Daily Archives: June 16, 2020

2020-06-16: News Headlines

Staff (2020-06-16). Climate Crisis: Trump's Regulatory Attack, DNC On Climate, California Fires, And Brazil COVID Chaos. therealnews.com Under the cover of COVID-19 and protests, Trump hacks away at bedrock environmental law. Plus, a Democratic Party committee lays out its climate platform, wildfires erupt in California, and climate chaos engulfs Brazil and the Amazon Rainforest.

Peoples Dispatch (2020-06-16). Colombians mobilize against hunger and state negligence. peoplesdispatch.org Thousands mobilized against state negligence, repression and the precarious conditions that communities are forced to endure amid the global health crisis. The protests were attacked by the police and ESMAD agents…

_____ (2020-06-16). Colombia: US Troops In Country Seek International Conflict. popularresistance.org Colombian senators on Wednesday saidthat U.S. troops that arrived in the South American country in early June are allowed to associate with illegal groups and seek an eventual international confrontation. | The Democratic Congressman Ivan Cepeda revealed that the current manuals of the U.S. special forces (SFAB) that arrived in Colombia "mention the function of advising non-governmental militias and illegal partners." | "We can end up like Libya, a destroyed state that has become a field for the multinational oil companies," the opposition congressman added. | The arrival of U.S. military personnel in the country…

teleSUR (2020-06-15). Colombia: 200 FARC Ex-Combatants Killed Since Peace Agreements. telesurenglish.net The Alternative Revolutionary Force of the Commons (FARC) party denounced Monday that the ex-combatant Mario Tellez Restrepo was murdered in North Santander, Colombia, marking 200 killed ex-fighters since the peace agreements were signed on Sept. 26, 2016. | RELATED: | Restrepo, a father of three, was working on the field when he was shot down by people who have not been identified yet. This killing marks the 26th alone in 2020 so fa…

Brett Heinz (2020-06-15). Rio de Janeiro: Police Violence and Solidarity. cepr.net On May 31, hundreds of people in Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city in Brazil, joined protesters around the world in marching against police brutality. While the protest was in solidarity with the wave of Black Lives Matter protests in the US following the killing of George Floyd, Brazilian protesters were marching against their …

_____ (2020-06-15). President Maduro: United States Is Living An Anti-Racist Spring. popularresistance.org President Maduro said that the US is experiencing an anti-racist spring, in reference to the massive protests for the murder of George Floyd. | "People on the street are saying who Donald Trump is every day," said the Venezuelan president during his participation on Monday in the TV show "Between Values," in which he also asserted that the American people "live an anti-racist spring". | On the other hand, he stressed that historical figures such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King are more present today than ever among Americans who fight for their rights. "They are the martyrs for a future hope, for a new societ…

Ben Norton (2020-06-15). Wikipedia formally censors The Grayzone as regime-change advocates monopolize editing. mronline.org On Wikipedia, a small group of regime-change advocates and right-wing Venezuelan opposition supporters have blacklisted independent media outlets like The Grayzone on explicitly political grounds, violating the encyclopedia's guidelines.

teleSUR (2020-06-15). Bank of England Infringes Human Rights: Venezuelan Central Bank. telesurenglish.net The Bank of England (BoE) is "putting lives at risk" by denying access to gold reserves, Legal representatives of the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) denounced Monday. | RELATED: | BoE refuses to release around US$1.13 billion of gold reserves which the South American nation could use to fight the health emergency derived from the COVID-19 outbreak. Venezuela is seeking to get a court order for the urgent release of abo…

Paul Dobson (2020-06-15). Venezuela Slams Interpol Arrest of CLAP Contractor in Cape Verde. venezuelanalysis.com Colombo-Venezuelan Alex Saab was detained on a Washington-issued arrest warrant en route to Iran, where he reportedly looked to negotiate food and medicine import contracts.

Lucas Koerner (2020-06-14). Venezuela's Supreme Court Names New National Electoral Council. venezuelanalysis.com The Guaido-led opposition vowed to boycott legislative elections due to be held later this year.

Subodh Varma (2020-06-14). Big 5 of COVID: Guess what is common to these top affected countries. peoplesdispatch.org The US, Brazil, Russia, India and the United Kingdom have larger than life leaders, but the pandemic has exposed their flaws, at great cost…

teleSUR (2020-06-14). Brazil Tops 850,000 COVID-19 Cases as Virus Plagues Country. telesurenglish.net In the last 24 hours, Brazil has registered 892 new deaths from the virus with 21,704 new cases, according to the health ministry. | RELATED: | Sao Paulo, the epicenter of the virus in Brazil and the country's most populous state, has registered 172,875 cases and 10,581 deaths, followed by Rio de Janeiro with 78,836 cases and 7,592 deaths, and Ceara with 76,429 cases and 4,829 deaths. | Brazil, with the second-highest number of cases in the worl…

teleSUR (2020-06-14). Chile's Health Minister Resigns as Pandemic Hits Hard. telesurenglish.net Chile's Health Minister, Jaime Manalich, resigned Saturday amid controversy over the official death toll from COVID-19 in the country that the ministry presented to the World Health Organization (WHO) and citizens. | RELATED: | The departure was announced by President Sebastian Piñera, who said that Manalich had spared "no effort" in carrying out his "difficult and noble duty" to protect Chileans' health. He repl…

teleSUR (2020-06-14). State Money Funded Ecuador's 2018 Referendum: Report. telesurenglish.net A campaign for a 2018 constitutional referendum pushed by President Lenin Moreno aimed to fight corruption in Ecuador was allegedly financed corruptly with millions of dollars from public funds, a local media revealed Sunday. | RELATED: | Citing sources close to Ecuador's Moreno, reporters presented in a video on social media documents reportedly revealing that the campaign for the referendum was run using state res…

teleSUR (2020-06-14). Venezuela Denounces Arbitrary Arrest of Alex Saab by Interpol. telesurenglish.net The Venezuelan government described the arrest of businessman Alex Saab by Interpol on Saturday as an arbitrary detention that seeks to infringe on the rights of citizens in the Bolivarian Republic. | RELATED: | Saab was traveling through the island-nation of Cape Verge on Saturday when Interpol arbitrarily arrested him and prevented him from returning home. | According to a statement from the Venezuelan Foreign Min…

Jessica Corbett, staff writer (2020-06-14). Amid Growing Death Toll in Brazil, Bolsonaro's Handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic Condemned as 'Pitiful'. commondreams.org Brazil is now second only to the United States in terms of both Covid-19 cases and deaths, and its daily death toll is the highest in the world—conditions that public health officials within and beyond the South American country continue to partly blame on far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's "reckless" response to the pandemic. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/gettyimages-12194079811.jpg

Manuel Raposo (2020-06-13). A view of the USA from Portugal: 'Not a riot — rebellion! workers.org The author is a Portuguese left communist and editor of jornalmudardevida.net. This article was translated by WW Managing Editor John Catalinotto. Hundreds of demonstrators in Brazil gathered outside the office of Rio de Janeiro's governor on May 31, protesting the deaths of Black and favela youth at the hands of . . . |

RT (2020-06-13). Argentina church transformed into a bar, pastors into waiters to protest coronavirus lockdown measures. rt.com Pastor Daniel Cattaneo has reportedly reopened his church as a bar in order to comply with Argentina's Covid-19 lockdown measures, which he says "discriminate" against religious services. | Cattaneo and other pastors dressed as waiters this week and served their congregation while preaching, a clever way around current lockdown measures which, despite being eased back since Monday, still restrict church services from having more than 10 people while other businesses can reopen at 30-percent capacity, according to local media. | Social distancing measures were kept up and members of the congregation wore masks…

_____ (2020-06-13). Wikipedia Formally Censors The Grayzone. popularresistance.org Internet encyclopedia giant Wikipedia is censoring independent news websites by adding them to an official blacklist of taboo "deprecated" media outlets. | The Grayzone is among the news websites targeted by the censorship campaign. Others include leftist and anti-imperialist outlets like MintPress News and the Latin American news broadcaster Telesur, along with several prominent right-wing political sites, including the Daily Caller. | The campaign to blacklist The Grayzone was initiated by Wikipedia editors who identify as Venezuelans and openly support the country's right-wing, US-backed opposition. These user…

teleSUR (2020-06-13). Bolivia: Añez Decides Not to Enact September Election Date. telesurenglish.net Bolivia's coup-born regime led by Jeanine Añez on Friday decided not to promulgate the law that sets the elections' new date, previously scheduled for September, and asked Congress to justify it with an epidemiological study. | RELATED: | Añez asked the Senate for an epidemiological report to show that it is completely safe to hold the presidential elections on Sunday, Sep. 6. | Senate President Eva Copa received…

WSWS (2020-06-13). Brazil registers world's second-highest COVID-19 toll as stock market soars. wsws.org The Brazilian stock market is responding to the unity of the whole ruling class around the back-to-work campaign and the brutal repression of social opposition.

teleSUR (2020-06-13). Guyana: Granger Asks CARICOM to Stay out of Internal Affairs. telesurenglish.net Guyana's Interim President David Granger Friday attacked Caribbean Community (CARICOM) representatives by asking them to stay out of his country's internal political affairs until the electoral process is over. | RELATED: | Granger's attack came two days after St. Vincent & the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves stated that CARICOM would not allow the theft of these elections. | "We will not stand idly by or…

Andrey Areshev (2020-06-13). Russia Aiming to Realize Greater Eurasia Dream. strategic-culture.org The Russian role will be to balance the hegemonic powers, as a guarantor of a new union of non-aligned nations | Pepe ESCOBAR | Professor Sergey Karaganov is informally known in influential foreign policy circles as the "Russian Kissinger" — with the extra bonus of not having to carry a "war criminal" tag from Vietnam and Cambodia to Chile and beyond. | Karaganov is the dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. He's also the honorary chairman of Russia's Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. | In December…

Alan Macleod (2020-06-12). Project Venezuela: Right-Wing Activists Push Wikipedia to Blacklist MintPress, other Alternative Media. mintpressnews.com Still unable to convince a sufficient number of their countryfolk to support them, the Venezuelan opposition has turned their efforts towards convincing an international audience — primarily Americans — to support their cause. Part of that is spending inordinate amounts of time online, arguing in English on social media, creating Now, a…

WSWS (2020-06-12). Brazilian delivery workers strike in defense of their lives. wsws.org Delivery workers have been carrying out strikes and protests in Brazil since April, connected to delivery workers' strikes around the world in countries like Spain, Ecuador and Argentina.

Staff (2020-06-12). Headlines for June 12, 2020. democracynow.org India Coronavirus Cases Surge Amid Global Rise in COVID-19, Graves on Copacabana Beach Mark 40,000 COVID-19 Deaths in Brazil, Guatemala City Hospitals Near Collapse Amid Surge in Coronavirus Patients, Oregon Pauses Lifting of Coronavirus Lockdown as Cases Hit New High, Another 1.5 Million U.S. Workers Filed Unemployment Claims Last Week, One Minneapolis Officer Charged in George Floyd's Killing Released on Bond, Minneapolis Police Chief Suspends Union Talks Following George Floyd's Killing, Austin City Council Votes to Reinvest Police Funds, Restrict Police Use of Force, Texas Grand Jury to Hear Case of Austin Of…

Adriaan Alsema (2020-06-12). Coronavirus spread in Colombia triggers orange alert in Bogota, curfew in Barranquilla. colombiareports.com Colombia's capital Bogota declared an orange alert and port city Barranquilla decreed a curfew on Thursday as the coronavirus threatens to collapse the cities' healthcare systems. Bogota mayor Claudia Lopez…

John McEvoy (2020-06-12). 'The United Kingdom lies': Venezuelan government lambasts UK response to 'reconstruction' plans. thecanary.co Venezuelan foreign minister Jorge Arreaza has accused the UK government of lying in its response to an