Corduroy Academy

( Mostly) radical thoughts, ideas, and links from late stage colonial capitalism.

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    Six Jewish students file federal lawsuit against Harvard, calling it ‘a bastion’ of ‘anti-Jewish hatred’

    Several graduate and law students at Harvard University filed a federal lawsuit against the Ivy League school this week, accusing the administration of failing to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment on campus during the Israel-Hamas war Israeli Zionist genocide.

    The 79-page civil complaint, filed Wednesday in US District Court in Boston, alleges that antisemitism at Harvard has become especially “severe and pervasive” after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks against Israel, which killed about 1,200 people, with militants reportedly raping and torturing civilians. Israel retaliated with a bombing campaign and ground invasion that has killed more than 23,000 people in Gaza.

    I wonder why they might be trying to distract Americans from that they’re backing in Israel?

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    Vietnam jails 2 ex-ministers over COVID-19 test kits scandal

    A court in Vietnam jailed two former cabinet ministers on Friday (Jan 12) and found dozens of officials guilty of bribery and mismanagement for their roles in a coronavirus test kit scandal, the ministry of public security said.

    Former Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long was sentenced to 18 years in prison for taking bribes worth US$2.25 million, while Chu Ngoc Anh, former science and technology minister, was jailed for three years for mismanagement, the security ministry said in a statement.

    At the heart of the scandal was a private medical firm called Viet A Technology Corp, which was accused of colluding with officials to produce coronavirus test kits for the state health system that were sold at inflated prices.

    Love to see explicit call-outs of corruption.

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    People’s rights are threatened everywhere, from wars to silence about abuses

    People’s rights are being suppressed and threatened everywhere in the world, from wars to selective government outrage about some abuses and silence about others because of “political expediency,” a leading human rights group said Thursday.

    “We only have to look at the human rights challenges of 2023 to tell us what we need to do differently in 2024,” Human Rights Watch said in its annual global report.

    Conversely, the amount of truth (not facetious this time) shared through social media bringing real attention to these problems has been incredible. Shows how backward and hegemonic the global media is. We need better.

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    Burundi shuts borders with Rwanda after accusing Kigali of funding rebel attacks

    A diplomatic row between Burundi and Rwanda took on a new front Thursday as Burundi closed its borders with its neighbor. “We have stopped ties with him until he changes” Burundi’s Interior Minister Martin Niteretse said in a statement.

    The latest follows accusations from Burundi to Rwanda of funding rebel attacks. Burundian President Évariste Ndayishimiye made the accusation in December after 20 people were killed near Burundi’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). 

    Rwandan President Paul Kagame denies the charge. His government has responded to the border closure saying that it “regrets the unilateral closure of the border by Burundi”.

    Border closures over “rebels” — must seem serious, but perhaps only enough for a notional show of care.

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    Norway to allow mining waste to be dumped in fjords

    Norway is to allow mining waste to be dumped in its fjords after the government won a court case against environmental organisations trying to block the plan.

    After a 15-year dispute, the private company Nordic Mining has been given the go-ahead to dispose of 170m tonnes of mining waste at the bottom of the Førde fjord, which critics say will threaten marine life and put biodiversity at risk.

    Norway joins only two other countries – Papua New Guinea and Turkey – that still grant new licences for marine waste disposal.

    This really is a dystopian capitalist hellscape.

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    UN concerned over Taliban arrests of Afghan women and girls for alleged Islamic headscarf violations

    The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said Thursday it was deeply concerned by recent arbitrary arrests and detentions by the Taliban government of women and girls for allegedly violating dress codes regarding the Islamic headscarf, or hijab.

    The mission said it was looking into claims of ill treatment of women and extortion in exchange for their release, and warned that physical violence and detentions were demeaning and dangerous.

    The Taliban said last week that female police officers have been taking women into custody for wearing “bad hijab.”

    The shit done in the name of religion and patriarchal hegemony is ever gobsmacking.

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    Human rights in decline globally as leaders fail to uphold laws, report warns

    Human rights across the world are in a parlous state as leaders shun their obligations to uphold international law, according to the annual report of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

    In its 2024 world report, HRW warns grimly of escalating human rights crises around the globe, with wartime atrocities increasing, suppression of human rights defenders on the rise, and universal human rights principles and laws being attacked and undermined by governments.

    The report highlights political leaders’ increasing disregard for international human rights laws. The report says “selective government outrage and transactional diplomacy” and double standards in recognising international human rights laws has put countless lives at risk.

    Shocking to absolutely no one. But don’t worry, armchair positive psychologists on the internet will tell you that everything has “never been better” and “you’re just depressed”.

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    Why Israel Can’t Just Wave Away International Justice Charges

    On December 29, South Africa lodged a complaint against Israel, alleging that Israel’s conduct in Gaza is in violation of the Genocide Convention. Israel was quick to dismiss the allegation as antisemitic. A government spokesperson called the charges “South Africa’s absurd blood libel.” The White House piled on. “We find this submission meritless, counter-productive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” spokesperson John Kirby said in a press conference.

    But South Africa’s application to initiate proceedings against Israel cannot be so easily dismissed. In 84 pages, South Africa presents a detailed case intended to establish that Israel acted with genocidal intent—a high legal threshold required to prove the crime of genocide under international law. Citing reports from the United Nations, NGOs, media (including from Israel), and perhaps most significantly the utterances of senior Israeli officials, the brief purports to show evidence of clear Israeli violations of the Genocide Convention. Over a dozen senior civilian and military leaders are quoted, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Their words are cited as evidence that the death and displacement of Palestinians is not merely an unfortunate consequence of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas, but part of the point.

    A little hope.