Second Round Of US-Cuba Talks

2nd round of Cuba/US talks, forward and positive by telesurenglish

On the Left/Right Paradigm, Capitalism's Grow-or-Die Imperative and Murray Bookchin

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Llama drama spells bad karma for Obama.

The Great Game in the Holy Land How Gazan Natural Gas Became the Epicenter of An International Power Struggle By Michael Schwartz

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Black hole 12bn times more massive than sun is discovered

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Nuclear Powers

The 20 Fastest-Growing Economies This Year

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In the Time It Takes to Read This Story, Another Solar Project Will Go Up

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Is It Time to Include the Yuan in IMF Basket?

By Qiao Yide, Ge Jiafei and Miriam Campanella

As the next five-year review of the International Monetary Fund's international reserve asset approaches, reviewers should strongly consider the case for including the yuan in the basket.

The Special Drawing Rights (SDR) is an international reserve asset used to supplement IMF member countries' official reserves. Its value is based on a basket consisting of four key international currencies, namely the U.S. dollar, euro, British pound and Japanese yen.

The IMF has two criteria for SDR basket currencies. The first is "major trading country." This applies to currencies whose exports of goods and services during the five-year period ending 12 months before the effective date of the revision had the largest value. Then there is the "freedom of use" criterion for currencies determined by the IMF to be widely used to make payments for international transactions and to be widely traded in the principal exchange markets.

In the 2010 review, the yuan was deemed to meet the first criterion, but it fell short on freedom of use. So what are its prospects in the review in 2015?
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Qatar Problematic For US?

Qatar a valuable ally to the U.S. are also a source of worry. @WSJPolitics http://t.co/UehHG64o8l pic.twitter.com/7KFqc99Q91

— Empire Decline (@empiredecline) February 24, 2015

Israeli Claims About Iran Nuclear Program Denied By Own Spy Agency Mossad

On October 22, 2012—less than a month after Netanyahu's speech—Mossad sent a classified assessment to South Africa, stating that Iran was "not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons" and "doesn't appear to be ready to enrich uranium to the higher levels needed for a nuclear bomb."

"That view tracks with the 2012 U.S. National Intelligence estimate," Al Jazeera notes, "which found no evidence that Iran had thus far taken a decision to use its nuclear infrastructure to build a weapon, or that it had revived efforts to research warhead design that the US said had been shelved in 2003."

Israel, on the other hand, is the only nuclear weapon state in the Middle East, illegally in possession of at least 80 warheads, according tothe Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

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UK General Election Update

Year of the Sheep, Century of the Dragon? New Silk Roads and the Chinese Vision of a Brave New (Trade) World By Pepe Escobar

By Pepe Escobar

BEIJING -- Seen from the Chinese capital as the Year of the Sheep starts, the malaise affecting the West seems like a mirage in a galaxy far, far away. On the other hand, the China that surrounds you looks all too solid and nothing like the embattled nation you hear about in the Western media, with its falling industrial figures, its real estate bubble, and its looming environmental disasters. Prophecies of doom notwithstanding, as the dogs of austerity and war bark madly in the distance, the Chinese caravan passes by in what President Xi Jinping calls “new normal” mode.

“Slower” economic activity still means a staggeringly impressive annual growth rate of 7% in what is now the globe’s leading economy. Internally, an immensely complex economic restructuring is underway as consumption overtakes investment as the main driver of economic development. At 46.7% of the gross domestic product (GDP), the service economy has pulled ahead of manufacturing, which stands at 44%.

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Heavy Radicals - The FBI's Secret War on America's Maoists: The Revolutionary Union / Revolutionary Communist Party 1968-1980”

—FBI report on the Revolutionary Communist Party, September 6, 1976

The story of sixties radicalism in the US is one largely revolving around a discrete set of actors: The Black Panther Party, Students for a Democratic Society, the Yippies, and the Weathermen. That there emerged from the sixties a significant trend, called the New Communist Movement, which at turns embraced conventional Marxism-Leninism, Cuban socialism, and Maoist communism, is a topic relegated to the margins. It is the stuff of debate of fragmented left sects, obscure academic papers, and footnotes along the way of telling other stories.

Such is the case in the popular realm. In contrast, the US government, specifically the Department of Justice and its Federal Bureau of Investigation, relevant US Congressional committees, and ultimately the executive branch, were never so dismissive. For them, this New Communist Movement, especially its Maoist component, were viewed as a pronounced threat. In turn it was the focus of ongoing, intensive, and relentless attention.

- See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/158313#sthash.941UPzcw.dpuf
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The Legacy of Malcolm X by Ahmed Shawki

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How False Can One Flag Get?

As Marijuana Legalization Continues, Industrial Hemp Legalization May Be Next

Hemp was once a popular crop among American farmers, but it has been outlawed along with marijuana for decades. But farmers are advocating for the crop's return based on its economic potential. Wikimedia Commons

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50 years after Malcolm X (Video)

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China pivots everywhere by Pepe Escobar

The world’s leading economy is on a roll as it enters a new year in the Chinese zodiac. Welcome to the Year of the Sheep. Or Goat. Or Ram. Or, technically, the Green Wooden Sheep (or Goat).

Even the best Chinese linguists can’t agree on how to translate it into English. Who cares?

The hyper-connected average Chinese – juggling among his five smart devices (smartphones, tablets, e-readers) – is bravely advancing a real commercial revolution. In China (and the rest of Asia) online transactions are now worth twice the combined value of transactions in the US and Europe.

As for the Middle Kingdom as a whole, it has ventured much further than the initial proposition of producing cheap goods and selling them to the rest of the planet, virtually dictating the global supply chain.

Now Made in China is going global. No less than 87 Chinese enterprises are among the Fortune Global 500 – their global business booming as they take stakes in an array of overseas assets.

Transatlantic trade? That’s the past. The wave of the future is Trans-Pacific trade as Asia boasts 15 of the world’s top twenty container ports (with China in pride of place with Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou).

Sorry, Britannia, but it’s Asia – and particularly China – who now rule the waves. What a graphic contrast with the past 500 years since the first European trading ships arrived in eastern shores in the early 16th century.

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Richard Zuley, Guantanamo Torturer, Got This Innocent Black Man Convicted

THE GREAT SIM HEIST: HOW SPIES STOLE THE KEYS TO THE ENCRYPTION CASTLE

Diagram from a top-secret GCHQ slide.

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Yanis Varoufakis: How I became an erratic Marxist

In 2008, capitalism had its second global spasm. The financial crisis set off a chain reaction that pushed Europe into a downward spiral that continues to this day. Europe’s present situation is not merely a threat for workers, for the dispossessed, for the bankers, for social classes or, indeed, nations. No, Europe’s current posture poses a threat to civilisation as we know it.

If my prognosis is correct, and we are not facing just another cyclical slump soon to be overcome, the question that arises for radicals is this: should we welcome this crisis of European capitalism as an opportunity to replace it with a better system? Or should we be so worried about it as to embark upon a campaign for stabilising European capitalism?

To me, the answer is clear. Europe’s crisis is far less likely to give birth to a better alternative to capitalism than it is to unleash dangerously regressive forces that have the capacity to cause a humanitarian bloodbath, while extinguishing the hope for any progressive moves for generations to come.
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Israel's New National Darling

Israel's new national darling is charming, modest and a war criminal, Gideon Levy says http://t.co/wV9kWl8iEk pic.twitter.com/HbHjbKvOlc

— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) February 19, 2015

TPP: Fast-Track Treason and the Coming Corporate Coup

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BRICS Bank: A New Global Development Bank in Town

A New Global Development Bank in Town

Jimi Hendrix At Woodstock, 1969

Jimi Hendrix Star Spangled Banner Woodstock 1969 https://t.co/5QXjvuMoQC pic.twitter.com/Pzzib0yTgv

— -op22 (@qqeko9) February 18, 2015

EU Showdown: Greece Takes on the Vampire Squid by Ellen Brown

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US Declares Afghanistan Victory Too Soon - Again

Cricket World Cup 2015: US Embassy in Kabul jumps the gun with congratulations for Afghanistan: 

The tweet congratulated the Afghan national team for notching a win over their opponents. The match was only about10 overs old at the time, with Bangladesh batting first against their lowly-rated opponents.

The American Education of Vladimir Putin

Win McNamee/Reuters

"The problem you Americans have in dealing with us is that you think you understand us, but you don't. You look at the Chinese and you think: 'They're not like us.' You look at us Russians, and you think, 'They’re like us.' But you're wrong. We are not like you."

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Class, Change and Revolution by Richard D. Wolff

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Why Aren’t People Up in Arms About Capitalism these Days?

 
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Who Owns The Past....

from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink — greetings! http://t.co/7uFwhEBRDi pic.twitter.com/Chd5xnNdjl

— NotaPersonOrCitizen (@NotPorC) February 15, 2015

David Krieger's Haunting Poetry: A Wake-Up Call

Despite the lyrical beauty of many of Krieger's poems, he doesn't mince words when holding the guilty accountable. He devotes an entire section of the book to the crimes of George W. Bush. But Bush and Dick Cheney aren't the only ones whose crimes are catalogued. In "The Torturers," he writes:

The torturers will gather in Hades.

There will be no pleasantries.

They will be stripped of all honors.

They will be awakened
to the baseness of their crimes.

They will be purged of all justifications.

Their smiles will be banished.

They will see their true faces.

They will be surrounded by the screams
of their victims.

They will understand who they are.

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World's elite buying remote hideouts to flee impending social unrest

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Spin Hack Down - Williams' SEAL Team 6 stories are the latest to come under fire

Brian Williams' SEAL Team 6 stories are the latest to come under fire - Yahoo News: 

“My initial reaction is it sounds completely preposterous. There is a healthy dislike towards embedded journalists within the SEAL community” former SEAL sniper Brandon Webb told the Huffington Post. “I can’t even remember an embed with a SEAL unit. And especially a SEAL Team Six? Those guys don’t take journalists with them on missions.”

A U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman verified Webb’s comments, saying “We do not embed journalists with [SEAL Team 6] or any other unit that conducts counterterrorism missions.”

To be fair, Williams didn’t say he was necessarily “embedded” with the team, just that he flew to Baghdad with them. But SEALs who talked to CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen suggest there's little likelihood that Williams and SEAL Team 6 could have just happened to be on the same flight.

Israels Obsession for Monopoly on Middle East Nuclear Power

Israel’s Obsession for Monopoly on Middle East Nuclear Power

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (left) jointly addresses journalists with Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, in Jerusalem, on Oct. 13, 2014. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 13 2015 (IPS) - As the Iranian nuclear talks hurtle towards a Mar. 24 deadline, there is renewed debate among activists about the blatant Western double standards underlying the politically-heated issue, and more importantly, the resurrection of a longstanding proposal for a Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Asked about the Israeli obsession to prevent neighbours – first and foremost Iran, but also Saudi Arabia and Egypt – from going nuclear, Hillel Schenker, co-editor of the Jerusalem-based Palestine-Israel Journal, told IPS, “This is primarily the work of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has built his political career on fanning the flames of fear, and saying that Israel has to stand pat, with a strong leader [him] to withstand the challenges.”

"If Israel lost its regional monopoly on nuclear weapons, it would be vulnerable. So the U.S. goes all out to block nuclear weapons - except for Israel." -- Bob Rigg

And this is the primary motivation for his upcoming and very controversial partisan speech before the U.S. Congress on the eve of the Israeli elections, which has aroused a tremendous amount of opposition in Israel, in the American Jewish community and in the U.S. in general, he pointed out.

The Middle East That Might Have Been

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Islamophobia News Algorithm

Five Reasons No Progressive Should Support Hillary Clinton

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Chapel Hill shooting: American Sniper 'behind rise in Islamophobia in US'

Chapel Hill shooting: American Sniper 'behind rise in Islamophobia in US', says leading Arab advocate - Americas - World - The Independent: 

One of the leading advocates for Arab-Americans has hit out at the lack of coverage received by the killing of three young Muslims in North Carolina, describing it as symptomatic of an American Sniper-inspired rise in Islamophobia.
Abed Ayoub, the legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), said the film industry, US government and right-wing political commentators all had a role to play in the recent surge in anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment.

NASA - 5-Year Time Lapse Video of the Sun

THE EUROPEAN CHESSBOARD: A Map Of The Russia-NATO Confrontation

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Dreaming of Yeongdong South Korea

I hope to be back in Yeongdong this year.

Daejeon event highlights flair of Korean falconers

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ISIS Coalition: U.S. Still Doing 'Bulk Of The Work'

GEN. SMEDLEY D. BUTLER AND THE RACKET THAT IS WAR

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Remembering the Watts Rebellion, Operation Chaos and the Infectious Logic of National Security

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Will the United States End Up Like Greece? The Risks of the Trans-Pacific Partnership

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Russia, Egypt to Drop USD, Use National Currencies in Bilateral Trade

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Lebanon gets U.S. arms, vehicles to fight militants

Lebanon gets U.S. arms, vehicles to fight militants - Al Arabiya News:
An AFP photographer at the Beirut port also saw several Humvees, howitzers, ammunition containers and other military vehicles arriving. (AFP) In a statement, the U.S. Embassy said the aid was worth $25 million, adding that the 26 million rounds of ammunition included small, medium and heavy artillery rounds.

The Dirtiest Secret of the War on Terror by Pepe Escobar

In over 100 pages of testimony, filed in a federal court in New York earlier this week, Moussaui drops several House of Saud-related bombs. Not least that among leading al-Qaeda donors prior to 9/11 we find former Saudi intel chief Prince Turki al-Faisal (also a former great buddy of Osama bin Laden); notorious former ambassador to the US and failed sponsor of hardcore jihadis in Syria, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush; darling of Western markets (and Rupert Murdoch) Prince al-Waleed bin Talal; and a who’s who of Saudi Arabia’s top Wahhabi clerics. 

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20150206/1017869785.html#ixzz3R9oba23V

Van Morrison At Celtic Connections

Van Morrison at Celtic Connections festival @VanMorrisonFans @vanmorrison #ccfest15 http://t.co/Oh0TiJTdc8 pic.twitter.com/GUyfOxB1WX

— Ross Gilmore (@RossGilmore) January 28, 2015

Obama is not a Christian?

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The Shame of US Journalism Is the Destruction of Iraq, Not Fake Helicopter Stories

Williams had repeated the lie on several occasions over the course of a decade until a veteran, who was on the actual helicopter that was attacked, had enough of Williams’ war porn and called the TV host out on Facebook. In a quite pathetic effort to cover his tracks, the anchor—who makes in excess of $10 million per year— claimed that his fairy tale was, in fact, "a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and by extension our brave military men and women" who had served in Iraq. Twelve years, it seems, is enough time for Williams to confuse being on a helicopter that came under fire from an RPG with being on a helicopter that did not. MORE

Link TV - explore: Traveling with Jihad

Playing for Change

Bukowski Reads Bukowski

Will the Real ‘Low-Life Scum’ Please Stand Up?

Will the Real ‘Low-Life Scum’ Please Stand Up?

(Photo: CodePink / Flickr)

How America's Sporting Events Have Turned into Mass Religious Events to Bless Wars and Militarism

How America's Sporting Events Have Turned into Mass Religious Events to Bless Wars and Militarism | Alternet: 

The religious reverie—repeated in sports arenas throughout the United States—is used to justify our bloated war budget and endless wars. Schools and libraries are closing. Unemployment and underemployment are chronic. Our infrastructure is broken and decrepit. And we will have paid a crippling $4 trillion for the useless and futile wars we waged over the last 13 years in the Middle East. But the military remains as unassailable as Jesus, or, among those who have season tickets at Fenway Park, the Red Sox. The military is the repository of our honor and patriotism. No public official dares criticize the armed forces or challenge their divine right to�more than half�of all the nation’s discretionary spending. And although we may be distrustful of government, the military—in the twisted logic of the American mind—is somehow separate.