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Showing posts from May, 2020

It has started: Spain decides permanent UBI for its citizens

globinfo freexchange Spain appears to be the first country that will implement a permanent form of Universal Basic Income for its citizens. As the Independent reported : [emphasis added] Spain’s cabinet has approved the creation of a national minimum income, according to a government spokesperson. Deputy Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias told a news conference on Friday the creation of a minimum income worth €462 (£416.92) a month will target some 850,000 households or 2.5 million people. The government would pay the monthly stipend and top up existing revenue for people earning less so that they receive at least that minimum amount every month, he said. The minimum income would increase with the number of family members, up to a maximum of €1,015 (£916.30) each month. The programme would cost the government about €3 billion a year. Mr Iglesias said: “ Today is a historic day for our democracy. Today this government is showing that its political choice is social justice

Minneapolis police leader defending George Floyd’s killers tied to ‘white power’-linked biker gang

The head of the Minneapolis Police Officer’s Federation has claimed that activists from the city’s Black Lives Matter movement comprises a “ terrorist organization. ” But a closer look at Lieutenant Bob Kroll’s record indicates that he is the one who poses a danger to the public, with a past marred in accusations of racist violence and attitudes, including charges from fellow police officers that he once wore a “white power” badge on his motorcycle jacket.  Kroll’s outrageous statement about local civil rights protesters is part of a wider of pattern of incorporating war on terror-style rhetoric to demonize local African-American activists and politicians, even comparing them to the Islamic extremists who attacked the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Such devices have also been routinely used across the country to criminalize Muslim-American communities, which face arbitrary surveillance, profiling and entrapment at the hands of law enforcement authorities. Speaking at a press co

Bernie Sanders 2020 adviser Phillip Agnew on "Dixiecrat" Democrats enabling George Floyd murder

Status Coup Status Coup's Jordan Chariton speaks with Phillip Agnew, an activist and adviser to Bernie Sanders' 2020 campaign, about the police murder of African American George Floyd.

Venezuelan foreign minister Jorge Arreaza: the US is trying to justify invading Venezuela

Going Underground Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza speaks after a coup attempt by Silvercorp mercenaries, which Venezuela alleges were hired by US President Donald Trump. He discusses Iran’s oil shipment to Venezuela along with assistance to revive Venezuela’s oil industry, US attempts to block the shipment, the uncovered secret Venezuelan Reconstruction Unit within the British Foreign Office which is alleged to be for post-regime change Venezuela. Allegations of Venezuela sponsoring terrorism by the United States, the US and EU’s support for Juan Guaido, a deal reached with the UN to allow Venezuela to access its Gold Reserves in the Bank of England which was prohibited by Boris Johnson. Venezuela’s Coronavirus response, the impact of US sanctions on ordinary Venezuelans, Venezuela’s relationship with Russia, China, Cuba and Iran, allegations of narco-trafficking by the United States against President Nicolas Maduro.

As Jair Bolsonaro let coronavirus ravage Brazil, a favela is taking matters into its own hands

The Intercept Brazil’s political leadership, led by President Jair Bolsonaro, has denied the severity of the coronavirus pandemic and rejected measures to prevent its spread. The country has one of the highest new infection rates in the world. The São Paulo neighborhood of Paraisópolis has been hit hard. With 100,000 people squeezed into a little over three-quarters of a square mile, it is the most densely populated favela in Brazil. A neighborhood association in Paraisópolis is fighting to reduce the harm caused by the coronavirus. In the absence of government assistance, residents have set up an informal emergency-care system consisting of private ambulances, isolation hospitals set up in local schools, and street captains that each keep tabs on 50 neighborhood families.

Exclusive images from inside British court expose Assange’s un-democratic treatment, physical deterioration

Photographs surreptitiously taken inside a British courtroom and provided to The Grayzone show a visibly disoriented Julian Assange confined to a glass cage and unable to communicate with his lawyers. by Max Blumenthal Part 1 Photographs taken inside London’s Woolwich Crown Court and provided exclusively to The Grayzone highlight the un-democratic measures the British security state has imposed on jailed Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange. Captured during Assange’s extradition hearing, which took place between February 24 and 28, the images highlight the confinement Assange has been subjected to, as well as the physical deterioration he has experienced since he was arrested in April 2019 and jailed in a maximum security prison. On February 26, Judge Vanessa Baraitser vowed to hold anyone in contempt of court for taking photographs. However, an observer had taken several photos a day before the judge’s warning. Anonymous Scandinavia, a Sweden-based group of Wikil

New court files expose Sheldon Adelson’s security team in US spy operation against Julian Assange

An exclusive investigation by The Grayzone reveals new details on the critical role Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands played in an apparent CIA spying operation targeting Julian Assange, and exposes the Sands security staff who helped coordinate the malicious campaign. by Max Blumenthal “ I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. ” –Mike Pompeo, College Station, TX, April 15, 2019 Part 5 - From top US cyber-crime investigator to Adelson’s security chief During his lengthy career in the US Secret Service, Nagel worked at the nexus of federal law enforcement and US intelligence. In the 1990s, Nagel not only served on the personal protection detail of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; he was assigned to “ work with two foreign protective services after the assassination and attempted assassination of their respective heads of state, ” he said in sworn testimony in a US District Court in 2011. Nagel also stated that he later protected the director

George Floyd protests in NYC

Status Coup Status Coup 's Jordan Chariton reports LIVE from New York City from protests related to the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police.

Mehdi Hasan and Ilhan Omar on police brutality and the murder of George Floyd

LIVE on June 1, 9:30 PM The Intercept ’s Mehdi Hasan speaks with Rep. Ilhan Omar about systemic racism, the militarized police response to protests in Minneapolis, and what real justice looks like for George Floyd’s family and black and brown communities across the country.

As fascist militias spread, Bolsonaro's far-right Brazil becomes new coronavirus epicenter

Moderate Rebels Brazilian independent journalist Nathália Urban discusses the surge of fascist militias and Evangelical extremists in Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro is putting the military in power. Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton also address his refusal to do anything to stop the Covid-19 pandemic, and how Brazil has thus become the world's new epicenter. " Basically the military is in power in every ministry; they are overseeing everything in Brazil right now, " Nathália says.

“Germ-Ridden Masses” – How America’s wealthy elite describe the rest of us

Increasingly, journalists at establishment publications come from and represent the one percent that they claim to be holding to account. by Alan Macleod  Many of the world’s super wealthy are trying to wait out the COVID-19 pandemic on their luxury yachts. But how to get to them without interacting with the public and catching the virus themselves? Such are the difficult quandaries only billionaires have to deal with.   Fortunately, financial news outlet Bloomberg has solved the big question of the current era. A new company, it excitedly informs its readers, offers chartered private jets from your location to the Mediterranean island of Malta, without the need to “risk exposure to the germ-ridden masses.” New York-based reporter Suzanne Woolley, who has recently penned articles such as “How to arbitrage your U.S. taxes for difficult economic times” and “Where to invest $1 million right now,” notes that aviation company VistaJet allows its clients to reserve its freshly s

Δεν τους βγαίνει με τίποτα η "στρατηγική ήττα" ...

globinfo freexchange Τα πράγματα φαίνεται να εξελίσσονται σχεδόν όπως τα είχαμε προβλέψει. Όπως είχαμε επισημάνει ήδη από τα μέσα Απριλίου, στο επόμενο διάστημα αναμένεται να δούμε νέες, αλλεπάλληλες "φουσκωμένες" δημοσκοπήσεις από την φιλοκυβερνητική μηχανή προπαγάνδας, ώστε να προετοιμαστεί ψυχολογικά το κοινό για το επικείμενο αποτέλεσμα των εθνικών εκλογών. Στις δημοσκοπήσεις αυτές θα βλέπουμε ενδεχομένως την ψαλίδα μεταξύ ΝΔ και ΣΥΡΙΖΑ συνεχώς να μεγαλώνει, με μια ταυτόχρονη πτώση του ποσοστού του κόμματος της αξιωματικής αντιπολίτευσης, σε βαθμό που να δικαιολογεί την στρατηγική του ήττα.   Ωστόσο, το 20,3% του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ, δεν συνιστά στρατηγική ήττα στο βαθμό που επιθυμεί το καθεστώς και η ντόπια ολιγαρχία, εν όψει μάλιστα και απλής αναλογικής. Οπότε θα πρέπει να αναμένουμε στο αμέσως επόμενο διάστημα ένα νέο βομβαρδισμό από δημοσκοπήσεις στις οποίες το ποσοστό του κόμματος της αξιωματικής αντιπολίτευσης θα "ροκανίζεται" σταδιακά, έτσι ώστε να δ

16 million Yemenis could get infected with coronavirus in war-torn Yemen

Going Underground UNHCR Yemen representative Jean-Nicolas Beuze speaks about the coronavirus pandemic reaching Yemen. He discusses why it is almost impossible for many people in Yemen to social distance and maintain good hygiene due to a lack of running water.  The lack of COVID-19 test kits which has made it difficult to identify coronavirus cases and deaths, the UN pulling out staff from Yemen amid the Covid pandemic, the destruction of much of Yemen’s health facilities during the conflict, the severe shortage of ICU beds and COVID isolation beds, UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the Saudi-led coalition which is bombing Yemen, ongoing negotiations to open Yemen’s ports to humanitarian organisations. 

Sanitation workers striking for PPE and pay replaced by prison labor

The Real News Network Dr. Talitha LeFlouria talks with TRNN about the New Orleans sanitation strike where workers were fired and replaced by prison labor from nearby Livingston Parish, and the historical roots of the exploitation of prison labor.

Τίποτα δεν σταματάει το νεοφιλελεύθερο "οδοστρωτήρα" τους ...

globinfo freexchange Αφού τελείωσαν τα χειροκροτήματα για τους γιατρούς του Εθνικού Συστήματος Υγείας, ο Μητσοτάκης επέστρεψε στην "κανονικότητα" της αποστολής του, που, με λίγα λόγια, είναι η ιδιωτικοποίηση και το ξεπούλημα των πάντων. Έτσι, μετά το διάλειμμα λόγω πανδημίας, φανέρωσε και πάλι το πόσο αδημονεί να οδηγήσει το Εθνικό Σύστημα Υγείας στο δρόμο της ιδιωτικοποίησης. Όπως αναφέρει το tvxs.gr :                          Δεν πρόλαβαν να περάσουν λίγες μέρες από την άρση του Lockdown και την απομάκρυνση, σε πρώτη φάση, του σοβαρού υγειονομικού κινδύνου της πανδημίας, και ο Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης επανέφερε τα σχέδια για ιδιωτικοποίηση του ΕΣΥ, εγκαταλείποντας τα «χειροκροτήματα» και τις αναφορές στους «ήρωες» υγειονομικούς και στη σημασία του δημόσιου συστήματος υγείας. Παρά το «σκληρό μάθημα» που έδωσε η πανδημία στους νεοφιλεύθερους λάτρεις της «αγοράς», φαίνεται πως η κυβέρνηση δεν εγκατέλειψε ποτέ τους αρχικούς σχεδιασμούς της, παρά τον τρόπο που το δημόσι

US threatens nuclear arms race 'into oblivion' as it kills another treaty and mulls bomb tests

The Grayzone The Trump administration continues to undermine global arms control and increase the threat of a nuclear weapons race with Russia and China. The U.S. has announced plans to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty, which allows participants to launch joint surveillance flights in a bid to avert military conflict. Trump officials have also rejected talks on renewing New START and reportedly discussed conducting the first US nuclear test since 1992. All this comes as Trump's arms control envoy said that Trump can outspend Russia and China on nuclear weapons "into oblivion."

New court files expose Sheldon Adelson’s security team in US spy operation against Julian Assange

An exclusive investigation by The Grayzone reveals new details on the critical role Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands played in an apparent CIA spying operation targeting Julian Assange, and exposes the Sands security staff who helped coordinate the malicious campaign. by Max Blumenthal “ I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. ” –Mike Pompeo, College Station, TX, April 15, 2019 Part 4 - One camera feed for Ecuador, another for “the American client” Two former UC Global workers and the ex-business partner said Morales began implementing a sophisticated spying operation at the embassy in London in June 2017. His testimony was corroborated by emails Morales sent to employees who oversaw the surveillance. Before that point, the cameras in and around Ecuador’s embassy in London were standard CCTV units. Their sole function was to detect intruders. Most importantly, they did not record sound.  To transform the cameras from security instruments into w

How big wireless lobbied governments to build 5G for citizen data collection and surveillance

While selling 5G technology to the public as a means for faster downloads, Big Wireless — comprising a web of telecom companies, lobbyists and law firms– is spending millions to lobby governments the world over to implement the next generation of cellular technology because of its potential for data collection and surveillance of citizens. by Derrick Broze  Part 5 - 5G Conspiracy Theorists? Despite the diverse credentials of the mass movement against 5G, the opposition has largely been derided as conspiracy theorists or quacks who don’t understand the electromagnetic spectrum. In March 2019, William Broad of the New York Times wrote a piece promoting the idea that those who are concerned about the health effects of 5G are simply falling prey to Russian propaganda designed to make America lose the Race to 5G. His article, “Your 5G Phone Won’t Hurt You. But Russia Wants You to Think Otherwise.”, sought to place the blame for concern around 5G on the shoulders of America’s f

ΜέΡΑ25: O κ. Στουρνάρας να απομακρυνθεί από την Διοίκηση της Τράπεζας της Ελλάδος

Το ΜέΡΑ25 κρίνει ότι ο κ. Στουρνάρας όχι μόνο δεν πρέπει να παραμείνει Διοικητής της ΤτΕ αλλά ότι θα έπρεπε να έχει απομακρυνθεί από καιρό για τέσσερεις συγκεκριμένους λόγους: 1ος Λόγος: Παράβαση καθήκοντος την 15η Δεκεμβρίου 2014 όταν “προέβλεψε” έλλειψη ρευστότητας στην αγορά – κάτι που δεν επιτρέπεται ποτέ σε κανέναν Διοικητή Κεντρικής Τράπεζας. Η δήλωσή του εκείνη ήταν ο προπομπός στην επιχείρηση ασφυξίας μιας κυβέρνησης που δεν είχε ακόμα εκλεγεί και οδήγησε σταθερά στα capital controls και την επικράτηση της τρόικας. 2ος Λόγος: Παράβαση καθήκοντος όταν παραβίασε το Άρθρο 4 του Καταστατικού της ΤτΕ [το οποίο ορίζει ότι «…η Τράπεζα στηρίζει τη γενική οικονομική πολιτική της Κυβέρνησης»] εισηγούμενος, όπως ο ίδιος ομολόγησε στην Επιτροπή Διαφάνειας και Θεσμών της Βουλής, στον πρόεδρο της ΕΚΤ «να μην ακούει» τον υπουργό Οικονομικών! 3ος Λόγος: Εποπτική ανεπάρκεια. Σύμφωνα με το ΣτΕ, η ΤτΕ αποτελεί διοικητική αρχή για την εποπτεία επί των πιστωτικών ιδρυμάτων και τον έλεγ

When the US imperialist machine is using controversial books to build its propaganda

globinfo freexchange It seems that the US imperialist machine is using the same methods it was using forty years ago at the dawn of neoliberalism and the rise of neoconservatives. One of these methods involves controversial books - often filled with inaccuracies, exaggerations, or even false facts - which were taken for granted in order to permit the imperialists to build a convenient propaganda. As The Grayzone reported recently [most important parts highlighted]: The U.S. assassination of Qassem Soleimani in January touched off a new wave of disinformation about the top Iranian major general, with Trump administration allies branding him a global terrorist while painting Iran as the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism. Much of the propaganda about Soleimani related to his alleged responsibility for the killing of American troops in Iraq, along with Iran’s role in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. But a second theme in the disinformation campaign, which has

Chris Hedges interviews Howie Hawkins, Green for President

Howie Hawkins Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and public intellectual, Chris Hedges, speaks with Howie Hawkins about the political landscape in 2020, "lesser evilism" and more.

The murderous history and deceitful function of the CIA

The Intercept Glenn Greenwald talks to journalist Vincent Bevins about his newly launched book, The Jakarta Method . The book examines the series of mass murder programs engineered by the CIA with the purported goal of fighting communism during the Cold War, and how the consequences of these programs shape the global order -- and U.S. politics -- to this day.

Revealed: The Economist magazine's role in US-backed coups & the rise of neoliberal capitalism

Going Underground Alexander Zevin, author of Liberalism at Large: The World According to The Economist , exposes The Economist’ s deep involvement in promoting free trade and the Laissez-faire disaster in Ireland during the Irish famine, pushing Western foreign policy goals such as the Pinochet coup in Chile, to the coup in Iran in 1953, to US-backed regime change operations  in Venezuela today.  He also discusses the class dimension to the rise of The Economist magazine, and why it is so highly sought after for advertising purposes.

What comes after capitalism

DiEM25 Free market capitalism died over a 100 years ago and gave way to monopoly capitalism. Monopoly capitalism is now not even able to reproduce itself, let alone sustain the planet, common decency etc.  But what comes next?

India's rural poor suffer most under lockdown

Democracy Now! India just saw its biggest spike in coronavirus cases in 24 hours with 6,000 new reported infections, as an estimated 3 million seek shelter from a powerful cyclone and tens of thousands have no work or food. Democracy Now! went to Mumbai for an update from renowned journalist P. Sainath, founder of the People's Archive of Rural India. 

The Fed’s chair and vice chair got rich at Carlyle Group, a private equity fund with a string of bankruptcies and job losses

Private equity funds have been variously called “merchants of debt,” “vultures,” or “corporate raiders.” What a private equity fund typically does is to buy up companies by piling debt on the balance sheet, selling off valuable assets like real estate, extracting giant dividends for the private equity partners to the detriment of workers and customers, and then, frequently, letting the company collapse into bankruptcy while laying off thousands of workers or liquidating the whole company. It should give pause to every American that the two top men at the Federal Reserve who are implementing a new $4.54 trillion bailout fund for Wall Street, using $454 billion from taxpayers to absorb the losses, both got rich working for one of the world’s largest such private equity firms: the Carlyle Group. According to his official bio, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell was a partner at the Carlyle Group from 1997 to 2005. In November 2017, Stephen Gandel, writing for Bloomberg News , calculated t

New court files expose Sheldon Adelson’s security team in US spy operation against Julian Assange

An exclusive investigation by The Grayzone reveals new details on the critical role Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands played in an apparent CIA spying operation targeting Julian Assange, and exposes the Sands security staff who helped coordinate the malicious campaign. by Max Blumenthal “ I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. ” –Mike Pompeo, College Station, TX, April 15, 2019 Part 3 - Journey to “the dark side” On February 26, 2017, Wikileaks announced the forthcoming release of a major tranche of CIA files revealing details of the agency’s hacking and electronic surveillance tools. One such spying application called “Marble” allowed agency spies to implant code that obfuscated their identity on computers they had hacked. Other files contained evidence of programs that allowed hackers to break into encrypted messaging applications like Signal and Telegram, and to turn Samsung smart TVs into listening devices.  Two days after Wikileaks’ initial an

How big wireless lobbied governments to build 5G for citizen data collection and surveillance

While selling 5G technology to the public as a means for faster downloads, Big Wireless — comprising a web of telecom companies, lobbyists and law firms– is spending millions to lobby governments the world over to implement the next generation of cellular technology because of its potential for data collection and surveillance of citizens. by Derrick Broze  Part 4 - A History of Big Wireless Bullying and Corruption In 2018, Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut exposed that Big Wireless and the FCC have failed to adequately fund independent studies into the health effects of emerging 5G technology. At a Senate Commerce committee hearing, Blumenthal questioned Brad Gillen, Executive Director of the CTIA, about the absence of this research. " How much money has the industry committed to supporting additional independent research—I stress independent—research? And we’re talking about research on the biological effects of this new technology,” Blumenthal asked. T