How Western Press Spreads ISIS Propaganda: The Case For a Media Blackout – Adam Johnson
This past weekend, several media outlets ran a story about how ISIS is seeking a nuclear weapon: ISIS Claims It Could Buy Its First Nuclear Weapon From Pakistan Within a Year [3] —International Business Times ISIS to Smuggle Its First Nuclear Weapon From Pakistan, Mulls Attack on US: Report [4] —Economic Times ISIS Boasts It ‘Could Buy First Nuclear Weapon in Less Than …
When Is a Felony Not a Felony? When You Are a Bank – Alexis Goldstein
Good news, America: We can now get guilty pleas from banks! Bad news, America: That’s only because guilty pleas from banks are now absolutely meaningless. Last week, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Barclays, and Royal Bank of Scotland pled guilty to felony charges of conspiring to manipulate currency prices, and UBS pled guilty to manipulating benchmark interest rates. Regulators and prosecutors found …
A Prehistory of Violence – George Monbiot
Do you want to know the real reason for the advances by Isis in Iraq and Syria? Changing lightbulbs in America. This is the explanation given by John McCain, Republican chair of the Senate armed services committee. At the weekend he blamed Barack Obama’s inability to magic away Islamic State on the president’s belief that climate change is “the biggest enemy we …