(2021-12-12). The Assange Case Is the U.S. Defending Its Right to Lie. strategic-culture.org By Caitlin JOHNSTONE | * * * | Q: What's the difference between how the US deals with journalists it hates and how Saudi Arabia deals with journalists it hates? | A: Speed. | * * * | The US is
(2021-12-12). Why Poorer Nations Aren't Falling for Green-Washed Imperialism. orinocotribune.com By Prabir Purkayastha — Dec 8, 2021 | Fighting global warming is not just about providing a path to net-zero carbon emissions for all countries. It is also about figuring out how best to meet the energy needs of people across the world while working toward net-zero emissions. If fossil fuels have to be given up, which has now become an urgent need given the current environmental challenges, countries in Africa and a significant part of Asia, including India, need an alternate path for providing electricity to their people. What then is the best alternate course for poorer countries to follow for electricity…
(2021-12-12). How India stifled dissent on the United Nations' "Human Rights Day" moderndiplomacy.eu Each year, on 10th December, the United Nations observes international human rights day. When the General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, it was proclaimed as a "common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations". The Universal Declaration of Human Rights sets out a broad range of fundamental rights …
(2021-12-12). A Plea To Make Widespread Environmental Damage An International Crime. popularresistance.org The campaign to make ecocide an international crime took center stage in the Hague on Tuesday as Bangladesh, Samoa and Vanuatu advocated criminalizing environmental destruction during a virtual forum at the annual meeting of the International Criminal Court's 123 member nations. The forum, attended by more than 1,300 individual participants, represented a collective cry for justice from three of the world's most climate vulnerable countries. It came less than a month after they and other developing nations pressed their claims at the United Nations climate talks in Glasgow for greater resiliency and adaptation fu…
(2021-12-12). "We're Not Going to Mass." — How the Nicaraguan People are Punishing Their Coup-Mongering Priests. orinocotribune.com By Becca Mohally Renk — Dec 9, 2021 | "I'm Catholic. I still pray in my house every day. I just don't go to mass anymore." | We're sitting in a swept dirt yard outside of Managua talking with community leaders when the topic veers suddenly to Nicaragua's Catholic priests. | "I didn't hear this from somebody else, I saw it with my own eyes," says Marisol,* a no-nonsense woman in her sixties. The fervor of the words pouring out demonstrates the depth of emotions: her hurt, and her anger. | "I couldn't believe it. But there was my parish priest, standing in the back of a pickup truck with a megaphone, encouragi…
(2021-12-12). We've Still Got the Numbers. dissidentvoice.org 
In the Vietnam War protest song "Five to One," Jim Morrison of The Doors sings: The old get old/And the young get stronger May take a week/And it may take longer They got the guns/But we got the numbers Gonna win, yeah/We're takin' over In my youth, I took solace in the whole "we got …
(2021-12-11). Erdogan's Bayraktar Bonanza. journal-neo.org 
On December 3, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Russian President Vladimir Putin. The heads of the two states spoke about Libya, Ukraine, and what is happening in Transcaucasia. While discussing the Ukrainian conflict, the Russian President stressed the importance of full and strict compliance with the Implementation of the 2015 Minsk Package of Measures …
(2021-12-11). The U.S. national security establishment needs a paradigm shift. Now. moderndiplomacy.eu If you can sense one trend over the past weeks is that war is in the air, both on the Ukraine and the Taiwan fronts. That brings the world to a brink of war, and it seems like the US military establishment is interested in connecting the dots. They have been waiting for this for …
(2021-12-11). Report reveals Israeli airstrikes on Gaza in May 2021 overwhelmingly targeted civilians. peoplesdispatch.org The damning new report found that in 70% of the airstrikes that killed civilians, no corresponding 'militants' or 'military targets' were found to have been killed…
(2021-12-11). US State Department holds talks with Sri Lankan Tamil leaders. wsws.org The TNA and the GTF are acting as quislings of US imperialism, seeking privileges for the Tamil elite.
(2021-12-11). India's community health workers' struggle for recognition. roarmag.org 
Asha worker marking the finger of a baby girl after administering a polio vaccine in Delhi, India. June 28, 2021. Photo: PradeepGaurs / Shutterstock.com | This essay is published in collaboration with Public Services International | | Over the last year-and-a-half, one of the most visible groups of workers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in India have been the Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), a cadre of community health workers appointed by the National Health Mission (NHM). These hitherto invisible women were seen not only going hou…
(2021-12-11). New Threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan: Taliban's Capacity, Tehrik-i Taliban, and ISIS-Khorasan. moderndiplomacy.eu Authors: Mahmut Cengiz, Asma Ul Hussna Durrani, Andrea Quinn The world was stunned by the Taliban's quick takeover of Afghanistan. The former Afghan government's military was four times larger than the Taliban's, but the world saw how the Afghan military surrendered to the Taliban in a short time. Overlooked or at least underestimated were the …
(2021-12-11). Saudi Arabia targets banned ultra-conservative proselytisers. moderndiplomacy.eu Saudi Islamic affairs minister Abdullatif bin Abdulaziz al-Sheikh has ordered imams in the kingdom to identify one of the world's largest Muslim movements as misguided, deviant, dangerous, and a breeder of militancy. Mr. Al-Sheikh's offensive against Tablighi Jamaat or Society for Preaching, a secretive transnational ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim missionary movement of South Asian origin long …
(2021-12-11). Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and New Zealand. wsws.org Indian ordnance factory workers hold national strike; Odisha state childcare workers demand higher wages; Australian plasterboard workers locked out; New Zealand rail union calls off strike.
(2021-12-11). After a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes, the government response stalls. nationofchange.org The Biden administration has not delivered on one of the main mandates of the COVD-19 Hate Crimes Act.
(2021-12-11). No focus on India on UN Genocide Day. moderndiplomacy.eu Each year, on the ninth day of December, the United Nations observes the UN Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims and Crimes of Genocide. The day is also remembered as anniversary of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the "Genocide Convention). As usual, the Day came and passed …
(2021-12-11). Iran Warns Against 'Dangerous' Acts of Piracy Targeting its Oil at Sea. orinocotribune.com An Iranian envoy to the United Nations has issued a stern warning against acts of piracy targeting tankers carrying Iran's oil cargos at sea, urging the international community to condemn such illegal measures that endanger freedom of navigation. | Zahra Ershadi, deputy permanent representative of Iran to the UN, made the remarks on Wednesday in an address to the UN General Assembly's meeting on oceans and the law of the sea. | She complained that the coronavirus pandemic and the US imposition of sanctions under the so-called maximum pressure campaign had disrupted freedom of movement for Iranian vessels and affe…
(2021-12-11). Israel's Hard-Line Position Is Sabotaging US-Iran Negotiations. truthout.org 
After a five-month hiatus, indirect negotiations between the United States and Iran resumed last week in Vienna in an attempt to revise the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA). The outlook isn't good. | Less than a week into negotiations, Britain, France, and Germany
(2021-12-11). On 'Gassing the Arabs' and Other Diseases: Is Israel a 'Sick Society'? zcomm.org Whether right-wing, left-wing or center, Israel is committed to its military superiority, its racism and to the military occupation more than ever before…
(2021-12-11). End US sanctions on North Korea! US troops out of Korean Peninsula! themilitant.com Washington is committed to "utilizing the full range of U.S. defense capabilities, including nuclear" to "deter" North Korea, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated after his Dec. 2 meeting in Seoul with South Korean military officials to discuss "updating" military options against North Korea. | Washington — the only government to ever use nuclear weapons — paints the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as a threat to world peace. But the U.S. rulers themselves keep some 28,500 troops in South Korea and carry out provocative joint war games with the South Korean military. They frequently send nuclea…
(2021-12-11). Help build working-class support in fight for woman's right to abortion. themilitant.com On Dec. 1, the U.S. Supreme Court began hearings on a case that challenges Roe v. Wade, its own 1973 ruling that decriminalized abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. A decision by the court isn't expected until next year. | In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the court will rule on a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks, an arbitrary figure. | The state's attorney general, Lynn Fitch, argues that a woman's right to choose abortion should be tossed aside, saying "sweeping policy advances" allow women to "have it all," a career and a family. For Fitch, a divorced mother of thre…
(2021-12-11). Join 'Militant' renewal drive, help get paper out to workers. themilitant.com Readers of the Militant, including members of the Socialist Workers Party and Communist Leagues in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, are gearing up for an ambitious drive to win The Militant is unique in looking at all political questions from the standpoint of the working class, whether it's reporting from union picket lines, explaining what's at stake in the fight against antisemitism, fighting to win support for a woman's right to choose to have an abortion or in defending rights cr…
(2021-12-11). South Korea's Green New Deal: Myths versus Realities. zcomm.org There's one place in the world where the Green New Deal is a policy reality. But is it living up to its hype?>
(2021-12-11). Schools emerge as new hotbed for COVID-19 infection in South Korea. wsws.org The lifting of all serious social distancing measures has led to an explosion of new COVID-19 cases, which is now beginning to overwhelm the medical system.
(2021-12-11). Managua — Beijing: The New Route. libya360.wordpress.com Fabrizio Casari Taking the international community by surprise, Nicaragua has decided to re-establish diplomatic relations with China at the highest level and, consequently, break off diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which have always been commercial, never political. It is no coincidence that Taiwan has never gone out of its way to show support for Managua internationally…