Category: World News

Soccer is the great global game: the closest thing we have to a connective cultural tissue that binds our species across national and cultural borders. But only in a world so upside down could “the Beautiful Game” be run by an organization as corrupt as FIFA [international federation of football (soccer) association] and by a man as rotten to the core as FIFA President Sepp Blatter. Only Sepp Blatter, whose reputation for degeneracy approaches legend, hire a war criminal like Henry Kissinger to head “a committee of wise persons” aimed at “rooting out corruption” in his organization. And only these two twinning avatars of amorality would use “the Beautiful Game” as an instrument of Islamophobia.

BERLIN — Europe’s economic powerhouse, Germany, announced plans Monday to abandon nuclear energy over the next 11 years, outlining an ambitious strategy in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster to replace atomic power with renewable energy sources.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said she hopes the transformation to more solar, wind and hydroelectric power serves as a roadmap for other countries.

Gunwalking Across the Border Promises to Be the Next Scandal

By Laura Carlsen/ counterpunch

A secret operation to run guns across the border to Mexican drug cartels — overseen by U.S. government agents — threatens to become a major scandal for the Obama administration.

The operation, called “Fast and Furious,” was run out of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) office in Phoenix, Arizona. ATF sanctioned the purchase of weapons in U.S. gun shops and tracked the smuggling route to the Mexican border. Reportedly, more than 2,500 firearms were sold to straw buyers who then handed off the weapons to gunrunners under the nose of ATF.

This video news clip is about the unknown Japanese workers who are putting their lives in peril to avert a nuclear disaster. This is a sobering reminder about what workers do.

The right in this country has declared war upon the working class. It is hard for me to imagine the Koch brothers putting their lives in peril to avert nuclear disaster. Maybe that’s worth thinking about too.

By Al Jazeera / February 11, 2011 Hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy protesters are expected to march onto the streets…

8:44 pm PST It is Friday, Feb. 11th, in Egypt and massive demonstrations are expected in Cairo and elsewhere. They…

Late in the afternoon on Friday, February 4th, approximately 200 people gathered to show solidarity with the people of Egypt, and stood before the Federal Building in downtown San Diego.

One of the main chants: “Egypt, Egypt – will be free!”

by Sarthanapalos / January 31, 2011 The past few days I have heard so many stupid things from friends, blogs,…

Editor: While the world and the media focus on Julian Assange and his recent release from British custody, Bradley Manning…

Dear Government of Sweden … By Michel Moore / Open Mike Blog / December 17, 2010 Dear Swedish Government: Hi…

Whatever you think of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, the unprecedented campaign by the U.S. government and corporate America to silence the…