SAO PAULO FORUM

Anti-imperialist unity is the tactic and strategy of victory

Full text of remarks by Cuban President during the videoconference Meeting of Leaders, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Sao Paulo Forum’s founding

To political forces in the Sao Paulo Forum, we call on you to mobilize in unity to face the new challenges, along with social and popular movements and intellectuals of the left…

History is made by the people, even if it is written by others. No empire can decree the end of history as long as there are chains to be broken, walls to be demolished, exclusions and abuses to be fought.

 

Cuban President Díaz-Canel participated in the online leaders’ meeting commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Sao Paulo Forum. Photo: Estudio Revolución

Granma | July 30, 2020

 

Remarks by Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, President of the Republic of Cuba, via videoconference, at the Meeting of Leaders, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Sao Paulo Forum’s founding, July 28, 2020, Year 62 of the Revolution

(Transcript: Presidencia.gob.cu /Translation: GI)

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PEOPLE’S RESISTANCE IN BOLIVIA

 

“The people of Bolivia will no longer be intimidated”

Bolivian journalist Ollie Vargas talks about the massive protests that have broken out in the country following the authorities’ decision to postpone the presidential elections yet again

 

People’s Dispatch | July 31, 2020

 

On July 23, the Supreme Electoral Court in Bolivia postponed the general elections scheduled for September 6, citing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bolivian social movements have rejected the decision which they see as another attempt by the coup installed government to extend their usurpation of power and have been on the streets mobilizing across the country.

Ollie Vargas a Bolivian journalist from Kawsachan News, spoke to us about the tremendous resistance of the Bolivian people, the prospects of the Movement Towards Socialism in the upcoming elections, the deep divisions within Bolivia’s right and the attacks on press freedom.

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WORKERS RESIST IN CHILE

Chile’s trade union center calls for a national protest against Piñera’s government

People’s Dispatch | July 30, 2020

 

The United Center of Workers of Chile (CUT) rejected the national government’s actions that are leading the workers to bear the costs of the current crisis

 

The United Center of Workers of Chile (CUT) has called for a national pot-banging protest on July 31 against the right-wing government of president Sebastián Piñera. Photo: Prensa Latina

Chile’s trade union center, the United Center of Workers (CUT), on July 28, called for a national protest on July 31 against the right-wing government of president Sebastián Piñera. The CUT called on the citizens and workers to hang black flags outside their homes and bang utensils at 21:00 hours, one and a half hours after the head of state’s annual public address known as the Cuenta Pública. In the Cuenta Pública, announcements regarding the government’s social and legislative agenda for the year are made.

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SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Genocide of Colombia’s social leaders continues unabated

Peoples Dispatch | July 29, 2020

 

According to a report prepared by various social organizations, between November 2016 and July 14, 2020, 973 social leaders and human rights defenders were assassinated in Colombia

 

Social movements held a protest held in Bogotá, on July 20, Colombian independence day, denouncing the silence of the national government in the face of the genocide of social leaders in Colombia. Photo: Colombia Informa

 

On July 27, Colombian organizations including the Institute of Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz), the Marcha Patriótica (the Patriotic March) platform of social movements and the Agrarian, Peasant, Ethnic and Popular Summit, a platform of Indigenous, peasant and Afro-descendant organizations, held a press conference to denounce the growing violence against Colombian movements. They denounced that almost 1,000 social leaders have been killed since the signing of peace agreements in 2016 between the former government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group.

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IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION AGAINST VENEZUELA

President Maduro: US Pursues the Purchase of Covid-19 Medicines that Venezuela Needs

ORINOCO TRIBUNE | July 26, 2020

 

 

The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, denounced this Sunday that Venezuela is under criminal persecution by the North American empire, which is pursuing the purchase of medicines that the country needs to fight Covid-19.

He stressed that Venezuela has all the necessary treatments, despite the persecution of the US government that prevents the purchase of the drugs that Venezuela needs.Read More »

IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION AGAINST VENEZUELA

 

IMPERIALISM’S ECONOMIC WAR COSTS VENEZUELA NEARLY $200 BILLION

Pasqualina Curcio

People’s Voice | July 17, 2020

 

Quantifying each and every one of the effects of the war that imperialism has declared on the Venezuelan people is impossible. The attacks that Venezuelans have experienced since 1999 have not only been economic, they have also been psychological. There is no way to measure the consequences of the hatred that the undemocratic opposition has sown with its anti-socialist propaganda, to the point of burning people alive if they are suspected chavistas. The resentment that the Venezuelan people have towards those who claim to be Venezuelans, but who have sold out their homeland, is also unmeasurable.

That said, focusing on the economic dimension we have updated the calculations that we made in March 2019. At that point, losses caused by this war amounted to $125 billion; we have now calculated those for all of 2019, which total $68 billion (all amounts in US dollars).Read More »

IMPERIALISM AND SECULARISM

 

WHAT IS THE REAL PURPOSE OF ERDOĞAN’S HAGIA SOPHIA MOVE?

Kemal Okuyan

People’s Voice | July 16, 2020

Kemal Okuyan, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), discusses the political motives behind President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision to transform the Hagia Sophia, a nearly 1500-year-old world heritage monument, into a mosque.

 

The government has turned Hagia Sophia into a mosque for prayers. Doubtless, there will be an international reaction but not to such an extent that Erdoğan could not risk it. In any case, no one around the world can see beyond the end of their nose right now; everyone is preoccupied with their own problems.

What about the economic results?

Some say that tourists will not come, the stock market will collapse, the dollar will soar; however, these things are already happening in Turkey now. The economy is in such bad straits that the government can tolerate a problem like Hagia Sophia! They can somehow muddle through the situation, while blaming the opponents of the Hagia Sophia move for doing the work of the Crusaders, the Holy Alliance, the business lobby…Read More »

MIGRANTS

Colombia: Migrants Trafficking Increases Amid Pandemic

teleSUR | July 26, 2020

 

Migrants at the Venezuela-Combia border. July 16, 2020.
Migrants at the Venezuela-Combia border. July 16, 2020. | Photo: EFE

Some Venezuelan migrants have claimed they were charged US$200 return to their homeland, without having any guarantee.

Every day, hundreds of Venezuelan migrants living in Colombia start their trek back to their homeland illegally as they often get swindled by Colombian human trafficking networks.

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BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE

 

Scientists pull living microbes, possibly 100 million years old, from beneath the sea

Elizabeth Pennisi

Science | July 28, 2020

Researchers take samples from deep-ocean sediment cores. IODP JRSO

 

Microbes buried beneath the sea floor for more than 100 million years are still alive, a new study reveals. When brought back to the lab and fed, they started to multiply. The microbes are oxygen-loving species that somehow exist on what little of the gas diffuses from the ocean surface deep into the seabed.

The discovery raises the “insane” possibility, as one of the scientists put it, that the microbes have been sitting in the sediment dormant, or at least slowly growing without dividing, for eons.

The new work demonstrates “microbial life is very persistent, and often finds a way to survive,” says Virginia Edgcomb, a microbial ecologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who was not involved in the work.

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