ALAI this week - 10/12/2021
On Human Rights’ Day, UK court permits extradition of Julian Assange to US
Once extradited, Assange will face a federal grand jury in the US and stand trial for 17 charges under the infamous Espionage Act and one charge of conspiring to hack into government computers.
Peoples Dispatch
Ten contradictions that plague Biden’s Democracy Summit
The greater possible value of this gathering of 111 countries is that it could serve as an opportunity for people and governments around the world to express their concerns about the flaws in U.S. democracy.
Medea Benjamin, Nicolas J. S. Davies
Peru Minister: Our socialist government is under attack. But we can still win.
Peru’s socialist president, Pedro Castillo, came into office to fight neoliberalism, but his agenda has been derailed by the Right. One of his ministers tells Jacobin how the Castillo government can fight back and win power for ordinary Peruvians.
Nicolas Allen, Martín Mosquera
Richest 1% took 38% of new global wealth since 1995. The bottom half got just 2%
A new report finds that global inequities in wealth and income are "about as great today as they were at the peak of Western imperialism in the early 20th century."
Jake Johnson
The inclusion of digital rights in Chile’s new Constitution
There are times when windows of opportunity open up to advance the rights of peoples and at the same time allow for the adaptation of norms to new situations. In Chile, this possibility is emerging with the drafting of a new Magna Carta.
Internet Ciudadana
Omicron can be blamed on patent monopolies
The development of variants depends on the extent of the spread of the virus. The more people who get COVID-19, the more opportunity the virus has to mutate.
Dean Baker
Climate change: Adapt for the future, not the past
Carbon offset markets allow the rich to emit as financial intermediaries profit. By fostering the fiction that others can be paid to cut greenhouse gases (GHGs) instead, it undermines efforts to do so
Anis Chowdhury, Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Countdown to World War III?
Why do U.S. military officials assume that a war over Taiwan could erupt the moment China masters "intelligentized" warfare? And why would such a war over Taiwan almost certainly turn into World War III, with every likelihood of going nuclear?
Michael Klare
The future depends on us now
The tempting “Green Capitalism” aims to cover the whole planet in green but never poses the question of social inequality that penalizes and claims millions of human lives.
Leonardo Boff