Overwhelmingly Male Panel Lacks Necessary Expertise 2022.
And contrary to previous pledges, US focus on evacuating Afghans who worked with US troops left women – including activists – out in the cold; only 7 to 10 percent of Afghan applicants for US special immigrant visas are women.
“We will not abandon you. We will stand with you always,” then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a group of Afghan women in 2010. Clinton pledged that year that the rights of Afghan women would not be “sacrificed” in pursuit of a deal with the Taliban.
A year after the fall of Kabul, the dreams Afghan girls and women were encouraged to dream have been shattered: the Taliban bans girls from attending secondary schools and women from most jobs, making day-to-day survival increasingly difficult. Women’s and girls’ rights to free movement, association, and expression have been severely curbed.
On July 9, a combative crowd stormed the Presidential Palace, the Presidential Secretariat, and the residence of the Prime Minister, forcing Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country.
In the following text, a Sri Lankan anarchist who participated in the protest movement that toppled president Gotabaya Rajapaksa reflects on Gota Go Gama (“Gota Go Home”), the occupation at the heart of the movement.
April 9 was the first day of the protests at Galle F ace, which led to the establishment of the occupation.
Gama is Sinhala for “village”; the Tamil equivalent is Gramam. Starting on April 9, protesters established a permanent occupation at Galle Face, the half-kilometer-long oceanside park in downtown Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka.
You can read interviews with participants in this movement here and a reflection on its relation to other uprisings of our time here. The author of the following text signed it “the Gadfly.” Photographs courtesy of Riyal Riffai.
A demonstrator in a car parade on April 4, 2022.
It Takes a Whole Village
“It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. Gota Go Gama was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run… but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant…
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning…
Ayer en París miles de personas marcharon al grito de “Salgamos de la OTAN”. Esto solo acaba de empezar. Cuando el pueblo no tiene nada que perder, empiezan a perder los que tratan de someterlo.
Yesterday in Paris, thousands of people marched to the shout of “Let’s get out of NATO.” This has just begun. When the people have nothing to lose, those who try to subdue them begin to lose a lot.
Sunday, 4 September 2022 — Internationalist 360° 70,000 Czechs take to the streets against government, EU and NATO Massive protest against NATO, the EU and soaring energy prices in Prague, Czech Republic today. pic.twitter.com/X0m336c2td — Sarah Abdallah (@sahouraxo) September 3, 2022 “An estimated 70,000 people protested in Prague against the Czech government on Saturday, calling on the ruling coalition to do more to control soaring […]
As the initiator of the Ukraine crisis, the US has been its biggest winner, standing on the sidelines while reaping the benefits. This deserves consideration and vigilance from the world, a spokesperson of China’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
The remarks came in response to comments by some in the European media who have said that the US is masquerading as a savior while banking huge profits by selling gas to European countries, with the latter facing energy shortages due to sanctions targeting Russia that forced them to buy US natural gas at high prices.
The comments are very reasonable, Zhao Lijian, spokesperson from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Friday during a regular press briefing.
Ukrainian servicemen unload a Boeing 747-412 plane with the FGM-148 Javelin, anti-tank missiles provided by US to Ukraine as part of a military support, at Kiev’s airport Boryspil on February 11, 2022. Photo: AFP
“The comprehensive escalation of the Ukraine crisis has continued for more than half a year. Facts have once again proved that unilateral sanctions by the US and the West cannot solve the problem. On the contrary, their spillover effects continue to snowball,” said Zhao
“As the initiator of the Ukraine crisis, the US has now become the biggest winner, reaping the benefits. This is worthy of consideration and vigilance by the whole world,” Zhao warned.
Zhao said that he is aware of reports that the gap between gas prices in the European and US markets is now as much as 10 times, a record high.
Zhao cited George Galloway, former British parliamentarian, who said that the US “is ready to fight to the last drop of Ukrainian blood, in the end, it’s prepared to fight to the last drop of European blood.”
Galloway also said that the working classes of Europe and North America will pay the price of the NATO-crazed suicide-mission against Russia.
According to data published by Business Insider, an American financial and business news website, US companies are making more than $100 million per container ship of liquefied natural gas bound for Europe.
European suckers blinded by Racism – fall head first for Great US Scam. Sanctions! Lets cut off Russian oil and gas! (**But the US is a gas EXPORTER)… Arms bombs missiles ..Gift Ukraine everything! (**But US gifts are often LOANS, with infinite credit and $Trillion war budget). …Oh no! Europe is bankrupt! Help us USA ( ** Just join the breadlines..)
“Obviously, while US arms dealers and grain merchants have been cashing in on the Ukraine crisis, US energy companies have not been left behind. As a result, the public across Europe faces soaring electricity prices, lower heating temperatures and even prescheduled blackouts,” said Zhao.
According to industry statistics, the current import price of natural gas in Europe has increased by over 200 percent from a year earlier.
One of the examples is the Rose and Crown, an award-winning British pub, which on Sunday posted an energy bill on its Twitter account, showing that its annual electricity bill is 61,667.94 pounds ($71,243), or 97.05 pounds per kilowatt-hour. The price in May was 15 pounds per kilowatt-hour, which means an increase of 547 percent.
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US ‘throws under the bus’ the citizens’ welfare and the economies of European countries
Washington has harmed the bloc to serve its own interests, a top Putin ally has warned
“Gas in the US costs $333 per 1,000 cubic meters.. Washington sells it to Europe for a price which is 7.3 [times] higher”. (jumping today Aug 19 by another 7% to above $2,600)
/Beppe Gasparro
The United States has doomed the EU to hunger, cold and isolation by pressuring the bloc to cut its ties with Moscow, Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on Friday.
The Ankara government continues to bomb the Kurdish regions of Syria and Iraq. Impunity is Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main ally in committing mass murders of civilians.
The figure released last week by the NGO Save the Children was erased by the daily news maelstrom and, also, because very few people are interested in knowing it. According to the international institution, in August alone, 40 boys and girls were killed or injured in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) as a result of the permanent bombardments launched by the Turkish state in that autonomous region.
On Friday, August 26, Save the Children reported that at least two children were injured that day in an attack in Tal Rifat, northern Syria, the latest victims of an upsurge in violence that has killed at least 13 children. and girls, and injured 27 others in August.
The head of the NGO’s Interim Response, Beat Rohr, stated that they are dismayed “by this latest escalation of violence, which clearly shows that children in Syria are still not safe. Children should never have to worry about being attacked, whether at home, in a market or when out to play. And yet, that is precisely what children across northern Syria are facing, almost 12 years after the start of the conflict.”
The ongoing massacre that has been committed for months in Rojava is hardly publicized.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced months ago an open military invasion against that area, but his Russian, American and Iranian “partners” – all three with a presence in Syrian territory – denied the possibility. What they did enable was greater impunity for Erdogan to order drone strikes over Rojava.
For weeks, the attacks have been almost daily and mainly target the residents of cities such as Manbij, Kobane and Ayn Issa.
The objective of the Turkish president is multiple. On the one hand, his administration has already demonstrated his congenital hatred towards the Kurdish people, whom he seeks to exterminate as quickly as possible.
In turn, he intends to extend Turkish territorial power in Syria, in line with his neo-Ottoman aspirations: Ankara illegally occupies the Kurdish canton of Afrin and the cities of Al Bab, Serêkaniyê, Azaz and Girê Spî. On the other hand, Erdogan is desperately trying to inflate nationalist sentiments in his country, with an eye on the 2023 presidential elections, in which his continuity is at risk.
Finally, Erdogan and the so-called “Turkish deep state” unceremoniously reject the project of democracy, autonomy and liberation in Rojava, which has been in place since 2012, when the Kurdish, Armenian, Arab and Assyrian peoples, among others, broke the chains that tied them to the Syrian regime led by Bashar Al Assad.
Imagen: Ain Issa bajo bombardeos turcos / ANF
Although the United Nations (UN) warned on several occasions that genocide could be committed in Rojava due to Turkish attacks, these warnings were also “erased” from the international agendas that are so concerned about the war in Ukraine. It is not new or surprising.
The Free 