31 March 2016 — Media Lens
On the night of October 3, 2015, a United States Air Force AC-130 gunship repeatedly attacked a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Forty-two people were killed and dozens wounded. The US military plane had conducted five strafing runs over the course of more than an hour despite MSF pleas to Afghan, US and Nato officials to call off the attack.
30 March 2016 — National Security Archive
Washington, D.C., March 30, 2016 – The National Security Archive is pleased to announce the launch of its new Cyber Vault project web site.
29 March 2016 — FAIR
Journalists face numerous ethical and institutional challenges when doing their job. But none of these challenges lays bare the conflicts and compromises involved in reporting the news quite like the use of anonymous sources.
For a profession predicated on demanding transparency and accountability from others, the practice of granting anonymity serves as an inconvenient reminder of journalism’s own messy reality. The implied bargain therein—that the value of the light provided by a source’s information outweighs the cost of casting of a shadow over his or her public identity—trades upon both the judgment and authority of the reporter and his or her news organization.
30 March 2016 — FAIR
Aviva Chomsky: “If we think of the goal of the Cuban embargo as being to make the economy scream, then it was successful.”
Janine Jackson interviewed Aviva Chomsky about Barack Obama’s trip to Cuba for the March 25, 2016, CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. Continue reading
29 March 2016 — HOUSMANS
NEWS
1. Housmans wins Best Independent Bookshop in London Award!
2. London Radical Bookfair 2016 – May 7th
3. New Left Review and other journal runs for sale
4. Quickbooks accountant needed for one-off job Continue reading
26 March 2016 — CommonDreams.org
Rare or Routine? Video Captures ‘Cold-Blooded Execution’ By Israeli Soldier By Jon Queally
The release of video footage showing the extrajudicial killing of a wounded Palestinian man on Thursday has led to the arrest of the Israeli Defense Force soldier who pulled the trigger, but rights groups say the documented incident only confirms their warnings regarding how the Israeli military routinely behaves in the Occupied Palestinian Territories when cameras are not rolling.
25 March 2016 — — Black Agenda Report
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Democratic Party operatives claim that Blacks are voting “strategically” when they support the corporate warmonger Hillary Clinton for president. The reality is, Blacks believe only Clinton has the money and organization to beat the White Man’s Party – the GOP. But, only two outcomes are possible from such a “strategy”: “either the triumph of the White Man’s Party, or electoral victory for Black people’s worst enemies among the Democrats.” Continue reading
20 March 2016 — John Pilger
I have been filming in the Marshall Islands, which lie north of Australia, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Whenever I tell people where I have been, they ask, “Where is that?” If I offer a clue by referring to “Bikini”, they say, “You mean the swimsuit.”
Few seem aware that the bikini swimsuit was named to celebrate the nuclear explosions that destroyed Bikini island. Sixty-six nuclear devices were exploded by the United States in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 — the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day for twelve years.
24 March 2016 — Manifesto Club
Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs) – THE FIRST NATIONAL SURVEY: WORSE THAN EXPECTED
We have published the first national survey into the use of PSPO powers[1], which finds that councils have created hundreds of bizarre new criminal offences over the past year.
This includes the crime of standing in a pair in Hillingdon, or in a group of three or more under-16s in Bassetlaw; crimes of selling lucky charms in Blackpool or staying for too long in a toilet in Oxford.
24 March 2016 — Global Research
Brussels News media Dernière Heure at dhnet.be as well as La Libre reported on the terror attacks by providing a CC Camera Airport Surveillance Video of the terror attacks.
The published video footage was fake as documented by a blog posting on Media Part.
The video pertains to a terror attack at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport on 24 January 2011 (posted on youtube in November 2013).
23 March 2016 — Global Research
One of the first videos published by Belgium’s mainstream media, was, according to reports, from the CC security surveillance cameras at Brussels airport. The video report was released at 9.07am, one hour after the first bomb attack at the airport.
The video was fake. What Derniere Heure and La Libre published was footage from a January 2011 terror attack at Moscow International airport.
23 March 2016 — FAIR
[The same can be said of British media coverage of the carnage and its aftermath in Brussels and Ankara. WB]
When a series of bombs went off at the Brussels airport and in a subway station yesterday, killing 31 people and injuring more than 200, the reaction of the US press was immediate and overwhelming. Every major news outlet turned its website over to coverage of the suicide attacks, often accompanied by live tickers and infographics. “Brussels Attacks Shake European Security” reads the banner headline on today’s New York Times’ front page (3/23/16); the Washington Post (3/22/16) worried that the bombings “made clear that European capitals remain perilously vulnerable despite attempts to dismantle the militant network that perpetrated the worst terrorist attack in Paris in generations last November.” Continue reading
22 March 2016 — Global Research
Friday marks the anniversary of the Parliamentary abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire. Over the course of three centuries, Britain became the largest slaving nation in the world and the slave trade grew to become Britain’s largest and most profitable industry. Britain generated an estimated equivalent of four trillion pounds on the unpaid labour of slaves.
Britain owes its very existence as a first world nation to the African slave trade. Great Britain’s economic way of life was formed by slavery: about it revolved, and on it depended, most of Britain’s other industries. Continue reading
22 March 2016 — Global Research
Dramatic loss of life in the terror attacks in Brussels: 34 killed and more than 180 wounded according to the latest reports.
Prior to the conduct of a police investigation, in the hours following the attacks, the Western media went into overdrive, intimating without evidence that the Islamic State (ISIS) operating out of Raqqa, Northern Syria was responsible for the attacks.
According to the Independent “Isis supporters have been celebrating the Brussels attacks online [social media] as speculation mounts that the group is behind a wave of deadly attacks in the Belgian capital.” Continue reading
17 March 2016 — Coldtype
Download and read it – free of charge at www.coldtype.net
BORDER CROSSINGS –We’ve got another fine selection of features, covering a range of international hotspots. In our cover story, Edward S. Herman discusses the many failings of US President Obama, while John Pilger looks at the shameful conduct of Australian politicians at the time of the invasion of East Timor by Indonesia, Jonathan Cook and Eamonn McCann delve into often-ignored antics of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu,and David Edwards takes a close look at a death in Honduras. Other stories involve a bank robbery in London, a march against racism in Montreal, railway men in California, and the activities of US-based economic hit men. And, as always, more great reading and photographs. Continue reading
19 March 2016 — National Security Archive
15 March 2015 — FAIR
Janine Jackson interviewed Alvaro Bedoya on privacy, technology and the targets of surveillance for the March 11, 2016, CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Alvaro Bedoya: “There is a sad and deep record of companies and the government making very poor decisions of how to treat the information of vulnerable people.”
(image: Big Picture Science)
11 March 2016 — Electronic Intifada
The publisher McGraw-Hill Education is destroying all copies of a political science textbook after receiving complaints from hardline supporters of Israel that it features a series of “anti-Israel” maps.
11 March 2016 — The Anti-Empire Report
If the American presidential election winds up with Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump, and my passport is confiscated, and I’m somehow FORCED to choose one or the other, or I’m PAID to do so, paid well … I would vote for Trump.
My main concern is foreign policy. American foreign policy is the greatest threat to world peace, prosperity, and the environment. And when it comes to foreign policy, Hillary Clinton is an unholy disaster. From Iraq and Syria to Libya and Honduras the world is a much worse place because of her; so much so that I’d call her a war criminal who should be prosecuted. And not much better can be expected on domestic issues from this woman who was paid $675,000 by Goldman Sachs – one of the most reactionary, anti-social corporations in this sad world – for four speeches and even more than that in political donations in recent years. Add to that Hillary’s willingness to serve for six years on the board of Walmart while her husband was governor of Arkansas. Can we expect to change corporate behavior by taking their money?
9 March 2016 — 38 Degrees
Unilever, a huge global corporation that makes billions of pounds in profit, have just buckled under the pressure of ordinary people. [1] That’s right: you and thousands of others have forced this corporate giant – the owner of PG Tips, Marmite, Dove and more – to clean up their mess.
The New Dark Age 