(2020-01-31). Comic hypocrisy? Macron lampooned for posing with anti-police brutality t-shirt (PHOTO). rt.com 
French President Emmanuel Macron has been accused of blatant hypocrisy, after he was photographed with a t-shirt satirizing his own government's violent crackdown on anti-austerity protests. | Macron paid a visit to the International Comic Book Festival in Angouleme, southwestern France on Thursday — but his appearance likely had the opposite of its intended effect on France's increasingly discontented electorate. | A photograph taken during the festival shows the French leader holding up a t-shirt showing a cartoon cat with a bleeding, patched-up eye. Under the feline reads: LBD 2020, an allusion to the…
(2020-01-31). "Balfouristans" for Bibi: "Apartheid" Isn't an Insult, It's a Blueprint. counterpunch.org The image on the left is from a map Donald Trump tweeted out with the label, "Vision For Peace: Conceptual Map/The Future of Palestine." The one on the right shows the "Bantustans" created by apartheid-era South Africa in 1970, a move designed to pen the country's black citizens into impoverished "homelands." Any questions? These maps
(2020-01-31). Chile: One Dead and 124 Arrested During a Violent Early Morning. telesurenglish.net One dead person, 124 detainees and several wounded was the balance of the police repression to the protests that Chileans carried out in the early hours of Friday in Santiago. | RELATED: | On Thursday afternoon, citizens went out to protest the death of Jorge Mora, a fan of the Colo-Colo soccer team, who was hit by a Police truck last Tuesday. | His death intensified popular mobilizations against the neoliberal state, which th…
(2020-01-30). The Rooney Rule isn't working; diversity in coach/executive hirings must improve. peoplesworld.org 
MIAMI (AP) — Stopping short of saying the Rooney Rule is not working, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell noted Wednesday the league needs change to its minority hiring policy. Though the league requires teams to interview minority candidates, only two African-Americans have been hired for 19 open head coaching spots over the past three years. The …
(2020-01-30). "Coded Bias": New Film Looks at Fight Against Racial Bias in Facial Recognition & AI Technology. democracynow.org 
A new documentary looks at the dangers of artificial intelligence and its increasing omnipresence in daily life, as new research shows that it often reflects racist biases. Earlier this month, Cambridge, Massachusetts, became the latest major city to ban facial recognition technology, joining a growing number of cities, including San Francisco, to ban the artificial intelligence, citing flawed technology and racial and gender bias. A recent study also found that facial recognition identified African-American and Asian faces incorrectly 10 to 100 times more than white faces. The film "Coded Bias" begins with Joy B…
(2020-01-30). Maduro on Merlano Case: Duque Does Not Want the Truth Out There. telesurenglish.net The president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, said Thursday that his Colombian counterpart, Iván Duque, has not followed the due process for the extradition of former congresswoman Aída Merlano. Merlano, who arrested last Monday in the city of Maracaibo, Zulia state, after running away from her country, seems not interested in knowing the truth, according to the head of state. | RELATED: | During a nationwide broadcast,…
(2020-01-29). Trump's fake 'peace plan' is permanent apartheid for Palestine. thegrayzone.com Attorney, professor, and author Noura Erakat on Trump's "deal of the century": a call for permanent apartheid in Palestine. President…
(2020-01-29). Mehdi Hasan: Trump's Middle East Plan Is a Policy of Apartheid & Settler Colonialism. democracynow.org 
We continue our discussion of President Trump's long-awaited Middle East plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which he has described as the "deal of the century." The plan was drafted by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner without any input from Palestinians and would give Israel sovereignty over large areas of the occupied West Bank, control over all of Jerusalem, and keep all illegal settlements built in the occupied West Bank. We speak with Mehdi Hasan, senior columnist at The Intercept, and Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. Khalidi's latest book is…
(2020-01-29). USPCN Rejects "Deal of the Century" fightbacknews.org Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN). | Three war criminals – Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israeli politician Benny Gantz – have met in DC this week, and today unveiled the announcement of Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner's self-proclaimed "deal of the century." | As Palestinians and Arabs living and organizing in the U.S., we join the voices of our people in besieged Gaza and all across Palestine and the Arab World in fully rejecting this sham peace process created by the apartheid, settler-colonial…
(2020-01-24). Oakland Moms Who Occupied Vacant Property to Highlight Housing Crisis Celebrate Unexpected Victory. democracynow.org 
In Oakland, California, a months-long struggle between a group of unhoused mothers occupying a vacant home and the real estate firm that owned it ended with an unexpected offer to purchase the property earlier this week. The major win in the mothers' fight against homelessness and real estate speculation comes just a week after Wedgewood Properties forcibly evicted the families — known as Moms 4 Housing — from the home they were living in for more than two months. Two mothers and two of their supporters were arrested in the early-morning eviction after armed police officers battered down the door. The…