A foreboding article was published on April 24. It was pointed out that China had provided a berth to a Russian ship Angara that is purportedly “tied to North Korea-Russia arms transfers.” Reuters cited Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) – that boasts of itself to be “the world’s oldest and the UK’s leading defence and […]

In the name of protecting Canadian Jews many are promoting the cultural and physical erasure of a faraway people. Recently there’s been a push to suppress a traditional Palestinian garment. To the delight of many, the speaker of the Ontario legislature banned kaffiyehs from the provincial assembly. In a sign of support for this racist […]

Coming soon: Unbecoming American, A War Memoir, available at amazon.com Fifty years ago the Portuguese became the first and only populace to overthrow its national fascist regime. Although I was in Brazil in 1986 when the 1964 Atos Institutionais that defined the American incited and inspired military dictatorship were replaced by a new civilian constitution […]

“I was three years old when he was killed,” says Xiomara Hernández. “My little brother who is here with me today is the baby, he was just six months old.” Xiomara is standing on a rock above a rushing stream, looking down on the spot where her father, Sergio Hernández, was murdered along with U.S. […]

The US Congress authorized a $95 billion military aid package for continuing the wars in Ukraine and Gaza as well as for war preparations against China. This represents, in effect, a downpayment on World War III. US President Joe Biden, reading from a playbook that could well have been scripted by George Orwell, announced: “it’s […]

I love Naomi Klein. Strong, courageous, principled. In her latest, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World (2023), willing to open her life for us to see for ourselves what makes her tick. A world of doppelgangers, shadow selves of many varieties from our repressed inner Other, to an AI construct of who you are in […]

The Israeli authorities, in their campaign of remorseless killing, doctoring and adjusting the numbers of the Palestinian populace for whatever future awaits, have been found wanting on accusations that Hamas terrorists packed, stacked and filled UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East). Not that this, in of […]

Tourists visiting Spanish cities like Córdoba, Toledo and Sevilla have the option of whiling away an hour or so at a ‘Museum of the Inquisition’, sometimes known as a ‘Gallery of Torture’. For around three euros, visitors can view an exotic range of devices used to impale, immolate, strangle and dismember human beings in the […]

Image by Creative Commons 4.0 What will it take to end the nuclear nightmare that has gripped the world since the atomic bombings of 1945? For a time, that nightmare seemed to have abated for, in response to massive popular resistance to the prospect of nuclear war, governments turned to signing nuclear arms control and […]

This visual is based on statistical projections by researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health. Their projections powerfully illustrate how many Palestinian lives are at stake in the next six months. They looked at four areas: traumatic injuries, non-communicable diseases, infectious diseases (including pandemics), […]

On 19 April 2024, the Philippines Supreme Court issued a cease-and-desist order on the commercial propagation of genetically modified (GM) Golden Rice and GM eggplant in the country. The Stop Golden Rice Network says that the court decision is a victory for farmers and consumers everywhere as the decision goes beyond Golden Rice and insecticidal […]

It is unfortunate that column space should be dedicated to Britain’s shortest termed prime minister and, arguably, one of its most imbecilic and cringingly juvenile.  But given that some people still sympathise with her and her views, it falls to one to tackle her latest work which resembles other types of the gloomy genre warning […]

It’s never been so bad. The Great Barrier Reef, which is one of nature’s most iconic mosaics of biodiversity, is on the ropes because of extreme global warming. Coral bleaching at the World Heritage-listed reef is “experiencing its worst mass bleaching event on record.” — Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is ‘Transforming’ from Repeated Coral Bleaching, […]

Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (Portugal), A Poesia Está Na Rua I [Poetry Is out on the Street I], 1974. Fifty years ago, on 25 April 1974, the people of Portugal took to the streets of their cities and towns in enormous numbers to overthrow the fascist dictatorship of the Estado Novo (‘New State’), formally […]

Orientation Who are Neocons and Neoliberals today? In the collapsing Mordor society of today we have two contending foreign policy theoretical tendencies, the Neocon realists and the Neoliberal globalists. The Neocon realists are represented by people like Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland, Steve Bannon and other war hawks who go back to the Bush Years (Rumsfeld, […]

Muhammad Jaber, known as Abu Shujaa, the leader of the Tulkarem Brigade militia in Nur Shams refugee camp, emerges among mourners after rumors of his killing in the northern occupied West Bank during a two-day military operation, on 21 April.  Mohammed Nasser APA images The Israeli military carried out bloody carnage and destruction at the […]

Rafah is already under attack; where will people go if Israel conducts a major offensive there?  Abed Rahim Khatib DPA via ZUMA Press It’s almost 5 am in al-Mawasi Rafah. And we’ve been hearing the sounds of Israeli bombs since midday yesterday. They’re intermittent, maybe two or three every couple of hours. There’s a saying […]

In the American political tradition, doctrines (political, economic, military, etc.) have a distinct role to play. They prepare the ground for devising policies, making decisions, and enacting laws. Still, among all doctrines that have been shaping the identity of the United States, those related to foreign policy stand out. This is due to their (a) […]

Yesterday I attended mass. Instead of a priest, the mass was celebrated by Nicaraguan children – 10 fourth and fifth grade students. The kids led the congregation in prayers, passing of the peace, read the gospel and shared a homily. They invited congregants to share reflections on the reading – the Good Shepherd – and […]

On April 16, Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, issued with authoritarian glee legal notices to X Corp and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to remove material within 24 hours depicting what her office declared to be “gratuitous or offensive violence with a high degree of impact and detail”.  The relevant material featured a […]