I N T E R N A T I O N A L

• SYRIA
Phantom chemical weapons
May 17, 2013
IT was enough for a high-ranking Israeli intelligence official to allege on April 21 that the Syrian government was deploying chemical weapons against so- called insurgents, for the infamous phantom to reemerge as the pretext for a possible military invention in that country.

• Spain’s indignados return to the streets on their 2nd anniversary
May 17, 2013
MADRID.— Thousands of indignados took to the streets across Spain on Sunday, May 12 in protest against the austerity measures of Mariano Rajoy’s government and the crisis of a system in which more than 6.2 million people are unemployed.

• Boasting of virtues not in evidence
May 17, 2013
“America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining. Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature. And we responded with the best of America...” - President George W. Bush, Sept 11, 2001

• The incomplete library
May 9, 2013
RECENTLY, a presidential quintet met in Texas to celebrate the opening of a library bearing the name of one of them, thereby rehabilitating, according to public opinion, one of the worst presidents of the modern era.

• WORLD ILLITERACY
How much longer?
May 9, 2013
ALTHOUGH the United Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012), has concluded, the problem of illiteracy is far from resolved.

• Thousands of homeless living in tunnels
April 25, 2013
In the principal cities of the United States, one of the most prosperous countries in the world, thousands of people live beneath the streets, in underground tunnels.

• John Kerry’s electoral memory
April 25, 2013
With the failure of its Plan B (destabilization), the Venezuelan opposition finally, on April 17, called on the National Electoral Council (CNE). It took three days for the Capriles Radonski campaign staff to make a formal complaint calling for a recount of the votes. Before they could arrive at this level of "civilized" behavior, eight people – all Maduro supporters - had to die and the entire country suffer 72 hours of irresponsible terror, following Capriles call for his supporters to "vent their rage in the streets."

• The FBI’s Bomb Factory
April 17, 2013
“IT’S nearing dusk on November 26, 2010. More than 25,000 people have gathered in a light rain at Pioneer Square in downtown Portland, Oregon to watch the annual lighting of the holiday tree, a 100-foot-tall Douglas-fir logged from the Willamette National Forest.

• Martin Luther King, from Dallas to Memphis
April 11, 2013
THE assassination of Afro-American leader Martin Luther King, April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee 45 years ago, is considered by many researchers as part of a sinister plot which included the assassinations of Malcolm X, John F. and Robert Kennedy. (1)

• UN criticizes U.S. detention camp on Guantánamo Naval Base
April 11, 2013
UNITED NATIONS.— The United Nations has criticized the U.S. government for maintaining its detention center in the illegally occupied Guantánamo Naval Base, despite assurances it would be closed.

• GUANTANAMO
Endurance and shame
April 11, 2013
FOR close to two months, dozens of detainees in the Guantánamo military prison have been on hunger strike in protest over the confiscation of their letters, photographs and legal correspondence, as well as the desecration of their Korans during cell searches.

• SYRIA
The assault of foreign powers
April 11, 2013
SYRIA has entered its third year of internal warfare, accompanied by sanctions designed to cripple the country economically; the insistence of the United States, its European allies and client Arab states that President, Bashar Al-Assad must go; and increasingly overt military support for armed opposition groups operating within the country.

• BRICS banking on the South
April 4, 2013
WHEN Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill, coined the term BRICS in reference to the five emerging nations with the greatest development possibilities, a large number of global financial institutions did not take into consideration the positive impact that Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa would come to have on the global economic order – an impact they are now attempting to subvert.

• Conditional freedom
April 4, 2013
NEW YORK CITY – Every day, dissidents from various nations come to the United States to denounce before academic forums, human rights organizations and official institutions such as the U.S. Congress that their governments violate the rights to freedom of expression and the press.

• ICE subjects 300 immigrants to solitary confinement every day
April 4, 2013
THE U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) daily subjects to solitary confinement close to 300 individuals who enter the country illegally.

• America's forgotten black cowboys
April 4, 2013
QUENTIN Tarantino's Oscar-winning Western, Django Unchained, is one of relatively few Hollywood films depicting a black cowboy. In reality there were many, some of whose stories were borrowed for films starring white actors.

• WORLD SOCIAL FORUM
A convergence of alternative ideas
April 4, 2013
EVERY meeting of the World Social Forum (WSF) unites, in one place on the planet, movements, organizations, intellectuals and artists from five continents to discuss the principal problems facing humanity and formulate solutions together.

• CUITO CUANAVALE 25TH ANNIVERSARY
The battle which put an end to apartheid
March 28,13
THIS year marks the 20th anniversary (written in 2007) of the opening of the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, in south-eastern Angola, which pitted the armed forces of apartheid South Africa against the Cuban army and Angolan forces.

• Number of prisoners on hunger strike in Guantánamo Base increases
March 26,13
MAXIMUM military authorities at the U.S. prison on the illegally held Guantánamo Naval Base, acknowledged March 24 that the number of prisoners on hunger strike has increased to 26. The prisoners’ protest is against their indefinite incarceration and violations to which they are subjected within the detention center.

• Women of Steel support the Cuban Five
March 21,13
 THE case of the Cuban 5 is known by unions across Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries because on several occasions the mothers and wives of the Five have been invited to speak at labor conferences in those countries. And now in the United States, for the first time, hundreds of women from the United Steelworkers (USW) got to hear about the injustice committed against the Five and their families.

• China perfects its revolution
March 21,13
DURING the first sessions of the 12th National Assembly of the People’s Republic of China, which took place March 17, in Beijing’s Peoples Palace, President Xi Jinping expressed with conviction the intention to continue promoting the great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics and to attain the dream of national rejuvenation, “without complacency or negligence.”

• State of Law
March 21,13
THE United States congratulates itself on imparting justice in an impartial and transparent way, where everybody, regardless of origin or power, is subject to the state of law. There is equal justice for all, as one of the patriotic school oaths attests.

• US newspaper calls for Cuba to be removed from countries supporting terrorism list
March 15,13
WASHINGTON, March 14.—The United States should exclude Cuba from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, according to an editorial in the Los Angeles Times.

• Political Uncertainty in Italy after Pyrrhic victory of Center-Left
March 7,13
"ONE more such victory and we would be utterly ruined!" stated King Pyrrhus after losing almost as many soldiers as his adversaries in the battle of Asculum. Pier Luigi Bersani, leader of the Italian center-left coalition, must be feeling the same way at the moment after winning the majority of votes in the recent elections but not enough to form a stable government without support from other parties.

• IMPERIAL CYNICISM
U.S. claims it does not protect oppressors
March 7,13
WHILE the deportation trial of a Salvadoran repressor is underway in Miami, in a U.S. government attempt to clear its reputation as a safe haven for repressors, it continues to ignore applications from various South American countries for the extradition of some of the worst murderers in their history, given refuge in that country.

• Without economic independence, there is no true freedom
February 28,13
"TODAY we live in a world characterized by injustice, in which powerful nations have the authority to decide how to use the natural resources of less developed countries and the prices they will pay for them. A world in which the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer."

• Another lost hope of the Spanish rightwing
February 21,13
THE political movie starring Esperanza Aguirre, former president of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, now leader of Partido Popular (PP) in the region, who manages to weave her way with ease through a web of espionage and corruption in a burlesque of comedy, until live microphones catch her out, contains a bit of everything.

• Action that began the Angolan people’s struggle
February 1,13
FEBRUARY 4, 1961 marked the beginning of the armed struggle of the Angolan people against Portuguese colonialism.

• AN AFRICAN HERO
Amilcar Cabral: the visionary
February 1,13
THE outstanding African leader Amilcar Cabral was assassinated on January 20, 1973 by agents working for the Portuguese fascist regime, in an attempt to halt the Guinean people’s war of liberation.

• Putin highlights Cuba’s role in Latin America
January 25,13
MOSCOW, Jan 24.—Russian President Vladimir Putin today emphasized Cuba’s growing role in Latin American regional affairs and welcomed the country’s presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) for this year.

• South Africa, surviving the wounds of the past
January 24,13
THIS year South Africa is celebrating the 101st anniversary of the founding of the African National Congress (ANC), the party led by Nelson Mandela which overcame apartheid and is still fighting the legacy of the segregationist regime in the society and economy of this multiethnic country.

• Gun control does not control violence
January 24,13
LITTLE over a month has passed since the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 28 people, 20 of them children. Since then, as always happens in these cases, there have been expressions of grief, promises and debates, but no specific measure which would avert another similar tragedy.

• United States focuses on the Pacific
January 18,13
BARACK Obama's choice of the Asian Pacific for his first official visit after winning the November elections was no accident. He was very clear in stating that he considers the area to be of maximum priority for his administration.

• UK preparing for increase in evictions from 2013
January 18,13
MANY families are already living on the verge of spiraling debt which could end up in them losing their homes, according to Shelter, the key charity organization for homeless people in the United Kingdom. Austerity measures announced for 2013 are forcing more families to fall behind on their mortgage and rent payments.

• Guantánamo detention camp: deaths by dryboarding
January 10,13
IN June of 2006, three prisoners were found dead in the U.S. detention camp on the Guantánamo Naval Base, hanging in their cells from what looked like improvised nooses. Although the Defense Department (DoD) declared "death by suicide," the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) found evidence to the contrary, including the fact that the prisoners’ hands were tied behind their backs.

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