(F.Quigley – AlterNet, 16/05/13) – In just ten months, the United States managed to transform an 82 year-old Catholic nun and two pacifists from non-violent anti-nuclear peace protestors accused of misdemeanor trespassing into federal felons convicted of violent crimes of terrorism.  Now in jail awaiting sentencing for their acts at an Oak Ridge, TN nuclear weapons production facility, their story should chill every person concerned about dissent in the US. Here is how it happened. In the early morning hours

Il mercato globale dei semi da coltura OGM, di cui si conosce molto poco, è uno dei più ignobili e concentrati che esistano, se lo condono le multinazionali Monsanto (13,5 miliardi di dollari di vendite annue nel 2012) e Du Pont (35,3 miliardi di dollari di vendite annue nel 2012).

(Le Courrier international, 11/03/13) – Beaucoup de choses ont changé au Groenland depuis la dernière élection, estime le quotidien danois Jyllands-Posten à la veille des élections législatives. Suite au référendum consultatif qui s’est tenu fin 2008, les Groenlandais ont obtenu plus d’autonomie vis-à-vis du Danemark, l’ancien colonisateur. Ainsi la plus grande île du monde décide aujourd’hui pour elle-même dans tous les domaines, sauf ceux des affaires étrangères, de la sécurité et des finances. Le Danemark subventionne le Groenland à hauteur

(S.Wagstyl – The Financial Times, 26/02/13) – High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. The uncertainty surrounding the Italian election result has upset investors around the globe, not least in emerging markets. While Beppe Grillo, the comedian whose movement won 25 per cent of the vote, may be laughing,

(M.D.Shear, J.Calmes, The New York Times, 11/02/13) – (trad. Courrier International) Dans sa traditionnelle allocution devant les deux chambres du Congrès, mardi 12 février, le président américain va mettre l’accent sur la création d’emplois et la prospérité de la classe moyenne. Mardi 12 février, à l’occasion du discours sur l’état de l’Union, le Président Obama devrait axer le programme de son second mandat sur la restauration de la prospérité économique pour la classe moyenne et dévoiler ses projets en matière

(M.Auerback – AlterNet, 05/02/13) – Firms like Standard & Poor, charged with fraud by the DOJ, are criminally incompetent and serve no public purpose. Is Eric Holder’s “See No Evil, Hear No Evil” Department of Justice finally getting serious about investigating fraud on Wall Street? At first glance, it would seem so, given the news that the Department of Justice has filed civil fraud charges against the nation’s largest credit-ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s, accusing the firm of inflating the

(E.Nakashima – The Washington Post, 28/01/13) –  Washington: The Pentagon has approved a major expansion of its cybersecurity force over the next several years, more than quadrupling its size to bolster the nation’s ability to defend critical computer systems and conduct offensive computer operations against foreign adversaries, according to US officials. The move, requested by the head of the Defence Department’s Cyber Command, is part of an effort to build an organisation that until now has focused largely on defensive

(G.Alperovitz,S.Dubb – AlterNet 15/01/13) – Most activists tend to approach progressive change from one of two perspectives: First, there’s the “reform” tradition that assumes corporate control is a constant and that “politics” acts to modify practices within that constraint. Liberalism in the United States is representative of this tradition. Then there’s the “revolutionary” tradition, which assumes change can come about only if the major institutions are largely eliminated or transcended, often by violence. But what if neither revolution nor reform

(T.Hartmann – AlterNet, 07/01/13) – We have become, in the United States, and increasingly all over the world, a society with only two classes: Those who own, and those who owe. History is littered with the corpses of those who thought they could conquer the world, or at least the “known” or “important” world, through force of arms.  Many come immediately to mind: Alexander the Great; Caesar; Hitler; the Celts, Ottomans, and Catholics; various European, Asian, and American empires from

(P.Buchheit – Nation of Change, 21/11/12) – The numbers reveal the deadening effects of inequality in our country, and confirm that tax avoidance, rather than a lack of middle-class initiative, is the cause. 1.Only THREE PERCENT of the very rich are entrepreneurs. According to both Market watch and economist Edward Wolff, over 90 percent of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), personal business accounts, the stock market, and real estate.

(A.Goodman, D.Moynihan – Democracy Now!, 11/11/12) – The election is over, and President Barack Obama will continue as the 44th president of the United States. There will be much attention paid by the pundit class to the mechanics of the campaigns, to the techniques of microtargeting potential voters, the effectiveness of get-out-the-vote efforts. The media analysts will fill the hours on the cable news networks, proffering post-election chestnuts about the accuracy of polls, or about either candidate’s success with one

(M.A.R. Kleiman – Salon, 09/11/12) – The election results this week from Washington, Colorado, Massachusetts and Arkansas demonstrate that public opinion about cannabis has moved much faster than the positions of elected officials. That Massachusetts voters would pass a fairly loosely regulated medical marijuana system isn’t very surprising. But that voters in Arkansas came within a whisker of passing one shows that it isn’t just a hippie-dippie issue anymore. And for Colorado and Washington to take the plunge into full

(Project Syndicate, 06/11/12) – Most people around the world will not be able to vote in the upcoming U.S. election, even though they have a great deal at stake. Overwhelmingly, non-U.S. citizens favor Barack Obama’s re-election over a victory for his challenger, Mitt Romney. There are good reasons for this. In terms of the economy, the effects of Romney’s policies in creating a more unequal and divided society would not be directly felt abroad. But, in the past, for better

(Nick Turse – TomDispatch.com, 25/10/12) – They looked like a gang of geriatric giants. Clad in smart casual attire — dress shirts, sweaters, and jeans — and incongruous blue hospital booties, they strode around “the world,” stopping to stroke their chins and ponder this or that potential crisis. Among them was General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a button-down shirt and jeans, without a medal or a ribbon in sight, his arms crossed, his

(L.Polk – Alternet, 18/10/12) – Why are scientists in alarm mode over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a 1,700-mile long conduit that would transport a chemical-laden synthetic oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas? Scientists across specialized fields have joined forces to make public statements, penned a formal letter to President Obama, and have even committed acts of civil disobedience in front of the White House during the national  Tar Sands Action . What do

(S.O’Reilly – Campus Progress, 03/10/12) – A new manual from the Strike Debt campaign offers comprehensive advice for those struggling with student loan, medical and other kinds of debt. Download the manual here. If you want a print copy of Occupy Wall Street offshoot Strike Debt’s first publication, you’ll have to wait. The 5,000 first-run copies of the Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual vanished into backpacks, purses, jacket pockets, and tote bags over Occupy Wall Street’s anniversary weekend, and until a

(A.Torrus – Diario Público, 22/09/12) – La globalización no tiene marcha atrás. O la economía nacional se adapta a ella o el país quedará fuera del nuevo mundo. Desde hace varias décadas, concretamente desde mediados de los 70, los ciudadanos han sido acribillados con estos mensajes, monótonos y repetitivos, sobre la ineludible globalización. Aseveraciones como quienes se nieguen a ello serán los perdedores de la Historia, los retrasados de la civilización y del progreso técnico se hacen habituales. La globalización

(N.Stamper – AlterNet, 06/09/12) – We do not hear much about the war on drugs from Republicans and Democrats. This, despite the calamitous, irrefutable harms caused by U.S. drug policy: the trillion dollars squandered [3] trying to win a nonsensical, unwinnable war; the tens of millions of Americansarrested [4] for nonviolent drug offenses over the past 40 years; the obscene death count in Mexico, the casualties on our own home soil. That the drug war will get little or no