Mamas Rising: British Columbia Signs Off on Destruction of Fairy Creek

ARISE for the Ancient Forests | Save Fairy Creek

by MAMAS Movement

April 1, 2021

Dear Community, Our film is released today, alongside an injunction granted from the BC court to Teal Jones to enable the destruction of Fairy Creek's Ancient Forest.

 

Balancing Myanmar's Geopolitical Implications

RUSSIA AND MYANMAR – BALANCING ON A KNIFE’S EDGE

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears 

  @bears_with

 

April 1, 2021 

 

“The person attempting to travel two roads at once will get nowhere”. It’s a well-known Chinese maxim, especially in Myanmar (Burma), China’s backdoor to the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean, and the Indian Navy’s forward defence line.   

 

 

Russia’s policy towards Myanmar since the military takeover on February 1 is a case of proving the maxim mistaken. Although experts and officials in Moscow won’t say so aloud, it’s possible for Russia to pursue one strategy with two tactics; three more like.

 

The Lula Also Rises: Brazil's REAL Political Macho Man Returns

Will Lula Make a Comeback? Global Imperialists and Resource Extractors Shudder at the Prospect

by Alan Macleod - MintPress News

April 1, 2021

With the potential comeback of Lula da Silva, Brazil may once again be on a path away from fascism and one that puts economic justice and anti-imperialism first.

Will the world’s sixth most populous country move away from fascism and towards a social democracy putting economic justice and anti-imperialism first once more? That is the question on Brazilian minds right now, as earlier this month the Supreme Court dismissed all charges against former President Luis Inácio “Lula” da Silva.

 

This Is Your Arms Race on Drugs

Accidental Apocalypse and Nuclear War on Drugs

by John Laforge - CounterPunch.org

 

March 28, 2021 

With existential national security threats from floods, droughts, wildfires, water pollution, sea-level rise, and peak oil,^[1] the US Air Force, the Air National Guard and nuclear weapons manufacturers could do crucial defense work in the US heartland by building, installing, managing and expanding renewable (wind and solar) electric power systems — instead of polishing their 400 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, and preparing to welcome an astronomically expensive replacement missile dubbed Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent. 

Image by Christopher Farrugia. 

Call such a switch a “Climate Defense Initiative” since it would constitute deterrence against actual threats.

 

Constant Aid to Empire: The Myth of Canada as Peaceable Kingdom

Exclusive Series on Canadian Ties to U.S. Empire: Lester Pearson and the Myth of Canada as Peaceable Kingdom (Part 1)

by Richard Sanders - CovertAction Magazine

 

March 30, 2021

Lester B. Pearson, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize is a symbol of Canada’s supposed humanitarianism; In reality, however, he was a war hawk and the Godfather of Canada’s Cold War.

Lester Pearson surrounded by patriotic Canadians during the late 1950s. 

[Source: mcleans.ca]

 

Part I in an exclusive CAM series on the United States’ northern neighbor and its support for the U.S. empire.

 

Vancouver Island: Last Stand for Ancient Trees—Coast to Coast Coverage

 XRTV Season 1 Episode 5: The Last Stand for Ancient Trees—Coast to Coast Coverage

by XRTV Victoria  

 

March 30, 2021 

From blockaders at Fairy Creek trying to save ancient trees to XR activists in Nova Scotia trying to save an old growth forest for endangered moose. Plus, Ken Wu talks about why Fairy Creek is so frickin’ important, and the intersection of the climate crisis and the pandemic—a wilderness emergency physician weighs in. And Bruce Cockburn teams up with Rainforest Flying Squad videographers for an unforgettable vision of If a Tree Falls, starring Indigenous and settler forest defenders. 

 

 

 

Hosted by four-time Emmy Award winning journalist Mark Nykanen. In these turbulent and challenging times, advocacy journalism for the planet is urgently needed. Please subscribe to our XRTV Victoria channel and share widely.

 

Bringing Bellingcat to Court in the Sturgess Case

FIRST DAY SHOCK AT THE HER MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT INQUEST – BELLINGCAT TO BE CALLED TO TESTIFY, BUT NOT SERGEI OR YULIA SKRIPAL 

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears

 

March 30, 2021

 

 @bears_with

 

The first session of the inquest into the death of Dawn Sturgess, held in London on Tuesday, was almost entirely predictable. The counsel for the coroner,  like the lawyers for the Sturgess family and for the Home Office, repeated without qualification the allegation that a Novichok poison weapon they say was produced in Russia and taken to the UK by Russian assassins, caused the unplanned  death of Sturgess. 

 

 

This followed twelve weeks after an attempt at assassinating Sergei Skripal with the same weapon on March 4, 2018. Sturgess was the unintended victim of leftover poison, they say. 

 

B.C. Coastal Alert: Potential Oil Spill Disaster Now Transiting Inside Passage!

The Near Coast Destroyer, Jake Shearer Returns

by Ingmar Lee - 10,000 Ton Tanker

 

March 31, 2021

 

Here comes the loaded-to-the-gunnels American ATB petroleum tanker "Jake Shearer" again, currently northbound in Johnstone Strait again. The "Jake Shearer" nearly destroyed the BC Central Coast several years ago after it broke in half with a 10,000 ton load of diesel and drifted out of control to within a cable length of the Goose Islands.

 

ATB Jake Shearer March 31, 2021

 

In 2017, this ship very nearly destroyed the British Columbia coastal ecosystem; the Canadian government did nothing then, and is doing the same now.

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Angela Bischoff, Robbie Leppzer April 1st, 2021

This Week on GR

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

 

April 1, 2021

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded on the dates, March 29th and 30th, 2021

 

To some of us it may seem like just yesterday, but 42 years have passed since the “accident” at Three Mile Island made real the terrifying possibility of a nuclear meltdown; the very scenario featured in the film ‘The China Syndrome’, then newly released and playing in American theatres.

On March 28th, 1979 a routine maintenance procedure went wrong in reactor number 2 of the atomic power plant located in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania providing illustrative proof of the industry’s inherent danger to people, and its potential for catastrophic environmental damage.

The federal government was half way into its 14 year clean up at Three Mile Island when the Soviet reactor at Chernobyl went into meltdown, eclipsing the human and ecological cost of Three Mile Island. 

Listen. Hear.

And yet, neither of these industrial disasters stopped the proliferation of the atomic power industry in America, or in the USSR, or around the World.

Angela Bischoff is Director of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, a “small but mighty group aiming to move Ontario onto a 100% renewable path” She is too a long-time environmental defender whose career in the non-profit sector spans three decades, four Canadian cities, and includes issues ranging from transportation, climate, mental health, electoral reform, and the transformation of our current fossil fuel-driven urban paradigm toward the eco-cities necessary if we’re to have a future.

The Alliance recently released the alert, ‘Stunning Revelations about Pickering Nuclear Station’s Safety‘ that says, “There is no excuse for leaving this ticking time bomb operating for another four years.”

Angela Bischoff in the first half.

And; March marks too the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the disaster-still-in-progress at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. One might think, the stair-stepping of these three calamitous nuclear failures would make shutting down and removing a facility approaching its best before date easy. But one would have to think again!

In March 2011, just as Fukushima was imploding, the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station’s operating license was renewed, given the blessing from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend operations 20 years, to March, 2032.

Robbie Leppzer is a New England-based documentary filmmaker whose 40+ year catalogue includes both short and long-form critically acclaimed documentaries. From the burgeoning environmental protest movement of the 1970’s to the social justice and growing global peace movements currently roiling World capitals, Leppzer has chronicled the people who he says, “…stick their necks out to take risks for grassroots social change and build bridges across cultures“. His 2019 release, broadcast on Free Speech TV, Link TV, and Vermont PBS, and produced in association with NHK-TVJapan is ‘Power Struggle‘.

Robbie Leppzer and turning the tide on Vermont Yankee in the second half.

But first, Angela Bischoff and the time bomb in Ontario’s Greater Golden Horseshoe.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://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.com

The Taiwan Tipping Point: Full-Fledged War Between China and US Less Remote Than Imagined

Top US admiral warns war with China over Taiwan “much closer than most think”

by Peter Symonds - WSWS

 

March 26, 2021

The US Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. John Aquilino, testified this week that he regarded a Chinese attack on Taiwan as the most threatening flashpoint for war in the Indo-Pacific region and advocated a further build-up of US military force in the western Pacific to counter China. His remarks underscore the mounting bipartisan clamour in Washington against Beijing and the accelerating danger of the Biden administration, not China, provoking a war.

 

Adm. Philip Davidson, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command 

[Credit: AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool]

 

Aquilino was testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee at his confirmation hearing to replace Admiral Phil Davidson as head of the US Indo-Pacific Command—the largest US military command. He told the committee that “the dangerous concern is that of a military force against Taiwan.” He referred to the previous testimony of Davidson, who last week warned of a supposed Chinese takeover within six years, then added, “[M]y opinion is this problem is much closer to us than most think.”

 

WHO Covid Origin Scientists "participants in disinformation" Charges Leading Molecular Biologist

An Interview with Richard Ebright: The WHO Investigation Members Were “participants in disinformation”

by Jorge Casesmeiro Roger - Independent Science News

March 24, 2021

Molecular biologist Dr. Richard H. Ebright, PhD is one of the twenty six world scientists who signed the Open Letter: “Call for a Full and Unrestricted International Forensic Investigation into the Origins of COVID-19”. A document released last March 4 by the Wall Street Journal and Le Monde that reignited the debate over the pandemic’s origin after the WHO-convened mission to Wuhan.

 

Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University, Dr. Richard H. Ebright, PhD, is also Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology and serves as project leader on two National Institutes of Health research grants. 

Dr. Ebright, you are one of the 26 scientific signers of the Open Letter that stopped the release of the WHO-convened mission Interim Report and has reopened the CoV-2 origin debate. Do you think the final report of this WHO/China joint team is going to shut down COVID origin controversy?

No.

 

Droning for a Surveillance Society

Will Drones Really Protect Us? Drugs, Surveillance & The War on Terror

by Maya Evans - VCVN.org.UK

24 March, 2021

I’m seated in the police Zoom briefing with other council representatives for my small seaside town in England. Our Chief Inspector is telling us about the crisis we have with soaring heroin addiction in the town. The recent surge is contributing to a general increase in crime.  

 

 

The next section of the briefing is about the future use of police surveillance drones, and how they could become useful in combating crime.

 

Ruminations on Ruined Nations: Iraq War at 18

On the 18th Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq 

by Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque

 

20 March 2021 

 

For months before the Iraq War began, I and many others wrote, in print and on-line, about the outrageous lies that were being told by the US government and its media sycophants to bring about this mass-murdering act of aggression. 

How did we know they were lies? Not from any secret knowledge or insider info, but simply by reading the mainstream media stories of previous years, especially the ones from the mid-1990s that detailed how Saddam's regime had destroyed its WMD program, and how the US and UK governments always had the evidence for this, and knew there were no Iraqi WMDs throughout the propaganda build-up to the war.

 

The Trouble with Pickering: Aging Nuclear Power Plants and Safety

Stunning Revelations about Pickering Nuclear Station's Safety

by Ontario Clean Air Alliance 

 

March 23, 2021 

The Globe and Mail has published stunning revelations about the safety of the Pickering Nuclear Station and how the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) signed off on a 10-year licence extension despite knowing that Ontario Power Generation (OPG) was working with deeply flawed data about one of the plant’s most important safety concerns.

 

Pickering Nuclear Station, 8 reactors in the GTA, 50 years old.

CANDU reactors are filled with literally miles of pressure tubing that carries heavy water to and from the reactor core. These tubes are a real Achilles heel for these plants because they become brittle over time, leading to the possibility of ruptures and leaks. That can mean anything from a heavy water spill to a full meltdown if the core cannot be properly cooled.

 

Áñez in Chains: Bolivia's Face of the Coup Facing Justice

To Western Media, Prosecuting Bolivian Coup Leaders Is Worse Than Leading a Coup

by Joe Emersberger - FAIR

 

March 23, 2021

 

One can imagine an editor of the London-based Guardian (3/17/21) shaking her head sadly as she typed the headline: “Cycle of Retribution Takes Bolivia’s Ex-President From Palace to Prison Cell.”  

 

The subhead told readers, “Jeanine Áñez’s government once sought to jail the country’s former leader Evo Morales for terrorism and sedition—now she faces the same charges.”

 

The Boys Are Back in Langley (They Never Left)

Dirty Business As Usual: New CIA Director Burns Confirmed by Unanimous Vote in Senate

by Jeremy Kuzmarov - CovertAction Magazine

 

March 22, 2021

 

William J. Burns’ appointment offers little more than an image makeover for the agency. As a diplomat, Burns supported U.S. military interventions in Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria and is now stoking the coals against Russia and China.

 

William J. Burns was confirmed by a unanimous vote in the Senate on Thursday, 

March 18th, becoming the first former diplomat to become CIA director.

 

At his confirmation hearing on February 26th, Burns continued a long agency tradition of playing up the threat from Russia and China along with North Korea, and said that Iran should not be allowed to get a nuclear weapon.

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Finian Cunningham, Steve Poikonen March 25, 2021

This Week on GR

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

 

March 25, 2021 

In November of last year, Ethiopia’s federal government attacked the country’s northern Tigray state. Acting prime minister, Abiy Ahmed claimed it was in response to a raid by separatists on a federal army base. Four months later, the “police action” Abiy promised would be over in a matter of days has become a full-fledged conflict putting at risk millions of lives. 

 

Earlier this month, the United States announced it would mobilize a USAID DART, or Disaster Assistance Response Team to be sent into the Tigray region to forestall the widespread starvation of Tigrayan refugees.

The problem is, USAID has not been invited into the country, a point made by both China and Russia in the UN Security Council.

 

Listen. Hear.

Finian Cunningham is a prolific journalist and two-time Serena Shim Award for Uncompromising Integrity in Journalism recipient. His articles on international affairs appear at numerous online outlets, including Strategic Culture, where I found his recent article, ‘U.S. Paves Way for Intervention in Ethiopia, Horn of Africa’.

Finian Cunningham in the first half.

And; approaching the second anniversary of the sanctioned kidnapping of journalist and publisher Julian Assange from Ecuador’s London embassy, the founder of WikiLeaks seems no closer to freedom. A “victim of legal procedure”, Assange has been left to rot in solitary confinement in Britain’s notorious Belmarsh Prison while American courts decide his fate. The outrage against the principles of journalism and due process have been protested in Britain and globally, while in the U.S. a dedicated campaign of Americans from all over the country has manifested in the streets of the Capitol during the pivotal moments in the British hearings on extradition.

Steve Poikonen is a columnist, broadcaster, and host of the ‘Slow News Day‘ podcast. Steve’s also an organizer with Action4Assange, and co-host of the #FreeAssange Vigil. He and a retinue of activist have returned yet again to Washington, D.C., this time as part of the Clovers4Assange Actions coinciding with St. Patrick’s Day.

Steve Poikonen from Washington in the second half.

But first, Finian Cunningham and USAID wading in to Ethiopia’s civil 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: https://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.com

Endless World Dominion: China and the U.S. Struggle over Eurasia

Washington’s Delusion of Endless World Dominion: China and the U.S. Struggle over Eurasia, the Epicenter of World Power

by Alfred McCoy - TomDispatch

 

March 21, 2021

Empires live and die by their illusions. Visions of empowerment can inspire nations to scale the heights of global hegemony. Similarly, however, illusions of omnipotence can send fading empires crashing into oblivion. So it was with Great Britain in the 1950s and so it may be with the United States today.

By 1956, Britain had exploited its global empire shamelessly for a decade in an effort to lift its domestic economy out of the rubble of World War II. It was looking forward to doing so for many decades to come. Then an obscure Egyptian army colonel named Gamal Abdel Nasser seized the Suez Canal and Britain’s establishment erupted in a paroxysm of racist outrage. 

 

Lula Triumphant: Media Scramble to Fetter Former President da Silva

Financial Press Fears Brazilians Will Be Allowed to Elect President of Their Choice

by Alan MacLeod - FAIR

 

March 17, 2021

 

The Brazilian Supreme Court this month dismissed all charges against former President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva. A towering figure in national politics, Lula was the country’s president for eight years between 2003 and 2011. He was later convicted on highly dubious corruption charges and spent 18 months in prison, where his plight drew worldwide attention, making him, in the estimation of Noam Chomsky, the “world’s most prominent political prisoner.”

 

 

Lula’s incarceration directly led to far-right authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro coming to power, as Lula, the overwhelming favorite in the polls, was barred from running against him. Sergio Moro, the judge who imprisoned Lula—and secretly worked with the prosecution to convict him—became President Bolsonaro’s justice minister. The journalist who exposed Moro’s secret dealings, Glenn Greenwald, was charged with cybercrimes as a result of his reporting. (The charges were later dismissed.)

 

Back to Uganda: The Horror Continued

A Place the World Has Forgotten: Inside the Horror Show of Northern Uganda

by Otim Tonny - CovertAction Magazine

 

March 17, 2021

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) began as an evolution of the ‘Holy Spirit Movement’—a rebellion against president Museveni’s oppression of northern Uganda, led by Alice Lakwena. The Acholi people of the north had allied with Museveni’s rival in the Ugandan bush war, Milton Obote (Ugandan President 1961-1971, 1980-1985), and were subjected to reprisals. 

 

 

When Alice Lakwena was exiled, Joseph Kony took over, changing the name of the group to the Lord’s Resistance Army. As the group lost regional support, he quickly started a trend of self-preservation that would come to characterize the rebel group, stealing supplies and abducting children to fill his ranks.