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by Jane Mayer

While popular uprisings erupt across the Middle East, America stands on the sidelines. Stephen Kinzer on why the U.S. should abandon its self-defeating strategy in the region.

Leading figures in U.S.–Mideast policy (from left): Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

One afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I walked into the British Foreign Office for a meeting with Middle East policy planners. “Tunisia is melting down and the Lebanese government has just fallen,” my host said as he welcomed me. “Interesting times.”

by Bob Chapman

The US welfare state rumbles on and in some sectors of business it is being encouraged. We have to assume this attitude is based on more and increasing profits. Needless to say, it is cloaked in language that refers to the poor suffering people. The economy in the US and in many other countries is being run by and for major corporate interests.

by Kevin Zeese

Members of the corporate political duopoly switched seats and sat next to each other making it even harder to tell the corporate welfare party from the crony capitalist party. Sadly, the spokespersons for both failed to learn the lessons of history and as a result the American economy will continue to falter with U.S. militarism continuing to expand.

Listening to the saccharin rhetoric of President Obama one would think the nation’s economy was flourishing and the military was winning wars. The truth, that the economy is still in collapse and the military is stuck in war quagmires all piling up record debt, was hard to see through his veil of words.

Question: When is a Crime Not Considered Criminal?
Answer: When it’s Hatched on Wall Street.

by Danny Schechter

All over Europe and in much of the rest of the world, a new fictional hero has engaged the fascination of millions of readers. His name is Mikael Blomkvist, and he’s the protagonist of the late Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. These thrillers, set against the background of high financial crimes and misdemeanors, have become global best-sellers, doubtless in part owing to their gripping plots, elaborate mysteries and engaging characters. But their success is also indisputably a by-product of the macroeconomic chicaneries of our era and the human catastrophes they have wrought.

by Patrick Martin

Military documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union after a lengthy lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act provide important new evidence of American war crimes. The documents include autopsy reports and investigative reports on the deaths of 190 prisoners held by the US military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The more than 2,600 pages of documents were turned over to the ACLU on January 14 and made public on the organization’s web site five days later.

by Mya Guarnieri

There was that jarring week in December – a protest against Arab-Jewish couples, a south Tel Aviv march and demonstration against migrant workers and African asylum seekers, the arrest of Jewish teenagers accused of beating Palestinians and the expulsion of five Arab men from their home in south Tel Aviv. It left me with the question: What is next?

It is impossible to predict the future. But there are signs that violence, perpetrated by citizens, could be spreading.

by Bob Chapman

As of Wednesday we have seen the euro rise 7 straight days, which caused the USDX to fall to 78.14, this in spite of having 10-year rates in Spain, Portugal and Ireland rising 3 bps.

Both food and energy prices have risen at double-digit rates. This is an inflation reflection of 1979-80, 1996 and 2008. In the 1979 and 1980 and in the 2008 period our inflation gauge measured real inflation of 14-1/4%. Both occurred in recessions similar to today’s inflationary depression.

by Prof Michael Hudson and Prof. Jeffrey Sommers

A spectre is haunting Europe: the illusion that Latvia’s financial and fiscal austerity is a model for other countries to emulate. Bankers and the financial press are asking governments from Greece to Ireland and now Spain as well: “Why can’t you be like Latvia and sacrifice your economy to pay the debts that you ran up during the financial bubble?” The answer is, they can’t – without an economic, demographic and political collapse that will only make matters worse.

by Shamus Cooke

You’d think the U.S. was already at war with China, given the immense amount of anti-China rhetoric spouting from the government and media. But selling wars takes time. The average American hasn’t bought in to this false advertising yet. So the big lie will be repeated until its roots are deeply sunk into the American psyche: China, says the U.S. government, is a threat that needs to be “dealt with.”

This propaganda assault is multi-faceted, taking aim from all directions. Any China-related issue — military, economic, and social — is open for attack. For example, the head of the U.S. Department of Defense, Robert Gates, recently visited Asia and focused much of his trip talking about China as a “military threat.”

by Mary Bottari

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is promising to unleash a cache of secret documents from the hard drive of a U.S. megabank executive. In 2009, he told Computer World that the bank was Bank of America (BofA). In 2010, he told Forbes that the information was significant enough to “take down a bank or two,” but that he needed time to lay out the information in a more user-friendly format.

Recent new reports suggest that BofA is now moving into high gear on damage control, creating a “war room” and buying up hundreds of derogatory Internet domain names including BankofAmericaSucks.com and BrianMoynihanblows.com (BofA’s CEO).