2021-12-16: News Headlines

_____ (2021-12-16). How The OPCW's Syria Probe Censored Science. popularresistance.org Senior OPCW officials doctored the original report; erased the conclusions of expert toxicologists who ruled out chlorine gas as the cause of death; and thwarted the key investigate area of forensic pathology, which could have helped determine how the dozens of civilian victims in Douma lost their lives. Instead of explaining the extensive suppression, OPCW Director General Fernando Arias has avoided questions; offered false excuses; and smeared the veteran scientists who challenged the cover-up from within. | Guest: Dr. Piers Robinson. Co-Director of the Organisation for Propaganda Studies, and convenor of the W…

Andy Kroll (2021-12-16). Climate Crisis at the Top of the World. tomdispatch.com When midnight strikes on New Year's Day of 2050, there will be little cause for celebration. There will, of course, be the usual toasts with fine wines in the climate-controlled compounds of the wealthy few. But for most of humanity, it'll just be another day of adversity bordering on misery — a desperate struggle to find food, water, shelter, and safety. In the previous decades, storm surges will have swept away coastal barriers erected at enormous cost and rising seas will have flooded the downtowns of major cities that once housed more than 100 million people. Relentless waves will pound shorelines aroun…

Alfred W. McCoy (2021-12-16). Melting of Ice Sheets Is Dramatic, But Melting of Permafrost Means Mass Death. truthout.org When midnight strikes on New Year's Day of 2050, there will be little cause for celebration. There will, of course, be the usual toasts with fine wines in the climate-controlled compounds of the wealthy few. But for most of humanity, it'll just be another day of

_____ (2021-12-15). Russia And Israel — A Double Standard In International Condemnation. popularresistance.org Over the past month, in a break from its usual focus on COVID-19, the Western mainstream media has dedicated a sizeable amount of coverage to unverified claims by unnamed US intelligence officials that the Russian Federation is planning an imminent military invasion of its western neighbour Ukraine — under the rule of the successive US-EU friendly governments of Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky since 2014, when the CIA-orchestrated Euromaidan colour revolution toppled the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych, following his November 2013 decision to suspend an EU trade deal in favour of pursuin…

Dana Sanchez (2021-12-15). Fact Check: Student Loan Forgiveness Will Increase The Black-White Wealth Gap. moguldom.com Student loan forgiveness would help Black borrowers, who are disproportionately represented in the $1.75 trillion debt total held by 43.2 million borrowers, but a recent Twitter discussion shows there is doubt about whether or not loan forgiveness would lower the Black-white wealth gap. HBCU alumni have a median federal-debt load of about $29,000 at graduation — 32 …

The Socialist Program (2021-12-15). Worshiping at the Altar of Billionaires. liberationnews.org Elon Musk is TIME magazine's Person of the Year this year, despite gaining more than $225 billion dollars over the course of the pandemic, while hundreds of thousands of Americans died. Why does the mainstream capitalist culture worship him and billionaires like him?>

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