Portside

The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, making possible a re-united Vietnam. Patricia Hynes reports and observations from March 2014 trip to Vietnam to investigate the plight of 3rd generation Agent Orange-dioxin victims, dioxin contaminated sites, and ecological restoration in order to inform Americans of the on-going legacy of the “American War” in Vietnam and our responsibility and opportunities for undoing this legacy.

Cambodian garment workers have been engaged in militant workplace actions to demand higher wages. Despite anti-union violence, including killings and arrests, workers continue to strike for better wages and working conditions.

GOP senators offer their own staff generous maternity leave benefits versus their present position on expanding paid leave to private workers.

As of 10:30 PM EST, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, NBC News, CNN and other outlets had not published any reports. The legal precedents created as the government pursues WikiLeaks are the same legal precedents that can always be used to go after other journalists in the future. American journalists maintain their collective silence at their profession’s own peril.

Voters reject EU austerity for radical alternative of far-left party. Upstarts fall two seats short of an overall majority. ‘Greece has turned a page,’ says 40-year-old leader Alexis Tsipras.

... the situation in Greece quite inspiring because you have here something really very rare in any country in recent years, which is an election in which the public is making a choice that matters. The outcome is not a question of some manipulation among existing political classes, or even the evolution of a previously existing party system, which was the case in Italy. They have a clear-cut choice, and they're making it. This is what democracy should be about.

His essays on police brutality still burn hot, but his understanding of sex, self-knowledge and power demand equal attention now. Baldwin does not say that systems of power are unimportant. He insists that liberation is also a mandate on individuality: how one separates oneself from the “habits of thought [that] reinforce and sustain the habits of power”—in essence, how one comes into his or her humanity.

We are all Roy Batty. All of our moments will be lost, like tears in rain…but weren’t they extraordinary moments?

Israel’s airstrike that killed Hezbollah and Iranian commanders in Syria last Sunday could be a highly risky pre-election gambit, designed to in part bolster Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s electoral performance in 2015. And the predictable and possibly provoked Hezbollah response may set the stage for a direct Israeli confrontation with Lebanon.

Ukraine is an economic, political and military mess, and a major humanitarian tragedy. But, the New York Times and the U.S. media that follow its lead have provided us with only distortions, lies and omissions about the cynical U.S. role in creating and worsening the Ukraine crisis, and the calamitous global economic impact of the U.S. orchestrated sanctions against Russia.