This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Last week, Russia’s Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has decided to send 5,000 military construction workers and 1,000 sappers, or combat engineers, to support demining and reconstruction efforts in the Kursk border region, according to Russian state media Tass and RIA Novosti.

Since last fall, North Korea has already deployed more than 12,000 troops to Russia to fight Ukrainian forces who occupied parts of the Kursk region in August, according to Ukraine, the United States, and South Korea. In April, Russia and North Korea confirmed their soldiers fought the Ukrainian forces together there but did not disclose how many.

In a closed-door meeting on Thursday, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) told a parliamentary committee that North Korea recently began recruiting additional troops and will likely send them to Russia in July or August.

The NIS noted that North Korea’s deployment of military troops to Russia last year also came just a month after Shoigu’s visit to the country where he signed an agreement with officials in Pyongyang, said South Korean lawmaker Lee Seong Kweun who attended the briefing.

(Russian state media)

The NIS also said North Korea has been continuing to contribute significantly to Russia’s war effort, including providing weapons. Moscow, in turn, provided Pyongyang with economic cooperation, air defense missiles, and radio jamming equipment, it said.

Russia has also been providing technical advice to North Korea on satellite launches, drones, and missile guidance capabilities, Lee said, citing the NIS.

“The National Intelligence Service reported that it is working to minimize the impact on the security of the Korean Peninsula as the close relationship between North Korea and Russia may expand due to the additional dispatch of North Korean combat troops,” Lee said.

Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea for talks with Kim Jong Un and signed a mutual defense treaty. Since then, the two countries have aligned closely through military cooperation, including the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia.

Reports of North Korean troop deployment to Russia first surfaced last October. While evidence of their presence grew – including when North Korean soldiers were taken captive by Ukrainian forces in Kursk and were interviewed – neither North Korea nor Russia acknowledged their presence until this year in April.

Written by Tenzin Pema. Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Han Do-hyung for RFA Korean.

Orientation
International political economy at a crossroads

As most of you know the world economy is peppered with fault lines. On one hand we have the rising in the East of a new economic block, the BRICS nations and their friends. On the other hand, in the West we have a rapidly declining Yankeedom and its European vassals on. What are socialists in the West to do with this malestream, this great turning point? Is it not clear whether to support BRICS or not? After all, the BRICS countries have only one clear socialist country and two countries that are Hindu fundamentalists (India) as well as a theocracy (Saudi-Arabia). So does it make sense for socialists to support Russia, India, and Saudi-Arabia that are conservative politically? This article proposes that Western socialists need to give up their purist ideologies and accept that while the BRICS countries may be lacking in socialist policies domestically,they still should be supported because of their international attempts to follow Marx and Engels’ exhortation to “develop the productive forces”. This means striving to create material abundance through technological innovation.

Who am I
I am no academic socialist nor am I a red diaper baby. In fact, reading and school for me were mutually exclusive opposites. When I was a young adult I couldn’t stand reading and dropped out of community college. I only started to care for reading after I left and began hitchhiking across the country. Because I am self-educated, I did not have the benefits of being systematically educated in all the different schools of socialism, what socialist organizations were like and where and how socialism was applied all over the world. So I eclectically dabbled with books and organizations. I eventually found my way and this article is the result of conclusions I’ve come to after 50 years. Twelve years ago my partner and I started our own website and Facebook page which now has 10,000 followers. We each work 20-25 hours per week in various aspects of this work. Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism is our baby!

What do I Mean by Socialist Purist?
By the term socialist purist I mean someone who holds out for the most extreme, utopian form of socialism, whether it is defined by Marx, Engels, Lenin or an anarchist hero like Kropotkin. For Leninists socialism means no capitalism with the state which controls all economic transactions, the society is classless and does not use any currency. For the anarchists the ideal is no state, no capitalism, no classes and no money. If actually existing socialism has any of these things it is treated, not as part of a long process of development, but as a sign of a) betrayal of the party or a bureaucracy (Trotskyists) and b) corruption or some kind of pollution from the original source. That source is most often treated like a bible. It is more or less the same as the old ruling law in Louisiana that if a person had 1/32 of what was considered African American blood, they were considered black.

China
If I support China, I will be told that China isn’t really socialist or communist. If the state-controlled enterprises compose 60% of the Chinese economy I will be told that the 40% of the economy that is in private hands matters more. It will also be pointed out that in China strikes are outlawed and independent labor unions are illegal. I would prefer that strikes in China were legal and workers were allowed to form unions. There are labor unions in China but under the auspices of the state. Also, there are plenty of strikes in China. But for the purists this is enough for the entire country to be dismissed as a socialist project. For me it is not. Where do the purists get their definitions? I will be told that Marx and Engels defined socialism and communism in a particular way and that is the definition we should work with despite the fact that the definitions were intentionally sketchy and they were written over 150 years ago. If I point out China’s great work on the Belt and Road Initiative of building infrastructures and harnessing energy all over the world, I would be told they are still deriving a profit from them. Profits are bad! From anarchists for whom all states are bad, I will be told that China is really just continuing Western imperialism. For anarchists, helping to develop the productive forces in another country is nothing more than a “debt trap”. For them all capitalist and state socialist societies are imperialist the moment they engage with a country on the capitalist periphery.

Russia
There is no country in the world which has been more brutally and tenaciously demonized than Russia and that was so before, during and after the Russian Revolution. If we post a story on our website or social media pages about the Russian economy now being the fourth strongest in the world, we will be told by Trotskyists or Social Democrats that Russia is, after all, a capitalist country, as if that should end all discussion. Anarchists will tell me that Putin is a dictator. These folks don’t understand that Russia has at least four or five parties and that in the last election, Putin’s party got 49% of the vote and the Community party got 20%. I will be told by other purists that much of Russia’s spending is on its own and others’ military, not so much on producing goods and services for a better life for its citizens. The anarchists will tell me that anarchists and other dissidents are rotting away in Russian prisons. For them it doesn’t seem to matter that Putin has 80% approval ratings and Russia has built up its domestic economy even more since US sanctions. For socialist purists, the fact that Russia has been investing in the northern Arctic Silk Road which will increase trade in regions that have not been connected seems not to matter to them. The domestic economy is first and geopolitics is second. I believe the reverse to be true.

The International Proletarian Revolution Around the World at the Same Time

For anarchists any power at a national level is against socialism. So what do they advocate? An international revolution of workers’ councils that overthrows all states and is linked up locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. How realistic is this? As we stand now in the history of the United States we have never had a general strike that encompassed more than one local state. If we face this fact it is ludicrous to propose that workers’ councils are going to spontaneously arise, spread across an entire country then link up to other countries until the whole system is global. Doesn’t it seem ridiculous to assume this is going to happen in the near future? In Europe, the English, French and German heads of state are hated. Germany is de-industrializing, the French and English living standards have declined, still we have yet to see a general strike among the working classes of all countries that can drive them from power. It has struck me that:

• Since these European rulers are all bitterly against Russia;
• Russia possesses that cheap natural gas which could improve working class living standards; and
• the working classes could unite against their rulers and demand to have cheap Russian gas shipped to them.

How likely is even this semi-continent alliance? Unfortunately, not very. It has taken the rulers of states and capitalists roughly 300 years to convince people that their nation-state deserve more loyalties than their previous loyalties to provinces, principalities, regions and city states. How likely are the citizens today to give that national loyalty? Marx and Engels naively thought that workers would give up their fatherland for the international loyalty of the working class. All socialists found out the hard way through the results of two world wars that workers of the world uniting is not something workers across states have any intention of doing. So whether we like it or not, the real fight for the foreseeable future is between the rulers of capitalist states and their working classes. That is the best we can do for now and in the near future.  

World-Systems Theory and the Long View of Capitalism
In Giovanni Arrighi’s great book The Long Twentieth  Century, in world systems terminology, over the last 500 years capitalism has jumped all over the world from Italy, Holland, England and to the United States. Each ‘hegemon’ has ruled from between 220 to 100 years before its decline. In every case when the hegemon has fallen it has been replaced by a country on the capitalist semi periphery. The United States has been in decline for over 50 years. What’s next? Well, China certainly qualifies as a semi-periphery country that is still rising. But something much deeper is going on. Not only China, but all the other BRICS countries – Russia, India, Iran and Saudi Arabia have been in the semi-periphery world system. Can it be that after 500 years in Europe, we are witnessing the world economy shifting from the West to the East? It certainly looks that way. Every member of BRICS is a country on the capitalist semi-periphery.

The Rise of BRICS
I celebrate the emergence of a block of anti-imperialist countries that have broken away from the Anglo-American Empire. China, Russia, Iran and to a lesser extent India have resisted using the dollar as a world trade currency. Further, they have insisted on using their own local currency in trade transactions. With the exception of China Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia are capitalist countries, but their commitment has not been primarily to make a profit on war or forms of fictious capital such as stocks, bonds, derivatives or stock options as does the United States. Following the Chinese great Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) these countries have traded with each other in exchanges of energy systems, infrastructures such as roads and trains as well as in agricultural products and military defense.

The BRICS economic agreement between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa was established as an alternative to the imperialist World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. This breakaway movement is growing stronger by the day as the United States and the rest of the West sinks into decay. As a socialist I support this breakaway movement even if it is not explicitly socialist. In answer to my support of BRICS, I will be told that most of its members are capitalist and that socialism can never come from it. So how is socialism supposed to come about?

Nationalism as a Revolutionary Force in a BRICS Dominated World

For traditional socialists, nationalism has been the enemy. After all, historically it keeps workers from uniting with other workers around the world and it propagandizes them into aligning with the capitalist class rather than their own class. These are all reasons to be against nationalism. But the problem in today’s world is that we are fighting against a global capitalism that sets up continental systems such as the European Union which is organized to encourage the free flow of capitalism across the entire European continent. The EU does big business for the European capitalist class, a kind of Bilderberg economic union. The EU has no working-class representation. In my opinion, it is an advance for the working class of nation states to fight for independence from this European parasitic organization.

Conservative parties are moving towards nationalism – socialists are not

The problem for socialists is that in Europe and other parts of the world the  traditional conservative parties have taken positions of supporting the nation-state against the European Union and are not anti-Russian. This includes Le Pen in France, the AFD in Germany and Orban in Hungary. Sadly, to my knowledge there is not even an intermediate scale socialist party in Europe that has taken a nationalist stance. So am I advocating support of these conservative parties?

The linear political spectrum is bankrupt in the 21st century
In order to align ourselves with the current BRICS program we badly need a new political spectrum, one that leaves behind the current linear version. On this topic, please see my article of 2 ½ years ago which is still highly relevant.  As I said in my article, Are Socialists Going to let Neoliberals Define Fascism: Why the Linear Political Spectrum is Bankrupt this spectrum must be:

• inclusive of many more combinations than the communism-liberalism-conservative, fascist and libertarian, linearly strung out;
• economic as well as political;
• must account for qualitative leaps – which is the difference between socialism and capitalism;
• decentered so that both moderate and extreme solutions would seem reasonable under certain conditions. This means that all political tendencies would have to be seen as having pros and cons. The way it stands now liberals and conservatives are seen as virtuous and communism and fascism are seen as having vices;
• the spectrum must be flexible enough to make room for alliances between the extremes on the political spectrum such as China and Saudi Arabia or between India (fundamentalist) and China and
• not limited to ideologies that are next to each other on the political spectrum.

BRICS Leads the Way in Revolutionizing the Linear Political Spectrum                      

This is where things get messy. If we follow the lead of China, Xi Ping does not form alliances based on loyalty to socialism. He is committed to building communism but has formed alliances with a Hindu fundamentalist nationalist in India and with the theocratic state of Saudi Arabia. Putin is no socialist yet his strongest ally is to a country that wants to build communism. Modi, a right-winger is ok doing business with communist China. Cuba and Venezuela would be happy to do business with any of the BRICS countries whether they are socialist or not. So what united these BRICS countries that might make socialists of the West support them?

• They are anti-imperialist.
• They are anti-war.
• They are anti-finance capital.
• They want to develop the productive forces of the world.

Importance of Technological Innovation
Let me develop the last point. In the Communist Manifesto Marx spent a good deal of time praising the capitalist system for developing industry – building railroads and factories and upgrading the standing of living for the middle classes and parts of the working class. These are the very activities the BRICS countries are engaged in now. In Marxian terms, what is so good about this? It is based on the idea that socialism must be founded on abundance. It means increasing the ratio between freedom and necessity. This means maximizing productivity while decreasing the numbers of work hours. For me this is a more important goal to fight for even if internally the countries of BRICS suffer from class, race and gender inequalities.

Siege Socialism
Typically in the West, when socialist countries are compared to capitalist countries they are criticized in terms of standard of living, varieties of political parties and freedom of expression. In the first place, socialist countries should be measured in comparison to what these countries were like before the socialist revolution. Capitalist countries have had 300 years to develop themselves unopposed after they defeated feudalism. Socialist countries have had a little more than 100 years to develop yet they have done so in spite of constant capitalist attempts at sabotage, assassinations and betrayal. It is way too soon to make sweeping generalizations about the viability of socialism. In fact, based on the last 35 years of the “triumphant” West, when we look at the world around us, it is capitalism that is either is in deep trouble or has failed.

Secondly, capitalist critics fail to understand that Western concepts of freedom are not shared around the world. What matters to working-class people most is the ability to read and write, have low-cost health care and free education. In terms of housing, socialism either provides low-cost housing or makes it possible for people to buy their house outright. Socialist countries like China and Cuba have a higher percentage of home ownership than the United States. As far as the variety of political parties, I can well understand that the socialist leaders who have come to power may be extremely cautious about allowing many political parties to form. When we consider the ability of capitalist spies to turn alternative parties into organs of counter revolution, the concerns of socialist leaders is completely understandable. The best book I know which makes a case for actually existing socialism, is Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds.

Throwing Down the Gauntlet
What’s wrong with anarchism?

I do not share the criticism of anarchists by Marxists and or Marxist-Leninists. For the most part they were not “petite bourgeois individualists.” Most of the 19th and 20th  century anarchists were working classpeople who were very influential during the revolutions in Russia, 1917-1921, and Spain, 1936-1939. I respect many of their leaders from Bakunin to Louise Michel to Kropotkin to Malatesta, to Emma Goldman and to Buenaventura Durruti. However socialism must be based on abundance, not scarcity. Many anarchists don’t believe material abundance is a necessity. For those anarchists who support material abundance, a decentralized economy is not going to deliver the goods. A kind of promethean socialism requires some state centralization coordination of the distribution of water, heat, gas and electricity and other infrastructural projects.

Following Pannekoek and Gorter I agree that workers’ councils should be the micro unit of a communist society. But local workers’ councils plans for production need to be linked up regionally and then nationally. Centralization is necessary but it must be open so that there is a dialectical relationship from workers’ councils to the top and from the state back down to the bottom. Anarchists are hostile or cynical about centralization. The way political organs are organized today, a political body has to be a state in order even gain recognition. What do anarchist expect to do? Dismantle the entire state system founded at the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648? It’s completely unrealistic.

Secondly, anarchism and workers’ councils have always been hostile to parties. The heart of politics is to steer, to develop social policy. Workers’ councils or radical unions cannot be solely economic organizations. Whatever their production goals they have to be coordinated by social needs outside of work. This includes consumer groups with community needs, family needs, social and psychological needs where there is an ongoing dialectic in which plans are first made and monitored. Political parties are necessary for both directing our future and learning from our past.

Lasty, there needs to be room for markets. As many of you know markets are much older and much different than capitalist exchange. They go all the way back to horticultural societies and even existed among complex hunter-gatherer societies. Markets will continue to exist among small traders who do not hire workers for wages. The possible relationship between workers’ councils, the state and markets is well laid out in David Schweickart’s  book After Capitalism.

What is Wrong with Stalinism
By themselves workers can only achieve trade union consciousness (more money and better working conditions)
I do not share Trotskyist evaluations of Stalin as some kind of bureaucratic madman implying that Trotsky wanted more party democracy. Neither do I share anarchist dismissal, not only of Stalin, but also equating Stalin, Lenin and even Marx as all authoritarian. My criticism of Stalin as a political leader can be broken down into the following parts. As far back as 1905 with the founding of the Bolshevik party, they claimed that left to their own devices working class people can attain only a trade union consciousness. They ignored what the workers did during the Paris Commune which went way beyond trade union consciousness. Workers  created revolutionary organs of self-management without much, if any, input from any socialist or socialist parties at the time. This leads me to my second criticism.

This is that the Communist Party, not just Stalin, but also Lenin never trusted the workers’ councils that formed in Russia. They did not trust workers’ own creativity. “All power to the Soviets” was a slogan the Bolsheviks used before they came to power. After that the factory committees in the cities and the self-organization of the peasants were treated as rivals rather than comrades. In addition, Stalin actively destroyed workers’ councils during the Spanish revolution when he saw he could not control them. Devoted Leninists will state that it was the war against Western capitalist parties that forced the communist parties into a narrower, heavy-handed approach. I agree with this up to a point, but I don’t think it could explain all the more repressive behavior. The anarchists have every right to despise the Communists for what happened to them and their comrades.

The limits of vanguard parties
Marx and Engels never talked about vanguard parties. In fact, they made fun of the secret revolutionary societies of August Blanqui. However, it makes sense to me that a secret party was necessary in Russia in the early 20th century, a society without even a liberal party, no constitution and a monstrous secret police. But Leninist parties that continued to build vanguard parties that operated under relatively liberal stable conditions in the West, where a legal party was possible and political activity could be public is just mechanically holding  onto a theory that longer fits in Western conditions. In their hands Leninist theory became a dogma.

The scholastic treatment of the sciences and philosophy

There were a number of areas where dialectical materialism became dogmatic rather than scientific. I will mention two. In anthropology, Marxist-Leninist, with or without Stalin preserved Marx and Engels’ stage theory of social evolution for 100 years in spite of real empirical data from anthropologists that challenged Marxism. There were new stages of simple and complex horticulture societies that came between hunter-gatherers and the emergence of the state. In addition, slavery and feudalism were not  universal stages of social evolution. Also, in the field of psychology, the communist psychology of Vygotsky was banned in Russia for 20 years. One his most creative followers, Evald Ilyenkov was forbidden to publish and was harassed to the point of committing suicide.

Every school in the history of philosophy was crammed into the categories of objective idealism, subjective idealism or materialism. See my article which shows philosophy can be grouped into six different schools: Out on a Limb With Dialectical Materialism. Lastly the various schools of 20th century philosophy are crudely labelled based on whether the school of philosophy – pragmaticism, logical atomism, analytical philosophy – was for or against imperialism. In addition to which class the school represented. This was the case even if the school of philosophy never made any political statements.

Lastly it was very short-sighted for Stalin to insist on controlling all communist parties of the world in the service of Russia. In the case of the United States, the American Communist Party lost many opportunities to move the Yankee working class towards communism because the American communist leaders were never allowed to adapt communist theory to their own conditions. It makes complete sense to me that on a world scale, smaller communist parties should defer to the party that had achieved state power. But that doesn’t mean the party that achieved state power should dictate the strategies and tactics of countries with different political and economic conditions. We need a mass socialist party, not a secret vanguard party.

What Stalin did right
Internationally Stalin was a great politician. For 25 years the Communist Party outfoxed the entire Western world of the United States, England, France and Germany that were all in cahoots to destroy state socialism in Russia. Also the Communist Party practically single-handedly defeated the Nazis. Nationally Stalin raised the standard of living for workers and peasants compared, not to Western societies, but under the conditions of that existed under the czars until the Revolution.

There are issues that in the West Stalin is regularly attacked about:

• the treatment of peasants on the collective farms;
• the famines in Russia;
• the notion that Stalin was a dictator;
• that Russia operated in totalitarian way and
• the political trials of the 1930s.

Ludo Martens in his book Stalin: Another View, talks about each of these issues and exposes the typical Western ideology about this. It is important to remember that the statistics about the collective farms and famines were mostly written by CIA agents. Further, Martens does not take the position of idealizing everything that Stalin did. He simply presents facts that show Western propaganda as either wrong at worst or exaggerated at best.

So What are Messy Transitions?
The world of BRICS is a messy world. As I said before, China is the only country moving in a clear socialist direction. It has to work with two right wing countries – Hindu fundamentalist India and a theocracy in Saudi Arabia. Russia and Iran are clearly locked in with China but they are not socialist. Secondly, there is the class struggle going on within BRICS countries. None of these countries are supporting radical labor unions so the class struggle will go on within BRICS. Thirdly, workers cooperatives are a growing but small movement around the world. They represent potential dual forms of power. It is unclear how the heads of the BRICS countries will deal with worker co-ops as radical forms of economic exchange. Fourthly there are the ecological problems of extreme weather, accumulation of toxins, desertification and species extinction that the human species face. BRICS countries will deal with this in various ways. Lastly, there is the collapsing empire of the United States whose ruling class will fight to the death to keep it from slipping even to a minor power status. It will take all the ingenuity to navigate in, around and through this ruling class before it takes down half of the world with them.

Over many years organizations such as the United Nations have developed world programs for abolishing poverty and world hunger, increasing political participation and many other improvements. Those plans continue to gather dust because the world capitalist class is dead set against them. These plans can be potentially put into practice by some of the more progressive members of BRICS. In short it will be a messy bitches’ brew for the next century. We socialists have to accept messes and attempt to be more dialectical, not only in how we deal with the messes but also the bitterness of all socialists groups to each other.

Cooling Out the Socialist Family Feuds

For the past 170 years socialist groups have fought each other bitterly, sometimes justified and sometimes not. But we might do better if we understand each other as having various tensions that were there from the beginning, specifically:

• What is the role of the state?
• What is the role of a socialist party?
• What is the role of self-organizing workers? and
• What is place of markets?

To begin with, Leninists of all types need to face the fact that they don’t have the answers to everything. In fact, workers’ councils have shown that workers are far better at co-creating than they have been given credit for. On the other hand, anarchists and Council Communists need to come to terms with the fact that the state is a necessary part of socialism and for socialists to compete with capitalism on a world scale, some infrastructural industries require a state. In addition, council communists and anarchists cannot exist by themselves in economics organizations with no party. We need socialist parties to navigate political direction. Lastly, both anarchists and Council Communists need to appreciate that what the USSR, Cuba and Venezuela have achieved with their population is to be admired, not just criticized.

Finally, all these groups have to respect what the social democratic parties in the Scandinavia countries achieved domestically, at least before the rise of neoliberalism. They made some real improvements domestically for the populations in terms of standard of living, wages, health care and housing.  On the other hand Social Democrats internationally should be roundly condemned for actively or passively not standing up to the imperialist powers of the West with a sense of international solidarity with other socialist countries against capitalists. Finally, while Social Democrats have given far too much power to capitalists domestically in their own country, they have also shown that local markets can be productive contributors to socialism and that markets are not synonymous with capitalism.

What is the Opposite of Purity?
Throughout this article I have criticized socialist purity. But the opposite of purity is enmeshment. In psychological terms, enmeshment is a process by which a person cannot easily tell where their boundaries end and another’s begin. The worst example of enmeshment politically are the actions of the social democratic parties of the world since the end of World War II. They allowed themselves to become entangled with capitalism. Their boundaries were enmeshed. They couldn’t tell the difference between domestic socialism and international imperialism

The worst example of socialist enmeshment is the Democratic Socialists of America. This organization for 60 years has been devoted to “moving the Democratic Party to the left”. In reality the Democratic Party has been moving right despite whatever interventions they’ve made. The Democratic Party has continuously moved to the right, today being a center-right party. Yet the leaders of the Democratic Socialists of American continue to support the Democratic Party. Today it is difficult, if not impossible to tell the difference between Social Democrats and left liberals.

Conclusion
I began my article by defining what I meant by socialist purity. I said it could apply to both the anarchist as well as the Leninist left – Trotskyists, Stalinists or Maoists. At the end my article I said that the opposite of socialist purity was socialist “enmeshment”. It is the Social Democrats in Europe and the Democratic Socialists in the United States that are the best example of this. I pointed out examples of socialist purity in attitudes towards two countries, China and Russia. I argued why BRICS holds the best hope for a socialist future and I based this partly on World Systems Theory of the history of capitalism. I pointed out the Utopian nature of the wish for a workers’ revolution all over the world at the same time. I argued that based on how they behave today, workers fighting for socialism within their nation-states is the best we can do. I also claimed that these days nationalist loyalties in the West is an advance against regional institutions like the European Union on the one hand  or global institutions like the IMF or the World Bank on the other. I proposed that nationalism is an advance, whether it comes from countries such as Cuba or Venezuela on the left or European nationalists on the right including Le Pen’s party in France, the AfD in Germany or Orban in Hungary.

I attempted to be dialectical in weighing both anarchism and the varieties of Leninism for their pros and cons. I defended what has been called siege socialism against the purists, using Michael Parenti’s book Black Shirts and Reds and Ludo Martens book, Stalinism: Another View as two sources.

For over 50 years I have drawn from some very unlikely bedfellows. Some of these groups I joined and some I was on the periphery of and only knew them from their writings:

• beginning with historical anarchists culminating with Murray Bookchin (2 years);
• The Situationists of Raoul Vaneigem and Guy Debord culminating in Pannekoek and Gorter’s council communism (3 years);
• National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC) converging in Lyndon Larouche’s book Dialectical Economics (1 year). More recently I’ve been influenced by William Engdahl, Matthew Ehret and Cynthia Chung, also in the Larouche orbit;
• world-systems theory following the work of Immanuel Wallerstein, Christopher Chase-Dunn and Giovanni Arrighi;
• communist psychology of the Soviet Union whose main practitioners were Vygotsky, Luria and Leontiev. Also one year’s involvement with Social Therapy founded by Fred Newman and Lois Holtzman in New York City;
• in 2000 the anti-war movement headed by ANSWER (8 years);
• the Occupy movement from 2011-2012;
• the founding of our own organization Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism from 2012 to today; and
• one year with anarchists from Olympia Assembly and the Industrial Workers of the World.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.

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• Special counsel Jack Smith filed a narrowed indictment against Donald Trump in his 2020 election case after Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
• President Joe Biden’s top Middle East adviser held talks in Doha with senior Qatari leaders today, focusing on efforts to finalize a cease-fire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas.
• The UN’s top weather agency issued a stark warning this week about climate change endangering lives and livelihoods in South Pacific island nations.
• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed senior Biden administration officials pressured Facebook to censor certain COVID-19 content during the pandemic.
• California’s ‘Closing the Digital Divide’ task force discussed proposed legislation that could soon ban students from using phones and social media in the state’s schools.

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• The presidential campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are bickering over debate details, with their first showdown scheduled for Sept. 10 on ABC now in question.
• UN halts aid in Gaza as security deteriorates as polio re-emerges in territory.
• Canada’s government says it is imposing a 100% tariff on imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles, matching U.S. tariffs and following similar plans announced by the European Commission.
• Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle were in Butler County, Pennsylvania, today, assessing the Butler Farm Show grounds where former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt last month.
• A federal court hearing began today in Oregon, putting in question a proposed merger between grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons, which would be the largest supermarket merger in U.S. history.

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• The Biden administration will send about $125 million in new military aid to Ukraine.
• German police say three people were killed and four seriously wounded in a knife attack at a festival in the western German city of Solingen.
• Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign today and endorsed Donald Trump, a late-stage shakeup in the presidential race that could give the former president a modest boost from Kennedy’s supporters.
• A Canadian workers union issued a 72-hour strike notice to one of the country’s two major freight railroads.
• The U.S. Department of Justice and eight states, including California, have filed a lawsuit against RealPage, a software company accused of using artificial intelligence algorithms to stifle competition and drive rental prices higher, harming millions of tenants nationwide.
• Thousands of people took to the streets of Chicago on the final night of the Democratic National Convention Thursday, calling on the party and its presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, to end U.S. aid to Israel and stop the war in Gaza.

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Democrats hammer messages in final day of DNC in Chicago.

Pro-Palestine protesters get access to inside of DNC convention center.

Neighboring American Indian tribes clash over proposed casino development in Solano County.

Annual report: several climate change indicators reach all time high in 2023.

San Francisco activists protest the city’s ramped-ip efforts to sweep homeless encampments,

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• Egypt expressed new skepticism over proposal in Israel-Hamas cease-fire talks.
• Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched more than 50 rockets, hitting several homes in Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
• Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz and former President Bill Clinton to headline third evening of Democratic National Convention.
• Dozens arrested after clashes with police at unpermitted anti-Middle East war protest outside Israeli consulate in Chicago during second day of DNC Tuesday.
• U.S. government report links fluoride in drinking water at twice the recommended limit to lower IQ in children.
• San Francisco Superior Court staff warned of strike amid severe staffing shortages threatening speedy trials.

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X user (@ridhima_z) made the same claim in a tweet on August 16 and also wrote that the face of the victim was smashed with a stone to make her unrecognizable. (Archive)

Another user, Ayan (@syedayan24), highlighted how unfortunate it was that the alleged victim, Ankita Bauri, had to lose her life while returning home after demanding justice for the brutal rape and murder in Kolkata. (Archive) 

Several other users on X also shared the viral claim.

The claim was also viral on Facebook.

Fact Check

We ran a relevant keyword search and found an article in The Statesman which reported the murder of a 25-year-old tribal woman named Priyanka Hansda, a postgraduate student of Philosophy in Burdwan University, in the Nandur village in Burdwan. The report states that she was found with her throat slit in a farmland, around 50 metres away from her house, on the intervening night of August 14 and 15.

The article also states that it was initially suspected that the woman had been raped and murdered, when the news broke out initially on the morning of Independence Day. The Statesman report, however, quotes the SP of East Burdwan, Amandeep Singh, as clarifying that no evidence of sexual assault was found in the autopsy.

We found another report by The Telegraph, which states that “East Burdwan police held a news conference on Friday to clarify that the 22-year-old tribal woman, whose body was found on Thursday with her throat slit, had not been raped.”

However, we were unable to find any reports on a student named Ankita Bauri being raped and murdered.

Besides, the official X handle of Purba Bardhaman (East Burdwan) Police responded to the viral claim, calling it a ‘rumour.’ They clarified that no such incident of a girl named Ankita Bauri being raped and murdered had happened in Burdwan, and warned social media users against spreading rumours.

Some people are spreading rumours that a girl named Ankita Bauri has been raped and murdered on 14th August when she was returning home after taking part in a march connected with RG Kar incident.
…(1/2)

— Purba Bardhaman Police (@BurdwanPolice) August 17, 2024

We also found a post on the East Burdwan District Police’s official Facebook profile, which sheds light on the rumours surrounding the alleged rape and murder of Ankita Bauri. The post, which is in the Bengali, says, “Some people are spreading rumours that a girl named Ankita Bauri has been raped and murdered on 14th August when she was returning home after taking part in a march connected with RG Kar incident. The fact is that no such incident of rape and murder of girl named Ankita Bauri has happened in Burdwan. Strong action is being taken against people for spreading such rumours. Purba Burdwan police is committed to the safety and security of women.”

To sum up, the viral social media claim alleging that Ankita Bauri, a student returning from a site of protest on the night of August 15, was brutally raped and murdered, is fabricated. The body of a tribal girl named Priyanka Hansda was found in a farmland in Nandur, Burdwan, on the morning of August 15. Police confirmed she had not been raped. However, no incident involving a victim named Ankita Bauri has come to the fore, cops have confirmed.

Prantik Ali is an intern at Alt News.

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• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended his ninth visit to the Middle East since the war in Gaza began without securing a cease-fire deal
• A new report by the CDC shows federal child vaccination program prevented 1.1M deaths over the last 30 years, but gaps persist.
• The Democratic National Convention headed into its second day. Former President Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff spoke at the DNC, a day after the unofficial farewell for President Joe Biden, who served eight years as Obama’s vice president.
• The Philadelphia-based Poor People’s Army marched on the Democratic National Convention Monday evening in Chicago, the first day of the convention.
• Trump and Vance hit campaign trail this week, promise increased support for police and closed borders.
• Lawyers representing the activists who took over the Golden Gate Bridge earlier this year to protest the war in Gaza called on San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins to recuse herself from the case, citing a conflict of interest.
• Veteran Central Valley journalist Lloyd Carter has passed away. Born and raised in Fresno, Carter covered the Valley for United Press International and The Fresno Bee. His life was dedicated to advocating for equity and fairness in the allocation of the state’s water.

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• Democrats gathered in Chicago for the Democratic Convention, where President Joe Biden, Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris, and other party leaders are set to speak, while earlier in the day, Democratic groups held press events to boost enthusiasm and present views they hope the ticket will carry forward in the November elections.
• More than 30,000 people gathered in the streets of Chicago to march on the Democratic National Convention.
• The Israeli military ordered more evacuations in central Gaza over the weekend, warning Palestinians of planned military action in response to what it says was Hamas rocket fire; at least 17 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded on Saturday in an Israeli strike in the central Gaza town of Zawayda, according to Palestinian health officials.
• Congo will receive the first vaccine doses to address its mpox outbreak next week from the United States.
• British tech magnate Mike Lynch and several other people are missing after their luxury superyacht sank during a freak storm off Sicily.
• California human rights advocates called on Governor Gavin Newsom to take action and limit what they describe as the harmful practice of solitary confinement in jails, prisons, and private immigration detention facilities.
• Pro-Palestine activists asked to intervene in a lawsuit that could affect the rights of UC Berkeley students to protest.
• Hundreds of immigrant rights activists today completed a three-day, 48-mile walk, a feat they hope will raise awareness of the plight of undocumented immigrants and the need for the country to offer a path to citizenship.

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• A U.S. official says mediators are preparing for a possible cease-fire and hostage-release deal in Gaza, in a sign that mediators believe an agreement to end the 10-month Israel-Hamas war might be imminent.
• In her first policy speech today, Vice President Kamala Harris focused on the economy, calling for proposals to combat high prices for food, housing, and prescription drugs, while also proposing child tax credits and pledging to work with states to cancel medical debt.
• This week, the United Nations highlighted several international health concerns, including a panel discussion on the newly declared global emergency of mpox and a warning from the organization’s chief administrative officer about a potential polio epidemic in Gaza.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that his country’s troops had taken full control of Sudzha, the largest Russian town to fall to Ukraine’s forces since their cross-border incursion more than a week ago.
• California Governor Gavin Newsom signed new legislation into law today, which he says will help to stop retail crime in the state.

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• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his country’s troops have taken full control of Sudzha, the largest Russian town to fall to Ukrainian forces since the start of their cross-border incursion more than a week ago.
• International mediators have held a new round of talks aimed at halting the Israel-Hamas war and securing the release of scores of hostages, with a potential deal seen as the best hope of preventing an even larger regional conflict.
• As international mediators hold a new round of talks aimed at halting the Israel-Hamas war, Pacifica’s Rami Almaghari spoke with residents of Gaza about their thoughts on the negotiations.
• The Environmental Working Group, a health and anti-pollution watchdog, released a new proposal for reducing the impact of harmful “forever chemicals” in the United States in 2025 and beyond.
• A group of active-duty U.S. servicemembers announced they are urging fellow soldiers, sailors, and airmen to call on Congress to end funding to the Israeli military.

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• A top Hamas official says the Palestinian militant group is losing faith in the U.S. ability to mediate a cease-fire in Gaza ahead of a new round of talks scheduled for this week.
• The Israeli military ordered more evacuations in southern Gaza over the weekend, telling Palestinians to leave portions of Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, including part of an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone.
• Republican candidate Donald Trump gave a speech on economic policy, attempting to shift away from personal attacks. However, he quickly returned to criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris and discussing his relationships with leaders like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping.
• A Senate subcommittee on human rights convened today to discuss the abuse of pregnant women in state prisons and jails.
• Businesses in California may soon have to change how they implement self-checkout stands, as state lawmakers consider regulating the technology in retail stores to address issues of theft and violence against workers.
• Two advocacy organizations dedicated to protecting the health and well-being of underserved populations in Fresno are suing the Community Medical System, alleging that funds intended for improving the aging Fresno Community Medical Center were diverted to build a state-of-the-art medical campus in the more affluent neighboring city of Clovis.

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• The United Nations Security Council gathered to discuss an Israeli airstrike over the weekend that hit a U.N. school-turned-shelter in Gaza, which Palestinian health authorities said killed nearly 100 people and wounded roughly 50 others.
• The Russian Defense Ministry says its forces have halted an effort by Kyiv’s troops to expand a weeklong incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.
• Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made his first solo campaign appearance Tuesday, just a week after being selected as Kamala Harris’ vice-presidential running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket.
• As students return to schools across the state this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond are urging public school districts to follow the lead of the Los Angeles Unified School District in restricting cell phone use in classrooms.
• Santa Clara County residents, medical workers, and healthcare advocates continue to protest changes being made to the county’s regional medical center this week, saying the changes are putting the community’s health at risk.
• The San Francisco Public Defender’s Office said this week that the city’s district attorney should drop charges against 26 protesters who took over the Golden Gate Bridge in April to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

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• U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a guided missile submarine and an aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East as the U.S. said it believes Iran may launch a strike against Israel as soon as this week.
• A major forest fire in the northern suburbs of Athens has triggered evacuations in several areas, as swirling winds hamper the efforts of hundreds of firefighters and dozens of water-dropping planes.
• A new study suggests Mars may be drenched beneath its surface, with enough water hidden in the cracks of underground rocks to form a global ocean.
• A California State Assembly committee held a hearing today to discuss how the fentanyl crisis is impacting the state’s youth.
• Bay Area community members and homeless advocates demanded direct action from the city of Oakland and California Gov. Gavin Newsom today to address the homelessness crisis in the city.

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• Harris Walz campaign comes to Arizona as part of whirlwind battleground state tour.
• Brazilian plane crashes near São Paulo all 61 people on board perish.
• Tropical Storm Debby heads north through Atlantic Coast bringing heavy winds, rain and flooding.
• Report shows routine childhood vaccinations saved a million lives over last 30 years.
• Austrian officials arrest third suspect in Taylor Swift concert terror plot.
• UNICEF spokesman reports on collapsing humanitarian situation for Gazan children.
• Hepatitis cases increase in war torn Gaza Strip.
• South Bay activists call for restoration of full cardiac services at San Jose’s Regional Medical Center.

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• Trump holds press conference in effort to wrest back national spotlight from Harris campaign.
• Tropical Storm Debby brings heavy rain, high winds and tornadoes to mid-Atlantic region.
• Austrian officials make two arrests in Taylor Swift concert terrorist threat that canceled three planned shows.
• Delta pursues legal claims against Crowdstrike over losses incurred during worldwide software glitch.
• Coast Guard whistleblowers testify to Senate panel about sexual abuse in the service.
• Bay Area non-profit employees seek union recognition at International Rescue Committee.

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• Harris picks Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, they appear together at Philadelphia rally.
• Federal judge sides with Justice Department in Google anti-trust case.
• Tropical Storm Debby cuts through the Southeast with extreme winds, rain and flooding.
• Hamas chooses Yahya Sinwar as militant group’s new leader after assassination of Ismael Haniyeh.
• Bay Area anti-nuclear activists mark Hiroshima anniversary with calls to ban nuclear weapons.
• Mayor London Breed and San Francisco officials tout success of surveillance drone program.

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Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigns, flees country after weeks of student-led protests and violent unrest.

Hezbollah strikes military targets in Israel, Iranian foreign minister says Iran does not want regional war, but Israel must be punished.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vows crackdown on violent anti-immigrant protests.

Calls grow for Fed to lower interests rates after global financial downturn.

First official Transgender History Month kicks off in California.

San Francisco introduces bond proposal to fund affordable housing.

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• Kamala Harris secures enough online delegate votes to win Democratic Presidential nomination.
• Three American former prisoners freed in international prisoner exchange with Russia arrive in the US.
• Disappointing US jobs report sparks fears of a possible recession.
• Justice Department sues social media platform Tiktok over alleged violation of child privacy rules.
• Secret Service Chief acknowledges agency failures on day of Trump rally assassination attempt.
• Firefighters battling Park Fire prepare for rough weather and terrain challenges this weekend.

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• Gershkovich, Whelan among prisoners swapped in US Russia prisoner exchange.
• Vice President Harris today eulogizes Sheila Jackson-Lee at memorial service for Houston Democratic Congresswoman.
• New York appeals court rejects Trump’s challenge to a gag order in his hush money trial.
• US recognizes Venezuelan opposition candidate Gonzalez as winner of Presidential election.
• Unlawful migrant crossings down last month at US Mexico border, according to government numbers.
• San Franciscans celebrate third annual Trans History Month in the city.
• Northern California Park Fire has scorched more than 393,000 acres and is 18 percent contained.

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I was a high school student when an Anglophone South African, on whose daughter I had a crush at the time, recommended to me The Guns of August, a historical novel by Barbara Tuchman. Subsequently I read her The Zimmermann Telegram too. Tuchman was a good writer, in the sense that it was a pleasure to read her books. Probably she was also a good historian in the sense of propagandist for national stories. A daughter of the Wertheim and Morgenthau banking dynasty, one need not cast aspersions to contemplate a particular bias in recounting an epoch of immense importance to family fortunes.  In any event, both accounts present the Great War (WWI) in the style of British pageantry, a blood-drenched coronation for the world to come. It is not enough that the history of the twentieth century is told by the victors, a careful genealogy indicates that it is also narrated with the greatest literary skill by the merchant-adventurers (aka bankers) that have funded or plundered along the way.

Summer approaches. This August 110 years will have lapsed since the general mobilization with which four years of murderous class war commenced. The Great War was not the end of an era of peace. It was the regurgitation of the blood splashed by the Maxim and Hotchkiss guns throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America. This August 79 years ago, the US Empire incinerated two Japanese cities with atomic bombs— other cities, including Tokyo, had already been burned to the ground with conventional incendiaries. In February of 1945, more than 3,900 tons of HE and incendiary were dropped on civilians in the city of Dresden before the one-bomb solution had been perfected. Summer approaches with rumours of F-16 V “Fighting Falcons”, atomic bomb platforms, to be delivered to the Ukraine theatre of the Empire’s barely undeclared war against the Russian Federation. The triggers are already being shrink-wrapped in the polystyrene of official apology. With the forward deployment of Pfizer, Moderna, and the regiments of the medical-pharmament in 2020, the decks have been cleared. If “the big one” comes, nearly a billion people will not be able to tell whether they are dying from genetic-engineering injections or radioactive force projection.

In 2016, a good friend of mine joined me for a nine-hour performance of The Last Days of Humanity (Die letzten Tage der Menschheit) by Karl Kraus, on the stage of Teatro Nacional de São João in Porto. Kraus called it a “Mars play”. Written between 1915 and 1922, this play is some five-hundred pages long. It dramatizes all the insidious and infuriating aspects of the war — including especially the mendacity and perversion of language — that began in August 1914 (also the title of a 1971 Solzhenitsyn novel). When we left the theatre, I said to my friend essentially, “they know not what they do”. Of course I meant the theatre company that had prepared and performed this marathon drama. Last year, I met the theatre director in the rua Santa Catarina and repeated to him those very words. He smiled and acknowledged my appreciation of the grand performance. However it was clear he did not understand my reference to prophesy.

We wait irradiated by the mirages of the “phony war” in our partially personal digital devices for the moment when violent fantasies are no longer virtual. Satiated by malignant narcissism and stimulated by transhuman lust, the switches and circuits inflame as we anticipate August infame.

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“We are deeply worried by the disappearance of Viktoria Roshchina, who has been missing for over two months after planning to go on a reporting trip in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director, in New York. “CPJ stands in solidarity with other organizations calling on Russian authorities and anyone with information on her whereabouts to come forward at once. Journalists must be able to freely report on the invasion without retaliation.”

Roshchina, who planned to travel to the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine via Russia to report on the situation there, left Ukraine for Poland on July 25 and was expected to reach the occupied territories three days later. 

She has been missing since August 3, and her current location is unknown, according to a statement by global non-profit organization International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) and Sevgil Musaieva, the chief editor of Ukrainska Pravda, an independent Ukrainian news website that Roshchina works with.

On August 3, Roshchina told her sister that she made it through days of border checks but did not share her location, Musaieva told CPJ, adding that Ukraine’s SBU security service has since told Roshchina’s family that Russian forces captured her.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t know where she went, how she crossed the border with Russia, or where she last got in touch,” Musaieva said. “If we had known at least something, it would have greatly simplified this search.”

Roshchina’s family reported her missing to the Ukrainian authorities on August 12 and filed an official missing case on September 21. CPJ’s emails to the SBU and the Russian Ministry of Defense received no response.

Musaieva told CPJ that Roshchina was not on editorial assignment for Ukrainska Pravda, “but she asked what topics we could theoretically be interested in.” Roshchina is a freelance reporter who has been covering the war in Ukraine for several Ukrainian media outlets, including Ukrainska Pravda, regional news website Novosti Donbassa, and privately owned news website Censor.net. 

In March 2022, Roshchina was detained by Russian forces for 10 days while reporting in southeastern Ukraine. That same month, Russian forces in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporozhye region fired on her vehicle.

Russian forces have detained multiple Ukrainian journalists since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The whereabouts of former journalist Iryna Levchenko, missing since early May 2023, and of journalist Dmytro Khilyuk, detained in early March 2022, are still unknown.

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• Idalia heads out to sea, leaving power outages and flooding and fallen tree damage in the Southeast.
• President Biden visits FEMA employees in DC, calls on Congress to fund Agency.
• Unemployment claims down last week, another sign economy still strong despite inflation.
• Santa Clara County officials highlight drug overdose crisis on National Overdose Awareness Day.
• Vallejo police officer who shot and killed young man given his job back.

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• Idalia heads out to sea, leaving power outages and flooding and fallen tree damage in the Southeast.
• President Biden visits FEMA employees in DC, calls on Congress to fund Agency.
• Unemployment claims down last week, another sign economy still strong despite inflation.
• Santa Clara County officials highlight drug overdose crisis on National Overdose Awareness Day.
• Vallejo police officer who shot and killed young man given his job back.

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• Biden approves disaster declaration for Florida after Hurricane Idalia sweeps through.
• Biden administration proposes making millions more workers eligible for overtime.
• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell freezes at podium again, raising concerns about his health.
• Tenderloin neighborhood Farmers market backers condemn city’s plan to move it from UN plaza.
• California moves closer to becoming first state to protect against caste discrimination.

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• Hurricane Idalia approaches Florida, residents told to evacuate ahead of arrival.
• Wildfires burn out-of-control in Northeast Greece, firefighters from across Europe fight blaze.
• Biden Administration announces negotiations with drugs makers on prices for 10 popular prescriptions.
• Labor Department releases July jobs numbers, unemployment remains low.
• LGBT rights activists rally in Sacramento in annual advocacy day at Capitol.
• Opponents of state resentencing bill call on lawmakers to reject it. 
• Native groups call for repatriation of ancestors’ remains.

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• Federal DC judge sets March trial date for Trump incitement to riot case.
• Florida communities brace for Hurricane set to hit by midweek.
• U.S. Commerce Secretary in China for trade talks.
• Transportation Department fines American Airlines $4.1 million for flight delays.
• Federal officials hold virtual summit on dealing with extreme heat.
• State Attorney General sues Chino School District for transgender student policies. 
• Disputes arise following Zimbabwe national elections. 

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• Sudan: hundreds of thousands of children risk starving to death: UN relief chief
• Pakistan floods: one year on, millions still without safe water, basic services: UNICEF
• FAO hails boost to biodiversity efforts with creation of new fund

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This content originally appeared on UN News - Global perspective Human stories and was authored by Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer.

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• Former President Trump today said he’s heading to Georgia Thursday to turn himself in to Georgia authorities on charges related to his alleged attempts to overturn his election loss to President Biden.
• Attorney John Eastman surrenders to authorities on charges in Georgia 2020 election subversion case.
• The Japanese government says treated and diluted radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant will be released into the ocean as early as Thursday.
• The Biden administration has opened the spigot for new funding to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. New grants totaling nearly one and a half billion dollars will go toward developing a new generation of vaccines and treatments to fight the rapidly-evolving SARS coronavirus 2, and to set the stage to be ready for future pandemic threats.
• Failed lunar mission dents Russian pride and reflects deeper problems with Moscow’s space industry.
• Members of the striking actor and screenwriter guilds united with the largest federation of unions in the United States for a National Day of Solidarity.
• House lawmakers reintroduced legislation today that would protect Southeast Asian refugee immigrants from deportations to countries that, for many at risk, they never knew.

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• President Biden and First Lady visit fire ravaged Maui.
• Moscow suffers drone attacks, two injured as Zelensky visits Danish Parliament.
• Guatemala voters elect independent progressive President.
• Tropical storm Hilary slams into Southern California, bringing floods, power outages.
• Palestinian militants kill Israeli woman, injure man in West bank attack.
• Human rights report charges Saudi Arabia border guards killed hundreds of Ethiopian migrants.

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• Biden hosts leaders of Japan, South Korea for Camp David summit.
• Thousands evacuate ahead of approaching wildfire in Northern Canada.
• West African nations commit troops for possible Niger military intervention.
• State lawmaker announces new state funding for higher learning for developmentally disabled.
• UN health agency meets to discuss alternative medicine.
• Senator Padilla promotes heat illness bill in Central Valley.
• Southern California braces for tropical storm Hilary.

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• Rescue and recovery efforts continue in Maui, Governor promises to protect homeowners.
  Wildfires in Northern Canada force thousands of evacuations.
  FBI raids lead to nine arrests of former and current Antioch and Pittsburg officers.
  Environmentalists and state lawmakers push package or climate bills.
  New report shows environmental impact of disposable vape cartridges.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – August 17, 2023 Rescue and recovery efforts continue in Maui, Governor promises to protect homeowners. Wildfires in Northern Canada force thousands of evacuations. appeared first on KPFA.

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This content originally appeared on UN News - Global perspective Human stories and was authored by Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer.

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The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – August 15, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.

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• Hawaii officials warn of higher death toll from Maui wildfire as search teams begin work.
• Six former white Mississippi police officers plead guilty to torturing black suspects.
• Montana judge sides with young environmentalists, saying state failed to take climate action.
• Kansas police raid on newspaper office and publisher home shocks civil liberties advocates.
• House Natural Resources Committee conducts wildfire hearing at Yosemite.
• Palestinian swimmers struggle with lack of resources.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – August 14, 2023 Hawaii officials warn of higher death toll from Maui wildfire as search teams begin work. Six former white Mississippi police officers plead guilty to torturing black suspects. appeared first on KPFA.

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• ‘Indiscriminate’ Russian attacks in southern Ukraine on the rise: UN humanitarian official

• Disability rights threatened by bad working conditions for carers: independent expert

• Five-day cholera vaccination campaign to prevent outbreaks in drought-stricken Somalia: WHO, UNICEF

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• UN condemns killing of presidential candidate in Ecuador
• FAO: “Sudan most food insecure country on the planet” 
• UN human rights office warns against execution in Vietnam

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