New President, New Car Bomb

While Iraqi and American political players have been frenetically rearranging the chairs of interim government members on the Titanic that is occupied Iraq today, a massive car bomb explosion rumbles my hotel, miles from where it detonated outside of the Patriotic...

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Once More, With Irony

It had to happen, sooner or later, or else the irony would not be complete: news has emerged this week that oil has been discovered in Bosnia. Granted, the find is nowhere near as big as the Middle Eastern fields, but given the precious liquid's current paucity in the...

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Celebrating Life in Rafah

Rafah, Jenin, Khan Yunis, Zeitun: Foreign-sounding names of so distanced and disturbing a reality. All that we know of them is what the media have selectively determined to impart, if we are interested to hear the story. The Rafah refugee camp, a small strip of land...

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US Seeks Iraqi Nod for Continued Occupation

UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - The United States is seeking the approval of the new interim government in Baghdad for a joint UK-U.S. resolution that will legitimize the continuing military occupation of Iraq. Iraq's newly-anointed foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, is due to...

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The Neocons’ War

In detailing "the conservative crack-up" over the Iraq war, E. J. Dionne writes: "The isolationist conservatives around Pat Buchanan cannot understand why we went to war in the first place – and they opposed it from the beginning. These conservatives speak...

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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...

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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...

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