In the days following the November 4 election, the presiding mantra has shifted away from "change" and towards "smooth transition". But, when exiting an era marked by criminality and bankrupt ideology, a little rockiness at the start of Obama's presidency would be a very good sign.

With Obama president-elect of the United States, the question now is whether the Illinois senator will have the courage to take the ideas that won him this election and turn them into policy.

In the final days of the election, many Republicans seem to have given up the fight for power. But don’t be fooled; there is a lot of energy going into chucking great chunks of the $700 billion bailout out the door.

Hurricane Gustav should have been political rat poison for the Republicans, no matter how well it was managed. But the early results show the storm has actually helped John McCain’s bid for the White House.

From private firefighters already on the scene at Northern California’s wildfires to land grabs in cyclone-hit Burma, multi-national corporations are systematically exploiting the state of fear and disorientation that goes with moments of great shock and crisis.

The Democratic party's presumptive presidential nominee's love of markets is not a flash in the pan, argues Naomi Klein, as he has shown by appointing one of Wal-Mart’s most prominent defenders to head his economic policy team.

Nothing terrifies repressive regimes quite like a natural disaster, says Naomi Klein, and it's something to keep in mind as the two countries struggle to respond to the Sichuan earthquake and Cyclone Nargis.

Naomi Klein writes that the “turban scandal” is all part of what is being referred to as “the Muslim smear”.

Remember the “ownership society”, a fixture of major George W. Bush addresses for the first four years of his presidency? “We’re creating…an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, ‘Welcome to my house; welcome to my piece of property,’ ” Bush said in October 2004.

Before fading back into his covert role as military chief of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Subcomandante Marcos recently told the assembled that "the signs of war on the horizon are clear"

If you are looking for a sure bet in a new growth market, sell solar, buy surveillance; forget wind, buy weapons

Private disaster companies are selling escape from climate change and the failed state by touting the security clearance and connections its executives amassed while working for that same state

Ex–central banker and Ayn Rand disciple teaches us that trickle-down economics is an elaborate rationale.

Recently, as protesters gathered outside the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) summit in Montebello, Quebec, to confront U.S. president George W.

Gaza in the hands of Hamas, with masked militants sitting in the president's chair; the West Bank on the edge; Israeli army camps hastily assembled in the Golan Heights; a spy satellite over Iran and Syria; war with Hezbollah a hair trigger away; a scandal-plagued political class facing a total loss of public faith.

Rather than in Iraq, the U.S. has found its "energy security blanket" next door.

It's not the act itself; it's the hypocrisy. That's the line on Paul Wolfowitz, coming from editorial pages around the world. But it's neither the act (disregarding the rules to get his girlfriend a pay raise) nor the hypocrisy (the fact that Wolfowitz's mission as World Bank president is fighting for "good governance").

During the jury-selection pro­cess at the Conrad Black fraud trial in Chicago, the judge polled potential jurors on their impressions of Black's home, Canada. "Socialist country", one replied. According to news accounts, Black, once the third-most-powerful press baron in the world, turned to his wife, Barbara Amiel, and they shared a smile. At last, a juror after their own hearts: the couple had been redbaiting Canadians for years.

Lawyers claim “extended torture” of extreme sensory deprivation has left prisoner unable to defend himself

It was the Mission: Accomplished of George W. Bush's second term, and an announcement of that magnitude called for a suitably dramatic location. But what was the right backdrop for the infamous "We do not torture" declaration? With characteristic audacity, the Bush team settled on downtown Panama City.

When Manuel Rozental got home one night last month, friends told him two strange men had been asking questions about him. In this close-knit indigenous community in southwestern Colombia, ringed by soldiers, right-wing paramilitaries, and left-wing guerrillas, strangers asking questions about you is never a good thing.

On September 4, six days after Katrina hit, I saw the first glimmer of hope. "The people of New Orleans will not go quietly into the night, scattering across this country to become homeless in countless other cities while federal relief funds are funneled into rebuilding casinos, hotels, chemical plants.

Hussain Osman, one of the men alleged to have participated in London's failed bombings on July 21, recently told Italian investigators that he prepared for the attacks by watching "films on the war in Iraq", La Repubblica reported. "Especially those where women and children were being killed and exterminated by British and American soldiers…of widows, mothers and daughters who cry."

When United Nations troops kill residents of the Haitian slum Cité Soleil, friends and family often place photographs of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on their bodies. The photographs silently insist that there is a method to the madness raging in Port-au-Prince. Poor Haitians are being slaughtered not for being "violent", as we so often hear, but for being militant; for daring to demand the return of their elected president.

Gordon Brown has a new idea about how to "make poverty history" in time for the G8 summit in Scotland. With Washington so far refusing to double its aid to Africa by 2015, the British chancellor is appealing to the "richer oil- producing states" of the Middle East to fill the funding gap. "Oil wealth urged to save Africa", read the headline in London's Observer.