No Picture

Remembering Investigative Journalist Robert Parry

Source: The Nation

After Robert Parry died on January 27, I asked another great investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, for some words. “I ran into Bob more than three decades ago when he was the first to warn of the Iran/Contra affair, to little avail,” Hersh replied. “He was widely seen over the next years as a critic of the mainstream media in America. That was not so. He was a critic of lousy reporting, be it in Pravda or The New York Times. He wanted every journalist, everywhere, to do the research and the interviewing that it takes to get beyond the accepted headline.” read more

Demonstrators protest up against a line of military police during Juan Orlando Hernández’s inauguration for a second term in office. Tegucigalpa, Honduras, January 27, 2018. Photo by Heather Gies

Honduran Congress Deepens Authoritarianism by Legalizing Political Corruption

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was sworn in for a second term Saturday amid ongoing protests and cries of election fraud. For protesters, Hernández has kept a stranglehold on power through fraud and military might. As the crisis deepens, on January 18th Honduran lawmakers passed a new Budget Law to protect corrupt politicians from legal proceedings, essentially legalizing corruption in the country.

Migrants prepare to cast off the beach at Shimbiro, Somalia, for a perilous journey across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen and beyond. Photo: Alixandra Fazina/Noor

Dangerous Migrations: Tracing the African Refugee Exodus to US-Backed Yemen Conflict

In Yemen, eight million people are on the brink of starvation as conflict-driven near-famine conditions leave millions without food and safe drinking water. Civil war has exacerbated and prolonged the misery while, since March of 2015, a Saudi-led coalition, joined and supported by the U.S., has regularly bombed civilians and infrastructure in Yemen while also maintaining a blockade that prevented transport of desperately needed food, fuel and medicines.

No Picture

Extreme poverty in America: Read the UN special monitor’s report

Source: The Guardian 

Philp Alston, the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, has spent 10 days touring America. This is the introduction to his report

Ihave spent the past two weeks visiting the United States, at the invitation of the federal government, to look at whether the persistence of extreme poverty in America undermines the enjoyment of human rights by its citizens. In my travels through California, Alabama, Georgia, Puerto Rico, West Virginia, and Washington DC I have spoken with dozens of experts and civil society groups, met with senior state and federal government officials and talked with many people who are homeless or living in deep poverty. I am grateful to the Trump administration for facilitating my visit and for its continuing cooperation with the UN Human Rights Council’s accountability mechanisms that apply to all states. read more

The Trials of Africa and Dr. Martin Luther King’s Vision for Global Solidarity

Dr. King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech pushed past the boundaries of what is acceptable in American politics, to where his anti-war and global solidarity values were unapologetically linked to the fight against racism and poverty at home. On that day, the American civil rights struggle courageously broke free from the confines of American exceptionalism, to join a worldwide movement of struggles against racism, colonialism and war.