It is no accident that the western world is facing a mental health crisis. Science and technology have brought civilisation to a bold new frontier but many of us are out of sync with the soul. An over emphasis on material growth hasn’t been balanced with the human need for meaning and the desire to be free. It has imprisoned our spirits and left many of us disconnected from our true selves, from each other, and from the natural world around us. ... read full story / add a comment

A seemingly minor issue to the Turkish government at least has sparked huge protests in Istanbul and in other cities in Turkey where plans to remove a city public park and replace it with a shopping mall has triggered in the space of 24 hours has triggered the protests. It seems everywhere people are fed up with the arrogance of politicians and their corrupt moneyed backers.

The Erdoğan government’s dictatorial approach to town planning has awakened a sleeping giant. In the space of 24 hours a simple protest over a park’s future has become a nationwide rebellion against authoritarian government, violent police and creeping Islamisation of a famously secular society. rabble’s men on the ground ... read full story / add a comment

Full text at link.

The following is an interview with Adel Omar, from the foreign bureau of the Syrian Communist Party-Bakdash. The interview was conducted following an international peace conference held in Istanbul and Antakya, Turkey, April 25-28 and was published in the May issue of the Communist Party of Turkey’s monthly publication. The translation from Turkish is by Liberation News.

Can you describe the position of the Syrian Communist Party toward the imperialist aggression against Syria?

First and foremost, as the Syrian Communist Party, we believe that the course of events in Syria is neither a revolution nor a civil war. It is very clear that what has been taking place in Syria has been in accordance with the imperialist plans. It is not possible for us to define a process where NATO has been involved as a revolution. Besides, it is not the case that different sectors of the people of Syria are fighting one another. On the contrary, our people are resisting the imperialist forces together.

It is true that the people of Syria have demands and needs that need to be met, but the way to achieve this is not through destroying everything that belongs to the state of Syria. At the moment, our country is under attack, and achieving unity among the people to defend our homeland is what needs to be done first. At this point, we think it is especially crucial for the government to respond to the demands and the needs of the people. In order to be able to establish a solid resistance front against the imperialist attack, we believe a top priority for the government is to provide for the basic needs of the people, including food and medicine. Only then can the struggle of the people against imperialism be unrelenting. ... read full story / add a comment

The latest edition of the Weekly Worker is now available online at www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/964

In this week's issue:

SWP: IN DECAY AND IN DENIAL
Peter Manson contrasts the speakers lists for Marxism 2013 and Counterfire

WOOLWICH: A PRETEXT FOR STATE REPRESSION
The murder of a soldier highlights the irrationality of bourgeois politics - but also the failure of the left, argues Paul Demarty ... read full story / add a comment

A few evenings ago, as the sky began to darken here in Kabul, Afghanistan, a small group of the Afghan Peace Volunteers, (APVs), gathered for an informal presentation about WikiLeaks, its chief editor Julian Assange, and its most prominent contributor, Bradley Manning. Basir Bita, a regular visitor to the APV household, began the evening’s discussion noting that June 1st will mark the beginning of Bradley Manning’s fourth year in prison. Two days later his trial will begin, a trial which could sadly result in his imprisonment for a life sentence. June 1st also begins an international week of support and solidarity, aimed at thanking Bradley Manning. #ThankManning! ... read full story / add a comment

The "rebels" continue to target journalists who report unfavourably on them. Full text at link.

Yara Abbas, a prominent female Syrian war reporter, was killed in the country’s west, Syrian officials confirmed. The country remains a dangerous place for journalists, especially as some rebel groups reportedly target them for assassination.

Abbas, 26, who worked for the privately-owned Damascus-based Al-Ikhbariyah TV (Syrian News Channel), was killed by sniper fire in a rebel attack not far from the Dabaa air base. The country’s Information Ministry offered no further details, but the pro-rebel Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that several members of her TV crew were also wounded in the attack.

... read full story / add a comment

Regardless of what the actual total of livestock contribution to global warming, it is part of the problem and we ignore it at our collective peril.
... read full story / add a comment

Well respected activist and contributor to indymedia was shot and injured by the Israeli military while filming a protest in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank in Palestine on good Friday. He is ok but sustained a nasty injury to his arm. ... read full story / add a comment

In this week's issue:

SECTARIAN LEFT: SVENGALIS OF LEFT UNITY BLOCK UNITY
Peter Manson examines two contrasting views of the new attempt to revive Labourism

ZIONIST MYTHS: HEBREW VERSUS JEWISH IDENTITY
This is an expanded version of the talk given by Moshé Machover at the March 3 London conference, ‘Reclaiming an Alternative Jewish Culture and Identity’

The latest edition of the Weekly Worker is now available online at http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/962 ... read full story / add a comment

An analysis of the Colombian peace process that takes on the myths about "peace" and the rush to support yet another defeat for workers and peasant movements in Colombia. ... read full story / add a comment

Interesting report on the State attacks on British Muslims and the role played by private think tanks.

This report attempts to understand the current climate of fear being whipped-up against Muslims in Britain by examining two right-wing think-tanks: the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) and Policy Exchange. The report maintains that the arguments advanced by these thinktanks represent a reversion to the failed counter-subversion strategies of the past.

The report also argues that right-wing think-tanks have understated the rise of Islamophobia on the far-right and in some cases condoned the rise of groups such as the English Defence League (EDL) because of their own links to the counter-jihad movement. ... read full story / add a comment

Yassamine Mather looks at the candidates for the presidency, who have to be approved by a council of clerics, and reckons they have anything to offer to the ordinary people.

On the last available day, ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani registered as a presidential candidate. Rafsanjani was the Islamic republic’s fourth president and is standing as a ‘reformist’. In reality he is the candidate of capitalism and probably one of the richest men in Iran. The newst that Rafsanjani had entered the race ‘to save the country’ generated hysteria. The principlists (conservative, hard-line supporters of ayatollah Ali Khamenei) accuse Rafsanjani of holding back before making his last-minute move in order to surprise his opponents. There is some truth to this claim: principlists entered the presidential elections with at least 7 serious candidates and another 14 less serious contenders. Had they known they would be facing such a figure, they would have tried to rally round a single candidate. ... read full story / add a comment

Where are the UN/EU Sanctions? Where are the calls for intervention? Oh! I forgot, its home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet and there was intervention: in 2011 Saudi Arabia intervened to crush the protesters, Full text at link.

Thousands of anti-government activists flocked to the streets of the Shiite village of Daih in Bahrain to protest against the torture of victims arrested by the minority Sunni-ruled monarchy. The frustrated mob held up signs that read: “Manama, capital of torture,” and waved the national flag.

“Torture is a practice rooted in the security agencies,” in Bahrain, the main Shiite opposition bloc Al-Wefaq said in a statement. It added that these practice were “embedded in the security doctrine - corrupt and hostile to the citizens.” ... read full story / add a comment

Come by and rock the BINZ. ... read full story / add a comment

What was the the reasoning behind the Israeli attacks on Syria?Was this agreed with Obama or did Netanyahu exceed his remit. Full text at link.

Over the weekend of May 4-5 Israel launched air raids against targets in Syria. Yassamine Mather and Moshé Machover, two members of the Hands Off the People of Iran steering committee, discuss the issues raised by this latest development

YM: The two Israeli air raids into Syrian territory have to be looked at in the context of the current Syrian civil war and realignment of regional powers. However, there is an Iranian dimension to all this. According to some Iranian military strategists, “Syria is the 35th province [of Iran] and a strategic province for us. If the enemy attacks us and wants to appropriate either Syria or Khuzestan [in southern Iran], the priority is that we keep Syria.”1

According to ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s most senior foreign policy adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, “Syria has a very basic and key role in the region of promoting firm policies of resistance … for this reason an attack on Syria would be considered an attack on Iran and Iran’s allies.”2

Until May 4-5, there could have been no doubt that, in the event of a military attack by US or Israeli forces, Iran’s first line of defence would be a retaliation against Israel using Hezbollah, who in turn would rely on Syrian military support. The Israeli bombings have clearly changed the situation and weakened Iran’s position considerably. What do you think? Am I right or is this a very Iran-centric analysis? ... read full story / add a comment

83 year old Nun faces 20 years in prison for trespassing on National Security Complex. Full story at link.

An 83-year-old Roman Catholic nun and two other activists are on trial in Tennessee this week for what the New York Times called the biggest security breach in the history of the nation’s atomic complex.

Court proceedings began Tuesday in Knoxville, TN for Sister Megan Rice and two other members of the Transform Now Plowshares, an anti-nuke protest group that is charged with crimes related to the July 28, 2012 break-in of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

... read full story / add a comment

Yes, the attempt to blame Stria for the use of Chemical Weapons just won't stick. It looks as if the "rebels" were responsible. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson – the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell under President George W. Bush – said yesterday that the Syrian chemical weapons could be a “Israeli false flag operation”.

Vid and full story at link.

... read full story / add a comment

The Pro-Choice Alliance Cork condemns Fianna Fail's decision to oppose women's access to their existing constitutional right. It calls on all parties to face up to their responsibility not just to pass legislation on X but to repeal the 8th Amendment.

Spokeswoman Sandra McAvoy said

"It looks as if church gate collections matter more to Fianna Fail than their responsibilities to the women of Ireland. They took the same position that women had no right to control their fertility during the long fight to legalise contraception. Their Ard Feis vote could hardly have shown more clearly that they are the party of the past. Fianna Fail’s stance is further proof that the major parties lack common sense, compassion, empathy.”

“They have learned nothing about women’s rights to life, health and to make their own decisions, from the scandals of symphysiotomy and Magdalen homes. But then, they have never shown an interest in the needs and interests of our women citizens.” ... read full story / add a comment

Fracking is so very safe. Full text at url.

A truck carrying drill cuttings from a fracking site set off a radiation alarm at a landfill in Pennsylvania. Emitting gamma radiation ten times higher than the permitted level, the waste was rejected by the landfill.

After the alarm went off, the MAX Environmental Technologies truck was immediately quarantined and sent back to the Marcellus Shale fracking site it had come from in Greene County, Va. The 159-acre Pennsylvania landfill site accepts residual and hazardous waste, but the cuttings were too radioactive for the site to safely dispose.
... read full story / add a comment

REINHART AND ROGOFF: " 'Full Stop,' We Made A Microsoft Excel Blunder In Our Debt Study, And It Makes A Difference." The oft quoted rationale for austerity measures by such people as Ollie Rehn and Tim Geitner turns out to be the result of an excel blunder by the authors ... read full story / add a comment