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The United Nations special rapporteur on the right to privacy, Joe Cannataci, was finally permitted yesterday to meet with Julian Assange inside London’s Belmarsh prison. The WikiLeaks journalist and publisher has been held virtually incommunicado, in denial of his fundamental legal and...
On Tuesday, 23 April 2019, the United Nations Security Council voted resolution N° 2467 concerning the use of rape as a weapon in times of armed conflict. This resolution builds on an earlier resolution of 24 June 2013 which called for the complete and immediate cessation of all acts of sexual...
Co-Written by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese Washington, DC – Thursday, April 25, the day activists anticipated the Secret Service might evict them from the Venezuelan embassy, turned into a day of growing support for and attention to the embassy protection efforts. Activists are making it...
This article is a sequel to my last piece “Blaming Muslims Again! Terror Attacks in Sri Lanka” (Countercurrents, April 23, 2019). As so many absurd and conflicting stories and claims by experts, laymen, victims and purported perpetrators, 9/11 gave birth to so many conspiracy theories,...
As Notre Dame burned, as the flames leapt from its roof of ancient timbers, many of us watched in grim horror. Hour after hour, on screen after screen, channel after channel, you could see that 850-year-old cathedral, a visiting spot for 13 million people annually, being gutted, its roof timbers...
“To give up beauty and the sensual happiness that comes with it and devote one’s self exclusively to unhappiness requires a nobility I lack. However, after all, nothing is true that compels us to make it exclusive. Isolated beauty ends in grimaces, solitary justice in oppression. Anyone who...
Strengthening MGNREGA is important to alleviate rural distress The election manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata Party has been recently announced and MGNREGA has been completely ignored in the manifesto. While more than 13 crore people across the country are dependent on MGNREGA and it is being...
(The ideal thing to keep the Tourist inflow appreciable and protect the environment is to start dedicated charter flights from some of the most potential markets to destinations in Kashmir) The most beneficial aspect of Tourism is “Sustainable Tourism” which strikes a balance between the tourist...
Co-Written by Meer Abass & Aurangzeb Arif ” to ask the victim what lies beneath the misery “ ” They say , I was never a part of this world ‘ Ever been to lanes of mockery, then you find what it takes the decorum of disgrace. The infamous rape of a girl child by the demonic 50 year old[Read...
Dictators often infantilize people. They portray the people as their children, and themselves as great patriarchs. Stalin to Chacha Nehru to Nasser, many have presented themselves as the authoritative father figure. At present, Xi Jinping is repeating the same, presenting himself as the...
It is after midnight in the Venezuela Embassy in Washington, DC and we expect the Secret Service and the DC police to come tomorrow to arrest and evict us on behalf of the illegal coup government they are trying to put in place. We are making our correspondence with the State Department public...
The noose is tightening around the WikiLeaks world, yet another dedicated attempt to strangle the channels of information that might cast light over the dastardly deeds of state. Connections are being targeted; associates are being brought in. Officials of the United States, having found...
The carnage in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday has been condemned by people everywhere. Individuals and groups from different faith traditions have not ceased to emphasise that the mass slaughter of at least 321 persons in churches attending Easter services and in hotels on 21st April is a heinous...
The second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation is about to open in Beijing. It will take place from 25th to 27thApril, 2019. The Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to deliver the keynote address. It is expected to be an event of tremendous proportions and importance: leaders...
Preventing Palestine – A Political History From Camp David to Oslo. Seth Anziska. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2018. In all my recent readings of history and current events, Preventing Palestine stands out as being one of the best written – if not the best – and one of the most...
Though small in number, transgender community is an integral part of the country. But when elections take place, they are not even considered by most political parties to contest. The first transgender candidate from India’s westernmost state for the Lok Sabha Jaysawal Naresh Babulal said that...
A woman staff member has accused the CJI( Chief Justice of India ) ) , Ranjan Gogoi, of sexual harassment through a sworn affidavit handed over to 22 judges of the Supreme Court. The said woman staffer stated “He hugged me around the waist, and touched me all over my body with his arms and by...
The Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Jamia Millia Islamia has organized 2nd Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Annual Memorial Lecture on 23 April 2019, entilled, ‘Democracy, State & Welfare Under UPA & NDA: The Regime Effect’, which has been addressed by Prof. Zoya...
It was 1984. The second and last formal employment of my career was in the tea plantations in the Anamallai Hills in Coimbatore District of Tamilnadu. I worked there for seven years, one of the most enjoyable and instructive periods of my life. Fires and estates are companions. Not surprising...
The Sri Lanka Easter bombings that killed more than 350 people including foreign nationals raise several pertinent questions Why did the bombings received far less foreign media coverage than Christ Church terrorist attack and Notre Dame fire? Why was the intelligence warning which came on April...
A court in Hong Kong has announced prison sentence for the democratic activists associated with umbrella movement in Hong Kong for the crime that their movement had caused problems to the common people when 79 days movement had spread in the city; according to the judgment the streets were...
Be careful while criticising the Government. Of course you will be anti-national if you do so. But now it is more than that. Now you have to face the cursing Sants. The Sants of BJP through their deep penance and meditation in the Himalayas have acquired some special powers. Gods impressed by...
Co-Written By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers The next two days will be crucial for the protection of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, DC. The Embassy Protection Collective is prepared to stay at the embassy for the foreseeable future, for as long as it takes to protect the sovereignty of...
The world is not so much a stage as a simulacrum for those who think it so. And if the stage goes bad, it is fitting that those who get thrown onto it change it in the most daring and provocative way. Politics is now as much a director’s production as it is an estranging show for the...
Paris – 15 April 2019 – The heart of France is on fire. An inferno rocked France. Notre Dame, cultural icon of France and UNESCO declared World Heritage, was burning. The flames devastated the wooden roof and the spire. They caused, at first sight, only light damage on the 12th century cathedral...
As the 300-foot spire of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris tragically came tumbling down on live television, my thoughts ventured to Nuseirat Refugee Camp, my childhood home in the Gaza Strip. Then, also on television, I watched as a small bulldozer hopelessly clawed through the rubble of my...
The West Bank is under threat of annexation by Israel now; the caged Palestinians in Gaza are clamoring, at a grassroots level, for the right to return to their homes and property a few kms away in Israel, as per UN Res 194, and being pushed back with brutality. The “deal of the century” is...
Whenever, in ordinary circumstances, the subject of violence comes up, most people throw up their hands in horror and comment along the lines that it is ‘in our genes’, ‘nothing can be done about it’ or other words that reflect the powerlessness that most people feel around violence. It is true...
Ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power at the Centre in 2014 the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has been continuously on its target on one pretext or another. The BJP and its ideological mentor the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) drag the name of AMU every now and then...
Our country is known and admired across the world for its enormous diversity, pluralism and the mutual respect that unites millions of Indians in a multi-cultural ethos. This is the idea of India that our freedom movement held high. That is why the modern values of democracy and separation of...
A Window Into Occupation and Survival in a Less Than Holy Land I never intended to run a marathon, but when I realized that I would be on hand for the 2019 Palestine Marathon, I registered. I did so in solidarity with the goals of the aptly named Right to Movement, the global running community...
In the recent Parliament elections in the two Telugu states there was an interesting discussion: who speaks good English whether Chandrbabu Naidu or Jaganmohan Reddy or KCR? Three of them are Shudras. Chandrababu Naidu and KCR are first generation English learners, whereas Jaganmohan Reddy is a...
This year’s World Malaria Day theme, “Zero Malaria Starts With Me” re-energizes the fight to eliminate malaria which, despite being preventable and treatable, still kills over half a million people every year. While incredible progress has been made in the past 15 years (with over 7 million...
Fr. Manoj Nayak, 44 years old, is one of the main leaders of the Kandhamal Survivors’ Association. After the major communal violence in Kandhamal in 2008, he has been involved in relief, rehabilitation, peace building and assisting the victims and survivors in the justice delivery process....
I am very disappointed at countries and individuals who have not verified the truth about who was behind the latest rounds of terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka before finger pointing at Islam and Muslims for killing around 300 innocent people in Colombo. This insensitivity, if not prejudice against...
Recently, a certain political concept has been resurrected that warrants interrogation. The notion of a ‘red-brown’ alliance has been thrown around so ubiquitously as a form of political slander that any substantive meaning to the term has been evacuated. Rather than accurately designating any...
The Strait of Hormuz, a key strategic waterway situated between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, is now tense. In reaction to the U.S. plan of interference, Iran has threatened to close the shipping lane vital for the world trade. Media reports said: Iran’s Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri...
Alarm bells went off in September in Washington’s corridors of power when John Bolton’s National Security Council (NSC) asked the Pentagon for options for military strikes against Iran.[1] The council was responding to three missiles fired by an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia that landed in an...
“Shall we not learn from life its laws, dynamics, balances? Learn to base our needs not on death, destruction, waste, but renewal?” — Nancy Newhall On 16 April 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump vetoed S.J. Resolution 7 to withdraw U.S. support for the Saudi and United Arab Emirates-led coalition...
Co-Written by Badre Alam Khan & Sanjay Kumar Ever since the Hindu nationalist forces led by PM Modi came to power in 2014, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the range of violence and atrocities against Dalits, religious and gender minorities have increased. And a new trend...
Countercurrents interviewed Kimaya Mahajan of Bellevue, WA, USA. She is a 14 year old climate justice activist who has a fresh take on the issue. CC: Kimaya, tell us how you got involved in Climate Justice? Kimaya: I’ve been involved with social justice in my community for some time now, and in...
The entire world remains confronted with the horrors that unfolded yesterday throughout Sri Lanka. Whilst the country remains under curfew, the authorities have pinned the blame for the attack on an obscure group called National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ). NTJ is reportedly an Islamist terror...
My mind is numb, my heart is heavy, the tears have dried, Yet the day dawns and life must be lived, Unanswered, unanswerable questions, Actions, reactions, a vicious cycle that must be broken. As I sit down to write this, my biggest struggle is with myself, ‘Should I write this or not? What use...
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Or to bring this thought experiment into the modern age — if it happens in the forest, does it stay in the forest? I ask this question because it has a bearing on the article to come. Specifically, what if[Read...
The day of ‘Resurrection’ became a black Sunday for hundreds in Colombo who gathered in Churches for Easter prayers. Many in nearby hotels, including several foreign nationals, also fell victim to the bomb blasts. As of now, the death toll is reaching 300 and hundreds of people are in serious...
A series of coordinated bombings struck three churches and three hotels on Easter Sunday killing 207 people in the worst attacks in Sri Lanka since the end of the civil war 10 years ago. At least 450 people were wounded in total of eight explosions. According to police several of the attacks...
Notre Dame is an iconic edifice of French culture and of Humanity and the conflagration has shocked the world, as have the recent Christchurch Massacres in New Zealand mosques and now the Sri Lanka Massacres in churches and hotels. However while these tragedies have laudably received massive...
Easter is the day when it is said, the Christ resurrected again. Devotees celebrate because they believe the Christ was crucified for them. Whether he is a myth or reality, it does not mean but one fact is clear, the life of Christ is inspiring and suggest love conquer all. As I thought of...
Co-Written by Kevin Zeese & Margaret Flowers We are writing to you from inside the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, DC where we are taking action against a US coup of the independent and sovereign Bolivarian Republican of Venezuela. The Embassy Protection Collective (Colectivos Por La Paz)...
With the landslide victory of Volodymyr Zelensky, who won 73 percent of the vote, the comedian will become the president of Ukraine. Understanding how this occurred becomes easy when people review US government documents published by Wikileaks about the outgoing president. Who is “OU”? Our...
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