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This evening's music features blues guitarist Robert Cray. Enjoy!

“The twentieth century had dispensed with the formal declaration of war and introduced the fifth column, sabotage, cold war, and war by proxy, but that was only the begining. Summit meetings for disarmament pursued mutual understanding and a balance of power but were also held to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. The world of the war-or-peace alternative became a world in which war was peace and peace war.”

-- Stanislaw Lem

News and Opinion

US said via diplomatic channels it does not plan to fight with Russia directly — Lavrov

The US conveyed via diplomatic channels that it does not want and will not fight with Russia directly and will not send it military specialists to Ukraine in connection with the shipment of Patriot missile air defense systems, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview Wednesday.

"We asked the Americans via the channels that out embassy still has whether the decision to send Patriot systems [to Ukraine] means that American specialists will be there as well, considering the complexity of operation of these systems. We were told at length that this is not being planned specifically because the Americans do not want and will not fight against Russia directly; the Patriot systems will be deployed within several months, as Ukrainian servicemen familiarize themselves with this technology," Lavrov said.

Previously, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia will be able to destroy the Patriot systems, should Washington supply them to Kiev. He also noted that "the Patriot is a rather old system" and it does not perform like the Russian-made S-300. He also said that Russia will find an "antidote" to these systems.

NY Times Pro-Ukraine War Propaganda Hits Laughable New Low

BlackRock Accused of 'Trying to Cash In On the Disaster' With Ukraine Reconstruction Deal

Investment behemoth BlackRock was accused Thursday of what author Naomi Klein termed "disaster capitalism" after war-ravaged Ukraine's president announced he would work with the firm to coordinate foreign investment in the country's reconstruction.

"The BlackRock team has been working for several months on a project to advise the Ukrainian government on how to structure the country's reconstruction funds," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office said Wednesday following the president's video conference with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.

Zelenskyy's office said that the two men "agreed to focus in the near term on coordinating the efforts of all potential investors and participants in the reconstruction of our country, channeling investment into the most relevant and impactful sectors of the Ukrainian economy."

In language evocative of Klein'sThe Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink, tweeted that BlackRock is "already trying to cash in on the disaster in Ukraine."

Investigative journalist and Status Coup CEO Jordan Chariton predicted that "this is going to make the neoliberalism and privatization the U.S. inflicted on post-Soviet Russia look like child's play."

New York-based BlackRock—the planet's largest asset manager—handles about $8 trillion in client assets and has around 70 offices in 30 countries. The firm has faced intense criticism for actions including being the world's top investor in fossil fuels and deforestation, war profiteering, and doing business with human rights violators.

Zelenskyy had a message for foreign investors as he virtually opened the September 6 trading session at the New York Stock Exchange: "We are free. We are strong. We are open for business."

"Ukraine is the story of a future victory and a chance for you to invest now in projects worth hundreds of billions of dollars to share the victory with us," he added.

On that day Zelenskyy also launched the Advantage Ukraine initiative in a bid to draw $400 billion in foreign investment in a land of "superior growth opportunities."

The program focuses on 10 key sectors of the Ukrainian economy, including the military-industrial complex, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, power, natural resources, and industrial manufacturing.

"It is necessary to invest in Ukraine now, and not wait for the end of the war," Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said in a statement touting the initiative.

In July, top officials from some of the world's leading economic powers met in Lugano, Switzerland for the most recent Ukraine Recovery Conference. Last year's conference agenda included core "shock doctrine" policies of "decentralization, privatization, reform of state-owned enterprises, land reform, state administration reform," as well as "Euro-Atlantic integration."

The Russian onslaught against Ukraine has devastated its infrastructure and economy. According to the World Bank, it will cost at least half a trillion dollars to rebuild Ukraine once the war ends.

BlackRock Logo To Be Added To Ukrainian Flag

Kyiv has announced the addition of a fifth corporate logo to the Ukrainian flag following news that BlackRock will be playing a crucial role in the reconstruction of the nation. The world’s largest investment management firm will join Raytheon Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and McDonald’s upon the now-omnipresent blue and yellow flag.

“I understand some Ukrainians may be frustrated at the continual additions to our nation’s glorious flag,” Ukraine’s President Zelensky said during a speech announcing the change. “Just last month we added the Raytheon logo, and now we’re adding BlackRock. I am sure it was a bit awkward for our American friends as they were continually adding stars to their flag back when they were adding lots of new states to their republic, too.”

“The only difference is instead of adding states, we’re adding multinational megacorporations,” the leader said.

Zelensky then took a large bite of a McDonald’s Big Mac™️, saying, “Mmm mmm, I’m lovin it!” in English, eliciting awkward applause throughout the Walt Disney Company Presidential Press Hall.

Critics have complained that BlackRock’s new role in Ukraine could draw accusations of corruption, with some noting that the the company’s managing director Eric Van Nostrand was hired straight into a senior advisory position in the Biden administration’s Treasury Department just this past August, explicitly to shape US economic policy on Russia and Ukraine.

Others have noted that BlackRock is a top beneficial owner of shares in major arms manufacturers who are reaping immense profits from the war in Ukraine, with tens of billions invested in Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon.

These words of caution have however not been sufficient to dissuade the Ukrainian government from selling Ukraine piece by piece to western oligarchs like billionaire BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, and now one more giant corporation gets another slice of the nation.

A Ukrainian Embassy reception was sponsored by Northrop, Lockheed and Raytheon, reports @mideastXmidwest. (Not The Onion) https://t.co/U89y7gER8v pic.twitter.com/fNzika6utb

— Eli Clifton (@EliClifton) December 16, 2022

We can expect more such deals to be signed by Kyiv, which is slated to be re-named Goldman Sachs City early next year.

The McProxy War continues.

Defense contractor shares surge as US doubles NATO arms sales

The year 2022 concludes with a shocking death toll: according to figures cited by US General Mark Miley, 200,000 people have been killed or injured in the fratricidal war in Ukraine. This horrific loss of life has been the basis for the generation of vast profits for the arms manufacturers. Under conditions in which the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen by 10 percent for the year as a whole, the share prices of US defense contractors have surged.

Over the past 12 months, the share price of Northrop Grumman has increased 40 percent, Raytheon is up by nearly 17 percent, while Lockheed Martin has surged by 37 percent.

By some estimates military spending by the United States and its allies is growing at a level without precedent since the end of the Second World War.

Putin, Xi year end summit. China, Russia De facto alliance

Belarus Says Shot Down Missile Launched From Ukraine

Russia’s key ally Belarus said Thursday its air defense shot down a missile launched from Ukrainian territory, in the first such incident reported by Minsk since the start of Moscow’s Ukraine offensive.

The Belarus defense ministry said a missile was shot down around 10:00 am local time (0700 GMT), with its debris discovered in a village in the western Brest region that borders Ukraine and Poland.

“It was preliminarily established that the fragments belonged to an S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile launched from the territory of Ukraine,” the ministry said in a statement.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko “was immediately informed” of the incident, a Telegram channel close to the presidency said earlier.

There was no information yet about possible injuries or casualties.

Russia Missile Strikes, Advance in Bakhmut, Xi - Putin Global Partners, Syria Turkey Meet in Moscow

Everything you know is wrong. Everything you suspected is probably true. Really interesting article worth a click, here's a snippet:

Declassified intelligence files expose inconvenient truths of Bosnian war

It is a little-known but openly acknowledged fact that the US laid the foundations for war in Bosnia, sabotaging a peace deal negotiated by the European Community in early 1992. Under its auspices, the country would be a confederation, divided into three semi-autonomous regions along ethnic lines. While far from perfect, each side generally got what it wanted – in particular, self-governance – and at the least, enjoyed an outcome preferable to all-out conflict.

However, on March 28th, 1992, US Ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmerman met with Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, a Bosniak Muslim, to reportedly offer Washington’s recognition of the country as an independent state. He further promised unconditional support in the inevitable subsequent war, if rejected the Community proposal. Hours later, Izetbegovic went on the warpath, and fighting erupted almost immediately.

Received wisdom dictates the Americans were concerned that Brussels’ leading role in negotiations would weaken Washington’s international prestige, and assist in the soon-to-be European Union emerging as an independent power bloc following the collapse of Communism.

While such concerns were no doubt held by US officials, the UNPROFOR cables expose a much darker agenda at work. Washington wanted Yugoslavia reduced to rubble, and planned to bring the Serbs violently to heel by prolonging the war as long as possible. To the US, the Serbs were the ethnic group most determined to preserve the troublesome independent republic’s existence.

These aims were very effectively served by Washington’s absolutist assistance to the Bosniaks. It was an article of faith in the Western mainstream at the time, and remains so today, that Serb intransigence in negotiations blocked the path to peace in Bosnia. Yet, the UNPROFOR cables make repeatedly clear this was not the case.

In cables sent July – September 1993, the time of a ceasefire and renewed attempt to amicably partition the country, the Canadian peacekeepers repeatedly attribute an obstinate character to Bosniaks, not Serbs. As one representative excerpt states, the “insurmountable” goal of “satisfying Muslim demands will be the primary obstacle in any peace talks.”

Various passages also refer to how “outside interference in the peace process” did “not help the situation,” and “no peace” could be achieved “if outside parties continue to encourage the Muslims to be demanding and inflexible in negotiations.”

By “outside” assistance, UNPROFOR of course meant Washington. Its unconditional support for the Bosniaks motivated them to “[negotiate] as if they had won the war,” which they had to date “lost”.

Patrick Lawrence: The Souls of Ukrainian Folk

The U.S.–cultivated coup in Kyiv not quite nine years ago, when a small minority of Ukrainians deposed a duly elected president in the name of democracy, was indecent enough. Who would have guessed that the indecencies would go on and on and on to the point the fanatical regime now running the country would go after the very souls of its own people?

The first post-coup act passed in the Rada, Ukraine’s legislature, back in February 2014 was to ban use of the Russian language in official contexts. The regime subsequently shut down opposition newspapers and broadcast media, outlawed opposition parties, and imprisoned opposition leaders and journalists. Periodic arrests, assassinations and constant persecutions at the hands of openly neo–Nazi paramilitaries and death squads became something close to the norm.

Now things take a yet more diabolic turn. When Volodymyr Zelensky announced plans earlier this month to ban the long-established Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian president signaled that his regime intends to intervene into the religious allegiances and beliefs—the very psyches, indeed—of that considerable portion of the population that looks to the Russian Orthodox Church for spiritual guidance.

This, it turns out, is where the campaign to remake Ukraine as a Western nation—to turn it into something it has never been—was fated from the beginning. I, along with a lot of others, ought to have known.

How shall we understand this indefensible business, this wholesale act of erasure?

Straight off the top, we have a paradox the like of which comes along but rarely. Making Ukraine “Western” requires that a nation with pronounced differences turn itself into a profoundly and comprehensively intolerant society in contradiction of the most basic assumptions of Western liberalism. Europeans, or at least those purporting to lead them, now seem perfectly pleased to welcome into their ranks a regime given to official religious persecution.

Zelensky announced his intent to draft a law banning the traditional Orthodox church in his nightly national broadcast on December 2. Three weeks later he was greeted as a courageous defender of democracy and freedom with an extravagant standing ovation when he addressed a joint session of Congress. There is no avoiding the conclusion here: The U.S. imperium does not give a tinker’s damn about democracy and freedom in Ukraine, religious or otherwise. It cares about manipulating these totemic notions as it cynically sacrifices Ukraine and Ukrainians to its campaign to subvert, ultimately, the Russian Federation.

'Execution of the Palestinian People': Netanyahu Vows Massive Israeli Squatting on Palestinian Land

As part of his bargain with the fascist blocs of Religious Zionism and Jewish Power, according to the Israeli newspaper Arab 48, incoming Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke of an “exclusive Jewish right” to expand settlements inside Israel proper, in Galilee and the Negev, as well as to plant squatters in the Palestinian West Bank.

An exclusive Jewish right to settle and live in the land implicitly announces that the 6.5 million Palestinians who live on it are there by suffrage and maybe have no right to be there at all. That right is exclusively Jewish, Netanyahu says.

A Jordanian newspaper called this plank of his platform “the execution of the Palestinian people.”

According to the Associated Press, Netanyahu announced that he will legalize those Israeli squatter-settlements on Palestinian-owned land that even Israel had considered illegal. He would vastly expand the number of Israeli squatters in the Palestinian West Bank. And ultimately, he pledged to annex the Palestinian West Bank entirely to Israel.

Since Netanyahu has no intention of ever granting Israeli citizenship to the 3 million Palestinians living under Israeli military rule, the formal annexation of their territory would cement Israel’s Apartheid system of racial difference.

There's some interesting stuff in this article. I am not familiar enough with the ins and outs of German politics to make complete sense of it, perhaps somebody can fill in some info in the comments.

Sahra Wagenknecht: heroine of German left could become ally of far right

Sahra Wagenknecht is a household name in Germany and the best-known figure on the far left. The most prominent and outspoken member of the 15-year-old Die Linke party, she has been rattling the Berlin political scene for years with her vague pronouncements that she is planning to form her own breakaway bloc. Approval ratings are on her side, as are the up to 2 million viewers known to tune in to her regular YouTube broadcasts.

But now the woman revered as something of a heroine of the German left by some is receiving overtures from the far-right Alternative für Deutchland, with party influencers urging her to effectively join forces with them. She recently appeared on the front page of the monthly magazine Compact, a self-declared mouthpiece of the AfD. In its latest issue her upturned face appears next to the cover line: “The best chancellor – a candidate for the left and the right.”

In recent far-right rallies, participants have even chanted “Sahra, Sahra”, after her own party disinvited her from protests against energy price hikes after she appeared to side with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Wagenknecht’s drift away from Die Linke coincides with the party’s disastrous standing in the polls, despite its key principles of social justice and equality taking centre stage amid high inflation and the energy crisis. ...

In her bestselling book The Self-Righteous, Wagenknecht, a member of the Bundestag for North Rhine-Westphalia, accused Die Linke of having neglected “ordinary people” in favour of what she refers to as a city-dwelling “academic clientele”. She says its preoccupation with issues such as “gender-conscious language and pricey organic products” rather than bread-and-butter issues such as “fighting low pay” has made it a stranger to its grassroots working-class support base. ...

A key moment in the battle for the future of Die Linke was a recent speech to the Bundestag in which she accused the government of damaging German-Russian relations for launching “an unprecedented economic war against our most important energy supplier”, over its decision to free itself from dependence on Russian gas supplies in protest at Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. It drew a furious response from across the political divide, with some Die Linke members applauding while others resigned in protest. But she was backed by members of the AfD, who have expressed similar disquiet over Germany’s cold-shouldering of Russia and questioned its allegiance to Ukraine as well as probing the prudence of its support for refugees.

Vampire Squid sloughs off some useless eaters.

Goldman Sachs boss unveils plan to cut jobs amid global economy fears

The boss of Goldman Sachs has told staff that he will make job cuts early next month, as the US investment bank seeks to improve its profits amid concerns over the global economy.

The bank is reportedly considering cutting about 8% of its 49,000 employees, which could equate to as many as 4,000 job losses. It is also thought to be considering cuts to its bonus pool of up to 40%.

It comes as the City of London prepares for a thinning of the ranks, with thousands of jobs expected to go. After a bumper year in 2022, teams working on mergers and takeovers are particularly at risk in the coming 12 months as interest rates rise, increasing the cost of borrowing the cash needed to fund new deals.

Goldman chief executive, David Solomon, said the partnership was bracing for slower economic growth as central banks raise interest rates, in an annual recorded end-of-year message to staff first reported by Bloomberg News

US Virgin Islands suing JPMorgan Chase over Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking

The US Virgin Islands is suing the bank JPMorgan Chase, accusing it of helping Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking of women and girls, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York.

The documents submitted by the US Virgin Islands’ (USVI) attorney general accuse JPMorgan of “turning a blind eye” to illegal activities committed by Epstein – a client of the bank – on his private island, Little St James, which is part of the Caribbean US territory.

The USVI attorney general, Denise George, said the bank should have known about the financier’s crimes and should have reported them as part of anti-money laundering laws.

“JPMorgan knowingly, negligently and unlawfully provided and pulled the levers through which recruiters and victims were paid and was indispensable to the operation and concealment of the Epstein trafficking enterprise,” the lawsuit states according to reports. “Human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JPMorgan.”

New York’s first legal dispensary for recreational marijuana opens doors

From the long-empty husk of a Manhattan retail chain, new life blooms – in the form of the state of New York’s first legal dispensary for recreational marijuana, which was set to open on Thursday at 4.20pm. Housing Works Cannabis Company will roll out retail adult-use weed sales at a shop on Broadway and Astor Place in Lower Manhattan – a former Gap outpost – with items such as edibles priced from $20 and flowers from $40, according to NBC New York.

All proceeds from these pot purchases “go back to fund our services and advocacy, which include housing, healthcare, and people living with HIV and chronic illness”, the creative director of the non-profit Housing Works, Elizabeth Koke, told the station.

New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, added: “Today marks a major milestone in our efforts to create the most equitable cannabis industry in the nation. The opening of the first legal dispensary in our state right here in New York City is more than just a promising step for this budding industry – it represents a new chapter for those most harmed by the failed policies of the past.

“The legal cannabis market has the potential to be a major boon to New York’s economic recovery – creating new jobs, building wealth in historically underserved communities, and increasing state and local tax revenue.”

Al Sharpton warns Democratic leaders of waning Black electorate support

The Rev Al Sharpton has warned Democratic leaders that they must step up the party’s appeal to African American voters or risk Donald Trump or other Republican leaders making greater inroads with the Black electorate in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.

Speaking to the Guardian from the Harlem headquarters of his civil rights group, National Action Network (NAN), in New York City, Sharpton, 68, said that Trump’s small but notable support in 2020 among voters in certain minority demographics should set off alarm bells for Democratic strategists.

“As incremental as it was, Trump and the Republicans made some increases among Black male voters,” he said. “We didn’t see that coming. We need to be really very careful not to ignore that.”

Black voters were critical to Joe Biden’s success in 2020, both in securing the Democratic nomination and in his victory in the November general election. ...

Exit polls from the 2020 presidential contest suggested that Trump increased his support among Black men by six points over his 2016 performance. That increase was recorded despite Trump’s hostile stances towards minority groups during his term in the White House, including the travel ban on immigration from Muslim-majority countries, attacks on prominent Black leaders, and flirtation with white supremacist organizations.

NY Progressives Vow to Stop Democratic Governor's Nomination of Conservative Judge to Top Court

Faith Leaders Say Jan. 6 Committee Report Downplays Role of Christian Nationalism

In an effort to fill in what they say are critical gaps in the U.S. House select committee's report on the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, faith leaders are pushing the corporate media and the American public to confront the role Christian nationalism played in the insurrection, warning that ignoring the link could make similar violence more likely in the future.

The committee's report, released last week, laid out extensive evidence showing that former President Donald Trump was the driving force behind the attack aimed at stopping lawmakers from certifying the 2020 presidential election results, but mentioned Christian nationalism just once, despite the fact that many of the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol openly expressed Christian nationalist beliefs before, during, and after the attack.

As Religion News Service reported last week, some Trump supporters who attempted to overthrow the government carried flags displaying a so-called "Jesus fish" painted red, white, and blue like the American flag along with the words "Proud American Christian." Hundreds took part in what they called a "Jericho March" and prayed for the election results to be overturned the day before the insurrection, and some were heard chanting, "Christ is king" in Washington, D.C. on January 6.

"The symbols of Christian nationalism were on full display not only on January 6 itself, but at numerous rallies leading up to the attack," Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC), told Alicia Menendez on MSNBC on Wednesday.

The report, however, only noted that supporters of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who was in Washington on January 6 but has not been accused of breaching the Capitol, have "repeatedly promoted white supremacist and Christian nationalist beliefs."

The inclusion of just a single reference to Christian nationalism—the belief that the government should actively ensure that the U.S. is a Christian nation—was something faith leaders warned against earlier this year when they called on lawmakers to closely examine the role the belief system played in convincing thousands of people to storm the Capitol and continue to question the 2020 election results long after January 6.

In June, Christians Against Christian Nationalism, a project of the BJC, wrote in a letter to the House committee that "Christian nationalism helped motivate and intensify the insurrection" and that lawmakers should "thoroughly investigate the role that Christian nationalism played in the attack."

"This seditious mob was motivated not just by loyalty to Trump, but by an unholy amalgamation of white supremacy and Christianity that has plagued our nation since its inception and is still with us today," wrote Robert P. Jones, president of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), at the time.

As Religion News Service reported last week, a spokesperson for committee member Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) suggested weeks before the report was released that the congresswoman objected to focusing seriously on Christian nationalism, telling The Washington Post that Cheney "won't sign onto any 'narrative' [that] suggests every American who believes God has blessed America is a white supremacist."

Lawmakers including Cheney, who leaves office next week, "fear that confronting Christian nationalism might be misconstrued as an attack on Christianity or Christians, and nothing could be further from the truth," Tyler told MSNBC. "We are trying to draw attention to what Christian nationalism is... Christian nationalism turns Christianity's gospel of love into a false idol of power. It turns John's gospel teaching us that God so loved the world on its head, saying falsely that God has a special plan for the U.S. or that God loves the U.S. more than any other country, or that God has preordained election results."

Faith leaders are working to explain "why that's not the case," added Tyler, "because if we don't confront Christian nationalism then we are leaving ourselves open to future attacks, like what we saw on January 6."

There’s no such thing as ‘freak’ weather any more

The 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow was based on the idea that the main north Atlantic Ocean current could slow and then reverse, superstorms would flash-freeze the northern hemisphere and a new ice age would abruptly descend. It was dismissed as “profoundly silly”, “a ludicrous popcorn thriller” informed by “lousy science”, and some scientists argued it depicted meteorological phenomena “as occurring over days, instead of decades or centuries”.

Storm Elliott, the “bomb cyclone” that hit the US over the holidays, should have made some of those critics uncomfortable. Temperatures in places plunged in just a few minutes as one of the greatest North American storms ever recorded swept down from the Arctic to Mexico, sometimes at hurricane speed. It brought death, chaos and misery for tens of millions of people. Fierce Christmas storms and bomb cyclones are not that unusual in the US but Elliott was remarkable chiefly for its continental scale, lightning speed and intensity. Scientists have yet to calculate the degree to which it might be linked to human actions and increased CO2 levels, but it clearly fits the IPCC’s widely predicted pattern of climate intensification and unprecedented global heat, cold and atmospheric turbulence. ...

The cyclone bomb rounded off a year that rewrote climate history. It was not just one of the hottest years on record, but also one of the driest in many countries, with nearly every week bringing some new climate-related disaster. Starting with Storm Eunice in February, which battered northern Europe, immense floods, droughts and storms hit Pakistan, India, China, Australia, southern Africa and the US. Crops failed in unprecedented heatwaves and hundreds of thousands of people were made homeless in both rich and poor countries. Temperature records stretching back hundreds of years were broken in the UK, Italy, France and Spain.

Next year is widely predicted by meteorologists to bring more of the same intensification of weather. The Met Office says 2022 will be the newest warmest year on record. Greenland’s glaciers have been found to be melting far faster than previously thought, heatwaves are becoming more common and storms are expected to become more powerful as the oceans continue to warm.

But while 2022 may have been the year that more people than ever experienced what used to be termed “freak” weather, it was yet another year lost when it comes to governments acting.

Lula names staunch Amazon defenders as ministers in Brazil

Two internationally celebrated Amazon defenders, Marina Silva and Sônia Guajajara, have been named as ministers in Brazil’s new government in an attempt to contain the intensifying assault on Indigenous territories and the environment.

The announcement was made by incoming president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who will take office on Sunday after the country’s four years of rainforest-wrecking under his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.

Silva, 64, will return to her job as environment minister, which she held from 2003 to 2008 – a period when Brazil managed to dramatically cut Amazon deforestation.

Guajajara, 48, will lead Brazil’s first-ever ministry for Indigenous peoples, created in response to the wave of violence and land invasions stimulated by Bolsonaro’s dismantling of Indigenous and environmental protections.

“[This is] a landmark in our history of struggle and resistance,” said Guajajara. “The creation of the ministry for Indigenous peoples is proof of President Lula’s commitment to safeguarding our autonomy and space to take decisions about our territories, our bodies and our ways of life.”

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev

On the Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine

How NewsGuard Judged Consortium News

Typical News Updates From Ukraine

Russia Claims It Will 'Never' Run Out of Missiles After Ukraine Barrage

Human Rights Expert Sounds Alarm Over Israeli Firm's 'Dystopian' Video-Altering Tech

Twitter and the CIA (Twitter Files 8–10)

Big Pharma and GOP Allies Aim to Sabotage Medicare Drug Price Reforms

Poverty, inequality and official indifference are to blame for the dozens killed by the Christmas weekend blizzard in Buffalo

Revealed: how warehouses took over southern California ‘like a slow death’

How rehoming wildlife from rhinos to bison can revive threatened species

Cops Start ARRESTING Stranded Southwest Passengers At Airport!

A Little Night Music

Robert Cray - Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark

Robert Cray - I Wonder

Robert Cray - The Score

The Robert Cray Band - Bad Influence

Robert Cray Band - The Forecast (Calls For Pain)

Robert Cray- Phone Booth

Robert Cray- Time Makes Two

Robert Cray, Robben Ford, David Sanborn, Marcus Miller - Otis Rush's All Your Love

Eric Clapton & Robert Cray - Old Love

B.B King, Robert Cray Band, Jimmie Vaughan, Hubert Sumlin - Paying the cost to be the boss