By ANTHONY DiMAGGIO - March 17, 2010

It’s worth reflecting upon why Democrats consider universal health care to be beyond reach...[U]niversal health care programs such as Medicare are widely popular among a majority of the public. Primary opposition comes...from political officials and corporate America...[which] views progressive taxation in the name of universal health care as an unfair burden on the wealthy. It is this group that has led a successful media coup to convince a growing number of the middle class to oppose reform.

By Rafeef Ziadah - Znet

As a Palestinian refugee, the city of Toronto has always been a place of exile to me...However, following the publication of a recent report by [a] prominent Israeli think-tank [which called Toronto a “hub of Israel delegitimization”]...I felt some pride for my adopted city...The report confirmed to those of us involved in the [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement that our work was not in vain.

By Jonathan Cook - February 24, 2010

The Israeli government and its right-wing supporters have been waging a “McCarthyite” campaign against human-rights groups by blaming them for the barrage of international criticism that has followed Israel’s attack on Gaza a year ago...[T]he cabinet backed a bill last week that, if passed, will jail senior officials from the country’s peace-related organisations should they fail to meet tough new registration conditions.

By Hélène Buzzetti - Le Devoir

The Bloc Quebecois decided yesterday to withdraw from the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism because it judges it "biased" in favor of Israel and against the Palestinians..."We consider that the Coalition is tainted, partisan and presents a single side of the coin. We desired a much more moderate approach, more consensual, and still with the outlook to find peace."

Our guest will be the legendary human rights activist, Yuri Kochiyama, who lived in Harlem for 40 years and worked with Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik el Shabazz). Although no official holiday honors Malcolm's birthday, May 19 has become a traditional day of celebration in the Black and progressive communities.

By Boris Kagarlitsky - March 13, 2010

The [Russian] Duma has passed another law that will deliver a big blow to culture, education and public health. The struggle against those sectors has been going on for years, but it appears that this time the deputies are determined to finish them off for good. The law clearly demonstrates the intention of the state to release itself from any remaining social responsibility that it still has toward the people...If the law goes into force, most educational and public health institutions will be removed from the federal budget as of Jan. 1, 2011.

By Jerome Slater - March 13, 2010

The prospects for a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have never been worse...[T]he Obama administration has essentially surrendered. We may be winning the battle for the hearts and minds of a small minority, but we are still losing the much more important battle: to persuade the dominant majority in both the U.S. and Israel of the need for radical changes in Israeli attitudes and behavior towards the Palestinians.

March 12, 2010

Independent Jewish Voices (IJV)...welcomes yesterday's defeat of MP Tim Uppal's House of Commons motion condemning Israeli Apartheid Week..."This shows courage to stand up to the Orwellian attempts by Israel's supporters to bully Israel's critics into silence..."

By Gideon Levy - 07/03/2010

There have been societies in the past in whose name frightful injustice has been committed, but at least within some of them, genuine, angry and determined left-wing protest took place - of the sort that requires personal risk and courage, and which is not limited to action within the cozy consensus. An occupying society whose town square has been empty for years, with the exception of hollow memorial rallies and poorly attended protests, cannot wash its hands of the situation.

The banking crisis was not cataclysmic; the financing bubbles that caused it had been developing for many years. So where were the banks’ auditors? Why were bank financial statements showing high levels of profitability right up to the point of the financial collapse? What went wrong with the audit of these banks? Could it have had something to do with excessive standardization? Less than a decade after Arthur Andersen, has the CA profession learnt anything?

Water is life, not a commodity.

"Mr Boncore had reasonable grounds to attempt to do what he said to the police he wanted to do," Davison told provincial court Judge Manfred Delong, "and that was to carry out a citizen's arrest of George W Bush," the lawyer said.

By Paul Street - December 2009

The profit system's smarter defenders grasp the need to demonstrate openness to the worries and anger of the populace...To keep the business order intact...Obama needed to occasionally rebuke (and perhaps even mildly half-"regulate") the nation's financial overlords.

By CBC News - March 5, 2010

Federal government documents on Afghan detainees suggest that Canadian officials intended some prisoners to be tortured in order to gather intelligence, according to a legal expert..."[W]hat [the documents] will show is that Canada partnered deliberately with the torturers in Afghanistan for the interrogation of detainees..."