By Daniel Jaffee / CounterPunch The price of bottled water has frequently been the focus of both ridicule and concern. While often priced competitively with soda and other beverages, this commodity is vastly more expensive than the tap water it often replaces for consumers. Depending on the brand and package, the cost of the average yearly… Read More The Real Cost of Bottled Water
The climate and cost of living crises make belief in expanding GDPs look as stale as last year’s mince pies. But when central governments rely on consumerism to shore up spending, it will be hard for ‘degrowth’ to gain any traction When Kat Butler made her first post-lockdown trip to the high street in 2021,… Read More Are young people poised to slam the brake on endless economic growth?
Bharat Bhushan The government has denied that there are requests by Israel to export 100,000 Indians to replace Palestinian workers. Glossing over such reports, a spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs said the government was not aware of any specific requests and if taken up, the initiative would be a “long-term” issue. Yet, India… Read More Unworkable: Swapping Palestinian workers with Indians
Pension fund managers, private equity firms and other financial players are moving aggressively to snatch up lands around the world with access to water for irrigation. Their strategy is to pump as much water as they can and as fast as they can into the production of crops, like fruits and nuts, that reap high… Read More Squeezing communities dry: water grabbing by the global food industry
Bharat Bhushan As Bangladesh moves closer to the general election due in January 2024, violence and instability in the country are set to increase. Nearly 10,000 opposition leaders and activists were arrested after the October 28 rally of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Media reports suggest that the prisons have no room left. The opposition… Read More Cambodian template for Bangladesh elections
First posted June 29, 2016 “It is no exaggeration to say that with 1989 a long historical phase – the one initiated by the October Revolution of 1917 – came to its end. From now on, whatever might be the future of socialism, it will have to be established on radically new foundations, beyond the… Read More Conceptualizing an Emancipatory Alternative: István Mészáros’s ‘Beyond Capital’
I won’t take his [i.e. Gautam Adani’s] call because I don’t want to sell out like the rest. He is pulling the biggest con job on this country and the people with the help of this government and I will continue to speak about it. This is a calling for me, not a job… I… Read More Adani Brigade on overdrive gunning for Mahua Moitra; who remains undaunted
Whenever Joe Biden speaks, you have to make sure your bullshit detector is switched on, to borrow Hemingway’s pungent phrase. As is well-documented, our president has spent his public life making it up as he goes along. No surprise, there was a lot of boilerplate junk in the two much-noted speeches Biden gave last week, one… Read More Patrick Lawrence: Full-Dress Irrationality
As the Biden administration attempts to deny the death toll of Israel’s campaign of mass murder in Gaza and sell genocide as a stimulus for the U.S. economy, these are the death merchants profiting from the war machine By Jessica Corbett / Common Dreams With more than 7,300 Palestinians killed so far in Israel’s three-week bombardment of Gaza, a series… Read More US Billionaires and Corporate Profiteers Enabling Israel’s War on Gaza
NB: The only people benefiting from this conflict are arms dealers. Western establishments make immense profits from warfare, and have an interest in eternal conflict. As Orwell said, war has been abolished by becoming permanent. DS Defence majors such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Gruman, Huntington Ingalls, L3Harris Tech and General Dynamics have gained at least… Read More Israel-Hamas War: US arms industry stocks rocket (October 10)
After the truth-shower 