A US airstrike in eastern Afghanistan Wednesday killed 10 civilians, including five children. The deadly attack came just hours after the State of the Union speech in which President Barack Obama falsely claimed that the more than decade-long US war …

Preface: I voted for Obama in 2008.

More Redistribution of Wealth to the Richest

Sure, Bush made the rich richer.

But Obama has actually redistributed wealth from the middle class to the very richest more than Bush.

Specifically, income inequality …

Detroit strangled by $16 billion in debt facing financial ruin, emergency management

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs

A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit was filed on February 12 on behalf of David Sole, …

The BBC is being challenged strongly for its refusal to present to the British public the available scientific evidence which contradicts the official version of events of 9/11. Thank you very much to all those who have sent letters to …

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) is extremely concerned that Samer Issawi — a 34-year-old Palestinian on a hunger strike — is near death. Issawi has been on a hunger strike for over 200 days to …

A twisted part of modern America is that harsh punishments are given to people who stand for truth and justice, while torturers and war criminals go free. That’s the case for Bradley Manning who released secrets and anti-nuclear protesters who …

Last December, I stood with supporters of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in the bitter cold outside the Ecuadorean embassy in London. Candles were lit; the faces were young and old and from all over the world. They were there to …

The big banks are destroying our economy … and our country.

They are literally run as criminal enterprises (even the mainstream media now admits that), they own the politicians, and they are encouraging the worst, most authoritarian …

Obama’s State of the Union address didn’t surprise. It reflected rogue leadership. It was beginning-to-end demagogic boilerplate.

Defending the indefensible took center stage. Rhetoric substituted for progressive policies. Bombast assured business as usual.

Priorities include waging war on humanity, force-fed …

As Congress struggles through one budget crisis after another, it is becoming increasingly evident that austerity doesn’t work. We cannot possibly pay off a $16 trillion debt by tightening our belts, slashing public services, and raising taxes. Historically, when the …

AFP has reported that a recent NATO airstrike in Afghanistan has killed over 10 civilians in an all-too-familiar headline glossed over by the Western media in an exercise of both depravity and hypocrisy. RT’s article, “NATO airstrike kills 10 Afghan …

The words in President Obama’s “State of the Union” speech were often lofty, spinning through the air with the greatest of ease and emitting dog whistles as they flew.

Let’s decode the president’s smooth oratory in the realms of climate …

Obama proclaimed in the State of the Union was that the economy was getting stronger even though the last quarter showed a shrinking GDP not an expanding one, the last month showed a rise in unemployment and a report issued …

Of all the GMO controversies around the world, the saga of Bt cotton in India continues to be one of the most interesting and important. In the latest chapter, reported by the Business Standard, cotton yields have dropped to …

ASADABAD, Afghanistan, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) — At least 10 Afghan civilians were killed overnight in a NATO airstrike originally targeting a militants’ hideout in the country’s eastern province of Kunar, the provincial governor said on Wednesday.

“The NATO-led coalition forces …

Secretary of State John Kerry’s clear where he stands. He laid down markers. He demands Iran comply with Washington’s demands. Left unsaid is what follows otherwise.

On February 26, nuclear talks will resume. P5+1 countries (Washington, Britain, Germany, China and …

Barack Obama would never be so crass as to use a State of the Union (SOTU) address to announce an “axis of evil”.

No. Double O Bama, equipped with his exclusive license to kill (list), is way slicker. As much …

The most significant point in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night was a passing and euphemistically worded reference to his program of extra-judicial drone assassinations. “Where necessary, through a range of capabilities, we will continue to …

Benghazigate’ continues to unravel, and the man who’s front and center at this week’s Washington DC hearings is now being blamed for the villa siege last September…

According to a new investigative book published by two former US special operations …

Over the last decade Russia’s Central Bank acquired 570 metric tonnes of gold. The amount is almost triple the weight of the American Statue of Liberty and makes Russia the world’s biggest buyer of gold.

The amount is a quarter …

 North Korea’s nuclear and rocket tests are viewed domestically as essential for national security and prestige. But they alienated even China, and may escalate tensions beyond the point of no return, which would be disastrous for everyone involved.

Tensions on …

Do it now before it’s too late!

America’s Declaration of Independence states:

“(W)hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, (it’s the right of the people, …

Audio

The justification of targeted killings by the United States government is “a travesty” according to U.S. law, an analyst said.

U.S. senators are reportedly considering an idea to create a secret “assassination court” that would be charged with deciding …

In the days leading up to Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, the Obama administration has combined calls for austerity measures to slash social spending with demagogic attacks on congressional Republicans for advocating even larger cuts in domestic social …

Introduction

On February 17, 2013, national elections will take place in Ecuador in which incumbent left-center President, Rafael Correa, is likely to win with an absolute majority against opposition candidates covering the political spectrum from Right to Left.  Since he …

In the harsh Ogaden region of Ethiopia, impoverished ethnic Somali people are being murdered and tortured, raped, persecuted and displaced by government paramilitary forces. Illegal actions carried out with the knowledge and tacit support of donor countries, seemingly content to …

French defense ministry officials have said that they are planning to make a withdrawal from Mali by April. Since January 11, when the French military began to bomb and launch a ground invasion into this resource-rich country, the government in …

Update: Jean-Claude Duvalier did not appear in court as planed on February 7, 2013. He was represented by his lawyer who read a letter in which Duvalier explained his absence. His audition was reported for the 4^th…

Make no mistake. March 23, 2010 will live in infamy. With strokes from 22 pens, Obama enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).

It’s a ripoff. It’s a healthcare rationing scheme. It’s a boon to predatory providers. It’s …

Hillary Clinton has completed her four-year tenure as Secretary of State to the accolades of both Democratic and Republican Congressional champions of the budget-busting “military-industrial complex,” that President Eisenhower warned about in his farewell address. Behind the public relations sheen, …

The Council of Europe recently released a report that warns that political pressure is being put on Spanish public television broadcasting (Televisión Española, TVE). The report draws attention to similar situations of politics pushing broadcasting in Hungary, Romania, Italy, Serbia …

We are Americans. Not just a continent, not just a melting pot. We are an idea, a set of dreams built on an idea. Yes, we are also a nation-state with the need and instinct to protect ourselves and our …

American Government Claims Power that Even King George Didn’t Claim
Daniel Ellsberg said this week:

[The indefinite detention provision of the defense bill] allows you to put an American citizen – a civilian – in military custody, treated like Bradley

Tens of thousands of Tunisians demonstrated Friday to mourn the death of secularist opposition politician Chokri Belaid and demand the removal of the US-backed Islamist government.

A one-day general strike called by the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) shut factories, …

Thursday’s confirmation hearing for John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s nominee for director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, provided a revealing and grim spectacle of the disintegration of what remains of democratic rights in the United States.

Some press accounts …

It’s one of those stories that you had to listen twice when you heard the report on the radio, and then, still in a state of suspended disbelief, I rushed to the internet to check and see if indeed it …

On February 8 in Tunisia a general strike and mass demonstrations marked the response by the youth and workers to the assassination of opposition organizer Chokri Belaid. Over two years after the rebellions and strikes that initiated the upheavals throughout …

Headlines like this should shock: Suicides Outpace War Deaths. Surge in Military Suicides. Nearly Two Dozen Veterans Commit Suicide Daily.

These reports and similar ones reveal imperialism’s dark side. War takes its toll. Civilians suffer most. So do many combatants …

Governments Move to Destroy Online Anonymity

Some of the world’s leading social critics and political critics have used pen names.

As Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge points out (edited slightly for readability):

Though often maligned (typically by those frustrated by

There are indications of the lingering costs of 11 years of warfare. Nearly 130,000 U.S. troops have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and vastly more have experienced brain injuries. Over 1,700 have undergone life-changing limb amputations. Over 50,000 have …

Three North Korean doctors were killed by suspected Islamists in northeast Nigeria’s Yobe state, local authorities said on Sunday.

“It is true. The three doctors were slaughtered while sleeping in their house,” Nigeria’s Yobe state police commissioner, Sanusi Rufai, was …

The marked increase in numbers at the US embassy in Asunción over the past year is being necessitated by the need to maintain control over the Paraguayan government. The pre-election campaign is in full swing and in order to «manage …

France’s largest automaker, struggling to compete in Europe’s stagnant car market, is cutting 8,000 jobs and closing the Aulnay-sous-Bois factory,” Euronews stated.

The decision has been taken after the French company has stopped export of automobile spare parts to Iran …

Following a meeting with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai US President Barack Obama made a statement, many experts called sensational. Obama expressed readiness to hold talks with the Taliban movement. In fact such an unbelievable statement means radical changes in …

Kazakhstan and Russia signed an agreement on a common regional air defense system.

“Russian Defense Minister rendered a visit to our country for the first time. We discussed important issues and signed document to create a common air defense system. …

On January 29-30, delegation of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) led by Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha will participate in the joint meeting of Interstate Commission on Military and Economic Cooperation and the meeting of RA interdepartmental commission on coordination …

The 2012 Quebec student strikes delivered one of the few victories we have seen in anti-austerity struggles in the Canadian state. The mobilization, which at its high point saw over 300,000 students on limited …

Austerity is a sham. Debt is economics for the ‘little people’.  If the people produce the wealth then why are they always poor and/or paying back debts? Because the national and international wealthy lend us back the money (with interest) …

An Interview with Marjorie Cohn about Targeted Killings

Writing in National Geographic in December 2012 about “small-scale irrigation techniques with simple buckets, affordable pumps, drip lines, and other equipment” that “are enabling farm families to weather dry seasons, raise yields, diversify their crops, and lift themselves out of …

China’s Three Gorges dam, completed in 2006 and put into use last summer, is the world’s largest source of ‘clean’ hydroelectric power. With a generating capability equal to that of 15 nuclear reactors, the project has been hailed as a …

When CIA nominee John Brennan faced the Senate Select Committee on So-Called Intelligence on Thursday, countless critical and cutting questions had been prepared by bloggers and journalists.  None of them were asked.

Brennan might have been asked why he’d lied …

On February 6, Obama chose Jewell as new Interior Secretary. More on her below.

She’ll replace Ken Salazar. He supported BP’s Deepwater Horizon operation. He ignored environmental risks. He approved BP’s exploration plan with no environmental analysis.

His negligence permitted …

For more than a year, several major US media outlets—including theWashington Post and the New York Times —deliberately concealed the existence of a US drone base in Saudi Arabia. The base was used to carry out many of the …

Kosovo is planning to convert its lightly-armed Kosovo Security Force into a full-fledged army.

Established in 2009, the force consists of 2,500 active and 800 reserve members and is primarily responsible for crisis response.

Over the past few years, it …

Over the past four decades, of all the reasons people over a certain age have given for their becoming radicalized against US foreign policy, the Vietnam War has easily been the one most often cited. And I myself am the …

Global Research News Hour Episode 14

“We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more … Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more …

The Great Recession has quietly devastated public services on a state-by-state basis, with Republican and Democratic governors taking turns leading the charge. Public education has been decimated, as well as health care, welfare, and the wages and benefits of public …

The Obama Administration recently underwent its first U.N. treaty body review, and the resulting concluding observations made public yesterday should be a cause for alarm. The observations, issued by independent U.N. experts tasked with monitoring compliance with the international treaty …

Greek police may vainly try to Photoshop away the torture of four alleged bank robbers, but they cannot gloss over the radicalization of Greek youth.

The story is as follows.

On February 1st 2013, an attempted robbery of two banks …

In the network of corrupt and incestuous relations between government financial regulatory agencies and the banks they nominally police, a growing role is played by private, for-profit “consulting” firms that serve as middlemen in the government cover-up of corporate crime.…

Since taking office, Obama headed America toward full-blown tyranny. He enforces Bush administration police state laws. He added more of his own. He governs like a tinpot despot.

He targets free expression, dissent, whistleblowing, and other constitutional freedoms. He usurped …

How much money does it cost to get populations to think a certain way? Answer: it requires a blank cheque. But can Americans really afford it?g and

Chief among the pitfalls of managing any global empire – persuading the …

What is happening in India right now encapsulates the current battle that is taking place across the globe, which will decide the future direction of humanity.

This country of 1.2 billion people is where modernity meets tradition head on. We …

“Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”  Henry Kissinger

When the story broke about the Feb. 2 shooting death of former Navy SEAL and American Sniper author, Chris Kyle, we immediately learned …

With its air strikes against targets inside Syria last week, Israel announced its formal entry into the Syrian crisis.  The Israeli targeting of Iran has thus entered the Syrian theater.

According to McClatchy, the Israeli strikes on January 30 targeted …

One of the ways in which humans wrestle with the existence of evil is by hoping that the evil doer gets his or her just desserts.

This hope is expressed with expressions such as “what goes around comes around” or …

For John Kerry the incoming Secretary of State, the bombing of Cambodia by the US was illegal. But, even as Kerry reaffirms his condemnation of US actions in Cambodia, it comes to light that in June his colleagues in the …