Zelensky regime’s fate is sealed

M. K. Bhadrakumar

Indian Punchline | May 04, 2023

Moscow Kremlin

The West’s cryptic or mocking remarks doubting the Kremlin statement on the failed Ukrainian attempt to assassinate President Vladimir Putin do not detract from the fact that Moscow has no reason on earth to fabricate such a grave allegation that has prompted the scaling down of its Victory Day celebrations on May 9, which is a triumphal moment in all of Russian history, especially now when it is fighting off the recrudescence of Nazi ideology on Europe’s political landscape single-handedly all over again. 

The alacrity with which the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken debunked the Kremlin allegation, perhaps, gives the game away. It is in the neocon DNA to duck in such defining moments. That said, predictably, Blinken also distanced the Biden administration  from the Kremlin attack. 

Earlier, the chairman of Joints Chiefs of Staff General Marks Milley also did a similar thing in an interview with the Foreign Affairs magazine disowning in advance any responsibility for the upcoming Ukrainian “counteroffensive”. This is the Biden Administration’s new refrain — hear no evil, speak no evil. No more talk, either, of backing Kiev all the way “no matter what it takes” — as Biden used to say ad nauseam. 

Rates up, economy down

Michael Roberts Blog

The two main central banks in the advanced capitalist economies, the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (ECB), raised their ‘policy’ interest rates again this week. The policy rate sets the floor for all borrowing rates in these economies. Both central banks hiked their rates by another 0.25%, so the Fed’s rate now stands at 5.25% and the ECB’s at 3.7%. This compares with just 0.25% and 0% respectively two years ago.

The professed aim of these hikes is to ‘control’ inflation and drive the currently high rates back to the so-called target rate that both central banks have of 2%.  I and others have argued firmly, with evidence, that this monetary tightening policy will have little effect on getting inflation down because the causes of inflation do not lie in excessive money supply (the monetarist theory) or in excessive wages driving up prices (the Keynesian theory). Neither of…

View original post 916 more words

On World Press Freedom Day, progressives draw attention to Assange and other journalists under attack

In a Press Freedom Day panel discussion, progressive journalists sought to highlight the ongoing persecution of the WikiLeaks founder and the many ways in which journalists are under attack the world over

Peoples Dispatch | May 04, 2023

Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange outside the Central Criminal Court, in London, Britain, January 4, 2021, when Assange was first declared unfit for extradition. (Photo: Henry Nicholls/Reuters)

On Wednesday, May 3, progressive groups marked World Press Freedom Day by drawing attention to the continued hounding of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. In a panel discussion held by the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, in collaboration with the International Peoples’ Assembly and Peoples Dispatch, senior independent journalists spoke on why Assange continues to be punished and imprisoned for his reporting.

The panel discussed the topic “Telling The Truth Is a Crime: Why Julian Assange and Other Brave Journalists under Attack” and consisted of Indian civil rights activist and journalist Teesta Setalvad and senior journalist Prabir Purkayastha.

Teesta Setalvad is renowned for her more than two-decade long struggle to secure justice for the victims of the 2002 sectarian violence in Gujarat and for founding and leading Sabrang, an independent progressive platform known for its work against the Hindu right-wing in India.

We Lied, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Tells On Key U.S. Mistake With Russia

Countercurrents | May 05, 2023

“We should have listened to Putin over many years. We made a commitment to Russia, to Gorbachev, that we would not move NATO one inch to the east. Then we went in, and we lied,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in an interview with UnHerd (Robert Kennedy Jr: America needs a revolution, by Freddie Sayers, Editor-in-Chief of UnHerd, ), published on Wednesday.

Instead of listening to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warnings about “red lines”, the U.S. has repeatedly crossed them, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in the interview.

The Democrat running for U.S. president added that Washington should have either invited Moscow to NATO or dismantled the anti-Russian alliance after the Cold War.

Stop USAID Funding Opposition Groups, Mexico President Asks Biden

Countercurrents | May 04, 2023

Mexico’s president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador asked his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden to stop the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from funding groups hostile to his government, according to a letter presented to journalists on Wednesday, echoing previous Mexican criticism of U.S. interventionism.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has in the past accused several media organizations of being part of a conservative movement against his government.

A Reuters report cited the letter to the U.S. President:

“The U.S. government, specifically though USAID, has for some time been financing organizations openly against the legal and legitimate government I represent,” Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, said in the letter. “This is clearly an interventionist act, contrary to international law and the relations which should prevail between free and sovereign states.”

USA: Workers to Starbucks: Time to Negotiate

Jenny Brown

Labor Notes | May 04, 2023

Starbucks workers confront managers at the corporation’s regional headquarters in Manhattan on May 1. They are demanding that Starbucks negotiate in good faith with workers at the 300 stores that have unionized. Photo: Jenny Brown.

At Starbucks regional headquarters in Manhattan on May 1, staff were setting up an office pizza party when they heard a chant coming from the hallway of their fifteenth floor glass-enclosed office.

“Who are we? We are partners! Who are we? We are workers!” chanted a dozen Starbucks workers as they filled the reception area, many wearing shirts saying “Partners? Prove It. WE are Starbucks.”

Headquarters staff fled into back offices as the café workers traded off reading sections of a written statement with their demands—the chief one being that the company negotiate with the union and stop retaliating against workers for organizing.

MADURO’S NEOLIBERAL TURN?

William Serafino

MISIONVERDAD | February 17, 2023

The narrative about the Venezuelan government’s shift towards a neoliberal economic policy has been going on for some time now and has been promoted by the mainstream media. Presented as a bombastic slogan, as a general and extravagant yet blurry statement, this narrative is based on unconnected fragments of reality that lead to an incongruous and unreadable mosaic.

For those who propagate this narrative, the supposed neoliberalism of President Nicolás Maduro is defined by so many things at once that it is difficult to see where the central point that verifies his supposed ideological conversion really lies.

Venezuela: Sanctions against PDVSA add weakness to the dollar

Werther Sandoval

Últimas Noticias | May 02, 2023

If oil is bought in and with dollars, then, the US denying that currency the possibility of buying that hydrocarbon, its main asset, the currency remains an orphan, free, wandering through the world monetary torrent looking for other assets to acquire, putting pressure on prices to justify their existence.

It is there where, modestly, the US sanctions that prevent PDVSA from negotiating its proposal and still distant production of 2 million barrels per day, economically and ecologically prudent flow; or the 3 million of past times, or the illusion of 6 million included in all the plans of the Bolivarian and opposition governments, contribute to the US currency its gradient of restlessness, of abandonment.

Journal of People’s May Day Greetings to our readers and well-wishers!

WFTU declaration on Mayday 2023

World Federation of Trade Unions | April 25, 2023

The World Federation of Trade Unions, the militant, class-oriented voice, representing 105 million workers who live, work, and struggle in 133 countries of the 5 continents, honors the 137th anniversary of the struggle of workers in Chicago in 1886 that constituted a lasting milestone of the working class and a bright beacon for the struggles of today and tomorrow for stable work with rights, social security, free public, and universal health and education, dignified life.

Nowadays the crisis of capitalism is deepening in the length and breadth of the globe, resulting in the open violation of democratic and trade union rights, the deterioration of working and living conditions, and the dramatic widening of social inequalities, poverty, and exploitation. The big capital and its political representatives were using the pretext of the capitalist crisis of all kinds to attack even the most fundamental democratic and trade union rights, like the right to strike, to demonstrate, and to organize. They do whatever they can to transfer the consequences of the crisis to the shoulders of the working class, the pensioners, the farmers, and to the poorer part of the self-employed people.