CounterCurrents: Obama Slams Door In Putin’s Face, Israel Wants A Peace Process – But Only If It's Doomed To Fail

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Binu Mathew
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www.countercurrents.org

Brazil: Police Have Killed Over 2,500 People In Rio Since Rio 2016 Was Announced
By Amnesty International

http://www.countercurrents.org/ai060616.htm

Brazil is on a fast-track course to repeat the deadly mistakes it has been making around policing for decades, made even more evident during the 2014 World Cup, which left a long trail of suffering, Amnesty International said today in a briefing two months ahead of the Olympic Games’ opening ceremony. “When Rio was awarded the 2016 Olympic Games in 2009, authorities promised to improve security for all. Instead, we have seen 2,500 people killed by police since then in the city and very little justice,” said Atila Roque, Director at Amnesty International Brazil


Hundreds More Refugees Die In The Mediterranean 
By Martin Kreikenbaum

http://www.countercurrents.org/kreikenbaum060616.htm

Hundreds of refugees have died in two more cases of boat sinkings. Within eight days, many more than 1,200 refugees have drowned during their voyage to Europe. A refugee boat had an emergency around 75 nautical miles south of Crete on Thursday. An Italian trading vessel sailing past informed the coastguard, which sent patrol boats and other commercial ships to the area. When the first ships arrived on Friday morning, the completely overcrowded wooden fishing cutter had already capsized. Hundreds of refugees were floating helplessly in the sea. A total of 342 refugees were rescued, and nine bodies were recovered. But the scale of the sinking initially remained unclear


A Moral Revolution? Reflections On President Obama’s Visit To Hiroshima 
By Richard Falk

http://www.countercurrents.org/falk060616.htm

If more than rhetoric is attached to the call for a ‘moral revolution,’ then the place to start would be to question, prior to abandoning, the mentality that is comfortable with double standards when it come to war making and criminal accountability. The whole idea of impunity for the victors and capital punishment for the losers is morally regressive. Both the Obama visit to Hiroshima, as significant as it was, and the Kerrey relationship to the Fulbright Vietnam University, show that American society, even at its best, is far from prepared to take part in the necessary moral revolution


The Champ Lands His Second Anchor Punch And In Death Trumps Trump 
By Dr. Shaik Ubaid

http://www.countercurrents.org/ubaid060616.htm

Trump would ask where American Muslim heroes are and Ali was saying, “Hey Trump you got any hero greater than me?” Trump had been saying that Muslims don’t belong in the US, they are all foreigners and Ali’s response: “you are dumber than you look.” Trump had been spewing hate as the way to greatness and the news channels were showing Ali’s 1975 speech on love and selflessness at Harvard. Liston did not see the “anchor punch” that hit him from nowhere in his second bout. Ali’s most iconic picture is standing by the downed “Big Ugly Bear”. Ali had again delivered his anchor punch, the second time to knock Trump, “the ugly White Monster” out cold. Trump, the rectal thermometer, that was showing the rising temperature of hate so accurately will reflect the fall in hate temperature for the next 72 hours at the least, I said to myself


Muhammad Ali : The Man Who Shook The World 
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

http://www.countercurrents.org/rawat060616.htm

Where is the option for political power of the blacks and other racial minorities in America in this heavily expansive electoral system there? The electoral system have undone many things which Muhammad Ali and other radicals of the black movement achieved so powerfully by converting America into almost bipolarity and the danger is that the same kind of capitalists are trying to influence Indian polity in the same way between two brahmanical capitalist political parties. Fortunately, Ambedkar’s socio-political legacy in India is much more powerful than Ali’s in America and hence chances of resistance in India are much bigger than in the United States where Malcolm X's black power movement has relegated into history and Christian rightwing has won over the Black identity issue


Israel Wants A Peace Process – But Only If It's Doomed To Fail 
By Jonathan Cook

http://www.countercurrents.org/cook060616.htm

In a familiar muddying of the waters, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent the past week talking up peace while fiercely criticising Friday’s summit in France – the only diplomatic initiative on the horizon. As foreign ministers from 29 nations arrived for a one-day meeting in Paris, Netanyahu dusted off the tired argument that any sign of diplomatic support for Palestinians would encourage from them “extreme demands”. France hopes the meeting will serve as a prelude to launching a peace process later in the year


La Trobe University Versus Dr Roz Ward, Racist Australian Flag
And Academic Free Speech Threatened In Australian Universities
By Dr Gideon Polya

http://www.countercurrents.org/polya060616.htm

Academic freedom of speech is a cornerstone of university life but is under threat in neoliberal-dominated Australia not just from right-wing governments and corporate Mainstream media but also from within universities. The most recent example is the suspension (now lifted after public outcry) of La Trobe University academic Dr Roz Ward for correctly calling the Australian flag racist for containing the British Union Jack


Obama Slams Door In Putin’s Face 
By Eric Zuesse

http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse060616.htm

Actions speak louder than mere words, and U.S. President Barack Obama has now acted, not only spoken. His action is to refuse to discuss with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia's biggest worry about recent changes in America’s nuclear strategy — particularly a stunning change that is terrifying Putin


A View From Japan: An Interview With Motoyuki Shibata 
By Linh Dinh

http://www.countercurrents.org/dinh060616.htm

In Japan, even a serious writer may be seen on mass advertising, and a translator can become a star. One of Japan’s most famous intellectuals, Motoyuki Shibata is a specialist on American literature. He has translated books by Thomas Pynchon, Paul Auster, Steven Millhauser and Stuart Dybek, among others. Shibata is also the editor of two popular literary journals, the Japanese-language Monkey and the English-language Monkey Business. His book of essays, The American Narcissus, won the Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities in 2005. Among the pieces are “Wonder If I’m Dead,” “The Half-Baked Scholar” and “Cambridge Circus.”


Human Rights Abuses: A Recurring Alarm On Modi's Travels Abroad! 
By George Abraham

http://www.countercurrents.org/abraham060616.htm

It is time for the Prime Minister to be more assertive in addressing these concerns at home and abroad and speak out forcefully when human rights violations occur in India. Unless he can align the actions of the radical elements of his party in line with his lofty pronouncements abroad, the human rights issue will continue to cast a shadow on his trips abroad, especially to U.S. Alfred Whitney Griswold who once said the following: "Books won’t stay banned. They won’t burn. Ideas won’t go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor, and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas". Let freedom reign!


Exit Hindutva Terrorists, Enter Lashkar Bombers – 
Towards Clean Chit To Samjhauta Bombers?
By Subhash Gatade

http://www.countercurrents.org/gatade060616.htm

Whether Indian Intelligence Agencies have decided to function as new ‘post offices’ of US intel agencies ? Put it other ways whether US intel inputs have started overriding the meticulous investigations done by Indian intelligence agencies? There are enough indications which seem to corroborate this observation


Electorally Holy Cow 
By Afroz Alam

http://www.countercurrents.org/alam060616.htm

For many of us, beef has become ‘news’ of unpleasant sort. There is now a forensic report after eight month from a lab in Mathura which claims that the meat found inside the lynched man, Mohammad Akhlaq’s home at Dadri “belonged to beef or a cow progeny”. It is in contrast with an earlier report by the Greater Noida Veterinary Officer which declared that the meat was mutton. Be it beef or mutton, no respectability is shown to the right to food, the notion of privacy and right to life of the citizens of India. On the contrary, the present forensic report is now widely circulated with right-wing bias. There is now a cynical-switch to ramp up communal narratives. The hype around this report is just an attempt to keep the electoral theology in circulation well in advance in the election bound Uttar Pradesh. In other words, beef is back to deliver for the Brahminical right-wing in the cow-belt region of India as a part of the ‘Mission 2017’


Childhood And The Colourless Rainbow 
By Zohra Batul

http://www.countercurrents.org/batul060616.htm

I always hear people saying that childhood is the finest phase of life, but not for all. For some even the Colourful rainbow has no Colours