Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

[Bill Ryan]

There's a pattern here, if we just can figure out what it is. In Chile (this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?108993-Turmoil-in-Chile)), the riots were triggered [merely!] by subway fare hikes, that were later canceled. But that was too late. The people went on the rampage, looting, firing supermarkets, and there were deaths. That's not over at all, by any means.

In Ecuador (this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?108762-Turmoil-in-Ecuador)), there's good evidence that some of the protests a couple weeks ago were fueled by militant infiltrators from Venezuela and Colombia. But I saw for myself at first hand how local people jumped on the chaos bandwagon to just PROTEST.

I remarked on that thread that after 11 days, the people brought the government to heel, which is what's supposed to happen.

Governments are our representatives. NOT our managers.

But look at Brexit in the UK (this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?91509-The-UK-Brexit-vote-to-leave-the-EU)). Catalonia, in Spain (this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?100046-Catalan-Referendum-Catalonia-has-won-right-to-statehood-but-not-seeking-traumatic-split)). The Yellow Vests in Paris (this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?88469---a-Chauffe-)). People have had enough.

One wonders what may happen next, and where. A morphic field may be spreading its invisible influence. Or a future historian might write that there was so much injustice and drip-drip-drip repression all over the world, for so long, that in the end the worm just turned.*
* For non-English-speaking members here: this odd idiom means that someone who usually obeys another person or accepts their bad behavior unexpectedly starts resisting that person and/or expresses their anger.
In each case, the governments concerned seemed SO out of touch that they had no idea what would happen, and they were totally ambushed by the violent reactions. They just never suspected or anticipated what would be triggered. This could EASILY happen in the UK, is already happening in Catalonia, and could happen in many European countries, also (maybe pretty likely at some point) the US.

But it won't happen in China (this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?108977-When-the-Lion-Wakes-The-Global-Threat-of-the-Chinese-Communist-Party)), because the Chinese government have taken early pre-emptive action to make sure the population is docile and emasculated. (Go figure...)

[Hervé]

World in Flames: Why Are Protests Raging Around The Globe? (https://www.rt.com/news/471443-protests-spread-worldwide-response-/)

RT (https://www.rt.com/news/471443-protests-spread-worldwide-response-/)
Mon, 21 Oct 2019 20:42 UTC

Protests and demonstrations have rocked every corner of the world in recent days, with tax hikes, corruption and supposed environmental injustice all raising public anger. But why have they spread?

Watching the news over the last week, one would be convinced that the world has devolved into a series of flashpoints, with corrupt governments across the political spectrum facing the wrath of their enraged citizens. To be fair, that's not far from the truth.

Four continents have seen anti-government demonstrations over the last week, many of them sparked by seemingly innocuous taxes or changes to the law. In Lebanon, protesters have set Beirut ablaze (https://www.rt.com/news/471219-lebanons-tax-intifada-beirut-protests/) in response to a proposed fee of 20 cents per day on internet voice calls, dubbed the "WhatsApp tax." Chileans set metro stations on fire (https://www.rt.com/news/471276-chile-emergency-riots-santiago/) following a $1.17 increase in public transport fares, and the streets of Ecuador are filled with rubble after a planned removal of fuel subsidies triggered mass unrest (https://www.rt.com/op-ed/470988-lenin-moreno-imf-ecuador/).


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Elsewhere, perennial corruption has the West African nation of Liberia in a state of near-constant protest; a change to presidential term limits in Guinea caused deadly riots; Mexicans are demonstrating against corruption and drug cartel violence; and masked rioters in Hong Kong are still rallying against their government, months after the withdrawal of the Chinese extradition bill that sparked their anger.

Europe, meanwhile, has seen a general strike and mass marches (https://www.rt.com/news/471257-catalonia-barcelona-independence-protest/) in Barcelona following the jailing of Catalonian independence leaders on Monday. Dutch farmers have also shut down (https://www.rt.com/news/471057-dutch-farmers-protest-blocks-roads/) the country's motorways after the government introduced new emissions regulations; and in France, already rocked by almost a year of 'Yellow Vests' demonstrations, thousands of firefighters have marched (https://www.rt.com/news/470986-paris-firefighters-protest-water-canon/) for more funding and better working conditions.

Protests can break out over a relatively minor issue, before spiralling into national crises. French President Emmanuel Macron learned this the hard way last November, when demonstrations over a fuel tax hike turned into a nationwide rejection of his corporate-friendly policies. Likewise, Lebanon's "WhatsApp tax" was simply the final straw for protesters, who have now called for "the downfall of the regime," following years of perceived government ineptitude.

And, while Chilean students kicked off the fare-hike protests earlier this month, violent anti-government riots have since broken out, with at least eight people killed (https://www.rt.com/news/471382-chile-curfew-violence-death/) in arson and looting attacks, and the military were called out to enforce a curfew.


nPTOmvChNYI
It's contagious
So why has unrest seemingly erupted all over the world at once? According to a University of Arizona study (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022343315593993), protest is contagious. The study's authors found that "violent domestic conflicts spread between countries via spillover effects and the desire to emulate events abroad." Non-violent movements too spread across borders in a similar fashion, with the researchers noting that "observation of collective action abroad" inspires would-be protesters at home.

The Chinese government has pointed the finger squarely at Hong Kong for inspiring similar protests elsewhere. An editorial (http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1167409.shtml) in the state-run Global Times on Sunday accused the Hong Kong demonstrators of "exporting revolution to the world," while former Chinese diplomat Wang Zhen wrote in the Beijing News that "the disastrous impact of a 'chaotic Hong Kong' has begun to influence the Western world."


2392306681007607
Though the Chinese government has its own political reasons to publish articles condemning the Hong Kong movement, the accusation that the protesters there are "exporting revolution" is spot-on, at least if the University of Arizona study is to be believed.

SOTT Comment:
It's one factor to consider, certainly, but even though we live in a world where, thanks to the availability of mass communication, everyone can 'see' what everyone else is up to, most people really only choose to see what goes on in their own neighborhood. In cases where protesters were triggered by the latest tax their govt wished to introduce, these were 'straws that broke the camel's back' because they are just the latest in a sequence of onerous taxation/austerity measures.
The question remains; why did so many countries reach breaking point at roughly the same time? A minefield
Dealing with mass unrest is a minefield for governments. Though the respective governments of Lebanon, Chile, Ecuador and Hong Kong have all canceled the measures that angered the public in the first place, protests have only intensified. This presents decision-makers with a dilemma: signal weakness by doing nothing, or inflame tensions further with a police crackdown.


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Former Madison, Wisconsin Police Chief David Couper literally wrote the book on handling protests. In 'Arrested Development,' Couper wrote that he would instruct his officers to "get in close, talk, stay in contact" with demonstrators, as he found that "the further the police positioned themselves from people in the crowd, the greater the chance the crowd would depersonalize them."

Similarly, former Washington DC Police Chief Jerry Wilson told (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1610392116/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?amp=&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1610392116&ie=UTF8&linkCode=as2&tag=thehuffingtop-20) author Radley Balko that he would hide his riot-control teams away on buses until needed, as the mere presence of heavily-armed cops "didn't prevent confrontation, it invited it."

This cautious approach has not been taken by Chile, whose president Sebastian Pinera declared "We are at war against a powerful enemy, who is willing to use violence without any limits," and summoned up thousands of troops to patrol the streets. Nor has it been taken by Ecuador's Lenin Moreno, who announced the "militarization" of the capital, Quito, and authorized "the use of public force" to clear the streets of protesters.

While the state cannot allow destruction and looting, a heavy-handed crackdown can backfire, as happened in France when images of wounded and maimed (https://www.rt.com/news/457786-injured-yellow-vests-association/) protesters gave the Yellow Vests a new issue to rally around, and mired the government and police forces in legal action.

Moreover, giving in to the protesters' demands is one thing, but it's another when rival groups of demonstrators demand clashing measures. While Dutch farmers are fuming at being labeled a climate change threat and punished with new nitrogen emissions regulations, Extinction Rebellion eco-activists took to the streets of more than 70 cities worldwide - including Amsterdam - to demand more of precisely the same kind of regulations, up to a complete abolition of livestock farming.

Contagious, difficult to control, and often contradictory, the season of unrest gripping much of the world presents governments - even those that acquiesce to their citizens' demands - with few easy solutions.

==================================

... it apparently all started with a simmering that got the "Gilets jaunes" out on the streets... same pattern: increases in taxes got the frogs out of the pot at boiling point.

Now, one wonders who could intimidate governments into implementing such dumb moves... couldn't be the IMF and their "Austerity measures", could it?

[Bill Ryan]

This was published in Business Insider:


World on fire: 13 major protests happening around the globe right now
https://businessinsider.com/all-the-protests-around-the-world-right-now

And then I saw the date of the article... 3 October, 18 days ago. That was before Ecuador or Chile.

The piece refers to protests in Hong Kong, Cairo, Paris, Moscow, Jerusalem, the Netherlands, Peru, Haiti, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Indonesia.

[Ernie Nemeth]

There's a pattern here, if we just can figure out what it is. In Chile (this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?108993-Turmoil-in-Chile)), the riots were triggered [merely!] by subway fare hikes, that were later canceled. But that was too late. The people went on the rampage, looting, firing supermarkets, and there were deaths. That's not over at all, by any means.

In Ecuador (this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?108762-Turmoil-in-Ecuador)), there's good evidence that some of the protests a couple weeks ago were fueled by militant infiltrators from Venezuela and Colombia. But I saw for myself at first hand how local people jumped on the chaos bandwagon to just PROTEST.

I remarked on that thread that after 11 days, the people brought the government to heel, which is what's supposed to happen.

Governments are our representatives. NOT our managers.

But look at Brexit in the UK (this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?91509-The-UK-Brexit-vote-to-leave-the-EU)). Catalonia, in Spain (this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?100046-Catalan-Referendum-Catalonia-has-won-right-to-statehood-but-not-seeking-traumatic-split)). The Yellow Vests in Paris (this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?88469---a-Chauffe-)). People have had enough.

One wonders what may happen next, and where. A morphic field may be spreading its invisible influence. Or a future historian might write that there was so much injustice and drip-drip-drip repression all over the world, for so long, that in the end the worm just turned.*
* For non-English-speaking members here: this odd idiom means that someone who usually obeys another person or accepts their bad behavior unexpectedly starts resisting that person and/or expresses their anger.
In each case, the governments concerned seemed SO out of touch that they had no idea what would happen, and they were totally ambushed by the violent reactions. They just never suspected or anticipated what would be triggered. This could EASILY happen in the UK, is already happening in Catalonia, and could happen in many European countries, also (maybe pretty likely at some point) the US.

But it won't happen in China (this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?108977-When-the-Lion-Wakes-The-Global-Threat-of-the-Chinese-Communist-Party)), because the Chinese government have taken early pre-emptive action to make sure the population is docile and emasculated. (Go figure...)

Great observation about the sentiment of the vast silent majority.

I don't think it will happen in Canada for reasons I can't put my finger on, and I am not sure this translates well for those who do not live here. Canadians are strange...but...if ever this wild and crazy sentiment caught on here, I think the cities of Canada would turn into a bloodbath. There is a very palpable antimony among the city dwellers here, smoldering quietly under the surface...

[Cara]

This poem by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) and written in 1919 seems apt here:


THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[Cara]

Shared by Catherine Austin Fitts on her twitter feed:

1186402826957836288

[sunwings]

Great observation about the sentiment of the vast silent majority.

I don't think it will happen in Canada for reasons I can't put my finger on, and I am not sure this translates well for those who do not live here. Canadians are strange...but...if ever this wild and crazy sentiment caught on here, I think the cities of Canada would turn into a bloodbath. There is a very palpable antimony among the city dwellers here, smoldering quietly under the surface...

I would have said the same here in Catalonia. I have always been amazed by their pacific stance. Millions have protested every year. Not one problem, not one smashed window in Mcdonalds or Starbucks. Zero incidents of aggression reported to the police. However, things can turn quickly. The same people who have been sitting on their hands are now fighting back!

In regards to Canadians...look what happens when they lose a game of Ice hockey. Imagine if something important happened, that really affected their lives.

XjFM_RswttU

[Bill Ryan]

It wasn't much fun in Ecuador during the 11 days of protests there (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?108762-Turmoil-in-Ecuador). (Only 11 days! In France, see this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?88469---a-Chauffe-), the Yellow Vests have been active for a whole year now.) And I acknowledge that there was probably opportunist infiltration from militant groups from Colombia and Venezuela.

But although there was chaos and some violence, in a way I was VERY pleased to see People Power actually working. The best recent example has been in Puerto Rico, where the protests (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?108371-People-power-in-Puerto-Rico) that ousted Governor Rosselló were more like a huge street carnival, with the young people setting the example.

In the 60s and 70s, there were massive protests in the US against the Vietnam war. People Power made a big difference there, too. The Deep State resorted to mind-controlling the protest groups with drugs and music to quell it all. (And that absolutely worked, form their point of view.)

That brief era in the US was the second major attempt to take back the planet from evil control. The first attempt was 2000 years ago, and the third and likely last chance is right now. Just maybe, something's currently working as it should.

I'd LOVE to see extended, non-violent, popular protests in the US. And in the UK, too, and also Sweden. God knows that's needed. Re the US, apart from relatively minor (but sadly violent) incidents, the populace is apathetic.

All you Americans, that means you. Posting your invective on social media (whatever you believe in!) just doesn't cut it. That's just a way, highly convenient for the establishment and very possibly engineered by them, of venting relatively harmlessly, like talking to the wall (or preaching to the converted).

Retweeting rhetoric from Qanon (or even Alex Jones) makes no difference. It's just hot air. The Deep State doesn't care about that at all. It's no threat. With Alex Jones, they simply turned the switch and silenced him. Job done.

Tweet or post on Facebook all you like, and it makes almost no difference to anything. But in Ecuador, even the indigenous people have social media now. They didn't forward angry videos to each other. They swung into action and blocked all the highways, and they did it from nothing in 12 hours flat.

Blockading supply chains really makes a government pay attention. And this, in Holland, just brings the country to a total standstill. Will this ever happen in the US and Canada? Answers, please. :)

https://assets.infowars.com/2019/10/161019dutch.jpg

[Bill Ryan]

This was published in Business Insider:


World on fire: 13 major protests happening around the globe right now
https://businessinsider.com/all-the-protests-around-the-world-right-now

And then I saw the date of the article... 3 October, 18 days ago. That was before Ecuador or Chile.

The piece refers to protests in Hong Kong, Cairo, Paris, Moscow, Jerusalem, the Netherlands, Peru, Haiti, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Indonesia.

Here's the whole article, which is quite an education.

World on fire: 13 major protests happening around the globe right now
Oct 3, 2019

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d93b1b32e22af3edc3a3884?width=1300&format=jpeg&auto=webp
Riot police stand guard during a demonstration on China's National Day, in Mong Kok, Hong Kong, China, on October 1, 2019.


Protests can be a powerful political tool (https://www.businessinsider.com/largest-marches-us-history-2017-1) for enacting change.
Currently, protests are happening in places like Hong Kong (https://www.businessinsider.com/hk-protests-darken-acid-live-gunfire-china-national-day-2019-10), Cairo (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/world/middleeast/egypt-protests.html), Paris (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/21/french-police-break-up-yellow-vest-and-black-bloc-protests-in-paris.html), and Moscow (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/29/russia-protesters-demand-end-to-political-crackdown), to name a few.
Despite each demonstration stemming from vastly different issues, many have common threads: citizens want to express their discontent with their current governments, from the "yellow vest" protests (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/21/french-police-break-up-yellow-vest-and-black-bloc-protests-in-paris.html) in Paris to Indonesian protests (https://www.businessinsider.com/indonesia-police-fire-tear-gas-at-extramarital-sex-bill-protesters-2019-9) against a draconian criminal code.

Protests have long been a powerful political tool for enacting change (https://www.businessinsider.com/largest-marches-us-history-2017-1) and expressing discontent.

From the Civil Rights Movement's the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (https://www.businessinsider.com/largest-marches-us-history-2017-1#the-march-on-washington-for-jobs-and-freedom-august-28-1963-1) to Indian independence, (https://amp.businessinsider.com/70-facts-about-india-to-mark-the-70th-anniversary-of-its-partition-2017-8) protests have left powerful marks upon the world. Historically, protests have served as an outlet for marginalized groups to articulate their frustrations — and make their demands known. One such example is New York's Stonewall riots (https://www.businessinsider.com/stonewall-history-what-happened-during-riots-lgbt-2019-6), which kicked off the modern Pride movement and mainstream LGBTQ visibility.

Today, protests like last month's Global Climate Strike (https://www.businessinsider.com/global-climate-strike-the-best-signs-from-new-york-march-2019-9) and Hong Kong's ongoing mass protests (https://www.businessinsider.com/hk-protests-darken-acid-live-gunfire-china-national-day-2019-10) are calls for politicians to change their policies. The climate strike, for example, drew over 6 million protesters around the world (https://www.businessinsider.com/global-climate-strike-photos-show-protests-around-world-school-children-2019-9), making it the biggest demonstration against climate change in history.

While protests have changed significantly with the rise of technology and social media, they're still powerful agents for change.

In an interview with WNYC's On The Media (http://wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/power-protest), technological sociologist Zeynep Tufekci said that modern protest has the "capacity for changing the narrative."
"The thing is, though in the past, you can think of the protest as an exclamation mark at the end of a long sentence, whereas right now it's just the first word in a potential sentence," Tufekci told WNYC.

Protests are happening right now, all over the world, from the "yellow vest" protests (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/21/french-police-break-up-yellow-vest-and-black-bloc-protests-in-paris.html) in Paris to Indonesian protests (https://www.businessinsider.com/indonesia-police-fire-tear-gas-at-extramarital-sex-bill-protesters-2019-9) against a draconian criminal code.
Here are the protests currently happening around the world.

In Hong Kong, a new extradition law sparked protests back in June, but the conflict is escalating.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d725aed2e22af1c53596f89?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp
A protester makes a gesture during a protest on June 12, 2019, in Hong Kong.

Tens of thousands of protesters (https://www.businessinsider.com/hk-protests-darken-acid-live-gunfire-china-national-day-2019-10) have been demonstrating in the streets of Hong Kong since June, against a new law that would extradite people accused of crimes to China to stand trial.

Protesters have thrown petrol bombs, rocks, and acid at police, who in turn have sprayed tear gas. The protests reached a new level of violence on Tuesday when one protester was shot in the chest by police (https://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-protests-photos-china-anniversary-2019-10), the first use of live rounds during the conflict. The protester, an 18-year-old man, is thought to be in critical condition (https://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-police-shooting-student-reasonable-lawful-2019-10).

Tuesday also marked the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, which protesters commemorated by wearing all black, calling it a "national day of mourning." (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/hong-kong-prepares-protests-beijing-parades-military-191001051410133.html)

A criminal code in Indonesia has led to protests against its draconian laws.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d93c3922e22af68965db1de?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp
A student throws a rock during a rally in front of the People's Representative Council building on September 30, 2019 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Last week, thousands of protesters in Jakarta (https://www.businessinsider.com/indonesia-police-fire-tear-gas-at-extramarital-sex-bill-protesters-2019-9) clashed with police after a new criminal code was announced. The code would outlaw sex outside of marriage and set a jail sentence of six months for unmarried couples living together, among other laws.
Indonesian police fired tear gas and water cannons at the protesters, most of whom were students. As a result of the protests, the Indonesian parliament has delayed a vote on approving the code (https://www.businessinsider.com/indonesia-police-fire-tear-gas-at-extramarital-sex-bill-protesters-2019-9).

The protests are the largest since 1998 (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-politics-rights/indonesia-student-protests-against-law-changes-enter-third-day-idUSKBN1WA0Q2), which led to the toppling of Indonesian president Suharto.

In the Netherlands, thousands of Dutch farmers clogged highways with their tractors.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d93c4782e22af4a4816cce9?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp
Farmers block the A28 Highway with their tractors between Hoogeveen and Meppel on October 1, 2019 during a national protest of farmers.

Dutch highways were jammed (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49891449) with thousands of farmers driving their tractors to The Hague on October 1.

They came to protest claims from members of Dutch parliament that agriculture was responsible for high emissions, and that some cattle farms should be shut down (https://www.npr.org/2019/10/01/766012978/tractor-trail-of-protesting-dutch-farmers-snarls-traffic-for-hundreds-of-miles). The farmers, in turn, said that the aviation industry was responsible for high emissions, but wasn't getting the same share of blame.

According to Dutch automobile association ANWB (https://twitter.com/ANWBverkeer/status/1178927000528019456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1178927000528019456&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2019%2F10%2F01%2F766012978%2Ftractor-trail-of-protesting-dutch-farmers-snarls-traffic-for-hundreds-of-miles), over 700 miles of traffic plagued Dutch roads at the peak of rush hour as the tractors descended on The Hague.

Several protests are ongoing in France, including demonstrations by Paris police officers.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d93c6582e22af45270de46a?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp
A newly-wed couple take selfies pictures next to "yellow vest" protesters during an anti-government protest in Paris on September 28, 2019.

In addition to Dutch farmers, French farmers are also angry with their country's agricultural policy (https://www.reuters.com/article/france-protests/two-french-farmers-unions-call-for-blockade-protest-on-oct-8-idUSL5N26M3Q3). Farmers are planning to demonstrate on October 8 with roadblocks on major French highways, according to Reuters.

Farmers are just one of several groups protesting the French government's policies. After 45 consecutive weeks of protests by the "yellow vest" (gilets jaunes) demonstrators, the protests show no signs of slowing down (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/21/french-police-break-up-yellow-vest-and-black-bloc-protests-in-paris.html). During the Global Climate Strike last month, which drew tens of thousands of demonstrators in Paris, "yellow vest" protesters, and their anarchist counterparts, the "black bloc" protesters, turned violent, and were met with around 7,500 police to control them.

The protests, which were sparked by rising fuel taxes, have since spread to smaller cities, like the southwestern city of Toulouse (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/29/yellow-vest-protests-france-toulouse-police-use-teargas-on-1000-marchers).

Meanwhile, thousands of Paris police officers (https://www.france24.com/en/20191002-i-see-colleagues-crying-ailing-french-police-force-hit-by-officer-protests) are holding demonstrations of their own, in the wake of the rising suicide rate among French officers, which many attribute to the strain of containing the "yellow vest" protests for weeks on end. In 2018, 35 officers committed suicide in France. In 2019 so far, that number grew to 49.

In Russia, thousands gathered to demand the release of protesters who were arrested on charges of rioting.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d93c7102e22af6abb04a060?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp
Protester holds a banner saying "Putin!, opinion is not a crime!" in a demonstration for the release of the arrested activists during the summer riots in Moscow, on September 29, 2019.

In Moscow on Sunday, protesters gathered to call for the end of prosecutions against those who were arrested during last summer's mass protests. Russian police estimated the number of demonstrators to be 20,000, but organizers claim the number is much higher.
(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/29/russia-protesters-demand-end-to-political-crackdown)
The summer's protests drew even larger crowds (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/29/russia-protesters-demand-end-to-political-crackdown), with an estimated 60,000 protesting Russian President Vladimir Putin's policies. The crowds were the largest since Putin's reelection in 2012.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny spoke to the crowd on Sunday (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-protests-moscow-election-arrests-latest-vladimir-putin-opposition-alexei-navalny-a9125666.html), saying that those who were arrested on charges of violence against police officers and rioting will be released in the wake of the new demonstration.

(continued below...)

[Bill Ryan]

(... continued)


Peruvians protested the confusion surrounding President Vizcarra’s government in the streets of Lima.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d93c7ca2e22af4093639eab?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp
A police barricade at Avenida Abancay is set to prevent the passage of protesters and protect public institutions on October 1, 2019 in Lima, Peru.

Peru's president, Martin Vizcarra, dissolved the country's congress (https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/01/world/peru-protests-vizcarra-congress-intl/index.html) on Monday after months of efforts to eliminate corruption proved fruitless due to right-wing lawmakers stonewalling new policies. In response, the lawmakers attempted to have Vizcarra removed, naming Vice President Mercedes Araoz to take over as president. It's unclear whether Vizcarra will remain in office, and the uncertainty has led to mass protests (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/01/perus-president-dissolves-congress-to-push-through-anti-corruption-reforms).
On Tuesday, Peruvians took to the streets of Lima (https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/01/world/peru-protests-vizcarra-congress-intl/index.html) to protest the crumbling government, meeting Lima's police force, which expressed loyalty to Vizcarra.

Protesters in Haiti called for the resignation of President Jovenel Moïse.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d94a125950a8604e81b3662?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp
A man uses burning tires to cut off a street to protest against fuel shortages and to demand the resignation of President Jovenel Moïse, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on September 20, 2019.

An already tumultuous Haiti erupted into more violent protests on September 25, Azam Ahmed reported for The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/28/world/americas/haiti-protests-moise.html). Protesters had called for the resignation of President Jovenel Moïse. They took to the streets again after he gave a 2 am speech calling for unity and saying he would not step down.

Moïse has not been seen publicly since. The country is contending with food, oil, and power shortages.

The current round of protests originated in July 2018, according to the Times, when Moïse attempted to end fuel subsidies. He has since been dogged by corruption allegations over management of a Venezuelan oil subsidy program.

Moïse, according to the Times, has unsuccessfully attempted to appoint a new prime minister several times, with opposition leaders blocking all of his picks since the allegations broke. His most recent attempt — and fourth nominee since 2017 — was last Monday.

Egypt saw another wave of protests calling for the resignation of authoritarian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d94a4ca417532058e26c0c4?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp
Protesters shout slogans during a rare anti-government protest in Cairo on September 21, 2019.

A second wave of protests calling for authoritarian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to step down broke out last Friday, The New York Times reported (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/world/middleeast/egypt-protests.html). Protests first began on September 20, defying the country's ban on demonstrations. According to the Times, one cited cause for protest has been economic grievances, with a third of Egyptians living in poverty.

During el-Sisi's tenure as president, the Egyptian government has jailed opposition figures (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-rights/egypt-arrests-leading-sisi-political-opponents-security-sources-idUSKCN1L81UX), and blocked independent media. The Times reported that over 2,000 protesting Egyptians have been arrested by authorities. Some news services and websites have also been blocked, with Twitter cutting in and out.

Lebanon is experiencing protests due to its slowing economy.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d94c80078c0cd08414e0394?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp
A masked Lebanese protester flashes the V-sign for victory as another carries a burning tire during a demonstration in Lebanon's capital Beirut on September 29, 2019.

Protests over worsening economic conditions broke out across Lebanon on September 29, Bassem Mroue reported for the Associated Press (https://www.apnews.com/7b1cf57569eb404b837a2a69c96ddf90).

According to the Associated Press, the exchange rate for Lebanese pounds to dollars has been stable since 1997 — but last week, people had difficulty getting currency at this rate. The country is contending with a hard currency shortage.

Protesters pointed to political leaders as the cause of economic problems. Reuters reported (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-protests/protests-flare-in-lebanon-over-dire-economic-conditions-idUSKBN1WE0DD) that hundreds of protesters chanted "Down with capitalism" and "Leave!" as they marched near parliament.

Lebanon has one of the highest debt ratios in the world, and, despite heavy investment, a myriad of infrastructure issues, according to the Associated Press.

Syria's Kurdish population is protesting their exclusion from a UN committee.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d94a606d59858056f59fea8?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp
A member of the Kurdish Internal Security Police Force stands guard during a demonstration in front of the United Nations headquarters in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeast Syria on October 2, 2019, over the Kurds exclusion from the UN-backed constitutional committee.

Members of Syria's Kurdish population protested their exclusion from a United Nations committee meant to redraft the Syrian constitution, French news channel France24 reported (https://www.france24.com/en/20191002-syria-s-kurds-protest-exclusion-from-constitutional-committee).

According to the United Nations (https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/09/1048162), the committee — announced on September 23 — will be comprised of 150 members, divided evenly between government, civil society, and opposition members.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the committee "a step along the difficult path out of this conflict."

While individual Kurd representatives will be on the committee, the Kurdish administration overseeing almost one-third of the country will not be presented, according to France24.

The US has supported Kurds in fighting against the Islamic State, Karen DeYoung,
Souad Mekhennet, and Louisa Loveluck reported in The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-launches-last-ditch-effort-to-stop-turkish-invasion-of-northeast-syria/2019/08/04/3b0fd5a8-b55f-11e9-8949-5f36ff92706e_story.html). However, The Post reports that Turkey considers the Kurdish fighters a "terrorist threat."

Protests erupted in Iraq against Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi's government.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d94a6846428f7054254f104?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp
Protesters chant slogans during a demonstration against corruption and lack of basic services in the central Iraqi shrine city of Najaf on October 1, 2019.

Protests that broke out on October 1 in Iraq have already left two dead, according to The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/world/middleeast/two-killed-in-anti-government-protests-in-iraq.html).

The protests signal the most recent discontent with Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi's year-old government. The Times reported that protesters were displeased with the government's inability to improve public services and unemployment, as well as with Abdul Mahdi's recent removal of popular counterterrorism chief Lieutenant General Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi.

Mustafa Salim and Louisa Loveluck at The Washington Post reported (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/hundreds-wounded-in-iraq-as-police-fire-tear-gas-bullets-at-protesters/2019/10/01/f546d54e-e466-11e9-b0a6-3d03721b85ef_story.html) that police first fired tear gas, and then live ammunition, into crowds of protesters in Baghdad. In addition to the two deaths, 286 people were injured nationwide, according to the Post; 40 were on the security force.

In Jerusalem, Palestinians protested the hospitalization of a Palestinian detainee accused of killing an Israeli teenager.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d94c80b51823d07b919bb97?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp
Palestinians demonstrate with signs in support of, and with the pictures of Samer al-Arbeed, a Palestinian arrested by Israeli on suspicion of leading a cell allegedly behind an attack near Dolev settlement, near the Hadassah Medical Center Mount Scopus in Jerusalem on October 1, 2019.

On October 1, Palestinians protested in Jerusalem and the West Bank over the hospitalization of a Palestinian detainee accused of killing an Israeli teenager, Ali Sawafta reported for Reuters (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-protests/palestinians-protest-against-israel-over-hospitalized-detainee-idUSKBN1WG4HV).

Samer al-Arbid was hospitalized during his interrogation by Israeli forces. al-Arbid was arrested and detained for being a suspect in the bombing near an Israeli settlement that killed a 17-year-old Israeli hiking with her family, according to Reuters.

Shin Bet, Israel's security service, said that al-Arbid felt ill during their interrogation, while Palestinian officials — and al-Arbid's lawyer — accused them of torturing him, Reuters reported.

Simultaneously, Arab-Israeli students in the north walked out of school to protest violence against Arab communities, The Times of Israel reported (https://www.timesofisrael.com/arab-israeli-students-walk-out-of-school-to-protest-wave-of-violence/). More than 60 members of the Arab community have been killed in 2019, with four killed on September 20, according to The Times of Israel.

UAW workers have been on strike for two weeks in the United States.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d811ca22e22af47c44a261b?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp
UAW General Motors workers on strike.

General Motors members of the United Auto Workers have been on strike for over two weeks — marking the longest labor action of its type since 1982, Business Insider reported (https://www.businessinsider.com/uaw-rejects-new-gm-offer-makes-new-counterproposal-2019-10).

On October 1, the union rejected a GM proposal that would end the walkout of almost 50,000 workers. However, the union did progress by offering up a counterproposal, according to Business Insider.

"We continue to negotiate and exchange proposals, and remain committed to reaching an agreement that builds a stronger future for our employees and our company," a GM spokesperson told Business Insider.

[sunwings]

Now Bolivia has felt the Morphic field!;)

Bolivia election: Anger mounts over result confusion

Violent protests have erupted in at least nine cities in Bolivia amid ongoing confusion about the result of Sunday's presidential election.

Suspicion arose among opponents of the incumbent, Evo Morales, after the quick count was surprisingly halted.

His main rival, Carlos Mesa, said the quick count's results were fraudulent.

Counting is still under way with Mr Morales in first place but currently with not enough of a lead to stave off a second round.

1184545315724111872

[Bill Ryan]

Now Bolivia has felt the Morphic field!;)
And Malta.


How did riots at Hal Far detention centre start?
https://tvm.com.mt/en/news/listen-how-did-riots-at-hal-far-detention-centre-start (https://www.tvm.com.mt/en/news/listen-how-did-riots-at-hal-far-detention-centre-start/)



UPDATED: Immigrants take control of Hal Far centre
https://tvm.com.mt/en/news/updated-immigrants-take-control-of-hal-far-centre

[Hervé]

...

... adding a pinch of German grumbling:

Over 200 Tractors Block Traffic in Berlin as Farmers Protest Gov't Agricultural Policies - Video (https://sputniknews.com/europe/201910221077117377-over-200-tractors-block-traffic-in-berlin-as-farmers-protest-govt-agricultural-policies---video/)

Sputnik Europe (https://sputniknews.com/europe/)
15:57 22.10.2019


https://cdn2.img.sputniknews.com/images//107711/74/1077117418.jpg
© REUTERS / ANNEGRET HILSE


BERLIN (Sputnik) - More than 200 tractors arrived on Tuesday in Berlin and blocked traffic in the centre of the city as part of a rally, organised by the non-profit farmers' movement known as Land Schafft Verbindung (Countryside Creates Connection), against the government's agricultural and climate policies.

The demonstration started on Monday morning in the state of Brandenburg. The participants then headed to the Tiergarten park near the government quarter in Berlin. Some farmers who are currently joining the rally are also moving toward the park.

Additional police forces are trying to prevent the passage of tractor columns into the city centre, while as of noon on Tuesday, traffic on the streets around the park is partially blocked.

1186593300872155136
The protesters turned off their car engines and said that they intended to stay in Tiergarten until more demonstrators arrived.

Those opposing government policies, in particular, the so-called environmental package (https://sputniknews.com/europe/201910171077073835-dutch-farmers-resume-tractor-protest-against-anti-pollution-measures-in-the-hague---photo/), which imposes higher taxes on carbon emissions, were seen on the hoods of some vehicles.

1186582633234477056
The German government presented its climate change (https://sputniknews.com/europe/201910201077101824-germany-greta-thunberg-climate-hysteria/) plan for the period until 2030 in September. Planned measures include higher taxes on CO2 emissions (https://sputniknews.com/europe/201909221076862209-germanys-chancellor-defence-minister-slammed-for-taking-2-flights-to-us-amid-push-to-cut-emissions/); increased prices for petrol, diesel, gas and mazut; as well as preferences for buyers of more environmentally-friendly heating systems. The programme costs some €50 billion (some $55 billion).

[Ernie Nemeth]

For Canada, I will say this: if minority-rich Toronto and area continues to win elections it will cause a great deal of trouble. The cities of Toronto do not reflect the mood of the country at all. But the rural vote, and the vote of the small towns, where the sentiment is far different, matters not a whit. And the western vote has never had a chance. Most elections, the victory is won before the west even heads to the voting booths.

The only good that came out of our vote yesterday is that the Liberals lost their majority and will now have to bend to the will of the Conservatives or form a block with the NDP.

The take away is that minorities of all types decide the vote here now...sorry, I meant new Canadians and anyone who for any reason feels like they have been marginalized because of a lifestyle choice.

[shaberon]

From what I have seen, the situation in Lebanon appears to be pretty directly against a sitting Oligarchy.

In Iraq, whatever is happening is said to be "inflamed by social media", whereas about 80% of the traffic comes from Saudi funded news sources in the UK and so forth. It is said that around 6% of the actual complaints or plans to protest were internal to Iraq.

In my view, there is always an element of rebellion which may be justified, but in practice, there is a purely violent element that is typically foreign interference. It's a bind because some form of government is necessary, or things would be even more brutal, but I am not impressed with most of them.

Someone told me a long time ago that the European tractor blockades were a tradition. And Cairo seems to be some kind of magnet for demonstrations. The Irish more or less settled one of the longest running conflicts in the world with two bombs in the City of London.

I would tend to agree that examples are legitimate in the case when the worm turns and the government is brought to heel. Jefferson said this should happen approximately every generation, which seems reasonable. But if so then your motive is not to destroy things or kill people. Nevertheless, any violent act can easily have a chain reaction.

Also that "if they keep you talking about it, nothing happens". However I am not a single-issue type of person to be motivated by some new tax, it is something more fundamental and complete, which as far as I know is the removal of citizenship.

One is no longer eligible for any benefits, which are part of the way to keep you talking and complaining about it.

So for someone like me, having paid into social security, then if I sever the relationship, they will have stolen it from me outright. That is why there should be a freaking huge warning label on that card "may be hazardous to your health" so that someone can understand what it means before you take it.

"U. S. Citizen" does not mean "were you born here", it is a surrender to an authority, where you act as an unpaid employee and a status criminal. Without consent, there is no authority. One has to say, I was not born in the United States, I was born in a State. They will leave you alone and you will be unable to use any of the system such as banks or real estate.

A big march is built into that. As far as I can tell, it is a legally correct way to change one's relationship. At that point, one is only affected by Code. But unless you are domiciled on private property, then you have no land.

In other words the American revolution did establish the situation where a person is not a subject of any government; but none of the other ones have. There is no option but to revolt over some issue.

[sunwings]

Just came across this 30 minute segment where it talks about these uprisings.

Qy8JcyGLsUQ

[Hervé]

The New World is Emerging Before Us (https://www.voltairenet.org/article208020.html)



by Thierry Meyssan Voltaire Network
Damascus (Syria) 22 October 2019


Thierry Meyssan underlines the extreme gravity, not of the US withdrawal from Syria, but of the collapse of the world’s current landmarks. According to him, we are entering a short transition period, during which the current masters of the game, the "financial capitalists" - and those he refers to here have nothing to do with either original capitalism or the original bank - will be rejected in favour of the rules of law laid down by Russia in 1899.



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عربي (https://www.voltairenet.org/article208017.html) Deutsch (https://www.voltairenet.org/article208017.html) français (https://www.voltairenet.org/article208007.html) italiano (https://www.voltairenet.org/article208019.html) Português (https://www.voltairenet.org/article208015.html) română (https://www.voltairenet.org/article208022.html) русский (https://www.voltairenet.org/article208021.html) Türkçe (https://www.voltairenet.org/article208014.html) ελληνικά (https://www.voltairenet.org/article208027.html)






https://www.voltairenet.org/local/cache-vignettes/L400xH300/208007-1-5-03a31.jpg
King Salman receives President Vladimir Putin, the Peacekeeper.


It’s a time that only happens once or twice a century. A new world order is emerging. All previous references disappear. Those who were doomed to grieve triumph, while those who ruled are thrown into hell. The official statements and interpretations made by journalists clearly no longer correspond to the events that follow one another. Commentators must change their discourse as quickly as possible, overturn it in its entirety or be caught up in the whirlwind of history.

In February 1943, the Soviet victory over the Nazi Reich marked the turnaround of the Second World War. The next steps were inevitable. It was not until the Anglo-American landing in Normandy (June 1944), the Yalta conference (February 1945), the suicide of Chancellor Hitler (February 1945) and finally the surrender of the Reich (8 May 1945) that this new world emerged. In one year (June 44-May 45), the Great Reich had been replaced by the Soviet-US duopoly. The United Kingdom and France, which were still the world’s two leading powers twelve years earlier, were to witness the decolonization of their empires.

It is a moment like this that we are experiencing today.

Each historical period has its own economic system and builds a political super-structure to protect it. At the end of the Cold War and the break-up of the USSR, President Bush Sr. demobilized one million US soldiers and entrusted the search for prosperity to the bosses of his multinationals. They formed an alliance with Deng Xiaoping, relocated US jobs to China, which became the world’s workshop. Far from offering prosperity to US citizens, they monopolized their profits, gradually causing the slow disappearance of the Western middle classes. In 2001, they financed the September 11 attacks to impose on the Pentagon the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy of destroying state structures. President Bush Jr. then transformed the "Broader Middle East" into a theatre of "endless war".

The liberation in one week of a quarter of Syrian territory is not only the victory of President Bashar al-Assad, "the man who had to leave eight years ago", it marks the failure of the military strategy aimed at establishing the supremacy of financial capitalism. What seemed unimaginable has happened. The world order has changed. Further events are inevitable.

President Vladimir Putin’s very grand reception in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates testifies to the spectacular turnaround of the Gulf powers, which are now shifting to the Russian side.

The equally spectacular redistribution of cards in Lebanon sanctions the same political failure of financial capitalism. In a dollarized country where there have been no dollars left for a month, where banks are closing their counters and bank withdrawals are limited, anti-corruption demonstrations will not stop the overthrow of the old order.

The convulsions of the old order are spreading. Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno attributes the popular revolt against the measures imposed by financial capitalism to his predecessor, Rafael Correa, who lives in exile in Belgium, and to a symbol of resistance to this form of human exploitation, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, although they have no influence in his country.

The United Kingdom has already withdrawn its special forces from Syria and is attempting to leave the supranational state of Brussels (European Union). After thinking about preserving the Common Market (Theresa May’s project), it decided to break with the whole of European construction (Boris Johnson’s project). After the mistakes of Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron, France suddenly lost all credibility and influence. Donald Trump’s United States ceased to be the "indispensable nation", the "policeman of the world" in the service of financial capitalism, to once again become a great economic power itself. They are withdrawing their nuclear arsenal from Turkey and are preparing to close the CentCom in Qatar. Russia is recognized by all as the "peacemaker" by assuring the triumph of the international law it had created by convening the "International Peace Conference" in The Hague in 1899, the principles of which have since been trampled underfoot by NATO members.


https://www.voltairenet.org/local/cache-vignettes/L400xH300/208007-2-4-c1ed8.jpg
The International Peace Conference of 1899. It took more than a century to understand its implications.


As the Second World War ended the League of Nations to create the United Nations, this new world is likely to give birth to a new international organization based on the principles of the 1899 Conference of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and the French Nobel Peace Prize winner, Léon Bourgeois. This will require first dissolving NATO, which will try to survive by enlarging to the Pacific, and the European Union, a refuge state for financial capitalism.

We have to understand what is going on. We are entering a period of transition. Lenin said in 1916 that imperialism was the supreme stage of the form of capitalism that disappeared with the two World Wars and the stock market crisis of 1929. Today’s world is that of financial capitalism, which is devastating economies one by one for the sole benefit of a few super-rich people. Its supreme stage implied the division of the world into two parts: on the one hand, stable and globalised countries, and on the other hand, regions of the world without states, reduced to being mere reserves of raw materials. This model, contested by President Trump in the United States, the yellow vests in Western Europe or Syria in the Levant, is dying before our eyes.


Thierry Meyssan (https://www.voltairenet.org/auteur29.html?lang=en)

Translation Roger Lagassé (https://www.voltairenet.org/auteur125483.html?lang=en)

[Hervé]

Pepe Escobar: Watch neoliberalism burn (https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/10/23/burn-neoliberalism-burn/)

Pepe Escobar Strategic Culture Foundation (https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/10/23/burn-neoliberalism-burn/)
Wed, 23 Oct 2019 00:00 UTC


https://www.sott.net/image/s27/542618/large/GettyImages_1177447524_640x426.jpg (https://www.sott.net/image/s27/542618/full/GettyImages_1177447524_640x426.jpg)


Neoliberalism is - literally - burning. And from Ecuador to Chile, South America, once again, is showing the way. Against the vicious, one-size-fits-all IMF austerity prescription, which deploys weapons of mass economic destruction to smash national sovereignty and foster social inequality, South America finally seems poised to reclaim the power to forge its own history.

Three presidential elections are in play. Bolivia's seem to have been settled this past Sunday - even as the usual suspects are yelling "Fraud!" Argentina and Uruguay are on next Sunday.

Blowback against what David Harvey has splendidly conceptualized as accumulation by dispossession is, and will continue to be, a bitch. It will eventually reach Brazil - which as it stands continues to be torn to pieces by Pinochetist ghosts. Brazil, eventually, after immense pain, will rise up again. After all, the excluded and humiliated all across South America are finally discovering they carry a Joker inside themselves.

Chile privatizes everything
The question posed by the Chilean street is stark: "What's worse, to evade taxes or to invade the subway?" It's all a matter of doing the class struggle math. Chile's GDP grew 1,1% last year while the profits of the largest corporations grew ten times more. It's not hard to find from where the huge gap was extracted. The Chilean street stresses how water, electricity, gas, health, medicine, transportation, education, the salar (salt flats) in Atacama, even the glaciers were privatized.

That's classic accumulation by dispossession, as the cost of living has become unbearable for the overwhelming majority of 19 million Chileans, whose average monthly income does not exceed $500.

Paul Walder, director of the Politika portal and an analyst for the Latin-American Center of Strategic Analysis (CLAE) notes how less than a week after the end of protests in Ecuador - which forced neoliberal vulture Lenin Moreno to ditch a gas price hike - Chile entered a very similar cycle of protests.

Walder correctly defines Chile's President Sebastian Pinera as the turkey in a long-running banquet that involves the whole Chilean political class. No wonder the mad as hell Chilean street now makes no difference between the government, the political parties and the police. Pinera, predictably, criminalized all social movements; sent the army to the streets for unmitigated repression; and installed a curfew.

Pinera is Chile's 7th wealthiest billionaire, with assets valued at $2.7 billion, spread out in airlines, supermarkets, TV, credit cards and football. He's a sort of turbo-charged Moreno, a neoliberal Pinochetist. Pinera's brother, Jose, was actually a minister under Pinochet, and the man who implemented Chile's privatized welfare system - a key source of social disintegration and despair. And it's all interlinked: current Brazilian Finance Minister Paulo Guedes, a Chicago boy, lived and worked in Chile at the time, and now wants to repeat the absolutely disastrous experiment in Brazil.

The bottom line is that the economic "model" that Guedes wants to impose in Brazil has totally collapsed in Chile.

Chile's top resource is copper. Copper mines, historically, were owned by the US, but then were nationalized by President Salvador Allende in 1971; thus war criminal Henry Kissinger's plan to eliminate Allende, which culminated in the original 9/11, in 1973.

Pinochet's dictatorship later re-privatized the mines. The largest of them all, Escondida, in the Atacama desert - which accounts for 9% of the world's copper - belongs to Anglo-Australian giant Bhp Billiton. The biggest copper buyer in world markets is China. At least two-thirds of income generated by Chilean copper goes not to the Chilean people, but to foreign multinationals.

The Argentine debacle
Before Chile, Ecuador was semi-paralyzed: inactive schools, no urban transport, food shortages, rampant speculation, serious disturbances on oil exports. Under fire by the mobilization of 25,000 indigenous peoples in the streets, President Lenin Moreno cowardly left a power void in Quito, transferring the seat of government to Guayaquil. Indigenous peoples took over the governance in many important cities and towns. The National Assembly was AWOL for almost two weeks, without the will to even try to solve the political crisis.

By announcing a state of emergency and a curfew, Moreno laid out a red carpet for the Armed Forces - and Pinera duly repeated the procedure in Chile. The difference is that in Ecuador Moreno bet on Divide and Rule between the indigenous peoples' movements and the rest of the population. Pinera resorts to outright brute force.

Apart from applying the same old tactics of raising prices to obtain further IMF funds, Ecuador also displayed a classic articulation between a neoliberal government, big business and the proverbial US ambassador, in this case Michael Fitzpatrick, a former Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere matters in charge of the Andean region, Brazil and the Southern Cone up to 2018.

The clearest case of total neoliberal failure in South America is Argentina. Less than two months ago in Buenos Aires, I saw the vicious social effects of the peso in free fall, inflation at 54%, a de facto food emergency and the impoverishment of even solid sectors of the middle class. Mauricio Macri's government literally burned most of the $58 billion IMF loan - there's still $5 billion to arrive. Macri is set to lose the presidential elections: Argentines will have to foot his humongous bill.

Macri's economic model (https://www.pagina12.com.ar/226631-pinera-modelo-de-macri) could not but be Pinera's - actually Pinochet's, where public services are run as a business. A key connection between Macri and Pinera is the ultra-neoliberal Freedom Foundation sponsored by Mario Vargas Llosa, who at least boasts the redeeming quality of having been a decent novelist a long time ago.

Macri, a millionaire, disciple of Ayn Rand and incapable of displaying empathy towards anyone, is essentially a cipher, pre-fabricated by his Ecuadorian guru Jaime Duran Barba as a robotic product of data mining, social networks and focus groups. A hilarious take on his insecurities may be found in La Cabeza de Macri: Como Piensa, Vive y Manda el Primer Presidente de la No Politica, by Franco Lindner.

Among myriad shenanigans, Macri is indirectly linked to fabulous money laundering machine HSBC. The president of HSBC in Argentina was Gabriel Martino. In 2015, four thousand Argentine accounts worth $3.5 billion were discovered at HSBC in Switzerland. This spectacular capital flight was engineered by the bank. Yet Martino was essentially saved by Macri, and became one of his top advisers.

Beware the IMF vulture ventures
All eyes now should be on Bolivia. As of this writing, President Evo Morales won Sunday's presidential elections in the first round - obtaining, by a slim margin, the necessary 10% spread for a candidate to win if he does not obtain the 50% plus one of the votes. Morales essentially got it right at the end, when votes from rural zones and from abroad were fully counted, and the opposition had already started to hit the streets to apply pressure. Not surprisingly, the OAS - servile to US interests - has proclaimed a "lack of trust in the electoral process".

Evo Morales represents a project of sustainable, inclusive development, and crucially, autonomous from international finance. No wonder the whole Washington Consensus apparatus hates his guts. Economy Minister Luis Arce Catacora cut to the chase: "When Evo Morales won his first election in 2005, 65% of the population was low income, now 62% of the population has access to a medium income."

The opposition, without any project except wild privatizations, and no concern whatsoever for social policies, is left to yell "Fraud!", but this could take a very nasty turn in the next few days. In the tony suburbs of southern La Paz, class hate against Evo Morales is the favorite sport: the President is referred to as "indio", a "tyrant" and "ignorant". Cholos of the Altiplano are routinely defined by white landowning elites in the plains as an "evil race".

None of that changes the fact that Bolivia is now the most dynamic economy in Latin America, as stressed (https://www.cartamaior.com.br/?/Editoria/Pelo-Mundo/Bolivia-o-que-esta-em-jogo-nesta-eleicao/6/45519) by top Argentine analyst Atilio Boron (http://atilioboron.com.ar).

The campaign to discredit Morales, which is bound to become even more vicious, is part of imperial 5G war, which, Boron writes, totally obliterates "the chronic poverty that the absolute majority of the population suffered for centuries", a state that always "maintained the population under total lack of institutional protection" and the "pillaging of natural wealth and the common good".

Of course the specter of IMF vulture ventures won't vanish in South America like a charm. Even as the usual suspects, via World Bank reports, now seem "concerned" about poverty; Scandinavians offer the Nobel Prize on Economics to three academics studying poverty; and Thomas Piketty, in Capital and Ideology, tries to disassemble the hegemonic justification for accumulation of wealth.

What still remains absolutely off limits for the guardians of the current world-system is to really investigate hardcore neoliberalism as the root cause of wealth hyper-concentration and social inequality. It's not enough to offer Band-Aids anymore. The streets of South America are alight. Blowback is now in full effect.

Related:

Moreno & his neoliberalism are behind Ecuador's turmoil, ex-president Correa tells RT - UPDATE: Protestors storm parliament (https://www.sott.net/article/421665-Moreno-his-neoliberalism-are-behind-Ecuadors-turmoil-ex-president-Correa-tells-RT-UPDATE-Protestors-storm-parliament)



Neoliberalism: The 'progressive' nicer version of neoconservativism (https://www.sott.net/article/421776-Neoliberalism-The-progressive-nicer-version-of-neoconservativism)



Mexican president 'ends neoliberalism', introduces post-neoliberal plan (https://www.sott.net/article/409411-Mexican-president-ends-neoliberalism-introduces-post-neoliberal-plan)



The EU must ditch neoliberalism - or Europe's people will ditch the EU (https://www.sott.net/article/403301-The-EU-must-ditch-neoliberalism-or-Europes-people-will-ditch-the-EU)



James Petras: Rightwing interlude and the death rattle of neoliberalism in Latin America (https://www.sott.net/article/395892-James-Petras-Rightwing-interlude-and-the-death-rattle-of-neoliberalism-in-Latin-America)



Amazon's fusion with the State shows Neoliberalism's drift to Neo-Fascism (https://www.sott.net/article/395751-Amazons-fusion-with-the-State-shows-Neoliberalisms-drift-to-Neo-Fascism)



Neoliberalism on steroids: Punishing the victims and rewarding the perpetrators of the 2008 financial crisis (https://www.sott.net/article/393265-Neoliberalism-on-steroids-Punishing-the-victims-and-rewarding-the-perpetrators-of-the-2008-financial-crisis)



What is the role of neoliberalism in Spain's constitutional crisis? (https://www.sott.net/article/364292-What-is-the-role-of-neoliberalism-in-Spains-constitutional-crisis)



Fruits of Neoliberalism: Northern England youth 50% more likely to die prematurely than Southern counterparts (https://www.sott.net/article/358695-Fruits-of-Neoliberalism-Northern-England-youth-50-more-likely-to-die-prematurely-than-Southern-counterparts)



Neoliberalism, a species of fascism (https://www.sott.net/article/350515-Neoliberalism-a-species-of-fascism)



Is Neoliberalism creating an epidemic of mental illness? Wrenching society apart (https://www.sott.net/article/340317-Is-Neoliberalism-creating-an-epidemic-of-mental-illness-Wrenching-society-apart)



Neoliberalism: The killer plague of the 21st century (https://www.sott.net/article/340214-Neoliberalism-The-killer-plague-of-the-21st-century)



Neoliberalism is creating loneliness - that's what's wrenching society apart (https://www.sott.net/article/334796-Neoliberalism-is-creating-loneliness-thats-whats-wrenching-society-apart)



The white working class rebelled because neoliberalism was literally killing them (https://www.sott.net/article/333984-The-white-working-class-rebelled-because-neoliberalism-was-literally-killing-them)

[RogeRio]

interestingly, the electoral agenda for follow-up at the last meeting (http://forodesaopaulo.org/memoria-del-xxv-encuentro-del-foro-de-sao-paulo-25-al-28-de-julio-de-2019-caracas-venezuela/) of Foro de Sao Paulo, in Caracas (Venezuela) jul-2019, did not foresee a runoff in Bolivia presidential elections, where Evo Morales was surprised that didn't win in the first round, and even announced that there is a coup (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/23/bolivia-evo-morales-coup-accusation-opposition-foreign-powers) (with foreign powers).

https://cdn.oantagonista.net/uploads/2019/10/agenda-foro-de-sao-paulo-2019_o-antagonista-628x180.png

note: Foro de São Paulo is an International Entity, created by Fidel Castro, Lula and Hugo Chaves (1990), which aims to unify all governments of the South and Central Americas.

http://forodesaopaulo.org/wp-content/themes/forodesaopaulo/library/images/logo-site.png

[sunwings]

We are seeing a Democratic crisis around the world. The British Prime Minister will soon call an election which will result in another government without a majority. The Spanish government is in the same predicament.

Politics has become polarised probably because human beings have to take part. The whole Brexit farce was best summed up when after 2.5 years of negotiating the Prime minister decided to start a conversation with the opposition parties to get their point of view.

For me, democracy must change. I have the power, I will do what we want not what you want is not acceptable anymore. Not in any business around the world do you have two separate boards of directors trying to achieve opposite results.

[Caliban]

Bill, you called out for Americans to get into the streets and protest as our South American brothers and sisters are currently doing.

If you recall, in 2011 there were lots of people doing that as part of the Occupy movement, in several cities here. Now, that was at a time when we had horrible unemployment and evictions and the great mess that followed 2008/2009. Those involved with Occupy didn't receive much support from the general populace--and they didn't even block streets and burn tires. They occupied public spaces and held teach ins and fed people.

Now, when the employment is much higher (so they say), what are the odds of even getting an Occupy movement going again, let alone a fully-fledged protest movment? Pretty low. Here, it's Trump all the time and the Russians and the Ukraineans. And this little Antifa thing going that is more like a little pest than any kind of serious protest movement, largely regarded by the populace as misguided, stupidly violent, spoiled children in cowardly masks.

Very high cost of living, no real health care plans, diminishing REAL wages, homeless population out of control on West coast, Amazon and Apple paying no corporate taxes for years, so yes, lots of problems. Maybe we're too diffused geographically, maybe we're too divided (superficially) politically, maybe we're too placated by the Kardashians and the Bachelor, but I don't see any great movements happening here.

But, you never know.

[Cara]

Protests in Germany:

1187102427943751683

[Wind]

It's going to get much worse before it gets better once and for all. We haven't been to the eye of the storm yet, but we are seeing signs of it.

If people can keep their heads cool in times of chaos then the transition might be less painful and chaotic. That's up to each individual.

[Kamikaze]

delete it all.

[James Newell]

Once I had a theory that x class emissions could affect planetary populaces. I went to spaceweather.com and found no significant increase at all for sunspots for October or sept but there was this:
Cosmic Rays Increasing for the 4th Year in a Row
February 21, 2019 / Dr.Tony Phillips

Feb. 21, 2019: Cosmic rays in the stratosphere are intensifying for the 4th year in a row. This finding comes from a campaign of almost weekly high-altitude balloon launches conducted by the students of Earth to Sky Calculus. Since March 2015, there has been a ~13% increase in X-rays and gamma-rays over central California, where the students have launched hundreds of balloons.

neutronsandxrays2

The grey points in the graph are Earth to Sky balloon data. Overlaid on that time series is a record of neutron monitor data from the Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory in Oulu, Finland. The correlation between the two data sets is impressive, especially considering their wide geographic separation and differing methodologies. Neutron monitors have long been considered a “gold standard” for monitoring cosmic rays on Earth. This shows that our student-built balloons are gathering data of similar quality.

Why are cosmic rays increasing? The short answer is “Solar Minimum.” Right now, the 11-year solar cycle is plunging into one of the deepest minima of the Space Age. The sun’s weakening magnetic field and flagging solar wind are not protecting us as usual from deep-space radiation. Earth to Sky balloon launches in multiple countries and US states show that this is a widespread phenomenon.

solarcycle

Cosmic rays are of interest to anyone who flies on airplanes. The International Commission on Radiological Protection has classified pilots as occupational radiation workers because of cosmic ray doses they receive while flying. A recent study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health shows that flight attendants face an elevated risk of cancer compared to members of the general population. They listed cosmic rays as one of several risk factors. There are also controversial studies that suggest cosmic rays promote the formation of clouds in the atmosphere; if so, increasing cosmic rays could affect weather and climate.
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[Cara]

The url for the story posted by James Newell above is: https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2019/02/21/cosmic-rays-increasing-for-the-4th-year-in-a-row/

Related to this and from spaceweather.com, here’s a graph showing cosmic radiation increase measured by weather balloons released in California for the last five years.

https://spaceweather.com/images2019/15oct19/balloonplot.png
From: https://spaceweather.com/images2019/15oct19/balloonplot.png

[Bill Ryan]

A statement today from the United Nations:


https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/10/1050031

Protests around the world: Politicians must address ‘growing deficit of trust’, urges Guterres

Protests in cities across the world in recent days show that “people are hurting and want to be heard” by political leaders who must now address a “growing deficit of trust”, said the UN chief (https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/press-encounter/2019-10-25/secretary-generals-press-encounter) on Friday.

Speaking to correspondents at UN Headquarters in New York, António Guterres (https://www.un.org/sg/en) said that although “every situation is unique” there are common underlying factors which constitute “rising threats to the social contract” between citizens and the political class.

“People want a level playing field, including social, economic and financial systems that work for all”, together with respect for their human rights and a real say in decisions that affect them, Mr. Guterres added.

Current or recent demonstrations and protests have raged in the streets of Bolivia, Chile, Hong Kong, Ecuador, Egypt, Guinea, Haiti, Iraq and Lebanon, said the UN human rights office (OHCHR (http://www.ohchr.org/EN/pages/home.aspx)), briefing reporters in Geneva earlier in the day.

Major protests earlier in the year were also seen in Algeria, Honduras, Nicaragua, Malawi, Russia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Protests, rights violations

OHCHR Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said the UN had received reports of police using force against protesters in Bolivia following disputed election results this week, including tear gas, and she called on all actors, “including political leaders and their followers, to exercise restraint in order to reduce tensions”.

There was a similar message for politicians in Baghdad, where at least 157 have been killed and nearly 5,500 injured across Iraq. There are “credible reports” of serious rights violations including killing of unarmed protesters, and excessive use of force, combined with Government repression of information.

In Chile, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet – twice elected president there – said on Thursday her office would send a team of three officers to the country to establish the facts behind allegations of rights abuses, following days of protests over inequality, the rising cost of living, and a declared state of emergency.

And in Lebanon, the “biggest spontaneous protests in over a decade” have continued, despite a package of anti-corruption reforms announced by the Prime Minister, said Ms. Shamdasani: “Tens of thousands of peaceful protesters from all walks of life and confessions, continue to unleash anger across the country, against what they perceive to be decades of corruption and government mismanagement.”

‘No excuse for violence’ - UN chief

Mr. Guterres said he was “deeply concerned that some protests have led violence and loss of life”. Governments have an obligation to uphold free expression and peaceful assembly, and to “safeguard civic space”.

But while security forces needed to use maximum restraint, it is also incumbent on protesters “to follow the examples of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and other champions of non-violent change”, added the UN chief.

“There can be no excuse for violence – from any quarter. Above all I urge leaders everywhere to listen to the real problems of real people. Our world needs action and ambition, to build fair globalization, strengthen social cohesion and tackle the climate crisis.”

He concluded with a final note of advice to those in power, from Algeria, to Zimbabwe: “With solidarity and smart policies, leaders can show they ‘get it’ - and point the way to a more just world.”

[TomKat]

Blockading supply chains really makes a government pay attention. And this, in Holland, just brings the country to a total standstill. Will this ever happen in the US and Canada? Answers, please. :)


It won't happen in the US & Canada until there is a MUCH higher unemployment rate. It's at all-time lows now. Even idiots are getting hired. Which means the workers don't have time to do anything else but plop down on a couch with a beer and rest up for the next day of overwork.

I'd also like to point out that, historically, these mass protests are organized by intelligence agencies: color revolutions, Arab spring, coordinated college student protests from the 60s and onward. These 3rd world protests are understandable but also follow on the heels of the organized illegal immigration movements in Europe and the US.

[Kryztian]

Indonesia’s Activists Are Ready to Fight Together
Coalitions are forming in the face of threats to democracy and pluralism
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/16/indonesia-protests-jokowi-democracy-pluralism/

https://i.imgur.com/nm03IFD.jpg

Since the fall of the Indonesian dictator Suharto in 1998, civil society has flourished under the country’s burgeoning democracy. Observers even began calling Indonesia the most democratic nation in Southeast Asia.

Yet at the same time, movements have been fragmented and divided into thematic silos that make it hard to get across a coherent message. Women’s rights activists tend to work solely on women’s issues, for example, and environmentalists on agrarian reform and climate change, with little crossover and cooperation. But September saw a change, with tens of thousands of students, activists, and other citizens across the archipelago coming together to protest draconian new civil laws that also weaken anti-corruption efforts. Now, a broad coalition has emerged—at exactly the time that Indonesian democracy has come most under threat in 20 years.

The biggest protests have been in the capital, Jakarta, and the cultural center of Yogyakarta, but significant demonstrations have taken place in almost all major cities. Two students died during clashes with security forces in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi, and another three died in Jakarta following injuries sustained after tear gas and water cannons were used liberally despite the rallies’ largely peaceful nature.

While university students led the initial demonstration on Sept. 23, the following day saw a diverse array of people gather in the streets, with activists, workers, farmers, fishermen and women, and high school students united in concern over the direction in which their country was heading. This was unusual in Indonesia, where protests often see the same dedicated individuals turning out again and again.

So why now? How did these protests get so big so fast, and is the coalition-building movement they have fostered sustainable?

Indonesia in mid-2019 is facing a perfect storm of problems. Crucially, the last national election was just a few months ago. President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, has not even been inaugurated for his second term yet—it begins on Oct. 20. Consequently, tensions between Jokowi supporters and those of his opponent Prabowo Subianto remain high, with “buzzers”—social media users who are allegedly paid to promote their candidate and cause doubt about the other—from both sides extremely active, especially on Twitter.

The first major issue the country faced after the April presidential and parliamentary elections was the massive forest and peatland fires that ravaged Sumatra and Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of Borneo) and blanketed a significant part of Southeast Asia under a deadly cloud of smoke. The country’s National Disaster Management Authority believes 90 percent of these fires were deliberately lit, mainly for clearing land to establish new oil palm plantations. This led to widespread disbelief and anger among citizens that authorities weren’t doing more to stop the fires and prosecute those responsible. With increased concern about climate change, personal health, and environmental degradation, young people in particular began demanding action on social media with the hashtag #IndonesiaDibakarBukanTerbakar (“Indonesia is not burning, it is being burnt”).

Next came protests in Papua following a police crackdown on Papuan university students in Surabaya, East Java, after students alleged that police called them “monkeys”—a racial slur. Papua, the easternmost part of Indonesia, became part of the nation in 1969 following a flawed referendum many allege was rigged. An independence insurgency has simmered ever since, with the Free Papua Movement at its forefront. Indonesia’s military has a powerful presence across Papua, and allegations of human rights abuses on the part of security forces and private mining interests are frequent but often difficult to document or prove. The government refuses to allow foreign journalists and diplomats into the region.

The racist incident unleashed a cascade of pent-up tensions, prompting widespread protests in Papua and an overdue reckoning with endemic racism across the archipelago. Demonstrations broke out in dozens of towns across the island’s two provinces. The government deployed tens of thousands of troops to restore order. Hundreds of people have been injured and more than 30 killed in the unrest, with the internet shut down across the region and thousands of non-Papuans evacuated from highland areas. But this time, young people across Indonesia began speaking up, demanding respect for human rights. This is a notable shift worth further examination—previously, even many progressive Indonesians were not aware of the situation in Papua or avoided taking a stance for fear of being labelled as supporting separatism in a country with a fiercely nationalist streak.

Amid all this, the Indonesian parliament ratified a bill that dramatically restricts the capability of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). One of the country’s few widely trusted and respected organizations, the KPK was originally set up in 2002 during the post-Suharto reform era to investigate and prosecute rampant corruption. It has been incredibly successful at prosecuting corruption cases: It has an almost 100 percent success rate in convictions and even sent a former speaker of parliament, Setya Novanto, to prison for 15 years for his role in stealing $170 million in public funds. But now, under the new law, the KPK will become a government agency rather than an independent body. The law was passed in a record five days despite calls for public debate.

The final straw was the proposed ratification of a new criminal code and changes to laws on labor, agrarian reform, mining, and the correctional system. For many Indonesians who took to the streets, this was the greatest concern. If ratified, it would forbid criticism of the president, introduce the death penalty for treason, restrict abortion and sharing information on family planning, outlaw all sexual relations outside marriage, further weaken anti-corruption efforts, and make it illegal for unmarried couples to live together—the culmination of a movement toward social conservatism and Islamism that has gained traction in recent years, threatening the country’s legally enshrined pluralism.

[Ernie Nemeth]

My biggest beef with the current system has always been that there is no op-out option. I don't care about long life or success as the world interprets it. I care about my freedom and I care about not being exploited. In times past it was always possible to escape the world in one form or another. Now people want to escape by coming to the west. But what happens to those already here? Where do they go?

We are captured and we are controlled.

I make a lousy slave - no matter what you may call it. The working man's plight is worse than slavery because at least as a slave you have no disillusion about your status. The working man believes he is free...and does not realize that his capitulation forces my capitulation. But I will not capitulate! So I struggle against the whole of humanity...

[TomKat]

My biggest beef with the current system has always been that there is no op-out option. I don't care about long life or success as the world interprets it. I care about my freedom and I care about not being exploited. In times past it was always possible to escape the world in one form or another. Now people want to escape by coming to the west. But what happens to those already here? Where do they go?

We are captured and we are controlled.

I make a lousy slave - no matter what you may call it. The working man's plight is worse than slavery because at least as a slave you have no disillusion about your status. The working man believes he is free...and does not realize that his capitulation forces my capitulation. But I will not capitulate! So I struggle against the whole of humanity...

There are several opt-out options: live on the street and beg, live in the forest and scrounge, suicide, etc. But obviously most, but not all, people prefer their current life to these alternatives. As to financial difficulty, a lot of that comes from appetite. Man wants wife. Wife wants kids. Dad wants truck. Bigger house with better schools... Instead of getting married, just program your computer to scream "I want" repeatedly and you'll have 50% of the experience with none of the cost :-)

[James Newell]

The changes acoming are probably a diverse set of data points, which includes off world factors as in heating or cooling cycles of the sun.

Btw if the sun goes into a grand solar minumum for several years it will be much cooler. That means much less food grown for crop production. And possible mini ice ages.

Also economies come and go which we are in the process of seeing. The BIS and IMF, Fed and world bank time is about to run out.

There also seems to be large cycles of action that occur on this planet. Some cycles are quite repetitive and fairly short, options traders often use those.

Some are longer and when an 80 year cycle coincides with a 500 year cycle there seems to be larger changes than normal. War cycles are fairly well mapped out also.

Then there is these recent tech developments we have had for a few generations which I guess have assisted communications amongst people, but the downside
to it is we have raised a decadent society to new heights of immorality. AI is of course included here as a factor to mankind's lowered survival standards.

That mankind will kill and riot because their gas price is suddenly raised $1.00 more a gallon is not a good indicator for that group.

Anyways not to bum you all out, I would say it is better to know this stuff and prepare self and family and group and be ready to do something about it.

Getting your own scene in order, physical, mental and spiritual is a very good start. If you read up on successful methods of organizing and living self sufficiently that is a responsible view and a useful way to spend your time.

Socialism is NOT the way to go, this planet has pretty well bought that load of crap and that is another reason things are not going to fare well.

One definition of government I always liked is :" The aggregate irresponsibility of the people." That pretty well sums up that we get what we deserve.

[Hervé]

Elections and Uprisings: Latin America Is Once Again Liberating Itself From The U.S. (https://www.fort-russ.com/2019/10/elections-and-uprisings-latin-america-is-once-again-liberating-itself-from-the-u-s/)

FRN
By Paul Antonopoulos (https://www.fort-russ.com/author/p-ant/)
On Oct 29, 2019


https://www.fort-russ.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/1-15.png

Washington’s influence in Latin America, it’s so-called “backyard”, has reached a new crisis as neoliberal and reactionary governments that have been backed by the U.S. and President Donald Trump, are threatened either by popular mobilization and uprisings or by electoral defeats.

The so-called “pink tide” is a period in Latin America that peaked in 2011 as it saw Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela all ruled by left-wing governments. However, the tide began to turn back as Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and others returned to the neoliberal order in recent years. However, the political pendulum, which has been moving to the right is seemingly going back to the left.

The chaotic events in the Chilean capital of Santiago, along with the brutal reaction of security forces that has seen 19 people dead, is state-backed violence not seen since the years of the Pinochet dictatorship. The mobilization of the Chilean armed forces is not a sign of strength, but evidence of a political panic that permeates all across Latin America. In the face of President Sebastián Piñera, the whole neoliberal model of the IMF that Washington has consistently exported to the region since the installation of Pinochet, is once against being challenged by the people of Latin America.

Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno was initially elected to follow the socialist program of his predecessor, Rafael Correa, the ardent defender of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. Moreno has not only offered Julian Assange, an Australian-born but Ecuadorean citizen whistle blower, to the U.S., but has offered land and water as well. This is in conjunction to his initial agreement to implement IMF demands that would completely destroy the Ecuadorean Middle Class and reverse efforts in poverty reduction. It is little wonder why Ecuador exploded weeks ago, forcing Moreno to backdown on implementing the IMF demands. He not only withdrew fuel price liberalization, but was forced, for a time, to abandon his country’s capital of Quito, a highly embarrassing move.

At the same time, Evo Morales’ new election victory in Bolivia , as well as Washington’s failure to overthrow the Venezuelan government, despite repeated coup attempts, provide some proof that the so-called “pink tide” could make a comeback – even without some of the radical features of its first incarnation.

Importantly, on Sunday’s Uruguayan elections, Leftist Daniel Martínez received 39.9% of the vote while neoliberal Luis Lacalle Pou of the National Party received 29%. Both will now compete in the second round of the elections on November 24. Although there are still many weeks until the next round, it does appear for now that Martínez will be the next leader of Uruguay.

We must not forget, of course, that Washington has already lost a valuable ally in Mexico, a country that in the past elected its presidents among executives of American companies, such as Coca Cola, as well as reactionaries who asserted their power with state violence. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has not shied away from building stronger ties with both China and Russia, even as both are competing with Mexico’s powerful neighbour to the north, the U.S.

The political earthquake in Argentina has been epic as Peronist Alberto Fernandez won the election against neoliberal Mauricio Macri had a better yield of votes than previous research indicated, reaching 40.61% of the preference. However, that was not enough to take the election to the second round, as Fernández won 47.88% of the vote, enough to take the title of president- elect on Sunday. The removal of Macri from the presidency does not only signify his personal failure, but also the complete rejection of the IMF’s financial program, which in the country is seen as identical to U.S. dependence and has seen poverty sharply rise in Argentina.

In Brazil, the large rallies of protest over the devastating fires in the Amazon, as well as cutbacks in education, caused the first cracks in the absolute power Far Right-loving President Jair Bolsonaro. But even Brazil’s right-wing economic elite having expressed its frustration and anger over Washington in recent days, as Donald Trump initially backed tracked on his vow to support Brazil’s membership of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). For Bolsonaro and the elite businessmen who supported him, the OECD was the center piece of their economic policy. Indeed, in order to gain the favor of the U.S. they had to make a series of concessions, such as the transfer of Alcantara’s strategic air and space base.

Finally, in Colombia, which is a hotbed for U.S. aggression across Latin America and has become a center for the CIA and USAID to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the government survives a state of constant terror. Paramilitary raids, which usually operate with the backing of the Colombian army and police, continually execute trade unionists, members of left-wing organizations and leaders of indigenous groups, who question President Iván Duque Márquez authority. There is little suggestion that the situation in Colombia will soon change.

Therefore, the recovery of center-left and left-wing governments in Latin America that challenge Washington’s empire is beginning to return to the continent. The whole region, however, has always been the most sensitive barometer of the global financial crisis – such as the one expected by almost all major economists and international organizations. As the crisis deepens, Washington’s allies in the region will be confronted with movements and uprisings that will challenge the neoliberal order of the superpower.

Maintaining this model will require more coups, martial law and blood on the streets. But this is unlikely to work as the people of Latin America have demonstrated that they are no longer tolerant of the neoliberal world order and continue to push for their sovereignty and choices to guide their own destinies. No matter what happens now, Latin America is beginning to change once again, and it is not in the direction of Washington’s vision and demands.


Source: InfoBRICS (http://infobrics.org/post/29590/)

[Valerie Villars]

My biggest beef with the current system has always been that there is no op-out option. I don't care about long life or success as the world interprets it. I care about my freedom and I care about not being exploited. In times past it was always possible to escape the world in one form or another. Now people want to escape by coming to the west. But what happens to those already here? Where do they go?

We are captured and we are controlled.

I make a lousy slave - no matter what you may call it. The working man's plight is worse than slavery because at least as a slave you have no disillusion about your status. The working man believes he is free...and does not realize that his capitulation forces my capitulation. But I will not capitulate! So I struggle against the whole of humanity...

There are several opt-out options: live on the street and beg, live in the forest and scrounge, suicide, etc. But obviously most, but not all, people prefer their current life to these alternatives. As to financial difficulty, a lot of that comes from appetite. Man wants wife. Wife wants kids. Dad wants truck. Bigger house with better schools... Instead of getting married, just program your computer to scream "I want" repeatedly and you'll have 50% of the experience with none of the cost :-)

I tried this when I went through my awakening. I wanted nothing more than to be homeless and was quite happy about it.

The problem is those who "love" you. They, with the best intentions, are going to do everything they can to "save" you. However, I look at it as I had more work to do, within the system, to help liberate the slaves. I really didn't have a choice. They were going to lock me up until I agreed, one way or the other. Such is life on planet Earth right now.

[Hervé]

Today's protests indicate the scale of troubles in our paradise (by Slavoj Zizek) (https://www.rt.com/op-ed/472011-protests-hong-kong-catalonia-france/)
(https://www.rt.com/op-ed/472011-protests-hong-kong-catalonia-france/)
By Slavoj Zizek RT
28 Oct, 2019 09:52
Updated 2 days ago
Get short URL (https://on.rt.com/a47f)


https://cdni.rt.com/files/2019.10/article/5db6b7d32030273c3577d350.jpg
© Reuters / (L) BENOIT TESSIER; (M) KIM KYUNG-HOON ; (R) ALBERT GEA.


Anti-establishment protests are popping up all over the world, in countries with different political systems, and various levels of wealth. We may be entering an era of widespread civil unrest.

A couple of weeks ago, Chinese media started promoting the claim that “demonstrations in Europe and South America are the direct result of Western tolerance of Hong Kong unrest.” In a commentary published in Beijing News, former Chinese diplomat Wang Zhen wrote (https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/21/asia/china-hong-kong-chile-spain-protests-intl-hnk/index.html)"the disastrous impact of a 'chaotic Hong Kong' has begun to influence the Western world," i.e., that demonstrators in Chile and Spain were taking their cues from Hong Kong.

An editorial (http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1167409.shtml) in Global Times accused Hong Kong demonstrators of "exporting revolution to the world".
"The West is paying the price for supporting riots in Hong Kong, which has quickly kindled violence in other parts of the world and foreboded the political risks that the West can't manage," it warned.

"There are many problems in the West and all kinds of undercurrents of dissatisfaction. Many of them will eventually manifest in the way the Hong Kong protests did," the Global Times’ editor Hu Xijin said in a video commentary. "Catalonia is probably just the beginning," was the ominous conclusion.
Although the idea that demonstrations in Barcelona and Chile have taken cues from Hong Kong is far-fetched, it is all too easy to claim that these outbursts - Hong Kong, Catalonia, Chile, Ecuador, Lebanon, not to mention the Yellow Vests - cannot be reduced to a common denominator. In each of the cases, the protest against a particular law or measure (higher prices for gasoline in France, an extradition-to-China law in Hong Kong, an increase in public transport fares in Chile, long prison terms for pro-independence Catalan politicians in Barcelona, etc.) ignited a general discontent which was obviously already there, lurking and waiting for a contingent trigger to explode. Thus, even when the particular law or measure, which triggered the discontent, was repealed, protests persisted.

New Realities
Two weird facts cannot but strike the eye here. First, “Communist” China discreetly plays on the solidarity of those in power all over the world against a rebellious populace by warning Western leaders not to underestimate the dissatisfaction in their own countries. It assumes, beneath all ideological and geo-political tensions, they all share the same basic interest in holding onto power.

Secondly, the “trouble in paradise” aspect: protests are not only taking place in poor, and desolate, countries but in nations of (relative, at least) prosperity. States which were, until now, presented as success stories. At least financially.

Although these protests betray the growing inequalities which belie official success stories, they cannot be reduced to economic issues. The dissatisfaction they express indicates the growing (normative) expectations of how our societies should function, expectations which also concern factors not directly related to the economy, such as collective or individual freedoms, dignity, even meaningful life. Something that was, until recently, accepted as normal (a certain degree of poverty, full state sovereignty, etc.) is now perceived as a wrong to be combatted.

This is why, when evaluating these protests, we should consider also the new explosion of ecological movements and the feminist struggle. Meaning the real one, which involves thousands of ordinary women, not its sanitized American "MeToo" version.

Mexican Movement
Let’s just focus on one case. In Mexico, massive feminist mobilization involves “the conversation about life, dignified life and rage."
Allow me to quote Alejandra Santillana Ortiz, a member (https://www.newframe.com/graffiti-and-glitter-bombs-mexicos-movement-against-rape/) of Ruda Colectiva Feminista, “What does life mean for us? What are we referring to when we speak of putting life at the center? For us, life is not a declarative abstract," she believes.

"It necessarily involves talking about dignity and everything that makes it possible to enable dignity.”
So, we are not debating here abstract philosophical speculations on the meaning of life, but reflections rooted in concrete experiences which prove how the most ordinary daily life - things like taking a subway – are impregnated by dangers of brutal violence and humiliation.
“How can a person have peace of mind knowing that on the metro in Mexico City, an integral part of the commute in the city, thousands of women have been kidnapped in a matter of months and that this all took place in public and in broad daylight? And if you aren’t kidnapped, you must consider the very high probability that you will be assaulted, or that you will encounter violent aggression of some kind," Santillana Ortiz observes. "This is the reason why there are there separate women-only cars on trains, but even then there are men who get on these cars.”
Mexico may be an extreme case here, but it is just an extrapolation of tendencies found everywhere. We live in societies in which brutal male violence boils just beneath the surface, and one thing is clear: Political Correctness is not the way to beat it.

What also makes Mexico an obvious example is a secret solidarity between this persisting male brutality and the state apparatuses that we expect to protect us from it.
“There is a kind of formation of a violent society without punishment in which the state is part of that violence. A great many of the crimes that have been committed in recent years in Mexico have the state and its functionaries or the police directly involved," Santillana Ortiz continues.

"Or, through judges or those in the justice system, the state guarantees generalized impunity in this country.”
The terrifying vision of “generalized impunity” is the truth of the new wave of populism, and only vast popular mobilization is strong enough to confront this obscene complicity of state and civil society.

This is why the ongoing protests express a growing dissatisfaction that cannot be channeled into established modes of political representation.

However, we should avoid, at any cost, celebrating these protests for their distance towards established politics. Here, a difficult “Leninist” task lies ahead: how to organize the growing dissatisfaction in all its forms, including the ecological and feminist elements, into a large-scale coordinated movement? If we fail in this, what awaits us is a society with a permanent state of exception and civil unrest.


Related:


Anti-independence protesters march in Barcelona (https://www.rt.com/news/471979-anti-independence-protest-barcelona/)



Catalonia ‘separatists’ bad, HK ‘pro-democracy protesters’ good: Orwell’s 1984 becomes user’s manual for Western ‘free media’ (https://www.rt.com/op-ed/470992-catalonia-protest-hongkong-media-orwell/)



The Russians are meddling again, this time in Chile, warns US diplomat (https://www.rt.com/news/471945-russian-interference-chile-protests/)

[Kamikaze]

delete it all.

[Ernie Nemeth]

"brutal male violence" is what I would address

What makes a male brutal? What does the equivalent in a female look like? Can a female be brutal?

It is quite obvious what has happened, to me at least. Men are the traditional bread-winner of the household. This has been stripped from them. As men's paychecks dwindle due to the waning buying power of our currencies and lagging pay raises, as the attack on the household escalated, women have had to enter the workforce to augment the paltry pay of their men. There is no more work today than a generation or two ago but the pay has halved and the workforce doubled (within reasonable estimates, give or take). The power elite have managed to fake us into working more for far less pay.

Add to this reality the two-tiered job categories and the rage hidden under the surface is easier to understand. In order to justify the money and the higher pay, society has instituted the university level education for everyone who can pay the entry fee. These new jobs add no wealth to society. Instead, due to the nature of these new jobs, the old guard has to support these citizens with the real wealth that they produce the only way wealth can be produced - by hard physical and dirty work. This is the real reason the pay of the first tier jobs has been attacked so radically, leaving wealth building jobs paying not half what they should. The other half of their pay pays for the unproductive second tier job workers.

Since the trend is to increase the second tier work force numbers, the first tier has to be attacked more vigorously to support these workers. You can't have a bunch of beaurocrats receiving minimum wage because of the status they have in the eyes of the public but their output suggests they should. It is far easier and far more desirable to create a system where the dirty folks, the folks who get their hands dirty building wealth, should get inadequate pay leaving the high paying jobs to those who wield the power.

This is all old news. We are now at the stage where the western world wants to institute and force this disproportionate system down the throats of the third world by the use of the idea of "free trade". In this manner they can augment our tired, broken, and underpaid wealth builders with foreign workers they can import through the purposely porous borders of the west. So instead of pay raises for the wealth builders they get attrition and replacement by other, hungrier workers willing to work for peanuts.

And the second tier class continues to expand, requiring more cuts to the workers and less wealth across the board.

This is an untenable situation that has reality knocking on the door of the human family. If the poor do not rise up and stop this nonsense, mankind will destroy themselves. For the wealthy will continue to draw the lions share of the wealth they had nothing to do with creating and those that did are tired of feeding them while they go hungry.

[Patient]

It is quickly becoming time for Canadians to get fired up and make some noise. All of north America should - why sit here and watch the rest of the world do the protesting when most likely a lot of the problems are rooted from here.

[Cara]

More protests in the Netherlands, this time it’s construction workers:

1189510141525348352

[Philippe]

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/central-america-caribbean/2019-10-29/why-latin-america-was-primed-explode

In this article that appeared in the magazine of the American Council on Foreign Relations you can read how president Piñera of Chile announced a 20 percent increase in the minimum pension, a higher minimum wage, and price cuts for medicines for the poor. Why did he not announce that along with the price increase for the public transport that sparked the revolt? Why did the writers of the article not question the idiocy of the FMI advisers of the country? Same as the idiocy of the advisors of French President Macron that did not foresee the impact of a taxincrease on petrol in the rural areas that sparked the Yellow Vest revolt. The harm is done now and their foolishness learned the populations not only how they operate like nasty scammers but much worse.

[James Newell]

The Stalinists and the Nazi's learned a few things from their concentration camps. If you control the water and food you can put just about anything in it to make the people comply and be docile.

Now if you could only control the air. I know, let's make carbon dioxide a dangerous gas. And then lets tax the emissions of it. The Earth people aren't that stupid are they? Oh ya they'll believe anything we teach in schools and put out in the media. Co2 is a very dangerous gas and plants do not use it to make oxygen, and we must tax the countries arbitrarily for them producing it. Austerity and non production is the Only way to save the planet also.

I am sure they'll buy it.

[onawah]

Some interesting observations from a cosmic perspective about the current chaos and the causes on Dark Journalist's 71st episode of the X Series, a Halloween special;
PVlbs4ec6vw
...Observations about the characteristics of souls passing through 4D, which is a chaotic realm, on the way to the 5th, which is less polarized.

[RogeRio]

more one defeat of Socialist (big country) called by Foro de São Paulo:

The government of El Salvador ordered the departure of Venezuelan diplomats appointed by the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro.

https://twitter.com/migracion_sv/status/1190874291467890688/photo/1

---edit---

yes, the twit did disappear :censored:
I saw It, with the image of presidential order

El Salvador expels Venezuelan diplomats from the country (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-el-salvador-venezuela/el-salvador-expels-venezuelan-diplomats-from-the-country-idUSKBN1XD03A) -- In a statement, the government said President Nayib Bukele recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president until free elections were held in the South American country. El Salvador will receive a new Venezuela diplomatic corps, named by Guaido, the government added.

Venezuela expels El Salvador's diplomats (https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2019/11/04/Venezuela-expels-El-Salvadors-diplomats/8231572850328/) -- Nicolas Maduro has ordered El Salvador's diplomats to leave the country in 48 hours in retaliation against San Salvador for expelling its officials a day earlier.

[James Newell]

It must of been a good twit because it doesn't exist anymore. They (twitter) are very busy with their damage control.

[RogeRio]

interestingly, the electoral agenda for follow-up at the last meeting (http://forodesaopaulo.org/memoria-del-xxv-encuentro-del-foro-de-sao-paulo-25-al-28-de-julio-de-2019-caracas-venezuela/) of Foro de Sao Paulo, in Caracas (Venezuela) jul-2019, did not foresee a runoff in Bolivia presidential elections, where Evo Morales was surprised that didn't win in the first round, and even announced that there is a coup (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/23/bolivia-evo-morales-coup-accusation-opposition-foreign-powers) (with foreign powers).


related to quoted post " Was this electoral agenda bold or failed ? (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?108995-The-Turmoil-Chaos-Pattern-all-over-the-Planet&p=1320305&viewfull=1#post1320305) " moved to this thread, the developments not being published in mainstream media are quite enlightening.

------

Bolivia election audit chief makes surprise resignation (https://www.france24.com/en/20191102-bolivia-election-audit-chief-makes-surprise-resignation)

The chief of the technical mission from the Organisation of American States (OAS), Mexican Arturo Espinosa, announced he is stepping down from the role just a day after beginning the review of the controversial poll.

"I have decided to withdraw from the audit so as not to compromise its impartiality. I should have informed the OAS about previous public statements (declarations) about the electoral process in Bolivia," he wrote in a tweet.


Auditing sees 'addicted process' in Bolivia election (https://crusoe.com.br/diario/auditoria-aponta-vulnerabilidades-na-eleicao-da-bolivia/)

Panamanian audit firm Ethical Hacking (https://www.ehcgroup.io/), hired by Bolivia's Supreme Electoral Court a month before the October 20 elections, published a report with its findings on the process. “We cannot give faith in the integrity of the election results because the whole process is vitiated by nullity”

According to the audit report, people with “special authorization” could enter the system, change the source code of the software and have access to the results while the calculation was taking place.

------

Countries that use an electronic voting system run the risk of fraud, and spend a fortune on public money, to sustain technologies that make everyone foolish in choosing their political leaders

-------

Bolivian president Evo Morales resigns after election result dispute (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/10/bolivian-president-evo-morales-resigns-after-election-result-dispute)

In a televised address, Bolivia’s president of nearly 14 years said he was stepping down for the “good of the country”. but added in an attack on opponents whom he had accused of a coup attempt: “Dark forces have destroyed democracy.”

-------

personal note -- the "political discourse" of Foro de São Paulo members don't change. Dilma Roussef even today goes on saying around the world that she suffered a coup in Brazil, despite the fact that she virtually broke the economy, and if she had not taken out of power, Brazil would have come to an sad end, as in Venezuela.

-------

Evo Morales Flies to Mexico but Vows to Return to Bolivia ‘With Force’ (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/world/americas/evo-morales-mexico-bolivia.html)-- the former president of Bolivia who resigned under pressure from street protests and the military, flew to Mexico on Tuesday, but not before recording an audio message promising Bolivians, “I will return soon with force.”

-- out of mainstream media, we can see evidences of who is the scammer --

Evo Morales in Asuncion, near the Mexican plane that brought it, interestingly 2 Prosegur trucks carrying money ..

https://cdn.oantagonista.net/uploads/2019/11/PHOTO-2019-11-12-11-11-21-471x353.jpg

[Bill Ryan]

From https://nytimes.com/2019/11/08/opinion/contributors/latin-america-protest-repression.html
(https://nytimes.com/2019/11/08/opinion/contributors/latin-america-protest-repression.html)
Latin Americans Are Furious

People are no longer remaining silent in the region, and continued government attempts at repression will only make matters worse.
Nov. 8, 2019

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/11/08/opinion/08Ramos/merlin_163971954_449a2cba-bb45-48c1-a892-7f61bf46f4d3-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale
Demonstrators blocked a road with a bonfire during a protest against the government in Santiago, Chile, on Wednesday.

There is a rage brewing in Latin America.

Aware that they don’t live in real democracies, the people of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia are taking to the streets. In Chile, Ecuador and Haiti, citizens are angry about social inequality and the lack of economic opportunity.

Meanwhile, Argentina’s government is turning back to the Peronist-Kirchnerian left, and Mexico’s drug-related violence continues to spiral out of control. Other countries in the region aren’t faring much better.

Within this chaotic atmosphere in Latin America, there are three major aspects at play: Inequality, protests and social media, and authoritarian leanings.

Inequality

Latin America is still the most unequal region (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/inequality-is-getting-worse-in-latin-america-here-s-how-to-fix-it/) in the world; a huge gap continues to separate the wealthy and the poor. The sad lesson here is that while democracy is certainly necessary, it isn’t enough. From colonial times through today, Latin American economies have been set up for the benefit of the few. After decades of authoritarianism, many nations had hoped that, in addition to voting rights, economic welfare would be a reality for all. It was not to be.

I recently heard a young Chilean protester say this: “The poor people of Chile took to the streets because they can’t take it anymore. Because they want water. Because the government took away the rivers and sold them to private landowners. Because they have us young people selling our lives on the streets to pay miserable fees. The people of Chile are finally awake, and they won’t fall asleep ever again.”

The president, Sebastián Piñera, has expressed his regrets. “I’m aware that we showed a complete lack of vision, and so I apologize to my fellow citizens,” he said in a nationally televised broadcast. But before he apologized he sent the military into the streets, resulting in several deaths, and established a curfew, the first declared in Chile since the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.

When someone apologizes after the tanks have been sent in and people have died, it doesn’t seem particularly sincere. “Sending the military to restore order is a high-risk and sensitive decision,” José Miguel Vivanco, the director of Human Rights Watch for the Americas, told me in an interview. Mr. Vivanco pointed to Argentina, Chile and other countries where the military class has been associated with brutal dictatorships.

Something similar happened recently in Ecuador, where protests against the economic policies that President Lenín Moreno had put in place — after he had agreed to a controversial loan from the International Monetary Fund — were violently repressed. The United Nations received allegations of human rights abuses by the government’s security forces, and Ecuador’s ombudsman’s office reported that as many as 10 people had been killed and over 1,000 injured.

“Bloody repression?” asked José Valencia, Ecuador’s minister of foreign affairs, when I interviewed him. “No, because the police didn’t cause those deaths; those were accidents during the protests. The police, as far as we know, behaved appropriately and proportionally, given the situation.”

It’s hard to believe that all those deaths were accidental. Who gave the order to attack the protesters? Who fired the tear gas? And what about those in uniform who assaulted demonstrators with their truncheons? People who are simply complaining about the deplorable economic conditions in which they live don’t deserve such treatment.

Protests and Social Media

Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan dictator, has tried to take credit for the demonstrations occurring in other South American countries. “We are following the São Paulo Forum plan” he said recently, referring to a purported joint action agreed to by the group of left-wing Latin American parties and organizations.

There is no evidence of any such coordinated action. But even if there were, it wouldn’t explain the one million people on the streets of Santiago, the Chilean capital, or the huge demonstrations in Haiti.

Those demonstrations were possible only because democracy has created new spaces for protest, which in the past was not allowed, whether in Pinochet’s Chile or in Argentina, during the junta, or elsewhere.

But today demonstrators aren’t afraid. Social media and mobile technology have made it easy to organize effective protests, allowing young people to overcome government censorship and control. Official communications are balanced by millions of videos, photographs and texts on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

And once legitimacy and credibility are lost on social media, no government can rule.

Authoritarian Leanings

Latin America has never gotten over its attraction to authoritarianism. Ever since Simón Bolívar, who had become dictator of Peru, toyed with the idea of becoming president for life of the short-lived state of Gran Colombia, others have followed.

Today, Latin America has its fair share of dictators. Both Mr. Maduro in Venezuela and the husband-and-wife duo of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua have rigged elections and committed human rights violations in order to hold on to power. Cuba has shown us how 60 years of repression can be normalized: Miguel Díaz-Canel was recently handpicked to succeed the dictator Raúl Castro, Fidel’s brother.

In Bolivia, Evo Morales can’t seem to understand that “no” means no. In a 2016 referendum, the Bolivian people rejected a measure that would have allowed Mr. Morales to run for a fourth term. He has been in power for nearly 14 years, and yet still wants more. But the protests won’t stop. A strongman-style crackdown on the people has never been an effective model for solving Latin America’s problems.

The time for staying quiet is over. Latin Americans are no longer keeping their dissatisfaction to themselves. What’s new about this recent wave of protests is that official censorship is out, while new digital technologies for sharing popular grievances and coming together in protest are in. Unfortunately, Latin American governments have always responded in the same way: with repression.

But this tactic is no longer working. The protests in Ecuador may reignite at the slightest provocation. The honeymoon enjoyed by Mexico’s new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, may soon end if drug-related killings continue, such as last week’s murders of U.S. families. Bolivians are fighting against five more years of a Morales presidency, while the dictators in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba can’t even seem to control their message.

First they lose the media, then they lose the streets. This discomfort and anger are an omen. Come what may, nothing will remain the same.

[Mashika]

From https://nytimes.com/2019/11/08/opinion/contributors/latin-america-protest-repression.html
(https://nytimes.com/2019/11/08/opinion/contributors/latin-america-protest-repression.html)
Latin Americans Are Furious

People are no longer remaining silent in the region, and continued government attempts at repression will only make matters worse.
Nov. 8, 2019

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/11/08/opinion/08Ramos/merlin_163971954_449a2cba-bb45-48c1-a892-7f61bf46f4d3-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale
Demonstrators blocked a road with a bonfire during a protest against the government in Santiago, Chile, on Wednesday.

There is a rage brewing in Latin America.

Aware that they don’t live in real democracies, the people of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia are taking to the streets. In Chile, Ecuador and Haiti, citizens are angry about social inequality and the lack of economic opportunity.

Meanwhile, Argentina’s government is turning back to the Peronist-Kirchnerian left, and Mexico’s drug-related violence continues to spiral out of control. Other countries in the region aren’t faring much better.

Within this chaotic atmosphere in Latin America, there are three major aspects at play: Inequality, protests and social media, and authoritarian leanings.

Inequality

Latin America is still the most unequal region (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/inequality-is-getting-worse-in-latin-america-here-s-how-to-fix-it/) in the world; a huge gap continues to separate the wealthy and the poor. The sad lesson here is that while democracy is certainly necessary, it isn’t enough. From colonial times through today, Latin American economies have been set up for the benefit of the few. After decades of authoritarianism, many nations had hoped that, in addition to voting rights, economic welfare would be a reality for all. It was not to be.

I recently heard a young Chilean protester say this: “The poor people of Chile took to the streets because they can’t take it anymore. Because they want water. Because the government took away the rivers and sold them to private landowners. Because they have us young people selling our lives on the streets to pay miserable fees. The people of Chile are finally awake, and they won’t fall asleep ever again.”

The president, Sebastián Piñera, has expressed his regrets. “I’m aware that we showed a complete lack of vision, and so I apologize to my fellow citizens,” he said in a nationally televised broadcast. But before he apologized he sent the military into the streets, resulting in several deaths, and established a curfew, the first declared in Chile since the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.

When someone apologizes after the tanks have been sent in and people have died, it doesn’t seem particularly sincere. “Sending the military to restore order is a high-risk and sensitive decision,” José Miguel Vivanco, the director of Human Rights Watch for the Americas, told me in an interview. Mr. Vivanco pointed to Argentina, Chile and other countries where the military class has been associated with brutal dictatorships.

Something similar happened recently in Ecuador, where protests against the economic policies that President Lenín Moreno had put in place — after he had agreed to a controversial loan from the International Monetary Fund — were violently repressed. The United Nations received allegations of human rights abuses by the government’s security forces, and Ecuador’s ombudsman’s office reported that as many as 10 people had been killed and over 1,000 injured.

“Bloody repression?” asked José Valencia, Ecuador’s minister of foreign affairs, when I interviewed him. “No, because the police didn’t cause those deaths; those were accidents during the protests. The police, as far as we know, behaved appropriately and proportionally, given the situation.”

It’s hard to believe that all those deaths were accidental. Who gave the order to attack the protesters? Who fired the tear gas? And what about those in uniform who assaulted demonstrators with their truncheons? People who are simply complaining about the deplorable economic conditions in which they live don’t deserve such treatment.

Protests and Social Media

Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan dictator, has tried to take credit for the demonstrations occurring in other South American countries. “We are following the São Paulo Forum plan” he said recently, referring to a purported joint action agreed to by the group of left-wing Latin American parties and organizations.

There is no evidence of any such coordinated action. But even if there were, it wouldn’t explain the one million people on the streets of Santiago, the Chilean capital, or the huge demonstrations in Haiti.

Those demonstrations were possible only because democracy has created new spaces for protest, which in the past was not allowed, whether in Pinochet’s Chile or in Argentina, during the junta, or elsewhere.

But today demonstrators aren’t afraid. Social media and mobile technology have made it easy to organize effective protests, allowing young people to overcome government censorship and control. Official communications are balanced by millions of videos, photographs and texts on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

And once legitimacy and credibility are lost on social media, no government can rule.

Authoritarian Leanings

Latin America has never gotten over its attraction to authoritarianism. Ever since Simón Bolívar, who had become dictator of Peru, toyed with the idea of becoming president for life of the short-lived state of Gran Colombia, others have followed.

Today, Latin America has its fair share of dictators. Both Mr. Maduro in Venezuela and the husband-and-wife duo of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua have rigged elections and committed human rights violations in order to hold on to power. Cuba has shown us how 60 years of repression can be normalized: Miguel Díaz-Canel was recently handpicked to succeed the dictator Raúl Castro, Fidel’s brother.

In Bolivia, Evo Morales can’t seem to understand that “no” means no. In a 2016 referendum, the Bolivian people rejected a measure that would have allowed Mr. Morales to run for a fourth term. He has been in power for nearly 14 years, and yet still wants more. But the protests won’t stop. A strongman-style crackdown on the people has never been an effective model for solving Latin America’s problems.

The time for staying quiet is over. Latin Americans are no longer keeping their dissatisfaction to themselves. What’s new about this recent wave of protests is that official censorship is out, while new digital technologies for sharing popular grievances and coming together in protest are in. Unfortunately, Latin American governments have always responded in the same way: with repression.

But this tactic is no longer working. The protests in Ecuador may reignite at the slightest provocation. The honeymoon enjoyed by Mexico’s new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, may soon end if drug-related killings continue, such as last week’s murders of U.S. families. Bolivians are fighting against five more years of a Morales presidency, while the dictators in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba can’t even seem to control their message.

First they lose the media, then they lose the streets. This discomfort and anger are an omen. Come what may, nothing will remain the same.

I can't help but disagree with him, for the most part. Mostly because of the hypocrisy seen, from my point of view, when the author says "Evo Morales can’t seem to understand that “no” means no", and soon after "He has been in power for nearly 14 years, and yet still wants more" And yet Angela Merkel has been in power for 14 years as well and no word of her being in a dictatorship.

You are only a dictator if you disagree with the US, or if you were put in that position by the US but later became disloyal. In very simple dumb terms, so it seems.
Posting on the NY Times is not as hard as it seemed to be when i first learned about what real journalism was


--



Aware that they don’t live in real democracies, the people of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia are taking to the streets. In Chile, Ecuador and Haiti, citizens are angry about social inequality and the lack of economic opportunity.


Would all that happen if there weren't sanctions in place, dedicated to force people into this exact situation?

Nicaragua is a country that was demolished by US, now it is mentioned here as a good example of what happens if you don't live in the US's flavor of democracy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States

I don't believe in Jorge Ramos because i have never seen him explore some of the reality of those countries beyond his point of view. Self confirmation bias, he is final in his approach to what's happening there and i find that bad if you are a journalist.

He has obviously taken a side on what he's going to report, regardless of evidence that things may not be how he sees them
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/socialism-doesnt-work-an-emerging-middle-class-of-bolivians-would-beg-to-differ/2019/10/08/3b1cb3ae-e6f6-11e9-b0a6-3d03721b85ef_story.html
--

Hope this clarifies what i said above about Jorge Ramos

In his interview with Maduro, this happened, and was posted as a way to "show" how Maduro is a criminal dictator



“Esta entrevista, te digo, no tiene ningún sentido ni para mí ni para ti, ¿oíste? Yo creo que es mejor suspenderla, ¿oíste? "Te agradezco todo, hasta luego”, le dice Nicolás Maduro a Ramos cuando este intenta mostrarle en su iPad un video captado días antes en las calles de Caracas, donde se ve a niños y a adultos alimentarse directamente de un camión de basura.


In English



“This interview, I tell you, makes no sense to me or to you, did you hear? I think it is better to suspend it, did you hear? "I thank you all, see you later, ”Nicolás Maduro tells Ramos when he tries to show him on his iPad a video captured days before in the streets of Caracas, where children and adults are seen feeding directly from a garbage truck.


From this page in Univision
https://www.univision.com/noticias/america-latina/te-vas-a-tragar-con-coca-cola-tu-provocacion-univision-recupera-la-entrevista-completa-de-jorge-ramos-a-nicolas-maduro

However, is there a point where Jorge Ramos mentions or even considers that the reason those kids and adults are so desperate is due to the US imposed sanctions?

If there were no sanctions introduced specifically to produce this situation, would Venezuela be as bad as it is right now?

There was no mention of that at all, ever as far as i have read or listened so far in his interviews and articles

So how is that not a biased provocation, when he must know how the US sanctions affect that country?

Of course Maduro has made wrong choices that caused misery in Venezuela, but pretending that the US has not helped in a major way in that misery is wrong, and biased. Jorge Ramos has ignored the US major contribution and speaks from/about a reality that doesn't exist

[Eva2]

In 2011 I attended a conference where Alfredo Sfeir Younis gave a talk on a different kind of world politics where compassion and spirituality were at the forefront. It has been to date one of the most powerful, memorable and thought provoking speeches I've ever heard and well deserving of the very long standing ovation it received. Mr. Younis went on to run in the 2013 presidential election in Chile but unfortunately Chile was not ready for the ground breaking government he wanted to create. Of course, the indigenous and poor were his biggest supporters but unfortunately the rest of the country couldn't/wouldn't get on on board with such a change and he lost with a mere 3% of the vote. I was disappointed as I was so rooting for him believing that if he did get a majority vote how this would have a wonderful domino affect and eventually change how the rest of the world governed. Maybe a bit of naive, wishful thinking on my part. Anyway, he is still active in politics and hopefully there will come a time in the very near future where he will succeed in bringing in this kind of government. For those that are not familiar with him, here is a brief bio about him and if you google his name, there is quite a bit of info on him, including the Zambuling Institute in Washington:

'Alfredo Sfeir Younis (born 1947) is a Chilean economist, spiritual leader and healer, presently President of the Zambuling Institute for Human Transformation, founded in 2005 in Washington, DC.

Biography
Before opening the Institute, Sfeir had a twenty-nine-year career at the World Bank where he was hired as the World Bank’s first environmental economist in 1976 and later was appointed Director of the World Bank Office in Geneva, Switzerland. He served as Special Representative to the United Nations and the World Trade Organization from 1996 to 1999. In both institutions Sfeir worked in the general fields of human rights, peace, and social justice; within this broader context he initiated and promoted policy in such areas as poverty eradication, international trade and finance, financing of development, gender and women's issues, trade and development, role of indigenous peoples, sustainable management of forestry and fisheries, water management and irrigation, desertification, biodiversity, culture and spirituality in sustainable development, and alternative medicine.

He has received numerous awards from international organizations, including the Lifetime Ambassador of Peace (2001), Peace and Tolerance Award (2002), World Healer Award (2002), Messenger of Peace (2002), Peace, Mercy and Tolerance Award (2003), Supreme Advisor of the Buddhist Spiritual Forum Award, World Peace Mercy and Tolerance Award (2004), Diamond Peace Award (2005), and Peace Ambassador Award (2006).

Sfeir was a candidate for the 2013 presidential election as the leader of the Green Ecologist Party, but lost the election with less than 3% of the total number of votes.'

I would be interested to know if anyone has further information on him that they'd like to share. I'm definitely a fan and have been sporadically following him for some years now and he seems so ahead of his time.

I thought this was a good thread to post this but I apologize if I'm off topic. If so, please delete or move this to a more appropriate place.

[Hervé]

Message for my Latin American friends (in the form of a song) (http://thesaker.is/message-for-my-latin-american-friends-in-the-form-of-a-song/)

The Saker
November 18, 2019

Dear friends,

I have to admit that I am absolutely heartbroken at the news coming out of Latin America. Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Bolivia – everywhere the people are struggling against what has been known as “Yankee imperialism” for decades. The pendulum of history has swung back and forth many times in Latin America. I remember the civil war in Argentina just before the coup of 1976, I was still a kid, but I remember it all. Then the coup, the vicious and ugly “dirty war”, the disaster of the (just!) war for the Malvinas, then the years of “democracy”. Rivers of blood, and still the new era of freedom and peace everybody kept hoping for did not come. Now, four or five decades later, the people of Latin America are still dying and suffering under the yoke of a CIA-installed and CIA-controlled comprador class which would gladly sell their mothers and daughters to Uncle Shmuel for a few bucks.

And yet.

And yet 40 or 50 years are short when seen from the point of view of history, other struggles in history have lasted much longer. So, as a poignant reminder that we will never lose hope, nor will we ever accept oppression, here is a song by Pedro Aznar whose beautiful lyrics will be understood by everyone from Patagonia to Mexico’s northern border (including my Brazilian friends) and which beautifully expresses the hope common to all of us!

Venceremos!


The Saker


PS: if somebody had the time to translate these lyrics into English, I would be most grateful.


Ta_h784exE4

[Inaiá]

Message for my Latin American friends (in the form of a song) (http://thesaker.is/message-for-my-latin-american-friends-in-the-form-of-a-song/)

(...)And yet.

And yet 40 or 50 years are short when seen from the point of view of history, other struggles in history have lasted much longer. So, as a poignant reminder that we will never lose hope, nor will we ever accept oppression, here is a song by Pedro Aznar whose beautiful lyrics will be understood by everyone from Patagonia to Mexico’s northern border (including my Brazilian friends) and which beautifully expresses the hope common to all of us!

Venceremos!


The Saker


PS: if somebody had the time to translate these lyrics into English, I would be most grateful.


Ta_h784exE4

There's a translation to english in the oficial site (http://pedroaznar.net/mobile/en/letra.php?cat=124&disc=134&track=305) of Pedro Aznar:

"Hurricane

The clear waters of day shining over the wheat fields
Mornings of grape and wine remembering times of peace
The taste of cold at dawn, the bread warmer than the sun
I think of the cold that now inhabits my heart

There is, in the eyes of the people, the same great sadness
because the arms of steel stop us like dams

But what they don't know, what they will never know
is that here in our land, from the mountains to the sea,
blows a light breeze that will become a hurricane
Ah, but they don't know that one day it will be a hurricane

Friend, keep your mind alive and alert to deceit
that the right time, the precise moment, will come sooner or later
May your little children know that it is a long and hard journey,
that neither pain, wood or time can bend a wild heart"

[Inaiá]

Message for my Latin American friends (in the form of a song) (http://thesaker.is/message-for-my-latin-american-friends-in-the-form-of-a-song/)

(...)And yet.

And yet 40 or 50 years are short when seen from the point of view of history, other struggles in history have lasted much longer. So, as a poignant reminder that we will never lose hope, nor will we ever accept oppression, here is a song by Pedro Aznar whose beautiful lyrics will be understood by everyone from Patagonia to Mexico’s northern border (including my Brazilian friends) and which beautifully expresses the hope common to all of us!

Venceremos!


The Saker


PS: if somebody had the time to translate these lyrics into English, I would be most grateful.


Ta_h784exE4

There's a translation to english in the oficial site (http://pedroaznar.net/mobile/en/letra.php?cat=124&disc=134&track=305) of Pedro Aznar (...)

And here (http://www.sombom.com.br/kleiton-e-kledir/musica/viracao.htm) it is what seems to be the original version of the lyrics, in Portuguese, composed by Fogaça e Kledir Ramil:

"Viração

Nas águas claras do dia
À sombra dos cereais
Manhãs de trigo e de vinho
Lembrando o passado e a paz
O gosto e o frio da aurora
O cheiro macio do pão
E eu penso no frio que agora
Habita meu coração

Nos muros nos olhos do povo
Habita a mesma tristeza
Porque os braços de ferro
Nos prendem como represa
Mas o que eles não sabem
Não sabem ainda não
É que na minha terra
Um palmo acima do chão
Sopra uma brisa ligeira
Que vai virar viração
Ah mas eles não sabem
Que vai virar viração

Amigo guarda tua mente
Bem viva atenta e sem medo
Que a hora certa e precisa
Virá mais tarde ou mais cedo
Ensina a teus filhos pequenos
Que é dura e longa a viagem
Que a dor, a madeira e o tempo
Não dobram um coração selvagem

Nos muros nos olhos do povo
Habita a mesma tristeza
Porque os braços de ferro
Nos prendem como represa
Mas o que eles não sabem
Não sabem ainda não
É que na minha terra
Um palmo acima do chão
Sopra uma brisa ligeira
Que vai virar viração
Ah mas eles não sabem
Que vai virar viração."

[Bill Ryan]

From https://cuencahighlife.com/conaie-welcomes-colombian-protests-says-andean-peoples-uprising-is-just-beginning

Conaie welcomes Colombian protests, says Andean ‘people’s uprising’ is just beginning
22 Nov, 2019

Ecuador’s Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (Conaie) pledged its support to the national strike in Colombia that began Thursday. “We stand with our brothers and sisters of Colombia and are gratified to see that the fight for people’s rights has spread throughout the Andean region,” Conaie said in a Twitter statement.

https://cuencahighlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/chl-colombia2-1.png
Protesters march through Bogota on Thursday.

Hundreds of thousands of Colombian pensioners, students, teachers and union members, as well as members of the indigenous community, marched through the streets of the country’s major cities Thursday. Although protests began peacefully, violence erupted later in the day as police fired tear gas into crowds and vandalism was reported in Bogota, Cali and Medellin.

Police vehicles and buses were reportedly burned in Bogota and Cali Thursday night.

Conaie President Jaime Vargas said the fight for human rights is the same in Ecuador, Colombia, Chile and Bolivia.

“This is a crusade against the abuses of rightwing, neo-liberal governments that have rejected the rights of labor, bowed to the wishes of the IMF and World Bank, sold off public assets and worked to defend the interests of the rich and powerful,” he said. “In Colombia, the fight is also against the massacre of hundreds of community leaders.

Colombia is one of the most violent countries on earth and the government does nothing to stop it and, in many cases, encourages it.”

Vargas said that protests and strikes will continue. “We have met with some success in Ecuador and Chile and understand that together we are powerful. This uprising will not end until true justice is achieved and the rights of the people are respected.”

On Thursday night, Colombian President Iván Duque said he was listening to the demands of the protesters. “We are paying close attention and concede there is much work to be done to correct problems,” he said. “I am willing to talk to leaders of today’s events if it can be done in a peaceful atmosphere.”

Duque warned, however, that vandalism and violence will not be tolerated and said he was granting extraordinary powers to local governments to combat it.

In recent months, Duque’s public support has dropped dramatically as crime rates have risen in Colombia. An October poll showed his popularity at 23 percent.

[Bill Ryan]

From https://cuencahighlife.com/protests-continue-to-paralyze-bolivia-colombia-and-chile-despite-government-concessions
(https://cuencahighlife.com/protests-continue-to-paralyze-bolivia-colombia-and-chile-despite-government-concessions)
Protests continue to paralyze Bolivia, Colombia and Chile despite government concessions

Mass protests, many of them violent, continue to rage in Bolivia, Chile and Colombia despite calls for elections and dialog. According to the United Nations, 58 people have died in the three countries since late October and more than 4,000 have been seriously injured.

https://cuencahighlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/chl-chile2-2.png
Protesters burn trash in a Valparaiso, Chile street on Tuesday.

On Friday, Bolivia’s interim government accused former President Evo Morales of “terrorism and rebellion” for his alleged role in encouraging and planning violence in the country. Morales was removed from office in a military coup on November 11.

Most of Bolivia’s largest cities have been paralyzed by demonstrations and road blocks, with the capital of La Paz, virtually isolated. The government said that fuel and food supplies could run out next week if roadways are not cleared. Although the country’s main international airport in El Alto remains open, most flights have been cancelled because of the blockages.

Morales, who fled to Mexico under a grant of asylum, called the charges against him “laughable and absurd” and said that “the junta that received only four percent of the vote in the last election has no legitimacy.”

The protests began following the October 20 national elections in which Morales appeared to have won another term as president by a narrow margin. Many questioned the vote count including the American Organization of American States, which said its review found “irregularities.”

As of Friday night, the UN says 30 people have died in the Bolivian protests.

The interim government says it will call new national elections within 90 days but has not set a date.

Protests in Chile enter their fifth week despite the government’s concessions to roll back a public transportation fare hike and hold a referendum on a new constitution. Leaders of the protests say that larger issues are at the base of the unrest, particularly economic inequality and control of public resources by the country’s rich.

https://cuencahighlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/chl-colombia3.png
Police fire tear gas at Medellin, Colombia protesters on Friday.

On Thursday and Friday, large parts of Santiago remained isolated by road blocks and public transportation has been mostly disabled due to damage to buses and city’s subway system. A number of highways around the country have been blocked and the government warns of shortages of basic supplies, including food and gasoline.

At least 24 have died in the Chilean protests while more than 2,000 have been injured. The government reports that 450 have been arrested for vandalism and terrorism.

In Colombia, the latest country to be hit by mass protests, officials report four dead, including three police officers killed in an explosion, and hundreds injured in two days of protests. In addition to wealth inequality, protests are aimed at recent roll-backs of labor regulations, cutbacks in pensions, lack of employment for the country’s indigenous and poor population and the government’s inability to stop violence against rural community leaders. The country’s murder rate, second only to Venezuela’s in South America, is rising in major cities.

On Friday, the mayor of Bogota imposed a nighttime curfew in hopes of reducing violence and vandalism. Cali’s mayor had ordered a curfew on Thursday and the municipal government in Medellin is considering doing the same. Several news media reported that the curfews in Bogota and Cali are being ignored.

In a televised speech Friday, President Duque said a “national conversation” would take place regionally and include all social and political groups.

“Starting next week, I will launch a national conversation to strengthen the current social policy agenda, working in a united way with medium- and long-term vision, which will allow us to close the social and economic gaps,” he said.

South America’s wave of protests began in early October in Ecuador but ended 10 days later when the government agreed to drop its plan to eliminate subsidies for gasoline and diesel fuel.

[James Newell]

It appears from my viewpoint that the powers that control this planet are testing the waters. It is amazing that a few increases in gas prices and food makes the people react so violently. Conditions seem to be ripe due to dissatisfaction and ignorance.

The commies and bankers (who seem to be the backers of these agitators) are experts at making the populace dissatisfied with their lot. So riots and revolutions occur and the systems go into breakdown and then the fun really begins.

Few seem to know their history and the Russian revolution is a good example where once the Czar was taken down, approximately 50 million Russians and Ukrainians perished due to all sorts of unspeakable acts that were done. That was done under the glorious revolution excuse.

It was planned, caused and delivered very methodically.

[Cara]

Well, this is an interesting speculative interpretation:

1198607279874027523



Jelle Prins
✔
@jelleprins
☀️ Tesla Solar Panels
🔋 Huge batteries
🛰 Satelites for internet
🚘 Electric Cars
🦠 With bio-defense mode
🔫 and bullet-proof windows
🚇 Underground tunnels@elonmusk is prepping for chaos 🌎

🚀 to Mars if all is lost

[Bill Ryan]

https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/72x72/1f680.pngto Mars if all is lost

Also see this thread:


From Bill Ryan -- the Ultimate Hypothesis (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?46887-From-Bill-Ryan-the-Ultimate-Hypothesis)

... evidence to support the idea that the elite may be planning to leave, or evacuate, the planet.

[James Newell]

From Bill Ryan -- the Ultimate Hypothesis (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?46887-From-Bill-Ryan-the-Ultimate-Hypothesis)

... evidence to support the idea that the elite may be planning to leave, or evacuate, the planet.

I had never seen the "Dutch" interview, it is compelling stuff, well done on the compilation. 2012 was delayed, is the real date 2020?

[Hervé]

US to help ‘legitimate Latin American govts’ to PREVENT protests from ‘morphing into riots’ – Pompeo (https://www.rt.com/news/474852-us-help-prevent-protests-america/)

RT
2 Dec, 2019 14:42
Updated 1 hour ago
Get short URL (https://on.rt.com/a6ec)


https://cdni.rt.com/files/2019.12/xxs/5de5334285f540764e7f92b8.jpg
(L) © Reuters / Danilo Balderrama; (R) © Reuters / Francois Lenoir


US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that the US will help "legitimate governments" in Latin America in order to prevent protests from "morphing into riots.”

Pompeo made the comments while delivering remarks at the University of Louisville on Monday.

He declared that US policy in Latin America is based on “moral and strategic clarity,” meaning Washington “cannot tolerate” regimes it deems unsatisfactory in the region.

Pompeo said that protests in Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador reflect the "character of legitimate democratic governments and democratic expression" and that governments in the region should respect that.
We’ll work with legitimate governments to prevent protests from morphing into riots and violence that don’t reflect the democratic will of the people.
Pompeo added that the US will "continue to support countries trying to prevent Cuba and Venezuela from hijacking those protests." He also accused Russia of “malign” influence in Latin America and of “propping up” the democratically elected Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro.

The eyebrow-raising comments come in wake of the November coup in Bolivia, which saw socialist President Evo Morales ousted while violent protests and attacks on politicians forced him to leave the country. Opposition leader Jeanine Anez has since declared herself an "interim president." The opposition-led protests began over alleged election irregularities.

Pompeo’s distinctively frank comments are an admission of sorts that the US will encourage violent protests and regime change where it deems a government to be illegitimate, but will work to quash anti-government sentiment in countries it sees as obedient allies.

While the US wholeheartedly supported the Bolivian coup, as well as coup attempts in Venezuela earlier this year, it has all but ignored anti-government protests in Chile, where it blames "malign" Russian and Chinese influence.

In both Venezuela and Bolivia, Washington supports the unelected self-declared “interim presidents.”

Pompeo concluded by saying there remains an "awful lot of work to do" in the region, referring to Latin America as the US's "back yard." He also warned against “predatory Chinese activities” in the region, which he claimed can lead countries to make deals that "seem attractive" but are "bad" for citizens.


Related:


Trump threatens to rock Brazil & Argentina with renewed tariffs on metals (https://www.rt.com/business/474835-trump-argentina-brazil-tariffs/)



Bolivia’s coup: Morales toppled not due to his failures, but due to his success (https://www.rt.com/op-ed/473560-bolivia-coup-morales-resources/)

[kfm27917]

Hong Kong Police Arrest 4 Alleged Financiers Of The Protest Movement
On Thursday, police in Hong Kong announced the arrests of several individuals whom they described as leaders of the Hong Kong protests movement. But these individuals (their identities have not been released) were not simply collared out in the street.
Instead, police described the four as leaders of Spark Alliance, a mysterious organization that has been one of the main financiers of the protest movement, including by bailing protesters out of jail and helping to defray their legal fees.

Police seized HK$70 million ($9 million) in bank deposits and personal insurance products from Spark, claiming that the group broke laws about money laundering.
In a response posted to its FB group, Spark blasted the police, accusing them of deliberately trying to cut off one of the most important avenues of financing in the protest movement.
On Thursday evening, police announced the arrests of four people connected with Spark Alliance for suspected money laundering, the first cases brought over financing the demonstrations after six months of protests against China’s tightening grip over Hong Kong. Authorities froze HK$70 million of bank deposits and personal insurance products linked to the fund, while also seizing HK$130,000 in cash.
"The police attempted, through false statements, to distort the work of Spark Alliance as money laundering for malicious uses," the group said in a statement on Facebook. "Spark Alliance condemns this kind of defamatory action."
The arrests and seizures, as Bloomberg explains, shed light on the innerworkings of the Hong Kong protest movement. Millions of Americans who have read the news reports about the protests have probably been left wondering how the protesters became so organized.
Well, this is how: Since the beginning of the movement, wealthy working HKers have observed their duty to help those battling it out on the front lines in any way possible. Mostly, they do it through donations to groups that purport to help bail out protesters after they've been arrested, or groups that simply provide food and shelter for the demonstrators, many of whom are teenagers, or in their early 20s.
This division of responsibilities is part of what's allowed the movement to continue on for as long as it has.
But by cracking down on the money, HK police are essentially pulling the rug out from under Hong Kongers facing criminal charges for protest-related activities.
Because Spark Alliance and another, more transparent, fund called the 612 Humanitarian Fund are responsible for financing the protest movement: According to BBG, the two funds account for 70% of the money raised by the protest movement.

The impact of this crackdown is two-fold: not only will protesters counting on these funds to pay their legal fees be left out in the cold, but the renewed police scrutiny could deter some working Hong Kongers who have been supporting the movement with donations.
The crackdown deals a major blow to demonstrators as they face ever-mounting legal bills, with more than 6,000 people arrested since June. Spark Alliance, one of the largest crowd-funding campaigns supporting the protests, plays a crucial behind-the-scenes role - often sending anonymous representatives to bail protesters out of jail in the middle of the night.
The latest arrests risk deterring Hong Kong’s professional class from giving more cash, potentially curbing a substantial source of funds that have helped sustain the protests longer than anyone had expected. They also show the limits of the leaderless movement’s ability to manage tens of millions of dollars with little oversight outside of a formal financial system.
Funds bankrolling the protests have collectively raised at least HK$254 million ($33 million) since June, with 70% coming from just two groups, Spark Alliance and the 612 Humanitarian Fund, according to a tally based on disclosures from the groups and an analysis of publicly available documents. That figure doesn’t reflect all the money raised related to the protests, only the funds Bloomberg News could verify.
Before the arrests, most Hong Kongers didn't know the identities of anyone behind Spark Alliance. Its website and bank accounts (before they were shut down) all forwarded to a Pest Control company.
But Spark proved its reliability early on by helping bail protesters out of jail. But the group has been under scrutiny even before the police got involved. Last month, HSBC shut down the group's account, saying they had detected activity that differed from the stated purpose of the account.
“Spark is probably less transparent but people tend to believe them,” said Jason, a protester in his 30s who asked to be identified by his English name. He said he memorized the group’s phone number and called the group after he was arrested in August. Seven hours later, two lawyers helped arrange HK$4,000 in bail money.
"Everyone knows the cost to fight for this movement and not everyone can afford lawyer fees," he said. “We need protection."
Over the past few months he’s raised half a million dollars for Spark Alliance and other charities through the sale of Hong Kong-themed figurines, including a miniature Carrie Lam and a masked protester. Asked on Thursday night if he would still give the money to Spark Alliance, Jason said he wanted more information on the arrests.
The shadowy nature of some of these organizations has helped the Chinese government portray the protests as having been financed by foreign powers like the US. Of course, these accusations aren't entirely without merit. Beijing threatened sanctions this month against the National Endowment for Democracy, a US-based group which donated $686,000 to various Hong Kong nonprofits in 2019.
Meanwhile, the June 12 fund has already spent roughly a quarter of the money it has raised since June, mostly on legal expenses and bail.
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For many of the thousands of protesters who have been arrested, the criminal penalties that they could face without adequate legal representation could land them in prison for years.

Without having the support of knowing their bail will be paid in the event of an arrest, many demonstrators wouldn't be so eager to fight their way past police barricades and take other risks like that.
But many members of the protest movement believe the 612 fund is too stodgy in how it operates. Most see organizations like Spark Alliance as being closer to the true ideals of the movement.
The 612 fund has been chided in online forums for deploying only 24% of the money it raised while asking protesters to first apply for legal aid from the city. Other critics see the 612 fund as part of an older political establishment in Hong Kong that has failed the younger generation of democracy advocates, and they believe Spark Alliance is closer to protesters in the trenches.
"The younger generation doesn’t trust in any institutions, not even those that advocate for democracy," said Patrick Poon, a researcher at Amnesty International in Hong Kong. "It’s an irrational decision to trust in a group believed to be closer to the people on the ground even if they don’t know who is behind the fund."
Ng, a 612 fund trustee, said the group is supported by “members of the public that are incensed by what is being done by police and government."
"The movement is ongoing and we are using the funds for the stated purpose of humanitarian aid," she said. "We don’t have any obligation to spend all the money immediately."
Now that police have set their sights on Spark, we imagine a new group will need to come forward and take up the mantle of the protest movement, or risk allowing it to fizzle out.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hong-kong-police-arrest-4-alleged-financiers-protest-movement

[kfm27917]

Deplorables Versus the Ruling Class: A Global Struggle[/SIZE][/SIZE][/B]

By Chet Richards

Consider the age of monarchs. Squabbling barons select a supreme ruler – a king or an emperor -- to suppress the squabbling. Peace and prosperity return to the land. The king makes policy but he can’t do everything. His minions take care of the details.
Minions mean bureaucracy. The bureaucracy grows. The king grows old and dies. The dynasty continues. The bureaucracy continues – always continues, and always grows. The bureaucracy becomes an establishment kingdom unto itself. The bureaucracy grows in power and serves its own interests. The king diminishes in power. The land grows restless under the increasing regulatory tyranny and taxes. Legitimacy –what the Chinese called the “mandate of heaven” -- is lost and so is the dynasty.
Change the names and we are at the end of a similar cycle – a cycle that began with the guillotine. This time it is a world-wide cycle. The modern king is a modern tyrant – Stalin, Hitler, Mao were the worst.
The socialist idea had been kicking around since the 18th century. This seemingly plausible notion shaped the various Marxist evils of the 20th century. The Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Nazism, Fascism, and today’s imperious European Union, are all socialist tyrannies of one degree or another.
Bureaucratic agencies become ideal tools for tyrants. A tyrant can point his agencies in a particular direction and unleash them. They immediately glory in their new power. Horrors ensue. Nazi Germany gave us the Holocaust and war. Stalin used betrayal. Friends betrayed friends. Children spied on parents. During the Soviet show trials of the 1930’s Stalin’s innocent victims were forced to falsely confess in order to save the lives of their families. Fear reigns.
Sound familiar? How about the FBI inducing General Flynn to plead guilty in order to protect his son? Mao injected dark comedy by unleashing hordes of children to humiliate their elders. No one was safe. Fear reigns. Sound familiar? Antifa anyone? Black Lives Matter anyone? Greta anyone? Mao lives!
The United States has become an undemocratic administrative state as well, but only by happenstance. In this country Congress has ceded much of its power to unchecked regulatory agencies, allowing them to write their own laws -- regulations which enable them to prosecute, and persecute, anyone who might stand in an agency’s way. The agencies are powers unto themselves -- judge, jury, and arresting police altogether. Innocents are often victims.
It isn’t just the regulatory, or administrative, state that is the problem. There is a growing sense that something is terribly wrong throughout society – throughout progressive liberal society, that is. How about needles in the street? How about sanctuary cities, counties and states? How about the ruins of Detroit? How about the weekly slaughter in Chicago? How about suppression of free speech in academia? How about the corrupt liberal media? How about big tech bias and censorship? It seems that our governments, and our intellectual establishments both, no longer serve the average citizen. They serve only a leftist political ideology, and themselves.
Worst of all, the political ideology that the establishment promotes is antithetical to the native ideology of America. America was founded as a society with spiritual values. True America is a society where the family is paramount. It is a society where a person is rewarded in proportion to his contribution. It is a society devoted to the individual where the individual is inherently free because his rights derive from the Creator not from the government. The purpose of government, according to the American ideology, is to serve the individual, not to be his master. The collection of individuals is to be the master of the government. This is classical liberalism – now a conservative ideal. It is the opposite of “progressive liberalism.”
The true American ideology cautions against granting power to any bureaucratic establishment. In its ever increasing hunger for power the establishment has gravitated to an alien progressive ideology – an ideology of ever bigger government and government control. But the bossy progressive Left increasingly forbids Americans to be Americans.
Political turmoil is the consequence. The barons are squabbling. The Left openly advocates overthrowing the Constitution. The Right counters with Donald Trump. The Left politically assassinates him with impeachment. The Right, with centrist allies, will reelect him anyway. The Mandate of Heaven has been removed from the elitist establishment. It is passing to the Deplorables.
It isn’t just in America. The world as a whole is pivoting. The dogmatic socialist established order is ending. We enter the age of the Deplorables. The Deplorables are ascending in America, with Trump, in Britain with Brexit, in Hong Kong, in much of Europe, in Latin America, in Iran. Deplorables are the antidote to arrogant globalist socialists. Deplorables everywhere say “from now on we will make our own decisions.”
What is it with the Deplorables? What gives them such power? Three things, I believe, are elevating them. Deplorables are pragmatic. They are not wedded to any extreme ideology. Deplorables will go with anything that works. It is no wonder that the Deplorables began in America. For, as Americans we inherit the pragmatism of our pioneering ancestors.
Second, the Deplorables adhere to the original American ideology of free individuals. They reject the concentration of government power that has accumulated over the past century.
The third energizer is a technological miracle – the internet. Establishments everywhere fear the internet. And properly so. For the first time we can instantly communicate across the world. We can find like-minded people everywhere. We have discovered just how very many people agree with us.
It follows that Deplorables are no longer just an American phenomenon, the phenomenon resonates with people everywhere. People around the world are much the same. They value their traditions and customs. They value their families, their values, their spiritual heritage. They value their nation. They resent the imposition of intrusive government by strangers, by bureaucratic globalists. They are becoming Deplorables.
Born in the still free parts of America, this new movement seems destined to chart the course for the whole world -- for this century and beyond.
The Mandate of Heaven no longer rests with the condescending progressive bureaucratic establishment. It is passing back to the people. It is passing to Deplorables everywhere in the world.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/12/deplorables_versus_the_ruling_class_a_global_struggle.html

[Rainbowheart]

Just want to add a pattern to put our attention on:

Panic thru a flu (emotional warfare maybe?)
or biological warfare (chemtrails)
or frequency warfare (5G)
or ...

And WE ARE here to continue
to breathe in
and out
and in
and out and stay centered

let us all
be blessed

[Mashika]

I find this desplicable, preposterous and a lot of other things i'm not going to say :P

So now that the coup staged by the US in Venezuela has turned into a completely lost effort, they turn to this?

With no proof whatsoever, offering millions of dollars to anyone that provides proof? Is there any logic in saying "he's a criminal, i don't have any proof but i will pay lots of money to anyone who can give the proof i need for my claims"

How does this work? Is the US government completely lost now? Who is coming up with this claims? Since where you go and indict someone of something without any proof, and then offer to pay for someone, whoever it is, to prove you right?

This is shameless, honestly. At a retarded level i never though possible and in front of the entire world LOL



Venezuela named 'sponsor of terrorism' by US..

US Attorney General William Barr has announced the indictment of President Maduro and more than a dozen other Venezuelan officials for a narco-terrorism and cocaine trafficking conspiracy



https://www.rt.com/shows/in-question/484211-venezuela-named-sponsor-of-terrorism/




Washington brings NARCO-TERRORISM charges against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro

https://www.rt.com/news/484184-us-justice-department-charges-maduro/

I just don't know what to think about those people in the US, they completely lost it, they are shameless now.

Let's see what the world will do about it, but i know the usual allies will comply with narrative no matter what or how ridiculous it is

🤦🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤥🙄🥴

🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/spriteer_774400/status/1547638385820385280
1547638385820385280

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/KawsachunNews/status/1547245977265922051
1547245977265922051

https://twitter.com/business/status/1547398994745229320
1547398994745229320

[Ravenlocke]

Italy

https://twitter.com/TheFreedomRpt/status/1547720631273213957
1547720631273213957

https://www.euronews.com/2022/07/14/italys-prime-minister-mario-draghi-to-resign-over-coalition-crisis

Italy's president rejects Prime Minister Mario Draghi's resignation over coalition crisis

Updated: 14/07/2022 - 20:30
BREAKING NEWS


Italian President Sergio Mattarella has rejected the resignation of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the presidency said on Thursday night.

Earlier in the evening Draghi said he would tender his resignation on Thursday night, saying his coalition government had collapsed.

"The President of the Republic has not accepted the resignation of the President of the Council and has invited him to come to parliament (...) so that an assessment of the situation can be made," the presidency's statement said.

The premier won a confidence vote in the Senate earlier in the day, but the populist 5-Star Movement (M5S) boycotted the vote, throwing his coalition into crisis.

The vote was 172-39, but 5-Star senators were absent after confirming they would not participate in the vote on a relief bill for soaring energy costs.

"I will tender my resignation to the president of the republic this evening," Draghi told the cabinet, according to a statement released by his office.

"The national unity coalition that backed this government no longer exists," he added.

Were Draghi's resignation to be accepted and take effect, it could set the stage for an election as early as September.

The confidence vote had become a focal point for tensions within Draghi's government as its parties prepare to fight each other in a national election due by early 2023.

The decision by the 5-Star party to boycott the confidence vote on Thursday had plunged Italy into political uncertainty.

It risked undermining efforts to secure billions of euros in European Union funds, tackle a damaging drought and reduce its reliance on Russian gas.

Draghi raised the stakes by saying he would not want to lead a government without 5-Star.

Theoretically he has a majority to govern even without the populist movement, but the former European Central Bank chief had said on several occasions that there would be no government without them.

Draghi's broad government of "national unity" was formed in February 2021 with parties on both right and left to help Italy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis. But without the support of M5S, he argues that his government would become "political" and he has no mandate to lead such a cabinet.

"Since my inauguration speech to parliament I have always said that this government would have continued only if it had a clear perspective of achieving the government programme on which the political forces had voted confidence," Draghi told ministers on Thursday, reaffirming this position. "These conditions no longer exist today."

5-Star emerged as the largest party in the previous election in 2018. But they have since suffered defections and a loss of public support.

https://twitter.com/RadioGenova/status/1547230994981421061

1547230994981421061

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/1547608486455828482
1547608486455828482

[Ravenlocke]

Argentina

https://twitter.com/RadioGenova/status/1546149808821370881
1546149808821370881

https://twitter.com/GettyImagesNews/status/1547306963733823488

1547306963733823488

https://twitter.com/wolfie_smythe/status/1547313486526652421
1547313486526652421

https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/south-america/argentina-protests-in-buenos-aires-against-government-imf-articleshow.html

Argentina: Protests in Buenos Aires against government, IMF
Argentine left and right wings gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in a protest against the IMF and in opposition to the national government.

Argentine left and right wings gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in a protest against the IMF and in opposition to the national government.

Thousands of people demonstrated in the streets of Buenos Aires on Saturday amid Independence Day celebrations to protest the government's actions in the face of the country's socio-economic difficulties.

Leftist parties, unions, and social organizations gathered at the Plaza de Mayo to call for a general strike and a ceasing of payments in Argentina's agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) amid the country's increasing inflation and economic volatility.

Concerns are surfacing in the country about the negotiation of the debt of 45 billion dollars with the IMF, an unleashed inflation that accumulates 30% so far this year that according to analysts could reach 70%, in addition to shortages and rising dollar prices in the official and black markets.

While traditional left-wing parties packed the Plaza de Mayo, a smaller right-wing group headed from the city's obelisk towards the square and struggled to pass through a police line that was attempting to avoid any kind of violence between the two antagonistic groups.

Carrying just Argentine flags and no political parties emblems, they managed to get to the Government House to stage their own demonstration, banging pots and singing the national anthem.

One small group carried a guillotine with a banner naming the ruling party "Todos" and the phrase "dead, imprisoned or exiled" on top.

Protesters also set a giant doll depicting vice-president Cristina Fernandez dressed as an inmate while carrying a bag full of money in one hand and holding a puppet of president Alberto Fernandez in the other.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/Zakaria_Z_Army/status/1546903628065214469
1546903628065214469

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rufaskamau/2022/07/11/inflation-protests-span-sri-lanka-albania-argentina-panama-kenya-ghanahow-long-before-they-hit-the-united-states/?sh=2cc5839074c2

Inflation Protests Span Sri Lanka, Albania, Argentina, Panama, Kenya, Ghana - How Long Before They Hit The United States?
Rufas Kamau12:52pm EDT
Sri Lanka is not the only country where household budgets are stretched to the breaking point. In many countries, high inflation has increased the cost of living, and protests are erupting at a rapid pace.

In Sri Lanka, inflation reached 54.6% in June while the central bank raised interest rates to 15.5%. This means that workers in Sri Lanka are losing savings by the second, while debt repayments have increased, putting strain on household budgets. The government has failed to honor foreign debt, and the IMF has demanded that it raise taxes and combat corruption as a condition for receiving a bailout loan.

Thousands of Albanians marched in Tirana last week, demanding that the government resign due to alleged corruption and a massive increase in consumer prices. The Albanian central bank announced a 1.25% interest rate increase, while official June inflation was 6.7%.

Thousands of Argentinians marched in Buenos Aires last week to protest rising costs of living. With key interest rates at 52% and inflation at 60.7% in May, demonstrators urged the government to resign while rejecting IMF loans that come with ever-tougher conditions for citizens.

Protests against the government in Panama began on first July, demanding that the government address the country's high cost of living. Demonstrators are demanding higher wages, lower commodity prices and the removal of supply chain bottlenecks. While inflation remains low in the highly monetized country, global supply chain issues have impacted Panama Canal revenues, reducing the government's revenues and projections.

The cost of basic foodstuffs has skyrocketed in Kenya and hundreds of protesters marched through Nairobi on Saturday, urging the government to lower food prices. Protesters claimed that the high cost of living was caused by the state's excessive borrowing and rampant corruption. Kenya's official inflation rate is 7.91%, while interest rates are 7.50%.

Ghanaians took to the streets in June to protest the high cost of living. The government was able to negotiate an IMF bailout after inflation reached 27.6% and raising interest rates to 19% did not appear to work. Ghana's economy has been flirting with a debt crisis due to excessive borrowing.

There are other demonstrations in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and China that seem to span people being unable to comfortably handle household budgets, their cost of living being threatened by environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies and inability to access cash at bank.

While the US remains strong and employment data indicates a thriving economy, higher inflation could easily pressure household budgets and lead to protests. The FED is walking a tight rope and any mistake or black swan event could easily trigger demonstrations.

As a citizen, you can protect yourself from excessive currency printing by investing in bitcoin BTC +4.2%+4.2% or other hard assets that cannot be printed for free. When held in self-custody, bitcoin has a hard cap and cannot be inflated. People who live in high-inflation areas could use bitcoin as a technology to store value and protect themselves from inflation. Furthermore, individuals who were unable to access their funds at Chinese commercial banks may benefit from a solid umbrella under bitcoin.

[Ravenlocke]

¤=[Post Update]=¤

[/COLOR]Portugal

https://twitter.com/TheWorkersRigh1/status/1545404137759580161
1545404137759580161

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/Freedom_Slips/status/1545876497247875072

1545876497247875072

https://twitter.com/Freedom_Slips/status/1545876607495131136
1545876607495131136

[Ravenlocke]

Australia

https://twitter.com/MikeHeadWSWS/status/1547348033204940802
1547348033204940802

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-14/expert-covid-advice-ignored-as-supports-ends-masks/101235654

analysis: In the new COVID-19 era, politicians are advising the experts — and in some cases, ignoring advice they don't want to hear


It's less than a year since the "hi-vis" protests brought Melbourne's CBD to an almost daily standstill. It's less than six months since the "Convoy to Canberra" saw huge crowds converge on the national capital for a two-week "freedom" festival.

These demonstrations drew in all manner of anti-lockdown, anti-vax and anti-mandate campaigners (and a few conspiracy theorists, too). Their collective complaint was government control. The protesters wanted an end to requirements and restrictions being forced upon them to keep the virus at bay. They wanted the right to make their own choices.

At the time, most political leaders brushed off such protests and complaints. They insisted the health advice must be strictly followed. "You know what's mandatory? Following the advice of experts" was a standard retort from Victorian Premier Dan Andrews.

Now, apparently, it's no longer mandatory to follow expert advice. Governments can pick and choose.

Moving away from mandates

Australia's shift away from strict adherence to health advice has been gradual — but it's profound, nonetheless.

This week, Victoria's Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas rejected advice from the state's acting Chief Health Officer to mandate mask-wearing in childcare centres, schools, retail and some hospitality venues, just as a new Omicron wave was taking hold.

Australia's mask complacency in COVID-19
Debate is once again raging about mask mandates, as health experts warn COVID-19 fatigue and complacency is costing the most vulnerable Australians.

A woman in face mask, face shield and bathrobe in her garden
Read more
Mask wearing is still "strongly recommended" and many are

A national approach

The federal Labor government has equally moved away from supporting any widespread mandates.

Health Minister Mark Butler says there is a "level of fatigue about being told what to do". He simply doesn't think mandates will be followed. Worse, they could be counterproductive.

Butler has even advised chief health officers on the sort of advice they should be providing. They need to "make sure that they calibrate their advice for this third wave in 2022 in a way that gets the best response and the best behavioural response from our community," he told 3AW's Neil Mitchell.

So, the politicians are now advising the experts. And, in the case of Victoria, ignoring expert advice they don't want to hear.

Perhaps the politicians are right. Perhaps a "strong recommendation" will be more effective than a mask mandate. Perhaps there's sound advice from behavioural experts to back this up. Perhaps it's not just a political calculation based on focus group research four months out from the Victorian election.

What if the calculations are wrong?

The risk, of course, is that the politicians are wrong. The virus pays no heed to public opinion. If hospitals can't cope over the coming months, state governments will face a much tougher task justifying decisions to ignore health advice.

The federal Health Minister is confident hospitals will manage. Butler has been advised COVID-19 admissions will rise from around 4,000 now to a little over 5,000 in the coming months. He expects the number of intensive care unit admissions, however, will be "markedly lower than they were in January". That's largely because the more severe Delta strain was still a problem back then. Making fourth-dose vaccines and antiviral treatments more widely available as of this week should also help.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/EpochTimesChina/status/1546703395507036160

1546703395507036160

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/ICIJorg/status/1547599054242062337

1547599054242062337

https://www.icij.org/investigations/uber-files/uber-files-sparks-street-protests-calls-to-investigate-politicians-and-a-rude-rebuttal/?utm_campaign=Sprout&utm_content=Uber+Files&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Uber Files sparks street protests, calls to investigate politicians and a rude rebuttal
Officials in multiple countries react to findings on the ride-hailing giant’s lobbying and other aggressive tactics behind its global rise.

Taxi drivers have taken to the streets in Italy, European leaders call for lobbying reforms and top political figures are facing scrutiny in the wake of the Uber Files investigation.

Lawmakers have urged the European Union to probe its former vice president Neelie Kroes’ ties to Uber and French President Emmanuel Macron issued a vulgar rebuttal to the investigation’s revelations.

The fallout comes within days of the publication of the Uber Files, a global reporting collaboration led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and The Guardian. A trove of internal records leaked by a former Uber executive reveal how the transportation giant used aggressive tactics to enter international markets, including holding undeclared meetings with public officials, using technology to evade government investigators in several countries, and seeking to exploit violence against its drivers to garner support for its agenda.

Uber Files reignited protests in Rome, Naples and Milan by taxi drivers who stopped their services and staged sit-in protests on Tuesday, Italian media reported, and demonstrated at parliament today. Drivers have been protesting for weeks against a bill they claim threatens the taxi industry by allowing more competition from companies like Uber.

More than 20 members of the European Parliament from the Socialist Democrat and Greens parties have signed a letter urging the European Commission to open an investigation into Kroes, a former European Commissioner. The Uber Files revealed that Kroes helped Uber lobby the Dutch government as the ride-hailing company reportedly sought to keep the relationship secret. Kroes has denied wrongdoing, and the European Commission said it would seek further clarification from Kroes.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron dismissed the Uber Files findings when questioned by reporters on Tuesday, saying he was “proud” of the work he did trying to attract businesses to France during his time as economy minister. The Uber Files reveal Macron’s private communications and several undisclosed meetings with the ride-hailing startup between 2014 and 2016, while Uber was lobbying to change regulations and expand in France. Opposition parties have pushed for a parliamentary inquiry into Macron’s relationship with Uber.

“We’ve created thousands of jobs … I would do it again tomorrow,” Macron said. He used a vulgar French expression referring to a man’s testicles to explain that he was unfazed by the scrutiny.

In an interview with Reporterre, opposition parliamentarian Alma Dufour –a vocal opponent of American multinationals seeking deregulations in France – criticized Macron’s alliance with large tech companies and “start-up nation” vows, likening the president’s links to Uber to his support of Amazon’s expansion in the country.

In Ireland, Prime Minister Michéal Martin told ICIJ partner The Irish Times that there should be more transparency around lobbying activities, after revelations that Uber tried to push a previous Irish government to loosen taxi regulations in Ireland. And Brendan Howlin, a former minister who championed lobbying regulations in 2015, criticized a former public official turned Uber lobbyist over Uber Files reporting on undisclosed contact with ministers.

In India, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the minister for electronics and IT, told ICIJ partner the Indian Express that it was disturbing how platforms like Uber employed technology to “evade scrutiny and bypass laws.”

“It has been fairly obvious to most people that big tech platforms have been using technology to game the system and consumers both, and have evaded scrutiny by constantly covering themselves with innovations,” said Chandrasekhar, pledging stricter rules and penalties in light of the Uber Files.

Yolanda Díaz, Spain’s second deputy prime minister and labour minister, told reporters the Uber Files was a matter of “utmost seriousness” and said the investigation showed how corporate power could undermine democracy.

The European Trade Union Confederation, with members in 39 countries, has also weighed in, accusing Uber of aggressively lobbying to “try and water down EU legislation on the rights of platform workers” and called to suspend accreditation for Uber’s EU lobbyists, pending an investigation. EU lawmakers are currently considering a draft bill to require gig-economy companies pay minimum wage, vacations and sick days to their workers.

In response to ICIJ’s questions on the Uber Files, Uber said it has changed its lobbying rules since 2017 to include stronger oversight.

[Ravenlocke]

Protests in China

https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1546564224238997510
1546564224238997510

https://twitter.com/ChinaUncensored/status/1546124805547622400
1546124805547622400

https://twitter.com/GundamNorthrop/status/1547283413589143552
1547283413589143552

https://twitter.com/GundamNorthrop/status/1547277221764599808
1547277221764599808

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/bollyinsidenews/status/1547668525006741517
1547668525006741517

https://www.bollyinside.com/news/china-real-estate-protests-threaten-to-default-on-220bn-of-mortgage-loans-from-banks?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

China real estate protests threaten to default on $220bn of mortgage loans from banks
2022-07-14

Chinese banks could confront heavy writedowns in their mortgage businesses as developing quantities of homebuyers take steps to stop loan repayments to protest against incomplete apartments sold to them, analysts said. The home loan bad-loan ratios for banks could rise three- to five-fold because of homebuyers halting home loan payments, analysts estimate, adding the protests will significantly add to lenders’ risk exposure to the cash-starved property sector.

The homebuyers’ threats, mostly demanding government action by July or August deadlines, have deepened investor concerns about the property sector, which accounts for a quarter of the economy. Investors also worry about banks, which have been rattled in the past year by developers’ shortage of cash and many resulting defaults.

The protests further weaken the outlook for banks, which are already reeling under the impact of a slowing economy as the government asks them to provide supportive lending for firms hit by COVID-19 containment measures.

Chinese investors dumped banking and real estate stocks on Thursday, with the CSI300 Bank index falling as much as 3.3%.

Mortgages account for nearly 20% of all loans.

Up to 1.5 trillion yuan ($220 billion) of mortgage loans are linked to unfinished residential projects in China, ANZ said in a report. That could be at risk if the homebuyers’ protest, mainly focused on central Chinese cities, widens.

Some big-city projects are already affected.

Protests involved fewer than 20 developments at the beginning of this week but more than 100 by mid-week, according to media reports and analysts, who expect the number to reach 200 by the weekend.

Developers involved in these unfinished projects include cash-strapped China Evergrande Group and Sinic Holdings, according to analysts and media reports. Evergrande declined to comment. Sinic did not immediately respond to request for comment.

‘PESSIMISTIC OUTLOOK’ Chinese authorities held emergency meetings with banks after becoming alarmed that an increasing number of homebuyers were refusing to pay mortgages on stalled projects, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Several local governments had also met with homebuyers this week, analysts and local media said, without providing details. “A primary concern is if this snub spreads too quickly and more home buyers follow suit only because their projects are going slowly, or simply out of a pessimistic outlook for the property sector,” said Shujin Chen, equity analyst at Jefferies.

Though banks own the pre-sold apartments as collateral, they would still likely suffer a loss, because the assets are uncompleted. Waiting for completion could expose the banks to a risk of a substantial drop in real estate values. “It’s challenging to sell the apartments under current market conditions. Plus, if there comes a massive wave of home auctions, prices will crash,” said Xiaoxi Zhang, China finance analyst of Chinese research group Gavekal Dragonomics.

A fund manager also said banks would get zero equity back if they seized uncompleted assets. “That’s going to wipe out half of the existing bank equity; it’s worst than subprime,” he said, referring to the US subprime mortgage crisis that began in 2007. The fund manager asked not to be named, due to the sensitivity of the matter.

[Ravenlocke]

Albania

https://twitter.com/_AfricanSoil/status/1545750168657694720

1545750168657694720

https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1545325264091189250

1545325264091189250

[Ravenlocke]

Kenya, No food no elections!

https://twitter.com/TheIntlMagz/status/1546462798871334912
1546462798871334912

https://twitter.com/sarahkimani/status/1544961459389620231
1544961459389620231

[Ravenlocke]

Hungary protests against new taxation laws

https://twitter.com/erdosdenes/status/1547622350685741060
1547622350685741060


https://twitter.com/erdosdenes/status/1547218518298578944

1547218518298578944

[Ravenlocke]

Protests continue in Panama

https://twitter.com/WeAreProtestors/status/1547681625735299072
1547681625735299072

https://twitter.com/WeAreProtestors/status/1547682553699893248
1547682553699893248

[pabranno]

Wouldn’t it be something if the US got this riled up….?

Pamela

[Ravenlocke]

Macedonia

https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1545065945139494915
1545065945139494915

https://twitter.com/risemelbourne/status/1545974654866956289
1545974654866956289

https://twitter.com/LepceSoSalamce/status/1547251616893603842
1547251616893603842

https://twitter.com/BillNicholov/status/1546776422542462976
1546776422542462976

[Ravenlocke]

Libya

https://twitter.com/steve_hanke/status/1545490653479636992
1545490653479636992

https://twitter.com/steve_hanke/status/1545261141005410305
1545261141005410305

[Ravenlocke]

Bosnia

https://twitter.com/realzaidzayn/status/1544903276402855936
1544903276402855936

https://twitter.com/AzemKurtic/status/1544723225191583746
1544723225191583746

[Ravenlocke]

Ghana
https://twitter.com/steve_hanke/status/1545558353916489728
1545558353916489728

https://twitter.com/WPReview/status/1544456228385988611
1544456228385988611

https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1547528750316883968
1547528750316883968

[Ravenlocke]

France on Bastille day


https://twitter.com/WeAreProtestors/status/1547571680218062848
1547571680218062848

[Ravenlocke]

Turkey
Health workers protest

https://twitter.com/01Lambi/status/1545153962642477056
1545153962642477056

https://twitter.com/Tr__News/status/1544977284330754048
1544977284330754048

https://twitter.com/StockholmCF/status/1545303979252408325
1545303979252408325


https://twitter.com/WashingtonPoint/status/1545099196990103554
1545099196990103554

[Ravenlocke]

India

https://ommcomnews.com/india-news/youth-congress-protests-over-rising-lpg-cylinder-prices

Youth Congress Protests Over Rising LPG Cylinder Prices

New Delhi: The Youth Congress on Wednesday tried to protest outside the residence of Union Minister Smriti Irani over rising prices but were stopped by the police.

The protest was against the rising LPG cylinder prices across the country.

“Inflation continues on the kitchen, once again the prices of LPG cylinders have been increased drastically. The repeated increase in the price of LPG is adding to the problems of the public,” said its national president Srinivas BV.

He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will neither allow people to eat food nor will he allow them to cook. When Smriti Irani was in the opposition, she used to protest on the streets against an increase of Rs 5 in petrol, diesel and LPG prices, but today when there is all-round inflation she is silent, today the Youth Congress has tried to wake her up from her sleep.

The Youth Congress said that under the BJP’s rule, $1 is at Rs 79.36 and LPG is at Rs 1053 per cylinder.

Holding placards the activists alleged that Modi could not show a red eye to China, but tomatoes are showing a red eye to the public due to inflation, food is being snatched from the people’s plate.

The Congress government used to buy expensive and sell them cheap to the public. But now despite everything being cheap in the international market, it is being sold expensive to the public. It is because of their wrong policies on inflation that today the rich have become richer and the poor have become more poor. Srinivas said that Prime Minister Modi should understand the pain of the people, today the people are suffering from unemployment, inflation has broken the back of the common man. The government should reconsider its decisions and roll back the increased prices as soon as possible.


Mumbai

https://twitter.com/ChemburAap/status/1547830862955233282
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Delhi

https://twitter.com/current_needs/status/1547893753116909571

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[Ravenlocke]

Moldova

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[Ravenlocke]

Africa

https://twitter.com/mozolo_online/status/1545865020201893889
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https://mozoloonline.com/professor-sampson-mamphweli-unpacks-african-protests-against-rising-fuel-prices/

Professor Sampson Mamphweli unpacks African protests against rising fuel prices

Protests are beginning to mushroom across the African continent, as the price of fuel continues to skyrocket. In recent days, South Africa and neighbouring Mozambique have experienced chaos, where bus and truck drivers blocked key cargo routes. Many are demanding that the government responds accordingly to high fuel costs. Professor Sampson Mamphweli from Stellenbosch University comments on these developments.


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France protesting rise in food and fuel costs

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[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/DaleFourTrump/status/1548400342416519168
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[Ravenlocke]

Germany, Hamburg
https://twitter.com/spriteer_774400/status/1548582265994756097
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Moldova

https://twitter.com/spriteer_774400/status/1548667191880548354
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Melbourne Australia

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Peru

https://twitter.com/risemelbourne/status/1549869009835016192
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https://twitter.com/steve_hanke/status/1549779312366190593
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[Ravenlocke]

India

https://twitter.com/therealthawt/status/1550126612456214534
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https://twitter.com/Restless_SouI/status/1550048203097067520
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https://twitter.com/SaratPatINC/status/1550060788295270400
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[Ravenlocke]

California

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11034021/Californias-Port-Oakland-shuts-day-row-trucker-protests.html

Port of Oakland shuts for a THIRD day in a row due to trucker protests
Truckers protesting a looming California labor law shut down one of the busiest seaports in the United States for the third day in a row.

Operations were halted at the Port of Oakland on Wednesday as hundreds of independent big-rig truckers picketed gates and blocked other drivers from hauling cargo in and out of terminals at the port.

The truckers are protesting Assembly Bill 5, a gig economy law passed in 2019 that sets tougher standards for classifying workers as independent contractors.

The protesters worry that the law, which could soon be put into effect, will impose hefty costs on them that will slash their earnings.

Demonstrations began on Monday and have grown larger and more disruptive with each passing day, exacerbating supply-chain issues that already have led to cargo ship traffic jams at major ports and stockpiled goods on the dock.

Protest organizers say their actions will continue until Governor Gavin Newsom agrees to meet and discuss the issue.

The protests in Oakland followed actions last week at the nation's top two seaports, at Los Angeles and Long Beach in Southern California. The three California ports handle about half of the nation's container cargo volume.

Demonstrators stopped traffic on Wednesday as they picketed in large crowds at the Port of Oakland, interfering with the entrance gates and overall operations.

SSA Marine and Everport terminal managers sent International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) dock workers home for safety reasons.

The protests come as toymakers and other industries enter their peak season for imports as retailers stockpile goods for the fall holidays and back-to-school items.

As a result of the demonstrations, productivity at the port has diminished and wait times for containers have risen.

Port officials fear the 'shutdown will further exacerbate the congestion of containers' and are urging operations at shipping terminals to resume.

'The supply chain already is in crisis. This is a huge disruption,' echoed Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

The truckers are protesting Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), which makes it harder for companies to classify workers as independent contractors instead of employees, who are entitled to minimum wage and benefits such as workers compensation, overtime and sick pay.

'It seems the governor is not concerned about taking American workers' rights away,' demonstrator Bill Aboudi, owner of AB Trucking, told CNBC. 'So far there has been no contact with the governor's office.'

'These are independent, small businesses that choose to operate their own trucks, and now that right is taken away from them. They do pay taxes, they do have insurance. It's their choice to do that.'

California Sen. Brian Dahle, who is running against Newsom for governor, joined the protesters Wednesday and criticized AB5.

'These guys just want to be free to drive their truck and run their business,' Dahle said of the truckers.

'But Gavin Newsom and the legislature doesn't see fit to make sure you get your supplies out of this port and to the store - that's why prices are going up. That's why you can't afford to live in California.'

Dahle, who voted against the legislation, alleged the law has 'created a legal nightmare' and is hurtful to small business owners, specifically truckers.

Truck drivers choke traffic at CA port over controversial AB 5 law

A federal appeals court ruled last year that AB5 applies to some 70,000 truck drivers who can be classified as employees of companies that hire them instead of independent contractors.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters called it a 'massive victory' for exploited truckers, alleging AB5 aims to clamp down on labor abuses and push companies to hire drivers as employees - which would enable them to join unions and collectively bargain with employers.

But the California Trucking Association, which sued over the law, argued the it could make it harder for independent drivers who own their own trucks and operate on their own hours to make a living by forcing them to be classified as employees.

The legal battle stalled enforcement of the law for more than two years, but the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case on June 30, clearing the way for it to go forward.

Meanwhile, there's been no word on when the state might begin enforcing the law, which is still being contested in lower courts.

On Monday, the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development said now that federal courts have rejected the trucking industry's appeals, officials should 'move forward' with enacted the legislation.

'It's time to move forward, comply with the law and work together to create a fairer and more sustainable industry for all,' Dee Dee Myers, office director, told CNBC.

Newsom's office, in a separate email, told the news outlet: 'We also suspect the landscape may change (independent drivers becoming their own authority and/or then existing firms becoming an employee/driver model).'

Ports had already been struggling to handle container traffic, much of it from Asia, prior to the protests.

After the COVID-19 pandemic began to take hold in 2020, cargo traffic to ports slumped drastically. But then it recovered and has been booming since.

'We understand the frustration expressed by the protestors at California ports,' Port of Oakland Executive Director Danny Wan said in the port statement.

'But, prolonged stoppage of port operations in California for any reason will damage all the businesses operating at the ports and cause California ports to further suffer market share losses to competing ports.'

Some 5,000 truckers work at the Oakland port, which handles many different types of cargo and is a major hub for California's agricultural exports including almonds, rice and wine.

The trucker protests come as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents dock workers at those and other U.S. West Coast ports, is in high-stakes contract talks with terminal operators that employ them.

[Ravenlocke]

Panama protests against rise on cost of living and fuel continue:

https://twitter.com/backtolife_2023/status/1549512733502185474
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https://twitter.com/PopularFront_/status/1549849339614339074
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https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1549158477603414018
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https://twitter.com/TheRealKeean/status/1549413624690937857
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https://twitter.com/NixinWolf/status/1549952289372250113
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[Ravenlocke]

Puerto Rico

https://twitter.com/deviIette/status/1549783161583927296
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https://twitter.com/latinorebels/status/1549809207473364992
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https://twitter.com/inquirerdotnet/status/1549947439423131649
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https://twitter.com/telesurenglish/status/1550134241731629057
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https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1549924723735273473
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Malawi Africa

https://twitter.com/spriteer_774400/status/1550100498023333888
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https://twitter.com/_AfricanSoil/status/1549735788610453509
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https://twitter.com/mcbrams/status/1550041676915380228
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https://twitter.com/VOAAfrica/status/1549875044553310208
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[Bill Ryan]

https://projectavalon.net/Supporting_the_Dutch.jpg

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/risemelbourne/status/1551675593909243904
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https://twitter.com/MobilePunch/status/1551843141661360128
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ITALY

https://twitter.com/risemelbourne/status/1553149936539435008
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https://twitter.com/RadioGenova/status/1552381385775652864
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[Bill Ryan]

We may need a Turmoil in the UK thread quite soon. Look at this:


https://dontpay.uk

92,719 people have pledged to strike on October 1st

We are a movement against the rise in energy bills.


We demand a reduction in energy bills to an affordable level.
We will cancel our direct debits from Oct 1, if we are ignored.
We will take this action if pledges reach 1 million by then.

(...much more at the website (https://dontpay.uk))

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1561424720515723264
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[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/SputnikInt/status/1561725436991660033
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https://sputniknews.com/20220822/strike-at-uks-largest-container-port-to-severely-disrupt-supply-chain-union-chief-admits-1099862014.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter


Strike at UK's Largest Container Port to 'Severely' Disrupt Supply Chain, Union Chief Admits

Industrial action by workers at Felixstowe – the UK's largest container port – comes on the heels of a strike by transport workers that practically paralyzed the operation of the London Underground on August 19. Strikes have also affected surface rail, trams, and buses amid the cost of living squeeze.


Eight-day strikes at the UK's largest container port, Felixstowe, in Suffolk, will see the supply chain "severely disrupted," the head of the Unite trade union acknowledged, according to Sky News.
However, Unite national officer Robert Morton also warned "there will be more strikes" if the almost 1,900 members of the union, including crane drivers, machine operators, and stevedores, who walked out of their jobs on August 21, fail to achieve their goals.
"The supply chain will be severely disrupted, I accept that. That's one of the unfortunate parts of things like this. It could be over this afternoon if the employer agreed to meet us for real-time negotiations. The last message they gave to us is that 'yes, we will meet you, but no, we will not move our position one inch.' That's the wrong approach," Morton said.
The union is demanding a pay rise of “between 7% and 12.3%" as "acceptable," in line with soaring inflation, which has hit 12.3%.
While the workers had previously been offered a 7% increase, as well as a £500 lump sum payment, by Felixstowe Dock and Railway, the offer from the port operator was described as "significantly below" the rate of inflation by Unite.
Furthermore, it was not put towards a vote by the trade union members as "at the beginning of the negotiations we asked them what they wanted and they said, 'we want you to go and negotiate and come back with at least the rate of inflation. If it's anything less than that, then don't bring it back'", Morton said.
According to Paul Davey, head of corporate affairs at the port, the deal only runs until the end of the year.
"On the first of January, there is another pay deal. So we can deal with future inflation next year. The deal we have offered them is a lot better than the vast majority of people are getting and also you know we're pleased and we are proud that we pay very well here at the port of Felixstowe," Davey was quoted as saying.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1561703475767087108
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[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1562142069778534401
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Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Majid Sati was killed by unknown armed bikers in Rawalpindi.

Police say the shooting incident took place on Sixth Road, Majid Sati was transferred to hospital with serious injuries, he died during treatment, the reasons for the shooting have not yet been revealed.

Three days ago, unidentified people shot dead Tehreek-e-Insaf worker Nargis Baloch in Quetta. Two of the victim’s children were killed last year.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1561831354576388098
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[Ravenlocke]

Haiti

https://twitter.com/partizanGreece1/status/1561823326003240960
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https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1562182893652193282
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[Ravenlocke]

New Zealand

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[Ravenlocke]

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https://www.theepochtimes.com/rebel-news-journalist-avi-yemini-barred-entry-to-new-zealand-to-report-on-thousand-strong-anti-government-protest_4685132.html?utm_source=ref_share&utm_campaign=tw&rs=SHRPCDKX

Rebel News Journalist Avi Yemini Barred Entry to New Zealand to Report on Thousand Strong Anti-Government Protest

Australian journalist Avi Yemini was denied entry to New Zealand (NZ) by the immigration office while on his way to report on a protest in New Zealand’s capital on Aug. 23.

Immigration NZ told 1News that Yemini had failed to meet the “good character” test for immigration requirements due to a past criminal conviction.

“The onus is on the person to satisfy Immigration NZ that they meet all of the visa and entry requirements for New Zealand, including being of good character,” a spokesperson said.

According to the Immigration NZ website, a person fails to meet its good character requirements if they have a criminal conviction, have been deported from another country, or the organisation has reason to believe they are a risk to the country’s security, public order, or public interest.

“Where an individual does not meet character requirements, they should apply through the usual visa application process,” Immigration NZ said.

However, Yemini noted that Australian citizens are not required to obtain a visa to visit, work, and live in New Zealand.

“I didn’t break any of the regulations to get in. As an Australian citizen, you don’t need a visa waiver,” he told The Epoch Times.

Australians can be refused entry if they have been convicted of a criminal offence and served at least one year in jail within the last 10 years.

“The conviction that they were referring to was a fine. It’s the lowest form of any sort of [penalty],” Yemini said. “It doesn’t meet the threshold of refusing entry.”

Yemini said he was told over the phone by an immigration officer that she exercised the powers available to her to reject entry to the country after she deemed him not to have good character.

The officer told Yemini she had made the judgement after reading an article by the NZ Herald, which he described as a “smear campaign.”

“I asked them to give it to me in writing,” he said, explaining that to make an appeal, a phone call was not enough. “They refused to give me anything.”

Fellow Australian independent journalist Rukshan Fernando, known as The Real Rukshan, also had his passport flagged but was eventually allowed to board the plane to New Zealand.


Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she had no further information on the issue outside of what was released in public domain.

“And just to be absolutely clear, this is not something that, as I understand, would come up to a ministerial level decision,” she told reporters.

Yemini believes one reason he had been denied entry was because his work was a “threat” to the Ardern government.

“Is that information he’s putting out bad for our PR? … In short, [the answer is] yes,” he said.

“Yeah, they may be won in the short-term. But in the long-term, I think there’s a lot of New Zealanders that are very interested in what we’re doing now because they blocked us.”

Thousands Protest At Wellington

Meanwhile, thousands of Kiwis have come out to protest in an organised demonstration around New Zealand’s parliament—locally known as the Beehive—in Wellington to criticise the Ardern government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wellington police closed off streets around Parliament and kept a close eye on the protest.

“The community can be reassured we are actively monitoring this event to ensure the protest activity is carried out in a safe manner for all involved, including members of the public, and disruption is kept to a minimum,” the Wellington District Police said on Facebook.

The protesters converged at Civic Square before marching to the Beehive. A smaller counter-protest group, numbered in the hundreds, also gathered near Parliament.

Protesters also held a mock court trial outside Parliament that found the government guilty of “crimes against humanity.”

Destiny Church leader and organiser of the protest Brian Tamaki, told the demonstrators that he had seen his country go “down the gurgler.”

The Wellington Police said they believed there were around 1,500 attendees to the protest, although alternative sources from Wellington City Council told Stuff.co there were at least 2000 protestors.

The police also noted they were “very pleased” with how people conducted themselves after the event ended.

“The group was monitored closely by police, and there were no reported issues,” they wrote in another Facebook post.

[Ravenlocke]

Iraq


https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1564241744157351936
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https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1564252807661850630
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[Bill Ryan]

I found this interesting. In his video last night, Tucker Carlson alerted his US viewers to all the serious problems in Europe, assuming (probably correctly!) that few people in America were fully aware of the chaos, inflation and anxiety in Europe right now.

The problems are all supply-side (nothing that tinkering with monetary policy can possibly fix), and all that the US/EU has to do is lift the sanctions on Russia. But there's no sign this is ever going to happen. Everything Tucker states and explains here is correct.

Things are falling apart very quickly


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn6c-UkqlHo

[Ravenlocke]

Naples Italy

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1565762102261866496
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[Bill Ryan]

Germany


From October 1, German streets will be patrolled by the military to prevent riots

https://investmentwatchblog.com/from-october-1-german-streets-will-be-patrolled-by-the-military-to-prevent-riots/ (https://investmentwatchblog.com/from-october-1-german-streets-will-be-patrolled-by-the-military-to-prevent-riots/)

[Ravenlocke]

Pakistan

After the mass protests in support of Imran Khan, major flooding occurs..
https://twitter.com/SouthAsiaIndex/status/1565699303347191808
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https://twitter.com/SouthAsiaIndex/status/1564255495396917248
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https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1566697647850852355
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[Frankie Pancakes]

Excerpt from a very prescient article.

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/09/05/say-nothing-phase-of-this-fourth-turning/#more-278677

“SAY NOTHING” PHASE OF THIS FOURTH TURNING

Those who live their lives with a linear mindset, brainwashed by public school indoctrination, distracted by their myriad of electronic gadgets, and trapped on the hamster wheel of trying to accumulate more material goods while going further in debt, are unprepared for the coming level of violent upheaval about to be unleashed upon this nation. No one with a conscience and morality is rooting for a civil war, but our figurehead president has already declared war, with the shooting yet to commence.

It feels much like the ambiguous period between Lincoln’s election in November 1860 and the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861. We are waiting for the event and/or act which will initiate the vicious phase of this Fourth Turning. We know it will happen, but we don’t know when, where or who will pull the trigger.

“Picture yourself and your loved ones in the midst of a howling blizzard that lasts several years. Think about what you would need, who could help you, and why your fate might matter to anybody other than yourself. That is how to plan for a saecular winter. Don’t think you can escape the Fourth Turning. History warns that a Crisis will reshape the basic social and economic environment that you now take for granted.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

Our civilized society is about to turn into a barbarous hellscape, unrecognizable from the comfort and safety we have grown accustomed to since the last Fourth Turning. The cycles of history spin from highs to lows, with death and destruction always entering the picture at some point. Human nature never changes; therefore, we are condemned to repeat the errors of the past while creating new errors along the way. That feeling of doom you should be experiencing at this point in history is well founded. Prepping for the coming storms is a worthwhile expenditure of your time but making sure you tribe up with like minded armed individuals will be your best bet to survive. You have been declared an enemy of the state. That is all the incentive you should need to do whatever is necessary to win this coming war. Remember – Whatever You Say, Say Nothing.

[mountain_jim]

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1567184734526005250?s=20&t=3dyDy27Ou-W5jz-82XXYkQ

1567184734526005250

[Bill Ryan]

Europe

"Let's get out of NATO!".. HUGE protests all over Europe


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzOvwlAkbvU

[Bill Ryan]

Germany

Energy Crisis: German people demand the lifting of sanctions against Russia


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPySMa1EL7Y

[Ravenlocke]

Moldova


https://twitter.com/ReadovkaWorld/status/1568187226999193600
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https://twitter.com/moldovaliveR/status/1568245997515464705
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[Bill Ryan]

Austria

https://rt.com/news/562579-vienna-anti-government-protest

Rising prices see Austrians take to the streets

Activists gather in the capital, Vienna, to protest against surging prices and anti-Russia sanctions


https://cdni.russiatoday.com/files/2022.09/m/631d97c385f5401c98180a55.png

Thousands of people poured onto the streets of Vienna on Saturday, protesting against the soaring cost of living, with many denouncing the Austrian government and the “globalist agenda.”

An estimated 3,000 people took part in the rally, as reported by the Heute newspaper, citing the city police force. Another gathering, dubbed the “patriots’ march,” also took place in downtown Vienna. There was a heavy security presence along the routes, and both events passed without incident.

https://cdnv.russiatoday.com/files/2022.09/631d981785f5402d40745140.mp4

The protesters accused the Austrian government of failing its own people and working in the interests of “globalists.” Some activists denounced mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations, but the dominant theme on Saturday was skyrocketing energy prices, and the inflationary crisis.

Protesters called for the lifting of “suicide-sanctions” – an apparent reference to the punitive measures imposed on Russia in the wake of its military operation in Ukraine. Others denounced “NATO’s warmongering,” and a perceived push for militarization in Europe in general.

The activists went on to commemorate the “victims of vaccination” during both rallies.

Last Saturday, some 70,000 turned out for a march in the Czech capital, Prague. Demonstrators demanded that the government secure direct contracts with gas suppliers, including Russia, to get ballooning energy prices down. They also called for the Czech Republic to become militarily neutral, and denounced NATO and the EU.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1571501139270701056
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[mountain_jim]

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1571573546836725764?s=20&t=ZzYXtkJOXYFWkO8YlPCRww

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https://twitter.com/DavidBCollum/status/1571612330936393731?s=20&t=WJtKFpC2eN7bHYpZpT0wJg


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[mountain_jim]

Royals of the Netherlands booed by the Dutch people in Den Haag. Some have turned their backs as the royal carriage passes.

The Dutch rise up. Insults, shouts, whistles, howls, overturned flags and people turning their backs as the royal carriage passes through Den Haag. Embarrassed journalists can't find the words to describe what happened.


https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/116/252/659/playable/9af23aca55910bc3.mp4

[mountain_jim]

https://twitter.com/Michael_Lipin/status/1572417394131476481?s=20&t=UCzFPw03rTiyO3SSjpTBFA

1572417394131476481


https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1572402532617682944?s=20&t=8_M7Bf4aP-OAVccr11dKkg

1572402532617682944

[mountain_jim]

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1572677045242695680?s=20&t=VwtgQXk96-merqb1U91_yQ

1572677045242695680

[mountain_jim]

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1572747774994661378?s=20&t=J9PaY2-2BAkF3eHBFFjDAw

1572747774994661378



https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1572781108496048128?s=20&t=J9PaY2-2BAkF3eHBFFjDAw

1572781108496048128

[mountain_jim]

https://twitter.com/FazelHawramy/status/1572614216103649285?s=20&t=oJf81uYbsUfNXdnZ3gYpvA

1572614216103649285


https://twitter.com/HanifJazayeri/status/1572281264237072385?s=20&t=xUjgmvH07kyFC1rBphP7aA

1572281264237072385

[mountain_jim]

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1573401818637516800?s=20&t=8CebLp7pTTutTULqT4VPrg

1573401818637516800




https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1573396653146787840?s=20&t=8CebLp7pTTutTULqT4VPrg

1573396653146787840

[mountain_jim]

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1573552813786992644?s=20&t=oIdSG-YoGr-y9PQDIc7oiA

1573552813786992644

[mountain_jim]

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1573698185771597829?s=20&t=c6Ipr0OiDjCNpDatVZIVrw

1573698185771597829



https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1573698967979843590?s=20&t=mZOEX23XyQneH6qWeOqu3w

1573698967979843590


///////////////


https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1573670441104949256?s=20&t=mZOEX23XyQneH6qWeOqu3w

1573670441104949256

[Brigantia]

Ursula von der Leyden issues a thinly veiled threat to Italy about 'voting the right way' or get funding cuts. It's gone down like a lead balloon with even a pro-EU candidate telling her to butt out.

Knowing the Italian people as I do - seriously bad move, Ursula.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Os-j8YGEjY

[mountain_jim]

Ursula von der Leyden issues a thinly veiled threat to Italy about 'voting the right way' or get funding cuts. It's gone down like a lead balloon with even a pro-EU candidate telling her to butt out.

Knowing the Italian people as I do - seriously bad move, Ursula.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Os-j8YGEjY

Tom Luongo does a great job addressing this today - one of my favorite commenters on world events

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/democracy-dies-eu-von-der-leyen-reveals-its-sins

https://tomluongo.me/2022/09/23/as-democracy-dies-eu-its-sins-are-revealed/


As Democracy Dies in the EU, Von der Leyen Reveals its Sins

https://i0.wp.com/tomluongo.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/The-Batman-leading-out-of-darkness.png?w=1232&ssl=1

t’s no secret at this point that the EU is an anti-democratic organization. The leadership isn’t elected, but selected from a pre-determined pool of candidates from within the Party structure.

Everyone with the power to make a decision was placed there not by popular vote but by backroom collusion.

As we approach this weekend’s Italian elections there is real despair in the air that there is any light out of this dark time. That no matter what decisions we try to make, they are only in service of those that seek total dominion.

And yet all you hear from these Eurocrats is that we are in a “war of Democracy versus Autocracy,” as EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen put it in her hellish EU state of the union address to the European Parliament recently.

Cloaking herself in the inverse of the EU flag’s colors to show solidarity with another anti-democratic regime, Ukraine, Von der Leyen and her merry tribe of vandals in Brussels cast themselves as the protectors of the sacred right of a ‘democracy’ they deny to anyone who disagrees with her.

The same can be said for nearly every major government in Europe. Every time an ‘election’ rolls around the local system is gamed to ensure a particular outcome. The political establishment always coalesces around maintaining the status quo, freezing out any possibility of an ‘unworkable’ or ‘representative’ coalition.

Any outcome they can’t overcome that lies outside the scope of the EU’s values is either laden with poison pills, immediately put under pressure by the EU’s Byzantine rules, and eventually forced out of office.

There is no better example of this anti-democratic structure made flesh than Italy.

For more than a decade Italians have been saddled with mostly-unelected technocratic governments who, at best, stymie any populist/sovereigntist impulses within Italy’s electorate or, at worst, advance the EU’s centralization agenda under the false rubrics of Climate Change and “European Values.”

European Values is a phrase that is synonymous with the phrase “rules-based order.” We make the rules, they say, and you abide by them. We’re allowed to break those rules because 1) we can and 2) we are the goodies.

So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that as the Italians go to the polls this weekend with the center-right coalition led by the Brothers of Italy (FdI) likely to win a major, uncontestable victory, the unelected, openly totalitarian President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, openly threaten Italians to ‘vote right’ or face her wrath.

I’ll be honest. Seeing that threat issued towards inherently disagreeable Italians coming from a German bureaucrat will not go as she thinks it will.

When you run out of the power to persuade people the only things left is threats (no matter how empty) and subterfuge. Italy has been trended towards this moment for over a decade and to this point subterfuge has worked particularly well for the EU.

Now it’s down to open threats and ‘consequences.’

Ask Hungary about those ‘consequences.’ The EU parliament this week exercised its only real power, wagging their finger sternly at a member who doesn’t represent the majority’s conception of ‘European Values’ by declaring the democratically-elected (by a landslide) government of Viktor Orban is ‘not a democracy.’

Orwell’s O’Brien would be proud.

This declaration means they have the ability to withhold shared EU development funds from Hungary.

This is called ‘blackmail’ in common parlance.

Moments like this always invoke the great Lew Rockwell reminding us that the government engages in behavior decent people would be ashamed of. It’s more of the “rules-based order” I keep hearing so much about, I guess.

The rough translation to all of these issues is “rules for me and not for thee,” the very essence of San Francis’ description of anarcho-tyranny. The EU is truly an anarcho-tyrannical State where words only have the meanings they decide they have.

And definitions are malleable.

The goal is to pervert the meanings of words to destroy any concept of meaning itself. Doing that unmoors us from our beliefs, seeing only them as the arbiters of truth.

Orwell tried to warn us about this 74 years ago. Moreover, it’s the mechanism by which to subvert our common bonds as people and replace them with the State.


< more at link >




also another ZH article on this


https://www.zerohedge.com/political/eu-commission-president-threatens-italy-eve-election-says-brussels-has-tools-if-wrong

https://rmx.news/article/shock-eu-commission-president-threatens-italy-on-eve-of-election-says-brussels-has-tools-if-wrong-parties-win/

EU Commission President Threatens Italy On Eve Of Election, Says Brussels Has 'Tools' If Wrong Parties Win

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is being accused of election interference after threatening to use “tools” if the wrong election result is achieved in Italy’s national elections, set to take place this Sunday, Sept. 25.

As GMM (https://global-macro-monitor.com/2022/09/23/the-great-reset-saluta-la-signora-mussolini-il-nuovo-pm-ditalia/)writes, the eurozone is in trouble with a capital T. (https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxcUPR4sKJzJH22aHm6_5yWa3ORXOHQjyc)

Giorgia Meloni’s electric performances at political rallies have made her a virtual shoo-in to become Italy’s first female prime minister in Sunday’s ballot. She’ll also be the first to campaign with the flame symbol, evoking the former fascist leader, Benito Mussolini.

The prospect of a charismatic nationalist taking power with almost no government experience has investors and officials on edge. Italy, of course, is wrestling with the fallout from the most serious conflict in Europe since WWII. But the country has been adrift for years, struggling to hit on a formula which can unlock its potential while staying true to its identity.

– Bloomberg

Von der Leyen added that those same tools are already being used against Hungary and Poland.

“We will see the result of the vote in Italy,” said von der Leyen.

“If things go in a difficult direction — and I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland — we have the tools.”

Von der Leyen made the comment after a journalist at Princeton University in the United States said that there were candidates in the Italian elections “close to Putin” and asked her how the EU would react if they were elected.

The comments from the EU commission president, arguably the most powerful figure in all of EU institutions, have been met with shock from the Italian political class.

Von Der Leyen was making a clear reference to the European Commission’s ability to cut funding to member states it views as violating “rule of law,” a powerful tool Brussels can use to punish any democratically-elected government in Europe. Just last week, the commission proposed cutting €7.5 billion in funding to Hungary, with the country’s conservative government having long been a thorn in the side of the EU over its opposition to mass migration and support for traditional values.

< more at link >

[Spiral]

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1571573546836725764?s=20&t=ZzYXtkJOXYFWkO8YlPCRww



1571573546836725764




This just isn't true, it's out & out fear mongering.






https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1572781108496048128?s=20&t=J9PaY2-2BAkF3eHBFFjDAw

1572781108496048128

The internet never went down in Iran, there's an Iranian guy who is very active on one of the Telegram channels I'm on, who said it's disinfo. He's never Bs'ed about anything, so I think he's telling the truth.

[mountain_jim]

^ that graph shows a lot of it was not working

one guy said it was disinfo?

perhaps this MSM link, as well as many others, will indicate the reports were largely true

https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-general-assembly-technology-iran-dubai-arab-emirates-5712b917fc4d19eaa01ab8fbf53e2b8f

Iranians see widespread internet blackout amid mass protests
By The Associated Press
September 21, 2022

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranians experienced a near-total internet blackout on Wednesday amid days of mass protests against the government over the death of a woman held by the country’s morality police for allegedly violating its strictly-enforced dress code.

An Iranian official had earlier hinted that such measures might be taken out of security concerns. The loss of connectivity will make it more difficult for people to organize protests and share information about the government’s rolling crackdown on dissent.

Iran has seen nationwide protests over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained for allegedly wearing the mandatory Islamic headscarf too loosely. Demonstrators have clashed with police and called for the downfall of the Islamic Republic itself, even as Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday.

The protests continued for a fifth day on Wednesday, including in the capital, Tehran. Police there fired tear gas at protesters who chanted “death to the dictator,” and “I will kill the one who killed my sister,” according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.

< more at link >

Ok so that's MSM - how about a datacenter techie link?

www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/iran-expands-internet-blackout-nationwide-as-amini-protests-grow/

Iran expands Internet blackout nationwide as Amini protests grow
Taking mobile connectivity offline across the country

September 22, 2022 By Sebastian Moss

The Iranian government has expanded its Internet shutdowns across the country as protests mount over the killing of Mahsa Amini.

The nation has been gripped by protests after Amini died in custody after being detained by the 'morality police' for allegedly wearing the mandatory Islamic headscarf too loosely.


The state originally degraded Internet services in major cities and cut off connectivity in Iran's northwestern Kurdish region. But, with protests continuing, it has expanded the blackout further.

"Iranian mobile carriers down again," Doug Madory, the director of Internet analysis at Kentik, tweeted. Carriers including IranCell, Rightel, and MCI have experienced multi-hour simultaneous outages.

Before the wider outages, Instagram, and WhatsApp were specifically blocked - most other major social media platforms are permanently blocked, but the two Meta properties are usually allowed to keep operating.

< more at link >

[Bill Ryan]

Ursula von der Leyden issues a thinly veiled threat to Italy about 'voting the right way' or get funding cuts. It's gone down like a lead balloon with even a pro-EU candidate telling her to butt out.

Knowing the Italian people as I do - seriously bad move, Ursula.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Os-j8YGEjYYes, bad move. :)

Meloni's Right-Wing Alliance Wins Clear Majority In Italian Elections (https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/melonis-right-wing-alliance-wins-clear-majority-italian-elections)

[mountain_jim]

this 2 minute speech excerpt from Georgia, the new Italy PM, is an impressive shot fired against the WEF/EU globalists

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1574338564569337859?s=20&t=t7qo7nJmUCzOsk2np8ra1Q

1574338564569337859



https://twitter.com/BuckSexton/status/1574239345686585350?s=20&t=d0vs_om1vBS0rKcAL-CIrQ


1574239345686585350


(not sure if this is real?)

https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/116/625/670/original/23860332b070e2d6.png

[Ravenlocke]

If this belongs elsewhere mods please remove.

School shooting in Russia

https://tass.com/emergencies/1513589?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=smm_social_share

What is known about the Izhevsk school shooting

The emergency happened Monday morning in the school number 88 in downtown Izhevsk

MOSCOW, September 26. /TASS/. A man opened fire in a school in Izhevsk Monday. According to the latest information, 13 people died and 21 were injured. The shooter committed suicide.

Here are the key facts about what happened.

What happened

- The emergency happened Monday morning in the school number 88 in downtown Izhevsk, not far from the city administration building.

- Students and employees have been evacuated.

- The shooter committed suicide, according to the regional Ministry of the Interior.

- Security agencies and ambulance teams are working at the scene.

- Head of the region Alexander Brechalov and regional Minister of education and science Svetlana Bolotnikova have arrived at the scene.

- According to the school’s social media group, school employs 80 teachers and has 982 students.

What is known about the victims

- According to the latest information from the Russian Investigative Committee, 13 people were killed in the attack, including 6 adults and 7 minors. Earlier, the Committee said that 5 students, 2 teachers and 2 security officers were killed.

- A total of 21 people were injured: 14 children and 7 adults. All of them were hospitalized.

- The list of the victims is being created at the moment, and will be published on the regional Health Ministry website shortly.

What is known about the shooter

- The attacker was carrying two handguns and a large amount of ammunition. He was dressed in a black t-shirt with Nazi symbols and a balaclava, the Investigative Committee said. He painted the word "Hate" with red pain on his magazines.

- According to the National Guard, the handguns were traumatic, but modified to fire live ammunition.

- The attacker’s identity is being investigated; he had no papers on him.

Investigation and aid

- The regional Health Ministry set up a hotline after the incident. The regional Ministry of Emergency Situations Department also set up a hotline of its own.

- The Investigative Committee opened criminal cases over charges of murder of two or more people and illegal possession of firearms.

- The investigation will be carried out by the Committee’s central apparatus.

- The Russian Ministry of Education sent a group of its employees to Izhevsk.

- Russian Health Ministry sent a group of federal specialists to Izhevsk to provide aid to the victims.

- A mourning day has been declared in Udmurtia on September 29.

https://tass.com/emergencies/1513603

Izhevsk school shooter possessed two non-lethal guns turned into live — National Guard

On Monday morning, an unknown man opened fire at School No. 88 in Izhevsk before committing suicide
MOSCOW, September 26. /TASS/. The assailant of the Izhevsk school was armed with two non-lethal handguns converted to fire live ammunition, the press service of the Udmurt Region’s National Guard department told TASS.

"After receiving the signal, National Guard officers together with representatives of other emergency services arrived at the scene, сordoned off the area and started to search and detain the attacker and his possible accomplices, conducting a floor-by-floor inspection. During these activities, the body of the suspect was found in one of the rooms. Two non-lethal handguns, modified to fire live ammunition, empty magazines and magazines filled with ammunition were found with him," the report said.

Russia’s Investigative Committee specified that the man was carrying two military pistols and a large amount of ammunition. Operational video footage shows at least two guns. The attacker prepared about 10 magazines with 9 mm ammunition for them. The magazines had the word ‘hatred’ written on them in red paint. The attacker was wearing a black T-shirt with Nazi symbols and a balaclava. He had no documents on him, his identity is being established.

On Monday morning, an unknown man opened fire at School No. 88 in Izhevsk before committing suicide. According to the latest data, 13 people were killed, including seven children, and 21 people were wounded, including 14 children.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/tassagency_en/status/1574383304232550401
1574383304232550401


https://tass.com/emergencies/1513491?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=smm_social_share

Putin deeply saddened by `inhumane’ terror attack on Izhevsk school — Kremlin

On Monday morning, an unknown attacker opened fire in School 88 in Izhevsk, and committed suicide after the attack

MOSCOW, September 26. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin is deeply saddened by today’s inhumane act of terror in a school in Izhevsk, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"The president expressed his deepest condolences to all those who lost their loved ones, their children in this tragic incident, and wished the soonest recovery to those wounded in the inhumane terrorist attack," Peskov said.

"Putin is deeply saddened by the death of people, children in the terrorist attack on the school seemingly committed by a member of a neo-Nazi group," he added.

According to Peskov, the Russian leader has already held telephone conversations with Alexander Brechalov, the leader of Udmurtia where Izhevsk is located, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko and Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov who has already departed for Izhevsk.

"All the necessary instructions have been given, and Emergencies Ministry planes with teams of doctors, psychologists, neurosurgeons and other experts on board have already been dispatched to Izhevsk. All the necessary social issues will be solved," the presidential spokesman concluded.

School shooting in Izhevsk

According to the latest reports, the death toll in school shooting in Izhevsk has risen to 13, including seven children. The incident also left 21 people, including 14 kids, wounded.

On Monday morning, an unknown attacker opened fire in School 88 in Izhevsk, and committed suicide after the attack. The investigators said the man was wearing a black T-shirt with Nazi symbols and a balaclava helmet. No documents were found on the criminal, who is currently being identified. A criminal case has been opened.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1574322115930689536
1574322115930689536


https://www.rt.com/russia/563520-school-shooting-izhevsk-ural/

15 killed in 'neo-Nazi' Russian school shooting

Fifteen people were killed and many others injured in a shooting incident at a school in the city of Izhevsk in Russia’s Urals region on Monday, the country's Investigative Committee has said.

The male suspect was wearing a ski mask and a black T-shirt featuring Nazi symbols, officials added. They said he died by suicide after the attack and his identity is currently being established.

At least eleven of the victims were students at School No. 88 in the city, which has a population of over 600,000.

Two security guards and several teachers were also killed, the Investigative Committee said.

The attack has left 24 people injured, including 22 children, according to the agency.

The suspect was armed with two nonlethal pistols that had been altered to fire live ordnance, Russian lawmaker Aleksandr Khinshtein has claimed.

“A tragedy happened in Udmurtia today,” Republic of Udmurtia Governor Aleksandr Berchalov told journalists.

The school where the shooting took place has been evacuated, according to the education ministry.

Footage from the scene showed students and teachers running from the building, as well as victims being carried to ambulances on stretchers.

Photos from inside the classrooms where students had barricaded themselves during the shooting have also appeared online.

Izhevsk is the capital of the Russian Republic of Udmurtia, and is located near the Ural mountains, which divide Europe from Asia.

[Bill Ryan]

Italian patriots take down EU flag in protest


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOMnwFe5aF8

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1574968389939785729
1574968389939785729

[Bill Ryan]

(Unfortunately, protests about opening Nord Stream 2 — which has now been seriously sabotaged — are rather too late. This tweet is from a couple days ago, just before the underwater explosions.)

https://twitter.com/RadioGenova/status/1574489634071105536

1574489634071105536

[mountain_jim]

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1575062769719648256?s=20&t=kE4XKosCREo0gcIB3FDa2g

1575062769719648256

[cursichella1]

Alex Christoforou provides some early analysis and thoughtful speculation about the psychopaths likely behind the Nordstream 1 & 2 sabotage. I'm 9/11ishly sick to my stomach...
B1QaEPZAz6c

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1575123172013244416
1575123172013244416

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1575121446606708736
1575121446606708736

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1575817737057673218
1575817737057673218

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1576291093595172864
1576291093595172864

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1576292176455438336
1576292176455438336

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1576297809937956864
1576297809937956864

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/coope125/status/1576605944221356036
1576605944221356036

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/Sprinter99880/status/1576603350262763526
1576603350262763526

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/Sprinter99880/status/1576569838650040325
1576569838650040325

[Bill Ryan]

https://t.me/DonbassDevushka/28136

DonbassDevushka/28136

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1576950203151589380
1576950203151589380

[mountain_jim]

I have not verified accuracy...


https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1577297494223908864?s=20&t=Jp3rwyV4YHXpaj6DCaGSVA

1577297494223908864

[Bill Ryan]

Power Grid Collapse In Bangladesh Leaves 140 Million People In Dark

https://zerohedge.com/markets/power-grid-collapse-bangladesh-leaves-140-million-people-dark

https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1577269243237761024
1577269243237761024

[rgray222]

Thousands on the streets of Budapest right now to speak up against the corruption of their government and their decade long work to tear down education, underpaying teachers and others working hard to keep the country afloat
https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/arme9Yd_460swp.webp

[Ravenlocke]

Athens, Greece

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1577963967086985216
1577963967086985216

[Bill Ryan]

https://t.me/azmilitary11/24020

azmilitary11/24020

[Bill Ryan]

Moldova:

https://t.me/DonbassDevushka/28856

DonbassDevushka/28856

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1579864403633053696
1579864403633053696

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RadioGenova/status/1580247507660988417
1580247507660988417

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1580213052544520194
1580213052544520194

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1580213059204702208
1580213059204702208

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/partizanGreece1/status/1580530951532138497
1580530951532138497

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RadioGenova/status/1580556675710615552
1580556675710615552

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/HalimaBahman/status/1580481927915909120
1580481927915909120

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/Hossein34405379/status/1580591449833607174
1580591449833607174

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/womenncri/status/1580194421294833665
1580194421294833665

https://twitter.com/channeldraw/status/1579882338154336257
1579882338154336257

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/TheCivilEyes/status/1580192069314056193
1580192069314056193

[Ravenlocke]

Iran Oil industry workers protest

https://twitter.com/mdubowitz/status/1580543940033273856
1580543940033273856

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/France24_en/status/1580511586921631744
1580511586921631744

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1580634805577740288
1580634805577740288

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1580634817967771649
1580634817967771649

[pyrangello]

AOC Gets Relentless Verbal BEAT-DOWN - Hal Turner Show Listeners? Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes (AOC) got an utterly relentless verbal beat down at a town hall meeting last night, and given that the Hal Turner Radio Show is the ONLY media outlet in the world linking Congressional votes --> Ukraine --> nuclear World War 3, one wonders if this guy is a listener, or reader of this site? Video below:

https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/world/aoc-gets-relentless-verbal-beat-down-hal-turner-show-listeners

Its a 2 minute video , but these 2 americans drive the point home, if we have a nuclear war , why are they not stopping it right now ? And if have a nuclear war , there is no more need for any of these politicians anymore either. Just what are these people thinking >

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/HoaxMiddle/status/1580362688047337474
1580362688047337474

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1580976190742986759
1580976190742986759

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RadioGenova/status/1580978757690486784
1580978757690486784

¤=[Post Update]=¤

In Italy


https://twitter.com/RadioGenova/status/1580932584984301568
1580932584984301568

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/CiiseCartan/status/1581354302882582528
1581354302882582528

[Ravenlocke]

Spain


https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1581344714095108096
1581344714095108096

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1581310968554196992
1581310968554196992

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1581633161632415745
1581633161632415745

[Ravenlocke]

Tunisia

https://twitter.com/trtworld/status/1581442303301865472
1581442303301865472


https://twitter.com/WIONews/status/1581585864152735745
1581585864152735745


https://twitter.com/thediteur/status/1581689404435083265
1581689404435083265

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1582325625624338434
1582325625624338434

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/jaccocharite/status/1582418493193875461
1582418493193875461

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1582733321011810304

1582733321011810304

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1585992812125888512
1585992812125888512

[Bill Ryan]

Germany:

https://t.me/azmilitary11/27100

azmilitary11/27100

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/SputnikInt/status/1586396964291497985

1586396964291497985

https://sputniknews.com/20221029/casualties-feared-as-dozens-reported-suffering-from-cardiac-arrest-in-seoul-1102832946.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Itaewon is a nightlife area in the South Korean capital of Seoul, popular among local residents and foreigners.

Around 50 people ended up suffering cardiac arrest in the Itaewon area of Seoul and had to receive CPR, with local media suggesting a possible connection between this incident and a Halloween party.
After several dozen calls to emergency services from people in Itaewon who said they experienced difficulty breathing, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol reportedly ordered authorities to provide first aid to these people.
South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo also urged authorities to strive to minimize damage, while Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon decided to cut short his visit to Europe and return home.
About 100,000 people converged upon Itaewon for the Halloween festivities on Sunday, with the resulting gathering becoming the biggest in years amid the recent easing of COVID-19 restrictions, local media said.


https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1586425328444243969
1586425328444243969

[Ravenlocke]

Mashhad Iran

https://twitter.com/Soureh_design2/status/1586404254717448192
1586404254717448192


https://twitter.com/SprinterMonitor/status/1586475547391295489
1586475547391295489

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/CP24/status/1586478447722913795

1586478447722913795

https://www.cp24.com/news/trudeau-joins-families-of-flight-752-in-canada-wide-protests-against-iranian-regime-1.6130928

Trudeau joins families of Flight 752 in Canada-wide protests against Iranian regime

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stood with the families of the victims of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 on Saturday as they lent their voices to the worldwide calls for revolution in Iran through a series of coordinated protests across Canada.

But even as Trudeau touted Canada's new sanctions against the Iranian regime, some activists called on the federal government needs to go further to show it will no longer tolerate the country's human-rights abuses.

Throngs of demonstrators lined the streets in 10 cities ranging from Halifax to Vancouver as part of a worldwide “human chain” organized by the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims.

Organizers said the events were being held in solidarity with antigovernment protests in Iran sparked by the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country's morality police. Amini died after being detained for allegedly violating the country's strict Islamic dress code for women.

In Ottawa, hundreds of protesters stomped their feet in unison and chanted Amini's name outside the National Art Gallery.

As the Prime Minister, his wife and several Liberal members of Parliament joined the crowd, he was greeted with boisterous applause, but also chants urging Canada to take action against the Iranian regime.

Trudeau said the government has moved forward with unprecedented sanctions and made leadership of the Iranian regime inadmissible to Canada.

“We know there are people in Canada now who have benefited from the corrupt, from the horrific regime in Iran and who are hiding amongst ... this beautiful community,” Trudeau said.

“Taking advantage of Canada's freedoms, Canada's opportunities, and using the riches they stole from the Iranian people to live a good life in Canada. Well, we say no more.”

The crowd responded to his comments with an uproarious cheer and chants of “kick them out.”

The prime minister said his government will be working to make sure Canada is never again a safe haven for “killers, murderers, and those responsible for the oppression of Iranian people.”

After his speech, Trudeau led hundreds of protesters in a march across the Alexandra Bridge between Ottawa and Gatineau, Que.

The protesters stood shoulder to shoulder across the entire half-a-kilometre span of the provincial border crossing, where the prime minister joined in chanting “justice in Iran” and “stop killing in Iran.”

Earlier this month, Trudeau announced that more than 10,000 members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard will be forever barred from Canada as part of tough new immigration measures.

But some critics said the move was too little, too late.

The prime minister came under scrutiny from some in the Iranian community last month for not attending rallies in the immediate aftermath of Amini's death. The critics pointed out the prime minister did, however, find time to go bungee jumping while other politicians stood in solidarity with their cause.

Toronto organizer Amirali Alavi called on Trudeau to back up his support for Saturday's protest with substantive action, such as expelling Iran's ambassador from Canada.

“We are here to ask our government and Canada to stand on the right side of history,” said Alavi, a board member of the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims. “Stop negotiating with the regime in Iran while people are fighting in the streets.”

Crowds clustered along stretches of Toronto's main artery of Yonge Street on Saturday chanting “women, life, freedom” as passing cars blared their horns.

At a midtown intersection, demonstrators held pictures of loved ones who were among the 176 people, including 55 Canadian citizens, killed on Jan. 8, 2020 when Iran's Revolutionary Guard shot down a Ukrainian airliner.

Arash Morattab, who lost his brother and sister-in-law in the crash, said the victims of Flight 752 have common cause with the protest movement that has rocked Iran for nearly a month and a half.

“We are all victims of a regime that started killing people from the first days of them coming into power, and this keeps going until now,” said Morattab. “They killed our beloved ones in January 2020, and now they kill other people that fight for their rights.”

The fight for justice is particularly resonant for women in Iran who continue to be denied freedom, said protester Sara Ahmadi. She said she ran into problems with the regime because she wasn't legally married to her common-law partner, who was killed in the plane crash.

“Women don't have any rights in my country,” Ahmadi said. “It's not just about the hijab. It's about everything.”

The protests in Iran first focused on the state-mandated hijab, or head scarf for women, but quickly grew into calls for the downfall of the country's theocracy. At least 270 people have been killed and 14,000 have been arrested in the protests that have swept over 125 Iranian cities, according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran.

The Iranian government has repeatedly alleged that foreign powers have orchestrated the protests, but have not provided evidence to support the claim.

Similar protests unfolded on Saturday in cities such as Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and London, Ont.

In Halifax, the show of support for the people of Iran moved some demonstrators to tears, said Reza Rahimi, who lost his mother-in-law when Flight 752 was shot down.

“(Locals and) immigrants from every nation and every race were standing beside us,” Rahimi said.

“Three years after losing my mother-in-law abroad, I'm not saying it's let us move on - we would never move on - but it will help us put something on the pain.”

[Ravenlocke]

Pakistan

https://twitter.com/AlArabiya_Eng/status/1586342085585674242
1586342085585674242

https://twitter.com/steve_hanke/status/1586156863401259008
1586156863401259008

[Bill Ryan]

"Let's Get Out Of NATO": Discontent Soars Across Europe As Russian Sanctions Backfire


https://zerohedge.com/geopolitical/lets-get-out-nato-discontent-soars-across-europe-russian-sanctions-backfire

I won't copy the whole article here, as its content is obvious. But many readers may find it most interesting to read. It contains a whole bunch of twitter videos vividly showing the escalating discontent in France, Moldova, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Italy.

[avid]

Let common sense prevail, so there is hope :heart:

Looking forward to latest
https://www.ukcolumn.org/
Monday 31st at 1.00pm

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/SprinterMonitor/status/1588179360695164928

1588179360695164928


https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1588148712160858112

1588148712160858112

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1588157881303683072
1588157881303683072

[Ravenlocke]

Burkina Faso, West Africa,

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1588614560331841538

1588614560331841538


https://www.voaafrica.com/a/biden-to-cut-burkina-faso-from-us-africa-pact/6817272.html

U.S. President Joe Biden revealed on Wednesday his intent to exclude Burkina Faso from a U.S.-Africa trade pact, citing a lack of progress toward protecting the rule of law and political pluralism.
WASHINGTON —
Biden said that Washington will terminate Burkina Faso's designation as a beneficiary sub-Saharan African country under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), starting January 2023 as it has not met"eligibility requirements."

The decision follows two coups that shook the Sahel nation this year as a result of frustration over the inability to put an end to a seven-year Islamist insurgency that has cost thousands of lives and forced close to 2 million people from their homes.

More than a third of national territory remains outside government control.

"I am taking this step because I have determined that the Government of Burkina Faso has not established, or is not making continual progress toward establishing, the protection of the rule of law and of political pluralism," said Biden in a letter addressed to Congress.

Under the AGOA agreement, which was effective in 2000 under the administration of former president Bill Clinton, thousands of African products can benefit from reduced import taxes, subject to conditions being met regarding human rights, good governance and worker protection, as well as not applying a customs ban on American products on their territory.

"Our administration is deeply concerned by the unconstitutional changes in government in Burkina Faso," said US Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai in a statement.

She added that Washington "urges Burkina Faso to take necessary actions to meet the statutory criteria and return to elective democracy."

As of 2020, 38 countries were eligible for AGOA benefits, according to the USTR website.

The agreement was modernized in 2015 by Congress, which also extended the program until 2025.

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/PhilipCMead/status/1588471116741283840

1588471116741283840

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/Le_Stylo/status/1587301741640536064


1587301741640536064

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https://twitter.com/BCPS19/status/1588553890232139776

1588553890232139776

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1589437482382270465

1589437482382270465

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/CanadianKitty1/status/1591826014333964291

1591826014333964291

https://twitter.com/NicoleRis/status/1591773078152937472

1591773078152937472

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1591919784735961089

1591919784735961089


https://sputniknews.com/20221113/hundreds-of-thousands-rally-in-madrid-in-protest-of-public-healthcare-policy-1104084455.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Hundreds of Thousands Rally in Madrid in Protest of Public Healthcare Policy

The rally, convened by unions of healthcare workers, left-leaning political parties and various civic organizations, was held under the slogan "Madrid rising in the name of public health."



MADRID (Sputnik) - Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of the Spanish capital as part of a mass protest against the healthcare policy of Madrid's regional head Isabel Diaz Ayuso, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Sunday.
According to the government's estimates, around 200,000 people joined the protests, while organizers put the attendance at 650,000.
Madrid's regional government, headed by Ayuso, member of the right-wing Popular Party, faced severe criticism in recent years — particularly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic — due to a shortage of healthcare personnel in hospitals and primary health care centers. Protesters are calling for ramping up the primary care budget, as well as increasing staff across the board.
The organizers point out that the Madrid government heavily underfunds healthcare services and invests least in health per inhabitant than any other region in Spain.
Ayuso denies any problems with healthcare staffing or funding, claiming that the protests are staged by the left-wing parties in the run-up to the 2023 municipal and regional elections.

[Matthew]

Anyone got a couple of grand spare? Virtue-fest 2022 details revealed.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FhvhmCEXgAEmTs4?format=jpg&name=large

I found this on twitter (https://twitter.com/PelosiTracker_/status/1593145038288351233)

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1597657370909626369

1597657370909626369

https://twitter.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1597657377179697152

1597657377179697152

https://twitter.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1597657380527149056

1597657380527149056

[Bill Ryan]

Peru explodes in protest over trucker and farmer regulations
(Clayton Morris, 'Redacted', 17 mins)

The principal current issue (one of many!) is the forced destruction of all trucks older than 1999, even if they're running well and and are properly maintained.

Peru and Ecuador have similar societies and infrastructure (and many old trucks), and if the government tried to do that here (in Ecuador) the entire economy would quickly grind to a standing halt.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f23dBZlYA0I

[Ravenlocke]

Please Note, I’m putting the following news here and mods please move elsewhere but I did search and I couldn’t find a thread that I felt it fitted in.

https://sputniknews.com/20221203/willing-to-help-me-die-but-wont-help-me-live-canadian-paralympian-offered-assisted-dying-1105005221.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

'Willing to Help Me Die, But Won't Help Me Live': Canadian Paralympian 'Offered Assisted Dying'

Canada’s Minister of Veterans Affairs Lawrence MacAulay testified to a parliamentary committee on November 24 that his department had uncovered four instances of medical assistance in dying (MAID) being offered to veterans during an internal investigation in the wake of reporting on the issue in the summer of 2021.



Instead of helping a Canadian Army veteran and former Paralympian finally have a wheelchair lift installed in her home, a Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) staff member offered the woman a different option - medical assistance in dying (MAID), local media reported.
Retired Army Corporal Christine Gauthier, who sustained severe injuries during a training accident in 1989, had been trying to get the ramp fitted for five years, but to no avail. When the “shocked and in despair" Gauthier offered a detailed account of her worsening condition to a VAC case worker, the person reportedly said, “Well, you know that we can assist you with assisted dying now if you'd like.”
“And I was just shocked because I was like, 'Are you serious?' Like that easy, you're going to be helping me to die but you won't help me to live?" the paraplegic, who competed for Canada as a para-canoeist at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics and the Invictus Games, told the House of Commons on December 1.
The woman added that she had laid out her concerns about the assisted dying offer in a letter to Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay.

Veterans Affairs is looking into the matter "very seriously," a spokesperson for MacAulay was cited as saying on Friday.
"Our employees have no role or mandate to recommend or raise it. Considerations for MAID are the subject of discussions between a patient and their primary care providers to determine appropriateness in each individual context," the press secretary for MacAulay's office underscored in a media statement.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau weighed in on the report, particularly as it appeared to follow other similar incidents. He said the government would be "following up with investigations" in light of the "absolutely unacceptable" episode with Gauthier.
The PM said that the protocols would be revised to ensure "what should seem obvious to all of us: that it is not the place of Veterans Affairs Canada, who are supposed to be there to support those people who stepped up to serve their country, to offer them medical assistance in dying."
Last summer, Canadian media first reported about a case where a veteran was purportedly pressured by a Veterans Affairs case worker to consider medically assisted dying. This had prompted Lawrence MacAulay to order an internal investigation, which discovered four such cases taking place between 2019 and May 2022, and all purportedly leading to one and the same staff member.
During his own testimony on Thursday, the veterans minister said the cases linked to the aforementioned case worker had been referred to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
"If any of the veterans in question are watching or listening right now, I am sorry. I am sorry you had to endure these appalling interactions and we are doing everything we can to ensure this never happens again," MacAulay stated on November 24.
Assisted suicide is the act of deliberately assisting another person to kill themselves. The Parliament of Canada passed federal legislation in June 2016 allowing eligible Canadian adults to request medical assistance in dying. In 2021, the law was expanded to offer the option to patients with chronic, “grievous and irremediable” conditions and physical disabilities even if they are not terminally ill and whose natural death "is not believed to be imminent."
Canada - one of 12 countries, along with a number of US states, where assisted death is permitted under certain qualifying conditions - registered 31,664 assisted deaths as of December of 2021.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/OmarZambranoLaw/status/1598035702520123392

1598035702520123392


https://twitter.com/etvandhraprades/status/1599030795062358016

1599030795062358016

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/TRTWorldNow/status/1598595325912141826

1598595325912141826

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https://twitter.com/Anarchy097/status/1596544952829632514

1596544952829632514

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/D_a_ni_/status/1598774273145204736

1598774273145204736

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/danipetroski/status/1598795708752093185

1598795708752093185

https://twitter.com/Ross43v3r/status/1599047425850679296

1599047425850679296

https://twitter.com/DiretoDaAmerica/status/1598760674682753024

1598760674682753024


https://twitter.com/misteriouspavao/status/1597938010540367873

1597938010540367873

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https://twitter.com/JohnLowther1971/status/1598624848976220161

1598624848976220161

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/chrismartenson/status/

1599566585991073792

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/ReadovkaWorld/status/1600921652380028928

1600921652380028928

https://twitter.com/ReadovkaWorld/status/1600921904390541317

1600921904390541317

[Matthew]

Count Dankula did a piece on euthanasia in Canada. He waffles on but I thought he made a good point; after changing the law to expand legal euthanasia for non terminal conditions it's not right, or fair, and just plain wrong to offer this to vulnerable people with mental issues.

He reads the article out and boggles at this part of it: (at 4:27 in the video) " ...Last year more than ten thousand people in Canada died by euthanasia..."

RDEuKDapXSI

[onawah]

Why Protests Have Hit Russia, China, and Iran (And Why They Will Be Hard to Stop)
William Spaniel
307K subscribers
3.2K
54,854 views
Dec 8, 2022

"If there was a single unifying element in world politics for 2022, it was protests. They are currently major news stories in China and Iran, they have been floating in the background of Russia since its invasion of Ukraine, and they have occurred sporadically in other countries throughout the world. This video explains why autocratic governments especially fear protests and what that means for the key countries in question."

0:00 2022 Protests
1:06 Protests in Russia
3:55 Protests in Iran
5:08 Protests in China
6:48 Negotiating with Protestors
9:16 Commitment Problems
13:31 Democratic Advantages
15:09 Autocratic Survival Strategies
18:30 The Iran Deal
22:27 Zelensky Throws Shade
22:51 Misplay of the Week: Pedro Castillo

dECJgZcRTvU

**************

[gini]

MERCOURIS (@TheDuran) ON HOW LONG THE CRISIS WILL LAST AND WHAT GOOD WILL COME OUT OF IT?-10/13/22--17 min.--JU0tKi5e9_o

[Ravenlocke]

Tunisia


https://twitter.com/PresstvExtra/status/1601902417800531969

1601902417800531969

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https://twitter.com/The_NewArab/status/1601749896561938435

1601749896561938435

[Ravenlocke]

Pakistan

https://twitter.com/DissentToday/status/1601825597118119937

1601825597118119937

https://twitter.com/FaizQureshiUK/status/1601923225298305024

1601923225298305024

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1606361412024008731

1606361412024008731

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1608688351468728320

1608688351468728320

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/telesurenglish/status/1608899886023585794

1608899886023585794

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/incontextmedia/status/1612548640702079021

1612548640702079021

https://twitter.com/incontextmedia/status/1612525577075843077

1612525577075843077

https://twitter.com/incontextmedia/status/1612486996785778689

1612486996785778689

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/andy__gerard/status/1611799828781989888

1611799828781989888

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https://twitter.com/ChrisHu34451470/status/1613052113705398273

1613052113705398273

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https://twitter.com/Rizwanmalik49/status/1611937445213503490

1611937445213503490

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1613611773885661185

1613611773885661185

[Ravenlocke]

Tel Aviv protests

https://twitter.com/Sprinter20000/status/1614597828193521666

1614597828193521666

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1614544277861969922

1614544277861969922


¤=[Post Update]=¤

New York

https://twitter.com/anon_candanga/status/1614489296030892032

1614489296030892032


France

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1614713854264500226

1614713854264500226

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1616094220456202240

1616094220456202240

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https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1616104801036636160

1616104801036636160

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1616091988641648640

1616091988641648640

[gini]

CENSORED: MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WORLDWIDE TAKE TO THE STREETS TO PROTEST AGAINST TYRANNY--10 min---/DBAWII7eexqi/--"Most Americans living in the U.S. today are probably unaware of the massive protests that are currently happening in Europe and other places around the world. This past week has seen literally millions of people hit the streets to protest in France, Spain, Denmark, Israel, the U.K., and other places.

I had to do a lot of digging to find most of this, as even the Alternative Media is not reporting on this much. You can find most of these stories in the corporate media, but they are not headline news, so you have to search for them.

The world's financial system is on the brink of collapse, so it is to be expected that the corporate media does not want these massive protests to get headline news, which could trigger even more social unrest, and eventually bank runs.

But based on the videos and articles I have looked at, current protests around the world right now might be larger than what we even saw during the lockdowns back in 2021.

This should be headline news, but it is not."

[Matthew]

Ouch :'(

https://em-content.zobj.net/thumbs/120/google/350/flag-ireland_1f1ee-1f1ea.png

Turmoil in Ireland

https://twitter.com/ActivePatriotUK/status/1625987529013854211
Active Patriot
@ActivePatriotUK
LEFT WING ACTIVIST livestreams himself as he rams his car into peaceful Protesters out in East Wall Dublin Ireland tonight

[Matthew]

This is an increasingly common type of story. I hardly know any trans people although I know two. Both hate the woke focus on trans, one saying she's very uncomfortable with the attention, and she feels people will resent her more with the woke push that she doesn't like or want, and why would anyone else? One of the unspoken issues is the age of the transition; there's another dimension other than gender, which is age. Why do some new-diva-trans (men to women) start acting like they're a teenage girl when were previously a middle-aged man? My trans friends typically dress age-appropriately but one goes through phases of dressing like they were younger, but only on special occasions. But for work they dress frumpy. Anyway, the trans issue is being abused by people wanting to be monsters, and what my trans friends say, it doesn't do the trans community any favours.

Emphasis mine


https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/courts-law/lisa-jones-sexually-assaulted-female-stranger-she-followed-in-melbourne/news-story/1d1330396c4aae18638e725a7a8a6a2e

...

Jones, a transgender woman, spotted her victim and followed the other female down Lennox Street in Richmond in February this year.

The 44-year-old grabbed her victim’s arm in a “strong grip”, forcing the woman to face her and then grabbed her jeans.

“Why won’t you lie down and have sex with me,” Jones told her victim.

The other woman, who was on a call to her mum, started screaming and yelled out her location before Jones grabbed the phone and the call was disconnected.

Jones put her hands down the woman’s pants and tried to pull down her victim’s jeans but the other woman was able to fight her off as bystanders came rushing to her aid.

A Good Samaritan chased down Jones and stopped her before police arrived at the scene.

“I didn’t do anything, it was her fault,” Jones said.

During a record of interview, she told police the woman started “freaking out” after they physically ran into each other and denied telling the woman to lie down for sex.

The victim described her attacker as someone who “appeared transgender”.

“Out of the blue she was confronted by you – a complete stranger,” Judge Pardeep Tiwana said.

“You physically restrained her despite her screams for help and telling you to stop, you persisted.”

It was a “brazen and opportunistic” attack against a complete stranger who was walking home, he said.

It was revealed in court Jones spent six years in a male prison in Germany for sexually abusing a six-year-old girl, before she transitioned.

...

[Ravenlocke]

Nablus Palestine

https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1629907386235232257

1629907386235232257

[rgray222]

Mexican President makes a huge move towards Socialism/Marxism and away from democracy. Between 500,000 and 1 million people came out to protest. This will eventually impact both Canada and the USA in a very drastic way (if you are pro-liberty).

https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/aYVQEEv_460svav1.mp4

MEXICO CITY, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Huge crowds gathered in Mexico on Sunday to condemn government moves to shrink the electoral authority as a threat to democracy, in what appeared to be the largest protest so far against President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's administration.
Organizers said over 500,000 people turned out in Mexico City, with video footage on social media showing the central Zocalo square filled with protesters, who also spilled out into adjoining streets. One police officer nearby said he had heard the half a million figure, while others gave lower estimates. Mexico City government, which is controlled by Lopez Obrador's party, said 90,000 people took part.

Mexico's Congress on Wednesday approved a major overhaul of the National Electoral Institute (INE), an independent body which Lopez Obrador has attacked as corrupt and inefficient.

The 69-year-old president denies his changes will weaken Mexican democracy. Critics have vowed to take the legislation, which slashes the INE's budget and staff as well as paring back its responsibilities, to the Supreme Court.

https://www.reuters.com/resizer/J0uWViRkcVxlnx3jgDxehv_LxOQ=/960x0/filters:quality(80)/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/6T4RRV2NMFNNLOOEAXUHAMC364.jpg
https://www.reuters.com/resizer/6aTE50m42SfBPVGonPFHNsNQV_c=/960x0/filters:quality(80)/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/YEFD3AIAYVLHRFIQA3BI6AKO74.jpg

This could have a major and eventually devastating impact on all of North America.

Source and to read the full story: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/playing-with-fire-mass-protest-planned-against-mexico-electoral-overhaul-2023-02-26/

[Bill Ryan]

https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/21867

UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/21867

[onawah]

Big earthquake today in Ecuador, 6.9 or 7. Hoping Bill in Vilcabamba is doing OK.
GV3g7rOx33s

[wondering]

Yes, Onawah, I hope Bill is OK also. I don't see any posts from him today, unless I just missed them. 🤞🤞🤞

[Alecs]

Same here, folks. I was wondering if Bill is OK as well.
I hope that Bill has people to check in with, or get assistance from, if needed.

[Harmony]

Just a little note about Bill. He has only had very limitied internet access the past few days. He is expecting the repair to his internet during the coming week. Hopefully later today we will hear from Bill and he will let us know if he felt the earthquake up in the mountains where he lives. :heart: May Bill and also our other members in Ecuador be safe and well.

[Bill Ryan]

Just a little note about Bill. He has only had very limitied internet access the past few days. He is expecting the repair to his internet during the coming week. Hopefully later today we will hear from Bill and he will let us know if he felt the earthquake up in the mountains where he lives. :heart: May Bill and also our other members in Ecuador be safe and well.Yes, many thanks indeed for everyone's concern... the whole house was shaking. and it continued for a good minute. (That's a long time! :facepalm::)) All was well, but I felt I should do a careful damage check of the walls (100-year old, thick adobe) and gas/water pipes.

As Harmony explained, my internet is down at the moment with no end in sight (a hardware problem on the relay pole on the hill about 100m away), but I can be online at a friend's house for a brief while at about this time every day. So it was a little surreal, as I was out of contact with everyone and had no idea exactly what had happened or where, except that it was obviously a large quake not too far away. I'm still catching up, but apparently there was a LOT of damage in several towns and cities.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1637205764824612864

1637205764824612864

https://twitter.com/NewsHour/status/1637227632407240704

1637227632407240704

https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit/status/1637261310235648002

1637261310235648002

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/at-least-13-dead-after-6-7-magnitude-earthquake-hits-ecuador-and-northern-peru/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=at-least-13-dead-after-6-7-magnitude-earthquake-hits-ecuador-and-northern-peru


At Least 13 Dead After 6.7 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Ecuador and Northern Peru

On Saturday, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake in southern Ecuador and northern Peru has left at least 13 people dead with others trapped under rubble.

The Guardian reports:

The US Geological Survey reported an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.7 in the country’s coastal Guayas region. Its centre was about 50 miles (80 kilometres) south of Guayaquil, which has a metropolitan area of more than 3 million people.

The Ecuadorian president, Guillermo Lasso, in a televised address said the earthquake killed 12 people. In a tweet, he also asked people to remain calm.

The Peruvian prime minister, Alberto Otárola, said a four-year-old girl had died from head trauma she suffered in the collapse of her home in the Tumbes region, on the border with Ecuador.

Cristian Torres, head of the Risk Management Secretariat, Ecuador’s emergency response agency, said in a radio interview that 11 of the victims in the country died in the coastal state of El Oro and one in the highlands state of Azuay.

The victim in Azuay’s Andean community of Cuenca was a passenger in a vehicle crushed by rubble from a house, the agency said.

In the coastal province of El Oro, people were trapped under rubble, the agency reported. In the community of Machala, a two-storey home collapsed before people could be evacuated, a pier gave way and a building’s walls cracked, trapping an unknown number of people.








https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/1637434997794562050

1637434997794562050

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1637265769103761408

1637265769103761408

https://bnonews.com/index.php/2023/03/ecuador-quake-kills-at-least-fifteen/


Strong earthquake hits Ecuador, at least 15 dead


A strong 6.8-magnitude earthquake has struck Ecuador, causing a number of buildings to collapse and killing at least 15 people, officials and witnesses say. More than 400 people have been injured.

The earthquake, which struck at 12:12 p.m. local time on Saturday, was centered just a few kilometers offshore, about 67 kilometers south of Guayaquil and 94 kilometers west of Cuenca.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake had a magnitude of 6.8 and struck about 66 kilometers below the surface, which is fairly deep. Ecuador’s Geophysical Institute put the magnitude slightly lower, at 6.7.

Shaking was felt across the region and as far away as neighboring Peru and Colombia, but the damage appeared to be relatively localized, though buildings were reported to have collapsed in multiple locations.

At least 15 deaths were confirmed by Saturday night, all but three of them in El Oro province. Another 446 people were injured.

In Machala, the capital of El Oro province, at least nine deaths were reported, including a baby who died when a house collapsed. In Cuenca, a city in Azuay province, a car was crushed by falling debris, killing the driver.

Elsewhere in Ecuador, in Puerto Bolívar, a building housing a museum and a restaurant dropped into water, but there were no reports of casualties. In Peru, a 4-year-old girl was killed when a roof collapsed at her home in Tumbes.

According to computer models from the USGS, up 15.6 million people could have felt Saturday’s earthquake, including 6.2 million people who experienced “strong” to “very strong” shaking.

[Sirus]

Just a little note about Bill. He has only had very limitied internet access the past few days. He is expecting the repair to his internet during the coming week. Hopefully later today we will hear from Bill and he will let us know if he felt the earthquake up in the mountains where he lives. :heart: May Bill and also our other members in Ecuador be safe and well.Yes, many thanks indeed for everyone's concern... the whole house was shaking. and it continued for a good minute. (That's a long time! :facepalm::)) All was well, but I felt I should do a careful damage check of the walls (100-year old, thick adobe) and gas/water pipes.

As Harmony explained, my internet is down at the moment with no end in sight (a hardware problem on the relay pole on the hill about 100m away), but I can be online at a friend's house for a brief while at about this time every day. So it was a little surreal, as I was out of contact with everyone and had no idea exactly what had happened or where, except that it was obviously a large quake not too far away. I'm still catching up, but apparently there was a LOT of damage in several towns and cities.

Please don't consider this post as patronising... have you got a carbon monoxide monitor just in case the gas pipes have been damaged? It may be worth getting the Ecuadorian equivalent of a gas safe engineer to do a check-over?

[Bill Ryan]

Just a little note about Bill. He has only had very limitied internet access the past few days. He is expecting the repair to his internet during the coming week. Hopefully later today we will hear from Bill and he will let us know if he felt the earthquake up in the mountains where he lives. :heart: May Bill and also our other members in Ecuador be safe and well.Yes, many thanks indeed for everyone's concern... the whole house was shaking. and it continued for a good minute. (That's a long time! :facepalm::)) All was well, but I felt I should do a careful damage check of the walls (100-year old, thick adobe) and gas/water pipes.

As Harmony explained, my internet is down at the moment with no end in sight (a hardware problem on the relay pole on the hill about 100m away), but I can be online at a friend's house for a brief while at about this time every day. So it was a little surreal, as I was out of contact with everyone and had no idea exactly what had happened or where, except that it was obviously a large quake not too far away. I'm still catching up, but apparently there was a LOT of damage in several towns and cities.

Please don't consider this post as patronising... have you got a carbon monoxide monitor just in case the gas pipes have been damaged? It may be worth getting the Ecuadorian equivalent of a gas safe engineer to do a check-over?Thanks! Yes, metal (copper) gas pipe fractures are possible, sometimes hard to see. But I'd soon know if there's a leak, as my gas cylinders would empty much quicker than normal. (That did happen once before, so I know what to look for.) Meanwhile, my doors and windows are wide open almost all the time here, even at night, so there's zero danger of poisoning.

:thumbsup:

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/Cyberspec1/status/1638114008996925441

1638114008996925441

[onawah]

Gravitas: Will there be a civil war in Israel?
WION
7.35M subscribers
117,264 views Mar 16, 2023

"Israel has been reeling with chaos over Netanyahu's judicial overhaul. 5% of its population has taken to protest the reforms. President Herzog says that the country is closer to civil war than it seems."

BumtCbtXpc8

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1638610722501591041

1638610722501591041

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/TobiAyodele/status/1638990238918770689

1638990238918770689

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/spriter99880/status/1638990904215183360

1638990904215183360

https://twitter.com/spriter99880/status/1638990996347277336

1638990996347277336

https://twitter.com/spriter99880/status/1638991159660892177

1638991159660892177

[Matthew]

John O'Looney has talked about information he received from someone claiming to have inside knowledge, about UN training of modern day sea peoples. So this tweet from O'Looney got my attention.

The embedded YouTube link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbt7cFRZgxA

https://twitter.com/OlooneyJohn/status/1639555128700092416
David Kurten @davidkurten
France in flames: Should Brits protest like the French?
GB News discussion with @mrmarkdolan and @goddersbloom

youtube.com
France in flames. Should Brits protest like the French?
GB News discussion on the French pension protests and civil disobedience in the UK against government tyranny.Join the Heritage Party: heritageparty.orgSuppo...


John Olooney @OlooneyJohn
Replying to @davidkurten, @mrmarkdolan and @goddersbloom
they want civil unrest to unleash the UN soldiers.
if it is done it has to be done by literally everyone

[Bill Ryan]

https://t.me/DonbassDevushka/50801

DonbassDevushka/50801

[onawah]

The Massive Uprising Is EVERYWHERE!
WeAreChange
861K subscribers
36,890 views Mar 27, 2023

"This report explains the truth you're not getting in the news about the uprisings now happening around the world."

jFdykpMNN04

[Ravenlocke]

Text:
Glut of Ukrainian grain on local markets triggers protests by farmers in Romania and Bulgaria, erodes support for Ukraine.

Poland's minister of agriculture resigns.

In 2022, the EU opened its market to Ukrainian agricultural products, resulting in a significant increase in exports from Ukraine to the EU, which reached $12.9 billion. This influx of cheaper Ukrainian grains flooded the EU markets and led to protests by farmers in Bulgaria, Romania, and Poland.

Romanian and Bulgarian agricultural workers are protesting against the importation of Ukrainian grain, which they claim is flooding central European markets and driving down prices. They argue that the cheaper Ukrainian wheat is not simply in transit, but is instead being dumped into the market, causing financial strain as fertilizer and energy costs increase.

According to them, the imported Ukrainian wheat is excessively flooding the domestic markets and causing a decline in prices, despite increasing costs of fertilizer and energy. In Romania, around 100 farmers gathered in the capital city of Bucharest, while numerous others staged protests with long lines of tractors throughout the country. In Bulgaria, grain producers blocked certain border crossings using their farming vehicles.

In an effort to streamline the transportation of Ukrainian agricultural products to third-country markets, the EU lifted customs duties and import quotas on these goods last year. Ukraine is among the largest producers of grain and sunflower oil globally.

Nevertheless, an excess of low-cost Ukrainian agricultural products, particularly grain, has adversely impacted farmers in Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, and other EU nations, leading to a significant reduction in prices within local markets.

The nations bordering Ukraine are facing the most severe issues, as wheat imported from Ukraine for further transport to other global destinations frequently remains unused, leading to the saturation of silos and a substantial decline in its value.

The pressure on the EU regarding the influx of Ukrainian grain is intensifying as Poland's Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Henryk Kowalczyk, announces his resignation amidst ongoing farmer protests. Brussels' apparent blindness to the impact of Ukrainian grain imports has further escalated the situation.

https://twitter.com/runews/status/1644969603968147456

1644969603968147456

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RadioGenova/status/1644963461384880130

1644963461384880130

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/itswpceo/status/1647168098720694272

1647168098720694272

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/cnni/status/1647517707498143744

1647517707498143744

https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1647166166442418176

1647166166442418176

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/mazzenilsson/status/1647705524865998850

1647705524865998850

https://twitter.com/apocalypseos/status/1647712288097591296

1647712288097591296

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/apocalypseos/status/1652451699452444672

1652451699452444672

https://twitter.com/apocalypseos/status/1652453545533374468

1652453545533374468

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/status/1653072736737009666

1653072736737009666

[grapevine]

Harry Styles gets uncomfortable at the Grammys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfnodiTmsSw
Not sure if this is the right place for this video, but the expressions on the faces of Harry Styles and his handler, plus the controlling hand, tell a story all of their own.

[Matthew]

Public consultations are only any good if the public agree with the government.

Here the Irish Taoiseach tells people to shut up and feck off.

https://twitter.com/griptmedia/status/1654113707004239872
gript, @griptmedia
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar defends disregarding the results of the public consultation on "hate speech" laws, arguing that "very often" such consultations are hijacked by "campaigning groups" and are not "reflective of public opinion."

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/BrianMteleSUR/status/1658154089211985920

1658154089211985920

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/TheIntlMagz/status/1658197842782208001

1658197842782208001

https://internationalmagz.com/articles/resistance-until-victory-on-75-years-of-al-nakba

Resistance Until Victory: On 75 Years of Al-Nakba

In a podcast several days ago on YouTube former Senator from Minnesota Al Franken explained that Israel was the original Jewish homeland, but “of course, it wasn’t a perfect solution because the Palestinians happened to live there too.”

As Philip Weiss explains, Franken represents an older generation of American Jews, but his comments demonstrate a common tendency among commentators and politicians of any age to ignore 75 years of Palestinian resistance. Beginning with the Nakba (catastrophe) in ’48, when Zionist military forces destroyed at least 530 villages, massacred approximately 15,000 Palestinians, and drove at least 750,000 people from their homes, Palestinians have been united in their struggle.

Although his stance sounds anachronistic, representative of an older era, Franken’s podcast brings up several points that are relevant today. “It’s supposed to be a democracy, it’s supposed to be a Jewish democracy,” he says, “that’s the whole point– and right now we’re feeling like what Netanyahu is doing is ending that.”

In the end, Franken need not worry. “If we are to believe that Israel’s exclusivist and racially based ‘democracy’ is a democracy at all,” writes Ramzy Baroud, “then we are justified to also believe that Israel’s new government is neither less nor more democratic than the previous governments.”

“This is an indirect, if not clever form of whitewashing,” Baroud continues, as this stance assumes that Israel has always been a democracy, despite 75 years of discrimination and violence against the Palestinians, eventually culminating in the recent Nation-State Law which legitimizes Israel as an exclusively Jewish state. Despite demonstrations in Israel against the far-right government, Franken seems to be no problem with the way Palestinians have been treated in the past.

“It’s a curious but completely normal situation for the Zionist state,” Steven Salaita claims. “Palestinians are an ever-present burden on the entity and yet Palestinians are also studiously absent from Zionist notions of civic life.”

On Nakba Day, it is helpful to remember that the catastrophe is not an historical event, but rather, al-Nakba al-Mustamera, the ongoing Nakba, a reference to the past 75 years. According to Ilan Pappe, this means that the past exists in the present, part of a “contemporary historical chapter” (Foreword, Ramzy Baroud, The Last Earth, A Palestinian Story, 2018, p. xi) in the path towards liberation.

According to Hasan El-Hasan, al-Nakba was not one event, but rather a “continuous ongoing process of dispossession, Judaization and cleansing.” The goal has been the “conquest of all Palestine,” he writes, because the displacement of the original people from the land is at the core of Zionism.

At one point Franken’s guest brings up the normalization process as a solution, i.e., dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians as a path to peace. “You’ve got to stop the violence and the conflict,” David Miller says. “Then maybe you can create a transitional period that would allow success.”

Miller does not specify what he means by success. Most likely he does not mean an end to the Occupation, which is the only end game that will end the violence, though perhaps not the hate. For Palestinians, the goal is liberation, but as Salaita notes, liberating Palestine is a “process, forever in tension with forces of [the] oppression.”

As for the opposition, the language used by Combatants for Peace to promote their Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony reinforces the Zionist narrative that the two parties are equally responsible for the “conflict,” a term that Ramzy Baroud dispels. “Besieged, occupied people do not engage in a ‘conflict’ with their occupiers,” he observes. Instead, they are engaged in a liberation struggle that has grown stronger and more united over the past 75 years.

If liberation is a strategy, it is important to examine the language surrounding it. For example, since the Oslo Accords, the very term “resistance” was eradicated only to be replaced by rhetoric advocating “human rights,” “nonviolence,” and the two-state solution. The reality of the Occupation, under which there can be no human rights, was glossed over.

“The fact that Palestine was still an occupied country,” Baroud explains, “and that ‘state-building’ can only be achieved once ‘liberation’ was first secured, did not seem to matter to the ‘donor countries.’” These countries continued to push the illusion of the “peace process,” and to encourage that “security coordination” continue between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Zionist army, even though that meant that the PA would engage in arresting, torturing, and detaining members of the Palestinian resistance.

The “peace process,” Baroud contends, “wrought its own language,” which perhaps is slowly dying out. By dividing Palestinians in “moderates” and “extremists,” the former are valorized because they are willing to “make ‘painful compromises’” in order to attain peace. “Extremists,” on the other hand, use a wide variety of tactics, including armed resistance.

The language of liberation, used by so-called “extremists,” belongs only to the resistance. It is not written in response to a ready-made script written by the occupier; thus it does not seek to appease the colonizer or its cohorts around the world. It seeks not to backtrack by apologizing or defending its position.

Perceived by the Zionist opposition as a threat to their hegemonic hold on the narrative, such language was banned last year by the Berlin police when they barred all commemorations of the Nakba. According to Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Berlin police repeatedly label the local Palestinian community as “emotional,” an excuse they use for banning these public demonstrations.

The language used in these documents is a form of gaslighting, i.e., telling a group of people what they should be feeling about an experience as horrible as the Nakba. “The labeling of legitimate Palestinian anger and commitment,” adds Samidoun, as a “threat to public safety” constitutes an “abhorrent act of censorship,” a measure that also seeks to prevent solidarity with other struggles.

In particular, the German state “fears a broad anti-imperialist movement,” writes Samidoun, because of its interest in Germany’s own imperialist activity. “The German state collaborates with Turkey and Israel to fulfil its imperialist interests and please U.S. imperialism,” declares the Anti-Imperialist Front. “It wants to silence those who resist.”

At the present time, Germany continues to ban Palestinian events, including Palestinian Prisoners Day on April 17, a lead-up to a probable ban on organizing around Nakba Day on May 15. “Nakba Day, also called the Great Catastrophe, marks the beginning of the displacement of the Palestinian people by the Zionist occupation,” explains Young Struggle, a collective of revolutionary youth in Germany.

In a statement translated into English by Samidoun, the collective of young German activists clarifies that in the face of continuous repression, there is a flip-side to the Nakba; “this day is a day of struggle for the Palestinian liberation movement worldwide. It is our task as revolutionaries to work for the liberation of all oppressed people, including the Palestinian people.”

The possibility that Nakba demonstrations will again be banned in Germany is very real. As in the past, Palestinians are not deterred. Speaking against the German ban but also for the 75-year-long struggle against the Zionist state, Samidoun makes clear: “We and our collective movement will not allow such tactics to succeed.”

From April 28-30, 2023, the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, held its first conference on Turtle Island (North America), specifically in Ottawa, Canada. Entitled “Palestine: Envisioning Liberation, Confronting Colonialism,” the gathering concluded with a statement that brings together all colonized people in their struggles for liberation.

By “striv[ing] to support the struggle of Arab women, liberate political prisoners from Arab prisons, defend the peoples of the region, their resources and wealth, extract their natural right to self-determination and restore their historical and civilizational role from the ocean to the Gulf,” the movement affirms its future goals in revolutionary language that does not seek to appease but rather confront the Zionist state.

In “Recasting the Nakba,” Ramzy Baroud reiterates that the Nakba is ongoing, affecting generations of Palestinians up until today. In response, he calls for “ongoing resistance” among people who are bonded by memory of this past event, an experience, he says, that has created a “state of mind” capable of forging liberation in the future.

Originally published in Palestine Chronicle.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RihitoPhysicist/status/1659496394129043456

1659496394129043456

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/apocalypseos/status/1659447150198288384

1659447150198288384

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/TheIntlMagz/status/1659148762781204480

1659148762781204480

https://twitter.com/TheIntlMagz/status/1659148770221907968

1659148770221907968