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“This partnership with CropLife is in direct conflict with FAO’s mandate as a U.N. institution to fulfill human rights to health, adequate food, clean water and environment, and safe working conditions.”
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The findings were only made available this week due to a public records request by a local independent news outlet and the Documenting Covid-19 Project.
This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.
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“The Biden administration must stop hiding behind a flawed court order to justify” the abuse of asylum seekers, said one immigrant rights advocate.
This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.
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“We’re going to keep passing these resolutions until we end our profit-driven healthcare system.”
This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.
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Oil and gas exports from the Gulf Coast have surged by nearly 600%, and fossil fuel production in the Permian Basin has grown by 135%.
This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.
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Critics slammed Biden’s decision to invite the leader of an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan president to an ostensibly pro-democracy gathering.
This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.
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“Never, ever feel sorry for oil and gas companies.”
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This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Nov. 29, 2021. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
Leftist presidential candidate Xiomara Castro took a decisive lead in Honduras’ election on Sunday, setting her up to defeat the right-wing incumbent party’s candidate—though progressive observers stressed the need to remain vigilant as ballots continue to be counted and reactionary forces ramp up misinformation following an apparently unsuccessful attempt to suppress voting.
A victory by Castro would represent a repudiation of US intervention in Central America.
A victory by Castro would represent a repudiation of US intervention in Central America. Honduras’ potential next president is the wife of Manuel Zelaya, the country’s former progressive president who was deposed in a Washington-backed coup in 2009—after which narco-violence surged under the watch of an authoritarian neoliberal regime installed by the Obama administration and supported by subsequent administrations.
If she wins, Castro would be the first Honduran president to be democratically elected on a socialist platform, as well as the first woman to lead the country. With just over half of ballots processed, the Libre Party’s Castro had garnered 53.6% of the vote, compared with 34% for Nasry Asfura, the candidate from the right-wing National Party, which has ruled the country for the past dozen years.
Castro “hopes to restore diplomatic relations with China, legalize abortion and same-sex marriage, and defend the interests of the poor and working class,” according to Telesur.
Calling the 62-year-old democratic socialist’s solid performance a “triumph for democracy over corruption and election irregularities,” Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said in a statement that “Xiomara Castro’s likely victory is a testament to the will of the Honduran people to have their voices heard and their votes counted.”
“Democracy remains very fragile in Honduras,” Weisbrot warned. “This is a country that saw the military kidnap the president at gunpoint and fly him out of the country just 12 years ago, and there was very strong evidence that the elections of four years ago were stolen” by the ruling National Party.
Indeed, Castro’s current lead materialized despite the best efforts of the incumbent right-wing government to suppress participation.
Progressive International (PI), whose new observatory to protect democracy sent delegates to Honduras to monitor the electoral process, drew attention to reports that the ruling National Party was attempting to buy votes.
On Sunday morning, Salvador Nasralla—a former presidential candidate who led Honduras’ 2017 election by 5 percentage points with 57% of votes counted before a 30-hour delay and other “technical failures” ultimately resulted in a National Party victory—said that the website of the National Electoral Council (CNE) had been “intentionally taken down” and that right-wing officials were giving voters inaccurate information about polling places.
Hours later, CNE announced that its server had been attacked, which PI said “has prevented voters from locating their polling station,” causing long lines to form.
With polls still open and before a single ballot had been counted, the incumbent right-wing government said on Sunday afternoon that Asfura had won—in violation, Telesur reported, of “national electoral law prohibiting the premature claiming of victory before the competent authorities release their preliminary results… which the CNE did just after 8:00 pm local time.”
Journalist Denis Rogatyuk warned that “the party that turned Honduras into a narco-state will be unlikely to relinquish power peacefully.”
The ruling National Party’s alleged vote-buying and premature victory claims, along with the yet-to-be-resolved attacks on the CNE’s website, weren’t enough to deter hundreds of thousands of Honduran voters from casting ballots for the opposition Libre Party. Turnout was over 60%.
“Hondurans flocked to the polls in near-record numbers to decide the successor of the deeply unpopular current president, Juan Orlando Hernández,” the New York Times reported. “Hernández’s presence was palpable at the polls after his government spent the past eight years dismantling the country’s democratic institutions and allowing corruption and organized crime to permeate the highest levels of power.”
As the election progressed, Castro also declared victory. Once the preliminary tally showed Asfura falling behind by a significant margin, she told “jubilant supporters at her campaign headquarters on Sunday night that she would begin forming a government of national reconciliation starting on Monday,” the Times reported.
“We have turned back authoritarianism,” Castro told the crowd in the capital city of Tegucigalpa. “Out with corruption, out with drug trafficking, out with organized crime.”
Although Castro has taken a commanding lead, it could take days for results to be finalized. In the meantime, electoral observers have emphasized the need to remain vigilant in the coming hours.
Earlier this morning, for instance, a Honduran newspaper shared a misleading graph that suggests Asfura is winning even as he trails Castro by roughly 20 percentage points. Jumping at the chance to use a pun, PI general coordinator David Adler described the chart as an example of “graphic violence.”
While Castro’s advantage is much larger than the opposition’s early lead in 2017, making it more difficult for right-wing forces to subvert the election, The Guardian noted that a close outcome four years ago “led to a contested result and deadly protests after widespread allegations of irregularities.”
According to Telesur, “Fears of the military and business elite repeating a similar scenario to the one from 2017 in which electoral fraud and manipulation stole the presidency from liberal candidate Salvador Nasralla (who has backed Castro) and gave it to the right-wing narco-dictator Juan Orlando Hernández have, until now, not materialized, with Honduras proving ready to fight for the integrity of their democratic process in the streets and with their life, if necessary, as recent history has shown.”
As Weisbrot noted, “The U.S. government supported the 2009 military coup in various ways, and so it will be good if members of Congress who favor democracy will make sure that the executive branch here respects democracy in Honduras more than they have in the past.”
“On the positive side,” said Weisbrot, “members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have taken steps to hold the OAS accountable for its role in the 2019 military coup in Bolivia, so there are pro-democracy forces in Congress.”
“The international community,” he added, “should be on guard and ready to defend Honduras’ democratic institutions, and the will of its people, against any extra-legal efforts to destabilize or overthrow the new government.”
This story has been updated with comments from Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
This post was originally published on The Real News Network.
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The lawmakers asked AG Merrick Garland to “act immediately to reclaim control of this case, dismiss the charges, and free Mr. Donziger from his imprisonment.”
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“We cannot allow climate criminals, like Shell, to plunder in the name of greed,” said Greenpeace.
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Xiomara Castro, wife of Manuel Zelaya, a leftist former president ousted in a U.S.-backed coup in 2009, is on track to defeat the candidate of the right-wing incumbent party.
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“We are workers and activists divided by geography and our role in the global economy but united in our commitment to Make Amazon Pay fair wages, its taxes, and for its impact on the planet.”
This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.
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“Seems a lot easier and cheaper to make an emergency fund permanent rather than pay private lender fees.”
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As rich countries hoard doses and Big Pharma refuses to share the knowledge required to ramp up manufacturing, Cuba’s public biotech sector could play a key role in defeating vaccine apartheid.
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“Spyware is a critical Israeli export,” said Jewish Voice for Peace. “It’s about time they are forced to be held accountable.”
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The president needs to use “the considerable powers of the executive branch… to show the people that he is on their side, not the side of the wealthy and well-connected few,” said one progressive advocate.
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A public health coalition told the U.S. president that his “leadership in securing a meaningful WTO waiver and helping to end the Covid-19 pandemic and the misery it is causing all of humanity is a moral necessity.”
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A new poll shows far-right candidate José Antonio Kast and left-wing reformer Gabriel Boric tied at 39% ahead of next month’s runoff, prompting one observer to note that “there is no time for defeatism when barbarism is knocking at your door.”
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Workers’ rights activists around the globe rejoiced on Friday after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that his government will repeal three corporate-friendly agricultural laws that the nation’s farmers have steadfastly resisted for more than a year.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), a coalition of over 40 farmers’ unions that led the protests, called the development a “historic victory” for those “who struggled resolutely, unitedly, continuously, and peacefully for one year so far in the historic farmers’ struggle,” India Today reported, citing a statement from SKM.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement to repeal three farm laws is a welcome step in the right direction,” said SKM, though the organized labor coalition did not commit to ending its mobilization. “SKM hopes that the government of India will go the full length to fulfill all the legitimate demands of protesting farmers, including statutory legislation to guarantee a remunerative MSP [Minimum Support Price].”
Rakesh Tikait, a leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, welcomed Modi’s announcement but said that “we will wait for the day when the farm laws are repealed in Parliament,” where the winter session starts on November 29. He added that in addition to the MSP demand, “the government should talk to farmers on other issues.”
Modi’s announcement — and the sustained resistance of India’s farmers —were celebrated by progressives worldwide.
BREAKING: After a year of strikes — and having faced brutal repression that claimed some 700 lives — India’s farmers are victorious in their struggle. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will repeal his highly-unpopular farm laws.
— Progressive International (@ProgIntl) November 19, 2021
Al Jazeera reported that Modi’s “sudden concession comes ahead of elections early next year in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, and two other northern states with large rural populations.” Opposition parties attributed the prime minister’s move to sinking poll numbers, characterizing it as part of an effort to appeal to voters who support or sympathize with the nation’s struggling farmers.
According to CNN, “Farmers are the biggest voting bloc in the country, and the agricultural sector sustains about 58% of India’s 1.3 billion citizens. Angering farmers could see Modi lose a sizable number of votes.”
As India Today noted, “Hundreds of farmers have been camping at three places on the Delhi border since November 2020, demanding the repeal of the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; Farmers’ (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.”
For over a year, CNN reported, “Indian farmers have fought the three laws, which they said leave them open to exploitation by large corporations and could destroy their livelihoods.”
Al Jazeera explained that “the legislation the farmers object to,” passed last September, “deregulates the sector, allowing farmers to sell produce to buyers beyond government-regulated wholesale markets, where growers are assured of a minimum price.”
Modi’s cabinet said the laws are “aimed at giving farmers the freedom to sell directly to institutional buyers such as big trading houses, large retailers, and food processors,” Reuters reported. While Modi claimed the legislation “will ‘unshackle’ millions of farmers and help them get better prices,” opposition parties said that “farmers’ bargaining power will be diminished.”
Small farmers expressed alarm about the legislation, saying that “the changes make them vulnerable to competition from big business, and that they could eventually lose price support for staples such as wheat and rice,” Al Jazeera reported.
Beginning last September, farmers from regions of India that are major producers of wheat and rice blocked railway tracks, which was followed by larger, nationwide protests, including some that used trucks, tractors, and combine harvesters to block highways leading to New Dehli, the nation’s capital.
By last December, “protests spread across India, as farm organizations call[ed] for a nationwide strike after inconclusive talks with the government,” Reuters reported, adding that demonstrations also took place throughout the Sikh diaspora.
In January, “India’s Supreme Court order[ed] an indefinite stay on the implementation of the new agricultural laws, saying it wanted to protect farmers and would hear their objections,” the news outlet noted.
Over the course of several months, which included a brutal winter and a devastating Covid-19 surge, farmers continued to agitate for full repeal of the three laws. Repression from Modi’s right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party resulted in hundreds of deaths.
At the largest rally to date, more than half a million farmers gathered in Uttar Pradesh on September 5, roughly 10 weeks before Modi announced that he will repeal the laws.
In response to Modi’s decision on Friday, “farmers at [the] protest sites of Ghazipur, Tikri, and Singhu borders celebrated by bursting crackers, distributing sweets, and welcoming the [government’s] move,” India Today reported.
The Transnational Institute praised “the resilience, courage, and determination of India’s farmers who succeeded in overturning the pernicious farm laws,” calling it “the power of movements.”
Inspired by the resilience, courage and determination of India’s farmers who succeeded in overturning the pernicious farm laws. This is the power of movements.
Thread below tells some important parts of the story https://t.co/ot7OFRRmVT
— Transnational Institute (@TNInstitute) November 19, 2021
That sentiment was shared by numerous other observers.
“The repeal of the three farm laws — unconstitutional, with no demonstrable benefits, and aimed to expand corporate control over agriculture — is a major political victory for India’s peasant movement,” said R. Ramakumar, an economics professor in the School of Development Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai. “Their resolute struggle has shown and amplified the power of dissent in our democracy.”
Priyamvada Gopal, a professor of postcolonial studies at the University of Cambridge, placed the overturning of Modi’s unpopular reforms in a broader context, arguing that “the victory of farmers in North India is not a local matter.”
“This is a victory of global significance,” she added. “Immense class and oppressed caste solidarity, fierce determination, [and] deep courage defeated the combine of chauvinist authoritarianism and corporate greed — our common enemy.”
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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“After a year of strikes—and having faced brutal repression that claimed some 700 lives—India’s farmers are victorious in their struggle.”
This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.
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“Congress must resist the demands of the military-industrial complex, and instead heed calls to invest taxpayer dollars into true human needs.”
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“Businesses who care about protecting their workers and communities from Covid are not suing OSHA,” said one signatory. “They are encouraging vaccination.”
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“Now, it’s time for the rest of the state—commonwealth pension funds, remaining institutional investors, etc.—to follow.”
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Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s “attempt to ‘chill’ our funding and solidarity will not work,” said dozens of philanthropic foundations and individual donors.
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“The world knows by now that access to Covid-19 medical tools needs to be guaranteed for everyone, everywhere, if we really want to control this pandemic.”
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“Our community, our families, our children, cannot and should not take more chemical pollution.”
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“Democracy is a fragile plant,” said Noam Chomsky. “Today the threat is severe from a resurgent proto-fascist right. The formation of this observatory should create a badly needed barrier to these destructive tendencies.”
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“The Biden administration has tools at its disposal that it is simply failing to use,” said one advocate. “If President Biden believes we are in an emergency, he should act accordingly.”
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The United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Norway “are condemning communities in the Global South to a state of perpetual crisis which they did nothing to create.”
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“There’s no way we’re going to” reduce greenhouse gas pollution “if we don’t measure it and if we don’t commit to it,” said the New York Democrat, in a rebuke of the omission of military emissions from national climate targets.
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