17 October 2018 — WSWS
On Tuesday, the New York Times published a major editorial statement warning about the “breakup of the web” amid the rise of internet censorship and international geopolitical conflicts. “If things continue along this path,” the newspaper warns, “the next decade may see the internet relegated to little more than just another front on the new cold war.”
17 October 2018 — WSWS
Yesterday’s police raids on Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s home and the headquarters of his Unsubmissive France (LFI) party in Paris are a major attack on democratic rights. It is a political operation launched on false pretences against an organization that received the votes of 20 percent of French voters in the 2017 presidential elections. If the first target is Mélenchon, fundamentally its target is rising opposition in the working class to President Emmanuel Macron’s government.
17 October 2018 — Strategic Culture Foundation
In mid-September, Putin and Turkey’s Erdogan agreed on establishing a 15 – 20 km-wide demilitarized zone in Idlib province along the Turkish border.
Russian and Turkish forces will control the zone, an offensive to liberate Idlib put on hold at least until later this year, maybe not until 2019.
Full withdrawal of US-supported terrorists was to be completed by October 15, the deadline missed because al-Nusra and allied jihadists refuse to disarm and leave – likely at the behest of Washington, their paymaster.
17 October 2018 — 21st CenturyWire
[This is a massive and comprehensive resource on the terrorist organisation, funded by the US and British imperialists, the so-called White Helmets. So large in fact, that just transposing to The New Dark Age, is too complicated due to format conversion, so I’ve decided to put up a section of it instead with a link through to the complete article. But this resource needs as wide a distribution as possible. I think it sets a benchmark for independent journalists investigating the machinations of the Empire. Read on . . . WB]
Leader of the White Helmet center in Daraa Al Balad, Abu Mohanad Al Mahamid talks to Vanessa Beeley on 20th September 2018. (Photo: Screenshot from video of interview)
Vanessa Beeley
21st Century Wire
“If you shout at us we will cry, we are so sensitive” Abu Mohanad Al Mahamid told me on the 20th September 2018. Al Mahamid is the leader of the still-functioning White Helmet center in Dara’a Al Balad to the south of Damascus in Syria. Al Mahamid had donned his white helmet for the camera before he spoke to us about the role of these White Helmets who had remained in Dara’a Al Balad, when other White Helmet members had boarded the buses for Idlib with Nusra Front or for Israel and Jordan as part of the special evacuation organised by the members of the US Coalition.
17 October 2018 — Media Lens
In June, the BBC reported that someone operating under the name ‘Philip Cross’ had been extraordinarily active in editing Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit:
‘”Philip Cross” has made hundreds of thousands of edits to Wikipedia pages. But in the process he’s angered anti-war activists and critics of British and Western foreign policy, who claim he’s been biased against them.’
17 October 2018 — Strategic Culture Foundation
Two disappearances, and two very different responses from Western governments, which illustrates their rank hypocrisy.
When former Russian spy Sergei Skripal went missing in England earlier this year, there was almost immediate punitive action by the British government and its NATO allies against Moscow. By contrast, Western governments are straining with restraint towards Saudi Arabia over the more shocking and provable case of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
17 October 2018 — Strategic Culture Foundation
NATO — the neoconservatives, the marketeers for firms such as Lockheed Martin and BAE — has taken over the social-media giants and much of online international ‘news’-reporting, including that of virtually all independent news-sites and blogs.
Facebook, Twitter, and Google, in recent days, delivered what might be the death-blows.
16 October 2018 — Climate & Capitalism
An important work of Marxist history and theory restores class struggle to central place in explaining how capitalism arose and grew, and can eventually be overcome
Henry Heller
A MARXIST HISTORY OF CAPITALISM
Routledge, 2018
reviewed by Ian Angus
17 October 2018 — NEO
American foreign policy is more and more resembling the NFL’s and broadcast networks’ pre-game football hype before the Super Bowl. For those of you who grimaced while watching former President Barack Obama touchdown dancing and pretending to be a sports hero, the current POTUS is even worse. To make matters worse for humanity, many of my countrymen fall for the whole act. Case in point, hyping America’s military might and bravado.
16 October 2018 — WSWS
NHSI is responsible for overseeing foundation trusts and NHS trusts, as well as “independent providers” operating within the NHS. This figure has been deemed “unaffordable” by NHSI. Trusts across England were already at a total deficit of £814 million at the close of June, roughly £80 million worse than the same time last year.
The New Dark Age 