Monthly Archives: December 2021

2021-12-31: News Headlines

WSWS (2021-12-31). Sri Lankan and Indian ruling elites whip up national rivalry between poverty-stricken fishing communities. wsws.org The ongoing military harassment of Indian and Sri Lankan fishermen highlight the reactionary and irrational character of the arbitrary national borders maintained by the ruling classes in both countries.

Fight Back (2021-12-31). 63rd Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution: Socialism is superior to capitalism! fightbacknews.org For over six decades the Cuban people created a system that provides free universal health care, free public education from kindergarten through university, and housing to people at around 10% of their income. That system is socialism. Despite six decades of U.S. invasion attempts, blockades, embargos, assassination attempts, sanctions and demonization, the achievement record of the socialist mode of production in Cuba speaks for itself. As Mao said, "The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal." So, we must look at what has been happening inside Cuba to account of the success…

WSWS (2021-12-31). New Zealand government removes more public health restrictions despite Omicron cases. wsws.org The Labour Party-led government has removed limits on gathering sizes in Auckland, creating the conditions for New Year's Eve to be a mass super-spreader event.

WSWS (2021-12-31). UK Employment Tribunal rules against worker who refused to return to work over COVID safety concerns. wsws.org The corporate media are using the tribunal ruling, hinging on the question of what constitutes a philosophical belief, to assert that workers have no legal right against being forced to labour in unsafe conditions.

WSWS (2021-12-31). The historic assault on university education and Australia's anti-democratic electoral laws. wsws.org The deep hostility among university staff and students is part of the rising political discontent that drove the Liberal-National and Labor parties to rush through new electoral laws in August.

WSWS (2021-12-31). Scientists denounce French government's inaction amid Omicron wave. wsws.org Only a mobilization of the working class can smash the resistance of the financial aristocracy to health measures scientists are demanding to prevent a surge in deaths.

WSWS (2021-12-31). Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa. wsws.org French midwives and nursing assistants' seven-day strike over pay and staff shortages; protests by Iranian workers and pensioners over low pay and pensions with inflation at 40 percent; 4,000 dairy workers at Clover Foods in sixth week of indefinite strike over pay, conditions and job losses across South Africa…

WSWS (2021-12-31). Modi ignores Court request to postpone elections as Omicron surges in India. wsws.org The Modi government's response to the pandemic over nearly two years has shown that the Indian ruling elites prioritize corporate profits over human life.

WSWS (2021-12-31). Stop the reopening of New York City schools! Mobilize the working class to save lives, not profits! wsws.org If the pandemic is ever to be brought under control, the policies taken must be motivated by an entirely different set of social interests than the profit motive, which has blocked all measures to contain the virus.

WSWS (2021-12-31). Maryland State Board of Education passes proposal to loosen mask regulations in schools as state sees record infections. wsws.org The statewide mandate was lifted even as Maryland's COVID-19 reporting system was knocked offline due to a cyberattack and the state was reporting its first Omicron cases.

Fight Back (2021-12-31). Looking forward to a new year of struggle in 2022: Join FRSO. fightbacknews.org As 2021 concludes and we look forward to a new year, it makes sense to survey the political landscape and discuss what's to be done. | Monopoly capitalism is a failed system. We need a revolutionary solution to our problems. And to achieve that goal, revolutionary organization is a requirement. Freedom Road Socialist Organization has the aim of overthrowing capitalism and replacing it with socialism. If that is what you want, it is time to join our ranks. | FRSO does not just talk about change. We are active in our unions, community organizations, anti-war, student, and many other groups. Our members are African…

Kathy Durkin (2021-12-31). To a socialist future Build Workers World. workers.org Workers World newspaper's articles and editorials analyze major global and U.S. developments, always with an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist perspective. Our pages report on people's movements here and abroad, to not only inform our readers but to promote those struggles and show solidarity with them. And, WW aims to advance the struggle . . . |

WSWS (2021-12-31). Workers respond to Socialist Equality Party open letter calling for movement to end the pandemic. wsws.org Educators, pharmacy techs, nursing home and manufacturing workers responded with interest and enthusiasm to Thursday's statement from the Socialist Equality Party, "An open letter to the working class: The pandemic must be ended and lives saved in 2022!"

WSWS (2021-12-31). Preface to Halil àáelik: A Fighter for Socialism. wsws.org This is the preface to a volume of writings of Halil Celik published by the Sosyalist E≈üitlik Grubu of Turkey, three years after Comrade Halil's untimely death of cancer.

Jeremy Kuzmarov (2021-12-30). FBI is Recklessly Misusing Trump-Era Espionage Policy to Create "Climate of Fear" Among Scientists—Terrorizing Families and Ruthlessly Destroying Careers. covertactionmagazine.com The Justice Department's China Initiative Was Established by the Trump Administration to Crackdown on Chinese Economic and Scientific Espionage However, …

Staff (2021-12-30). Noam Chomsky on Rising Fascism in U.S., Class Warfare & the Climate Emergency. democracynow.org Noam Chomsky warns the Republican Party is "marching" the world to destruction by ignoring the climate emergency while embracing proto-fascism at home. Chomsky talks about the January 6 insurrection, how neoliberalism is a form of class warfare and how President Biden's climate plans fall short of what is needed.

teleSUR (2021-12-30). Abbas, Putin Discuss Israeli-Palestinian Disputes Over Phone. telesurenglish.net Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday told Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that Israel's economic and security steps could not be an alternative to a political track. | Demonstrators continue a 'Justice for Palestine' protest, part of the 'Resist G7 Day of Action for International Justice', outside the Israeli Embassy in London, Britain, on June 12, 2021.

Sharon Zhang (2021-12-30). Sanders Pushes Workers to Organize as Advocates Celebrate "Year of the Worker" truthout.org As labor advocates hail 2021 as the " On Wednesday, Sanders issued a warning to corporations and executives on Twitter. "For the ruling class, greed is a religion. They will cut back on workers' wages, on workers' benefits, on workers' safety on the job — all for t…

Phil Jones (2021-12-30). Microworkers "Disempowered to a Degree Previously Unseen in Capitalist History" zcomm.org "Microworkers" are the anonymous digital contract workers whose labor powers the tech giants' artificial intelligence systems…

Richard D. Wolff (2021-12-30). A critique of obscene wealth. canadiandimension.com The obscenely rich have driven economies and societies further from anything remotely resembling a "level playing field," writes Richard Wolff. Photo by aisletwentytwo/ Wherever an…

Sharon Zhang (2021-12-30). Warren Slams Grocers for Raising Prices While Raking In Profits. zcomm.org As the company hailed its grocery workers as "heroes," it cut hazard pay early in the pandemic while pursuing over $1 billion in stock buybacks in 2020…

WSWS (2021-12-30). A financial "blockbuster" year fuelled by death and disease. wsws.org There are concerns that the massive increases in financial market leverage have created a "ticking time bomb."

Nora Barrows-Friedman (2021-12-30). What were the top BDS victories of 2021? electronicintifada.net Direct actions, legal victories and ice cream topped our headlines.

Joyce Chediac (2021-12-30). Biden's new COVID rules protect profits, endanger workers. liberationnews.org 'Nurses hare not going to stand by while the government and our employers weaken protections. We are not going backward now."

Jackie Lieske (2021-12-30). Best of 2021: The sobering truth about quitting my job: I was addicted to high-stress nonprofit work. salon.com When I resigned without a backup plan, I didn't realize 4 million workers had just done the same. I can see why now…

Staff (2021-12-30). Venezuela's National Assembly Passed Almost 40 New Laws in 2021. orinocotribune.com A total of 38 laws were passed by the National Assembly (AN) of Venezuela since its installation on January 5. At all times, the national parliament acted in compliance with the 7+7 scheme and all biosafety measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. | Since its passing of the Interior and Debate Regulations at the beginning of the year, the Legislative Power has gone on to pass numerous laws leading up to the draft law on the Commission for the Guarantee of Justice and Reparation of Victims of Crimes Against Human Rights, passed on December 15. | The laws passed were: | 1) Interior and Debate Regulations of the…

_____ (2021-12-30). CO2 Emissions Per Capita in Europe. strategic-culture.org This infographic shows per capita CO2 emissions in Europe. Trends in emissions per capita depend on a number of factors, including the introduction of cleaner technologies, the level of industrial development and, of course, the demography. | (Click on the image to enlarge)…

Ann Brown (2021-12-30). Bryon Allen Is Still Buying Media Assets: Acquires New Alabama-Based TV Station For $28M. moguldom.com Media mogul Byron Allen didn't let the recent dismissal of his lawsuit against McDonald's over racial discrimination set him back. Allen is continuing to grow his media empire and just added another TV station to his broadcasting holdings with the purchase of Fox affiliate WCOV-TV in Montgomery, Ala. Allen Media Group bought the station for …

Editor2 (2021-12-30). The Red Flag will Rise Again: 30 Years Since the Dissolution of the Soviet Union. orinocotribune.com By Nikos Mottas — Dec 26, 2021 | It was thirty years ago, on December 26, 1991, when the red flag with the sickle and hammer was lowered from the Kremlin. | It was then, during the cold days of December, when the first socialist state of the world, the homeland of the world's proletariat, bent under the weight of the counterrevolution. Four days before, on December 22nd, the leaderships of three of the largest Soviet republics had decided the dissolution of the

WSWS (2021-12-30). Morenoite Izquierda Diario criticizes lockdowns as COVID-19 surges in Spain. wsws.org The petty-bourgeois Morenoite organisation, affiliated to Argentina's Socialist Workers Party (PTS), is politically implicated in policies that have led to mass death.

2021-12-31 20:19 | 16:19 EST | jz | 32 | 0 | 16 | 14 | 0 

2021-12-30: News Headlines

Richard D. Wolff (2021-12-30). A critique of obscene wealth. canadiandimension.com The obscenely rich have driven economies and societies further from anything remotely resembling a "level playing field," writes Richard Wolff. Photo by aisletwentytwo/ Wherever an…

Internationalist 360 ∞ (2021-12-30). FBI is Recklessly Misusing Trump-Era Espionage Policy to Create "Climate of Fear" Among Scientists—Terrorizing Families and Ruthlessly Destroying Careers. libya360.wordpress.com Jeremy Kuzmarov [Source: justice.gov] The Justice Department's China Initiative Was Established by the Trump Administration to Crackdown on Chinese Economic and Scientific Espionage.However, its primary targets have been academics prosecuted for failing to properly disclose their connection to Chinese universities on grant forms and it has led to numerous miscarriages of justice On the Tuesday…

Phil Jones (2021-12-30). Microworkers "Disempowered to a Degree Previously Unseen in Capitalist History" zcomm.org "Microworkers" are the anonymous digital contract workers whose labor powers the tech giants' artificial intelligence systems…

Sharon Zhang (2021-12-30). Warren Slams Grocers for Raising Prices While Raking In Profits. zcomm.org As the company hailed its grocery workers as "heroes," it cut hazard pay early in the pandemic while pursuing over $1 billion in stock buybacks in 2020…

WSWS (2021-12-30). A financial "blockbuster" year fuelled by death and disease. wsws.org There are concerns that the massive increases in financial market leverage have created a "ticking time bomb."

Nora Barrows-Friedman (2021-12-30). What were the top BDS victories of 2021? electronicintifada.net Direct actions, legal victories and ice cream topped our headlines.

Joyce Chediac (2021-12-30). Biden's new COVID rules protect profits, endanger workers. liberationnews.org 'Nurses hare not going to stand by while the government and our employers weaken protections. We are not going backward now."

Staff (2021-12-30). Venezuela's National Assembly Passed Almost 40 New Laws in 2021. orinocotribune.com A total of 38 laws were passed by the National Assembly (AN) of Venezuela since its installation on January 5. At all times, the national parliament acted in compliance with the 7+7 scheme and all biosafety measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. | Since its passing of the Interior and Debate Regulations at the beginning of the year, the Legislative Power has gone on to pass numerous laws leading up to the draft law on the Commission for the Guarantee of Justice and Reparation of Victims of Crimes Against Human Rights, passed on December 15. | The laws passed were: | 1) Interior and Debate Regulations of the…

_____ (2021-12-30). CO2 Emissions Per Capita in Europe. strategic-culture.org This infographic shows per capita CO2 emissions in Europe. Trends in emissions per capita depend on a number of factors, including the introduction of cleaner technologies, the level of industrial development and, of course, the demography. | (Click on the image to enlarge)…

Ann Brown (2021-12-30). Bryon Allen Is Still Buying Media Assets: Acquires New Alabama-Based TV Station For $28M. moguldom.com Media mogul Byron Allen didn't let the recent dismissal of his lawsuit against McDonald's over racial discrimination set him back. Allen is continuing to grow his media empire and just added another TV station to his broadcasting holdings with the purchase of Fox affiliate WCOV-TV in Montgomery, Ala. Allen Media Group bought the station for …

Staff (2021-12-30). Noam Chomsky on Rising Fascism in U.S., Class Warfare & the Climate Emergency. democracynow.org Noam Chomsky warns the Republican Party is "marching" the world to destruction by ignoring the climate emergency while embracing proto-fascism at home. Chomsky talks about the January 6 insurrection, how neoliberalism is a form of class warfare and how President Biden's climate plans fall short of what is needed.

WSWS (2021-12-30). Morenoite Izquierda Diario criticizes lockdowns as COVID-19 surges in Spain. wsws.org The petty-bourgeois Morenoite organisation, affiliated to Argentina's Socialist Workers Party (PTS), is politically implicated in policies that have led to mass death.

Editor2 (2021-12-30). The Red Flag will Rise Again: 30 Years Since the Dissolution of the Soviet Union. orinocotribune.com By Nikos Mottas — Dec 26, 2021 | It was thirty years ago, on December 26, 1991, when the red flag with the sickle and hammer was lowered from the Kremlin. | It was then, during the cold days of December, when the first socialist state of the world, the homeland of the world's proletariat, bent under the weight of the counterrevolution. Four days before, on December 22nd, the leaderships of three of the largest Soviet republics had decided the dissolution of the

teleSUR (2021-12-29). Globalink | Why Does Mega Trade Deal RCEP Matter?>. telesurenglish.net Why does the mega trade deal RCEP matter? What will the world's largest free trade deal signed by 15 Asia-Pacific countries bring to the regional and global economy? Find out what experts have to say. | Leaders attend the signing ceremony of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement after the fourth RCEP Summit, which is held via video link, Nov. 15, 2020.

Staff (2021-12-29). Headlines for December 29, 2021. democracynow.org U.S. Coronavirus Infections Hit All-Time High, Omicron Drives Record Rates of Infection in Several European Countries, Taliban Fire Warning Shots at Dozens of Women Protesters in Kabul, U.N. Envoy Warns of Civilian Toll as Saudi-Led War on Yemen Escalates, Mahmoud Abbas Meets Israeli Defense Minister, Death Toll from Brazil Flooding Rises to 20, Kodiak, Alaska, Hits 67 ∞F as Climate Emergency Fuels Extreme December Weather, Climate Emergency Cost Global Economy Nearly $200 Billion in 2021, South African Court Halts Shell Oil's Offshore Oil Exploration Plans, Russia Shutters International Memorial, Which Chr…

Answer Coalition (2021-12-29). Workers in South Korea continue to struggle for equality January 15. answercoalition.org In 13 regions through the Republic of Korea (South Korea), workers at the 2021 People's Congress rededicated their commitment to struggling for economic and social justice in the country. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) is preparing for significant demonstrations in Seoul January 15, which are being organized around the slogan, "Let's overthrow inequality through general unity with the people!" The KCTU is the largest umbrella organization of trade unions in the south. | The upcoming action follows the October 20 general strike, the November 17 peasant demonstrations, and the December 2 poor pe…

Moderator (2021-12-29). Best of 'Scheer Intelligence' 2021: Assange, Kucinich, Abdullah and More. scheerpost.com Throughout another turbulent year of pandemic, protests, and economic troubles, Robert Scheer and the award-winning "Scheer Intelligence" team made sure to bring you left-wing perspectives from a wide range of distinguished voices including Ralph Nader, Melina Abdullah, Chris Hedges, and many more, as the progressive fight becomes as urgent as ever. With a new year …

_____ (2021-12-29). Diplomatic Boycott of the Beijing Olympics is Washington's Self-inflicted Wound. journal-neo.org The confrontation with China taken by Washington in recent years is being pursued not only on the economic front, with numerous sanctions against Chinese companies, but in politics as well, with the US creating various anti-Chinese blocs, such as AUKUS, provoking Taiwanese separatism, launching an information campaign criticizing alleged human rights violations in the Xinjiang …

Editor (2021-12-29). The Nobel Prize winner that predicted a crisis between nature and capital. mronline.org Since 1901, December has been a time for Nobel Prizes. Only in 1969, as an afterthought, the Swedish Central Bank established the 'Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel'—a decision that was met with protests by some members of the Nobel family.

teleSUR Desk (2021-12-29). Chaos, poverty and hunger — The U.S. legacy in Afghanistan. mronline.org The U.S.-led mission fled the Afghanistan front of their so-called "war on terror," leaving nothing but trash, extreme poverty and universal unemployment.

Fra Hughes (2021-12-29). Jeremy Corbyn and the North Shropshire Conservative Defeat. orinocotribune.com By Fra Hughes — Dec 24, 2021 | In undermining Corbyn in a Machiavellian-type coup, the new Labour leader Keir Starmer was supported by the establishment, supported by the mainstream media, supported by Tony Blair, and supported by Zionist "Israel". |

| Jeremy Corbyn the one-time leader of the British Labour Party whose leadership was undermined from within the party by Blairite centrists and without the party through a broad-based attack claiming he was an anti-Semitic, a communist and a pro-IRA supporter. The great hero of the left, the hope for a future generation of socialists and left of center…

_____ (2021-12-29). American Gulag: Inside The US' Massive Prison System. popularresistance.org For a supposedly developed, democratic nation, the United States locks up an extraordinary number of its citizens. Close to one quarter of the world's prison population is in the United States. Even on a per capita basis, only El Salvador and Turkmenistan come close to America's preponderance for incarceration. | In a country with a rising population and a falling demand for labor, the government decided to solve this problem by simply locking up millions of its poorest citizens, in the process allowing corporate America to make billions from their suffering. The prison industry is booming: between 1990 and 2005,…

Peoples Dispatch (2021-12-29). Thai fishing net makers withdraw prison labor contracts over scrutiny of abuse. peoplesdispatch.org Less than a week after a KKF is the largest manufacturer of fishing nets in Thailand, which also exports more than 2,300 tons of fishing nets to the United States. According to

Sharon Zhang (2021-12-29). Flight Attendant Union Criticizes CDC for Decision "Pushed by Corporate America" truthout.org Flight Attendant union president and labor leader Sara Nelson is criticizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for changing its guidance on quarantining for COVID-19 after business leaders asked the agency to cut its recommendations by half, potentially at the cost of public health. | Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA International, accused the CDC

Ann Brown (2021-12-29). College Debt Moratorium: Only 10 Percent Of Benefits Goes To Bottom 40 Percent Of Families. moguldom.com Calls for a national student loan debt forgiveness program have grown louder over the last year. Some advocates say such a program would help close the racial wealth gap, but new research shows otherwise. So who would benefit from a college debt moratorium? Americans owe more than $1.59 trillion in student loan debt with Black …

_____ (2021-12-29). Occupy Biden — Day 3 — Demanding Executive Action. popularresistance.org I live in the shale fields of western Pennsylvania. Butler County is one of the most heavily fracked counties in one of the most heavily fracked states in the country. We have fence line communities that have suffered health and financial hardship due to the industry. | My friends in the Woodlands have been without water since Rex Energy poisoned their water in 2010 during a frack job gone bad. For almost 11 years, up to 60 families from the Woodlands have gone every week to White Oak Springs Presbyterian Church to a water bank called Water for Woodlands to get 20-25 gallons of water per family. These people have…

Hannah Dreyfus (2021-12-29). States Are Hoarding $5.2 Billion in Welfare Funds While Denying More People Aid. truthout.org This story was originally published by When Congress passed welfare reform in 1996, states were given more autonomy over how they could use federal funding for aid to the poor. They could demand welfare recipients find work before receiving cash assistance. They could also use their federal "block grants" to fund employment and parenting courses or to…

Nora Barrows-Friedman (2021-12-29). Podcast Ep 48: Gaza, cyberwarfare and resistance. electronicintifada.net EI editors discuss some of the most impactful stories of the year.

Internationalist 360 ∞ (2021-12-29). A Soft Civic-Military Coup in Argentina? libya360.wordpress.com Germán Gorraiz López The Pacific Alliance was born in 2011 with Mexico, Peru, Chile and Colombia as founding States, the USA and China as observers and Australia and Canada as future associated States and currently represents 41% of Latin America's GDP and 57% of its foreign trade with a potential market of about 230 million…

Ann Brown (2021-12-29). Atlanta Approves $90M Investment For 'Cop City' Supported By Incoming Mayor Andre Dickens. moguldom.com Atlanta's controversial "Cop City" is a done deal. The city has finalized a $90 million investment in a massive and militarized law enforcement training center, despite a majority of residents being against it. The Atlanta City Council voted 10-4 on Sept. 8 to sign off on the police training facility, which will sit on nearly …

teleSUR (2021-12-29). Mexico Authorizes Use of Cuban Vaccine Abdala Against COVID-19. telesurenglish.net The Cofepris "ruled that the authorization for emergency use of the Abdala vaccine, with the distinctive denomination: recombinant protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus receptor binding domain," the agency stated in a communiqué published on its web page. | RELATED: | It also states that the authorizations issued by this commission "are part of the National Health Regulation Strategy that allows reviewing and providing access…

Editor (2021-12-29). Editorial: El asesinato y la tasa de retorno. workers.org Primero de Mayo de 2020 frente al almacén de Amazon en Staten Island. En una nota a pie de página del volumen 1 de El Capital, publicado por primera vez en 1867, Karl Marx citó al T.J. Dunning, un líder obrero inglés del siglo XIX: "Si la ganancia es adecuada, . . . |

Editor (2021-12-29). bell hooks changed how we think about Black femininity, class, and capitalism. mronline.org The world lost a trailblazing thinker and feminist this week. Professor and social activist Gloria Jean Watkins, better known by her pen name bell hooks, passed away at the age of 69.

Dana Sanchez (2021-12-29). Bitcoin Is No Democratic Breakthrough Of Finance: Less Than 1% Of Investor Wallets Control A Third Of BTC In Circulation. moguldom.com The top 10,000 investors control more than 33 percent of the Bitcoin supply, weakening the argument that cryptocurrency will democratize finance. It can be difficult to determine who owns the most Bitcoin because many of the largest addresses — the unique identifiers that serve as a virtual location where the cryptocurrency can be sent — …

Editor (2021-12-29). Cuba seeks more equality and inclusion with the new Code of Families. mronline.org Roxanne Castellano, professor at the Psychology Faculty of the University of Havana, explained that this is a Code based on paradigms of non-discrimination that creates spaces for all, seeks solutions to conflicts, and is consistent with the conception of our socialist state of law and social justice.

2021-12-31 00:02 | 20:02 EST | jz | 37 | 0 | 22 | 13 | 0 

2021-12-29: News Headlines

Staff (2021-12-29). Headlines for December 29, 2021. democracynow.org U.S. Coronavirus Infections Hit All-Time High, Omicron Drives Record Rates of Infection in Several European Countries, Taliban Fire Warning Shots at Dozens of Women Protesters in Kabul, U.N. Envoy Warns of Civilian Toll as Saudi-Led War on Yemen Escalates, Mahmoud Abbas Meets Israeli Defense Minister, Death Toll from Brazil Flooding Rises to 20, Kodiak, Alaska, Hits 67 ∞F as Climate Emergency Fuels Extreme December Weather, Climate Emergency Cost Global Economy Nearly $200 Billion in 2021, South African Court Halts Shell Oil's Offshore Oil Exploration Plans, Russia Shutters International Memorial, Which Chr…

Syed Zain Abbas Rizvi (2021-12-29). A Case Study of Japanification: Reverse Wrestle with Inflation. moderndiplomacy.eu Japan has been an intriguing case study in the scope of macroeconomic policymaking. Since the burst of Japan's economic bubble in the early 1990s, inflation has been frustratingly low, and growth has been modest at best. In 2021, Japan's inflation rate stood at -0.174%. In the same period, the United States reported an increase in …

_____ (2021-12-29). Diplomatic Boycott of the Beijing Olympics is Washington's Self-inflicted Wound. journal-neo.org The confrontation with China taken by Washington in recent years is being pursued not only on the economic front, with numerous sanctions against Chinese companies, but in politics as well, with the US creating various anti-Chinese blocs, such as AUKUS, provoking Taiwanese separatism, launching an information campaign criticizing alleged human rights violations in the Xinjiang …

Lengga Pradipta (2021-12-29). Religious Narratives and Conservative Views on Sexual Violence Cases. moderndiplomacy.eu Millions of girls are not in school today, either due to poverty or natural disasters, discrimination and violence, or a lack of educational access. Girls were also absent from school for nearly two years as a result of the pandemic. In fact, these young ladies have hopes and dreams of being free and receiving a …

teleSUR Desk (2021-12-29). Chaos, poverty and hunger — The U.S. legacy in Afghanistan. mronline.org The U.S.-led mission fled the Afghanistan front of their so-called "war on terror," leaving nothing but trash, extreme poverty and universal unemployment.

WSWS (2021-12-29). UK HGV drivers' health and lives endangered by "epidemic" levels of fatigue. wsws.org The government has significantly weakened safety restrictions protecting HGV drivers and other road users in response to a labour shortage created by decades of declining pay and conditions.

WSWS (2021-12-29). Migrant workers face discriminatory policies in New Zealand. wsws.org The Labour Party-led government has deported more than 850 people over the last two years, including to countries like India where the COVID-19 pandemic has killed millions.

Fra Hughes (2021-12-29). Jeremy Corbyn and the North Shropshire Conservative Defeat. orinocotribune.com By Fra Hughes — Dec 24, 2021 | In undermining Corbyn in a Machiavellian-type coup, the new Labour leader Keir Starmer was supported by the establishment, supported by the mainstream media, supported by Tony Blair, and supported by Zionist "Israel". |

| Jeremy Corbyn the one-time leader of the British Labour Party whose leadership was undermined from within the party by Blairite centrists and without the party through a broad-based attack claiming he was an anti-Semitic, a communist and a pro-IRA supporter. The great hero of the left, the hope for a future generation of socialists and left of center…

WSWS (2021-12-29). National Labor Relations Board agreement expands union access to Amazon workers. wsws.org The NLRB ruling is the latest effort by the Biden administration to install a union at Amazon, which can be relied on to contain worker unrest in this critical industry.

Michael Arria (2021-12-29). How Can Workers in "The Great Resignation" Harness Leverage Long-Term? zcomm.org If we don't organize and either get living-wage laws passed, or minimum wage drastically increased, [all] of these gains, especially adjusted for inflation, are just going to be lost."

Vaasu Sharma (2021-12-29). Online Radicalization in India. moderndiplomacy.eu Radicalization, is a gradual process of developing extremist beliefs, emotions, and behaviours at individual, group or mass public levels. Besides varied groups, it enjoys patronization, covertly and even overtly from some states. To elicit change in behavior, beliefs, ideology, and willingness, from the target-group, even employment of violent means is justified. Despite recording a declination …

Nora Barrows-Friedman (2021-12-29). Podcast Ep 48: Gaza, cyberwarfare and resistance. electronicintifada.net EI editors discuss some of the most impactful stories of the year.

Internationalist 360 ∞ (2021-12-29). A Soft Civic-Military Coup in Argentina? libya360.wordpress.com Germán Gorraiz López The Pacific Alliance was born in 2011 with Mexico, Peru, Chile and Colombia as founding States, the USA and China as observers and Australia and Canada as future associated States and currently represents 41% of Latin America's GDP and 57% of its foreign trade with a potential market of about 230 million…

WSWS (2021-12-29). Apple employees mount one-day strike on Christmas Eve to demand COVID-19 protections and better working conditions. wsws.org Employees at the tech company Apple launched a one-day strike on December 24 to demand improvements in their wages, benefits and working conditions.

WSWS (2021-12-29). San Diego sanitation workers continue strike for wages and safe working conditions. wsws.org San Diego waste management workers went on strike against Republic Services the day after the Teamsters union shut down another strike by Republic workers in Orange County.

WSWS (2021-12-29). Australian SEP supporters: "The only force that can free Assange is the international working class" wsws.org The Socialist Equality Party is today publishing further comments from WSWS readers and supporters of the fight to free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

_____ (2021-12-28). Longshore Workers Get Blamed For Delays, As Contract Fight Looms. popularresistance.org If you ordered a teddy bear or a designer picture frame as a holiday gift, you know that it likely took a lot longer to get here than in past years. | There have been problems getting things from point A to point B since the pandemic started. At one point in October, 77 percent of the world's ports were experiencing long delays. | More than most Americans, Longshore Union (ILWU) members grasp what supply chain problems are and how they come about. Many come from multigenerational families of port workers who understand both their militant union's storied history and its role in the global economy today. | ILWU me…

Editor2 (2021-12-28). Maduro to Al Mayadeen: We Will Not Abandon Palestine. orinocotribune.com Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro says, in an interview for Al Mayadeen, that the Venezuelan people resisted fierce attacks launched by US imperialism and its allies, and discusses relations with some countries, including Iran and Syria. | In an exclusive interview with Al Mayadeen, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro noted that 2021 was the first year in which Venezuela registered economic growth since "the beginning of the criminal imperialist US sanctions," adding that this growth was the result of Venezuela's economy which produces food, goods, products, and services. The country has witnessed growth in i…

Editor (2021-12-28). Inegalitarian growth or just degrowth: the IPCC has opened the debate. mronline.org Twenty-five years ago, "degrowth" was conceived by its proponents as a "buzzword" carrying a vague ideological charge: Serge Latouche and his supporters said they wanted to "change the way people think" in order to "get out of the economy and development"… Today, degrowth is once again being debated, but on the basis of more rigorous premises.

Maria Smotrytska (2021-12-28). Maritime Transhipment lines: Congested South VS Strategic North. moderndiplomacy.eu Improved connectivity, especially through transport links, is an essential condition for economic growth. Transport links not only provide physical access to resources, but also enable producers to take advantage of opportunities in domestic and foreign markets, leading to economies of scale and specialization. In the conditions of a market economy, the need to improve the …

Peoples Dispatch (2021-12-28). Israel attacks Syria's Latakia port for the second time this month. peoplesdispatch.org The strike on Latakia on Tuesday caused a fire and damage to containers. The port is a major source of food and other supplies to the war-ravaged Syrian people and the country's economy…

WSWS (2021-12-28). An Anniversary of Stalinist Counterrevolution: 30 years since the end of the USSR. wsws.org The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) recognized, as early as 1985, that Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika expressed the drive of the Stalinist bureaucracy to reintegrate the Soviet economy with the world market through the restoration of capitalism.

Lee Fang (2021-12-28). The Collapse of Afghanistan's Economy. zcomm.org More Afghan people may die from sanctions than from 20 years of war…

_____ (2021-12-28). Richard Wolff: US Capitalism Has Peaked And Is On The Way Down'. popularresistance.org For the end of the year, Clearing the FOG speaks with economist Richard Wolff about the current state of United States capitalism. Wolff explains that the United States is experiencing the greatest crisis in its history – a severe economic crisis at the same time as a pandemic, as well as the climate crisis. This is unprecedented. Unlike the great depression in the last century, when the wealth divide shrank, inequality is worsening. On top of that, US empire is in decline. Wolff discusses the current state of inflation and supply chain disruption and the forces behind them. Instead of facing up to these realitie…

_____ (2021-12-28). The Radical Legacy Of New York's Winter Rent Strike. popularresistance.org From 26 December 1907 to 9 January 1908, 10,000 tenants, predominantly Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe living in New York City's Lower East Side, took part in a historic rent strike. During an economic depression causing mass unemployment and grinding poverty, landlords tried to hike rents by thirty-three percent. With their cry to 'fight the landlord as they had the Czar', the tenants won a partial victory, with rents significantly reduced for 2,000 households. The movement established a tradition of militant working-class housing campaigns that eventually contributed to winning vital rent controls that st…

Editor (2021-12-28). Can Democrats Break the Midterm Curse? scheerpost.com Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images) | By Matthew Rozsa / Now that Joe Manchin has sounded the death knell — at least for the moment — for Joe Biden's Build Back Better package, Democrats are doomed in the 2022 midterm elections. | Or, wait: Are they? Sometimes the "laws" of politics (or economics) are characterized as immutable, akin to the laws of physics. They're not, of course. Not a single ballot has b…

Newsroom (2021-12-28). World Bank Loan Will Support Vietnam's Economic Recovery. moderndiplomacy.eu The Government of Vietnam and the World Bank has signed an agreement for financing of US$221.5 million to support Vietnam's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic through policy reforms aimed at improving financial inclusion and spurring greater environmental resilience. "In the spirit of our long-term, trusted and productive partnership, we are proud to support Vietnam at …

teleSUR (2021-12-28). France: Ambassador Warns Switzerland About EU Negotiations. telesurenglish.net Frédéric Journès, the ambassador of France in Switzerland, stated in an interview with the Le Temps newspaper on Tuesday that the previous agreement rejected by the country last May would be back on the table for the next six months. | RELATED: | The negotiation was expected to be restored at the World Economic Forum (WEF), postponed for the following summer in 2022, given the fast spread of the Omicron variant…

Eshalaxmi Barlingay (2021-12-28). 2021 Year in Review: Afghanistan. america.cgtn.com Four and a half months after the Taliban take-over in Afghanistan, the government is working to improve the country's dire economic situation with little international assistance. With many challenges on the ground, millions of Afghans are still struggling to make a living. Earlier this month, …

John Terrett (2021-12-28). 2021 Year in Review: Stock Market. america.cgtn.com As always, the rise and the fall of the U.S. stock markets have been a constant in 2021. CGTN's John Terrett has been looking back at the past year at New York Stock Exchange.

F. William Engdahl (2021-12-28). Will the Federal Reserve Crash Global Financial Markets As a Means to Implementing Their "Great Reset"? globalresearch.ca First published on December 16, 2021 | It's looking increasingly likely that the US Federal Reserve and the globalist powers that be will use the dramatic rising of inflation as their excuse to bring down the US financial markets and with …

Editor (2021-12-28). The Oligarchy's Ultimate Political Weapon (Video). scheerpost.com Robert Reich / If you're discouraged by what's happening in the country, that is by design. The forces undermining our democracy, polluting our planet, and stoking hatred are counting on you to give up. But we must not let them. | They use their allies in political office to grind the gears of government to a halt, so people see government as the problem, not the solution. But if there's one thing we learned from this wretched pandemic, it's that government intervention can reduce poverty and suffering, and we can afford to pay for it. | They want us t…

teleSUR (2021-12-28). Unemployment Rate in Gaza Exceeds 50 Pct: Palestinian Official. telesurenglish.net Maher al-Taba'a, director of the Chamber of Commerce in Gaza, said in a statement that an earlier World Bank report showed that the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, has the world's highest unemployment rate. | RELATED: | The unemployment rate has soared to even 78 percent among graduates aged between 20 to 29 who have a certificate with an intermediate diploma or a bachelor's degree, al-Taba…

_____ (2021-12-28). After Years Of Setbacks, US Labor Demonstrates Its Power. popularresistance.org 2021 was a historic year for labor in the US. An eruption of strikes, major contract wins, and workers quitting low-wage jobs in unprecedented numbers all signaled that workers en masse are ready to reclaim their power. Workers organized union drives across nearly every industry, pushed for union reforms, and elected new union leadership, speaking volumes to their desire for a more democratic workplace. | For many workers, the pandemic revealed the cruelty of capitalism. Mainstream media and politicians campaigned for a return to business as usual during this second year of COVID. In particular, workers, called "

_____ (2021-12-28). Labor Unions, Environmentalists, And Indigenous People Unite To Defeat Mining Interests In Argentina. popularresistance.org The people of the southern Argentinian province of Chubut are celebrating more than just the holidays this December. After a fierce struggle against a recently enacted zoning law that would have opened the province up to large-scale silver, copper, and lead mining by multinational corporations like Canadian Pan American Silver, the governor was ultimately forced to backtrack. The law in question, which was approved on December 15, was repealed last Tuesday, just five days later.

_____ (2021-12-28). Labor, Environmentalists, And Indigenous Unite To Defeat Mining. popularresistance.org The people of the southern Argentinian province of Chubut are celebrating more than just the holidays this December. After a fierce struggle against a recently enacted zoning law that would have opened the province up to large-scale silver, copper, and lead mining by multinational corporations like Canadian Pan American Silver, the governor was ultimately forced to backtrack. The law in question, which was approved on December 15, was repealed last Tuesday, just five days later. | From the night of the approval until the afternoon of December 21, the movement against the law spread rapidly throughout the province…

Peoples Dispatch (2021-12-28). 'TPLF's regime was throughout supported by US, EU financially, militarily, and politically'. peoplesdispatch.org Why have the western powers supported TPLF all this time? What has been the history of TPLF's rise and fall from power in the country? Elias Amare, editor of Horn of Africa TV, explains.

Editor (2021-12-28). A Few Amazing Progressive Wins That Happened in 2021. scheerpost.com Former Chilean student leader Gabriel Boric will be Chile's next left-wing president. [ By It would be easy to survey the end of 2021 and see another year in wreckage. There's the pandemic that won't end. Rising inflation. Climate disasters. A democracy that looks creakier by the day. | And that was before West Virginia Senat…

Brett Wilkins (2021-12-28). USAID Is Running Out of Money for COVID Vaccines While Pentagon Got $778 Billion. truthout.org Sharply contrasting with the $778 billion in new military spending

Moderator (2021-12-28). The Pentagon Just Got $778 Billion, But USAID Is Running Out of Money for COVID-19 Vaccines? scheerpost.com By Brett Wilkins / Common Dreams Sharply contrasting with the $778 billion in new military spending authorized Monday by President Joe Biden, the U.S. Agency for International Development reportedly can't find the funds to pay for the Biden administration's effort to help vaccinate the world's population against COVID-19, according to two agency officials interviewed by Politico. In an article published Monday …

WSWS (2021-12-28). For a "Zero COVID" policy in Canada's schools!—an appeal from a special-needs educator. wsws.org To oppose the disastrous profit-before-lives pandemic policy pursued by Canada's governments, I urge my colleagues to join with the Cross-Canada Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee in organizing independent rank-and-file committees in all schools to fight for a science-based Zero COVID strategy.

Newsroom (2021-12-28). How Has Corporate Training Changed After The Pandemic. moderndiplomacy.eu The training and development of employees is an integral part of the working pedagogy of any organization. Right training and development are enough to propel any company to the path of success and enhanced profitability. When employees are equipped with the right skills and up-to-date knowledge, they are better able to navigate through their jobs, …

WSWS (2021-12-28). Ferry fire in Bangladesh claims 41 lives. wsws.org Last Friday's disaster is the product of decades of government indifference to the profit-driven and unsafe ferry transport system operating in Bangladesh.

Fight Back (2021-12-28). Minnesota: Ramsey County AFSCME workers demand raises and respect. fightbacknews.org St. Paul, MN — Chanting their demand for "raises and respect," close to 200 members of AFSCME members braved the snow, December 28, for an informational picket to bring attention to the county's proposed plan to freeze wages and raise health insurance costs on workers during the ongoing global pandemic. AFSCME Locals 8, 151, 707, 1076 and 1935 took part in the picket, and were joined by other workers in solidarity.

Tridivesh Singh Maini (2021-12-28). UAE's reasons for cancelling the agreement for purchase of F35. moderndiplomacy.eu Days after the UAE's decision to cancel the agreement regarding purchase of F35 jets from the US, a CNN report (December 23, 2021) stated that assessments of senior US officials suggested that transfers of sensitive ballistic missiles had taken place between China and Saudi Arabia. One of the reasons for UAE to cancel the deal …

Internationalist 360 ∞ (2021-12-28). Guatemala: 25 Years of Peace Accords, 25 Years of Neoliberalism. libya360.wordpress.com Ollantay Itzamná Mayan peasant women harvesting sesame seeds. OI In the Christmas atmosphere, and the day after the feast of the "Holy Innocents", the groups that took up arms in the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) and the Creole State of Guatemala, after 36 years of "internal war", signed the firm and lasting Peace Agreements….

Romina Green Rioja (2021-12-28). In Chile, Boric's Win Signals Victory for Social Movements and New Constitution. zcomm.org Elected on the heels of a historic movement against neoliberalism, president-elect Gabriel Boric will face high expectations and social movement pressure to deliver on his campaign promises…

_____ (2021-12-28). Are Nonbank Mortgage Lenders Good For Minority Borrowers? popularresistance.org A loan officer at a mortgage company questions a Black loan applicant about household debts, but subsequently invites a less creditworthy white borrower to fill out an application with "no inquiry about credit standing or debts." He then offers to walk the same white homebuyer through the loan application and preapproval process and follows up with personal emails. The Black borrower receives neither offers of extra help nor emails from the lender. | This unequal treatment played out in Seattle, Washington, and was part of a study in which testers with white and Black-sounding names and similar credit and asset p…

2021-12-29 22:05 | 18:05 EST | jz | 50 | 0 | 32 | 16 | 0 

2021-12-28: News Headlines

_____ (2021-12-28). Richard Wolff: US Capitalism Has Peaked And Is On The Way Down'. popularresistance.org For the end of the year, Clearing the FOG speaks with economist Richard Wolff about the current state of United States capitalism. Wolff explains that the United States is experiencing the greatest crisis in its history – a severe economic crisis at the same time as a pandemic, as well as the climate crisis. This is unprecedented. Unlike the great depression in the last century, when the wealth divide shrank, inequality is worsening. On top of that, US empire is in decline. Wolff discusses the current state of inflation and supply chain disruption and the forces behind them. Instead of facing up to these realitie…

Moderator (2021-12-28). The Pentagon Just Got $778 Billion, But USAID Is Running Out of Money for COVID-19 Vaccines? scheerpost.com By Brett Wilkins / Common Dreams Sharply contrasting with the $778 billion in new military spending authorized Monday by President Joe Biden, the U.S. Agency for International Development reportedly can't find the funds to pay for the Biden administration's effort to help vaccinate the world's population against COVID-19, according to two agency officials interviewed by Politico. In an article published Monday …

Editor2 (2021-12-28). Maduro to Al Mayadeen: We Will Not Abandon Palestine. orinocotribune.com Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro says, in an interview for Al Mayadeen, that the Venezuelan people resisted fierce attacks launched by US imperialism and its allies, and discusses relations with some countries, including Iran and Syria. | In an exclusive interview with Al Mayadeen, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro noted that 2021 was the first year in which Venezuela registered economic growth since "the beginning of the criminal imperialist US sanctions," adding that this growth was the result of Venezuela's economy which produces food, goods, products, and services. The country has witnessed growth in i…

Maria Smotrytska (2021-12-28). Maritime Transhipment lines: Congested South VS Strategic North. moderndiplomacy.eu Improved connectivity, especially through transport links, is an essential condition for economic growth. Transport links not only provide physical access to resources, but also enable producers to take advantage of opportunities in domestic and foreign markets, leading to economies of scale and specialization. In the conditions of a market economy, the need to improve the …

WSWS (2021-12-28). An Anniversary of Stalinist Counterrevolution: 30 years since the end of the USSR. wsws.org The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) recognized, as early as 1985, that Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika expressed the drive of the Stalinist bureaucracy to reintegrate the Soviet economy with the world market through the restoration of capitalism.

Lee Fang (2021-12-28). The Collapse of Afghanistan's Economy. zcomm.org More Afghan people may die from sanctions than from 20 years of war…

Eshalaxmi Barlingay (2021-12-28). 2021 Year in Review: Afghanistan. america.cgtn.com Four and a half months after the Taliban take-over in Afghanistan, the government is working to improve the country's dire economic situation with little international assistance. With many challenges on the ground, millions of Afghans are still struggling to make a living. Earlier this month, …

F. William Engdahl (2021-12-28). Will the Federal Reserve Crash Global Financial Markets As a Means to Implementing Their "Great Reset"? globalresearch.ca First published on December 16, 2021 | It's looking increasingly likely that the US Federal Reserve and the globalist powers that be will use the dramatic rising of inflation as their excuse to bring down the US financial markets and with …

John Terrett (2021-12-28). 2021 Year in Review: Stock Market. america.cgtn.com As always, the rise and the fall of the U.S. stock markets have been a constant in 2021. CGTN's John Terrett has been looking back at the past year at New York Stock Exchange.

WSWS (2021-12-28). Ferry fire in Bangladesh claims 41 lives. wsws.org Last Friday's disaster is the product of decades of government indifference to the profit-driven and unsafe ferry transport system operating in Bangladesh.

WSWS (2021-12-28). For a "Zero COVID" policy in Canada's schools!—an appeal from a special-needs educator. wsws.org To oppose the disastrous profit-before-lives pandemic policy pursued by Canada's governments, I urge my colleagues to join with the Cross-Canada Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee in organizing independent rank-and-file committees in all schools to fight for a science-based Zero COVID strategy.

Romina Green Rioja (2021-12-28). In Chile, Boric's Win Signals Victory for Social Movements and New Constitution. zcomm.org Elected on the heels of a historic movement against neoliberalism, president-elect Gabriel Boric will face high expectations and social movement pressure to deliver on his campaign promises…

_____ (2021-12-27). The West Might Deliberately Start A War In Ukraine. popularresistance.org On Monday, Russia's Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov denounced that the West might provoke a war in Ukraine to blame Russia and impose economic sanctions on it. | "I do not rule out that there is such a desire to fuel militaristic sentiments [in Ukraine] to stage a 'small war' and then accuse us and impose new sanctions to suppress our competitive advantages," Lavrov said. | The Foreign Minister, who has repeatedly reiterated that the concentration of Russian troops in the vicinity of Ukraine is not for aggressive purposes, denounced that the West has sent over US$2.5 billion in weapons to Ukraine since 201…

_____ (2021-12-27). The West Might Deliberately Start A War In Ukraine: Lavrov Says. popularresistance.org On Monday, Russia's Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov denounced that the West might provoke a war in Ukraine to blame Russia and impose economic sanctions on it. | "I do not rule out that there is such a desire to fuel militaristic sentiments [in Ukraine] to stage a 'small war' and then accuse us and impose new sanctions to suppress our competitive advantages," Lavrov said.

Staff (2021-12-27). President Maduro: 'In 2022 the Economy will Focus on Boosting Trade'. orinocotribune.com This Sunday, December 26, Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro assured that in 2022 the nation will concentrate its economic growth on the promotion of internal trade. The development of its real economy is essential for the country, added the president. | During an exclusive interview for television channel Al Mayadeen, President Maduro described 2021 as a year of economic recovery for Venezuela, despite the pressure of ongoing economic "sanctions" applied by the US and its allies. | "We are witnessing a sustainable recovery process based on work, on the recovery of the productive and real economy, in addition t…

Jon Queally (2021-12-27). World's Most Destructive Climate Disasters of 2021 Cost Nearly $200 Billion. truthout.org A new report out Monday shows that 2021 continued the trend of annual climate devastation worldwide that is costing the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars as planet-heating emissions unleash exactly the kind of damage scientists have warned about for decades. | The new report by Christian Aid — entitled "

teleSUR (2021-12-27). Venezuelan Economic Recovery Is Underway: President Maduro. telesurenglish.net During an interview with Al Mayadeen on Sunday, President Nicolas Maduro highlighted the gradual recovery of the Venezuelan economy amid the U.S. sanctions against his country. | RELATED: | "2021 has been the year of economic recovery since the economic war began… Despite the U.S. criminal sanctions, the production of food, goods, and services grows. Domestic industries and trade also increase, which has a great i…

_____ (2021-12-27). Turkey's Economic Difficulties and the Fate of Erdogan. journal-neo.org Turkey's economy is in freefall: the lira is falling, inflation is rising, and food prices are spiraling. The government has resorted to disinformation, lies, and conspiracy theories to deflect blame from itself and shift it to others. But the lower living standards of the common people and the country's future is unlikely to end the …

teleSUR (2021-12-27). Maduro's Statements in an Interview for Al Mayadeen. telesurenglish.net President Nicolas Maduro noted the resistance by the Venezuelan people to the sanctions imposed by the United States' administration in an Interview for Al Mayadeen. | RELATED: | President Nicolas Maduro declared in an interview for Al Mayadeen that 2021 was, since "the beginning of the criminal imperialist U.S. sanctions," the first year in showing registered economic growth. He stated that this results from Venez…

Dr.Begum Burak (2021-12-27). Emotions and the Outlook for Turkish Politics. moderndiplomacy.eu Economic well-being and social prosperity of the citizens are among the significant factors that determine electoral behavior. Everyone wants to lead a life in a country where they can fully have the right of freedom of speech, and other civil liberties. In a fair social order where rule of law prevails, people feel happier and …

Dr. Andrey KORTUNOV (2021-12-27). Russia in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Art of Balancing. moderndiplomacy.eu Strictly speaking, Russia is not an Eastern Mediterranean country. It does not have direct access to the Mediterranean Sea; its most important strategic and economic interests belong to other parts of the world, such as the North Atlantic or East Asia. However, for a long time Russia has been trying to make its presence in …

teleSUR (2021-12-27). Italy: Economic Paralysis Due to Quarantine Measures. telesurenglish.net On Monday, health experts asked the Italian government to reduce the severity of COVID-19 quarantine measures to avoid economic paralysis. | RELATED: | According to the rules, people who have been in contact with infected ones have to self-isolate for seven days if they are vaccinated already; if not, they must spend ten days in self-isolation. | The head of the Gimbe health foundation, Nino Cartabellotta, explained that every p…

_____ (2021-12-27). The Geopolitics Surrounding Nord Stream 2. journal-neo.org Multiple US interests continue to hinder the completion of Nord Stream 2 project and its uninterrupted supply of gas to Germany/Europe. For the US, Nord Stream project is, to a great extent, a tool to privatise European gas-markets for US gas supplies. While the Joe Biden administration was quick to waive sanctions on the project …

_____ (2021-12-27). Amazon Unionization Efforts Get A Boost Under A Settlement With NLRB. popularresistance.org According to the settlement, the online behemoth Amazon said it would reach out to its warehouse workers — former and current — via email who were on the job anytime from March 22 to now to notify them of their organizing rights. The settlement outlines that Amazon workers, which number 750,000 in the U.S., have more room to organize within the buildings. For example, Amazon pledged it will not threaten workers with discipline or call the police when they are engaging in union activity in exterior non-work areas during non-work time. | According to the terms of the settlement, the labor board will be…

_____ (2021-12-27). Amazon Unionization Efforts Get A Boost Under A Settlement With US Labor Board. popularresistance.org According to the settlement, the online behemoth Amazon said it would reach out to its warehouse workers — former and current — via email who were on the job anytime from March 22 to now to notify them of their organizing rights. The settlement outlines that Amazon workers, which number 750,000 in the U.S., have more room to organize within the buildings. For example, Amazon pledged it will not threaten workers with discipline or call the police when they are engaging in union activity in exterior non-work areas during non-work time.

Monica Cruz (2021-12-27). After years of setbacks, US labor demonstrates its power. peoplesdispatch.org 2021 marked a historic year in labor organizing for workers in the US, with tens of thousands of workers in partaking in union votes and strike actions…

Labor Video Project (2021-12-27). The Union Busting War Against South African Clover Workers By Israeli Billionaire Family. indybay.org Five thousand South African workers at Clover face a major union busting attack by a billionaire Israeli family who have bought the company and now are trying to bust the union. They want to shut down plants in South Africa an import Israeli products.

Labor Video Project (2021-12-27). Sausalito Homeless Protest Police Attacks & Arrest Of Journalist Jeremy Portje. indybay.org Homeless are under attack in Sausalito as well as an independent journalist Jeremy Portje. California Homeless Union counsel Anthony Price is interviewed about these struggles.

Labor Video Project (2021-12-27). Columbia The World Is Watching! Striking Student Columbia Workers UAW Digital Solidarity. indybay.org Striking Columbia UAW Graduate Students had an online digital solidarity meeting and report on their strike of 2,000 members.

Brasil de Fato (2021-12-27). Amidst the chaos of 2021, movements remember victories that helped the people of Brazil. peoplesdispatch.org The year 2021 was full of bad news for Brazilians. The effects of the global pandemic were made much worse due to the gross negligence of the federal government of Jair Bolsonaro leaving no sector untouched. The country reached the sad milestone of 600,000 deaths by coronavirus, the Bolsonaro administrations's avaricious quest for natural resource wealth coupled with the expansion of agribusiness made the country's forests, green areas, and Indigenous and traditional communities victims of this violent offensive. | Despite this scenario, were there any victories? Brasil de Fato asked this question to four popular…

teleSUR (2021-12-27). Peru To Compensate Victims' Relatives of 2020 Police Brutality. telesurenglish.net President Pedro Castillo will grant financial compensation to the relatives of the two Peruvian farmers who died as a result of the police brutality deployed in the 2020 protests, which forced the resignation of President Manuel Merino, who spent just five days in office. | RELATED: | The Justice Ministry decree sets a compensation of US$10,000 for the families of those who died in the "Agrarian Strike" which took place in La Libertad and Ica regio…

Dana Sanchez (2021-12-27). Colin Kaepernick SPAC Investment Deal Collapses After He Refuses To Promote It On MSM. moguldom.com Colin Kaepernick's SPAC, which raised $345 million when it went public in March with the goal of raising money to acquire a socially conscious company, has hit a speedbump. An investment deal fell through to buy a company over the activist-entrepreneur's reluctance to promote the acquisition in the media. SPACs, or special-purpose acquisition companies, are …

Isheka N. Harrison (2021-12-27). Black Girls Code Founder Kimberly Bryant Pushed Out As Nonprofit Head By Board. moguldom.com Kimberly Bryant, the founder of Black Girls Code, has been pushed out as the organization's executive director, according to tweets she sent last week. A former engineer, Bryant started Black Girls Code in 2011 after she realized that her daughter was the only Black girl in a summer coding class at Stanford University. Since then, …

Sarah Butrymowicz (2021-12-27). Tuition Debt Financing Companies Help For-Profit Colleges Stay in Business. truthout.org This story was produced by On a muggy June morning in 2019, administrators from for-profit colleges took their seats in breakout rooms on the second floor of the Hyatt Regency in downtown New Orleans. They had arrived for the Career Education Colleges and Universities trade association's annual convention and were getting ready to choos…

_____ (2021-12-27). Desmond Tutu Opposed Capitalism, Israeli Apartheid And US/UK Imperialism, Too. popularresistance.org Being a leader in the movement to end apartheid in South Africa was probably the greatest achievement of the man's life work, and it should come as a surprise to no one that this is the focus of his many obituaries, along with the Nobel he was awarded in 1984. After Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, he was remembered by the establishment in much the same way, as a leader of the movement against apartheid in the US. The fact that he had become one of the most well-known and well-loved voices of the antiwar movement in the United States and around the world at the time of his death has largely been written o…

Kiah Collier, Maya Miller (2021-12-27). A plant that sterilizes medical equipment spews cancer-causing pollution on tens of thousands of schoolchildren. nationofchange.org Beal, of the EPA, said that the Biden administration has "reinvigorated its commitment to protect public health from toxic air emissions from industrial facilities." And she said ethylene oxide in particular is a major priority.

teleSUR (2021-12-27). US Sanctions Undermine Global Cotton Industry Chain. telesurenglish.net A report about the impact of U.S. Xinjiang-related sanctions on the global cotton industrial chain was released in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Sunday. | RELATED: | The report, titled "Hindering Trade, Increasing Costs and Disrupting the Industrial Chain: Impacts of U.S. Xinjiang-Related Sanctions on Global Cotton Industrial Chain," was issued by the Institute for Communication and Borderland Governance, Jinan Univer…

Camilo Pérez-Bustillo (2021-12-27). Radical Democracy Is Resurgent in Latin America. How Will the US Respond? truthout.org Chile has become the global capital of resurgent opposition to neoliberalism and resistance to fascism, electing the world's youngest president,

2021-12-28 20:33 | 16:33 EST | jz | 40 | 0 | 26 | 12 | 0 

2021-12-27: News Headlines

_____ (2021-12-27). Turkey's Economic Difficulties and the Fate of Erdogan. journal-neo.org Turkey's economy is in freefall: the lira is falling, inflation is rising, and food prices are spiraling. The government has resorted to disinformation, lies, and conspiracy theories to deflect blame from itself and shift it to others. But the lower living standards of the common people and the country's future is unlikely to end the …

Jon Queally (2021-12-27). World's Most Destructive Climate Disasters of 2021 Cost Nearly $200 Billion. truthout.org A new report out Monday shows that 2021 continued the trend of annual climate devastation worldwide that is costing the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars as planet-heating emissions unleash exactly the kind of damage scientists have warned about for decades. | The new report by Christian Aid — entitled "

Dr. Andrey KORTUNOV (2021-12-27). Russia in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Art of Balancing. moderndiplomacy.eu Strictly speaking, Russia is not an Eastern Mediterranean country. It does not have direct access to the Mediterranean Sea; its most important strategic and economic interests belong to other parts of the world, such as the North Atlantic or East Asia. However, for a long time Russia has been trying to make its presence in …

Dr.Begum Burak (2021-12-27). Emotions and the Outlook for Turkish Politics. moderndiplomacy.eu Economic well-being and social prosperity of the citizens are among the significant factors that determine electoral behavior. Everyone wants to lead a life in a country where they can fully have the right of freedom of speech, and other civil liberties. In a fair social order where rule of law prevails, people feel happier and …

Labor Video Project (2021-12-27). The Union Busting War Against South African Clover Workers By Israeli Billionaire Family. indybay.org Five thousand South African workers at Clover face a major union busting attack by a billionaire Israeli family who have bought the company and now are trying to bust the union. They want to shut down plants in South Africa an import Israeli products.

Labor Video Project (2021-12-27). Columbia The World Is Watching! Striking Student Columbia Workers UAW Digital Solidarity. indybay.org Striking Columbia UAW Graduate Students had an online digital solidarity meeting and report on their strike of 2,000 members.

Labor Video Project (2021-12-27). Sausalito Homeless Protest Police Attacks & Arrest Of Journalist Jeremy Portje. indybay.org Homeless are under attack in Sausalito as well as an independent journalist Jeremy Portje. California Homeless Union counsel Anthony Price is interviewed about these struggles.

Sarah Butrymowicz (2021-12-27). Tuition Debt Financing Companies Help For-Profit Colleges Stay in Business. truthout.org This story was produced by On a muggy June morning in 2019, administrators from for-profit colleges took their seats in breakout rooms on the second floor of the Hyatt Regency in downtown New Orleans. They had arrived for the Career Education Colleges and Universities trade association's annual convention and were getting ready to choos…

David Rovics (2021-12-27). Desmond Tutu Opposed Capitalism, Israeli Apartheid and US/UK Imperialism, Too. zcomm.org Long live Desmond Tutu's vision of a world free of oppression — a world in which so many of the politicians praising him today would be in front of a truth and reconciliation commission tomorrow, if Tutu were calling the shots…

Kiah Collier, Maya Miller (2021-12-27). A plant that sterilizes medical equipment spews cancer-causing pollution on tens of thousands of schoolchildren. nationofchange.org Beal, of the EPA, said that the Biden administration has "reinvigorated its commitment to protect public health from toxic air emissions from industrial facilities." And she said ethylene oxide in particular is a major priority.

Camilo Pérez-Bustillo (2021-12-27). Radical Democracy Is Resurgent in Latin America. How Will the US Respond? truthout.org Chile has become the global capital of resurgent opposition to neoliberalism and resistance to fascism, electing the world's youngest president,

Dr. Anjum Sarfraz (2021-12-26). AUKUS Leading to Nuclear Arms Race in Indo — Pacific Region. moderndiplomacy.eu To contain Chinese military and economic, influence especially in the Indo — Pacific region, USA and its allies are making all efforts including the supply of nuclear submarines (subs) to Australia a trusted associate. On 15 September 2021 Prime Minister of UK Boris Johnson, US President Joseph Biden and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison issued …

Timothy Alexander Guzman (2021-12-26). Poking the Russian Bear: US-NATO Aggression and Russia's Red Line. globalresearch.ca Following the Taliban's victory over US-NATO forces in Afghanistan, Washington is walking into another death trap, but this time on Russia's borders with the neighboring Ukraine. So now, Washington's non-partisan bureaucrats and the Military-Industrial Complex are calling for ways to …

Editor2 (2021-12-26). Ukraine in the Great Game. orinocotribune.com By Alexander Dugin — Dec 21, 2021 | Throughout history, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia were intertwined with a set of solid cultural, political, and economic links, to the point that the division did not appear more than mere administrative under Soviet jurisdiction. But it all changed after the collapse of the Union. | The escalation between the West and Russia | Today, under Joe Biden's neoconservative and ultra-globalist administration, relations between Russia and the United States are so strained that humanity is on the verge not of a Cold War (which has long been ongoing), but of a nuclear war, World War…

Julia Conley (2021-12-26). Desmond Tutu, Fierce Opponent of South African and Israeli Apartheid, Dies at 90. truthout.org Leaving behind a legacy of fighting for oppressed people in South Africa and around the world, Archbishop Desmond Tutu died Sunday at age 90 in Cape Town, South Africa. The cause was reportedly cancer. | Advocates for human rights, health equity, economic justice, and nonviolence honored Tutu, who helped lead the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which was formed afterwards. | The Elders, the independent group of global leaders working for j…

_____ (2021-12-26). On Contact: Slow-Motion Execution Of Julian Assange. popularresistance.org On the show, Chris Hedges discusses the torture of Julian Assange with his father, John Shipton. | Julian Assange committed the empire's greatest sin — he exposed it as a criminal enterprise. He documented its lies, callous disregard for human life, rampant corruption, and innumerable war crimes. Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Labour, Trump or Biden — it does not matter. The goons who oversee the empire sing from the same satanic songbook. Empires always kill those who inflict deep and serious wounds.

Editor2 (2021-12-26). The Socialist Program Red Star Over the Third World w/ Vijay Prashad: Lessons of Soviet History — Part 2. orinocotribune.com This interview is an episode of | Russia's October Revolution in 1917 and the rise of Soviet power rev…

Stephen Sefton (2021-12-26). Nicaragua — National Reality, Neocolonial Delusion. orinocotribune.com By Stephen Sefton and Jorge Capelan — Dec 22, 2021 | An academic called Jonah Walters has recently published a couple of attacks on the political and economic model being worked out in Nicaragua under the country's Sandinista government led by President Daniel Ortega. One attack published by the North American Congress on Latin America "Ortega's Developmentalism Is Based on the "Popular Economy"—But What Does that Mean?" alleges that the unquestionable economic democratization of Nicaragua's economy is in fact a mirage, in reality reinforcing neoliberal patterns of oligarchic and corporate economic pow…

Stephen Macekura (2021-12-26). Mismeasuring progress: A critique of the growth paradigm. zcomm.org Historian Stephen J. Macekura traces the origins of the growth paradigm and explains why we are still in the grips of his powerful-but-flawed economic idea today…

Newsroom (2021-12-26). The Future of Work is About People, not Tech. moderndiplomacy.eu The future of work—with advanced technologies and new working arrangements—is here and is changing economic opportunities and employment relationships. However, according to the 2021 APEC Economic Policy Report, certain economic structures, laws and institutions across APEC remain products of the past. The report highlighted four megadrivers of the future of work. These are technological change, climate …

F. William Engdahl (2021-12-26). The Sinister Convergence of Klaus Schwab's "Great Reset" with the Vatican and "Liberation Theology" globalresearch.ca Amid the 2020 global covid lockdowns and economic dislocations it has caused, Klaus Schwab, a previously low-profile founder of a Swiss-based business forum, emerged on the world stage calling for what he called a Great Reset of the entire …

Sheikh Fakhar-e-Alam (2021-12-26). Religious Tourism in Pakistan: The Case of Sikhism & Buddhism. moderndiplomacy.eu Religious tourism plays an important role in reviving the country's economic activity through promoting religious-based tourism. Realizing the economic and political importance of this sector, the Government has taken ample measures to support this industry. Hence, with Government support and improved law and order situation, religious-based tourism in Pakistan is flourishing and attracting different communities. …

Dmitri Trenin (2021-12-26). Russia-India: From Rethink to Adjust to Upgrade. moderndiplomacy.eu Russian-Indian relations are traditionally good. The chemistry between the leaders is excellent, and members of the public are well disposed toward each other. Economic ties have long been stalling, however, and mutual suspicions have recently been creeping in over India's relations with America, and Russia's with China. To make the good relationship truly great, Moscow …

_____ (2021-12-26). Mongolia is Among Russia's Key Partners in Asia. journal-neo.org Russia and Mongolia are close neighbors, and their immediate geographic proximity has determined the mutual geopolitical pull of Russia and Mongolia, an objective contributing to political, military, trade and economics, cultural, and other bilateral ties. Russian-Mongolian relations, characterized by traditional good-neighborliness, are comprehensive, oriented to further development in the spirit of strategic partnership, based on …

Olga Malik (2021-12-26). Pakistan—Russia Gas Stream: Opportunities and Risks of New Flagship Energy Project. moderndiplomacy.eu Russia's Yekaterinburg hosted the 7th meeting of the Russian-Pakistani Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation on November 24—26, 2021. Chaired by Omar Ayub Khan, Pakistan's Minister for Economic Affairs, and Nikolai Shulginov, Russia's Minister of Energy, the meeting was attended by around 70 policy makers, heads of key industrial companies and businessmen …

MD Staff (2021-12-26). How wind power is transforming communities in Viet Nam. moderndiplomacy.eu In two provinces of Viet Nam, a quiet transformation is taking place, driven by the power of renewable energy. Thien Nghiep Commune, a few hundred kilometres from Ho Chi Min City, is a community of just over 6,000 people — where for years, people relied largely on farming, fishing and seasonal labour to make ends …

_____ (2021-12-26). What's Really Causing Inflation & How We Should Deal With It. popularresistance.org While times have been getting harder for workers, it is clear that capitalists (or "big business") have been doing very well. It would seem as though everyone is against inflation. But the real problem is not that prices have been increasing but that wages have not kept up with this. It is important to look not only at why inflation has increased but at the very different question of why wages have not kept up with it.

_____ (2021-12-26). What's Really Causing Inflation And How We Should Deal With It. popularresistance.org While times have been getting harder for workers, it is clear that capitalists (or "big business") have been doing very well. It would seem as though everyone is against inflation. But the real problem is not that prices have been increasing but that wages have not kept up with this. It is important to look not only at why inflation has increased but at the very different question of why wages have not kept up with it.

Hadas Thier (2021-12-26). Businesses Have Manufactured Inflation Fear to Protect Profits Amid Rising Wages. truthout.org For weeks, a high-pitched panic about inflation has infused the mainstream media, most absurdly in Up until recently, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell pushed back against this kind of narrative, arguing that rising prices were a s…

Ellen Brown (2021-12-26). The Real Antidote to Inflation: Stoking the Fire Without Burning Down the Barn. globalresearch.ca The Fed has options for countering the record inflation the U.S. is facing that are more productive and less risky than raising interest rates. | The Federal Reserve is caught between a rock and a hard place. Inflation grew by 6.8% …

David Waltham (2021-12-26). We should ban all new oil and gas fields. zcomm.org It would be much better for people and planet if there were no further investments in the first place…

_____ (2021-12-26). The Big Business Behind Travel Nursing. popularresistance.org As the first wave of Covid-19 hit the United States, Jen, a 53-year-old nurse struggling to pay her bills, received an intriguing message. "THE TIME HAS COME TO DEPLOY AT INCREDIBLY HIGH RATES," read the mass text from Krucial Staffing, sent to nurses nationwide in March 2020 and forwarded to Jen by a colleague. Jen (a pseudonym used to protect her from retaliation from employers) could barely believe the wages promised by the Kansas-based healthcare staffing firm. As part of its massive recruitment drive during the first wave of Covid-19, Krucial was paying $10,000 a week to nurses willing to travel‚Ä…

Liberation Staff (2021-12-26). Socialists distribute essentials, build working-class solidarity during holiday season. liberationnews.org These actions include coat and clothing distributions, toy and gift drives, serving breakfast in homeless shelters, and providing household essentials to working-class residents.

Fight Back (2021-12-26). FRSO greetings to Communist Party of the Philippines on 53rd anniversary. fightbacknews.org From: Freedom Road Socialist Organization | To: Communist Party of the Philippines | Dear Comrades, | The leadership and members of Freedom Road Socialist Organization send our warm and militant greetings to the Communist Party of the Philippines on the occasion of the of your 53rd anniversary and we wish the CPP every success in developing the people's democratic revolution. | Working and oppressed people around the world, including here in the U.S., take inspiration from heroic struggle of the people of the Philippines and the great advances made by the CPP. Your party has grown from a relatively small organiza…

Fight Back (2021-12-26). A great read from Mao Zedong on his birthday. fightbacknews.org To mark the 128th anniversary of the birth of Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong on December 26, 2021, Fight Back News Service is circulating his famous 1939 article "In memory of Norman Bethune." | Comrade Norman Bethune, a member of the Communist Party of Canada, was around fifty when he was sent by the Communist Parties of Canada and the United States to China; he made light of travelling thousands of miles to help us in our War of Resistance Against Japan. He arrived in Yenan in the spring of last year, went to work in the Wutai Mountains, and to our great sorrow died a martyr at his post. What kind of spirit i…

Peoples Dispatch (2021-12-26). Attack on protesting oil refinery workers in Greece condemned. peoplesdispatch.org On December 21, police attacked the workers of Kavala Petroleum who were protesting at their plant against threats of layoffs and inadequate safety measures. The All Workers Militant Front of Greece and the Communist Party of Greece have condemned these attacks…

2021-12-27 20:52 | 16:52 EST | jz | 38 | 0 | 25 | 11 | 0 

2021-12-26: News Headlines

_____ (2021-12-26). On Contact: Slow-Motion Execution Of Julian Assange. popularresistance.org On the show, Chris Hedges discusses the torture of Julian Assange with his father, John Shipton. | Julian Assange committed the empire's greatest sin — he exposed it as a criminal enterprise. He documented its lies, callous disregard for human life, rampant corruption, and innumerable war crimes. Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Labour, Trump or Biden — it does not matter. The goons who oversee the empire sing from the same satanic songbook. Empires always kill those who inflict deep and serious wounds.

Dr. Anjum Sarfraz (2021-12-26). AUKUS Leading to Nuclear Arms Race in Indo — Pacific Region. moderndiplomacy.eu To contain Chinese military and economic, influence especially in the Indo — Pacific region, USA and its allies are making all efforts including the supply of nuclear submarines (subs) to Australia a trusted associate. On 15 September 2021 Prime Minister of UK Boris Johnson, US President Joseph Biden and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison issued …

Editor2 (2021-12-26). Ukraine in the Great Game. orinocotribune.com By Alexander Dugin — Dec 21, 2021 | Throughout history, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia were intertwined with a set of solid cultural, political, and economic links, to the point that the division did not appear more than mere administrative under Soviet jurisdiction. But it all changed after the collapse of the Union. | The escalation between the West and Russia | Today, under Joe Biden's neoconservative and ultra-globalist administration, relations between Russia and the United States are so strained that humanity is on the verge not of a Cold War (which has long been ongoing), but of a nuclear war, World War…

Timothy Alexander Guzman (2021-12-26). Poking the Russian Bear: US-NATO Aggression and Russia's Red Line. globalresearch.ca Following the Taliban's victory over US-NATO forces in Afghanistan, Washington is walking into another death trap, but this time on Russia's borders with the neighboring Ukraine. So now, Washington's non-partisan bureaucrats and the Military-Industrial Complex are calling for ways to …

Julia Conley (2021-12-26). Desmond Tutu, Fierce Opponent of South African and Israeli Apartheid, Dies at 90. truthout.org Leaving behind a legacy of fighting for oppressed people in South Africa and around the world, Archbishop Desmond Tutu died Sunday at age 90 in Cape Town, South Africa. The cause was reportedly cancer. | Advocates for human rights, health equity, economic justice, and nonviolence honored Tutu, who helped lead the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which was formed afterwards. | The Elders, the independent group of global leaders working for j…

Editor2 (2021-12-26). The Socialist Program Red Star Over the Third World w/ Vijay Prashad: Lessons of Soviet History — Part 2. orinocotribune.com This interview is an episode of | Russia's October Revolution in 1917 and the rise of Soviet power rev…

Stephen Sefton (2021-12-26). Nicaragua — National Reality, Neocolonial Delusion. orinocotribune.com By Stephen Sefton and Jorge Capelan — Dec 22, 2021 | An academic called Jonah Walters has recently published a couple of attacks on the political and economic model being worked out in Nicaragua under the country's Sandinista government led by President Daniel Ortega. One attack published by the North American Congress on Latin America "Ortega's Developmentalism Is Based on the "Popular Economy"—But What Does that Mean?" alleges that the unquestionable economic democratization of Nicaragua's economy is in fact a mirage, in reality reinforcing neoliberal patterns of oligarchic and corporate economic pow…

Newsroom (2021-12-26). The Future of Work is About People, not Tech. moderndiplomacy.eu The future of work—with advanced technologies and new working arrangements—is here and is changing economic opportunities and employment relationships. However, according to the 2021 APEC Economic Policy Report, certain economic structures, laws and institutions across APEC remain products of the past. The report highlighted four megadrivers of the future of work. These are technological change, climate …

Olga Malik (2021-12-26). Pakistan—Russia Gas Stream: Opportunities and Risks of New Flagship Energy Project. moderndiplomacy.eu Russia's Yekaterinburg hosted the 7th meeting of the Russian-Pakistani Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation on November 24—26, 2021. Chaired by Omar Ayub Khan, Pakistan's Minister for Economic Affairs, and Nikolai Shulginov, Russia's Minister of Energy, the meeting was attended by around 70 policy makers, heads of key industrial companies and businessmen …

Sheikh Fakhar-e-Alam (2021-12-26). Religious Tourism in Pakistan: The Case of Sikhism & Buddhism. moderndiplomacy.eu Religious tourism plays an important role in reviving the country's economic activity through promoting religious-based tourism. Realizing the economic and political importance of this sector, the Government has taken ample measures to support this industry. Hence, with Government support and improved law and order situation, religious-based tourism in Pakistan is flourishing and attracting different communities. …

Stephen Macekura (2021-12-26). Mismeasuring progress: A critique of the growth paradigm. zcomm.org Historian Stephen J. Macekura traces the origins of the growth paradigm and explains why we are still in the grips of his powerful-but-flawed economic idea today…

_____ (2021-12-26). Mongolia is Among Russia's Key Partners in Asia. journal-neo.org Russia and Mongolia are close neighbors, and their immediate geographic proximity has determined the mutual geopolitical pull of Russia and Mongolia, an objective contributing to political, military, trade and economics, cultural, and other bilateral ties. Russian-Mongolian relations, characterized by traditional good-neighborliness, are comprehensive, oriented to further development in the spirit of strategic partnership, based on …

MD Staff (2021-12-26). How wind power is transforming communities in Viet Nam. moderndiplomacy.eu In two provinces of Viet Nam, a quiet transformation is taking place, driven by the power of renewable energy. Thien Nghiep Commune, a few hundred kilometres from Ho Chi Min City, is a community of just over 6,000 people — where for years, people relied largely on farming, fishing and seasonal labour to make ends …

_____ (2021-12-26). What's Really Causing Inflation & How We Should Deal With It. popularresistance.org While times have been getting harder for workers, it is clear that capitalists (or "big business") have been doing very well. It would seem as though everyone is against inflation. But the real problem is not that prices have been increasing but that wages have not kept up with this. It is important to look not only at why inflation has increased but at the very different question of why wages have not kept up with it.

Hadas Thier (2021-12-26). Businesses Have Manufactured Inflation Fear to Protect Profits Amid Rising Wages. truthout.org For weeks, a high-pitched panic about inflation has infused the mainstream media, most absurdly in Up until recently, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell pushed back against this kind of narrative, arguing that rising prices were a s…

Ellen Brown (2021-12-26). The Real Antidote to Inflation: Stoking the Fire Without Burning Down the Barn. globalresearch.ca The Fed has options for countering the record inflation the U.S. is facing that are more productive and less risky than raising interest rates. | The Federal Reserve is caught between a rock and a hard place. Inflation grew by 6.8% …

David Waltham (2021-12-26). We should ban all new oil and gas fields. zcomm.org It would be much better for people and planet if there were no further investments in the first place…

_____ (2021-12-26). The Big Business Behind Travel Nursing. popularresistance.org As the first wave of Covid-19 hit the United States, Jen, a 53-year-old nurse struggling to pay her bills, received an intriguing message. "THE TIME HAS COME TO DEPLOY AT INCREDIBLY HIGH RATES," read the mass text from Krucial Staffing, sent to nurses nationwide in March 2020 and forwarded to Jen by a colleague. Jen (a pseudonym used to protect her from retaliation from employers) could barely believe the wages promised by the Kansas-based healthcare staffing firm. As part of its massive recruitment drive during the first wave of Covid-19, Krucial was paying $10,000 a week to nurses willing to travel‚Ä…

Liberation Staff (2021-12-26). Socialists distribute essentials, build working-class solidarity during holiday season. liberationnews.org These actions include coat and clothing distributions, toy and gift drives, serving breakfast in homeless shelters, and providing household essentials to working-class residents.

Fight Back (2021-12-26). FRSO greetings to Communist Party of the Philippines on 53rd anniversary. fightbacknews.org From: Freedom Road Socialist Organization | To: Communist Party of the Philippines | Dear Comrades, | The leadership and members of Freedom Road Socialist Organization send our warm and militant greetings to the Communist Party of the Philippines on the occasion of the of your 53rd anniversary and we wish the CPP every success in developing the people's democratic revolution. | Working and oppressed people around the world, including here in the U.S., take inspiration from heroic struggle of the people of the Philippines and the great advances made by the CPP. Your party has grown from a relatively small organiza…

Peoples Dispatch (2021-12-26). Attack on protesting oil refinery workers in Greece condemned. peoplesdispatch.org On December 21, police attacked the workers of Kavala Petroleum who were protesting at their plant against threats of layoffs and inadequate safety measures. The All Workers Militant Front of Greece and the Communist Party of Greece have condemned these attacks…

Fight Back (2021-12-26). A great read from Mao Zedong on his birthday. fightbacknews.org To mark the 128th anniversary of the birth of Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong on December 26, 2021, Fight Back News Service is circulating his famous 1939 article "In memory of Norman Bethune." | Comrade Norman Bethune, a member of the Communist Party of Canada, was around fifty when he was sent by the Communist Parties of Canada and the United States to China; he made light of travelling thousands of miles to help us in our War of Resistance Against Japan. He arrived in Yenan in the spring of last year, went to work in the Wutai Mountains, and to our great sorrow died a martyr at his post. What kind of spirit i…

Ana Perdigón (2021-12-25). Venezuela's Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 Evaluates Measures to Deal with Omicron. orinocotribune.com Venezuela's presidential task force for the prevention and control of COVID-19 met this Thursday, December 23, to evaluate mechanisms to deal with the Omicron variant that has recently been detected in the country. | The meeting, chaired by Executive Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, was held at the headquarters of the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Foreign Trade. | Various officials of the government were also present at the meeting, including the Minister for Health, Carlos Alvarado; the Minister for Communication and Information, Freddy àëáñez; and the Minister for Science and Technology, Gabriela Jiménez…

Syed Zain Abbas Rizvi (2021-12-25). Russian Economic Policy: The Antithesis of Turkey's Inimical Approach. moderndiplomacy.eu In my last article, I discussed the illogical approach of the Turk premier to counter inflation. The dogmatic policies of President Erdogan are driving the Turkish economy into the ground. It is fascinating to witness the antipode to Turkey's immature dovish stance embodied by Russia. Last week, the Bank of Russia — the Russian central …

MD Staff (2021-12-25). Denmark: Focus on climate policy and labour market inclusion. moderndiplomacy.eu Denmark's economy is enjoying one of the quickest post-COVID recoveries of OECD countries. While it is important to stay vigilant to further virus outbreaks, policy can now focus on advancing the country's climate ambitions and expanding employment opportunities for low-skilled, foreign-born and female workers, according to a new OECD report. Danish economic activity rebounded rapidly …

MD Staff (2021-12-25). Pandemic Drives Need for Technology Adoption Among SMEs but Barriers Remain. moderndiplomacy.eu A survey by World Economic Forum indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased demand for more adoption and integration of digital technology among small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). However, they face numerous barriers to adopting technology at a critical time of need. While 97% of global companies have accelerated adoption of technology to get …

Robert J. Burrowes (2021-12-25). Are We Human? Are We Free? Defeating the World Economic Forum's 'Great Reset' before It Destroys Us. globalresearch.ca Governments are not driving 'The Great Reset'; it is an initiative of the global elite and governments are simply elite puppets. | Resistance requires solidarity as well as strategically-focused grassroots actions directed against the financial elite's 'Great Reset' agenda.

Internationalist 360 ∞ (2021-12-25). Cuba and China Sign Cooperation Plan for Joint Promotion of Belt & Road Initiative. libya360.wordpress.com Cuba-China bilateral economic relations have hit an important milestone with the signing of a Cooperation Plan for the joint promotion of the Silk and Road Initiative. The document was signed on Friday, between the governments of Cuba and China, by Cuban Deputy Prime Minister, Ricardo Cabrisas, and President of National Development and Reform Commission, He…

Prof Michel Chossudovsky (2021-12-25). The 2020-21 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d'État and the "Great Reset" globalresearch.ca We are at the crossroads of one of the most serious crises in modern history. We are living history, yet our understanding of the flow of events since January 2020 has been blurred. Worldwide, people have been misled both by their governments and the media.

Eric Zuesse (2021-12-25). China's success against covid dwarfs The West's. Here's how & why. moderndiplomacy.eu Libertarians/neoliberals in The West can't believe the enormous extent of China's success at keeping down the rates of disease, and of death, and of unemployment, from covid-19, because China's policies on covid are, and have been, the exact opposite of libertarian/neoliberal. (What's called "libertarian" in America is called "neoliberal" throughout the rest of the world.) …

Yanis Varoufakis (2021-12-25). 4. Flat management, democratic planning and a basic income. zcomm.org Debate on a postcapitalism world…

Newsroom (2021-12-25). Iraq launches activities to combat child labour as part of nation-wide campaign. moderndiplomacy.eu The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the International Labour Organization kicked off a series of activities that support a nation-wide campaign to tackle the worst forms of child labour in the country. The campaign, which will target over 10,000 children, their families and guardians, teachers, employers, and the media, includes awareness raising sessions …

Editor2 (2021-12-25). How Public Workers Can Stop the Privatization of Everything. orinocotribune.com By Steve Early — Dec 21, 2021 | In new book,The Privatization of Everything, Cohen and Mikaelian, describe and debunk the vast array of privatization schemes that now litter the landscape, from private prisons and charter schools to for-profit water treatment and trash collection. | Several years ago, Don Cohen, a former central labor council staffer from San Diego, appeared on a panel discussing the privatization threats faced by union members across the country. He and other speakers were addressing a conference of state, county, and municipal workers represented by the Communications Workers of America (C…

fernando_santamaria (2021-12-25). Ordering my thoughts about the "Back Better Act" zcomm.org I've been trying to read the history of the processing of "The Back Better Act" in the Wikipedia. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Act?wprov=sfti1). The Bill derived (it was an extracted part) from the American Jobs Plan, together with the Law for Investment in Infrastructure and Labor, and was part of a package of 3.5 trillion dollars, (later reduced to

Frida Berrigan (2021-12-25). The Climate Won't Survive Our Current Appetite for Consumerism and Consumption. truthout.org Confession time: this year, I don't want to buy my kids anything for Christmas. Big one, right? Okay, let me soften that just a bit. I have bought a few modest, useful things. But that's it! No new games, no new toys, no new clothes (other than socks)… nothing. They already have too much. We have too much. Our nation is drowning in stuff and, in reality, need almost none of it. | There, I've said it! It feels good to get that off my chest, even if it makes me sound like a cold-hearted Grin…

_____ (2021-12-25). The Real Antidote To Inflation. popularresistance.org The Federal Reserve is caught between a rock and a hard place. Inflation grew by 6.8% in November, the fastest in 40 years, a trend the Fed has now acknowledged is not "transitory." The conventional theory is that inflation is due to too much money chasing too few goods, so the Fed is under heavy pressure to "tighten" or shrink the money supply. Its conventional tools for this purpose are to reduce asset purchases and raise interest rates. But corporate debt has risen by $1.3 trillion just since early 2020; so if the Fed raises rates, a massive wave of defaults is likely to result. According to financial advisor…

Luis Feliz Leon (2021-12-25). Warrior Met Coal Miners Are Spending Christmas 2021 on Strike. truthout.org This article was first published by This Christmas, as millions of families settle in to adorn fir trees, the children of striking coal miners in Alabama have asked mainly for practical gifts. Shoes and clothes top their lists, followed by Barbies and Rainbow High dolls, Legos, Nerf guns, and makeup kits. | Roughly 300 children will receive these gifts through donations collected by the Min…

Anonymous Contributor (2021-12-25). Help Save Spartacus Books in Vancouver, BC. itsgoingdown.org Call to support long-running radical infoshop and bookstore Spartacus Books in so-called Vancouver, BC. Spartacus Books is a non-profit, volunteer and collectively run infoshop on unceded Coast Salish territories. We have been running for almost 50 years and provide access to radical books and zines that are hard to find anywhere else in so-called Vancouver,…

Bejoy Sebastian (2021-12-25). Nothing left of democracy in Hong Kong. moderndiplomacy.eu Hong Kong is no longer what it was known for a few years back. The Chinese Communist Party continues to dismantle the city's democratic ethos, the latest being the drama of Legislative Council polls. Beijing has also managed to erase its bloody past from public memory. *** A week ago, on December 19, the people …

2021-12-26 23:55 | 19:55 EST | jz | 41 | 1 | 17 | 22 | 0 

2021-12-25: News Headlines

Frida Berrigan (2021-12-25). The Climate Won't Survive Our Current Appetite for Consumerism and Consumption. truthout.org Confession time: this year, I don't want to buy my kids anything for Christmas. Big one, right? Okay, let me soften that just a bit. I have bought a few modest, useful things. But that's it! No new games, no new toys, no new clothes (other than socks)… nothing. They already have too much. We have too much. Our nation is drowning in stuff and, in reality, need almost none of it. | There, I've said it! It feels good to get that off my chest, even if it makes me sound like a cold-hearted Grin…

Luis Feliz Leon (2021-12-25). Warrior Met Coal Miners Are Spending Christmas 2021 on Strike. truthout.org This article was first published by This Christmas, as millions of families settle in to adorn fir trees, the children of striking coal miners in Alabama have asked mainly for practical gifts. Shoes and clothes top their lists, followed by Barbies and Rainbow High dolls, Legos, Nerf guns, and makeup kits. | Roughly 300 children will receive these gifts through donations collected by the Min…

Ana Perdigón (2021-12-25). Venezuela's Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 Evaluates Measures to Deal with Omicron. orinocotribune.com Venezuela's presidential task force for the prevention and control of COVID-19 met this Thursday, December 23, to evaluate mechanisms to deal with the Omicron variant that has recently been detected in the country. | The meeting, chaired by Executive Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, was held at the headquarters of the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Foreign Trade. | Various officials of the government were also present at the meeting, including the Minister for Health, Carlos Alvarado; the Minister for Communication and Information, Freddy àëáñez; and the Minister for Science and Technology, Gabriela Jiménez…

MD Staff (2021-12-25). Pandemic Drives Need for Technology Adoption Among SMEs but Barriers Remain. moderndiplomacy.eu A survey by World Economic Forum indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased demand for more adoption and integration of digital technology among small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). However, they face numerous barriers to adopting technology at a critical time of need. While 97% of global companies have accelerated adoption of technology to get …

Eric Zuesse (2021-12-25). China's success against covid dwarfs The West's. Here's how & why. moderndiplomacy.eu Libertarians/neoliberals in The West can't believe the enormous extent of China's success at keeping down the rates of disease, and of death, and of unemployment, from covid-19, because China's policies on covid are, and have been, the exact opposite of libertarian/neoliberal. (What's called "libertarian" in America is called "neoliberal" throughout the rest of the world.) …

Editor2 (2021-12-25). How Public Workers Can Stop the Privatization of Everything. orinocotribune.com By Steve Early — Dec 21, 2021 | In new book,The Privatization of Everything, Cohen and Mikaelian, describe and debunk the vast array of privatization schemes that now litter the landscape, from private prisons and charter schools to for-profit water treatment and trash collection. | Several years ago, Don Cohen, a former central labor council staffer from San Diego, appeared on a panel discussing the privatization threats faced by union members across the country. He and other speakers were addressing a conference of state, county, and municipal workers represented by the Communications Workers of America (C…

fernando_santamaria (2021-12-25). Ordering my thoughts about the "Back Better Act" zcomm.org I've been trying to read the history of the processing of "The Back Better Act" in the Wikipedia. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Act?wprov=sfti1). The Bill derived (it was an extracted part) from the American Jobs Plan, together with the Law for Investment in Infrastructure and Labor, and was part of a package of 3.5 trillion dollars, (later reduced to

_____ (2021-12-25). The Real Antidote To Inflation. popularresistance.org The Federal Reserve is caught between a rock and a hard place. Inflation grew by 6.8% in November, the fastest in 40 years, a trend the Fed has now acknowledged is not "transitory." The conventional theory is that inflation is due to too much money chasing too few goods, so the Fed is under heavy pressure to "tighten" or shrink the money supply. Its conventional tools for this purpose are to reduce asset purchases and raise interest rates. But corporate debt has risen by $1.3 trillion just since early 2020; so if the Fed raises rates, a massive wave of defaults is likely to result. According to financial advisor…

Anonymous Contributor (2021-12-25). Help Save Spartacus Books in Vancouver, BC. itsgoingdown.org Call to support long-running radical infoshop and bookstore Spartacus Books in so-called Vancouver, BC. Spartacus Books is a non-profit, volunteer and collectively run infoshop on unceded Coast Salish territories. We have been running for almost 50 years and provide access to radical books and zines that are hard to find anywhere else in so-called Vancouver,…

Sara Flounders (2021-12-24). Wildfire surge of omicron confirms: Health care for profit more deadly than coronavirus. workers.org The ominous toll of 800,000 deaths from COVID-19, reached in the U.S. Dec. 14, confirms that health care for profit is more deadly than the virus itself. The U.S. has consistently had the most COVID-19 deaths of any country. (tinyurl.com/3nunmuv7) Since the omicron variant surfaced here Dec. 1, infection rates . . . |

_____ (2021-12-24). Amazon Warehouse Workers Walk Off The Job In Illinois. popularresistance.org On Wednesday morning, several dozen Amazon workers at two separate Chicago-area delivery stations staged a walkout to demand raises and safer working conditions, making it the first time the tech giant has seen a multi-site work stoppage in the United States. | Coming just three days before Christmas to ensure maximum impact, the action caps a year of intense organizing and protest by Amazon warehouse workers who have been on the frontlines of both the Covid-19 pandemic and extreme weather events. | Organized by the labor network Amazonians United, the walkouts occurred during the morning shifts at the company's…

Peter Koenig (2021-12-24). COVID-Omicron is Killing Christmas — And Beyond. Financial Crash, Inflation, Digitization. globalresearch.ca First Delta, then Omicron. Neither one of the two has ever been isolated. The vast majority of people of the 193 UN member countries — swallow the lie with fear and respect, as if it were the truth…

_____ (2021-12-24). The Sinister Convergence of Klaus Schwab's Great Reset with the Vatican and Liberation Theology. journal-neo.org Amid the 2020 global covid lockdowns and economic dislocations it has caused, Klaus Schwab, a previously low-profile founder of a Swiss-based business forum, emerged on the world stage calling for what he called a Great Reset of the entire world economy, using the pandemic as driver. He even published a book in July 2020 outlining …

MD Staff (2021-12-24). Austria: Boost labour supply and foster green and digital transitions. moderndiplomacy.eu Austria's economy is recovering well from the COVID-19 crisis thanks to decisive policy action, although challenges remain in the form of labour and skills shortages. Efforts should now focus on increasing the labour force participation of women and older workers, adjusting public finances once the recovery is fully self-sustained, and accelerating the shift to a …

Syed Zain Abbas Rizvi (2021-12-24). The Frenzied Economy of Turkey: Erdogan Unfazed by the Ineluctable Financial Collapse. moderndiplomacy.eu Inflation is a ubiquitous word nowadays in almost every discussion worldwide. While the concept is tricky to quantify objectively, the subjective interpretation (at least to a layman) is straightforward: prices rise, goods become expensive, and money loses value. Ever since the pandemic upended routine life, inflation has garnered attention from almost every walk of life. …

Editor (2021-12-24). A come to Jesus sermon from the Rev. Chris Hedges. scheerpost.com [Journalist and minister, Chris Hedges. [Photo courtesy of Chris Hedges] | Click to subscribe on: Another holiday season plagued with high Covid-19 rates and fears of infecting loved ones has come around, this time amid supply chain shortages and other economic woes. As runaway American capitalism tries to sell us consumerism as the answer to our current crises ev…

WSWS (2021-12-24). Markets continue to rise as Omicron spreads. wsws.org Wall Street's S&P 500 reached a new record high yesterday on the back of a speech by US President Biden indicating that nothing meaningful would be done to reduce the growing Omicron threat.

Newsroom (2021-12-24). Youth, Women Among Most Vulnerable to Job Loss in Southeast Asia During COVID-19. moderndiplomacy.eu Southeast Asia's youth and women bore the brunt of job losses during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, according to an Asian Development Bank (ADB) report released today. The report, A Crisis Like No Other—COVID-19 and Labor Markets in Southeast Asia, finds that people ages 15 to 24, who represent less than 15% of the workforce …

_____ (2021-12-24). Former Hunger Strikers Reflect On Their Experiences. popularresistance.org The huelga de hambre has been used for thousands of years. It has won many struggles," said Ana Ramirez, 42, who fasted for 24 days this spring to demand that undocumented people and other excluded workers in New York receive stimulus and unemployment money. "Esther the reina won a battle with the hunger strike." | Ramirez is referring to Queen Esther of the Old Testament's Book of Esther. The queen and her supporters fasted for three days in advance of going to ask her husband, Persian King Ahasuerus, for permission to have her enemies — who were trying to wipe out all Jews in the empire — killed. Sh…

Tony Murphy (2021-12-24). Workers, supporters demand'Amazon, recognize the Union now!'. workers.org Steps away from Broadway shows shut down by spiking COVID-19 numbers in New York City, a crowd of more than 80 people gathered in Times Square Dec. 22 to demand Amazon recognize the union being organized by the Amazon Labor Union at the company's Staten Island warehouse, as well as . . . |

Eric Toussaint (2021-12-24). The Coronavirus Pandemic has Widened Global Inequalities. zcomm.org The prices asked by Big Pharma for Covid vaccines are exorbitant…

WSWS (2021-12-24). Currency market turmoil impoverishes millions of Turkish workers. wsws.org The eruption of class battles is inevitable, as government measures in the interest of the financial aristocracy worsen the plight of millions of workers.

Ellen Brown (2021-12-24). The Real Antidote to Inflation: Stoking the Fire Without Burning Down the Barn. dissidentvoice.org The Fed has options for countering the record inflation the U.S. is facing that are more productive and less risky than raising interest rates. The Federal Reserve is caught between a rock and a hard place. Inflation grew by 6.8% in November, the fastest in 40 years, a trend the Fed has now acknowledged is not …

Jake Johnson (2021-12-24). Sanders Takes Aim at Manchin's Argument Against Build Back Better: "Not True" truthout.org Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday countered fellow Sen. Joe Manchin's recent Fox News appearance with an "Manchin, the Republicans, and corporate America say this bill will add to our national debt and make inflation worse. Not true," wrote Sanders (…

Kevin Mwanza (2021-12-24). 3 Simple Ways To Understand And Explain Bitcoin To Your Grandma Or Parents. moguldom.com Bitcoin has been the craze of the investment world this year and everyone, including school-age children, is talking about it. But how exactly do you explain Bitcoin to your grandmother this festive season over a mouthful of cookies? The largest cryptocurrency by market value was invented in 2008 and launched in 2009 on the heels …

Ann Brown (2021-12-24). What Role Did White 'No Jumper Podcast' Profiteering Have In YG And Drakeo Beef Before Murder? moguldom.com Questions are swirling around the death of Los Angeles hip-hop artist Drakeo the Ruler, who was stabbed backstage on Dec. 18 before he was due to perform at the Once Upon A Time In L.A. Festival at Exposition Park. Many people were mingling around and no one noticed the murderer, who was somehow given admission …

Paul Haeder (2021-12-24). Here's to our Health: Well, To the Health of the Profiteers! dissidentvoice.org "You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a …

Giancarlo Elia Valori (2021-12-24). Ethical aspects relating to cyberspace: Utilitarianism and deontology. moderndiplomacy.eu Obviously web ethics must primarily be behavioural in nature. Its task is to serve as a tool for making decisions in morally difficult situations. However, as long as web ethics is seen only as one of the mechanisms of the Internet normative self-regulation, based on the spontaneously formed ethos of cyberspace, it will lack the …

A. Kent MacDougall (2021-12-24). Boring From Within the Bourgeois Press: Part One. mronline.org Eugene V. Debs may be my all-time favorite American and Karl Marx my all-time favorite journalist. But my employer for a decade was The Wall Street Journal, and for another decade it was the Los Angeles Times.

WSWS (2021-12-24). Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa. wsws.org Riot police use stun guns against occupation of Kavali Oil plant by Greek workers; Romanian miners hold wildcat strike to demand early retirement and rail workers walk out spontaneously over pay; teachers demonstrate across Iran in 120 cities over wages, conditions and state repression; strike by South African Clover food workers against pay, conditions and job cuts enters second month…

_____ (2021-12-24). Capitalism Contributed To Factory Workers Deaths. popularresistance.org The weekend of December 10-11, 2021, saw a reported 30 tornadoes hitting several states from Arkansas to Illinois; as of this writing, 74 people are confirmed dead and several buildings severely damaged or totally demolished. | All the cases of death and destruction are devastating; however, the most telling and unconscionable are the deaths of eight people at a candle-making factory in Mayfield, Kentucky, and six in an Amazon facility in Edwardsville, Illinois. What makes these two cases significant is that they most likely could have been avoided, but once again capitalism's insatiable greed is significantly re…

WSWS (2021-12-24). Workers Struggles: Asia and Australia. wsws.org India: Delhi school teachers suspend online classes over unpaid salaries; Sri Lankan public sector doctors take national walkout; Australia: Rail workers and bus drivers continue industrial action in NSW.

WSWS (2021-12-24). To oppose government austerity, Sri Lankan workers need to build action committees and fight for socialist policies. wsws.org The critical lesson of this year's strikes and protests is that determination and militancy is not enough. The working class cannot defend its rights without independently mobilising on a socialist program.

2021-12-25 19:30 | 15:30 EST | jz | 35 | 0 | 25 | 9 | 0 

2021-12-24: News Headlines

Sara Flounders (2021-12-24). Wildfire surge of omicron confirms: Health care for profit more deadly than coronavirus. workers.org The ominous toll of 800,000 deaths from COVID-19, reached in the U.S. Dec. 14, confirms that health care for profit is more deadly than the virus itself. The U.S. has consistently had the most COVID-19 deaths of any country. (tinyurl.com/3nunmuv7) Since the omicron variant surfaced here Dec. 1, infection rates . . . |

WSWS (2021-12-24). Markets continue to rise as Omicron spreads. wsws.org Wall Street's S&P 500 reached a new record high yesterday on the back of a speech by US President Biden indicating that nothing meaningful would be done to reduce the growing Omicron threat.

Tony Murphy (2021-12-24). Workers, supporters demand'Amazon, recognize the Union now!'. workers.org Steps away from Broadway shows shut down by spiking COVID-19 numbers in New York City, a crowd of more than 80 people gathered in Times Square Dec. 22 to demand Amazon recognize the union being organized by the Amazon Labor Union at the company's Staten Island warehouse, as well as . . . |

Eric Toussaint (2021-12-24). The Coronavirus Pandemic has Widened Global Inequalities. zcomm.org The prices asked by Big Pharma for Covid vaccines are exorbitant…

WSWS (2021-12-24). Currency market turmoil impoverishes millions of Turkish workers. wsws.org The eruption of class battles is inevitable, as government measures in the interest of the financial aristocracy worsen the plight of millions of workers.

Peter Koenig (2021-12-24). COVID-Omicron is Killing Christmas — And Beyond. Financial Crash, Inflation, Digitization. globalresearch.ca First Delta, then Omicron. Neither one of the two has ever been isolated. The vast majority of people of the 193 UN member countries — swallow the lie with fear and respect, as if it were the truth…

Paul Haeder (2021-12-24). Here's to our Health: Well, To the Health of the Profiteers! dissidentvoice.org "You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a …

Giancarlo Elia Valori (2021-12-24). Ethical aspects relating to cyberspace: Utilitarianism and deontology. moderndiplomacy.eu Obviously web ethics must primarily be behavioural in nature. Its task is to serve as a tool for making decisions in morally difficult situations. However, as long as web ethics is seen only as one of the mechanisms of the Internet normative self-regulation, based on the spontaneously formed ethos of cyberspace, it will lack the …

A. Kent MacDougall (2021-12-24). Boring From Within the Bourgeois Press: Part One. mronline.org Eugene V. Debs may be my all-time favorite American and Karl Marx my all-time favorite journalist. But my employer for a decade was The Wall Street Journal, and for another decade it was the Los Angeles Times.

WSWS (2021-12-24). Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa. wsws.org Riot police use stun guns against occupation of Kavali Oil plant by Greek workers; Romanian miners hold wildcat strike to demand early retirement and rail workers walk out spontaneously over pay; teachers demonstrate across Iran in 120 cities over wages, conditions and state repression; strike by South African Clover food workers against pay, conditions and job cuts enters second month…

WSWS (2021-12-24). Workers Struggles: Asia and Australia. wsws.org India: Delhi school teachers suspend online classes over unpaid salaries; Sri Lankan public sector doctors take national walkout; Australia: Rail workers and bus drivers continue industrial action in NSW.

WSWS (2021-12-24). To oppose government austerity, Sri Lankan workers need to build action committees and fight for socialist policies. wsws.org The critical lesson of this year's strikes and protests is that determination and militancy is not enough. The working class cannot defend its rights without independently mobilising on a socialist program.

Newsroom (2021-12-23). With decent work and a sustainable model aquaculture could feed the world. moderndiplomacy.eu Harnessing aquaculture's potential to effectively contribute to feeding the world's growing population in the decades to come will require concerted efforts to promote sustainable enterprises and decent work for its workforce. These are among the main conclusions of the Technical meeting on the future of work in aquaculture in the context of the rural economy …

Luis Chirino (2021-12-23). 2021 Year in Review: Recapping Cuba. america.cgtn.com As the year ends on the island of Cuba, citizens will continue to face challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic and a weak economy in the new year. More than eight thousand Cubans have died from COVID-19. In 2021, the pandemic continued to spread while negatively impacting the economy on the island. CGTN's …

Newsroom (2021-12-23). Structural Reforms Can Ease China's Transition to High-Quality Growth. moderndiplomacy.eu To achieve quality growth over the medium-term, China will need to rebalance its economy across several dimensions, according to Rebalancing Act, From Recovery to High-Quality Growth, the latest China Economic Update released today by the World Bank. Following a strong rebound in the first half of 2021, economic activity in China cooled rapidly in the …

Eshalaxmi Barlingay (2021-12-23). 2021 Year in Review: Haiti in spotlight. america.cgtn.com For the people of Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, misery just never seems to end… decade after decade. The economy is in shambles. Natural disasters. Political corruption. Violence. In 2021, the crisis in Haiti only went from bad to worse. In July, …

_____ (2021-12-23). Who Actually Owns Corporations, Anyway? popularresistance.org According to elementary students of economics and Wall Street financiers alike, the answer to this question is as simple as it is intuitive: the shareholders. The standard narrative goes like this: a share is a "piece of a company." Accordingly, the holders of those shares are the company's collective owners. Shareholder ownership explains why an army of retail investors coordinating trades on Reddit could claim they "owned a piece" of the struggling video game retailer GameStop and why Warren Buffet is as certain he "owns" companies as varied as GEICO and Dairy Queen as less wealthy Americans are certain they ow…

Joris Leverink (2021-12-23). Mismeasuring progress: A critique of the growth paradigm. roarmag.org Cityscape of Johannesburg, South Africa in 2013. Photo: Nataly Reinch / Shutterstock.com | In recent years, more and more people have begun to question the received wisdom of "economic growth" — the idea that government policies can be measured a success or failure based on an increase in national income. Many, that is, except most economists. For them, growth is still the sacred benchmark on the road to development — for those countries deemed "undeveloped" — and something to be maintained and if possible expanded in all the OECD countries. | Governments follow suit and design their policies ar…

Staff (2021-12-23). Tea Party Redux: How the Koch Network Funds and Fuels the Anti-Lockdown Movement. democracynow.org A new report titled "How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On COVID" reveals how a right-wing network linked to billionaire Charles Koch has played a key role in fighting public health measures during the pandemic, including mask and vaccine mandates, contact tracing and lockdowns. The groups include the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), Donors Trust, the Hoover Institution and Hillsdale College. We speak about the contents of the report with co-author Walker Bragman, who says the right-wing network's attack on public health is designed to "maintain…

_____ (2021-12-23). What Russia Says About Its Not-An-Ultimatum Demands To The US And NATO. popularresistance.org Andrei Martyanov also explains the timing. Russia is technologically and militarily in a strong position and currently can survive a break with the 'western' world without too much trouble. The U.S. is in disarray and NATO not ready to fight. It is simply the right moment. | To add to his short video I will also note that it is winter and that Europe depends on Russian gas. Gazprom is no longer offering gas at European spot markets but only delivering in previously agreed quantities to long term contract partners. This puts pressure on German regulators to finally sign off on Nord Stream II which the U.S. and Ukr…

Staff (2021-12-23). Pentagon Clamps Down on Extremism & White Supremacy After Dozens of Jan. 6 Rioters Had Military Ties. democracynow.org The Pentagon has announced new rules to slow the spread of extremism in the military, one of which will discipline soldiers for liking or resharing white nationalist and other extremist content on social media. The Pentagon announcement comes just two weeks before the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, where more than 80 of the 700 individuals charged with the attack had ties to the U.S. military. Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project Susan Corke says these rule changes are welcomed by her organization but don't go far enough to stop extremism in the armed forces. "It sh…

WSWS (2021-12-23). New Zealand government will not immediately lock down if Omicron appears in community. wsws.org While the Labour Party-led government claims it wants to keep Omicron out of the community, the cabinet has not put measures in place to prevent its rapid spread.

_____ (2021-12-23). How Public Workers Can Stop The Privatization Of Everything. popularresistance.org Several years ago, Don Cohen, a former central labor council staffer from San Diego, appeared on a panel discussing the privatization threats faced by union members across the country. He and other speakers were addressing a conference of state, county, and municipal workers represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a group which did not include any federal employees. When Cohen described propaganda campaigns that proponents of privatization conduct to pave the way for out-sourcing local government or state university jobs, audience members immediately recognized that kind of employer behavior a…

Staff (2021-12-23). "It's a Win for Us": Striking Kellogg's Workers Get Raises, Improved Benefits & Avoid Two-Tier System. democracynow.org In a major victory for labor rights, 1,400 unionized Kellogg's workers have ended their nearly three-month strike across four states after approving a new contract that provides a wage increase and enhanced benefits for all. The prior agreement that Kellogg's tried to bargain only offered wage increases and improved benefits to longtime workers, whereas the new agreement ensures newer workers have a guaranteed option to receive the same improvements. We speak with Kellogg's worker Kevin Bradshaw, who will return to work on Monday alongside his co-workers. "We didn't have any takeaways and no concessions, so I wou…

Liam Kennedy (2021-12-23). Stuart Delivery strike highlights UK's bogus self-employment problem. zcomm.org By misclassifying workers as 'self-employed' companies can trample over labor rights…

Dana Sanchez (2021-12-23). Silicon Valley Execs Quit Good-Paying Jobs For Crypto Startups, Quick Riches. moguldom.com Some of the biggest tech companies are scrambling to retain employees as a wave of engineers and executives quit jobs that pay as much as seven-figure salaries for what's seen as a once-in-a-generation opportunity — to join crypto startups. Stories of massive crypto wealth amassed by early investors in Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptos including …

Editor2 (2021-12-23). àÅlvaro García Linera: The Central Command of the Latin American Right is the US, not Spain. orinocotribune.com The conservative command of the Latin American right is in the United States, not in Spain. Vox is small and clumsy. On the other hand, Washington promotes a series of basic values: market, individuality, institutionality against social convulsions and wealth as the goal of life, affirms àÅlvaro García Linera. | The vice president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia between 2006 and 2019 is one of the most prominent contemporary leftist intellectuals. His extensive and provocative intellectual production is the result of a political commitment that led him to imprisonment for seven years and of a solid th…

Isheka N. Harrison (2021-12-23). NAACP President Sends Message To Biden: If You Can Afford To Pause Student Loan Payments Over And Over, You Can Cancel Them. moguldom.com Some rejoiced when President Joe Biden announced that he was extending the pause on making student loan payments for three additional months while others urged Biden to go further and cancel student loan debt altogether. Among the latter group are NAACP president Derrick Johnson and renowned wealth inequality expert and economist William "Sandy" Darity. Biden …

WSWS (2021-12-23). Australia's housing crisis and the new anti-democratic electoral laws. wsws.org The meteoric rise in housing and rental prices across Australia is fueling mounting social discontent, which the party deregistration laws seek to stifle.

WSWS (2021-12-23). Google executives dismiss employee demands for pay increases to meet inflation. wsws.org Employees at Google are demanding pay increases for all workers to maintain their living standards while inflation is running at an annual rate of 7 percent and the corporation is making record profits.

_____ (2021-12-23). A For-Profit Company Is Trying To Privatize Public Libraries. popularresistance.org "Even if we don't see a written-out master plan, the banning of books, the attacks on teaching real US history, the efforts to push out professors with views that transgress official US policy: In their myriad forms, these actions tell us that it's important to powerful people to restrict what ideas people can access. It's the land of the free and the home of the brave—except if you want to know what's happened, and happens, here, or to tell people about it. | It all shows us the power of ideas. As infuriating and sad and enervating as it all is, it reminds us that knowledge is power."

WSWS (2021-12-23). UK Tory government weaponises Christmas against COVID restrictions. wsws.org The government's brutal determination to keep the profits flowing at all costs is meeting widespread opposition. Workers are defying all instructions from the mass murderers in Westminster to just keep on shopping and socialising in pubs, clubs and restaurants. Millions have stopped using public transport, are working from home and are already limiting their contacts with other people.

WSWS (2021-12-23). German banks and big business profit from death in the pandemic. wsws.org Like vultures feasting on the victims of a disaster, the profiteers on the banking floors are enriching themselves from the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.

Brett Wilkins (2021-12-23). New Campaign for $15 Minimum Wage Kicks Off in Michigan. zcomm.org "Michigan persists as one of 43 states with a legacy of slavery—a subminimum wage—and a very low overall wage of just under $10 an hour. Neither is enough for people to live on."

_____ (2021-12-23). Pharmacy Workers Describe Conditions That Sparked US Walkouts. popularresistance.org Retail pharmacy workers conducted a nationwide walkout on Monday in the US, organized on social media, to protest worsening work conditions at large retail chains such as CVS, Walgreens and Walmart. As the hyper-infectious Omicron variant continues to spread throughout the country, this much overlooked section of the health care industry is making its own demands for better working conditions, including patient safety, and an overdue increase in wages. | One pharmacist who requested to remain anonymous told the WSWS, "We work 12 hour shifts without technicians, we have no breaks and no lunch break as the drive-th…

Thomas Klikauer (2021-12-23). Naked @ Work — the Neoliberal Workplace. zcomm.org Capitalism's relentless drive to growth based on global environmental exploitation has not just transformed the entire planet but is about to destroy planet earth…

Richard S. Dunn (2021-12-23). Capitalism Contributed to Factory Workers Deaths in Kentucky and Illinois. covertactionmagazine.com The weekend of December 10-11, 2021, saw a reported 30 tornadoes hitting several states from Arkansas to Illinois; as of …

Karina Huber (2021-12-23). Gen Z most stressed by COVID-19 pandemic. america.cgtn.com The global pandemic triggered a mental health crisis with rates of anxiety and depression skyrocketing around the world. But two years into the pandemic, data is emerging to show that it is one generation, in particular, that is feeling the most stressed. CGTN's Karina Huber …

Peoples Dispatch (2021-12-23). Fatal accidents reveal unsafe conditions in Pakistan's coal mines. peoplesdispatch.org As deadly accidents continue in various coal mines in Pakistan, senior representatives of IndustriALL Global have asked the Pakistani ambassador at Geneva to take immediate steps to ensure that Pakistan ratifies and implements ILO Convention 176 on Safety and Health in Mines…

teleSUR (2021-12-23). Acteal Massacre Victims Demand Justice from The Mexican State. telesurenglish.net Twenty-four years after the killing of 45 Tzotziles Indigenous people carried out by paramilitaries, relatives and survivors of the attack marched to demand jail time for the intellectual and material authors of this tragedy. | RELATED: | With songs, prayers, crosses, incense, and candles, the Acteal Bees (Las Abejas de Acteal), a Christian and anti-neoliberal organization, remembered the dead in a collective tomb where the bodie…

Danny Haiphong (2021-12-23). What are the Fundamental Differences Between Capitalist and Socialist Democracy? orinocotribune.com By Danny Haiphong — Dec 20, 2021 | Staying true to the theme of democracy, this article is an amended speech that analyzes the differences between Capitalist vs. Socialist democracies and advocates a defense of the latter. | The United States hosted a "Summit for Democracy" on December 9th and 10th in an obvious attempt to legitimize its unipolar and hegemonic claim of leadership over the so-called "rules-based international order." While on the surface this appeared to be an unproductive move on the part of the world hegemon, it aligned well with the U.S. strategy of cloaking its aggressive and exploitative…

Special to People's World (2021-12-23). Art Perlo, 'Gentle Giant,' 1947-2021. peoplesworld.org Art Perlo, lifelong Communist beloved for his stalwart dedication, modesty, wit, and wisdom, passed away on Dec. 18 after a year-long battle with bladder cancer. He served as Ward 24 Co-Chair in New Haven, Conn., and executive board member of the Yale Unions Retirees Association. Ward 24 Alder Evette Hamilton called him a "gentle giant" …

Internationalist 360 ∞ (2021-12-23). Imperialism: Unpacking the Primary Contradiction. libya360.wordpress.com Erica Caines Global and domestic repression under imperialism are counterparts. However, this truth gets distorted in the Global North, even by so-called leftists. Living in imperialist nations, we are constantly propagandized and thus forced to internalize and repeat anti-communist rhetoric. Unless we are vigilant about studying theory and history, this will continue. The best way…

2021-12-24 21:16 | 17:16 EST | jz | 45 | 0 | 31 | 12 | 0 

2021-12-23: News Headlines

Newsroom (2021-12-23). Structural Reforms Can Ease China's Transition to High-Quality Growth. moderndiplomacy.eu To achieve quality growth over the medium-term, China will need to rebalance its economy across several dimensions, according to Rebalancing Act, From Recovery to High-Quality Growth, the latest China Economic Update released today by the World Bank. Following a strong rebound in the first half of 2021, economic activity in China cooled rapidly in the …

Newsroom (2021-12-23). With decent work and a sustainable model aquaculture could feed the world. moderndiplomacy.eu Harnessing aquaculture's potential to effectively contribute to feeding the world's growing population in the decades to come will require concerted efforts to promote sustainable enterprises and decent work for its workforce. These are among the main conclusions of the Technical meeting on the future of work in aquaculture in the context of the rural economy …

_____ (2021-12-23). Who Actually Owns Corporations, Anyway? popularresistance.org According to elementary students of economics and Wall Street financiers alike, the answer to this question is as simple as it is intuitive: the shareholders. The standard narrative goes like this: a share is a "piece of a company." Accordingly, the holders of those shares are the company's collective owners. Shareholder ownership explains why an army of retail investors coordinating trades on Reddit could claim they "owned a piece" of the struggling video game retailer GameStop and why Warren Buffet is as certain he "owns" companies as varied as GEICO and Dairy Queen as less wealthy Americans are certain they ow…

Joris Leverink (2021-12-23). Mismeasuring progress: A critique of the growth paradigm. roarmag.org Cityscape of Johannesburg, South Africa in 2013. Photo: Nataly Reinch / Shutterstock.com | In recent years, more and more people have begun to question the received wisdom of "economic growth" — the idea that government policies can be measured a success or failure based on an increase in national income. Many, that is, except most economists. For them, growth is still the sacred benchmark on the road to development — for those countries deemed "undeveloped" — and something to be maintained and if possible expanded in all the OECD countries. | Governments follow suit and design their policies ar…

Staff (2021-12-23). Tea Party Redux: How the Koch Network Funds and Fuels the Anti-Lockdown Movement. democracynow.org A new report titled "How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On COVID" reveals how a right-wing network linked to billionaire Charles Koch has played a key role in fighting public health measures during the pandemic, including mask and vaccine mandates, contact tracing and lockdowns. The groups include the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), Donors Trust, the Hoover Institution and Hillsdale College. We speak about the contents of the report with co-author Walker Bragman, who says the right-wing network's attack on public health is designed to "maintain…

_____ (2021-12-23). What Russia Says About Its Not-An-Ultimatum Demands To The US And NATO. popularresistance.org Andrei Martyanov also explains the timing. Russia is technologically and militarily in a strong position and currently can survive a break with the 'western' world without too much trouble. The U.S. is in disarray and NATO not ready to fight. It is simply the right moment. | To add to his short video I will also note that it is winter and that Europe depends on Russian gas. Gazprom is no longer offering gas at European spot markets but only delivering in previously agreed quantities to long term contract partners. This puts pressure on German regulators to finally sign off on Nord Stream II which the U.S. and Ukr…

Staff (2021-12-23). Pentagon Clamps Down on Extremism & White Supremacy After Dozens of Jan. 6 Rioters Had Military Ties. democracynow.org The Pentagon has announced new rules to slow the spread of extremism in the military, one of which will discipline soldiers for liking or resharing white nationalist and other extremist content on social media. The Pentagon announcement comes just two weeks before the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, where more than 80 of the 700 individuals charged with the attack had ties to the U.S. military. Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project Susan Corke says these rule changes are welcomed by her organization but don't go far enough to stop extremism in the armed forces. "It sh…

WSWS (2021-12-23). New Zealand government will not immediately lock down if Omicron appears in community. wsws.org While the Labour Party-led government claims it wants to keep Omicron out of the community, the cabinet has not put measures in place to prevent its rapid spread.

_____ (2021-12-23). How Public Workers Can Stop The Privatization Of Everything. popularresistance.org Several years ago, Don Cohen, a former central labor council staffer from San Diego, appeared on a panel discussing the privatization threats faced by union members across the country. He and other speakers were addressing a conference of state, county, and municipal workers represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a group which did not include any federal employees. When Cohen described propaganda campaigns that proponents of privatization conduct to pave the way for out-sourcing local government or state university jobs, audience members immediately recognized that kind of employer behavior a…

Liam Kennedy (2021-12-23). Stuart Delivery strike highlights UK's bogus self-employment problem. zcomm.org By misclassifying workers as 'self-employed' companies can trample over labor rights…

Staff (2021-12-23). "It's a Win for Us": Striking Kellogg's Workers Get Raises, Improved Benefits & Avoid Two-Tier System. democracynow.org In a major victory for labor rights, 1,400 unionized Kellogg's workers have ended their nearly three-month strike across four states after approving a new contract that provides a wage increase and enhanced benefits for all. The prior agreement that Kellogg's tried to bargain only offered wage increases and improved benefits to longtime workers, whereas the new agreement ensures newer workers have a guaranteed option to receive the same improvements. We speak with Kellogg's worker Kevin Bradshaw, who will return to work on Monday alongside his co-workers. "We didn't have any takeaways and no concessions, so I wou…

Dana Sanchez (2021-12-23). Silicon Valley Execs Quit Good-Paying Jobs For Crypto Startups, Quick Riches. moguldom.com Some of the biggest tech companies are scrambling to retain employees as a wave of engineers and executives quit jobs that pay as much as seven-figure salaries for what's seen as a once-in-a-generation opportunity — to join crypto startups. Stories of massive crypto wealth amassed by early investors in Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptos including …

Editor2 (2021-12-23). àÅlvaro García Linera: The Central Command of the Latin American Right is the US, not Spain. orinocotribune.com The conservative command of the Latin American right is in the United States, not in Spain. Vox is small and clumsy. On the other hand, Washington promotes a series of basic values: market, individuality, institutionality against social convulsions and wealth as the goal of life, affirms àÅlvaro García Linera. | The vice president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia between 2006 and 2019 is one of the most prominent contemporary leftist intellectuals. His extensive and provocative intellectual production is the result of a political commitment that led him to imprisonment for seven years and of a solid th…

Isheka N. Harrison (2021-12-23). NAACP President Sends Message To Biden: If You Can Afford To Pause Student Loan Payments Over And Over, You Can Cancel Them. moguldom.com Some rejoiced when President Joe Biden announced that he was extending the pause on making student loan payments for three additional months while others urged Biden to go further and cancel student loan debt altogether. Among the latter group are NAACP president Derrick Johnson and renowned wealth inequality expert and economist William "Sandy" Darity. Biden …

WSWS (2021-12-23). Australia's housing crisis and the new anti-democratic electoral laws. wsws.org The meteoric rise in housing and rental prices across Australia is fueling mounting social discontent, which the party deregistration laws seek to stifle.

WSWS (2021-12-23). Google executives dismiss employee demands for pay increases to meet inflation. wsws.org Employees at Google are demanding pay increases for all workers to maintain their living standards while inflation is running at an annual rate of 7 percent and the corporation is making record profits.

_____ (2021-12-23). A For-Profit Company Is Trying To Privatize Public Libraries. popularresistance.org "Even if we don't see a written-out master plan, the banning of books, the attacks on teaching real US history, the efforts to push out professors with views that transgress official US policy: In their myriad forms, these actions tell us that it's important to powerful people to restrict what ideas people can access. It's the land of the free and the home of the brave—except if you want to know what's happened, and happens, here, or to tell people about it. | It all shows us the power of ideas. As infuriating and sad and enervating as it all is, it reminds us that knowledge is power."

WSWS (2021-12-23). German banks and big business profit from death in the pandemic. wsws.org Like vultures feasting on the victims of a disaster, the profiteers on the banking floors are enriching themselves from the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.

WSWS (2021-12-23). UK Tory government weaponises Christmas against COVID restrictions. wsws.org The government's brutal determination to keep the profits flowing at all costs is meeting widespread opposition. Workers are defying all instructions from the mass murderers in Westminster to just keep on shopping and socialising in pubs, clubs and restaurants. Millions have stopped using public transport, are working from home and are already limiting their contacts with other people.

Brett Wilkins (2021-12-23). New Campaign for $15 Minimum Wage Kicks Off in Michigan. zcomm.org "Michigan persists as one of 43 states with a legacy of slavery—a subminimum wage—and a very low overall wage of just under $10 an hour. Neither is enough for people to live on."

_____ (2021-12-23). Pharmacy Workers Describe Conditions That Sparked US Walkouts. popularresistance.org Retail pharmacy workers conducted a nationwide walkout on Monday in the US, organized on social media, to protest worsening work conditions at large retail chains such as CVS, Walgreens and Walmart. As the hyper-infectious Omicron variant continues to spread throughout the country, this much overlooked section of the health care industry is making its own demands for better working conditions, including patient safety, and an overdue increase in wages. | One pharmacist who requested to remain anonymous told the WSWS, "We work 12 hour shifts without technicians, we have no breaks and no lunch break as the drive-th…

Richard S. Dunn (2021-12-23). Capitalism Contributed to Factory Workers Deaths in Kentucky and Illinois. covertactionmagazine.com The weekend of December 10-11, 2021, saw a reported 30 tornadoes hitting several states from Arkansas to Illinois; as of …

Thomas Klikauer (2021-12-23). Naked @ Work — the Neoliberal Workplace. zcomm.org Capitalism's relentless drive to growth based on global environmental exploitation has not just transformed the entire planet but is about to destroy planet earth…

Peoples Dispatch (2021-12-23). Fatal accidents reveal unsafe conditions in Pakistan's coal mines. peoplesdispatch.org As deadly accidents continue in various coal mines in Pakistan, senior representatives of IndustriALL Global have asked the Pakistani ambassador at Geneva to take immediate steps to ensure that Pakistan ratifies and implements ILO Convention 176 on Safety and Health in Mines…

teleSUR (2021-12-23). Acteal Massacre Victims Demand Justice from The Mexican State. telesurenglish.net Twenty-four years after the killing of 45 Tzotziles Indigenous people carried out by paramilitaries, relatives and survivors of the attack marched to demand jail time for the intellectual and material authors of this tragedy. | RELATED: | With songs, prayers, crosses, incense, and candles, the Acteal Bees (Las Abejas de Acteal), a Christian and anti-neoliberal organization, remembered the dead in a collective tomb where the bodie…

Danny Haiphong (2021-12-23). What are the Fundamental Differences Between Capitalist and Socialist Democracy? orinocotribune.com By Danny Haiphong — Dec 20, 2021 | Staying true to the theme of democracy, this article is an amended speech that analyzes the differences between Capitalist vs. Socialist democracies and advocates a defense of the latter. | The United States hosted a "Summit for Democracy" on December 9th and 10th in an obvious attempt to legitimize its unipolar and hegemonic claim of leadership over the so-called "rules-based international order." While on the surface this appeared to be an unproductive move on the part of the world hegemon, it aligned well with the U.S. strategy of cloaking its aggressive and exploitative…

Norman Solomon (2021-12-22). The Pentagon's 20-Year Killing Spree Has Always Treated Civilians as Expendable. indybay.org Militarism and neoliberalism in a dance of death…

WSWS (2021-12-22). Finance capital and the COVID-19 pandemic. wsws.org Since the interventions by central banks, led by the Fed, into financial markets, starting in March 2020, they have been buying financial assets at the rate of $800 million per hour.

Jim Hightower (2021-12-22). Building Community, One Fruit Tree at a Time. otherwords.org Some years ago, a young, hippyish couple knocked on my front door. They had noticed that I had fig trees in the yard, laden with summer fruit. If I wasn't going to pick them all, they asked, could they harvest some figs? | Since I was about to take a trip, I said: Sure, have at 'em. | Upon my return, as I stood at the door fumbling for my keys, I looked down — and there were two jars of delicious fig jam awaiting me. | A little common neighborliness can be deeply enriching, in so many ways. | I remembered my happy fig exchange recently when I read that a fast-growing, underground fruit economy is spreading…

Karen Conner (2021-12-22). The Good News in 2022 Will Be the Economy. cepr.net I feel very confident in saying that 2022 will be a very good year for the economy. We are looking at a situation where we have low unemployment, falling inflation, and rising real wages.

Mary C. King (2021-12-22). Affordable Child Care Is the Boost Our Economy Needs. otherwords.org Child care is one of the biggest expenses many families face — in much of the country, it can run higher than college tuition. Could a national child care program ease that burden? | We've come close before. During World War II, the federal government provided child care around the clock to enable more women to work in the war industries. In 1971, we nearly got a national child care program until President Richard Nixon vetoed legislation that had strong bipartisan support. | Now, with Senator Joe Manchin stalling President Biden's Build Back Better Act, we could be on the brink of another disappointment. O…

Karen Dolan (2021-12-22). Three Reasons to Be Hopeful as a Hard Year Comes to a Close. otherwords.org There's no getting around it: 2021 has been a tough year. As with 2020, many of us are glad to see its back end. Do let the door hit you on the way out. | Yet, there is more than just Senator Joe Manchin's coal and Omicron fears in our stockings this holiday season. There are some reasons to be hopeful too. | The first reason to be hopeful is — us. We the people. | Social movements, struggling families, activists, and advocates are crushed that Republicans and Senator Manchin have set back the Build Back Better Act. But these movements have done worlds to make long-hoped-for improvements in our economy poss…

teleSUR (2021-12-22). IMF Admits That Program With Argentina Failed Its Objectives. telesurenglish.net The loan for 57 billion dollars that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) granted to Argentina in 2018, record in its history, was "absurd" and "was not used for anything good", considered this Wednesday the Argentine Minister of Economy, Matín Guzmán. | People wait to pick up food in a dining room in La Matanza, 30 km from the City of Buenos Aires on December 15, 2021…

Elsy Fors Garzon (2021-12-22). US blockade restricts Cuban economic growth. indybay.org Havana, Dec 16 (Prensa Latina) The intensified economic, financial and commercial blockade of the United States constitutes one of the factors that imposes the most restrictions on the development of Cuban economy, experts on the subject agreed here today.

Asa Winstanley (2021-12-22). Protesters against Israeli ambassador exonerated by university. electronicintifada.net London School of Economics says "no evidence whatsoever of protestors having broken the law."

Prof Michel Chossudovsky (2021-12-22). The 2020-21 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d'État and the "Great Reset" globalresearch.ca We are at the crossroads of one of the most serious crises in modern history. We are living history, yet our understanding of the flow of events since January 2020 has been blurred. Worldwide, people have been misled both by their governments and the media.

Maurizio Coppola (2021-12-22). Why Italy is not our country of the year. peoplesdispatch.org The London-based publication The Economist The Economist notes three reasons for this change: First, a new prime minister Mario Draghi who is described as responsible and confident; second, a rapid economic recovery from the COVID crisis compared t…

Pablo Abufom (2021-12-22). Boric Win in Chile Is "Huge Victory" for Social Movements. zcomm.org Boric has vowed to fight for progressive social reforms and overhaul the neoliberal economic policies left by the U.S.-backed dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet…

ecns.cn (2021-12-22). Taiwan export orders from mainland, Hong Kong up 25.3 pct in November. ecns.cn Taiwan companies received export orders from the mainland and Hong Kong worth 16.08 billion U.S. dollars in November, an increase of 25.3 percent year on year, the island's economic affairs department said.

teleSUR- lvm -HIM (2021-12-22). Cuba prevé recuperación económica y crecimiento del PIB en 2022. telesurtv.net Transformar el sistema empresarial estatal, sujeto principal del modelo económico, es un desafío en la gestión gubernamental cubana.

ecns.cn (2021-12-22). China's growth likely to moderate next year, World Bank says. ecns.cn China's economic growth is projected to moderate to 5.1 percent in 2022, after achieving 8 percent this year as predicted.

John Feffer (2021-12-22). The "Selling" of Degrowth. zcomm.org Can those who advocate hitting the brakes on economic growth get their message across before it's too late?>

ecns.cn (2021-12-22). Major countries should shoulder responsibilities amid Omicron surges: Chinese ambassador. ecns.cn Major countries must shoulder their responsibilities, take the lead to provide COVID-19 vaccines for low-and middle-income countries, and help them foster production capacity as the Omicron variant is rapidly spreading around the globe.

Berry Craig (2021-12-22). Kentucky 'Rock of Labor' memorial survives tornado, symbolizing workers' resolve. peoplesworld.org The powerful tornado that ravaged Mayfield, Ky., on the night of Dec. 10 left the 1880s-vintage Graves County Courthouse in shambles, tearing away the cupola and most of the second floor. Yet, the "Rock of Labor," a 14-year-old rough-hewn brown sandstone memorial to old United Steelworkers Local 665, weathered the violent storm that scourged western …

Steve Early (2021-12-22). How Labor Can Stop 'The Privatization of Everything'. zcomm.org Review of The Privatization of Everything: How The Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back…

ecns.cn (2021-12-22). No 'forced labor' in Xinjiang: A revealing trip to U.S.-sanctioned silicon factory. ecns.cn The vast expanses of Gobi deserts in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region are normally devoid of life, yet this is where numerous tall futuristic iron structures glow in the dark throughout the night.

Labor Video Project (2021-12-22). STOP FCMAT Attack On Oakland Public Schools! OEA, Community & Pols Oppose $90 M In Cuts. indybay.org The Oakland Education Association, politicians and community organizations spoke out against the demands of the FCMAT for $90 million in cutbacks in the public schools or the district would be put under trusteeship.

Tyler Walicek (2021-12-22). Low Wages and Exploitative Conditions Are Sparking Graduate Student Strikes. zcomm.org The will to collective action now reemergent on the campus represents a path toward reversing the trends of exorbitant tuition, an exploited contingent labor pool and the concentration of power in administrative hands…

Michael Sainato (2021-12-22). U.S. Labor Unions on the March in 2021 After Years of Decline. zcomm.org Workers went on strike and pushed union drives in record numbers after corporations made giant pandemic profits…

teleSUR, DRL, JCM (2021-12-22). Cifra de muertos tras naufragio en Madagascar ascienden a 64. telesurtv.net El presidente Andry Rajoelina decretó un día de duelo nacional por las víctimas del naufragio y las labores de rescate.

2021-12-24 02:41 | 22:41 EST | jz | 52 | 0 | 28 | 26 | 0 

2021-12-22: News Headlines

WSWS (2021-12-22). Finance capital and the COVID-19 pandemic. wsws.org Since the interventions by central banks, led by the Fed, into financial markets, starting in March 2020, they have been buying financial assets at the rate of $800 million per hour.

Elsy Fors Garzon (2021-12-22). US blockade restricts Cuban economic growth. indybay.org Havana, Dec 16 (Prensa Latina) The intensified economic, financial and commercial blockade of the United States constitutes one of the factors that imposes the most restrictions on the development of Cuban economy, experts on the subject agreed here today.

ecns.cn (2021-12-22). China's growth likely to moderate next year, World Bank says. ecns.cn China's economic growth is projected to moderate to 5.1 percent in 2022, after achieving 8 percent this year as predicted.

ecns.cn (2021-12-22). Taiwan export orders from mainland, Hong Kong up 25.3 pct in November. ecns.cn Taiwan companies received export orders from the mainland and Hong Kong worth 16.08 billion U.S. dollars in November, an increase of 25.3 percent year on year, the island's economic affairs department said.

Pablo Abufom (2021-12-22). Boric Win in Chile Is "Huge Victory" for Social Movements. zcomm.org Boric has vowed to fight for progressive social reforms and overhaul the neoliberal economic policies left by the U.S.-backed dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet…

John Feffer (2021-12-22). The "Selling" of Degrowth. zcomm.org Can those who advocate hitting the brakes on economic growth get their message across before it's too late?>

teleSUR- lvm -HIM (2021-12-22). Cuba prevé recuperación económica y crecimiento del PIB en 2022. telesurtv.net Transformar el sistema empresarial estatal, sujeto principal del modelo económico, es un desafío en la gestión gubernamental cubana.

ecns.cn (2021-12-22). Major countries should shoulder responsibilities amid Omicron surges: Chinese ambassador. ecns.cn Major countries must shoulder their responsibilities, take the lead to provide COVID-19 vaccines for low-and middle-income countries, and help them foster production capacity as the Omicron variant is rapidly spreading around the globe.

Andrew Chuter (2021-12-22). Inner West Council result shows strong mood for change. greenleft.org.au There is a strong mood for progressive change in the inner west, as the demerger vote and swings to Greens and Labor show. Andrew Chuter reports.

Labor Video Project (2021-12-22). STOP FCMAT Attack On Oakland Public Schools! OEA, Community & Pols Oppose $90 M In Cuts. indybay.org The Oakland Education Association, politicians and community organizations spoke out against the demands of the FCMAT for $90 million in cutbacks in the public schools or the district would be put under trusteeship.

Michael Sainato (2021-12-22). U.S. Labor Unions on the March in 2021 After Years of Decline. zcomm.org Workers went on strike and pushed union drives in record numbers after corporations made giant pandemic profits…

Steve Early (2021-12-22). How Labor Can Stop 'The Privatization of Everything'. zcomm.org Review of The Privatization of Everything: How The Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back…

teleSUR, DRL, JCM (2021-12-22). Cifra de muertos tras naufragio en Madagascar ascienden a 64. telesurtv.net El presidente Andry Rajoelina decretó un día de duelo nacional por las víctimas del naufragio y las labores de rescate.

Tyler Walicek (2021-12-22). Low Wages and Exploitative Conditions Are Sparking Graduate Student Strikes. zcomm.org The will to collective action now reemergent on the campus represents a path toward reversing the trends of exorbitant tuition, an exploited contingent labor pool and the concentration of power in administrative hands…

ecns.cn (2021-12-22). No 'forced labor' in Xinjiang: A revealing trip to U.S.-sanctioned silicon factory. ecns.cn The vast expanses of Gobi deserts in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region are normally devoid of life, yet this is where numerous tall futuristic iron structures glow in the dark throughout the night.

Juan Cole (2021-12-22). Vaccinating 200 million Americans. zcomm.org The Commonwealth Fund finds that without Biden's vaccination drive, a million and a half Americans would have died this year…

Norbert Trenkle (2021-12-22). The true costs of capitalist wealth. indybay.org What drives the capitalist mode of production is the endless compulsion to increase abstract wealth, or, put more simply, the compulsion to turn money into more money… Society is richer than it knows, because it does not take all kinds of wealth factors into account in GDP.

WSWS (2021-12-22). Inflation soars to record level as UK wages stagnate. wsws.org The Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure of inflation, considered to be more accurate as it includes factors such as mortgage payments, rose to 7.1 percent last month, its highest level in more than 30 years.

Peter Koenig (2021-12-22). COVID-Omicron is Killing Christmas — And Beyond. Financial Crash, Inflation, Digitization. globalresearch.ca Omicron, a so-called covid-variant, has never been isolated. Whatever the current narrative — 193 UN member governments tell you in lockstep, what the mainstream media tell you in lockstep — and what the majority in the street of the 193 …

Action Report (2021-12-22). Surprise Protests at War Profiteers Boeing and Lockheed Martin in Silicon Valley. indybay.org Noisy visitors descended on two of the "Big 5" war companies in Menlo Park and Palo Alto on December 10. Members of CodePink, the Raging Grannies, Bay Area Sunrise Movement, Vigil for Democracy, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and others joined in protest. Activists delivered messages demanding the war profiteers transition to life-enhancing business instead of making a killing on killing.

ecns.cn (2021-12-22). China develops complete BDS industrial chain. ecns.cn China has developed a complete industrial chain of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), according to the China Satellite Navigation Office (CSNO).

Anonymous765 (2021-12-22). SouthFront Race For Survival! southfront.org DEAR FRIENDS, | : | we appeal to all our readers and viewers, to our constant supporters!: | In the current difficult conditions, we are forced to act as being in a besieged fortress. Without your regular participation in SF life, our activities will be stopped. | We stay still to save the vestiges of freedom of speech and to show you the real face of the world most dangerous crises. | Though, we are still in the crosshairs, and without your regular support, SouthFront is done for. | Today, you can send your donations via BTC or Bitcoincash. | In order to support the activities of SouthFront throu…

Editor2 (2021-12-22). Destruction of the Soviet Union: a Crime Without Statute of Limitations. orinocotribune.com Statement of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the United Communist Party of Russia (OKP) in connection with the 30th anniversary of the unconstitutional liquidation of the USSR in December 1991. | In December 1991, the largest state on the planet, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the first ever socialist state of workers and peasants, disappeared from the political map of the world. | In the context of the general crisis of Gorbachev's "perestroika" policy, few people paid attention to the blatant violation of all conceivable and inconceivable constitutional procedures during the "dissolution" of…

Legal Abortion Once, For All (2021-12-22). Chants in the Night — We Won't Give Up without a Fight! indybay.org December 1 was a day of many demos in the SF Bay Area to demand that the Supreme Court protect Roe v. Wade. In San Francisco at Market and Powell, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) hosted a rally. In this video, organizer Mei Mei with PSL speaks following enthusiastic rounds of chanting.

Norman Solomon (2021-12-21). The Pentagon's 20-year killing spree has always treated civilians as expendable. nationofchange.org Overall, military spending accounts for about half of the federal government's total discretionary spending — while programs for helping instead of killing are on short rations for local, state and national government agencies.

In Defense of Liberation! (2021-12-21). The Transition from Matriarchy to Patriarchy 101: (My best attempt!). anchor.fm In this episode I do my best to explain just that, through historical and dialectical materialist analysis and an understanding of political-economic development in human history I try to show how the transition from traditional Matriarchal societies developed into Patriarchal ones. If I missed anything or spoke too little about something, please tell me! Also check out "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State" by Engels, plus a recent episode of Probably Cancelled Podcast with an interview by Michael Parenti titled, "Male Terrorism and the Political Economy of Sex Oppression". Hope you enjoy th…

Matthew Daly (2021-12-21). Despite Manchin's blow to Build Back Better, Biden boosts fuel economy standards to fight climate change. peoplesworld.org WASHINGTON (AP) — In a major step to fight climate change, the Biden administration is raising vehicle mileage standards to significantly reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases, reversing a Trump-era rollback that loosened fuel efficiency standards. A final rule issued Monday would raise mileage standards starting in the 2023 model year, reaching a projected industry-wide target of …

_____ (2021-12-21). Unions Are Not Only Good For Workers. popularresistance.org We know that unions promote economic equality and build worker power, helping workers to win increases in pay, better benefits, and safer working conditions. | But that's not all unions do. Unions also have powerful effects on workers' lives outside of work. | In this report, we document the correlation between higher levels of unionization in states and a range of economic, personal, and democratic well-being measures. In the same way unions give workers a voice at work, with a direct impact on wages and working conditions, the data suggest that unions also give workers a voice in shaping their communities. Wher…

ecns.cn (2021-12-21). Xi extends congratulations on 40th anniversary of Xiamen SEZ. ecns.cn Chinese President Xi Jinping has sent a congratulatory letter on the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Xiamen Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in east China's Fujian Province.

Staff (2021-12-21). EU court rules on business rights in light of exploding costs for ditching Iran deals. rt.com The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg has ruled that companies based in the EU can cancel contracts with Iranian organizations if upholding the original deal would lead to "disproportionate economic loss." | On Tuesday, the ECJ set a precedent by

Staff (2021-12-21). Regional governor bans all foreigners from driving taxis. rt.com The leader of Russia's Tyumen region has issued a decree completely banning all foreigners from working in the public transport system, in a move that will force taxi and bus companies to only hire drivers with a Russian passport. | The move follows announcements made by the heads of other regions, such as Moscow, where the mayor recently announced that it was developing a plan to eliminate migrant labor in the construction industry. | Like construction, taxi-driving is popular with many economic migrants in Russia due to the lack of any professional qualification and ease of finding a job. In Tyumen, where th…

_____ (2021-12-21). Next Phase In US Economic And Political Crisis Begins. popularresistance.org Months ago this writer predicted that Senator Manchin would never support Biden's 'Build Back Better' Bill and was simply engaging in 'bad faith bargaining' to string the Democrats along. Manchin's goal was to get the Democrat leadership—Biden, Pelosi, Durbin, Shumer et. al.—to reduce their proposals, which they conveniently did, on repeated occasions. | But Manchin's real objective has always been to shit can the bill, in order to prevent the necessity of raising taxes on corporations and investors in order to pay for it. To borrow a phrase: "It's the Tax Cuts, Stupid!". | The taxes involved in the B…

WSWS (2021-12-21). UK Tesco workers—reject USDAW-Unite pay sellout! wsws.org USDAW and Unite are recommending workers call off their offensive and accept an effective pay cut in conditions in which they occupy a powerful economic position and confront the serious dangers of COVID-19 in the workplace.

Staff (2021-12-21). Gabriel Boric Win in Chile Is "Huge Victory" for Social Movements That Fought Off Far-Right Threat. democracynow.org Former student activist and leftist Gabriel Boric will become Chile's youngest president after easily defeating the far-right candidate José Antonio Kast with over 55% of the vote. Boric has vowed to fight for progressive social reforms and overhaul the neoliberal economic policies left by the U.S.-backed dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. We speak with Chilean writer Pablo Abufom and feminist activist Javiera Manzi, who say Boric's victory signals an opening for progressive policy in Chile and Latin America more broadly.

Morteza Ahmadi Al Hashem (2021-12-21). Iran's trade with EAEU records 73% growth in 8 months: IRICA. en.mehrnews.com TEHRAN, Dec. 22 (MNA) — Spokesman for the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) said that Iran's trade with Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU)'s member states in the first eight months of the current Iranian year saw a 73% increase.

Inequality (2021-12-21). The Year in Inequality in 10 Charts: Our Economic and Racial Divides grew Wider in 2021. juancole.com Blogging Our Great Divide by Sarah Anderson Brian Wakamo | — A year ago we had such high hopes. We expected the Covid vaccine rollout to bring a swift end to the pandemic, opening a window for pushing bold solutions to the long-standing economic, racial, and gender divides that had grown even wider under Covid. …

Amy Goodman (2021-12-21). Social Movements in Chile Fend Off Far Right Threat With Gabriel Boric's Victory. truthout.org Former student activist and leftist Gabriel Boric will become Chile's youngest president after easily defeating the far-right candidate José Antonio Kast with over 55% of the vote. Boric has vowed to fight for progressive social reforms and overhaul the neoliberal economic policies left by the U.S.-backed dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. We speak with Chilean writer Pablo Abufom and feminist activist Javiera Manzi, who say Boric's victory signals an opening for progressive policy in…

Dana Sanchez (2021-12-21). Senior Economist At Moody's, Mark Zandi: I'm Lowering My Economic Forecast For US Due To Omicron Variant. moguldom.com Moody's Analytics is expected to downgrade its U.S. economic forecast by as much as one percentage point in the coming days due to the double blow from the intensifying pandemic and Sen. Joe Manchin's opposition to President Joe Biden's signature Build Back Better legislation. Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody's Analytics, told CNN on Monday that …

Staff (2021-12-21). Cuba proyecta continuar su gradual recuperación económica en 2022 y espera un crecimiento del 4 por ciento de su PIB. cubadebate.cu La economía cubana proyecta continuar su gradual recuperación en 2022 y alcanzar un crecimiento del PIB, a precios constantes, en el entorno del 4%, para lo cual resulta clave el control de la pandemia, dijo este martes Alejandro Gil Fernández, vice primer ministro y ministro de Economía y Planificación, a diputados reunidos en el Palacio de Convenciones de La Habana.

Editor2 (2021-12-21). Want to Know How to Beat COVID? Look at China. orinocotribune.com By Scott Scheffer — Dec 17, 2021 | The world is now nearing the end of the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The United States has the highest death toll in the world — 823,390 as of Dec. 16. | With all the scientific resources available, and billions of dollars in the vaults of the richest capitalist class in history, the U.S. should have been able to succeed in a vaccination campaign and treat everyone before they were infected. Vaccines should have made their way throughout the world, including the global south where the challenges of poverty magnify the horrors of the pandemic. | Instead, the W…

WSWS (2021-12-21). Price increases for food and other basic necessities to squeeze Canadian workers' already hard-pressed incomes. wsws.org The rising cost of foodstuffs is especially devastating for workers and their families, many of whom struggle to put food on the table, never mind the foods necessary for a healthy and balanced diet.

Editor (2021-12-21). LABOUR live at Metabolic Rift. mronline.org Titled Metabolic Rift, the month-long event series combined both an exhibition spread across Berlin's Kraftwerk venue and a series of concerts that captured the spirit of Berlin through site-specific interventions and live performance.

sputniknews (2021-12-21). Beijing Takes 'Reciprocal Countermeasures' in Response to US Anti-China Sanctions Over Uyghur Issue. sputniknews.com Earlier this month, the US slapped a new package of sanctions on China, alleging that Beijing has been using the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang Province as forced labour, claims the Chinese government rejects.

WSWS (2021-12-21). New Zealand: More bodies photographed after sealing of Pike River mine. wsws.org The announcement underlines the criminality of the Labour Party government's decision to permanently seal the mine, preventing the 29 bodies being recovered and the 2010 disaster properly investigated.

Peoples Dispatch (2021-12-21). Hospitality workers on strike in Cambodia's biggest casino. peoplesdispatch.org Despite pressure from authorities, more than 1,300 workers in Phnom Penh's NagaWorld have been on strike against mass lay-offs and wage cuts. The entire leadership of the Labour Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees of NagaWorld is among those laid off…

Tony Murphy (2021-12-21). Rally for Amazon workers! Dec. 22, New York City. workers.org New York City Amazon union organizing is accelerating, as Staten Island Amazon workers refile for union election. On Dec. 22 the Amazon Labor Union will resubmit its petition for a union vote at the facility, known as JFK8, to the National Labor Relations Board. Workers will hold a lunchtime walkout . . . |

_____ (2021-12-21). Who Might Strike in 2022? Hundreds of Big Contracts Will Be Up. popularresistance.org Workers are already sensing their increased leverage in a tight labor market. They'll be feeling the squeeze of record inflation while their employers rake in profits. There's every reason to hold the line against concessions, or to win back what they gave away before. | A Bloomberg analysis in November found that nearly 200 large union contracts (covering at least 1,000 workers) would expire between then and the end of 2022. Together these contracts cover 1.3 million workers—and there are hundreds of thousands more covered under the hundreds of smaller contracts that are also expiring. Here are some of the…

Labor Video Project (2021-12-21). SF UESF Teachers & Supporters Demand No Cuts In the Class & Rally Against At SFUSD HQ. indybay.org Hundreds of teachers, students and supporters of public education rallied at the SFUSD offices to protest the proposed $125 million dollar budget cuts.

sputniknews (2021-12-21). Gas Futures Prices in Europe Top $2,000 per 1,000 Cubic Meters for 1st Time. sputniknews.com MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Gas futures prices in Europe on Tuesday topped record $2,000 for 1,000 cubic meters minutes after breaking another record of $1,937.

Ragip Soylu (2021-12-21). Turkish dollar? Erdogan's new financial investment tool explained. middleeasteye.net Turkish dollar? Erdogan's new financial investment tool explained | Scheme has put a sudden stop to the lira's meltdown, but concerns are high that it will also create huge public debt and more inflation | Tue, 12/21/2021 – 08: 25 | Is Erdogan's new investment tool a 'veiled interest rate hike'?, 7 December 2021 (AFP) | Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's unveiling of a new lira investment instrumen…

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