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Yanis Varoufakis Banned from Germany as Berlin Police Raid & Shut Down Palestinian Conference

April 17, 2024

Yanis Varoufakis Banned from Germany as Berlin Police Raid & Shut Down Palestinian Conference

As Germany intensifies its crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices, we speak with Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis, one of the planned speakers at a conference in Berlin last weekend that was forcibly shut down by police. The Palestine Congress was scheduled to be held for three days, but police stormed the venue as the first panelist spoke. Germany’s Interior Ministry had also banned some conference speakers from even entering the country, including Varoufakis, the Palestinian British surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah and the Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta. “This is not about protecting Jewish lives and Jews from antisemitism. It’s all about protecting the right of Israel to commit any war crime of its choice,” says Varoufakis.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: As the official death toll in Gaza nears 34,000, we begin today’s show looking at Germany’s intensifying crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices. On Friday, police in Berlin shut down a three-day Palestinian conference just moments after it began. In addition, Germany’s Interior Ministry banned several speakers from even entering Germany or addressing the Palestine Congress conference remotely. The Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta opened the conference, but his remarks over a live stream were cut short when Berlin police raided the conference site.

SALMAN ABU SITTA: We have never seen before these daily scenes, one massacre after another, homes demolished over the heads of the occupants, bodies pulled from under the rubble, surviving child with all his family killed. We have never seen before people deliberately denied food and water, children starved to death and killed when rushing to get food. We have never seen before all means of life systematically destroyed — hospitals, clinics, schools, universities, libraries, ancient monuments, mosques, churches, universities, cemeteries, bakeries, apartment build—

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How Wealth Inequality Fuels the Climate Emergency: George Monbiot & Scientist Kevin Anderson on COP26

November 12, 2021

How Wealth Inequality Fuels the Climate Emergency: George Monbiot & Scientist Kevin Anderson on COP26

The United States and China made a surprise announcement on Wednesday at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow on a joint pledge to reduce methane emissions and slow deforestation. The United States is the largest historical emitter of carbon emissions, while China has been the largest emitter in recent years. As negotiations continue, we speak with British journalist George Monbiot and British climate scientist Kevin Anderson about how world leaders and even some climate scientists are downplaying the climate emergency. “Everything we’ve been hearing here and at the previous 25 summits is basically distraction,” says Monbiot, adding that global leaders could “fix” the worst impacts of the climate crisis “in no time at all if they wanted to.” Both guests highlight the role of extreme wealth in fueling the climate crisis, with Anderson noting it’s unfair to penalize nations like China, whose rising emissions correlate to the production of goods transported to wealthier countries. “Equity has to be a key part of our responses,” says Anderson.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. This is Climate Countdown. I’m Amy Goodman, in New York, also joined by Democracy Now! co-host Nermeen Shaikh. Hi, Nermeen.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Hi, Amy. And welcome to our listeners and viewers around the country and around the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to go right now to the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, where the United States and China made a surprise announcement yesterday about plans to work together to cut greenhouse gas emissions, including measures to reduce methane emissions and slow deforestation…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The End of Oil is Near, or Maybe Not

September 12, 2020

The End of Oil is Near, or Maybe Not

The cover of the September/October 2020 issue of Sierra magazine states “The End of Oil is Near”.  The corresponding story “The End of Oil?” was paralleled with a recent segment on Democracy Now.  I think that is wishful thinking.  To the extent that oil demand goes down in the future, it will go down because people can’t afford oil distillates at the price producers need to produce the corresponding oil.

The “The End of Oil?” article describes weak oil demand in recent years although it should be stated that global oil consumption increased over 5 million barrels/day from 2015 to 2019.  A major factor for weak oil demand growth in recent years is the increasing level of inequality in the U.S. and world.  There is an increasing population that can’t afford to buy oil distillates, or the devices that use them.  Oil distillates offer the ability to avoid manual physical effort which people tend to select when they can afford to.

“The End of Oil?” article emphasized the increase in global oil production in recent years.  Most of that production increase was associated with unconventional oil resources such as shale oil in the U.S. and oil sands in Canada.  The problem with those unconventional oil resources is that they are considerably more expensive to produce compared to conventional oil.  Conventional oil production is declining over much of the globe which has forced oil companies to move to unconventional resources.

The author describes oil majors, like ExxonMobil and Chevron, as getting into the shale oil business in recent years.  That is not a wise business decision but due to the lack of new conventional resources to exploit.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Chomsky: Arrest of Assange Is “Scandalous” and Highlights Shocking Extraterritorial Reach of U.S.

April 14, 2019

Chomsky: Arrest of Assange Is “Scandalous” and Highlights Shocking Extraterritorial Reach of U.S.

  • Noam Chomskyworld-renowned political dissident, linguist and author. He is a laureate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught for more than 50 years.

Attorneys for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange are vowing to fight his possible extradition to the United States following his arrest in London, when British police forcibly removed Assange from the Ecuadorean Embassy, where he had taken asylum for almost seven years. On Thursday night, Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman spoke to Noam Chomsky about Assange’s arrest, WikiLeaks and American power.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman in Boston, as we sit down with Noam Chomsky for a public conversation. I asked him about the arrest of Julian Assange.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, the Assange arrest is scandalous in several respects. One of them is just the effort of governments—and it’s not just the U.S. government. The British are cooperating. Ecuador, of course, is now cooperating. Sweden, before, had cooperated. The efforts to silence a journalist who was producing materials that people in power didn’t want the rascal multitude to know about—OK?—that’s basically what happened. WikiLeaks was producing things that people ought to know about those in power. People in power don’t like that, so therefore we have to silence it. OK? This is the kind of thing, the kind of scandal, that takes place, unfortunately, over and over.

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

John Bolton Openly Admits He Wants Maduro Out, American Oil Companies In

January 28, 2019

John Bolton Openly Admits He Wants Maduro Out, American Oil Companies In

Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro might be forgiven for thinking there’s a foreign-backed conspiracy against him in repeatedly accusing the US of engineering a “coup” and waging “economic war” against his regime, especially given that US advisers are now quite openly admitting this is precisely the case. In fact just after Maduro’s contested reelection and swearing in to a second six-year term, his foreign minister Jorge Arreaza told Democracy Now that “Nothing that the opposition does is without the permission or authorization of the State Department… They say, ‘We have to make consultations with the embassy. We have to make consultations with the Dept of State.'”

While that broad brush assertion could remain over-simplistic, White House officials aren’t making it any easier for the opposition in terms of Maduro painting it as tainted by a foreign hand. As a prime example, Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton recently admitted to Fox Business that the US has a “lot at stake” amidst the ongoing Venezuela crisis given the fact that it has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Bolton told host Trish Regan: 

It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.

So it appears that as the administration contemplates ratcheting up both economic and political pressures in favor of opposition National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó, and as “all options are on the table” according to senior officials last week, Bolton in a candid moment which went largely overlooked by the rest of the mainstream media has given us a glimpse into the administration’s less than pure motives on Venezuela. 

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

First Nations Pipeline Protest: 14 Land Protectors Arrested as Canadian Police Raid Indigenous Camp

January 9, 2019

First Nations Pipeline Protest: 14 Land Protectors Arrested as Canadian Police Raid Indigenous Camp

In Canada, armed forces raided native Wet’suwet’en territory in British Columbia Monday, with at least 14 arrests being reported. Land defenders faced off with Royal Canadian Mounted Police as the police breached two checkpoints set up to keep pipeline workers out of protected territory. Indigenous leaders are reportedly being blocked from their territory. TransCanada Corporation has been seeking entry into indigenous territory, where they are planning to build the massive $4.7 billion Coastal GasLink pipeline. Land protectors from First Nations clans set up two encampments where they had been physically blocking entry to TransCanada workers.

We speak with Karla Tait, a member of the Unist’ot’en House Group of the Gilseyhu Clan. She’s the mental wellness manager for the Northern Region with the First Nations Health Authority, serving the 54 First Nations in Northern British Columbia. Dr. Tait is also the director of clinical programming for the Unist’ot’en Healing Centre.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: In Canada, armed forces raided native Wet’suwet’en territory in British Columbia Monday, with at least 14 arrests being reported. Land defenders faced off with Royal Canadian Mounted Police as the officers breached two checkpoints set up to keep pipeline workers out of protected territory. Indigenous leaders are reportedly being blocked from their territory.

WET’SUWET’EN LAND DEFENDER: The Wet’suwet’en have won rights and title to their lands. We did not hurt anyone. The hereditary chiefs say, “No, you cannot go through our lands.” And under your law, the authority is them.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Scientist: World’s Richest Must Radically Change Lifestyles to Prevent Global Catastrophe

December 13, 2018

Climate Scientist: World’s Richest Must Radically Change Lifestyles to Prevent Global Catastrophe

The 24th United Nations climate summit comes amid growing warnings about the catastrophic danger climate change poses to the world. In October, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that humanity has only a dozen years to mitigate climate change or face global catastrophe—with severe droughts, floods, sea level rise and extreme heat set to cause mass displacement and poverty. But on Saturday, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait blocked language “welcoming” the landmark IPCCclimate report. New studies show global carbon emissions may have risen as much 3.7 percent in 2018, marking the second annual increase in a row. A recent report likened the rising emissions to a “speeding freight train.” We speak with Kevin Anderson, professor in climate change leadership at Uppsala University’s Centre for Environment and Development Studies, and 15-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg about the drastic action needed to fight climate change and the impact of President Trump on climate change activism.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, this is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re broadcasting from the U.N. climate summit right here in Katowice, Poland. And we’re continuing our conversation with Greta, who has been on a school strike calling for climate action. She sits outside the Swedish parliament every Friday. In September, before the election, she sat for three weeks straight on weekdays. A number of kids also then started to join her.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Greenwald vs. Cirincione: Should Trump Have Canceled Summit After U.S. Indictment of Russian Agents?

July 17, 2018

Greenwald vs. Cirincione: Should Trump Have Canceled Summit After U.S. Indictment of Russian Agents?

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our debate between Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, whose banner is “Building a Future Free of Nuclear Threats,” and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept. As we have this discussion today, President Trump and President Putin are holding a summit, at the invitation of President Trump, in Helsinki, Finland, their first meeting for 90 minutes alone, apparently only with their translators. I’m wondering, Joe Cirincione, if this troubles you, what this two-part meeting means, with his aides and without?

JOE CIRINCIONE: What’s that about? Why does Donald Trump feel that he has to meet alone with Putin? What is going on there? I mean, that—when Ronald Reagan met with Gorbachev at Reykjavik, at least he had George Shultz with him. The two of them, you know, were meeting with Gorbachev and his foreign minister at the time. This is—it’s deeply disturbing. It makes you feel that Trump is hiding something, that he is either trying to make a deal with Putin, reporting something to Putin. I tell you, I know U.S. intelligence officials—I’m probably going right into Glenn’s wheelhouse here. But U.S. intelligence officials are concerned about what Donald Trump might be revealing to the Russian leader, the way he revealed classified information to the Russian foreign minister when he met privately with him in the Oval Office at the beginning of his term. No, I don’t like it one bit.

AMY GOODMAN: You talked about the START treaty. While you’re opposed to this summit right now, you say that, you know, talking about START is a good start.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Retrospective Look At The Work WikiLeaks Made Possible As Assange Remains Silenced

April 4, 2018

An argument is only as good as the evidence it cites. For this reason, WikiLeaks embodies one the most significant information armories in existence. John Pilger spoke to this importance when he compared WikiLeaks with a mainstream press that he called nothing more than “state-stenography.” In the wake of news of Assange being cut off from the outside world by order of the Ecuadorian government, Pilger also wrote that the “silencing of Assange is the silencing of us all.”

After this author and other independent journalists, whistleblowers and friends of Assange took part in a ten-hour vigil to call for the journalist’s freedom of speech to be upheld under the banner #ReconnectJulian, many have continued to publicize the injustice of his inability to speak and have contact with the outside world on top of his ongoing arbitrary confinement.

As this writer previously noted, a topic of discussion during the online vigil centered on the irreplaceable impact WikiLeaks has had through the documentation of evidence of corruption and war-crimes. The consequences of WikiLeaks’ most well-known accomplishments cannot be overstated.

In a 2016 conversation with Democracy Now, Julian Assange described WikiLeaks:

“….WikiLeaks has become the rebel library of Alexandria. It is the single most significant collection of information that doesn’t exist elsewhere, in a searchable, accessible, citable form, about how modern institutions actually behave. And it’s gone on to set people free from prison, where documents have been used in their court cases; hold the CIA accountable for renditions programs; feed into election cycles, which have resulted in the termination of, in some case—or contributed to the termination of governments, in some cases, taken the heads of intelligence agencies, ministers of defense and so on. So, you know, our civilization can only be as good as our knowledge of what our civilization is. We can’t possibly hope to reform that which we do not understand.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Noam Chomsky Calls Obsession With Russia Conspiracy Theories ‘A Joke’

April 6, 2017

Noam Chomsky Calls Obsession With Russia Conspiracy Theories ‘A Joke’

During a recent interview with Democracy Now, Noam Chomsky demonstrated what everyone with a clear head and capacity for critical thought should already know. Just because you have a strong dislike for Donald Trump, doesn’t mean you latch on like a lunatic to every nonsensical Russia conspiracy theory because you’re still crying about Hillary’s loss.

As Noam Chomsky accurately states:

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Noam Chomsky, I’d like to ask you about something that’s been in the news a lot lately. Obviously, all the cable channels, that’s all they talk about these days, is the whole situation of Russia’s supposed intervention in American elections. For a country that’s intervened in so many governments and so many elections around the world, that’s kind of a strange topic. But I know you’ve referred to this as a joke. Could you give us your view on what’s happening and why there’s so much emphasis on this particular issue?

NOAM CHOMSKY: It’s a pretty remarkable fact that—first of all, it is a joke. Half the world is cracking up in laughter. The United States doesn’t just interfere in elections. It overthrows governments it doesn’t like, institutes military dictatorships. Simply in the case of Russia alone—it’s the least of it—the U.S. government, under Clinton, intervened quite blatantly and openly, then tried to conceal it, to get their man Yeltsin in, in all sorts of ways. So, this, as I say, it’s considered—it’s turning the United States, again, into a laughingstock in the world.

So why are the Democrats focusing on this? In fact, why are they focusing so much attention on the one element of Trump’s programs which is fairly reasonable, the one ray of light in this gloom: trying to reduce tensions with Russia?That’s—the tensions on the Russian border are extremely serious. 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Shadow Government’s Destruction Of Democracy

February 18, 2017

The Shadow Government’s Destruction Of Democracy

The ‘Deep State’ has one simple rule – “do it my way… or else!”

Source: Ben Garrison

And on the heels of Dennis Kucinich’s warnings, The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald, who opposes Trump for a variety of reasons, warns that siding with the evidently powerful Deep State in the hopes of undermining Trump is dangerous. As TheAntiMedia’s Carey Wedler notes, Greenwald asserted in an interview with Democracy Now, published on Thursday, that this boils down to a fight between the Deep State and the Trump administration.

Though Greenwald has argued the leaks were “wholly justified” in spite of the fact they violated criminal law, he also questioned the motives behind them.
“It’s very possible — I’d say likely — that the motive here was vindictive rather than noble,” he wrote. “Whatever else is true, this is a case where the intelligence community, through strategic (and illegal) leaks, destroyed one of its primary adversaries in the Trump White House.”

According to an in-depth report by journalist Mike Lofgren:

“The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies: the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department. I also include the Department of the Treasury because of its jurisdiction over financial flows, its enforcement of international sanctions and its organic symbiosis with Wall Street.”

As Greenwald explained during his interview:

 “It’s agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the other intelligence agencies, that are essentially designed to disseminate disinformation and deceit and propaganda, and have a long history of doing not only that, but also have a long history of the world’s worst war crimes, atrocities and death squads.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

VIDEO: German Lawmaker on Why Wars Led by the U.S. Are at the Root of the Refugee Crisis

September 10, 2015

VIDEO: German Lawmaker on Why Wars Led by the U.S. Are at the Root of the Refugee Crisis

Annette Groth, a member of the German Parliament, recently returned from a trip to Hungary, where she saw thousands of migrants stranded at the Budapest train station. “What is the root for this massive migration?” Groth asks. “It is war, it is terror, and it is the former U.S. government who is accountable for it.”

Speaking to “Democracy Now!” from Stuttgart, Germany, Groth outlines the ways in which Western governments are to blame for the crisis.

—Posted by Roisin Davis

 

Naomi Klein: Obama Is Beginning to Sound Like a Climate Leader, When Will He Act Like One?

August 5, 2015

Naomi Klein: Obama Is Beginning to Sound Like a Climate Leader, When Will He Act Like One?

As scientists warn 2015 is on pace to become the Earth’s hottest year on record, President Obama has unveiled his long-awaited plan to slash carbon emissions from U.S. power plants. Under new Environmental Protection Agency regulations, U.S. power plants will be required to cut emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. In addition, new power plants will be required to be far cleaner, which could effectively prevent any new coal plants from opening. But does the plan go far enough? We speak to Naomi Klein, author of the best-selling book, “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate,” which is out in paperback today.

 

 

Julian Assange on the TPP – “Deal Isn’t About Trade, It’s About Corporate Control”

May 28, 2015

Julian Assange on the TPP – “Deal Isn’t About Trade, It’s About Corporate Control”

Screen Shot 2015-05-27 at 2.38.05 PM

It’s mostly not about trade. Only 5 of the 29 chapters are about traditional trade.

– Julian Assange in a recent interview with Democracy Now

I’ve focused a little bit more of my attention on the Trans-Pacific Partnership lately, as the Obama Administration scrambles to attain “fast-track” authority from Congress. The content of this unbelievably dangerous gift to multi-national corporations is being kept secret from the public, and for very good reason. For some background on the TPP and where it stands, see:

Trade Expert and TPP Whistleblower – “We Should Be Very Concerned about What’s Hidden in This Trade Deal”

As the Senate Prepares to Vote on “Fast Track,” Here’s a Quick Primer on the Dangers of the TPP

What little we know about the TPP has come from whistleblower site, Wikileaks. This is what Julian Assange thinks of this “trade” treaty in his own words.

…click on the above link to view the video…

 

 

We Are Seneca Lake: Josh Fox & Fracking Opponents Fight Natural Gas Storage Site in Upstate NY

May 25, 2015

We Are Seneca Lake: Josh Fox & Fracking Opponents Fight Natural Gas Storage Site in Upstate NY

On Wednesday, Josh Fox, director of “Gasland,” the documentary which exposed the harms of the fracking industry, was arrested along with 20 other people after forming a human barricade at a natural gas storage facility in upstate New York. The action was part of a long-standing campaign against plans by Crestwood Midstream to expand gas storage in abandoned salt caverns at Seneca Lake, a drinking water source for 100,000 people. We speak to Fox and air his new documentary short, “We Are Seneca Lake.”

TRANSCRIPT

 

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