| INTERNATIONAL
Whatever domestic constituency he is appealing to, Trump could not, and would not, have made his announcement without regional backers. middleeasteye.net/
 De-dollarization for Beijing, Moscow and Tehran has become a strategic priority. Eliminating the unlimited spending capacity of the Fed and the American economy means limiting US imperialist expansion. mintpressnews.com/
America’s super-rich are taking not only from their own nation, but also from the rest of the world. Data from the 2017 Global Wealth Databook and various war reports help to explain why Americans are alienating people. commondreams.org/
 The US farmer suicide crisis echoes a much larger farmer suicide crisis happening globally: an Australian farmer dies by suicide every four days; in the UK, one farmer a week takes his or her own life; in France, one farmer dies by suicide every two days; in India, more than 270,000 farmers have died by suicide since 1995. theguardian.com/
The global banana supply chain is under a lot of pressure from food retailers, forcing down producers’ prices. Workers and the environment suffer the consequences. Rights violations create serious health risks for the banana workers of Ecuador. global-labour-university.org/
 The changes at the top of the ruling clique in Zimbabwe are the merely superficial expressions of a deep economic and social crisis which has been festering for years and which the ruling cabal could no longer control. Zimbabwe’s economic survival has for many years depended on loans and investment from China, however, a number of recent developments have caused the Chinese to refuse to keep pouring loans and investments into what appears to them to be a bottomless bucket. leftcom.org/
The South African Communication Association joins other academic and professional organisations, including PEN USA, the African Literature Association and others in strongly condemning the detention of Professor Patrice Ngagang, whose alleged “transgression” is criticising the Government of Cameroon. /FreePatriceNganang/ |
Draft regulations for a State of Emergency were outlined at a “workshop” attended by 30 Department of Defence officials in October this year. The mooted changes allow for all internet and cell phone communication to be blocked and citizens to be arrested, searched, jailed; their property seized without a warrant. The Presidency and the South African National Defence Force claim to know “nothing about this”. 
The South African Federation of Trade Unions and #OutsourcingMustFall marched in Johannesburg on Thursday 14 December 2017, to protest against the exploitation of workers through the outsourcing of work, retrenchment of employees, the increasing use of casual workers and of labour brokers, in both the private and public sectors. 
US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel consolidates five decades of US foreign policy that has steadily facilitated Israel’s settler-colonial encroachment into East Jerusalem and the West Bank generally. Now what next for the Palestinians? 
