Leaked documents from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) suggest that high-level officials manipulated or ignored the findings of those actually on the ground to investigate the alleged chemical attack that killed dozens of people in Douma, Syria in 2018. Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter shares his insights. He argues that the OPCW failed to maintain an adequate chain of custody when collecting evidence in Douma, relying instead on opposition-aligned White Helmets to gather it.
Canada is celebrating the agents of Palestinian misery.
Last month the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv held an event to celebrate Canadians fighting in the Israeli military. They invited all 78 Canadians in the IDF to the ambassador’s residence to demonstrate their appreciation. Referring to non-Israelis who join the IDF, ambassador Deborah Lyons told the Jerusalem Post, “Canadian lone soldiers are a particularly special group … This is something we want to do on a yearly basis to show our support.” At the event Canada’s ambassador said, “we both share a love of Canada and a love of …
His broken body crushed into the soil so closely resembled a tiny green human, he gave me cause to reflect upon my dirty deed. Those dying remains matched perfectly the leaves of the newly planted Valencia Orange tree, upon which he had been happily feeding, only moments before the sole of my sandal abruptly ended his short life. Tiny legs still contracting in his final death throes, the three inch long grasshopper no longer posed a threat to my future orange crop. A wave of guilt and remorse swept over me, causing momentary nausea and light-headedness. Poor little guy was only doing …
PM Boris Johnson is planning to do a trade deal with the US that could see the gutting of food and environment standards. However, Johnson recently suggested that the UK will be “governed by …
As of now people in the Healing Center are safe and not being threatened with arrest, and the four brave land defenders from 44 were released today after spending the weekend in jail.
Rail lines continue to be blocked and people have poured into the streets, banks, and Government offices outraged by the RCMP’s arrest of Unist’ot’en Matriarchs and grotesque violation of Wet’suwet’en Law.
Indigenous Youth who have been occupying the ceremonial entrance to the BC Legislature with an encampment since Thursday are calling for people to join them as police action has been threatened in advance of John Horgan’s speech from …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / February 10th, 2020
The 21st Century nuclear arms and developing outer space arms races, which began under Obama and are increasing under Trump, are going to be something the world has never seen before. They are a bonanza for weapons makers, the Pentagon budget and capitalists in space. They will create a less secure world, a greater wealth divide, a tattered safety net and new, more dangerous forms of war.
Last week, the United States increased the risk of nuclear war by deploying “low yield” nukes. While this sounds friendlier than planet-killing “thermonuclear missiles,” …
For Israel’s so-called peace camp, the past 12 months of general elections – a third ballot is due on 2 March – have felt more like a prolonged game of Russian roulette, with ever-diminishing odds of survival.
Each time the electoral gun barrel has been spun, the two parliamentary parties associated with liberal Zionism, Labor and Meretz, have braced for their imminent political demise.
And now with Israel’s ultra-nationalist right celebrating the release of Donald Trump’s so-called “vision” for peace, hoping it will further rally the Israeli public to its side, the left fears electoral extinction even more.
Kuwait’s National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Ali Al-Ghanim throws US president Donald Trump Mideast peace plan in the dustbin during the 30th emergency conference of the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union (AIU) held in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
People need to see what the government of Canada is doing!
by Kim Petersen / February 8th, 2020
Over 20 #Wetsuweten and supporter vehicles have amassed at 27km mark, effectively blockading the exit route to RCMP paddy-wagons leaving the territory. They’re holding a ceremony and ensuring the safety of those arrested. Reports state Hereditary Cheifs at 27 KM are now being surrounded by RCMP.
In the nineteenth century, Gilbert Sproat, a colonial official, wrote an account of his time among the Nuu Chah Nulth people on the west coast of Vancouver Island. He noted that the original inhabitants have “known …
After several weeks of intensive reading and discussion on class, capitalism and socialism in my undergraduate course, The Politics of Labor, we would do following exercise: Standing before the blackboard (google it) I encouraged the students to list existing, objective and determining conditions that might prompt the American working class to seek the abolition of capitalism. As the response flowed there wasn’t enough space on the left side of the board to write down all the urgent unmet needs, egregious grievances and vanquished hopes. And the fact these young …
There are few things in life more surreal than being on the ground when election fraud is taking place, feeling that knot in the stomach growing as tales of intrigue trickle in like slow-drip coffee on a particularly rough morning.
I was in Georgia in 2018, when the gubernatorial race between Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams became the culmination of a years-long effort by Kemp, who was at that time the state’s Attorney General and electoral rule-keeper, to rig an election. There, it was polling locations closed or …
Numerous inequalities characterize societies in which the majority produce the wealth but only a handful own it. The so-called “achievement gap” is mainly an expression of the harsh social class divide in society that keeps growing.
One of the conceited claims of charter school advocates is that privately-owned-operated non-profit and for-profit charter schools will close the nagging “achievement gap” in America. Charter schools are supposedly a panacea because they will “out-perform” America’s “failing” public schools, rescue kids, empower parents, and provide a brighter future for all.
But nearly 30 years later, with hundreds of studies and endless real-life examples, privately-owned-operated non-profit and …
On 29 January WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that there was no reason to declare the outbreak of the coronavirus 2019-nCoV in China a pandemic risk. On 30 January, he declared the virus an international emergency, but made clear that there was no reason for countries to issue travel-advisories against travelling to China. Let me speculate. The ‘international emergency’ was declared at the request of Washington, and the comment against the travel-advisory was an addition by Dr. Tedros himself, as he realized that there was indeed no reason for panic, that China is doing wonders in stemming the …
While U.S. advocates and local politicians struggle to get their first public banks chartered, Mexico’s new president has begun construction on 2,700 branches of a government-owned bank to be completed in 2021, when it will be the largest bank in the country. At a press conference on January 6, he said the neoliberal model had failed; private banks were not serving the poor and people outside the cities, so the government had to step in.
When bailiffs broke down his door on the 20th June 2018 they found Errol Graham emaciated and dead. He weighed just four and a half stone (28.5kg). There was no food in the flat except for two tins of fish that were four years out of date, no gas or electricity supply. He was 57, lived alone in Nottingham, England and due to severe anxiety had little or no contact with family or friends. Unable to work he relied on state benefits to pay his rent, cover the bills and feed himself, benefits that were stopped when Graham did not …
Demand from the Israeli extreme right to strip Palestinians of citizenship has moved out of the shadows with US help
by Jonathan Cook / February 7th, 2020
The Trump administration’s decision to green-light Israel’s annexation of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank grabbed headlines last week. But US support for a related proposal – one equally cherished by Israel’s extreme right – was far less noticed.
Under the terms of the “Peace to Prosperity” document, the US could allow Israel to strip potentially hundreds of thousands of its own inhabitants of their citizenship in a so-called “populated land swap” with the settlements.
Those in danger of having their citizenship revoked are drawn from Israel’s large Palestinian minority – one in five of the country’s population.
Australia has produced extraordinary journalists across three generations: Wilfred Burchett (deceased in 1983), John Pilger (80 years old but still active) and Julian Assange (48 years old, currently in London’s Belmarsh prison).
Each of these journalists made unique contributions to our understanding of the world. Although Australia is part of the western world, each of these journalists exposed and criticized Western foreign policy.
Wilfred Burchett
Wilfred Burchett lived from 1911 to 1983. He was a farm boy and his experience in the depression shaped his dislike of oligarchs and preference for the poor. He went to Europe trying to volunteer for Republicans in …
by Ajamu Baraka and Bahman Azad / February 7th, 2020
On February 4, Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell issued a ruling on what the jurors will be allowed to be told in the trial of the Embassy Protectors scheduled to begin on February 11. She granted most of the government’s requests to prevent the jury from hearing important facts about the case, leaving the protectors with little in the way of a defense.
The courtroom will not be an oasis of truth in Washington, DC. The fact that Nicolas Maduro is the lawful president of Venezuela, not the coup leader …
Never undertake a prosecution unless you have good grounds, and prospects, for a solid conviction. In the case against President Donald Trump, there was never a serious prospect that the Senate would cool sufficiently to give the Democrats the votes necessary to affirm vote of impeachment in the House. The GOP remains very much in Trump’s pocket, a remarkable if opportunistic transformation given the innate hostility shown towards him prior to the 2016 elections. With their allegiance pinned to the Trump juggernaut, the hope is that, come November, the entire effort won’t sink under the toxic miasma that is US …
President Trump’s fraudulent Middle East deal runs roughshod over Palestinian rights, harms long-term Israeli interests, and is only the latest example of the US arrogance and disdain for international law. Essentially Trump’s offer, negotiated without any Palestinian input, requires the Palestinians to sell out their hopes for justice and a decent life free of occupation for money. Trump was attempting to satisfy Israel and its US supporters, including many of his big money donors, with this deal that would allow Israel to steal even more Palestinian land.
Former President Carter’s office said in a statement that Trump’s plan “breaches international law …
On December 18th, Donald Trump became the third U.S. president in history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. The second to be indicted before completing a first term, the 45th commander-in-chief must now survive a Senate trial before seeking reelection later this year. As many nonpartisan analysts predicted, the charges appear to have only improved his chances with the electorate as his approval rating saw an uptick after the articles were approved on grounds of “obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.” After dragging the country through three years of Russiagate which never panned out, …
A major German TV network has aired an interview with the UN rapporteur on torture that reveals the invention of the Swedish “rape” case against Julian Assange.
Truth has broken through for those confused about how a publisher ended up in a maximum security prison in London with a one-way extradition ticket to court in the U.S. and the rest of his life behind bars.
One of the main German TV channels (ZDF) ran two prime-time segments on Wednesday night exposing authorities in Sweden for having “made up” the story about …
Later this month, India’s Supreme Court will hold a lengthy hearing on the commercialisation of genetically modified (GM) mustard, which would be the country’s first GM food crop. The court has asked the chair of the Technical Expert Committee to be present and says that the decision on GM mustard cannot be kept pending. The TEC has come out against using genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Indian agriculture.
As lead petitioner in a public interest litigation challenging the government-backed push to commercialise this crop, Aruna Rodrigues has over the past few years submitted much evidence to the court alleging the science …
There’s one reason why it’s a good thing that Wall Street billionaire Michael Bloomberg is trying to buy the Presidency: it could remove the issue of age for those concerned about candidates in their 70s. Bloomberg is 79, the same age as Bernie.
Bloomberg’s desperate move is happening following Biden’s persistent stumbles and weaknesses, and after Buttigieg’s 0% level of support from African Americans in a Quinnipiac poll. Zero percent!
As of now, from many different angles, Bernie is looking good, Buttigieg not so much, and Bloomberg is a big …
A passenger plane carrying 172 people from Tehran has been forced to make an emergency landing after almost being hit by Syrian air defenses in response to an Israeli airstrike over Damascus. Former UK MP George Galloway joins In Question to discuss.
The whole DNC and Chairman Perez should be shit-canned
by Dave Lindorff / February 7th, 2020
Bernie Sanders declares victory on Thursday in chaotic (and perhaps unsuccessfully DNC-hacked) Iowa Caucus
Hooray for Bernie Sanders!
He waited until he had the numbers and now he’s calling it. He won Iowa!
Maybe the same corporate media that have been touting Pete Buttigieg as the “presumptive winner” in the messy Iowa Caucus, now that their story is collapsing are unwilling to call it for Bernie.
Sanders, in a televised announcement Thursday from New Hampshire, finally took action, saying, “Even though the vote …
Early in the morning on Feb 6th, the RCMP launched their long anticipated raid on Wet’suwet’en land defenders. Six supporters have been arrested, at the 39 km marker of the Morice West Forest Service Road, and a large contingent of RCMP trucks and heavy equipment have moved onwards towards the Gidimt’en Access point at the 44 km marker. The time has come for supporters to rise up and #ShutDownCanada.
The State of the Union Speech was pretty much a theatre of the absurd, but it also showed the true colors of everyone involved. As a speech goes, regardless of the content, it was very good on rhetoric. With plenty of theatrics that only a reality game show host could muster, it very likely gave Trump a bump in the ratings, for now. Let’s just wait for his post-acquittal speech where he’s likely to claim himself St. Donald, martyred by the Radical Left Socialist Democrats.
There were of course moments that were bi-partisan, for good or bad. Highlighting the Tuskegee Airman …
What’s more likely to shape Canadian policy in the Hemisphere: human rights and democracy or bankers’ bottom-line?
Last week Venezuelan politician Juan Guaidó was fêted in Ottawa. The self-declared president met Canada’s Prime Minister, international development minister and foreign minister. Trudeau said, “I commend Interim President Guaidó for the courage and leadership he has shown in his efforts to return democracy to Venezuela, and I offer Canada’s continued support.”
Last month Guaidó was dethroned as leader of Venezuela’s national assembly. While the vote was contested, it represents a significant blow to Guaidó’s year-old claim to be Venezuela’s legitimate President. To shore up his position …
After the supposedly post-racial presidency of Barack Obama, what passes for the liberal punditry discovered racism had arisen in the homeland. They never felt so good feeling bad about racism, denouncing what they identified as its primal cause – Mr. Trump, who was sullying that “shining example” of the United States of America. Obscured were those historical antecedents of this “exceptional” republic, founded on the expropriation of indigenous land and extermination of its inhabitants and built in part by African slave labor.
Peculiar institution of US racism
Trump has been reprehensible in pandering to white racism. But the Republicans have …
