I swear, I can’t hear well. Photo: Osval, Granma “Havana Syndrome” came out as an accusation, first, against Cuba, and then, against Russia. Now, the CIA has found the fact: No hostile power, no foreign enemy was involved with the so-called Havana Syndrome. A report by NBC News – CIA says ‘Havana Syndrome’ not result of sustained global campaign by hostile power[Read More…]
The short expiration dates of vaccines donated to the sharing program is a major problem, Etleva Kadilli, an official concerned with the issue told the European Parliament (EP) on Thursday. The official heads the Supply Division of UNICEF, the UN’s agency for the betterment of children’s lives worldwide. “Until we have a better shelf life, this is going to be[Read More…]
The Pacific may well be the part of the world most likely to see “strategic surprise,” the U.S. Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell said on Monday, in comments apparently referring to possible Chinese ambitions to establish Pacific-island bases. Enormous Strategic Interests On January 11, 2022, a Washington datelined Reuters report said: Campbell told Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)[Read More…]
The World Economic Forum (WEF) warns: The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic may take years to reign in. The WEF has also sheds light on major concerns regarding the future from the globe’s economic elite. “Covid-19 and its economic and societal consequences continue to pose a critical threat to the world. Vaccine inequality and a resultant uneven economic recovery risk[Read More…]
A French privacy watchdog accused the tech giants Google and Facebook of making it difficult for users to opt out of tracking their activity. France’s online privacy regulator has ordered Google and Facebook to cough up some €210 million ($237 million) between them, fining the firms for their questionable use of data-tracking ‘cookies’ on their sites. A report by The[Read More…]
Riots flared up in several cities of Kazakhstan on January 2. Later they erupted in other cities, including in Almaty, the largest city in the country, and on January 5, the riots snowballed into mass riots and violence, along with looting and attacks on state buildings. The rioters beheaded 2 police officers. At least 18 security officers were killed by[Read More…]
Joint statement of the leaders of the five Nuclear-Weapon States on preventing nuclear war and avoiding arms races Leaders of the five Nuclear-Weapon States, namely China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States on Jan 3 Monday issued a joint statement on preventing nuclear war and avoiding arms races. The following is the full text of the statement: The People’s[Read More…]
Five former chiefs of staff of the armed forces and over a hundred other people including veterans, bureaucrats, and prominent citizens have written to President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding “open call of the genocide of Indian Muslims” at various events, most recently in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar and Delhi. The letter also mentions targeting of other minorities[Read More…]
A Japanese former politician who campaigned to bring billions of dollars of investment from some of Japan’s top companies to Myanmar has urged Japan to endorse its military regime, saying the nation’s coup leader has “grown fantastically as a human being,” while praising his “democratization efforts.” A Reuters report said: The 87-year-old former cabinet minister, Hideo Watanabe, is also pursuing[Read More…]
Citing Nieznany, a 73-year-old Vietnam veteran, a Newsweek report said: Millions of fellow would-be insurrectionists will be there, too, says, “a ticking time-bomb” targeting the Capitol. “There are lots of fully armed people wondering what is happening to this country,” he says. “Are we going to let Biden keep destroying it? Or do we need to get rid of him?[Read More…]
The Pacific Collective on Nuclear Issues, a group of civil society and student organizations, has categorically denied the veracity of a report released by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. (TEPCO), vowing to oppose Japan’s planned mass disposal of wastewater stored at the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant. The strong objection comes a day after TEPCO submitted a detailed plan to the[Read More…]
Three retired U.S. army generals warned of an insurrection or even civil war if the results of the 2024 presidential election were not accepted by some in the military. Former Major Gen. Paul Eaton, former Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, and former Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson made the warnings in an op-ed in The Washington Post on Friday. They wrote that they were[Read More…]
Apruebo Dignidad candidate Gabriel Boric has won Chile’s presidential elections in a historic victory for the Left in Latin America. Left-wing former student leader Gabriel Boric has beat out far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast with nearly 100% of the votes tallied, according to figures published by Chile’s electoral authorities SERVEL. Gabriel Boric has become the nation’s youngest leader in modern times. Boric, 35,[Read More…]
The U.S. military drastically undercounted civilian deaths caused by airstrikes in the Middle East since 2014, according to a New York Times investigation published Saturday. The New York Times reviewed a hidden Pentagon archive comprised of the military’s confidential assessments of over 1,300 reports of civilian casualties in airstrikes, and found, “since 2014, the American air war has been plagued by deeply flawed intelligence,[Read More…]
Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping agreed in a video call on Wednesday: Russia and China should stand firm in rejecting Western interference and defending each other’s security interests. The two presidents’ conversation, eight days after Putin spoke to U.S. President Joe Biden in a similar format, underscored how U.S.-Europe hostility to Russia and China is bringing the two powerful[Read More…]
The UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution condemning Nazism, neo-Nazism and all forms of racism, and the U.S. and Ukraine voted against it, while a few countries, mainly US allies, abstained. The resolution was co-sponsored by Russia. On December 16, the UN General Assembly passed its annual resolution on “Combating Glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling[Read More…]
The two Wall Street investment-banking titans dominating this year’s dealmaking frenzy are opening up their wallets to try to keep their bankers happy – and ratcheting up pressure on rivals to follow suit. Media reports including reports by Bloomberg said: U.S. investment bank JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are reportedly planning to award their investment bankers with major bonuses in[Read More…]
High temperature seems scorching the Arctic. The United Nations logged the hottest temperature in history in the Arctic, finding that the Russian town of Verkhoyansk hit 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 Fahrenheit) in the summer of 2020. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced the record heat in Verkhoyansk in a Tuesday press release, explaining that a meteorological station in the region completed the[Read More…]
Russia President Vladimir Putin has lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago as the demise of what he called “historical Russia” and said the economic crisis that followed was so bad he was forced to moonlight as a taxi driver. A Reuters report from Moscow said: Putin’s comments, released by state TV on Sunday, are likely to[Read More…]
A secret U.S. Air Force (USAF) drone strike unit was allowed to operate in Syria for five years even as it broke rules of engagement and civilian casualties mounted, it has been revealed in a report by New York Times that cited multiple current and former military and intelligence officials. The New York Times report (Civilian Deaths Mounted as Secret[Read More…]
A Caribbean-based prime minister, a scientist, a group of indigenous women, and an entrepreneur were announced on Tuesday as this year’s winners of the United Nations’ Champions of the Earth awards. According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the all-female Champions were chosen for their impact and leadership in advancing bold action on behalf of people and the planet. “These Champions of[Read More…]
The quantity of plastic used in agriculture, food industries, livestock, etc. industries the world over is millions of tones each year. Asia is the largest user of plastic in these industries. Plastic pollution is a threat to food security. Excess salt in soil also puts food security at risk. Recent reports from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)[Read More…]
The disparity in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions between rich and poor countries, and between rich and poor people within countries is just as extreme as economic inequality, a new report finds. Overall, emissions are closely correlated with income, according to a report released Tuesday by the World Inequality Lab, a Paris-based research organization. “Wealthy individuals pollute much more than low-income[Read More…]
The world’s richest people got a whole lot richer during the COVID-19 crisis. In 2021, billionaires saw the steepest increase in their share of wealth on record, according to The World Inequality Lab’s annual World Inequality Report. The top 0.01% richest individuals — the 520,000 people who have at least $19 million — now hold 11% of the world’s wealth, up[Read More…]
Residents in a city in U.S. turned victims of industrial hazard. A smell sickened Los Angeles County residents for months. Some 3,200 residents in Carson and surrounding cities were forced to temporarily relocate to hotel rooms. A report by Julian Mark in The Washington Post (A smell sickened L.A. County residents for months. Officials say a fire that torched wellness[Read More…]
“Cuba reaffirms its support and solidarity with the Nicaraguan people and government,” said a statement from Cuba’s ministry of foreign affairs. Cuba has applauded Nicaragua’s decision to renounce the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS) and resign from this multinational organization controlled by the U.S. The Cuban foreign ministry’s statement said: “The OAS has remained silent on multiple[Read More…]
During the inauguration ceremony of the recently elected mayors and governors, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro called on the new authorities to develop a system of government based on the principles of popular power. Beyond Bourgeois Democracy “We must govern to build the People’s new power from Venezuelan Socialism. I will insist on this a thousand times: we must build a new[Read More…]
Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean is at its highest point since 2000, after a 30 percent increase in the number of people suffering hunger from 2019 to 2020, says a new UN report. According to the Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2021, in just one year, and in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of[Read More…]
Security forces fired tear gas at anti-coup protesters in the Sudanese capital on Tuesday, as tens of thousands marched in the latest demonstrations against a military takeover that took place last month. Thousands of people protested near the presidential palace in central Khartoum, the capital city. Protesters took to the streets in Khartoum and other cities around the country to[Read More…]
Britain, Germany and Italy confirm cases of Omicron while other countries suspect cases of their own. Chaos at a Dutch airport exemplified the scattershot response across Europe. A New York Times report (Covid News: Omicron Variant Puts Nations on Alert, Nov. 27, 2021) said: Scientists raced to study a new coronavirus variant as several cases were spotted in Europe and[Read More…]
In a major victory for the agitating farmers in India, a bill to cancel the three contentious farm laws was passed in record time in both houses of the parliament. The government plans to get it signed by the President by tonight. The Farm Laws Repeal bill was passed in Lok Sabha within four minutes – it was tabled at[Read More…]
At least 20 Sudanese troops have reportedly died following clashes with Ethiopian forces on the countries’ shared border. Media reports from the conflict area said: Sudanese soldiers fell into an ambush on Saturday after traveling across the Atbara river and being bombarded. However, Sudan’s army released a statement on Saturday reporting that it delivered “heavy losses of life” against Ethiopian troops and[Read More…]
Food prices rose to a 10-year high last month, hitting peak since July 2011 and extending the 30% increase recorded last year, according to a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report. The surge was led by increases in cereal crops like wheat and vegetable oils. The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks the international prices of food commodities, is up 3.9 per cent from September, rising for a third consecutive[Read More…]
Amazon employees worldwide are planning to strike on one of the busiest shopping days of the year The strikes are set to take place at factories, warehouses, data centers, corporate offices and oil refineries across the world, including sites in Minnesota, California, Boston and New York City. The plan is to organize the work stoppage for Black Friday in more than 20 countries[Read More…]
The United Socialist Party (PSUV) landed a comprehensive victory in Venezuela’s regional and local elections, winning 83% of the governorships. According to initial results from the National Electoral Council (CNE) on Sunday night, PSUV, the ruling party, secured at least 19 of the 23 governorships, and the important Caracas mayoralty. The PSUV also successfully overturned rightwing incumbents in Mérida, Táchira[Read More…]
Protests were held in Turkey’s largest city Istanbul and the capital Ankara on Nov. 23 after the lira’s historic crash. Protesters were demanding the resignation of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government over skyrocketing inflation. The protests come amid an escalating currency crisis. The Turkish lira has gone from $0.1 to $0.078 in value just over the past week,[Read More…]
Political uncertainties are continuing in Sudan as 12 Sudanese ministers have resigned in protest of deal with military. Media reports said: The cabinet ministers on Monday submitted their resignation to Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, in protest of a political deal with the country’s ruling military council. On Sunday, Hamdok was reinstated after signing a political agreement with the head[Read More…]
Sudan’s ousted Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has been reinstated following last month’s coup when he was put under house arrest. But uncertainties remain in Sudan’s politics. Hamdok has appeared on TV to sign a new power-sharing agreement with coup leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan amid continuing mass protests. But the civilian coalition that nominated Hamdok as PM two years ago[Read More…]
Protesters in Sudan have vowed to escalate demonstrations after the deadliest day since a military coup deposed the country’s civilian-led transitional government last month. Street clashes again shook Khartoum as internet services returned to Sudan on Thursday, a day after 15 protesters were killed in the bloodiest violence since the country’s October 25 coup. At least 39 have been killed since the military[Read More…]
During a meeting with the French President Emmanuel Macron held in Paris on Wednesday, Brazil’s former President Lula da Silva denounced that malnutrition, hunger, and poverty have increased in Brazil since rightist Jair Bolsonaro came to power in January 2019. “A few weeks ago, Bolsonaro was ignored because the French president refused to receive him at the government headquarters. Today, Lula[Read More…]
Tens of thousands of supporters of Sri Lanka’s main opposition party rallied in the capital Colombo to protest the nation’s economic woes. This is the first major campaign against Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government since it swept to power last August. Defying heavy sporadic rains, tightened Covid-19 guidelines and court orders, supporters of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya — led[Read More…]
Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden in a virtual meeting on Tuesday discussed strategic and fundamental issues on the development of bilateral relations. The first face-to-face virtual meeting between the top two leaders lasted more than three hours. They opened their talks on a friendly note. Chinese observers said that the meeting will inject certainty into the[Read More…]
Hundreds of protesters marched from the Thai capital Bangkok’s Pathumwan intersection to the German embassy on Sunday to submit a petition in response to a recent court ruling which determined that calls for reform of the institution was akin to treason. It was the largest protest the country has seen in months. Media reports said: The demonstrators gathered in response[Read More…]
‘Cheering for any team is not illegal’: Justice Deepak Gupta. But Sedition cases booked against three students in UP simply for hailing the winning team Virat Kohli and Mohammed Rizwan, Captains of Indian and Pakistan cricket teams share a hug at the end of the T20 World Cup game in Dubai on October 24, 2021, while Babar Azam exults at[Read More…]
With climate crisis, what roles can an individual play? An individual has much scope to play role in facing the crisis. An ABC News report — COP26: This is what individuals can do to slow down climate change, according to experts — by Julia Jacobo (November 1, 2021, https://abcnews.go.com/US/cop26-individuals-slow-climate-change-experts/story?id=80799029) said: “As the leaders of the world gather in Glasgow to[Read More…]
Facing diminished hopes ahead of what many see as world leaders’ last chance to combat the climate crisis, Britain’s Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, on Monday called for a “warlike” effort as he opened a key United Nations climate summit. Prince Charles has suggested the audience during his speech at the COP26 climate conference that world governments had[Read More…]
More than 400 private jets carrying politicians and business executives to this week’s conference will belch out 13,000 tons of carbon dioxide, exceeding the emissions of 1,600 average Scots for a full year, according to an estimate by the Scotland’s Daily Record (Private jets flying to COP26 in Glasgow will blast more CO2 than Scots pump out in a year, by John[Read More…]
Just days before world leaders meet in Glasgow, Scotland, for the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), a new report has revealed just how far off course we are to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and limiting the impacts of global warming. From October 31 to November 12, the leaders of the world are gathering in Glasgow for[Read More…]
The world’s largest economies will suffer severe human and economic consequences of climate change, especially if no action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to a new study (G20 Climate Risk Atlas, Impacts, Policy, Economics, https://files.cmcc.it/g20climaterisks/G20_all.pdf) from the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), an Italian research center. “From droughts, heatwaves and sea level rise, to dwindling food supplies[Read More…]
Weather extremes can cause economic ripples along supply chains. If they occur at roughly the same time, the ripples start interacting and can amplify, even if they occur at completely different places around the world, a new study – “Ripple Resonance Amplifies Economic Welfare Loss from Weather Extremes” – by Kilian Kuhla, Sven Norman Willner, Christian Otto, Tobias Geiger and Anders Levermann (published on 27[Read More…]
Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso on Wednesday called for dialogue following a second day of demonstrations by indigenous and social groups against gasoline price rises. The President said his government would keep security forces on highways to maintain order. Media reports said: Thousands of demonstrators marched on Tuesday in rejection of Lasso’s increase of the price of gasoline extra, a cheaper[Read More…]
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has returned home with his wife under tight security, the prime minister’s office said on its Facebook account on Tuesday. Some ministers remain in detention and may be facing a trial. Since early Monday, Hamdok and some of his ministers were arrested with civilian members in the Sovereign Council. Earlier on Tuesday, General Commander of[Read More…]
A military coup in Sudan has dealt a sharp reversal to one of Africa’s most heralded and closely watched democratic transitions, igniting street protests by thousands of pro-democracy supporters and triggering a harsh crackdown that left scores of people dead or injured from military gunfire. Early on Monday, the military dissolved Sudan’s transitional government and the Sovereign Council, a joint[Read More…]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday downgraded its 2021 economic growth forecast for Asia after the Covid-19 delta variant caused a spike in cases in parts of the region. The IMF said it expects Asia’s economy to grow by 6.5% in 2021, compared with its April forecast for a 7.6% expansion. “The global COVID-19 pandemic is still ravaging the region,”[Read More…]
The situation in Afghanistan is yet to calm down. Women are facing hard time and threats. The Taliban are also wearing down with problems of governance. Internal Divisions, Even Resentment A Christian Science Monitor report, ‘Why did we fight?’ Challenge of governing is wearing down Taliban, by Scott Peterson on October 21, 2021 said: “The veteran Taliban fighter once strove[Read More…]
Africa’s 1.3 billion people remain “extremely vulnerable” as the continent warms more, and at a faster rate, than the global average, warns the UN. Yet Africa’s 54 countries are responsible for less than 4% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In State of the Climate in Africa 2020 (https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10833), a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and other[Read More…]
The La Niña, a natural cycle marked by cooler-than-average ocean water in the central Pacific Ocean, is back, U.S. federal forecasters announced Thursday. It is happening for the second straight year. The La Niña (Spanish for “little girl”) climate pattern is one of the main drivers of weather around the world, especially during the late fall, winter and early spring. It is[Read More…]
Colin Powell, the first black secretary of state who saw his legacy tarnished when he made the case for war in Iraq in 2003, died on Monday from complications from COVID-19. News of his death elicited strong reaction in Iraq, which has paid the price of what they call “never-ending wars”. Many of them wish he had been tried of[Read More…]
The global debt has jumped to a new high of $226 trillion, said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on October 13, 2021. As reason of this leap in global debt, the IMF has cited the Covid-19 and policies put in place to respond to it. Global debt in 2020, including public and private borrowing, “jumped by 14 percent to a record high $226 trillion,”[Read More…]
At least six people were killed and over 60 people were injured in the most violent street fighting in the Lebanese capital Beirut in years Thursday. According to the medics, all victims were shot in the head and the chest. Heavy gunfire broke out during a protest organized by the Iran-backed Hezbollah and its Shiite allies from the Amal Movement[Read More…]
Carbon emissions are rebounding strongly and are rising across the world’s 20 richest nations, according to a new study. The Climate Transparency Report, Comparing G20 Climate Action and Responses to the Covid-19 Crisis (https://www.climate-transparency.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Climate-Transparency-Report-2020.pdf) says that CO2 will go up by 4% across the G20 group this year, having dropped 6% in 2020 due to the pandemic. The 2020 edition of[Read More…]
The number of migrant children who cross the Darien Gap on foot has hit an all-time high, UNICEF warned today. The Darien Gap is an extensive and inhospitable strip of tropical forest that divides Panama and Colombia, considered one of the most dangerous places for migrants attempting to reach North America. On their trek north towards the U.S., some 19,000[Read More…]
With most women not permitted to possess bank accounts in Afghanistan, cryptocurrency has become a critical lifeline for women fleeing the country. A media report said: The fall of Kabul has seen more than 600,000 people fleeing the Taliban regime and, without access to bank accounts, Afghan women were immediately put in a precarious position in their ability to help[Read More…]
Much of infrastructure in the U.S. is already at risk of being shut down by flooding, and as the global warming continues, the threat is expected to grow. a new report finds One-in-four pieces of all critical infrastructures in the U.S. including police and fire stations, hospitals, airports and wastewater treatment facilities face substantial risk of being rendered inoperable by[Read More…]
Between 2009 and 2018, the continuous rise in sea temperature cost the world 14 per cent of its coral reefs – that’s more than the size of Australia’s reefs combined – an UN-backed report revealed on Tuesday. In the Sixth Status of Corals of the World: 2020 Report, experts from the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, funded by the UN Environment[Read More…]
Air pollutants are responsible for 7 million premature deaths a year worldwide, says the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO has called it “one of the greatest environmental risks to health.” On 22 September 2021, the WHO has issued strict new standards for air pollution levels. Data suggests that the air in many regions across the U.S. contains much higher[Read More…]
1.26 billion people at highest risk of conflict and displacement caused by environmental damage. A vicious cycle linking the depletion of natural resources with violent conflict may have gone past the point of no return in parts of the world and is likely to be exacerbated by climate change, said a report on Thursday. Food insecurity, lack of water and[Read More…]
About half of the world’s population will suffer from water insecurity by 2050, found The State of Climate Services 2021: Water , a new report from the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The report said: More than 2 billion people are living in countries under water stress and 3.6 billion people face inadequate access to water at least one month per[Read More…]
Independent film-maker Rajkumari Asthana has produced a documentary on the ongoing farmer’s struggle in India. It is the first episode of a series called Jab Tak Raat Baki Hai, planned as a people’s history of the farmer’s movement. Anand Patwardhan’s Vikalp@Prithvi showed the film last weekend. This is an independent, completely non-commercial effort.
Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen claimed that the social media giant for prioritizing profits over public safety. Haugen, who worked on the company’s Civic Integrity team until it was dissolved shortly after the 2020 election, said that Facebook has been a major contributor to divisions in society. “Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people[Read More…]
Pandora Papers – recently leaked papers – show how some of the world’s elites accumulate property empires while avoiding millions of dollars in taxes. More than 100 billionaires and others have been exposed by the Pandora Papers obtained from 14 offshore banking institutions and analyzed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The ICIJ obtained the trove of more[Read More…]
North Korea fired a newly developed anti-aircraft missile on Thursday, North Korean state media KCNA reported, the latest in a recent series of weapons tests that has come as denuclearization talks with the U.S. have been in deadlock. It was North Korea’s second known weapons test this week after the launch of a previously unseen hypersonic missile on Tuesday. It[Read More…]
Pope Francis thanked a youth climate activist conference on Wednesday for the participants’ “dreams and projects of goodness” and encouraged them to keep up their advocacy of action to combat climate change. Speaking in Spanish via video to the Youth4Climate event in Milan, which drew 400 young activists from 197 countries, the Pope said their work is “for the good of humanity,”[Read More…]
Afghanistan is now a hot issue among the world powers. China has talked to NATO while Russian Foreign Minister has said about a common approach by U.S., China, Russia and Pakistan. Media reports said: China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has held a virtual meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, amid longstanding disagreements between[Read More…]
Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, a co-founder of the Taliban who will control prisons under the new regime in Afghanistan, said strict punishment, including amputations and executions, will return. “Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi said in Kabul during an interview, which was published Thursday by the[Read More…]
Hundreds of environment defenders have been murdered in countries. Environment defenders face lethal attacks and violence. Global Witness in Last Line of Defence report said: In 2020, we recorded 227 lethal attacks – an average of more than four people a week – making it once again the most dangerous year on record for people defending their homes, land and[Read More…]
A business bad in standard of business has been done, and the business involves the World Bank (WB) and China. Media reports said: Some investors and campaigners expressed dismay on September 17, 2021 at revelations that the WB leaders pressured staff to boost China’s score in an influential report that ranks countries on how easy it is to do business[Read More…]
People trying to migrate to the U.S. tell their stories, which have been collected from media reports. Migrant Charlie Jean had crossed back into Ciudad Acuña from the camps to get food for his wife and three daughters, ages 2, 5 and 12. He was waiting on the Mexican side for a restaurant to bring him an order of rice.[Read More…]
In a massive show of force, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) mounted officers attempted to contain migrants as they crossed the Rio Grande from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, into Del Rio, Texas, on September 19, 2021. Thousands of Haitian migrants have been arriving to Del Rio, Texas, as authorities attempt to close the border to stop the flow of[Read More…]
Female employees of the Kabul municipality have been told to stay home, with work only allowed for those who cannot be replaced by men, the interim mayor of Afghanistan’s capital said Sunday, detailing the latest restrictions on women by the new Taliban rulers. The decision to prevent most female city workers from returning to their jobs is another sign that[Read More…]
Fatima Kakkar, MD, MPH (@DrFatimaKakkar) wrote: Proudly wearing in our traditional, colourful, vibrant Afghan clothes #DoNotTouchMyClothes #AfghanWoman #AfghanistanCulture #AfganistanWomen Afghan women are protesting Taliban imposed women dress code. At the same time, Taliban organized a head to toe veiled women gathering at the Shaheed Rabbani Education University in Kabul on September 11, 2021 attended by a few dozens of women[Read More…]
Cyprus. Cuba. Turkey. Canada. Northern Ireland. Antarctica. All recorded their hottest-ever temperatures in the last two years, and according to a new study, more such extremes are coming. A Reuters report said: In the next three decades, “record-shattering” heat waves could become two to seven times more frequent in the world than in the last 30 years, scientists report in[Read More…]
“Cloud research is a tricky business. Clouds sometimes have a warming effect on the local climate and sometimes a cooling effect — it all depends on the type of cloud, the local climate and a variety of other conditions. “One of the most fundamental questions about climate change is also one of the thorniest: How much, exactly, will the Earth[Read More…]
Less than three months before leaving office, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has openly conceded that the industrial world has failed to adequately fight climate change and that more rapid, pain-inducing steps were urgently needed. Media reports said: Merkel, who has led Europe’s largest economy and one of the world’s leading emitters of CO2 for the last 16 years, reflected on her own bitter experience.[Read More…]
A widespread heatwave has begun across the contiguous U.S., with at least 35 million people likely to see temperatures reach or exceed 100°F by the end of the week. Heat alerts are in place across at least 16 states in the south, midwest and western U.S. Media reports said: The hot weather, which comes courtesy of another heat dome building[Read More…]
Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Saturday that Cuba is an “example of resistance,” and proposed the entire country should be declared a World Heritage site. Media reports said: The Mexican President praised Cuba’s ability to stand up to U.S. hostility since 1959. López Obrador has in the past stated his opposition to U.S. sanctions that limit commerce with[Read More…]
People from different walks of life are standing in support of revolution in Cuba. They are calling to defend the revolution in Cuba. Leading artists, intellectuals, personalities, U.S. lawmakers are calling on the U.S. government to withdraw blockade against Cuba. A Granma report said: As another reliable example of the rejection generated in the international community by the hostile policy[Read More…]
Threat for imperialist intervention in Cuba is increasing. A Havana, July 22, 2021 datelined AP report said: Cuba criticized the US and President Joe Biden on Wednesday for a series of statements by senior officials, accusing the US government of seeking to justify a military intervention. The report said: Johana Tablada, deputy director for US affairs at Cuba’s Ministry of[Read More…]
The UN voiced alarm Monday at reports that several governments used Israeli phone malware to spy on activists, journalists and others, stressing the urgent need for better regulation of surveillance technology. Media reports said: The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said the apparent widespread use of Pegasus spy software to illegally undermine the rights of those under surveillance, including journalists[Read More…]
NSO Group, a private Israeli firm that sells surveillance technology to governments worldwide, insists that its Pegasus spyware is used only to “investigate terrorism and crime.” Leaked data, however, reveals that the company’s hacking tool “has been used to facilitate human rights violations around the world on a massive scale.” That’s according to an investigative report published Sunday by the[Read More…]
Heavy rainfall that has triggered deadly and catastrophic flooding in several western European countries, is just the latest indicator that all nations need to do more to hold back climate change-induced disasters, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Friday. The UN agency said that countries including Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands had received up to two months’ rain[Read More…]
There is a bloody surge” impacting humanitarian crises around the world, with civilians in conflict zones paying the highest price, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres told the UN Security Council on Friday. UN’s and media reports said: The UN secretary general’s speech to the U.N. Security Council was read by UN deputy secretary-general Amina Mohammed. The UN chief cited Ethiopia’s Tigray[Read More…]
Cornel West, prominent professor of African American studies and progressive activist, said this week that his resignation from Harvard University was driven by a tenure dispute and the Ivy League school’s “intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy.” According to media reports, Cornel West said in a letter dated June 30: “How sad it is to see our beloved Harvard Divinity School in such decline[Read More…]
The number of people in the world affected by hunger continued to increase in 2020 under the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic, says the annual UN report – The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World – published on Monday. According to the report, “Even in Northern America and Europe, where the lowest rates of food insecurity are found,[Read More…]
As California faces devastating drought the U.S. state’s governor Gavin Newsom has asked people and businesses to voluntarily cut their water use by 15%. The western U.S. weathers a devastating drought. Reservoirs across California, which are depended on for agriculture, drinking water and fish habitat, have dwindled to dangerously low levels and some counties have already enacted mandatory water restrictions. Agriculture and tourism could[Read More…]
Lebanon is facing shortages of fuel and electricity. The price of bread has risen again in bakeries and stores in Lebanon as a result of rising production costs and the free-falling pound, the Lebanese Economy Ministry said Saturday. Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri is slated to present President Michel Aoun this week with a new Cabinet lineup in a last-ditch[Read More…]
As another heatwave hits the U.S. West this weekend, firefighters struggled to contain an exploding Northern California wildfire under blazing temperatures. On Friday, Death Valley National Park in California recorded a staggering high of 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 Celsius) and could reach the same high on Saturday. If verified, the 130-degree reading would be the hottest high recorded there since[Read More…]
The historic heat wave that struck the Pacific Northwest and killed hundreds of people would have been “virtually impossible without human-caused climate change,” an international team of climate researchers said in a new report. The World Weather Attribution’s analysis, published July 8, 2021, Wednesday, found that the record-setting heat that triggered wildfires and was linked to hundreds of deaths was a one-in-a-1,000-year event that “would have been[Read More…]
A study has found that nearly all French people are contaminated with heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury, and that exposure levels are higher than in other European countries. A RFI report said: France’s national health agency Santé Publique France said smoking and the consumption of fish and seafood products had contributed to the findings, published recently. The presence[Read More…]
Statues of Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Victoria were torn down by protesters in Winnipeg, Canada. The latest acts of protests followed a spree of attacks on Catholic churches built on First Nation lands. At least seven churches have caught fire in recent weeks, since the grim discovery of more than 1,100 unmarked graves at sites where Catholic-run residential schools used to[Read More…]
In Brazil, social movements, trade unions, and human rights activists on Saturday demonstrated in at least 350 cities to condemn the recent corruption scandal linking President Jair Bolsonaro with the purchase at inflated prices of Indian-produced Covaxin COVID-19 vaccines. The protests supported the impeachment petition submitted by unions, left political parties and social organizations to the Lower House on Wednesday. The nationwide mobilizations come after the Senate Commission[Read More…]
Extreme drought is tearing apart communities in a massive river basin along the U.S. states of Oregon-California border. Farmers, tribes and wildlife face a bleak future together. At the same time, water futures market is also failing the California farmers. A Guardian report – “Running out of water: how climate change fuels a crisis in the US west” – said[Read More…]
The Taliban has “prevailed” in its battle with the West in Afghanistan, said General Lord Dannatt, the former head of the British Army as it emerged all UK and U.S. troops will be withdrawn on Sunday. Writing in The Telegraph, General Lord Dannatt said: “Ultimately, Taliban force of arms has prevailed, and the people of that country have been denied the[Read More…]
The ‘heat dome’ over western Canada and parts of the U.S. Pacific northwest is taking its toll: Already hundreds of deaths. A Reuters report from Vancouver and Portland said: In Canada’s British Columbia, at least 486 sudden deaths were reported over five days, nearly three times the usual number that would occur in the province over that period, the B.C.[Read More…]
Extreme heatwave has hit the Canadian west coast and the northwest U.S. leading to scores of deaths. In areas, temperature rose to more than 46°C to more than 47°C. Media reports on the heat dome now covering the Pacific Northwest are telling hardship of people in the regions, melting of power cables, buckling of roads, and closure of schools, universities,[Read More…]
Climate crisis has pushed communities in Madagascar to the verge of starvation. The World Food Programme (WFP) says resources are scarce in the country after the worst drought in four decades. The WFP said more than a quarter of people are suffering in one area. And $78.6 million is needed to fight the crisis. Climate change is the driving force[Read More…]
Hunger, disease and drought will afflict tens of millions of more people within decades, warns a draft UN assessment that lays bare the dire human health consequences of a warming planet. “Life on Earth can recover from a drastic climate shift by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems,” the report says. “Humans cannot.” The forthcoming 4,000-page draft report[Read More…]
Brazil’s former leftist president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, scored a fresh legal victory on Monday after a federal court acquitted him of passive corruption charges relating to alleged political favors, citing lack of evidence. In 2017, Lula was accused of having granted political favors to automobile companies in exchange for donations of 6 million reals (around $1.2 million) to[Read More…]
Media reports from the U.S. tell about environmental incidents and hardship of the common people in the society. Fracking and Children A Fort Worth Star-Telegram report (Thousands of Arlington’s schoolchildren are exposed to fracking fumes, report warns, Thu, June 17, 2021) said: More than half of Arlington’s public school children attend classes within half a mile of a natural gas[Read More…]
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said North Korea should prepare for both dialogue and confrontation with the United States, particularly confrontation, state media KCNA reported on Friday. It was Kim’s first direct comment on the Biden administration. The remarks came during Thursday’s plenary meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party’s central committee, after an earlier session where Kim called for[Read More…]
Heat wave is scorching the U.S. West. More than 50 million people in eight U.S. states were under heat warnings Tuesday as the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) urged people to remain hydrated and stay indoors. A week of triple-digit temperatures made worse by climate crisis is forecast across much of the U.S. West this week, with records poised to fall[Read More…]
Coal is a hot issue in this energy-starved world. There is a drive to get out of coal for a better climate. But coal is coming back in Europe. A Bloomberg report said: “Europe is so short of natural gas that the continent — usually seen as the poster child for the global fight against emissions — is turning to[Read More…]
Australia’s biggest exporting state on Tuesday urged Canberra to stop antagonizing China, the country’s top trade partner, in remarks that came amid escalating criticism of Beijing led by the U.S., Australia’s main ally. “This isn’t about kowtowing to other countries and giving in,” Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan said at Australia’s biggest oil and gas industry conference, being held in[Read More…]
G7 is divided over the China issue. A report by The Telegraph (“China divides G7 as Biden calls for international investigation into origins of Covid-19”, June 14, 2021) said: “Joe Biden has called for an international investigation to establish whether Covid-19 leaked from a Chinese laboratory as he tried to rally G7 leaders behind a ‘competition with autocracies.’ “But his remarks about a[Read More…]
Some four months ago, a devastating flood ravaged the Chamoli district in the Indian Himalayas, killing over 200 people. The flood was caused by a massive landslide, which also involved a glacier. Researchers at the University of Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) and ETH Zurich have now analyzed the causes, scope and impact[Read More…]
The eyes of the world media audience are on Cornwall, a south-west England holiday destination, over the next couple of days as the powerful Group of Seven (G7) summit is going on there. The usual allies — the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and the US — are joined on this occasion by Australia, South Korea, India and South[Read More…]
In the eastern Asia region, Taiwan has become a sensitive topic, especially as Japan, the U.S. and some other U.S. allies move closer to Taipei. Relations with Taiwan is unofficial Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a regular news conference Friday that “Japan’s position is to maintain relations with Taiwan as those of practical and non-governmental” as stated in[Read More…]
Dozens of major websites — including The New York Times, CNN, Reddit, Spotify, Twitch, GitHub, gov.uk, Hulu, HBO Max, PayPal, Vimeo, Shopify — were beginning to return online Tuesday morning after crashing in an apparent massive internet outage. The cause of the outage was not immediately clear. Fastly, a popular content delivery network (CDN), confirmed it was experiencing an outage on its[Read More…]
Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman announced that Saudi Arabia was no longer an oil-producing country. “Saudi Arabia is no longer an oil country, it’s an energy-producing country,” the Energy Minister told S&P Global Platts this week. But that does not mean Saudi Arabia is planning on producing any fewer barrels of oil. And it does not mean[Read More…]
U.S. state Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) issued a declaration on Thursday that urges residents to pray for rain as the state experiences record drought. At least 90% of the state is currently experiencing “extreme” to “exceptional” drought, the two worst categories, according to data from the U.S. Drought Monitor. “I’ve already asked all Utahns to conserve water by avoiding long showers, fixing[Read More…]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, World Health Organization (WHO) and World Trade Organization (WTO) on Tuesday made a rare and what they called “extraordinary” plea for international cooperation and investment. “By now it has become abundantly clear there will be no broad-based recovery without an end to the health crisis,” the four bodies said in a joint statement.[Read More…]
Monsoon rains are likely to hit India’s southern coast around June 3, largely in line with typical patterns, the state-run India Meteorological Department said in its latest revised forecast on Sunday. Earlier in the day, the weather office had said the start of the monsoon would be on May 31. The leading edge of the southwest monsoon advanced across central[Read More…]
At the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Colombia, Canada, remains of 215 children were found buried. Some of the children were as young as three years old when they died, the First Nation said. Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation hired a specialist in ground-penetrating radar to carry out the work and believes the deaths of the children are undocumented. Chief Rosanne[Read More…]
In the wake of U.S. and NATO troops withdrawal, foreign missions in Kabul are preparing for evacuation. Media reports said: The U.S. Defense Department and the State Department are drawing up plans for the possible evacuation of Afghans whose lives are in danger because of their work for the U.S. government, the U.S. military’s top officer said. Army Gen. Mark[Read More…]
IMAGE: Lakshadweep Administrator Praful K Patel, right, with Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi. Photograph: Kind courtesy @prafulkpatel/Twitter Praful K Patel , a hardcore RSS man, was appointed as the Administrator of the Union Territory of Lakshadweep, where 99 per cent inhabitants are Muslims, in December 2020. He was allegedly given the task of “communalizing the island as soon as possible.”[Read More…]
Taking a critical view of the Centre’s present Covid-19 vaccination policy, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on May 22 Saturday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to halt supply of vaccines to private hospitals. In a two-page letter to Modi, Reddy requested that the entire available stock of Covid-19 vaccine to be made available only to the[Read More…]
An estimated $150 billion of stolen money has been smuggled out of Iraq in corrupt deals since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraqi President Barham Salih said Sunday. CNN and The New Arab reports said: “Of the close to a thousand billion dollars made from oil since 2003, an estimated $150 billion of stolen money has been smuggled[Read More…]
They demanded: Stop Central Vista project, give free doses to all “What numbs our senses daily is not just the cries of the citizenry for medical assistance and the death toll in its thousands but the manifestly casual attitude of your government to the magnitude of the crisis and its implications for the mental and physical health of the community[Read More…]
At least nine persons have become new billionaires since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, thanks to the excessive profits pharmaceutical corporations with monopolies on COVID vaccines are making, said the People’s Vaccine Alliance (PVA), a group advocating turning vaccine receipts into a global public good. Between them, the nine new billionaires, have a combined net wealth of $19.3 billion,[Read More…]
Resounding victories for leftist and independent candidates saw rightwing politicians crash to dismal electoral defeats alongside those with links to Chile’s transition to democracy. Communist party members in Santiago celebrated victories in the constitutional assembly elections. The Chilean voters this weekend elected a progressive slate of delegates to the constituent assembly tasked with rewriting the country’s right-wing constitution, which was[Read More…]
The U.S. military is operating a 60,000-troop strong secret army without any Congressional oversight, spending at least $900 million on the program annually, claimed a Newsweek report. The Newsweek report cited the results of a two-year investigation. The magazine’s report, said to be based on dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests, the analysis of 1,600 resumes and job postings,[Read More…]
Israel’s Defense Minister expressed gratitude to the U.S. for blocking a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire for the third time in a row. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the western part of Gaza, according to the Jerusalem Post, while local reports suggested that an office for Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs was targeted, as well as agricultural lands. A recent[Read More…]
![The Al Jalaa Tower housing Al Jazeera and The Associated Press offices collapses after being hit by Israeli missile in Gaza City [Mohammed Salem/Reuters]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/International-Media-House-Gaza-200x150.jpg "Israel Bombs The Building That Houses AP, Al Jazeera etc In Gaza 278")
Israel has bombed the building that houses media offices including AP, Al Jazeera , AJEnglish and other international news organisations. It was not immediately clear if there were casualties in Saturday’s attack. Live Al Jazeera video showed the 11-storey Al-Jalaa building, which also houses a number of residences and other offices, crashing to the ground after being bombed as dust[Read More…]
UN head Antonio Guterres implored the warring parties in Israel and Gaza to halt the bloodshed, amid reports that Israeli officials rejected a ceasefire plan floated by Egypt. “Out of respect for the spirit of Eid, I appeal for an immediate de-escalation and cessation of hostilities in Gaza and Israel,” the UN secretary-general said in a tweet on Thursday night.[Read More…]
The global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic has topped 3.34 million and over 160.8 million cases of the infection have been detected, according to Baltimore, Maryland’s Johns Hopkins University (JHU). The U.S., India and Brazil are the top three countries in terms of the number of registered coronavirus infections, while the largest number of COVID-19-related deaths has been observed[Read More…]
With more anti-Asian hate crimes than 10 of the most populous U.S. cities combined in 2020, Vancouver has reportedly become the “Anti-Asian Hate Crime Capital of North America.” A report in Bloomberg looked into police figures collected by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism (CSHE) at Cal State San Bernardino. The Bloomberg report looks deeply, with historical[Read More…]
Gas (fuel) outages are spreading across the U.S. Southeast as motorists rush to fill up their cars days after the biggest U.S. fuel pipeline temporarily shut down following a cyberattack. Gas stations in Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee were seeing some panic buying, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. Virginia and Florida declared a state of[Read More…]
An example of a DarkSide ransomware notice that appears on victims’ computer screens The U.S. government has issued emergency legislation on Sunday after the Colonial Pipeline, the country’s largest fuel pipeline, was hit by a ransomware cyber-attack. The Colonial Pipeline carries 2.5 million barrels a day, 45% of the U.S. East Coast’s supply of diesel, gasoline and jet fuel. It[Read More…]
Over Fish, France and UK are having a quarrel. But it is not fish that has started the quarrel. Media reports said: France’s junior minister for European affairs Clement Beane threatened the UK on financial services if Britain failed to grant licenses to French fishermen. Clement Beane said France would retaliate in sectors like banking in the European Union to[Read More…]
A new research led by scientists at UC Irvine and Boston University, published in Nature Climate Change (Jonathan A. Wang, Alessandro Baccini, Mary Farina, James T. Randerson, Mark A. Friedl, Disturbance suppresses the aboveground carbon sink in North American boreal forests, Nature Climate Change, 2021; DOI: 10.1038/s41558-021-01027-4 ) suggests that all the new green biomass is not as large a[Read More…]
The recent pledges made by governments to limit carbon emissions will not be sufficient to meet the goal of keeping global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius, claims a new report. Instead, those nonbinding commitments will result in a rise in the average global temperature to a potentially catastrophic 2.4 degrees Celsius. The Climate Action Tracker (CAT), an independent[Read More…]
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revealed new standards on Tuesday, May 4, 2021 for what an average or “normal” U.S. climate looks like, showing average temperatures in the U.S. rising significantly. Shifting the baseline for normal temperatures highlights just how quickly climate crisis is affecting conditions on Earth. Updating these standards is important for helping shape government[Read More…]
Partner with private firms to surveil domestic terrorists A May 3, 2021, Washington datelined CNN report said: The Biden administration is considering using outside firms to track extremist chatter by Americans online, an effort that would expand the government’s ability to gather intelligence but could draw criticism over surveillance of U.S. citizens. The Department of Homeland Security is limited in[Read More…]
U.S. general: Afghan forces could face ‘bad possible outcomes’ A May 2, 2021, Washington datelined AP report said: Afghan government forces face an uncertain future and, in a worst-case scenario, some “bad possible outcomes” against Taliban insurgents as the withdrawal of American and coalition troops accelerates in the coming weeks, the top U.S. military officer said Sunday. Gen. Mark Milley[Read More…]
In the most anticipated election results in recent times, Mamata Banerjee led Trinamool Congress (TMC) retained West Bengal, Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPI-M) led left front retained Kerala, Dravida Munnetra Kazhakam (DMK) won Tamil Nadu while BJP won Assam and the union territory of Puduchery. Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress is leading in 215 of Bengal’s 294 seats and[Read More…]
Military spending around the world has increased to unprecedented level since 1988 despite economic suffering due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the U.S. was ahead of all the countries again, finds Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2020, the latest report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). In 2020, nations were struggling to support their economies through the times[Read More…]
An alliance of international health agencies has warned that up to 228 million people, mostly children, are at risk from serious disease after the Covid pandemic derailed around 60 mass immunization campaigns in 50 countries. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Gavi vaccines alliance and the World Health Organization (WHO) released a joint statement on Monday warning that “with[Read More…]
File Photo: China and the US have rediscovered a common interest in battling climate change. Photograph: Paul J Richards/AFP/Getty Images China’s Xi Jinping to attend Joe Biden’s climate summit is a major, welcome news that comes amid continued anti- China stance of the Biden administration. Virtual summit on April 22 Thursday will be the first meeting between the two leaders[Read More…]
Reports by media including AP and CNN said: In Portland, Oregon, about 70 demonstrators assembled outside Portland Police Bureau’s East Precinct Saturday night. When the group pushed two dumpsters into the street at around 10:30 p.m., police declared an unlawful assembly and officers moved in. There were no arrests and no reported injuries. The police called the demonstrators a “hostile[Read More…]
Reactions to the U.S. decision to withdraw troop from Afghanistan are mixed. A few are of disappointment. Media reports said: ‘Not what we’d hoped for’: UK military chief disappointed Britain’s military chief has expressed disappointment at president Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. General Sir Nick Carter, the Chief of the Defense Staff, said it was “not[Read More…]
The global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic has topped 3 million people amid repeated setbacks in the worldwide vaccination campaign and a deepening crisis in countries like Brazil, India and France. World Health Organization (WHO) says pandemic is at a critical point. The number of deaths, compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the population of metropolitan Lisbon, Portugal[Read More…]
Raul Castro, leader of the Communist Party of Cuba, has announced that he is stepping down and handing leadership to a younger generation “full of passion and anti-imperialist spirit.” Fidel Castro and Raul Castro have led the Communist Party of Cuba party since 1961. Ready to defend revolution “As I live I will be ready with my foot in the[Read More…]
A new poll has found a majority of Americans is blaming mass shootings in the U.S. on easy access to guns and racism, but a significant portion also put networks like Fox News and CNN at fault. Asked “how much do you blame each of the following for mass shootings?” in the wide-ranging Politico/Morning Consult poll, 69% and 67% pointed[Read More…]
Communities across the U.S. marched and mourned for the third consecutive night Tuesday in memory of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by a police officer after a traffic stop over the weekend. Meanwhile, the cities of Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis and St. Paul imposed 10 p.m. curfews. Wright’s death on Sunday has shaken a nation already[Read More…]
Contaminated wastewater at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant will be released into the ocean “in around two years,” the Japanese government has announced, despite calls from China and South Korea urging against the move. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced the move in Tokyo, on Tuesday. He had previously called the release “unavoidable” given the amount of accumulated water over[Read More…]
Flash-bangs and teargas were used to disperse the crowd gathered outside the Brooklyn Center, Minnesota police department, in violation of the curfew declared to stop the riots over the death of Daunte Wright. An hour and 45 minutes after the 7 pm curfew went into effect, police issued a final “unlawful assembly” warning and deployed crowd control weapons. Some of[Read More…]
Extreme drought may be going to hit across the Western U.S. Some scientists saying the region is on the precipice of permanent drought. In 2000, the Western U.S. entered the beginning of what scientists call a megadrought — the second worst in 1,200 years — triggered by a combination of a natural dry cycle and human-caused climate change. The U.S.[Read More…]
Coronavirus infections in the South Asia has surpassed the grim milestone of 15 million on Saturday, a Reuters tally shows. The surge is led by India’s record daily infections and vaccine shortages. South Asia — India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, and Sri Lanka — accounts for 11% of global cases and almost 6% of deaths. The region accounts for[Read More…]
Once again we see US and Europe on the basis of false information and misleading campaigns have a destructive influence and lacks understanding of the peace process in The Horn of Africa. For 80 years, the UN and the international community disregarded Eritrea’s rights. The peace agreement in 2018 between Ethiopia and Eritrea was a welcome development in a region,[Read More…]
Police in Belfast faced further disruption in Belfast on Thursday (April 8) night as crowds gathered again for the seventh night. Police blasted rioters with water cannon. Police officers were called in from other parts of Northern Ireland to help to deal with the rioting. More than 50 officers have been hurt in violence in several areas since the end[Read More…]
Pakistan rights campaigners have accused the country’s Prime Minister Imran Khan of “baffling ignorance” after the former cricketer linked how women dress to cause a rise in rape cases. In a weekend interview on live television, Oxford-educated Imran Khan said an increase in rapes indicated the “consequences in any society where vulgarity is on the rise.” “The incidents of rape[Read More…]
Police used rubber bullets against rioters as the rioters hurled bottles and Molotov cocktails in the northeastern Swiss city of St. Gallen on Saturday. More than 30 people were temporarily banned from entering the city. The riot broke out after around 1,000 young people gathered at the Roter Platz square in the city center. The agitated crowd attacked police and[Read More…]
Police have arrested 26 people following clashes in London as thousands of demonstrators attended numerous marches against a controversial UK government crackdown on protests. Demonstrators on Saturday marched and gave speeches while holding signs with slogans such as ‘Kill the Bill,’ referring to the controversial proposed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. The proposed legislation would give police more authority[Read More…]
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top adviser to the U.S. President on the coronavirus pandemic, said he did not believe that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory for studying pathogens. Dr. Fauci’s opinion appears to contradict controversial remarks made earlier on March 27, 2021 by the former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Robert[Read More…]
A new study projecting the amount of heat stress residents of the South Asia region will experience in the future finds with 2 degrees Celsius of warming, the population’s exposure to heat stress will nearly triple. Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will likely reduce that impact by half, but deadly heat stress will become commonplace across South Asia, according[Read More…]
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has pulled Turkey out of an international accord designed to protect women, according to an official notice. The Council of Europe accord, better known as the Istanbul Convention, pledged to prevent, prosecute and eliminate domestic violence and promote equality. Turkey signed it in 2011, but femicide has surged there regardless in recent years. No reason was[Read More…]
The U.S. and its allies – Canada, Britain and the European Union – on Monday announced sanctions on several Chinese officials alleged to have links to what U.S. officials say is a “genocidal” campaign against Uyghur Muslims. The U.S.-led multi-national, coordinated sanctions drew condemnation and some immediate retaliatory sanctions from China. The moves offered a glimpse into the growing divide[Read More…]
Australia’s east coast is being hit by record rainfall, with flood warnings issued and a natural disaster declared for parts of New South Wales (NSW), Australia’s most populous state with 8 million people. The flooding comes in stark contrast with the devastating bushfires that struck Australia in late 2019 and early 2020, when nearly 7% of NSW land was scorched.[Read More…]
“A nation at peace and a region in harmony are thus essential prerequisites for attainment of national security in the true spirit. No national leaders of today can ignore these factors,” said Army chief Gen Bajwa, marking a significant iteration of Pakistan’s latest security policy. “…, it is an almost universally acknowledged fact that the contemporary concept of national security[Read More…]
Pakistan’s army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa called on Thursday for arch rivals India and Pakistan to “bury the past” and move towards cooperation. He expressed that the U.S. had a role to play in ending regional conflict. The Pak general’s statement is an overture towards New Delhi that follows an unexpected joint ceasefire announcement last month between the two[Read More…]
Citing a new report from the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, media reports from the U.S. said there has been alarming increase of white supremacist propaganda in the U.S. Incidents of white supremacist propaganda hit an all-time high in 2020, according to the report. Anti-Semitic, racist and anti-LGBTQ+ posters, flyers and graffiti were recorded 5,125 times in 2020, according to[Read More…]
The UK prime minister Boris Johnson has said UK plans to increase its nuclear arsenal by 40%, but China should be brought into international efforts to reduce the world stockpile of nuclear weapons. Speaking on Tuesday, as the British government published its Integrated Review of Security, Defense, Development and Foreign Policy, the UK prime minister highlighted China as posing a[Read More…]
The slander campaign in India was meant to vitiate the atmosphere and undermine efforts for peace and friendship, and to aid the imperialists’ trade war against china, with India as a junior partner. The National Health Commission of China on March 15 released the full transcript of a joint China-WHO press conference on the WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of[Read More…]
Andrea Sahouri, the Iowa journalist who was arrested as she reported on racial justice protests last summer, was found not guilty in a case that drew widespread condemnation from journalism and free press organizations. Sahouri, a Des Moines Register reporter, was one of just a handful of journalists whose charges stemming from coverage of the protests in the wake[Read More…]
E A S Sarma, former secretary to the government of India, drew the attention of the finance minister Smt Nirmala Sitharaman regarding the plight of 40 lakh workers who are getting a meagre sum as EPF pension. In a letter dated 22-9-2020 he clarified to the union finance minister, One of the sections of the people who seem to be[Read More…]
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey has refocused attention on the couple’s bid for financial independence, and exactly how much is needed to maintain and protect certain members of the royal court. Among other surprising disclosures, Prince Harry revealed that shortly after announcing their departure, the couple was cut off financially and lost their security detail.[Read More…]
The ongoing pandemic has deeply affected countries. The U.S. is no exception. Rather, impact of the pandemic on the U.S. is deeper than many countries. Three polls show a few aspects of the impact. Fewer than 10,000 A report said: One year ago, on the eve of the eventful day that signaled the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — March[Read More…]
A media report from the U.S. said: The trial of journalist Andrea Sahouri began Monday with a police officer stating that he had no choice but to arrest her during last year’s racial justice protests in Des Moines, Iowa, because she did not leave the area after he deployed pepper spray. Sahouri, a Des Moines Register public safety reporter, is[Read More…]
Following UK’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s CBS interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday night, #AbolishTheMonarchy trended on Twitter. A headline in The Telegraph said on March 9, 2021: “Prince Harry has lit a slow burn stick of dynamite that will cause the greatest devastation of all.” The interview contained revelations that left viewers stunned. One of the biggest moments[Read More…]
Americans’ trust in the Black Lives Matter movement has fallen and their faith in local law enforcement has risen since protests demanding social justice swept the nation last year, finds an exclusive USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll. On many issues, the survey finds a chasm in the perspective between Black people and white people. A report by USA Today said: Last June,[Read More…]
The UN official who investigated the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi sharply criticized U.S. President Biden’s response to the killing, saying his administration’s failure to sanction Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent a “dangerous” message to world leaders that they could kill dissidents and journalists with impunity. “I found it to be shocking,” Agnes Callamard, the UN special[Read More…]
Hate crimes targeting Asian-Americans rose 150% in U.S.’s largest cities last year, even as overall hate crimes decreased, according to alarming new data released Tuesday. There were 122 hate crimes targeting Asian-Americans in 16 of the U.S.’s most populous cities in 2020, according to a study of police records by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at[Read More…]
China has said that the door to Xinjiang “is always open” for UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, after she claimed Muslim Uighurs are suffering arbitrary detention and ill-treatment in the area. The statement was made on Tuesday by the Chinese delegation to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in response to comments by Bachelet claiming an independent investigation needs[Read More…]
Big companies are finding profit in carbon offsets market. “The value of the global market for carbon emissions offsets,” writes Frank Watson (Global carbon offsets market could be worth $200 billion by 2050: Berenberg, 13 May 2020 https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/051320-global-carbon-offsets-market-could-be-worth-200-bil-by-2050-berenberg) “could increase to $200 billion by 2050, German bank Berenberg said in a note”. Frank Watson writes: “Although now relatively small, the[Read More…]
‘Final Solution’ – an award winning, must watch documentary film by Rakesh Sharma made in 2004 is streaming on Vimeo for free until March 31. The film is about 2002 Gujarat carnage and the rise of the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The film maker keeps this film open for public view at Vimeo at free of charge till March[Read More…]
The U.S. wasted billions of dollars in war-torn Afghanistan on buildings and vehicles that were either abandoned or destroyed, said a report released Monday by a U.S. government watchdog. The agency said it reviewed $7.8 billion spent since 2008 on buildings and vehicles. Only $343.2 million worth of buildings and vehicles “were maintained in good condition,” said the Special Inspector[Read More…]
The U.S. forces deadly airstrikes in Syria sparked complaints from some of U.S. President Joe Biden’s Democratic allies that he overreached, while key Republicans applauded the move. The reactions came after the Feb. 25 airstrikes targeted facilities belonging to an Iranian-backed Iraqi armed group, reportedly killing one fighter. The strike could be a test of whether Congress, which fought to[Read More…]
The U.S. launched airstrikes in Syria on Thursday, targeting facilities near the Iraqi border used by Iranian-backed militia groups. The Pentagon said the strikes were retaliation for a Feb. 15 rocket attack in northern Iraq that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a U.S. service member and other coalition troops. The airstrike was the first military action undertaken by the[Read More…]
Over half a million people have died of coronavirus in the U.S. Grasping the enormity — half a million people gone — is difficult to visualize. More people have died in the U.S. due to COVID-19 than any other country in the world. With 4% of the world’s population, the U.S. has 20% of all COVID deaths and one of[Read More…]
Media reports said: Erik Prince, the private security executive and supporter of former U.S. President Donald Trump, “at the very least” helped evade an arms embargo on Libya, according to excerpts from a UN report. Independent UN sanctions monitors accused Prince of proposing a private military operation – known as ‘Project Opus’ – to Libya’s eastern-based commander General Khalifa Haftar[Read More…]
The U.S. President Joe Biden has declared that America is back. He was addressing a session of the Munich Security Conference from the White House Friday. Biden said: And I’m a man of my word — America is back. I speak to you today as president of the United States at the very start of my administration, and I’m sending[Read More…]
Media reports from U.S. said: The slow-moving winter disaster pummeling Texas that began with snow, ice and widespread blackouts is now moving into a new phase: A dire lack of food and fresh water. Millions do not have safe water at home, and residents looking for groceries or bottled water said they arrived to stores with bare shelves and long[Read More…]
Texas’s freeze entered a sixth day on Thursday. At least 31 people have died as of Wednesday afternoon as a result of the severe weather in Texas. But some media reports said, days of glacial weather have left at least 38 people dead in the U.S. The snow made many roads impassable, disrupted coronavirus vaccine distribution and blanketed nearly three-quarters[Read More…]
Amazon is in conflict with Indian retailers. A leading group of Indian retailers on Wednesday urged the government to ban the local operations of Amazon.com Inc, after Reuters reported the U.S. e-commerce giant has for years given preferential treatment to a small group of sellers on its India platform and used them to circumvent the country’s strict foreign investment regulations.[Read More…]
Judiciary ramshackled, going to court is useless: Ex-CJI Ranjan Gogoi That was the title of a report in newindianexpress.com, published 14th February 2021. “Who goes to the court? You go to the court and regret,” Ranjan Gogoi said, adding that it is those who can afford to take chances, such as the big corporates, who approach the courts. Expressing concern over[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic’s economic collapse in the UK is severe, worst in three centuries. The economy contracted by 9.9 percent in 2020, initial estimates from the Office for National Statistics showed on February 12, 2021. A study of historical data by the Bank of England shows that recession to be the worst since 1709, the year known as the Great[Read More…]
FCI storage yards with wheat bought at MSP, scene across Punjab and Haryana. Water is sprinkled on wheat bags to let the grain rot, and is thrown out as waste. Sold to distilleries by “ 5-star farmers and their agents” now agitating on Delhi border. Rs 6000 to 7000 cr per year involved. Going on for 45 years. So the[Read More…]
Activist Rona Wilson’s computer was compromised for over 22 months before the Pune Police raided his home in New Delhi and arrested him as co-accused in Bhima Koregaon violence, claimed the Massachusetts-based digital forensics firm Arsenal Digital. The firm in its report said that the 10 letters used first by Pune Police and later the National Investigation Agency (NIA) as[Read More…]
NewsClick, a progressive website based out of Delhi has been raided by the Enforcement Directorate. The raid comes at a time when NewsClick has been bravely covering the farmers’ agitation and other issues of the marginalised when most of the mainstream media are keeping silent or toeing the line of the government. The raid on NewsClick is a continuation of[Read More…]
A Bloomberg report said: “Most of the world is yet to experience the benefits of a 5G network, but the geopolitical race for the next big thing in telecommunications technology is already heating up. “For companies and governments, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The first to develop and patent 6G will be the biggest winners in what some call the[Read More…]
Media reports said: Two U.S. carrier strike groups have conducted joint exercises in the South China Sea. This new muscle flexing comes days after the U.S. buzzed China-controlled islets in the disputed waters, prompting anger from China. The two groups, led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Nimitz aircraft carriers, trained in the South China Sea on Tuesday, the[Read More…]
The results of the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), with Nguyen Phu Trong re-elected as General Secretary of the 13th Party Central Committee, have made headlines around Asia, according to Vietnam News Agency (VNA). It began on Jan 25 and concluded on February 1 after eight days of working. The congress fulfilled its agenda and[Read More…]
The rescue operations for the tragic glacier burst which killed 11 and triggered massive flooding in Dhauliganga and Alaknanda Rivers in Uttarakhand causing grave damage to houses and the nearby Rishiganga power project is still underway. Reportedly, over 203 people went missing after the tragedy. As per the latest reports, the rescue teams have been conducting non-stop operations and have[Read More…]
World food prices rose in January for the eighth consecutive month, led by cereals, vegetable oils and sugar, reports the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. A FAO report said that its food price index marked a 4.3 percent increase from December, reaching its highest level since July 2014. FAO’s Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes[Read More…]
Global COVID-19 cases topped 100 million Tuesday as virus mutations continue to create new concerns, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University. Although the U.S. makes up just over 4 per cent of the world’s population, the country remains the leader in recorded cases of the COVID-19, also identified as coronavirus, with more than 25 million infections. India ranks[Read More…]
The world’s ice is melting so fast that sea level rise predictions cannot keep up. The ice melting is faster today than in the mid-1990s, new research suggests, as climate crisis nudges global temperatures ever higher. In the 1990s, the Earth’s ice was melting at a rate of about 760 billion tons per year. That has surged 60 percent to[Read More…]
India’s historic farmers’ tractor parade breached police barriers and briefly took control of the historic Red Fort. The agitating farmers climbed on a pole and foisted a flag sacred to Sikh religion. There were violent clashes between farmers and the police. One farmer died in the commotion in ITO. Police used tear gas on groups of farmers and resorted to[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent lockdown in India made the rich richer said a report by Oxfam. The report – titled The Inequality Virus – said the wealth of the country’s billionaires increased by an estimated 35 per cent during the lockdown, while 84 per cent of households suffered varying degrees of income loss, and 1.7 lakh people lost[Read More…]
Tensions are rising in the South China Sea. A Taipei, January 24, 2021 datelined Reuters report said: A U.S. aircraft carrier group led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt has entered the South China Sea to promote “freedom of the seas”, the U.S. military said on Sunday, at a time when tensions between China and Taiwan have raised concern in Washington.[Read More…]
New data from Edelman shows that American trust in media is at all-time low. While 56% believe that journalists and reporters are purposely trying to mislead, 58% think news organizations are more interested in ideology than facts, and only 18% of Republicans trust the media versus 57% of Democrats. As a whole, 46% of Americans of all political stripes say they[Read More…]
The global death toll from COVID-19, identified also as coronavirus, pandemic topped 2 million on January 15, 2021. The number of dead, compiled by Johns Hopkins University, U.S., is about equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna. It is roughly equivalent to the population of the Cleveland metropolitan area in the U.S., or the entire U.S. state[Read More…]
A British judge on Monday rejected the United States’ request to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to face espionage charges, saying he was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser rejected allegations that Assange is being prosecuted for political reasons or would not receive a fair trial in the United States. But[Read More…]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claim that the left parties did not implement APMC Act is firmly being refuted by Kerala government and farmer’s union. Prime Minister Narendra Modi while announcing PM-KISAN scheme questioned the opposition parties who have extended their support to the protesting farmers in Delhi but ignored the non-implementation of APMCs in states like Kerala. “The groups who[Read More…]
Although sea levels are rising due to the climate crisis and threatening near-coastal infrastructures, higher temperatures in other areas are having exactly the opposite effect. The water levels are falling and causing massive problems. The consequences are equally serious. But the declining water levels are receiving less attention according to Matthias Prange, Thomas Wilke of the Justus Liebig University in[Read More…]
Every one of the world’s coral reefs could bleach by the end of the century, unless there are drastic reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has warned. Coral reefs are incredibly important and sustain a wide variety of marine life. They also protect coastlines from erosions from waves and storms, sink carbon and nitrogen and help[Read More…]
The ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) suffered a vertical split on December 23, 2020, with the rival factions of the party led by the two chairmen claiming their faction to be the authentic NCP in separate central committee meetings held in Kathmandu, the capital city. The faction led by Co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal removed KP Sharma Oli from the post[Read More…]
As K P Sharma Oli, the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) chair and prime minister, in a bid to achieve a majority in the party Central Committee announced a 1,199-member general convention organizing committee a question looms over Nepal – is the Nepal Communist Party is heading towards a split? At a meeting of the Central Committee with the members close[Read More…]
The Japan government approved on December 21, 2020 a record defense budget for fiscal 2021 totaling ¥5.34 trillion ($51.7 billion), as it seeks to introduce new standoff missiles capable of attacking enemy vessels from outside their firing range amid growing threats from China. The draft budget is up 0.5% from fiscal 2020, including outlays linked to hosting the U.S.’ military[Read More…]
Media reports from Nepal said: In a dramatic turn of events, Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on December 20, 2020 decided to dissolve the House of Representatives (HoR) and call mid-term polls to be held in two phases. Oli, who has been mired in an intra-party feud with the rival faction of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP), recommended[Read More…]
A phenomenon not seen for nearly 800 years will light up the sky next week. Two of the largest planets – Jupiter and Saturn – in the solar system will come together in “a great conjunction” right in time for Christmas, the U.S. space agency NASA reported. It is also the same day as the winter solstice. Jupiter and Saturn[Read More…]
With no dissolved oxygen to sustain animals or plants, ocean anoxic zones are areas where only microbes suited to the environment can live. These strange ecosystems are expanding, thanks to climate change – a development that is of concern for fisheries and anyone who relies on oxygen-rich oceans. Escaping predators, digestion and other animal activities — including those of humans[Read More…]
It has been estimated that up to a quarter of a million children, young people and vulnerable adults were abused in state and faith-based care between 1950 and 2019 in New Zealand. The Royal Commission into Abuse in Care has released the findings. Of 655,000 in care during the period, it is estimated up to 40 percent were abused. An[Read More…]
An advisor to the Iraqi parliament’s foreign affairs committee said: Iraq government is planning to lodge an international lawsuit against the U.S. for violating the country’s sovereignty and using internationally-banned munitions in civilian areas. Hatif al-Rikabi told Arabic-language al-Maalomah news agency in an interview that Iraq is going to file the case at Swedish and German courts over appalling crimes that the U.S. has perpetrated[Read More…]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Dec 15 Tuesday said that a conspiracy is going around Delhi. The PM was speaking at the inauguration of mega energy projects in Kutch, in his home state Gujarat. The PM’s statement came even as the farmers’ agitation across the country entered its 20th day. Five rounds of talks between the government and the farmers[Read More…]
Dozens of leaked documents from Amazon’s Global Security Operations Center reveal the company’s reliance on Pinkerton operatives to spy on warehouse workers and the extensive monitoring of labor unions, environmental activists, and other social movements. A report by Lauren Kaori Gurley on 23.11.20 in Vice (https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports-expose-spying-warehouse-workers-labor-union-environmental-groups-social-movements) said: “A trove of more than two dozen internal Amazon reports reveal in stark[Read More…]
Americans’ trust in the federal government in handling major problems has fallen nearly to all-time lows, finds Gallup. Based on an annual poll conducted between August 31 and September 31, 2020, Gallup found: About 48% of Americans say they have a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of confidence in the government to handle international problems and 41% on its[Read More…]
Denmark’s 16 pension funds have together invested almost 3 billion Danish kroner ($500 million) in foreign arms manufacturers supplying weapons to countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), finds a new research. Those weapons were most likely used in the war in Yemen, as Saudi Arabia and the UAE are heavily involved in the conflict there, said[Read More…]
The United Nations Environment Program’s (UNEP) emissions gap report – Emissions Gap Report 2020 – released on December 9 warns: Despite a brief dip in carbon dioxide emissions caused by the pandemic, the world is still heading for a temperature rise of 3.2°C this century. The report published at the end of every year measures national commitments to reduce emissions[Read More…]
In fact “these people ( the bureaucrats ) have even made the Prime Minister give wrong statements about the Acts,” says leader of BKS. It shows how the State functions and ruling politicians have to toe the line and sell it to the public. It bulldozes any dissent, even if it is from its own camp. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh[Read More…]
South Korea and Japan set to be the biggest winners in the Asian oil and chemicals markets as the world’s largest regional free-trade agreement paves the way for a gradual reduction in tariffs. Some analysts claim that China stands to gain most income from the pact. The China-backed agreement is seen as an alternative to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a[Read More…]
The year coming within days, 2021, is shaping up to be a humanitarian catastrophe and rich countries must not trample poor countries in a “stampede for vaccines” to combat the coronavirus pandemic, top U.N. officials told the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on Friday. World Food Programme (WFP) chief David Beasley and World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke[Read More…]
Denmark has decided to end all oil and gas activities in the North Sea by 2050 and has cancelled its latest licensing round, saying the country is “now putting an end to the fossil fuel era.” “We are now putting a final end to the fossil era,” said Denmark’s climate minister Dan Joergensen, a Social Democrat. Greenpeace called it “a[Read More…]
About 15 percent of talc-based cosmetic products contain asbestos, finds a new study. The study, published on November 24, 2020 in the Environmental Health Insights journal, was commissioned by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and conducted by the Scientific Analytical Institute (SAI). In their research, the EWG identified more than 2,000 personal care products sold in the last three years[Read More…]
The speaker of French President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party has said the government is dropping part of the controversial bill curbing the right to film on-duty police, which drew huge public anger. The government leader said that the bill will be re-drafted. Christophe Castaner, president of La Republique en Marche in the National Assembly, told the press on Monday that[Read More…]
Thousands of people rallied against the controversial bill in more than 70 French cities on Saturday, with the organizers claiming over half a million participants and authorities estimating the number at around 150,000. The daytime rallies went off peacefully, but by early evening clashes erupted in multiple cities, including Marseilles, Lyon, Brest, Nice, Rennes, Lille, Bordeaux and in other cities.[Read More…]
India saw one of the biggest nationwide strikes by workers, joined by protesting farmers today. Several states saw a complete shutdown. Over 250 million workers across sectors participated in the strike, called by 10 central trade unions and hundreds of worker associations and federations. Kerala, Puducherry, Odisha, Assam and Telangana witnessed a complete shutdown while normal life was partially affected[Read More…]
Following public protest against the new Police Act which put curbs on free speech, the left ruled Kerala government has decided to put on hold the implementation of the act. It is not clear whether the government is going to repeal the act. In a statement, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said “the Government of Kerala will not go ahead with[Read More…]
In the Left ruled Kerala state of India, a very stringent amendment in the Kerala Police Act has been implemented from Saturday to curb the offensive and defamatory social media posts. The offenders will face five years in jail, Rs.10,000 fine, or both. The controversial Section 118A was added to Kerala Police Act through an ordinance two months ago and[Read More…]
The Hindu Nov 17 reported: “Supreme Court Justice U.U. Lalit who was to hear three petitions seeking action against Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, has recused himself and has asked the Chief Justice to assign the cases to another Bench. Justice Lalit, who was heading the three-judge Bench hearing the petitions, gave the reason that he[Read More…]
Mammals, birds and amphibians worldwide have lost on average 18% of their natural habitat range as a result of changes in land use and climate change, finds a new study. The scientists estimate that species have lost an average of 18% of their natural habitat range sizes thus far, and may lose up to 23% by 2100. The study (Robert[Read More…]
Ahead of the polls opening on Tuesday, businesses in cities from Denver to Detroit to Washington, D.C., were boarding up their windows with plywood as they readied for the possibility of civil unrest. Some governors were readying the National Guard, said a report by The New York Times. The report said: “Everyone is starting to panic,” Fernando Casas, a construction[Read More…]
Mega-droughts, droughts that last two decades or longer, are tipped to increase, finds a new research. The finding came after an analysis of geological records from the Eemian Period – 129,000 to 116,000 years ago – which offered a proxy of what we could expect in a hotter, drier world. The research (Hamish McGowan, Micheline Campbell, John Nikolaus Callow, Andrew[Read More…]
Soil has the capacity to bind large quantities of carbon in the long term. An international team of researchers, including from the University of Bonn, is now advocating effective use of this potential. Experts estimate that this could reduce the increase of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by a third. At the same time, agricultural yields in[Read More…]
According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), La Niña, linked to cooler sea temperatures, is back in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, after nearly a decade’s absence. This is expected to result in sea surface temperatures between two and three degrees Celsius cooler than average, said Dr. Maxx Dilley, Deputy Director in charge of Climate Services Department at[Read More…]
After two nights of protests and looting following the fatal police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr. in West Philadelphia, a curfew has been imposed in the city. The curfew went into effect at 9 p.m. and will last until 6 a.m. Thursday. Meanwhile, Mayor Jim Kenney says the National Guard is deploying and the first troops are expected to arrive[Read More…]
Media reports from Philadelphia said: Looting and demonstrations continued for a second consecutive night Tuesday in Philadelphia following the fatal police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr. in West Philadelphia. Police have made several arrests. Several hundred troops from the Pennsylvania National Guard have been mobilized in Philadelphia following a night of violent unrest over a fatal police shooting, as city[Read More…]
The WHO Director-General Tedros Adhahnom Ghebreyesus has warned: The northern hemisphere is at a critical juncture in the Covid pandemic, and some countries are on a dangerous track. “Too many countries are seeing an exponential increase in cases,” putting hospital capacities at risk, he said. He urged leaders to take quick action to contain the virus’s spread. Europe is again[Read More…]
The U.S. Coronavirus (officially, Covid-19) cases have hit a record daily high as more than 83,000 new cases were reported in the U.S. on Friday. At the same time, scientists have warned that the U.S. approach to fight the Coronavirus pandemic and the inconsistent use of masks to prevent virus spread could lead to the cumulative loss of more than[Read More…]
Amidst the increase in the numbers of massacres and murders of social leaders and former members of the then Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP) a nation-wide strike has gripped Colombia since Wednesday. The strike has hit the country’s main cities. Supported by peasant organizations, women, Afro-descendant and LGBTI communities and student groups, the mobilizations will be peaceful[Read More…]
Jammu and Kashmir Estates Department today sealed the office of Kashmir Times in Srinagar that was allotted to it in a government building in Press Enclave that houses several other newspaper offices in similar buildings. The office was sealed late this afternoon without serving any cancellation or eviction notice to Kashmir Times or following any due process of law. Nothing[Read More…]
A year after former Bolivian president Evo Morales was ousted in a military coup that installed a far-right regime, Morales ally Luis Arce declared victory after exit polls showed the socialist candidate with a large advantage over his two main competitors. “Democracy has won,” Arce, who served as Morales’ finance minister, said in an address to the nation after one[Read More…]
Roughly 3 out of 4 American billionaires have seen a rise in their net worths. Elon Musk alone has tripled his net worth during the pandemic. Michael Hobbes, Senior Enterprise Reporter, The Huffington Post, wrote in The Huffington Post: “Other than Netflix, Andrew Cuomo and the virus itself, no one has benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic more than American billionaires.[Read More…]
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and an expert in infectious diseases for the last four decades, told CNBC’s Shepard Smith Monday evening that it was more critical than ever to do these five things: wear a mask, social distance, avoid crowded spaces, do things outdoors where possible, and wash your[Read More…]
China’s top diplomat has urged neighboring states to guard against Washington’s geopolitical ambitions in Asia and called for regional cooperation to thwart foreign provocations in the South China Sea. Media reports said: Wang Yi, Chinese Foreign Minister, said during a joint news conference with his Malaysian counterpart that members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should work together[Read More…]
Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch’s son and daughter-in-law are two of the biggest backers of presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s campaign, federal filings show. James Murdoch and his wife Kathryn Murdoch each contributed $615,000 to the Biden Victory Fund in June, according to Federal Election Commission filings. The Biden Victory Fund splits donations between Biden’s campaign, the Democratic National Committee and[Read More…]
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against the idea of allowing Covid-19 to simply spread through society, calling this “herd immunity” approach to fighting the pandemic “unethical.” “Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding an outbreak, let alone a pandemic,” said WHO chief Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus said during a[Read More…]
A demonstration in Portland, Oregon, that included people breaking windows and taking down statues of former Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln has been declared a riot by police. Media reports from Portland including reports by major international news agencies said: The protests were part of a “Day of Rage” declared over the celebration of Columbus Day on Monday. Organizers[Read More…]
International financial authorities and 20 of the world’s largest economies are establishing official standards for regulating and issuing sovereign digital currencies. The Group of Twenty (G20), an organization of finance ministers and central bank governors representing the European Union and 19 countries across every continent, said in a report today that it is working with the International Monetary Fund (IMF),[Read More…]
Flames from forest fire in Ras el-Harf village, in the Baabda district, Lebanon: An aerial picture. Hundreds of massive wildfires ravaged parts of the Middle East over the weekend, forcing thousands to flee their homes. The wildfires triggered by a heat wave hitting the region have killed three people, and detonated landmines along the Lebanon-Israel border. The areas hit by the[Read More…]
The majority of Britons do not trust the government, with confidence among the lowest levels ever recorded, a poll has revealed. The British Social Attitudes survey found that just 15 per cent of people said they have faith in Boris Johnson‘s government ‘most of the time’ or ‘always’. More than double, 34 per cent, instead said that they ‘almost never’ trust the[Read More…]
Media reports said: The aid circle has pledged to combat the scourge of sexual abuse within its ranks following shock revelations of alleged exploitation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In a report published in early-October, more than 50 women levelled accusations against aid workers from the World Health Organization (WHO), other UN agencies and major non-governmental organizations (NGO) during[Read More…]
Media reports from the U.S. said: President Donald Trump says he has authorized the release of “any and all” documents related to the Russiagate conspiracy theory and the Hillary Clinton email scandal, noting the material would be completely free of redactions. “I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any and all documents pertaining to the single greatest political[Read More…]
Journalist Siddique Kappan who is working with the popular Malayalam website Azhimukham.com and three others who were arrested by the UP police on Monday in Mathura while on their way to Hathras have been booked under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and sedition. On Tuesday, they were remanded to 14 days’ judicial custody by a local court[Read More…]
Pope Francis has presented his blueprint for a post-COVID-19 world, covering a vast number of issues from fraternity and income inequality to immigration and social injustice. The Pope said the Covid-19 pandemic proved that free-market policies have failed to produce the societal benefits promised by their proponents. Pope Francis began writing the document early this year, with the aim of[Read More…]
Pakistan’s ailing former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday accused the country’s powerful military of political interference, saying in a televised speech from exile in London that the military had rigged the 2018 vote that brought the country’s current prime minister Imran Khan to power. An AP report by Munir Ahmed said: The 70-year-old Sharif has had a long uneasy[Read More…]
The coronavirus has claimed more than 1 million lives around the world, the latest dark ‘milestone’ for the worldwide pandemic first detected some 10 months ago, which continues to spread across several hotspots. Infecting more than 33 million since first emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan last December, the global Covid-19 death toll surpassed the 1 million mark on[Read More…]
Protesters wreaked havoc in downtown Seattle, erecting barricades and setting them on fire to block police from moving in. Violence erupted in the heart of the former ‘autonomous zone’ created by Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters. At least 10 were arrested after a BLM protest in Seattle turned violent on Saturday night, and saw activists storming a boarded store and[Read More…]
An AP report from Kabul said: Afghanistan’s dwindling community of Sikhs and Hindus is shrinking to its lowest levels. With growing threats from the local Islamic State affiliate, many are choosing to leave the country of their birth to escape the insecurity and a once-thriving community of as many as 250,000 members now counts fewer than 700. The community’s numbers[Read More…]
Media reports from Yerevan and Baku said: Armenia declared martial law and mobilized its male population on Sunday after clashes with Azerbaijan over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region. Both sides reported fatalities. Authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mainly ethnic Armenian region inside Azerbaijan which declared independence in 1991, also announced martial law and mobilized the male population after clashes, which the two[Read More…]
Protests were held across the country today after the nationwide ‘Bharat Bandh’ call by farmer organisations against the Farm Bills. The Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020, have been passed by both Houses and await[Read More…]
Tens of thousands of people recently massed close to Thailand’s royal palace demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha, a former army chief who led a coup in 2014. The protests took place on the anniversary of a 2006 coup that ousted ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra. A major rally calling for PM Chan-O-Cha to step down gathered outside the[Read More…]
Protesters took to the streets in cities across the U.S. after Kentucky grand jury indicted a former Louisville police detective involved in the March 13 shooting death of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor. Louisville police said two officers have been shot and a suspect is in custody. Protesters took to the streets from Texas to Rhode Island Wednesday night as demonstrations honoring[Read More…]
Arctic sea ice reached a minimum extent of 3.74 million square kilometers on September 15, likely the annual low, and the second lowest minimum on record. The orange line represents average extent of sea ice from 1981 to 2010 on that day. (NSIDC) Arctic sea ice extent fell to the second-lowest annual minimum on record last week, a status that[Read More…]
Protesters attack businesses, burn flags and force motorists to pledge loyalty to BLM Several hundred people smashed up storefronts, torched American flags and harassed motorists in Portland, Oregon, following a brief lull in nearly nightly riots due to wildfires tearing through the state. Around 200 demonstrators marched through the city on Saturday night, with some individuals smashing windows and applying[Read More…]
Paramilitary groups continued to pose by far the biggest threat to Colombia’s community leaders and human rights defenders last year, says a newly released report. In its annual report, Somos Defensores (SD), a human rights organization, registered a drop in assassinations of social leaders from 155 in 2018 to 124 in 2019, but an increase in death threats that went[Read More…]
A new Arctic is emerging. The regions landscape is changing rapidly. Temperatures are skyrocketing, sea ice is dwindling and many experts believe the far north is quickly transforming into something unrecognizable. This week, new research confirms that a new Arctic climate system is emerging. A new Arctic will be warmer, rainier and substantially less frozen. Animals that used to be common may[Read More…]
Satellite images show that two important glaciers in the Antarctic are sustaining rapid damage at their most vulnerable points, leading to the breaking up of vital ice shelves with major consequences for global sea level rise. In recent years, the Pine Island Glacier and the Thwaites Glacier on West Antarctica has been undergoing rapid changes, with potentially major consequences for[Read More…]
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) meets with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on the sidelines of a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Council of Foreign Ministers in Moscow, Russia, on September 10, 2020. (Photo: Xinhua) India and China have agreed to ratchet down tensions that have been building along the disputed Chinese-Indian border, leading[Read More…]
Most U.S. citizens believe their government, legislators and courts are corrupt and unaccountable to the public, according to a new poll. Strikingly, both Democrats and Republicans share this opinion. Seventy-three percent of the U.S. citizens say that elected officials do not face “serious consequences” for misconduct, according to a new Pew Research Center poll. Pew Research Center, the Washington, DC-based[Read More…]
Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor of Kabir Kala Manch, have been arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with Elgar Parishad – Bhima Koregaon case. Later today, NIA arrested Kabir Kala Manch activist Jyoti Jagtap in Bhima Koregaon case. With the arrest of Jyoti, the number of persons arrested in this case has risen to 15. Sagar Gorkhe[Read More…]
Many of us – the readers of Countercurrents – are eating plastic although we do not buy the plastic for eating. There are incidents of recalling of several food items, because there were traces of plastic in those foods items. Almost 60,000 pounds of Pilgrim’s Pride chicken nuggets were recalled back in June because they may contain plastic. Now, scientists have found[Read More…]
Peaceful protests were held in cities across Canada on Saturday as protesters urged governments to slash police funding and do more to tackle deep-rooted racism in this country. Rallies to defund the police were held in Calgary, Halifax, Fredericton, Toronto, Montreal and London, Ont., many of which were organized by the Coalition for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC)[Read More…]
Thousands of protestors seeking criminal justice reform gathered at the National Mall in Washington D.C., the capital city of the U.S., on Friday under the rallying cry “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks,” a reference to the manner in which George Floyd was killed while in police custody in May and reminiscent of the 1963 March on Washington. Capping a[Read More…]
Over the last three months in Portland, mass protests against police violence and racism gradually gave way to nightly often violent standoffs between a core of pro-Black Lives Matter (BLM) and anti-fascist protesters and law enforcement. The incidents are now part of a fact of life in the United States. In the past week the city has fallen back into[Read More…]
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has stepped up efforts to reassert his control after 10 days of street protests and strikes triggered by disputed elections. Lukashenko says he has given orders to end the unrest in the capital Minsk. The move signaled an escalation just as European Union (EU) leaders agreed to impose sanctions at a virtual summit. The President of[Read More…]
Kuwait has not enough cash to cover state salaries beyond October. And, Dubai again has loosened laws governing alcohol sales and possession of liquor. These developments are due to the coronavirus pandemic and the fall in oil price. A Bloomberg report – “Kuwait Can’t Pay Salaries Beyond October, Minister Tells Parliament” – on August 19, 2020 said: Kuwait has 2[Read More…]
Momentum for factory strikes is winding down. Only a few days ago Belarus was boiling with opposition led protests and strike while the Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko’s claims the opposition’s program has failed. At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned against foreign interference in Belarus while the European Union has expressed concern with the situation in the[Read More…]
Greenland’s ice sheet, — the world’s second-largest ice body, would continue to lose ice even if global temperatures stop rising, and it may have passed a point of no return, setting it on an irreversible path to complete disappearance, according to scientists at Ohio State University. Snowfall that normally replenishes Greenland’s glaciers each year can no longer keep up with[Read More…]
Jared Kushner, the U.S. president Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, once again gave a bullish assessment of the U.S.s’ coronavirus response on television, despite the nation leading the world in cases and deaths. The president’s son-in-law and senior adviser doubled down on comments from April, where he called the U.S. administration’s efforts a “great success story” and that the[Read More…]
Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in Death Valley National Park. Temperatures in Death Valley in the U.S. skyrocketed to a blistering 130°F (54.4-degree Celsius) on Sunday. Possibly, it is the highest mercury reading on Earth since 1913. If the National Weather Service’s recording is correct, it would also be among the top-three highest temperatures to have ever been measured in Death[Read More…]
Far-right demonstrators, counter-protesters and police clashed in a number of states in the U.S. The series of clashes between far-right militia, pro-Confederacy groups, and anti-fascist (Antifa) counter-protesters erupted across the U.S. on Saturday. Mostly peaceful protests against racial injustice have been ongoing for weeks following the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day. Clashes between opposing groups have also occurred.[Read More…]
Two million Californians experienced rolling blackouts Friday night after officials declared a Stage 3 energy emergency due to a statewide heat wave. The last time California was in a Stage 3 emergency was in 2001. At that time, the state was in the middle of a very different type of energy crisis – and the governor lost his job over[Read More…]
Our planet is not a lump of inanimate matter circling the sun every year, providing humans free lodging, boarding and endless resources to exploit recklessly. She is a living, breathing, sentient Being, to be treated with love, care and deep respect. Revered in all ancient cultures around the world as Pachamama, Gaia, Bhumi or Mother Earth – She gives us generously but her respect needs to be earned too.
Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, has released a foreword to his new book in which he calls the president “a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man,” and accuses him of cheating in the 2016 presidential election. Cohen also makes reference to “golden showers in a sex club in Vegas,” without specifically stating[Read More…]
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened reprisals if anyone attacks the ship surveying disputed waters in the Mediterranean for oil and gas, after two French jets flew nearby during an exercise with the Greek fleet. “We said that if you attack our Oruc Reis you will pay a high price, and they got their first answer today,” Erdogan said[Read More…]
Record numbers of U.S. citizens are renouncing their citizenship according to numbers reported by a New York accountancy firm. Bambridge Accountants reports that 5,816 people gave up U.S. citizenship in the first half of 2020 — a 1,210 per cent increase on the previous six months in which only 444 cases were recorded. The first two quarters of 2020 also rank as having[Read More…]
Lebanon’s government stepped down on Monday night, less than a week after a massive explosion in Beirut killed more than 170 people and wounded more than 6000, sparking days of violent protests. Prime Minister Hassan Diab addressed the nation, announcing his resignation and that of his government in the wake of the blast, which he called a “disaster beyond measure.”[Read More…]
Citing the Israeli military media reports from Jerusalem said: Israeli fighter jets and attack helicopters struck military targets in southern Syria belonging to the Syrian army Monday night, hours after thwarting an infiltration attempt from Syria by suspected militants trying to plant explosives. In a rare statement acknowledging strikes in neighboring Syria, the Israeli army said the targets included “observation[Read More…]
Delhi University professor Apoorvanand was questioned on Monday by Delhi police in connection with Delhi riots. Apoorvanand said his phone was seized for investigation and he spent five hours with the police. Apoorvanand, who teaches Hindi at Delhi University, urged the police to conduct a thorough, just and fair investigation into the violence. This is the full text of Apoorvanand’s[Read More…]
Scientists and environmental groups have expressed alarm after new data revealed there were 28 percent more fires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest this July compared with the same time last year. Satellite images released by INPE, Brazil’s space research agency, on Saturday revealed 6,803 fires in the Amazon last month. There were 5,318 in July 2019. Citing official data, a Reuters[Read More…]
An NBC News report by Ben Popken said on July 31, 2020: “A $600 per week lifeline is about to run out of rope, threatening to leave millions of American families at the end of theirs. “The pandemic unemployment assistance payments, which were approved in March as part of the government’s fiscal stimulus package, known as the CARES Act, are[Read More…]
In the U.S., the number of people who filed for unemployment benefits rose for the second consecutive week last week as coronavirus cases surged around the country. The number of people collecting jobless benefits also increased to 17 million, up from 16.2 million the week prior. More than a million people filed for unemployment benefits in the latest week, showed[Read More…]
Goldman Sachs has issued a bold warning Tuesday that the dollar is in danger of losing its status as the world’s reserve currency. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has put a spotlight on the suddenly growing concern over inflation in the U.S. With the U.S. Congress closing in on another round of fiscal stimulus to shore up the pandemic-ravaged economy, and[Read More…]
All around the world, the coronavirus and its restrictions are pushing already hungry communities over the edge, cutting off meager farms from markets and isolating villages from food and medical aid. Virus-linked hunger is leading to the deaths of 10,000 more children a month over the first year of the pandemic, according to an urgent call to action from the[Read More…]
A senior World Health Organization (WHO) official has said that coronavirus pandemic is likely to be “one big wave” as they warned people to remain vigilant despite lockdowns being eased. Margaret Harris, the WHO spokesperson, said the idea of a “second wave” is flawed since infection rates do not seem to be affected by the seasons. Instead, Harris said, people[Read More…]
Human-caused carbon emissions islikely to trigger irreversible damage to the planet, according to a comprehensive international study released Wednesday. Researchers studying one of the most important and vexing topics in climate science — how sensitive the Earth’s climate is to a doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — found that warming is extremely unlikely to be[Read More…]
Libya is becoming a crucible for would-be regional powers. The intractable civil war that has carved apart the oil-rich North African country is in reality a multisided chess match between a variety of outside actors, from Turkey to the United Arab Emirates, France and Egypt. The battle involves thousands of Syrian militiamen and Sudanese mercenaries. Countries are deploying drones, fighter[Read More…]
Sudan says River Nile water levels have dropped as a reservoir behind Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance dam has filled up, hitting out at “any unilateral actions taken by any party.” Egypt has also demanded “quick official clarification” from Ethiopia. Sudan and Egypt are downstream, and fear the large dam will greatly reduce their access to water. Ethiopia sees the hydroelectric project[Read More…]
From some of the heaviest rains in a decade that has created monsoon flood, a third of Bangladesh is already underwater, and at least 1.5 million people are already affected, marooned or have left their homes for higher ground along with their cattle and other belongings with villages and roads flooded. Almost four million people have been hit by this[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic is set to get “worse and worse” if countries do not stick to strict healthcare guidelines, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned. The disease has already killed more than half-a-million globally. Speaking on Monday during a press briefing from the WHO headquarters in Geneva via videolink, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave an alarming prognosis on[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic has caused an “unprecedented education emergency” with up to 9.7 million children affected by school closures at risk of never going back to class, warned Save the Children Monday. The British charity cited UNESCO data showing that in April, 1.6 billion young people were shut out of school and university due to measures to contain COVID-19 –[Read More…]
Japanese authorities have demanded answers from the U.S. after a large scale COVID-19 outbreak among U.S. Marines stationed in Japan’s southern prefecture of Okinawa. The U.S. military officials told the two bases have since been put in lockdown. In recent days, 61 U.S. Marines have been infected with the virus, spread across two bases in the archipelago — which[Read More…]
Torrential rainfall for the past three days has triggered floods and landslides in different parts of Nepal, claiming more than 40 lives and displacing thousands of families in western Nepal. Narayani and other major rivers have swollen due to the continuous downpour. Meteorological Department on Friday had forecast that the monsoon rains would last for another three days. Twenty-seven[Read More…]
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that about half of the land in Oklahoma is within a Native American reservation. The court ruling will have major consequences for both past and future criminal and civil cases in the U.S. The U.S. court’s ruling hinged on the question of whether the Creek reservation continued to exist after Oklahoma, one of the[Read More…]
COVID-19 pandemic is making the poor poorer and the rich richer. The following is such a story: An AP report said: “The U.S. government’s small business lending program has benefited millions of companies, with the goal of minimizing the number of layoffs Americans have suffered in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet the recipients include many you probably would[Read More…]
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has ordered National Guard troops to deploy in Atlanta, after rioters ransacked the state police headquarters. Shootings in the city have doubled in the wake of protests against police brutality. Some 1,000 soldiers will be deployed to protect the state Capitol, the governor’s mansion, and the Department of Public Safety building that was vandalized over the[Read More…]
Protesters pulled down a statue of Christopher Columbus in Baltimore, U.S. They threw the statue into the city’s Inner Harbor. Statues of Columbus have also been toppled in cities including Miami; Columbus, Ohio; Richmond, Virginia; St Paul, Minnesota; and Boston, where one was decapitated. In Baltimore, Demonstrators used ropes to topple the monument on Saturday night near the Little Italy[Read More…]
A group of mainly Native American protesters blocked the road leading up to Mount Rushmore for three hours before President Donald Trump gave a speech at the national monument Friday night. When they refused to disband, the protesters faced off with the South Dakota National Guard, which shot close-range shells at their feet and sprayed some protesters with pepper spray,[Read More…]
A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that no matter how polarized they might be politically, Americans finally seem to agree on something: that everything about America is getting worse. In his 1989 farewell address, President Ronald Reagan famously described the United States as a “shining city on a hill” — a beacon of hope and a model for the rest[Read More…]
Two large blobs of dust blown off of Africa’s Sahara Desert – which some experts say could be the biggest and most intense Saharan plume in 50 years – are on their way to North America, driven by the same high-pressure system that pushes hurricanes across the same route. The largest is already over the Gulf of Mexico and parts[Read More…]
On June 24, 2020, an Arab News report from Riyadh said: The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday welcomed Saudi Arabia’s decision to greatly limit the number of Hajj pilgrims this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Kingdom said just 1,000 people, who are already living in Saudi Arabia, would be able to perform the pilgrimage. Last year almost[Read More…]
Using the coronavirus to score political points has only made the global health crisis worse, claimed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) director-general. Some observers have interpreted the WHO chief’s claim as a broadside against U.S. President Donald Trump. The politicization of the pandemic has “exacerbated” the effects of the disease, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during an online conference on Monday,[Read More…]
To observe a day of protest against the Super Emergency on 25 June 2020 https://marupakkamonlinefilmscreening.blogspot.com will conduct a one-day online film festival. They will be screening 1) “Ammi” – Dir: Sunil Kumar 90 min; Hindi with Eng subtitles; 2018 This is one woman’s two-year fight for justice. Battered by the police, having been told by the myriad government agencies who[Read More…]
The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 on June 17, 2020 informed: The world has now recorded more than 8 million cases of COVID-19. In the first two months, 85,000 cases were reported. But in the past two months 6 million cases have been reported. There have been more[Read More…]
U.S. President Donald Trump thought it would be “cool” to invade Venezuela but was persuaded not to by “Soviet-style propaganda” from Moscow, claims Trump’s former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton in book excerpts leaked to the press. Trump said invading Venezuela would be “cool” and described the Latin American country as “really part of the United States,” according to[Read More…]
Over 44 million U.S. citizens lost jobs as authorities introduced lockdown measures aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus, officially COVID-19, disease. The U.S. is finding a decline in the jobless rate. Lines in front of Food Banks are increasing. The U.S. Federal Reserve forecast on employment and the overall economic situation, which is said to be the most[Read More…]
Three Indian soldiers were killed during a “violent face-off” with Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh. The incident occurred during a “deescalation process” underway in the Galwan Valley in the disputed Aksai Chin-Ladakh area, where a large troop build up has reportedly been taking place for weeks now on both sides of the border, before[Read More…]
Jets from Turkey carried out cross-border airstrikes on Monday targeting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Turkish Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, announced Turkish authorities. A source in the area told Kurdistan 24 the Turkish fighter jets launched the attack at midnight, targeting several locations in the Shingal (Sinjar) district, and several locations close to the Makhmour refugee camp, which[Read More…]
The shape of carbonate sands. (a) 3D scans of the 18 Heron particles using a Hirox RH2000 microscope equipped with MXB2016Z. (b) Estimation of the projected area of the particles by considering the particles as different geometric shapes (squares, circles, rectangles, or ellipses). Source: Scientific Reports The method of accounting sand is important for understanding the way reefs, atolls and[Read More…]
When Super Cyclone Amphan hit West Bengal on May 20 this year, it devastated large parts of the state, including the capital city Kolkata, killing dozens, destroying thousands of homes and depriving lakhs of people of their livelihoods. Coming on top of the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic the cyclone created a double disaster for West Bengal. However, the state is now[Read More…]
This is Part-5 of a series of articles on a crisis in India-Nepal relations. Part-4 was titled India-Nepal Border Dispute : The International Ramifications. It mainly dealt with attempts made in vain to topple a communist regime, the NCP-Oli-led Nepal govt, and the international context and import of the still unfolding controversy. This one, Part-5, focuses on US hegemonic role[Read More…]
Today, the Republic of India faces its gravest moment since it was born seventy years ago. What has hit the second most populous nation in the world – just in the last few months itself – is nothing short of a crisis of Biblical proportions. An untreatable viral epidemic, a debilitating lockdown, a collapsed economy, hunger stalking every corner of[Read More…]
This is Part-4 of a series of articles on a crisis in India-Nepal relations that led to mutual allegations of a cartographic war, and smacked of being a part of cold war against China. It is a still unfolding controversy, being reported and analysed exclusively for the readers of Countercurrent.org. Part-4 now being published, deals with the international context and[Read More…]
On the 3rd day – Thursday – of protest on the murder of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man, demonstrators broke into a Minneapolis police precinct station after the department abandoned it, setting it ablaze and igniting fireworks as three days of violent protests spread to cities across the U.S. Gov. Tim Walz late Wednesday called it an “extremely dangerous[Read More…]
The Parque Taruma cemetery during the coronavirus outbreak in Manaus, Brazil. Brazil now has the second-highest number of reported coronavirus cases, surpassing Russia. Blue, turquoise, and white crosses mark the dead in mass graves in Manaus, Brazil, a visual reminder of the toll the novel coronavirus has had on the country. The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and[Read More…]
In the second day of demonstration, protests against police violence have spread across the U.S. in response to the death of George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis police custody May 25. Thousands of people are decrying the killing by police. Among many places, protests spread in Los Angeles, Memphis, Minnesota, Houston, Chicago. In Minneapolis, protesters turned to violent confrontation as[Read More…]
U.S. Defense Department officials are reportedly planning to brief President Donald Trump on several options to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, that include an option to pull them out before the 2020 U.S. presidential election in November. Trump has expressed a desire to end the U.S.’s wars throughout the course of his presidency. In 2019, he abruptly ordered the[Read More…]
(This is Part-2 of a two-part Report; this one deals with various dimensions of the issue. Part-1 was published on May24, with the title, India-Nepal Border Issue Raked Up, Relations Strained Once Again.) Even as Covid-19 health crisis, and its cascading effect on the economic crisis — both are aggravating in India — are upsetting Modi Government’s claims and calculations[Read More…]
(This is Part-1 of a two-part article) “ We remain committed to resolving the border issue,” said Anurag Srivastava, India’s Official Spokesperson. “If the coronavirus was an obstacle for negotiations between friendly nations, then we were surprised that it wasn’t an obstacle for this decision (inauguration of the link road). ..This wasn’t the time to create unnecessary controversy which can[Read More…]
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has slashed its growth forecast for this financial year and warned of inflation uncertainties as India’s economy suffers due to the Covid-19, pandemic. While the country’s GDP growth is set to “remain in the negative territory with some pick up in second half” of the 2020-21 fiscal year, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das did not[Read More…]
The above is the title of news release by WHO. The two-day meeting of the 73rd World Health Assembly (WHA) was held in Geneva on May 18-19, discussed Covid-19 and how the world is coping with that. Even as the media in India is engaged 24×7 on Covid-19, this historic session was given poor coverage, and many of those that[Read More…]
Super cyclone Amphan has wrecked havoc in the Indian state of West Bengal, especially the state capital Kolkata, and the southwestern part of the neighboring country Bangladesh after the Amphan made landfall in West Bengal. The death toll, yet to be counted finally, in both the countries is over 20. The Amphan became the strongest storm ever recorded in the Bay of[Read More…]
The world’s progress in eliminating poverty is set to suffer a major setback due to the coronavirus pandemic, forcing more people to survive on less than $1.90 per day, the World Bank has said in a recent statement (Press release no.: 2020/193/EXC). “The pandemic and shutdown of advanced economies could push as many as 60 million people into extreme poverty[Read More…]
The world’s nuclear powers are increasingly streaming money into their nuclear arsenals, and the U.S. is leading the trend, says a new report. The U.S. has also exited a major arms control treaty and deployed a new tactical weapon. The report – Enough is Enough: 2019 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending (May 2020) – by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear[Read More…]
Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla has accused the U.S. government of criminal negligence because the attack on Cuba’s embassy in Washington DC could have been avoided. He has asked that the attacker’s links with anti-Cuban, Florida-based groups be investigated. “Twelve days after the attack, the State Department is complicit in silence and does not condemn the incident,” Rodriguez said, recalling[Read More…]
U.S. President Donald Trump is culpable for thousands of deaths in the U.S. and beyond due to his Covid-19 pandemic response, from making states deal with the crisis individually to cutting the World Health Organization (WHO) funding, Professor Noam Chomsky has said. The radical intellectual has said: Donald Trump has done it to boost his electoral prospects and line the[Read More…]
In the absence of a vaccine, the increasingly discussed idea of beating the coronavirus pandemic through achieving so-called herd immunity could be a disastrous miscalculation, a senior World Health Organization (WHO) official has warned. “This is a really dangerous, dangerous calculation,” Michael Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said at a briefing on Monday. “Humans are not herds,”[Read More…]
Three Indian photojournalists based in Jammu & Kashmir won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for their coverage of the region during the clampdown that followed the Union government’s decision last August to divest the region of its special status and reorganise it into two Union Territories. Associated Press photographers Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan, and Channi Anand have been[Read More…]
Saudi Arabia announced a slew of austerity measures to cope with the fiscal impact of the coronavirus pandemic and oil price rout, tripling its value-added tax (VAT) and cutting allowances for government workers. The steps taken to shore up revenue and rationalize spending are valued at about 100 billion riyals ($26.6 billion) in total, according to the official Saudi Press[Read More…]
A shootout erupted on Saturday at a protest in western Afghanistan by residents demanding economic assistance, leading to the deaths of at least six people including a local reporter and two police officers, officials said. The reporter has been identified as local volunteer radio presenter Ahmadkhan Nawid, according to the Afghanistan Journalists’ Centre. The protesters were demanding relief after weeks[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic will plunge most of Europe into its worst recession since the 1930s, according to a grim forecast released by the European Commission (EC). Brussels has had to abandon any hope of growth for both the EU and euro area in 2020, as the economies are set to contract by 7.5 and 7.75 percent respectively, according to this[Read More…]
This is yet another news story underplayed by Big Media, and being reported by us. A Delhi HC judgment showed that ICMR agreed to pay 2.5 times the price for Corona rapid test kits, imported from China, to help private traders to loot the public exchequer. Public interest must outweigh private gain, the Court observed. And Justice Najmi Waziri slashed[Read More…]
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Virtual Summit “United against COVID-19” was held on Monday, May 4, via videoconference. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev chaired the NAM summit. The meeting took place in the format of the Contact Group, which includes regional representatives. The Republic of Azerbaijan convoked the meeting as president of the Movement for the period 2019-2022, given the need for[Read More…]
If global warming continues unchecked, the heat that is coming later this century in some parts of the world will bring “nearly unlivable” conditions for up to 3 billion people, a study released Monday said. Climate change could push 1.5 billion people to migrate to escape unlivable heat in the next 50 years even if global targets are reached, says the[Read More…]
Environmental activists delivered a petition to a special session of the Swiss parliament on Monday demanding that a government aid package should promote a “green recovery” from the coronavirus crisis. More than 22,000 people signed the petition demanding that support for companies in sectors with large greenhouse gas emissions like aviation be tied to reducing their environmental impact. Campaigners said[Read More…]
Venezuelan authorities have foiled a raid by “foreign mercenaries” trying to reach the anti-imperialist country. The first aim of the failed mercenary incursion into Venezuela was assassinating the country’s President Nicolas Maduro. The mercenaries tried to reach the Latin American country by sea to launch terrorist attacks and assassinate government officials. Venezuela’s Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said in a televised[Read More…]
Global coronavirus, officially COVID-19, cases has passed 3.5 million while deaths have topped 247,000. The U.S. has the most coronavirus deaths in the world at more 67,600, a number that rose 1,450 over the 24 hours to Sunday evening. Deliberately concealed outbreaks, low testing rates and the severe strain the disease has placed on health care systems mean the true[Read More…]
That is the title of a Report by business-standard.com, April 29, 2020. While the country is drowned in reports about Covid-19, this news did not so much attract the attention of people. We celebrate the World Press Freedom Day with a report on this issue. The Indian media, known for its sensationalism did not somehow highlight it, nor gave it[Read More…]
Attacks on Doctors and Media: A Few Case Studies was a Report published on April 27. This one is a sequel to that, and can be deemed as Part-2 of a two part report.The focus now is on Islamophobia, promoted by media, and abetted by State agencies. Tablighi Jamaat members spat on doctors, defecated in hospital wards, misbehaved with[Read More…]
USA Intelligence Community Statement on Origins of COVID-19 News Release, For Immediate Release ODNI News Release No. 11-20, April 30, 2020 WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) today issued the following Intelligence Community (IC) statement: “The entire Intelligence Community has been consistently providing critical support to U.S. policymakers and those responding to the COVID-19 virus,[Read More…]
The number of global cases of coronavirus infection reached 3.22 Million while the global number of deaths reached 227,420. U.S. coronavirus deaths pass 60,000 The Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. has passed 60,000 on Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The deaths are now above the figure predicted by the latest model used by Dr Anthony Fauci, U.S. President[Read More…]
President Donald Trump has ordered meat processing plants to stay open to protect the nation’s food supply amid the coronavirus pandemic — BBC Report dated April 29. An estimated 3,300 US meatpacking workers have been diagnosed with coronavirus and 20 have died. BBC reported: He invoked a Korean War-era law from the 1950s to mandate that the plants continue to[Read More…]
As more than three million cases of Covid-19 have been recorded worldwide, more than 210,000 people have died, and both the World Health Organization (WHO) and world leaders face criticism for mishandling the coronavirus, officially Covid-19, pandemic, the WHO director-general claimed: Countries that ignored the WHO’s advice at the end of January have been less successful in tackling the Covid-19[Read More…]
The Ordinance on punishing “miscreants” who attack healthcare personnel was issued on April 22. Whether it would really put an end to attacks etc is to be seen in practice. A few case studies of attacks on doctors and their media coverage will be useful in this connection. Hence this news analysis. Adarsh Pratap Singh, President of AIIMS Healthcare Professional[Read More…]
More than 206,000 people have died from the coronavirus pandemic, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. More than Over 2.9 million people worldwide have tested positive. In the U.S., more than 54,000 people have died, while there have been over 950,000 confirmed cases. U.S. President Trump’s economic adviser said the U.S. jobless rates from the coronavirus crisis would be[Read More…]
Syrian missile defenses responded to an attack by Israeli warplanes, intercepting several missiles over Damascus launched from Lebanese airspace, Syria’s SANA news agency reported. A video found online purportedly showed the Syrian missile shield being activated to shoot down missiles, reportedly fired by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from Lebanese airspace. There have been unconfirmed reports that at least three[Read More…]
On Friday, according to AFP, the number of people who have lost their lives to the COVID-19, passed 190,000 and continues to rise. There is some cause for hope that the tide may be about to turn as testing capabilities grow worldwide and human trials for a vaccine get underway. The AFP reports that a total of 190,089 people passed[Read More…]
This is Part-2 of a report. “ The Union Cabinet in its meeting held on 22nd April 2020 has approved promulgation of an Ordinance to amend the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 to protect healthcare service personnel and property including their living/working premises against violence during epidemics. The President has given his assent for promulgation of the Ordinance. The Ordinance provides for making[Read More…]
U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. Navy to “shoot down and destroy” Iranian gunboats, should they harass American vessels at sea. His declaration comes after a confrontation in the Persian Gulf. “I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea,” the U.S. president[Read More…]
Ordinance to treat offences against doctors as non bailable and cognizable issued This is Part-1 of a two part report. Indian Medical Association (IMA) withdrew its protest,slated for today, April 22, after their meeting with the Home Minister and the Health Minister. Safety and dignity of our doctors at their work place is non-negotiable, Union Home Minister Amit Shah[Read More…]
As the world is dealing with the coronavirus, officially COVID-19, pandemic, the head of the UN food agency warned Tuesday that, the world is also “on the brink of a hunger pandemic” that could lead to “multiple famines of biblical proportions” within a few months if immediate action isn’t taken. World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley told the[Read More…]
U.S. oil market has crashed. The price of U.S. oil turned negative for the first time in history. The U.S. oil industry is facing a doomsday scenario. Hundreds of U.S. oil companies could go bankrupt. Many U.S. oil companies took on too much debt during the good times. Some of them will not be able to survive this historic downturn.[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic has created debates on many issues including church and similar institutions. A number of letters in Los Angeles Times is a show of that debate, which indicates the impact the pandemic is making on many parts of life. The “Letters to the Editor: Churches don’t have a 1st Amendment right to ruin public health” in Los Angeles[Read More…]
As demand dries down and storage runs out, the price of U.S. oil has fallen to a level not seen since 1999. Crude prices in U.S.’ oil capital are getting dangerously close to zero. The oil market has come under intense pressure during the coronavirus pandemic with a huge slump in demand. The price of a barrel of West Texas[Read More…]
Lockdown to counter coronavirus, officially Covid-19, in the U.S. has created political controversy in the country. Political leaders are exchanging tirades, threatening measures considered beyond constitution, and groups of people protesting while armed militiamen are joining the anti-lockdown protest. Cuomo extends New York lockdown in coordination with other states New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has extended his state’s social-distancing measures[Read More…]
Worldwide, more than two million people have contracted coronavirus, officially Covid-19, Wednesday since the lethal outbreak began last December, passing another dark milestone, and the worst hit country is the U.S. Globally, more than 132,000 people have died. And in this situation, the U.S. is continuing its war against the World Health organization (WHO) and China. According to data from[Read More…]
The United States is unleashing a war against the World Health organization (WHO) as U.S. cuts funding to probe its ‘China ties’. However, the UN Chief has said: “Now is not the time!” The UN chief says WHO is “critical” in global war against Covid-19. As the pandemic rages on in some 185 countries, the U.S. has escalated a rhetorical[Read More…]
This is Part-2 of a Report. Part-1 appeared with the title: 200 Million Indian Muslims Vilified, now in the name of Covid-19. “Coronavirus may die…but the virus of communal disharmony will be hard to kill when this is over.” — Khalid Rasheed, Chairman of Islamic Center of India The anti-Muslim tirade has become the new normal so much so that it[Read More…]
Covid-19 death toll in England and Wales have shot up dramatically, with one in every five now linked to the coronavirus, while the UK government has been accused of underreporting fatalities among the elderly in care homes. New data published on Tuesday by the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS), which detail all deaths in hospitals and out in the[Read More…]
Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked information on U.S. National Security Agency, has warned that governments may use the coronavirus to curtail freedoms. Snowden, in an exclusive interview with Vice, said that governments may take advantage of the pandemic to impose authoritarian rules on populations. Snowden said, “As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we[Read More…]
(This is part-1 of a two part report) Let us begin with the latest news : “We cannot curb the freedom of press,” a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde said, on April 13 Monday. Very much welcome, but for the context. The very next day, April 14, BR Ambedkar’s birth anniversary, in compliance of[Read More…]
The worldwide death toll from the coronavirus, officially COVID-19, passed 119,000 on Monday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. More than 2 million people have tested positive for the virus. Germany saw its new coronavirus cases fall for the fifth consecutive day. The U.S. has had more than 23,000 deaths and 682,000 COVID-19 cases, leading the world in both[Read More…]
A vast ozone hole, probably the biggest on record in the north, has opened in the skies above the Arctic, on the other side of the planet from the infamous hole that forms each year above the Antarctica, better-known Antarctic ozone hole. It rivals the Antarctic ozone hole. Scientists from the European Space Agency said this week that this rare[Read More…]
South Asia is on course for its worst economic performance in 40 years, with decades of progress in the battle against poverty at risk, because of coronavirus, the World Bank (WB) said Sunday. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Pakistan and other countries in the region, which have 1.8 billion people and some of the planet’s most densely populated cities, have[Read More…]
by Mahboob A. Khawaja, Lambert Academic Publishing Germany: 12/2019: 537 Pages Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD in interdisciplinary Social Science (Syracuse University, New York, USA), an academia and international scholar believes in One Global Humanity living peacefully on One Earth and shares new ideas and vision for change and critical thinking action to transform the obsolete global systems of thinking and[Read More…]
Part of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone where the infamous power plant explosion occurred in 1986 is on fire, and radiation in the area is spiking- reported Live Science. The report said, The fire covers about 50 acres (20 hectares) near the abandoned village of Vladimirovka in Ukraine’s Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, according to CNN. In a Facebook post, Yegor Firsov, head of Ukraine’s ecological[Read More…]
Increased panic buying of food due to coronavirus lockdowns has led to price spikes for the world’s two staple grains – rice and wheat. Reuters data showed, rice prices are now the highest since late April 2013. Importers have rushed to stockpile the goods, while exporters have curbed shipments. The price of rice has hit seven-year highs, while wheat futures[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world will turn global economic growth “sharply negative” in 2020, triggering the worst fallout since the 1930s Great Depression, with only a partial recovery seen in 2021, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said. Georgieva painted a far bleaker picture of the social and economic impact of the new coronavirus than even[Read More…]
Confirmed cases of coronavirus, officially Covid-19, ticked to just over one and a half million worldwide on Wednesday, with the death toll now standing at over 87,000. Out of the worldwide cases, more than 319,000 patients are considered fully recovered. Worldwide cases of the coronavirus now stand at 1,500,830, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Fatalities from the[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic can wipe out 6.7 per cent of working hours globally in the second quarter of 2020, which is equivalent to 195 million full-time workers. This number far exceeds the effects of the 2008-09 financial crisis, the International Labour Organization (ILO) warned on Tuesday. According to the ILO report “ILO Monitor 2nd edition: COVID-19 and the world of[Read More…]
