In 2008 many of us understand that our nation - and even the entire planet - are in a state of crisis. The deep longing for positive, lasting change is the bedrock upon which this conference is based. How do we fix our country and our world? And how can we form one mass movement to address the crisis? In Radford, Virginia on May 22-25, thousands of activists, academics, journalists, poets, musicians and policymakers will converge at the 2008 “Building a New World” Conference. If you want to participate in building a new world, sign up now. Hotel and dorm rooms are limited. Register now! Cindy Sheehan, William Blum, Kathy Kelly, Mike Whitney, Alice Lovelace, David Swanson, Gareth Porter, Daniel Sunjata, Lynne Stewart, Bob Fitrakis, Gary Corseri, Mitchel Cohen, Farid Bitar, Robert Jensen, Sunsara Taylor, Kevin Zeese, Ravi Batra, Brian Tokar, Adam Kokesh and IVAW, Ellen Brown, Father Roy Bourgeois and many more leaders and luminaries will join thousands of people from across the country and from other lands as well, for a conference to lay the foundations for building a new world now.

That, of course, is the idea, the result of a deliberate strategy and as a direct consequence of Israel’s prevailing self-definition and worldview. As surely as our cosmology informs our sociology, the abhorrent siege of the Gaza Ghetto continues, the result of the internal logic of Israel’s continued existence as an apartheid expansionist state, producing policies of continued ‘low-intensity’ ethnic cleansing, divide and rule and genocide as Ilan Pappe and others have described.

European oil groups Royal Dutch Shell and Repsol YPF are under pressure from the United States to end talks with Iran about a multi-billion dollar natural gas deal, the Expansion newspaper reported Saturday. It said that Russia's Gazprom, Indian Oil Corporation and Chinese groups could be waiting to move in if British-Dutch group Shell and Spain's Repsol pulled out.

Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry. The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world's poor – who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food – into hunger and destitution.

The US military is drawing up plans for a “surgical strike” against an insurgent training camp inside Iran if Republican Guards continue with attempts to destabilise Iraq, western intelligence sources said last week. One source said the Americans were growing increasingly angry at the involvement of the Guards’ special-operations Quds force inside Iraq, training Shi’ite militias and smuggling weapons into the country. Empire Burlesque: The Terror Master: Bush Orders Covert 'Surge' Against Iran, with Dem Support

Microsoft Corp. withdrew its $42.3 billion bid to buy Yahoo Inc. on Saturday, scrapping an attempt to snap up the tarnished Internet icon in hopes of toppling online search and advertising leader Google Inc. The decision to walk away from the deal came after last-ditch efforts to negotiate a mutually acceptable sale price proved unsuccessful.