Global

The U.S. began a 12-day annual, multinational
Cobra Gold military exercise on Monday (February 9), despite the
biggest pro-democracy protest in months displaying coup leader Gen.
Prayuth Chan-ocha as a gigantic faux Teletubby authoritarian.

In a sign of disapproval against the coup, Washington scaled-down
Cobra Gold, its biggest military exercise in the Asia-Pacific, and
this year sent about 3,600 U.S. troops instead of last year's 4,300.

"The large-scale, live-fire exercise associated w/ amphibious landing
was cancelled," American Embassy charge d'affaires W. Patrick Murphy
tweeted on Tuesday (February 10).

Other lethal exercises will be included.

A "non-combatant evacuation" from Thailand's tourist-packed Pattaya
beach near Bangkok is also scheduled, plus a "field training exercise"
involving troops in various formations.

Thailand is a key non-NATO ally of the U.S. in Southeast Asia.

Gen. Prayuth staged a bloodless coup on May 22, toppling a popularly
elected prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra.

Experts have put urban violence under the microscope. You might call it the sociology of dead kids.

There’s a lot less here than meets the eye, or so it seemed when I read about a new study by researchers at Yale called “Tragic, but not random: The social contagion of nonfatal gunshot injuries.” It’s an attempt to create categories of likely future shooting victims in Chicago and, thus, determine who among us is most in danger. Well, sure, why not? But in the process, the study, at least as it was reported a few days ago in the Chicago Sun-Times, utterly depersonalized the potential victims, along with the communities in which they lived, reducing them to components in a mathematical formula.

The researchers “sought to go beyond a racial explanation for nonfatal shootings,” according to the Sun-Times. “They were trying to explain why a specific young African-American male in a high-crime neighborhood becomes a shooting victim, while another young black man in the same neighborhood doesn’t, the study said.”

“Russian aggression” – the bad faith mantra of dishonest brokers

Just as NATO allies Germany and France were undertaking a peace initiative with Russia and Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry turned up in Kiev at the same time, seeking to poison the talks before they started by spouting yet again the ritual U.S. accusation of “Russian aggression.” The incantation is meaningless without context. Its purpose is mesmerize a false consciousness. “Russian aggression” may or may not exist in the events of the past year, just like “Russian self-defense.” Reporting on the ground has been too unreliable to support any firm analysis, never mind the provocative “Russian aggression” the U.S. brandishes as a virtual call for war. 

Iran is not engaged in nuclear weapons research,
and not an "imminent threat" requiring military action, according to
Mohamed El Baradei, former director of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to
prevent nuclear proliferation.

"Anybody who is calling for a military solution for the Iranian issue
is crazy, because you will get a much worse situation than what you
have," Mr. El Baradei said.

"Nobody today is vouching that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. I
think even the U.S. intelligence [agencies], as you probably know, say
that Iran stopped any nuclear weapons research -- assuming that they
had done that -- in 2003," he said.

"That still continues to be the assessment of the U.S. intelligence
agencies, all the intelligence agencies. No, there is no imminent
threat that requires"  military action.

Mr. El Baradei made the remarks during a presentation here in Bangkok
on Monday (February 11) at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of
Thailand.

OK, president Obama professes his Christian beliefs and admits to
reading Joshua Dubois' daily devotional meditations for inspiration.
Yet he is deliberate in conceding Islam is a "great religion" in his
latest official responses to the Charlie Hedbo murders and immolation
of a Jordanian pilot. The White House refuses to link any of these
acts to the "great religion" of Islam. Though this sentiment, or
narrative if I may, is not shared by members on both sides of the
political aisle, there is one bi-partisan agreement that I have heard
reiterated by various politicians via the fourth estate-that Islam is
a "great"  religion being corrupted by radicals. This is where the
inescapable duplicitous nature of belief in the supernatural rears its
irreconcilable head.

President Obama has broken all records with respect to prosecuting whistleblowers, despite his promise to be more open that the previous administration.  He has used the Espionage Act seven times, and use other punitive measures against leakers, many of whom are seen as whistleblowers.  For all his good qualities, Obama behaves as if he works for the CIA, as he does their bidding at every opportunity. Evidently, enough people watch the TV show “The Biggest Loser” to keep it on the air. But which of the prosecuted whistleblowers is the biggest loser?

Was the United States compelled to attack Afghanistan and Iraq by the events of September 11, 2001?

A key to answering that rather enormous question may lie in the secrets that the U.S. government is keeping about Saudi Arabia.

Some have long claimed that what looked like a crime on 9/11 was actually an act of war necessitating the response that has brought violence to an entire region and to this day has U.S. troops killing and dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Could diplomacy and the rule of law have been used instead? Could suspects have been brought to trial? Could terrorism have been reduced rather than increased? The argument for those possibilities is strengthened by the fact that the United States has not chosen to attack Saudi Arabia, whose government is probably the region's leading beheader and leading funder of violence.

But what does Saudi Arabia have to do with 9/11? Well, every account of the hijackers has most of them as Saudi. And there are 28 pages of a 9/11 Commission report that President George W. Bush ordered classified 13 years ago.

The Sinai Peninsula has moved from the margins of Egyptian body politic to the uncontested center, as Egypt’s strong man - President Abdul Fatah al-Sisi - finds himself greatly undercut by the rise of an insurgency that seems to be growing stronger with time.

Another series of deadly and coordinated attacks, on January 29, shattered the Egyptian army’s confidence, pushing it further into a deadly course of a war that can only be won by political sagacity, not bigger guns.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- The U.S. and Russia should destroy their deadly
smallpox stockpiles or be "guilty of crimes against humanity," because
the virus slaughtered hundreds of millions of people before it was
stopped in 1980 and would kill again if it escapes a laboratory, the
American who led the global eradication said.

"There were two laboratories that have smallpox, we know that for
sure, one was the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) in Atlanta, and
the second was the Institute of Virus Preparations in Moscow," Dr.
Donald A. Henderson said in an interview.

"There, the virus is -- we believe -- sequestered.  All [other]
countries have signed off that they don't have any smallpox," said Dr.
Henderson, who led the World Health Organization's (WHO's) Global
Smallpox Eradication Campaign which declared worldwide success 35
years ago.

Dr. Henderson was here in Bangkok, Thailand, to receive the annual
$100,000 Prince Mahidol Award in the Field of Public Health on January
28.

During the 20th century, smallpox killed 300 million to 500 million

Our Earth is being destroyed by fracking and nukes.

These two vampire technologies suck the energy out of our planet while permanently poisoning our air, water, food and livelihoods.

The human movements fighting them have been largely separate over the years.

No more.

In the wake of Fukushima, the global campaign to bury atomic power has gained enormous strength. All Japan’s 54 reactors remain shut. Germany is amping up its renewable energy generation with a goal of 80 percent or more by 2050. Four U.S. reactors under construction are far over budget and behind schedule. Five old ones have closed in the last two years.

In New England and elsewhere, as the old nukes go down, safe energy activists shift their attention to the deadly realities of fossil fuel extraction.