By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jul 31 2014 (IPS) – A key committee of the World Bank’s governing board Wednesday spurned appeals to revise a draft policy statement that, according to nearly 100 civil-society groups, risks rolling back several decades of reforms designed to protect indigenous populations, the poor and sensitive ecosystems.
By Salman Elbedour**
We arrived to Laquia a month ago. Our village was hit 9 times by rockets from Gaza, two kids were severely hurt and hospitalized, another Bedouin was killed in nearby village.
The situation is so tense and we can’t sleep far away from the bomb shelter and in the day time we are all running when the sirens come on. As you know my family and I have been through these wars since 1948 but this is one of the worst wars so far that I have direct or indirectly experienced.
Submitted by George Washington
Nouriel Roubini, Kyle Bass, Hugo Salinas Price, Charles Nenner, James Dines, Jim Rogers, David Stockman, Marc Faber, Jim Rickards, Paul Craig Roberts, Martin Armstrong, Larry Edelson, Gerald Celente and Others Warn of Wider War, Paul Craig Roberts – former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, former editor of the Wall Street Journal, listed by Who’s Who in America as one of the 1,000 most influential political thinkers in the world, PhD economist – wrote an article yesterday about the build up of hostilities between the U.S. and Russia titled, simply: “War Is Coming”.
Brahma Chellaney* – The Hindu
If Libya, Syria and Iraq are coming undone and Ukraine has been gravely destabilised, it is the result of interventionsby big powers that claim to be international law enforcers when, in reality, they are lawbreakers
The Editors – The Nation
As world leaders fail to end the bloodletting in Gaza, it is up to civil society to demand justice for Palestinians.
More than three weeks after Israel launched its latest assault on the Gaza Strip, and with no durable truce on the horizon, the situation in Israel/Palestine has descended into new and uncharted horrors. What began as a brute incursion by Israel, accompanied by a hail of Hamas rockets, has exploded into something shockingly worse: a bloodletting that, as The Nation went to press, had killed more than 1,200 Palestinians and fifty-six Israelis and pummeled Gaza into a landscape of human despair. Meanwhile in the West Bank, where thousands of Palestinians have poured into the streets for the largest protests in years, Israeli soldiers have responded with live ammunition; ten Palestinians were killed in a four-day period. And in Israel, where an empowered far right is ascendant, nationalist mobs have attacked Palestinian and Jewish antiwar protesters on several occasions.
Alec Luhn – The Guardian
Russian officials say focus will shift to domestic market production, but analysts say defence and oil industries will suffer
Moscow.As the US and the European Union adopted tougher economic sanctions against Russia over the conflict in eastern Ukraine and downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, Russian officials struck a defiant note, promising that Russia would localise production and emerge stronger than before. But analysts in sectors that could be affected by the sanctions – finance, defence and energy – predicted that they would suffer in isolation from the west.
By Emile Nakhleh*
WASHINGTON, Jul 29 2014 (IPS) – As the killing and destruction rages on in Gaza, and as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas leadership exchange recriminations and threats, key regional and world players must accept a central truism: No peace can be achieved between Israel and the Palestinians without including Hamas. The quicker they internalise this fact, the faster the cycle of violence can be broken.
By Geneviève Lavoie-Mathieu
ROME, Jul 29 2014 (IPS) – With Italy having taken over presidency of the European Union (EU) until December 2014, questions remain regarding Europe’s migration policies as reports of migrants dying at sea while trying to reach Italy regularly make the headlines.
Mohammed Suliman* – The Huffington Post
Gaza is a tough place; it’s tiny, overcrowded and besieged. But the people are kind. The food is delicious, and the beach, though filthy, allows us to pretend that we’re free. The sunset at sea is a spectacular scene, despite the Israeli warships dotting the landscape. Take a stroll down the street, and you’ll meet vendors, mostly young children hawking their wares. Take a taxi, and by the time you get off, you’ll be exchanging phone numbers with your newest friend, the taxi driver.
By Shyam Saran*
NEW DELHI, Jul 2014 (IPS) – The sixth BRICS Summit which has just ended in Brazil marks the transition of a grouping based hitherto on shared concerns to one based on shared interests.
By MICHAEL INZLICHT and SUKHVINDER OBHI* – SundayReview, The New York Times
I FEEL your pain.
These words are famously associated with Bill Clinton, who as a politician seemed to ooze empathy. A skeptic might wonder, though, whether he truly was personally distressed by the suffering of average Americans. Can people in high positions of power — presidents, bosses, celebrities, even dominant spouses — easily empathize with those beneath them?
Sharif Abdel Kouddous* – The Nation
Survivors of the Attack on UNRWA School Report Scenes of Carnage and Destruction
At least sixteen Palestinian refugees seeking shelter were killed, more than 200 were wounded.
Khan Younis and Beit Lahia, Gaza—Hussein Shinbari is the only member of his family that survived the attack on a United Nations school in Beit Hanoun on Thursday. He is covered in blood. His undershirt, his pants and his hands are all stained a deep red.
By Chakravarthi Raghavan
GENEVA, Jul 2014 (IPS) – The world of today is considerably different from the one at the end of the Second World War; there are no more any colonies, though there are still some ‘dependent’ territories.
By Peter Lee*
The bloody farce in the Ukraine took another ugly turn with the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
And to be ugly about it, if the rebels shot the plane down, it shouldn’t matter very much except as a horrible and unexpected catastrophe in a war zone and an overwhelming tragedy to the survivors of the victims on board. Call it an accident, collateral damage, manslaughter, there is no credible version of events in which it was intentional mass murder or terrorism, either by the rebels or Russian technicians that, according to the Ukrainian government, possessed the ability to operate the elderly but complex anti-aircraft systems fingered in the attack.
Connie Hackbarth – Alternative Information Center(AIC), Jerusalén
Dr. Mordechai Kedar, an Israeli scholar of Arabic literature and lecturer at Bar-Ilan University, declared Monday that raping the wives and mothers of Palestinian combatants would deter attacks.
Tom Hayden – The Nation
To understand the present crisis over downed Malaysian flight MH17, we need to look at the roots of the new Cold War.
The Cold War is perhaps not even remembered by this generation of Americans, beyond dim and distorted traces. Yes, the power alignments in the world have shifted, for example, by the rise of the BRICS and their opposition to Western finance capital. And yes, the rise of China offsets the demise of the old Soviet Union. The Vatican is no longer battling “godless communism.” Communism itself is a spent force.
By Julia Hotz
WASHINGTON, Jul 23 2014 (IPS) – As Tuesday’s major summits here and in London focused global attention on adolescent girls, the United Nations offered new data warning that more than 130 million girls and women have experienced some form of female genital mutilation, while more than 700 million women alive today were forced into marriage as children.
Harriet Sherwood – The Guardian
IDF says it has destroyed 30%-40% of militant rockets and six tunnel shafts; Hamas has killed 29 soldiers and disrupted flights
After more than two weeks of intense fighting in Gaza, both Hamas and Israel have racked up significant military achievements, albeit at the cost of hundreds of lives.
By Shada Islam*
BRUSSELS, Jul 2014 (IPS) – Hopes are high that the 10th Asia-Europe Meeting – or ASEM summit – to be held in Milan on October 16-17 will confirm the credibility and relevance of Asia-Europe relations in the 21st century.
By Pepe Escobar – Asia Times
And here’s the spin war verdict: the current Malaysia Airlines tragedy – the second in four months – is “terrorism” perpetrated by “pro-Russian separatists”, armed by Russia, and Vladimir Putin is the main culprit. End of story. Anyone who believes otherwise, shut up.