Tag: current affairs – international

Rebecca Solnit: Why are US rightwingers so angry? Because they know social change is coming

White people are not being replaced, but in many ways a white supremacist history and society is…. In 2018, halfway through the Trump presidency, Michelle Alexander wrote a powerful essay arguing that we are not the resistance. We, she declared, are the mighty river they are trying to dam. I see it flowing, and I see the… Read More Rebecca Solnit: Why are US rightwingers so angry? Because they know social change is coming

Dilip

Former student leader Gabriel Boric to become Chile’s youngest president after beating far-right rival

NB: This is a truly historic moment for the Chilean people; and for all of us who are old enough to recall the terrible history of the 1973 coup. I am very happy the wheel has turned full circle after 50 years. I still recall the horror we all felt at the CIA-instigated Chilean coup of 1973; and… Read More Former student leader Gabriel Boric to become Chile’s youngest president after beating far-right rival

Dilip

US ‘dark money’ groups spend millions overseas in support of campaigns to limit or ban rights for women and LGBTQ people

US conservative groups behind a Supreme Court legal battle that could shape the future of American abortion rights have spent at least $28m around the world between 2016 and 2019 on campaigns against women’s and LGBT rights, openDemocracy reveals today. They have also received almost $100m from 2016 to 2020 from anonymous donors, funnelled through two leading US charities… Read More US ‘dark money’ groups spend millions overseas in support of campaigns to limit or ban rights for women and LGBTQ people

Dilip

Jill Lepore: Is society coming apart?

Forging stronger bonds in a post-pandemic world… will require acts of moral imagination that are not part of any political ideology or mission statement, but are functions of the human condition: tenderness, compassion, longing, generosity, allegiance and affection. These are the only answers to loneliness, alienation, dislocation and disintegration. But the fullest expression of these functions…… Read More Jill Lepore: Is society coming apart?

Dilip

Gordon Brown: A new Covid variant is no surprise when rich countries are hoarding vaccines

Despite the repeated warnings of health leaders, our failure to put vaccines into the arms of people in the developing world is now coming back to haunt us. We were forewarned – and yet here we are. In the absence of mass vaccination, Covid is not only spreading uninhibited among unprotected people but is mutating,… Read More Gordon Brown: A new Covid variant is no surprise when rich countries are hoarding vaccines

Dilip

BRAD REED: The walls appear to be "rapidly closing in" on Donald Trump / Chris Hedges – America’s Fate: Oligarchy or Autocracy

Investigators are ramping up criminal probes into former President Donald Trump, and two legal experts argue that Trump may not even be able to count on his few remaining lawyers to help him. Writing in the Washington Post, legal experts Donald Ayer and Norm Eisen argue that Trump’s decades-long evasion of legal accountability may now finally be coming to… Read More BRAD REED: The walls appear to be "rapidly closing in" on Donald Trump / Chris Hedges – America’s Fate: Oligarchy or Autocracy

Dilip

Anna Iasmi Vallianatou: The Poland-Belarus border crisis is what happens when humans are treated as weapons

Another humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding on the European Union’s doorstep. Poland has responded by deploying 20,000 border police, firing water cannon and teargas at asylum seekers, reinforcing its border fencing and blocking access for journalists and aid organisations. This need to react is understandable: Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko’s use of refugees and migrants as pawns for… Read More Anna Iasmi Vallianatou: The Poland-Belarus border crisis is what happens when humans are treated as weapons

Dilip

Hundreds of global civil society representatives walk out of Cop26 in protest

Carrying blood-red ribbons to represent the crucial red lines already crossed by Cop26 negotiations, hundreds of representatives of global civil society walked out of the convention centre in Glasgow on the final morning of the summit in protest. The audience at the People’s Plenary in the conference blue zone heard speakers condemn the legitimacy and ambition of… Read More Hundreds of global civil society representatives walk out of Cop26 in protest

Dilip

Tom Engelhardt: Welcome to the American Century / Guy Saperstein: Why I’m Leaving America

In February 17, 1941, less than 10 months before the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor and the U.S. found itself in a global war, Henry Luce, in an editorial in Life magazine (which he founded along with Time and Fortune), declared the years to come “the American Century.”  He then urged this country’s leaders to “exert upon the world the full impact of… Read More Tom Engelhardt: Welcome to the American Century / Guy Saperstein: Why I’m Leaving America

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