Another Hiroshima is Coming Unless We Stop It Now

REMEMBERING HIROSHIMA

John Pilger

Independent Australia | August 06, 2020

The destruction of Hiroshima is a wartime event the magnitude of which must never be repeated (Screenshot via YouTube)

WHEN I FIRST WENT to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open.

At a quarter past eight on the morning of 6 August 1945, she and her silhouette were burned into the granite.

I stared at the shadow for an hour or more, then I walked down to the river where the survivors still lived in shanties.

I met a man called Yukio, whose chest was etched with the pattern of the shirt he was wearing when the atomic bomb was dropped.

Beirut Goes Up In Smoke

BEIRUT TRAGEDY

Andre Vltchek

 

To see Beirut and its port area with a huge mushroom cloud hanging above is a truly surreal sight. But what is not surreal in battered Lebanese capital?

A big part of the downtown looks flattened, thoroughly ruined.

One of my Japanese friends based in Beirut exclaimed:

“It looks like Hiroshima!”

It does.

Beirut Will Take Decades To Rebuild

BEIRUT TRAGEDY

 Haider Abbas

Countercurrents | August 07, 2020

Lebanon, the Switzerland of Middle-East and its capital Beirut-the Paris of Middle-East, a house to 2.4 million people ¹ , out of 6.8 ² million in whole of Lebanon , are smothered by blasts on August 4, 2020, by 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate kept in a waterfront warehouse at a port in Beirut, killing 135 people, leaving more than 5000 injured and the whole city being reduced to a rubble, with an estimated loss of more than 5 billion USD  ³ and more than 3,00,000 people rendered homeless ⁴. The number of deaths, injured and the loss is likely to rise. Lebanon, an Ex. French colony, is now smashed to shambles and will take decades and decades to rebuild.  France President Emanuel Macron is the first head of the state to reach Beirut after the blasts. There is no electricity, no beds in hospitals which were already burdened by COVID-19 spread and now a general crisis for food is prevalent as Lebanon had already been under great duress of electricity outages and deepening economic crisis ⁵. Even the whatsapp had been made a paid-call ⁶.

Cuba: President Rejects Lawfare Against Leftist Leaders

SOCIALIST SOLIDARITY

teleSUR | August 06, 2020

 

The President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel highlighted on Thursday the use of the judiciary in politics as a colonizing weapon over the peoples of Latin America.

On his official Twitter account, the president maintained that the case of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, “proves how far the enemies go” in applying those tools.

Vietnam and Cuba Highlight Collaboration in COVID-19 Battle

INTERNATIONALISM 

Nuria Barbosa León

Granma | August 05, 2020

Symbolic delivery of Vietnamese donations to Cuba. Photo: Ariel Cecilio Lemus

Solidarity and cooperation shared by the peoples and governments of Vietnam and Cuba was the focus of an appreciation event in Havana, where gratitude was expressed for donations received to support the COVID-19 battle here.

At the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment (Mincex), First Deputy Minister Ana Teresita González Fraga thanked Vietnam for sending protective wear, materials and inputs for health care and hygiene, as well as food, among other resources.

TikTok – Trump’s anti-China Tech War is a Protection Racket for U.S. Capital

U.S CAPITALISM

Ian Goodrum

People’s World | August 07, 2020

President Trump has given the Chinese owners of the TikTok dance video app 45 days to sell to a U.S. company or face a ban. | Anjum Naveed / AP

I can’t say I expected a viral teen dance smartphone app to be the latest flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s war on all things China. But that’s 2020 for you.

TikTok, the wildly popular short video platform owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is in the U.S. government’s crosshairs due to alleged national security risks. Trump has signed an executive order supposedly banning the app completely in the U.S. (along with WeChat, a Chinese-owned messaging app) within 45 days unless all of TikTok’s business in the U.S. is sold to another company, like Microsoft. This aggression comes despite TikTok taking many steps to preemptively assuage concerns, including putting all its servers in the U.S. to ensure data doesn’t leave the country. Evidently, that’s not enough when there’s political points to be scored.

With Microsoft Purchase of TikTok, US Tightens Grip Over International Media

U.S IMPERIALISM

Alan Macleod

MintPress News | August 03, 2020

Following Donald Trump’s Friday announcement that he would ban the popular Chinese-owned video platform, Microsoft has today swooped in to hoover up TikTok after it received “personal assurances” from the president himself that he would back such a move. Trump has given the two parties up to 45 days to hash out a deal. ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, values its U.S. operations at $50 billion, but it is not at all certain they will receive fair compensation, given their predicament. The platform is by far the most downloaded app in Apple’s app store, with over 800 million active users worldwide, including over 100 million in the United States, primarily members of Generation Z.

Study: Billionaires That Donated to Gates-Buffet Giving Pledge Now Richer Than Ever

BILLIONAIRES

 Raul Diego

MintPress News | August 06, 2020

A study released by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) through its Program on Inequality and the Common Good, titled “Gilded Giving 2020: How Wealth Inequality Distorts Philanthropy and Imperils Democracy” examines the reality behind the ostensible charitableness of the billionaire donor class and the disturbing trend of charitable organizations and foundations relying more and more on fewer and fewer wealthy donors; funds which “end up in family foundations and donor-advised funds that could legally exist in perpetuity,” while donations from lower and middle-income sources are disappearing.

Brazilian Movements Intensify “Out Bolsonaro” Campaign

Out Bolsonaro

Peoples Dispatch | August 07, 2020

 

 

The authoritarian nature of the Bolsonaro government has rapidly intensified. Bolsonaro, acting against all public health specialists, as well as international entities and protocols, has denied the pandemic and adopted incorrect and disastrous measures. His grave mismanagement of the virus has made Brazil the global epicenter of COVID-19.

Thousands March Across Turkey to Denounce Violence Against Women

PROTEST AGAINST FEMICIDE 

Peoples Dispatch | August 07, 2020

 

Thousands of women marched in different cities in Turkey on Wednesday, August 5, demanding that the government take strong steps to stop the violence against women and asking it to not withdraw from the Istanbul convention.