Afrin Offensive: Erdogan’s Madness Continues
Dear Friend,
Syrians can not have peace. After a lull, Turkey has launched an offensive against Kurdish-controlled Afrin district in north-western Syria. In addition, Turkey has also mobilised the Syrian militant groups under its tutelage in Azaz and Idlib in Syria, and in Kilis and Hatay provinces of Turkey, the latter of which has a substantial presence of Arabs and Syrian refugees, hence the Kurdish-controlled Afrin enclave has been surrounded from all sides by Turkey and its proxies.
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Afrin Offensive: Erdogan’s Madness Continues
by Nauman Sadiq
During the last 24 hours, 72 Turkish jets have reportedly struck 150 targets inside the Kurdish-controlled Afrin district in north-western Syria in which six civilians and three Kurdish militiamen have lost their lives. And today, Turkish ground troops in armoured vehicles have intruded five kilometres inside Afrin from Syria’s northern border with Turkey.
Kurdish Frictions: Turkey’s Campaign In Afrin
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
It’s a cruel saga, and one that promises no immediate end. Turkey, considered one of the more potent of powers within the NATO alliance, has manoeuvred itself into a play that Washington will find hard to avoid. For Ankara, one thing must not happen as Islamic State forces gradually vanish, or more likely metamorphose into the next force they will, in time, become. It is that inconvenient matter of the Kurds, ever present, and, in recent few years ever forceful, about carving out territory within Syria and Iraq.
Redrawing The Map Of Syria
by Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said the United States “does not want to keep Syria as a state in its current borders”, accusing Washington of seeking to establish a Kurdish-controlled entity along Turkish and Iraqi border zones.
America’s Deceitful Secret Support of Al Qaeda
by Eric Zuesse
In a prior article, I had documented that since 2012 the U.S. Government has cooperated with the Sauds’ plan to install in Syria a fundamentalist-Sunni government to replace Syria’s existing secular Government, and that the fundamentalist-Sunni organization Al Qaeda has been the U.S. Government’s chief organization on the ground in Syria providing the leadership to that Saudi-U.S. effort. Part One of that report is especially important in order to understand the continuity between the policies of the current U.S. President Donald Trump and the prior U.S. President Barack Obama, in Syria.
Betting The Earth On A Game of Wrap-Cut-Smash
by Stan Cox
The Earth is having to deal with continuous, largely unchecked emissions of greenhouse gases, along with soil degradation, mass extinction of species, destruction of ecosystems, and disruption of nitrogen, phosphorous, and water cycles. Meanwhile, efforts to head off the planet-wide ecological crisis remain trapped in a game of rock-paper-scissors.
Warring On Plastic: David Attenborough, Britain And Environmental Missions
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
Few documentaries have had quite this impact, so much so that it has ushered in the unfortunate combination of war and plastic, two terms that sit uneasily together, if at all. Tears were recorded; anxiety levels were propelled as Sir David Attenborough tore and tugged at heart strings in his production Blue Planet II. The oceans, warned the documentary maker, is becoming a toxic repository, and humans are to blame.
MLK’s Political Evolution Through The 1960s
by Robert J Barsocchini
In “Martin Luther King Jr. and the Cold War”, Thomas Noer describes how and why King’s outlook evolved during the 1960s. Towards the beginning of the decade, King “tended to separate domestic issues from foreign affairs”. He maintained a decidedly anti-Communist stance and refrained from expressing dissenting views on foreign policy, fearing that he would alienate supporters of desegregation
The “New Normal” In Cyclical Recessions
by Jon Kofas
There is a ‘new normal’ in cyclical recessions, namely, that the recovery cycle is itself recessionary for the vast majority of the population, not just in periphery countries that invariably suffer much more during contracting economic cycles, but in core countries as well. One of the biggest myths about the contracting cycles is the underlying assumption that they have an evenhanded impact on all people across the board regardless of income level and across all geographic regions. If there is GDP contraction of 3% then every person’s personal income must be declining by a corresponding amount, therefore recessions are the great equalizers.
Big Power Diversions: Olympic Diplomacy On The Korean Peninsula
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
The more overtures, sudden but entirely appropriate, being made by North Korea to their South Korean counterparts, the more concern seems to emanate from quarters in Washington and Tokyo. A recurring streak in these engagements is the fear that Pyongyang is simply prevaricating, distracting and diverting: they are having us all for fools.
Palestine, Israel, The US And How The South Pacific Countries Are Selling Their Votes
by Andre Vltchek
Here it goes again! Several countries of Oceania (also known as South Pacific Nations), or however you want to call that vast, beautiful but thoroughly devastated part of the world, have voted “for Israel”, “for the United States’ proposed resolution at the United Nations”, and therefore, “against Palestine”.
Countering Israel’s Strategy Of Deception
by Dan Lieberman
Effective mechanisms for halting Israel’s oppression, impeding the drive to incorporate all of former Palestine into a greater Israel, and preventing the Palestinians from becoming completely subservient to Israel’s dictates has been elusive. Obvious, and not entirely accepted, is that Israel has no intention of halting its oppression by creating either two independent states or a single bi-national state in which Palestinians are citizens or associated in a federation.
Canada’s Propaganda Machine – The CBC
by Jim Miles
It is always sadly amusing to listen to the CBC to discuss foreign propaganda – usually Russian – while assuming that all they report is simply accurate news that has neither been censored or vetted by anyone, but is simply the gospel.
Proud And Dismayed
by Sally Dugman
I used to be proud of my town. It spend close to $280,000 in legal fees (derived largely from my and others’ tax fees) to stop a propane facility directly above the aquifer water source that serves my part of town.
Ten Times a Day or We Don’t Have a Prayer
by Annapurna Tosca Sriramarcel
To lay oneself out in respect or obedience does not require that one believe in a Supreme Being of any particular kind, does not demand that one assert anything except acknowledgement of there being inscrutable mystery within and around oneself.
Corporate Monopolies Will Accelerate The Globalisation Of Bad Food, Poor Health And Environmental Catastrophe
by Colin Todhunter
If the proposed Monsanto-Bayer merger goes through, the new company would control more than 25 per cent of the global supply of commercial seeds and pesticides. Monsanto held a 26% market share of all seeds sold in 2011. Bayer sells 17% of the world’s total agrochemicals and also has a seeds sector. If competition authorities pass the deal, the combined company would be the globe’s largest seller of both seeds and agrochemicals.
Conserving Healthy Herbs: Lessons From Uttarakhand
Co-Written by Ashish Kumar Singh, Vidya Bhooshan Singh & Siddhartha Negi
To ensure the benefits of the farmers, UYRDC has collaborated with progressive organisations within the country and overseas for further strengthening herbal conservation, propagation and trade with multitude objective of conservation, multiplication, ecology balance of valuable flora and economic sustenance of farmers. Recently UYRDC has partnered with Dunagiri Foundation is facilitating qualitative trade and promulgation of endangered herbs of high altitude farmers in District Chamoli, Uttarakhand State, India.
Crimes Against Women: Passing The Buck Isn’t A Solution
by Zeeshan Rasool Khan
The treatment, women folk is getting in India and Pakistan is utterly disgraceful, and punctures the balloon of progress and development. Apart from domestic violence that women face, they are soft targets of constant brutality and barbarism. For many years, the violent sexual crime – Rape rose sharply, victimising and rendering victim traumatized and stigmatized for entire life, in many of cases snatching their right to live.
Social Programmes Need More Empathy
by Moin Qazi
A development professional’s career demands not just technical skills but empathy; not a form of empathy that comes from superiority, but one born from a profound humility. l’ve learned hard lessons that have shaped my ideas about good principles and practices in development. The most abiding lesson is that we should value people over projects, and at the same time value effectiveness over good intentions.
Nehru, Ambedkar And Challenge Of Majoritarianism
by Subhash Gatade
India’s slow ushering into a majoritarian democracy is a matter of concern for every such individual who still believes in pluralism, democracy, equality and a clear separation of religion and politics. The way people are being hounded for raising dissenting opinions, for eating food of their choice or entering into relationships of their own liking or celebrating festivals according to their own faith is unprecedented. The situation has reached such extremes that one can even be publicly lynched for belonging to one of the minority religions or for engaging in an activity which is considered to be ‘suspicious’ by the majority community.
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