By Dom Phillips – The Guardian Executive order transfers regulation and creation of indigenous reserves to agriculture ministry controlled by agribusiness lobby Hours after taking office, Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, has launched an assault on environmental and Amazon…
Robert Reich*, Opinion – Newsweek After his first bizarre year, his apologists told us Donald Trump was growing into the job and that in his second year he’d be more restrained and respectful of democratic institutions. He’s been worse.
Burrowes* In many ways it is painful to reflect on the year 2018; a year of vital opportunities lost when so much is at stake. Whether politically, militarily, socially, economically, financially or ecologically, humanity took some giant strides backwards while passing up…
Opinion of Robert Reich* – Newsweek Trump said Friday “we are totally prepared for a very long shut down.” It was one of his rare uses of the pronoun “we” instead of his preferred—and in this case far more appropriate—“I.” The shutdown is indubitably his. Congress offered him a…
Editorial Any hopes that the US political system would be able to work around a destructive president look foolish now. Expect more direct confrontations in the new year At first sight, Donald Trump’s presidency might seem to prove that, in the end, people can get used to…
By Tyler Durden* – Zero Hedge The diplomatic crisis ignited by the killing of Jamal Khashoggi has largely subsided, and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s grip on power is, if anything, even stronger than it was before (having faced down incipient challenges from one of his…
Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers (*) – Truthdig The Pentagon’s own numbers show that it can’t account for $21 trillion. Yes, I mean trillion with a “T.” And this could change everything. But I’ll get back to that in a moment. There are certain things the human mind is not meant…
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Dec 19 2018 (IPS) – The UN’s major donors – led by the United States – have long been accused of influence-peddling and misusing their financial clout not only to grab some of the high ranking jobs in the world body but also threaten funding cuts…
By Jomo Kwame Sundaram (*) and Anis Chowdhury KUALA LUMPUR & SYDNEY, Dec 18 2018 (IPS) – The notion of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and later, South Africa) was concocted by Goldman Sachs’ Jim O’Neill. His 2001 acronym was initially seen as a timely, if not…
Of Cockroaches and Humans By Roberto Savio* Rita Levi-Montalcini, the Italian Nobel laureate honoured for her work in neurobiology, once gave a splendid conference with the title “The imperfect brain”. There she explained that man has a brain that is not used completely, while…
