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U.S. bombs Syria and ridiculously claims self defense
On orders of President Biden, the United States has launched an airstrike on a facility in Syria. As of this writing the exact number of killed and injured is unknown, with early reports claiming “a handful” of people were killed.
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How did a fateful CIA coup—executed 55 years ago this February 24—doom much of sub-Saharan Africa?
Fifty-five years ago on this day, the fate of Africa was irrevocably altered when the CIA sponsored a 1966 coup d’état against Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, former Prime Minister of Ghana and Pan-Africanist visionary who was voted as “Africa’s Man of the Millennium.”
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Crediting Xenophobia—rather than organizing—with raising workers’ wages
The Economist (2/15/20) ran a brief article last year with a startling headline: “Immigration to America Is Down. Wages Are Up. Are the Two Related?” Maybe, the article’s anonymous author answered, at least for the short term.
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New European Union sanctions on democratic elections: 30 Venezuelan politicians to be sanctioned
The European Union (EU) announced this Friday, February 19, that the body will sanction about thirty Venezuelan leaders for participating in the legislative elections last December, reported Europa Press, alluding to a “high ranked official” of the community bloc.
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Partners: China and Cuba
In the 1960s, the main forms of the Chinese assistance offered to Cuba were preferential trade and interest-free loans. From 1961 to 1965, China gave Cuba an interest-free loan of 60 million U.S. dollars.
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GameStop and Share Markets: Between the bad and the ugly, there is no G
The recent GameStop story coming out of the U.S. pushed arcane financial dealings into a prominence they rarely enjoy. The public was introduced to weird concepts such as “short selling and short squeezes” and, for a while, they are likely to be part of many Zoom conversations.
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Immigration enforcement and the afterlife of the slave ship
Coast Guard techniques for blocking Haitian asylum seekers have their roots in the slave trade. Understanding these connections can help us disentangle immigration policy from white nationalism.
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Biden’s first directive to the war machine
In his first presidential visit to the Pentagon yesterday, Joe Biden announced the creation of an anti-China task force.
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Scientists on WHO mission to Wuhan accuse media of biased reportage
The U.S. government and many media outlets have queried WHO findings that do not corroborate theories promoted by Washington, such as the virus escaping from a Chinese laboratory.
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States have no inherent ‘right to exist’—but it’s a media fixation on Israel/Palestine
No state has an intrinsic “right to exist.” As international relations scholar Scott Burchill points out, there is no abstract “right to exist” in international law, or in “any serious theory of international relations.”
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The biopolitics of nursing homes
Historically, the châteaux of the Loire Valley were assessed by their windows. ‘A fifty-windowed castle’, an onlooker might surmise to suggest its worth. Russian boyars quantified their properties in souls–whether dead or alive, according to Gogol’s Dead Souls.
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The three apartheids of our times (money, medicine, food)
In the early months after the World Health Organisation announced the coronavirus pandemic, the Indian novelist Arundhati Roy wrote of her hope that the pandemic would be a ‘portal, a gateway between one world and the next’.
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Intellectual property cause of death, genocide
Refusal to temporarily suspend several World Trade Organization (WTO) intellectual property (IP) provisions to enable much faster and broader progress in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic should be grounds for International Criminal Court prosecution for genocide.
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U.S. reboots Quad in unseemly hurry
The Japanese news agency Kyodo reported from Washington Sunday quoting “a source” that the Biden Administration had proposed to New Delhi, Tokyo and Canberra the idea of holding an online summit meeting of the leaders of the “Quad”.
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Head of Strategic Command: U.S. must prepare for “very real possibility” of nuclear war with China
In an era when international cooperation in the face of pandemics and climate change is essential, the world appears to be racing towards a new Cold War, and unfortunately, few except the military top brass are talking about it.
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The foreign roots of Haiti’s “Constitutional crisis”
Haiti’s president’s term has come to an end, but he refuses to step down. Solidarity is urgent.
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Through the “Bolivar Act” U.S. Congressmen intend to tighten the blockade against Venezuela
On January 28th, a group of U.S. Congressmen, led by former Green Beret and now Republican Party legislator, Michael Waltz, introduced to the U.S. Congress a new bill dedicated to Venezuela entitled the “Bipartisan Banning Operations and Leases with Illegitimate Authoritarian Regime Act”.
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Andres Arauz wins the first electoral round in Ecuador
According to unofficial results of an exit poll, Ecuador will have a run-off election. Andres Arauz won 36,2 percent of the valid votes and right-wing candidate Guillermo Lasso got 21,7 percent.
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India needs course correction on Myanmar
The ASEAN Chair’s statement of Feb, 1 recalled the “purposes and the principles enshrined in the ASEAN Charter” which include respecting the principles of sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity, non-interference, consensus and unity in diversity.”
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Michael Hudson – Changes in Super Imperialism
Yves here. Get a cup of coffee. This is another meaty talk with Michael Hudson, this time focusing on his classic Super Imperialism. Hudson has an updated and expanded version set to go to print soon.