Tale from Oil Company: 1

OIL

A Journal of People report

Oil companies tell many tales. These are tales of market and man, and market and man are not isolated from economy and politics. Following is a tale from oil company ExxonMobil.

Daniel Foelber writes in The Motely Fool on August 28, 2020 (https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/08/28/exxon-removed-from-the-dow-after-nearly-100-years/):

“The silver shimmer of Silicon Valley is replacing the oil slicks that once gilded the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) in black gold. That silver shimmer is Salesforce.com, and it is replacing the longest-tenured DJIA component: ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM), effective Aug. 31. 

Venezuela: Aggression in October?

IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION AGAINST VENEZUELA 

Ángel Guerra Cabrera

RESUMEN | August 26, 2020

Venezuelan civilians receiving military training for US attack. Photo: Baretto-AFP

A US-sponsored military aggression against Venezuela could take place before the November 3 elections in that country. On August 22, Admiral Remigio Ceballos, chief of the strategic operational command of the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB), said that “The international intelligence agencies allied to Venezuela inform us that Colombia is preparing an aggression, and the FANB will respond with force and forcefulness to any aggression against the sovereignty and independence of Venezuela, under the command of our Commander in Chief Nicolas Maduro Moros”.

US and Colombia Planning Massacres on Venezuelan Soil with Guaido’s Help

IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION AGAINST VENEZUELA 

ORINOCO TRIBUNE | August 26, 2020

The Venezuelan ambassador to the UN denounced the US and Colombia, for trying to launch massacres in Venezuela with the support of Guaidó and money looted from the country.

“They want to impose the massacres of Colombia in Venezuela with the support of Trump, [Colombian President Iván] Duque and [Venezuelan opposition deputy Juan] Guaidó,” Samuel Moncada stressed.

Through several tweets published this Tuesday, the Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations (UN) said that the “US terrorists” hired with money looted from Venezuela by Trump, intended to assassinate thousands of Venezuelans. “An atrocity never seen in our history,” he added.

Electoral Sabotage by the G4 in Venezuela

IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION AGAINST VENEZUELA 

RESUMEN | August 29, 2020

In a little more than three months, on December 6, parliamentary elections will be held in Venezuela.  The previous elections were on December 6, 2015 and the opposition gained a majority thanks to the abstention of 2 million Chavista voters who decided to stay home and not vote.

But the circumstances today are different, and supporters of the policies of Hugo Chavez are more united after having had to deal with an infinite number of political, economic and military attacks proceeding from U.S. imperialism and their local lackeys, attacks that intensified since the self-proclamation by Juan Guiadó that he was the president on November 23, 2019.

Pandemic As Symptom: COVID-19 And Human-Animal Relations Under Capitalism

CAPITALISM AND PANDEMIC

Bella Devine-Poulos

Progress in Political Economy | August 13, 2020

Zoonotic disease pandemics such as COVID-19 present us with an opportunity to reframe how we understand capitalism by visibilising the role animals are forced to play in its processes, and the forms and spaces of human-animal contact that are dominant in our world. The production process and the reproduction of capitalist social relations and human bodies depends on captured and domesticated animals’ lives, bodies and deaths, just as it necessarily leads to the expulsion and mass death of ‘wild’ animals.

My Honours research centres on reading human-animal relations under capitalism through notions of disease and cure. It uses zoonotic disease as a central metaphor for the instability of the human-animal dichotomy, the inseparability of humans from ‘nature’ including at the micro-level of ecology, and the persistent vulnerability of human bodies. My purpose is to bring other animals to the fore of how we understand capitalism, against the general tendency to present the global capitalist political economy as an autonomous system of human interactions.

Why Deforestation and Extinctions Make Pandemics More Likely

PANDEMIC

Jeff Tollefson

Nature | August 07, 2020

Controlling deforestation (shown here, in a tropical rainforest in the Congo Basin) could decrease the risk of future pandemics, experts say.Credit: Patrick Landmann/Science Photo Library

As humans diminish biodiversity by cutting down forests and building more infrastructure, they’re increasing the risk of disease pandemics such as COVID-19. Many ecologists have long suspected this, but a new study helps to reveal why: while some species are going extinct, those that tend to survive and thrive — rats and bats, for instance — are more likely to host potentially dangerous pathogens that can make the jump to humans.

Soberana is Cuba’s, the First Candidate Vaccine Against COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean

CUBA

 Yudy Castro Morales and Abel Reyes Montero

Granma | August 27, 2020

Photo: Twitter

A vaccine that exemplifies the development of Cuban science; that places us on the level of economically advanced countries; that honors Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz, the principal architect of the country’s biotechnology sector. This is what Soberana is, the first Cuban candidate vaccine against COVID-19 authorized for testing in clinical trials.

To discuss the process of its development, entering the first phase of clinical trials the end of August, the results of which should be available early next year, and the accomplishment achieved by the joint work of a large group of Cuban scientists, leaders of the Finlay Vaccine Institute (IFV), project researchers, and the assistant director of the State Center for Quality Control of Medications (Cecmed), appeared on Cuban television’s Mesa Redonda program.

Resumption of Production Post Lockdown, Industrial Accidents and Workers Death

WORKERS’ PLIGHT IN INDIA

GroundXero | August 31, 2020

On 24 March, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a live telecast to the nation, had announced a 21 day complete lockdown of the entire country, placing 1.3 billion people under curfew, in order to contain the spread of the corona virus in India. However, after 20 April, industries in India were allowed to operate outside containment zones. As a huge number of factories began preparing to restart production, a series of industrial accidents took place in many states, killing and injuring hundreds of workers.

The Man Who Made Boxing a Science

CUBAN PEOPLE

 Oscar Sánchez Serra

Granma | August 27, 2020

Alcides Sagarra shared many moments with Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro. Photo: Ricardo López Hevia

He was obliged to sell a lot of peanuts and newspapers, shine a lot of shoes in his native Santiago de Cuba to pay for his studies and put food on the table at home. Despite the effort, he was not able to finish primary school, but he never gave up. Yes, he was poor, but he had a thirst for knowledge. Paradoxically, it was his asthma that led him to boxing, since a trainer told him the exercise would be good for him, and it was the gloves he chose.

Once revolution reigned in Cuba, he began working as a mechanic for the Ministry of Public Health, and in the evenings, would go to the gym on

Agua Dulce Street, in the Havana municipality of Cerro.

Samir Amin: Marx and Living Marxism are More Relevant Today than Ever

MARXISM 

Global University for Sustainability Youtube Channel | February 03, 2019

On 7 May 2018, Professor Samir Amin gave a lecture entitled “Marx and Living Marxism are More Relevant Today Than Ever” at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. This is the part of his lecture in English. The lecture was organized by the Tsinghua Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences (TIAS). Professor Wang Hui, Director of TIAS, gave an introduction. Professor Lau Kin Chi interpreted the lecture into Putonghua. Subsequently, Professor Lau Kin Chi and Professor Viren Murthy acted as discussants. The full version of the whole lecture lasting 1 hour 50 minutes can be found at youtu.be. Video-recorded by Professor Sit Tsui Jade; edited by George Lee; produced by Global University for Sustainability, 2018.