FAIR:

"Corporate media coverage of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the collapse of the country’s US-backed government has offered audiences more mystification than illumination. I looked at editorials in five major US dailies following the Taliban’s retaking of Kabul: the Boston Globe, LA Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. The editorial boards of these papers consistently trivialized South Asian lives, erased US responsibility for lethal violence, and made untenable assertions about Washington’s supposedly righteous motives in the war.

The editorials evince a callous indifference to the toll of the war on civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the war has also been fought. The New York Times (8/15/21) referred to 'at least 2,448 American service members’ lives lost in Afghanistan,' and to 'Afghan casualties so huge—60,000 killed since 2001, by one estimate—that the government kept them a secret.' The link makes clear that the authors are talking about deaths among Afghan police and soldiers. Yet, as of April, more than 71,000 civilians—over 47,000 Afghans and more than 24,000 Pakistanis—have been directly killed in the US-initiated war.

The Boston Globe’s piece (8/16/21) described 'two decades of the United States propping up Afghan forces to keep the Taliban at bay at the cost of more than $2 trillion and more than 2,400 lost military service members.' Tens of thousands of dead Afghan and Pakistani civilians evidently aren’t significant enough to factor into 'the cost' of the war. ..."

https://fair.org/home/as-kabul-is-retaken-papers-look-back-in-erasure/

-->Yes, the whitewashing of the empire is at its peak in the nation's media. How the US got into the war, the unimaginable profits for the weapons makers, and the cowardice of Bush, Obama, and Trump for not withdrawing earlier are all forgotten.

=====

The Hill:

"New report says US government deliberately targeted Black Lives Matter

More than 90 percent of the federal criminal cases could have been charged under state or local laws. The report, first released by The Associated Press (AP), was conducted in partnership with the Movement for Black Lives and Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility clinic (CLEAR) at City University of New York School of Law.

Whether or not protesters did commit any crimes, the report signifies that the highest offices in the federal government used criminal prosecution tactics to disrupt and discourage protesters from expressing themselves, the AP reported. ...

'We want to really show how the US government has continued to persecute the Black movement by surveillance, by criminalizing protests, and by using the criminal legal system to prevent people from protesting and punishing them for being engaged in protests by attempting to curtail their first amendment rights,' said Amara Enyia, the Movement for Black Lives’ policy research coordinator."

https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/568624-new-report-says-us-government-deliberately-targeted-black

-->Why wouldn't the mainstream media like the NYT be all over this story? It is exactly what the federal government did to the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s. Can't our society come to terms with its official racism?

=====

The Guardian:

"Cybersleuths have tracked down two men who allegedly attacked police officer Jeffrey Smith at the US Capitol during the 6 January insurrection, leaving him with injuries that have been linked to his death days later.

In a new complaint, attorney David P Weber – who represents Smith’s widow, Erin – wrote that David Walls-Kaufman and and Taylor F Taranto appeared to specifically target Smith because his eyes and face were vulnerable. ...

'I thought the I in FBI stood for investigation,' Weber told HuffPost. 'It’s pretty lame that a private lawyer for a dead police officer’s widow has to be the one conducting the investigation.' "

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/14/jeffrey-smith-us-capitol-attack-lawsuit-david-walls-kaufman

-->The feds did a good job investigating Black Lives protesters, but they were not so good finding white supremacists, the real terrorists in our society. Compounding the official racism, the NYT didn't print this story.

 The Guardian UK:

"Why is Afghanistan falling to the Taliban so fast? The Taliban has been seizing territory in Afghanistan at an alarming rate, having captured all or parts of 10 provincial capitals from the Afghan National Defense Security Forces (ANDSF) in the past week. Far from representing a reason for Joe Biden to halt the withdrawal, however, this rapid deterioration in Afghan security has exposed the bankruptcy of US policies for at least the past 15 years – and the stark unwillingness to tell the truth by a generation of senior US leaders.

Since early 2002, the war in Afghanistan never had a chance of succeeding. After President Bush’s initial objectives of disrupting al-Qaida and punishing the Taliban were accomplished by March 2002, the mission was changed to a nation-building operation that included objectives that were outright militarily unattainable. Presidents Obama and Trump continued the nation-building focus, guaranteeing the war would never be 'won' and thus never end. ...

Behind the scenes America’s senior leaders have known, almost from the beginning, that the war was unwinnable, that the Afghan government was fatally corrupt, and that the Afghan security forces would never be up to the task. Instead of acknowledging reality, instead of coming clean to the American people, they hid the truth or outright lied about it."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/14/afghanistan-taliban-us-troops

-->Will our mainstream media ever come clean about this criminal war? So far, American readers have to go to a newspaper in the UK to get a clear view of why it all happened. The invasion and occupation were simply based on lies, and done for political and economic reasons.

=====

Don't Extradite Assange

"Amnesty International reiterated their call to end the politically motivated charges against WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange ahead of Wednesday’s preliminary appeal hearing. 'This disingenuous appeal should be dismissed by the court and President Biden should take the opportunity to drop these politically motivated charges which have put media freedom and freedom of expression in the dock.' ...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joined the call asking the Biden administration to drop the politically motivated charges and for Assange’s immediate release. General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said: 'President Joe Biden must end the years of politically motivated prosecution of Julian Assange by finally dropping the charges against him.' ...

Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a statement after the High Court’s decision to allow the United States government to expand its appeal. CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney said: 'A successful prosecution of the WikiLeaks founder, which hinges on an allegation of conspiracy between a publisher and sources, would hamper reporters’ ability to work with sources and whistleblowers and unearth information that the public should know.' ...

The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) continues to support Julian Assange and urge for his immediate and unconditional release. PEN International and English PEN issued a joint statement following the outcome of the preliminary appeal hearing. Salil Tripathi, Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee, said: 'The charges faced by Julian Assange in the US represent a huge threat to media freedom and investigative journalism everywhere.' "

https://dontextraditeassange.com

-->The US media is lockstep in it's denial of human rights for Julian Assange. His extradition to the US empire is just as criminal.

=====

Common Dreams:

"A new report published Wednesday reveals how the Koch network—a shadowy group of wealthy capitalists acting to push the U.S. in a more conservative direction—is methodically working to undermine and privatize public education for financial gain.

The report (pdf), entitled The Koch Network and the Capture of K-12 Education, was compiled by the advocacy groups UnKoch My Campus and Save Our Schools Arizona (SOSAZ) and examines tactics employed by the plutocrats' cabal—which is led by billionaire Charles Koch, and whose members pay at least $100,000 per year—'to destabilize and abolish public education.'

'In order to influence K-12 public education, the Koch network has financed local, state, and national mechanisms to create multiple crises, only to turn around and cite these same crises as reasons to adopt their free market solutions,' according to UnKoch My Campus."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/08/11/koch-network-infiltration-public-schools-harms-students-teachers-and-our-democracy

-->The NYT and on down the media feed chain is often in favor of charter schools, indicating how the very rich want to control what is taught in our nation's schools.

The Intercept:

"THE DRIVE TO PERSUADE President Joe Biden to cancel student debt took a major hit last week when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stunned Congress with a surprise statement in opposition. The move may put her at odds with much of the public and the Democratic Party, but it aligns her with Democratic megadonors Steven and Mary Swig, the billionaire scions of the Bay Area’s oldest real estate dynasty who have deep ties to the California representative. Steven Swig has also long served as a treasurer for Pelosi in her fundraising efforts.

In November, after Biden’s election, and amid increased pressure to cancel student debt, the Swigs quietly circulated a memo among key Capitol Hill figures, making the dubious case that debt cancellation at the executive level is illegal. The argument in the memo gets much of its weight by virtue of the wealthy couple who produced it, as the Swigs are not just major funders of progressive nonprofits, but also have significantly bankrolled Pelosi and her House Democratic caucus.

The memo, obtained by The Intercept, was distributed to members of Congress by Freedom to Prosper, an organization founded by and for the Swigs. The couple has in the past directly lobbied Pelosi, according to two sources with knowledge of the meetings, in which the Swigs would suggest rhetoric or policy proposals that Pelosi would agree to adopt in some form."

https://theintercept.com/2021/08/05/student-debt-cancellation-nancy-pelosi/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=The%20Intercept%20Newsletter

-->This disgusting display of how billionaires control Democratic Party leadership was nowhere to be seen on the plages of the NYT, that disgusting corporate rag that always supports mainstream Democratic Party sellouts. 

=====

The NYT:

"How a Star Times Reporter Got Paid by Government Agencies He Covered.

A pair of new books tell how William L. Laurence, a reporter for The New York Times known as ‘Atomic Bill,’ became an apologist for the American military and a serial defier of journalism’s mores.

Shortly after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves of the U.S. Army, who directed the making of the weapons, told Congress that succumbing to their radiation was 'a very pleasant way to die.' ... His aide in misinforming America was William L. Laurence, a science reporter for The New York Times. At the general’s invitation, the writer entered a maze of secret cities in Tennessee, Washington and New Mexico. His exclusive reports on the Manhattan Project, when released after the Hiroshima bombing, helped shape postwar opinion on the bomb and atomic energy.

Before the war, Mr. Laurence’s science reporting won him a Pulitzer. Working with and effectively for the War Department during the bomb project, he witnessed the test explosion of the world’s first nuclear device and flew on the Nagasaki bombing run. He won his second Pulitzer for his firsthand account of the atomic strike as well as subsequent articles on the bomb’s making and significance."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/science/william-laurence-new-york-times.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

-->Only seventy years late, the NYT discovers that the Pentagon was paying off some of its prize winning journalists. Our newspaper of record didn't have much choice, as the revelations came out in two recently published books. How much of its current warmongering articles on Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua will eventually be traced back to Pentagon sponsors? We will know in about 2090.

=====

Common Dreams:

"Science Museum Just Killed Its 'Own Reputation,' Says Greta Thunberg After Docs Reveal Gag Clause With Shell. The London Science Museum is facing fresh criticism from climate campaigners following revelations that the institution signed a 'gagging clause' with Shell banning it from criticizing the oil giant as part of an exhibition sponsorship agreement.

Thunberg's tweet was in response to Channel 4 News' reporting on the contract for Shell's controversial sponsorship of the 'Our Future Planet' exhibition, which opened in May and includes carbon capture technologies. Those include ones 'Shell either has commercial interest in, researches, or actually operates,' Politico EU reported Friday. ...

'It essentially creates a 'chilling effect,' where museum staff must refrain from speaking openly about the reality of Shell's activities because it could be seen as damaging the company's goodwill or reputation.' "

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/07/30/science-museum-just-killed-its-own-reputation-says-greta-thunberg-after-docs-reveal

-->Is there an aspect of our democracy that hasn't been compromised by the wealthy and their massive, polluting corporations? Readers of the NYT don't have to worry. The newspaper didn't cover this story.

 Common Dreams:

"SOS: A Plea for Freedom From Misleading Media Narratives on Cuba.

Since the beginning of protests in Cuba, the U.S. corporate media have been peddling false narratives and outright lies about the country.

In the wake of this month's protests in Cuba over food and medicine shortages and other complaints, the New York-based magazine Travel + Leisure ran an item titled '4 Ways to Help the People of Cuba Right Now.' First on the list is 'asking the US for humanitarian intervention' in order to 'help alleviate the dire situation citizens are in.' Never mind that Cuba's dire situation has just about everything to do with United States interference in the first place—particularly the six-decades-long blockade that, under international law, technically qualifies as an act of war—or that magazines called Travel + Leisure should perhaps stick to the subjects at hand rather than serving as conduits for imperial propaganda. ...

But the problem extends far beyond Travel + Leisure. The US corporate media as a whole have been less than serious in their coverage of recent events in Cuba—to the extent that many outlets have deceitfully published images of pro-government demonstrations cast as the opposite."

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/07/30/sos-plea-freedom-misleading-media-narratives-cuba

-->If you want proof of how propagandistic our media has become, just read some of the coverage on Cuba. It is the media pushing for war again, which seems to be the consensus of both parties as well as the military industrial complex. War is money in the US empire. 

=====

Common Dreams:

"The case of an American human rights attorney who won a multibillion-dollar judgment against one of the world's largest oil companies and has spent the past two years on house arrest led a pair of Democratic U.S. senators on Thursday to raise questions and concerns about the use of private prosecutors in the federal court system.

Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) revealed Friday that they sent a letter (pdf) to Judge Roslynn R. Mauskopf, director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, with inquiries about the practice and federal rules of criminal procedure

'Recently, the case of environmental lawyer Steven Donziger has garnered significant attention and shined a spotlight on private prosecutions of criminal contempt charges,' the pair wrote. 'These prosecutions are highly unusual and can raise concerning questions of fundamental fairness in our criminal justice system.' "

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/07/30/citing-donziger-case-dems-raise-alarm-about-use-private-prosecutors-federal-court

-->Yes, the imprisonment of Steven Donziger for winning a case against Texaco-Chevron for its massive environmental destruction in Ecuador is startling. Even worse, we learn that the prosecution of Donziger in federal court is being handled by Chevron lawyers. Do a search on Donziger in the NYT and you will discover how deep this corporate rot is in our mainstream media. 

 

=====

Mondoweiss:

"So much bad news is hitting Israel’s leaders, so fast, these days, that they may have overlooked warnings by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), among others, that the United Church of Christ General Synod was considering becoming the first major U.S. denomination to label Israel an apartheid state. The Zionist shock and outrage didn’t have the intensity of the meltdown over the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream affair, which came at the same time, but the UCC’s condemnation of Israeli treatment of the Palestinians is sure to resonate with the other mainline American churches — and their millions of members. ...

Moreover, the UCC resolution is likely to be only the first blow among many from other mainline denominations, including the Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Unitarians, Quakers and others who will follow the UCC lead in denouncing Israel’s “continued oppression of the Palestinian people” and calling on the U.S. government to support full equal rights for Palestinians."

https://mondoweiss.net/2021/07/mainline-church-labels-israel-an-apartheid-state-and-more-churches-are-sure-to-follow/

-->The NYT didn't cover this story. Despite some recent changes, our newspaper of record still tries to eliminate stores critical of the apartheid state of Israel.

NPR:

"NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks to Amalia Dache of the University of Pennsylvania about race in Cuban society, and why Afro-Cubans have been at the forefront of recent protests."

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/25/1020342843/afro-cubans-come-out-in-droves-to-protest-government

-->Dr. Dache didn't have a good word to say about Cuba, but perhaps that might be expected since her family "escaped" from the island and her father had been a supposed "political prisoner." Dr. Dache makes some interesting points not often heard in our mainstream media: that Blacks in Cuba get universal healthcare and complete access to education, something not afforded people of color in the US. But the professor does not dwell on these positives about Cuba. She is clearly there to find fault with what she calls the "revolutionary dictatorship" leading the country. The government doesn't provide enough food for Black students to go to college. No mention, of course, of the intensely damaging US embargo in her discussion of this food scarcity. 

Dr. Dache goes on to point out political repression of Blacks, skipping over the fact that the US has a much higher incarceration rate for African Americans at 38%. She might have also mentioned that the peak of race based discrimination in Cuban history occurred from 1898 - 1902, the period that the US invaded and occupied the island. 

Dr. Dache takes Black Lives Matter to task for supporting calls to end the blockade of Cuba, a Black Lives stance that is rarely mentioned in our mainstream media. The embargo has, in fact, disproportionally hurt people of color in Cuba, another aspect that gets omitted in this little propaganda piece. NPR simply gives us more of the same when it comes to covering up US imperialism. Don't expect anything better when NPR reports on other targets of our military empire, be they Venezuela, Nicaragua, or Cuba. 

=====

Common Dreams:

"Several of the same corporations and law firms that publicly condemned the passage of Georgia's voter suppression law in March also contributed thousands of dollars this year to state lawmakers and officials who supported the legislation, according to a new analysis of campaign finance disclosures, first reported on Thursday by the Washington Post.

'Many of the most powerful institutions in our society—global corporations and elite law firms—have made vague statements about supporting voting rights, but these statements are meaningless if these entities continue to fund the politicians behind restrictive voter legislation,' said Daniel Jones, president of Advance Democracy, the nonprofit research group behind the analysis.

Georgia's sweeping attack on voting rights, signed into law by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp on March 25, restricts access to the ballot in numerous ways, including by limiting early and absentee voting, reducing the number of ballot drop boxes, and criminalizing those who attempt to provide food and water to voters who are often forced to wait in line for hours on end."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/07/22/big-corporations-decried-georgia-voter-suppression-law-donated-its-key-backers

-->The NYT had a long article about the ins and outs of passing a voting rights act. Strangely the large corporate donations to Republicans opposing voting reform was left out. 

=====

The Guardian UK:

"The latest flare-up of violence in the Gaza Strip has been accompanied by a 'catalogue of violations' committed by Israeli police against Palestinians in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, according to research from Amnesty International.

Arab citizens of Israel have been subjected to unlawful force from officers during peaceful demonstrations, sweeping mass arrests, torture and other ill-treatment in detention, and police have failed to protect Palestinians from premeditated attacks by rightwing Jewish extremists, the human rights watchdog said on Thursday. ...

Palestinians face a culture of increasing repression and violence from the Israeli authorities and the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, said Saleh Hijazi, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and north Africa. On Thursday protesters took to the streets of Ramallah over the death in custody of an outspoken political figure arrested by Palestinian security forces."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/24/amnesty-catalogue-of-violations-by-israeli-police-against-palestinians

-->This is a simple story of human rights violations in the Occupied Territories. What isn't so simple is why readers have to find out about this in the English publication, "The Guardian," rather than in the NYT.

The New York Times:

"Biden Pressing for Democracy Closer to Home. President Biden took office with bold warnings for Russia and China about human rights as he pressed democracies around the world to stand up against autocracy. But this week, he is facing a string of similar challenges in America’s neighborhood."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/12/us/politics/biden-cuba-haiti-latin-america.html

-->The NYT assumption that the United States is a force for democracy in Latin America is simply laughable. The CIA has spent decades overthrowing democratically elected presidents in the region, only to put in some of the worst dictators imaginable. The only real challenge to democracies south of the boarder is to choose their form of government without the intervention of CIA assassins, illegal trade embargoes and outright military invasions. 

In fact, after 30 years of involving itself in the Middle East, the US is closely allied with some of the most brutal of dictators in the world. Saudi Arabia and Egypt, two countries that get billions in US military aid, are among the most repressive. And then there is our top recipient of foreign aid, apartheid Israel, where fully half of the population lives in perpetual occupation and siege, all because they are the wrong religion. Our newspaper of record calls all of this involvement "pressing for democracy." Only in the dream world of the Pentagon. 

After a couple of paragraphs, the NYT gets down to the real reason why Biden is worried about Latin America: "But U.S. influence began waning in the region over the past decade, as it turned toward fighting terrorism in the Middle East and as Russia and especially China moved in to finance projects and offer political support and other incentives."

-->Russia and China are now important trade partners with many Latin American countries. The US is attempting to overthrow democratically elected leaders in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua to reverse these gains. First our national media will slander these countries with propaganda. Next, there will be special operations to train and arm insurgents. We have seen it all before. Calling for democracy is nothing but the fig leaf that hides US imperialism. Shame on the NYT to pollute the national discourse with these crude distortions. 

=====

FAIR:

"A wave of protests in Cuba became the somewhat unlikely focus of global attention earlier this week, the events becoming the worldwide No. 1 trend on Twitter for over 24 hours, as celebrities, politicians and even the president of the United States weighed in on the action. ... Media, too, were quick to focus on the story, giving the protests front and center coverage, something extremely unusual for demonstrations in Latin America. Far larger and more deadly movements in Chile and Ecuador were mostly ignored by the corporate press. ...

However, while giving the protests a great deal of coverage, the corporate press across the political spectrum consistently downplayed one of the primary causes of unrest: the increasingly punitive US blockade. ...

[It] is ironic indeed that a host of outlets resorted to using images of pro-government demonstrations to illustrate how large and impressive the anti-government movement was. The Guardian (7/12/21), Fox News (7/11/21), Boston Globe (7/11/21), Financial Times (7/12/21), Yahoo! News (7/11/21) and NBC’s Today program (7/13/21) were among that used an image of masses of government supporters gathering in central Havana to show the extent of the anti-Communist demonstrations."

https://fair.org/home/media-play-up-protests-play-down-effect-of-us-sanctions-in-cuba/

-->Cuba brings out the very worst in the US media, with distortions and outright lies being the norm. Sad that we still think of our media as "free" when it so slavishly parrots misconceptions about Cuba. All the news that Wall Street thinks is fit to print.

=====

Orinoco Tribune:

"Jorge Rodríguez, head of the National Assembly of Venezuela, has presented evidence that links the Colombian mercenaries implicated in the recent murder of Jovenel Moïse in Haiti, with the 2018 assassination attempt on President Maduro.

Rodríguez reported that the security firm that had recruited the Colombian hitmen was also involved in a failed assassination attempt on the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, that occurred on August 4, 2018. On that occasion, Maduro had accused his Colombian counterpart, then President Juan Manuel Santos, of being behind the failed assassination attempt. 

Jorge Rodríguez referred to a report published on July 11 by the American newspaper Miami Herald to assert that the Colombians implicated in the murder of Haitian President Moïse, hired by the security firm CTU Security LLC, based in Miami, Florida, were also involved in the attack against the Venezuelan president."

https://orinocotribune.com/company-implicated-in-moise-assassination-was-involved-in-attack-against-maduro/

-->These are links that most of our well trained, mainstream media will never make for the public. US assassinations of Third World leaders is the dirty secret of the empire. 

Counterpunch:

"[Donald Rumsfeld and Bechtel]. On the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Bechtel, the gargantuan global construction firm based in San Francisco, issued its revenue numbers for 2004. While the situation continued to deteriorate for the US military forces in Iraq, Bechtel reported more fragrant news.

Although the privately-owned company doesn’t disclose its profits, Bechtel did announce that its income was soaring to new heights not seen since the 1960s when the company was damming some of the world’s most glorious canyons, building some of the most dangerous nuclear plants and constructing military bases for the staging of the war on Vietnam.

For the year 2004, Bechtel brought in more than $17.4 billion, a record haul for the company. That makes two record years in a row. Last year [2003] Bechtel earned more than $17 billion for the first time. Both peaks were all the more impressive given the senescent condition of the economy. Much of that robust income stream [came] from its operations in Iraq, where Bechtel is the king of contractors."

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/04/straight-to-bechtel-when-donald-rumsfeld-laid-pipe/

-->While the major media focuses on Donald Rumsfeld's personality quirks, the rest of the story is carefully avoided. Much of that story involves Bechtel, one of the largest US war, nuclear and oil construction firms, as well as Rumsfeld's dirty dealings on its behalf over the last half century. One can't understand US disastrous wars abroad without looking at this country's war machine and how government officials are paid off to make it grow.

=====

Aljazeera:

"Israeli settlements amount to ‘war crime.’ ... A top UN rights expert has called for Israeli settlements to be classified as war crimes, urging the international community to demand accountability for a practice it has long deemed illegal.

Presenting his latest report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Michael Lynk, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, said the settlements constitute a 'violation of the absolute prohibition against settler implantation'. ...

'I submit to you that this finding compels the international community … to make it clear to Israel that its illegal occupation, and its defiance of international law and international opinion, can and will no longer be cost-free,' Lynk told the Geneva rights forum."

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/9/israeli-settlements-amount-to-war-crime-un-rights-expert

-->Strangely enough, the NYT offered readers a story entitled "U.N. Rights Council Orders Inquiry Into Israel After Gaza Strife," but the newspaper is less forthcoming about news stories that actually state that Israel is committing war crimes against the Palestinians.  

=====

Black Alliance for Peace:

"The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) condemns the arrogance and illegality of United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti Helen La Lime’s July 8 statement that Haitian Prime Minister Claude Joseph will be the new president, just one day after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

The decision was announced to the press after a closed-door UN Security Council meeting had been called on Haiti. But BAP asks: Who gave the United Nations special envoy the power to make that kind of determination for the people of Haiti? ...

BAP is concerned the political situation the United States created by supporting a dictatorship in Haiti is quickly replicating the moment when the United States swept in to colonize the predominantly African/Black country after the 1915 assassination of Haiti’s president, Vilbrun Guillaume Sam." 

https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/haitiswhiterulers

-->Our mainstream media never questions the right of the US military to step back into Haiti, occupy the country and set up its next government. The history of US military invasions and occupations of this sovereign nation is never part of the story told to the US public.