Jose Padilla, originally detained for an alleged "dirty bomb" plot, is now being accused of conspiring to blow up apartment buildings with natural gas. Padilla, a New York-born American citizen, has been held since May 2002 without being charged. He was forbidden to...
Hospitality and Hunger in Baghdad
A friend recently asked me to write some about how Iraqis are getting by in regards to feeding themselves amidst 60% unemployment, the fuel crisis, and the already terrible security situation that continues to degrade. The increased number of women and children...
Israeli Politician Lets the Truth Slip
Sometimes a person "buys his world in one moment," as the ancient Hebrew saying goes. This was done by the Minister of Justice, Yosef ("Tommy") Lapid, when he uttered the words: "This old woman reminds me of my grandmother!" This old woman, an inhabitant of the Rafah...
More Money for Mercenaries
In what has increasingly become an outsourced war, the Coalition Provisional Authority has just added half a billion dollars to the amount being spent on private security contractors. The role of such mercenaries has taken on new dimensions in Iraq. Heavily-armed...
Preemption: Back to Osirak
In case you have not noticed, the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal has continued to justify its ardent support for the preemptive war against Iraq even though no weapons of mass destruction have been found and no links between Saddam and al-Qaeda have been...
Freedom vs. Security: A False Choice
In recent days administration officials have warned the nation about possible terrorist attacks, subjecting us once again to color-coded threat charts and puzzling admonitions to go about our lives as usual. The message is clear: grave danger surrounds us, but...
Help Support Dahr Jamail for Another 5 Weeks of Courageous Reporting
After nearly two months of generating some of the most compelling journalism to come out of Iraq this year, NewStandard correspondent Dahr Jamail has decided to stay on through the June 30 "handover" of partial sovereignty, adding more than a month to his work in Iraq...
Medieval Theocracy vs. Market Socialism
Beijing's main aim with the release of the white paper on Tibet entitled "Regional Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet" was to make the parameters of any future talks extremely clear to all Tibetans, especially the Dalai Lama. What the white paper also did was define the two...
Ghazi al-Yawar on Iraqi Politics
Some flavor of the new president can be gathered from this recent FNS interview. Federal News Service May 27, 2004 (Note: The following was translated from Arabic) QUESTION: Would you be willing to intervene personally in trying to stop the fighting at Annajaf al...
Venezuela Opposition Upbeat about Last Phase of Recall Effort
by Humberto Márquez CARACAS (IPS) – The opposition movement in Venezuela assumed a triumphalist attitude Monday while President Hugo Chávez's supporters urged people to wait for the final results of the last phase of the signature-gathering effort...