November 20, 2020
Foreign influence in Canada is bad if it comes from China, but not even worth mentioning if it comes from Israel. That seems to be the position of the Globe and Mail.
November 20, 2020
This week on CounterSpin: It isn’t only the death toll—more than a million people around the world, a quarter of a million in the US alone—but the emerging list of other harms from the coronavirus, to the lungs, heart and brain, that make a vaccine seem like the light at the end of a very dark tunnel.
Aug 18, 2020
The WHO has made a handy-dandy guide on how to debate vaccine deniers. Today on #PropagandaWatch, James delves into the document and examines its ideas.
November 17, 2020
On Monday, an attorney with the Justice Department asserted in federal appeals court in Washington D.C. that the government can kill US citizens without judicial review on the basis of the “state secrets” privilege.
Emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know show that a statement in The Lancet authored by 27 prominent public health scientists condemning “conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin” was organized by employees of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit group that has received millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer funding to genetically manipulate coronaviruses with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
There are no robust data on the real onset of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and spread in the prepandemic period worldwide. We investigated the presence of SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD)–specific antibodies in blood samples of 959 asymptomatic individuals enrolled in a prospective lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020 to track the date of onset, frequency, and temporal and geographic variations across the Italian regions.
November 2020
More than half a decade ago, on 30 April 2015, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) granted precautionary measures (MC 321-12) in favour of the Brörán peoples of Térraba and the Bribri peoples of Salitre. This exceptional measure, the only one of its kind in Costa Rica, was granted in response to the serious danger that the indigenous communities found themselves in, and the total lack of protection by the state authorities.
November 19, 2020
Saturday, the uneasy truce between Morocco and the Saharawi people of Western Sahara cracked. The New York Times reports, the Western Sahara pro-independence organization, Polisario Front has declared war, breaking a thirty years-old, UN-brokered ceasefire agreement between Morocco and the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic.
Dr. Jeffrey Smith is a Canadian law academic and lawyer who’s written extensively on Western Sahara human rights and environmental protections under international law.
Smith's also served as legal advisor to the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic for more than a decade.
Jeffrey Smith in the first half.
And; two weeks ago, the federal government in Ethiopia launched military attacks against the restive northern province of Tigray. Today, thousands are fleeing the fighting of the internal conflict outside observors say could become “the Libya of East Africa”.
Selamawit Gebremeskel and Moges Kebede are Ethiopian emigres, living in Canada for nearly thirty years. Selam is a health care professional and UVic grad calling Victoria home now.
Selam Gebremeskel and Moges Kebede anxiously watching developments in Ethiopia in the second half.
And; Victoria broadcaster and host of CFUV’s Plant Powered Radio, 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, and virtually too, in the coming week.
But first, Jeffery Smith and breaking a bad peace in Western Sahara.
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.ca/
November 16, 2020
For my entire life, I have been forgotten. I am a Sahrawi refugee, born and raised in the Algerian desert, where my people have remained displaced for 45 years, awaiting the moment when we can finally return to our homeland, Western Sahara.
For 45 years, Sahrawi refugees have been displaced to five refugee camps in the Algerian Sahara, where temperatures soar to 50 degrees Celsius in summer, water is scarce, and produce is incredibly difficult to grow, leaving refugees dependent on humanitarian aid for survival. Credit: Adad Ammi via Oxfam International
November 13, 2020
Tension in Western Sahara has not been this high for years.
November 15, 2020
Bir Lahlou (Liberated Territories) - Sahrawi Foreign Ministry accused on Friday Morocco of distortion of facts to cover its violations of cease-fire in El Guerguerat, south-western Western Sahara.
November 14, 2020
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| Trump meets Netanyahu Jan. 2020 [Credit: The White House] |
November 13, 2020
Outgoing US envoy to Syria James Jeffrey stated in a recent interview with Defense One that US officials have been “playing shell games” about the number of troops in the region to deceive the Trump administration into thinking there has been a military withdrawal.
“We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” Jeffrey said in an interview. The actual number of troops in northeast Syria is “a lot more than” the two hundred troops Trump agreed to leave there in 2019.
…
“What Syria withdrawal? There was never a Syria withdrawal,” Jeffrey said. “When the situation in northeast Syria had been fairly stable after we defeated ISIS, [Trump] was inclined to pull out. In each case, we then decided to come up with five better arguments for why we needed to stay. And we succeeded both times. That’s the story.”
…
Officially, Trump last year agreed to keep about 200 U.S. troops stationed in northeast Syria to “secure” oil fields held by the United States’ Kurdish allies in the fight against ISIS. It is generally accepted that the actual number is now higher than that — anonymous officials put the number at about 900 today — but the precise figure is classified and remains unknown even, it appears, to members of Trump’s administration keen to end the so-called “forever wars.”
November 13, 2020
US corporate media have buried coverage of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition hearing in the UK, despite its being the media “Trial of the Century” (FAIR.org, 9/25/20).
November 13, 2020
I’ve been teaching a music journalism class here at Cornell this semester. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings over the past eleven weeks I’ve joined eight students for an hour-and-a-quarter in a windowless rehearsal room in the basement of the music building.
November 12, 2020
European governments are responding to the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, Nice, Dresden and Vienna by adopting the political agenda of the far right.
November 12, 2020
Organic radical inspiration Vandana Shiva has been couragely speaking out against the insidious ‘Great Reset’ being sprung on us by Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates and the rest of the global capitalist elite.
