Saudi activists and dissidents are disputing official accounts alleging that a northern tribesman who refused government orders to surrender his home to make way for a new mega-project was killed in a shoot-out with security forces. Authorities say Abdul Rahim Ahmad al-Hwaiti, from… Read moreTribesman killed for resisting Saudi robot city?
Peru’s right-wing opposition leader Keiko Fujimori, who had been jailed in January while corruption charges are pending against her, was released from pre-trial detention at Lima’s Chorrillos prison on May 4, ostensibly on fears she could be exposed to the coronavirus. Fujimori… Read morePoliticians exploit COVID-19 in Peru, Bolivia
In countries across the world, the impoverished are in the paradoxical position of being disproportionately impacted both by COVID-19 and by the police-state measures imposed in response to the pandemic—and consequent economic pain. In Lebanon, which had been in the… Read morePoor persecuted in COVID-19 police state
According to widespread reports in the Nigerian media, aggrieved workers at a Chinese company in the Ogun-Guangdong Free Trade Zone (OGFTZ), located in Ado-Odo/Ota district of Ogun state, staged a brief uprising at the complex after they were locked within the premises, ostensibly under… Read moreWorker uprising at Chinese FTZ in Nigeria
Mounting police-state measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are now resulting in stand-offs between executive and judicial authorities. In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele, for the third time in 10 days on April 16 publicly dismissed Supreme Court rulings to respect… Read moreGlobal COVID-19 police state escalates
Despite last week’s agreement by Saudi Arabia and Russia to end their price war, the oil market remains in free-fall amid the virtual shut-down of the world economy by the COVID-19 pandemic. The price of the main US oil benchmark, West Texas Intermediate,… Read moreNegative oil prices slow tar sands production
Speaking April 14 at COVIDCon, an online Oslo Freedom Forum event presented by the Human Rights Foundation, exiled Chinese dissident Yang Jianli of the DC-based Citizen Power Initiatives for China charged that the death toll for Wuhan, the city where… Read moreWuhan death toll massively under-counted?
It’s certainly an irony that with police-state measures mounting worldwide to enforce lockdowns and contain COVID-19, Trump is now claiming sweeping executive power to lift lockdowns in the US in spite of the pandemic. Asserting his prerogative to override state governors and… Read moreGlobal COVID-19 police state consolidates
As nations across the globe remain under lockdown, more sweeping powers are being assumed by governments in the name of containing the COVID-19 pandemic. Facing demands for relief from poor barrios running out of resources under his lockdown orders, Philippine… Read moreGrowing police-state measures in face of COVID-19
Ten days into a national “quarantine” declared in Bolivia, protesters are taking to the streets to demand food in working-class districts of cities across the country—in defiance of lockdown orders. Residents are calling for either greater flexibility in the lockdown,… Read moreProtesters demand food across Bolivia
With whole nations under lockdown, sweeping powers are being assumed by governments across the world in the name of containing the COVID-19 pandemic. Hungary’s parliament on March 30 voted to allow Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to rule by decree, without a set… Read moreWorldwide police-state measures in face of COVID-19
Already depressed oil prices are now plummeting in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Global oil consumption is said to be in “free-fall,” and predicted to lead to the largest “annual contraction in history.” Bloomberg reports that oil traders fear that demand “may contract by… Read moreWill COVID-19 mean oil industry bailout?
