CounterCurrents: Assault On Boat Off Coast Of Yemen Kills Over 40 Somali Refugees, Thirteen Maruti-Suzuki union leaders awarded life imprisonment

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Assault On Boat Off Coast Of Yemen Kills Over 40 Somali Refugees
by Niles Niemuth 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/assault-on-boat-off-coast-of-yemen-kills-over-40-somali-refugees/

An Apache gunship opened fire on a boat carrying Somali refugees off the coast of Yemen early Friday morning killing at least 42 people and wounding dozens of others. The boat, which came under attack 30 miles off the Yemeni coast, was reportedly ferrying more than 100 men, women and children from Sudan.





Condemn Conviction And Sentencing Of Maruti Workers!
by Peoples Union for Democratic Rights 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/condemn-conviction-and-sentencing-of-maruti-workers/

The Sessions Court in Gurgaon today announced the quantum of sentence for 31 workers convicted by it on 10th March in the State of Haryana Vs. Jiyalal and Others case. Thirteen union leaders have been awarded life imprisonment, four others five years imprisonment





Mary, Protector Of The Harmed
by Sally Dugman 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/mary-protector-of-the-harmed/

She, always courageous and with a strong sense of inner convictions, never regretted her decision despite that it caused the tumultuous and greatly disturbing break that she had with her parents and that was taken from her higher education. After all, she maybe even helped the young man, who was being severely beaten and bashed with batons, to stay alive, she knew. So she was joyous!






Learning From The past: A New Protocol For Agricultural Education And Research In India
by Michael Gordon Jackson 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/learning-from-the-past-a-new-protocol-for-agricultural-education-and-research-in-india/

Given this change in outlook by everyone concerned (farmers, professional scientists, teachers, extension workers, administrators and politicians), the practical measures that need to be taken fall logically into place. It must become the objective of all establishment personnel to work with farmers, not as advisors, but as facilitators of the process of farmer re-empowerment. This will involve encouraging them to identify the causes of their present plight, visualise remedies and assisting them in implementing these remedies. This activity will amount to transformative learning exercises for farmers since they too have been brainwashed into adopting the chemical agricultural paradigm






UN Official Resigns After Pressure To Withdraw Israel Apartheid Report
by Ali Abunimah 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/un-official-resigns-after-pressure-to-withdraw-israel-apartheid-report/

A senior United Nations official has resigned, following pressure from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to withdraw the landmark report published earlier this week finding Israel guilty of apartheid.






Ending The Era of ‘Corporation Uber Alles’
by Jeff Berg 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/ending-the-era-of-corporation-uber-alles/

Power responds only to a demand. What we must demand is that our corporations respect our laws and our lands. We must demand our citizens first loyalty be to our laws, our health and our safety. We must demand that this loyalty be rewarded and these citizens applauded.






Could An Unlikely Right-Left Alliance Stall Ecuador’s Citizens’ Revolution?
by Federico Fuentes 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/could-an-unlikely-right-left-alliance-stall-ecuadors-citizens-revolution/

Ecuador will return to the polls on April 2 after a first round presidential vote failed to deliver a decisive victory for Lenin Moreno, the candidate seeking to continue outgoing President Rafael Correa’s pro-poor “Citizens’ Revolution”. Moreno now faces the challenge of ensuring Ecuador does not join the list of countries in the region where the left has recently lost at the ballot box.






Murky Picture of Death Figures begins To Emerge From US/Iraqi Mosul Siege
by Robert J Barsocchini 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/murky-picture-of-death-figures-begins-to-emerge-from-usiraqi-mosul-siege/

A prominent Iraqi Sunni politician, Khamis Khanjar, who is in touch with civilians on the ground in the ISIS stronghold of Mosul, which is being bombarded by US airstrikes and Iraqi ground forces, told Washington this week that …a sudden surge in civilian casualties … [is threatening] to undermine the effort to crush the [ISIS] militants. …at least 3,500 civilians have been killed since the push into the western side of the [city] last month.






WikiLeaks Vault 7 Reveals CIA Cyberwar and the Battleground of Democracy
by Nozomi Hayase 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/wikileaks-vault-7-reveals-cia-cyberwar-and-the-battleground-of-democracy/

WikiLeaks dropped a bombshell on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Code-named “Vault 7”, the whistleblowing site began releasing the largest publication of confidential documents, that have come from the top secret security network at the Cyber Intelligence Center. Long before the Edward Snowden revelations, Julian Assange noted how “The Internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen.” He decried the militarization of the Internet with the penetration by the intelligence agencies like NSA and GCHQ, which created “a military occupation of civilian space”. Now, WikiLeaks’ latest disclosures shed further light on this cyber-warfare, exposing the role of the CIA.






Electoral Reforms For Developing Democracies
by Nauman Sadiq 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/electoral-reforms-for-developing-democracies/

The biggest fault in democracy, as it is practiced all over the world, is the election campaign funding part, because the individuals and corporations that finance an election campaign always have ulterior motives: that is, they treat political funding as investment from which they intend to make profits by influencing executive policy and legislation.






The Diabolical Business of Global Public Relations Firms
by Peter Phillips 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/the-diabolical-business-of-global-public-relations-firms/

The expansion of  public relations and propaganda (PRP) firms inside news systems in the world today has resulted in a deliberate form of news management. Maintenance of continuous news shows requires a constant and ever-entertaining supply of stimulating events and breaking news bites. Corporate media are increasingly dependent on various government agencies and PRP firms as sources of news.





Big Yellow Hearse To Moriturus
by Richard Oxman 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/big-yellow-hearse-to-moriturus/

As everyone paying attention knows, we are about to die. Unless indigenous people — the ones whose lead must be followed according to Noam Chomsky for us to survive as a species — can secure significant reins of decision-making power. Indigenous people and/or allies of Indians in Latin America, the U.S., Australia and elsewhere.





Right to Food-National Federation of Indian Women Protest Against Attack on Children’s Right to Food by making Aadhaar compulsory in Mid –Day – Meal

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/right-to-food-national-federation-of-indian-women-protest-against-attack-on-childrens-right-to-food-by-making-aadhaar-compulsory-in-mid-day-meal/

Today the National Federation of Indian Women and the Right to Food Campaign held a protest outside the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Shastri Bhawan to protest against the move of the Central Government to make Aadhaar mandatory for Mid Day Meal Scheme. People from more than ten states including UP, West Bengal, Odisha, Rajasthan, Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Delhi participated in the protest. 





Indian Academia And Institutional Injustice
by B Prabakaran 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/indian-academia-and-institutional-injustice/

Indian Educational institutions killed, even in the previous years, countless Senthilkumars, Vemulas and Muthukrishnans in the name of research, eminence and merit. All the three young promising scholars, who experienced much pain in their life and just before the death, have many things in common. They are all Dalits, socially oppressed, hard working, socially committed, coming from remote villages but scholarly thinkers. More than all these things they had their own dream of striving to transform the society with egalitarian ideas and contributed in it with intensity.





What Is In The Store Called ‘New India’
by T Navin

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/03/18/what-is-in-the-store-called-new-india/

The two and half year of ‘Ache din’ experimentation provides enough evidence of what ‘New India’ would look like. It can at the most be a situation from ‘bad to worse’. It might represent intensification of efforts towards pushing hindutva agenda, mainstreaming of hindutva into all the social and cultural spaces and establishing the dictatorship of the Sanghis