Naomi Klein

On April 6, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz spelled it out: there will be no role for the UN in setting up an interim government in Iraq. The U.S.-run regime will last at least six months, "probably longer than that."

The central question we need to answer is this: What were the real reasons for the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq?

Le 16 avril, le secrétaire à la Défense des États-Unis, Paul Wolfowitz, a déclaré que les Nations unies n’avaient aucun rôle à jouer dans la mise sur pied d’un gouvernement intérimaire en Irak. La direction américaine durera au moins six mois, peut-être même plus.

L’invasion de l’Irak a pavé la voie à ce qui pourrait constituer le plus grand boom pétrolier de l’histoire. Tous les signaux convergent : les multinationales sont libres d’avaler les entreprises nationales, elles renvoient leurs profits exponentiels à la maison, elles profitent de « congés de taxes » et elles paient des droits risibles de un pour cent au gouvernement.

Le procès pour fraude de l’ancien magnat de la presse Conrad Black se poursuit depuis plusieurs semaines, à Chicago. Dans ce texte publié par l’hedomadaire américain The Nation, notre collaboratrice Naomi Klein s’intéresse au choix du jury, qui a servi de prélude à ce procès spectaculaire.

The global antiwar protests that surprised the world on February 15 grew out of the networks built by years of globalization activism, from Indymedia to the World Social Forum. And despite attempts to keep the movements separate, their only future lies in the convergence represented by Cancún.

Thomas Friedman, New York Times’ foreign affairs columnist, wrote about the joys of call-centre work in Bangalore on February 29. These jobs, are giving young people "self-confidence, dignity and optimism" - and that’s not just good for Indians, but for Americans as well. Why? Because happy workers paid to help U.S. tourists locate the luggage they’ve lost on Delta flights are less inclined to strap on dynamite and blow up those same planes.

"The Iraqi people gave America the biggest ’thank you’ in the best way we could have hoped for." Reading this election analysis from Betsy Hart, a columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service, I found myself thinking about my late grandmother.

Dans une de ses récentes chroniques, Thomas Friedman, le chroniqueur des affaires étrangères du New York Times, discourait des joies de travailler dans un centre d’appel de Bengalore, en Inde. Ces emplois, qui redonneraient aux jeunes « confiance en soi, dignité et optimisme », seraient bénéfiques non seulement pour les Indiens, mais également pour les Américains. Pourquoi ? Parce que les heureux travailleurs, payés pour aider les touristes américains à retrouver les bagages perdus sur des vols Delta, sont ainsi moins tentés de jouer avec de la dynamite et de poser des bombes dans les avions.

Gordon Brown has a new idea about how to “make poverty history” in time for the G-8 summit in Scotland. With Washington so far refusing to double its aid to Africa by 2015, the British Chancellor is appealing to the “richer oil-producing states” of the Middle East to fill the funding gap. “Oil wealth urged to save Africa,” reads the headline in London’s Observer.

My first run-in with Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army came on March 31 in Baghdad. The US occupation chief, Paul Bremer, had just sent armed men to shut down the young cleric’s newspaper, Al Hawza, claiming that its articles comparing Bremer to Saddam Hussein incited violence against Americans.

Fighting AIDS was supposed to show George W. Bush’s softer side. "Seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many," he said in his State of the Union address this past January. He has since reconsidered, deciding instead to offer a few more opportunities to the few.

Can we please stop calling it a quagmire? The United States isn’t mired in a bog or a marsh in Iraq (quagmire’s literal meaning); it is free-falling off a cliff. The only question now is: Who will follow the Bush clan off this precipice, and who will refuse to jump?

What does it take to become a major news story in the summer of Arnold and Kobe, Ben and Jen? A lot, as a group of young Philippine soldiers discovered recently. On July 27, 300 soldiers rigged a giant Manila shopping mall with C-4 explosives, accused one of Washington’s closest allies of blowing up its own buildings to attract US military dollars-and still barely managed to make the international news.

April 9, 2003, was the day Baghdad fell to U.S. forces. One year later, it is rising up against them.

Le président russe Poutine excédé d’être interpellé par des journalistes sur sa gestion de la crise à Beslan a répondu par l’ironie : « Invitez Ben Ladden à Bruxelles et à Washington pour discuter avec lui, a-t-il affirmé. Personne ne nous fera la morale sur l’idée de parler à des assassins d’enfants. »

The Bush administration has found its next target for pre-emptive war, but it’s not Iran, Syria or North Korea — not yet, anyway. Before launching any new foreign adventures, the Bush gang has some homeland housekeeping to take care of: It is going to sweep up those pesky non-governmental organizations that are helping to turn world opinion against U.S. bombs and brands.