instruction:
Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.
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From Panama to Ferguson: Countering the devaluation of black lives. Twenty five years ago on December 20, 1989, El Chorrillo, an Afro-Panamanian neighbourhood in the centre of Panama city was the scene of a criminal assault by the military forces of the United States government . A vigorous assault from the most powerful military body on the planet was unleashed by President George H W Bush to execute an arrest warrant issued by a US court on General Manuel Antonio Noriega, the de facto head of the sovereign state of Panama, and up until that time an obedient servant of US interests in the region . Significant elements of the outgunned Panamanian defence forces had barracks in the El Chorrillo community and as a consequence it was turned into a free fire zone by the invading forces, despite the fact that the invaders knew that thousands of civilians also lived in the densely populated community . As Marta Sanchez and others who experienced the assault remembered, the people of El Chorrillo, whose descendants came from the Caribbean to Panama as cheap labour to build the canal, never knew what hit them when they awoke to the sounds of machine gun fire from the 82nd Airborne division . When the firing stopped and the smoke from the fires finally subsided, thousands were dead and the neighbourhood largely destroyed . "Black Lives Matter" is a refrain whose importance is reflective of the value that black people place on our lives , yet we must disabuse ourselves of the illusion that black lives or any other lives matter when they stand in the way of the political and capital interests of US elites and that it is not limited to black communities in the US . As human rights strategist Ajamu Baraka points out:"The black lives taken by the murderous assault on Panama 25 years ago should be a sober reminder that US state violence is not confined to ghettoes and barrios of the US but is a central component of the racist, colonial, capitalist project that is the US. We cannot pretend that police brutality in the US and the devaluation of black life that it represents is restricted just to the black experience in the heart of the US empire." The attack on Panama and the massive loss of life and destruction was a harbinger of the lawlessness and aggression that would characterise US policies in the unipolar world of the late 20th and early 21st century . When President Noriega failed to support US efforts to destabilise Nicaragua and had the audacity to publicly defy the US state with his defiant rhetoric, Bush had a perfect opportunity to establish the terms for what he referred to as a new world order of unchecked US power . Panama became a demonstration project to communicate to the nations of the global south that resistance to US hegemony would be met with ferocious violence . The fact that scores of black lives would be lost as part of the demonstration was of no consequence to the policymakers of hegemony . The structures and relations of repression are linked from the centre of the empire to its periphery states . US police forces train police departments throughout the world through programmes such as the International Taskforce Agent Training, (conducted by US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations) including police officers that work in communities like El Chorrillo . The US police forces bring with them their military, interrogation, intimidation and racially biased tactics which involve use of excessive force on civilians . It is also internationally known that police are quicker to use force, shoot and kill black people, the same way that the US is quick to invade smaller countries with less power , because in the scope of the political reality, they matter less . Violence is integral to the project of western colonial capitalist domination from Palestine to Ferguson . "On this 25th anniversary of the US invasion of Panama, we need to remember that the struggle for black liberation is ongoing. US authorities must be made to understand that the value of black life is not determined by the borders that those black bodies find themselves. The destruction in Panama is a reminder to my generation that our demand is not new," says Alicia Garza, National Domestic Workers Special Projects director and cofounder of #BlackLivesMatter . While we remember the victims of the US invasion of Panama, the families of the thousands of victims of US criminality in Panama are still demanding justice and accountability 25 years later . Like the families of Eric Garner and Mike Brown and the victims of police violence in the US, they are part of the long line of victims of US criminality globally . These crimes will continue until the people - black people in particular - are able to build the power necessary to ensure that black lives really matter in the US and across the globe .
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"Black Lives Matter" is a refrain whose importance is reflective of the value that black people place on our lives


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More immigration and population growth? London can take it. Listen to the doomsayers, the scaremongers and the Farage brigade, and you would be forgiven for thinking that London is full . Our capital, just like our country, they say, can't cope with any more people . Everything from traffic jams to NHS waiting times is blamed on immigrants . The only answer, they tell us, is to pull up the drawbridge and close our borders, turning our back on the globalised world that this country did so much to create . How, then, do they explain the fact that, according to forecasts, only today will London's population surpass that of 1939 - topping 8.6 million for the first time? It is a stark rebuttal of the frequently peddled myth that says London must stop growing . Instead of the huge influx of immigrants that headlines wrongly report, in reality the capital's population has only gradually been creeping back to the level of 75 years ago, before the blitz destroyed many parts of the city . Today, though, shows more than just the falsity of the immigration scare stories - it highlights the huge success of London as a city . Our capital continues to attract people from all over the country and all over the globe because of the opportunities it offers : to find work, set down roots, enjoy a world-class cultural scene and be accepted regardless of who you are and where you come from . That success should be a cause of great celebration, not something to curse and try to curtail . But no one should deny the pressures that come with a growing population - pressures that are particularly acute in the capital . London is in the midst of the deepest housing crisis in decades , as average house prices soar to 14 times the average salary and rents rise uncontrollably . The city's transport system is struggling to cope with demand, with commuters crammed into conditions in which it would be illegal to transport livestock, and fares rising year on year . The opportunities to get a decent job, buy a house, and enjoy all the city has to offer are becoming fewer . The reality is becoming detached from the dream . These problems arise not because of growing demand alone but because of the failure of political leaders to respond to it . Londoners have a right to expect more from their mayor than the 17,000 new homes that were built in the capital last year - less than a third of the 63,000 a year that are needed to solve the city's housing crisis . That Boris Johnson has missed his own affordable housing targets in every year of his mayoralty is an abject failure of political leadership . The government's unwillingness to commit to vital transport infrastructure, such as Crossrail 2 and new Thames bridges, is scarcely better . History shows us what can be achieved when politicians take population growth seriously and rise to the challenges it creates . In the midst of the second world war, even as bombs fell and the city burned, a plan was devised to respond to London's growth . The Abercrombie plan, officially called the Greater London plan, laid out an ambitious vision for a new postwar London: decent housing replacing slums, efficient transport, full employment, new parks and open spaces . It was a radical and comprehensive document that provided the detail for rebuilding London after the devastation of the war . New towns including Stevenage and Crawley were built in the south-east ; modern transport infrastructure, including the north and south circular roads, was planned to cope with the increasing number of cars . The requirements of a successful London were drawn up and implemented . A growing population and new pressures on services mean we need a new, equally ambitious plan today . Empty words about more homes and better jobs will not cut it ; they are no substitute for a serious and detailed proposal for building at least 63,000 homes a year and rebalancing the city's economy to create jobs and opportunities for Londoners while continuing to invest in the industries of tomorrow . The city's creaking transport system must be upgraded, with Crossrail 2 and other new infrastructure built . This must happen without the continuous and excessive raising of fares , which burns holes in Londoners' pockets . Keeping London affordable for ordinary people must be central to the plan, and improving the quality of life of Londoners a core theme . Given that London successfully adapted to growing demands in the middle of a world war, we can be optimistic about our chances of doing the same today . We should not let those with a political agenda use London's growing population to support their anti-immigration rhetoric , and we should challenge those who want to label London's global attraction a flaw rather than a strength . That our capital is back at its peak population is a sign of its success as a great global city . People from all corners of the globe still take great risks, at great expense, to become Londoners and to benefit from the city's opportunities . But this isn't a time for complacency . Whoever the next mayor is, they must focus their gaze on solving the problems that stem from growing demand on London's infrastructure . As population continues towards 10 million , we need a new plan to take London forward together according to the qualities of the city at its best : inclusive, diverse, ambitious, forward-looking and offering a wealth of opportunities to all who live here .
answer:
It is a stark rebuttal of the frequently peddled myth that says London must stop growing We should not let those with a political agenda use London's growing population to support their anti-immigration rhetoric


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Joan Didion as the new face of Celine? That's so smart. In dark days, the heart cleaves disproportionately to Lilliputian scraps of good news and so it was that as events played out in Paris last week, I kept thinking of the writer Joan Didion, the star of Celine's latest ad campaign, tiny in black, her porcelain face half obscured by sunglasses as big and as inky as the dinner plates in the kind of restaurants frequented by Patrick Bateman in American Psycho . Oh, the brilliance of Didion! I like to think of myself as wholly resistant to the wicked wiles of big fashion , but this campaign seemed somehow to have got through , and I was all aflutter . What, I wondered, was the provenance of the socking great pendant that hung about her neck in Juergen Teller's photograph? Was it by Celine or was it, as they say, model's own? Could I find something similar on eBay? All day long, between work and news bulletins, I restlessly Googled various combinations of the words "buy", "vintage", "bronze", "large" and "locket" . The coverage of the Paris fashion house's decision to make the author of Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album and The Year of Magical Thinking its new face has focused mostly on her age . Didion is 80 ; when she began her career as a writer at American Vogue in the late 50s, the personnel director of the magazine's owner, Conde Nast, would from time to time stop her in the hall and ask her when she had last called her mother . Apparently, we should celebrate Teller's photograph of her as a particularly exalted example of fashion's increased willingness to embrace models with wrinkles, liver spots and histories that trail all the way back to the days when women still wore white gloves and little hats to work . At last, the thinking goes, fashion has realised that beauty may also come with silver hair . What? You don't buy that? Well, then . Think of it this way . At least it seems finally to have grasped that women don't simply give up shopping the moment they turn 50 . But it's not Didion's age that interests me . It's her status as a writer and thinker . By choosing her- acclaimed and bestselling, but also trenchant, highly mannered and somewhat complicated - Celine's creative director, Phoebe Philo, is sending out quite a bracing message , even if the semaphore in which it's written will, alas, be largely illegible to those who know nothing of Didion . There' s something going on beyond the cunning commercial appeal to the kind of conflicted consumer who values the inner life as much as the outer  - I mean the kind of woman whose "buttery" leather tote must be big enough to contain at least one hardback if it is not to make her feel guilty for the rest of her life . Isn't this campaign also in the business of suggesting that to be clever and a touch difficult(Didion is nothing if not unpredictable) is to be timelessly beautiful? That this is, in fact, a state to which women might like to aspire? Oh, Phoebe! If only I could afford your gorgeous, minimalist gear , I would dash out and buy something right now just to say thank you . And yet how often have I chickened out? How often do I try, even now, to wear pretty clothes, fun clothes, to embrace colour and print and embroidery? To toddle along in shoes in which I cannot run or even, if I'm honest, walk? Like most professional women who are neither beautiful nor willing to play dumb all of the time, I fear being thought ugly or uncompromising or seeming as if I have not made an effort . I fear, if you will, being seen to be picking a fight, whether by the way I speak or the way I dress . I guess you could say that I wear the swishy frock and high heels the better that I might be allowed, sometimes, to speak my mind . I adore the way that Didion, half child and half sphinx, thinner than a cigarette, looks . But she is not, and never has been, classically beautiful . Nor is she willing to play the fool . She is discreet, but never decorous ; she is fierce, preternaturally observant and, sometimes, a little self-obsessed . And her clothes - unfussy, elegant, practical, a touch forbidding - reflect this . What Teller's photograph says to me is: approach with caution; subject may bite . I love the continuity in this, the wholeness, the confidence in the way that the clothes are an extension of the personality - and I salute Phoebe Philo for recognising it, for extolling it to the world as worthy of admiration, as a thing to be replicated by those women who have the pluck, if not exactly the hard cash .
answer:

In dark days, the heart cleaves disproportionately to Lilliputian scraps of good news


