(2022-01-02). Matt Taibbi and Matt Orfalea on Pandemic Scare-Coverage. scheerpost.com By Matt Taibbi and Matt Orfalea / For a while now it's been clear the primary objective of most pandemic coverage is to scare the socks off mass audiences. Good news, bad news, boring news, interesting news, news that's more of a wash in the final analysis, news that's a net plus overall: it's all presented as terrifying, more signs of the Apocalypse. There's no better example than the stampede to advertise the "first death from Omicron" in the United States. | Matt Orfalea does a hilarious job of stitching together an homage to…
(2022-01-02). Welcome 2022! President Maduro Highlights his Administration's Achieved Goals. orinocotribune.com 
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro issued a message to welcome in the new year 2022. In his message, the president highlighted the goals that had been achieved in the previous year 2021 and referred to it as a mystical cycle for Venezuela in which the Carabobo Bicentennial was celebrated. | Maduro pointed out that 2021 was characterized by its renewal of hope and by the strength of the people's courage in the midst of the attacks perpetrated by different sectors of the national and international right-wing. | "We will have to remember 2021 as being the year of our democratic institutions; of the consolidation of…
(2022-01-02). Palestine in Pictures: December 2021. electronicintifada.net A monthly roundup of photographs documenting Palestine, Palestinian life, politics and culture, and international solidarity with Palestine.
(2022-01-02). Venezuela: from resistance to recovery in production and social welfare. liberationnews.org 
By Jesús Faría, president of the Permanent Commission of Economy, Finances and Economic Development of the National Assembly and member of the national leadership of the…
(2022-01-02). A man of substance and joyful to the last: the Desmond Tutu I knew. greenleft.org.au Armed with inclusive views of humanity, "the Arch" crossed borders, challenged nationalism and advocated justice, not least for the Palestinians, writes Stuart Rees.
(2022-01-02). Chuck Kaufman: A Great man has Left us. orinocotribune.com By Stansfield Smith — Dec 31, 2021 | Chuck Kaufman was a great man who had a tremendous influence on me (and probably others). He was such an excellent model of what an anti-imperialist organizer is. I am sure people who worked with him were impressed by the great political common sense he possessed. Activists recognized this in him, and gave his views and suggestions a lot of weight. I learned so much about how to be more effective from him, given his years of organizing experience on a national level. | He recognized what other activists were good at, what they were not good at, and the good sense to try t…
(2022-01-02). Ten Years of Kim Jong-un's Rule. journal-neo.org 
It's known that the former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il died suddenly at his workplace on December 17, 2011. The man who had the difficult task of taking the country out of a difficult situation caused by a set of natural disasters and radical changes in the international environment, which the DPRK calls "the hard …
(2022-01-01). 2021 Latin America and the Caribbean in Review: The Pink Tide Rises Again. libya360.wordpress.com Roger D. Harris Photo: Bill Hackwell US policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean continued in a seamless transition from Trump to Biden, but the terrain over which it operated shifted left. The balance between the US drive to dominate its "backyard" and its counterpart, the Bolivarian cause of regional independence and integration, continued to…
(2022-01-01). Palestinian Authority Carried Out Raids in Jenin Under the Command of the Israeli Army as Israel Launched Airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. libya360.wordpress.com The Cradle Support for the West Bank's ruling Fatah party continues to dwindle as PA President Mahmoud Abbas strengthens his ties with Israeli occupation officials The Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, Aviv Kohavi, has revealed that occupation forces were recently planning a "large-scale security operation" in the West Bank city of Jenin, before…
(2022-01-01). [Perspectives] Sivaramakrishna Iyer Padmavati: trailblazing cardiologist in India. thelancet.com The first woman from India to qualify in cardiology, Sivaramakrishna Iyer Padmavati (1917—2020), helped to set up the All India Heart Foundation and was a founder of its National Heart Institute (NHI) in New Delhi. Fellow cardiologists in her home country dubbed her the "godmother of cardiology", and her example persuaded other pioneering women doctors in India that they could specialise outside the traditional career path of obstetrics and paediatrics.
(2022-01-01). Best of Chris Hedges' 2021 Columns. scheerpost.com Ring in the new year with ScheerPost columnist Chris Hedges' best work from the last twelve months. Whether it's condemning America's Forever Wars or advocating for persecuted heroes like WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and environmental lawyer Steve Donziger, Hedges' columns are key to understanding the U.S. and the world as we know it. Read more …
(2022-01-01). Shuffled cards: Berlin Bulletin No. 197, December 30, 2021. mronline.org 
After the German elections on September 26th it took, as usual, weeks and weeks for the three coalition parties to agree on one program, full of compromises, pledges and promises (some of which may even been be kept) and to resolve quarrels over who gets which cabinet seat.
(2022-01-01). Vulnerability Theory with Martha Fineman. mronline.org 
Money on the Left discusses "vulnerability theory" with Martha Fineman, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law at Emory University. Going beyond the politics of non-discrimination and formal equality that animate liberal politics and policies, Fineman underscores the human being's embodied vulnerability throughout the life cycle in order to politicize, rather than pathologize prevailing structures of social dependence.
(2022-01-01). Germany One Step Closer To Nuclear-Free Future. popularresistance.org Green groups on Friday celebrated as Germany prepared to shut down three of its six remaining nuclear power plants, part of that country's ambitious goal of transitioning to mostly renewable energy by the end of the decade. | The nuclear phaseout—which was proposed by the center-left government of former Chancellor Gerhard Schrà∂der at the turn of the century and accelerated under former Chancellor Angela Merkel following the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan—is a key component of a plan by Germany's new Social Democrat, Green, and Free Democrat governing coalition to produce 80% of the country's…
(2022-01-01). [Correspondence] Brazilian science under continuous attack. thelancet.com Despite the resistance of Brazilian scientists, science in Brazil has been undermined by measures implemented by the federal government in the past 3 years, such as increasing budget cuts, attacks on the autonomy of universities, and a general policy of denial of science. A recent budget cut of US$110 million to the Ministry of Science Technology and Innovations budget, in addition to the withholding of $490 million from the National Scientific and Technological Development Fund, not only represents an enormous impediment to conducting research at universities and research institutes, but also jeopardises the fut…
(2022-01-01). Left "Anti-Authoritarianism" Has Been Counterrevolution's Greatest Weapon. libya360.wordpress.com Rainer Shea Since workers states began to form in the early twentieth century, and bourgeois propaganda therefore first had highly tangible enemies to latch onto, capitalism's defenders have claimed that revolution will lead to dictatorship. The image of a grim, despotic dystopia that was projected onto the Soviet Union—and then onto the next socialist states…
(2022-01-01). Argentina: Labor, Environmentalists, and Indigenous Unite to Defeat Mining (Canada Mining Corporations Again). orinocotribune.com By Marisela Trevin — Dec 28, 2021 | A zoning law would have opened up the southern Argentinian province of Chubut to large-scale mining by multinational corporations. | But the law was defeated in just five days by an alliance of environmentalists, workers, youth, and indigenous people. Their fight points the way forward for other movements around the world. | 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…