Rebuffing Israel, U.N. chief heads to Iran for summit meeting
August 26th, 20120 UNITED NATIONS — Brushing aside a warning by the Israeli government and rebuffing a campaign by pro-Israeli lobbying groups in the United States, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has decided to visit Iran next week to participate in the summit meeting of the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), described as the world’s largest...
The human cost of war on Iran
August 26th, 20120 In late 2002, just prior to the launch of the U.S. “shock and awe” campaign against Iraq, I was invited to join a gathering of intelligence analysts at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to participate in an Iraq “war games” exercise. We were assigned specific roles and asked to “play out” various political...United Church members vote for boycott of products from Israeli settlements
Canada's largest Protestant church denomination, the United Church of Canada, voted on Wednesday to boycott goods produced in Israeli settlements on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The decision came on Wednesday after nearly six hours of contentious debate according to a report in the Toronto Star. The group named the Israeli...
Can Iran help on Syrian crisis?
August 17th, 20120 This past week, Iran hosted an international conference on the conflict in Syria, a conference that is more important than most Western media coverage conveyed.The conflict in Syria is not just a civil war; it has become a highly militarized proxy war, involving major regional and international powers (including the United States). In...U.S. poll finds Muslims differ widely in religiosity
WASHINGTON - The global Muslim community of 1.6 billion people agree on the core principles of their faith, but differ widely in religiosity and religious tolerance, according to a poll published Thursday."Muslims are unified by core beliefs and in core practices" like faith in a single God, believe in the Prophet Mohammed and fasting...New Israeli deputy PM undercuts strategy of pressure on Obama
WASHINGTON — By staking out a policy line on Iran reflecting the views of the Israeli national security leadership, Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz has undercut the Benjamin Netanyahu government's carefully planned strategy to get U.S. President Barack Obama to threaten war against Iran if it doesn't give up its nuclear program.It...
What Russia fears in Syrian conflict
June 30th, 20120 MOSCOW — Russia's unyielding support for Damascus throughout the 16 months of Syria's escalating crisis has earned Moscow strong condemnation from Washington and other Western governments, but the reasons for Russia's implacable position have never been fully explained by Moscow or its critics. Washington's latest tension with Russia...No rest for cyber activists
FLORENCE — One and a half years since the beginning of the Arab Spring, activists who guided their fellow citizens through the relatively uncharted terrain of social media activism feel their fight for human rights, democracy and transparency is only just beginning. Many of the leading social media activists in Tunisia, birthplace of...
U.S. , Israel military surveillance future: Drones now come in swarms?
June 22nd, 20120 A small insect or a mosquito over your ear may now be much more than simply annoying. They could easily be micro drones which now come in a swarm of bug-sized flying spies. An image from NetworkWorld.comIn an effort to create a hard-to-detect surveillance drone that will operate with little or no direct human supervision in out of the...Report slams Israeli PM over deadly flotilla raid
The Israeli PM is under fire for the management of the deadly Turkish flotilla raid that occured in 2010. A new report released by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss suggests that Benjamin Netanyahu failed to follow protocol that could have avoided the bloodshed.The report states that no official cabinet meeting was called during the...Attacking Iran likely counter-productive, think tank warns
WASHINGTON — While a nuclear-armed Iran would pose significant new challenges to the United States and Israel, a military attack by either country to prevent Tehran from developing a weapon could well prove counter-productive, according to a major new report released here Wednesday by a think tank close to the administration of...Israel, not Iran, feels isolated
JERUSALEM — As a result of the diplomatic momentum geared to disarm international suspicions over the explosive issue of Iran’s nuclear program, the one country not directly party to the two-track negotiation process feels more isolated than Iran. Iran nuclear talks in Baghdad on May 23, 2012. Following the putative breakthrough...U.S. Iran hawks in Congress in some disarray
WASHINGTON — Hopes by Iran hawks here to get the U.S. Congress to wield the threat of a U.S. military attack on the Islamic Republic on the eve of next week's critical negotiations on Tehran's nuclear program appear to have fallen unexpectedly short.While the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Thursday to reject "any U.S....United Methodist Church’s shameful failure to divest from injustice
This week, amidst the incredible ongoing mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners, some of them on the brink of starvation, the United Methodist Church failed to pass a resolution to divest from three major beneficiaries of the most incendiary human rights abuses and colonial crimes of our time.Among the heartbreaking collection...
Former CIA analyst: U.S. media prevents justice in Mideast
May 11th, 20120 Ray McGovernLongtime former CIA analyst Ray McGovern worked 27 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, providing daily reports to some the U.S.' top leaders, serving as an analyst from the John F. Kennedy administration through the George H.W. Bush administration. But now the 72-year-old has retired and spends his time doing a......
The real reason for moving Israeli elections up
JERUSALEM — If on Sep. 4, exit polls confirm what opinion polls currently predict – the reinstatement of a right-wing government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu – Israelis might still ask themselves, what was this general election about?The one who, this week behind the scenes, will call for the dissolution of the Knesset parliament,...Israeli dissent lessens threat of Iran strike
WASHINGTON — The threat of a military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities this year appears to have substantially subsided over the past several weeks as a result of several developments, including the biting criticisms voiced recently by former top national security figures of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense......
Women of the world unite for rights
ISTANBUL — The world’s recent financial and political upheavals have not been kind to women. In Libya’s Tripoli, female suicide rates increased tenfold during the revolution, while dismal job prospects have young Greek women abandoning their career aspirations, participants in a global forum on women’s rights said over the...
100th ANNIVERSARY: The Titanic’s untold Arab stories
April 20th, 20120 We have all grown familiar with the story of the Titanic, the passenger liner that sank in the Northern Atlantic in 1912 after hitting an iceberg. This week as the tragedy marked its 100th Anniversary, the stories and accounts from that horrific day that resulted in the deaths of over 1,500 people have resurfaced. What many might not...POLITICAL SCAPEGOATING IN FRANCE
When immigrants become the footballPARIS — Candidates in the French presidential election are coming to use the word ‘immigrant’ like a ball to be kicked around from one side to another, analysts say. “Boot all the immigrants out, and everything will be fine. That’s the seductive and deceptive message from some...
Julian Assange talk show’s surprise first guest: Hassan Nasrallah
April 19th, 20120 BEIRUT — Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah this week appeared on the first broadcast of The World Tomorrow, a talk show hosted by Wikileaks founder and editor Julian Assange on the Kremlin-backed television station Russia Today (RT), the Associated Press wrote. The station described Assange's show as “one of the most......
‘FLYTILLA’ hits Israel
April 19th, 20120 Unwelcome in Israel, activists still make a pointJERUSALEM — That “Welcome to Palestine” isn’t ‘Welcomed to Israel’ couldn’t be clearer. Wishing to land in Israel and to protest the 45-year occupation of Palestine in Bethlehem, most ‘Fly-tilla’ activists were treated by Israel’s authorities as a “strategic...Nuclear talks aim to ease fears of Iran war
ISTANBUL — Major powers will hold their first talks with Iran this week in more than a year, hoping Tehran will give enough ground on its nuclear program to extend negotiations and avert the threat of a Middle East war.Israel has hinted at military action against Iran, arguing time is running out to stop it developing atomic arms;......
Galloway’s stunning win shakes up English political scene
March 31st, 20120 George Galloway's stunning electoral triumph in the Bradford by-election has shaken the petrified world of English politics. It was unexpected, and for that reason the Respect campaign was treated by much of the media (Helen Pidd of the Guardian being an honorable exception) as a loony fringe show. A BBC toady, an obviously...Poll: Opposition to war in Afghanistan grows to 69%
Support for the war is dwindling among Republicans and Democrats, poll findsA new New York Times/CBS News poll shows that support for the U.S. War in Afghanistan has reached an all-time low. The poll, conducted between March 21-25, revealed that of those surveyed, 69 percent opposed the war in Afghanistan. This is up from 53 percent just......
