Politics

NOVANEWS By Richard Hugus Have you ever met someone in a narrow passage and found it difficult to get around them because they kept moving the same way as you? Did you ever see a bird attacking his reflection in a window, thinking it was another bird? What about the foretelling of an experience in déjà vu? These are instances of the uncanny. They involve the phenomenon of mirroring. There is something about mirrors that undermines human rationality. We are presented with a logical impossibility – something is apparent to our senses, but it isn’t real. If we do believe it’s real, as Narcissus did, we may fall into an abyss. Birds don’t have even the first clue of what mirrors are, but humans are not much better. Show us our reflection in the outside world and we are discombobulated. Yet, t...

NOVANEWS A Critical Response to the Islamophobic Accusation made by Western Mainstream Media that Islam is Anti-women By Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu Global Research Some years ago, I had an engaging discussion with one of my very insightful students of Philosophy in my university.  She asked me whether Islam has provisions for women’s rights and gender equity and if it has, why is it that Muslim countries are apparently anti-women in their cultural expressions as proven in the way mainstream mass media portray the customs and traditions of these Muslim countries. This perceptive question of my student deserved a candid and thorough response. The question is actually two pronged; first, it asked whether Islam has anything to offer for gender fairness specifically to the womenry. M...

NOVANEWS By Prof Sunera Thobani Global Research This article by Sunera Thobani, Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of British Columbia and former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women was published on the Global Research website nine years ago on 28 October 2001, three weeks after the invasion of Afghanistan by US and allied troops including Canadian forces. My recent speech at a women’s conference on violence against women has generated much controversy. In the aftermath of the terrible attacks of September 11, I argued that the U.S. response of launching ‘America’s new war’ would increase violence against women. I situated the current crisis within the continuity of North/South relations, rooted in colonialism and imperialism. I criticized Ame...

NOVANEWS By Joachim Hagopian Global Research First published by GR in April 2014 Steve McQueen, director of this year’s Oscar winner for best film “12 Years A Slave,” mentioned in his acceptance speech last month that 21 million people are living in slavery today. That quoted figure comes from the 2012 report issued by the United Nation’s International Labor Organization (ILO) that has been attempting to gather international data for over a decade now. In the Asia-Pacific region where most of the world’s forced laborers come from at 56%, an estimated 11.7 million people, followed by Africa at 18% or 3.7 million people live in bondage. Considering that at the peak of America’s slavery prior to the Civil War that ultimately declared it illegal, the total was four million people, fath...