This is an archived newsroll page on A Socialist In Canada, consisting of headlines and weblinks, with occasional news summary and brief analysis, for the indicated month(s) and year. See the current, ‘World news’ website page here. To find past stories on this and other news pages on this website, use the ‘find’ (word search) function on your web browser. Headlines in red denote items published on the main news page of A Socialist In Canada, mostly authored by Roger Annis.
World news headlines on A Socialist In Canada, March 2021
In alarming turn, NATO is increasingly positioning itself in opposition to China, by Ann Wright, Truthout.org, Mar 29, 2021 (Ann Wright is a retired U.S. military veteran and a former U.S. diplomat for 16 years. She resigned from the U.S. government in 2003 in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq.)
Related:
* With nuclear weapons brandished, Britain enters the US-China fray, by Ramsy Baroud (editor), The Palestine Chronicle, Mar 29, 2021
* Brutal attack on Filipino woman in New York City sparks outrage, New York Times, Mar 30, 2021
* Biden announces actions to combat anti-Asian attacks, New York Times, Mar 30, 2021 [Media reports on the public relations moves by Western leaders to express ‘concern’ over anti-Asian racism have a common theme–not a word, not a peep, is mentioned of how big-power propaganda and threats against China are contributing to the rise of anti-Asian racism in the bullies’ home countries.]
Venezuela points finger at U.S. for continued skirmishes along Colombian border, by Paul Dobson, Venezuela Analysis, Mar 29, 2021 … A number of commentators have said the ‘irregular troops’ clashing with the Venezuelan army stem from diverse guerrilla fractions generated by the demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) in Colombia, following the 2016 peace accords there. Venezuelan journalist Erika Sanoja claimed last week that the border clashes have been led by a “dissident FARC group which decided to break away after the peace agreement and which now follow [guerilla commander Miguel Santillana alias] Gentil Duarte.” Sanoja claimed that he has since switched sides and “now follows the paramilitary blocks (…) in favor of the Colombian oligarchy” as a “type of [US] franchise”…
Despite Chile’s speedy Covid-19 vaccination drive, cases soar, New York Times, Mar 30, 2021
[Chile is #22 in the world for total Covid-19 infections and #63 by population (19 million). It has endured a Covid-19 infection rate of 51,400 per million population and 1,200 deaths per million. These are equivalent numbers to other, pro-U.S. regimes in South America such as Colombia and Peru, and not much lower than the worst of them–Brazil (59,000 and 1,500, resp.). The comparable rates in Venezuela (population 28 million) are, by contrast, 5,600 and 56, respectively. Yet it is Venezuela being targetted by Western imperialism for a violent overthrow of its government. The lesson is that countries become targets for imperialist ‘regime change’ when they build effective public health systems, succeed in curbing Covid-19 infections and value their national sovereignty. Examples: China, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. (See article on Cuba immediately below). This confirms that modern imperialism is a death machine and a danger to the wellbeing of the peoples of the world.]
Against the odds, Cuba could become a coronavirus vaccine powerhouse, Washington Post, Mar 29, 2021 …Cuba is on the cusp of a singular breakthrough: Becoming the world’s smallest country to develop not just one, but multiple coronavirus vaccines…Cuban officials say they’re developing cheap and easy-to-store serums, able to last at room temperature for weeks and in long-term storage as high as 46.4 degrees, potentially making them a viable option for low-income, tropical countries that have been pushed aside by bigger, wealthier nations in the international scrum for coronavirus vaccines. They could also make Cuba the pharmacist for nations lumped by Washington into the ‘Axis of Evil’ and ‘Troika of Tyranny’. Iran and Venezuela have inked vaccine deals with Havana… The country’s ambitious vaccination target could rank Cuba among the first nations in the world to reach herd immunity…
Related: Cuba libre to be Covid-libre: Five vaccines and counting, by Helen Yaffe, CounterPunch, Mar 30, 2021
[Cuba has a per capita Covid-19 infection rate of 6,500 per million population and a per capita death rate of 37 per million, roughly comparable to Venezuela. Both countries are outstanding examples of Covid-19 success stories, doubly so considering the social disasters prevailing in the pro-U.S. regimes surrounding them in Latin America and prevailing in the U.S. itself.]
Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines may block infection as well as disease, Science News, Mar 30, 2021 Studies suggest fully vaccinated people pose a low risk for transmitting the coronavirus
It’s possible to reach herd immunity, then lose it. Repeatedly. Here is how to prevent that from happening, CNN, Mar 30, 2021
Over 4,000 migrants, many kids, crowded into Texas facility, Associated Press, Mar 30, 2021 The Biden administration for the first time on March 30 allowed journalists inside its main border detention facility for migrant children, revealing a severely overcrowded tent structure where more than 4,000 people, including children and families, were crammed into a space intended for 250…
Latvia begins blocking RT news site aimed at country’s Russian-speaking minority, RT, Mar 31, 2021 [Media censorship as well as threats and harassment of journalists who question the dominant, anti-Russia narrative is par for the course in the NATO-member authoritarian states in eastern Europe–Poland, Baltic states–as well as the wannabe NATO member and ruthlessly authoritarian Ukraine.]
In public relations move, leading vaccine hoarders including leaders of France, Germany, UK and European Council, sign public appeal saying vaccine hoarding is bad. Report by CNN, Mar 29, 2021 [Of note in the pious statement signed by 20 world leaders is its silence about the international campaign to end the monopoly restrictions blocking access to the coronavirus drug and vaccine patents held by Big Pharma.]
CDC director Rochelle Walensky feels ‘impending doom’ as Covid-19 cases rise in U.S., CBS News, Mar 29, 2021 Walensky said the trajectory of the pandemic in the United States is following European countries like Germany, Italy and France, which have experienced a “consistent and worrying spike in cases”. In the U.S., the seven-day rolling average of daily news cases has risen to 64,000.
Related: Biden, health officials sound alarm as signs of covid surge proliferate, Washington Post, Mar 29, 2021 …Some hospitals report admitting younger people with more severe disease. That is evidence that vaccines are protecting people older than 65 who once were the most vulnerable but leaving the unvaccinated exposed. A new variant of the virus that is more contagious and causes more severe disease is taking hold across the country…
The best book written about the pandemic so far, book review by Crawford Kilian, The Tyee, Mar 30, 2021 Reviewing: Fighting the First Wave: Why the Coronavirus Was Tackled So Differently Across the Globe, by Peter Baldwin, Cambridge University Press (2021) [This book review, possibly like the book itself, takes no account of how the relentless drive for profit and expansion by the capitalist system shaped criminally negligent responses to the coronavirus pandemic by the leading imperialist countries in North America, Europe and Japan. This same profit/expansion drive has relegated many countries of the world to second-class status in acquiring and administering coronavirus vaccines. The wealthy imperialist countries of the world are government by fossil fuel death cults who are driving the world into global warming calamity. So it is no surprise that they acted with criminal negligence in response to the pandemic.]
Journalists attack the powerless then self-victimize to bar criticisms of themselves, by Glenn Greenwald, published on his Substack outlet, Mar 29, 2021 On March 28, USA Today published and heavily promoted a repellent article complaining that “defendants accused in the Capitol riot Jan. 6 crowdfund their legal fees online, using popular payment processors and an expanding network of fundraising platforms, despite a crackdown by tech companies.” The article provided a road map for snitching on these private citizens… USA Today is the second-highest circulation daily in the U.S. …
Former White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx says most Covid-19 deaths in U.S. were preventable. Where were these fine words when Trump was president? Common Dreams, Mar 28, 2021 …”The malicious incompetence that resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths starts at the top, with the former President and his enablers,” California Representative Ted Lieu (D) said in a tweet. “And who was one of his enablers? Dr. Birx, who was afraid to challenge his unscientific rhetoric and wrongfully praised him.”…
Related analysis of pandemic negligence:
* How the U.S. invested in the war on terrorism at the cost of public health, by Elizabeth Rosenthal, Kaiser Health News, Mar 29, 2021 …By the time a deadly virus arrived on our shores last year, nearly two-thirds of Americans were living in counties that spend more than twice as much on policing as they spend on nonhospital health care, including public health, according to an investigation by Kaiser Health News and The Associated Press… [The article cites the “rapid, aggressive public health response” to the pandemic by two countries–South Korea and Taiwan. There is no mention of China, whose pandemic outcomes far exceed those of South Korea.].
* Greed drove Big Pharma companies to privatize vaccines developed with public resources, by Nick Dearden, Common Dreams, Mar 25, 2021 British prime minister Boris Johnson claims the UK’s vaccine breakthrough was brought about by ‘giant corporations that wanted to give good returns to shareholders’. Nothing could be further from the truth.
* As daily deaths near 4,000, worst may lie ahead for Brazil, Associated Press, Mar 27, 2021
Video on Xinjiang and alternate reality journalism, commentary by Daniel Dumbrill, broadcast on his YouTube channel, Mar 29, 2021 (21-minute talk) [Daniel Dumbrill is a Canadian small businessman living in southern China and broadcasting political commentary on China’s relations with the West on his YouTube channel.].
Related: The ‘genocide’ accusation against China in Xinjiang, presentation by Daniel Dumbrill to the online forum organized by the Hamilton (Canada) Coalition to Stop the War on March 19, 2021 (12-minute presentation) [This is an excerpt from the video recording of the panel discussion organized by the Hamilton (Canada) Coalition to Stop the War on March 19, 2021. The event was titled ‘American/Canadian propaganda: A ‘Xinjiang Genocide’ panel discussion’. Other participants in the event were U.S. journalist Max Blumenthal; Consul-General of China in Calgary Madame Lu Xhu; and anti-imperialist advocate Omar Latif in Toronto. The full video can be found here.]
Anti-Asian racism and propaganda: A panel discussion with Daniel Dumbrill and Carl Zha in China, and Teen Sheng in the U.S., broadcast on the YouTube channel of Daniel Dumbrill, Mar 26, 2021 (lengthy panel discussion)
Marches, rallies against anti-Asian hate crimes see widespread participation across U.S., USA Today, Mar 27, 2021 Hundreds of people took to the streets this weekend to demonstrate against violence toward Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders following the shooting in Atlanta last week that killed eight people, six of them women of Asian descent. Marchers gathered in major cities nationwide, including New York, Washington, Chicago, San Fransisco and Tusla, Okalahoma…
Related:
* Rallies to condemn anti-Asian racism in Toronto and Vancouver on March 28 and Winnipeg on March 27. Reports in Toronto Star, Mar 28, 2021, CBC Vancouver Mar 28, 2021 and Global News (Winnipeg), Mar 27, 2021 [A two-page statement by the sponsoring organizations of the March 28 rally in Toronto is here. The statement makes no reference to the big-power gang-up taking place against China. Does this gang-up contribute to the rise of anti-Asian racism in Canada and the U.S.?].
* Raised to identify as Black, Kamala Harris steps into role as a voice for Asian Americans amid rise in hate incidents, Washington Post, Mar 28, 2021 [This Washington Post article provides a measure of the pressure operating on governing officials in Washington DC due to the rise in anti-Asian racism caused by the big-power gangup they are leading against China on the international stage.]
Can ‘productive capitalism’ save the planet and the humans? Consortium News publishes on March 29 a dialogue between Brazilian ‘geopolitical analysis’ Pepe Escobar and U.S. economist Michael Hudson. They argue in favour of a global “productive capitalism” to supplant the destructive new imperialism in the world. They voice an entire theoretical framework in which “productive capitalism” typified by China and Russia will supplant the declining “rentier capitalism” of our times. Hudson argues: “Where is that whole polarization between the 1 percent and the 99 percent? It doesn’t exist certainly in China and in Russia, Putin is trying to minimize it, given the legacy of the kleptocracy that the neo-liberals put in he’s still trying to deal with that, but you really have that. It’s a difference in economic systems and the direction in which these systems are moving in…” It is remarkable how no imperialist power other than the United States figures into their joint analysis. Europe, Canada, Japan, Australasia–they are, apparently, mere pawns to the one, big imperialist country that counts. Meanwhile, are there not important differences between the social and economic systems in China and Russia as the starkly different pandemic outcomes in the two countries signal? Apparently not. What about the global warming emergency. Will the “productive capitalisms” in China and Russia be able to significantly attenuate global warming? There is little evidence, but nevermind–for Pepe Escobar and Michael Hudson, the question is not important enough to discuss.]
Iran and China sign strategic long-term cooperation agreement, Associated Press, Mar 27, 2021 …The agreement is named the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and provides for investment in a variety of industries from oil and mining to promoting industrial activity in Iran, as well as transportation and agricultural collaborations and tourism and cultural exchanges…
China’s national rural revitalization bureau officially opens, CGTN news service, Feb 25, 2021
Related:
* China’s priorities for its countryside in 2021: Rural revitalization and food security, CGTN news service, Dec 30, 2021
* China’s food security is at the core of Beijing’s new five-year rural-revitalisation plan, South China Morning Post, Feb 22, 2021
* In China’s rural revolution:, architects are rescuing its villages from oblivion, The Guardian, Mar 24, 2021
France bears heavy responsibility in 1994 Rwanda genocide, historical commission reports, France 24, Mar 26, 2021 [“For a long time, France was involved with a regime that encouraged racist massacres… It remained blind to the preparation of a genocide by the most radical elements of this regime,” says one of the conclusions of the inquiry ordered by French president Emmanuel Macron in order to improve France’s poor moral standing among African people and governments. France notably led ‘Operation Turquoise’, an intervention launched under a UN ‘humanitarian’ mandate in June 1994 that sought to salvage the genocidal Hutu-led government. In July 1994, “murderers but also the masterminds of the genocide” were in a safe zone established by French forces in the west of the country, along the border with the Republic of Congo, a country already deeply destabilized by Western neo-colonialism.].
Related: A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide, by Linda Melvern, Zed Books, 2000, 272 pp, ISBN 9781856498319. Reviewed here in June 2009.
Signs of life amid signs of concern in the second year of the coronavirus pandemic in U.S., Washington Post, Mar 25, 2021
Related news of pandemic negligence:
* A collapse foretold: How Brazil’s Covid-19 outbreak overwhelmed hospitals, New York Times, Mar 25, 2021 …Porto Alegre, a prosperous city in southern Brazil, is at the heart of an stunning breakdown of the country’s health care system — a crisis foretold… More than a year into the pandemic, deaths in Brazil are at their peak and highly contagious variants of the coronavirus are sweeping the nation, enabled by political dysfunction, widespread complacency and conspiracy theories. The country, whose leader, President Jair Bolsonaro, has played down the threat of the virus, is now reporting more new cases and deaths per day than any other country in the world… and read: Bolsonaro under fire as Brazil hits 300,000 virus deaths, Associated Press, Mar 25, 2021 [The rate of Covid-19 infection in Brazil is 58,000 per million population (93,000 in the U.S.). It is 46,000 in Colombia and 45,000 in Peru. In Venezuela, it is 5,500, yet that is the country being targetted by the U.S., Canada and Europe for a violent overthrow of its government.].
* Massive second wave of infections is emerging in India, pitting the virus against the vaccine rollout, Washington Post, Mar 25, 2021 …On March 24, India recorded 53,476 new cases, the highest figure since October. The speed of India’s second wave has alarmed experts, who say it probably reflects changes in behavior, waning immunity among those previously infected, and the influence of new variants. Deaths from the virus are also on the rise in India, with 250 reported on March 24… [India’s rate of Covid-19 infection is 8,600 per million population.].
* France hit by third round of pandemic negligence as culture minister becomes latest official to be hospitalized with Covid-19. Report by Associated Press, Mar 25, 2021 [The per capita rate of Covid-19 infections in France is among the highest in the world, rivalling fellow NATO members Britain, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Netherlands. At 67,000 cases per million population, its rate is ten per cent higher than that of Brazil and ten per cent lower than Sweden; it is two-thirds the rate of the U.S. ].
* Canada’s public health agency was unprepared for pandemic, reports the country’s auditor general, CTV News, Mar 24, 2021 The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) “underestimated” the potential impact of COVID-19, and was not adequately prepared to respond in the early days of the pandemic after failing to heed decades-long recommendations for changes, according to new findings from the auditor general… [The Public Health Agency of Canada was more than ‘unprepared’ for the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. It was criminally negligent, as evidenced in its messaging and decision making in the early months and later. More than one year later, new Covid-19 cases are rising alarmingly in Canada’s largest provinces due to new variants and inadequate vaccinations. But hey, that negligence has ‘only’ cost some 23,000 lives, so no need for criminal accountability. As for political accounting, that will depend on whether a poorly informed Canadian public informs itself and acts accordingly. For now, Canada’s political parties and governments are succeeding in shrugging off the pandemic wreckage and telling Canadians that Covid-free China and its growing alliance with Russia are the big threat to their futures.]
Why testing for the coronavirus still matters, New York Times, Mar 26, 2021
Comparing the efficacy rates of Covid-19 vaccines, YouTube presentation by Vox.com, broadcast on its YouTube channel, Mar 20, 2021 (seven-minute broadcast)
Related vaccine news:
* New study in British Columbia casts doubt the province’s policy of four months between Covid-19 vaccine doses, by Kelly Grant, health reporter, Globe and Mail, Mar 25, 2021
Court in NATO member Turkey sentences HDP leader Selhattin Demirtas to jail for ‘insulting the president’, Reuters, Mar 22, 2021 [In 2018, a Turkish court sentenced Demirtas to 56 months in prison for ‘making propaganda for an armed terrorist organization’ (the PKK) in a 2013 speech he made (Al Monitor). And see Wikipedia.]
The Amazon union vote in Bessemer, Alabama is wrapping up. Workers are already preparing for the next fight, by Luis Feliz Leon, The New Republic, Mar 26, 2021
Related:
* Some younger Amazon workers in Bessemer, new to unions, are still undecided, The Intercept, Mar 23, 2021
* 
The story of Amazon is the story of the pandemic and its inequalities, by Richard Warnica, business feature writer, Toronto Star, Mar 25, 2021 Alec MacGillis, formerly a journalist at The Washington Post and now a writer at Pro-Publica in Baltimore, didn’t set out to write the defining business book of the Covid-19 pandemic. When he sold the idea that became Fulfillment, a narrative journey through the United States of Amazon, Covid-19 didn’t even exist …Lockdowns have taken their toll on white-collar workers, but that’s nothing compared to what the low-wage workers in places like Amazon’s giant fulfillment centre in Brampton [Toronto region], have gone through. More than 600 workers at that site have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since October alone…
* Fast food industry conglomerate claims credit for killing $15 mnimum wage in Biden’s pandemic aid bill, by Walker Bragman, Andrew Perez and David Sirota., The Daily Poster, Mar 26, 2021
Vaccine denialism is the right wing’s favorite new conspiracy theory, by Luis Feliz Leon, The New Republic, Mar 26, 2021
Related: Far-right extremists in U.S. move from ‘stop the steal’ to stop the vaccine, New York Times, Mar 26, 2021
Washington’s delusion of endless world dominion, by Alfred McCoy, published in TomDispatch, March 21, 2021 (TomDispatch is a project of The Nation magazine. Alfred W. McCoy is the Harrington professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This article also appears in Consortium News.)
[This analysis by Professor Alfred McCoy, and many others like it currently being published, completely miss the main driving force of the imperialist threats and gang-up against China and Russia. The gang-up is accurately termed by many as a ‘new cold war’. Its main driving force is not due to the potential for Russia and/or China to supplant the dominance of the world’s leading imperialist countries (the G-7 group of countries plus Japan and Australia), which the writer inaccurately predicts as inevitable. No, only deepgoing social revolutions in the leading imperialist countries can ultimately supplant their dominance over the world and their menace to the world’s future from rising militarism (including nuclear weapons) and global warming. Yes, competition from a rising China and Russia disturbs the imperialist countries and causes them to react. But it is Russia and China’s refusal to buckle to the diktats of imperialism which is the real ‘crime’ being committed by the two governments there. This is witnessed in the cases of Russia’s and China’s defense of the people of Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Crimea and eastern Ukraine (Donbas) from economic strangulation and regime-change violence. Serious analysts can debate the intentions of the Russian and Chinese governments in so acting. But there is no doubt as to the geopolitical consequences: countries such as the above-named find life-saving salvation and preservation of national sovereignty through the actions of the Russian and Chinese governments in providing economic and diplomatic support as well as military defense. This is what most angers the leaders of the imperialist countries, leading them to lash out and embark on a state of permanent military threats and economic sanctions, aka the new cold war.]
Trotskyists and those they influence issue ‘International appeal for the immediate release of all political prisoners in Russia’, statement issued in March 2021, English version published in the U.S. Trotskyist publication Against The Current. [The statement refers to “the corrupt, authoritarian regime ruling Russia today”. This is the language of the new cold warriors governing in the imperialist centers who long to attack and destroy the Russian Federation and its people. Thus is revealed the confluence of ideas between ‘leftists’ signing the anti-Russia appeal and the militarists governing in the imperialist West. Signatories of the appeal include Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali and the UK economist Michael Roberts. Meanwhile, CounterPunch magazine and online journal publishes on March 24 a new version of the longstanding Trotskyist viewpoint in favour of a violent, ‘regime-change’ overthrow of the government of Syria by a Western-backed ‘revolution’.]
Remarks by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov following talks with Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi, Guilin, published on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Mar 23, 2021
Related: Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with South Korean media in Moscow on March 23, 2021, on the eve of his visit to Seoul, published on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Mar 23, 2021
Virginia, with second-most executions among U.S. states, outlaws death penalty, Associated Press, Mar 24, 2021 Virginia becomes the 23rd state to abolish the death penalty
Wealth tax, estate tax, capital gains: Here’s how Democrats want to tax the super rich, CNBC, Mar 23, 2021
Related:
* Joe Biden’s big tax plan: 98 per cent of Americans won’t pay more, The National Interest (U.S. magazine voicing ‘foreign policy realism’), Mar 23, 2021
* After one year of lockdowns, billionaires are $1.3 trillion richer, Fast Company, Mar 23, 2021
* IRS misses ‘substantial’ tax evasion by the wealthiest Americans — far more than the average worker, Market Watch, Mar 23, 2021
Drug companies defend vaccine monopolies in face of global outcry, Washington Post, Mar 22, 2021 As immunization gap widens between rich and poor countries, the industry faces a battle over patents and know-how
Related:
* Director general of World Health Organization blasts ‘grotesque’ vaccine inequality as rich nations block speedy end of global pandemic, Common Dreams, Mar 23, 2021
* Why U.S. should prioritize vaccinating the world, commentary by Tyler Johnson, San Jose Mercury News, Mar 23, 2021 (Dr. Tyler Johnson is Inpatient Oncology Service Director at Stanford Hospital.)
* Rich countries signed away a chance to vaccinate the world, New York Times, Mar 21, 2021 …Russia and China, meanwhile, have promised to fill the void as part of their vaccine diplomacy. The Gamaleya Institute in Moscow, for example, has entered into partnerships with producers from Kazakhstan to South Korea, according to data from Airfinity, a science analytics company, and UNICEF. Chinese vaccine makers have reached similar deals in the United Arab Emirates, Brazil and Indonesia…
* Report warns of significant delays in global coronavirus vaccine rollout, The Economist (The Covid-19 Health Funding Tracker News Feed), Feb 10, 2021 An Economist Intelligence Unit report estimates that more than 85 poor countries will not have widespread access to coronavirus vaccines before 2023
Why Geert Vanden Bossche is wrong about Covid vaccines, video presentation by Zubin Damania, MD (Stanford U.), broadcast on his web blog ZDoggMD, Mar 16, 2021 (16-minute presentation)
AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots, an update, video presentation by Zubin Damania, MD (Stanford U.), broadcast on his web blog ZDoggMD, Mar 19, 2021 (22-minute presentation)
Related:
* AstraZeneca corrects its efficacy data, now saying the vaccine is 76 per cent effective, not the 79 per cent reported earlier, USA Today, Mar 24, 2021 and from STAT News, Mar 24, 2021: Rejecting sharp criticism from U.S. government scientists, AstraZeneca said on March 24 following a new analysis of its large, U.S.-based clinical trial that its Covid-19 vaccine is 76 per cent effective at reducing the risk of symptomatic Covid-19 and 100 per cent effective against severe disease…
* German team discovers thrombosis (blood clot) trigger in the AstraZeneca vaccine, says a targetted treatment can now be used to prevent it, Deutsche Welle, Mar 19, 2021
Migrant teens and children have challenged three administrations, but Biden faces rush with no precedent, Washington Post, Mar 22, 2021 …Over the last three weeks, the average number of teenagers and children crossing into the United States without their parents has topped 550 per day, according to the latest government data reviewed by The Washington Post. Border officials are on pace to take in more than 17,000 minors this month, which would be an all-time high…
Related: Biden team searching for new ways to slow border surge, Washington Post, Mar 22, 2021
Nationwide protests supporting Asian-Americans unfold after recent attacks, Washington Post, Mar 20, 2021
Related:
* Donations pour in for families of Atlanta shooting victims, Associated Press, Mar 22, 2021
* Anti-Asian violence in America is rooted in U.S. empire, by Christine Ahn, Terry K Park and Kathleen Richards, The Nation, Mar 19, 2021 If we are to stop anti-Asian hatred in the United States, we must recognize how US foreign policy perpetuates it. (Christine Ahn is the executive director of Women Cross DMZ and coordinator of Korea Peace Now!. Terry K Park is a lecturer in the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Maryland. Kathleen Richards is the communications director of Women Cross DMZ.)
* The March 16 killings in Atlanta were as predictable as white supremacy, by Ellie Mystal, The Nation magazine, Mar 18, 2021 There are lots of people working overtime to try to prove that the mass shooting of six Asian women wasn’t motivated by bigotry. It was. (Elie Mystal is the justice correspondent at The Nation.)
* Our Anti-China foreign policy is fueling violence against Asians, by Jessica J. Lee, published in Responsible Statecraft (Quincy Institute), Mar 21, 2021
* No evidence yet of federal hate crime in Atlanta-area spa killings say federal and local police officials, NBC News, Mar 21, 2021
‘Independent’ report by Newlines Institute claiming Uyghur genocide is brought to you by a sham university and neocon ideologues lobbying to ‘punish’ China, by Ajit Singh, The Grayzone, Mar 17, 2021
Previously reported: Is China committing genocide against Uyghur Muslims? Behind the U.S. government’s propaganda campaign, by Dan Cohen, published on the ‘Behind The Headlines’ feature in Mint Press News, Mar 12, 2021 (story and 18-minute video)
China says cooperation with Russia needs to advance firmly because the world is increasingly unstable, CGTN news service, Mar 22, 2021 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has arrived in China for a two-day visit. In an online interview with CGTN and other media outlets ahead of his visit, he called for high-level cooperation between Russia and China in response to the hegemony pursued by some Western countries, led by the United States…
Related news:
* China, Russia officials meet in show of unity against EU, U.S., Associated Press, Mar 23, 2021 [This news report is rife with the imperialist world outlook of Associated Press. It calls the political systems in China and Russia “authoritarian” (as though the imperialist countries are paragons of democracy) as calls China and Russia’s pointed criticisms of the interventionist foreign policy of the U.S. and its allies “rhetoric”. The report goes on, “China’s ruling Communist Party allows no political opposition and keeps a tight hold on civil society, while Russian leader Vladimir Putin has cracked down heavily on citizens calling for a more open system.” That’s rich, coming from a news agency which upholds the United States and its closest allies as standard bearers of ‘democracy’. The U.S.–where a small minority of the adult population succeeded in electing the foul Donald Trump as president.]
* India, U.S. to expand military ties, The Associated Press, Mar 20, 2021
Egypt’s ‘feminist’ icon being celebrated in Western media was a crude supporter of the 2013 neo-fascist coup. From a report in France 24, Mar 22, 2021: …Nawal El-Saadawi was among the tens of thousands of protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011 demanding the ouster of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak’s fall that year was followed by the tumultuous one-year presidency of Islamist Mohamed Morsi. He was Egypt’s first freely elected leader (emphasis added) and was ousted by the army in 2013. Saadawi has said Egypt was better off without “religious fundamentalists” [sic] in power. In contrast, she repeatedly heaped praise upon army chief-turned-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi [a military fascist], to the consternation of her many acolytes in activist circles…
And from a report in The Guardian, Mar 22, 2021: El-Saadawi told the Guardian in 2014: “I don’t believe in individuals. Al-Sisi is only temporary. The people decide whether he works for them or not, and if [sic] he behaves like Mubarak, he is out.”…
[Nawal El-Saadawi had much company among Western ‘leftists’ who also celebrated the military-fascist coup in Egypt in July 2013. These deluded leftists called the coup a mere stage in an ongoing ‘revolution’ that would soon end military rule. Most components of the disintegrated Trotskyist group networks (so-called ‘Fourth Internationals’) in European and other imperialist countries hailed the coup. The story of Egypt’s 2013 military-fascist coup and the betrayal of the Egyptian people by Trotskyists and other Western leftists is told in detail in this archive of articles in A Socialist in Canada. ]
Turkish prosecutor moves to ban pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) while Turkish legislature strips HDP deputy of his seat, by Diego Cupolo, Al-Monitor, Mar 18, 2021 Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, a pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party deputy known to focus on human rights abuses, has been stripped of his parliament seat while on the same date, a Turkish prosecutor filed a legal action to ban the HDP itself.
Related:
* Turkish Kurds appalled by threatened HDP ban, Deutsche Welle, Mar 21, 2021 The Public Prosecutor’s Office of Turkey has submitted a request to the Turkish Court of Cassation, the country’s highest court, for a ban on the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP). In addition, prosecutors are seeking a five-year ban on political participation for 687 individuals — among them, leading Kurdish politicians like Pervin Buldan and her HDP co-chair colleagues Figen Yuksekdag and the still-imprisoned Selahattin Demirtas…
* Move to ban HDP sparks criticism from Turkey’s opposition figures, Turkish Minute, Mar 18, 2021
* Why now? The timing of the Turkey’s judicial ban against the HDP, by Cevheri Güven, Turkish Minute, Mar 19, 2021
* Istanbul mayor slams threatened HDP ban and the expulsion from Parliament of HDP rep Ömer Faruk Gergerlioglu, Turkish Minute, Mar 19, 2021
NATO member Turkey pulls out of landmark treaty protecting women from violence, Turkish Minute, Mar 20, 2021 On March 20, Turkey withdrew by presidential decree from the world’s first binding treaty to prevent and combat violence against women. The 2011 Istanbul Convention, signed by 45 countries and the European Union, requires governments to adopt legislation prosecuting domestic violence and similar abuse as well as marital rape and female genital mutilation…
Related: Uproar as Turkey’s president withdraws the country from int’l treaty combating violence against women, Turkish Minute, Mar 20, 2021
Covid cases are rising in 21 states as health officials warn against reopening too quickly, CNBC, Mar 20 2021
Related: CDC director Rachel Walensky warns coronavirus variants could spark another avoidable surge, CNN, Mar 22, 2021 …”The continued relaxation of prevention measures while cases are still high and while concerning variants are spreading rapidly throughout the United States is a serious threat to the progress we have made as a nation,” [???, emphasis added] Walensky said during a White House briefing on March 22…
Rich countries signed away a chance to vaccinate the world, New York Times, Mar 21, 2021 …Russia and China, meanwhile, have promised to fill the void as part of their vaccine diplomacy. The Gamaleya Institute in Moscow, for example, has entered into partnerships with producers from Kazakhstan to South Korea, according to data from Airfinity, a science analytics company, and UNICEF. Chinese vaccine makers have reached similar deals in the United Arab Emirates, Brazil and Indonesia…
Related: Report warns of significant delays in global coronavirus vaccine rollout, The Economist (The Covid-19 Health Funding Tracker News Feed), Feb 10, 2021 An Economist Intelligence Unit report estimates that more than 85 poor countries will not have widespread access to coronavirus vaccines before 2023
India coronavirus cases surge to four-month high, some lockdowns return, Reuters, Mar 20, 2021
The global pandemic, story, charts and maps in New York Times, Mar 19, 2021
Related pandemic news:
* Europe has missed its chance to stop the third wave. The U.S. could be next, CNN, Mar 19, 2021
* Where Europe went wrong in its vaccine rollout, New York Times, Mar 20, 2021 …The vaccine rollout gap between Europe and the United States has only widened since December. Some of the countries hardest hit early in the pandemic are facing a deadly third wave of infections. France, large parts of Italy, and other regions are back in lockdown. Roughly 20,000 Europeans die of Covid-19 each week… Vaccine salvation remains, for now, still tantalizingly out of reach. Only about 10 percent of Europeans have received a first dose, compared with 23 percent in the United States and 39 percent in Britain…
* Another coronavirus outbreak is unfolding in Michigan, the clearest sign the pandemic could get worse, The Atlantic (print monthly), Mar 19, 2021
AstraZeneca says U.S. trial data shows vaccine to be 79 per cent effective, Associated Press, Mar 22, 2021 AstraZeneca reported on Marc 22 that its COVID-19 vaccine provided strong protection among all adults in a long-anticipated U.S. study… The company said the vaccine was 79% effective overall at preventing symptomatic cases of COVID-19 — including in older people — and that none of the study volunteers who were vaccinated were hospitalized or developed severe disease. The company also said its experts did not identify any safety concerns related to the vaccine, including finding no increased risk of rare blood clots identified in Europe…
Previously reported: German team discovers thrombosis (blood clot) trigger in the AstraZeneca vaccine, says a targetted treatment can now be used to prevent it, Deutsche Welle, Mar 19, 2021 …The vaccine caused rare thrombosis in the brain in a small number of patients. The discovery means that targeted treatment can be offered to those who suffer similar clotting, using a very common medication… The researchers emphasized that treatment would only be possible in patients where blood clots appear, rather than as a preventative treatment. Symptoms like continuous headache, dizziness or impaired vision lasting more than three days after vaccination need further medical check-ups, according to the German Research Association for Thrombosis and Hemostasis in a statement on the recent findings…
UK to increase nuclear stockpile limit by 40 per cent, report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) , Mar 17, 2021 ‘While the majority of the world’s nations are leading the way to a safer future without nuclear weapons by joining the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the United Kingdom is pushing for a dangerous new nuclear arms race.’–Beatrice Finn, ICAN Executive Director
Related: Britain to expand nuclear warhead stockpile by over 40 per cent as global threats [sic] rise, Reuters, Mar 18, 2021
Myanmar protesters answer military’s bullets with an economic shutdown, New York Times, Mar 19, 2021 From hospitals, railways and dockyards to schools, shops and trading houses, the country is at a standstill. Strikers hope their actions will force the army to return power after its coup on Feb. 1.
Related:
* Myanmar garment workers urge global brands to denounce coup, Associated Press, Mar 19, 2021
* What next for Burma?, by Thant Myint-U, London Review of Books, Mar 18, 2021
Eight dead, including six Asian-American women, in mass shooting in Atlanta targetting employees at massage parlors, Associated Press, Mar 17, 2021 and read: report in Washington Post, Mar 17, 2021
Related:
* Shootings in Atlanta could test Georgia’s new hate-crimes law as debate rages over suspect’s motive, Washington Post, Mar 18, 2021
* Asian Americans grieve, organize in wake of Atlanta attacks, Associated Press, Mar 17, 2021
* Anti-Asian attacks rise along with online vitriol, Washington Post, Mar 17, 2021 Data shows that terms like ‘China,’ ‘Wuhan’ and ‘flu’ have surged on far-right forums on Telegram, 8kun and TheDonald.win since the election Hate crimes against Asian Americans in 16 of America’s biggest cities climbed 150 percent last year, with a spike in March and April, according to research earlier this month from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino, which analyzed official police data…
* Beyond the pandemic, Asian American leaders fear U.S. conflict with China will fan racist backlash, Washington Post, Mar 17, 2021
Russiagate rolls on, providing political cover for Biden regime, by Joe Lauria (editor-in-chief), Consortium News, Mar 20, 2021 When it comes to national security reporting corporate journalists have time and again shown they are practicing something other than journalism
Related: U.S.-Russia relations nosedive following Biden’s harsh words calling Putin a ‘killer’. Report by Associated Press, Mar 19, 2021
Is China committing genocide against Uyghur Muslims? Behind the U.S. government’s propaganda campaign, by Dan Cohen, published on the ‘Behind The Headlines’ feature in Mint Press News, Mar 12, 2021 (story and 18-minute video)
U.S. journalists spread a significant lie all over Twitter concerning ‘Russian interference’ in 2020 election, illustrating how they operate, by Glenn Greenwald, published in his Substack media outlet, Mar 17, 2021
Related: Russia recalls its ambassador to the U.S. after Biden says he thinks Putin is a ‘killer’, USA Today, Mar 17, 2021
Tens of thousands of Latino women were sterilized in the U.S. during the 20th century, USA Today, Mar 17, 2021 …Insidious sterilizations in California didn’t occur inside that hospital only. Throughout the 20th century, about 20,000 women and men were sterilized in California alone under state eugenics policies, according to researchers, including University of Michigan professor Alexandra Minna Stern. The policies targeted patients of state-run asylums or group homes. A disproportionate number were Hispanic…
Western media blitz aimed at Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine may already be costing lives, by Alan Macleod, Mint Press News, Mar 15, 2021
Related: Serbia basks in the glow of a successful vaccination campaign, New York Times, Mar 16, 2021 and read: report in Al Jazeera, Mar 17, 2021 …Serbia has raced ahead of the far richer and usually better-organized countries in Europe to offer all adult citizens not only free inoculations but a smorgasbord of five different vaccines to choose from. By contrast, the European Union has stumbled badly in providing shots, with a disjointed procurement and distribution strategy that bet big on the AstraZeneca vaccine. Serbia has Europe’s second-highest rate of inoculations [second to britain] after embracing vaccines from all suppliers, including Russia and China… Serbia’s prime minister, Ana Brnabic, attributes her country’s success to its decision to “treat this as a health issue, not a political issue. We negotiated with all, regardless of whether East or West.”…
After weeks of declining Covid-19 cases in U.S., echoes of hot spots emerge in Upper Midwest, New York City area, Washington Post, Mar 16, 2021
Related: The political leaders of the United States could have prevented mass Covid-19 deaths. They chose not to, by Walter Bragman, Jacobin Magazine, Mar 15, 2021 …The country’s approach to the pandemic has been one of suppression over elimination, of acceptable losses and acceptable spread. While other countries have been able to better control the spread of the virus through ambitious zero-COVID strategies, the United States has never once seriously considered far-reaching responses like a national lockdown or a universal basic income that would allow people to shelter in place. For both Donald Trump and now Biden, the political risks of such moves were too great…
[This informative article contains an inadvertent example of how deeply anti-China prejudice runs in Western imperialist countries, even in alternative media such as Jacobin. The writer says, “Perhaps the most successful virus-suppression model is that of New Zealand… Other examples include Taiwan, which closed its borders early, and Vietnam, which implemented clustered lockdowns respectively.” This is off by a country mile. By far the most successful virus-suppression model is China. Currently, China is reporting around ten new Covid-19 cases daily, similar to the numbers in Australia and New Zealand. But the populations of Australia and New Zealand are a small fraction of China’s and the two are island countries, making it easy to control travel across their borders. Even more tellingly, the per capita death rate from Covid-19 in China is half that of New Zealand, 1/10 that of South Korea, 1/12 that of Australia and 1/22 that of Japan. (source: Worldometer) ]
Global cases of Covid-19 rose by ten per cent last week, WHO reports, the third straight week of increases, Global News, Mar 17, 2021
Related pandemic news: Brazil registers pandemic record of 2,841 deaths on March 16, Rio Times, Mar 16, 2021 and read: report by Reuters, Mar 17, 2021 In total, 282,127 people have died in Brazil. Cases rose on Tuesday by 83,926 to 11,603,535 …Brazil’s nominee for new health minister has pledged to continue the controversial policies of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who has downplayed the severity of the pandemic…
The EU’s vaccination lag, CounterPunch, Mar 17, 2021
Related news of the pandemic in Europe:
* Covid forecast for Germany: Gloomy with a glimmer of hope, Deutsche Welle, Mar 16, 2021
* Hospitals and economy on the brink of collapse in NATO-member Czech Republic. Report in Deusche Welle, Mar 16, 2021
* Prison conditions worsen amid pandemic in NATO-member Turkey amid pandemic. Report in Deutsche Welle, Mar 16, 2021 [Not mentioned in this news report is the political persecution of Turkey’s third-largest political party, the left-wing People’s Democratic Party (HDP). Hundreds of its elected representatives have been jailed since the Turkish government under President Erdogan opened a sweeping repression against the HDP (Wikipedia) following the failed coup by military officers in 2016.].
* In Britain, testing and tracing for Covid-19 infections is the dead elephant in the room, by Patrick Cockburn, columnist, The Independent, Mar 14, 2021
* Forty seven per cent of Britons want formal inquiry into the handling of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic by the UK gov’t, only 18 per cent opposed, poll conducted by The Guardian, results published Mar 17, 2021
Dutch election March 15-17: How Covid-19 salvaged Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s re-election bid amid scandal, Deutsche Welle, Mar 14, 2021 …Without traditional ways of campaigning with rallies and flyers, candidates are at the mercy of on-air time and social media traction. And with near-biweekly TV briefings held by Rutte and his health minister, Hugo de Jonge of the center-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), the Dutch leader has the opportunity to optimize his draw. “The Covid-19 briefings are almost free campaigning time in the current situation because he presents himself as a statesman, and that resonates with the broader population,” says one observer…
[The Guardian reports that Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has narrowly won a fourth successive term in the national election of March 15-17, 2021. His party won 35 seats in the 150-seat legislature, a gain of two seats. Netherlands is approximately #15 in the world for total Covid-19 cases and approximately #32 in deaths per capita (not counting micro-countries). It is #69 in the world by country population. There have been just over 16,000 deaths from the coronavirus. Despite his government’s record of negligence and deaths over the pandemic, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is scoring well in polls ahead of the country’s national election to take place March 15 to 17. Sadly, this is the story of the leading Covid-negligent countries of the world, most of which are NATO military alliance members or allies and subordinates. Even Donald Trump, whose regime killed more that half a million people due to Covid negligence, enjoys life as a free man, apparently free from concern about criminal accountability. Will the record of impunity for political leaders over their Covid negligence continue in the months and years ahead, or will human society come to some sort of legal and moral reckoning for all the lives lost and damage done by pandemic negligence?]
Ecuador’s pseudo-left candidate for president Yaku Pérez echoes call for military takeover, nullifying election, prosecuting top contender, by Ben Norton, The Grayzone, Mar 10, 2021 [The second round of the presidential election in Ecuador will take place on May 24. In the first round of voting on February 7, Andrés Arauz, a colleague of former president Rafael Correa, won 33 per cent while the far-right Guillermo Lasso and the candidate of the NGO movment Yaku Pérez each won close to 20 per cent. The social-democrat Xavier Hervas won close to 16 per cent. The second-round vote will pit Andrés Arauz against Guillermo Lasso. On March 15, Ecuador’s electoral council rejected an appeal by Yaku Pérez that he received more votes than Lasso.].
Related:
* Open letter to two young indigenous Ecuadorians, by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, published in the English section of Latin America in Movement (ALAI news service), Mar 16, 2021
* Open letter to editors of Jacobin and Monthly Review in defense of Ecuador’s NGO-backed presidential candidate Yaku Pérez, published in New Politics (U.S. Trotskyist publication), Mar 2, 2021
Open letter of concern over the internal censorship of the investigation by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons of alleged chemical weapons use in Douma, Syria in April 2018, published on the website of the Courage Foundation, Mar 11, 2021
Related: Five former OPCW officials join prominent voices in open letter calling out Syria cover-up, analyis by Aaron Maté, The Grayzone, Mar 14, 2021
Thousands gather across London to mourn killing of Sarah Everard by accused police officer and condemn the assault by police on March 13 against a vigil in her honour. Report in The Independent, Mar 15, 2021 Hundreds gathered around an island of flowers in London’s Clapham Common on March 14 to mourn Sarah Everard for a second consecutive day.
Related:
* The killing of Sarah Everard: Interview with UK actor Rose McGowan, broadcast on RT’s ‘Going Underground’, broadcast on Mar 17, 2021 (13-minute interview, first item at weblink)
* London police chief says she won’t quit after her officers attacked vigil for Sarah Everhard, killed by police officer, Associated Press, Mar 14, 2021
* London police officer charged with March 3 kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard, CNN, Mar 13, 2021
* Rallies and marches mark one-year anniversary of Breonna Taylor’s killing by police in Louisville, Kentucky, Common Dreams, Mar 13, 2021
100,000+ women in Australian march against sexual violence, Common Dreams, Mar 15, 2021
China approves fourth Covid -19 vaccine, its fifth vaccine approved for emergency use, Associated Press, Mar 16, 2021
Cuba is working on a ‘people’s vaccine’ and the rest of the world should get behind it, by Beth Geglia, CounterPunch, Mar 15, 2021
Covid cases plummet 83 per cent among nursing home staffers in U.S. despite vaccine hesitancy, Kaiser Health News, Mar 15, 2021
Related U.S. pandemic news: Massive Facebook study in U.S. users’ vaccine doubts finds a small group appearing to play a big role in pushing skepticism, Washington Post, Mar 14, 2021
No, Joe Biden won’t give us social democracy, by Matt Karp, Jacobin Magazine, Mar 15, 2021 (Matt Karp is an associate professor of history at Princeton University and a contributing editor to Jacobin.)
Is wiping down surfaces ‘hygiene theatre’ where there is low risk of Covid?, Toronto Star, Mar 14, 2021 …Emanuel Goldman, a professor and microbiologist at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark, says his research shows that fomite transmission in laboratory-based settings offers an exaggerated risk of infection that doesn’t reflect real-life conditions. “There is (virtually) no evidence of transmission that way, zero,” Goldman said in an interview with the Star. His study in the medical journal The Lancet last August found virus transmission “through inanimate objects very small…
Martial law imposed in parts of Myanmar city as deaths rise, Associated Press, Mar 15, 2021
Thomas Piketty and Karl Marx: Two totally different visions of Capital, by Eric Toussaint, published on the website of the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt, Mar 9, 2021 (Eric Toussaint is a historian and author, spokesperson of the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt. He sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France.)
Chattanooga, Tennessee’ refurbished river bridge is a recreation and tourist attraction. It’s also becoming a memorial to Black victims of murder and lynching. Report in Washington Post, Mar 14, 2021
Is Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny a key prop in a psychological warfare operation designed to bring down Vladimir Putin?, by Jeremy Kuzmarov, Covert Action Magazine, Maar 13, 2021 (Jeremy Kuzmarov is managing editor of CovertAction Magazine and author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018).
Mixed results for the governing ‘Movement Towrds Socialism (MAS) party in March 7 regional elections in Bolivia, by Linda Farthing, NACLA, Mar 12, 2021 Mayors and governors races were split between the MAS and opposition parties, but President Luis Arce remains popular for taking decisive action upon entering office during the pandemic.
Related news of Bolivia:
* Leader of 2019-20 coup regime in Bolivia, Jeannine Anez, is arrested as Bolivia legislature votes amnesty for those who were persecuted during her regime. Al Jazeera, Mar 13, 2021
* Human Rights Watch condemns the general amnesty for by the new Bolivian gov’t for more than 1,000 Bolivians persecuted under the coup regime of Jeanine Añez, by Alan Macleod, Mint Press News, Mar 12, 2021
[Western media is reporting the arrest of Jeanine Anez as an example of rising ‘political repression’ in Bolivia. The New York Times, for example, reports on March 13: …Roger Cortéz, a professor emeritus of political science at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz, Bolivia’s political capital, said that he saw the arrests as an attempt by [President Luis Arce’s] government to present a show of force at a time when it faces multiple political threats. Ms. Añez, who has largely disappeared from the political map, does not necessarily [sic] present a danger to Mr. Arce. In local elections held earlier this month, she finished in third place in a race for governor of the department of Beni. [end citation]
Countries obstructing Covid-19 patent waiver must allow negotiations to start, media release by Doctors Without Borders, Mar 9, 2021
Related:
* Rich countries block push by developing nations to waive Covid vaccine patents rights, report by Euractiv.com with Reuters, Mar 10, 2021
* ‘#PeoplesVaccine’ campaign calls for Big Pharma to ‘drop the patents’, Common Dreams, Mar 11, 2021 read more about the #PeoplesVaccine campaign here at the campaign website: The Peoples Vaccine
* Canada criticized for refusing to support COVID-19 vaccine patent waiver at WTO meeting, Globe and Mail, Mar 11, 2021
* Shamed by their vaccine hoarding as China and Russia supply the world, United States, Japan and Australia launch public relations effort to distribute vaccines globally. Report in Washington Post, Mar 12, 2021
Deaths from Covid-19 in U.S. remain high despite drop in total cases, New York Times, Mar 13, 2021 …The average number of new cases per day has dropped more than 75 per cent since the peak on January 8, but the drop in deaths started a few weeks later and has not been as steep…
Tracking the global pandemic, interactive feature in New York Times, Mar 12, 2021
Related:
* Day of action by
$15 minimum wage would lift mllions out of poverty, says… Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley, Common Dreams, Mar 13, 2021 Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would deliver sizable benefits to low-wage workers and lift millions of people in the U.S. out of poverty while having little impact—positive or negative—on employment levels. So says a new report assembled not by a progressive advocacy organization or a left-leaning think tank, but Wall Street titan Morgan Stanley. It finds in a 75-page analysis that contrary to the Republican Party’s branding of the proposed $15-an-hour federal minimum wage as a job-killer, “the wealth of research points to no definitive conclusion on the impact higher wages have on employment.”…
U.S. warship transits Taiwan Strait following U.S. admiral’s ‘China invasion of Taiwan’ warning, Defense Post, Mar 11, 2021 [The sailing by the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS John Finn is the third such voyage since President Joe Biden took office. Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the U.S. was formally invited to Biden’s inauguration, an unprecedented move since 1979 for a presidential nomination.]
Corporate journalists begin sounding demands that Substack censor its writers, in order to censor critiques of corporate journalists. Report by Glenn Greenwald, published on his Substack media outlet, Mar 11, 2021
Thousands of citizens displaced by regime-change war since 2011 return to homes in Latakia, Syria. Report by Prensa Latina, Mar 10, 2021
Related:
* European Union: No Syria reconstruction aid until Assad leaves, Al Monitor, Mar 12, 2021
* Cuba condemns recent U.S. aggression against Syrian province of Deir Ezzor, Prensa Latina, Mar 11, 2021 …According to data recently announced by the Syrian Government, some 6.1 million internally displaced persons have returned to their towns since 2015.
UN experts urge Biden to abolish ‘inherently flawed’ death penalty, Common Dreams, Mar 11, 2021
Cuba’s contributions in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, by Franklin Frederick, published in The Bullet, Mar 11, 2021 [The author of this informative essay on Cuba and Covid-19 fails to report a vital side of Cuba’s battle against the pandemic, namely, how past and present medical aid by Cuba has empowered recipient countries to also successfully combat the coronavirus. Two outstanding examples are Venezuela and Nicaragua, which have the lowest infection and death rates in continental South America. Here are some numbers. Costa Rica has 40,543 total Covid-19 cases per million population and 556 deaths per million. The comparable numbers in neighbouring Nicaragua are 979 and 26! The comparable numbers between Colombia and Venezuela are, respectively, 44,559/1,186 and 5,067/50 (source: Worldometer). Another recipient country of Cuban medical assistance is Haiti; though its government is not an ally of Cuba, its Covid-19 outcomes are similar to those of Nicaragua. No alternative media outlets in Western countries are reporting these vital and essential facts about Cuba and its medical partners in Latin America.]
UN rapporteur’s rebuke of U.S. sanctions against Venezuela is met with stunning silence in Western media, by John McEvoy, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, Mar 10, 2021 …Douhan’s report follows a research paper published by the Center for Economy and Policy Research in Washington DC in June 2019 that estimated that sanctions were responsible for over 40,000 deaths in Venezuela in 2017–18. That study was also categorically ignored across establishment media…
Record number of unaccompanied migrant children held in U.S. detention facilities, NBC News, Mar 8, 2021 A record number of unaccompanied migrant children are in Border Patrol custody and shelter beds are scarce, raising fears of a new humanitarian crisis at the southern border. More than 3,200 unaccompanied migrant children are being housed in Customs and Border Protection holding facilities, two sources confirmed. The New York Times, citing internal CBP documents, first reported that the number of detained children had “tripled in the last two weeks”…
Related:
* At border, record number of migrant youths wait in adult detention cells for longer than legally allowed, Washington Post, Mar 10, 2021 The new Biden administration is holding record numbers of unaccompanied migrant teens and children in detention cells for far longer than legally allowed. Federal health officials have fallen further behind in their race to find space for them in shelters. More than 8,500 migrant teens and children who crossed the border without their parents are being housed in Department of Health and Human Services shelters as they wait to be placed with relatives or vetted sponsors. Nearly 3,500 more are stuck at Border Patrol stations waiting for beds in those shelters to open up, the highest figure ever, according to internal data reviewed by The Washington Post. Held in grim steel-and-concrete cells built for adults, these young people are spending an average of 107 hours awaiting transfer to an HHS-run shelter, well over the 72-hour legal limit, the data shows… Soon after taking office, Biden stopped turning back children traveling without their parents. The latest data shows that the administration is no longer sending back most families, especially those with young children…
[Children being held in jail? They must be Uyghur children in China, correct? No, wait, it’s in the United States, crusader for all things ‘humanitarian’ in the world and staunch warmaking ally of the European Union, Canada, Japan and Australia.]
* ICE is not offering vaccination to thousands of detained immigrants fighting deportation even in facilitities where Covid-19 is rampant, Washington Post, Mar 12, 2021
The campaigns against Russian language rights in NATO member Latvia and and NATO ally Ukraine are foolish and self-defeating, commentary by Paul Rovinson, published in RT, Mar 11, 2021 (Paul Robinson is a professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa. He publishes the website blog Irrussianality.)
[In his commentary, the writer naively holds up Ireland and Canada as models of language tolerance to be emulated. But for centuries, Britain used force and violence in efforts to eradicate the Irish language, while Canada used genocidal practices against Indigenous people and their languages and throughout the 19th and 20th centuries it sought to restrict if not eliminate the French language. Today, Canada is fully partnered with the governments in Ukraine and the Baltic republics to restrict if not eliminate the Russian language. In point of fact, good examples of linguistic tolerance exist in none other than Russia and China. Crimea under Ukraine, for example, had only one official language: Ukrainian. Following the Crimea referendum in 2014 to secede from Ukraine, one of the first acts of the post-referendum government was to declare three official languages: Russian, Tatar and Ukrainian. But you won’t read that in the Globe and Mail or Washington Post!]
Companies in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region sue far-right, anti-China ideologue Adrian Wenz, Global Times, Mar 10, 2021 (Adrian Zenz is a German national, resident in the U.S. He is a member of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a far-right organization established by the US government in 1993.)
Background: U.S. State Department accusations of China ‘genocide’ in Xinjiang Autonomous Republic rely on data abuse and baseless claims by far-right ideologue Adrian Wenz, by Gareth Porter and Max Blumenthal, The Grayzone, Feb 18, 2021
Fallout among the ideologues waging attacks against the Chinese people and government:
* Academic [sic] faces Chinese lawsuit for exposing human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Washington Post, Mar 9, 2021
* Lawsuit against Xinjiang researcher [sic] marks new effort to silence critics of China’s treatment of Uyghurs, by Nathan Vanderklippe, Globe and Mail, Mar 9, 2021 (subscriber only) [This article appears on page-three of the print edition of the Globe and Mail on March 10. It is written by the newspaper’s in-house anti-China reporter previously based in China. He provides a lengthy defense of the propaganda efforts of Adrian Wenz, whom the writer describes as a “U.S. based researcher” and a “scholar”.]
‘A First Farewell’, 2018 film by Chinese filmmaker Wang Lina, portrays life for Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Uyghur Region, film review in Variety Magazine, March 17, 2019 and read: review published in Global Times, July 19, 2020
[A careful viewer will note the film’s insights into the status of women and of public health in Xinjiang, portrayed favorably (according to reality). The film is a sharp contrast to the disturbing wave of racist and imperialist Western propaganda and accusations against the Chinese people and government over the status of the Uyghur people, including the absurd accusations of ‘genocide’. The anti-China Western propaganda is infecting otherwise left-wing publications, as these examples during the past year demonstrate: Jacobin (and here), Socialist Alternative (published in the U.S. by the Trotskyist group of the same name) and CounterPunch.]
Behind the Biden administration’s new $100 billion nuclear missile system, by Jeremy Kuzmarov, Covert Action Magazine, Mar 8, 2021 (Jeremy Kuzmarov is managing editor of Covert Action Magazine.) …The nuclear freeze campaign of the 1980s was a large-scale grassroots movement that promoted a reduction and ultimately elimination of nuclear weapons. At a zoom conference on February 24 sponsored by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Katrina Vanden Heuval, publisher of The Nation Magazine, suggested that disarmament advocates should link up with the climate change movement… The twin threats of nuclear war and climate change demand a “boldness among grassroots political activists” that will be necessary to save ourselves and our planet. (end article)
Hypersonic weapons and the new space race, special report in Al Jazeera, Mar 9, 2021 …The last of the great Cold War arms treaties, New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Wikipedia) teeters in the balance. Signed in 2010 between the United States and Russia, this treaty will be rendered defunct in a few months as it was never designed to control or limit this new class of weaponry. Russia has requested an extension to START and has said it would consider Avangard as being bound by the treaty’s limitations…
[Absent from this report is how the U.S. government is exiting arms control treaties and how this affects the hypersonic weapons race. The report says the START nuclear weapons treaty is lapsing because it was not designed to limit the new class of hypersonic weapons. This is inaccurate and misleading. The treaty was due to lapse in 2021 due to a unilateral withdrawal announced by the Trump regime in 2020. On February 4, 2021, the United States and Russia formally extended New START. The treaty will remain in effect until February 5, 2026. (See report by Washington DC-based Nuclear Threat Initiative.]
With vaccine program in disarray, Japan faces new battle to contain variants, Washington Post, March 9, 2021 read the article here in pdf format: Japan vaccinations in disarray
[According to Worldometer, Japan is #39 in the world for total Covid-19 cases and #11 for population. It has recorded nearly 442,000 total cases of Covid-19 and 8,350 deaths. Its per capita death rate from Covid-19 is 66 per 100,000 population. That compares to world leaders Belgium (1,921), Britain (1,832) and U.S. (1,627). Australia is 35 per 100,000, China is three per 100,000.]
Brazil hospitals buckle in absence of national virus plan, Associated Press, Mar 11, 2021
Related:
* Brazil’s growing coronavirus outbreak [growing criminal negligence by gov’t] poses a threat far beyond its borders, Washington Post, Mar 9, 2021
* Brazil in Covid crisis, National Public Radio, Mar 5, 2021
* Brazil’s Covid cisis is a warning to the whole world, scientists say, New York Times, Mar 3, 2021
* Brazil’s Covid outbreak is a global threat that opens door to lethal variants – scientist, by Tom Phillips, The Guardian, Mar 3, 2021
[Brazil has suffered more than 11.1 million cases of Covid-19 as of March 10, 2021. It will soon overtake India as the second-worst hit country in the world (after the U.S.); its per capita case count is two thirds that of the U.S. There have been some 269,000 deaths related to Covid, half the U.S. number and nearly twice that of India.].
China plans for a world without American technology, New York Times, Mar 10, 2021 …One sector that China has struggled with is microchips, which much of its electronics production relies on. Bewilderingly complex production has stymied Chinese businesses, which instead import the majority of the semiconductors they require. Despite tens of billions of dollars invested, China’s domestic chip production met only 15.9 percent of its chip demand in 2020, barely higher than the 15.1 percent share it accounted for in 2014… China’s premier, Li Keqiang, last week detailed proposals to accelerate the development of high-end semiconductors, operating systems, computer processors, cloud computing and artificial intelligence… [This New York Times report contains useful information but is also full of Western media’s lies and disdain for the Chinese people and governments. Example: “The latest intrusion against U.S. business and government agencies used Microsoft email systems. It was discovered last weekend. Tentatively linked [emphasis added] to Chinese hackers, it is likely to sharpen a divide that could split the tech world…”
Related: China chases semiconductor self-sufficiency, published in East Asia Forum, Feb 22, 2021 …China’s demand for modern and emerging technologies is on the rise. Semiconductor imports increased to over US$300 billion in 2019 and were the country’s largest import item…
With a second war on terror looming, a new film explores the grave abuses of the first, interview by Glenn Greenwald with Mohamedou Slahi, broadcast on Greenwald’s Substack media outlet, Mar 9, 2021 (Mohamedou Slahi was imprisoned without charges for fourteen years in Guantánamo. He is the author of the best-selling Guantánamo Diary, a memoir of that experience. He is now the primary character of a new Hollywood feature film about his life, The Mauritanian.)
Amazon fights aggressively to defeat union drive in Alabama, fearing a coming wave, Washington Post, Mar 9, 2021 The voting on whether to join a union, the RWDSU, at Amazon’s ginat complex in Bessemer, Alabama runs from February 8 to March 29.
Related: We asked 56 celebrities who work with Amazon if they support the unionization campaign in Bessemer, Alabama. So far, they have stayed out of this fight, VICE News, Mar 9, 2021 …On February 26, the Writers Guild of America East and the Writers Guild of America West published a letter in support of the Amazon workers’ bid to unionize, which so far has been signed by more than 1,700 of its members, including Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, and Alfonso Cuarón...
Pandemic relief bill expands subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (‘Obamacare’), for two years. Report in New York Times, Mar 9, 2021 The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a 64-year-old earning $58,000 would see monthly payments decline from $1,075 to $412 for two years under the relief bill
Previously reported:
* Democrats promised to transform health care but their Covid relief bill hands the health care industry a big win, Time Magazine, Mar 3, 2021
* Private health insurance industry wins in Democrats’ first try at expanding health coverage, New York Times, Mar 5, 2021
CDC issues guidance saying fully vaccinated people are safe to gather without masks, Associated Press, Mar 8, 2021 and read: report in Stat News, Mar 8, 2021
The New York Times has not heard of China’s (or Russia’s) vaccines, by Dean Baker, Center for Economic Policy Research (Washington DC), Mar 4, 2021
New York Times fails to examine its participation in Brazil’s ‘biggest judicial scandal’, directed against former president Luis Inacio da Silva‘, by Brian Mier, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, Mar 8, 2021
Related: Purging inconvenient facts in coverage of Biden’s ‘first’ aerial bombing attacks, by Gregory Shupak, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, Mar 4, 2021 …The less clear is the U.S. population about the frequency and scale of murderous violence its government carries out, the easier it is for the U.S. ruling class to go about its wars. Fortunately for the U.S. state, corporate media help manufacture collective amnesia by expunging U.S. aggression from the record…
I took part in the U.S.-South Korean war drills in 2004. They make all of us less safe, by Jovanni Reyes, Truthout.org, Mar 8, 2021
Related:
* Washington and Seoul agree on new cost-sharing deal for presence of U.S. troops in South Korea, Associated Press, Mar 8, 2021
* Coalition of national organizations in U.S. urges the Biden administration to pursue better relations with North Korea and reduce nuclear risk, press release by Women Cross DMZ, Mar 8, 2021
On Int’l Womens Day, women in Mexico protest inaction against sexual violence by president and government, Associated Press, Mar 8, 2021 and read: 20,000 march in Mexico City for justice for women and an end to the violence, Mexico News Daily, Mar 9, 2021 and from the New York Times, Mar 9, 2021: …In the roughly two years since President López Obrador took office, the rates of violence against women have not changed significantly. Last year, an average of 10 women were killed in Mexico every day and there were some 16,000 cases of rape. An investigation by one news site, Animal Politico, found that from 2014 to 2018, only about five per cent of all sexual assault allegations, including rape, resulted in a criminal sentence…
[But it is Venezuela, not the likes of Mexico and Brazil, that Western media and governments accuse of being a ‘dictatorship’ and human rights violator. They want to overthrow the Venezuelan government by force and violence. One of the governments leading the charge against Venezuela is the self-declared ‘feminist’ government of Canada. Currently, the present head of Canada’s armed forces and his immediate predecessor are facing accusations of sexual harassment of subordinate female officers. Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan stands accused of failing to investigate accusations, some of which date back three years.].
Related:
* Peru conducted forced sterilization on Indigenous women during the Fujimori dictatorship, 1990-2000. The victims are demanding justice but are being stonewalled by the present Peruvian government, a ley pawn and regional ally of ‘feminist’ Canada along with the United States and Europe in seeking to overthrow the Venezuela gov’t. Read: Forcibly sterilized during Fujimori dictatorship in Peru, thousands of women demand justice, by Ñusta Carranza Ko (University of Baltimore), The Conversation, Mar 3, 2021
Revealed: The British gov’t supported the 2019 coup in Bolivia to gain access to its ‘white gold’, lithium, by Matt Kennard, The Daily Maverick (S. Africa), Mar 8, 2021 (This article is part of an article series in The Daily Maverick under the theme ‘UK declassified’.)
Candidates endorsed by Democratic Socialists of America win control of Democratic Party in Nevada, prompting exit and sabotage by corporate Democrats. Report in Common Dreams, Mar 9, 2021
Related: Entire staff of Nevada Democratic Party quits after democratic socialist slate wins every seat of party executive, The Intercept, Mar 8, 2021
Unions in Myanmar commence general strike on March 8 to reverse Feb 22 coup d’etat, Associated Press, Mar 7, 2021
Haiti’s massive protests are a repudiation of authoritarianism and U.S. intervention, interview with Kim Ives, editor of the weekly Haiti Liberté, published in Jacobin Magazine, Mar 8, 2021 (Haiti Liberté is published each week in Kreyol and French languages, with an English-language page in each edition.)
Scientists underestimated the coronavirus and are now racing to keep up with variants, Washington Post, Mar 7, 2021 …The mass vaccination campaign that could have felt like a wave of relief is instead an ominous, urgent race against a changing virus. The path to herd immunity, the powerful milestone when the virus won’t be able to spark new outbreaks, is looking longer and more complex. Vaccines may not totally vanquish but simply chase a continually changing virus…
How the coronavirus has changed transportation in New York City, New York Times, Mar 8, 2021 …There were nearly 1.7 billion turnstile swipes in New York City’s subway system in 2019. In March 2020, ridership fell 90 per cent. Today, it has only recovered to a third of what it was before the pandemic…
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi speaks on China’s outlook and goals for 2021 at press briefing during annual National People’s Congress, CGTN (China Global Television Network), Mar 7, 2021
Related: Wang Yi dismisses Western rumors, welcomes foreigners to visit China’s Xinjiang autonomous region, CGTN, Mar 7, 2021 …The ethnic Uygur population in Xinjiang region [total population 25 million] has more than doubled in the past 40 years, according to official data. In addition, the region received over 200 million tourists in 2019. Wang said the word ‘genocide’ reminds people of the native Americans of the 16th century, African slaves of the 19th century, the Jewish people of the 20th century and the aboriginal Australians who are struggling even today…
China sets 2021 economic growth target of ‘above six per cent’ ’ at annual meeting of National People’s Congress, South China Morning Post, Mar 5, 2021
(includes full text in English of ‘Report on the Work of the Government’, 36-page report delivered to the National People’s Congress on March 5, 2021 by Li Keqiang, Premier of the State Council of China)
Related:
* At annual meeting of National People’s Congress, China plans ‘green transformation’ of economy, Deutsche Welle, Mar 3, 2021
* China’s president Xi Jinping declares ‘complete victory’ against rural poverty, Al Jazeera, Feb 25, 2021 …Over the last eight years, an estimated 98.99 million people in the countryside have been lifted out of extreme poverty, according to officials…
* China’s exports surge from 2020 lockdown levels, Bloomberg News, Mar 7, 2021
Democrats push Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid bill through Senate on party-line vote, Reuters, Mar 6, 2021 …Democrats agreed to reduce extended unemployment benefits from $400 a week to $300 in order to secure passage in the Senate. They want the bill signed into law before current unemployment benefits expire on March 15… The bill as voted in the House of Representatives featured a measure to more than double the minimum wage to $15 per hour. The Senate rejected that; the measure is not contained in the final version of the bill to be ratified by the House…
‘Utterly damning ‘documents reveal meatpacking industry fought feeble Covid-19 safeguards under Trump, Common Dreams, Mar 3, 2021 Documents obtained from the United States Department of Agriculture by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and published on March 3 reveal how leading players in the meatpacking industry—one of the hardest-hit by the coronavirus pandemic—fought the minimal efforts imposed by the Trump administration to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in meat processing plants last spring…
Related: Punitive attendance policies fueled Covid-19 outbreaks in meatpacking plants, by Ruqaiijah Yearby (St. Louis University), The Conversation, Feb 26, 2021 Working in meatpacking plants has always been dangerous. A study published in December 2020 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S) shows that it became deadlier in the era of Covid-19, even as company profits soared…
ACLU to Biden: Do not ‘review’ the U.S. drone killing program: End it once and for all, Common Dreams, Mar 5, 2021
One in seven U.S. prisoners is serving life; two-thirds of those are people of color, Washington Post, Mar 2, 2021 …About 15 per cent of the entire U.S. prison population of 1.4 million is serving a life sentence. The country has about 40 per cent of the world’s life-sentenced population. “This is a sign of how unforgiving, and how unjust, the justice system is for young Black and Brown offenders,” says Karl A. Racine, the D.C. attorney general… Life sentences without parole are “virtually unheard of elsewhere in the world,” said Ashley Nellis, the author of the study. “Imprisonment beyond 20 years is a predominantly American phenomenon.” Worldwide, the research found, 83 per cent of those serving life without parole are in American prisons. Alaska is the only U.S. state that bans life without parole, the study found…
Rich countries are undercutting COVAX’s ability to get COVID-19 vaccines to developing world, critics say, Globe and Mail, Mar 4, 2021
Related: Canada to take COVAX vaccines, won’t share doses until every Canadian is inoculated says gov’t minister responsible, CBC News, Mar 5, 2021
European Union commences review of Russia’s ‘Sputnik V’ Covid-19 vaccine as some country members, frustrated with slow supply from ‘Big Pharma’, begin to go it alone. Report in Globe and Mail, Mar 4, 2021 …The approval process for Sputnik V with the European Medicines Agency got off to a rocky start. Russia said it formally applied in late January. On Feb. 10, the EMA said it had seen no such application. The Russian agency that funds Sputnik V later said it had sent the application to the Heads of Medicines Agencies, a European network that does not approve drugs…
Representative Rashida Tlaib rips Biden administration’s opposition to ICC war crimes probe of Israel, Common Dreams, Mar 4, 2021
Related:
* Palestine advocates slam Biden administration for rebuking ICC investigation into Israel, by Ali Harb, Middle East Eye, Mar 4, 2021
* Int’l Criminal Court launches war crimes probe into Israeli practices, Associated Press, Mar 3, 2021
Previously reported:
* Interview with Norman Finkelstein: Palestine’s victory at the Int’l Criminal Court thwarted by Israel’s apartheid reality, broadcast on ‘Pushback’ (The Grayzone), with host AAron Maté, Feb 14, 2021 (57′ interview) In a landmark ruling, the International Criminal Court ruled on February 12 that it has jurisdiction to investigate Israel for war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. However, scholar and author Norman Finkelstein warns that the ICC decision, while historic, is unlikely to deliver justice.
* Israel will pull out all the stops to avoid facing war crimes charges, by Jonathan Cook, Middle East Eye, Feb 11, 2021 An ICC ruling has panicked Israeli officials who can now be investigated, but they will likely respond with intensified threats
Democratic Senators agree to cut unemployment benefits, reject $15 minimum wage as Covid relief bill nears vote in Senate, NBC News, Mar 5, 2021
Related U.S. news:
* Democrats promised to transform health care but their Covid relief bill hands the health care industry a big win, Time Magazine, Mar 3, 2021
* Private health insurance industry wins in Democrats’ first try at expanding health coverage, New York Times, Mar 5, 2021 …Democrats spent much of the 2020 presidential primary debating the best way to expand public health insurance… But the first major legislation of the Biden administration, if it passes in the Senate, moves in the opposite direction: It proposes spending billions to expand private health insurance coverage to millions more Americans… Private health plans cover 176 million Americans, outnumbering the combined enrollment of Medicare and Medicaid. The stimulus plan would probably increase private insurance sign-ups by a few million people with the new subsidies it provides to those buying their plans…
* Lessons from a doomed effort to save the $15 minimum wage, by Andrew Perez, Walker Bragman, Julia Rock and Joel Warner, The Daily Poster, Mar 5, 2021 Eight Democrats are now on record opposing a living wage, but enough remained to suggest the wage increase could have survived if Biden wanted to push it through
* How to stop the Manchin presidency and raise the minimum wage, by David Sirota, The Daily Poster, Mar 4, 2021 Democrats must vote down the ‘must-pass’ Covid relief bill until it includes the wage increase, which they can add right now
The man who would be Stalin, book review and historical essay by John Marot, published in Jacobin, Mar 3, 2021 reviewing: Stalin: Passage to Revolution, by Ronald Grigor Suny, Princeton University Press, 2020
By the same reviewer: The New Economic Policy was the alternative to Stalinism, essay by John Marot, Jacobin, Dec 8, 2019
Surprise on the left at party congress of Die Linke (‘The Left’) in Germany, by Victor Grossman, published in MR Online, Mar 4, 2021
J. Edgar Hoover vs. Martin Luther King and Fred Hampton, by James DiEugenio, CounterPunch, Mar 5, 2021 James DiEugenio tracks the longstanding FBI boss and his renegade violence against any sign of a Black Messiah through two current films, ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ by director Shaka King and ‘MLK/FBI’ by Sam Pollard
Cuba’s quest for vaccines, interview with Candace Johnson, CEO of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, broadcast on ‘Amanpour’ interview program on CNN, Mar 2, 2021 (12-minute interview)
Related: As the world vies for vaccines, Cuba is making its own, by Patrick Oppmann, CNN, Mar 3, 2021
Death rates from Covid-19. Twenty two of the 25 larger countries in the world with the highest, per capita death rates from Covid-19 are in central and western Europe. The other three are the U.S. (#9), Mexico (#14) and Peru (#16). The highest per capita death rates in the world are Czechia at 1,970 deaths per million population, Belgium (1,907), Slovenia (1,865) and Britain (1,817). The U.S. death rate is 1,600; Germany is 854 (#41); Canada is 582 (#53).
Related: Covid-19 death rates are ten times higher in countries where most adults are overweight, report finds, CNN, Mar 5, 2021 …Vietnam had one of the world’s lowest Covid-19 death rates, with 0.04 deaths occurring per 100,000 people. The country’s overweight population comes in at 18.3 per cent. Other countries on the low death rate list with similar patterns include Japan, Thailand and South Korea. But in countries where more than 50% of the population was overweight, the Covid-19 death rate was much higher — more than 100 per 100,000. In the US, where 152.49 deaths were recorded per 100,000 people, 67.9 per cent of the adult population is overweight…
Initial results are positive from trials of India’s ‘Covaxin’ Covid-19 vaccine, New York Times, Mar 3, 2021 …In part because of the risk of getting a vaccine that hadn’t been proved safe, many people in India have declined to get jabbed, contributing to the slow rollout of the campaign. The government had aimed to vaccinate about 300 million people by August, but as of March 3 it had inoculated about 16 million…
Other vaccine news: Canada’s vaccine panel recommends four months between Covid vaccine doses, Associated Press, Mar 4, 2021
38 dead during deadliest day yet for anti-coup protests in Myanmar, Associated Press, Mar 4, 2021
Related: Documents reveal inside story of Australia’s defence cooperation with Myanmar junta, ABC.net.au, Mar 4, 2021
Previously reported: Coup leaders and Aung San Suu Kyi betrayed democracy in Burma (Myanmar), by Dr. Ramzy Baroud, The Palestine Chronicle, Feb 28, 2021 (Dr Ramzy Baroud is president of The Palestine Chronicles.)
Joe Biden wanted to lock up my father, CIA whistleblower Philip Agee, just like he wants to lock up Edward Snowden And Julian Assange, by Chris Agee and Jeremy Kuzmarov, Covert Action Magazine, Mar 3, 2021
Former Bolivian coup president and her 2019 coup d’état accomplices to be prosecuted, by Ron Ridenour, Covert Action Magazine, Mar 1, 2021
After experiencing super-safe quarantine hotel in China, Australian traveler says Canada’s version seems ‘just for show’, National Post, Mar 3, 2021 [This informative article falsely compares the numbers of Covid-19 illnesses in South Korea and Japan to those in China. The article writer says, “Countries such as China, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand that have similar quarantine rules for incoming travellers have among the lowest rate of Covid-19 infection in the world.” This information is false and misleading. One month ago, Japan was recording more than 5,000 new Covid-19 cases per day; that is now down to 700 to 800 daily. South Korea is reporting some 400 cases per day. China is reporting around ten new cases daily, similar to the numbers of Australia and New Zealand, whose populations are a small fraction of China’s. China’s per capita death rate from Covid-19 is half that of New Zealand, 1/10 that of South Korea, 1/12 that of Australia and 1/22 that of Japan.]
CRISPR technology rivals put patents aside to help in fight against Covid-19, STAT News, Mar 3, 2021
The SARS lockdown in Beijing in 2002-03 taught my children resilience. Your Covid kids will likely be fine, by Elisabeth Rosenthal, Kaiser Health News, Mar 2, 2021
How to protect yourself against coronavirus variants, commentary by Dr. Abraar Karan (internal medicine physician at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston), in New York Times, Mar 3, 2021 Upgrading your mask and staying vigilant are more important than ever
Countries urge drug companies to share vaccine know-how, Associated Press, Mar 1, 2021
Related:
* U.S. downplays possibility of sharing Covid-19 vaccines with Mexico, Reuters, Mar 1, 2021
* China and Russia vaccinate the world, Axios, Mar 1, 2021 …In China, daily reported Covid cases are often in the single digits, meaning less pressure on China’s leaders to quickly vaccinate Chinese citizens…
* Chinese vaccines sweep much of the world, despite concerns, Associated Press, Mar 2, 2021 [This lengthy article is informative but is also replete with anti-China prejudice and unfounded accusations. And, reflecting the typical cynicism of Western imperialist viewpoints on China, the article says that China’s vaccine policy is motivated by selfish national interests, not humanitarian concerns.]
EU, U.S. impose sanctions on Russia over poisoning [sic] of Alexei Navalny, Deutsche Welle, Mar 2, 2021 [These are the first new sanctions against Russia by the new, Biden-led, regime in Washington, thus continuing a seamless policy of threats against Russia and its people begun by President Obama and continued by the ‘Russia friendly’ (sic) Trump regime. Three peas in a pod…]
Behind progressive cover, Democracy Now! amplifies State Department propaganda campaign against China, by Danny Haiphong, The Grayzone, Feb 22, 2021 …Democracy Now’s coverage of China over the past year has been almost entirely negative. A content analysis by The Grayzone of headlines on DN that directly reference China from Feb 1, 2020 to the present reveals that 78 per cent presented a sharply negative spin on events. The vast majority of the stories focused on “human rights” in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, echoing narratives generated by the U.S. national security state…
Biden retreats from vow to make pariah of Saudi Arabia after report fingers the regime for 2018 killing of regime figure Jamal Khashoggi, Associated Press, Mar 2, 2021
Related:
* Saudi Arabia’s decade-long attempt to bottle up the youth revolution in Yemen is failing, by Ahmed Abdulkareem, Mint Press News, Mar 1, 2021
* Under Trudeau, Canada is Saudi Arabia’s most dedicated gunrunner, by Kelsey Gallagher, Jacobin Magazine, Feb 28, 2021 (Kelsey Gallagher is a writer at Project Ploughshares, a peace reserch organization based in Waterloo, Ontario.)
Minimum wage hike all but dead in big Covid relief bill, Associated Press, Mar 2, 2021
Related:
* We need a $15 minimum wage, not excuses, by Julia Rock and Andrew Perez, The Daily Poster, Mar 2, 2021 (also published in Jacobin) In a new letter, nearly two dozen House Democrats are pressing Vice President Kamala Harris to ignore the Senate parliamentarian and fulfill her minimum wage promise …Raising the federal minimum wage from its current level of $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour would increase the wages of thirty-two million workers, a majority of whom currently live below the poverty line…
* Senator Bernie Sanders says he will force a Senate vote on $15 minimum wage amendment to Covid relief bill, Common Dreams, Mar 2, 2021
Meng Wanzhou legal team claims U.S. record of fraud case against Huawei exec ‘manifestly unreliable’, CBC News, Mar 1, 2021 A lawyer for Meng Wanzhou wants the judge overseeing the Huawei executive’s extradition case to see evidence he claims will show the U.S. account of Meng’s alleged crimes is misleading. At the first day of a week-long B.C Supreme Court hearing, Frank Addario said the record of the case that prosecutors provided to the court is “manifestly unreliable” because it fails to mention that bank officials were fully aware of facts Meng is accused of trying to hide…
Related: Lawyers for Huawei executive Meng Wahzhou will argue in BC Supreme Court in Vancouver on March 1 that Trump ‘poisoned’ her extradition case, Washington Post, Feb 28, 2021 [This otherwise informative Washington Post article contains a gratuitous personal attack against Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. Such attacks are typical of the reporting by Canada’s state-run CBC and corporate media concerning the hostage taking and detention of Meng Wanzhou by the Canadian government, beginning in December 2018. Canada is seeking to extradite her into the U.S. prison gulag, responding to a request by the Trump, and now Biden, regimes in Washington. The Post article writes, “Meng is out on $8 million bail under partial house arrest at the larger of her two Vancouver mansions, where she receives private massages and art lessons.” Meng Wanzhou and her husband own two houses, not ‘mansions’, in Vancouver’s housing bubble market. In the large, tony districts of the west side of Vancouver where the Wanzhou-owned houses are located, the average house price in January 2021 was $3.7 million. Pictured here below are the two ‘mansions’ owned by the Wanzhous.]
There have been no calls for censorship against Democrats for their false, anti-Russia conspiracy claims about the 2016 election, by Joe Lauria, editor, Consortium News, Mar 1, 2021 … The hypocrisy of the Democrats is underscored by the fact that they and their media allies spent four years questioning the legitimacy of the 2016 election with false claims of ‘Russian interference’ yet no one called for censorship against them…
Previously reported:
* House Democrats, targeting right-wing cable outlets, are assaulting core press freedoms, by Glenn Greenwald, published in his Substack media outlet, Feb 23, 2021 Democrats’ justification for silencing their adversaries online and in media — ‘they are spreading fake news and inciting extremism’ — is what despots everywhere say
* Congress escalates pressure on tech giants to censor more, threatening the First Amendment, by Glenn Greenwald, published in his Substack media outlet, Feb 20, 2021
* Twitter’s attempt to suppress Grayzone reporting backfires as warning label becomes meme, by Alan Macleod, Mint Press News, Feb 24, 2021 ‘The new Twitter scare label illustrates the threat our kind of factual reporting presents to a national security state that must employ social media censorship to conceal its agenda from the public.’ —Max Blumenthal, The Grayzone
‘Vicious, horrible people’: Setting straight the record of Jeremy Corbyn’s term as Labour Party leader, book review by Oliver Eagleton, published in New Left Review, print edition of January/February 2021 Reviewing: This Land: The Story of a Movement, by Owen Jones, publisher Allen Lane, London 2020, 352 pp, ISBN 978 0 2414 7094 7
