July 29 2020 — Beyond GM
In its last meeting before the summer recess, the House of Lords finally debated Amendment 275 of the Agriculture Bill, which proposed to deregulate products of gene editing in UK agriculture.
The debate, which lasted nearly two hours, saw Lords raising numerous issues, though only a few stepped off the well-trodden path of the decades-long, adversarial debate about genetic engineering in food and farming.
31 July 2020 — London Renters Union
What: Rent debt and evictions solidarity meeting
When: Wednesday 12th August 2020 6pm-8pm
Location: Via Zoom. Register here
30 July 2020 — American Herald Tribune
Back in 1919, when the “Spanish Flu” pandemic was cutting down millions of young men who had survived the Great War, similar measures were taken in many countries to those being used now to try to stop the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, including “social distancing” and mandatory mask wearing. Despite minimal technical abilities at the time, their understanding of the nature of this deadly virus was comparable with ours in practical terms, and without the enveloping fog of political and commercial agendas. The resonance with the current drive towards mask wearing, and imposition of mandatory masking in many countries, is beautifully illustrated by a research study at the time, published in a scientific journal in 1920 and now available in pdf form.
30 July 2020 — MRonline
Originally published: Granma English by Karima Oliva Bello (July 23, 2020)
Just recently, the 59th anniversary of Fidel’s quintessential words to Cuban intellectuals was commemorated. One passage in the speech is particularly noteworthy. Fidel said, and I quote:
The Revolution… must act in such a way that the entire gamut of artists and intellectuals who are not genuinely revolutionary, find that within the Revolution they have an arena in which to work and to create; and that their creative spirit, even if they are not revolutionary writers or artists, has the opportunity and freedom to be expressed. That is, within the Revolution.
30 July 2020 — Off Guardian
Demonstrators supporting Julian Assange hold banners outside Westminster Magistrates Court in London, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
The book of hours on Julian Assange is now being written. But the scribes are far from original. Repeated rituals of administrative hearings that have no common purpose other than to string things out before the axe are being enacted.
19 March, 2020 — Netpol
[I missed this. WB]
PHOTO: Brian A Jackson | Shutterstock
While everyone is currently very anxious about the future, it is important that any emergency response the government plans to adopt and implement to contain the coronavirus is fair and proportionate.
30 July 2020 — Institute of Race Relations
Policing of black communities is at the heart of the protests of the past two months, since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Today, following the revelation that five UK police forces have used the controversial Origins software, which claims to link ethnicities to names, neighbourhoods and potentially to crimes, the IRR calls on local authorities and other policing partners to question the impact of such data analytics in policing, which is the polar opposite of community policing and highly dangerous at a time when disproportionate and excessive stop and search, handcuffing and use of force have made police relations with black communities very fraught. We also draw readers’ attention to a new report by Resistance Lab on the use of tasers in Greater Manchester, that deepens our understanding of taser trauma.
30 July 2020 — Media Lens
What does it mean when journalists who spent the last two decades promoting wars of aggression on brown- and black-skinned people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen take a knee?
30 July 2020 — Tricontinental
Frew Kebede (Ethiopia), Shimutt, 2018.
Dear Friends,
Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
On 23 July, World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced that the world now has 15 million people infected by COVID-19. ‘The pandemic has disrupted the lives of billions of people. Many have been at home for months’, he said. The trauma of the Great Lockdown is taking a serious psycho-social toll. ‘It’s completely understandable that people want to get on with their lives’, Dr. Ghebreyesus said. ‘But we will not go back to the “old normal”. The pandemic has already changed the way we live our lives. Part of adjusting to the “new normal” is finding ways to live our lives safely’.
Continue reading
30 July 2020 — Black Agenda Report
Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
Black politics does not exist in the Democratic Party, because the duopoly system serves only the corporate rulers.
Continue reading
27 July 2020 — transform! Europe
Source: pinterest.com
Today we are living in times of rupture. The ecological crisis poses a threat to the survival of many communities and animal species; immense inequalities increase economic and social instability that could explode with various forms of social destruction at any time. Ten years after one economic crisis we are facing another. This time, the economic downturn is caused by the difficult-to-control coronavirus. One could only speculate about the scale of the recession, but it is already being predicted that the crisis of 2020 and its consequences will be dramatic indeed. It will affect the most vulnerable members of society – women, children, single parents, disabled persons, the old, workers, and small business owners.
29 July 2020 — Global Research News
By Allum Bokhari, July 29, 2020
The event, hosted by the organization America’s Frontline Doctors, a group founded by Dr. Simone Gold, a board-certified physician and attorney, and made up of medical doctors, came together to address what the group calls a “massive disinformation campaign” about the coronavirus. Norman also spoke at the event.
“If Americans continue to let so-called experts and media personalities make their decisions, the great American experiment of a Constitutional Republic with Representative Democracy, will cease,” reads the event’s information page.
Continue reading
29 July 2020 — 21wire
By now we all know that every revision of the ‘pandemic’ narrative is always followed by new policies. So after months of promoting the idea that the public should be living in fear of a “Second Wave” of COVID19, public health officials are attempting to revise the old script in order to keep the public on edge, and willing to accept rolling lockdowns and a supposed ‘cure’ in the form of a vaccine.
29 July 2020 — The New Dark Age
3rd Update: This is weird, the two versions of the video below (one in the comments) are not available on Youtube or Facebook, but can be viewed here! Weird. Have no idea why this is so.
2nd Update: Apparently, it can be viewed here: https://www.facebook.com/oscarguobadia/videos/428234831466336/ but for how long? I spoke too soon! It’s ALREADY been banned by Facebook.
Update: It seems that you can still watch it, at least I can, so see if it still plays.
In an impassioned speech in front of her colleagues at a hospital in Houston, Texas, a doctor talks of her experiences in using the drug Hydroxychlorquine or HCQ in the treatment of Covid-19, both as a cure and as a prophylactic (prevention).
29 July 2020 — Indian Punchline
M.K. Bhadrakumar
“Shared values but independent thinking”: Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne (L) & US State Secretary Pompeo, Washington, Jul 29, 2020
The Asian chancelleries have a great deal to mull over after the extraordinary joint press conference by the US and Australia following the AUSMIN meeting of their foreign and defence ministers in Washington, DC, on July 28. It is improbable that the Ministry of External Affairs in South Block missed out on the event.
29 July 2020 — theplanningmotivedotcom
MUST READ
The window for preserving US economic and financial hegemony is closing rapidly, concertinaed by the pandemic. The IMF data released 24th June, which is continuously being revised, gives a 9% reduction in US GDP relative to China this year. In fact, that reduction could be nearer 20%, effectively ending the reign of the US economy as the world’s largest, when measured by $GDP.
29 July 2020 — Novara Media
Jordan Osserman was knocking on doors in his east London apartment block in late April, asking his neighbours about their rental situations during the pandemic, when he noticed he was being filmed by a security guard hiding behind a stack of boxes. A few days later he was holding a banner saying “food not rent” when he noticed that, once again, he was being filmed.
29 July 2020 — Defend Wikileaks
Julian Assange faces extradition from the United Kingdom to the United States, where he has been indicted on 18 counts for obtaining, possessing, conspiring to publish and for publishing classified information. The indictment contains 17 counts under the Espionage Act of 1917 and one charge of conspiring with a source to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which uses Espionage Act language. This is the first ever use of such charges for the publication of truthful information in the public interest, and it represents a gravely dangerous attempt to criminalise journalist-source communications and the publication by journalists of classified information.
The New Dark Age 