Category: Brazil

US State Department, YouTube Unveil Global Music Alliance

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US State Department, YouTube Unveil Global Music Alliance

U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and YouTube’s Global Head of Music Lyor Cohen announced today a new Department of State-YouTube partnership in support of the Department’s Global Music Diplomacy Initiative, a worldwide effort to elevate music as a diplomatic platform to promote peace and democracy in support of the United States’ broader foreign policy goals. At the core of the partnership is a roster of U.S. Global Music Ambassadors, which builds on the legacy of the iconic Jazz Ambassadors of the 1950s and 1960s and promotes peace across generations of people worldwide.

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In addition to the new U.S. Global Music Ambassadors, the Department and YouTube will join efforts to enhance English language learning through music and across the YouTube platform. This new partnership will support opportunity and equity in the creative economy through in-country engagements with audiences and aspiring creators – beginning in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, and India. It will offer micro-grants to State Department exchange program alumni around the world who use music as a means to expand access to education, economic opportunity and equity, and inclusion. And it will raise even greater awareness and inspire action globally around the unifying power of music, during global moments, such as the G20 meetings in Brazil later this year.

Related:

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Ukraine Detains Socialist Writer, Bans World Socialist Web Site | Russia Formally Charges WSJ Journalist with Spying for the CIA

Ms. Cat

Ukraine Detains Socialist Writer, Bans World Socialist Web Site | Russia Formally Charges WSJ Journalist with Spying for the CIA

At least Ukraine doesn’t discriminate, when it comes to detaining writers.

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It should be noted that similar jailings are taking place in Russia, with some hitting close to home. This past December, Russians arrested Boris Kagarlitsky, a longtime Moscow Times contributor who was the main writer on the “Russian Dissent” Substack sponsored by this site. Boris, a socialist himself but not connected in any way to the WSWS, was denounced as an “inoagent” (a foreign agent) and given a five year sentence, which Russian authorities called “excessively lenient.” The case is one of the more absurd in the history of speech offenses. Kagarlitsky was initially accused of making light of a 2022 explosion on the Krimsky Bridge linking Russia to Crimea, thanks to a video titled “Explosive Congratulations to the Cat Mostik,” sarcastically putting a cat in the frame for the blast. The Russian news agency TASS noted Kagarlitsky’s “negative attitude toward authorities,” and Boris remains in prison. We’re trying to get more information about his status.

Mostik isn’t just any cat! Mostik = Bridge. Mostik is the mascot of the Crimean Bridge. Petty criticism, maybe. Anyway, I’m not surprised that the West is ignoring anyone detained in Ukraine for speech issues while screeching about ‘freedom of the press’ and ‘human rights’ in Russia.

Related:

Мостик Кот – Mostik the Cat

Newsy News and Views (Türkiye, India, Canada)

Ms. Cat

Newsy News and Views

Just leaving some links and some views

Aljazeera

  • India- Western media coverage is interesting. A clear pleasure in the election outcome is obvious. Advance polls had Modi winning another majority and contrary to those polls his party did not. Personally speaking, I wouldn’t be surprised if some western backed NGO’s tinkered with the election. The west has India on it’s radar for so many reasons. Continuing relations with China and Russia being just two of those reasons. The economy is in good shape. 

Turkey is looking to join the BRICS

Source

They may as well- It’s going to be the go to trading bloc by the looks of things. The EU has been giving Turkey the run around for nearly two decades, so why not.

Turkey would like to join BRICS and this issue will be discussed at the group’s ministerial meeting in Nizhny Novgorod, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said during his visit to China.

“Certainly, we would like to become a member of BRICS. So we’ll see how it goes this year,” the South China Morning Post (SCMP) newspaper quoted him as saying.

According to Fidan, some European countries are against Turkey joining the EU, so the Turkish authorities are considering BRICS as an alternative integration platform. “We cannot ignore the fact that BRICS, as an important cooperation platform, offers some other countries a good alternative,” he said. “We see potential in BRICS,” the top Turkish diplomat added.

According to the SCMP, Fidan also said that he was hoping to attend the group’s foreign ministers’ meeting in Russia. According to the newspaper, “one of the topics on the agenda is expected to be the possibility of Turkey, a NATO ally, joining the BRICS grouping.”

On June 10-11, Nizhny Novgorod will host a meeting of BRICS foreign ministers. According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, the event will be held in an expanded format, including non-member partners.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended a BRICS summit in 2018. Russian President Vladimir Putin said then that Ankara could join BRICS in 2022. By now Turkey has not taken any steps in this direction.

And the Bank of Canada cut rates .25%

Given the way things look globally, this may be the only rate cut this year? Or maybe one of two? It’s just looking too ugly every where.

Washington Escalates Pressure Against Venezuela on the Essequibo Front

Ms. Cat

After the signing of the Argyle Declaration between Venezuela and Guyana on December 14, 2023, many events have occurred. Instead of reducing tensions as the agreement signed in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines had intended, it seems that tensions have been rising steadily and silently.

Washington Escalates Pressure Against Venezuela on the Essequibo Front

Related:

Government and corporate funded CSIS: The Essequibo Pressure Cooker

2020 Guyanese Election & Venezuela-Guyana Border Dispute

Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela will be targeted again for regime change by the CIA front, NED.

Brazilian lawyer exposes deceit at heart of “Twitter Files Brazil”

Ms. Cat

An interview with Estela Aranha, who forced Michael Shellenberger to apologize after exposing  his manipulation of data to build a false narrative about “totalitarian” Brazil

By Brian Mier

On April 3,  Michael Shellenberger tweeted a series of excerpts from emails by X executives dubbed, “Twitter Files Brazil”, which alleged to expose crimes by Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Moraes, he claimed, had pressed criminal charges against Twitter Brasil’s lawyer for its refusal to turn over personal information on political enemies. Elon Musk quickly shared the tweets and they viralized and were embraced by the international far right, to the joy of former President Bolsonaro and his supporters. A week later, Estela Aranha, former Secretary of Digital Rights in the Brazilian Justice Ministry, revealed rot at the heart of Shellenberger’s narrative. The only criminal charge filed against Twitter Brazil referenced in the leaked emails was made by the São Paulo District Attorney’s Office, after the company refused to turn over personal data on a leader of Brazil’s largest cocaine trafficking organization, the PCC. Shellenberger had cut the section of an email about a São Paulo criminal investigation and mixed it with communications complaining about Moraes on unrelated issues. Pressed by Brazilian reporters, Shellenberger wrote, “I regret my my mistake and apologize for it. I don’t have evidence that Moraes threatened to file criminal charges against Twitter’s Brazilian lawyer.” 


Brazilian lawyer exposes deceit at heart of “Twitter Files”