Published by Truthdig.com on February 20, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

When Florida shooter Michael Dunn heard his verdict Saturday, he may have been shocked to find that he faces at least 60 years in prison for the attempted murder of three young black men. Judging by letters he wrote while in prison, Dunn fully expected to be exonerated for shooting nine bullets into a parked car, endangering the lives of the four black youth in …

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Published by Truthdig.com on February 18, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

The official airline of the United Arab Emirates offers the promise “Fly Emirates, Hello Tomorrow.” It is an apt suggestion given how futuristic the UAE’s main city, Dubai, appears. Gleaming glass towers punctuate the desert skyline, evoking a mirage rather than reality. The city’s ubiquitous malls are lined with shiny marble floors, mood lighting, and every global designer brand a shopaholic could dream of. Foodies find …

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Published by Truthdig.com on January 16, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, as one of his last acts in office Saturday, reduced the sentence of a 23-year-old African-American inmate named Travion Blount to 40 years in prison, making him eligible for release at age 55. Blount was serving six life sentences plus 118 years in prison without parole. His crime was participating in an armed robbery in Norfolk, Va., at the age of …

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Published by Truthdig.com on January 10, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

Twenty years ago, on Jan. 1, 1994, a trade deal championed by Democratic President Bill Clinton went into effect. The North American Free Trade Agreement was meant to integrate the economies of the United States, Canada and Mexico by breaking down trade barriers among them, creating jobs and closing the wage gap between the U.S. and Mexico.

What in fact happened under NAFTA was that heavily …

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Published by Truthdig.com on January 3, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

If the state of the U.S. economy were measured by how the vast majority of Americans are faring, rather than by stock prices on Wall Street, this year’s much-touted economic recovery would be a bust. More than a million Americans who have been jobless for at least six months are set to lose unemployment benefits because Congress refused to extend them. When the congressional budget deal …

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Published by Truthdig.com on December 13, 2013

By Sonali Kolhatkar

At first glance, Time magazine’s “Person of the Year,” Pope Francis, is a mess of contradictions. On the one hand, he has vehemently denounced the evils of global capitalism, calling it “a new tyranny.” However, as pontiff, he heads the Catholic Church, which has been characterized as “probably the wealthiest institution in the entire world.” And, although the pope has championed the importance of …

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Published by Truthdig.com on December 5, 2013

By Sonali Kolhatkar

Over the past 50 years, the city of Los Angeles has made great strides to curb its smog problems by cutting vehicle emissions. But now, the emerging “fracking” industry threatens to undo much of that progress by wantonly spewing toxic chemicals into the air.

Fossil fuel companies, in an attempt to squeeze more and more oil and gas out of the earth, have popularized a highly …

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Published by Truthdig.com on November 28, 2013

By Sonali Kolhatkar

The United States’ vast and indiscriminate worldwide surveillance of ordinary people and heads of state has no historical precedent. Now countries around the world are fighting back using the United Nations as a vehicle for change. In a move that received little media coverage in the U.S., a United Nations committee approved without a vote a draft resolution entitled “The Right to Privacy in …

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Published by Truthdig.com on November 20, 2013

By Sonali Kolhatkar

Lobbyists for military contractors are swarming all over Capitol Hill these days in a frenzy to stave off automatic budget cuts as part of the second wave of sequestration, due in January. If the cuts take effect, the Defense Department will not get its $50 billion increase for next year and will have to make do with a mere $475 billion.

Also included in the sequestration …

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Published by Truthdig.com on November 15, 2013

By Sonali Kolhatkar

While the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is 95 percent confident that global warming is caused by human activity (there are very few areas of active research in which scientists are so confident), what falls out of the scope of the report is which humans are responsible. The Philippines, which is one of the poorest and least developed nations on the planet, has …

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