be just

Over the past month, I went back to Ethiopia, but this time to the Southern Nations Nationalities Peoples Region (SNNPR) in the Great Rift Valley below Addis Ababa.What I saw did not differ that much from what I had seen in the north two years earlier. Ethiopia’s Green Famine by Susan Braden - The Globalist The area is green, raining at times and crops are growing. Yet, people don’t have enough food to eat. To cope, families are reducing their daily intake of food and selling off their livestock. Children are migrating to surrounding towns and cities to find work and food. Out of a population of 82 million people, 6.4 million are in need of emergency assistance, and approximately 84,000 children will require therapeutic feeding between now and the end of the year. Another 7.2 million people are already receiving food assistance from the government’s safety net program. What is going on? Why are so many people going hungry?

Don't Let Barack Obama Break Your Heart - On the day that Americans turned out in near record numbers to vote, a record was set halfway around the world. In Afghanistan, a US Air Force strike wiped out about 40 people in a wedding party. This represented at least the sixth wedding party eradicated by American air power in Afghanistan and Iraq since December 2001. American planes have, in fact, taken out two brides in the last seven months. And don't try to bury your dead or mark their deaths ceremonially either, because funerals have been hit as well. Mind you, those planes, which have conducted 31% more air strikes in Afghanistan in support of US troops this year, and the missile-armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) now making almost daily strikes across the border in Pakistan, remain part of George W. Bush's Air Force, but only until January 21, 2009. Then, they – and all the brides and grooms of Afghanistan and in the Pakistani borderlands who care to have something mo...

Don't Let Barack Obama Break Your Heart - On the day that Americans turned out in near record numbers to vote, a record was set halfway around the world. In Afghanistan, a US Air Force strike wiped out about 40 people in a wedding party. This represented at least the sixth wedding party eradicated by American air power in Afghanistan and Iraq since December 2001. American planes have, in fact, taken out two brides in the last seven months. And don't try to bury your dead or mark their deaths ceremonially either, because funerals have been hit as well. Mind you, those planes, which have conducted 31% more air strikes in Afghanistan in support of US troops this year, and the missile-armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) now making almost daily strikes across the border in Pakistan, remain part of George W. Bush's Air Force, but only until January 21, 2009. Then, they – and all the brides and grooms of Afghanistan and in the Pakistani borderlands who care to have something mo...

Don't Let Barack Obama Break Your Heart - On the day that Americans turned out in near record numbers to vote, a record was set halfway around the world. In Afghanistan, a US Air Force strike wiped out about 40 people in a wedding party. This represented at least the sixth wedding party eradicated by American air power in Afghanistan and Iraq since December 2001. American planes have, in fact, taken out two brides in the last seven months. And don't try to bury your dead or mark their deaths ceremonially either, because funerals have been hit as well. Mind you, those planes, which have conducted 31% more air strikes in Afghanistan in support of US troops this year, and the missile-armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) now making almost daily strikes across the border in Pakistan, remain part of George W. Bush's Air Force, but only until January 21, 2009. Then, they – and all the brides and grooms of Afghanistan and in the Pakistani borderlands who care to have something mo...

The Raw Story | Documents linking Iran to nuclear weapons push may have been fabricated The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has obtained evidence suggesting that documents which have been described as technical studies for a secret Iranian nuclear weapons-related research program may have been fabricated. The documents in question were acquired by U.S. intelligence in 2004 from a still unknown source -- most of them in the form of electronic files allegedly stolen from a laptop computer belonging to an Iranian researcher. The US has based much of its push for sanctions against Iran on these documents.

Dignity boat sails to Gaza - International Middle East Media Center - IMEMC : "The Popular Committee Against the Siege (PCAS) reported on Friday evening that “Dignity Ship” left Cyprus approximately at 6 P.M heading to Gaza. The ship carries on board 23 persons, including 12 parliamentarians, reporters, peace activists and Nazir Ahmad, a Labour member of the House of Lords in the UK. Independent Palestinian Legislator, Jamal AL Khodary, head of the PCAS, stated that Clare Short, secretary of State for International Development from 1997 to May 2003, is also onboard the ship. “Clare resigned from the government and from the Labour whip over the Iraq war and in 2006 and became an independent”, the PCAS reported. EL Khodary added that the ship is expected to arrive at the Gaza port on Saturday morning. It carries onboard medical and surgical equipment. He said that the previous three ships came to stress on the importance of breaking the unjust Israeli siege and in solidarity with G...

Robert Fisk: Obama has to pay for eight years of Bush's delusions - Robert Fisk, Commentators - The Independent : "But Obama's not going to be able to make the break. He wants to draw down in Iraq in order to concentrate more firepower in Afghanistan. He's not going to take on the lobby in Washington and he's not going to stop further Jewish colonisation of the occupied territories or talk to Israel's enemies. With AIPAC supporter Rahm Emanuel as his new chief of staff – 'our man in the White House', as the Israeli daily Maariv called him this week – Obama will toe the line. And of course, there's the terrible thought that bin Laden – when he's not shopping at US military post offices – may be planning another atrocity to welcome the Obama presidency. There is just one little problem, though, and that's the 'missing' prisoners. Not the victimswho have been (still are being?) tortured in Guantanamo, but the thousands who have simply d...