Ramzy Baroud (2018-06-14). Beating the US 'Veto': Palestinians Need Urgent Protection from Israel. counterpunch.org What is taking place in Palestine is not a 'conflict'. We readily utilize the term but, in fact, the word 'conflict' is misleading. It equates between oppressed Palestinians and Israel, a military power that stands in violation of numerous United Nations Resolutions. It is these ambiguous terminologies that allow the likes of United States UN More

Jill Richardson, Common Dreams (2018-06-14). Scott Pruitt's Corruption Is Bad, But His Planetary Sabotage Is Worse. alternet.org Gutting protections against toxic chemicals is just one way in which Pruitt has assaulted the environment while in office. | Did you hear that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, is so corrupt that he spent $1,560 on 12 customized fountain pens? Or that he spent another $43,000 on a soundproof phone booth in violation of government spending laws? Pruitt's big spending on the taxpayer dime has earned him well-deserved scrutiny and outrage. But what's really outrageous is what he's doing with the EPA. While Pruitt was getting headlines for having taxpayer-funded aides do his private business, his EPA just gutted an Obama-era law to protect Americans from toxic chemicals. For four decades, the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 did little to require that all new chemicals (or untested old ones) were properly vetted for safety before. . .

Candice Bernd, Truthout (2018-06-14). The False Choice Between Jailing Children and Separating Families. alternet.org The Trump administration is asking Congress to roll back protections for migrant children in immigration laws to allow DHS officials to more easily jail and deport them. | The Trump administration is giving Congress an ultimatum: overturn legal limits on the incarceration of children and expand family detention, or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will continue to separate families who illegally cross the border. The administration is asking Congress to roll back protections for migrant children in immigration laws to allow DHS officials to more easily jail and deport them. The changes would also make it more difficult for children to pursue asylum. Moreover, White House officials are blaming Democrats for an increase in migrants at the border, saying their refusal to spend more on border security has given immigrants fleeing Central America incentives to enter the US without permission. "The. . .

Nafeez Ahmed (2018-06-14). Liberal Philanthropy is Dooming the Planet to Climate Disaster, Documents Reveal. mintpressnews.com One of the world's biggest philanthropic initiatives to address climate change is set-up to fail catastrophically, according to a strategy document setting out the initiative's five-year plan. | The strategy document, published by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in January, represents the third renewal of the Climate Works initiative originally founded in 2008. The initiative was executed through the Climate Works Foundation in coordination with other big philanthropic foundations, the Packard and McKnight Foundations. | The Hewlett Foundation strategy document, titled Climate Initiative Strategy 2018—2023, reflects on the strategic thinking behind the process that led to the announcement last December that the foundation would commit $600 million to address climate change over the next five years‚Ää—‚Ääa 20 percent increase from previous funding. | | The fifth largest foundation in the United States, the Hewlett Foundation is…

Samantha Borek (2018-06-14). Labor's New Terrain: Working on the Supply Chain Gang. truthout.org A factory fire recently illustrated just how vulnerable are the supply chains at the heart of the global economy. The fire was at a single supplier—yet it forced Ford to temporarily halt production of the nation's bestselling truck, the F-150. | Think how much leverage workers could have if we acted like the fire. | This is exactly how large-scale organizing happened in the auto industry. In late 1936, members of the newly organized Auto Workers (UAW) struck several General Motors plants to win union recognition. A month later, GM still hadn't budged. | But in February 1937, workers in Flint, Michigan, occupied Chevrolet Plant 4. In less than two weeks, one of the most powerful corporations on earth capitulated. | What made the Flint plant occupation so much more powerful than the prior strikes? It was Chevy 4's strategic position: this single…

Staff (2018-06-14). Antarctica's Melting Is Speeding Up. truthdig.com The speed of Antarctica's melting has begun to gather pace. Between 1992 and 2017, the rate of loss of ice from West Antarctica has risen threefold, from 59 billion metric tons per year to 159bn. The West Antarctic peninsula, one of the fastest warming places on Earth, has seen ice loss soar from 7bn to 33bn tonnes a year in that timespan, as ice shelves have collapsed. | Altogether, in those 25 years, Antarctica has lost more than a trillion tonnes of ice. Since the southern continent is the biggest store of freshwater on the planet — if it all melted, the sea levels would rise by 58 metres — the news is ominous. It means that melting in Antarctica alone has raised global sea levels by 8mm, as global average temperatures rise, in response to ever-higher levels of carbon dioxide in…

Samantha Borek (2018-06-14). Amid Scathing Accusations of War Crimes, UN Votes to Condemn Israeli Violence Against Palestinians. truthout.org Just hours after a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report accused Israel of showing "blatant disregard for Palestinian lives" and commiting war crimes in its massacre of over 100 nonviolent demonstrators in Gaza over the past several weeks, the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution that condemns Israel's "excessive, disproportionate, and indiscriminate" use of live fire against peaceful Palestinians. | "We cannot remain silent in the face of the most violent crimes and human rights violations being systematically perpetrated against our people," Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the UN, said in a speech following Wednesday's vote. | The resolution denouncing Israel's murderous behavior—which was approved by a 120-8 vote, with 45 abstentions—also requests proposals from the UN Secretary General "ways and means for ensuring the safety, protection, and well-being of the…

Human Rights Watch (2018-06-14). South Korean Women are Fed Up with Inequality. hrw.org South Korean women march through the streets of Seoul. | © 2018 Courage to be Uncomfortable | On June 9, about 22,000 South Korean women marched through the streets of Seoul. The protest — reportedly the largest by women in South Korean history — focused on the proliferation of so-called "spy cams," tiny cameras used to invade women's privacy, filming them in toilets and up skirts, with images often posted online. Activists say the government is not taking the issue seriously — except in the rare case where a man is the victim. | Spy cam use is one of many rights violations women face in South Korea. The World Economic Forum recently ranked the country an abysmal 116 out of 144 countries in gender equality. In a…

RT (2018-06-14). Slam dunk: Flat-Earther logic obliterated by Reddit basketball stunt (PHOTO). rt.com A Reddit user has poked major holes in flat-Earther 'logic' with a clever — and easy-to-replicate — experiment deploying a digital camera with a macro lens, plenty of light… and a basketball. |
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Democracy Now! (2018-06-14). Trauma at the Texas-Mexico Border: Families Separated, Children Detained & Residents Fighting Back. democracynow.org We look at growing outrage over the Trump administration's policy of separating immigrant families who cross the U.S.-Mexico border, many fleeing dangerous conditions and seeking asylum. At least 600 immigrant children were removed from their parents last month, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the new rule. On Wednesday, 10 members of Congress protested by blocking the entrance to the headquarters of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency tasked with carrying out the forced removal of children from their parents. More protests in at least 60 cities are planned today by the group Families Belong Together, which formed in response to the new policy. We go to the epicenter of this "zero tolerance" crackdown, the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, where more than half of all migrant families and children have been apprehended by Border Patrol agents since mid-May, for a special report by Democracy Now! correspondent Renée Feltz, who spoke with residents taking action in response to the widely condemned practice of separating families.

Staff (2018-06-13). Obamacare's Pre-Existing Condition Protections at Risk. truthdig.com Attorney General Jeff Sessions' decision that the Justice Department will no longer defend key parts of the Affordable Care Act in court could hurt people with employer coverage, law and insurance experts say.

Jonathan Cook (2018-06-13). Knesset Foils Efforts to End Israeli Apartheid. counterpunch.org For most of the seven decades after its establishment, Israel went to extraordinary lengths to craft an image of itself as a "light unto the nations". It claimed to have "made the desert bloom" by planting forests over the razed houses of 750,000 Palestinians it exiled in 1948. Soldiers in the "most moral army in the world" reputedly cried as they were compelled to shoot Palestinian "infiltrators" trying to return home. And all this occurred in what Israelis claimed was the Middle East's "only democracy". More

Human Rights Watch (2018-06-13). Israel: Apparent War Crimes in Gaza. hrw.org Tear gas fired by Israeli forces fall near Palestinian protesters on May 14 east of Jabalya in the Gaza Strip. | © 2018 Mahmoud Abu Salama | (New York) — Israeli forces' repeated use of lethal force in the Gaza Strip since March 30, 2018, against Palestinian demonstrators who posed no imminent threat to life may amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. Israeli forces have killed more than 100 protesters in Gaza and wounded thousands with live ammunition. | The United Nations General Assembly should support a resolution that calls for exploring measures to guarantee the protection of Palestinians in Gaza, and a UN inquiry mandated to investigate all violations and abuses should identify Israeli officials responsible for issuing unlawful open-fire orders. The killings also highlight the need for the…

RT (2018-06-13). Volcanic eruptions may sap oxygen from oceans, lead to 'mass extinction' of life on Earth — study. rt.com Devastating volcanic eruptions, caused by excess carbon in the atmosphere, could one day lead to the mass extinction of all marine animals, and possibly all life on Earth — so says a new study.
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Human Rights Watch (2018-06-13). US Rolls Back Protections for Asylum Seekers, Again. hrw.org The Trump administration continues its no-holds-barred attack on asylum seekers. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions stands during a news conference to discuss "efforts to reduce violent crime" at the Department of Justice in Washington, U.S., December 15, 2017. | © 2017 Reuters | This week, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions raised the bar to make asylum nearly impossible for people fleeing domestic abuse and gang violence who cannot be protected in their home countries. His decision undoes established US precedent and goes against international law, which clearly recognizes people fleeing persecution by groups or individuals as refugees when their governments fail to protect them. | Because of the nature of the US immigration and asylum system, the attorney general, as head of the Department of Justice, has the power to unilaterally change decisions made by…

Don Qaswa (2018-06-12). How is This Legal? counterpunch.org In the U.S. it is possible to secure a list of Superfund sites from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by simply writing to them. I've had my list for awhile, but just the other day I noticed something shocking. West Salem High School is an active Super Fund site located at 1776 Titan Drive in Salem, Oregon. The EPA More

Hatewatch Staff (2018-06-12). Anti-LGBT, anti-Islam, anti-immigrant rhetoric featured alongside racist dog-whistles and Trump cabinet officials at WCS 2018. splcenter.org The ostensible headliners of the Western Conservative Summit in Denver on June 8 and 9 were embattled Trump cabinet members Attorney General Jeff Sessions (still under fire from the president for not recusing himself from the Russia investigation) and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt (under fire from everyone but the president for having government aides and his Secret Service detail run embarrassing personal errands for him).

Hezvo Mpunga (2018-06-12). Left forum 2018: Making Real News in the Age of Trump. therealnews.com 'The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!' Corporate news is consumed with covering the Trump/Russia affair, but it pales in comparison to the real threats in people's lives—climate change, underemployment, poverty, lack of health care, lack of clean water—just to name a few. How should independent news cover the most pressing issues of our…

Jared Porter (2018-06-12). Pope Francis to Big Oil Executives: 'There is no time to lose'. therealnews.com Dan DiLeo, Justice and Peace Studies Director at Creighton University, discusses the Vatican's climate change conference

Human Rights Watch (2018-06-12). Time to Get Kids out of Hazardous Workplaces. hrw.org A child walks between bales of tobacco on an auction floor in Harare, Zimbabwe. | © 2017 Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP Photo | Today is the World Day Against Child Labor, and this year's theme highlights the global need to improve the health and safety of young workers and eradicate hazardous child labor. | Worldwide, about 73 million children work in hazardous conditions. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates a staggering 22,000 children are killed at work every year. Children who work often miss out on an education, and studies show they are less likely to find decent-paying jobs as adults. Human Rights Watch has documented the risks child workers face in agriculture, mining, the apparel industry, and other sectors. | On tobacco farms in Zimbabwe, Indonesia, and the…

Jared Porter (2018-06-11). Livestock Industry Greatly Underestimates Carbon Emissions, Endangering Paris Climate Agreement. therealnews.com By greatly underestimating their greenhouse gas emissions, the livestock industry is placing the Paris Climate Agreement in jeopardy because we do not know just how big an impact this industry is having on climate change

Democracy Now! (2018-06-11). Headlines for June 11, 2018. democracynow.org Trump and Kim Arrive in Singapore Ahead of Historic Summit, Trump Slams Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau After G7 Summit, Israeli Troops Kill 4 Palestinians & Wound 600 More in Crackdown on Nonviolent Protest, Pentagon: U.S. Special Operations Soldier Alexander Conrad Killed in Somalia, Reports: Dozens Killed in Russian and Syrian Gov't Bombing in Idlib Province, Red Cross Evacuates 71 Staff Members from Yemen, Honduran Asylum Seeker, Separated from His Wife & Child, Dies by Suicide in Texas Jail, Rep. Pramila Jayapal: Separating Immigrant Mothers and Children Is Horrific, Judge Halts Deportation of NYC Delivery Worker Pablo Villavicencio, Pope Francis Warns Oil Company Executives Climate Change Threatens Humanity, India Moves to Ban Single-Use Plastics by 2022, Women March Across United Kingdom to Celebrate 100 Years of Female Suffrage, Philippines: Journalist Dennis Denora Killed in Mindanao, Robert De Niro Slams President at Tony Awards…

RT (2018-06-09). A year of earthquakes in 1 month: Hawaii stricken by 12,000 tremblers since eruption. rt.com An astonishing 12,000 earthquakes have been recorded in Hawaii since the island nation's Kilauea volcano erupted in early May.
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Democracy Now! (2018-06-08). As EPA Scandals Mount, Scott Pruitt Is Radically Reshaping Agency to Aid Polluters and Big Business. democracynow.org Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is again facing a slew of ethics and spending scandals amid mounting calls for his resignation. On Thursday, The Washington Post reported Pruitt enlisted members of his $3.5 million security detail to pick up his dry cleaning and search for his favorite skin moisturizing lotion, even though federal rules prohibit public officials from receiving gifts from subordinates, including unpaid services. Meanwhile, Pruitt is continuing to radically reshape the EPA. The New York Times reports today the EPA has given the chemical industry a big victory by scaling back the way the federal government determines health and safety risks associated with the most dangerous chemicals on the market. Pruitt has also been accused of radically reshaping the EPA rulemaking process and weakening Obama administration efforts to tighten fuel economy standards. We speak to Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen.

RT (2018-06-08). Trump will stay at G7 for women's rights, but not ecology. rt.com The White House says US President Donald Trump will cut his trip to the G7 summit short, skipping a climate change session while staying for one on women empowerment. Trump is increasingly at odds with the other group members.
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Paul Dobson (2018-06-07). Maduro & Workers Push to Stimulate Venezuela's Oil Industry amid Collapsing Production. venezuelanalysis.com It is alleged that PDVSA does not possess sufficient stocks to fulfill its June export orders.

Democracy Now! (2018-06-04). "A Source of Positivity All the Time": Remembering Palestinian Medic Razan al-Najjar, Killed by IDF. democracynow.org Witnesses say Israeli soldiers shot dead 21-year-old Palestinian medic Razan al-Najjar as she ran toward the border fence to provide medical aid to a wounded protester. Since nonviolent protests began at the end of March, Israeli soldiers have killed at least 119 people, including 14 children. More than 13,000 have been wounded. "It was clear to everybody that she was a paramedic, that that was murder. I mean, that was a crime committed before cameras," said Dr. Medhat Abbas, director of Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in the Gaza Strip. We also speak with Najjar's cousin, Dalia al-Najjar, who says the response of the international community to the Gaza crisis has been "really disappointing," and notes the U.S. vetoed a draft U.N. resolution urging the protection of Palestinians on Friday, the same day Najjar was killed. "It's a shameful side that the United States decided to take."

Cira Pascual Marquina (2018-05-22). Venezuela Slams New US Sanctions as Washington Hints at Oil Embargo. venezuelanalysis.com The latest measures fly in the face of international concern about the living conditions of Venezuelans.

Paul Dobson (2018-05-09). ConocoPhillips Moves to Seize Venezuelan Oil Assets as PDVSA Maneuvers to Safeguard Tankers. venezuelanalysis.com In response to the threat, PDVSA has allegedly ordered its fleet of tankers stationed in the Caribbean to return to Venezuelan waters.