Faiz Ahmed

114,000 Syrians returned home in 2018 | CTV

'Nearly 114,000 Syrian refugees have returned home this year, the Russian military said Tuesday, a mere fraction of the nearly 6 million who have fled the country since the start of the seven-year conflict. UN agencies said they need $5.5 billion in the coming year to support Syria's neighbours hosting the refugees. The UN said Tuesday that Syria's neighbours, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, are hosting the majority of the Syrian refugees, while dealing with their own economic and social challenges. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said that over the last eight years around one million Syrian children were born in the region and registered as refugees.'

Boots Riley on His Anti-Capitalist Film “Sorry to Bother You,” the Power of Strikes & Class Struggle | Democracy Now!

'And, you know—and it's only since the '60s that, you know, radicals have been thinking about like elections as the way. And it's very connected, you know, with the New Left stopping organizing labor and focusing on students. All the sudden in the '60s, you heard the students are the revolution. It was not historically accurate. It's not based on any other revolutions, except for maybe there was, at the same time, the Cultural Revolution in China. But other than that, wasn't historically accurate. And it was a focus on students and spectacle that has led—and has led to like people not knowing what to do and basically saying, “Well, all I'm going to do is electoral politics.”'

Mexico's Leftist President-elect AMLO Promises Sweeping Changes on Corruption, Poverty, Drug War

'This is a real historic moment, because throughout Latin America we've been having all this experimentation with left-wing and progressive governments throughout the region, from Brazil to El Salvador to Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, as to Uruguay, and Mexico had been left out of this pink tide. We have been stuck with this single ideology of neoliberal authoritarianism since the 1980s. But now, finally, it looks like we're going to be able to try something new.'

He Gave His Life in the Labor Struggle: MLK's Forgotten Radical Message for Economic Justice | Democracy Now

'[H]e was a labor man. And union people know this. When he died in '68, workers all over the country walked out. The West Coast got shut down by the longshore workers. The longshore workers in Louisiana and in the Deep South went on strike. There were observances everywhere. King is a labor man. And after he died, Coretta King was arguing for a national holiday. She said it would be the first national holiday for somebody who gave his life in the labor struggle. So she understood that totally.'

Overthrow: 100 Years of U.S. Meddling & Regime Change, from Iran to Nicaragua to Hawaii to Cuba | Democracy Now!

'As special counsel Robert Mueller continues his probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, we take a look back at Washington's record of meddling in elections across the globe. By one count, the United States has interfered in more than 80 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000. And that doesn't count U.S.-backed coups and invasions. We speak to former New York Times reporter Stephen Kinzer, author of “Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq.”'

Lori Wallach and Michael Hudson Debate Trump's Plan to Impose Steel & Aluminum Tariffs | Democracy Now

'So, what Trump's policy does is a travesty of protectionism. It merely squeezes. And the pretense of all of this is that if he gives more money to the steel and aluminum companies, they'll invest more and hire more labor. But they're not going to do that at all. Not a single new steel factory is going to be built. Not a single new aluminum factory, because aluminum is made out of electricity, and America is a high-cost electricity country, compared to Iceland, where Alcan produces much of its aluminum, in Canada. So, what you're doing is enabling the steel and the aluminum companies to use their increased profits for share buybacks and to pay dividends, but they're not going to build new factories. There is not going to be any trickle down. So, Trump has made a travesty out of protectionist doctrine, as well.'