Jim Lobe

North Korea has been using food as an instrument of political and economic control, says a major new report by Amnesty International (AI). While the country has been unable to produce enough food for all of its citizens since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than 10 years ago, food supplies – from domestic … Continue reading “North Korea Executing Starving People for Stealing Food”

If hard-core neo-conservatives Richard Perle and David Frum had their way, the Bush administration would be issuing ultimatums on virtually a daily basis. In their new book, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, Perle, the well-connected former chairman of the Defense Policy Board (DPB), and Frum, a former White House … Continue reading “Neocons’ Manual for Global Warmongering”

Political power plays at the just-concluded assembly to write a new constitution for Afghanistan raise serious question about whether the country can hold free and fair elections as scheduled later this year, say rights groups and other experts. While praising the inclusion of women’s rights in the new charter, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) … Continue reading “Power Plays Over Constitution Threaten Afghan Elections”

The news was not good for journalists in 2003, as media workers were killed, jailed and censored at much higher rates than a year earlier, according to reports by two watchdog groups. More journalists were killed in the line of duty in 2003 than in any other year in almost a decade, reported Paris-based Reporters … Continue reading “Killings of Journalists Soared in 2003”

The earthquake that leveled Bam last week appears to have provided an opening for pro-détente forces in both Washington and Teheran. Washington’s sympathy, expressed dramatically in the dispatch of relief workers and a dozen planeloads of emergency aid, elicited warm words from reformist President Mohammed Khatami and from conservative leaders and media in Teheran. Up … Continue reading “Iran: One After Effect Could Be Détente”

About two-thirds of the active-duty U.S. military approve of President George W. Bush’s overall performance, while the same percentage of officers consider themselves Republicans, according to an unprecedented poll released here Tuesday. The "Military Times Poll", conducted by the publishers of the Army Times and the independent newspapers of the three other major services, also … Continue reading “Poll: Military More Republican, Conservative Than Public”

If anti-globalization radicals really want to tear down the world capitalist system they might want to go door-to-door next year on behalf of incumbent U.S. president, George W. Bush. While Bush brags about his business experience and identifies with the interests of wealthy US capitalists, a continuation of the policies he has pursued since Sept. … Continue reading “The War Party Versus Global Capitalism”

While the Democratic candidates battle for the presidential nomination in the first half of next year, Republicans will face a difficult choice of their own. No, it will not be for the presidential nomination, which George W. Bush – adding daily to his unprecedented campaign war chest by hopscotching to various gold-plated fund-raisers – has … Continue reading “Whither Cheney?”

While most of the world is still trying to come to terms with the neo-imperial ambitions of the post-Sept. 11 Bush administration, U.S. political analysts, particularly those on the libertarian right and the left, have been trying to map out the various forces behind the administration’s hawks in order to better understand and counteract them. … Continue reading “What a Tangled Web the Neocons Weave”

U.S. peace activists have denounced Thursday’s long-awaited speech by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on his plans to "disengage" from the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories, even as the White House offered a more nuanced reaction. Americans for Peace Now (APN), a largely Jewish group that strongly supported the 1993 Oslo Accords, said the … Continue reading “Little Joy at Sharon Speech”