by Max Lane

by Max Lane

(NOTE: a version of this article has also appeared in Green Left Weekly).

by Max Lane

By Andre Vltchek

Another day, another unnecessary loss of lives: 16 people killed and 16 still missing in floods and landslides on a small island Tahuna off Indonesia's Sulawesi.

At an alarming rate, Indonesia is replacing Bangladesh and India as the most disaster-prone nation on earth. Whenever the word Indonesia appears on the list of headlines on Yahoo news, chances are that another enormous and unnecessary tragedy occurred on one of the islands of this sprawling archipelago.

November 20, 2006

by Max Lane

I posted on my Blog some time back an Indonesian media report on the role of Cuban medical teams in Indonesia after the earthquake and tsunami which hit central Java.

I post below also a statement by the East Timorese government on the role of Cuban medical aid in East Timor.

By Andre Vltchek

I grew up in the Czech city of Pilsen (Plzen), just a few dozens of miles east from the "Iron Curtain" and the border with then West Germany. That's why I think I should be pardoned for feeling strange obsession with the borders and division lines of all kind. No matter where I come to proximity of any frontier, I always feel uncontrollable desire to cross it: to see what is at the other side.

By Andre VltchkIn December 2003, in an attempt to "reaffirm separation of religions and state", a presidential panel decided that France should ban Islamic headscarves, as well as other "obvious religious and political symbols" from the public schools. On February 10, 2004, the French National Assembly voted (494 in favor, 36 against and 31 abstentions) to convert the decision into a law.

by Noam Chomsky Establishment critics of the war on Iraq restricted their comments regarding the attack to the administration arguments they took to be seriously intended: disarmament, deterrence, and links to terrorism.They scarcely made reference to liberation, democratization of the Middle East, and other matters that would render irrelevant the weapons inspections and indeed everything that took place at the Security Council or within governmental domains.

Francis Fukuyama was wrong: history didn't end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The world is at war again and this time the war is not 'cold' at all - it is extremely 'hot'. This war brings a rough awakening for those who hoped that there would be a long, cosy period marked by our world order - a period of peaceful economic dictatorship imposed by the handful of rich and mainly Western states and their multi-national companies.

The arrival of imported cane-harvesting machines in sugarcane fields may push migrant cane cutters deeper in bondage.

by Dionne Bunsha

"This town rips the bones from your back
Its a death trap, its a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we're young
'Cause tramps like us, baby, we were born to run."
-- Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run.