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Archives for May 2014

China
The NSA Effect:  China tells its banks to remove IBM servers as Spyware

The NSA Effect: China tells its banks to remove IBM servers as Spyware

contributors

THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT has urged its banks to stop using servers built by IBM because it believes that they might be used for espionage. According to unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg, the People’s Bank of China and the Chinese Ministry of Finance…

Constitution
"Joe the Plumber": "Your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights."

“Joe the Plumber”: “Your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.”

contributors

“Joe the Plumber”: “Your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.” (via The Political Carnival) “Joe the Plumber” (Sam Wurzelbacher, the not-plumber), wrote the following in response to the grieving parents of the kids slaughtered in Santa Barbara by a gun-toting, knife-wielding murderer who took his own life: By Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher…   —— […]

Africa
Preying on the Weak:  Like Big Tobacco, Big Oil Targets Developing Countries

Preying on the Weak: Like Big Tobacco, Big Oil Targets Developing Countries

contributors

By Michael T. Klare via Tomdispatch.com In the 1980s, encountering regulatory restrictions and public resistance to smoking in the United States, the giant tobacco companies came up with a particularly effective strategy for sustaining their profit levels: sell more cigarettes in the developing world, where demand was strong and anti-tobacco regulation weak or nonexistent.  Now, […]

Egypt
Egypt: Passive Aggression and Counter-revolution:  Voters, Youth Stay Home

Egypt: Passive Aggression and Counter-revolution: Voters, Youth Stay Home

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Voting was abruptly extended from two days to three in Egypt’s presidential election on Tuesday, apparently because of an unexpectedly low turnout. The contest pits Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, until recently minister of defense and a high-ranking general, against leftist warhorse Hamdeen Sabahi. None of the other eligible Egyptian frontrunners agreed to run, […]

Apartheid
Turkish Court asks Interpol to arrest 4 Israeli ex-Generals for Gaza Aid Ship Murders

Turkish Court asks Interpol to arrest 4 Israeli ex-Generals for Gaza Aid Ship Murders

contributors

Turkish court orders arrest of Israeli top brass over Gaza ship raid (via AFP) A Turkish court on Monday ordered the arrest of four former Israeli military chiefs over a deadly 2010 maritime assault, in a move which could jeopardise reconciliation efforts between the countries. The court in Istanbul will ask Interpol to issue…   […]

Climate Change
Solar & Wind Renewables Pass Hydroelectric Dams as Power Sources in US

Solar & Wind Renewables Pass Hydroelectric Dams as Power Sources in US

contributors

Originally published on the ECOreport. (Editor’s Note: it’s worth noting that the numbers below don’t include rooftop solar power, only utility-scale solar power plants.) The Sun Day Campaign has just released a press release proclaiming the…

Crime
Shooting victim’s father rips ‘rudderless idiots’ in Congress: ‘I can’t tell you how angry I am’

Shooting victim’s father rips ‘rudderless idiots’ in Congress: ‘I can’t tell you how angry I am’

contributors

With a California town grieving the deaths of six college students killed by a mentally ill man, one victim’s father on Monday blamed the killings on politicians who failed to tighten gun laws after a mass school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.…

Afghanistan
Did a Karzai No-Show Spoil Obama's announcement of end of Afghanistan War?

Did a Karzai No-Show Spoil Obama’s announcement of end of Afghanistan War?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Update: President Obama on Tuesday morning announced the end of the Afghanistan War on December 31, 2016. He envisions about 10,000 US troops there through 2015, then 5,000 in 2016, then virtually none except to guard the Kabul embassy in 2017. He says that this plan, however, is dependent on the Afghan […]

Apartheid
Pope Francis Calls for Palestinian State, Prays at Apartheid Wall

Pope Francis Calls for Palestinian State, Prays at Apartheid Wall

contributors

On Sunday in Bethlehem, Pope Francis called for recognition of an independent Palestinian state. CNN reports that he asked for “the acknowledgment by all of the right of two states to exist and to live in peace and security within internationally recognized borders.” As the AFP piece below makes clear, Pope Francis’s unscheduled stop at […]

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