For years the "A-word" has been off-limits in polite conversation about Israel's treatment of Palestinians. The A-word, we have been told, unfairly singles out the Jewish state and its use is perhaps even anti-Semitic. Such declarations can have a powerful silencing effect.

However, in 2002 Archbishop Desmond Tutu broke the taboo, writing in the British newspaper The Guardian that "the humiliation of Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks" reminded him "of what happened to us black people in South Africa."

Four years later Jimmy Carter committed a similar indelicacy with the very title of his bestseller, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid." A wave of condemnation of the former president followed. "He appears to be giving aid and comfort to the new anti-Semites," wrote a reviewer for the Jewish Virtual Library.

For the most part, in the mainstream U.S. press at least, the decorum that forbids use of the A-word remains in place. Yet increasingly, as Israel continues to colonize the West Bank with settlers, and its army ensures their dominion over the lands they occupy, adhering to the A-word ban requires shielding one's eyes, or, at a minimum, engaging in verbal gymnastics. What, after all, to call a system of legalized discrimination based on ethnicity and religion in which one group has full voting rights and the other does not? What to call a system under which one people can travel freely on roads built specifically for them, whisking through checkpoints because of their religion and the color of their license plates, and under which the other must submit to inspection at military kiosks frequently manned by snipers?

A system under which one population in hilltop enclaves is protected by troops and military surveillance towers, while the other is subjected to frequent night raids by those same troops? Under which 40 percent of the adult male population has been forced to spend time in prison? Under which one group's "civil administration" can designate a town of the other group as a historic archeological site and evict all the residents, who then must move into tents? Under which soldiers ordered Palestinian bathers out of a public swimming pool last spring so Jewish settlers could have a swim, alone and unbothered by the darker-skinned native population?

The firearms manufacturer Colt Defense has filed for bankruptcy protection aiming to cut its $355 million debt. The company has struggled financially due to waning sales and the loss of a key contract.

The company hopes filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy court protection will allow an accelerated sale of its business operations in the US and Canada, according to a Colt statement issued Sunday. The company needs to reduce its debt burden and generate proceeds to repay some of its creditors.

Colt has secured $20 million in financing from its existing lenders to continue operating while in bankruptcy and expects to remain in business after the restructuring.

"The plan we are announcing and have filed today will allow Colt to restructure its balance sheet while meeting all of its obligations to customers, vendors, suppliers and employees and providing for maximum continuity in the company's current and future business operations," Keith Maib, Chief Restructuring Officer of Colt Defense LLC said.

In November, Colt got a $70 million loan from Morgan Stanley to help make an interest payment. However last month, the company missed a $10.9 million payment to holders of its $250 million in bonds.

There was nothing surprising about Israel finding itself not culpable for the killing of four boys on a Gaza beach in July last year, as it did in a military judgment released a few days ago.

Israel's investigations into its own crimes aren't known for delivering guilty verdicts.

What was interesting, however, was the reaction of some mainstream journalists — journalists who felt they had a vested interest in this case because they had witnessed the strikes which killed the four boys from the Baker family as they played football one afternoon during Israel's 51-day assault on Gaza.

Articles by Peter Beaumont in The Guardian and Robert Tait in The Daily Telegraph give off a sense of disbelief and indignation that the investigation by the Israeli army into the attack cleared all personnel involved and declared the incident "a tragic accident."

The poorest 30 percent of U.K. households will bear the costs of two thirds of proposed cuts to the child tax credit, according to new research.
The poorest families in the United Kingdom will be forced to bear the brunt of the government's newest austerity measures, according to research released Sunday.

Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed to slash £12 billion (US$18.8 billion) in welfare spending by 2018, with at least £5 billion (US$7.8 billion) in savings coming from the child tax credit (CTC). Cuts to the CTC will "weigh very heavily on low-income families," while barely touching the rich, according to David Finch, senior economic analyst at the Resolution Foundation think tank.

According to research from the think tank, a working family with two children would be expected to lose up to £1,690 (US$2,619) a year due to the cutback. "Almost two-thirds of the £5 billion cut would be borne by the poorest 30 percent of households. In contrast, the most affluent 40 percent of households would remain almost completely unscathed (bearing just 1 percent of the cut)," Finch said. The foundation's chief executive, Gavin Kelly, warned the cutback would likely result in "sharply" rising childhood poverty.

"The government is clearly grappling with its pre-election commitment to cut £12 billion from the welfare budget. If it did decide to take £5 billion out of child tax credits as a central part of this effort, it would concentrate the pain of fiscal consolidation on the poorest families - both working and non-working - in the U.K.," Kelly said, according to the British newspaper the Guardian. Despite a wave of protests against welfare cutbacks such as the planned gutting of the CTC, Cameron has argued austerity is needed to reduce the U.K.'s public deficit.

With one of the largest government data breaches in US history, hackers have potentially gained access to the personal information of every federal employee. That includes the darkest secrets of nearly 14 million people, including drug addictions, psychiatric diagnoses, and even extramarital affairs.

The crisis and chaos engulfing the Middle East and Ukraine is evidence of US imperial decline, as Washington learns the harsh lesson that no empire lasts forever.

In the wake of the Vietnam War - the end of which was marked by news footage of US personnel and a select few Vietnamese collaborators being evacuated from the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon in 1975 - the United States entered a prolonged period of decline when it came to its ability to embark on major military operations.

For all the massive destructive power in its arsenal, the Vietnamese had exposed US imperialism as a giant with feet of clay. The name given to this period of hard power retreat was the 'Vietnam syndrome' and lasted from 1975 to 1991, when the US and an international coalition embarked on the First Gulf War to force Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.

We are witnessing a similar period of US imperial decline now with regard to Washington's inability to stage large-scale military operations. It arrived as a consequence of the failed occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which achieved nothing except the eruption of terrorism and extremism across the region, and by extension the world.

Former US presidential candidate Republican Mitt Romney has acknowledged RT's reach and influence. He called it part of Russia's "strategy," at the same time as slamming Obama and Clinton's foreign policy mistakes.

Romney spoke to an audience of about 200 at the fourth annual E2 (Experts and Enthusiasts) summit in Park City, Utah. He backed his statements up with a PowerPoint presentation, the main focus of which was to slam the foreign policy mistakes of President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State (and now, the Democratic favorite of the presidential race) Hillary Clinton.

He had a slide for each of Obama's "most consequential foreign policy mistakes,"including the "Middle East apology tour" and the "reset" effort in relations with Russia.

This part of the presentation concluded with Romney asking whether Obama was "the worst foreign-policy president in history." He answered himself in the affirmative, reports the Washington Post.

Israeli authorities have admitted they blocked a UN human rights envoy from entering the occupied Gaza area for a second year in a row, just as a UN report on last year's Gaza war is about to be made public.

"We didn't allow this visit," said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon, as cited by AFP. The visit by the UN special rapporteur on human rights, Makarim Wibisono, was due to take place last week.

However, according to Nahshon, the decision doesn't go against Israel's commitments to the UN. "Israel cooperates with all the international commissions and all rapporteurs, except when the mandate handed to them is anti-Israeli and Israel has no chance to make itself heard."

Rapporteur Makarim Wibisono is attached to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which is about to release its findings from an investigation into alleged war crimes Israel may have committed during last year's war in Gaza.

The precise date for election in Venezuela is not defined as yet. Probably Venezuelans will go to vote in October - November. President Nicolas Maduro said he wanted an election as soon as possible. The pre-race campaign hits the radar. It could be said without exaggeration that the fate of Venezuelan - style socialism, the goal of Bolivarian movement, is at stake.

According to the results of 2010 National Assembly election, the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Spanish: Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, PSUV) got 96 seats with three seats going to the Communist Party and 6 to Fatherland for All (Patria Para Todos, PPT) and PODEMOS (literally meaning 'We can', an abbreviation of Por la Democracia Social, Spanish, meaning 'For Social Democracy'). The opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (Spanish: Mesa de la Unidad Democrática, MUD), a catch-all electoral coalition of Venezuelan centrist, centre-left, left-wing and some centre-right political parties, gained 65 seats. The correlation of forces allows President Nicolas Maduro to get the laws approved by parliament without expecting any serious obstruction from the right-wing opposition.

Will the United Socialist Party of Venezuela maintain its position in the National Assembly after the 2015 election? It's hard to be optimistic. The election will take place under the conditions of economic downturn, permanent deficit of goods, inflation and the exacerbation of social problems. The Hugo Chavez voters may change allegiance. The experts are trying to define reasons for crisis. There are different versions. Some say the reasons are of emotional character. Voters are tired of ideological struggle affecting their daily routine, as well as overcoming everyday life difficulties and living under the conditions of permanent confrontation.

Recent news has shown China quickly gaining ground against a West which has for centuries maintained hegemony over Asia Pacific. Beyond Asia, China has been steadily expanding its influence throughout Africa and the Middle East. Together with Russia, Iran and other nations of the "East," they are constructing what is commonly referred to as a "multi-polar" world order.

This multi-polar world order stands in contrast to the unipolar order the West has sought to impose for decades after the end of the World Wars and is a continuation of Western imperialism carried out by the British and other European empires during the decline of the Ottoman Empire.

But is what the East doing truly building an alternative to the West's brand of hegemonic imperialism? Or is it simply more of the same under a different label? More over, is the West's behavior coaxing other nations to unify under a singular, consolidated banner, only to be rolled under the West's vision of an international order ruled from Washington, Wall Street, London and Brussels?