First published by Global Research in March 2015

Some years ago, I had an engaging discussion with one of my very insightful students of Philosophy in my university.  She asked me whether Islam has provisions for women’s rights and gender …

Introduction:

The several works of American literature set in Okinawa or about Okinawans include travel narratives, war diaries, memoirs, biography, fiction, drama, and musical theater Perhaps the earliest, Francis L. Hawks’s 1856 Narrative of the Expedition of an American …

Featured image: British colonial forces in Myanmar, known at the time as Burma.

Demonstrations, protests and online petitions have appeared worldwide to defend the struggle of the Rohingya people who have been driven from Myanmar into exile. What is of …

Whether part of a pre-planned strategy or not, large-scale migration flows often destabilize the destination country, and India and Myanmar are bracing for the geopolitical consequences of the Bangladeshis within their borders acquiring a firmer sense of identity separateness from …

First published in March 2017

Foreign capital is dictating the prevailing development agenda in India. There is a deliberate strategy to make agriculture financially non-viable for India’s small farms, to get most farmers out of farming and to impose a …

First published in February 2017

My name is Bruce Gagnon and I work for the Global Network Against Weaspons & Nuclear Power in Space – this is our 25th year of operation.  I specialize on space technology and the missiles …

The first BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting was convened in September 2006, which marked the foundation of the BRICS mechanism. In the 10 years since then, BRICS has become an important international economic bloc representing some of the world’s key emerging …

This article was first published in December 2011. Does the DPRK constitute a security threat to the USA?

The American people should, in the words of Vietnam War Veteran Brian Willson  “place themselves in the position of people living in …

Featured image: Senator Nick Xenophon (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

It was never spectacular, but the Australian media scape is set to become duller, more contained, and more controlled with changes to the Broadcasting Services Act.  In an environment strewn with …

On Friday, a Taliban suicide bomber driving a car bomb slammed into a convoy of NATO forces near Kandahar Airbase in Trank Pul area of Kandahar province.

Kandahar provincial governor spokesperson, Fazal Bari Baryalai, said the attack “totally destroyed” …

On August 30, 2017, the Reserve Bank of India released its Annual Report for 2016-17 which revealed that 98.8 percent of scrapped currency notes has come back into the Indian banking system. This mind-blowing statistics has put a serious question …

Australia is having an energy crisis. A country with such abundant resources is incapable it seems, of handling matters of reliable supply, either in terms of affordability, or in terms of delivery. The situation has been further muddied by the …

The next stage of the case involving the commercialisation of genetically modified (GM) mustard in India is to be heard on 15 September in the Supreme Court (SC). GM mustard could be India’s first commercially cultivated GM food crop, which …

Foreign capital is dictating the prevailing development agenda in India. The aim is to replace current structures with a system of industrial agriculture suited to the needs of Western agribusiness, food processing and retail concerns (see this). The plan …

Instead of unvarnished truth-telling crucial for global risk management in the face of existential nuclear, poverty and climate threats, humanity is fed fake news through lies of omission and commission by the Mainstream Yellow Press and effective free speech is …

China recently announced they will trade oil for yuan “backed” by gold. The story has gotten some press (none of it mainstream mind you), and many have questions as to what it really means. While quite complicated as a …

Managing the decline of coal dependent cities will be a tricky balancing act for the government.

Between 2008 and 2010 the government identified 69 “resource depleted cities” of which 19 – more than one quarter – are in the northeastern …

Featured image: Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha was recently arrested on charges of treason. While the Western media has attempted to portray the charges as politically motivated, Sokha’s treason is …

I’ve maintained for some time that the US aggressive attitude toward North Korea is a foil – a way to increase tensions in the region in order to pump-up the fear and allow the Pentagon to increase its military encirclement …

“In July, our subsidiary bank in Switzerland started …

China has announced a “new world order” for world oil markets that could have profound effects on the global economy and the monetary order itself.

But as The Shanghai International Energy Exchange gears up for operation, it’s important to note …

The unfolding crisis in Southeast Asia’s state of Myanmar has confounded many geopolitical analysts due to its complex history and the intentionally deceptive and now contradictory coverage provided by the Western media.

The current government of Myanmar is headed by …

Of relevance to the current debate on Heroin addiction in the USA.

Narcotics is big business.

90 percent of the heroin consumed in the US comes from Afghanistan

This Graphic was first published by GR in May 2014

Source: Top-Criminal-Justice-Schools.net…

Badly damaged from the political fallout surrounding President Donald Trump’s posture towards white nationalists and neo-fascists, the forty-fifth head-of-state has now shifted his focus toward war policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

With the 16th anniversary of the United States …

Media attention is directed to some minor ethnic violence in Myanmar, the former Burma. The story in the “western” press is of Muslim Rohingya unfairly vilified, chased out and killed by  Buddhist mobs and the army in the state of …

The harsh rhetoric from Washington and Pyongyang during recent months has exacerbated an already confrontational relationship between our countries, and has probably eliminated any chance of good faith peace talks between the United States and North Korea. In addition to …

Featured image: Marise Payne (Source: Financial Review)

“Give us the chance to compete, to see our capabilities, to compare, to see the benefit we can bring with our [drone] system.” – Shaul Shahar, Israel Aerospace Industries Vice-President, March 2, …

The Rohingyas – or at least some Rohingyas – are now being projected as terrorists, as “Jihadists” out to kill Myanmar soldiers and civilians. Myanmar leaders including Aung San SuuKyi have spoken along these lines.

This view of the Rohingyas …

The world is now casting its eyes on Xiamen, the coastal city in China’s Fujian Province, as it will host the ninth BRICS Summit themed “deepening the BRICS partnership and opening up a brighter future” in early September.

“BRICS”, since …

Nedka Babliku sits down with Adam Garrie to discuss the true meaning of Trump’s surge in Afghanistan.

Digital Divides: Where Empires Die

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This video was published by Digital Divides.…

US government officials have begun to spell out the meaning of Trump’s threat to punish Pakistan if it does not suppress Afghan insurgents operating from its border regions. These punishments include not just cuts to aid and payments for services …

In their rush to readily promote neoliberal dogma and corporate-inspired PR, many government officials, scientists and journalists take as given that profit-driven transnational corporations have a legitimate claim to be custodians of natural assets. There is the premise that water, …

“As companies building the technologies in artificial intelligence and robotics that may be repurposed to develop autonomous weapons, we feel especially responsible in raising this alarm.” – Open Letter to the UN on Autonomous technology, August 2017, Melbourne

Do you …

Interview of China’s People’s Daily with renowned author and former foreign minister of Yugoslavia Zivadin Jovanović

As the host of this summit, what new elements can China bring to the BRICS?

ZJ: First of all, it is natural that China, …

Featured image: Drug production rates in Afghanistan have been skyrocketing every since Washington invaded that country.

In an interview titled, “Blackwater Founder Backs Outsourcing Afghan War-Fighting to Contractors,” Prince would defend his proposal for the creation of an …

With the announcement that the Trump administration concluded its analysis of the war in Afghanistan, the administration had an opportunity to announce a sensible solution to the longest war in U.S. history by calling on all parties to the conflict …

SAN FRANCISCO— The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals today affirmed the right of American and Japanese conservation groups and Okinawan citizens to sue to compel the U.S. military to fully consider the impacts of a new U.S. military base …

As each day passes, a major conflict between the United States and North Korea looks increasingly likely. The ratcheting-up of tensions between Washington and Pyongyang is being perpetuated by a corporate media that is reinforcing the myth that North Korea …

The green conscience received a setback last week with revelations that the Australian recycling industry is not what it seems. The middle class sensibility here is simple and dismissive: bin it and forget about it. Place the sorted items in …

China’s better-than-expected economic performance in the first half of this year was applauded by overseas organizations who believe that China will continue to be a stabilizer of the global economy. Analysts pointed out that China’s satisfactory answer sheet on the …

Featured image: Iranian asylum seeker Hamed Shamshiripour was found dead on Manus Island on 7 August, 2017. (Source: Stuff.co.nz)

“The only responsible and humane thing for our government to do is immediately evacuate every single man on Manus, every …

Featured image: Nepal Limbu worker

Aama disappears into the darkened house to light the fire. Flames ignite from hot coals stirred out of the ash and Aama eases a pot of kodo onto the rock grill. Neither an announcement nor …

Writer, journalist and filmmaker Andre Vltchek granted an interview to Investig’Action to talk about his latest project: a documentary about Borneo (or Kalimantan in Indonesian), a giant island shared by three countries. After witnessing the catastrophic environmental destruction brought …

As reported by CNN, “The United Nations Security Council on Saturday [5 August 2017] passed a resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea for its continued intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) testing and violations of UN resolutions.

With 15 votes in …

For a moment, we will cast aside the important topics as to how terrorists are financed or the doctrine and ideology orienting gullible individuals towards terrorism and study further the root causes that form the primary grounds for promotion of …

Featured image: Villagers protest about the closing of floodgates. Photograph, courtesy of the NBA movement.

International support is today pouring in for the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) movement defending the interests of the people affected by several big dams in …

First published on August 6, 2015

The atomic age began on August 6, 1945 in real time – after its July 16 pre-dawn open-air birth in successful Alamogordo, NM testing.

At the time, perhaps prophetically General Thomas Farrell said “(w)e …

The Fukushima disaster keeps unfolding. 

Tens of thousands of lives lost. Hundreds of thousands evacuated from their homes. An environment devastated by radiation — and now, TEPCO wants to dump hundreds of thousands of tonnes of radioactive water into the …

Featured image: Contaminated earth storage area within the Iitate Village evacuated zone, December 2014. Photo: Eric Schultz / EELV Fukushima via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA).

Former nuclear industry senior vice president Arnie Gundersen, who managed and coordinated projects at 70 …

Despite the rhetoric from the Trump administration about military confrontation with North Korea, the common theme of many U.S. experts on North Korea is that the U.S. presidential administration must conduct a dialogue with North Korea — and quickly. Military …

Where US interests are threatened, ISIS coincidentally appears, threatening those standing in the way. What is behind this increasingly transparent pattern of geopolitical coercion? 

As protracted warfare continues in southern Philippines between government forces and militants linked to the so-called …

During World War II, Japan’s imperialist military invaded Northeast China and afterward spread throughout Southeast Asia, then on to an ill-fated attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese crimes were many during the war and included the coerced services of ianfu (comfort …

The case surrounding the approval of genetically modified (GM) mustard in India is coming to a head on the back of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) recommending approval. The final decision now rests with Harsh Vardhan, minister of …

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

On July 4, Putin and Xi Jinping concluded two days of informal and formal talks in Moscow – above all else, affirming the vitally important relationship …

As the Indian government considers approving the commercial cultivation of GM mustard, the Hindu reports that an alliance of biologists and activists have warned that such a move would be ill-advised.

A threat to seed diversity

Kavitha Kuruganti, convener …

What might a future India look like? If current policies continue, it could mean dozens of mega-cities with up to 40 million inhabitants and just two to three hundred million (perhaps 15-20% of the population) left in an emptied-out countryside…

If humans are ever to achieve a stable global society in the future, they will have to become much more modest in their economic behavior and much more peaceful in their politics. For both modesty and peace, Gandhi is a …

Detention comes in various forms, and all have a basic premise: the removal of liberty of the subject, the presence of permanent control and surveillance, the utter reduction of rights to life to obligations to the state.

The suggestion of …

These days we rush from one media story to another, trying to keep up with the latest terrorist attack. Yesterday Paris; today London; tomorrow, who knows? These attacks are tragic enough when they are acts of violence by religious extremists …

The ongoing Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation will make future-oriented plans for cooperation and push forward the construction of the routes on a new starting point, said a commentary published by People’s Daily on Sunday, the same day …

“Tiananmen Square “Massacre”? The Power of Words vs. Silent Evidence“, an e-book by Australian-based author Wei Ling Chua. 

Wei Ling Chua’s E-book can be  downloaded here.

Excerpt from Kim Petersen’s book review:

“Chua has pulled together the …

Filming undercover in East Timor in 1993 I followed a landscape of crosses: great black crosses etched against the sky, crosses on peaks, crosses marching down the hillsides, crosses beside the road. They littered the earth and crowded the eye.…

While the new resident of the White House has been acquiring a taste for military adventures overseas, the prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, visited Moscow last Thursday for his 17th talk with Vladimir Putin. But of …

Given the continued escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula over the past months, all concerned parties should implement the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council in a more strict manner and return to peaceful negotiations, the People’s Daily …

Pollution in Europe has contributed to one of the worst droughts in India which has destroyed the lives of more than 130 million people, according to a new study. Researchers believe manufactured aerosols are to blame for the weakening …

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is deeply concerned that escalating tensions between North Korea and the United States of America could lead to war. This view was expressed at the end of the 30^th ASEAN Leaders’ Summit …

While the recent raft of Sino-Saudi trade agreements benefited Chinese soft power in protecting Xinjiang, and the Saudis by diversifying their economy, China’s slow intertwining with Saudi Arabia complements the Sino-Russian alliance. Primarily, its benefits could lead to a realistic …