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In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org


NSA Surveillance Programs Facilitate Global Drone War
By Thomas Gaist

http://www.countercurrents.org/gaist181013.htm

Documents leaked by Edward Snowden and published in the Washington Post Wednesday show that NSA surveillance operations play a key role in the global campaign of assassinations being waged by the Obama administration


Drone Strikes Encourage Terrorist Groups, Warns UN Report
By Countercurrents.org

http://www.countercurrents.org/cc181013A.htm

Deploying drone strikes as a form of global policing undermines international security and will encourage more states and terrorist groups to acquire unmanned weapons, warned a UN report


Awkwardest And Most Authoritative Ever Comments On Drones
By David Swanson

http://www.countercurrents.org/swanson181013.htm

The fact that an insane killing spree is counter-productive, as pointed out to Obama by Malala, in case he hadn't heard all his own experts , is not enough to end the madness. Ultimately we must recognize the illegality of all killing and all war. In the meantime, prior to the U.N.'s debate on this on the 25th, we can add our names to the growing movement to ban weaponized drone


The Peace Poets Write From Kabul, Part 2
By Luke Nephew

http://www.countercurrents.org/nephew181013.htm

The people of Afghanistan WANT
Enough peace to hear the music of their land,
The laughter of their children


The Government Shutdown In Perspective
By Mattea Kramer & Jo Comerford

http://www.countercurrents.org/kramer181013.htm

In reality, that government shutdown was partial and selective. Paychecks, for example, kept flowing to the very lawmakers who most fervently supported it, while the plush congressional gym with its heated pool, paddleball courts, and flat-screen televisions remained open. That’s because “essential” services continued, even as “nonessential” ones ceased. And it turned out that whether the services you cared about were essential or not was a matter of just who got to do the defining. In that distinction between what was necessary and what wasn’t, it was easy enough to spot the values of the people’s representatives. And what we saw was gut-wrenching. Stomach-churning


What America Has Become
By John Chuckman

http://www.countercurrents.org/chuckman181013.htm

America has become in many ways a police state, albeit one where a kind of decency veil is left draped over the crude government machinery. How can a place which has elections and many of the trappings of a free society be a police state?


Irreconcilable Differences: Capitalism And A Sustainable Planet
By Gary Olson

http://www.countercurrents.org/olson181013.htm

Working for reforms is not unimportant but capitalism cannot prevent the ruination of the biosphere. My sense is that climate activists who fail to acknowledge this basic truth — we might term them “capitalism deniers” — have no chance of reversing our slide toward the ecological apocalypse


30 Million Modern Slaves Around The World, Finds Global Index
By Countercurrents.org

http://www.countercurrents.org/cc181013B.htm

Nearly 30 million people around the world are living as slaves, according to the Global Slavery Index 2013, a new index ranking 162 countries. Even, Iceland, Ireland and the UK are not slave-free. This is the first year of the GSI. The index says India has the highest number of people living in conditions of slavery, which is estimated to have between 13,300,000 and 14,700,000 people enslaved. China, Pakistan and Nigeria also have the highest numbers of people enslaved


Even The World Bank Understands: Palestine Is Being Disappeared
By Jonathan Cook

http://www.countercurrents.org/cook181013.htm

The World Bank report is a way of stating discreetly what Castaing and other diplomats hoped to highlight more directly: that Israel is gradually whittling away the foundations on which the Palestinians can build an independent economic life and a viable state


The Serpent And The Red Line
By William A. Cook

http://www.countercurrents.org/cook181013A.htm

What Bibi Netanyahu did not present was the truth resulting from his arrogance, the devastation to the people of Iran should that Red Line be crossed; what he did not say was the truth of his arrogance that he alone had the right to determine what is right and the rest of the world must abide by his demands; what he did not illustrate in his poster was the blood that would flow in the mid-East as the dogs of war wetted their appetites for the gold that would flow to their war chests as the bodies of the innocent gathered for the last judgment


Corporate Sustainability And The Commons
By David Bollier

http://www.countercurrents.org/bollier181013.htm

David Bollier is among the foremost global thinkers and advocates for the commons. #NewMetrics channel co-curator Bill Baue recently had the following discussion with Bollier about the potential intersections between the commons movement and emerging concepts and practices in the corporate sustainability movement


Love Jihad: From Illusory Slogan To Potent Weapon
By Ram Puniyani

http://www.countercurrents.org/puniyani181013.htm

The truth is not the issue here; the myth has been drilled in to the thinking of society. This phrase has double edged nature, which is something we need to register and combat. This phrase has tragically become a powerful concoction in the hands of communal forces


Teacher Accountability And Incentives For Improving School Performance In India
By Swaleha Sindhi

http://www.countercurrents.org/sindhi181013.htm

Private school teachers are displaying certain teaching behaviors that are leading to better learning outcomes, for example, providing children with regular feedback by correcting their homework regularly, displaying more impartial behavior towards students and showing more belief in the efficacy of their schools. Thus, question is, why are teachers in government schools, who are better trained, better qualified, equipped with better content knowledge, and better paid than private school teachers, not producing better learning outcomes for children?