the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

globinfo freexchange Abby Martin spoke to human rights attorney Dan Kovalik, who has recently returned from both countries. As he said: These two countries are side by side: Colombia, which is the top ally of the US in the region, and Venezuela, which , since 1999, been trying to go on its own independent course. In regard to Colombia, which, on numerous factors has the worst human rights in the hemisphere. When you look at the number of disappearances, greater than any country. Greatest internally displaced population. Greatest number of human rights leaders killed. Greatest number of trade unionists killed. Greatest number of priests killed. And yet, there is almost a total media blackout on Colombia. Meanwhile, in next-door, Venezuela, anything bad that happens is at the top of the news cycle. To the extent trade unionists are being killed they're generally Chavista trade union leaders that are being killed by opposition forces. They'

Επιστολή του Μικη Θεοδωράκη για τα φαινόμενα ακραίου αντικομμουνισμού στην εφημερίδα Τα Νέα και άλλες εφημερίδες Με τρομάζει η αντικομμουνιστική υστερία που κατακλύζει την εφημερίδα σας. Ως νέος κομμουνιστής είχα την τιμή να παλέψω μέσα απ’ τις γραμμές του ΕΑΜ για την κατάκτηση της Ελευθερίας. Αργότερα, την εποχή της Χούντας, μέσα από το Πατριωτικό Μέτωπο για την αποκατάσταση της Δημοκρατίας. Όμως για την πάντοτε ενιαία εθνικοφροσύνη και για σας που την εκπροσωπείτε μαζί με τα υπόλοιπα ΜΜΕ δεν έχουν καμιά σημασία οι όποιες πράξεις με αριστερό πρόσημο, ακόμα και οι πιο σημαντικές, όσο και αν αυτές βοηθούν και τιμούν την πατρίδα και το λαό μας. Ακόμα και την αναγνωρισμένη από εχθρούς και φίλους, ντόπιους και ξένους προσφορά μας στην ανάδειξη του νεοελληνικού πολιτισμού, την αγνοείτε επιδεικτικά. Το μόνο που μετράει για σας είναι η ήττα μας στον Εμφύλιο και η ενόχλησή σας γιατί η ιδεολογία της Αριστεράς εξακολουθεί να υπάρχει, να δρα και να επιδρά ύστερα από

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear. (Antonio Gramsci) by Jayati Ghosh Part 5 - Restructuring Economic Relations The boom was not stable or inclusive, either across or within countries. The subsequent slump (or ‘secular stagnation’) has been only too inclusive, forcing those who did not gain earlier to pay for the sins of irresponsible and unregulated finance. As economies slow down, more jobs are lost or become more fragile, insecure and vulnerable; and people, especially those in the developing world who did not gain from the boom, face loss of livelihood and deteriorating conditions of living. This is why it is so important that we restructure economic relations in a more democratic and sustainable way. There are several necessary elements of this. Globally, most now recognise the need to reform the international financial system, which

It's all about ... oil failed evolution Spot the differences: Iran 1953 Venezuela today Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalized the Iranian oil and kicked out the British. An act which was heralded by the people. He promised to fight poverty and let the country benefit from their huge potential wealth in black gold. Although oil was nationalized back in 1976 in Venezuela, the country has to this day the largest proven oil reserves in the world. Under the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez, huge strides were taken to use the nationalization of its oil to fund social programs and alleviate poverty. Britain responded to Mosaddegh by imposing economic sanctions and worldwide boycott of Iranian oil. As a result of the extreme economic embargo, the people began to question his leadership and started blaming him for the economic crisis that was beginning to plagu

The WIKILEAKS Public Library of US Diplomacy (PlusD) holds the world's largest searchable collection of United States confidential, or formerly confidential, diplomatic communications. As of April 8, 2013 it holds 2 million records comprising approximately 1 billion words. The collection covers US involvements in, and diplomatic or intelligence reporting on, every country on earth. It is the single most significant body of geopolitical material ever published. The PlusD collection, built and curated by WikiLeaks, is updated from a variety of sources, including leaks, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and documents released by the US State Department systematic declassification review. globinfo freexchange A cable back in 2008, intended to point out the US intense dissatisfaction about a 9/11 documentary aired by Al Jazeera, as well as secure some assurances that the channel would broadcast "appropriate documentaries" about 9

A large number of bodies, many of them women and children, are still buried under the rubble in Mosul after the months-long operation to retake the city. RT’s Murad Gazdiev saw the gruesome aftermath of the battle declared a major success by the US-led coalition. Multiple corpses of suspected Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) militants – but also civilians – are still lying under the rubble in the sweltering August heat. Rescuers are working to retrieve corpses buried under collapsed houses, with many buildings literally reduced to ashes – possibly in the aftermath of bombings or artillery strikes. Parts of Mosul that were once residential areas are now ruins. While the scenes of devastated streets still leave a grim impression, there is another harrowing feature that cannot be seen on television – the sickly odor of decomposing bodies, Gazdiev said. “ You’ve probably heard of thousands killed, the civilian suffering, ” he says, standing among t

A new terrorist formation, Hayat Tahrir ash-Sham, consists of 25,000 militants, with Jabhat al-Nusra jihadists at its core, the intelligence chief of Russia’s General Staff said. He also spoke of the terrorists’ favorite tactics, state-of-the-art equipment and ways of getting profit. “ Currently, more than 70 gangs, including those from the ranks of the opposition, which used to consider themselves ‘moderate,’ have banded together. The total strength of the Hayat Tahrir ash-Sham group exceeds 25,000 militants, ” Col. Gen. Igor Korobov, the head of the Main Directorate of the Russian General Staff (the foreign military intelligence agency), said during a roundtable on Friday as part of the Army-2017 international military-technical forum, held in the Moscow Region. The key role in the formation belongs to Jabhat al-Nura (Nusra Front), which is “ engaged in active hostilities against the Syrian government forces and moderate opposition in the provinces of Aleppo

Smugglers making millions of dollars from death and misery in the Mediterranean have been colluding with the British-backed Libyan coastguard, RT UK can reveal. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson vowed on Thursday to help solve the myriad crises blighting the north African state, unveiling a £9mn ($11.6 million) package of aid on a visit to Tripoli. Johnson also visited the Libyan coastguard to inspect their work after Britain, along with the EU, initiated a £78 million training and funding program. The EU wants to pay the Libyan coastguard to prevent migrant crossings, trapping tens of thousands of victims of horrendous abuse in the country. Despite the generous cash injections, thousands of people have made the crossing every day this summer. Thousands are desperate to escape the lawless North African country, where black migrants and refugees are sold, beaten to death and imprisoned in squalid camps. In messages seen by RT UK, a source involved wit

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear. (Antonio Gramsci) by Jayati Ghosh Part 4 - Profit-Led Costs The collapse in Northern export markets that followed the recession brought that process to a halt, and recent moves towards more protectionist strategies in the US and elsewhere, as well as the persistent mercantilist approach of surplus-producing countries like Germany, have made it more difficult since then. In any case, such a strategy is unsustainable beyond a point, especially when a number of relatively large economies use it at the same time. In this boom, domestic demand tended to be profit-led, based on high and growing profit shares in the economy and significant increases in the income and consumption of newly-globalised middle classes, which led to bullish investment in non-tradeable sectors such as financial assets and real estate as

WikiLeaks Today [August 24th 2017] WikiLeaks publishes secret documents from the ExpressLane project of the CIA. These documents show one of the cyber operations the CIA conducts against liaison services -- which includes among many others the National Security Agency (NSA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The OTS (Office of Technical Services), a branch within the CIA, has a biometric collection system that is provided to liaison services around the world -- with the expectation for sharing of the biometric takes collected on the systems. But this 'voluntary sharing' obviously does not work or is considered insufficient by the CIA, because ExpressLane is a covert information collection tool that is used by the CIA to secretly exfiltrate data collections from such systems provided to liaison services. ExpressLane is installed and run with the cover of upgrading the biometric software by OTS

globinfo freexchange Speaking to Paul Jay and The Real News , Junaid Ahmad explained the geopolitics behind the potential new target of the US imperialists: Pakistan. Junaid Ahmad is the Director of Center for Global Dialogue and Professor of Middle Eastern Politics at the University of Lahore, Pakistan. He is also the Secretary-General of the International Movement for a Just World based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and a Visiting Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Islamophobia and Ethnic Studies Graduate Center. It appears that the ultimate target is always a major opponent in the global geopolitical arena: China. Ahmad explained: There are a couple of significant developments which are marking various shifts in local geopolitics. A very important point was in March 2015, when the Pakistani military, for the first time ever, had the courage to say no to the Saudis in being willing to participate in their war against Yemen, which is an excellent decision they ma

Did you know that shortly after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban tried to surrender? For centuries in Afghanistan, when a rival force had come to power, the defeated one would put down their weapons and be integrated into the new power structure — obviously with much less power, or none at all. That’s how you do with neighbors you have to continue to live with. This isn’t a football game, where the teams go to different cities when it’s over. That may be hard for us to remember, because the U.S. hasn’t fought a protracted war on its own soil since the Civil War. So when the Taliban came to surrender, the U.S. turned them down repeatedly, in a series of arrogant blunders spelled out in Anand Gopal’s investigative treatment of the Afghanistan war, “No Good Men Among the Living.” Only full annihilation was enough for the Bush administration. They wanted more terrorists in body bags. The problem was that the Taliban had stopped fighting, having eithe

Opposition Senator Randolfe Rodrigues called the decision the “biggest attack on the Amazon of the last 50 years,” according to O Globo newspaper. A Wednesday decree from Brazil's right-wing president Michel Temer abolished a sprawling nature reserve in the Amazon rainforest covering 4.6 million hectares (17,800 square miles), an area larger than Denmark, opening it up to commercial activity. The ecologically rich and delicate area, known as the National Reserve of Copper and Associates, or Renca, is believed by prospectors to contain enormous reserves of gold, iron, manganese, and other minerals. The Renca reserve has existed since 1984 with the intention of protection the area from mining activities which would harm ecological diversity, wildlife, as well as indigenous communities. Full report: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Temer-Government-Opens-Brazilian-Amazon-Rainforest-Reserve-to-Mineral-Mining-20170824-0002.html

Neoliberal governments in the region are being hit with a strike wave Social organizations and trade unions in South America are protesting in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru, mainly to demand more investment from their governments in education, but also against neoliberal policies. In Argentina, the Union of Education Workers and the Association of Middle and Higher Education called a 24-hour strike to demand a higher increase in salaries in the capital city of Buenos Aires. The unions reject the proposal of an increase of 21.5 percent by the local government and will march to congress to present their demands to the government of President Mauricio Macri. " It is one of the lowest increases in the country and is happening in the richest district, " Eduardo Lopez, general secretary of the UTE, said to reporters. Argentina's inflation was running at an annual rate of 21.6 percent in July. The teachers are demanding an increase

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear. (Antonio Gramsci) by Jayati Ghosh Part 3 - Global Transfers The financial bubble in the US attracted savings from across the world, including from the poorest developing countries, so that for at least five years the global South transferred financial resources to the North. Developing country governments opened their markets to trade and finance, gave up on monetary policy and pursued fiscally ‘correct’ deflationary policies that reduced public spending. Development projects remained incomplete and citizens were deprived of the most essential socio-economic rights. A net transfer of jobs from North to South did not take place. In fact, industrial employment in the South barely increased in the past decade, even in the ‘factory of the world’, China. Instead, technological change in manufacturing

With Ukraine rolling out a murderous ethnic cleansing campaign in its Donbass region on the Russian border, the Russian government has responded with restraint. The new provision of arms to Ukraine by the U.S. will likely change that — and start a proxy war more dangerous than Syria’. by Whitney Webb Part 3 - Syria to Ukraine: trading a botched proxy war for a “better” one The Pentagon’s decision to arm the Ukrainian government is well-timed, given that it coincides with the Trump administration’s decision to stop arming the radical Wahhabists that comprise the “moderate opposition” in Syria seeking to oust its democratically-elected president, Bashar al-Assad. Given the Syrian government’s ability to make major gains against these “rebels” and Daesh (ISIS), as well as the West’s repeated failures to justify a foreign military intervention, the U.S. has been all but forced to give up its dreams of provoking Russia via the six-year-long proxy war fough

Now, there is no doubt that the US army is the military branch of the US corporate neocolonialism. globinfo freexchange While in some cases, like Colombia, the US imperialists still search vainly for something to justify endless intervention through paramilitaries, civil wars, orchestrated coups, etc., they have completely retired from this business concerning, for example, Afghanistan. The following cynical, warmongering hawk, completely demolished every pretext and ethics, concerning Afghanistan, through mainstream media. Speaking on MSNBC and Rachel Maddow, retired Colonel Jack Jacobs said:            I'm gonna be facetious(!), but the first conclusion that came to my mind, is that we're going now harvest poppies and we're going to sell them(!), and that's how we're going to fund it(!), which is exactly what the Taliban is doing.            But no, it sounds like we are going to be involved in extricating, releasing(!!!) mi

Μόνο οκτώ από τις 27 χώρες - μέλη της Ε.Ε. συμμετείχαν σήμερα στο συνέδριο που διοργάνωσε η Εσθονική Προεδρία αφιερωμένο στη μνήμη των θυμάτων των ολοκληρωτικών και αυταρχικών καθεστώτων. Το Συνέδριο με θέμα «η κληρονομιά στον 21ο αιώνα των εγκλημάτων που διαπράχθηκαν από τα κομμουνιστικά καθεστώτα», έγινε το θέμα των ημερών αφού ο Έλληνας υπουργός Δικαιοσύνης Σταύρος Κοντονής αποφάσισε να μην συμμετάσχει, καθώς επιχειρείτο η εξίσωση του κομμουνισμού με τον ναζισμό. Στην Ελλάδα η αντιπολίτευση αντέδρασε οργισμένα κατηγορώντας την κυβέρνηση για «ιδεοληψίες» που θέτουν τη χώρα σε απομόνωση. Ωστόσο, κάτι τέτοιο δεν συνέβη. Αντίθετα, όπως μεταδίδει το Αθηναϊκό Πρακτορείο, το Συνέδριο ολοκληρώθηκε με την έκδοση διακήρυξης την οποία υπογράφουν οι εκπρόσωποι των εξής χωρών: Εσθονίας, Λετονίας, Λιθουανίας, Πολωνίας, Κροατίας, Ουγγαρίας, Τσεχίας και Σλοβακίας. Δηλαδή των οκτώ χωρών που συμμετείχαν. Και αυτές οι χώρες εκπροσωπήθηκαν, όχι από τους υπουργούς αλ

Αλυσιδωτές αντιδράσεις εντός και εκτός των συνόρων προκαλεί η απόφαση του υπουργού Δικαιοσύνης Σταύρου Κοντονή, να μην παραστεί στο αντικομουνιστικό συνέδριο που διοργανώνεται στο Ταλίν με θέμα: «Η κληρονομιά στον 21ο αιώνα των εγκλημάτων που διαπράχθηκαν από τα κομμουνιστικά καθεστώτα». H Εσθονή βουλευτής Oudekki Loone, μέλος του κεντρώου κόμματος της Εσθονίας -του μεγαλύτερου από τον τρικομματικό κυβερνητικό συνασπισμό- στο οποίο ανήκει και ο Εσθονός πρωθυπουργός, έστειλε επιστολή στον Έλληνα υπουργό Δικαιοσύνης, εκφράζοντας « την αληθινή ευγνωμοσύνη και τον σεβασμό της » για την απόφασή του και την απόφαση της Ελληνικής κυβέρνησης « να μη συμμετάσχει στο αποτρόπαιο συνέδριο ». Ολόκληρη η επιστολή: Αξιότιμε Υπουργέ Σταύρο Κοντονή, Θέλω να εκφράσω την αληθινή ευγνωμοσύνη και τον σεβασμό μου για την απόφασή σας και την απόφαση της Ελληνικής Κυβέρνησης να μη συμμετάσχει στο αποτρόπαιο συνέδριο με θέμα «Η κληρονομιά στον 21ο αιώνα των εγκλημάτων πο

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear. (Antonio Gramsci) by Jayati Ghosh Part 2 - A Familiar Question The question ‘what is your alternative?’ is a familiar one for most progressives, and too often we are overly defensive or self-critical about our supposed lack of alternatives. In truth, there are many economically-viable, socially-desirable alternative proposals in different contexts. The problem is not their lack of existence but their lack of political feasibility, and perhaps their lack of wider dissemination. But it is certainly true that the alternative does not consist of one over-arching theory (or even framework) that can subsume all others, since there are many good reasons for being sceptical of the days of the ‘grand theory’ that supposedly could take care of everything. While rejecting the totalising theory, it is possible to