"Cancer villages" are spreading across China, as polluting factories are built around them.

They exist in the US, too, due to factory pollution from years ago.

Old or new, they result from a failure to regulate business properly. The April Texas fertilizer plant explosion was another consequence of the same problem.

The root cause is that plutocrats dominate the state. Ag-gag laws are another manifestation of the same cause.

Lawyers in the UK blocked a road to protest cuts in legal services for the poor. Israel is demolishing more Arab homes in Jerusalem. and seizing land near Nablus.

The fanatical "settlers" are now burning Palestinians' cars as well as destroying other kinds of property.

Foreign Shi'ites are going to Syria to fight for Assad.

If this keeps spreading, it could involve the whole Muslim world in a sectarian war.

The government of Turkey has bought 62 tons of tear gas in the past 12 years. I guess the government recognized that its repression was likely to provoke resistance.

Why the purchase of Smithfield by a Chinese company is dangerous — for reasons having nothing to do with nationalism.