The post The AI Nuclear War Dead Hand appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.

Segovia was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in Bislig city in the southern province of Surigao del Sur, the Inquirer newspaper reported.

“Philippine authorities must leave no stone unturned in identifying and prosecuting those responsible for the murder of journalist Erwin Labitad Segovia,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “If President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration fails to act more decisively, the cycle of impunity will persist — and so will the media killings.”

The Presidential Task Force on Media Security, set up in 2016 to investigate media murders, said authorities had activated the Special Investigation Task Group on New Cases to look into the killing and were conducting a “hot pursuit operation” to apprehend the suspects.

Segovia, popularly known as “Boy Pana,” hosted a regular radio program on local governance and social issues, as well as a program to boost former local mayor Carla Lopez-Pichay’s campaign for May’s mid-term elections, the Inquirer reported.

The Philippines ranked ninth on CPJ’s most recent Impunity Index, a global ranking of countries where journalists’ murderers are most likely to go free. The country has appeared on the index every year since its launch in 2008.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

“The lethal attack that took Salomón Ordóñez’s life is a stark reminder of how little President Claudia Sheinbaum has done since assuming office late last year to change the cycle of violence and impunity that plagues journalists,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “Mexican authorities can break this cycle by bringing the culprits of this devastating attack to justice.”

Ordóñez, the founder and editor of the Facebook-based Shalom Cuetzalan Produccions, was attacked by unknown assailants at approximately 8 p.m. in Cuetzalan, a town 110 miles northeast of Mexico City,  according to news reports. Witnesses found Ordóñez, 40, with at least two gunshot wounds, the reports added. The journalist died of his injuries at a nearby hospital.

Ordóñez mostly covered cultural news and political events related to local culture, which he shared to his news site’s over 75,000 followers—a significant number in Cuetzalan, which has 50,000 inhabitants. His coverage made him a popular figure in the community, according to a SPD Noticias report.

One journalist from the region, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal, told CPJ via messaging app that Ordóñez did not cover sensitive political topics, corruption or organized crime in the area.

The Puebla state government, in a short statement released June 24 on Facebook, said the office of the state prosecutor (FGE) is investigating the attack. Several calls by CPJ to the FGE went unanswered.

It is unclear whether Ordóñez had received threats. CPJ was unable to retrieve contact information for his family.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Doctors Sarah Lalonde, Rizwan Minhas, and Yipeng Ge have all recently returned to Canada from volunteer medical delegations in Gaza with a harrowing message for the rest of the world. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with all three doctors about what they saw and experienced attempting to provide medical care for patients in the midst of Israel’s genocidal slaughter of Palestinians.

Content Warning: This episode contains vivid descriptions of wartime conditions, genocide, violent physical injuries, and death.

Guest(s):

• Dr. Sarah LaLonde is an emergency and family physician specializing in community, rural, and remote emergency medicine, with a particular focus on Indigenous communities
• Dr. Rizwan Minhas is a Toronto-based physician specializing in sports and regenerative pain medicine, with extensive experience in emergency medicine.
• Dr. Yipeng Ge is a primary care physician and public health practitioner based on the traditional, unceded, and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg in Ottawa, Canada.

Additional resources:

• CityNews, “Canadian doctors returning from Gaza detail eyewitness accounts: ‘We are telling the truth’”
• Global March to Gaza website

Credits:

• Studio Production: David Hebden
• Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Marc Steiner:

Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here in The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us. Today we’re going to talk with three physicians who’ve just returned from Gaza as we speak. The Israel’s war in Gaza is killed. At least 55,000. Palestinians wounded over 125,000 more. This war began when 1,130 Israelis were killed, who were held hostage. But now this war is out of control. Every day, hundreds and hundreds of people are being decimated, and as we begin this conversation, 36 more people, non-combatants were killed in Gaza. Our guests today have vast experience in war zones and in disasters. Dr. Rizwan Minhas is a Toronto-based physician. He specializes in sports and regenerative pain medicine, but his extensive experience across the globe and is deeply committed to global humanitarian medical efforts. Dr. Sarah LaLonde as an emergency and family physician who specializes in community, rural and remote emergency medicine, especially in indigenous communities. She’s worked in Albania, Togo, Chad, and fights against human trafficking in Quebec in Canada, and of course most recently came back from Gaza. Yipeng Ge is a primary care physician and public health practitioner based in Ottawa, Canada. He currently works and lives on the traditional Unseeded and Unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin on shop bag. He practices family medicine and refugee health and community health centers there and across the country.

So just once again, it’s a pleasure to have you all with us here. It’s also an honor for me to talk to the three of you who sacrificed so much to be on the front lines in Gaza to save lives. I mean, as we begin to record today, I was just getting texts from another friend in Gaza who just said another 50 people, mostly women and children have been killed as we were beginning this conversation right now. That’s just so important people to realize that. I’d like to just kind of step back for a minute, all three of you, and just, I’m really personally curious how and why you all ended up doing what you do, because it’s not as if you’re going into Gaza to come home and make thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars as a physician and you’re going into a war zone, you’re going into a place where you may not come back from. So I’m very curious about all of you, what motivated you, what happened to put you into gaze, into those front lines? And we can start with you, Sarah, please.

Dr. Sarah LaLonde:

Yeah, so my journey started in medical school. I had a lot of friends who were Jewish and I became quite interested in the country of Israel because they were talking about their experiences living there, and many had been or were going, and that got me thinking about Israel. At the end of my medical training, I decided to go to Israel. So I was there for about two weeks, and as the two weeks was finishing up, I had a really strong gut feeling that I should go on this tour that takes place in Hebron. So for those of us who are religious, that’s a place where Abraham, who’s the father of Islam, Christianity and Judaism buried his wife Sarah. And that town is in the West Bank and has a very specific history. And basically in Hebron at that time when I visited, there was I think a few hundred or a few thousand settlers.

There was I think about 3000 soldiers to guard the settlers. And there was about 200,000 Palestinians. And the settlers and the Palestinians are living quite closely, some even literally on top of each other in apartment buildings, et cetera. And while I was there, I was leaving the mosque, which is called the Ibrahim Mosque, and I saw that the border police was angry, so I decided to hide. And while I was hiding the Israeli border police killed a girl, a girl who was 17. She’s actually the same age as my brother, and that in Canada we’re not very accustomed to gun violence. So that really shook me up to be so close to a shooting. And then afterwards, because they closed the checkpoint, we were kind of stuck on the Palestinian side of Hebron and we went into a woman’s house and she was supposed to be feeding us lunch, but she was very shook up because there had just been a person killed outside her house.

And she was trying to manage her children who were behaving like normal children, playing with their bikes inside the house. And she was trying to feed us lunch, our guide saw the girl get shot, and he was also very shaken up. So when I had that experience, it helped me understand the type of fear that someone might have when they live under occupation. And that got me interested in thinking about what it might be like to live or to experience occupation living in the West Bank. And then that got me thinking about how I could contribute in the future as a physician. And one of those ways was by going to Gaza. So I was thinking of going to Gaza from 2016 until this year when I was honored to be able to go

Marc Steiner:

Yipeng?

Dr. Yipeng Ge:

Similar to Sarah, actually, I visited that mosque in Hebron, Abraham Mosque. I visited it back in March, 2023. I was with many other Harvard graduate and undergraduate students who were visiting Palestine to understand the context of historical and political context of Palestine. It was during that master’s that I was studying colonialism as a structural determinant of health. That’s actually been my own entry point into medicine and public health, learning about settler colonialism as it affects indigenous first nations, Inuit, Metis peoples in Canada or so-called Canada as a settler colonial state that has committed genocide of indigenous peoples on this land. And I didn’t choose to grow up in Canada. I came to Canada when I was four years old and learning about the history of indigenous peoples and the genocide of indigenous peoples on this land, I felt very compelled to do what I can to understand that more and to think about what does it look like to decolonize and to dismantle these systems of oppression here.

And that really led me to the field of study and learning about colonialism in other contexts and how it is so interconnected in how people experience health or poor health. And to understand that was actually just part of my public health studies. And during my own public health and preventive medicine training, I finished my family medicine training just two years ago, and it was during my public health and preventative medicine training that this increased violence in Gaza took place about 20 months ago. And my university that I was training at actually suspended me for social media posts related to Palestine. And it was actually just also photos from my own travels in Palestine just a few months before in that very year. And they later rescinded that suspension and then didn’t offer an apology. And I’ve been continuously thinking about ways to put my energy and put my time to places and spaces that deserve it, including going to Gaza and offering what I could to be a witness to genocide as a family doctor.

Marc Steiner:

That was ama.

Dr. Rizwan Minhas:

So you know what? I wish I studied this beforehand, but I’m talking about the conflict beforehand. Before I knew there was a conflict, I wasn’t aware how the conflict was, what phase it was taking, but the reason I went there was because from the fellow physicians that went there before me, they came back and they informed me of the stories that they were seeing, what they were seeing on the ground, that they were handing children with bullet wounds, they were handing children who needed amputations. There was no medical supply. But when I’m hearing these stories and when I was looking at the news, I was hearing something completely different. So then as a fellow colleague to these physicians who did go there prior to my travel in April of 2024, I said, this is true. I want to go see for myself and I want to be able to provide at least some aid because there’s no independent journalism there.

So I was trusting my fellow physicians. And when I got there, and I was shocked to see they were absolutely correct. So I went there just specifically to bring in some aid because at that time no aid was being allowed. And while traveling, I took a flight from here to Egypt, Cairo, and then I took a bus from Egypt, Rafa, and we crossed to the Palestinian side, to the Rafa Palestinian side. And when I was crossing, I saw exactly what they said was true. There were thousands of trucks lined up and not one was being allowed through. So then we and my fellow colleagues, we had about close to I think about a hundred thousand dollars of medications that we took along. So I went there just to provide some relief in regards to medical supplies and to provide relief to the doctors who are working tirelessly 24 7 and to give them a break. That was my main motivation for going there.

Marc Steiner:

I really want to give people a sense of what you all experienced, the things that I’ve watched you talk about and read about that you did. I mean, it has to be one of the most profoundly difficult things to do to be a physician, do the work you’re doing and working in a place that is just being slaughtered and destroyed. And you’re in the middle of all this trying to heal it and save as many lives as you can. And as I was reading about what you all did, it was almost difficult for me to comprehend in terms of what you experienced. I just would like you to all give a message to this world to make them really understand and hear and see how horrendous it is, what Godin’s lived through and what people are experiencing every day and the slaughter that is taking place. It’s almost unfathomable for me. I mean, it’s like a war beyond most wars that I’ve ever read about or experienced. And I know that it was all very emotional for all of you as well, despite the work you do. And I just like, let’s just rattle forth wan, you want to just begin?

Dr. Rizwan Minhas:

Absolutely. It is tough talking about it, especially when you see it. You can’t unsee it. I want the world to know that. Trust me when I say this, we want independent journalism to be there because now it’s our word against what the Israeli media or the army is trying to tell you. And trust me, the two opposite statements can’t be correct. I want them to know that all the doctors who’ve been there are seeing and are on the same page. This is a genocide happening, live streamed. And yes, you can see it online, you can see dead babies online, but we actually are holding those dead babies with our hands. We’re actually treating those babies with bullet wounds. We’re actually treating older folks who are dying because of a lack of medication that could easily be treated. I want them to know that this is not a battle of two religious sides or anything.

This is just a battle of humanity. I had a fellow physician, Dr. Mark Palmiter, who is, I believe he’s of Jewish faith, and he was working alongside with me over there, and our main focus was to save as many lives as you can. The thing is with doctors, we can’t stop a genocide. The political leaders around the world can. And I want the world to understand that yes, we may be able to provide aid, but you have to step up yourself and put pressure on your government and stand together with humanity and help stop this genocide. This is happening during our lifetime,

Marc Steiner:

What you just said, you can jump in here. It is our job at this moment, your job to tell your stories. Our job is to get your stories told so that we shine light into this darkness so we can do something to stop it. I mean, that’s part of what has to happen here.

Dr. Sarah LaLonde:

Yeah, there’s so much that we can say that people should know about it. I think that it’s important to know for people to understand the kind of visceral feeling that you have when you go into Gaza. Gaza is a post apocalyptic world. When you go into Gaza, you feel like you’re in some type of a post apocalyptic film. And I think that when we think about Gaza, we need to think about would we accept any of the things that we’re asking people in Gaza to accept. Like last week for example, we went to the Canadian parliament and there was a journalist there who asked us about tunnels being under the hospital.

Now, this is a question that’s been repeated to many physicians. You can watch many, many, many interviews on YouTube where they asked physicians if they saw tunnels underneath the hospital and we did not see tunnels. However, even if there were tunnels, does that justify the bombing of hospitals? Would we accept, let’s say my nephew was in the hospital and I find out my nephew was killed while he was in the hospital by a bomb, and someone said, oh, there was a tunnel underneath the hospital, so that’s why we bombed the hospital. Would we accept that? Would we accept that for our own children? Would we accept that for our indigenous people that we would bomb? I work up north in Cree nation and with the Inuit that we would accept that we would bomb the Cree Regional Hospital. And ironically, after we had that conversation, we discovered that there were tunnels underneath the building where we did the press conference.

We walked through them as we were going to another building. But do you think that as Canadians, we would accept that someone would bomb our parliament because there were tunnels underneath it? So I think that a lot of what we’re asking, what the world is asking Gaza to accept is not something we would accept for ourselves or our children. We have access to direct news because we’ve been to Gaza, we know people there, and a few times a week I receive videos of people being burnt alive more than once a week. Would we accept that our children in Canada would be burnt alive on a regular basis? I don’t think we would accept that. And I think when it comes to the land piece of it, after the world decided to create Israel, it was created after the Arab Israeli war, there was 22% of the land that was given to the Palestinian people.

And that’s the land where these crimes are being committed. And when we talk about forcible displacement, they’re asking those people to move off of their land. That would be like if Canada said to the Inuit people, oh, we don’t like having you here in Northern Quebec, so we’re going to put you on a train and we’re going to send you to America. Well, I don’t think there’s very many Canadians that would find that to be acceptable. So we have to think about, I mean, first of all, there’s international law and we can talk about what is okay and what is not okay according to law. But on a more visceral and gut and human feeling, we have to think about whether we would accept any of that for someone that we love.

Marc Steiner:

Yipeng?

Dr. Yipeng Ge:

I mean, reflecting on Sarah’s words, I think it’s really important that I think about the context and framework of settler colonialism because I agree with Sarah in all of these really important questions. And how has this happened to this extent? And to be able to see settler colonialism in its brutal, vicious, overt form of genocide is only possible because of this really pervasive dehumanization, not only through politic and rhetoric, but through very real actions on the Palestinian indigenous land and body. And we’ve seen that too in the context of Canada, right? That indigenous children have been starved in Canada by policies set by the first prime minister of this country, sir John A. McDonald, to be able to displace indigenous peoples off of their land into reservations. But I think it’s, at least for me, it’s different because I’ve learned about settler colonialism in almost this sterile academic environment.

And the ways in which it feels and acts in Canada and the US is still very pervasive, but is not this overt violence and brutality on a body. And we see it in resource grabs in decimating the land here, but to see it also for firsthand in Palestine, I’ve also seen it in the West Bank, the demolitions of homes and the displacement of people from their villages that they’ve lived for generations. But to see it in Gaza, it helps a sliver to understand that this is settler colonialism. But it does something I think to my soul, to our souls of seeing this, that this is what humans are capable of. And unfortunately, it’s a reminder of what humans have been capable of since time existed, perhaps because these atrocities in the form of holocaust and genocides have happened in the past and are actually happening in other parts of the world.

But I think the tagline for me is to know that Canada is so heavily complicit in what’s happening, and that’s what we tried to highlight last week. And it’s also something that a lot of parliamentarians and policymakers they don’t even think is true because they are being fed inaccurate information from the Minister of Foreign Affairs or minister of Industry now about how Canada is still heavily complicit. They canceled 30 permits for military technology that goes to Israel last year, but there’s still around 88% of existing permits of these technologies that go to Israel, including technology that goes from Canada to the us, such as engine sensors built in Ottawa, built in Ottawa, the only engine sensors that fit the F 35 fighter jets that are built in the US by Lockheed Martin. Those engine sensors are made by a company called Gas Stops in Ottawa. And those F 30 fives are the same fighter jets drop 2000 pound bombs on Palestinian children, women, men, and families, and they’re the ones that come into the hospitals sometimes dead on arrival. So to understand that complicity, I think it’s really compelling for us to know what is our responsibility, for example, as a Canadian, to push for ending this kind of complicity.

Marc Steiner:

I think that the work you’ve done, what you’ve written, what you have been interviewed about, what you’ve told people you’ve seen should be opening doors to just that idea at this moment. And all of you having grown up in a medical world, I know what you see every day is seeing people in deep pain lives in trouble, and you do your best to put your knowledge to work, to save lives. But I don’t think people really understand or get what the three of you saw, what the three of you experienced in Gaza, no matter what you’ve done before. I mean, when I interview people in Gaza, there’s one interviewee I’ve been desperately trying to get back to. I don’t know what happened to him, but we tried to follow his life. And to people that don’t really understand the depth of destruction and depravity that’s taking in places that you all just came back from, how do we begin to relate that to people in terms of your experiences?

Dr. Yipeng Ge:

I mean, I think it’s just so indescribable. I think we can sit here all day to kind of go through all the ways in which life has been completely and utterly decimated. If we think about all the conditions of life that are needed to sustain life in Gaza being targeted and destroyed, it becomes really, really hard for someone living on this side of the world to fully grasp that and understand that. I don’t think I can even grasp it in this moment because I go to work here and then I go home and I have food on the table. I can go buy stuff from the grocery store. All of those things have been fully broken and the ways in which people live their lives have been fully broken. I just want to share the things that I learned in medical school. I was hoping to use even a little bit in the clinics that I worked at in Rafah, but it was really incomparable to what was absolutely needed. What was needed was food. What was needed was water. What was needed was medicines. These were things that were not even available. And to be faced with starving children on the brink of death, severe malnutrition, we didn’t even learn about things in a comprehensive way in medical school about severe malnutrition or something like rickets disease where your bones don’t even develop properly because you have vitamin D deficiency. But these were the things that we were already seeing. And that was like a year ago in Gaza.

Marc Steiner:

Rizwan, you’re about to jump in. Please do.

Dr. Rizwan Minhas:

Yeah. You know what Dr. Yipeng said, it’s hard to put into words what you see that you can’t unsee, and it’s hard to even to put into words, but just for example, so I went to the European Gaza Hospital, and this is only one side of the story because then you have the rest of the population. There is some population that’s even more north. There’s some population that was in Rafah, and there’s some population that was around the European Gaza Hospital. Once you enter the hospital, people are trying to crowd themselves around the hospital just for safety because they think that they’ll be safe around the hospital setting, which has now found to be not true because they can target hospitals anytime they want to. When I was entering, actually what happened was there was the World Central Aid Kitchen trucks that were with us at the border, and they were a few minutes ahead of us while we were entering, and they were the first to be targeted.

And one of our fellow Canadian, Jacob Flickinger was in that van working with World Central Aid Kitchen. And when we found out about it, then we’re like, okay, so we’re entering now. Could be this could be us as well. So right from the start, you realize that your life is in their hands with the press of a button. When you enter the hospital setting, you realize this is a population with a 90% literacy rate, and now they’re out looking for food for their children. Every person that I saw, every third person I saw had yellow eyes that showed that they had jaundice, likely from a in contaminated hepatitis water. There’s no water, there’s no food, and there’s no aid. There’s nothing getting through to the borders. In regards to the medical side of things, there is a lack of supplies. We had to choose who we would give oxygen to, who we would give the last few IV antibiotics to.

We had two people, I wasn’t working in the ICU, but I would go to the ICU transfer patients to the ICU. There was a girl, there was a girl, which we did a newspaper on over there, and she was in the ICU and she was intubated, but because of the lack of pain medication, she was always in pain. She was just hurling around in bed all day for 24 hours and we had no IV set of antibodies, but we just didn’t want to lose hope. And then every day we used to go and check up on her, and she was always in pain, and you could tell she was in pain because she would try to extubate herself at the same time. She would be screaming in pain all night, and we had to make a decision, should we give her a chance? Should we wait?

Maybe some supplies might enter, maybe there’s the news that Israel is allowing aid to get through medical supplies, at least to get through. But that news never came. And the day I was leaving, it was also the last day that she actually, they could not survive without the pain medication or medical lack of medical supplies. And it hurts because in a situation like in Canada, that 4-year-old girl’s life could have been easily saved. And listen, there’s so many kids over there with no surviving family. So the only people that have is the nurses and the medical people around, and maybe they might be lucky to find a family friend that’s around them as well. So it’s a tough situation, hard to describe, and it’s not like it’s not known, and now it’s everywhere on the internet. But the problem, the thing with us is we’ve seen it firsthand.

Marc Steiner:

So I want you to jump in here, please. I just might just give a thought. It was hard to listen to that. People have to hear it. I think that the three of you are physicians who have seen some horrendous things in your lives working with patients, but they experienced the horror of that little girl you were just talking about, and that’s expanded 10, 20,000 times inside Gaza. I think people need to hear and understand the depth of that pain and what we’re allowing to happen. I didn’t mean to sit there and preach, just it grabbed me very deeply what you said, Sarah. I’ve seen doctors work on people who come out of accidents that happened in communities like ours where we all live, but what you all experienced and have seen is something way beyond that. And so it’s just your own kind of personal journey through that and what you came away with and how you survived it, how you survived it.

Dr. Sarah LaLonde:

Yeah. Well, of course, I could talk about many things. I was working at European Gaza Hospital when we received the Palestinian prisoners that were given in exchange during the month of February during the so-called ceasefire. And I could talk about the state of the prisoners. I could talk about all the patients that we saw who were affected by quadcopters or snipers or unexploded ordinances or missiles. I could also talk about the colleagues. But part of the conversation that I think is often missing is our experiences as international doctors in the hospital. And I think what really changed me when I went to Gaza was my experience of the kindness and the welcoming by the national staff. I remember that I was sad one day I went outside and I was standing, it was raining and I had eaten with most of the people in the department.

They all knew me. So the security guards or the people who do the welcoming of the patients and triaged, they saw me. They looked out the window and they saw me and they said, Dr. Sarah, are you okay? Are you okay? Let us pass you a chair. So they passed me a chair through the window. So then I sat on the chair. So then they said, are you okay? Are you okay? Can we give you some tea? So I said, okay, thanks for the tea. So they gave me tea. So then after that they said, well, if you’re having tea, you need to have some kind of chocolate with your tea. Can we give you a chocolate? So then they gave me a chocolate through the window. And I think that the profound kindness and welcoming and the treatment of guests was something that I was so touched by.

And as I think about what we’re often taught as children, I guess teaching in every family is different, but in my family, it was like that love is about putting the other person before yourself or that thinking about the good of the other or being attentive to what they might want or need in that moment. And that’s something that I experienced all the time there I was so touched at the end of my time there, I offered to extend, and I spoke with my boss about that. And you have to keep in mind that my boss was the only physician there during the mass casualty events last year. He was there with a bunch of medical students. He lived in the hospital and he sought every mass casualty event. So I asked him, do you need some help? Do you want me to stay longer? And he answered my question in a very polite but roundabout way. He said that he had experienced romantic love in his life, but that the romantic love that he experienced will never ever compare to the love that he has for his daughter. And then he said to me, your dad’s worried about you. You should go home.

So to think that my boss was caring about the feelings of another man that he’s never met while undergoing a genocide and being afraid for his children’s lives, having lost everything, displaced multiple times, huge financial loss, huge personal loss. The healthcare workers in Gaza, they’re experiencing the genocide on two levels. They go to work, they try to manage the mass casualty events. They try to save as many people. Some of my male colleagues admitted to me that they felt so hopeless after the mass casualty events that they were crying. And after all that, they go home and they experience the genocide in their own lives. They’re living, most of them are living in tents. They don’t have electricity, they don’t have access to water. They’ve experienced, they’ve lost friends, they’ve lost family members. And despite all of that, they’re coming to work and they’re taking great care of patients, and they’re treating us like guests, even though our country is directly involved in killing their friends. And I think that that’s something that really changed me.

Marc Steiner:

Before we become around this up a bit, I want closing thought from each one of you, but Yipeng, let me just ask, I understand you’re going back to Gaza soon, is that right?

Dr. Yipeng Ge:

The intention is not to go into Gaza. I’ll be with a global march to Gaza. So we have, I believe, over 50 country delegations now, and we are expecting thousands of people arriving in Egypt to go from Cairo to Alish, which is a few kilometers away from the Rafa border between Egypt and Gaza Palestine. And the goal will be to march and to protest at the Rafa border crossing to demand that the thousands of trucks that are still waiting at that border to be let in with food, water, fuel, medical aid, and supplies, that that needs to enter to end the genocide, to end the famine and the starvation. And I think we are at this pivotal moment where hundreds of thousands, if not the majority of the population facing extermination because of this months long blockade on top of an existing 18 year blockade of essential foods and supplies and medicines.

So people are on a razor thin thread of survival at this moment. And I think citizens and people of conscience around the world are really unsure what else there is to do, right? We have organized as best as we could in different parts of the world, especially the countries that are most complicit, like the uk, France, Canada, Australia, the us, and we’ve done our press conferences, we’ve done our letters, we’ve done our petitions, we’ve done it, and we’ve done direct actions, we’ve done it all. And I think this feels like a very pivotal moment where people are descending on the rough of border to say, enough is enough. We haven’t seen meaningful action from these most complicit parties to prevent and end this genocide and end this famine. And as people, we are going to try to do this on our own in the same way that the freedom Flotilla has tried multiple times, and now they are, I think, very close to reaching the beaches of Gaza. So I think it’s a reflection of nothing in this world, whether it be civil rights or equal human rights, if we can even call it that on this side of the world, nothing has been just granted to people. It has always been fought for by the people. And this is another example of that,

Marc Steiner:

Just when is that taking place?

Dr. Yipeng Ge:

The goal is to march the Rafah border crossing June 15th.

Marc Steiner:

So as we conclude this and let you all go back to your day, I know you’re busy. One of the things you said, Sarah, I was curious about, we hear about the resilience of the Palestinian people, and I wonder when you are there and reflect on it now, where you see the hope, where you see the possibility of this ending and how we end it and how we build something new and how not to give up hope.

Dr. Sarah LaLonde:

Well, first I’ll talk about resilience, then I’ll talk about hope. So I don’t think that we should be talking about resilience. While there are ongoing atrocities, I don’t think that resilience, I have a lot of resistance to the use of the word resilience when we’re talking about something that’s manmade

Because it takes the responsibility off of the perpetrator and puts it onto the victim. And this is not what the insurance companies call an act of God, right? This is a choice. We saw all the trucks outside of Gaza as we went in. It’s very easy to get water and food into Gaza. It’s easy. Like many of these problems could be solved within a few hours if there was the political will to do that. So I don’t want to focus on the Palestinian resilience. I want to focus on what we can do to come alongside people in need and to do that in a way that respects their sovereignty to say, how can we come along you? What do you want us to do for you or with you? And how can we help? And I think that that’s how we need to be responding.

When it comes to hope, I think that hope is a choice. So love is a choice, and hope is a choice. So as I come alongside my Palestinian colleagues, my patients, the nurses, and all the people of Palestine and of Gaza, I’ve taken a decision to clinging to hope, even at the darkest moments when I am receiving those videos of people being burnt alive. This week, I found out that one of my colleagues had his leg blown off at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution that happened. I found out that another friend of a friend was killed by missile when he went to go pick up his food at the Gaza, at the GHF distribution. And that type of grieving is hard for me, and I’m only experiencing 1000000th of what my Palestinian friends, colleagues, patients are experiencing. So to summarize, I am willing to choose hope. Even at times when hope is not saying that there is a probability that everything is going to go amazing, but for me, hope is a choice.

Marc Steiner:

There’s one you want to,

Dr. Rizwan Minhas:

Yeah, you know what? Yes. I would like to comment on two things Sarah mentioned about the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation known as the GHF, and understand that this was backed by US and Israel only to distribute aid in to Gaza. It was a failed operation, which was marred by violence and mismanagement. And not many other humanitarian organizations even want to deal with them or collaborate with them because they knew it would fail. And it did fail. Not only did it fail, it actually led into violence and killing of more Palestinians who were just there to grab aid for their families. So it’s just tough to talk about this. Anyways, it was a failed operation. In regards to blockade. I know we kept talking about blockade of supplies, but there’s a blockade of medical personnel getting in. There’s a blockade of journalism getting in and the medical, we had three rejections by the head of Galia just informed us, who was Dr.

Dort. She had three rejections. And before that, there was another organization that had nine out of 10 people rejected from doctors coming into Gaza to provide medical relief in regards to hope. I don’t want to talk about the Palestine home like Sarah said, because they are a resilient group. That’s their faith. Their faith tells them that despair is a sign of disbelief and that hope is a hallmark of faith. So they’re never going to give up hope. And so for such people, you can never defeat them. In regards to from our standpoint, there’s always hope. Because if you don’t have hope, then you let injustice win. And what you see, what we’ve seen, you can never let that happen. There’s hope whenever they pull a child out of the rubble and he smiles back at you. Those images are tough to look at, but they’re there. And without hope, we let injustice one. So there will be hope until we succeed in having a free Palestinian state.

Marc Steiner:

I want to thank the three of you deeply for what you’ve done, what you’re doing, and for joining us today, and the stories and wisdom that you all have shared in this conversation. I hope we can all just stay in touch. I’m serious about that because this is something that we have to be unified together to stop. And I just really do want to thank you for the sacrifices you’ve made, putting your lives a line in danger and bringing back the stories that we need to hear and healing the people in the process. So thank you all very much for being here.

Dr. Sarah LaLonde:

It was an honor. Thank you for having us.

Marc Steiner:

Thank you once again. Let me thank our guests, doctors Sarah LaLonde, Yipeng Ge, and Rizwan Minhas for joining us and for all the work they do, putting their lives on the line, literally putting their lives on the line in Gaza to save people’s lives. And here in Baltimore, let’s say thanks to David Hebden for running the program today, our audio editor Alina Nehlich for working her magic, Rosette Sewali for producing the Marc Steiner show, and putting up with me and the tireless Kayla Rivara for making it all work behind the scenes. And everyone here at The Real News for making this show possible. Please let me know what you thought about, what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at mss@therealnews.com, and I’ll get right back to you. Once again, thank you to the three physicians that work for joining us here today on the Marc Steiner Show. So the crew here at The Real News, I’m Marc Steiner. Stay involved. Keep listening, and take care.

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Marc Steiner.

On the evening of May 31, Hércules, who also worked as a taxi driver, was shot and killed by two unidentified assailants on a motorcycle while driving his taxi in the western department of Copán, according to news reports and the Honduran Journalists Association (CPH). The 50-year-old journalist, originally from Santa Ana, El Salvador, died at the scene.

Hércules, who reported on organized crime for the local television outlet ATN a Todo Noticias, had been enrolled in Honduras’ National Protection System for Journalists, which has provided protection measures like police escort, relocation, and risk assessments since 2023, according to local news outlet Proceso Digital. He had previously received threats and, in November 2023, was abducted by two armed men, beaten, and left in a remote area. 

Despite being placed under state protection after this, the government did not assign Hércules bodyguards. 

“The killing of Javier Hércules tragically illustrates the failure of Honduras’ journalist protection mechanism, as well as the severe risks faced by reporters covering organized crime,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator, in São Paulo. “Authorities must urgently determine whether he was targeted for his journalism, and act decisively to break an ongoing cycle of impunity.”

Hércules’ daughter, Karina, told La Prensa that the family was unaware of any recent threats.

Angelica Cárcamo, director of the Central American Network of Journalists, told CPJ that the organization believes he was targeted because of his reporting. 

CPJ sent a message to the Honduran Security Secretariat but did not receive a response.

Honduras remains one of the most dangerous countries in the region for journalists. CPJ has documented numerous cases of threats, harassment, criminalization, and killings of members of the press, many of which remain unsolved. A report submitted by CPJ and partners to the United Nations in April as part of the Honduras Universal Periodic Review recommended the strengthening of regulations in the country’s Protection Law.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Splitting his time between the frontline in Ukraine and his animal sanctuary in South Africa, conservationist Lionel De Lange runs aid to animals and people alike on the frontlines of Russia’s genocidal invasion, including shooting down drones at night. We discuss how World War III has already started; Russia’s recent attempts to bomb Chernobyl to weaponize its radioactive waste against Ukraine and broader Europe; the recent disappointing elections in Poland; Zelensky’s brilliant Operation Spider's Web that will live in history books; and why Putin is a dead man walking. 

This week’s bonus show focuses on how to protect our rights in a time of lawlessness, featuring insights from Leah Litman of the Strict Scrutiny podcast and author of Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes, and why everyone should watch the livestream of George Clooney’s Goodnight, and Good Luck on June 7th. 

Thank you to everyone who supports the show – we could not make Gaslit Nation without you! 

Want to enjoy Gaslit Nation ad-free? Join our community of listeners for bonus shows, ad-free episodes, exclusive Q&A sessions, our group chat, invites to live events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!

EVENTS AT GASLIT NATION:

• June 16 4pm ET – Keira Havens of Citizens’ Impeachment joins our salon to discuss the growing movement to impeach Donald Trump. 

• June 30 4pm ET – Book club discussion of Lillian Faderman’s The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle

• NEW! Arizona-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to connect, available on Patreon.

• Indiana-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to join, available on Patreon.

• Florida-based listeners are going strong meeting in person. Be sure to join their Signal group, available on Patreon.

• Have you taken Gaslit Nation’s HyperNormalization Survey Yet?

• Gaslit Nation Salons take place Mondays 4pm ET over Zoom and the first ~40 minutes are recorded and shared on Patreon.com/Gaslit for our community

Show Notes:

“The PayPal Mafia”: Meet the South African Oligarchs Surrounding Trump, from Elon Musk to Peter Thiel https://www.democracynow.org/2025/2/10/elon_musk_doge_south_africa_apartheid

Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans: The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work with the government, spreading the company’s technology — which could easily merge data on Americans — throughout agencies. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/technology/trump-palantir-data-americans.html

The Shocking Far-Right Agenda Behind the Facial Recognition Tech Used by ICE and the FBI: Thousands of newly obtained documents show that Clearview AI’s founders always intended to target immigrants and the political left. Now their digital dragnet is in the hands of the Trump administration. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/04/clearview-ai-immigration-ice-fbi-surveillance-facial-recognition-hoan-ton-that-hal-lambert-trump/

'Russian bombers are burning en masse' — Ukraine's SBU drones hit 'more than 40' aircraft in mass attack, source says https://kyivindependent.com/enemy-bombers-are-burning-en-masse-ukraines-sbu-drones-hit-more-than-40-russian-aircraft/

Trump still ‘open’ to meeting Putin and Zelenskyy; Russia rejects unconditional ceasefire – as it happened https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jun/02/ukraine-russia-istanbul-talks-vladimir-putin-voldymyr-zelenskyy-latest-news-live?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu

Curtis Yarvin’s Plot Against America: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/curtis-yarvin-profile?utm_social-type=owned&utm_brand=tny

Trump's image of dead 'white farmers' came from Reuters footage in Congo, not South Africa https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/trumps-image-dead-white-farmers-came-reuters-footage-congo-not-south-africa-2025-05-22/

Musk Takes Stephen Miller’s Wife—as Trump Aide Rage-Tweets https://www.thedailybeast.com/musk-takes-stephen-millers-wifeas-trump-aide-rage-tweets/?utm_medium=socialflow&utm_campaign=owned_social&source=TDB&via=FB_Page&utm_source=facebook_owned_tdb&fbclid=IwY2xjawKlaapleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETE2NDZCMG9NM2dOSFU5S1pDAR7384ziZGmp4sVCXoBU-SJd5L0hk9-SmD8wC7QaL0SH9EuinWQA5ZeNuXW8ow_aem_RnI6u7CVeXAc2hZZFo63AQ

This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.

In the morning, unidentified gunmen broke into Baloch’s home in the Mashkay Tehsil subdivision of Awaran district and shot him dead, according to the local nonprofit Rural Media Network Pakistan. Baloch was struck by four bullets, according to a BBC report, and the four attackers used AK-47 rifles in the assault.

Local police informed the media that an investigation into the killing was underway. The motive remains unclear.

“Pakistani authorities must immediately investigate the reasons behind Latif Baloch’s killing and determine whether it was linked to his work as a journalist,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia regional director. “Journalists in Pakistan face growing violence and intimidation from both state and non-state actors. The government must ensure the safety and freedom of journalists in Balochistan and across the country.”

Baloch was affiliated with major media outlets, including Daily Intekhab, AAJ News, and ARY News, covering the volatile province.

The Balochistan police Inspector General, Moazzam Jah Ansari, did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment via messaging app.

Pakistan remains a dangerous environment for journalists, with heightened risks for those reporting critically on militancy, powerful entities, the military establishment, public corruption, and crime.

CPJ has documented 75 journalists and media workers who have been killed in Pakistan in connection with their work since 1992. Pakistan ranked 12th on CPJ’s 2024 Global Impunity Index, which highlights countries where members of the press are targeted for murder and the perpetrators go unpunished.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

For the U.S.A. is a warfare state; it has been waging imperialistic overseas wars for a long, long time, and using its soldiers as cannon fodder. Most families of dead soldiers find it impossible to admit that their loved ones died in vain, even if courageously.

Without waging wars, the U.S. economy, as presently constituted, would collapse. Business goes on as usual.

Remembering all the war dead is like drifting on a ghost ship in a still sea of burning water. Haunted by the eerie silence of their absent presence, if we listen closely enough, we can hear such victims calling to us: Remember me, Remember me, why did it have to be?

“All warfare is ghostly,” writes the classical scholar Norman O. Brown, “every army an exercitus feralis (a funereal exercise), every soldier a living corpse.”

The world is littered with the corpses of wars’ victims, those of the killers and the killed, soldiers of every nation – but the vast majority are innocent civilians who never picked up a gun. The earth is so saturated with all their blood that one would expect the rivers to run red as a reminder. But that only happens in poems, as with Federico Garcia Lorca: “Beneath all the totals, a river of warm blood.”

But what do poets know that the potentates, politicians, and mad generals don’t? These killers are experts at shedding innocent blood to satisfy their blood lust and then erecting monuments to the killers. They are necrophiliacs, while all the poets do is to remind us that we will all die and that we should affirm life and love each other before we do – that war is an evil lie, as Wilfred Owen told us about World War I in Dulce et Decorum Est:

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

But that was long ago. War’s victims still fall everywhere, every day they are stilled in deserts, mountains, jungles, cities, houses, hospitals, schools, on the open roads, in bedrooms, in woods, in alleyways, crouched  in basements, killed from the sky, the ground, directly, remotely, by their own desperate hands, slowly in despair. Why count the ways, why count the victims – the truth is countless?

But we must count, not to wave a flag and march down Main Street to the sound of a marching band behind a fire engine with little kids on bikes and old men with rifles on their shoulders, but to galvanize ourselves to stand and oppose the warmongers who run the government.

Who can not weep and scream in opposition as the U.S./Israel commits genocide against the Palestinians? Savage slaughter for all to see but ignore.

Who is so blind as not to see the wars waged from administration to administration as smoothly as the change of seasons?

Once the warmongers shot down the U.S.’s great antiwar leaders. Now they suck the population in with Memorial Day sales and dreams of cookouts.

But business goes on as usual, as the great Roberta Flack sang so mournfully, “except that my brother is dead.” George M. Cohan was right: “The Yanks are coming.” They are always coming, but he was wrong to think it is ever over. It’s not supposed to be ever over.

And “over there,” Maha Khalil, a one year old Iraqi girl, was killed in the first few months of America’s criminal war against Iraq.

Mrs. Ngugen Thi Tau was slaughtered by U. S. soldiers at My Lai, Vietnam.

Mohammed Nidal Hisham Attallah, Ahmad Shadi Talal Al-Haddad, and Masa Mohammed Youssef Nasr are a few of at least 16,500 Palestinian children killed by Israel/U.S. in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

Who knows all the dead in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Gaza, Ukraine, Libya, East Timor, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, El Salvador, Chile, throughout Africa, and all the other countries where the American military and the CIA have been dispatched? Who can grasp it? Their names mean nothing to those who didn’t know them, just as the endless names of the U.S. military dead (most drafted into a war they didn’t want or understand) that line the Vietnam Veterans Memorial are a sad blur to those who come to look but didn’t know the fallen. The same is even truer for anyone who views the Holocaust memorial in Boston where all one sees are rows and rows of concentration camp numbers; for every number a real person, each one reduced by the Nazis to six-digits tattooed on arms.

When we try to name and count wars’ victims, we are overwhelmed and stunned. Yet the wars persist. Like the pawns conscripted to fight them, the anonymous ghosts of all the victims murmur in our ears: Why?

Dylan sings:

Oh my name it is nothin’
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I’s taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And the land that I live in
Has God on its side.

But not all of the wars’ victim’s die. Vast numbers become “living corpses,” also mostly anonymous and forsaken. Across the world and here at home wherever the American war machine has set its sights, the lame and crippled struggle on, victims of bombs and bullets, napalm and white phosphorous, nuclear radiation, torture, biological weapons – all the grotesque weapons the ghouls of the weapons’ industries have conjured up from hell for their paymasters. Countless living victims, yes, but the weapons industries carefully count their bloody profits, as do those who invest in these companies while turning a blind eye to their own complicity.

Many of the wounds of war are psychological and spiritual. And so many of the victims suffer silently. Wars’ terrors follow them everywhere down their nights and down their days, and they can often find no escape from the nightmare images that populate their minds, flashing in and out. It’s beyond imagining the living hell of children worldwide reliving the sight of the bloodied mangled bodies of their parents at their feet, victims of bombs or death squads or perhaps “collateral damage,” as if any words or reasons could undue their everlasting trauma or cover up the radical evil of those who killed them

We owe it the wounded, dead, and tormented war victims everywhere to memorialize them with the words:

War is a lie, and only truth will free us.

And to stop marching with the drums drumming and the flags flying as if we are proud of the U.S. killing machine.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Edward Curtin.

González, 39, was ambushed and shot dead by unidentified men around 6 p.m. on May 14 in Acapulco’s city center, in the southern state of Guerrero, according to news reports. He died at the scene as his attackers fled. González was leaving a studio interview when he was attacked.

“José Carlos González’s brutal killing the latest in a string of deadly attacks on the press in Mexico – yet another reminder that President Claudia Sheinbaum’s promise that press freedom would be respected in the country continues to be an empty one,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “If Mexican authorities finally want to show their commitment to press freedom, they must bring González’s attackers to justice, lest the impunity that fuels these killings continues unabated.”

González used Facebook as his news site’s platform, where he frequently published short articles, videos and photos on local politics, crime, security, sports, culture, and social protests to his over 143,000 followers. González also posted commentary videos, in which he donned a lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) mask under the pseudonym “Ave Fénix,” without his name or a byline.

González was previously injured in a June 2023, attack, according to a report in El Financiero, a Mexico City newspaper. It is unclear whether he had received any death threats leading up to his killing. 

The Guerrero state public prosecutor’s office has not publicly commented on the killing, and several phone calls by CPJ for comment went unanswered. An official with the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, a federal agency that provides protection to reporters at risk, told CPJ that González was not incorporated into a protection program sanctioned by the office. The official asked to remain anonymous due to not being authorized to publicly comment on the matter.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Yesterday, World Media Freedom Day, we marched to Television New Zealand in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland to deliver a letter asking them to do better.

Their coverage [of Palestine] has been biased at its best, silent at its worst.

I truly believe that if our media outlets reported fairly, factually and consistently on the reality in Gaza and in all of Palestine that tens of thousands of peoples lives would have been saved and the [Israeli] occupation would have ended already.

• READ MORE: Israel’s Gaza blockade sparks outrage as dozens die of ‘forced starvation’
• Palestine protesters march on TVNZ, accuse broadcaster of bias on Gaza
• RSF World Press Freedom Index 2025: economic fragility a leading threat to press freedom
• Other Gazan journalist reports

Instead, I open my Instagram to a new massacre, a new lifeless child.

I often wonder how we get locked into jobs where we leave our values at the door to keep our own life how (I hope) we wish all lives to be. How we all collectively agree to turn away, to accept absolute substandard and often horrific conditions for others in exchange for our own comforts.

Yesterday I carried my son for half of this [1km] march. He’s too big to be carried but I also know I ask a lot from him to join me in this fight so I meet him in the middle as I can.

Near the end of the march he fell asleep and the saying “dead weight” came to mind as his body became heavier and more difficult to carry.

I thought about the endless images I’ve seen of parents in Gaza carrying their lifeless child and I thought how lucky I am, that my child will wake up.

How small of an effort it is to carry him a few blocks in the hopes that something might change, that one parent might be spared that terrible feeling — dead weight.

Republished from an Instagram post by a Philippine Solidarity Network Aotearoa supporter.

• There is a war on journalists raging around the world: let their voices be heard

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Still from Dr. Kildare. (Warner)

Dr Kildare is dead.

The actor who played him in the series during the 1960s, Richard Chamberlain–and who I met briefly on a plane ride from LA to NYC several years ago–died in Hawaii on Sunday at the age of 90.

I recall badgering him (an embarrassing recollection!)–for a photo which he agreed to pose for reluctantly, saying “please be sure there is no flash, as my eyes can no longer take the bright lights”–and I agreed quickly before he could change his mind. The flash went off nevertheless, a mistake I attribute to nervous excitement. Despite his advanced age and obvious fragility, he was, after all, still “our” Dr Kildare–the dashing, debonaire white man we teenage brown girls in Lahore oohed and aahed over, sitting glued to our parents’ black and white TV screens, imagining it was us reflected in his dreamy eyes as the forbidden objects of his obsessive love in series that followed, like The Thorn Birds.

And in a way we were. The white male gaze of a colonial and imperial power had fixed us as objects of desire, women’s bodies standing in for the land that must always already remain under the control of the conqueror. Yes, this was cultural imperialism at its best, suturing our gaze onto that of the white male actor (heterosexually virile no matter the actor’s actual sexual proclivities)–so that the Colonial Imaginary was internalized and reflected back to us our own desire for whiteness, power, and, for young women, cathecting with what poet Adrienne Rich named “compulsory heterosexuality.”

In the wake of the white supremacist, colonialist Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the lid has been blown off of any (misplaced) faith we might have had in the White Man’s so-called western civilization as a repository of secular democratic values embedded in a rules-based order. This act of denuding the Emperor has rendered the appeal of the Dr Kildare’s of this world utterly defunct, our once-colonized vision now repurposed as an amnesiac tool in the war of decolonial liberation.

So, much as Malek Alloula sent the French colonial photographer’s postcard of Algerian women back to him in a symbolic gesture of belatedness lagging behind history, I too, in penning this missive, am returning Dr Kildare’s phantasm to its owner.

My intifada, in shaking off the specter of Dr Kildare, is a gesture of refusal and reclamation. In refusing the Dare of Empire’s Kil-ling machine, I reclaim instead, the frail, diminutive man whose white PT shoes signaled the distance between the man and the Myth. It is to the man in all of his fragility, battling who knows what inner demons, that I pay my respects. To the Myth of the Man I say: good riddance. In lieu of an amnesiac gesture of subjective reclamation, there stands an image of diminishing whiteness, captured in the flashing light of a brown woman’s camera.

The post Dr. Kildare, He Dead appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Fawzia Afzal-Khan.

Global media freedom groups have condemned the Israeli occupation forces for assassinating two more Palestinian journalists covering the Gaza genocide, taking the media death toll in the besieged enclave to at least 208 since the war started.

Journalist and contributor to the Qatari-based Al Jazeera Mubasher, Hossam Shabat, is the latest to have been killed.

Witnesses said Hossam’s vehicle was hit in the eastern part of Beit Lahiya. Several pedestrians were also wounded, reports Al Jazeera.

• READ MORE: CPJ denounces Israel’s killing of 2 more Gaza journalists in return to war
• Other Gaza media freedom reports

in a statement, Al Jazeera condemned the killings, saying Hossam had joined the network’s journalists and correspondents killed during the ongoing war on Gaza, including Samer Abudaqa, Hamza Al-Dahdouh, Ismail Al-Ghoul, and Ahmed Al-Louh.

Al Jazeera affirmed its commitment to pursue all legal measures to “prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes against journalists”.

The network also said it stood in “unwavering solidarity with all journalists in Gaza and reaffirms its commitment to achieving justice” by prosecuting the killers of more than 200 journalists in Gaza since October 2023.

The network extended its condolences to Hossam’s family, and called on all human rights and media organisations to condemn the Israeli occupation’s systematic killing of journalists.

Hossam was the second journalist killed in Gaza yesterday.

House targeted
Earlier, the Israeli military killed Mohammad Mansour, a correspondent for the Beirut-based Palestine Today television, in an attack targeting a house in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

Al Jazeera condemns Israel’s killing of journalist Hossam Shabat in Gaza https://t.co/iJ6lscVahm

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 25, 2025

A fellow journalist circulated a video clip of Mansour’s father bidding farewell to his son with heartbreaking words, putting a microphone in his son’s hand and urging the voice that once conveyed the truth to a deaf world.

“Stand up and speak, tell the world, you are the one who tells the truth, for the image alone is not enough,” the father said through tears.

Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), condemned the killings, describing them as war crimes.

The CPJ called for an independent international investigation into whether they were deliberately targeted.

“CPJ is appalled that we are once again seeing Palestinians weeping over the bodies of dead journalists in Gaza,” said CPJ’s programme director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York.

‘Nightmare has to end’
“This nightmare in Gaza has to end. The international community must act fast to ensure that journalists are kept safe and hold Israel to account for the deaths of Hossam Shabat and Mohammed Mansour, whose killings may have been targeted.”

Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza on March 18, ending a ceasefire that began on January 19.

The occupation forces continued bombarding Gaza for an eighth consecutive day, killing at least 23 people in predawn attacks including seven children.

A UN official, Olga Cherevko, said Israel’s unhindered attacks on Gaza were a “bloody stain on our collective consciousness”, noting “our calls for this madness to stop have gone unheeded” by the world.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said 792 people had been killed and 1663 injured in the week since Israel resumed its war on the Strip.

The total death toll since the war started on October 7, 2023, has risen to 50,144, while 113,704 people have been injured, it said.

West Bank ‘news desert’
Meanwhile, the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the repression of reporters in the West Bank and East Jerusalem had intensified in recent months despite the recent ceasefire in Gaza before it collapsed.

In the eastern Palestinian territories, Israeli armed forces have shot at journalists, arrested them and restricted their movement.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs the West Bank and East Jerusalem, has detained Al Jazeera journalists.

RSF warned of a growing crackdown, which was transforming the region into a “news desert”.

One of the co-directors of the Palestinian Oscar-winning film No Other Land, Hamdan Ballal, has been detained by Israeli forces. It happened after he was attacked by a mob of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

He was in an ambulance receiving treatment when the doors were opened and he was abducted by the Israeli military. Colleagues say he has “disappeared”.

A number of American activists were also attacked, and video on social media showed them fleeing the settler violence.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Junta attacks on Thursday claimed four lives in northwest Myanmar, where tens of thousands displaced residents remain in desperate need of emergency aid, volunteers and locals told Radio Free Asia.

The offensives in the embattled Sagaing region have intensified since insurgent militias rose up against Myanmar’s military, which seized power in a 2021 coup, forcing tens of thousands from their homes and claiming thousands of lives through shootings, village burnings and bombings.

In the latest offence on Thursday, junta soldiers killed four residents in Sagaing’s Myaung town, leaving one injured.

“Today at 10 a.m., they were firing wildly with heavy weapons and circling the area with parachutes, looking for targets to drop bombs on,” said one resident on Thursday, declining to be named for security reasons.

Residents added they could not confirm the identities of the dead, but it was junta’s retaliatory move as junta forces clashed with a local militia a day before.

Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Nyant Win Aung refused to comment.

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According to data compiled by RFA, 3,531 people have been killed by heavy weapons since the coup, and another 5,007 have been injured.

As conflict between militias and junta troops escalates, tens of thousands have fled to safer areas, but they are desperately in need of supplies to survive and cope with water-borne illnesses.

More than 30,000 internally displaced people have been sheltering in Sagaing region’s Kale township, roughly 210 kilometers [130 miles] northwest of Myaung Township, since early February, and according to aid workers, they are facing “new challenges” with the hot season approaching.

“It’s the time when the weather gets really hot, so we’re helping as much as we can with shelter, access to water and food,” said one aid worker, who declined to be named for security reasons. “Mainly, people need medicine, shelter and drinking water.”

A lack of water sources has forced displaced people from nearly 30 villages to make due with unclean water, leading to skin diseases and diarrhea, he added.

Junta forces are frequently bombing villages around the township, preventing them from returning home.

On Jan. 31, for instance, junta forces bombed the Koke Ko Su Camp, a shelter for displaced people in Kale township, killing 11 people, including pregnant women, and injuring 15, according to residents.

Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

“Authorities in Uttar Pradesh must thoroughly investigate Bajpai’s killing and determine whether it was linked to his reporting exposing alleged malpractices,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “The continued violence against journalists, especially in smaller towns in India, must not be met with impunity. Those responsible for Bajpai’s killing must be brought to justice.”

Around 2:30 p.m., Bajpai, 35, a correspondent for the Hindi daily Dainik Jagran, left his home in Uttar Pradesh for a meeting, according to a police first information report, based on a complaint filed by his wife, Rashmi. An hour later, he was shot multiple times by unidentified assailants on an overbridge and was later declared dead at a district hospital.

Bajpai’s family believes he was targeted over his investigative reporting on paddy procurement irregularities and stamp duty evasion, multiple outlets reported.

The case has been registered under separate sections pertaining to murder, which carries a maximum penalty of death or a life sentence, and wrongful restraint.

Authorities have questioned at least 25 people in connection with the killing, but no arrests have been made. Police told CPJ they are not ruling out any motive, including Bajpai’s reporting, as a potential cause.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The shooting took place on Wednesday afternoon, several hours after about 200 local residents confronted a dozen people digging for gold in an area of northern Shan state’s Kutkai township that is the primary water source for farmland for a village.

Local residents have repeatedly protested against the gold mining operation.

On Wednesday, some of the miners pointed their guns at the demonstrators but eventually left the area, known as Nam Lane Creek, a resident who requested anonymity for security reasons told RFA.

A group of protesters returned to the creek several hours later after cooking and eating in a nearby village, he said.

“They had come back,” he said, referring to the miners. “They had waited for us and then they shot at us. We are just ordinary people.”

Another six people were wounded and were receiving treatment at a hospital, he said.

“As locals, we had no weapons, yet they shot at us like this,” another resident said. “That’s the truth.”

Demand for compensation

The area where the shooting took place is under control of the MNDAA, an armed ethnic group that is allied with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, and the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, in its struggle against the military junta.

Parts of Kutkai township are controlled by the MNDAA, while the TNLA and the KIA control other parts of the township. Despite their alliance, frequent territorial disputes occur between the three groups, according to local residents.

The second resident told RFA that the shooting was carried out by MNDAA soldiers.

The bodies of the six dead were brought to an MNDAA office where the residents demanded compensation from the group, residents said.

The MNDAA information officer, Li Kyar Win, didn’t immediately respond to an attempt for comment by RFA.

The Chinese Embassy in Yangon also hasn’t responded to an email requesting comment on whether Chinese nationals have been involved in the gold mining operation at Nam Lane Creek.

Illegal mining of gold, as well as jade and rare earth minerals, is rampant in northern Myanmar, where successive governments have failed to regulate the industry for generations.

However, the number of unsanctioned operations has ballooned since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat amid conflict between junta troops and armed resistance forces in the region.

Translated by Kalyar Lwin. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

But a big part of the story is that it is just such an obvious lie. It is infuriating to see Trump keep repeating it and then have all his MAGA cronies nod their heads like it somehow makes sense.

There have been extensive analyses of the problem of people continuing to get checks after they are dead by the Social Security Administration (SSA) itself. It does happen occasionally, largely because families often don’t contact the SSA immediately after a person has died. But in almost all cases, the checks are stopped a month or two after death and most of the money paid out is returned.

The biggest obstacle to ensuring that payments don’t go to dead people is that we don’t have a centralized national death registry. The reason we don’t have such a system is that Republicans would block it as an intrusion of the deep state. So, in keeping with that great Republican tradition, they blame the government for a problem they themselves created.

But we don’t need to trust the work done by the SSA or outside investigators to know that millions of dead people are not getting Social Security. As I showed a few weeks back, we just need to trust arithmetic.

Mr. Arithmetic Shows Donald Trump is Lying

The basis point is very simple. The SSA gives us very good data on the number of people getting benefits by age, as well as their average benefit. We can add that up (even the “super high IQ” DOGE boys should be able to do this) and calculate how much Social Security is paying out to people who are alive, or at least who are at ages where we expect them to be alive.

When we add up the numbers, we find that the payments we can identify as going to living people come out to be pretty much exactly the amount of spending in the budget reported for Social Security. In other words, there is no room for the checks that are supposedly going to millions of dead people.

Let me try to explain this point so that even Donald Trump might be able to understand. The SSA can identify real living people getting Social Security benefits. They also know how much money they get in benefits.

We can check the SSA data against other sources. The Census gives us good data on how many people are in each group. For example, we can use the Census data to see how many people in the country are between ages 70 to 74 or  75 to 79. We can see that these data pretty much align with how many people SSA tells us are getting benefits in these age groups.

We also know roughly how much these people should be getting in benefits. Social Security has a well-defined benefit formula, so we know roughly what we would expect an average 75-year-old or 80-year-old to be getting in benefits. There are also surveys that tell us how much people report getting in Social Security benefits each year. We could see if SSA was putting out obviously bogus numbers for the average benefit size.

This means that we can be fairly confident that the SSA numbers on the total number of living people getting benefits are close to the mark. We also can be fairly confident that the number they are reporting for the amount of benefits they are getting is close to the mark.

Since this total is equal to the amount of money that the government reports it pays out for Social Security each year, there is no room for the benefits going to Donald Trump’s millions of dead people. And just to be clear, there is no room for a hidden pool of money being paid to dead people.

If there were hundreds of billions of dollars of unreported payments, they wouldn’t be in the budget by definition – they are unreported. So, Elon Musk, the DOGE boys, and Donald Trump would not be finding fraud in the budget.

They would then be claiming that the government is making hundreds of billions in payments that no one knows about, and the deficit is far larger than anyone realized. Maybe this somehow makes sense in Trump World, but it is getting outside the bounds even allowed for the Twilight Zone.

Repeating the Social Security Zombie Lie

Given its obvious absurdity, the repetition of the lie about Social Security zombies has the same function as asserting the 2020 election was stolen or that Ukraine started the war with Russia. It’s Trump asserting the right to create his own reality in obvious defiance of the facts.

It speaks volumes about the Republican Party that almost all of them are willing to go along with this obvious lie. Unfortunately, the media have largely given in at this point. The fact that Trump would tell an outlandish lie about the country’s most important social program, on which tens of millions of people depend for their livelihood, is barely even news.

This originally appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog.

The post Trump’s Dead People on Social Security Lie appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dean Baker.

But a big part of the story is that it is just such an obvious lie. It is infuriating to see Trump keep repeating it and then have all his MAGA cronies nod their heads like it somehow makes sense.

There have been extensive analyses of the problem of people continuing to get checks after they are dead by the Social Security Administration (SSA) itself. It does happen occasionally, largely because families often don’t contact the SSA immediately after a person has died. But in almost all cases, the checks are stopped a month or two after death and most of the money paid out is returned.

The biggest obstacle to ensuring that payments don’t go to dead people is that we don’t have a centralized national death registry. The reason we don’t have such a system is that Republicans would block it as an intrusion of the deep state. So, in keeping with that great Republican tradition, they blame the government for a problem they themselves created.

But we don’t need to trust the work done by the SSA or outside investigators to know that millions of dead people are not getting Social Security. As I showed a few weeks back, we just need to trust arithmetic.

Mr. Arithmetic Shows Donald Trump is Lying

The basis point is very simple. The SSA gives us very good data on the number of people getting benefits by age, as well as their average benefit. We can add that up (even the “super high IQ” DOGE boys should be able to do this) and calculate how much Social Security is paying out to people who are alive, or at least who are at ages where we expect them to be alive.

When we add up the numbers, we find that the payments we can identify as going to living people come out to be pretty much exactly the amount of spending in the budget reported for Social Security. In other words, there is no room for the checks that are supposedly going to millions of dead people.

Let me try to explain this point so that even Donald Trump might be able to understand. The SSA can identify real living people getting Social Security benefits. They also know how much money they get in benefits.

We can check the SSA data against other sources. The Census gives us good data on how many people are in each group. For example, we can use the Census data to see how many people in the country are between ages 70 to 74 or  75 to 79. We can see that these data pretty much align with how many people SSA tells us are getting benefits in these age groups.

We also know roughly how much these people should be getting in benefits. Social Security has a well-defined benefit formula, so we know roughly what we would expect an average 75-year-old or 80-year-old to be getting in benefits. There are also surveys that tell us how much people report getting in Social Security benefits each year. We could see if SSA was putting out obviously bogus numbers for the average benefit size.

This means that we can be fairly confident that the SSA numbers on the total number of living people getting benefits are close to the mark. We also can be fairly confident that the number they are reporting for the amount of benefits they are getting is close to the mark.

Since this total is equal to the amount of money that the government reports it pays out for Social Security each year, there is no room for the benefits going to Donald Trump’s millions of dead people. And just to be clear, there is no room for a hidden pool of money being paid to dead people.

If there were hundreds of billions of dollars of unreported payments, they wouldn’t be in the budget by definition – they are unreported. So, Elon Musk, the DOGE boys, and Donald Trump would not be finding fraud in the budget.

They would then be claiming that the government is making hundreds of billions in payments that no one knows about, and the deficit is far larger than anyone realized. Maybe this somehow makes sense in Trump World, but it is getting outside the bounds even allowed for the Twilight Zone.

Repeating the Social Security Zombie Lie

Given its obvious absurdity, the repetition of the lie about Social Security zombies has the same function as asserting the 2020 election was stolen or that Ukraine started the war with Russia. It’s Trump asserting the right to create his own reality in obvious defiance of the facts.

It speaks volumes about the Republican Party that almost all of them are willing to go along with this obvious lie. Unfortunately, the media have largely given in at this point. The fact that Trump would tell an outlandish lie about the country’s most important social program, on which tens of millions of people depend for their livelihood, is barely even news.

This originally appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog.

The post Trump’s Dead People on Social Security Lie appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dean Baker.

Police found the heavily bruised and naked body of 18-year-old Heng Seavly in a shallow grave near a lake in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district on March 1.

On Monday, investigators announced the arrests of her boyfriend, 30-year-old Chen Cong, and 34-year-old Li Haohao.

Police said the suspects confessed to the killing, adding that they believed she was about to leak information about a cyberscam operation in Phnom Penh.

Relatives held a funeral for Heng Seavly in her hometown in southern Kampot province on Tuesday.

“When I saw her brought into the temple, my energy and soul flew out of my body,” said her mother, Tim Sophy.

“My daughter was naked when they killed her,” she told RFA. “This is so brutal. As a mother, I am shocked and speechless.”

As the eldest daughter, Heng Seavly left home to work as a goods vendor in Sihanoukville to help her parents support her two younger siblings, Tim Sophy said.

She was later persuaded by her boyfriend to move to Phnom Penh, the mother said.

(RFA)

“She was my fabulous daughter,” she said. “She never missed sending US$250 to $300 each month.”

Police have said the two suspects acted on the orders of another Chinese national, 26-year-old Yang Kaixin, who remains at large.

Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Edited by Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Khmer.

I am certain of this, however, that there is much to be said for talking to the dead, even asking them if they are nostalgic.

I have just awakened from a night of dreams in which I was cavorting with a bunch of the dead and they told me many things, one of which was to pursue my question into my daydreams, which this essay may be called, in the etymological sense of that word – to essay, that is, to try, to experiment without knowing where one is going. Surely one does not want to forget that life is an experiment into the unknown, as is its companion – death. And that all travel ends in the enigma of “arrival.”

Hokyoung Kim

I got a hint of it once, when after a game in which we won against our arch-rival and I played very well, a visitor to the locker room congratulated me by saying, “Great game,” and I responded with false modesty, saying “It was okay,” knowing that I did play very well but was unable to accept the compliment. I have never forgotten that incident that suggests to me that there was something deeper than playing well and just winning a game that I was after, and that my stupid response to the compliment revealed – or did it conceal? – this from me.

So I wonder: Why am I writing this essay? To win your applause? Something more? I know I am writing it for myself, but I could keep it private.

Perhaps you will agree that the question about the dead’s nostalgia is a touchy philosophical question that might have no definitive answer. Even if we could, in modern data-driven fashion, construct a sociological survey, how would we choose a “representative” sample of the dead? Where would we find them – up, down, way out there, next to us? The thought of it seems flippant in an impossible way, which it is, but its flippancy holds a secret message.

So I asked the dead who would speak to me and got a few mixed, muffled replies. You can understand their reluctance to say anything.

If I heard correctly, one of them said, “You should ask the living.” Another, who seemed offended that I considered him dead, said, “Why are you asking me?” Most didn’t answer, which had me wondering why. Were they disgusted with us?

But then I wondered: Who are the dead? That too is a touchy question.

I have always heard that nostalgia was not good for you since it kept you rooted in the past; that this ache for home (Greek, algos, pain + nostos, homecoming) – the good old days that may or may not have existed but you miss them nevertheless – prevented you from living Zen-like in the present or looking forward to the future.

Yet the English writer and art-critic John Berger suggested otherwise when he wrote that, paradoxical as it seems, there is also a nostalgia for the future that is hopelessly desired, not hopelessly lost. A journey, propelled by an “indefinable ache,” to an imagined future created out of recollected moments of love and beauty. While often found in the work of artists of all types, it is available to everyone open to revelations from out of the blue. But one must imagine, as John Lennon sang.

So I wondered if nostalgia could be a form of utopian hope at a time when humanistic utopian thinking is at a nadir, overwhelmed by constant bad news, subtle propaganda wherein contradictions and truths coexist in chaotic indifference, and the machine dreams of people like Elon Musk and the digital devils like those at the World Economic Forum and in Silicon Valley.

The denigration of nostalgia assumed you were alive. I was wondering about the dead. What did they think? Did they wish they were alive? Was being alive the good old days for them, or did they feel they were finally home and that life had been a dream?

Or did the dead have no future, no nothing, or perhaps some afterglow of sorts, an everlasting rest in peace, whatever that may mean, a phrase that always seemed to me a bad knock on life. Who wants to sleep forever as cemeteries (Greek koimeterion, sleeping place, dormitory) remind us by their eerie silence?

If sleep is peace, why bother to wake up in the morning?

But what about the other dead, the living-dead? Had they killed all livingness in themselves in order to avoid another death? To paraphrase T.S. Eliot – Were we led all this way for death or birth? Yes, the enigma of arrival.

I guess I was thinking that if I could get in touch with the dead and get them talking, they might also tell me what it was like to be dead. Although I am no statistical whiz, I figured there were a lot more of them than the living, and the odds were pretty good that someone there would spill the beans.

I thought of this recently when watching the new film about Bob Dylan’s early years, A Complete Unknown, when his film girlfriend, Sylvie Russo, based on the real Suze Rotolo, gets angry at him for concealing his true past and identity, and he replies, “People make up their past, Silly, they make up what they want; [they] forget the rest.”

This has a ring of truth to it, whether it’s from memory lapses or some sense of wanting to fictionalize their pasts for reasons known only to them. Our memories and forgetteries are interesting creative faculties.

But as I said, I was interested in the dead. Did they also do that? Were they nostalgic in the looking-back sense?

Yet their silence was deafening. I grew very frustrated. I felt my proclivity for abstruse questions might be leading me astray, away from my own nostalgia, an easier question to answer.

This thought came to me when I just heard the bell ring on my Hermes manual typewriter, and I returned the carriage to type these words.

Ah, the bells, the calling of the bells, their tinkling and tolling, the bells for meals at the Edgewater Farm of my youth, the bells of St. Brendan’s grammar school calling us to freeze our positions as we played in the street during lunch break, my tinkling of the bells in the sacred hush as an altar boy, the church bells still ringing at St. Peter’s church in town, Bob Dylan’s song Ring Them Bells, Edgar Allen Poe’s The Bells and Phil Ochs’ version in song, Leonard Cohen’s vesper bells in When Night Comes On, ringing for me, calling me somewhere, resonating “to the tintinnabulation that so musically wells” up thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears or laughter.

I hear the bells, but I still do not know if the dead are nostalgic.  It seems like the wrong question. For this daydream in words has brought me to that enigmatic place of arrival where I am nostalgic for my dear departed dead loved ones.  They still talk to me, but don’t answer obnoxious questions.

As for the past, I can echo the concluding words of Don DeLillo’s alter-ego, Nick Shay, in his great novel Underworld:

I long for the days of disorder. I want them back, the days when I was alive on the earth, rippling in the quick of my skin, heedless and real. I was dumb-muscled and angry and real.  This is what I long for, the breach of peace, the days of disarray when I walked real streets and did things slap-bang and felt angry and ready all the time, a danger to others and a distant mystery to myself.

As for the living, John Donne summoned it up:

Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Edward Curtin.

Security camera footage shows Gómez trying to get away as the gunman opens fire. News reports said the shooter escaped on a motorcycle.

The Bogotá-based Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP) said Gómez was well known for his morning news program on Rumba del Café that regularly denounced alleged corruption by local government officials as well as the sale of illegal drugs on the streets of Armenia. 

FLIP and the Bogotá news magazine Semana reported that Gómez had received threats in connection with his reporting, including a 2023 incident in which a politician in Armenia threatened him with a gun during a meeting. FLIP said Gómez did not report these threats to the authorities because he distrusted them.

Following Gómez’s death, Rumba del Café’s nine remaining journalists asked the Colombian government’s National Protection Unit for protection, according to Semana. 

Juan Miguel Galvis, governor of the Quindío department that includes Armenia, offered a $100 million pesos (US$ 23,809) reward for information leading to the capture of those responsible for Gómez’s shooting. 

Quindío police chief Col. Luis Fernando Atuesta told journalists his agents are investigating the crime and their  “commitment is to clarify what happened.” 

The Colombia Attorney General’s office is also investigating the crime, a spokesperson Germán Gómez told CPJ. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Min Din didn’t want to be a soldier. He joined the Myanmar military 33 years ago, seeking a steady income for his wife and his newly born son. Seven months ago, that long career came to a bloody end. The 57-year-old army sergeant was felled by a rocket fire in a rebel assault on a besieged military base in Shan state. His body was buried nearby.

Far from enjoying financial security, his wife Hla Khin is now a widow without income. She’s still waiting for a payout from his military pension.

Min Din’s grown-up son, Yan Naing Tun, who has fled Myanmar to escape military conscription, is bitter about the leaders who ordered his father into battle in the first place.

“Old soldiers like my father fought and sacrificed their lives, but their deaths did not benefit the people,” Yan Naing Tun told RFA, his eyes sharp and full of pain. “My father’s death was not worth it; he gave his life protecting the wealth of the dictators.”

(Citizen photo)

Four years after the coup against a democratic government that plunged Myanmar into civil war, the military has inflicted terrible suffering on civilians. Torching of villages, indiscriminate air strikes and stomach-churning atrocities have become commonplace. Even the military’s own rank and file are paying a price.

This is a story about two veteran soldiers of the Tatmadaw, as the military is known inside Myanmar, whose bereaved families spoke to RFA Burmese about how they’ve struggled to survive after the soldiers’ deaths in combat after more than 30 years of service. All their names have been changed at their request and for their safety.

While reviled by many for its long record of human rights abuses, the Tatmadaw remains the most powerful institution in the country - and one that has traditionally offered a career path for both the officer class and village recruits.

But any appeal that a military career once had has been eroded – not just through its reputation for corruption and atrocities, but by setbacks on the battlefield. By some estimates, it now controls less than half of a country it has long ruled with an iron fist. Its casualties from fighting with myriad rebel groups likely runs into the tens of thousands.

(AFP)

There are growing signs it can’t look after its own.

Aung Pyay Sone, the son of Myanmar’s military leader Min Aung Hlaing, has been accused of running a predatory life insurance scheme in which all soldiers make contributions. They are also obliged to make monthly contributions to a sprawling military conglomerate known as Myanmar Economic Holdings. According to families, the life insurance scheme is no longer paying out on the death of a soldier. Families also struggle to get pension payments they are due.

A way to support a family

Another recent Tatmadaw fatality, Ko Lay, signed up for the army during what might be considered as its oppressive heyday in the early 1990s when the military was in the ascendant against ethnic insurgencies and expanding its business interests.

He enlisted soon after the country’s first multi-party democratic election. The pro-military party lost by a landslide, but the ruling junta refused to hand over power – leaving the winning party’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. (That’s a situation similar to now. Suu Kyi, who had led the now-ousted civilian government for five years, has been imprisoned at an undisclosed location since the 2021 coup).

Against this backdrop of democracy suppressed and the military in control, Ko Lay enlisted aged 20. He was a villager from central Myanmar’s Bago region, who had dropped out of school because his parents could not pay the fees.

His wife maintains that joining up was never a political decision. The military offered a pathway to employment and a way to support a family.

“My husband was uneducated,” his wife Mya May told RFA. “He didn’t even pass the fourth grade. His parents did not remember when he was born. When he joined the army, one of the officers looked at him and estimated his birth date and the year and enlisted him.”

Ko Lay only married in his 40s, but once he did his family moved with him every time he was transferred, which is customary. But after the 2021 coup, with fighting intensifying as people across Myanmar took up arms against the junta, they sent their 10-year-old son to live with relatives near Yangon.

At the start of 2024, with rebel forces in northeastern Myanmar gaining in strength, Ko Lay was deployed with Infantry Battalion No. 501 in Kyaukme, in northern Shan State. Mya May and her 89-year-old father Ba Maung followed him.

Under fire

In February, villagers were starting to flee the area as a military showdown beckoned. Ko Lay’s battalion was meant to be strengthened for this fight, but in reality, it numbered fewer than 200 troops, less than a third of full strength. By late June, the combined forces of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and a People’s Defense Force unit from the Mandalay region were closing in.

(Courtesy of Mya May)

Mya May said that Ko Lay was stationed on the outer perimeter of the military camp at Kyaukme. Inside the camp, Mya May, along with other wives, were put to work loading and carrying ammunition.

“My husband was stationed on the outer perimeter near a monastery. Resistance forces used the monastery as a strategic position, drilling holes into the brick walls to fire guns and launching missiles from above,” she said.

As the attack intensified, frontline soldiers, including Ko Lay, retreated into the camp. Snipers began picking them off. At 7:30 a.m. on June 27, Sgt. Ko Lay was killed by sniper fire.

Mya May never retrieved his body. She believes he was buried at a rifle range.

She and her father were now under fire themselves. As they sheltered in a building inside the base, rebel rocket fire hit the building and showered glass over them. They fled during a lull in the fighting in vehicles organized by the military that transported them and other families to another military base.

The remaining soldiers were left to fight. Within a month, their commander would be dead, and almost the entire battalion wiped out.

Struggling to get by

Mya May, her 10-year-old son, and Ba Maung are now living near Yangon with relatives. She still feels deep sorrow that she was not able to bury her husband or be with him in his final moments.

She’s also struggling to make ends meet.

It took Mya May three months to receive her husband’s pension. She now gets a monthly stipend of 174,840 kyats (about $40), with an additional 19,200 kyats ($4.30) per month for her son – which is scarcely enough to survive in Myanmar’s stricken economy. But because her husband died on the frontline, she received an additional one-off payment of 13,166,500 kyats ($3,006).

(Courtesy of Mya May)

This frontline death payment was a much-touted inducement offered prior to the 2021 coup aimed at encouraging young men from poor families to sign up.

Her father, Ba Maung laments their situation after Ko Lay’s death.

“Seeing my daughter in trouble, having lost her husband and all her belongings, is deeply disappointing,” the 89-year-old said. “When she got married, she promised to support me. She is very clever. But now I can’t help her, and it fills me with great sadness.”

They’ve also been short-changed by the life insurance scheme that Ko Lay bought. For the past five years, the sergeant had paid 8,332 kyats (almost $2) a month for a policy aimed at providing for his family in the event of his death. Four months after her husband’s death, Mya May has received exactly the same amount that had been taken from her husband’s wages. Not a kyat more.

Dying in a war zone

The widow of the other fallen military veteran mentioned in this story, Min Din, who served in the same battalion as Ko Lay and also died in June, has fared even worse.

His wife Hla Khin learned from a soldier in his company that Min Din was killed in a direct hit on the battalion headquarters by a short-range rocket. He was buried near the central gate of the base.

“Due to the dire situation in Kyaukme, we couldn’t travel there to see him or pay our respects,” Hla Khin said, adding that the best they could do was to offer alms to monks and donate 100,000 kyats to a monastery in his honor.

Her attempts to secure a military pension or any payment has so far been unsuccessful.

Applications are meant to be made in person where the soldier last served, which is no easy matter in a war zone.

“There was nobody in Battalion 501 as many people died. Almost all documents have been lost as some office staff moved out, some died and some are still missing,” she said.

(Courtesy Min Din's family)

But Hla Khin, now living in her elderly parents’ house in Ayeyarwady region, said that now the necessary paperwork has been submitted. She sent a formal letter to the commander of another battalion where some of the soldiers and families have relocated. She’s waiting for a response.

Her plight is compounded by the knowledge that her husband had been desperate to retire from the military for years before his death. Months before the 2021 coup, Min Din, then aged 54, had made that request because of high blood pressure and a heart condition. He went to the army hospital at the cantonment city of Pyin Oo Lwin but was told he would have to wait until he was aged 61 to retire.

Instead, he ended up deployed on the frontline of the junta’s fight against the rebels – first at Laukkaing, a strategic town on the border with China, where junta forces surrendered under a white flag. After that humiliation, Min Din requested discharge again, and again was denied. He was then redeployed to Kyaukme, where he died.

Holding onto hope

Min Din’s eldest son, Yan Naing Tun, 33, said he is filled with overwhelming sadness. He remembers his father as kind and someone who deeply cared for his children. The family often lacked food, and he recounted his father once donating his own blood to earn some kyats to buy food and cook for them.

(AFP)

Like many of his young countrymen, Yan Naing Tun has voted with his feet, fleeing Myanmar for Thailand to avoid the draft and fighting for the “dictators” he says are only interested in protecting their wealth.

“There are countless young people fleeing the country, many sacrificing their lives, and countless others enduring great suffering. Our shared hope is for an end to the fighting and the arrival of peace. I am one of the young people holding onto this hope,” he told RFA.

Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Aye Aye Mon for RFA Burmese.

“The brutal killing of Calletano de Jesús Guerrero, despite being under the protection of the federal government, underscores the urgency of Mexican authorities’ strengthening its capacity to protect reporters at risk,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “If the state continues to fail in its duty to protect the press, there will be no one left to shine light in the dark and report the news. Impunity in these crimes must end, and authorities must hold the killers to account.”

Guerrero, deputy editor of Facebook-based news outlet Global Mexico, regularly published news stories about crime, violence, and politics in México state. 

The Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, a government agency that provides protective measures to journalists, said in a January 18 statement on social media platform X that the most recent threat against Guerrero was on January 13, 2024, when unidentified men threatened him at his residence because of his reporting. 

A mechanism official declined to speak via messaging app as they were not authorized to comment publicly on the case.

Police recovered two 9mm bullet casings at the scene of the crime, according to a report by news website Fuerza Informativa Azteca, which added that the police had begun an investigation. Several calls by CPJ to the Estado de México state prosecutor’s office to request comment were unanswered.

Mexico has long been one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists and ranked seventh on CPJ’s 2023 Global Impunity Index, which measures where murderers of journalists are most likely to go free. Mexico has been on the index every year since its inception.

A joint report by CPJ and Amnesty International showed in 2024 that the country consistently fails in its efforts to provide state-sanctioned protection to members of the press.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Raging wildfires continue to scorch communities across the Los Angeles area, killing at least five people, displacing about 100,000 more and destroying thousands of structures. With firefighters unable to contain much of the blaze, the toll is expected to rise. The wildfires that started Tuesday caught much of the city by surprise, quickly growing into one of the worst fire disasters in Los Angeles history. Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council have come under criticism for cutting the fire department’s budget by around 2% last year while the police department saw a funding increase. Nearly 400 incarcerated firefighters are among those who have been deployed to battle the fires. Journalist Sonali Kolhatkar, who evacuated her home to flee the destruction, says it has been “frustrating” to watch the corporate media’s coverage of the fires. “No one is talking about climate change in the media,” she says. We also speak with journalist John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather: On the Front Lines of a Burning World, who says the L.A. wildfires should be a wake-up call. “This blind — frankly, suicidal — loyalty to the status quo of keeping fossil fuels preeminent in our energy system is creating an increasingly difficult situation and unlivable situation,” says Vaillant.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

As we move into 2025, we look at how the world is cracking down on migrants and asylum seekers, and the dangers they face when trying to flee their countries due to persecution, economic conditions, the climate crisis and more. As Greek prosecutors open a murder investigation of “unknown perpetrators” following a damning exposé of the deadly crackdown on asylum seekers by the Greek coast guard, we revisit the BBC film, Dead Calm: Killing in the Med? The investigation revealed evidence the coast guard routinely abducted and abandoned asylum seekers in the Mediterranean Sea. The film found the Greek coast guard caused the deaths of dozens of migrants over a period of three years, including of nine asylum seekers who had reached Greek soil but were taken back out to sea and thrown overboard. “We really have no real clue about the true numbers of the people that are crossing [the Mediterranean Sea]. Many people don’t make it,” producer Lucile Smith told Democracy Now! in an interview last year, when the film was released. “And when people do arrive, they tend to disappear, because … if you are caught by the authorities in Greece, you will be most likely subjected to some very serious violence.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Former President Jimmy Carter died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, at 100 years old. The 39th president served a single, tumultuous term in the White House from 1977 to 1981. As we begin our look at his life and legacy, we hear Carter’s own words in a Democracy Now! interview discussing his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Carter criticized Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza, and argued Israel’s settlements in the Occupied Territories were the main barrier to peace. “Americans don’t want to know and many Israelis don’t want to know what is going on inside Palestine. It’s a terrible human rights persecution that far transcends what any outsider would imagine,” said Carter in 2007. “And there are powerful political forces in America that prevent any objective analysis of the problem in the Holy Land.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The accident happened at 9:07 a.m., when the Jeju Air flight erupted in flames after going off the runway and hitting a wall at an airport in South Korea’s southwestern county of Muan, South Jeolla Province, about 288 kilometers (179 miles) southwest of the capital Seoul.

“It is estimated that most of the 181 passengers, with the exception of the two who were rescued, died,” the Jeollanam-do Fire Department said.

“After colliding with the fence, passengers poured out of the aircraft. There is almost no chance of survival.

“The plane body was almost destroyed, and the dead are difficult to identify. It is taking time to identify the location of the remains and recover them.”

The authorities confirmed 85 deaths from the accident so far.

(Yonhap via Reuters)

A total of 181 people, including six crew members, were on board the plane from Bangkok, most of whom were Koreans, with the exception of two Thai nationals. Among them, one passenger and one crew member – both women – were rescued shortly after the accident and are currently receiving treatment at a hospital in Mokpo.

Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the country’s embassy in Seoul was in touch with South Korean authorities to try to ascertain the condition of the two Thai passengers.

Videos broadcast by local TV stations reveal the plane attempting to land without deploying its landing gear. It skidded across the ground, collided with a concrete wall, and exploded, becoming engulfed in flames.

Authorities suspect that landing gear failure, potentially caused by a bird strike, may have led to the accident. An on-site investigation is underway to determine the precise cause.

(Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

Acting President Choi Sang-mok arrived at the crash site around noon, instructing officials to make all-out efforts for search operations, expressing deep condolences to the bereaved family members and promised to offer them all possible government assistance.

Choi has been serving as acting president since Friday, after the National Assembly voted to impeach Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who was suspended less than two weeks after assuming the role from President Yoon Suk Yeol on Dec. 14.

“I believe no words of consolation will be enough for the families who have suffered such a tragedy,” Choi said, noting that government agencies are working closely to respond to the accident.

“The government will spare no effort in supporting the bereaved families,” the acting president added.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

Off Beat

In early October, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) revealed that thousands of North Korean troops were being deployed to Russia’s Far East to undergo training and eventually fight alongside Russian soldiers against Ukraine. More details emerged in the following days: Russia would pay a monthly $2,000 per soldier, though observers believed that the majority would be pocketed by the North Korean government. While Russia and North Korea both initially denied the deployment, the allies later adopted a more ambiguous stance, saying that such an act would conform to the strategic partnership they had signed.

This week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy released a disturbing video of what he claimed were Russian forces burning the faces of North Korean soldiers killed in battle in order to keep their deployment a secret. Reporter Jaewoo Park from RFA Korean spoke with a Ukrainian soldier who is a member of a unit that encountered the North Korean troops, and joins today’s episode to unpack the plight of these dispatched soldiers.

Podcast Free Asia

A listener comment griping about their father-in-law’s devotion to Thich Minh Tue allows for an update on the “unofficial” monk from Vietnam. Tue, who is not officially a monk in Vietnam’s state-backed Buddhist system, went viral after videos of his humble barefoot pilgrimages were shared online. However, his growing popularity prompted Vietnamese authorities to stop him in his tracks.

(AFP)

Now, Tue is embarking on another pilgrimage from Vietnam to India, and he’s already crossed into Laos.

Double Off Beat

A business advisor to Prince Andrew has been identified as the latest Chinese national to be accused of covertly advancing Beijing’s interests overseas. Director of RFA’s Investigative team Boer Deng returns to the podcast to explain how RFA was able to name the business advisor, known only as “H6” in court documents, as businessman Yang Tengbo.

(Most Accomplished Chinese Award)

Yang was banned from the U.K. in 2021 following an investigation into suspicious activity by a foreign state. During the search, officials uncovered alarming messages revealing the deep level of trust that the Duke of York had placed in the businessman. Yang appealed the ban, which was ultimately upheld by the court on December 12 of this year. Following RFA’s exclusive report, Yang Tengbo asked that the court reveal his name, claiming that he had nothing to hide and rather, had fallen victim to changing political tides.

BACK TO MAIN

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Amy Lee for RFA Insider.

Harrowing headlines still spew from Gaza: They have run out of body bags, 96% of children feel their death is imminent, it is the worst slaughter of civilians in history, everyone is starving. Last week, an "icon of Gazan suffering" was killed, like his toddler grandchildren before him, by "the most evil army on earth.” And a year after the murder of poet and teacher Refaat Alareer, his posthumous writings were released. Its searing, plaintive thesis: "If I must die/Let it bring hope."

Still, hope is scant. The death toll has passed 45,000, two thirds of whom are women and children, many (unfathomably, still) shot in the head and chest by Israeli snipers. Also killed are at least 1,000 health workers, 200 journalists, many hundreds of teachers and writers, a people's torchbearers. Health care and homes are decimated, Israel's brutal blockade has left most Gazans without power or water and starving or at least hungry, nearly 107,000 have been wounded or maimed, untold thousands of dead remain rotting under rubble. Almost a year after international jurists declared Israel is committing genocide - ungodly news an indifferent world met with thunderous silence - Amnesty International has just released a meticulously detailed, 300-page report confirming that yes, it is. They added, "Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity."

Despite their ongoing, perversely preposterous claims of trying really hard not to kill civilians, from Oct. 8, 2023 onward Israel's war against a trapped, traumatized population has been "by all measures and standards a 'war' against civilians, a war of depopulation, with no precedents in this century," according to U.K-based watchdog Airwars, which tracks civilian harm from aerial bombardment. During its first month, an Airwars report found harm to civilians "incomparable with any 21st century air campaign," with the rate of killings of thousands of civilians, children and entire families at home three to seven times higher than any earlier documented war. Amidst the vast carnage, 96% of children reportedly feel "their death is imminent" in "one of the most horrifying places in the world to be a child." And from ravaged northern Gaza, Palestinian journalist Hossam Sabath imparted the sickening news, "We have run out of body bags to bury the dead."

In the face of Israel's "voluminous crimes against humanity," the Biden administration is obscenely still sending money and weapons to Israel - to date, a record $17.9 billion, with another $20 billion in killing machines approved in August - despite widespread outrage. More shame: Despite the international Doctors Without Borders regularly mourning and celebrating its lost colleagues - with the dark reminder that, "Nowhere in Gaza is safe" - and a handful of U.S. doctors volunteering in and speaking up for Gaza, America's medical establishment has remained largely, willfully silent about the bloodshed. The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, having finally apologized for its longstanding silence about the Nazi holocaust in a new “Recognizing Historical Injustices in Medicine series, has not published a single article about the devastation in Gaza; nor has it mentioned the words genocide, blockade or Occupation.

With pro-Zionist repression sweeping even the art world - funding lost, exhibitions cancelled, "sensitivity reviews" of Muslim artists - a group of Palestinians in Palestine and the U.S. have filed the first lawsuit against Biden's State Department for breaking domestic human rights law. The suit accuses State of circumventing the decades-old Leahy Law, which bars U.S. military aid to forces "credibly implicated" in war crimes, to continue funding Israel's genocide despite its "overwhelming record of gross violations of human rights." Arguing the agency has adopted "arbitrary and capricious" standards - "The rules were different for Israel" - the suit charges State with embracing a "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" approach that ignores Israel's countless crimes in defiance of the Leahy Law." For final proof, the suit, backed by multiple former State Department officials, notes that no Israeli unit has ever been deemed ineligible for aid.

America's complicity, it turns out, doesn't stop there. Writing for Drop Site News, two journalists uncovered both a "Ghost Unit" of snipers inside Gaza that's allegedly killed over 100 people - and boasted they set a long-distance record by "neutralizing" a "terrorist" from 1.26 kilometers away - but a U.S, tax-exempt Friends of Paratrooper Sniper Unit 202 that has raised over $300,000 to buy vests, silencers, stands etc "for the overall welfare of soldiers," part of broader Israeli fundraising that includes the $100-million-a-year Friends of the IDF. "Your support allowed us to get my son and his elite sniper unit the most advanced scopes (to) have an advantage over Hamas," wrote the mother of a unit member from Illinois, helping them "to go into battle (and) come home safely." The unit posted her thanks, also three grainy videos of civilian executions with, “When they meet the 202nd battalion, they are going to regret being born.”

Righteous Khaled Nabhan, who last year movingly mourned his granddaughter Reem, 3, as "soul of my soul,” when she was killed by an Israeli strike that also killed her brother Tarek, 5. On Monday, Nabhan was killed in another strike. Photos from family

Many Gazans, of course, already do. Hossam Shabat, a rare surviving journalist in northern Gaza, documents in grim detail a recent, hours-long "death march," a mass expulsion from Beit Lahia under heavy artillery shelling and gunfire. Shabat, displaced over 20 times while seeing countless colleagues killed before him, describes dust-covered, tear-streaked children running panicked as warplanes roar overhead. When some pleaded for water, the Israeli soldiers corralling them laughed, instead tauntingly pouring water on the ground. When soldiers detained the fathers in the crowd, their kids screamed in terror, clinging to Israeli tanks that could take them away. A 16-year-old girl and her sister, sole survivors of an earlier airstrike that killed 70, walked until the sister was hit and fell, blood pouring from her. When no help came, the girl left her there: "I was screaming, but no one heard me."

Aid workers also chronicle the anguish - many thousands of small orphans left to fend for themselves, children wracked by nightmares reflecting "a mental health catastrophe (of) multigenerational trauma that will endure for decades," weary, gaunt ghosts of adults numbly "waiting for what comes next." "People are waiting, full of agony, holding on to some small hope," says one. "We are dying slowly." Even amidst so much grief and horror, some losses strike especially deep. On Monday, an Israeli airstrike on Nuseirat refugee camp killed Khaled Nabhan, a "righteous" 54-year-old grandfather murdered 14 months after he became "an icon of Gaza's suffering" when he was filmed tearfully kissing goodbye his bloodied, beloved granddaughter Reem, three, calling her "soul of my soul." Reem died in another strike at Nuseirat that also killed her brother Tarek, five; all three were killed by what Omar Suleiman called "the most evil army on earth."

After his grandchildren died, Nabhan, known as "Abu Diaa," became "a one-man relief agency." Despite his pain, he spent the year "spreading hope" to others hungry, hurting, traumatized. He collected tents, toys, food, clothing; he helped rescuers and medics care for injured Gazans, particularly children; he fed stray cats, played with his surviving grandkids, took care of his elderly mother, and worked as a laborer when he could. His son Diaa: "He starved himself to make sure we had enough food.” His daughter Maysa, mother of Reem and Tarek, said it was her father who daily comforted her after their deaths: "He was everything to us. He held this family together...Even when the bombs were falling, he made us feel safe." Seeking solace, many of those bitterly grieving Nabhan's loss prayed that he and Reem would now be reunited "in the realm of souls where the wickedness of this so-called humanity will no longer reach them."

Last week, the anniversary of another painful death was marked with the posthumous release of “If I Must Die,” a collection of poetry and prose by esteemed teacher, writer and mentor Refaat Alareer, killed last Dec. 6 at 46 in a "surgical" airstrike that hit only his sister's apartment where he sheltered with family; the blast also killed his brother, his brother’s son, his sister and her three children. Proceeds from the book of reportage, essays, poems and interviews during the last decade of Alareer's life will go to his surviving family. Published by OR Books, it's "an oral history that reads like an epic poem," a "poetry of witness" serving as "evidence of what occurred," a grim chronicle of Occupation in "granular, human terms" told by "a man of his people" in "writing born of fire" - often in English, to reach a wider audience. It was compiled by student and colleague Yousef Aljamal, who calls Alareer "the giant of the Palestinian narrative."

Born in Shuja’iyya, a neighborhood with a history of fierce resistance to the occupation, Alareer grew up amidst its violence and his grandmother's stories of the Nakba. As a first-grader, he was struck in the head by a stone thrown by an Israeli soldier "smiling ear to ear"; four years later, he was shot by a rubber bullet for throwing stones; over time, he saw relatives killed or maimed. Educated at home and abroad, he taught literature at Gaza's Islamic University, often mentoring young writers; after Israel's brutal response to the peaceful Great March of Return, he became a sort of "peoples historian," editing and contributing to the anthologies Gaza Writes Back and Gaza Unsilenced. He also helped start We Are Not Numbers to chronicle Gazans' collective struggles against dispossession. Always, he believed in the power of storytelling: "As a Palestinian, I have been brought up on stories. It's both selfish and treacherous to keep a story to yourself."

He taught his students Edward Said, Virginia Woolf, The Merchant of Venice; revisiting Robinson Crusoe, he was struck by the likeness of Friday's story to that of Palestinians, told by "a self-appointed, colonial (master) assuming ownership of a land that was not his," and he fought for his people's right to narrate their own experiences and history. Daring to imagine a free Palestine but "chillingly prescient," he saw genocide unfold, his kids go hungry, Gaza become "an "extermination camp." His last poem If I Must Die, to his daughter Shymaa - “If I die/ you must live/ to tell my story...Let it bring hope/ Let it be a tale" - went around the world, especially after Shymaa was killed along with her husband and baby. As "a small measure of justice," Drop Site has been working to publicize Refaat’s book, to "let it fly (like) a kite (and) keep alive hope for a better world." "When will this pass?" Alareer asked as he watched Gaza destroyed. "How many dead Palestinians are enough?" Still, he wrote, "We have no choice but to fight back and tell her stories. For Palestine."

A Gazan man kisses his son, killed in an Israeli assault, good-bye.SOPA via Getty Images

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

The death toll from Vanuatu’s 7.3 earthquake is expected to rise because concrete buildings have collapsed with people inside in the capital Port Vila.

International Federation of Red Cross Pacific head of delegation Katie Greenwood posted on X that the Vanuatu government was reporting 14 confirmed fatalities and 200 people were treated for injuries at the main hospital in Port Vila.

Rescue efforts to retrieve people trapped by fallen buildings and rubble have continued overnight.

• READ MORE: Buildings ‘pancaked’ in Vanuatu as 7.3 magnitude quake strikes off capital Port Vila
• Powerful 7.3 magnitude quake strikes Vanuatu – serious damage in Vila
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• RNZ live news: Vanuatu earthquake updates
• ABC: Why earthquakes are more common in places such as Vanuatu

Vanuatu Government is reporting 14 confirmed fatalities and 200 treated for injuries at main hospital in Port Vila. Local humanitarian network activated and @vanuaturedcross leads the Shelter response with Government and support from @ifrc

— Katie Greenwood (@KatiegIFRC) December 17, 2024

In a press conference, caretaker Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai said a State of Emergency and curfew were in place in the worst affected areas.

“Urgently request international assistance,” he said.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated 116,000 people had been affected by the quake and earlier said there were six unconfirmed deaths.

Vanuatu has been experiencing aftershocks following Tuesday’s quake, the ABC reports.

The New Zealand High Commission was among buildings that have been damaged.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

• Follow RNZ News live blog for updates

Rescue operation continue in Port Vila, Vanuatu (it is 3:45am)
3 people have been pulled out of rubble alive, with one of them in serious condition.
All the staff from American Embassy is safe. #earthquake #sismo #Vanuatu #terremoto pic.twitter.com/oDVUjvJYci

— Disasters Daily (@DisastersAndI) December 17, 2024

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Zelenskyy said on Saturday that Russia had begun using North Koreans in significant numbers for the first time to assault Ukrainian positions and his forces released images and videos of what it said were the bodies of North Koreans soldiers, among some 200 killed and wounded in Russia’s Kursk region.

The United States said on Monday that it believed that North Korean troops had been killed in Kursk where Ukrainian forces are battling to hold an enclave they occupied in August.

Zelenskyy said Russia was trying to keep the presence of North Korean soldiers secret.

“While they were being trained, they were even forbidden to show their faces. The Russian military tried to delete any video evidence of their presence,” he said via his official Telegram on Monday.

“And now, after the battles with our guys, the Russians are also trying to... literally burn the faces of the dead North Korean soldiers,” the Ukrainian leader added, sharing a 30-second video as evidence.

At the video’s 24-second mark, a group of people can be seen burning what appears to be a corpse on a slope covered in snow.

“Russians try to conceal the faces of North Korean soldiers even after their death,” reads a subtitle of the video.

Radio Free Asia has not been able to verify the video.

“There is no reason for Koreans to fight and die for Putin. And even after their deaths, Russia will only mock them,” said Zelenskyy. “This insanity must be stopped.”

Neither Russian President Vladimir Putin nor North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have confirmed that North Korean soldiers are helping Russia in the war that Putin launched with his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

A U.S. Pentagon spokesman said on Monday there were “indications” of North Koreans killed and wounded while South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said it was “verifying” information that was “likely to be true.”

The U.S. and South Korea estimate that more than 10,000 North Koreans have been sent to Russia to help it with its war against Ukraine.

They have said that the North Koreans have been fighting in Russia’s southwestern Kursk border region against Ukrainian forces who occupied parts of it in early August.

Sanctions against North Korean officials

South Korea announced on Tuesday that it will impose sanctions on three top North Korean military officers and one missile developer believed to have been deployed to Russia to support its war on Ukraine.

The sanctioned officials are: Kim Yong Bok, deputy chief of the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army, Sin Kum Chol, director of its operations bureau, Ri Pong-chun, an army general who’s allegedly heading the “Storm Corps” special troops deployed to Russia’s western war front lines, and Ri Song-jin, a missile developer believed to have been sent to the war-torn border regions of Russia.

RELATED STORIES

US hits North Korea with new sanctions

Ukraine military releases images of North Korean casualties in Kursk

South Korean soldier ‘fighting for Ukraine’ urges North Koreans to surrender

South Korea also imposed sanctions on seven individuals and 15 entities for participating in illegal military cooperation with Russia, violating multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions, according to the South Korean foreign ministry.

The sanctioned individuals and entities were also targeted for their roles in funding and supplying materials that support North Korea’s nuclear and missile development programs.

All seven individuals are Russian nationals suspected of involvement in arms deals with North Korea, including financing, providing military communication equipment, and transporting weapons.

Of the 15 sanctioned entities, the majority are Russian, with the exception of the Storm Corps and a bank located in South Ossetia, a Russia-backed breakaway region in Georgia.

The sanctions are set to take effect on Thursday.

South Korea’s announcement follows the imposition by the U.S. of sanctions on North Koreans involved in the Ukraine war. The U.S. list included Kim Yong Bok and Ri Chang Ho, along with 14 other individuals and entities.

Edited by RFA Staff.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

Earlier this decade, the soda giant publicly pledged to decrease its use of virgin plastic and boost the share of its beverages sold in reusable containers. But in a blog post last week, the company quietly dropped those targets. Coca-Cola’s “evolved” plastics strategy now seems to rest almost entirely on cleaning up existing plastic waste and recycling — though its recycling targets are now weaker than they were before.

“We remain committed to building long-term business resilience and earning our social license to operate,” the company’s executive vice president for sustainability, Bea Perez, said in a statement.

Coke’s announcement is part of a broader trend of companies walking back or falling short of their plastics sustainability targets. Last month, a progress report from the nonprofit Ellen MacArthur Foundation — a nonprofit that advocates for a “circular economy” in which resources are conserved — showed that hundreds of companies had collectively fallen short of the progress needed to meet a range of voluntary plastics commitments by 2025.

The companies pledged to cut virgin plastic use by 18 percent below 2018 values, but have only achieved a 3 percent reduction as of 2023. They said they would totally eliminate polyvinyl chloride — a type of plastic suspected of leaching hazardous chemicals — but have only used 1 percent less by weight. They promised to increase the amount of reusable packaging they offered, but have made no progress toward that goal.

Sam Pearse, plastics campaign manager for the nonprofit Story of Stuff — which advocates for reusable alternatives to single-use plastics — said the trend suggests companies aren’t serious about their plastics targets. A pledge is “this thing they might try to do if the stars align, … but it’s not core to the business operation.

“Once you start seeing that cycle a number of times, it’s hard to not be skeptical about the intention,” he added.

Coca-Cola is one of the largest food and beverage companies on the planet. It sells products in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide (there are only 195 United Nations-recognized countries) and last year made $46 billion in net revenue. In addition to its eponymous soda, the company also makes Dasani bottled water, Fanta sodas, and Sprite, as well as some 200 other food and beverage brands.

Coca-Cola also makes a lot of plastic packaging: about 3.5 million metric tons of it per year, almost entirely out of fossil fuels. Much of this plastic ends up in the environment. For six years running, Coca-Cola has been named the “top global plastic polluter,” based on beach cleanups coordinated by the nonprofit Break Free From Plastic. Last year, volunteers collected some 500,000 pieces of plastic trash and identified Coca-Cola branding on about 33,000 of them, spread out across 40 countries. 

“In each one of the cleanups that we organize — not only beach cleanups but in mangroves, rivers, mountains, and volcanoes — we find Coca-Cola bottles,” said Cecilia Torres, the director of an Ecuadorian ocean protection nonprofit called Mingas por el Mar, which participates in Break Free From Plastic’s global brand audit. She said Coca-Cola’s plastics are even reaching the remote Galápagos Islands, where they may be introducing invasive species.

Scientists and advocates say that replacing single-use plastics with reusable alternatives and capping virgin plastic production are two of the best ways to reduce plastic-related emissions and pollution. ​​If reuse offset the need for just 10 percent of single-use plastic consumption, research suggests it could halve the amount of waste reaching the ocean. Meanwhile, scientists say capping virgin plastic production is the most straightforward way of reducing plastic pollution — and potentially more desirable than trying to boost the recycling rate, because recycled plastics can contain a greater number and higher concentration of hazardous chemicals. Last month, a study in the journal Science found that a global plastic production cap would also result in greater greenhouse gas emissions reductions by 2050 than seven other policies, including targets for more recycling and recycled content.

Coca-Cola made its two pledges on virgin plastics reduction and reusable packaging in 2020 and 2022, respectively. The pledges followed resolutions filed by shareholder advocacy groups, organizations that buy stocks in companies in order to influence corporate management. 

The 2020 resolution, written by Green Century Capital Management, highlighted the “reputational, market, regulatory, operational, climate and competitive risks” stemming from Coca-Cola’s association with plastic pollution. It asked Coca-Cola to set a goal for reducing its plastic use — which Coca-Cola did, in exchange for the withdrawal of the resolution before it was presented to shareholders. Coca-Cola said that, by 2025, it would use 3 million metric tons less virgin plastic “derived from nonrenewable sources.”

The second resolution was filed in 2021 by Green Century and another shareholder advocacy group called As You Sow. It made a similar argument and resulted in Coca-Cola’s pledge to sell 25 percent of its beverage volume in a reusable format — whether in glass or plastic bottles, or from soda fountains — by 2030.

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When Coca-Cola made its reuse pledge in 2022, it was hailed as a first-of-its-kind, industry-leading approach to the plastics problem. The company already had a robust reuse network, particularly in South America, where it had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in designing a refillable bottle that could be used across its various brands, and in the infrastructure needed to collect, clean, and refill bottles. As of last year, returnable glass and durable plastic bottles represented more than half of the company’s beverage sales in 20 markets.

After announcing the pledge, the company launched reuse programs in bigger markets. In North America, Coca-Cola last year launched a partnership with the company r.Cup to serve its beverages in reusable plastic cups at sports and entertainment venues. It was working with A&W Canada on an “exchangeable cup” program, and said it was distributing beverage dispensers instead of vending machines at some theme parks and university campuses.

In El Paso, Texas, Coca-Cola has been working since 2022 on a pilot program to sell more of its beverages in returnable glass bottles. Once empty, the bottles are sent across the border to Mexico to be cleaned, and then they’re returned to the U.S. to be refilled and sold again. 

Coca-Cola promoted its reuse initiatives in quarterly earnings reports as recently as this July, and it mentioned its quantitative target to boost refillable options in communications from late 2023. But as of late November, both the reuse pledge and the virgin plastic pledge had disappeared from portions of the company’s website, along with the homepage of the Coca-Cola’s World Without Waste initiative, which launched in 2018 and claimed to support a “circular economy” for packaging. 

In its blog post, the company also announced less stringent benchmarks for recycling. Coca-Cola now plans to make 30 to 35 percent of its plastic packaging out of recycled materials by 2035, instead of 50 percent by 2030. And instead of making 100 percent of its packaging recyclable by 2025 and collecting one bottle or can for each one sold, Coca-Cola now says it will “help ensure the collection” of just 70 to 75 percent of the number of bottles and cans it produces, also by 2035.

The new approach is “informed by learnings gathered through decades of work in sustainability, periodic assessment of progress, and identified challenges,” according to the blog post. 

Amy Larkin, founder of an organization called PR3 that’s developing standards for reuse systems, declined to comment on Coca-Cola specifically, but she said that consumer brands often have difficulty building reuse infrastructure because they “continue to think about it as a new product line, instead of a system that they have to develop.” 

“Most of these companies have deployed reuse pilots on their own. That won’t work,” she added. Instead, Larkin thinks companies need to collaborate to build robust reuse systems that work with multiple brands. “Any new system takes time, attention, and early investment.”

Matt Littlejohn, senior vice president of strategic initiatives for the nonprofit Oceana, said Coca-Cola’s move away from its reuse target seemed not to have resulted from external factors, like a lack of interest among the public. “This is an active decision by Coca-Cola management that, for whatever reason, they’re not going to pursue the strategy that actually results in them using less plastic.” 

Coca-Cola declined to explain to Grist why it decided to scrap its reuse target instead of revising it downward, as it did with its recycling goals. It’s possible that Coca-Cola was responding to anti-greenwashing legislation approved by the European Union earlier this year, which broadly prohibits businesses from making environmental claims that are out of sync with their business practices. Since Coca-Cola made its reuse pledge in 2022, it has actually decreased the fraction of its beverages sold in a reusable or refillable format, with growth in single-use categories outstripping its reuse efforts. And it increased virgin plastic use between 2018 and 2023. In a statement to Grist, a Coca-Cola spokesperson acknowledged that “laws and policies in the markets we operate in are always changing.”

According to a survey released earlier this year by the Swiss consulting firm South Pole, 70 percent of “climate-conscious” companies are being quiet about their climate and environmental commitments in order to comply with new regulations and avoid public scrutiny. South Pole defined a “climate-conscious” company as one with more than 1,000 employees and a sustainability-focused director-level position — a definition that Coca-Cola meets. 

Overpromising may create regulatory risks, but pledging too little risks backlash from investors and consumers, as demonstrated by the resolutions from Green Century and As You Sow that led Coca-Cola to create its reuse and virgin plastic targets in the first place.

“That Coca-Cola has abandoned its refillable commitment is alarming, regrettable, and regressive,” said Frances Fairhead-Stanova, a shareholder advocate for Green Century. She added that the company is “likely to face heightened regulatory and reputational risks due to its new approach to plastic packaging, which is unduly reliant on recyclability over plastic reduction and reuse.” 

Kelly McBee, circular economy manager for As You Sow, also said Coca-Cola’s new focus on recycling alone is “an ineffective strategy” for tackling plastic pollution. “In effect,” she added, “Coke is embracing the linear ‘take-make-waste’ mindset that created the global plastic pollution crisis in the first place.”

Coca-Cola’s deadline for filing shareholder resolutions was November 18, so it’s too late to file one asking the company to reinstate its reuse target this year. Fairhead-Stanova and McBee declined to say whether their organizations would file any plastics-related resolutions with Coca-Cola next year.

A spokesperson for Coca-Cola said the company intends to “continue to invest to expand the use of refillable packaging in markets where infrastructure is in place to support this important part of the company’s portfolio.” They also said that the use of recycled content and more efficient packaging could indirectly reduce the company’s use of virgin plastic.

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola is already facing a slew of legal challenges related to its plastics use. Last month, Los Angeles County sued the company, along with PepsiCo, for contributing to plastic pollution and for implying that plastic bottles could be recycled an infinite number of times. In a press release, the county specifically called out the beverage companies for making “false promises that they would increase the use of recycled plastic by certain percentages and eliminate the use of virgin plastic.”

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation report, Coca-Cola has only increased the fraction of its plastic packaging made from recycled content by 8 percentage points, half of the 16 percentage points it had pledged by 2025. PepsiCo also fell short of its recycled content goal by 15 percentage points. 

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation did not respond to Grist’s request for comment. A PepsiCo spokesperson said that the company “made progress on reducing virgin plastic use in 2023 year-over-year” — although its 2023 use was six percent higher than in 2020 — and called this issue “a complex challenge.”

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The city of Baltimore filed its own complaint against Coca-Cola and other food and beverage companies earlier this year for “creating products that they know will cause significant environmental harms.” The nonprofit Earth Island Institute has two ongoing lawsuits against the company: one over the “public nuisance” created by Coca-Cola’s plastic pollution, and another over the way the company represents itself as “sustainable and environmentally friendly.”

In Europe last year, an umbrella group representing 44 consumer advocacy organizations submitted a formal complaint to European Union authorities over Coca-Cola, Danone, Nestlé, and other companies’ representation of their plastic bottles as sustainable. They are still awaiting a response.

Meanwhile, advocacy groups that celebrated Coca-Cola’s erstwhile plastics sustainability goals are coming to terms with the corporation’s about-face. Pearse and his team at the Story of Stuff had been working on a short film about Coca-Cola’s refillable pilot program in El Paso — they released the film this week — and it came as a surprise to them that the company was abandoning its reuse target.

“I’d like to see more of the left hand talking to the right,” Pearse told Grist. “If you are really serious about these kinds of pledges, you need to ensure that they run through the way that a business is doing its practices and operations.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline After 2 years, Coca-Cola’s promise to scale up reusable packaging is dead on Dec 13, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Joseph Winters.

New Caledonia’s Great Chief William Boarat has been found dead and police have arrested a 24-year-old man as investigations continue.

Great Chief Boarat was found dead in the early hours of yesterday in circumstances described as involuntary homicide.

Public prosecutor Yves Dupas said in a statement that initial findings on the crime scene in the village of Ouaco pointed to an initial assault from a 24-year-old man on a woman he was in a de facto relationship with.

Chief Boarat, 66, who was present at the scene, reportedly tried to stop the man from hitting his partner in their village residence.

The young man, believed to be under the influence of alcohol, is then reported to have grabbed a wooden post and hit the chief on the head.

A medical team later found the old chief unconscious, with severe head wounds.

Attempts to revive him proved unsuccessful.

The suspect has been taken into custody, and investigations are ongoing.

He faces charges of murder and assault against his de facto partner.

Witnesses are also being questioned as part of the inquiry.

A post-mortem has been ordered to further establish the exact cause of death.

The Boarat clan is the main chiefly entity of the Koumac area, which itself belongs to the chiefly area of Hoot ma Waap (one of the eight chiefly areas represented in New Caledonia’s Customary Senate).

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Caledonia’s Great Chief William Boarat has been found dead and police have arrested a 24-year-old man as investigations continue.

Great Chief Boarat was found dead in the early hours of yesterday in circumstances described as involuntary homicide.

Public prosecutor Yves Dupas said in a statement that initial findings on the crime scene in the village of Ouaco pointed to an initial assault from a 24-year-old man on a woman he was in a de facto relationship with.

Chief Boarat, 66, who was present at the scene, reportedly tried to stop the man from hitting his partner in their village residence.

The young man, believed to be under the influence of alcohol, is then reported to have grabbed a wooden post and hit the chief on the head.

A medical team later found the old chief unconscious, with severe head wounds.

Attempts to revive him proved unsuccessful.

The suspect has been taken into custody, and investigations are ongoing.

He faces charges of murder and assault against his de facto partner.

Witnesses are also being questioned as part of the inquiry.

A post-mortem has been ordered to further establish the exact cause of death.

The Boarat clan is the main chiefly entity of the Koumac area, which itself belongs to the chiefly area of Hoot ma Waap (one of the eight chiefly areas represented in New Caledonia’s Customary Senate).

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Updated on Nov. 22, 2024, 03:38 p.m.

A young Australian woman has died after drinking alcohol laced with methanol in Laos, her father said on Friday, the sixth victim of what should have been a fun night out in a tourist town on the Southeast Asian backpacker trail.

Shaun Bowles, said in a statement his “beautiful girl Holly is now at peace” after dying in a hospital in Bangkok, where she was taken last week after falling ill in neighboring Laos.

Her friend, Bianca Jones, died on Thursday in a hospital in the northeastern Thai town of Udon Thani, where she had been sent for treatment. They were both 19.

A British woman, two young Danish women and an American man have also died, and several more people are reported to be sick, after going out for drinks last week in the riverside town of Vang Vieng, which has for years been a laid-back stop for young Western travelers.

Media identified the British woman as Simone White, 28, a lawyer.

“We are supporting the family of a British woman who has died in Laos, and we are in contact with the local authorities,” Britain’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office said on Thursday.

It is believed White had been sent for treatment in the Lao capital, Vientiane, after falling ill last week. A member of staff at the Kasemrad International Hospital there told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday a British national was being treated in its intensive care unit. The hospital declined to comment on Friday.

An official from the Lao Ministry of Public Security told RFA on Friday that at least seven foreign tourists have been sent from Vang Vieng to Kasemrad for treatment.

The Lao government has not confirmed the cause of the deaths but on Friday it cited Australian media as saying the victims had consumed drinks laced with methanol.

“The case is under extensive investigation now,” the ministry official said. “I think it will take sometimes to conclude the case, but I am not sure about the timeline.”

Thai authorities said an autopsy on Jones showed she died from brain swelling caused by methanol. The British, Australian and New Zealand embassies have issued updated travel advisories on the danger of methanol in Laos.

Methanol is a clear, tasteless liquid that can be used to boost the alcohol content of drinks, often with fatal consequences.

Some 1,200 people have fallen ill from drinking methanol-laced drinks in the past year, according to Doctors Without Borders, which said 394 people had died worldwide, many of them in Asia.

‘Severe condition’

Earlier on Friday, the Ministry of Public Security identified the two Danish women who died as Anne-Sofie Coyman, 20, and Freja Sorensen, 21, and the American man as James Hutson, 57. All three had been staying at the Nana Backpacker Hostel in Vang Vieng, it said.

The ministry said no autopsies had been carried out so it couldn’t confirm the cause of death.

“On Nov. 12, Coyman and Sorensen went out drinking at bars in Vang Vieng before coming back at midnight,” the ministry said in a statement.

“At 6 p.m. on Nov. 13, a staff member at Nana Backpacker found them lying unconscious in their rooms so they carried them to Vang Vieng Hospital. They were in a coma and relied on a respirator due to their severe condition. They were transferred to the No. 103 Military Hospital at 8 p.m. but they died at 3:30 in the morning.

“The doctors concluded death was due to sudden heart failure.”

The ministry said hostel staff found Hutson on his bed just after 9 p.m. on Nov. 13 and took him to Vang Vieng Hospital but he was dead on arrival.

The U.S. State Department earlier confirmed the death of the U.S. citizen, while the Danish government confirmed two of its nationals had died in Laos.

‘Don’t accept free drinks’

Details of how the tourists came to drink tainted alcohol in Vang Vieng are sketchy and it is not clear if they were all drinking at the same bar. Residents told RFA no Lao people had fallen ill over the past week but cases of tainted alcohol were common in Vang Vieng.

A town police officer who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the case, said anyone found selling tainted drinks would face serious consequences.

“Methanol is basically prohibited to mix with alcohol for sales as it is listed as a life-harming chemical,” he told Radio Free Asia. “It is only allowed to be used for industrial purposes.”

A Lao tourism official told RFA that officers had checked all bars and entertainment venues in Vang Vieng but added he could not give details of their findings.

Bar staff and venue managers in the town said they only offered reputable brands of drinks, though one of them warned that customers should always be careful.

“The only thing that can prevent this kind of incident is to not accept any free drink offered by someone you don’t know in a bar,” said the man, who declined to be identified.

An official from the Vang Vieng tourism office told RFA that it is widely understood that the deaths could have “negative impacts” on Laos' tourism industry.

Police in Vang Vieng have detained but not charged several people in connection with their investigation, the AP reported. Staff at Nana Backpacker told the agency the hostel’s owner and manager had been taken away for questioning.

The British Foreign Office in its updated advisory said methanol was been used in the manufacture of counterfeit replicas of well-known alcohol brands or illegal local spirits, like vodka.

“You should take care if offered, particularly for free, or when buying spirit-based drinks. If labels, smell or taste seem wrong then do not drink,” it said

Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

This story has been updated to add comments from two Lao officials.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Lao.

The victims had been out drinking late into the night on Nov. 12 and began to feel ill early the next morning, at which point they were taken to a hospital in Vang Vieng for treatment, according to a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, or ABC.

Most of the tourists - who included Danish, Australian and Swedish nationals - had been staying at the Nana Backpacker Hostel in the town in Vientiane province, the report said.

Police told RFA Lao that they are investigating whether the source of the illness was methanol, a clear liquid that is often illegally added to alcohol as a cheaper alternative to ethanol. Even a small amount of methanol can be fatal if ingested.

They confirmed that one Danish tourist had died as a result of the poisoning and that “several other foreign tourists” were being treated at the No. 103 Military Hospital in in the capital Vientiane.

Other sources said two Danish women in their 20s had died from the poisoning.

ABC cited a statement from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirming that two Danish citizens “have passed away in Laos,” but said it provided no further details, citing reasons of confidentiality in personal matters.

ABC reported that two Australian women, aged 19, had been hospitalized in Vang Vieng, but were later transferred to a hospital in Vientiane, before being sent to another medical facility in Thailand. They were both listed in critical condition.

The report cited a spokesman for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as saying that the government was providing consular assistance to the two Australians and their families in Thailand.

Investigation underway

RFA spoke with Duong Van Huan, an owner of the Nana Backpacker Hostel, who said that the poisoning did not occur at his bar.

“They went out to the bars - lots of people,” he said, referring further questions to police.

“I don’t know much of what happened,” he added. “They went to the bar and came back ... I only sent them to the hospital ... I don’t know which bar they went to - Vang Vieng has lots of them.”

A paramedic in Vang Vieng told RFA Tuesday that early on Nov. 13, three tourists were taken to the No. 103 Military hospital in Vientiane, but one of them was already dead.

“It seems like she drank something mixed with poison in Vang Vieng,” said the paramedic, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation with the media. “The police are investigating this incident.”

An official from the hospital in Vang Vieng confirmed that “many foreign tourists are being treated ... due to an illness caused by poison.”

“But then most of them were transferred to other hospitals,” said the official, who also declined to be named. “Some of them were in a coma when they arrived here.”

A police officer in Vientiane told RFA on Tuesday that the case is “under investigation,” but he was unable to confirm how many tourists had been poisoned.

After the incident, a tourist took to a Laos Backpacker group on Facebook to post a warning.

“Urgent - please avoid all local spirits,” the post said. “Our group stayed in Vang Vieng and we drank free shots offered by one of the bars. Just avoid them as so not worth it. 6 of us who drank from the same place are in hospital currently with methanol poisoning.”

An official at the Australian Embassy in Bangkok declined to comment when asked for further details about the incident.

Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Lao.

At least 35 people were killed and 43 injured when a driver rammed his car into a crowd at a stadium in southern China’s Zhuhai city, prompting a rare call from President Xi Jinping on Tuesday for an investigation and for the perpetrator to be punished.

The attack, believed to be the deadliest in modern Chinese history, occurred on Monday night as the city hosted the People‘s Liberation Army’s annual airshow, where it debuted a new fighter jet.

Police detained a 62-year-old man surnamed Fan in connection with the attack, who they said was hospitalized with allegedly self-inflicted knife wounds.

They said Fan had been angered over a divorce settlement.

Images of the incident, which appeared to show dozens of people lying on the ground as a car fled the scene, circulated widely on social media but were quickly censored and removed, as were comments expressing frustration over a nearly 24-hour delay in official reporting.

RFA Mandarin spoke with a resident of Zhuhai surnamed Chen who said that the driver of the car “hit the crowd and then came back to hit them again.”

“This is definitely revenge against society, not an ordinary traffic accident,” he said.

State media cited Xi issuing a statement on Tuesday in which he said the incident was under investigation and called for the perpetrator’s severe punishment. It is unusual for Xi to comment about specific crimes or incidents.

A team from the central government was sent to the city of 2.5 million to provide guidance to authorities, it said.

By Tuesday evening, candles and flowers could be seen laid outside the sports center, where people had gathered to exercise when the attack occurred, Reuters reported.

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Monday’s attack marked the second such to occur during the Zhuhai airshow, after a man drove a truck into a crowded schoolyard in 2008, killing four and injuring 20.

Violent attacks are rare in China, where gun laws are strict and the population is subject to strict monitoring by authorities.

But a spate of knife-related incidents have highlighted lapses in security at public spaces.

In June, a man surnamed Cai stabbed four U.S. college instructors and a Chinese citizen who tried to intervene in the northeastern city of Jilin. The same month, a 10-year-old Japanese boy was stabbed to death as he walked to school in southeastern Shenzhen city.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Josh Lipes.

The prediction made one year ago of a man-made famine is about to be realised, though in truth, Gazans have suffered food insecurity for decades. Despite a heavy dependency on international agencies for humanitarian assistance, access to food and safe water supplies has repeatedly been denied due to blockades imposed by Israel. As is the trend in such crises, women and children are particularly affected by malnutrition. Anaemia and other manifestations of nutrient deficiency have led to adverse effects on maternal and foetal health. Miscarriage and birth defect rates are high. Suboptimal nutritional status also impairs immune function and the ability of mother and child to recover from disease.

This dire baseline has only amplified the number of civilian losses caused by violence. The proportion of deaths in Gaza attributed to trauma-related injury versus that from malnutrition is hard to define; in many cases, it’s part of the same story. Malnutrition significantly affects the ability to recover from internal injuries, limb loss, and surgery, thereby increasing the risk of infection, sepsis and death.

Obtaining accurate quantitative information on injury, disease and deaths is essential. It draws global attention, and allows humanitarian organisations to focus their resources. The tricky bit of course is that over- or under-inflation of rates can occur for political gain. Regardless, even Israeli officials admit that the Palestinian Ministry of Health are the only governmental body actively collating decent morbidity and mortality data. There are pro-Israel lobbyists who are still quick to dismiss those figures, citing that a third of the 38,000 deaths declared earlier this summer were unverifiable. However, the reality of real-time assessment in this war zone is that many of the dead are still buried under rubble. Formal ID is impossible: collected statistics unavoidably include household losses reported by family members. Any remaining deniers of data coming out of Gaza should consider satellite image analysis performed by the City University of New York and Oregon State University. Almost 100,000 buildings had been destroyed in the first two months of the current crisis, most of which were in densely populated residential areas. The World Health Organisation and United Nations have also found mortality rates quoted by the Palestinian Ministry of Health to be reliable during earlier critical periods in Gaza’s history.

Malnutrition prevalence from (neutral) aid agency field and clinic data also paints a progressively disturbing picture. In March, nutrition monitoring by UNICEF and others highlighted that around 1 in 20 children attending health centres and in shelters were at a life-threatening stage of severe wasting. In addition, over 30 percent of children under 2 years of age were classified as acutely malnourished; double that of three months earlier. By June, major nutritional concerns were no longer primarily restricted to the north. Almost 3,000 children in southern Gaza were in need of intervention to manage the effects of moderate to severe malnutrition, yet were prevented from attending clinics due to ongoing conflict. Spring and late summer saw some alleviation of food insecurity, as more convoys were able to cross the border and distribute supplies. Then September marked the month with the lowest cross-border transfer and distribution of food and bottled water.

The UN continues to monitor the situation closely. Is Gaza now ‘officially’ in famine? To meet the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) definition, at least 20 percent of the population should have significant lack of access to food; acute malnutrition prevalence should be at least 30 percent; and mortality should be at or above 2 deaths per 10,000 people daily. At the time of writing, forty-three thousand are dead. The vast majority of the surviving population are now displaced, and one in five are facing “catastrophic levels of denied access to nutrition” (another IPC classification). Three-quarters of all crop fields have been destroyed. Access to food and safe water supplies, medical care and the availability of proper sanitation continues to be impossible in most situations. As the UN have stressed, Gaza sits on the very brink of famine. Without an immediate ceasefire, this will be a forgone conclusion.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by E. Mark Windle.

Yes, the genocide in Palestine and Lebanon evokes similar fits of emotion and sleeplessness; the actions of the Israeli government are obscenely bestial and criminal. Yet Cuba, because of its over six decades of defiance of US imperialism and its enormous sacrifices for other peoples, holds a special place for me.

No country with so little has done so much for others.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the example of the selfless support for the struggling Spanish Republic defined solidarity with others as well as internationalism. The Soviet Union sent weapons and advisors, defying the great-power blockade and confronting German Nazi and Italian Fascist support for the military insurrectionists. Tens of thousands of volunteers, largely organized by the Communist International, came to Spain clandestinely, overcoming closed borders, to defend the nascent Republic.

Millions rallied in support of the Republic– though it fell, in significant part because of the indifference and active hostility of the so-called democracies. How was it– many came to see for the first time– that democracies would not defend an emerging democracy?

For the last sixty years, tiny Cuba has been the beacon of solidarity and internationalism for later generations. Cuban internationalists have aided and fought alongside nearly every legitimate liberation movement, every movement for socialism in Asia, Africa, and South America. Cuban doctors and relief workers have rushed to disasters in uncountable countries. Wherever need arose, Cubans were the first to volunteer, including in the US (Hurricane Katrina), the country where the government has been most damaging to Cuba’s fate.

It was not so long ago that Cuba organized assistance to the Vietnamese freedom fighters.

Even more recently, we should remember, as well, those heroes sacrificing life and limb helping liberate the Portuguese colonies of Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. Cubans heroically gave their lives fighting and defeating the racist military of Apartheid South Africa and the US’s surrogates, inflicting one of the most significant blows against US imperialism since the Vietnam war. The US ruling class has never forgotten this humiliating defeat.

Undoubtedly, Apartheid would have eventually fallen, but those tens of thousands of Cuban volunteers hastened that end by many, many years.

But Cubans were sacrificing for others’ freedom before that remarkable struggle and after. Paraphrasing the song about Joe Hill, wherever people were struggling, you would find Cuban internationalists — from Lumumba’s Congo to Allende’s Chile, from Bishop’s Grenada to Chavez’s Venezuela.

Some will remember that when Nelson Mandela was freed, he chose to first visit Cuba to thank the Cuban people for their contribution to African liberation.

Of course, Cuba alone lacked the material resources to confront the well-armed Apartheid military and their Western-armed African collaborators. Beside Cuba and behind Cuba was the material and military support of the Soviet Union. This legacy of Soviet internationalism, combined with the inspiring selflessness of Fidel’s Cuba, gave hope to many millions fighting to free themselves from the yoke of imperialism and capitalism.

Without a doubt, the overarching cause of Cuba’s ongoing pain is the United States and its closest allies. The great powers have never forgiven Cuba for mounting the first and only socialist revolution in the Americas, as they have never forgiven Haiti for showing that African slaves could rise and defeat a great power and free an enslaved people. The US blockade of Cuba has done irreparable harm to a people hoping to develop and follow an independent political course. Imperialism punishes a people that values its sovereignty with the same uncompromising integrity as it demonstrates with its passionate commitment to solidarity with others and its selfless internationalism.

Yet the Cuban people persevere. It does not go unnoticed by the plotters at the CIA and other nefarious agencies and the State Department that — even in its most weakened state, its most challenging moments — the Cuban people keep the torch lit that was passed on to them by Fidel. Despite the best efforts of the capitalist behemoth to the North, Cuban socialism endures.

In better times, the Soviet Union generously aided Cuba on its chosen development path. Lacking few industrially desirable resources and despite the stultifying effects of centuries of imperialist exploitation, Soviet aid enabled Cuba to integrate into the socialist community’s Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) on an equal, even privileged, footing. The capitalist media often compared CMEA aid to Cuba to the US’s robust aid to Israel. Ironically, Cuba used the aid to become a force for global social justice, while Israel has used the US subsidy to make mischief, to become a force for genocidal campaigns to create a “greater” Israel.

But Soviet aid is gone.

It is a source of sorrow, and not a little shame, that no country avowing the socialist road or benefitting from Cuba’s sacrifices has stepped up to even partially fill the void. Sure, countries thought to be “friends” of Cuba have made strong statements condemning the blockade, have made “fraternal” gestures, and have sent token shipments of basic foodstuffs, but not nearly enough to allow Cuba to step away from the dire economic disaster that has been multiplied a hundred-fold by the US blockade.

Lands where Cuban internationalist fighters are buried in the soil, lands with abundant energy resources, lands with modern economies that dwarf the former Soviet economy, fail to remember Cuba’s selfless sacrifices with pledges to help or to organize help at this particularly difficult moment. It may be presumptuous to expect the recipients of Cuban friendship and solidarity to make similar sacrifices for Cuba– that is what makes the legacy of Fidelismo so special in the annals of socialism. But surely, those countries could individually or collectively repair and guarantee Cuba’s basic infrastructure without great sacrifice– to give Cuba the minimal means to survive the punishment that imperialism has imposed.

It must be said that “socialism with national characteristics” seems to exclude the internationalism so central to socialism in the twentieth century.

In truth, what kind of socialism fails to sacrifice little to aid a struggling socialist country strangling from a capitalist blockade?

On a personal note, I remember well passing back through Checkpoint Charlie– the famous portal between German socialism and German capitalism. Tourists and others from the West, seeking to visit East Berlin had to return via the checkpoint. They learned on their return that they could neither exchange nor keep remaining GDR currency used while in the German Democratic Republic. Guards helpfully offered the often-unhappy returnees an option. They pointed to a large vessel brimming with cash with a sign in several languages: “Help rebuild Vietnam.”

I felt pride in knowing that I was a small part of a global movement determined to help rebuild what imperialism had torn down.

I see that pledge to internationalism again honored in the refusal of workers to load ammunition bound for Israel in the port of Piraeus, Greece.

I can only hope that the socialism of the twenty-first century will restore the internationalism that was a signature of the socialism of the twentieth century.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Greg Godels.

Yes, the genocide in Palestine and Lebanon evokes similar fits of emotion and sleeplessness; the actions of the Israeli government are obscenely bestial and criminal. Yet Cuba, because of its over six decades of defiance of US imperialism and its enormous sacrifices for other peoples, holds a special place for me.

No country with so little has done so much for others.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the example of the selfless support for the struggling Spanish Republic defined solidarity with others as well as internationalism. The Soviet Union sent weapons and advisors, defying the great-power blockade and confronting German Nazi and Italian Fascist support for the military insurrectionists. Tens of thousands of volunteers, largely organized by the Communist International, came to Spain clandestinely, overcoming closed borders, to defend the nascent Republic.

Millions rallied in support of the Republic– though it fell, in significant part because of the indifference and active hostility of the so-called democracies. How was it– many came to see for the first time– that democracies would not defend an emerging democracy?

For the last sixty years, tiny Cuba has been the beacon of solidarity and internationalism for later generations. Cuban internationalists have aided and fought alongside nearly every legitimate liberation movement, every movement for socialism in Asia, Africa, and South America. Cuban doctors and relief workers have rushed to disasters in uncountable countries. Wherever need arose, Cubans were the first to volunteer, including in the US (Hurricane Katrina), the country where the government has been most damaging to Cuba’s fate.

It was not so long ago that Cuba organized assistance to the Vietnamese freedom fighters.

Even more recently, we should remember, as well, those heroes sacrificing life and limb helping liberate the Portuguese colonies of Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. Cubans heroically gave their lives fighting and defeating the racist military of Apartheid South Africa and the US’s surrogates, inflicting one of the most significant blows against US imperialism since the Vietnam war. The US ruling class has never forgotten this humiliating defeat.

Undoubtedly, Apartheid would have eventually fallen, but those tens of thousands of Cuban volunteers hastened that end by many, many years.

But Cubans were sacrificing for others’ freedom before that remarkable struggle and after. Paraphrasing the song about Joe Hill, wherever people were struggling, you would find Cuban internationalists — from Lumumba’s Congo to Allende’s Chile, from Bishop’s Grenada to Chavez’s Venezuela.

Some will remember that when Nelson Mandela was freed, he chose to first visit Cuba to thank the Cuban people for their contribution to African liberation.

Of course, Cuba alone lacked the material resources to confront the well-armed Apartheid military and their Western-armed African collaborators. Beside Cuba and behind Cuba was the material and military support of the Soviet Union. This legacy of Soviet internationalism, combined with the inspiring selflessness of Fidel’s Cuba, gave hope to many millions fighting to free themselves from the yoke of imperialism and capitalism.

Without a doubt, the overarching cause of Cuba’s ongoing pain is the United States and its closest allies. The great powers have never forgiven Cuba for mounting the first and only socialist revolution in the Americas, as they have never forgiven Haiti for showing that African slaves could rise and defeat a great power and free an enslaved people. The US blockade of Cuba has done irreparable harm to a people hoping to develop and follow an independent political course. Imperialism punishes a people that values its sovereignty with the same uncompromising integrity as it demonstrates with its passionate commitment to solidarity with others and its selfless internationalism.

Yet the Cuban people persevere. It does not go unnoticed by the plotters at the CIA and other nefarious agencies and the State Department that — even in its most weakened state, its most challenging moments — the Cuban people keep the torch lit that was passed on to them by Fidel. Despite the best efforts of the capitalist behemoth to the North, Cuban socialism endures.

In better times, the Soviet Union generously aided Cuba on its chosen development path. Lacking few industrially desirable resources and despite the stultifying effects of centuries of imperialist exploitation, Soviet aid enabled Cuba to integrate into the socialist community’s Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) on an equal, even privileged, footing. The capitalist media often compared CMEA aid to Cuba to the US’s robust aid to Israel. Ironically, Cuba used the aid to become a force for global social justice, while Israel has used the US subsidy to make mischief, to become a force for genocidal campaigns to create a “greater” Israel.

But Soviet aid is gone.

It is a source of sorrow, and not a little shame, that no country avowing the socialist road or benefitting from Cuba’s sacrifices has stepped up to even partially fill the void. Sure, countries thought to be “friends” of Cuba have made strong statements condemning the blockade, have made “fraternal” gestures, and have sent token shipments of basic foodstuffs, but not nearly enough to allow Cuba to step away from the dire economic disaster that has been multiplied a hundred-fold by the US blockade.

Lands where Cuban internationalist fighters are buried in the soil, lands with abundant energy resources, lands with modern economies that dwarf the former Soviet economy, fail to remember Cuba’s selfless sacrifices with pledges to help or to organize help at this particularly difficult moment. It may be presumptuous to expect the recipients of Cuban friendship and solidarity to make similar sacrifices for Cuba– that is what makes the legacy of Fidelismo so special in the annals of socialism. But surely, those countries could individually or collectively repair and guarantee Cuba’s basic infrastructure without great sacrifice– to give Cuba the minimal means to survive the punishment that imperialism has imposed.

It must be said that “socialism with national characteristics” seems to exclude the internationalism so central to socialism in the twentieth century.

In truth, what kind of socialism fails to sacrifice little to aid a struggling socialist country strangling from a capitalist blockade?

On a personal note, I remember well passing back through Checkpoint Charlie– the famous portal between German socialism and German capitalism. Tourists and others from the West, seeking to visit East Berlin had to return via the checkpoint. They learned on their return that they could neither exchange nor keep remaining GDR currency used while in the German Democratic Republic. Guards helpfully offered the often-unhappy returnees an option. They pointed to a large vessel brimming with cash with a sign in several languages: “Help rebuild Vietnam.”

I felt pride in knowing that I was a small part of a global movement determined to help rebuild what imperialism had torn down.

I see that pledge to internationalism again honored in the refusal of workers to load ammunition bound for Israel in the port of Piraeus, Greece.

I can only hope that the socialism of the twenty-first century will restore the internationalism that was a signature of the socialism of the twentieth century.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Greg Godels.

Ramírez, an entertainment reporter for the privately owned Hechos newspaper, was the second Mexican journalist killed in less than 24 hours following Tuesday’s shooting of Mauricio Cruz Solís. The killings occurred during the first month of Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration.

“The brutal killing of Paty Bunbury is especially shocking, as it comes less than a day after her colleague Mauricio Cruz was killed,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “The killings demonstrate the urgent need for President Sheinbaum to take steps to protect the press from violence.” 

According to a statement by the Colima state prosecutor’s office (FGE), Ramírez was shot by a single, unidentified individual at around 2 p.m. in the eatery she runs in Colima’s state capital as a side job to her work as a journalist. 

The FGE has not stated whether they’re investigating whether her reporting was a possible motive and did not answer several telephone calls for comment by CPJ. 

Mario Alberto Gaitán, the vice president of local journalists’ association Periodistas Colimenses, told CPJ via telephone that Ramírez did not cover politics, crime, or security and had not reported having received threats.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

“The brutal and brazen killing of journalist Mauricio Cruz Solís is the first such deadly attack during the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum and underscores the ongoing violence and impunity the Mexican press faces every day,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico Representative. “Mexican authorities must immediately conduct a credible investigation into this killing. If Mexican authorities allow this crime to go unpunished, it will be a sad reminder that a change of government has not brought safety for the nation’s press.”

The Michoacán state prosecutor’s office (FGE) posted a Tuesday statement on the social media site X saying they have launched an investigation.

Cruz, 25, was a news anchor for broadcaster Radiorama Michoacán and founder of news website Minuto x Minuto. He reported on general news, including politics and security, according to his friend and colleague, Julio César Aguirre, who spoke with CPJ. Aguirre said he was unaware of any threats to Cruz’s life.

An official for the Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, a federal agency, told CPJ via messaging app on October 29 that the agency had not registered any threats against Cruz or assigned him any security measures. They spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, as they are not allowed to speak publicly on the matter.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

“The killing of radio reporter Maria Vilma Rodriguez shows that the murderers of journalists remain undeterred in the Philippines,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Until President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s government firmly moves to end impunity, these heinous crimes against the press will continue.”

Rodriguez, who presented 105.9 Emedia FM’s news program Barangay Action Center, was killed by a lone shooter in Zamboanga City on the southern island of Mindanao, according to news reports.

The Office of the President issued a statement condemning the October 22 killing and called for a “swift and impartial probe.”

Philippine National Police spokesperson Brigadier General Jean Fajardo told a press briefing that Rodriguez was shot by a relative over a land dispute following an argument the previous day. The suspect had been arrested, he said.

The Philippines ranked eighth on CPJ’s most recent Impunity Index, a global ranking of countries where journalists’ murderers are most likely to go free.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The death toll from Hurricane Helene has reached 190 as fallout from the storm becomes clearer. Hundreds remain missing and presumed dead. President Biden has ordered the Pentagon to deploy 1,000 active-duty troops to help with flood relief efforts. Power outages and water shortages remain rampant across six southeastern states hit by one of the most destructive hurricanes in U.S. history. Democracy Now! speaks with immigrant rights activist Cesar Bautista Sanchez about how the storm has affected his area of Tennessee and the increasing danger of extreme weather events under the climate crisis. “This is starting to become a pattern,” says Bautista Sanchez.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Although the Jews are not a people  — speaking different languages, having different cultures, not having a shared history, and not residing together in one place for generations — and Judaism has featured rabbis, who are teachers, and has never instituted a hierarchy, Israel’s Nation State Laws unilaterally claimed Israel as being the sole representative of all Jews.

Article 6A ─ The state shall foster the well-being of the Jewish people in trouble or in captivity due to the fact of their Jewishness or their citizenship;
Article 6B ─ The state shall act in the Diaspora to preserve the affinity between the state and the Jewish people; and
Article 6C ─ The state shall act to preserve the cultural, historic, and religious heritage of the Jewish people in the diaspora.

With the help of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and its accomplices — Anti defamation League (ADL), Hillel, a Zionist indoctrination organization for college students, Jewish National Fund, and AIPAC, among others — the Zionists wrestled the dominant position from American Jews.

From appearances, Zionism rang well with Jewish populations and achieved success. Population statistics that indicate Jews flocked to their “new country” are a troubling misread of history. Falsely claiming that Israel saved the Jews after the World War II genocide, Zionism has caused a second and more killing Holocaust — the ethical Judaism that shaped Western Jews is dead and the Judaism that rabbinical Jews brought to fruition in Mesopotamia and guided world Jewry is subdued. Jews are at odds with one another and cannot escape the charges of committing genocide of the Palestinian people.

Freed from a pastoral life, dry conditions, and restricted economies in the Levant, new communities  of Mesopotamian Jews, knowledgeable and worldly, appeared in the Fertile Crescent after the third century B.C. and survived to modern times. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers housed the great Jewish academies of Surah, Pumbadita, and Nehardea, and best expressed the legacy and heritage of modern Judaism. In The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492, by Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Princeton University press, 2012, the authors claim that “Judaism reached its Golden Age in 800-1200 A.D. During that time, Mesopotamia and Persia contained 75% of world Jewry with the rest in North Africa and Western Europe.”

The Middle East and North African Jews who came to Israel were Arabs; the Europeans Jews were Ashkenazi; the Ethiopian Jews were Beta Israel; and the Yemenite Jews were from the Arabian Peninsula. Israel replaced the differing languages, dialects, music, cultures, and heritage of these unique ethnicities with uniform characteristics, and created a new people, the Israeli Jew. Destruction of centuries old Jewish history and life in Tunisia, Iraq, Libya, and Egypt accompanied the creation of a new people. The Zionists, who complained about persecution of Jews, wiped out a major portion of Jewish history, determined who was Jewish, and required all Jews to shed much of their ancestral characteristics before integrating into the Israeli community.

Most Jews adhere to Rabbinical Judaism, a form of Judaism that achieved its modern status in Mesopotamia during the 5th century A.D. It was in the Persian Parthian and Sassanian Empires (248 B.C. to 641 A.D) that Jewish scribes codified the oral and written laws from the Torah, Mishnah, and Gemara and produced the Babylonian Talmud, which became the central text of Rabbinic Judaism, and the basis for Jewish law.

In 2023, the world’s core Jewish population (those identifying as Jews above all else) was estimated at 15.7 million. With 7.2 million Jews, Israel claimed the largest Jewish population in the world, not all of them lived in Israel, followed by the United States with 5.7 million, which also contained a sizeable population of self-exiled Israelis. By numbers, Israel appears as the selected home of world Jewry. The numbers do not tell the story. Relatively few Jews selected Israel as their home. Jews arrived there temporarily, by mistake, or by accidents of history, and could not get out. Their children, born in Israel, are products of the mistaken voyages and never realized  the dilemma their parents faced. The large birth rate of the Israeli Orthodox Jews and Mizrahi (Arab and North African Jews) and the low birth rate of the Western Jews skewed the statistics. Examine the record.

From its beginnings to the start of World War I, Zionism proved a stagnant adventure. During that period, statistics indicate that  about 70,000 Jews came to Palestine, not all of them were Zionists, many being adventurists, utopian Socialists, and some seeking opportunities. By 1918, only about 30,000 of the original 70,000 remained. Meanwhile, more than 2,500,000 East European Jews ventured to other places, mostly to the United States. Where are the Zionists?

World War I, destruction of the Ottoman Empire, and the Balfour Declaration revived the Zionist adventure. The League of Nations’ certification of the British Mandate in Palestine prevented  formation of a national Palestinian governing body, and provided opportunities for English speaking European Jews to work in the British administration. They came with protection of his Majesty’s forces. From 1918-1922, approximately 24,000 Jews arrived in Palestine.

The year 1924 was more fortuitous for the Zionists. The US Immigration Act closed the doors to mass Jewish immigration from East European nations and this Act steered Jews to Palestine. By 1931, Palestine housed 175,000 Jews. Were the new arrivals Zionists or people seeking an improved situation from their depressed surroundings?

During the 1930’s, Nazi persecutions of the Jews drove more than 60,000 German Jews to immigrate to Palestine (about 280,000 German and Austrian Jews migrated to other places, with about 125,000 managing to come to the United States). The German Jews were deficient in wanting  to learn Hebrew , unwilling to integrate, and perceived their voyage to the British Mandate as an escape from persecution in Nazi Germany and not necessarily a permanent solution to their refugee problem.

Figures are difficult to certify. Accepted figures are that at the end of World war II, about six million refugees wandered Europe and, after the guns went silent, one million found refuge in displaced person (DP) camps, of which 250,000 were Jews. During 1945-1950, about 120,000 of the Jewish DPs arrived in the former British Mandate. Many of the DPs had no other choice and some were unaware of where the ships were taking them. Their voyages did not conclude in 1950. Not well publicized is that “Between 1945 and 1967, almost 190,000 Jews left Palestine and Israel.”

The vast number of Jews wanting to leave Israel troubled the humanitarian commissions that previously served the refugees. Meetings between commission representatives and  Israeli authorities  highlighted that “emigration from the country was creating serious complications in Europe, and becoming a political embarrassment for Israel.” What did the Israeli government do? A discussion on Israel’s formation relates:

The government restricted distribution of passports and exit permits….The Israeli government also decided that new immigrants wishing to leave the country would not be allowed to do so unless they refund the state for the value of material benefits that they had received upon immigration to Israel. In some cases, prospective emigrants were even required to repay the costs involved in bringing them to Israel and maintaining them in immigration camps in Israel. And this was a serious obstacle for emigration because many people who wanted to leave the country were unable to pay all those costs, so they had to stay in Israel. And, the government also launched a propaganda campaign in the newspapers against emigration.

The dispossession of the Palestinians , which led to the 1948 war between Israel and Arab states, provoked Arab leaders to question the loyalty of their Arab Jews and placed the Jews living in Arab nations in a difficult position. Although Arabs by ethnicity and having a Jewish heritage in their surroundings for 2000 years, these Jews were now regarded with suspicion. Zionist operations within their nations, military conflicts, and oppression of the Palestinians, provoked the Arab governments into hostile actions against their Jewish citizens who had no recourse but to find safety with those who had caused their plight.

Why would Jews, who survived the ups and downs of having lived among Arabs for 2000 years, suddenly leave  their homelands? An Iraqi Jew had closer ethnic relationship to an Egyptian Muslim than to an Ashkenazi Jew. The former differed mainly in religious practices. An Iraqi Jew, except for religious practices, had little commonality with the Ashkenazi Jew.

The sudden exit of Arab Jews from their ancient lands questioned the veracity of the Zionist movement. If Zion was a home for Jews, why hadn’t these Jews moved to the Levant during the Ottoman Empire, and why hadn’t the Zionists considered relocating them from their inception? One answer is contained in an article, “Ideology or Ethnicity? The Israeli Political Crisis,” By Ori Yehudai

The concept of the “new Jew” espoused by Labor Zionists was a project of Western modernization. It emphasized modern “Israeliness”—the product of the Zionist revolution—over “Jewishness,” which was identified with the diasporic past. This approach was less appealing for Jews originating in Muslim countries, many of whom had remained more rooted in Jewish tradition.

It is obvious that it was the creation of apartheid and genocidal Israel that doomed the life of fellow Jews in Arab lands and, in many case, extraordinary lives that were reduced to despair and destitution and could not be easily repaired. Moshe Gat, Professor Emeritus, Bar Ilan University, General History and Political Science reports in  Iraq and its Jewish minority: from the establishment of the state to the great Jewish immigration 1921-1951,

 Jews were considered among the top tier of Iraqi society and were at the centre of its political and spiritual life. There were judges, lawyers, writers, poets, and politicians among them. They viewed themselves as worthy and capable of shaping the Iraqi state and society, feeling that they were an integral part of it. The community leaders’ good economic status, their influence over the country’s trade and economy, and long history in Iraq served as suitable grounds for integrating into local society since the establishment of Iraq as a state.

The last two great waves of immigration came from the Soviet Union. From 1970 to 1988, 291,000 Soviet Jews were granted exit visas, of who 165,000 migrated to Israel and 126,000 to the United States. The Kremlin granted visas to Soviet Jews who had relatives in Israel, but the Washington Post, February 19, 1989, reports, “Most of the newcomers leave the Soviet Union on Israeli visas, but once they get to the halfway stop in Vienna, more than 90 percent jump ship and opt for the United States.” Arrangements between Israel and the United States steered the recalcitrant back to Israel. Few Soviet Jews cared to go to Israel. They had no choice.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the desperate economic and social situation prompted its citizens to seek comfortable surroundings. Additional opportunities for Soviet Jews to migrate arose and 810,727 came to Israel during the last decade of the 20th century. Did these Jews come to Israel as Zionists or as disenchanted who had no other place to go? A report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) leans to the latter conviction.

The exodus of Soviet Jews increased in 1989 with almost 90 percent wanting to resettle in the United States. Some estimated that as many as 50,000 to 60,000 would leave in 1989. There would be a dual-track system for Soviet Jews to leave the Soviet Union. They could either apply to go to Israel or apply for refugee status at the American Embassy in Moscow….This arrangement of a two-track system in Moscow resulted in Israel becoming, “by default, the destination for the vast majority of Jews seeking refuge.”

Another wave of immigrants to Israel came from Ethiopia. The Beta Israel practiced a more biblical Judaism than rabbinic Judaism and considered  themselves Jews. Historians are uncertain how this relationship emerged and when it was first noticed. From 1980 to 2009, they came to Israel in several operations, with a strange logistics support from the United States.

More pull by Israeli rabbis than push from Ethiopians, the Israeli government decided in 1977 that the Beta Israel qualified for the Israeli Law of Return. Israeli forces performed several dramatic operations to rescue the Beta Israel communities from civil war and famine. “At the end of 2019, there were 155,300 Jews of Ethiopian descent in Israel. Approximately 87,500 were Israelis who were born in Ethiopia, and 67,800 were born-and-raised Israelis with fathers born in Ethiopia.”

Despite progress, Ethiopian Jews are still not well assimilated into Israeli-Jewish society. They remain, on average, on a lower economic and educational level than other Israelis.  From UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:

TEL AVIV, 9 February 2012 (IRIN) – Growing up in Israel, Shay Sium became accustomed to being called a “nigger.” Sium, 32, has lived in Israel most of his life, but says he and other Ethiopian Jews are treated differently from other Israelis: factories do not want to employ them; landlords refuse them; and certain schools turn away their children. “The word discrimination doesn’t describe what we experience. There is another word for it: racism. It is a shame that we still have to use this word today,” he told IRIN. An estimated 125,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel, but while they are supposed to be full citizens with equal rights, their community has continued to face widespread discrimination and socio-economic difficulties, according to its leaders. A recent decision – as reported by local media – by 120 homeowners not to sell or rent their apartments to Israeli-Ethiopian families has brought discrimination against Ethiopian Jews in Israel back into the spotlight

They came as Beta Israel. They survive as converts to a new Israeli, their heritage disappearing in the Zionist regimented surroundings.

Commentary has shown that Zionism attracted a relatively small portion of Jews to Palestine. They came for many other reasons and left for many reasons. The total number of Israelis who migrated to other countries and resided abroad reached 756 thousand at the end of 2020. The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics said that between 572-612 thousand Israelis lived outside the country, and this estimate does not include the number of those born abroad.

Israel is not composed of Jews who sought a state defined by Israel’s Nation State Laws. It is composed of Jews who sought escape from economic and social oppression or deprivation, only to learn they were to become executioners in victimizing and oppressing others and have their children indoctrinated by a philosophy that traumatized them with the belief that the entire world was composed of anti-Semites waiting to harm them, and only Israel provided a safe haven.

The Zionists have not created an ingathering of the Jewish people or returned them to their ancient lands. As described previously, Jews as a people do not exist, an ancient Hebrew civilization is a fictitious exaggeration, and Jews of today are scarcely related to Hebrews who wandered the hills of Judah 2500 years ago. Want confirmation?

Go to Ashkelon and its open-air museum of civilizations that ruled Ashkelon from the Canaanites to the Ottomans. No mention of a Hebrew civilization or Hebrew rule. Go to any of the great museums of the world — Metropolitan, British, Louvre, several in Berlin, and Jerusalem. No artifacts or presentations of any ancient Hebrew civilization and no reference to Jews governing the Mediterranean coast of present day Israel, the area to which the Zionists “returned.” Go to Jerusalem and learn there is no extant major structure from Biblical Israel. The only well-known structure, the Western wall, is an ancient supporting wall of the platform from Herod’s time, which did not hear worshippers at that time. It became a place of prayer for Jews in the late 15th century after Mameluke authorities permitted Jews a safe place for worship, and suddenly morphed into “the most revered site in Judaism,” during modern times. Revered by default, there is no other.

Another revered Jewish ground is Masada and its heroic fighters against Roman oppression. The balloon recently burst on this one. From the Times of Israel, Masada legend upended: ‘The Romans came, saw and conquered, quickly and brutally.

Recent research by a team of Tel Aviv University archaeologists may upend the Masada legend by asserting that the siege likely lasted just a few weeks and not years. [ED: Indicates that Masada Jews did not commit suicide] Likewise, the primary motivation for the Romans in assaulting Masada wasn’t to defeat the last holdout of the Jewish rebellion but rather to preserve the supply of lucrative balsam, a perfume produced in nearby Ein Gedi.

But the dominant faction at Masada was indeed “the bandits,” who, as noted by Josephus, sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem went down from Masada to Ein Gedi in a raid. They killed hundreds of women and children at the balsam plantation there after the workers fled, and disrupted production of the precious fragrance. It was an effective raid designed to damage Roman interests in the region.

The Zionists have not created an ingathering of Jewish people. The Jews, as a people do not exist.
The Zionists have not recreated an ancient Jewish civilization. No vital ancient Jewish civilization ever existed.

Examine closely.
The Zionists recreated the medieval European ghetto, complete with walls and Jewish isolation from other communities. They replaced intermittent attacks against Jews with permanent attacks on Jews; come to Israel and face a daily barrage of flying bullets.

The Zionists have divided Jewish communities, caused severe family frictions, and spurred Jews to relinquish their Jewish faith.

The Zionists shifted intermittent resentment against Jews to perpetual animosity, leading almost the entire world to label Jews as committing genocide of the Palestinian people. We are all anti-Semites now.

The humanism that guided American Jews is almost gone.
Jewish heritage that developed the Talmud, the guiding laws of modern Jewry, has disappeared.
Jews are depicted as people with yarmulkes, living on hilltops, and carrying Uzi guns.
The Messiah that brings Jews back to Jerusalem has arrived and is not wanted.

Judaism is dead and its coffin is in Gaza.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.

French police have shot and killed two men in New Caledonia, stoking tensions with pro-independence groups days ahead of a public holiday marking France’s annexation of the Pacific archipelago.

The pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) decried the deaths yesterday as “barbaric and humiliating methods” used by French police resulting in a “summary execution” and called for an independent investigation.

The shootings bring the number of deaths in the Pacific territory to 13 since unrest began in May over French government changes to a voting law that indigenous Kanak people feared would compromise their push for independence.

• READ MORE: France boosts Pacific security forces as symbolic ‘September 24’ date looms
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

The men were killed in a confrontation between French gendarmerie and Kanak protesters in the tribal village of Saint Louis, a heartland of the independence movement near the capital Nouméa.

Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas said in a media statement the police operation using armoured vehicles was to arrest suspects for attempted murder of officers and for armed robbery on the Saint Louis road, with “nearly 300 shots noted in recent months.”

“The two deceased persons were the subject of a search warrant, among a total of 13 persons implicated, sought and located in the Saint Louis tribe,” Dupas said, adding they had failed to respond to summonses.

Dupas ordered two investigations, one over the attempted murders of police officers and the second into “death without the intention of causing it relating to the use of weapons by the GIGN gendarmerie (elite police tactical unit) and the consequent death of the two persons sought”.

Push back ‘peaceful solution’
Union Calédonienne (UC) secretary-general Dominique Fochi said yesterday the actions of French security forces “only worsen the situation on the ground and push back the prospect of a peaceful solution.”

“The FLNKS denounces the barbaric and humiliating methods used by the police, who did not hesitate to carry out a summary execution of one of the young people in question,” Fochi read from a FLNKS statement at a press conference.

“We demand an immediate de-escalation of military interventions in the south of our country, particularly in Saint Louis, where militarisation and pressure continue on the population, which can only lead to more human drama.”

The statement called for an immediate “independent and impartial investigation to shed light on the circumstances of these assassinations in order to establish responsibilities”.

Prosecutor Dupas said police came under fire from up to five people during the operation in Saint Louis and responded with two shots.

“The first shot from the policeman hit a man, aged 30, positioned as a lone sniper, who was wounded in the right flank. The second shot hit a 29-year-old man in the chest,” Dupas said, adding three rifles and ammunition had been seized.

One of the men died at the scene, while the other escaped and later died after arriving at a local hospital.

Deaths raise Citizenship Day tensions
The deaths are likely to raise tensions ahead of Citizenship Day on Tuesday, which will mark the 171st anniversary of France’s takeover of New Caledonia.

For many Kanaks, the anniversary is a reminder of France’s brutal colonisation of the archipelago that is located roughly halfway between Australia and Fiji.

Paris has beefed up security ahead of Citizenship Day, with High Commissioner Louis Le Franc saying nearly 7000 French soldiers, police and gendarmes are now in New Caledonia.

“I have requested reinforcements, which have been granted,” he told local station Radio Rythme Bleu last week.

“This has never been seen before, even during the toughest times of the events in 1984 and 1988 — we have never had this,” he said, referring to a Kanak revolt in the 1980s that only ended with the promise of an independence referendum.

Authorities have also imposed a strict curfew from 6 pm to 6 am between September 21-24, restricted alcohol sales, the transport of fuel and possession of firearms.

Kanaks make up about 40 percent of New Caledonia’s 270,000 people but are marginalised in their own land — they have lower incomes and poorer health outcomes than Europeans who make up a third of the population and occupy most positions of power in the territory.

UN decolonisation process
New Caledonia voted by modest majorities to remain part of France in referendums held in 2018 and 2020 under a UN-mandated decolonisation process. Three votes were part of the Noumea Accord to increase Kanaks’ political power following deadly violence in the 1980s.

A contentious final referendum in 2021 was overwhelmingly in favour of continuing with the status quo.

However, supporters of independence have rejected its legitimacy due to very low turnout — it was boycotted by the independence movement — and because it was held during a serious phase of the covid-19 pandemic, which restricted campaigning.

Earlier this year, the president of Union Calédonienne proposed Septemnber 24 as the date by which sovereignty should be declared from France. The party later revised the date to 2025, but the comments underscored how self-determination is firmly in the minds of local independence leaders.

The unrest that erupted in May was the worst outbreak of violence in decades and has left the New Caledonian economy on the brink of collapse, with damages estimated to be at least 1.2 billion euros (US $1.3 billion).

Some 35,000 people are out of a job.

Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

We get an update from Beirut, after at least 20 people were killed and 450 others wounded in Lebanon on Wednesday when walkie-talkie radios across the country exploded without warning, the second day of an apparent Israeli operation targeting Hezbollah members by booby-trapping handheld communication devices. A day earlier, at least 12 people were killed and thousands more left with gruesome injuries when pagers began exploding across the country. Lebanon has banned pagers and walkie-talkies on all flights, while Lebanese citizens say they now live in fear that everyday household electronics could suddenly explode. Among those killed in the attacks are children, medics and other civilians. “This has been widely reported in the Western press as a sophisticated campaign that targeted alleged Hezbollah operatives, but the reality is that, for the most part, these explosions were occuring in civilian areas,” says journalist Lara Bitar, editor-in-chief of the Beirut-based independent media organization The Public Source. Bitar warns that Israel’s “terrorist attacks” could be a prelude to a larger assault. “The Israeli government has already taken a decision to escalate, to wage full-scale war on all of Lebanon.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

French police shot and killed two men in New Caledonia on Thursday morning, stoking tensions with pro-independence groups days ahead of a public holiday marking France’s annexation of the Pacific archipelago. 

The pro-independence FLNKS decried the deaths as "barbaric and humiliating methods” used by French police resulting in a “summary execution” and called for an independent investigation.

The shootings bring the number of deaths in the Pacific territory to 13 since unrest began in May over French government changes to a voting law that indigenous Kanak people feared would compromise their push for independence. 

The men were killed in a confrontation between French gendarmerie and Kanak protesters in the tribal village of Saint Louis, a heartland of the independence movement near the capital Noumea.

Public prosecutor Yves Dupas in a media statement said the police operation using armored vehicles was to arrest suspects for attempted murder of officers and for armed robbery on the Saint Louis road, with “nearly 300 shots noted in recent months.”

“The two deceased persons were the subject of a search warrant, among a total of 13 persons implicated, sought and located in the Saint Louis tribe,” Dupas said, adding they had failed to respond to summonses.

Dupas ordered two investigations, one over the attempted murders of police officers and the second into “death without the intention of causing it relating to the use of weapons by the GIGN gendarmerie [elite police tactical unit] and the consequent death of the two persons sought.”

Union Caledonie secretary general Dominique Fochi said on Thursday the actions of French security forces “only worsen the situation on the ground and push back the prospect of a peaceful solution.”

“The FLNKS denounces the barbaric and humiliating methods used by the police, who did not hesitate to carry out a summary execution of one of the young people in question,” Fochi read from a Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front statement at a press conference in Noumea.

“We demand an immediate de-escalation of military interventions in the south of our country, particularly in Saint Louis, where militarization and pressure continue on the population, which can only lead to more human drama.”

The statement called for an immediate “independent and impartial investigation to shed light on the circumstances of these assassinations in order to establish responsibilities.”

Prosecutor Dupas said police came under fire from up to five people  during the operation in Saint Louis and responded with two shots.

“The first shot from the policeman hit a man, aged 30, positioned as a lone sniper, who was wounded in the right flank. The second shot hit a 29-year-old man in the chest,” Dupas said, adding three rifles and ammunition had been seized.

One of the men died at the scene, while the other escaped and later died after arriving at a local hospital.

The deaths are likely to raise tensions ahead of Citizenship Day next Tuesday, which will mark the 171st anniversary of France’s takeover of New Caledonia.

For many Kanaks, the anniversary is a reminder of France's brutal colonization of the archipelago that is located roughly halfway between Australia and Fiji.

Paris has beefed up security ahead of Citizenship Day, with High Commissioner Louis Le Franc saying nearly 7,000 French soldiers, police and gendarmes are now in New Caledonia.

“I have requested reinforcements, which have been granted,” he told local station Radio Rythme Bleu last week. 

“This has never been seen before, even during the toughest times of the events in 1984 and 1988 – we have never had this,” he said, referring to a Kanak revolt in the 1980s that only ended with the promise of an independence referendum.

Authorities have also imposed a strict curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m between Sept. 21-24, restricted alcohol sales, the transport of fuel and possession of firearms. 

Kanaks make up about 40% of New Caledonia’s 270,000 people but are marginalized in their own land – they have lower incomes and poorer health outcomes than Europeans who make up a third of the population and occupy most positions of power in the territory.

New Caledonia voted by modest majorities to remain part of France in referendums held in 2018 and 2020 under a U.N.-mandated decolonization process. Three votes were part of the Noumea Accord to increase Kanaks’ political power following deadly violence in the 1980s.

A contentious final referendum in 2021 was overwhelmingly in favor of continuing with the status quo. However supporters of independence have rejected its legitimacy due to very low turnout – it was boycotted by the independence movement – and because it was held during a serious phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted campaigning.

Earlier this year, the president of Union Caledonian proposed Sept. 24 as the date by which sovereignty should be declared from France. The party later revised the date to 2025, but the comments underscored how self-determination is firmly in the minds of local independence leaders. 

The unrest that erupted in May was the worst outbreak of violence in decades and has left the New Caledonian economy on the brink of collapse, with damages estimated to be at least 1.2 billion euros (U.S. $1.3 billion). Some 35,000 people are out of a job. 

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Stefan Armbruster and Harry Pearl for BenarNews.

Women, girls, the elderly, and young boys have rushed to pack any vehicle they could as they escaped heavy tribal fighting that has erupted in Papua New Guinea’s Porgera Valley.

The sound of gunfire erupts in the peaceful valley, shouts of war follow the gunfire, and amid the chaos, women and girls have been hiding, ever keeping a close eye on the scenes unfolding before them.

The fight in the golden valley of Porgera started earlier this week when two factions of illegal miners fought among themselves and one faction of the group killed two men from the other faction.

• READ MORE: Pope Francis calls for end to tribal ‘spiral of violence’ in PNG visit

And the fight erupted from then on. With no leader since the death of their local member of Parliament, Maso Karipe, the valley has seen fighting intensify since Wednesday.

Caught smack in the middle are security personnel who have tried their best to bring peace to the mining township.

Papua New Guinea celebrates its independence from Australia on 16 September 1975 this weekend with a national holiday tomorrow.

The PNG Post-Courier attempted to make contact with security personnel but could only hear gunfire as the men continued to protect the mining site and each other.

Mass exodus of 5000
Porgera has seen a mass exodus of more than 5000 people.

The 20 people killed include two local mine workers and the numbers increase steadily each day. The electorate is run by gunmen, with all local services stopped and prices of goods the highest the electorate has seen in years.

The main road via Mulitaka has been closed since the May 24 landslide. The bypass road is yet to be completed.

A state of emergency must be declared, says Lagaip member Aikem Amos as his electorate borders the mining township.

He said that the government had often said short-term pain for long-term gain. However, that had fallen on deaf ears as gunmen moved into the valley laying waste to those who dared stand up against them.

Akem has called on the national government to intervene to stop the recent fight that has escalated.

He confirmed that all the schools, hospitals, aid posts, and other government services, including the BSP banking service in Porgera, were all closed in fear of this tribal warfare that is flaring like wildfire, costing a lot of lives.

Warlords ‘in control’
He said the fight was not confined to the Porgerans themselves but men from Lagaip districts and Mulitaka LLG were also involved in this fight.

“The fight is said to be covering all the Porgera valley,” Akem said.

The Lagaip MP said there was no road network, no communications, and even the price of goods and services had sky-rocketed in the last few days due to the fight and the road reconstruction in Mulitaka.

“The only thing that seems to be working is the Porgera gold mine,” Akem said.

He added there were not enough policemen and soldiers to maintain peace in the valley.

A few security personnel who were there were protecting the mine site and the nearby area and outside the mine premises all was in the hands of warlords.

“I as the member for Lagaip call for the government to intervene and declare a state of emergency in Porgera Valley now,” Akem said.

‘Peaceful golden valley’ gone
“If the government takes longer time to stop the fight in Porgera now, we might never have a mine in the next two weeks or months and years to come,” he added.

He said that there was no leadership in Porgera and the place once called a “peaceful golden valley” was in the hands of warlords now as we were were speaking.

Akem said without the late Maso Karipe there was nobody in Porgera to provide leadership.

“I am a leader for the people of Lagaip and I cannot look after Porgera District too given the status of my capability. But as a leader, I will always call for the national government’s intervention,” he said.

Prime Minister James Marape and coalition members were reminded in Parliament this week that law and order was the number one priority.

PM Marape said: “In this meeting, this body of leaders, on behalf of the coalition government, has elevated the fight for law and order as a number one priority as we move our country into 50 years of Independence and beyond.

“We resolved that, in the face of many competing needs, this government must, at the very earliest, explore every possible means to uphold the rule of law in our country, strengthen law enforcement, and ensure that the police and all systems of justice are functioning properly.

Concerted effort needed
“While we work on the economy, fixing health and education, and developing infrastructure through Connect PNG, every concerted effort must be made in the area of law and order, including fighting corruption.

“This is the number one focus for our coalition government.”

Prime Minister Marape emphasised that this initiative built upon the government’s ongoing efforts in the law and justice sector, including targeted personnel training to bolster ongoing force and the broader justice system.

According to sources on the ground the New Porgera mine had shut down its operations for a day as fighting continued on Wednesday.

However, by Thursday, the mine had reopened.

Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Photograph Source: WAFA (Q2915969) – CC BY-SA 3.0

Israel’s assault on Gaza has now officially surpassed the gruesome milestone of 40,000 Palestinians dead, but in counting only those killed in direct acts of violence that number captures just a fraction of the human loss.

“Most civilian casualties in war are not the result of direct exposure to bombs and bullets,” noted a 2017 studypublished by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, “they are due to the destruction of the essentials of daily living, including food, water, shelter, and health care.”

This broader understanding of conflict casualties was applied to Gaza in a July study published in The Lancet, one of the world’s premier medical journals. The study found that at that time, it was plausible to assume that Israel’s military campaign would be responsible for the deaths of some 186,000 people.

To calculate this number, the authors started with the almost 37,400 direct deaths the Gaza health authorities had confirmed as of June 19, with Israeli intelligence services themselves deeming the authority’s counting reliable. The authors then cited a survey of armed conflicts over the last several decades that showed the ratio of direct to indirect deaths was roughly between 1:3 and 1:15.

In other words, for every person killed by direct violence in recent wars, another three to 15 died due to conflict-induced factors, mainly preventable diseases and hunger that resulted from losing access to healthcare, shelter, food, and clean drinking water. The Lancet authors then assumed a rather conservative ratio of 1:4 direct to indirect deaths in Gaza – 37,400 direct deaths plus 149,600 indirect deaths – to arrive at their estimate.

Notably, while Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel killed more than 1,000 people, the direct-to-indirect casualty ratio is not applicable given that the wider Israeli population was not denied the necessities of life for any significant period.

In Gaza, the 1:4 ratio is conservative given that the Israeli air force has subjected Gaza to the most intense bombing campaign in history. In the first 200 days of the onslaught alone, the Israeli air force dropped 20 times more bombs per square kilometer on Gaza than the US did during nine years of the Vietnam War, previously history’s most intense bombing campaign that had itself dwarfed those during World War II. This has left most buildings in Gaza damaged or destroyed and 80 percent of the population displaced, often numerous times.

The Israeli army has also blocked most food, water, fuel, electricity, and humanitarian and medical supplies from entering the strip since October 7. Today, this has left almost half a million Gazans facing “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity, according to the UN, with more than 1.6 million people suffering from acute respiratory infections, jaundice, and diarrhea, 20 of the strip’s 36 hospitals inoperable and the remainder “partially functional.”

The impact of losing access to healthcare is starkly illustrated by the example of pregnant women in Gaza, estimated at 50,000 when the war began. Many have miscarried and are having stillbirths, faced C-sections with unsensitized equipment and without anesthetic, while increasing numbers of newborns are “simply dying,” according to the World Health Organization, because starving mothers are giving birth to critically underweight babies.

The Israeli campaign in Gaza – for which the world’s top two international courts are pursuing charges of genocide and crimes against humanity against the Israeli state and its leaders – has continued unabated since The Lancet published its study. With no reason to believe that the 1:4 ratio of direct to indirect deaths has decreased, the 40,000 Gazans now confirmed killed by violent means entails that the total deaths attributable to the Israeli campaign would be pushing past 200,000. That is 9 percent of Gaza’s pre-war population.

The Israeli army claimed in August that it had killed 17,000 Hamas fighters. While yet to comment on this latest assertion, Hamas itself has said previous Israeli statements of its losses were inflated by more than two-thirds. Regardless of which is closer to the truth, what the range makes clear is that combatants make up a fraction of the 200,000 total deaths for which Israel is responsible.

To properly place the Gaza death toll within the context of historical atrocities, consider that the first extermination camp the Nazis established during WWII, near Chelmno in German-occupied Poland, massacred at least 172,000 innocent people, while the atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan during the same war and their radioactive aftermath are estimated to have killed more than 210,000 souls.

Perhaps most tragically, Gaza Health Ministry figures show that of the 40,000 direct deaths reached by August, 41 percent were children younger than 18 years old. Children tend to be disproportionately affected by the harms of armed conflict. Thus, it is likely that the ratio of indirect deaths within this age bracket is greater than for the general population. However, using The Lancet’s 1:4 ratio as a baseline, it is plausible to assume that the number of children Israel’s Gaza campaign will be responsible for killing is at least 82,000.

For perspective, three children who were laid side-by-side holding hands would take up roughly a meter’s width on average. Some 82,000 children laid side-by-side would form a line over 27 kilometers long. An average person standing on a flat plain would see that line of dead children stretch from them to the horizon and well beyond. That person would have to walk for five and a half hours to reach the end of the line. The drive would take more than 15 minutes on the highway, traveling at 100 km per hour.

All that would apply if today the war ended. As of this writing, however, Israel was still bombing Gaza and blocking access to life’s necessities, thereby ensuring the line of bodies will continue stretching well into the distance.

This first appeared on the Beirut-based Badil.

The post Beyond Bombs and Bullets: The Full Tally of Gaza’s Dead appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Spencer Osberg.

A couple of weeks ago, I plunged into Lake Michigan. Unlike usual, the water felt warm. It was easy to run all the way in and easy to float over the waves. Montrose beach was crowded with families, pitching tents to keep out of the sun. Children played, laughed, and cried. Midwesterners who still hadn’t made it out into the sun crisped their pale shoulders. It would have been a perfectly relaxing day, but fighter jets circled above everyone’s heads — doing dives and turning every which way. Mothers plugged their children’s ears and I saw a baby wearing noise canceling headphones.

It was the Air and Water show — an annual proud display of American military capabilities. They are the same jets that fly over the shores of Gaza, dropping bombs on families. That’s what I thought about — it was just by happenstance that we were there watching these planes as a performance rather than in Gaza as a weapon of mass slaughter. The more places I travel to, the more I realize how much the world looks the same. People everywhere are really kind and generous — the only thing that separates us is if the stars align to have us born under the boot of the United States or not.

As the jets flew over our heads I felt my stomach sour. In two weeks, the Democratic National Convention would come to Chicago and it was a present opportunity to make clear the contradictions that kept me up at night. Once months and months away, the DNC was finally around the corner.

This week, members of the Democratic Party came from all parts of the country to convene in Chicago. They were coronating Kamala Harris as their presidential nominee, a woman no one really voted for. Even in the face of this blatant lack of democracy, the party members were elated to choose her. They carried signs with her husband’s name and applause erupted from the tens of thousands of people in the United Center when she declared that the United States would have the “most lethal military” in the world under her leadership. To the people well aware of the millions of people the United States killed in the last twenty years alone, her statement was a threat.

The week was marked by the obvious gaps between the people going into the United Center and the people outside of it.

There was a young woman that sat outside the exit of the Democratic National Convention on its third night reading the names of the children Israel has killed in the last ten months. She did it for hours, until her speaker battery died. She did it alone, taking care to pronounce every child’s name correctly and to say their age at the time of their murder. Without her, many of the DNC guests wouldn’t necessarily be confronted with the carnage members of their party is carrying out.

Outside the gates of the DNC I saw a young woman making sure the children of Palestine weren’t just numbers, and I saw people laughing at her for doing so. They laughed loudly and mocked her voice. They mocked the names of the dead babies. They yelled at her to leave them alone. They left the coronation ceremony livid that they had to even hear about Gaza.

That night was demoralizing, and it’s something I will remember for the rest of my life.

Democrats laugh at the names of dead children. They openly refuse to let a Palestinian speak for two minutes at their four day long event. They order riot cops on people protesting a genocide. They have their parties, fundraisers, and happy hours while bodies pile up. If they really didn’t think the genocide was so bad, they wouldn’t get so mad at us for reminding them. They knew that the people they were rallying behind are cheering on mass slaughter — they’ve just weighed their fun, their careers, and their vanity against the lives of 180,000 Palestinians and decided that nothing could be more important than themselves. I don’t care what they said to me, or my friends, but I hope our faces and our presence made them feel even an ounce of discomfort. In the best case scenario, I hope they went to sleep hearing the echoes of the martyrs’ names. I still foolishly hope they turn a corner at some point.

There’s a lot to be said about the Democratic National Convention. It happened in the city with the largest Palestinian population in the United States. Plenty of our neighbors here have lost dozens and dozens of their immediate and extended families and Kamala Harris took to the stage to promise her ironclad support to their executioners. Riot cops filed into the streets, prepared to use the kettling tactics they used from the Israeli military. All of a sudden, the place I call home felt unrecognizable. The air of the coronation felt heavy — it didn’t feel like home. There were points where I was with thousands of other people, chanting in unison, but still felt so lonely. Luxury SUVs carried important people into important buildings for important events. And between us and the importance, there were police with rifles strapped to their chests.

But there were also good people. Like the girl outside the convention. And the thousand of people that marched with us. And the Shake Shack worker that joined us because he had 15 minutes before his shift started. And the security that had to kick us out to keep their job but told us how much what we were doing meant to them.

In the lead up to the DNC, we spent so much time thinking about the last DNC that happened here in 1968. Protests against the Vietnam war took to the streets in small numbers, demanding an end to the war. They were met with horrible police brutality, and mass arrests with long legal battles in their wake. Our mentors from ‘68 urged us not to be nostalgic for those days. I still admire them for going face to face with the Chicago riot cops, but I’ve also taken their reflections of ‘68 very seriously — they didn’t end the war on Vietnam. Many of them feel like they could have focused more on building a sustainable movement that people could join for the long haul. The 2024 DNC in Chicago presented us a unique opportunity — we had to take this huge moment of mass mobilization and make sure our efforts and organization doesn’t get washed away when all the balloons on the United Center floor are popped, and the important people fly out of O’Hare. When the dust settles and the most powerful people in the world leave our city, how will we keep fighting? I was happy when so many people asked us what was next, because it meant we were thinking long term.

In our own discourses on the left, the week was consumed by the discussion of tactics – what works and what doesn’t. An organizer I know reminded us about our responsibility to be a movement people want to join. There are plenty of people who are sympathetic to our cause but haven’t figured out how to be part of it. There’s millions of people without a movement home. Our cause is already popular, it’s already growing every day. Are we doing what we can to make sure people know where to go? Are we keeping our eyes on the prize or are we getting so wrapped up in nostalgia that we can’t see what we will be capable of a year from now if we move strategically? We are nothing without the people. Our responsibility is to the people —not to our egos, not to our careers, not to the vanity of our organizations, and not to our impulses. As a movement we generally have to be better at unlearning instant gratification and also embracing a diversity of tactics. But that’s something for another day.

It is easy to stand on a police line. It’s easy to yell at politicians. It’s easy to say things and do things by yourself. It’s hard to organize your neighbors and talk to new people about things they don’t immediately understand — my hope comes from the idea that once we get really good at that, the light at the end of the tunnel will be as clear as day.

Chicagoans are loud, principled, and good people and because of that there  are 2.6 million reasons to love this city. For a few days Chicagoans made certain democrats couldn’t walk around our city without seeing and hearing about the people of Gaza. It’s my hope that we see that as a small success, and also my hope that we saw the week of mobilizations as a jumping off point for building the world we want to see.

Lake Michigan is connected to the ocean through narrow waterways along the northern border of the United States, and someone mentioned at a protest that it’s not unfathomable that the waves crashing onto the shores of Gaza were once here in Chicago, and vice versa. Even if we don’t have skies that are absent of fighter jets in my lifetime, every second spent moving us towards that kind of life was worth it. As long as we don’t throw in the towel, we are closer than ever to that reality.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Danaka Katovich.

We end today’s show in conversation with New York City Councilmember Yusef Salaam. He was one of five teenagers from Harlem — four Black and one Latino — wrongfully accused and convicted of raping and nearly killing 28-year-old white investment banker Trisha Meili in 1989. Meili had been jogging in Central Park when she was assaulted, and the accused teens became known as the Central Park Five. They faced a barrage of racism from the public and news media during their trial, including from real estate mogul and future U.S. president Donald Trump. All of the boys were convicted and served at least six years, with one, Korey Wise, having been tried as an adult, spending over a decade in prison. All were later exonerated after DNA evidence corroborated a separate man’s confession to the attack. Redubbed the Exonerated Five, four of the five members addressed the Democratic National Convention last week, slamming Trump, who called for their execution and says he still believes the men are guilty, as hateful and dangerous. “The reality was that we were guilty of the color of our skin,” says Salaam, who successfully ran for city council last year.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“The killing of journalists Win Htut Oo and Htet Myat Thu is an atrocity against the free press and must not go unpunished,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Myanmar authorities must ensure swift and full justice for the country’s independent journalists who are being killed simply for reporting the news.”

The bodies of Win Htut Oo, a journalist with the media group Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), and Htet Myat Thu, a freelance reporter with the local Than Lwin Times outlet, were cremated without being returned to their families, according to a U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Asia report.

Two other people were killed in the August 21 raid in Kyaikto Township. One was a member of the local Kyaikto Revolutionary Force, one of several armed groups resisting the military government, which took power in a 2021 coup.

Myanmar’s Ministry of Information did not respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.

Myanmar ranked 9th on CPJ’s latest Global Impunity Index, an annual ranking of countries where the killers of journalists habitually get away with murder. The nation also was the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists, with 43 behind bars in CPJ’s 2023 prison census.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Yi Shenghua, who until Wednesday morning local time was listed as a director of the Beijing Yongzhe Law Firm, sparked a social media storm after he revealed the grisly details of a body-snatching scheme in which dead bodies and body parts were sold off to biotech institutions to be harvested for dental bone grafts without relatives’ knowledge or consent.

Investigators from the Ministry of Public Security are investigating reports that Shanxi Aurui Biomaterials had been involved in trading thousands of dead bodies or body parts, on suspicion that the company engaged in “theft of, insult to, or intentional destruction of human remains,” according to multiple news reports that followed up on Yi’s posts.

Yi had alleged that bodies were being sent to the company from funeral homes across Shanxi, Sichuan and Guangxi provinces, with thousands of bodies in Sichuan alone, and more than 70 families seeking redress. 

Their bones were being used to create dental bone implants, and relatives couldn’t be sure the ashes they were receiving were indeed the complete remains of their loved ones, he wrote, quoting a fellow lawyer.

Later, after being warned off going public by officials from the Beijing Municipal Judicial Affairs, he posted: “I am willing to pay the price to expose this enraging truth.”

In an Aug. 13 official announcement, the Bureau said Yi would step down from his position as director of Beijing Yongzhe, which he founded. The firm didn’t immediately update its website, however, and Yi was still listed as a director on Wednesday morning.

An employee who answered the phone at Beijing Yongzhe on Wednesday appeared to confirm the move when contacted by RFA Mandarin.

“Li Yinghong is now the director recognized by the Judicial Affairs Bureau,” the employee said, before handing the phone to a colleague.

Asked why Yi’s name was still listed on the firm’s website, the second colleague said: “The Bureau of Judicial Affairs’ version will definitely be more accurate than ours.”

Soon afterward, Yi’s listing as director was removed from the firm’s website, and Li Yinghong’s name appeared in its place.

‘Anyone who dares to expose’

A Beijing-based lawyer who gave only the pseudonym Wang for fear of reprisals said Yi’s ouster was definitely linked to his whistle-blowing over the body-snatching case.

“The Beijing Municipal Judicial Affairs Bureau has a deputy director of the lawyers’ work guidance department called Zhu Yuzhu who has been behind the punishment of many lawyers and law firms in the past,” Wang said. “He was the architect of the July 9, 2015, political crackdown [on rights lawyers].”

“Now, it’s Yi Shenghua’s turn,” he said. “Yi’s exposure of the theft and sale of human bones was a meaningful act for society, but ... he is being punished by the Beijing Municipal Judicial Affairs Bureau.”

Another lawyer who gave only the pseudonym Tan for fear of reprisals said Yi’s sacking highlights how little freedom of speech there is in China.

“It’s not just Yi Shenghua; journalists who exposed the gutter oil scandal were also persecuted back then,” Tan said. “Anyone who dares to expose the dark side [of Chinese society] will be attacked and retaliated against.”

Chinese censors have moved in tandem with the sacking of Yi Shenghua to minimize public discussion of the scandal.

All of Yi’s Weibo posts about the body-snatching case have since been removed from the social media platform Weibo, along with much of the content and comment on the case.

According to an in-depth follow-up from official media outlet The Paper that has since been deleted, the Taiyuan Public Security Bureau in the northern province of Shanxi sent the results of an investigation into the illegal sale of corpses to the state prosecutor for review and prosecution in May.

Shanxi Aorui stands accused of “illegally purchasing human remains and body parts from Sichuan, Guangxi, Shandong and other places for processing into bone grafts worth 380 million yuan (US$53 million) between January 2015 and July 2023,” The Paper said.

It said police had seized “more than 18 tonnes of human bones” and more than 34,000 articles of finished product from the company, and that one suspect identified only by his surname Su had arranged for more than 4,000 human remains to be stolen from four funeral homes in Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou and Sichuan between 2017 and 2019.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Huang Chun-mei for RFA Mandarin.

We have not embedded the actual video in question in view of its graphic nature.

A 28-second video is viral on social media which shows distressing footage of four dead bodies in a room, including those of two children. All the bodies have nooses around their neck and two of them are still hanging. Against the backdrop of the unprecedented crisis in Bangladesh, where several reports of attacks against minorities have surfaced, this video is being shared with the claim that Islamic extremists murdered the Hindu family in an act of religious hate crime.

X-verified user Salwan Momika (@Salwan_Momika1) posted this viral video with the claim that ‘Islamic jihadists’ in Bangladesh had killed the Hindu family. He also added a hashtag with the phrase ‘Save Bangladeshi Hindus’. (Archive) 

He further urged the Indian government to intervene and save Hindus from ‘genocide’ by Muslims in Bangladesh. At the time of this article being written, the post has managed to gather around 8.8 Lakh views, and more than 12,000 re-shares.

X user @Sharabh_Vishnu_ also posted the viral clip, along with the claim that the Hindu family had been murdered by Islamic extremists. (Archive)

Such claims are also viral on Facebook, with various users alleging that four members of a Hindu family had been killed by Muslims in Bangladesh.

Fact Check

We ran a relevant Bengali keyword search on Google, which led us to a news article by Bangladeshi daily Dainik Ittefak dated July 28, 2024. The report states that all four members of a family had died by hanging at Bijoypara in the Nabinagar upazila of Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh. It adds that the hanged bodies were discovered by neighbours, who reported it to the police, around 10:30 am on July 28. The deceased were identified as Sohag Miya, Jannatul Begum, and their two children, Fariya and Fahima.

Another news article reports that neighbours speculated that it was a case of suicide, since Sohag Miya, a small businessman, had possibly run into heavy debts. However, a report in Bengali daily Kaaler Kantho quotes local police officer Mohammad Sakhawat as saying that circumstantial evidence and the way the bodies were found suggested that Sohag might have killed his wife and children over a family dispute and then committed suicide.

We ran a relevant keyword search on YouTube, and came across this video from July 28, which reports on the same incident of the four hanged members of the same family in Bangladesh.

None of the reports mentioned a communal angle to the alleged crime.

To sum up, the viral footage is from an incident in Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh from July 28 in which four members of a Muslim family were found dead in their house. The video is being shared with the false claim that a Hindu family was murdered by Muslims in Bangladesh.

Prantik Ali is an intern at Alt News.

The post Bangladesh: 4 of a Muslim family found dead in Brahmanbaria; footage falsely viral as killing of Hindus by ‘Jihadists’ appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Prantik Ali.

BBC coverage of the attack on a football pitch in the Golan Heights last Saturday has been intentionally misleading.

The BBC’s evening news entirely ignored the fact that those killed by the blast are a dozen Syrians, not Israeli citizens, and that for decades the surviving Syrian population in the Golan, most of them Druze, has been forced to live unwillingly under an Israeli military occupation.

I suppose mention of this context might complicate the story Israel and the BBC wish to tell — and risk reminding viewers that Israel is a belligerent state occupying not just Palestinian territory but Syrian territory too (not to mention nearby Lebanese territory).

• READ MORE: After Golan Heights attack, will the Israel-Hezbollah conflict escalate?
• Other Israeli war on Gaza and Middle East reports

It might suggest to audiences that these various permanent Israeli occupations have been contributing not only to large-scale human rights abuses but to regional tensions as well. That Israel’s acts of aggression against its neighbours might be the cause of “conflict”, rather than, as Israel and the BBC would have us believe, some kind of unusual, pre-emptive form of self-defence.

The BBC, of course, chose to uncritically air comments from a military spokesman for Israel, who blamed Hizbullah for the blast in the Golan.

Daniel Hagari tried to milk the incident for maximum propaganda value, arguing: “This attack shows the true face of Hezbollah, a terrorist organisation that targets and murders children playing soccer.”

Except, as the BBC failed to mention in its report, Israel infamously targeted and murdered four young children from the Bakr family playing football on a beach in Gaza in 2014.

Much more recently, video footage showed Israel striking yet more children playing football at a school in Gaza that was serving as a shelter for families whose homes were destroyed by earlier Israeli bombs.

Panic as Israeli strike hits near Gaza school playground.  Video: The Guardian

Doubtless other strikes in Gaza over the past 10 months, so many of them targeting school-shelters, have killed Palestinian children playing football 0- especially as it is one of the very few ways they can take their mind off the horror all around.

So, should we – and the BBC – not conclude that all these attacks on children playing football make the Israeli military even more of a terrorist organisation than Hizbullah?

Note too the way the western media are so ready to accept unquestioningly Israel’s claim that Hizbullah was responsible for the blast – and dismiss Hizbullah’s denials.

Viewers are discouraged from exercising their memories. Any who do may recall that those same media outlets were only too willing to take on faith Israeli disinformation suggesting that Hamas had hit Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital back in October, even when all the evidence showed it was an Israeli air strike.

(Israel soon went on to destroy all Gaza’s hospitals, effectively eradicating the enclave’s health sector, on the pretext that medical facilities there served as Hamas bases – another patently preposterous claim the western media treated with wide-eyed credulity.)

The BBC next went to Jerusalem to hear from diplomatic editor Paul Adams. He intoned gravely: “This is precisely what we have been worrying about for the past 10 months — that something of this magnitude would occur on the northern border, that would turn what has been a simmering conflict for all of these months into an all-out war.”

So there you have it. Paul Adams and the BBC concede they haven’t been worrying for the past 10 months about the genocide unfolding under their very noses in Gaza, or its consequences.

A genocide of Palestinians, apparently, is not something of significant “magnitude”.

Only now, when Israel can exploit the deaths of Syrians forced to live under its military rule as a pretext to expand its “war”, are we supposed to sit up and take notice. Or so the BBC tells us.

Update – ‘Tightening the noose’:
Facebook instantly removed a post linking to this article — and for reasons that are entirely opaque to me (apart from the fact that it is critical of the BBC and Israel).

Facebook’s warning, threatening that my account may face “more account restrictions”, suggests that I was misleading followers by taking them to a “landing page that impersonates another website”. That is patent nonsense. The link took them to this Substack page.

As I have been warning for some time, social media platforms have been tightening the noose around the necks of independent journalists like me, making our work all but impossible to find. It is only a matter of time before we are disappeared completely.

Substack has been a lifeline, because it connects readers to my work directly — either through email or via Substack’s app — bypassing, at least for the moment, the grip of the social-media billionaires.

If you wish to keep reading my articles, and haven’t already, please sign up to my Substack page.

Jonathan Cook is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at www.jonathan-cook.net. This article was first published on Substack and is republished with the permission of the author.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

BBC coverage of the attack on a football pitch in the Golan Heights on Saturday has been intentionally misleading.

The BBC’s evening news entirely ignored the fact that those killed by the blast are a dozen Syrians, not Israeli citizens, and that for decades the surviving Syrian population in the Golan, most of them Druze, has been forced to live unwillingly under an Israeli military occupation.

I suppose mention of this context might complicate the story Israel and the BBC wish to tell – and risk reminding viewers that Israel is a belligerent state occupying not just Palestinian territory but Syrian territory too (not to mention nearby Lebanese territory).

It might suggest to audiences that these various permanent Israeli occupations have been contributing not only to large-scale human rights abuses but to regional tensions as well. That Israel’s acts of aggression against its neighbours might be the cause of “conflict”, rather than, as Israel and the BBC would have us believe, some kind of unusual, pre-emptive form of self-defence.

The BBC, of course, chose to uncritically air comments from a military spokesman for Israel, who blamed Hizbullah for the blast in the Golan.

Daniel Hagari tried to milk the incident for maximum propaganda value, arguing: “This attack shows the true face of Hizbullah, a terrorist organisation that targets and murders children playing soccer.”

Except, as the BBC failed to mention in its report, Israel infamously targeted and murdered four young children from the Bakr family playing football on a beach in Gaza in 2014.

Much more recently, video footage showed Israel striking yet more children playing football at a school in Gaza that was serving as a shelter for families whose homes were destroyed by earlier Israeli bombs.

Doubtless other strikes in Gaza over the past 10 months, so many of them targeting school-shelters, have killed Palestinian children playing football – especially as it is one of the very few ways they can take their mind off the horror all around.

So, should we – and the BBC – not conclude that all these attacks on children playing football make the Israeli military even more of a terrorist organisation than Hizbullah?

Note too the way the western media are so ready to accept unquestioningly Israel’s claim that Hizbullah was responsible for the blast – and dismiss Hizbullah’s denials.

Viewers are discouraged from exercising their memories. Any who do may recall that those same media outlets were only too willing to take on faith Israeli disinformation suggesting that Hamas had hit Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital back in October, even when all the evidence showed it was an Israeli air strike.

(Israel soon went on to destroy all Gaza’s hospitals, effectively eradicating the enclave’s health sector, on the pretext that medical facilities there served as Hamas bases – another patently preposterous claim the western media treated with wide-eyed credulity.)

The BBC next went to Jerusalem to hear from diplomatic editor Paul Adams. He intoned gravely: “This is precisely what we have been worrying about for the past 10 months – that something of this magnitude would occur on the northern border, that would turn what has been a simmering conflict for all of these months into an all-out war.”

So there you have it. Paul Adams and the BBC concede they haven’t been worrying for the past 10 months about the genocide unfolding under their very noses in Gaza, or its consequences.

A genocide of Palestinians, apparently, is not something of significant “magnitude”.

Only now, when Israel can exploit the deaths of Syrians forced to live under its military rule as a pretext to expand its “war”, are we supposed to sit up and take notice. Or so the BBC tells us.

Update:

Facebook instantly removed a post linking to this article – and for reasons that are entirely opaque to me (apart from the fact that it is critical of the BBC and Israel).

Facebook’s warning, threatening that my account may face “more account restrictions”, suggests that I was misleading followers by taking them to a “landing page that impersonates another website”. That is patent nonsense. The link took them to my Substack page.

As I have been warning for some time, social media platforms have been tightening the noose around the necks of independent journalists like me, making our work all but impossible to find. It is only a matter of time before we are disappeared completely.

Substack has been a lifeline, because it connects readers to my work directly – either through email or via Substack’s app – bypassing, at least for the moment, the grip of the social-media billionaires.

If you wish to keep reading my articles, and haven’t already, please sign up to my Substack page.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

Thongkham Philavanh, in his 40s, was a Khmu, an ethnic group in Southeast Asia, the majority of whom live in northern Laos. As a religious leader, he often participated in Christian church activities in Oudomxay province.

The pair fired twice at Thongkham at his home in Vanghay village in the province’s Xai district, according to a statement his wife gave to police. She took him to the provincial hospital, but he died upon arrival. 

Police said they are investigating the incident and could not provide further details.

Assaults and legal action against Christians in the one-party communist state with a mostly Buddhist population are not uncommon, despite a national law protecting the free exercise of their faith. Those who practice Christianity are objects of suspicion by authorities and subject to persecution.

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Christian communities in Oudomxay province and other parts of Laos told Radio Free Asia on Thursday they were mourning Thongkham’s loss. 

“Last night, our community was shattered by the tragic loss of our beloved pastor, who was senselessly taken from us in an act of violence,” some of them wrote in English on Facebook. “His profound wisdom, unwavering faith, and boundless compassion touched the lives of so many.”

A relative of the pastor, who didn’t want to be identified for safety reasons, said the two men wore face masks and rode motorcycles, though she didn’t know where they came from.

“I am not sure why they killed him, but I believe that it must be because he serves Jesus Christ,” she said. “One thing that I am sure of is that there are some groups of people who dislike what Thongkham does as Christian pastor.”

Thongkham’s funeral will be held on July 27 at the village cemetery, his family said.

One Christian believer told RFA that it appears as though Thongkham was killed because he was a Christian pastor and religious leader, and that some people may not have liked that.

Another believer who knew Thongkham some years ago said he was unhappy to learn about the pastor’s passing via social media.

Other Christian communities in Laos expressed concern about the safety of their pastors and members, fearing they too may be killed. 

A member of the Lao Evangelical Church said anti-Christian groups in the country seek opportunities to harm Christians.

In October 2022, Christian pastor Sy Sengmany was found dead near a forest in Khammouane province after two men visited his house earlier in the day, and village authorities warned him to stop his religious activities. The case remains unsolved.

Translated by Phouvong for RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

The six, four Vietnamese nationals and two Vietnamese with U.S. citizenship, were found in a room at the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel, having apparently died from poisoning, metropolitan police chief Lt.. Gen. Thiti Sangsawang told a news conference.

Police arrived at the hotel at around 5:30 p.m. local time after being alerted by staff. Thiti said the six had likely died around 24 hours earlier and there were no signs of a struggle, dismissing earlier media reports of a shooting. 

Six glasses were found in the hotel room, he said, adding that tea or coffee had been drunk. 

The glasses are being studied by a forensic team, with police saying they expected to be able to release the results on Wednesday. The bodies have been taken to Chulalongkorn Hospital for examination.

Thai media named the six as Sherine Chong, 56, and Dang Hung Van, 55, both of whom had American citizenship, and Vietnamese nationals Nguyen Thi Phuong Lan, 47, Pham Hong Thanh, 49, Tran Dinh Phu, 37, and Nguyen Thi Phuong, 46.

Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin visited the scene Tuesday night, ordering a swift investigation.

"The prime minister has ordered all agencies to urgently take action to avoid impact on tourism," the Thai government said in its statement.

The 350-room Grand Hyatt Erawan is in the Thai capital’s upscale Ratchaprasong district, just north of Lumpini Park, an area popular with tourists.

On Oct. 3, a 14-year old Thai boy opened fire in Bangkok’s upmarket Siam Paragon shopping mall, killing two women from China and Myanmar and injuring five other people.

Edited by Mike Firn and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Pimuk Rakkanam.

The body of Morales, founder and editor of the Facebook-based news site Realidades, was found on the side of a highway in southern Chiapas state on June 28, according to the state prosecutor’s office, which has opened a murder investigation. El Universal newspaper reported that Morales’ hands were tied and his face was taped while La Silla Rota news site said that he had been shot. Neither named their sources.

“The brutal murder of Víctor Morales is a sad reminder of the ongoing violence and impunity crisis journalists in Mexico are facing and underscores the urgent need for President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum to prioritize press safety when she takes office in October,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico Representative. “Mexican authorities must do everything in their power to apprehend those responsible for this latest killing and establish the motive.”

The Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, which coordinates protection for reporters at risk, was not aware of any threats against Morales, one of its officials told CPJ on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to comment publicly.

A June 26 report on Realidades said that the deployment of thousands of soldiers and police officers to Chiapas had failed to stem violence related to turf wars between criminal gangs.

CPJ’s calls to the state prosecutor’s office requesting comment were not answered.

Mexico ranked seventh on CPJ’s latest Global Impunity Index, which measures where murderers of journalists are most likely to go free. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Residents said troops took eight people into custody after storming Khaung Pyan village in the southernmost Tanintharyi region on Monday, but only the bodies of four men had been found. 

Three women and a man were still missing, according to the Democracy Movement Strike Committee Dawei District, a group opposed to the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup. 

The four bodies were found beside a nearby creek, with their hands tied behind their backs and “many stab wounds,” an official from the group said. 

"Villagers were arrested when a junta column raided Khaung Pyan. They were arrested on July 1 and villagers found four dead bodies on July 3 and 4,” he said, declining to be identified  for fear of reprisals.

Residents identified the four dead men as Kyaw Sein, Aung Zaw Win, Thar Thar and Naing Naing, who were aged between 40 and 60 and all from Khaung Pyan village in Yebyu Township. 

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Tanintharyi region’s junta spokesperson, Thet Naing, did not respond to a request from RFA for comment on the deaths. 

Junta troops have occupied Dawei Special Economic Zone in Tanintharyi’s capital since Monday, causing residents in neighboring Yebyu township to flee.

Fighting in Tanintharyi increased when the Karen National Liberation Army, an ethnic minority insurgent group battling for self-determination  captured several junta bases in the region in April. 

In the more than three years since the coup, more than 5,300 civilians have been killed by the junta, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. 

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

Fighters from the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and their junta army rivals blamed each other for the death of the civilians when shells hit their homes in the town of Lashio in northern Shan state.

Fighting between the junta soldiers from the Northeast Command and the autonomy-seeking rebels resumed on June 25 after the collapse of a ceasefire brokered by Chinese officials in a series of meetings that began in January. 

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army announced the capture of 26 junta camps in the days following the end of the ceasefire.

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The fighting in Lashio escalated on Wednesday with one shell killing a family of six in their house, said a resident, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals. 

"It happened while they were eating in the kitchen. The dead bodies have been sent to the morgue,” he said. “We’ve heard the sound of heavy guns firing all morning but I’m not sure if the junta army or the revolutionary group was responsible.”

Those killed were Zel Zaung, 14,  Dwel Aung and Zel Nwel, both 15, Sai Khon and May Yi, both 30, and  Mar Gyi, 70.

A shell hit another Lashio house early in the day, killing a woman and wounding two men, residents said. RFA could not confirm their identities. 

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army and civilians blamed the junta for the deaths but the junta blamed the rebels in posts on its Telegram channels.

RFA called Shan state’s junta spokesperson Khun Thein Maung for more information on the attacks but calls went unanswered.

Fighting between the two groups has also affected Namhu and Nampawng villages near Lashio town.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

So far, 34 people have been arrested in connection with these cases, including four for false social media posts stoking rumours. “There has not been a single incident of child kidnapping in Barasat police district. All the claims viral on social media in this regard are false”, Barasat SP Pratiksha Jharkhariya told the press on June 19.

The rumours, however, keep spreading powered by Facebook posts. The SP told Alt News on Monday, June 24,  that 55 such Facebook posts had been identified by police, of which 51 were taken down.

Missing 11-year-old Boy Found Dead

The decomposed body of an 11-year-old boy from Barasat’s Kajipara was found hanging inside a long-unused lavatory in a neighbour’s house on June 13, four days after he had gone missing. The preliminary autopsy report suggested that he had been strangled to death.

Barasat Police cracked the case in about a week and arrested the boy’s uncle, Enger Nabi, on June 20. According to police, Nabi confessed to killing the boy over a financial dispute with the latter’s father.

The accused had tried to mislead the cops several times. He had allegedly poured a red liquid on the walls of the neighbour’s house to give the impression that residents of the house had killed the boy. “A forensic team had collected samples from the walls of the neighbour’s house. It wasn’t human blood. He tried to mislead us several times. But his statements kept changing and we kept questioning him. He finally broke down and told us that he had killed the boy as an act of revenge,” Jharkhariya told The Telegraph.

The successful investigation, however, brought little relief for the cops as rumours of child kidnappers and organ traffickers on the prowl had already spread like wildfire.

The Rumours

According to SP Jharkhariya. the rumours were begun by Nabi himself when the boy had gone missing. He works as a muezzin in a local mosque and has considerable sway over the locals. On June 12, a day before the boy’s body was found, he told them that a woman child-lifter had been in the area. He also made an announcement on this using the mosque’s public address system and urged people to protest against child kidnappers.

Alt News spoke to a primary school teacher in Barasat who said that the rumours had begun transmitting orally but before long, someone made a Facebook post on this.

One post led to many and the social media rumour attained a life of its own. People also started forwarding WhatsApp texts warning each other against child lifters on the prowl.

After the child’s body was found, it added fuel to the fire. A disturbing image of the decomposed corpse started circulating. The school teacher said he had received a collage of two images on WhatsApp — the child’s photo and that of the body — with an appeal to share it as much as possible. “It was so graphic, I deleted it immediately,” he added.

Alt News accessed one such Facebook post which is now deleted. It contained a collage of photos of the 11-year-old boy and his decomposed body recovered by police. The post talked about the involvement of an organ trafficking racket in the Kajipara incident.

The post said: “The image on the right had side is taken before he went missing. The point is… Several children have gone missing in the last few days and they remain untraced. Only this kid has been found. Surprisingly, the big news channels are not showing this. I personally suspect that there is a big racket (mis-spelt in Bengali as racked) behind this, some big shots are involved because removing the kidney is not as easy task. Only experienced doctors can do that. Storing a kidney is not an easy task either…”

There are several schools in the 1 km radius of Kajipara. Once rumours spread to the WhatsApp groups of the parents of young students, they stopped sending their children to school. Triggered by the rumours, a woman was beaten up by locals in Chakdah, about 40km away, on June 10, on the suspicion of being a child-lifter. Visuals of the incident went viral on Facebook, some of which are still live.

A local news outlet named News 24 Bangla Live did a report on this describing the woman as the mastermind of the child kidnapping gang. Several users shared it on community Facebook pages.

On being informed about the incident, Barasat police officers went to Chakdah. The SP told Alt News, “The woman is a resident of Chakdah. We traced her whereabouts. She begs from door to door. We did a thorough check and found that she was not involved in any wrongdoing. She had no antecedent or criminal record.”

Trying to dispel the rumours, Barasat Police put out a video with SDPO Vidyagar Ajinkya Anant stating that the post-mortem surgeon had confirmed that no organ was missing from the child’s body and organ trafficking had nothing to do with the child’s ‘killing’.

Social media rumors allege a woman is involved in child and organ trafficking in Barasat. The medical officer confirmed after a child’s post-mortem that it’s not organ trafficking. Please don’t spread these false news.
#FakeNewsAlert #BarasatPoliceDistrict #WestBanegalPolice4U pic.twitter.com/awKwRMomFL

— Barasat District Police (@BarasatPolice) June 17, 2024

The video was also shared on Facebook. Police also shared a notice on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.

However, visuals of the incident went viral on Facebook with the false claim that the woman had kidnapped five children. Below are a few screenshots:

The user, Adhara Purkayastha, is an actor-influencer with a large following. She later shared another post apologizing for her earlier post and acknowledging that the news of child theft was fake.

All of the above posts carried the same image which contained the name Injamul Haque. Police told Alt News that Haque was the first person who shared posts regarding child kidnapping and organ trafficking on social media.

We traced his X handle (@InjamulOfficial) where most of his posts contained the same name art as the one in the Facebook post. On X, Haque mostly shared news updates related to Bengal and the Trinamool Congress. He also attacked the BJP on various issues.

His Facebook page has either been deleted or made private.

Four Facebook Users Arrested

In a rare move, police arrested four persons in connection with false social media posts fueling rumours about child kidnapping. They were identified as Pritam Mistry, Abdul Karim Khan, Payel Talukdar and Sheikh Mijanur Rehman.

Barasat Additional SP Sparsha Nialngi told Alt News that in the suo motu case that was initially registered, they had been charged under IPC 505 and 506. However, while interrogating the people arrested for mob assault, it came to light that these four were names came up as instigators of the violence. “Their names have been added to the case related to the assaults,” she said.

“As administrators of Facebook pages, or as individual users, they were posting stuff, particularly videos, and spreading rumours that a gang of child kidnappers was on the prowl in Barasat. When we commented under those posts from the official handle, they took down our comments to ensure that the rumours did not stop,” Jharkhariya told Alt News.

Asked why there had been no action against Injamul Haque, Addl. SP Nilangi said, “Injamul Haque is not a resident of Barasat. He’s from Barrackpore. When we contacted him and informed him that it’s fake news, he deleted it. This was on June 18 when no assault incident had occurred (other than the one he posted aboout). He deleted it on the 18th itself. On the 19th, when two incidents of happened, we noticed some social media groups or pages related to Barasat posted the same fake news. When we tried to contact them and asked to take down posts, they did not take them down. Besides, since they’re from Barasat, local people saw their posts and reacted by assaulting others.”

Vigilantism Results in Mob Assaults in Adjoining Towns

Several incidents of mob assault on innocent people based on rumours of child kidnapping were reported in a span of five days.

On June 19, two incidents were reported in Barasat. In Mollapara, a man was thrashed by locals.

On the same day, a man and a woman were assaulted near the Central Modern School while boarding an auto-rickshaw. When police intervened, the mob ran riot and damaged police vehicles. The two victims were hospitalized.

Local councilor Sameer Talukder told Anandabazaar Patrika, “There is no basis to the rumours. Poeple are being beaten up just on suspicion. Two persons were severely badly beaten up till they were bleeding profusely. Some social media users are making unverified news about child kidnapping viral. Police are taking action against them. They are spreading the panic.”

On June 21, a woman named Rajani Khatun was assaulted in Ashok Nagar. An SI of police got injured in the clash when police tried to rescue her from the mob. On the following day, a man named Nazir Hussain was beaten up at an Eid fair in Mohanpur under Ranaghat PS area.

On the 24th, another incident was reported from Thakurpalli, Bangaon. Locals thrashed a vagabond on the suspicion of child kidnapping. He was rescued by police and admitted to the sub-divisional hospital.

‘Stunned by Criminality, Mob Mentality’

“These assaults were the direct outcome of baseless social media posts. We traced 55 such posts and tried to reach out to the users one by one. Most of these are now deleted. Some of these were posted on coummunity pages like ‘Amar Sahar Barasat’ and ‘Barasat Online’ with 80 to 90,000 followers. We found that people from Barasat living abroad had also shared them without trying to verify their authenticity,” Jharkhariya told Alt News.

“Wherever an unknown face is seen, if he/she looks suspicious, people are tagging him as a child-lifter. In most cases, these people are vagabonds, drug addicts and beggars. In one instance, the person was mentally unstable. They were all beaten up. The violent vigilantism has reached a monstrous proportion,” she added.

The IPS officer said she was stunned by the propensity of people to turn violent. “As if, they did it for fun. It is an eye-opener for us as law enforcers. In a Dattapukur incident, everyone knew the victim as a vagabond living near the rail station for six to seven years. Still she was attacked. The criminality was always there inside. Once the rumours spread, it found an avenue to erupt.”

The post Child-kidnapping rumours trigger panic in Bengal towns after missing 11-year-old boy found dead appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Indradeep Bhattacharyya.

Srey Sina, 50, was arrested in neighboring Kandal province after he apparently fled the scene following Monday’s shooting, which left Long Lysong, 27, and his fiancee Khin Kanchana, 26, dead and two others wounded, according to Phnom Penh police.

Srey Sina told police he shot the young couple with a handgun after Long Lysong used abusive language following an argument between neighbors over a parking space, the felling of a mango tree and a clothes line, the Khmer Times reported.

The long-running dispute was originally between Long Lysong and a woman who rents one of Srey Sina’s houses, the newspaper said. 

On Facebook, Cambodians urged Phnom Penh authorities to hold Srey Sina accountable, and expressed worries that he would use his influence and money to gain his release from jail.

Srey Sina, a wealthy real estate investor, held the title of Oknha, which is bestowed on Cambodians involved in business who are committed to charity or generous with donations to the government. 

But earlier this week, the Cambodian Oknha Association said in a statement that he wasn’t a member of their association, even though he held the Oknha title. The group said it would request to have the title withdrawn to “the honor and reputation of the Okhna title.”

Prime Minister Hun Manet made a similar public plea, and on Friday, the king issued a decree stripping Srey Sina of the Oknha title.

‘Difficult to accept’

The prime minister’s brother, Minister of Civil Service Hun Many, said on Facebook that he was “devastated” to learn of the “horrific incident.” He called Long Lysong “my brother” and urged Cambodians to promote a culture of peace, tolerance and forgiveness.

“We really don't want this to happen and condemn such barbaric abuse of human life,” he said. “I applaud and thank the law enforcement forces who worked hard to catch criminals accountable to the law.”

Long Lysong died at the scene, Khin Kanchana died at a hospital and two other young men received minor injuries, according to the Khmer Times. Police have arrested two other people suspected of involvement in the case.

Hun Manet and his father, Senate President Hun Sen, have arranged for lawyers to represent the victims’ families in court, the Khmer Times reported.

“We have lost everything and received nothing,” Lysong’s sister, Long Lyhor, told Kiripost. “It is difficult to accept as it happened immediately. It’s cruel that [the suspect] shot 12 bullets, resulting in two people dying and another two staff being injured.” 

Long Lysong and Khin Kanchana became engaged last November and planned to marry later this year, Kiripost reported. 

One of the attorneys representing family members, Son Chumchuon, told Radio Free Asia that the incident has caused mental suffering and monetary losses. Long Lysong was the family’s breadwinner, he said.

“We have to assess the extent of the damages. We have to look at how much (their death) affects the future living conditions of their dependents,” he said. “Their parents have the right to seek compensation.”

Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Edited by Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Khmer.

Junta-controlled media, however, blamed the death of Sayadaw Bhaddanta Munindabhivamsa, the abbot of Win Neinmitayon Monastery in the Bago region and retired member of the State Sangha Nayaka Committee, which oversees the nation’s Buddhist clergy, on rebel fighters.

Television broadcaster MRTV announced that the abbot’s car was caught in a firefight between junta troops and guerillas from the rebel People’s Defense Forces, resulting in the vehicle overturning and the abbot’s death.

But in a video that spread on social media Thursday, the abbot’s colleague, Sayadaw Bhaddanta Gunikabhivamsa, who was a passenger in the car at the time of the attack, said junta soldiers in a truck fired around seven or eight shots at the car, killing the abbot and injuring himself and the driver.

“[I said] how can you soldiers be so cruel?” the monk recounted. “They replied that they did not know monks were inside the car.”

The soldiers said they believed the car was an enemy vehicle because the windows were closed, so they shot at it, he said.

Gunikabhivamsa’s account appeared to match a report on the incident submitted by the chief of the Mandalay Region Religious Affairs Department, the online journal The Irrawaddy reported. 

The report cited local authorities who said soldiers conducting a security patrol killed the abbot when they shot at his vehicle after he did not pull over as instructed.

RFA contacted junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, for comment, but did not receive a response. 

RFA could not reach the Mandalay PDF for comment, either.

Sayadaw Bhaddanta Munindabhivamsa will be cremated on June 27.

Translated by Kalyar Lwin for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Thiri Min Zin for RFA Burmese.

On the evening of June 18, unidentified assailants fatally shot Jibran, a reporter for the privately owned Pashto-language broadcaster Khyber News, in the Landi Kotal area of northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to news reports and the local press freedom group Pakistan Press Foundation.

Two armed men dragged Jibran, former president of the Landi Kotal Press Club, out of the vehicle and ordered three other individuals traveling with him to get out, stating they were not targets, according to those sources. The gunmen then opened fire on Jibran, killing him on the spot.

“Pakistan authorities must urgently bring those responsible for the killing of journalist Khalil Jibran to justice and take immediate steps to end the wave of violence against reporters in the country,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “The only way to reassure Pakistani journalists of their safety is for authorities to stop the cycle of impunity that allows these attacks to continue unabated.”

Police did not arrive at the scene until nearly an hour later, Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported, citing information from local residents.

Jiban sustained 19 bullet wounds and an arm fracture, suggesting a physical scuffle had taken place between him and the attackers, Dawn reported, citing doctors at a local hospital. The journalist is survived by his wife and six children.

No suspects had been apprehended as of June 20, according to Qazi Fazlullah, president of the Tribal Union of Journalists and a reporter for broadcaster Geo News. Fazlullah told CPJ that local journalists were advocating for a judicial commission to investigate journalists’ murders amid a severe pattern of impunity.

Jibran had received threats from militants over the past decade in relation to his journalism, Fazlullah said, adding that unidentified individuals attacked Jibran with a hand grenade in 2014 and planted an explosive device that did not detonate under his car in 2017.

Jibran had received a resurgence of threats over the past two years in relation to his reporting for Khyber News, in which he documented militancy with the help of government and army sources, Fazlullah said.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has experienced a dramatic surge in militant attacks since the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, otherwise known as the Pakistani Taliban, exited a ceasefire with the Pakistan government in 2022.

Pakistan information minister Attaullah Tarar did not immediately respond to CPJ’s request for comment. CPJ also contacted Saleem Abbas Kulachi, district police officer of Khyber district, which encompasses Landi Kotal, but did not receive any reply.

At least five other journalists have been killed in Pakistan thus far in 2024, including Kamran Dawar, a journalist based in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s North Waziristan district. CPJ is investigating the motives behind these attacks.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

A pair of new United Nations reports has accused Israel, as well as Hamas, of committing war crimes in Gaza. The damning documents come as Israel and Hamas are being urged to accept the three-phase ceasefire and hostage deal outlined by President Biden and endorsed by the U.N. Security Council. “Israel has no interest in international law, and the United States has no interest in demanding that Israel actually comply with international law besides rhetorical flourishes,” says Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN. “It will come to haunt and hurt America for decades to come.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Rescue workers in northern Myanmar recovered the bodies of five mine workers, including one Chinese national, on Wednesday and were searching for missing victims of a landslide at a rare earths mine, residents told Radio Free Asia.

The landslide in Kachin State’s Chipwi township trapped 25 people in a shaft early on Tuesday, they said. Resource-rich Kachin State, which has rare earth and jade mines, has been the site of  of a surge in clashes between the junta and an ethnic minority insurgent force, the Kachin Independence Army, since early this year. The landslide occurred during regular operations at the rare earth mine near Chinese Border Post No. 3, about eight km (five miles) from Pang War village, said one witness who declined to be identified for security reasons. 

“There was a landslide when I was working and around 20 people were in there, including a Chinese site manager,” he said. “These landslides are a continuous problem lately because it is rainy season.”

Rescue officials were searching for 20 people still missing, residents and mine workers said. 

Three Chinese nationals were believed to be among the missing, the witness said, adding that junta forces had tightened security at the site and forbidden photographs, threatening a fine of 5,000 Chinese yuan (US$ 703) for anyone taking a picture.

RFA telephoned Kachin State’s junta spokesperson, Moe Min Thein, for more information but calls went unanswered. The Chinese embassy did not respond to an emailed request for comment by the time of publication.

Rescue operations had been complicated because the land was still collapsing at the mine, said another resident, who asked to remain anonymous because of the junta’s media blackout.

A woman aged 19 who had been selling things at the mine was among the missing, said the resident.

“The rest are all men,” he said. “It’s difficult to search even now because the mountain is still collapsing.”

Two landslides occurred in a nearby rare earth mine near Pang War village on May 27 and 29, killing two workers, he said.

The environmental group Global Witness said in a report last month that rare earth mining production increased by 40% in Pang War between 2021 and 2023. The area is under the control of junta-led militias and pro-junta border guards, and more than 300 mining sites have been developed there since the military seized power in a coup in early 2021, Global Witness said.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 

Updates number of missing.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

Troops murdered 48 men and several women between the ages of 15 and 70 in the village of Byain Phyu, near Rakhine State’s capital of Sittwe, the Arakan Army said in a statement on Sunday. The group, one of Myanmar's most powerful guerrilla forces, is fighting for self-determination against junta forces in Rakhine and neighboring Chin State.

The Arakan Army has made significant advances since a ceasefire with  junta forces ended in November, seizing townships in Rakhine and two in northern Chin State. 

Junta troops have been accused of unleashing brutal attacks on civilians, often men  suspected of supporting the rebels. 

About 100 soldiers began their attack on Byain Phyu on Wednesday, abducting villagers and allegedly beating three to death, according to residents. But violence escalated when more soldiers began arriving, said one Byain Phyu resident, who told Radio Free Asia that two of his family members were killed after being arrested.

“My relatives were among those arrested – a lot of people, including my uncle and friends. The trauma is unspeakable. There are five people in my uncle’s family,” he said, declining to be identified out of fear of reprisals. “Just three of the women have returned and two have died. My uncle and my cousin died, so their family, especially my aunt, is really traumatized.”

RFA tried to telephone Rakhine State’s junta spokesperson, Hla Thein, to ask about the incident but he did not answer his phone.

But the junta said in a press release last Wednesday that troops were conducting searches in Byain Phyu after finding bunkers built from sandbags in houses throughout the village. Three men from other villages snatched guns from junta forces and were later killed in a shootout, it said, adding that 25 suspects were being interrogated in connection with the incident.

RFA has not been able to independently confirm the death toll.

The Arakan Army said in its statement that junta troops abused women, torched and looted houses and still held thousands of villagers.

Increased junta retaliation

Another resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA that the troops have remained in the village. 

“It is a very worrying situation. We haven’t seen our family and the men. We’ve heard that the victims were tortured and shot dead,” he said. “The killing field was set in front of Ko Ko Maung’s tea shop and corpses were piled there.”

Villagers said the attack  was carried out by regional junta forces supported by members of a small militia force called the Arakan Liberation Party and some ethnic Rohingya troops, who rights groups say are forcibly recruited from refugee camps to fight for the junta. 

The Arakan Liberation Party denied involvement in the attack.

Further Arrests

As the Arakan Army moves closer to Sittwe, junta soldiers have become increasingly suspicious of anyone suspected of sympathizing with their cause.

Junta troops arrested members of the Arakan National Party, which represents the political views of members of the ethnic Rakhine or Arakanese community in Rakhine State, in Yangon on Friday. 

Soldiers arrested the group's former youth leader, Khin Win Maung, and three other young men at their homes at around 8 p.m., sources close to the family told RFA, who could not confirm where they were being held.

Arakan National Party spokesperson Thar Tun Hla told RFA that they were investigating the circumstances of Khin Win Maung’s arrest.

“We are currently still studying why he was arrested and we can say that Khin Win Maung is a former youth leader,” he said.

Khin Win Maung has been teaching political science, but had not participated in any political activity since Myanmar’s 2021 coup, said a source close to the family. He volunteered to help those displaced by fighting and natural disasters in Rakhine State, they added. 

The names and details of the other three arrested men have not been released.

RFA called Yangon region’s junta spokesperson Htay Aung for information on the arrests but calls went unanswered.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

Papua New Guinean Prime Minister James Marape visited Wabag, the capital of Enga  province, to meet authorities before flying to the site of last week’s landslide disaster to inspect the damage up close.

Tribal violence between two clans in Tambitanis is still active, reportedly leading to 12 deaths since Saturday last week, reports said.

Provincial Administrator Sandis Tsaka said that after 14 days the affected area would be quarantined with restricted access to prevent the spread of infection, and those who remained undiscovered would be officially declared missing persons.

• READ MORE: Uncertainty surrounds PNG landslide death toll as relief supplies begin arriving at disaster zone
• Other PNG landslide disaster reports

According to the UN International Organisation for Migration, 217 people with minor injuries had received treatment, while 17 individuals who had major and minor injuries were treated at the Wabag General Hospital (as of 30 May).

The IOM said some patients with major injuries remained in the hospital

Earlier, PNG police chief inspector Martin Kelei told RNZ Pacific people on the ground want the bodies of their loved ones to be retrieved as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, a geotechnical expert from New Zealand, who arrived on Thursday, is conducting a ground assessment as the landslip is still moving.

ABC News reports that uncertainty surrounds the final death toll from the landslide with a local official saying he believed 162 people had been killed in the natural disaster — far fewer than estimated by the United Nations or the country’s government.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

With "one supreme act" of dying unquestioning in the name of war, said James Garfield on 1868's first Memorial Day, the fallen showed "the highest virtues of men." It's unclear if he'd include in that noble fellowship the forsaken children and women of Gaza who burned to death in their tents in Rafah after a gruesome attack Israel later blithely deemed "a mishap." Goddamn. One more time to Bibi and his ilk, the "fungus that grows on the rot": "There is no glory in war."

Three years after the Civil War, on May 5, 1868, Maj. Gen. John Logan of the Union veterans' Grand Army of the Republic declared Decoration Day, calling on the nation to decorate the graves of those who "for love of country" had "accepted death" and "made immortal their patriotism and their virtue." Americans were urged to "observe (what became) Memorial Day by praying, according to their individual religious faith, for permanent peace." That sentiment has kinda fallen by the wayside to make way for flag-drunk parades, sales on grills, laptops, lawnmowers, and in the case of grifters who just won't go away, a slobfather's rant against his "human scum" enemies and his clueless younger son's outlandish claim to celebrate, "The family that gave up everything to Save America" - a canard one patriot termed, "For fuck's sake, even for a Trump, shockingly awful." Far more vital is the dictate from Veterans For Peace to remember the victims of what our "sociopathic leaders told us were 'the enemy,'" (and) the few elite winners in "the racket of war (who) delight in telling their puppets in government to order up another one."

And so to Gaza. 35,647 Palestinians dead, 79,852 wounded, over 11,000 missing, at least 520 dead in the West Bank. Since Thursday, 275 more dead, 666 more wounded. Ongoing Israeli assaults in north and central Gaza, looming famine, "catastrophic" closed crossings with already meager food and medical deliveries suspended and aid trucks intercepted by hungry crowds intent on "self-distribution." Most hospitals closed; doctors at those open say, "Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies what we have witnessed here." Talks stalled on ceasefire and hostage release, vengeful madmen in power, a war whose benefits are "manifestly unclear," the ICC ruling a genocidal Israel must halt its offensive in Rafah and open all border crossings. Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid on the government of "Mr. Delusional Total Victory": "It is not winning in the war on Hamas or Hezbollah, so it has declared a war on reality." "We are running out of words to describe what is happening in Gaza," says senior UN aid official Edem Wosornu. "We have described it as a catastrophe, a nightmare, a hell on earth. It is all of these."

Astoundingly, it got worse Sunday night when Israel, having rejected the ICC ruling on Rafah with a "gloating," indiscriminate series of airstrikes, bombed a crowded tent camp in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood, an Israel-designated "safe zone." The missiles started a fire among flammable tents that quickly spread into a massacre: Footage shows panicked women and children screaming and frantically trying to escape the flames amidst people trapped, cowering, burning in melting tents, charred bodies of children, some headless, on the ground, and exhausted civil defense teams rushing to rescue those burning and put out the flames. At least 45 people were killed; over 250 wounded, many critically with severe burns and severed limbs, were taken to the inundated Kuwaiti hospital, and the death toll is likely to rise. Survivors said they had finished night prayers "in peace" or gone to bed when the conflagration began. "There is no safe place here. No one is safe. Not even the dead who are buried underground are safe," said a bitter, distraught Abo Sebah. "Destruction, corpses, and killings. This is our life."

Israel’s attack on Rafah tent camp widely condemned www.aljazeera.com

The world, evidently impotent before Israel's barbarism, raged. Ireland, Italy, Germany, Norway, France, Spain, Canada, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the E.U., U.K., UAE and many in Israel were "horrified" and "outraged" by the "heinous massacre"; having funded the atrocities, the U.S. showed its usual moral fearlessness. "Israel must take every precaution possible to protect civilians," said a White House spokesperson. "We are actively engaging the IDF and partners on the ground to assess what happened." Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the U.K.'s Labor Party, called the bombing "a monstrous failure of humanity." Aida Touma-Sliman, a Palestinian member of the Knesset, excoriated "this bloody government," which " is taking the madness and vindictiveness to a new criminal level." Israeli journalist Chaim Levinson cited an "it's-not done basic norm" in a well-ordered country: "This concept no longer exists, neither in Israel nor in the United States, because the Bibi-ist camp has no basic norms. Netanyahu needs a rotten state because he is the fungus that grows on the rot."

Humza Yousaf, the former first minister of Scotland, noted the footage of the victims - hungry, innocent, dispossessed babies, children, women, the elderly, living in tents, screaming, dismembered, burnt alive - to furiously pose the question of the times: "Bear witness to the images and ask yourself, 'Are you on the right side of history?'" "We will do everything possible to hold these barbarians and murderers accountable who have nothing to do with humanity," said Lebanese journalist Dalal Mawad, still haunted by seeing, in 1996 in a UN displaced camp during the Qana massacre by Israel, a decapitated newborn baby. "Last night, the same crime was committed again. Impunity means history will always repeat itself." Others cited other haunting sights from these brutal months in Gaza: too many lifeless babies, wrapped in blood-soaked white sheets, carried by weeping parents; the skeletal horror of wide-eyed children being starved to death; the searing video of Razan Muneer Arafat, 11, who lost her entire family in an Israeli air strike along with one of her legs, sobbing and shrieking, "I want my leg!"

Palestinian girl mourns loss of leg in Israeli attack www.youtube.com

In response to the uproar, Israel has done what Israel does when charged with its countless crimes against humanity: Deny, deflect, defend, lie. In quick succession, they issued a stream of bullshit. First, they conducted the attack "in accordance with international law, using precise munitions, and based on prior intelligence indicating that two senior Hamas operatives were present," despite residents repeatedly saying they've never seen Hamas in that area. Then, apparently, "The strike ignited a blaze in a tent camp for displaced persons." Then, they "became aware of reports indicating that as a result several civilians in the area were harmed." Then, assured the IDF, "prior to the strike, many steps were taken to reduce the chances of harm to uninvolved people, including a visual aerial inspection...on the basis of which it was estimated that harm to uninvolved civilians was not expected." Then, "despite our utmost efforts not to harm innocent civilians, there was a tragic mistake," though at first Bibi called it "a mishap." "We are investigating the incident," he told the world, "because this is our policy."

In his second Inaugural speech in 1865, near the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln sought to heal a broken nation by urging fellow-citizens to move forward "with malice toward none." On a Memorial Day during World War One, an editorial in The Nation cited his call to ask, "Shall we learn no wisdom from this day?" Facing another war, "with its maimed bodies and shattered minds," it noted the vain "dreams of brotherhood and peace, dreams of the America that never yet has been." And so it goes. The war meant to end all wars has, of course, begotten many more, each with its folly, its dead, its wounded "with invisible, lifelong devils (in) their heads." Jeanette Rankin, the first woman in Congress, voting against war in 1917: "You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." "We are the Dead," wrote John McCrae, a soldier and doctor serving in Belgium. "Short days ago/We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow/Loved and were loved, and now we lie/In Flanders fields." Nearly 370 Americans are buried there. Over 15,000 children are dead - though many have yet to be buried - in Gaza. A hell on earth. Lest we forget, man-made, by Israel and America.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

Amidst the despair of the Kaolokam landslide disaster in the Enga Province of Papua New Guinea, there was a tiny glimmer of hope as villagers pulled out a husband and wife who had been trapped under the rubble.

Johnson and Jaqueline Yandam’s home missed the brunt of the landslide, but still got covered by massive rocks.

They told public broadcaster NBC journalist Emmanuel Eralia that they had both accepted that they were going to die together.

• READ MORE:  PNG landslide: Survivors of highlands disaster desperately seeking help
• Hundreds feared dead after huge landslide in Papua New Guinea
• Local officials fear fate of 300 missing people in remote PNG landslide
• Other Engan landslide reports

“Large rocks that fell on their house created a barrier that prevented additional debris from harming them. They would have died of hunger and thirst if they had not been found,” Eralia told RNZ Pacific.

It was only after the noise had stopped that they began calling out. The Yandams have three children. All three were not at Kaolokam when the disaster struck.

Hundreds of people from nearby villages have come to help where they can. In a country where the disaster response is largely adhoc, the first responders are almost always relatives of those affected.

After four days, the remains of only a handful of people have been found — including the partial remains of a 25-year-old man who has been identified by his extended family members.

At least 500 are feared to be buried under the rubble, but a UN migration agency mission in Papua New Guinea has revised the estimate to 690 deaths based on the number of homes buried.

The Enga provincial government has delivered relief supplies to those affected by the landslide.

The National Disaster and Emergency Service has allocated funds for the recovery efforts.

Sketchy information
Getting an understanding of the true scale of the Kaolokam landslide disaster in the first 12 hours was difficult.

The first snippets of video posted on Facebook showed people walking on rubble with a commentary in the local Enga language.

Women could be heard weeping in the background as men tried to dig through the mud and rocks.

Those who were closest to the disaster, traumatised by the tragedy, gave estimates of the number of the dead. Eventually threads of a story emerged.

“We took a man injured in the landside to Wabag Hospital. As far as I know, only four bodies have been recovered. Those are the ones I saw,” Larsen Lakari said.

It had been raining the previous night. Larsen’s house was about 100m from the landslip.

“Pieces of earth had started to come loose. But we didn’t imagine that the whole mountain would break and fall onto the village.”

In the first few hours, villagers counted at least 300 men, women and children who were unaccounted for.

But that figure has gradually increased to more than 500. This was a whole clan, buried in one landslide.

Tribal conflict and a disaster
Managing Enga is an enormous challenge for the provincial administration. It has been a tumultuous year marked by both human and natural disasters.

In February, 50 people were killed during a tribal clash in the Wapenamanda District.

The violence was exacerbated by the proliferation of illegal firearms, turning disputes deadly and highlighting the challenges of maintaining peace in the region.

The massacre, described as one of the worst in recent history, prompted calls for a state of emergency and stricter gun control measures.

‘People still buried’
A community leader from in the area, Mick Michael, said the scene was “heartbreaking”.

“Really heartbreaking to see people displaced,” Michael told RNZ Pacific, who went to the area on Saturday.

“People are still buried. You can hear them crying out [for help].”

He said there has been no proper response yet, adding UNICEF was at the scene of the disaster.

He said the need now was to dig out the bodies and relocate the people who were affected.

On Friday, Prime Minister James Marape said that government was sending disaster officials, the Defence Force, and the Department of Works and Highways to meet provincial and district officials in Enga and start relief work, recovery of bodies, and reconstruction of infrastructure.

Additional reporting by RNZ Pacific’s Lydia Lewis. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Scores of people have died in a huge landslide which has struck a remote village in the Papua New Guinean highlands.

The landslide reportedly hit Yambali village in Enga Province, about 600 km north-west of Port Moresby.

The landslip has buried homes and food gardens, leaving what locals say is an estimated 3000 buried under a mass landslide.

• READ MORE: Dozens feared dead after ‘massive’ landslide hits Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea authorities are yet to officially confirm the number of deaths.

In a post on Facebook tonight, PNG Prime Minister James Marape passed on his condolences to the families of those who had died in the landslide.

Disaster officials, PNG Defence Force and the Department of Works and Highways officers were being sent to meet with provincial and district officials in Enga and start relief work, recovery of bodies, and reconstruction of infrastructure, he said.

“I am yet to be fully briefed on the situation. However, I extend my heartfelt condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in the landslide disaster in the early hours of this morning.”

Emergency response team
The Enga provincial administration have met to assemble an emergency response team to assess the damage.

It called on local health facilities and non-government organisations to be on stand-by to assist with recovery and relief efforts.

PNG police told RNZ Pacific correspondent Scott Waide that at least 50 houses had been destroyed. Waide said the average Papua New Guinean family consisted roughly of eight to 10 people a household.

Residents on the ground say they have lost family members and are retrieving bodies.

Community leader Jethro Tulin told RNZ Pacific the catastrophe wiped out the village, which had a population of about 3000.

“It was a massive landslide . . . occured around 3am last night [early Friday]. People were sleeping . . .  the whole village is covered.”

He said a team from Wabag, the provincial capital, had been sent to investigate the scene.

The ABC first reported residents saying that they estimated “100-plus” deaths but authorities were yet to confirm this figure.

Yambali village is a two-hour drive from the Porgera gold mine.

The catastrophic destruction is blocking access to the mine, forcing a usually bustling operation to come to a stand still.

The main highway to Porgera has also been closed off.

Four people have been rescued but with the main highway closed authorities say it will be difficult to get heavy machinery to the village to help in the rescue and recovery efforts.

Special equipment needed to retrieve bodies
Another resident told RNZ Pacific locals were trying to retrieve bodies but required heavy-duty equipment to remove massive rocks and debris and are awaiting government and non-government organisation (NGO) support.

They say it could take weeks to recover thousands of bodies trapped under a landslide.

A nearby resident, Mick Michael, said rescue efforts would likely turn to recovery efforts for bodies.

“I think two or three people were discovered already. It is an entire community buried by the landslide.

“You can estimate 3000 people buried. It is really a big landslides with big rocks. Witihin a week or so, it will take time to discover those bodies with the help of machines and trucks.”

He said residents were calling on the government of Papua New Guinea and NGO’s for support.

Images on social media platform Facebook show the enormity of the landslide, with debris across houses and vehicles left in the wake of falling boulders and trees.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

"At around 5.15pm on Sunday (19/5) officers attended Grenfell Park, Maidenhead, following a report from a member of the public," the Thames Valley Police said in a statement on May 21.

"Officers attended the scene and found a man. Emergency treatment was commenced but sadly the man was pronounced dead at the scene," it said.

The dead man was identified as Matthew Trickett, 37, who had been charged along with Bill Yuen, an office manager at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, and British Border Force officer Peter Wai with spying for the Hong Kong government.

They had been due to appear at the Old Bailey – the central criminal court for Britain – on Friday, according to police.

The trio were charged with "assisting a foreign intelligence service" and "foreign interference" under the National Security Act 2023, and stand accused of forcing and entering a property in the U.K. and of targeting exiled Hong Kong activists on British soil, according to the Metropolitan Police and the prosecution.

Ran from court

Trickett’s death came after he covered his face and ran from journalists following a court appearance on May 13.

The case has sparked controversy around the role of Hong Kong’s Economic and Trade Office in London, amid calls from British MPs for a review of its status, with a view to possible closure if the espionage charges are upheld.

“We call on the Government to review the status and privileges granted to the London Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office,” a group of cross-party lawmakers said in a statement on Wednesday that was co-signed by Hong Kong advocacy groups and posted to the Hong Kong Democracy Council website.

“If employees of the HKETO were operating as accomplices of transnational repression, beyond their legitimate remit of economics and trade, the option of closing the London HKETO should be considered,” the statement said.

A senior Hong Kong adviser said last week that the role of the Economic and Trade Offices had changed, and that they should keep an eye on the activities of Hong Kongers living on foreign soil.

But a Hong Kong commerce and economic development official on Wednesday dismissed the adviser's comments as a "misunderstanding.”

Finance Secretary Paul Chan declined to comment on Trickett's death.

Investigations are ongoing and a post-mortem will be carried out, the police statement said, calling on anyone who was in Grenfell Park before 5.15 p.m. to come forward with information.

At the time of his death, Trickett was out on court bail, which required him to register at a police station regularly.

Shockwaves

Trickett's death has sparked fear and concern in the community of Hong Kongers who have settled in the United Kingdom in the wake of an ongoing crackdown on dissent imposed on their city by Beijing to quash the 2019 protest movement that called for fully democratic elections.

"The UK must investigate Trickett's death THOROUGHLY to find out the reason leading to his death and whether any pressure from any parties was involved," U.S.-based activist Frances Hui, who has an arrest warrant and a bounty on her head issued by Hong Kong's national security police, said via X.

Former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, now in Australia, said Trickett's death could mean critical evidence is lost in the forthcoming trial.

"I think it will have a very serious impact," Hui said. "It can be seen from the charge sheet that the [defendant] who passed away provided very important evidence during the investigation."

"They have now lost the opportunity to cross-examine him in court and to get more information from him ... which will be a big gap when it comes to the court and the public finding out the truth," he said.

Carman Lau, U.K.-based International Advocacy and Program Associate at the Hong Kong Democracy Council, said the news had sent shockwaves through the exile community, many of whom are speculating about foul play.

"There is now one less suspect in the case, and therefore less evidence to investigate," Lau told RFA Cantonese in an interview on Tuesday. "One defendant has died before the trial even started."

She said reports and speculation are swirling around the expat community, creating panic.

"Hong Kongers in the U.K. have one wish: that we will get to the bottom of the matter through the court proceedings, so they don’t have to be afraid," Lau said. She urged the British government to review the status of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, and to consider shutting it down entirely.

‘Absurd accusations’

The Hong Kong economic offices' job is to promote trade and economic ties with partner countries, Undersecretary for Commerce and Economic Development Bernard Chan told reporters on Wednesday.

“In the future, HKETO staff will continue our work, fearlessly and impartially, following regulations and laws, to promote Hong Kong’s unique advantages and to tell a good Hong Kong story,” Chan said in comments reported by the Hong Kong Free Press.

He refused to comment on what he termed "absurd accusations" of spying activity.

“The ETOs' task is to liaise with the local government, think tanks, different sectors and all walks of life to try to improve or facilitate or foster the cooperation on trade and investment, and also in the area of art and culture,” he said in comments reported by government broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong.

Yuen and Wai have been barred from leaving the U.K. while out on bail, and must abide by curfew regulations, as well as reporting regularly to the police.

The spying charges come amid simmering tensions between Britain and China, which has said the case had been "fabricated" to "smear and attack" the Hong Kong government.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said Britain is facing an increasingly dangerous future because of threats from an “axis of authoritarian states,” including Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

More than 190,000 Hong Kongers have applied for the British National Overseas, or BNO, visa route to long-term residency and eventual citizenship since it was launched in 2021, according to government figures released in November.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Kit Sung for RFA Cantonese, Chen Zifei and Jasmine Man for RFA Mandarin.

To improve its energy security after this upheaval, South Korea is doubling down on its imports. The country is using government financing to develop liquid natural gas (LNG) supply terminals, both at home and abroad. Its over-investment in LNG has already been costly: Citizens of South Korea are paying higher energy prices, without any gains in energy security, economic strength, or sustainability. 

And even as the government invests billions in new capacity, the country’s demand for natural gas over the next decade is projected to plummet. By the time the new South Korean terminals start operating, they may end up sitting idle for much of the time. 

A complex and expensive fuel 

Today, natural gas fuels about 25% of South Korea’s energy mix, used for everything from cookstoves to industrial manufacturing. Much of this is transported as liquified natural gas, or LNG — a process which cools the gas until it transforms into fluid, making it safer and easier to transport. The process requires enormous, specialized infrastructure. Custom cooling and regasification terminals must be built on either end of the shipping route, and the specially built tankers that move the LNG also require super-cooled tanks. 

This infrastructure is colossally expensive. From 2013 to 2023, South Korea’s public finance investment in new LNG carrier ships totaled approximately $44.1 billion, and the government plans to pay as much as $5 billion U.S. dollars for the new LNG terminals in the next few years.

“This will hinder the country’s energy transition to cheaper, domestically sourced renewable energy,” writes Michelle Kim, an energy finance specialist with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, in a recent report about South Korea’s LNG industry. Kim’s research shows that the country is on track to more than double its LNG import capacity. Yet as the country works to transition to net-zero by 2050, the government’s own projections show a dramatic decrease in natural gas demand.  The new terminals South Korea are building are projected to fall to under 20% of their capacity by 2036. This will create what is known as “stranded assets,” meaning the government is investing billions of dollars into highly specialized infrastructure that soon will sit nearly unused. 

South Korea’s focus on LNG also has major implications for the global climate. “What we’re seeing is the development of a massive surplus capacity of LNG, compared to what’s needed for keeping warming to 1.5 degrees,” says scientist Bill Hare, the CEO of Climate Analytics, a climate science and policy institute. A new report by a global collaborative of clean energy advocates shows that South Korea is one of the top international public financiers of fossil fuels.

Over the past decade, South Korea has invested over $3 billion of government financing into major U.S LNG infrastructure projects, such as the enormous new Rio Grande and Port Arthur facilities. And South Korean energy giant Hanwha is planning to invest still more in the Rio Grande project, with multi-million dollar loans from public and private banks in Korea.  

This investment is dramatically increasing the United States LNG export capacity. “The US is set to double its existing capacity by the end of 2027,” says Jamie Lee, an international climate specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “That’s startling because the United States is already the top LNG exporter in the world.” Much of this rapid expansion is driven by South Korea’s investment – the country is one of the largest consumers of United States LNG exports.

Such investment is out of step with other developed countries, who are throttling back on gas: Other regions, including the European Union, the UK, and Canada, have committed to halt government financing for international fossil fuel infrastructure.

Ironically, the South Korean government has prioritized natural gas in part because of a misconception that it is cleaner than coal, which plays a large role in South Korea’s energy use. But when the emissions from its extraction, transport, processing, and consumption are taken into account, natural gas shows little or no improvement over other fossil fuels. In fact, natural gas currently accounts for 22% of global fossil fuel emissions.

Sejong Youn, the founder of the climate policy advocacy organization Plan 1.5, says, “The myth was appealing. If you didn’t look too closely, it appeared to be a better alternative. And that myth allowed policymakers and companies to continue business as usual, without the complexities that renewable energy introduces to the energy system.”

A financial black hole

Youn also points out other dangers of pouring public money into new natural gas infrastructure. “Whatever we build at this point will decide our future. Expanding gas infrastructure locks our country into a fossil fuel system,” he says. 

Public financing of LNG infrastructure is based on financial calculations that assume it will be used for many decades. But to meet the country’s goal of global carbon neutrality by 2050, these facilities would need to cease operations well before their functional lifetime expires, creating an enormous net loss for South Korea’s government. 

But despite the government’s current illogical funding trajectory, it may still be possible to reverse course. 

Think globally, act locally 

The coastal South Korean city of Dangjin is a fossil fuel hub, where coal-fired power plants and blast furnace steel mills spew pollutants. A 2021 report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air found that pollution from Dangjin’s plants causes over 210 premature deaths annually. Plans for new LNG terminals would add to these pollutants, making the city the third-largest LNG storage hub in the world. 

Jungjin Kim, a leading local activist with the Korea Federation for Environmental Movements (KFEM), says Dangjin bears the burden of powering the country, while energy demand is concentrated in densely urban areas like Seoul. “Because most energy facilities cause large environmental impact and damage, these facilities are located in Dangjin to avoid the backlash from city residents,” he says. 

Focusing public investment on natural gas, he says, also has serious economic risks for the area. “If all the jobs are in the fossil fuel sector, the entire region will be in a very dire economic situation when the demand for it declines,” he says. “It will be similar to what happened to Detroit.”

Government investment in domestic renewables could have the opposite effect. Research by Climate Analytics shows that if the South Korean government refocused on offshore wind, solar, and other domestic production, it could both boost employment and increase energy security. “There’s enormous potential in South Korea for renewable energy development that would create a net increase in local jobs,” says Hare. This could also support other industries in South Korea, such as transitioning LNG shipbuilders into green fuel transport to support the country’s chemical and steel industries. A 2023 report by NRDC shows that replacing LNG with renewable alternatives could be far less costly for both the government and consumers.

Despite the push to build natural gas infrastructure, activists in Dangjin have already successfully halted government funding for coal there. Korea Beyond Coal, a coalition of South Korean climate organizations working to end coal, successfully campaigned to end their government’s overseas coal investments in 2021. The effort helped shift private investment away from the sector. “South Korea can play a major role in accelerating the global energy transition,” says Dongjae Oh, the head of the oil and gas program at Solutions for our Climate (SFOC). “South Korea can shift its massive overseas fossil financing to renewable energy and work with other governments to expand clean, healthy and affordable energy, such as solar and wind.” 

That’s not to say the path to energy security and economic growth via renewable energy would be smooth. The Korean Peninsula’s history of geopolitical instability, South Korea’s mountainous terrain, and urban population concentration all present challenges. But the biggest barrier to renewable energy is the lack of political will and concrete policies to support the country’s renewable energy production potential.

And that potential is huge: A 2023 report  by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that with the right government policies and supports, South Korea could meet 80% of the country’s electricity needs with clean power by 2035. 

A golden opportunity 

Advocates argue that despite its difficulties, such a transition would be deeply worthwhile. “Renewables are the biggest economic opportunity we’ve had since the Second World War,” says Hare. “The scale of government investment needed is huge, and it will generate many more jobs than continued funding of fossil fuels. It’s a win-win. Governments can make investments that get us to zero emissions, and citizens will benefit economically.”

Project 1.5 founder Sejong Youn agrees. “The government should spend money on renewable energy infrastructure and creating jobs,” he says. “It’s an area where, as citizens, we can and should demand change.”

Solutions for Our Climate (SFOC) is an independent non-profit organization based in South Korea that works to accelerate global greenhouse gas emissions reduction and energy transition. SFOC leverages research, litigation, community organizing, and strategic communications to deliver practical climate solutions and build movements for change.  We work collaboratively with partners from around the world and aim to grow and strengthen the global network of climate actors that drive bold solutions.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline South Korea’s energy trap: Government-funded dead end fossil fuel investments on May 21, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Grist Creative.

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

In 2014, we wrote an article titled “The Blind Alley of J Street and Liberal American Zionism.” At the time, Benjamin Netanyahu was in his sixth continuous year as Israel’s prime minister, while President Obama was well into his second term. And J Street, an emerging organization of Jews aligned with the Democratic administration, had momentum as “the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans.”

From the outset, ever since its founding in 2007, J Street has implicitly offered itself as a liberal alternative to the hardline American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which was established more than four decades earlier. An avowed purpose of J Street has been to seek a humane resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while maintaining fervent allegiance to Israel as “the Jewish state.”

In the 10 years since our article, J Street — at pains to reconcile the contradictions between its “pro-Israel” bond and the increasing Israeli brutality toward Palestinians — has remained committed to the basic goal (or mirage) of a “Jewish and democratic” state. The war on Gaza since October has heightened those contradictions, thrusting into clearer view Israel’s actual creation-and-expansion story, illuminating the violent repression and expulsion of Palestinian people.

A significant number of American Jews are now willing to challenge the Zionist project while pointing out that it is inherently fated to suppress the human rights of non-Jews in Palestine. Speaking at a protest near Sen. Chuck Schumer’s home in Brooklyn last month, Naomi Klein said: “We don’t need or want the false idol of Zionism. We want freedom from the project that commits genocide in our name.”

Standard claims about “democratic Israel” have fallen into notable disrepute on U.S. college campuses, with both Jewish and non-Jewish students this spring protesting against the manifest torture and slaughter of Gaza’s population. Rumblings were audible a decade ago, when the Jewish student group Hillel was roiled with a dispute over whether its national leadership could ban Hillel chapters on college campuses from hosting strong critics of Israeli policies. That dispute, we wrote at the time, “emerged from a long history of pressure on American Jews to accept Zionism and a ‘Jewish state’ as integral to Judaism.” Back then, some Jewish students — “pushing to widen the bounds of acceptable discourse” — were “challenging powerful legacies of conformity.”

This year, in mid-February, J Street issued a statement addressed to President Biden that urged him to propose recognition of a “demilitarized” Palestinian state as a solution leading to acceptance of Israel by Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region. This is a rough equivalent of fiddling with the roof of a structure built on a grievously cracked foundation: the forced exile of non-Jews from much of Palestine — what is now Israel — and the refusal of their right of return, while maintaining a right of return (including to the occupied West Bank) for whoever can claim Jewish identity.

Whether Jewish or not, many Americans have come to question the arrogant absurdity of enabling an American in Brooklyn to claim Palestine while denying any such claim by ethnically cleansed Palestinians. In concordance with other Zionist groups, J Street presupposes that Palestinians should settle for areas designated by the Israeli colonizers (who must not be called colonizers), while they reserve a “right of return” only for themselves and their coreligionists.

J Street offers weak tea with its proposal for “a conflict-ending agreement in which Israel also ultimately recognizes Palestinian statehood.” Under such a scenario, Palestinians as a group would dedicate themselves to cooperation, non-resistance, and — in effect, given the one-sided requirement of “demilitarization” — acceptance of Zionist rights to control Palestine.

J Street’s idea of a fix is that the U.S. government will initiate a plan for “specific steps Palestinians must take to revitalize and reinvent their government with new leadership committed to addressing corruption, demilitarization, renouncing terror and violence, and reaffirming recognition of Israel.” The plan includes “specific steps Israel must take to ease occupation and improve daily life on the West Bank, crack down on settler violence and address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” And President Biden would offer “American recognition of Palestinian statehood, reaffirmation of the Arab Peace Initiative and security guarantees for all parties, commitments to supporting international law” — and finally, “a UN Security Council Resolution affirming global and unanimous support for the vision, the process and the parameters for negotiation leading to a final status agreement and admission of Palestine as a full member state in the United Nations.”

The J Street “comprehensive diplomatic initiative” proposal is remarkable for what it does not do. The proposal’s failure to acknowledge Israel’s taking of East Jerusalem and West Bank lands for Jewish settlement (even increasing since its war on Gaza began) dodges realities of a Palestine that is riven with settlements of Israeli citizens – a strategy since 1967 to fragment Palestinian populations into de facto Israeli versions of Bantustans.

The number of Israelis who’ve settled in East Jerusalem and occupied West Bank has increased 35% — to 700,000 — since our article 10 years ago, making it that much harder to realistically imagine a “two-state solution.” There is nothing in J Street’s new “bold” vision that conceives of Israeli ceding land it has taken for “Judaizing” increasing portions of Palestine.

Liberal American Zionists and U.S. administrations have sometimes objected to the latest illegal and immoral “facts on the ground” imposed by Israel, only to later accept them as immutable facts that could not possibly be rolled back. And so, as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recently reported, a “drastic acceleration in settlement building is exacerbating long-standing patterns of oppression, violence and discrimination against Palestinians.”

The UN human rights official, Volker Türk, reported that “the policies of the current Israeli Government appear aligned, to an unprecedented extent, with the goals of the Israeli settler movement to expand long-term control over the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and to steadily integrate this occupied territory into the State of Israel.”

Meanwhile, J Street’s proposal for a “demilitarized” Palestinian state matches Netanyahu’s plan for Israel to retain “security control” of all of Palestine to the Jordan River.

Israeli scholar David Shulman, in the midst of this latest crisis, writes: “The wave of anti-Israel feeling that is engulfing large numbers of people in the Western world has emerged not merely from the Gaza war, with its unbearable civilian casualties and now mass starvation. What that wave reflects, more profoundly, is the justified disgust with the ongoing occupation, its seemingly eternal and ever more brutal continuation, and the policies of massive theft and apartheid that are its very essence.”

The crux of our commentary 10 years ago holds even more terribly true today, after another decade of systemic, often-lethal cruelty toward Palestinian people: J Street continues its attempt to create a humane lobby group for Israel, without questioning the manifestly unjust — and thus perpetually unstable — settlement and expulsion project that created Israel in the first place and has sustained it ever since. In essence, while presenting itself as a caring alternative to Netanyahu-brand extremism, liberal Zionism’s yearning for “peace” assumes perpetuation of basic Israeli transgressions and gains over the last 75 years, while calling for acceptance and submission from a defeated and colonized people.

Ten years ago, we wrote of American Jews’ acquiescence to Jewish nationalism: “During the 1950s and later decades, the solution for avoiding an ugly rift was a kind of preventive surgery. Universalist, prophetic Judaism became a phantom limb of American Jewry, after an amputation in service of the ideology of an ethnic state in the Middle East. Pressures for conformity became overwhelming among American Jews, whose success had been predicated on the American ideal of equal rights regardless of ethnic group origin.”

Long story short, the dream of humanistic Zionism is collapsing, but — like other entrenched Jewish groups and a declining number of American Jews — J Street is desperate to keep the fantasy on life support. The nostrum of a two-state solution for the small tormented land of Palestine is more and more flimsy, but organizations like J Street and a large majority of elected Democrats refuse to concede that it has been made nonsensical by Israel’s ever-expanding settlements and escalating Jewish nationalism comfortable with inflicting genocide on Palestinian people.

We were touched, reading through successive J Street statements after the surprise and devastating Oct. 7 raid on “Gaza Envelope” Israeli settlements, causing 1,200 deaths and 240 kidnapped. Their first responses were expressions of solidarity with stunned Israelis, beginning with “J Street Stands with Israelis Facing Hamas Terror Onslaught.” Anguish was evident as J Street statements changed their tone, when Israel escalated assaults on Palestinian civilians. Alarmed at the Israeli military’s blockading and devastating Gaza, and also intensifying paramilitary settler raids on Palestinian communities in the West Bank, J Street pleaded repeatedly that the U.S. restrain Israel — to rescue J Street’s dream image of a humane and well-meaning Jewish state.

Unfortunately, these words that we wrote in 2014 have remained accurate, with steadily horrific consequences: “Every conceptual lane of J Street equates being ‘pro-Israel’ with maintaining the doctrine of a state where Jews are more equal than others. Looking to the past, that approach requires treating the historic Zionist conquest as somewhere between necessary and immaculate. Looking at the present and the future, that approach sees forthright opposition to the preeminence of Jewish rights as extreme or otherwise beyond the pale. And not ‘pro-Israel.’”

J Street’s current self-definition begins: “J Street organizes pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy Americans to promote U.S. policies that embody our deeply held Jewish and democratic values and that help secure the State of Israel as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people.”

In an unpublished autobiography, former Zionist Baltimore Rabbi Morris S. Lazaron wrote of political Zionism’s “nationalist philosophy expressed in this country under the guise of promoting ‘Jewishness,’ ‘Jewish unity,’ ‘Jewish education.’” And he summed up: “Finally I came to the conclusion that the Zionists were using Jewish need only to exploit their political goals. Every sacred feeling of the Jew, every instinct of humanity, every deep-rooted anxiety for family, every cherished memory became an instrument to be used for the promotion of the Zionist cause.”

Jews are going to have to make a painful reappraisal of the project that imposes a “Jewish” state in Palestine. Understanding our willful blindness and self-deception that facilitate the abuse of the non-Jews of Palestine will mean giving up the evasive palliative of pseudo-humanistic posturing from groups like J Street. The essential fight against antisemitism cannot mean ongoing degradation and suppression of another people. After 75-plus years of violently taking, while piously talking of a desire for peace, the disconnect between that ostensible peace-seeking and the assertion of Zionist control of the land will need to be resolved.

No matter how much it might be paved with good intentions, J Street serves as a well-trafficked avenue for liberal American Zionism that continues to support the subjugation of Palestinian people, with steady patterns of deadly violence. J Street has rigorously lobbied for the U.S. aid that provides Israel with the weaponry to inflict mass casualties.

“Since we launched J Street 15 years ago, we’ve supported every dollar of every U.S. security package to Israel,” J Street’s longtime president Jeremy Ben-Ami wrote in a May 9 email to supporters. As usual in lockstep with the Democratic White House, Ben-Ami went on to reassure supporters: “The decision to hold back certain weapons shipments is one the President doesn’t take lightly. And neither do we.”

J Street’s support for continuing huge quantities of military aid to Israel belies the organization’s humane pose. “U.S. aid to Israel must not be a blank check,” Ben-Ami wrote. “The Israeli government should be held to the same standards of all aid recipients, including requirements to uphold international law and facilitate humanitarian aid.” But those words appeared in the same email pointing out that J Street has always “supported every dollar” of U.S. military aid. Given that Israel has been flagrantly violating “international law” for decades — and had lethally blocked “humanitarian aid” in Gaza for more than six months by the time Congress approved $17 billion in new military aid in late April — J Street’s blanket support for military aid to Israel epitomizes the extreme disjunctions in the organization’s doubletalk.

“Voices on the extreme left are slamming the President for failing to do enough and enabling a genocide, even if one might think they would consider this a step in the right direction,” Ben-Ami wrote — the implication being that it’s unreasonably extreme to demand an end to U.S. policies enabling genocide.

In 2024, “pro-Israel, pro-peace” is an oxymoron, with denial stretched to a breaking point. Israel is now what it is now, not a gaslit fantasy that backers of groups like J Street want to believe. To whistle past the graveyard of a humanistic Zionist dream requires holding onto the illusion that the problem is centered around Netanyahu and his even-farther-right government allies. But a country cannot be meaningfully separated from its society.

“Israel has hardened, and the signs of it are in plain view,” foreign correspondent Megan Stack wrote last week in an extraordinary New York Times opinion piece. “Dehumanizing language and promises of annihilation from military and political leaders. Polls that found wide support for the policies that have wreaked devastation and starvation in Gaza. Selfies of Israeli soldiers preening proudly in bomb-crushed Palestinian neighborhoods. A crackdown on even mild forms of dissent among Israelis.”

The social fabric is anything but a fringe in control of the prime minister’s office and war cabinet. As Stack explained:

Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, the creeping famine, the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods — this, polling suggests, is the war the Israeli public wanted. A January survey found that 94 percent of Jewish Israelis said the force being used against Gaza was appropriate or even insufficient. In February, a poll found that most Jewish Israelis opposed food and medicine getting into Gaza. It was not Mr. Netanyahu alone but also his war cabinet members (including Benny Gantz, often invoked as the moderate alternative to Mr. Netanyahu) who unanimously rejected a Hamas deal to free Israeli hostages and, instead, began an assault on the city of Rafah, overflowing with displaced civilians.

Meanwhile, Stack added, “If U.S. officials understand the state of Israeli politics, it doesn’t show. Biden administration officials keep talking about a Palestinian state. But the land earmarked for a state has been steadily covered in illegal Israeli settlements, and Israel itself has seldom stood so unabashedly opposed to Palestinian sovereignty.”

Likewise, if J Street officials understand the state of Israeli politics, it doesn’t show. The organization’s officials also keep talking about a Palestinian state. But in reality, the “two-state solution” has become only a talking-point solution for liberal American Zionists, elected Democrats, and assorted pundits who keep trying to dodge what Israel has actually become.

Last week a founder of Human Rights Watch, Aryeh Neier, wrote: “I am now persuaded that Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” It is a horrific truth that J Street’s leaders keep evading.

In 2024, the meaning of “pro-Israel, pro-peace” is macabre: J Street refuses to call for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel while that country continues to use American weapons and ammunition for mass murder and genocide.

The post The Dead End of Liberal American Zionism appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Abba Solomon - Norman Solomon.

On the morning of Wednesday, May 15, two masked motorcyclists shot Sial, a reporter for the Daily Khabrain newspaper, while he was on his way to work in Muzaffargarh, a city in central Punjab province, before fleeing the scene, according to local nonprofit Freedom Network and news reports. Sial was taken to a hospital, where he died from his injuries.

The motive behind Sial’s killing was unclear. Punjab province’s Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz ordered those responsible be brought to justice, and the Punjab police have filed a First Information Report, which opens an investigation.

On May 3, Muhammad Siddique Mengal, president of the local Khuzdar Press Club and journalist for the local newspaper The Daily Baakhbar Quetta, died after a motorcyclist placed a bomb on the journalist’s vehicle at a busy crossing in Khuzdar city, in southwestern Baluchistan province.

“Pakistani authorities must transparently and promptly investigate the killing of journalist Ashfaq Ahmed Sial and determine whether it was linked to his journalism,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “This is the second case of a journalist being killed in Pakistan in the last two weeks. The Pakistani government must prevent this cycle of violence against journalists and ensure their protection.”

The Punjab police did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment via email.

On March 14, another Daily Khabrain journalist, Jam Saghir Ahmed Lar, was shot and killed in Khanpur, Punjab province.

Pakistan continues to be a perilous environment for journalists, with increasing risk for those who critically report on powerful entities, the military establishment, corruption among public officials, and crime.

Since 1992, 64 journalists have been killed in connection with their work in Pakistan. The country was 11th on CPJ’s 2023 Global Impunity Index, which ranks countries by how often killers of journalists go unpunished. Pakistan has appeared on the index every year since its inception.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

At about 9:30 a.m. on May 13, Srivastava, a correspondent for the Hindu-right wing news channel Sudarshan News and a member of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was shot several times by unknown assailants while riding his motorcycle at an intersection outside the city of Jaunpur, according to news reports. He was declared dead upon arrival at a local hospital and police were investigating the incident, those sources said.

CPJ was unable to establish if Srivastava was killed in relation to his journalism.

A month earlier, Srivastava had raised concerns about his safety with local police, after receiving threats due to his reporting on the illegal slaughter of cows, according to The New Indian Express and a reporter who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisals.

It is illegal to slaughter cows in Uttar Pradesh and more than a dozen other Indian states. Cows are considered holy by Hindus and cattle traders have been attacked and killed by right-wing vigilantes.  

On May 12, Raghav Trivedi, a reporter with the digital outlet Molitics, was assaulted during an election rally addressed by Home Minister and senior BJP leader Amit Shah in the city of Rae Bareli, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) southeast of the state capital Lucknow, according to news reports.

Trivedi told the website Newslaundry that he was assaulted after he questioned BJP leaders about allegations that women had been paid to attend the rally. When Trivedi said that he had video interviews with the women, a group of BJP activists ordered him to delete the footage but he refused and they attacked him, called him anti-Muslim slurs, and accused him of spreading false information, the journalist told Newslaundry.

Trivedi said that police officers standing nearby did not respond to his pleas for help and his assailants eventually locked him in a room. Trivedi said he lost consciousness and woke up in the local district hospital, where he has been receiving treatment for his injuries.

The police registered a complaint against six unidentified individuals and an investigation was under way, according to The Indian Express.

“Reports of the killing of journalist Ashutosh Srivastava and the assault of Raghav Trivedi in Uttar Pradesh are deeply disturbing,” said CPJ India Representative Kunāl Majumder.  “The authorities must ensure that those responsible are brought to justice. Journalists in Uttar Pradesh must be able to cover the general elections without fear.”

Monday’s vote marked the fourth phase in India’s seven-week long general election, which the BJP of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been in power since 2014, is expected to win. Journalists told CPJ that they feared political unrest, harassment, and censorship during the volatile election season, which has already been disrupted by violence.

CPJ’s email to the Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police, Prashant Kumar, and text message to the BJP spokesperson for Uttar Pradesh, Hero Bajpai, requesting comment did not immediately receive any replies.

CPJ’s India Election Safety Kit is available in English, हिंदी, ಕನ್ನಡ, தமிழ் and বাংলা

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

We speak with civil rights attorney Ben Crump about the police killing of Roger Fortson, a Black 23-year-old Air Force member who was fatally shot by a Florida police officer mere moments after opening the door of his apartment. Fortson’s family says the police had arrived at the wrong home and that Fortson had grabbed his legal firearm as a precaution. Police body-camera footage shows Fortson answered the door with his gun at his side, not posing an imminent threat to the officer, who immediately shot Fortson six times. “The Second Amendment applies to Black people, too,” says Crump, who has represented victims of police violence in many high-profile cases. The police claim that officers were responding to a domestic dispute is contradicted by the fact that Fortson was home alone, Crump says. “They need to go ahead and admit that it was the wrong apartment and quit trying to justify this unjustifiable killing.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Nearly seven months of constant bombardment, siege and obstruction of aid deliveries have annihilated the healthcare system in Gaza. Last week, the Palestinian Health Ministry said that around 600,000 Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip no longer have access to any kind of healthcare. The World Health Organization has said that Israel is “systematically dismantling” the health system in Gaza. Only 11 hospitals out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are partially functioning. At both of Gaza’s largest hospitals, Al-Shifa and Nasser, Palestinians found hundreds of bodies buried in mass graves after Israel raided and destroyed the facilities. Democracy Now! speaks with Dr. Ismail Mehr and Dr. Azeem Elahi just after they volunteered at the largest hospital still operating in Gaza, the European Hospital in Khan Younis. “The healthcare system has been always in a noose, and that noose tightens at times when there’s conflict,” says Mehr. “Right now that noose has completely just hung the healthcare system.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Orientation

Who are Neocons and Neoliberals today?

In the collapsing Mordor society of today we have two contending foreign policy theoretical tendencies, the Neocon realists and the Neoliberal globalists. The Neocon realists are represented by people like Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland, Steve Bannon and other war hawks who go back to the Bush Years (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz) and back even further to Michael Ledeen, Irving Krystal and  Leo Strauss. The Neocons never found a war they didn’t like. Political domination is the name of their game. While they support capitalism, trade relations are seen as subordinate to political power.

The forces of Neoliberal globalism are best represented by people like George Soros, the Rockefeller brothers and Henry Kissinger. Going further back in time, Neoliberals can be dated with the founding of the Austrian school of Von Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, later on by Milton Friedman followed by Paul Volcker and the Chicago boys economists made notorious by Naomi Klein in her book The Shock Doctrine. For the Neoliberals, opening up of free trade around the world is more important than defending their home state. Neoliberal globalists will go to war in reaction to free trade being threatened by a national government with protectionist policies, but they don’t go looking for war. However, Neoliberals are fine with a military capitalism that knows no boundaries, while arming the whole world whether or not its home country is at war.

The purpose of this article

There is no international policy that is not grounded in theory. In the discipline of politics, this field is called “international relations theory”. The aim of this article is to:

• show why neither of these Neocon or Neoliberal theories and their policies are working and how they are complicit in Mordor’s economic and political collapse;
• to show theoretically the bankruptcy of both Neoconservative and Neoliberal theories;
• to probe three other theories of international relations – liberal institutional liberalism, constructivism and world systems – to see how well they can explain or predict world events;
• to ask whether any of these theories could move Yankeedom away from collapsing;
• to inquire whether any of these theories can help us understand the rise of the multipolar world.

My sources for this article are International Relations Theory: A Primer by Elizabeth Matthews and Rhonda Callaway; International Relations Theory: A Critical Introduction by Cynthia Weber, and The Political Discourse of Anarchy: A Disciplinary History of International Relations by Brian Schmidt.

Old vs Neoconservatives

Old conservatives

The word “neo” means new. But how can we understand what a Neoconservative stands for if we don’t know how to contrast it to the kind conservative that came before? Therefore, in this section I will make that comparison. Old conservatives go all the way back to Edmund’s Burke’s criticism of the French Revolution. Other old conservatives are Joseph de Maistre, Louis de Bonald and Michael Oakeshott. What these folks share in common is their criteria for solving social problems. This involves looking to the past, to history, to solve problems. Since they believe human beings are flawed with original sin, what has happened historically by trial-and-error that has continuity should not be tampered with. This is embodied in both law and especially custom.

Old conservatives are champions of moderation and caution and perceive change as dangerous. They prefer the familiar to the unknown; the tried, compared to that which must be experimented with. When solving problems, they stuck close to the facts and were suspicious of anything mysterious. In political policy, they preferred the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, and the messy present rather than wasting time striving for the ideal. There was a romantic side to some conservatives who preferred poetry to the prosaic or stoic.

The lower classes constituted a “mob” and old conservatives hated both democracy and liberalism. The only good culture was the upper-class culture of aristocrats. The culture of peasants was perceived as gross and backward. Still aristocrats owed their inferiors something in return for their hard work, this was called “noblesse oblige.” Old conservatives believe in order and structure. The ideal society for old conservatives is feudalism where the structure takes the form of hierarchies with the king and aristocrats in charge. Obedience of the lower classes is highly valued. Some people found themselves in the lower classes due to accident or bad luck, yet old conservatives still felt that inequality was mostly inherited and based on the talents people were born with.

When feudalism reigned in Europe, old conservatives were skeptical of capitalism because it disrupted the class and status hierarchies they were used to. They felt that Adam Smith’s doctrine of the invisible hand was barbaric, not because it appealed to selfishness in individuals, but because it based itself on selfishness as an economic principle for society as whole.  Because many of the money lenders involved in trade in the Middle Ages were Jewish, conservatives did their best to exclude Jews from their social institutions.

Conservatives were dead-set against the engineering and experimenting with society through the use of reason. There was a place for reason in calculating the pros and cons of individual behavior, but not reason as it applied to nature. These conservatives were patriotic, not nationalists. Their patriotism was reactive, committing itself to defending a country against foreign aggression. It follows that they were isolationist in their foreign policy.

Neocons

The Neocons are far more militant than the old conservatives. They are nationalist and expansive, seeking national greatness. They want a strong patriarchal state with a strong military, law enforcement and prisons. They resist any matriarchal functions of the state such as pensions, welfare or childcare provisions and clearly have imperialist ambitions. Neocons come out of World War II swinging with the Cold War on their minds. They include Daniel Bell, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Nathan Glazer and Samuel Huntington. Unlike the old conservatives, Neocons embrace corporate capitalism. They started out as isolationists economically in the 50s and 60s when out of power, but then were won over to neoliberalism economics beginning with Reagan.

Whereas old conservatives rely on a messy accumulation of wisdom over the years, Neocons believe in the Great Man Theory of history à la Leo Strauss. They look to great philosophers rather than traditions coming from below to help them. Whereas old conservatives are cautious and prudent, Neocons are fundamentalists and assume they have the right answers. They interpret opposition as hostility and need boogeymen like Russia and China to be paranoid about internationally, or they see the “counterculture” as enemies domestically. They are not afraid to spend militarily and use demagoguery in their political speeches. Their speeches include dualities like “friend or foe” as exemplified by Bush’s “you are with the terrorists or with us”.

While it seems fair to say there was a streak of antisemitism in old conservatives, many Neocons are Jewish and support both Zionism abroad and Christian fundamentalism domestically. Like Neoliberals, Neoconservatives also use a kind of “social rationality” in their use of game theory to make decisions about the likelihood of military invasions (Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy by  S.M. Amadae). There is nothing romantic in their examining the past nor is there anything poetic about them. They are hard-headed and prosaic. Domestically, for Neocons, social hierarchies are the result of an aristocracy of talent and these aristocrats don’t owe the lower classes anything “noblesse oblige”). Their enemies at home are upper-middle class liberals. Unlike old conservatives, Neocons don’t hate the masses. They try to manipulate them through populism against effete relativist liberals.

Who Are the Neocon Realists?

Cold war origins

Early Neocon realists just before and just after World War II were E.H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau and George Kennan. The hard-ball drive of Neoconservative realism is inseparable from the Cold War. After two world wars, their realism was an attempt to bring “realpolitiks” into international relations following the naïve illusions of institutional liberals and typified by Woodrow Wilson.

Roots in Thomas Hobbes

Neo Conservative Realism is the application of Hobbesian theory of the political actions of the domestic state into the international arena. Instead of individual monads crashing against each other in a society, we have states as mindless monads crashing against each other internationally. States are inherently hostile to each other and in international relations states act as instrumental rationalists and utility maximizers. The priority of states are security and defense. States are like Hobbes’ billiard balls obeying the same laws of geometry and physics except at a macro level. Strategically Neoconservative realists draw inspiration from Machiavelli and even further back to Thucydides.

Roots in social Darwinism

It is not far-fetched to imagine Realists as Social Darwinists in which nation-states are like individual organisms struggling to survive. Ideas matter only in so far as states weigh the cost-benefits of past, present and future political actions. The use of reason or appeals to morality are dismissed as naïve pie-in-the sky schemes. It follows that human nature is competitive, aggressive and suspicious. Power is an end in itself, not a means to something higher or better. Just as the human nature of individuals is flawed, so too the political behavior of nation-states is flawed and myopic. The interactions between states is a zero sum game with winners and losers. There is no room for unintended consequences. While Neocons might be skeptical of pooled ideas when it comes to improving society, they are not opposed to the pooling of ideas among heads of state to develop think tanks, and foundations for combatting communist ideas.

States are static zero-sum games between Atlantic states

Neoconservative Realists have no sense of there being an evolution to the history of states. In a dog-eat-dog world, states rise and fall without any sense of an accumulation of things getting better or worse. For Realism the focus is on the relationship between the great powers, north-north relations. The global south is looked upon as backward and there is no expectation of support for it. It accepts imperialism as a fact of life. There is no effort to help industrialize the global south if they are possessed as colonies.

The place of geography

There is a field of international relations which deals with geography called geopolitics whose closest affinity is with Neoconservative Realism. But whether the theories are of Ratzel’s political geography, Alfred Thayer Mahan’s Sea Power, Mackinder’s Heartland Theory and the geopolitical pivot of history, Spykman’s Rimland, Kennan’s and Kissinger’s containment theory or Brzezinski’s Grand Chessboard, all these theories are Anglo-American or German, with imperialism as their goal.  The ideological nature of this field can be seen as  geopolitics of Russia with Aleksandr Dugin or China are not even included in the field.

Support of economic mercantilism

While neoconservative realists certainly support capitalism against communism, they are wary of international trade growing out of the control of the state. In its pure form Neoconservative Realists are mercantilists imagining that real wealth consists of positive balance of payments. Their economic policy is more protectionist rather than free trade. When it comes to scientific disciplines, it accepts the separation between politics and economics. It imagines state-state relations are driven by politics and it treats economics in a social schizophrenic way, as a separate discipline.

The place of socialism

Neoconservative Realists consider socialism as a completely separate system and it cannot easily explain the nature of trade relations between the two. It imagines all socialism as Stalinism and it is insensitive to the differences between Trotskyists, Stalinists, anarchists and social democrats. One size fits all! It is insensitive to the macro conflicts within socialism.

Relative criticisms of Neoconservative Realists from within International Relations Theory

The first criticism is that there is a mixing of descriptive and proscriptive statements which makes scientific testability difficult. In other words, its ideology of power politics gets in the way. Secondly, because it is wedded to conservative ideology it has no theory of how social movements arise to challenge the great powers. Further, because socialism is seen as flat and lacking in innovation it could not explain the fall of the Soviet Union or the rise of China.  Lastly because it pays little attention to the evolution of capitalism it failed to predict the rise of collaborative multi-lateral institutions that support capitalism such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund or the SWIFT balance of payments system.

Who Are the Neoliberal Globalists?

Origins of Neoliberal globalism

While Neoliberalism began just after War World II with the Austrian school of Von Hayek and Von Mises, it had to wait a good thirty years for New Deal liberalism to have its “golden age” between 1948 and 1970. It really came into its own after the Keynesianism economic policy ran into trouble. It also was triggered by the oil crisis in 1973, along with the new competition from Germany and Japan that had recovered from World War II. Neoliberalism has always been inseparable from:

• The declining standard of living in the United States;
• The arrival of credit cards to soften the blow of the decline;
• The increasing power of banks and finance capital.

Theorists of Neoliberal globalism today include Francis Fukuyama in his claim to the “end of history” and the triumph of Neoliberalism all over the world when the Soviet Union collapsed. Also, Samuel Huntington in his books the Clash of Civilizations and the Soldier and the State which supported Neoliberalism.

Capitalist international institutions promote austerity for non-core countries

With the help of the World Bank and the IMF, Neoliberal neo-imperialism promoted austerity programs on the periphery of the world economy, placing those countries in an impossible debt-trap. Unlike Neoconservative realists, Neoliberal globalists emphasize the international nature of the capitalist societies and they use the state militarily to support the reign of Anglo-American foreign capital in semi-peripheral and especially peripheral countries. The globalization of communication, transport, along with immigrant and refugee movements weakens the power of the nation-state to regulate all these transnational movements.

The state is subordinate to global capitalism

For Neoconservative Realists, the state is sovereign. For neoliberal globalists, the state is simply an aggregate of private interests. Neoliberal globalists have more confidence that wars can be controlled by multilateral efforts. At the same time Neoliberal globalists have no problem with military capitalism, where the military not only supports its home nation-states but it arms the whole world. To the horror of Realists, global Neoliberals are short on patriotism and long on making profits no matter where they come from.

Growing interdependence of states

Though in actually existing nation-states have been more interdependent than Realists like to imagine, with alliances prominent during both world wars, this interdependence has grown with the founding of NATO and the division of countries into capitalist and socialist blocs after the war. While geopolitical theory is mostly Realist in outlook, the work of Kennan, Kissinger and Brzezinski showed that Neoliberal globalists were just as anti-communist and coveted their potential markets of socialist states. These states had to form blocs and could no longer afford to be isolationist.

Think tanks and game theory

More than Realists, Neoliberals put a high preference on ideas. The first think-tanks came out of the Rand Foundation and global capitalists such as the Rockefeller brothers who set up not just think-tanks but foundations and organizations such as the Council of Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, all in the service of opposing communism. New Deal liberal gatekeepers acted as “controlled opposition” such as the Ford Foundation. The Neoliberal notions about human nature are not as bleak as Neoconservative Realists. Under certain conditions, state actors can cooperate. Game theory is a neoliberal attempt to understand the conditions that are likely to promote competition or cooperation among states.

Free trade

Unlike Neoclassical Realism, Neoliberal globalism contends that state-state engagements can result in a positive sum game. It believes in free trade and David Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage. It holds out hope for peripheral countries if they play by the rules of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. If Neoconservative Realists think that power politics is what is the most important determining factor in international relations, Neoliberals imagine that the field of economics determines the basis of state action. Like Neocon Realists, Neoliberal globalists imagine that economics is a separate discipline whose laws have nothing to do with politics. This way of thinking can be seen in theories of free market fundamentalists like Milton Freidman. Naomi Klein blew the roof off of this ideology when she exposed how the Chicago Boys muscled their way into Russia, Argentina and many other countries and turned their nation-states against institutional liberal FDR policies.

Failure to explain inequalities between the West and the rest

Neoliberal globalists are not much better than Neocon Realists in explaining the difference in wealth between core, periphery and semi-periphery countries. They imagine that peripheral countries face the same conditions as core countries did when they first developed capitalism. Like Neorealists, they imagine that nation-states are still internally driven and peripheral countries are poor because either their rulers are dictatorial or the population is uneducated and holding on to superstitious beliefs.

Attitude towards socialism

Neoliberal Globalists assume that centralized state socialism has no redeeming value. It sees these countries as poor and run by dictators. However, there is some recognition that social democratic states have some value, but in practice it is in the business of undermining them while demanding that their foreign policy allow for transnational corporations to make profits in their countries and leave with no strings attached.

Relative criticisms of Neoliberal globalism from within international relations theory

Like Neoconservative Realists, Neoliberal globalists have no theory of how social movements arise to challenge the great powers. While Huntington and Fukuyama celebrate the triumph of capitalism they have no theory to explain the failure of Neoliberalism, not only in other parts of the world but in the deterioration of their own home countries between 1990 and today. Neither can it explain the return of Russian nationalism nor the productiveness of the Chinese economy despite its leading industries being Communist state controlled.

Absolute Criticism of Neoconservative Realists

Failure to face the world economy is centered in the East

The fundamental reality that Neoconservative Realists fail to face is that world economy is undergoing tectonic shift, moving from West to East. For the first time since the 16th century, the center of the world economy is settling in China, Russia and Iran. Because realist theory is relatively shallow historically, it traces the history of the world  system back a couple of hundred centuries at best, when the Western world was the center of world power. The wars the Neocons want to start today are not powers of imperial expansion. Instead they are fighting to keep from losing control over its former colonies (like in Africa) who are placing their hopes with the multipolarists.

Cold War containment has backfired.

While China claims to be a communist country it has not insisted that its allies like Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia or Brazil become communist. China’s attraction for these counties is China’s willingness to harness energy, build railroads within these countries while internationally constructing their vast Belt-Road Initiative. Realists sense the United States allies are dwindling and so it increases pressure on European countries in the EU to do its imperial dirty-work.

Bye-bye mercantilism

World politics today is hardly Hobbesian nation-states clashing in a war of all against all. Today nation states have allies and blocs. In this sense. Neorealist theories are more sensitive to the relativeness of states than Realist theories are. To the extent that Realist theory is mercantilist, its capitalist economy hasn’t been protectionist for close to 100 years. When Neoliberal globalists uprooted the manufacturing industries in the mid 1970s and shipped their jobs overseas, it undermined its industrial economy from competing with other economies. These days, there are no infrastructural companies that can seriously compete with the countries in the multipolar world.

Neoconservative Realists are social schizophrenics. They concentrate on their political power overseas, but they fail to realize that the instability of their economic system both at home and abroad makes the power politics ineffective.

Failure to understand China

Neoconservative Realists know very little about what is going on in China. They fail to face that the Chinese Communist party knows how to make a profit. That 60% of its sources of profit come from state institutions. It imagines that the Chinese people, like the Russian people, are unhappy with their “authoritarian” states and are just waiting for a Western politician like Navalny to liberate them. While Neoconservative Realists mock the power of ideas in international relations, the Chinese Communist Party values the moral appeal of communism. Culturally, Neorealists imagine that the Chinese have a repressive culture that has little appreciation for the arts because of imagined repression. But the truth is the Chinese population is very interested in national and international culture. Recently Russian ballet, music, theatre and literature have sold out Chinese audiences for whom to perform.

War of all against all does not explain the multipolar world

Neoconservative theories of human nature can be compared to the dynamics of the novel Lord of the Flies. But when we look at the way the multipolar world is working, human nature is much closer to the movie Society in the Snow. This was about how rugby players on a flight to Chile survived 72 days in the Andes after their plane crashed because they cooperated. In the multi-polar world today Chinese and Russian policies of either debt reduction or even debt cancellation in Africa resemble human cooperation in practice. State-state interaction is not a zero-sum game. It is a positive sum game, at least in the multipolar world.

No sense that the world economy evolves

Neoconservative realists have no sense that states evolve, that there are a set of accumulating political, ecological and economic consequences that will affect its power politics. It treats them as accidently unexplained mishaps rather than the consequences of past myopic political actions.

Absolute Criticism of Neoliberal Globalists

Its failure to have a deep analysis of how capitalism works

One of the major problems for Neoliberal globalists is that they do not understand their own system of capitalism. They see no problem in investing in military capitalism which destroys the productive forces. They see no problem in investing in fictitious capital which produces no social wealth. Consequently, its domestic economies are falling apart because it fails to invest in industrial capital. Secondly, their economists cannot predict or explain when crises occur. Thirdly, they make no effort to understand the history of capitalism which might enable them to reform the system. These capitalists cannot think further down the line than three months. It pays little attention to the steepness in the gap between the very wealthy and the working class, except to occasionally moralize about it at conferences every six months. They make no attempt to study social movements so any rebellions against it coming from unions, nationalist groups or Occupy are treated as surprises driven by external causes.

Failure to understand that most countries are against free market capitalism

Since neoliberal globalists treat their own state as weak and something to be used by capitalists, it comes as a great shock to them when non-Western nation-states elect leaders who want to treat their economy as in need of a domestic plan. These are the conditions where Neoliberal globalists trade in their invisible hand for a visible fist. They turn to the CIA and the National Endowment of Democracy to give these elected officials their walking papers at best, or assassinations at worst, whether their state is socialistic or not. Neoliberal globalists understand that domestic populations are no longer in love with capitalism. So, like Neoconservatives, they develop economic propaganda centers through think tanks, foundations, and universities. These attempts are no longer working.

The failure of the comparative advantage ideology

Neoliberal theory of comparative advantage, which worked well as an ideology on peripheral countries in the middle to the last third of the 20th century, has worn thin. Periphery countries now see through this ideology, especially because of the presence of Russia and China to provide real alternatives. Neoliberal globalists like to present their economics as not political. However, this is easier to do domestically than it is internationally. The book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is only the tip of the iceberg in showing how neoliberals play hard ball geopolitics whenever a peripheral country informs transnational capitalists that they will have to pay taxes.

Success against social democratic regimes

For Neoliberal globalists, communist parties are the devil incarnate with whom there is no compromising. However, they have shown a willingness to deal with countries that have elected social democrats. Between 1980 and the present Neoliberal globalists  have been very shrewd at isolating and weakening social democratic rulers, making them slide to the right on the political spectrum along with liberalism generally. The example of Norway, Denmark and Sweden is a case in point. These countries have slid to the right along with the overall rightward trend in the Western world and are currently supporting Mordor, sending troops against Russia in Ukraine.

With the exception of Chavez, to a lesser extent Maduro and Evo Morales, Neoliberal globalists have been able to stem the Pink Tide.

Other International Relations Theory:  Liberal Institutionalism, Constructivism and World Systems Theory

Liberal institutionalism

This is an older theory of liberalism applied to international politics after World War One. It was an attempt to bring reason, universal ethics and education into international affairs. At first glance, looking at today’s world, this view seems hopelessly naïve, but with the founding of the League of Nations at the end of World War I, there was an appeal to a higher human nature. They believed that the belligerence between states was not inevitable. International anarchy could be policed by international institutions. As opposed to Realism theory, liberal institutionalism understood states as semi-independent rather than Hobbesian billiard balls crashing into each other without rhyme or reason.

Following Grotius and later Immanuel Kant, the basis for international relations was understood to be international law. These laws could bring about an orderly, just and cooperative world. Human problems were the not the result of human nature but of flawed, irrational institutions. Liberal institutionalists were very different from Neoliberals as we have seen, and they expected capitalist institutions to be governed by reasonable international politics. Despite World War I, liberal institutionalists hung on to a belief in progress. They also believed that Western nation-states still were the model for any future society.

As you might imagine, this theory would be laughed out of court by Neoconservative Realists as being utopian and out of touch. Neoliberals might agree with institutional liberals about the importance of law but this was only on paper. Neoliberal globalists do not want transnational corporations hemmed in by any state, let alone any potential world government. Neoliberals now believe in an unregulated global capitalism and any state had to dance to the tune of the international capitalist band.

As paradoxical as it might seem, it is not the current Western transnational finance capitalists who might give institutional liberalism the time of day, but the multipolar countries of China and Russia. These so-called authoritarian states have made some surprisingly liberal international statements about the nature of the future multipolar world. It is they that hold out the claim for free and equal development of all multi-polar states, whether they be in BRICS or in the Shanghai Cooperative network. Of course, whether or not they put this into practice is another matter.

Constructivism

Constructivism is a theory that first developed in the field of sociology with the work of Berger and Luckman in their book The Social Construction of Reality. It was first applied to international relations in the work of John Ruggie, Nicholas Onuf, Kratochwil and later Alexander Wendt. Constructivists reject the rational self-interest of the Realists and they claim that Realists reify international relations and state policies as things rather than processes. International relations are constructed and reconstructed based on the interaction of diplomats. They seek a more sociological conception of international relations by introducing the dialectic between structure and agency. Neoconservatives Realists behave as if there was only structure and no agency. For constructionists, material interests are not transparent and uncontested. They grow and change based on interaction with other states. For constructionists, states are not unified actors, as realists claim, but that they are impacted by political pressures.

Constructionists are rightfully skeptical of modernization theories of progress, but cautiously hold out hope for improved international relations. Constructionists are critical of Neoconservative realist theories that treat periphery countries as backward political entities that need to “catch up.” They accept Dependency Theory that Western countries are wealthy in part because the wealth of peripheral countries has been stolen. Constructionists look at peripheral countries as having corrupt rulers in need of internal political reform. The main scientific problem with constructionism as a theory is sometimes not testable.

Neoconservative Realists would dismiss constructionism as some woolly-headed  academic discipline which muddles the waters, attempting to make processes out of things, and destabilizing hard facts with various interpretations. They are naïve in believing that diplomats rather than the forces of the deep state are responsible for public policy. Neoliberals might pay lip service to constructionist processes when it comes to law and politics, but they would hardly stand for constructionists mucking around with international market forces. Chances are likely they would be ignored.

Again, paradoxically it is the multipolar country of China that would be open to some of the process-orientation of the constructionists. Of course, as Marxists, China’s leaders would emphasize structure over agency, but they would agree with constructionist insistence of not reifying material interest and state policies and being open to international policies that are win-win.

World-Systems Theory

Origin and founders

World-systems theory is by far the most radical of all international relations theory, an explicitly Marxist theory based on the four-volume work by Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System, whose first volume came out in 1974.  Along with Paul Baron, Sameer Amin and Andre Gunder Frank, system theorists were sensitive to the imperialism of the core states. Core countries exploited the peripheral countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America and this explains why they are poor, have growing debt and don’t seem to be able to catch up. The IMF and World Bank exploit peripheral countries in the service of core countries. It is these reasons they are poor  more than any internal state dynamic lack of economic willpower or superstition. Other family members of world-systems theory were Oliver Cox, George Modelski and Paul Kennedy (The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers). The roots of world-systems theory is not only in political economy, but history and sociology rather than the high politics of Neoconservative Realists.

Beyond politics and economics to political economy

Unlike either Neoconservative Realists or Neoliberal globalists world-systems theories do not accept the separation of politics (political science) from economics (neoclassical). There is only one field: political economy. This means all capitalist economics is partly political and there is no economics that is not also about power and politics. State diplomats do not make independent decisions but are mostly “talking shops of the bourgeoise” as Marx put it. Nation-states take their marching orders from transnational capitalists. The priority of states is to defend the world-capitalist ruling class.

Controversies within Marxism about actually existing socialism, imperialism and domestic class struggle

What makes world-systems theory controversial within Marxism is that world-systems theory claims that there are no real socialist states. All claimed socialist societies are really state-capitalist societies which are subject to the laws of capitalist world- economy. This directly challenges the claim made by Leninists that the former Soviet Union, China and Cuba really are socialist societies. For world systems theorists Stalinism has little to do with socialism. A second difference between world-systems theorists and Leninists is over the stages of imperialism. Lenin argued that imperialism was the last stage of capitalism, a new stage of the capitalist system. But Giovanni Arrighi, in his book The Long Twentieth Century claimed that there were four cycles of capitalism: a) merchant capital b) agricultural capitalism (slavery); c) industrial capital and d) finance capitalism, which includes imperialism. Over capitalism’s 500 year history, the Italians, the Dutch, the British and the United States each went through these four cycles. So, imperialism didn’t happen once, but four times, each time expanding wider and deeper into the capitalist world-system.

Please see my article for a more complete explanation of world systems theory: Tectonic Shifts in the World Economy: A World Systems Perspective. Lastly, Leninists insist that world-systems theory overemphasizes international dynamics between countries and understates the class struggle within nation-states.

Nation-states policy is determined by international core-peripheral relations and class struggle

For world-systems theorists, the material interests of states are determined on the one hand internationally by core-periphery relations and on the other hand domestically by class struggles. International relations are more powerful than state domestic relations. Like for Neoconservative Realists and Neoliberal globalists ideas are not very important in explaining international relations for world-systems theorists.

Human nature is fundamentally cooperative

While world-systems theorists agree with Neoliberal globalists that human nature is both cooperative and competitive, they believe that human nature is primarily cooperative. It becomes competitive due to social scarcity brought about by capitalism. Most human problems are due to flawed capitalist institutions. State-state relations are neither a zero-sum game claimed by Neoconservative Realists where one state wins and one loses. Nor are they a positive sum game where both states win as the Neoliberals claim. In world-systems theories state-state relations are negative sum gains where all states decline due to war, ecological disasters and international economic crises. Only socialist states are capable of positive sum games.

Socialism is too new to be judged a failure

All things considered, capitalism has had 300 years to develop after it overthrew the feudal system. Socialism has had about 160 years under which has never been free to develop autonomously. When we look at the state of the world today with the rise of China and the multipolar world, it is way too soon to judge the long-lastingness of socialism. On the other hand, if we look at the bleak landscape of the failure of Neoliberal capitalism over the last 30 years, it is more likely to say capitalism is the system that is on the way out.

Criticisms of World-Systems Theory

• Dependency theory is weak in explaining why some peripheral states are not immiserated but relatively successful.
• It is too hard on actually existing socialism and its achievements for middle-class and working-class people, especially given the backward nature of society before socialism came into being.
• Given that world-systems theory is more sympathetic to the social democratic experiments in socialism, it doesn’t explain well its rightward turn in the last 40 years, especially the Scandinavian countries.
• With the exception of work by Christopher Chase-Dunn, the late Terry Boswell and Charles Tilly, most world-systems theory does not make social movements within states and its global implications a very high priority, though it is better than any other theory.

How Useful is World-Systems Theory to Western Powers?

World-systems theory might be useful to the West if the West was able to elect a social democratic party which could put into practice some of its insights. But the entire Western world seems to be sinking and at best might occupy a peripheral position within a new multipolar world led by China, Russia and Iran. There is currently no place for world-systems insights to be applied in Mordor or any of its European satellites.

How Useful is World-Systems Theory to the Multipolar world?

World-systems theory would be very helpful in explaining a problem that has plagued classical Marxism. Why has socialism arisen in countries that were not industrialized? World-systems theory argues that in the history of capitalism, new leading hegemons arise from the capitalist semi-periphery. Russia, China, Iran and India all fit this bill. The multipolar world would be in complete agreement (at least China, Cuba and Venezuela) that political economy rather than politics or economics taken separately will explain international relations. The multipolar world would feel quite at home with world-systems theory claims that cooperation between states is natural and that the zero-sum games of the Neoconservative Realists are out of touch with the new world they are building. They agree with world-systems theorists that neoliberal globalist claims of a positive sum game between states are ideological window dressing to mask the exploitation by core countries of peripheral countries. Lastly, there is nothing I can see that is threatening to multi-polar socialist states to consider world-systems theories cycles of imperialism rather than a linear stage.

On the negative side, China, Cuba and Venezuela would be very upset that world-systems theory would argue they are not really socialist countries. They would claim that the standards world-systems theory holds for socialism, such as the levelling of classes, the absence of wage labor, the shortening the work week are too strident for a socialist world still surrounded by decaying and desperate capitalist states. In addition, world-systems theories would criticize socialist multipolar states for the continued existence of class struggles within socialist states, especially China. There are no unions and strikes by workers going on.

A Conclusion and Autopsy

In this conclusion, my aim is to pull together all the criticisms of both Neoconservative Realism on the one hand, and Neoliberal globalism on the other. For each one I will state relative criticisms from within International Relations Theory. That will be followed by criticism of these theories based on the current tectonic shift in the world economy from the Western world to the East.

Neoconservative Realism

Relative criticisms on International Relations Theory

• The mixing of descriptive and proscriptive statements makes scientific testing difficult.
• It has no theory of how social movements arise to test the great powers.
• Because it sees socialism as flat Stalinism, it has no theory of why the Soviet Union fell or how China arose.
• Because it pays little attention to the evolution of capitalism, it failed to predict the rise of collaborative multi-lateral institutions that support capitalism (World Bank or IMF, and the Swift method of balancing payments).

 Criticisms based on the current multipolar movement from West to East

• Failure to explain or predict the tectonic shifts in the world-economy from West to East.
• Failure to explain or predict the loss of former colonies.
• Failure to explain why the Cold War containment policy of Kennan and the influence of Mackinder has failed.
• The decline of protectionism and mercantilism. Realism has been forced by market fundamentalism to give up any hope of an insular, mercantile economic policy.
• Failure to explain how finance capital has undermined its claim for power over resources. These days profits are counted based on stocks and bonds, not material resources.
• Failure to explain inequalities between the West and the rest.
• Failure to understand the Chinese source of power. If Neoconservative Realists were right, Realist war drums against China would be based on its military threat. But China’s superiority stems from its economic superiority in producing goods and services, and building infrastructures.
• Failure to understand the popularity of the Chinese and Russian leadership among their populations. The picture of these states as dark totalitarian nightmares is out of touch with how people are actually living in these countries.
• The Hobbesian war of all against all, does not explain the cooperative relations between members of the multipolar world (China, Russia and Iran) and their followers in BRICS as well as in the global south.
• There is no sense that states break down, built up in the context of an irreversible, accumulating process that is not static and beyond the intentions of state actors or great men.

Neoliberal Globalists

Relative criticisms of International Relations Theory

• They have no theory of how social movements arise to challenge the great powers.
• It has no theory to explain the failure of Neoliberal capitalist economics around the world and the deterioration of its home countries such as Europe and the U.S.
• It cannot explain the return of Russian nationalism under Putin.
• The world’s most productive country, China, is successful despite its claim to be a communist country and its substantial profits derived from state-run institutions.

Criticisms based on the current multipolar movement from West to East

• Failure to explain or predict the tectonic shifts in the world-economy from West to East.
• Failure to explain or predict the loss of former colonies.
• Failure to explain why the Cold War containment policy of Kennan and the influence of Mackinder has failed.
• Failure to explain inequalities between the West and the rest.
• Failure to understand the popularity of the Chinese and Russian leadership among its population. The picture of these states as dark totalitarian nightmares is out of touch with how people are actually living in these countries.
• Failure to understand the necessity of expanded reproduction for capitalism to continue. It invests in non-productive forces like the military and finance capital.
• Failure to explain when, where and why capitalist crises occur. There is no long-term planning to stop future crisis.
• Failure to understand that free-market fundamentalism has more adversaries than friends either among multi-polar rulers nor their populations and this country despite their best propaganda techniques in think tanks, foundations and universities.
• Failure of the comparative advantage ideology. The Global South has had roughly three generations to see how productive it is to specialize in the production of coffee, sugar and tobacco has been. They have had enough, especially now that Russia and China have offered to cancel their debt and build their industries, rather than “brain-drain” exported to core countries.
• Neoliberal globalists have been successful in stemming the Pink Tide in South America, as the tide has become white domestically and become imperialist in its support of Mordor against the multipolar world.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.

The five ethnic Rohingya men were arrested by the Arakan Army in Rakhine State’s Maungdaw township on April 17, they said. Their bodies were found on Monday. The Arakan Army denied killing the men.

Rohingya Muslims have faced persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar for generations. Recently, they have been targeted by the junta in a recruitment drive to bolster their army’s numbers. Many Rohingya have been forced to move into poorly equipped camps because of a surge in fighting between members of the Arakan Army, drawn largely from the Buddhist community, and junta forces. Travel bans and security blockades have further affected many residents of the state.

The five men, from Ah Bu Gyar village,  had not been heard from after they were detained, one person close to the family of one of the dead said. 

The Arakan Army detained the men for interrogation after clashing with members of a Muslim insurgent group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, near the village, residents said. 

“They have been arrested since April 17 and have not been able to contact their families. [The Arakan Army] said they would release them,” said one resident, who declined to be identified for security reasons. “But on April 22, some villagers found them at the Ywet Nyo Taung creek shore.”

The families did not  know why the five were killed, one relative said, adding that relatives were also not allowed to collect the bodies.

Sources close to the families identified the victims as Abdul Amen, 54, a former village secretary, Malawe Mohamed Sayad, 40, Aisalam, 61, Arbul Karlam and Numar Lal Hakem 27.

Arakan Army spokesman Khaing Thukha told RFA his group did not arrest the five residents, nor did it kill detainees. The group had “nothing to do,” with the case, he said.

“We would never do this kind of lawless and unjust killing,” Khaing Thuka told RFA.

Khaing Thukha said various insurgent groups and drugs gangs operated in the region

“It’s a complex area,” he said. “Among the criminal gangs, there are sometimes murders because one side is not satisfied with the other.”

He also said that people opposed to the Arakan Army could be trying to damage its reputation in the community.

Arakan Army fighters attacked a police station near the border with Bangladesh, near Maungdaw township’s Ywet Nyo Taung village, on April 17, residents said. Almost all villagers in the area had abandoned their homes and fled after the attack.

A Myanmar army offensive in the area launched after insurgent attacks on police posts in 2017 sparked an exodus of some 750,000 refugees into Bangladesh.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

Photo by Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu

When the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, higher education institutions throughout the United States started adopting a progressive standard of education that advocates had demanded for decades: they began dropping standardized tests such as the SAT and the ACT as requirements for admissions. As was the case with so many other pandemic-era societal adaptations—government economic relief that lowered poverty rates, a pause in student loan repayments, free vaccines, an end to public library late fees—this offered an opportunity for a grand experiment in promoting equality.

The move to drop the tests can actually be traced to a time before the pandemic, but it was accelerated by students being unable to travel to testing sites during the lockdowns. Further, the mass racial justice uprising of summer 2020 pressured elites into embracing ideas rooted in equity.

Many celebrated the spurning of tests as the right direction for institutions that have ensured the maintenance of white supremacist patriarchy since their inception. But as elite universities such as Yale, Harvard, and Caltech recently reneged on the promise of leveling the playing field by returning to test requirements, are those celebrations premature?

Research has confirmed over and over that requiring students to take the SAT or ACT weeds out women, people of color, and other marginalized groups. As a physics and astronomy undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, I participated in efforts in the early 1990s to address how such tests undermine women’s entry into STEM fields. I was a perfect example: a straight-A student whose academic record had only one stain: a mediocre SAT score which severely narrowed my college options.

Robert Schaeffer, director of public education at FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing, which is one of the leading advocacy groups against required SAT and ACT testing, told the 19th, “Despite the fact that young women get lower scores on the test than young men, they earn higher grades when matched for identical courses in college than the boys.”