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In his thoughtful criticism of my essay on the future of fossil fuels and the poor prospects for renewable energy, Andrew Leonard characterizes my message as one that "we have nothing to worry about." This may be partly the fault of my presentation, because in the course of being provocative I did not make it sufficiently clear that I was engaged in analysis, not advocacy. I made the prediction that, even in the presence of global warming, the countries of the world are unlikely to allow the vast stores of fossil fuels in the earth's crust to lie there undisturbed, when technology is making many of them ever more accessible and cheaper than the renewable energy alternatives. For the record, I personally wish that greenhouse gas emissions would stop immediately, and I personally would prefer a world of harmonious international cooperation for all time. Neither of my personal preferences is going to be fulfilled and neither affects the accuracy of my analysis.

The past three years have been a disaster for most Western economies. The United States has mass long-term unemployment for the first time since the 1930s. Meanwhile, Europe's single currency is coming apart at the seams. How did it all go so wrong?

The London Metropolitan Police have withdrawn an appeal to the public to report anyone with anarchist sympathies, admitting it was "badly worded". But the climb-down is telling in itself: they did not seek to "stigmatise those with genuine political beliefs", but to "gather information on criminal acts". The conflation of anarchism and criminality is a key tactic in the state offensive against anarchists, driven by the fear that anarchist ideas are gaining ground within a new politics that eschews parties and favours direct action. 

Elizabeth Warren discusses how the dreams of the middle class american family are being depleted by the dramatic increase in bankruptcies and foreclosures. Warren discusses the role that credit card companies and ballooning interests rates have played in rapidly increasing mortgage rates as well as the how the over consumption myth is clouding our understanding of the average middle class family, who is in fact experiencing a lower standard of living than their parents and still finding themselves one payment away from losing their home. Elizabeth Warren is the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and chaired the Congressional Oversight Panel created to investigate the U.S. banking bailout . This program originally aired in April 2004. it is being re-aired because Professor Warren's predictions of economic disasters and the reasons for them have proven correct, and she is a candidate to head a commission to guard against recurrence. The Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public in television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books. For more information visit http://www.mslaw.edu

The loss of America's AAA credit score has sparked panicked sell-offs on global markets. Ratings giants have so far confirmed France's highest status, but investors remain unconvinced its finances are solid enough. Financial journalist Demitri Kofinas says it's not just the banks, but whole countries which are now struggling to make ends meet, with more public unrest on the cards.

With President Obama and Republican leaders calling for cutting the budget by trillions over the next 10 years, it is worth asking how we got here - from healthy surpluses at the end of the Clinton era, and the promise of future surpluses, to nine straight years of deficits, including the $1.3 trillion shortfall in 2010. The answer is largely the Bush-era tax cuts, war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, and recessions.

A seven-word Wall Street Journal headline says it all: "Dearth of Demand Seen Behind Weak Hiring."

A vital investigative report by Jeremy Scahill is first ignored, and then maligned, by subservient media outlets

On July 25th, for instance, while John Boehner raced around the Capitol desperately pressing Republican House members for votes on a debt-ceiling bill that Harry Reid was calling dead-on-arrival in the Senate, America's new ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, took his oath of office in distant Kabul.  According to the New York Times, he then gave a short speech "warning" that "Western powers needed to 'proceed carefully'" and emphasized that when it came to the war, there would "be no rush for the exits." If, in Washington, people were rushing for those exits, no chance of that in Kabul almost a decade into America's second Afghan War.  There, the air strikes, night raids, assassinations, roadside bombs, and soldier and civilian deaths, we are assured, will continue to 2014 and beyond.  In a war in which every gallon of gas used by a fuel-guzzling US military costs $400 to $800 to import, time is no object and -- despite the panic in Washington over debt payments -- neither evidently is cost.

Drought could parch close to 70 percent of the planet's soil by 2025 unless countries implement policies to slow desertification, a senior United Nations official has warned. "If we cannot find a solution to this problem... in 2025, close to 70 percent could be affected," Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, said Friday. Drought currently affects at least 41 percent of the planet and environmental degradation has caused it to spike by 15 to 25 percent since 1990, according to a global climate report. "There will not be global security without food security" in dry regions, Gnacadja said at the start of the ninth UN conference on the convention in the Argentine capital. "A green deal is necessary" for developing countries working to combat drought, he stressed. The next meeting on the convention is scheduled to take place in South Korea in 2010.

'Americans have yet to grapple with what it means to have a 'special' force this large, this active, and this secret - and they are unlikely to begin to do so until more information is available.' Nick Turse, TomDispatch

The U.S. Special Operations Command's spending since 2001 has quadrupled, with an almost fivefold increase in revenue for its four largest defense contractors, according to a Bloomberg Government study.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jul 29, 2011 (IPS) - Protecting bits of nature here and there will not prevent humanity from losing our life support system. Even if areas dedicated to conserving plants, animals, and other species that provide Earth's life support system increased tenfold, it would not be enough without dealing with the big issues of the 21st century: population, overconsumption and inefficient resource use.

I was looking into the historical data on strike days in Britain for a feature in Catalyst, but there's a lot more to discuss than we could fit in the paper, so I've extended it to a blog post.

Karl Marx was right, it seems, in arguing that globalization, financial intermediation run amok, and redistribution of income and wealth from labor to capital could lead capitalism to self-destruct. So what can be done to prevent that outcome?

NBC exposes the "unspeakable" realities of the Japanese catastrophe in its 60 Minutes program Sunday night during which leading nuclear scientist Dr. Michio Kaku said radiation from Fukushima will impact of all of humanity.

During this time of economic uncertainty and record federal deficits, many question why America should invest aggressively in infrastructure. The answer is simple: Whether it involves highways, railways, ports, aviation or any other sector, infrastructure is an economic driver that is essential for the long-term creation of quality American jobs.

Would more accurate news coverage prompt Tea Party and Republican leaders to pay more attention to facts in their assertions about the economy? Maybe yes, maybe no. But, suggests Henry Banta, if the coverage continues at its present dismal level, we'll never find out.

MADRID - Hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Indians cheer a rural activist on a hunger strike. Israel reels before the largest street demonstrations in its history. Enraged young people in Spain and Greece take over public squares across their countries.