Will America's Corruption End on a Ventilator or in a Mushroom Cloud?
Nicolas J S Davies, Medea Benjamin | counterpunch.org | 2020-04-23
Little by little, Americans are understanding just how badly our government has let us down by its belated and disastrous response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and how thousands more people are dying as a result. But there are two other crises we face that our government is totally unprepared for and incapable of dealing with:…
counterpunch.org/2020/04/23/will-america…

Greta Thunberg: Climate Activists Have Not Lost Hope Amid Pandemic. We're Changing How We Organize
Staff | democracynow.org | 2020-04-22
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg spoke in an Earth Day live stream hosted by the Nobel Prize Museum about how the Fridays for Future school strikes movement she launched is responding to the coronavirus pandemic. "Within the Fridays for Future movement, there's still this sort of big sense of resistance, and people are thinking, 'We will get out of this. And when we do, we will continue, and we will do everything we can that is possible in that situation to continue to push even harder,'" says Thunberg. "I feel like many people have not lost their sense of hope. We have just changed the way we do things. W…
www.democracynow.org/2020/4/22/greta_thu…

Chileans Who Took to Streets Against Inequality & Climate Crisis Say Virus Lockdowns Won't Stop Them
Staff | democracynow.org | 2020-04-22
Months ago, the streets of Santiago and other Chilean cities were alive with a vibrant mass protest movement that drew hundreds of thousands and even led the U.N. climate summit to be relocated to Madrid, Spain, last December. Now the public spaces of Santiago are largely empty as citizens shelter in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But the protest movement against austerity and right-wing President Sebastián Piñera lives on as activists find new ways to organize online. We go to Santiago, Chile, to speak with Angela Valenzuela, a 350.org organizer who has been active both in the country's uprising and in…
www.democracynow.org/2020/4/22/angela_va…

Big Insurance Is Propping Up Big Oil. Activists Say It's Time to Pull the Plug
Staff | truthout.org | 2020-04-22
This story is published as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. | In the western world, paying for insurance each month is as ubiquitous a routine as paying for the internet. Once insurance companies collect monthly premium payments, the industry turns around and invests the pool of money in profitable ventures

Greta Thunberg: Climate Activists Are Changing How They Organize Amid a Pandemic
Staff | truthout.org | 2020-04-22
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg spoke in an Earth Day live stream hosted by the Nobel Prize Museum about how the Fridays for Future school strikes movement she launched is responding to the coronavirus pandemic. "Within the Fridays for Future movement, there's still this sort of big sense of resistance, and people are thinking, 'We will get out of this. And when we do, we will continue, and we will do everything we can that is possible in that situation to continue to push even harder…
truthout.org/video/greta-thunberg-climat…

Death Trap Jail: Pepper-Sprayed, Otay Mesa Detainees Demand Release as COVID-19 Spreads Inside
Staff | democracynow.org | 2020-04-21
We look at the mounting number of COVID-19 cases inside immigration jails across the country and one of the largest outbreaks at the Otay Mesa Detention Center near San Diego, run by private prison company CoreCivic. Prisoners were told to sign contracts, written only in English, in exchange for receiving face masks. When some refused to sign, guards pepper-sprayed them. This comes as activists say hundreds imprisoned in detention centers in California are on hunger strike. We get an update from Ruth Mendez, community activist and volunteer with Otay Mesa Detention Resistance.
www.democracynow.org/2020/4/21/otay_mesa…

Philippines: Police arrest activists performing COVID-19 relief work
Fight Back | fightbacknews.org | 2020-04-20
On April 20, Marco L. Valbuena, the Chief Information Officer of the Communist Party of the Philippines denounced the arrest of former Anakpawis Representative Ariel Casilao and 12 other volunteers and residents by elements of the Philippine National Police in Norzagaray, Bulacan. | "The arrest shows the Duterte regime's perverse priorities even amid the pandemic and utter contempt for the plight of the Filipino people. Instead of focusing on efforts to ensure the welfare of the people suffering under the restrictive lockdown, it has intensified the fascist clampdown against activists even when they are conductin…
www.fightbacknews.org/2020/4/20/philippi…

ICE is Deporting COVID-19 Positive Detainees from Private Immigration Prisons
Alan Macleod | mintpressnews.com | 2020-04-17
By continuing deportations of quarantined detainees during a pandemic, ICE is greatly increasing the risk of spreading the deadly virus to other countries officials and activists warn.
mintpressnews.com/ice-deporting-covid-19…

Coronavirus stimulus bill funds State Dept/USAID operations that once helped trigger polio outbreak in Syria
Max Blumenthal | thegrayzone.com | 2020-04-16
A look at recent USAID schemes from Pakistan to Syria shows US empire can be very hazardous to your health….
thegrayzone.com/2020/04/16/coronavirus-s…

Saudi's Brave Women Pull Back the Curtain on Crown Prince MBS
Medea Benjamin | zcomm.org | 2020-04-04
The bogus trial against Loujain al-Hathloul should compel governments around the world to put more pressure on the Saudis and demand al-Hathloul's immediate and unconditional release…
zcomm.org/zmagazine/saudis-brave-women-p…

German court opens first Syria torture trial
yenisafak.com | 2020-04-23
Two suspected members of President Bashar al-Assad's security services had charges of torture and sexual assault read out against them on Thursday in a German court, in what lawyers say is the first trial for war crimes by Syrian government agents.Anwar R., a former intelligence officer who applied for asylum in Germany six years ago after leaving Syria, is charged with 58 murders in a Damascus prison where prosecutors say at least 4,000 opposition activists were tortured in 2011 and 2012.Grey haired, with a bald patch and wearing a moustache, glasses and a dark sweater, he sat calmly behind a glass cubicle erect…
yenisafak.com/en/world/german-court-open…

Coronavirus Crisis Makes Clear Pentagon Should Get No More Money This Year for Its 'Wasteful War Machine': 60+ Groups
Andrea Germanos, staff writer | commondreams.org | 2020-04-22
"We cannot continue spending billions of dollars on weapons of war while people across the country struggle to buy food, pay rent, and survive a pandemic." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files… …
commondreams.org/news/2020/04/22/coronav…