By Janet Redman | (Foreign Policy in Focus) | – – Francis recognizes that there’s no way to stop climate change without confronting the way the world does business. That’s huge. Pope Francis just released an “encyclical,” a letter meant to serve as a guide to understanding our personal relationship to some of the most […]
Pope to Developed World: Greed is Causing Climate Change, Inequality
Jon Queally, staff writer | ( Commondreams.org ) | – – Leader of Catholic Church says the richest owe the poorest a ‘great social debt’ for creating the climate crisis, ignoring warnings of its dangers, and refusing to act ‘The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all,’ reads Pope Francis’ […]
Wars, Disasters displaced 14 Million last Year, 50% Children
By Roger Hamilton-Martin | – – UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – A horrific year of war, humanitarian crises, human rights violations and persecution has caused a sharp rise in global forced displacement. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNCHR) released Thursday its annual report of global trends on refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons and the internally displaced. […]
Rhodesian Flag, Confederate Flag: Roof & the Legacies of Racial Hate
Benjamin Foldy | (Informed Comment) | – – When the perpetrator in the horrific massacre at the Emanuel AME church in Charleston was first publicly identified as Dylann Storm Roof, a near-instantaneous Twitter trawl of his social media uncovered his Facebook profile picture. In the picture, Roof sports two flag patches on his left breast: […]
Since 2002, Right-wing White Terrorists have Killed More Americans Than Muslim Extremists
Cenk Uygur | (The Young Turks Video) | – – “When we have certain kinds of attacks in this country, there is terrorism world-wide, it’s a global conspiracy and they are coming to get us. But when we have other kinds of terrorism in this country . . . don’t talk about it. Cenk Uygur […]
End of Sykes-Picot: Is Independence for Iraqi Kurdistan a Decade Away?
Niqash.org | Sulaymaniyah | – – As Iraqis and Syrians fight, Kurds are holding elections and drafting laws. After Kurds also won in Turkish elections, nationalists hope the 100th birthday of the Sykes-Picot may be its last and borders will be redrawn. As Turkish voters went to the polling booths, Iraq’s Kurds were watching eagerly. […]
From Iran: Sanctions help the Hardliners
William Beeman | (Informed Comment) | – – Bill Beeman writes from Iran: I am continuing my trip through Iran traveling from Yazd to Isfahan via Na’in Discussions with a variety of ordinary people in shops, on the street and in a couple of cases in private homes are very revealing about the public attitude […]
Down the Iraqi Rabbit Hole (Again): Washington in Wonderland
By Andrew J. Bacevich | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – There is a peculiar form of insanity in which a veneer of rationality distracts attention from the madness lurking just beneath the surface. When Alice dove down her rabbit hole to enter a place where smirking cats offered directions, ill-mannered caterpillars dispensed advice, and Mock Turtles […]
Why Conservatives fear Pope’s Climate Letter: A Radical Attack on the Logic of the Market
Steffen Böhm | (The Conversation) | – – What makes Pope Francis and his 187-page encyclical so radical isn’t just his call to urgently tackle climate change. It’s the fact he openly and unashamedly goes against the grain of dominant social, economic and environment policies. While the Argentina-born pope is a very humble person whose […]