On November 28, 2021 over 1.3 million Swiss citizens voted to reject a new Swiss law that allows the Swiss government to impose a vaccine certificate on the population. Beginning in March, 2021, only hours after the enactment of the law, efforts started to demand a national referendum. Two hundred thousand signatures later, the world’s first direct national referendum on vaccine passports was scheduled for a vote.
Both patients and staff have reported an increasing reliance on the private sector to plug NHS gaps | Nick Moore / Alamy Stock PhotoOne in five patients has been told by a doctor or another NHS professional that they would have to go private to get the treatment or test they need. That’s just one of the shocking results from a survey of nearly 7,000 openDemocracy readers – backed up by separate polling commissioned by openDemocracy.
Taliban Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi (L) met Qatari officials before talks with US/EU representatives, Doha, Nov. 27, 2021As the Taliban completes its first hundred days in power, the Western powers are groping for a face-saving formula to engage with the authorities in Kabul with some modicum of dignity.
A host of research organizations and political platforms, including the International Peoples’ Assembly, have drafted a Plan to Save the Planet which will be submitted to the UN to be adopted as a resolution
Robert F Kennedy Jr’s The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health should be front-page news in all the news media in the US. Instead, it has been met with the proverbial thundering silence.
The Biden administration, CIA, and associated cut-outs and think tanks were promoting what were supposed to be massive protests in Cuba this week, but turned out to be nearly non-existent. Deputy Director of US Affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry Johana Tablada de la Torre explains what happened to the CIA-fomented plans for protest and why the Cuban people are continuing to reject U.S. imperialism, meddling, and aggression.
UN Special Rapporteurs estimate that 100,000 people have died in Venezuela in the last decade because of the lack of medicine brought on by U.S. sanctions. Nearly 60% of those deaths took place under the Trump administration after Washington escalated its economic warfare on the Bolivarian state. During the Trump era, Jorge Arreaza served as Venezuela’s foreign minister and spent years building diplomatic ties with other nations amid Washington’s aggressive hybrid war.
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Downstream effects of the antibodies that people produce against the coronavirus spike protein may lead to myocarditis and even neurological concerns, two veteran medical researchers have written in the top medical journal in the United States.
Germán Gorraiz López
Hermann Hesse in his book “Steppenwolf” (Der Steppenwolf, 1927), captures the feeling of anguish, despair and bewilderment that gripped European society in the interwar period and is a lucid analysis of the madness of an era in which the old is dying without the new having been born. In this work he scathingly criticizes bourgeois society (“the decadence of civilization”), an invisible dictatorship that annuls the ideals of the primitive individual and transforms him into an uncritical, fearful and conformist being who, sedated by the compulsive consumerism of material goods, inevitably swells the ranks of a homogeneous, uniform and easily manipulated society.
Timothy A. Cleary/AFP via Getty ImagesJohn P.A. Ioannidis
In the past I had often fervently wished that one day everyone would be passionate and excited about scientific research. I should have been more careful about what I had wished for. The crisis caused by the lethal COVID-19 pandemic and by the responses to the crisis have made billions of people worldwide acutely interested and overexcited about science. Decisions pronounced in the name of science have become arbitrators of life, death, and fundamental freedoms. Everything that mattered was affected by science, by scientists interpreting science, and by those who impose measures based on their interpretations of science in the context of political warfare.
Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and large parts of the US are sliding into a dark period of authoritarianism. We’ve seen a sudden imposition of vaccine mandates (which are soon to require boosters), domestic vaccine passports, and Austria even put millions of unvaccinated citizens under lockdown. As I told the BBC, this is a stain on the human rights record of Europe – and yet many rights institutions appear to have been scared into silence (you can read more about this in my op-ed for the Telegraph – un-paywalled copy here).
The “Great Narrative” is at hand! The author of the “Great Reset”, Klaus Schwab just launched another initiative at his World Economic Forum (WEF) in the UAE. And the world should be dully impressed, I am sure, but most people of earth will not be. WEF and most other institutions are walking a credibility tightrope these days. And how many resets is this now?
Rittenhouse and Verdict Mania
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Black people give great attention to certain court cases in hopes of receiving justice when the system is designed to be unjust. That recognition and the commitment to fighting back will be of greater use than divining conclusions about a racist nation when juries reach verdicts.
The Delusional Commitment to the Doctrine of “Full Spectrum Dominance” is leading the U.S. and the World to Disaster
Ajamu Baraka, BAR Editor and Columnist
U.S. actions around the world seem mysterious unless the commitment to white supremacist notions of domination is clearly understood.
The corporate drive for profit frequently takes the form of a psychopathic monomania. But among the many horsemen of the corporate apocalypse, Royal Dutch Shell has a particular record of infamy.
You may have seen that Priti Patel has been dis-invited to an upcoming summit of European Ministers this weekend to discuss the tragedy in the Channel.
As the Home Secretary won’t be meeting with European Ministers to discuss policy, it’s more important than ever that the Government hears our calls for safe routes now loud and clear.
November 10, 2021
By Michael Swifte
There should be encampments and occupations in and near Middlesborough and Hull. There should be. If the spirit of Earth First and actual environmentalism was with us, perhaps there would be.
It’s not much fun being a Conservative backbench MP at the moment. No 10 is reportedly threatening them with the withdrawal of funding for their constituencies if they don’t toe the party line in Commons votes.
No 10 reportedly made these threats to force MPs to spare Tory MP Owen Paterson from suspension, after he broke parliamentary rules by lobbying for a private firm that paid him £100,000 a year. One backbencher said MPs were told “they would lose funding for their constituency” if they failed to vote with the Prime Minister.
Yesterday 24 November 2021, at least 27 men, women and children died attempting to reach safety in the UK. Our hearts go out to the families and loved ones of all those who have lost their lives.
The tragic truth is that these deaths could, and should, have been prevented.
Priti Patel failed to prevent them. She must resign.
Join our calls for her to resign.
| Tell Priti to resign |
A farmer at the protest encampment at Delhi’s Singhu Border carries the flag of the All India Kisan Sabha, 21 November 2021. Subin Dennis / Tricontinental: Institute for Social ResearchDear friends,
Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
On 19 November 2021, a week before the first anniversary of the farmers’ revolt, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi surrendered. He accepted that the three laws on agricultural markets that had been pushed through the parliament in 2020 would be repealed. The farmers of India had won. The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), one of the organisers of the protest movement, celebrated the triumph and declared that ‘this victory gives more confidence for future struggles’.
