By Bill Van Auken
The warning issued Tuesday by the secretary general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, that the confrontation developing on the Korean peninsula increasingly resembles the events that led to the outbreak of the First World War over a century ago deserve to be taken with deadly seriousness.
“Wars usually do not start by a decision taken in a moment by the parties to go to war,” he said. “If you look at the history of the First World War, it was on a step-by-step basis, one party doing one thing, the other party doing another, and then an escalation taking place… This is the risk we need to avoid in relation to the situation of North Korea.”
Without mentioning Donald Trump and the cabal of active duty and retired generals who are overseeing the ever-more bellicose and reckless US policy by name, Guterres was clearly referring to them in warning that “Confrontational rhetoric may lead to unintended consequences. The solution must be political.” He added, “The potential consequences of military action are too horrific.” Read more » |
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 Unite all workers against the attack on immigrants! For a socialist policy of open borders!
By the Socialist Equality Party (US)
The decision of the Trump administration to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program marks a new stage in the attack on immigrant workers and youth in the United States and internationally. Nearly 800,000 young people who have spent most of their lives in the US will, beginning in six months, be left at the mercy of the apparatus of repression, violence and deportation called the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the US Border Patrol.
The end of DACA is only one part of a vicious campaign of terror and intimidation waged by the Trump administration against immigrants and refugees—including the anti-Muslim ban, expanded raids and deportations, plans for constructing a wall along the US-Mexico border and the pardoning of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who gloated over the establishment of “concentration camps” to hold immigrants in Arizona.
The American ruling class, which wages wars all over the world on the pretext of defending “human rights” and “democracy” is resurrecting within its borders measures that recall the horrors of the 1930s and the establishment of Japanese internment camps in the US during the Second World War. Read more » |
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Will US threats against North Korea yield a global catastrophe?
By Bill Van Auken
The unending series of inflammatory and reckless threats by Donald Trump and his top advisers against North Korea have provoked global fears that the world is being brought to the brink of a nuclear war and a catastrophic loss of human life.
The US president’s vow to unleash “fire and fury the like the world has never seen” has been followed by his National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster warning that Washington is prepared to wage a “preventive war”—a doctrine outlawed by the Nuremberg Nazi war crime trials—to stop North Korea “from threatening the United States with a nuclear weapon.” Trump’s defense secretary, Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis, declared Sunday that the Pentagon has “many options” to carry out “the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea,” and that Trump was being “briefed on each one of them.” Read more » |
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| Trump, Democrats reach deal on debt ceiling, budget
By Patrick Martin
In a major political shift Wednesday, congressional Democratic leaders reached an agreement with President Trump on a measure to tie initial funding of a relief bill for victims of Hurricane Harvey to a three-month extension of both the federal debt ceiling and budget authorization for federal agencies, overriding the wishes of congressional Republicans.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced an amendment based on the deal on Wednesday night, and it passed the Senate easily on Thursday, by a top-heavy bipartisan margin of 80 to 17. All 17 “no” votes came from conservative Republicans. Every Democrat voted for the bill, except for Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who is currently on trial for bribery.
The Senate bill doubles the amount of hurricane relief money authorized by the House of Representatives Tuesday, from $7.9 billion to $15.3 billion. It also extends the federal flood insurance program, which was to expire this month. Read more » |
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 Hurricane Irma slams into Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands
By Jerry White
Less than two weeks after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, leading to record flooding and damage in Houston and other areas of the state, an even more powerful hurricane has plowed through a chain of small islands in the northern Caribbean and Puerto Rico and is heading towards the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Bahamas and Cuba. Densely populated south Florida, which includes Miami, could be hit Sunday, and the Georgia and South Carolina border by Monday afternoon.
The eye of the hurricane passed directly over the island of Barbuda around 2 a.m. Wednesday, with reports of sustained winds of 118 mph, gusting to 155 mph, before meteorological instruments failed. Charles Fernandez, minister of foreign affairs and international trade for Antigua and Barbuda, said the destruction on Barbuda was “upwards of 90 percent.”
Hurricane Irma began battering the US territory of Puerto Rico, with a population of 3.4 million US citizens, Wednesday afternoon. As of this writing, the eye of Hurricane Irma was 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of the capital city of San Juan and hovering above the Atlantic Ocean. Authorities say wind gusts of up to 100 mph (160 km/h) could hit the capital of 355,000 people.
More than one million people, or nearly a third of the population, are currently without power, and nearly 50,000 are without water. Fourteen hospitals are using generators after losing power, and trees and light posts are strewn across many roads. Read more » |
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 Trump rescinds DACA, putting 800,000 youth at risk of deportation
By Genevieve Leigh
The Trump administration is ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the government program that offered limited protection from deportation to nearly 800,000 immigrants brought to the US as children. The administration plans to phase out the program over the next six months.
The Department of Homeland Security will not consider any new applications for legal status. Those with a DACA permit expiring before March 5, 2018, will be eligible to apply for a two-year renewal that must be requested by October 5, 2017. For all others, legal status will end as early as March 6, 2018.
If Congress fails to act, nearly 300,000 people will begin losing protections in 2018, and more than 320,000 from January to August 2019. Once their DACA status expires, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, in collusion with local and state law enforcement, will have free rein to carry out detention and deportation. Read more » |
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| Forbes writer says Google censored report on manipulation of search traffic
By Andre Damon
Google forced Forbes magazine to remove a story documenting the tech giant’s manipulation of search results to promote Google Plus, its social media network, according to a former writer for the magazine.
Kashmir Hill, a longtime technology reporter for Forbes and current contributor to Gizmodo, went public with the revelation last Thursday in a post titled, “Yes, Google Uses Its Power to Quash Ideas It Doesn’t Like—I Know Because It Happened to Me”
Hill’s account is just one of many similar reports of Google using its weight and influence to intimidate public discourse.
Hill’s revelation followed less than two weeks after press reports documented the fact that Google pressured the New America Foundation to fire its Open Markets team after they posted a statement supporting anti-trust action against the technology giant. Read more » |
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