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7.1 Earthquate shook California
Earthquake magnitude 7.1 shook California (+Videos)
According to the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC), the epicenter of the tremor was located 16 kilometers west of Searles Valley, at a depth of 10 kilometers.
July 6, 2019 09:07:23
Author: | internet@granma.cu
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
A fire broke out behind a restaurant after the 7.1 earthquake that struck the Californian city of Ridgecrest. July 5, 2019. Photo: AP
An earthquake of magnitude 7.1 on the Richter scale shook Friday night in the U.S. state of California near the city of Ridgecrest, where another major earthquake occurred Thursday, according to RT.
The earthquake at 20:19 local time was reported as significantly greater than the July 4 earthquake, which had a magnitude of 6.4 and was recognized as the strongest tremor recorded in the region in two decades.
The latest news about last night’s earthquake indicated that it was 11 times stronger than the previous one.
According to seismologist Lucy Jones, as with any event of this type, the telluric movement has a chance of being followed by a larger tremor, as replicas of magnitudes five to six are likely.
Megan Person, spokeswoman for Kern County, reported that multiple injuries and fires have been reported in Ridgecrest, a community west of the Mojave Desert and approximately 240 kilometers north of the city of Los Angeles.
In the center of the latter city, Friday’s earthquake caused the buildings to sway strongly and felt more intense than the day before, while Donald Castle, who lives in Porterville, west of Ridgecrest, told the chain that his house was shaken from 20 to 25 seconds.
So far, the tremor was reported to have caused more than 15 aftershocks.
The San Bernardino Fire Department reported minor material damage caused by the natural disaster.
“Some houses have been displaced, cracks have appeared in the foundations, there are collapses of the retaining walls,” the service reported, detailing that fires were also recorded.
It is also known of the existence of slight injuries in the city of Ridgecrest, the closest to the epicenter, where the local Police Department has not received reports of serious injuries, according to the report.
Three-Pointed Cross Over Haiti
The Three-pointed Cross that Weighs on Haiti
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
At the head of a protest march against the president of Haiti last week, a demonstrator carried a large wooden cross bearing the flags of Canada, France and the United States, the three nations that the demonstrators identify as underpinnings of support for President Jovenel Moise’s regime, in recognition of his role in the 2004 coup.
Almost completely ignored by the mainstream media, the Haitian people are constantly criticizing the Canadian government for this unobjective stance on their country’s political reality. Repeatedly, since Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s government was overthrown in 2004, demonstrators have carried posters reproaching Canadian policy or have gathered in front of the Canadian Embassy in Port-au-Prince. The newspapers Haiti Progrès and Haiti Liberté of the Caribbean nation describe Canada as an “occupying force,” a “coup supporter” or simply an “imperialist” nation.
During months of popular protests, Canada continues to be hostile to the demonstrators, who represent the majority of an impoverished population. A recent investigation by the Haitian High Court of Accounts looking into corruption and administrative disputes has revived the popular movement fighting for the overthrow of Haiti’s “Canadian-backed” president.
In the current year, there have been numerous protests – including a week-long general strike in February – demanding accountability of public officials. It is alleged that the main reason Moise remains in power is that he has the support of the Core Group of Friends of Haiti, made up of the ambassadors of Canada, USA, France, Brazil, and Germany, as well as representatives of Spain, the European Union, and the discredited OAS.
The Core Group had issued a brief statement of support for Moise calling for “a broad national discussion, without preconditions,” which was the position that Canadian officials had repeatedly expressed in recent weeks. The opposition had rejected such a negotiation with Moise on the grounds that it would amount to abandoning protests to negotiate with a corrupt and illegitimate president that few Haitians supported.
Another indication of the Core Group’s political orientation has been its May 30 statement “condemning acts of degradation committed against the Senate,” referring to a group of opposition senators earlier that day removing some furniture and placing it on the lawn of Parliament in order to block the ratification of the interim prime minister.
Canada’s ambassador, André Frenette, for his part, tweeted that “Canada condemns acts of vandalism in the Senate… because they go against democratic principles.
But it was noted that Frenette and the Core Group had not tweeted or published any statement against the recent murder of journalist Pétion Rospide, who had been reporting on police corruption and violence. Nor did they refer to the outcome of the commission that held President Moise responsible for the theft of public funds as well as the recent UN report confirming the country’s government’s involvement in a terrible massacre that took place in Port-au-Prince’s La Saline neighborhood in mid-November.
Recent statements by the Canadian government and the Core Group completely ignore arguments about Moise’s electoral illegitimacy and minimize the magnitude of corruption and violence against demonstrators.
Worse still, it is argued that Canadian officials promoted and often applauded the police forces responsible for many abuses. To the delight of the country’s most class-conscious elite, Ottawa had taken the lead in strengthening the repressive arm of the Haitian state following the expulsion of former President Aristide.
An RCMP officer heads the police component of the 1,200-strong United Nations Mission for Justice in Haiti (MINUJUSTH).
At the end of May, Canada’s ambassador to the UN, Marc-André Blanchard, led a delegation from the United Nations Economic and Social Council in Haiti. On his return to New York, he proposed creating a “robust” mission to continue the work of MINUJUSTH after its scheduled conclusion in October. Canadian officials lead the campaign to extend the 15-year United Nations occupation that took over the troops of the United States, France and Canada that overthrew the Aristide government and, among other horrors, were responsible for the introduction of cholera into Haiti, which has killed more than a million people from the glorious but suffering Caribbean country.
The Extraditions of Pinochet and Assange
The Extraditions of Pinochet and Assange
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
With Julian Assange in Britain facing possible extradition to the United States for publishing classified secrets, Consortium News reporter Elizabeth Vos reflects on the divergent but notorious parallelism of that case with that of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. In eight months time, one of the most important extradition hearings in recent history will take place in Britain. There a British court and the Home Secretary will decide whether WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange will be extradited to the United States to face charges of espionage for the crime of journalism. Twenty-one years ago, in another historic extradition case, Britain had to decide whether to send former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to Spain to be tried for the crime of mass murder.
In October 1998, Pinochet, whose regime became synonymous with political assassinations, “disappearances” and torture, was arrested in London where he had traveled for medical treatment. A Madrid judge, Baltasar Garzón, had requested his extradition in connection with the death of Spanish citizens in Chile. Alleging it inappropriate to try Pinochet, the United Kingdom prevented him from being extradited to Spain in 2000, where he was allegedly prosecuted for repeated human rights violations. The lawyer’s immunity argument was overturned by the House of Lords. But the extradition court ruled that the poor health of Pinochet, a friend of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, would prevent him from being sent to Spain.
Montgomery reappeared in the Assange case to defend the right of a Swedish prosecutor to demand a European arrest warrant for Assange. His argument failed because a Swedish court denied the European arrest warrant. As in the Pinochet case, Montgomery helped buy time, this time allowing Swedish sexual accusations to persist and tarnish Assange’s reputation. Garzón, the Spanish judge who had requested Pinochet’s extradition, also reappears in Assange’s case. He is a well-known human rights defender, “considered by many to be Spain’s bravest legal guardian and the scourge of corrupt politicians and drug warlords around the world. But now he leads Assange’s legal team.
The question is whether the British legal system will let a famous dictator like Pinochet go and send an editor like Assange to the United States to face life in prison. Few elected officials have defended Assange (because of his image tainted by unproven Swedish accusations and criticisms of the 2016 U.S. elections that have nothing to do with the extradition request).
Pinochet, on the other hand, had friends in high places. Margaret Thatcher openly asked for his release.
Just two weeks before his arrest, General Pinochet visited the Thatchers at their Chester Square residence, according to the BBC. CNN reported on a “famous close relationship. A similar affection between Pinochet and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was also documented. Pinochet came to power after a violent U.S.-backed coup d’état on Sept. 11, 1973, which overthrew the country’s democratically elected president, socialist Salvador Allende. The coup has been described as “one of the most brutal in the modern history of Latin America.
The CIA financed operations in Chile with millions of dollars of U.S. taxes before and after Allende’s election, a U.S. Senate Committee reported in 1975. More than 40,000 people, many only tangentially linked to dissidents, were “disappeared,” tortured or killed during Pinochet’s 17 years of terror.
Pinochet’s Chile almost immediately after the coup became the laboratory of the Chicago School’s economic theory of neoliberalism, or a new laissez-faire, imposed at gunpoint. Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan defended a system of privatization, free trade, cuts to social services, and deregulation of banking and business that led the U.S. to the greatest inequality in a century.
In contrast to these crimes and corruption, Assange has published thousands of classified documents showing the U.S. and other nations’ officials involved in similar crime and corruption.
However, Assange is not expected to receive the leniency of the British extradition process enjoyed by Pinochet.
July 1, 2019
Originally published in the newspaper ¡POR ESTO! of Mérida, Mexico.
Remarkable US Journalist Dies in Havana
by Pedro Martínez Pirez A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Journalist Lionel Martin, correspondent in Cuba for numerous news organizations from the United States and other Western countries, died in Havana on Friday night at the age of eighty-seven. His body was cremated this Saturday. Martin covered the events of the Cuban Revolution in an exemplary way and spread them through telegraphic, radio and television channels of his country and other western nations. Lionel Martin also worked for a period in the Latin American News Agency Prensa Latina, based in Havana. His death caused deep sorrow in the Cuban media and among the foreign press accredited in Cuba. Lionel Martin will always be remembered for his informative honesty and his attachment to the truth of the facts. adp
El periodista Lionel Martin, corresponsal en Cuba de numerosas entidades informativas de Estados Unidos y otros paises occidentales, falleciò en La Habana en la noche del viernes a los ochenta y siete años de edad. Su cadàver fue incinerado este sàbado. Martin cubriò ejemplarmente los acontecimientos de la Revoluciòn Cubana y los divulgò a travès de cadenas telegraficas, radiales y televisivas de su paìs y otras naciones occidentales. Lionel Martin tambièn laborò durante un perìodo en la Agencia Informativa Latinoamericana Prensa Latina, con sede en La Habana. Su deceso causò hondo pesar en los medios informativos cubanos y entre la prensa extranjera acreditada en Cuba. Lionel Martin serà recordado siempre por su honestidad informativa y su apego a la verdad de los hechos. adp
Remarkable US Journalist Dies in Havana
June 29. 2019FALLECE EN LA HABANA NOTABLE PERIODISTA ESTADOUNIDENSE
Bolton Controls Trump
John Bolton Controls the Government and Trump
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Donald Trump’s government has been, for U.S. foreign policy, something like an elephant in a china shop. It’s not only because he concentrated on achieving benefits and privileges for his nation to the detriment of the rest of the world, however. It’s also thanks to the economic and military power they have achieved on the basis of the unjust global economic relations imposed by the current capitalist system.
Jeff Bezos, is founder and executive director of the Amazon emporium. In 2015 Bezos was the fifth richest man in the world and in 2017 reached the top of Forbes magazine’s list of multimillionaires. On his blog, Bezos published information on the struggles and internal discussions within Trump’s team around the inexorable march of the US towards war against Iran and the danger of John Bolton in the swarm that has developed. From them, I extract much of this data.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned Iranian leaders that any attack by Tehran or its people that results in the death of one member of the U.S. military will be met with a military counterattack by Washington. Such a warning was made from Baghdad in May, when he was visiting Iraq. The issue could become critical very soon as in recent days there were rocket attacks in Iraq against targets in which there are American personnel.
Some of these attacks came from areas where there are still clandestine ISIS (Islamic State) groups with improvised and imprecise weapons that could accidentally kill a US soldier.
Concern about an escalation is particularly intense in the Pentagon, where the absence of a confirmed Secretary of Defense has fuelled concern that White House and State Department hawks may push the military beyond its specific mission of destroying remnants of the Islamic state in Iraq and Syria, which, in the current circumstances, increases the potential for conflict with Iran.
It has been reported on several occasions and by different means that Trump is somewhat isolated from anti-war views within his own regime. Government officials interviewed by the Washington Post said National Security Advisor John Bolton has dominated Iranian policy, maintaining strict control over the information that reaches the president and drastically reducing the meetings in which senior officials meet in the White House Situation Room to discuss policy.
The intensification of the “maximum pressure” campaign has triggered internal debates about how best to carry out the President’s orders. At the State Department, a discussion about how difficult it is to pressure Iran through sanctions ended with those with the harshest possible approach prevailing.
While State Department officials were cunningly trying to find the “weak spot” that would weaken Iran through sanctions, without putting so much pressure on Iran that it would withdraw from the nuclear deal. Others argued that Trump’s goal was to destroy the agreement at any price in order to pursue a more expansive policy that would paralyze Iran’s forces throughout the region.
However, Pentagon and State Department officials have complained of the difficulty of getting a presidential hearing for it under Bolton. As a result, arguments about policy do not reach the president.
Regional military commanders always ask for more troops and more ships, which increases the possibility of “accidents” and makes war more likely. John Bolton uses each and every small incident to send more troops!
Unlike his advisors, Trump always seems to minimize the importance of Iran’s actions. So the other scenario is to claim that Trump is a fool and the war hawks use him as a tool to implement their preferred policies.
Former high-ranking British espionage (MI6) official Alastair Crooke asserts that this second scenario is the real one. He says this is not because Trump consciously wants war, but because the hawks around him, particularly Bolton, corner him. Trump’s main mistake may be that he believes that Iran will ultimately seek an agreement.
Crooke argues that Bolton, and Netanyahu behind him, outperform U.S. intelligence on Iran. They transmit “intelligence” to the president and the media, just as Vice President Dick Cheney did in the run-up to the war against Iraq.
Bolton chairs strategic dialogue meetings with Israel (NSC) whose intention is to develop a joint action plan against Iran. This means that Israeli intelligence assessments are being sent directly to Bolton without going through US intelligence for assessment. In other words, Bolton holds the reins in his hands.
June 26, 2019.
This article can be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO
US Preparing Something Against Iran
US Preparing Something Against Iran
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
“Until now,” says journalist Philip Giraldi, “June has been a lively month in light of the apparent diligence with which the United States intends to remake the world in its own image and likeness.
In an article published on June 20, 2019 on the website Unz.com (in Spanish it is identified as El Ojo Digital), Giraldi, who is also has a doctorate in European history and was a specialist in counterterrorism and a veteran officer in CIA operations in Europe and the Middle East, comments that there is an expectation that the White House is preparing to “do something” against Iran in the military field.
Recent incidents involving alleged attacks on Norwegian and Japanese oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman were immediately attributed to Iran by the Secretary of State of the Trump regime, Mike Pompeo. It had so little regard for the evidence that even conventional US media that are invariably compliant with the standards set for them were left speechless. In its initial coverage of the situation, the New York Times echoed the government’s assertions but, if one reads the readers’ comments on what was published, one appreciates that 90% of those who bothered to express an opinion considered that the version disseminated is not credible.
Several commentators have recalled the entirely false Gulf of Tonkin incident that led to the escalation of U.S. participation in Vietnam in 1964. This fact that was frequently expressed in readers’ comments in both conventional and alternative media. Others recalled, instead, the false intelligence reports linking Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to the September 11, 2001 terrorists, as well as false reports about a secret Iraqi nuclear program and the existence of giant guiders capable of launching biological weapons over the Atlantic Ocean that proliferated in those days.
The final story dates back to early June, when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met privately with American Jewish leaders who expressed concern about the possibility of British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister. (Corbyn had been targeted by British Jews for being the first high-ranking politician in the UK to speak with sympathy or pity about the plight of the Palestinians.)
Pompeo was asked if, should Corbyn be elected, the United States would be willing to work with them to act against any inconvenience that might arise for Jews in the United Kingdom. The US Secretary of State replied: “It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to be elected… It’s possible. But you should know that we will not wait for you to do those things before we start to reject them. We will do everything in our power to avoid going to that extreme. It would be too risky, too important and too difficult to do anything after your choice has occurred.
There are some ambiguities in both the question and the answer, but it seems that American Jews want to join their British counterparts in overthrowing or containing such a high-level politician elected to such a high office because Corbyn is not pro-Israeli enough.
Secretary of State Pompeo agrees with them that something has to be done, including quite possibly taking some measures – probably covert – to ensure that Corbyn does not become Prime Minister. But as Pompeo might be thinking of subverting the institutions of America’s closest ally, it is, to some extent, good news that he is being ignored by the media.
June isn’t over yet, but it’s good that the U.S. hasn’t invaded Venezuela yet, despite the claims of opportunist and phony Senator Marco Rubio and the demented Senator Lindsey Graham, says journalist Philip Giraldi.
There were a number of questionable aspects to Pompeo’s version, not least because of the improbability of Iran attacking a Japanese ship while the Japanese Prime Minister was in Tehran making a visit. The attack itself, attributed to Iranian mines, also did not coincide with the damage suffered by the ships. These were well above the waterline, a detail that was pointed out by the captain of the Japanese ship, among others. The ship’s crew also saw flying objects, suggesting that missiles or other projectiles were the culprits, the kind fired by almost everyone in the area.
And then there is the question of motive: the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates want a war with Iran while the Iranians try to avoid a B-52 attack. So why would Iran do something that would practically guarantee a B-52 attack? Why would Iran do something that would virtually guarantee a devastating response from Washington?
June 24, 2019.
This article can be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
A Rose Plucked by Betrayal
FROM THE LEFT
A Rose Plucked by Betrayal
The death of Rosa Luxemburg marked the final step of world social democracy towards treason; it was not only a crime committed with full consciousness of its historical significance, but orchestrated in function of a class hegemonism of the German bourgeoisie and big capital, allied after the defeat in the First World War.
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
The Rose was plucked, but not hope. Photo: rosalux.org.ec
The death of Rosa Luxemburg marked the non-return of world social democracy towards treason; it was not only a crime committed with full consciousness of its historical significance, but orchestrated in function of a class hegemonism over the German working class by the bourgeoisie and big capital, allied after the defeat in World War I, to build a new right-wing order, the hard state of National Socialism (Nazi), which would lead Europe towards its dissolution as the center of the world.
In the cold dawn of January 15, 1919, Red Rosa wrote her last lines on the problem of the Revolution on the continent. And, although with pessimism, she referred to the hope that the masses would one day awaken from the nationalist and revenge lethargy hovering over the humiliated Germany of the time, and so the Revolution would show its true strength by saying: “I was, I am and I will be.”c
POLAND
Being born in a country occupied by Russians, Germans and Austrians made Rosa Luxemburg look at the national question with distrust. The most “revolutionary” she heard from many of the insurgents against foreign power was based on the restoration of the Polish feudal state of the 15th and 16th centuries, which represented in then Europe one of the puresy reminiscences of the landowner’s system of servitude. That political creature, impervious to the ideas of the French Revolution, was devoured by three modern and authoritarian states that contained the nascent germ of capital.
For Rosa, then, the national question was a setback and she based her appraisals on the need to internationalize the socialist and workers’ underground movement, as a way to quickly win the emancipation of the oppressed classes. Living later in Germany, a country that based its strength as capital on the unity built by Bismarck, convinced her that nationalisms only engendered steps backward on the road to a Revolution that, given the state of things at the end of the 19th century, seemed imminent.
In fact, in Germany the Social Democratic Party became the strongest and most numerous left party in the world, generating expectations in all revolutionaries. The very advance of this force in parliament provoked the removal of ultra-conservative and monarchical elements from the public sphere. But it also favored the establishment of pacts between that left and the central power of the State. It was the beginning of the historical betrayal of social democracy from Marxist socialism.
Rosa, who never felt Polish – much less German – encouraged this powerful left to extend eastwards, capturing countries under the aegis of old feudal empires, such as Russia. She saw in the mass movement of 1905 against the Tsar the beginning of the end of the crowned heads and the other European Caesars. However, the pragmatism of leaders and ideologues of social democracy, such as Karl Kautsky, would clash with Luxembourg’s theory of socialism as a new culture, whose idea is placed beyond nationalism.
For Kautsky, the struggle against capital was one of “attrition,” inasmuch as the strikes were only intended to move power momentarily, but never to bring about its downfall, and the young socialist movement “would not know what to do with the vacuum of authority.” But she saw in this what it was: an unprecedented concession to conservative power by the leadership of a party that was beginning to abandon its bases, while reviewing Marx’s thesis 11 on Feuerbach (Transforming the World). Historical facts demonstrated the lucidity of the Polish revolutionary, as opposed to Kautsky’s reformism, in heated and dangerous polemics.
THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC VOTE IN FAVOR OF THE EMPIRE
Many of those who, at the height of the 21st century, are surprised by the anti-popular cutback policies applied by the non-Marxist European left, forget that this betrayal began a long time ago. Perhaps it is not a bad memory, but a voluntary forgetfulness in order not to recognize the cynicism with which the revolutionary question has been handled since then by elements sold out to the interests of capital.
Marx warned that the original accumulation product of the plundering of the third world gave the European workers (a part of them) the possibility of becoming bourgeois and, therefore, defending interests far from total emancipation, guided only towards a nationalist, local question of selfish improvement of their living conditions. The European worker will thus support not only a conservative pseudo-socialism, but also the hard fascist who guarantees a middle-class standard of living, as we are seeing in today’s Europe.
That is exactly the explanation of German social democracy, the model on which that same continental tendency was built during the Cold War (1945-1991), as a wild card against the Marxist socialism of Eastern Europe.
Social democracy should not surprise us, because since the beginning of the First World War, the budget for the Army was approved in the German parliament, the same that would kill workers and peasants of the other rival imperialist nations of Europe. That fact marked Rosa Luxemburg’s distance when she founded the Spartacus League, the germ of the German Communist Party, which would be hated by social democrats, ultranationalists and monarchists alike.
The German failure in the trenches, which showed the impossibility of the “confluence” project. It put the country on the verge of a total civil war, with revolutionary forces ready to drive for power. However, years of social-democratic government and conservative trade unions that agreed with the existing powers prevented the necessary unity of action.
A poster placed in every corner of Berlin appealed, in those hungry early morning hours of December 1918: “Whoever wants bread, let him bring the head of Rosa Luxemburg”. The black legend of Nazism began by blaming the revolutionary socialists for national disaster, as it would later do with the Jews. Worst of all, this poster was sent to hang by the president of the Republic and leader of the social democratic party, Rosa’s former comrade.
Days later, a group of Freikcorps (antecedents of the Nazi SS assault troops) advanced on a lonely 47-year-old woman, who had her skull slashed with rifle butts, and then threw her blood-dripping body into a Berlin canal. A Spartacist comrade sent an obituary to Lenin, leader of Bolshevik Russia, saying that she “took her revolutionary condition to the extreme.
The Rose was uprooted, but not hope, much less History.
Trump Backs Full Spectrum Dominance
Trump Backs Full Spectrum Dominance
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The United States is formally committed to dominating the world by 2020. President Trump’s Space Directive-4, on the production of laser-armed combat aircraft as possible precursors to space weapons and the possibility of nuclear warheads being placed in orbit, moves the clock forward.
An interesting and credible paper by T.J. Coles in Counterpunch recently reported that in 1997, the re-established U.S. Space Command announced its commitment to full spectrum dominance by 2020, which means military control over land, sea, air and space to protect U.S. interests and investments.
Protecting means guaranteeing the operational freedom of U.S. investments, which in turn means “corporate profits.”
The journalistic work explains that, in the past, the Army was deployed based on the interests of settlers who stole land from Native Americans in the genocidal birth of the United States as a nation.
A National Defense University report recognizes that, by the 19th century, the Navy had evolved to protect the newly formulated “grand strategy” of the United States. In addition to the supposed protection of citizens and the constitution, the guiding principle was, and continues to be, “the protection of American territory … and our economic well-being.
According to the Air Force’s Strategic Study Guide, by the 20th century, the Air Force had been established, ensuring energy supply and freedom of action to protect vital interests, such as trade. In the 21st century, these pillars of power were reinforced by the Cyber Command and the future Space Force.
The use of the Army, Navy and Air Force – the three dimensions of power – means that the United States is already close to achieving “full spectrum dominance”. Brown University’s Cost of War project documents current U.S. military involvement in 80 countries, or 40 percent of the world’s nations.
This includes 65 so-called counterterrorism training operations and 40 military bases. According to this measure, “full spectrum dominance” is almost halfway there, although it leaves out U.S. and NATO bases, training programs and operations in Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Ukraine.
As the United States expands its space operations – the fourth dimension of the war – the race for “full spectrum dominance” accelerates. Space has long been militarized in the sense that the United States uses satellites to guide missiles and aircraft. But the new doctrine tries to turn space into a weapon, for example by blurring the boundaries between high-altitude military aircraft and space itself.
Today’s space energy will be harnessed by the United States to ensure mastery of the satellite infrastructure allowed by the modern world of the Internet, e-commerce, GPS, telecommunications, surveillance and the fight against war. Since the 1950s, the United Nations has introduced several treaties to prohibit militarization and the placement of weapons in space. The most famous of these is the Outer Space Treaty (1967). These treaties aim to preserve space as a common good for all humanity. The creation of the United States Space Force is a flagrant violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of these treaties.
In more recent decades, successive U.S. governments have unilaterally rejected treaties to strengthen and expand existing agreements for peace in Space. In 2002, the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972), allowing it to expand its long-range missile systems. In 2008, China and Russia submitted to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament the proposed Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and the Threat or Use of Force against Outer Space Objects. “Full Spectrum Dominance” is not only a danger to the world, but also to American citizens, who would suffer the consequences if something goes wrong with the complicated space weapons of their leaders.
Coles concludes his work by pointing out that “the catastrophic scenarios that arise in relation to these and other areas of development present the possibility of other, no less calamitous impacts, including ultimately the end of the world, or at least of humanity. June 21, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by citing PORESTO newspaper as the source.
Nepalese Woman Very Happy
NUEVA MUJER
With her three husbands, Nepalese woman says she’s very happy
Polyandry is allowed in regions such as the Himalayas, India and Africa.
By Celalba Yamarte
Tuesday, June 4, 2019, at 15:33
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
A documentary about life in Nepal raised a stir after the statements of one of its protagonists. “I have three husbands and that’s how I’m happy,” said the woman called Tsepal, a common reality in the Himalayan region.
Polyandry is the counterpart of the most famous polygamy. In this case, it is the women who have several partners. They have been allowed to marry whom they want and live together in the same house. In some cases, husbands are blood brothers.
Family union
Tsepal’s story is not far from her friends, although not all of them have their courage. In fact, she believes she can be president of her country because she is capable of running a home with three husbands and four children.
The rites and traditions in her community are very well-determined. In fact, the woman stated that there is no jealousy between her husbands. When one of them requires intimacy, she calls on her with a broad smile.
Way of life
Experts affirm that polyandry aims to control the birth rate of this population. It is practiced where more men than women are available for marriage. Generally, the wedding is transacted in an arrangement between members of the same ethnic group.
In the case of Tsepal, her three husbands combine the care of the crops with the work of the house. So she is never alone, perhaps that is the key to the happiness she expresses of her way of life.
Advantages and disadvantages
Another quality of polyandry, says Tsepal, has to do with child support. Having several husbands, all of them must provide the means for the development of their children, such as food, health care and education.
But her sisters-in-law are not as happy as she is. They think there could be a problem if Tsepal doesn’t take care of her three husbands properly. Intimacy and children would be an obstacle if Tsepal doesn’t please all three, they say.
#MeToo at the Basel Fair
Women Artists Bring #MeToo to the Basel Fair
By AFP
Sunday, June 16 2019 08:29
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
A work of art by Anne Collier titled “Woman Crying (Comic) #7”, with another by Nicolas Party titled “Big Cat” (right) on display at the Basel Art Fair, the largest in the world.
The #MeToo movement that exploded worldwide in late 2017 inspires several works on display this year at the Basel Art Fair, the largest in the world.
Visitors discover inflatable mannequins in white airbag dresses created to protect women from harassment in the workplace, and details of alleged sexual crimes of some 170 public figures displayed on four long walls dotted with red.
Women artists are at the center of the scene of this 50th edition, with their works and in-your-face installations expressing the anger and exasperation of persistent gender inequalities and the abuses and harassment condemned by society.
The Spaniard Alicia Framis has filled a room with delicate white mannequins with dresses made of airbag material, which are activated to protect different parts of the female body.
The work entitled “Life Dress” consists of dresses to “protect women in all work situations where there is some kind of abuse,” Framis told AFP.
The 52-year-old artist said she spoke with victims of harassment and abuse and her stories inspired the design, using “fashion to protest against violence.
While Framis turns to humor, Los Angeles-based artist Andrea Bowers opts directly for anger with her large archive project “Open Secrets.
It consists of photographic prints with red backgrounds, each mentioning the name and trade of the public figure accused of sexual harassment or abuse, her public response to the accusations, and details of the case.
Culture of Rape
Hollywood ex-producer Harvey Weinstein, whose alleged crimes launched the #MeToo movement, has two full panels dedicated to his long list of alleged crimes.
U.S. President Donald Trump also appears in the work, as do his predecessors Bill Clinton and George Bush senior, two Supreme Court justices, actors, journalists and musicians, among others.
“I think the #MeToo movement is perhaps one of the most important feminist movements of my life,” Bowers told AFP, referring to his inspiration for the play.
Bowers, 54, who presents herself as a feminist activist artist, said she was shocked to realize “what it was like growing up for me in that culture of rape where young men were allowed to sexually rape me and my friends.
With the #MeToo movement, this kind of behavior is finally “being recognized,” she said. “I hope it’s a historic change.
During the premiere earlier in the week, many men stopped in front of the work that covers two wide walls, on both sides, in the middle of the fair’s large exhibition space.
“You can see a lot of men standing here and a little insecure about how to react,” said Vanja Oberhoff, a young German art investor. “It’s a very powerful work,” he told AFP.
But not all reactions are positive.
Helen Donahue, who in 2017 tweet photographs of her body with marks for alleged abuse by independent columnist Michael Hafford, expressed indignation that Bowers used one of her images.
“It’s great that my damn photos and trauma are headed to the Basel fair. Thank you for exploiting us for the +arte+ ANDREA BOWERS,” he tweet Thursday.
Bowers, who insists on the importance of trusting survivors, quickly issued an apology for not asking Donahue’s permission before using the photo and removed the panel from his exhibit.
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