Common Dreams:
“Rumors have begun to circulate that mercenaries contracted by the U.S. firm Academi, formerly Blackwater, have been deployed to Kiev. According to German news source Bild on Friday, and repeated by Der Spiegel, Ukrainian security forces are being supported by over 100 ‘elite soldiers’ involved in a ‘punitive operation mounted by Ukraine’s new government.’ The information was leaked to the media by sources from German foreign intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND).
Blackwater mercenaries were made infamous during the invasion of Iraq for their frequent and unprovoked massacre of innocent civilians."
—>The NYT did not report this story of US paramilitary forces in Ukraine. Yet The NYT prints headline stories of supposed Russian mercenaries in the region. The Pentagon is selling one version of this story, and our newspaper of record eagerly goes along.
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Common Dreams:
"Two new reports this week provide key evidence that back a growing call that the destructive use of large-scale chemical agriculture must be halted in order to give the global bee population a fighting chance to regain their strength as the world's most prolific and effective pollinating species.
The first, a scientific study (pdf) conducted by researchers at Harvard University, found further proof that the wide-scale agricultural use of neonicotinoids—a volatile class of insecticide (neonics for short)—is a leading contributor to what has become known as Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD).
The second report (pdf), issued by Greenpeace International, focuses on solutions to the bee crisis by releasing its report that shows how the widespread expansion and re-introduction of ecological farming practices--as opposed to the chemically-intensive agriculture that now dominates—is the most efficient and surefire way to save the world's bee population and the food system they support."
-->Readers of The NYT were spared this disturbing look at how chemical companies are killing off the world's bees. That's because The NYT protects global giants like Monsanto from this type of public exposure.
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Independent UK:
"Anger is at long last rising against the new form of extremist Zionism dubbed 'price tag attacks,' wherein Israeli settlers vandalize and otherwise target Muslim and Christian sites as a way of threatening them with 'paying the price' for curbing Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas.
The Pope has called such settler provocations acts of 'terror.' The American Jewish Forward just ran a piece on a settlers' Israeli Independence celebration dubbed 'When Israelis Teach Their Kids to Hate,' and Amos Oz, one of Israel's most renowned writers, used the occasion of his 75th birthday to blast terms like 'hilltop youth' and 'price tag' as 'sweet names for a monster that needs to be called what it is - Hebrew neo-Nazis,' adding that perhaps the only difference between hate crimes around the world and in Israel is that 'our neo-Nazi groups enjoy the tailwind of numerous nationalist (or) racist legislators (and) rabbis who give them pseudo-religious justification.' ”
—>The NYT hasn't covered this story yet, but the Christian Science Monitor and the Jerusalem Post have. When will readers of The NYT demand that their newspaper stop censoring stories about Israeli racism? See how the story could have been reported:
