Eric Zuesse: Evidence Is Now Conclusive: 2 Ukrainian Government Fighter-Jets Did Shoot Down that Malaysian Airliner. No ‘Buk’ Missile Ground-Shot

We’ll go considerably farther than has yet been revealed by the professional intelligence community, to provide the actual evidence that conclusively shows that (and how) the Ukrainian Government shot down the Malaysian airliner, MH-17, on July 17th. The latest report from the intelligence community was headlined on August 3rd by Robert Parry, “Flight 17 Shoot-Down Scenario Shifts,” and …

Robert Young Pelton: ON AFGHANISTAN – Why Abdullah and Fraud Will Destroy the Country and Destabilize the Region

Phi Beta Iota: RYP wrote this in part to react to Abdullah’s cavalier rejection of the Iraq scenario playing out  today, for Afghanistan. His over-all point is that both candidates — Abdullah and Ghani — have pluses and minuses  that voters and donors must consider BUT that there is only one clean candidate capable of …

Chuck Spinney: Michael Hudson on The New Cold War’s Ukraine Gambit

Long but well worth reading and thinking about. CS   The New Cold War’s Ukraine Gambit Michael Hudson [1] Posted on michaelhudson.com, 12 May 2014 http://michael-hudson.com/2014/05/the-new-cold-wars-ukraine-gambit/ Michael Hudson is Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and former Professor of Economics and Director of Economic Research at the Latvia Graduate School of Law. …

SchwartzReport: No One Trusts Washington on Climate Change – Loss of Legitimacy is EXPENSIVE

The ongoing disinformation campaign financed by carbon interests such as the Koch brothers, combined with the corruption of every branch of our government, has left us in this condition. No One Trusts Washington on Climate Change CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL, Senior Editor – Financial Times (U.K.) In the age of the Iraq war and Obamacare, the government …

Chuck Spinney: Ukraine Hysteria, Spies, Lies, & Pentagon Budget Games

This report/analysis in Le Monde Diplomatique (also attached below) provides a background on the rise of far right — some would say neo-fascist — politics in Ukraine.  I have reformatted and highlighted it to emphasize points that struck me as important.  If you find my markup distracting, the preceding link will take you to the …

Jean Lievens: Can the Internet Democratize Capitalism?

Can the Internet Democratize Capitalism? Yanis Varoufakis International Policy Digest, February 22, 2014 Technological fixes to time-honoured problems are all the rage these days. Bitcoin is meant to fix money, social media are seen as an antidote to Rupert Murdoch and assorted tyrants, networked robots are to help countries like Japan deal with demographic declines …