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18 September 2020 The obscene spectacle staged by the Trump administration on the South Lawn of the White House on Tuesday, bringing together the two monarchical Arab dictatorships, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, with Israel for the signing of what were pretentiously labeled the “Abraham Accords,” represents yet one more link in the decades-long chain of betrayals carried out by the Arab bourgeoisie. The “Abraham Accords,” all of five paragraphs in length, manage to repeat the name “Donald J. Trump” four times, lest anyone should forget who is the champion of Middle East peace in the midst of his reelection bid, which threatens to bring the US itself to the brink of civil war. For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the trip to Washington served as a welcome diversion from a spiraling crisis in Israel, which is gripped by soaring coronavirus infections, a deepening economic crisis and mass protests, even as he himself faces imminent indictment on fraud and bribery charges

  15 September 2020 Julian Assange’s extradition hearing resumed yesterday morning after a coronavirus test for a member of the prosecution’s legal team came back negative. Mark Summers QC, one of Assange’s lawyers, asked District Judge Vanessa Baraitser to give a direction mandating the use of masks for the remainder of the hearing. She responded that government guidance on wearing masks in public places in the Old Bailey “does not include the well of the court,” before saying, “those that wish to wear masks in the well of the court are welcome to do so” but “there is no obligation to do so, and I make no direction.” Assange was wearing a mask in the dock, but Summers noted that “there have been difficulties in getting him masks in the weeks leading up to this.” As the pandemic surges again in the UK, the danger to Assange’s life will only escalate. The day’s testimony was given by Eric Lewis, an American attorney with experience of national security cases in the United States Distric

  15 September 2020 As the US death toll from the coronavirus nears 200,000 and the economic and social catastrophe facing millions of workers intensifies, there are growing signs of working class resistance. On Monday, nearly 4,000 clerical, maintenance and other service workers walked out at the University of Illinois at Chicago and UI medical centers in Chicago, Peoria and Rockford. After more than a year of negotiations for a new contract, UI workers voted by 94 percent to authorize the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to call a strike, demanding adequate staffing to ensure the safety of staff, patients, and students; proper personal protective equipment (PPE); and lower workloads. The workers are also demanding an increase in the minimum base wage for food, building and other service workers, who, in many cases, earn less than the city's minimum wage of $14 an hour.