After months of discussions with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, President Obama has announced his plans to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan but reduce them from the current 9,800 to 5,500 before he leaves office in early 2017, essentially abandoning the commitment he made early in his presidency and during the 2008 campaign to bring the war in Afghanistan to an end. Obama cites the deterioration of security and weakness of Afghan forces as the reason for keeping the troops in Afghanistan. Here is what he had to say.... More
According to the UN, 40% of the 783 million people living in sub-Saharan Africa are without access to an improved source of drinking water. To address this staggering figure, 15 years ago in 2000 leaders from 189 countries signed on to the Millennium Development Goals, which was a set of eight poverty-busting goals designed to significantly reduce global poverty and disease by 2015. Well, now we're in 2015. Has the foreign aid community came close to meeting those targets. More specifically, did the leaders who signed on to the Millennium Development Goals come close to meeting their goal for targeting water and sanitation needs in sub-Saharan Africa?... More
The first US Democratic presidential debate has reminded us that America’s “culture of violence” controls Washington’s policies and prompts U.S. leaders to wage wars to gain more power, an American writer and activist says.... More
The renewed surge of violence between Israelis and Palestinians is reaching a boiling point. On October 7 a video was captured during clashes between Ramallah and the Beit El settlement. It shows Israeli undercover officers shooting an unarmed Palestinian youth in the leg at point-blank range, while other undercover officers hold him down. Incredibly, now Jerusalem's mayor is urging Israelis to carry firearms at all times.... More
It is too early to say that the impeachment of the country’s first female president is a certainty. Although this outcome has become a little more likely after the analysis by the federal court of Brazil of the financial reports relating to 2014, the end of her first term in office, for many Brazilians thankfully it is not enough of a reason to oust a democratically elected president.... More
Syria is mostly destroyed as a country. There are 22 million Syrians and 4 million of them are refugees outside the country, and 7 million are displaced within the country. If you take Khobani for example, the town that the Islamic State tried to capture, after a siege of four and a half months, about 70 percent of the town is destroyed. Just enormous heaps of pulverized concrete everywhere. Or again take the town of Hasaka. 90 percent of the population has fled. It's empty, with the shops boarded up in an atmosphere of terror.... More
FrancoBrazilian author Michael Löwy, wrote in his book The Marxism of Che Guevara: "Che was not only a heroic fighter, but a revolutionary thinker, with a political and moral project and a system of ideas and values for which he fought and gave his life. The philosophy which gave his political and ideological choices their coherence, colour, and taste was a deep revolutionary humanism.... More
The use of military force is essentially destructive. Weapons of war are designed to kill people and smash things. All nations claim to build and buy them only to defend themselves and their people against the aggression of others. The notion that the use of military force can ever be a force for good may, at best, apply to a few exceptional situations where a limited but decisive use of force has put an end to an existing conflict and led to a restoration of peace. The more usual result of the use or escalation of force is to cause greater death and destruction, to fuel resistance and to cause more widespread instability. This is what has happened wherever the U.S. has used force since 2001, including in its proxy and covert operations in Syria and Ukraine.... More
An avalanche of mud has buried over 120 family huts on the outskirts of Guatemala City, an event that could become one of the worst tragedies in that Central American nation, where tens of thousands of people are forced to live in misery in high risk areas lacking all basic services.... More
Every political class considers themselves inclusive, diverse, open-minded. But present ideas outside the perimeters of sanctioned debate, imposed by power and a patrolling press, and watch how quickly they start bullying.... More
The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated almost 18 years ago in December 1997 in the city of Kyoto, Japan and came into force in February 2005.... More
The General Assembly debate at the United Nations is underway until the 3rd. of October. In the past for the most part speeches at the UN, at the General Assembly, have been absolutely dull and predictable unless you had someone like Chavez, as we did back in 2006. calling George W. Bush the devil.... More
Last week the Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos met with Rodrigo Londoño, the leader of FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in Havana over a peace agreement brokered by Cuba. This breakthrough comes after 51 years of insurgency and will address rights and abuses and the compensation for victims.... More
US President Barack Obama on Monday walked up to the podium at the United Nations General Assembly and asked Congress to lift the 55-year economic blockade of Cuba as the neighboring countries continue to thaw their diplomatic relations.... More
The Argentinian-born Pope Francis on his four-day visit to Cuba celebrated one of his masses in Holguin Cuba, in the province where Fidel and Raúl Castro grew up.... More
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