Our Planet Missed Opportunity To Unite And Fight Side-By-Side Against The Pandemic

Andre Vltchek

It is time to stop irresponsible finger-pointing.

All over the world, as this essay is being written, well over 17 million COVID-19 cases have been reported, and 676,000 people died. And instead of concentrating on serious research, trying to save human lives and attempting to stop the global calamity, ‘residents’ of the White House are spending all the energy on their own political survival, as well as on the survival of the regime.

Do Not Belittle Protesters In U.S By Calling Their Struggle A “Color Revolution”!

 

Andre Vltchek

For almost a decade, I have been covering “Color Revolutions” in virtually all parts of the world. While making a film for TeleSur, I was facing Egyptian tanks, risking my life under sniper fire, getting roughed-up in the middle of clashes of the supporters of al-Sisi and Morsi.

Together with Syrian commanders, I was also facing the terrorists in Idlib; challenged the Ukrainian fascists; encountering Bolivian indigenous elders high in the Altiplano, after the revolution of Evo Morales and MAS was crashed by the U.S.-sponsored coup in 2019. I regularly worked in Venezuela, Lebanon, and Iraq. And of course, again and again, I have been returning to Hong Kong, reporting on systematic Western attempts to radicalize SAR’s youth and to harm China.

Investigative Journalist and Revolutionary Andre Vltchek Passes Away

Andre Vltchek

A Journal of People Report

Novelist, philosopher, filmmaker and investigative journalist Andre Vltechek has passed away yesterday (September 22, 2020), in Istanbul, Turkey, an AP report said. 

The report said: “Andre Vltchek, 57, and his wife were traveling inside a rented and chauffeured car and arrived in front of their Istanbul hotel at around 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday. His wife tried to wake him up to tell him they had arrived but could not do so, the Anadolu Agency reported.

Triple Crisis in the Anthropocene Ocean

METABOLIC RIFT

Part Two: Running Low on Oxygen

Ian Angus

Climate and Capitalism | September 20, 2020

Red dots mark coastal ‘dead zones’ where oxygen has plummeted to 2 milligrams per liter or less. Blue areas in the open ocean have the same low-oxygen levels. Source: GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel.

“Ocean deoxygenation is the 3rd but less-reported member of an evil climate change trinity, along with global warming and ocean acidification. It is not so much another shoe dropping out of our CO2 emissions as it is a large boot kicking ocean ecosystems, with significant knock-on impacts for hundreds of millions of people who depend on the oceans for a living, and with feedbacks on climate.” —Skeptical Science[1]

The ocean is losing its breath, with deadly effects on marine life and the biogeochemical cycles that shape the entire biosphere.

Since 1960, low-oxygen areas in the open ocean have expanded by 4.5 million square kilometers, an area the size of the European Union. Some regions have lost 40% of their oxygen, and the volume of water containing zero oxygen has more than quadrupled. The ocean is losing about a billion metric tons of oxygen every year. At present rates, the decline in life-giving ocean oxygen will triple by 2100. Add that to the rapidly growing number of coastal dead zones, and we have a life support emergency.

Beyond the Mainstream

POLITICAL ECONOMY 

David F. Ruccio

Occasional Links and Commentary | September 18, 2020

In this post, I continue the draft of sections of my forthcoming book, “Marxian Economics: An Introduction.” This, like the previous two posts, is for chapter 1, Marxian Economics Today.

Beyond the Mainstream

This is certainly not the first time people have looked beyond mainstream economics. There is a long history of criticisms of both mainstream economic theory and capitalism from the very beginning. Although students won’t have read about them in traditional economics textbooks.

Those texts are generally written with the presumption there’s only one economic theory and one economic system. The existence of Marxian economics opens up the debate, creating space for both multiple ways of thinking about economics and a variety of different economic systems.

Venezuela is Not Intimidated by Threats from US and Colombia

VENEZUELA RESISTS IMPERIALISM 

Orinoco Tribune | September 20, 2020

The Venezuelan special agent for the northwestern and border state of Táchira, Freddy Bernal, said on Friday that Venezuela will not allow itself to be intimidated by the threats that the governments of Colombia and the United States launch against the Caribbean country.

Venezuela Blasts ‘Politicized’ Report by UN ‘Ghost Mission’

IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION AGAINST VENEZUELA 

Ricardo Vaz

venezuelanalysis.com | September 18, 2020

Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza criticized the “politicization of human rights” (MPPRE).

Mérida, September 18, 2020 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan government has rejected a recent report by a United Nations (UN) human rights mission.

“It’s a report ridden with falsehoods, written from afar, with no methodological rigor whatsoever,” Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza wrote on Twitter. He went on to emphasize that the report had been written by a “ghost mission” which had not set foot in Venezuela.

As Venezuela Foils CIA “Terror Plot” Pompeo Tours Its Neighbors To Talk Regime Change

U.S. IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION AGAINST VENEZUELA 

Alan Macleod

MintPress News | September 16, 2020

Venezuela’s government has announced it has foiled a potential terror attack, arresting a former CIA operative while he was on a stakeout near the country’s largest oil refining facility.

Matthew John Heath was arrested with three other Venezuelans outside the Amuay and Cardon refineries in Falcon state in the west of the country, reportedly carrying a submachine gun, a grenade launcher, four blocks of C4 explosives, a satellite phone, and stacks of U.S. dollars. He has been charged with terrorism and weapons trafficking. The country’s prosecutor general, Tarek William Saab, claimed that Heath entered Venezuela illegally via the Colombian border without a passport, although police found a photocopy hidden on his person. Saab also said that Heath was carrying a small coin or badge that CIA employees use to prove their identity to one another without raising suspicions.

According to Oxfam, Rich Countries Have Already Hoarded Most Future COVID Vaccines

INEQUALITY AND COVID-19 VACCINE

Alan Macleod

MintPress News | September 14, 2020

The world’s wealthiest nations have already quietly bought up more than half of the potential future supply of the most promising COVID-19 vaccine doses, leaving little for anyone else. International charity Oxfam studied five leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates, currently under clinical trials, and found that rich countries had pumped billions of dollars into research, securing 51 percent of the promised doses. This means that the United Kingdom will have 45 times more doses per head of population than a poor country such as Bangladesh.

Top 1% Responsible for Double the Carbon Emissions of Bottom Half: Oxfam

INEQUALITY AND ENVIRONMENT 

Alan Macleod

MintPress News | September 21, 2020

A new report published today by international charity Oxfam lays bare the massive disparities in carbon dioxide emissions between the world’s wealthy elite and the rest of society. Titled “Confronting Carbon Inequality,” the study found that over the previous 25 years, the globe’s richest one percent are responsible for 15 percent of all carbon emissions — more than double that of the bottom 50 percent (over three billion people).