On the 100th Anniversary of World War 1, the Western powers are again sleepwalking into destructive conflict. Hegemonic ambition has Washington interfering in the internal affairs of Ukraine, but developments seem to be moving beyond…
Category: Politics
The Sins of Iran I’m sorry. We DO have to bomb Iran. Our hands are tied. Here’s why: The Iran Oil Bourse will begin trading oil in non-dollars starting March 20; Iranians…
In the Darkness of Dick Cheney The Smile of Secret Power By Mark Danner [This essay appears in the March 6th issue of the New York Review of Books and is posted at TomDispatch.com with the kind…
Nearly seven decades after the end of World II, the right-wing government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is rapidly remilitarising Japan, freeing its armed forces from any legal or constitutional constraints and…
It is all part of a political agenda of low-intensity interference in Ukrainian and Russian affairs. The Sochi Winter Olympic Games open amid a flurry of superlatives. They are the most expensive Games to date – at a cost of $50 billion; they are the first ever Winter Olympics to be hosted by Russia; and the official torch relay to start to event is the longest in history, covering over 40,000 miles and involving the participation of some 14,000 torch bearers. Another superlative is that no other sporting event has attracted so much lurid and negative media coverage, emanating largely from the Western corporate news outlets… Over the past weeks, Western media have sought to highlight all manner of alleged problems awaiting the Sochi Games, ranging from the grimly serious to the sublimely ridiculous. This week, ahead of the Games’ official opening, under the auspices of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Western media carried reports that the US government was warning airlines heading to the Black Sea resort on the risk of explosives being secreted by terrorists in toothpaste tubes.
On Sunday, January 26th ,the former NSA contractor, whistleblower, and US fugitive, Edward Snowden gave a candid 30 minute interview for the German television network ARD. The problem with this interview is that in…
As the media spotlight shines on U.S. negotiators talking with Iranians and Syrians, the Israeli-Palestinian talks have faded into the background. They’re still grinding on, slowly, with several contentious issues unresolved. One of…
The Montreux-to-Geneva peace conference is underway, and although the mainstream media is focusing on the negatives—namely, the fact that the invitation to Iran was blocked by the United States, and the confrontational exchange…
The UN Sanctions Committee Must Make its Records Public The terms “transparency” and “accountability” are used with greater frequency at United Nations briefings than in practically any other venue. Yet, information on the…
In his recent annual meeting with the media, Russian President Vladimir Putin replied to a question about the rumored placement of Russian Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad on Poland’s doorstep. He stated that US missile defense remains a threat to…