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"N.A.T.O.-Russia Cooperation: Political Problems Versus Military Opportunities" by Dr. Marcel de Haas

The relationship between N.A.T.O. and Russia is one of ups and downs. Structural cooperation started in 1997 with the Founding Act providing frequent consultations on a number of security issues. As a result of N.A.T.O.'s air attack on Kosovo in 1999, however, Russia postponed all cooperation with N.A.T.O. In the beginning of the current decade, Russia returned to negotiations with N.A.T.O., which led to the foundation of the N.A.T.O.-Russia Council in 2002. Since 2002, mutual consultations have been intensive and a considerable number of political and military forms of cooperation have been enacted. Now and then, however, differences of opinion still occur.

Bilderberg to Meet in Canada by James P. Tucker Jr.

The secretive group known as Bilderberg will hold its annual secret meeting at the posh Brook Street Resort a few miles from Ottawa, Canada, June 8-11.

The location and part of the agenda was disclosed to American Free Press by a source inside Bilderberg’s inner circle.

High on the Bilderberg’s secret agenda this year are oil prices and the political upheaval in Latin America. When meeting last year in Rottach-Egern, Germany, Bilderberg called for dramatic increases in the price of oil. Oil prices started climbing immediately from $40 a barrel to $70.

Steering Into a Third Intifada by Patrick J. Buchanan

When there is no solution, there is no problem, observed James Burnham, the former Trotskyite turned Cold War geostrategist.

Burnham's insight came again to mind as President Bush ended his meeting with Ehud Olmert by announcing that the Israeli prime minister had brought with him some "bold ideas" for peace.

And what bold ideas might that be?

A Glimpse of UN Darkness by Cheryl K. Chumley

After reading Wayne LaPierre's "The Global War on Your Guns: Inside the UN Plan to Destroy the Bill of Rights" and experiencing vicariously the boot-stomping good times of globalists as they play the latest round of Guns-Be-Gone, Rosie O'Donnell's call-for-all-arms seems almost patriotic.

"Most discussions at the United Nations are deservedly obscure, but the debate over guns really matters," LaPierre begins. "It's about firearm ownership ... individual liberty and national sovereignty. It's a battle for America's soul."

The Weakness of Empire by Michael Vlahos

Something remarkable happened on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Commentators began to declare, in somewhat exultant tones, that America had at last become a true empire. America was of course also a benevolent empire, they insisted, but that nod to altruistic tradition could not hide their excitement that America had at last joined the greatest empires of the past.

Hemispheric polarization by ALBERTO GARRIDO

While the polarization between US President George W. Bush and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez has not burst yet, it has escalated. The block composed of Chávez, Cuban ruler Fidel Castro and Bolivian President Evo Morales resolved to bolster, by means of energy pressure, the revolutionary socialist triangle. Their space, so far, is the Americas, with no national exceptions. Polarization prompted by Cuba, Venezuelan and Bolivia considered as completed the stage of Inter-American institutional transition, because it is not in line with their strategic interests, the goal of which is the establishment of socialism in the hemisphere.

Iraq, Iran and the end of petrodollar: The waning influence of the USA in the Asian century

Throughout history, empires and their civilisations have come and gone. During the first part of the last century, the US quietly built its empire, first in the North and Central Americas and in South America. Soon after the Second World War, the US worked to maximise the advantages it gained, and the power it assumed, between 1943 and 1945, from its victory over Germany and Japan, and as a consequence of massive Soviet casualties, and large British debt and financial burden caused by the war. The USA assumed the leading role in the Western world by, on one hand, containing the Soviet Union and preventing the spread of communist revolution beyond the borders of the Soviet bloc; and on the other hand, ensuring uncontested American supremacy within the Western world.

Former NSA officer alleges illegal activities under Hayden by Chris Strohm

A former intelligence officer for the National Security Agency said he plans to tell Senate staffers next week that unlawful activity occurred at the agency under the supervision of Gen. Michael Hayden beyond what has been publicly reported, while hinting that it might have involved the illegal use of space-based satellites and systems to spy on U.S. citizens.

Russell Tice, who worked on what are known as "special access programs," has wanted to meet in a closed session with members of Congress and their staff since President Bush announced in December that he had secretly authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens without a court order. In an interview late Thursday, Tice said the Senate Armed Services Committee finally asked him to meet next week in a secure facility on Capitol Hill.

Appealing to the United States is not very appealing by William Blum

With his recent letter to President Bush, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become part of a long tradition of Third-World leaders who, under imminent military or political threat from the United States, communicated with Washington officials in the hope of removing that threat. Let us hope that Ahmadinejad's effort doesn't result in the equally traditional outright US rejection.

Iran and US: Nuclear standoff or realpolitik? by Ramzy Baroud

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice couldn't possibly have been more accurate when she accused Iran of "playing games" with the international community.

Rice was specifically referring to an announcement made April 30 by the deputy head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency, Muhammad Saeedi, that his country is willing to allow "snap inspections" by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, on the condition that the U.N. Security Council is excluded from any involvement in inspecting Iran's nuclear-enrichment facilities.

US Military Bases in Brazil by ROBERT FISK

Strange things happen when a reporter strays off his beat. Vast regions of the earth turn out to have different priorities. The latest conspiracy theory for the murder of ex-Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri--that criminals involved in a bankrupt Beirut bank may have been involved--doesn't make it into the New Zealand Dominion Post.

And last week, arriving in the vast, messy, unplanned city of Sao Paulo, it was a Brazilian MP corruption scandal, the bankruptcy of the country's awful airline Varig--worse, let me warn you, than any East European airline under the Soviet Union--and Brazil's newly nationalised oil concessions in Bolivia that made up the front pages.

Pen and Sword: A Letter From Iran by Chris Floyd

Via Le Monde, a translated text of the letter from Ahmadinejad to Bush.

This week, for the first time in 27 years, an Iranian leader has written directly to an American president. As Juan Cole notes, the letter from Iranian President Ahmadinejad to George W. Bush is either badly translated, or, equally likely, an accurate reflection of Ahmadinejad's own muddled thoughts. (As evidenced by his less-than-towering intellect, embrace of rabid fundamentalism, ascension to power through a fixed electoral process, and incessant appeals to the worst instincts of his people, Ahmadinejad is in many ways a Persian Dubya.) But the fact of the letter is important in itself, almost a "Nixon goes to China" moment for the Iranian leadership.

Ahmadinejad Sends a Futile Letter by Kurt Nimmo

Iran’s president Ahmadinejad never said Israel should be “wiped off the map,” although Shimon Peres did say “the president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map.” As Anneliese Fikentscher and Andreas Neumann note, Ahmadinejad was deliberately misquoted as part of an ongoing propaganda campaign against Iran by the neocons, in particular the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), founded by Yigal Carmon, who served time in Israeli military intelligence, and Meyrav Wurmser, a neocon that had a hand in crafting the neocon document “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” presented to then Israeli president, Benjamin Netanyahu. MEMRI is known for selectively quoting and distorting Arab and Muslim news reports and editorials.

"'South Korea's and Japan's Dokdo/Takeshima Dispute Escalates Toward Confrontation'" Dr. Michael A. Weinstein

The escalation of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute reveals the erosion of U.S. influence in Northeast Asia. Washington's basic policy in the region is to collaborate with South Korea and Japan to balance China's rising power and to roll back or at least contain North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Faced with deepening tensions between its two allies, both of those aims are in jeopardy.

La Guerre Est Finie by Reid Collins

The slogan on the aircraft carrier was wrong. It should have read, "The War Is Over," and not "Mission Accomplished." And President Bush should have emerged from his arrival jet not in a flight suit but in civilian dress.

The conundrum is underscored by Shelby Steele's "White Guilt and the Western Past" article in a recent Wall Street Journal. An excellent exegesis of the current American cultural ambivalence toward minority peoples and attitudes, but misplaced, it can be argued, when applied to Iraq. The Iraq "war" was prosecuted to the fullest: the Iraqi Army was defeated, and subsequently disbanded. The "leader" of these enemy forces was snagged from his underground hiding place and placed on interminable trial.

The tide has turned by Lee Barnes

Nothing displays the true nature of the media and the liberal establishment more than their sneering attitude to democracy itself. Rather than having any common decency or sense of fair play, the BNP election results were treated by David Dimbleby and his coterie of fawning C List political commentators on the BBC with sneering and derision. Once again the BBC revealed is cosmopolitan, condescending and liberal contempt for the British people themselves. It is about time the British media showed some respect for democracy, and show real respect to the BNP.

Did Bush Force British Minister Out?

Two London papers have speculated this weekend that complaints by President George W. Bush forced a British minister from his post because of his opposition to the use of nuclear force against Iran.

The Independent suggests that a phone call from the U.S. president to British Prime Minister Tony Blair led to the removal of Foreign Secretary Jack Straw Friday.

Surveillance society: The DNA files

Police files hold the DNA of more than 50,000 children who have committed no offence. And that's only the tip of the iceberg - Britain now has the largest DNA database in the world.

The Next World War by Justin Raimondo

The great danger of war with Iran as an imminent possibility resides not only in this administration's proven warlike proclivities, but in the very similar appetites of the "opposition" party. Leading Democrats, including likely presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, far from seizing on recent pronouncements by the Bush White House as another round of duplicitous war propaganda, have accused the administration of appeasing the Iranians and promised – or, rather, threatened – to be much tougher on Tehran.

'The Bolivarian Alternative' by Patrick Buchanan

At this hour, the leftist leaders of Argentina and Brazil are meeting with the populist-radicals who run Venezuela and Bolivia.

Topic of discussion: The nationalization by Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian and the first indigenous president in Bolivian history, of the international gas companies operating in his country. Morales' troops, to the cheers of Caracas' Hugo Chavez, invaded the offices of the companies this week and carted off the books.

Big Brother Watches Britain by Peter Hitchens

Most British citizens assume that liberty grows wild in their country and needs neither cultivation nor protection, and they are unmoved by these events because they think that tyranny cannot happen here. Perhaps they are right, but if a tyranny does arise here, it will find all the weapons it needs conveniently to hand, sharpened, polished, and oiled. As our overstretched, under-equipped soldiers pursue the mirages of freedom and democracy in Iraq, real liberty and law go undefended in the nation where they first saw the light.

Iran-Israel Linkage By Bush Seen As Threat by James D. Besser And Larry Cohler-Esses

President Bush is risking a backlash that could injure the Jewish community — and his own cause — by repeatedly citing Israel as his top rationale for possible U.S. military conflict with Iran, Jewish leaders and Middle East analysts warned this week.

Bush’s repeated, sometimes exclusive, focus on Israel could spark public fury against the Jewish state and Jews if U.S. military action is accompanied by skyrocketing gas prices, terrorism at home or fallen G.I.’s who might be seen as dying for Israel, some said. Others feared it could fracture the shaky international coalition Bush is striving to assemble to oppose Iran’s nuclear program by framing the threat as primarily to Israel rather than international stability.

"War on Terror's" hit parade: An Islamophobia retrospective by Trish Schuh

It was the potshot heard round the world that touched off a counter-crusade. Packaged in Western free speech cliches, and marketed as innocent satire, the newspaper Jylland-Posten's depiction of the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist/suicide bomber with a ticking bomb for a turban was "provocation-entrapment" propaganda. Dual-use entertainment, in this case frivolous caricature, is an unexamined aspect of "full spectrum information dominance."

Two can play the game of politics by Ramzy Baroud

When the deputy head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency, Muhammad Saeedi, said recently that his country is willing to allow "snap inspections" by the International Atomic Energy Agency, he conditioned his country's concession on excluding the United Nations Security Council from any involvement in inspecting Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities.

Quite properly, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iran was "playing games" with the international community. Indeed, Iran is playing games - in the sense that it is repeatedly testing US resolve to find out how far the Bush administration is willing to go to escalate the conflict.

Cut and Run? You Bet by Lt. Gen. William E. Odom

Withdraw immediately or stay the present course? That is the key question about the war in Iraq today. American public opinion is now decidedly against the war. From liberal New England, where citizens pass town-hall resolutions calling for withdrawal, to the conservative South and West, where more than half of “red state” citizens oppose the war, Americans want out. That sentiment is understandable.

The prewar dream of a liberal Iraqi democracy friendly to the United States is no longer credible. No Iraqi leader with enough power and legitimacy to control the country will be pro-American. Still, U.S. President George W. Bush says the United States must stay the course. Why? Let’s consider his administration’s most popular arguments for not leaving Iraq.

U.S. and Europe Draft U.N. Resolution on Iran by ELAINE SCIOLINO

The United States, Britain and France have drafted a binding Security Council resolution requiring Iran to stop key nuclear activities, but Russia and China are already resisting, officials involved in the negotiations said today. The Americans and the Europeans want to move swiftly against Iran, and to that end, the resolution will be introduced in New York on Wednesday or Thursday, according to R. Nicolas Burns, the under secretary of state who has led American diplomatic efforts concerning Iran.

Give Me That Old-Time Geo-Politics by Jim Lobe

However much President George W. Bush's "freedom agenda" asserted itself into U.S. foreign policy in the wake of the Iraq invasion three years ago, traditional geo-politics – and the realpolitik that goes with it – is making a remarkably strong comeback.

Time to shut-down the UN by Mike Whitney

Hugo Chavez was right a few months ago when he said that the United Nations had outlived its usefulness and was only serving the interests of the powerful nations. The “alleged” standoff with Iran proves that the UN has degenerated into a rubber stamp for US aggression. Its main purpose now is to provide international cover for American plans to redraw the map of the Middle East and integrate dissident states into the neoliberal economic system.

Afterword: Failed States by Noam Chomsky

We began by considering four critical issues that should rank high on the agenda of those concerned with the prospects for a decent future. Two of them are literally matters of survival: nuclear war and environmental disaster. The first danger is ever-present, beyond imagination, and in principle avoidable; practical ways to proceed are understood. The second is longer-term, and there is much uncertainty about how a serious crisis can be averted, or at least mitigated, though it is clear enough that the longer the delay in confronting the tasks, they harder they will be. And again, sensible measures to proceed are well known. The third major crisis is that the government of the global superpower is acting in ways that enhance these threats, and others as well, such as the threat of terrorism by enemies. That conclusion, unfortunately all too credible, brings to prominence a fourth critical issue: the growing democratic deficit, the gap between public will and public policy, a sign of the increasing failure of formal democratic institutions to function as they would in a democratic culture with vitality and substance.