Global News and Analysis

Source: The Nation

Women are pushing to change the country’s narrow rape law, which requires proof that an assailant used “violence or intimidation” and often leads to a lesser sentence.

As evening fell on Plaça de Sant Jaume in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, bathing City Hall’s stone facade in ocher light, the usual sounds of tourists pattering across the cobbled square were suddenly replaced by those of dozens, then hundreds of women pouring into the plaza, clanging pots and pans and jiggling keys in a strangely melodious cacophony. In a single voice they chanted: “Yo te creo”—“I believe you.” read more

Source: Frontline

An Interview with Noam Chomsky

THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY

During the last U.S. election, you had warned that the “world should be utterly terrified of a Donald Trump presidency”. Now he occupies the White House. His policies and pronouncements represent a combination of white supremacy and the corporate agenda. Some have even called him a “monster” in the White House. What is the danger that he poses, not only to the U.S. but also to the world? How is he “different” from his predecessors in office? read more

Source: In These Times

The newest plank of immigration enforcement? Piling children into overcrowded detention centers.

Most mornings lately, I’ve woken up to two things. First I hear my toddler, sounding off that it’s time to get up. Then I see the news stories about other toddlers our immigration authorities ripped away from their parents.

For weeks, I’ve felt the gnawing need to write something, anything, about it. But God, where even to begin?

First, there are the stories. The Congolese asylum seeker who heard her six year old scream, “Don’t take me away from my mommy!” and couldn’t reach her. The woman forced to put her 18 month old in a car seat in an ICE van, the door slamming shut before she could even say goodbye. The man who hasn’t seen his son in six months. read more

Source: Alternet

It is significant that Kim and Trump met to “have an equal conversation.”

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un met with Donald Trump of the United States in Singapore. This was the first meeting of the heads of government of these two countries. The United States has been at war with North Korea since 1950. Three years into that war, which destroyed most of the infrastructure in North Korea, the two countries—and South Korea—agreed to a halt in the active fighting. But the war did not end. It remains intact. A massive military deployment by the United States at the edge of North Korea maintains the fear inside the Korean Peninsula of annihilation. This is what makes the summit between Kim and Trump so important. Threats of war are now at a low point. read more

Source: The Guardian

As horrified as we may be at Trump’s uncouth antics, it is important to understand the tectonic shifts underpinning them

Donald Trump’s early departure, and his subsequent refusal to endorse the G7 communique, has thrown the mainstream press into an apoplexy reflecting a deeper incomprehension of our unfolding global reality.

In a bid to mix toughness with humour, Emmanuel Macron had quipped that the G7 might become the … G6. That’s absurd, not least because without the United States, capitalism as we know it (let alone the pitiful G7 gatherings) would disappear from the planet’s face. read more

Source: Jacobin

Anthony Bourdain’s genius was not in the kitchen. His genius was in never mincing words and knowing which side he was on. Asked what he would serve at a summit between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, Bourdain said, “Hemlock.” He told David Duke, “I’d be happy to rearrange your knee or other extremities.” After visiting Cambodia, Bourdain wrote of Henry Kissinger — “that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag” — “you’ll never stop wanting to beat [him] to death with your bare hands.” read more