Category: World News

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,

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.

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).

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.”

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.

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.

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.