Social Inequality is Generating Conflict in Latin America: UNDP

teleSUR | December 09, 2019

A woman gestures as members of the security forces disperse a protest against Chile’s government in Santiago, Chile December 8, 2019. | Photo: Reuters

Throughout 2019, the populations of Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and Haiti have taken part in massive public demonstrations, which have been strongly repressed, causing dozens of deaths and hundreds of detainees and wounded.

The United Nations Development Program ( UNDP ) warned on Monday that inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean can cause greater social crises, as evident by the popular protests in several countries in the region.

Fix California’s Housing Crisis, Activists Say. But Which One?

by Benjami Schneider

City Lab | December 06, 2019

A vacant home in Oakland, about to demolished for an apartment complex, has become a target of protests by tenants rights activists. Ben Schneider/CityLab

The week before Thanksgiving, housing Twitter exploded. The focus of the debate: the significance of vacancy rates.

In a tweet promoting the March for Housing Now rally in Oakland, comedian Kamau Bell wrote, “We’ve been led to believe that there’s a housing crisis in Oakland. But there are 4 VACANT units for every homeless person. This isn’t a housing crisis. It’s a crisis of greed.” One of the organizations hosting that rally, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), also contributed to a report released that week called “Who’s Buying Los Angeles?” The report highlighted extremely high vacancy rates in newly constructed luxury apartments in Los Angeles.

Omidyar’s Intercept Teams Up With War-Propaganda Firm Bellingcat

by Whitney Webb

MintPress News | October 08, 2018

EW YORK — The Intercept, along with its parent company First Look Media, recently hosted a workshop for pro-war, Google-funded organization Bellingcat in New York. The workshop, which cost $2,500 per person to attend and lasted five days, aimed to instruct participants in how to perform investigations using “open source” tools — with Bellingcat’s past, controversial investigations for use as case studies. The exact details of what occurred during the workshop have not been made public and Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins declined to elaborate on the workshop when pressed on social media.

NATO’s Crises

The 2% goal as defence illiteracy

by Jan Oberg

Political

NATO’s London Summit on December 3 and 4, 2019 displays the deep political crisis of the 70-year-old alliance: Only a dinner and a short meeting, no statement to be issued, quarrels among the leading military members, accusations, substantial differences on Syria and many other issues, the deepest-ever Transatlantic conflict and the usual issues of burden-sharing.

Trump Was Right: NATO Should Be Obsolete

by Medea Benjamin

The three smartest words that Donald Trump uttered during his presidential campaign are “NATO is obsolete.” His adversary, Hillary Clinton, retorted that NATO was “the strongest military alliance in the history of the world.” Now that Trump has been in power, the White House parrots the same worn line that NATO is “the most successful Alliance in history, guaranteeing the security, prosperity, and freedom of its members.” But Trump was right the first time around: Rather than being a strong alliance with a clear purpose, this 70-year-old organization that is meeting in London on December 4 is a stale military holdover from the Cold War days that should have gracefully retired many years ago.