World

In May 2019, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, that famous bastion of anti-whistleblowing fervour, unsealed an indictment charging former intelligence analyst Daniel Everett Hale with five counts of providing classified information to a reporter.  The first four focused on obtaining national defense information, retaining and transmitting that information, causing the communication of that same information[Read More...]

Do you remember the United Nations Millennium Development Goals? If not, you are not alone. These ambitious goals, which included the eradication of “extreme poverty and hunger”, to “combating lethal diseases” and “reducing child mortality worldwide”, proved to be yet another empty gesture which, unsurprisingly, amounted to little. Even if the architects of the project were well-intentioned as they labored[Read More...]

It is a country other powers simply cannot leave alone.  Even after abandoning its Kabul post in ignominy, tail tucked between their legs, Australia is now wondering if it should return – in some form.  The Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs has been sending out a few signals, none of them definitive.  “We will not comment on intelligence matters,”[Read More...]

68 years ago, on July 26, 1953, an angry young lawyer, Fidel Castro, led a small band of armed men in a failed attempt to seize the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba, in Oriente province. Nearly one-half of the rebels were killed – most of them died under or following torture. While Fidel and his young comrades did not[Read More...]

If you’re a working stiff with some sense of rhyme or reason, you should feel them near. They come in all shapes and sizes, these predators. For starters we have the ever-present War Sharks. These are the gung ho wave the flag gang, made up of Pentagon sharks and the super rich ( along with their political and media lackeys)[Read More...]

“We now kill people without ever seeing them. Now you push a button thousands of miles away … Since it’s all done by remote control, there’s no remorse … and then we come home in triumph.” —US Navy Admiral Gene LaRocque, speaking to a reporter in 1995. Dear Judge O’Grady, It is not a secret that I struggle to live[Read More...]

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Saturday that Cuba is an “example of resistance,” and proposed the entire country should be declared a World Heritage site. Media reports said: The Mexican President praised Cuba’s ability to stand up to U.S. hostility since 1959. López Obrador has in the past stated his opposition to U.S. sanctions that limit commerce with[Read More...]

On July 22, in the latest twist in the evolving debate on COVID origin, Chinese officials said that they were shocked and offended by a World Health Organization proposal to further investigate whether the COVID 19 pandemic emerged from a lab in Wuhan. Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of the Chinese Health Commission , said at a news conference in[Read More...]

Left-inclined people in India are usually left in a twilight between belief and scepticism when faced with conflicting reports on affairs in Tibet and Xin Jiyang from Western and Chinese sources. Western sources dwell on massive social and cultural oppression attempting to recast by force the native identities of the peoples of these two regions.But Chinese sources trot out impressive-sounding[Read More...]

“The gap between rhetoric and reality is a persistent one when looking at the sustainability of commitments of Olympic Games hosts”. Martin Müller, European Urban and Regional Studies, 2015 The organisers of the Olympics have always been into appearances and grand theatre.  And the International Olympic Committee has always been keen in keeping them up, from the barely credible notion[Read More...]