18 May, 2014

The Japan Times Editorial Blasts Plan to Open Casino Resorts

Japan’s government is considering legalizing gambling in Japan, one of the world’s last untapped markets for gambling. Two billionaire casino operators are pushing to open casino resorts and turn Japan into the third-largest center for gambling after the United States and Macau. Gambling will bring problems. The examples of the U.S. and the United Kingdom […]

18 May, 2014

American Pedophile posed as “teacher” to abuse dozens | The Jakarta Post

He was one of the most beloved teachers in the small world of international schools that serve the children of diplomats, well-off American expatriates and local elites. He was often the first to arrive in the morning, and the last to leave each day. He led students on class trips to exotic places, treating them […]

18 May, 2014

First book on MH370 mystery blames US war games – Brisbane Times

Seventy-one days after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared, the first book about the disaster will go on sale on Monday with a theory about what might have happened. And as the international search continues for the aircraft Irene Burrows, the Queensland mother who lost her son and daughter-in-law on the flight, said it was too […]

15 May, 2014

Melbourne city centre aims to be smoke-free by 2016 – The Business Times

[MELBOURNE] Melbourne is pushing to become one of the first cities in the world to be completely smoke-free, officials said Thursday, with anyone wanting a cigarette required to use a designated shelter. Melbourne city councillor Richard Foster said there was overwhelming support to extend smoke-free areas following a test in one of the Australian city’s […]

15 May, 2014

Break the silence: world war is beckoning – By John Pilger

Why do we tolerate the threat of another world war in our name? Why do we allow lies that justify this risk? The scale of our indoctrination, wrote Harold Pinter, is a “brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis”, as if the truth “never happened even while it was happening”. Every year the American […]

15 May, 2014

Ex-UK drugs company executive accused of running bribery network in China – The Independent

A former executive at the British drugs company GlaxoSmithKline has been accused of running a “massive bribery network” in China in which hospital staff were paid to use the firm’s medical products and boost sales. Mark Reilly has been charged with bribery and fraud for allegedly instructing his subordinates to pay off health officials, forcing […]

13 May, 2014

Writer Amos Oz calls Israeli vandals ‘Hebrew neo-Nazis’

Israel’s best known writer, Amos Oz, says that Israelis behind a wave of hate crimes against Muslims and Christian are “Hebrew neo-Nazis,” Haaretz newspaper reported on its website Saturday. It quoted the award-winning author as saying terms such as “price tag,” widely used to describe attacks on Palestinians and others by Jewish extremists, are sanitised […]

11 May, 2014

Israel’s Aggressive Spying in the U.S. Mostly Hushed Up – Newsweek

Always lurking, former intelligence officials say, was the powerful “Israeli lobby,” the network of Israel’s friends in Congress, industry and successive administrations, Republican and Democratic, ready to protest any perceived slight on the part of U.S. security officials. A former counterintelligence specialist told Newsweek he risked Israel’s wrath merely by providing routine security briefings to […]

10 May, 2014

Code of conduct vital to protect corporate whistleblowers

He was the first gaijin ”salaryman” who rose through the ranks to become the chief executive of a major Japanese company. But within a matter of months he was out the door – and then he blew the whistle on almost $US2 billion in corporate malfeasance. Now he has thrown his weight behind a push […]

10 May, 2014

Radioactive cesium-137 from Fukushima 1.5 times Tepco estimate | The Japan Times

VIENNA – The total amount of radioactive cesium-137 released into the atmosphere and seawater from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is estimated at between 17,500 and 20,500 terabecquerels, a study by a Japanese research team showed Friday. The team’s finding on the cumulative amount of cesium-137 is nearly 1.5 times more than […]

10 May, 2014

Japanese women’s group launches bid to deny sex to pro-war men | The Japan Times

A women’s group has started a campaign vowing to swear off sex with any man who is pro-war, to protest Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push to reinterpret the pacifist Constitution. The campaign was launched a week ago, on Constitution Day, on a website that encourages women to pledge “not to have sex with men who […]

10 May, 2014

Denied Entry at the US Border? Five Helpful Tips On What To Do

(PRWEB) May 07, 2014 – 1) Remain calm.  Aggressive behavior can result in the US border guard making a record of this behavior and this may have a detrimental effect on applying for re-entry to the United States at a later date. The good news is, once a US Entry Waiver is in place, future […]

10 May, 2014

Jewish fanatics scrawl “Jesus is garbage” graffiti on Jerusalem church

Vandals sprayed anti-Christian graffiti on a Jerusalem church on Friday, despite Israeli police stepping up security around religious sites ahead of a visit by Pope Francis later this month. “Price tag… King David for the Jews… Jesus is garbage” was spray-painted in Hebrew on the wall of St George’s, a Romanian Orthodox church near an […]

10 May, 2014

Why the Israel-Palestine peace talks collapsed, by Richard Falk: Al-Ahram Weekly

It has been painfully obvious ever since the Oslo Accords in 1993 that there is something fundamentally deficient about the double role played by the United States in relation to such negotiations. How can it be trusted when American officials declare over and over again that the country will forever remain the unconditional ally of […]

10 May, 2014

Boko Haram’s Deluded Understanding of Faith and Women

By Haris Tarin As a man who was brought up by remarkable women and who today has strong women in my life, I say enough. Enough justification of criminality and medieval behavior against women in the name of my faith. Enough subjugation of women for cultural and political agendas in the name of my faith. […]

10 May, 2014

Palestine Chief Negotiator Erekat: “With Status Quo on Its Side, Israel Happily Rejects Peace”

Palestinian reconciliation can be rejected only by those who aim to perpetuate the status quo. This is precisely what the government of Israel has been doing during nine months of negotiations: killing 61 Palestinians, advancing more than 13,000 units in Israeli settlements, conducting almost 4,500 military Operations on Palestinian land, demolishing 196 Palestinian homes and […]

10 May, 2014

Silence aids Israeli aggression | The Electronic Intifada

by Tristan Thomas When I was pulled aside for questioning at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv a few weeks ago, I was relatively unconcerned. It had happened on a previous trip, and this time I was more prepared. Before I traveled, I had heard many stories of people being denied entry because of their […]

10 May, 2014

US states should act against Israel’s denial of entry to Americans | The Electronic Intifada

On 13 September 2012, an Israeli soldier pointed his gun at an American college student and ordered her to board a bus back to Jordan. The student, Yara Karmalawy, was attempting to travel to the occupied West Bank and present-day Israel as part of a university-sponsored trip with other students from the University of California, […]

10 May, 2014

Israelis’ Independence Day Rallying Cry: “Death to Arabs” | Mondoweiss

Hundreds of Palestinian cars displaying flags slowly crawled along the highway toward Lubya while Israeli vehicles headed to Independence Day celebrations waved their respective flags. As traffic came to a standstill, many busloads of Palestinians exited and walked along the shoulder of the highway toward the march. A large group of Israelis in a nearby […]

10 May, 2014

Ron Paul: Why the U.S. is No Longer Number One | The Lone Star Watchdog

The American government pursues many of the same flawed policies as the Chinese. For example, because of the increase in regulations, subsidies, and bailouts, many American businesses are putting more resources into manipulating the political process than producing goods and services desired by consumers. Many big businesses even lobby Congress and the federal bureaucracy for […]

9 May, 2014

If India’s Narendra Modi wins… by Siddharth Varadarajan – Al Jazeera English

What can India and the world expect if Narendra Modi, the self-styled “Hindu nationalist” who is front-runner in the elections, ends up winning a plurality of seats when results are declared on May 16? If he is forced to form a government with allies, the argument goes, Modi would not have the freedom to pursue […]

9 May, 2014

Outgoing UN Rapporteur Richard Falk on Israel: It’s apartheid – Al-Ahram Weekly

The outgoing UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk, submitted in accordance with Human Rights Council (HRC) Resolution 5/1 his last report on the dire conditions under which the Palestinian people have to live. Falk’s final presentation addresses Israeli settlements in the West Bank […]

9 May, 2014

Israel Won’t Stop Spying on the U.S. – Newsweek

Israel’s espionage activities in America are unrivaled and unseemly, counterspies have told members of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, going far beyond activities by other close allies, such as Germany, France, the U.K. and Japan. A congressional staffer familiar with a briefing last January called the testimony “very sobering…alarming…even terrifying.” Another staffer called […]

8 May, 2014

The 10 worst city tourism videos – theguardian.com

Bad acting, sexual innuendo and a parrot riding a tricycle – from Astana to Cincinnati to Singapore, come and marvel at the funniest and most baffling promotional tourism videos for cities Read the rest: The 10 worst city tourism videos | Cities | theguardian.com.

8 May, 2014

Europe projects 1.5 million more jobs through digital entrepreneurship

Brussels, 29 April 2014, European Commission Press Memo – The main challenge entrepreneurs are facing in Europe is not the lack of great ideas but the fear of turning ideas into reality. Many people with great ideas refrain from entrepreneurship because of their doubts. There are as many people wanting to start a business in […]

7 May, 2014

Hindutva redux in Uttar Pradesh – The Hindu

Not surprisingly then, Mr. Modi’s own rhetoric has gradually, almost inevitably, changed from livelihood talk and lofty promises of highways and bullet trains to issues around Pakistan and alleged Muslim appeasement. From insinuating a Pakistani connection in the case of Arvind Kejriwal (AK-49 for his 49 days as Delhi Chief Minister) to alleging a pink […]

7 May, 2014

Modi-run govt will be a bullying one: Salman Rushdie | The Indian Express

During his address, Rushdie described Modi as a “highly divisive figure”, a “hardliner’s hardliner” and voiced concern that the attacks on freedom of expression and literary works could worsen. He said for India, democracy should not mean just conducting free and fair elections but also ensuring the right to free speech. “If freedom of expression […]

6 May, 2014

Another shooting at Dayton, Ohio, medical complex — RT USA

A suspected gunman is in custody on Monday after police say he opened fire and injured one man at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical complex in Dayton, Ohio. The gunman, 59-year-old Neil Moore, is a retired employee of the VA hospital. At approximately noon local time, witnesses heard gunfire in the basement of the […]

6 May, 2014

The banksters too big to jail – Sydney Morning Herald

Australian Funds manager Mike Mangan of 2MG keeps a passing eye on some of the less salubrious aspects of banking in his newsletter for clients. His current missive deals with banks that are not just too big to fail, but “too big to jail”. More worryingly, he suggests some of them might also be “too […]

6 May, 2014

With India’s Election, A Reminder of Horrors of 2002 Gujarat Riots – NYTimes.com

AHMEDABAD, India — Gulbarg Society, a complex of 18 bungalows and two apartment blocks once occupied by upper-middle-class Muslims in the largely Hindu neighborhood of Chamanpura, is now a cluster of doorless burned shells. Inside the complex, Qasim Allah Noor Mansour, 70, sat on a patio, catching his breath after chasing away a homeless boy […]

6 May, 2014

Number of children in Japan drops for 33rd year | The Japan Times

The number of children 14 and under has fallen for the 33rd consecutive year to a record low of 16.33 million as of April 1, the government said Sunday, reflecting the continued downward trend in the Japan’s birthrate. The number of children in Japan fell by 160,000 from the previous year, and has declined by […]

6 May, 2014

Cathay Pacific female uniform too revealing, says union

Cathay Pacific flight attendants want the Hong Kong airline to redesign their uniforms because they are too revealing and may provoke sexual harassment, a union said on Monday. Female cabin crew members say the white blouses are too short and the red skirts too tight, leaving them uncomfortable at work, the Cathay Pacific Airways Flight […]

5 May, 2014

Kedarnath shrine reopens for devotees – The Times of India

Sacred portals of the Kedarnath temple were reopened to devotees amid elaborate rituals early this morning, about a year after the Himalayan shrine was marred by flash floods that had left hundreds of people dead and many others stranded. Chief priest of the shrine (Rawal) Bhima Shankar Ling presided over the rituals as its gates […]

5 May, 2014

Why 2002 Gujarat riots still matter – By Karishma Vyas, Al Jazeera

The Gujarat riots are a crucial election issue. Not only because of the human rights concerns, but because Modi and the BJP have campaigned hard on a platform of good governance. The obvious question that arises is if Modi could not compel Gujarat’s security forces to clamp down on communal violence for weeks, how effective […]

5 May, 2014

Gunman kills 3 in Arkansas shootings – theguardian.com

Police said on Sunday a gunman who shot and killed three people and injured four in north-east Arkansas was an acquaintance or friend, but a motive was unknown. Sergeant Doug Formon of Jonesboro police said the shooter was 40-year-old Porfirio Hernandez, who recently had been released from a mental-health treatment facility. A 38-year-old man and […]

4 May, 2014

UAE: Not-so-great Britain? How the London hotel hammer attack hurt ‘Brand UK’

Two consecutive attacks on UAE nationals visiting London in recent weeks have left several scars: horrific physical ones (such as those left on the victims of the atrocious Cumberland Hotel “Hammer Attack”) as well as reputational scars which are worsened by increasing questions on whether or not London is still the popular tourist destination that […]

3 May, 2014

Amount of money stolen via phone fraud soaring | The Japan Times

The number of reported cases in which fraudsters use the phone to trick people into parting with cash continues to increase. According to National Police Agency sources, the amount of cash swindled this way in the first three months of the year soared 41 percent from a year earlier to roughly ¥13 billion. That outstripped […]

3 May, 2014

Asia Times Online: How the US created, and lost, Afghan war

To understand how America’s battle in Afghanistan went so wrong for so long, a (hidden) history lesson is in order. In those early years after 2001, driven by the idee fixe that the world was rigidly divided into terrorist and non-terrorist camps, Washington allied with Afghan warlords and strongmen. Their enemies became ours, and through […]

3 May, 2014

Palestine: Peace by piece – By S. Nihal Singh, The Asian Age

The truth is that Israel has been using the façade of talks to go on encroaching on more and more Palestinian land on the West Bank and in occupied East Jerusalem confident in the knowledge that its friends in the US Congress and Senate will back it, apart from the influential American Jewish lobby. Mr […]

3 May, 2014

PressTV – UN urges citizenship for Myanmar Muslims

The top UN envoy to Myanmar has emphasized on the urgency for the Muslim minority in the country’s violence-ridden Rakhine state to get on the path to citizenship. The UN secretary general’s special adviser on Myanmar, Vijay Nambiar, warned on Thursday that the security of the Rohingya Muslims, who are considered illegal immigrants by the […]

3 May, 2014

Glenn Greenwald debates ex-NSA director on state surveillance — RT USA

The ongoing debate over whether Americans should value privacy or security stretched into Toronto, Canada Friday night when four of the most influential voices on the matter sat down to discuss the leaked NSA surveillance programs and their fallout. Former National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency chief Michael Hayden joined with Harvard law professor […]

3 May, 2014

Australian retirement age rise to 70 by 2035 – Sydney Morning Herald

Australians born after 1965 will have to work until they are 70 before they are eligible for the age pension, Treasurer Joe Hockey has announced, as he warned there was “no such thing” as a free visit to a doctor or free welfare. Mr Hockey confirmed on Friday that while nobody currently on the pension […]

2 May, 2014

Apple, Facebook, others defy authorities, notify users of secret data demands – Washington Post

Major U.S. technology companies have largely ended the practice of quietly complying with investigators’ demands for e-mail records and other online data, saying that users have a right to know in advance when their information is targeted for government seizure. This increasingly defiant industry stand is giving some of the tens of thousands of Americans […]

2 May, 2014

Who’s really ‘presenting lies as facts’? — RT Op-Edge

Mr. Richard Stengel, the US Under Secretary of State who wrote such an impassioned “takedown” of RT in the US State Department blog, did get one thing right. Propaganda IS the deliberate dissemination of information that you know to be false or misguided. And boy, does Mr. Stengel make a valiant attempt at propagandizing, because […]

1 May, 2014

Modi victory will see ideology of hate penetrate Indian govt machinery: Nandita Das

May 1, 2014, STOCKHOLM: Actress and social activist Nandita Das has warned that a victory for Narendra Modi in the ongoing general elections will result in an ideology of hate to penetrate into the government machinery and influence institutions and policies. Nandita, who showcased her hard hitting and poignant film Firaq at the India Unlimited […]

1 May, 2014

Hindu seers say Modi a ‘grave sinner’, not fit to be PM – Hindustan Times

Two of Hinduism’s key religious heads attached to traditional monasteries knowns as ‘mutts’ have opposed BJP leader Narendra Modi’s bid for prime-ministership, calling him a “grave sinner” trying to “mislead” the nation. The two pontiffs – one heads the Puri peeth (seat) of the Advaita school of Hindu philosophy, while the other leads its Dwarka […]

1 May, 2014

900,000 crimes, including rape, not pursued by UK police in 2013

Nearly a million criminal offences including rape have gone unrecorded by police in a single year, according to a damning report that could see the 20-year decline in recorded crime reversed when accurate statistics are calculated. Inspectors said they suspected “discreditable and unethical” behaviour by some officers and said they had discovered 14 reported rapes […]

1 May, 2014

Is this not apartheid? – Gideon Levy – Haaretz

The naysayers can find countless differences between the apartheid of Pretoria and that of Jerusalem. Pretoria’s was openly racist and anchored in law; Jerusalem’s is denied and repressed, hidden beneath a heavy cloak of propaganda and messianic religious faith. But the result is the same. Some South Africans who lived under the system of segregation […]

1 May, 2014

The truth, off the record – Haaretz

At a G-20 conference in Cannes in November 2011, then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy termed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “liar” and said he “can’t stand” the Israeli leader. U.S. President Barack Obama responded, “You’re tired of him; what about me? I have to deal with him every day.” These rare quotes, revealing truths that are […]

1 May, 2014

WSJ/NBC Poll: Americans Want Less Interventionist Foreign Policy

The Wall Street Journal of 30 April 2014 has the following headline on the front page: “Americans Want to Pull Back From World Stage, Poll Finds.” Americans in large numbers want the U.S. to reduce its role in world affairs even as a showdown with Russia over Ukraine preoccupies Washington, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News […]

30 Apr, 2014

Singapore, Ireland top havens for multinational tax dodgers

Australian companies sent almost $60 billion to related parties in tax havens in 2012, with payments to Singapore and Ireland featuring high on the list, according to new data. The data, never before released by the Australian Tax Office, provides an insight into how multinational groups shuffle money between countries and comes amid an international […]

28 Apr, 2014

Japanese consultants made 100 kickback payments for development aid work – Japan News

Japan Transportation Consultants, Inc. made 100 payments of illicit kickbacks totaling ¥160 million to 13 officials from the governments of Vietnam, Indonesia and Uzbekistan from 2009 to 2014, in return for orders received to conduct projects under Japanese official development assistance, a third-party committee investigating the incident said Friday. The JTC practice of making such […]

28 Apr, 2014

The French economist forcing America to wake up to the end of The Dream – The Independent

The central thesis of Capital in the 21st Century is that, left to its own devices, the capitalist system will increase the gap between rich and poor, as it always has done. Since the dawn of the industrial era, in countries such as Britain, France and the US, the return on investment and capital has […]

28 Apr, 2014

Delayed flights may cost airlines billions after test case rulings | The Observer

Airline passengers could be entitled to billions of pounds’ worth of compensation, depending on the outcome of two flight delay cases at the court of appeal next month. Rules state that passengers who reach their destination more than three hours late can claim up to €600 (£494) plus expenses, per person, if the delay is […]

26 Apr, 2014

Robert Fisk: Yet another betrayal of the Palestinians – The Independent

Dead in the water. Just as the entire world predicted – with the exception of Messrs Barack Obama and John Kerry and, I suppose, our favourite “peace” envoy Tony Blair – the whole fandango of an Israeli-Palestinian “peace” has collapsed again. US President Obama, walking away from the car crash for which his own political […]

26 Apr, 2014

Laos’ coffee giant eyes Thailand for expansion – The Nation

Bangkok – Dao-Heuang Group, a leading coffee producer in Laos, is set to enter Thailand next year via a contract to grow coffee on a 1,000-rai plot of land in the North. This move is part of the company’s plan to boost its production capacity to meet rising demands once the Asean Economic Community (AEC) […]

26 Apr, 2014

The world’s boozing habits revealed – Washington Post

Does booze play a part in world events? Don’t tell your kids — or your parents — but probably yes. Take Britain, a proud kingdom of saucing. Over the past year, the number of people seriously hurt by violence plunged 12 percent to roughly 235,000 cases. Though the decrease mirrors trends across the Western world, […]

26 Apr, 2014

America has taken our sovereignty from us: former Australian PM

Australia risks being pulled into a disastrous war against China because successive Australian governments have surrendered the nation’s strategic independence to Washington, former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser has warned. With tensions rising in the East China Sea between China and Japan, Mr Fraser said there was a real danger of conflict and that he […]

26 Apr, 2014

Connecticut student killed in attack at school

A high school student in Connecticut was killed Friday morning after an attack by another student that led to a lockdown, an evacuation and yet another nightmarish scene at a school. The attack occurred at around 7:15 a.m. at Jonathan Law High School in Milford, Conn., according to Keith L. Mello, the chief of police […]

26 Apr, 2014

Bhavnagar, Gujarat: Muslims free to live – if they change their name to a Hindu one

The bungalow on Bhavnagar’s Sanatorium Road needs a lick of paint but its spacious plot and location in a quiet residential area would draw the eye of many a prospective buyer. It certainly caught the attention of Ali Asghar Zaveri, a Muslim scrap metal dealer, who completed the purchase at the beginning of the year […]

26 Apr, 2014

Russian state company employees told to holiday at Russian resorts – RT News

State corporations have been advised to send their staff on vacations to Russian resorts, and President Vladimir Putin has told reporters that in his view private Russian companies should follow suit. The president was speaking at a media forum in St Petersburg organized by the United People’s Front – a relatively new political movement uniting […]

26 Apr, 2014

Tiny Pacific nation sues 9 nuke powers | Manila Bulletin

New York — The tiny Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands is taking on the United States and the world’s eight other nuclear-armed nations with an unprecedented lawsuit demanding that they meet their obligations toward disarmament and accusing them of “flagrant violations” of international law. The island group that was used for dozens of US […]

26 Apr, 2014

White supremacists still a danger, experts say – Jewish World News

The recent shootings at a pair of Kansas City-area Jewish facilities illustrate the persistent threat of white supremacist violence, even as broad measures of anti-Semitism continue to decline. Suspected gunman Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr. had a long history in the white supremacist movement, dating back to the 1970s, before the recent rampage that killed three […]

26 Apr, 2014

TOEIC, TOEFL axed as route to U.K. visa | The Japan Times

Apr 25, 2014 Two of the most popular English-language proficiency tests in Japan can no longer be used to obtain student visas to Britain after a British TV program exposed fraud in the test-taking process. The visa ban applies to the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) and the TOEFL (Test of English as […]

25 Apr, 2014

10 Corporate Behemoths Stifling Competition | Alternet

April 24, 2014 | One of the fundamentals of free-market capitalism is that consumers benefit when competition is plentiful. If a business is selling a weak or inferior product, consumers can turn to the competition for a better deal. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood that, which is why a key element of his New Deal […]

25 Apr, 2014

Indians, Asians fast becoming politically relevant in US: Report – The Times of India

WASHINGTON: With Indians and other Asian-Americans and Pacific-Islanders growing in number at a fast pace, people of colour will be in the majority in the US by mid-century, according to a new report. They are also quickly reaching the critical mass needed to be politically relevant, says the report from the Centre for American Progress […]

25 Apr, 2014

India’s poll season brings out the worst in itself – Hindustan Times

At a time when the world needs to expand the horizons of its young people to prepare them for its changing realities, especially a tough job market, India is spending an election season bringing out the worst in itself. Let’s see. For all the talk of development, jobs and reviving a moribund economy, the primary […]

24 Apr, 2014

UK e-Borders programme unable to help track immigration – The Guardian

The UK Home Office’s £500m e-Borders programme, which is designed to check everybody coming in and out of Britain and has taken more than 10 years to develop, cannot be used to estimate immigration, ministers have admitted. They told MPs on the public administration select committee (PAC) that data from the programme cannot be used […]

24 Apr, 2014

This war on ‘Islamism’ only fuels hatred and violence – The Guardian

The neocons are back. That toxic blend of messianic warmongering abroad and McCarthyite witch-hunting at home – which gave us Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo and the London bombings – is coursing through our public life again. Yesterday the liberal interventionists’ hero, Tony Blair, was once more demanding military action against the “threat of radical Islam”. Reprising […]

23 Apr, 2014

Guardian’s Edward Snowden revelations receive backing in poll

A public opinion poll has found that more Britons think it was right for the Guardian to publish Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks about surveillance than think it was wrong that the paper did so. According to the YouGov poll, 37% of the British people thought it right to publish while 22% thought it wrong. Asked […]

22 Apr, 2014

Sultans of spin: Elite election strategists coming to Britain | The Observer

There have been two kinds of responses within the Labour party to the decision to appoint David Axelrod, former senior adviser to Barack Obama, to help run Ed Miliband’s general election campaign. One is driven by cynicism: a view that this is just an expensive stunt that will have no real positive effect; that someone […]

21 Apr, 2014

The New York Times wrestles with Israel’s gag orders – Haaretz

The New York Times newspaper acknowledged late last week that it complies with court-ordered gag orders when reporting from Israel. The acknowledgement followed the publication of a report on the lifting of a gag order dealing with the arrest of Majd Kayyal, an Israeli Palestinian journalist, who was held incommunicado for a week after an […]

21 Apr, 2014

Shehnai maestro Bismillah Khan’s family refuses to be Modi’s proposer | The Indian Express

The family of late Shehnai maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan has refused to become a proposer for Narendra Modi when he files nomination for the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat on April 24. Bismillah’s grandson Affaq Haider said they do not want to be associated with any political party on this ‘hot seat’. Varanasi will go to […]

21 Apr, 2014

India does not need a govt that makes Hindus fight Muslims: Rahul Gandhi

Making a strong pitch for a “pro-poor, secular government” at the Centre, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Monday said India does not need a government that “makes Hindus fight Muslims” in an apparent dig at BJP. Addressing an election rally here, he said that since these were Lok Sabha elections, local Tamil parties, with […]

21 Apr, 2014

The second mystery around MH370 – English pravda.ru

Why hasn’t the United States been in the forefront of providing information about it? The implications of this question are massive. America has a fleet of the most sophisticated spy satellites, called “keyhole” satellites, covering the earth’s surface daily with imaging systems comparable to those of the Hubble Space Telescope, but instead of data from […]

21 Apr, 2014

Extravagant CEO pay doesn’t reflect performance – it’s all about status | The Observer

Even American eyes are starting to pop at the sheer extravagance of executive pay. Last week, the New York Times published its annual league table of chief executive pay at the US’s top 100 publicly quoted companies. The average has now climbed to $13.9m (£8.3m). That is nearly twice the average of £4.4m for CEOs […]

21 Apr, 2014

How Lobbyists erode politics in the US: “Ugly world of guanxi and influence buying”

By Chen Weihua (China Daily)

2014-04-10 – As a Washington D.C.-based journalist, I have been asked by friends from China about how real is the political TV drama series, House of Cards. Drama is drama. Certain plots do exist somewhere at certain times, but it would be wrong to generalize it as daily life on Capitol Hill and in the […]

21 Apr, 2014

Being Muslim Under Narendra Modi – NYTimes.com

It was on his watch as chief minister that more than 1,000 people, many of them Muslims, were killed throughout Gujarat in 2002, when rioting erupted after some 60 Hindus died in a burning train in Godhra. A Human Rights Watch report that year asserted that the state government and local police officials were complicit […]

20 Apr, 2014

​The costs and the price of U.S. wars: Record suicides by Special Ops forces

US special forces have been committing suicide at record levels for the last two years, the head of the US Special Operations Command (SOCom) admitted in a speech on Thursday. He blamed the high numbers on the length and difficulty of combat. “There is a lot of angst. There’s a lot of pressure out there. […]

19 Apr, 2014

The AAP after the election – The Hindu

The strong signal that Mr. Kejriwal and AAP have sent out to the established political class across parties is this: ‘we don’t play by your rules; that we will challenge, and confront you on political practices in the country.’ Whatever else AAP may or may not have done — and there are many questions on […]

19 Apr, 2014

8 Terrifying Facts About NSA Surveillance | Alternet

As the American Civil Liberties Union noted, surveillance laws themselves “are extraordinarily permissive,” so it’s doubly troubling that the agency is surging way past what it is already allowed to do. The ACLU adds that these reported incidents are not simply cases of one person’s rights being violated — but thousands of Americans being snared, […]

19 Apr, 2014

India needs a thinker, not a despot on its peacock throne – Hindustan Times

Aurangzeb the unmusical, merciless, illiberal and ravenously ambitious Narcissus is slouching towards that helm, in the garb of his opposite number. And we, we Indians, who do not believe in the rule of the sharpened scimitar or of the pointed trisul, are the adherents of Dara Shukoh, waiting for the denouement. The Doldrums lie motionless […]

18 Apr, 2014

Indonesia issues first “Happiness Index” – The Jakarta Post

For the first time in history, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) issued late on Wednesday a survey that measured the level of happiness among Indonesians. The timing of the survey, which was conducted last year, could not have come at a worse time, as unemployment was high and poverty soared following the subsidized fuel price […]

18 Apr, 2014

Laos dam-building spree threats Mekong River – Thanh Nien Daily

Construction of a giant controversial dam in Laos has been well underway since it began in late 2012. Laos is also set to push ahead with a second hydropower dam on the Mekong River this year in the face of growing concerns among its neighbors. Opponents of these projects said their commencement would also kick […]

18 Apr, 2014

Ancient Buddhist center in India seeks Chinese investments

PATNA, India, April 16 – (Xinhua) – Crossing a 15-kilometer bridge over the Ganges in the northern part of this Indian city, a group of Chinese guests felt like crossing the Yellow River in a remote northern Chinese province 30 years ago. On the northern side of the Ganges here, the landscape is nothing but […]

18 Apr, 2014

Deepa Kumar’s new book: Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire

In response to the events of 9/11, the Bush administration launched a “war on terror” ushering in an era of anti-Muslim racism, or Islamophobia. However, 9/11 did not create Islamophobia, an ideology which has become the handmaiden of imperialism. This book examines the historic relationship between Islamophobia and the agenda of empire-building. About the author […]

18 Apr, 2014

MH370: Where’s the outrage over the information void? – The Hindu

By K.S. Narendran As I look back over the 40 days since the day MH370 sent out its last pings, I sense fatigue. It is as if all that had to be discussed has been done repeatedly and all the consolation that had to be offered has been exhausted. Yet, we are no closer to […]

17 Apr, 2014

New Study Confirms: “The United States Is No Democracy… But An Oligarchy”

Those convicted of petty non-violent crimes like possession of marijuana could spend a lifetime in prison, while the individuals responsible for wiping away 40% of America’s wealth in the 2008 crash have not only avoided prosecution, but are rewarded within their respective organizations. Whistle blowers spreading the truth to the masses about the the duplicitous […]

16 Apr, 2014

Latent and manifest Islamophobia: An inception of ideas – Al Jazeera English

By Dr Hatem Bazian I am utilising the concepts developed in “Inception” to argue that the Islamophobia industry has successfully used fear and hate-mongering to lull our intellect to sleep and has implanted negative and racist ideas about Muslims and Islam in our collective consciousness. The “architect” and the professional Cobb in this real case […]

16 Apr, 2014

Google admits Gmail does scan all emails – theguardian.com

Google has clarified its email scanning practices in a terms of service update, informing users that incoming and outgoing emails are analysed by automated software. The revisions explicitly state that Google’s system scans the content of emails stored on Google’s servers as well as those being sent and received by any Google email account, a […]

15 Apr, 2014

Global Drug Survey 2014: UK has the most delusional drinkers – The Independent

The UK has the most delusional drinkers, drug-takers and ‘reckless youths’ than any other country in the world, according to a survey. One in three dependent drinkers in the UK thinks they consume less than the average amount – a figure that decreases to a quarter when considered globally. Worryingly, one third of people in […]

15 Apr, 2014

Rise and shine: Why getting up at 5am will make you happy

If an early start has you rolling back under the duvet, forget about sleep deprivation and get out of bed – morning people are happier and more successful than night owls. Laura Vanderkam, the US author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, says getting up early can hold the key to improving […]

15 Apr, 2014

Australian government cyber snoops scouring social media

Federal government departments are using increasingly powerful cyber-snooping equipment to monitor the social media lives of millions of Australians. A dramatic public confrontation between the Immigration Department and a Sydney political activist over her Facebook page has resulted in accusations that mass-electronic surveillance is being used to keep tabs on political dissent. Other large government […]

15 Apr, 2014

Maori haka protest against auction of a slice of their history – Sydney Morning Herald

Sydney Maori let loose their traditional ancestral war cry on Monday night to warn the discreetly upmarket auction house Sotheby’s to back off selling one of their proudest heirlooms. The Te Pahi silver medal may be one of the most outstanding vestiges of the early story of Australia and New Zealand. Philip Gidley King, the […]

15 Apr, 2014

Obsessed with selfies? You may be mentally ill | GulfNews.com

London/Toronto: Taking lots of selfies is not an addiction but a symptom of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), psychologists warn. “Two out of three of all the patients who come to see me with Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) since the rise of camera phones have a compulsion to repeatedly take and post selfies on social media […]

15 Apr, 2014

Locals are overrated: Travel’s eight biggest myths busted – Sydney Morning Herald

Anthony Peregrine’s manifesto for a happier holiday remakes all the old rules. Slow-travel websites and publications are all in the hands of ideologues hectoring people about carbon footprints, interacting with communities, eating local organic food, travelling by yak and wearing only natural materials. There is nothing specifically evil about any of that. It is just […]

13 Apr, 2014

Top Australian research body CSIRO braces for budget cut of up to $150 million

Australia’s peak science body is bracing for a May budget cut of up $150 million, or more than 20 per cent of its total government funding. Fairfax Media can reveal the CSIRO’s top executive team has been modelling a range of scenarios that would see the scientific agency lose up 20 per cent of its […]

13 Apr, 2014

Indian PM: BJP has always divided the country – The Hindu

Hitting the campaign trail in Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday made a scathing attack on BJP by describing its ideology as against the composite culture of the state and said the party had always “divided the country.” “BJP leaders want to give a turn to the Lok Sabha elections on communal issues, […]

13 Apr, 2014

Ex-US President Carter uses snail mail to avoid NSA monitoring — RT USA

Former American president is aware his emails could be monitored by US intelligence agencies excessively “liberalized” under President Obama so he prefers to send letters via ‘snail mail’ to ensure the privacy of correspondence. In an interview with the NBC TV channel dedicated to the publication of his new book, ‘A Call to Action: Women, […]

13 Apr, 2014

Australian Navy Sailors sacked over racist and anti-Muslim Facebook posts

Up to six Navy sailors have been sacked or ordered to justify their jobs over racist and anti-Muslim Facebook posts. But despite suspicions raised by Fairfax Media in January, a formal investigation has found that no sailor belongs to the racist Australian Defence League. Chief of Navy Ray Griggs said in a statement on Tuesday […]