Navalny Novichok Poisoning: The (Very Unlikely) Story So Far

3 September 2020 — Off Guardian

“Maybe the Russians failed on purpose because they want to scare us.”

Kit Knightly

For those of you who haven’t been following the news – Russian politician (or “opposition figure”, as he is universally referred to in the Western press) Alexei Navalny was taken ill two weeks ago. It is now being reported he was “poisoned” with “novichok”.

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Six Complexities of These Pandemic Times: The Thirty-Sixth Newsletter (2020)

3 September 2020 — Tricontinental

Staffordshire Regiment during the Plague Hong Kong 1894 6Staffordshire Regiment during the Plague, Hong Kong, 1894.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Social media, in March 2020, was awash with rumours. Swans and dolphins could be seen in totally deserted Venetian canals. A group of elephants marched into a village in Yunnan (China), drank corn wine, and went to sleep in a tea garden. With the Great Lockdown in progress, it appeared as if animals had taken charge of the planet while humans hid in our homes. But there were no swans and dolphins in Venice, nor were there drunk elephants. This was the fiction of boredom, tricks of photoshop.

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Novichok, Navalny, Nordstream, Nonsense

3 September 2020 — Craig Murray

Once Navalny was in Berlin it was only a matter of time before it was declared that he was poisoned with Novichok. The Russophobes are delighted. This of course eliminates all vestiges of doubt about what happened to the Skripals, and proves that Russia must be isolated and sanctioned to death and we must spend untold billions on weapons and security services. We must also increase domestic surveillance, crack down on dissenting online opinion. It also proves that Donald Trump is a Russian puppet and Brexit is a Russian plot.

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South African movement adopts Climate Justice Charter

2 September 2020 — Climate & Capitalism

Movement Building


Click image to download Charter (pdf)

“As Africans, we live together on a vast and beautiful continent where the human story began. All of us are linked to the first human who walked upright, dreamed, thought and co-existed with plants, animals, rivers, oceans and forests. Today this common humanity and its future is in serious danger. South Africa cannot ignore this challenge. The continued use of oil, gas and coal to power our economy and society is making our world unlivable for all life.”

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Chris Hedges: How Corporate Tyranny Works

25 August 2020 — Scheerpost

Those, like environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, who fight the corporate control of our society on behalf of the vulnerable find the institutions of power unite to crucify them.

A citizen of Guanta, Ecuador, shows a butterfly killed by oil pollution, in 2003. [AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa]


By Chris Hedges / Original to Scheerpost

The persecution of the attorney Steven Donziger is a grim illustration of what happens when we confront the real centers of power, masked and unacknowledged by the divisive cant from the Trump White House or the sentimental drivel of the Democratic Party. Those, like Donziger, who name and fight the corporate control of our society on behalf of the vulnerable see the judiciary, the press and the institutions of government unite to crucify them.

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For years, journalists cheered Assange’s abuse. Now they’ve paved his path to a US gulag

2 September 2020 — Jonathan Cook

Court hearings in Britain over the US administration’s extradition case against Julian Assange begin in earnest next week. The decade-long saga that brought us to this point should appall anyone who cares about our increasingly fragile freedoms.

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