The Caribbean
Yoani Sánchez speaks in New York City
Dissident Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez spoke to a packed auditorium at New York University, challenged by audience members from both the left and the right.
Author: Bill Weinberg
Southern Cone
Cardinal Bergoglio and Argentina’s Dirty War
The election of Buenos Aires’ Cardinal Bergoglio as Pope Francis deepens growing concerns about the complicity of the Catholic Church in Argentina’s “Dirty War” of the 1970s.
Planet Watch
Peak oil apocalyptoids: eating crow yet?
The US Geological Survey estimates there is seven to eight times more oil in the ground than the human race has yet consumed—and this constitutes the real threat to the planet.
Iran
Iran-China pipeline route via restive regions
A new pipeline that would link Iran to China via Pakistan, bypassing the strategic Strait of Hormuz, would pass through the insurgent regions of Baluchistan, Kashmir and Xinjiang.
Iran
Did Iran shelter Sulaiman Abu Ghaith?
Reports that Obama bin Laden’s co-conspirator and brother-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghaith was sheltered in Iran could lubricate the war drive—but how credible are they?
The Andes
Contradictory legacy of Hugo Chávez
Whether the gains of Hugo Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution will survive his passing depends on how genuinely it is based on popular power, not just that of a charismatic leader.
New York City
WHY WE FIGHT
From Gothamist, March 4: Baby Whose Parents Were Killedin Williamsburg Hit-And-Run Has Died The infant who was delivered prematurely after his parents were killed in a Williamsburg hit-and-run has died, according to Orthodox community leader Isaac Abraham. The child had been listed… Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
Africa
Kenya: land at issue in electoral tensions
Separatists on Kenya's coast are boycotting the elections, claiming their territory was illegally annexed, its lands usurped from the inhabitants and handed out to settlers.
Watching the Shadows
Catholic sex scandal Jewish plot: papal hopeful
Alan Dershowitz calls out papal hopeful Cardinal Maradiaga of Honduras as floating conspiracy theories about how the Vatican sex scandal was instrumented by the Jews.
North Africa
Playing the ‘slavery card’ against Tuaregs
Specious charges that the Tuareg still practice slavery are being used by Mali’s regime—and echoed by the Western media—to justify the mounting wave of ethnic attacks.
Palestine
SodaStream greenwashes occupation of Palestine
Israeli firm SodaStream bills itself as eco-friendly by obviating the need for soda bottles—as it illegally operates on stolen Bedoin and Palestinian lands in the West Bank.
Watching the Shadows
Papal poop-out propels apocalyptoids
The eschatologically obsessed are fixating on the 12th century Prophecy of Malachy, which supposedly foretells Pope Benedict's resignation as a sign of imminent doom.