US government officials - and the transnational business interests that heavily influence them - are not nearly as concerned with which country gets control over disputed piles of rocks in the South or East China Sea as they are with making sure that trade is not disrupted around these rocks.
In countries with contested elections, there are usually two mainstream parties considered as being somewhere in or near the center of the views of the voters in that country.
The continued aggression of Saudi Arabia against civilians in Yemen, and the use of cluster munitions, highlight the crucial links between human rights, arms control, and the resolution of conflicts through good faith negotiations.
Source: The Nation
A new cybersecurity elite moves between government and private practice, taking state secrets with them.
About a year ago, I wangled a media invitation to a “leadership dinner” in northern Virginia sponsored by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. INSA is a powerful but little-known coalition established in 2005 by companies working for the National Security Agency. In recent years, it has become the premier organization for the men and women who run the massive cyberintelligence-industrial complex that encircles Washington, DC.
Source: The Washington Post
In an alley in Denver, police gunned down a 17-year-old girl joyriding in a stolen car. In the backwoods of North Carolina, police opened fire on a gun-wielding moonshiner. And in a high-rise apartment in Birmingham, Ala., police shot an elderly man after his son asked them to make sure he was okay. Douglas Harris, 77, answered the door with a gun.
The three are among at least 385 people shot and killed by police nationwide during the first five months of this year, more than two a day, according to a Washington Post analysis. That is more than twice the rate of fatal police shootings tallied by the federal government over the past decade, a count that officials concede is incomplete.
Source: TeleSUR English
On Sunday, people across Spain took to the polls for this year’s highly anticipated municipal and regional elections. The outcome of the vote has ended up shaking the status quo, catapulting a host of social activists and citizens’ organizations onto the political scene, and exploding a whole new set of opportunities for the country’s grassroots movements as they explore innovative new ways to negotiate the precarious balance between resisting austerity and reclaiming the commons while retaining a commitment to direct democracy.
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