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Today's Stories

November 12 - 14, 2010

Alexander Cockburn
A Very Bitter Woman

Rannie Amiri
The Quest for Power in Iraq

Gareth Porter
Intel Failure in Yemen

William E. Alberts
Why Are the Feds Targeting Black Officials?

Jonathan Cook
Re-Unifying the Palestinian Nation

Ramzy Baroud
Another Baghdad Massacre

James Zogby
Whither Obama's Middle East Agenda?

Mark Weisbrot
Why It Could Get Even Worse for the Democrats

Tanya Golash-Boza
Targeting Jamaicans

Paul Wright
The Case Against Stacia A. Hylton

Martha Rosenberg
Vioxx All Over Again?

Celia McAteer
London Calling: Student Militancy a Welcome Surprise

Michael Winship
Riding the Rails, Looking for Work

Brian McKenna
Anorexia and Capitalism

Gerald E. Scorse
Channeling Reagan on Tax Reform

Christopher Brauchli
Making Oklahoma Safe From Sharia Law

Roberto Rodriguez
Arizona: Where Fear is the Predicate

J. T. Cassidy
Unlocking Imagination in Japan

Farzana Versey
The Misinterpreters of Kashmir's Maladies

Phil Rockstroh
Public Like a Frog

David Swanson
Tall Tillman Tales

Saul Landau
"Stone:" Walking Invisibly in the American Crowd

 

November 11, 2010

Peter Linebaugh
Laying Down of Arms

Paul Craig Roberts Licensed to Kill

Bill Quigley
Bush Pens True Crime Book

David Macaray Dissing the Boss: the NLRB Files a Landmark Complaint on Free Expression in the Workplace

Liaquat Ali Khan / Jasmine Abou-Kassem
Why the Oklahoma Shariah Law is Unconstitutional

Dedrick Muhammad
Race and Economics

Robert Bryce
Cars for the Elite: Obama's Electric Vehicle Fetish

Alan Farago
What, No Phone Books?

Website of the Day
London Calling

November 10, 2010

Allan Nairn
US-Backed Death Squad Files Surface in Indonesia

Dean Baker
Wall Street's TARP Gang Rides Again: Now They're Coming After Your Social Security!

Nicola Nasser
Waiting for Godot in Palestine

Missy Beattie
Running Scared: My Colonoscopy Saga

Sergio Ferrari
Worrying Signs From Venezuela to Ecuador

Patrick Cockburn
Can Iraq's Leaders Do a Deal?

Dave Lindorff Mumia: New Lawyer, New Round

Sherwood Ross
How Affirmative Action Brought Willie Mays to the Giants

Joshua Frank
Sinking the Breakwater

Website of the Day
Stiglitz: "Throw the Bankers in Jail to Save the Economy"

November 9, 2010

Uri Avnery
Obama's Defeat

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Dollar Policy

Jordan Flaherty
The Incarceration Capital of the US: the Crisis Inside New Orleans' Jails

Afshin Rattansi
Red Poppies

Annie Gell
Haiti's Unnatural Disasters

Dean Baker
The Fed's Second Shot

Dave Lindorff
BS From the BLS: Things are Much Worse Than They are Telling Us

Stewart J. Lawrence
The Nancy Monster That Refuses to Die

Walter Brasch
Love and Loss Among the Wild Horses

Website of the Day
Cut This: an Open Letter to the Tea Party

November 8, 2010

Paul Craig Roberts
Phantom Jobs

Thomas Healy
An Interview with Wendell Berry

David Swanson
A CIA Kidnapping in Milan

David Smith-Ferri
What Laila Sees

Ralph Nader
When Betrayed Voters Go to the Polls

Ray McGovern Torture Sans Regrets: Bush's Confessions

John Feffer
The Lies of Islamophobia

Christopher Ketcham
TV Toxicosis: What the Stewart / Colbert News Clowns Are Really Up To

Website of the Day
Sam Husseini Interrogates Rand Paul and Mike Pence

November 5 - 7, 2010

Alexander Cockburn
Now for the Good News

Vijay Prashad
Obama in India: a Tide of Turbans

Patrick Cockburn
If al-Qa'ida Really Want to Hit the West, They Can

Darwin Bond-Graham
Guess Who's Not Coming to Tea?

Mike Whitney
Dollar in the Dustbin

Linn Washington, Jr.
An Epidemic of Brutality: Oakland Filmmaker Feels Police Wrath

Rannie Amiri
STL = Sandbag the Lebanese

Ramzy Baroud
The Middle East's Stagnant "Change"

Larry Portis
Chou Sar? What Happened in Lebanon?

Gary Leupp
The Yemeni Toner Cartridge Bomb Story

William Loren Katz
Are Cruel Years Coming to a Neighborhood Near You?

Brian Cloughley
Spheres of Influence

Mark Weisbrot
The Fatal Mistake

Rubén M. Lo Vuolo, Daniel Raventós / Pablo Yanes
Basic Income in Times of Economic Crisis

Joseph Nevins
Ecological Privilege and the Frequent Flyer Activist

Neve Gordon
Thought Crimes

Alan Farago
The Bhopal Economy

Stewart J. Lawrence
Immigration Policy After the Midterm Elections

James R. King
The Other Side of Yemen

Ron Jacobs
How Ken Kesey Turned On America

Franklin Lamb
Israel Claims Victory in US Midterm Elections

James McEnteer
Beyond the Rational: the Alamo Election

Richard Phelps
Guy Fawkes and the Pressure of a Terrorism Spotlight

Saul Landau
Where's the Sanity Clause?

David Ker Thomson The Long Argument

Evelyn Pringle
The Vaccination Profiteers

Joseph G. Ramsey Until Pigs Fly: the Morning After With Michael Moore

Stanley Heller
Up Yours, John Stewart

Missy Beattie
The Big Universe

Harvey Wasserman
Vermont's Great Green Election Day Victory

Billy Wharton
Where Did Everybody Go?

Shamus Cooke
Democrats Run to the Right

Linh Dinh
War Games: Guns and Balls

Windy Cooler
Rallying Through This

Charles R. Larson
Witnesses of Haiti's History
: Edwidge Danticat's "Create Dangerously"

Phyllis Pollack
Keith Richards' Demon Life

David Yearsley
Bach and the Music of Time

Website of the Weekend
Smearing Jean-Luc Godard as an "Anti-Semite"

November 4, 2010

Doug Peacock
Desert Solitaire, Revisited

Andrew Cockburn
Why Summers Goes and Geithner Stays

Iain Boal
Crisis at Pacifica: the Two-Percent Putsch

Paul Craig Roberts
The Impotence of Elections

Chase Madar
Guantánamo: Exception or Rule?

Dave Lindorff
Take That You Smug Bastards!

Russell Mokhiber
Bought and Paid For

Laura Flanders
Lessons From Elizabeth Warren

Website of the Day
Moyers: the Howard Zinn Lecture

November 3, 2010

Alexander Cockburn
America the Clueless

Franklin C. Spinney
Democratic Debacle

Chris Floyd Dissatisfied Mind: Flickers of Hope in a Deadly Political Cycle

William Blum
Jon Stewart and the Left

Sheldon Richman
Provoking Yemeni Terrorism

Stephen Soldz
Fleecing Members, Colluding in Torture

Mark Weisbrot
Dilma's Victory in Brazil

Stewart J. Lawrence
Court Sends Mixed Signals on Arizona Immigration Law

Manuel Garcia, Jr. Election Night in Oakland

Norman Solomon
Now What?

Website of the Day
Save Our Social Security

November 2, 2010

Vincent Navarro
What's Happening in Europe?

Ishmael Reed
Brown Shirts, Black Shirts, T-Shirts

Uri Avnery
The Occupation and Political Corruption in Israel

Mark Driscoll
When the Pentagon "Kill Machines" Came to an Okinawan Paradise

Mike Whitney
Midterm Day of Reckoning: "Let the Landslide Begin"

Linh Dinh
Prone Pioneers: Punishing the Desperate for Being Desperate

David Macaray
Bring Back the Fifties! America's Most Misunderstood Decade

Randall Amster Wikilessons: War is a Joke, But It Isn't Funny

Betsy Ross
How the Banks Trumped Keynes

Yves Engler
A Sad Spectacle: Canada and the Jewish National Fund

Website of the Day
Gulf Oil Toxic to Humans

 

November 1, 2010

Ted Honderich
The Farce of Fairness

Steven Higgs
Don't Act Don't Sell: Why Liberals Will Get What They Deserve on Election Day

John Ross
A Ding-Dong Year for Death in Mexico

Dean Baker
A Darkening Future: Why Growth Still Feels Like a Recession

Ralph Nader
When Corporations are the Government

Justin E. H. Smith
The People Without History

Marjorie Cohn
Hyping Fear

Scott Boehm
Juan Williams and Katrina

Brian Tierney
The Struggle of DC's Nurses

Trish Kahle
Jon Stewart, Are You Really That Sane?

Martha Rosenberg Bathrobe Erectus: Feting Hugh Hefner

Website of the Day
Scary New Wage Data

 

October 29 - 31, 2010

Alexander Cockburn
Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)

Joe Bageant
Flatworm Economics

Peter Lee
China-Bashing Among the Elites

David Rosen
Class War in America

Mike Whitney
Bernanke Gets His Pink Slip

David Smith-Ferri Afghanistan: "Is This Normal?"

David Macaray Chamber of Horrors: Turbo-Lobbyists for the Ruling Class

Rannie Amiri
"Man Up," Juan Williams

Jonathan Cook
Protest Met With Rubber Bullets

Ramzy Baroud
Obama as a Salesman

Ellen Brown
Time for a New Theory of Money

Dr. Nina Pierpont
Wind Turbine Syndrome

Dave Lindorff
America's Happy News Media

Brian Horejsi
Mountain Biking in National Parks: a Sordid and Destructive Affair

Daniel Raventós Worldwide Concentration of Wealth: What the Figures Say

Richard Anderson-Connolly
Obama and the Politics of Misrule

David Thomson
Democracy is Effigy

Christopher Brauchli
It's the Muslims Fault!

Bob Fitrakis / Harvey Wasserman Charging Rove With Racketeering

Roberto Rodriguez Arizona Blues: a Time and Decade of Betrayal

Ron Jacobs
Vietnam's Revolution in the Revolution

Farzana Versey
Obama's Hawkish Policy in India

Michael Donnelly
Break Out the Clothespins: It's Voting Season

Gerald E. Scorse
Deficit Rises, Hypocrisy Rises Faster

John Grant
Xbox. vs. Wikileaks

Mickey Z.
When Criminals Vote ...

Charles R. Larson
Fear of Growing Up

Kim Nicolini
"Catfish": DIY Horror Film-making

Peter Stone Brown
The New Old Dylan

David Yearsley
Wagner v. the Machine

Poets' Basement
Davies, Ford and Clark

Website of the Weekend
CSPAN: Cockburn and St. Clair on Seattle WTO Protest and Beyond

 

October 28, 2010

Paul Craig Roberts
America's Job Losses are Permanent

Joseph Grosso
Wal-Mart and New York City

Kirkpatrick Sale
Getting Back to the Real Constitution?

Michael Winship
All They Ask For is an Unfair Advantage

Sherwood Ross
Gitmo's Indelible Stain: the Ordeal of Murat Kurnaz

Mark Weisbrot
Kirchner's Legacy: Rescuing Argentina; Uniting South America

Sam Smith Washington: Where Smart People Go to Do Stupid Things

Nicholas Arguimbau
Winning the War in Afghanistan at $50 Million per Kill

Sheldon Richman
Leaking the Truth

Franklin Lamb
Squeezing Hezbollah: Feltman's "Really Great Plan"

Website of the Day
The Anthropology of Garbage

October 27, 2010

Conn Hallinan
Money Wars

Michael Schwalbe
When Drones Come Home to Roost

Dave Lindorff
Obama's Black Site Prison: What are They Hiding at Bagram?

Gareth Porter
The Futile Surge

Dean Baker
An Economic Disaster

Clancy Sigal
The Sissy Left: Wimps Can't Win

Ram Etwareea
Why the Debt Crisis Hit Europe Harder Than the Emergent Countries of the South

Stewart J. Lawrence
Was Juan Williams "Lynched"?

Alan Farago
The Juan Williams Affair

Binoy Kampmark Offshoring Middle Earth: Prostituting the Hobbit

Website of the Day
Nature's Sting

 

October 26, 2010

Pam Martens
The Far Right's Secret Slush Fund to Keep Fear Alive

Joann Wypijewski
The Days of the Dead

Clarence Lusane Sold Brothers: the Bizarro World of Juan Williams and Clarence Thomas

Gareth Porter
The Futile Surge

Stephen Soldz
Iraq War Logs: Early Highlights

Lawrence Davidson
Ashcroft's Immunity and the Obama Administration

Alan Farago
The Florida Growth Machine

Dean Baker
The Abused Sibling

Jerica Arents
The Women's Harvest

Gerald E. Scorse Messing with Mankiw: Whining About Taxes and Work

Website of the Day
"A Project of Death and Destruction"

 

October 25, 2010

Nancy Scheper-Hughes
Body Parts and Bio-Piracy: Tissue, Skin and Organ Harvesting at Israel's National Forensic Institute

Patrick Cockburn
Echoes of El Salvador in US-Approved Death Squads

Kathy Kelly
"You're Not Alone"

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Dilemma

Bill Quigley
The Class War at Home

Winslow T. Wheeler
How Many More Trillions for the Pentagon?

David Macaray
Sick Leave as National Policy

Stewart J. Lawrence
Latina "Mama Grizzly" Stalks Her Den

Ray McGovern
Honoring Julian Assange

Missy Beattie
Ginni and Clarence: Just Us at Home

Website of the Day
Please Vote for Washington Stakeout Today!

 

October 22 - 24, 2010

Alexander Cockburn
Your Money, Our Life

Lee Ballinger
After the Coal Rush: Music v. King Coal

Franklin C. Spinney
Memo to Obama: Three Strikes and You're Out

Rannie Amiri
Palestine's Olive Harvest Horror

Ralph Nader
Ten Questions for Tea Partiers

Laura Carlsen
Ecuador's Failed Coup: the Latin American Backlash

Avi Shlaim
Dishonest Broker: the US, Israel and Palestine

Mike Whitney
Thank God for France

Josh Stieber
An Iraq Surge Vet on Wikileaks

Kathy Kelly
"War Does This to Your Mind"

Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Left and Iranian Exiles

Conn Hallinan
Rising Tensions in the China Seas

Linn Washington, Jr.
The Ignored Dark-Sides of Joblessness

Christopher Brauchli
The Arms Sale Economy

Mark Weisbrot
Why French Protestors Have It Right

Stan Cox
"Nuke Them!" When Juan Williams Said Something Worse

Ramzy Baroud
The Violence Debate

Dave Lindorff
Arise, Ye Homeowners of America, You Have Nothing to Lose But Your Mortgages!

Benjamin Dangl
Ecuador's Challenge

Peter Stone Brown
Bob Dylan and America

Julie Hilden
High School Rumors and the First Amendment

David Ker Thomson
Bunker U

Missy Beattie
Owning the Shares of Shame

Suzy Dean
Ignoring the Social Benefits of Drinking

Charles M. Young
Crackpot Curriculum

M. Shahid Alam
A Dialectical Approach to the Qu'ran

Charles R. Larson
How to Destroy Your Marriage

David Yearsley
Learning and Lust in Berlin's New Library

Poets' Basement
José M. Tirado

Website of the Weekend
Help Bring Yoga into Prisons

October 21, 2010

Diana Johnstone
French Fury in the EU Cage

Joanne Mariner
A Glimpse into the Silicon Heart of the CIA's Drone Program

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Biggest Problem: China as Collateral Damage

Lawrence Davidson
Invisible Israel?

Bill Quigley /
Laura Raymond
Artist Resistance in Honduras

Alan Farago
The Next Idiot Might Be You

David Smith-Ferri
Building Bamiyan Peace Park

Tolu Olorunda Educational Heroes and Myths

Website of the Day
Don't Just Deplore Bullying--Fight It!

October 20, 2010

Philippe Marlière
France Erupts: Sarkozy Under Siege

Tariq Ali
Red Hot France; Tepid Britain

Anthony Pahnke / Mark N. Hoffman
Digging Deeper: the San Jose Mine Disaster in Context

David Smith-Ferri
Bamiyan (Afghanistan) Diaries: Day One

Patrick Madden
QE2 and Foreclosures: Bank of America's Wager

Ishmael Reed
Professor Joe, Oakland's Next Mayor?

Dean Baker
Mortgage Mayhem

Mike Roselle
I'm Not Going Down Without a Fight

Dave Marsh
The Great General Johnson

Pete Redington
Dork is the New Cool

Website of the Day
The Poster Boy of Foreclosures

October 19, 2010

Pam Martens
The Koch Empire and Americans for Prosperity

Uri Avnery
The State of Bla-Bla- Bla

Ralph Nader
The Media and the Far Right

Clarence Lusane
From the White House to Obama's House: Race and Political Transition

Sherwood Ross
Union-Busting in Iraq

Trudy Bond
The Despot of Oklahoma: Mr. Coburn Goes to Haiti

Sherry Wolf
Our Not-So-Great Depression

Yves Engler
Why the UN Rejected Canada's Bid for the Security Council

Camilla Fox /
Chris Genovali
Killing Carnivores for Cash

Erin McManus
Hanoi Jane: War, Sex and Fantasies of Betrayal

Website of Day
Solar Done Right

October 18, 2010

Mike Whitney
How to Kickstart the Economy

Jonathan Cook
Settler Takeover of Israeli Police

Martha Rosenberg
The Return of Mad Cow Disease?

Stewart J. Lawrence
Does Jerry Brown's Campaign Have a Death Wish?

P. Sainath
The Narcissism of the Neurotic

James Zogby
Texas Takes a Dangerous Step Backwards

Ken Cole, Ralph Maughan / Brian Ertz
Governmental Disdain for Wolves

Patrick Brennan
Matt Taibbi's Epiphany: Dumping on the Tea Party

Jack Heyman
Justice for Oscar Grant! Jail for Killer Cops!

John Grant
Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Think

Website of the Day
Eating in Public

October 15 - 17, 2010

Alexander Cockburn
Daughters of the Gipper

Slavoj Žižek
What is the Left to Do?

Paul Craig Roberts
The War on Terror: What's It All About?

Adrienne Pine /
David Vivar

Saving Honduras?

Peter Lee
The Detention of Xie Chaoping

Jonathan Cook
My Loyalty Oath

Bitta Mostofi
Admiring Ahmadinejad and Overlooking Activists

Franklin Lamb
On the Road with Ahmadinejad in Lebanon

Rannie Amiri
A Small Shove Back

Robert Alvarez
Nuclear Testing and the Rise of Thyroid Cancers

Joe Paff
Beyond Brown v. Whitman: the Late Great State of California

David Rosen
Sexy Sisters: the New Republican Women

David Correia
Greenwashing the Wal-Mart Way

Sam Hitchmough
Competing Americas: the Rise of the Tea Party

Ramzy Baroud
The Tide Has Changed

Dave Lindorff
Don't Act, Don't Lead: Obama Stiffs Gays in the Military Again

Graham Usher
Waiting on America

Gary Leupp
The Non-Jewish Immigration Loyalty Oath

David Macaray
In the Trenches of Union Politics

Ron Jacobs
Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun" and Obama's iPod

Peter Cervantes-Gautschi
Wall Street and the Criminalization of Immigrants

Lawrence Swaim
How Neo-Cons Became Honorary Christians

Linn Washington
Corporate Charter Schools Get the Cash

David Ker Thomson
Under Democracy

Norman Solomon
Progressive Canaries

Michael Dawson
Electric Evasions: the Green Car Con

John Stanton
Defense Contractors From Hell

Jayne Lyn Stahl
Leaving Las Vegas

Paul Buchheit
Stop the HURT

Ziad Abbas
Palestine: Without Water, There is No Life

Anthony Papa
Life for an $11 Robbery

Hardy Jones
New Threats to Dolphins: Toxins and Viruses

Missy Beattie
The Bedbug War: Nearly Helpless

Charles R. Larson
Fighting to End Africa's Worst Human Rights Crimes

Peter Stone Brown
Music Under the Radar

David Yearsley
Apollo's Fire

Poets' Basement
Moser & Rihn

Website of the Weekend
On This Earth

October 14, 2010

Mike Whitney
Bernanke Ponders the "Nuclear" Option

Jonathan Cook
The Transfer Scenario

Dean Baker
Globalizing Health Care

Marjorie Cohn
Israeli Raid on Gaza Flotilla: US Fails to Condemn, Despite UN Finding

Stewart J. Lawrence
Sex and the Orgasm Gap: Are Men Still Dominating Women in Bed?

Carl Finamore
San Francisco's Hotel Frank(enstein): a Horror Show for Employees

Dave Lindorff
9 Million Stolen Homes: Getting Tough on Banker Crime

Raúl Zibechi
Brazil's Elections: the Continuation of Lulismo

Willie L. Pelote
Shock Therapy for California?

Website of the Day
Can Mushrooms Rescue the Gulf?

October 13, 2010

Vijay Prashad
The Waning of Obama

Uri Avnery
His Father's Son: the Real Bibi

Dean Baker
The Counterfeit Recovery

Winslow T. Wheeler
Where is the Payoff for Huge Pentagon Budget Hikes?

Patrick Bond
"To Exist is to Resist:" From Apartheid South Africa to Palestine

Michael Winship
Cash You Can Believe In

Myles B. Hoenig
Are We Expendable? An Education Manifesto From the Trenches

Tom Turnipseed
Money Talks (and Swears)

Website of the Day
The Return of Ben Tripp, as Zombie Novelist

October 12, 2010

Ralph Nader
Tricks and Traps in the Fine Print

Franklin C. Spinney
Techno War: Money Talks, Counter-measures Walk

Mike Whitney
The Future is Ugly

Robert Alvarez
The Tritium Deficit

Deepak Tripathi
India's High Stakes Foreign Policy

Chris Genovali / Camilla Fox
Death Cults Among Us: the War on Wolves

Harvey Wasserman
Calvert Cliffs on the Brink

Robert Jensen
Soils and Souls: the Promise of the Land

Mark Weisbrot
How to Change the IMF

Charles R. Larson
America's Religious Veneer

Website of the Day
How You Can Help Fund Radical Grassroots Green Groups (and Double Your Money)

 

October 11, 2010

Michael Hudson
Why the U.S. Has Launched a New Financial World World War

Bill Quigley
A Million Haitians Slowly Dying

Linn Washington
American Justice on Trial

Paul Krassner
Eat, Pray, Be Disappointed: an Open Letter to Obama

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Other "Peace" Plan

Cal Winslow
Big Money, the Big Lie and Fear

Sherry Wolf
Why are Liberals Building the Right?

Peter Stone Brown
Brother Solomon Burke

David Michael Green
How Do You Take Your Tea?

Jayne Lyn Stahl
Disclose This

Website of the Day
"Seize the Jail! Tear It Down!!"

October 8 - 10, 2010

Alexander Cockburn
The Soros Syndrome

Paul Craig Roberts
America's Third World Economy

Alain Gresh
What Does a "One State Solution" Really Mean?

Patrick Cockburn
Is Pakistan Falling Apart?

Rannie Amiri
An Evaporating Palestine

Conn Hallinan
Ecuador: Coup or Riot?

Ramzy Baroud
Dying to Win

Saul Landau
Harboring Terrorists

Sam Smith
What's Missing in the Talk About Education Reform

Yvonne Ridley
On the Road to Damascus, Thinking of Monty Python

Ellen Brown
Foreclosuregate: a Massive Fraud

Santwana Dasgupta
A View From the Top of the World

David Macaray Labor Secretaries: Frances and Elaine

Gerald E. Scorse
Tax System Favors Wealth Over Work

Tony Newman
The Perils of Prohibition

David Ker Thomson
Soundtrack for a Beating

Christopher Brauchli
Authentic Dishonesty: Newt and Dinesh Save America!

Jon Mitchell
Oliver North, Ospreys and Agent Orange

Kevin Zeese
The Longest War

Steven Best
Rethinking Revolution

Missy Beattie
Invasion of the Blood-Sucking Bedbugs

Binoy Kampmark
England's Football Inc.

Charles R. Larson
Egypt's Camus?

Kim Nicolini
"Social Network:" Narcissism and Claustrophobia Among the Techno-Elites

Dave Marsh
"American Idiot:" Finally, a Musical That Rocks

David Yearsley
The Dark Side of Musical Enlightenment

Poets' Basement
Three by Peter Branson

Website of the Weekend
Help the Great Michael Fracasso Revolutionize the Music Industry

 

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Weekend Edition
November 12 - 14, 2010

Maliki to Stay as PM, But Leaders Cut His Powers

Iraq's Stalemate Ends

By PATRICK COCKBURN

Iraqi leaders have ended eight months of political stalemate by supporting the reappointment of Nouri al-Maliki as Prime Minister but have sought to rein in his authority.

The country's parliament met yesterday and was expected to return  Maliki for a second term. The parliament is also to pass a charter defining the Prime Minister's authority and seeking to ensure the cabinet makes decisions, not the Prime Minister alone.

"In recent years, Maliki hijacked the authority of the state, concentrated decision-making in the Prime Minister's office, and set up military and intelligence units answering directly to him," said an Iraqi source. "Methods of preventing this happening again have been widely discussed among other Iraqi leaders."

The Iraqi parliament was also expected yesterday to return Jalal Talabani as President and the powerful Sunni politician Osama al-Nujaifi as the Speaker of Parliament.

A Sunni-backed coalition of 57 members, including the Speaker, Ayad Allawi, walked out of in protest before the vote. Their action underlines how fragile any new government might be.

Iyad al-Allawi, the former prime minister backed by Sunni Arab countries and Turkey, is the main loser from the new agreement. He will head a newly created council for strategic policy, to which other Iraqi leaders will belong. It will be able to veto government policies if 80 per cent of council members vote to do so. Given the fractiousness of Iraqi politics, such a consensus will be difficult to achieve and the council may turn out to have little real power.

The allocation of ministerial posts will be agreed over the next month with Sunni politicians hoping to secure the job of Foreign Secretary that has long been held by Hoshyar Zebari, a senior Kurdish leader. And in a further effort to satisfy different parties and communities, the number of deputy prime ministers may be increased.

The new power-sharing agreement essentially reappoints the Shia-Kurdish coalition that has ruled Iraq since 2005 but with the Sunni given more power.  Nujaifi, who controls the Sunni-majority city of Mosul in northern Iraq, will be an ambitious new player in Baghdad.

Allawi, a secular Shia leading the mainly Sunni al-Iraqiya party, sought to be prime minister himself after the March 7 election, but some factions in his party are seeking an agreement with the government.

Allawi has no real constituency of his own.  Maliki rebuilt his relations with Iran and the main Shia religious parties. Much will now depend on how far Maliki keeps the agreements he has reached with other parties to stay in power. The Kurds, Sadrists and Sunni will all be wary of him reneging on his promises.

Patrick Cockburn is the author of "Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq


    

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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