World News

Protesters Demand State Sen. Padilla Call for Ceasefire in Gaza

November 7, 2023 by Source

More than two hundred members of two Jewish groups and two Palestinian groups demonstrated outside of State Senator Alex Padilla’s office in downtown San Diego Monday morning, November 6. In signs, chants, speeches, and letters they called upon Padilla to introduce a resolution in the California Senate calling for a ceasefire.

Jewish Voice for Peace San Diego and the San Diego Coalition for Palestine were two of the main groups who gathered outside of Padilla’s office with signs that read “Ceasefire now: no more money for Israel’s crimes,” “Senator Padilla: Stop Funding Genocide of Palestinians” and “Jews for a Free Palestine.” Meanwhile, drivers honked their horns and demonstrators loudly chanted. Four organizers of the event, two Jewish and two Palestinian,

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America’s Stand Should Be With the Seekers of Peace  

November 2, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I turn on the TV
and I hear the news
that Hamas
had taken the lives of
hundreds of Jews
and my eyes teared
and like dust being vacuumed
my breath was sucked away
just thinking that human beings
can treat each other this way
putting them in harm’s way
as they listen to music being played
and then I became equally dismayed,
knowing that Netanyahu’s
retaliation to this horrible display
of heinous madness
would be more deadly

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The Jewish Case for Palestine: A Jewish anti-Zionist Perspective

October 31, 2023 by Source

The following was given at “A Conversation on Gaza-Israel War” program at the Olympia Center, in Olympia, Washington on October 17, 2023, and revised 10/30/2023.

By Peter Bohmer

I want to share how my background causes me to support the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation of all of Palestine including Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Since 1967, I have actively opposed the U.S. military aid and ideological support for Israel, and in solidarity with Palestine.

I mourn the deaths of 9500 people murdered in southern Israel and Gaza over the last three weeks (as of October 29th) over 1400 in Israel, mainly Israeli civilians by Hamas and over 8000 Palestinians in Gaza and growing numbers in the West Bank by the Israeli military, the IDF. Let us take a moment to reflect on this death of human life and the injuries of many more.

My parents and grandparents were Jewish from Central Europe, my parents grew up in Vienna, Austria. The German military and Nazis were welcomed by much of the Austrian population when they invaded in spring 1938. Germany immediately annexed Austria. My dad was 22 when he was incarcerated in Vienna by the Austrian Nazis and frequently  beaten.

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Greenpeace: ‘Huge’ Overfishing Problem Shows Ocean Treaty Needs to Be Ratified

September 14, 2023 by Source

By Romain Fonsegrives / Yahoo News / September 13, 2023

Overfishing in international waters has surged in the past five years and demonstrates the need to ratify a recent global treaty to protect the high seas, a Greenpeace report said Wednesday.

The non-governmental network is calling on as many countries as possible to sign the treaty next week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

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Greenpeace Ship in Town to Shine Light on Human Rights Abuses in Seafood Industry – Especially By Bumble Bee

September 7, 2023 by Source

By Ken Stone / Times of San Diego / Sept. 6, 2023

Ten years after Greenpeace saw one of its ships seized by Russia, the same 166-foot icebreaker is docked at San Diego’s Broadway Pier.

The mission of the Arctic Sunrise is less dangerous this time.

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As South San Diego County Cities Enact Camping Bans, the Unhoused Will Be Pushed to the Border. Now There’s an Idea – A Short Satire

September 1, 2023 by Frank Gormlie

When the city of San Diego enforced its ban on homeless encampments, neighboring cities like Chula Vista experienced an influx of unhoused people.

Sebastian Martinez, the executive director of a Chula Vista-based nonprofit that provides homeless services for the South Bay, told 7SanDiego:

“We’ve already seen, even in the weeks leading up to the actual announcement of San Diego’s camping ban, a huge influx of folks, folks that aren’t from Chula Vista, National City or IB.”

And now Chula Vista, the county’s second-largest city, is considering its own homeless camping ban.

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How Indigenous Land Management Practices Are a Blueprint for Climate-Resilient Agriculture

April 3, 2023 by Source

by Daniel Ross / Counter Currents / March 28, 2023

Several Hollywood action films center around an impending apocalypse in the form of an asteroid on a collision course with Earth—a glaring metaphor for the real-world implications of a rapidly accelerating climate crisis.

As this crisis unfolds before our very eyes, however, rather than look up to the atmosphere to see what can and should be done to curtail some of the worst effects of a rapidly warming world, maybe our gazes should also be trained downward at the soil beneath our feet,

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Mexican President Lopez Obrador Insists Mexico Is Safer than the US

March 14, 2023 by Source

By Mexico News Daily Staff / March 13, 2023

Mexico is safer than the United States, President López Obrador said Monday [March 13] without citing any hard data to back up his claim.

His assertion came in response to a question from a United States-based reporter at his morning press conference.

“Is traveling to Mexico safe at the moment with everything we’re seeing, with all these [travel] alerts and these very regrettable events?” asked Octavio Valdez of Los Angeles-based television station Univisión 34.

“Mexico is safer than the United States,” López Obrador responded.

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New Discoveries Made During Restoration Work at Cholula Pyramid in Mexico

February 10, 2023 by Source

Mexico News Daily Staff / February 8, 2023

At the site of the world’s largest pyramid (by volume), the Great Pyramid of Cholula, Puebla, the remains of pre-Hispanic braziers and a sculpture of the god Tlaloc were discovered during restoration work, the according to a press bulletin from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

The findings were made while working on the pyramid’s stairway, “Escalinata del Pocito”, which started in December under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture through INAH. The first discovery was an adobe core that would correspond to the filling of the fifth stage of the pyramid base, dated towards the end of the Classic period (100-600 AD).

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2022 Trade Between China and U.S. Broke Records

February 9, 2023 by Source

The OB Rag International Desk reports on little-known news. Here’s the latest:

Despite China’s spy balloon and deteriorating relations between governments, consumers in America and manufacturers in China broke trade records in 2022.

Fortune magazine reports: Trade between the US and China is on track to break records, a signal of resilient links between the world’s top economies amid the heated national security rhetoric in Washington and fears of “decoupling.”

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My Fair Lady 2023 – Why Can’t a Man Lead More Like a Woman?

January 19, 2023 by Source

By Colleen O’Connor

Why can’t a man lead more Like a woman, specifically, like the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern who announced her resignation Thursday.

Remember the classic My Fair Lady stage and film rendition with Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn where he tried to turn a flower seller of the streets into a cultured gem (all in an attempt to win a bet)?

Tragically, the NZ Prime Minister since 2017, has left as one of the most admired, energetic, conscientious, and noble of world leaders.

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Mike James’ Gringo Guide to Dia de Muertos – The End

November 4, 2022 by Mike James

By Mike James

This was my third year experiencing Dia de Muertos in Mexico. In 2019 I visited Tlaquepaque and Tequila in the state of Jalisco and last year in Mexico City. This year, on the days approaching Dia de Muertos, I was once again exhausted by the enormity of all things Mexico City.

The city has invested in capitalizing on the growing popularity of the Dia de Muertos. Yet it has become a victim of its own success.

Case in point, the once fictional parade has evolved into something where only the few with front row viewing can truly enjoy. The other millions of spectators unfortunately only catch glimpses of the parade as it passes by. I would definitely recommend visiting Mexico City… any other time of the year.

For the actual days of holiday, I was based in the Pueblos Mágicos town of Cholula in the nearby state of Puebla.

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A Gringo’s Guide to Dia de Muertos – Part 2

November 1, 2022 by Source

By Mike James / Special to the OB Rag

Every year the Dia de Muertos grows in popularity internationally. Yet this growth is fairly recent.

In the late 1930’s, the Càrdenas presidency embraced the holiday to celebrate the indigenous culture and create an inclusive national identity. Yet for decades the holiday was mainly observed in Mexico as a private family ceremony, with the ofrenda being the main component.

Much of the credit of an increase in the popularity of El Dia de los Muertos can be traced back to the Chicano movement in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Antonio in the early 70’s. The activist and the artist of the Chicano movement promoted Dia de Muertos as a way to reconnect with their pre-Hispanic and Mexican Identity as a community. Processions through Mexican American neighborhoods and celebrations of Dia de Muertos became more commonplace.

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Mike James: A Gringo’s Guide to Dia de Muertos – Part One

October 31, 2022 by Source

By Mike James / Special to the OB Rag

At midnight, October 31st marks the beginning of the Day of the Dead. The direct Spanish translation is Dia de los Muertos, but in Mexico it is more commonly known as Dia de Muertos. The holiday falls on November 1st and 2nd.

In its present form Dia de Muertos is a fairly recent Mexican tradition and can be traced back to the late 1930’s to the Presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas. Càrdenas in an effort to create a united national identity, sought to promote Dia de Muertos that would encompass the indigenous interpretation of the Roman Catholic holidays of All Saint’s Day (All Hallow’s) and All Soul’s Days.

By removing Catholic religious iconisms and replacing it with the elements associated with the indigenous population, the holiday has been embraced by Mexicans and its popularity is spreading internationally.

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Why Is Queen Elizabeth II So Popular Among American Women?

September 12, 2022 by Source

By Colleen O’Connor

Seriously, why are people prepared to wait in line for “thirty hours” at Buckingham Palace to view the Queen’s coffin? Such reverence, not heard of since the death of FDR’s coffin moved by train from Warm Springs, Georgia back to the nation’s capital to lie in rest.

So, why the outpouring of respect, grief, and yes, a bit of fear, at the prospect of life without this Queen.  Granted there are the just curious, the selfie-photographers, and the wannabe influencers.

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Brava Pelosi! Sometimes It Takes a Woman

August 2, 2022 by Source

By Colleen O’Connor

Evidently, the decision had been made.  According to CNN, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the third in line of succession to the Presidency, is currently visiting Taiwan.

Why is this even a story, let alone a global headline? And a major controversy? Because China declares that Taiwan belongs to them. And because, reportedly, Pelosi’s 12th Congressional District is made up of 32% Chinese-Americans.

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Oliver Stone (Now) on the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

April 18, 2022 by Source

Early in February, perhaps a couple weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, well-known producer / director, Oliver Stone told journalist Robert Scheer: “The United States and its allies in NATO have been provoking Russia for, since two years now — actually three years – over the Ukraine…”

In the same interview, Stone decried “bloodthirsty” media coverage saying, “they have no proof that Russia intends to invade Ukraine; I doubt that they would. I think Russia is concerned only with the Donbass region.”

After the invasion, Stone — who had also criticized the media for using the term “invasion” to characterize Russia’s plans — came around. And here is the full text of Oliver Stone’s most recent Facebook post:

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There Is No Left Position That Justifies Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine

April 12, 2022 by Source

By David Ost / Common Dreams / April 2, 2022

It is tough for leftists to be on the same side as the mainstream.

We can easily feel at those times that we’re missing something, that we’re letting down the struggle, that by ganging up even on an admittedly bad actor we’re helping strengthen the nemesis at home, allowing it to appear as the good guy.

Ever since 1917, that has been the case with regards to the western Left and Russia. Before 1917, the Left saw the tsarist autocracy as the pinnacle of authoritarian reaction, an attitude that eased the path for the socialist parties of Russia’s enemies to embrace World War I. But ever since the Russian Revolution, the Left has been wary of joining with any western bourgeois condemnations of the country,

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California’s Political Weather: Heatwave With a Chance of Earthquakes

April 7, 2022 by Source

By Colleen O’Connor

Did you feel the jolts? Hear the rumblings? And rush to grab your get-away bag?

If not, you must have slept through the last 24-hours.

This afternoon’s scheduled final vote confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson, as the first black woman and public defender ever to be a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, is its own earthquake.

Deeply felt in California and the rest of the county, the aftershocks will reverberate for eons. The “strike-dip” fault lines cleaving both the Republican and the Democratic parties are already apparent. Just watch the rumblings of the 2022 and 2024 election cycles.

But, California is experiencing yet another earthquake; oddities in any April, in any year.

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Russian Attacks and Ukraine’s Nuclear Plants

April 4, 2022 by Michael Steinberg

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear power industry in the US and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those who are working for a nuclear free world.

Russian Attacks on Ukraine Nuclear Plants Continue

As Russia’s war against Ukraine enters a second month, so too has its game of chicken against Ukraine’s nuclear facilities. One of the first actions of the February action was the Russian Army’s takeover of the devastated Chernobyl nuclear power station, as detailed in last month’s edition.

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March 8 – International Women’s Day

March 8, 2022 by Source

Rag cover Int Womens Day

About International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day (IWD) is marked on the 8th of March every year and is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration for those social achievements.The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Significant activity is witnessed worldwide as groups come together to celebrate women’s achievements or rally for women’s equality.

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Human Peace Sign at Dog Beach in OB in Solidarity With Ukraine

March 7, 2022 by Staff

More than 60 people showed up at Dog Beach on Sunday to show their support for the people of Ukraine.

And they did this by making a giant peace sign with their bodies on the sand.

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The Widder Curry: ‘I Have Family in Australia Where They’re Having a Once-in-500 Year Storm’

March 2, 2022 by Judi Curry

A Grandmother’s Concern

By Judi Curry

Too often we hear about something third or fourth hand, and although we feel sorry for the involved people, we let it pass until the next crisis hits. Many of us know individuals that come from Ukraine that are losing their very foundation of life.

But today I am faced with a problem even closer to home.

Many of you may know that I have a granddaughter and two great-grandchildren that are in Australia.

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Reality Check: There Are More Russians Standing Up to Putin than Republicans

March 1, 2022 by Source

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War in Ukraine Threatens Nuke Plants

March 1, 2022 by Michael Steinberg

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear power industry, in the US and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those working to create a nuclear free world.

On February 26 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that “Russian forces have taken control of” the Chernobyl nuclear plant site of the 1986 nuclear catastrophe, when the now former Soviet Union owned and operated the facility.

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Some Common-Sense About the Ukrainian Crisis

February 17, 2022 by Source

By Volodymyr Ishchenko / Al Jazeera / Feb. 16, 2022

The Ukrainian political leadership must not allow great powers to decide the country’s future.

In late January, as Western countries escalated their rhetoric about an “imminent invasion” by Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy questioned this narrative at a press conference with foreign reporters. “I’m the president of Ukraine and I’m based here and I think I know the details better here,” he said following his phone call with US President Joe Biden.

I felt proud and I think many other Ukrainians did so, too. In the 2019 presidential elections, 73 percent of voters supported Zelenskyy, a comedian with no political experience, in an act of total rejection of the dinosaur of Ukrainian oligarchic politics, Petro Poroshenko, who ran on an aggressive nationalist platform.

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Bernie Sanders: ‘We Must Do Everything Possible to Avoid an Enormously Destructive War in Ukraine’

February 9, 2022 by Source

By Bernie Sanders / The Guardian UK / Feb. 8, 2022

I’m concerned when I hear familiar drumbeats in Washington demanding we ‘show strength’, when we’re faced with what could be the worst European war in 75 years

Wars have unintended consequences. They rarely turn out the way the experts tell us they will. Just ask the officials who provided rosy scenarios for the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, only to be proven horribly wrong. Just ask the mothers of the soldiers who were killed or wounded in action during those wars. Just ask the millions of civilians who became “collateral damage”.

That is why we must do everything possible to try and find a diplomatic solution to what could be an enormously destructive war in Ukraine.

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Best 2021 Predictions From Our Different Sides of the Border

December 28, 2021 by Source

By Colleen O’Connor & G.L. Goggin

Colleen’s #1 Pick.

1. Don’t cry for Liz Cheney.

Prediction: Liz Cheney is going to be the first Republican female minority leader after Kevin McCarthy is ditched. She sees the future and it isn’t Trumpism. And McCarthy’s quote that “Everybody in the U.S. has some responsibility” for the capital riot has greased his skids.

That prediction still holds and is more viable than ever in 2022. McCarthy has dissension in his ranks; a wobbly and unattractive history courting Trump; and a tsunami of bad events coming to light.

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Urgent Call on Biden Administration: Do Not Abandon Afghan Women and Girls

August 20, 2021 by Source

The following women’s letter was organized by Vital Voices and Women for Women International, a group of celebrities, policy experts, NGO leaders and activists.

Urgent Call on Biden Administration: Do Not Abandon Afghan Women and Girls

We join a growing chorus of global leaders and advocates in raising up the voices of Afghan women’s rights activists who are under imminent threat, and urge the Biden administration to honor its commitment to gender equality by acting swiftly to support women who are trapped in a dire crisis.

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Joe Biden Stands Up to the War Machine

August 17, 2021 by Source

“I stand squarely behind my decision,”President Joe Biden said Monday. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”

Biden said the collapse of the 20-year American military involvement in Afghanistan proved he was correct to end the U.S. mission, arguing that the Taliban’s takeover of the country vindicated his decision to bring home the U.S. troops stationed there. …

In making this statement and defending his decision, Biden stood up to the US war machine, the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about.

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