the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

It now emerges that the last four years of Julian Assange’s effective imprisonment in the Ecuadorean embassy in London have been entirely unnecessary. In fact, they depended on a legal charade. Behind the scenes, Sweden wanted to drop the extradition case against Assange back in 2013. Why was this not made public? Because Britain persuaded Sweden to pretend that they still wished to pursue the case. In other words, for more than four years Assange has been holed up in a tiny room, policed at great cost to British taxpayers, not because of any allegations in Sweden but because the British authorities wanted him to remain there. On what possible grounds could that be, one has to wonder? Might it have something to do with his work as the head of Wikileaks, publishing information from whistleblowers that has severely embarrassed the United States and the UK. In fact, Assange should have walked free years ago if this was really about an investigation – a sham o

At the end of 2017, a dozen cities across Iran, including the capital Tehran, were rocked by spontaneous protests which continued into the New Year. What role did the United States play? Part 10 - More foreign interference means more brutal repression against activists This approach, however, only aggravates tensions, encouraging Iran to crackdown brutally on domestic democracy activists and opposition groups on the pretext that they are funded by the United States. It also threatens to destabilize an already volatile region, and take us steps closer to a nuclear confrontation. The US government still does not appear to have learned its lesson that democracy cannot be imposed from outside. Action: The US sanctions and their counterproductive impact on Iran’s economy could be acknowledged and reviewed. This could further accompany a full House or Senate inquiry into the full dimensions of the US strategy toward Iran since the 1979 revolution to identif

Washington's hawks are doing it again! globinfo freexchange Powell’s former chief of staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, recently wrote a piece titled “I Helped Sell the False Choice of War Once. It’s Happening Again.” US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley spoke at the Anacostia-Bolling military base in Washington, D.C., in front of pieces of metal she claimed were parts of an Iranian-made missile supplied to the Houthis in Yemen, which the Houthis allegedly fired into Saudi Arabia, on December 14th last year. Weapons experts widely criticized Ambassador Haley’s speech , saying the evidence was inconclusive and fell far short of proving her allegations that Iran had violated a U.N. Security Council resolution. According to Wilkerson, Haley’s claims were not only inconclusive, they were also oddly reminiscent of the false claims about weapons of mass destruction the George W. Bush administration used to sell the public on the war with Ira

Vox produced a flashy, extremely hawkish video fearmongering about the likelihood of a second Korean War—and all the experts featured in it just so happen to work for the United States government. For the description under the six-minute video, which is dramatically titled “The Horrific Reality of a War With North Korea,” Vox wrote: “Five experts discuss what a war on the Korean peninsula would look like, how close we are to conflict, and the terrifying consequences.” Four of the five experts cited by Vox directly worked for the government. The fifth expert works at a think tank that is substantially financed by the Pentagon and does research contract work for it. In its reporting on North Korea, Vox makes no pretense of neutrality or independence. The news outlet may not be state-owned, but it continues a well-established corporate media trend of reflexively echoing the positions of the US government as if they are undeniable facts and an objective reflec

The year 2017 will go down as a particularly tough one for ordinary citizens, particularly in the global South. A sharp rise in government restrictions on fundamental freedoms across regions, as well as in levels of inequality, played a big part in that negative review. According to a recent Oxfam report, 1% of the world’s richest elites now own 82% of the world’s wealth, with a dollar billionaire having been created every two days in 2017. But we are witnessing people actively fighting back against a system that largely favors the super-rich at the expense of everyone else. According to the CIVICUS Monitor, an online tool that tracks threats to civil society in every country, there were at least 42 reports of activism leading to positive developments for civic space in 2017. However, it’s not only activists challenging the status quo. Also, ordinary citizens are doing so by turning to innovations that promote alternative economies — such as ‘sharing econo