Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

The Massacre of innocents  Scène du massacre des Innocents -  Léon Cogniet,  France,1824 In capitalist modernity

“By allowing corporate property rights to supersede local seed management, the protocol is the latest front in a global battle over the future of food. Based on draft laws written more than three decades ago in Geneva by Western seed companies, the new generation of agricultural reforms seeks to institute legal and financial penalties throughout the African Union for farmers who fail to adopt foreign-engineered seeds protected by patents, including genetically modified versions of native seeds. For example, “farmers in northeastern Ghana have been cultivating the cowpea—a protein-rich legume that North Americans know as the black-eyed pea—since the Bronze Age. How was it possible that people continuing to farm in that lineage, some 5,000 years later, could face 15 years in prison for infringing property claims on crop varieties based on the local original?” “We can’t accept this law,” said Faustina Banakwoyem, a 35-year-old soya and pepper farmer and the only woman in the Paga group. ...

Can a poor country establish democratic socialism? Would imperialism, especially American imperialism, tolerate it at its backyard? Is Honduras an alternative to the Latin America’s ‘pink tide’ or is it just a continuation of changing horses between the right and the left? One of the good outcomes in Honduras is a confirmation that the question is not about more ‘women’ occupying high positions in state and government, but about the colour, the ideology and socio-economic programme of the ‘woman’. “I believe firmly that the democratic socialism I propose is the solution to pull Honduras out of the abyss we have been buried in by neoliberalism, a narco-dictator and corruption.”  – Xiomara Castro

"Since the late 1980s, US migration controls have worked to discipline low-wage migrant labor, ensuring the availability of a population of vulnerable, deportable workers for exploitation by US capital. After the 2008 financial crisis, however, the deportation machine kicked into high gear, earning Obama the title of 'Deporter in Chief.' Under Trump, the expansion of the war on migrants has reached dystopic dimensions." Migrants on the Front Lines of Global Class War But if you are "an Iraqi who helped the US military" or from persecuted religious minorities [Rohignyan? I doubt it], you are in .

State violence and migration Many think that with the coming of Trump things have got bad. Before that there is a rose picture of the U.S. as a good force in the world. Digging into history, not the one of the school curriculum, might be a start for questioning. The article does not tell the whole story, but it provides an idea or two. Also, I would qualify the role of the US regime depending on the country: sometimes the violence was/is significantly stoked by the US, other times it was/is partly caused by American intervenrion and backing of allies. The violence Central American Migrants Are Fleeing Was Stoked by the US

Jeffrey Sachs is not a marxist or even a socialist The headline of the interview is not accurate though, but one gets the idea. "A humanitarian catastrophe deliberately caused by the United States"

In 2002, Abrams  reportedly  “gave a nod” to the military coup that attempted, ultimately unsuccessfully, to remove the democratically elected Hugo Chavez from power. The Observer, which broke the story, called Abrams “the crucial figure around the coup.” Abrams has had his eye on toppling Venezuela’s government for some time. When Hamas defeated Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, Abrams, then the point man for George W. Bush’s Middle East policy,  helped implement a scheme  to nullify the results by fomenting a Palestinian civil war which, they hoped, would remove Hamas from power. When the plan backfired, with Hamas emerging victorious and in full control of Gaza, Abrams accused Hamas of staging a “coup.” Elliott Abrams: a criminal record

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide) Groundhog Day in Afghanistan : "Operation Panther's Claw" in Afghanistan and the British Media. Amy Goodman from "Democracy Now" in conversation with the journalist and film-maker John Pilger on Honduras, Iran, Gaza, health care in the US and "Obama's war" in Afghanistan-Pakistan.