By URI AVNERY - July 19/20, 2008

On Wednesday, [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah became the most important and powerful person in Lebanon. Three months after the crisis that almost caused a civil war, when [Lebanese] Prime Minister Fuad Siniora demanded that Hezbollah turn over its private communication network, Lebanon has become a unified country. Demands like the disarming of Hezbollah have become a pipe dream. Lebanon is also united in the demand for the liberation of the Shebaa farms [from Israel] and for the delivery by Israel of the maps of minefields and the deadly cluster bombs left by [Israel's] army after the second Lebanon war.

By Derrick O'Keefe - July 19, 2008

I find it refreshing and hopeful that there can still be popular oppositional campaigns that actually call things by their right names. Faced with an in-your-face capitalist as president, the French people have picked an in-your-face anti-capitalist as their favourite politician from the opposition camp.

by Joseph Massad - 16 May 2008

One of the most difficult things to grasp in the modern history of Palestine and the Palestinians is the meaning of the Nakba (catastrophe). Is the Nakba to be seen as a discrete event that took place and ended in 1948, or is it something else?...What are the effects of making the Nakba a finite historical episode that one bemoans but must ultimately accept as a fact of history?...[T]he Nakba is none of these things, and the attempt to make this year the 60th anniversary of the Nakba's life and death is a grave error. The Nakba is...much older than 60 years and it is still with us, pulsating with life and coursing through history by piling up more calamities upon the Palestinian people.

America's darkest hour under George W. Bush.

By Amos Schocken - July, 16 2008

The claim that there are characteristics of an apartheid state in Israel is widely heard in the Western world. The word apartheid is catchy and understood in many parts of the world, which makes it useful to send a message that [Israeli's] resent and which we claim has no connection with reality in Israel. However, we do not need to replicate exactly the characteristics of South African apartheid within discriminatory practices in civil rights in Israel in order to call Israel an apartheid state. The amendment to the Citizenship Law is exactly such a practice, and it is best that we not try to evade the truth: Its existence in our law books turns Israel into an apartheid state.

Veteran Israeli peace activist, journalist and author Uri Avnery weighs in on the debate over whether a U.S./Israel attack on Iran is imminent.

By KEVIN ALEXANDER GRAY - July 11, 2008

Just as Bill Clinton during his 1992 campaign tried to reassure whites that he wasn't too cozy with blacks by denouncing a rapper, Obama [is] appealing to whites by condemning his own...Obama’s "bash the black man" game...passes on one of the lowest of all the smears and stereotypes: the lie that black men have no morals. It reinforces the white supremacists’ notion of blacks as irresponsible, overly sexual beasts; a notion that far too many black folk as well as white unwittingly buy into.

by John Pilger - 25 June 2008

In [this] latest column...John Pilger describes another Britain: "a vicious, sectarian and mostly unreported war" against Muslims. People snatched from their homes following 9/11 are consigned to a Kafkaesque oblivion, and worse.

CBC News - Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Christopher Hitchens, a Washington-based journalist known for his support of the Iraq war and the U.S. war on terror, has subjected himself to waterboarding...The experience left Hitchens with no doubts. The August issue of Vanity Fair will carry his article titled "Believe Me, It's Torture."

By Mike Whitney - 14/06/08

Ireland delivered a knockout punch to European elites and corporatists and shattered their plan for a...[European Union] Superstate. The so-called Lisbon Treaty was nothing more than a repackaging of the European Constitution that was defeated by French and Dutch voters in 2005. The treaty was loaded with the typical "democratic" gobbledygook to conceal the vicious neoliberal policies at its heart. If it had passed, the treaty would have paved the way for greater privatization of public services, diminished workers rights, less state control over trade policies and civil liberties, and an aggressive plan to militarize Europe.

By Peter Tatchell - July 05, 2008

In another bizarre twist to Washington's often illegal, irrational 'war on terror,' peaceful, lawful human rights campaigners are now apparently being refused entry to the US -- without any right of appeal...Noordin Mengal, a British citizen and Baluch human rights defender, was detained and deported by US immigration when he arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport from Dubai last week.

By URI AVNERY - June 9, 2008

"...[W]hat was the first thing [Barack Obama] did after his astounding victory? He ran to the conference of the Israel lobby, AIPAC, and made a speech that broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning...That is shocking enough. Even more shocking is the fact that nobody was shocked."

Alberta Heavy Crude to be World’s cleanest production

By Mark Smyth Monday, June 30, 2008

For those who were not aware of the joint statement from the 76TH ANNUAL U.S. CONFERENCE OF MAYORS in Miami this past week, to boycott Canadian gasoline made from oil sands heavy crude, pay very close attention.

by Seymour M. Hersh - Sunday, June 29, 2008

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq...since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation (read torture - MW), and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran...have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials.