Global News and Analysis

Source: Green Left Weekly

On July 6, the Thai government approved the extension of an emergency decree in 19 provinces, which includes many in the heartland of the pro-democracy Red Shirts in the country’s north-east.

The extension came a day after the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) recommended the government immediately lift the decree and hold fresh elections.

But Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajiva, who came to power through the army’s intervention, crushed hopes for new elections weeks ago. read more

Source: IPS News

(IPS) – The Zambian National Constitution Conference (NCC) concluded its business recently with the adoption of a clause for the creation of a Gender Equality Commission.

This is exciting news for gender activists who did not think the NCC would accept the clause. The women’s movement, alongside other civil society groups, had refused to participate in the NCC fearing civil society’s voice would not be heard.

Pixie Yangailo, a lawyer who sat on the NCC commission for gender, told IPS that given entrenched cultural beliefs about women’s subservient role in society, it was better to have a commission that will deal exclusively with gender equality and the promotion and protection of women’s rights. read more

Source: Mother Jones

So much for the May 26 directive from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Coast Guard calling for BP to slash dispersant use in the Gulf. According to records recenty released by the Coast Guard, BP has exceeded the limits on an almost daily basis since the directive took effect—with the express approval of the federal government.

BP was supposed to limit subsea use to 15,000 gallons per day and “eliminate the surface application of dispersants” except in “rare cases when there may have to be an exemption.” But as we reported several weeks ago, the company is still regularly exceeding both those limits. BP also hasn’t reduced its average use much at all—just 9 percent from the pre-directive average. read more

Source: Green Left Weekly

How do wars begin? With a “master illusion”, according to Ralph McGehee, one of the CIA’s pioneers in “black propaganda”, known today as “news management”.

In 1983, he described to me how the CIA had faked an “incident” that became the “conclusive proof of North Vietnam’s aggression”.

This followed a claim, also fake, that North Vietnamese torpedo boats had attacked a US warship in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964.

“The CIA”, he said, “loaded up a junk, a North Vietnamese junk, with communist weapons — the Agency maintains communist arsenals in the United States and around the world. read more

Source: The Independent

By now, you probably think your opinion of Goldman Sachs and its swarm of Wall Street allies has rock-bottomed at raw loathing. You’re wrong. There’s more. It turns out that the most destructive of all their recent acts has barely been discussed at all. Here’s the rest. This is the story of how some of the richest people in the world – Goldman, Deutsche Bank, the traders at Merrill Lynch, and more – have caused the starvation of some of the poorest people in the world. read more

Source: Yes Magazine

It feels a bit strange to be sitting in the middle of one of the world’s wealthiest neighborhoods and to be so thoroughly engrossed in conversation about the prospects of poor cities across the planet. But here, in an office building at New York University on the island of Manhattan, is where former Bogotá mayor Enrique Peñalosa is working on a book about how life can be improved for people in mega-cities of the developing world. That is, when he’s not in Beijing or Delhi or Dar es Salaam or Jakarta or Mexico City sharing his visionary plans with local leaders. read more