By Eric Zuesse We’ll go considerably farther than has yet been revealed by the professional intelligence community, to provide the actual evidence that conclusively shows that (and how) the Ukrainian Government shot down the Malaysian airliner, MH-17, on July 17th. The latest report from the intelligence community was headlined on August 3rd by Robert Parry, “Flight 17 Shoot-Down Scenario Shifts,” and he revealed there that, “Contrary to the Obama administration’s public claims blaming eastern Ukrainian rebels and Russia for the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, some U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded that the rebels and Russia were likely not at fault and that it appears Ukrainian government forces were to blame, according to a source briefed on these findings. This judgment — at odds with what President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have expressed publicly — is based largely on the absence of U.S. government evidence that Russia supplied the rebels w

By Glen Ford Ferguson Unmasks the War on Black America A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford “The military character and mission of the police is more clear today than when the Black Panther Party and others sounded the alarm in the Sixties.” The brave and besieged people of Ferguson, Missouri, have already caused serious complications for the U.S. National Security State. By virtue of simply standing their ground in their own small city, the demonstrators have forced the local, county and state police to show their true, thoroughly militarized colors. Ferguson’s righteous agitators and rebellious Black youth have succeeded in pinning down in one small space the armed forces of racist repression in full view of the corporate and the people’s media, so that the whole world can bear witness to the truth of what another generation proclaimed nearly half a century ago: that, in the Black community, the police are an army of occupation. The military character and m

FRANKFURT/BERLIN — Germany's economy ministry will approve the sale of utility RWE's oil and gas unit DEA to a Russian investor despite tensions over the Ukraine crisis, two people familiar with the matter said. The economy ministry said in June it was investigating whether to block the 5.1 billion euro ($6.9 billion) sale of the DEA unit to the Letter One group of investors led by Russian tycoon Mikhail Fridman, which was announced in March. Representatives of the ministry, RWE and the Letter One consortium declined to comment. Europe and the U.S. have imposed economic sanctions against Russia for its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region and its backing of pro-Russian separatists, who are fighting against government forces in eastern Ukraine. Russia, in turn, has slapped bans on Western food imports. As part of the deal, Fridman, Russia's second-richest man, and his co-investors get stakes in about 190 oil and gas licenses or concessions in Europe, the Middle East and

By Pepe Escobar There's danger on the edge of town Ride the king's highway, baby Weird scenes inside the gold mine Ride the highway west, baby The Doors, The End The killer awoke before dawn. He put his American desert boots on. He took a knife from the ancient gallery. And he walked on down the hall - bathed in desert sunlight. The killer spoke with a British accent (London's East End?) Father (Saud), I want to kill you. Mother (Langley?) I want to...  yeeeaaahh, c'mon! Then the sartorially composed Man in Black beheaded American photojournalist James Foley. This is not the end, beautiful friend. It's just a new beginning in the never-ending Global War on Terror. Now starring Papa Saud's brand new bag - The Caliph and his goons. This is the way Shock and Awe morphs into "Assad must go" morphs into Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, morphs into The Caliph's Black Britannia goon responding to "humanitarian" bombing. I'm my own baby now

Demonstrators protesting against the shooting of Michael Brown are surrounded by police in riot gear in Ferguson, Missouri August 19, 2014 (Reuters / Joshua Lott) The social unrest that has engulfed the small town of Ferguson, Missouri in the United States – in the wake of the killing of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer – is as predictable as it is horrific. It refutes, more than any amount of academic research ever could, the notion that words such as justice, freedom and democracy accurately describe the reality of life for millions in a country that likes to represent itself as the land of the free. Racism continues to poison social relations in America, with black people in particular regarded as an enemy within by police departments and the reactionary system they represent all across the country. This is especially the case in the South, where although African-Americans are no longer forced to live on plantations they might as well be given the bru

People walk past trucks of a Russian convoy carrying humanitarian aid for Ukraine near a Russia-Ukraine border crossing point in Rostov Region, August 21, 2014 (Reuters / Alexander Demianchuk) Finding a celebrity with a cause is about as easy as finding a plastic surgeon in Los Angeles, but they are thin on the ground for the refugees fleeing the Ukrainian civil war. “Is there a time for keeping a distance A time to turn your eyes away Is there a time for keeping your head down For getting on with your day?” U2, Miss Sarajevo, 1995 Where’s Bono? George Clooney? Even Madonna? They could be having a communal conclave in a pub near the U2 frontman’s Dublin home, or be chewing on Margarita’s at the ER star’s Lake Como pile, but one thing these celebrity activists are not doing is commenting on a horrific refugee crisis in Europe. Given that they have rarely seen a cause they couldn’t sponsor or a bandwagon they couldn’t leap onto, something is amiss. In the 90s, the mere mention of Bo

The only American known to have joined a volunteer unit within the Ukrainian military, fighting the anti-government forces in the country’s east, has been killed in action, authorities confirm. The killed fighter is Mark Paslawsky, a New York-born 55-year-old investment banker and US army veteran who took Ukrainian citizenship just before joining the Donbas battalion - a volunteer unit fighting alongside Kiev troops - in April. He adopted codename ‘Franko’ there. News of his death came in an August 20 Facebook post by Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko, who said four fighters of the Donbas battalion died in a battle near the town of Ilovaysk, 35km from Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. “Among those dead is a Ukrainian citizen of American origin, codename ‘Franko’,” Gerashchenko wrote. The official says the military managed to take under their control half of Ilovaysk, which has seen some fierce fighting over the last two weeks. Maksim Dondyuk, a Ukrainian photographer

In a surprise U-turn, China’s Ministry of Agriculture has decided not to continue with a program which developed genetically-modified rice and corn. Some environmentalists say public concerns about GM crops played a key role in the decision. On August 17, when these permits were up for renewal, the Ministry of Agriculture decided not to extend them. In 2009, the ministry's Biosafety Committee issued approval certificates to develop the two crops, rice and corn. Developed by the Huazhong Agricultural University, near Wuhan, it was hoped that the GMO strains would help to reduce pesticide use by 80 percent, while raising yields by as much as 8 percent, said Huang Jikun, the chief scientist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Reuters in 2009. It is illegal to sell genetically-modified rice on the open market in China. However in July, GM rice was found on sale in a large supermarket in Wuhan, which is just across the Yangtze River from the Huazhong Agricultural University, w