Philadelphia Police Beating Caught on Video, Causes Controversy

Sharpton: Philly Beating 'Worse Than Rodney King'

U.S. is Promoting Secession in Bolivia, Repeating Venezuela Effort
Having avoided any meaningful coverage of Bolivia since the election of Evo Morales in December, 2005, the international media is now obliged to play catch up. Yesterday, the Andean nation of 9.1 million held a crucial vote which could pave the way for secession of the resource-rich Santa Cruz region.

Venezuela Declares Solidarity with Bolivia's Government in Face of Separatist Effort

Gas jumps above $3.67, oil passes $126 on Venezuela concerns

Burma death toll 'could reach 1.5 million'

Mother's Day in Ciudad Juarez

Morales and the Red Ponchos
The Bolivian oligarchy has initiated its plan to balkanize the country. Traditionally, the oligarchy controlled the oil, natural gas, and the best farmland in Bolivia; and, for the most part, it has never indicated a desire to share the wealth with the nation's indigenous majority. That majority, 60 percent of the population, lives primarily in the Andean highlands of western Bolivia, although in recent decades, the Indians of those areas have begun moving down to the cities in search of jobs.

Yet Another Feather in the Cap of Hugo Chavez?
An image flashes across the screen of pretty young women. They're dressed in red T-shirts, wave a red flag, and run towards the camera. A voice intones, "Let us all participate in the great party of hope! Change is coming!" The image then shifts to a dapper young man with glasses who is thronged by enthusiastic crowds.

The Afghans of Gitmo

Polarizing Bolivia
A vote for autonomy in Santa Cruz, Bolivia was passed by approximately 82% of voters on Sunday, May 4th. The vote endorses a move by Santa Cruz to, among other things, gain more control of gas reserves in the area and resist the central government's break up of large land holdings. Clashes during the vote in Santa Cruz left 35 injured. One man died from asphyxiation due to tear gas fired by police forces. The vote and conflict marks a new phase in the polarization of Bolivia, and a new challenge for the region.

Team Clinton: Going Down Ugly

Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.

A Brief Exposé of a Fraudulent War
The "War on Terror" is a fraud and a façade, a mere label concocted and trumpeted by an Administration known for its signature dishonesty. The label conceals the Bush Administration's international crimes of unprovoked military aggression-the armed invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, two sovereign nations the Administration meant to attack from its first days in office.

People Can Handle the Truth About War

Why Big Media Needs Propaganda to Survive

Global Poverty: More Big Business Is Not the Solution

A Television Show That May Make You Sick

Mission accomplished?

At least 16 said dead in Missouri, Oklahoma tornadoes

Neocons and the truth: Bitter enemies to the end

100,000 could be dead in Burma, diplomat says

Aid agencies face battle to reach victims of the cyclone

Obama-Clinton Hilarious Math Update
It's reached a point that everyone has known for months it had to reach, the point at which even people paid to do so cannot keep it going with a straight face. On Tuesday, Senator Barack Obama picked up approximately 99 new pledged delegates from North Carolina and Indiana, while Senator Hillary Clinton picked up about 85. The final count may move a delegate or two, but these numbers are close enough for the following calculation.
Obama now has 1,592 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1,419. There are 217 delegates remaining to be pledged. Of those 217, Clinton would need to win 196 to beat Obama, or a victory of 90 percent to 10 percent. That's about as likely as Dick Cheney hitting 50 percent approval.

Amnesty Intl: Ethiopian troops commit atrocities in Somalia
In a new report, Amnesty International detailed chilling witness accounts of indiscriminate killings in the Horn of Africa country and called on the international community to stop the bloodshed.
Ethiopia's government said the report was unbalanced and "categorically wrong."
The London-based rights group said testimony it received suggested all parties to Somalia's conflict have committed war crimes. But it singled out Ethiopian troops, who are in the country to back Somalia's U.N.-sponsored government, for some of the worst violations.

Insurgents say US airstrike hit Somalia; US denies report

Large earthquake hits Japan

Obama's Clarifying Win: The Fly on the Wall Is the Wall

Why Media Fix on Wright and Ignore Hagee

As Executions Resume, So Do Questions of Fairness
The release of the third death row inmate in six months in North Carolina last week is raising fresh questions about whether states are supplying capital-murder defendants with adequate counsel, even as an execution on Tuesday night in Georgia ended a seven-month national suspension.
In all three cases, North Carolina appeals courts found that evidence that would have favored the defendants was withheld from defense lawyers by prosecutors or investigators. In two of the cases, including that of Levon Jones, who was released on Friday after 14 years on death row, the courts said the defendants' lawyers had failed to mount an adequate defense. Nationwide, Mr. Jones's release was the sixth in a year.

Junkie Nation

High Oil Prices for Obama and Clinton

Wright or Wrong: What's Going On?

Iron Man and the Merchants of Death
The phrase Merchants of Death takes center stage in the movie Iron Man, which is a spectacular expose of a subject that dominates the American economic landscape but about which Americans have very little knowledge. The phrase and the movie deal with the odd juxtaposition of capitalism and war as found in the weapons industry. Here we have innovations and efficiency of the type we associate with the private commercial sector but serving ends that are the very opposite of capitalism. The industry serves war, not peace, depends on coercion, not human volition, and profits from destruction, not creation.

Bush's Brain Speaks to Obama

A Monument to Stupidity

US Media Trivializes Campaign 2008

What Is It with Men and Torture?
Back in 2005 James Wolcott wrote of torture: "Women may take part -- though I imagine it's rare, and under duress -- but only men could devise the intricate and cruel tortures and torture devices that have been inflicted over the centuries."
This is one generalization about women that feminists let slide. Lynndie England of Abu Ghraib fame was a blip on torture's radar screen and women would like to keep it that way. But what infuses men with the urge to torture?

Oil jumps over $123 on drop in diesel, heating oil supplies

Poll results, Zimbabweans the winners

Presidential candidates set for a run off election

Self-determination is at root of conflict
With controversy in the western media about Zimbabwe, disputes about the outcome of March 29 voting for president, charges of against President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party, and calls from opposition leaders for western intervention, Final Call interviewed Zimbabwean Ambassador to the United States, Machinvenyika Tobia Mapuranga to discuss the political situation in Zimbabwe and issues facing the country.

Zimbabwe: More Than Complicity of Silence
Today Zimbabwe has taken a high profile place in corporate media headlines. Are we getting the truth this time and can we rely on the same progressives who broke through misinformation around Iraq to do the same for us again?

Expressions of imperialism within Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa on Friday denounced the US and Britain for their interference in Zimbabwe's elections. At the same time, he decried the Morgan Tsvangirai faction of the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T), and its civil society partner, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), as being part of a US and British program to reverse the gains of Zimbabwe's national liberation struggle.

Myanmar cyclone kills 10,000 people
The Myanmar government has said that the cyclone that struck the south-east Asian nation this weekend has killed 10,000 people.
The toll from Cyclone Nargis, which swept through Myanmar knocking out power and causing widespread flooding, might rise further as 4,000 people remain missing. Hundreds of thousands have been left homeless.

Oil passes $120, gas prices slip more than a cent

Why (?) The Wright Story Stuck...and will most likely continue to

The Dummies' Guide to Stupid Leaders and Misleading Numbers
In case you didn't know, the loss of 20,000 American jobs in April is actually good news. You see, economists had predicted 73,000 jobs would be lost last month, so thank God we dodged that bullet, right?!
In fact, the unemployment rate fell to 5.0% from 5.1% in March. Therefore, the unemployment rate is going down!! Surely, a .1% drop in the unemployment rate means America's determined locomotive is chugging toward the dawn of a new economic renaissance...right?

The Green Recession
Americans are feeling the pinch of stagflation. Going to the grocery store and to the gas station leaves consumers in a state of sticker-shock. Neighbors are losing their homes. Retailers, restaurants, and countless other businesses are closing their doors. Mass layoffs are being announced with alarming frequency. As inflation and joblessness spiral upward, the economy plunges to greater depths. Opinions abound as to why America’s economic ship is taking on water. Just as certainly as John McCain has personally witnessed global warming, I have ascertained the cause of America’s economic malaise. Indeed, in a moment of deep insight, I have discovered that our economy is sinking in direct proportion to the rise of the environmental movement. The greener Americans become, the further our economy falls.

How to live without money

The Pentagon vs. America
I recently heard from an anti-war student I met while I was speaking at a college in northern Vermont. The e-mail included the following query:
“I told you about how I wanted to build a career around social activism and making a difference. You told me that one of the most important things was to make myself reputable and give people a reason to listen to you. I think this is some of the best advice I’ve received. My issue however is that you mentioned joining the military as a way to do this and mentioned how that is how you fell into it. … We talked extensively about all of our criticisms of the military currently and our foreign policy. … What I don’t understand is, how can you [advise] someone who wants to make a difference with the flawed system, to join that flawed system?”

The Media, The Right and 1988: Endless Deja Vu

Bush Admits He Approved Torture

Rev. Wright, the CIA and the AIDS Thing

The Fed Sinks the Dollar
Against the recommendations of most economists and even the Financial Times of London, the Federal Reserve Board yesterday cut its discount rate by yet another quarter-point, to just 2%. Ostensibly, the intention is to try and spur economic “recovery” – as if a cut in the interest rates would do this. At first glance this seems to reflect the Fed’s ideology that manipulating the interest alone can expand or contract the economy – as if it is like a balloon, with its structure is pre-printed on it, to be inflated or deflated at will to control the level of activity.

US teenagers ruthlessly kill homeless just because they are not humans

Report: U.S. Not as 'Free' as Touted

Iraq Says No Hard Evidence of Iran Support For Militia

ocuments Confirm Psychologists Collaborated with “War on Terror” Torture Program

Iraq hospital 'damaged by US raid'