(By Alice K. Ross) Civilian drone deaths in Afghanistan tripled last year, according to a report by a UN agency. Forty-five civilians died in drone strikes in 2013. The report, by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama), found that drone strikes accounted for at least a third of all civilian deaths in air […]
Can Obama make a grand bargain with Iran over Syria?
(By Shahram Akbarzadeh) The last round of talks to bring some relief to the humanitarian disaster in Syria achieved remarkable nothing. The anti-Assad delegation traded barbed insults with the Syrian government delegation and all left the meeting with the reaffirmed conviction that the other side cannot be trusted. But something peculiar happened on the side […]
False Dawn: The 35th Anniversary of Iranian Revolution
(By Farhang Jahanpour) The Iranian revolution succeeded exactly 35 years ago this week. After 37 years of rule, Mohammad Reza Shah left Iran on 16 January 1979, never to return. His nemesis, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had waged a campaign against him mainly from his exile in Najaf in Iraq for 14 years returned in […]
Assassination by Leak: US floats Trial Balloon of Droning an American to Death
(By Tim Cushing) Administration Officials Perform Some Very Public Handwringing Over Extrajudicial Drone Killing (via Techdirt) The administration has sort of painted itself into a corner with its new rules on drone strikes. It’s apparently seeking to take out a US citizen who has joined al-Qaeda and is “actively plotting” against the US. Multiple issues […]
8 Unsustainable Delusions of the American Way of Life
(By Tom Giesen) The ideal of the American way of life as formulated in the twentieth century has collapsed early in the new Millennium without most Americans even realizing it. Its basic tenets are either by now just false, or are unsustainable, so that we’re in a barrel and about to go off the edge […]
Brokers of Deceit: Massive US Aid to Israel has Enabled a Colonial Project
(By Chase Madar via Tomdispatch) We Americans have funny notions about foreign aid. Recent polls show that, on average, we believe 28% of the federal budget is eaten up by it, and that, in a time of austerity, this gigantic bite of the budget should be cut back to 10%. In actual fact, barely 1% […]
20 Banks Funding most Dirty Coal Mining, Climate Disruption, Worldwide
(By Michael Winship) Turning Up Heat on Banks Funding Fossil Fuels (via Moyers & Company) As environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben tells Bill Moyers on this week’s Moyers & Company about the student movement for colleges and universities to divest themselves of stock from companies that produce or burn oil, gas and coal, The… […]
Let’s See: Major Droughts in Drying West; Fracking a Water Hog and Causes Drought…
(By Jon Queally) Almost half (47%) of all U.S. wells are being developed in regions with high to extremely high water stress. This means that more than 80 percent of the annual available water is already allocated to municipal, industrial and agricultural users in these regions. The irony of fracking: It destroys the natural resource […]
NSA’s Zero Day Exploits: Paying $800 mn. to Hackers so they Can Spy on You
(By Pratap Chatterjee via Tomdispatch) Imagine that you could wander unseen through a city, sneaking into houses and offices of your choosing at any time, day or night. Imagine that, once inside, you could observe everything happening, unnoticed by others — from the combinations used to secure bank safes to the clandestine rendezvous of lovers. […]
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