Future Still Uncertain for Kurdish Iraq
by Michael Busch
“Christians and other minority groups have also been the targets of choice in Kirkuk of late. While the violence there has not exhibited the same characteristics of systematized execution as in Mosul, the results have been no less horrific. Most recently, insurgent groups have carried out attacks on Christian businessmen, and have continued their practice of assassinating municipal security forces, routine violence which has claimed the lives of hundreds of police officers over the past few years.”
The Militarization of Crowd Control
by Justin Rogers-Cooper
The Group of 20 (G-20) Summit protests in Pittsburgh this past September were a threshold event. Not only were protestors detained and beaten by the police, but they were also subjected to new military-grade technologies that have pushed the boundaries of what kinds of actions are permissible for controlling large crowds of protestors, unruly or not. […]
Defending the UN
by Andrew Bast
Like beauty, the value of the United Nations lies in the eye of the beholder. Case in point, David Rothkopf’s recent screed on Foreign Policy.com (“You Can’t Spell Unproductive Without the Letters U and N”) against the world’s largest multilateral organization, the latest in a long line of vitriolic — and largely misinformed — attacks on the institution.
Only a few years ago, […]
Battle over CAFTA Rages in El Salvador
by Michael Busch
As El Salvador transitions from decades of conser– vative rule to the administration of leftist President Mauricio Funes, the country faces an international showdown triggered by a restrictive free-trade agree– ment between the United States and Central Ameri– ca. Canada’s Pacific Rim Mining Corporation is suing the government for its refusal to allow it to mine […]
Letter from Dakar
by MBusch
Beneath a half-completed section of highway overpass on the dusty outskirts of Dakar, Moussa spreads his arms widely to the concrete slab above his head. “This is what the tycoon classes want for Senegal!” he announces with theatrical triumph. “New roads for their new cars!” Then, lowering his arms, he says in a deadly serious tone, “But […]
Supply, Demand, and the Mexican Drug War
by Andrew Bast
Political analysis
ANDREW BAST
The war looks eerily familiar: beheadings, assassinations of police and public officials, terrorized businesspeople, extorted schoolteachers, and in five years more than 230 American civilians dead in the crossfire. All this could easily describe the battle in Afghanistan or Iraq, but the reality is closer to home, where an increasingly gruesome war is […]
In Midnight’s Shadow
by DNassre
DANNY NASSRE
Those concerned about the fate of humanity might want to take a look at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock, the publication’s symbolic warning of how close we are to destroying ourselves.
Your concern might grow when you discover that the clock is currently set at five minutes to midnight (the closer to midnight, […]
Three Days in the West Bank
by NBen-Ari
One Saturday morning in August, eight human rights activists were on their way to visit villagers attacked by paramilitaries. Earlier that morning armed paramilitaries attacked a young man while grazing his flocks outside of his village, and beat him up. The activists had decided to travel to the village to collect testimony. Upon driving toward the […]
