Peru's New Crisis: Cuts, Corruption, and a Constitutional Impasse

Peru’s Constitutional Crisis Cuts Deep Due to Endemic Corruption

by TRNN

October 11, 2019

The standoff between Peru's president and its legislature has found a temporary resolution, but the corruption crisis continues and the left might be able to take advantage of the situation.

For almost a week, it was unclear who is in charge of the government of Peru. That is, last week Peru’s president, Martin Vizcarra, dissolved the Congress. However, the Congress, which is controlled by far right politician Keiko Fujimori, ignored the president’s order and voted to remove the president from office instead. The vice president was then supposed to take over, but she resigned. Ultimately, Vizcarra seems to have remained in office and has now called for new congressional elections to be held on January 26 of this year.

Gerardo Renique is professor of history at the City College at University of New York and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal NACLA. Also, he is the co-author with Deborah Poole of the book Peru: Time of Fear.

ProBrexit BritPress Push Big Green Panic Button

Britain’s Pro-Brexit Press: When in Doubt, Blame the Irish

by Ari Paul - FAIR

October 11, 2019

The deadline for Britain to come up with a deal under which it would exit from the European Union is less than a month away. 

Cartoon from the Sun (3/31/19) depicting Britain’s then–Prime Minister Theresa May as a leprechaun demanding that Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar “solve the backstop problem.”

With no agreement in sight between Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a hardline Brexiteer, and his EU counterparts, the country has been jittery, to say the least.

Justice? No Justice! Guantanamo Child Detainee Deems Review Process "Hopeless"

No Escape from Guantánamo: Former Child Prisoner Boycotts Broken Review Process, Calls It “Hopeless”

by Andy Worthington

October 10, 2019

For the 40 men still held in the US prison at Guantánamo Bay, the wheels of justice have, fundamentally, ground to a halt under Donald Trump.

Former Guantánamo child prisoner Hassan bin Attash, in a photo 

included in his classified military file, released by WikiLeaks in 2011.

It’s now nearly ten years since a high-level government review process established by President Obama — the Guantánamo Review Task Force — issued its recommendations about what to do with the prisoners inherited from George W. Bush. The task force recommended that 156 men should be released, that 36 men should be prosecuted, and that 48 others should continue to be held without charge or trial — on the basis that they were regarded as “too dangerous to transfer but not feasible for prosecution” (a self-evidently dubious designation, as it accepted that there were fundamental problems with the so-called evidence used to establish these men’s guilt).

Death Stalks Congo Still: Forgotten Wars, Remembered Trauma

The Forgotten Trauma of a Forgotten War: As the World Looks Away, Death Stalks the Democratic Republic of Congo

by Nick Turse - TomDispatch

October 10, 2019

GOMA, North Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of Congo - The boy was sitting next to his father, as he so often did. He mimicked his dad in every way. He wanted to be just like him, but Muhindo Maronga Godfroid, then a 31-year-old primary school teacher and farmer, had bigger plans for his two-and-a-half-year-old son.

He would go to university one day. He would become a “big name” -- not just in their village of Kibirizi, but in North Kivu Province, maybe the entire Democratic Republic of Congo. The boy was exceedingly smart.

He was, Godfroid said, “amazing.” He could grow up to be a leader in a country in desperate need of them.

Keystone Kongress: Beating Trump At His Own Stupid Game

Trump’s Opponents Have Him Beat . . . When It Comes to Incompetence 

by David Swanson - Let's Try Democracy

October 10, 2019

If Trump were to finally shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, Nancy Pelosi and Jerrold Nadler and company would not declare it acceptable, absolutely not. But what they would do would be to open a months-long investigation into the history of the victim, what Trump had said earlier in the day, who had manufactured the gun, and — above all — what foreign government they could blame it on.

In fact, I’d be willing to wager that if Trump were to vomit on Nancy Pelosi’s head, she would open a very serious and lengthy series of investigations into whether he’d had any foreign food to eat.

Do you doubt it? Let’s examine the evidence.

To Julian Assange from NoWar2019: "Know that we support you"

Letter to Julian Assange from NoWar2019

by World BEYOND War

October 8, 2019

The fourth annual conference of World BEYOND War, which was held on October 4th and 5th in Limerick, Ireland, produced this letter, which is being delivered to Julian Assange.

We are grateful to you for the work you have done exposing criminal activities and abuses of power by militaries and governments. We believe that governments’ (monstrous and criminal) behavior should not be secret. People should know what their government is doing, and what a powerful foreign government is doing to their own countries. The actual results of the work of WikiLeaks have been hugely beneficial.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, David Swanson, Joyce Nelson, Janine Bandcroft October 10, 2019

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

October 10, 2019

Wars and rumours of same abound still throughout West Asia, where last week demonstrations for a more inclusive economy in Iraq were met with extreme state violence and the emergence of "mysterious sniper teams" reportedly killing protesters and police alike.

Meanwhile, American military manoeuvres in Syria stoked fears of a renewed Turkish incursion against Kurdish forces long at war there fighting those infamous agents of transnational mayhem for hire, Islamic State.

It's clear in 2019, the New World Order promised by George H. Bush thirty years ago is but a mire of perpetual warfare.

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, broadcaster, and executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org.


Listen. Hear.

Some of his many book titles include: 'War Is A Lie', 'When the World Outlawed War', and 'War No More: The Case for Abolition'. David blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org, and is also the host of Talk Nation Radio. 

David Swanson in the first half.

And; while the burning question in Canada's looming election is vital to the nation, what else might we voters still undecided on "who looks best in a canoe?" want to consider before casting our franchise into the polling pot? How about something more prosaic like the privatization of Canada's water supply and sewage management systems?

The Canada Infrastructure Bank's recent announcement it would provide "innovative funding" for just such a scheme is an issue currently left undebated by all federal parties, and entirely ignored by all in the press save, according to my second guest, the lonely alternative media site, Press Progress.

Joyce Nelson is an award-winning Canadian freelance writer, researcher, and author whose articles appear in the Watershed Sentinel and at CounterPunch.org. Some of her seven book titles include: ‘The Perfect Machine: TV in the Nuclear Age,’ ‘Sultans of Sleaze: Public Relations and the Media,’ ‘Beyond Banksters: Resisting the New Feudalism’ and its newly released sequel, ‘Bypassing Dystopia: Hope-filled Challenges to Corporate Rule.’

Joyce Nelson and 'Privatizing Canada’s Water Infrastructure Should be an Election Issue' in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week.

But first, David Swanson and wars past not passed, and finding peace in a World Beyond War.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Pax Americana: A Bomb Dropped Every 12 Minutes

Guns For Hire: the US Shouldn’t Be Using the Military to Police the Globe 

by John W. Whitehead - CounterPunch

October 8, 2019 

“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes…known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.…No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” — James Madison

Eventually, all military empires fall and fail by spreading themselves too thin and spending themselves to death.

It happened in Rome.

It’s happening again.

At the height of its power, even the mighty Roman Empire could not stare down a collapsing economy and a burgeoning military. Prolonged periods of war and false economic prosperity largely led to its demise.

America Love, Italian Style

Italy Should Make Friends with the U.S. Public and the World By Kicking Out the U.S. Military

by David Swanson - via Scoop

4 October 2019

In the late 1980s when I was a teenager and an exchange student in Bassano del Grappa I loved Italy for the same reasons I’ve loved it ever since, reasons that include natural and human-created and human beauty. 

I found Italians on average to be friendly, kind, generous, loving, fun-loving, humble, self-critical, and intelligent. It may have also helped a little that when I told other young people that I was from the U.S. they typically thought that was super cool. Older people told me that the United States had saved Italy from Nazism.

Iraq War's Past Not Passed

New Study Documents Depleted Uranium Impacts on Children in Iraq 

by David Swanson - Let's Try Democracy

September 20, 2019 

In the years following 2003, the U.S. military dotted Iraq with over 500 military bases, many of them close to Iraqi cities. These cities suffered the impacts of bombs, bullets, chemical and other weapons, but also the environmental damage of open burn pits on U.S. bases, abandoned tanks and trucks, and the storage of weapons on U.S. bases, including depleted uranium weapons. 

Here’s a map of some of the U.S. bases:

This map and the other illustrations below have been provided by Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, one of the authors of a forthcoming article in the journal Environmental Pollution. The article documents the results of a study undertaken in Nasiriyah near Tallil Air Base. Nasiriyah was bombed by the U.S. military in 2003 and in the early 1990s.