Khalida Khursand - Pajhwok/IPS

HERAT, Afghanistan, Feb (IPS) - As delegates gather in New York on Feb. 28 to review progress in the 10 years since the U.N. women’s conference in Beijing, positive news seems to be emerging from Afghanistan. (more…)

Leonardo Boff,
Theologian

Please allow me to adopt the article by my dear friend Marcelo Barros, the monk who blends mysticism and politics, celebration of and support for the Movement of The Landless Workers, MST. He is a refined theologian, one of those who dialogues best with Afro-Brazilian religions, he himself being their descendant. Above all, Marcelo is a free man and a lover of truth, who has endured persecution as a result. What now follows is his article, with minor edits to make it fit in my column. (more…)

by Dennis Hans February 2005

Bush’s pick for director of national intelligence once oversaw an Afghan-style sanctuary for terrorists every bit as nasty as Osama and al Qaeda

Remember Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban, the Islamist movement that mis-governed the failed state of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001? He and the Taliban played host to Osama bin Laden, providing him and his al Qaeda organization a safe haven from where they could plot terror attacks and train recruits who came to Afghanistan from every corner of the globe.

Well, it turns out that Mullah Omar has much in common with – may even have patterned his career after – John Negroponte, the veteran diplomat who President George W. Bush has selected to be the first director of national intelligence. (more…)

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Feb (IPS) - The HIV/AIDS epidemic, which continues to devastate mostly the world’s poorer nations, has increased the rate of mortality and slowed population growth, according to a new U.N. report released Thursday. (more…)

Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Feb (IPS) - As China forges ahead with the promulgation of an anti-secession law that would legitimise war with Taiwan, the United States has stepped up efforts to keep China’s growing military might in check. (more…)

By: Sarah Wagner – Venezuelanalysis.com

Caracas, February 2005—In a press conference held yesterday, the Venezuelan Minister of Communication and Information, Andrés Izarra, denounced “the false information and groundless accusations” made almost on a daily basis in the United States press as a new media war against the people of Venezuela and their government. (more…)

Leonardo Boff,
Theologian

Clearly, the violence in Brazil is caused by many factors which have already been thoroughly analyzed by many. In fact, we should not even say that violent acts happen here. Violence is structural in the formation of our society, which was built on a foundation of violence, namely, the process of colonization. The concrete was made of violence: the lives of the slaves were converted to coal, to fuel the process of production, as Darcy Ribeiro used to say with indignation. People are generally treated with violence. We are always considered to be a brutish people, good for nothing; nobodies, always greeted with a shout or a blow. (more…)

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Feb (IPS) - When rebel leaders who recruit child soldiers are confronted by U.N. officials or human rights activists, they try to evade responsibility mostly by overstating the ages of rifle-toting children pressed into battle. (more…)

By Evelyn Iritani
The Los Angeles Times

February 2005

Activists have come a long way since the violent protests of 1999. Now companies and trade policymakers are giving them a place at the table.
Unhappy over the World Trade Organization’s refusal to discuss contentious labor issues at its 1999 meeting in Seattle, activist Mike Waghorne joined tens of thousands of protesters on the streets. The demonstrations, which turned violent, sparked anti-globalization protests around the world. (more…)

Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW, Feb (IPS) - A group of leading academics has appealed to U.S. President George W. Bush to press Russian President Vladimir Putin to change his â€?authoritarian courseâ€?. (more…)

By: Jessica Leight - COHA

Recent arms sales could have an explosive impact on U.S.-Venezuela relations.

Recalling Czech small arms sales to the leftist Guatemalan government in 1954, which led to a CIA-supported coup, the same could happen in Venezuela.

Colombia and Venezuela resolve recent conflict despite no positive U.S. assistance. (more…)

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Feb (IPS) - As U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in Brussels Sunday (Feb. 20) for a series of meetings with European leaders, civil society groups, trade unions and leading European officials urged the European Union to assert itself as an equal partner of the superpower. (more…)

Katherine Stapp

NEW YORK, Feb (IPS) - Even as the United States leans on North Korea and Iran to renounce any nuclear objectives, peace activists say it has stepped up spending on its own arsenal, including investments in a new generation of longer lasting and sturdier ‘’bunker buster'’ weapons. (more…)

by Katha Pollitt
February 2005 The Nation

As the saying goes, behind every successful woman is a man who is surprised. Harvard president Larry Summers apparently is that man. A distinguished economist who was Treasury Secretary under Clinton, Summers caused a firestorm on January 14 when, speaking from notes at a conference on academic diversity, he argued that tenured women are rare in math and science for three reasons, which he listed in descending order of importance. (more…)

The American-based National Council of Churches has recently convened a group of theologians, familiar with ecumenism and the main Christian braches, to issue a statement calling on the importance of environmental protection among religious representatives, who, the statement claims, often preach God is solely concerned with human salvation, regardless of its possible consequences for the planet. (more…)

Julio Godoy

PARIS, Feb (IPS) - A �rough row� has broken out between the United States and a host of other countries on protection of cultural diversity.

Most European and developing countries want an international agreement that would in effect allow state subsidies for national cultural ‘products’ such as cinema, music and books. They also want the option to tax import of foreign films, music, and television programmes. (more…)

Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Feb (IPS) - China has greeted the start of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change with a dramatic display of new green policies, but observers fear the surprise move would remain a symbolic victory rather than a practical one for environmentalists in the most populous nation. (more…)

by Ben Moxham February 2005

Last Monday, 7 February, the East Timorese newspaper Suara Timor Loro Sa’e reported that at least 53 people had died of starvation in the village of Hatabuiliko since October 2004. “There is absolutely nothing to eat,â€? reported Domingos de Araujo, the sub-district secretary, and “those still alive are looking for wild potatoes in the forest.â€? Reports from the districts continue to filter in: 10,000 people are staving in Cova Lima; 10,000 households are going hungry in Suai; and Los Palos, Baucau, and Manufahi districts are all reporting a food crisis. (more…)

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Feb (IPS) - At least 11 million people worldwide are “international orphans” – people without citizenship or nationality – who suffer discrimination, exploitation, and, in some cases, forced displacement, according to a new report by Refugees International (RI). (more…)

MSNBC staff and news service reports

Rejected by the United States, the U.N.-backed plan to combat global warming goes into force on Wednesday amid scant fanfare and warnings that it is only a tiny first step. (more…)

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Feb 14 (IPS) - Two U.S.-based development groups are warning Valentine’s Day shoppers that the gold jewelry they buy for their sweethearts may be a lot dirtier than it appears.
(more…)

Leonardo Boff - Theologian

Rio de Janeiro.- The World Economic Forum of Davos and the World Social Forum of Porto Alegre embody in some way the Gospel’s parable of The Rich Man and The Poor Lazarus, (Luke, 16, 19-31). In Davos, issues of economics, material goods and money prevail. Until recently, the rich of the world gathered in those meetings to discuss money, interests, markets, inflation and, above all, earnings. They were blind and deaf to the clamor emanating from the Earth, as a result of the tragic destiny of the poor and the devastation of nature.
(more…)

Analysis - By Sonny Inbaraj

BANGKOK, Feb 10 (IPS) - Barely a month after U.S. President George W Bush’s second inaugural address, his government faces its first real test - how to live and lead by the Bush code. And that test ironically is not in the Middle East but in faraway Nepal, the world’s only Hindu kingdom.
(more…)

September 10th 2005
Global day of mobilisation against poverty, war and unilateralism

We the people…
for a new just, peaceful and democratic world order

We, representatives of global civil society meeting in Porto Alegre at the 5th World Social Forum, are launching an urgent appeal to democratize and strengthen the United Nations and build a new just, peaceful and democratic world order.
(more…)

Washington calls the Iranian MEK a terrorist group. But some administration hawks think its members could be useful

By Christopher Dickey, Mark Hosenball and Michael Hirsh
Newsweek

Feb. 14 issue - This is a terrorist cultleader? Maryam Rajavi is dressed in a Chanel-style suit with her skirt at midcalf, lilac colored pumps and a matching headscarf. Over a dinner of kebab, rice and French pastries, Rajavi smiles often and laughs easily. She’s at once colorful and demure, like many an educated woman in the Middle East. Indeed if George W. Bush—who relies on powerful females for counsel—were pressed to identify a Muslim model of womanhood, this 51-year-old Iranian would look very much the part.
(more…)

William Fisher

NEW YORK, Feb 9 (IPS) - While authoritarian states in much of the world routinely jail journalists and others for expressing critical opinions, a high percentage of U.S. high school students believe the government should censor the press and that constitutional protection of free speech goes �too far�.
(more…)

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Feb 8 (IPS) - An AIDS vaccine will not be achieved until perhaps 10 years from now, but when that does happen, it will likely be made widely available around the world, without facing hurdles from the question of patent rights, according to WHO officials.
(more…)

By EDWARD WONG

NYT

AJAF, Iraq, Feb. - With religious Shiite parties poised to take power in the new constitutional assembly, leading Shiite clerics are pushing for Islam to be recognized as the guiding principle of the new constitution.
(more…)

by Lawrence S. Wittner
February 2005

According to recent news reports and as hinted in the president’s State of the Union Address, the neocons who dominate the Bush administration are gearing up for another pre-emptive military attack, this time upon Iran. The ostensible reason for such an attack is that the Iranian government is developing nuclear weapons.
(more…)

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Feb (IPS) - A rejuvenated campaign to crack down on Afghanistan’s booming heroin trade could backfire and end up alienating large sectors of the population from the government of President Hamid Karzai, warn Afghan development and rights groups.
(more…)

Hilmi Toros

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Jan (IPS) - The exclusive mountain resort of Davos, Switzerland has brought together a few select rulers – both economic and political – for a World Economic Forum on “Taking Responsibility for Tough Choices". They have all the luxuries befitting their official status and are ringed by security steel.
(more…)

Feb 5, 2004

Almira Ainri was 10 years old when she was catapulted into the atomic age. In June of 1946, as the U.S. Navy readied the first atomic bomb in peacetime - just the fourth in history - Ainri and about 100 other inhabitants of Rongelap Atoll, in the Marshall Islands, were sent south by ship to Lae Atoll, where it was thought they would be safe from the effects of the explosion 100 miles away, at Bikini Atoll.
(more…)

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan (IPS) - The World Social Forum could become a victim of its own success, as loud calls for translating ideas and talk into action and practical results threaten to generate divisions and frustration.
(more…)

by Pepe Escobar
Asia Times Online

“There is chaos under heaven and things could not be better.” - Mao Zedong

“The biggest danger to the Party since taking over has been losing touch with the masses.” - Hu Jintao
(more…)

Ferry Biedermann

MOSUL, Jan (IPS) - Election day in Iraq’s violence-prone, third largest city Mosul ended as it began, with a spate of bomb attacks. But in between a fair number of people voted.
(more…)

Larry Elliott in Davos
January 2005
The Guardian

The head of Britain’s leading employers’ organisation launched an
outspoken attack last night on the “hijacking” of the World Economic
Forum in Davos by NGOs which wanted business to apologise for itself.
(more…)

By Louise Arbour (*)

GENEVA, Jan (IPS) - The globalisation process
continues at its rapid pace, bringing opportunities
for a better life for many but also increasing risks
of social exclusion and poverty for others.
At the same time, most aspects of our lives are
affected for the better by the universal application
of human rights, while the overwhelming consequences
of the denial of human rights on our existence are
negative.
(more…)

A Review

by Lawrence S. Wittner
History News Network

Review of Peter Goodchild, Edward Teller: The Real Dr. Strangelove (Harvard, 2004)

Although most people would prefer to forget it, ever since the atomic bombing of Japanese cities in August 1945 the world has lived on the brink of nuclear annihilation. And no individual played a more important role in fostering the nuclear arms race and its terrible dangers than Edward Teller, a Hungarian emigre physicist.
(more…)