2022-02-26: News Headlines

TASS (2022-02-26). Russian troops welcomed with flags in Ukraine's Melitopol. tass.com The Russian Defense Ministry reassured that Russian troops are not targeting Ukrainian cities, but are limited to surgically striking and incapacitating Ukrainian military infrastructure…

JANET (2022-02-26). Berlin antiwar rally exposes Washington's lies. iacenter.org By John Catalinotto February 25, 2022 Despite gale warnings, the Berlin Peace Coordination drew a thousand people to a Feb. 18 antiwar rally on the Platz des 18. Mà§rz at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, under the slogans "Stop the media warmongering and NATO aggression policy" and "Disarmament and peace with Russia." Among the participants were members of the Left Party, the German Communist Party and the Friends of Nature. Left Party representative in Bundestag, Sevim Dagdelen, at Feb. 18 antiwar rally. Friko (Peace Coordination) Left Party member of the Bundestag, Sevim Dagdelen, to the cheers of the crowd…

Misión Verdad (2022-02-26). NATO Countries Have Supplied Weapons to Ukraine (Report). orinocotribune.com As the Russian military operation in Ukraine has neutralized most of the Ukrainian defense system, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, lamented that they have been left "on their own" despite the support of some nations. He now sees no guarantee of Ukraine finally joining NATO. | The Ukrainian president's speech seems directed at the position taken by the United States and the European Union, since neither of the two has expressed any disposition to a military confrontation with Russia. Both the EU and the US, as well as the UK, have only limited their scope of action to the application of "tough sancti…

WSWS (2022-02-26). Chinese translation of "2022: Year Three of the pandemic and the emerging global class struggle" wsws.org The perspective outlines a socialist and internationalist perspective for the global working class and is of immense relevance to workers and young people in China, as well as the millions around the world who also read Mandarin.

Brian Williams (2022-02-26). SWP takes truckers' fight in Canada to working class. themilitant.com Members of the Socialist Workers Party have been building on the momentum of the recently concluded successful renewal campaign to introduce the paper and the party's election campaign to workers and farmers at plant gates, strike picket lines, political events and on their doorsteps. | They're making special efforts to meet truckers to discuss the conditions they face and how working people can defend ourselves. | "Fuel prices are high, freight is low. And the shippers and receivers keep us waiting for 13, 14 hours and we don't get paid. I'm for the Canadian truckers," Chris Weber told Eleanor García, SWP candid…

UFCLP (2022-02-26). Saturday 2/26: United Fronts, The Working Class & The War In Ukraine- How To Defend Working People. indybay.org To join the panel: | us02web.zoom.us/j/81903904446?pwd=bG5XR0JjU2V4YnpvemFBVThMRjVRUT09

WSWS (2022-02-26). Churchill rail cleaners stage one day strike in London and south-east to fight low pay. wsws.org The localisation of strikes animated by issues workers confront across the rail network is part of a containment exercise by the RMT and other unions.

Steve Penner (2022-02-26). Protest Canadian rulers' Emergencies Act attack on workers' protests, rights! themilitant.com MONTREAL — "The sweeping police operation carried out under the anti-working-class Emergencies Act against the three-week protest in Ottawa, Canada's capital, by truckers and others opposed to vaccine mandates is an assault on the political rights of all working people," said Philippe Tessier, Communist League candidate in a Quebec provincial by-election in the riding of Marie-Victorin. "It is one of the largest acts of police repression in modern Canadian history and should be opposed by all unions and supporters of democratic rights. | "As of today — Feb. 22 — even though the cops have shut do…

WSWS (2022-02-26). Australia: Lessons of the 2018 union sell-out of NSW rail workers. wsws.org The Rail, Tram and Bus Union's 2018 betrayal is a stark warning to workers of what is being prepared now.

WSWS (2022-02-26). German workers speak out on war in Ukraine: "The only war we need is the war against the Coronavirus!" wsws.org "Russians and Ukrainians have a common history. The vast majority of people certainly do not want a war, which at most will benefit the gas and oil magnates in West and East, the billionaires, arms dealers and oligarchs."

Mike Ludwig (2022-02-26). Union Files "Precedent-Setting" Charges of Misconduct Against Amazon. truthout.org The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) has filed new Bessemer workers are currently voting on whether to join a retail union for a second time after the NLRB determined…

WSWS (2022-02-26). Unrest, Leonora Addio and other signs of social polarisation. wsws.org A handful of films in Berlin depicted workers taking the initiative, organising among themselves and not prepared to accept crumbs from the table—a refreshing development.

WSWS (2022-02-26). Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and New Zealand. wsws.org India: Tamil Nadu state transport workers demonstrate over working conditions; Punjab fire fighters workers protest sackings; Pakistan: Quetta municipal workers demand unpaid wages; West Australian Newspaper print workers still locked out; CHEP pallet workers continue strikes in New Zealand…

Roy Landersen (2022-02-26). Defend the independence of Ukraine! Moscow out now! themilitant.com Russian President Vladimir Putin Feb. 21 declared that the Moscow-backed "People's Republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk set up in Ukraine in 2014 were independent countries and ordered Russian troops to go in as "peacekeepers." The Kremlin's invasion is backed by the largest military mobilization on the European continent since World War II. | "The Socialist Workers Party demands Moscow pull its tanks and troops out of Ukraine and respect the sovereignty of Ukraine," Joanne Kuniansky, Socialist Workers Party leader and candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from New Jersey, told the press the next day. "Sin…

JANET (2022-02-26). France agrees to withdraw troops from Mali. iacenter.org By G. Dunkel February 25, 2022 President Emmanuel Macron of France announced that French troops will be pulling out of their bases in Gossi, Menaka and Gao, which are all in eastern Mali, near the three-border area with Niger and Burkina Faso. Local communities sent support and trucks to help move people and their belongings out of the beleaguered Tessit region. He made this announcement before a summit between the European Union and the African Union, Feb. 17 in Brussels. "We cannot remain militarily engaged alongside de facto authorities, whose strategy and hidden aims we do not share," Macron said, referring t…

Liberation Staff (2022-02-26). Union files complaint: Is Amazon trying to rig the Bessemer election AGAIN? liberationnews.org The Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union released a statement announcing the filing of Unfair Labor Practice charges against Amazon alleging illegal union-busting actions by the company in the re-run union election in Bessemer, Alabama.

Walker Bragman (2022-02-26). YOU LOVE TO SEE IT: Biden's Court Pick Just Boosted Unions. dailyposter.com

WSWS (2022-02-26). Wildcat school bus driver sickout in Louisiana forces retreat by school district. wsws.org The drivers, who have been fighting the district and their own union on wage increases, staged the sickout without the knowledge of the union.

sputniknews (2022-02-26). Russian Space Agency Suspends Cooperation With Europe on Launches in Kourou Spaceport. sputniknews.com MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The Russian space agency Roscosmos is suspending cooperation with Europe on launches from the Kourou cosmodrome and is recalling its employees from French Guiana in response to sanctions imposed by the European Union, the head of the agency, Dmitry Rogozin, said on Saturday.

Labor Video Project (2022-02-26). SEIU 1021VP Dawkins Opposes Building John Fisher's A's Stadium In Port of Oakland. indybay.org SEIU 1021 VP for Organizing Brandon Dawkins spoke out about the closure of public schools in Oakland and also opposed billionaire A's over John Fisher's stadium in the Port of Oakland.

Black Lives Matter, Demand Justice, more (2022-02-26). Monday 2/28: Have Her Back: Organizing Call to Support First Black Woman for SCOTUS. indybay.org Online via Zoom…

Anonymous Contributor (2022-02-26). Portland Mobilizes to Defend Fallout Camp from Sweeps; Provide Mutual Aid to Houseless Community. itsgoingdown.org Report on ongoing defense of Fallout Camp in so-called Portland, Oregon from the PDX Houseless Radicals Collective. photo: @PDXHRC On Thursday, February 17th, park rangers and Portland police showed up to the PDX Houseless Radicals Collective's Fallout Camp on Park's land in southeast Portland, Oregon. Their intended eviction of the camp was prevented by the…

Partido por el Socialismo y la Liberación (2022-02-26). Declaración del PSL sobre la intervención militar de Rusia en Ucrania. liberationnews.org La operación militar rusa en Ucrania pone de manifiesto que el mundo ha llegado a una peligrosa bifurcación.

Peoples Dispatch (2022-02-26). Palestinian administrative detainees Hisham Abu Hawwash and Miqdad al-Qawasmeh released. peoplesdispatch.org Two Palestinian administrative detainees who went on hunger strikes against their illegal administrative detention were finally released from Israeli custody on February 24, Thursday, according to a report by the WAFA News Agency. Hisham Abu Hawwash and Miqdad al-Qawasmeh, who were on hunger strike for 141 and 114 days respectively, had forced Israeli authorities to agree to end their detention. They were among the several administrative detainees who launched hunger strikes to bring attention to the injustice and cruelty they faced in Israeli prisons. | According to the report, the two detainees were released fr…

Editor2 (2022-02-26). Territorial Snatch-Back: Will the Yemen War Migrate to Saudi Arabia? orinocotribune.com By Karim Shami — Feb 22, 2022 | Yemen's resistance shocked the region when it launched retaliatory strikes on UAE cities. Ansarallah's next external move could be no less than recapturing Yemen's northern provinces from Saudi Arabia. | In the past month, Yemen's resistance movement, Ansarallah, has launched three rounds of retaliatory strikes on Abu Dhabi and Dubai, as part of a new deterrence strategy against UAE attacks on Yemen. | The escalation follows a UAE breach of the tacit agreement with Ansarallah to desist from targeting each other's interests in Yemen. | In the current Yemeni military theater, th…

Fight Back (2022-02-26). Minneapolis and St. Paul teachers set open-ended strike date for March 8. fightbacknews.org Minneapolis, MN – On February 23, Twin Cities teachers, along with education support professionals in Minneapolis and education assistants in Saint Paul, announced that they have filed ten-day notices to begin open-ended strikes in both cities' public schools. The strikes are set to begin on Tuesday, March 8. | The educators who took strike votes in Minneapolis are members of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and they took a strike vote last week in which more than 93% of the bargaining unit voted to strike. In Saint Paul they are members of the Saint Paul Federation of Educators where more than 78% of votes…

Fight Back (2022-02-26). Texas: UT-Austin students demand justice for Amir Locke. fightbacknews.org Austin, TX – On Thursday evening, February 24, students at the University of Texas at Austin gathered at a campus plaza to demand justice for Amir Locke, who was murdered by Minneapolis police earlier this month. The group held signs and chanted, "Hey hey, ho ho, these racist cops have got to go!" and "Say his name: Amir Locke." A few passersby joined the speak-out upon hearing the chants and reading the signs. | Jake Holtzman spoke on behalf of the Austin Students for a Democratic Society, the group that organized the hour-long event, saying, "Students for a Democratic Society stands in solidarity with the famil…

WSWS (2022-02-26). The enthusiasm of despair and the rise of Ferdinand Marcos Jr in the Philippines. wsws.org Thirty-six years after the People Power ouster of the brutal Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr is front-runner in the country's presidential election.

WSWS (2022-02-25). "We can't let nuclear war break out": US workers respond to conflict in Ukraine. wsws.org Workers across the United States are responding with anxiety and apprehension to the outbreak of war in Ukraine, while voicing skepticism about the hysterical war propaganda being stoked by the Biden administration and the corporate media.

Chris Hedges (2022-02-25). Chris Hedges: Russia, Ukraine and the Chronicle of a War Foretold. mintpressnews.com After the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a near-universal understanding among political leaders that NATO expansion would be a foolish provocation against Russia. How naive we were to think the military-industrial complex would allow such sanity to prevail.

Workers World Party (2022-02-25). NO WAR! NO SANCTIONS! NO NATO! workers.org February 24 Workers World Party joins with the many antiwar and anti-imperialist organizations, here and around the world, in raising the unifying slogans: "NO WAR! NO SANCTIONS! NO NATO!" We call for international emergency mobilizations for actions March 1-7 around this program. U.S. Out of Russia demonstration, Portland, Oregon, Feb. . . . |

_____ (2022-02-25). Chronicle Of A War Foretold. popularresistance.org I was in Eastern Europe in 1989, reporting on the revolutions that overthrew the ossified communist dictatorships that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a time of hope. NATO, with the breakup of the Soviet empire, became obsolete. President Mikhail Gorbachev reached out to Washington and Europe to build a new security pact that would include Russia. Secretary of State James Baker in the Reagan administration, along with the West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, assured the Soviet leader that if Germany was unified NATO would not be extended beyond the new borders. The commitment not t…

Internationalist 360 ∞ (2022-02-25). NATO and Africa: A Relationship of Colonial Violence and Structural White Supremacy. libya360.wordpress.com Djibo Sobukwe French Military Bases in Africa NATO is the means of continuing colonial aggressions against African countries. Considering the public media attention and concern about possible expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), it is worth reminding people about NATO's bloody history in Africa. NATO was founded in 1949 after WWII at a…

TASS (2022-02-25). Events around Ukraine are restoration of balance lost with Soviet Union's breakup — Assad. tass.com According to the Syrian president, Moscow has every right to stand against NATO's expansion plans…

Steve Topple (2022-02-25). Keir Starmer's latest authoritarian crackdown is dire timing. thecanary.co Keir Starmer has shut down 11 MPs who signed a Stop the War Coalition (STWC) statement on Ukraine. It's divided opinion and caused controversy. Now, he's also taken action against Young Labour, too. And his timing with all of this couldn't have been worse. | The STWC statement: | PA reported that STWC issued the statement earlier in February on Ukraine. The group accused the UK government of "aggressive posturing". It also said that NATO "should call a halt to its eastward expansion". The Labour MPs who signed the statement were: | Diane Abbott. | John McDonnell. | Richard Burgon. | Ian Lavery. | Beth Win…

WSWS (2022-02-25). Oppose the Putin government's invasion of Ukraine and US-NATO warmongering! For the unity of Russian and Ukrainian workers! wsws.org That the US and NATO are prepared to take the world to the brink of nuclear war, with all its horrific consequences, testifies to the staggering level of recklessness and aggressiveness that now prevails in all the centers of world imperialism.

_____ (2022-02-25). Richmond Educators Are First In Virginia To Win Bargaining Rights. popularresistance.org Teachers and other public school employees in Richmond, Virginia, won a major victory in December when the city's school board, in an 8 to 1 vote, approved a resolution granting them collective bargaining rights. | The victory sets a precedent for other districts and public sector employees throughout the state. Richmond is the first school district in Virginia to reinstate collective bargaining rights, after the legislature in 2020 lifted the state's 43-year prohibition on collective bargaining for local government workers. | Members of the school board had made repeated attempts to delay the vote. Winning took…

_____ (2022-02-25). The Government Just Admitted An Inconvenient Truth. popularresistance.org Every now and then, federal officials admit some truths that are inconvenient to the corporations that own the government — and this latest admission is pretty explicit: Scrapping corporate health care and creating a government-sponsored medical system would boost the economy, help workers, and increase longevity. | Those are just some of the findings from the Republican-led Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in a new report that implicitly tells lawmakers just how the existing corporate-run health care system is immiserating millions of Americans — and how a Medicare for All-style system could quickly…

Ann Brown (2022-02-25). Video: Amazon Calls The Police On Union Organizers In New York, Union Workers Handcuffed. moguldom.com Officers from the New York City Police Department arrested two Amazon warehouse workers along with Christian Smalls, a former Amazon assistant manager who was fired after fighting for unionization in 2020 over unsafe working conditions during the covid-19 outbreak. The arrests took place outside Amazon's largest New York City warehouse on Feb. 23. Video footage obtained by Motherboard shows the …

Dante Strobino (2022-02-25). North Carolina workers organize emergency rallies for safety. workers.org This lightly edited article was published as a Feb. 16 report at southernworker.org, Statements are testimony given to the writer by participants in the Southern Workers Assembly Day of Action.Durham, North Carolina Gloria Lee, a former Amazon worker, spent her Feb. 16 afternoon leading chants and talking to Amazon workers . . . |

Pangcha Vang (2022-02-25). Merced joins statewide UC actions to demand housing justice. liberationnews.org UC students and workers across the state held similar rallies as part of a California-wide movement at UC campuses demanding housing justice.

WSWS (2022-02-25). Ten-month lockout at ExxonMobil refinery ends in union betrayal. wsws.org With the national contract up for 30,000 refinery workers, the Beaumont struggle was becoming a major thorn in the sides of the oil industry and USW union, which called a snap vote to ram through a previously rejected contract with minor adjustments.

WSWS (2022-02-25). Build the Oil Workers Rank-and-File Committee! For a national strike to protect oil workers' lives and livelihoods! wsws.org "We don't want any more contract extensions. We want to show what power we have as workers by stopping the operations of Marathon, Chevron, Shell, BP—and ExxonMobil—until we win our just demands."

PAI (2022-02-25). Striketober carries through February: Eaton forces Iowa plant workers to walk. peoplesworld.org DAVENPORT, Iowa (PAI)—The wave of worker activism the AFL-CIO nicknamed "Striketober," then "Strikesgiving," is continuing well past the holidays and into late February, as some 365 Machinists members at Eaton's factory in Davenport, Iowa, were forced to walk at midnight February 18. Members of IAM Lodge 388 and Local 1191 at the plant, where they …

JANET (2022-02-25). Sat, Feb 26 @ 12pm — Stop racist union-busting! Black Lives Matter! iacenter.org On the tenth anniversary of the killing of Trayvon Martin STOP RACIST UNION-BUSTING! Black Lives Matter! Saturday, February 26 @ 12pm Barclays Center, Brooklyn NYPD arrests Amazon Union Leader Chris Smalls for delivering food NYPD HANDS OFF AMAZON LABOR UNION! REHIRE THE STARBUCKS WORKERS MEMPHIS 7! Labor leaders, union supporters and anti-racist activists will gather noon Saturday in Brooklyn to denounce the racist union-busting campaigns being organized by the bosses at Amazon and Starbucks. African-American labor leader Chris Smalls, arrested Wednesday for the crime of delivering food to Amazon workers, will b…

Brittani Banks (2022-02-25). How Union Drives in Mexico Help Workers on Both Sides of the Border. independentmediainstitute.org What Tom O'Shei remembers most about his visit to Mexico in 2019 is the determination he glimpsed in the hundreds of Mexican workers who paraded through the port city of Lázaro Cárdenas and stopped to pray at a monument honoring a pair of murdered union activists. Although the marchers gathered to remember the past, O'Shei …

Dianne Mathiowetz (2022-02-25). Federal jury finds: Ahmaud Arbery's killers 'guilty of hate crimes'. workers.org March to celebrate Ahmed Arbery in Savannah, Georgia. Atlanta February 23: Today is Ahmaud Arbery Day, as declared by the Georgia General Assembly earlier this month. In their resolution, the legislators noted that the enslavement-era "citizens arrest" law was repealed and hate crimes legislation was passed, in response to . . . |

Brittani Banks (2022-02-25). There's No Sugarcoating Hershey's Abuse of Workers and Union-Busting Tactics. independentmediainstitute.org There is a bittersweet battle taking place in Stuarts Draft, Virginia. Workers at the Hershey Company's second-largest factory, located in the small town of about 12,000, are seeking to unionize. In response, the nation's largest candy manufacturer is throwing the full force of the standard corporate union-busting playbook at them. The Virginia Hershey manufacturing plant …

A Guest Author (2022-02-25). Who gains from a war in Europe? U.S. targets supply of Russian gas to Europe. workers.org By Manuel Raposo Raposo is editor of the Portuguese website jornalmudardevida.net, which published this article on Feb. 20. Translation by John Catalinotto. At this moment, the events in Ukraine are shrouded in the cloud of smoke that characterizes war propaganda. Official positions, rather than clarifying facts and reporting the progress . . . |

WSWS (2022-02-25). Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa. wsws.org Greek healthcare workers in three national strikes in last two weeks over pay and job insecurity; Hungarian teachers protest following government's attack on right to strike after 20,000 joined two-hour warning strike; UK High Court attack on right to picket continues at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital strike by security staff; food workers' strike to defend jobs and pay continues at Clover, South Africa despite workers facing hardship and attacks from management thugs…

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