Lebanon stands on the brink of all-out civil war. A general strike by the leading trade union to protest rising prices and demand an increase in the minimum wage has led to armed conflict between the pro-Western Sunni and Druze-based government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and the Shia-based Hezbollah and its ally, Amal.
Sphere: Related ContentLebanon stands on the brink of all-out civil war. A general strike by the leading trade union to protest rising prices and demand an increase in the minimum wage has led to armed conflict between the pro-Western Sunni and Druze-based government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and the Shia-based Hezbollah and its ally, Amal.
Sphere: Related ContentDemocratic presidential front-runner Senator Barack Obama said on Sunday he would endorse Bush’s nominee to direct US military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout a region extending from North Africa to Central Asia. The pledge, made on the "Fox News Sunday" program, while predictable, serves nonetheless to thoroughly expose the antiwar pretenses of Obama and the Democratic Party as a whole.
Sphere: Related ContentThe decision handed down Friday morning by a New York judge in the police slaying of Sean Bell was as shocking as it was predictable. A 23-year-old, unarmed man was cut down in a hail of 50 bullets on the morning of what was to be his wedding, and no one is held accountable.
Sphere: Related ContentStriking American Axle workers held a picket outside the company’s headquarters Thursday afternoon ahead of a scheduled stockholders meeting.
It is a measure of the profound decay of American democracy that when the president of the United States welcomed the Roman Catholic pontiff to Washington last week, a major concern was that the representative of a 2,000-year-old religious institution, steeped in reaction and hostility to science and human progress, might seem to criticize the US government from the left.
Sphere: Related ContentBelgian author Hugo Claus, who died last month, was one of the most prolific and versatile of postwar European writers. From 1947, when he was just 18, he produced thousands of poems, some 20 novels, 18 books of short stories, film scripts, libretti, and around 60 plays, including translations into Dutch and adaptations from English, French, Greek, German and Spanish works. He also painted, and worked extensively in the dramatic arts as a director. He once said that had he grown up in a country with a tradition of cinema, he would probably have been a film director rather than a writer. Some of his works are available in English translations, including his most important novel, 1983’s The Sorrow of Belgium (Het Verdriet van België).
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Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have uncovered the first clues about the ancient origins of a mother’s intricate lifeline to her unborn baby, the placenta, which delivers oxygen and nutrients critical to the baby’s health.
Sphere: Related ContentOver the past five days, media commentary on the US presidential election campaign has focused on the supposedly disastrous "gaffe" made by Democrat Barack Obama in his comments earlier this month at a San Francisco fundraiser, where he remarked on the mood of anger and bitterness in small-town and rural America, and how this was expressed in various political and ideological forms.
Sphere: Related ContentSpeaking to the WSWS, Francis Boyle, a professor of international law and human rights at the University of Illinois, said, "Clearly this was criminal activity at the time they committed it. At the very least, it violated the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture, the War Crimes Act, and the federal anti-torture statutes. Clearly these would be impeachable offenses."
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