Monthly Archives: November 2019

In WWII-Era Fashion, the Saudi-led Coalition is Weaponizing Disease in Yemen

Leave a reply

What’s happening in Yemen may not be literal biological warfare, but it is certainly biological warfare by other means reports Ahmed AbdulKareem.

By Ahmed Abdulkareem.  Published 11-22-2019 by MintPress News

The WHO is carrying out a dengue vector control campaign in Aden, Lahj & Al Dhalea. Photo: WHO

 

Beyond the devastation it has caused on the back of tens of thousands of airstrikes, a crippling blockade and the intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure, the Saudi-led coalition supported by the United States has sparked an outbreak of disease and epidemics in Yemen in a manner not seen since World War II.

Yemeni activist Aseel Sweid told MintPress News how a young boy, Abdulkarim al-Ma’amari, “died of dengue fever after it spread with alarming speed in Taiz, threatening many innocents.” Sweid added that three of his own brothers had been infected with dengue. “There are a huge amount of people with the fever in the same hospital [as my brothers].” Continue reading →

Share Button

Why Are Drug Prices Rising So Much? Pharma Exec Admits ‘No Other Rationale’ But Profit-Making

Leave a reply

“The industry executive said the quiet part out loud,” said one outside expert in response. “Price-gouging is central to the industry business model.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-28-2019

Photo: Liz McGregor

Corporations’ quest for profits is what “is driving up drug prices and nothing more.”

That’s according to Dennis Bourdette, M.D., chair of neurology in the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) School of Medicine, who co-authored a study published Monday that sought to find out companies’ rationale for the escalating prices on medications for patients with multiple sclerosis. Continue reading →

Share Button

‘Their Secret Agenda Today Is Exposed’: Corbyn Says Leaked Trade Docs Show Tory Plan to Privatize NHS With Trump’s Help

Leave a reply

The U.K. Labour leader said the move, if successful, “could lead to runaway privatization of our health service.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-27-2019

U.K. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn holds redacted copies of the Department for International Trade’s U.K.-U.S. Trade and Investment Working Group report following a speech about the National Health Service in Westminster, London. Photo: Devutopia/Twitter

U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday unveiled over 450 pages of leaked documents that he said expose British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s effort to open up the National Health Service to corporate exploitation in trade negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump.

During a press conference, Corbyn said the Trump administration’s negotiators are “demanding” that the NHS be put “on the table” in talks over a possible post-Brexit trade pact between the U.S. and U.K. Continue reading →

Share Button

Climate Expert Says UN Emissions Report Makes Clear Only Solution Is to ‘Cut Off Supply of Fossil Fuels at Their Source’

Leave a reply

“Climate policy proposals that do not squarely confront the issue of supply are not making a serious attempt to avert catastrophe.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-26-2019

“The urgent, necessary solution is to stop the supply of fossil fuels by banning fracking and all other forms of fossil fuel drilling,” says climate campaigner Mitch Jones. (Photo: CGP Grey/Flickr/cc)

An annual United Nations report published Tuesday on current and estimated future greenhouse gas emissions shows the “urgent need for supply-side action” to combat the climate emergency, according to the advocacy group Food & Water Action.

Mitch Jones, director of Food & Water Action’s Climate & Energy Program, released a statement responding to the new Emissions Gap report from the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP), which warned that global temperatures are on track to rise as much as 3.9°C by the end of the century. Continue reading →

Share Button

Law Enforcement Crushing Pipeline Dissent in Minnesota at Water Protectors’ Blockade of Enbridge Terminal

Leave a reply

Police were about to saw off the leg of a tripod from which a protester was hanging, activists said.

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-25-2019

Water protectors on Monday blocked the entrance to an Enbridge terminal in Minnesota to display ongoing opposition to the proposed Line 3 tar sands project. (Photo: ResistLine3 via Twitter)

Police in Clearbrook, Minnesota were accused of putting the “profits of oil companies before human life” after activists said law enforcement on Monday began sawing the leg of a tripod from which a tar sands protester was suspended.

An estimated 30 protesters blockaded the entrance to Enbrige’s Clearbrook Terminal in a display of ongoing opposition to the oil company’s proposed Line 3 project, which would bring tar sands from Alberta to a Wisconsin shipping hub, passing through Minnesota. Continue reading →

Share Button

Emperor Penguins could march to extinction if nations fail to halt climate change

Leave a reply

Emperor Penguin in Antarctica. Stephanie Jenouvrier, CC BY-ND

Stephanie Jenouvrier, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

The concept of a canary in a coal mine – a sensitive species that provides an alert to danger – originated with British miners, who carried actual canaries underground through the mid-1980s to detect the presence of deadly carbon monoxide gas. Today another bird, the Emperor Penguin, is providing a similar warning about the planetary effects of burning fossil fuels.

As a seabird ecologist, I develop mathematical models to understand and predict how seabirds respond to environmental change. My research integrates many areas of science, including the expertise of climatologists, to improve our ability to anticipate future ecological consequences of climate change. Continue reading →

Share Button

Pompeo Calls It ‘Democracy’ in Bolivia as Post-Coup Violence Grows and Fear of Civil War Intensifies

Leave a reply

“The military has guns and a license to kill; we have nothing. Please, tell the international community to come here and stop this.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-22-2019

A photo of the coffins of two of the Bolivian anti-coup protesters, killed by security forces, that had to be left behind after a funeral procession was attacked by those same security forces.. Screenshot: redfish/Twitter

Observers on the ground in Bolivia are calling on the United Nations to take urgent action to prevent the country from descending into a full-blown civil war as the military, with a green light from the right-wing coup regime, continues to repress and massacre supporters of ousted former President Evo Morales.

On Thursday afternoon, Bolivian security forces teargassed a massive Indigenous-led funeral procession in the city of La Paz for the eight people gunned down by security forces Tuesday in the nearby working class city of El Alto, where Morales supporters blockaded a major gasoline plant. Continue reading →

Share Button

Unprecedented ‘Architecture of Surveillance’ Created by Facebook and Google Poses Grave Human Rights Threat: Report

Leave a reply

“Their insidious control of our digital lives undermines the very essence of privacy and is one of the defining human rights challenges of our era.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-22-2019

A new report from Amnesty International says Facebook and Google have a “surveillance-based business model.” (Photo: flickr/GostGo/cc)

A new report from Amnesty International accuses Facebook and Google of having a “surveillance-based business model” that threatens users’ right to privacy and other human rights.

The tech giants, said Kumi Naidoo, secretary general of Amnesty International, have amassed “unparalleled power over the digital world by harvesting and monetizing the personal data of billions of people. Their insidious control of our digital lives undermines the very essence of privacy and is one of the defining human rights challenges of our era.” Continue reading →

Share Button

‘Targeted by My Own Government’: Journalists Sue Trump DHS Over ‘Coordinated Attack’ on Press Freedom

Leave a reply

“This interference effectively prevented me and other journalists from carrying out our reporting at the U.S.-Mexico border.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-21-2019

“When I saw my photo crossed out in a secret government database, I realized the secondary screening and interrogation wasn’t random,” said photojournalist Bing Guan. “I was being targeted by my own government for reporting on conditions at the border.” (Image: NBC7 San Diego via ACLU)

Five journalists who were tracked, detained, and interrogated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for reporting on conditions at the southern border in 2018 and 2019 brought a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration Wednesday for what the ACLU called an “unprecedented, coordinated attack on the freedom of the press.”

The national ACLU, joined by chapters in New York and California, filed the suit (pdf) in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on behalf of Bing Guan, Go Nakamura, Mark Abramson, Kitra Cahana, and Ariana Drehsler. The five are all U.S. citizens who traveled to Mexico as professional photojournalists. Continue reading →

Share Button

Bolsonaro, Facing Blame for Surge in Amazon Deforestation, Says Destruction Won’t End Because “It’s Cultural”

Leave a reply

The Brazilian president’s new comments came after data confirmed that “2019 has been a dark year for the rainforest in Brazil.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-20-2019

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, seen here at the U.N. General Assembly’s 74th session on Sept. 24, 2019, said Wednesday that the fires and deforestation in his country aren’t coming to an end. (Photo: Cia Pak/U.N.)

Right-wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro drew worldwide rebuke Wednesday after saying
Amazon deforestation and fires would not end because “it’s cultural.”

Marcio Astrini, public policy coordinator at Greenpeace Brazil, told the Washington Post that “the only cultural aspect of deforestation in the Amazon is the culture of forest crime, which the government does not seem to want to confront.” Continue reading →

Share Button