Joe Catron

Joe Catron is a MintPress News contributing journalist. He covers Palestine and Israel and other human rights issues. Catron has written frequently for Electronic Intifada and Middle East Eye, and co-edited The Prisoners' Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag, an anthology of accounts by detainees freed in the 2011 prisoner exchange.

Report Shows Corporations and Bolsonaro Teaming Up to Destroy the Amazon

“Bolsonaro has overseen the most significant rollback, and full-on assault, on human rights and environmental protection in Brazil since the fall of the country’s military dictatorship.”

Joe Catron
By Joe Catron
Brazil Amazon | Bolsonaro

As deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest reaches the highest level in a decade, the rainforest’s indigenous peoples and their supporters have called for action against the political and business interests they blame for a spike in illegal logging and other resource extraction. A report released by Amazon Watch as part of its ongoing

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Western Media Calls for Venezuela to “Surrender” as US Escalates its Economic War

“American sanctions are deliberately aiming to wreck Venezuela’s economy and thereby lead to regime change. It’s a fruitless, heartless, illegal, and failed policy, causing grave harm to the Venezuelan people.” — Columbia University economist and United Nations advisor Jeffrey Sachs

Joe Catron
By Joe Catron
Venezuela Sanctions Hunger

UNITED NATIONS - As a United States-backed coup attempt sputters in Venezuela, the embattled South American country’s economy continues to groan under a series of punishing sanctions imposed by Washington, while Western media ignores their devastating impact and instead pushes Juan Guaidó and regime-change as the cure-all for Venezuela’s ills. A

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Palestinians Trampled as Trump Targets Iran and Pulls Arab States into Alliance with Israel

“Most of the Arab regimes in question are corrupt, extremely repressive and beholden to imperialism, and have no great political differences with Israel.” — Lebanese-American writer Joyce Chediac Wilcox

Joe Catron
By Joe Catron
Israel Oman

UNITED NATIONS -- As the Trump administration renews its push for a formal military alliance between the United States and its Arab allies to target Iran, several members of the emerging bloc have joined an unprecedented drive to normalize their relations with Israel. The timing, regional observers told MintPress News this week, is no

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Will Israel’s Gaza Massacres Finally Prod the ICC into Action?

Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, normally reserved in their criticism of Israel, have accused the occupying state of “war crimes.” Some hope the sheer scale of Israeli fire against unarmed civilians, along with the copious documentation of it, will prod the ICC to action.

Joe Catron
By Joe Catron
Israel Gaza ICC

THE HAGUE -- As the Great March of Return by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip nears its eighth month, legal organizations in the besieged Palestinian enclave have called for the International Criminal Court to prosecute Israel over its forces’ repeated fire against unarmed protesters. By the end of the 30th weekly mobilization last Friday, over

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Meet Ten Corporate Giants Helping Israel Massacre Gaza Protesters

“The Israeli military relies on a network of international companies, supplying everything from sniper rifles to tear gas, to carry out its massacres of protesters in Gaza. These companies are knowingly supporting war crimes, and are complicit in state-orchestrated murder.” — Tom Anderson, researcher for Corporate Occupation

Joe Catron
By Joe Catron
Palestine Israel Protest

NEW YORK — As Israeli soldiers gun down unarmed Palestinian demonstrators in the Great March of Return, their lethal operations depend on an array of contractors and suppliers, many of them companies based outside Israel. “The Israeli military relies on a network of international companies, supplying everything from sniper rifles to tear gas, to

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With Little Left to Lose, Gaza’s Great Return March Protesters Ramp Up Their Resistance

“The economic and social situation in Gaza has been declining for over a decade but has deteriorated exponentially in recent months and has reached a critical point.” — Marina Wes, World Bank Country Director for Gaza and the West Bank

Joe Catron
By Joe Catron
Palestinian protester Israel Gaza

As the Great March of Return roared past its half-year anniversary last Friday, it also seemed to reach levels of resistance and repression not seen in months. The escalation aims to “put more pressure on the Israeli occupation authorities, hoping they meet the protesters' demands -- lifting the siege and recognizing the right to return,” a

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Saudi-Qatar Standoff Pushes Gaza Toward Uneasy Reconciliation

Longstanding rivalries between Gulf powers are pushing the Palestinian Authority to tighten Israel’s closure of the Gaza Strip, even as Egypt takes unexpected steps to ease it. Meanwhile, Gaza’s Hamas movement is seeking reconciliation with a faction of Fatah, its longstanding rival.

Joe Catron
By Joe Catron
Residents of Qatari-funded housing complex wave their national and Qatari flags during demonstration in solidarity with Qatar in front of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani's mosque in the central of the housing complex in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, June 9, 2017. (AP/Adel Hana)

UNITED NATIONS -- Over a thousand miles from the heart of a tense diplomatic impasse between Qatar and its regional rivals, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a lesser known but closely related situation is developing in Palestine’s Gaza Strip. On June 18, 13 days after Saudi Arabia and the UAE, along with Bahrain, Egypt, the

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