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The Australian ABC (the Australian equivalent of the British BBC) started its operations 80 years ago. Unfortunately the taxpayer-funded ABC, like the UK BBC and other Mainstream media of the Western Murdochracies and Lobbyocracies, has failed its audience by serving up censorship, lying by omission and lying commission to the detriment of public safety and public morality. On this 80th anniversary I sent the following Open letter to the ABC, to other Australian media and to Australian MPs (…)

Today, the chairman of Barclays resigned over a scandal in which the bank was accused of manipulating the LIBOR interest rate.
Say what? Barclays is known to most Americans mainly as the bank that bought Lehman Brothers. And LIBOR isn’t known to most Americans at all. Yet one British bank and one international interest rate may have had a strong effect on average consumers here in the U.S. The handy explainer below should explain who to be mad at, and why.
I feel like we only ever get (…)

Mr President Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington DC 20500
Mr President,
It has now been five years since the terrorist Posada Carriles has been freed from any consequences of his sentence, whereas the five Cubans, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Ramón Labañino and René González, they who were fighting against terrorism, have still not been freed.
Mr President, we have here a flagrant example of double moral standards in politics (…)

Moses Gadia speaks quietly, a detailed and colorful map of South Sudan on the wall next to him. In the courtyard outside, a group of six men, all South Sudanese refugees, chat in the shade of plastic tarps.
“I’m 100 percent sure that by next month, this place won’t be here,” said Gadia, head of the South Sudanese Organization for Development in Israel (SSODI), about the group’s office in Eilat, the southernmost city in Israel.
“Many people are not working,” the 35-year-old father of (…)

Four and a half years of studies and five failed votes in the House later, exactly where are we with the Keystone XL pipeline? Stuck on the US-Canadian border where it is likely to remain until mid-2013 despite the headline-grabbing issuance of one of three permits to begin construction in Texas for the smaller and much less controversial portion of the pipeline. On 26 June, the US Army Corps of Engineers granted TransCanada Corp one of three permits required in order to begin construction (…)

How much corruption can a “democracy” endure before it ceases to be a democracy?
If five venal, mendacious, duplicitous, amoral, biased and (dare I say it) satanic Supreme Court “justices”—John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy—have their way, America will soon find out.
In several previous articles for Pravda.Ru, I have consistently warned how the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision is one of the biggest threats to democracy and freedom (…)

As global energy supplies come under increasing attack by non-state actors and private energy holdings become key targets of political maneuverings and criminal activities, Oilprice.com discusses the nature of the growing threat and how to reverse the risk with “smart power.”
To help us look at these issues we got together with Corporate intelligence specialists Jellyfish Operations and security expert Jennifer Giroux.
Michael Bagley is the president of Jellyfish, a global boutique (…)

AUSTRALIA
Court proceedings on Muckaty nuclear waste dump adjourned till end of year, or later, - elderly Aboriginal traditional landowners waiting - (till they die?)
Carbon tax system to start on July 1, estimated to help rather than hurt, financial status of lower and middle income earners. But Tony Abbott revs up his rhetoric against it.
Lynas rare earths - Australian company still hampered in its Malaysian venture, but Malaysian govt has set new "flimsy" condition sfor the (…)

The more victories the LGBT movement racks up, the more vicious our opponents become. When I look at the anti-gay extremism in 2012, I’m reminded of 1998’s “Summer of Hate,” which began with a national “ex-gay” advertising campaign, escalated with a flurry of anti-gay legislation in Congress, and ended with the horrifying death of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard.
“We didn’t know who Matthew would be, but we could have certainly predicted that there would be some very, very (…)

LA PAZ — Tensions mounted in Bolivia as President Evo Morales’s government struggled to reach a deal with striking police and indigenous protestors prepared to march on the capital La Paz.
Despite the resumption of negotiations, hundreds of uniformed police demonstrated for a sixth day in front of the gates of the heavily-guarded palace, where Morales was working in the morning, a palace official told AFP.
At the same time, public workers aligned with Morales gathered at a square in the (…)