EMPIRE 

In the years following World War II, The U.S. and West Germany jointly worked to conceal a high-ranking Nazi official’s role in deporting tens of thousands of Jews, newly disclosed intelligence records obtained by German public broadcaster ARD reveal, per The New York Times.

Franz Josef Huber led a large section of the Gestapo — Adolf Hitler’s secret police — that stretched across Austria, and his forces worked closely with Adolf Eichmann on the coordination of the deportation of Jews to concentration and extermination camps. Eichmann, famously, was tried and executed in Israel in 1962 for his role in the Holocaust, but Huber dodged that fate, even though the U.S. forces arrested him in 1945. He was released in 1948 and continued to live out his days in Munich, seemingly avoiding responsibility altogether because he was seen as a potential Cold War asset.

FACE OF A POLITICS 

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell lashed out at corporate United States on April 5, 2020, warning CEOs to stay out of the debate over a new voting law in Georgia that has been criticized as restricting votes among minorities and the poor.

A Reuters report said:

In a sign of a growing rift in the decades-old alliance between the conservative party and U.S. corporations, McConnell said: “My advice to the corporate CEOs of America is to stay out of politics. Don’t pick sides in these big fights.”

McConnell warned companies there could be risks for turning on the party, but he did not elaborate.

HEALTH 

Parkinson’s disease is a wide problem in many societies. Scientists are making advancement in countering the disease.

Parkinson’s tends to develop gradually and it may be many months, even years, before the symptoms become obvious enough for an individual to visit their GP. A DaTscan is regularly used to help specialists confirm the loss of dopamine-producing cells that cause the development of Parkinson’s.

However, similar loss may also occur in some other rarer neurological conditions. With no molecular test for the condition, diagnosis is made by a neurologist based on a combination of symptoms such as tremor, slowness, stiffness and balance issues. However, many of the symptoms of Parkinson’s can overlap with other conditions, especially in the early stages when progression is gradual and symptoms are more subtle.

‘Kill the Bill’ protest to go ahead in Bristol city centre tonight

KILL THE BILL MOVEMENT IN UK

It will be the seventh protest in three weeks against the Government’s Police Bill

Tristan Cork

Bristol Live | April 09, 2021

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/kill-bill-protest-go-ahead-5281484

A seventh protest in Bristol against the Government’s proposed Police and Crime Bill is set to go ahead this evening.

Details of the protest, which has no official organisers, are being circulated on social media, with the call to gather on College Green in Bristol city centre again at 6pm.

NHS workers demand a green recovery to save lives and help the country get back on its feet

WORKERS PROTEST IN UK

Matt Trinder

Morning Star | April 09, 2021

NHS workers protest for a pay rise for health workers outside 10 Downing Street

NHS workers are demanding a green recovery to help get the country back on its feet after Covid-19 and save thousands of lives.

In a new report published this evening, health staff say decarbonising the economy to zero emissions by 2030, 20 years ahead of the government’s target, could create jobs and prevent nearly 14,000 pollution-related deaths annually in Britain.

How a Janitors Union in San Francisco Got Over Its Fear and Struck

WORKERS PROTEST

Luis Feliz Leon

Labor Notes | April 08, 2021

Striking janitors picketed the huge Salesforce Tower and other office buildings, as tech workers begin to trickle back after months of remote work. Roughly 3,000 Bay Area janitors were laid off last year. They want everyone rehired, with improved ventilation and protective gear. Photo: SEIU Local 87

With their contract negotiations stalled, hundreds of San Francisco janitors represented by Service Employees (SEIU) Local 87 went on strike March 24.

Roughly 3,000 Bay Area janitors were laid off as the pandemic spread last year. Their union is now demanding a return to work for all laid-off workers—but with improvements.

They want better ventilation in buildings, protective gear for workers, a wage increase, health coverage, additional sick days, and protections against sexual harassment for a workforce that is largely immigrant women of color.

Insatiable Shipping Companies Set the Table for the Suez Canal Ship Debacle

SUEZ CANAL TROUBLE

Justin Hirsch

Labor Notes | April 07, 2021

Investigators are more likely to blame the ship’s crew than an industry that avoids regulation and aims to grow infinitely. Container ships are four times as big as they were 20 years ago—while the earth’s waterways have remained roughly the same size. Photo: kees torn (CC BY-SA 2.0)

A lot of ink has been spilled to explain exactly what happened in the Suez Canal, where a massive container ship got wedged across the narrow channel, idling ships or forcing lengthy detours around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.

Early speculation on social media laid blame on the captain and crew, mechanical failures, or mysterious forces of nature. Was it the fault of a drunken navigator, as was claimed in the 1989 grounding of the Exxon Valdez, which spilled oil across Prince William Sound? Was there a failure of the steering gear that controls the ship’s rudder, or a did a loss of propulsion make it impossible to control the steel behemoth?

Global Proposal Against the Economic Blockade

RESISTING IMPERIALISM 

Pasqualina Curcio

RESUMEN | April 05, 2021

US protest against the blockade of Cuba. Photo: Bill Hackwell

At least twenty countries are formally victims of US “sanctions”. Since 1992, in the United Nations General Assembly, all countries except the US and Israel have voted against the unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States on Cuba. Despite the evident majority, the US has ignored them. Good wishes, denunciations and calls to lift the blockades have not been enough to prevent these genocidal actions against entire peoples.

To put an end to these interference practices, we must make amends for two serious mistakes we made as humanity in 1944 and 1971. To do so, it is first necessary to know how “sanctions” work. Let’s look at an example.

The Network in Defense of Humanity Rejects the Aggressions by Armed Groups against Venezuela near the Border with Colombia

IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION AGAINST VENEZUELA 

RESUMEN | April 05, 2021

The Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity, in view of the confrontations that began on March 21 between the Bolivarian National Armed Forces and irregular armed groups in La Victoria, Apure State, near the Colombian border, declares:

-It is an insistently repeated historical fact that irregular armed groups from Colombia, sometimes with the complicit tolerance, sometimes with the connivance, and sometimes with the declared support of the government of that country, crossing into Venezuela’s borders to commit common crimes and destabilize the legitimate government.

Review of the Destructive Effects of US Blockade on Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Belt

IMPERIALISM

Misión Verdad

ORINOCOTRIBUNE | April 05, 2021

At Misión Verdad we have kept track of the negative effects of unilateral coercive measures (UCM) [aka US blockade] on Venezuela, and more specifically, their harmful consequences on the main company that provides oil revenues to Venezuela, Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA).

All the reports and papers issued by organizations or individuals that are not binding on each other, but have Venezuela in their focus, provide a clear conclusion regarding the effects of the US blockade on the local economy: each aggression against PDVSA, through executive orders issued by the current US administration, has notably hit the country’s crude production, thus generating significant damage to sensitive areas throughout the Venezuelan economic apparatus.