This Week’s Under-reported News Summary – March 11, 2026

Compiled by Bob Nixon

  • The Democratic party needs to recognize its base is progressive, social democratic
  • Indonesia's nickel industry is boon to renewable energy industry & China's rust belt workers
  • Rio Grande's sewage cleanup overshadowed by unfulfilled treaty, tariffs and border wall

In Michael Harrington’s classic 1972 book “Socialism”, the Democratic Socialist author claims the US labor movement had quietly become the “invisible” force behind dramatic U.S. government social reforms in the 1960s. Even as the AFL-CIO sided with a succession of presidential administrations in prosecuting the Cold War against the Soviet Union, there were many union activists who were  dedicated to social democratic values and were the leading force behind President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society agenda.

(“The Democratic Base is Social Democratic,” American Prospect, Jan. 7, 2026)

Indonesia controls 40 percent of the world’s nickel deposits, a metal that’s critical for making stainless steel, electronic vehicle batteries, solar panels and wind turbines. The material is critical to a global transition away from fossil fuels.  Three-quarters of the cathode material in a Tesla Cyber Truck and the Ford Lightning truck are made of nickel.

(“Inside the Indonesia Boomtowns Powering the World’s Electric Vehicles,” The Grist, Oct. 8, 2025)

In 2023 progress was made on cleaning up the Rio Grande River on the U.S. Mexico border, when Mexico’s Potable Water and Sanitation Commission began work on an $80 million repair of a water treatment plant in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. The upgrade of the plant, backed by the U.S., stopped 12 million gallons of raw sewage from flowing into the river and local groundwater. .

(“The Big Bet to Fix the Rio Grande Sewage Problem,” Inside Climate News, Dec. 7, 2025)

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