2. 0 Minute To Midnight On The Clock Of The Atomic Scientists



Dear Friend,


On the 25 January, 2018, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the arms of its doomsday clock to 2.0 min to midnight, the closest it has been since 1953, with implications for humanity and nature.


Former Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Ramdas filed a petition in the Supreme Court on January 30, 2018 asking the Suprme Court to investigate the death of Judge Loya and the curcumstances around it. Here’s a testimony on the circumstances behind his action


Also more stories from around the world. 

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Binu Mathew
Editor
Countercurrents.org


2.0 Minute To Midnight On The Clock  Of The Atomic Scientists
by Andrew Glikson 


On the 25 January, 2018, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the arms of its doomsday clock to 2.0 min to midnight, the closest it has been since 1953, with implications for humanity and nature





Personal Testimony Of Admiral Ramdas On Judge Loya’s Case
by Admiral L Ramdas 


Former Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Ramdas filed a petition in the Supreme Court on January 30, 2018 asking the Suprme Court to investigate the death of Judge Loya and the curcumstances around it. Here’s a testimony on the circumstances behind his action




5 Ways Capitalist Logic Has Sabotaged The Scientific Community
by Justin Podur 


Academics should be collaborating, not competing for pseudoscientific rankings.




‘Whitewashing’ Genocide In Myanmar
by Dr Ramzy Baroud 


Although the genocide of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar has gathered greater media attention in recent months, there is no indication that the international community is prepared to act in any meaningful way, thus leaving hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees stranded in border camps between Myanmar and Bangladesh.




To Stop Wasting Heartbeats
by Rachel Olivia O'Connor


My article is designed to do one simple very specific thing. That is — as an educator — I’d like you to take very practical action. I ask you to get with local teachers and administrators and counselors connected with nearby educational institutions and push their envelopes respecting the collective situation that we’re in regarding our collective crises. To do what you can to get them to revise their agendas post haste. To delete what’s obsolete.




Enforced Disappearance: A Violence Behind Veil
Co-Written by Advocate Syed Mujtaba and Inamul Haq


In India, enforced disappearances have occurred most often in regions facing insurgency or armed conflict. For example, according to a report released by the International Peoples Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-Administered Kashmir and the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons in 2012, there had been around 8000 enforced disappearances in Kashmir during the period of 1989 to 2012. 



Resisting Tyranny: Struggling For Seed Sovereignty In Latin America
by Colin Todhunter 


The Latin America Seeds Collective has just released a 40-minute film (‘Seeds: Common or Corporate Property?) which documents the resistance of peasant farmers to the corporate takeover of their agriculture.




Too Much Food, Too Many People On A Finite Planet
by Steven Earl Salmony 


A point in human history appears to have been reached when the ever expanding global economy, the ravenous per capita consumption of natural resources, and the explosion of the human population can be seen as patently unsustainable. Understanding the ways humanity is a powerful force of nature that threatens future human well being and environmental health, is a necessary step toward changing our production, consumption, and population growth trends. Regardless of how long a culture prizes “unbridled growth for gains” and chooses to leave it unchecked, surely it is not too late to understand what ails us as well as accept limits to global growth in production, consumption and propagation activities of Homo sapiens by altering human behavior accordingly




Can We Give The World And Future Generations A Break?
by Sally Dugman 


The problem, as I see it, is that we have to convince the other 80 to 90 percent of people to also change ways. This is not easy as they are so acclimated to the current ways of life that they have. Their jobs are also dependent on the current system in place for many of them. Nonetheless, we have to try to do so. Future life on planet Earth depends on this undertaking from us. So get cracking to educate others, please!




Canada’s North Shore Traffic Congestion: A cataclysmically Frayed Rope
by Irwin Jerome 


Vancouver and its North Shores are considered among the worst congested areas in Canada. A recent column in the North Shore News by Jonathan Wilkinson, Member of Parliament for North Vancouver (“A Promising Step Forward on Congestion”, Friday, January 19th, 2018) calls for immediate action to address the ever-mounting traffic congestion on the North Shore.




Vulnerability And Prowess: Mike Pompeo Meets The BBC
by Dr Binoy Kampmark 


In this age of reality television (or televised unreality), the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency was not going to miss out.    Unlike other chief spies who operate in habitual darkness and moving shadows, Mike Pompeo was very keen to get his voice and opinion across on the British Broadcasting Service.




T-MASS: A New Experiment In Ambedkarite-Marxist Alliance
by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd 


The newly formed organization popularly called T-MASS is a registered organization under the Telangana Government’s Registration Act with a name “Telangana Mass and Social Organizations”. Under its broad umbrella many Ambedkarist, Phuleite, communist, humanist, women organizations are working with a broad philosophical framework of Mahatma Phule, Ambedkar and Karl Marx. Its banners always carry the portraits of these thinkers and perhaps it should add Savitribai Phule’s portrait too, as the organization has spread her name and image to the nook and corner of the Telangana state, with a massive campaign on her 186th birthday on January 3 this year.




Freedom As The Way Out Of Global Warming
by Anandi Sharan 


The answer to the questions raised today may be the following: value immensely the lives of those of us who are unemployed, or underemployed, because we are free and have opportunity to become wise. And ask those who are employed, and therefore conditioned, preconditioned by their own knowledge, caught in their fears and their selfishness, to look inward, and look outward, and come out of their conditioning.




U.S – War Dog Wants To Bite, But What And How?
by Andre Vltchek 


These are brutal, dangerous and testing times. The ill, aggressive monster should not be allowed to totally destroy the world. Those who are already standing, should never surrender.Others should join. The survival of our civilization is at stake!




Known As National Pentagon Radio in Some Circles
by Annapurna Tosca Sriramarcel 


I have 101 articles in front of me which document the degree to which National Public Radio (NPR), arguably the most popular “political” station in the U.S., is a VERY poor source of news. ZNet, Black Agenda Report andCounterpunch provide three examples of decent attacks on their documentation and agenda, and I’ll be glad to provide the reader with other damning articles on other subjects from various left-of-center sources, upon request.




A Treacherous Crossing
by Kathy Kelly


On January 23rd an overcrowded smuggling boat capsized off the coast of Aden in Southern Yemen. Smugglers packed 152 passengers from Somalia and Ethiopia in the boat and then, while at sea, reportedly pulled guns on the migrants to extort additional money from them. The boat capsized, according to The Guardian, after the shooting prompted panic. The death toll, currently 30, is expected to rise. Dozens of children were on board.




The American Zionist Movement And The Holocaust
by Rima Najjar    


Herbert Block, the new executive director of the American Zionist Movement (AZM), says he wants to “rebrand” Zionism. What direction this re-branding will take is anybody’s guess, as he is still talking in the language of the existing brand of Zionism, which equates Zionism with being a Jew.




The Most Gorgeous Map The World Has Ever Seen
by Richard Oxman


Simon Winchester, who has written many books which have thrilled me, came out with a book called The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology around the time that the Twin Towers came down. I highly recommend that you get down with his instructive spotlight on Smith… a soul more blisteringly revolutionary than any terrorist on your short list; for one, his work served as important underlying bases for the accomplishments of Charles Darwin. If you do read the volume you’ll absorb the poignant sacrifices that served as the foundation for the world-changing discovery.




Real Resistance Has Consequences
by Valleria Ruselli  



But, again, as Arundhati has said virtually forever…“Real resistance has consequences.”




Kosovo For “Europe”: Serbia Between “Holy Land” And Stepmother
by Dr VladislavB Sotirovic 


The assassination of Kosovo’s Serb leader Oliver Ivanović on January 16th, 2018 in the northern (the Serb) part of the divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica once again put on the agenda both the issue of contested land of Kosovo and Serbia’s policy toward the West, in particular, the EU.




Assassination In Kosovo: The Killing of Oliver Ivanović
by Dr Binoy Kampmark 


Oliver Ivanović, who was gunned down on January 16 outside his party office in Mitrovica, was one such figure to rise out of this anarchic storm. A Serb who nonetheless still engaged Albanian counterparts when needed, his political awareness was such as to be inaccurately labelled as a moderate.  The informed pragmatist would have been more accurate.




What Being Effective Looks Like
by Alan Grayson


Occasionally, there are things that can be done in Congress that actually accomplish something. Let me tell you about my successful effort to audit the Federal Reserve. Wall Street didn’t like losing to me on that one.




On the 70th Martyrdom Anniversary of Gandhi
by Shamsul Islam 


THE HINDUTVA GANG CONTINUES TO CELEBRATE ‘VADH’/MURDER OF GANDHI




Remembering Gandhi
by Peer Bilal Baba 


Gandhi although was successful in making things possible for Indian union by insisting the last Maharaja of Kashmir but he as a man of peace is blamed for bringing miseries  to the people.




In Conversation With Hasan Abdullah,The Author of The Evolution of Ghalib
by Subhash Gatade 


‘The Evolution of Ghalib’ (Rupa,October 2017), a book by Hasan Abdullah, an addition to the continually expanding corpuson Ghalib –stands apart from the books on Ghalib published hitherto, and has earned critical acclaim in a short period –as here the author tries to look at the evolution of Ghalib’s thoughts. Here is a dialogue that I, Subhash Gatade, had with the author of the book:




Delusions of the Dwindling Indian Middle Class
by C R Sridhar 


Perhaps in a dystopian world of extreme inequality the fitting epitaph for the middle class would be given out of a sense of noblesse oblige  by the 0.0001% left standing .This would be in the form of a tombstone inscribed with the words– Here lies the Great Indian Middle Class that became extinct – Selling Pakode.




An Honest Memoir On Traveling Through The Kashmir Valley
by Neha Saigal 


I am a wanderer and an explorer, I will travel to any corner of this planet if it intrigues me or catches my fancy. Somewhere in 2017, I decided that I must travel to Kashmir, maybe I was attracted to the place as it was a boiling cauldron of careless politics and tragic lives. It is strange to think about it now, as I sit and type away in my relatively comfortable and humble setting in Delhi. Not once before my travel did I really expect to be blown away by the sheer beauty, I guess I was more excited about the stories that awaited me.




Fabricating A Fig Leaf Of Democracy In Egypt
by Abdus Sattar Ghazali 


The presidential election in Egypt is scheduled for March 26-28. However, a complicated election process has been evolved to ensure that there should not be any meaningful challenge to the incumbent president Al-Sisi who is seeking re-election.




The War In America’s ‘Democratic’ Party Over Whether To Go To War Against Russia
by Eric Zuesse


On January 23rd, Joe Biden virtually threw his hat into the 2020 U.S. Presidential contest, by producing for the neoconservative-neoliberal Council on Foreign Relations, a speech, and an accompanying article in their influential journal Foreign Affairs, titled, “How to Stand Up to the Kremlin: Defending Democracy Against Its Enemies”. He made clear that no one in American politics is going to stand to Biden’s right on international affairs and the military, when (or “if,” if one still doubts that) he will enter the 2020 U.S. Presidential contest formally. He’s already making the matter clear right now.








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