Fwd: CC News Letter 22-23 Nov - Obama Extends War In Afghanistan

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From: Countercurrents <editor@countercurrents.org>
Date: Sun, Nov 23, 2014 at 10:10 PM
Subject: CC News Letter 22-23 Nov - Obama Extends War In Afghanistan
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 In Solidarity
 Binu Mathew
 Editor
 www.countercurrents.org


 Obama Extends War  In Afghanistan
 By Kathy Kelly

http://www.countercurrents.org/kelly231114.htm

News agencies reported this morning that weeks ago President Obama signed an order, kept secret until now, to authorize continuation of the Afghan war for at least another year. The order authorizes U.S. airstrikes "to support Afghan military operations in the country" and U.S. ground troops to continue normal operations, which is to say, to "occasionally accompany Afghan troops " on operations against the Taliban


Vedic Capitalism
 By Satya Sagar

http://www.countercurrents.org/sagar231114.htm

In a move that has taken no one, except the most gullible citizens, by surprise the public sector State Bank of India changed its name to the Seth Bank of India. The bank, which is India's largest financial institution, said in a statement that the renaming was done to better reflect the fact that it is no longer the Indian State but the Indian Seth who decides its policies


Inequality: A Glimpse In The Food Market
 By Farooque Chowdhury

http://www.countercurrents.org/chowdhury231114.htm

The world food market with its amazing supermarkets, alluring discounters, magnificent hypermarkets, convenience stores, small food stalls, neutraceuticals that mix nutrients and medicine, monstrous agribusinesses, small-scale farms and cooperatives, whole sellers, retailers, hoarders, black marketers, speculators, big "organic" food business, future markets spreading over the entire world bears all the ills capital produces. The market conceives all the contradictions capitalism is capable of creating. Inequality is a part of it


Animal Welfare: Seeing The Forest For The Denizens
 By Brian Czech

http://www.countercurrents.org/czech231114.htm

If we are serious about animal welfare, we have to get beyond the mere adoration of hedgehogs and hippos. We have to face up to the big-picture, systematic erosion of wild animal welfare. It's all around us and getting worse by the day, and our public policies precipitate it


Solzhenitsyn And JFK: Soul-Mates
 By Robert Snefjella

http://www.countercurrents.org/snefjella231114.htm

It was a most fateful coup, in 1963: To banish from public discourse sincerity, integrity, accurately describing the real. These became the forbidden. Falsehood was empowered. The real was made furtive. When one consistently confuses the imagined with the real, one is deemed mad: being 'out of touch with reality', is the layman's definition of insanity


Sri Lanka: The Beginning of The End of A Distorted Era
 By Nilantha Ilangamuwa

http://www.countercurrents.org/ilangamuwa231114.htm

Those who are screaming for liberty and humanity to prevails in this land have to face the real challenges in a short period of time. They are the people who can rescue the country It is time for the nation to correct its path and regain liberty and humanity


Shouldn't Bangladesh Proscribe The Jamaat-e-Islami?
 By Taj Hashmi

http://www.countercurrents.org/hashmi231114.htm

I strongly believe that the proscription of the Jamaat in Bangladesh is essential, not only because of its heinous role against the Liberation War, but also for two other important considerations


Why To Abrogate Article 370?
 By Ishaq Begh

http://www.countercurrents.org/begh231114.htm

It is beyond our comprehension that whole population of Jammu and Kashmir is willingly or unwillingly supports the existence of article 370 as a bridge and any move to break this will open new insurgence in Kashmir. How people of Kashmir will forget the authenticity of their indigenous place which is the hotbed of tourism industry and can't afford any destruction of its fragile climate and environmental scenery. Communal powers keep the sole aim to polarise the vote bank in Jammu and Kashmir which will definitely bifurcate further the three regions of Jammu and Kashmir


Kashmir Elections: Our PM Without A Real Dialogue
 By Ravi Nitesh

http://www.countercurrents.org/nitesh231114.htm

Today's speech of Mr. Modi is completely passive and cannot be said to be positive in any way. During his speech at Kishtwar of J&K, he only jumped in the election ground with his promises for development without the basic understanding that right to life is first and more important than anything else


Sikkim's Inclusion In NE Is Racism As Well
 By Aishik Chanda

http://www.countercurrents.org/chanda231114.htm

"We are the eight…we are united" goes the anthem of the John Abraham-owned Northeast United football club. The song, which features several singers of the North east region of India invokes the eight states to put up a united show in the Indian Super League. The football team, with its motto "8 states, 1 united" is one of the first to officially present the region to the nation as a union of eight states and not seven

22 November , 2014


Did Russia And China Just Sign A Death Warrant For U.S. LNG Exports?
 By Kurt Cobb

http://www.countercurrents.org/cobb221114.htm

Russia and China have signed two large natural gas deals in the last six months as Russia turns its attention eastward in reaction to sanctions and souring relations with Europe, currently Russia's largest energy export market. But the move has implications beyond Europe. In the department of everything is connected, U.S. natural gas producers may be seeing their dream of substantial liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports suffer fatal injury because of Russian exports to the Chinese market, a market that was expected to be the largest and most profitable for LNG exporters


Why Do We Allow Ukraine's Government To Write
 The Official Report On Their Shoot-Down of MH17?
 By Eric Zuesse

http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse221114.htm

There are only two suspects in the shoot-down of the MH17 Malaysian airliner over Ukraine on July 17th: the separatist rebels, whom the Ukrainian Government. One of these two suspects, the Ukrainian Government, was granted by the other three member-states of the official MH17 'investigating' commission, a veto-power over anything that's written into that 'investigating' report


MH 17: Why Is Malaysia Not Part Of The Probe?
 By Dr. Chandra Muzaffar

http://www.countercurrents.org/muzaffar221114.htm

Ours is a just demand. It is just not only because MH 17 is ours. It is just because we have a fair and balanced approach to the tragedy and its probe. We want the entire truth to be known. Our participation in the investigation will at least help to check any attempt to conceal or camouflage the real story behind one of the most heinous crimes in recent times


Bhopal: 30 Years Of Struggle And Survival
 By Mickey Z

http://www.countercurrents.org/mickeyz221114.htm

"If you believe in corporate accountability, environmental health and justice, social justice, reproductive justice, human rights and a toxic-free future for all, the Bhopal gas disaster is an issue that should matter to you." - Reena Shadaan


Palestine: If America Won't Do What Is Needed Europe Should And Here's Why
 By Alan Hart

http://www.countercurrents.org/hart221114.htm

For many years I have believed that unless America took the lead in doing whatever is necessary to cause Israel to end its defiance of international law and be serious about peace on the basis of justice for the Palestinians and security for all Europe would do nothing and, by default, go on being complicit in Israel's ongoing colonization of the occupied West Bank. But a recent article by Daniel Barenboim, the Jewish and globally celebrated pianist and conductor and outspoken critic of Israel's occupation, caused me to wonder if it's time to forget about what America could but won't do and focus on the need for Germany and Britain to put their act together and take the lead


Gaza Bombings Rock Palestinian Reconciliation
 By Nicola Nasser

http://www.countercurrents.org/nasser221114.htm

It is ironic that the annual commemoration of the death of Yasser Arafat should turn into an occasion for rekindling the flames of internal strife. This was clearly the aim of last week's bombings that targeted the homes of Fatah leaders in Gaza, as well as the podium for the commemorative ceremonies of Arafat, who strove to make Palestinian national unity one of the pillars of his political legacy


Birgitta Jónsdóttir Democracy And Freedom Of Information
 By John Scales Avery

http://www.countercurrents.org/avery221114.htm

The Icelandic parliamentarian, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, has taken an important step towards solving one of the central problems that the world is facing today. The problem is this: How can we regain democratic government when the mainstream media are completely controlled the corporate oligarchy?


Mourning John F. Kennedy And A Half-Century of Degraded Arts And Culture
 By Gary Corseri

http://www.countercurrents.org/corseri221114.htm

For half a century now, our artists, as well as our "public servants," have, mostly, wandered in a wilderness of arrogance and poor judgment. Fearful of losing their academic sinecures or foundation grants, our artists have, too often, eschewed a vigorous critique of America's imperious, foundational economic principles—the Corporate State and its self-serving Republicratic 1-party system!


Damaged Turbo-Generator At Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant,
 Overhauled Before Grid Connection?
 By VT Padmanabhan, R Ramesh, V Pugazhendi & Joseph Makkolil

http://www.countercurrents.org/vtp221114.htm

Two years before its grid connection, the Russian-made turbine was overhauled by a private contractor and this fact was kept as a guarded secret. In spite of the overhaul, KKNPP turbine failed within hours of grid connection and was responsible for five trips, which kept the reactor off-grid for 59 days. It could not be revived even after a two-month long maintenance during August- September 2014. Usually the first overhaul of a new turbine is done after completion of 5 to 10 years of work. The extreme damage of the turbine could have been due to the mal-functioning of vibration monitoring instrument made by a Russian company charged for selling counterfeit parts. Failure of instrumentation in other systems have the potential for catastrophic accidents


The Fate of (Secular) Indian Democracy 50 Years After Jawaharlal Nehru
 By Sukumaran C. V.

http://www.countercurrents.org/sukumaran221114.htm

Ram Bai, who was displaced from her village that was submerged when the Bargi dam was built on the Narmada and forced to live in a slum in Jabalpur, says: "Why didn't they just poison us? Then we wouldn't have to live in this shit-hole and the Government could have survived along with its precious dam all to itself." When a democracy doesn't listen to the words of the people like Ram Bai and doesn't stop creating large number of hapless people like the tribal man who says that it would be better for his baby to die, it ceases to be a democracy


Patriarchy And The Dysfunction of Society
 By Janet Surman

http://www.countercurrents.org/surman221114.htm

With much talk of paedophilia plus the physical and sexual mistreatment and abuse of women in the news just lately (if largely because of the number of well known individuals called into question) it set me thinking about the perpetrators and why it is that so many males are drawn towards violence of this kind. What is it about the make-up of societies around the world that spawns and breeds ongoing generations, some of whose offspring have a propensity for what the majority view as antisocial? For we are talking about a global phenomenon here; neither nationality nor religion seem to make a difference. Patriarchy is the common factor


Piketty For Progressives -- Part 5
 By Thomas Riggins

http://www.countercurrents.org/riggins221114.htm

This posting will cover sections 11 and 12 in Piketty's introduction to Capital in the 21st Century


Andre Vltchek: Point of No Return
 Book Review

http://www.countercurrents.org/Vltchek221114.pdf

With his work Point of No Return, the journalist, documentary filmmaker and author of nu-merous books on the repercussions of Western imperialism Andre Vltchek engages in a risk that has become rare these days, namely, to write an explicitly political novel. And what is more, he succeeds in doing so in a very impressive way


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