Welcome to MintCast, the official MintPress News podcast featuring dissenting voices the establishment would rather silence. I’m your host, Mnar Adley. Even as the Biden administration calls for calm to be restored across Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, on Monday it approved $735 million in new arms sales to Israel. U.S. weapons continue to be used in the onslaught against a civilian population. The death toll continues to rise and is now well above 200. Joining MintPress to discuss the latest developments is British-Iraqi rapper and political activist Kareem Dennis, better known as Lowkey. In a career spanning nearly two decades, and one that has taken him across the globe, Lowkey has established himself as an underground favorite of hip-hop junkies and music connoisseurs alike. Despite his acclaim, his music is rarely played on mainstream radio, precisely because of its political message, which covers war, imperialism and injustice. His track “Long Live Palestine” was released in 2009.Lowkey has long been involved with activism in the Middle East and is a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. A fierce critic of the Israeli government, he recently stated that “Zionism is not about your feelings; it is about the material reality of ethnic cleansing that has continued...till this day.”MintPress News is a fiercely independent, reader-supported outlet, with no billionaire owners or backers. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud.Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to MintCast, the official MintPress podcast featuring dissenting voices the establishment would rather silence. I’m your host, Mnar Adley.Israel’s latest attack on Palestine has captured the world’s attention. On Saturday, the Israeli military attacked the Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza, killing 10 people, including eight children. The same day, Israeli missiles hit a highrise building housing the headquarters of Al-Jazeera and the Associated Press. On Sunday, Israeli strikes killed at least 42 people, bringing the death toll to over 200, including 50 children. All of these actions account to war crimes.Here to discuss what is going on is a star panel of guests.Malak Mattar is an artist from the Gaza Strip known worldwide for expressionist paintings and abstract designs and her work has been displayed across the world.Dan Cohen is a Jewish-American journalist. He produced and released the documentary “Killing Gaza,” about the 2014 Israeli attack on the densely populated strip.Miko Peled is an author, journalist, and human rights activist from Jerusalem. His latest article, “Israel’s Pogroms in Jerusalem Could Spark the Destruction of al-Aqsa,” can be found at MintPress News.Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to MintCast -- an interview series featuring dissenting voices the establishment would rather silence. I’m your host Mnar Muhawesh Adley. Within just three months in office amid a global pandemic, the Joe Biden administration recently ordered an airstrike that dropped 1.75 tons of explosives on a town in Syria near the Iraq border. The move is re-inflaming tensions between Washington and Damascus as the war enters its 10th year.Joining me today to discuss the latest on the ground in Syria is Vanessa Beeley. Vanessa is an independent British journalist based in Damascus and specializing in Middle Eastern affairs. She is perhaps best known for her coverage of the Syrian Civil War and the Western media propaganda machine drawing up support for a so-called humanitarian war against Syria. This program is 100 percent listener supported! You can join the hundreds of financial sponsors who make this show possible by becoming a member on our Patreon page. Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify and SoundCloud. Please leave us a review and share this segment.Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to MintCast -- an interview series featuring dissenting voices the establishment would rather silence -- I’m your host, Mnar Adley.Today we’re joined by Raul Diego, a MintPress staff writer, filmmaker and photojournalist who will discuss the anti-Chinese lockdown propaganda and how the COVID economic disaster is paving the way for surveillance, digital currency and human capital markets based on a series of articles he wrote for MintPress News. A recent letter addressed to the FBI, entitled “The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Lockdown Fraud,” has been gaining considerable traction. The letter -- signed by a number of prominent individuals, including military commanders and government advisers -- essentially suggests that China, and Xi Jinping in particular, tricked the world into pursuing authoritarian responses to the pandemic.However, the anti-Chinese lockdown narrative is obscuring a much broader effort by the financial and tech sector to create state-backed digital currency that will turn humanity into data assets. The world’s most powerful hedge funds and transnational corporations can use this data to create more profits for themselves and their clients, while rendering the poor poorer. This program is 100 percent listener supported! You can join the hundreds of financial sponsors who make this show possible by becoming a member on our Patreon page. Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify and SoundCloud. Please leave us a review and share this segment.Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to MintCast -- an interview series featuring dissenting voices the establishment would rather silence -- with host Mnar Muhawesh Adley.Joe Biden may have won the presidential election, but his victory masks a deeper rot within the American political system, one where both parties have become servants to increasingly powerful corporations, Wall Street, and the military industrial complex. The Democratic Party, in particular, presents itself to the public as a symbol of social justice and peace, yet is increasingly beholden to powerful interests.Our guest today, Chris Hedges -- has for years argued that the Democratic Party sold its soul  long ago and turned its back on the American people and that we Americans have been living through what he calls a “corporate coup d’etat in slow motion.” Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Balkans, and the Middle East, where he saw the bloody realities of the U.S. empire first hand. He hosts the show “On Contact” on RT and is the author of over a dozen books, the latest of which is “America: The Farewell Tour,” about the terminal decline of the United States. This program is 100 percent listener supported! You can join the hundreds of financial sponsors who make this show possible by becoming a member on our Patreon page. Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify and SoundCloud. Please leave us a review and share this segment.Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to MintCast -- an interview series featuring dissenting voices the establishment would rather silence-- I’m your host Mnar Muhawesh Adley.President Nicolas Maduro is celebrating this week after a clear victory in the National Assembly elections that took place on December 6. Boosted by a partial opposition boycott, the ruling socialist coalition led by Maduro received over 69% of the votes cast and won a massive 253 of the 277 seats in the National Assembly, the only branch of government not under its control.While the government is celebrating, the low turnout of 31% has many worried its support is decreasing, although the vote was held in the middle of a pandemic. The U.S. government, who has long considered Venezuela an official enemy, decried the process as fraudulent before it began, instructing opposition parties to boycott it and sanctioning those that disobeyed their orders.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took to Twitter to call Venezuela’s elections illegitimate, describing Maduro as a dictator and strongman, despite the fact that it was overseen by 1,500 election observers and 300 representatives from 34 countries.Joining  MintCast are four guests who know the country well, Max Blumenthal, Anya Parampil, Adrienne Pine, and Alan MacLeod.Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and author and editor of The Grayzone. He has been reporting from Venezuela this week and observed the elections himself. His latest book is “The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump.” He is also the co-host of the Moderate Rebels podcast.Parampil is a former producer and host at RT America’s “In Question.” She now hosts her own show, Red Lines, which you can find at The Grayzone and on YouTube.Pine is an associate professor of anthropology at the American University in Washington DC. In 2019, she occupied the Venezuelan embassy in DC to prevent it from falling into the hands of U.S.-backed self-declared president Juan Guaidó. Along with Blumenthal and Parampil, Pine observed the recent elections close up, traveling to Venezuela to serve as an election observer.Our third guest is MintPress’s own senior Staff Writer, Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to MintCast -- an interview series featuring dissenting voices the establishment would rather silence-- I’m your host Mnar Muhawesh Adley.Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, one of Iran’s most senior nuclear scientists, was assassinated in his car last week on the outskirts of Tehran. State sources in the Islamic Republic are claiming he was killed with a remote-controlled machine gun.While no party has taken responsibility, the Iranian government has already pointed the finger at a number of suspects, chiefly Israel, the United States, and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (commonly known as the MEK) a Washington-funded organization with the goal of overthrowing the Iranian government. Yet no party has claimed responsibility for the attack. At Fakhrizadeh’s funeral, Defense Minister Amir Hatami vowed that no crime as great as this would go unpunished and that the killing would not hinder Iran’s nuclear program.Joining us today to discuss the assassination, its geopolitical context, and consequences, and what it means going forward for the U.S. and Iran, is Seyed Mohammad Marandi, an Iranian-American academic and political analyst. Seyed is a Professor of English Literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran and a frequent guest on a wide range of news and political channels.Dr. Marandi argues that not only was this assassination an act of war, but a direct attack against Iran’s COVID-19 vaccine program. Fakhrezadeh was not only Iran’s top nuclear scientist, he was also leading the research program for the Islamic Republic’s COVID vaccine. Because of crippling U.S. sanctions, Iran has been barred from importing masks, ventilators, and medical supplies to support the country in its fight against the virus.COVID-19, Marandi argues, has been weaponized against Iran’s nearly 90 million citizens to destabilize the country to a degree that no other sanctions could have accomplished.Both the US and Israel have a history of interfering in Iranian affairs. Ten months ago, Donald Trump personally gave the order to assassinate Iranian military leader and statesman, Qassem Soleimani while he was in Iraq for regional peace talks. Trump has also increased and expanded existing sanctions against the Islamic Republic and pulled the United States out of Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.With only weeks until Joe Biden is set to takSupport the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to MintCast -- an interview series featuring dissenting voices the establishment would rather silence-- I’m your host Mnar Muhawesh Adley.Lebanon is reeling from a blast that destroyed much of the capital Beirut on Tuesday, August 4. 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate in the city’s port is thought to have caught fire and exploded, killing at least 157 people and injuring thousands more. The blast, believed to be one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, destroyed much of the city and has left an estimated 300,000 people homeless.Exploiting this tragedy are the usual suspects within Western media and government including the United States and Israel who are beating the drums of war as they try to blame Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah for the massive explosion.Joining us today to discuss this and what this means for the region and world are two independent journalists and analysts who lived through the blast, Laith Marouf, and Marwa Osman.Laith Marouf is a journalist, geopolitical analyst, and activist who has served as Canadian National Chair of the group, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights. He was the Executive Director of Concordia University Television in Montreal and currently lives in Beirut where he saw first hand the devastation caused by the August 4 explosion.Marwa Osman is a lecturer at the Lebanese International University and Maaref University. She’s also the host of the MidEaStream broadcasted on Al-Etejah English Channel. Her writing focuses primarily on Middle Eastern issues and can be found in a wide range of outlets, including Press TV.  Like Marouf, Osman is a resident of Beirut.The explosion could barely have come at a worse time for Lebanon, which is suffering through an economic meltdown, with a collapsing currency, rampant inflation, employment difficult to come by, and food becoming increasingly scarce. Worse still, the country’s Economy Minister Raoul Nehme confirmed that grain silos at the port, containing around 15,000 tons of wheat, were destroyed. As a result, the country has barely a few weeks ofSupport the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to MintCast -- an interview series hosted by Mnar Muhawesh Adley featuring dissenting voices the establishment would rather silence.In this episode, we are joined by activist, journalist and documentary filmmaker Eleanor Goldfield whose new documentary, “Hard Road of Hope,” shares the stories of people in West Virginia and their struggle against the corporate state.West Virginia. It’s been dubbed as a throwaway state with throw away people.  It’s a region in America often brushed under the rug in mainstream corporate media but its significance is major: this state and its story are a microcosm of U.S. exploitation of working class Americans at the hands of the corporate state, most notably the oil, gas and coal industry. Journalist Chris Hedges describes its coal-rich mountains as an economic and ecological sacrifice zone to capitalism, one of the areas richest in resources in all of America, yet filled with some of the poorest and most powerless people in the country. West Virginia is home to the opioid crisis, theft of indigenous land, environmental disaster, water and soil contamination, oil pipelines and extraction, coal mining, fracking, and slavery. “Hard Road of Hope,” tells the story of the poorest state in the union by per median household income, the ecological damage done by extractivist corporations plundering the region’s mineral resources, and how communities are coming together to fight back. Goldfield’s debut feature-length documentary is a sad, angering, and inspiring account. Of the film, Paul Corbit, President of the ecological group Keeper of the Mountains said:So many have come to West Virginia to tell our story- some have done so better than others. But Eleanor's film is one of the very few that told our stoSupport the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to MintCast, the official MintPress News podcast hosted by Mnar Muhawesh. MintCast is an interview podcast featuring dissenting voices, independent researchers and journalists the establishment would rather silence.In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Ramzy Baroud, Robert Inkalesh and Miko Peled to discuss the so-called “Deal of the Century,'' a plan promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump together with his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as Israel's annexation plans for the Jordan Valley located in the Palestinian West Bank, and the implications of the so-called deal for Palestine and the broader region. The Netanyahu-led Israeli government was expected to initiate its plan to annex as much as 35 percent of the West Bank in the Jordan Valley earlier this week, formally declaring it part of Israel along guidelines laid out in President Trump and his son in law Jared Kushner’s so-called “Deal of the Century.” After international criticism and even caution from some members of the U.S. Congress, a delay in the plan has been announced. Nonetheless, critics fear that Israel will begin annexing Palestinian land soon.Israel’s annexation of the region would put the over 70,000 Palestinians under full Israeli authority, giving the Israeli military control over all movement, agriculture, water, and all imports and exports, forcing residents to endure apartheid-like conditions experienced by those living in Gaza.  The plan would also cut out a part of the West Bank, allowing Israel to encircle the region militarily and control all Palestinian access to the outside world similar to the apartheid-like policies it carries out in Gaza. Not only does Trump’s so-called Deal of the Century hand de facto control to the Israeli military over all Palestinian movement, but it also opens up the doors to over 100,000 illegal Jewish only colonies on indigenous Palestinian land and prevents the two million Palestinian refugees who have the legal grounds to return to their land from ever doing so. The move is nothing short of territorial conquest and military occupation as defined by the United Nations Charter and the annexation is illegal under International Law. Indeed, the United Nations’ High Commissioner on Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, has declared Israel’s annexation plans both  “illegal” and “disastrous.” This will, without a doubt, create another preventable man-made humanitarian disaster at the handsSupport the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.