| Reuters | (2022-12-25). UK's Sunak criticised for asking homeless man if he 'works in business'. tribune.com.pk 
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced criticism on Saturday for seeming out of touch with ordinary people when he asked a homeless man at a charity whether he "worked in business" and wanted to get into the finance industry. | Sunak, a former Goldman Sachs banker and one of Britain's wealthiest people, was serving breakfast at a homeless shelter in London on Friday, when he began chatting with a man who identified himself as Dean. | "Do you work in business?" the prime minister asks the man at one point during the conversation, as he hands him a plate of sausages, toast and eggs. | "No, I'm homeless. I'm ac…
mforinoco (2022-12-25). Why Chinese 'Debt Trap Diplomacy' is a Lie. orinocotribune.com By Amanda Yee Dec 19, 2022 | U.S. politicians and corporate media often promote the narrative that China lures developing countries into predatory, high-interest loans to build infrastructure projects as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. As the story goes, China anticipates that the borrowing country will default on that loan, so that it can then seize that asset in order to extend its military or geostrategic influence — evidence of China's so-called colonizing of the Global South. | The concept of Chinese "debt trap diplomacy" finds its origins in a 2017 academic article published by a think tan…
| AFP | (2022-12-25). Women staff ban: Top UN, NGO officials to meet over Taliban policy. tribune.com.pk 
Top officials from the United Nations and dozens of NGOs operating in Afghanistan are meeting Sunday to discuss the way ahead after the Taliban authorities ordered all NGOs to stop women employees from working, aid officials said. | The hardline Islamists on Saturday threatened to suspend the operating licences of NGOs if they failed to implement the order. | The Ministry of Economy, which issues these licences, said it had received "serious complaints" that women working in NGOs were not observing a proper Islamic dress code. | "A meeting of Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) is scheduled later today to consult…
Staff (2022-12-25). US 'Justice' System Trashes Diplomatic Immunity & Rules Against Alex Saab, Defense Working on Appeal. orinocotribune.com Caracas, December 24, 2022 ( "The Maduro regime has been deemed illegitimate … Any claim of diplomatic immunity asserted by a representative of the Maduro regime must also be considered illegitimate," Scola ruled. | The ruling was reported by AP journalist, Joshua Goo…
County "Health Service" Workers & HPHP (2022-12-25). Santa Cruz Homeless Death List for 2023: Follow-Up. indybay.org Two public ceremonies were held December 21st where the names of the unhoused dead for the year (some of them) were read. My response was the attached flyer, reprinted in the Serf City Times, suggesting some obvious but likely to be ignored remedies to ward off the 2023 deaths list. Also attached is the Homeless Persons Health Project/County report.
Silicon Valley Interreligious Council (2022-12-25). Wednesday 12/21: Ninth Annual Homeless Person's Interfaith Memorial Service in San Jose. indybay.org Plaza of SCC Gov. building | 70 W. Hedding Street | San Jose, CA 95110…
Editor (2022-12-24). Our survival depends on a world without billionaires. mronline.org 
The study looks at the impact of 125 of the richest billionaires globally, whose carbon emissions equal those of France, or 67 million people, and shows that just the richest 10 of those individuals own more wealth than the poorest 40% of humanity. The average billionaire in the study is responsible for carbon emissions over one million times higher than the average person in the bottom 90% of humanity.
Editor (2022-12-24). The Perils of Pious Neoliberalism in the Austerity State. scheerpost.com 
By Vijay Prashad / Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research The International Labour Organisation's Global Wage Report 2022—23 tracks the horrendous collapse of real wages for billions of people around the planet. The gaping distance between the incomes and wealth of 99% of the world's population from the incomes and wealth of the billionaires and near-trillionaires who make …
Author Blank (2022-12-24). Holiday greetings to workers behind bars. themilitant.com New Year greetings to our readers behind bars! | The Militant will continue to tell the truth about the conditions you face and keep getting news about the struggles of working people worldwide into your hands. 2022 was quite a year! Millions took to the streets to defend themselves. | From the Ukrainian people's courageous defense of their nation's sovereignty against Moscow's invasion, to working people inside Russia who are protesting the war. From working people and youth in Iran standing up to assaults by government thugs, to thousands of workers here who are using unions to strike for better wages and condi…
Roy Landersen (2022-12-24). Defend Ukraine independence! Demand Putin get out now! themilitant.com The Ukrainian people are withstanding some of the heaviest aerial bombardment since Moscow's war began as they fight tenaciously to drive back its invasion. Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to demoralize working people by crippling Ukraine's power supplies as winter begins, but this only encourages greater determination to resist. | The conflict is the largest ground war fought by two states in Europe since 1945. It has set in motion realignments among capitalist powers across the world, and exacerbated the global economic crisis. The Kremlin is banking on Russia's bigger military resources to wear Ukrainia…
Deborah Liatos (2022-12-24). University of California teaching assistants strike for over a month. themilitant.com LOS ANGELES — As the strike of University of California workers reached its 31st day, hundreds of striking academic workers rallied at the U.C. campus here Dec. 14. They were joined by supporters, including faculty, students and members of UNITE HERE and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299. They marched around the campus, chanting and singing labor solidarity songs. | Nearly 48,000 University of California researchers, teaching assistants, graders and others went on strike Nov. 14 demanding higher wages, improved benefits and better working conditions. | "When I was a stu…
Terry Evans (2022-12-24). As political crisis of US rulers deepens, Socialist Workers Party speaks out. themilitant.com Following the 2022 elections, working people face both a deepening crisis in the capitalist economy — a slowdown in hiring at the same time prices continue to rise — and attacks on living conditions and constitutional freedoms by the capitalist rulers and their two political parties, the Democrats and Republicans. | The Socialist Workers Party is organizing to build solidarity with workers in battle against boss and government attacks, from the rail yards nationwide to strikes by Case New Holland workers in Wisconsin and Iowa and miners at Warrior Met Coal in Alabama. The party fields candidates posin…
_____ (2022-12-24). I Witnessed The Truth About Nicaragua. popularresistance.org Entering adulthood alongside the dwindling of 2020 uprisings for Black liberation (that I had naively seen as the beginning of the end), I felt very stuck. Understanding I am a poor queer Black woman, I saw myself facing a world where the options presented for survival were dehumanizing at best, and the innate dream of living as a free person essentially destroyed. I wanted to fight the liberal tendency of American youth to begin with strong spirits of resistance, before colleging, working and/or drugging, and ultimately, laying down into the nuzzle of the state we once claimed to relentlessly hate. I myself knew…
_____ (2022-12-24). NYC's Christmas Tree Cooperative. popularresistance.org New York City, New York – In this holiday-themed episode of All Things Co-op, Kevin speaks with Ellis Roberts of New York State of Pine, a worker cooperative selling Christmas trees in New York City. They discuss the exploitation of workers and huge markups for consumers from traditional Christmas tree companies, New York State of Pine's democratic centralist model for decision-making, the question of scale, and the importance of working with and getting to know working-class people as communists and socialists. | If you live in NYC and haven't gotten your Christmas tree yet, visit NY State of Pine at 323 St. Joh…
Dean Baker (2022-12-24). Big Victory on Retirement Income in Omnibus Spending Bill. cepr.net Since coming to Washington more than three decades ago, I have spent much of my time working on retirement income. The biggest part of that story was defending Social Security, which leaders in both parties were anxious to cut. This defense was largely successful, as the efforts to privatize it in the 1990s and under …
| Reuters | (2022-12-24). Arctic blast, blizzards disrupt U.S. travel ahead of holidays. tribune.com.pk 
Arctic cold extended its grip over much of the United States on Friday, combining with snow, ice and howling winds from a deadly winter storm roaring out of the Midwest to disrupt energy supplies and thwart travel for millions of Americans ahead of the holiday weekend. | The extreme winter weather, which prompted city authorities across the country to open warming centers in libraries and police stations while scrambling to expand temporary shelter for the homeless, was blamed for at least five deaths on Friday. | A -vehicle pileup on the Ohio Turnpike in a blizzard near Toledo killed two motorists, injured n…
Alex Bainbridge (2022-12-24). Byron Bay: from 'paradise' to 'hell for the homeless'. greenleft.org.au More than 200 people rallied on Christmas Eve at Main Beach in Byron Bay to call for a 90 day limit on using residential houses for short stay holiday accommodation like AirBnB. | A significant increase in the number of investors buying local properties for the short term holiday market is pricing residents out of the market. | Local Greens MP Tamara Smith told the rally that "the fundamental principle is that we want homes for people to live in".
| Reuters | (2022-12-24). Iran Supreme Court accepts rapper Yasin's appeal against death sentence. tribune.com.pk 
Iran's Supreme Court has accepted the death sentence appeal of rapper Saman Seydi Yasin even as it confirmed a death sentence against another protestor, the country's judiciary said on Saturday. | Yasin, a Kurd who raps about inequality, oppression and unemployment, had been accused of attempting to kill security forces, setting a rubbish bin on fire and shooting three times into the air, charges which he denied. | Yasin's mother last week pleaded in a video for help to save her son. "Where in the world have you seen a loved one's life is taken for a trash bin?" she said in the video posted on social media.
Editor (2022-12-24). Top 10 Inequality Victories of 2022. scheerpost.com 
Nitza Soledad Perez (2022-12-24). Haiti year-end review in 2022. america.cgtn.com For most Haitians, 2022 will be a year to be remembered for all the wrong reasons… Gang violence, kidnappings, hunger and disease. Their government has been incapable of restoring stability following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise back in 2021. Now, the humanitarian crisis …
Binoy Kampmark (2022-12-24). Christmas Jottings from North Queensland. dissidentvoice.org A ridiculous spectacle: Christmas in North Queensland, an event held in a land so prehistoric it makes a mockery of its human inhabitants. Cartoons and cardboard cut-outs of snow flecked reindeer stranded upon water-hungry lawns, irrelevant and incapable of surviving in these climes; the occasional defiance by the inhabitants who replace the reindeer with kangaroos …
Ex Prime Minister Imran Khan argued Pakistan should have been non-aligned in the first cold war and in the new one between the US and China/Russia, as well as independent in the Ukraine proxy conflict. He also praised Beijing's historic poverty reduction program.:quality(70)/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/irishtimes/0eb3e327-5942-4e5d-b411-e46e6f139e09.png)
By Michael Jansen | ( The Irish Times ) Four global aid agencies have suspended services in Afghanistan in response to a Taliban ban on women working at non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In a joint statement, Care, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee said: "We cannot effectively reach …
