27 January 2014 — Media Lens
Readers will recall the famous perceptual illusion in which the brain switches between seeing a young girl and an image intended to represent an ‘old crone’. The picture of course remains the same, but our minds flick between the two interpretations, unable to perceive both images at the same time.
26 January 2014 — Sustainable Pulse
Following the announcement last week that 1200 litres of GM purple tomato juice is being sent to the UK from Canada for testing, before the GM tomatoes themselves enter shops across the country, EU and US scientists have expressed serious concerns. Continue reading
27 January 2014 — MRZine
John Bellamy Foster
Tassos Tsakiroglou: How urgent do you consider the necessity to develop an understanding of the interconnections between the deepening impasse of the capitalist economy and the rapidly accelerating ecological threat?
26 January 2014 — The Real News Network
John Weeks: The UK announces tens of billions of dollars of cuts to social programs despite a poor economic recovery Continue reading
27 January 2014 — The Real News Network
Mr. Alperovitz tells Paul Jay that if you concentrate wealth at the top, there’s not enough purchasing power to make the rest of the system work Continue reading
27 January 2014 — Voltaire Network
The Geneva Conference 2 showed strongly the sovereign and independent position and attitude of the Syrian state and its determination to seriously find a political solution to the crisis through dialogue with the opposition. However, the opposition presented a crestfallen face and continued, with the enemies of Syria, the campaign of lies to intensify pressure on this resistant state Continue reading
27 January 2014 — UN Working Group on Mercenaries and Global Research 7 November 2010
Private military and security companies (PMSC) are the modern reincarnation of a long lineage of private providers of physical force: corsairs, privateers and mercenaries. Mercenaries, which had practically disappeared during the XIXth and XXth centuries, reappeared in the 1960’s during the decolonization period operating mainly in Africa and Asia. Under the United Nations a convention was adopted which outlaws and criminalizes their activities. Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions also contains a definition of mercenary.
27 January 2014 — Asian Age and Global Research 5 April 2013
Monsanto’s talk of ‘technology’ tries to hide its real objectives of control over seed where genetic engineering is a means to control seed,
“Monsanto is an agricultural company.
27 January 2014 — Washington’s Blog
27 January 2014 — Alan Hart
The expanded and most explicit form of my headline question is this. Is Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu of sound mind and knowingly talking propaganda nonsense about threats to Israel’s security in order to fool the world including most of its Jews, or, is he unbalanced, mentally disturbed, even clinically insane? I ask because his rubbishing in Davos of the most important speech any Iranian leader has made since the revolution which brought the mullahs to power 35 years ago sent me to bed recalling something my father said to me when I was a very young boy. “There are none so blind as those who don’t want to see.”
27 January 2014 — The Daily Maverick
Elections 2014 will come and go, the ANC will be top of the pops, and a new bag of Liquorice Allsorts will fill the parliamentary benches. The great shake-up in South African politics looks set to happen after the elections – and metalworkers’ union Numsa is likely to play a big role in the new alignment. Numsa and a group of other Cosatu unions will put their federation on notice this week on a number of issues. Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim is also taking on the government’s enforcer, Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa, for police killings during protest marches. And even before the split in Cosatu happens, workers from other sectors are seeking to join the Numsa movement. By RANJENI MUNUSAMY. Continue reading
27 January 2014 — Statewatch • e-mail: office@statewatch.org
NEWS
http://www.statewatch.org/news/
1. UK: Use of Tasers by Metropolitan Police doubles over two years
2. EU data bill to be delayed until after May elections
3. EU: Informal Justice and Home Affairs Council, Greece
4. EU: New police cooperation plan includes surveillance, intelligence-gathering and remote vehicle stopping technology
Continue reading
26 January 2014 — VTJP
News
International Middle East Media Center
Number Of Palestinian Druze Refusing Israeli Service Increasing
IMEMC – A recent poll, conducted by the University of Haifa, has revealed that the number of Druze refusing to serve in the Israeli army is increasing. It also shows that a growing number of Israeli youth prefer being jailed instead of military service. …
Continue reading
27 January 2014 — Global Research
A five-minute audio message by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri went viral on the internet in which he enjoins the rebels in Syria to end their infighting and focus their energies on battling against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
25 January 2014 — Dissident Voice
Imperialism after all is an act of geographical violence. — Edward Said
Is it just me, or do you also see a thread of colonial superiority and racism binding US, Australia, Canada to Israel?
26 January 2014 — Dissident Voice
Maximilian Forte’s book on the Libyan war, Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa (Montreal: Baraka Books, 2012), is another powerful (and hence marginalized) study of the imperial powers in violent action, and with painful results, but supported by the UN, media, NGOs and a significant body of liberals and leftists who had persuaded themselves that this was a humanitarian enterprise. Forte shows compellingly that it wasn’t the least little bit humanitarian, either in the intent of its principals (the United States, France, and Great Britain) or in its results. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 