Actions across the country in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en

Since the violent attack on Wet'suwet'en territory by the RCMP began on February 8 people across the country have been taking action in solidarity with the land defenders and their rights.

This feels like an emerging movement and the depth and breadth of the protests and resistance seems to have caught both the federal and provincial government off guard.

The Mohawks of Tyendinaga have sent bourgeois politicians and their capitalist bosses into a panic as their presence -- on their own lands -- near an essential Ontario rail corridor outside of Belleville has caused CN and VIA Rail to cancel all passenger and cargo traffic. Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller is now offering to meet with them as alarmist headlines cry out things like "'An emergency for the Canadian economy': Rail disruption hurting industries, groups say". (Update 3 pm EST, Feb 13: B.C. premier, Ottawa agree to meet with Indigenous groups behind rail blockades)

Here is a look at some of the actions to date:

UPDATE: VIA Rail cancels trains nationwide, CN shuts down Eastern Canadian network as Indigenous protests continue (Feb 13 5:15 EST)

"CN Rail and VIA Rail are shutting down huge sections of their railway networks as Indigenous blockades continue to cripple the country's transportation systems.
VIA Rail is temporarily ending all passenger services nationwide, expanding an earlier work stoppage that restricted train cancellations to the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor.
"VIA Rail has no other option but to cancel its services, effective immediately and until further notice," the rail operator said in a statement on its website.
CN Rail, the country's largest railway, is "initiating a progressive and orderly shutdown of its Eastern Canadian network" because Tyendinaga Mohawk protesters near Belleville, Ont. have so far refused to dismantle their blockade."

Longest Railway Shutdown in Canadian History Entering it’s 8th day

Second blockade set up on Mohawk territory as anti-pipeline blockades slow rail traffic

Rail blockade at the Wyman crossing in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory



Manitoba protesters blockade CN Rail line, demand RCMP leave Wet'suwet'en territory

Land Protectors Are Blocking Train Lines From Montreal To Protest Coastal GasLink Pipeline

Toronto protesters block railway tracks in support of Wet’suwet’en First Nation (Feb. 8)



Wet'suwet'en supporters occupy David Eby's office in Vancouver (Feb 13)

B.C. throne speech overshadowed by provincewide demonstrations

Outpouring of International Solidarity as RCMP Arrest Unist’ot’en Matriarchs

Victoria: BC Legislature Protest Feb 10

Wet'suwet'en supporters march through downtown Vancouver, blocking traffic and shutting down bridge



Police arrest 57 anti-pipeline protesters blocking Vancouver and Delta port entrances (Feb 10)

Hundreds rally in Metro Vancouver and Victoria in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en

Sit-in at Trudeau’s office takes place in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en (February 11)

Both major bridges in Victoria shut down by supporters of Wet’suwet’en anti-pipeline movement (Feb. 10)

Deputy PM Freeland blocked by Wet'suwet'en demonstrators in Halifax (Feb. 12)

Wet’suwet’en solidarity action disrupts Deputy Prime Minister’s visit to Halifax

Protesters rally at Halifax container terminal in support of Wet'suwet'en (Feb 11)

Protest in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en shuts down major Toronto intersection

Fare Evasion Frauds, NDP Debacles, Racism in Canada & more -- 2019 on The Left Chapter in review

2019 saw over 470 posts of various kinds on The Left Chapter. These ranged from analysis to opinion pieces to left history to art and recipe posts.

Consistently popular were our vintage postcard and photography posts such as On Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands - A Photographic Trip to the Soviet Far East, 1973 and Sofia, Bulgaria 1973 -- 19 Vintage Postcards and Images. We continued with our Republics of the Soviet Union series in posts like The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic 1987: Photos, Culture, Economy, History & more.


Meanwhile the Vintage Leftist Leaflet project is ongoing with posts like The World Communist Movement: Yesterday and Today, 1983 and "An Act of Solidarity in Angola" - Speech by Fidel Castro, 1975. Readers can look forward to many more of these in 2020.

We debuted our new feature the Daily LIFT (Leftist Image for Today) with posts like Eugene V. Debs Portrait, 1919 -- Daily LIFT #7 while having extensive coverage of the attempted coup in Venezuela, the coup in Bolivia, international news and events with our weekly round-ups and issues such as the Parkdale NDP nomination debacle as well the Kafkaesque fiasco that unfolded with other NDP nominations in the lead up to the election.

The disgraceful capitulation of the Liberal government to imperialist narratives were looked at in the posts Which of these countries is not like the other? -- A Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland Imperialism Quiz! and Canadian hypocrisy and double standards in South and Central America on full display and others, some of which made this list.

I want to thank all of our readers and contributors very much for their feedback, support, criticisms and engagement.

The year had many posts that came very, very close to making this list. We also had contributions from writers that were widely read and shared, including three that made this top of the year list.

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed this year and I look forward to seeing what interesting viewpoints and arguments we see next year.

(Remember that if you have a left point-of-view or opinion, a recipe or a story you want to share or if you want to share a petition/appeal or upcoming event you can send them to The Left Chapter via theleftchapter@outlook.com!)

Readers can look forward to new features in 2020. Remember also to watch for our list of the top food and recipe posts of 2019 early in the new year.

While normally we have the top ten posts, this year after we had already started our countdown a new post Canada has a racism problem and the fact so many Canadians think we don't is a part of it, did so well that it made this list at #4 so we have expanded the list to eleven so that nothing gets bumped off.

Here, without further ado, are the top eleven posts (in terms of hits) on The Left Chapter in 2019:

#1) The "fare evasion" narrative on the TTC is a total fraud. Here's why.

Every year the same line is trotted out by the TTC and various civic politicians in Toronto with the damage done monetarily always increasing from 20 to 40 to now allegedly over $60 million a year. Fare evasion, they say, is a serious problem and then they tsk-tsk about the "cheaters" and the need for more enforcement and get to shift the narrative of blame about the TTC's woes from themselves and decades of mismanagement, incompetence and underfunding to those mean and nasty freeloaders, i.e. TTC riders themselves.

(See also: The policing of fare evasion reveals the twisted agenda of our politicians)

#2) Of course Ford has not revealed plans for the TTC "Ontario Line". It will never be built.

Of course -- with many detours, delays and fake routes still to come -- in the end likely nothing gets built which will be blamed by Doug Ford and his stooges on the federal government, Toronto City Council, aliens or whatever.

It doesn't really matter who they say was at fault, nothing getting built was almost certainly the plan all along.

(See also: Higher TTC fares, more fake cops and a cancelled LRT -- Ontario's politicians ring in the holiday with a boot to the face for transit users)

#3) Green Party RA President steps down citing "racism", demands Green leadership apologize to Jagmeet Singh

By Ammario Reza


The president of the Saint John East provincial Green Party riding association has stepped down from his position late Sunday night. In a Facebook post Kevin (Kage) O’Donnell blasted the Greens for being what he described as “a party that allows people who promote...racism”

#4) Canada has a racism problem and the fact so many Canadians think we don't is a part of it

Perhaps after an election where Justin Trudeau was exposed for having worn blackface on several occasions and yet not only was not forced to resign as Liberal leader but was ultimately reelected as Prime Minster (albeit with a minority) it should not come as a surprise that "49 per cent of Canadians don't think racism is a serious problem in the country".

(See also: For Horgan "peaceful resolution" apparently flows from the barrel of a gun)

#5) Where Does the NDP Stand on Venezuela?

Entirely predictably it would appear the NDP is going over to the imperialist camp.

(See also: In Venezuela as in Chile, what is past is prologue)

#6) The election results in Toronto tell a story the NDP does not want to hear


The NDP's Toronto federal election results really put the lie to a number of the narratives their partisans and organizers are trying to spin.

(See also: No, the NDP losing over 600,000 votes and 20 seats is not a "victory")

#7) Canada extends Ukraine military mission against alarming backdrop of rising fascism and neo-Nazism

Greatly overshadowed by other news out of Ottawa the Trudeau government today announced its decision to extend the Canadian military mission to Ukraine until at least 2022. Chrystia Freeland -- who notoriously celebrated her Ukrainian grandfather's nationalist past despite the fact that he was a Nazi collaborator -- stated that the mission "allows us to meet Ukraine's needs and to offer new forms of support as Ukraine needs them."

(See also: Canada and Freeland's rhetoric about a "rules-based international order" is bullshit and the US just proved it again)

#8) The NDP's election disaster shows again the need for something new on the left

Apparently the masses didn't get the memo.


Despite all the assurances and social media posts of NDP partisans, and despite the surprising number of left activists who decided to jump onto a bandwagon to nowhere, Jagmeet Singh and the NDP not only did not surge they ended up with their worst result in 15 years wiping away all the gains of the Layton years that were supposed to deliver them to the Promised Land of power.

(See also: Fifty years later it is time to acknowledge the Waffle was wrong)

#9) “The End of History” and the Post-Soviet Tragedy

By Nathaniel Laxer 


When almost any discussion of the USSR occurs today it is clouded by the western framing of the Cold War. Generally it is only the flaws of the Soviet Union or the Stalin Era that are looked at. Due to this it is often taken for granted that the collapse should be seen as a great and positive defining moment of the modern world and a victory over tyranny.

(See also by Nathaniel Laxer: A Holiday Nightmare)

#10) Sid Ryan's nomination run in Oshawa yet another federal NDP debacle

It would appear that Sid Ryan is the latest casualty of a long standing, right wing NDP trend. 

(See also: The cat is out of the bag with the Sid Ryan and NDP vetting fiasco and Janet-Lynne Durnford's NDP nomination story a Kafkaesque travesty)

#11) What happened at the Parkdale NDP's nomination meeting?

by Myles Hoenig


Alabama of the 50s and 60s has migrated to Toronto.  The ghost of South Africa has a consulate here. Israel’s apartheid government must be jealous over how well Toronto’s NDP runs its elections. So what the hell happened?

(See also: Canada’s NDP Looks Like the US’s GOP: Voter Disenfranchisement in the Parkdale-High Park Riding and The optics of the Parkdale NDP's federal nomination meeting are not good)

Have a happy and safe New Year! See you all in 2020.

NDP Election Disaster, Canadian Foreign Policy Hypocrisy & more -- October and November on The Left Chapter in review

October and November saw 113 posts of various kinds on The Left Chapter.

These included new installments in our always popular vintage photography posts like Soviet Moscow 1985 - 18 Streetscapes and Postcards and War Monuments and Sights of Soviet Kiev 1975 -- 16 Vintage Photographs. There were several posts related to socialist history like The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic 1987: Photos, Culture, Economy, History & more -- Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union Series and Demand Freedom for Disappeared Prisoners in Chile!, World Peace Council 1977. 


After the shocking racist and imperialist backed coup in Bolivia we followed events with regular daily updates on our post "It’s called a coup" -- News, Videos, Statements and Developments about Bolivia. We posted Stop backing a corrupt, repressive and illegitimate Haitian president -- Open Letter and looked at "We have been enslaved in a modernized form" -- Nigerian workers allege widespread abuses by Shell in new video. 

We also looked at the launch of a new political party in "Far to the left of the NDP, far greener than the Greens" -- New leftist party launched in BC.

And thanks to the issue being in the news again as well as a mention in an article on Blog TO, our piece from February, The "fare evasion" narrative on the TTC is a total fraud. Here's why., had enough hits that it would have been near the top of this list had it been from the period.

Thanks very much to all our readers and contributors.

If you have an article, editorial, analysis, recipe or story you would like to contribute there are details on how to do so on our Submissions page as well as at the end of this post.

Without any further ado, here are the top six posts, in terms of hits, from October and November:

1) The election results in Toronto tell a story the NDP does not want to hear

The NDP's Toronto federal election results really put the lie to a number of the narratives their partisans and organizers are trying to spin.

Read more. 

2) The NDP's election disaster shows again the need for something new on the left

Apparently the masses didn't get the memo.


Despite all the assurances and social media posts of NDP partisans, and despite the surprising number of left activists who decided to jump onto a bandwagon to nowhere, Jagmeet Singh and the NDP not only did not surge they ended up with their worst result in 15 years wiping away all the gains of the Layton years that were supposed to deliver them to the Promised Land of power.

Read more.

3) Voting Communist, Tactical Voting and Conscientious Abstention -- Leftist Strategy in the 2019 Election

With less than a week to go until election day in Canada, anti-capitalist leftists are in the challenging position yet again that no anti-capitalist candidate -- either an independent or affiliated to a political party -- is going to get elected next Monday.

Read more.

4) Canadian hypocrisy and double standards in South and Central America on full display


Canada's total hypocrisy and double standards in South and Central America are on full display, again, after the profoundly cynical Trudeau government and Global Affairs Canada stated on Tuesday that they would not recognize the Bolivian election results.

Read more.

(Related: Canada and Freeland's rhetoric about a "rules-based international order" is bullshit and the US just proved it again)

5) Canada’s NDP Looks Like the US’s GOP: Voter Disenfranchisement in the Parkdale-High Park Riding

By Brandy Baker

The west Toronto riding of Parkdale-High Park is one of the last places working people and the poor can access affordable housing in this very expensive city. Think of Parkdale-High Park in the shape of an L. The vertical line is High Park, where whiter, wealthier residents live. Queen West is the horizontal line at the bottom. This is the main commercial street of Parkdale. Grungier, poorer, and more diverse. A Tibetan community lives and works here. Some have shops along the always busy street. Some work at the Ontario Food Terminal a couple of miles out; the workers at the food terminal unionized over a year ago after dealing with racist harassment. Crossing Queen West is Jameson, a small street lined with apartment complexes and public housing that connect the parallel streets of Queen and King, where more of the poor and immigrants live.

Read more.

(Related: NDP Post-Election Wrap Up: Parkdale/High Park)

6) No, the NDP losing over 600,000 votes and 20 seats is not a "victory"

Sometimes, in life and politics, you can forgive folks for indulging in positive thinking even when it is totally out-of-touch with reality. In many cases this is relatively harmless.

But not when the partisans of a party that holds much of the Canadian left seemingly prisoner to its electoral ambitions try to sell a truly disastrous defeat to people as a "victory" of some kind.

Read more.

Our top food related post was: Slow Cooker Curried Lamb Shoulder Chops w. Garlic & Onion

Do you have a left point-of-view or opinion, event or petition, a recipe or a story you want to share?

Send them to The Left Chapter via theleftchapter@outlook.com!

See also: The Greens, NDP Nomination Debacles, Jagmeet Singh & more -- August and September on The Left Chapter in review

Canada and Freeland's rhetoric about a "rules-based international order" is bullshit and the US just proved it again

Update: It has been announced since this piece was posted that Freeland will not be Foreign Minister going forward as she is being moved to another post. As the piece notes however, the "Freeland Doctrine" will almost certainly continue to be implemented by the new minister François-Philippe Champagne. 

For years now Canada's Trudeau government and its Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland have tried to claim that their foreign policy is centered around the preservation of a "rules-based international order." Within this construct -- one that is readily accepted and regurgitated as fact by the mainstream media -- Canada, the United States and their western allies are working together to contain the alleged threat posed to this order by supposed rogue actors like Russia, North Korea, Iran, etc.

Freeland has made this the foundational ideological basis, of what could be called the "Freeland Doctrine" -- which will no doubt continue to guide the new minority Trudeau government even if she does not return as its Foreign Minister -- to be used to justify any number of steps Canada has taken from aggressively backing the disturbingly neo-fascist coup regime in Ukraine against Russia to Canada's leadership role in the Lima Group aimed at toppling the democratically elected government of Venezuela.

The problem for Freeland and her various establishment sycophants is that this line is transparently bullshit and is increasingly obviously so. The only way you can believe that Canada supports a "rules-based international order" as a staunch ally of the United States is if you believe that the US can simply make up any rules, at any time, and this can somehow be construed as "order".

The latest in a long line of examples of this is the unilateral declaration by the United States on November 18 that it no longer sees Israeli Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian lands as illegal under international law. That they are, in fact, illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which the United States signed in 1955, is very clear.

But the Trump administration simply does not care. It suits its political goals both in Israel and domestically to state otherwise so it has.

In realty, to the United States international law and any "rules" only matter insofar as they reflect American objectives. Otherwise they are either distorted or totally ignored and there is nothing new about this. 

All of the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations have indulged in orgies of drone violence ordering completely illegal extra-judicial murders worldwide that have claimed thousands of lives, including many children. You can see the grim statistics yourself on the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Drone Warfare page.

Then there is the use of completely unilateral forms of economic embargoes and sanctions by the United States against countries whose governments it does not, for whatever reason, like. The Americans feel they have the right to extend these sanctions to penalize not just American companies but any company anywhere in the world who wants to do business or conduct trade with a regime no longer in Washington's favour.

After having unilaterally abandoned the nuclear deal with Iran, for example, "the U.S. Treasury Department bragged that in just one day, November 5, 2018, it sanctioned more than 700 individuals, entities, aircraft, and vessels doing business" with them.

US sanctions on Venezuela, which are "illegal Under UN, OAS and US Law", have had devastating consequences. As  Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies noted on Common Dreams:

A study by Jeffrey Sachs and Mark Weisbrot for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, titled “Sanctions as Collective Punishment: the Case of Venezuela,” reported that the combined effect of the 2017 and 2019 U.S. sanctions are projected to lead to an astounding 37.4% decline in Venezuela’s real GDP in 2019, on the heels of a 16.7% decline in 2018 and the over 60% drop in oil prices between 2012 and 2016.

They also noted that:

In North Korea, many decades of sanctions, coupled with extended periods of drought, have left millions of the nation’s 25 million people malnourished and impoverished. Rural areas in particular lack medicine and clean water. Even more stringent sanctions imposed in 2018 banned most of the country’s exports, reducing the government’s ability to pay for imported food to alleviate the shortages.

The US continues its criminal sanctions against Cuba despite 28 consecutive years of near universal condemnation by the United Nations General Assembly. This year 187 countries (including Canada) voted to condemn the sanctions while only five, including the US, did not.

Kelly Craft, the US Ambassador to the UN, even had the audacity to say that "Like all nations, we get to choose which countries we trade with. This is our sovereign right" even though, as we have seen, the Americans do not recognize that right for any other country but themselves.

Their hypocrisy and thumbing of the nose at the "rules-based international order" could not be more flagrant.

There are many other cases one could point to historically including the staggering number of democratically elected governments the US has helped to have brutally overthrown, from those of Guatemala and Iran in the 1950s, to Allende in Chile in 1973, to Honduras in 2009, to Bolivia now to name just a few.

We have already looked at the glaring hypocrisy and contempt for democracy of Canadian actions in Central and South America in "Canadian hypocrisy and double standards in South and Central America on full display".

Freeland's "rules-based international order" is a fiction invented as cover for Canada's role in advancing the interests of the United States, western imperialism and Canadian and global corporations around the world.  It is long overdue for Canadian journalists and parties like the Greens and the NDP to start calling her out fully on it.

Canadian hypocrisy and double standards in South and Central America on full display

Update: Since this was first published there has been a military coup in Bolivia that predictably and shamefully Canada has immediately backed. 

Canada's total hypocrisy and double standards in South and Central America are on full display, again, after the profoundly cynical Trudeau government and Global Affairs Canada stated on Tuesday that they would not recognize the Bolivian election results.


Leftist Evo Morales won the Presidential elections in the first round with over 47% of the vote. Bolivia's election laws allow for a first round win by a candidate even with less than 50% of the vote as long as they get over 40% and also lead their closest competitor by over 10% which Morales did.

Both Morales and others warned in advance of the elections that the United States and its imperialist allies were planning a coup should the left win the elections. It would seem that sock puppet Canada is stepping up to play its part.

While Trudeau and Canada are speaking out on Bolivia -- despite the fact the Bolivians are allowing an OAS audit of the election results to proceed -- why not take a look at events in the region that they have not spoken up about.

- Canada recognized the results of the elections in Brazil that saw fascist Jair Bolsonaro take the Presidency despite the fact that allies of Bolsonaro had imprisoned his main potential opponent -- leftist former President Lula da Silva (popularly known as Lula) -- on trumped up corruption charges. The process leading to Lula's jailing was totally rigged. Canada has not questioned Bolsonaro's legitimacy in anyway. In fact you see can a picture of Trudeau and Bolsonaro warmly greeting each other above.

- Since the eruption of protests against a transit fare hike that transformed into general strikes and mass demonstrations against neo-liberalism and inequality in Chile generally, the Chilean government has imposed curfews and martial law with the military patrolling the streets in a disturbing echo of the Pinochet era. Hundreds of people have been arrested, hundreds more injured or shot, at least 20 killed and there are widespread reports of torture, sexual assault and rape by the Chilean military and police. Not a peep from Canada. In fact Trudeau had a pleasant chat with the Chilean President on Tuesday.

- After betraying his promise to continue with his predecessor's leftist agenda, Ecuadoran President Lenín Moreno adopted a harsh austerity regime in exchange for IMF loans and began to intimidate, harass and arrest some of his former allies. A mass protest movement against these moves led by Indigenous peoples in early October has forced Moreno to back down, at least for now. During these protests Ecuador imposed martial law, and police violence and brutality led to the deaths of at least seven people, the wounding of at least 1,300, the arrests of at least 1,100 and the imposition of a 24 hour curfew in the capital. Canada said nothing.

- Honduras saw a military coup in 2009 that ousted the democratically elected government of President Manuel Zelaya. Since then a series of clearly fraudulent elections have ensured that right wing, pro-American and pro-business governments have remained in power including a sham election in 2017 that saw the "victory" of  President Juan Orlando Hernández. Canada?:

“Canada has remained a steadfast ally to the [post-coup] regime,” Tyler Shipley, professor at Humber College and author of the book Ottawa and Empire: Canada and the Military Coup in Honduras, says. “Canada helped the coup government consolidate its power, and worked diplomatically to reintegrate the country into the OAS after they were kicked out of the organization. Canada was also one of the first to recognize the election in 2009 after the coup.”

This support began with the Harper government and continues under Trudeau and Foreign Minister Freeland.

According to Shipley "No country – save perhaps the United States – did more to facilitate the rise of the Honduran dictatorship than Canada" and "Canadians who believe that their country is a good citizen of the world would do well to take a closer look at the nightmare in Honduras. After all, it is a nightmare Canada has helped create."

- In Haiti there have been months of mass protests against President Jovenel Moïse.  "Police have killed dozens of demonstrators since anti-corruption protests began last year. In the worst documented case, the UN confirmed the Haitian government’s culpability in a terrible massacre of up to 71 civilians in the impoverished Port-au-Prince neighborhood of La Saline in mid-November 2018." And yet continued support for Moise by Canada led to the publication of an Open Letter signed by David Suzuki, Roger Waters, Linda Mcgaig, Amir Khadir, Will Prosper, Tariq Ali, Yann Martel, Maude Barlow, Sid Ryan, John Clarke and more than 100 other writers, musicians, activists and professors demanding that this stop.

It is perfectly clear that when Trudeau, Freeland and the Canadian government prattle on about "freedom" and "democracy" they are only talking about countries where leftist governments win elections such as Venezuela and Bolivia. Their concern for "freedom" is the freedom of big business and corporate interests to run South and Central American countries on behalf of international capital and their version of "democracy" are election results, fair or otherwise, that install governments that will reinforce this.

Voting Communist, Tactical Voting and Conscientious Abstention -- Leftist Strategy in the 2019 Election

With less than a week to go until election day in Canada, anti-capitalist leftists are in the challenging position yet again that no anti-capitalist candidate -- either an independent or affiliated to a political party -- is going to get elected next Monday.

While there are partisans, and perhaps even a candidate or two, of the NDP who claim it is anti-capitalist this cannot be taken at all seriously given the party's program and history both in office provincially and opposition federally.

Keeping these limitations in mind we need to take a look at what strategy and tactics left socialists and communists can and should adopt, in our opinion, depending on factors such as where they live and what they are trying to accomplish by their involvement in the electoral process.

Vote Communist in 31 ridings and other individual endorsements

In the 31 ridings in this election that do have a Communist Party of Canada candidate they deserve our vote and support. The Communists and their leader Elizabeth Rowley have run an excellent, principled campaign on a comprehensive, irrefutably anti-capitalist platform. We have looked at this before in the posts "People & Nature Before Profit!" -- Communist Party releases its federal election platform leaflet and "The problem is capitalism. The solution is socialism." -- Communist Party campaign launches in Toronto.

Voting Communist sends a clear, direct message to the mainstream "progressive" parties rejecting their bankrupt platforms that do not go nearly far enough in tackling fundamental issues facing us such as grotesque levels of inequality and the threat posed by the climate emergency.

If you are in a riding with an independent or non-Communist party candidate who is also running on an explicitly anti-capitalist platform we would advocate a vote for them as well.

There are also a handful of individual candidates for the mainstream parties with a compelling enough narrative to deserve consideration.

Mumilaaq Qaqqaq (NDP) running in Nunavut would add an exciting and necessary voice to parliament. Sending Rudy Turtle (NDP), Chief of the Ontario Grassy Narrows First Nation, to Ottawa from Kenora would be a call for politicians to move beyond the hollow rhetoric of reconciliation and towards actually doing something to deal with the ongoing, brutal consequences of government colonialism, racism and indifference towards Indigenous peoples. Early on in this campaign the bullies at B'nai Brith tried to get the NDP to dump Miranda Gallo, who is running in Saint-Laurent, due to her activism on behalf of Palestinians. Electing her would be a rejection of the new McCarthyism that some have sought to impose around Israeli Apartheid.

Strategic and tactical voting versus conscientious abstention

What to do in ridings where there is no Communist or anti-capitalist candidate?

While the Liberals certainly always try to scare you into it, there is no serious leftist case to be made for strategic voting for Trudeau to stop the Conservatives. The Liberal party is a profoundly cynical, ugly, imperialist Bay St party that, while better than the Conservatives in many important and significant ways, is totally undeserving of support. The Trudeau government has reflected this cynicism while in power. There can be no greater symbol of why Trudeau and his government must be rejected entirely than the odious twin pillars of it, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Minister of Finance Bill Morneau. In no riding in the country should the Liberal get a left vote.

Tactical voting for the Greens or New Democrats in ridings where they have a chance of defeating the Conservative candidate specifically (as opposed to each other or the Liberal) is something to consider.

However, outside of practical riding by riding concerns about stopping Scheer neither of these parties deserves actual support from a leftist perspective and voting for them is an implicit indication of some type of support.

 The Greens and the NDP are not that different from each other in any real sense, their platforms are deeply and profoundly flawed and hypocritical to such an extent that you can count on their partisans to distort them to make them appear better, and neither party is opposed to either capitalism or the global western imperialist order in any meaningful way at all. In an age of desperate inequality, unrestrained western interventionism and an existential environmental threat posed by global capitalism, this is not a minor point.

Those on the left who still insist that somehow we must support the NDP due to its "historic" ties to labour or the working-class are engaging in a fiction that may once have had some meaning but is more and more silly and out-of-touch with objective circumstances now with each passing year.

In fact it is both depressing and informative that so many on the left have found one excuse or another to feign enthusiasm for Jagmeet Singh and his lackluster campaign that has benefited only by comparison with the tired Trudeau and the even more lackluster campaign this time out by Elizabeth May.

Any objective look would show that advocating for the NDP or pretending its platform is somehow "leftist" is simply getting on board with another dead end like those in 2015, 2011, 2008, 2006, 2004 and on and on and on.

The party has tried, rather unconvincingly, to slightly mimic the tone of Bernie Sanders (himself a deeply flawed candidate) and the NDP has proven record of never doing what it says it is going to when or if it wins anything. It is worth remembering how the party shifted dramatically rightward under Jack Layton -- an allegedly "leftist" leader -- especially after "winning" opposition.

Ironically, despite the supposed NDP partisan contempt of the Liberals and insistence that they are no different from the Conservatives, the main goal of the NDP now seems to be to win enough seats to make a deal with Trudeau!

In a riding where the Greens or the NDP have no chance of winning or where the Conservatives pose no threat why reward their liberalism, inherent imperialism and fundamental embrace of capitalism? What will this achieve in advancing the cause of working people and socialism? Nothing.

In fact, leftists continuing to waste their energies on the NDP (or now the Greens) despite decades of evidence in and out of power that this is a totally bankrupt dead end can only be seen as tremendously futile and counter-productive. A kind of crutch and excuse to which many return that prevents the emergence of a serious mass anti-capitalist alternative.

And just because the Liberals are genuinely awful and the Greens are only aspiring to be as milquetoast as the NDP has been does not make Andrea Horwath disciple Singh anymore interesting or "leftist".

In a riding where there is no Communist or anti-capitalist candidate, where the Greens or NDP have no chance, where it is a Liberal - Conservative race or where the Conservatives pose no threat we would suggest considering a conscientious, principled abstention and rejection of the sham of mainstream politics by either staying home or by spoiling your ballot.

NDP Spikes, Bloc Surges, May and Scheer Stall -- The Left Chapter Canadian Election Round-up Week Five

This is the fifth of our weekly Friday election round-ups of developments -- as well as the inane, bizarre, humorous and unusually facile -- in the great show that is mainstream bourgeois politics during the election of 2019.


The fourth was: Scheer's Very Bad Week, PPC At It Again and more -- The Left Chapter Canadian Election Round-up Week Four

Debates, campaigns stop NDP's fall see Bloc surge

As always after such events there was almost as much debate as to who won the last English and French leader debates as there was in the debates themselves! There seems to be a consensus that NDP leader Jagmeet Singh had a good night at the English debate while the French one was stronger for Trudeau and Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-François Blanchet.

In truth, while Singh likely had the best lines at the English debate the format was terrible with far too many moderators and a set-up that ensured much of the time was wasted with leaders talking all over each other. The French debate went better in terms of format but was not a good night for either Singh or Elizabeth May, the leader of the Greens. Most of its most interesting moments were in exchanges between Justin Trudeau, Andrew Scheer and Blanchet.

The importance of debates are often overstated by partisans of the parties who are far more interested in them than most of the public is. They do often serve to reinforce existing trends though and this seems to have happened here as well.

This is bad news for both May and Scheer.

The Greens came into the election really surging but have run a very poor campaign as these things go, with much of the wind coming out of their sails. May was not great in either debate and the threat the Greens posed to displace the NDP as Canada's third party and as the "progressive" left flank of the Liberal party seems to have faded.

Blanchet and the Bloc, meanwhile, are offering Quebec voters a nationalist and Quebec focused alternative to the federalist options. A solid campaign and debate performances have revived their fortunes largely at the expense of the Conservatives and, to a lesser degree, the NDP. Scheer helped this along by making it very clear he had something to hide on the abortion issue in the first debate, making it much easier for small 'c' conservative voters in Quebec who are not socially conservative to begin to view Blanchet as a natural fit.

Unfortunately for New Democrat partisans who heralded Singh's performance and the party's small bump in the polls as the beginning of a Layton style surge, the conditions are very different from those in 2011. Layton benefited from the collapse of the Liberal vote due to the horrible campaign of Michael Ignatieff and from voter fatigue with the Bloc in Quebec.

The Liberal vote is not collapsing this time -- at least so far and there is not much time to go -- and the Bloc is surging. What Singh's good campaign and debates has done, it seems, is to bring the NDP back from the brink of annihilation largely at the expense of some of the Liberal left vote and what was Green momentum going in. The NDP still stands to lose almost all or all of its seats in Quebec though it may now hold or even gain a bit elsewhere.

Singh's finest moment?

"Why is it that we ask the question about whether or not Indigenous people should have clean drinking water?"


After pointing out the billions the government squandered on tax cuts and pipelines NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has what is likely his finest moment when he turns the tables on a stupid media question.


Of course, Singh has his own hypocritical problems when it comes to Indigenous rights. His unwillingness to take a clear stance on the LNG project being pushed by the NDP government in BC is just one example of this. 

Related: Jagmeet Singh commits to funding clean drinking water in Indigenous communities

 Judy Sgro said what?!?

Liberal candidate for Humber River-Black Creek Judy Sgro set a new standard for liberal white cluelessness with her comments about the Trudeau brownface scandal to a Toronto radio station interviewer.

Sgro actually tried to claim that her Black constituents were sending him more "love" for what he had done! Seriously:

But let me tell you that in knocking on doors and being in the plazas and talking to people to make sure that I’m as sensitive as I need to be, if I missed something … and those in the Black community have told me how much more love they have for the prime minister, that he wanted to have a black face — he took great pride in that too and that it’s the media that have blown this into something that it shouldn’t be, and that they are very supportive and they’re actually looking for finding more ways that they can show how much they support and love the prime minister.

She has apologized for this astonishing and grotesque comment and remains a Liberal candidate despite it.

Liberals show, yet again, that their commitment to "reconciliation" is rhetorical

Shamefully, though predictably, the Trudeau government took a timeout from electioneering to challenge "a landmark human rights ruling to compensate apprehended First Nations children harmed by the on-reserve child welfare system and under-funded child and family services."

This move "could block billions in compensation to Indigenous children" that is long overdue.

As outgoing NDP MP Romeo Saganash says, "I never want to hear one single Liberal pronounce the word Reconciliation, ever again!”

Unfortunately he is unlikely to get his wish.

Other readings on this issue:

By fighting a compensation ruling, the government denies First Nations children justice — again

A Brief History of Canada’s Failure to Fund Indigenous Kids Equitably

Taking on Canada's "Minister of War"

As Ontario Communist Party leader Drew Garvie noted in an excellent recent article about Canada's odious imperialist Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland:

The hypocrisy of Canadian foreign policy under Freeland and the Trudeau Liberals cannot be explained by a love of human rights or humanitarianism. Their policies can only be explained by Canadian business interests, especially mining and arms deals, and their ever-closer alliance with an increasingly belligerent US government.
The world cannot afford another four years of Chrystia Freeland and neither can Canada. The Trudeau government’s pledge to raise military spending by 73% over the next eight years, prompted by Trump’s request to NATO countries to pay up, will result in deeper austerity and suffering at home and more war abroad. Freeland represents the worst the Liberal Party has in the way of war mongers and she must be defeated as a step towards winning an independent foreign policy of peace and disarmament.

You can watch Garvie, who is running against her federally, take her on at a local debate in the video below:



Other notable articles:

What a shock...a disgusting party of racists and bigots turns out to be a disgusting party of racists and bigots: People's Party won't take action against N.S. candidate who called Islam 'pure evil'

LOL! The knives are already out: Conservatives Reportedly Might Already Be Shopping For A Scheer Replacement

Rumours Of A Suppressed Globe Story About Justin Trudeau Are Bullshit

Green Party drops anti-abortion candidate in Ontario riding

Andrew Scheer's claim about foreign aid deemed false

Tossed Tory candidate ‘changes everything,’ with two-way fight shaping up in Burnaby North-Seymour

Singh lays out the NDP’s priorities for next Parliament

WHERE HAS LABOUR BEEN DURING THIS FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN?

Ottawa-Vanier Communist Party candidate looks to fight poverty, tax the rich

"The problem is capitalism. The solution is socialism." -- Communist Party campaign launches in Toronto

The Communist Party of Canada launched its Toronto area federal election campaign on the Danforth Saturday night with a lively event at which leader Liz Rowley and several candidates spoke.

All the candidates touched on important themes for both the country and the communities they are running in.

Ivan Byard (Toronto Danforth) talked about housing issues while noting that the party's ultimate aim was "working class political power". Bronwyn Cragg, who is up against Finance Minister Bill Morneau in Toronto Centre, framed himself as the millennial taking on the billionaire. He noted that wealthy Morneau's riding had the fourth highest child poverty rate of any in the country clearly indicating that the Trudeau government's priorities are the wrong ones.

Ontario party leader Drew Garvie, running against Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland in University Rosedale focused on her terrible foreign policy record in Venezuela, Ukraine and generally. He stated that alone of all the parties, the Communists are confronting western imperialist narratives head on.

Parkdale-High Park candidate Alykhan Pabani spoke powerfully of how landlords in his community are engaging in the "violence of displacement" by driving out tenants using nefarious and frequently illegal methods. To the Liberal plan to tackle the housing crisis by making it easier to buy $800,000 houses he responded "are you serious" and likened it to someone taking the backpack off of a person dangling from the edge of a cliff so as to "lighten their load".

Harinderpal Hundal for Brampton West and Juanita Burnett for Guelph were also in attendance and spoke to how they are organizing in their constituencies to get the Communist message out to people.

Hitting on issues related to all of the three major pillars of the party's campaign -- the economy, climate change and foreign policy -- leader Elizabeth Rowley, who is running in Davenport, spoke at length as to why if Communists got elected "parliament would be an entirely different place."

On the economy she noted that a poll showed half of those who responded were $200 away from disaster at the end of every month. "Working people are living on the edge" due to decades of cutbacks, privatization and neo-liberalism. Communists would counter this in part with programs like genuine, universal pharmacare, free childcare and free education including post-secondary education. She stated that the only thing that should matter when it comes to getting into a university is marks.

Noting that a $15 an hour minimum wage no longer cuts it in many communities, the Communists are calling for $20 an hour. She said the party favours lowering the retirement age to 60 as well as shortening the work week with no loss in pay. Both measures, in addition to making the lives of people better, would help boost employment.

She also called out Canada's trade deals as little more than "economic constitutions" for corporations that need to be repealed. The Communists would prevent the danger of corporations moving factories to other countries via plant closure legislation.

Ultimately, Rowley said, "The problem is capitalism. The solution is socialism."

With regard to climate change, Rowley began by framing carbon taxes as an empty "solution" that does nothing more than turn emissions into a commodity. It is capping and reversing the emissions themselves that are the only way to confront the critical emergency facing Canada, with the Communist goal being to end them by 2050.

Key to the Communist climate strategy is to seize the ownership of natural resources out of the hands of multinationals and place them under public and democratic control. This would allow the government to take important steps like guaranteeing the jobs of tar sands workers during the transition to a green economy. 

Rowley rousingly went further to demand that the banks, insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations also be democratized and nationalized.

The Communist Party is the only party campaigning for "peace and disarmament" and Rowley stated the importance of this in today's international context where the danger of nuclear war remains very real. She also asserted the party's unequivocal opposition to interference in the affairs of sovereign countries and the ongoing attempts at imperialist regime change in Venezuela and elsewhere.

She ended with an analysis of how the danger from the far right in Canada is rising and how the Conservatives have direct and clear ties to it. Maxime Bernier and his People's Party, after all, only came in the wake of him losing the Conservative leadership to Scheer by a tiny margin. A progressive bloc is needed to stop this and Communists are essential to ensuring that this bloc pursues a people's agenda.

To those who worry that a vote for the Communists is a wasted vote, Rowley countered that it sends a message to the ruling classes and bourgeois parties as they know that for everyone who voted communist "100 were thinking about it and 1,000 were wondering." It is a ballot cast for "someone that is worth voting for".

The Communist Party is running 31 candidates across Canada. A list can be found here. Their full platform can be found here.

Freeland 'America First', Israeli Apartheid, Climate Emergency & more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos June 30 - July 7

This week's list of articles, news items, opinion pieces and videos that I see as a must if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.



This list covers the week of June 30 - July 7.

1) SAN FRANCISCO IS PAYING FOR JAMAL TRULOVE’S WRONGFUL CONVICTION. WILL KAMALA HARRIS?

Kyle C. Barry, The Appeal 

Police and prosecutors framed a father of four in a 2007 murder case with local and national political implications.

2) Uber co-founder buys record-breaking LA mansion for $72.5m as drivers fight for wages

Sam Levin, The Guardian 

Two massive luxury real estate deals in Los Angeles have shone a harsh light on the wealth gap in a region where tens of thousands of people live on the streets while mansions the size of football fields sell for more than $100m.

3) US Activist Scott Warren To Be Retried in Helping Migrants Case

Telesur

United States (U.S.) activist and member of the humanitarian group "No More Deaths", Scott Warren will be retried after a jury was unable to agree on a verdict for charges for helping migrants at the border with Mexico, U.S. prosecutors said Tuesday.

4) MEDIA FRAME: A ‘WAR ON COPS’ NARRATIVE WITHOUT EVIDENCE

Adam H. Johnson, The Appeal

An ABC News report last week on a “multi-year” trend of violence targeting the police highlights how easily the “war on cops” narrative sneaks into mainstream media with thin sourcing and little fact-checking.

5) Frustration and confusion mark Parkdale-High Park NDP nomination

Matt Fodor, Now Magazine

It was a stressful, painful and humiliating experience for the mostly African immigrants who came to support Saron Gebresellassi and participate in the Canadian political process for the first time.



6) The NDP should allow Rana Zaman to run

Judy Haiven, The Nova Scotia Advocate 

Just 4 months before the 2019 federal election, the NDP is has effectively blocked two women of colour from running under its banner.

7) Honduran Police Repress Protesting Teachers with Teargas

Telesur

Teachers and students are renewing round of protests across the country in favor of public healthcare and education services on Thursday and Friday amid police violence and repression, reported local media.

8) Outcry after reports Brazil plans to investigate Glenn Greenwald

Dom Phillips, The Guardian

Brazil’s Bar Association, journalists and opposition lawmakers have reacted with outrage to reports that the country’s federal police plan to investigate the bank accounts of an American journalist who published leaked conversations between prosecutors and the graft-busting judge who is now Jair Bolsonaro’s justice minister.

9) Enforcer of Philippines War on Drugs Defends Killing a Toddler: “Shit Happens”

David Gilbert, Vice News

The man responsible for conducting Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal war on drugs has defended the killing of a three-year-old girl during a drugs raid by saying “shit happens.”

10) In Rural Areas, Homeless People Are Harder To Find — And To Help

Mary Meehan, NPR

"A lot of people in the world don't realize it, but they are one paycheck away from being out here with us"

11) China Condemns Western ‘Hypocrisy’ on Hong Kong

Telesur

China has labeled western criticisms over Hong Kong protests as ‘hypocritical’, whilst the city’s leader Carrie Lam condemned the 'extremely violent' protests that saw demonstrators break into the Legislative Council and raise the former British colonial flag.

12) DSA/Jacobin/Haymarket-sponsored ‘Socialism’ conference features US gov-funded regime-change activists

Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal, The Grayzone

The 2019 Socialism Conference, sponsored by American leftist juggernauts the DSA, Jacobin magazine, and ISO’s Haymarket Books, features regime-change activists from multiple US government-funded NGOs.

13) UK Acting With 'Typical Imperialist Arrogance' On Iran's Tanker Seizure - Communist Party

Umer Jamshaid, Urdu Point

Thursday's interception and seizure of the Iranian oil tanker, Grace 1, by the UK Royal Marines constitutes a "reckless" provocation at a time of escalating tensions in the middle East and looks like an act of "typical UK imperialist arrogance," Robert Griffiths, the general-secretary of the UK Communist Party, told Sputnik on Friday.

14) Madrid threatens migrant rescue ship with massive fines

Alejandro López, WSWS

The acting Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is threatening the migrant rescue charity boat Proactiva Open Arms with huge fines if it continues rescuing migrants. It is part of the mounting assault on migrants throughout the world by capitalist governments, which, facing mounting domestic political opposition, are promoting nationalism and xenophobia.

15) Syriza betrayed its principles – and the Greek people. Its days are numbered

Alexander Kazamias, The Guardian

Alexis Tsipras’s party promised to fight EU-imposed austerity, but instead embraced it. Sunday’s polls will punish them.

16) Corbyn wishes Amazon 'many happy tax returns' on its 25th anniversary

Mark Sweney, The Guardian 

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has sent a barbed birthday card to Jeff Bezos to mark Amazon’s 25th anniversary, wishing the company “many happy tax returns” and demanding it pays more UK tax, pays its staff better and improves working conditions.

17) Alberta to spend $2.5M on public inquiry into 'foreign-funded special interests'

Drew Anderson · CBC News

"It's basically kind of a show trial to try and intimidate critics and people concerned about climate change into silence."

18) The living hell of young girls enslaved in Bangladesh's brothels

Corinne Redfern, The Guardian

Sold by traffickers, trapped for years and raped many times a day … this is the life of tens of thousands of underage girls in Bangladesh. We hear their stories.

19) FBI’S LENIENCY TOWARD BORDER VIGILANTE CONTRASTS WITH HARSH TREATMENT OF “BLACK IDENTITY EXTREMIST”

Trevor Aaronson, The Intercept

While militia leader Larry Hopkins remained free to terrorize immigrants, Christopher Daniels was jailed for months, losing his home and his job.

20) Israeli government minister takes credit for 27 U.S. states passing anti-BDS laws

 Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss

A leading Israeli government minister takes credit for 27 U.S. states passing laws aimed at curbing citizens’ advocacy for BDS, the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign targeting Israel.

21) Palestinian Authority thought compliance would lead to independence, but it only strengthened Israel’s domination

Noura Erakat, Mondoweiss

The following is an excerpt from Noura Erakat’s new book Justice For Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. In in Erakat outlines how the Palestinian Authority’s “illusory quest” for statehood “has shaped the Palestinian leadership’s commitment to U.S. tutelage and its reticence to embark on a bolder course based on a politics of resistance.”

22) Talib Kweli’s removal from festival lineup is part of anti-Palestinian censorship trend

Open Letter, The Guardian

103 signatories including Peter Gabriel, Naomi Klein and Boots Riley condemn attempts in Germany to impose political conditions on artists who support Palestinian rights.

23) Israel Might Apologize to Ethiopians but Will Keep Shooting at Unarmed Gazans

Gideon Levy, Haaretz

Israel’s ludicrous attempt to create islands of morality and equality in a sea of racism and violence has once again blown up in its face.

24) Sports-washing and the Toronto Raptors

Marion Kawas, Mondoweiss

If you’re a basketball fan, and also a supporter of justice for Palestine, then you have probably heard about the controversy surrounding the offer of a proposed trip to Israel for the new NBA champs the Toronto Raptors, from one of their co-owners Larry Tanenbaum.

25) Canada adopts Israel lobby’s contested definition of anti-Semitism

Nora Barrows-Friedman, Canadian Dimension

Canada has announced that it will formally adopt a definition of anti-Semitism that could characterize Palestinian rights campaigning as anti-Jewish bigotry.

26) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Other Democrats Reject “Staged” Tour of Migrant Detention Facilities

Robert Mackey, The Intercept

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ resisted the efforts of Customs and Border Protection officials to prevent her from speaking directly to migrants detained in El Paso, Texas, on Monday, forcing her way into a cell filled with women during a congressional delegation visit.

27) Border Patrol Agents Have a Secret Facebook Group, Where Racism and Sexism Prevail

Abigail Weinberg, Mother Jones

Current and former Border Patrol agents, who are responsible in part for detaining people who enter the US illegally, have displayed shocking callousness toward immigrants and women in a secret Facebook page with roughly 9,500 members.

28) 'Help': Photos show hundreds of migrants squashed into cells, appealing for assistance

Julia Ainsley and Annie Rose Ramos, NBC News

Government investigators have identified poor conditions in another sector of the southern border, publishing graphic photos showing extreme overcrowding in Rio Grande Valley migrant facilities and finding that children there did not have access to showers and had to sleep on concrete floors.

29) ‘Canada Adopts America First Foreign Policy,’ US State Dept boasted in 2017, with appointment of FM Chrystia Freeland

Ben Norton, The Grayzone

The US embassy in Ottawa boasted in a March 2017 memo, “Canada Adopts ‘America First’ Foreign Policy,” just after PM Trudeau appointed hard-line hawk Chrystia Freeland as foreign minister.

Venezuelans tell Canada to lift the economic blockade.



30) President Maduro Ratifies Commitment to Dialogue in Norway

Telesur 

The Venezuelan president said that his government is keeping open all doors for political dialogue with the opposition and said that next week there will be good news.

31) Why the US Puppet President of Venezuela is Toast

Roger Harris, Counter Punch

Even the corporate media are losing enthusiasm for the US government’s ploy to replace the democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela with the US-anointed security asset Juan Guaidó. Reuters reports in a July 1 article, “Disappointed Venezuelans lose patience with Guaidó as Maduro hangs on,” that the US-backed “military uprising” has “unraveled.” A critical reading of the article explains why.

32) 'Fundamentally Flawed': UN Expert on Bachelet Venezuela Report

Telesur

Former consultant for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the one Bachelet now leads, says her report is 'unfortunately unbalanced', calls for lifting sanctions.

33) Eternal gratitude for Cuban blood shed to win Angola’s independence

Granma

As part of his official visit to the island, Angolan President João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço met with Cuban combatants who fought in his country’s independence struggle, recalling those times.

34) Alaska: temperatures rival Miami amid 'unprecedented' heatwave

Edward Helmore, The Guardian 

Alaska’s temperatures soared to new highs on the Fourth of July as the state bisected by the Arctic Circle endures a heatwave that has shattered records in some cities.

35) India staring at a water apocalypse

Saikat Datta, Asia Times

A combination of climate change, bad policies and political apathy is steadily pushing India into a catastrophic water crisis that threatens stability in South Asia.

36) Amazon destruction accelerates 60% to one and a half soccer fields every minute

Vasco Cotovio, CNN

Amazon deforestation accelerated more than 60% in June over the same period last year, in what environmentalists say is a sign that the policies of President Jair Bolsonaro are starting to take effect.

37) Welcome to the fastest-heating place on Earth

Jonathan Watts, The Guardian 

In the world’s northernmost town, temperatures have risen by 4C, devastating homes, wildlife and even the cemetery. Will the rest of the planet heed its warning?

38) June was hottest ever recorded on Earth, European satellite agency announces

Conrad Duncan, The Independent 

Last month was the hottest June ever recorded, the EU‘s satellite agency has announced.

See also: Europe Burns, MMIWG, Bill 21 & more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos June 23 - 30