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Ann Arbor - Jordan’s al-Ghad [Tomorrow] newspaper reports from occupied East Jerusalem that on Friday the extremist Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Bin-Gvir called on Israeli squatters on the Palestinian West Bank to take over the territory and to settle it with support from the far right-wing government. Ben-Gvir said that it is incumbent on the Israeli government to kill dozens, or hundreds, or even thousands of Palestinians, so as to stabilize the security situation. The UN Security Council has repeatedly called for the Israeli withdrawal from territories seized in 1967. Like slaves, they can be beaten and even shot arbitrarily by Israeli squatters and security forces, and they have little recourse to courts to claim damages- just as Dred Scott and his wife were slapped down by the antebellum racist US Supreme Court. Israeli security forces attacked protesting Palestinian youth in several other West Bank locales on Friday.

In Part 1 of our two-part dispatch from the CLC, we talk to: Emily Leedham, the Prairie Reporter for PressProgress and editor of Shift Work, PressProgress’ weekly national labour newsletter; Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees; Mary Newman, a journalist and producer for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation and member of the Canadian Media Guild; James Russwurm, a quality assurance tester for Keywords Studios, where workers formed the first union in the video gaming industry and affiliated with UFCW Local 401; Liz Ha, 1st Vice President of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 154, chair of the OPSEU provincial human rights committee, and vice-chair of the OPSEU Coalition of Racialized Workers. Then we represent the direct government frontline workers as social services, corrections, sheriffs, lot of administrative support workers, a lot of workers that work with handicapped folks. There’s still so many workers who are left out of the movement or who are written out of the movement itself, because, like migrant farm workers, for example, in the United States, farm workers were deliberately written out of the National Labor Relations Act for very racist reasons and are very underrepresented in the movement as a result of it. What you were saying is that when COVID hit, farm workers were deemed essential along with other classes of workers, but no one wanted to do those jobs. Instead of doing what people typically think of construction workers in New York City doing, which is blaming undocumented workers and non-union workers as the enemy who are undercutting our jobs and our wages, they’re reaching out to these workers, largely migrant and undocumented workers in the city or returning citizens coming home from prison, who are ripe for hyper-exploitation and have to work for the most union-busting, exploitative, corner-cutting demolition and construction companies in the city.

On Saturday, illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers installed an outpost on stolen Palestinian lands in Deir Istiya town, west of Salfit, in the occupied West Bank’s central part. Moath Salma, the Mayor of Deir Istiya, said the colonizers occupied, Friday, Palestinian lands in the Al-Qa’da area in the northern part of the town. He added that, on Saturday, the colonizers installed two mobile homes and three barns on the stolen lands and started infrastructure work, including a street, electricity, and water. On Friday night, illegal Israeli colonizers burnt dozens of Palestinian trees in the Wad Sa’ir area, northeast of Hebron, in the West Bank’s southern part. All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention, in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions.

While the DoJ stressed that the Hong Kong government was not aiming for a global takedown, human rights and digital rights groups suggested otherwise. Evidence suggested that the Hong Kong authorities were monitoring social media content posted from overseas - in March this year, a 23-year-old student who studied in Japan and returned to Hong Kong was arrested for her Facebook posts. The DoJ’s injunctions seek to prevent anyone from broadcasting, performing, printing, publishing, selling, offering for sale, distributing, disseminating, displaying, or reproducing the protest song in any media form, including on the internet that might incite secession or sedition intentions, and mislead others into thinking the song is Hong Kong’s national anthem or insult the national anthem. Thus far, none of the big tech companies has responded to their users’ concerns, nor the Hong Kong government’s legal action. The Hong Kong Journalists Association stated that it would consider stepping into the court as an interested party in the injunction hearing on the protest song.

There has also been massive criticism leveled at the Greek coast guard. The coast guard did not deliver a plausible explanation for why the vessel then capsized And while it is clear that the ship could easily have become quickly unbalanced due to the sheer number of people on board, the coast guard has still come under criticism for its actions after the vessel’s sinking. Many questions remain unanswered, and the accusations against the Greek coast guard are still just that. The Greek coast guard noted in a public update dating June 14 that an activist had already alerted the agency about the endangered vessel on the morning of June 13. At 10:40 p.m., the Greek coast guard document states, a Greek coast guard vessel arrived at the fishing vessel and didn’t see any problems.

The Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has sparked outrage after he called for the assassination of thousands of Palestinians who oppose the Israel occupation of their land. Ben-Gvir’s comments were met with condemnation from Palestinian officials, human rights groups and some Israeli politicians. Ben-Gvir has also been involved in several violent incidents against Palestinians and Israeli occupation forces, and has been arrested dozens of times. Ben-Gvir has also expressed admiration for Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish settler who massacred 29 Palestinians at a mosque in Hebron in 1994. Ben-Gvir currently lives in Hebron, one of the most volatile areas in the West Bank, where he leads a group of radical settlers who harass and attack Palestinian residents.

A joint statement by diplomats from 16 countries, including the UK and France, condemned Israeli settlers’ violence in Turmusaya town in the occupied West Bank on Friday, June 23, 2023. The delegation visited the village on Friday to inspect the damage. EU representative Sven Kuehn von Burgsdorff blasted Israel for failing to meet its obligations to protect Palestinians. In a joint statement, the delegation announced that they visit Turmusaya to express condolences to the victims of settler attacks and to condemn settler violence in the strongest terms. It also indicated that the violence witnessed in Turmusaya occurs in the context of settler-related violence surging to its highest level since UN records began in 2005…

Sierra Leoneans are voting in a general election following a tense campaign marred by violence. The voters are choosing a president, MPs and councillors in the West African country’s fifth election since the civil war ended in 2002. The 11-year conflict cost an estimated 50,000 lives, but since then the country has a tradition of largely peaceful, free and credible elections, according to Marcella Samba Sesay, chairperson of the NGO National Elections Watch. President Julius Maada Bio, 59, of the Sierra Leone People’s Party is running for a second five-year term. There has been an uptick in violence compared to five years ago, according to the West Africa Network for Peace-building Sierra Leone.

US intelligence agencies have found no direct evidence that Covid-19 broke out from a Chinese laboratory, a declassified report has said. The ODNI report was released on Friday night after Congress passed a bill in March giving US intelligence 90 days to declassify what it knew about the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The findings said the US intelligence community still could not rule out the possibility that the virus came from a laboratory. All US intelligence agencies agree that Covid-19 was not developed as a biological weapon, said the report. US intelligence is not aware of a specific biosafety incident at the Wuhan lab that caused a Covid-19 outbreak, according to the report.

BELGRADE, Serbia - Serbia on Friday reiterated a threat to intervene militarily in its former province of Kosovo if NATO-led peacekeepers there fail to protect minority Serbs from what Belgrade called the terrorist threat of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian authorities. Serbia has put its troops on the border with Kosovo on the highest state of alert amid a series of recent clashes between Kosovo Serbs on one side and Kosovo police and NATO-led peacekeepers, known as KFOR, on the other. ADVERTISEMENT. Serbia’s armed intervention in Kosovo would mean a direct clash with some 4,000 NATO troops currently stationed there. The latest flareup focused on Kosovo police arresting at least eight Serbs who are suspected of taking part in last month’s violent clashes with the NATO troops and Kosovo police, leaving dozens of injured on all sides. In their meeting in Brussels on Thursday, the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo made no breakthrough in EU-hosted emergency talks amid fears of a return to open conflict.

BEIRUT - Carlos Ghosn said Friday that the $1 billion lawsuit he recently filed against Nissan and others is just the beginning of his fight. Ghosn led Japanese automaker Nissan for two decades, rescuing it from near-bankruptcy, before he was arrested in Japan in November 2018 on charges of breach of trust, misusing company assets for personal gains and violating securities laws by not fully disclosing his compensation. Ghosn is also seeking monetary compensation from a Nissan affiliate based in Lebanon, as well as entities that took part in the investigation leading up to his arrest and those that obtained documents and computers from his homes. Ghosn said he had no choice but to challenge Nissan regardless of the odds of winning his lawsuit. Ghosn claims to be the victim of a character assassination campaign led by Nissan with the complicity of the Japanese government, aided by accomplices in France.

BAMBER BRIDGE, England - The village of Bamber Bridge in northwestern England is proud of the blow it struck against racism in the U.S. military during World War II. When an all-Black truck regiment was stationed in the village, residents refused to accept the segregation ingrained in the U.S. Army. Ignoring pressure from British and American authorities, pubs welcomed the GIs, local women chatted and danced with them, and English soldiers drank alongside men they saw as allies in the war against fascism. The community has chosen to focus on its stand against segregation as it commemorates the 80th anniversary of what’s now known as the Battle of Bamber Bridge and America reassesses its past treatment of Black men and women in the armed forces. EXPORTING SEGREGATION. Black soldiers accounted for about 10% of the American troops who flooded into Britain during the war. Earlier this month, the Army renamed a base for William Henry Johnson, a Black soldier who was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award, almost a century after he was wounded 21 times while beating back attacking forces during World War I. Snipe also said he planned to pay tribute to the people of Bamber Bridge at an 80th anniversary event.

Two years after Palestinian dissident Nizar Banat died in the custody of Palestinian security forces, Palestinian authorities have failed to effectively investigate his death and ensure those responsible are held to account, Amnesty International said today. Nizar Banat’s family harassed for seeking justice. Nizar Banat’s family has faced harassment as a reprisal for continuing to seek justice. As a party to key international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment and its Optional Protocol, the State of Palestine has a legal obligation to ensure a prompt, impartial and independent investigation into Nizar Banat’s arrest and killing. Two years ago, the death in custody of Nizar Banat sparked widespread protests across the West Bank, to which the Palestinian security forces responded with excessive force.

Washington and Beijing pledge to stabilise relations after the US secretary of state’s visit to China. China and the United States have been fighting a trade war for years. List 1 of 4 Brazil’s Lula to discuss trade deal with Macron on France visit. List 2 of 4 Kenya signs EU trade deal in boost to Brussels’ Africa ties. During a rare meeting in Beijing, the US secretary of state and China’s president agreed on a need to stabilise relations.

Vladimir Putin made an extraordinary address to the nation on Saturday morning admitting that he was facing an armed insurrection led by former confidante Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries. After months of feuding between the mercenary boss and Russia’s Defense Ministry, things came to a head Friday when Prigozhin accused the Russian military of ordering a rocket strike on a camp full of his men, and vowed merciless revenge. Within hours, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced charges against Prigozhin for attempting to incite an armed rebellion, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of 20 years behind bars. Prigozhin showed no sign of backing down, instead releasing a series of audio messages via his press service late Friday in which he accused the Defense Ministry of deploying fighter jets to shoot at Wagner vehicles in the Rostov region and of firing at civilians on Russian territory. While the drama between Moscow and Prigozhin played out, Ukrainian officials announced Friday their forces had retaken eight villages from Russian control as part of their first counteroffensive.

Authorities in Moscow have clamped down on security as the head of the Wagner mercenary group claimed to have seized control of all military sites in the city of Rostov-on-Don and demanded that Russia’s military leadership come to him after accusing them of killing his forces. In videos posted on social media early on Saturday, Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that he was at the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov and demanded that defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general Valery Gerasimov come to the city, 1,000 kilometres south of Moscow. State-run Channel 1 also broke into regular programming early Saturday for a special news bulletin in which the country’s best-known news anchor, Yekaterina Andreyeva, denied Prigozhin’s claims of a Russian military attack against his fighters and repeated the FSB statement. The string of statements marked an unprecedented escalation of infighting among Russia’s elite, which has pitted Prigozhin against defence minister Sergei Shoigu and senior military commanders. Earlier on Friday, Prigozhin had accused Moscow’s leadership of lying to the public about the justifications for invading Ukraine, denying Moscow’s claims that Kyiv was planning to launch an offensive on the Russian-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine in February 2022.

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The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group is being investigated for inciting mutiny after accusing the Russian military of a launching a deadly missile strike on his troops. The Wagner Group is a paramilitary organisation that has been fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine. In recent months, Prigozhin has become increasingly vocal in his criticism of Russia’s military leadership. The FSB has also reportedly called on Wagner fighters to disobey Prigozhin’s orders and to take steps to apprehend him. It comes after a video message in May in which Prigozhin stood surrounded by the bodies of his troops and berated Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu - as well as Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov - for not providing them with enough ammunition.

In a major development, the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner on Saturday, in a staunch warning to the leadership, claimed to topple the country’s Defence Ministry. Although security was heightened in Moscow and in Rostov-on-Don, which is home to the Russian military headquarters for the southern region and also oversees the fighting in Ukraine, local media reports claimed that forces started accumulating near crucial buildings.

Vladimir Putin is facing a major military crisis after Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin declared war on Moscow’s own defense ministry, claiming Kremlin officials had killed thousands of his soldiers. POLITICO could not verify the claim that Wagner troops had entered Rostov and Prigozhin did not present evidence of the massive troop movements he claimed were underway. Prigozhin claims around 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the war on Ukraine. Prigozhin’s move comes after he claimed 2,000 Wagner men were killed as a result of strikes ordered by Russia’s Ministry of Defense. In one video appeal, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev, first deputy chief of the general staff of the armed forces, said Prigozhin does not have the authority to give orders.