The Weekly Watch
What are the big stories of the week? Help us all to figure them out. I'm off line from mid-week on and so you need to help fill in the major stories. Here's a few pieces I caught early week. Hope you find something of interest. Have a good Sunday and please fill in the gaps.
Let's put on our tin hats to start with. I never know how to take these sort of pieces, but here are a couple that spoke to me -
Is the US being groomed for war? Looks that way (12 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poQPBppFyWM
Julian Assange's lawyer died after being Struck by Train. Coincidence? Julian plans to leak a Hillary Clinton email in October (3 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNJcfXOqiDY
Sorry I'm showing my bias here...
The Green Party
For months, Jill Stein of the Green Party attempted to push Bernie Sanders to join the Green ticket. While he ignored the call, Stein is now reaching out to Sanders supporters for their votes in November.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvSNgRGFQZc (15 min)
The Green Party’s vice-presidential nominee Ajamu Baraka is a longtime human rights activist. He is the founding executive director of the U.S. Human Rights Network and coordinator of the U.S.-based Black Left Unity Network’s Committee on International Affairs. (7 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1buaFxFGD2I
Here's the CNN commercial town hall (a little over an hour)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF0g-dzU64Q
Economics
CEPR economist Mark Weisbrot says the failures of the Eurozone and European economies are due to unaccountable, unelected authorities who have taken control of fiscal policy in order to remove social and economic protections for ordinary people
part 1 (24 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voDo6EDf-14
CEPR economist Mark Weisbrot says the collapse of the IMF’s power over low and middle-income countries is one of the most significant changes in the international financial system - part 2 (20 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FgtRgUvg1c
Auto lenders can steer vulnerable people into crushing debt. Keegan-Michael Key and Bob Balaban help John Oliver show exactly how. (18 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U2eDJnwz_s
Education
Award-winning teacher and professor Julian Vasquez Heilig responds to critics who say NAACP was misguided to pass a resolution condemning charters for increasing segregation and removing public control (10 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmReUE84PCA
Environment
The left in places like the United States and the UK has positioned itself behind political figures, but Leap Manifesto architects Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, along with other progressives in Canada, are trying something different (6 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR_tjzI6JuE
Using wave power for water and energy
http://carnegiewave.com/what-is-ceto/
for more news visit:
https://www.youtube.com/user/democracynow/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRealNews/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/telesurenglish/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday/videos
Understanding climate change channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo-r5Q-5TWB43oLI8eZ6euA/videos
Jill Stein booster club videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNPXLOZRCORjQiQl_sELbpw/videos
Comments
Please add to the weekly
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Glad to see you cite CEPR. I have found them to be very
accurate and useful over the past two or three years.
I think it's ominous to note that American savings rates have increased while interest on government bonds has sunk from 4% to 1%. I think it's a shift in outlook and behavior like what took place during and after the Great Depression. It's a fact of history that much of the world's economy has grown as the American consumer has spent and spent. Now with retrenchment, the American consumer has decided his/her future is precarious - because it is - and is saving even if the money is buried in the back yard.
Are there consumers in other countries to take up the slack? I don't see it.
The slide of interest rates will probably lead to another deep recession - called a "panic" in the 19th century - and this time it will hit pensioners hard. Social Security will be the last source of reliable income for retirees and it will be grim.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
And, Around the World,
LATIN AMERICA
Research carried out by Verité has found that Latin American countries export staggering amounts of illegally mined gold tied to human trafficking. This presents legal and reputational risks for major companies with gold in their supply chains.
http://www.verite.org/research/goldmininglatinamerica
PUERTO RICO
U.S. Declares Zika an Emergency in Puerto Rico
http://www.latinamericanpost.com/article/us-declares-zika-an-emergency-i...
BOLIVIA
Bolivia opens 'anti-imperialist' military school to counter US foreign policies
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/17/bolivia-anti-imperialist-m...
HAITI
The UN has finally acknowledged it played a role in an outbreak of cholera in Haiti in 2010 that has since killed about 10,000 people in the country.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37126747
MEXICO
Mexico’s federal police arbitrarily executed 22 people on a ranch in the western state of Michoacán last year, the country’s human rights commission said on Thursday.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/18/mexico-police-executions-d...
INDIA
India air pollution death rate to outpace China - researcher
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/india-air-pollution-deat...
[At the same time,]
India is slowly challenging Asia’s traditional medical strongholds like Thailand and Singapore.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1277910/from-pakistan-to-india-a-new-lease-on-life
NORTH KOREA
North Korea confirmed Wednesday it has resumed plutonium production and said it has no plans to stop nuclear tests as long as perceived threats from the United States continue.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/08/17/asia-pacific/north-korea-con...
NIGERIA
The Nigerian Military yesterday said over 800 members of the Boko Haram sect have voluntarily renounced their membership with the group.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201608170640.html
ZIMBABWE
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change is reportedly fronting an attempt to force President Robert Mugabe out of office through an impeachment motion in parliament.
http://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00045269.html
Passionate, inspiring speech by Zimbabwean activist and pastor Evan Mawarire, founder of the #ThisFlag campaign -- a mass movement of Zimbabwean citizens demanding government reform. Contains messages useful to Progressive movements everywhere. Example for the USA: "Our Constitution makes a promise to us, as citizens. That promise has been broken by our political establishment."
http://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00045362.html
"All Life is Problem Solving" - Karl Popper
Culled from leftover open browser tabs . . .
America’s “humanitarian war” against the world
The U.S. is promoting war crimes in Yemen
America’s journalistic hypocrites
Preparing for the collapse of the Saudi kingdom
A Clean Break from Israel (what America needs now)
U.S. Army fudged its accounts by trillions of dollars, auditor finds
About Kalaupapa, the former leper colony on Molokaʻi (May 2015)
We need large pipelines
to carry floodwater from the Mississippi and other rivers to central California. Then they could stop using fracking waste water on our food crops. We need pipes to carry water not oil before it's too late.
hmm...water infrastructure...you could be on to something
"All Life is Problem Solving" - Karl Popper