A new medical study has found that electrical shock delivered to the chest by a Taser or stun gun – used by over 16,700 law enforcement agencies in 107 countries – can lead to cardiac arrest and sudden death. While Amnesty International and other groups have long cited the dangers of tasing, the study in the journal Circulation is the first to appear in a [...]
New Study Predicts Frack Fluids Can Migrate to Aquifers Within Years by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica A new study has raised fresh concerns about the safety of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, concluding that fracking chemicals injected into the ground could migrate toward drinking water supplies far more quickly than experts have previously predicted. “The [...]
Australia ‘world’s worst’ for online bullying Study places Australia as the world’s worst country for bullying on social networking sites. Social network sites can leave one vulnerable to being humiliated in a public sphere by people unknown to the user. For cyber bullies, it is a bit [...]
War talk on both side has raised international fears of a full blown war [Reuters] The UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution giving Sudan and South Sudan only 48 hours to halt hostilities or face potential sanctions. With Russia and China joining the growing calls for a halt to the growing border conflict, the 15-member [...]
Israel often builds or relocates its most enviromentally harmful factories to the occupied West Bank [GALLO/GETTY] Ramallah, West Bank - Nowhere is the relationship between environmental protection and social justice displayed more clearly than between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (oPT). The Israeli government takes great care to guarantee that its citizens enjoy the benefits [...]
‘We’ve gone beyond the occupation. The Palestinians have been pacified’, says Jeff Halper [GALLO/GETTY] I caught up with Jeff Halper, long time Israeli peace activist, director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and author of numerous books, while he was on a European speaking tour. Here is what he had to say about [...]
Nick Clegg said problems with corporate governance in the Murdoch empire let journalists invade privacy on an ‘industrial scale’. Photograph: Ray Tang/Rex Features Nick Clegg: big questions over Rupert Murdoch’s fitness to run News Corp Deputy PM throws weight behind MPs’ report into phone-hacking scandal, which said Murdoch was not fit to run a big [...]
Obama in Afghanistan to Sign Deal to Continue War Through 2024 President Sneaks Into Country to Sign Document, Bypasses Congress by Jason Ditz, May 01, 2012 Print This | Share This Months of “not quite public” Obama Administration efforts to negotiate a still-secret pact to ensure that US troops will [...]
THE EGYPTIAN-SAUDI DISPUTE 30 April 2012 No one wants to inflict any harm to the Saudi embassy or the diplomats working in it, nor to any Saudi consulate around the world. This embassy represents a brotherly Arab nation. However, the Egyptian people have the right to demonstrate outside it and [...]
Israel and the Power Struggle over Iran By Ludwig Watzal Should Israel attack Iran’s nuclear installations? Over this question, a fierce dispute flared up among Israel’s security establishment. In the beginning of the year, the former chief of the Israeli Mossad, Meir Dagan, was a lone voice in the wilderness. [...]
64 Years of Racism By Jamal Kanj Much has been written on Israeli policies seizing Palestinian land and building illegal ‘Jewish only’ colonies in the West Bank. However the discrimination against the original natives, the non-Jewish Israeli citizens, has gone unnoticed for 64 years. The creation of Israel in May [...]
Debris from the Japan tsunami pictured floating in the Pacific. Experts say debris will start coming ashore in North America sooner than thought. Photograph: Ho New / Reuters/REUTERS Wreckage from Japan‘s tsunami – fishing gear and furniture, footballs and ships – has swept across the Pacific far faster than expected, with thousands of tonnes projected to [...]
GALLO/GETTY Two award-winning films – one from Guatemala, the other from Israel – are currently making the film festival rounds. Though they come from worlds that are thousands of kilometres apart, they raise the same common issue of indigenous peoples’ quest for justice. Granito: How to Nail a Dictator is American filmmaker Pamela Yates‘ attempt to revisit [...]
People from all walks of life, and from all around the world, make up the supporters of the BDS campaign [EPA] Dear David, It’s been too long. I was a little surprised that I was not part of your just published list of dangerous, Jew- (self-) hating, Nazi-loving supporters of Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions against [...]
Leaving Afghanistan by Staying By David Swanson http://warisacrime.org/content/leaving-afghanistan-staying Is staying in Afghanistan OK with you as long as we call it leaving? President Obama has signed an agreement with President Karzai to keep a major U.S. military presence in Afghanistan (currently about three times the [...]
The Libyan Model and the Oxymoron: Class of 2012 Queen and King By David Swanson http://warisacrime.org/content/libyan-model-and-oxymoron-class-2012-queen-and-king There’s a new Atrocity Prevention Board in town, and its chief tool for preventing atrocities will be . . . wait for it . . . atrocities! What a breakthrough! And this clown is forming a tentative life partnership with an [...]
The kingdom of Bhutan does not measure GDP growth, but ‘gross national happiness‘ [GALLO/GETTY] New Delhi, India - The economic crisis, the ecological crisis and the food crisis are a reflection of an outmoded and fossilised economic paradigm – a paradigm that grew out of mobilising resources for the war by creating the category of economic “growth” [...]
Image Credit: Illustration: Ramachandra Babu/©Gulf News Even extremists may find new political pragmatism The electoral failure of secular, liberal parties can be seen as a vote against continued Western interference By Abdel Bari Atwan, Special to Gulf News Published: 00:00 May 2, 2012 Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailShare on printMore Sharing Services2 [...]
Bin Laden: Everyone Is Missing the Big Picture Washington’s Blog May 1, 2012 Obama and Romney Are Both Ignoring the Real Issue with Killing Bin Laden The anniversary of Bin Laden’s death is big news. Obama is bragging about how he whacked Bin Laden, accusing Romney of being too soft to take out [...]
May 01, 2012 “Information Clearing House” – Chris Christie may be fat, but he ain’t Santa Claus. In fact, he seems unable to decide if he is New Jersey’s governor or its caporegime, and it may be a comment on the coarsening of American discourse that his brash rudeness [...]
May Day – Mayday By Joseph M. Cachia “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18 May 01, 2012 “Information Clearing House” — The history of May 1 as a workers’ holiday is intimately tied to the generations-long movement for the eight-hour day, to immigrant workers, to police brutality and repression of the labour movement, [...]
Britain ‘Does’ Austerity So The US Doesn’t Have To The country’s experiment in austerity has provided the US with valuable information: it doesn’t work. By Dean Baker May 01, 2012 “Al Jazeera” — Washington, DC – A little less than two years ago, the people of the United Kingdom made [...]
We Japanese Americans Must Not Forget Our Wartime Internment The degrading treatment of Japanese American families like mine is the theme of my new musical, Allegiance By George Takei May 01, 2012 “The Guardian” – Seventy years ago, US soldiers bearing bayoneted rifles came marching up to the front door of our [...]
