by John Terrett

In a surprise move the Supreme Court in the southern US state of Mississippi has issued a last minute stay of execution to an African-American man, Willie Manning.

Manning was found guilty of murdering two white students in 1992.

Explanation of Vote by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Following UN General Assembly Vote on Palestinian Observer State Status Resolution.

Reuters reports: "The U.N. General Assembly is set to implicitly recognize a sovereign state of Palestine on Thursday despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinian Authority by withholding much-needed funds for the West Bank government."

by Norman Finkelstein

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Israel has just suffered a historic defeat.

One only had to watch the international news coverage.

Note that this is only a subset of UN Resolutions which Israel remains in violation of to this day; e.g. those regarding Gaza and Lebanon

Gaza | Israel

GAZA CITY, 18 November 2012 (IRIN) - It was, he said, a horrible twist of fate.

When air strikes began over the Gaza Strip on 14 November, Othman Abdel'Al made what seemed a wise decision. The Israeli air force was targeting, among other things, government offices belonging to the militant group Hamas. Abdel'Al and his family live near a police station; he knew they were not safe.

It is not a war, it is murder
by Noam Chomsky 

The following statement by Noam Chomsky indicates a different stand toward Israeli aggression than Prof. Chomsky has revealed in the past:

"The incursion and bombardment of Gaza is not about destroying Hamas. It is not about stopping rocket fire into Israel, it is not about achieving peace.

Initiating signers of the following proposal include Daniel Ellsberg, Cornel West, Frances Fox Piven, Barbara Ehrenreich, Marjorie Cohn, Jim Hightower, Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon.

by Adam Keller

The city of Gaza is on the shore of the Mediterranean. Like in many other coastal cities, there are inhabitants of Gaza who are interested in sailing as a sport and hobby. But putting such interests into practice is far more complicated in Gaza than in most other coastal cities. In 2006 Qatar donated ten small sailing boats to the newly-founded Gaza Sailing and Surfing Association, but it took until September 2012 for the Israeli military inspectors to make up their minds and conclude that there was no security threat involved in letting them through.

by Luke Hiken and Marti Hiken

Recent figures indicate that for every soldier killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, 25 veterans commit suicide upon their return to the U.S. That is an astonishing statistic! How can this be?

By Phil Rockstroh

What is astonishing about the contents of the recently released film of Mitt Romney, secretly filmed, speaking before a high-end klavern of plundering class criminals…is not so much his insular, spoiled rich boy condescension toward those he perceives as the rabble at large, shambling through their lives, beyond his birth-bestowed bubble of privilege.No shock there, at least for me. I was born in a company town, Birmingham, Alabama. I apprehended very early in life the manner by which economic hierarchies operate. Then my family moved to a working class neighborhood near a university, Emory, in Atlanta, Georgia, where the privileged class sent their scions, thus I know how the arrogant frat boy mindset regarded us wretched townies.

Mitt Romney

An obscure slapstick film said to be entitled Innocence of Muslims or Life of Muhammed has been cited as the cause for riots at US diplomatic posts in Egypt and Libya.

by Patty Culhane

I'm at the airport in Charlotte, waiting to go home, and I've just realised I'll be on one of those small planes.

I hate these planes, and I think my pilot may still be in high school, so I'm going to try to focus on what we learned this week at the Democratic National Convention.

by Alan Fisher

Political conventions can make or break reputations.  Let's assesses the performances of some of the speakers at the recently concluded Republican National Convention in Tampa.

by Rosiland Jordan

I recently spent time with some female trainees at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas – both the place where all Airmen go for basic training and the site of a burgeoning sexual assault scandal.

by Adam Keller

"You have put a mirror in front of our society. A terrible mirror, reflecting how poverty looks in the State of Israel in 2012. Poor people are being shamed and humiliated, must go through an indescribable toil mask of bureaucracy in order to eventually receive a pittance. With not enough to either live or die, they  must  beg in order to survive."

It took three months of hunger strike before decision was reached  to release the Palestinians soccer player held without trial and without charges In this affair the state of Israel scored an own goal.

by Adam Keller
This week – to be precise, the fifth of June,  2012 – marks the 45th birthday of the occupation. An occupation which already lasts for more than two-thirds of Israel's entire existence. Forty-five years of military rule which the State of Israel maintains over millions of Palestinians who did not choose this government and do not want to live under it, but which the State of Israel decided to impose on them against their will, throwing in jail those who oppose the Israeli rule imposed on them.

The music was momentous and appropriate, the gowns flowing and scholarly.

Faculty members marched in procession, led by a man holding a ceremonial mace.

by Luke Hiken
I Don’t Remember:
 
            1) Voting to wage war against every Muslim nation that is not a pawn of U.S. capital.
 
            2) Voting to support the use of unmanned drones as murder weapons against civilian populations.
 
            3) Voting to characterize corporations as “people” for purposes of buying elections, and destroying whatever vestiges of democracy that might have existed in the U.S.