5: Women in More Than 50 Countries Set to Strike Today on International Women’s Day
Today is International Women’s Day, and thousands of women are staging a one-day strike in what’s been dubbed a Day Without a Woman. The impact of the strike is already being felt in the United States. In Virginia, the entire public school system of Alexandria is closed today after 300 women requested the day off. Some schools are also closing in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and in New York City. The U.S. Women’s Strike was called by organizers of the Women’s March on Washington, the largest nationwide day of protest after an inauguration in U.S. history. And women in the United States are not alone. Women in more than 50 countries are expected to take part in their own strikes. The International Women’s Strike effort was launched in October 2016 after women in Poland, South Korea, Argentina and Sweden organized strikes to fight issues from the criminalization of abortion to femicide. For more, we speak with Tithi Bhattacharya, associate professor of South Asian history at Purdue University. She is one of the national organizers of today’s Women’s Strike.
Democracy Now
4: Gloria Steinem on the Secret to Never Burning Out During the Fight for Equality
Gloria Steinem has been a tireless champion of women’s rights for the past 50 years—her work as a feminist leader and activist has only grown since her days as a co-founder of Ms. magazine. She is one of the century’s greatest agents of social change, though it’s perhaps more accurate to describe her as an enduring force of nature. In January, Steinem was a co-chair of the Women’s March on Washington, which turned into a global protest for women’s rights that was millions of people strong. She’s also the host and an executive producer for WOMAN, a VICELAND series that documents the ways that women around the world are shaping our future. We caught up with her shortly after the march to reflect on President Trump and her continued fight against injustice.
Vice News
3: Apple to ‘rapidly address’ any security holes as companies respond to CIA leak
Apple has promised to “rapidly address” any security holes used by the CIA to hack iPhones, following the release of a huge tranche of documents covering the intelligence agency’s stockpile of software vulnerabilities.
The leak, dubbed “Vault 7” by its publisher WikiLeaks, is made up of a collection of around 10,000 individual documents created between 2014 and 2016. A spokesman for the CIA said it would not comment “on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents” and the Trump administration spokesman Sean Spicer also declined comment.
Apple, one of numerous tech companies whose devices appear to have been targeted, released a statement late on Tuesday saying many of the vulnerabilities described by the documents were already fixed as of the latest version of its iOS mobile operating system, and aimed to reassure customers that it was working on patching the rest of the holes.
The Guardian
2: US warns ‘all options on table’ to deal with N Korea
The United States on Wednesday said “all options are on the table” to deal with North Korea.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley also denounced North Korean leader Kim Jong-un after the United Nations Security Council discussed its launch of four ballistic missiles on Monday.
“We are not dealing with a rational person,” said Haley. “It is an unbelievable, irresponsible arrogance that we are seeing coming out of Kim Jong-un at this time.”
Aljazeera
1: Trump Picks Hawkish Critic of Russia as NATO Ambassador, Veering From One Extreme to the Other
PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS reportedly tapped as his ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) a hawkish critic of Russia who wants the U.S. to arm Ukraine. It’s the latest sign that the administration is reacting to criticism that it is too soft on Russia by pivoting to the other extreme.
Richard Grennell is a former Bush-era U.S. spokesperson at the United Nations who also served as a foreign policy spokesperson for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. He frequently appears on Fox News and other conservative outlets saying President Obama appeased Russia.
Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Obama resisted political pressure from hawks in Congress to provide lethal arms to the Ukranian government, fearing that doing so would only cause Russia to escalate its own military involvement.
Writing in The New York Times Room for Debate section in 2014, Grenell said that Obama’s belief that the U.S. could “support Ukraine but not antagonize Russia” represented “a naïve and dangerous world view.” In a Fox News op-ed, he proposed military escalation: “Offer advice and training to Ukraine, and sell it the lethal weapons required to contend with Russian armored personnel carriers, tanks and missiles,” he wrote, adding that the U.S. should also restart missile defense shield programs in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Grennell also counseled Obama to leave directly military confrontation with Russia over Ukraine “on the table.”
The Intercept
