The New York Times reveals the corporate influence behind some of its most-used sources

FAIR (Aug. 12) – The New York Times (8/7/16) reveals the corporate influence behind some of its most-used sources.

A recent New York Times article (8/7/16) detailed, in often scathing terms, what many media critics already knew: that think tanks are frequently not objective, neutral arbiters of information, but corporate- and government-funded agenda-promoters with an academic veneer to give the appearance of impartiality.

In Memoriam – Jean-Guy Allard: A journalist with fidelity to the cause of justice

Jean-Guy Allard
1948 – 2016

Jean-Guy Allard was born in Shawinigan, Quebec in 1948 and for almost 30 years worked as a reporter and editor with Le Journal de Montreal and Le Journal de Quebec. After his retirement, he moved to Cuba where he resumed his journalistic work and began what colleague and friend Jacques Lanctot described as “his second life.” Jean-Guy began working as a French language editor with Granma International in 2001. Before long he switched from translating to what became his passion: investigating and writing about the activities of the Miami-based terror network of CIA-backed Cuban counterrevolutionaries and their mission to attack the Cuban revolution and its leadership. With sorrow the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) learned of the death of Jean-Guy Allard, in Havana, Cuba, on August 16, 2016 at the age of 68. CPC(M-L) expresses its sincere condolences to his family, colleagues and friends.

Plans for militarization of Arctic under US control

By ENVER VILLAMIZAR

Click to enlarge

In the final months of the Obama presidency arrangements are being put in place in Canada by the Trudeau government to give the United States a dominant position in the Arctic. This is being done in the name of so-called progressive values such as environmental stewardship, reducing green house gas emissions and addressing the longstanding social and economic problems which have affected the peoples of the Arctic, especially the Inuit and other Indigenous peoples. All of it is being done to depoliticize the people and disorient their opposition to the destruction of the natural and social environment by U.S. imperialism which will be stepped up under a new U.S. war presidency.

Trudeau government launches new program to meddle in the affairs of other countries

On August 26 the Trudeau government announced the establishment of the Peace and Stabilization Operations Program (PSOP). A news release from Global Affairs Canada describes the program as a “comprehensive approach to support Canadian interests and UN peace efforts.” The announcement comes shortly after Canadian Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan led a Canadian delegation to five African countries to seek out “facts on the ground” to help decide on a new military adventure appropriate for Canada within the U.S. imperialist push for new “peace operations” worldwide.

Canada prowling for a military role in Africa

It is being widely reported that Canada is looking for a new “peace operation” to join or possibly lead in Africa.

From August 10-16, Canada’s Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan carried out a “fact-finding” trip to Africa, which is part of the preparations for a new role for Canada in Africa.

From Africa to Syria, Liberal ‘peace operations’ are war operations and imperialist divide and rule

The need to establish an Anti-War Government and end Imperialist Divide and Rule in the name of peace | ENVER VILLAMIZAR

Demonstration in Ottawa, March 19, 2016 marked 13th anniversary of U.S. invasion of Iraq.

During the 2015 federal election, the Liberals’ campaign tried to create the impression in the minds of Canadians that electing the Liberals meant that in international affairs, Canada would play a role for peace, rather than for war. However, since being elected, the Liberals have stepped up participation in U.S.-led war-making and war preparations.

Intransigence of Canada Post and the right of postal workers to a say on their working conditions!

Montreal, June 20, 2011: “No to back-to-work legislation; support the postal workers.”

By LOUIS LANG*

On Thursday, August 25 the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) postponed a press conference and after an all-day meeting of its National Executive Board announced that it was issuing a 72-hour notice of strike action. In a bulletin to its members CUPW stated, “Based on Canada Post’s refusal to agree to the 24-hour extension of our strike mandate, we have issued our 72-hour notice of strike activity. We will be in a legal strike position as of 11:59 pm Sunday, August 28, 2016. The NEB will inform everyone if, when and what strike activities will occur. Please monitor all communication channels so that you are informed.”

Sinister Israeli Black Ops in Europe

The victims are the three Palestinian groups working to bring Israel to The Hague on war crimes charges | Amira Hass, Haaretz.

(August 17) – He introduces himself as Abu Nabil, but Arabic is not his mother tongue. Hounding people and threatening them with murder is his business. It may be assumed that he gets a salary for this. He works with a team, armed with advanced technology for surveilling and locating people.

On February 25, Abu Nabil phoned Sweden, to the home of the family of Nada Kiswanson, a Palestinian attorney with dual Jordanian-Swedish citizenship, and warned the family that if Kiswanson did not leave her place of employment, they would never see her again.

Cuba’s Internet bazaar – multimedia, audiovisuals, e-books

Cover for Estela Bravo’s Fidel, la historia no contada (Fidel: The Untold Story).

Documentary filmmaker Estela Bravo’s Fidel, la historia no contada included in the site’s catalogue | Mireya Castañeda

CUBA’S Information Technology and Advanced Electronic Services Enterprise, Citamel, has recently announced the addition of nine new audiovisuals to its multimedia products catalogue of CDs, DVDs, audiobooks, e-books and downloadable documents, available for sale on it internet website, Bazar Cuba.

This electronic sales outlet allows for the acquisition of a great variety of Cuban products via the Internet, and its multimedia offerings, grouped in eight thematic categories, have been very well-received, according to the company.

The birthday

I wish to express my most profound gratitude for the shows of respect, the greetings and the gifts that I have received in recent days, which give me the strength to reciprocate through ideas that I will transmit to the members of our Party and relevant organizations | Fidel Castro Ruz

Celebration of Fidel Castro’s 90th birthday: ¡Fidel 90 y más!: A revolutionary legacy

ISAAC SANEY, National Spokesperson, Canadian Network on Cuba 

“There are men who struggle for a day and they are good. There are men who struggle for
a year and they are better. There are men who struggle many years, and they are better still.
But there are those who struggle all their lives: These are the indispensable ones.”
— Bertolt Brecht

“Fidel! Fidel! Que tiene Fidel que los americanos no pueden con él!””
(Fidel! Fidel! What is it that he has, that the U.S. imperialists can’t defeat him!)
— Cuban Revolutionary chant

On August 13 Fidel Castro, the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, turns 90. Progressive, anti-war and social justice forces across the world will join in the celebration of the life of one of the world’s most influential and significant leaders. It is especially worthwhile and necessary to mark and valorize the life and times of a man whose heart, without missing a beat, has withstood more than 600 assassination attempts by U.S imperialism.

When US troops exercised against ‘aggressive protesters’ in Canada

“This exercise will practice operations in urban and semi-urban areas, defence of vital points and resources, and the complex operating requirements of facing an opposing force ranging in scope from combat elements to aggressive protesters.”

American soldiers form a fire-base to cover the rest of 32 Territorial Battalion Group (32 TBG) ‘F’ and ‘G’ companies assault to seize the Niagara Central Airport during EXERCISE STALWART GUARDIAN held in the Niagara Region, Ontario, on August 19, 2014 | Cpl D. Salisbury, 4 CDSB Ops Svcs © 2014 DND-MDN Canada

NEWS ITEM: A “Canada-U.S. Integrated Forces program” consists of secret discussions held in 2013 and “led at the highest levels, with then Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Tom Lawson and the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey (now retired), meeting on ‘several occasions’ to hash out a plan that included an option for ‘fully integrated forces’. “The planning was deliberate and sustained, and it happened at the highest levels of both forces.” Ostensibly, “efforts were ultimately shut down and refocused on improving interoperability between the forces.” – James Cudmore, “Canadian military explored plan to fully integrate forces with U.S.,” CBC report, September 30, 2015.

Onkwehonwe lead spirited opening march of World Social Forum in Montreal

Onkwehonwe (Indigenous people) led thousands in the opening march of the World Social Forum in Montreal on August 9. The people on whose territory the Forum is taking place, the kanion’ke:haka (Mohawk) stood at the head of the march with flags of the rotino’shonni (Iroquois) confederacy. They were followed by a contingent calling for Canada to be a zone for peace that gets out of NATO and NORAD and opposes imperialist war preparations; the World Social Forum organizers; the National Trade Union Federation in Quebec (CSN) and other unions; and vigorous contingents representing different collectives of the people from Quebec, Canada and around the world and their just causes.

Facts about US aims at Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Protest against Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s new security laws at the Peace monument in Hiroshima August 6, 2015.

One of the controversies about how the atrocities at Hiroshima and Nagasaki are remembered concerns the U.S. aims in dropping the bombs. History as written by the victors declared that this act was necessary to force the surrender of militarist Japan and bring an end to the war. The death and destruction was a tragedy but the Japanese people themselves bore responsibility for their own suffering, so the story goes. To this day the U.S. refuses to apologize for these war crimes and on a visit to Hiroshima on May 27 U.S. President Obama did not even acknowledge that the U.S. perpetrated the crimes or why, merely stating that “death came from the sky.”

‘Little Boy’ – a macabre irony

Panoramic view of the monument marking the hypocenter, or ground zero, of the atomic bomb explosion over Nagasaki | Dean S Pemberton, Wikipedia

By LILI CHI*

Tom Ferebee opened the hatches that protected Little Boy. At 8:14 a.m., the Enola Gay gained in altitude and began the 158° turn. At 8:15 a.m, Ferebee activated the hatches. He dropped the “atomic baby.” The rotation put space between the apparatus and the blast. The 20,000-kiloton, 4-ton, 3-metre long bomb blew up at 600 metres in the air, levelling 75 square kilometres of downtown Hiroshima with its heat and the shock waves. The flash gave way to a gigantic mushroom cloud of smoke and fire that rose many kilometres in height. Some 200,000 Japanese people died, melted, in less than 5 minutes. It was the morning of August 6, 1945.

A historic countdown to the US nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

To this day the United States claims that its actions on the morning of August 6, 1945, when it dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima and on August 9 when it dropped a bomb on Nagasaki, were righteous, moral and proper. The following is a compilation of articles that create a historical countdown from Pressing Issues which looks at the behind the scene events of the days leading to the US nuclear attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively on August 6 and August 9, 1945. These unprecedented war crimes had nothing to do with the fight against Japanese militarism, which was suffering defeats everywhere and whose surrender was imminent. Examining the nuclear attacks on Japan, it is worth quoting General Eisenhower that ”the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”This mass murder of civilian populations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was instead meant as a threat to the peoples of the world, especially the Soviet Union, showing the depths of depravity and criminality to which the U.S. was willing to sink to establish its domination.GREG MITCHELL* provides a day-to-day chronology.

No more Hiroshimas! No more Nagasakis! Canada needs an anti-war government! All out to make Canada a zone for peace

On the occasion of the 71st anniversary of the first use of a nuclear weapon against human beings, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) calls on Canadians to go all out to make Canada a zone for peace that stands against all U.S. imperialist war preparations and gets Canada out of NATO and NORAD.

CPC(M-L) calls on Canadians to be on alert to the manoeuvres of the U.S. ruling elite to unite its warring factions behind a Hillary Clinton war president with their own program to “make America great again.” The biggest efforts of the U.S. establishment and its allies at this time are to block the resistance movements of the people, especially their political mobilization for democratic rights and against war and aggression, in particular against U.S. preparations for a third world war. On the anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, CPC(M-L) emphasizes the internationalist duty of Canadians to ensure Canada is not a factor for war as well as to directly oppose the election of a war president and the acceleration of war preparations in the U.S.