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For the Global Thinker
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Stories from the Sinai
Excerpt: "We were sitting on a dune overlooking the glittering Red Sea east of Sinai. The mountains of Saudi Arabia could be seen in the distance. It was 1984.
With me were the renowned smuggler-poet Ayaad and his eldest son, Salim. They had asked me to join them “to discuss something serious,” out of earshot of those who were encamped with them. We knew each other well. I had been recording and studying Bedouin poetry for some fifteen years, and Ayaad was the best poet in Sinai.
Once we were seated in the sand, our legs folded before us, Salim, facing me, opened the...
Read more here...
https://hudsonreview.com/2018/04/stories-from-sinai/
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Want to feel unique? Believe in the Reptile people.
He who believes bin Laden is still alive will have something in common with she who believes the 1% are reptiles masquerading as humans: the need to feel unique. For someone with a conspiracy mentality, what matters most is their exclusive knowledge.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE....
https://aeon.co/ideas/want-to-feel-unique-believe-in-the-reptile-people
The Problem of Hyper Liberalism
Excerpt: "In institutions that proclaim their commitment to critical inquiry, censorship is most effective when it is self-imposed. A defining feature of tyranny, the policing of opinion is now established practice in societies that believe themselves to be freer than they have ever been."
Read full article here...
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/john-gray-hyper-liberalism-liberty/
Monday, May 21, 2018
The Serial Killer as Marketing Genius
An ode to a bygone era and one man's hunt for one of America's most elusive serial killers.
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-serial-killer-as-a-marketing-genius
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Drought Spreads Worldwide
Stories of drought are mostly localized to the affected country. However, this is a global problem...take a look at these news headlines gathered from around the world...all within the last couple of months.
Decade of Drought: A Global Tour of Seven Recent Water Crises
Drought Persists in 13 Provinces: Bangkok Post
Vancouver Island Fishing Banned as Drought Hits Level 4 : CBC
North Korea Hit Hard by Drought: Korea Times
Dried Up California Lake Shuts as Summer Kicks in: NBC Photos
Puerto Rico, Grappling With Potentially Historic Drought: IBT
Dramatic Photos Show Brazil's Crippling Drought
Decade of Drought: A Global Tour of Seven Recent Water Crises
Drought Persists in 13 Provinces: Bangkok Post
Vancouver Island Fishing Banned as Drought Hits Level 4 : CBC
North Korea Hit Hard by Drought: Korea Times
Dried Up California Lake Shuts as Summer Kicks in: NBC Photos
Puerto Rico, Grappling With Potentially Historic Drought: IBT
Dramatic Photos Show Brazil's Crippling Drought
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Skyping with the enemy: I went undercover as a jihadi girlfriend
Excerpt:
He got out of his car and his smartphone showed images of a devastated Syria. Not a person in sight. It was about 9pm there, and it was absolutely silent. Suddenly, men’s thick voices broke the silence.
“Don’t say anything!” Bilel ordered. “I don’t want anyone to see or hear you! You’re my jewel; you’re pure. OK? Do you understand?”
Mélodie said she understood. I listened to the conversation. I was able to distinguish the voices of two other men. They greeted each other in Arabic, then French, which sounded like their mother tongue. They laughed, congratulating themselves for having “slaughtered them”.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE....
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/26/french-journalist-poses-muslim-convert-isis-anna-erelle
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
The Killing of Osama by Seymour Hersh
The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan’s army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) were not told of the raid in advance. This is false, as are many other elements of the Obama administration’s account. The White House’s story might have been written by Lewis Carroll: would bin Laden, target of a massive international manhunt, really decide that a resort town forty miles from Islamabad would be the safest place to live and command al-Qaida’s operations? He was hiding in the open. So America said.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE....
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Am I being executed?
A Brazilian man executed by firing squad along with seven other prisoners in Indonesia on Wednesday had no idea he was about to be killed until his final minutes, the priest who counselled him has said.
Excerpt:
He was hearing voices all the time,” Burrows told Irish radio. “I talked to him for about an hour and a half, trying to prepare him for the execution. I said to him, ‘I’m 72 years old, I’ll be heading to heaven in the near future, so you find out where my house is and prepare a garden for me.’
“But when they took [the prisoners] out of the cells … and when they put these bloody chains on them, he said to me, ‘Am I being executed?’ ” Burrows said.
“I said, ‘Yes, I thought I explained that you.’ He didn’t get excited – he’s a quiet sort of a guy – but he said, ‘This is not right.’
READ MORE HERE...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/30/brazilian-executed-by-indonesia-was-hearing-voices-all-the-time
Saturday, April 25, 2015
China’s Offering a World Bank Alternative — and U.S. Allies Are Signing Up
Excerpt:
The United States and 15 developed countries control 52 percent of voting rights at the IMF, leaving 48 percent for the 168 other member countries. China, now the world’s biggest economy, has only 3.8 percent of voting power — that’s a smaller share than those of the UK, France, Germany, or Japan. Brazil, South Korea, and Mexico each enjoy less voting power than tiny Belgium.
Despite much protest from the BRICS and other developing economies, they’ve received just 6 percent more voting power over the last 20 years. The proportions and trends have been roughly the same at the World Bank.
The United States and the Europeans have also held tightly to what’s been characterized as their “feudal” prerogatives of filling the World Bank presidency with a U.S. citizen and the managing director post at the IMF with a European.
With some 17 percent of the vote in both institutions, the United States also exercises veto power over key policy decisions. To show that it didn’t want to replicate the Americans’ behavior at the World Bank, Beijing announced that despite its contribution of the largest share of capital to the AIIB, it would not demand veto power over policy decisions.
Read full article here:
http://fpif.org/chinas-offering-a-world-bank-alternative-and-u-s-allies-are-signing-up/
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