Isis has used the latest issue of its propaganda magazine Dabiq to suggest the group is expanding so rapidly it could buy its first nuclear weapon within a year. The hyperbolic article, which the group attributes to the British hostage John Cantlie, claims Isis has transcended its roots as “the most explosive Islamic ‘group’ in the modern world” to evolve into “the …
Obama, Master of Diversion, Proposes Bogus Reforms of Militarized Police – Glen Ford
President Obama’s “ban” on certain military hardware and gear is both fraudulent and a diversion from the real issue: the oppressive mission of the police in Black America. The cops who killed Michael Brown and Freddie Gray and countless others “weren’t wearing battlefield outfits, firing automatic rifles, or riding around in tanks. They murder quite efficiently with handguns, batons and …
The Economic Tsunami Gathering Momentum Off the Shores of America – Michael Payne
A massive tsunami, a mega-powerful financial tidal wave, is growing in intensity off the shores of America. This government senses its ominous presence but refuses to prepare for the force that it will unleash. This highly dangerous condition has been brought on by decades of reckless government spending, together with banking and corporate industry policies and actions that further enrich …
Manufacturing the Global Food and Agricultural Crisis – COLIN TODHUNTER
In 2012, Professsor Seralini of the University of Caen in France led a team that carried out research into the health impacts on rats fed GMOs (genetically modified organisms). The two-year long study concluded that rats fed GMOs experienced serious health problems compared to those fed non GM food. Not long after, a new major peer-reviewed study emerged that threw into question the claim often forwarded by the …
Failure of Review Conference Brings World Close to Nuclear Cataclysm, Warn Activists – Thalif Deen
After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for …
Obama ban on police military gear falls short as critics say it’s a ‘publicity stunt’ – Tom McCarthy & Lauren Gambino
It has become an emblematic image of police militarization: a half-dozen heavily outfitted officers, assault rifles drawn, advancing on an African American man in a T-shirt with his hands way up. The police – photographed in Ferguson, Missouri, last summer – are wearing helmets and goggles and knee pads and gas masks. The man is wearing a cap from Cabela’s, the …
Why Islamic State Is Winning – Daniel Lazare
President Barack Obama and his foreign policy staff are not having a very merry month of May. The Islamic State’s takeover of Ramadi, Iraq, on May 15 was one of the greatest U.S. military embarrassments since Vietnam, but the fall of Palmyra, Syria, just five days later made it even worse. This is an administration that, until recently, claimed to have turned …
Major Bank Warns Of Imminent Problems In U.S. Farming Industry: “Dire Straits”
Despite the government’s ‘advice’ to young debt-laden students, thetragedy of the American farmer continues with worryingly pessimistic views on the future of the industry. With farmland prices falling for the first time in almost 30 years, credit conditions are weakening dramatically and the Kansas City Fed warns that persistently low crop prices and high input costs reduced profit margins and increased concerns about future …
Obama’s Catastrophic Climate-Change Denial – BILL McKIBBEN
THE Obama administration’s decision to give Shell Oil the go-ahead to drill in the Arctic shows why we may never win the fight against climate change. Even in this most extreme circumstance, no one seems able to stand up to the power of the fossil fuel industry. No one ever says no. By “extreme” I don’t just mean that Shell …
OECD: The U.S. and Israel have the worst inequality in the developed world
The OECD found that the gap between rich and poor is at record levels in most of its 34 member countries. But the U.S. and Israel stood out from the pack. In the U.S., the richest 10% of the population earn 16.5 times the income of the poorest 10%. In Israel, the richest 10% earn 15 times that of the …