Story Archives - Page 533 of 661

Photo: SEAN SPRAGUE / Still Pictures / www.stillpictures.com

Sudan’s Other Crisis: Apathy and violence plague efforts to resettle millions

Wairagala Wakabi January 9, 2007 Wairagala Wakabi

The turmoil in the Darfur region of west Sudan has received too little international attention. Yet the plight of the southerners has been neglected even more in recent months. In early July 2006, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was celebrating a 'modest landmark': the repatriation of 10,000 Sudanese refugees from neighbouring countries over a seven-month period.

Given that there are 340,000 more Sudanese refugees to be taken home, this may not sound like such a significant achievement. But to the UNHCR and anybody else who knows the headaches the exercise has encountered since its launch at the end of 2005, the progress is satisfactory.

Why Washington wants regime change in Iran

Kiraz Janicke January 8, 2007 Kiraz Janicke

In the January 16 New Yorker magazine, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported that the Pentagon has begun updating its plans for an invasion of Iran. Hersh reported that, "Strategists at the headquarters of the US Central Command, in Tampa, Florida, have been asked to revise the military’s war plan, providing for a maximum ground and air invasion of Iran."

Ostensibly, the Pentagon is preparing an Iraq-style “pre-emptive” attack on Iran in order to stop Tehran from building a nuclear bomb. But in the November 27 New Yorker, Hersh reported that a highly classified assessment by the CIA had “found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency”.

As with Iraq’s alleged, but non-existent, weapons of mass destruction, Washington’s claims about a secret Iranian nuclear bomb program are simply a cover for the US rulers real goal of restoring a pro-US regime in oil- and gas-rich Iran. read more

Review – The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth

Rafi Rom January 3, 2007 Rafi Rom

Since coming into office in 2001, George W. Bush, his administration, and his supporters (mainly ideological religious groups and corporate powers) have waged an unprecedented attack on science. Broadly speaking, these attacks have focused on debunking scientific conclusions relating to evolution, health care (i.e., stem cell research), and perhaps most strikingly, the environment. It is in the realm of the environment that the administration's policies will have the most lasting damage. A plethora of articles have documented the Bush administration's systemic weakening of important environmental policies and even their agencies, the stacking of commissions with people directly from the business world hell bent on the bottom line, and the silencing of our nation's top scientists.

Class War Weapon of Choice – For the Holidays and All Days

Joel S. Hirschhorn, COA News January 3, 2007 Joel S. Hirschhorn, COA News

The motto of the United States of Consumption is "In More We Trust." The contribution of American culture to humanity is consumption obsession. Our epidemic of obesity, our land gluttonous suburban sprawl, our monster-size environmental footprint, our ravenous automobile addiction, and our heartless greed are symptoms of a deep-seated, sick mental state that keeps the economy humming. And it keeps increasing economic inequality and apartheid.

What Transition for Turkmenistan?

Rene Wadlow January 2, 2007 Rene Wadlow

The death of the President-for-Life of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, on 21 December 2006, the shortest day of the year, has again proved that all humans are mortal, and that death is the great equalizer. The Turkmenbashi, "Father of all Turkmen" had set the stage for his own immortality, having written down from heavenly sources a two-volume book The Ruknama (The Book of the Soul) on the model of the Koran which was dictated to but not written by the Prophet Muhammad.

In Gaza: Democracy and Its Discontents

Ramzy Baroud January 2, 2007 Ramzy Baroud

It's all too convenient for the BBC website to describe the ongoing bloodshed between Hamas and Fatah supporters in the Gaza Strip as "inter-factional rivalry", and it's equally fitting for the Washington Post to narrate the same unfortunate events - which have left many Palestinians dead and wounded - as if they are entirely detached from their adjoining regional and international milieus.