CovertAction Bulletin

Student protests in solidarity with Palestine have set up protests and encampments on campuses across the country from Columbia, NYU and the New School in New York to Berkeley, Stanford and Cal Poly Humboldt in California. Students are demanding that their universities - many of them among the most elite in the country with giant endowments - divest from weapons manufacturers and Israeli companies. They’re being met with fierce repression by police, but along with solidarity from faculty and supporters in their cities, the movement is continuing and growing.

Chris and Rachel have been on the ground at Yale and Columbia and talk about their experiences and what this means for the movement.

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Iran carried out a strike over the weekend of April 13 and 14 in retaliation for the Israeli bombing on April 1 of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria. Embassies are the sovereign territory of the country represented, effectively making it an Israeli attack on Iran.

In the West, the Iranian response, which was announced in advance and targeted only a military base, has received significantly more attention. Pundits and politicians called it a grave escalation, the opposite of reality.

And of course this is all happening while Israel continues its genocide of the Palestinian people, with the diplomatic, political and economic support of the United States government. Will the strikes inflame tensions in the region past the point of no return? We’re joined by Mazda Majidi, an Iranian author, journalist and anti-war activist to discuss the possibility of escalation and who the regional players are.

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The Biden Administration is pursuing a policy of “energy chasing,” where U.S. regulators put pressure on foreign-owned fuel supply companies, shippers and even financial insurers so that they back out of deals to bring “fuel to our ports.”

On March 17, there were significant protests in eastern Cuba against the blackouts. The president says the authorities have gone to dialogue with them and explain the country’s energy problems. 

“Two or three [protest] events that were fundamentally peaceful” in Cuba and the Western media creates a narrative of serious instability, says President Miguel Diaz-Canel. Meanwhile “in the world there are more severe protests” and in the U.S. there are protests violently repressed, but these get ignored.

 We are joined by Gloria La Riva, organizer with the Hatuey Project  to discuss the recent protests in Cuba and the ongoing crisis caused by the economic blockade. 

Then, with the possibility of a new invasion and occupation, we’re hearing the same story emerge from Western media and politicians about Haiti: something really bad is happening in Haiti and an invasion is necessary. We are being told that this is the worst ever humanitarian situation in Haiti. As the U.S. Canadian and French governments gathered recently to discuss Haiti’s political transition, Haitians get no say over this. When it comes to Haiti, it seems like everyone else gets to decide.

We’re joined by Kerbie Joseph, a Haitian organizer with the ANSWER Coalition, to talk about how Western colonialism and imperialism are the historical root of and current cause of the problems in Haiti, and what the resistance looks like.

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The Korean War has never ended - despite the US government’s attempts to portray it as a long-ago victory, it has never signed a peace agreement with North Korea. Tens of thousands of US troops continue to be stationed on the Korean peninsula, first part of the Cold War and now part of the New Cold War encirclement of China. The devastating war killed 4 million Koreans and left much of the North absolutely devastated. Peace activists continue to fight for a true and just end to the conflict.

We’re joined by Monica Kim and Christine Hong of the Ending the Korean War Teaching Collective to talk more about the Korean War and the day of action that will take place in Washington, DC on April 5th, starting at Noon on the National Mall.

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The British High Court of Justice ruled on March 26 that the United States government has until April 16 to make “assurances” that if extradited, Julian Assange will be treated fairly by US courts and prisons. But this is hard to believe when the US government already had plans to kidnap and kill Assange, drawn up by Mike Pompeo’s CIA.

We’re joined by Sean Blackmon, host of Darker than Blue on WPFW, to talk about the latest in the Assange case. We also talk about the US government abstaining from a ceasefire vote rather than vetoing it, and the development of the ceasefire demand itself.

We’re also joined by Husayn Karimi, a labor organizer and host of the podcast On The Line, to talk about UAW workers who are about to vote for unionization at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

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On March 13, the House of Representatives passed HR 7521, “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.” The bill would force Beijing-based ByteDance to sell the popular social media app TikTok, or it would be banned on app stores in the U.S.

Far from being in the interests of advancing data privacy or the security of working-class people in the United States, banning TikTok would be a boon to American social media companies who routinely spy on their users and collaborate with intelligence and other government agencies. Instead, the bill is just part of the U.S. attack on China’s growing influence across the world. 

We’re joined by Amanda Yee, editor of LiberationNews.org, to talk more about the TikTok ban and the new Cold War on China.

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For the so-called “greatest democracy on Earth,” elections in the United States are a mess of regulations and laws that differ by state.

The system is controlled by the Democratic and Republican parties. Just as they seek to destroy any dissent that challenges their status quo, they do so in the electoral arena by placing onerous requirements on independent candidates and third parties, restricting the rights of people to vote and much more.

As we’ve just passed Super Tuesday and are well into the 2024 campaign season, we wanted to dive more into the stranglehold the Republicans and Democrats have on the electoral system and any real choice at the voting booth with someone who’s very familiar with this - we’re joined by Claudia de la Cruz, the Presidential candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

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Millions of people took to the streets around the world on March 2nd in solidarity with the people of Gaza as Israel is reportedly preparing an invasion of Rafah later this week, just before the start of Ramadan. In New York City, Havana, Albuquerque, Caracas, British Columbia, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul and beyond, the massive day of mobilization shows that the movement against the Israeli genocide in Palestine will not slow down until the attacks are over.

Even the Democratic Party is being forced to shift its rhetoric in the face of mounting pressure, though it remains steadfast in its support for Israel. Biden’s recent statements about increasing aid to Gaza, and Kamala Harris’ comment that we need an “immediate cease-fire for at least six weeks” come while the US continues to veto ceasefire resolutions in the UN. But new surveys show that more than two thirds of the people in the US support the call for a permanent ceasefire and de-escalation of violence. And in a brand Center for Economic and Policy Research/YouGov study, 62 percent of respondents who voted for President Biden in 2020 agree with the statement, “The US should stop weapons shipments to Israel until Israel discontinues its attacks on the people of Gaza.” 

We’re joined by Miriam Osman, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement.

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February 24 marked the second anniversary of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine. With tens of thousands dead and more wounded on both sides and no end in sight to the conflict, it’s important to remember that the history of this conflict did not begin on February 24, 2022, nor on February 22, 2014, when the Russian military took control of the Crimean Peninsula.

We discuss this and other lessons of the last two years, including why there cannot be “unity” between the left and fascist forces who pretend to be part of the anti-war movement, and the spread of anti-imperialist sentiment across the US as Israel continues to commit genocide in Gaza.

We’re joined by Walter Smolarek, producer with The Socialist Program.

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It’s Day X. Hearings are happening in the United Kingdom to determine whether Julian Assange will be extradited to the United States. His lawyers are trying to convince the UK’s High Court of Justice to permit an appeal hearing. If the court declines, it’s very likely that Assange will be extradited within days and face trial here.

The long case of Julian Assange has been a travesty of justice. While Assange spent years stuck in the Ecuadorian embassy, and now over 5 years in terrible conditions in Belmarsh Prison, known as Britain’s Guantanamo Bay, those who committed the crimes he exposed still walk free. All along the way, the UK and US governments have violated the rights of Assange and his supporters.

We’re joined by Kevin Gosztola, the editor of The Dissenter, the author of the book Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange, co-host of the podcast Unauthorized Disclosure and more

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