Global News and Analysis

Source: The Nation

ZABADANI, SYRIA — Mustafa al-Dahab, 58, drives past shuttered shops on a deserted street in Hara, a neighborhood in this picturesque resort town located 20 miles northwest of Damascus. His nephew, five year-old Adee Adalati, is next to him in the passenger seat. It’s just after 11:00 on a Wednesday morning.

More than two miles away, hidden from view, a soldier overlooking the town from a tank on an eastern mountaintop opens fire, launching a shell into the sky that arcs towards them. read more

Source: Institute for Policy Studies

The news from Syria is really bad these days. And bad stuff in Syria doesn’t stay in Syria – though Syrian civilians are paying by far the biggest price. With outside governments calling the shots in a civil war, arming both sides, and motivated less by concern for civilians than by their own narrow national interests, we’ve got serious trouble.

And right now unfortunately, that outside super-power game remains dominant. Syria has become the crucible for a number of separate wars, battles for power and influence, for regional resources and access, for strategic location and military expansion. These wars pit regional contenders of the Arab Gulf states and Turkey against Syria and Iran. They set the terms of the rising sectarian battle between Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia and Qatar vs. Shi’a power in Syria, Iraq and Iran. They shape the Middle East competition between the U.S. and Russia for global military/strategic power. And crucially, of course, Syria is a central component of the U.S., Israeli and western campaign against Iran. read more

Source: Truthdig

I was on the 15th floor of the Southern U.S. District Court in New York in the courtroom of Judge Katherine Forrest last Tuesday. It was the final hearing in the lawsuit I brought in January against President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. I filed the suit, along with lawyers Carl J. Mayer and Bruce I. Afran, over Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). We were late joined by six co-plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg. read more

Source: Counterpunch

Zimbabwe’s political-economic crisis continues because dislodging decades of malgovernance has not been achieved by either a Government of National Unity that began in early 2009, civil society activism, or international pressure, including this week’s Maputo summit of the main body charged with sorting out democratisation, the Southern African Development Community (SADC). With a new draft Constitution nearly ready for a referendum vote, followed by a presidential and parliamentary election by next April, the period immediately ahead is critical. read more

Source: Foreign Policy in Focus

Minutes before he started to sew his mouth shut, Jorge Alberto Parra Andrade explained his rationale to me: “Essentially GM gave us a choice: to die of hunger or to die waiting for them to solve this problem.”

Mr. Parra is one of 68 injured workers fired by General Motors Colombia who started a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá one year ago, on August 1^st, 2011. The Association of Injured Workers and Ex-Workers of General Motors Colombia (ASOTRECOL) had two simple demands: fair compensation for injuries incurred in the workplace and reintegration into GM’s workforce. In commemoration of their protest’s anniversary — and without any movement on their case — four leaders of ASOTRECOL decided to sew their mouths closed and initiate a hunger strike. Another three joined on August 8^th, and a small group will join each week until their cases are resolved. read more

Source: CorpWatch

When Blackwater offered Salva Kiir, the president of South Sudan, a package of military aid, they arranged a delivery of ten special encrypted satellite phones. In a similar bid to befriend the King Abdullah of Jordan they presented him with the “mercenary version of a fruit basket: an assortment of Glocks, along with a Remington shotgun and a Bushmaster M4 rifle.”

Blackwater, a 15 year old North Carolina private security company, is best known for an incident when its employees gunned down 17 civilians in Nissour Square, Baghdad in September 2007. read more