Global Agenda 2005

I was in New York City on 9/11. In the weeks that followed, newspapers reported that the Koran had become one of the biggest-selling books in American bookshops. Astonishingly, Americans seemed to think that reading the Koran might give them a clue to the motivation of those who carried out the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center. Recently, I have wondered whether the people of Falluja have taken to reading the Bible to understand the motivation for American bombings. I doubt it.
(more…)

By Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (*)

BRASILIA, Jan (IPS) - The metaphor of the century took on devastating
proportions in the massive waves that swept south Asia at the end of 2004.
The violent tsunami reminded us that in history as in geography isolation
is impossible, and all borders are common. The new geopolitics of human
existence demonstrates an unprecedented capacity to fight for large
collective interests and to demand solutions that are coordinated and
solidary.
(more…)

Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD, Jan (IPS) - With elections just four days away, many Iraqis are still uncertain how they will vote, or even where the polling stations are.
(more…)

by David McNeill
January 2005

Given the impossibly high praise lavished upon him - “One of the finest minds of the twentieth century” (The New Yorker); “Arguably the most important intellectual alive” (The New York Times) - it is hard to know what to expect when Noam Chomsky enters the room, a beam of pure white light perhaps, or at least the regal swish of academic royalty. Or the whiff of sulphur. He has also been called a man with a “deep contempt for the truth” (The Anti-Chomsky Reader) and an appeaser of Islamic fascism (Christopher Hitchens), among some of the milder criticism.
(more…)

Mario de Queiroz

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Jan (IPS) - The fifth World Social Forum (WSF) opened Wednesday in this southern Brazilian city, returning to the birthplace of this gigantic annual civil society meet.
(more…)

Analysis
By Paul Reynolds
World Affairs correspondent, BBC News website

The election in Iraq on Sunday is emerging as yet another interim stage rather than the definitive move towards democracy as was hoped.
(more…)

Sonny Inbaraj

BANGKOK, Jan (IPS) - East Timor’s Nobel laureate Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo is appealing for peace to be given a chance in tsunami-hit Aceh as an Indonesian top-level team meets with Acehnese rebels later this week at talks in Finland.
(more…)

The Observer

As Condoleezza Rice prepares to take over the US State Department from Colin Powell, Paul Harris investigates the girl from Alabama who has risen to become the Bush family’s ultimate insider
(more…)

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jan (IPS) - The international business and political leaders who will gather this week in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum (WEF) will be called upon to â€?take responsibility for tough choices,â€? said the event’s founder and executive chairman, Klaus Schwab.
(more…)

Can The Human Being Be Fixed?
Leonardo Boff
Theologian

The South East Asian cataclysm raises in many apparitions of the end of the world, or at least of the possible end of the human species. And for good reason, because these are not apparitions, but disturbing signs.

Nobel Laureate Christian De Duve, 1974 Biology , in his fascinating book, Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic Imperative,* affirms that «biological evolution is fast moving towards a grave instability. In a way, our time resembles one of those important ruptures in evolution, marked by massive extinctions.»
(more…)

Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD, Jan (IPS) - The elections due Jan. 30 appear to have brought more chaos and division amongst Iraqis than unity and hope. And they have brought greater security fears.
(more…)

By John Brown To Our Readers

President George W. Bush and his tightknit group of close advisers don’t believe in formulating or implementing a foreign policy. This was the case in Bush’s first term, and will most likely be so in his second.

The White House is far more concerned with establishing permanent Republican rule at home than interacting with or reshaping the outside world according to a carefully conceived plan.

(more…)

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jan (IPS) - Almost 23 months before a new secretary-general takes office at the United Nations, there is already a vibrant debate on who should succeed incumbent Kofi Annan when he completes his second five-year term in Dec. 2006.

(more…)

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jan (IPS) - In 1995, his revelation that he helped throw political prisoners alive into the ocean from airplanes during Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship shocked the world.

(more…)

By Richard Greene
BBC News

The US president is now as powerful as a monarch, according to a new book by an American professor published to coincide with the start of George W Bush’s second term.

Does Bush really give a damn what the New York Times thinks of him? Roosevelt did
(more…)

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Jan 19 (IPS) - The European Union will consider banning the swastika and other Nazi symbols next week after British Prince Harry was photographed wearing a swastika armband to a fancy dress party.
(more…)

Reflections on the Tsunami

David Ives *

The recent tsunami that hit South East Asia has deservedly grabbed international attention. At last count, around 155,000 people have died with a high percentage of those deaths being children. Many thousands more are still missing or injured with economic damages into the billions, making it one of the worse disasters ever in recent history. Indonesia estimates that 100,000 people have died in their country alone and there are myriad tales of woe throughout the region that should tear at the heart of anyone who has even the smallest amount of compassion.

(more…)