the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Like the mysterious figure it is named for, the Caesar sanctions bill is the product of an elaborate deception by shadowy US- and Gulf-backed operatives. Instead of protecting Syrian civilians, the unilateral measures are driving them towards hunger and death. by Max Blumenthal Part 9 - Congress signs off on Syrian misery, plunging the country’s currency On March 11, 2020, the usual suspects of the Caesar production assembled on Capitol Hill for one final lobbying push. This time, the full-time regime-change lobbyist Mouaz Moustafa delivered a self-described former prisoner from Syria’s Saydnaya complex named Omar Alshogre to the House Foreign Affairs Committee to make the case for escalating the economic war. Alshogre’s dramatic performance demonstrated his background as a business consultant at the Boston Consulting Group and a motivational speaker managed by an elite speaker’s bureau to secure Ted X lecture gigs. (Back in March 2019, Alshogre was brought onto CNN to...

A Trump-like Mexican oligarch, Gilberto Lozano, is leading a coalition of corporate leaders and far-right fanatics called FRENA to try to overthrow President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. by José Guadalupe Argüello III and Ben Norton Part 9 - FRENA’s religious extremist member Juan Bosco Abascal warns of the “Synagogue of Satan” The last currently known member of the FRENA governing council is Juan Bosco Abascal, an elite businessman with very strange fundamentalist religious beliefs. On his Facebook page, where he posts non-stop anti-AMLO propaganda and has nearly 13,000 followers, Abascal says he worked as a “ leader for human development projects ” for restaurant and hotel chains, the Jalisco state’s finance ministry, and Pemex, the Mexican state-owned oil company. Abascal also helped lead an ultra-conservative NGO that calls itself Family, Force of the Future. There, he served as a consultant and speaker, addressing themes such as “ death, culture, abortion, the...

The Grayzone Red Lines host Anya Parampil speaks with Beijing-based journalist Ian Goodrum about a draft military and trade agreement that China and Iran are reportedly negotiating. They also discuss the latest China news, including the US decision to end Hong Kong's special trading status.

Ecuador's "Unity to Win" Front (FUPV), which is a coalition of progressive social organizations, rejected the decision of the National Electoral Council (CNE) to grant ten days to the Social Commitment Force (SCF) to assume the defense of former President Rafael Correa in an administrative process that could eliminate his participation in the 2021 elections. Through a statement, the FUPV denounced that the CNE decision occurs because of the political pressures that the Lenin Moreno administration and mainstream media exert to leave the former Leftist president out of the electoral contest. The document also mentions the performance of the self-proclaimed Comptroller Pablo Celi, whose possession in office has not been legitimized by the National Assembly. " That shows us we have a usurper in office and that everything that he has acted is void ." Celi asked the CNE to suppress the Social Commitment Force and other groups from the Registry of Poli...

This prize is awarded to people who are particularly committed to peace, justice, and solidarity.  Germany’s NGO Die AnStifter Wednesday granted the Stuttgart Peace Prize 2020 to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who remains detained in the Belmarsh prison in London. The Stuttgart Peace Prize is awarded annually to people or projects who are particularly committed to peace, justice, and solidarity.   In 2019, this prize was awarded to German non-profit organization Sea-Watch, which rescues migrants, while in 2014, U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden won the award. The award for Assange is “ a sign that the right to unconditional freedom of information and the press is not only protected but enforced ,” the Die AnStifter chairwoman Annette Ohme-Reinicke said. The award is expected to be granted to the Australian journalist in December. A total of 26 people and institutions were nominated to receive the recognition. Assange got 310 votes in favor, followe...

failed evolution Michael Brooks’s quiet acts of interpersonal graciousness were inseparable from his loftiest political aspirations. His untimely death leaves an enormous hole in our lives and on the Left that will never be filled. https://jacobinmag.com/2020/07/michael-brooks-remembrance Progressives mourn

A relentless campaign of aggression against Iran is entering a new phase with cyberattacks on military and civilian targets that aim to cripple Rouhani’s government and set the stage for wider conflict in the Middle East. by Raul Diego  Part 1 Israel is believed to be behind several recent acts of sabotage against Iranian civilian and military infrastructure, including a hospital, that have taken the lives of at least 19 people and has further disrupted an economy already in the throes of a devastating downturn brought on by a global pandemic and crippling economic sanctions. Leaks emerging out of Israel have identified the apartheid state as the rouge actor wreaking havoc on Iran. Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen, was outed by a political rival as the source of anonymous leaks linking Israel to the conflagration at a Iranian nuclear facility. A different story had made the rounds earlier when an unknown “ Iranian dissident group calling itself the Homeland Cheetahs ” ...

Behind a veil of corporate media PR, the Gates Foundation has served as a vehicle for Western capital while exploiting the Global South as a human laboratory. The coronavirus pandemic is likely to intensify this disturbing agenda. by Jeremy Loffredo and Michele Greenstein Part 4 - Conflicts of interest As the second-richest person on Earth, Bill Gates has no reason to crave money. This is a common response to claims that Gates’ philanthropy isn’t motivated solely by the kindness of his heart. But despite these frequent characterizations of Gates “giving away” his fortune, his net worth has actually doubled in the last two decades. At the same time, strong evidence suggests that the Gates Foundation functions as a trojan horse for Western corporations, which of course have no goal greater than an increased bottom line. Consider the revolving door between the Gates Foundation and Big Pharma. Former director of vaccine development at the foundation and current CEO...

For over a year, the West’s top anti-corruption NGO, Transparency International, has not said a word about the world’s most prominent jailed transparency activist, Julian Assange. Is US and UK government funding a factor in the organization’s silence? by Patrick Maynard Part 1 On a cool July day, the Berlin neighborhood where Transparency International’s global headquarters is situated feels a thousand miles away from London’s Belmarsh Prison. But it is not just the pleasant setting a few blocks from the Spree River that makes the influential NGO seem so detached from the maximum security penitentiary’s most famous inmate, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.  Transparency International has been vocal in defending jailed opposition activists in states like Zimbabwe, Russia, and Venezuela. But when it comes to Assange – far-and-away the world’s most prominent imprisoned transparency activist – the NGO has not said a word since a week after his arrest in April 2019....

The current global crisis triggered by Covid-19 is the third capitalist crash in this century. And governments’ incapacity to consider non-capitalist solutions threatens to keep deepening this crisis into capitalism’s worst. by Richard D. Wolff Part 1 The current global crisis triggered by Covid-19 is the third capitalist crash in this century. And governments’ incapacity to consider non-capitalist solutions threatens to keep deepening this crisis into capitalism’s worst. The first was in early 2000. Because it was triggered by the absurdly high prices of dot-com stocks, it got named the “dotcom crisis.” In 2008, the trigger was widespread subprime mortgage default in the US and the crash was far more serious, one of the worst in capitalism’s history, second only to the crash of the 1930s. And now, in 2020, the trigger was a viral pandemic, and we have a far deeper crash than in 2008. Because capitalism’s periodic downturns (crashes, recessions, depressions, cr...