Venezuela: UN special rapporteur’s report slams sanctions – but Biden retains them

We need to step up our campaign against the illegal US sanctions on Venezuela, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE

AN overwhelmingly damning report by UN special rapporteur on human rights Alena Douhan has catalogued the massive harm inflicted on the Venezuelan people by the illegal sanctions imposed primarily by the US but also by Britain, the EU and Canada.

Yet less than a month after its publication in February, President Joe Biden has chosen to renew by executive order what the Obama administration in 2015 termed “a national emergency with respect to the situation in Venezuela,” on the absurd grounds that the country continues “to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

The special rapporteur’s interim report, based on first-hand observations and extensive discussions with a wide range of stakeholders, makes a number of critical points about the sanctions.
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Tory housing policies are a moral dereliction

This week the Museum of Homelessness (MoH) released the figure that 976 homeless people across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland died last year. KEN LIVINGSTONE reports on a government-made housing crisis

I HAVE written in my Morning Star column before how the homelessness levels in our country are a national scandal, and news this week confirmed the human costs of the Tories’ inaction in this area, as well as being a devastating indictment of 10 years of austerity cutting so many essential public services to the bone.
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Trump has gone – time to end US sanctions on Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela

Now is the time to step up international campaigning against illegal US sanctions in Latin America, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE

THE United States has an extensive sanctions programme affecting two dozen countries across the globe, and three of those states singled out for coercive measures are in Latin America: Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. 

The cost to those three nations of US sanctions imposed allegedly “to counter threats to national security” are breathtakingly severe and must be stopped.
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Tory failures are throwing millions out of work

The left must respond by fighting for every job and arguing for massive investment in the economy, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE

RECENT figures showing unemployment rising to 5 per cent in the three months to November 2020 were further evidence of the growing jobs crisis facing Britain.

Not a week passes by without more announcements of job cuts from household name companies, and many job losses of course do not even reach the headlines.
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Biden must end the US’s illegal sanctions on Venezuela

If he is to prove he is different from Trump, the new US president will have to change approach in Latin America, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE

DESPITE enormous costs to its economy and its people imposed by illegal US sanctions, Venezuela has seen off President Donald Trump’s term in office and his clear goal of toppling the elected government of Nicolas Maduro.

From his earliest days in office, Trump had drastically ratcheted up the sanctions first levied against Venezuela by the Obama administration, increasingly meaning there is a full-on Cuba-style US blockade of the country.
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Time for a Zero Covid Policy and a People’s Plan

Other countries have enforced and completed successful lockdowns, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE — it’s time we followed these proven steps

NOW is the winter of our discontent — and the Tory government is entirely to blame.

More than nine months into Britain’s Covid-19 crisis, Boris Johnson and his ministers have failed utterly to protect public health and to drive down infections.

This is not just incompetence — although that has been in evidence — it is fundamentally a failure of policy.
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Victory for socialists in Bolivia – but the struggle continues

KEN LIVINGSTONE writes on the restoration of democracy in Bolivia

THE Movement Towards Socialism’s (MAS) victory in Bolivia’s presidential election, the first held since a military-led coup ousted legitimate President Evo Morales last November, offers a new way forward for the country out of the nightmare of the last year.

Under the coup regime led by Jeanine Anez, a wave of human-rights abuses took place, targeting trade unionists, indigenous activists and MAS supporters, with large-scale violation of people’s rights and the loss of lives.
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Now is the time to end homelessness

There needs to be real action to protect renters, end rough sleeping and stop a new homelessness crisis, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE

THIS week, Labour, homelessness charities, housing campaigners and others have called for the government to repeat the Everyone In scheme from earlier this year to protect rough sleepers this winter as the country again enters lockdown.

As Labour’s shadow minister said, “On Saturday, the Prime Minister said: ‘From Thursday until the start of December, you must stay at home.’ For this to happen, it is essential that everyone has a safe place to call home.”

As part of this, 15,000 rough sleepers were helped off the streets by local authorities and charities.
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I have fought racism all my life – Statement from Ken Livingstone

I am proud of my record as an anti-racist and a leading campaigner against the far-right and their hate, from when I joined the Labour Party in 1969, through my life since, including serving as a local councillor, Greater London Council member, MP, Mayor of London and Labour National Executive Committee member.

I have always implacably opposed anti-Semitism. As a life-long anti-racist, I am deeply hurt by – and fully reject – the accusations again being circulated across parts of the media and by political opponents that I am anything but 100 per cent committed to fighting all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism.
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Bring water back into public ownership

We all lose as water companies fail again, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE

IT WAS recently revealed that London could face a “mass water shortage” by 2040 if urgent action isn’t taken to fix pipes.

For those of us who opposed Thatcher and the Tories’ privatisation drive, including water, initiated in 1989, and the love affair of all governments with privatisation and linked policies such as PFI and outsourcing ever since, this news may not have come as a surprise.
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