CounterCurrents: U.S. Supplies ISIS Through Turkey, The Mercury Doesn’t Lie: We’ve Hit A Troubling Climate Change Milestone

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In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org

The Mercury Doesn’t Lie: We’ve Hit A Troubling Climate Change Milestone 
By Bill McKibben

http://www.countercurrents.org/mckibben060316.htm

Across the northern hemisphere, the temperature, if only for a few hours, apparently crossed a line: it was more than two degrees Celsius above “normal” for the first time in recorded history and likely for the first time in the course of human civilization. That’s important because the governments of the world have set two degrees Celsius as the must-not-cross red line that, theoretically, we’re doing all we can to avoid. And it’s important because most of the hemisphere has not really had a winter


Oregon Makes History With Legislation To Replace Coal With Clean Energy 
By Mary Anne Hitt

http://www.countercurrents.org/hitt060316.htm

On Wednesday, the Oregon state legislature passed a bill that is one of most significant actions ever taken in the United States on climate change and clean energy. The bill, titled the “Clean Electricity and Coal Transition Plan", will move Oregon completely off coal by 2030 - including phasing out coal power being imported into the state on the grid - and ensure that most of that power is replaced by clean energy by doubling the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard to 50 percent by 2040. It was passed with bipartisan support from Republicans and Democrats, and it’s an historic victory for climate and clean energy leadership


Why Democratic Party Foreign Policy Fails And Will Continue To Fail 
By Richard Falk

http://www.countercurrents.org/falk060316.htm

Not only is the Democratic Party failing the nation by its refusal to meet the modest first principle of Florence Nightingale—‘do no harm’—but it is not rising to the deeper and more dangerous threats to future wellbeing and sustainability directed at the nation and the ecological health of the planet, and also of menace to peoples everywhere. What the United States does and does not do reverberates across the globe. Political responsibility in the 21st century does not stop at the border, and certainly is not fulfilled by walls and drones. If political parties cannot protect us, then it is up to the people to mount the barricades


After JNU, BJP’s Next Target Is Allahabad University
By Shubhda Chaudhary

http://www.countercurrents.org/chaudhary060316.htm

If we are rejoicing over the interim bail of Kanhaiya, BJP’s next victim Richa Singh, the Allahabad University students’ union president, is being harassed and perhaps, on the brink of facing expulsion. Richa, the first ever woman president of the University since Independence is facing the flak, but why? Her first ‘sin’ was that she launched a massive agitation against the entry of Yogi Adityanath, BJP's Member of Parliament from Gorakhpur in November 2015 to inaugurate a new building in Allahabad University. So, that is where it all started. The ABVP, which has been finding it tough to come to terms with a female winning the post of president, has been up in arms against her right from day one when she got elected


A Church Vandalised In Raipur And Believers Assaulted
By Chhattisgarh Nagrik Samyukta Sangarsh Samiti

http://www.countercurrents.org/cnsss060316.htm

Chhattisgarh Nagrik Samyukta Sangarsh Samiti strongly condemns the vandalisation of Church and subsequent assault on the church members in Kachana near Raipur city, Chhatisgarh. The attack happened around 11 am today (March 6, 2016) allegedly by members of Bajrang Dal. The Pastor Ankush Bareyekar approached the Vidhan Sabha thana where the police after a long delay registered the FIR


CPDR Condemns The Open Threats To Kanhaiya Kumar 
And Demands Immediate Arrest Of The Culprits 
Press Release

http://www.countercurrents.org/pr050316.htm

Today certain Kuldeep Varshney, Badaun district chief of the Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha has openly announced a "prize money" of Rs 5 lakh to anyone who "cuts off the tongue" of Jawaharalal Nehru University (JNU) students' union presidnet Kanhaiya Kumar. He had temerity to appear on television and boast of his threat. Posters reportedly in the name of Purvanchal Sena were seen at various places across the national capital offering Rs 11 lakh to "kill" the JNU student leader


The Discontents Of A Seditious Nation 
By Karen Gabriel & P K Vijayan

http://www.countercurrents.org/vijayan060316.htm

The wording of Section 124A of the IPC is a delight for any government, since it explicitly protects the ‘government established by law in India’ and not either the nation as a whole or even the state in its entirety – just the government of the day. Thus, any criticism of the government of the day, or of its ‘measures’, or of its ‘administrative or other action’, that may be perceived to excite, or attempt to excite, ‘hatred, contempt or disaffection’ towards the government, can attract this law


JNU Crisis: Need For Crystallizing Questions Than Supplying Whole Sale Answers 
By Dr Adfar Shah

http://www.countercurrents.org/shah060316.htm

The monster of media trial in everything in this democratic country, along with the efforts to turn the huge and archaic term like sedition to common sense and everyday use and communalizing academic spaces is becoming a dangerous trend with undesirable ramifications. For a section of media perhaps everything in the country has become Deshdroh and every student is Desh Drohi but the social realities are different and anger, emotion and mistakes or confusion cannot be sedition all at once


The Idea Of India: Whose Idea Of Which India? 
By S.G.Vombatkere

http://www.countercurrents.org/vombatkere060316.htm

In furtherance of defining “national”, the ABVP called on retired soldiers (Veterans) to join them in meetings and marches under the national flag, in various places across the country. This is perfectly legal because a Veteran is at liberty to join any religious, social or political association according to his wish and choice. But, and here is a capital BUT, the strong existing organic bond between the retired and the serving soldier can very easily cause serving soldiers to begin taking sides on the basis of religion. This will irrevocably destroy the secular nature of the strictly apolitical Indian military, bringing it under the influence of religious leaders, and compromising its control by the civilian government. This (hopefully un-thought-out) move of BJP can easily slip into a situation like in Islamic Republics in India's neighbourhood, where the military is virtually under the control of the mullahs. This would definitely be violative of the Constitution of In
dia,
which defined India as a secular Republic, even before the word was inserted into its Preamble in 1976


Report On The Ongoing Struggle And Repression At Honda 
Motorcycles And Scooters Factory Tapukara
By Workers Solidarity Centre

http://www.countercurrents.org/wsc060316.htm

The struggle of 3000 Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India (HMSI) workers of Tapukara plant in Alwar, situated at Haryana-Rajasthan border, in the face of brutal repression from the management-police-administration side, has emerged as an important and intense workers struggle at the present time. As the workers saw commonality and forged unity across internal segmentation, initiated the process of Union formation on 6 August 2015 and submitted a collective Charter of Demand on 14 December 2015, they faced attacks in various forms. It included a criminal conspiracy by the Management to suppress the workers collectivity and Union process using deceitful legal and manifestly illegal means via labour department and the Court, transfer-suspension-termination of Union leaders and retrenchment of around 800 active contract workers


U.S. Supplies ISIS Through Turkey
By Eric Zuesse

http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse060316.htm

On Friday, March 4th, the leading opposition newspaper in Turkey, Zaman, was taken over by the Government; and on March 5th, one of the other opposition newspapers, Cumhuriyet, reported that Zaman's separate news-service to other news-media, Cihan News Agency, has now also been disabled on the Internet. (Anyone who goes to the site obtains an error-message.) The Turkish Government is trying to prevent the Turkish public from knowing that Turkey has been serving as the transit-route by which the U.S. government and its allied Arab oil monarchies (especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar) have been supplying foreign jihadists and weapons (largely U.S. but paid for with Saudi funds) into Syria to oust Bashar al-Assad from power