WikiLeaks puts the government through a full body scanner to reveal many dirty secrets. U.S. officials, not surprisingly, have responded with anger. They don’t want their “junk” exposed or touched. No one, from emperors to excursionists, likes to be naked in public. And the latest revelations are the most intrusive yet. It’s one thing when [...]

The U.S. military is beginning to see climate change as a security threat, but the government isn’t making it a high enough priority.

Compared to the kind of secret cables that WikiLeaks has just shared with the world, everyday public statements from government officials are exercises in make-believe. In a democracy, people have a right to know what their government is actually doing. In a pseudo-democracy, a bunch of fairy tales from high places will do the trick. [...]

The ever-growing list of “incentives” being offered the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu is breathtaking. If it will but agree to stop settlement building for 90 days the Israeli government will get: $3 billion worth of our most advanced fighter jets; a U.S. commitment to block any Palestinian-led effort to win U.N. recognition of a [...]

Every sphere of intellectual endeavour calls forth individuals who make it their task to assimilate, interpret and transmit an evolved understanding to those who may share their interests. This happens at many levels. Some may choose to address groups of specialists through the pages of learned journals or through professional conferences. Others, such as the [...]

Twelve months ago, thousands of young campaigners worldwide converged on Copenhagen to pitch protests against the global political failure to tackle global warming. They disrupted summit meetings with non-violent civil disobedience to air demands of climate justice. Scores were arrested. Naomi Klein, the writer and activist, said at the time that it felt as though [...]

Speculation that WikiLeaks may reveal clandestine US support for terrorism had US embassies across the globe scrambling to limit damage ahead of the latest threatened release of US government documents by the whistleblowing website. WikiLeaks is planning to make available up to 400,000 sensitive cables from the past five years that include talks with politicians, [...]

When the Taliban ruled in Kabul in the 1990s they closed schools, stopped women working and exposed themselves to ridicule by banning trivial pursuits such as kite flying. Yes, the Taliban had made mistakes in the past, he admitted, and they were still making them. “Our men still do things that annoy the people, and [...]

The Israeli military has stumbled on a novel way of busting draft dodgers: checking out their Facebook profiles. According to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), 1,000 women were found falsely posing as orthodox Jews after photos and information on their profiles indicated otherwise. According to Israeli law, orthodox women are exempt from a military draft [...]

Nature, one of the world’s most distinguished scientific journals, revealed earlier this year, that 40 percent of plant plankton (which produce half of the world’s oxygen and suck up plant-warming cabon dioxide) have been killed by the warming of the oceans since 1950. Professor Boris Worm, who co-authored the study, said in shock: “I’ve been [...]