URL: Latest posts
Climate policies must break free from Big Oil
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It seems an odd time for environment policy wonks to throw a party. The level of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere is higher than it has been in three million years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US.
France follows Israel's script
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Welcome to Toulouse, a city that supports Israeli apartheid. Admittedly, I didn't see this slogan on any billboards when I arrived in this splendid part of France earlier this week. The slogan nonetheless reflects reality. Toulouse's importance as...
The caring facade of French imperialism
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The "public relations" accompanying wars has become wearily predictable. Whenever one of its governments or allies conducts a military action, there is a near certainty that the European Union will host or participate in a "donors' conference". One...
Warren Buffett signs $2 billion check in support of Israeli apartheid
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I gave up drinking the day after the Live8 concert in 2005. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. Apart from the obvious health benefits, it helped me figure out things that I had avoided trying to understand. My decision to shun the bottle...
Breaking Europe's silence over Bradley Manning
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Bradley Manning is a hero. Nobody else has put so much classified evidence about the reality of America's wars in the public domain. The "Collateral Murder" video which he released to WikiLeaks should be shown at the beginning of every academic cour...
Keeping the Israel lobby on its toes
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Does the pro-Israel lobby have to be embarrassed into playing by the rules? Yesterday, I contacted Dimitri Dombret, former secretary-general with European Friends of Israel (EFI), about his entry in a "transparency register" for groups seeking to inf...
Italy's new foreign minister Emma Bonino wants Israel in EU
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Emma Bonino, Italy's new foreign minister, has been lobbying that Israel should be admitted into the European Union for more than a decade. In 2001, Bonino and fellow members of the Radical Party launched a campaign in favor of Israel's immediate me...
The rich are getting richer: so tax them more
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My brain is addled and my belly is full of blubber. I have just returned to Brussels after three weeks in Ireland, watching too many news bulletins and eating too much chocolate. Here is why I am confused. The top story one day was that an Internat...
Israel invades privacy of campaigner Frank Barat
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The Israeli government confirmed this week that passengers arriving in Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport may have their email accounts searched. By coincidence, the Palestine solidarity campaigner Frank Barat experienced that kind of intrusion when he f...
Apologist for apartheid masquerades as human rights activist
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Last night I witnessed an attempt to cover Israel's crimes against humanity with a veneer of respectability. Joëlle Fiss is a pro-Israel lobbyist who masquerades as an anti-racist campaigner with Human Rights First, a group dedicated to "Americ...
Thatcher inspires trans-Atlantic trade agenda
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One unintended consequence of the Boston bombing is that it showed the best side of America. Human kindness overflowed - to paraphrase the songwriter Randy Newman - as emergency services and health personnel responded with great speed and courage. Wi...
Revealed: World customs body hires Israeli arms firm
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An Israeli arms company is benefiting from an international customs operation aimed at detecting illicit chemicals. The World Customs Organization (WCO) has admitted buying equipment from Karil International, a firm which numbers the Israeli military...
Thatcher and Merkel: enemies of the Irish
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On the last day of Margaret Thatcher's life, I walked in the footsteps of an Irish rebel. Saint Enda's School is tucked away in a tranquil park near the Dublin mountains. It was here that Pádraig Pearse taught from 1910 until he was executed...
Zionist lobby lies about Palestine solidarity groups "joining forces" with far right
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A new study on anti-Semitism by Tel Aviv University contains a brazen lie. In an attempt to slander the international Palestine solidarity movement, the report alleges that "extreme right-wing and extreme-left wing activists joined forces" in a prot...
The mercenaries of austerity
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This is a heartfelt plea to journalists everywhere: let us expunge the term "bail-out" from our collective vocabulary. A "bail-out" implies that something in a perilous state is being rescued. Too often over the past three or four years, the term...
Caterpillar destroys livelihoods in Europe and Palestine
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Like many Palestine solidarity activists, I've long regarded Caterpillar as a callous firm. A trip to the Belgian city of Charleroi over the weekend reinforced this view. Caterpillar recently announced that it is shedding 1,400 jobs from its Charlero...
Corporations hold Europe captive
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The middle finger on José Manuel Barroso's right hand has been in constant action lately. It has been used to deliver an "up yours" salute to 99% of the world's population. A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the European Commission chief had...
The truth 10 years later: Germany helped the invasion of Iraq
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I got very drunk the night that the Iraq war began. It seemed like the only way I could respond to the helplessness and depression I was experiencing. Ten years later, I no longer touch alcohol and can see things a lot more clearly. Taking refuge in...
Why scrapping labour laws is barbaric
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Edmund Stoiber once caused something of an uproar when he said "unfortunately, not everyone in Germany is as intelligent as in Bavaria". Though he no longer presides over that picturesque state, the veteran politician retains considerable clout. And...
War criminal Peres honored again by European university
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I only met Stéphane Hessel once. But I loved his pamphlet Time for Outrage. Here was a man in his nineties, goading the young into disobeying authority. A few days after Hessel's death last week, I was lucky enough to meet a number of student...
