In the past few weeks Consortium News has added a group of accomplished writers as regular contributors, ensuring that Consortium remains a unique source of news, analysis and commentary that you will not find in mainstream media.

Pepe Escobar, the globe-trotting veteran Brazilian journalist, who can turn a phrase with the best of them while delivering incisive analysis of social movements and West vs. East geopolitics, recently joined Consortium’s roster and has already delivered.

His piece on the Brazilian presidential election is a must read.

Joining Pepe as a new Consortium writer is Max Blumenthal, one of the top journalists in alternative media. Max penned a brilliant obituary of Senator John McCain that gave you everything that was missing from The New York Times.

Patrick Lawrence, a long-time contributor to The Nation, Salon and other important alternative media, with a background in the mainstream as Asia Editor of The International Herald Tribune, has begun contributing his insightful analysis to Consortium News.

As’ad AbuKhalil, a.k.a “The Angry Arab,” began contributing a few months ago with a special perspective on the Middle East as a Lebanese scholar of the region that overrides the usual Orientalist Western view.

Alexander Mercouris, a sharp observer of British politics has begun filing a regular Letter from Britain, in the vein of the legendary BBC U.S. correspondent Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America.

John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent who blew the whistle on torture, has also begun contributing a regular column to Consortium News.

These important writers join our stable of regulars that include Ray Mc Govern, Gareth Porter, Daniel Lazare, Jonathan Marshall, Marjorie Cohn, Diana Johnstone and Annie Machon.

Unlike many websites today, we pay our writers at a competitive rate. But we can’t do it without you.

So please make a contribution today to Consortium‘s Fall Fund Drive so that we can continue to provide you some of the best journalism outside the mainstream that exists on the Web.