Duterte's campaign to rid the Philippines of drug users and pushers through extrajudicial executions elicited shock even among the most hardened observers. And his now legendary cursing of President Obama as a "son of a bitch" - part of an angry farewell to a long-standing alliance with Washington and an embrace of China - upended Asian geopolitics.
The U.S. has Beijing surrounded by 200 bases lining the East China Sea, it has already caused the beginning of an arms race. For the first time in many years, China is increasing its military budget at the same time the U.S. continues to spend more than China and the next 11 highest-spending countries. The U.S. is depriving its own people of money that could be used to fund scientific research, healthcare, education; it is also backing China into a corner.
Reader Comments- Selma - the movie; Labor, Racism, PBA's Patrick Lynch, Police Police Unions; Sports, Athletes, Equality and Anti-Racism; the 1914 Christmas Truce; It's a Wonderful Life, Comrade; Prosecute those responsible for Torture; Okinawa rejects "Pivot to Asia"; Fighting Anti-Semitism and Jim Crow;
Announcements- Invisible Lives, Targeted Bodies - Impacts of Economic Injustice on Vulnerable LGBTQ Communities; Symposium: Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction
BRICS and the SCO are the two largest independent international organizations to develop over the past decade. What role these new organizations will play internationally is not clear. Certainly sanction regimens will be harder to maintain because the SCO and the BRICS create alternatives. South Africa, for instance, announced that it would begin buying Iran oil in the next few months, an important breach in the sanctions against Iran.
For global companies that have shifted production to Southeast Asia's low-cost manufacturing hub, greater cross-boarder labor coordination could mean less room for wage bargaining, a squeeze on profits and maybe even higher price tags on anything from shoes and clothing to cars and electronics appliances. But even as wages rise, labor activists are confident they aren't at risk of pricing themselves out of the market.
Vietnam is justified in protesting the Chinese oil rig in the South China Sea. China is right in countering the US military buildup in southeast Asia. Duncan McFarland, who was in Vietnam at the height of the dispute in early reports from Vietnam and China. His conclusion: The working class should resist divide-and-conquer.
Since 2007, activists have risked arrests, imprisonment, heavy fines and massive police force to resist the desecration caused as mega-corporations like Samsung and Daelim to build a base to accommodate U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines for their missions throughout Asia. The base fits the regional needs of the U.S. for a maritime military outpost that would enable it to continue developing its Asia Pivot strategy.
A behind the scenes look in North Korea to explain the dramatic recent events in Pyongyang. Events there show a Shakespearean tragedy that has ended with the execution of the person widely seen as the power behind the throne. No one performs Shakespeare in the theaters of Pyongyang. Instead, he is enacted in the corridors of power.
Reader Comments: Terrorism, Drones, Afghanistan, Benghazi, Obama terrorism speech, Bradley Manning, Chicago Schools, Climate Change, Letter to "The Nation" from a Young Radical, Math, Malvina Reynolds, Africa, Asia, Hope Foye, Race & Biology, Peabody Coal, Bittorrent...
Announcements - Gerald Horne keynote's Chicago Human Rights Awards - Jun 15; Film Premier - Camp Kinderland "Commie Camp" - New York - Jun 28; Jerry Tucker Memorial Conference, St. Louis - Oct 11-13
Reader's Comments - End of the War in Viet Nam; Paid Sick Leave Law in New York; Guantanamo; Dodging Corporate Taxes; Working Class; Education; Health Care; Songs for May Day; Interview with Rene Gonzalez;
What Can I Do - Portside emails have suddenly stopped? Alert for Earthlink, Mindspring, IGC PeoplePC readers
Announcement - New York City Troublemakers School, May 18; International Forum on Globalization - Peoples of the Pacific - Berkeley Teach-In - June 1 & 2
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