Global News and Analysis

Source: Truthout

The recent Obama-Putin tiff over American exceptionalism reignited an ongoing debate over the Obama Doctrine: Is the president veering toward isolationism? Or will he proudly carry the banner of exceptionalism?

The debate is narrower than it may seem. There is considerable common ground between the two positions, as was expressed clearly by Hans Morgenthau, the founder of the now dominant no-sentimentality “realist” school of international relations.

Throughout his work, Morgenthau describes America as unique among all powers past and present in that it has a “transcendent purpose” that it “must defend and promote” throughout the world: “the establishment of equality in freedom.” read more

Source: The Independent

Six weeks ago, a two-man delegation arrived in secret in Damascus: civilians from Aleppo who represented elements of the Free Syrian Army, the rebel group largely composed of fighters who deserted the regime’s army in the first year of the war. They came under a guarantee of safety, and met, so I am told, a senior official on the staff of President Bashar al-Assad. And they carried with them an extraordinary initiative – that there might be talks between the government and FSA officers who “believed in a Syrian solution” to the war. read more

Source: The Progressive Magazine

Three years of hard economic crisis, poverty, and misery have nourished the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, which has emerged as a significant force in the Greek Parliament.

The criminal activities of Golden Dawn have long been known to the Greek and other European governments. Even while participating in the Greek Parliament, the Golden Dawn continued its goon squad activities: engaging in acts of violence even in schools, issuing death threats, and abusing and even murdering immigrants. read more

Source: The New Internationalist

Hours of queuing is the lot of Palestinian workers traveling to their jobs on the other side of Israel’s separation wall.

At 3 o’clock this morning, many Palestinian men were already awake and dressed, standing in a queue at Gilo checkpoint in Bethlehem in order to work on the other side of the separation wall. Approximately 4,000 people – mostly men between the age of 18 and 45 – have passed through this checkpoint every day, all year round, to get to their jobs in East Jerusalem or Israel since the construction of the wall began in 2002. Gilo checkpoint is just one of 500 roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank. read more

Source: Al Jazeera

The reforms promoted by Prime Minister Singh do not go far enough to help food production and the hungry.

The debate on the Food Security Act is based on myths on both sides. The government is propagating the myth that it is the largest anti-poverty and anti-hunger programme ever introduced anywhere in the world. The programme is being heralded as Sonia Gandhi’s dream project, and billed as a miracle solution to the agrarian and food crises.

On the other hand, economic pundits are blaming the Food Security Act for the falling rupee and the economic emergency.

The pundits have it wrong, because they are treating the spin as reality. read more