The visit, which comes after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang‘s visit to India in May, is significant for the role it plays in deepening ties of cooperation and strategic partnership between the two countries, ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.

President Obama plans to nominate Jeh C. Johnson, who framed many of the administration’s national security policies as the Defense Department’s general counsel during Mr. Obama’s first term, to become the next chief of the Homeland Security Department, according to administration officials.

800,000 olive trees uprooted. Oxfam, 2011. Olive Harvest Factsheet, p2 (PDF)
24,000 trees in Central Park. Central Park, 2013. Official Website, Frequently Asked Questions (accessed 31 May 2013)
$12.3million loss = 10% of potential peak year income from the 8 million remaining trees in West Bank and Gaza. UN OCHA, 2012. Olive Harvest Factsheet & UNDP, 2008. The Olive Harvest in the West Bank & Gaza Strip (PDFs)
80,000 families rely economically on olive harvest.UN OCHA, 2012. Olive Harvest Factsheet (PDF)

In the wee hours of Thursday morning, after a 19 hour hearing, the Kaua‘i County Council passed landmark legislation requiring that pesticide use on the island be publicly disclosed.

The local victory came despite powerful pressure from some of the world’s largest pesticide corporations, many of which use land on Kaua‘i to develop and field test their genetically engineered (GE) seeds and pesticide products.

Bachtiar Abdul Fatah, a former general manager at Chevron’s Indonesian subsidiary, was sentenced to two years’ prison for abuse of power.

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Speculative Bonanza

Several overlapping political and economic agendas are unfolding. In a previous article, we examined the debt default saga in relation to the eventual privatization of important components of the federal State system.