2018-09-18: News Headlines

Staff (2018-09-18). Hungrier Insects Will Bite Into World's Crops. truthdig.com Researchers have confirmed, once again, that a warmer world is likely to have hungrier insects. The new predators could increase their share of the harvest of wheat, rice and maize by up to 25%. | That is, for every 1 ∞C rise in average temperature, aphids, beetles, borers, caterpillars and other crop pests could increase their consumption of grain by between one tenth and one quarter. | And with a 2 ∞C rise above the average temperature for most of human history — the target set by 195 nations in Paris in 2015 — additional global losses of grain to insect pests could reach 213 million tonnes a year. | For once, the steepest losses could be experienced in the temperate zones, home to the richest nations, rather than in the poorest communities. The reasoning is simple, and the…

Manlio Dinucci (2018-09-18). La nuova cortina di ferro. globalresearch.ca La Lettonia sta costruendo una recinzione metallica di 90 km, alta 2,5 metri, lungo il confine con la Russia, che sarà ultimata entro l'anno. Sarà estesa nel 2019 su oltre 190 km di confine, con un costo previsto di 17 …

DPEN (2018-09-18). Stop KIPP & Rocketship Racist Privatization Union Busting Charter School Chains. indybay.org GAP Corporate HQ | 2 Folsom St. Near The Embarcadero San Francisco, California…

wsws (2018-09-18). Workers Struggles: the Americas. wsws.org Costa Rican public sector workers, backed by students and others, protest anti-worker fiscal reforms last week; meanwhile 500 Sun-Maid workers are fighting management's concession demands.

splcenter (2018-09-17). SPLC, Rock the Vote launch voter education class. splcenter.org The SPLC and Rock the Vote — a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to building the political power of young people — today launched a class designed to teach high school students the importance of voting.

Roy Morrison (2018-09-17). Hurricane Florence: Sixty Foot Flood to Inundate Brunswick Nuclear Plant on Cape Fear River NC. globalresearch.ca On Saturday morning, CNN reports that National Weather Service forecast flood waters on Cape Fear River in Wilmington N.C. to crest at 60 feet (sixty feet) early next week. Wilmington is near Southport, home of two reactor Brunswick nuclear plant | …

Peter Ford (2018-09-17). The Bluffer's Guide to Bombing Syria. globalresearch.ca The propaganda mills of the British and American governments – spokespersons, media, think tanks – are working overtime churning out 'talking points' to justify the upcoming large scale bombing of Syria on the pretext of use of prohibited weapons. | Here …

Elijah J. Magnier (2018-09-17). The Liberation of Idlib: Turkey Is in the Way, with Russia Slowing Down. globalresearch.ca Turkey is pushing further reinforcements of troops, commando units and tanks into the northern Syrian city of Idlib and around it, for a specific objective: to disrupt the attack against the city by the Syrian forces and their allies supported …

Dr. Binoy Kampmark (2018-09-17). Needled Strawberries in Australia: Food Terrorism Down Under. globalresearch.ca There is something peculiar doing the rounds in Australian food circles. The land down under, considered something of a nirvana of fruit and vegetable production despite horrendous droughts and calamitous cyclones, is facing a new challenge: human agency, namely in …

Eric Margolis (2018-09-17). Trump's Reckless Hostility Unites China and Russia. globalresearch.ca Good work Mr. President! You have now managed to lay the groundwork for a grand Chinese-Russian alliance. The objective of intelligent diplomacy is to divide one's foes, not to unite them. | This epic blunder comes at a time when the …

Kevin Zeese (2018-09-17). The Aftershocks of the 2008 Economic Collapse Are Still Being Felt. globalresearch.ca The Real Confrontation Is Yet To Come | There has been a spate of articles recently on the ten year anniversary of the financial collapse. We wrote about this anniversary two weeks ago, describing the cause of the collapse and the …

Prof. James Petras (2018-09-17). US War Strategists: Military Defeats and Political Success. globalresearch.ca Introduction | In a previous article (" US: The Century of Lost Wars") I recorded the repeated US military defeats over the past two decades. In this discussion I will describe the role of military strategists who bear responsibility for …

Rob Urie (2018-09-17). American Fascism. counterpunch.org Fascism is a loaded topic for Americans. The term is usually put forward as oppositional, as the flip side of representative democracy, e.g. authoritarian. Left unaddressed is whose interests' American representative democracy represents. Twenty years of research by political scientist Thomas Ferguson strongly supports the conclusion that it is monied interests (a/k/a the rich) that determines public policy. And while this isn't the authoritarian leader alluded to with the charge of fascism, neither does it contrast with it in the sense implied.

Yves Engler (2018-09-17). CIJA, B'nai B'rith Smear Palestine Activist Instead of Racists, Anti-Semite. globalresearch.ca Like British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn Canadian lawyer Dimitri Lascaris is the victim of a "Big Lie" slander campaign. Defenders of the most aggressive ongoing European settler colonialism have once again smeared a " proud, anti-racist advocate for …

Hatewatch Staff (2018-09-17). 5 things you need to know about one of the anti-LGBT movement's biggest events: the 'Values Voter Summit'. splcenter.org One of the most powerful anti-LGBT hate groups, the Family Research Council (FRC), is getting ready for its annual gathering in the nation's capital.

Philip A Farruggio (2018-09-17). Overheard at the Fat Cats Club. Political Satire. globalresearch.ca Being a 'fly on the wall' is not such a bad thing… unless of course you get swatted. Listen to what this fly overheard at the Fat Cats Private Club the other day: | Fat Cat #1: Well I'll tell you | …

Sonali Kolhatkar (2018-09-17). Our Planet Is Angry. globalresearch.ca " Storm of a lifetime" is how the National Weather Service in Wilmington, N.C., described Hurricane Florence as it came lumbering across the Atlantic to hurl its ferocious winds and rain onto that coastal state. Pointing to the storm's …

Corporate Europe Observatory (2018-09-17). In the Wake of the 2008 Global Economic Crisis: Banking Structures Untouched. How the Financial Lobby Won the Battle in Brussels. globalresearch.ca Despite their responsibility for the 2008 economic crash, the financial sector has successfully avoided major reform in the decade since. Their army of lobbyists has won almost all the major battles, leaving new legislation full of loopholes and conditions similar …

Michael Lerner (2018-09-17). Prayers: For Our Sins as Individuals and as a Society. globalresearch.ca These Prayers by Rabbi Michael Lerner constitute a powerful and far-reaching humanitarian message, coupled with an accurate and incisive analysis of the unfolding global crisis. | What Rabbi Lerner puts forth is an understanding of the World we live in. | The …

TPLO (2018-09-17). PLO-UNWRA Meeting: Dr. Ashrawi Meets with UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl. globalresearch.ca PLO Executive Committee Member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi received Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Pierre Krähenbühl who was accompanied by his Chief of Staff Hakam Shahwan at the PLO Headquarters in Ramallah. | Dr. …

James J. Zogby (2018-09-17). Trump Can Kill Oslo, But Not Palestinian National Aspirations. globalresearch.ca In recent weeks, the Trump administration has taken a series of drastic punitive actions against the Palestinian people. Some analysts have accepted the official White House explanation that many of the actions were done either out of displeasure with actions …

Roy Morrison (2018-09-17). Sustainability and Ecological Civilization: An Outline for Getting From Here to There. globalresearch.ca Industrialism and business as usual is the path to ecological destruction. | Imperative task for the 21st century is to move toward a sustainable ecological civilization. | Working definition in a market society of ecological civilization (or ecocivilization) is to make …

TGRT (2018-09-17). Help Us Protect the Future of Globalresearch.ca. globalresearch.ca Dear Readers, | The repercussions of efforts by certain well known internet companies to divert search engines away from our website as well as from our articles shared on social media are real and quantifiable. These efforts, combined with other actions …

Eric Zuesse (2018-09-17). How Donald Trump Desecrates America's Founders. globalresearch.ca George Washington's Farewell Address — one of the most important documents of America's Founders — warned against any and all permanent alliances; he said, on 19 September 1796: | The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a …

Tom Westcott (2018-09-17). Syria's Christian City: Seven Years Under Fire at the Idlib Frontline. globalresearch.ca Each night, the streets of the Christian town of Mhardeh teem with life. | Young people in trendy attire drink beer and smoke Shisha pipes, shyly eyeing up attractive passersby and posing for group selfies, while off-duty soldiers with their girlfriends …

Amanda Froelich (2018-09-17). Agent Orange: 17 Chilling Photos of the Vietnam War Crimes the US Got Away With. globalresearch.ca This article was first posted on Global Research in September 2017. | For ten years during the Vietnam War, the United States used a toxic concoction of two herbicides, labeled 'Agent Orange,' to wipe out large areas of Vietnam which were …

Michael Snyder (2018-09-17). A Record Seven Named Storms Are Swirling Across the Globe. Global Climate Instability? Has 'the Day After Tomorrow' Arrived? globalresearch.ca Is something extremely unusual happening to our planet? At this moment, Hurricane Florence is just one of seven named storms that are currently circling the globe. That matches the all-time record, and it looks like that record will be broken …

Ayyaz Mallick (2018-09-17). Elections in Pakistan: A Populist Moment? globalresearch.ca The third consecutive general election was held in Pakistan on July 25th, with the Pakistan Movement for Justice party (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, PTI) of celebrity-cricketer Imran Khan emerging as the largest party in parliament. For a country marred by long bouts …

Prof. Marjorie Cohn (2018-09-17). John Bolton Escalates Blackmail against ICC to Shield US War Criminals. globalresearch.ca Once again, the United States is blackmailing countries that would send Americans to face justice in the International Criminal Court. Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton is leading the charge to shield US and Israeli war criminals from legal …

Prof Michel Chossudovsky (2018-09-17). Who is Osama bin Laden. Interview with Michel Chossudovsky. globalresearch.ca A few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration concluded without supporting evidence, that "Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation were prime suspects". CIA Director George Tenet stated that bin …

wsws (2018-09-17). US schools hiring private companies to spy on students' social media. wsws.org Monitoring students' social media accounts is a violation of privacy, revealing the partnership of the US government and tech companies in internet surveillance and censorship.

Shared by Hezvo Mpunga (2018-09-17). Laura Flanders Show: Education Activists Back To School With A Test for DeVos. therealnews.com 2018 has been a year of upheaval for students, in and out of the classroom. This week on the Laura Flanders show, educators and education activists talk about educational justice, teaching in Trump times, and taking stock of the current state of education. We're joined by Natasha Capers, of the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice;…

wsws (2018-09-17). Texas special education students face teacher shortage and budget shortfall. wsws.org The state of Texas is in violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for its failure to educate disabled children.

wsws (2018-09-17). New Zealand primary teachers' union presents sellout offer. wsws.org The Labour government's proposal does not begin to address stagnant wages and the staffing crisis afflicting schools.

RT (2018-09-16). Texas Education Board votes to cut Hillary Clinton's name from student curriculum. rt.com Students in Texas will not be obliged to learn about Hillary Clinton in their history class, but will discuss the impact of Moses on the nation's founding documents, following a vote by the State Board of Education.

wsws (2018-09-15). Teacher strike in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania wins broad support. wsws.org On Friday, approximately 1,000 teachers, students, and supporters picketed East Stroudsburg's South High School as a strike continues by instructors over management demands for major cuts in health care.

Democracy Now! (2018-09-14). Headlines for September 14, 2018. democracynow.org Hurricane Florence Makes Landfall, Lashing Carolinas Coast, Trump Falsely Claims 3,000 Puerto Ricans Did Not Die After Hurricane Maria, Wins and Losses for Progressive Challengers in New York Primaries, Former Refugee from Afghanistan Safiya Wazir Unseats Incumbent in NH Primary Race, Paul Manafort and Special Counsel Reach Tentative Plea Deal, Sen. Feinstein Refers to FBI Letter Alleging Sexual Misconduct by Kavanaugh, Dozens of Homes Explode North of Boston, Mass., Killing 1 Person, Argentina: Thousands of Teachers & Students Strike Against Austerity Measures, Lawsuit Alleges MSU Officials Intentionally Covered…

T.J. Coles (2018-09-14). Neil deGrasse Tyson: A Celebrity Salesman for the Military-Industrial-Complex. counterpunch.org The idea for this article came from one of those annoying "Recommended for you" thumbnails on YouTube. The title was: "Neil deGrasse Tyson: Trump's Space Force Is Not a Crazy Idea." Having written about and researched space weapons for over a decade, I was intrigued as to why a seemingly intelligent man (Tyson) would want More

Lauren Carasik (2018-09-14). The IMF's 'Large Brain, Unhealthy Ego, and Tiny Conscience'. thenation.com The IMF's 'Large Brain, Unhealthy Ego, and Tiny Conscience' appeared first on The Nation.

Joshua Frank (2018-09-14). From CO2 to Methane, Trump's Hurricane of Destruction. counterpunch.org Photo Source Becker1999 | CC BY 2.0 | While the Trump administration swirls around in a vortex of Tweets, lies and Russiagate, one thing is for certain, while we are all distracted and perplexed by the daily mayhem, Trump and his fossil fuel buddies are getting away with environmental plunder. | It's not a surprise, really, given that Trump believes man-made climate change is a bunch of stale chow mein, as he notoriously tweeted: | The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. | — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012 | Unfortunately, Trump has moved beyond his wacky conspiracy theory and sparked a full-on assault on the environmental laws, science and regulatory apparatus which act as our best hope to curb greenhouse gas emissions. In documents

RT (2018-09-14). 'It's science fiction': Professor doubts claims of 'microwave attacks' on US diplomats in Cuba. rt.com There's no conclusive evidence that US diplomats stationed in Cuba were injured by a futuristic weapon, Kenneth R. Foster, a professor of bioengineering, told RT, adding that theories involving microwaves were "science fiction." |

Rann Miller (2018-09-13). Schools Have Committed to Hiring Teachers of Color. Now They Need to Keep Them. progressive.org When schools fail to challenge Eurocentric curricula and pedagogy, they alienate teachers of color.

Jake Jacobs (2018-09-11). New York's Democratic Primary is a Showdown for Charter School Politics. progressive.org The upcoming New York primary could redefine the Democratic party in the state—and could mean drastic change for the charter school industry.

RT (2018-09-11). AI detects 'mysterious repeating' signals from 'alien galaxy' 3 billion light years away. rt.com Researchers at Breakthrough Listen, a project involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), have used AI to study signals from distant galaxies and found that we may have missed a lot in the hunt for alien life.

Suzanne Bohan (2018-09-08). Let's Heal Kids, Not Harden Schools. progressive.org Betsy DeVos has proposed to make federal funding available for schools to purchase weapons. But the proliferation of guns will not curb violence in schools.

Janine Jackson (2018-09-07). 'Punitive Discipline Policies Have Proven to Be Destructive to Children'. fair.org CBS News ( 8/14/18) | Janine Jackson: Nothing says America 2018 like a spate of stories on how back-to-school shopping includes bulletproof backpacks. Arming teachers and gearing kids up like commandos are presented as more-or-less reasonable responses to concerns about school safety. | Any violence in schools is too much, of course, but a conversation about school safety that's focused on guns and bullets is a narrow and distorted conversation. Recasting our definition of a "safe school environment" could lead us in some very different directions. | Karen Dolan is director of the Criminalization of Race and Poverty Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, and co-author, with Ebony Slaughter-Johnson and Myacah Sampson, of the recent report Students Under Siege: How the School-to-Prison Pipeline, Poverty and Racism Endanger Our Schoolchildren. She joins us now by phone…

Jeff Bryant (2018-09-06). In Louisville, a Web of Private Interests Conspire to Expand Charter Schools. progressive.org Members of the Kentucky Board of Education have allied with corporate interests to privatize education, including involvement in potential real estate deals.

Democracy Now! (2018-09-05). As Amazon Hits $1 Trillion in Value, Its Warehouse Workers Denounce "Slavery" Conditions. democracynow.org Amazon made headlines Tuesday when it became the second American company, after Apple, to reach $1 trillion in value. Amazon's founder and chief executive, Jeff Bezos, is the richest man in the world, with a net worth of more than $167 billion. But what's behind that wealth? What about its workers? The working conditions in Amazon's warehouses have been the focus of protests, union drives and several investigations—including by student reporters. As students throughout the country head back to class, we feature an investigative report by students at the Rutgers University Department of Journalism and Media…

Jesse Hagopian (2018-08-31). Seattle Teachers Poised to Strike Draw Solidarity from Their Brothers and Sisters In Puerto Rico. progressive.org To prepare for what we are likely to face in our struggle for a just contract, Seattle educators recently organized a panel that included a representative from the Puerto Rico Federation of Teachers.

Don Weimer (2018-08-31). What Educators Can Do to Make College More Affordable. progressive.org It's not just tuition—the cost of textbooks and other curricular materials is unnecessarily high.