2024-02-17: News Headlines

Andrés Madrid, Andrés Tapia (2024-02-16). Capitalism and drug trafficking in Ecuador: Two sides of the same coin. cadtm.org

Ellen Brown, Scheer Post. (2024-02-16). Defusing The Derivatives Time Bomb: Some Proposed Solutions. popularresistance.org This is a sequel to a Jan. 15 article titled "Casino Capitalism and the Derivatives Market: Time for Another 'Lehman Moment'?", discussing the threat of a 2024 "black swan" event that could pop the derivatives bubble. That bubble is now over ten times the GDP of the world and is so interconnected and fragile that an unanticipated crisis could trigger the collapse not just of the bubble but of the economy. To avoid that result, in the event of the bankruptcy of a major financial institution, derivative claimants are put first in line to grab the assets — not just the deposits of customers but their stocks an…

Ellen Brown (2024-02-17). Defusing the Derivatives Time Bomb: Some Proposed Solutions. dissidentvoice.org The "protected class" is granted "safe harbor" only because their bets are so risky that to let them fail could crash the economy. But why let them bet at all? This is a sequel to a January 15 article titled "Casino Capitalism and the Derivatives Market: Time for Another 'Lehman Moment'?", discussing the threat of …

WSWS (2024-02-17). The WHO and the inability of capitalism to prevent future pandemics. wsws.org The international working class must assimilate the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, above all the inability of capitalism to organize on a global scale to address the current pandemic and prevent future ones.

Internationalist 360 ∞ (2024-02-16). Imperialism and Resistance in the Red Sea. libya360.wordpress.com Jesse Harasta Jesse Harasta describes the complex dynamics of contemporary imperialism and resistance. Understanding a world system divided into Core, Semi-Periphery and Periphery is essential to the workings of global capitalism. Harasta argues that Gulf states have engaged in an active imperial re-peripheralization of the Horn of Africa. Since the beginning of the 2023 Israeli…

Andrés Madrid, Andrés Tapia (2024-02-17). Capitalism and drug trafficking in Ecuador: Two sides of the same coin. cadtm.org

midwesternmarx (2024-02-17). A Letter to my Gazan Palestinian Son. By: Hebh Jamal>. midwesternmarx.com Dear Malik, I am sitting here in bed with you in my arms. It is 11: 59 PM, and you are fast asleep. Did you know you sleep talk? Yes at 21 months, you sleep talk. Sometimes you just chuckle and then roll to the other side, and other times you manage to touch my face and say "mama" while your eyes are closed.I am looking up at the ceiling fan and it's lying perfectly still. Our vases are on the shelves- we're not afraid of them falling. The windows are closed when w …

midwesternmarx (2024-02-17). Planned BBC smear on UK Palestinians will rely on Israeli spy source By: Asa Winstanley. midwesternmarx.com Citing Israeli "terror" allegations, the BBC plans to broadcast an attack on prominent British Palestinians in a television program presented by pro-Israel reporter John Ware.The Electronic Intifada has learned that the episode of Panorama is likely to be based partly on "confidential evidence" which has almost certainly been provided by Israeli spies.The BBC and Panorama declined to comment when asked a series of detailed questio …

midwesternmarx (2024-02-16). A Dementia Patient Is President Because It Doesn't Matter Who The President Is By: Caitlin Johnstone>. midwesternmarx.com So it turns out the dementia symptoms Biden's supporters have long dismissed as a "stutter" are actually exactly what they look like.The special counsel assigned to investigate Joe Biden for mishandling classified documents reports that investigators "uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen," but concludes that "no …

midwesternmarx (2024-02-16). Eyes on the South: Low intensity conflict & escalation-risk in Lebanon. By: Sammy Ismail. midwesternmarx.com Hezbollah fighter, on border guard duty, sitting astride a motorbike blocking the pathway of an Israeli Merkava tank that had broken through the electric fence into Lebanese territories, the photo was taken by Al-Manar correspondent Ali Sheaib, Jalet al-Mahafer, 2022 (Illustrated by: Mahdi Rtail, Al Mayadeen English) More than 100 days have passed since the Al-Aqsa Flood came crashing down on the colonial outpost of US imperialism in West Asia; the tide has been …

midwesternmarx (2024-02-16). "In The War Of Propaganda, It Is Very Difficult To Defeat The United States"By: Caitlin Johnstone. midwesternmarx.com One under-appreciated moment from Tucker Carlson's recent interview with Vladimir Putin came after Putin implied that NATO powers were behind the 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline. Carlson responded by asking why Putin wouldn't present evidence of this to the world, so as to "win a propaganda victory.""In the war of propaganda it is very difficult to defeat the United States because the United States controls all the world's media and many European media," Putin re …

midwesternmarx (2024-02-16). The International Court of Justice Censures Israel for Its Genocidal War. By: Vijay Prashad. midwesternmarx.com On January 26, 2024, the judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) released their 29-page order that found "plausible" (paragraph 54) evidence that Israel was conducting a genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza. The court intervened in that war due to South Africa's application that Israel had violated its obligations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948). South Africa came to the ICJ two months …

A Guest Author (2024-02-17). From Kolkata, IndiaUnite to end war and save Palestine. workers.org By Provas Ghosh Provas Ghosh, general secretary of the Socialist Unity Center of India (Communist), sent this message to the Lenin Centennial, held in New York City on Jan. 21. Dear Comrades, On the occasion of the centennial of the death of the great Lenin, remembering his teachings is of . . . |

guest author (2024-02-17). Lenin, Amílcar Cabral and Palestine. workers.org Carlos Lopes Pereira, former member of the Secretariat of the liberation organization led by the late Amílcar Cabral and contributor to the newspaper Avante (organ of the Portuguese Communist Party), sent this message to the Lenin Centennial held in New York City on Jan. 21. This international anti-imperialist day marking . . . |

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