2019-03-12: News Headlines

Medea Benjamin (2019-03-12). How US Sanctions are Hurting Iran: A Firsthand Report. counterpunch.org On a recent delegation to Iran, we experienced first-hand the legendary Iranian hospitality. Iranians are particularly thrilled to meet Americans, but as we discovered, our government's policies are hurting the very people who want to be our friends. As our 28-person delegation traveled through the country wearing messages on our jackets proclaiming "Peace with Iran" More

Medea Benjamin (2019-03-12). How US Sanctions are Hurting Iran: A Firsthand Report. zcomm.org Trump's economic strangulation is having devastating people on the Iranian people…

Jimmysllama (2019-03-12). Whistleblower Chelsea Manning Stands Up for Press Freedom, Gets Jailed by US Gov't. mintpressnews.com President Donald Trump's 2010 statement that the WikiLeaks' staff should be executed and Hillary Clinton's suggestion to drone Assange, are reflective of a deeply disturbing trend to terrorize the press.

Democracy Now! (2019-03-12). Headlines for March 12, 2019. democracynow.org 2020 Budget Boosts Border Wall & Military Funding, Slashes Domestic Programs, NY AG Probe Targets Deutsche Bank's Ties to Trump Org., Rep. Pelosi: Trump "Not Worth" Impeaching, Algerian Pres. Bouteflika Will Not Seek 5th Term, Delays Election, U.N.: 2018 Deadliest Year for Syrian Children, U.N.: Airstrikes in Yemen Kill 22 Women and Children, Iranian Human Rights Lawyer Sotoudeh Sentenced to 38 Years, Colombia: Indigenous Activist Killed Amid Mounting Violence, Food Stamps Cut for 1.4 Million Puerto Ricans, Fox News' Tucker Carlson Calls Iraqis "Semiliterate Primitive Monkeys" in Surfaced Recording, Increasing Ba…

teleSUR (2019-03-12). Brazil: 2 Former Police Arrested in Marielle Franco Murder. telesurenglish.net Two former policemen were captured Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro as suspects in the murder of Marielle Franco, a councilwoman and human rights activist who was shot on Mar. 14, 2018. | RELATED: | Bolsonaro's Son Linked to Suspect of Marielle Franco's Murder | "Two police officers were arrested with a direct and effective participation in the crime," Marcus Vinicius Braga, Rio de Janeiro state police secretary, said and added that "with the these arrests, we get close to solving the cr…

Allegra Harpootlian (2019-03-12). Gun Control Activists Should Also Take on America's Drone Wars. thenation.com Gun Control Activists Should Also Take on America's Drone Wars…

World Beyond War (2019-03-12). No to NATO — Yes to Peace Festival. globalresearch.ca The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is coming to Washington, D.C., on April 4. We're organizing a peace festival to unwelcome them. | Wednesday, April 3 at St. Stephen's Church, 1525 Newton St NW, Washington, D.C. 20010: | 12: 00 p.m. — …

teleSUR (2019-03-12). Indigenous Peoples Want Yalitza Aparicio as Peace Ambassador. telesurenglish.net Mexico's National Indigenous Governorship (GIN) Tuesday invited actress Yalitza Aparicio to be an Indigenous Peoples' Peace Ambassador because she represents "the victory of 68 native languages." | RELATED: | Oscars Joy For Cuaron And 'Roma' in Record Night | The…

Whitney Webb (2019-03-12). "Lights Out!" Did Trump and His Neocons Recycle Bush-Era Plan to Knock Out Venezuela's Power Grid? globalresearch.ca Even as the Venezuelan government blamed the recent power outage on U.S.-led "sabotage," the U.S. has long had a plan on the books for targeting the civilian power grid of adversarial nations. | *** | For nearly four days, much of Venezuela …

Robert Fisk (2019-03-12). Trump is Trying to Pay His Way to an Annihilation of Palestinian Statehood, and an Erasure of Israel's Crimes. counterpunch.org "Palestine" has been compared to many things. The world's longest colonial war, a "hell-disaster" — Churchill's memorable epithet — and the site of Israel's "war on terror", a conflict in which we are supposed to believe that the Palestinians are playing the role of al-Qaeda or Isis or any other outfit which the west and its allies have helped into existence, and which Israel is going to fight on our behalf. More

Stephen Lendman (2019-03-12). Greater Trump Regime Intervention in Venezuela Coming? Sabotage as a Prelude to All Out War? globalresearch.ca On Monday, Pompeo hinted at the Trump regime upping the stakes in Venezuela, saying "(t)he United States is drawing a clear line between those who aid (the Bolivarian Republic) and those" supporting US aims in the country. | He falsely blamed …

Stephen Lendman (2019-03-12). Trump's Dystopian Budget Proposal. Slashing Social Programs. More Money for War. globalresearch.ca Trump's dead on arrival budget proposal to Congress is all about funding greater militarism and belligerence, along with serving corporate interests and high-net worth households — while gutting vital social programs. | It's a proposal only Wall Street, the military, industrial, …

Kathy Kelly (2019-03-12). Can We Divest from Weapons Dealers? counterpunch.org Impoverished people living in numerous countries today would stand a far better chance of survival, and risk far less trauma, if weapon manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon stopped manufacturing and selling death-dealing products. About three decades ago, I taught writing at one of Chicago's alternative high schools. It's easy to More

Noam Chomsky (2019-03-12). Chomsky & Nader. zcomm.org Talking about the media, the Green New Deal, nuclear war, Gaza, and Venezuela…

Patrick Cockburn (2019-03-12). The Political Class's Disregard for Irish Life. counterpunch.org The families of the 13 innocent people shot dead by the Parachute Regiment when they took part in a civil rights march against internment without trial in Londonderry in 1972 will learn in the coming week if soldiers, who are alleged to have carried out the killings, will be prosecuted. There is no doubt about More

Mark Gruenberg (2019-03-12). Budget cuts: Trump fiscal plan is a right-wing wish list. peoplesworld.org WASHINGTON—If proposed federal budgets are political documents—and they are then-President Donald Trump's budget for fiscal 2020, which starts Oct. 1 and ends just before next year's election, is a right-wing wish list, with a trillion dollars of red ink, tailored to appeal to his base. From $8.6 billion more for his racist Mexican Wall, to …

Eduardo Gudynas (2019-03-12). Military Moves into Environmental Management in South America. counterpunch.org Environmental and land management in South America is being slowly but persistently militarized, with the aim of controlling extractive industries, especially gold mining. In Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela, as well as other countries, both conservative and progressive governments participate in this militarization. The basic dispute is not so much in avoiding negative environmental and social impacts, as in controlling economic surpluses. More

Democracy Now! (2019-03-12). Trump's New Budget Slashes Medicare and Bolsters Military in an "Attack on the Poor & Middle Class" democracynow.org President Trump is seeking $8.6 billion to fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and an almost 5 percent increase in military spending. Meanwhile, Trump is calling for drastic cuts to domestic spending, including cutting $845 billion from Medicare spending over the next decade. Trump also wants to slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by 31 percent and the Interior Department's budget by 14 percent. We speak with David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, and founder and editor of DCReport.org.

Conn Hallinan (2019-03-12). How long can we keep dodging nuclear war? peoplesworld.org

Michael Berkowitz (2019-03-12). 'Fight On': Anti-socialist hysteria motivates conservative propaganda flick. peoplesworld.org Donald Trump has a movie he'd like you to see. It's called Fight On and is about the specter haunting America…socialism. Although too late for the Academy Awards, the right-wing Republicans unveiled this film hoping it will be a big winner for them in the coming national elections. Fight On was the centerpiece of the …

teleSUR Desk (2019-03-12). Venezuela blackouts: 'straight from the cyberwar playbook'. mronline.org A columnist at Forbes discusses the possibility of the blackout in Venezuela having been caused by cyberwarfare. | Source

Jesse Jackson (2019-03-12). Diplomacy, not a military coup, is the way to help Venezuela. peoplesworld.org The United States is pushing for an overthrow of the government of Venezuela. The Trump administration has denounced Nicolas Maduro as a "dictator," dismissing the 2018 election, which the opposition boycotted. Instead of a good neighbor policy or a policy of non-intervention, the Trump administration has set out intentionally to overthrow the regime. Long before …

Martin Billheimer (2019-03-12). Night Life of the Odd: Jean Ray's Whisky Tales. counterpunch.org Jean Ray, Jean Flanders, Raymundus Joannes de Kremer and sometime Harry Dickson — all subsumed under the name Jean Ray, embezzler and premiere avant pulp novelist of Belgium; author of Malpertuis which was made into a film starring Orson Welles; admired by Queneau and Resnais; friend of Ghelderode; pulp machine and comic book scenarist on the More

unitedEditor (2019-03-12). UN report on Syria shows scale of humanitarian tragedy. uwidata.com Reading about the thousands of innocent people dying as a result of aerial bombardments, and the tens of thousands of women and children being forced to fight for life in inhuman conditions in refugee camps, one feels an urged to share the information across social media in order to shed light on the tragic situation. …

Thierry Meyssan (2019-03-12). How the ICC Intends to Violate UN Security Council Decision and Try Bashar al-Assad. mintpressnews.com There exists no control of the ICC, even when its general prosecutor is a corrupt criminal. The Court is reserved exclusively for the service of those who pay for it — the European Union.

Ramzy Baroud (2019-03-12). Chasing Mirages: What Are Palestinians Doing to Combat the 'Deal of the Century'? mintpressnews.com The painful truth is that it is not just US bullying that has pushed the PA into this unenviable position, but, sadly, the self-serving nature and political bankruptcy of the Palestinian leadership itself argues Ramzy Baroud.

commondreams (2019-03-12). Brazil: Arrests are First Sign of Progress in Investigation Into Killing of Marielle Franco. commondreams.org ______________________________…

Tim Daiss (2019-03-12). Rubio's "Full Gangster" Comments Hinder U.S.-Saudi Relations. globalresearch.ca It didn't take long for Florida Senator Marco Rubio's comments that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had "gone full gangster" to make the news rounds all the way from the U.S. to the Middle East, across the globe …

David Edwards (2019-03-12). Corbyn, Williamson And The Anti-Semitism Scandal. zcomm.org One thing is certain, if Corbyn and his style of socialism can be made to disappear, we'll hear no more about anti-semitism in the Labour Party…

Allegra Harpootlian (2019-03-12). The School Shooters of the Planet. commondreams.org This one-sided view of America's never-ending air wars fails everyone, from the people being asked to carry out Washington's decisions in those lands to ordinary Americans who have little idea what's being done in their name to the many people living under those drones. (Photo: Shutterstock) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/drones_1_1.jpeg

Kurt Nimmo (2019-03-12). Syria Ready for War to Regain Oil-Rich Golan Heights? globalresearch.ca In 1981 when Israel officially annexed Syria's Golan Heights after occupying it following the Six Day War, the United States under President Ronald Reagan voted unanimously with the UN Security Council to condemn the Israeli theft of around 1,800 square …

teleSUR (2019-03-12). US Whites Produce More, Suffer Less Pollution Than Minorities. telesurenglish.net A new study showed that minority populations in the United States experience the effects of pollution more than the amount they cause, as opposed to white people, who experience less pollution than what they cause, based on consumption numbers. | RELATED | Colombia: Air Pollution Triggers Red Alert Warning in Aburra | The study, coming out of the University of Washington (UW) and conducted by University of Minnesota (UM) professor Jason Hill and UW professor Christopher Tessum, ma…

Peter Koenig (2019-03-12). Washington Is Waging a New Dimension War Against China — And Will Lose Out Bitterly. globalresearch.ca Once the all-encompassing chittering and chattering about tariffs on Chinese imports by the western corporate media subsided, Trump, egocentric businessman rather than the President of the Empire, "out of the blue", one could almost say, under the pretext of 'unfair' …

Stan Cox, Paul Cox (2019-03-12). Vulnerable U.S. Citizens Are Still Trapped in the Ruins Left by Hurricane Maria—Would We Care More If They Lived Near Us? commondreams.org Across Puerto Rico, according to the New York Times, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which was responsible for awarding home-repair grants, rejected 58 percent of applications. (Chris Grogan/Air Force Magazine/Flickr) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/help.jpeg

Lee Camp (2019-03-12). Lee Camp: We Are Being Lied Into War Again. mintpressnews.com This is not the first time our government and our media have conspired to drag the American people into war with another country—or helped create a coup that will inevitably have disastrous results.

ACLU (2019-03-12). Members of Congress Take Bold Step Towards Ending Discriminatory Bans on Abortion Coverage. aclu.org A new bill would end the Hyde Amendment and other related bans on insurance coverage of abortion. | Members of Congress on Tuesday took a bold step toward making the right to abortion a reality for everyone. The EACH Woman Act was reintroduced in the House — and introduced in the Senate for the first time ever. | This trailblazing legislation would end the Hyde Amendment and related bans on insurance coverage of abortion, which for over four decades have pushed…

Robert Reich (2019-03-12). Robert Reich: Elizabeth Warren Is Right About Big Tech. truthdig.com The senator aims to break up Google, Amazon and Facebook. If we are to dismantle our new Gilded Age, it's as good a place as any to start.

Shane Quinn (2019-03-12). Decades of US Support for International Terrorists in Their War Against Cuba. globalresearch.ca For 60 years the Cuban Revolution has been in opposition to the most powerful nation of all time. America is a landmass almost 100 times larger in size than Cuba, is infinitely wealthier, stronger and boasts the largest and most …

Sam Biddle (2019-03-12). Elizabeth Warren's Big Tech Beatdown. zcomm.org Elizabeth Warren's new plan — well, for now it's just a Medium post — to break up some of the world's biggest tech firms provides the rarest sign that someone seeking power wants to use that power to weaken Silicon Valley…

Jim Miles (2019-03-12). Trudeau's Cabinet Tempest. globalresearch.ca On a global scale, the current events within Canada's Justin Trudeau cabinet are not much more than the proverbial tempest in a teapot. While receiving saturation coverage on Canada's CBC and some national newspapers, it is not totally noteworthy with …

GRAIN (2019-03-12). The Belt and Road Initiative: Chinese Agribusiness Going Global. globalresearch.ca "Distance matters because time matters. And time matters because the faster commodities can be produced and exchanged, the greater the profits for individual firms. The answer? Mega infrastructure corridors." — Nicholas Hildyard[1] | One of the world's biggest e-commerce companies, Beijing-based …

Lit by IMAGINATION (2019-03-12). Poetry from Fukushima on the 8th Anniversary of the Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Meltdown. globalresearch.ca March 11, 2019 is the 8th anniversary of the Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Meltdown, the first of a type of techo-natural disaster predicted in the 1990s by seismologist Ishibashi Katsuhiko. He coined the Japanese term genpatsu shinsai (ÂéüÁô∫ÈúáÁÅΩ, literally a …

Mike Whitney (2019-03-12). Whose Interests Are Served by the US Occupation of East Syria: America's or Israel's? globalresearch.ca What is Israel's stake in east Syria? Has Israel influenced Washington's decision to maintain a long-term military presence in Syria? How does Israel benefit from the splintering of Syria into smaller statelets and from undermining the power of the central …

Socrates Mbamalu (2019-03-12). Western Press Still Guilty of Bias When Reporting on African Tragedy. globalresearch.ca The racism inherent in Western media's reportage of African tragedy, such as the Ethiopian Airline disaster, once again shows how important it is for Africans to support their own media. | *** | Tragedy is a human experience that no one can …

Andrew Korybko (2019-03-12). Commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM) "Concerned" about China's "Belt and Road" (BRI). globalresearch.ca The Commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM) told the House Armed Services Committee just how "concerned" he is about China projecting its Silk Road influence from Gwadar to Africa through S-CPEC+ and consequently establishing a permanent naval presence in the …

Mike Whitney (2019-03-12). The Media's 6 Biggest Lies About North Korea. globalresearch.ca Here are six of the media's biggest lies about North Korea: | 1—Did North Korea end the negotiations in Hanoi because Trump refused to lift sanctions? | No. That's not what happened at all. Kim Jong un made a serious offer to …

Philip A Farruggio (2019-03-12). "Gimme Some Truth". John Lennon's Message Resonates. globalresearch.ca Gimme Some Truth | John Lennon, The Plastic Ono Band | I'm sick and tired of hearing things from
Uptight short sided narrow minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
I've had enough of reading …

Peter Phillips (2019-03-12). Giants: The Global Power Elite. globalresearch.ca My new book, Giants: The Global Power Elite, follows in the tradition of C. Wright Mills' work the Power Elite, which was published in 1956. Like Mills, I am seeking to bring a consciousness of power networks affecting our lives …

South Front (2019-03-12). Video: Venezuela Blackout: Cyber Attacks, Sabotage and Political Horror Movies. globalresearch.ca During the past few days, Venezuela was suffering a major blackout that left the country in darkness. The crisis started on March 7 with a failure at the Guri hydroelectric power plant, which produces 80% of the country's power. Additionally, …

Telesur (2019-03-12). French, German Farmers Destroy GMO-contaminated Crops. globalresearch.ca The transnational company Bayer said Wednesday that farmers in France and Germany were digging up thousands of hectares of rapeseed fields after traces of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which are banned for cultivation, were found in seeds sold by the …