Illegal Israeli settlers attacked, on Sunday, a Palestinian home and burned hundreds of olive tress in the village of Burin, south of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank, according to a local official.
Ghassan Daghlas, the official in charge of settlement activity in the northern West Bank, stated that illegal settlers invaded Palestinian-owned lands planted with olive trees, and burned hundreds of trees.
He added that the colonizers blocked firetrucks from entering the area to extinguish the fire. Daghlas added that the colonists set up a “pergola” on the edge of the village, which some fear may be the beginning of a colonial outpost.
Meanwhile, another group of illegal settlers from the nearby “Yitzhar” colony, attacked the home of “Umm Ayman Soufan” in Burin, which sparked protests among local residents.
Ghassan Daghlas stated that the army provided full protection for the illegal colonizers, and fired tear gas canisters at…
Estimates of soldiers killed on the Ukraine side (including American military assistants and foreign mercanaries) so far are between 300,000 and 350,000 while on the Russian side the figure is put at 47,000.That’s a kill ratio of 1:7 so far, so who’s winning?By the end of the year the Ukrainian forces will lose between 75,000 and 100,000 dead, and up to 300,000 wounded and out of combat.
Joe’s cluster bombs and depleted uranium shells will leave much of the countryside dangerous and toxic long after Joe himself is pushing up daisies.
The Russians have the capacity to keep fighting for a long time; NATO is out of ammo and will soon be out of soldiers.When Joe, along with fellow psychopaths Blinken, Nuland and Austin said they will continue the war “as long as it takes” did they mean until Ukraine is completely Stuffed?
Shakur’s generation of radical Black activists represents the sun around which the modern American state orbits, or to say it more plainly, the late 20th century’s most democratizing social movements were in collusion with Black militancy.
After commandeering a chest x-ray unit in New York City, the Young Lords named it after 19th-century Afro-Puerto Rican physician and abolitionist Ramón Emeterio Betances. (Image Credit: Hiram Maristany. X-Ray Truck II. 1970.)
The late Mutulu Shakur and other Black radicals were responsible for improving the lives of millions of people in the U.S. The counter revolution ended that period of progress, but the political crisis they created forced systemic change on a grand scale.
Inspired by the Cuban Revolution and the Black Panthers, a clique of poor and working class Puerto Ricans founded the liberation organization, the Young Lords, in Chicago in 1968 and opened its New York chapter a year later.
The activists got down to business immediately, creating a free, daily breakfast program for children and testing them for lead poisoning, organizing clothing banks and street patrols to monitor police abuse, and launching inmates’ rights and school reform efforts.
In October of 1969, the militants protested abysmal living conditions in East Harlem and the South Bronx by forming a human chain to block traffic at 125th Street and 2nd Avenue, and lining up rows of garbage cans at the entrance to the Triborough Bridge.
After the hour-long bridge blockage, here is what happened next, according to the historian Johanna Fernandez in her book, The Young Lords: A Radical History:
[t]he Young Lords spontaneously redirected the protesters along 125th Street, Harlem’s major thoroughfare, to the neighborhood’s welfare grievance office on Seventh Avenue, half a mile west of the bridge entrance.
According to Young Lord Pablo Guzmán, rerouting a predominantly Puerto Rican march through Harlem offered an opportunity to counteract the “divide and conquer game in the colony”—in which Puerto Ricans and black Americans were pitted against each other on the basis of ethnic differences—and build class unity among them.
As he put it, ‘Everybody’s on welfare and everybody’s poor, and everybody should be fighting on the same side of the revolution.’
Fifty-three years ago this week, in the wee hours of the morning on July, 14, 1970, a cadre of Young Lords occupied the main administrative building of Lincoln Hospital, an underfunded, public hospital in the South Bronx that provided health care so derelict that it was known as the “Butcher Shop,” according to Carlos “Carlito” Rovira, an artist who joined the Young Lords at the age of 14.
The 12-hour-standoff ended ambiguously but when a Puerto Rican woman, Carmen Rodriguez, died from an abortion five days after the militants’ takeover of Lincoln Hospital, the combination of events forced the city’s hand; within seven years, construction was completed on a new hospital.
In addition to the new facility, the demand for community control over the hospital produced a revolutionary drug rehabilitation program that eschewed methadone for acupuncture which proved more effective.
The acupuncture protocol was the first of its kind in the nation, and was introduced by a Black radical named Mutulu Shakur, who at one meeting of the Young Lords read aloud from a newspaper article that explored a Bangkok doctor’s use of acupuncture to treat a patient’s opium addiction. The article quoted the patient saying that he no longer craved opium after undergoing the acupuncture treatment.
By 1974, hospital administrators acquiesced to the community’s demands and introduced acupuncture as a critical component of Lincoln’s Detox therapy; Shakur would go on to become the program’s assistant director.
“Dr. Mutulu was meeting with our people on a consistent basis,” Rovira said.
Deepening budget cuts would eventually phase out acupuncture therapy but along with his mentorship of his stepson, Tupac Shakur, Lincoln Detox is part of the huge legacy of Mutulu Shakur, who died last week of bone marrow cancer, eight months after he was paroled; he had served 37 years for his role in an armored car robbery that left one security guard and two police officers dead.
3 feminist activists and a journalist were detained by security at the US Embassy in Baku and handed over to Local Police after holding and live-streaming a peaceful protest against police brutality and Lockdown in Gadabay against Gold Mine protests
From left to right, activists Sanubar Heydarova, Narmin Shahmarzade, and Gulnara Mehdiyeva. Image via Abzas.The activists were attending an early Independence Day event at the US Embassy
‘All human rights are not protected in Azerbaijan, on the contrary, all human rights and rights are suppressed’, said Sanubar Heydarova. ‘In a civil manner, we wanted to draw attention to the human rights violations happening right here in Azerbaijan, especially the ongoing repression of the Gadabay people by the government against the fulfilment of their demands.’
During the reception, Gulnara Mehdiyeva, Sanubar Heydarova, and Narmin Shahmarzade removed their scarves to reveal black hands drawn on their necks.
The founder and director of Abzas, Ulvi Hasanli, being taken away by police after US Embassy security handed him over. Image via Ulvi Hasanli
They stood next to Azerbaijani MPs and other officials while describing recent events in Gadabay and criticising ‘representatives of the government and the opposition of Azerbaijan’ who were gathered at the event.
Ulvi Hasanli, the founder and director of the independent media outlet Abzas, filmed and live-streamed the protest.
Videos from Soyudlu showed police using tear gas, pepper spray, and physical violence against those protesting. In a widely-shared video, an elderly woman walking away from riot police is pepper-sprayed in the face, with later footage showing her lying on the ground as other protesters attempt to assist her.Many Azerbaijanis expressed outrage over the footage online, and demanded that police be punished for using violence against peaceful protesters.
The gold mines are officially operated by a British company, Anglo Asian Mining Plc, managed by Iranian businessperson Reza Vaziri. However, a 2016 investigation by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) found that the mines were in fact owned by the two daughters of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev.
The village of Soyudlu, in Gadabay District, has been locked down since 21 June, with entry and exit forbidden to all except for residents of the village. This followed protests by local people against pollution by a goldmine in the region.
Shahmarzade told OC Media that embassy security guards approached the activists as they were speaking and demanded that they leave the premises. According to the activists and at least one eyewitness, they were then detained by US Embassy security in the entrance of the embassy until police arrived.
Poisoned waters
The protesters were objecting to pollution of the area by waste from the mines, which they state has caused significant damage to the health of local people.
Residents stated that a lake in the village, which has allegedly been used to drain acid and dump waste from the goldmines for around 11 years, was damaging the nature around it and emitting toxic fumes, making it hard to breathe and causing lung damage.
Protesters chanted and carried signs saying ‘natural waters are being poisoned’, ‘The River Kur is being poisoned’, and ‘people die of lung disease at the age of 50’.
They also voiced their objections to plans to construct a second artificial lake in the area.
‘The inside of [the first] lake is acid. It’s burned nature in a radius of 100 metres. In order to increase gold production, they are now building a second lake in the village’, one protester told journalists.
The activists were handed over to the police, as was Hasanli, but released shortly after being interviewed at a police station.
Speaking to OC Media, Hasanli stated that he was treated roughly by embassy security guards.
‘Five or six embassy guards twisted my arms and handed me over to [the] police’, said Hasanli.
‘I did not expect such violent behaviour on the territory of the embassy’, said Hasanli. ‘This is interference with my journalistic activity. The embassy of a country that talks about democracy and human rights, and freedom of the press should not have behaved like this, it was a very shameful act.’
Footage from outside the embassy shows Hasanli being taken to a police van by four police officers.
After the embassy staff ejected the activists and journalist from the premises, at least ten Azerbaijani political and cultural figures left the event in protest.
‘The removal of journalists and activists by the guards of the embassy and their handing over to the police was, to put it mildly, just shameful’, wrote writer Zumrud Yaghmur. ‘As soon as I heard the news, I followed [them].’
Afiaddin Mammadov, a member of local pro-democracy group, the Democracy 1918 Movement, was also among those to leave the event in protest.Mammadov confirmed to OC Media that embassy staff physically removed Abzas founder Ulvi Hasanli while ordering others to follow.
‘Ulvi Hasanli and the feminist activists were held at the embassy entrance until the police officers of the 21st police station arrived. After the police officers arrived, the embassy staff handed over Ulvi and the feminists to the police officers personally’, he said.
A spokesperson for the US Embassy neither confirmed nor denied that the activists and journalist were physically removed from the event and handed to police.
‘The feminists were protesting in a civilised way’, he added. ‘Ulvi Hasanli was filming their protest as a journalist. The security service of the embassy approached him and demanded he stop the live broadcast. After Ulvi stopped the broadcast, the guards took Ulvi’s arms. They grabbed him and took him to the entrance gate of the embassy.’
Some weeks ago, I received a disturbing message from an Azerbaijani activist telling me that a woman was being targeted on social media. As a result, her family was after her, and the woman was looking for help….
Azerbaijani feminists marching through the central square of Baku now with their rallying cry "We want to live!" – drawing attention to the high femicide rate and pervasive social problems facing women. #IWD2023pic.twitter.com/wLBLSVBghb
Azerbaijani feminists marching through the central square of Baku now with their rallying cry "We want to live!" – drawing attention to the high femicide rate and pervasive social problems facing women. #IWD2023pic.twitter.com/wLBLSVBghb
In late June, a former advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Professor Sergei Karaganov, of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, published an article headlined ‘Here’s why Russia has to consider launching a nuclear strike on Western Europe.’ He argued that the time has now come for Moscow to seriously consider the possibility to pre-emptively invade or use atomic weapons against the most hostile European members of NATO.
Labor trafficking is a serious problem in Canada, especially for migrant and seasonal workers as they are at greater risk due to precarious immigration status, isolation and language barriers. (Of course all of us are Wage Slaves under predator Capitalism and need solidarity and horizontal Unions to force bosses to give our Labor Rights).
“That is why we started a campaign to reach migrant workers directly, in English, Spanish and French, and connect with what they experience on a daily basis.
Migrant workers often face a language barrier that does not allow them to express their situation to the authorities or their employer coerces them with threats of deportation if they do not comply with their employers’ requests,” the professional highlighted.
While many workers are treated well with fair wages, safe housing and working conditions, many more are not.
Living in substandard accommodation with health and safety problems; perform work outside the contract; withholding or reduction of salary; or even receiving threats of deportation are some of the problems faced by temporary workers and newcomers to Canada.
Unthinkable conditions for the 21st century and much more in a multicultural country.
Migrant workers plant strawberries on a farm in Mirabel, Que.,
Migrant workers need better access to correct information. They tend to be unaware of their rights, they don’t know who to trust or where to go for help; All of this creates significant obstacles that must be overcome.
The Free 