This list covers the week of October 21 - 28.
1) Canada Post union workers to begin rotating nationwide strikes Monday morning
Jessica Vomiero, Global News
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) announced Sunday that it will begin rotating strikes on Monday morning at 12:01 a.m. in Victoria, Edmonton and Windsor, and at 1:01 a.m. in Halifax.
2) From Mosul to Moria: 'A US air strike killed all of my family'
Richard Hardigan, Al Jazeera
An Iraqi refugee remembers the day when 12 of his relatives, including a six-month-old, died in the Battle for Mosul.
3) Will NAFTA 2.0 Really Boost Mexican Wages?
Carrie Khan, NPR
NAFTA is no more. The North American Free Trade Agreement has a new name — the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA — and its rules have been updated and revamped.
4) Hondurans continue to leave for US as Trump ramps up threats
Jeff Abbott, Al Jazeera
Exodus of Hondurans seeking refuge in US continues, as small groups of migrants and refugees stream into Guatemala.
5) Brazil: Bolsonaro's Son Threatens Electoral Court with Violence
Telesur
Eduardo Bolsonaro warned the Supreme Electoral Court that they would face dire consequences if they contested his father’s candidacy.
6) Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro threatens purge of leftwing 'outlaws'
Tom Phillips, The Guardian
The far-right favourite to become Brazil’s next president has vowed to spearhead a historic purge of his leftwing political foes in a menacing address that delighted supporters and left opponents outraged and unnerved.
7) Bolsonaro, foreign meddling and the destruction of Brazilian democracy
Marcelo Zero, Brasil Wire
At the moment that I write this article (October 2018), Brazil is about to elect Jair Bolsonaro as President of the Republic. He is an ex-military officer and politician who is openly fascist, homophobic, misogynist and racist.
8) 'Secure Justice for Berta': NGOs Condemn 'Arbitrary' Rulings in Berta Caceres Case, Accuse Honduran Officials of Limiting Victim’s Rights
Telesur
A coalition of NGOs and human rights groups have condemned the court's decision to exclude Berta Caceres' family and lawyers from the murder trial.
9) 'You can’t even walk, there’s just so many people': Migrant caravan bound for US swells despite Trump threats
John Bacon, USA Today
A caravan of Central American migrants marching into Mexico bound for the United States grew to more than 5,000 people Sunday despite threats from President Donald Trump to use the U.S. military to seal the border.
10) PM Modi not honouring promise of helping Kerala after floods: CM Pinarayi Vijayan
Jeemon Jacob, India Today
In a Facebook post, Kerala CM alleged that the prime minister has backed out from his promise of granting clearance for the visits of state cabinet ministers to various countries to raise funds for the reconstruction work in the state.
11) Iqaluit student sits during national anthem to make statement about residential school curriculum
CBC News
A 12-year-old student in Iqaluit says he ended up in the principal's office after he sat during the Canadian anthem to make a statement about how the history of residential schools is taught.
12) A 14-year-long oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico verges on becoming one of the worst in U.S. history
Darryl Fears, The Washington Post
An oil spill that has been quietly leaking millions of barrels into the Gulf of Mexico has gone unplugged for so long that it now verges on becoming one of the worst offshore disasters in U.S. history.
13) Attack of the Right-Wing Snowflakes
Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times
In other words, some men are really angry, and the political faction that claims to hate political correctness is appealing to the state to shut people up.
14) Venezuela’s Maduro Meets Commune Leaders, Calls for Devolution of State Power
Paul Dobson, Venezuela Analysis
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro led a gathering of commune leaders this weekend as part of the IV Congress of Communes and Social Movements, during which he made a series of important announcements in the area.
15) Remembering John Reed and 'Ten Days that Shook the World'
Telesur
If you've ever read about the Russian Revolution, you've probably heard of "Ten Days That Shook the World," an intense recount of the socialist movement by John Reed.
16) Doug Ford is Gutting Labour Laws, Eliminating Sick Days and Cancelling Raises for Minimum Wage Workers
Press Progress
Doug Ford’s government announced Tuesday it is tabling sweeping legislation to gut Ontario’s labour laws.
17) No sign minimum wage hike was 'job killer' Doug Ford says it was
Mike Crawley · CBC News
The changes did put more money in workers' pockets and less in employers' pockets, and that simple fact raises questions about the real reasons why the Ford government is making this move.
18) Making Ontario Open for Greed
David Bush, Rank and File
Quick look at the Tories “Making Ontario Open for Business Act.” This is a massive gift to employers coming off the back of workers.
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| Facebook via Canadian Labour Institute |
19) Here's why Ontario PC government’s ‘deceptive’ measures aren’t saving taxpayers money
Paul Taylor, Orangeville Banner
The current Ontario Progressive Conservative government has just cancelled more than $300 million in funding expansion to post-secondary education institutions.
20) Ministry of Labour puts hold on proactive workplace inspections, internal memo says
Sara Mojtehedzadeh, The Toronto Star
The Ministry of Labour has instructed staff not to initiate any new proactive inspections aimed at preventing wage theft and other employment standards violations, according to an internal memo obtained by the Star — a day after the Progressive Conservative government introduced a bill that will significantly roll back recently enacted labour protections.
21) ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is Marxist Fantasy Porn
Malcolm Harris, Eater
“They say the potter always drinks out of a broken pot,” Nosrat’s mother tells her in the last episode, “Heat,” as they share some rice that misses the serving plate. In what kind of world is the food fallen on the counter the best bite? One that will belong to the workers, someday.
22) Some 60 Journalists Killed Since Peña Nieto Took Office in 2012
Telesur
The Foro Nuestras Voces Frente a la Impunidad, a group composed of journalists from several Mexican states, denounced President Enrique Peña Nieto’s Government for being the most violent towards journalists over the last 18 years of the country's history.
23) West Backs Saudi Arabia Despite Calls for Boycott Over Khashoggi Murder, FII Receives $50B in Investments
Telesur
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received a warm welcome in Riyadh Tuesday during his surprise visit to the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference. The conference has yielded investment deals worth an estimated US$50 billion despite calls for a boycott by activists and some countries over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
24) European Parliament votes to ban single-use plastics in bid to tackle pollution
Josh Gabbatiss, The Independent
The European Parliament has voted for an extensive ban on single-use plastics to stop pollution entering the world’s oceans.
25) UCP Candidate Steps Down After Receiving Illegal Corporate Donation from Alberta Car Dealership
Press Progress
One of Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party nomination candidates has withdrawn after taking an illegal corporate donation from a car dealership.
26) Killing Journalists Is Wrong When the Saudis Do It — and When the United States Does It, Too
Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept
We rightly demand justice in the case of Khashoggi, so why not in the case of Ayoub?
27) The ominous third-place finish of a white supremacist in Toronto
Brian Budd, The Conversation
It’s important that Goldy’s campaign isn’t laughed off or dismissed as a delusional political incursion by an extreme right-wing media figure.
28) Palestinian women: An untold history of leadership and resistance
Mohammed El-Kurd, Al Jazeera
The hallways of my memory have always echoed with my grandmother's voice storytelling, and thus unburdening, narratives of womanly struggle. Her voice projected both wit and resilience in the face of the Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the decades-old Israeli military occupation. However, my grandmother's testimonies were rarely recognised.
29) US Midterms: Judge Rules Against Voter Suppression in Georgia
Telesur
The move prevents Georgia elections officials from throwing out any ballot on 'exact match' grounds.
30) Georgia’s Kemp Purged 340,134 Voters, Falsely Asserting They Had Moved
Greg Palast, Truthout
Last year, Brian Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state canceled the registrations of over half a million Georgians because they left the state or moved to another county. Except they didn’t. The nation’s top experts in address location reviewed Kemp’s list of purged voters — and returned the names and addresses of 340,134 who never moved at all.
31) Calling out the Toronto Sun's Islamophobia
Richard Warman and Bernie Farber, NOW Magazine
Time for media and civic institutions to stop granting legitimacy to the Toronto tabloid while its columnists continue to demonize the "other"
32) Dodgers players and staff ignore striking hotel workers, cross picket line in Boston
Alan Pyke, Think Progress
With their own fights with management looming, Major League Baseball Player’s Union members let an opportunity for labor solidarity bounce under their gloves Monday when the Los Angeles Dodgers crossed a picket line at a Boston hotel ahead of their World Series matchup with the Red Sox.
Meet Cibo, the Italian street artist using paintings of treats, fruits and vegetables to fight neo-fascism.
33) How Olympic Champion Wyomia Tyus Found Her Voice At The ’68 Games
Karen Given, WBUR
On Oct. 16, 1968, Wyomia Tyus and about 200 other athletes crammed into the stands of the Olympic stadium in Mexico City to watch Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos accept their medals.
34) Young black Portuguese men take police brutality case to court
Ana Naomi de Sousa, Al Jazeera
Six alleged victims say officers beat them until they bled and were bruised and forced them into humiliating positions.
35) Thousands march in Taiwan gay pride parade for referendum vote
Al Jazeera
The massive march, attended by nearly 13,000 people, was held in capital Taipei on Saturday in advance of a landmark vote next month on LGBT rights.
36) Another Indigenous Rights Activist Killed in Oaxaca, Mexico
Telesur
This is the fifth member of the Indigenous Rights Defense Committee to be killed in 2018.
37) Mexicans shower the caravan with kindness — and tarps, tortillas and medicine
Joshua Partlow, The Toronto Star
Everything Pedro Osmin Ulloa was wearing, from the black felt shoes with the gold buckles to the shimmery blue button-down, was as new to him as he was to Mexico.
38) Liberia announces free tuition for undergraduates
AFP Reporter
Liberian President George Weah, who overcame childhood poverty to become one of the world's top footballers, has abolished tuition fees for undergraduate students in the poor West African country's state universities.
39) Sanders and Varoufakis Announce Alliance to Craft 'Common Blueprint for an International New Deal'
Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams
After arguing in a pair of Guardian op-eds last month that a worldwide progressive movement is needed to counter the unifying rightwing "that sprang out of the cesspool of financialized capitalism," former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis announced in Rome on Friday that he and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) plan to officially launch "Progressives International" in the senator's state on Nov. 30.
Advice on fighting fascists from Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the WW2 female Soviet sniper who killed 309 Nazi’s singlehandedly. Today is the anniversary of her passing in 1974.
“"How many men have you killed?"
"Not a man... fascists. 309."
40) 'I leave the car at home': how free buses are revolutionising one French city
Kim Willsher, The Guardian
Dunkirk is a month into a project that makes it the biggest European city to offer entirely free public transport to residents and visitors alike. So what do people think?
41) Cesar Sayoc, Mail Bombing Suspect, Found an Identity in Political Rage and Resentment
JACK HEALY, JULIE TURKEWITZ and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr., The New York Times
Cesar Sayoc was a volatile nobody desperate to become a somebody.
42) Trump Didn’t Pull the Trigger on Jews in Pittsburgh, but He Certainly Prepped the Shooter
David Rothkopf, Haaretz
The massacre in a Pittsburgh synagogue is the result of Trump’s constant endorsement of hate against the other, a hate-and-fear-mongering which has brought America to a very dark place.
43) Pittsburgh suspect was avid poster of anti-Semitic content on Gab
Jason Silverstein, CBS News
The suspected Pittsburgh synagogue gunman regularly posted anti-Semitic threats, memes and conspiracy theories on a social network often associated with conspiracy theorists and extremists — including an ominous warning posted just hours before the attack. Robert Bowers was a regular user on Gab, a website that promotes itself as a haven for free expression that major social networks will not allow.
44) A Day Before Brazil Elections, Bolsonaro Supporter Kills Young Man at Haddad Rally
Telesur
Charlione was the son of the National Secretary of the Working Women of CNTRV/CUT. The confederation said in a statement that the victim was shot in a peaceful rally by a Bolsonaro supporter.
45) Polls Open in Second Round of Brazil Elections
Telesur
Polls opened Sunday for the second round of the presidential elections, the most polarized of their kind in decades as voters choose between far-right Jair Bolsonaro and leftist Fernando Haddad who has been reducing his opponent's lead over the past few days, as he looks for a surprise upset victory.
UPDATE: Bolsonaro has won in Brazil. The sixth most populous country in the world has elected an outright, actual fascist.
Very disturbing news.
