The Guardian UK:
"Cuba’s vaccine success story sails past mark set by rich world’s Covid efforts. This downtrodden island struggles to keep the lights on, but has now vaccinated more of its citizens against Covid-19 than any of the world’s major nations.
More than 90% of the population has been vaccinated with at least one dose of Cuba’s homegrown vaccines, while 83% have been fully inoculated. ... 'Cuba is a victim of magical realism,' said John Kirk, professor emeritus of Latin American studies at Dalhousie University, Canada. 'The idea that Cuba, with only 11 million people, and limited income, could be a biotech power, might be incomprehensible for someone working at Pfizer, but for Cuba it is possible.'
Like most Latin American countries, Cuba knew it would struggle to buy vaccines on the international market. So in March 2020, with foreign exchange reserves plummeting due to the loss of tourism revenue and ferocious new US sanctions, the island’s scientists got to work. The gamble paid off: this spring Cuba became the smallest country in the world to successfully develop and produce its own Covid vaccines."
-->Sadly, to read this story, one must go to the UK. Anything that puts Cuba in a good light is off limits to our major newspapers, including the NYT. In fact, news about Cuba is one of the best ways to understand the failings of our US media, perpetually addicted to reporting Pentagon propaganda. And what if the NYT had reported that it was Castro who decided to spend a billion on developing Cuba's biotech industry when the Soviet Union fell? Would the Pentagon have pulled the plug on its long time escort, the "Grey Lady"?
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+972:
"This was the deadliest year for Palestinian children since 2014. Instead of holding perpetrators accountable, Israel is criminalizing the work that organizations like mine are doing to protect Palestinian children's rights.
This year was unlike any other I can remember from my decades of defending Palestinian children’s rights. Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip in May, amidst a mass youth-led uprising across historic Palestine, sparked an outcry around the world, with more people than ever demanding Israel be held accountable for its violence toward Palestinians and calling for an end to its apartheid regime. ...
As of December 14, 86 Palestinian children have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International – Palestine, where I serve as General Director. Israeli forces and armed Israeli civilians killed 78 of those Palestinian children. ... Under international law, intentional lethal force is only justified in circumstances where there is a direct threat to life or a threat of serious injury. However, evidence collected in DCIP’s investigations suggests that Israeli forces regularly use lethal force against Palestinian children in a manner that may amount to extrajudicial or willful killings."
-->Stories like this rarely make it into the NYT, which much prefers articles like last week's pro-Israel propaganda piece entitled, "Is That a Burning Bush? Is This Mt. Sinai?" News about Palestinian human rights rarely makes it into our supposed "Newspaper of Record."
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Common Dreams:
"The Guardian has published an important eulogy to the late Desmond Tutu by Chris McGreal, saying what so many in the Palestinian solidarity community are saying: After fighting apartheid in South Africa, Tutu used his stature to call out apartheid in Israel and Palestine, and he paid a large price for doing so.
Indeed, opposing apartheid in Palestine was one of Tutu's salient achievements. And yet the American media are—no surprise—playing that angle down in memorializing Tutu as a great moral leader. They seem embarrassed by this aspect of Tutu's legacy.
The PBS News Hour gave the Anglican archbishop's work on Palestine one line in a lengthy obit, between his visiting Rwanda after the genocide and his opposition to the Iraq war. 'He weighed in on the Israeli Palestinian conflict, at times likening Israeli actions to apartheid era South Africa,' the News Hour said simply.
National Public Radio repeatedly failed to mention Tutu's stand on Palestine in coverage here, here and here—even as its correspondents discussed the ways that Tutu 'used his reputation" since the fall of apartheid by speaking "truth to power.' "
-->This well researched article is by Philip Weiss, co-editor of Mondoweiss. Check them out at http://mondoweiss.net.
