Reflectii

Living with World’s End in Plain Sight

Groton and New London, Connecticut, are home to about 65,000 people, three colleges, the Coast Guard Academy, 15 nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarines capable of destroying the world many times over, and General Dynamics’ Electric Boat, a multi-billion-dollar private corporation that offers stock options to its shareholders and mega-salaries to its top executives as it pockets taxpayer dollars and manufactures yet more of those stealthy, potentially world-ending machines. Whew! That was a long sentence!

When a President Lies

“Did you, too, O friend,
suppose democracy was only for
elections, for politics, and for a party name?”

– Walt Whitman, “Democratic Vistas” (1871)

Joe Biden received much media praise for his meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin on June 16th. However, little attention has been paid to an issue posed by an Associate Press reporter in a press conference following the meeting: “U.S. intelligence has said that Russia tried to interfere in the last two presidential elections, and that Russia groups are behind hacks like SolarWinds and some of the ransomware attacks you just mentioned.”

Capital, Profits and Wages in 2021

Long before Karl Marx and Jenet Yellen, some might have suspected that there are three elements that define the core of capitalism. These are, of course, capital. But capitalism is also a system that is defined by profits – commonly camouflaged as shareholder values – as well as wages.

From Smith to Yellen the existence of these three fundamentals was never threatened. Yet the relationship between the three has altered somewhat in recent years. This is the argument of Belgian economist Jan Eeckhout.

Head of U.S. Intelligence: We May Never Know COVID-19’s Origin

On the menu today: Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, ominously declares in an interview that the U.S. intelligence community is no closer to determining how the COVID-19 pandemic began, and may never know with certainty; the need to end the crisis mentality on evictions; and Vice President Kamala Harris apparently thinks she’s “winning” something by refusing to spend a day visiting the border.

20 Years of Hijacking Human Rights: The Lasting Impact of Durban – watch

20 Years of Hijacking Human Rights

Marking 20 years since the UN Durban Conference, Jerusalem-based research institute NGO Monitor hosted an online event on Wednesday, titled “20 Years of Hijacking Human Rights: The Lasting Impact of Durban,” bringing together experts who discussed the enduring influence of the original Durban conference and NGO campaign to delegitimize Israel.

Vente de matériel de surveillance à la Libye et à l’Egypte : des dirigeants français mis en examen pour « complicité d’acte de torture »

La Fédération internationale pour les droits humains et la Ligue des droits de l’homme avaient porté plainte contre Amesys et Nexa Technologies.

Les systèmes d’écoute permettant de traquer les opposants au sein des deux régimes autoritaires – libyen, de Mouammar Kadhafi, et égyptien, d’Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi – font l’objet de deux informations judiciaires distinctes ouvertes à la suite de deux plaintes déposées par la Fédération internationale pour les droits humains (FIDH) et la Ligue des droits de l’homme (LDH).

An Anxious Erdogan Tries to Make Nice With the West

Weeks before U.S. President Joe Biden met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the NATO summit, Erdogan vowed that the meeting would be transformative. In a virtual gathering with American investors last month, he predicted that the encounter would “herald a new era.” It was no surprise, then, that after the Monday meeting in Brussels concluded, Erdogan took pains to stretch the truth and describe it as a major success.

Whatever happened to the provocateur, the pugnacious politician whose words and actions so frequently put him at odds with his neighbors and his allies? Where did that Erdogan go?

Biden’s Tour of Europe Leaves a Lot of Unfinished Business

“America is back at the table,” President Joe Biden said at a press conference Sunday in Cornwall following his first G-7 summit. That statement perhaps best encapsulated Biden’s message during his maiden voyage overseas. While he didn’t mention his predecessor by name, the contrast with Donald Trump couldn’t have been clearer. And it certainly came as a relief to the other G-7 leaders, as the summit was mercifully free of temper tantrums and Twitter tirades.