Day: November 26, 2020

US Election: A Color Revolution ‘Comes Home to Roost’

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26 November 2020 — Off Guardian

Max Parry

It has been more than three weeks since election day and the incumbent US president still has yet to concede defeat. Despite the media’s distraction over the perspiration of his personal attorney during a bizarre press conference, the legal team led by former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has actually done a decent job uncovering potential fraud in battleground states, where vote counting was delayed for several days before the former vice president was declared a “winner” by the news media and Silicon Valley.

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John Pilger: ‘I spoke to impoverished families in 1975 and little has changed since then’

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26 November 2020 — John Pilger

John Pilger interviewed Irene Brunsden in Hackney, east London about only being able to feed her two-year-old a plate of cornflakes in 1975. Now he sees nervous women queueing at foodbanks with their children as it’s revealed 600,000 more kids are in poverty now than in 2012.

A British family from the film ‘Smashing Kids’, 1975. Photograph: John Garrett

When I first reported on child poverty in Britain, I was struck by the faces of children I spoke to, especially the eyes. They were different: watchful, fearful.

In Hackney, in 1975, I filmed Irene Brunsden’s family. Irene told me she gave her two-year-old a plate of cornflakes. “She doesn’t tell me she’s hungry, she just moans. When she moans, I know something is wrong.”

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Russia, China reinvent their moorings in Central Asia

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26 November 2020 — Indian Punchline

M.K. Bhadrakumar

Soldiers from US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division line up in a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III to parachute into a drop zone in Central Asia in a spectacular display of the longest distance airborne operation in military history, Chimkent, Kazakhstan, Sept. 15, 1997.

The United States, which was de facto assuming the historical role of Great Britain in the 19th century Great Game in Central Asia, was inclined to take a relaxed view of China’s return to the region in the first decade of the post-Soviet period. China’s rise had not yet become a compelling geopolitical reality in the Central Asian region or in world politics and the US’ global strategies.

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Government plans major crackdown in 2021 on the right to protest

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26 November 2020 — Netpol

PHOTO: Shutterstock

The Conservative government is planning to introduce major changes to public order legislation to crack down on protests, under a new “Protection of the Police and Public Bill” planned for 2021.

In September, Home Secretary Priti Patel denounced environmental campaigners Extinction Rebellion as “so-called eco-crusaders turned criminals” at the Police Superintendents’ Association conference and, at the Conservative Party conference in early October, accused Black Lives Matter campaigners of “hooliganism and thuggery”.

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We Suffer from an Incurable Disease Called Hope: The Forty-Eighth Newsletter (2020)

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26 November 2020 — Tricontinental

Public health propaganda team for the elimination of four pests China 1958 2

Public Health Elimination Team for the Elimination of ‘Four Pests’, China, 1958.

Dear friends,

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

The total level of global indebtedness now sits at an astronomical $277 trillion, an increase of $15 trillion since 2019. This amount is equivalent to 365% of the global gross domestic product. The debt burden is highest in the poorest countries, where coronavirus defaults have begun; Zambia’s default is the most recent. The various programmes to suspend debt servicing payments – such as the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative – and the various programmes of aid – such as through the International Monetary Fund’s COVID-19 Financial Assistance and Debt Relief initiative – are certain to fall short. The G20 package has only covered 1.66% of debt payments, since it has failed to corral many private and multilateral lenders into its agreements.

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