Marwaan Macan-Markar BANGKOK, Oct 31 (IPS) – The recent arrest of 91 North Korean defectors in Thailand’s northernmost province of Chiang Rai has brought into relief the conditions driving such flight: hunger and growing food shortages, according to humanitarian agencies.
Eric Holt-Gimenez Just weeks before the elections, Congress is unable to agree on legislation regarding the nation’s 12 million undocumented immigrants. Legislators are at loggerheads over such disparate proposals as conditional legalization, guest-worker programs and massive deportations. In a sad… Continue Reading
Toye Olori LAGOS, Oct 30 (IPS) – It’s certainly a logical suggestion: in an effort to make cocoa-producing countries in Africa less dependent on consumers abroad, why not increase domestic consumption of cocoa products?
Roger Burbach Luis Inácio “Lula†da Silva’s resounding electoral victory with over 60 percent of the vote places Brazilian politics on a new footing. While many on the left remain critical of Lula for the limited reforms of his first… Continue Reading
Stephen Zunes | October 2006 Editor: John Feffer, IRC Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org It has become a given, even among many progressive critics of Bush administration policy, that while the U.S. war on Iraq was illegal, immoral, unnecessary, poorly… Continue Reading
Moyiga Nduru JOHANNESBURG, Oct (IPS) – Various African researchers and civil society groups have given a mixed response to the launch of a five-million-dollar prize for African leaders who relinquish power and promote good governance.
Petar Hadji-Ristic BERLIN, Oct 26 (IPS) – Some Europeans still need persuading about arguments for abolishing the death penalty — even though the continent is now virtually a “death penalty-free zone”, says the Council of Europe’s Secretary General Terry Davis.
Conn Hallinan | October 2006 Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco, IPS Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org There are times when the tensions between Venezuela and the Bush Administration seem closer to Commedia dell’arte than politics. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez compares President… Continue Reading
Stephen Zunes | October 2006 Editor: John Feffer, IRC Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org On the fifth anniversary of the launch of the U.S.-led war against Afghanistan, the Taliban is on the offensive, much of the countryside is in the… Continue Reading
Jim Lobe WASHINGTON, Oct (IPS) – Increasingly disillusioned with more than five years of the “global war on terror”, Arab- and Muslim-American voters are poised to vote heavily Democratic in the Nov. 7 mid-term elections, according to two polls released… Continue Reading
Leonardo Boff Theologian Earthcharter Commission It was was not Geraldo Alckmin who thwarted Lula’s victory in Brazil’s recent Presidential election, but the President’s own political party, PT. The mean audacity of its high leadership spoiled the victory that was almost… Continue Reading
Diego Cevallos MEXICO CITY, Oct (IPS) – The political divisions between governments in Latin America and the Caribbean have so far frustrated the process of electing one of their number to a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
By DON MONKERUD * When the US Army advertises for recruits, it emphasizes jobs and benefits the Army offers, but nowhere are prospects informed about the risk of illness, sickness and death caused by the Army’s use of radioactive munitions.
Haider Rizvi UNITED NATIONS, Oct (IPS) – While widely deplored by the world community, North Korea’s recent nuclear test has also prompted fresh calls for the major powers to get serious about dismantling their own weapons of mass destruction.
Michael T. Klare | October 2006 Editor: John Feffer, IRC Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org The common wisdom circulating in Washington these days is that the United States is too bogged down in Iraq to consider risky military action against… Continue Reading
Ali Al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail BAGHDAD, Oct 19 (IPS) – Death squads from the Ministry of Interior posing as Iraqi police are killing more people than ever in the capital, emerging evidence shows. The death toll is high – in… Continue Reading
Haider Rizvi UNITED NATIONS, Oct (IPS) – The Israeli war against Lebanon was over soon after the United Nations brokered a ceasefire agreement last August. But while that may be true for outsiders, is not for the Lebanese.
Leonardo Boff Theologian Earthcharter Commission President Lula’s first-round victory is loaded with questions and insecurities. How to continue? What type of government is possible? The doubt is due in large part to the political stupidity and irrational strategy of the… Continue Reading
Analysis by Jim Lobe WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (IPS) – If Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki were inclined to bet his life on President George W. Bush’s latest assurances that there will be no timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from… Continue Reading
by RICHARD FALK, MARY KALDOR, RANDALL CAROLINE FORSBERG & GEORGE PERKOVICH The Reykjavik Summit in October 1986 will long be remembered because the leaders of the world’s two superpowers, Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, seriously entertained for one brief moment… Continue Reading
