Media Cheer Assange’s Arrest view post on FAIR.org by Alan MacLeod Julian Assange was arrested inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London on April 11. The Australian-born co-founder of Wikileaks had been trapped in the building since 2012 after taking refuge there. He was immediately found guilty of failing to surrender to a British court, and was taken to Belmarsh prison. An extradition to the United States is widely seen as imminent by corporate media, who have, by and large, strongly approved of these events. The Washington Post (4/11/19) suggested that journalists who hope that their work affects the outcome of a political race are not really journalists. A Washington Post editorial (4/11/19) claimed Assange was “no free-press hero” and insisted the arrest was “long overdue.” Likewise, the Wall Street Journal (4/11/19) demanded “accountability” for Assange, saying, “His targets always seem to be democratic institutions or governments.” Other coverage was more condemnatory still. The View’s Meghan McCain (4/11/19) declared she hoped Assange “rots in hell.” Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost (4/13/19) said it was “so satisfying to see an Internet troll get dragged out into the sunlight.” But it was perhaps the National Review (4/12/19) that expressed the most enthusiastic approval of Assange’s arrest, condemning him for his “anti-Americanism, his antisemitism and his raw personal corruption” and for harming the US with his “vile spite.” Both the United Nations and the ACLU have denounced Assange’s arrest, with the former condemningSweden and the UK for depriving him of liberty and freedom, ordering them to pay compensation for the many years he was confined to the embassy. Despite this, establishment media have overwhelmingly described this situation with a euphemism: Mr. Assange’s “self-imposed isolation” (CNN, 4/11/19; USA Today, 4/11/19; New York Times , 4/11/19), a phrase that conjures a very different image of the situation and the responsibilities of the various parties involved. The Daily Beast (4/11/19 ) made this implication explicit, describing Assange’s predicament as “voluntary confinement.” Assange is a controversial character who originally took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy after England’s High Court ruled to extradite him to Sweden to face charges of rape. Yet most of the media coverage downplayed or even did not mention this (e.g., Bloomberg, 4/11/19; National Review,4/12/19; Daily Beast, 4/11/19), suggesting they did not consider it relevant. The universal charge of narcissism The London Times‘ original headline (4/7/19) referred to Assange as an “albino narcissist.” Celebrating his arrest, The Week (4/11/19) attacked Assange as a “delusional, childish narcissist” who undermined the security of every nation. A host of other media outlets across the spectrum (Washington Post, 4/12/19; New York Times, 4/12/19; London Times, 4/7/19 ) similarly framed him as a “narcissist,” one with an “outsized view of his own importance,” despite his poor “personal hygiene,” according to the New York Times (4/11/19 ). The narcissist accusation is a common trope thrown at enemies of the US establishment, including Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez (National Review, 6/27/07; Economist, 3/9/13; Miami Herald, 7/25/15), Vladimir Putin (Atlantic, 4/15/14; Guardian, 3/10/18) and even Bernie Sanders (Huffington Post , 2/9/16; New York, 11/25/18). It was also exactly the same line of attack the media used against Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked NSA documents (e.g., New Yorker, 6/10/13; Bloomberg, 11/1/13; Chicago Tribune, 12/23/14), and how the prosecution portrayed Chelsea Manning at her trial, suggesting it is a convenient putdown rather than a good-faith description of anti-establishment figures. Manning had offered the files that came to be known as the Iraq War Logs to both the Washington Postand New York Times. However, only Wikileaks decided to publish them. The files showed evidence of US war crimes in the Middle East, and shot both Manning and Assange onto the world stage. The UK press reaction The Daily Mail (4/12/19) relished reporting that Assange’s “smirk vanished” in court. The infamously acerbic British press responded to Assange’s arrest with undisguised glee. The Daily Mail’s front-page headline (4/12/19) read, “That’ll Wipe the Smile Off His Face,” and devoted four pages to the “downfall of a narcissist” who was removed from “inside his fetid lair” to finally “face justice.” The Daily Mirror (4/11/19) described him as “an unwanted guest who abused his hospitality,” while the Times of London (4/12/19) claimed “no one should feel sorry” for the “overdue eviction.” The Mirror (4/13/19) also published an opinion piece from Labour member of Parliament Jess Phillips that began by stating, “Finally Julian Assange, everyone’s least favorite squatter, has been kicked out of the Ecuadorian embassy.” She described the 47-year-old Australian as a “grumpy, stroppy teenager.” At the far-left of the corporate media spectrum, the New Statesman (4/12/19) described Assange as a “demented-looking gnome.” The Glasgow Herald editorial board (4/13/19) summed up the press reaction: “Julian Assange is not a journalist, and he’s not a hero, and his day in court is long overdue.” Is Assange a journalist? The central question of whether Assange a journalist has been discussed at great length this week in corporate media. The resounding response has been “no.” Frida Ghitis (CNN, 4/11/19) maintained that Assange is “not entitled to the protections that the law—and democracy—demand for legitimate journalists.” The National Review (4/12/19) declared him a “petty, biased, hostile foreign actor”; CNN (4/11/19) described him as an activist, not a journalist, demanding he “face justice.” Fox News (4/12/19) also labeled him an activist, one who is using journalism as a “fig leaf for his reckless conduct.” Other outlets (Bloomberg, 4/11/19; Washington Post , 4/11/19 ) have also been eager to insist Assange is not a journalist. The New York Times editorial board (4/11/19) writes that while Assange’s arrest will likely raise questions about press freedom, for now, the Trump administration has “done well” by charging the “scraggly-bearded refugee” with an “indisputable crime.” They argue that there is currently technically no First Amendment issue because he is no journalist but a “foreign agent seeking to undermine the security of the United States through theft,” who highlights the “sharp line between legitimate journalism and dangerous cybercrime.” Veteran journalist and supporter of Assange John Pilger disagrees, contending that his arrest is a historically important warning to “real journalists,” who are few and far between at establishment media, who resent him for highlighting their subservience to the elite. Whatever your view of Assange might be, it seems clear he shares virtually nothing in common with those in positions of influence in big media outlets, who have been only too happy to watch his demise. Featured image: Bloomberg depiction (4/11/19) of Julian Assange, described as looking “like a cranky, beleaguered version of Santa Claus.”

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Andy Borowitz | Sarah Huckabee Sanders Warns Michael Cohen to Leave Lying to Professionals

27 February 19 PM

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Andy Borowitz | Sarah Huckabee Sanders Warns Michael Cohen to Leave Lying to Professionals 

Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "As he prepared to testify to Congress on Wednesday, the former Trump lawyer Michael D. Cohen received a thorough scolding from the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who warned Cohen to 'leave lying to the professionals.'"
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Michael Cohen. (photo: Getty)

This Is the Physical Evidence Michael Cohen Gave to the House Oversight Committee
Joshua Eaton, ThinkProgress
Eaton writes: "In addition to his sworn testimony, Cohen gave a number of documents to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform."
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Journalist John Pilger. (photo: ABC)

John Pilger | The War on Venezuela Is Built on Lies
John Pilger, John Pilger's Website
Pilger writes: "Under the last Washington-controlled government in Caracas, poverty reached historic proportions. There was no healthcare for those could not pay. There was no universal education."
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (photo: Getty)

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez Hits Back at Ivanka: "A Living Wage Isn't a Gift, It's a Right"
Jason Le Miere, Newsweek
Le Miere writes: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hit back Tuesday at Ivanka Trump's criticism of her Green New Deal and what she called a 'guaranteed minimum.'"
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Jumaane D. Williams was elected as public advocate, beating a field of 16 candidates. (photo: Mary Altaffer/AP)

Progressives Won Big in Last Night's Elections
Sophie Weiner, Splinter News
Weiner writes: "They may not be as exciting or sexy as national elections, but local races often have a bigger impact on people's day to day lives."
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Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Yuri Gripas/Reuters)

Bernie Sanders Was Arguing Against Mass Incarceration as Early as 1991
German Lopez, Vox
Lopez writes: "Sanders questioned the wisdom of mass incarceration while both Republicans and Democrats embraced it."
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Clouds over a farm field. (photo: Philippe Huguen/Getty)

New Study Finds Climate Change Poses Major Threat to Clouds Needed to Keep Planet Cool
Greta Moran, Grist
Moran writes: "In elementary school, most of us learned that clouds are more than chill accessories of the sky - they're also an important part of the water cycle, the way water moves around the planet. But clouds serve another critical function that was left out of my third-grade curriculum. They regulate the climate, either blocking sunlight from reaching Earth's surface or trapping in heat."
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John Pilger | Why the Documentary Must Not Be Allowed to Die

John Pilger | Why the Documentary Must Not Be Allowed to Die

***MUST READ! RSN: John Pilger | The Universal Lesson of the Courage of East Timor

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FOCUS: John Pilger | The Universal Lesson of the Courage of East Timor 
 
John Pilger, John Pilger's Website 
Pilger writes: "Using a typewriter with a faded ribbon, a local priest had recorded the name, age, cause of death and date of the killing of every victim. In the last column, he identified the Indonesian battalion responsible for each murder. It was evidence of genocide." 
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On May 5, John Pilger was presented with the Order of Timor-Leste by East Timor's Ambassador to Australia, Abel Gutteras, in recognition of his reporting on East Timor under Indonesia's brutal occupation, especially his landmark documentary film, Death of a Nation: the Timor Conspiracy. The following was Pilger's response...

ilming undercover in East Timor in 1993 I followed a landscape of crosses: great black crosses etched against the sky, crosses on peaks, crosses marching down the hillsides, crosses beside the road. They littered the earth and crowded the eye.

The inscriptions on the crosses revealed the extinction of whole families, wiped out in the space of a year, a month, a day. Village after village stood as memorials.

Kraras is one such village. Known as the "village of the widows", the population of 287 people was murdered by Indonesian troops.

Using a typewriter with a faded ribbon, a local priest had recorded the name, age, cause of death and date of the killing of every victim. In the last column, he identified the Indonesian battalion responsible for each murder. It was evidence of genocide.

I still have this document, which I find difficult to put down, as if the blood of East Timor is fresh on its pages.

On the list is the dos Anjos family.

In 1987, I interviewed Arthur Stevenson, known as Steve, a former Australian commando who had fought the Japanese in the Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1942. He told me the story of Celestino dos Anjos, whose ingenuity and bravery had saved his life, and the lives of other Australian soldiers fighting behind Japanese lines.

Steve described the day leaflets fluttered down from a Royal Australian Air Force plane; "We shall never forget you," the leaflets said. Soon afterwards, the Australians were ordered to abandon the island of Timor, leaving the people to their fate.

When I met Steve, he had just received a letter from Celestino's son, Virgillo, who was the same age as his own son. Virgillo wrote that his father had survived the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975, but he went on: "In August 1983, Indonesian forces entered our village, Kraras. They looted, burned and massacred, with fighter aircraft overhead. On 27 September 1983, they made my father and my wife dig their own graves and they machine-gunned them. My wife was pregnant."

The Kraras list is an extraordinary political document that shames Indonesia's Faustian partners in the West and teaches us how much of the world is run. The fighter aircraft that attacked Kraras came from the United States; the machine guns and surface-to-air missiles came from Britain; the silence and betrayal came from Australia.

The priest of Kraras wrote on the final page: "To the capitalist governors of the world, Timor's petroleum smells better than Timorese blood and tears. Who will take this truth to the world? ... It is evident that Indonesia would never have committed such a crime if it had not received favourable guarantees from [Western] governments."

As the Indonesian dictator General Suharto was about to invade East Timor (the Portuguese had abandoned their colony), he tipped off the ambassadors of Australia, the United States and Britain. In secret cables subsequently leaked, the Australian ambassador, Richard Woolcott, urged his government to "act in a way which would be designed to minimise the public impact in Australia and show private understanding to Indonesia." He alluded to the beckoning spoils of oil and gas in the Timor Sea that separated the island from northern Australia.

There was no word of concern for the Timorese.

In my experience as a reporter, East Timor was the greatest crime of the late 20th century. I had much to do with Cambodia, yet not even Pol Pot put to death as many people - proportionally -- as Suharto killed and starved in East Timor.

In 1993, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Australian Parliament estimated that "at least 200,000" East Timorese, a third of the population, had perished under Suharto.

Australia was the only western country formally to recognise Indonesia's genocidal conquest. The murderous Indonesian special forces known as Kopassus were trained by Australian special forces at a base near Perth. The prize in resources, said Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, was worth "zillions" of dollars.

In my 1994 film, Death of a Nation: the Timor Conspiracy, a gloating Evans is filmed lifting a champagne glass as he and Ali Alatas, Suharto's foreign minister, fly over the Timor Sea, having signed a piratical treaty that divided the oil and gas riches of the Timor Sea.

I also filmed witnesses such as Abel Gutteras, now the Ambassador of Timor-Leste (East Timor's post independence name) to Australia. He told me, "We believe we can win and we can count on all those people in the world to listen -- that nothing is impossible, and peace and freedom are always worth fighting for."

Remarkably, they did win. Many people all over the world did hear them, and a tireless movement added to the pressure on Suharto's backers in Washington, London and Canberra to abandon the dictator.

But there was also a silence. For years, the free press of the complicit countries all but ignored East Timor. There were honourable exceptions, such as the courageous Max Stahl, who filmed the 1991 massacre in the Santa Cruz cemetery. Leading journalists almost literally fell at the feet of Suharto. In a photograph of a group of Australian editors visiting Jakarta, led by the Murdoch editor Paul Kelly, one of them is bowing to Suharto, the genocidist.

From 1999 to 2002, the Australian Government took an estimated $1.2 billion in revenue from one oil and gas field in the Timor Sea. During the same period, Australia gave less than $200 million in so-called aid to East Timor.

In 2002, two months before East Timor won its independence, as Ben Doherty reported in January, "Australia secretly withdrew from the maritime boundary dispute resolution procedures of the UN convention the Law of the Sea, and the equivalent jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, so that it could not be compelled into legally binding international arbitration".

The former Prime Minister John Howard has described his government's role in East Timor's independence as "noble". Howard's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, once burst into the cabinet room in Dili, East Timor, and told Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, "We are very tough ... Let me give you a tutorial in politics ..."

Today, it is Timor-Leste that is giving the tutorial in politics. After years of trickery and bullying by Canberra, the people of Timor-Leste have demanded and won the right to negotiate before the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) a legal maritime boundary and a proper share of the oil and gas.

Australia owes Timor Leste a huge debt -- some would say, billions of dollars in reparations. Australia should hand over, unconditionally, all royalties collected since Gareth Evans toasted Suharto's dictatorship while flying over the graves of its victims.

The Economist lauds Timor-Leste as the most democratic country in southeast Asia today. Is that an accolade? Or does it mean approval of a small and vulnerable country joining the great game of globalisation?

For the weakest, globalisation is an insidious colonialism that enables transnational finance and its camp-followers to penetrate deeper, as Edward Said wrote, than the old imperialists in their gun boats.

It can mean a model of development that gave Indonesia, under Suharto, gross inequality and corruption; that drove people off their land and into slums, then boasted about a growth rate.

The people of Timor-Leste deserve better than faint praise from the "capitalist governors of the world", as the priest of Kraras wrote. They did not fight and die and vote for entrenched poverty and a growth rate. They deserve the right to sustain themselves when the oil and gas run out as it will. At the very least, their courage ought to be a beacon in our memory: a universal political lesson.

Bravo, Timor-Leste. Bravo and beware.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/43563-focus-the-universal-lesson-of-the-courage-of-east-timor

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RSN: John Pilger | Australia Beckons a War with China

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FOCUS: John Pilger | Australia Beckons a War with China 
 
John Pilger, johnpilger.com 
Pilger writes: "Australia is sleep-walking into a confrontation with China. Wars can happen suddenly in an atmosphere of mistrust and provocation, especially if a minor power, like Australia, abandons its independence for an "alliance" with an unstable superpower." 
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RSN: The Coming War on China, Trump Campaign Admits Pizza Sex Conspiracy Weirdo Was Involved in Transition,

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John Pilger | The Coming War on China 

John Pilger, teleSUR 
Pilger writes: "When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open. At a quarter past eight on the morning of 6 August, 1945, she and her silhouette were burned into the granite. I stared at the shadow for an hour or more, unforgettably. When I returned many years later, it was gone: taken away, 'disappeared,' a political embarrassment." 
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The Standing Rock Sioux Will Be Ready to Take a Trump Challenge to Courts 
Rebecca Leber, Grist 
Leber writes: "In the wake of the Obama administration's surprise decision to block a portion of the Dakota Access Pipeline, company reps seem confident they need only wait for President-elect Trump to keep building. But the lawyer who represents the Standing Rock Sioux says it won't be so easy to overcome the legal hurdles." 
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After 8 Years of Expanding Presidential War Powers, Obama Insists They Are Limited 
Alex Emmons, The Intercept 
Emmons writes: "Anticipating that Donald Trump might try to fulfill his promises to 'bomb the shit' out of terror groups and do a 'hell of a lot worse than waterboarding,' President Obama released a report on Monday summarizing his administration's views of the legal barriers and policies limiting the president's military power." 
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Florida Voters File Lawsuit for Recount 
Chris Riotta, International Business Times 
Riotta writes: "Everything may not be golden for President-elect Donald Trump in the Sunshine State. A group of Florida voters filed a lawsuit Monday demanding a statewide hand recount of the ballots, noting a 'deluge' of voting problems, including alleged hackings on electronic voting machines and polling places illegally turning away people from voting." 
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Democrats to Give Trump Cabinet Picks the Garland Treatment 
Burgess Everett and Elana Schor, Politico 
Excerpt: "Senate Democrats are preparing to put Donald Trump's Cabinet picks through a grinding confirmation process, weighing delay tactics that could eat up weeks of the Senate calendar and hamper his first 100 days in office." 
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Trump Campaign Admits Pizza Sex Conspiracy Weirdo Was Involved in Transition 
Ben Mathis-Lilley, Slate 
Mathis-Lilley writes: "On Monday, Slate noted that incoming national security adviser Michael T. Flynn's son Michael G. Flynn (who's being referred to as Mike Flynn Jr. in press reports) has promoted, among many other conspiracy theories, the weird ongoing idea that a Washington, D.C., pizzeria is involved in a Hillary Clinton-related Satanic pedophile thing." 
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One conspiracy theory weirdo who's definitely still involved in the transition is the elder Flynn, who's promoted the Clinton child sex abuse hoax himself. Erratic New York real estate heir Donald Trump, who has praised Sandy Hook and 9/11 truther Alex Jones and who once insinuated on national television that private investigators he'd hired had uncovered evidence that Barack Obama was not born in America, is also expected to play a central role in the incoming administration.

They Lost Their Jungles to Plantations, but These Indigenous Women Grew Them Back 
Anuradha Sengupta, YES! Magazine 
Sengupta writes: "It is early morning in Dhepagudi, a sleepy hamlet nestled in the green hills of Odisha, India. Admai Kumruka is sifting millet in a traditional sieve made of bamboo strips. Children mill around, playing on a mud and sand mound." 
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CounterCurrents: Beware of War Propaganda, Warns John Pilger, The Injustice At Standing Rock Is An American Story,

Dear Friend,

CNN reported that a Russian fighter jet and a US military plane flew dangerously close to each other while flying over Syria earlier this month. US Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, who commands US air operations across the Middle East, characterized the incident as a "near miss." What a miss! The whole world should heave sigh of relief. 

Yes, we are closer than ever, after the cold war, to a nuclear war. These 'near misses' must be an 'Act of God'! Eminent journalist and documentary maker John Pilger concurs with us in his address at the Sheffield Festival of Words. He says "Today, the greatest build-up of American-led forces since World War Two is under way – in the Caucasus and eastern Europe, on the border with Russia, and in Asia and the Pacific, where China is the target." He points his finger at the colluding media in spreading the imperialist propaganda. 

US-backed Islamist rebels, dominated by the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front, launched a counter offensive against Syrian government troops Friday in Aleppo breaking the 10 day self-imposed ceasefire by Russia and Syria. The offensive was preceded by the indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas in government-controlled western Aleppo. Russian General Sergei Rudskoi reported that 43 civilians were killed and 96 wounded in the days prior to the offensive in rocket and mortar attacks.  Vladimin Putin has refused, at least for now, to be drawn into this provocation.He turned down a Russian military request to restart    air strikes in East Aleppo.

In an all out war against the Standing Rock Sioux protesters police arrested 141 people in North Dakota on Thursday. Police moved in with pepper spray and armored tanks on Native American water protectors and other activists who for months have waged resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).

And also more stories from around the world. 

If you don't mind, and if you think the content of this news letter is critical for the dignified living and survival of humanity and other species on earth, please forward it to your friends and spread the word. It's time for humanity to come together as one family! You can subscribe to our news letter here http://www.countercurrents.org/news-letter/. 

In Solidarity

Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org





Inside The Invisible Government: War, Propaganda, Clinton And Trump
by John Pilger 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/29/inside-the-invisible-government-war-propaganda-clinton-and-trump/

Today, the invisible government has never been more powerful and less understood. In my career as a journalist and film-maker, I have never known propaganda to insinuate our lives and as it does now and to go unchallenged. Imagine two cities. Both are under siege by the forces of the government of that country. Both cities are occupied by fanatics, who commit terrible atrocities, such as beheading people. But there is a vital difference. In one siege, the government soldiers are described as liberators by Western reporters embedded with them, who enthusiastically report their battles and air strikes. There are front page pictures of these heroic soldiers giving a V-sign for victory. There is scant mention of civilian casualties.





US-Backed Islamist Rebels Launch Offensive In Syria
by Jordan Shilton 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/29/us-backed-islamist-rebels-launch-offensive-in-syria/

US-backed Islamist rebels, dominated by the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front, launched a counteroffensive against Syrian government troops Friday in Aleppo. The offensive was preceded by the indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas in government-controlled western Aleppo. Russian General Sergei Rudskoi reported that 43 civilians were killed and 96 wounded in the days prior to the offensive in rocket and mortar attacks.






Putin Rejects Russian Military Request To Restart Air Strikes In East Aleppo
by Dr Vivek Kumar Srivastava 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/29/putin-rejects-russian-military-request-to-restart-air-strikes-in-east-aleppo/

In a military-diplomatic move Russian President Vladimir Putin has not accepted the advice of his military staff that attacks on Aleppo be restarted which have been stopped by the Russian forces





Domestic U.S. Politics Of War With Russia
by Eric Zuesse 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/29/domestic-u-s-politics-of-war-with-russia/

Nuclear war is the likely outcome if Hillary Clinton becomes elected President of the United States. It would be practically unavoidable, if she is elected. The domestic U.S. politics that are associated with this shocking but clear fact are complex, but are likewise clear: The American public simply don’t know or understand these facts; and the reason they don’t is that these facts are hidden from them





The Injustice At Standing Rock Is An American Story
by Mark Trahant 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/29/the-injustice-at-standing-rock-is-an-american-story/

This morning, politics is crowded out by injustice. Every preposterous and painful image from North Dakota is another reminder of injustice: The massive military-style police occupation of Standing Rock treaty lands, the rush to protect the frantic construction schedule for the Dakota Access pipeline, and the brutal law enforcement march against people who are fighting for the simple idea that water is life. I’m angry. How shall I say this without ranting? Tell stories.





10 Days In October
by Richard Oxman 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/29/10-days-in-october/

The real polls (the ones the Democratic decision-makers have been paying very close attention to of late) have supposedly shown the race to be neck and neck, not the runaway Hillary supporters have howled about ever since the disrespectful Donald did his locker room dance.





Hillary, Trump, Sartre And Existentialism
by Dr Arshad M Khan 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/29/hillary-trump-sartre-and-existentialism/

In the US, the political system has now disgorged two candidates the citizenry cannot be less enthusiastic about.  Driven by ambition more than a love of the people or a sincere desire to serve, one can be forgiven for wondering if they are just as trapped by their motivations as the public in its two-party myopia.  No authentic leader among the two …





Cyber Warfare: A New Frontier In Foreign Policy
by Dillon Aubin 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/29/cyber-warfare-a-new-frontier-in-foreign-policy/

Before our leaders start issuing nonchalant threats, we need to lay down some ground rules. A complicated and unexplored concept, cyber warfare leaves a wide spectrum of possibilities and severity. For an extensive period, there must be an international effort to identify these possibilities and design a protocol for acceptable responses. Because in the information age, there is a lot more at stake than a day without Netflix.






Anti War Group Protests Against Harold Koh On U of I Campus
by Hunter McKee 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/29/anti-war-group-protests-against-harold-koh-on-u-of-i-campus/

Protesters lined up outside the University of Illinois Law School Friday. An anti-war group who expressed their concerns about guest speaker Harold Koh, who they believe is an advocate toward violence. Koh served as a Dean at Yale Law School and spent four years as the 22nd Legal Advisor of the United States.





U.N. Rights Expert Urges Nations Not To Sign ‘Flawed’ CETA Treaty    

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/29/u-n-rights-expert-urges-nations-not-to-sign-flawed-ceta-treaty/

The trade deal set to be signed by the European Union and Canada is a corporate-driven, fundamentally flawed treaty which should not be signed or ratified without a referendum in each country concerned, a United Nations human rights expert says.




Egyptian Kangaroo Court Confirms 20-Year-Prison Sentence On Morsi
by Abdus Sattar Ghazali 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/29/egyptian-kangaroo-court-confirms-20-year-prison-sentence-on-morsi/

Amid mounting anger against the US-client government of Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi because of tax rises, soaring food prices, inflation and cuts in state subsidies, a kangaroo court in Cairo has confirmed a 20-year prison sentence against Mohamed Morsi, the first democratically elected President who was deposed by Al-Sisi in July 2013.





No Action On Ongoing Repression Of Myanmar’s Muslims
by Professor M Adil Khan

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/29/no-action-on-ongoing-repression-of-myanmars-muslims/

In one of its recent reporting the Guardian reports that at the entrance to Thaungtan village in Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta a brand-new signasserts, “No Muslims allowed to stay overnight. No Muslims allowed rent houses. No marriage with Muslims.”





Kashmir And India’s Short Tryst With OIC
by Abdul Majid Zargar  

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/29/kashmir-and-indias-short-tryst-with-oic/

India has yet again denounced Organization of  Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) call to settle Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN resolution, a stand which the organization has consistently taken and  regularly    renewed . In the past also, India has treated such calls with disdain either by charging  the organization to act at the behest of Pakistan or on the ground of  it’s locus standi in the matter .





Why We Stand In Solidarity With The Kashmiri People’s Demand For The Right To Self-Determination?
by PUDR 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/29/why-we-stand-in-solidarity-with-the-kashmiri-peoples-demand-for-the-right-to-self-determination/

On 27th October 2016 several organisations in Delhi came together in protest at Jantar Mantar demanding restoration of civil liberties and democratic rights in Kashmir. People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) affirms its solidarity with the people of Kashmir who have been battling a state of siege for over 100 days.