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Democracy breaks out at the UN as 122 nations vote to ban the bomb

We are witnessing a striking shift in the global paradigm of how the world views nuclear weapons. On July 7, 2017, at a UN Conference mandated by the UN General Assembly to negotiate a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons, the…

The decline and fall of a neoliberal sacred cow

When Team Corbyn dared introduce in the UK Labour Party Manifesto a “Tax the Rich” proposal many held their breath, and were more than a little surprised that not only it did not send people into an anti-pinko frenzy but…

A despot in disguise: one man’s mission to rip up democracy

By George Monbiot for The Guardian James McGill Buchanan’s vision of totalitarian capitalism has infected public policy in the US. Now it’s being exported. It’s the missing chapter: a key to understanding the politics of the past half century. To…

Ethics of Not Ruining Everything

Today I listened to the audio book of Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationship With Animals by Lori Gruen while reading the hardcopy of From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds by Daniel Dennett. As…

The US Empire, The CIA, And The NGOs

By Dr Ludwig Watzal The Ancient Greeks knew: “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” No less a figure than the late Zbigniew Brzezinski and the CIA made…

Top Gov’t Ethics Watchdog: U.S. is “Close to Laughingstock”

The director of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub Jr., says the Trump administration has so undermined ethical standards that the United States is “pretty close to a laughingstock at this point.” Shaub is resigning today. He’s been critical…

Halting Sexual Exploitation of Children in Tourism, Mission Impossible

By Baher Kamal While the business sector jumps for joy as the number of tourists grew in 2016 for the seventh consecutive year to reach 1.2 billion, and as the first four months of 2017 have registered 6 per cent…

Not Just Numbers: Migrants Tell Their Stories

By Baher Kamal Every single day, print and online media and TV broadcasters show images and footage of migrants and refugees adrift, salvage teams rescuing their corpses–alive or dead, from fragile boats that are often deliberately sunk by human traffickers…

Liu Xiaobo And Liu Xia: A Love That Survived Incredible Odds

By Zeenat Khan A photo shared on Twitter by activist Ye Du was inserted in arecent front-page story in the New York Times. The skeletal like couple (Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia) clinging onto one another will break any heart.…

Enforced disappearances continue in Pakistan

Pakistani officials answered to the UN Commission on Human Rights over forced abductions carried out by the military and intelligence services. It is the first time that United Nations authorities review Pakistan’s policies on human and civil rights. In the…

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