Canadian complicity with U.S./Zionist genocide did not start in the past year, following the Palestinian Resistance's Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Canada has been an unapologetic member of the Anglo-American Cold War anti-communist offensive which established the state of Israel in the first place. The aim was to serve U.S. domination after World War II against the striving of the peoples of the world for peace, freedom and democracy.

Since then, Canada has played a shameful role by giving unqualified support to the aggressive U.S. military alliance NATO as well as Israeli crimes. Never once has it raised the fact that by creating an apartheid state Israel is in violation of its founding resolution. It has violated the premises of international rule of law and all UN Resolutions which condemn its actions and call on it to abide by these resolutions.

In December 2023, when South Africa filed an application instituting proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the basis that Israel is violating the UN Convention on Genocide and it asked for emergency measures to end the genocide, Canada did not abide by that either even though as a signatory it is duty-bound to do so.

Canada responded on January 12 in a statement by Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly which said: "Canada continues to strongly and unequivocally condemn Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel. Hamas is a listed terrorist entity that continues to explicitly call for the elimination of Jews and the destruction of the state of Israel. Israel has the right to exist and to defend itself from terrorist attacks in accordance with international law."

This is disingenuous indeed. When Canada claims "Hamas is a listed terrorist organization," an impression is created that the entire world condemns Hamas. In fact, the number of countries which have "listed" Hamas as a terrorist organization is very small -- limited to the U.S. and its allies which comprise the G-7, the "Five Eyes" intelligence agencies, NATO and a few others which have been victims of U.S. "colour revolutions." On this list are the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and, of course, Israel. Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the European Union, the Organization of American States and Paraguay are also on this list. That's it, with the addition of countries where from time to time the U.S. manages to impose regimes which come under its control, as in the case of Argentina which designated Hamas a terrorist organization when the reactionary president Javier Milei came to power in December 2023.

The U.S. was the first to designate Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), the sole country to do so, in 1997. Canada listed Hamas as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code in November 2002 after the U.S. unleashed its "War on Terror" in 2001. According to the Criminal Code, it is a criminal offense to knowingly participate in or contribute to any activity of Hamas.

Canada also listed the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and other groups as terrorist organizations under Canadian legislation, which Joly claims is in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001).

Citing the UN Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001) is also disingenuous. This resolution adopted unanimously on September 28, 2001, is a counter-terrorism measure passed following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. It does not list any organization but, among other things, obliged States to criminalize terrorism financing and to establish legal or administrative measures by which to freeze funds and assets of terrorist actors; to suppress the recruitment of members by terrorist groups; to eliminate the supply of weapons to terrorists; and to deny safe havens to terrorists.[1]

Nowhere does UN Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001) list Hamas as a terrorist organization. One could just as well list Canada as a terrorist state for supporting Israeli state terror against the Palestinian people against whom it is committing genocide. That is Canada's travesty of the facts because of the definition of terrorism contained in its Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) which became law in 2001 and which adheres to the U.S./Zionist definition of terrorism.

The Anti-Terrorism Act (2001) amended the Criminal Code to create new terrorism offences and to give police and intelligence agencies new powers to obtain electronic search warrants and to hold investigative hearings and impose recognizance with conditions.

There are two main things wrong with the definition of terrorism that this Act introduced. First, instead of strictly using the definition contained in several international conventions (that highlights the targeting of civilians as the essence of terrorism), the Canadian law expands the definition of "terrorist activity" to mean "an act or omission ... that is committed ... for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause," thus leaving the government free to define an act as "terrorist" according to its own partisan political interests and not the principles of humanity.

Second, the definition of "terrorist activity" in the Canadian law abolishes the notion of state terrorism, leaving the government free to endorse the worst atrocities against a people, such as the ongoing Zionist genocide. The law states that "terrorist activity" does not include "...an act or omission that is committed during an armed conflict and that ... is in accordance with ... the activities undertaken by military forces of a state in the exercise of their official duties ...." This leaves the Canadian government free to support military aggression by any state with impunity, regardless of whether it complies with the principles of humanity.

This definition is disinformation to commit historical fraud by saying that Israel, an occupying power which has violated even its founding resolution, has the right of defend itself but that those waging resistance to occupation are terrorists.

In 2018, with the exception of those under the dictate of the U.S., the members of the United Nations voted to defeat a motion to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization. This is hardly the unified international voice Mélanie Joly and her Canadian fellow officials pretend it to be.

On January 12, Global Affairs Canada issued a statement to justify Canada's non-compliance with the rulings of the ICJ. The statement said: "Canada's unwavering support for international law and the ICJ does not mean we accept the premise of the case brought by South Africa.... Under the UN's 1948 Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide requires the intention to destroy or partly destroy a group because of their nationality, ethnicity, race or religion. Meeting this high threshold requires compelling evidence."

Canada's definition of "evidence" is clearly not that of the ICJ and the majority of UN member states or of the UN itself.

Canada then abstained when the vote took place in the UN General Assembly on September 18 reaffirming the IJC's July 19 advisory opinion demanding an end to Israel's illegal presence in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem within the next year. Canada's position was that: "Canada cannot support a resolution where one party, the state of Israel, is held solely responsible for the conflict. Canada supports Israel's right to live in peace with its neighbours within secure boundaries and recognizes Israel's right to assure its own security. There is no mention in the resolution of the need to end terrorism, for which Israel has serious and legitimate security concerns. Canada continues to support Israel's right to defend itself from terrorism."

Canada has opposed other UN Resolutions in support of the Palestinians. For example on December 7, 2023, Canada was one of seven countries that voted against the UN Resolution "Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan," which passed with an overwhelming majority.

The resolution "Reaffirms that the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan are illegal and an obstacle to peace and economic and social development; ... Reiterates its demand for the immediate and complete cessation of all Israeli settlement activities in all of the Occupied Palestinian Territory...." On the resolution tabled on December 19, 2023 -- "Permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources" -- Canada was one of six countries that voted against the resolution which also passed with an overwhelming majority.

From 2019 to mid-2023 Canada contributed $66.5 million to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In January 2024 it committed another $25 million, but then joined the U.S. and other countries in cutting off funding to the organization based on never-proven allegations by Israel that a dozen UNRWA staff had participated in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. It was only after a huge public outcry denouncing this decision that Canada restored its funding in March 2024.

Canada continues to provide military support for the Israeli genocide. Over the past year it exported weapons worth $30 million directly and indirectly to Israel.

Canada has strenuously opposed the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Meanwhile, it is silent about the investments of Canadian banks (including TD, Scotiabank and the Royal Bank) and pension funds (among them the Canada Pension Plan and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan) in Israeli enterprises and arms manufacturers profiting from the Israeli occupation and genocide. Canadian realtors such as Keller Williams Realty have, with police protection, held events in Canada during the past year to market stolen Palestinian lands.

Canada also enables illegal donations to Israel averaging $250 million annually through some 200 Zionist "charities" operating in Canada which fund the Israeli military and other organizations.

The Israeli government is allowed to freely operate in Canada through agencies such as the Centre for Israeli and Jewish Affairs (CIJA). It can lobby Canadian politicians to champion Israel and call anyone who speaks out against its crimes anti-Semitic, a supporter of terrorism and the like. This foreign interference is not only allowed but encouraged.

State and Media Disinformation

Besides the disinformation of the state about what constitutes terrorism, major Canadian media outlets also play a role in disinforming the public. While suppressing pro-Palestinian voices, the major media outlets deny the war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide that the Zionist state is committing in Gaza and the West Bank and now in Lebanon. They do so by repeating endlessly that Hamas is a terrorist organization and the same about Hezbollah and Iran, among others, while the acts of terror of the U.S./Zionist forces are denied and legitimated.

They also peddle the criminal logic the U.S. used in its wars of destruction during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and then in Iraq -- that it is legitimate to kill civilians when the aim is to eliminate terrorists or terrorist infrastructure.

The crimes the U.S. committed in Iraq, and subsequently in other operations, were horrendous. The entire world rebelled against them, as well as against its torture, black ops and assassinations. Today the peoples of the world are working in concert to hold the U.S. and its accomplices and appeasers accountable for their declaration that all of this is "worth it." The aim of their terrorist actions is to achieve an objective the peoples of the world do not accept, which is to guarantee U.S. hegemony over the peoples of the world.

The exposure and isolation of the U.S. for its crimes of genocide in Gaza and further arming and backing Israel to unleash more has reached a critical point for the U.S. in terms of its strategic plan to dominate all the countries of West Asia and North Africa. The peoples' resistance is holding the U.S./Israeli crimes of genocide to account, and rejecting the support of U.S. yes-men like Canada.

For one year since the U.S/Israeli genocide of Gaza began, many more than the officially identified 42,227 people have been killed and many tens of thousands injured. Canadians from all walks of life have not stopped organizing and standing with the Palestinian people. They are speaking out as one in support of the Resistance, standing on the side of humanity against the U.S./Israeli crimes, confident that it is the Resistance and the support of the peoples of the world which is decisive and that Palestine will be free in spite of the treachery of governments like Canada's.

Note

1. Obligations of Member States under Security Council resolutions:

1) As a prelude to the implementation of Security Council resolutions, it is imperative to address their legal status, or in other words why and to what extent are Member States of the United Nations bound by them. An understanding should be developed about the legal nature of the Charter of the United Nations and the powers entrusted to the Security Council within that document.

2) The Charter of the United Nations is an international treaty that lays the foundational framework of the United Nations. The Charter sets out the Organization's principles, purposes and functions of its principal organs. The Charter was open for signature on June 26, 1945 and came into force on October 24 of that year. As a treaty, the Charter is an instrument of international law that legally binds States parties, which consequently become Member States of the United Nations.

3) In its preamble, the Charter expresses the determination of Member States to establish conditions in which respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained. This determination extends to the obligations arising from the Charter itself. The supremacy of the Charter among international treaties is established under Article 103 of the Charter, which affirms that in the event of a conflict between the obligations of the Members of the United Nations under the Charter and their obligations under any other international agreement, their obligations under the Charter shall prevail.

4) According to the Charter, the Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is the one given the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. Under Article 24 of the Charter, Members of the United Nations confer upon the Security Council this primary responsibility and agree that, in carrying out its duties, the Security Council acts on behalf of the Members. Article 25 of the Charter gives the Security Council powers to adopt decisions, and affirms that Member States agree to accept and carry out these decisions. Security Council decisions are expressed within Security Council resolutions pertaining to issues of which the Council is seized.

5) Chapter VII of the Charter (Articles 39-51) covers actions that the Security Council is authorized to take when it determines the existence of any threats to the peace, breaches of the peace or acts of aggression. In Article 39, the Security Council is given the authority to make recommendations or take decisions. Recommendations and decisions are both expressed in the operative clauses of Security Council resolutions.

According to prevalent legal interpretations, only the Council's decisions are a subject of the commitment laid out in Article 25 of the Charter, and these are denoted by operative clauses that begin with "decides."

A violation by a Member State of a Security Council decision is therefore considered a violation of that Member State's treaty obligations under international law. Security Council decisions are binding even to Member States that are not members of the Security Council, and even to Member States that are in the Council but might have voted against the resolution.

(With files from Government of Canada, Labour for Palestine, United Nations, Just Peace Advocates, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East)

Blaming Iran for Rise in Tensions in Middle East

Following Iran's missile strikes on targets in Israel on October 1, the response from Canada was once again shameful in lockstep with U.S. strategy. This strategy is to help the Zionist state of Israel wipe out the resistance to occupation in Gaza even if it means giving a green light to Israeli genocide of an entire people. It means supporting what they call diplomacy to engineer the aim of maintaining U.S. hegemony over the entire region. Their calls for ceasefires and support or withdrawal of support for the delivery of humanitarian aid are all conditioned by this U.S. aim.

When Iran launched missile strikes on military targets in Israel on October 1, the strikes were in response to Israel's ongoing genocide against the Palestinians, expansion of war into Lebanon, and targeted assassinations of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Abbas Nilforoushan and other leaders in Beirut on September 27. It was also in response to the brazen killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July about which the Security Council of the United Nations has done nothing to stop Israel or its U.S. backer.

Iran invoked Article 51 of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations titled "Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression."

Article 51 states: "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security."

Prime Minister Trudeau who had nothing to say when Israel attacked Iran's sovereignty when it assassinated Haniyeh, speaking about the Iranian response which specifically targeted Israeli intelligence and military assets, said: "We unreservedly condemn Iran's ballistic missile attack against Israel. It is further destabilizing action by this terrorist regime in the region, putting civilians at risk and running the risk of a wider war."

The Prime Minister has based Canada's policy on promoting self-serving U.S. imperialist definitions of what constitutes a terrorist act and on this basis upholding Israel's alleged right to self defence. This is the case even though the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has pointed out it does not have a right to self-defence because it is an occupying power with responsibilities, beginning with its obligation to end the occupation and recognize the Palestinian people's right of return.

This same Prime Minister has never condemned Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people, for which even the ICJ has found it culpable and reminded member states of their responsibility to uphold its rulings.

This is the same Prime Minister who never tires of saying that his government and he himself are the greatest champions of the rights of women but remains silent when thousands upon thousands of women and children are slaughtered by the U.S./Zionist genocide in Gaza in the name of high ideals.

To cover his irresponsible stand, having suggested that it is Iran which is a terrorist state and is provoking war, Trudeau feigned concern saying Canada stands against the war spreading.

"We have to try and do everything we can to avoid a wider war, to protect civilians and to get humanitarian aid into [the] affected region... As an international community, we have to continue to do everything we can to call for peace and stability, which means calling for a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and getting back on track for a two-state solution," Trudeau said.

This is as disingenuous and fraudulent as it gets because all along for the last 76 years, since Canada became one of the first countries to recognize the state of Israel in 1948, it has enabled the Zionist state to massacre Palestinian civilians, destroy their homes and helped armed settlements on Palestinian lands. It has financed the building and maintenance of "Canada Park" which is on the land of destroyed Palestinian villages. Canada continues to send weapons to Israel and encourage business with Israeli high tech companies and others, while the whole world is watching the U.S./Zionist regimes commit genocide in Gaza.

The other cartel parties in the Parliament take the same stand. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre wrote on X: "Horrified by Tehran's latest assault against innocent Israeli civilians with missile barrages and terrorist attacks." He added, "Conservatives support Israel's right to defend itself and defeat the terrorists."

This at a time the entire world sees every day on their television screens and through social media who are the terrorists, and the racist fraud and crimes the members of what has become known as the Genocide Cartel perpetrate by turning truth on its head, presenting themselves as the true members of civilization against barbarian hordes.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh stated: "What's going on in Israel, the fact that they're being bombed by both a terrorist organization like Hezbollah and by Iran, it's deeply concerning ... What we have seen is a complete disregard for innocent lives and we know it is contrary to international law to have collective punishment. The idea that innocent lives are just collateral damage is fundamentally wrong and it violates international law."

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly acknowledged that Israel has vowed that there would be "severe consequences" for Iran. She stated on October 2 that "Canada's role right now, Canada's goal, is to make sure that there's no full-scale war in the Middle East, and so that's why we'll continue to engage diplomatically."

This talk about diplomacy has been revealed to be a mechanism and cover to give the U.S./Zionist forces leeway to complete their genocidal mission, while the U.S. wheels and deals to keep all the countries of the region under its security and political umbrella. In other words, it is part of the U.S. strategy to keep its hegemony over the Arab States in particular as well as others, by getting them implicated in a deal which helps destroy the political, civic and military leadership as freely chosen by the Palestinian people in the creation of a Palestinian state. By seeking to destroy and dislodge Hezbollah, they are seeking the same outcome in Lebanon.

At this time, it is very evident that the way to avert a wider war is for Israel to exit Gaza, stop attacking Lebanon, respect terms for a prisoner exchange and permit the people all the humanitarian aid they need, beginning with food, clean water, medical aid and safe places to live in the coming winter conditions. But Canada is in lock step with the U.S. in creating diversions to green-light Israel's "severe consequences."

Canada will never be forgiven so long as it is complicit with such crimes against humanity.

For his part, Canada's ambassador to the UN Bob Rae, speaking his nonsense which blames Iran for tensions in the Middle East, told CTV News: "This [the Resistance] is an operation that is run out of Iran. I have been saying this for a long time. Iran is very much leading the charge and using their proxies, their proxies in Syria, their proxies in Lebanon and their proxies in Gaza. That has led to the attack by Hamas which in turn completely dramatically transformed the situation from a security point of view."

To cover up Canada's refusal to recognize the right of the Palestinian people to determine their own Palestinian state without outside interference, and that the current state of Israel is a racist apartheid state responsible for untold crimes against the Palestinian people and population within Israel itself, Rae noted that there is no "military solution" to the conflict and that a "two-state solution" in Palestine is "fundamental" for Canada.

Canada's repetition about a two-state solution is hollow indeed given the racist apartheid nature of the state of Israel which will not permit the existence of an independent Palestinian state. Rae also argued that it is difficult for Israel to engage in de-escalating the situation when the "other parties show no signs, zero signs of being willing to de-escalate." In other words, the U.S./Israeli genocide to eradicate the Palestinian people and create what it calls Greater Israel under its rule, is not the cause of the problems in the region.

Canadians have stood and continue to stand with the Palestinian people in support of their just cause. What Canadians stand for is shown in the hundreds of actions Canadians and Quebeckers have carried out in the past year, in defiance of their criminalization by the state, politicians and media. They will continue to do so until the liberation of Palestine.

(With files from Hill Times, CBC and CTV News.)

U.S. Confirms that U.S./Zionist War Crimes in Lebanon Are Part of U.S. Strategy

The remarks of U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller at a press briefing October 8 confirm that the U.S. is behind the Israeli push to commit whatever "collateral damage" it sees fit to eliminate Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as Hamas in Gaza.

"We do support Israel launching these incursions to degrade Hezbollah's infrastructure so ultimately we can get a diplomatic resolution," Miller said. He added, "What we want to see come out of this situation, ultimately, is Lebanon able to break the grip that Hezbollah has had on the country -- more than a grip, break the stranglehold that Hezbollah has had on the country and remove Hezbollah veto over a president."

According to the Reuters correspondent, "Washington believes military pressure (i.e. Israeli aerial and ground assaults on Lebanon) could force Hezbollah to put down arms and pave the way for the election of a new government in Lebanon that would oust the powerful militia movement, which has been a significant player in Lebanon for decades. U.S. officials say the conversations with parties to achieve these goals can take place as the fighting continues, even though analysts warn the conflict greatly increases the risk of a broader war, particularly as the region awaits Israel's response to Iran's missile strike."

The reports in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on what Secretary of State Antony Blinken is up to corroborate this analysis that the aim of the U.S./Zionist offensive is to wipe out political and civilian infrastructure which is not under their control.

During the past week, the WSJ reports, "Blinken called the leaders of Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to ask them to support the election of a new Lebanese president. Senior White House official Amos Hochstein has also told Arab officials that the weakening of Hezbollah by Israeli attacks should be viewed as an opportunity to potentially break a political impasse. The country's political parties have been unable to agree on a new president since the previous leader, Michel Aoun, left office at the end of his term in 2022."

The WSJ writes, "The U.S. initiative hinges on Lebanese leaders including Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, the leader of another Shiite faction and a conduit to Hezbollah in cease-fire negotiations, who will be needed to bring Lebanon's political factions together to elect a new president." It notes that "Mikati and Berri last week said they supported the election of a new president, but also expressed appreciation for Hezbollah in its battle against Israeli forces. Hezbollah's de facto leader, Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem, this week rejected calls for a political rearrangement while the war with Israel is continuing."

This is not in fact what Qassem said. He said: "We support the political initiative undertaken by Parliament Speaker Berri under the title of reaching a ceasefire and after reaching a ceasefire where diplomacy will play a good part in this, all the other details will be discussed and through discussions we will reach the best resolutions and decisions."

In other words, the U.S. is doing everything in its power to avert another foreign failure in the Middle East. It is once again maneuvering with the Arab officials to maintain its hegemony over them, in a manner that they can preserve their relations with the U.S. while sidestepping the demand of the peoples of the region for an end to the occupation of Palestine and for the peoples to exercise control over their own decision-making power and defend their sovereignty.

By keeping the peoples of the region out of the equation, the U.S. hopes to end its isolation, in the region and international institutions like the UN. By raising the issue of a ceasefire and claiming support for a humanitarian solution to the disastrous human plight the U.S./Zionist campaign of terror has created, they hope to get Arab support and lessen resistance of the peoples of the region.

But such claims cannot hide the U.S. aim to wipe out political and civilian infrastructure and much more, including governing institutions, hospitals, schools, places of worship, etc. in Gaza and Lebanon that do not accept U.S. dictate. Such efforts are not new; it is a matter of seeing how it is playing out at this time, on the eve of the U.S. presidential election which will take place on November 5.

A significant section of the U.S. ruling class wants a truce at this time so that U.S. hegemony can be strengthened. This section needs the Biden administration to score a "win" so that the Kamala Harris campaign, now favored, can prevail over the campaign of Donald Trump. They need to affirm that their "rules based international order" actually functions and consider Harris is the one to maintain it and overcome U.S. isolation. It is crucial for the U.S. to have at least the appearance of maintaining its hegemony over the entire Middle East region at a time it is threatened by the actions of the Resistance Movement to free Palestine.

In this regard, the U.S. with its allies such as Canada in lockstep, is playing the terrorism card to the hilt. It is playing on all the liberal prejudices at the base of the arrangements of the European nation state which the European powers imposed onto countries in the region in the 20th century. These arrangements have been propped up and molded by the U.S. since World War II. The U.S. considers it impermissible for any nation to sort out its political arrangements and system to favour the people and in a manner which does not submit to U.S. dictate. They demand that instead they adopt racist, anti-worker, anti-people and anti-communist structures designed to keep the working class and people out of power. Such regimes do not tolerate dissent. Their institutions operate through police powers controlled by whatever private interests wield the executive powers and their judicial systems.

The terrorism card is the one which claims that any resistance to U.S. hegemony is terrorism, while the terrorist actions of the U.S., Israel and those that permit them are justified in the name of protecting stability, human rights and democracy.

In this regard, in recent times, the U.S. crimes against humanity were enshrined in U.S. law since the fall of the former Soviet Union and the U.S. striving to become the world's hegemon became paramount. U.S. President George W. Bush launched the U.S. "War on Terror " in 2001. Under its auspices every crime possible against humanity has been committed and the countries of the G-7 including Canada sooner or later fell in line. The U.S. and its allies subsequently imposed these laws internationally citing UN Security Council resolutions which opposed financing terrorist organizations and other such pretexts. On this basis, the U.S. declared various countries to be rogue states, members of an axis of evil and promoters of state terrorism. It imposed brutal sanctions and their enforcement and this is called a rules-based international order.

The aim of destroying political and civilian infrastructure not to the liking of the U.S. was similarly behind the Oslo Accords (1993) and Camp David Agreements (2000) which gave a green light to the Zionist occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and sought to make the occupation and dispossession of the Palestinian people permanent.

This is the status quo that the Al-Aqsa Flood operation has blocked while opening a path forward for Palestine and the region. A life and death fight is now taking place to end the occupation of Palestine once and for all. At its heart is the need to condemn loud and clear attempts to get away with murder by claiming the Resistance to occupation is terrorist while the U.S. is the "indispensable nation" without whose "leadership" no solutions are possible.

U.S. Presidential Election

Hopeless Rhetoric about Peaceful
Transition of Power

– Kathleen Chandler –

A feature of the U.S. presidential election campaign is the concern that the election will not give rise to a peaceful transition of power in the United States. Providing a peaceful transition of power is a mainstay on which the legitimacy of the liberal democratic institutions rests. But this is precisely what eludes the United States which is wracked in factional fights among the narrow private interests holding power, for which elections no longer provide a reprieve. The insurrection of January 6, 2021 provided the proof of this at a time foreign wars were no longer a sufficient distraction.

Far from elections being a method to reach a temporary truce among the rulers, to be followed with deal making within the Congress and other fora, they have become a platform to engage in the factional fighting in a manner which is tantamount to a civil war, but not yet a violent one on a national scale -- something the rulers hope to avoid.

The factions vying to seize the presidential power in the November election both speak in the name of "the people" but their aim is to seize the Office of the President so as to concentrate even more power in their hands. Presidential power is to control the opposing factions while attempting to keep a U.S.-dominated international "rules-based order" in place and repress resistance in the U.S. and worldwide.

Opposing factions exist within the military and civilian bureaucracy and within and between the narrow private business interests, as well as between and within the federal and state governments, federal police and intelligence agencies and those on the state level. This is evident as retired generals and admirals line up behind Trump or Harris and battles with the states rage over refugees and abortion. Significantly, the factions include what is classified as the largest faction -- that comprised of the peoples of the United States, altogether left out of the arrangements which wield that state power.

While the election occurs November 5, the president is not sworn into office until January of 2025 and only after Congress certifies the votes of the Electoral College. Kamala Harris, as vice president, presides over the certification, just as Mike Pence did in 2020.

As events during the last election show, it is not only during elections that the factional fighting is evident but after it takes place and before the inauguration. That is when having a peaceful transition of power faces direct challenges. Already Donald Trump on the campaign trail repeatedly raises his narrative about not respecting the results of the vote if he does not win. In part in response to this, on October 4 President Biden said of the election, "I'm confident it will be free and fair," but "I don't know whether it will be peaceful."

The issue of the transition of power also came up during the debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris held on September 10, and again in the vice-presidential debate between Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz held on October 2. It is referred to repeatedly in campaign speeches as well, especially those of Harris whose entire campaign is imbued with the claim that to restore the functioning of the democratic institutions and ensure a peaceful transition of power, it is necessary to vote for her and defeat Trump.

The comments are often limited to references to January 6, 2021, when the Trump forces organized to not recognize the results of the federal election which declared Joe Biden to be the winner. The January 6 attempted coup and insurrection was organized against the Congress on the day it was certifying the vote in favor of Biden, with Trump's Vice President Mike Pence presiding.

To this day Trump repeats that he did not lose that election and he continues to defend the January 6 protesters and his own role in inciting them for which he claims presidential immunity. For her part, Harris calls January 6 the "worst attack on democracy" since the Civil War.

Missing Information

Three main problems get left out of the discourse on the need for peaceful transition. One is the fact that the existing institutions, including elections, are dysfunctional and beyond repair. The peoples of the United States and the entire world recognize this.

Another main problem is that the massive military and civilian bureaucracies are divided and the means used thus far to unite them are failing to do so.

The third is the role of the people in a situation where many are rejecting the failed system and organizing alternatives. They will not so easily line up behind either Trump or Harris in a situation where transition is in doubt. As the largest faction, their pursuit of an independent political path is greatly feared by the rulers. Harris is being brought forward in large part to divert this direction and quell any revolt. This attempt has already been rejected by many.

Protest in Kenosha, September 16 "No Votes for Genocide"

In terms of uniting the military bureaucracy, one means to do so are foreign wars to rally the troops behind the commander-in-chief. One foreign war after the other has been waged since the collapse of the former Soviet Union to secure U.S. world hegemony. Far from uniting the bureaucracy, the contradictions have sharpened. One U.S. administration after the other has failed to achieve such unity. This is due to the complete takeover of the state power by narrow private interests which by definition wage turf wars without let up. It also comes from serious differences on the strategic and geo-political policies the U.S. should adopt which, more often than not, also have the concerns and aims of narrow private interests behind them.

A contributing factor is the alternative alliances striving to make headway, such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and others) which make the U.S. wheeling and dealing to subject nations to its dictate an ever more difficult and complicated process.

Far from uniting the military and civilian bureaucracies, how the U.S. is conducting itself in foreign affairs has thus far isolated it further, and further eroded the credibility and legitimacy of its institutions and values it claims are democratic and superior to those of all others. The wars of destruction it resorts to are acts of desperation to control the human productive forces which are out of the control of the narrow private interests which favour the U.S. striving for global hegemony. The U.S./Zionist genocide in Gaza and now Lebanon are the most destructive of all, despite the unprecedented levels of crimes committed in previous wars. This is partly because they are conducted for all the world to see.

U.S. claims that the U.S. is the "indispensable nation" in the world which dictates all matters related to war and peace are not accepted by any other country, even those subject to its control as in the case of the members of the European Union. In Canada, despite the subjugation of the Canadian state and ruling class, the people do not agree with such things.

Far from uniting the massive civilian and military bureaucracies, the U.S. wars and refusal to sort out any problem on a political basis using diplomatic channels have damaged the reputation of the U.S. and its democratic credentials beyond repair. The U.S. is broadly considered to be responsible for causing millions of lives lost, refugee and humanitarian crises of unprecedented proportions, the worsening of the environmental crises as well as the commission of war crimes and crimes of genocide.

The U.S. and its Genocide Cartel of countries which tout its so-called rules-based international order violate the international rule of law with impunity and are desperate to make impunity the new normal which no people anywhere concede. On the contrary, as in Palestine, the people are waging a life and death battle to settle scores with the U.S. democracy under whose aegis all the crimes against humanity are being committed.

The ability of the U.S. to impose its "rules-based international order," where its rules are the basis for the order, is a main concern at present. The growing resistance by the Palestinians, those supporting Palestine like Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, and including Iran's independent stand, contention from China and Russia, various international moves to remove the dollar as world currency for trade, all point to this difficulty. Failure to secure a peaceful transition would further weaken U.S. efforts at domination.

At present it appears the rulers are favoring Harris as best able to avert open civil war and maintain their "rules-based order." She is working to rally the divided forces under the banner of defending the Constitution against "enemies foreign and domestic," while also holding the people hostage to the notion that she can bring change.

But her success is far from a done deal. The absence of a peaceful transition of power through elections means the many military, intelligence and policing agencies -- federal, state, and local, all highly armed -- could divide their loyalties if their candidate is not the next Commander-in-Chief. Given the possibility of open violent civil war among the factions, these divisions put in doubt how the military and policing agencies will line up, posing grave dangers to the peoples at home and abroad.

It also provides an opening for the peoples to advance their solutions, strengthen their independent organizing and refuse to conciliate with the rulers, their genocide and destruction. It is the ensemble of human relations, humans to humans and humans to nature and what they reveal that determines the existing order, not U.S. rules. And it is these relations the peoples have the ability and necessity to change by creating new structures based on recognizing that all members of the polity are equal as are all countries in the world, big or small. Their sovereign right to determine their own present and future must be respected on the basis of a process which involves them in making decisions on all matters pertaining to the direction of the economy, war and peace, crime and punishment.

Vain Attempts to Preserve the Union When
Anarchy Has Been Raised to Authority

– Voice of Revolution –

When anarchy reigns as it does in the United States, it is because narrow private interests which operate on a supranational basis, not within the confines of a demarcated territory, have seized control of the state power and all its institutions, agencies and armed and police forces at its disposal. Because of their inherent striving to control everything and dominate, the people are deprived of decision-making power at every level and all decision-making power is now hotly contested by the most powerful interests. These powerful private interests often operate on the basis of coalitions and cartels. They sometimes belong to more than one at a time even if they compete against themselves, so long as this brings them windfall profits and greater control over spheres of interest and human and natural resources. The method they use to sort out all problems nationally and internationally is violence.

This is a very serious matter of concern in this U.S. presidential election. Simply put, neither does Might Make Right, nor does suppression resolve any problem as the experience with the U.S. "democracy" shows. But what is significant is to look at how the U.S. is currently intervening domestically to suppress the resistance of the U.S. working class and people to its anti-social offensive and internationally to make sure it maintains its position as "indispensable nation." It will allow only its prescription for how to deal with the dangers in which its striving for world hegemony has plunged the world, as we are seeing currently in how it deals with the U.S./Zionist failure to eradicate the Palestinian people and now, its invasion of Lebanon while keeping Iran and other countries in check.

A state of anarchy exists because the democratic institutions designed to provide processes to sort out differences within the ruling factions and between them and the masses of the people so as to restore peace when conflicts arise, no longer function. It indicates the failure of the system based on such dysfunctional institutions because the public authority which they were created to preserve has been discarded in favour of imposing schemes of the narrow private interests they claim are in the national interest -- something nobody believes.

Once anarchy is raised to authority, everyone has to fend for themselves and there are no limitations on what the narrow private interests can do except those imposed by the resistance of the working class and peoples at home and abroad.

As the destruction of the public authority takes its toll, with no institutional means to sort out conflicts and reach political solutions, the use of force takes over. The clash between the Conditions in which the people live and work and of life itself and the Authority exists independent of anyone's will. People are born into a society as it exists, with the relations that exist. The explosion of the human productive powers, human energy, in this modern period cannot be contained or controlled by the existing systems and their "law and order," whether within the country or internationally.

Attempts by police powers to violently and through the use of courts and armed force suppress the conflicting interests cause tremendous human and material damage. We see this all around us everywhere, with egregious crimes being committed by the U.S. and its "allies." The consequences are so extreme these countries are today seen as comprising a "Genocide Cartel."

The Need for Modern Democratic Institutions

But the consciousness of the people arising out of the recognition of the necessity for change leads to the conclusion that the solution lies in creating modern democratic institutions. A modern democracy must be informed by modern political thought consistent with the call of history and philosophical considerations which put the human factor/social consciousness at the centre of all endeavors. Today fidelity cannot be limited to a cause only but must be based on fidelity to the ensemble of relations between humans and humans and humans and nature and what they reveal, which is the need for the working class and people to establish their own political power.

Human rights and the institutions to provide them with a guarantee must be defined by the people themselves. This is a battle led by the working class in its striving to bring the human productive forces under control with the aim of constituting the nation in its own image and putting decision making in the hands of the people. Try as they might, this striving cannot be held back by the police powers of the U.S. president whose main job is to "preserve the Union" at home and its own rules-based system and role of "indispensable nation" abroad.

Russia, Mexico, all the countries in West Asia and North Africa and all of Africa as well as the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean -- everyone and everything is part of U.S. calculations to preserve the United States and its role as "indispensable nation."

This is what we see playing out in the competition between the machinery of Kamala Harris and the machinery of Donald Trump to occupy the Office of the President of the United States and become Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

This fierce competition to win the presidency includes the collusion and contention within and between the Office of the President, the branches of the military, the intelligence agencies and the many agencies of Homeland Security.

The southern border alone has Customs and Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. troops and Texas National Guard, and all are armed to the teeth. The federal forces clash with parallel powers in the hands of the governors of the 50 states which also compete with one another.

Furthermore, cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angles have large armies of their own, with drones, helicopters, tanks, and automatic weapons. These various forces and states and regions can line up and divide along various lines, making open violent civil war within the United States unpredictable and dangerous.

Just as the various contending forces at the federal, state, county, and city levels have their own armed forces, so too do the various contending factions in the private domain. Thus, preserving the Union is not possible without the dictatorship of cartels and coalitions comprised of the most powerful against everyone else, especially the peoples.

Forging such cartels and coalitions is what the U.S. presidential election is all about. Who will win is determined by which cartel and coalitions prevail at the time the votes of the Electoral College are counted and the vote is certified. Money, power, threats of invasions, acts of genocide, assassinations -- everything is being thrown at the endeavor to come out on top in the hopes of bringing all the unruly forces under control both at home and abroad.

Who will win the presidency in large measure revolves around who the U.S. ruling class thinks best serves its interests at this time and what those interests are. A big effort was made to nominate Kamala Harris for president and to promote her nationally now on the grounds that she will create a less volatile situation than Donald Trump. Making life less unpredictable is crucial to U.S. attempts to control human productive forces both at home and abroad -- or destroy what cannot be controlled.

All of this makes the rhetoric about a peaceful transition of power following this election not a plan but a threat.

How will this play out? Harris appears to be emerging as the champion of the rulers to block the people and prevent open civil war at this time. Will she succeed? What role can the people play when the outcome of the vote is not determined by the vote count itself but by those with positions of power and privilege and their set up of selecting a champion and disempowering the people?

What is certain is that the striving of the U.S. rulers to preserve the Union on the basis of the police powers provided the Office of the President by the current Constitution and using violations of rule of law both nationally and internationally will not enable them to escape the call of history. The call of history beckons the people to become rulers themselves, by creating modern institutions which put the interests of the peoples at home and abroad in first place.

The path ahead is sure to be strewn with more injustices and carnage but so too is the resistance of the peoples becoming more experienced and capable. It is their determination to build a future by upholding the rights of all which we will see prevail even as events continue to unfold in a manner which goes against the peoples' striving for peace, freedom and democracy.

Divisions in Military and Civilian Bureaucracy Continue to Deepen

As the final days of the U.S. presidential election draw near, the divisions within the military and civilian bureaucracy in the United States continue to deepen. Significant numbers of retired generals and admirals are publicly coming out in favour of either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.

On October 1, a group of more than 200 retired admirals and generals, known as Flag Officers 4 America, gave their support to Trump, calling him a "proven leader who will secure our border, repulse our adversaries, revitalize our economy and keep America safe and strong." They advocate increased "military preparedness," and warn that the U.S. could lose in conflicts with adversaries like China.

Simultaneously, a group called the National Security Leaders for America (NSL4A), came out in support of Harris. NSL4A is said to be bipartisan with 741 "national security leaders, comprised of over 230 general and flag officers, including 15 retired four-star generals and admirals," former cabinet members and ambassadors. Formed in 2021, after Trump's attempted January 6 coup, its mission is to unite the military and civilian bureaucracy behind defending the existing institutions and countering "growing threats to our democratic institutions, norms, and processes."

This group said Harris is "the best -- and only -- presidential candidate in this race who is fit to serve as our commander-in-chief." Their narrative focuses on the issue of loyalty to the president as commander-in-chief using the quote from the military oath of office concerning defending "the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." They describe Trump as an unpatriotic enemy of the Constitution.

This is language used in a civil war to determine who is with the Union and who is a traitor to the Union, not only within the military and many policing agencies but among the people as well. NSL4A followed the lead of Hillary Clinton who invoked this military oath at the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago in August to railroad a unanimous nomination of Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate for the presidency. By saying Trump is an "autocratic" enemy of the Constitution, they are making sure the military lines up behind Harris, hoping to forestall a Trump challenge and secure transition.

But as an attempt to make dysfunctional democratic institutions function, this approach is to no avail. The rulers as a whole want to forestall open violent factional fighting and all out civil war. But whether this attempt to rally the bureaucracy to portray Trump as a traitor, to be branded and blocked from power as such, succeeds is not a foregone conclusion.

The deepening divisions within the military and civilian bureaucracy raise the serious concern about how the various military and policing agencies will act if their particular candidate is not given the position of Commander-in-Chief in the upcoming November presidential election.

Canada's Warmongering in the Asia Pacific

Stepped-Up Involvement in War Preparations

– Philip Fernandez –

Canada's warmongering and genocidal foreign policy is a matter for serious concern. From September 9 to 14, Bill Blair, Canada's Minister of Defence, visited the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Japan. With Canada being an integral part of the U.S. war machine, Blair's visit was part of U.S. calculations in the Asia Pacific, especially focused on political, economic and military contention with China. Another main aim is to target the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), to remove it as a block to U.S. aims to dominate the entire Korean Peninsula and use it as a base to threaten China and Russia.

To justify its presence, Canada presents a fraudulent account of history to claim it is part of the international rule of law upheld by the UN Charter. A Department of National Defence (DND) press release concerning Blair's September visit to Asia states, "Canada has been involved in the security of the Korean Peninsula since Canada's participation in the Korean War in 1950. Since that time, Canada has maintained a permanent presence in the United Nations Command to uphold the Armistice Agreement."

Not a word about the U.S.-led aggression against the Korean people in the 1950-53 war, or how that war was conducted using carpet bombing, germ warfare and by committing horrendous crimes against the Korean people. And so too since then, the U.S. has refused to sign a peace treaty and Canada is also endangering peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Canada's use of the term Indo-Pacific is a contrivance meant to extend the area beyond the Asia Pacific. The call for a "free and open Indo-Pacific region" has come into vogue amongst NATO countries to couch their nefarious aims. Blair's visit to these two countries is part of U.S. plans to dominate the region, which includes Operation Horizon, "the Canadian Armed Force's mission to implement the defence elements of Canada's Indo-Pacific Strategy by increasing Canada's military presence in the region, allowing for more engagement, cooperation, and collaboration."[1]

Japan, like the ROK, is a NATO partner, as well as home base to the U.S. 7th Fleet which prowls the Asia Pacific.

Within these machinations, the governments of the ROK and Japan, whose peoples have the misfortune of paying for 25,000 and 55,000 U.S. troops on their soil respectively, are increasingly being called on by the U.S. to join with it to formalize a tripartite war alliance akin to an Asian NATO.

Involvement in Korean Peninsula

Far from contributing to peace on the Korean Peninsula, Canada's involvement in Korea continues its membership in the U.S.-led alliance that brutalized the Korean people after World War II and divided their nation. This alliance continues to be the greatest threat to peace in the region.

During his time in Korea, Blair's activities included a visit to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). He also met with Canadian Armed Forces personnel serving with the "United Nations Command" (UNC). The U.S.-led UNC was established during the Korean War to give a fig leaf of legitimacy to U.S. aggression when the war began in 1950, and it continues to serve this purpose.

Blair was also there on behalf of arms makers, specifically to welcome the purchase of 40 Canadian-built Bell helicopters by the ROK military, and in that vein, "met with ROK Deputy Minister of Defense Sung Il to discuss opportunities for further industrial collaboration."

On September 10, Blair, along with his Korean counterpart Kim Yong-hyun, co-hosted the second annual ROK-UNC Member Countries Defence Ministerial Meeting. This meeting was an exercise in disinformation and historical fraud, for purposes of continuing the crimes against the Korean people and the division of the Korean nation.

The 17 countries that make up UNC issued an outrageous joint statement from this meeting that totally contravenes the aim and spirit of the July 27, 1953 Armistice Agreement.[2] The U.S. was forced to sign this agreement after its occupation of Korea was nearly defeated by the Korean People's Army and Chinese volunteers. The aim of the agreement was for the DPRK and the U.S. to sign a permanent peace treaty to officially end the war. Instead, the U.S. has sought revenge against the DPRK for more than 70 years, while imposing its troops on the Koreans living in the ROK.

The joint statement says of the agreement, "The UNC Member States reaffirmed that the spirit and commitments of the 1953 Armistice Agreement continues to be necessary for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula today. In particular, the defense ministers and representatives acknowledged the roles of UNC, UNC Member States, and the ROK as the host nation in managing, implementing, respecting, and enforcing the Armistice Agreement. They concurred that the Armistice Agreement is an effective mechanism for maintaining the cessation of hostilities and ensuring peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula."

No mention is made of the refusal of the U.S. to negotiate in good faith on any front and its stepping up of war preparations against the DPRK, and that these are the source of instability and danger of war on the Korean Peninsula.

Koreans denounce the UNC and call for its dismantling outside the UNC meeting in Seoul,
September 10, 2024.

Protest at Seoul Security Dialogue opposes ROK-Japan military acquisition and cross-servicing agreement.

On September 11, Minister Blair addressed the Seoul Defence Dialogue, where he spouted nonsense about the DPRK's nuclear deterrent. As if Canada has the right to interfere in the affairs of the peoples of the countries which fall within the ambit of the Asia Pacific, Blair arrogantly lectured the DPRK on which countries it can and cannot have relations with. Similarly, the DND press release also states that Blair "expressed concern at China's efforts to undermine freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, including its dangerous and destabilizing actions against Philippine vessels."

Canada's role to ensure "freedom of navigation in the South China Sea" is evident in Blair's hypocritical announcement later in his trip "that from September to October 2024, Canada will deploy a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) CP-140 Aurora Air Detachment to Japan under Operation NEON, which is the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) contribution to the multinational effort to monitor the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions imposed against the DPRK."

Operation NEON, Canada's contribution to a naval blockade against the DPRK, lacks any basis in international law and is tantamount to piracy on the high seas.

Relations with Japan

On September 13, Canada's Minister of Defence Bill Blair met with Japan's Minister of Defense Kihara Minoru to "discuss defence and security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, operational cooperation between Canada and Japan, and progress on initiatives under the Canada-Japan Action Plan for contributing to a free and open Indo-Pacific region."

This plan dates back to October 2022, not long before Canada released its "Indo-Pacific Strategy" at the end of November 2022. Covering up the fact that the U.S./NATO war in Ukraine is caused by U.S./NATO expansion to threaten and isolate Russia, Canada's strategy was touted as necessary due to a "sense of urgency that Russia's aggression against Ukraine would have serious and enormous repercussions not only for Europe but also for the international community as a whole, and undermine universal values such as freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, as well as the foundation of the rules-based international order."[3]

Blair's trip also clearly exposed the push for the aggressive NATO alliance to have "interoperability" with the militaries of Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK). This is a contradiction with the pacifist content of Japan's constitution which says that its military is only to be deployed for self-defence. It shows that the U.S./NATO have no qualms about collaborating with the Japanese militarists, who have never shown remorse for the brutal crimes of the Japanese Imperial Army throughout Asia.

Canada's Department of National Defence press release states:

"Ministers Blair and Kihara welcomed the growing cooperation between our countries' militaries. This summer, the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force participated in the U.S.-led Exercise PACIFIC VANGUARD alongside the ROK and U.S. navies. In addition to engaging in high-end warfighting scenarios to enhance their skills and interoperability in maritime, anti-submarine and air operations, PACIFIC VANGUARD is an opportunity for like-minded nations to strengthen personal and professional relationships with some of our closest partners. Most recently, from September 6-8, the RCN and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force conducted Exercise KADEX in the Timor Sea, which focused on strengthening interoperability between our two navies."

Defence Minister Blair's visit to the ROK and Japan underscores the need for Canadians and Quebeckers to oppose Canada's role in U.S.-led warmongering in the Asia Pacific. They are stoking conflict to serve U.S. hegemonic aims that threaten the security and well-being of the peoples of the region and of the world.

Besides making amends for Canada's role in the Korean war and its ongoing role in the division of Korea, the anti-war organizing of Canadians and Quebeckers is a contribution to world peace. We share a common struggle with the peoples of Korea and Japan, who are also striving for a world based on peaceful relations, mutual benefit and friendship. They are fighting to extricate their countries from the U.S. war machine.

September 19, 2024 protest involving 2,700 people in Tokyo, Japan to oppose the war policies of the Japanese government, the latest of ongoing actions held on the 19th of each month.

Notes

1. See "Operation Horizon," Department of National Defence.

2. Seventeen countries presently make up the UNC: Australia, Belgium, Colombia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Thailand, Türkiye, the UK and the U.S.

3. See "Canada-Japan Action Plan for contributing to a free and open Indo-Pacific region," Government of Canada Backgrounder, October 20, 2022.

Overtures to Join Australia-UK-U.S. Military Bloc

People in Sydney, Australia oppose the AUKUS military bloc, March 28, 2024.

During Defence Minister Bill Blair's recent trip to Japan, it came to light that Canada is making overtures to join the Australia-UK-U.S. (AUKUS) military bloc that has the expressed aim of military confrontation with China. Established in 2021, its initial goal was for Australia to acquire nuclear submarines from the U.S. at the cost of AUD$358 billion. Peace-loving people in Australia have actively opposed AUKUS and its aim of aggression toward China since it came into being.

A September 13 report from Reuters states, "Canada is in discussions about joining an expanded AUKUS deal between the U.S., Britain, and Australia formed to counter China's growing military influence in the Asia Pacific region, Canadian Defence Minister Bill Blair said.

"Canada has said it wants to join a second pillar of AUKUS that will collaborate on new military technologies, including artificial intelligence and quantum computing, but has not so far revealed any details of those talks.

"'There have been important discussions about processes and platforms on a project-specific basis on where other nations, including Japan and ourselves, might participate,' Blair said in an interview in Tokyo where he met his Japanese counterpart Kihara Minoru.

"'I would respectfully wait until they've come to their determination, but I'm very optimistic,' he said."

As part of Canada's subservience to NATO aims, Canada is increasing its military spending, thus Reuters reports:

"Canada is looking for a bigger security role in Asia and has made forging deeper ties with Japan and south Korea a priority. As its defence commitments expand at home and overseas the country is expanding military spending.

"'Next year, my defence budget will rise by 27 per cent over this year, and, frankly, in the next three or four years, our defence spending will triple,' Blair said."

A subsequent Reuters report stated:

"AUKUS partners Australia, Britain and the United States said on [September 18] they are in discussions with Canada, Japan and New Zealand about potential collaboration on defence technology projects.

"'We are consulting with Canada, New Zealand, and the Republic of Korea to identify possibilities for collaboration on advanced capabilities under AUKUS Pillar II,' the leaders said in a joint statement to mark the third AUKUS anniversary."

U.S./NATO Proxy War in Ukraine

Dangerous U.S./NATO Provocations Against Russia

– Nick Lin –

Toronto, July 11, 2024

In the face of a deteriorating situation facing its proxy Ukraine, the U.S. and its NATO war alliance are becoming more blatant in directly attacking Russia, while still pretending to merely support Ukraine without directly intervening themselves. However their direct involvement is increasingly overt as they continue to try to rescue the situation so that it goes in their favour, not in favour of Russia.

On September 9, the Biden administration sent a classified report to Congress on its strategy in Ukraine. The report was submitted months after a June deadline mandated in the U.S.$61 billion aid bill passed in late April.

European Union officials stated at the time that "Biden appears to be on the verge of clearing the way for Ukraine to use long-range missiles as long as it doesn't use arms provided by the U.S.," CNN reported.

On September 13, U.S. President Biden met with the new UK's warmonger-in-chief Prime Minister Keir Starmer. One of Starmer's aims in the meeting was reportedly to press Biden to authorize use of British Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles deep into Russian territory. The Biden administration responded saying that such authorization is "in the works."

Despite the fact that Canada has no long-range missiles in Ukraine for which to provide authorization, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, ever the cardboard cutout, said to reporters on September 13 that he fully supports Ukraine using long-range weaponry against Russia. Trudeau, in utter denial of his direct responsibility and that of his government in the U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine being waged "to the last Ukrainian," claimed that Russia is trying to "deeply destabilize" the international "rules-based order" and added: "That's why Canada and others are unequivocal that Ukraine must win this war against Russia."

On September 14, the European Parliament voted in favour of supporting Ukraine's ability to target Russian sites with NATO weapons.

Ukraine has been armed by the U.S. with numerous missile/long-range strike systems. These include the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) with a range of up to 300 kilometres; Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range munitions that convert unguided bombs into precision-guided munitions with an 80-kilometre range; the Miniature Air-Launched Decoy (MALD) equipped to jam radar; and High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARM), that are fired from the air and target ground-based radar stations, with a range of up to 300 kilometres. The U.S. is reportedly also considering sending the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) system to Ukraine. These cruise missiles are armed with a 450 kilogram armour-piercing warhead, and can be fired from distances of 370 to 925 kilometres away, depending on the variant.

On September 25, Biden unveiled over $8 billion in military aid for Ukraine, emphasizing that the support is aimed at helping it "win the war" with Russia. The aid includes the first delivery of the Joint Standoff Weapon, a precision-guided glide bomb with a range of up to 130 kilometres.

Ukraine's Stillborn "Victory Plan"

Biden made the announcement just ahead of receiving the U.S. puppet president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to discuss the latter's much touted "Victory Plan." No details of that plan have been officially announced as yet, however the Wall Street Journal reported "senior U.S. and European officials knowledgeable of the broad outlines of the plan say it offers no clear path to a Ukraine victory, particularly as Russian forces make slow but steady gains on the battlefield."

A centrepiece of the plan, according to the Wall Street Journal, requires the U.S. to give Ukraine the green light to use the weapons as it sees fit. This is deliberately misleading because what Zelensky is proposing is that the U.S. take on the deployment, targeting and control of long range missiles to be fired from Ukraine at unspecified targets in Russia. Ukraine does not possess the expertise nor the technical capacity to do this on its own even if the U.S. gave "permission" for Ukraine to use these weapons "as it sees fit."

Dmitri Kovalevich, writing for Al Mayadeen, states that "One of the points of Zelensky's new 'victory plan' is for NATO to extend a formal invitation to Ukraine to join it." However, it is still the case that the U.S. and Germany at least do not support NATO membership for Ukraine. Kovalevich notes that "Outgoing NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg told a farewell event organized in his honour in Germany on September 19 that there will be no peace in Ukraine until and unless Kiev becomes a NATO member. But he added that NATO countries currently have no consensus on conditions and dates for such an invitation."

The same writer also points out that "In early September, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration, Olha Stefanyshyna, boldly declared that Ukraine should only join NATO on the condition that its 1991 borders be recognized and enshrined. Many other Ukrainian officials still voice this forlorn hope. This is highly provocative to Russian ears and also to the citizens of former Ukraine territories, notably Crimea and Donbass. There, the population has endured more than 10 years of military threats and economic sanctions and blockades by Ukraine following the violent, far-right coup in Kiev in February 2014.

"In particular, the citizens of the Donbass region (which Russia recognizes as the Russian republics of Lugansk and Donetsk) have endured more than 10 years of a cruel civil war waged by post-2014-coup Kiev with the backing of the NATO countries. [...]

"As a result of the 2014 coup and its aftermath, the citizens of Crimea and Donbass have voted overwhelmingly to join the Russian Federation. The final, definitive vote in Donbass took place soon after Russia began its military intervention in Ukraine in February 2022."

Zelensky's Failed Fundraising Tour of Europe

On October 10, Zelensky began a lightning 48-hour tour of Europe, with stops in London, Paris, Rome, and Berlin, to seek more military and financial aid for Europe and to ply his "Victory Plan."

UK Prime Minister Starmer, after his meeting with Zelensky, said it was important to demonstrate the UK's "continued commitment" to Ukraine and that meeting with Zelensky was a chance to "go through the plan, to talk in more detail."

In his meeting with new NATO Secretary General and former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Zelensky again raised the issue of using long-range missiles against Russia far outside the combat zone. Rutte noted that "legally, that is possible because legally, Ukraine is allowed to use its weapons, if they can hit targets in Russia, if these targets present a threat to Ukraine." However, Rutte stressed that decisions on providing such weapons ultimately rest with individual allies. Both Rutte and the UK cautioned against overemphasizing the role of long-range missiles in the conflict.

In Germany, Zelensky was rebuffed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. German newspaper Bild said that Zelensky's appeals "fell on deaf ears." According to the report, Zelensky's primary objectives during his meetings with Western leaders were obtaining Germany's 500-kilometre range Taurus cruise missiles and fast-tracking Ukraine's NATO accession process. It described the outcome of the discussions with Scholz as "pretty poor" and said that overall, Zelensky's trip was largely unsuccessful.

While Scholz did not definitively reject Zelensky's requests, the chancellor avoided committing to providing long-range missiles or pushing Ukraine's NATO membership forward, leaving Zelensky without clear assurances.

Russian Response

Already at the end of May, the U.S. and other NATO countries authorized use of their weapons to directly attack military targets inside Russia. Britain, during the Sunak Conservative government, had already given authorization for such use of its Storm Shadow cruise missiles months before. At that time, Russian officials pointed out that Ukraine has no independent ability to use such long-range missiles -- the targeting and guidance must be provided by the NATO country that provided them.

While all the talk about direct involvement of U.S./NATO countries in attacking Russian territory dominated the airwaves and news, in an interview with Russian television on September 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the issue is not one of "authorizing" or "prohibiting" Ukraine from striking Russian territory, as it is already doing so with drones and other means. However, when it comes to the use of Western-made long-range precision weapons to do so, it is an entirely different matter, he said

Putin reiterated that "the Ukrainian army is not capable of independently carrying out strikes using Western modern, long-range precision systems. It cannot do this. This is possible only with the use of intelligence from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This data is only available from satellites of the European Union or the United States, in other words, from NATO satellites. That's the first point.

"The second and very important, perhaps key point is that only NATO servicemen can make flight assignments to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this.

"So this is not about whether or not to allow the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia using these weapons, but about deciding whether or not NATO countries are directly involved in the military conflict. If such a decision is taken, it will mean nothing short of direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, European countries, in the war in Ukraine. This would constitute their direct participation, and this, of course, changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict. It will mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries, are at war with Russia. And if this is so, bearing in mind the change in the very nature of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions based on the threats that will be posed to us."

Failure of Ukraine's Attempt to Take Over the Donbass

On September 9, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said that Russian forces were increasing the pace of their offensive in Donbass, having captured almost 1,000 square kilometres over August and the first eight days of September. "Open-source data and battlefield reports indicate that Russian forces in Donbass advanced in August at their fastest rate in about two years," Reuters reported on September 10.

On September 20, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the Russian defence of Kursk, "Our military is doing its job. They will accomplish it. Control will be restored." He added, "The situation, of course, in those areas that are under the control of Ukrainian fighters -- well, of course, it is extreme. This situation will be corrected in a timely manner."

On October 2, Russia captured the town of Vuhledar when Ukrainian forces withdrew to avoid being encircled, Reuters reported. "Control of the town -- which Russians long regarded as one of Ukraine's toughest fortified positions to crack -- is considered important by both sides because of its position on elevated ground and because it sits at the intersection of the eastern and southern battlefield fronts giving it added significance when it comes to supplying both sides' forces," Reuters wrote.

As of October 3, even the NATO forces supporting Ukraine admitted the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk was "a tactical mistake" by Ukraine. Whatever territory in and around Kursk the Ukrainian forces continue to hold, it has not diverted significant Russian troops from other battle fronts. Russia has kept its focus on taking the entirety of the Donbass and continues to make headway.

Presently, Russia is said to control nearly 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory.

Inauguration of Mexico's First Woman President

Historic Day in the Life of the Mexican People

– Claude Brunelle –

On October 1, Claudia Sheinbaum became the first female president of Mexico. For the first time since the country's independence in 1821 and for the first time since the Spanish invasion of Mexico and their brutal elimination of the Indigenous way of life and rule 513 years ago, a woman is the head of government. She governs a country of more than 130 million people.

In the Mexican presidential election on June 2, Claudia Sheinbaum, candidate for the Sigamos Haciendo Historia coalition (Let's Keep Making History) comprised of the Morena Party, the Workers' Party and Green Party, won with 59.76 per cent of the vote. This is almost 36 million votes. She ran her campaign under the theme "Let's build the second bridge of the fourth transformation," and the continuation of the new regime that is based on Mexican humanism.

Campaign slogans included: For the good of all, the poor first, With the people everything, without the people nothing, and No to corruption. She pledged to continue the social policies and economic agenda initiated by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had been in power since 2018.

A highly regarded physicist, Sheinbaum served as head of government in Mexico's Federal District, Mexico City, from December 2018 to June 2023.

On the morning of October 1, after taking the oath to serve the people and the nation before the Mexican Congress, she went to the National Palace in the Zócalo (the central square with the Cathedral, the National Palace and government buildings). There, tens of thousands of Mexicans were waiting to celebrate her inauguration as president.

The Zócalo was overflowing with people, and screens had been set up in the surrounding streets to allow the crowd to see and hear her. During a ceremony presided over by representatives of Indigenous Peoples, she received the insignia of power. Afterwards, accompanied by a woman from each of Mexico's 63 Indigenous nations, she addressed the Mexican people.

The day was declared a statutory holiday and celebrations also took place across the country.

In her almost two-hour long speech, Sheinbaum presented her program entitled 100 Steps to Transformation, 2024-2030. A highlight of significance to the people is the continuation of the program put in place by her predecessor which includes, among other things, a universal pension for all seniors, a universal pension for all people with disabilities, university and college scholarships, assistance programs for small farmers, public health care and free medication. In addition she announced that as of October 3, all women aged 63 and 64 would be registered to receive a bi-monthly economic assistance income starting in January 2025. She went on to announce scholarships for all secondary and primary school students, starting with secondary school students in November and December, as well as the hiring of 20,000 doctors and nurses who will be responsible for visiting the elderly, house by house, to provide them with adequate health care.

A Ministry of Women has been created whose main objective is to guarantee women's rights including equal pay, the right to assistance, particularly for women from all Indigenous communities, so that they receive the care and education to which they are entitled. Together with the Ministry of Security, the Ministry of Women will fight against discrimination and femicide.

In terms of infrastructure, her government will continue the development plan to modernize rail transport by adding 3,000 kilometres of passenger transport services, the extension of the railway being built through Maya lands, known as Tren Maya, to the Guatemalan border and the continuation of the construction of artisanal roads built by communities living in the sierra (the mountains). In terms of education, access to university will be facilitated and extended throughout the republic and university entrance exams for the metropolitan region of the capital will be abolished.

After highlighting the adoption of the constitutional reform guaranteeing the rights of Indigenous Peoples, Sheinbaum committed to implementing it by starting with the granting of economic funds to each of the communities to enable their autonomous development at the economic and cultural levels.

In terms of Mexico's energy self-sufficiency policy, she committed to the production of 1.8 million barrels of oil per day in order to guarantee national needs while developing renewable energy in the spirit of environmental protection.

In terms of foreign policy, she committed to continuing the policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, to defending the sovereignty of peoples, to opposing any sanctions or economic blockades by one country against another and to working for peace. Her government will work in collaboration with other countries, but without ever submitting to anyone, Sheinbaum said.

A reform of the electoral system that strengthens participatory democracy, the revocation of mandates, the decision of the people through consultations, has been undertaken and will be continued, Sheinbaum said. This includes the reduction of the costs of the National Electoral Institute and the Electoral Tribunal, and the election of electoral advisors and magistrates by popular vote.

A constitutional reform initiative to recover the slogan that gave birth to the Mexican Revolution and that was incorporated into the Constitution of 1917 -- Effective suffrage, no re-election -- has been launched. There should be no re-election to any elected office starting with the next presidential election in 2030, she said.

President Sheinbaum also committed to implementing the constitutional reform of the judicial system adopted in September 2024 that provides for the election of magistrates to the Supreme Court and judges by popular vote starting in June 2025.

On October 2, she began the day at 6:00 am with a meeting of her ministers, followed by her first televised public press conference from 7:00 am to 9:00 am. She announced that she was leaving Mexico City to go to Acapulco to direct the aid to all the municipalities in the region that had been flooded by Hurricane John in preceding days.

Genocidal Consequences of U.S. Blockade on Cuban People

Updated Report on Damages Caused by
Illegal U.S. Blockade

On September 12, member of the Political Bureau and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla presented to the national and foreign press the updated report on the damages caused by the longest and most comprehensive blockade in history. The report, entitled Tumba el Bloqueo (Overthrow the Blockade), covering the period from March 2023 to February 2024, provides objective information and valuable data that further substantiates the denunciation of this grave injustice which is causing the Cuban people their most challenging hardships since the early years of the Revolution, including the Special Period in the 1990s.

From March 1, 2023 to February 29, 2024, the U.S. blockade caused damages and material losses to Cuba estimated in the order of U.S.$5.057 billion, which means an increase of $189.8 million as compared to the figure reported in the previous report. This represents an approximate damage of more than $421 million a month, more than $13.8 million a day, and more than $575,683 in damages for each hour of blockade. At current prices, the accumulated damages during more than six decades of this policy amount to $164.141 billion. Based on these numbers, minister Parilla stated that without the blockade Cuba's GDP could have grown by around eight per cent in 2023.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs pointed out that the offensive against tourism; the baseless allegations of sonic attacks against U.S. diplomats to justify Cuba's designation as an unsafe country; the persecution of international medical cooperation agreements, among others, are all part of an improved coercive design intended to prevent the country from receiving the incomes necessary to attend to the increasing needs of the population.

"All the difficulties faced by the Cuban society are not exclusively due to the blockade, but it would be untrue for anyone not to recognize the blockade as the main obstacle to our development. No country in this world, not even those whose economies are much more prosperous and robust than the Cuban economy, would be able to cope with such a ruthless, asymmetric and protracted aggression without a high cost on the living standards of their peoples, their stability and social justice. That cost is being evidenced today in the shortages suffered by Cuban men and women, which include foodstuffs, medicines, fuels, means of transportation; as well as the deterioration of other basic services," he said.

The introduction to the report points out: "During the last few years, particularly in recent months, the aging of the Cuban population and the high rate of migration particularly among the youngest sectors of the society have become quite noticeable. This situation would be quite different if there was not a blockade, which was further tightened after the implementation of the maximum pressure policy by President Donald Trump, which has been maintained by the administration of President Joseph Biden. The U.S. counterparts have no arguments to deny this truth. The blockade is a crime against humanity, an act of genocide and a flagrant, massive and systematic violation of the human rights of more than 11 million Cubans. It is a cruel punishment policy."

Minister Rodríguez stated that it was unacceptable for the U.S. to ignore and disregard the call of the international community to put an end to this illegal policy, reflected in the 31 resolutions adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on the need to put an end to the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed against Cuba.

To see the full report click here.

Foreign Interference to Destabilize Venezuela

Shameful Actions of U.S. and Canada to Foment Counterrevolution

– Margaret Villamizar –

The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) condemns the U.S. and Canada for once again fomenting counterrevolution in Venezuela. They are inciting and organizing another attempt by criminal U.S.-backed opposition figures to carry out a coup d'état against the government of President Nicolás Maduro after he defeated their candidate and was re-elected to a third term in the July 28 presidential election. Just like they did when Maduro was elected in 2013 and re-elected in 2018, these coup forces have been screaming "fraud" since an irreversible trend in favour of Maduro was identified by the National Electoral Council (CNE) shortly after midnight on election night. Their accusations were followed by the unleashing of a campaign of terror and destruction around the country with hired, drugged-up criminal elements posing as opposition "campaign workers" acting as their agents. In addition to violent attacks on people they vandalized schools, universities, health centres and other public as well as private property, set fires, desecrated national symbols and tore down monuments and statues of national heroes, including several of President Hugo Chávez.

For months prior to the July 28 election, leaders of the Unitary Democratic Platform (PUD) comprised of parties that backed the candidate Edmundo González Urrutia had created conditions for declaring the election to be fraudulent if their candidate did not win. González was a last minute stand-in when the real leader of the coup forces, María Corina Machado, was barred from running herself due to her long history of conspiring with the U.S. to destabilize and organize violent regime change in Venezuela.

On August 2 the official results were released by the CNE based on 96.87 per cent of the data being transmitted from polling stations. It confirmed the re-election of President Maduro who received 51.95 per cent of the votes to González's 43.18 per cent. Voter participation was 59.97 per cent. The president of the CNE emphasized that the transmission of data from the polling stations around the country was delayed due to massive cyber attacks carried out from different parts of the world against the CNE's systems. He informed that the delay was also due to the consequences of the violent acts perpetrated immediately following the release of the first electoral bulletin, which included the trashing and setting of fires in regional offices of the CNE, voting centers, and emergency result transmission centres resulting in election equipment and materials being burned.

Machado, meanwhile, had an NGO that she founded and is linked to her party create a website where allegedly "true" copies of result tallies generated by the electronic voting machines at polling centres around the country were uploaded, "proving" a landslide victory for her candidate. Despite different widely reported expert analyses of these "records" concluding that most were falsified versions of the originals, they continue to be treated unquestioningly as "proof" that the U.S.-backed candidate -- who has since run away to Spain and in all certainty from his self-serving, extremist handler -- won the election!

The official results reported by the CNE have since been confirmed as accurate by the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court after a review was conducted, with the only candidate refusing to participate in it being González. He, along with other candidates and representatives of parties that supported him in the PUD who did appear before the Supreme Court, all claimed they did not have access to any of the tally sheets provided to their poll observers and had nothing to do with scanning and uploading them onto the website as "proof" of González's victory.

In the end, Venezuelan authorities reported that 27 people had been killed and some 200 injured between July 28 and 29 before calm was restored with hundreds of violent saboteurs arrested and in the process of being investigated and charged with incitement to hatred, resisting authority, and, in some cases, terrorism. Of course the U.S. architects of the coup attempt blame the Venezuelan government for the killings and accuse it of repression, human rights abuses and arbitrarily arresting peaceful protestors simply demanding their democratic rights. The Canadian and other governments in Europe and elsewhere that toe the U.S. line on Venezuela served as an echo chamber for this version of events, and continue to do so, ignoring all the evidence that has come to light over the past two months, including of widespread cyber attacks from outside the country targeting state institutions in particular during and after the election, and a terrorist plot to assassinate President Maduro allegedly led by an active duty U.S. Navy Seal, and involving a number of collaborators said to be linked to Spanish intelligence, all currently in custody and talking.

Of interest, the ruling elite in the U.S. claim they want a peaceful transition of power for themselves no matter who wins the upcoming presidential election. Those in the Biden-Harris camp are making this a big issue. For example, Kamala Harris' campaign manager said in a recent statement, "For four years, Donald Trump and his MAGA allies have been scheming to sow distrust in our elections and undermine our democracy so they can cry foul when they lose." In an attempt to keep the federal criminal election subversion case against Trump going and in the public eye, U.S. prosecutors have revealed the case they will attempt to take to trial after the election. It alleges that Trump "resorted to crimes" in an effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat and always planned to declare victory no matter the result, and that he laid the groundwork for that long before election day. It also accuses him of knowingly spreading false claims about the vote.

It is these same U.S. elites and their state that are behind even more heinous crimes in their attempt to defraud the Venezuelan people and impose on them a violent "transition" to a government they did not elect. The Trudeau government with its current obsession over "foreign interference" in Canadian elections and politics is a party to this shameful activity.

Foreign Military Occupation of Haiti for a "Democratic Transition"

U.S. Fails to Get UN Blessing for
Peacekeeping Operation

– Christine Dandenault –

On September 30, the United Nations (UN) Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2751 (2024) to extend the deployment of the Multinational Mission for Security Support (MSS) in Haiti, led by Kenya, for a further 12 months, until October 2, 2025. The United States is seeking to transform the mission into a UN peacekeeping operation: a full occupation force under the auspices of the UN, to strengthen its capacities and obtain more stable funding, and to crush the struggle of the Haitian people for their sovereignty. It has not yet succeeded.

To this end, on September 5, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Haiti to request the formation of an electoral council, the organization of a referendum on a new constitution and the organization of national elections. He arrived in Port-au-Prince two months after Kenyan police officers were sent to Haiti. He announced that the outgoing Biden administration would provide $45 million in so-called humanitarian aid to Haiti and gave his orders to the Presidential Transitional Council (CPT) and interim Prime Minister Garry Conille.

A caravan of armoured vehicles transported Blinken to the meetings, which were held at the fortified U.S. Embassy and residence of the U.S. ambassador. In the name of security, stability, and respect for human rights, under foreign domination, Blinken touted the Biden administration's efforts to renew the HOPE/HELP Act (Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement/Haitian Economic Lift Program). This law, which expires in 2025, grants preferential treatment to imports into the U.S. of clothing, textile products and certain other items from Haiti, exempt from customs duties. It allows access to the U.S. market for approximately 5,000 duty-free eligible products under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). It represents a measure for increased exploitation of workers in these sectors and Haitian sweatshops, with companies being invited to take advantage of this legislation to do business in Haiti.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said: "In Haiti, the Secretary of State will meet with the Coordinator of the Presidential Transition Council, Edgar Leblanc Jr., and Prime Minister Garry Conille to discuss the next steps in Haiti's democratic transition and U.S. support through humanitarian assistance and Haitian-led stabilization efforts. He will also meet with the leadership of the Multinational Support Mission, emphasizing U.S. support for restoring security in Haiti and also emphasizing the importance of promoting respect for human rights." This was the usual spiel that fools no one.

The U.S. government says it is not providing troops to this force, but it is the largest contributor of money and equipment. Kenyan forces are there, and on September 12, police and military from Jamaica and Belize arrived. The MSS is "now a fully multinational mission," Kenyan Commander Godfrey Otunge said on September 12 upon their arrival at a welcoming ceremony at the Port-au-Prince airport. A few weeks earlier, Taiwanese officials handed Conille and Rameau Normil, Director of the Haiti National Police, 400 bulletproof vests emblazoned with the Taiwanese flag. It appears that other troops from African and Afro-descendant Caribbean countries are on the way. All this is being used as an attempt to justify turning MSS into a UN peacekeeping mission. The fact remains that it is a proxy military occupation by the United States-Core Group to maintain its domination in Haiti and the region, as it has been doing for over 20 years, since the coup d'état against Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Meanwhile, the Trudeau government continued to play the role of appeaser in support of the U.S. agenda. It worked to set up the dysfunctional CPT through its interventions with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). A political agreement was signed on April 7, enabling the Presidential Council to take office as a 22-month transition mechanism until February 7, 2026. The CPT is made up of seven transitional presidents who play musical chairs every three to five months. On October 7, Leslie Voltaire, of the parti Fanmi Lavalas, became the new president of the CPT at a ceremony to "hand over power" from the outgoing president, Edgar Leblanc Fils.

What's more, on September 24, Trudeau convened a panel of world leaders to call on the international community to intervene in Haiti. The panel took place at the UN General Assembly. In attendance were the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Haiti of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Heads of State and Government of CARICOM and the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Amina J. Mohammed. "We must ensure that everyone, especially the next generation of Haitians, is offered a better and brighter future," said Trudeau. Canada's Ambassador to the UN Bob Rae chairs this Ad-Hoc Advisory Group.

Demonstration on Parliament Hill, February 29, 2024

These recent activities and manoeuvres are condemned and firmly opposed by the Haitian people who are fighting to put an end to all interference, domination, corruption and diktat of the United States with the active participation of France and Canada. The Haitian people clearly express their opposition to any foreign intervention and interference and their rejection of NGOs and the UN operations including the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) that have only brought chaos, misery, killings, cholera, and so many other crimes to the Haitian people. They know full well that the source of the instability and total insecurity they face every day is foreign occupation, interference and diktat, whose most powerful "gangs" in the country are subsidiaries of the United States itself: UN operations and the Core Group, the two colonial entities that have been running the country since the 2004 coup d'état.

Due to their rich history, the Haitian people will never accept submission and servitude to any foreign power. The revolutionary traditions of the Haitian people date back to 1791, when the enslaved people of the French colony of Saint-Domingue rose up in organized resistance to overthrow slavery and French colonial rule.

All out to support the Haitian people in asserting their rights and sovereignty, and demand that Canada cease its interference in Haiti and pay reparations for its criminal role in the 2004 coup d'état and all the consequences of its misdeeds against the people.

United States, Canada, France, Core Group -- Out of Haiti!

Britain's "National Wealth Fund"

Labour Government's Anti-Worker
Pay-the-Rich Economic Program

– Hilary LeBlanc –

A central pillar of the program the British Labour Party is putting forward, as announced in the King's Speech at the opening of Parliament on July 17 and since then, is the National Wealth Fund Bill.[1] An initiative of the Labour Government's new Chancellor Rachel Reeves and former Governor of the Banks of Canada and England Mark Carney, the National Wealth Fund Taskforce is comprised of Carney along with the CEOs of Barclays Bank and insurance company Aviva.[2]

This is a multi-billion-pound pay-the-rich scheme to provide public funds to private interests. The fund will use the existing UK Infrastructure Bank and British Business Bank to generate public-private financing arrangements for industry, ports, and what is called renewable energy. The Fund is presented as crucial to solving environmental, infrastructure, and investment problems, but it is the latest iteration of public-private partnership schemes which have become the main neo-liberal economic arrangement and a key factor in the politicization of private interests. The financial institution is being established to organize new public-private partnerships, continuing the anti-social offensive and giving it new impetus by further changing the state's arrangements directly around private interests.

The Chancellor uses the well-worn slogan of "investment with reform." In the past, this was used to declare that social programs would only receive investment to the extent that they were opened up to capital and market forces. Now it is being used to declare that state investment in general -- in particular for infrastructure -- will only come with restructuring the state itself. The new Fund is to be used to enforce this.

"Growth is now our national mission," Reeves declared in a speech in London on July 8 after she was made Chancellor by Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the new Labour government. Meanwhile, a massive budget shortfall has been announced, leading to the prospect of cuts in, for example, road and rail projects. Pensions will be targeted, for which the Pension Schemes Bill, facilitating the consolidation of pension funds, called "pots," is part of preparing the ground. The plan is to use pension money to invest in unlisted companies, while changes which will increase the tax on pensions are being floated.

Infrastructure Projects

A key function of the fund will be to support infrastructure projects and building of houses which provides the owners of capital a safe place to invest with profits guaranteed. The government's shift from ostensibly small to overtly big government investment is evident in the announced Planning and Infrastructure Bill. The aim of this bill is to increase the number of homes built each year and simplify the process for approving key infrastructure projects by speeding up the time it takes to get planning permission. The government has indicated the planning bill would restrict the ability of local people to block new developments. It disingenuously tried to cover up the concentration of power to eliminate the role of the people by suggesting it is the people who block local development. There would be "democratic engagement with how, not if, homes and infrastructure are built," the government said in the King's Speech. The government aims to grant new powers to public bodies to use compulsory purchase orders to acquire land without ministerial authorization.

Control Over Energy

Alongside house building, the main infrastructure project is the other central pillar of the economic program: "clean" energy, principally in the form of wind turbines and nuclear power.

The Great British Energy Bill will establish Great British Energy (GB Energy), a state-run company to be headquartered in Scotland that will operate various large-scale power projects. The Crown Estate, the public estate of the monarch, with its 16-billion pound portfolio of land and property held by "hereditary right," along with financial connections, will collaborate with the new company to bring in an aimed 60 billion pounds of private investment. The Crown Estates Bill has been introduced for this purpose.

The Crown Estate says its purpose is "to create lasting and shared prosperity for the nation." It derives its funds "from Crown lands, feudal rights (commuted for the hereditary excise duties in 1660), profits of the post office, with licences, etc. the temporary revenues derived from taxes granted to the king for a term of years or for life."

Information about the Crown Estate says that each year, its net revenue profit will be paid into the UK Consolidated Fund, where it is added to the funds arising from general taxation "and is available to the Treasury to use for the benefit of the nation." What benefits the nation is of course decided by the ruling elites who use their positions of power and privilege to benefit the narrow private interests presented as the interests of the nation. The people who comprise the nation have no say in the matter whatsoever.

In the words of the Labour government, "investing in energy projects alongside the private sector ... will see the public sector taking on a new role undertaking additional early development work for offshore wind projects. This will ensure that future offshore wind development has lower risk for developers..."

The government dreams that Britain will become a "clean energy superpower" by making Britain a key hub in the global energy corridors, with wind power controlled from Britain. Building supply chains across the country is thereby listed as a key function of GB Energy. Similarly, the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill introduces a new pay-the-rich scheme dressed as decarbonizing air travel but likewise aimed at "energy independence" and making Britain an energy superpower.

Workers' Weekly, newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) calls this scheme the latest rehash of "making Britain great again." It is "part of Britain's pro-war program; there is nothing green about it," the Party points out.

"Indeed, the previous Sunak government earlier this year proudly declared that Britain will be the first European country to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), in a direct challenge to Russia's dominance of the nuclear fuel market. The U.S. is also investing in this new fuel. The Starmer government is in no way abandoning this program, a competition for 70 million pounds of funding currently underway. This despite warnings that this type of uranium has weapons potential."

While these bills are passed in the Parliament, the Employment Rights Bill is also put forth in the name of protecting workers under the slogan "Make Work Pay." It is a real piece of work to introduce flexible work and force workers to comply with all kinds of rules in the name of upholding their rights. One of the provisions reads as follows:

"We are also bringing in a new statutory probation period for companies' new hires. This will allow for a proper assessment of an employee's suitability for a role as well as reassuring employees that they have rights from day one. We will consult on the length of the period; the government's preference is nine months."

Workers' Weekly points out: "The way the government poses the problem is that what is holding back growth is a lack of investment, and investment requires pay-the-rich schemes and making sure the people are powerless to interfere. For their part, the workers do not see paying the rich as the key to investment in what society needs. Instead, they have been fighting for their individual, collective, and social claims, developing a movement under the banner of Enough is Enough! Their independent program is to stop paying the rich and increase investments in social programs."

Notes

1. The King's Speech, July 17, 2024.

2. Aviva plc is a British multinational insurance company headquartered in London, England. It has about 19 million customers across its core markets of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada.

(Workers' Weekly August 11, 2024)

The Fight in India for People's Empowerment

Farmers Advance Their Demands Without Letup

– J. Singh –

Mahapanchayat in Uchana, September 14, 2024

In India, the farmers who have been fighting without letup for the recognition of their demands point out that they are not fooled by the Supreme Court of India constituting a committee to look into their grievances. These grievances are well known and have been investigated time and time again. It is yet another attempt by the ruling elite to divert, distract and attack the farmers.

Farmers across India celebrated the 117th birth anniversary of Bhagat Singh on September 27, holding rallies, demonstrations, seminars in villages, towns and district headquarters and called on the people of India to intensify their struggles for a life of dignity and justice. They pointed out that Bhagat Singh's words have proven prophetic when he said that our struggle against injustice will continue even if the British leave and they are replaced by brown faces, but continue the system of looting of farmers and workers. The farmers said these brown Sahibs in Delhi want to hand over our lands to Adani, Ambani, Birla, Tata and other corporates. Farmers denounced the former chief minister of Haryana who said that the protesting farmers are not real farmers, they are fake farmers. Farmers also warned the people to be vigilant, that the state of the corporates is trying to drown their struggles in blood by organizing violence and attacks based on religion, language and caste.

Ever since the British enacted the land reforms of 1789, countless committees and reforms have been brought into being but their aim has always been to loot and plunder farmers. Farmers know this and they will not be fooled anymore. They know that the aim of the government is to steal their lands and give them to Adani, Ambani and other corporates. They are determined to carry on their struggles. Mahapanchayats (mass meetings), rallies at Shambhu, Khanauri, Sisauli, Sangrur and hundreds of other towns and district headquarters are taking place to strengthen the farmers' unity and organizations.

Thousands of farmers have been protesting in Madhya Pradesh for minimum support price (MSP) for soyabean. The administration tried to stop them from gathering in the grain markets. Farmers pointed out that the grain markets are their places and no one can stop them from gathering there. Farmers pointed out that all the policies of the central government are to give our lands to corporates and lock their roti in their Tijories (safes) to starve people in order to maximize their profits no matter which party is in power in Delhi. They have decided that no leader of any political party is welcome on their stage.

In Malkangiri, Odisha, thousands of tribal people have been demonstrating since September 13 from more than 250 gram sabhas to protect their Jal, Jungle and Jameen (water, forest and land). They are demanding that under the Forest Rights Act, title to their lands be given to them. Since 2006 none of the governments have implemented the law.

In Bihar, protests are ongoing against the government's land survey. People are protesting against the officials who are engaged in corrupt practices and arbitrarily making entries into the official record to drive them off their lands.

A massive protest took place in Patiala on September 22 demanding the release of Malvinder Singh Mali, a human rights activist and political commentator. Farmers, workers, students gathered and denounced the criminalization of dissent by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Punjab. The ruling elite use all political parties to carry out attacks on the rights of people so as to pursue its plunder and oppression. Friends of Bharatiya Kisan Union in the U.S. in a statement said:

"The arrest of Mali represents yet another stark instance of the AAP government under Bhagwant Singh Mann trampling on human rights and criminalizing dissent to silence its critics. The circumstances of his arrest -- swift police action mere hours after the FIR was lodged, and the denial of an opportunity for Mali to present his side -- constitute a grave injustice and an egregious violation of the Indian Constitution. Mali has long been an outspoken critic of the Punjab government's policies, and this arrest appears to be a direct attempt to stifle his voice."

Earlier in September, police in Haryana tried to stop farmers from holding a Mahapanchayat in Uchana by threatening the tent and sound system vendor and sealing the border with Punjab. But the farmers came in their hundreds of thousands breaking all the blocks and barricades set up by the government. To save India, they declared, farmers must save their lands that the ruling elite want to give to the corporates. A guaranteed MSP is a necessity to save India.

Farmers in Punjab and Haryana organized a Rail Roko -- stoppage of railways -- on October 13 to highlight their demands. The Rail Roko was completely successful. The Punjab government is trying to split the unity of farmers by trying to "negotiate" with one group of farmers while demonizing others. Although the farmers have brought their rice to the markets, the government is not buying it. It wants to force them to sell to Adani at a cheaper price. Farmers pointed out that they have to take control of storage, distribution and marketing themselves and create mechanisms to do this, as the government and state are completely in the pocket of the corporates. They are devastating Punjab.

Rail Roko, October 13, 2024

Uttarakhand Kisan Union held a Mahapanchayat in Haridwar for the payment of arrears in the amount of Rs. 110 crores for the last two years by the sugar mills. They are planning to have a protest in Dehradun and, if their demands are not met, they will march to Delhi. For years, the sugar mills have made it a regular practice to buy sugar cane and not pay for it and the government is in cahoots with the sugar mill owners no matter which party is in power. The farmers said that these parties do not have Vichardhara (ideology) but Kursidhara (thirst to stay in power).

Farmers are owed more than Rs. 220 crore by the sugar mill in Shamli, Uttar Pradesh.

This is equivalent to more than 36 million Canadian dollars. They have been protesting to get their money for more than a month and have announced mass meetings on October 24 in Bijnor, October 26 in Bulandshehar and October 27 in Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh.

Farmers sitting on the Shambhu and Khanauri border for the last 240 days have declared that their struggle will continue for their basic demands. They said that it makes no difference which party is in power, it is their struggle that has forced BJP and other parties to talk about MSP and other demands.

The Punjab government formed by the AAP has constituted a Punjab Development Commission headed by Seema Bansal of the Boston Consulting Group. It is mandated to frame all round policies for Punjab. Highly paid "experts" are to be paid handsomely to develop mechanisms to plunder and loot farmers and toilers. Nothing good is going to come out of the further implementation of the vicious and destructive neo-liberal offensive launched by the Manmohan Singh government (2004-2014) which started the current hand-over of the land and other resources of Punjab to the corporates. People from different sectors are calling for disbanding the commission.

Andheri Raat Ka Ant Hai Tay
Kitane Zulam Kamay

(The darkest night is bound to end
No matter how dark or oppressive it is)

Japan's Militarism Sets Dangerous Direction

Prime Minister Disgraces Himself,
His Government and Country

Protest against Japan's militarization at events marking the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, 2024.

In his official speech on the occasion of the 79th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan's then Prime Minister Fumio Kishida refused to identify the U.S. state as perpetrator of the inhuman act or shed light on why the U.S. acted contrary to the laws of war and decency. Not once did he mention the U.S. yet felt obliged to denounce Russia for its "nuclear threats." Kishida's speech revealed the depth to which Japan has sunk in its aggressive military alliance with U.S. imperialism to encircle and threaten China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Russia, and reduce Japan to a zone for war.

The U.S. atomic bombing of Japan when the Japanese militarists were already defeated and the world only awaited the formal signature of capitulation was a signal that U.S. imperialism had abandoned the united front against fascism and militarism and was renewing its campaign for world domination. The U.S. atomic bombing of Japan was the announcement that U.S. imperialism would commit any crime in its thirst for world hegemony and was assuming the mantle of defeated German Nazism, Japanese militarism and Italian fascism. The atomic bombing proclaimed that the U.S. was intensifying its original premise as a colonial, genocidal, enslaving and expansionist state, a threat to the peoples of the world that was bent on seizing the world's resources, markets, labour and economic and political power.

The atomic bombing, which was filmed and widely disseminated, was meant to instill in the world's peoples the image that if they were to resist U.S. pressure, invasion and control they would incur losses reminiscent of the horrific crimes of the fascist aggressors of World War II. And so it came to pass: the U.S. began its postwar rampage yet the people have never stopped resisting: just as the heroic Palestinian people are today resisting the U.S./Zionist campaign of expulsion and genocide against them; just as the Koreans have stood firm and forced the U.S. aggressors to halt their invasion at the 38th parallel; just as the Vietnamese people compelled the U.S. invaders to flee their country in 1975; just as the Chinese forced the Japanese to abandon their ruinous war to conquer China and chased the U.S.-supported pro-imperialist remnants across the Strait of Taiwan to there surround themselves with the U.S. military; just as the Cubans and many others have stood firm in their struggle for independence and resistance to U.S. imperialist control. Throughout the world following World War II, people have suffered U.S. invasion, interference and destruction on an unprecedented scale such as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yugoslavia, Syria and elsewhere.

The Japanese ruling elite in their defeat and capitulation in 1945 found in the U.S. victor an ally for post-war control and used its newfound military alliance to position Japan within the U.S. war economy. The Japanese ruling elite of private interests profited from supplying the U.S. wars of aggression in Korea, Vietnam and elsewhere including the U.S./NATO march east in Europe to threaten Russia and wage its current war to seize Ukraine, conquer Russia, and use that country's immense resources to seize all of Asia.

Demonstration for Palestine at Peace Memorial Ceremony in Hiroshima, August 6, 2024

The people are determined to stop the global U.S. rampage and Japan can play an important role. The world's peoples today want Japan to break its military alliance with the U.S. imperialists and expel the thousands of U.S. troops and weapons of war that threaten China, the DPRK, the entire Korean Peninsula and Russia, which borders China, Korea and Japan. The people dearly want to see Japan as a zone of peace with a courageous anti-war government that expels the U.S. military occupationist forces and becomes a peaceful nation for the first time since its modern inception in 1868 upon the overthrow of the feudal economic and political system.

Kishida was replaced as Prime Minister on October 1 by Shigeru Ishiba, following the 2024 Liberal Democratic Party presidential election. Kishida, Ishiba and their political party are mostly despised in Japan but the people are trapped within the western liberal democratic system that sustains the control of the ruling elite. Even though Kishida has been replaced, the U.S.-imposed constitution and ruling system exclude the people from empowerment and deny them the right to decide on issues that affect their lives including the crucial one of war and peace. The world's peoples dearly want the Japanese to join them as one humanity in a project for peace, democracy and freedom for all in equality and mutual benefit. The peoples would rejoice to see in Japan an anti-war project that begins with the expulsion of the U.S. military occupiers and the establishment of peaceful relations with their Asian neighbours.

Seizing the Riches of Zambia's Mingomba Mine

Imperialist Exploitation of Africa
Continues Unabated

– K.C. Adams –

African countries are said to be hopelessly in debt to global imperialist moneylenders. Much of the new value African workers produce in resource production and other sectors is torn away to service international debt. Additionally, foreign owners of the production facilities expropriate almost all the remaining added-value African workers produce. Little is left for development of the local and national economies and to produce social product and services necessary to build a self-reliant and well-rounded economy. Likewise, nothing is available to invest in social programs required to enhance the health, education and complete well-being of the inhabitants.

Significant amounts of money are borrowed internationally to build infrastructure projects that the imperialist companies demand so they can transport the extracted resources overseas. And yet more is borrowed to purchase military equipment from the main imperialist producers in the U.S. and Europe.

The Mingomba Mine

A headline in the Financial Times says, "Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos' backed startup discovers large-scale copper deposit in Zambia." To write "discovers" is a stretch, as similar robber barons including Ivanhoe Mines from Canada are already plundering copper deposits right next door in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in the giant Kamoa-Kakula copper mine. The same article boasts that the copper deposit stretching into Zambia to be developed as the Mingomba mine, "could make billions for Silicon Valley, provide minerals for the energy transition and help the U.S. in its rivalry with China. A spokesperson for the (Gates and Bezos company) KoBold Metals told CNBC on Monday that the company believes its Mingomba copper project in Zambia 'will be one of the world's biggest high-grade large copper mines.' A large-scale copper deposit could help in the global race to secure a supply of materials critical to the energy transition. Copper is in high demand due to its use in renewable energy and electric vehicles."

KoBold estimates the Mingomba deposit holds 247 million tonnes of ore with an average grade of 3.64 per cent copper, Reuters reports. The Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos' cartel believes the "vast copper deposit in Zambia" owned and controlled by them "offers a potential boost to the west's efforts to cut its reliance on China for metals vital to decarbonize everything from cars to power transmission systems."

Regarding infrastructure, Reuters writes without elaborating how the U.S. government is backing the development of the Lobito railway, a line to transport metals in the region connecting the DRC and Zambia to the Lobito port in Angola. Zambia is Africa's second largest copper producer after the DRC yet both countries are mired in extreme poverty and saddled with external imperialist debt.

Bill Gates' ownership of Kobold Metals runs through Breakthrough Energy, a climate and technology fund he and other billionaires founded in 2015 to further investments and their control in the expanding green sector. His fellow investors in this green adventure include Bridgewater Associates, Virgin Group's Richard Branson, Alibaba's Jack Ma and Amazon's Jeff Bezos. Other owners of the Kobold Metals copper cartel include U.S. venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Norwegian energy giant Equinor and the world's largest mining group BHP. The California-based cartel KoBold currently has a market value of $1.15 billion.

Ownership of the new Zambian mine follows a typical tortured path through the markets of imperialist investments. The Wall Street Journal reports: "As part of the investment deal, KoBold agreed to pay $115m to the owners of the Lubambe Copper Mine, in which private-equity firm EMR Capital owns an 80 per cent stake [and ...] in exchange, KoBold will receive a majority stake in the nearby Mingomba deposit [in Zambia and ...] will invest $35m on exploration work at the Mingomba project, which is claimed to be the world's highest-grade undeveloped large copper deposit." The paper quotes EMR Capital executive chairman Owen Hegarty as saying that KoBold will have a 52 per cent stake in the Mingomba project while venture partners EMR Capital own 28 per cent. Josh Goldman, president of KoBold Metals, told the Financial Times, "We now know that Mingomba will be one of the very highest grade large copper mines when put into production and it's very much like Kakula in scale and in grade." KoBold expects the Mingomba copper field will rival output at the nearby Kamoa-Kakula project in the DRC, which forms part of U.S. billionaire Robert Friedland's vast global holdings.

Needless to say, the wheeling and dealing of the imperialist robber barons denies Africans control and a say over their economies, denies them the produced social value and the economic development of their homelands, and keeps them mired in underdevelopment and poverty. The foreign exploitation continues the centuries-old colonial iron grip of the imperialist marauders over the African continent.

The struggle in Canada for a moratorium on national debt servicing is a part of the effort to restrict the activities of the global robber barons and their worldwide moneylending and expropriation of social product. Canadians have a social responsibility to play a role in restraining the hand of the imperialists both here at home and in their continued exploitation of Africa, and to make a contribution to building a world as it should be free from imperialism and exploitation.

(To access articles individually click on the black headline.)

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Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca

International Matters of Concern

One year of resistance to genocide in Gaza. Parliament Hill, Ottawa, October 5, 2024

State and Media Disinformation

Note

1. Obligations of Member States under Security Council resolutions:

According to prevalent legal interpretations, only the Council's decisions are a subject of the commitment laid out in Article 25 of the Charter, and these are denoted by operative clauses that begin with "decides."

(With files from Government of Canada, Labour for Palestine, United Nations, Just Peace Advocates, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East)

(With files from Hill Times, CBC and CTV News.)

Missing Information

Protest in Kenosha, September 16 "No Votes for Genocide"

The Need for Modern Democratic Institutions

Involvement in Korean Peninsula

Koreans denounce the UNC and call for its dismantling outside the UNC meeting in Seoul, September 10, 2024.

Protest at Seoul Security Dialogue opposes ROK-Japan military acquisition and cross-servicing agreement.

Relations with Japan

September 19, 2024 protest involving 2,700 people in Tokyo, Japan to oppose the war policies of the Japanese government, the latest of ongoing actions held on the 19th of each month.

Notes

1. See "Operation Horizon," Department of National Defence.

2. Seventeen countries presently make up the UNC: Australia, Belgium, Colombia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Thailand, Türkiye, the UK and the U.S.

3. See "Canada-Japan Action Plan for contributing to a free and open Indo-Pacific region," Government of Canada Backgrounder, October 20, 2022.

People in Sydney, Australia oppose the AUKUS military bloc, March 28, 2024.

Toronto, July 11, 2024

Ukraine's Stillborn "Victory Plan"

Zelensky's Failed Fundraising Tour of Europe

Russian Response

Failure of Ukraine's Attempt to Take Over the Donbass

Demonstration on Parliament Hill, February 29, 2024

Infrastructure Projects

Control Over Energy

Notes

1. The King's Speech, July 17, 2024.

2. Aviva plc is a British multinational insurance company headquartered in London, England. It has about 19 million customers across its core markets of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada.

Mahapanchayat in Uchana, September 14, 2024

Rail Roko, October 13, 2024

Protest against Japan's militarization at events marking the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, 2024.

Demonstration for Palestine at Peace Memorial Ceremony in Hiroshima, August 6, 2024

The Mingomba Mine

Koreans denounce the UNC and call for its dismantling outside the UNC meeting in Seoul,
September 10, 2024.