Above photo: Provided by author. On Sunday, October 24, representatives from more than six independent activist groups led by the Bolivarian Circle of Miami joined forces at the foot of the statue of Latin American hero, Simon Bolivar, in the Miami Torch of Friendship Park, to demand Venezuelan Ambassador Alex Saab’s immediate release from U.S. prison and repatriation to Venezuela. The Venezuelan diplomat was kidnapped twice by Washington. First, Alex Saab was kidnapped under orders of the Trump administration on June 12, 2020, while his plane refueled in Cape Verde, then again, under the Biden administration, on Saturday, October 16 from Cape […]
Terrace
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Above photo: Commemorative Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, Belgrade, Serbia, 2021. On October 11, 2021, delegations representing the governments of more than 105 nations, nearly all of the global South, met in Belgrade, Serbia to commemorate the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement sixty years ago in the capital of the former Yugoslavia. “Humanity has a tremendous thirst for social justice” – Fidel On October 11, 2021, delegations representing the governments of more than 105 nations, nearly all of the global South, met in Belgrade, Serbia to commemorate the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement sixty years ago in the capital of the […]
Above photo: La Via Campesina Honduras leader and Partido Libre candidate for congress, Rafael Alegría. A wide range of sectors in Honduras are continuing to mobilize against the Economic Development and Employment Zones (ZEDEs) with the general election now one month away. Campesino, indigenous and Afro-descendant movements and communities say the large scale territorial concessions amount to a flagrant violation of national sovereignty and will result in mass displacement. Frequent protests against the legislation, like the one held by the National Lawyers Association of Honduras, have called for the repeal of Decree 120/2013, due to its unconstitutionality, and communities are declaring their lands ZEDES free territories. Despite […]
Above photo: Gas supply shortages are due to send domestic bills soaring up. zhaojiankang / Getty Images. Domestic energy bills are expected to rise 30% next year. This crisis is rooted in a system run for huge private profits – and can only be solved by taking energy into public hands. Already reeling from the turmoil of Covid-19 and the complex challenges posed by Brexit, the UK economy is facing yet another crisis: extraordinary spikes in wholesale electricity and gas prices. With surging wholesale prices, domestic energy bills are predicted to rise by at least 30 percent by early next year. The fallout […]
Above photo: Attorney General Merrick Garland, head of the U.S. Justice Department under President Joe Biden. NOTE: Kevin Gosztola will remotely cover the Assange appeal hearing on October 27-28 and will have live updates on proceedings that can be followed on Twitter from @kgosztola. London – On October 27, the High Court of Justice in the United Kingdom will hear the Crown Prosecution Service argue on behalf of the United States government that a lower court improperly blocked the U.S. from extraditing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The proceedings in London are expected to last two days and will involve five grounds for […]
The question, raised by the petition and letter of complaint, is whether universities like Glasgow will continue to submit to such attacks on academic life under the cover of false or evidence-free claims of anti-Semitism. Glasgow, Scotland – Hundreds of international scholars have begun a fightback against pro-Israel lobbyists who have been scoring increasingly high-profile victories on UK campuses as they seek to curb academic freedoms under the guise of stamping out antisemitism. Glasgow university officials have found themselves in the eye of a storm this week, accused of “capitulating” in two separate cases that have undermined academic research into the […]
Above photo: Sudan has been gripped by discontent and political rivalries since the fall of autocrat Bashir in 2019. Getty. We are clear that the training of African police and military by the US and its NATO allies, in counter insurgency measures to confront the mass uprisings against repression, as taking place right now in Sudan using violent suppression, is right out of the imperialist playbook. For decades the U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, the E.U., and Israel have assisted in the training, financing, and arming of the militias and forces within Sudan. We must call for an end to the […]
Above image: Woven Art. Guilty on All Counts! After hearing from over 30 witnesses and receiving hundreds of documents, the Panel of Jurists founds the US government and its subdivisions GUILTY of Genocide and Gross Human Rights Violations. The Executive Summary Verdict which follows is their preliminary report, with a detailed and cited ruling to appear in the near future. Introduction: The Context of Our Work and Why We are Here The fact that the United States has committed an array of human rights abuses against Black, Brown, and Indigenous Peoples should be as uncontroversial as it is incontrovertible. There is […]
Above photo: “We never at all threatened human life,” said climate campaigner Jessica Reznicek in 2017, but were “acting in an effort to save human life, to save our planet, to save our resources.” Peg Hunter/flickr/cc. A tale of two damages. Why would a billion-dollar corporation which intentionally and illegally destroyed private property for profit not even get a slap on the wrist while a person who commits civil disobedience to protect the earth and its people is labeled a terrorist and imprisoned for eight years? Jessica Reznicek was sentenced to eight years in federal prison, ordered to pay millions in fines and […]
The United States government demonstrates repeatedly that it will do whatever it takes to protect the economic and political interests of the elites, even if it means total disregard for human rights and international law. Two cases that highlight this are the recent kidnapping and prosecution of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab and the attempts to extradite the Australian Wikileaks publisher and journalist Julian Assange. Clearing the FOG speaks with Roger Harris of Task Force on the Americas who travelled to Cabo Verde where Saab was detained and tortured for over a year before his rendition to Miami and with Joe Lauria, […]
Above photo: Activism Munich. Events are unfolding at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we are looking to our most respected and renowned thought leaders for an honest assessment of both U.S. foreign and military policy to offer their most current thoughts and insights. We know they have some ideas for improving the prospects for peace. Abby Martin is an American journalist, TV presenter and activist. She helped found the citizen journalism website Media Roots and serves on the board of directors for the Media Freedom Foundation which manages Project Censored. She hosted Breaking the Set on the network RT […]
Above photo: President Joe Biden participates in a CNN town hall at the Baltimore Center Stage Pearlstone Theater, Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021, in Baltimore, with moderator Anderson Cooper. AP Photo/Evan Vucci. Baltimore, MD – At a CNN town hall event Thursday evening, President Joe Biden revealed that he is considering using National Guard troops to ease the bottleneck at Southern California ports. In response to questioning from moderator Anderson Cooper, Biden said the plans potentially include having soldiers drive trucks from the ports to warehouses and distribution centers. This would mean the militarization of the ports of Los Angeles and Long […]
Above photo: Two trenches, each 200 meters long, filled with human bodies. Russell Bentley. Mass Grave in Lugansk, Ukraine Yields Over 200 Bodies. A Part of Obama’s Legacy that Presumably Won’t Be Celebrated in his $482 Million Presidential Library. I recently witnessed the exhumation of human remains from a mass grave that contains more than 200 bodies. It was a profound and profoundly disturbing experience. Each body in this grave represents an unnecessary and unjust death, a murder, and each of these more than 200 murders can never be forgotten or forgiven. There is a message that cries out from these bones […]
Above photo: Blockadia. Action report on ongoing forest defense actions in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. This week, forest defenders are succeeding in slowing tree clearing using their bodies to protect sensitive and rare forest habitats from aggressive tree clearing from PG&E contractors in constant cold rain and wind. On Wednesday, October 19, supervisors from PG&E and arborists from Wright Tree Service Company put concerned park visitors at risk of serious injury by continuing cutting and dropping of tree sections in close proximity to where the visitors stood in civil disobedience to impede the cutting. According to one forest defender: I was […]
Above photo: Damon Dahlen/HuffPost. Photo: Getty. A controversial Pentagon program is fast-tracking shipments of surplus military gear to police departments that claim to be preparing for climate disasters. The consequences could be deadly. When locals learned that the Johnson County, Iowa, sheriff’s office had gotten hold of a massive, mine-resistant vehicle, Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek reassured a skeptical public that officers would primarily use it during extreme weather events in order to save residents from the state’s extraordinary blizzards or floods. “Essentially it’s really a rescue, recovery and transport vehicle,” Pulkrabek said in 2014. But in the seven years since, the vehicle — […]
From grassroots to lawmaker. The notion of Chinese democracy is not the same as that in the West. The political system in China is more about consensus building within a greater voice rather than the protracted bargaining to arrive at decisions common in the West. The country’s application of democratic principles follows an approach Chinese President Xi Jinping has termed “whole-process people’s democracy.” The concept was put forward about two years ago, during Xi’s visit to a civic center in Shanghai. Based on people’s congress system, the “whole-process people’s democracy” enables the Chinese people to broadly and continuously participate in the […]
Above photo: Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters. New Treasury Report Ordered by President Biden Shows US is Intensifying its Economic Warfare Despite the COVID-19 Pandemic. Washington, DC – The 2021 Sanctions Review Report released by the United States Department of the Treasury on October 18 is an ominous warning. This unsigned report should set off international alarm bells among human rights organizations, international health agencies and peace, justice, and community groups , impacted countries and most countries in the United Nations. One of President Biden’s first actions in office was to call for a review of existing US and multilateral financial and economic […]
Above photo: From Twitter. Vassar, MI – On Tuesday morning, an unidentified Michigan Water Protector turned a valve on Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, stopping the flow of oil through the line which has been operating illegally since May 12, 2021. The water protector called Enbridge so that they could safely halt the flow of oil before reading a statement and turning the valve to halt the operation of the pipeline. BREAKING: a water protector in Michigan took action to stop oil flow on Line 5, an @Enbridge pipeline, while the band Only Lucky Once played a show nearby. From the valve […]
The current US Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, and the head of the Board of Governors, Ron Bloom, launched a ten year plan that will slow mail service and raise prices. This is the final blow to defund and destroy the US Postal Service so it will be ripe for privatization. DeJoy and Bloom have financial stakes in this happening. Clearing the FOG speaks with Chuck Zlatkin, legislative and political director for the largest postal union local in the US about the plan and the devastating impact it will have on everyone who relies on the post office. Zlatkin also exposes the […]
Introducing the Localization Action Guide: actionguide.localfutures.org. As the world looks towards COP26 for climate action, a newly launched guide shows individuals, communities and policymakers how to make a real hands-on difference in their own localities. Created by international nonprofit Local Futures, the Guide features no less than 146 actions that can help reduce emissions, pollution, consumption and waste, while strengthening local communities and economies. They include everything from growing organic food and moving your money, to setting up farmers’ markets, community investment funds and co-operative businesses. They also include suggestions for those with an eye to policy changes that, frustratingly, have […]
Above photo: Documentary filmmaker Judith Ehrlich. Anders Krusberg/Peabody Awards. Filmmaker Judith Ehrlich discusses “The Boys Who Said No,” a documentary about the Vietnam War draft resisters. Decades after the end of the Vietnam War, the impact on both Vietnam and the United States is still felt. Yet few Americans are aware that the conflict, which killed several million people, ended in large part thanks to the anti-war movement made up of, among others, 570,000 Americans that refused to be drafted to fight a war that many saw as immoral even then. Among those, 3,250 draft resisters–many of whom considered themselves conscientious […]
Above photo: Paha Sapa (Black Hills). “Is President Biden’s Proclamation only Empty Words?” On Friday, Oct. 8, 2021, United States President Joe Biden issued a first-ever Proclamation for Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The first two sentences state: “Since time immemorial, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians have built vibrant and diverse cultures – safeguarding land, language, spirit, knowledge, and tradition across the generations. On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, our Nation celebrates the invaluable contributions and resilience of Indigenous peoples, recognizes their inherent sovereignty, and commits to honoring the Federal Government’s trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations.” Right off the bat, that second […]
Above photo: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Mr. Le Maire at a meeting of Group of 7 finance ministers in London in June. Hollie Adams. “Clear Differences Remain Between France and the U.S, French Minister Says,” is the headline to a remarkable piece appearing in the New York Times. The Minister, Bruno Le Maire, is brutally frank on the nature of the differences as the quotations below Illustrate. (Emphases in the quotations are jvw’s.) In fact, they amount to a Declaration of Independence of France and EU from the U.S. It is not surprising that the differences relate to China after the […]
In 2001, my main task in Nicaragua was to be a “Karen”: the obnoxious, entitled white woman who uses her privilege to get her way. Although I was only 25, I was able to lend my white face, my American accent and my pushy “get-me-your-manager” skills to women’s cooperatives to gain them access to and help them navigate the Nicaraguan bureaucratic system. This was during the neoliberal years in Nicaragua, a time when the women we worked with – poor, working women – were simply dismissed by virtually any institution. Following on the popular Sandinista Revolution of the 1980s led by […]
One of the biggest moments in Julian Assange’s trial is slated to happen next month, when the embattled and imprisoned WikiLeaks founder’s final extradition hearing is held in Great Britain. And as host Lee Camp points out before introducing his guest in this clip from “Redacted Tonight,” there have been some stunning developments recently in Assange’s story—namely, the revelation that the U.S. government and a certain three-letter intelligence agency were ginning up possible plans to assassinate Assange. If ever there were an expert on Julian Assange, it would surely be Camp’s guest, John Shipton—Assange’s father—who calls the assassination plot considered by former Secretary […]
Above photo: On Oct. 13. 2021 Students gather in front of the Armour J. Blackburn building as student protestors occupy the space inside. DCist/WAMU / Dee Dwyer. Washington, DC – Hundreds of Howard University students protested on campus Wednesday morning following a sit-in Tuesday night over housing and other concerns. Students with the group Live Movement, a coalition of students from historically Black colleges and universities who advocate for education reform, began their sit-in at the Blackburn University Center Tuesday evening to demand university officials, including President Wayne Frederick, agree to a town hall meeting by the end of the month to negotiate their demands. […]
Since the night of October 10, 2012, Taide Elena and Araceli Rodriguez have traveled a long road to access justice for Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez. The road has not been easy. On three occasions, the U.S. government has denied them justice. On countless other events, the same government has violated their rights as victims of a crime that has become tragically common over the years: the murder of people -migrants or not- by U.S. Border Patrol agents. In the first trial on April 2018, a jury in a federal courtroom in Tucson, Arizona, acquitted Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz of second-degree […]
New Keynesianism or Neoliberal Public Relations Stunt? Some provisions of Biden’s “Build Back Better” legislation benefit the masses of Black people, but this legislation is a bare minimum effort to blunt some of the sharpest contradictions of the system while attempting to maintain the neoliberal order. For more than a week the country has been caught up in the ongoing melodrama of the “Build Back Better” (BBB) legislation, the Democrat Party’s “social investment” bill now languishing in the House because of the inability of the Democrats to come to an agreement. The fight is characterized by the corporate media as an […]
Above photo: Joey Montoya, Indigenous Rising Media. As the legacy of colonialism destroys our environment, Indigenous Peoples are at the forefront of fighting back. When Christopher Columbus landed on Turtle Island, which we now call North America, he brought with him a goal of making profit — of taking from the land and people to create commerce. Today, approximately 526 years later, that same pillaging continues to drive our planet further into the climate crisis and lead us into ecological collapse. Instead of honoring the violent colonization Columbus represents, we should use this day to call for truth and reconciliation — and honor the Indigenous communities at the […]
The US Out of Africa Network, which is coordinated by the Black Alliance for Peace, launched a month of action on October 1, the 13th anniversary of the launch of AFRICOM (the US’ Africa command) to educate the public about what AFRICOM is doing and to build the movement against US imperialism on the African continent. Clearing the FOG speaks with Tunde Osazua, who organizes the network, about the harm the US is doing on the continent such as the increase in violence and terrorist acts against the people as well as supporting coups and an economic war. What the US […]
Above photo: Indigenous People’s Day flag ceremony in Philadelphia on October 7, 2021. Tom MacDonald/WHYY. Today is Indigenous Peoples Day. Across the country, a growing number of cities and states are recognizing this day in place of the traditional Columbus Day. This change reflects the growing awareness that holidays like Columbus Day are used to rewrite the past and uphold institutions of white supremacy, racism and settler colonialism. As Justin Teba writes, in Albuquerque, they issued a proclamation to recognize this as a day “ to reflect upon the ongoing struggles of Indigenous peoples on this land.” I can only write from […]
Above photo: Join the Red Nation as we celebrate victories towards collective liberation and continued organizing against extractive industries, greedy capitalists, and settler colonization. In 2015, The Red Nation and a coalition of Native and non-Native organizations led a successful campaign to rename the second Monday of October Indigenous Peoples’ Day (IPD) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Albuquerque City Council issued a proclamation abolishing Columbus Day that was signed by Rey Garduño, Ken Sanchez, Klarissa Peña, Isaac Benton, Brad Winter, and Diane Gibson, with three council members abstaining. The proclamation declared that the day “shall be used to reflect upon the […]
Above photo: Rise Up Times. President Biden and the Democratic Congress are facing a crisis as the popular domestic agenda they ran on in the 2020 election is held hostage by two corporate Democratic Senators, fossil-fuel consigliere Joe Manchin and payday-lender favorite Kyrsten Sinema. But the very week before the Dems’ $350 billion-per-year domestic package hit this wall of corporate money-bags, all but 38 House Democrats voted to hand over more than double that amount to the Pentagon. Senator Manchin has hypocritically described the domestic spending bill as “fiscal insanity,” but he has voted for a much larger Pentagon budget every […]
Above photo: Palestinian children play by a new water tank that replaced a damaged one following a settlers’ attack in the West Bank village of Mfakara, September 30, 2021. Nasser Nasser | AP. Activists Say Israel is Drying Out the West Bank to Drive Out Palestinians. What was billed as a cooperative venture between Palestine and Israel is merely the occupation of water in disguise. Masafer Yatta, Occupied West Bank – Last weekend, around 600 Israeli, Palestinian and international activists marched across Masafer Yatta in the Occupied West Bank to deliver a water tanker to Palestinian villagers. Their message was clear: Water is a human […]
Above photo: Steven Donziger in a video message to supporters on Sept. 30. Steve Donziger, Twitter. Imprisoning the David to Chevron’s Goliath is the latest outrage by a US judiciary now engineered to always favor the interests of capital. Judge Loretta Preska, an adviser to the conservative Federalist Society, to which Chevron is a major donor, sentenced human rights attorney and Chevron nemesis Steven Donziger to six months in prison Friday for misdemeanor contempt of court after he had already spent 787 days under house arrest in New York. Preska’s caustic outbursts — she said at the sentencing, “It seems that […]
Above photo: Left: Commander in Chief Fidel Castro embraces Carlos Alberto Cremata, son of one of the victims of the terrorist attack and president of the Committee of Relatives of the Victims of the Cubana 455 terrorist attack, in front of the monument commemorating the victims. Barbados, December 7, 2005. Ismael Francisco. Today marks 45 years since U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives carried out the terrorist bombing of Cubana de Aviación flight 455, a Cuban flight from Barbados to Jamaica. 73 people were killed in the bombing attack on the flight which departed from Guyana, with destination to Havana, via […]
Above photo: SEIU 1021. Organizers now recognize that to remake higher education as a public good, they must fight and win at the national level. When Rutgers University announced in March 2020 that it would shut down its campuses due to the coronavirus, we were in the middle of a busy season. A tenured faculty member and a graduate student, both in the history department at New Brunswick, we frantically scoured the library and our offices for anything we might need for the next several weeks. An online world would demand double-time labor just to meet basic obligations of teaching classes, […]
Above photo: This photograph illustration shows the logo of Pandora Papers, in Lavau-sur-Loire, western France, on October 4, 2021. Loic Venance / AFP. From America’s own corrupt and broken tax system. The latest revelations of creative accounting used by the global elite notably failed to mention any American billionaires. A curious omission, considering eight of the ten richest men on Earth reside in the good old US of A. The release of the Pandora Papers, which brag of leaks exposing the somewhat ‘artistic’ financial practices of the rich and powerful, has once again seen the media take aim at Vladimir Putin. […]
Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) President Anthony Shelton issued the following statement in support of 1,400 BCTGM members in Battle Creek, Mich. (Local 3G), Omaha, Neb. (Local 50G), Lancaster, Pa. (Local 374G) and Memphis, Tenn. (Local 252G) who are on strike against the Kellogg Company: “The BCTGM International Union stands in unwavering Solidarity with our courageous Brothers and Sisters who are on strike against the Kellogg Company. “For more than a year throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Kellogg workers around the country have been working long, hard hours, day in and day out, to produce Kellogg ready-to-eat […]
Above photo: NUMSA workers stage a protest as part of the engineering workers’ strike in South Africa. PanAfricanism Today. The strike is being led by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa. The refusal by employers to address the demands for a wage hike is being seen as a betrayal by the workers who had foregone last year’s wage hike to cushion the industry during the COVID-induced lockdown. The first day of the indefinite strike in South Africa’s engineering sector on Tuesday, October 5, saw workers in red T-shirts hit the streets in thousands demanding a wage hike. Marches and […]
Above photo: Cuban Americans rally against the Cuban government outside of the White House, July 17, 2021. Jose Luis Magana | AP. The involvement of foreign nationals in the domestic affairs of Cuba is on a level that can scarcely be conceived of in the United States. Havana -After gaining access to their private Facebook group, MintPress can reveal that the people who sparked the July 11 protests in Cuba are planning similar actions for October and November. The group, La Villa del Humor, is widely credited with providing the initial spark that ignited nationwide protests on the Caribbean island in the summer, the most significant demonstrations since […]
Above photo: Unsplash/Taha Mazandarani. Facing the coronavirus and climate crises, a shift in awareness to our interdependence offers a way to build back up peacefully. The pandemic has had and is still having a global impact, more than a year later. Was it a wake-up call for more people to realize that the consumerist lifestyle is not feasible? While a number of people are slowly moving back to “business as usual,” others are not. It could be a key turning point for some people to see what has been slowly unveiling itself for at least the last 15 years (or even […]
Above photo: A roadblock preventing Coastal GasLink from accessing a site where it plans to drill under the Morice River, or Wedzin Kwa to the Wet’suwet’en. RCMP have visited the site several times since the camp was created on Sept. 24, making two arrests. Amanda Follett Hosgood. Pipeline standoff. On the scene where Coastal GasLink’s plan to install pipe under the river bed has been halted for 11 days.At the turnoff, four workers with Coastal GasLink security gather in orange and yellow vests, their voices edged with frustration as they talk above four idling pickup trucks that release a haze of […]
Above photo: Workers right now have real leverage to wrest concessions from their bosses. Andreas Klinke-Johannsen, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped from original. It’s time to use it. The capitalist vultures are wheeling low, but they’re finding slim pickings to choose from these days. “No one wants to work!” The bosses whine about a worker shortage—though it’s one they brought about. Eighteenth-century British economist Adam Smith noted how common it is to hear complaints about workers coming together to fight for their interests, and how rare it is to hear about all the scheming the bosses do to plunder workers’ labor. “Masters are […]
Above photo: Musician wearing a miner’s hat during the Carnival of Oruro in Bolivia’s tin mining center. sunsinger / Shutterstock.com. The rituals and celebrations of Bolivia’s miners created spaces for radical organizing and helped build solidarity during the 1952 National Revolution. The small K’illi K’illi park sits at the top of one of the hillsides cradling the valley that is home to Bolivia’s administrative capital La Paz, providing a striking view of the city below. To the east lies Illimani, a towering, snow-covered mountain. Below and to the west is the tree-lined Plaza Murillo, home to the seat of government and […]
Above photo: Students planting seedlings during a field trip to Great Kids Farm in 2019. Anne Rosenthal. America wastes up to 40 percent of its food, and schools are no exception. Teaching students where food comes from is part of the solution. Baltimore, MD – As a “farm to school specialist” in the Baltimore City public schools, Anne Rosenthal splits her time between an office and Great Kids Farm in Catonsville, a 33-acre plot of land, complete with forests, a stream, greenhouses and a barn with animals, owned and operated by the school district. “A lot of students have never had […]
Above photo: Deposed president Alpha Conde and coup plotters in Guinea. West Africa has just experienced its fourth attempted coup in just over a year, and seven coups over the last 13 years were carried out by African troops trained by the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). One was directly carried out by AFRICOM forces – Operation Odyssey Dawn against Libya in 2011, its first major military operation. On Sunday, September 5, 2021 soldiers detained Guinean President Alpha Condé and claimed control of the government. They suspended the constitution and closed all of the country’s borders. In a video recorded in the capital Conakry, Colonel Mamady […]
Above photo: Nicaraguan farmers. The neoliberal Nicaragua of the ’90s is unrecognisable from the Nicaragua of today. In 1999, when I first came to Ciudad Sandino, a city of 180,000 located just outside Managua, Hurricane Mitch had recently created 2.7 million homeless people in Nicaragua and Honduras. The neoliberal government had pocketed the aid that came into the country. Ciudad Sandino had received 12,000 hurricane refugees who were living in black plastic tents, but those who had been living in Ciudad Sandino for decades weren’t in much better shape: most houses were walled with scrap wood and plastic. There was only […]
Above photo: Steven Donziger speaks at a rally for his freedom outside his New York City apartment on July 6, 2021. Steven Donziger via Twitter. ‘International outrage.’ Conviction of Steven Donziger, said one critic, “perfectly encapsulates how corporate power has twisted the U.S. justice system to protect corporate interests and punish their enemies.” Environmental justice advocates and other progressives on Friday condemned a federal judge’s decision Friday to sentence human rights lawyer Steven Donziger to six months in prison—following more than two years of house arrest related to a lawsuit he filed decades ago against oil giant Chevron. “Chevron caused a mass industrial poisoning in the Amazon that crushed the lives of […]
Above photo: IATSE volunteers during a food drive event last year. Michael Buckner for Variety. Here’s what that means. Here’s what you need to know about the just-concluded vote, what’s next, and which productions would be impacted by a potential strike. Updated, October 4: IATSE members have overwhelmingly voted in favor of a strike authorization, the union announced Monday morning. Ninety-eight percent of all votes cast were in favor of a strike, and 90 percent of all members turned out to vote. But production won’t grind to a halt, at least not yet. The results give IATSE President Matthew Loeb the power to […]
Above photo: RCMP use pepper spray on protesters at Fairy Creek. Another political dispute shifted onto police ill-equipped to handle them? Image taken from a video posted to YouTube on Aug. 21, 2021. The BC government has failed in its duty to ensure police actions are lawful. The NDP government can’t keep dodging responsibility for the debacle at Fairy Creek — or the much bigger questions about the RCMP’s role in the province. Especially as increasing RCMP resources — with provincial government approval — are devoted to shutting down protests, frequently by Indigenous people. Last week, the BC Supreme Court refused to extend an […]
Above photo: Flickr. The US prosecution of Julian Assange has been dealt another blow following revelations that the CIA plotted the kidnap and rendition or murder of the WikiLeaks founder. The revelations also directly implicate Mike Pompeo, former CIA director and secretary of state, and US president Donald Trump. Separately, there’s evidence of how cyber activists foiled a 2012 attempt by British police to break into and enter the Ecuadorian embassy where Assange had sought asylum. Permission to act In April 2017, Pompeo publicly declared that “WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service”. Arguably, that could be interpreted as an invitation to the CIA and […]
Above image: Studies show there are many benefits to letting local residents make financial decisions for their communities. Terry Laban. “Ordinary citizens” are perfectly capable of allocating public money wisely. They should be given the power to do so. par·tic·i·pa·to·ry bud·get·ing noun 1. When local residents decide how public money gets spent “What is that, ‘for the people, by the people?’ ‘By the people’ always seems to be missing in the equation. So this is putting the people back into that equation.” —Gwendolyn Garth, a Cleveland-born artist and community activist As in, a “listening session” or something? Nope! You may have experienced government or work-related meetings where decision-makers “listen” to […]
In his recent article, “America’s Fate: Oligarchy or Autocracy,” Chris Hedges writes that bankrupt liberals have sold out to the oligarchic class to try to prevent an autocracy from rising but that is actually creating the conditions for autocracy. Hedges speaks with Clearing the FOG about the lessons from the Occupy movement – he was involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City and the occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC in 2011 – and why we must build a militant movement now to confront and hold power accountable. He explains how power works, including the role […]
Above photo: Editor, Andrew Cockburn. And the Pentagon Knows It. The journalist and Harper’s editor brilliantly documents the motivations behind the U.S. military’s war lust in his new book, “Spoils of War.” Twenty years since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the human and financial cost of the United States’ failed “War on Terror” is plain to see: as one headline put it, “20 years, $6 trillion, 900,000 lives.” The estimates of lives lost and trillions spent vary throughout media sources, but even the most conservative estimates speak for themselves. Yet, while the Pentagon billed America’s latest imperial endeavors as an imperative […]
Above photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images. Says It’s ‘Appalled.’ The world’s leading body on human rights ruled that the home detention of the attorney, who won a landmark case against Chevron, violates international law. UPDATE: The Judge Didn’t Listen. The world’s top human rights legal body just offered a crucial show of support for Steven Donziger, the attorney who won a landmark multibillion-dollar case against an oil giant over pollution in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest. The ruling came on the eve of his sentencing in a criminal trial. On Wednesday, the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights ruled that Donziger’s home detention is […]
The Decade of False Solutions. Let us be frank. As communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis and fossil fuel extraction, our situation is dire. While we experience unparalleled disaster in the form of floods, fires, droughts, Missing & Murdered Indigenous Peoples and state-sanctioned violence against Indigenous and Black communities, the crisis at the so-called border, and other results of climate chaos, we know U.S. elected leadership is in the position to redirect course on behalf of Mother Earth and future generations. The truth is, Congress promised our communities they would work to solve the climate crisis and environmental justice once we […]
Above photo: Indigenous Environmental Network. “We have everything to lose and no time to wait.” Washington, D.C. — Thousands of people are expected to take part in a week of protests at the White House this October 11-15 to pressure President Biden to declare a climate emergency and end all new fossil fuel projects. Composed of hundreds of Indigenous, Black, environmental, climate justice, youth, and social justice organizations, the Build Back Fossil Free coalition will launch the People Vs. Fossil Fuels: Biden’s Test week of action in advance of the Glasgow COP26 Climate Summit. With that summit representing what many consider […]
As the Biden administration continues to seek the extradition of Julian Assange, new details have emerged about the Trump administration’s secret CIA-led war against Assange and his organization, Wikileaks. Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News discusses his team’s reporting on the CIA plot to surveil, kidnap, and even kill Assange — all overseen by Michael Pompeo. In response, Pompeo has called for the prosecution of all the sources involved. The story builds on previous disclosures including a May 2020 exposé by The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal, which revealed that the CIA was working with Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson and the Spanish security firm UC Global to target […]
Above photo: Black Alliance for Peace. Against the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and Imperialism on the African Continent. The Black Alliance for Peace’s Africa Team and the U.S. Out of Africa Network are organizing an international month of action to raise the public’s awareness as a contribution to the effort to build a popular movement for demilitarization and anti-imperialism on the African continent. This month’s events will focus on raising the public’s awareness about the use of western military power to impose western control of African land, resources, and labor on behalf of the world’s corporations. AFRICOM continues to militarily occupy Africa, with thousands of U.S. […]
Above photo: Parents and family members of the 43 disappeared students of the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ School held a peaceful march in Chilpancingo city on September 21. Sergio Ocampo/La Jornada. Contradicts official version. Almost seven years after the forced disappearance of 43 students of the Rural Teachers’ College in the town of Ayotzinapa, Mexico, the struggle for truth and justice continues as the investigation proceeds slowly. On September 21, five days before the seventh anniversary of the forced disappearance of 43 students of the Rural Teachers’ College in the town of Ayotzinapa, Mexico, the federal authorities revealed new evidence in the case, which […]
The newly created AUKUS alliance is the latest futile effort to end China’s rise as an economic super power and competitor for global influence. The United States, United Kingdom, and Australia have formed an alliance called “AUKUS” to create, in the words of Australia PM Scott Morrison, “a partnership where our technology, our scientists, our industry, our defense forces are all working together to deliver a safer and more secure region that ultimately benefits all.” AUKUS is primarily a military relationship but is said to include broad economic measures that undoubtedly seek to counter China’s rise in all spheres of development. […]
Above photo: The bipartisan group of Senate negotiators speak to reporters just after a vote to start work on a nearly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, July 28, 2021. From left are Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite. This past week maneuvers within the Democratic party intensified over the content and magnitude of the two pending fiscal stimulus bills–the Infrastructure Bill (with $550B of net new spending) and the Reconciliation Bill ( […]
Above photo: Appalachians Against Pipelines. Lindside, WV — Early Tuesday morning, two Mountain Valley Pipeline protesters locked themselves to construction equipment at a construction site in Lindside, WV. A rally of nearly a dozen supporters gathered nearby. Banners at the site read, “PIPELINES STINK,” “SOLIDARITY WITH STOP LINE 3,” and “AIN’T SCARED.” As of 11 AM, one protester had been extracted and arrested after preventing construction at the site for over 5 hours. The other was in the process of being extracted by law enforcement. Those locked down stated, “A better world isn’t just possible, it’s necessary. As we write this, […]
Above image: Original illustration by Mr. Fish. The competing systems of power are divided between alternatives which widen the social and political divide — and increase potential for violent conflict. The competing systems of power in the United States are divided between oligarchy and autocracy. There are no other alternatives. Neither are pleasant. Each have peculiar and distasteful characteristics. Each pays lip service to the fictions of democracy and constitutional rights. And each exacerbates the widening social and political divide and the potential for violent conflict. The oligarchs from the establishment Republican Party, figures such as Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, George […]
Above photo: Kim Duncan’s three adopted daughters, from left, Shalyn, Shyanne and Shelbi, sit smiling with their watermelon in the summer heat. Courtesy photo. Reaction to developments in Indian Child Welfare Act review. The Cherokee Nation, the Oneida Nation, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians of California and the Quinault Indian Nation are petitioning the Supreme Court to request that the bill remain intact. Cetan Sa Winyan, director of the American Indian Movement’s Indian Territory Oklahoma chapter, said all tribes — not just the four already petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court — should stand together against potential changes to the Indian Child Welfare […]
Ten years ago, prominent activists and a variety of organizations came together early in the year to organize the October2011 Movement, styled on the occupations of space that were occurring during the Arab Spring and in capitals across the United States. That movement merged with the Occupy Movement when it was announced later that year. Clearing the FOG speaks with Bill Moyer of the Backbone Campaign, one of the organizers of October2011, about what was happening at the time, the occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC and the impact the Occupy Movement had on activism in the United States. Moyer […]
On the show, the first of a two-part interview, Chris Hedges discusses with Professor David Harvey the reconfiguration of global capitalism, the contradictions of neoliberalism, the financialization of power, the commodification of spectacle, rate versus mass of surplus value, and other issues fundamental to economic theory. David Harvey, distinguished professor of anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is a leading theorist in the field of urban studies. Library Journal calls Professor Harvey “one of the most influential geographers of the later 20th century.” Professor Harvey earned his Ph.D. from Cambridge University and was formerly professor of […]
Above photo: El 19 Digital. The Excuse Since the house arrest of former president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro’s daughter Cristiana Chamorro for money laundering and other crimes, the US and international assault against the Sandinista government has grown. This is the continuation of an ongoing attack against Sandinismo that began long before the US and its regime change agents took advantage of Chamorro’s arrest. Precisely because the coup d’état against the Sandinista government failed in 2018 we see a continued offensive against Nicaragua. To achieve their goals, the US and its agents are throwing the kitchen sink of dirty tricks against the Sandinista […]
Thursday, September 23, 2021, in front of Brookfield Asset Management’s NYC office, 250 Vesey Street, the Rally to Save the Public Post Office: Dump DeJoy & Bounce Bloom was loud and strong. Ron A. Bloom is the Chair of the Postal Board of Governors & also the Vice Chair & Managing Partner of Brookfield where he heads up their $60 billion investment fund. Recently, the Washington Post had an expose that showed that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has purchased $305,000 in bonds from his boss Ron A. Bloom’s company: Brookfield. DeJoy also helped give a $125 million contract to his former company XPO […]
NOTE: In April of this year, my family had a medical emergency that required most of my time and attention. The result is that I am now the sole legal and physical guardian of two young children with significant needs. I hope to return to writing a regular newsletter now that they are in school. There is a lot going on and a lot to do. Solidarity, Margaret Flowers This month, the Sanctions Kill coalition (Popular Resistance is a member) released its report: “The Impact and Consequences of US Sanctions.” The 35-page report was written in response to the Biden administration’s […]
Above photo: Jonathan McIntosh, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons. Samuel Moyn’s vicious and unprincipled attack on Michael Ratner, one of the finest human rights attorneys of our time, was published in the New York Review of Books (NYRB) on September 1. Moyn singles out Ratner as a whipping boy to support his own bizarre theory that punishing war crimes prolongs war by making it more palatable. He disingenuously claims that enforcing the Geneva Conventions and opposing illegal wars are mutually exclusive. As Dexter Filkins noted in the New Yorker, Moyn’s “logic would favor incinerating entire cities, Tokyo style, if the resulting spectacles of agony lead more people to oppose […]
President Biden addressed the UN General on September 21 with a warning that the climate crisis is fast approaching a “point of no return,” and a promise that the United States would rally the world to action. “We will lead not just with the example of our power but, God willing, with the power of our example,” he said. But the U.S. is not a leader when it comes to saving our planet. Yahoo News recently published a report titled “Why the U.S. Lags Behind Europe on Climate Goals by 10 or 15 years.” The article was a rare acknowledgment in […]
Above photo: This photo taken on August 3, 2021, shows residents receiving nucleic acid tests for the coronavirus in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province. AFP. Shielding the Western elite from justified rage. The recent outbreak of the Delta variant in China “shows that its strategy no longer fits. It is time for China to change tack.” So declared a lead essay atop the New York Times Opinion/Editorial section on Sept. 7 by Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The Delta outbreak that “changed the game” in Huang’s words emerged after an outbreak at Nanjing international […]
Above photo: The Sunrise Movement and hundreds of other community- and state-based climate justice organizations are making headway by targeting politicians and polluters. Will labor step up and meet the challenges posed by climate change? Paul Becker. Today’s existential crisis for humanity is the immediate need to shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. All of us have to. Everywhere. For workers and for our communities there is no more pressing matter than this. We need to begin a discussion among co-workers, creating demands and acting on them at the workplace and bargaining table. We need to show up at local […]
Above photo: Students, parents and educators gather outside the Central York School District Educational Service Center to protest the district’s banned resources list on Monday, Sept. 20, 2021, in Springettsbury Township, York County. Parents yelling about masks or demanding book bans over ‘critical race theory’ isn’t really about their kids, who have different ideas. I’m old enough to remember when sociologists’ big worry for the American family was “helicopter parents” — moms and dads who hovered too closely over their spawn, denying them room to breathe. How quaint. The long, hot summer of 2021 has brought “the Sherman tank parent” — […]
Above photo: Twitter. Webinar update with UMWA District Vice President Larry Spencer. Larry Spencer, UMWA District 20 Vice President, represents the 1,100 coal miners in three UMWA locals which on strike against Warrior Met in Alabama since April 1, 2021. He will give an update on the strike in a September 28 webinar. The strikers are fighting to reverse concessions that were foisted on them in 2016 when BlackRock and other billionaire creditors set up Warrior Met Coal and took over mine operations with the aid of a bankruptcy court. To keep their jobs, Warrior Met made the miners work up […]
If the Supreme Court overturns the Indian Child Welfare Act, Native children, mineral rights, and tribal self-determination could quickly become collateral damage. The Threat Summarized. NOTE: I testified when ICWA was passed. I had been a counselor in 1974-75 at the High School level. One of my students was Native and adopted by a white family at birth. He would just come in and look at his skin and look at mine. We were the same color. There were studies done at the time that helped get ICWA passed because Native children that were adopted out very seldom reached adulthood. – […]
Above photo: The VI Summit of the Heads of State of CELAC. CELAC. The heads of state of the regional block agreed on a 44-point declaration which addressed the strategy against COVID-19 and climate change and took a stand against the blockade on Cuba. The VI Summit of the Heads of State of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) was held in Mexico City on Saturday, September 18 and concluded with the approval of a 44-point declaration. The historic summit saw the participation of 31 countries and the presence of several important leaders, such as Venezuelan president Nicolás […]
Above photo: Eduardo Munoz/Reuters. China’s commitment to enhancing social cohesion is an example of what a society should strive to do. But racism endemic to the U.S. prevents it from taking the same steps. Mainstream U.S. media frequently depicts China as a “closed off” country that treats ethnic minorities with contempt and oppression. The New York Times took this baseless accusation further in an op-ed published on September 9 that claimed China was closing itself off from the world and rejecting the English language. No verifiable proof was offered beyond reforms to the education system that seek to address economic and social […]
Above photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection mounted officers attempt to contain migrants as they cross the Rio Grande from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, into Del Rio, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 19, 2021. AP Photo/Felix Marquez. Video footage and photographic images of US Border Patrol agents herding Haitian migrants as though they were cattle triggered widespread revulsion across the United States and internationally Monday. The footage, taken by photographers for the Associated Press, Reuters and AFP, showed the crackdown ordered by the Biden administration against more than 10,000 Haitian migrants who have gathered under a freeway underpass on the outskirts of Del Rio, […]
Above photo: From Twitter. Bush’s answer: “You sit and behave yourself.” Statement by Mike Prysner Iraq war veteran and ANSWER Coalition organizer. Nearly 20 years ago, in July 2002, I sat behind then-President George W. Bush as he gave a speech to my Army unit, the 10th Mountain Division. Less than a year later I was in Iraq, on Bush’s orders, as part of the US invasion. Tonight as Bush spoke at a so-called “Distinguished Speaker Series” event in Beverly Hills–with the cheapest tickets starting at over $500–I again watched from the crowd, before confronting the event. Primarily, I demanded he […]
One of President Biden’s first statements included an intention to review the United States’ sanctions, which are actually unilateral coercive measures, to determine if they ‘unduly hinder’ the ability of targeted countries to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. That review, to be conducted by the US Treasury and State Department, has not been made public, if it has been done at all. The Sanctions Kill coalition conducted its own report on “The Impact and Consequences of US Sanctions,” which was released last week. Clearing the FOG speaks with two of the authors, John Philpot and David Paul, about what sanctions are, […]
Above photo: Ann Wright addresses the crowd outside Rockefeller Center. WNV/Eric Stoner. Now is the time for accountability for the U.S. assassin drone program. For decades the U.S. has been murdering innocent civilians, including U.S. citizens, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Mali and who knows where else. Not one person in the military has been held accountable for these criminal acts. Instead, drone whistleblower Daniel Hale is sitting in prison with a 45 month sentence. The August 29, 2021 deaths of ten innocent civilians, including seven children, in a family compound in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan by a hellfire missile fired from […]
Above photo: University of California, Berkeley students set up tents after a general assembly voted to again occupy campus as part of an “open university” strike in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement on November 15, 2011. Max Whitaker/Getty Images. How OWS shaped a decade of dramatic protests and why it has run its course. When Occupy Wall Street was evicted from its home base in Zuccotti Park on November 15, 2011, by the NYPD in a paramilitary-style operation under cover of the night with a press blackout, the obituaries were being written. The day before, Occupy Oakland, which vied with New York as the leader […]
By now it is obvious that the mainstream media does not cover any good news whatsoever about Venezuela. Even non-political issues are always accompanied by a poisoned cliché sentence or two about “dictator”, “authoritarian regime”, “collapsed economy” “humanitarian crisis”, etc. etc. So, the game-changing news that there are peace talks being held in México City between the Venezuelan government and opposition parties is ignored. México is acting as host and facilitator with the kingdoms of Norway and Netherlands, and the Russian Federation as mediators. This seminal event has been scarcely reported by the North American media or commented on by politicians. […]
Above photo: AFP. On Wednesday, thousands took to the streets of El Salvador to protest President Nayib Bukele and his new Bitcoin law. Workers, students, union and peasant organizations, feminist groups, human rights activists, and even judges took to the streets on Wednesday in El Salvador. It was the country’s largest mobilization in decades. Among the issues being protested were the Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele’s decision to double the number of military troops under the pretext of fighting violence and crime. In reality, it’s about gaining support and surrounding himself with the armed forces. In addition, Bukele’s Bitcoin law has been […]
Above photo: The United Nations 20th Session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues began April 19, 2021. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Indigenous leaders are largely being excluded from participation in the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference as the world grapples with escalating problems from floods, fires, heat, drought and other disasters. Limited access to COVID-19 vaccines in certain regions, travel restrictions and quarantine in the United Kingdom for people from “red list” countries in Central and South America, Africa and Asia, and rising costs of travel and lodging are hindering Indigenous participation, Indian Country Today has found. […]
Above photo: The Chichipicas spring is one of the San Huitzizilapan indigenous community’s water sources, in the Lerma municipality, in the state of Mexico -adjacent to Mexico City-, where several community systems manage the resource. Emilio Godoy / IPS. Lerma/Coyotepec, Mexico – In the San Lorenzo Huitzizilapan Otomí indigenous community, in the state of Mexico –adjacent to the country’s capital–, access to water has been based on collective work. “Public services come from collective work. What we have done is based on tequio (free compulsory work in benefit of the community), cooperation. The community has always taken care of the forests and […]
Above photo: A “Defend the Sacred” banner hanging outside Four Winds American Indian Council. Denver, CO – Under the hardline stance of Mayor Michael Hancock, Denver continues to sweep unhoused encampments—more than 80 this year alone—ignoring countless requests from unhoused residents and their advocates to stop, and refusing to negotiate any alternatives. Outside the Four Winds American Indian Council building in the Baker neighborhood, that cycle continued when, despite multiple attempts by Four Winds and other advocates to find some common ground and a different solution, the city swept a predominantly Indigenous encampment on August 31. “It’s kind of unfortunate that the Mayor […]
Above photo: Adam Jones/Flickr. The world’s biggest publicly-traded provider of property and casualty insurance, Chubb, has become the 16th insurer to declare that it won’t back the controversial Trans Mountain pipeline, a coalition of climate and Indigenous campaigners announced yesterday. The flurry of social media activity was triggered by a single tweet from Financial Times insurance correspondent Ian Smith, with no elaborating news story as The Energy Mix went to virtual press Tuesday evening. “Chubb does not provide insurance coverage for any tar sands projects,” a spokesperson told Smith, following a protest at the U.S. Open tennis tournament earlier this month. Chubb became the official insurance sponsor […]
Above photo: Shared by Ed’s son Matt Asner via Twitter. A life of persistence and perseverance for justice and peace. Courage to Resist wishes to acknowledge the passing of Ed Asner, a man who demonstrated 91 years of persistence and perseverance. We thank him for his friendship and advocacy. Ed Asner was beyond a gifted actor who created an identifiable, singularly American cultural character. He was also “one of us”–a veteran and a person of conscience. After the US illegally invaded Iraq, Ed Asner wrote the following: Our citizens either will not or cannot go to the streets until catalyzed by […]
Above photo: Colonel Mamady Doumbouya (fourth right) and members of the special forces leave the Peoples Palace after the first session of talks with political leaders in Conakry. John Wessels/AFP. The coup leader, Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, has claimed that he will put an end to the corruption and human rights abuses committed under the rule of ousted president Alpha Conde, whom he had served as a henchman. However, his close links to the US and France indicate other motives behind the coup. Over a week after the coup in Guinea was orchestrated by a US-trained military unit, the military junta that […]
Above photo: Campaigners condemn new £100m of UK aid for fossil fuels in Africa. Global Justice. More than 2,000 academics from around the world signed an open letter calling for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, as the United Nations’ 76th General Assembly kicks off its annual meeting. Mobilizing meaningful action on climate change is one of the UN’s top priorities this year, and it was just last month that UN Secretary General António Guterres said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report “must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels before they destroy our planet.” The hope many […]
Australia has joined the US and UK in an “enhanced trilateral security partnership” called AUKUS with the unspoken-yet-obvious goal of coordinating escalations against China. Antiwar reports: President Biden and the leaders of Australia and the UK announced a new military agreement on Wednesday aimed at countering China. The pact, known as AUKUS, will focus on the sharing of sensitive military technologies, and the first initiative will focus on getting Australia nuclear-powered submarines. US officials speaking to CNN described the effort to share nuclear propulsion with another country as an “exceedingly rare step” due to the sensitivity of the technology. “This technology is extremely sensitive. This is, frankly, an […]
Above photo: A US Virginia-class fast-attack submarine, which the Australian government has recently invested in. Stop the War says the leaders of Britain, Australia and US ‘seem to have learnt nothing about the disasters that are generated by foreign military intervention.’ Britain’s peace movement condemned the government today over the “serious escalation” of the new cold war against China marked by the new “Aukus” pact. Under the agreement, Britain, Australia and the United States will co-operate on the development of a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian navy and on a range of other military projects in the Far East. […]
Above photo: The number of people working in the restaurant industry fell in August for the first time since April 2020. Watchara Phomicinda/MediaNews Group/The Press-Enterprise/Getty Images. NOTE: It seems workers are banding together more frequently in the United States to walk out or quit over unsafe working conditions and low wages. This is a critical part of building popular power and solidarity to win larger demands for basic necessities and a life of dignity. – MF Workers post a sign in the window about pay, hours, and a ‘lack of appreciation’. A restaurant in Georgia has slashed its opening hours after its […]
Above photo: Thousands march in San Salvador on the 200th anniversary of Central American independence. September 15, 2021. Oscar Leiva Marinero. Salvadorans marched through the streets of the capital by the thousands on Wednesday, in the largest anti-government protest since Nayib Bukele took office. On the Bicentennial of Central America’s independence from Spain, social movements and organizations from across the political spectrum protested in rejection of Bukele’s authoritarianism, militarization, political persecution, the removal of judges, pacts with gangs, and the Bitcoin law, amid mounting discontent. The Coordinadora Salvadoreña de Movimientos Populares is a coordination initiative of more than 100 organizations and networks of […]
Above photo: United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet prepares to address the 48th session of the Human Rights Council. MPPRE. Caracas nonetheless took exception to the “politicization” of the High Commissioner’s report for its “use of sources with little credibility.” NOTE: Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Negative Impacts of Unilateral Coercive Measures, visited Venezuela in February of this year and recently published her report on that visit. Here is the summary: The Special Rapporteur undertook an official visit to Venezuela from 1 to 12 February 2021 to assess the impact of unilateral sanctions imposed by […]
Above photo: From Orinoco Tribune/Twitter. “The Legal Process is Far From Over in Cape Verde” – Femi Falana “Detention of Venezuelan Diplomat Alex Saab is a Barbarity” – Baltasar Garzon Real The International Defence Team of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab wishes to condemn the numerous ill-informed statements that have been made about the status of the legal process underway in Cape Verde. Femi Falana, SAN, who heads up Alex Saab’s ECOWAS Defence commented “Contrary to some of the statements which have been made in the media, the legal process is far from over and His Excellency Alex Saab will not be going to […]