There are reasons for Libya’s ‘chaotic’, ‘dysfunctional’ response to the disaster. And to identify them, we need to look closer to home
Middle East Eye – 15 September 2023
The reality of the West’s trademark current foreign policy – marketed for the past two decades under the principle of a “Responsibility to Protect” – is all too visible amid Libya’s flood wreckage.
Tikur Netsanet
Author Bio: This article was produced by Globetrotter.
“The worst-case scenario is unfolding in Ethiopia,” Gabriel Bizuneh tells me, as he organizes in the Ethiopian community in Washington, D.C. Once again, the federal government is at war with another region in a federal system where regions are demarcated on ethnic lines. Moreover, each region in Ethiopia has its own police force, special units, and local militia. This time, the federal government is at war with the Fano and Amhara special forces, which fought against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and have been protecting civilians from the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA)/ ONEG Shene attacks. “We have been pleading for so long for this conflict not to escalate further,” Bizuneh adds, “but Henry Kissinger’s policy of dismantling Ethiopia based on ethnicity, which the TPLF was an anchor for, remains in place.”
“We are demanding urgent answers”, say a coalition from the Doctors’ Association UK, Just Treatment and the National Pensioners Convention.
Last month they sent a legal letter to the government about the plans to centralise all UK health data into a new database, the “Federated Data Platform” (FDP). The government is currently running the procurement process for the management of the FDP and “US spy-tech firm Palantir is widely considered the bid frontrunner.”
The coalition are concerned “because, despite multiple requests, we still don’t have all the information we need about exactly how this platform will work, if and how the public will be consulted and whether the government will seek patient consent before they completely overhaul the way our most sensitive health data is managed.”
They plan to launch a judicial review if they don’t get answers.
The group say that that “Palantir mainly has a history in military, security, and policing – not health.” They also point out that “Palantir’s chair, Peter Thiel recently described British love of the NHS as “Stockholm Syndrome” adding: “In theory, you just rip the whole thing from the ground and start over.”
According to their case page: “A recent YouGov poll illustrated current public opinion about the plans. The results showed that if the FDP is brought in and run by a private company – like Palantir – 48% of adults in England who have not yet opted out [of sharing data] are likely to do so.
If even half that figure stopped sharing their health data it would be catastrophic for the future quality of NHS data – one of the most precious health resources we have as a country.”
Read the latest updates on the case here.
Thank you for support,
Maeve at CrowdJustice
Xuhui (China), ’92 Paternalism, 1992.Dear friends,
Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
In 2003, high officials from Brazil, India, and South Africa met in Mexico to discuss their mutual interests in the trade of pharmaceutical drugs. India was and is one of the world’s largest producers of various drugs, including those used to treat HIV-AIDS; Brazil and South Africa were both in need of affordable drugs for patients infected with HIV as well as a host of other treatable ailments. But these three countries were barred from easily trading with each other because of strict intellectual property laws established by the World Trade Organisation. Just a few months prior to their meeting, the three countries formed a grouping, known as IBSA, to discuss and clarify intellectual property and trade issues, but also to confront countries of the Global North for their asymmetrical demand that the poorer nations end their agricultural subsidies. The notion of South-South cooperation framed these discussions.
by All African People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP)
On July 26, 2023 in a military coup d’etat, the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) ousted Niger president Mohamed Bazoum and took control of the country. This followed recent coups in Burkina Faso, Guinea-Conakry, Mali, and Chad. These countries are bound togethe by the Sahel, a semi-arid region on the edge of the Sahara desert that stretches from the Atlantic ocean in the west and to the Red Sea in the east. The Sahel region suffers from a number of complex factors resulting from French political and economic domination designed to exploit the region’s vast natural and human resources, while subordinating the region’s sovereignty to France. The US and European powers have collaborated to promote an imperialist agenda. Consider the NATO led invasion of Libya, which led to the murder and overthrow of Pan-Africanist leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Libya then became a breeding ground for Western armed terrorist groups that destabilize the region. Because of these ongoing conflicts instigated and perpetuated by Western imperialist powers, life in the Sahel has been, and remains, hellish.
By VJ Prashad
On July 26, 2023, Niger’s presidential guard moved against the sitting president—Mohamed Bazoum—and conducted a coup d’état. A brief contest among the various armed forces in the country ended with all the branches agreeing to the removal of Bazoum and the creation of a military junta led by Presidential Guard Commander General Abdourahamane “Omar” Tchiani. This is the fourth country in the Sahel region of Africa to have experienced a coup—the other three being Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali. The new government announced that it would stop allowing France to leech Niger’s uranium (one in three lightbulbs in France is powered by the uranium from the field in Arlit, northern Niger). Tchiani’s government revoked all military cooperation with France, which means that the 1,500 French troops will need to start packing their bags (as they did in both Burkina Faso and Mali). Meanwhile, there has been no public statement about Airbase 201, the U.S. facility in Agadez, a thousand kilometers from the country’s capital of Niamey. This is the largest drone base in the world and key to U.S. operations across the Sahel. U.S. troops have been told to remain on the base for now and drone flights have been suspended. The coup is certainly against the French presence in Niger, but this anti-French sentiment has not enveloped the U.S. military footprint in the country.
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In 1955, a guy named Seymour Rosen brought a film camera into New York City’s Palladium Ballroom. Incredible footage!
The Tito Rodriquez Orchestra was on the bandstand and the place was rocking.
by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
Reuters carried a speculative report last week that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi might not attend the BRICS summit in Johannesburg in person and, furthermore, that India disfavoured an expansion of the grouping. Reuters’ long history of cold war skulduggery notwithstanding, the gullible Indian media fell for the rumour mongering.
Alexander Rubinstein and Kit Klarenberg
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), led by Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said on Thursday, August 10 that “no option had been taken off the table,” in terms of addressing the coup in Niger. Tinibu made this statement at the conclusion of the second emergency ECOWAS summit on the situation in Niger. ECOWAS also ordered the activation of a force on standby to intervene militarily in Niger.
Nigeriens participate in a march called by supporters of coup leader Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani in Niamey, Niger, July 30, 2023. Poster reads: ”Down with France, long live Putin.”The coup in the West African state of Niger on July 26 and the Russia-Africa Summit the next day in St. Petersburg are playing out in the backdrop of multipolarity in the world order. Seemingly independent events, they capture nonetheless the zeitgeist of our transformative era.
Dear friends,
Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
In late July, I visited two settlements of the Landless Rural Workers (MST) on the outskirts of São Paulo (Brazil). Both settlements are named for brave women, the Brazilian lawmaker Marielle Franco – who was assassinated in 2018 – and Irmã Alberta – an Italian Catholic nun who died in 2018. The lands where the MST has built the Marielle Vive camp and the Irmã Alberta Land Commune were slated for a gated community with a golf course, and a garbage dump, respectively. Based on the social obligations for land use in the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, the MST mobilised landless workers to occupy these areas, build their own homes, schoolhouses and community kitchens, and grow organic food.
Heads of state of Burkina Faso (Ibrahim Traoré) and of Mali (Assimi Goïta). Photo: Mali Online TV.(OrinocoTribune.com)—Burkina Faso and Mali have declared their willingness to defend Niger with armed force if France, Nigeria, or ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) were to intervene in Niger following the recent change of power.
The French military has been charged with striking Niger’s National Guard, according to the country’s new military government.
Despite the suspension of all security collaboration between France and Niger, there are still some 1,500 French troops stationed in the nation of West Africa.
Additionally, Niger claimed that France had violated its airspace; the French administration did not dispute this accusation but claimed it was for civilian purpose.
by Tylon Jones
Historians often utilize the term “primary source” to describe a piece of historical evidence. The evidence can be anything created during the period in which one is researching. From pictures to speeches, primary sources can address local, national, and international history that opens time portals into a world that allows the interpretation of history through the eyes and minds of those who lived during the researched period. These sources can be integrated seamlessly and aligned to History Standards and incorporated as primary sources into the curriculum.
AUGUST 3, 2023—The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) condemns in the strongest possible terms Kenya’s proposal to lead what amounts to a foreign armed intervention in Haiti.
The New Dark Age 