By Joshua Sokol | (Mosaic) | – – From 1932 to 1968, hundreds of tonnes of mercury seeped into the clear waters of Minamata Bay, Japan, causing health and environmental problems still felt today. As the first global treaty on mercury finally comes into force, what have we really learned from this disaster? Joshua Sokol […]
Archives for October 2017
Buzzfeed Exposes Breitbart’s Neo-Nazi Roots (TYT Video)
Bannon sent articles to white extremist leaders for line edits
Was Ayatollah Khamenei right about Washington? Trump Reneges
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump appears likely to attempt to derail the Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA]), next week. The deal curbs Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and prevents it from using the program to do more than create fuel for power plants. Trump will argue […]
Disrupting Climate Change
By Jules Kortenhorst | (Project Syndicate) | – – Despite a surge of apocalyptic weather and fears of runaway climate change, there is still time to stem global warming and save the planet. The clean-energy transformation has already begun – and it will play out faster than most people expect. DENVER – After a season […]
Iraq: How Saddam Hussein’s Ghost haunts Kurdish Referendum
Mustafa Habib | (Baghdad) | (Niqash.org) | – – Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein tried to exterminate the Kurds in Iraq. Now Iraqis angry about the Kurdish desire to secede are bringing back bad memories online. Saddam Hussein is making a comeback in Iraq – well, at least on Iraqi social media he is. Despite […]
Getting the Story: Combat Journalists and the Fixers they Depend On
By Nick Turse | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – We were already roaring down the road when the young man called to me over his shoulder. There was a woman seated between us on the motorbike and with the distance, his accent, the rushing air, and the engine noise, it took a moment for me to […]
Colonial Legacy: When Dutch ‘Policing’ Op tried to bring down Indonesian Republic
By Anne-Ruth Wertheim | (Informed Comment) | – – (This essay irst appeared in Dutch in De Groene Amsterdammer) Inexplicable sounds entered our internment camp Seventy years ago this year the Netherlands began its first so-called ‘policing operation’ – an attempt to bring down the Indonesian republic by force. As is clear from Wim Wertheim […]
How We’re Failing the U.S. Citizens of Puerto Rico
By Jill Richardson | (Otherwords.org) | – – Wanting federal aid in a natural disaster isn’t wanting “everything done for you.” It’s what we should all expect. Hurricane-struck Puerto Rico wants “everything done for them,” says President Trump. Puerto Rico, an island of 3.5 million inhabitants — all of whom are U.S. citizens — gets […]
Iran and Turkey tag team Iraqi Kurds over Secession
TeleSur | – – “The only beneficiaries are the Zionist regime and the U.S.,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. Warning against alleged foreign plots, the leaders of Turkey and Iran said harsh measures would be taken against Iraqi Kurdistan to maintain Iraq’s territorial integrity from attempts to secede from Baghdad following an independence referendum. The Iranian President […]