This list covers the week of September 29 - October 6.
For those interested in news and developments in the Canadian election this will be covered in a separate weekly roundup the fourth of which this past Friday was: Scheer's Very Bad Week, PPC At It Again and more -- The Left Chapter Canadian Election Round-up Week Four
1) Riots at Greek refugee camp on Lesbos after fatal fire
Helena Smith, The Guardian
Greek authorities are scrambling to deal with unrest at a heavily overcrowded migrant camp on Lesbos after a fire there left at least one person dead.
2) Quebec should apologize for systemic discrimination in treatment of Indigenous people, Viens report says
Benjamin Shingler, Kamila Hinkson · CBC News
The Quebec government should apologize to First Nations and Inuit for the harm they have endured as a result of provincial laws, policies and practices, says the author of a damning report into the treatment of Indigenous people.
3) Misogyny, male rage and the words men use to describe Greta Thunberg
Camilla Nelson & Meg Vertigan, The Conversation
Greta Thunberg obviously scares some men silly. The bullying of the teenager by conservative middle-aged men has taken on a grim, almost hysterical edge. And some of them are reaching deep into the misogynist’s playbook to divert focus from her message.
4) 'Based in hatred': violence against women standing in Colombia's elections
Julia Zulver, The Guardian
The body of mayoral candidate Karina García was found shot and incinerated in her car in the Cauca department of southern Colombia, on 1 September.
5) How a brief socialist takeover in North Dakota gave residents a public bank
Will Peischel, Vox
There’s a legislative fight brewing in California. Supporters are pushing a public banking law that could redefine the state’s financial landscape, while detractors call it a government intrusion. Both would benefit to look at an unusual source — North Dakota — where a similar policy has been in place for a century.
6) The judge's bizarre remarks in the Ezekiel Stephan case signal a miscarriage of justice
Juliet Guichon, Ian Mitchell and Pauline Alakija · CBC News
In deciding that Collet and David Stephan were not guilty of failing to provide the necessaries of life in the 2012 death of their son, Ezekiel, Justice Terry Clackson issued a written decision that, in our view, improperly focused on the medical examiner's accent, and not on the medical evidence. Such focus is suspect, and could be evidence of racism.
7) The Phony Liberalism of Bill Maher
Alan MacLeod, Truthdig
Ultimately, Maher has built up an impressive following and continues to espouse snarky elitist hot takes weekly for HBO, earning an estimated $10 million per year doing so. Call him a racist, a bigot or an astute businessman; just don’t call him a liberal.
8) We were told capitalism had won. But now workers can take back control
Grace Blakeley, The Guardian
Class politics is reemerging in response to the huge inequality caused by the 2008 crash. And it’s time to take on the City.
9) Capitalism’s triumph: Labor rights violated in every country on Earth
Systemic Disorder
In what country are labor rights fully respected? The sad answer is: none.
10) New Video May Signal Dangerous Change For Neo-Nazi Terror Cell
Mack Lamoureux and Ben Makuch, Vice
A neo-Nazi terror group under investigation by the FBI has released a propaganda video that one expert is calling “incredibly significant” and “essentially a declaration of war.” This comes after the group has already been linked to five murders, and was named in an FBI investigation involving an alleged bomber in Las Vegas who stockpiled explosives and firearms for a planned attack on the city's Jewish and LGBTQ communities.
11) Protesters rally outside North York industrial bakery in wake of death of temp worker
Sara Mojtehedzadeh, The Toronto Star
It was a protest underpinned by a simple question: how many vigils are necessary?
12) SACRAMENTO AMAZON WORKERS ARE PROTESTING AFTER WOMAN WAS ALLEGEDLY FIRED FOR SPENDING EXTRA HOUR WITH DYING MOTHER-IN-LAW
Melissa Lemieux, Newsweek
Amazon workers at the company's Sacramento, California delivery location united to present a petition to their supervisor September 30 to protest the company's off-time policy, according to The Verge.
13) The Fake Nazi Death Camp: Wikipedia’s Longest Hoax, Exposed
Omer Benjakob, Haaretz
For over 15 years, false claims that thousands of Poles were gassed to death in Warsaw were presented as fact. Haaretz reveals they are just the tip of an iceberg of a widespread Holocaust distortion operation by Polish nationalists.
14) European Parliament launches anti-communist crusade
Steve Sweeney, People's World
Communists and left organizations have hit out at a reactionary “ahistorical” motion passed by the European Parliament last month which equates communism with “the monster of fascism.”
15) Communist Party of Ukraine addresses open letter to the Ukrainian and Russian peoples
Ben Chacko, The Morning Star
UKRAINE’S Communist Party published an open letter to the peoples of Ukraine and Russia today, warning against the rise of fascism and of bids by the ruling elites in each country to turn their populations against one another.
16) Irregular votes, panicked moves, kiosks
Drew Anderson, CBC News
It was fall of 2017. Jason Kenney, former prime minister Stephen Harper's chief lieutenant, and Brian Jean, who had led Alberta's recently dissolved Wildrose Party, were vying to lead the newly created United Conservative Party. On the second day of the three-day leadership vote, a panicked call came from Kenney's campaign in Calgary ordering his team in Edmonton to shut down a voting kiosk they had set up in an empty storefront in a strip mall.
17) Press and OAS’s Differential Treatment to Venezuela vs. Crisis in Peru and Ecuador?
Orinoco Tribune
So far, neither the OAS nor the government of the US president, Donald Trump, have ruled against the violation of Ecuadorian human rights or the confrontation of powers in Peru.
18) Ecuador arrests taxi, union leaders as strike over end of fuel subsidies spills into 2nd day
The Associated Press
Ecuadoran authorities dispatched military vehicles to ferry civilian passengers Friday and arrested several transport union leaders in efforts to halt a strike that shut down taxi, bus and other services in response to a sudden rise in fuel prices.
19) Correa: No One Voted For The IMF Or The Increase In Fuel Price
Telesur
The former Ecuadorean president warned that Lenin Moreno "is scared to death for his betrayal to the movement (Revolucion Ciudadana) and the people", because he has taken measures diametrically opposed to his own and to the programmatic proposals that led him to the government.
20) Ecuador Assembly Calls for President's Removal, Early Polls
Telesur
Former members of Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno’s own party, Alianza PAIS, have announced they are demanding early presidential and congressional elections due to the executive’s “non-compliance of functions.”
21) Ecuador's Transport Workers Strike, Take to Streets to Reject Pro-IMF Neoliberal Reforms
Telesur
Ecuador woke up this Thursday with a total stoppage of activities as a result of a nationwide strike announced by transport workers and taxi drivers to protest against the "Paquetazo", a package of austerity policies which President Lenin Moreno announced Tuesday in order to comply with suggestions presented by the International Monetary Fund (IMF9 in return for billions of dollars in loans.
22) Thousands of Indigenous Farmers Head Towards Ecuador's Capital
Telesur
Ecuador’s indigenous and union organizations kept protests going on Saturday and promised not to let-up in their push to overturn President Lenin Moreno’s austerity measures, which have convulsed this South American country for three days on a row.
23) Peru: 'Interim President' Araoz Quits, Vizcarra Still in Power
Telesur
Peruvian Interim President Mercedes Araoz announced her resignation Tuesday night as Vice President of the country and as head of state, a designation conferred by Congress Monday night.
24) Peruvian Left Backs Dissolution of Congress: Interview
Telesur
Progressive media outlet Nodal interviewed leftist congresswoman Indira Huilca from the New Peru Movement Party this week. During the interview, they discussed Peru’s political crisis and what the left sees as the solution to the never-ending corruption scandals that have engulfed the country. Huilca stated stated that Congress has lost legitimacy and is only trying to impede the rooting out of corruption that they represent, but that a genuine solution will involve going much further than Vizcarra is proposing, and will require confronting the corporate interests fueling corruption.
25) Egypt’s Harsh Crackdown Quashes Protest Movement
Vivian Yee and Nada Rashwan, The New York Times
A group of teenagers arrested on their way to buy new school clothes. An illiterate shoeshiner picked up from the street. Eight people stopped while they were eating from a street food cart. And a 28-year-old financial auditor, who was walking to his car after dinner when police officers ordered him to stop.
26) Haiti on Brink of Revolution to Overthrow US-Backed Regime
AMW
Revolutionaries destroyed police headquarters, attacked residences of government officials, and burned a jail and courts to the ground in different parts of Haiti on Friday.
27) Bolivia Launches Reforestation Plan for Areas Affected by Fires
Telesur
Bolivia’s government has launched ‘Plan Paradise’ to reforest areas of the Chiquitania, Santa Cruz, that was affected by forest fires. The plan will bring together experts with governmental authorities to calculate the best ways of reforesting burnt areas.
28) Cuba Manages Fuel Shortage With Venezuelan, Russian Cooperation
Telesur
During the first week of October, a fleet of oil tankers from Venezuela arrived in Cuba to help President Miguel Diaz-Canel to alleviate fuel shortages generated by the U.S. economic and financial blockade.
29) Fearful of Lula’s Exoneration, His Once-Fanatical Prosecutors Request His Release From Prison. But Lula Refuses.
Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
Lula’s accusers are desperately trying to get him out of prison, while he insists on staying there until he’s fully exonerated.
30) At Least 42 Dead After Days Of Violent Protests In Iraq
Scott Neuman, NPR
Iraqi security forces fired live rounds to disperse crowds of protesters in Baghdad on Friday, as the death toll from days of anti-government unrest has reached at least 42, according to officials.
31) Bolivia to Introduce First Domestically-Made Electric Vehicle
Telesur
President Evo Morales officially presented on Tuesday the first electric car to be manufactured in Bolivia, produced by state owned company YLB. Morales presented the vehicle at the official opening of a new lithium technology center in Potosi.
32) Fighting Calls for Impeachment, Trump Intensifies Anti-Semitic Rhetoric. We Cannot Ignore It.
Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept
“PRIME DIRECTIVE: Always Blame the Jews for Everything.”
33) Trump Bars Immigrants Who Cannot Pay For Health Care
Richard Gonzales, NPR
President Trump signed a proclamation late Friday barring legal immigrants who cannot prove they will have health care coverage or the means to pay for it within 30 days of their arrival to the United States.
34) Shoot Them in the Legs, Trump Suggested: Inside His Border War
Michael D. Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, The New York Times
The Oval Office meeting this past March began, as so many had, with President Trump fuming about migrants. But this time he had a solution. As White House advisers listened astonished, he ordered them to shut down the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico — by noon the next day.
35) Advocates Say President Trump's Immigration Policy Is 'A Tool Of Cruelty'
Joel Rose, NPR
Immigrant advocates asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday to block the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), a key part of President Trump's immigration policy. The policy forces asylum seekers to wait for their immigration court hearings in Mexico.
36) Supreme Court Revisits Abortion With Louisiana Case
Nina Totenberg, NPR
The U.S. Supreme Court has jumped headlong back into the abortion wars. The court said Friday that it will hear arguments in a case from Louisiana that is nearly identical to a Texas case decided by the court three years ago.
37) Palestinian Tortured by Israel's Shin Bet in Critical Condition
Telesur
44-year-old Palestinian Samir Arbeed was admitted to a hospital in Jerusalem after been interrogated and tortured by Israel’s Shin Bet - domestic intelligence service - who is accusing him to be the mastermind behind an alleged attack in an illegal West Bank settlement.
38) Anti-Palestinianism is the modern day McCarthyism
Asa Winstanley, Middle East Monitor
As regular readers of this column will know, the McCarthyite atmosphere in Britain against supporters of Palestinian rights is getting worse. That is down in part to the Labour Party leadership’s acquiescence to the smear campaign to portray the party as anti-Semitic. The Labour National Executive Committee’s acceptance of the bogus IHRA “working definition” of anti-Semitism last year gave the document undeserved acceptance and currency; it deliberately conflates anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel for being the racist state that it so evidently is.
39) It’s Still Netanyahu’s Israel
Douglas Greenwald, Jacobin
Over the past decade, Benjamin Netanyahu has remade Israeli politics in his own image. Though his career now hangs by a thread, his legacy of far-right pandering and cold-blooded “management” of Palestinian oppression will live on.
40) After US Senator Asks Public to 'Imagine' CIA Interfering in Foreign Elections, Historians Are Like... Uhhh
Eoin Higgins, Common Dreams
Comments from Sen. Mark Warner responding to reports that Attorney General Bill Barr asked a number of world governments for help in refuting the investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 U.S. election were met with ridicule Friday as observers mocked the suggestion that the CIA would never do such a thing.
41) Cook's arrival was a disaster for Māori. Britain's half-hearted apology isn't good enough
Tina Ngata, The Guardian
As we mark 250 years since the arrival of Captain Cook in New Zealand, we are still seeing crimes against indigenous peoples and their territories.
42) Workers Are Falling Ill, Even Dying, After Making Kitchen Countertops
Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR
Artificial stone used to make kitchen and bathroom countertops has been linked to cases of death and irreversible lung injury in workers who cut, grind and polish this increasingly popular material.
43) Irrigation For Farming Could Leave Many Of The World's Streams And Rivers Dry
Dan Charles, NPR
Something odd is happening to streams and rivers on the high plains of Kansas and Colorado. Some have disappeared.
44) My Community Is Warming Three Times Faster Than the Rest of the World
Paul Josie; as told to Jackie Hong, VICE
Canada’s North is warming three times faster than the global average. Nowhere is this more acutely felt than in places such as Old Crow, the northernmost community in Yukon and home to the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation. Earlier this year, Vuntut Gwitchin became among the first Indigenous communities to declare a climate emergency. Last week, Whitehorse, Yukon's capital, also declared a climate emergency.
45) 'Things are getting unstable': global heating and the rise of rockfalls in Swiss Alps
Denise Hruby, The Guardian
As Switzerland’s glaciers melt, dangerous rockfalls become more likely and towns are forced to live under an existential threat.
See also: Canadian Climate Strikes, Climate Emergency, Labour Resolutions & more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos September 22 - 29
