(2021-03-12). Cuba's reforms raise public sector salaries, broaden self-employment options. peoplesworld.org 
Starting in January 2021, Cuba began to implement broad economic reforms designed to increase production and exports in an effort to mitigate the effects of the U.S. blockade and the coronavirus pandemic. The following article, republished from the Turkish media site Sol ("The Left"), analyzes the first month of the reforms and their impact on …
(2021-03-12). Letters From Minsk: Leaving Home. counterpunch.org 
This is the first in a series about train and bicycle rides from Switzerland to Belarus, in those carefree days before pandemic lockdowns. Tired Tires Before boarding the train to Minsk, I first had to fix a flat tire on my Brompton bicycle. Mercifully, it lost its air just before I left home, although it
(2021-03-12). Data confirms what we already knew: Pandemic hit people of color harder. peoplesworld.org 
NEW YORK (AP)—A year ago, Elvia Banuelos' life was looking up. The 39-year-old mother of two young children said she felt confident about a new management-level job with the U.S. Census Bureau—she would earn money to supplement the child support she receives to keep her children healthy, happy, and in daycare. But when the coronavirus …
(2021-03-12). Do Organists Dream of Electric Sheep? counterpunch.org 
In his encyclopedic cinderblock of a book Musurgia Universalis of 1650, the German polymath Athanasius Kircher imagined God as an organist pulling out a new stop on each new day of Creation and playing the world's beings into life. Kircher didn't mention any Pandemic Pipes in his World Organ, but they have been sounding for
(2021-03-12). San Francisco: $5/hour COVID hazard pay for grocery, pharmacy workers. peoplesworld.org 
San Francisco this week joined the growing number of Bay Area cities mandating hazard pay for grocery workers, when its Board of Supervisors on March 9 unanimously passed an emergency ordinance requiring large grocers and pharmacies to pay their workers an additional $5 per hour during the COVID-19 pandemic. The city had earlier urged, but …
(2021-03-12). No Matter How Bad, COVID Makes It Worse. counterpunch.org 
It's disquieting to see profit-incentivized entities turn into major vaccination hubs—many people now routinely go to drug stores to get their flu shots. Until such time as the American government catches up with the rest of the world–and creates the public health care system we so desperately need—it looks as if the large pharmacy chains will remain central to the patchwork, makeshift future of pandemic response
(2021-03-12). Unless the Power of the People Asserts Itself. counterpunch.org 
The COVID-19 pandemic and recession and the political realignment in Washington after the defeat of the malignant fascist Trump and the two former Republican Senators in Georgia have opened the door for some welcome federal action. Among the improvements: the newly serious and aggressive federal response to the deadly virus and the passage of a
(2021-03-12). Salt of the Earth Labor College spotlights border militarization and death. peoplesworld.org 
TUCSON, Ariz.—For decades, the U.S.-Mexico border areas have experienced increased militarization, a surge in deportations, and an ever-more brutal border patrol. The Trump administration's policies of separating families, building walls, and racist demonizing of migrants made the situation even worse—and then came the pandemic. Some hope the Biden administration will ease things somewhat, but change is slow …
(2021-03-12). NY House speaker launches impeachment probe into Cuomo over sexual harassment allegations & Covid nursing home cover-up. rt.com 
The New York State Assembly has given the nod to an impeachment investigation into Governor Andrew Cuomo, who faces a litany of sexual harassment charges from several accusers and intense criticism of his pandemic response. | Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie authorized a Judiciary Committee to probe the allegations on Thursday, tapping fellow Democrat Assemblyman Charles Lavine to spearhead the investigation. | "The reports of accusations concerning the governor are serious. The committee will have the authority to interview witnesses, subpoena documents and evaluate evidence, as is allowed by the New…
(2021-03-12). Biden says all American adults will be eligible for vaccination by May 1, says rollout 'months ahead of schedule'. rt.com 
President Joe Biden has said he ordered states to remove vaccine eligibility criteria by May 1. He noted, however, that the measure would allow Americans only to "get in line" for the shot, not to take it immediately. | The announcement came during a national address on Thursday night, in which Biden marked the first anniversary of pandemic-related shutdowns across the US and updated the various ways his administration had tackled the health crisis, including an upcoming directive to states to slash their eligibility requirements. | "Tonight, I'm announcing that I will direct all states, tribes and territories…
(2021-03-12). Saudi Arabia's King Salman sacks pilgrimage minister. middleeasteye.net 
Saudi Arabia's King Salman sacks pilgrimage minister | The kingdom has suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic from a lack of income from pilgrims | Fri, 03/12/2021 – 14: 30 | Handout from the Saudi Press Agency on 15 December 2020 shows Saudi Arabia's King Salman signing the 2021 state budget following a virtual cabinet meeting in the capital Riyadh (AFP) | Sauid Arabia's minister overseein…
(2021-03-12). Russia Offers Europe Win-Win Vaccine Solution. strategic-culture.org 
The Sputnik V vaccine potentially fills the supply gaps that the EU is encumbered with. Immediately. | It is now one year since the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic from the novel coronavirus and its accompanying Covid-19 disease. Worldwide, the death toll stands at 2.6 million and continues to rise. | The arrival of effective vaccines has offered new hope that the deadly virus can be eradicated. Sputnik V, the Russian manufactured vaccine, was the first to be registered anywhere in the world as of August last year and has since been proven by large-scale trials to be highly effective and safe…
(2021-03-12). Cuba's contributions in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. mronline.org 
MR Online
(2021-03-12). Share the Vaccines, Erase the Debt: Joseph Stiglitz on How the U.S. Can Help Developing Countries. democracynow.org 
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says wealthy countries have a responsibility to help the developing world in overcoming the pandemic. He says the response must include vaccine equity as well as economic aid, including debt relief. "America won't be free from the pandemic until the world is," says Stiglitz.
(2021-03-12). Ecuadorian Indigenous Leader: "We must get out of the Correaism-Anticorreism polarization" mronline.org 
MR Online
(2021-03-12). Israel has Detained 13,000 Palestinian Children since 2000 and just took 5 more. juancole.com 
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) — Since the year 2000, the Israeli military in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank has "detained, interrogated, prosecuted, and imprisoned approximately 13,000 Palestinian children," according to Defense for Children International. Nowadays Israel typically prosecutes between 500 and 700 children annually in military courts. Even though they are civilians and children, they …
(2021-03-12). The ICC and Israel's Charge of Anti-Semitism. counterpunch.org 
We are at a critical historical juncture in which it is becoming increasingly difficult to criticize Israel without being branded an anti-Semite. You are an anti-Semite if you support the International Criminal Court's recent ruling that it has jurisdiction to open a war crimes investigation against Israel. But you are also likely to be called an anti-Semite if you reject the logic informing the court's decision.
(2021-03-12). Free Khalida Jarrar! workers.org 
In advance of International Women's Day on March 8, Israel sentenced one of Palestine's most prominent women to two years in prison, in a military court wherein no evidence could be presented against her except her affiliation with an outlawed political organization. Khalida Jarrar, a senior leader in the Popular . . . |
(2021-03-12). Elections under Fire: Palestine's Impossible Democracy Dilemma. dissidentvoice.org 
Many Palestinian intellectuals and political analysts find themselves in the unenviable position of having to declare a stance on whether they support or reject upcoming Palestinian elections which are scheduled for May 22 and July 30. But there are no easy answers. The long-awaited decree by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas last January to hold …
(2021-03-12). Journalist acquitted: Covering protests against racism is not a crime. liberationnews.org 
After a three day trial an Iowa jury has found journalist Andrea Sahouri not guilty on misdemeanor charges stemming from her coverage of a June 2020 demonstration against racist police violence. Police pepper-sprayed the journalist in the face and arrested her as she covered a local protest against police brutality. Acquitted. (Photo credit: Ted Nieters/Polaris …
(2021-03-12). We need to decolonize our understanding of antisemitism. mronline.org 
MR Online
(2021-03-12). Livestock and Deforestation in the American West. counterpunch.org 
The dawn breaks each morning on a hundred different mountain ranges in the Great Basin, with few human eyes to see it. Many of these mountain chains will be unfamiliar to most — the Toquimas, the Wah Wahs, the Goshutes, the Sheeprocks, the Fox Range — but the one thing they all have in common
(2021-03-12). Ari Berman on the Attack on Voting Rights. fair.org 
USA Today ( This week on CounterSpin: A March 3 New York Times
(2021-03-12). Battleground Baltimore: House passes police reform legislation. therealnews.com 
In this week's round-up of Baltimore news: Maryland Republicans call police reform legislation "far left," a teen is accused of murder, the continued fight against a Johns Hopkins University private police force, and more.
(2021-03-12). Why Tunisians are still out on the streets — a decade after the Arab Spring. juancole.com 
By Saerom Han, Andrea Teti, and Pamela Abbott | — It has been 10 years since nation-wide protests in Tunisia led to the ousting of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his regime. Ben Ali led Tunisia for 23 years. Tunisia's "Dignity Revolution" marked the first time a long-standing Arab autocrat was removed …
(2021-03-12). Leaving Afghanistan by May 1? Alas, Not Likely. counterpunch.org 
Will the U.S. military ever leave Afghanistan? The answer appears to be no. When the U.S. military comes it stays. It's been in Germany since the 1940s, and now has expanded, with its attack dog, NATO, from there throughout Eastern Europe to menace Russia. The Afghan adventure has so far lasted 20 years and cost two trillion dollars. Afghanistan provides a convenient, imperial base from which to threaten China. The U.S. military, realistically, will never want to give that up.
(2021-03-12). The white establishment rebels against community policing. therealnews.com 
This week, in lieu of a new episode of PAR, we have a special interview with Stephen Janis and Taya Graham about their new full-length documentary, "The Friendliest Town," which tells the story of Kelvin Sewell, the first African-American police chief of Pocomoke City, MD.
(2021-03-12). Amy Poehler's new film 'Moxie': Growing up female in 2020. peoplesworld.org 
Amy Poehler's new Netflix film Moxie is not perfect. But it is very, very good. It's a smart, funny, entertaining look at how growing up female in 2020 is similar and different from growing up in the Sixties and Nineties, or any other time for that matter. Now we know what the prolific writer-director-actress Poehler …
(2021-03-12). Police Violence, Racial Justice and Class. counterpunch.org 
The racial justice protests of the summer of 2020 tied to four years of #Resistance, but more precisely to the unresolved Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests of 2014 — 2015 that preceded it. What both BLM movements accomplished was to elevate racial justice as a talking point without altering the distribution of power. Broader questions
(2021-03-12). Neoliberalism was born in Chile; Neoliberalism will die in Chile. mronline.org 
MR Online
(2021-03-12). To mine or not to mine? Alberta coal confusion puts water in danger. peoplesworld.org 
EDMONTON, Alberta, Canada—Conservative Alberta Premier Jason Kenney's government has been dancing all over the place lately when it comes to coal policy. First, they talk to Australian coal mining companies before letting Albertans know they are planning to rescind a 1976 coal policy that forbids mountaintop removal coal mining. When outrage mounted, they announced that …
(2021-03-12). Fukushima at Ten: Aftershocks, Lies, and Failed Decontamination. counterpunch.org 
It's now 10 years since the catastrophic triple meltdowns of reactors at Fukushima in Japan. As Joseph Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health project put it three years ago, "Enormous amounts of radioactive chemicals, including cesium, strontium, plutonium, and iodine were emitted into the air, and releases of the same toxins into the Pacific have never stopped, as workers struggle to contain over 100 cancer-causing chemicals."
(2021-03-12). The Necessity of Dismantling the U.S.—A conversation with Ajamu Baraka. counterpunch.org 
On February 26th, I interviewed Ajamu Baraka for my podcast. Baraka is a veteran grassroots organizer whose roots are in the Black Liberation Movement and anti-apartheid and Central American solidarity struggles. He is an internationally recognized leader of the emerging human rights movement in the U.S. and has been at the forefront of efforts to
(2021-03-12). Milošević trial exposed U.S.-NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. workers.org 
Few people in the United States, even those in the movement that opposes U.S. imperialist aggression, remember that March 11 is the 15th anniversary of the death of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević. He had been unjustly incarcerated in Scheveningen prison in The Hague, Netherlands. For movement activists, a review of . . . |
(2021-03-12). Wolf Killing and the Legacy of Conquest. counterpunch.org 
It had seemed for the past half century that perhaps the worst of wolf killing was finally over. After centuries of methodic extermination had nearly completely wiped the animals out of the lower forty-eight, government agencies, scientists, and the general public began to see wolves not primarily as threats to private property, but rather, as
(2021-03-12). Haiti protests: 'MoàØse, U.S., UN out!'. workers.org 
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians took to the streets of Port-au-Prince Sunday, March 7, to demand the departure of President Jovenel MoàØse, whose term of office has expired. The protesters raised the corruption under MoàØse's PHTK (Haitian Party of Tèt Kale), which has stolen or squandered billions of dollars of . . . |
(2021-03-12). More on H.R.1/S.1: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. counterpunch.org 
The "For the People Act" (H.R.1/S.1) passed the House on March 3 and is now under consideration by the Senate. The bill was also adopted by the House in 2019 but had no chance of passage in the Senate with the Republicans in control. But now that this voting and elections reform bill has become
(2021-03-12). Biden Defers to the Blob. counterpunch.org 
You may have noticed: the Blob is back. Beneath a veneer of gender and racial diversity, the Biden national security team consists of seasoned operatives who earned their spurs in Washington long before Donald Trump showed up to spoil the party. So, if you're looking for fresh faces at the departments of state or defense,
(2021-03-12). Has the DC Foreign Policy Blob swallowed Joe Biden? We don't need to be the World's Policeman. juancole.com 
( Tomdispatch.com ) — You may have noticed: the Blob is back. Beneath a veneer of gender and racial diversity, the Biden national security team consists of seasoned operatives who earned their spurs in Washington long before Donald Trump showed up to spoil the party. So, if you're looking for fresh faces at the departments …
(2021-03-12). Mexican pres. wants probe of judges over suspension of electricity overhaul. laprensalatina.com Mexico City, Mar 12 (efe-epa).- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday he will seek a probe of the judges who suspended a recently enacted electricity sector overhaul, accusing them of acting on behalf of foreign companies and private interests. "We're going to go to the Supreme Court and we want the (Federal Judiciary …
(2021-03-12). Why are Super-Rich Democrats Called "Moderates" When they Wage Class War vs. Low-Income Workers? liberationnews.org 
Brian and Prof. Wolff discuss the Biden administration's stimulus package.
(2021-03-12). B'nai B'rith Smear Doesn't Change Facts about University Funding. dissidentvoice.org 
B'nai B'rith is at it again. The racist group is smearing a pro-Palestinian voice for pointing out a simple truth about Canadian life. Last week the anti-Palestinian organization released a statement headlined "Carleton University Should Condemn Antisemitism, Take Action on Professor's Remarks". The alleged offence was that sociology professor Nahla Abdo stated that pro-Israel individuals …
(2021-03-12). Washing Away One Trail of Tears After Another. dissidentvoice.org 
White Washing: According to one Merriam-Webster definition, to whitewash is to "gloss over or cover up," which, in a sense, is what the racial form of whitewashing does. It creates a White world where sins against people of color, including Blacks, Native Americans, Asians, Latinos, and other minority groups cease to matter because, in revisionist …
(2021-03-12). The Heat: China's Two Sessions concludes. america.cgtn.com 
China's "Two Sessions" wraps up in Beijing. What were some of the hot topics? And what about plans for China's future development?
(2021-03-12). Selected Articles: 7 European Nations and Thailand Halt AstraZeneca Vaccinations. globalresearch.ca 
By In October 2019, shortly before th…
(2021-03-12). Dan Hodges sent the tw*t-o-meter nuclear on Question Time. thecanary.co 
A Mail on Sunday columnist was talking about racism in the UK media on BBC Question Time. Predictably, when it came to his own newspaper, he denied ever seeing any. Please pick your jaw up off the floor and continue reading. | Cuckoo on Question Time: |
(2021-03-12). Exports to EU plunged 41% in January as Brexit transition period ended. thecanary.co 
Exports of UK goods to the European Union dropped by more than two-fifths in January as the Brexit transition period came to an end. | The drop: | New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that overall exports from the UK fell by £5.6bn — 19.3%. It was driven by a £5.6bn, or 40.7%, plunge in exports of goods to the EU, the ONS said. | Imports also fell, by £8.9bn overall (21.6%), while imports from the EU dropped £6.6BN (28%), the figures show. | The underlying total trade deficit fell £3.7 billion to £1.9 billion in January: goods exports fe…
(2021-03-12). White Supremacist Christianity Drives Trump's Loyal Mob. We Must Scream It Down. truthout.org 
Two months have now passed since mobs of mostly white people descended on the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the results of November's election, but I am still haunted by images of the mob's racist violence such as the noose that they put on display and the shirt of a white man in the crowd that read, "Camp Auschwitz." | These details were more than symbolic — they point to historically materialized forms of horrific anti-Black and antisemitic racism that continue to be stoked by w…
(2021-03-12). Return to normalcy? Vandalizing protesters target Portland courthouse days after its protective fence was removed (VIDEOS). rt.com 
Violent clashes were once again witnessed overnight in central Portland, where a federal courthouse — the focal point of last year's months-long violent protests — was stripped of its surrounding fence earlier this week. | Local media reported that around 50 to 60 black-clad demonstrators clashed with federal agents on Thursday night, breaking windows and setting on fire a section of plywood barring entry to parts of the Mark Hatfield Federal Courthouse in central Portland, Oregon. | #koin6news #pdx (2021-03-12). Return to normalcy? Vandalizing protesters target Portland courthouse days after its protective fence was removed (VIDEOS). rt.com Violent clashes were once again witnessed overnight in central Portland, where a federal courthouse — the focal point of last year's months-long violent protests — was stripped of its surrounding fence earlier this week. | Local media reported that around 50 to 60 black-clad demonstrators clashed with federal agents on Thursday night, breaking windows and setting on fire a section of plywood barring entry to parts of the Mark Hatfield Federal Courthouse in central Portland, Oregon. | Someone in the group set fire to the plywood on the building at the entrance to the courthouse. Federal officers are…