Category Archives: Uncategorized

Carbon markets that benefit the West will not solve Africa’s climate crisis

Western interests dominated the Africa Climate Summit. Time for African nations to put themselves first

-By Claire Nasike and Peter Osogo Published 9-15-2023 by openDemocracy

The First Africa Climate Summit was held at the Kenyatta International Convention Center in Nairobi, Kenya on September 6 2023. Photo: Paul Kagame/flickr/CC

The Africa Climate Summit 2023 in Kenya last week united African leaders for a discussion on the climate crisis, with a specific focus on Africa and its policy stance ahead of COP28 in Dubai.

One would have expected African leaders to propose sovereign solutions to the challenges faced by their countries. These include recurrent hunger, flooding, drought, resource exploitation, water and soil pollution, and control of food systems by Western corporations.

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‘Wrong and Frightening’: Alito Claims Congress Can’t Regulate SCOTUS

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“What a surprise, guy who is supposed to enforce checks and balances thinks checks shouldn’t apply to him,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 7-28-2023 by Common Dreams

Justice Samuel Alito in 2017. Photo: JoshEllie1234/Wikimedia Commons/CC

While conservative Justice Samuel Alito’s new Wall Street Journal interview covered various topics, one that provoked intense ire on Friday was his suggestion that federal lawmakers don’t have the power to regulate the U.S. Supreme Court.

For a series of Journal opinion pieces—the first was published in April—Alito spent four hours speaking on the record with David B. Rivkin Jr., an attorney who currently has a case before the high court, and James Taranto, the newspaper’s editorial features editor.

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Conservatives could take over key inter-American human rights body

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Countries will this week elect members to the Americas’ most important institution for protecting human rights

By Angelina De Los Santos Published 6-21-2023 by openDemocracy

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2021 – the first year that the leading three commisioners were women Photo: Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos/flickr/CC

Governments across the Americas are set to take part in a crucial vote that could decide the future of a body that has been vital in protecting human rights in the region for more than 60 years.

Since 1959, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has guided countries in establishing legal standards and assisting millions of victims of violence and inequality.

It is responsible for investigating human rights violations – including unfair trials, extrajudicial executions and violence against women and vulnerable populations – and submitting cases to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR, founded in 1979). Both bodies comprise the Inter-American Human Rights System (IAHRS).

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‘Utterly Absurd’: Rich Nations Spending Climate Dollars on Coal Projects and Chocolate Shops

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“Essentially, whatever they call climate finance is climate finance,” said one developing nation’s lead climate negotiator.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 6-2-2023 by Common Dreams

Activists including members of frontline communities protest Japanese financing of international fossil fuel projects including coal plants in Matarbari, Bangladesh and Indramayu, Indonesia on October 4, 2021 in Tokyo. (Photo: @market_forces/Twitter)

Wealthy nations are spending money under the guise of “climate finance” to fund projects that have little or nothing to do with tackling the climate crisis and—as in the case of three Japanese-backed coal plants—are sometimes fueling the planetary emergency, according to a Reuters investigation published Thursday.

While media outlets including Reuters have recently reported that rich countries are on track—albeit long overdue—to finally meet their 2009 pledge to invest $100 billion annually in climate financing by 2020, the new Reuters investigation shows that governments are funding climate-harming projects and counting the expenditures toward their giving total.

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Bolsonaro Requests Six-Month US Tourist Visa to Prolong Florida Trip as Brazilian Probes Mount

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Brazil’s far-right ex-president has applied for a visa to remain in the U.S. amid worsening legal troubles in his home country, where he is facing multiple investigations.

By Kenny Stancil. Published 1-30-2023 by Common Dreams

Jair and Michelle Bolsonaro in Jacksonville, FL, 2020 Photo: Alan Santos/PR/flickr/CC

Brazil’s far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro has applied for a six-month visitor visa to remain in the United States amid worsening legal troubles in his home country.

U.S. authorities received Bolsonaro’s application on Friday, The Financial Times reported Monday, citing “his lawyer, Felipe Alexandre, who has advised the former president not to leave the country while it is being processed—a period that could last several months.”

Bolsonaro is facing multiple investigations in Brazil. That includes longstanding probes into alleged wrongdoing committed during his four-year presidential term as well as the Brazilian Supreme Court’s recently launched inquiry aimed at determining whether his incessant lies about electoral fraud are to blame for the coup attempt that his supporters launched in Brasília on January 8. Continue reading →

Rallies Across Africa Demand Global Action, Climate Justice Ahead of UN Summit

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“The urgency of the climate crisis cannot be understated, particularly here in Africa, which is the region most vulnerable to climate impacts,” said one campaigner.

By Brett Wilkins Published 9-23-2022 by Common Dreams

Ugandan climate activists demonstrate in Kampala on September 23, 2022. (Photo: Hilda F. Nakabuye/Twitter)

Thousands of African activists and members of communities on the frontlines of the worsening climate emergency turned out Friday to call on world leaders—who will gather in Egypt in November for the United Nations Climate Summit—to urgently address a crisis that disproportionately impacts their lives.

Demonstrators took to the streets, public spaces, and even waterways in countries across a continent that’s responsible for just 4% of global greenhouse emissions to demand climate justice and an end to fossil fuel exploration and extraction ahead of the U.N.’s COP27 conference, scheduled to start November 6 in Sharm El-Sheikh. Continue reading →

Mass Student Walkouts Over Police Killing of Amir Locke

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Locke, a 22-year-old Black man, was killed last week by police executing a no-knock search warrant.

By Julia Conley. Published 2-8-2022 by Common Dreams

Demanding accountability from local leaders, hundreds of high school students in Minneapolis and St. Paul walked out of their classes on Tuesday at noon in protest of the fatal police shooting of Amir Locke during a no-knock raid.

The youth-led group MN Teen Activists organized the walkout, which included students at St. Paul Central High School and Capitol Hill Magnet School in St. Paul and Southwest, Roosevelt, and Washburn high schools in Minneapolis, as well as other schools in the surrounding suburbs. Continue reading →

‘A Devastating Failure’: Eviction Ban Expires as House Goes on Vacation and Biden Refuses to Act

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“We’re now in an eviction emergency,” said Rep. Cori Bush. “Eleven million are now at risk of losing their homes at any moment. The House needs to reconvene and put an end to this crisis.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-1-2021

Capitol police tell a group it’s “prohibited to sleep on the ground” as they protest the end of the eviction moratorium. Photo: Alia Fierro/Twitter

A nationwide eviction moratorium officially expired Saturday after the Biden administration refused to extend it unilaterally and Congress failed to act in time, putting millions of people across the U.S. at risk of losing their homes in the near future as the highly virulent Delta strain tears through the country.

The CDC’s temporary eviction ban lapsed as a growing group of lawmakers and activists rallied on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to demand that Democratic leaders immediately reconvene the House and pass an extension. Many lawmakers skipped town Friday after the House adjourned for its seven-week August recess without holding a vote on prolonging the moratorium, which—while flawed—significantly curbed the number eviction filings nationwide. Continue reading →

Over 30,000 US Veterans of Post-9/11 Wars Have Killed Themselves Since 2001

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“As we come closer to the twentieth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, we must reflect on the mental health cost of the Global War on Terror.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 6-21-2021

Image: Speaking of Suicide

New research released Monday shows the post-9/11 wars launched by the U.S. military since 2001 have resulted in over 30,000 suicides by active duty American solders and veterans—over four times the number killed in combat operations.

According to Brown University’s Costs of War Project—established in 2010 to account for the loss of lives and taxpayer dollars spent on U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—an estimated 30,177 veterans and service members have killed themselves over the last nearly two decades, compared with 7,057 members of the military who have been killed in combat. Continue reading →

Lack of Patent Waiver Would Add Over $70 Billion to Cost of Vaccinating World: Oxfam

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Most of that money, said a spokesperson for the group, “will go directly into the pockets” of Big Pharma shareholders.

By Jon Queally staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 6-13-2021

Photo: James Bullock/Twitter

As leaders of the G7 were criticized for failing to rise to the challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic during their summit in the United Kingdom this weekend, Oxfam International on Saturday warned that failure of the world’s richest nations to fully embrace a lifting of intellectual property protections for life-saving vaccines could ultimately raise the cost of administering shots to the entire world by as much as $74 billion with most of that money going directly into the wallets of pharmaceutical companies and their wealthy shareholders.

Oxfam calculates that if patent protections were waived by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and vaccine production ramped up worldwide people in low- and middle-income nations could be adequately vaccinated for an estimated cost of $6.5 billion, but that if pharmaceutical companies are allowed to retain their for-profit stranglehold on production and distribution that cost would soar to $80 billion. Continue reading →

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Category Archives: Uncategorized

Over 30,000 US Veterans of Post-9/11 Wars Have Killed Themselves Since 2001

“As we come closer to the twentieth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, we must reflect on the mental health cost of the Global War on Terror.”