alanjjohnstone
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Is the well-respected political commentator, Patrick Cockburn, using hyperbole in the article?
The Republican Party has Turned Fascist and is Now the Most Dangerous Threat in the World
‘The G7 meeting focused attention on many challenges facing the world, but it did not address the most dangerous threat of them all, which is the transformation of the Republican Party in the US into a fascist movement.’
Justice works very slowly…and in the case of Julian Assange procrastination is perhaps deliberate according to Craig Murray
The High Court has not only not set a date for the US appeal. Its been 6 months Assange has remained in a maximum security jail.
A largely unnoticed and unreported consultation paper on changes to Britain’s Official Secrets Acts drawn up by the Home Office shows that the government is preparing far-reaching threats to the media and the public’s right to know.
It intends to abandon the existing distinction between spying and leaking, and between leakers, whistleblowers and journalists. “Both primary and onward disclosures have the potential to cause equal amounts of harm,” the paper states.
This makes it clear the government wants to claim a journalist responsible for an “onward disclosure” — a publication in a newspaper or website, for example — would be as liable and on a par in criminal law with a primary source, such as a whistleblower in a government agency.
The government is determined to make it easier to prosecute whistleblowers and make it harder to mount a defense for disclosing information the government claims is damaging to national security.
Journalists and others publishing information the government claims damages national security face the prospect of 14 years in jail rather than the current maximum of two years.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-06-15-priti-patels-new-threat-to-british-journalists/
Japan unveiled its annual economic policy guidelines, which include new recommendations that companies permit their staff to opt to work four days a week instead of the typical five.
https://www.dw.com/en/japan-work-life-balance/a-57989053
One of the biggest issues for young people today is unpaid overtime, known as “service overtime.”
The US has taken down dozens of Iranian news websites. They include Iran’s state-owned Press TV.
Lualua TV, an Arabic-language Bahraini independent channel that broadcasts from the UK, was also taken down.
The US government also took over the domain name of the news website Palestine Today, which reflects the viewpoints of Hamas
A new draft international law – ecocide
Ecocide is defined as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”.
Confirming much of what you say, MS, is this report that the US Navy describes socialism as a terrorist ideology.
Matt is right.
Remaining linked to a buying and selling exchange economy where the production of goods is for the creation of profit won’t address the fundamental problem of cost-cutting which leads to abusing the environment.
Afghanistan withdrawal…hmmm, well perhaps not
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill says group protests should not be loud enough to cause “serious unease, alarm or distress” to people “in the vicinity”. A noise limit would also apply to a single person if they caused “serious disruption” or if they “may have a relevant impact on” people nearby.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-57556947
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights said noise limits could silence lawful and peaceful chants – and the most popular demonstrations could face restrictions on duration and location, interfering with the right to assembly.
It described the proposed limits on single-person protests as “unprecedented”.
The language used in the bill left an “excessive degree of judgement in the hands of a police officer”.
Some within the Party have suggested that nuclear power will be a useful tool in mitigating climate change. Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin magazine and author of ‘The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality’ concurs
Has the UK threatened Iran with nuclear war?
The new UK policy, “Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy” states that the UK now reserves the right to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are said to be heading in the direction of acquiring nuclear weapons — or, as the Integrated Review puts it, those states judged to be “in material breach of non-proliferation obligations”.
The Integrated Review says the UK will embark on “a renewed diplomatic effort to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon” but this change in policy appears to be sending a veiled message to Iran.
The lab-leak proponents got headlines in the media. This rebuff from the Chinese scientist involved directly received much less coverage.
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/china/covid-wuhan-lab-leak-china-origins-b1868952.html
“How on earth can I offer up evidence for something where there is no evidence?” she says
Further to ALB’s point
Robert Halfon, education select committee chairman, dismissed “divisive concepts like ‘white privilege’ that pit one group against another”.
The committee described “white privilege” as the idea of “societal privilege that benefits white people over other ethnic groups” – and said “privilege is the very opposite to what disadvantaged white children” experience. Halfon warned its use in education was “divisive” and likely to “promote disharmony”.
Poorer white pupils were falling behind “every step of the way”. Halfon described it as a “major social injustice” that so little attention had been paid to how white pupils on free school meals underachieved compared with free school meals pupils from most other ethnic groups.
https://www.bbc.com/news/education-57558746
As always Rubio may be right but for all the wrong reasons, as ALB pointed out
From the EU to the CPTPP
