Binoy Kampmark: A Parliament Of Leakers: WikiLeaks And The New Vision
It sounds like a plumbing deficiency with a moral purpose: one leaks at times because one just has to. The condition is biological, innate. The suggestion in the case of politics is that a party that specialises about this will be formidable, and, ... More>>

Alon Ben-Meir: Time For U.S.-Iran Talks
A wide range of credible sources suggest that the election of Iran’s new president Hassan Rouhani presents a timely, if not momentous, opportunity to initiate direct talks between the US and Iran in an effort to peacefully resolve the conflict over ... More>>

David Swanson: Harry Truman And Memory Of Mass Murder
Harry Truman spoke in the U.S. Senate on June 23, 1941: 'If we see that Germany is winning,' he said, 'we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible.' More>>

Francis A. Boyle: The Criminality Of Nuclear Deterrence
The human race stands on the verge of nuclear self-extinction as a species, and with it will die most, if not all, forms of intelligent life on the planet earth. Any attempt to dispel the ideology of nuclearism and its attendant myth propounding the ... More>>

Ramzy Baroud: The Arab Turmoil: Where Do We Stand?
Seasons come and go, yet Arab countries are in ongoing turmoil. They called it an ‘Arab Spring’, but even if that ‘spring’ had ever existed in the shape and form that the media portrayed it to be, it never really lasted. It has now morphed ... More>>

The Westport Story, Part 2: The Pain Of "Uncertainty"
“There’s so much uncertainty out there for our town at the moment. This is why people are starting to speak up”. This sentiment – expressed by a letter writer to Westport newspaper The News on 19 June – was heard often during Scoop Amplifier’s visit to the township in that week
. More>>

ALSO:

• Denniston's "Caviar" Of Coal? - The Westport Story, part 3
• At the Crossroads in Coaltown - The Westport Story part 1
• Photo Albums Out-Link - The Westport Story as told by Scoop (Day One) - (Day 2) - (Day 3)
• YouTube Playlist Out-Link - The Westport Story as told by Scoop
• Environment West Coast - Letter to Forest & Bird
• Holcim - Holcim Invests in Cement Import Terminal

Binoy Kampmark: Finding Justifications: The NSA And Global Terror Alerts
Let us not get too worked up. Let us not even feel too conspiratorial. But is it coincidence that, after a series of exposures of such programs as PRISM, that a “global terror alert” has been announced? More>>

Christopher von Roy: A Snap Election In Aotearoa. It’s Time
It has happened before in this country. For far lesser crimes. Once in 1951, again in 1984 and most recently in 2002. According to the NZ constitution, it is the prime minister who mandates/calls for the snap election. Which is bizarre, especially when, ... More>>

Binoy Kampmark: Refugee Imperialism: Kevin Rudd And Dumping On The Pacific
The pro-refugee groups are milling about along Swanston Street, Melbourne, the arterial route of the city centre in what apparently qualifies as Australia’s “cultural” capital. The actions of protest took place over the weekend to respond to the first ... More>>

Ramzy Baroud: Hated In Egypt: How The Palestinian Bogeyman Resurfaced
When I left Gaza for the first time on my own, twenty some years ago, I was warned of a notorious officer who headed Egypt’s State Security Intelligence at the Rafah border. He “hates Palestinians,” I was told. More>>

Binoy Kampmark: Awaiting Judgment: The Manning Trial Rests
The farce is done, and one might say that the farce has ended – at least for now. An interregnum of unclear and sinister stupidity has descended in Fort Meade, Maryland. Certainly, Rabelais would express considerable disgust at the folly that has been ... More>>

Anton Oliver: The Gutting Of The RMA ... The Heart Of Kiwi Values
During my professional playing days as an All Black I was fortunate to travel extensively around the world. The more I got to see, the greater my appreciation of how beautiful and unique New Zealand was, and how fortunate I was to call it my home. More>>

Ramzy Baroud: Netanyahu, Abbas To Resume ‘Peace Process’ That Never Was
The political peddlers, think-tank experts and media professionals are all back in full force. They want us to believe that US Secretary of State John Kerry has done what others have failed to do. On his sixth trip to the Middle East during his post, ... More>>

Stephen Howes: Rampaging Soldiers In Moresby: Implications For Rudd’s PNG Solution
On Sunday 14 July, the day Prime Minister Rudd arrived in PNG, two truckloads of rampaging soldiers attacked medical students at the University of PNG medical school, firing weapons, holding knives to their throats and causing injury and widespread ... More>>

Ray McGovern: Gen. Hayden's Snow Job On Snowden
Official Washington’s national security/mainstream media incest was on scandalous display when ex-NSA chief Michael Hayden posed as a CNN analyst to denounce Edward Snowden for exposing surveillance excesses that Hayden had a hand in creating. More>>

Binoy Kampmark: Catching WikiLeaks: Australian Diplomats & The Manning Trial
With the Australian election stuttering towards its hideous climax (we hope with a hideousness moderated by the effects of smaller parties), it is worth noting what has been happening in terms of perceptions of the Manning trial. More>>

Franklin Lamb: Caving To White House Pressure - EU Vote On Hezbollah
It was reportedly a hectic and intense past weekend in Washington and London according to an emailed report from a Capitol Hill source, as the Obama and Cameron administrations tracked down and button-holed the leaders of the 28 European Union delegations gathering ... More>>

Rabbi Michael Lerner: Trayvon Martin: A Jewish Response
The acquittal by jury of Goerge Zimmerman who shot and murdered the unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin was emblematic of the consistent racism and double standard used in the treatment of minority groups or those deemed “Other” in the U.S. and around the world. More>>

Ben Jealous: This Is The Moment For Action On Climate Change
President Obama kicked off the summer with a high-profile environmental speech at Georgetown University. He put forth a plan to limit carbon emissions for coal-fired power plants, and called for America to double renewable energy sources. As the details of this plan emerge, it is important to remember who is most affected by coal pollution: low-income communities and communities of color. More>>

Ramzy Baroud: ElBaradei’s Democracy: How Egypt’s 'Revolution' Betrayed Itself
“The revolution is dead. Long live the revolution,” wrote Eric Walberg, a Middle East political expert and author, shortly after the Egyptian military overthrew the country’s democratically elected President Mohammed Morsi on July 3. But more accurately, the revolution was killed in an agonizingly slow death, and the murders were too many to count. More>>

ALSO:

• Binoy Kampmark - The Revolution Shall be Cannibalised: Egypt and Transitional Government

Binoy Kampmark: Empire Of Paper: Frustrating Snowden’s Asylum Bid
In its struggle against whistleblowers, the United States has exerted a variegated form of power, one that focuses on documents and an anaemic reading of the law. The international relations canon searches desperately for what that might be. In the classically obtuse language pursued by the IR troupe, it might be deemed “soft power” – there is no military force, though... More>>

The Chevron Pit: Chevron Setback In Ecuador Case - Court Freezes $96M In Assets
That Fourth of July party at Chevron’s headquarters must have been a real dud. Just before the holiday, news quietly surfaced in Latin America that $96 million in Chevron assets have been frozen in Ecuador at the behest of the indigenous and farmer communities who hold a judgment against the company. More>>

Selpius Bobii: Papua, Victim Of A Conspiracy Of Interests
West Papua is becoming increasingly well known overseas these days, but for the wrong reasons! Papua has for years been made a victim of a range of ‘conspiracies of interest’. These conspiracies are indeed thriving in Papua at the local, national and international levels. Yet whether at the biggest end of the scale or the smallest, they are all the result of the same thing, an incredible power of attraction to Papua’s natural resources. More>>

Michael Collins: Happy Independents Day – July 4, 2013
We’ve had many years of celebrating Independence so this year, let’s include a recognition of the outstanding tradition of political independents that provide so much to this country. Here are some key independents from my perspective. More>>

Jacquie Clarke: Auckland Water-Based Design: The Path Of Least Resilience
The bright purple waterway in an industrial creek of the upper Manukau Harbour is not a photoshop image. It’s the scene of an accidental dye spill. And though I’m currently living in France I’m wondering if the white bleached trunks of the mangroves that crowd into the bay on the edge of my garden in Titirangi in Auckland, are about to change colour. More>>

Dr. Muhammad Aslam Khan: Will The Black Sea Blow Up?
The urgency with which Russian President, Vladimir Putin ordered his Black Sea fleet out from the harbour to conduct naval manoeuvres early morning, on 28 March 2013, sent a shudder down the spines of neighbours’ militaries. More>>

Abukar Arman: Somalia: Reconciliation…One More Time!
Ironic as it may seem, it is a statement of controversy to assert that a genuine national reconciliation is needed in Somalia. To some, that has already happened; to others, there is no need for it since the country has emerged out of the transitional period and the current government is the officially recognized representative of the state; yet, to others, now is the time for genuine national reconciliation. More>>

Auckland Transport Blog: Funding The Government's Auckland Roading Splurge
We can debate the merits – or lack of them – of the transport projects announced last week till the cows come home but one thing is certain. If they are all to go ahead then we will need to sort out is how we are going to fund them. Due to the way our transport funding system is set up there are some quite key differences between the projects... More>>

ALSO:

• The Value of Time
• 3 cents a litre, y’all

Binoy Kampmark: The Mask Of Intolerance: Homeless Industries In San Francisco
It is a condition that the United States has given a particular meaning to. From being the light on the hill for liberty, the American vision has become a case of survival on the streets. Homeownership, even renting, is a privilege. Welfare is set for the chop. Food stamp recipients have been branded creatures of indulgent ill-fare. The homeless are being rounded upon. More>>

Harvey Wasserman: Obama, Mandela And Leonard Peltier
Barack Obama has taken his two daughters on a dramatic visit to the Robben Island cell once occupied by Nelson Mandela. Let's hope he takes them next to the one now occupied by Leonard Peltier. Mandela was famously held by the apartheid South African government for 27 years. He became a global symbol... More>>

Binoy Kampmark: Ruddstoration And The Refugees: The Ancient Regime Returns
They are at it again. The not so ancient regime which was the previous ancient regime has promised that refugees heading to Australia will be given their fair share of rough treatment. In case you weren’t looking at the latest bloodied news, Australia’s restored Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has decided that refugees are a matter of law and order rather than human rights per se. More>>

Firouz Mahvi: Rohani And The Future Of Reform In Iran
With the recent emergence of cleric Hassan Rohani, following the presidential elections in Iran, much has been made about the prospects for change in the country. To analyse the future of reform and Rohani's role as a "moderate", it is worth refreshing our memories about how the political system works in the theocracy. More>>

William Rivers Pitt: He Can Marry, She Can't Vote: Another Day In Deranged America
On Wednesday morning, two surprising rulings from a conservative-leaning Supreme Court sent the legal justifications for America's anti-gay apartheid into a death spiral from which it will not recover. The Court's 5-4 ruling on California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage did not name the proposition unconstitutional, but instead... More>>

Ramzy Baroud: From Tahrir To Taksim: West Reserves Right To Interfere
The distance between Cairo’s Tahrir Square and Istanbul’s Taksim Square is impossibly long. There can be no roadmap sufficient enough to use the popular experience of the first in order to explicate the circumstances that lead to the other. More>>

Papuan Freedom Political Prisoners: The Standpoint Of Papuan Freedom Political Prisoners
The Papuan Freedom Political Prisoners in the Abepura State Prison of West Papua have received reports that certain printed and electronic news media reports from both within the Papuan nation and overseas have deviated from our statement on 23 May 2013 in rejection of the Indonesian President’s offer of clemency as published in the Cenderawasih Post on 23 May 2013. More>>