2021-02-08: News Headlines

Mark Schuller (2021-02-08). The Foreign Roots of Haiti's "Constitutional Crisis" counterpunch.org As per usual, news on Haiti in the U.S. remains limited, except for periods of 'crisis.' As if on cue, U.S. media began reporting on Haiti's "constitutional crisis" this week. Sunday, February 7, is the end of Haitian president Jovenel MoàØse's term according to the constitution. He refuses to step down. Last week, the opposition

W. T. Whitney (2021-02-08). Cuba's COVID-19 Vaccines Serve the People, Not Profits. counterpunch.org Cuba's socialist approach to developing vaccines against COVID-19 differs strikingly from that of capitalist nations of the world. Cuba's production of four vaccines is grounded in science and dedicated to saving the lives of all Cubans, and to international solidarity.

Vijay Prashad (2021-02-08). ExxonMobil exploits divisions in South America to score massive oil profits. peoplesworld.org Tensions are rising between neighboring Guyana and Venezuela over a piece of land that has been disputed since at least 1835. Both Guyana's President Irfaan Ali and Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro have exchanged sharp words about the status of the Essequibo region, which both countries claim. Since 1990, the two countries have pursued their claims through a United Nations …

_____ (2021-02-08). The Foreign Roots Of Haiti's 'Constitutional Crisis'. popularresistance.org As per usual, news on Haiti in the United States remains limited, except for during periods of "crisis." As if on cue, U.S. media began reporting on Haiti's "constitutional crisis" this week. | Sunday, February 7 is the end of Haitian President Jovenel MoàØse's term, according to the constitution. He refuses to step down. This week, the opposition called for a two-day general strike, uniting around a transition with the head of Haiti's Supreme Court stepping in. | Most reporting failed to note the international role, and particularly that of the United States, in creating this "crisis." And nearly all focu…

_____ (2021-02-08). Haiti: Protesters Demand President Moise Steps Down. popularresistance.org Amid ongoing protests, the diaspora watched as journalists reported the arrest of a Supreme Court justice and a police inspector in Haiti on Feb. 7, the day opposition leaders, civil society and human rights groups say President Jovenel Moise should step down. | During the week leading up to Feb. 7, politicians and civil society groups from throughout the diaspora called for U.S. intervention, some citing the need to convene dialogue, while others called for a transitional government. The U.S. State Department has stated that Moise's term ends in February 2022 and has called for elections this year, despite wides…

Paul Dobson (2021-02-08). National Gas Chief Arrested for Corruption at Venezuela's PDVSA. venezuelanalysis.com On the same day, local oil managers Alfredo Chirinos and Aryenis Torrealba were sentenced to five years, provoking anger from their grassroots support campaign.

Dean Baker (2021-02-08). Unemployment Falls to 6.3 Percent, But Job Growth Remains Weak. counterpunch.org Trump is the first president to leave office with a loss of jobs since Herbert Hoover. The unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage points in January to 6.3 percent. Much of this decline was due to people leaving the labor market as the employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) only rose by 0.1 percentage point. The EPOP now

Graham Peebles (2021-02-08). Overpopulation, food waste and climate change. nationofchange.org The house, our house is literally burning, and, despite millions of people screaming for change, the behavior, and ways of living that ignited the fire continue unabated.

Prof. Mark Schuller (2021-02-08). The Foreign Roots of Haiti's "Constitutional Crisis" globalresearch.ca All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the "Translate Website" drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). | *** | Haiti's president's term has come to an end, but he refuses …

Ben Norton (2021-02-07). How Ecuador's US-backed, coup-supporting 'ecosocialist' candidate Yaku Pérez aids the right-wing. thegrayzone.com Ecuador's presidential candidate Yaku Pérez supported coups in Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. His US-backed party Pachakutik and supposedly "left-wing" environmentalist campaign is being promoted by right-wing corporate lobbyists. (Editor's note: This article was updated on February 8, following the first round of Ecuador's presidential election.) Ecuador's February 7 presidential election concluded in a surprise: The quick count published by the country's National Electoral Council appeared to show a little-known candidate named Yaku Pérez Guartambel in second place, securing a …

Ben Norton (2021-02-07). How Ecuador's US-backed, coup-supporting 'ecosocialist' candidate aids the right-wing. thegrayzone.com Ecuador's third-place presidential candidate Yaku Pérez and his US-backed party Pachakutik supported coups in Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. His supposedly "left-wing" environmentalist campaign is being promoted by right-wing corporate lobbyists. Ecuador's historic February 7 election could bring a popular revolutionary movement back from the dead and help fuel a new wave of socialist governments in Latin America. The contrast between the two main presidential candidates could hardly be more stark: On one side is a conservative banker backed by …

yenisafak (2021-02-07). Rich countries at risk of their own vaccine nationalism. yenisafak.com The world's richest countries would do well to hurry in supplying and distributing vaccines against the novel coronavirus, as failing to do so would eventually harm their economies more severely than projected by earlier studies, experts say.As the world tries to free itself from the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of making vaccines universally available has taken center stage.Despite pledges by donor countries to aid the global inoculation effort, there is still uncertainty about when jabs will reach vulnerable populations."No economy can bounce back fully until vaccines are distributed fairly, equally, quickly, a…

sputniknews (2021-02-07). Russia's Sputnik V Coronavirus Vaccine Safest in World, Maduro Says. sputniknews.com BUENOS AIRES (Sputnik) – The Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine is the safest vaccine against COVID-19 in the world, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said.

Mark Schuller (2021-02-07). US Reporting Fails to Note Foreign Roots of Haiti's 'Constitutional Crisis'. commondreams.org Voices within Haiti amplified in foreign corporate media are political parties. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/gettyimages-12309110011.jpg

_____ (2021-02-07). Venezuelan Parliamentary Commission Charges Guaidó. popularresistance.org Today, February 5, the Comptroller Commission of Venezuela's National Assembly (AN) presented before the Public Ministry (MP) charges against the 2015 deputy Juan Guaidó for damage to the Republic and usurpation of functions. | In statements transmitted by Venezolana de Televisión, the president of the commission, deputy José Brito, stated that the charges presented by the Commission included criminal association, organized crime, usurpation of functions, assassination, attempted coup, homicide, and others. | "The sum of penalties would add up to more than 200 years in prison," said Brito. In this regard, he ment…

Levada (2021-02-06). Just 15 Percent of Russians Believe Navalny's Account of 'Poisoning'. anti-empire.com Machine translated from Russian. | The majority of Russians (78%) are aware of the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, although they closely follow the development of events for less than a fifth of the population. The respondents name three main versions of what happened: 30% consider the incident to be a staging of the politician himself, 19% see this as a provocation of the Western special services, 15% speak of an attempt by the authorities to eliminate a political opponent. | Most Russians are aware of Navalny's poisoning today: 17% are watching closely, 61% have at least heard something about it. At the same time,…

Rachael Boothroyd (2021-02-06). Biden Administration Rules Out Maduro Talks, Pledges Support for Guaido. venezuelanalysis.com State Department Spokesperson Ned Price indicated that the Biden White House will not change tack in its predecessor's Venezuela foreign policy.

yenisafak (2021-02-06). Iran to begin COVID-19 vaccination rollout this week. yenisafak.com The announcement comes amid fears of a fourth wave of the coronavirus that was first reported in Iran February last year, marking one year of the pandemic.The first shipment of Sputnik V vaccine, the only foreign vaccine to be registered and approved in Iran, arrived by Iran's Mahaan Airlines on Thursday.In the first phase of vaccination, Rouhani said high-risk groups including healthcare workers on the frontline, followed by elderly and those with critical ailments, will be administered the vaccine.He said the vaccination program for the entire population of 80 million will take around eight months, as the secon…

R H Behrens, Vipul Patel (2021-02-06). [Correspondence] Avoiding shoulder injury from intramuscular vaccines. thelancet.com With the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccination programmes to tens of millions of people, some individuals might receive vaccines, which have received rigorous safety checks and approval from regulatory bodies, via intramuscular injection. However, the safety around the technique used and the site of injection, in particular, has received little attention. As recommended by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), adults aged 16 years or older will be the main population receiving the intramuscular vaccine.

Online News Editor (2021-02-06). Yemeni conjoined twins head to Jordan after Houthis' refusal to Saudi gesture. laprensalatina.com Sana'a, Feb 6 (efe-epa).- Fifty-day-old Yemeni conjoined twins were flown by UNICEF-chartered ambulance aircraft from the Yemeni capital Sana'a on Saturday to the Jordanian capital Amman where they are to have a life-saving separation surgery after the Houthi rebels refused a Saudi offer to evacuate them. Muhammad and Ahmad Yasser al-Bukhaiti were born connected at …

_____ (2021-02-06). Haitians Intensify Struggle Against President Jovenel MoàØse. popularresistance.org Haiti has been experiencing a new wave of protests against US-backed President Jovenel MoàØse. Since January 10, thousands of citizens, students, workers, members of various social movements and opposition political parties have been mobilizing across the country in rejection of MoàØse's decision to hold presidential and legislative elections on September 19 and a referendum to replace the current constitution, which is the main achievement of the democratic movement of 1986, on April 25. | Haitian citizens and the opposition denounced MoàØse's decision as an attempt to extend his term of off…

WSWS (2021-02-05). Police arrest twelve activists demanding housing for the homeless in Olympia, Washington. wsws.org The housing crisis is more critical than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite their negative impact on public health, evictions across the country continue to add to the growing numbers of homeless people in the population.

Lynn Stuart Parramore (2021-02-05). Epidemic of Despair Could Haunt America Long After COVID. zcomm.org Researchers worry the pandemic may have severe after-effects, with deaths of despair impacting more distressed and newly-vulnerable populations…

W. T. Whitney Jr. (2021-02-05). Kerala Communists involve youth and women in carrying out their mission. peoplesworld.org "Kerala, a state in India, is a bizarre anomaly among developing nations … Kerala has a population as big as California's and a per capita annual income of less than $300. But its infant mortality rate is very low, its literacy rate among the highest on Earth … Though mostly a land of paddy-covered plains, …

RT (2021-02-05). Climate change 'key' in Covid-19 spreading to humans — study. rt.com A study by researchers at the University of Cambridge has found that climate change played a key role in Covid-19 spreading from animals to humans, as the two groups were forced closer together as populations grow. | Scientists examined changes to temperature and rainfall over the last 100 years, specifically modelling bat populations against their habitat needs. They found that climate change had resulted in 40 species relocating during that time to areas in China, Laos and Myanmar. "Bats are the likely zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2," the study noted. | The university researchers outlined how t…

Vijay Prashad (2021-02-05). How ExxonMobil Uses Divide and Rule to Get Its Way in South America. counterpunch.org Guyana's government used money from ExxonMobil "to meet the estimated cost in 2018 of presenting Guyana/Venezuela controversy at the International Court of Justice including payment of legal fees." In mid-2020, the Guyanese paper Kaieteur News' senior reporter Kiana Wilburg broke the story that the World Bank had paid $1.2 million to Hunton Andrews Kurth, a law firm long associated with ExxonMobil, to revise Guyana's petroleum laws.

Ralph Nader (2021-02-05). The Struggle Inside Senator Mitch McConnell's Brain. counterpunch.org Since 2015, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell has ruled the Senate with an iron hand, describing himself as "the Guardian of Gridlock." He was Senator "NO," except for confirming over 200 mostly corporatist federal judges. Now comes a new challenge for Mitch McConnell as he leads 49 other Republican Senators, twenty of whom are up

_____ (2021-02-05). Justice In Nicaragua's North Caribbean Coast. popularresistance.org We have prosecuted six cases of usurpation of the communal domain of Indigenous peoples, where people who are not natives of that community misappropriate land of Indigenous peoples. So, how has this procedure been carried out? In the territories, the owners of the land, who are the presidents of the territorial governments, file a complaint with the National Police. The National Police receives these and it does all the investigative work. Then they refer the cases to the Public Prosecutor's Office, and the Public Prosecutor's Office files the accusation before the Single Local Court. We have sentenced these peo…

Staff (2021-02-05). Trump Is the First President to Leave Office With a Loss of Jobs Since Hoover. truthout.org The unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage points in January to 6.3 percent. Much of this decline was due to people leaving the labor market as the employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) only rose by 0.1 percentage point. The EPOP now stands at 57.5 percent, 3.6 percentage points below its year-ago level. | The establishment survey showed an increase of just 49,000 jobs, with the private sector only accounting for 6,000 of these jobs. There were sharp downward revisions to job growth for bo…

Emily Hotez, Peter J. Hotez, Kashia A. Rosenau, Alice A. Kuo (2021-02-05). [Commentary] Prioritizing COVID-19 vaccinations for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. thelancet.com In December 2020, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Vaccine Working Group issued recommendations for prioritizing and allocating vaccinations for the first available mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna [1]. Notably absent from the Phase 1 tiered guidelines are almost all individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (I/DD). This population comprises between 1 and 2% of the U.S. population and includes individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, blindness, cerebral palsy, moderate to prof…

_____ (2021-02-05). Haiti Begins General Strike. popularresistance.org February 1, 2021 – Industries across Haiti are shut down today as workers in multiple sectors participate in a 48-hour general strike. The strike was called by the labor unions following years of struggle in Haiti against brutal austerity and government corruption. Part of the reason behind the general strike is that the current president of Haiti, Jovenel MoàØse, is refusing to step down on February 7, when many believe that his term is up under the constitution. MoàØse claims that his term isn't up until February 7, 2022, as he was elected to a five year term in 2017. | Many fear that MoàØs…

Tanya Wadhwa (2021-02-05). Haitian opposition calls for national mobilizations against President Jovenel MoàØse. peoplesdispatch.org From across Latin American and Caribbean leaders and organizations have expressed their solidarity with the struggle of Haitian people and have demanded that MoàØse comply with the Constitution and leaves office when his term expires on February 7, 2021…

Karen Conner (2021-02-05). Unemployment Falls to 6.3 Percent, but Job Growth Weak. cepr.net Trump is the first president to leave office with a loss of jobs since Herbert Hoover. The unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage points in January to 6.3 percent. Much of this decline was due to people leaving the labor market as the employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) only rose by 0.1 percentage point. The EPOP now …

Yousra Abdulmalik (2021-02-05). Yemeni Journalist: "Saudi Arabia Failed in Yemen Despite US Support" globalresearch.ca All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the "Translate Website" drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). | *** | Yemen has suffered through a violent war on its population by …

teleSUR (2021-02-04). Namibian Government Nominates Cuban Doctors for Nobel Prize. telesurenglish.net In line with this decision, last December 15, the Namibian Foreign Ministry sent to the Norwegian Nobel Committee all the necessary requirements to support the Nomination. | RELATED: | MIRCO highlighted the work carried out by the Cuban medical contingent in different countries around the world. "While the Brigade has been extensively involved in providing support to countries around the world since the beginning…