There's an old adage among investigative journalists: if you want to know what's really going on, ask the workers.
If you want to know what's really going on in Iraq - to American soldiers, to their families back home, to Iraqi women - read this column, and learn what I did at the historic AFL-CIO convention held this summer in Chicago.
Controversy is raging in Paraguay, where the U.S. military is conducting secretive operations. 500 U.S. troops arrived in the country on July 1st with planes, weapons and ammunition. Eyewitness reports prove that an airbase exists in Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay, which is 200 kilometers from the border with Bolivia and may be utilized by the U.S. military. Officials in Paraguay claim the military operations are routine humanitarian efforts and deny that any plans are underway for a U.S. base. Yet human rights groups in the area are deeply worried. White House officials are using rhetoric about terrorist threats in the tri-border region (where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet) in order to build their case for military operations, in many ways reminiscent to the build up to the invasion of Iraq. (1) The tri-border area is home to the Guarani Aquifer, one of the world's largest reserves of water. Near the Estigarribia airbase are Bolivia's natural gas reserves, the second largest in Latin America. Political analysts believe U.S. operations in Paraguay are part of a preventative war to control these natural resources and suppress social uprisings in Bolivia.Estigarribia Military Base in Paraguay, © Clarin
Junín, a small town in the mountainous Intag region of northwestern Ecuador, is home for about 500 Ecuadorians. The community is rich in many ways. Fertile land produces organic coffee, sugar cane, and oranges for exportation. Junín is located next to the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve and the people of the village created their own community ecological reserve 8 years ago. These protected areas cover a large expanse of cloud forest and contain one of the world's most biologically diverse ecosystems. Public works projects like road maintenance or repairs on the school house are done with the traditional minga system, where members from each family volunteer to do a couple days of work for the common good. However, in the eyes of Ascendant Copper Corporation, a Canadian mining company, Junín's wealth isn't in its people or its diverse ecosystem-it's in its rocks.
Most people I know have some intuitive sense that the stories told about the way the world works in our culture of daily "news" (and I use the term loosely) are suspect. The real stories about power and the ways power is exercised lie buried beneath the surface. But how deep, to quote The Matrix's Morpheus, does this rabbit hole go? For those willing to crawl down the hole, U.S. investigative journalism has its own Morpheus, and his name is Michael Ruppert.Michael Ruppert
Among the early 20th century muckraking writers, Upton Sinclair had perhaps the most intense immediate impact on
The assassination of Lakshman Kadirgamar, Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka on August 12, 2005 is a serious blow to the stalled peace negotiations and to Tamil-Sinhalese reconciliation. Kadirgamar, an Oxford educated Christian Tamil from Jaffna, the Tamil heartland, was more than a token Tamil in an otherwise Sinhalese-led government. He was a symbol that ethnic identity is not the only factor that should determine policy, but rather that there are ways of working to develop the mutual interests of all communities. In fact, the armed conflict since 1983 has generated a momentum which exceeds its original ethnic causes and has invented new, hybrid, collective identities.Lakshman Kadirgamar
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