It has dominated news cycles, debates and policies since 2020, but COVID-19 continues to exercise the interest of number crunchers and talliers. While the ghoulish daily press announcements about infections and deaths across many a country have diminished and, in some cases, disappeared altogether, publications abound about how many were taken in the pandemic.
The World Health Organization, ever that herald of dark news, has offered a revised assessment across of the SARS-CoV-2 death toll associated either directly or indirectly with the pandemic. Between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2021, the global health body suggests that the mortality figure …
The following is an unpublished transcript of an interview the author did for a UK-based TV channel that covers issues of interest to the worldwide Sikh diaspora. It concerns three pieces of farm legislation in India that were repealed in late 2021 after a prolonged protest by India’s farmers that gained global support and recognition.
Although the interview took place before the laws were repealed, the issues discussed remain highly relevant. That is because farmers are concerned that the government is dragging its feet on a number of issues more than six months after the legislation was repealed, not least a …
The Russia-Ukraine war has quickly turned into a global conflict. One of the likely outcomes of this war is the very redefinition of the current world order, which has been in effect, at least since the collapse of the Soviet Union over three decades ago.
Indeed, there is a growing sense that a new global agenda is forthcoming, one that could unite Russia and China and, to a degree, India and others, under the same banner. This is evident, not only by the succession of the earth-shattering events underway, but, equally important, the language employed to describe these events.
This is the latest on the fierce military conflict between the US and Canada.
To recap, tensions have been escalating over the past 24 months. Then four weeks ago, the US announced it had irrefutable proof that militant, America-hating militias had joined with the regular military forces of the Canadian Royal Mounted Police, to position a formidable, threatening, highly lethal military presence right on the US border, stretching from Washington State east to Minnesota. Concentrations of troops hunkered in reinforced battlements were also allegedly discovered in southern Ontario and south of Montreal …
The change in marijuana laws across the US raises issues far beyond, “Hey, dude, we can blow a joint now without getting busted.” The racism that permeated the age of criminalization now lurks throughout the phase of decriminalization. The burgeoning business of growing pot raises the specter of corporate agriculture with its threats to human health and natural ecosystems. Are there ways to enjoy weed while challenging racism and corporate domination over the environment?
An Attack on Black and Brown Cultures
Spanish-speaking people, who have lived in the US since …
Francisca Lita Sa?ez (Spain), An Unequal Fight, 2020.
These are deeply upsetting times. The COVID-19 global pandemic had the potential to bring people together, to strengthen global institutions such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), and to galvanise new faith in public action. Our vast social wealth could have been pledged to improve public health systems, including both the surveillance of outbreaks of illness and the development of medical systems to treat people during these outbreaks. Not so.
NATO sanctions have affected trade, nonetheless, China and Russia continue to co-operate on energy, military, and space technology and dedollarization; BRI partner Argentina is invited to the next BRICS summit in June; John Lee Ka-chiu will be Hong Kong’s next chief executive; there is an online exercise boom.
The New York Times has a job to do – and it has done that job spectacularly well over the past few months. The Times is a leader, in the opinion of this writer, the leader in spelling out the US narrative on the war in Ukraine, a tale designed to keep up morale, give the war a high moral purpose and justify the untold billions pouring from the taxpayers’ pockets into Joe Biden’s proxy war on Russia. Day in and day out, in page after page of word and picture, it has been instructing one and all, including politicians …
What follows is a series of emails from a comrade, HCE. He is a Russian citizen and has lived and worked in Moscow for many years. He is a Marxist-Leninist. The questions we asked him are in bold.
Dear Bruce:
Before I start answering more of your questions, I would like to make a comment on the very complicated situation concerning access to data which affects both my three previous letters and as well as any future letters.
Rocky times in the political economy and computerized and digital world
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia embarked on an extremely complicated process of switching …
Weapons, lacking sentience and moral orientation, are there to be used by all. Once out, these creations can never be rebottled. Effective spyware, that most malicious of surveillance tools, is one such creation, available to entities and governments of all stripes. The targets are standard: dissidents, journalists, legislators, activists, even the odd jurist.
Pegasus spyware, the fiendishly effective creation of Israel’s unscrupulous NSO Group, has become something of a regular in the news cycles on cyber security. Created in 2010, it was the brainchild of three engineers who had cut their teeth working for the cyber outfit Unit 8200 of …
During 20 years of reporting on Israel and Palestine, I learned first-hand that Israel’s version of events around the deaths of Palestinians or foreigners can never be trusted
by Jonathan Cook / May 13th, 2022
The execution of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by an Israeli soldier in the Palestinian city of Jenin, along with Israel‘s immediate efforts to muddy the waters about who was responsible and the feeble expressions of concern from western capitals, brought memories flooding back from 20 years of reporting from the region.
Unlike Abu Akleh, I found myself far less often on the front lines in the occupied territories. I was not a war correspondent, and when I ended up close to the action it was invariably by accident – such as when, also …
Always looking, and sounding, a touch unhinged, the beetroot-coloured Barnaby Joyce, leader of the Australian Nationals and, for a time now, deputy prime minister, has made a splash. With the federal elections being held on May 18, he does not have much time to commit mischief and befuddle the political vultures. But the National Press Club gave him a chance to make some trouble, a task accomplished with some success.
At stages during his address, it seemed that trouble had followed Joyce. There was sniffing and sniffling. Then a nosebleed, brief intermission and tissues. The Twitterati thought this ominous; …
Like typical analyses offered by western intelligences when trying to assess risks or understand major political phenomena in the Middle East, Israeli intelligence is equally short-sighted. It insists on analyzing the attitudes and body language of individuals instead of focusing on the behavior of collectives. This is the case today as Israel is desperately trying to understand the changing political dynamics in Palestine.
Following the Israeli war on Gaza in May 2021, the Israeli military prepared a ‘personality profile’ of Gaza-based Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar. Though Hamas, and Sinwar, were important political actors in the events that took place …
metaverse, global brain, social impact, your digital self
by Paul Haeder / May 10th, 2022
You can go through life with a thousand epigrams or deep quotes that you might come back to over two, four, six decades. Then, the disrupters pop up, those techno fascists, the tinkers and culture blasters.
These sociopaths who get the limelight then become part of a new set of epigrams, but not grand ones, but totally emblematic of a new normal of Triple Speak, Capitalism Porn, and the Stiff Arm to the Coders and their Masters.
It’s sad, really. Here, quality ones of very different and varied origins:
Timothy 6:10 “The love of money is a root of all …
Rev. William Barber (Photo: Getty Images) The demands for justice at home and abroad must not be sacrificed on the altar of what is called pragmatism. The false choices presented by liberalism can undermine the movement altogether.
Rev. William Barber, an indisputable champion of the poor and a consistent voice demanding an end to poverty, may have made a serious moral and ethical error that effectively placed him outside of the “Kingian” framework that informed Dr. King’s work especially during the last year of his life.
Below is more data on the continually failing economy and how it is hurting millions across the U.S.
It can be seen from the different parts in this series, as well as other articles on the same topic, ((Many other articles containing extensive facts and statistics on economic and social decline can be found at my Dissident Voiceauthor’s page)) that there is a dire situation confronting millions of people centuries after the scientific and technical revolution made it possible to easily meet the needs of all.
To be sure, the economy is working mainly for a handful of people and …
This was my presentation at a Chongyang Institute’s organized international webinar on 6 May 2022 on the topic of “Seeking Peace and Promoting Development”. The Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies is a think tank attached to the Renmin University of Beijing.
*****
In today’s world of regional conflicts, technological upgrading, epidemic stalemate and system reform, Peace is Priority Number One for an international sustainable and equitable socioeconomic development.
The present most infamous conflict is the Ukraine – Russia war, China could play an important role as moderator as proposed on several occasions by President Xi Jinping. It might …
Rescue workers continue to comb through the rubble for signs of life (Photo: Bill Hackwell) Havana — It is Mother’s Day in Cuba, but in Havana there is no music or merriment as usually happens on this date. The city has been in mourning since Friday, when a massive explosion shook the Saratoga Hotel, in Old Havana, collapsing part of its facade and spreading terror among neighbors in the surrounding communities.
The images of the catastrophe hurt: the smoke, the destruction, the fear. The whole city is in shock and follows …
So, I posted the above meme on my personal Facebook page with this silly caption: “Business idea: Woke yoga school called Reverse Warrior. (They’re gonna need a whole lot of flexibility to keep contorting themselves in and out of all these poses.)”
Obvious comedy, all around…right? Not in The Land of the Free™.
For my heinous transgressions, I got this notice:
My crime, you wonder?
Where exactly is the “false information”? That I’m not really gonna open …
As with previous breakaway religions thrilled by the prospect of the new, breakaway sporting competitions offer a chance to reassess doctrine, administration, and philosophies. It has happened in football, cricket, and rugby, often controversially, and almost always indignantly. The attempt to create a rival competition is now taking place in a sport famously described as the spoiling of a good walk.
The LIV Golf Invitational Series is set to run from June to October and promises to be an extravaganza played on three continents. The chief executive of the enterprise is the man of the eternal tan, golfer turned businessman Greg …
The planet is wheezing, coughing and sputtering because of vicious attacks by worldwide droughts aided and abetted by global warming at only 1.2C above baseline. Some major metropolises are rationing water.
What’ll happen at 1.5C?
It’s not as if droughts are not a normal feature of the climate system. They are, but the problem nowadays is highlighted by reports from NASA and NOAA stating that earth is trapping nearly twice as much heat is it did in 2005 described as an “unprecedented increase amid the climate crisis.” This trend is described as “quite alarming.”
by Gustavo A Maranges and Bill Hackwell / May 9th, 2022
Dona Concepcion Primary School Classroom. (Photo: Bill Hackwell)
For any Havana resident, the Paseo del Prado is part of his or her identity. Walking along this immense avenue and enjoying the architecture and cultural diversity of this area is a pleasure that many of us enjoy, while for others, it is so common that it becomes barely imperceptible. However, walking around this place will never be the same again because one of the most emblematic images of Havana was the scene of a real tragedy.
This is a commentary upon N.Y. Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s statement on May 6 that Ukraine’s Government is and ought to be the U.S. Government’s agent in its war against Russia, not representing the interests of the Ukrainian people in it. He introduced the statement by noting that Ukraine is a bad country,
a country marbled with corruption. That doesn’t mean we should not be helping it. I am glad we are. I insist we do. But my sense is that the Biden team is walking much more of a tightrope with Zelensky than it would appear …
Children should not pay for the sins of their parents. But in some cases, a healthy suspicion of the offspring is needed, notably when it comes to profiting off ill-gotten gains. It is certainly needed in the case of Filipino politician and presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, who stands to win on May 9.
Bongbong’s father was the notorious strongman Ferdinand Marcos, his mother, the avaricious, shoe-crazed Imelda. Elected president in 1965, Ferdinand Marcos indulged in murder, torture and looting. He thrived on the terrain of violent, corrupt oligarchic politics, characterised by a telling remark from the dejected Sergio …
We have a serious debt problem, but solutions such as the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” are not the future we want. It’s time to think outside the box for some new solutions.
In ancient Mesopotamia, it was called a Jubilee. When debts at interest grew too high to be repaid, the slate was wiped clean. Debts were forgiven, the debtors’ prisons were opened, and the serfs returned to work their plots of land. This could be done because the king was the representative of the gods who were said to own the land, and thus was the creditor to whom …
Humanity’s great Achilles’ heel, the flaw that may well determine our fate, was summed up in a couple of lines in the classic Simon & Garfunkel song, ‘The Boxer’:
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest.
Women, too! Erich Fromm discussed this remarkable phenomenon of ‘selective inattention’: man’s capacity for ‘not observing what he does not want to observe; hence, that he may be sincere in denying a knowledge which he would have, if he wanted only to have it’. (Fromm, Beyond the Chains …
It is not often that one speech urging the creation of a national public interest law firm, driven by seasoned trial lawyers, would move from words to deeds, from oratory to action.
That is just what happened following my address in June 1980 to the Michigan Trial Lawyers Association. I spoke of a gap in trial practice which needed to be filled. There was a pressing need to bring cases against the many corporate abuses, which included non-enforcement of regulatory laws. Without the prospect of a contingent fee after a successful outcome, trial lawyers were unlikely to take on these uncertain …
Dia Al-Azzawi (Iraq), Sabra and Shatila Massacre, 1982–?83.
Two important reports were released last month, neither getting the kind of attention they deserve. On 4 April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group III report was published, evoking a strong reaction from the United Nations’ Secretary General António Guterres. The report, he said, ‘is a litany of broken climate promises. It is a file of shame, cataloguing the empty pledges that put us …
The US Supreme Court Chief Justice was furious. For the first time in history, the raw judicial process of one of the most powerful, and opaque arms of government, had been exposed via media – at least in preliminary form. It resembled, in no negligible way, the publication by WikiLeaks of various drafts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the forerunner to the current Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The subject matter was positively incendiary: the potential overturning and judicial eradication of Roe v Wade, a 1973 decision which has generated a literature both for and against its …
