The author’s father, grandfather and grandmother in front of their house in Kirkuk, circa 1958 (his Kurdish grandfather wearing traditional Arabic garb gifted to him by his best friend, Zakaria, an Arab).

By Ali Tawfik-Shukor

By Patrick Bond

February 27, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The late South African anti-apartheid poet-activist Dennis Brutus occasionally used “Seattle”, the name of a city in the northwestern United States, as a verb. We should “seattle Copenhagen”, he said in late 2009, to prevent the global North from doing a climate deal in their interests, against Africa’s.

Protesters chant anti-Iraqi government slogans during a protest at Tahrir Square in Baghdad, Iraq, on February 25, 2011. Thousands of demonstrators converged on central Baghdad as part of an anti-government rally inspired by uprisings across the Middle East and dubbed the "Day of Rage". Photo: Karim Kadim / AP.

By Tony Iltis

Graphic from CourageToResist.org.

December 15, 2010 -- Salon -- Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old US Army private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the US Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months -- and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait -- under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture. Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning's detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard), who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subject to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries.

Julian Assange.

By the Socialist Alliance (Australia)

December 7, 2010 -- "The Australian government should defend and support Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange and their efforts to expose the lies, duplicities and outright crimes of the US government and its allies", said Peter Boyle, national convener of the Socialist Alliance on December 7.

"We condemn the Australian government for collaborating with the US government in hunting Julian Assange down. The exposure of classified US government cables and other material by Wikileaks is an enormous plus for all those who are fighting for truth and democracy, and against war and exploitation. Wikileaks and Assange deserve our strongest support.

By Paul Kellogg

December 2, 2010 -- PolEconAnalysis -- There is a growing chorus of voices in the media and the academy singling out the actions of the Chinese state as central to the dilemmas of the world economy. This focus finds its most articulate presentations, not in the xenophobia of the right, but in the polite analysis of many left-liberals.

By Dan La Botz

October 22, 2010 -- The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico represents the latest in a series of atrocities committed by petroleum companies against the environment and against humanity. Yet, terrible and tragic as the BP spill is, it is merely a marginal event in the long and sordid history of the oil companies in US and world history. The petroleum companies have been at the centre of US politics for a hundred years, determining its domestic agenda, its environmental policy and its foreign policy. To be a US politician was to be baptised in oil. To be an admiral or a general was to be a warrior around the globe for the petroleum industry.

Foreign policy

By Helen Patterson

December 15, 2009 -- The antipathy of mainstream Australian society toward Muslims is not a new development. As early as 1912, Australians were being cautioned about the danger of Australia falling under Islamic control. The adoption of camel transport had brought Muslim men from Afghanistan to Australia in increasing numbers from 1860 until they controlled the camel transport business. Despite their valuable contribution to the expeditions carried out by the European “explorers” and their vital role in establishing a transport system in the harsh outback conditions, the early Muslim immigrants were considered inferior to the dominant, white, Christian Europeans and marginalised in a similar way to the detribalised Aboriginal community.[1]

September 15, 2009 -- BBC -- The Iraqi man who threw his shoes at former US President George W Bush, has been released from jail in Baghdad, his brother has told the BBC.

Muntadar al-Zaidi's act of protest made him a hero in large parts of the Arab world and beyond.

By Norm Dixon

[This article was first published on September 11, 2002, on the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Its observations remain relevant to this day.]

* * *

In the week before the first anniversary of the devastating September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, TV networks aired a seemingly never-ending string of ``special events'' featuring ``exclusive'' or ``never before seen'' footage of the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) and its aftermath. People around the world again experienced the horror, anger and tragedy of that terrible day, when almost 3000 working people were murdered.

Culminating on the anniversary of the day itself, thousands of journalists and TV presenters from across the globe will converge at ``ground zero'' in New York for ``remembrance and reflection''. Solemn ceremonies will be telecast and patriotic speeches by top US politicians broadcast, restating Washington's determination to pursue its ``war on terrorism''.