JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel is to approve 1,400 new settler homes in east Jerusalem, media and the local council said on Sunday, defying pressure to halt settlement building that has stalled peace talks with the Palestinians. The massive construction project will add homes to the annexed east Jerusalem settlement neighbourhood of Gilo and is expected to receive final approval from … Read More
THE ECONOMICS OF HAPPINESS, THE MOVIE – Economic globalization has led to a massive expansion in the scale and power of big business and banking. It has also worsened nearly every problem we face: fundamentalism and ethnic conflict; climate chaos and species extinction; financial instability and unemployment. There are personal costs too. For the majority of people on the planet … Read More
THE INDEPENDENT/UK – Soldiers, soldiers everywhere. In the valleys, on the mountains, in the streets of Beirut. I have never seen so many soldiers. Are they going to “liberate” Jerusalem? Or are they going to destroy all the Arab dictatorships? They are supposed to stop the country of Lebanon from sliding into a civil war, I suppose. Hezbollah, we are … Read More
COMMONDREAMS – If all the food in the world were shared out evenly, there would be enough to go around. That has been true for centuries now: if food was scarce, the problem was that it wasn’t in the right place, but there was no global shortage. However, that will not be true much longer. The food riots began in … Read More
COMMONDREAMS – When the Enriquillo fault line shifted at 4:53 p.m. last Jan. 12, our bed was sent across the hotel room, the other side of the building collapsed and, as we would soon find out, Haiti was devastated. My 1-year-old son and I had accompanied my wife, an HIV educator for health-care workers, to Haiti only two days before … Read More
