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By Pressenza

Samyukta Kisan Morcha Press Statement
November 19th 2021, 10.30am

The Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi announced the Government of India’s decision to repeal all three anti-farmer, pro-corporate black laws first brought in as Ordinances in June 2020. He chose to announce this on Guru Nanak Jayanti.

Samyukt Kisan Morcha welcomes this decision and will wait for the announcement to take effect through due parliamentary procedures. If this happens, it will be a historic victory of the one-year-long farmers’ struggle in India. However, nearly 700 farmers have been martyred in this struggle. The central government’s obstinacy is responsible for these avoidable deaths, including the murders at Lakhimpur Kheri.

SKM also reminds the Prime Minister that the agitation of farmers is not just for the repeal of the three black laws, but also for a statutory guarantee of remunerative prices for all agricultural produce and for all farmers. This important demand of farmers is still pending. So also is the withdrawal of the Electricity Amendment Bill. SKM will take note of all developments, hold its meeting soon and announce further decisions.

Issued by –
Balbir Singh Rajewal, Dr Darshan Pal, Gurnam Singh Charuni, Hannan Mollah, Jagjit Singh Dallewal, Joginder Singh Ugrahan, Shivkumar Sharma ‘Kakkaji’, Yudhvir Singh

Samyukta Kisan Morcha
Email: samyuktkisanmorcha@gmail.com
——————————————————————————————–
Highlights:

• the three highly-contested farm laws will be repealed in the Parliament session which will start at the end of the month, starting on November 29.
• The announcement came in a televised address months before Uttar Pradesh and Punjab elections.
• The move came during the festival of Guru Purab, when the birthday of the Sikhism founder is celebrated.

The passage of the three agriculture acts in India in 2020 caused large-scale protests by farmers in Delhi and in the rest of India. On 19 November 2021, on the occasion of the Sikh holy day of Guru Purab, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, delivered a televised address announcing the repeal of the farm laws. The image is a screenshot of the address, a video of which was uploaded on Modi’s YouTube channel.

Govt has decided to repeal three farm laws… Know all details here!

22 November 2021

Source: www.transcend.org

By Gurpreet Singh

It was Sunday, November 13 in 2016.

We had gathered at Holland Park in Surrey to protest against the growing attacks on religious minorities and political dissidents in India under the current right wing Hindu nationalist government in New Delhi.

The keynote speaker at the event held by Radical Desi was the visiting scholar from India, Anand Teltumbde.

The occasion was the eve of the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism. Nanak had preached his followers to stand up against state repression. As Master of Ceremonies, I opened the event, quoting from his verses that say how the rulers have become barbaric and at whose command their soldiers go after people and shake them out of their slumber.

I wanted to emphasise that today’s rulers have become more tyrannical, as they kill people at will and put them behind bars under draconian laws.

Five years later, close to this year’s birth anniversary of Nanak, Teltumbde is incarcerated in an Indian jail, while his brother has been killed by the Indian police under mysterious circumstances.

Teltumbde happens to be the grand-son-in-law of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian constitution and an undisputed icon of Dalits or the so called untouchables.

He is a published author, and has been writing columns on social justice for the past many years. His critical writings had bothered those in power. He was arrested last year under trumped up charges along with other scholars and activists. Ironically, he was taken in custody on the birth anniversary of Ambedkar, whom the Indian Prime Minister reveres publicly.

Even as the campaign for his release continues, his brother Milind, who was a Maoist insurgent, was killed in an alleged exchange of fire with the police on November 14. He was among 26 killed in the incident, with no police deaths, raising suspicions of this being a staged shoot out. The members of civil society are asking for an independent judicial enquiry. However, it is not surprising to see the police killing political activists belonging to the minority groups or the Maoist movement in fake encounters, or locking them up under black laws, while looking away when it comes to dealing with Hindu extremists. Notably, Modi brought Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, a controversial female ascetic involved in the bombing of a Muslim community, into politics in 2019. She now sits in the parliament.

Putting one brother in jail and killing the other reflects very poorly on the world’s so-called largest democracy. It only shows that the Indian state, especially under Modi, not only remains intolerant to armed uprisings, which in most cases are the outcome of uneven growth and development, and oppression – but also to any peaceful dissent. His national security adviser, Ajit Doval, has recently declared war with civil society. Make no mistake. This isn’t the India of Gandhi anymore, when the state itself shamelessly indulges in cover up and violence to suppress opposition, against his principles of Truth and Peace.

This year’s birth anniversary of Guru Nanak reminds us all of our obligation to raise our voices against such brutality. Let’s make our politicians, including Modi, accountable for paying lip service to Nanak. We honestly must not let such brutes even utter the name of Nanak, who dared to challenge the power without fear.

Gurpreet Singh is a journalist from Canada

19 November 2021

Source: countercurrents.org

By Caitlin Johnstone

15 Nov 2021 – The New York Times has published a very solid investigative report on a US military coverup of a 2019 massacre in Baghuz, Syria which killed scores of civilians. This would be the second investigative report on civilian-slaughtering US airstrikes by The New York Times in a matter of weeks, and if I were a more conspiracy-minded person I’d say the paper of record appears to have been infiltrated by journalists.

The report contains many significant revelations, including that the US military has been grossly undercounting the numbers of civilians killed in its airstrikes and lying about it to Congress, that special ops forces in Syria have been consistently ordering airstrikes which kill noncombatants with no accountability by exploiting loopholes to get around rules meant to protect civilians, that units which call in such airstrikes are allowed to do their own assessments grading whether the strikes were justified, that the US war machine attempted to obstruct scrutiny of the massacre “at nearly every step” of the way, and that the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations only investigates such incidents when there is “potential for high media attention, concern with outcry from local community/government, concern sensitive images may get out.”

“But at nearly every step, the military made moves that concealed the catastrophic strike,” The New York Times reports. “The death toll was downplayed. Reports were delayed, sanitized and classified. United States-led coalition forces bulldozed the blast site. And top leaders were not notified.”

Journalist Aaron Maté has called the incident “one of the US military’s worst massacres and cover-up scandals since My Lai in Vietnam.”

Asked by The Times for a statement, Central Command gave the laughable justification that maybe those dozens of women and children killed in repeated bomb blasts were actually armed enemy combatants:

“This week, after The New York Times sent its findings to U.S. Central Command, which oversaw the air war in Syria, the command acknowledged the strikes for the first time, saying 80 people were killed but the airstrikes were justified. It said the bombs killed 16 fighters and four civilians. As for the other 60 people killed, the statement said it was not clear that they were civilians, in part because women and children in the Islamic State sometimes took up arms.“

I mean, how do you even address a defense like that? How do you get around the “Maybe those babies were ISIS fighters” defense?

Reading the report it becomes apparent how much inertia was thrown on attempts to bring the massacre to light and how easy it would have been for those attempts to succumb to the pressure and just give up, which naturally leads one to wonder how many other such incidents never see the light of day because attempts to expose them are successfully ground to a halt. The Times says the Baghuz massacre “would rank third on the military’s worst civilian casualty events in Syria if 64 civilian deaths were acknowledged,” but it’s clear that that “acknowledged” bit is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

And it really makes you appreciate how much work goes into getting information like this in front of the public eye, and how important it is to do so, and how tenuous the ability to do so currently is.

Julian Assange currently sits in Belmarsh Prison waiting to find out if British judges will overturn a lower court’s ruling against his extradition to the United States to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for journalistic activity which exposed US war crimes. War crimes not unlike those that were just exposed by The New York Times in its reporting on the Baghuz massacre.

The precedent the US government is trying to set with its persecution of Julian Assange will, if successful, cast a chilling effect over journalism which scrutinizes the US war machine, not just in the United States but around the world. If it can succeed in legally establishing that it can extradite an Australian journalist for publishing information in the public interest about US war crimes, it will have succeeded in legally establishing that it can do that to any journalist anywhere. And you can kiss investigative reporting like this goodbye.

This is what’s at stake in the Assange case. Our right to know what the most deadly elements of the most powerful government on our planet are doing. The fact that the drivers of empire think it is legitimate to deprive us of such information by threatening to imprison anyone who tries to show it to us makes them an enemy of all humanity.

Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium.

15 November 2021

Source: www.transcend.org

By Jonathan Cook

Leaders at the COP26 summit have no intention of tackling the growing environmental impacts caused by their ‘defence’ spending.

8 Nov 2021 – World leaders gathered in Glasgow last week for the COP26 summit in a bid to demonstrate how they are belatedly getting to grips with the climate crisis. Agreements to protect forests, cut carbon and methane emissions and promote green tech are all being hammered out in front of a watching world.

Western politicians, in particular, want to emerge from the summit with their green credentials burnished, proving that they have done everything in their power to prevent a future global temperature rise of more than 1.5C. They fear the verdict of unhappy electorates if they come back empty-handed.

Climate scientists are already doubtful whether the pledges being made go far enough, or can be implemented fast enough, to make a difference. They have warned that drastic action has to be taken by the end of this decade to avert climate catastrophe.

But the visible activity at the summit hides a much starker reality. The very nations proclaiming moral leadership in tackling the climate crisis are also the ones doing most to sabotage a meaningful agreement to reduce humanity’s global carbon footprint.

A photo from the opening of COP26 showed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the summit’s host, warmly greeting US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. But rather than fete them, we should treat this triumvirate as the big villains of the climate talks.

Their armed forces are the most polluting on the planet – and the goal at COP26 is to keep that fact a closely guarded secret.

Hidden from view

US expenditure on its military far outstrips that of any other country – except for Israel, when measured relative to population size. Although the UK trails behind, it still has the fifth largest military budget in the world, while its arms manufacturers busily supply weapons to countries others have shunned.

The US military alone is estimated to have a larger carbon footprint than most countries. It is widely assumed to be the world’s largest institutional consumer of crude oil.

And emissions from the West’s militaries and arms makers appear to be growing each year rather than shrinking – though no one can be certain because they are being actively hidden from view.

Washington insisted on an exemption from reporting on, and reducing, its military emissions at the Kyoto summit, 24 years ago. Unsurprisingly, everyone else jumped on that bandwagon.

Since the Paris summit of 2015, military emissions have been partially reported. But all too often the figures are disguised – lumped in with emissions from other sectors, such as transport.

And emissions from overseas operations – in the case of the US, 70 percent of its military activity – are excluded from the balance sheet entirely.

Conflicts and wars

Most of Europe has refused to come clean, too. France, with the continent’s most active military, reports none of its emissions.

According to research by Scientists for Global Responsibility, the UK’s military emissions were three times larger than those it reported – even after supply chains, as well as weapons and equipment production, were excluded. The military was responsible for the overwhelming majority of British government emissions.

And new technology, rather than turning the military green, is often making things much worse.

The latest fighter jet developed by the US, the F-35, is reported to burn 5,600 litres of fuel an hour. It would take 1,900 cars to guzzle a similar amount of fuel over the same period.

Norway, like many other countries, has been queuing up to get its hands on this new-generation jet. According to the Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen, the total emissions by the Norwegian military over the next decade will rise by 30 percent as a result of its F-35 purchases alone.

As well as discounting the environmental harm caused by military equipment procurement and supply chains, countries are also excluding the significant impacts of conflicts and wars.

Each year of the US occupation of Iraq that began in 2003, for example, is conservatively estimated to have generated emissions equivalent to putting an additional 25m cars on the road.

Military spending up

Unlike the farming and logging industries, or the manufacturing industries, or the fossil fuel industries, efforts to curb the growth in military spending – let alone reverse it – are off the table at the COP26 summit.

And for that, Washington has to take the major share of the blame.

Its “defence” budget already comprises about 40 percent of the $2tn spent annually on militaries worldwide. China and Russia – ostensibly the two bogeymen of the COP26 summit – lag far behind.

The government of Boris Johnson unveiled last year what it called “the biggest programme of investment in British defence since the end of the Cold War”. Britain is no outlier. After a short-lived “peace dividend” caused by the break-up of the Soviet Union, global military expenditure has been on an almost continuous upward trend since 1998, led by the US.

Paradoxically, the upturn began about the time western politicians began paying lip service to tackling “climate change” at the Kyoto summit.

US military spending has been rising steadily since 2018. It is set to continue doing so for at least another two decades – way past the deadline set by climate scientists for turning things around.

The same global upward trend has been fed by a surge in military expenditure by Middle Eastern countries – notably Saudi Arabia and the UAE – since 2013. That appears to reflect two trends rooted in Washington’s changing approach to the region.

First, as it has withdrawn its overstretched occupation forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has increasingly outsourced its military role to wealthy client states in this oil-rich region.

And second, as Israel and the Gulf states have been encouraged to forge closer military and intelligence ties against Iran, these same Gulf states have been allowed to play military catch-up with Israel. Its famed “qualitative military edge” is being gradually eroded.

Propping up this Middle East arms spree is the UK, which has been exporting to the Saudis, and the US, which heavily subsidises Israel’s military industries.

Power competition

All this means that, while western politicians promise to cut emissions at COP26, they are actually busy preparing to increase those emissions out of view. Ultimately, the problem is that little can be done to green our militaries, either substantively or through a greenwashing makeover. The military’s rationale is neither to be sustainable nor to be kind to the planet.

Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, since 2001.

15 November 2021

Source: www.transcend.org

By Rick Sterling

10 Nov 2021 – US media and politicians have condemned the November 7 Nicaragua election as a “fraud” and “sham”. On the day of the election, the White House issued a statement saying Nicaragua held a “pantomime election that was neither free nor fair, and most certainly not democratic.”

But are these accusations true?

Along with other international volunteers, I was an eye-witness to the election last Sunday. Previously I have been an observer in elections in neighboring Honduras. Here is a snapshot of what I saw:

Our group of 6 people (two from Canada and four from US) visited three voting centers and twenty voting stations in the small city of Juigalpa in Chontales province.

At 7 am Sunday morning, there were long lines of voters. Hours later, there was still a steady of stream of voters. Election staff said the turnout seemed higher than the last election.

Voters were all ages.. Nicaraguans can vote starting at age 16. There were lots of families coming to vote together. There were kids playing on swings while their parents voted. There were very old or disabled peopled voting. Family members were allowed to help them if needed. Otherwise election staff helped them.

One elderly woman got dizzy and almost collapsed as she was to enter the voting station. She was adamant that she wanted to vote before taken away. The ambulance arrived in about five minutes and she was taken to hospital despite her protestations that she wanted to vote first.

The process was well organized and efficient. At the entrance there were staff with computers. They scanned the citizen’s ID card, confirmed the identity and that he or she was registered for this voting center. Then they explained which voting station to go to. The voting station assignments were also printed and taped to walls at the entrance.

There were 3,100 voting centers with 13,459 voting stations throughout the country. These are mostly in educational institutions (schools or colleges). Each voting station serves about 400 voters. In urban areas, there are 10 or 20 voting stations in one voting center (school).

A huge number of people staffed the election process. At each voting station, there were about ten people performing various tasks: two “electoral policia” for sanitary spraying the hands of each voter and to resolve any issues; three people verifying voter ID, recording the signature, and passing out the ballot; two or more “fiscal” from different parties who monitored the process. At each voting center, there were two co-coordinators. At all positions there were equal numbers of men and women.

All election staff wore vests or t-shirts with their official role as part of the Supreme Electoral Council. In Nicaragua this organization is independent of the government and responsible for organizing the election nationwide.

All voters wore masks and proceeded without difficulty, one person at a time. The process was clear: show your identity card and confirm that you are registered to vote in this station; receive an official ballot; mark your choices on the ballot (secretly); deposit your ballot in the ballot box; receive your identity card back; have your finger painted to indicate you have voted and to prevent double – voting.

The paper ballots were counted at the voting station and verified by all the party representatives. The results were then transmitted electronically to the Supreme Electoral Council headquarters for tabulation of the final results.

Media accusations that FSLN leader Daniel Ortega was running unopposed are blatantly false. The voting ballot was clear and showed six competing parties. Media reports that the population is fearful of President Daniel Ortega are laughably false and disproven by the large turnout. The final results show a turnout of 65% of registered voters with about 75% of those voting for FSLN.

We asked “fiscal” monitors representing both the Sandinista Front and opposition parties if there had been any problems. Each time they said the process was proceeding calmly -“Todo tranquilo”. One would-be voter said he had moved and not been able to register his new location because he was too busy working. The voting staff calmly said, “Sorry, you had months to register your new location. You will have to vote at your old residence voting station.”

We asked numerous voters why they were voting. The answers were that the country’s leadership matters, the constitution requires it, and to protect Nicaraguan sovereignty. “Sovereignty” and “peace” were the most common responses.

It is ironic and hypocritical that US media and politicians, who reject any question regarding the integrity of the US election, smear the Nicaraguan election based on false information. Biased media and information censorship are a major cause of the lack of knowledge and ability of major news outlets to repeat nonsense without correction. An example: While we were in Nicaragua, one of our team members, Dr. Tim Bood from Halifax Canada, was banned from Facebook just for posting a message regarding US interference in Nicaragua.

Washington politicians carry on the long tradition of US interference and aggression against Nicaragua. A few days before the election, the US Senate passed the RENACER Act imposing more sanctions based on false information about the election process in Nicaragua.

The high turnout and vote for the FSLN in the Nicaraguan election shows that the Nicaraguan people are not intimidated by Washington’s bullying and threats.

Rick Sterling is a member of the TRANSCEND Network and an investigative journalist who lives in the SF Bay Area, California.

15 November 2021

Source: www.transcend.org

By Diane Perlman

A Checklist for Pfizer BioNTech Injections for Ages 5 – 11

“… We’re never going to learn about how safe this vaccine is unless we start giving it.”
– Professor Eric Rubin of Harvard University, testifying before FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, 26 Oct 2021, on myocarditis and deaths, before voting to approve.

Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee – 10/26/2021

14 Nov 2021 – Children are not capable of informed consent. Most parents and guardians trust the FDA, CDC, school authorities, and mainstream media. Most believe that the mRNA shots are necessary, safe, effective, and the only way to safely open schools, have parties and sleepovers, hug grandparents, travel and finally end the Covid pandemic.

For children under 12, there is no adequate safety data, and none on myocarditis, a disabling, life-threatening heart condition that only appeared after clinical trials on young people, mostly males. Athletes around the world are dropping dead on the field from heart damage. The experiment begins now.

Pop-up “clinics” are being rushed out to schools and other places around the country to mass “vaccinate” children as quickly as possible. Here is an example of a consent form, and another. They left a few things out.

The risks of injecting children are not trivial and some may be irreversible. Based on the data from Israel and 12 – 17-year-olds, adverse events, AEs, serious adverse events, SAEs, permanent injuries and disabilities and deaths are inevitable.

I am bound by a personal and professional ethical duty to warn, and familiar with the the Nuremberg Code which requires fully informed consent, so I created this consent form on behalf of children. It can be printed and the second side can be checked and signed. It is also pasted in the text below.

Fully Informed Consent Checklist For Pfizer Biontech Injections For Children ∙ PDF File –Read now

Lack of Safety Data

Studies used to justify approval for children from 5 – 11 were conducted on very few subjects and followed for a ridiculously short period of time. Subjects who had adverse reactions were eliminated from the study. There is zero information on potential long-term effects. And, there are at least Ten red flags in the FDA’s risk-benefit analysis of Pfizer’s EUA application to inject American children 5 to 11 with its mRNA product.

Loving, protective, frightened parents believe there was a legitimate, independent, scientific process that led 17 of 18 members of FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), with financial ties to Pfizer 2021, to vote that the benefits outweighed the risks. Dr. Michael Kurilla abstained having voiced concerns. All 14 members of CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted for approval on November 2.

At all of these meetings they wildly exaggerate the threat of Covid for children, ignore the data, dismiss natural immunity, and minimize, deny and hide the data on adverse reactions, injuries, disabilities and deaths. How is it they don’t know that healthy children have zero risk of dying from Covid.

Some panelists minimized the incidence of vaccine-related myocarditis, falsely claiming that cases were mild and resolved quickly, had different causes and that there were more cases caused by the vaccines. They completely ignored all other known risks, except for the usual swelling, fever chills, headache.

The final vote was always a done deal. There was a pretense of going through the motions of a voting process while doses for 28 million children were on their way and thousands of pop up clinical were scheduled.

At the October 26 VRBPAC meeting, 17 voted Yes despite problems raised, questions unanswered, and awkward, illogical justifications for their vote . Panelists blatantly disregarded over 142,000 written public comments by knowledgeable citizens warning of dangers and urging them to vote No. Dr. Jay Portnoy, the consumer representative said he received 4000 emails asking him to vote No. Guess how he voted?

They disregarded brilliant challenges made with data by some selected to make 3 minute public comments permitted during a one-hour comment period. Here is one from Brian Dressen, husband of Brianne, who was eliminated from trial data.

Diane Perlman, PhD is a clinical and political psychologist, devoted to applying knowledge from psychology, conflict studies and social sciences to designing strategies and policies to reverse nuclear proliferation, to drastically reduce terrorism, reduce enmity, and to raise consciousness about nonviolent strategies for tension reduction and conflict transformation.

15 November 2021

Source: www.transcend.org

By Dr Ramzy Baroud

Of all the speeches and political grandstanding at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26), the words of Mexican President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, were the most profound and least hypocritical.

Lopez Obrador raged against the “technocrats and neoliberals” – world leaders who hold the future of humanity in their hands. This was a direct reference to leaders of the powerful countries that “increase their fuel production, at the same time that they hold summits for the protection of the environment,” while arriving in Glasgow on private jets.

Indeed, hypocrisy continues to define what is meant to be a collective global fight against climate change and its ravaging, often deadly consequences.

Over-consumption, inequality and unchecked capitalism were hardly the defining keywords at the COP26. Such references were largely made by “radical” and “leftist” environmentalists outside the conference halls. Pointing out the obvious has sadly become a radical act.

Inside the posh summit halls, it was politics as usual, though concealed as virtuous concern for the fate of all humankind.

“It’s one minute to midnight on that doomsday clock and we need to act now,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, using a forceful and dramatic tone. He himself had admitted to the futility of past exercises of a similar rhetoric of the past. “I was there in Paris six years ago when we agreed to net zero (emissions) and all those promises will be nothing but blah, blah, blah.”

For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron lashed out at the “big emitters, whose national strategies are not in line with our 1.5°C objectives”, stating that “too many of us make commitments here and then sign trade agreements that do exactly the opposite”.

These leaders were not the exception. But others, the likes of US President Joe Biden, lashed out at specific countries, particularly the US’ global competitors in trade and political influence. His style of speech was distinctly different from Johnson’s and Macron’s. “The fact that China, trying to assert, understandably, a new role in the world as a world leader, not showing up? Come on!”, he said, following that with a jab against “Putin and Russia.” That is, in itself, a sad commentary; Biden had traveled thousands of miles merely to settle some trivial political scores.

Such futile political rhetoric accentuates our current dichotomy as we face the repercussions of our own abuse of the environment. On the one hand, we do need leaders who are capable of appreciating the gravity of the situation while, on the other hand, international politics has often proven to be the cause of problems and rarely the solutions.

So, how do we resolve this riddle?

The manifesto of Climate Action Network (CAN), Europe’s leading NGO coalition fighting dangerous climate change, offers some clues: “A sustainable, just, resilient society over the long term needs a proactive approach that is holistic, value-based and people-centered, addressing existing inequalities and power imbalances.”

That is definitely the starting point of a serious conversation on the environment. The self-serving logic of politicians and billionaires can only make us sink deeper in the unrelenting quagmire.

Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos who also arrived at the summit on his private jet, pledged to invest $2 billion for climate change by 2030, after receiving an “epiphany” during his 10-minute space ‘expedition’ “I was told that seeing the Earth from space changes the lens through which you see the world. But I was not prepared for how much that would be true,” he said in his speech.

Of course, for the likes of Bezos, such generous offers are quite beneficial. It further contributes to their successful business brands, while deflecting criticism that capitalism, limitless consumerism—thus incalculable, often undeserved amassing of wealth – have pushed our environment to the point of desperation.

However, can the people who have originated the problem be the very individuals who fix it, without even acknowledging their role in the crisis in the first place? Never.

“Enough hypocrisy and fad,” Lopez Obrador said, before attending the Glasgow summit. The Mexican leader, often dubbed as ‘populist’ by the likes of the Economist, Reuters and others, has pointed precisely to the ailment that resulted in the current environmental impasse. “We must fight the massive monstrous inequality that exists in the world,” he said.

The truth is this: the answer to the intensifying growing environmental crisis lies in our own hands, not those of politicians. The latter will only act if we raise our collective voice and pressure them to do so.

According to the latest report issued last August by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2,000 years.” All the fiery speeches, fancy summits and numerous political pledges have done very little to reverse this dismal and worsening trajectory.

Expecting COP26 to save the world is wishful thinking. Our fate is truly in our own hands. It always has been. It is high time for politicians to stop talking and, for once, truly listen.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

14 November 2021

Source: countercurrents.org

By M K Bhadrakumar

The stunning disclosure late Tuesday in Brussels that the US is working on a “road map” for according recognition to the Taliban Government will take a lot of people by surprise but it could have been expected sooner rather than later.

The US has a consistent record of rethinking its strategies once it realises that the policy has landed in a cul-de-sac. That is exactly what has happened in this case.

Pressure tactic will not work on the Taliban, which has a strong support base rooted in Pashtun ethno-nationalism. On the other hand, the US took no interest whatsoever in the self-styled Panjshiri “resistance”, either. In retrospect, the Biden Administration, quintessentially, resumed the Doha peace process.

Former US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad recently acknowledged that the US and Taliban were inches away from realising the understanding per the Doha agreement that an interim government would be formed in Kabul (which, of course, Ashraf Ghani and his clique duly sabotaged.)

The new US Special Representative for Afghanistan Tom West explained in a briefing on Tuesday that Washington is worried about an uptick in attacks by the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan and remains deeply concerned about al Qaeda’s ongoing presence there.

West is currently on a visit to Brussels to brief the NATO allies on US’ talks with the Taliban and hold consultations on a “road map” toward recognition of the government. Importantly, he was speaking on-the record.

To quote West, “The Taliban have voiced very clearly and openly their desire to normalise relations with the international community, to see a resumption in aid, to see a return of the international diplomatic community to Kabul and to see sanctions relief. The United States can deliver none of these things on our own.” (here)

West is proceeding from Brussels to Pakistan for a meeting of the “Troika Plus” in Islamabad on Thursday. From there, he’ll travel to Delhi to brief the US’ Quad ally on the new thinking in Washington regarding the Taliban Government and the developments thereof.

From Delhi, West is proceeding to Moscow. Tass had reported earlier citing Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that during a telephone conversation with the Russian presidential envoy Zamir Kabulov, West had said he wanted to come to Moscow to establish contact with the Russian side. Accordingly, a “working visit” has been scheduled for coming Monday.

West’s disclosure comes against the backdrop of the Pakistani media reports on Tuesday that Islamabad is “set to host the interim Afghan foreign minister as well as special envoys from the United States, Russia and China as part of diplomatic efforts aimed at preparing the ground for the international community’s recognition of the Taliban government.”

Incidentally, Interim Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, leading a high-powered delegation, is expected to arrive in Islamabad on Wednesday, which will be his official first visit to Pakistan.

The meeting of the special envoys in Islamabad will be in the format of the so-called “Troika Plus” — Russia, US, China and Pakistan. According to Express Tribune newspaper, Muttaqi will also join the “Troika Plus” meeting, which if correct, will be highly symbolic. In reality, Taliban authorities are being co-opted by the “Troika Plus.”

Conceivably, the US is considering to provide access to Afghanistan’s blocked funds in American banks to the tune of $9.5 billion. There is immense international pressure on this score, as was apparent at the recent meeting of the regional states in the so-called Moscow Format.

Clearly, the Biden Administration has veered round to the view that it is in the interests of regional and international security that the Taliban Government’s capacity to stabilise the Afghan situation, especially on the security and economic arena, is beefed up in whatever way possible.

Without doubt, the Biden Administration is taking the right approach, although this is going to be controversial in the polarised political opinion in the US. To be sure, this rethink carries the imprimatur of President Biden.

It appears that Beijing is in for a nasty surprise by the turnaround in the US thinking. A commentary in Global Times earlier Tuesday was apparently quite unaware of the meeting of the “Troika Plus” in Islamabad or that the ground beneath the feet was shifting dramatically.

The Global Times report said that “Muttaqi’s visit to Pakistan is likely to be transactional with discussions on practical issues of mutual concern, including Afghan Taliban’s role as mediator between the Pakistani government and the Pakistani Taliban.

“Despite the frequent recent interaction between the Taliban government and Pakistan, there is long way to go before a country recognises the Taliban government as legitimate. In addition to the implementation of anti-terrorism commitments ensuring inclusiveness and protecting women’s rights by the Taliban, there are also specific issues ahead such as borders and trade routes.”

Interestingly, the report went on to speculate that “one possibility is that after China, Russia, Pakistan and other regional countries establish a dialogue with relevant countries in the Middle East, they will recognise the Taliban regime collectively or independently.”

On the contrary, the Biden Administration has been talking directly to the Taliban and Islamabad all this while but kept the discussions strictly on a “need-to-know” basis, which excluded Beijing. At any rate, Beijing has been on a hostile belligerent mode and refusing to cooperate with Washington. Its growing assertiveness as kingmaker in Kabul has suffered a setback with Washington quietly moving in. The great game is shifting gear.

Indeed, the above developments completely change the regional alignments. For a start, Pakistan bounces back as Washington’s most important partner in the period ahead in regard of the “road map” under consideration for recognising the Taliban Government. An effective future US role in Afghanistan will need to be anchored on Pakistan’s cooperation.

Quite obviously, the Biden Administration has been swayed by the Pakistani argument that continued procrastination in engaging with the Taliban Government holds dangers and a replay of the anarchical conditions in the 1990s may well ensue with the added complication that the ISIS is gathering strength.

Equally, the US seems to share the British assessment that the progressive elements within the Taliban deserve to be supported. Giving evidence to the UK’s House of Commons Defence Committee on Tuesday, General Sir Nick Carter, the Chief of the Defence Staff said,

“Taliban 2.0 is different. There are a lot of people in Taliban 2.0 who would like to govern in a more modern way, but they are divided among themselves, as political entities so often are.

“If the less repressive elements end up gaining greater control… then I think there is no reason to suppose that Afghanistan over the next five years might not turn out into a country that is more inclusive than it might have been otherwise.

Interestingly, Gen. Carter who has had a hands-on role in the Afghan issues, was dismissive about winners and losers. As he put it, “I think it is too early to say that defeat has occurred. Victory here needs to be measured in the results and not some great military extravaganza.”

The US and the UK mostly move in tandem, especially when it comes to Afghanistan. Biden was in UK only last weekend for the climate summit in Glasgow.

Credit goes to Biden ultimately for the sense of realism that is on display here to let bygones be bygones and to open a new page as quickly as possible in the US national interests.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar served the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years. He introduces about himself thus: “Roughly half of the 3 decades of my diplomatic career was devoted to assignments on the territories of the former Soviet Union and to Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

10 November 2021

Source: countercurrents.org

By Patrick Martin

As the global climate summit COP26 drags out to its miserable end this week in Glasgow, Scotland, the major capitalist powers and the banks and corporations that call the shots in national and world politics have largely failed in their efforts to use the summit to provide a semblance of “progress” in resolving the global climate emergency.

The rival powers have been unable to reach any significant agreement, even on the type of half measures and purely voluntary arrangements that characterized the last major world summit in Paris in 2015. And the pledges and promises made at that summit have largely fallen apart, as reports issued on the occasion of the Glasgow meeting have made clear.

Business Insider declared the event a “historic failure,” while an editorial in the Financial Times spoke of “More hot air than progress at COP26,” noting that the US’s decision not “to sign up to a deal to phase out coal production… struck a severe blow to what was meant to be a flagship policy of COP.”

One report appearing over the weekend underscored an obvious reason for the abortive character of the Glasgow event. The environmental campaign group Global Witness analyzed the provisional list of conference attendees, provided by the United Nations, and determined that representatives of fossil fuel companies have the largest single delegation at COP26, more than any single country.

The group found that at least 503 people linked to coal, gas and oil companies were in attendance, counting both direct representatives and those coming as part of groups acting on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. “The presence of hundreds of those being paid to push the toxic interests of polluting fossil fuel companies, will only increase the skepticism of climate activists who see these talks as more evidence of global leaders’ dithering and delaying,” a representative of Global Witness said.

Patricia Espinosa, head of the UN’s climate agency, said each of the 190 countries participating was free to send delegates of their own choosing. “It is really the sovereign right of every government to accredit every representative as part of its delegations, persons it deems appropriate,” she told CNN.

While throwing open the doors to the big polluters, the summit has largely excluded representatives of NGOs and environmental activist groups. The coronavirus pandemic has been cited as a reason either for barring entry into Britain entirely—with the Johnson government serving as a sort of palace guard for COP26—or keeping those activists on the ground in Scotland away from the summit itself.

One year ago, when the climate summit was postponed for a year out of pandemic-related health concerns, there were 20,000 cases a day in Britain. Today, the number of infections in Britain has risen to 30,000 a day, despite mass vaccination, thanks to the brutal policy of the Johnson government in reopening schools and businesses.

Over the course of the year, both the pandemic and the climate emergency have worsened, and the threat to humanity from both dangers has intensified.

Last Friday, an estimated 100,000 people, most of them young, marched through the streets of Glasgow, delivering a vote of no confidence in the officials gathered at COP26. The demonstration was more a protest against the summit than an appeal to it, at least judging by many of the placards and banners, and the enormous applause given to speakers like Greta Thunberg, the youthful Swedish activist, now 18, who condemned the proceedings as a sham.

It is hard to argue with Thunberg’s characterization of the summit as “two-week-long celebration of business as usual and blah, blah, blah.”

She told the huge crowd, “The leaders are not doing nothing. They are actively creating loopholes and shaping frameworks to benefit themselves and to continue profiting from this destructive system. This is an active choice by the leaders to continue to let the exploitation of people and nature, and the destruction of present and future living conditions to take place.”

Thunberg has been an eloquent voice of the outrage among young people worldwide but offers nothing in the way of a political perspective besides continued, and inevitably more impotent, protests.

There can be no solution to the looming environmental disaster, any more than there can be an end to the global pandemic, without turning to the one social force whose interests are bound up with the struggle against both: the international working class.

Climate change, like the pandemic, is a crisis created by capitalism, and the only alternative is socialism—the revolutionary mobilization of the working class to put an end to the profit system, abolish the reactionary nation-state framework, and establish a global socialist society.

It is noteworthy that in the mass of media coverage of the Glasgow summit, there has been almost no mention of the fact that 100 global corporations are responsible for 71 percent of world emissions. This was first detailed in the 2017 Carbon Majors report, which identified giants like ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron, Peabody and BHP Billiton, as well as the national coal and oil companies of China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Mexico, Kuwait, UAE and Iran, among others.

One of the main apologists for global capitalism, perhaps the world’s leading practitioner of “blah, blah, blah,” former US President Barack Obama, made a day-long series of appearances Monday in Glasgow.

His speech to the summit was not mere blather, although there was plenty of that, citing his island origins (he was born in Hawaii) as proof of his sympathy towards the beleaguered island nations that face being overwhelmed by rising ocean waters, and touting the record of his own administration in fighting climate change.

The truth is that during Obama’s eight years in the White House, the United States was continually at war—a not insignificant contribution to global warming—and American corporations created incalculable amounts of carbon and toxic waste.

Obama delivered several thrusts against Russia and China, the major targets of American imperialism under the administration Joe Biden, his former vice president. He denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s President Xi for not attending the summit, saying this demonstrated a “dangerous lack of urgency.”

He took credit for the purely illusory gains of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, while admitting that since then “we are nowhere near where we need to be.” And he openly threatened the living standards of American workers, declaring, “All of us have a part to play. All of us have work to do. All of us have sacrifices to make … But those of us who live in wealthy nations, those of us who helped to precipitate the problem … we have an added burden.”

He also used the occasion for a typically sanctimonious lecture to the youthful protesters outside, essentially telling them to go back to their home countries and become foot soldiers in capitalist politics. He advised them against being “purists,” in other words, telling them to join the political campaigns of the Democratic Party in the United States and similar parties of a completely corrupt and conformist character.

Obama is being reinforced by a delegation of congressional Democrats, and even a few Republicans, this week, as the climate summit draws to a close. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats will pretend that the infrastructure bill they just approved and the social spending and climate bill they just agreed to postpone add up to a huge US commitment to resolve the climate crisis.

The truth is just the opposite. Both the Democrats and Republicans are willing to slash the consumption of American workers in the name of climate change, but not to cut a penny of the profits of American corporations.

The Biden administration aims to use the climate summit as part of its anti-China policy, which is directed, sooner rather than later, at unleashing military violence against the world’s second-largest economy and third-largest nuclear force.

Originally published in WSWS.org

9 November 2021

Source: countercurrents.org