Articles by WSWS
We found 363 results.
UN Rapporteur Nils Melzer Warns: Julian Assange May Die in British Prison
Oscar Grenfell | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
4 Nov 2019 – United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer has issued a chilling warning: If WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange is not urgently released from prison and provided the medical care he requires, he may die behind bars in Britain. In accompanying comments to the Associated Free Press, Melzer said that his statement was based on “new medically relevant information.”
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Britain Obstructs Spanish Investigation into CIA Spying on Julian Assange
Oscar Grenfell | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
El País reported on Wednesday [23 Oct] that a request by Spanish judge José de la Mata to interview Assange via videolink had been rejected by the UK. He is investigating a complaint by Assange’s lawyers alleging that UC Global, the private company hired to provide security to Ecuador’s London embassy, illegally surveilled him on behalf of US authorities while he was protected with political asylum inside the building.
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CIA Death Squads Responsible for Spike in Afghan Civilian Casualties
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
2 Nov 2019 – Civilian casualties have reached a record high in the 18-year-old US war in Afghanistan as the Trump administration has broken off talks with the Islamist insurgents of the Taliban and ordered a sharp escalation in US airstrikes and night raids by CIA-backed death squads. In Afghanistan, as in Syria, Trump’s promise to end Washington’s “forever wars” has amounted to empty demagogy.
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UK Judge Rejects Delay in Assange Extradition Case
Laura Tiernan | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
22 Oct 2019 – Pilger told demonstrators: “The whole thing is a grotesque absurdity. There is an extradition law between this country and the United States. It states specifically that someone cannot be extradited if the offences are political… It is not a bit of agitprop, it is not an opinion, they ARE political. All but one charge is based on the 1917 Espionage Act, which was used to jail conscientious objectors during the First World War in the United States.”Pilger concluded: “The source of this is a rogue state—a state that ignores its own laws and international laws and the laws of this country.”
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UN Official’s Briefing on Torture of Assange Boycotted by Media
Oscar Grenfell | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
18 Oct 2019 – As it was, footage aired by the Russian-funded RT outlet showed a grand total of four people in the audience, surrounded by rows of empty chairs. To date, the RT article, and an accompanying video, appears to be the only report on the briefing by any media outlet in the world.
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Democrats Praise CIA Whistleblower on Ukraine, Persecute Manning, Assange and Snowden
Andre Damon |WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Oct 2019
30 Sep2019 -When Trump condemned the CIA agent as a “spy,” House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff praised him: “Congress must do all it can to protect this whistleblower and all whistleblowers.” All whistleblowers? Remind Schiff of what he wrote to Obama: “Do not pardon Edward Snowden. The US government must hold him accountable for his actions.”
→ read full articleLeon Trotsky’s Four Fateful Years in Prinkipo: 1929-1933
David North | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Sep 2019
23 Sep 2019 – Review of the political struggle conducted by Trotsky during his four years on the Turkish island of Prinkipo to oppose the bureaucracy headed by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. Trotsky arrived in Turkey, along with his wife Natalia Sedova, in February 1929 as a political exile, deported by Stalin’s GPU. “Unable to answer Trotsky with principled arguments,” North notes, “Stalin was determined to silence him.”
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Spanish Security Firm Spied on Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy for US Intelligence
Kevin Reed | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Sep 2019
28 Sep 2019 – A Spanish defense and security contractor hired to protect the Ecuadorian Embassy in London spied on Julian Assange on behalf of US intelligence while the WikiLeaks’ founder and editor was living there. A report in the Spanish newspaper El País reported early Friday [27 Sep] that it had access to statements and documents that show David Morales, the owner of Undercover Global S.L., handed over audio and video to the CIA of meetings between Julian Assange and his lawyers and collaborators.
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Attend September 28 Demonstration at London’s Belmarsh Prison to Demand Freedom for Julian Assange!
WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2019
We urge all those who can to attend the rally outside Belmarsh Prison on Saturday, September 28 at 2 p.m. The rally has been called by the Julian Assange Defence Committee to demand Assange’s freedom from the high-security jail in London. Help to publicise this important protest, share the article as widely as possible on social media and with friends, family and colleagues.
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UK “Justice” System Tortures Julian Assange, Treats Fascist Tommy Robinson with Kid Gloves
Thomas Scripps | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2019
19 Sep 2019 – British class justice was on full display last Friday [13 Sep], as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was detained indefinitely at Belmarsh prison, beyond the completion of his sentence, while fascist leader Tommy Robinson was released 10 weeks early from the same jail. Robinson is the founder of the fascist English Defence League and a former British National Party member.
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Chelsea Manning Imprisoned without Charge for Six Months for Refusing to Testify against Julian Assange
Kevin Reed and James Cogan | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2019
21 Sep 2019 – The courageous whistleblower Chelsea Manning has now been held in a federal detention center for more than six months. Manning has not been charged with or committed any crime. She was sent to jail for refusing to testify before a secret grand jury that has indicted persecuted Julian Assange, who published the information she leaked exposing rampant US imperialist criminality.
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France and Germany Escalate Occupation of Mali and the Sahel
Will Morrow | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Sep 2019
11 Sep 2019 – The French and German governments are expanding their nearly seven-year-old neo-colonial occupation of Mali and the resource-rich Sahel region of western Africa.
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US Agency Warns of Lung Illness Epidemic among Young People, Attributed to E-Cigarettes
Benjamin Mateus | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Sep 2019
9 Sep 2019 – The US Food and Drug Administration has issued a public warning of a rapidly developing epidemic of severe lung illnesses associated with the smoking of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), also known as “vaping.”
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British Judge Jails Assange Indefinitely, Despite End of Prison Sentence
Oscar Grenfell | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Sep 2019
14 Sep 2019 – In a hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court yesterday, Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange will remain in prison, despite the fact that his custodial sentence for “absconding” bail expires on Sep 22. The ruling is the latest in a series of attacks on Assange’s legal and democratic rights by the British judiciary.
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India Labels 1.9 Million Assam Residents “Foreigners” as Prelude to Their Mass Expulsion
Wasantha Rupasinghe | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Sep 2019
5 Sep 2019 – Almost two million residents of Assam, a state in India’s northeast, have been excluded from the Indian state’s reactionary National Register of Citizens. These de facto “foreigners” are now under threat of being herded into detention centres prior to their mass expulsion.
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John Pilger at London Rally in Defense of Julian Assange
WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Sep 2019
2 Sep 2019 – Journalist John Pilger Speaks at London Rally Organized by Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters
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Roger Waters and John Pilger Make Powerful Defence of Julian Assange in London
WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Sep 2019
3 Sep 2019 – Thousands of people gathered last night in central London to hear Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters deliver a musical tribute to imprisoned WikiLeaks’ publisher Julian Assange. John Pilger, a veteran filmmaker and investigative journalist and a personal friend of Assange, opened the event with an impassioned speech.
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Julian Assange’s Brother Remarks at London Rally
WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Sep 2019
2 Sep 2019 – Gabriel Shipton Speaks at London Rally Organized by Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters in Defense of Julian Assange
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Clinical Psychologist Lissa Johnson: They Are Trying to Break Assange “Physically and Psychologically”
Oscar Grenfell | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Sep 2019
28 Aug 2019 – Australian clinical psychologist Lissa Johnson has been an outspoken defender of Julian Assange. Earlier this year she wrote an extensive five-part investigative series titled “The Psychology of Getting Julian Assange.” Johnson provided the following responses to a series of questions earlier this week.
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Wildfires Rage throughout the Amazon Rainforest
Bryan Dyne | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Aug 2019
23 Aug 2019 – Satellite imagery reveals that at least a quarter of the Amazon rainforest is on fire or covered in soot and ash across the four Brazilian Amazonian states: Amazonas, Rondônia, Mato Grosso and Pará. Cities across the region were blanketed with smoke, including Brazil’s largest city São Paulo where wildfire smoke blotted out the Sun and brought nighttime lighting hours early.
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Brazil’s Pres. Bolsonaro Threatens Journalist Glenn Greenwald, Ratchets up Fascist Rants
Miguel Andrade | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Aug 2019
The Justice Ministry issued on July 25 Ordinance 666 for deportation within 48 hours of ‘suspects’ of terrorism, human-, drug-, or arms-trafficking, and child pornography. The government organized a “national security” scare, prompting calls for Greenwald’s deportation. There have been further allegations that Greenwald acted in collaboration with “Russian intelligence.” Greenwald, a US citizen, is married to Congressman Miranda, of the PSOL, with whom he is raising two adopted Brazilian children.
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Washington Orders International Embargo on Venezuela, Threatens Invasion
Andrea Lobo | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Aug 2019
7 Aug 2019 – US President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday [6 Aug] freezing “all property and interests in property of the Government of Venezuela that are in the United States.” The move is the culmination of a series of increasingly severe sanctions and marks a new stage in the US coup operation against the Government of Nicolás Maduro.
→ read full articleJohn Pilger Warns: “Do Not Forget Assange. Or You Will Lose Him”
Oscar Grenfell | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Aug 2019
9 Aug 2019 – In a tweet that has been shared more than 10,000 times, Pilger wrote: “Do not forget Julian #Assange. Or you will lose him. I saw him in Belmarsh prison and his health has deteriorated. Treated worse than a murderer, he is isolated, medicated and denied the tools to fight the bogus charges of a US extradition. I now fear for him. Do not forget him.”. Christine Assange, Julian’s mother, responded to Pilger’s update with a series of tweets.
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Julian Assange’s Lawyer Briefs Australian Parliamentarians on His Persecution
Oscar Grenfell | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Aug 2019
1 Aug 2019 – As many as 30 federal Australian parliamentarians attended a closed-door legal briefing by Jennifer Robinson, a lawyer for Julian Assange, at Canberra’s parliament house yesterday. The MPs included representatives of the conservative parties, Labor and the Greens. The barrister outlined the dire implications for press freedom and democratic rights of the US-led persecution of Assange.
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Puerto Rico Governor Resigns after Popular Protests
Jerry White | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jul 2019
25 Jul 2019 – After two weeks of protests demanding his removal, Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló announced his resignation late last night. In a statement posted online, Rosselló said he would step down on August 2. The protests reached their highpoint on 22 Jul when 1 million people participated in the huge procession in San Juan, a substantial portion of the island’s 3.2 million inhabitants.
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The Ignominious Collapse of the Case against Actor Kevin Spacey
David Walsh | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jul 2019
19 Jul 2019 – Cape and Islands District Attorney announced that his office was dropping its sexual assault case against prominent actor Kevin Spacey. The prosecution had little choice in the matter since the accuser in the case, William Little, refused to testify 10 days ago. Little, after consulting with his family and legal counsel, pleaded the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination, essentially bringing the pretrial hearing and the entire case to a halt.
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(Français) Twitter supprime le compte de l’organisation de défense d’Assange
Mike Head | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jul 2019
15 juillet 2019 – Jeudi dernier, sans préavis ni explication, Twitter a arbitrairement suspendu le compte de @Unity4J, une plateforme dédiée à la diffusion d’informations et au plaidoyer pour le fondateur de WikiLeaks Julian Assange. Au moment d’écrire ces lignes, le compte a disparu depuis deux jours.
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US-Backed Saudi Regime Beheads 37 Political Prisoners
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 May 2019
25 Apr 2019 – The monarchical dictatorship of Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday [23 Apr] that it had carried out another killing spree, publicly executing 37 people. One of the headless corpses was then crucified and left hanging in public as a hideous warning to anyone who would even contemplate opposing the absolute power of the ruling royal family admired by Pres. Trump.
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Statues of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning Unveiled in Berlin
Stefan Steinberg | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Apr 2019
WORTH REMEMBERING… 7 May 2015 – Bronze statues of persecuted whistleblowers Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning were unveiled in Berlin on May Day. The statues are an art project entitled “Anything to Say?”, of Italian artist Davide Dormino.
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Trump Administration Threatens Sanctions against International Criminal Court
Patrick Martin | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Sep 2018
The Trump administration announced Monday [10 Sep] that it would retaliate against the International Criminal Court, a judicial panel established under the auspices of the UN, if the ICC took any action against US military or civilian officials over charges of war crimes in Afghanistan. The announcement was made by National Security Advisor John Bolton.
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Mass Murder in Gaza
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 May 2018
15 May 2018 – The Israeli military slaughtered dozens of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators and wounded thousands more in Gaza today. As this atrocity was being carried out, a grotesque ceremony was unfolding 50 miles away to mark the opening of a US embassy in Jerusalem. The number of unarmed Palestinian protesters shot dead by IDF snipers rose to at least 58, with over 2,700 wounded.
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Global Military Spending at Record $1.7 Trillion
Niles Niemuth | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 May 2018
4 May 2018 – Global military spending hit a record of more than $1.7 trillion in 2017, the highest level since the Cold War, according to figures published yesterday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The report gives some idea of the scale of the squandering of resources for destructive ends.
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Israel Again Opens Fire on Gaza Protesters, Killing Three and Wounding Hundreds
Will Morrow | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Apr 2018
28 Apr 2018 – For the fifth consecutive week, the Israeli military rained live ammunition on thousands of unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza yesterday, killing three and wounding 900. Friday’s bloodletting brings the total number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army over the past five weeks to 45, including four children, with more than 6,000 wounded. Zero Israeli wounded or killed.
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The Slaughter in Gaza and the Crisis of Israel on Its 70th Anniversary
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Apr 2018
24 Apr 2018 – As of today, the number of nonviolent, unarmed demonstrators murdered by Israeli army snipers firing into Gaza has risen to at least 40, with another 5,000 wounded, 1,600 by live ammunition.
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Israeli Army Kills Four More Nonviolent Gaza Protesters
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Apr 2018
21 Apr 2018 – For the fourth Friday in a row, the Israeli military responded to unarmed Palestinian demonstrators on Gaza’s eastern border with live ammunition, killing four and wounding hundreds. Among those killed Friday was a 15-year-old boy, Mohammad Ibrahim Ayyoub. The three others murdered by Israeli snipers were identified as Ahmed Rashad, 24, Ahmed Abu Aqil, 25, and Saad Abdul Majid Abdul-Aal Abu Taha, 29.
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As Lies on Syrian Gas Attack Unravel, US and UK Shift to Claims of Russian “Cyber War”
Will Morrow | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Apr 2018
On Monday [16 Apr], the US and British intelligence agencies released a joint report charging Moscow with unspecified “cyber warfare” against the West. The coordinated campaign comes amid the unraveling of the official pretext for Friday [13 Apr] night’s illegal US-British-French bombing of Russia’s ally Syria—the claim that the Assad government carried out a chemical weapons attack in eastern Ghouta on April 7.
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CEO Pay, Bank Profits, Corporate Cash Set New Records
Barry Grey | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Apr 2018
No money for teacher pay or textbooks, but…
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Mass Protests in Brazil against Death Squad Assassination of Marielle Franco
Miguel Andrade | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Mar 2018
21 Mar 2018 – The brutal execution of Rio de Janeiro city counselor Marielle Franco on March 14 came as a shock for Brazilians but not as a surprise. Known as a participant in black nationalist and feminist politics, she had left a black feminist meeting in downtown Rio on the night she was killed; she had also won support among workers in the northern sector, above all for exposing police violence.
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Australia-ASEAN Summit Held amid US-China Tensions
James Cogan | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Mar 2018
From March 16 to 18, a second biennial summit between Australia and the Association of South East Asian Nations took place in Sydney. ASEAN is made up of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar (Burma). Each head of government attended the Sydney summit, apart from the volatile, right-wing president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte.
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The Social and Political Roots of Mass Shootings in America
International Youth and Students for Social Equality | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Mar 2018
14 Mar 2018 – The second fundamental issue bound up with the rampant homicidal violence in American society is the state-sanctioned killing carried out by the US military around the world. The “war on terror,” now in its 18th year, dominates not only the political life of the United States, but its social culture as well.
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Call Me by Your Name: Academy Award-winning Film from Luca Guadagnino
Hiram Lee | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Mar 2018
19 Mar 2018 – Call Me by Your Name was one of the more highly regarded films of the past year. It received Academy Award nominations in the categories of Best Picture and Best Actor and won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. While the film may have been among the more humanistic works nominated, it is also a strangely unsatisfying work.
(Movie Soundtrack, ‘Mystery of Love,’ on TMS Music Video of the Week)
Google’s Alliance with the Military: The Ruling Class Responds to Social Unrest in America
Andre Damon | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Mar 2018
10 Mar 2018 – Last week, Google confirmed that it has provided artificial intelligence software to assist the United States military and intelligence apparatus in analyzing data as part of its drone war and assassination program in the Middle East and beyond.
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Marx’s Analysis of the Laws of Capital and the Share Market Crisis
Nick Beams | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Feb 2018
17 Feb 2018 – Down through the years one of the most persistent attacks on Karl Marx by the high priests of bourgeois economics—the ideological guardians of the profit system—has been his contention that, in the final analysis, capitalism depends on the impoverishment of the working class.
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Washington Prepares to Deploy “Usable” Nuclear Weapons
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jan 2018
12 Jan 2018 – The US President’s State of the Union address later this month will introduce a significant break with past policy in proposing the development of a new class of low-yield, “usable” nuclear weapons.
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Trump “Defends” the Right to Protest in Iran, Criminalizes Protest in Washington
E.P. Milligan | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jan 2018
8 Jan 2018 – Trump’s self-righteous claims to defend the right to protest in Iran are sheer hypocrisy. The first act of his administration was a police crackdown against people who protested his inauguration day. Police deployed weapons on at least 191 occasions, fired 74 sting ball grenades, a total of 230 people were arrested. The first round of trials collapsed late last year, with the jury acquitting all of the defendants. One hundred and eighty-eight defendants still await trial, many facing up to 50 years in prison.
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Pentagon Admits Presence of US Troops in Yemen as Cholera Cases Top One Million
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Dec 2017
23 Dec 2017 – The Pentagon admitted for the first time this week that it has “conducted multiple ground operations” in Yemen, the impoverished and war-ravaged country whose humanitarian crisis was underscored this week by the Red Cross: the number of cholera cases in Yemen had reached one million, making the ongoing epidemic by far the worst in recorded human history.
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Brazil, U.S. and 20 Other Countries Carry Out Military Exercise in the Amazon
Gabriel Lemos | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Dec 2017
6 Dec 2017 – Military units from 20 countries, including Peru and Colombia, as well as the US, Germany and Japan, participated in military exercises dubbed Amazonlog 2017. Coordinated by the Brazilian military command, they marked the first such international war games in Brazil’s strategically sensitive Amazon region.
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International Olympic Committee Bans Russia from 2018 Olympics in Political Provocation
Josh Varlin | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Dec 2017
The IOC announced on 5 Dec it decided to ban the Russian Olympic team from participating in the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. The sham decision is a political provocation. It has much less to do with steroid use by Russian athletes than with US imperialism’s aim to humiliate and isolate Russia before the court of world public opinion.
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Google’s Eric Schmidt Admits Political Censorship of Search Results
Niles Niemuth | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Nov 2017
22 Nov 2017 – Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, confirmed this weekend that the world’s largest Internet company is, in close coordination with the state, manipulating search results to censor sites critical of the US government.
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EU Member States Take Major Step toward a European Army
Peter Schwarz | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Nov 2017
14 Nov 2017 – The European Union has advanced its capacity to wage war in the future independently of and, if necessary, against the USA. Along with Britain, which will leave the EU in 2019, only four smaller countries—Denmark, Ireland, Malta and Portugal—did not sign on to the deal.
→ read full articleUS Brands Russia Today a “Foreign Agent:” A Chilling Move against Free Speech
Andre Damon | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Nov 2017
The U.S. Justice Department’s demand is aimed at delegitimizing RT America as a news source, intimidating its journalists and guests, and setting the precedent for taking similar actions against other news outlets. The fact that RT is being targeted because of its political positions sets an ominous precedent.
→ read full articleWhy Is the US at War in West Africa?
Eddie Haywood | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Oct 2017
14 Oct 2017 – After its establishment in 2008 as an independent command, AFRICOM has significantly expanded American military influence and troop deployments on the African continent. Measuring the breadth of US military expansion is the construction of a $100 million base in Agadez in central Niger. Augmenting the special forces contingent in the region are military personnel stationed at several dozen bases and outposts including a US base in Garoua, Cameroon.
→ read full articleModi Government Blocks Rohingya Refugees Entering India
K. Ratnayake | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Oct 2017
30 Sep 2017 – Prime Minister Narendra Modi has deployed security forces along India’s northeastern borders to prevent Rohingya refugees entering the country. New Delhi also plans to expel around 40,000 Rohingya already in India. Reuters reported that India’s Border Security Forces had been authorised to use “rude and crude methods” to block the refugees. “We won’t tolerate Rohingya on Indian soil,” an official said.
→ read full articleUS Senate Overwhelmingly Approves Record $700 Billion Military Budget
Eric London | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Oct 2017
20 Sep 2017 – Demonstrating the bipartisan support of Democrats and Republicans for militarism and war, the US Senate voted 89 to nine on Monday [18 Sep] to authorize $700 billion in spending for the military and intelligence agencies, an $80 billion increase from 2016 and $26 billion more than President Donald Trump requested earlier this year.
→ read full articleUS Completes Anti-Missile Deployment in South Korea amid Heightened War Danger
Ben McGrath | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Sep 2017
Despite residents’ protests, US Forces Korea began installing four more THAAD missile launchers early Thursday [7 Sep] morning in the South Korean town of Seongju. The reintroduction of tactical nuclear weapons would greatly heighten the danger of nuclear war. In the extremely tense situation on the Korean Peninsula, the two militaries would have to take into account the possibility of a nuclear attack with just minutes of warning, exacerbating the risk of miscalculations or mistakes triggering a nuclear exchange.
→ read full articleYemen’s Cholera Outbreak Surpasses 600,000
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Sep 2017
The humanitarian crisis unfolding in Yemen—the worst in the world—is product of the Saudi-led, US-backed war of aggression, the UNHCHR stated on Tuesday [5 Sep]. The war assumed near-genocidal proportions and has killed at least 14,000 civilians, maimed many thousands more, displaced 2 million and left at least 7.3 million on the brink of famine. The country is confronting the worst cholera epidemic on record, with 612,703 people infected.
→ read full articleAfter The Financial Crisis: How the Ultra-Wealthy Have Prospered
Nick Beams | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Sep 2017
The 2008 crisis proved to be but a “temporary setback.” The process of wealth accumulation is not the result of any kind of economic “recovery,” nor the supposed “entrepreneurship” of its beneficiaries. Rather, it is the outcome of a system characterised, as Marx put it, by the accumulation of fabulous wealth at one pole and poverty and misery at the other.
→ read full articleTrump Gives Military Green Light to Escalate Afghanistan War
Patrick Martin | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Aug 2017
22 Aug 2017 – The nationally televised address to a military audience sets the stage for a massive increase in bloodshed in a country where the United States has waged war for 16 years.
→ read full articleGreenland Is Burning
Daniel de Vries | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Aug 2017
21 Aug 2017 – Wildfires have raged for weeks in Greenland, the massive Arctic island known principally for its vast quantities of ice. The fires are unprecedented in size and duration, marking an ominous new stage in the warming of Greenland and the entire Arctic.
→ read full articleGoogle’s New Search Protocol Is Restricting Access to 13 Leading Socialist, Progressive and Anti-War Web Sites
Andre Damon and David North | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Aug 2017
wsws.org fell by 67 percent
alternet.org fell by 63 percent
globalresearch.ca fell by 62 percent
consortiumnews.com fell by 47 percent
socialistworker.org fell by 47 percent
mediamatters.org fell by 42 percent
commondreams.org fell by 37 percent
internationalviewpoint.org fell by 36 percent
democracynow.org fell by 36 percent
wikileaks.org fell by 30 percent
truth-out.org fell by 25 percent
counterpunch.org fell by 21 percent
theintercept.com fell by 19 percent
New Google Algorithm Restricts Access to Left-Wing, Progressive Web Sites
Andre Damon and Niles Niemuth | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Jul 2017
27 Jul 2017 – In the three months since Internet monopoly Google announced plans to keep users from accessing “fake news,” the global traffic rankings of a broad range of left-wing, progressive, anti-war and democratic rights organizations have fallen significantly.
→ read full articleTenfold Increase in Cholera Cases in Yemen since April
Thomas Gaist | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jul 2017
14 Jul 2017 – The war waged against Yemen by the Saudi monarchy, launched in March 2015 and supported extensively by the United States government, has produced a social catastrophe that easily ranks among the worst war crimes in history. The virtually complete destruction of Yemen’s social infrastructure, through deliberate and relentless bombing, has fueled an explosion of hunger and disease that continues to intensify with each passing day.
→ read full articleBarclays PLC Charged with Fraud by UK Serious Fraud Office
Jean Shaoul | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Jul 2017
1 Jul 2017 – The UK has charged Barclays with conspiracy to commit fraud and the provision of unlawful financial assistance. But it has nothing to do with the criminal and reckless banking behaviour that precipitated the 2008 crash—their lending practices, the selling of worthless mortgage-backed securities, false valuation and rating of debt instruments, abuse of loan foreclosure procedures, misrepresenting their financial position or any other financial skulduggery.
→ read full articleThree CNN Journalists Resign amid False Anti-Russia Reporting Controversy
Evan Blake | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Jul 2017
28 Jun 2017 – Three CNN journalists resigned Monday [26 Jun] after the outlet retracted an article published on 22 Jun containing false allegations of connections between Donald Trump and Russia. It was written by Thomas Frank and edited by Pulitzer-Prize reporter Eric Lichtblau. Lex Harris, the executive editor overseeing the investigative unit, resigned alongside Frank and Lichtblau.
→ read full articlePetya Ransomware Attack Shuts Down Computers in 65 Countries
Kevin Reed | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Jul 2017
29 Jun 2017 – In the second massive cyberattack in 44 days, both originating from malicious software developed by the US National Security Agency-NSA, personal computers in at least 65 countries were shut down Tuesday [27 Jun] by an epidemic of ransomware known as Petya.
→ read full articleUnderstanding the Geopolitics of Terrorism
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jun 2017
If the mass media refuses to state what has become obvious after more than a decade and a half of these incidents, it is a measure of how fully the linkage between terrorism, the Western intelligence agencies and the unending wars in the Middle East has become institutionalized. Innocent men, women and children, whether in London, Manchester, Paris, Tehran, Baghdad or Kabul, are paying the terrible price for these imperialist operations, which leave a trail of blood and destruction everywhere.
→ read full articleIndian Establishment Lauds Military’s Use of Kashmiri Youth as “Human Shield”
Wasantha Rupasinghe | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 May 2017
24 May 2017 – Indian army head General Bipin Rawat has awarded a commendation to the officer who ordered a Kashmiri youth tied to the hood of a jeep as a “human shield.” 26-year-old Farooq Dar was seized and, in flagrant violation of international law, paraded around for hours while tied to the lead vehicle of an army convoy.
→ read full articleVulture Capitalists Fight over Pickings from Bankrupt Puerto Rico
Rafael Azul | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2017
22 May 2017 – Federal US court proceedings began May 17 in San Juan on Puerto Rico’s $123 billion bankruptcy. As with the Detroit bankruptcy of 2013-2014, the island faces privatization and cutbacks that will exacerbate a mass wave of emigration and further sink its economy into depression. They may be fighting over who will be first in line to be paid, but they all agree that workers, pensioners and the poor will have to sacrifice their jobs and living standards.
→ read full articleAustralian Anzac Day Celebrations Promote Militarism and War
Oscar Grenfell | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 May 2017
Anzac Day celebrations on April 25 were used by the Australian political and media establishment to reaffirm its commitment to US-led wars and military preparations around the world, and to try to drown out widespread anti-war sentiment among working people.
→ read full articleRohingya Killings Expose Fraud of Burmese “Democracy”
John Roberts | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Apr 2017
7 Apr 2017 – The UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution setting up an investigation into serious crimes committed by the Burmese (Myanmar) security forces and nationalist thugs against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine state bordering Bangladesh. The US and its EU allies cynically exploit concerns over “human rights” in Burma and elsewhere to advance their geo-political interests.
→ read full articleWashington Protests Proposal for Nuclear Disarmament
Andre Damon | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Apr 2017
On Monday [27 Mar 2017], the United States, together with Britain and France, walked out of a session of the United Nations General Assembly set to discuss a global ban on nuclear weapons.
→ read full articleJapan’s Ruling Party Calls for Military to Have Offensive Weapons
Peter Symonds | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Apr 2017
1 Apr 2017 – Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party has called on the government to boost the country’s anti-ballistic missile systems and to consider acquiring, for the first time, weapons capable of carrying out attacks on enemy bases. The recommendations are another step towards the remilitarisation of Japan pressed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that is adding to sharp regional tensions.
→ read full articleSix Months after Hurricane Matthew, Hunger and Desperation Grip Haiti’s South
John Marion | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Apr 2017
1 Apr 2017 – There have been multiple reports of people eating poisonous plants or tree bark just to stave off hunger, and in the city of Jérémie people are still living under tarpaulins after the storm. According to Le Nouvelliste, an elderly couple in the town of Candache hanged themselves because of hunger. On March 22, Food for the Poor found 240 people, including 84 women and 62 children, living in a cave near Jérémie in Grand’Anse.
→ read full articleWealth of World’s Billionaires Soars amid Stock Market Surge
Shannon Jones | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Apr 2017
Combined, the top 10 billionaires on the Forbes list alone took in $558 billion, more than the Gross Domestic Product of Venezuela. Just eight of those billionaires control as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population, 3.6 billion people, according to Oxfam. More fundamentally, the increasing concentration of wealth among the world’s richest represents a social retrogression in which society’s resources are being plundered in the name of a mad pursuit of private gain, profits; unjustifiable, pernicious greed.
→ read full articleReports Expose Widespread Use of Child Labor in the Congo
Eddie Haywood | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Mar 2017
Sky News aired an investigative report centered on the utilization of child labor in cobalt mines. A child named Dorsen, aged 8, told he does not make enough money to buy food, and had not eaten in two days, despite toiling for 12 hours per day. His friend Richard, aged 11, said how sore he got from the intense physical labor he was forced to undertake in the mine.
→ read full articleAFRICOM Spearheads Escalation of US “Scramble for Africa”
Eddie Haywood | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Mar 2017
16 Mar 2017 – The chief of the US African Command, General Thomas Waldhauser, warned last week in an annual report to Congress that resource constraints on his forces are threatening to undermine Washington’s influence over Africa… For the African masses, already ravaged by war, poverty, and disease—intolerable social ills that are themselves the malodorous by-product of capitalism—the plans of US imperialism to escalate military intervention on the continent pose a grave new threat.
→ read full articleLetter from a Syrian Reader [MUST READ]: “There Is a New Sentiment of Solidarity in the Ranks of the Poor People”
WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Mar 2017
18 Mar 2017 – We received the following correspondence from a reader in Damascus on the situation in Syria after six years of a civil war instigated and abetted by the major imperialist powers.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks Reveals Vast CIA Spying, Cyberwar Operation
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Mar 2017
Amid Democrats’ claims of Russian hacking in support of Trump and Trump’s charge that he was bugged by Obama, WikiLeaks has revealed a vast CIA operation directed against the people of the US and the world.
→ read full articleGerman Newspaper Publishes Fraudulent Refugee “Sex-Mob” Report
Marianne Arens | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Mar 2017
1 Mar 2017 – On February 6 in its Frankfurt local edition, the Bild newspaper ran an article with the headline “37 days after New Year, victims break their silence. Sex-mob raged in the Fressgass”—a popular city boulevard in the city. The news spread quickly but proved to be a pack of lies.
→ read full articleUS Ramps Up Bombing Campaign In Yemen
Niles Niemuth | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Mar 2017
The multi-day bombardment was the heaviest so far in the undeclared US war in Yemen, which has killed or injured more than 1,700 people, including hundreds of women and children, since 2009. According to a tally maintained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the US has carried out a least 390 attacks in the last eight years.
→ read full articleTrump Administration Revokes Transgender Rights Guidance Issued by Obama Administration
Shelley Connor | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2017
23 Feb 2017 – In May 2016 President Barack Obama instructed public schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom they felt most comfortable using. On February 22, President Trump rescinded the instructions, arguing that states and public schools have a right to discriminate against transgender students without interference from the federal government.
→ read full articleNorth Dakota Senate Passes Bills Criminalizing Dakota Access Pipeline Protests
Shelley Connor | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2017
On Thursday [16 Feb 2017], North Dakota’s Senate passed three separate bills aimed directly at anti-DAPL protesters. The bills significantly curtail protest rights and impose stiff penalties on protesters who run afoul of local or state law enforcement. One bill imposes sentencing of up to 20 years in prison.
→ read full articleFamine Threatens Millions in the Horn of Africa as Washington Prepares Expanded War in Somalia
Thomas Gaist |WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2017
21 Feb 2017 – Even as starvation and malnutrition threaten more than 10 million lives in the Horn of Africa countries of Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, the United States and its allies are preparing a massive expansion of military operations throughout the region.
→ read full articlePolice, National Guard Raid Dakota Access Pipeline Protest Camp, Arrest 76
Shelley Connor | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Feb 2017
With assistance from the National Guard, police raided a protest camp in Cannon Ball, North Dakota near the Dakota Access pipeline site on Feb 1, evicting and arresting seventy-six protesters opposed to the completion of the pipeline.
→ read full articleChelsea Manning Sentence Commuted after Seven Years of Brutal Imprisonment
Patrick Martin | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2017
18 Jan 2017 – President Obama commuted the 35-year prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the military intelligence analyst who made public evidence of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, allowing Manning to go free on May 17, after completing over seven years in prison.
→ read full articleUS Senate Report Details Price-Gouging by Pharmaceutical Companies
Zaida Green | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2017
6 Jan 2017 – A recently-released US Senate investigation found that four major pharmaceutical companies operated like hedge funds and followed specific business models to monopolize drugs for rare, life-threatening conditions.
→ read full articleThe 21st Century Cures Act: A Gift to the US Pharmaceutical Industry
Brad Dixon | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Dec 2016
12 Dec 2016 – The 21st Century Cures Act is an early Christmas gift from the US Congress to the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. The bill guts the regulatory powers of the Food and Drug Administration, weakening the standards used to judge the safety and efficacy of drugs and medical devices. Notably, the bill does nothing to address skyrocketing drug prices.
→ read full articleThe Political Legacy of Fidel Castro
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2016
Castro’s legacy cannot be evaluated solely through the prism of Cuba, but must take into account the impact of his politics internationally and, above all, in Latin America.
→ read full articleMosul and Imperialist “Human Rights”
James Cogan | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2016
2 Dec 2016 – Samantha Power’s rhetoric in the Security Council was even more grotesque given the character of the US-directed assault underway on the Iraqi city of Mosul. Bombing this week destroyed a major water pipeline cutting off water to some 650,000 people. Electricity is already largely cut. The city’s health system is dysfunctional. The university has been reduced to rubble. On Wednesday [30 Nov], coalition aircraft bombed and “disabled” four major bridges over the Tigris River that link the western and eastern sectors of Mosul.
→ read full article[Nobel Peace Laureate] Suu Kyi Defends Military Crackdown on Burma’s Rohingya Muslims
John Roberts | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2016
2 Dec 2016 – State Counsellor Suu Kyi, the head of government in Burma, has dismissed mounting allegations of killings by the country’s military of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state, bordering Bangladesh. Her office issued a statement declaring: “Regarding those incidents, after asking the Tatmadaw [the military] and border guard troops in those regions, it is known the information is absolutely not true.”
→ read full articleAustralia: Desperate Refugee Sets Fire to Himself in a Bank
Peter Byrne | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2016
22 Nov 2016 – A young Rohingya who fled Burma as an unaccompanied teenager four years ago doused himself with petrol and set himself alight in a branch of the Commonwealth Bank. Nur Islam, 21, had been living in acute poverty at Melbourne. He was on a temporary bridging visa, which not only denied him refugee status but blocked basic social and political rights, including to work.
→ read full articleUS Arms Syrian Islamists with Surface-to-Air Missiles
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2016
23 Nov 2016 – A US-backed Islamist militia has been armed with portable surface-to-air missiles, so-called manpads. These weapons are capable of shooting down Syrian as well as Russian warplanes. This marks a major escalation of the US-backed war for regime-change that has devastated the country, leading to the deaths of some 300,000 Syrians.
→ read full articleVolkswagen Charged with Aiding Brazilian Dictatorship in Torturing Workers
Armando Cruz | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2016
In 1980, when Lula led a 41-day strike for a 15 percent wage rise, the political police unit DOPS received a list of 436 workers from plants that belonged to VW, Mercedes-Benz and the steelmaker Villares. While there are also reports that these latter two companies (and others) collaborated with the regime, VW is the first one to be charged, to officially accept the charges and to negotiate for judicial reparations.
→ read full articleThe Gig Economy: More Than 160 Million in US and EU Rely on “Independent Work”
Genevieve Leigh | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2016
Packaged as creating “options” for workers, as the McKinsey report suggests, the reality is that these new forms of employment provide options and increased profits for the ruling class. The push for more part-time and independent work is an attempt to curb the declining rate of profit, inherent in the capitalist system, by finding new ways to squeeze labor at a lower cost.
→ read full articleHaiti’s Hurricane Devastation: A Tragedy Rooted in Capitalist Oppression
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Oct 2016
In the wake of the 2010 earthquake, international donors pledged $10.4 billion for Haiti, including $3.9 billion from the US. The chief figure overseeing this relief effort was Bill Clinton, whose previous “gift” to the people of Haiti was a trade deal that eliminated tariffs on rice imports from the US subsidized by the American government, bankrupting Haiti’s own rice producers and leaving the country unable to feed itself.
→ read full articleLeaked Clinton email Admits Saudi, Qatari Governments Funding ISIS in Syria
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Oct 2016
An email exchange between Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager John Podesta, posted Monday [10 Oct] by WikiLeaks, frankly acknowledges that the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) is funded and supported by Washington’s chief allies in the Arab world.
→ read full articleThe Great Diversion: Democrats Focus on Sex Scandal as Conflict with Russia Escalates
Andre Damon | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Oct 2016
Behind a nearly total media blackout, the White House National Security Council held a closed-door meeting Friday [14 Oct] to review the US military’s campaign in Iraq and Syria. The only major media advance report on the meeting, carried by Reuters on Thursday and then quickly dropped, noted that US officials were weighing “air strikes on Syrian military bases, munitions depots or radar and anti-aircraft bases.”
→ read full articleThe Economist Magazine Warns of Revolutionary Consequences of Unprecedented Corporate Power
Gabriel Black | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Oct 2016
On Sep 17 The Economist published a special report titled “The Superstar Company: A Giant Problem” where it details the sharp growth in the economic and political power of the world’s top corporations. The editorial warns that today’s economic climate contains “worrying similarities to a much earlier era,” the period leading up to the Russian Revolution.
→ read full articleThe “Major and Deadly” Wars to Come
Andre Damon | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Oct 2016
3 Oct 2016 – A report by a leading geopolitical strategy think tank makes clear that the US military is engaged in intensive planning for wars involving massive casualties.
→ read full articleUN General Assembly Convenes amid Global Military Escalation
Andre Damon | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Sep 2016
21 Sep 2016 – The 71st United Nations General Assembly convened this week beneath the shadow of a series of global crises that threaten to throw humanity into a new world war. Obama’s proclamation that the “shadow of nuclear Armageddon” has passed flies in the face of his own $1 trillion nuclear rearmament program.
→ read full article