Politics

In a surprise announcement, moments ago South Africa's parliament speaker announced a secret ballot will be held on Zuma no-confidence motion on Tuesday.

Speaking to journalists, the speaker of the national assembly, Baleka Mbete, who is a member of the ruling ANC party and is widely tipped to replace Zuma at some point, said it is her responsibility as speaker to decide whether or not the no confidence vote in President Zuma will be conducted by secret ballot or not. Her decision which was just announced: the vote will indeed be secret.

The Beckoning of Nuclear War

Paul Craig Roberts

The admirable and honorable truth-teller John Pilger warns us that nuclear war is closer than we think.

For all the hope that this weekend's UN breakthrough, in which the Security Council voted unanimously 15-0 to impose $1 billion in sanctions on North Korea exports, that saw both China and Russia side with the US, would lead to a resolution of the North Korean crisis, it appears that the rogue regime refuses to even contemplate a negotiation or a cooling of tensions and on Monday, North Korea threatened to use nuclear weapons against the U.S. if provoked militarily and said it would “under no circumstances” negotiate on its nuclear and missile weapons programs.

Authored by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Some very important news is kept out of spotlight and undeservedly so. Bits of information pieced together indicate that very quietly the North Atlantic alliance is gearing up for large-scale combat operations. War preparations are not limited to weapon systems deployments and troop movements that hit headlines. No combat can be waged without logistics.

The New York City's transportation system is in trouble. Delays have skyrocketed on the century-old subway system, and several recent accidents have raised safety concerns. Joseph J. Lhota, chairman of The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has called upon the mayor to provide more money to fix the system, recently outlining a roughly $800 million emergency rescue plan with a sweeping set of fixes that he vowed would turn around steadily deteriorating service.