“Here is where they shot my brother Ibrahim, God bless his soul. And here is the F16 plane that threw rockets into the house and trees, and here is the tank that started to shoot,”

“In 1983, there were 50 major corporations dominating the world’s media. By 2002, this had been reduced to nine. Rupert Murdoch says that eventually there will be three, including his own. If we accept this, media and information control will be the same, and we shall all be citizens of a murdochracy.”

–Page is under fire from the spin-doctors he tore a strip off a few days ago.

“On the eve of the latest strike the European Trade Union Confederation expressed its “whole solidarity” with Greece… The ETUC roundly condemned unelected EU institutions for “giving an entirely wrong message – speculators are not to be touched while workers and governments are pressed to cut wages, social benefits and public services.”"

See also CBC’s coverage (with photos).

“Progressive US legislators have branded Washington’s military presence in Afghanistan an unconstitutional “foreign occupation” and warned that “history shows all empires end because they expand too far.”… The outcome of the vote, 356-65 against the resolution, was never in doubt – but the three-and-a-half-hour debate gave those who oppose President Barack Obama’s war policies a platform to vent their concerns.”

“Following a speech in German Bundestag by MP Christine Buchholz against sending more troops to Afghanistan the MPs of DIE LINKE held banners with the names of those Afghans killed in the Kundus bombing wich was orderd by the German army in September 2009. The president of parliament threw them all out of the room, because they were acting against the rule of parliament.”

“But this new promise “to move forward without preconditions” should be viewed in the wider context of continuous economic and military pressures on Iran and on the entire region of the Middle East. While the United States has convinced the international community to apply sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear program, the tool that the United States itself uses to apply pressure on Iran is sanctions on that country’s petroleum sector. Iran seems to be a case in point where U.S. concern for nuclear weapons proliferation in the Middle East is selective at best, while the preconditions of sanctions are applied yet again on another major oil exporter of the region.”

“As Greenspan details in his book, the reason for his nightmare is that the world was depleting its stock of hundreds of millions of unemployed people, including those of the former Soviet Union and also in rural China. In other words, “too many” of them had become employed, and this was allowing for wages of factory workers in China to rise…. Is there something wrong with this picture, that one of the world’s most powerful economic decision makers (at the time) dreads the decline of mass unemployment and rising wages among people making 80 cents an hour?”

“There’s no democracy under occupation.”
Malalai Joya in an interview with L’Humanité.

“At least 15 people have been killed by two suspected US missile strikes in a Pakistani tribal region”

This is the 19th US attack on Pakistan this year.

“[The announcement] came just a day after the Israeli defence ministry announced 112 new apartments would be built in the occupied West Bank.”

See also: Vice President Biden on goodwill trip to Israel | Los Angeles Times

“A new law makes it a crime for Palestinians to observe “Nakba,” or “Catastrophe,” Day commemorating the loss of their land when Israel was created in 1948.”
Shame on the state of Israel. Shame on Canada for not taking a stand for human rights.

Blacks in South Africa never faced a 20-foot wall dividing their communities. Palestinians’ land is still being seized, their orchards bulldozed.| A powerful opinion piece by Murray Dobbin

Russell Tribunal on Palestine concludes the EU should sanction Israel until violations stop

India’s parliament has postponed a vote on a bill seeking to reserve one third of parliamentary seats for female candidates after strong opposition caused proceedings to be repeatedly adjourned.

Matthew Cookson reports from Athens, the frontline of the battle to stop the bosses’ offensive across Europe, on last week’s general strike in Greece

“New Brunswick taxpayers stand to lose $70 million in loans and loan guarantees if Atcon Group can’t pay its creditors.”

-The NB government gave loan guarantees to Robbie Tozer’s company Atcon. Now it seems that while NB begins creating a flat tax (with one marginal tax bracket), and cutting or privatising our public services, the working class will be handing money over to Scotiabank.

“Icelanders resoundingly rejected on Saturday a $5.3 billion (£3.5bn) plan to pay off Britain and the Netherlands for debts spawned by the collapse of an Icelandic internet bank at the height of the global financial crisis.

Results returned from around 83,500 ballots – or more than 40 per cent of the total ballots expected – counted so far showed that 93 per cent of voters said No in the referendum, compared to just 1.5 per cent who said Yes.”

“[T]he Israeli government agreed in November to a temporary and partial pause in building. … It said that work which had already started on 3,000 homes should be allowed to continue, and further exceptions to the pause were possible.”

–The necessity of democratic reform is obvious.

“Around 5,000 Arab and Jewish peace activists flocked to Sheikh Jarrah [in East Jerusalem] in one of the largest rallies yet against the evictions.”
“Protesters, including several communists and other members of the Hadash Front for Peace and Equality, marched under red banners and Palestinian flags, chanting: “Sheikh Jarrah residents don’t lose hope, we are blocking the road to settlement” and “There is no sanctity in an occupied city.” “

Dear colleague,
We are editors of six leading news websites that are regarded as independent in Iran, and a majority among us are often critical of the Ahmadinejad administration. We are writing this letter not in defense of the government, but rather to explain current realities in Iran.