More than 45 million people chained in slavery: World capitalism’s creation

A Journal of People report

An astounding 45.8 million persons are enslaved across the world, reveals a new study. And, slavery generates US$150 billion in illegal profits per year. Victims of slavery can be as young as 5 or 6 years old. The findings show a part of the world capitalist system.

A few years ago, International Labour Organization’s Global Estimate of Forced Labour, 2012 said: 68% are subject to forced labor. Slave labour contributes to the production of at least 136 goods from 74 countries worldwide, said the United States Department of Labour, List of Goods produced by child labour or forced labour, 2014.

The twisted truth of the right wing

by Dilbert Reyes Rodríguez

Granma | 27 May, 2016

Luis Almagro (fifth from left to right) receives Venezuelan national assembly members calling for military intervention in their own country. Photo: EFE

CARACAS.— “And your lie, even if it is repeated a thousand times, will never be true,“ reads the second sentence of a message sent last week by Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The open letter was the irate response, dressed up as reason, of the former Uruguayan foreign minister following Maduro’s accusation that Almagro was a CIA agent and was conspiring with the Venezuelan right wing to subject the country to sanctions and the resulting regional isolation, on invoking the Inter-American Democratic Charter of the OAS.

22,000 EU Vessels Fishing Outside EU Waters Highlights Need for Greater Transparency

OCENA

Press Release Date

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Location: Madrid, Spain
Contact: Marta Madina: mmadina@oceana.org +34 911 440 884

The recently-updated WhoFishesFar.org website has today revealed that 22,085 EU vessels have operated in non-EU waters since 2008. The list, however, falls short on European vessels operating under private agreements with African countries which remain completely under the radar. Oceana is therefore calling on EU Ministers in the upcoming Council of Ministers in June to back new regulation that would ensure these vessels adhere to EU controls and standards.

A cycle of permanent intervention in Libya

by Ramona Wadi

The New Arab | 26 May, 2016

In the aftermath of NATO’s destruction of Libya, official rhetoric fluctuated between transition and reports of violence which were swiftly brushed aside as mere consequences of a country struggling to embrace a democratic framework.

While this framework still forms part of UN propaganda, the infiltration of the Islamic State group in Libya – particularly in Sirte – has not only ridiculed the diplomatic gibberish, but also reflects the extent to which the international community commits human rights violations under the auspices of the UN. This leaves the targeted country prone to additional violence from armed groups.

In Honduras, USAID Was in Bed with Berta Cáceres’ Accused Killers

by GLORIA JIMENEZ

counterpunch | 27 May, 2016

Less than three months before Lenca leader Berta Cáceres was brutally assassinated, the social arm of Desarollos Energeticos SA (DESA)–the Honduran company leading the Agua Zarca dam project Cáceres was campaigning against–signed a contract with USAID implementing partner Fintrac, a Washington DC based development contracting firm.

“I Write This as a Warning to the World”

The Daily Express, London, September 5, 1945

 

Express Staff Reporter Peter Burchett [sic] was the first Allied staff reporter to enter the atom-bomb city. He travelled 400 miles from Tokyo alone and unarmed carrying rations for seven meals — food is almost unobtainable in Japan — a black umbrella, and a typewriter. Here is his story from —

HIROSHIMA, Tuesday.

In Hiroshima, 30 days after the first atomic bomb destroyed the city and shook the world, people are still dying, mysteriously and horribly — people who were uninjured by the cataclysm — from an unknown something which I can only describe as atomic plague.

Hiroshima and Wilfred Burchett: A few more facts

A Journal of People report

 

The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima is not forgotten. The incident is again being debated. Following is a report based on an essay, which exposes important aspects of the bombing.

Richard Tanter, a Senior Research Associate at the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, and author of Masters of Terror: Indonesia’s Military and Violence in East Timor in 1999, wrote the essay “Voice and Silence in the First Nuclear War: Wilfred Burchett and Hiroshima” for The Asia-Pacific Journal, Japan Focus, August 3, 2005, Volume 3, Issue 8. The original version of this essay was first published in Ben Kiernan (ed.), Burchett Reporting the Other Side of the World 1939-1983, Quartet, London, 1986.

Hiroshima Shadow Stays

Editorial by Morning Star | 28 May, 2016

 

The first Western journalist into Hiroshima after the US dropped its atomic bomb was Wilfred Burchett, a British-born Australian journalist.

His subsequent article in the Daily Express — not then the monolithically reactionary paper it is today — told the horrific truth about how that Japanese city had been turned into a “death-stricken alien planet.”

Even the IMF—the IMF!—Turns on Neoliberalism

by Andrea Germanos

Common Dreams | 27 May, 2016

 

In what may be a sign of a “shifting zeitgeist,” a new paper published this week by economists with the International Monetary Fund questions the very neoliberal policies the body has imposed.

Entitled “Neoliberalism: Oversold?“ (pdf) the IMF’s Jonathan Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Davide Furceri focus their analysis on two policies of what British writer George Monbiotdubbed the “zombie doctrine”: “removing restrictions on the movement of capital across a country’s borders (so-called capital account liberalization); and fiscal consolidation, sometimes called ‘austerity,’ which is shorthand for policies to reduce fiscal deficits and debt levels.”

In Oil-Soaked Niger Delta, ‘Avengers’ Bombing Pipelines in Struggle for Compensation

by Andrea Germanos

Common Dreams | 27 May, 2016

 

Photo from 2010 shows damage following oil disaster in of Niger Delta. (Photo: Sosialistisk Ungdom (SU)/flickr/cc)

 

In the oil-rich Niger delta, where communities suffer “enormous” effects from decades of spills, a militant group claiming responsibility for a spate of attacks on oil infrastructure now appears to have the backing of some community members.