Top products from r/worldnews

We found 370 product mentions on r/worldnews. We ranked the 4,059 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

Next page

Top comments that mention products on r/worldnews:

u/EntropyFighter · 22 pointsr/worldnews

This is true, but it's a deal the US offered. The guy who made the Saudi deal wrote a book about it. It's one of my favorites because when I read it, it was the first time I felt like I was getting an honest look at a how the world worked.

9/11 was basically a direct response to what is described in the book and what has come to be known as the "Washington Consensus". The "Washington Consensus" at its core is International politics run essentially by the military industrial complex.

Long story short, the US would offer to modernize a country and would construct loans, provided by USAID, to pay for this modernization but required American companies to do the work. Furthermore, the loans were constructed to make the country unable to pay them within 3 years. When the country couldn't pay, they had to offer up their natural resources and/or UN votes in addition to continuing to make payments.

Leaders of countries were approached with the plan to modernize along with a strong financial incentive for themselves ($100 million, as an example), those that said yes chained their countries to this destructive process. Those that didn't tended to die in plane crashes. Those that could evade assassination got their countries invaded.

The Saudi deal is a more complicated version of this basic deal constructed with more mutuality in mind. At its core the Saudis bought/buy American financial instruments. The interest from those payments goes to companies in the military industrial complex to fun building modern cities where tents once stood. In return, Saudi Arabia agrees never to shut off its oil supply. It's explained in detail in the book.

I know it's easy to start sounding nutty when terms like the "military industrial complex" comes up, but I'd encourage anybody interested to check out the book. It practically reads like a thriller. Very illuminating.

u/arjun101 · 12 pointsr/worldnews

What "Western values" are we talking about here, exactly?

Are we talking about the "Western values" that were in play in 1953 when the US and the UK overthrew Prime Minster Mossadegh, re-installed the Shah of Iran, and dismantled the country's democratic institutions?

Or are we talking about the "Western values" that were in play in the '80s when the US teamed up with Saudi Arabia to contract the new Pakistani dictatorship to help funnel money and weapons to radical Islamist rebels in Afghanistan? Fun fact, this program was basically the cause of the rise of the Islamist-intelligence deep state in Pakistan that plagues the country today:

>In 1971 there had been only nine hundred madrassas in all of Pakistan. By the summer of 1988 there were about eight thousand official religious schools and an estimated twenty-five thousand unregistered ones, many of them clustered along the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier and funded by wealthy patrons from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States...Almost a decade earlier, [ISI] was a small and demoralized unit within the Pakistani military…Now ISI was an army within the army, boasting multiple deep-pocketed patrons, including the supremely deep-pocketed Prince Turki and his Saudi GID. ISI enjoyed an ongoing operational partnership with the CIA as well, with periodic access to the world’s most sophisticated technology and intelligence collection systems….Outside the Pakistan army itself, less than ten years after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, ISI had been transformed by CIA and Saudi subsidies into Pakistan’s most powerful institution.” (Coll 2004: 180)

Source: Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004)

u/JollyGreenJesus · 1 pointr/worldnews

The Dictator's Handbook does a great job of explaining why this doesn't happen (this is a book written by some political scientists).

All of the members of the winning coalition (the 'inner circle' of the autocratic leader) absolutely do not want anyone else taking over. They've already cultivated close ties to that autocratic leader. If someone were to replace that autocratic leader, it is very likely that they will no longer be part of that inner circle. Any leader that would replace Kim, would likely replace Kim's old 'inner circle' (for reasons too long to fully explain here). So the inner circle of Kim all works together, to keep their leader in power, while simultaneously making sure that any threats to their autocratic leader's presence are squashed. In return, the autocratic leader keeps everyone in his inner circle very highly rewarded for their service (aka: those military leaders you are talking about, are rich beyond reason, compared those on the outside of Kim's inner circle).

The only time that military coups happen, is when the autocratic leader runs out of resources with which to buy the loyalty of their inner circle (or is a moron, and just neglects to do so). Kim is part of a dynasty, and has been well trained in this regard, I'd bet.

The book also covers how leaders at the end of their lives make sure that their power structures do not fall into disrepair. You'll note that before Kim Jung Un became the Supreme Leader, he was a "4-Star General" (with zero actual military experience). He was nominated to that post, by his father Kim Jung-Il. Why? Because Jung-Il, in failing health, wanted to make it absolutely crystal clear to his inner circle, that his rule would be continued by his son, and that they could count on his son to continue paying for their loyalty. (There's a good reason that family based dynasties work so well - because they make the inner circles of autocracies (which are essential to the operation of the state, and where the autocratic leader's power really comes from) confident that each member's position in the inner circle will be continued, despite the death of the leading figure of the regime.

u/shadowsweep · 3 pointsr/worldnews

>Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Westbrook Pegler, a vituperative critic of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, once wrote that the president’s attack on the ill-gotten gains of America’s wealthy was shameful hypocrisy given the fact that FDR’s “buccaneer” grandfather’s opium fortune had allowed Roosevelt and his family to enjoy “to the utmost … luxury and riches derived from the degradation and wretchedness of the Chinese people.”

>The White House declined to comment and the issue fell out of the spotlight, but Pegler was right — and not just about the Roosevelts. In the mid-19th century, not only did the Chinese opium trade bring one of the wealthiest nations on Earth to its knees and convert Britain’s Queen Victoria into “history’s largest drug dealer,” but, a century before his grandson rose to power, it also made Warren Delano and the scions of several other prominent American families, very, very rich.

The Drug That Bankrolled Some of America's Great Dynasties | Flashback | OZY

http://www.ozy.com/flashback/the-drug-that-bankrolled-some-of-americas-great-dynasties/40555

 

America continues the Western humanist traditions of freedom and democracy

http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Heroin-Complicity-Global-Trade/dp/1556524838/

http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-C-I-Interventions-II--Updated/dp/1567512526/

u/asusc · 7 pointsr/worldnews

I highly recommend "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins if you're interested in learning more about how governments, NGOs, and businesses profit from developing countries.

"Perkins writes that his economic projections cooked the books Enron-style to convince foreign governments to accept billions of dollars of loans from the World Bank and other institutions to build dams, airports, electric grids, and other infrastructure he knew they couldn't afford. The loans were given on condition that construction and engineering contracts went to U.S. companies. Often, the money would simply be transferred from one bank account in Washington, D.C., to another one in New York or San Francisco. The deals were smoothed over with bribes for foreign officials, but it was the taxpayers in the foreign countries who had to pay back the loans. When their governments couldn't do so, as was often the case, the U.S. or its henchmen at the World Bank or International Monetary Fund would step in and essentially place the country in trusteeship, dictating everything from its spending budget to security agreements and even its United Nations votes. It was, Perkins writes, a clever way for the U.S. to expand its "empire" at the expense of Third World citizens. While at times he seems a little overly focused on conspiracies, perhaps that's not surprising considering the life he's led."

u/notabiologist · 3 pointsr/worldnews

> We have a very different view of the world in this digital age, and information is at our finger tips and we know how to find it.

I wish I could be as optimistic about you regarding to our generation. We may have a different view, but that's true for every generation. I seriously doubt we know how to find information. We know how to find information to reinforce our views about the world; that much is true. We have no idea how to verify information (partially because this is not done in the media) and I don't know a lot of people who actively try to challenge their existing ideas with new contrasting information from other sources.


The way most people verify their information is by the 'logic' does it fit my view of the world? No?, than it's a biased article. Yes? than it's the an objective article which is treated almost equivalent to basic facts.

>So you end up with certain media outlets favoring certain views because that is what keeps them in business, and keeps those people buying because they agree with it.

This may be true, however, there is more to it than preference. Preference in people can be influenced as well and it can change if media for example did not put so much emphasize on certain things. A good example of what is purely preferences and media doing stupid things for more 'clicks' is the way they always portray the young white terrorists who go around killing people in schools.

However, a lot of the bias is not so simple as just preference of the buyers. There are a lot of other stakeholders involved. Again; if you are interested you should give this a chance.

u/Daveeatworld · 1 pointr/worldnews

I've posted this elsewhere in the comments here but in case it gets buried, I strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in how we botched Afghanistan as a whole up to 9/11:

I'm currently reading it now and its very interesting and well researched. The Saudi Intelligence Agency is a major player along with the Pakistanis.

https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/0143034669

u/1vaudevillian1 · 0 pointsr/worldnews

Can anyone read the article?

North and South don't care about the prize. Boon said we don't need a gold star we want peace. Give the gold star to trump.

Ugh. This comment section reads like:

hur dur dur dur. Trump is great and helped.

Trump did shit all nothing except a twitter war.
If you have any clue about politics and the times lines and events that happened under kim you would understand better.
Here watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
or you could read the dictators hand book. You can buy it here: https://www.amazon.ca/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

Read up on some of what has happened under Kim.

Kim was western educated.

He comes into power after his fathers death.

He has to then solidify his power or he will be disposed of, plain and simple. He has a brother you know.

This means he has to play the game. Continue with the old way forward.

But he has a plan. Kill brother. Kill Generals that would stop him. Continue with nukes to make sure no one can stop him and save face. Spout off rhetoric just like his father.

I can almost guarantee he wants to move NK to be more like China. There is huge GDP to the south and huge GDP to the west. He wants in on it. This will make him more rich and his loyal generals. Not only that it will pull the nation out of poverty and starvation.

NK is literally one really bad growing season away from millions dying, this is bad for any regime. The only thing that NK really has for export is rare earth elements and everyone needs those. Those require huge investment and know how to acquire.

Going forward after the deal is signed, you will see China coming in and helping build infrastructure to help with transportation and moving goods around faster to build up faster. The reason why China would be the one to do this; for several reasons. They don't want to become a democracy. They don't want those ideals. Also China has always been worried about the fall of NK, millions of people coming into China would be a disaster for them. The south will help with financing.

If anyone deserves a nobel peace prize it would be Dennis Rodman.

u/Captain_Midnight · 3 pointsr/worldnews

I was confused at first when I read your post. You seemed to be saying that Juice_lix was using a rhetorical deflection (which is true -- it's called the But What About Gambit). But instead, you're saying that the people he's talking to have diverted the subject.

But that is not even the case. The original point was about rich countries versus poor countries. Which rich country do you think of first? For most people in the world, it's the United States.

So when someone points out the things the United States has done, your friend pulls out the Gambit and you accuse his opponents of changing the subject.

Repeatedly reminding people of the crimes of a person or group of people is not a rhetorical device, nor should it be considered overused. The fact is, someone is saying something that you don't like. Because meanwhile, Matt Taibbi is doing the same thing to Wall Street, and he's practically a folk hero because of it.

You can't just declare something as a rhetorical device because you don't want to hear it, disagree with it, or are uncomfortable with its implications. Truth is not a matter of personal choice. It has to be countered with facts, not accusations.

Besides, there's no such thing as an objective history book. Your friend is setting up an impossible standard so he can easily dismiss all comers. But if you want some stories on the subject, you'll find plenty of that to go around.

u/[deleted] · 170 pointsr/worldnews

Fun fact, the US government (lead by Nixon and Kissinger) actively resupplied the Pakistani military during their genocidal campaign in Bangladesh in 1971, even though they knew what was happening. They also did the same thing during the Indonesian genocides of the mid-50s, coordinated with Islamist paramilitaries. And during the 1980s, both the US and Saudi Arabia poured billions of dollars into General Zia's dictatorship (whose social base was the same political party that perpetrated the mass killings in Bangladesh), helping him purge leftists and secularists and build thousands of Wahhabi madrassas--which got plenty of recruits from the refugees fleeing the US coalition's insurgency in Afghanistan.

I'd say that much of the rise of paramilitary Islamist politics in the last few decades in South Asia comes down to the legacy of US-Saudi imperialism in the area, and their use of the Pakistani military as an pillar of their regional power. The effects of the 1980s war in Afghanistan can't be underestimated, it totally mutated the socio-political fabric of Pakistan and the wider region. I really like this quote from Steve Coll's Ghost Wars:

>In 1971 there had been only nine hundred madrassas in all of Pakistan. By the summer of 1988 there were about eight thousand official religious schools and an estimated twenty-five thousand unregistered ones, many of them clustered along the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier and funded by wealthy patrons from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States...Almost a decade earlier, [ISI] was a small and demoralized unit within the Pakistani military…Now ISI was an army within the army, boasting multiple deep-pocketed patrons, including the supremely deep-pocketed Prince Turki and his Saudi GID. ISI enjoyed an ongoing operational partnership with the CIA as well, with periodic access to the world’s most sophisticated technology and intelligence collection systems….Outside the Pakistan army itself, less than ten years after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, ISI had been transformed by CIA and Saudi subsidies into Pakistan’s most powerful institution (Coll 2004: 180).

And of course, the ISI--and their Saudi backers--went on to fund Islamist paramilitary networks across the region, both in Kashmir and Bangladesh.

u/emr1028 · 21 pointsr/worldnews

You think that you've just made a super intelligent point because you've pointed out the obvious fact that the US has issues with human rights and with over-criminalization. It isn't an intelligent point because you don't know jack shit about North Korea. You don't know dick about how people live there, and I know that because if you did, you would pull your head out of your ass and realize that the issues that the United States has are not even in the same order of magnitude as the issues that North Korea has.

I recommend that you read the following books to give you a better sense of life in North Korea, so that in the future you can be more educated on the subject:

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West

The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag

u/veringer · 7 pointsr/worldnews

> Putin is in power because he's backed by the wealthiest and the military.

Sort of, but we could phrase this is in the reverse. Putin is in power because he enables these people to remain rich and expand their financial empires. And because he distributes or facilitates the distribution of wealth and profits to key military/police factions. In a nutshell he has his hands on enough power/money to:

  • Ensure the baddest men in Russia are on his side and compensated for assuming the risks associated with the difficult wet work necessary to maintain his hold on power (assassinations, cracking skulls, intimidating opposition, etc), and
  • Keep other powerful instruments happy/loyal enough to allow Putin's continued hold on power.

    For more, watch CGP Grey's Rules for Rulers which is based on The Dictator's Handbook. There's also a conversation/video from the author at Big Think.

u/Sonmi-452 · 1 pointr/worldnews

> Going to a private Christian school probably had a lot to do with the pro-israel lens

Yikes. Fundies want the Israelis to raze Al-Aqsa and rebuild the Old Temple so Jesus can return through the Eastern gate and bring about Armageddon. The prophecy of madmen.

Hope you're not in with that crowd. Regardless, yes, it's increasingly difficult to find good sources on the Middle East, its nations and conflicts.

A good primer would be Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilisation.

https://www.amazon.com/Great-War-Civilisation-Conquest-Middle/dp/1400075173

Very dense but it covers much of the nuance of these conflicts and gives a good background on the power players. It will open your eyes to some interesting things, IMO.

Good luck out there

u/fraisenoire · -5 pointsr/worldnews

Fox news is shit but it isn't a government funded government run news source

You might be interested in recent U.S History :

http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499

This books present a really interesting case on how the media system is organized. You should have a look at it, please get back to with a private message if you read it at the local library, I would love to hear your opinion about it.

u/SanFransicko · 1 pointr/worldnews

Piggybacking your comment to tell anyone interested in the situation in N.K. to read the book "Nothing to Envy"

This is true. When Jong Il was in power, and the famine was extremely harsh, free markets sprung up and foreign aid was available for sale. It was the first time a lot of people had been able to get white rice in years. I love to hear this; hopefully it's the beginning of the end for their government. When history looks back on what's been going on in North Korea, I'm sure it will judge the rest of the world harshly for letting this oppression go on so long, leading to the deaths by starvation of so many people.

There is an amazing but very dark book called "Nothing to Envy" link. It's an amazing snapshot of what's going on in that country, written at an interesting time. When Korea finally opens up, we won't be able to get the points of view of people who are absolutely indoctrinated with the propaganda of the North.

u/CanuckPanda · 2 pointsr/worldnews

https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374531501

Highly recommend you give this a read, mate.

Lobbies give to people who will support them, that's why the money is useful. They're not going to help fund those who go against their interests. Help elect the friendly people, and then quietly remind them you helped them and they owe you.

u/DontaskaboutDimona · -2 pointsr/worldnews

Rather than reading reddit's analysis on how Israel keeps getting bank rolled by Uncle Sam.. You should read this excellent book about the Israel lobby in America.

https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374531501

The book is written by John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Even in the preface they go into great depths of how Israel manipulates it's funding by gaining the maximum funding from American tax dollars. For example, Israel doesn't buy weapons directly. They buy U.S. bonds, wait for them to mature and then cash out the bonds for additional interest. inflating the already massive amount of funding they receive. All at the expense of the U.S. tax payer.

u/Demortus · 148 pointsr/worldnews

The world is way more peaceful and prosperous than it has been at nearly any other point in human history. Take for instance Rwanda. Two decades ago it was engaged in one of the worst genocides in human history. Now it is run by a very efficient government that has banned tribalism and is presiding over some of the fastest gains in human development in the world.

That doesn't mean that there aren't areas where things are getting worse, but the overall trend is generally positive.

Edit: A lot of you are making valid points that there are some important trends moving in a negative direction: climate change, environmental degradation, the fraying of the international liberal order. While it is still true that humanity has never been more peaceful than it has today (this is objectively true across a wide variety of metrics), I agree that these are pressing problems that if not addressed quickly, threaten our survival as a species in the long-term. But, I want to push back against the deep despair that I know many of you feel, because humanity has survived worse.

Around 70,000 years ago, humanity faced the greatest crisis in its history. A volcanic explosion of gargantuan proportions caused global temperatures to drop as much as 20 degrees in many places. This change caused a massive decline in our population to as few as a few hundred or thousand individuals. But we endured, despite having virtually no recognizable technology to aid us. We bounced back and 60,000 years later, we were building cities and had colonized almost the entire planet. We are now facing the second greatest threat our species has ever seen, but now we have something we never had before: we have science. We have technology. And we have governments that can harness the wealth and intelligence of billions of people to serve our collective will, if we choose to use them. I am not saying that will be enough, but it is a much better starting point than that faced by our ancestors. If I were to make a bet, I'd bet on our survival at a minimum, as humanity has already survived worse with less. I'd even say that given all that we have to fight climate change, that we will probably suffer nowhere near as much as we did then.

Edit2: Thanks for the gold!

u/furluge · 1 pointr/worldnews

Ok, so maybe you've never taken a look at economics or business but regulations have costs. If I, as an extermination service, want to offer my services to you, and I have to employe workers who are trained to recognize every single one of the 41,415 animals on the endangered species list on sight, and also insure myself/retain lawyers against any accidents my workers can incur, I'm going to have to pay for that. A worker of that caliber is going to be expensive, and the insurance/lawyers is going to be expensive if we're talking about the kind of penalties some people here are screaming for. That's going to be prohibitively expensive. So, if we try to follow your proposed scenario, which is very strict enforcement of endangered species laws, an exterminator working under what you're proposing has the following options.

  1. Pass those costs on to the consumer by raising their rates.
  2. Leave the area and do business someplace else with less regulation.
  3. Go out of business.

    Keep in mind that in most cases business will choose option #2 in a situation as onerous as you're proposing if they possibly can. Otherwise it's option #3. The kind of costs you'd need to meet to adhere to endangered species laws perfectly mean it's much more likely exterminators would simply go out of business. (And don't forget of course, you need to kill pests to maintain crops. Expect your food prices to skyrocket in your scenario as well.) Which of course means you'd just end up having untrained amateurs doing pest control with whatever they can lay their hands on instead. The reason exterminators aren't feeling the effects of this is because the enforcement of the laws is very lax, like many laws are. Generally for the reasons I mentioned. It's not in any politician's best interest to cause pest control prices and by extension food prices to skyrocket. They'd be dragged into the street and torn limb from limb.


    Speaking of lax law enforcement, for example the average American commits around three felonies a day. If all those laws were strictly enforced you'd have the entire population inside prison cells. Laws like this generally exist to make people feel good or make it seem like the government is doing something, and they provide a useful piece of leverage or cudgel to beat someone or some company with when it's convenient. If the man in this article had never gone to the police I guarantee you he'd probably never have been fined or put in jail in the first place.
u/Blarfk · 2 pointsr/worldnews

I am being 100% sincere and as non-insulting as I can when I say this - do yourself a favor, and check out some books about the history of the Middle East, because you have some wild misconceptions.

Lawrence in Arabia is a really good one to get started -

https://www.amazon.com/Lawrence-Arabia-Deceit-Imperial-Making/dp/0307476413/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469724389&sr=1-1&keywords=lawrence+in+arabia

And I also enjoyed The Great War for Civilisation, though it's a bit dense -

https://www.amazon.com/Great-War-Civilisation-Conquest-Middle/dp/1400075173/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469724425&sr=1-1&keywords=the+great+war+for+civilization

u/Cialis_In_Wonderland · 16 pointsr/worldnews

There are similarities between this and countless other international bailout and assistance programs, from the Irish Potato Famine to the Australian treatment of Aboriginal communities from 1994 to 2012. Charles Smith had a good article on it this week.

>Especially fascinating to learn that the English Government provided ‘relief’ loans to Ireland at market interest with a condition that they could not be used to do anything productive. Basically they set up a scheme to pay a small proportion of each community to build roads, but not a cent could be spent on developing alternate Irish-owned industries or businesses for fear it would upset the rich English industrialists.

>The English imported cheap American corn meal which everyone was forced to buy with the English Gov. financed wages (closing the loop of giving with one hand, taking with the other and adding in a profit to boot) after the Irish had to export all their own grain and livestock to England to pay the land rents.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjan15/debt-serfdom1-15.html

Similar tactics are documented extensively in Confessions of an Economic Hitman. For example, instead of financing a war they might finance "infrastructure improvements." The IMF gives several billion to a dictator, the dictator steals a large portion, and the rest is (over)spent on Western equipment (turbines, cranes, wire, etc). The country remains on the hook, left with an asset worth a fraction of debt's value.

After the new regime took power, they squandered (some legitimate spending, the rest stolen or wasted) their foreign currency and gold reserves. Now, they are being financed by European and American banks with the "condition" that that money gets spent on weapons from these same European and American countries, "closing the loop of giving with one hand, taking with the other and adding in a profit to boot." It's a tried and true tactic. The end result is an impoverished vassal state, borrowing to survive.

u/GovSchwarzenegger · 66 pointsr/worldnews

I subscribed to show my support for France and freedom. I hope many of you will join me. http://www.amazon.com/Charlie-Hebdo/dp/B00007LMFU/

u/methshin · 626 pointsr/worldnews

For all the people condemning this bookkeeper, I recommend reading a book call Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the final solution in Poland

It'll put into perspective that if you were in 1930's Germany, there's a good chance you'd be a Nazi, and if the opportunity to become a bookkeeper came up, you'd jump at the opportunity.

u/Kropotki · -1 pointsr/worldnews

>The U.S is generally benevolent for a superpower
>The U.S is no an expansionist power in any way

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA breath HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh my god people actually believe this bullshit.
The US is possibly the most aggressive country ever in history and US hegemony is almost global. It doesn't need to do land grabs, it dominates politically and economically, pretty much every Western country acts as a US vassal state.

Also the US doesn't genocide people?
The US has a body count that would easily compete with the USSR, it's just hidden better
http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-Military-Interventions-II-Updated/dp/1567512526

u/red286 · 1 pointr/worldnews

>It's difficult to create nuclear fusion but a teenager did it a few years ago.

Fission, not fusion. And no, creating nuclear fission is not difficult at all. It happens naturally.

>It is no more insane to think that a disease could be created, in this day and age, than creating nuclear fusion I would think.

It absolutely is, as creating a disease would require access to a bio lab and a fair amount of education, whereas creating nuclear fission requires a lump of radioactive material, which you can actually purchase online for $40.

u/Trollatopoulous · 1 pointr/worldnews

I love it! Been hardcore fan of BBdM & Smith for so long now, it's good to see someone do a video on their work!

For anyone else, read: The Dictator's Handbook

u/dansdata · 5 pointsr/worldnews

You'll probably find a lot of things in online-newspaper-article comments that'll make you want to hang yourself too, but the rather large number of people who're pinching the bridge of their nose and wondering what the hell they ever thought they were doing voting for Tony aren't the ones commenting in those places. :-)

The whole astonishing-hatred-for-Gillard thing is, ONCE AGAIN, Australia being a pale shadow of the USA. Look at what US right-wingers say about Hillary Clinton, and bing, there you go, Julia-hatred before the carbon paper.

(Hillary's pretty god-damned horrible in objective terms, but utterly wonderful compared with more popular candidates there, at least until Elizabeth Warren and Al Franken are real presidential prospects.)

The Kevin thing was... well, OK, he really is a prissy perfectionist who's an absolute bastard to work with. That's not why he got kicked out, but it's why all of the people nearest him disliked him, and shit like that's what dooms your political career.

(The Dictator's Handbook has an interesting and highly defensible explanation of why people stay in power: http://www.amazon.com/The-Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Politics/dp/1610391845 . Boiled down, it's the duh-quote "only the people who do what is necessary to stay in power, stay in power", but there is of course more to it than that.)

u/itsfineitsgreat · 0 pointsr/worldnews

Don't get your news from fucking movies, man. You could just read Ghost Wars and know way more than your friends and impress girls at parties.

u/Blitzpull · 1 pointr/worldnews

What world do you live in? Seriously, I would really like to know what deluded fantasy that you live in where this kind of money goes back to the people. It doesn't. You think this tourism helps people, think its help them open their eyes? Well what happens then if their eyes are somehow magically opened by the tourists who they have little to no contact with. Its not like you can walk up to someone and start talking to them, or does somehow the sight of a foreigner open their eyes to over 60 years of continuous brainwashing? But say they are somehow magically opened, what then? They are stuck in a country where their neighbors would rat them out for a hint of dissent, and they and their entire family would be shipped off to concentration camps that would make the Nazis proud.

Are you so fucking naive to believe this actually helps the citizens? Every time we try to give aid to the North, we can't even get the simplest guarantee from them that they would go to the people. They can't even finish their own infrastructures without foreign help, and even if they finish the outside they don't even bother to work on the inside. The vast majority of their spending goes to the military, we know this for a fact, that's why they invest so heavily into nuclear weapons and they actually have been able to accomplish some things (albeit poorly).

Economic liberalization would be helpful to the North for a variety of reasons but this is all tightly controlled, regulated and run by the state. This is not some private enterprise of North Koreans, they are carefully, screened, chosen and watched by a state, whose only purpose is to keep itself afloat and to keep its top people rich off the backs of its own citizens. But this tourism is stupid, especially when people come back with these misguided ideas of "Oh it doesn't look so bad". To think that this benefits anyone other than the state is a complete delusion. If you actually want to learn something about North Korea I would reccomend those books.

u/DiscordianAgent · -4 pointsr/worldnews

Little bit south of Mexico, but this fits the bill nicely:

U.S. Invasion of Panama, 1989

Short version is that Noriega, the Panamanian president, who was also a CIA puppet and drug launderer, got a bit too wild for our tastes. Not sure if annex is quite the right word, more like "secured and returned to the service of the hegemony". See, Russia is way behind the times. They think that to own a country you have to physically capture it. Since the 60's onward we've moved to a much harder to notice model wherein we bribe a countries upper class to get what we need, with the threat of the CIA and "small scale invasion" in the background to make sure they comply.

If you'd like further reading you might check out "Confessions of an Economic Hitman", wherein John Perkins claims he engineered many of these financial arrangements. While I found his account credible, I do feel a reasonable mention of this book should also include the criticism that we are basically taking Perkins word for it, many have pointed out a lack of hard evidence to his claims. On the other hand, when your job is to rig economic forecasts and seduce country leaders into unfair trade agreements, one can see why there might be a lack of proper documentation. Great read.

u/Rhesusmonkeydave · 3 pointsr/worldnews

I’m probably going to take a lot of shit for suggesting a nonfiction novel rather than a scholarly source but I think Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone
and The Demon In The Freezer do a good job of laying out the current situation and making for exciting reading. (That said, IANAVirologist.)

Wiki pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon_in_the_Freezer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hot_Zone

u/Leyte86 · 14 pointsr/worldnews

We installed this bidet from amazon in every bathroom. It’s under $40 US and easy to install. I’m thinking of upgrading to a Toto washlet in our master bath. Visited Japan and the warm seat and water is nice.

u/technikarp · 2 pointsr/worldnews

Bidet add ons go for $35 on Amazon . Save the planet while feeling like you just took a shower!

Also if you got poo on your face, you would definitely wash it off and not just use a paper towel to smear it, right???

u/coldnever · 2 pointsr/worldnews

>Oh yeah, I mean fuck all the free speech stuff, the right to open a business, and freely speak out against your government.

Which has been made irrelevant by scientific advances and the flaws of your own brain (aka you are easy to dupe).

Reasoning and the human brain doesn't work the way we thought it did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

Manufacturing consent

http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499

Most have no clue what's really going on in the world... the elites are afraid of political awakening.

This (mass surveillance) by the NSA and abuse by law enforcement is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttv6n7PFniY

Brezinski at a press conference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kmUS--QCYY

The real news:

http://therealnews.com/t2/

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/069114589X/

http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Government-Surveillance-Security-Single-Superpower/dp/1608463656/r

http://www.amazon.com/National-Security-Government-Michael-Glennon/dp/0190206446/

Look at the following graphs:

IMGUR link - http://imgur.com/a/FShfb

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

And then...

WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap

http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-haiti-minimum-wage-the-nation-2011-6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnkNKipiiiM

Free markets?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349

http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Illusion-Literacy-Triumph-Spectacle/dp/1568586132/

"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.

In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges navigates this culture—attending WWF contests, the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, and Ivy League graduation ceremonies—to expose an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."

Important history:

http://williamblum.org/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcA1v2n7WW4

u/Hishutash · 1 pointr/worldnews

> sen·sa·tion·al·ize: "(esp. of a newspaper) Present information about (something) in a way that provokes public interest and excitement, at the expense of accuracy"

Oh, look. Amoricon knows how to look up words in a dictionary. WOO!

> Yes the map is shit. It's almost a perfect example of something that has been sensationalized. Why would Australia and Vietnam be colored the same?

Because they're both countries that have at one time or another suffered the brunt of Americam imperialist interference. Like most of the fucking planet that happen to be colored the same. The map is trying to get across the truth, that far from standing for freedom and democracy, the USA is devoted to terrorizing and enslaving humanity. The USA is just another evil empire cut out of the same cloth as the Soviets, Nazi and Britshits. If you weren't an Americon dipshit apologist jingoist cretin you would have grasped that.

> What exactly was the "intervention" in Australia, or all of Europe for that matter?

You want me to give you a fucking history course on a huge subject as modern American imperialism on Reddit? Am I your own fucking personal internet tutor here? Is my name cojackass22s_tutor? No? Then stop being foolish, you Americon morans. Here are two excellent books dedicated to the subject of American tyrrany and hegemony:

  • http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-Military-Interventions-II-Updated/dp/1567512526/ (the map was extracted from here)

  • www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-The-History-CIA/dp/038551445X/

    Learn to fucking read and educate yourself. Stop demanding to be spoonfed like an Americon oaf.

    > Uhh, I'm not saying the BBC is completely impartial and free of bias, but there is really no comparison here. At least the BBC acknowledges the fact that opposition to the government even exists...

    No, you like the BBC because it's an organization run by an allied state. You dislike PressTV they're run by a society that resists American imperialism and hegemony. You dislike PressTV because they stand up for freedom and democracy against Americun tyrranny.

    > You mean the news source that has to photo shop extra missiles onto images to make Iran look more threatening? The news source that not once has given any air time to any Iranian opposition leaders or speakers? "Opposition political figures such as Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have not appeared on Press TV since the June 2009 presidential election."

    So what? They lost the election. I don't see Mccain and Sarah Palin prancing about on Smericon TV much either.

    > The news source that is state owned?

    Just like the BBC except more reliable and trustworthy on world events.
u/Tincansailorman · 1 pointr/worldnews

This may be a good time to recommend a certain medical narrative regarding Ebola:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Hot-Zone-Terrifying-Origins/dp/0385479565

It's an easy read and terrifying as well.

u/flyguysd · 1 pointr/worldnews

I got this bidet a few months ago and it has changed my life. Honestly. It's amazing we use toilet paper at all with these things available. It takes 5-10 minutes to set up.

u/sterexx · 473 pointsr/worldnews

Gathering and analyzing intelligence on other countries is its primary, original role. Most directly for keeping specifically the President informed of just what the heck is developing around the world. It was started after WW2 in order to prevent another Pearl Harbor surprise. And they were not allowed to gather intelligence on US soil, but that has not been strictly observed.

This work involves gathering tasks as mundane as always reading the news in a target country, as political context matters as much as tapped phone conversations when putting together an analysis. But the movie-caliber stuff is important too. They tap phones, recruit sources in governments and industry, build a whole network of resources.

To collect this information, the CIA uses two kinds of employees. “Official cover” officers pose as diplomats in US embassies worldwide. All embassy staff will be under surveillance from the target country’s counter-intelligence organizations — their FBI equivalents — so meeting sources is risky and they might stick to less blatant parts of the job. But on the upside, they have diplomatic immunity and just get sent home if caught spying. Non-official cover officers get jobs in multinational companies or assume some invented identity that gives them a reason to be in country. They can more freely recruit local sources but must rot in prison or die if caught, unacknowledged.

Info goes back to legions of analysis teams working in offices in the US who prepare it into reports.

The CIA also engages in covert and clandestine activities meant to influence other countries. This latter role has grown, diminished, and changed in nature throughout its history depending on political climate. Some bad press from some really ugly leaks in the 70’s (I think) about the extent of these activities put a big damper on them for a while, requiring Presidential sign-offs on killings, iirc. Post 9/11, the CIA is back on the hard stuff but keeps a legion of lawyers to make sure it’s teccchhnically legal.

These cold war activities include funding and organizing Afghan resistance against communist rule, for example. A whole covert war. Also tons of election rigging, assassination, etc. Post cold war they have been involved in anti-terror activities like running the war against the Taliban and assassinating militants and their neighbors with drone missiles.

Fun fact: “covert” operations are meant to hide who is behind an operation, “clandestine” are meant to conceal the entire operation from anyone but us. Compare an assassination to a phone tap.

Edit: in one episode (2 or 3 i think) of Netflix docu series Inside the Mossad explains how Israel’s foreign intelligence uses elaborate sting operations to recruit sources. By the time they realize they’re working for Mossad, they’re in too deep to not go along with it. Intelligence orgs do this a lot when they know the people they need probably hate the org’s country. This is basically all the time for Israel spying on other middle east states. Case officers often use really impressively manipulative strategies for recruiting and controlling their local agents. “The Americans” illustrates some great examples of this, if a little more dramatic.

Edit 2A: There are a bunch of other specialized US foreign intelligence agencies, like the NSA that traditionally intercepts signals and cracks their codes.

Edit 2B: In the UK, MI6 of James Bond fame does foreign intelligence and MI5 does counter-intelligence. These existed during WW2 but back then the lines got blurred, with both organizations running their own double agents against Nazi Germany’s own two competing foreign intelligence orgs. In fact, 0% of any spies Germany sent to Britain were able to work for enough time before being caught to send anything useful over. By 1944, when the UK was more confident that they were controlling all the sources sending info to Germany (the ones that wouldn’t work for the UK as double agents radioing harmless intel back home were either dead or imprisoned), they fed Germany massive misinformation about the location (and timing?) of the D-Day Normandy invasion. Read the excellent book Operation Double Cross to learn about this incredible operation.

BOOK EDIT:

Books on the CIA I found rewarding.

“The Master of Disguise” by Tony Mendez. Ben Affleck played him in Argo. Memoir of this artist’s time in the CIA inventing disguises and forging travel documents, often to exfiltrate an exposed source. Watch or read Argo too if you haven’t, the film at least is incredibly cool because its evacuation of American diplomats from Iran as Canadian filmmakers is largely real.
https://www.amazon.com/Master-Disguise-Secret-Life-CIA/dp/0060957913/

“Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.” Recent declassifications are exposing just how terribly the CIA bungled things in the early cold war, which is what this is about. From massive nuclear arms race miscalculations that threatened the world, to unfounded communism paranoia that led to totally unnecessary coups, they used classification to hide their greatest errors.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307389006/

“Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to Al-Qaeda.” Beyond just the tech, you get insight into the lives of tech team members who would bug homes for their career. Interesting stuff. I think I read a different edition but this is probably fine.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0452295475/

“Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001”
Tom Clancy name, but actually an extremely detailed history of the CIA’s 1980’s support for Afghan mujahideen against the USSR and continued involvement in the 90’s. Down to highlighting cultural generational differences within the multiple cohorts of CIA officers in charge of the long-running operation. Also highlights Pakistan’s demand to hand out all the money, both to act as kingmaker for the dominant factions and to skim hella bux off the top. Descriptions of the conflict and how the Afghans relentlessly persevered and how factions had independent deals and truces with USSR. Then much of the civil war aftermath of USSR pullout when the US stopped caring. Taliban become popular for not tolerating warlords raping local boys, an issue that remains to this day among US supported administration (a coalition of “former” warlords who you will recognize if you read the book). Great read, incredible breadth.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143034669/

u/LaunchThePolaris · 3 pointsr/worldnews

This is a pretty good book on that subject.

u/mst3kcrow · 4 pointsr/worldnews

I also forgot to mention AIPAC. They're one of the big reasons you see overwhelming support for Israel in the US Congress. Just keep in mind the US government does not always represent the citizens; hell, just look what happened over the past 10 years. As well, it's important to note that the aid we give to Israel is military aid which is used to support the MIC. I don't mean to keep replying but I'll put it this way: there is a lot to know about Israeli/American affairs. If you want to know more than the typical American does about the situation, I recommend skimming the Israel Lobby (fairly dense), Finkelstein, and Chomsky.

u/tls5164 · 3 pointsr/worldnews

I'm very well aware of the atrocities committed against Palestinians in Syria.

Do you know why the Palestinians were in Syria in the first place?

They were forced out before Israel was founded by extremist zionist groups like the Irgun and Stern Gang who committed huge massacres against Palestinians, and forced out 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland.
I read about it extensively in a book by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe called The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Check it out and read it! http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406798238&sr=8-1&keywords=the+ethnic+cleansing+of+palestine


I agree with you that the atrocities against Palestinians in Syria are terrible and I'm glad you are concerned. I've seen many interviews of them and many of them are from villages that Israel destroyed, while others are from cities like Haifa, which had a Palestinian majority population for centuries until most of the Palestinians fled attacks by Jewish Zionist groups.

Let's both pray for an end to the Israeli atrocities and the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the Right of Return for Palestinians, so the Palestinians in Syria can come home to their homeland, so they don't have to face the atrocities in Syria.

u/YugoReventlov · 1 pointr/worldnews

> Of course, reading solid history books on the topic is good.

The book by former journalist Robert Fisk "The Great War for Civilization" is in my opinion an excellent book to understand the background of not just Israel/Palestine, but the entire middle east. It does not fail to mention where everything got started, which is the time when Europe had colonized much of the middle east, and how that set the stage for everything to come.

However, it is over 1000 pages long...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_War_for_Civilisation

ISBN 1-4000-7517-3

https://www.amazon.com/Great-War-Civilisation-Conquest-Middle/dp/1400075173

u/FBernadotte · 1 pointr/worldnews

Oh please! Why pretend to be such a fool? Surely you are not such a fool? Oh wait, you are actually a troll, I see, after all.

Here is what I said: the Zionists had been planning for decades to evict the non-Jews from Palestine, and in 1948 were on the verge of succeeding in that endeavour. That helps explain the context of the Arab state response in 1948, which was -- rather belatedly and in a half-hearted manner -- to attack the Zionists. Palestinians as well as their supporters had and have every right to resist the Palestinians' disposession, through violent means if necessary, no different from any other case of ethnic cleansing. You, as a Jewish supremacist, are unable to look at the historical facts in their clear light, because they must really make you uncomfortable. If you dare to, see The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine which I can assure you explains very clearly, in terms even you could understand, the extent to which the Zionists planned to dispossess the Palestinians.

Oh but wait. I keep forgetting. I am speaking to a troll!

u/unexceptional · 1 pointr/worldnews

Can't recommend the book that blogger talks about highly enough. For the lazy, and non-lazy, it's Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea and one of the best contemporary nonfiction books I've ever read. SO GOOD.

u/Vaeon · 3 pointsr/worldnews

> and paying them to efficiently and cheaply extract and sell local resources.

For your consideration.

https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-Weiner/dp/0307389006

Skp to the section about how the CIA overthrew the government of Guatemala so the United Fruit Company got a sweet deal with the new government.

u/RollX · 4 pointsr/worldnews

The good old IMF. Anyone interested in more info about the IMF and World Bank should check out:
http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081

u/LetoFeydThufirSiona · 3 pointsr/worldnews

> I would highly recommend the book ghost wars if you want to know more

Yeah, absolutely, thank very much for the recommendation; I've always been really curious about this time and place.

For others interested, didn't know of him, but the author seems wholly legit and here's the link to the book's Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/0143034669

u/RepostFromLastMonth · 1 pointr/worldnews

Yes. The older generation that still remembers are in favor of unification, but the younger generations see them as another country, and a burden that they'd have to pay for (in an already highly competitive society). They see them as a massive amount of uneducated and brainwashed refugees they would have to pay for who would not fit into modern South Korean society.

North Koreans do escape and defect to the south. It is not an easy thing for them. They are looked down on by the South Koreans, and they are in a place where the language is different, their skills and credentials are no longer valid (I remember reading an interview with a girl who was a doctor in North Korea, but her credentials were not accepted by places in the South and she had to go back to school).

North Koreans who escape to the South are automatically granted citizenship. Right now, with a trickle of defectors, that is fine. But if the country fell, they would need to keep them sequestered in NK, and then deal with the North's disillusionment as they see how bad they are off compared to the South, and that they will likely never be able to have the lives that the South Koreans have achieved after reunification and the anger that will bring. The issue would reverberate long after, and it may only be the children or grandchildren of those from the North who will finally succeed in the South.

If you are interested in the history of North Korea, I highly recommend reading Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader, which gives a very good and complete history of North Korea from its founding till the 1990's.

After that, I recommend Nothing to Envy, which is a collection of interviews following the lives of six North Korean defectors.

Other Books to read:

  • Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee--A Look Inside North Korea
  • This is Paradise!: My North Korean Childhood
  • The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia
  • The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea
u/chipvd · 3 pointsr/worldnews

Reading this thread makes me want to recommend [Ghost Wars] (http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/0143034669) to anyone interested in this topic.

u/Jackdaws7 · 2 pointsr/worldnews

https://www.amazon.com/All-Shahs-Men-American-Middle/dp/047018549X

Do yourself a favor and read this book. If anyone wants an objective, historical look at the coup in Iran I highly recommend "All the Shah's Men".

u/ShellOilNigeria · 1 pointr/worldnews

I highly recommend http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081

It helped change my world view, among other things like this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htF5XElMyGI

A lot of what is in the book makes sense when you can relate it to the real world of today.

u/Cdresden · 10 pointsr/worldnews

Yes, thank you, I've read that. I also just read Escape from Camp 14.

u/drunkentune · 19 pointsr/worldnews

If you're interested in learning more about the history surrounding Operation Ajax and the overthrow of Mosadegh, I recommend reading All the Shah's Men.

u/jjremy · 55 pointsr/worldnews

> <$300

My dude, you can get them For $35 nowadays.
Best $40 I've ever spent.

u/Derkek · 1 pointr/worldnews

Further similar reading includes the book The Hot Zone. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0385479565?pc_redir=1406834357&robot_redir=1

It's a great read.

u/Zefirus · 5 pointsr/worldnews

Just get one of these.

35 bucks and they work great.

u/Realistic_Food · -4 pointsr/worldnews

We are finding out how true it is when Cardinal Richelieu said:

>If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

Also a relevant read.

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229

These people aren't innocent, but how many of the others in Washington would fall if given the same level of scrutiny and political will to investigate?

u/kingvitaman · 18 pointsr/worldnews

You can subscribe for a full year through amazon here and this is available internationally. Not sure about individual issues however.

EDIT: There's gold in them there comments! Cheers!

u/FeedsOnLife · 3 pointsr/worldnews

I want to do more to support them than just buy the next issue. I'm going to start by buying a 12 month subscription. I'm in the US and found that I can buy a subscription through Amazon (http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00007LMFU).

u/MrPisster · 2 pointsr/worldnews

"Nothing to Envy" https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Envy-Ordinary-Lives-North/dp/0385523912

Good read if your into that stuff.

Also "Escape from Camp 14" https://www.amazon.com/Escape-Camp-14-Remarkable-Odyssey/dp/0143122916

That one is less about ordinary citizen's lives and more about the modern day concentration camps the North Korean government is controlling.

u/arjun1967 · 9 pointsr/worldnews

This is described in detail in the excellent book Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. Long story short, everybody involved knew what was going on (that US and Saudi money was being used to fund hardcore fundamentalist paramilitary groups and a sprawling fundamentalist education system in Pakistan). It made total sense for US elites at the time; many of the top military and intelligence officials in the Reagan administration (particularly the CIA director William Casey) were fundamentalists themselves and saw conservative Islam as a natural ally of conservative Christianity in the global battle against the "godless communists" of the socialist blocs.

u/Loud_Volume · 1 pointr/worldnews

You do realize the CIA does/has done this with great success many times in history...

https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081

u/tsingi · -2 pointsr/worldnews

You either support ethnic cleansing or you don't. It's easy enough to find the evidence if you feel inclined to pull your head out of the sand.

I recommend "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine", Ilan Pappe.

u/lets_cook_bitch · 1 pointr/worldnews

from what i read they have nearly no fun at all.
you should check out this book as it goes very deep into what its like.

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0143122916

u/boredcentsless · 1 pointr/worldnews

>They have smuggled TV shows from SK, they listen to radio, they work in some way or the other. They don't just sit at home and worship the Kims.

Some do, some don't. It depends on where you live in NK. The ones who would sit and remain in the country instead of bolting at the first chance most likely would. this is a good book about the situation

u/Waylander · 3 pointsr/worldnews

There is a fantastic book by Chalmers Johnson on this issue called "Blowback". https://www.amazon.ca/Blowback-Cost-Consequences-American-Empire/dp/0805075593

u/tupac_chopra · 1 pointr/worldnews

I highly recommend this book for anyone trying to make sense of the region:
https://www.amazon.com/Great-War-Civilisation-Conquest-Middle/dp/1400075173

It's a long read, but worth it!

u/Hermann_Von_Salza · 1 pointr/worldnews

> Could never understand why the US backed Israel so vehemently.

Here's a good place to start.

u/bidetsalesman · 1 pointr/worldnews

why not one of these? there are many options available, but this is a nicely priced quality product. I recommend it.

https://www.amazon.com/Luxe-Bidet-Neo-120-Non-Electric/dp/B00A0RHSJO/

u/TheHamburgerKing · 1 pointr/worldnews

This book had a pretty big effect on my perception of US-Israel relations.

u/forthemandwe · 22 pointsr/worldnews

> CNN is starting to look an awful lot like the official news agency of the US government.

"Starting to look"? CNN, NYT and much else of mainstream is a major government and elites propaganda feature since, well, pretty much always. Try this clip then this book.

u/dpointer · 2 pointsr/worldnews

Sounds Familiar. I'm sure it will probably work out fine.

u/AdmirableLoquat · -16 pointsr/worldnews

> The reason why the Israel receives so much foreign aid is strictly out of the US's own interests.

This statement couldn't be further from the truth. The reason Israel gets so much military aid is almost solely due to massive lobbying efforts by Pro-Israel organizations.

Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer go into this with great depth in their book, The Israel Lobby.

u/wcg66 · 5 pointsr/worldnews

Many people don't really know exactly what could constitute incrimination. People are committing crimes that they may think are innocuous actions of regular people. An interesting book was written on this : Three Felonies a Day : http://www.amazon.ca/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229

u/adkjnaskjdn18319823 · 1 pointr/worldnews

Because Israel has the most organized and well funded lobbying effort and because a significant portion of the voting public is jewish.

You should read the israel lobby by mearsheimer, really insightful book.

u/Stephenfold · 1 pointr/worldnews

Ah yes, the mean world theory. There's a book on this!

u/Xelcho · 10 pointsr/worldnews

Yet another example of how to move money from the state to the private sector. Where are the magic economic forecasts that would make John Perkins blush?

>The website lists Capital City Partners, a private real estate investment fund by global investors focused on investment and development and led by Emirati Mr. Mohamed Alabbar.

u/Slick424 · 1 pointr/worldnews

But the fact the it is a dictatorship turns it into a big disadvantage. At least for everyone that isn't part of the ruling class.

The source of the mysterious ozone-killing emissions is confirmed: China

Air quality worsening in China’s Yangtze River Delta in 2018, figures show


For all the faults democracy has, the simple fact that the ruler has to keep the majority of the population happy instead of just paying off a small number of key individuals to stay in power is an immeasurable advantage.

An excellent source that explain the rules that rule rulers.

The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

Also good start into the matter:

The Rules for Rulers

u/BlamelessKodosVoter · 1 pointr/worldnews

But that's a work of fiction. Here's a good book about the lives of North Koreans

https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Envy-Ordinary-Lives-North/dp/0385523912/

u/RocketMoonBoots · 9 pointsr/worldnews

Fair enough. What are the job prospects supposed to be from it - are there any numbers out from both "sides" that you know of?

Personally, I can empathize with the need for better immigration control and the like, but see building a huge wall as unnecessary and fairly archaic, kind of barbaric. As well, it strikes me right in the "why can't we all get along" zone which is admittedly somewhat naive, but I see construction of such a wall as sending the wrong message to the world and future. There are better ways to go about this, undoubtedly.

As an aside, have you heard of or ever read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins before? It's really fascinating and informative.

Some of the critiques of it are a little dismissive, but there are just as many that corroborate it, along with historical accounts, as well as what we see today.

Basically, it talks about how we made purposefully un-pay-back-able loans to Mexico a few decades ago, when they really needed the help, with the express purpose of getting leverage on them politically, economically, and socially. Now, to be fair, many of the people associated with the loans on the Mexican side are guilty of knowing what was going on, while others that may not have known the full ramifications were of the corrupt type and ran away with a lot of the money that was to go into infrastructure, but that does not take away from the States' goal from the beginning and subsequent fallout. In summary, we're responsible for the problems in Mexico more than we realize. That is another reason I do not support the wall. All together, it's just a bad, bad idea; spiritually, economically, logistically, politically.

Edit:

u/Go_Todash · 1 pointr/worldnews

This goes on everywhere, throughout time. For anyone wanting to read more, I recommend The Dictator's Handbook . When I see these stories now, I recall passages from the book. For some quotes:
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/16555815-the-dictator-s-handbook-why-bad-behavior-is-almost-always-good-politics

u/streetbum · 13 pointsr/worldnews

https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125

https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-Weiner/dp/0307389006

A couple of books I've read recently about the intelligence side of things. Not sure about how their conventional forces compare to ours.

u/fatphok · 1 pointr/worldnews

Please check out All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer. It is brilliant.

https://www.amazon.com/All-Shahs-Men-American-Middle/dp/047018549X

u/Leave_Gaza_Alone · 0 pointsr/worldnews

Here's a book written by an Israeli historian that'll help you comprehend what I'm trying to explain. http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553

u/Dixnorkel · 1 pointr/worldnews

Didn't mean to sound like I was complaining about the downvotes, just noting the rate at which the karma dropped.

I'm not actually convinced you're hired by the Russians, just unsure why you're taking such a hard stance for them. Especially if you're a frequent Redditor and have seen the /r/worldnews articles over the past 3 years.

I'll admit I came out of the gate a bit accusatory, but as I have read several books on US intelligence and Russian counterintelligence (the most points against Russia can probably be found in Legacy of Ashes, definitely worth a read), it's hard not to see clear ties in the way Russian intelligence operates, and the way Trump is floating between their stances in his campaign. You'll notice that he seems to change stances depending on what is most contrary or striking, and usually mentions or implies the failures of democracy.

Furthermore, Donald is a billionaire, and his party is aiming to move the national debt to 29 trillion, from 19 trillion over 10 years, which will further increase inflation by a factor of at least 1.5, making living wages even higher. This push for income disparity reflects the way Russia functions, as it is really more of an oligarchy than a functional democracy. I think it mentions in the Wiki how lots of these people have lost huge sums of money since the Ukraine sanctions on Russia too, giving more reason for the government or private individuals to want to influence US politicians. Not to mention that many ballots with votes against Putin were found shredded during the last presidential election, along with accusations of fraud and miscounting.

I don't find your position to be crazy, but with the amount of strangely ignorant and stubborn arguments I've heard over the past week, it's hard to believe that some kind of push isn't going on. I know that Russian citizens had a lot of support for Donald during the election, but it seems like a disproportionate number of people are popping up in certain subs, where certain narratives weren't really embraced before.

u/SnowdenX · 1 pointr/worldnews

That's what I'm here for bud. I'll call him out for you!

But really, the Middle East, and especially Iran is soo damn fascinating. I too wish more people who choose to discuss it actually put in the work to understand it.

BTW, have you read The Great War for Civilization yet? Kinda old now but a must-read in my opinion if you study the region.

u/refriaire · 11 pointsr/worldnews

If you are from the US, check how much you give Israel in aid annually. Zero percent interest loans, grants, access to the most modern weapons, military contracts, military aid, diplomatic backing, etc. Their weapons industry is based on US contracts and access to US military technology.

  • The US pays for military research

  • Israel gets the technology for free.

  • They use the technology in their own weapons industry.

  • The US BUYS IT FROM ISRAEL

  • Profit (for them)!

    If you do not believe me, read this book.
u/themaninblack08 · 1 pointr/worldnews

https://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/0143122010 (mostly for an overview of how systems of society drive behavior for better or worse)

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

https://www.amazon.com/War-Society-Europe-Regime-1618-1787/dp/0750916036 (mostly for the understanding on how economics developed into political power in the context of taxation to pay soldiers)

https://www.amazon.com/Oil-Curse-Petroleum-Development-Nations-ebook/dp/B007AIXLIS

​

And given the context, probably Hobbes.

u/NotYoursTruly · 1 pointr/worldnews

Got to agree there. Currently re-reading this. Pretty eye-opening stuff...

http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-History-Joseph-Trento/dp/B002GJU3O6

Currently on the chapters after Vietnam and focusing on all the behind the scenes maneuvering in Central and South America, Chile, Argentina, etc.

Then will re-read this over summer break from school.

http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-The-History-CIA/dp/0307389006

u/upstateduck · 2 pointsr/worldnews

Virtually all of the US's problems in foreign countries can be defined as "Blowback" from our own adventurism in foreign country's affairs. The religion aspect is cover for these states and propaganda for the masses.

Excellent book,but dated [apparently the new version has an updated intro]


http://www.amazon.com/Blowback-Consequences-American-Empire-Project/dp/0805075593

u/ftmts · 1 pointr/worldnews

I was thinking of something like this that you add to an existing toilet: https://www.amazon.com/Luxe-Bidet-Neo-120-Non-Electric/dp/B00A0RHSJO/

u/newtonslogic · 1 pointr/worldnews

I think everyone in this thread would be well served to read Laurie Garrett's "The Coming Plague" and Robert Preston's "The Hot Zone".

u/Jaxster37 · 938 pointsr/worldnews

Money is a powerful incentive. I'm horrified and disgusted by it as well, but unfortunately it just shows that there is a price at which all morals are abandoned. This is what autocracies do and we let them because it's in our best interests to.

Edit: This may be a good reminder to look at CGPGrey's video on how leaders stay in power and track the similarities with recent conflicts in Venezuela and Syria. Also check out the book the video's based on.

https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1610391845/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497164331&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=dictators+handbook&dpPl=1&dpID=511siLPTlwL&ref=plSrch

u/OptimusPrune · 6 pointsr/worldnews

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick, is an excellent if disturbing read if you're really interested.

Nothing to Envy

u/rddman · 1 pointr/worldnews

Maybe the first, maybe not, but certainly not the only one.

The US government has been complicit in the overthrow of about 50 democratically elected (but leftist) governements since WW2, and was supportive of just about every rightwing dictatorships that followed those overthrown democracies.
see Killing Hope by former US State Dept employee William Blum.
http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-Military-Interventions-II-Updated/dp/1567512526

u/Un_Clouded · 1 pointr/worldnews

To answer your question, I am not interested in killing thousands of innocent North Koreans, many of whom are good people, but rather the people who are enslaving, killing and torturing them, often for decades while wiping out whole family lines. I hope you aren't too sympathetic towards kim and the cabal surrounding the kims who perpetuate this mass and inane human slaughter but if you are in favor of it, not much else needs to be said. The problem is there are too many pieces of old artillary pointed towards Seoul and they can't all be neutralized at once. I would like for the suffering to stop for the NK people though if it ever becomes possible from an international standpoint. If you would like to learn more about what the North Korean people go through I highly recommend you read;

https://www.amazon.com/Escape-Camp-14-Remarkable-Odyssey/dp/0143122916

https://www.amazon.com/Every-Falling-Star-Survived-Escaped/dp/1419721321/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492036877&sr=1-1&keywords=star+north+korea

Also you might like watching this;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyqUw0WYwoc

and to lighten up the mood after;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0TYCEXmi90

edit: fixed derpy stuff, also added kim himself into it because he is responsible as are his inner circle and the military. also added some links to books i've read that give perspective.

u/Non_Sane · 3 pointsr/worldnews

Hopefully it's not Ebola Zaire. Most outbreaks contain themselves as they kill more people than infect them. The Hot Zone is an excellent book if you want to learn about Ebola.

u/sexymanish · 2 pointsr/worldnews

Yawn take this sad and wornout hasbara revisionism elsewhere, even Israeli historians admit to the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians

https://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553

https://www.haaretz.com/1.5262454

u/ChristoferRudd · 1 pointr/worldnews

Well I guess if you're interested you could be a sea dog and get the book called "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" by Ilan Pappe.

Synopsis
>The renowned Israeli historian revisits the formative period of the State of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred, and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint. Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called "ethnic cleansing".

>Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord in the course of this war, Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. Indispensable for anyone interested in the Middle East.

A simpler way would be to argue with a internet picture. This follows the same logic as your point I agreed upon (prison not shrinking from 2005) cause it just shows israeli/palestinian land but it's a disservice.

u/thawizard · 6 pointsr/worldnews

> You can buy "Uranium Compounds" on Amazon.

You're now on a watchlist.

u/techno_mage · 1 pointr/worldnews

>I don't understand how his generals don't smell the weakness in him and stage a coup.

Video : here you go, Rules For Rulers.

Book Mentioned in the video Above : The Dictator's Handbook.

u/RebootTheServer · 3 pointsr/worldnews

Yeah I have been reading this and it talks about that. They didn't start getting roads until the 50s! Like what the fuck

u/let_me_be_the_one · 4 pointsr/worldnews

I've seen satellite imagery and have read descriptions of escapees.

I'd rather not run the risk of needing to go;"Wir haben es nicht gewusst" in a couple of years.

u/nothinginthehill · 6 pointsr/worldnews

You can subscribe for a full year through amazon here and this is available internationally. Not sure about individual issues however.

u/Ohhnoes · 1 pointr/worldnews

This takes < 10 min to install and takes up no extra room. Best damn purchase I've made in a long time.

u/NecessaryWafer · 0 pointsr/worldnews

> innocent people lie to the FBI and engage in witness tampering

You should read Three Felonies a Day.

u/hymrr · 5 pointsr/worldnews

Order yourself a copy of The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East and let's talk again about the facts you aren't supposed to know or take into account when assessing US foreign policy.

u/tirril · 3 pointsr/worldnews

Not being able to stomach it is something that changes over time. This should be part of history curriculum perhaps as soon as high school. Read Ordinary Men

u/JohnnyYenOnFireAgain · 20 pointsr/worldnews

Try Legacy of Ashes. Superbly researched and covers everything from OSS beginnings to Iraq.

http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-The-History-CIA/dp/0307389006

u/OneReportersOpinion · 1 pointr/worldnews

Again, not an article, but a book. You know the difference right? One of them is a professor of the Kennedy School at Harvard. The other teaches at the University of Chicago. What else?

https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374531501/ref=nodl_

u/PirateKilt · 2 pointsr/worldnews

Having recently read "Hot Zone", this is rather worrisome...

u/ShimmerLily · 11 pointsr/worldnews

I found this. Is that the same thing?

Edit: Legit purchase.

u/LIGHTNlNG · 1 pointr/worldnews

Perhaps everyone should take a look at this book and then you won't be so surprised by these disclosures.

u/MAG7C · 5 pointsr/worldnews

This one, mentioned by LSDMDMA above...

u/duggatron · 2 pointsr/worldnews

This has been known for a long time, and there are several books on it. Stephen Kinzer's All the Shah's Men covers the events leading up to the coup and how it developed.

u/4-Vektor · 3 pointsr/worldnews

And Blowback, by Chalmers Johnson, also describing the American “promotion of democracy” in South America, the Middle East and Asia.

u/thetrooper424 · 1 pointr/worldnews

Read this book and you'll understand how the feds can get anyone and everyone for something eventually if they have a big enough budget.

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229