2020-09-02: News Headlines

G. Dunkel (2020-09-02). Struggle against environmental poisoning and police violence in Martinique. workers.org For centuries, imperialists have conspired and competed to exploit the islands of the Caribbean, both for what their soils could produce and for their strategic positions. Early in the 17th century, colonizers began to decimate the islands' original Indigenous peoples. Then colonizers kidnapped millions of people, mostly from Africa, and . . . |

Peoples Dispatch (2020-09-02). Venezuela's pardon of opposition leaders is a major step in promoting national reconciliation. peoplesdispatch.org As many as 110 right-wing opposition leaders who have either been convicted or are being tried were pardoned by President Nicolás Maduro. This will enable them to take part in the electoral process for the National Assembly…

WSWS (2020-09-02). Trump visits Kenosha to defend killer police and vigilantes. wsws.org Trump's efforts to project an image of authoritarian strength during his visit were belied by the extraordinary security measures taken to wall him off from the population.

Brian S. Willson (2020-09-02). North Korea and the "Axis of Evil" globalresearch.ca "Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population [of North Korea]" (General Curtis Lemay)…

Peoples Dispatch (2020-09-01). Hamas announces ceasefire with Israel. peoplesdispatch.org On Monday, August 31, the Palestinian resistance group Hamas announced that it had reached a ceasefire with Israel that would end the recent hostilities in Gaza. Since August 6, Israel had been continuously attacking Gaza. It had bombed the region from the air, shelled it with tanks, and attacked Palestinian fishermen off the Gaza coast. Israel claimed the attacks were in response to Hamas and other Palestinian groups firing rockets and incendiary balloons. | The Israeli offensive was taking a heavy toll on people in Gaza. The attacks had deliberately targeted the civilian population. Israel had closed off the fi…

sputniknews (2020-09-01). Maduro, Venezuelan Opposition Close to Deal on Election Participation – Report. sputniknews.com Two Venezuelan opposition leaders are in talks with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on participating in the upcoming parliamentary elections in December, Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlàºt àáavu≈üoƒülu revealed Tuesday.

Martha Grevatt (2020-09-01). Anti-racist solidarity: Kenosha's labor history. workers.org Since the near-lynching of Jacob Blake by police, the city of Kenosha, Wis., population 100,000, has become a focus of the Black Lives Matter upsurge. Up to that point, Kenosha was just a dot on the map to most people. However, the city's United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 72 played . . . |

Don Fitz (2020-09-01). What Can We Learn from Cuba? Medicare-for-All Is a Beginning, Not the End Point. dissidentvoice.org As a coup de grâce to the Bernie Sanders campaign Joe Biden declared that he would veto Medicare-for-All. This could drive a dedicated health care advocate to relentlessly pursue Med-4-All as a final goal. However, it is not the final goal. It should be the first step in a complete transformation of medicine which includes combining …

Yanis Iqbal (2020-09-01). Venezuela and Palestine: A Revolutionary Alliance. zcomm.org If this Venezuelan opposition comes to power with the help of American imperialists, the current pro-Israel and rightward shift in the political dynamics of Latin America will get further consolidated…

Don Fitz (2020-09-01). Medicare-for-All Is a Beginning, Not the End Point. zcomm.org What Can We Learn from Cuba?

_____ (2020-09-01). US Government Seizes Websites Allegedly Involved In Iran-Venezuela Oil Deal. popularresistance.org The US government announced today that it had seized three websites used by Iran to facilitate oil deals with Venezuela. The decision follows the US interception of Iranian oil tankers bound for Venezuela and increased pressure from Washington on both countries. | The Department of Justice assumed control of the websites for Mobin International, Sohar Fuel and Oman Fuel, which the department called front companies. The companies allegedly facilitated a fuel shipment by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to Venezuela, according to a department press release.

teleSUR (2020-08-31). US Pressure Strategy Against Venezuela Fails, Arreaza Says. telesurenglish.net Venezuela's Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza stressed that the maximum pressure strategy against his country is a resounding failure of the U.S. elites, who are disconnected from reality and do not understand the Bolivarian people's resistance. | RELATED: | The Minister said that the U.S. ruling class knows nothing about the reality of Venezuela and "much less about Chavismo and its historical, political, and social…

RT (2020-08-31). Maduro pardons 100+ opposition lawmakers to promote 'national reconciliation' in Venezuela. rt.com Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has announced pardons for 110 opposition lawmakers currently facing charges, saying this should promote democracy in the country currently under US sanctions and demands for regime change. | The intent of the pardons is to "promote national reconciliation and the search for peace," Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez announced on Monday in Caracas. | The measure was proposed by the Commission for Truth, Justice and Peace and seeks to strengthen democracy and "open channels of political action" within the framework of the Venezuelan Constitution, Rodriguez added. | The gover…

Lee Siu Hin, Immigrant Solidarity Network (2020-08-31). Fall 2020 National Immigrant Solidarity Network Immigrant News Alert! indybay.org ICE Is Leaving Immigrants To Die In Detention, Trump Used Looted Venezuelan Public Money To Build Border Wall With Mexico…

Emile Schepers (2020-08-31). Fears of a 'police coup' against Black elected officials in Portsmouth, Virginia. peoplesworld.org PORTSMOUTH, Va.—Strange things have been going on in the city of Portsmouth, population 95,000, in southeastern Virginia. There is even talk of a "police coup d'état" to remove Black elected officials from office, and thus to thwart efforts at criminal justice reform in the state legislature. In March, the well-regarded police chief, Toya Chapman, who …

Michael Berkowitz (2020-08-31). 'Epicentro': Getting centered on Cuba in a new documentary film. peoplesworld.org Epicentro is Sundance Award winner and Academy Award nominee Hubert Sauper's vibrant, elegiac postcard from Cuba—its past, present and future. A bittersweet history lesson suffuses the film: We are Cuba, the gateway to the Americas, the blockaded but unbowed survivor of economic war with its behemoth unfriendly northern neighbor. Invaded by both the Spanish and …

Jake Johnston (2020-08-31). State Department Awarded Contract to Politically Connected Security Firm. cepr.net In November, 2019, as part of its support for the Haitian National Police (HNP), the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) awarded a $73,000 contract for the provision of "riot gear kit[s]" for the police's crowd control unit, CIMO, according to information contained in the US government's contracting database. Earlier …

Leonardo Flores (2020-08-31). The stage is set for a Venezuela October surprise. peoplesdispatch.org Aggression against Venezuela from the US has intensified in recent weeks and all signs are pointing towards an escalation ahead of elections in the US and Venezuela…

Paul Dobson (2020-08-31). Venezuela's PDVSA Sued for Missed Payments at Curacao Refinery. venezuelanalysis.com The state-run oil firm is also being asked to relocate crude deposits at Bonaire's BOPEC storage facility due to the risk of accidents caused by poor maintenance.

Prof. Carlos Mendoza Potella (2020-08-31). Venezuela's Oil Industry Between Sanctions and Strategic Blunders: A Conversation with Carlos Mendoza Potella. globalresearch.ca Carlos Mendoza Potella is an economics professor at Venezuela's Central University and advisor to Venezuela's Central Bank. He recently spoke to Venezuelanalysis about the origins of the crisis in the country's oil industry and what that means for its future….

teleSUR (2020-08-31). Laura Causes Millionaire Losses in the US and the Caribbean. telesurenglish.net Karen Clark & Company (KCC) Monday reported that Hurricane Laura caused losses of US$9 billion in the United States and US$200 million in the Caribbean region. | RELATED: | From August 20 to 29, Laura passed through Antigua & Barbuda, the Virgin Islands, St. Kitts & Nevis, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Cuba as a tropical storm, before reaching Louisiana as a category 4 hurricane. | In the Caribbean area, the damages caused were related to stro…

teleSUR (2020-08-31). Cali International Ballet Festival Pays Homage to Alicia Alonso. telesurenglish.net Given the complex global health scenario, the festival has opted to take place online through the Finbacali Youtube channel, among other social media platforms. | The virtual guest of honor is Cuba's National Ballet (BNC), one of many companies that regularly feature at the annual festival, directed by master Gloria Castro. | RELATED: | The festival includes an intervention from the director-general of the Cuban company, Viengsay Valdes, a le…

WSWS (2020-08-31). This week in history: August 31-September 6. wsws.org 25 years ago: French test nuclear bomb in Pacific, setting off protests in Tahiti On September 5, 1995, the French government launched the first in a series of nuclear tests at Moruroa Atoll in the Pacific. Rioting and protests erupted in the Tahitian capital of Papeete in response, where one-third of the population was unemployed.

_____ (2020-08-31). Medicare For All Is A Beginning, Not The End Point. popularresistance.org As a coup de grâce to the Bernie Sanders campaign Joe Biden declared that he would veto Medicare-for-All. This could drive a dedicated health care advocate to relentlessly pursue Med-4-All as a final goal. However, it is not the final goal. It should be the first step in a complete transformation of medicine which includes combining community medicine with natural medicine and health-care-for-the-world. | Contrasting Cuban changes in medicine during the last 60 years with the US non-system of medical care gives a clear picture of why changes must be all-encompassing.

_____ (2020-08-31). Extreme Right In Venezuela Seeks To Sabotage The Election. popularresistance.org In a little more than three months, on December 6, parliamentary elections will be held in Venezuela. The most extreme wing of the Venezuelan opposition, which forms the so-called G4 (that includes the parties Voluntad Popular of Leopoldo López, Primero Justicia of Henrique Capriles, Acción Democrática and Un Nuevo Tiempo) plans, with U.S. support, to boycott the electoral process and renew the mobilization in the streets. Colombian sources with access to U.S. government functionaries and to leaders of the Venezuelan opposition became aware of a recent video conference meeting including members of the U.S. foreig…

Staff (2020-08-31). Trump's New COVID Adviser Is Pushing Herd Immunity, Which Some Liken to Eugenics. truthout.org A new top COVID-19 adviser to President Trump, Scott Atlas, is pushing the White House to embrace a "herd immunity" approach to the pandemic, which would allow the virus to spread nearly unmitigated through the population while protecting nursing home residents and other vulnerable people, reports Building herd im…

Juan Cole (2020-08-30). Chadwick Boseman's Wakanda: Afro-Futurism Is in the Present. commondreams.org Skyline of the business district in Lagos, Nigeria's largest city with a population of over 12 million. (Photo: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/gettyimages-481661017_1.jpg

Ricardo Vaz (2020-08-30). Venezuela: Right-Wing Opposition Leader Released to House Arrest. venezuelanalysis.com Juan Requesens had been linked to the August 2018 assassination attempt against President Maduro.

T.P. Wilkinson (2020-08-30). Confess to Covid: just short of witch burning. dissidentvoice.org English propaganda poster by the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, London 1915 (Wikipedia Commons) Despite the lamentations and orders from Geneva or the local capitals of Capital, I refuse to believe that COVID-19 or the putative pathogens are a principal challenge to humanity — except for those using these viruses for policing and/or culling the population. Instead …

Subodh Varma (2020-08-30). COVID-19: How and why India is losing the battle. peoplesdispatch.org It has become customary to say that given its huge population, India is doing much better than say, the US or Europe. This is how officialdom is trying to explain away the shockingly high numbers of total confirmed cases (over 340,000 on August 29) and total deaths (nearly 63,000) — both of which put India at the third position globally, behind the US and Brazil. | However, the comparison is not really valid. India needs to be compared not with the US and Europe but to regions of the world where the population's age, economic standards and healthcare access is similar. Such a comparison reveals that, in fac…

_____ (2020-08-30). To Capture and Subdue: America's Theft of Syrian Oil Has Very Little to Do With Money. strategic-culture.org So, next time you see headlines about Exxon being in some kind of legal dispute with, say, Venezuela, ask yourself how was it that those companies became involved with the resources of that part of the world? More often than not, the answer will be similar to how this U.S. company got involved in Syria.

yenisafak (2020-08-30). COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy: Mexico courts allies across ideological spectrum. yenisafak.com Mexico is pressing ahead with an effort to forge COVID-19 vaccine alliances across a wide ideological spectrum of countries from France to Cuba as a World Health Organization (WHO) vaccine initiative will fall short of its needs.Mexico joined in early June the WHO's global COVAX plan, which aims to deliver at least 2 billion doses of approved vaccines by the end of next year and ensure "equitable access."But Martha Delgado, a Mexican deputy foreign minister whom President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador put in charge of Mexico's international response, told Reuters its share of that program was unlikely to be enough…

Anya Parampil (2020-08-29). Real life member of the Cuban Five responds to Netflix film "The Wasp Network" thegrayzone.com Red Lines host Anya Parampil speaks with René González, a member of the Cuban Five whose real life experience inspired the recent Netflix film "The Wasp Network". They discuss his reaction to the film as well as what it was like for him to work as a Cuban agent in the 1990s monitoring right-wing …

_____ (2020-08-29). Venezuela: Aggression In October? popularresistance.org A US-sponsored military aggression against Venezuela could take place before the November 3 elections in that country. On August 22, Admiral Remigio Ceballos, chief of the strategic operational command of the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB), said that "The international intelligence agencies allied to Venezuela inform us that Colombia is preparing an aggression, and the FANB will respond with force and forcefulness to any aggression against the sovereignty and independence of Venezuela, under the command of our Commander in Chief Nicolas Maduro Moros". Coinciding with this, they met in Bogotá with Presiden…

Vietnam News Agency (2020-08-29). Promueven Vietnam y Cuba cooperación en medicina. peoplesworld.org HANOI (VNA) — El viceministro de Defensa de Vietnam y jefe de la Dirección de la cartera para la prevención y el control del COVID-19, Tran Don, recibió hoy a un grupo de expertos de Cuba. Tran Don afirmó que durante las últimas seis décadas, particularmente en los momentos más difíciles, la cooperación bilateral evidenció …

Peoples Dispatch (2020-08-29). 500,000 Kashmiri have lost their jobs because of digital apartheid, says JKCCS report. peoplesdispatch.org A report by the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society remarks that the multi-faceted and targeted denial of digital rights is a "systemic form of discrimination, digital repression and collective punishment" for the Kashmiri population…

Oye Gureje, John Appiah-Poku, Toyin Bello, Lola Kola, Ricardo Araya, Dan Chisholm, Oluyomi Esan, Benjamin Harris, Victor Makanjuola, Caleb Othieno, LeShawndra Price, Soraya Seedat (2020-08-29). [Articles] Effect of collaborative care between traditional and faith healers and primary health-care workers on psychosis outcomes in Nigeria and Ghana (COSIMPO): a cluster randomised controlled trial. thelancet.com A collaborative shared care delivered by TFH and conventional health-care providers for people with psychosis was effective and cost-effective. The model of care offers the prospect of scaling up improved care to this vulnerable population in settings with low resources.

_____ (2020-08-29). These Six Banks Have Frozen $4.6 Billion Belonging To Venezuelans. popularresistance.org The looting, theft and hijacking of resources from Venezuela has been of great magnitude, six banks withhold under the excuse of US sanctions, around 4.6 billion dollars much needed by and belonging to the Venezuelans, currently facing a spike in Covid-19 cases. The website La Tabla cited the data published by the Venezuelan NGO dedicated to the study, promotion, education and defense of human rights, "Organización Sures", which explained that this Venezuelan money is in the following banks: | Novo Banco: $ 1,547,322,175.89, | Bank of England: $ 1,323,228,162.57, | Clearstream: $ 517,088,580.00, | Citibank: $ 458…