Subjects Archives: Human Rights

AT THE BEGINNING of October, Amazon was quietly issued a patent that would allow its virtual assistant Alexa to decipher a user’s physical characteristics and emotional state based on their voice. Characteristics, or “voice features,” like language accent, ethnic origin, emotion, gender, age, and background noise would be immediately extracted and tagged to the user’s data file to help deliver more targeted advertising.

This piece provides an overview of the bitterly polarized and consequential political moment in which the United States, along with many other countries, is embroiled in. It also suggests a strategic approach for U.S. progressives and the left to maximize our contribution to defeating the Trump and the far right, and advancing toward racial and social justice.

Physician burnout, depression, and suicide increasingly invade discussions within the medical field. Depression and suicide are more common among male and female physicians, with suicide rates 1.41 and 2.27 times greater than that of the general male and female populations, respectively.

MintPress News reports from the migrant caravan in Mexico City and met with members of the International Migrants Alliance, who gathered under the slogan: “Migrants, refugees and peoples of the world unite and fight capitalist exploitation, plunder and war!”

Sitting in his office, Donald Trump meets with the head of his economic advisors Gary Cohn. Cohn jokes with Trump. He says, make a speech and say that the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border is ready to be built: the materials are on hand, labour is eager. The only thing that engineers are worrying about is how to spell–over the 2000-kilometre border–the word TRUMP.

Trump’s assault on birthright citizenship is yet another attempt to make the U.S. a “White Man’s Country, and threatens all people of color.

The intent behind Trump’s new rules of engagement and considerable militarization of the U.S. border appears to be greenlighting the U.S. military to function as an IDF-style military police force whenever the next “threat” emerges, whether it be “foreign invaders” or “internal enemies.”

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ruling that requires North Dakota voters to provide an I.D. with a residential address. The ruling has effectively made the process to vote next to impossible for Native Americans, who by-and-large do not have recognized addresses–but that’s not stopping them.

Corporate rule imposes a duopoly system in which one party is overtly white supremacist and the other party refuses to tackle racial oppression–but both pursue austerity and war.

“More countries must rapidly follow the path of Wales in leaving fossil fuels in the ground and transitioning to renewables.”

Council staff make history with biggest strike over equal pay.

Sivamohan Valluvan and Eleanor Penny unpack neoliberal attitudes to migration and ‘low-value’ humans.

Voting rights violations are emerging across several states with less than a month before the conclusion of midterm elections in the United States.

The health-care industry overtook the retail sector as the nation’s largest employer in December, giving local economies and their workers a stake in the industry’s growth. Health jobs surpassed manufacturing jobs in 2008.

A key meeting of cabinet members from the U.S.-led Five Eyes (UK, U.S., Aus, Can, NZ) global spying network was held in Australia in late August, which went totally unreported by the mainstream media, mainly because Britain’s representative used the cloak of Brexit to disguise it, ironically via social media.

Commune activist Gerardo Rojas remembers Chavez’s proposals for the construction of socialism and uses them to analyze the government’s current attempts to revitalize the economy.

In a world of isolation and a left which tends towards despondency, collective joy is our weapon against neoliberalism. Sam Swann reflects on The World Transformed 2018

On March 16th and 17th last year the Philippine armed forces dropped bombs containing illegal and toxic white phosphorus on towns in Abra province. The pasturelands and communal forests of farmers and indigenous peoples were burnt, and daily activities ground to a halt as widespread fear set in among the population.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is soon going to release an important report to help inform global efforts to limit climate change. The special report details the impacts of a global average temperature increase of 1.5°C relative to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and pathways to limit temperature increase to that level.

An optimal anti-Zionism supersedes Palestine’s geography. It likewise transcends ethnocentric interests. Anti-Zionism is a politics and a discourse, sometimes a vocation, but at its best it is also a sensibility, one attuned to disorder and upheaval. It is a commitment to unimaginable possibilities—that is, to realizing what arbiters of common sense like to call “impossible.”