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Hundreds of wildfires burn in country, with 238 ‘out of control’ as of Tuesday afternoon, blanketing cities in smoke

Instead of “succumbing” to their landlords’ whims, Canadian tenants are coming together to fight rent increases and evictions

In its latest attack on Palestinian human rights, the German police have unleashed a chilling crackdown on Nakba commemorations - including banning the holding of watermelons and repressing Jewish anti-apartheid protesters.

Prabhat Patnaik | MANY economists these days talk of a process of “de-globalisation” taking place; some others talk of the neoliberal regime of yesteryears no longer existing. Of course, nothing remains the same forever: as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus had said “You cannot step into the same river twice”; some change in the neoliberal order therefore is inevitable with the passage of time. But the real point is: has the analytical frame used for understanding the economic reality of the contemporary world, with a view to changing it, become obsolete and hence in need of serious revision?

Markets do not reward what is most valuable and essential. They never did. They reward what is scarce relative to people’s ability to buy, no matter the social importance we give to the actual work and roles people play. Markets pander to where the money is. No wonder the rich subsidize market fundamentalism. The wonder is why the rest of society believes or tolerates it.

By an 8-1 vote, the right-wing-dominated U.S. Supreme Court has curbed the right of the nation’s workers to strike by allowing companies to sue unions in state courts whenever they wish for alleged “damage” strikers cause, overruling the National Labor Relations Board even if it is already investigating and handling the dispute.

Guglielmo Carchedi: In a comment on Michael Roberts’ blog post concerning artificial intelligence (AI) and the new language learning machines (LLMs), the author and commentator, Jack Rasmus raised some pertinent questions, which I felt bound to take up.

"It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them." Sadly, Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize for Literature lecture continues to be as relevant today as when he gave it in 2005. And nothing confirms the accuracy of the British playwright’s incisive words better than the ongoing U.S. intervention in Syria.

Public relations consultants now outnumber journalists by an astonishing ratio of 17:1

As the political crisis in Venezuela intensified in early 2019, Freeland claimed that “Canada and its allies are well down the road to crafting a long-term, post-Maduro recovery plan for Venezuela’s disastrous economic decline,” ignoring the role played by US intervention. “We are discussing with our partners now ways that sanctions list can be expanded in order to have even more bite.”

MIT economics professor Daron Acemoglu is the expert on the economic and social effects of new technology, including the fast-burgeoning artificial intelligence (AI). He’s won the John Bates Clark Medal, often a precursor to the Nobel Prize. But he is no techno-optimist. His research shows that major technological disruption — such as the Industrial Revolution — can flatten wages for an entire class of working people.

The Breach | In failing to defeat a ‘serial’ corporate lobbyist, Rachel Notley suffers her ‘Hillary Clinton moment’

“Major world powers need to shift from confrontation to accommodation soon; otherwise, we’ll go off the precipice together.”

AMLO’s mining reforms are an expansion of his efforts to reduce foreign domination of Mexico’s mineral reserves, and part of his wider “Fourth Transformation” program of securing national sovereignty over the country’s lucrative resources. Up until now, his actions toward the sector have taken the form of freezing new mining and water permits for foreign companies.

Dismissing Canada’s rental crisis as nothing but a supply-demand issue overlooks the fact that a small group of landlords dominates the rental market and exploits tenants. As rents become extortionate, Canadian landlords are reaping record profits.

By Nathan J. Robinson & Noam Chomsky | The United States’ destruction of Iraq remains the worst international crime of our time. Its perpetrators remain free and its horrors are buried.

With long experience of chaos, violence, and dysfunctional governance, Haiti looks now to be on the verge of a new crisis in the form of foreign military intervention. U.S. and United Nations decision-makers have held back, but now they look to be moving, again.

From the onset of the post-COVID surge in inflation, Canada’s new breed of right-wing populists has worked hard to pin the blame for higher prices on the federal government. They rightly sense anger about the impact of inflation on their living standards. But they hope to divert that anger into outrage at Justin Trudeau personally, and his government more generally.

Lula da Silva used his state visit to Britain to champion the interests of the Global South, urge diplomacy over militarism and condemn the persecution of Julian Assange – a sign of Brazil’s new role on the world stage.