Articles by WSWS

We found 363 results.


Germany and France Press Ahead with a European Military Union
Johannes Stern | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Sep 2016

23 Sep 2016 – Germany has released the joint military policy paper of German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen and her French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian: “Renewing the Joint Security and Defence Policy: Toward a comprehensive, realistic and reliable defence in the EU.” Under conditions of a deep social and political crisis in Europe and growing conflict between the major powers internationally, Berlin and Paris are rapidly pushing forward the militarisation of the continent.

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Leonardo da Vinci–The Genius in Milan: The Marketing of Genius
Lee Parsons | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Sep 2016

23 Sep 2016 – Screened in Toronto this past summer, ‘Leonardo da Vinci–The Genius in Milan’ is being distributed in over 50 countries this year and comes out of the largest exhibition ever mounted in Italy of the work of the great polymath, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).

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France Demands End to Trade Talks with US amid Rising US-EU Tensions
V. Gnana and Alex Lantier | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Sep 2016

31 Aug 2016 – As France demanded an end to talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership deal, the EU said it would levy a €13 billion fine on Apple, a move the US Treasury said could damage US-EU ties. Two days after German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel criticized TTIP, bitterly attacking US negotiating tactics.

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Pfizer Gobbles Up Cancer Drug Maker in $14 Billion Deal
Brad Dixon | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Aug 2016

25 Aug 2016 – Drugmaker Pfizer is set to acquire the biotech company Medivation for $14 billion. The primary aim of the deal was to secure Medivation’s cancer drug Xtandi in order to better position Pfizer within the lucrative market for oncology medications. Numerous drug companies have been circling around Medivation since April, like sharks after raw meat, including Sanofi, Merck, Celgene and Gilead, as well as Pfizer.

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The Ruling Class and the Spectre of Leon Trotsky
Chris Marsden | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Aug 2016

20 Aug 2016 – Seventy-six years ago today, the assassin Ramon Mercader plunged an ice axe into the head of Leon Trotsky at his home in Coyoacan, Mexico City. He died of his injuries the following day. Trotsky is forever associated with the incorruptible struggle against Stalinism and for international socialism.

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Rio 2016: The “Olympic Ideal” and the Reality of Capitalism
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Aug 2016

The Olympics are being held under conditions of military occupation in Brazil, one of the world’s must unequal countries, wracked by economic, social and political crises.

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US Warplanes Kill At Least 28 More Civilians in Northern Syria
Barry Grey | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Aug 2016

In a new US atrocity in Syria, American warplanes on Thursday [28 Jul] bombed a market killing at least 28 civilians, including seven children. The latest mass killing occurred in the same region where, nine days before, the US military bombed a group of houses where nearly 200 people had gathered to seek refuge, with the reported civilian death toll varying from a low of 56 to a high of more than 200.

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Social Inequality Escalates in Denmark amid Bonanza for Banks and Corporations
Ellis Wynne | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Jul 2016

Indeed, a sober analysis of class relationships in Denmark would confirm a growing inequality. As liberal newspaper Information put it baldly, “From 2003 to 2013 the richest tenth of Danes became 29 percent richer whilst the poorest ten percent became 1 percent poorer.”

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American Warplanes Slaughter Civilians in Northern Syria
Thomas Gaist | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Jul 2016

Airstrikes by American warplanes, ordered by US Central Command (CENTCOM), killed dozens of civilians around the Syrian village of al-Tukhar on Monday [18 Jul]. An estimated 85 civilians, including at least 11 children, were killed in the strikes, with unknown numbers buried beneath the rubble.

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The Hague Ruling: A Dangerous Step toward War in the South China Sea
Peter Symonds | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Jul 2016

The hypocrisy involved is staggering. The United States has nothing but contempt for international law and has never been called to account by any UN tribunal for its illegal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, which have resulted in the deaths of millions. As part of its “pivot to Asia” against China, the Obama administration is chiefly responsible for transforming longstanding, low-key regional disputes in the South China Sea into a dangerous flashpoint that threatens to trigger a new and even more devastating war.

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NATO’s War Summit in Warsaw
Alex Lantier | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Jul 2016

The full list of targets identified in NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s opening remarks spans much of the globe. NATO would step up military action in Iraq and Syria and expand its deployments in the Mediterranean and across NATO’s entire “neighborhood.” NATO plans for military action in countries ranging from Libya to Georgia and Ukraine, Afghanistan and the regions bordering China are to be the subject of extensive discussion in Warsaw.

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Israel Implements Collective Punishment after the Stabbing of Teenager
Jean Shaoul | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 Jul 2016

At the same time, the government is using the attack to expand the settlements and incorporate Area C––which is under Israeli military control––into Israel and in the process drive Palestinians living there from their homes. These measures have in turn provoked further attacks by the Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel and ever more strident demands for further repressive measures against the Palestinians by Israel’s right wing.

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Brazil’s Interim President Temer Named in Petrobras Kickback Scandal
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Jun 2016

With the surfacing Wednesday [15 Jun] of charges that Brazil’s interim president, Michel Temer, solicited bribes in return for contracts with the state-run oil conglomerate Petrobras, the right-wing regime installed through the drive to impeach Workers Party (PT) President Dilma Rousseff has been thrown into deeper crisis.

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UN Security Council Agrees to Military Intervention off Libyan Coast
Marianne Arens | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Jun 2016

20 Jun 2016 – Last week, the UN Security Council in New York adopted unanimously a resolution which empowered European member states to search all ships off the Libyan coast for weapons and munitions. With the passage of this resolution, a new war in Libya draws ever closer.

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El Niño and the Acceleration of Global Warming
Matthew MacEgan | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jun 2016

1 June 2016 – New temperature records have been set in the early months of 2016, according to data compiled by NASA. A driver behind what one researcher referred to as “extraordinary” temperatures has been the presence of an abnormally long El Niño. At the same time, research over the last several years has shown how El Niño and its cool-water counterpart, La Niña, have been affected and made more extreme by human-induced climate change.

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Major Police Operation against Roma in Berlin
Andy Niklaus and Karola Kleinert | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 May 2016

On Sunday [22 May] evening, the Berlin police conducted a brutal raid on Roma families protesting against their deportation at the memorial to the Sinti and Roma murdered by the Nazis. On April 8, a commemorative day for the murdered Sinti and Roma took place at the same place. German President Joachim Gauck along with other prominent politicians proclaimed their solidarity with Sinti and Roma. The deployment of police against a peaceful Roma protest at the same location demonstrate how hollow such words are.

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Deepening National Antagonisms Dominate G7 Summit
Nick Beams | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 May 2016

The G7 nations are seeking to ramp up military pressure against China, amid a deepening economic slump and divisions within their own ranks.

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SF Int’l Film Festival: The Return, about released prisoners, and other social dramas (or comedies)
Joanne Laurier | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 May 2016

The increasingly dire conditions of life are inevitably impressing themselves upon filmmakers. However, it remains a difficult task for the artist to discover the essential truths and communicate them. In some cases, there is a lack of intellectual and historical preparedness––the artist is simply over his or her head. In others, complacency and social indifference play a role, allowing the filmmakers to avoid the crisis raging before their eyes.

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Two Refugees Set Themselves Alight in Australia’s Nauru Detention Centre
Max Newman, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 May 2016

4 May 2016 – Hodan Yasi, a young refugee woman from Somalia, is in a critical condition after setting herself alight on Nauru on Monday [2 May], just three days after a 23-year-old Iranian refugee, Omid Masoumali, died of injuries sustained in a similar act last week. These events further underscore the inhuman conditions and denial of basic legal and democratic rights inflicted on the nearly 1,500 refugees held into these facilities, which health professionals have likened to concentration camps.

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Austria Abolishes Right to Asylum
Markus Salzmann, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 May 2016

The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP)/Social Democrat (SPÖ) far-right coalition rushed a law through parliament on Wednesday [27 Apr] that practically abolishes the right to asylum.

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US Military Whitewashes Attack on Afghan Hospital
Peter Symonds, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 May 2016

30 Apr 2016 – The Pentagon’s final report into last October’s deadly US airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in northern Afghanistan is a brazen whitewash. General Joseph Votel, commander of US Central Command, told a press conference yesterday that the attack was not a war crime because it had not been intentional. He claimed that neither the gunship crew members nor the Special Forces on the ground directing the attack “knew they were striking a medical facility.”

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Obama’s War Summit in Europe
Bill Van Auken, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 May 2016

President Barack Obama ended his six-day trip through Saudi Arabia, Britain and Germany Monday [25 Apr 2016] with what amounted to a mini-war summit. The American president’s message to his European counterparts was that they must stop being “complacent” and work to build up their own military forces for interventions in the Middle East, North Africa and against Russia to the east. Obama’s host, Chancellor Merkel, proudly declared, “We are ready and willing to be militarily engaged,” citing the German military’s participation in ongoing interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Mali.

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Oxfam: US Corporate Tax Cheats Hiding $1.4 Trillion in Profits in Offshore Accounts
Patrick Martin, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Apr 2016

The biggest tax dodger is technology giant Apple, with $181 billion held offshore. General Electric had the second-largest stash, at $119 billion, enough to repay four times over the $28 billion GE received in federal guarantees during the 2008 Wall Street crash. Microsoft had $108 billion in overseas accounts, with companies like Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, IBM, Cisco Systems, Google, Merck, and Johnson & Johnson rounding out the top ten.

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Imperialism, Political Corruption and the Real Face of Capitalism
Andre Damon, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Apr 2016

The “Panama Papers” claimed its first casualty Tuesday [5 Apr 2016], when Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson was forced to resign. Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian legal firm at the heart of the scandal, made millions helping politicians and the super-rich evade taxation. They have exposed the criminality that pervades the financial elite and its political representatives.

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Mississippi Governor Signs Anti-Gay Law
Evan Blake, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Apr 2016

6 Apr 2016 – Yesterday, Mississippi’s Republican Governor Phil Bryant enacted a sweeping anti-LGBT law that allows public and private businesses to refuse service to gay people, effectively legalizing discrimination based on sexual orientation across the state.

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FBI Claims Successful Hack of Apple iPhone Security Systems
Thomas Gaist, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 Apr 2016

30 Mar 2016 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced Monday [28 Mar] that it successfully hacked security features embedded in the iPhone’s iOS 9 operating system, and will therefore end its legal case against the tech giant Apple. In a short court filing, the FBI informed the court that it “no longer requires the assistance of Apple, Inc” in its efforts to compromise the phone’s data protection mechanisms.

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The Drive to Impeachment and the Dangers Facing the Brazilian Working Class
Bill Van Auken, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 Apr 2016

If today the predominant layers of both domestic and foreign capital are pushing for Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment, it is because they see a radical change in government as the means to dramatically accelerate reactionary capitalist policies already being pursued.

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Astronomers Detect Gravitational Waves Predicted by Einstein
Will Morrow, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Feb 2016

12 Feb 2016 – Astronomers from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Collaboration have published the first detection of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space and time. The announcement comes almost exactly a century after Albert Einstein, in mid-1916, predicted the existence of the waves on the basis of his Theory of General Relativity.

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India Steps Up Pressure on Nepal
W. A. Sunil, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Feb 2016

5 Feb 2016 – A continued Indian-backed blockade of supplies to Nepal, a small landlocked country wedged between India and China, has escalated tensions between Kathmandu and New Delhi… The Nepal crisis is another expression of the aggressive US moves against China, and the harnessing of India as Washington’s partner. This drive is deepening geo-political tensions and increasing political instability throughout South Asia.

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Drone, a Norwegian-made Documentary: “We Just Made Orphans Out of All These Children”
Joanne Laurier, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Feb 2016

The use of drones by the USA for assassinations has greatly increased the past decade. Hessen Schei’s movie brings together opponents of this specialized killing tool, including authors, commentators, human rights attorneys and investigative journalists. The real heart and strength of Drone lies in its interviews with two former drone operators from the US Air Force, Brandon Bryant and Michael Haas, both young men suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

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The End of Liberal Europe
Peter Schwarz, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Jan 2016

The shift to the right by the European elites is rooted in explosive social, economic and political contradictions that have been building up since the collapse of the Soviet Union 25 years ago, and especially since the international financial crisis of 2008. German imperialism has played a crucial role in these developments.

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Yemen: Five Medical Staff Dead in Third Bombing of Doctors Without Borders Facilities
Thomas Gaist, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Jan 2016

MSF officials remained uncertain whether the explosion was caused by an airstrike or by a missile fired from ground forces. The identity of the attackers also remains contested, with reports from the Houthi-controlled SABA news agency asserting that the attack was launched by the Saudi coalition forces and US media reports maintaining that the origins of the strike are still not known.

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Police Agent-Provocateurs Exposed at Montreal Anti-Austerity Demonstration
Carl Bronski, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Jan 2016

Initially the police refused to admit that they had infiltrated the December 18 protest. But now they are strongly defending the actions of an undercover cop who drew his revolver and threatened protesters who had “outed” him as a police agent provocateur.

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The Mass Beheadings in Saudi Arabia
Bill Van Auken, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 Jan 2016

4 Jan 2015 – Washington’s closest ally in the Arab world, the dictatorial monarchy of Saudi Arabia, ushered in the New Year with a torrent of blood, simultaneously executing 47 prisoners. This wave of state murders unfolded at 12 separate prisons across the kingdom. The barbaric killing spree was a calculated political act driven by both domestic and international objectives.

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Martin Shkreli Arrested for Securities Fraud
Tom Hall, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 21 Dec 2015

Martin Shkreli, the 32-year-old former hedge fund manager who became infamous earlier this year for raising the price of a 62-year-old drug to treat cancer by 4,000 percent, from $13.50 to $750 per pill, was arrested Thursday [17 Dec] on charges of securities fraud stretching back several years.

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Saudi Arabia and the “War on Terror”
Bill Van Auken, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 21 Dec 2015

A more fundamental question is what does the Saudi regime mean by “terrorism”? Clearly, it is not referring to the various Al Qaeda-linked groups fighting in Syria, all of which get substantial funding as well as large numbers of fighters and their religious-ideological inspiration from the Wahhabist Saudi kingdom.

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100 Years of General Relativity (Part 1 of 3)
Don Barrett, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Dec 2015

Produced in a revolutionary epoch, general relativity continues to be regarded as one of the momentous achievements of physics, yet its implications are far from exhausted. Even after the passage of a century, new insights connecting the theory and observed phenomena appear each year in the publications of thousands of physicists across the globe. It was the capstone to a century of intellectual struggle and the catalyst to a deeper understanding of the material world.

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100 Years of General Relativity (Part 2 of 3)
Will Morrow, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Dec 2015

The History, Science and Implications of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity

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Five Years since the Arrest of Julian Assange
Robert Stevens, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Dec 2015

8 Dec 2015 – On December 7, 2010 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was detained in London under a European Arrest Warrant issued by Sweden. His sole crime was to bring to global attention the heinous war crimes committed by the US and other imperialist powers in Iraq and Afghanistan—crimes authorised at the highest levels of government.

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Pentagon Announces Worldwide Expansion of US Military Bases
Thomas Gaist, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Dec 2015

11 Dec 2015 – The US Defense Department is preparing to expand its global network of military bases by establishing a new “string” of bases in countries stretching from Africa to East Asia, unnamed Pentagon officials told the New York Times Wednesday [9 Dec].

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100 Years of General Relativity (Part 3 of 3)
Bryan Dyne, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Dec 2015

The History, Science and Implications of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity

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The Pentagon’s Law of War Manual (Parts 1-4)
Tom Carter, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Nov 2015

The new US Department of Defense ‘Law of War Manual’ is essentially a guidebook for violating international and domestic law and committing war crimes. The 1,165-page document is not a statement of existing law as much as a compendium of what the Pentagon wishes the law to be.

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Haiti: UN Security Council Votes to Extend by a Year Its Occupying Military Presence
John Marion, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Oct 2015

Cholera was introduced into Haiti in 2010 by MINUSTAH troops from Nepal because of UN negligence. Instead of admitting responsibility—either legal or moral—the UN has hidden behind a mixture of committees, short-term programs, and verbiage about “coordination with other actors to continue to support the Government of Haiti in addressing the structural weaknesses.”

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Lawsuit Charges US Psychologists Involved in CIA Torture Program with War Crimes
Nick Barrickman, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Oct 2015

The charges were filed by victims of the US torture program and the ACLU, and declare that the two doctors engaged in a “joint criminal enterprise” with the US government, constituting “torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; non-consensual human experimentation; and war crimes, all of which violate well-established norms of customary international law.”

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Twenty-Five Years since the Reunification of Germany
Peter Schwarz, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Oct 2015

On October 3, 1990 the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, known as the GDR), a state with 17 million inhabitants, was disbanded 41 years after its founding and incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany. In both East and West Germany, only a few of those affected were aware of the consequences of this step. There was no public debate and no referendum.

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US Pharmaceutical Industry Price-Gouging and the Case of Martin Shkreli
Nick Barrickman, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 28 Sep 2015

The anger was further fueled by the stance taken by Shkreli, a 32-year-old former hedge fund manager, who unapologetically defended the move (to raise the cost of a drug to treat AIDS and cancer from $13.50 to more than $750 per pill) on the grounds that it served his company’s bottom line. “There’s no doubt, I’m a capitalist… I’m trying to create a big drug company, a successful drug company, a profitable drug company. We’re trying to flourish.”

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UN Releases War Crimes Report on Sri Lanka
K. Ratnayake, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 21 Sep 2015

17 Sep 2015 – The nearly 300-page report declares that “serious war crimes” and “human right violations” were committed by the Sri Lankan military and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during the island’s 26-year war. Around 200,000 people, mainly members of the ethnic Tamil minority, were killed. An estimated 40,000 Tamil civilians trapped in the war zone were killed during the final months of the military offensive in 2009.

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Yemen: A War Crime Made in America
Niles Williamsonm, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 21 Sep 2015

On Sunday [20 Sep 2015], a Saudi-led coalition air strike ripped through a market in Sanaa, Yemen, killing 69 civilians and injuring dozens of others. In the 24 hour period between Friday and Saturday morning, at least 57 civilians were killed and a further 130 people wounded in coalition air strikes throughout the country. President Obama welcomed Saudi King Salman to the White House with open arms earlier this month, even as Saudi war planes were slaughtering and terrorizing men, women and children throughout Yemen.

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As Yemen Assault Continues, US Announces Billion-Dollar Arms Deal with Saudi Arabia
Niles Williamson, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Sep 2015

While the deal is ostensibly aimed at easing Saudi concerns over the US-Iran nuclear deal, it also facilitates the escalation of the Saudi monarchy’s bloody assault on Yemen.

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The G20 Summit: A Spectacle of Political Bankruptcy
Nick Beams, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Sep 2015

7 Sep 2015 – The meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers held in Ankara, Turkey over the weekend underscored the inability of the major capitalist powers to initiate any measures to halt the recessionary forces overtaking the world economy.

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Japan: Continuing Protests against Abe Government’s Security Bills
Ben McGrath, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Sep 2015

The bills will formalise Abe’s “constitutional reinterpretation” last year to permit so-called collective self-defence—that is, Japan’s military involvement in US wars of aggression. Further anti-war protests took place last weekend, including in Tokyo’s Shinjuku shopping district on Sunday, as well as the cities of Sendai, Osaka and Fukuoka.

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Central Banks Step In to Prop Up Global Financial Bubble
Andre Damon, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 31 Aug 2015

31 August 2015 – Once again, the world’s central banks and governments have made clear that they will do whatever it takes to preserve the wealth of the financial elite.

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Seventy-Five Years since the Assassination of Leon Trotsky
Joseph Kishore, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Aug 2015

The murder of Trotsky came at the high point of international political reaction that included the victory of fascism in Germany in 1933, the defeat of the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39, the Moscow Trials and Great Terror of 1936-38, and the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939.

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Mass Layoffs Worldwide as Corporate Mergers Near New Record
Andre Damon, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Aug 2015

Under conditions of slowing economic growth and record amounts of cash on corporate balance sheets, mergers and acquisitions are being used to intensify the assault on the working class.

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US Psychologists’ Convention Bans Participation in Torture
Tom Carter, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Aug 2015

On Friday [7 Aug 2015], the American Psychological Association overwhelmingly adopted a resolution banning participation by psychologists in national security interrogations, in the face of accusations that the proposed ban on torture was “anti-government” and “anti-military.”

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US and NATO Engage in Unprecedented Military Exercises in Europe
Niles Williamson, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 27 Jul 2015

A review of the ongoing exercises in the run-up to Trident Juncture gives a sense of the size and scope of the war preparations being developed by the United States and its NATO allies.

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The American Psychological Association, Torture, and the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial
Tom Carter, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Jul 2015

13 Jul 2015 – A 542-page independent report made public by the New York Times on Friday [10 Jul] implicates the American Psychological Association in the CIA torture program. The devastating report not only exposes the involvement of psychologists in torture, but also lifts the curtain on years of lies, conspiracies, and cover-ups reaching to the top of the APA and academia.

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Pluto and Earth
Patrick Martin, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Jul 2015

The flyby of Pluto by the spacecraft New Horizons—a scientific achievement of the first order—stands in contrast to the seemingly intractable social crises on our own planet.

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What We Learned about Mercury from the Messenger Spacecraft
Bryan Dyne, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jun 2015

On April 30, the Messenger spacecraft performed a planned impact onto the surface of Mercury, ending the four-year mission to the Solar System’s innermost planet. In the end, only 10 minutes of data was lost out of the 1,500 days worth of information collected by Messenger.

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Spain Agrees to Increased US Military Presence
Alejandro López, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jun 2015

26 Jun 2015 – Spain has signed a new bilateral defence agreement to allow the US military permanent use of the Morón air base in Seville, with increased numbers of troops and aircraft.

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Millionaires Projected to Own 46 Percent of Global Private Wealth by 2019
Gabriel Black, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jun 2015

Households with more than a million (US) dollars in private wealth are projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth in 2019 according to a new report by the Boston Consulting Group. This large percentage, however, leaves out businesses, residences and luxury goods, which comprise a substantial portion of the rich’s net worth.

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UK Government, Murdoch Press Smear of Edward Snowden Unravels
Chris Marsden, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jun 2015

16 Jun 2015 – A press attack on Edward Snowden has backfired on the UK government. This weekend’s Sunday Times ran an article under the headline, “British spies betrayed to Russians and Chinese,” The Times article was replete with unfounded assertions, distortions and outright lies.

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US Imperialism and the FIFA Corruption Investigation
Chris Marsden, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

On Wednesday [3 Jun], the FBI stated that its investigation now encompasses allegations of corruption, bribery, and vote-rigging related to FIFA awarding the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar. This is a political move against the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin and is conceived of as a vital propaganda adjunct of the ongoing US-led NATO encirclement of Russia.

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Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Report and the Crimes against the Native People
Carl Bronski, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

The century-and-a-half policy of forcibly removing aboriginal children from their families and communities and herding them into faraway schools run mainly by the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches, amounted, said the report, to nothing less than a “cultural genocide.” At the height of the program in 1931 there were 80 residential schools across the country with 15,000 captive native children.

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The Escalation of Global Financial Parasitism
Nick Beams, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

The rise in stock markets expresses not the health, but rather the deepening sickness, of the global economic order. The imposition of financial dictatorship is not a hypothetical issue—it has already been implemented in Greece, impoverishing millions of people.

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Why Aren’t the Banksters in Prison?
Andre Damon, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 May 2015

The financial impact on JPMorgan and the other banks for pleading guilty to a felony will be effectively zero. As part of the deal, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued waivers exempting the banks from the legal repercussions arising from their status as criminal organizations, giving them continued preferential treatment in issuing debt, as well as the continued right to operate mutual funds.

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Thai Military Sends Boat Carrying Hundreds of Rohingya Refugees “Out to Sea”
Thomas Gaist, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 May 2015

16 May 2015 – An aging fishing boat packed with hundreds of refugees, mostly ethnic Rohingya fleeing poverty and violent persecution in Myanmar (Burma), is drifting further out to sea on Friday [15 May 2015], after the government in Thailand prevented them from reaching land.

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Drone Warfare in ‘Good Kill’
David Walsh, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 May 2015

‘Good Kill’ opens in theaters in the US on May 15 [2015]. A roundtable interview with writer-director Andrew Niccol and actor Ethan Hawke. Drone strikes carried out by the US military and CIA have killed thousands of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and other countries. The barbaric strikes are illegal under international and US law and amount to war crimes.

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Pro-Capitalist “Anti-Capitalism” – This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate
Evan Winters, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 May 2015

When the word “capitalism” appears in her book, it is invariably preceded by “neo-liberal,” or “deregulated” or “predatory.” Klein is calling for a return to some sort of regulated capitalist economy.

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Statues of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning Unveiled in Berlin
Stefan Steinberg , WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 May 2015

7 May 2015 – Bronze statues of persecuted whistleblowers Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning were unveiled in Berlin on May Day. The statues are an art project entitled “Anything to Say?”, of Italian artist Davide Dormino. After a month in Berlin, we will move the sculptures to the Ostrale art centre in Dresden. We are also working to organize exhibitions in America, Moscow, Switzerland, Portugal and other countries.

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US Sends Hundreds of Troops to Quake-Stricken Nepal
W. A. Sunil, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 May 2015

4 May 2015 – The United States has significantly increased its military presence in Nepal as part of the relief operations underway following the devastating earthquake that struck the country on April 25. As it has done in previous disasters in other countries, the Pentagon is exploiting the tragedy to forge closer ties and collaboration with its Nepalese counterparts.

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US “Grand Strategy” for War against China Laid Out
Nick Beams, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 May 2015

The Council on Foreign Relations report cites a publication produced during World War II defining “grand strategy” as one that “so integrates the policies and armaments of a nation that the resort to war is either rendered unnecessary or is undertaken with the maximum chance of victory.” This is not merely a concept of war but “an inherent element of statecraft at all times.”

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Doonesbury Cartoonist Attacked for Criticizing Charlie Hebdo
Patrick Martin, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 27 Apr 2015

27 Apr 2015 – Garry Trudeau, the creator of the Doonesbury comic strip, has come under attack for publicly criticizing anti-Muslim cartoons appearing in Charlie Hebdo, calling them a form of hate speech. The central point made by Trudeau is that Charlie Hebdo was engaged, not in satirizing the powerful, but in vilifying the most oppressed section of the French population, Muslim immigrants, who face the highest levels of unemployment, poverty, police harassment and imprisonment.

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Why Is Syriza Demanding Reparations from Germany?
Peter Schwarz, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Apr 2015

The demand for reparations for such crimes resonates amongst sections of the Greek, as well as the German, population. The arrogance with which the media and politicians in Germany are demanding drastic social cuts in Greece plays a role in this. It recalls the ruthless behavior of the Nazis. Moreover, the surviving victims of Nazi crimes are especially hard hit by the austerity measures in Greece.

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World Famous German Author [Nobel Literature Laureate] Günter Grass Dies at Age 87
Peter Schwarz, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Apr 2015

14 April 2015 – German author Günter Grass has died at the age of 87 in Lübeck, Germany following an infection. He is one of the most important German writers of the 20th century and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.

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Australian PM Attacks “Lifestyle Choice” of Poverty-Stricken Aborigines
Susan Allan, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Mar 2015

To claim that Aborigines are indulging in a “lifestyle choice,” akin to that of layers of the upper middle class moving to an idyllic rural setting, is grotesque. The conditions in remote Aboriginal communities, which lack jobs, proper housing and essential services, are frequently described as “third world” or even “fourth world.”

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Former Guantanamo Detainee David Hicks Speaks Up
Richard Phillips, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Mar 2015

Hicks, an Australian citizen, was captured in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance in late 2001, sold to the US military and sent to Guantanamo Bay. He spent five and a half years in the prison hellhole where he was subjected to sleep deprivation, beatings, solitary confinement and was injected with unknown substances.

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Pentagon Provocation on Russia’s Border
Bill Van Auken, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Mar 2015

US armored vehicles flying American flags were paraded Tuesday [24 Feb 2015] through the Estonian city of Narva, just a few hundred yards from the Russian border. The provocative action, coming on the heels of the first anniversary of the US-orchestrated coup in Kiev, underscores the potentially catastrophic implications.

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US Imperialism and the Catastrophe in Libya
Joseph Kishore, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Feb 2015

Prior to the intervention of NATO, there were no sectarian murders of Christians in Libya and Islamist militias tied to Al Qaeda were small groups with no broader influence. These forces were armed and promoted when, in 2011, the Obama administration and its allies in Europe, led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, took the decision to topple Gaddafi.

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US-NATO War Games Prepare Massive Military Escalation in West Africa
Thomas Gaist, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Feb 2015

U.S. and NATO forces launched massive war games Monday [16 Feb 2015] in West Africa. The exercises, known as Operation Flintlock 2015, are to serve as the spearhead for a comprehensive military escalation by the US and European powers and their client regimes throughout the resource-rich Lake Chad Basin.

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Mexican Government Rushes to Close Case of Disappeared Students
Bill Van Auken, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Peña Nieto told Mexicans to get over the fate of the 43 students so he can move ahead with a “reform” agenda backed by Washington.

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US AFRICOM Commander Calls for “Huge” Military Campaign in West Africa
Thomas Gaist, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

2 Feb2015 – US Africa Command’s head General David Rodriguez called for a large-scale US-led “counterinsurgency” campaign against groups in West Africa last week.

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After Charlie Hebdo Attack, France Announces Draconian Anti-Terror Law
Alex Lantier, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jan 2015

After a cabinet meeting yesterday [21 Jan 2015] morning at the Elysée presidential palace, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls unveiled a draconian new anti-terror law.

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Syria Strike Caps Israel’s Provocations in Middle East
Chris Marsden, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jan 2015

21 Jan 2015 – Israel’s strike on leading Hezbollah figures near the occupied Golan Heights is the latest move in a campaign to escalate Middle East tensions. It has been accompanied by a series of provocative actions against the Palestinians and European powers now considered to be too “pro-Palestinian.”

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Financial Markets Celebrate European Central Bank Launch of €1 Trillion Quantitative Easing Program
Nick Beams, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jan 2015

[Quantitative Easing: euphemism for ‘printing more money for benefit of banks, financial vultures.’ – TMS Editor] The measures will have little or no impact on the real economy. Rather, they are aimed at making available further supplies of ultra-cheap cash for financial speculation.

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Russia and US End Collaboration on Nuclear Disarmament
Clara Weiss, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jan 2015

Russia and the United States ended their collaboration in the disposal of nuclear waste in mid-December, according to a report in the Boston Globe on Monday [19 Jan 2015]. After the US, Russia is the second largest nuclear power in the world. Together Washington and Moscow own 90 percent of global nuclear weapons.

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European Powers Implement Police State Measures in Wake of Charlie Hebdo Attack
Ulrich Rippert, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jan 2015

Governments throughout Europe have responded to the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in France by moving quickly to push through a raft of anti-democratic measures that have long been prepared, but that have so far encountered resistance.

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Imperialist War, the “War on Terror,” And the End of Democracy
Chris Marsden, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jan 2015

For decades, the US, France and other imperialist powers have rained down bombs on defenceless civilians, carried out assassinations, and committed horrible war crimes.

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The New York Times and Washington’s “Propaganda Bubble” on Ukraine
Bill Van Auken, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jan 2015

In 2002–2003, the stable of State Department propagandists at the Times played a crucial role in paving the way for a war that claimed the lives of over a million Iraqis and some 4,500 US troops. Now they are involved in an even more sinister propaganda operation that threatens to ignite a Third World War.

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Physicians’ Group Details Psychologists’ Role in CIA’s “Extensive System of Torture”
Matthew MacEgan, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Dec 2014

Health professionals violated a series of international treaties, laws, and ethical codes including the Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention Against Torture, the War Crimes Act of 1996 and the Nuremburg Code. “In certain instances,” the report states, “such as in the crime of unethical research on human subjects, these alleged crimes may rise to the level of crimes against humanity under international law.”

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What Is in the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on CIA Torture (Part I)
Tom Carter, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Dec 2014

16 Dec 2014 – This is the first of three articles summarizing the contents of the unclassified executive summary of the US Senate Intelligence Committee’s 6,700-page report on the CIA torture program, released last week.

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Four Years since the Arrest of Julian Assange
Robert Stevens, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Dec 2014

December 7 [2014] marked four years since WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in London and detained without charge. December 5 marked 900 days that he has been holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London after being forced to claim political asylum.

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Ebola Epidemic Continues to Ravage West Africa
Niles Williamson, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Dec 2014

The Obama administration dispatched several thousand soldiers to Liberia, exploiting the crisis as a means of gaining a military foothold on the African continent. While foreign troops have been deployed to construct Ebola treatment centers, the responsibility for staffing these facilities has been left to an ad hoc grouping of NGOs, missionaries and local workers.

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US Intervenes in South China Sea Dispute
Peter Symonds, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

26 Nov 2014 – In a direct intrusion into territorial disputes in the South China Sea, the US has called on China to halt construction activity in the Spratly Islands. The comments, which Beijing has already rejected, will only exacerbate the already sharp tensions between China and its neighbours.

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Wall Street Banks and Commodities Fraud
Joseph Kishore, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Nov 2014

On Wednesday [19 Nov 2014], the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a detailed report documenting yet another aspect of the insider dealing, price-fixing and general criminality that pervades the American financial system.

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UN Report Condemns US Government’s “International Criminal Program of Torture”
Thomas Gaist, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Nov 2014

The report, prepared by the “Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions” and The International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, states unequivocally that entire sections of the state apparatus are responsible for “breathtaking” crimes against international law.

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US Military’s ‘Defense Clandestine Service’ to Deploy Hundreds of International Spies
Thomas Gaist, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Nov 2014

The recently formed Defense Clandestine Service, the elite in-house spying operation of the US Department of Defense, is training a large force of new CIA-trained intelligence agents. Overseen by an agency widely understood to be targeting the Chinese military, it represents another stride in the direction of world war.

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US Army Drafts Blueprint for World War III
Bill Van Auken and David North, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Oct 2014

The Pentagon is preparing for unlimited global warfare and military dictatorship within the United States. The document was formally released at this week’s Association of the United States Army conference.

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Toxic Fallout from US War Produces Record Child Birth Defect Rates in Iraq
Thomas Gaist, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Oct 2014

A report presented at the University of Michigan last Wednesday [8 Oct 2014], showed that rates of cancer, child cancer and birth defects have reached historically unprecedented levels in Fallujah and other Iraqi cities since the 2003 US invasion.

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US Exploiting West Africa Ebola Outbreak to Establish Military Foothold
Niles Williamson, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Oct 2014

Under the guise of a humanitarian mission aimed at containing the spread of the Ebola virus, the Obama administration is exploiting the outbreak to establish a solid military footing on the African continent.

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