usa

Europeans Protest Trade Talks In Brussels

February 6, 2015 Andrea Germanos, www.commondreams.org Resist! Europe, Free Trade Agreement, TTIP, usa

Hundreds of people rallied in Brussels on Wednesday, where negotiators are holding their latest round of talks on a proposed EU-U.S. trade deal criticized as a "Trojan treaty" that threatens democracy and puts corporate profits above people. At issue is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which would be the biggest-ever trade deal, and is a proposal that has faced years of opposition over its secrecy as well as possible impacts on issues ranging from food safety to fracking to copyright. Friends of the Earth Europe brought their touring "Trojan horse" to Brussels to urge negotiators to say not to what the environmental group says is a Trojan treaty.

Chomsky & Kissinger Agree: Avoid Historic Tragedy In Ukraine

February 5, 2015 Kevin Zeese, www.mintpressnews.com Educate! Russia, Ukraine, usa, Wars and Militarism

Chomsky has described Ukraine as a “crisis [that] is serious and threatening,” further noting that some people compare it to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. In discussing Russia and Crimea he reminds readers that, “Crimea is historically Russian; it has Russia’s only warm-water port, the home of Russia’s fleet; and has enormous strategic significance.” Kissinger agrees. In an interview with Spiegel, published in November, Kissinger says, “Ukraine has always had a special significance for Russia. It was a mistake not to realize that.” When Kissinger says that Crimea is not akin to Hitler and a desire for global conquest by Russia, he is going to the heart of the arguments made by those seeking escalation.

Our Girls Are Still Not Home: Boko Haram & The Politics Of Death

January 29, 2015 Ajamu Baraka, www.blackagendareport.com Educate! Nigeria, usa, Wars and Militarism, Women's Rights

The advocates of a purely military response ignore or are unaware of the fact that before Boko Haram went underground to wage its military campaign against the Nigerian state, it represented a mass movement that had a significant popular base. And while the war may have eroded that popular base and Boko Haram’s connections to the elite of Northern Nigeria, to ignore the social/economic conditions and religious ideological factors that still provide the foundation for Boko Haram’s recruitment and popular support is to fall prey to the simplistic caricatures projected in the Western media and mimicked by the African press. There is no doubt that Boko Haram has committed egregious crimes against humanity. But so has the Nigerian government. In every major city and town that is being contested militarily, from Baga to Maiduguri, it has been documented that the Nigerian authorities committed massive human rights violations including torture, extrajudicial killings, house burnings, kidnapping and rape.

Diplomatic Relations With Cuba & Sanctions For Venezuela

January 3, 2015 The Real News, www.therealnews.com Educate! Congress, Cuba, Law, Sanctions, usa, Venezuela

I think Venezuela is seen, certainly by this group of legislators that form a very small minority of the Congress but that hold very powerful positions on committees, Venezuela is seen as a bigger threat these days than Cuba, due to its rather large regional influence. And so they are now focusing more and more. They were very pleased to see see this legislation go through. And it made, I think, this opening towards Cuba slightly more palatable to these members of Congress. It is supported by some of the opposition. It's supported by what's sort of called the extremist or radical opposition, those who actually promoted the violent protests that took place back in March--February, March of this year. These protests, of course, involved a lot of violence that was carried out directly by protesters, and it's something that the mainstream media, of course, didn't cover very well at all.

I Am A 20th Century Escaped Slave

January 2, 2015 Assata Shakur, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Cuba, Political Prisoner, Racial Justice, usa

y name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government’s policy towards people of color. I am an ex-political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984. I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam.

The United States Is Committing Brutal Torture Right Now

December 24, 2014 Nafeez Ahmed, www.truth-out.org Educate! Human Rights, Torture, usa

The grisly details of CIA torture have finally been at least partly aired through the release of the executive summary to a landmark Senate intelligence committee report. The extent of the torture has been covered extensively across the media, and is horrifying. But much of the media coverage of this issue is missing the crucial bigger picture: the deliberate rehabilitation of torture under the Obama administration, and its systematic use to manufacture false intelligence to justify endless war. Torture victims, who had been detained by the US national security apparatus entirely outside any sort of recognizable functioning system of due process, endured a litany of extreme abuses normally associated with foreign dictatorships: 180-hour sleep deprivation, forced "rectal feeding," rectal "exams" using "excessive force," standing for dozens of hours on broken limbs, waterboarding, being submerged in iced baths, and on and on.

One Step Forward, One Step Back In US-Latin America Policy

December 24, 2014 Alexander Main, www.thehill.com Educate! Cuba, Latin America, Sanctions, usa, Venezuela

Venezuela has just joined Cuba as one of only two countries in the Western Hemisphere subject to U.S. sanctions. Legislation mandating sanctions against Venezuelan officials was approved by voice vote in the Senate on Dec. 8 and then sailed through the House on Dec. 10. On Dec. 18, just one day after his speech on a "new course" on Cuba, Obama signed the sanctions bill into law. Cuban-American Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who authored the legislation, called it "a victory for the Venezuelan people." The trouble is, the people of Venezuela don't seem to agree with Menendez. A survey carried out by independent pollster Datanalisis showed that nearly three quarters of Venezuelans oppose U.S. sanctions. The Caracas-based human rights organization PROVEA — a frequent critic of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — also vigorously rejects the measure. Other Latin American governments oppose the sanctions as well.

Violence In Mexico, The US Connection & The New Mexican Revolution

December 20, 2014 Jim Cohen, www.truth-out.org Educate! Education, Mexico, usa, War On Drugs

The disappearance and likely massacre of 43 students from the rural teachers' school of Ayotzinapa in Mexico September 26 has provoked shock and outrage internationally. Within Mexico, in addition to unprecedented levels of public anger, it has raised serious doubts about the sustainability of President Enrique Peña Nieto's mode of government, with its aggressively neoliberal economic program and levels of violence as high or higher than under his predecessor, Felipe Calderón, who initiated the drug war in 2006 with US collaboration. Professor of law and political science at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, John Ackerman explores the sources of growing dissatisfaction in Mexico and sheds light on how the US connection perpetuates Mexico's social inequalities, endemic violence and authoritarian government.

The Facts: Obama Did Not Really Ban Torture

December 20, 2014 William Blum, www.williamblum.org Educate! Torture, usa

The present news reports indicate that Washington’s obsession with torture stems from 9/11, to prevent a repetition. The president speaks of “the fearful excesses of the post-9/11 era”. There’s something to that idea, but not a great deal. Torture in America is actually as old as the country. What government has been intimately involved with that horror more than the United States? Teaching it, supplying the manuals, supplying the equipment, creation of international torture centers, kidnaping people to these places, solitary confinement, forced feeding, Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Chicago … Lord forgive us! Thus it is that once again the United States of America will not be subjected to any accountability for having broken US laws, international laws, and the fundamental laws of human decency. Obama can expect the same kindness from his successor as he has extended to George W.

While The US Calls Russia The Aggressor . . .

December 20, 2014 William Angdahl, www.ournal-neo.org Educate! Democracy, Finance and the Economy, Ukraine, usa

The US-picked Ukraine President, billionaire oligarch Petro Poroshenko called “snap” elections at the end of August for October 26. He did so to make sure genuine opposition to his regime of murderers, gangsters and in some cases outright Nazis would be able to push an unprepared genuine opposition out of the Verkhovna Rada or Parliament. Because the parliament had significant opposition parties to the US-engineered February 22 coup d’etat, they had blocked many key pieces of legislation that the Western vultures were demanding, from changing key land ownership laws to privatization of precious state assets. By law, the old parliament would have sat until its five year term ended in October, 2017. That was clearly too long for State Department neo-con Ukraine puppet-mistress Victoria Nuland and her backers in Washington.

The Crazy US ‘Group Think’ On Russia

December 20, 2014 Robert Parry, www.consortiumnews.com Educate! Finance and the Economy, Russia, Ukraine, usa

Has anyone in Official Washington thought through the latest foreign policy “group think,” the plan to destabilize nuclear-armed Russia? All the “smart” people, including the New York Times editors, are rubbing their hands with glee over the financial crisis being imposed on Russia because of the Ukraine crisis, but no one, it seems, is looking down the road. This reckless strategy appears to be another neocon-driven “regime change” scheme, this time focused on Moscow with the goal to take down Russian President Vladimir Putin and presumably replace him with some U.S. puppet, a Russian-speaking Ahmed Chalabi perhaps. Since the neocons have never faced accountability for the Iraq disaster – when the conniving Chalabi was their man – they are still free to dream about a replay in Russia.

Enbridge Shuts Oil Pipeline To U.S. After Spill In Canada

December 19, 2014 Robert Tuttle and Lynn Doan, www.bloomberg.com Educate! Canada, Finance and the Economy, Fracking, usa

Canadian oil supplies to the U.S. Midwest were disrupted after Enbridge Inc. (ENB)shut a pipeline because of a leak. The company isolated its Line 4 pipe at the Regina terminal in Saskatchewan yesterday after about 1,350 barrels of oil were released within an on-site pumping station, according to a statement. The company is excavating the line around a pumphouse and hasn’t provided an estimate for how long repairs may take, Gerard Kay, deputy chief of operations at Regina Fire and Protective Services, said by phone. “If this turns out to be an extended outage, it’s certainly going to impact Canadian oil producers much more than U.S. refiners,” Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC in Houston, said by phone. “Refiners in the U.S. Midwest could reach for some of the inventory we’ve been seeing build at Cushing over the last two months.”

The Problem With Obama’s Cuba Speech

December 19, 2014 Matt Peppe, www.mattpeppe.blogspot.com Educate! Cuba, usa

Six years into his Presidency, Barack Obama has finally taken steps he campaigned on in 2008 to normalize relations with Cuba. The new policy towards Cuba will include important changes including establishing formal diplomatic relations, removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and expanding trade relations. However, Obama is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. His rationale for finally abandoning the hard-line Cold War stance demonstrates his belief that the morality and legality of United States actions are beyond reproach. "In the most significant changes in our policy in more than fifty years, we will end an outdated approach that, for decades, has failed to advance our interests, and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries," Obama said in a live televised speech from the White House.

US Risks Economic Crash In Oil War With Russia

December 17, 2014 Mike Whitney, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Finance and the Economy, Oil & Gas, Russia, Syria, usa

U.S. powerbrokers have put the country at risk of another financial crisis to intensify their economic war on Moscow and to move ahead with their plan to “pivot to Asia”. Here’s what’s happening: Washington has persuaded the Saudis to flood the market with oil to push down prices, decimate Russia’s economy, and reduce Moscow’s resistance to further NATO encirclement and the spreading of US military bases across Central Asia. The US-Saudi scheme has slashed oil prices by nearly a half since they hit their peak in June. The sharp decline in prices has burst the bubble in high-yield debt which has increased the turbulence in the credit markets while pushing global equities into a tailspin. Even so, the roiled markets and spreading contagion have not deterred Washington from pursuing its reckless plan, a plan which uses Riyadh’s stooge-regime to prosecute Washington’s global resource war.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 »

Daily movement news and resources