PRC Bulletin Archive
Bulletin Date
Recently, the New York Times published a pro-war propaganda article by Jimmy Story, the former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela from 2020 to 2023, who supports a regime change war against the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro.
Within the pro-war article, Story admitted that Trump’s seizure of Oil tankers leaving Venezuela is intended to deprive the country and its people of their revenue streams from its main export, in hopes that it will result in regime change.
Story admits in the article, that through illegally seizing oil tankers leaving Venezuela, “Squeezing this revenue stream would help force a tough decision by those around Mr. Maduro to recognize that life without him in power is preferable to him remaining.”.
He wrote in the article that, “Going after sanctioned vessels, stateless ships … is a more effective and acceptable way to start peeling back the funding the Maduro regime uses to remain in power”.
He went on to write, “Economic pressure coupled with clearly defined off ramps for regime insiders, an appealing package to those clamoring for change within Venezuela, and the credible use of targeted force may all be necessary elements for a successful outcome”.
In other words, the Trump administration’s real goal is to seize oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela and “Squeeze the revenue stream” in hopes it will destroy the country’s economy and lead to regime change.,,,Read more
American Friends Service Committee Statement on Ending Antisemitism and All Forms of Oppression, Feb 12, 2021
Over the last several years, we have witnessed a rise in antisemitic hate speech and violence in the United States and around the world. From attacks on synagogues and the desecration of Jewish graves to the pervasiveness of antisemitic conspiracy theories, Jewish people are faced with persistent bigotry, hate, racism, and violence.
Antisemitism is discrimination against, violence towards, or stereotypes of Jews for being Jewish. It is an insidious form of bigotry that has been used to justify oppression and violence throughout centuries. It is wrong, and it is disturbing to see it so prevalent today.
We are committed to rooting out antisemitism
As a Quaker organization that has been working for peace and justice around the world for more than a century, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) believes that it is critically important that we stand up against antisemitism in all its forms. We hold true to the faith that there is “that of God,” a spark of the divine, in every single person. In our Quaker tradition, that insight calls us to respect the rights and dignity of all people. That is the first principle of AFSC’s work around the world. … Read more
Thanksgiving is one day away. We’re about to sit across the table from relatives we haven’t seen in a year. Aunts, uncles, cousins galore. There will be political discussions. Red, blue, MAGA, socialist, and the confusing “centrists” that just want common sense will all be in attendance.
This year might feel different. Maybe a little less crowing about Trump since he’s failed to deliver on affordability. You get to make fun of his love fest with Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who just became New York City’s next mayor. Shit, even James Carville is in the New York Times calling for “pure economic rage” and “the most populist economic platform since the Great Depression.”
Sounds like progress, right? The establishment finally gets it. Democrats are on the march.
Don’t fall for it….
Craig Mokhiber, former director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), has denounced the Security Council’s resolution backing a US plan for foreign forces and governance in Gaza, as a “colonial outrage“. [more specifically, as support for maintaining the occupation of Palestinian land in violation of the Palestinian right to self-determination, and thus a colonial outrage –mb]
Mokhiber described the vote as a “day of shame” for the UN” and accused governments worldwide of being “on their knees before the US empire and its violent Israeli client“.
He criticised the “horrific” resolution as a violation of international law.
“This proposal has been rejected by Palestinian civil society and factions, as well as by defenders of human rights and international law everywhere,” Mokhiber said on X.
He concluded: “The struggle for Palestinian freedom will continue undeterred.”
The US-drafted resolution was adopted on Monday with 13 votes in favour and two abstentions from Russia and China in the 15-member United Nations Security Council (UNSC). .. Read more
As U.S. President Donald Trump surely intended, his “20-point Gaza plan” succeeded in upstaging calls by many other world leaders at the UN General Assembly for concrete, coordinated UN-led measures to force Israel to end its criminal genocide in Gaza and its illegal occupation of Palestine.
Trump’s White House meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 29th coincided with the last day of the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York, where Trump had met with eight Arab and Muslim leaders at the UN and won their support for a proposed plan for Gaza. In a textbook bait-and-switch, Trump then allowed the Israelis to significantly alter his plan before he unveiled it to the world at his meeting with Netanyahu, but pretended it was the same plan that the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and other countries had endorsed.
Trump’s plan was based on cornering Hamas into a series of steps it hadn’t agreed to: freeing all the Israeli prisoners in Gaza without a full Israeli withdrawal; surrendering its weapons and its role in Palestinian politics; and handing Gaza over to a new phase of Israeli occupation. Gaza would be governed by a “board” headed by Trump and former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair, who not only invaded Iraq alongside the U.S. in 2003, but at the same time masterminded a dirty war against Hamas that led to the isolation and blockade of Gaza, and ultimately to the current crisis.
Read more
On Wednesday 8 October Israel and Hamas agreed to a deal that may lead to an end to the Gaza Genocide.
While it is likely to save numerous lives, at least for the time being, and should be welcomed for that reason alone, it is hardly a peace agreement nor one that lays the basis for attaining Palestinian rights.
A little over a week ago US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu unveiled their proposal for the Gaza Strip at the White House. Consisting of twenty points, it incorporated significant revisions to the twenty-one point plan agreed between the US and a number of Arab and Muslim leaders several days previously, including removing any reference to the West Bank, deleting the clause committing Israel to refrain from further acts of aggression against Qatar, calling for the disarmament of Hamas, and appointing Tony Blair as the governor of the Gaza Strip.
The proposal dealt with three sets of issues. The first addressed the immediate situation in the Gaza Strip: a cessation of hostilities, an Israeli-Palestinian exchange of captives, the first phase of an Israeli withdrawal from the territory, and the humanitarian emergency, including famine conditions, that Israel has engineered in Gaza… Read more
The juxtaposition between the evident and criminal flaws in the Trump Gaza plan, while incredibly thin on detail, makes grandiose claims, is cringeworthy in parts, and is unlikely to be actualized. Its apparent enthusiastic endorsement from various quarters requires some explaining and unpacking – including where it might lead and whether anything can be salvaged from this detritus – and this note is an attempt to do just that.
First, this plan is not serious – it fails to offer the kind of substantive, detailed and realistic proposals that could improve a desperately horrific situation. Where granularity is needed – specific timelines, withdrawal maps, verifications and guarantees for implementation – instead there’s the preposterous, vacuous notion of ‘trust Israel and America’.
Second, there is no avoiding that this plan is nasty, as sinister as it is delusional. It is dripping with racism towards Palestinians (who were not consulted in the paper’s preparation) over whom new mandates for economic and governance colonization are to be imposed. Apparently only those who are being genocided (rather than the state conducting the genocide) must be de-radicalized and disarmed. The choice offered to Palestinians between genocide or apartheid is barely concealed..Read more
Gaza is suffering the most intense bombing, per capita, of anywhere on earth, ever.
Over 100,000 tons of bombs have been dropped on Gaza, an area slightly smaller than the City of Detroit, Michigan, resulting in the recorded deaths of at least 60,000 Gazans and injuries to hundreds of thousands.¹
It is impossible to overstate the effects of the abominable bombing war on Gazans, their lives, their families, their health, and their communities.
What has escaped attention up until now is the undeniable environmental and health effects of the bombing of Gazans on Israelis, as well as on citizens of neighboring states, and the potential harm to U.S. military personnel in the region.
A study of explosion physics based on declassified Department of Defense data, as well as blast temperature data and consequent emissions; a review of wind patterns, together with publicly available data of health effects from 9/11, as well as data gathered from U.S. veterans of the Persian Gulf War, yield a shocking conclusion.
…Read more
Two Democratic senators say they have reached the “inescapable conclusion” that Israel is acting on a systematic plan to destroy and ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza to force them to leave, and that the US is complicit.
Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, both members of the Senate foreign relations committee, released their findings in a report on Thursday after returning from a congressional delegation to the Middle East where, they note, the destruction goes beyond bombs and bullets. They say they also found a systematic campaign to strangle humanitarian aid, which they call “using food as a weapon of war”.
“The Netanyahu government has gone far beyond targeting Hamas to imposing collective punishment on all the people of Gaza,” Van Hollen said at a Thursday press conference. “What they’re doing, and what we witnessed, is putting those goals into action.”
At least one hundred people have died from famine in Gaza, the United Nations said this week, citing the Gaza health ministry.
… Read more
As of May 2025, 19 months into the war, a classified Israeli military intelligence database listed 8,900 named fighters from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as dead or “probably dead”, a joint investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call has found.
And since health authorities in Gaza listed 53,000 Palestinians, civilians and combatants, as killed by Israeli attacks by that time, these two figures indicate that 83% of the dead (five out of six) were civilians, an extreme rate of slaughter rarely matched in recent decades of warfare, and that just 17% of the dead (one out of six) were combatants.
This apparent ratio of civilians to combatants among the dead is extremely high for modern warfare, even compared with conflicts notorious for indiscriminate killing, including the Syrian and Sudanese civil wars. … Read more
As Israel’s military campaign in Gaza inflicts unprecedented levels of human destruction, two leading Israeli human rights organizations have at last called their nation’s actions in the enclave a “genocide.”
Many international human rights groups—such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—have long described Israel’s 22-month assault on Gaza in such grave terms, as have several bodies within the United Nations.
In two reports released Monday, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel became the first within the country to reach the same conclusion.
“We never thought we’d write this report,” said Yuli Novak, the executive director of B’Tselem. “But we also never believed this would be our reality.”
The U.N.’s 1948 Convention on the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as . . Read more
As Israel’s military campaign in Gaza inflicts unprecedented levels of human destruction, two leading Israeli human rights organizations have at last called their nation’s actions in the enclave a “genocide.”
Many international human rights groups—such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—have long described Israel’s 22-month assault on Gaza in such grave terms, as have several bodies within the United Nations.
In two reports released Monday, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel became the first within the country to reach the same conclusion.
“We never thought we’d write this report,” said Yuli Novak, the executive director of B’Tselem. “But we also never believed this would be our reality.”
The U.N.’s 1948 Convention on the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as .. Read more
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in occupied Palestine, stands as a testament to the notion of speaking truth to power – power embodied not solely by Israel or even the United States, but by an international community that has tragically failed to stem the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Her latest report, ‘From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide,’ submitted to the UN Human Rights Council on July 3, marks a seismic intervention. It not only unflinchingly names and implicates companies that have allowed Israel to sustain its war and genocide against Palestinians, but also confronts those who have remained silent in the face of this unfolding horror. – Read more
. . I wanted to talk to you a bit about how I think we got here ideologically, to tell you about the history behind where we are right now.
I think it’s important to recognize that there is an ideology behind this bill and behind the MAGA Republicans – and that this ideology is part of America. It has ruled us in the past, and until now at least – the jury is still out – we have always overcome it.
. . . of the two ways in the United States to think about the relationship of people to their government, this one is simply to say, well, you know, some people are better than others. – Read more
In recent months, multiple new public opinion surveys have illustrated the extent to which Israel has lost Americans’ support. In early April, a poll from the Pew Research Center attracted widespread attention when it revealed that more than half of U.S. adults now express an unfavorable opinion of the Israeli state – an increase of over 10 percent since March 2023. And this month, after Israel launched a new military operation to occupy the entire Gaza Strip, a new poll from Data for Progress showed that 76 percent of U.S. voters support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and 51 percent think that U.S. President Donald Trump should demand one.
These dramatic shifts come alongside several recent polls demonstrating that Gaza played a definitive role in the Democrats’ loss in the November U.S. presidential election. In February, a YouGov poll from the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project found that the genocide was the leading reason cited by former Democratic voters who did not cast a ballot for former Vice President Kamala Harris. – Read more …
Two collaborative medical documentaries on the shooting of Palestinian kids in Gaza by Israeli soldiers based on the testimony of American doctor volunteers in Gaza including these quotations from doctors Tammy Abughnaim and Mimi Syed –
“I didn’t want to believe that children were being shot. Nobody wants to think that other human beings are capable of annihilating children in that way. [But] more and more, I started to see children with gunshot wounds. It seemed like every day we had at least one child coming in with a gunshot wound. After five, six, seven, eight, I came to the realization that somebody is shooting children.”[TA] – Read more …
The Democratic Party is lost – not just electorally, but intellectually. After losing to Donald Trump and MAGA – not once, but twice – party leaders remain trapped in a dangerous delusion: they see no fundamental system failure, only a messaging problem. Their prescription isn’t a fresh vision or bold solutions, but rather a conviction that voters simply haven’t understood their brilliant plans clearly enough.
This dangerous fantasy is evident across party leaders. Senator Elissa Slotkin [who gave the Democratic response to President Trump’s State of the Union] insists Democrats must “speak from the same sheet of music,” advocating “alpha energy.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries laments that Democrats “need to govern in fine print and message in headlines,” believing their policies have been effective, and what is needed are slicker headlines – that somehow, messaging alone can restore faith in an economic system that’s failing most Americans. – Read more …
Toggle Not a day goes by without a new shock to Americans and our neighbors around the world from the Trump administration. On April 22nd, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) downgraded its forecasts for global growth in 2025, from 3.3% to 2.8%, and warned that no country will feel the pain more than the United States. Trump’s policies are expected to drag U.S. growth down from 2.7% to 1.8%.Content – Read more …
Demonstrators gather in Times Square on April 12 to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil from federal detention in Louisiana. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
It’s 3 a.m. as I lie sleepless on a bunk bed in Jena, Louisiana, far from my wife, Noor, who will give birth to our baby in two weeks. The sound of rain hitting the metal roof masks the snoring of 70 men tossing and turning on hard mats in this detention facility run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Which ones are dreaming about reuniting with their families? Which ones are having nightmares about becoming the Trump administration’s next “administrative error”? Read more…
Maybe these are some of the most heartbreaking words I’ve ever written. I thought nothing could hurt more than losing my home or being displaced. But the feeling of weakness, of slowly losing my strength, day by day, might be even worse.
I have no energy left.
Who would have believed that someone young, once considered fit and active, can no longer walk a few steps without feeling faint and dizzy?
My body has become too weak to carry me. I haven’t eaten fresh, healthy food in over a year and a half. For the past 41 days, I’ve had nothing but the same canned meal—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Now we’re trying to survive on just one meal a day, so the food lasts longer. That is how we ration hunger in Gaza as long as no crossings open. No aid is allowed in. No clean water is available. Nothing. Read more….
The climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism, a top insurer has warned, with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate.
The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments.
Global carbon emissions are still rising and current policies will result in a rise in global temperature between 2.2C and 3.4C above pre-industrial levels. The damage at 3C will be so great that governments will be unable to provide financial bailouts and it will be impossible to adapt to many climate impacts, said Thallinger, who is also the chair of the German company’s investment board and was previously CEO of Allianz Investment Management.
The core business of the insurance industry is risk management, and it has long taken the dangers of global heating very seriously. In recent reports, [the International Chamber of Commerce and] Aviva said extreme weather damages for the decade to 2023 hit $2tn, while GallagherRE said the figure was $400bn in 2024 [just last year]. Zurich said it was “essential” to hit net zero by 2050.
Thallinger said: “The good news is we already have the technologies to switch from fossil combustion to zero-emission energy. The only thing missing is speed and scale. This is about saving the conditions under which markets, finance, and civilisation itself can continue to operate.” Read more…
He’s plotting an Arctic acquisition. As he prepares to take office on January 20, President-elect Donald Trump is already stirring up a transatlantic tempest with his overtures to acquire Greenland. Denmark has repeatedly said its strategically located island territory is not for sale, but Trump on Tuesday continued to push the issue—including threatening tariffs on Denmark. The icy dispute raises several burning questions. Our experts have the answers. Read more.
On Saturday night, student activist Mahmoud Khalil was abducted by the United States government. Federal agents, acting under the authority granted to them by the president of the United States, unlawfully entered Khalil’s apartment building as he was coming home. They informed Khalil that his green card had been revoked without a hearing, told him he was under arrest and would soon be deported, and threatened his eight-month-pregnant, US-citizen wife with unlawful arrest if she complained.
They then shipped Khalil to a for-profit detention camp in Jena, Louisiana. The facility, called the LaSalle Detention Center, is already well known for its human rights abuses, which include beatings, tear-gassing, and the pepper-spraying of children. It’s run by the publicly traded GEO Group, which closed at $22.92 a share on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, in case anybody would like to ask their investment managers if their portfolios support fascism. Read More.
Later this month, on the holiday of Purim, Jewish people will dress in silly costumes, eat triangular pastries, and listen to an ancient story about attempted genocide. What we notice, and don’t notice, about that story says a lot about what we notice, and don’t notice, in Israel and Palestine.
The tale comes from the book of Esther. It begins with a dissolute Persian king. He hosts a banquet, gets drunk, orders his queen to “display her beauty” to the revelers, and, when she refuses, banishes her from the throne. As her replacement he chooses Esther, a beautiful young maiden who, unbeknownst to him, is a Jew. Then he makes a calamitous personnel decision: he selects Haman, a pathological Jew-hater, to be his right-hand man. The stage is now set for an epic clash. Read more.
Welcome to the Peacemakers Podcast, where we explore the intersections of spirituality, social justice, and transformative action. This podcast is brought to you by Zen Peace-makers, and today, we are honored to share the wisdom and insights of Dr. Larry Ward — teacher, author, and Dharma holder in the Plum Village tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh.
In this episode, Dr. Ward guides us through deep reflections on America’s Racial Karma as collective trauma, and the urgent need for healing. Drawing from history, Buddhist teachings, and his own lived experience, he challenges us to wake up to the realities of racial injustice and invites us to step into the work of transformation.
It’s time to fight back like our democracy depends on it.
Sign up at https://indivisible.org/coup, and we’ll keep you updated with ways to take action on your home turf.
Trump’s administration is in full-on power grab mode, shredding laws, defying courts, and handing control of the country’s financial system to a billionaire crony. This isn’t just corruption—it’s an outright coup.
Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) tried to commit economic terrorism. A secret memo slashed all federal funding for child nutrition, healthcare for tens of millions, domestic violence shelters, and veterans’ programs. The public outrage was swift. A federal judge blocked it. But let’s be clear: this was a dry run, and they’ll try again.
A grassroots organization called The People’s Union USA has organized a set of boycotts to protest both the ending of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives by many U.S. corporations, and the corporate exploitation of our world together with the complicity of our government in it.
The first of three 24-hour spending blackouts is set to happen on February 28, followed by a 40-day boycott of Target dubbed The Target Fast that will coincide with the 40 days of Lent starting on March 5, an 8-day boycott of Amazon starting on March 7, and a 7-day boycott of Walmart starting on April 7.
It is Presidents’ Day, and President Donald Trump has made a bold statement regarding military spending—one that no other president in modern history has made. He claims he could cut the Pentagon budget by about 50%.
President Trump has suggested a major cut in defense spending, proposing that the United States, Russia, and China each reduce their military budgets by 50%. He has also expressed a desire to begin denuclearization and arms control discussions with both Russia and China to accomplish this objective.
Military contractors poured $4,440,605 into Kamala Harris’s campaign—more than double what they contributed to Donald Trump. Yet, even with the support of establishment figures like Dick Cheney, their favored candidate fell short. The defeat of the military contractor’s candidate may have consequences for the industry.
This year’s Doomsday Clock Statement landed like a damp squib in a Trump-swamped corporate news cycle on January 28th. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists only moved the hands of the Clock forward by one second, from 90 seconds up to 89 seconds to midnight, which must have come as a relief to the few members of the public who heard about it.
But this minimal advance in the hands of the Clock was a strange and misleading top-line for the Bulletin’s actual Doomsday Clock Statement, which was brimming with extremely dire warnings that deserve far greater official and public attention.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave an interview with Megyn Kelly on 30 January 2025 which could signal the beginning of the end of America’s hegemonic security strategy. Rubio recognized that unipolarity, having one center of power in the world, was a temporary phenomenon that has now passed:
“it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power. That was not – that was an anomaly. It was a product of the end of the Cold War, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet”.
The passing of Jimmy Carter has been duly noted in ubiquitous remembrances and commentaries on his four-year presidency, 1977-1981. Carter is lauded more for his post-presidential humanitarian projects, while his presidency is deemed a mixed bag by left and right alike. For many Vietnam War resisters – myself included, it is more personal. Jimmy Carter’s first act as president was to pardon draft resisters. He then established a program for military deserters like me, who were able to return from exile or up from “underground” without going to prison.
Congressmember Scott Peters, CA 50th District:scott.peters@mail.house.gov
Dear Scott, Thank you for your letter “Re: The situation in Los Angeles”, in which you assured us, your constituents, that you will work to get Congress to pass federal aid “to bring immediate relief to the wildfire victims” and “to help the impacted communities recover and rebuild.”
Pointedly, in your third paragraph you said:
But here’s the thing: These increasingly deadly and destructive natural disasters don’t have to be our new normal.
As an accompaniment to the AI lecture on this upcoming Friday’s Lecture with Dr. Kelley in The Gathering Place on our Peace Campus, we asked AI to tell us about about the Peace Resource Center of San Diego. Just a hint: Ai doesn’t really seem to have a mind of its own… at least not yet. It also created the image for this article in MSN’s Copilot.
At a time when a year is ending or has just ended, it is common to wish for a better world in the new coming year. In recent times the world has experienced so many serious threats and disruptions that the prayers for better times should be more intense. Keeping in view the disturbing trends, perhaps we can start by wishing for what should be avoided at all costs.
In this context it is clear that what the world should be most concerned about is to avoid any possibility of a world war or a nuclear war. … Normally there should be no need for emphasizing so obvious a fact. Unfortunately in recent times the safety norms in this context have been violated in a very reckless manner and this is why it has become essential to list this point at the top of the priority list.
Your biggest problem includes the risk of an escalation to nuclear war at any moment in Europe, the Middle East, the Korean Peninsula, South Asia, or the South China Sea. It includes the ever-present risk of a full-scale nuclear exchange between the US and Russia that could be triggered by simple human or computer error, a cyberattack, miscalculation or misunderstanding on either side.
Mr. President, so long as these weapons remain in the arsenals of any country, there is a steadily increasing risk that they will be used. And despite decades of research and billions of dollars of investment, there is no guaranteed way to protect America from even a single incoming nuclear missile.
Your biggest problem includes the risk of an escalation to nuclear war at any moment in Europe, the Middle East, the Korean Peninsula, South Asia, or the South China Sea. It includes the ever-present risk of a full-scale nuclear exchange between the US and Russia that could be triggered by simple human or computer error, a cyberattack, miscalculation or misunderstanding on either side.
Mr. President, so long as these weapons remain in the arsenals of any country, there is a steadily increasing risk that they will be used. And despite decades of research and billions of dollars of investment, there is no guaranteed way to protect America from even a single incoming nuclear missile.