Articles by Super User

GENEVA – Starting this week, civil society groups around the world plan to stage a series of demonstrations leading up to major protests at a December ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Hong Kong. According to an analysis by Gustavo Capdevila on oneworld.net, the new mobilization against corporate globalization points to a renewal of the anti-globalization campaign that seriously disrupted previous WTO summits in Seattle and Cancun.

"We are going to stop the WTO negotiations because we don’t see any good prospects for all countries, especially in Latin America and Africa," said Lara Pietricovsky of the Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Studies, quoted on oneworld.net. One of the slogans for the campaign is "Hong Kong will be the WTO’s Stalingrad." In 1943, Soviet Union troops defeated the invading Nazi German army in that Russian city, an event that many believe marked the beginning of the end of World War II. read more

WASHINGTON – Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to Pres. Jimmy Carter and architect of the late 1970s plan to back Muslim fundamentalists against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, has issued a scorching denunciation of the Bush administration’s “war on terror,” charging that it is “dangerously undercutting America’s seemingly secure perch on top of the global totem pole by transforming a manageable, though serious, challenge largely of regional origin into an international debacle.” read more

LONDON – At a time when some Christians want a literal interpretation of the story of creation as told in Genesis taught alongside Darwin‘s theory of evolution in U.S schools, the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible aren’t actually true.

According to the UK’s Times newspaper, the Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland have warned their 5 million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect "total accuracy" from the Bible. "We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision," they explain in The Gift of Scripture, which says the Bible must be approached with the knowledge that it is “God’s word expressed in human language.” read more

Montevideo – In December, Venezuela will become a permanent member of the South American trade bloc Mercosur, a move likely to strengthen the group and serve as a major step toward Latin American economic integration. Officials in Uruguay, the trade bloc’s current president, announced the decision Prensa Latina reports.

"This is something that is historic for us," President Hugo Chavez told reporters during an Ibero-American summit meeting in Spain last week. Mercosur was founded by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay in the 1990s. Venezuela, along with Peru, Bolivia and Chile, are currently only associate members. read more

RIO DE JANEIRO – Drivers in Brazil are fighting rising gasoline prices by turning to "flexible fuel" cars that use more alcohol. In fact, alcohol made from sugar cane is becoming the fuel of choice, so much so that global sugar prices have hit a seven-year high, reports the Christian Science Monitor.

Flex cars are already outselling traditional gasoline models. In August, 62 percent of new cars sold in Brazil were flex, according to industry numbers. "Demand has been unbelievable," said Barry Engle, the new president of Ford Brazil. "I am hard-pressed to think of any other technology that has been such a success so quickly." read more

BAGHDAD – A top editor for Reuters news service has charged that the treatment of journalists in Iraq by U.S. troops is "spiraling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the war from reaching the public.

In a letter to Sen. John Warner, R-VA, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger charges that the detention and accidental shootings of journalists is severely limiting how reporters can operate. He referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by U.S. forces in Iraq." read more