Archive | December, 2021

Policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the gendered aspect of pandemics; however, addressing the gendered implications of the COVID-19 pandemic comprehensively and effectively requires a planetary health perspective that embraces systems thinking to inequalities.

United States President Joe Biden has suborned 111 countries to attend his Summit for Democracy on December 9–10, ending on Human Rights Day.

Hi I’m a very serious news reporter. The Russians are controlling our thoughts with Facebook memes and scrambling our brains with invisible ray gun attacks. In other news, capitalism is working fine and our wars defend freedom and democracy. The government never lies. Here’s Bob with the weather.

Groups extend offer to Biden to provide input to help make the summit a success.

In every one of the countries the United States has intervened in over the past decades, anti-democratic means are almost always used towards anti-democratic ends, all in the name of promoting democracy.

The activist-lawyer was granted default bail on December 1 following more than three years of her incarceration without trial in the Bhima Koregaon case in which a number of other activists were also implicated.

International Human Rights Day is December 10. On that day in 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was promulgated as the first in a series of covenants, treaties, and legal interpretations that would make up the post-war human rights framework.

Britain is one of the main countries to have blocked the global dropping of patents for coronavirus vaccines. If there is a major outbreak of the new Omicron variant in Britain, it will be directly due to the racist and profiteering policy of the Tory government, writes rs21 member Graham Checkley.

Only a global ban on human genetic engineering can prevent a new era of eugenics from emerging, writes Dave King.

On 31 January, at the Bourse du travail in Paris, Frédéric Lordon debated with Thomas Piketty on his book ‘Capital and Ideology’, at the invitation of Les Amis de L’Humanité. The following text is Frédéric Lordon’s opening speech, with minimal revisions.

While the OTF presents itself as independent internet freedom activists, their funding, staff, history and choice of targets all point to the conclusion that they are a digital weapon being used against Washington’s enemies.

Funding for developing countries to address global warming is grossly inadequate. Very little finance is for adaptation to climate change, the urgent need of countries most adversely affected. Also, adaptation needs to be forward-looking rather than only addressing accumulated problems.

This week the Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization–the case that will determine the fate of Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, and more broadly, the fate of Roe v. Wade.

The Western world lives in discontent. Progressive models have failed to maintain the levels of politicisation, mystique, capacity to question, transformative purpose, and possibilities of concrete changes for the masses.

“Marx is Back” a mini-series about the Communist Manifesto is now on youtube. Subtitles available.

Amazon continues to abuse its warehouse workers, both in its day-to-day treatment of them and in its thuggish, law-breaking campaign to prevent unionization in the U.S.

“Decolonization implies the urgent need to thoroughly challenge the colonial situation.”

The Russians have plainly said that they deem the Ukrainian government to be U.S-controlled, not a free agent, and they hold Washington directly responsible for whatever may happen on the ground in their neighborhood. 

Capitalist accumulation has always depended on cheap labor and resources extracted from the Global South. To end this violence we need a post-capitalist transition—otherwise, as climate breakdown accelerates, the ceaseless search for profit will drive us further into barbarism.

The removal of Twitter accounts advocating for peace in the Horn of Africa shows the connection between the state and big tech companies. Freedom of speech is an illusion when communications are controlled by corporations which follow governmental dictates.