November 2005 - Page 6 of 7

Social Change Today: An Interview with Noam Chomsky

Steven Durel November 7, 2005 Steven Durel

Steven Durel: Professor Chomsky, for forty years now you have been a leading voice in political action and social justice. After this near half-century of participation in the libertarian movement, how have things changed?

Noam Chomsky: Change is never linear. It goes forward in some respects, backwards in others. Just to take the positive side, there has been a very substantial increase in the general level of civilization of society, and we see that in dimension after dimension. Concern for human rights has increased enormously and has many components. Women's rights, for example, are protected way beyond what was true forty years ago. Minority rights are far more protected, though there is plenty distance to go.

About TF

Super User November 4, 2005 Super User

Toward Freedom: a progressive perspective on world events since 1952

Toward Freedom envisions a world ethic that honors the human spirit and the right of individuals to freedom of thought and creativity; advances movements for human rights, peace, justice, enlightenment, and freedom from oppression; and celebrates the contributions of the world's diverse cultures.

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The School of the Americas: More than “A Few Bad Apples”

Palmer Legare November 3, 2005 Palmer Legare

In response to overwhelming evidence that the US Army School of the Americas has trained Latin American military personnel in civilian-targeted terrorism, representatives of the school have come up with numerous creative excuses and denials. Perhaps the most commonly used argument is that the hundreds of SOA graduates who have become dictators and gross human rights violators are only "a few bad apples" out of the thousands who have graduated from the school. A brief overview of the involvement of SOA graduates in the most brutal period of Guatemala's counterinsurgency war shows that they were more than a few bad apples. As is the case in most Latin American countries which have terrorized their civilian populations, the intellectual authors of systematic repression and the most brutal terrorists are graduates of the SOA.

Missionaries expelled for alleged experiments

Super User November 2, 2005 Super User

CARACAS – Minister of Interior Jesse Chacon has accused New Tribes, a fundamentalist evangelical project, with carrying out experiments on indigenous people in Venezuela that have led to 80 deaths, Prensa Latina reports.

A year ago, dozens of indigenous people allegedly died from malnutrition in the state of Apure, the minister has charged. According to an investigation, there were "experimental warehouses" and medicines "never reached these people," he said.

Pres. Hugo Chavez, who accused the missionary project of exploiting indigenous peoples and spying, ordered New Tribes out of Venezuela. According to the government, New Tribes has been working with the CIA, General Dynamics and Westinghouse. read more

Israeli leaders split over negotiations

Super User November 2, 2005 Super User

TEL AVIV – Two top Israeli officials are at odds over the chances for peace with the current Palestinian leadership, according to Agence France Presse. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has expressed serious doubts that "one day we can reach a peace accord with the present leadership," but Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Perez has criticized that position.

"We must wait for the next generation," Mofaz told the Yediot Aharonot daily. "I don’t think that a Palestinian state will see the light of day in the coming years." read more

Detained reporter pressured to spy

Super User November 2, 2005 Super User

NEW YORK – U.S. military interrogators have allegedly told a journalist for Al Jazeera who has been detained since December 2001 as an "enemy combatant" that he would be released if he agreed to provide U.S. intelligence authorities with inside information about the satellite news network’s activities, according to London’s Guardian newspaper.

Sami Muhyideen al-Haj, an assistant cameraman for Al Jazeera, was arrested by Pakistani authorities along the Afghan-Pakistani border while on assignment, then transferred to U.S. custody and brought to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. read more