contributions

Dozens of Americans hope to set sail this week on a U.S.-flagged ship, “The Audacity of Hope,” as part of an international flotilla which aims to challenge Israel’s embargo of the Gaza Strip. Palestinian solidarity activists are setting sail from a number of ports just over a year after Israeli forces killed nine activists on an aid boat called the Mavi Marmara, which was part of the first such international flotilla.
Israel says it will again use force to stop the aid flotilla from (…)

Fifty years ago, freedom riders traveled by bus into the U.S. South. Now American freedom riders are joining their allies from around the world on a flotilla bound for Gaza. The U.S. ship is called The Audacity of Hope. The heroes on this ship have pledged to sail unarmed and to refuse to use violence. The Israeli military, which continues to illegally blockade Gaza, causing endless suffering to the Gazan people, has pledged to use violent force to prevent the ships getting through. (…)

Growing public opposition to war here and in the US is starting to have an impact on the politicians. But whatever the spin this week by Obama and Cameron, the reality is the war in Afghanistan will continue for at least another four years, with ever escalating loss of Afghan civilian and military lives. Thousands are going to die in a war that has no credible purpose or viable "exit strategy", outside of an increasingly desperate search for a way to get out without the US and its allies (…)

26 June is the UN-decreed International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, this date commemorating Chinese hero Lin Zexu’s dismantling of the opium trade in Humen, Guangdong, an event that was a catalyst for the First Opium War of Britain versus China. Today Britain is complicit in the US Alliance restoration of the US-protected, Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry that now kills 100,000 people annually around the world.
In 2003 the Australian National Drug Research (…)

The body of former Chilean President Salvador Allende was exhumed in May in an attempt to determine whether the democratically elected Socialist president was murdered by the Chilean military in the initial stages of the coup or whether he committed suicide as General Augusto claimed on that day, September 11, 1973.
The 65 year old president had been in office for three years. An official investigation has also been opened in the death of World renown Chilean poet Pablo Neruda who died (…)

The U.S. Monetary System and Descent into Fascism An Interview with Dr. Edwin Vieira
David Galland, Managing Director, June 23, 2011 3:53pm GMT
The following interview with Dr. Vieira was conducted in early June of 2011 for the subscribers of The Casey Report – but after careful consideration, we decided that the content is so important; it needs to be shared with a wider audience. Feel free to pass it along.
Edwin Vieira, Jr., holds four degrees from Harvard: A.B. (Harvard College), (…)

USA’s entry into the austerity phase: The sequence of US social and political crises for the next ten years Excerpt GEAB N°47 (September 16, 2010) -
As previously mentioned, entry of the United States into the austerity phase is caused by two sets of factors: some internal, specific to the United States, others linked to rapidly changing international conditions. Regarding internal factors, it is clear that the deficit issue becomes one of the central themes of US political debate after (…)

U.S. Investors Overexposed to U.S. Dollar Risk?
Merkfunds, 21/06/2011
This white paper analyzes the extent to which U.S. investors, on aggregate, are inherently exposed to the currency risk of the U.S. dollar via their financial asset holdings. We first outline recent trends in the value of the U.S. dollar, showing that the currency has experienced significant deterioration in value, and highlight developments that may continue to underpin ongoing weakness in the currency. Next, we (…)

Petroleum - the cure
Did you already hear of the curative effect of the petroleum? I hardly believe, because many pharmacists refuse selling it to you. It was cited for many decades even in the German drug book DAB. Then it was deleted as a cure.
Why? Allegedly because of not proven effect!? Petroleum is an oil component. Oil is condensed plant mass. Plant had to take up sunlight otherwise it could become no plant. On the bottles stands unfortunately „poisonous“ and „acrid”, „do not (…)

While Israeli and US officials have worked to dissuade the Freedom Flotilla from setting sail to Gaza next week, the flotilla participants have vowed to go ahead with their plan to bring aid and support to the people of the Gaza Strip, who remain under an Israeli-imposed siege that began in 2007.
At a recent press conference by an Israeli naval commander, the commander said he did not believe that the flotilla would contain weapons, and acknowledged that the passengers on the boats are (…)