TDB Top 5 International Stories: Saturday 21st January 2017

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5: Trump’s New White House Website Doesn’t Mention Civil Rights

Or climate change, or poverty, or healthcare, or LGBTQ people.

Along with taking over the official @POTUS Twitter handle, Donald Trump got the keys to the White House website. Unsurprisingly, he’s made some changes—erasing Barack Obama’s digital legacy and replacing it with, well, not much.

For instance, references to climate change have been deleted, and in place of Obama’s in-depth “Issues” section, which included pages on civil rights, poverty, and violence prevention, among other topics, Trump’s administration has put up some vague outlines for six different issues he’d like to tackle as president, including energy and law enforcement.

The new White House promises to target what it describes as a “dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America,” pledges in two different places to “rebuild” America’s allegedly depleted military, and vows to slash regulations (including those intended to fight climate change) and reduce taxes—all Trump campaign promises. But curiously, there’s nothing at all about healthcare reform, which is the first major political fight of the administration.

Vice News

4: Donald Trump Preaches Angry Nationalism, While Practicing Goldman Sachs Capitalism

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S INAUGURAL address was fiery and nationalistic, a considerable departure from the traditional Republican Party embrace of the free market and an activist foreign policy. Trump talked of an “America First” policy and vowed that “January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.”

But Trump’s words on the steps of the Capitol bore little resemblance to the reality of the administration he is building.

It’s hard to argue with Trump’s assessment that “the establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs.”

But that establishment will be in full force in the Trump administration. The megabank Goldman Sachs, famously close to Trump’s opponents in the Democratic Party, has six alumni posed for key posts in his administration, including his treasury secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin.

Trump spoke of “mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation,” but Mnuchin built a fortune off of helming banks that misled borrowers and foreclosed on their homes.

The Intercept

3: Native Americans expect nothing good from Trump…

America’s journalists are truly and deeply sorry for their behaviour during the election. They are sorry they failed to see the simmering animosity and racism that helped Donald J Trump take the White House. They are apologetic for staying within their own social circles and ignoring disparate points of view. They have asked forgiveness for misleading the public into thinking that Mr Trump could never hold office and pledged that when he takes office on Friday, they will hold him accountable, come hell or high water.

Please … This behaviour isn’t new.

For months, protests outside the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation transfixed the public, exposing US audiences to the elaborate political, environmental and cultural issues American Indians face. However, much of the reporting was superficial and journalists often failed to see the social or historical environments that created the incident at Standing Rock.

The battle ended in December when the US Army Corp of Engineers stopped construction, and since then little follow-up to the story has been made.

Aljazeera

 

2: Michael Moore & Naomi Klein on Resisting Donald Trump as Protests Erupt Ahead of Inauguration

Democracy Now! broadcast our daily show live from WHUT on the campus of the historically black university, Howard University in Washington, D.C., less than four hours before Donald Trump became the nation’s 45th president. Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by almost 3 million votes, but he managed to win the Electoral College. He takes office as the least popular incoming president in at least a generation. We get an update from protests in Washington, D.C., and hear the speech Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore gave Thursday night, when nearly 25,000 people gathered in New York City to protest outside Trump International Hotel and Tower near Central Park. We are also joined live by Naomi Klein, journalist and best-selling author, whose most recent book is “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate,” and Lee Fang, reporter with The Intercept who covers the intersection of money and politics.

Democracy Now

1: Chinese growth slips to slowest pace for 26 years

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

China’s economy slowed further last year to expand at its weakest pace for quarter of a century, with warnings that it risks losing further momentum in 2017 as Donald Trump’s presidency creates new challenges for the trading superpower.

The world’s second-largest economy grew 6.7% last year, according to China’s statistics office, meeting Beijing’s target range of 6.5-7% but the slowest growth since 1990.

Figures for the final quarter of 2016 alone pointed to a small pick-up in pace at the close of the year. They showed GDP growth quickened to 6.8% for October-December, the first quarterly acceleration for two years and ahead of economists’ forecasts for growth to hold at 6.7%.

The Guardian