President Donald Trump on July 4 signed into law an omnibus reconciliation bill, branded in MAGA propaganda (and much of corporate media) as the “Big Beautiful Bill.” The legislation scraped up just enough votes to narrowly pass in both chambers of the Republican-controlled Congress, with 51 to 50 votes in the Senate and 218 to 214 in the House.

The focal point of the bill is a $4.5 trillion tax cut, partly paid for by unprecedented slashes in funding for healthcare and food assistance. The wealthiest 10% will gain $12,000 a year from the legislation, while it will cost the lowest-earning 10% of families $1,600 annually. Media addressed the fiscal aspects of the bill, though more often through a fixation on the federal debt rather than looking at the effect of the budget on inequality (FAIR.org, 7/17/25).

But it’s not just a question of money. Many of the bill’s key provisions—including Medicaid, SNAP and clean energy cuts, as well as handouts to the fossil fuel, military and detention industries—will be literally deadly for people in the US and abroad, in both the near and long term.

FAIR’s Belén Fernandez (7/9/25) closely examined the dramatic lack of coverage of the vast expansion of the government’s anti-immigrant capacities. But the deadly consequences of the other aspects of the bill were also remarkably underexplained to the public.

To see how major media explained the contents and consequences of the reconciliation bill to the public before its enactment, FAIR surveyed New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and NPR news coverage from the Senate’s passage of the final version of the bill on July 1 through July 4, the day Trump signed the bill into law. This time frame, when the actual contents of the bill were known and the House was deliberating on giving it an up or down vote, was arguably the moment when media attention was most critical to the democratic process.

‘We all are going to die’

This USA Today article (7/1/25) was one of the more informative in detailing the impact of the bill, but it still fell short of detailing the projected cost in human lives.

While corporate media reported that the finalized bill with the Senate’s revisions would significantly cut healthcare funding to subsidize the tax breaks, they rarely explained the social consequences of such cuts. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the bill will reduce $1.04 trillion in funding for Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program over the next decade. This will strip health insurance from 11.8 million people.

The New York Times (7/1/25), acknowledging these statistics, quoted Democrats who opposed the bill due to “the harmful impact it will have on Medicaid,” and who noted that people will soon “see the damage that is done as hospitals close, as people are laid off, as costs go up, as the debt increases.”

But the outlets in our sample, at this crucial time of heightened attention, failed to mention the most significant consequence of cutting Medicaid: death.

These outlets (New York Times, 5/30/25; NPR, 5/31/25; CNN, 5/31/25;  Washington Post, 6/1/25) had all earlier acknowledged what the Times called Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-IA) “morbid” response to her constituents’ concerns about deaths from Medicaid cuts: “Well, we all are going to die.”

But as the House deliberated on whether these cuts would become law, these outlets failed to reference credible research that projected that the large-scale loss of health insurance envisioned by the bill would have an annual death toll in the tens of thousands. One USA Today piece (7/1/25) did headline that “Trump’s Tax Bill Could Cut Medicaid for Millions of Americans,” but didn’t spell out the potential cost in human lives.

Before the Senate’s revisions, researchers from Yale’s School of Public Health and UPenn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (Penn LDI, 6/3/25) projected that such massive cuts to healthcare would result in 51,000 deaths annually. That number is expected to be even higher now, as the calculation was based on an earlier CBO estimate of 7.7 million people losing coverage over the next decade (CBO, 5/11/25).

‘Harms to healthcare’—not to people

CNN (7/4/25) euphemized life-threatening withdrawal of care as “harm to the healthcare system.”

CNN (7/4/25), in a piece on “Who Stands to Gain From the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill.’ And Who May Struggle,” similarly failed to spell out the dire consequences of the Medicaid cuts. It wrote that low-income Americans would be “worse off” thanks to those cuts, yet it extensively described only the fiscal impacts, as opposed to the costs in life and health, on lower- and middle-class families.

Hospitals would also be “worse off” due to the bill, as it would “leave them with more uncompensated care costs for treating uninsured patients.” This rhetorically rendered the patient, made uninsured by legislation, a burden.

The article quoted American Hospital Association CEO Rick Pollack, who said that

the real-life consequences…will result in irreparable harm to our healthcare system, reducing access to care for all Americans and severely undermining the ability of hospitals and health systems to care for our most vulnerable patients.

But CNN refused to spell out to readers what that “harm to the healthcare system” would mean: beyond “reducing access,” it would cause people to die preventable deaths.

Outlets often seemed more concerned with the impact of the bill on lawmakers’ political survival than its impact on their low-income constituents’ actual survival. The Washington Post (7/4/25), though acknowledging that their poll revealed that “two-thirds [of Americans] said they had heard either little or nothing about [the bill],” made little or no effort to contribute to an informed public. Instead, it focused on analyzing the “Six Ways Trump’s Tax Bill Could Shape the Battle for Control of Congress.”

The New York Times (7/1/25) similarly observed that the Senate Republicans’ “hard-fought legislative win came at considerable risk to their party’s political futures and fiscal legacy.” In another article (7/1/25), they noticed that it was the “more moderate and politically vulnerable Republicans” who “repeated their opposition to [the bill’s] cuts to Medicaid.”

‘Winners and losers’

“Opponents of the bill say the proposed cuts will leave millions of adults and children hungry”; the New York Times (7/1/25) apparently doesn’t know whether that’s true or not.

The Medicaid cuts aren’t the only part of the bill that will result in unnecessary deaths. The bill will cut $186 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a program that helps low-income individuals and families buy food. CBO (5/22/25) estimated that 3.2 million people under the age of 65 will lose food assistance. This contraction is expected to be even more deadly than the healthcare cutbacks: The same researchers from UPenn (7/2/25), along with NYU Langone Health, projected that losing SNAP benefits will result in 93,000 premature deaths between now and 2039.

SNAP cuts were mostly only mentioned alongside Medicaid, if at all (Washington Post, 7/3/25; New York Times, 7/3/25; CNN, 7/4/25). And when they did decide to dedicate a whole article to the singular provision, they rarely ventured beyond the fiscal impacts of such cuts into real, tangible consequences, such as food insecurity, hunger and death. The New York Times (7/1/25) asked “how many people will be affected,” but didn’t bother to ask “how will people be affected?”

What’s more, according to the Center for American Progress (7/7/25), the bill’s repeal of incentives for energy efficiency and improved air quality “will likely lead to 430 avoidable deaths every year by 2030 and 930 by 2035.”

The New York Times (7/3/25), however, analyzed this outcome as a changing landscape with “energy winners and losers.” It described how the bill will eliminate tax credits that have encouraged the electrification of homes and alleviated energy costs for millions of families. Somehow, the “loser” here (and all throughout the article) is the abstract concept of “energy efficiency” and private companies, not actual US families.

Another little-discussed provision in the bill is the funding for the Golden Dome, an anti-missile system named for and modeled on Israel’s Iron Dome. The bill set aside $25 billion for its development, along with another $128 billion for military initiatives like expanding the naval fleet and nuclear arsenal.

Media, though, did little more than report these numbers, when they weren’t ignored entirely (CBS, 7/4/25; CNN, 7/4/25). The New York Times (7/1/25) characterized these measures to strengthen the military/industrial complex as “the least controversial in the legislative package”; they were “meant to entice Republicans to vote for it.” In utterly failing to challenge $153 billion in spending on a military that is currently being deployed to bomb other countries in wars of aggression and to suppress protests against authoritarianism at home, the media manufacture consent for militarism as a necessity and an inevitability.

Ignorance a journalistic fail

The Washington Post’s headline and article (7/3/25) perfectly exemplified the paradox with today’s media—calling out how “The Big Problem With Trump’s Bill [Is That] Many Voters Don’t Know What’s in It.” Yet it tosses in an unsubstantial explanation about how “it deals with tax policy, border security, restocking the military/industrial complex, slashing spending on health and food programs for the poor—as well as many, many other programs.”

By reducing sweeping legislative consequences to vague generalities and by positioning ignorance as a voter issue rather than journalistic failure, media outlets maintain a veneer of critique while sidestepping accountability.

Featured image: PBS  depiction (7/30/25) of President Donald Trump signing the reconciliation bill. (photo: Alex Brandon/Pool via Reuters.)

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Shirlynn Chan.

Regional military commanders along the 800-kilometer border agreed to halt gunfire, refrain from moving troops and establish direct bilateral communications, according to a Thai army spokesman and a spokesperson from the Cambodian defense ministry.

(Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters)

Acting Thai Prime Minister Phumtham Vejjayachai on Tuesday accused Cambodian troops of violating the ceasefire. The Thai government said it had filed a complaint about the alleged violation to Malaysia, the U.S. and China.

Cambodia’s defense minister, Tea Seiha, denied the claim, writing on Facebook that Cambodia’s armed forces has been strictly observing the truce. He said the Cambodian defense ministry would lead a delegation of foreign diplomats to observe the border.

Local sources near the border told RFA that gunfire was heard periodically in the predawn hours on Tuesday. An Agence France-Press journalist near the border said the sound of gunfire stopped ahead of the midnight deadline, a quiet that continued into Tuesday evening.

Thailand’s Phumtham and Prime Minister Hun Manet of Cambodia appeared together on Monday to announce the ceasefire, brokered with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia, the annual chair of the ASEAN regional bloc.

The announcement came amid pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, who said that continued fighting could stall negotiations for a trade deal with the U.S. Both countries face a 36% tariff on their goods unless a reduction can be negotiated. After the deal was announced, Trump said he had spoken with both leaders and told his team to restart talks.

At least 43 people were killed and around 300,000 were displaced during the fighting, which included jets, rockets and artillery.

(Heng Sinith/AP)

Some locals, like Cambodian Soklang Slay, expressed wariness as they returned to their homes on Tuesday.

“I am very concerned that new fighting may break out. Thailand often provokes the fighting first, but then accuses Cambodia. Their aims is that they want to occupy our temples [along the border]. I really don’t want to see any new fighting happen,” he told the Associated Press.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee, an author and former editor of the Nation newspaper in Bangkok who lives in his hometown in Kantharalak district, Sisaket province, was among those displaced. He had to evacuate, he said, and lost his cattle and his chance to harvest ripe durian fruit.

“The recent border skirmish between Thailand and Cambodia was senseless and served no real benefit to either nation. It did, however, serve the interests of the Thai military and Cambodia’s ruling family,” he told RFA, referring to the spat between Hun Manet and suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra.

“Politically, the conflict has placed the government of Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on the brink of collapse. The failure of coherent diplomacy has opened the door to external interventions — most notably by the United States and China — complicating an already volatile situation.”

To resolve their issues long-term, he said both countries must accept the presence of international observers to monitor and verify the truce’s implementation.

“At the same time, they must reactivate dormant bilateral mechanisms to address critical issues of border security and the long-overdue boundary demarcation,” he said.

Includes reporting by RFA Khmer and Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA, as well as Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press, and Reuters.

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

The two sides fired small arms, rockets and artillery, and Thailand called in airstrikes on targets in Cambodia. Thai officials said Thursday they were closing the border entirely.

The flashpoint appeared to be the ancient Ta Muon Thom temple, a disputed site nestled on a mountain in Thailand’s Surin province. The initial engagement rapidly expanded, engulfing four Thai provinces bordering Cambodia’s northern frontier: Surin; Si Sa Ket, Ubon Ratchathan, and Buriram, according to Thailand’s 2nd Region Army Command.

Each country accused the other of starting Thursday’s skirmishes. The Thai army said its forces heard a drone before seeing six armed Cambodian soldiers moving closer to Thai military positions at the border, then opening fire. Cambodia’s defense ministry said that Thailand deployed a drone first before opening fire and that Cambodian troops reacted in self-defense.

In a statement, the Thai military said it “condemns Cambodia for using weapons to attack civilians in Thailand. Thailand is ready to protect sovereignty and our people from inhuman action.”

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet wrote to the president of the U.N. Security Council asking for an urgent meeting to stop “unprovoked and premeditated military aggression” by Thailand. In a post on Facebook, he appealed to Cambodians to “maintain their morality and dignity, and to avoid discrimination or any actions that could affect the Royal Thai Embassy in Cambodia, Thai Companies, and Thai citizens living in Cambodia.”

Thailand’s acting prime minister, Phumtham Vejjayachai, said in remarks to reporters that the fighting must stop before there can be negotiations with Cambodia.

Those killed included one soldier and 11 civilians, according to the Thai health ministry. At least eight soldiers and 35 civilians have been injured, the ministry said. Thailand has evacuated more than 40,000 people from border areas, moving many of them to temporary shelters.

(Prajoub Sukprom/Reuters)

Cambodia has not yet commented on casualties on its side. Defense ministry spokeswoman Maly Socheata did not provide detail when asked at a news conference.

Thursday’s fighting came after weeks of escalating tension following a shooting incident on May 28 that killed a Cambodian soldier. Since then, Cambodia has petitioned the International Court of Justice, banned some Thai imports, and announced it would begin conscripting younger citizens starting next year.

On Wednesday, Thailand expelled Cambodia’s ambassador and recalled its envoy to Phnom Penh after previously closing some border crossings. Thailand’s former prime minister was suspended after a leaked call between her and Hun Sen, Cambodia’s former prime minister, sparked a political fracas.

The 800 kilometer long boundary between Cambodia and Thailand has been a source of contention for decades, with ancient temples and historical claims frequently igniting diplomatic friction.

Includes reporting by RFA Khmer and Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA, as well as Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press, and Reuters.

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

The flash flooding in Texas would have been catastrophic at any time of day, but it was especially dangerous because it happened at night. Research shows that more than half of deaths from floods happen after dark, and in the case of flash floods, one study put the number closer to three-quarters. Other hazards are more perilous in the dark, too: Tornadoes that strike between sunset and sunrise are twice as deadly, on average, as those during the day. No one can stop the sun from rising and setting, but experts say there are simple precautions that can save lives when extreme weather strikes at night. As climate change supercharges floods, hurricanes, and fires, it’s becoming even more important to account for the added risks of nocturnal disasters.

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Stephen Strader, a hazards geographer at Villanova University, said that at night, it’s not enough to rely on a phone call from a family member or outdoor warning sirens (which Kerr County officials discussed installing, but never did). The safest bet is a NOAA radio, a device that broadcasts official warnings from the nearest National Weather Service office 24/7. One major advantage is that it doesn’t rely on cell service. 

“That’s old school technology, but it’s the thing that will wake you up and get you up at 3 a.m.,” said Walker Ashley, an atmospheric scientist and disaster geographer at Northern Illinois University.

Even with warning, reacting in the middle of the night isn’t easy. When people are shaken awake, they’re often disoriented, requiring additional time to figure out what’s happening before they can jump into action. “Those precious minutes and seconds are critical a lot of times in these situations for getting to safety,” Strader said. 

The darkness itself presents another issue. People tend to look outside for proof that weather warnings match up with their reality, but at night, they often can’t find the confirmation they’re looking for until it’s too late. Some drive their cars into floodwaters, unable to see how deep it is, and get swept away. It’s also harder to evacuate — and try to rescue people — when you can barely see anything. “I invite anybody to just go walk around the woods with a flashlight off, and you find out how difficult it can be,” Ashley said. “Imagine trying to navigate floodwaters or trying to find shelter while you’re in rushing water at night with no flashlight. It’s a nightmare.”

The logic applies to most hazards, but the night problem appears the worst with sudden-onset disasters like tornadoes and earthquakes — and the early-morning flash floods in Texas, where the Guadalupe rose 26 feet in 45 minutes. A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, meaning that storms can dump more water more suddenly than they used to. 

“We have essentially, because of climate change, put the atmosphere on steroids,” Strader said. It’s on his to-do list to study whether other disasters, like hurricanes and wildfires, are deadlier at night. 

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After deadly flash floods, a Texas town takes halting, painful steps toward recovery

Naveena Sadasivam

When Hurricane Harvey pummeled Texas with rain for days in 2017, people described waking up to water creeping into their homes; the Texas National Guard navigated rescue boats through neighborhoods in the dark, searching for survivors. In recent years, hurricanes have rapidly intensified before making landfall, fueled by warmer ocean waters. That shrinks the window in which forecasters can warn people a strong storm is coming. To compound the problem, at the end of July, the Pentagon plans to stop sharing the government satellite microwave data that helps forecasters track hurricanes overnight, leaving the country vulnerable to what’s called a “sunrise surprise.”

In the past, nighttime conditions have proved useful for slowing wildfires: Temperatures are cooler and the air has more moisture, reducing the likelihood of fires spreading quickly. But climate change is lessening these beneficial effects. The overall intensity of nighttime fires rose 7 percent worldwide between 2003 and 2020, according to a study in the journal Nature. That means fires are increasingly spreading late at night and early in the morning. It was an ultra-dry January night when the Eaton Fire began tearing through Altadena in Los Angeles County. Some residents were woken up in the predawn hours to smoke already in their homes, strangers pounding on their windows, or sheriff’s deputies and rescue volunteers driving by with loudspeakers.

While daytime tornado deaths have declined over time, nighttime fatalities are on the rise, Strader and Ashley have found in their research. (It’s still unclear as to how climate change affects tornadoes.) They found that tornadoes that touch down at night are statistically more likely to hit someone, simply because there are more potential targets scattered across the landscape. During the day, people are often concentrated in cities and sturdy office buildings versus homes, which may be manufactured and not as structurally resilient to floods or high winds. 

Night adds dimensions of danger to many types of disasters, but the darkness isn’t the only factor at play — and it doesn’t have to be as deadly, Ashley said, stressing the importance of getting a weather radio and making a plan in case the worst happens. “Have multiple ways to get information, and your odds of survival are extremely high, even in the most horrific tornado situation.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The surprising reasons floods and other disasters are more deadly at night on Jul 21, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Kate Yoder.

Lucas and her husband live over 100 miles away in New Braunfels, but they drove to the unincorporated riverside town of Hunt to “put a good 12-hour day in and try to put a dent in any of this,” in Celbi’s words. The work was personal: She lost a second cousin, Reese Manchaca, to the floods. Manchaca, a 21-year-old college student, was visiting Hunt for the holiday with three of her friends when floodwaters overwhelmed the cabin they’d rented. In the disaster’s solemn aftermath, Texas officers arranged a procession to escort Manchaca’s body back to her hometown in Montgomery County, 300 miles away, so she could be laid to rest.

Another volunteer, Bryan Hill, has been driving two hours each way from his ranch in nearby Kimble County to volunteer. Hill, who is a road construction worker for the city of Austin, felt compelled to help after watching news coverage; he was helping operate heavy equipment to clear debris. 

“I’ve just seen everything on TV,” he said. “It bothers me. If I see somebody in need or something, I want to help.”

At least 134 people lost their lives in the flash floods that overwhelmed Hunt, Ingram, Kerrville, and other communities along the Guadalupe River earlier this month. Those who survived tell harrowing stories of clinging to electric poles, trees, and rooftops as the river raged around them. The camera crews may have left, but helicopters continue to buzz overhead, an army of volunteers is traversing the river banks, and the county is considering draining a lake in an effort to find the more than 160 people who have been reported missing.

Volunteer efforts were delayed by more rain and a flash flood watch over the weekend. For about two days, the county ordered that all volunteer search and rescue operations halt as river levels rose yet again. On Monday, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said the search for the missing could take up to six months. 

The larger rebuild and recovery process will likely take much longer. Several river crossings on the roads in and out of Hunt have been ripped apart by fast-flowing waters. The trees along the river banks are bowed, having succumbed to the force of the river, and littered with blankets, clothes, and the wreckage of people’s lives. Mattresses, refrigerators, debris, and other belongings from flooded homes are piled all along Highway 39, the main road that runs along the Guadalupe and through Hunt. 

Hunt is an unincorporated town of roughly 1,100 people in the heart of Texas’ Hill Country in western Kerr County. The region is so named because of its rolling hills, rugged terrain, and dramatic escarpments. While the community of permanent residents is small, the population of the town increases over the summer when vacationers camp and hike along the river. RV parks and cabins dot the river banks, and the region relies on tourism and recreation for revenue. Many residents of nearby Austin and San Antonio maintain second homes in the area. In fact, officials have had a difficult time estimating the number of missing people in part because many were visiting from out of town. 

Although the region has been in a severe drought for the past several years, it’s no stranger to flash floods. In 1932, about 20 years after the town’s founding, the river rose 36 feet and Hunt “was washed away in a flood,” according to a webpage maintained by the Kerr County Historical Commission. The Guadalupe has flooded several times since then — including in 1987, an event locals refer to as “the big one.” 

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Nevertheless, the conditions that powered the recent floods had all the hallmarks of a changing climate. As the Gulf has warmed, it has increased the amount of moisture in the atmosphere, and with it the potential for intense rainfall. The storm that caused the floods dumped 2 to 4 inches of rain over Kerr County every hour; given the region’s limestone deposits, which don’t absorb water, the rainfall had nowhere to go but down. The region’s extended drought, which had left the soil dry and compacted, didn’t help either. Hillsides turned into runoff channels, and the Guadalupe swelled up and outward, hundreds of feet beyond its banks. 

Many of Hunt’s part- and full-time residents have left the devastated town, but some have stayed — or returned — to assess the damage. On Wednesday afternoon, LeAnn Levering was spraying a wooden table with vinegar in a desperate attempt to save it from mold. The table, built by her ex-husband and cherished by her children, sat on the front porch along with all the salvageable possessions from her cabin. The house had been inundated with five feet of water as the Guadalupe swelled in the early morning of July 4. The river rose furiously, climbing several dozen feet up a hill before spreading another 300 or so feet across the land to reach the cabin. Levering, a psychotherapist who primarily lives near Austin, was fortunate not to be staying in the cabin that weekend. When she and her son arrived a couple of days later to assess the damage, she found dead fish and sewage backflow amid the wreckage. 

“We’re so high up this hill — it should never have happened,” Levering said. “I understand we’re in a flash flood alley but not this high. This is just bizarre.”

The floods arrived too quickly for many of those present to evacuate. Douglas Bolduc’s family, which owns three of the neighboring cabins and was staying in one of them, retreated to a loft as the floodwaters overwhelmed the home. They were eventually rescued and taken to higher ground. Another one of the family’s cabins was pulled off of its foundation and into the raging river.

“It’s a pile of rubble over there in the field,” Bolduc told Grist, pointing to a large open meadow.

While the flash flood itself was unavoidable, the region’s devastating death toll was exacerbated by the limits of cell-phone-based warning systems. Unlike neighboring communities, Kerr County was not equipped with sirens or other alarm systems to alert residents when the river rose in the middle of the night. The county sent phone alerts to those who had signed up through its CodeRED initiative, but it did not use FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, which sends blaring alerts to all cell phones in a region, until after the most devastating flooding. 

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Bolduc himself was in Colorado during the floods, but he returned to help rebuild the homes with his sister. Volunteers had helped empty out the homes, power wash the floors, and set up blowers to dry them out.

“We didn’t lose anybody,” Bolduc said of his family. “All we lost was stuff. And stuff can be replaced.”

Levering and Bolduc, who do not have flood insurance to cover their homes in Hunt, will be shouldering the cost of rebuilding their cabins on their own. (Nationally, only 4 percent of homeowners have flood insurance; in Kerr County, that figure is only 2.5 percent.) Bolduc’s family plans to dip into savings to rebuild, while Levering is planning on looking into low-interest loans. She estimates rebuilding will cost at least $100,000 and hasn’t yet investigated if any form of assistance might be available from FEMA or any other government entity.

“I have no idea,” she said. “I haven’t had time for paperwork.”

Grist has a comprehensive guide to help you stay ready and informed before, during, and after a disaster. Explore the full Disaster 101 resource guide for more on your rights and options when disaster hits.

Are you affected by the flooding in Texas and North Carolina? Learn how to navigate disaster relief and response.

Get prepared. Learn how to be ready for a disaster before you’re affected.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline After deadly flash floods, a Texas town takes halting, painful steps toward recovery on Jul 17, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Naveena Sadasivam.

A heat wave is raising temperatures to dangerous levels across much of Europe, just days after a heat wave in North America saw over 3,000 temperature records set. For more, we speak with climate scientist Michael Mann, who warns that heat domes and flooding have nearly tripled since the 1950s. “At some level, this isn’t that complicated. You make the planet hotter, you’re going to have more frequent and intense heat extremes,” says Mann, a professor of environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania. Mann’s upcoming book, co-authored with vaccine expert Dr. Peter Hotez, is Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World.

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

Dekhla Rashid slaps down seven photographs onto the floor of her home in the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit—one after another… after another… after another. She gently spreads them out on the tiles. “These are all my relatives the Dutch government killed,” she says, flatly.

Most of the images are of smiling children. These are Rashid’s nephews and nieces, who were between the ages of seven months to 11 years.

Exactly a decade ago, on the night of June 2, 2015, the Dutch air force bombed a facility used by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to manufacture explosive devices in the town of Hawija in Iraq’s northern Kirkuk Province, to which Rashid and her family had fled a year before. The secondary explosion from the strike was massive, flattening surrounding residential neighborhoods and damaging homes as far as five kilometers from the site. 

At least 85 civilians were killed and hundreds more were wounded. In a split second, Rashid’s brother, Abdallah Rashid Salih, lost one of his wives and nearly all of his children. Some families were completely wiped out. The bombing mission was one of some 2,100 raids carried out over Iraq and Syria by Dutch F-16s as part of the US-led international coalition against ISIS between 2014 and 2018. The bombing in Hawija was among the deadliest and most serious incidents during the operation. 

For years, senior government officials and ministers attempted to cover up and downplay the bloody incident, failing to report known civilian casualties and deliberately misinforming the Dutch parliament on the extent of damage caused by the airstrike. But in 2019, victims in Hawija filed a civil case against the Netherlands—which is still ongoing—demanding accountability and compensation. 

“The Dutch government needs to recognize that we are human beings, just like them,” says 56-year-old Rashid, sniffling through tears. A decade later, survivors are still struggling to put their lives back together. 

‘ISIS is coming’

In June 2014, ISIS, known for their severe brutality and radical interpretations of Sharia law, took advantage of rising insecurity in the Sunni-dominated areas of Iraq and led a successful offensive on Mosul and Tikrit. Soon after, the Islamic Caliphate was declared, stretching from Aleppo in Syria to Diyala in northeastern Iraq. At its height, the caliphate controlled an area roughly the size of Portugal, spanning about 90,000 square kilometers, including about a third of Syria and 40% of Iraq. 

Rashid, her brother, and his entire family immediately fled their homes in Tikrit during the initial offensive. “We heard a lot of bullets and rockets being fired from ISIS,” Rashid tells TRNN. “We grabbed some basic items and left everything else behind us and just ran as fast as we could.” The second wife of Salih, Rashid’s brother, was shot and killed as she fled, just seven months after she gave birth to her first child. 

Quickly, the Iraqi government requested military support from the United Nations to fight against ISIS, prompting the United States to appeal to other countries, including NATO members, to aid Iraq’s military efforts. More than 80 countries, including the Netherlands, joined the US-led international coalition that took part in Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR). The operation consisted mostly of supporting Iraqi forces through airstrikes targeting ISIS infrastructure and leadership. The Netherlands was among the first European countries to send combat aircraft to Iraq.

Each time Rashid and her family stopped somewhere to rest, they were warned by others fleeing that ISIS militants were coming. Eventually, they arrived in Hawija, about 100 kilometers away from Tikrit. Kurdish Peshmerga forces, with aerial support from the OIR coalition, successfully blocked ISIS’ advancement into the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. However, the militants were able to successfully overrun Hawija and controlled the town until October 2017.

Around 650,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) fled into Kirkuk, beyond the reach of ISIS. But Rashid and her family did not make it there in time; they became trapped in Hawija, their lives suddenly transformed by the harsh realities of ISIS rule. Along with hundreds of other IDPs who had attempted to flee, Rashid and her family settled in the town’s central industrial area, which is interconnected with family homes and surrounded by densely populated civilian neighborhoods.

According to Tofan Abdulwahab Awad, head of Al-Ghad League for Woman and Child Care—an Iraqi organization that has worked on documenting the aftermath of the bombing—owing to Hawija’s proximity to Kirkuk, just an hour’s drive away, scores of IDPs from across ISIS territory traveled there, hoping to find a route into Kurdish-controlled territory. 

“But these IDPs found themselves in a big jail,” Awad tells TRNN. “ISIS would allow the IDPs into Hawija, but they would not allow them to run to Kirkuk.” Any man who was caught was immediately executed, Awad says, and ISIS planted landmines on the informal routes from Hawija to Kirkuk, blowing up entire families who attempted to escape. Still, some IDPs were able to successfully bribe ISIS members to smuggle them further north.

According to Awad, ISIS coerced the IDPs to settle around the town’s industrial area by prohibiting them from leaving the city limits and offering them free housing around a large warehouse that was encircled by a tall cement wall. The IDPs and residents in Hawija had no idea that this warehouse was being used by ISIS to manufacture vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBEIDs), store weapons and homemade explosives, and as a collection point for vehicles to distribute them from that location. According to a recent report, ISIS was storing about 50,000 to 100,000 kilograms of explosives at the facility. 

The exact number of IDPs who settled around the warehouse is unknown since many were transient—staying in Hawija for a night or two before finding a way further north. But there were likely at least hundreds of IDPs there, says Awad. “Of course, people who are desperate and have lost everything would accept the free housing around the warehouse,” Awad explains. “The city became very crowded with civilians.”

“But the IDPs were being manipulated by ISIS to stay around that area so the group could use them as human shields to prevent the international coalition from targeting that warehouse.” 

‘Judgement day’

Rashid and her brother’s family settled in the industrial zone next to a compound for fixing automobiles and paid rent for the first month. “We were very poor,” Rashid says. “So we didn’t have enough money to keep paying. But the landlord allowed us to stay for free after that.” According to Awad, the landlord was likely compensated by ISIS to encourage the family to stay there. 

On the night of June 2, Rashid was on the ground floor of their apartment with Najm, the infant whose mother was killed a year before when they fled Tikrit. The rest of the family was sleeping on the roof, escaping the heat of Iraq’s summer nights.

When the clock struck midnight, without warning, an enormous explosion pummeled the town. “Everything turned red,” remembers Rashid. “It felt like there was a powerful earthquake shaking the ground. I thought it was Judgement Day.” Rashid immediately threw herself on Najm to protect him from the blast. 

Following the explosion, an eerie stillness permeated the town, which had become submerged in complete darkness. Only a slight cast from the full moon illuminated Rashid’s surroundings. “Dust and shattered glass were everywhere,” Rashid says. A terrifying screech suddenly cut through the air. “I heard my brother yelling over and over again, ‘My whole family is gone!’” In the darkness, Rashid grabbed Najm and slowly made her way towards Rashid’s frantic screams. 

When she reached the roof, “I saw that the children were on the floor covered in blood. They were dead.” Rashid pauses as she breaks down in tears. 

She points at the photos laid out in front of her. One of the photos is of Rashid’s 32-year-old sister-in-law, Salih’s first wife, and another is of her 22-year-old niece, who had just graduated from university. The rest of the photographs are of Salih’s children, between the ages of seven months and 11 years old.

Five-year-old Amal’s skull was shattered into two pieces; her brain fell out onto the ground. Yamama, 11, was still breathing, but her body was almost entirely cut in half; she died en route to the hospital. Mahmoud, Salih’s other seven-month-old, was found dead, with one of his eyes dangling outside of its socket.

“I will never forget what I saw that night,” Rashid says, her voice shaking. Only three of Salih’s children survived, including Najm, the seven-month-old Rashid had protected during the explosion. 

The dawn light revealed the devastating impact of the blast. “There was so much destruction,” Rashid recounts. “I truly thought it was the end of life on this planet.” According to Awad, more than 1,200 shops, homes, and public institutions, including schools, were completely obliterated in the explosion, while around 6,000 homes were damaged.

Around 190 families in Hawija have at least one member who was confirmed killed or whose body is still missing after the attack, notes Awad. Some IDPs in Hawija did not bring their identity documents with them, especially if they were ever affiliated with the Iraqi government, military, or police—an immediate death sentence under ISIS rule. These unidentified bodies—and possibly more—were buried in mass grave sites in Hawija, to which the Iraqi government has not allowed organizations access, according to Saba Azeem, who heads projects in Iraq for PAX’s Protection of Civilians team, a Dutch peace organization that has done extensive research and documentation of civilian experiences in Hawija. 

There are unofficial reports from Iraqi intelligence that civilian deaths from the strike surpassed 100. 

Rashid and her surviving family moved into another home and continued living in Hawija for months after the attack. “The whole area was under siege and all the roads were closed so there was nowhere for us to go,” she says. “Every time we heard a plane above us the children would start screaming and crying.” 

“We thought the international community was going to save us from ISIS,” Rashid adds. “But then they targeted us. We were living in constant fear. We felt like at any moment they were going to strike us again.” 

Residents in Hawija were so terrified of another attack from the coalition that they risked their lives desperately trying to flee into Kirkuk. Many were caught by ISIS and executed or blown up from mines, according to Awad. 

Unable to continue living in terror of another attack, Rashid, her brother, and his surviving children decided to take the dangerous journey back to Tikrit, walking throughout the night. When they arrived, they found their home there was also burned down and destroyed. “We were forced to start again from zero,” Rashid tells TRNN. 

‘Constant lying’ 

For years, victims in Hawija had no idea who was exactly behind the airstrike. 

In 2018, in communications with parliament, the Dutch ministry of defense alluded to inquiries into incidents in which they may have been responsible for civilian casualties during the war against ISIS. Dutch journalists were able to trace some of this information back to Hawija. In 2019, four years after the strike, Dutch media reported for the first time that it was two Dutch F-16 fighter jets that dropped the bombs on the warehouse in Hawija, which caused the mega secondary explosion. 

This prompted human rights lawyers to visit the town and assist victims, including Rashid’s family, in filing a civil lawsuit against the Netherlands in October 2019. According to ​​Liesbeth Zegveld, a prominent human rights lawyer representing the victims and their families, the case against the Netherlands currently represents 300 claimants. If successful, the case’s outcome will apply to all other victims as well, she says.

While the claimants are demanding compensation from the Dutch government, the court proceedings—which have involved some of the claimants, including Rashid’s brother Salih, traveling to the Hague to testify—are still establishing whether the Dutch military was liable for the damage. The claimants argue that the Dutch took an unreasonable risk when they bombarded Hawija, without having proper information on the amount of explosives at the site and the potential harm it would cause to the civilian population. If the court agrees, then compensation would follow, explains Zegveld.

The Dutch state has refused to take responsibility for the devastation, shifting blame to the United States for having provided incomplete intelligence before the airstrike and claiming they could not have known that the warehouse was surrounded by civilian populations.

Earlier this year, however, a long-awaited report was published by the Committee Sorgdrager, an independent commission established in 2020 by the Dutch government and headed by Minister of State Winnie Sorgdrager, which has shattered the state’s defense. In the report, the commission reveals that senior Dutch government officials withheld important information from parliament on the extent of civilian casualties or shared incomplete information, even years after the airstrike.

The Netherlands had too-little access to intelligence from its coalition partners, the committee says. As a result, the Netherlands appears to have relied entirely on US intelligence. This could make the United States equally liable for the devastation in Hawija, but “each party has to follow their own checks and balances,” explains Frederiek de Vlaming, a prominent criminologist and former director of the Nuhanovic Foundation, which has provided crucial support for victims during the court proceedings. 

“[The commission] has shown that the Dutch military did not follow their own checks and balances or procedures, and neglected their duty and responsibility to investigate cases where there’s a risk of civilian casualties,” explains Vlaming. 

While the United States is also responsible, it would be nearly impossible for victims to seek redress from the US owing to a 1946 law that preserves US forces’ immunity for claims that arise during war. 

Significantly, the commission concluded that the Netherlands should and could have known that the area of the ISIS bomb factory was located in a populated area. It pointed out that the International Organization for Migration (IOM) had published information about the IDPs in Hawija’s industrial area months before the airstrike. According to the commission, coalition country representatives and pilots were aware of the residential neighborhoods around the target, with one individual even mentioning that there was a mosque nearby—a clear indicator of civilian infrastructure. 

Due to the presence of civilians in the area, the Dutch squad commander requested that the strike be delayed from 9PM to midnight, with the assumption that fewer civilians would be moving around the area at that time. This decision clearly shows that the Dutch military anticipated there would be civilians in the area.

Furthermore, the ministry of defense had claimed that a video which had captured footage of the post-strike destruction was overwritten the day after the airstrike because it did not show anything important. But, in March, a few months after the commission report was published, Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans announced that this video had been found at a military base. The video shows that the industrial area in Hawija had been completely wiped out after the airstrike and the residential areas surrounding it were destroyed and badly damaged.

“What we have seen [from the state] is just constant lying,” Vlaming tells TRNN. “They have lied about everything for years and in different stages.” 

The commission also criticized community-based compensation schemes that the Netherlands provided to Hawija in 2021, following pressure from the Dutch parliament. This consisted of funding projects through the IOM and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) around infrastructure, basic services, and employment. These projects were completed in October 2022 and February 2023, more than seven years after the airstrike, with a total cost of €4.5 million.

The commission concludes that this general compensation was “too little, too late.” Residents in Hawija have also stated the projects are a “drop in the ocean” compared to the devastation the Dutch military caused. The state has previously rejected individual compensation to victims and families of victims. 

Zegveld tells the TRNN that she expects the commission’s findings to significantly help the claimants’ case against the state.

‘Frozen’

Rashid and her family are still haunted by the bombing a decade ago. “My brother doesn’t even do much now in his life except eat and cry,” Rashid says, her eyes fixed to the ground. “It’s like our lives are frozen into that one night. None of us can escape thinking about what we saw.” 

“It’s hard for us to even look at their pictures,” Rashid continues, glancing at the photographs still lined up on the floor. “These were children. They were pure and innocent. What crime did they commit?” 

Tabarak, Rashid’s niece who is now 18 years old, still suffers from night terrors. “Every night, I dream about what I saw that day,” Tabarak tells TRNN, sitting beside her aunt. “I have to relive it every single day.” Mohammed, Rashid’s nephew who is now 23, sometimes falls into psychosis, Rashid says; he suddenly begins screaming hysterically before coming back to reality. 

According to Azeem, from PAX, these experiences are common throughout Hawija. Some residents can no longer stand the sight of meat, she says, after witnessing their neighbors’ bodies ripped apart from the blast; others have attempted suicide. Residents are living with permanent and debilitating injuries. Many shops and businesses are still destroyed and unemployment is rampant. Without financial support, many have been unable to rebuild their lives even 10 years later. 

There has been no environmental testing or cleanup initiated in Hawija, according to Azeem. Residents tell TRNN that they have observed an increase in cancer cases and rare deformities in children, which they connect to toxic elements from the explosives still in the environment. 

Undoubtedly, financial compensation for affected individuals is badly needed. But, for Rashid, compensation is not the ultimate goal.

“We want our rights,” Rashid says, her voice rising sharply. “We want the Dutch to admit what they did and take responsibility for the lives they destroyed. We lost our families, our children, our homes, our health, and our livelihoods. We lost everything. That is not something the Dutch can just ignore.” 

Despite the Netherlands continuing to dodge responsibility for their role in devastating the lives of numerous residents in Hawija, Rashid has found some hope in her pain. 

“The only thing that gives me strength to wake up each morning, even when I feel like dying, is that I know deep in my heart that we will get justice,” Rashid says, displaying a firmness that hitherto was masked by tears.

“But it is up to the Dutch to decide from which court that justice will come: the Dutch court or the court of God.” 

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Jaclynn Ashly.

As a Republican-sponsored budget bill advances through Congress, we hear from Bishop William Barber about how the bill hurts low-income people. “It is about death-dealing and destruction to the poor and the elderly and the youth of our country,” says Barber, citing the bill’s cuts to essential social services like Medicaid and paralleling those cuts to the government’s funding of defense and deportation initiatives. “We have to start talking about this budget as a form of social and political murder.” Barber has been arrested with other faith leaders twice in the past month while protesting cuts, including in the Capitol Rotunda.

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

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The post Newsom budget plan would cap health program for undocumented Californians; Deadly Israeli air strikes continue in Gaza amid ceasefire talks in Doha – May 14, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

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China’s vast security apparatus shrouds itself in shadows, but the outside world has caught periodic glimpses of it behind the faded gray walls of Shijiazhuang prison in the northern province of Hebei.

Chinese media reports have shown inmates hunched over sewing machines in a garment workshop in the sprawling facility. Business leaders and Chinese Communist Party dignitaries have praised the penitentiary for exemplifying President Xi Jinping’s views on the rule of law.

But the prison has an alarming secret, U.S. congressional investigators disclosed last year. They revealed evidence showing that it is a Chinese government outpost in the trafficking pipeline that inundates the United States with fentanyl.

For at least eight years, the prison owned a chemical company called Yafeng, the hub of a group of Chinese firms and websites that sold fentanyl products to Americans, according to the U.S. congressional investigation, as well as Chinese government and corporate records obtained by ProPublica. The company’s English-language websites brazenly offered U.S. customers dangerous drugs that are illegal in both nations. Promising to smuggle illicit chemicals past U.S. and Mexican border defenses, Yafeng boasted to American clients that “100% of our shipments will clear customs.”

Although China tightly restricts the domestic manufacturing, sale and use of fentanyl products, the nation has been the world’s leading producer of fentanyl that enters the United States and remains the leading producer of chemical precursors with which Mexican cartels make the drug. Overdoses on synthetic opioid drugs, most of them fentanyl related, have killed over 450,000 Americans during the past decade — more than the U.S. deaths in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.

The involvement of a state-run prison is just one sign of the Chinese government’s role in fomenting the U.S. fentanyl crisis, U.S. investigators say. Chinese leaders have insistently denied such allegations. But U.S. national security officials said the Yafeng case shows how China allows its chemical industry to engage openly in sales to overseas customers while blocking online domestic access and enforcing stern laws against drug dealing inside the country. Beijing also encourages the manufacture and export of fentanyl products, including drugs outlawed in China, with generous financial incentives, according to a bipartisan inquiry last year by the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.

“So the Chinese government pays you to send drugs to America but executes you for selling them in China,” Matt Cronin, a former federal prosecutor who led the House inquiry, said in an interview. “It’s impossible that the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t know what’s going on and can’t do anything about it.”

China’s antidrug cooperation has been persistently poor, U.S. officials said. In 2019, Xi imposed controls that cut the export of fentanyl, but Chinese sellers shifted to shipping precursors to Mexico, where the cartels expanded their production.

“We couldn’t get the Chinese on the phone to talk about fighting child pornography, let alone fentanyl,’’ said Jacob Braun, who served as a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security during the Biden administration. “There was zero cooperation.”

China also remains the base of global organized crime groups that launder billions for fentanyl traffickers in the U.S, Mexico and Canada. ProPublica has previously reported that this underground banking system depends on the Chinese elite, who move fortunes abroad by acquiring drug cash from Chinese criminal brokers for Mexican cartels. Chinese banks and businesses also help hide the origin of illicit proceeds. The regime in Beijing therefore has considerable control over key nodes in the fentanyl chain: raw materials, production, sales and money laundering.

U.S. leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike, have accused China of using fentanyl to weaken the United States. Some veteran agents agree.

Ray Donovan, who retired in 2023 as the Drug Enforcement Administration’s chief of operations, said he believes that a “deliberate strategy” by the Chinese state has caused the trafficking onslaught “to grow in size and scope.”

“They have said for years that they are cracking down,” Donovan said in an interview. “But we haven’t seen meaningful action.”

Still, current and former U.S. officials told ProPublica that the national security community has not found conclusive evidence of a planned, high-level campaign against Americans by the Chinese government. That is partly because for years the U.S. treated fentanyl as a law enforcement matter rather than a national security threat, making it hard to gather intelligence about the extent and nature of the regime’s role.

“If this was Chinese intelligence doing something, we have a focus on that as counterintelligence,” said Alan Kohler, who retired from the FBI in 2023 after serving as director of the counterintelligence division. “If it was drug cartels, we have a criminal focus on that. But this area of crime and state converging falls between the seams in and among agencies.”

Nonetheless, the current and former officials said rampant fentanyl trafficking could not continue without at least the passive complicity of the world’s most powerful police state.

“I haven’t seen smoking-gun evidence that it’s a policy or strategy of the government at a high level,” Kohler said. “You could argue that their decision not to do anything about it, even after the results are clear, is tacit support.”

In a written statement, the spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington described as “totally groundless” any allegation that the regime has fomented the crisis.

“The fentanyl issue is the U.S.’s own problem,” said the spokesperson, Liu Pengyu. “China has given support to the U.S.’s response to the fentanyl issue in the spirit of humanity.” At the United States’ request, he said, China in 2019 restricted “fentanyl-related substances as a class,” becoming the first country to do so, and has cooperated with the U.S. on counternarcotics.

“The remarkable progress is there for all to see.”

The Trump administration has made the fight against fentanyl a priority and in February imposed a 25% tariff on Chinese imports to pressure Beijing for results. The approach could put a dent in the drug trade, but it’s too early to tell, officials said.

“The Chinese system responds to a negative incentive,” said former FBI agent Holden Triplett, who served as legal attache in Beijing and director of counterintelligence on the National Security Council. “China may be willing to endure more pain than we can give. But it is our only chance.”

To respond effectively, the U.S. needs a clearer picture of the Chinese fentanyl underworld, Triplett and others say. The activities of the Shijiazhuang prison are a compelling case study, but not the only one.

To examine the role of the Chinese state in the drug trade, ProPublica interviewed more than three dozen current and former national security officials for the U.S. and other countries, some of whom provided exclusive inside accounts. The reporting also drew on last year’s House investigation, digging into significant findings that have received little public attention, plus court files, government documents, academic studies, private inquiries and public records in the U.S., China and Mexico.

In 2010, the Hebei Prison Administration Bureau combined three detention facilities to create a high-security prison in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province. The region is a base of China’s chemical industry, which is the largest in the world. It is also weakly regulated and freewheeling, according to U.S. national security officials, private studies and other sources. A shifting array of companies peddle everything from innocuous fertilizers to deadly opioids.

Liu Jianhua, a veteran Chinese Communist Party official with a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Illinois Chicago, became director of the prison in 2014. By then, fentanyl was cutting a swath across America. Overdose deaths soared due to the ease with which U.S. users and dealers could acquire fentanyl products by mail from China.

China’s high-tech surveillance apparatus aggressively polices the online activities of its citizens. Yet sales of fentanyl to foreigners have thrived on popular, easily accessible websites, said Frank Montoya Jr., a former FBI agent with years of China-related experience who served as a top U.S. counterintelligence official.

“You don’t have to go on the dark web,” Montoya said. “It is out in the open.”

Yafeng Biological Technology Co. Ltd., also known as Hebei Shijiazhuang Yafeng Chemical Plant, became a typical player on this frontier, the congressional inquiry found. (As part of its reporting, ProPublica mapped links between the prison, the company and the U.S. drug market with the help of two entities that specialize in China open-source research: Sayari, a company that provides risk management and supply-chain analysis and that supported the House inquiry, and C4ADS, a nonprofit that investigates illicit global networks.)

Yafeng’s websites and Chinese corporate records describe the firm as a chemical manufacturer. It has ties through other websites, phone numbers and email addresses to at least nine companies that advertised illicit drugs, causing investigators to conclude that Yafeng was a network hub, according to the report and interviews. It’s common for interconnected Chinese fentanyl producers and brokers to obscure details about their enterprises and change names and platforms to elude detection, U.S. officials said.

In some ways, Yafeng presented itself to foreign buyers as a respectable company. The English-language websites featured peppy phrases like “team spirit” and “promoting the well-being of community.” The China-based sales representatives gave themselves Western names: Diana, Monica, Jessica. A map of markets showed shipping routes from China to the United States, Mexico, Canada and other countries.

Yet the sales pitches left little doubt that the firm knew its activities were illegal. Yafeng websites utilized familiar terms assuring U.S. and Mexican drug users and traffickers of the company’s skill at smuggling illegal narcotics overseas, according to the House report and U.S. investigators. The company touted its use of “hidden food bags,” a method in which drugs are concealed in shipments labeled as food products. Ads promised “strong safety delivery to Mexico, USA” with “packaging made to measure” to “guarantee” that illicit chemicals would elude border inspections, documents show.

Chinese traffickers often discuss lawbreaking in such brazen terms with foreign customers, seemingly unconcerned about China’s omnipresent surveillance system, court files and interviews show. Another firm, Hubei Amarvel Biotech, explicitly explained to U.S. and Mexican clients online — complete with photos — its methods for “100% stealth shipping” of drugs disguised as nuts, dog food and motor oil, court documents say. After undercover DEA agents lured two Amarvel executives to Fiji and arrested them, a New York jury convicted them in February on charges of importation of fentanyl precursors and money laundering. (One defendant, Yiyi Chen, has filed a motion requesting an acquittal or retrial.)

At the time of the arrests, the Chinese government issued a statement condemning the U.S. prosecution as “a typical example of arbitrary detention and unilateral sanctions.”

Similarly, Yafeng websites displayed photos of narcotics in plastic baggies to peddle a long list of chemicals, including fentanyl precursors and U-47700, a powerful fentanyl analogue outlawed in both the U.S. and China that has no medical use, the House report says.

One victim of U-47700 was Garrett Holman of Lynchburg, Virginia. Holman had fallen in with youths who discovered how easy it was to buy synthetic drugs online. In late 2016, Holman overdosed on U-47700, street name “pinky,” that arrived by mail from southern China. His father, Don, performed CPR before paramedics rushed Holman to the hospital. Although he survived, another overdose killed him just days before his 21st birthday in February 2017.

“My son’s opioid exposure was less than two months,” Don Holman told a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee the next year. “At 20 years old, I do not believe my son deserved to die for his initial bad choices.”

The father handed over evidence, including the envelope in which the drugs arrived, to federal agents, who traced about 20 shipments back to the same sender in China, he said in an interview. Don Holman blames the fentanyl crisis on the American appetite for opioids as well as the Chinese government. He has spent eight years telling anyone he can, from drug czars to fellow parents, about the experience that shattered his family.

“I’ve had to hit parents right between the eyes, like: ‘Hey, your child is not going to be here if you don’t do something,” he said. “You need to wake up.’”

No link to Yafeng surfaced in that case. The firm’s sales of U-47700 and other illicit drugs occurred during a period when its sole owner and controlling shareholder was the Shijiazhuang prison, according to the House inquiry, Sayari and C4ADS.

One of Yafeng’s street addresses was that of the prison, ProPublica determined through satellite photos and public records. Another Yafeng address next door also houses the offices of a clothing firm owned by the provincial prison administration. A third Yafeng address a few blocks away is a former municipal police station, records and photos show.

The director of the prison, Liu Jianhua, left his post after becoming the target of a corruption inquiry in 2021, according to Chinese media reports. It’s unknown how that investigation was resolved or if his fall had anything to do with the drug activity. Liu could not be reached for comment. The prison administration did not respond to requests for comment.

Yafeng stopped doing business under that name at some point between 2018 and 2022, records show. Yet the Yafeng group continued to function through at least one of its affiliated websites, protonitazene.com, the congressional report said. As of last year, the site was still advertising “hot sale to Mexico” of drugs including nitazenes, which are 25 times more powerful than fentanyl.

Yafeng is not the only company with connections to the Chinese state and fentanyl.

Gaosheng Biotechnology in Shanghai is “wholly state-owned,” congressional investigators found. The company sold fentanyl precursors and other narcotics — some illegal in China — on 98 websites to U.S., Mexican and European customers, the report says. Senior provincial development officials visited Gaosheng and praised its benefits for the regional economy. Gaosheng did not respond to requests for comment.

The Chinese government owned a stake in Zhejiang Netsun, a private firm that had a Chinese Communist Party member serving on its board of directors as a deputy general manager, the congressional report says. Netsun carried out over 400 sales of illegal narcotics, the report says, and served as a billing or technical contact for over 100 similar companies — including Yafeng. Netsun did not respond to requests for comment.

And the Shanghai government gave monetary awards and export credits to Shanghai Ruizheng Chemical Technology Co., a “notorious seller of fentanyl products, which it advertises widely and openly on Chinese websites like Alibaba,” the report says. Chinese officials invited company reps to roundtable discussions about technology and business. Shanghai Ruizheng did not respond to requests for comment.

Chinese government officials who interact with the trafficking underworld are often prominent in provincial governments, where corruption is widespread, said a former senior DEA official, Donald Im, who led investigations focused on China. Not only can they make money through kickbacks or investments, but they benefit politically, rising in the Communist Party hierarchy if their local chemical industries prosper.

“Key government officials know about the fentanyl trade and they let it happen,” Im said.

China’s central government also plays a vital role by providing systemic financial incentives that fuel fentanyl trafficking to the Americas, U.S. officials say. The House inquiry discovered a national Value-Added Tax rebate program that has spurred exports of at least 17 illegal narcotics with no legitimate purpose. They include a fentanyl product that is “up to 6,000 times stronger than morphine,” the House report says.

This state subsidy program has pumped billions of dollars into the export of fentanyl products, including ones outlawed in China, according to the report and U.S. officials. The tax rebate is 13%, the highest available rate. To qualify, companies have to document the names and quantities of chemicals and other details of transactions, the report says.

The existence of this paper trail refutes a frequent claim by Chinese leaders: that weak regulation of the chemical sector makes it impossible to identify and punish suspects.

Chinese officials did not respond to specific questions about the government financial incentives or the state-connected companies involved in drug trafficking. But the embassy spokesperson said China has targeted online sellers with a “national internet cleanup campaign.”

During that crackdown, Liu Pengyu said, Chinese authorities have cleaned “14 online platforms, canceled over 330 company accounts, shut down over 1,000 online shops, removed over 152,000 online advertisements, and closed 10 botnet websites.” He said Chinese law enforcement has determined that many illegal ads appear on foreign online platforms.

In May 2018, Cronin — then a federal prosecutor based in Cleveland — went to Beijing in pursuit of one of the biggest targets in the grim history of the fentanyl crisis: the Zheng drug trafficking organization, an international empire accused of trafficking in 37 U.S. states.

Cronin and his team of agents hoped to persuade Chinese authorities to prosecute Guanghua and Fujing Zheng, a father and son who were the top suspects. They ran into a wall of resistance.

In an interview, Cronin recalled walking into a cavernous room in China’s Ministry of Public Security where a row of senior officials and uniformed police waited at a long table. A curtain-sized Chinese flag covered a wall.

Cronin took a breath, opened a stack of binders he had lugged from Cleveland and presented his case. The prosecutor laid out evidence connecting the Zhengs, who were chemical company executives based in Shanghai, to two overdoses in Ohio. The U.S. distribution hub was a warehouse near Boston run by a Chinese chemist, Bin Wang. Later, Wang said he simultaneously worked for the Chinese government “tracking chemicals produced in China” and traveled home monthly from Boston “to consult with Chinese officials,” a memo by his lawyer said.

The response of the Chinese counterdrug chiefs was a brush-off, Cronin recalled in the interview. Essentially, he said, they told him: “You are right that the Zhengs are exporting these drugs that are killing Americans. But unfortunately, technically what they are doing is not a violation of Chinese law.”

Cronin pulled out another binder. He went over evidence and an expert analysis showing that the Zhengs had committed Chinese felonies, including money laundering, manufacturing of counterfeit drugs and mislabeling of packages.

Tensions rose when the Chinese officials responded that, unfortunately, the police unit that handled such offenses was not available; they rebuffed Cronin’s offer to delay his return flight in order to meet with that unit, he said.

After the U.S. Justice Department charged the Zhengs that August with a drug trafficking conspiracy resulting in death, a Chinese newspaper reported that a Chinese senior counterdrug official criticized the case. The U.S. “failed to provide China any evidence to prove Zheng violated Chinese law,” the official said.

Later, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the Zhengs and designated the son as a drug kingpin. U.S. investigators told ProPublica they concluded that the Zhengs operated with the blessing of the Chinese government, citing the defendants’ sheer volume of business, high-profile online activity and open communications on WeChat, the Chinese messaging platform that authorities heavily monitor.

Ohio courts granted millions of dollars in civil damages to the family of Thomas Rauh, a 37-year-old who died of an overdose in Akron in 2015. The family never received any money, however.

Rauh’s father, James, who traveled and did business in China in his youth, has become an antidrug activist. He said the U.S. government must do more to crack down on China’s role and counter public stigma that still blames addicts.

“I don’t think the U.S. government wants to take the responsibility for confronting this,” he said.

A decade of frustration has compelled James Rauh to call for a drastic solution. He wants the U.S. to designate fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction in response to what he sees as an intentional Chinese campaign.

“It’s asymmetric warfare,” he said.

The Zhengs remain free in China and have never responded to the allegations in court. During a brief encounter with a “60 Minutes” journalist in Shanghai in 2019, Guanghua Zheng denied he was still selling fentanyl in the United States and said the Chinese government “has nothing to do with it.” Wang pleaded guilty and served prison time.

The Zheng case is typical, said Im, the former senior DEA official. Thousands of DEA leads relayed to Chinese counterparts over the years have been “met with silence,” he said. In other cases, Chinese officials have asked for more details about the targets of U.S. investigations — and then warned suspects linked to the Communist Party, Im said.

Most U.S. national security officials interviewed for this story described similar experiences, citing a few exceptions, such as a joint U.S.-Chinese operation in Hebei province in 2019.

A former DEA agent, William Kinghorn, recalled the dispiriting aftermath of an investigation he oversaw centered on Chuen Fat Yip, whose firms allegedly distributed more than $280 million worth of drugs. Yip has denied wrongdoing and denounced U.S. criminal charges and sanctions. He is on the DEA’s 10 most wanted fugitives list and remains free in China, U.S. officials said.

“We obtained information that the Chinese authorities did ban or shut down the companies” the DEA targeted in the case, Kinghorn said in an interview. “We learned that afterward these same people [linked to Yip] were now owning or managing similar companies. Even though they had been banned, they basically just changed the name of the company.”

A sense of impunity persists in the chemical industry, according to a 2023 inquiry by Elliptic, a U.K. analytics firm. It reported that many of the 90 Chinese companies contacted by its undercover researchers were “willing to supply fentanyl itself, despite this being banned in China since 2019.”

The final year of the Biden administration brought signs of modest progress in China, including new regulations, shutdowns of firms, and arrests of a suspected money launderer and four senior chemical company employees charged by U.S. prosecutors.

Citing those cases from 2024, spokesperson Liu Pengyu said China has “collaborated closely” with the U.S., adding, “Multiple major cases are making great progress.”

Meanwhile, U.S. overdose deaths fell by 33% compared with the previous year, according to the annual threat assessment by the U.S. intelligence community released March 25. The drop may be tied to the increased availability of naloxone, a drug for treating overdoses, the report said.

The threat assessment report warned that “China likely will struggle to sufficiently constrain” companies and criminal groups involved in the U.S. fentanyl trade, “absent greater law enforcement actions.”

Cronin, the former federal prosecutor, went on to become chief investigative counsel for the House Select Committee. He led last year’s inquiry into China’s role in the fentanyl crisis. The committee’s review of seven Chinese company websites found over 31,000 instances of firms offering illegal chemicals during a period of about three months in early 2024.

Undercover communications with the firms “revealed an eagerness to engage in clearly illicit drug sales,” the report says, “with no fear of reprisal.”

Kirsten Berg contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Sebastian Rotella.

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

On Thursday, the United Kingdom Health Security Agency put out a similar warning, noting that there were 900 cases of travel-related dengue in the U.K. in 2024, almost 300 more infections than the preceding year. The two reports relayed a similar array of statistics about dengue, its symptoms, and rising caseloads. But the U.K. Health Security Agency included a crucial piece of information that the CDC omitted: It noted why cases are breaking records. “The rise is driven by climate change, rising temperatures, and flooding,” it said.

In the past, the CDC has readily acknowledged the role climate change plays in the transmission of dengue fever — but the political conditions that influence scientific research and federal public health communications in the U.S. have undergone seismic shifts in the months since President Donald Trump took office. The new administration has purged federal agency websites of mentions of equity and climate change and sought to dismantle the scientific infrastructure that agencies like the CDC use to understand and respond to a range of health risks — including those posed by global warming. 

Last week, ProPublica reported that the National Institutes of Health, or NIH — the largest source of funding for medical research in the world — will shut down all future funding opportunities for climate and health research. It remains to be seen whether ongoing grants for research at this intersection will be allowed to continue. A few days later, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his agency plans to cull 10,000 people from its workforce, including new cuts at CDC, an agency that was established in 1946 in order to prevent a different mosquito-borne illness, malaria, from spreading across the U.S. 

Taken together, the suite of directives will prevent the U.S. and other nations whose scientists rely on NIH funding from preparing for and responding to dengue fever at the exact moment when climate change is causing cases of the disease to skyrocket. The abrupt subversion of the personnel and institutions tasked with responding to a threat like dengue bodes poorly for future health crises as climate change causes carriers of disease like mosquitoes, fungi, and ticks to expand their historical ranges and infiltrate new zones.

“The disease pressure in the last couple of years is very dramatic and it’s going in one direction — up,” said Scott O’Neill, founder of the World Mosquito Program, a nonprofit organization that deploys genetically engineered mosquitoes to fight disease in 14 countries. For example, Brazil — the country that consistently registers the highest number of dengue cases — recorded a historic 10 million cases last year. The country reported 1.7 million cases in 2023.

The two types of mosquitoes that most often infect humans with dengue, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, thrive in the warm, moist conditions made more prevalent by rising atmospheric temperatures caused by fossil fuel combustion. The vast majority of annual dengue cases are asymptomatic, but about 25 percent of people infected, depending on the population, develop symptoms like fever, headache, and joint pain. A small percentage of those cases result in severe sickness, hospitalization, and even death.

The number of severe dengue infections corresponds roughly to the size of the pool of people infected every year. In 2023, when there were 6 million total dengue infections, 6,000 people died. In 2024, a year when there were more than 13 million cases registered globally, over 8,000 people died. 

There is no cure for dengue. Patients in wealthier countries generally fare better than patients in developing regions with limited access to medical interventions like blood transfusions and places where waves of dengue patients overwhelm already-strained healthcare systems. Two dengue vaccines are available in some countries, but both have serious limitations in terms of efficacy and how long they confer immunity. 

The NIH began taking climate change and health research seriously in 2021, and the institutes have funded dozens of studies that probe every aspect of the climate-dengue connection since. NIH-funded researchers have sought to understand how warmer temperatures shift the geographic ranges of Aedes mosquitoes, which factors predict dengue outbreaks, and how communities can protect themselves from dengue following extreme weather events.

These studies have taken place in the southeastern U.S., where dengue is becoming more prevalent, and internationally, in countries like Peru and Brazil, where dengue is a near-constant threat. The NIH has also funded studies that bring the world closer to finding medical and technological interventions: more effective vaccines and genetically engineered mosquitoes that can’t develop dengue, among other solutions.

“Disease doesn’t have national borders,” said an American vector biologist who has received funding from the NIH in the past. She asked not to have her name or affiliated academic institution mentioned in this story out of fear of reprisal from the Trump administration. “I’m worried that if we’re not studying it, we’re just going to watch it continue to happen and we won’t be prepared.” 

Americans aren’t just bringing cases of dengue fever home with them from trips abroad; the disease is also spreading locally with more intensity in warmer regions of the country and its territories. Last March, Puerto Rico declared a public health emergency amid an explosion of cases on the island. By the end of 2024, Puerto Rico registered over 6,000 cases — passing the threshold at which an outbreak officially becomes an epidemic. More than half of the known infections led to hospitalization. Close to 1,000 cases have been reported there so far this year, a 113 percent increase over the same period in 2024. California and Florida reported 18 and 91 locally-acquired cases of dengue, respectively, last year. California registered its first-ever locally-acquired case of dengue in 2023. 

“Dengue is already found in many places in the U.S. that have never seen this disease before,” said Renzo Guinto, a physician and head of the Planetary Health Initiative at the Duke-NUS medical school in Singapore. “To combat this emerging climate-related health threat, U.S. scientists must collaborate with others working in dengue overseas. With no resources and capacity, how can such collaboration occur?”

There are limited non-government sources of funding for climate and health research. The money that is available to American researchers is primarily offered by private foundations like the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. The grants these philanthropies offer annually pale in comparison to the $40 million Congress made available annually through the NIH for climate and health research in the two years before Trump took office. Researchers will be forced to compete for a small pool of funding in the coming years, which will likely lead to fewer studies and less innovation in the years to come. “The end result will be that much less of this work would be done — we would all tell you to the detriment of Americans long term,” said the vector biologist.   

As dengue spreads with more intensity in the countries where it is already common and slips across borders into zones like North America where the disease is still comparatively rare, it’s clear countries need to expand their arsenals of disease-fighting weapons. But the U.S. appears to be leading a charge in the opposite direction, with thousands of lives at stake. 

“We’re at a time when we need acceleration of innovation and solutions to very pressing global problems,” said O’Neill, whose organization receives funding from governments around the world, including the U.S. “It’s not the time to let ideology drive science rather than let science drive itself.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A deadly mosquito-borne illness rises as the US cuts all climate and health funding on Apr 3, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Zoya Teirstein.

Democratic lawmakers are calling for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Michael Waltz to resign, after they discussed bombing Yemen in a group chat that also included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Waltz had set up the chat on the messaging app Signal and appeared to accidentally add Goldberg, who then got a front-row seat as top officials, including Vice President JD Vance, discussed classified information. The attacks ultimately killed dozens of people in Yemen, including children. Journalist Safa Al Ahmad, who has been reporting on Yemen since 2010, says that while Washington is obsessing over the U.S. national security implications of the group chat, there is almost no criticism of the bombing campaign at the heart of the scandal. “They are killing Yemenis with no recourse for Yemenis themselves,” says Al Ahmad, who notes that U.S. involvement in attacks on Yemen started almost exactly 10 years ago, when a Saudi-led coalition began bombing the country with support from the Obama administration.

“There was actually no legal rationale under the Constitution for doing these strikes,” adds Branko Marcetic, staff writer for Jacobin. “Only Congress is actually able to declare war.”

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

Photograph Source: Gage Skidmore – CC BY-SA 2.0

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who oversees the health of more than 340 million Americans, says vitamin A can prevent the worst effects of measles rather than urging more people to get vaccinated.

The post RFK Jr Says Vitamin A Protects You From Deadly Measles, But Here’s What the Study He Cites Actually Says appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Evangeline Mantzioris.

“We are appalled by the violence meted out on multiple news crews covering Syria’s sectarian killings, which prevented them from reporting on its impact on civilians fleeing the conflict,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “We call on all parties in Syria to take immediate steps to protect the media so that they can provide the public with vital information.”

The clashes began on March 6 when fighters loyal to al-Assad ambushed Syrian government forces in coastal Latakia province, sparking revenge killings of members of al-Assad’s minority Alawite sect. Almost 1,000 civilians and 500 combatants were killed in four days, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, before government forces regained control.

CPJ documented the following incidents:

• On March 6, Qatari-owned Al Jazeera TV’s camera operator Ryad Alhussein was shot in the right leg while he and reporter Sohaib Al Khalaf were driving north from Jableh city, near Hmeimim Bridge. The car was unmarked; both journalists were wearing press insignia.

“Our car was hit by direct gunfire from militants. I was shot in the thigh, causing a 5.5 cm fracture, with shrapnel embedded in my leg,” Alhussein told CPJ. 

Alhussein told CPJ on March 7 that doctors were monitoring him for 20 days before deciding whether to carry out surgery to remove the bullet.

• On March 10, Qatari-funded Al-Araby TV’s reporter Qahtan Mustafa and camera operator Mohammed Qurandil came under fire as they were driving in an unmarked vehicle east of Latakia to report on people returning home.

“We were targeted with gunfire,” said Mustafa, who was driving, in a video where he pointed out six bullet holes in their car’s front and back windows and described how they ducked and then drove back to the city.

In a photo at Latakia University Hospital, both journalists have bandaged heads, which Qurandil told CPJ were injured by shards of glass, and are wearing the “Press” vests they wore during the attack.

• On March 11, privately owned Souria Post’s reporter Hashim Al-Abdullah and camera operator Ehab Khaled were assaulted and detained at a Russian air base in Hmeimim, between Latakia and Jableh, where they were reporting on discussions between Syrian Arab Red Crescent and Latakia officials about the evacuation of Alawite civilians sheltering there, the journalists told CPJ.

“We were in a parking area near the base when a group of people approached, began beating us, threatening us with death, and insulting us,” Al-Abdullah told CPJ, adding that both journalists were wearing press vests. “One of the attackers shouted, ‘You are ISIS! You want to kill!’”

Khaled told CPJ that they were handed over to Russian soldiers who questioned them about their political affiliations and whether they were using drones.

“We told them we were independent media, but they accused us of working for the government,” he said.

The journalists were detained for four hours by Russian guards, who forcefully unlocked their phones to check for footage of the military base, before being released.

CPJ’s email to the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations for comment on the detention did not immediately receive a response.

See CPJ’s safety resources for journalists covering conflict here.

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

Building owner Nghiem Quang Minh, 46, received a 12-year prison sentence for “violating fire prevention and firefighting regulations.”

Prosecutors said Minh had a permit to construct a building with six floors and 33 rooms but he added three more floors and 12 more rooms without getting the design approved or inspected for fire risks.

More than 145 people lived in the 45 apartments, using the first floor as a parking space for around 80 motorcycles and electric bikes.

The court was told that Minh was warned several times about safety violations that could cause a fire or explosion in the years after the illegal alterations.

Just before midnight on Sept. 12, 2023, an electrical short circuit triggered a blaze that ripped through the building. Barred windows prevented residents escaping and the narrow streets in the neighborhood stopped fire trucks getting quickly to the scene.

The court ordered Minh to pay 23.7 billion Vietnamese dong (US$940,000) compensation to victims and relatives of the dead for loss of life, injuries and property damage. He was also ordered to pay the entire cost of repairing the building.

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Seven city officials were prosecuted along with Minh for failing to report his illegal alterations. They were found guilty of “lack of responsibility causing serious consequences” and sentenced to prison terms of between 30 months and seven years.

After the blaze the government ordered an investigation and promised tougher regulations for the 2,000-or-so mini apartments in Hanoi.

At that time, the Hanoi People’s Committee initiated inspections of fire prevention and fighting measures at all apartment blocks and boarding houses in the capital within 45 days.

But eight months after the inspection, a boarding house fire killed 14 people.

(Thinh Nguyen/Reuters)

About 33 million Vietnamese – a third of the population – live in the country’s densely packed cities. In 2014, in an effort to address a shortage of affordable housing, the government approved the construction of mini apartments. These are mostly privately built, often with scant attention to building laws, and sold or rented to low-to-middle income families.

Vietnam’s deadliest fire since the end of the Vietnam War was in 2022 when flames engulfed a six-storey building in Ho Chi Minh City killing at least 60 people. About 500 people were in the International Trade Center, which housed offices and a karaoke club.

Edited by Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Mike Firn for RFA.

Though police could not confirm why the shop had a huge quantity of explosives on the premises, Oudomxay province’s chief of police said they were for “sale or other purposes,” and that that they are investigating.

“The shop owner smuggled the explosives and detonators and stored them away in his shop ... and we don’t know exactly why yet,” he told reporters on Saturday. “We are still gathering information.”

The blast killed one Laotian and three Chinese nationals and critically injured another three Chinese. In addition, the surrounding buildings were severely damaged including a newly-built luxury house.

Chinese presence is palpable in Oudomxay and other regions in northern Laos, fueled in part by construction of the US$6 billion high-speed railway connecting Kunming, China to the Lao capital Vientiane.

Further investigation

Police were also unable to confirm what started the initial fire, an officer told RFA Lao on Monday.

“We are still gathering evidence and we’re not sure,” the officer said. “I am just in the office, so I don’t really know that many details.”

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RFA also asked the nearby military headquarters and the Department of Industry and Commerce, but both declined to provide information and suggested following official announcements on the matter.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Consulate in nearby Luang Prabang province sent staff to visit the injured Chinese, a consular official, who requested not to be named, told RFA Lao.

“The Chinese Consulate is not sure about the responsibility,” he said. “For any reason, the Chinese Consulate also cannot release any detailed information to the news media.”

Meanwhile, while visiting with victims in a nearby hospital, Chinese Consular General Zhang Sheping called on the Lao government to determine the origin of the explosion and share information with the Chinese government, local media reported.

What were the explosives for?

The shop was probably hiding the explosives that would be used for mining purposes, a resident of Xay district told RFA Monday on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Many people said it was some Chinese businessmen working together to bring in the explosives or that the owner was helping someone else store the explosive materials, and these are used in gold mining.”

Another resident on Monday said that while officials were cleaning up, nobody was allowed on the shop premises.

“I think they finished cleaning up yesterday, he said. “I think it is still under police investigation.”

Translated by RFA Lao. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

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

The second day of confirmation hearings for Trump’s secretary of health and human services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. again focused on his long record of vaccine skepticism, his shifting position on abortion and his professional inexperience in public health. Kennedy was questioned about his role in a deadly measles outbreak in Samoa in 2019. Dr. Alec Ekeroma, the director general of Samoa’s Health Ministry, says Kennedy promoted anti-vaccine misinformation in the country, leading to the deaths of 83 people, the majority of whom were young children. “He is the preeminent anti-vax campaigner in the world,” adds investigative journalist Brian Deer, who has been following the anti-vaccine movement for years. Kennedy has “no medical or scientific qualifications at all.”

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

Rescue workers in Washington, D.C., have launched a massive recovery operation in the Potomac River after a regional passenger jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided midair late Wednesday, with both aircraft crashing into the water. American Airlines Flight 5342 had 60 passengers and four crew members on board and was en route to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport from Wichita, Kansas. The Black Hawk helicopter had three soldiers on board conducting a training flight. Officials believe there are no survivors. The deadly crash comes amid upheaval and staffing changes in the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Security Administration due to President Donald Trump’s ongoing purge across federal government agencies. Journalist David Sirota of The Lever says the airport also recently had its air traffic increased by lawmakers despite objections. “There is a very deep safety concern at this airport because there had been a series of near misses,” says Sirota. “These warnings about expanding the flight traffic at this airport came just a few months ago.” He also discusses the first 10 days of the Trump administration.

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

While a ceasefire is largely holding in Gaza, Israel is intensifying attacks on the occupied West Bank. The Israeli military has killed at least 13 people in a major military operation targeting Jenin that began on Tuesday when Israeli troops raided the city, backed by airstrikes, drones and U.S.-made Apache helicopters, following a six-week siege. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers in the West Bank have been “emboldened” by Trump’s lifting of sanctions on far-right Israeli settler groups. Further violence is increasingly likely, says Mariam Barghouti, a Palestinian writer and journalist based in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. “We’re seeing Israel wage a war that very much resembles the practices they have committed in Gaza,” with Palestinians left “completely defenseless,” she says. “It’s a very slow slaughter of Palestinians. If you survive a bullet, you don’t know if you’re going to survive daily life.”

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

In one of his first executive orders after taking office, President Trump ordered the United States to withdraw from the U.N.’s World Health Organization, putting numerous WHO programs at risk, including efforts to tackle tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, says the move is a “grave mistake for American national interests and our national security,” as well as “an attack on science, public health and public health institutions.” He warns that the U.S. will likely fall behind on public health innovation and disease prevention, putting the country and the world at greater risk to “the next pandemic.”

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

It has been five years since the Vietnamese government sent about 3,000 riot police into Dong Tam commune, where they shot dead Le Dinh Kinh and beat around 30 other villagers in a long-running dispute over a plot of land 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Hanoi where the military wanted to build an airstrip.

His widow, Du Thi Thanh, witnessed the Jan. 9, 2020, shooting. Police arrested and beat her that day and she said they still harass her as she fights for justice.

“They criticize my family, considering me a reactionary person,” she told Radio Free Asia. “Wherever I go, they still make things difficult for me.”

The family home still bears evidence of the attack, bullet holes caused by police gunfire. No men live there because Thanh’s sons and grandsons were imprisoned and the house has fallen into a state of disrepair.

“We leave everything as it is and cover up the leaks,” Du Thi Thanh said. “How can we fix it now? The house is so dilapidated.”

Police said three officers were killed during the Dong Tam raid. They say the men fell into a well next to the family home and were burned to death by a gang led by Kinh and Thanh’s sons, Le Dinh Cong and Le Dinh Chuc.

The two men were sentenced to death for murder and are being held in a police detention center in Hanoi.

Thanh said her sons have serious physical problems because of police beatings and harsh conditions.

“Chuc is paralyzed on one side of his body, and Cong says he can only lie on his stomach, never on his back, because he was beaten so much and has scabies. Every time I see him, he is covered in blood from head to toe,” she said.

Thanh said police asked her to write that she wanted to “visit a murderer” before issuing a visitor’s permit, but she refused.

“I said no one in my family has killed anyone, if you give me the permit then give it, if you don’t then forget it,” she said.

Four other people were convicted of murder with sentences ranging from 12 to 16 years over the incident. Cong’s son, Le Dinh Doanh, was jailed for life for his part in the killings. Nine others were convicted of “resisting a person on official duty” with sentences ranging from three to six years in prison. Eight were released early for “hard work” and “compliance with prison regulations.”

Missing red book

After police killed Kinh, they confiscated many documents from his home, including the red book certifying ownership of the land his house is built on.

Thanh asked the people’s committee of the commune to help get it back. The police contacted her, saying they would return the red book but later refused.

RFA Vietnamese called the People’s Committee of My Duc district to ask whether they could issue a new red book but no one answered. The phone number listed for the district police did not connect.

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Lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, who represented the family before being forced into exile in Germany, said Thanh wants to tell the truth, that the police took the red book from her house, but authorities want her to say it was lost, so they can save face.

Police also refused to issue a death certificate for Kinh. Lawyer Dai said in order for the People’s Committee to issue one, the police must confirm the cause of death. They have refused because they still disagree with the family over where Kinh was shot.

Without a death certificate the family have been unable to inherit Kinh’s money and possessions. Kinh’s wife has also been denied a monthly pension of 70% of his monthly salary as a commune official.

Losing face

Dang Dinh Manh, one of many lawyers who defended the 29 people in the Dong Tam case, told RFA the 2020 attack was an act of retaliation for the police losing face three years earlier, when villagers captured 38 riot police officers accusing them of illegally arresting people.

“From a normal land dispute in Dong Tam, the regime turned it into a bloody crackdown that led to the deaths of four people and the death sentence of two people, including an elderly man over 80 years old who was shot in the chest at close range by Lt. Col. Dang Viet Quang, deputy head of the Investigation Police Agency of Hanoi City Police,” he told RFA, speaking from the United States where he fled, fearing arrest.

“The 2020 Dong Tam attack will forever be a story of the crimes committed by the communist regime against its people,” he added, saying responsibility for the attack should be borne by the late Nguyen Phu Trong, then communist party general secretary, and the current general secretary To Lam who was public security minister at the time.

“For the people of Dong Tam and for this nation, the debt of justice stained with the blood of innocent people is still there. The two unjust death sentences still exist. The Dong Tam case has never ended so it can’t be closed .”

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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

The discovery was made in Guring village of Dramtso township in Dingri county, called Tingri in Chinese, where the magnitude 7.1 quake struck near the border with Nepal. The county is under the administration of the city of Shigatse in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

A Tibetan living in India who was able to contact family members in Guring told Radio Free Asia that it was one of the worst-hit areas. In this village alone, Chinese media reported that over 30 people died.

Meanwhile, Chinese authorities on Friday nearly doubled their tally of injured in the earthquake to 337 and said more than 60,000 people have been affected by the quake, as search efforts widened for survivors in remote areas.

But Tibetan sources said they believe the actual number of casualties is much higher than the figure reported by the Chinese government, because the population of Dingri county alone is over 60,000, and Lhatse county, another quake-affected area, has 50,000 people.

(Jigme Dorje, Jigme Dorje/Xinhua News Agency/AP)

The areas most severely affected by the earthquake include Guring village and Zingkar village in Dram-tso township, Kyiding village in Tsogan township, and Chulho township.

Additionally, Ngamring county, Sakya county and Dinggye county were impacted by the temblor.

The earthquake caused extensive structural damage, including to several century-old institutions such as the Dingri Dram-tso Serkar, Gonta Phug, Tso-nga, Tso-go and Dewachen monasteries in Dingri’s Chulho area, sources told RFA.

Skepticism

Determining the exact death toll is currently very challenging, said a Tibetan resident of Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

“Everybody is skeptical of the official death toll, but we have no way to know the actual figures,” the person said.

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Another Tibetan living in India, who remains in contact with people in the affected areas, said residents have been restricted from traveling to neighboring villages following the earthquake.

Despite the restrictions, she was able to contact her family and learned that nine people, including neighbors, had died in their local area.

“China is not allowing Tibetans from nearby areas to travel to affected areas to offer help, fearing details of the earthquake will become widespread,” she said.

Many remote villages in the earthquake-affected areas have yet to receive assistance, and no relief personnel have arrived, Tibetan sources said.

Restrictions on aid

The Chinese government has imposed strict restrictions, preventing people from traveling to affected areas to provide help.

(Liu Yousheng/Xinhua News Agency/AP)

Further measures prohibit individuals from taking pictures or videos, with police deployed to monitor aid workers to ensure compliance.

Tibetans from across the region attempting to assist are being blocked at various checkpoints, with authorities requiring permits for entry.

Additionally, they must hand over to Chinese authorities all aid for distribution, leaving volunteers unable to directly provide support to those in need.

Since Jan. 9, authorities have imposed strict controls at Lhatse county checkpoints, requiring all relief supplies to be handed over to government-designated points, restricting the free distribution of aid by ordinary Tibetans who have been leading aid and donation drives.

RFA received a video from a source inside Tibet that showed mountains of relief and aid materials donated for the Tibet earthquake victims piled up at the government’s local disaster relief management center in Dingri county.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi and Tenzin Norzom for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Tenxin Pema for RFA Tibetan, and by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

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

The discovery was made in Guring village of Dramtso township in Dingri county, called Tingri in Chinese, where the magnitude 7.1 quake struck near the border with Nepal. The county is under the administration of the city of Shigatse in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

A Tibetan living in India who was able to contact family members in Guring told Radio Free Asia that it was one of the worst-hit areas. In this village alone, Chinese media reported that over 30 people died.

Meanwhile, Chinese authorities on Friday nearly doubled their tally of injured in the earthquake to 337 and said more than 60,000 people have been affected by the quake, as search efforts widened for survivors in remote areas.

But Tibetan sources said they believe the actual number of casualties is much higher than the figure reported by the Chinese government, because the population of Dingri county alone is over 60,000, and Lhatse county, another quake-affected area, has 50,000 people.

(Jigme Dorje, Jigme Dorje/Xinhua News Agency/AP)

The areas most severely affected by the earthquake include Guring village and Zingkar village in Dram-tso township, Kyiding village in Tsogan township, and Chulho township.

Additionally, Ngamring county, Sakya county and Dinggye county were impacted by the temblor.

The earthquake caused extensive structural damage, including to several century-old institutions such as the Dingri Dram-tso Serkar, Gonta Phug, Tso-nga, Tso-go and Dewachen monasteries in Dingri’s Chulho area, sources told RFA.

Skepticism

Determining the exact death toll is currently very challenging, said a Tibetan resident of Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

“Everybody is skeptical of the official death toll, but we have no way to know the actual figures,” the person said.

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Another Tibetan living in India, who remains in contact with people in the affected areas, said residents have been restricted from traveling to neighboring villages following the earthquake.

Despite the restrictions, she was able to contact her family and learned that nine people, including neighbors, had died in their local area.

“China is not allowing Tibetans from nearby areas to travel to affected areas to offer help, fearing details of the earthquake will become widespread,” she said.

Many remote villages in the earthquake-affected areas have yet to receive assistance, and no relief personnel have arrived, Tibetan sources said.

Restrictions on aid

The Chinese government has imposed strict restrictions, preventing people from traveling to affected areas to provide help.

(Liu Yousheng/Xinhua News Agency/AP)

Further measures prohibit individuals from taking pictures or videos, with police deployed to monitor aid workers to ensure compliance.

Tibetans from across the region attempting to assist are being blocked at various checkpoints, with authorities requiring permits for entry.

Additionally, they must hand over to Chinese authorities all aid for distribution, leaving volunteers unable to directly provide support to those in need.

Since Jan. 9, authorities have imposed strict controls at Lhatse county checkpoints, requiring all relief supplies to be handed over to government-designated points, restricting the free distribution of aid by ordinary Tibetans who have been leading aid and donation drives.

RFA received a video from a source inside Tibet that showed mountains of relief and aid materials donated for the Tibet earthquake victims piled up at the government’s local disaster relief management center in Dingri county.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi and Tenzin Norzom for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Tenxin Pema for RFA Tibetan, and by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

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

Myanmar’s junta has rebuffed a New Year’s proposal for political dialogue by rebels in Rakhine state with a week of deadly airstrikes, residents say.

Observers said the military’s actions following the proposal indicate that the junta has no interest in talks, despite frequent calls by chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing for political means to end the crisis.

On Dec. 29, Arakan Army, or AA, insurgents captured the west coast town of Gwa from the military, a major step toward their goal of taking the whole of Rakhine state, and then said they were ready for talks with the junta, which seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat.

The seizure came slightly more than a week after the AA took a major military base in Ann town on Dec. 20, and the rebels have now captured 14 of the state’s 17 townships, pushing the military into shrinking pockets of territory.

On Dec. 30, the AA said it was open to talks with the military to resolve Rakhine state’s “internal issues through political means rather than military solutions,” although the group did not refer specifically to a ceasefire.

However, as of Monday, the military had carried out at least six airstrikes since the proposal in the AA-controlled townships of Ponnagyun, Ann, Gwa and Myebon, killing 10 civilians and injuring more than a dozen others, residents told RFA Burmese.

Week of airstrikes

Most recently, on Sunday, a military airstrike on Ponnagyun’s Aung Zon Pyin village killed three members of the ethnic Rohingya community, including a child, and a female resident, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

(Arakan Princess Media)

“As this area has access to mobile signals, residents [of the state] come here to make phone calls, and the area is normally crowded,” said an aid worker in Ponnagyun. “[On Sunday], when people were talking on the phone, an aerial attack took place, causing some [deaths and] injuries.”

The aid worker said another airstrike took place the same day on nearby Taung Pauk village.

The three Rohingya killed in the airstrike on Aung Zon Pyin had traveled there from nearby Kyauktaw township to place phone calls, he said.

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The airstrikes followed a Jan. 3 military bombing of a hospital in Myebon township’s Kan Htaung Gyi town, which killed a woman, residents said.

And on New Year’s Eve — a day after the AA proposal — military jets struck Ponnagyun’s Yoe Ta Yoke village, residents said, killing five civilians and injuring 10 others.

Residents are living in constant fear of aerial bombings, Tin Aung Htay, of Ponnagyun township, told RFA.

“[On Sunday] evening, the junta carried out continuous bombings, with a jet flying overhead for 15 minutes,” he said. “Residents were terrified and fled. Children lay flat on the ground while the plane passed. [No one] dared go to work while the junta’s jet was in the area.”

‘No political dialogue’

A commentator on military affairs in Rakhine state said that the junta’s bombings demonstrates a stance of “no political dialogue,” despite the AA’s offer.

“The recent bombings indicate that the junta has no intention of engaging in political dialogue,” said the commentator, who also declined to be named. “Targeting civilians who are not part of any armed group was both malicious and deeply unethical. These were inhumane acts.”

Attempts by RFA to contact both AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha and junta spokesperson and Rakhine state attorney general Hla Thein for their comments on the attacks went unanswered by the time of publishing.

In November, the AA said that since the Nov. 13, 2023, start of its offensive in Rakhine state, military airstrikes, artillery strikes and small arms fire has killed more than 700 civilians and injured more than 1,500 others.

Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

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

As the remains of Jimmy Carter arrive in Washington, D.C., as part of a weeklong state funeral, we speak with historian Greg Grandin about the former U.S. president’s legacy. Carter, who served a single term from 1977 to 1981, promised to restore faith in government after the twin traumas of Watergate and the Vietnam War and to reorient U.S. foreign policy toward upholding human rights. “He came to power promising … a new kind of doctrine, that the United States was moving away from both the ideological excess and the support for dictatorships that led to wars like Vietnam or coups in Chile,” says Grandin. “Pretty quickly, events got ahead of him.” Carter’s “mixed and confused” legacy was nowhere more apparent than in Latin America, where he moved to limit aid to some right-wing dictatorships while supporting others, especially in Central America. He also began funding the mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan, which ultimately led to the Taliban and the 9/11 terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda. “For all of his decency and humanity, especially compared to the … clown circus that we’re living under now, we have to look at the more unfortunate legacies of Carter’s administration,” says Grandin.

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

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

The drug potassium chloride has been on the market for decades, widely prescribed to help the nerves and muscles — including the heart — function properly in patients with low potassium. Too much of it, however, can kill you.

At high doses, it is so effective at stopping the heart that some states have used injections of it for executions.

So the danger was obvious in May, when Indian drugmaker Glenmark Pharmaceuticals recalled nearly 47 million capsules for a dire flaw: The extended-release medication wasn’t dissolving properly, a defect that could lead to a perilous spike in potassium. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration deemed it the most serious kind of recall, a defective drug that had the potential to kill people.

At the time of the recall, the FDA, which is charged with protecting Americans from unsafe drugs, was already on notice about troubles at Glenmark.

The Mumbai-based company had four recalls in the previous eight months and would have two more in following months, all for the same dangerous tendency for pills to dissolve improperly. All the faulty medications were made at the same Glenmark factory in central India, government records show.

Yet the FDA hasn’t stopped Glenmark from shipping pills from the factory to American patients. Nor did it send investigators to the Indian facility to figure out what had gone wrong. Its last inspection of the plant was more than four years ago, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“They should have been camping out there,” said Patrick Stone, a former FDA inspector who now advises pharmaceutical companies.

In less than 12 months, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals had seven recalls for drugs that didn’t dissolve correctly. All were made at the same factory in central India, records show.

Oct. 20, 2023: Recall of deferasirox tablets for oral suspension, which treat iron overload from blood transfusions

Oct. 23, 2023: Recall of ranolazine extended-release tablets, which treat chest pain

March 26, 2024: Recall of diltiazem hydrochloride extended-release capsules, which treat high blood pressure

April 17, 2024: Another recall of diltiazem hydrochloride extended-release capsules

May 29, 2024: Recall of potassium chloride extended-release capsules, which treat low potassium. This recall was expanded on June 24, 2024, and announced by the FDA the next day.

June 28, 2024: Recall of pravastatin sodium tablets, which treat high cholesterol

July 31, 2024: Recall of indomethacin extended-release capsules, which treat rheumatoid arthritis

Since the May recall, Glenmark told regulators it has received reports of three deaths, three hospitalizations and four other serious problems in patients who took the recalled potassium chloride capsules, FDA records show. It’s unclear if the drug was the cause.

A federal lawsuit alleges that the pills were responsible for the death of Mary Louise Cormier, a 91-year-old woman in Maine. A letter informing her of the recall arrived three weeks after she died.

The FDA’s anemic response underscores longstanding weaknesses in the way the agency oversees the safety of generic medications manufactured in foreign factories. The agency failed to act on clear patterns of trouble, was slow to warn the public about the potentially deadly pills and never mentioned that millions of them had been sold to consumers.

From the day of the first recall in October 2023 through the next 12 months, the FDA oversaw 22 recalls for drugs that didn’t dissolve correctly and could cause harm, agency data shows. That single Glenmark factory was responsible for more than 30%, a ProPublica analysis found.

“The FDA is always late to respond,” Stone said. “This should have been dealt with immediately.”

The FDA has long said it polices foreign plants by prioritizing inspections based on risk. For routine inspections, the agency uses a computer model that weighs prior recalls, the date and results of the most recent inspection, and other factors. FDA employees decide when to send investigators for more urgent visits based on signs that something is amiss. But the agency would not explain why Glenmark’s string of recalls didn’t meet that threshold.

What’s more, federal regulators were aware of significant deficiencies at three of Glenmark’s four other factories that have made drugs for the U.S. market, FDA records show. The breakdowns were so grave at one plant that the FDA barred drugs made there from entering the country.

The FDA’s failings date back decades. In her book “Bottle of Lies,” journalist Katherine Eban exposed the agency’s struggles to identify and combat corruption in the global pharmaceutical industry amid a huge demand for cheap generic drugs in the U.S. The book detailed how a whistleblower in 2005 started feeding the FDA insider details about unsafe medications at a different Indian drugmaker, but it took federal officials almost nine years to wrap up a criminal case.

The majority of the factories making drugs for U.S. patients are in other countries, many of which churn out the generics that make up more than 90% of prescriptions filled here. Yet the investigative arm of Congress has repeatedly found that the FDA has too few inspectors to adequately oversee these plants.

The consequences of lax oversight were unmistakable when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2023 that four people died and others had to have their eyeballs removed after they used contaminated eyedrops made by a different Indian company. The FDA had never inspected that factory before people got sick.

Fed up with what they called “institutional weaknesses and dysfunction” in the oversight of foreign drugmakers, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in June demanded that the head of the FDA turn over documents about inspections in India and China.

A spokesperson for the FDA declined to answer questions about the Glenmark recalls or inspection history, saying the agency could not publicly discuss potential or ongoing compliance matters. “When there are quality issues identified that could result in harm, patients should rest assured that the FDA does everything within our authority to work with firms to ensure a recall is conducted most effectively,” FDA spokesperson Amanda Hils wrote in an email. A recent reorganization, she added, “will ultimately help the agency be more efficient and cohesive in our inspection and investigation efforts.”

Officials with Glenmark also declined to answer detailed questions. In a court document, the company denied being responsible for the death of Cormier, the woman in Maine.

“Due to the ongoing litigation, we are unable to provide further information at this time but Glenmark is fully committed to maintaining the highest standards of quality and regulatory compliance in all our operations,” a Glenmark spokesperson wrote in an email. “We continue to work closely with the FDA to ensure compliance with manufacturing operations and quality systems.”

Overseas compliance with U.S. manufacturing standards is crucial in a drug market where foreign factories like the ones operated by Glenmark make a wide range of injections and pills that treat some of the most vulnerable patients in the U.S., including those with cancer, heart disease, epilepsy and kidney ailments. What happens in a factory a half a world away can have deadly consequences.

Glenmark’s major troubles with the FDA began in 2019 at a factory far from the one that made the potassium chloride.

That spring, FDA investigators went to the company’s Himachal Pradesh plant in northern India and reviewed more than 100 complaints about products made there: A steroid cream was gritty, a medication was watery, and tubes of medicines were cracked and punctured.

The inspectors found so many problems at the facility that the agency sent Glenmark what’s known as a warning letter, a disciplinary tool the FDA uses to lay out significant violations of federal requirements and demand changes. Too often, Glenmark didn’t identify the root causes of problems and failed to come up with plans to prevent the same defects in the future, the director of the FDA’s Office of Manufacturing Quality wrote to Glenmark’s chairman.

“Your quality system for investigations is inadequate and does not ensure consistent production of safe and effective products,” the FDA official wrote.

This became a recurrent theme for Glenmark in subsequent years as FDA investigators dinged one plant after another for failing to follow manufacturing processes that prevent defective drugs from winding up in American medicine cabinets.

FDA records show the problems stretched from India to the U.S., where Glenmark has a factory outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. In August 2021, Glenmark recalled every product it made at that plant. The recall notices said they failed to meet manufacturing standards.

In the spring of 2022, FDA investigators spent more than a month in that factory, documenting 17 violations that resulted in a warning letter for that plant as well.

The problems snowballed in the fall of 2022. The FDA sent Glenmark’s chairman yet another warning letter, this time about its factory in Goa, India, which the agency said failed to thoroughly investigate discrepancies among batches of drugs and lacked the procedures necessary to ensure that its products had the strength, quality and purity that Glenmark claimed. And FDA officials were so concerned after a subsequent inspection of Glenmark’s Himachal Pradesh factory that they placed it on the agency’s dreaded import alert list, which allowed federal regulators to prevent drugs made there from entering the U.S.

At that point, three of the five Glenmark factories that had made drugs for American consumers were in trouble with the FDA.

Do you work at the FDA? Do you have information about generic drugs that we should know? We’re particularly interested in decisions made by the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research about drug shortages, foreign or U.S. manufacturing, and regulatory actions, such as warning letters and import alerts. What aren’t officials telling Americans about their drug supply? Email Megan Rose at megan@propublica.org or Debbie Cenziper at debbie.cenziper@propublica.org. If you prefer to reach out confidentially on Signal, Megan can be contacted at 202-805-4865, Debbie can be contacted at 301-222-3133, or get in touch with both reporters at 202-886-9594.

But one plant has escaped scrutiny in the last few years: the Glenmark facility that made the recalled potassium chloride.

The factory, in Madhya Pradesh, India, previously had a mixed record with the FDA. The agency had sent inspectors every year between 2015 and 2020, finding problems in half the visits.

In 2018, the FDA asked Glenmark to voluntarily make improvements after inspectors found evidence that drafts of internal investigations were shredded in the quality department, among other deficiencies.

Subsequent inspections in September 2019 and February 2020, though, went well.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the FDA put all but the most urgent inspections on hold. An Associated Press analysis this September found that about 2,000 pharmaceutical plants had not been inspected by the FDA in five years.

The FDA doesn’t have enough experienced investigators to figure out what’s wrong at factories where there are signs of trouble, said Peter Baker, a former FDA inspector who consults on pharmaceutical quality.

“It’s really difficult to be proactive when you don’t have people,” Baker said.

People familiar with FDA enforcement say inspectors are often frustrated because they have little say on which facilities they inspect. That decision is made by another arm of the agency that doesn’t have the same sort of on-the-ground view of what’s going on in factories.

Those who have the most to lose — the patients who could be endangered by defective pills — rarely, if ever, learn about the conditions inside the manufacturing plants. The FDA doesn’t make it easy for people to know where a drug is made, let alone whether it was by a factory with a concerning safety record.

To determine that the recalled Glenmark drugs were all made at the Madhya Pradesh factory, ProPublica matched drug-labeling records from the U.S. National Library of Medicine with details in two FDA databases. Because the FDA doesn’t routinely post its inspection reports online, ProPublica obtained these and other records from Redica Systems, a data analytics company that receives this information from the FDA through public-records requests.

The first in the string of recalls from the plant came in October 2023 for a drug that treats iron overload from blood transfusions. Days later, the company announced a second recall, this time for a medication for chest pain. Then came two more for capsules that treat high blood pressure. The potassium chloride recall was Glenmark’s fifth. Two more came after that, for a cholesterol-lowering drug and a rheumatoid arthritis medicine.

The only one mentioned on the FDA’s recalls website was the potassium chloride. In that case, the agency followed its practice of posting a press release from the drug company rather than writing its own alert for the public.

“Public notification is generally issued when a product poses a serious health hazard or has been widely distributed,” the FDA spokesperson wrote in an email.

Records show the agency determined that potential harm from taking the other pills Glenmark recalled was likely to be temporary or reversible. But it never told the public what that harm might be.

Mary Louise Cormier never knew her potassium chloride pills had been recalled.

On June 27, the 91-year-old was taken to the emergency room from her nursing home in Brunswick, Maine. She was lethargic and could give only soft, monosyllabic answers to questions, according to the lawsuit filed by one of her daughters.

A blood test showed that her potassium level was alarmingly high — so high that an emergency room doctor had the lab run the test a second time to make sure the result wasn’t a mistake, according to the lawsuit. A level above 6 millimoles per liter is considered a medical emergency. The tests showed Cormier’s level was 6.9, the lawsuit says.

Cormier — who had raised five children, cared for babies in the foster care system and once ran a day care out of her home — suffered cardiac arrest and died, the suit says.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, accuses Glenmark of a “systematic disregard for drug safety” and alleges the company sold pills “more suitable for an execution” than for the vulnerable patients they were supposed to help. Cormier’s pharmacy confirmed that her pills came from recalled batches, the lawsuit says. The suit is seeking class-action status.

In a court filing, Glenmark denied the allegations. The company’s attorneys listed dozens of defenses, including that the injuries claimed were the result of preexisting or unrelated medical conditions and that the product contained an adequate warning. There can be other reasons for a spike in potassium, and ProPublica was unable to independently verify key details in the suit. Cormier’s daughter referred a reporter to her attorney, Aaron Block, who declined to release Cormier’s medical records, citing the early stage of the litigation.

It’s not clear when Cormier’s pharmacy first learned the pills could be dangerous, but news of recalls can often take time to reach pharmacists — and longer to get to patients. The suit says Cormier’s pharmacy dispensed the pills on June 25. That was the day the FDA posted the recall on its website and three days before Cormier died. Medicines in the U.S. often pass through distributors. The manufacturer is responsible for notifying its distributors, who then have to notify their customers and so on down the supply chain.

News of the recall didn’t reach Cormier’s family until three weeks after her death. As her family was preparing for her memorial, a letter arrived. Cormier’s health insurance company was writing with “important drug recall information” about her potassium chloride: “Our records show that you may have recently filled a prescription for this product.” The letter made it clear that the pills may cause high potassium levels, potentially leading to cardiac arrest and death.

Glenmark knew there was a problem with its potassium chloride at least a month before Cormier died.

On May 29, a Glenmark executive wrote a letter to distributors saying a batch of potassium chloride had failed to dissolve correctly in a test, so the company was issuing a recall. The executive told the distributors that the recall was “being made with the knowledge of the Food and Drug Administration” and used red capital letters to mark the notice “URGENT.” The letter was sent via FedEx overnight. But the company and the FDA didn’t tell the public at the time.

In late June, Glenmark recalled dozens more batches, including the pills that the lawsuit says Cormier took.

On June 25, about four weeks after the Glenmark executive had written to distributors, the FDA finally alerted the public.

Glenmark and the FDA declined to say why the initial recall in May didn’t include all of the faulty pills or why they didn’t tell the public sooner. Speaking generally, Hils, the FDA spokesperson, said that the agency does not have the authority to mandate recalls of most drugs, with a limited exception for controlled substances. The agency’s role, she said, is “to oversee a company’s recall strategy, assess the adequacy of the company’s action, and classify the recall.”

Since then, Glenmark has told the FDA about reports it received of the deaths, hospitalizations and other serious health problems in patients who took the recalled potassium chloride. Companies are required to file reports to the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System so the agency can monitor the safety of drugs. The FDA’s online database includes only bare-bones details, so ProPublica was unable to independently verify what happened in each case. While the FDA would not comment on these complaints, the agency generally warns, “For any given report, there is no certainty that a suspected drug caused the reaction.”

A majority of the reports said the patients suffered from abnormal heart rhythms, while the second-most-common complaint was of muscle problems. Glenmark’s public alert said that the recalled pills could cause irregular heartbeats and severe muscle weakness.

Glenmark’s top executives have told financial analysts on earnings calls that the company has invested in improvements to its factories.

The company’s troubles with U.S. regulators are so well known to investors that its compliance officer notified the National Stock Exchange of India in September that FDA inspectors had found no problems at one of its other factories in India. As the news spread, Glenmark’s stock jumped 9%.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Patricia Callahan, Debbie Cenziper and Megan Rose.

The additional checks came amid reports that schools and other public venues have been rushing to buy traffic barriers in the wake of the fatal Nov. 13 Zhuhai car attack.

“For the safety of passengers, please cooperate with security checks in an orderly manner when entering subway stations,” the Guangzhou Metro said via its official account on Weibo on Dec. 8.

Social media users posted photos and video from the network showing long lines of people waiting at security checkpoints outside Tianhe Bus Station, Tiyuxi Road and Zhujiang New Town stations during rush-hour on Dec. 9, with signs set up in the entrance to stations that read: “People through the door, objects through the machine.”

The measures come as authorities across China step up pre-emptive measures in the wake of a growing number of “social revenge” attacks.

At least 35 people were killed and 43 injured when a driver rammed his car into a crowd at a stadium in Zhuhai city, prompting a rare intervention from President Xi Jinping.

“All items you carry must go through the security machine,” the Guangzhou Metro notice said. “If there is an alarm when passing through the security door or security machine, the security inspector will manually re-check by opening and searching the bag.”

“They will release it as soon as they have confirmed that there is no problem,” it said, warning passengers not to bring “flammable or explosive” items into Metro stations.

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One social media video showed a security guard telling passengers to pass through the scanning gate, while the user commented that the security was similar to those seen on the high-speed rail network.

Weibo users made snarky comments about the long lines at the checkpoints, with one commenting: “Terrorists don’t need to get through security now; they have a much better target in those long lines outside the door.”

Others complained that Guangzhou Metro had issued the notice about additional security late on Sunday, giving people scant time to readjust their travel plans.

A Guangzhou-based legal professional who gave only the surname Chen for fear of reprisals said the authorities are extremely nervous in the wake of a slew of vehicle attacks and public stabbings in recent weeks.

“They’re stepping up security inspections, but this is just an attempt at suppression,” Chen said. “Actually, these vicious attacks have too much social control as their root cause.”

‘Can’t solve' the root causes

A Beijing-based legal professional who gave only the surname Wu for fear of reprisals said he believes the authorities are keen to stop any more brutal public attacks.

“But they can’t solve the deep-seated social conflicts [that caused them],” Wu said. “It’ll just cost them a whole lot more in labor, and increase the inconvenience to the general public.”

The move came amid media reports that orders for traffic safety barriers for schools, shopping districts and other public places have soared in the weeks since the Zhuhai killings.

Chinese companies told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper that they had seen substantial increases in product inquiries and purchases in November compared to earlier months, with some firms doubling their workforces to cope with urgent orders to be filled before the festive season at the end of January.

A business owner specializing in giant granite balls that would stop a car or larger vehicle in its tracks said sales had skyrocketed “several times over” since the attack, forcing him to call in retired staff to help with the sudden spike in demand, the paper said.

China’s Communist Party is also stepping up the use of big data to predict people’s behavior in a bid to identify “social risks” and nip potential violent attacks in the bud.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin.

“Journalists are civilians and must never be targeted,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “Israel must be held accountable for its actions and the international community must act to ensure that journalist murders are not allowed to go unpunished.”

On November 25, investigations by Human Rights Watch and Britain’s The Guardian newspaper revealed that Israel’s October 25 airstrike in south Lebanon was carried out using an air-dropped bomb equipped with a U.S.-produced bomb guidance kit.

Two journalists and a media worker — Ghassan Najjar, Mohammed Reda, and Wissam Kassem — were killed and three more journalists were injured by the 3 a.m. strike on a compound in the southern town of Hasbaya where more than a dozen journalists had been staying for several weeks.

The investigations, which included site visits, interviews with survivors and legal experts, and analysis of munitions remnants, video, photo, and satellite images, found no evidence of military activity, forces, or infrastructure in the area. Human Rights Watch concluded that the Israeli military “knew or should have known that journalists were staying in the area and in the targeted building.”

The New York-based rights group further said that U.S. officials “may be complicit in war crimes” because of U.S. weapons transfers to Israel whose military has carried out “repeated, unlawful attacks on civilians.”

Last month, a CPJ report called for accountability for Israel’s killing of Lebanese journalist Issam Abdallah and wounding of six other journalists in an October 13, 2023, tank strike on a hillside in south Lebanon.

Prior to the Israel-Gaza war, in May 2023, CPJ’s “Deadly Pattern” report found that Israel had never held its military to account for 20 journalist killings over 22 years. 

Immediately after the October 25 strike, Israel’s military said it had struck a “Hezbollah military structure” and that “terrorists were located inside the structure.” A few hours later, the army said the incident was “under review.”

CPJ did not immediately receive a response to its email to the Israel Defense Forces’ North America Media Desk asking whether they’d reviewed the circumstances of the strike, whether they knew there were journalists in the targeted location, and if they were targeted for being journalists.

At a November 25 press briefing, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said he was aware of the Human Rights Watch report and department officials “generally do take these reports very seriously,” but said he did not have any “further assessment, either to the type of weapon that was used or to the nature of the strike itself.”

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

Al Jazeera is demanding the safety of its staff in the Gaza Strip after Israel claimed that six of the network’s journalists there have ties to militant groups. Press freedom advocates say the Israeli accusation amounts to a preemptive justification for murder. Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza last October, at least 128 journalists have been killed, including many from Al Jazeera. The Committee to Protect Journalists says Israel has a history of smearing Palestinian journalists with unproven claims, including in July, when Israel killed Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and later released documents claiming to prove al-Ghoul had received a Hamas military ranking when he was just 10 years old. “There is a pattern of Israel making these kinds of allegations, providing evidence that is, frankly, not credible or, in some cases, no evidence at all,” says Jodie Ginsberg, CPJ’s chief executive officer. “As we have fewer and fewer journalists reporting … we have less and less information coming out of Gaza. And it’s absolutely essential that we have that information, that we have those images, so that the international community can understand the scale of what’s happening.”

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

A deadly ambush unfolded in Enga province between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. last night, leaving multiple people dead after a bus was attacked by armed men.

Police confirmed to the Post-Courier that bodies were found both inside the bus and scattered in nearby bushland. Men and women attempting to flee the gunfire were gunned down before they could get far.

Witnesses reported that the bus, a public motor vehicle (PMV), was riddled with bullets during the ambush.

• READ MORE: Other Enga violence reports
• Crisis 24 report

Blood and bodies lay strewn across the area when a distress call alerted police at Surunki station to the tragic scene.

The PMV was later escorted to Wabag General Hospital, where the bodies were removed. Hospital staff have warned that more victims may still arrive.

Local MP Aimos Akem attributed the deaths to escalating violence linked to ongoing conflict in Porgera, saying it continues to take a heavy toll on the people of Lagaip.

Republished from the PNG Post-Courier with permission.

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

More than 3 million people in Florida are without power after Hurricane Milton made landfall in Sarasota County on Wednesday as a Category 3 storm, pummeling the area with torrential rains and winds of up to 120 miles an hour. Multiple deaths were confirmed after tornadoes tore through a senior center in Fort Pierce, but officials have just begun assessing the full damage from Milton, which arrived just two weeks after Hurricane Helene killed at least 230 people across the southeastern United States. Scientists say hurricanes are becoming more intense as a result of the climate crisis. “I have never experienced a storm quite like this,” says Florida state Representative Michele Rayner, who evacuated her home in St. Petersburg.

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

Coastal towns and cities in Florida were devastated when the Category 4 hurricane made landfall, but communities inland bore a similar brunt as the storm carved a path through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee.

“Turn around, don’t drown,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper urged drivers in a press conference. 

At least 42 people have died from the storm. As of Friday, Florida reported seven deaths. Georgia, meanwhile, reported 15, and South Carolina, 17. In both of the latter states, most of the known fatalities were from falling trees and debris. North Carolina reported two deaths, including a car crash that killed a 4-year-old girl after a road flooded. 

Atlanta received 11.12 inches of rain in 48 hours, breaking its previous record of 9.59 inches in the same time period from 1886, according to Bill Murphey, Georgia’s state climatologist. More than 1 million Georgia residents also lost power in the storm, particularly in southern and eastern parts of the state. 

In western North Carolina, officials sounded alarms and went door-to-door evacuating residents south of the Lake Lure Dam in Rutherford County after the National Weather Service warned that a dam failure was “imminent.” Emergency crews also conducted more than 50 swift water rescues across the region, with one sheriff’s department warning it could not respond to all of the 911 calls due to flooded roads. The North Carolina Department of Transportation warned on social media that “all roads in Western NC should be considered closed” due to flooding from Helene.

In Tennessee, more than 50 people were stranded on the roof of a hospital due to heavy flooding and had to be rescued by helicopter. Residents of Cocke County in Tennessee were also asked to evacuate after reports that a separate dam could fail, although officials later said the dam failure had been a false alarm. In South Carolina, the National Weather Service said the storm was “one of the most significant weather events… in the modern era.”

The hurricane’s widespread flooding was worsened by climate change, scientists told Grist. Hurricane Helene was an unusually large storm with an expansive reach. After forming in the Caribbean, it traveled over extremely warm ocean waters in the Gulf of Mexico that enabled the storm to intensify more quickly than it may have otherwise. In fact, Helene went from a relatively weak tropical storm to a Category 4 in just two days. Warmer air also holds more moisture, supercharging the storm’s water content and leading to more rapid rainfall and intense flooding. 

“When that enhanced moisture comes up and hits terrain like the Appalachian Mountains,” said University of Hawaiʻi meteorology professor Steve Businger, “it results in very, very high rainfall rates, exceptionally high rainfall rates and that unfortunately results in a lot of flash flooding.”

Shel Winkley, a meteorologist at the scientific group Climate Central, said research has shown that the Gulf’s current extra-warm ocean temperatures were ​​made up to 500 times more likely with climate change. “One of the things that we’re seeing with these big storms, especially as they seem to become more frequent, is that they’re no longer natural disasters, but that they’re unnatural disasters,” Winkley said. “It’s not just a normal weather system anymore.” 

Hurricanes are naturally occuring, of course, but the conditions that led to Helene’s severity — its rapid intensification and heavy rainfall — were partially driven by warmer ocean and atmospheric temperatures from the burning of fossil fuels. “There is a fingerprint of climate change in that process,” Winkley said. 

“This summer was record warm globally and there was a record amount of water vapor in the global atmosphere,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, or UCLA. Both factors contributed to what the Southeastern U.S. experienced this week. “This is one of the more significant flood events in the U.S. in recent memory.”  

Initial estimates for the storm’s damage to homes, businesses, and infrastructure range between $15 billion and $26 billion, the New York Times reported. Businger said he expects the enormous loss to fuel more conversations about the precarity of the existing property insurance system. “The cost to society is becoming extravagant,” he said.

Scientists noted that the fact that the storm’s winds increased by 55 miles per hour in the 24 hours before it made landfall also made it deadlier.

“It was so strong and moving so fast it just didn’t have time to weaken very much before it made it far inland,” Swain said. Rapid intensification is particularly dangerous, he said, because people often make decisions on how to prepare for storms and whether or not to evacuate based on how bad they appear to be initially. 

“It was one of the faster intensifying storms on record,” Swain said. “This is not a fluke. We should expect to see more rapidly intensifying hurricanes in a warming climate.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline After battering coastal towns, Hurricane Helene causes deadly flooding across five states on Sep 27, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Anita Hofschneider.

At least two women in Georgia have died since the state’s six-week abortion ban went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Candi Miller and Amber Thurman, both Black women and mothers to young children, died after they were unable to access care for rare but typically treatable complications caused by medication abortion. We hear more from ProPublica editor Ziva Branstetter, whose publication reported on the preventable deaths of Miller and Thurman, and from reproductive justice advocate Monica Simpson. “We are in a maternal healthcare crisis in our state,” says Simpson, the executive director of SisterSong, an organization that works throughout the southern United States on behalf of communities of color, which disproportionately suffer the impacts of restrictions on abortion care.

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

Israel is continuing its military assault across the occupied West Bank, with soldiers storming the Palestinian city of Tulkarm after midnight Monday, just days after Israeli forces withdrew from Tulkarm and Jenin following a brutal incursion that lasted over one week. Israeli troops have also raided other towns and villages across the occupied territory as part of the largest Israeli military operation in the West Bank in about two decades, deploying hundreds of soldiers backed by armored vehicles, bulldozers, fighter jets and drones. Israel has killed dozens of Palestinians since launching the operation on August 28. “The brutality is truly unprecedented,” says Palestinian journalist Mariam Barghouti, who adds that in many of the targeted areas, Israel has “bulldozed the overwhelming majority of the civilian infrastructure.” Her recent piece for +972 Magazine is titled “Inside the brutal siege of Jenin.”

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

Heavy rains in Tibetan areas of central China’s Qinghai province have triggered severe flooding, destroying infrastructure and killing at least nine people and hundreds of livestock, three Tibetans from inside Tibet said.

The rains have drenched the area since Sept. 2, flooding roads, damaging bridges and causing landslides, they said. Chinese state media reported that heavy rains have  inundated houses and swept away vehicles.

Tibet is experiencing heavier annual rainfalls and flooding than in the past, which some Tibetan rights groups say is due to climate change.

Six people died in Trelnag township of Serchen (Gonghe in Chinese) County in Tsolho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, the sources said, insisting on not being identified to avoid reprisals from authorities.

Five of them died while traveling in a vehicle when a bridge collapsed, one source said.

Three others died due to a landslide in Honaguk village in Minhe county of Tsoshar (Haidong in Chinese) prefecture. 

Some areas experienced severe hailstorms, which shattered windows and glass panes in the homes of nomads, the sources said.

Livestock dies

The flooding killed livestock as well. Nearly 400 cattle and sheep died In Tsekhok (Zekog) county in the Malho (Huangnan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. 

Residents there needed help pulling dead cattle from the water and mud.

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In Minhe district, houses were damaged, and highways and bridges were washed over, while grasslands were covered by mud.

As of Sept. 4, the Chinese government elevated the weather-damage alert for Qinghai from level 4 to level 3. 

Chinese state media reported a level-one flood warning has been issued for Siling (Xining) city as well as Tathang, Kumbum and Tongkor counties. As a result, officials suspended bus transportation from Siling to these areas.

Roads and bridges connecting Tongkor and Siling have been severely damaged by the flooding, the sources said.

Additionally, roads leading from Dashi (Haiyan) and Kangtsa (Gangcha) counties of Tsojang (Haibei) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and Themchen (Tianjun) county of Tsonub (Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture) to Siling (Xining) city have been cut off, making travel in and out of these areas impossible.

The areas have been hit by flooding before.

In 2022, five people died and over 2,000 head of livestock died due to flooding in parts of Qinghai province, including Mangra (Guinan), Serkog and Rebgong counties, as well as Labrang town in Sanchu (Xiahe) County of Kanlho (Gannan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Gansu province.

Additional reporting and translation by Tashi Wangchuk and Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chakmo Tso and Dickey Kundol for RFA Tibetan.

Though this outbreak is small and triple E does not pose a risk to most people living in the United States, public health officials and researchers alike are concerned about the threat the deadly virus poses to the public, both this year and in future summers. There is no known cure for the disease, which can cause severe flu-like symptoms and seizures in humans 4 to 10 days after exposure and kills between 30 and 40 percent of the people it infects. Half of the people who survive a triple E infection are left with permanent neurological damage. Because of EEE’s high mortality rate, state officials have begun spraying insecticide in Massachusetts, where 10 communities have been designated “critical” or “high risk” for triple E. Towns in the state shuttered their parks from dusk to dawn and warned people to stay inside after 6 p.m., when mosquitoes are most active. 

Like West Nile virus, another mosquito-borne illness that poses a risk to people in the U.S. every summer, triple E is constrained by environmental factors that are changing rapidly as the planet warms. That’s because mosquitoes thrive in the hotter, wetter conditions that climate change is producing.

“We have seen a resurgence of activity with eastern equine encephalitis virus over the course of the past 10 or so years,” said Theodore G. Andreadis, a researcher who studied mosquito-borne diseases at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, a state government research and public outreach outfit, for 35 years. “And we’ve seen an advancement into more northern regions where it had previously not been detected.” Researchers don’t know what causes the virus to surge and abate, but Andreadis said it’s clear that climate change is one of the factors spurring its spread, particularly into new regions. 

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Zoya Teirstein

The first triple E outbreak on record occurred in Massachusetts in the 1830s in horses — the reason one of the three Es stands for “equine.” It wasn’t until a full century later, in 1934, that mosquitoes were incriminated as potential vectors for the disease. The first recorded human cases of the disease also occurred in Massachusetts four years later, in 1938. There were 38 human cases in the state that year; 25 of them were fatal. Since then, human cases have mostly been registered in Gulf Coast states and, increasingly, the Northeast. From 1964 to 2002, in the Northeast, there was less than one case of the disease per year. From 2003 to 2019, the average in the region increased to between 4 and 5 cases per year.

The disease is spread by two types of mosquito. The first is a species called Culiseta melanura, or the black-tailed mosquito. This mosquito tends to live in hardwood bogs and feeds on birds like robins, herons, and wrens, spreading the virus among them. But the melanura mosquito doesn’t often bite mammals. A different mosquito species, Coquillettidia perturbans, is primarily responsible for most of the human cases of the disease reported in the U.S. The perturbans mosquito picks up the EEE virus when it feeds on birds and then infects the humans and horses that it bites. Toward the end of the summer, when mosquitoes have reached their peak numbers and start jostling for any available blood meal, human cases start cropping up. 

Andreadis, who published a historical retrospective on the progression of triple E in the northeastern U.S. in 2021, said climate change has emerged as a major driver of the disease. 

“We’ve got milder winters, we’ve got warmer summers, and we’ve got extremes in both precipitation and drought,” he said. “The impact that this has on mosquito populations is probably quite profound.” 

Warmer global average temperatures generally produce more mosquitoes, no matter the species. 

Studies have shown that warmer air temperatures up to a certain threshold, around 90 degrees Fahrenheit, shorten the amount of time it takes for C. melanura eggs to hatch. Higher temperatures in the spring and fall extend the number of days mosquitoes have to breed and feed. And they’ll feed more times in a summer season if it’s warmer — mosquitoes are ectothermic, meaning their metabolism speeds up in higher temperatures. 

Rainfall, too, plays a role in mosquito breeding and activity, since mosquito eggs need water to hatch. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, which means that even small rainfall events dump more water today than they would have last century. The more standing water there is in roadside ditches, abandoned car tires, ponds, bogs, and potholes, the more opportunities mosquitoes have to breed. And warmer water decreases the incubation period for C. melanura eggs, leading one study to conclude that warmer-than-average water temperatures “increase the probability for amplification of EEE.” 

Climate change isn’t the only factor encouraging the spread of disease vectors like mosquitoes. The slow reforestation of areas that were clear cut for industry and agriculture many decades ago is creating new habitat for insects. At the same time, developers are building new homes in wooded or half-wooded zones in ever larger numbers, putting humans in closer proximity to the natural world and the bugs that live in it. 

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Zoya Teirstein

On an individual level, the best way to stay safe from EEE and other mosquito-borne diseases is to prevent bites: Wear long sleeves and pants at dusk and dawn, when mosquitoes are most prone to biting, and regularly apply an effective mosquito spray. But there are also steps that local health departments can take to safeguard public health, like testing pools of water for mosquito larvae and conducting public awareness and insecticide spraying campaigns when triple E is detected. Massachusetts is an example of a state that has been proactive about testing mosquitoes for triple E in recent summers. 

The most effective way to protect people from this disease would be to develop a vaccine against it. A vaccine already exists for horses, but there is little incentive for vaccine manufacturers to develop a preventative for triple E in humans because the illness is so rare.  

“Although EEE is not yet a global health emergency, the recent uptick in cases has highlighted our lack of preparedness for unexpected infectious disease outbreaks,” a group of biologists wrote last year in the open-access scientific journal Frontiers. “It would be wise to follow proactive active control measures and increase vigilance in the face of these threats.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How climate change is expanding the reach of a rare and deadly mosquito-borne illness on Aug 30, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Zoya Teirstein.

Outside, temperatures hovered in the 90s, with a heat index — what the temperature feels like — of nearly 100. Just days earlier, a punishing heat wave had brought a string of days topping out in the mid-90s. With no air conditioning or ventilation, Broadway’s unit on the fifth floor of the prison had become a furnace.

“We live on the highest gallery in the cellhouse,” Mark, who lived next door to Broadway, told The Appeal over the prison’s messaging service. “It never cools off. Personal fans blow hot air. You have to sit still. Move and you are sweaty.”

(We are using an alias to protect Mark from retaliation.)

Mark and others on Broadway’s cellblock yelled for help, but a nurse didn’t come until more than 15 minutes later, according to a statement Broadway’s neighbor, Anthony Ehlers, provided to the law firm representing Broadway’s family.

“It’s too hot,” the nurse said, according to Ehlers. “I’m not going up there. Tell him to come down here.” 

Broadway was “holding his neck, gasping for breath,” said Ehlers. An officer radioed that Broadway couldn’t walk. By the time the nurse entered his cell, he had already lost consciousness, said Ehlers. She administered Narcan, and officers began chest compressions. Ehlers yelled out repeatedly that Broadway had asthma and did not use drugs.

The stretcher was broken, so Mark used his bed sheet to carry Broadway down five flights of stairs with the assistance of three staff members. Broadway was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

At the time of his death, Broadway was 51 years old. While incarcerated, he battled cancer, wrote a novel, and earned his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University. An IDOC spokesperson said in an email that an investigation is ongoing.

“Mike was really special and he deserved better than to die from something so easily avoidable,” Ehlers wrote to The Appeal. 

As summers get hotter, conditions are becoming increasingly dangerous for the more than 1 million people locked up in state prisons, most of which do not have universal air conditioning. Even prisons in some of the hottest states, like Louisiana, Texas, and Georgia, are only partially air-conditioned, according to a survey of state corrections agencies conducted by The Appeal. For the six states that did not respond to the survey — Florida, Tennessee, Michigan, Nevada, Kansas, and West Virginia — we gathered information from news reports, including local reporting and a USA Today analysis of prison air conditioning published in 2022. 

According to our investigation: 

• Just over 80 percent of federal prisons have universal air conditioning. 
• Only five states provide air conditioning in all prison housing units. 
• In 22 states, most people are housed in air-conditioned units, which means more than 50 percent of state prisoners live in air-conditioned housing units; 
• In 17 states, some prison housing units are air-conditioned across multiple facilities.
• In five states, few housing units are air-conditioned — only a single facility and/or specialized units, like infirmaries, are cooled.
• Only one state, Alaska, has no air-conditioned housing units. 

Research has found that higher temperatures — and especially prolonged periods of extreme heat — are associated with higher death rates in prison. Despite the correlation between heat and mortality, the exact number of heat-related deaths remains unknown, as many prisons do not properly track or report them, prompting concern from advocates that officials are effectively hiding these fatalities behind other causes of death. 

In one high-profile case in California this July, Adrienne “Twin” Boulware died after collapsing at the Central California Women’s Facility during a heat wave, according to advocates. Boulware’s family has said prison staff told them she died from heat stroke, but a spokesperson for the state corrections agency said in an email that Boulware’s cause of death “appears to be an ongoing medical condition and not heat related.” The county coroner’s office will make the final determination, the spokesperson said.

For years, incarcerated people and advocates have demanded universal air conditioning and increased access to ice, cold water, and showers to help protect against the heat. But many prison systems continue to deny prisoners even the most basic accommodations, while lawmakers have offered, at most, piecemeal investments in AC installation. Incarcerated people often rely on small, personal fans to provide some degree of comfort, but previous reporting by The Appeal has revealed that these devices can be too expensive for many to afford, especially on paltry wages — if they’re paid at all. 

Without a radical departure from the status quo, the human-made crises of climate change and mass incarceration are on a collision course that will put more and more prisoners’ lives at risk. As extreme temperatures sweep across the country, the problem is expanding beyond historic hotbeds in the South and Southwest, bringing more intense and frequent heat waves to states with traditionally milder climates. 

Heat waves this summer have hit much of the country, including Washington State, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois, and New Hampshire, all states that lack universal air conditioning in their prisons, according to our survey. Research suggests extreme heat can be particularly dangerous for people who are not acclimated to such high temperatures. 

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In New York, most of the state’s approximately 30,000 prisoners are confined to housing units without air conditioning. This summer, the heat index hovered around 100 degrees for several days back-to-back in areas where some state prisons are located. In New Hampshire, only one of the state’s three prisons, the New Hampshire Correctional Facility for Women, has air conditioning. Temperatures in Concord, where the New Hampshire State Prison for Men is located, broke records in July with 12 consecutive days that reached 90 degrees.

In New Jersey, the third-fastest warming U.S. state and the fastest in the Northeast, about 65 percent of housing units are air-conditioned.

Marsha’s son is incarcerated at Bayside State Prison, where most housing units are not air-conditioned. The prison is “suffocatingly hot,” she said. (We are using an alias for Marsha to protect her son from retaliation.) Last month, temperatures around Bayside hit the 90s on nine separate days. Marsha’s son told her they receive ice twice daily, but it “melts right away,” she said. 

To combat the heat, Marsha said her son bought a couple of fans from the commissary; one was sold at a discounted price. According to a state prison commissary list obtained by The Appeal last year, a 9-inch fan costs about $16.

A Department of Corrections spokesperson said in an email that people assigned to housing units without air conditioning may purchase one fan and one 28-quart cooler at a discounted price if they have not previously been provided one. 

Like much of the Northeast, Vermont is heating up at a troubling pace, making it one of the fastest-warming states in the country, according to the research group Climate Central.

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In June, the Vermont State Employees’ Association filed a complaint with the state on behalf of members who work at Southern State Correctional Facility. According to the complaint, an officer had developed heat stroke while he was working in the prison’s infirmary. Although this is the only unit in the facility with air conditioning, the complaint alleges it was not working properly at the time.

A spokesperson for the Vermont DOC told The Appeal in an email that Southern State is the next prison slated to receive universal air conditioning, a project that is set to be completed by 2027. Earlier this year, lawmakers approved funding for a fraction of what it will likely cost to install air conditioning in all of the state’s prisons, according to local news outlet Vermont Public. 

“The State is actively working to install HVAC across all correctional facilities,” a Vermont DOC spokesperson said in an email. “Investing in the physical infrastructure of our facilities, to include installing air conditioning, is a considerable priority for the Department to ensure a dignified and comfortable experience for those who live and work in Vermont correctional facilities.”

Only two out of Vermont’s six prisons are fully air-conditioned, which amounts to 29 percent of the state’s housing units, according to the DOC. The DOC spokesperson said that depending on the facility, staff may distribute free ice twice a day, place fans in common areas, use water misters, distribute popsicles, or set up water and shade stations in the yard. Prisoners can purchase a 6-inch desk fan for about $13 and an 8-inch fan for $42, almost twice as much as it costs at a local Lowe’s.

Prisoners’ rights advocate Timothy Burgess said he’s received reports from inside Southern State about the excessive heat. 

“People are cooking,” said Burgess, who is executive director of the Vermont chapter of Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants, an advocacy group known as CURE. “This summer, like last summer, is absolutely brutal.”

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Prisoners are often denied the most basic protections from the heat when they’re taken outside, like shade, water misters, and cold water. The stakes are particularly high for prisoners in the South and Southwest, where climate change is threatening to make notoriously blistering summers even more dangerous.

Richard, who’s incarcerated in Arizona’s Lewis Complex, said there’s little shade in the recreation yard, and jugs of provided ice water are finished quickly. (We are only using Richard’s first name to protect him from retaliation.) According to the state Department of Corrections’ HVAC Conversion Plan, air conditioning has been installed in five of the prison’s units, but installation in the remaining three is on hold pending funding. Richard says many prisoners rely on small, personal fans, which they can purchase from the commissary for about $23.

Temperatures around Lewis have reached at least 100 degrees every day since the end of May. The unrelenting heat takes a toll on people’s physical and mental health, said Richard. 

“We’ve had several people fall out, pass out in the chow hall, which has no fans or ventilation of any sort,” he said. “I personally have seen probably about five or six people pass out from heat exhaustion or heat stroke.”

Heat stroke can be deadly. Last July in Georgia, 27-year-old Juan Carlos Ramirez Bibiano died after being left outside in a cage at Telfair State Prison for approximately five hours without water, ice, or shade, according to a lawsuit filed by his family. A spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Corrections said in an email that the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

On the day of Ramirez’s death, the heat index — what the temperature feels like accounting for humidity — had reached over 105 degrees. That morning, the warden warned staff about the dangerous temperatures and told them not to keep anyone on the recreation yard for extended periods, according to the complaint. 

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At about 3:00 pm, security staff called for medical help. When the nurses arrived, Ramirez was lying naked on the concrete and had vomited and defecated. He was taken to the hospital, where he was found to have a body temperature of 107 degrees. DOC reported that Ramirez died of “natural causes,” according to the family’s legal team. 

In Louisiana, prisoners are engaged in a legal battle to temporarily halt work on the “Farm Line” when the heat index exceeds 88 degrees. In a July ruling, a federal judge stopped short of shutting down the program but ordered corrections officials to make changes to their heat-related policies. In response, the DOC told the court they now offer workers sunscreen, access to a pop-up tent to provide shade on breaks, and other protective measures. On Aug. 15, the judge lambasted the agency’s actions as “grossly insufficient.” 

Few protections exist for incarcerated people who are often forced to toil in extreme heat. This month, the U.S. Department of Labor has proposed a rule that would require employers to implement certain protections for people working in high temperatures. An agency spokesperson said in an email that the rule does not “explicitly mention incarcerated laborers” and that “as a general rule, prisoners are not regarded as employees under federal labor and employment laws.” The spokesperson said the proposed rule would soon be available for public comment and encouraged “people with serious concerns” to “participate in the rule-making process.”

If the rule is adopted, individual states may choose to include incarcerated workers, according to the spokesperson. But there is little reason to believe they would. In California, the state’s safety board explicitly excluded prisons and jails from newly approved heat-related protections for people who work indoors, meaning both incarcerated laborers and prison staff are not covered.  

With the onset of climate change, outdoor conditions are also becoming harsher for incarcerated people in other parts of the country. A woman incarcerated in a Pennsylvania prison wrote to The Appeal that during yard time, they have “to take our water bottles outside,” leaving them to drink “hot-as-piss water.”

From Stateville prison in Illinois, Ehlers said there is no shade when they go out for recreation, and they’re not provided sunscreen. He said staff give prisoners a “small water cooler full of ice water, but it’s gone pretty quickly.” During the summer, Ehlers usually opts to skip recreation. 

“You’re stuck out there,” he wrote. “I’ve seen plenty of guys go down with heat stroke on the yard.”

Whether inside or outside, Ehlers said incarcerated people are given little protection against the heat. 

“The earth is getting hotter, and IDOC, and corrections, in general, is not adjusting, not doing anything to make sure that prisoners are safe,” he wrote. “We don’t have the ability to take care of ourselves, if we could, we would. We have to depend on the prison staff to take care of us, and they don’t care.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline As climate change worsens, deadly prison heat is increasingly an everywhere problem on Aug 29, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg, The Appeal.

Papua New Guinea police have arrested five people in connection with the brutal attacks in Angoram district that left around 25 people dead last week.

RNZ Pacific correspondent in PNG, Scott Waide, said the ringleaders who initiated the attacks in three remote villages in East Sepik have not yet been arrested.

He said they were still armed and on the run after an estimated 30 young people targeted Tamara, Tambari and Agrumara villages over what is believed to have been a land dispute.

• READ MORE: UN shocked over beheadings, burnt village in brutal PNG violence

Hundreds of people have been displaced as a result of the deadly violence, with reports that survivors were hiding in bushes.

Waide said there had been no government presence or assistance sent to the survivors who desperately needed food and help.

East Sepik Governor Allan Bird has said tribal violence continued to deteriorate in the country.

A villager from Angoram, Andrew Sangi, told RNZ Pacific last week the government was not actively involved to solve the problem.

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.

In a haunting, ghastly reprise, Thursday saw the funeral of D’Vontaye Mitchell, a black man in mental distress killed by four security guards outside a Milwaukee hotel - one of the sites for next week's GOP convention, yet. Like George Floyd, witness video shows Mitchell face down and gasping for air as he begs, "Please, please...." His wife: "They treated him like he was worthless, an animal." Singer Tom Prasada-Rao in $20 Bill, his searing lament for Floyd: "Oh brother, I never knew you/ Now I never will."

D’Vontaye Mitchell, a 43-year-old father of two, was killed June 30th outside Milwaukee's Hyatt Regency Hotel as he was held down by four security personnel who'd dragged him out after he entered the women's bathroom. Hotel footage reportedly shows Mitchell frantically running from something or someone unknown to hide in the bathroom; confronted by the guards, he had his hands up. During the assault outside, video shows him pinioned on the ground being beaten with batons as he grunted, struggled to breathe, and begged them to stop; at one point, a guard turns to the passerby filming and snarls, "This is what happens when you go into the ladies room." Mitchell's "last words on this earth," noted civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, were "please, please, please, please, please, please," followed by "I'm sorry" two times, "I can't breathe," and "Please help me." "How many more, America?" asked Crump. "How many more Black men have to say ‘I can’t breathe?’"

"To see them beat him over and over and over..." said Mitchell's wife DeAsia Harmon of the pitiless encounter. "They could have stopped at any time." At a press conference, she stood with Mitchell's family, including their 8-year-old daughter, Michell's former girlfriend Luella Jackson, and her and Mitchell's six-year-old son. "Our children deserve justice for their father," said Harmon. "They took everything from them... We stand together on this." Until this week, no one had been charged in connection with Mitchell's death despite a preliminary finding from the county medical examiner's office his cause of death was homicide; the four guards had been put on leave, and police had declined to release video of the encounter. "I just want justice for my son, and I want it now," said Mitchell's mother Brenda Giles, who insisted the death won't be "swept under the rug." "Give us those videos. Y’all know what went on inside the hotel. Y’all saw it, but we can’t see it. Make that make sense."

This week, ten days after his death and amidst angry protests, changes came in quick succession. The guards were finally fired by Aimbridge Hospitality, which runs the hotel, hours after the Hyatt demanded they be fired and face criminal charges. And Thursday, Milwaukee police referred four charges of felony murder to the D.A.'s office. Still, no arrests have been made, purportedly awaiting final autopsy results - a lapse blasted as "appalling" by attorney Will Sulton, representing the family along with Crump and B'Ivory Lamarr. Sulton noted the charges came only after community calls for accountability - "It was onlookers and family gathering evidence (which) led us here" - in the killing of a distressed, unarmed man "trying to run for his life." Sulton added there's footage of the guards denying they struck Mitchell, "even though that's all on camera - you see them punching, kicking, hitting him with a baton...It is just outrageous." See below. Warning: Like all that have come before, gruesome.

Death of Black man outside Milwaukee hotel is being reviewed as a homicide www.youtube.com

For many, Mitchell's killing bitterly echoed that of George Floyd, likewise dead from a heedless white man's knee on his neck, in the harsh light of day, for all to witness. At the time, the sight hollowed out Tom Prasada-Rao, a beloved songwriter, "pillar of grace and talent" and "musician's musician" who died June 19 at his home in Silver Spring, Md of cancer at 66. Born in Ethiopia of Indian descent, Prasada-Rao performed for decades in multiple bands - the Dreamsicles, the Sherpas, Fox Run Five - usually in an Indian kurta , or tunic. But he was perhaps best known for, and most fond of, $20 Bill, the simple, mournful benediction for George Floyd he wrote in late May 2020 after, ravaged by chemotherapy for Stage IV cancer, he'd sat on his sofa and watched news coverage of the swirling protests. He was exhausted; the protests "broke his heart," and the lyrics "just came tumbling out of me." He recorded it on the couch, his voice soft, raspy, subdued, apologizing he was "not at my best."

"Some people die for honor/Some people die for love/ Some people die while singing/to the heavens above," he sang. "Some people die believing/in the cross on Calvary Hill/And some people die/in the blink of an eye/for a $20 dollar bill." Noting, "Oh brother, I never knew you/Now I never will," he promises, "I'll remember you still." "Let this be our communion/Time to break the bread/Do this in remembrance/Just like the good book said/," he sings. "Sometimes the wine is a sacrament/Sometimes the blood is just spill/Sometimes the law is the devil's last straw/A future unfulfilled....For a 20 dollar bill." He falls silent, then whispers, "Rest in peace." Ever "the grand collaborator - he never met a stranger" - he posted the chords, inviting others to cover it. Over 100 did; his favorite was by Karl Werne. Then, and at a recent celebration of his life, family and dear friends thanked him for giving "voice to the anguish of the moment" and helping them heal. To make beauty out of such savagery, said one, "is an exultation of the best in us."

$20 Bill (for George Floyd) www.youtube.com

For D’Vontaye Mitchell's family and friends, it is too soon for healing. At his funeral Thursday at Milwaukee's Holy Redeemer Church of God in Christ, they remembered how Mitchell loved to dance, rap, cook and help others even as they vowed, per his mother Brenda, "We going to fight." Reading from Psalms, she said they "shouldn't worry about the injustice that's been done to D’Vontaye, because they will get their just due...God is going to make sure it comes to pass." Rev. Al Sharpton also called on a higher power for justice against those who in 2024 still think of black men as "the least of us" thanks to a long, ugly history in America, from slavery to George Floyd, that made it so. "We want the people in this town and others (to know that) who you consider the least, God consider the most," he said. “You never thought folk like us would be coming to stand up for D’Vontaye. But you will be held accountable when you put your hands on us."

Benjamin Crump and several others noted the irony of Mitchell being killed outside one of three main venues for next week's Republican convention where, "Y'all got a crowd coming to town to talk about making America great again." Improbably, he argued justice should be part of the narrative: "We got two justice systems in America - one for Black America and one for white America." For proof, he called out Mitchell's name, then many others - George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, etc. "We going to help you D'Vontaye," Crump said, brandishing a metal baton he said was used to beat Mitchell, then naming each member of his family. "When they hit him, punch him, and beat him, it was like they were beating us all." He again cited Mitchell's final words - "Please, six times, while gasping for breath" - to "Please help me." "How many more?" he asked the mourners angrily, rhetorically. "After the video of George Floyd, you say, 'My God, not again. You'd think we would have learned our lesson."

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

The ER doctors quickly transferred Parravani to Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, where he had received a kidney transplant a year prior. The specialists there suspected he might have a kidney or blood infection related to his operation. They gave him a round of antibiotics, but he just kept getting worse.

Parravani, known to friends and family as Jim, took a long, winding road to his daughter’s wedding weekend. He dropped out of high school in Schenectady, New York, before his senior year to focus on other priorities. “Rocktoberfest” — a music festival he and his friends threw in a rented-out motel — occupies a near-mythical place in modern Schenectady history. Parravani eventually earned his GED and attended Syracuse University’s College of Law, where he rose to second in his class. 

After marrying his middle school sweetheart in 1986, Parravani graduated from law school, moved to Westchester, and began building a career and a family. But in the ’90s, he learned he had a genetic condition called polycystic kidney disease — an illness that causes cysts to grow on the kidneys and often results in organ failure. After several years of treating his cysts, Parravani’s doctors initiated the laborious process of getting him a transplant. In 2020, about a year before his daughter’s wedding weekend, he finally got one. 

Now, his doctors thought this transplanted kidney might be making him sick, though they still didn’t know how. The morning of her reception, Jennifer Parravani Davis called her dad at the hospital. She asked him if he wanted her to postpone the festivities. “No, no,” he told her. “Keep going.” 

That was the last lucid conversation Davis ever had with her father. The next day, she got a call from her mother. Parravani was deteriorating — fast. 

“He got on the phone and he was really disoriented, he couldn’t form words,” Davis said. “I remember saying ‘Hi, I love you,’ and he just said, ‘Don’t cry,’ and everything after that was incoherent.” Parravani was intubated that same day. 

The doctors ran dozens of tests and put Parravani on multiple courses of strong antibiotics to treat the infection. It was only when they conducted a spinal tap — about a week after Parravani’s initial admission — that they discovered the true culprit: West Nile virus was present in his cerebrospinal fluid. The disease had spread to his brain and was making it swell. (Yale New Haven Hospital declined to comment on Parravani’s care.)

For seven months, as Parravani slipped in and out of comas, the doctors tried to beat back the virus with intravenous fluids, pain medication, and oxygen. At one point, it looked like Parravani might pull through. He was nodding and trying to communicate with his family around his breathing tube. The doctors reduced the oxygen flowing through his ventilator, and he breathed on his own. But in March 2022, Parravani began to decline again. On April 13, Parravani died in hospice care. He was 59 years old.

West Nile has been the most common mosquito-borne illness in North America for more than two decades. States in the Great Plains and western U.S. typically report the highest number of cases, though outbreaks have happened in nearly every state in the continental U.S. The disease has killed more than 2,300 people since it first arrived here, and the number of people affected by the virus every year is poised to rise.  

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As climate change extends warm seasons and spurs heavier rainstorms, the scope and prevalence of West Nile virus is shifting, too. Warmer, wetter conditions allow mosquitoes to develop more quickly, stay active beyond the traditional confines of summer, and breed more times in a given year. Birds, which host West Nile virus and pass it onto mosquitoes that bite them, are adjusting their migration patterns in response to the melding seasons.

The confluence of these two trends could have serious consequences for human beings. West Nile virus, a recent study said, “underlines once again that the health of animals, humans, and the environment is deeply intertwined.” In the past few years, Colorado and Arizona recorded outbreaks of the virus that killed scores of people in each state. Parts of California and Wyoming also reported unusually high cases of the disease. Meanwhile, Nevada, Illinois, and New York registered above-average or record-breaking numbers of West Nile-infected mosquitoes and mosquito activity.   

“Overall, the evidence points to higher temperatures resulting in more bird-mosquito transmission and more what we call spillover infections to people,” said Scott Weaver, chair of the department of microbiology and immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch.

West Nile virus typically leaves young, healthy individuals unscathed. Only 1 in 5 people who contract it develop symptoms, which can include fever, headache, joint pain, diarrhea, and other signs of illness that often resemble the flu. 

There is no cure for West Nile virus; the immune system must fight it off on its own. That’s why elderly people and those with preexisting conditions, such as cancer, diabetes, and kidney disease, are at much higher risk of developing the severe form of the disease. So are organ transplant recipients, who take immunosuppressants for their entire lives to ensure the body does not reject the organ.  

About 1 in 150 people who get West Nile develop the worst form of the illness, in which the virus attacks the central nervous system. For 10 percent of these patients — including Parravani — encephalitis or meningitis, swelling of the tissues around the brain and spinal cord respectively, leads to death. 

Because only a sliver of infected people get seriously sick, the impact of West Nile virus on the public hinges on the number of people who contract the disease. Some years, the number of infections detected in the U.S. approaches 10,000. Other years, there are fewer than 1,000 reported cases. The number depends in large part on environmental conditions — how much rain fell, how warm or cold the spring or fall was — in addition to bird migration patterns and human behavior. 

“It’s a rare event that any given mosquito bites a bird and then survives long enough to bite a human” and transmit West Nile virus, said Shannon LaDeau, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. But as with COVID-19, the size of the denominator is crucial. “When you have millions of mosquitoes, that rare event happens more frequently.” LaDeau said. 

Parravani’s illness wasn’t the first case of West Nile to stump medical professionals in the U.S. In August 1999, people in the New York City metropolitan area started becoming severely ill with encephalitis. The patients had previously been healthy and reported being outside in the days leading up to their illness. The New York City Department of Public Health suspected a disease spread by mosquitoes was behind the outbreak and immediately launched an investigation. 

In the months before the outbreak, researchers in New York had detected an unfamiliar type of single-stranded RNA virus in some of North America’s wild birds. Birds of prey and members of the crow family, in particular, were dying in unusually high numbers. Four weeks after the people in New York got sick, the chief pathologist at the Bronx Zoo connected the dots and sounded the alarm. The birds were infected with West Nile virus, named after the district in northern Uganda where the disease was first isolated in a human more than half a century earlier. And West Nile, public health authorities eventually confirmed, was what was making New Yorkers sick.

By the end of the summer, 59 people had been hospitalized with West Nile virus. Seven died. 

West Nile had been known for decades to cause fever, vomiting, headache, and rashes. Epidemics in the Middle East in the early 1950s helped researchers confirm that the Culex genus of mosquito — dawn and dusk biters that prefer to feed on birds — were the primary vector, or carrier, of the disease. Outbreaks of varying severity cropped up all over the world — in France, India, Israel, Italy, Morocco, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, and Tunisia. But it wasn’t until 1999 that researchers understood that migratory birds could spread the virus from one hemisphere to another.  

Once public health officials learned what was behind the encephalitis outbreak in New York, they sprayed pesticide and larvicide around the city to kill mosquitoes. But the disease couldn’t be eradicated. Within three years, birds had carried it from coast to coast and throughout much of Canada.

The public health response to West Nile virus in the U.S. since the turn of the century has been punctuated by successes and setbacks. Every few years, when environmental conditions allow Culex populations to boom, cases careen out of control and hundreds of people die. States and cities often belatedly deploy weapons from a limited arsenal — pesticide-spraying and public awareness campaigns — to keep the disease in check. After a boom year, the next one often brings a different cocktail of environmental conditions, and the disease has a much smaller impact on public health. 

“There are many things that go into what causes the circulation of West Nile,” said J. Erin Staples, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. “And that makes it very difficult for us to predict.”

The unpredictability of the virus is part of what explains the lackluster response by states and the federal government to the threat of West Nile. No vaccine or cure exists, and funding for research on the disease is low, despite the fact that the virus has been claiming lives in North America for a quarter of a century. “Although West Nile virus continues to cause significant morbidity and mortality at great cost, funding and research have declined in recent years,” a 2021 study said. The National Institutes of Health directed $67 million to West Nile research between 2000 and 2019 — less than a tenth of the $900 million it dedicated to research on Zika, a mosquito-borne illness that never gained a foothold in the U.S., in the same period. 

Experts warn that climate change is creating more opportunities for West Nile to spread.

Culex mosquitoes thrive in temperate, wet weather. Like other mosquitoes, they lay their eggs in standing pools of water. The eggs can’t survive below about 45 degrees Fahrenheit, but as temperatures get warmer from there, the time between hatching and reproducing gets shorter. The mosquitoes’ ideal temperature for survival ranges from 68 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the precise species, but one Culex species can spread West Nile when it’s anywhere between 57 and 94 degrees F outside.

As temperatures rise and make fall, winter, and spring milder, Culex mosquitoes will have more chances to reproduce and spread West Nile in places that didn’t used to see so many mosquitoes. Meanwhile, because a warmer atmosphere holds more water, extreme rain events are getting more common — and that means more standing water for mosquitoes to breed in.

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Zoya Teirstein

In New York, where winters are warming three times faster than summers, mosquitoes are now active deep into the month of November. A few decades ago, an adult mosquito flying around past the middle of October would have been highly unusual. “We are starting to see and will continue to see shifts in the range” of West Nile virus, said Laura Harrington, an entomology professor at Cornell University, “and shifts in some of the avian hosts that are most important.” 

Climate change also pushes birds into new areas, because of weather changes and adjustments in where and when different types of plants and trees grow and bloom. “There are changes to the habitat where birds migrate to breed every year in the Northern Hemisphere,” said Weaver, the University of Texas microbiologist. “And just the temperature itself may have an impact on migration.” As birds enter new habitats, they have the potential to bring West Nile with them.

There’s already evidence that climate change is fueling West Nile outbreaks. In 2021, Maricopa County, Arizona, got an unusual amount of rain — 6.6 inches between June and September, compared to the 2.2 inches it usually gets during that period. That summer, Maricopa County experienced a historic surge of West Nile virus — the worst outbreak in a U.S. county since the disease arrived 25 years ago. Roughly 1,500 people were diagnosed, 1,014 were hospitalized, and 101 people died. The previous year, the number of recorded cases in the region was in the single digits. 

A determining factor in the outbreak, Staples said, was the unusual amount of rain. It led to “an unprecedented increase in the mosquitoes and the ability of that virus to then spread to people.” Arizona is projected to get more bouts of extreme rainfall as the planet warms. 

To prevent West Nile outbreaks, public health officials must monitor mosquitoes and birds for the virus. But the behavior of mosquitoes makes surveillance complicated — trickier even than tracking other vectors of disease, such as ticks. Unlike ticks, which stay more or less put, mosquitoes can travel a mile or two in any direction. That means public health agencies must launch an expensive and time-consuming hunt for the bugs, using field tests, maps, and guesswork to figure out where mosquitoes are hiding. Birds are mobile, too, and that further complicates efforts to track, map, and control the disease.

Even accounting for these challenges, epidemiologists say too few states are deploying sufficient effort and resources to make sure that they are able to predict and respond to outbreaks of West Nile virus. “We still are using the same vector control and the messaging to use your insect repellant that we were using 25 years ago,” Staples said. 

Some states are doing a better job than others. Massachusetts and New York, among the most aggressive states in the nation when it comes to tracking West Nile virus, test mosquito breeding sites and birds regularly and, when positives come back, use that information to inform the public. After Parravani’s spinal tap revealed that he had West Nile, the Westchester County Health Department went to his house and conducted a sweep of the property. County public health officials drained pools of standing water in the backyard where the mosquitoes had likely bred, and they encouraged nearby residents to do the same on their own properties.

“In some places there’s a very clear link that guides when you test and what you test for,” LaDeau said. But “mosquito surveillance is not the norm across all regions, and it’s not standardized among even regions within a state.” 

As climate change loads the dice in favor of mosquitoes, West Nile is not the only infectious illness in flux. The number of cases of vector-borne disease in the U.S. have more than doubled since 2001. Some of that increase can be attributed to better disease awareness among physicians and the public, and an uptick in testing as a result. But there are also examples of diseases bursting out of the regions where they have historically been found, which may be an indication that changes in the environment are coaxing carriers of disease into new places. 

In 2023, the U.S. saw the first-ever cases of locally transmitted dengue fever in Southern California and unusual cases of locally acquired malaria in Texas, Florida, and Maryland. When a mosquito imparts West Nile virus to a human, the transmission of the virus stops there. An infectious human cannot infect a mosquito with the virus. That’s not the case for dengue and malaria, which makes the spread of those diseases potentially far more dangerous. 

Many studies show that infectious diseases will take a larger toll on public health across North America as we make our way deeper into the 21st century. “More Americans are at risk than ever before,” Christopher Braden, the acting director of the CDC’s Center for Emerging and Infectious Zoonotic Diseases, warned in 2022. 

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If West Nile virus, the nation’s most common mosquito-borne illness, is a test for how the U.S. will weather the coming influx of vector-borne disease, then the country is in bad shape. “We don’t have very good tools to control it and prevent human illness,” Harrington said. 

For now, however, those who have been personally impacted by mosquito-borne illnesses are arming themselves with DEET and ringing the alarm. Until recently, Jennifer Parravani Davis worked as a communications manager for the Wilderness Society, a land conservation organization that advocates for better protection of the nation’s remaining wild places. The climate change reports that the Wilderness Society puts out generally include top-line findings about the ways in which climate change will erode human health as temperatures rise. But her father’s death, Davis said, drove home just how interconnected these issues really are. 

“I started to connect the dots and see the bigger picture,” she said. Her backyard in Virginia collects a lot of water, especially in recent years, as back-to-back record-setting rain events have flooded the state. “I don’t think anyone would blame me, but I’ve developed this neurosis where anytime I scratch a mosquito bite I’m like, ‘Could this be the thing that kills me today?’” she said. “I’ve seen what happens when we don’t pay attention to these things.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline When West Nile virus turns deadly on Jun 20, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Zoya Teirstein.

National politicians and pastors are fuelling the tribal fighting in Papua New Guinea by supplying guns and ammunition, says Enga’s Provincial Administrator Sandis Tsaka.

Tsaka’s brother was killed a fortnight ago when a tribe on a war raid passed through his clan.

“[My brother] was at home with his wife and kids and these people were trying to go to another village, and because he had crossed paths with them they just opened fire,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other Enga unrest reports

Enga has seen consistent tribal violence since the 2022 national elections in the Kompiam-Ambum district. In May last year — as well as deaths due to tribal conflict — homes, churches and business were burnt to the ground.

In February, dozens were killed in a gun battle.

Subsequently, PNG’s lawmakers discussed the issue of gun violence in Parliament with both sides of the House agreeing that the issue is serious.

“National politicians are involved; businessmen are involved; educated people, lawyers, accountants, pastors, well-to-do people, people that should be ambassadors for peace and change,” Tsaka said.

Military style weapons
Military style weapons are being used in the fighting.

Tsaka said an M16 or AR-15 rifle retails for a minimum of K$30,000 (US$7710) while a round costs about K$100 (US$25).

“The ordinary person cannot afford that,” he said.

“These conflicts and wars are financed by well-to-do people with the resources.

“We need to look at changing law and policy to go after those that finance and profit from this conflict, instead of just trying to arrest or hold responsible the small persons in the village with a rifle that is causing death and destruction.

“Until and unless we go after these big wigs, this unfortunate situation that we have in the province will continue to be what it is.”

Tsaka said addressing wrongs, in ways such as tribal fighting, was “ingrained in our DNA”.

Motivation for peace
After Tsaka’s brother died, he asked his clan not to retaliate and told his village to let the rule of law take its course instead.

He said the cultural expectation for retaliation was there but his clan respected him as a leader.

He hopes others in authority will use his brother’s death as motivation for peace.

“If the other leaders did the same to their villages in the communities, we wouldn’t have this violence; we wouldn’t have all these killings and destruction.

“We need to realise that law and order and peace is a necessary prerequisite to development.

“If we don’t have peace, we can’t have school kids going to school; you can’t have hospitals; you can’t have roads; you can’t have free movement of people and goods and services.”

Tsaka said education was needed to change perceptions around tribal fighting.

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.

National politicians and pastors are fuelling the tribal fighting in Papua New Guinea by supplying guns and ammunition, says Enga’s Provincial Administrator Sandis Tsaka.

Tsaka’s brother was killed a fortnight ago when a tribe on a war raid passed through his clan.

“[My brother] was at home with his wife and kids and these people were trying to go to another village, and because he had crossed paths with them they just opened fire,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other Enga unrest reports

Enga has seen consistent tribal violence since the 2022 national elections in the Kompiam-Ambum district. In May last year — as well as deaths due to tribal conflict — homes, churches and business were burnt to the ground.

In February, dozens were killed in a gun battle.

Subsequently, PNG’s lawmakers discussed the issue of gun violence in Parliament with both sides of the House agreeing that the issue is serious.

“National politicians are involved; businessmen are involved; educated people, lawyers, accountants, pastors, well-to-do people, people that should be ambassadors for peace and change,” Tsaka said.

Military style weapons
Military style weapons are being used in the fighting.

Tsaka said an M16 or AR-15 rifle retails for a minimum of K$30,000 (US$7710) while a round costs about K$100 (US$25).

“The ordinary person cannot afford that,” he said.

“These conflicts and wars are financed by well-to-do people with the resources.

“We need to look at changing law and policy to go after those that finance and profit from this conflict, instead of just trying to arrest or hold responsible the small persons in the village with a rifle that is causing death and destruction.

“Until and unless we go after these big wigs, this unfortunate situation that we have in the province will continue to be what it is.”

Tsaka said addressing wrongs, in ways such as tribal fighting, was “ingrained in our DNA”.

Motivation for peace
After Tsaka’s brother died, he asked his clan not to retaliate and told his village to let the rule of law take its course instead.

He said the cultural expectation for retaliation was there but his clan respected him as a leader.

He hopes others in authority will use his brother’s death as motivation for peace.

“If the other leaders did the same to their villages in the communities, we wouldn’t have this violence; we wouldn’t have all these killings and destruction.

“We need to realise that law and order and peace is a necessary prerequisite to development.

“If we don’t have peace, we can’t have school kids going to school; you can’t have hospitals; you can’t have roads; you can’t have free movement of people and goods and services.”

Tsaka said education was needed to change perceptions around tribal fighting.

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.

As we enter the month of June, scorching temperatures are already making deadly heat waves around the world. Data confirmed last month was the hottest May on record, putting the Earth on a 12-month streak of record-breaking temperatures. On Wednesday, the World Meteorological Organization announced there is an 80% chance the average global temperature will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels for at least one of the next five years. “We’re going to see a more chaotic planet as the climate heats up,” says Jeff Goodell, a journalist covering the climate crisis. Goodell describes “the heat wave scenario that keeps climate scientists up at night”: a major power outage that could cut off air conditioning and cause thousands of deaths from extreme temperatures.

In Mexico, it’s already so hot that howler monkeys and parrots are falling dead from the trees. “What we’re experiencing right now goes beyond what is normal,” says Ruth Cerezo-Mota, climate researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “We have been saying this for many years now.”

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

Every summer is hot but never like this. In America, it’s a national election year in the face of global record heat. What are candidates’ positions on CO2-infused heat?

Graph by Brian Brettschneider, PhD, Climatologist

It’s extremely significant that global heat is just as bad in the world’s oceans, which have absorbed 85-90% of planetary heat, serving as a heat reservoir for decades. But now, the oceans are starting to strut their hot stuff. According to Copernicus, April was the 13th month in a row that global sea surface temperatures between 60 degrees latitude south and 60 degrees latitude north have been the warmest on record for the month. Astoundingly, nearly 30% of the world’s oceans were above 28C (82.4°F) too hot for a bath, in April 2024, setting a record. Both the Mediterranean and Black Seas also had sharp upward trends for the month. Has civilization lost its ocean heat cushion?

Consequently, heat deaths are on the rise and look to escalate, by a lot, and soon. This is a worldwide crisis like none other. It requires world leadership to do something, soon, like the day before yesterday. But, how soon and will it be enough and who’s willing?

According to World Weather Attribution d/d May 14^, 2024: Consistent sweltering temperatures well above 40C (104F) are creating havoc from Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria in the West to Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines in the East, and even though  heat-related death tolls are typically underreported, hundreds of heat-related deaths have been reported, schools have been closed, and citizens warned to stay indoors.

Moreover, two studies by World Weather Attribution (WWA) “found that human-induced climate change influenced the events, making them around 30 times more likely and much hotter.”

Heat knows no borders. According to WLRN South Florida d/d May 23, 2024: “Heat Dome Leads to Sweltering Temperatures in Mexico, Central America, and US South”: “This extreme heat is occurring in a world that is quickly warming due to greenhouse gases, which come from the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal.” For example, Miami International Airport is running 10°F hotter than normal at 96°F.

Mexico City is nearly a war zone scenario with record high temperatures which, combined with pollution, leads to multiple city-wide protests, including by police: “A group of police agents blocked six lanes of traffic Wednesday on a main Mexico City avenue, saying their barracks lacked water for a week and the bathrooms were unusable. ” (Ibid.) Water has been trucked for hospitals and to firefighting teams. Numerous birds and animals in the wild of Mexico have dropped dead on the spot.

All Central America is exposed to the same horrendous moist heat. And people wonder why they migrate North.

Yale Climate Connections d/d April 29, 2024 listed some global warming samplers (1) corals are bleaching in every corner of the ocean, threatening its web of life (2) extreme drought in southern Africa leaves millions hungry (3) West African heat wave: high humidity made 40°C feel like 50°C, which is a killer (4) discomfort may increase: Asia’s heat wave scorches hundreds of millions (5) record heat in Europe, Asia closes another extremely warm month for the planet (6) Europe unprepared for rapidly growing climate risks, report finds (7) China breaks heat records as sweltering weather baked cities from north to south.

“The era of global boiling has arrived,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned. “Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning.” (Source: Climate Action, World Economic Forum, August 4, 2023.)

António Guterres “nailed it” nine months ago. Meanwhile, at some point in time soon, the major nations of the world will hit panic buttons and go all-in supplanting fossil fuels with renewables as quickly as possible. They’ll be forced to do this. After all, when police protest in the streets, as in Mexico City, who’s left to patrol?

It’s a national election year in America, and climate change should be a major political issue as the heat is on for the whole world to see like never before, and it will get worse, as stated by the UN secretary-general. What’s the political landscape in America? According to the mainstream publication Yahoo! Finance d/d Feb. 15, 2024: “MAGA Republicans Have a 920-Page Plan to Make Climate Change Worse.” Isn’t that just great!

Here’s the opening paragraph of Yahoo! Finance’s write-up: “When former President Donald Trump exited the Oval Office in January 2021, he left behind a record of environmental rollbacks unrivaled in US history. Over his 1,461 days as commander-in-chief, Trump replaced, eliminated, or otherwise dismantled more than 100 environmental rules – at least — from repealing the Clean Air Act to allowing coal plants to dump toxic wastewater into lakes and rivers to declaring open season on endangered gray wolves.” Several of the hatcheted rules were from Richard Nixon’s administration.

Subsequently, the Biden administration rolled back a lot of Trump’s hatchet job.

“Had all Trump’s policies gone into effect, the nonpartisan Rhodium Group estimated at the end of 2020, they would have added an additional 1.8 gigatons of CO2-equivalent to the atmosphere by 2035 – more than the annual energy emissions of Germany, Britain, and Canada combined. But even though we never felt the full brunt of them, the medical journal The Lancet estimated that the policies undertaken during his presidency were responsible for 22,000 deaths in 2019 alone due to sharp increases in things like asthma, heart disease, and lung cancer.” (Ibid.)

Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation’s roadmap for MAGA Republicans going forward: “The plan’s proposals include eviscerating existing climate programs and increasing reliance on fossil fuels. It emphatically repudiates efforts to decarbonize the economy and is a wholesale reversal of the progress made on climate policy over recent years.” (Source: “Project 2025 Tells us What a Second Trump Term Could Mean for Climate Policy. It Isn’t Pretty“, WBUR nonprofit news org, March 27, 2024.)

Well, that’s great to know, but here’s the real issue: “Much of the voting public is disturbingly unaware of both Biden’s climate record and the assault that Project 2025 would marshal against it.” (Ibid.)

Make America Great Again. Really?

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Robert Hunziker.

Image by Chris LeBoutillier.

World heat is worse than ever. The entire planet is sweating.

Every summer is hot but never like this. In America, it’s a national election year in the face of global record heat. What are candidates’ positions on CO2-infused heat?

Graph by Brian Brettschneider, PhD, Climatologist.

It’s extremely significant that global heat is just as bad in the world’s oceans, which have absorbed 85-90% of planetary heat, serving as a heat reservoir for decades. But now, the ocean’s starting to strut its hot stuff. According to Copernicus, April was the 13th month in a row that global sea surface temperatures between 60 degrees latitude south and 60 degrees latitude north have been the warmest on record for the month. Astoundingly, nearly 30% of the world’s oceans were above 28C (82.4°F) too hot for a bath, in April 2024, setting a record. Both the Mediterranean and Black Seas also had sharp upward trends for the month. Has civilization lost its ocean heat cushion?

Consequently, heat deaths are on the rise and look to escalate, by a lot, and soon. This is a worldwide crisis like none other. It requires world leadership to do something, soon, like the day before yesterday. But, how soon and will it be enough and who’s willing?

According to World Weather Attribution d/d May 14^, 2024: Consistent sweltering temperatures well above 40C (104F) are creating havoc from Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria in the West to Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines in the East, and even though heat-related death tolls are typically underreported, hundreds of heat-related deaths have been reported, schools have been closed, and citizens warned to stay indoors.

Moreover, two studies by World Weather Attribution (“WWA”) “found that human-induced climate change influenced the events, making them around 30 times more likely and much hotter.”

Heat knows no borders. According to WLRN South Florida d/d May 23, 2024: ‘Heat Dome Leads to Sweltering Temperatures in Mexico, Central America, and US South: “This extreme heat is occurring in a world that is quickly warming due to greenhouse gases, which come from the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal.” For example, Miami International Airport is running 10°F hotter than normal at 96°F.

Mexico City is nearly a war zone scenario with record high temperatures, which combined with pollution, leads to multiple city-wide protests, including by police: “A group of police agents blocked six lanes of traffic Wednesday on a main Mexico City avenue, saying their barracks lacked water for a week and the bathrooms were unusable,” Ibid. Water has been trucked for hospitals and to firefighting teams. Numerous birds and animals in the wild of Mexico have dropped dead on the spot.

All Central America is exposed to the same horrendous moist heat. And people wonder why they migrate North.

Yale Climate Connections d/d April 29, 2024 listed some global warming samplers (1) corals are bleaching in every corner of the ocean, threatening its web of life (2) extreme drought in southern Africa leaves millions hungry (3) West African heat wave: high humidity made 40°C feel like 50°C, which is a killer (4) discomfort may increase: Asia’s heat wave scorches hundreds of millions (5) record heat in Europe, Asia closes another extremely warm month for the planet (6) Europe unprepared for rapidly growing climate risks, report finds (7) China breaks heat records as sweltering weather baked cities from north to south.

“The era of global boiling has arrived,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned. “Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning.” (Source: Climate Action, World Economic Forum, August 4, 2023)

António Guterres “nailed it” 9 months ago. Meanwhile, at some point in time soon, the major nations of the world will hit panic buttons and go all-in supplanting fossil fuels with renewables as quickly as possible. They’ll be forced to do this. After all, when police protest in the streets, as in Mexico City, who’s left to patrol?

It’s a national election year in America, and climate change should be a major political issue as the heat is on for the whole world to see like never before, and it will get worse, as stated by the UN secretary-general. What’s the political landscape in America? According to the mainstream publication Yahoo! Finance d/d Feb. 15, 2024: “MAGA Republicans Have a 920-Page Plan to Make Climate Change Worse.” Isn’t that just great!

Here’s the opening paragraph of Yahoo! Finance’s write-up: “When former President Donald Trump exited the Oval Office in January 2021, he left behind a record of environmental rollbacks unrivaled in US history. Over his 1,461 days as commander-in-chief, Trump replaced, eliminated, or otherwise dismantled more than 100 environmental rules – at least — from repealing the Clean Air Act to allowing coal plants to dump toxic wastewater into lakes and rivers to declaring open season on endangered gray wolves.” Several of the hatcheted rules were from Richard Nixon’s administration.

Subsequently, the Biden administration rolled back a lot of Trump’s hatchet job.

“Had all Trump’s policies gone into effect, the nonpartisan Rhodium Group estimated at the end of 2020, they would have added an additional 1.8 gigatons of CO2-equivalent to the atmosphere by 2035 – more than the annual energy emissions of Germany, Britain, and Canada combined. But even though we never felt the full brunt of them, the medical journal The Lancet estimated that the policies undertaken during his presidency were responsible for 22,000 deaths in 2019 alone due to sharp increases in things like asthma, heart disease, and lung cancer,” Ibid.

Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation’s roadmap for MAGA Republicans going forward: “The plan’s proposals include eviscerating existing climate programs and increasing reliance on fossil fuels. It emphatically repudiates efforts to decarbonize the economy and is a wholesale reversal of the progress made on climate policy over recent years.” (Source: Project 2025 Tells us What a Second Trump Term Could Mean for Climate Policy. It Isn’t Pretty, WBUR nonprofit news org, March 27, 2024.

Well, that’s great to know, but here’s the real issue: “Much of the voting public is disturbingly unaware of both Biden’s climate record and the assault that Project 2025 would marshal against it,” Ibid.

Make America Great Again. Really?

Robert Hunziker

Los Angeles

The post Deadly Heat in a Political Jungle appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Robert Hunziker.

New Caledonia’s capital city, Nouméa, has endured widespread violent rioting over the past three days. This crisis intensified rapidly, taking local authorities by surprise.

Peaceful protests had been occurring across the country in the preceding weeks as the French National Assembly in Paris deliberated on a constitutional amendment that would increase the territory’s electoral roll.

As the date for the vote — last Tuesday — grew closer, however, protests became more obstructive and by Monday night had spiralled into uncontrolled violence.

• LISTEN TO RNZ CHECKPOINT: Latest on unrest in New Caledonia
• Expats worried about families in New Caledonia
• READ MORE:NZ families worried as loved ones shelter from violent unrest in New Caledonia
  France declares state of emergency in New Caledonia – four die in riots
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

Since then, countless public buildings, business locations and private dwellings have been subjected to arson. Blockades erected by protesters prevent movement around greater Nouméa.

Four people have died. Security reinforcements have been deployed, the city is under nightly curfew, and a state of emergency has been declared. Citizens in many areas of Nouméa are now also establishing their own neighbourhood protection militias.

To understand how this situation has spiralled so quickly, it’s important to consider the complex currents of political and socioeconomic alienation at play.

The political dispute
At one level, the crisis is political, reflecting contention over a constitutional vote taken in Paris that will expand citizens’ voting rights. The change adds roughly 25,000 voters to the electoral role in New Caledonia by extending voting rights to French people who have lived on the island for 10 years.

This reform makes clear the political power that France continues to exercise over the territory.

The current changes have proven divisive because they undo provisions in the 1998 Noumea Accord, particularly the restriction of voting rights. The accord was designed to “rebalance” political inequalities so the interests of Indigenous Kanaks and the descendants of French settlers would be equally recognised.

This helped to consolidate peace between these groups after a long period of conflict in the 1980s, known locally as “les événements”.

A loyalist group of elected representatives in New Caledonia’s Parliament reject the contemporary significance of “rebalancing” (in French “rééquilibrage”) with regard to the electoral status of Kanak people. They argue after three referendums on the question of New Caledonian independence — held between 2018 and 2021 — all of which produced a majority no vote, the time for electoral reform is well overdue.

This position is made clear by Nicolas Metzdorf. A key rightwing loyalist, he defined the constitutional amendment, which was passed by the National Assembly in Paris on Tuesday, as a vote for democracy and “universalism”.

Yet this view is roundly rejected by Kanak pro-independence leaders who say these amendments undermine the political status of Indigenous Kanak people, who constitute a minority of the voting population. These leaders also refuse to accept that the decolonisation agenda has been concluded, as loyalists assert.

Instead, they dispute the outcome of the final 2021 referendum which, they argue, was forced on the territory by French authorities too soon after the outbreak of the covid pandemic. This disregarded the fact that Kanak communities bore disproportionate impacts of the pandemic and were unable to fully mobilise before the vote.

Demands that the referendum be delayed were rejected, and many Kanak people abstained as a result.

In this context, the disputed electoral reforms decided in Paris this week are seen by pro-independence camps as yet another political prescription imposed on Kanak people. A leading figure of one Indigenous Kanak women’s organisation described the vote to me as a solution that pushes “Kanak people into the gutter”, one that would have “us living on our knees”.

#NewCaledonia: At least four have been killed during riots in the French territory of New Caledonia after #France introduced new constitutional reforms. The reforms allow French residents of the island voting rights after 10 years of residence, with indigenous Kanak people… pic.twitter.com/QVG7fLFybp

— POPULAR FRONT (@PopularFront_) May 15, 2024

Beyond the politics
Many political commentators are likening the violence observed in recent days to the political violence of les événements of the 1980s, which exacted a heavy toll on the country. Yet this is disputed by local women leaders with whom I am in conversation, who have encouraged me to look beyond the central political factors in analysing this crisis.

Some female leaders reject the view this violence is simply an echo of past political grievances. They point to the highly visible wealth disparities in the country.

These fuel resentment and the profound racial inequalities that deprive Kanak youths of opportunity and contribute to their alienation.

Women have also told me they are concerned about the unpredictability of the current situation. In the 1980s, violent campaigns were coordinated by Kanak leaders, they tell me. They were organised. They were controlled.

In contrast, today it is the youth taking the lead and using violence because they feel they have no other choice. There is no coordination. They are acting through frustration and because they feel they have “no other means” to be recognised.

There is also frustration with political leaders on all sides. Late on Wednesday, Kanak pro-independence political leaders held a press conference. They echoed their loyalist political opponents in condemning the violence and issuing calls for dialogue.

The leaders made specific calls to the “youths” engaged in the violence to respect the importance of a political process and warned against a logic of vengeance.

The women civil society leaders I have been speaking to were frustrated by the weakness of this messaging. The women say political leaders on all sides have failed to address the realities faced by Kanak youths.

They argue if dialogue remains simply focused on the political roots of the dispute, and only involves the same elites that have dominated the debate so far, little will be understood and little will be resolved.

Likewise, they lament the heaviness of the current “command and control” state security response. It contradicts the calls for dialogue and makes little room for civil society participation of any sort.

These approaches put a lid on grievances, but they do not resolve them. Women leaders observing the current situation are anguished and heartbroken for their country and its people. They say if the crisis is to be resolved sustainably, the solutions cannot be imposed and the words cannot be empty.

Instead, they call for the space to be heard and to contribute to a resolution. Until that time they live with anxiety and uncertainty, waiting for the fires to subside, and the smoke currently hanging over a wounded Nouméa to clear.

Dr Nicole George is associate professor in Peace and Conflict Studies, The University of Queensland. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

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

French President Emmanuel Macron has declared a state of emergency in New Caledonia after several days of civil unrest in the capital.

Four people are dead due to the unrest and violence in the capital, Nouméa.

France TV reports that a 22-year-old gendarme who had been seriously wounded has become the fourth death. The other three were reportedly Kanaks killed by vigilantes.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: Tourists stuck in New Caledonia as riots continue
• Period of instability on cards for New Caledonia, says former Australian consul-general
• READ MORE: Nouméa ‘was on fire’ – New Zealander in New Caledonia tells of unrest
  France declares state of emergency in New Caledonia – four die in riots
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

Macron posted on X, formerly Twitter, a message saying the nation was thinking of the gendarme’s family.

Hundreds of others have been injured with more casualties expected as French security forces struggle to restore law and order in Nouméa amid reports of clashes between rioters and “militia” groups being formed by city residents.

According to local media, the state of emergency was announced following a defence and national security council meeting in Paris between the Head of State and several government members, including the Prime Minister and ministers of the Armed Forces, the Interior, the Economy and Justice.

In a press conference last evening in Nouméa, France’s High Commissioner to New Caledonia, Louis Le Franc, told reporters he would call on the military forces if necessary and that reinforcements would be sent today.

Local leaders called for state of emergency
The state of emergency declaration came after the deteriorating crisis on Wednesday prompted Southern Province President Sonia Backès to call on President Macron to declare an emergency to allow the army to back up the police.

“Houses and businesses are being burnt down and looted — organised gangs are terrorising the population and putting at risk the life of inhabitants,” Backes said.

“Law enforcement agents are certainly doing a great job but are obviously overwhelmed by the magnitude of this insurrection . . . Night and day, hastily formed citizen militias find themselves confronted with rioters fuelled by hate and the desire for violence.

“In the next few hours, without a massive and urgent intervention from France, we will lose control of New Caledonia,” Sonia Backès wrote.

She added: “We are now in a state of civil war.”

Backès was later joined by elected MPs for New Caledonia’s constituency, MP Nicolas Metzdorf and Senator Georges Naturel, who also appealed to the French President to declare a state of emergency.

“Mr President, we are at a critical moment and you alone can save New Caledonia,” they wrote.

More than 1700 law enforcement officers deployed
During a press conference on Wednesday evening, French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc said two persons had died from gunshot wounds and another two were seriously injured during a clash between rioters and a local “civil defence group”.

He said the gunshot came from one member of the civil defence group who “was trying to defend himself”.

Other reliable sources later confirmed to RNZ the death toll from the same clash was at least three people.

High Commissioner Le Franc said that in the face of an escalating situation, the total number of law enforcement personnel deployed on the ground, mainly in Nouméa, was now about 1000 gendarmes, seven hundred police, as well as members of SWAT intervention groups from gendarmerie (GIGN) and police (RAID).

Le Franc said that a dusk-to-dawn curfew had been extended for another 24 hours.

“People have to respect the curfew, not go to confrontations with weapons, not to burn businesses, shops, pharmacies, schools.”

Armed groups formed on both sides
All commercial flights to and from the Nouméa-La Tontouta international airport remained cancelled for today, affecting an estimated 2500 passengers to and from Auckland, Sydney, Brisbane, Nadi, Papeete, Tokyo and Singapore.

The situation on the ground is being described by local leaders as “guerrilla warfare” bordering on a “civil war”, as more civilian clashes were reported yesterday on the outskirts of Nouméa, with opposing groups armed with weapons such as hunting rifles.

“We have now entered a dangerous spiral, a deadly spiral . . .  There are armed groups on both sides and if they don’t heed calls for calms — there will be more deaths,” French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc warned.

“I sense dark hours coming in New Caledonia . . .  The current situation is not meant to take this terrible twist, a form of civil war.”

Le Franc said if needed, he would call on “military” reinforcements.

Also yesterday, a group of armed rioters heading towards Nouméa’s industrial zone of Ducos, prompted an intervention from a RAID police squad.

As Nouméa residents woke up today the situation in Noumea remained volatile as, over the past 24 hours, pro-France citizens have started to set up “civil defence groups”, barricades and roadblocks to protect themselves.

Some of them have started to call themselves “militia” groups.

Political leaders call for calm
On the political front, there have been more calls for calm and appeasement from all quarters.

After New Caledonian territorial President Louis Mapou appealed on Tuesday for a “return to reason”, the umbrella body for pro-independence political parties, the FLNKS, yesterday also issued a release appealing for “calm and appeasement” and the lifting of blockades.

While “regretting” and “deploring” the latest developments, the pro-independence umbrella group recalled it had called for the French government’s proposed amendment on New Caledonia’s electoral changes to be withdrawn to “preserve the conditions to reach a comprehensive political agreement between all parties and the French State”.

“However, this situation cannot justify putting at risk peace and all that has been implemented towards a lasting ‘living together’ and exit the colonisation system,” the FLNKS statement said.

The FLNKS also noted that for the order to be validated, the controversial amendment still needed to be put to the vote of the French Congress (combined meeting of the Assembly and the Senate) and that French President Macron had indicated he would not convene the gathering of both Houses of the French Parliament immediately “to give a chance for dialogue and consensus”.

“This is an opportunity FLNKS wishes to seize so that everyone’s claims, including those engaged in demonstrations, can be heard and taken into account,” the statement said.

The President of the Loyalty Islands province, Jacques Lalié (pro-independence) on Wednesday called for “appeasement” and for “our youths to respect the values symbolised by our flag and maintain dignity in their engagement without succumbing to provocations”.

“Absolute priority must be given to dialogue and the search for intelligence to reach a consensus,” he said.

Paris vote which sparked unrest
Overnight in Paris, the French National Assembly voted 351 in favour (mostly right-wing parties) and 153 against (mostly left-wing parties) the proposed constitutional amendments that sparked the ill-fated protests in Noumea on Monday.

This followed hours of heated debate about the relevance of such a text, which New Caledonia’s pro-independence parties strongly oppose because, they say, it poses a serious risk and could shrink their political representation in local institutions (New Caledonia has three provincial assemblies as well as the local parliament, called its Congress).

New Caledonia’s pro-independence parties had been calling for the government to withdraw the text and instead, to send a high-level “dialogue mission” to the French Pacific archipelago.

The text, which is designed to open the restricted list of voters to those who have been residing in New Caledonia for an uninterrupted 10 years, has not completed its legislative path.

After its endorsement by the Senate (on 2 April 2024, with amendments) and the National Assembly (15 May 2024), it still needs to be put to the vote of the French Congress (a joint sitting of France’s both Houses of Parliament, the National Assembly and the Senate) and obtain a required majority of 60 percent.

The bigger picture
The proposed constitutional amendments were tabled by the French Minister for Home Affairs and Overseas, Gérald Darmanin.

Darmanin has defended his bill by saying the original restrictions to New Caledonia’s electoral roll put in place under temporary measures prescribed by the 1998 Nouméa Accord needed to be readjusted to restore “a minimum of democracy” in line with universal suffrage and France’s Constitution.

The previous restrictions had been a pathway to decolonisation for New Caledonia inscribed in the French Constitution, which only allowed people who had been living in New Caledonia before 1998 to vote in local elections.

Those principles were at the centre of the heated discussions during the two days of debate in the National Assembly, where strong words were often exchanged between both sides.

More than 25 years after its implementation, the Accord– a kind of de facto embryonic Constitution for New Caledonia — is now deemed by France to have reached its expiry date after three self-determination referendums were held in 2018, 2020 and 2021, all resulting in a rejection of independence, although the last vote was highly controversial.

The third and final referendum — although conducted legally — was boycotted by a majority of the pro-independence Kanak political groups and their supporters resulting in an overwhelming “no” vote to Independence from France, a stark contrast to the earlier referendum results.

Results of New Caledonia referenda

• 2018: 56.67 percent voted against independence and 43.33 percent in favour.
• 2020: 53.26 percent voted against independence and 46.74 percent in favour.
• 2021: 96.5 percent voted against independence and 3.5 percent in favour. (However, However, the third and final vote in 2021 — during the height of the covid pandemic — under the Nouméa Accord was boycotted by the pro-indigenous Kanak population. In that vote, 96 percent of the people voted against independence — with a 44 percent turnout.)

Since the third referendum was held, numerous attempts have been made to convene all local political parties around the table to come up with a successor pact to the Nouméa Accord.

This would have to be the result of inclusive and bipartisan talks, but those meetings have not yet taken place, mainly because of differences between — and within — both pro-independence and pro-France parties.

Darmanin’s attempts to bring these talks to reality have so far failed, even though he has travelled to New Caledonia seven times over the past two years.

From the pro-independence parties’ point of view, Darmanin is now regarded as not the right person anymore and has been blamed by critics for the talks stalling.

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.

The post Small Islands, Deadly Stakes appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Julie Wark.

The post Deadly Lack of Fresh Water Puts Nearly 350 Million South Asian Children at Risk appeared first on Project Censored.

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

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the assault involved 150 drones and missiles and appealed again to Ukraine's allies to speed up deliveries of critically needed ammunition and weapons systems.

As the full-scale invasion neared the 25-month mark, Zelenskiy aide Mykhailo Podolyak denied recent reports that the United States had demanded that its ally Kyiv stop any attacks on Russia's oil infrastructure as "fictitious information."

"After two years of full-scale war, no one will dictate to Ukraine the conditions for conducting this war," Podolyak told the Dozhd TV channel. "Within the framework of international law, Ukraine can 'degrease' Russian instruments of war. Fuel is the main tool of warfare. Ukraine will destroy the [Russian] fuel infrastructure."

The Financial Times quoted anonymous sources as saying that Washington had given "repeated warnings" to Ukraine's state security service and its military intelligence agency to stop attacking Russian oil refineries and energy infrastructure. It said officials cited such attacks' effect on global oil prices and the risk of retaliation.

The southern Zaporizhzhya region bore the brunt of the Russian assault that hit Ukraine's energy infrastructure particularly hard on March 22, with at least three people killed, including a man and his 8-year-old daughter. There were at least 20 dead and injured, in all.

Ukraine's state hydropower company, Ukrhydroenerho, said the DniproHES hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper in Zaporizhzhya was hit by two Russian missiles that damaged HPP-2, one of the plant's two power stations, although there was no immediate risk of a breach.

"There is currently a fire at the dam. Emergency services are working at the site, eliminating the consequences of numerous air strikes," Ukrhydroenerho said in a statement, adding that the situation at the dam "is under control."

However, Ihor Syrota, the director of national grid operator Ukrenerho, told RFE/RL that currently it was not known if power station HPP-2 could be repaired.

Transport across the dam has been suspended after a missile struck a trolleybus, killing the 62-year-old driver. The vehicle was not carrying any passengers.

"This night, Russia launched over 60 'Shahed' drones and nearly 90 missiles of various types at Ukraine," Zelenskiy wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

"The world sees the Russian terrorists' targets as clearly as possible: power plants and energy supply lines, a hydroelectric dam, ordinary residential buildings, and even a trolleybus," Zelenskiy wrote.

Ukrainian rescuers were combing the wreckage of homes in Zaporizhzhya following a deadly Russian missile strike on March 22.

Ukraine's power generating company Enerhoatom later said it has repaired a power line at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant, Europe's largest.

"Currently, the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhya NPP is connected to the unified energy system of Ukraine by two power transmission lines, thanks to which the plant's own needs are fulfilled," the state's nuclear-energy operator wrote on Telegram.

Besides Zaporizhzhya, strikes were also reported in the Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Vinnytsya, Khmelnytskiy, Kryviy Rih, Ivano-Frankivsk, Poltava, Odesa, and Lviv regions.

Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, has been left completely without electricity by intense Russian strikes that also caused water shortages.

"The occupiers carried out more than 15 strikes on energy facilities. The city is virtually completely without light," Oleh Synyehubov, the head of Kharkiv regional military administration, wrote on Telegram.

In the Odesa region, more than 50,000 households have been left without electricity, regional officials reported. Odesa, Ukraine's largest Black Sea port, has been frequently attacked by Russia in recent months.

In the Khmelnitskiy region, the local administration reported that one person had been killed and several wounded during the Russian strikes, without giving details.

Local authorities reported one person had been killed and several wounded during Russian strikes on a residential area in Khmelnitskiy in central Ukraine. RFE/RL journalists were on the scene and captured the aftermath.

Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko called it "the largest attack on the Ukrainian energy industry in recent times."

Despite the widespread damage, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the situation remained under control, and there was no need to switch off electricity throughout the country.

"There are problems with the electricity supply in some areas, but in general, the situation in the energy sector is under control, there is no need for blackouts throughout the country," Shmyhal wrote on Telegram.

Ukrenerho also said that it was receiving emergency assistance from its European Union neighbors Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Ukraine linked its power grid with that of the EU in March 2022, shortly after the start of Russia's invasion.

Ukraine's air force said its air defenses downed 92 of 151 missiles and drones fired at Ukraine by Russia in the overnight attack.

"Russian missiles have no delays, unlike aid packages for Ukraine. 'Shahed' drones have no indecision, unlike some politicians. It is critical to understand the cost of delays and postponed decisions," Zelenskiy wrote, appealing to the West to do more for his country.

"Our partners know exactly what is needed. They can definitely support us. These are necessary decisions. Life must be protected from these savages from Moscow."

Zelenskiy's message came as EU leaders were wrapping up a summit in Brussels where they discussed ways to speed up ammunition and weapons deliveries for the embattled Ukrainian forces struggling to stave off an increasingly intense assault by more numerous and better-equipped Russian troops.

A critical $60 billion military aid package from the United States, Ukraine's main backer, remains stuck in the House of Representatives due to Republican opposition, prompting Kyiv to rely more on aid from its European allies.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans have been kicked out of neighboring countries and forcibly returned to Afghanistan in recent months. Millions more are slated to join them, complicating the already daunting humanitarian effort to stave off a famine.

Underscoring that Afghans are not welcome, neighboring states are rolling out the barbed wire in an attempt to keep them out.

Returnee Overload

Over the course of a year, a total of 1.5 million Afghans have been forcibly returned to Afghanistan by various countries, the Taliban said earlier this month.

Most, according to migration officials, were sent back by Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey -- for decades destinations for Afghan migrant workers as well as refugees looking to escape war and poverty. Others have been sent back from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

That number could more than double if Iran and Pakistan fully carry out their goals of deporting all undocumented Afghans, including asylum-seekers who face persecution under the Taliban and some who have not lived in their home country for decades or were born abroad.

Pakistan was initially accommodating to Afghans fleeing Taliban rule, serving as a temporary destination for many as they sought asylum in a third country.

But since October 2023, when Islamabad announced its plans to expel more than 1.7 million "undocumented foreigners," more than a half million Afghans have been forced to leave Pakistan, Abdulmatallab Haqqani, spokesman for the Taliban’s Refugees and Repatriations Ministry, said this week.

Some of the new arrivals are now trying to resettle in a homeland they have never stepped foot in, and most are being held in temporary tent camps set up along Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan, where aid groups are struggling to provide them with emergency relief.

More than half of Afghanistan's population of around 40 million faces a food security crisis that is approaching the level of a famine, according to aid and rights groups.

According to the UN's World Food Program, the situation is contributing to "a humanitarian crisis of incredible proportions" that has "grown even more complex and severe since the Taliban took control" in August 2021. The UN body warns that Afghanistan is on the brink of economic collapse, with the currency struggling and food prices on the rise.

The vast majority of the returnees aim to return to their provinces of origin, according to the International Organization for Migration Afghanistan, but many have no homes or livelihoods to return to.

The new arrivals have been welcomed in Afghanistan, UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) senior public information officer Caroline Gluck told RFE/RL in written comments, but "there are limited capacities to offer them the support they need."

"The arrival of around a half million Afghans from Pakistan is putting a huge strain on already limited services -- from health to shelter, work opportunities, and schools," Gluck said.

"Many have arrived, having spent all their life in Pakistan and never having set foot in Afghanistan," Gluck added, noting that more than 23 million Afghans are in need of humanitarian aid.

Like many returnees, Abdul Basit, a migrant who recently left Pakistan and moved to Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar Province, has experienced difficulties settling back in.

Basit told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi that there is no work and he and other deportees spend much of their time bouncing around from government office to government office.

The situation now promises to get even worse, with a second phase set to begin on April 15 to expel Afghan citizens from Pakistan, meaning more than 1 million Afghans could be potentially deported.

To the west, Iran is also engaged in a concerted effort to push out Afghans.

According to Iranian officials, more than 1 million undocumented Afghans have been deported in the past year. That number, too, could more than double, with Tehran saying it intends to expel half of the 5 million Afghans it estimates live in Iran.

In the meantime, Iran has taken steps to make Afghans' lives difficult on its territory, with migrants and refugees barred from living in, traveling to, or seeking employment in more than half of Iran's 31 provinces.

Amid rising resentment against Afghan migrant workers whom some Iranians accuse of stealing their jobs, parliamentary committees and officials have also discussed plans that would introduce strict punishments for renting homes or hiring undocumented foreigners.

Heydayatullah, an Afghan laborer who gave only his first name to Radio Azadi, said he was recently deported from Iran after spending only 20 days in the country.

He said that now that he is back in Afghanistan, he is unemployed and has no way of supporting his family of six.

Nasir Ahmad, a 30-year-old who was deported from Iran and has tried to settle in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, said "there is no work in Afghanistan" and that he had depended on traveling to Iran to support his wife and children. Now, he says, he is ready to work for a pittance if only he could find employment.

Fenced Out

From all sides, Afghanistan's neighbors are taking steps to prevent Afghans from entering their territory, a situation that has led to tensions and occasional clashes.

The efforts are far-reaching, including Tajikistan calling on fellow members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to establish a "security belt" along the Afghan border to combat drug trafficking, and Turkey's construction of a 170-kilometer wall along its border with Iran that is widely seen as intended to keep Afghan migrants out.

But most of the work is being done along Afghanistan's borders with Pakistan and Iran.

In April 2023, Pakistan announced it was "98 percent" done installing fencing along its around 2,600-kilometer border with Afghanistan. Ahmed Sharif, the spokesman for the Pakistani military's media department, said the barrier was intended to prevent "terrorists" from crossing into Pakistani territory.

But the fence also reinforces Islamabad's anti-migrant position, observers suggest, and has posed difficulties for traders on both sides.

Running along the contentious Durand Line border that the Taliban does not recognize as legitimate, the fence has also left Taliban officials bristling. Having previously boasted about destroying the barbed wire fencing, the Taliban has said it will not allow the fence to be completed.

Tensions along the border have risen considerably in recent days, with Islamabad this week launching retaliatory air strikes on armed groups it says have carried out militant attacks in Pakistan and are hiding out in Afghanistan.

The Taliban, in turn, said its forces had fired at Pakistani positions in retaliation on March 17.

Iran, meanwhile, has launched its own initiative to block the paths of Afghans across its 920-kilometer border with Afghanistan.

Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said in January that the project was a "complete plan" that went beyond the erection of a wall along a porous 74-kilometer stretch of the border, stressing it is a top priority to seal gaps in the border that are being "misused."

Observers note the initiative comes after Iran accused extremist groups in Afghanistan of attacks on Iranian territory as well as following clashes between Iranian and Taliban border forces that reportedly led the Taliban to reinforce the border.

Aziz Maaraj, a former Afghan diplomat in Iran, told Radio Azadi that "Iran is installing cameras and barbed wire" to prevent smuggling and the entrance of illegal migrants, as well as to protect itself against future clashes and possible militant attacks.

Fereshta Abbasi, a researcher in the Asia division at Human Rights Watch, told RFE/RL that "definitely, Iran and Pakistan are trying to send the message to Afghans that they are not welcome."

Contributing to the problem is that the international community has been slow in living up to commitments to resettle Afghan asylum seekers and refugees who fled after the Taliban seized power. That has left thousands of Afghans who did find temporary refuge in neighboring countries as they awaited processing at the risk of having to return to the persecution and insecurity they fled.

"Some of these people who are now being forced to leave Pakistan and Iran are the ones whose lives are not safe inside Afghanistan," Abbasi said.

"The Taliban have arbitrarily detained journalists, human rights activists, former government employees, and former security officers. These people have been tortured. In some cases, they have been forced to disappear and killed," she added.

Outside countries have also been slow to deliver money, leaving the coffers of the UN's 2024 humanitarian response plan at just 3 percent of expected levels, coming after the 2023 plan was only funded by half, according to Abbasi.

"These governments are not living up to their commitments," Abassi said, adding that Afghans who worked with the previous Western-backed government or alongside Western forces are at particular risk. "They need to be reminded of the fact that they are leaving those Afghans behind who have stood by them."

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

The Iranian government "bears responsibility" for the physical violence that led to the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman who died in police custody in 2022, and for the brutal crackdown on largely peaceful street protests that followed, a report by a United Nations fact-finding mission says.

The report, issued on March 8 by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran, said the mission “has established the existence of evidence of trauma to Ms. Amini’s body, inflicted while in the custody of the morality police."

It said the mission found the "physical violence in custody led to Ms. Amini’s unlawful death.... On that basis, the state bears responsibility for her unlawful death.”

Amini was arrested in Tehran on September 13, 2022, while visiting the Iranian capital with her family. She was detained by Iran's so-called "morality police" for allegedly improperly wearing her hijab, or hair-covering head scarf. Within hours of her detention, she was hospitalized in a coma and died on September 16.

Her family has denied that Amini suffered from a preexisting health condition that may have contributed to her death, as claimed by the Iranian authorities, and her father has cited eyewitnesses as saying she was beaten while en route to a detention facility.

The fact-finding report said the action “emphasizes the arbitrary character of Ms. Amini’s arrest and detention, which were based on laws and policies governing the mandatory hijab, which fundamentally discriminate against women and girls and are not permissible under international human rights law."

"Those laws and policies violate the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief, and the autonomy of women and girls. Ms. Amini’s arrest and detention, preceding her death in custody, constituted a violation of her right to liberty of person,” it said.

The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran hailed the findings and said they represented clear signs of "crimes against humanity."

“The Islamic republic’s violent repression of peaceful dissent and severe discrimination against women and girls in Iran has been confirmed as constituting nothing short of crimes against humanity,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the center.

“The government’s brutal crackdown on the Women, Life, Freedom protests has seen a litany of atrocities that include extrajudicial killings, torture, and rape. These violations disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in society, women, children, and minority groups,” he added.

The report also said the Iranian government failed to “comply with its duty” to investigate the woman’s death promptly.

“Most notably, judicial harassment and intimidation were aimed at her family in order to silence them and preempt them from seeking legal redress. Some family members faced arbitrary arrest, while the family’s lawyer, Saleh Nikbaht, and three journalists, Niloofar Hamedi, Elahe Mohammadi, and Nazila Maroufian, who reported on Ms. Amini’s death were arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to imprisonment,” it added.

Amini's death sparked mass protests, beginning in her home town of Saghez, then spreading around the country, and ultimately posed one of the biggest threats to Iran's clerical establishment since the foundation of the Islamic republic in 1979. At least 500 people were reported killed in the government’s crackdown on demonstrators.

The UN report said "violations and crimes" under international law committed in the context of the Women, Life, Freedom protests include "extrajudicial and unlawful killings and murder, unnecessary and disproportionate use of force, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, torture, rape, enforced disappearances, and gender persecution.

“The violent repression of peaceful protests and pervasive institutional discrimination against women and girls has led to serious human rights violations by the government of Iran, many amounting to crimes against humanity," the report said.

The UN mission acknowledged that some state security forces were killed and injured during the demonstrations, but said it found that the majority of protests were peaceful.

The mission stems from the UN Human Rights Council's mandate to the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran on November 24, 2022, to investigate alleged human rights violations in Iran related to the protests that followed Amini's death.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, is a category of tiny air-borne particles produced by power plants, forest fires, and industrial factories, among other sources. The minuscule bits of matter are roughly 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair and can lodge deep inside human lungs. PM2.5, often referred to as soot, is linked to serious health problems, such as asthma, lung and heart disease, and respiratory symptoms. One in three Americans breathe unhealthy air, and studies have shown that low-income and minority communities across the country, historically clustered near power plants and other industrial infrastructure, bear the brunt of these health effects.

The Biden administration said the new rule —  which ratchets down the existing annual fine particulate matter standard from 12 micrograms of matter per cubic meter of air to 9 micrograms — will prevent an estimated 4,500 premature deaths every year and ultimately yield $46 billion in net health benefits annually. 

The EPA plans to take samples of air across the country starting this year through 2026 to ensure states are compliant with the new rule. It will also tweak its air monitoring network to better capture the air pollution risks that communities living near industrial infrastructure face. Then, states will have to develop plans to meet the EPA’s new requirements within 18 months. 

“This final air quality standard will save lives and make all people healthier, especially within America’s most vulnerable and overburdened communities,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan. 

The EPA’s announcement on Wednesday was met with immediate pushback from business groups, who challenged the new rule on the grounds that it will raise costs for power plants and factories, and lead to layoffs in the manufacturing sector. Mike Ireland, president of the Portland Cement Association, told the New York Times that the rule “would lead to fewer hours of operation at plants, which would mean layoffs, as well as less American cement and concrete at a time when the country needs more.” The Portland Cement Association and other industry groups will likely try to challenge the standard in court. 

The EPA estimates some 59 counties across the United States — less than 2 percent of the nation’s counties — may be out of compliance with the new standards. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an industry lobby group that opposes the new rule, puts the percentage of non-compliant counties at 18 percent. States that don’t meet the new standards will start paying penalties by 2032. 

Some congressional lawmakers were also critical of the tighter restrictions. Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, said the rule “incentivizes manufacturing to move their jobs to China away from Louisiana,” and called on Congress to “step in” to prevent the standard from taking effect.

Other groups, meanwhile, argue the rule could have gone further, limiting fine particulate matter to 8 micrograms per cubic meter — the number initially proposed by the EPA’s own Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. “While the stronger annual particle pollution standard will mean fewer asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, and deaths,” the American Lung Association said in a statement, “it is disappointing that EPA did not follow the strong science-based recommendations of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.” Studies have shown that virtually no amount of particulate matter is safe for humans.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline EPA finalizes new standards for deadly particulate matter on Feb 7, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Zoya Teirstein.

The president's remarks were characterized as perhaps his most direct criticism of the Israeli military's conduct since it began its large-scale war on the Gaza Strip just over four months ago, following a deadly Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.

But critics argued that Biden's words will ring hollow as long as his administration continues to arm Israel's military unconditionally, oppose global efforts to enact a lasting cease-fire, and reject evidence that Israel is committing genocide. Since October 7, the U.S. State Department has twice bypassed Congress to send lethal weaponry to Israel and is working to gut lawmakers' oversight of foreign military financing for the country.

"It's maddening to hear him say stuff like this," wrote journalist Mehdi Hasan. "Now he says Israel is going 'over the top.' Before he said they were doing 'indiscriminate' bombing. But throughout it all, he arms them, funds them, defends them, enables them, and refuses to call for a cease-fire."

Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, said that if Biden truly feels Israel has gone too far in its assault on the Gaza Strip, he should "do something about it."

"'Over the top' is how you might describe an action movie that was more violent than you were expecting, not an atrocity you've been backing to the hilt," Duss added.

Biden's press conference came as the Israel Defense Forces ramped up its bombardment of Rafah—where more than half of Gaza's population is currently living in overcrowded and increasingly horrific conditions—ahead of an expected ground invasion. Israeli airstrikes on the city, located near Gaza's border with Egypt, hit two houses on Thursday, killing and wounding multiple people.

John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, told reporters Thursday that the Biden administration would not support an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah, which was previously deemed a "safe zone" for displaced Gazans.

"I think you all know more than a million Palestinians are sheltering in and around Rafah," Kirby said. "That's where they were told to go. There's a lot of displaced people there. And the Israeli military has a special obligation as they conduct operations there or anywhere else to make sure that they're factoring in protection for innocent civilian life."

"I could tell you that—absent any full consideration of protecting civilians at that scale in Gaza—military operations right now would be a disaster for those people, and it's not something that we would support," Kirby added.

But the White House has not publicly said there would be any consequences if Israel decides once again to ignore the administration's stated concerns and go ahead with the Rafah assault.

In late October, Biden administration officials privately urged Israeli leaders to rethink its plans for a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip, but Israel launched the deadly invasion anyway—and U.S. support for the country's military did not waver.

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate voted to begin debate on White House-backed legislation that would provide Israel with more than $10 billion in additional military aid as famine and disease spread across the Gaza Strip and the death toll grows.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) opposed advancing the legislation, warning in a statement Thursday evening that "so long as this bill contains $10 billion to enable [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's right-wing government to continue its horrific war against the Palestinian people, I will keep voting no."

"The taxpayers of the United States cannot continue to be complicit in this humanitarian disaster," said Sanders. "We should not provide another penny to allow Netanyahu to continue this incredibly destructive war."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

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The secretary of veterans affairs, Denis McDonough, visited a clinic in Chico, California, last week and personally pledged to address concerns about inadequate staffing in the VA facility’s mental health unit.

His visit came after a ProPublica investigation revealed serious lapses in the psychiatric care two veterans received at the clinic. After years of struggling to get adequate treatment, and in the midst of mental health crises, the veterans shot and killed their mothers within days of each other in January 2022. The ProPublica story grew out of an inquiry by the VA’s inspector general that examined the agency’s shortcomings in one of the deaths.

At the time of the shootings, the clinic hadn’t had a full-time, on-site psychiatrist in five years, and many of the telehealth providers had recently stopped seeing Chico patients. Clinic employees told ProPublica they had begged regional leaders for help, but the federal health system was slow to respond. The former site manager told ProPublica she had warned colleagues, “We are going to kill someone.”

On Thursday, McDonough, who previously served as White House chief of staff and principal deputy national security adviser during the Obama administration, held a roundtable discussion with front-line mental health workers as well as top leaders from the VA’s regional office in Northern California.

“This is an important opportunity for us to learn really important lessons, and part of my learning today was to come up here to meet with our team to hear directly from them what their experience is right now and what I need to do to make sure that I’m the best possible partner for them,” he told a local news reporter after the meeting. “In that regard, this was a very, very helpful event.”

McDonough said he assured employees “that they would not be unheard in their concerns” and that the VA would “continue to make progress on staffing issues.”

If you or someone you know needs help:

• Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
• Text the Crisis Text Line from anywhere in the U.S. to reach a crisis counselor: 741741
• If you are a veteran, call the Veterans Crisis Line: 988, then press 1

“We have a very fast-growing veteran population here in Chico,” he added. “We have to make sure that we are growing commensurate with that population so that they can get the timely access to care and the timely access to benefits that they have earned. We’re making progress on that, but there’s still more work to be done, and we will not rest until we get it done.”

In a statement about the visit, VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said, “we take the issues raised by the VA’s inspector general and ProPublica extremely seriously, and we appreciate the oversight — which helps us better serve our nation’s Veterans.”

Hayes declined to say anything more specific about the actions McDonough intends to take.

ProPublica examined the case of Julia Larsen, a 29-year-old woman who was honorably discharged from the Navy in 2016. Upon returning home to California, Larsen was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder from combat and military sexual trauma. She began experiencing psychotic symptoms soon after.

Larsen sought help at the Chico clinic for several years, she told ProPublica and her medical records show. But she said the providers were too busy for talk therapy and focused instead on medications. In late 2021, a virtual nurse practitioner Larsen had never seen prescribed her two drugs that can trigger psychotic or manic symptoms when taken together. It isn’t clear which, if either, she took.

In January 2022, on a morning when Larsen was experiencing an extreme mental health crisis, a nurse at the Chico clinic mistakenly instructed Larsen’s mother to bring her in for an assessment. But the virtual nurse practitioner who was on call was booked and had no time for a consultation, violating VA rules that require patients to be seen in such situations. In addition, a social worker who was supposed to assess Larsen failed to follow protocols and sent her home.

Later that night, the sound of a far-off explosion frightened Larsen and prompted her to fire her handgun several times inside her parents’ home. One bullet pierced her mother in the thigh, damaging a large blood vessel and fatally wounding her.

Larsen’s case was the subject of a February 2023 report by the VA’s Office of Inspector General, which found the Chico clinic had failed to manage her medication, provide same-day access to care and assess her risk of violence. Larsen was later committed to a state-run forensic psychiatric hospital.

Andrew Iles, an Air Force veteran who was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, also struggled to get consistent treatment at the clinic, ProPublica found. His providers changed repeatedly. He was sometimes assigned to a pharmacist instead of a psychiatrist or psychologist.

Over time, Iles’ delusions grew more extreme, and he came to believe his immediate family was trying to kill him. He shot his mother in January 2022, killing her in the home they shared.

After ProPublica’s investigation was published, Iles, 35, was found not guilty by reason of insanity. As a result, he will be committed to a state psychiatric hospital instead of facing prison time.

In a press release announcing the case’s resolution, the local district attorney, Michael L. Ramsey, linked to and cited ProPublica’s reporting, saying it showed Iles “had difficulty establishing consistent care with a mental health provider through the VA.”

In addition to the two cases, ProPublica analyzed more than 300 studies conducted by the agency’s inspector general over the last four years. The analysis found repeated failures in mental health care, some of which had fatal consequences.

Andrew’s older sister, Ashley Hill, said this week that she was disappointed the VA hadn’t reached out to her family directly or published an inspector general’s report on her brother’s case.

“If this leads to some kind of change,” she said of the secretary’s visit to Chico, “that’s the best thing my family can hope for.”

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by ProPublica.

The United States continued to expressed outrage and vow a response to the deaths of American service members in Jordan following a drone attack it blamed on Iranian-backed militias, while Washington and London in a separate move stepped up pressure on Tehran with a new set of coordinated sanctions.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on January 29 doubled down on earlier vows by President Joe Biden to hold responsible those behind the drone attack, which also injured dozens of personnel, many of whom are being treated for traumatic brain injuries, according to the Pentagon.

"Let me start with my outrage and sorrow [for] the deaths of three brave U.S. troops in Jordan and for the other troops who were wounded," Austin told a Pentagon briefing.

"The president and I will not tolerate attacks on U.S. forces and we will take all necessary actions to defend the U.S. and our troops."

Later, White House national-security spokesman John Kirby told reporters that "we are not looking for a war with Iran."

He added, though, that drone attack "was escalatory, make no mistake about it, and it requires a response."

A day earlier, Biden said U.S. officials had assessed that one of several Iranian-backed groups was responsible for the attack and vowed to respond at a time of Washington’s choosing.

"While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq," Biden said.

"We will carry on their commitment to fight terrorism. And have no doubt -- we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing," Biden said in a separate statement.

Details of the attack remained unclear on January 29, but a U.S. official said the enemy drone may have been confused with a U.S.-launched drone returning to the military site near the Syrian border and was therefore not shot down.

The official, who requested anonymity, said preliminary reports indicate the enemy drone was flying at a low level at the same time a U.S. drone was returning to the base, known as Tower 22.

Iran on January 29 denied it had any link with the attack, with the Foreign Ministry in Tehran calling the accusations "baseless."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said that "resistance groups" in the region do not take orders from Tehran, though Western nations accuse the country of helping arm, train, and fund such groups.

Earlier, Iran's Permanent Mission to the United Nations said, "Iran had no connection and had nothing to do with the attack on the U.S. base."

Jordan condemned what it called a "terrorist attack" on a military site, saying it was cooperating with the United States to fortify its border defenses.

The attacks are certain to intensify political pressure in the United States on Biden -- who is in an election year -- to retaliate against Iranian interests in the region, possibly in Iraq or Syria, analysts say.

Gregory Brew, a historian and an analyst with the geopolitical risk firm Eurasia Group, told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda that the attack in Jordan represented a "major escalation -- and the U.S. is bound to respond forcefully and promptly."

"The response is likely to come through more intense U.S. action against Iran-backed militias in either Syria or Iraq. It's unclear if this was an intentional escalation by Iran and its allies, but the genie is out of the bottle," he added.

Republican Senator Tom Cotton, a vocal critic of Biden, a Democrat, on January 28 said the "only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces.... Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward."

Many observers have expressed fears of a widening conflict in the Middle East after war broke out in Gaza following the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, which has been deemed a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. At least 1,200 were killed in those assaults, leading to Israel's retaliatory actions that, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, have killed more than 26,000 Palestinians.

Because of its support for Israel, U.S. forces have been the target of Islamist groups in the Middle East, including Iranian-backed Huthi rebels based in Yemen and militia groups in Iraq who are also supported by Tehran.

In another incident that will likely intensify such fears of a wider conflict, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights -- which has extensive contacts inside Syria -- said an Israeli air strike against an Iranian-linked site in Damascus killed seven people, including fighters of Tehran-backed militias.

The Tasnim news agency, which is close to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), attributed the attack to Israel, writing that "two civilians" had been killed, while Syrian state television said "a number of Iranian advisers" had been killed at the "Iranian Advisory Center" in Damascus.

However, Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, denied the Iranian center had been targeted or that "any Iranian citizens or advisers" had been killed.

Meanwhile, the United States and Britain announced a set of coordinated sanctions against 11 officials with the IRGC for alleged connections to a criminal network that has targeted foreign dissidents and Iranian regime opponents for "numerous assassinations and kidnapping" at the behest of the Iranian Intelligence and Security Ministry.

A statement by the British Foreign Office said the sanctions are designed "to tackle the domestic threat posed by the Iranian regime, which seeks to export repression, harassment, and coercion against journalists and human rights defenders" in Britain, the United States, and elsewhere.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said the latest sanctions packages "exposes the roles of the Iranian officials and gangs involved in activity aimed to undermine, silence, and disrupt the democratic freedoms we value in the U.K."

"The U.K. and U.S. have sent a clear message: We will not tolerate this threat," he added.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, Reuters, and AP

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

The question is how far each side might go in carrying out their warnings without drawing Tehran into a broader Middle East conflict in defense of the Huthis, whose sustained attacks on maritime shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden led to its redesignation as a terrorist organization by Washington last week.

"Our aim remains to de-escalate tensions and restore stability in the Red Sea," the United States and the United Kingdom said in a joint statement following their latest round of air strikes on Huthi targets in Yemen on January 21. "But let us reiterate our warning to [the] Huthi leadership: we will not hesitate to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world’s most critical waterways in the face of continued threats."

The Huthis responded with vows to continue their war against what they called Israel's "genocide" of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

"The American-British aggression will only increase the Yemeni people’s determination to carry out their moral and humanitarian responsibilities toward the oppressed in Gaza," said Muhammad al-Bukhaiti, a senior Huthi political official.

"These attacks will not go unanswered and unpunished," said Huthi military spokesman Yahya Saree.

On cue, the two sides clashed again on January 24 when the Huthis said they fired ballistic missiles at several U.S. warships protecting U.S. commercial vessels transiting the Bab al-Mandab Strait off the coast of Yemen. U.S. Central Command said three anti-ship missiles were fired at a U.S.-flagged container ship and that two were shot down by a U.S. missile destroyer while the third fell into the Gulf of Aden.

With the stage set for more such encounters, Iran's open backing and clandestine arming of the Huthis looms large. While continuing to state its support for the Huthis, Tehran has continued to deny directing their actions or providing them with weapons. At the same time, Iran has showcased its own advanced missile capabilities as a warning of the strength it could bring to a broader Middle East conflict.

The United States, emphasizing that the goal is to de-escalate tensions in the region, appears to be focusing on preventing the Huthis from obtaining more arms and funding. In addition to returning the Huthis to its list of terrorist groups, Washington said on January 16 that it had seized Iranian weapons bound for the Huthis in a raid in the Arabian Sea.

The United States and United Kingdom also appear to be focusing on precision strikes on the Huthis' military infrastructure while avoiding extensive human casualties or a larger operation that could heighten Iran's ire.

On January 24, the Pentagon clarified that, despite the U.S. strikes in Yemen, "we are not at war in the Middle East" and the focus is on deterrence and preventing a broader conflict.

"The United States is only using a very small portion of what it's capable of against the Huthis right now," said Kenneth Katzman, a senior adviser for the New York-based Soufan Group intelligence consultancy, and expert on geopolitics in the Middle East.

Terrorist Designation

The effectiveness of Washington's restoration on January 17 of the Huthis' terrorist organization label and accompanying U.S. sanctions -- which was removed early last year in recognition of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen and to foster dialogue aimed at ending the Yemeni civil war involving the Huthis and the country's Saudi-backed government forces -- is "marginal," according to Katzman.

"They don't really use the international banking system and are very much cut off," Katzman said. "They get their arms from Iran, which is under extremely heavy sanctions and is certainly not going to be deterred from trying to ship them more weapons by this designation."

But the strikes being carried out by the United States and the United Kingdom, with the support of Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands, are another matter.

The January 21 strikes against eight Huthi targets -- followed shortly afterward by what was the ninth attack overall -- were intended to disrupt and degrade the group's capabilities to threaten global trade. They were a response to more than 30 attacks on international and commercial vessels since mid-November and were the largest strikes since a similar coalition operation on January 11.

Such strikes against the Huthis "have the potential to deter them and to degrade them, but it's going to take many more strikes, and I think the U.S. is preparing for that," Katzman said. "You're not going to degrade their capabilities in one or two volleys or even several volleys, it's going to take months."

The Huthis have significant experience in riding out aerial strikes, having been under relentless bombardment by a Saudi-led military collation during the nine-year Yemeni civil war, in which fighting has ended owing to a UN-brokered cease-fire in early 2022 that the warring parties recommitted to in December.

"They weathered that pretty well," said Jeremy Binnie, a Middle East defense analyst with the global intelligence company Janes.

"On the battlefield, airpower can still be fairly decisive," Binnie said, noting that air strikes were critical in thwarting Huthi offensives during the Yemeni civil war. "But in terms of the Huthis' overall ability to weather the air campaign of the Saudi-led coalition, they did that fine, from their point of view."

Since the cease-fire, Binnie said, the situation may have changed somewhat as the Huthis built up their forces, with more advanced missiles and aging tanks -- a heavier presence that "might make them a bit more vulnerable."

"But I don't think they will, at the same time, have any problem reverting to a lighter force that is more resilient to air strikes as they have been in the past," Binnie said.

Both Binnie and Katzman suggested that the Huthis appear willing to sustain battlefield losses in pursuit of their aims, which makes the group difficult to deter from the air.

The Huthis have clearly displayed their intent on continuing to disrupt maritime shipping in the Red Sea, which they claim has targeted only vessels linked to Israel despite evidence to the contrary, until there is a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

This has brought the Huthis' complicated relationship with Iran under intense scrutiny.

'Axis Of Resistance'

The Huthis have established themselves as a potent element of Iran's so-called "axis of resistance" against Israel and the United States, as well as against Tehran's regional archrival, Saudi Arabia.

But analysts who spoke to RFE/RL widely dismissed the idea that the Huthis are a direct Iranian proxy, describing the relationship as more one of mutual benefit in which the Huthis can be belligerent and go beyond what Tehran wants them to.

While accused by Western states and UN experts of secretly shipping arms to the Huthis and other members of the axis of resistance, Iran has portrayed the loose-knit band of proxies and partners and militant groups as independent in their decision-making.

The grouping includes the Iran-backed Hamas -- the U.S. and EU designated terrorist group whose attack on Israel sparked the war in the Gaza Strip -- and Lebanese Hizballah -- a Iranian proxy and U.S. designated terrorist group that, like the Huthis, has launched strikes against Israel in defense of Hamas.

"The success of the axis of resistance ... is that since Tehran has either created or co-opted these groups, there is more often than not fusion rather than tension," between members of the network and Iran, explained Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.

But the relationship is not simply about "Iran telling its proxies to jump and them saying how high," Taleblu said. "It’s about Iran’s ability to find and materially support those who are willing to or can be persuaded to shoot at those Tehran wants to shoot at."

Iran's interest in a certain axis member's success in a given area and its perception of how endangered that partner might be, could play a crucial role in Tehran's willingness to come to their defense, according to Taleblu.

Middle East observers who spoke to RFE/RL suggested that it would take a significant escalation -- an existential threat to Tehran itself or a proxy, like Lebanese Hizballah -- for Iran to become directly involved.

"The Islamic republic would react differently to the near eradication of Hizballah which it created, versus Hamas, which it co-opted," Taleblu said. "Context is key."

"Iran is doing what it feels it can to try to keep the United States at bay," Katzman said, singling out the missile strikes carried out on targets this month in Syria, Iraq, and Pakistan that were widely seen as a warning to Israel and the United States of Tehran's growing military capabilities. Iran is "trying to show support for the Huthis without getting dragged in."

Iran is believed to have members of its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the ground in Yemen. Tehran also continues to be accused of delivering arms to the Huthis, and at the start of the year deployed a ship to the Gulf of Aden in a show of support for the Huthis before withdrawing it after the U.S.-led coalition launched strikes in Yemen on January 11.

"So, they are helping," Katzman said, "but I think they are trying to do it as quietly and as under the radar as possible.

A U.S.-led ground operation against the Huthis, if it came to that, could change Iran's calculations. "Then Iran might deploy forces to help them out," Katzman said.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Having written for press and radio since her teens, Lahiji encountered tremendous obstacles to her career following the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Her answer was to found Roshangaran, or the Enlighteners, one of the first women-led publishing houses in the Islamic republic, in 1983.

Lahiji noted a decade later that she quickly recognized the challenges of entering a male-dominated industry in a deeply conservative and patriarchal society.

"I realized that I had stepped into an environment that was alien to the presence of women," Lahiji wrote.

She was constantly reminded that she was not welcomed in her chosen profession, and was looked upon with pity.

"Some, seeing the heavy printing plates I was carrying, rushed to me saying: 'Sister or mother, this is no business for you," she recalled. "Some were sure that if I turned to this work, it was out of necessity: 'Couldn't you have done something else? Like a women's clothing boutique or a baking class?'"

Her support for human rights would eventually land Lahiji in real trouble with the hard-line authorities.

In 2000, along with 18 other intellectuals, she was arrested after participating in a conference in Berlin in which risks to writers in Iran, as well as possible social and political reforms, were discussed. Lahiji was sentenced to four years in Tehran's notorious Evin prison on charges of undermining national security and spreading propaganda against the Islamic republic. Her sentence was eventually reduced to six months.

Mehrangiz Kar, herself a pioneering female attorney in Iran who was also arrested and sentenced to prison for attending the Berlin conference, spoke to RFE/RL's Radio Farda after Lahiji's death in Tehran following a long illness on January 8.

'Passionate About Her Work'

Kar, who is a renowned scholar on women's rights and currently teaches outside the country, described Lahiji as being passionate about using her publishing house as a platform for change.

"I first met Mrs. Lahiji during the revolution. She was always keen on participating in activities to raise awareness about women's issues. To achieve this, she decided to start a publishing house, which she successfully established," said Kar, who added that Lahiji published more than 15 of her books.

"Lahiji continued publishing works about women, written by women, and translations by women. She was passionate about her work and worked closely with the women's movement," Kar said, noting that Lahiji "significantly influenced" the women's rights movement in Iran. "However, when women's issues became highly prominent and the government grew sensitive, Lahiji faced pressure, and her office was even set on fire. Despite this, she didn't leave the country and continued her profession."

Among Lahiji's many unique traits, Kar recalled, was her ability to negotiate with government censors who vetted the works published by Roshangaran.

"If they had 10 objections, she would negotiate and reason with them to bring it down to five," Kar said. "She often succeeded in persuading them with her viewpoint, making her a distinguished figure in this regard."

Lahiji, who was born in Tehran in 1942 under the monarchy, described herself as having been raised in an open-minded household in which the women were given greater privileges than the men.

Her mother was among the first women to enter public service in Iran's monarchy, and her father was educated in Europe. After the family moved to the southwestern city of Shiraz, Lahiji began a career as a journalist with Shiraz Radio at the age of 15. She quickly went on to become the youngest member of Iran's Women Writers Association, and studied sociology in London.

Growing up, she believed that everyone in the world had a similar experience and opportunities. Following the Islamic Revolution, when she was in her late 30s, she had become fully aware of the need to educate others about women's rightful place in society.

'More Humane Vision'

Lahiji did not expect immediate change, she once said, but wanted to prepare women to defend their rights for the long-term. More generally, she sought through Roshangaran "to provide a broader, clearer, and more humane vision of social, economic, philosophical, psychological, and historical issues" for society as a whole.

Opening this avenue through books often meant careful translations of foreign works. For example, Lahiji spoke about the difficulties of adapting works by the Czech writer Milan Kundera, making slight changes to the text and removing parts she knew would come into conflict with the official censors.

Lahiji also suggested that some Iranian writers created their own challenges, saying that members of the younger generation would sometimes mischievously use vulgar terms in their submissions that she would edit out because she feared it would harm their cause.

She lamented in 2005, a few years after her arrest, that many of the books that had been published even during the Islamic Revolution had been banned, and that publishers that were not in line with the authorities were being pushed out.

But Lahiji carried on with her work, sometimes using silence -- such as her refusal to attend the Tehran book fair -- to send a message to the authorities that censorship was not an acceptable policy.

Lahiji's work was widely recognized abroad. In 2001, she received PEN American Center's Freedom To Write Award, which honors writers who fought in the face of adversity for the right to freedom of expression. She also won the International Publishers Association's Freedom Prize in 2006 in recognition of her promotion of the right to publish freely in Iran and around the world, among her numerous international awards.

Lahiji was also a diligent author, penning such works as A Study Of The Historical Identity Of Iranian Women and Women In Search Of Liberation.

She also founded the Women's Research Center and served as a member of the Violence Against Women Committee in Iran.

Following her death, condolences poured in -- including from state-run media outlets, civil society, and social media.

In a testament to the impact Lahiji had on society, more than 300 prominent activists and cultural figures paid their respects by signing a letter honoring her achievements. Remembrances were printed by Iran's official IRNA news agency and other outlets, and by the Publishers and Booksellers Union of Tehran.

Outside the country, Lahiji's contributions were marked by Iranian authors such as Arash Azizi, who wrote: "Rest in power, Shahla Lahiji. When we were teenagers in Iran of 2000s, that feminist publication house and bookstore you ran in Tehran was a center of our life.”

Lahiji was buried at Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery on January 11. As a final ode, she was laid to rest to the slogan of "Women, Life, Freedom" -- the rallying cry of the nationwide antiestablishment protests that erupted in late 2022 and put women’s rights at the forefront.

Written by Michael Scollon based on reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

The political fallout from the deadly riots in Papua New Guinea continues, including calls for a vote of no confidence against Prime Minister James Marape.

Seven MPs in Marape’s government have resigned following last week’s riots in Port Moresby and Lae — dubbed “Black Wednesday” — and the current death toll has reached 22

Belden Namah, representative for Vanimo-Green, is the latest government MP to resign.

• READ MORE:  PNG’s Gerehu became a ‘ghost town in the blink of an eye’ after riot
• Marape accuses ‘rogue police’ of being part of Port Moresby’s riots
• ‘Uphold right to life’ says watchdog in aftermath of deadly PNG unrest

Namah is a senior MP and a former captain in the PNG Defence Force. He was involved in removing Sandline mercenaries in 1997 after similar rioting and looting. As such, his resignation is a significant blow to the Marape regime.

Last Friday, Morobe Governor Luther Wenge called for an emergency sitting of Parliament to address urgent issues including a vote of no confidence.

Marape still has the majority and may announce a possible reshuffle in the coming days.

It is expected that there will be ministries that will be reworked so that the main base of power will still be contained.

Normalcy has returned on the ground the only tension is within political circles where people were preparing for a vote of no confidence or calling for a vote of no confidence.

Property returned
After several days of intense rioting in Port Moresby, Lae and other regions of Papua New Guinea the current death toll has reached 22.

However, it is suspected that the actual death toll, as order is restored, will be higher.

Acting Police Commissioner Donald Yamasombi asked people to return stolen property.

Yamasombi told looters to leave stolen items outside their homes for the military and police to pick up, on Saturday and Sunday.

His request was met with reasonable compliance.

A couple in Lae were arrested for abusing police over social media. The couple were “made an example of” for supporting the looters.

Videos of looter protests
There were also videos of looters expressing their dissatisfaction and telling the government why they were looting.

There is a feeling that something needs to happen. There are underlying frustrations among the population like the lack of opportunity for young people and the youth problems not dealt with.

The public’s frustrations are mirrored by PNG police, concerning their poor housing, work and pay conditions. Officers are expected to go into tribal fighting zones without body armour for protection.

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.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

In Dnipro, locals brought flowers, toys, and other items to the ruins of the building that was destroyed in the January 14, 2023, missile strike. Six of the killed were children, while dozens were injured in the strike, which occurred on a weekend when many residents were in the building.

Although Moscow denies targeting civilians since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian missiles, drones, and rockets regularly strike residential buildings and civilian infrastructure across the country.

Meanwhile, Zelenskiy’s office said the president will travel to Davos on January 15 to meet with security officials representing 81 countries and international organizations who are in the resort town to discuss his 10-point “peace formula.”

“In the course of the visit, the president will meet with the presidents of both houses of parliament, party leaders, and the president of Switzerland, take part in the World Economic Forum and hold a series of bilateral meetings,” his office said.

Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelenskiy’s office, had arrived in Davos and addressed the gathering, held one day ahead of the opening there of the World Economic Forum. It was the fourth international meeting to discuss the Ukrainian “peace formula.”

Meanwhile, Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelenskiy’s office, addressed a gathering of security officials representing 81 countries and international organizations in Davos, one day ahead of the opening there of the World Economic Forum. It was the fourth international meeting to discuss the Ukrainian “peace formula.”

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis, who co-chaired the talks with Yermak, told a news conference that Russia should eventually be brought in to such talks, but he added that the time was not right for that yet.

"We will need to find a path to include Russia in the process. There will be no peace without Russia having its word to say," Cassis said. "But this does not mean -- quite the contrary -- that we should just be depressed and sit there and wait for Russia to do something. Every minute that we wait, dozens of civilians in Ukraine are killed or wounded. We have no right to wait forever.”

Participants said the Davos sessions are focused on criteria needed to end the fighting, bring about withdrawal of Russian troops, achieve justice for crimes committed during the war, and to prevent a restarting of the conflict in the future, according to AFP.

In a post on Telegram, Yermak said he briefed delegates “about the consequences of recent massive rocket attacks by Russia on Ukrainian cities.”

“A simple cease-fire will not be the end of Russian aggression in Ukraine,” Yermak wrote, “but will only give the aggressor a pause to accumulate strength. This is definitely not the way to peace. The Russians do not want peace. They want dominance.”

Yermak echoed remarks earlier by Cassis stating that it was important that China – an ally of Russia – participated in any future peace formula talks.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang is scheduled to lead his country’s delegation to Davos later this week.

Asked if Zelenskiy would meet Li, Yermak told reporters, "Let's see."

Zelenskiy last year presented his 10-point peace formula that includes the withdrawal of Russian forces and the restoration of Ukrainian territorial integrity, among other things.

Also on the diplomatic front, France's new foreign minister, Stephane Sejourne, stopped in Berlin on January 14 following his visit to Kyiv, meeting his German counterpart and reiterating both nations’ commitment to aid Ukraine for as long as required.

"We are in full agreement...that we must support the Ukrainians for as long as necessary," Sejourne told a news conference alongside German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Baerbock said Germany and France would remain "on the side of Ukraine as long as necessary, until Russia has withdrawn from Ukrainian territory."

She warned, however, that Russian President Vladimir Putin "does not want to stop" and "is not stopping" his war with Ukraine.

The meeting of the two European Union powerhouse nations comes as the bloc is scheduled to hold a gathering on February 1 in an effort to unblock the 50 billion euro ($54.8 billion) Ukraine aid package that has been vetoed by the right-wing leader of Hungary, Viktor Orban.

The Kherson region military administration on January 14 reported 103 artillery strikes overnight, in addition to hundreds of mortar shells and drone attacks. Twenty-eight shells reportedly fell in the city of Kherson. Six civilians were reportedly injured in the strikes.

In its daily briefing on January 14, the Ukrainian General Staff reported 61 combat incidents in the previous 24 hours, with particularly heavy fighting around the Donetsk regional city of Avdiyivka. In recent weeks, Russian forces have been fighting to surround the city and dislodge Ukrainian defenders.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Amnesty International is calling on Papua New Guinea authorities to protect human rights in response to the riots.

Port Moresby is in a state of emergency for 14 days with at least 16 people confirmed dead following violent unrest on Wednesday.

The violence broke out with shops and businesses being set alight after public servants went on strike over what has been described as a payroll error.

• READ MORE: Aftermath of Port Moresby looting, rioting – 14-day state of emergency
• PNG’s Marape under pressure to resign as 6 MPs quit after Moresby riots
• At least 15 dead in Papua New Guinea rioting and looting – China lodges protest
• At least 10 dead after looting, fires on Port Moresby’s ‘darkest day’
• Violent riots in PNG leave 16 people dead, as PM declares state of emergency for 14 days
• Café Pacific’s report on the rioting as death toll rises
• Looting breaks out in PNG capital during police and military strike
• Contingent of Highlands Mobile Squad expected in Port Moresby
• Kavieng town under siege

Prime Minister James Marape announced at a late night news conference on Thursday that more than 1000 defence force personnel WEre ready to step in whereever necessary.

Amnesty International Pacific researcher Kate Schuetze told RNZ Pacific firearms was often never an appropriate way to respond to protests.

“They have declared a state of emergency under the constitution which gives extraordinary powers to the authorities like the police and the military,” Schuetze said.

“What we really want to do is just remind them that protesters have human rights, that people in the streets have rights as well and ultimately, they have to work in a way to use the least lethal force possible and uphold the right to life.”

Members of the disciplined forces were among those protesting after their fortnightly pay checks were reduced by up to 300 kina (US$80).

Schuetze said the deductions for some officers amounted to half their pay packet.

“The deductions we’re talking about here are not an insignificant amount … understandably they were concerned.

“There’s questions around how much the government knew prior to the strike around this pay area and why they didn’t take steps to address it sooner.”

Schuetze said inflation was a concern for people.

“A lot of people are doing it tough in Papua New Guinea and I think it could be a sign of rising resentment and dissatisfaction with the leadership of the government, as well as livelihood factors that people feel are not being addressed.”

Marape is under increasing political pressure to step down, with six members of his coalition government resigning in the aftermath of the deadly violence.

Among them, Chauve MP James Nomane and Hiri-Koiari MP Kieth Iduhu made their resignations public via social media and blamed blamed Marape for the riots.

Schuetze said there needed to be “prompt, impartial and independent investigation” into what happened, including the causes of the riots.

“Likely there will be several colliding factors which cause this to happen.

“Any government, if this happens on their watch, if it happened in Australia, in New Zealand, we would expect there to be a full independent public inquiry.”

She said there tended to be an absence of appropriate police response to address the violent acts once they had occurred in Papua New Guinea.

“Obviously, the fact that people have died in the course of these riots is a really strong indicator that there may be human rights violations by the state.”

Schuetze said there were lots of videos uploaded to social media that showed police actively encouraging and participating in the chaos.

“If the police themselves were involved in acts of violence, there is a responsibility of the state to hold them accountable as well, as much as any other person engaged in active violence.”

‘Dysfunctional government’
Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International PNG (TIPNG) said the frustration among police, and other public servants over tax calculations, was just the tip of the iceberg of a dysfunctional government system.

It is calling on the PNG government to engage immediately in genuine open dialogue with the police representatives to address their legitimate grievances.

The organisation’s board chair Peter Aitsi said this must be done quickly through transparent and open communication in order to resolve this crisis.

Aitsi said the public service and police were institutions of the state, and if truly independent and free of political control, should play a critical role as a check and balance to the executive government.

Open for business
Meanwhile, PNG’s largest retail and wholesale organisation — the CPL Group — has re-opened for business.

In a statement on Friday, the company said its Stop & Shop outlet at Waigani Central, Town, Boroko, Airways was now open.

The City Pharmacy chain in Waigani Drive, Boroko and Vision city are also open for trading.

However, the group says those outlets in areas which “suffered devastatingly” remained closed.

It is also warned people not to use stolen pharmaceutical products, including baby formulas, off the counter and prescription medicines.

It is urging the public not to buy these products as they may be damaged and tampered with and wrong doses could be administered.

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.

• The war in Ukraine will persist until the West realizes that a return to the previous world order is unattainable.
• In Iran, with parliamentary elections scheduled for March, the government is likely to face yet another challenge to its legitimacy.
• In Belarus, setbacks for Russia in Ukraine could prompt the Lukashenka regime to attempt to normalize relations with the West.
• While 2024 will see a rightward shift in the EU, it is unlikely to bring the deluge of populist victories that some are predicting.
• The vicious spiral for women in Afghanistan will only worsen.
• Peace between Armenia and its neighbors could set the stage for a Russian exit from the region.
• Hungary's upcoming leadership of the European Council could prove a stumbling block to the start of EU accession talks with Ukraine.
• Kyrgyzstan is on course to feel the pain of secondary sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine if the West's patience runs out.

Here, then, are our correspondents' predictions for 2024. To find out more about the authors themselves, click on their bylines.

The Ukraine War: A Prolonged Stalemate

By Vitaliy Portnikov

In September 2022, Ukrainian generals Valeriy Zaluzhniy and Mykhaylo Zabrodskiy presciently warned that Russia's aggression against Ukraine would unfold into a protracted conflict. Fast forward 15 months, and the front line is effectively frozen, with neither Ukrainian nor Russian offensives yielding substantial changes.

As 2023 comes to a close, observers find themselves revisiting themes familiar from the previous year: the potential for a major Ukrainian counteroffensive, the extent of Western aid to Kyiv, the possibility of a "frozen conflict,” security assurances for Ukraine, and the prospects for its Euro-Atlantic integration ahead of a NATO summit.

It is conceivable that, by the close of 2024, we will still be grappling with these same issues. A political resolution seems elusive, given the Kremlin's steadfast refusal to entertain discussions on vacating the parts of Ukraine its forces occupy. Conversely, Ukraine’s definition of victory is the full restoration of its territorial integrity.

Even if, in 2024, one side achieves a military victory -- whether through the liberation of part of Ukraine or Russia seizing control of additional regions -- it won't necessarily bring us closer to a political resolution. Acknowledging this impasse is crucial, as Russian President Vladimir Putin's assault on Ukraine is part of a broader agenda: a push to reestablish, if not the Soviet Empire, at least its sphere of influence.

For Ukraine, resistance to Russian aggression is about not just reclaiming occupied territories but also safeguarding statehood, political identity, and national integrity. Western support is crucial for Ukraine's survival and the restoration of its territorial integrity. However, this backing aims to avoid escalation into a direct conflict between Russia and the West on Russia's sovereign territory.

The war's conclusion seems contingent on the depletion of resources on one of the two sides, with Ukraine relying on continued Western support and Russia on oil and gas revenues. Hence, 2024 might echo the patterns of 2023. Even if external factors shift significantly -- such as in the U.S. presidential election in November -- we might not witness tangible changes until 2025.

Another potential variable is the emergence of major conflicts akin to the war in the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, this would likely signify the dissipation of Western resources rather than a shift in approaches to war.

In essence, the war in Ukraine will persist until the West realizes that a return to the previous world order is unattainable. Constructing a new world order demands unconventional measures, such as offering genuine security guarantees to nations victimized by aggression or achieving peace, or at least limiting the zone of military operations to the current contact line, without direct agreements with Russia.

So far, such understanding is lacking, and the expectation that Moscow will eventually grasp the futility of its ambitions only emboldens Putin. Consequently, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine will endure, potentially spawning new, equally perilous local wars worldwide.

Iran: Problems Within And Without

By Hannah Kaviani

Iran has been dealing with complex domestic and international challenges for years and the same issues are likely to plague it in 2024. But officials in Tehran appear to be taking a “wait-and-see” approach to its lengthy list of multilayered problems.

Iran enters 2024 as Israel's war in Gaza continues and the prospects for a peaceful Middle East are bleak, with the situation exacerbated by militia groups firmly supported by Tehran.

Iran’s prominent role in supporting paramilitary forces in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen has also drawn the ire of the international community and will continue to be a thorn in the side of relations with the West.

Tehran has refused to cooperate with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency over its nuclear program, resulting in an impasse in talks with the international community. And with the United States entering an election year that could see the return of Donald Trump to the presidency, the likelihood of Tehran and Washington resuming negotiations -- which could lead to a reduction in sanctions -- is considered very low.

But Iran's problems are not limited to outside its borders.

The country’s clerical regime is still reeling from the massive protests that began in 2022 over the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody after her arrest for not obeying hijab rules. The aftershocks of the Women, Life, Freedom movement that emanated from her death were reflected in acts of civil disobedience that are likely to continue in 2024.

At the same time, a brutal crackdown continues as civil rights activists, students, religious minorities, and artists are being beaten, detained, and/or given harsh prison sentences.

With parliamentary elections scheduled for March, the government is likely to face yet another challenge to its legitimacy as it struggles with low voter turnout and general disinterest in another round of controlled elections.

Another critical issue Iranian officials must continue to deal with in 2024 is the devastated economy resulting from the slew of international sanctions because of its controversial nuclear program. After a crushing year of 47 percent inflation in 2023 (a 20-year high, according to the IMF), costs are expected to continue to rise for many foods and commodities, as well as real estate.

Iran’s widening budget deficit due to reduced oil profits continues to cripple the economy, with the IMF reporting that the current government debt is equal to three annual budgets.

With neither the international community nor the hard-line Tehran regime budging, most analysts see scant chances for significant changes in Iran in the coming year.

Belarus: Wider War Role, Integration With Russia Not In The Cards

By Valer Karbalevich

Belarus has been pulled closer into Moscow’s orbit than ever by Russia’s war in Ukraine -- but in 2024, it’s unlikely to be subsumed into the much larger nation to its east, and chances are it won’t step up its so-far limited involvement in the conflict in the country to its south.

The most probable scenario in Belarus, where the authoritarian Alyaksandr Lukashenka will mark 30 years since he came to power in 1994, is more of the same: No letup in pressure on all forms of dissent at home, no move to send troops to Ukraine. And while Russia’s insistent embrace will not loosen, the Kremlin will abstain from using Belarusian territory for any new ground attacks or bombardments of Ukraine.

But the war in Ukraine is a wild card, the linchpin influencing the trajectory of Belarus in the near term and beyond. For the foreseeable future, what happens in Belarus -- or to it -- will depend in large part on what happens in Russia’s assault on Ukraine.

Should the current equilibrium on the front persist and Western support for Ukraine persist, the likelihood is a continuation of the status quo for Belarus. The country will maintain its allegiance to Russia, marked by diplomatic and political support. Bolstered by Russian loans, Belarus's defense industry will further expand its output.

The Belarusian state will continue to militarize the border with Ukraine, posing a perpetual threat to Kyiv and diverting Ukrainian troops from the eastern and southern fronts. At the same time, however, Russia is unlikely to use Belarusian territory as a launching point for fresh assaults on Ukraine, as it did at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022.

If Russia wins or scores substantial victories -- if Ukraine is forced into negotiations on Moscow’s terms, for example, or the current front line comes to be considered the international border -- Lukashenka, consolidating his position within the country, will reap "victory dividends." But relations between Belarus and Russia are unlikely to change dramatically.

Potentially, Moscow could take major steps to absorb Belarus, diminishing its sovereignty and transforming its territory into a staging ground for a fresh assault on Kyiv. This would increase tensions with the West and heighten concerns about the tactical nuclear weapons Moscow and Minsk say Russia has transferred to Belarus. However, this seems unlikely due to the absence of military necessity for Moscow and the problems it could create on the global stage.

The loss of Belarusian sovereignty would pose a major risk for Lukashenka and his regime. An overwhelming majority of Belarusians oppose the direct involvement of Belarus in the war against Ukraine. This fundamental distinction sets Belarus apart from Russia, and bringing Belarus into the war could trigger a political crisis in Belarus -- an outcome Moscow would prefer to avoid.

If Russia loses the war or sustains significant defeats that weaken Putin, Lukashenka's regime may suffer economic and political repercussions. This could prompt him to seek alternative global alliances, potentially leading to an attempt to normalize relations with the West.

Russia, Ukraine, And The West: Sliding Toward World War III

By Sergei Medvedev

2024 will be a critical year for the war in Ukraine and for the entire international system, which is quickly unraveling before our eyes. The most crucial of many challenges is a revanchist, resentful, belligerent Russia, bent on destroying and remaking the world order. In his mind, President Vladimir Putin is fighting World War III, and Ukraine is a prelude to a global showdown.

Despite Western sanctions, Russia has consolidated its position militarily, domestically, and internationally in 2023. After setbacks and shocks in 2022, the military has stabilized the front and addressed shortages of arms, supplies, and manpower. Despite latent discontent, the population is not ready to question the war, preferring to stay in the bubble of learned ignorance and the lies of state propaganda.

Here are four scenarios for 2024:

Strategic stalemate in Ukraine, chaos in the international system: The West, relaxed by a 30-year “peace dividend,” lacks the vision and resolve of the 1980s, when its leaders helped bring about the U.S.S.R.’s collapse, let alone the courage of those who stood up to Nazi Germany in World War II. Putin’s challenge to the free world is no less significant than Hitler’s was, but there is no Roosevelt or Churchill in sight. Probability: 70 percent

Widening war, collapse or division of Ukraine: Russia could defend and consolidate its gains in Ukraine, waging trench warfare while continuing to destroy civilian infrastructure, and may consider a side strike in Georgia or Moldova -- or against Lithuania or Poland, testing NATO. A frontal invasion is less likely than a hybrid operation by “unidentified” units striking from Belarus, acts of sabotage, or unrest among Russian-speakers in the Baltic states. Other Kremlin operations could occur anywhere in the world. The collapse of Ukraine’s government or the division of the country could not be ruled out. Probability: 15 percent.

Russia loses in Ukraine: A military defeat for Russia, possibly entailing a partial or complete withdrawal from Ukraine. Consistent Western support and expanded supplies of arms, like F-16s or Abrams tanks, or a big move such as closing the skies over Ukraine, could provide for this outcome. It would not necessarily entail Russia’s collapse -- it could further consolidate the nation around Putin’s regime. Russia would develop a resentful identity grounded in loss and defeat -- and harbor the idea of coming back with a vengeance. Probability: 10 percent

Russia’s Collapse: A military defeat in Ukraine could spark social unrest, elite factional battles, and an anti-Putin coup, leading to his demotion or violent death. Putin’s natural death, too, could set off a succession struggle, causing chaos in a country he has rid of reliable institutions. While breakup into many regions is unlikely, the empire could crumble at the edges -- Kaliningrad, Chechnya, the Far East – like in 1917 and 1991. Russia’s nuclear weapons would be a big question mark, leading to external involvement and possible de-nuclearization. For all its perils, this scenario might provide a framework for future statehood in Northern Eurasia. Probability: 5 percent

EU: 'Fortress Europe' And The Ukraine War

By Rikard Jozwiak

2024 will see a rightward shift in the European Union, but it is unlikely to bring the deluge of populist victories that some are predicting since Euroskeptics won national elections in the Netherlands, Poland, and Slovakia and polled well in Austria and Germany.

The European Parliament elections in June will be the ultimate test for the bloc in that respect. Polls still suggest the two main political groups, the center-right European People's Party and the center-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, will finish on top, albeit with a smaller share of the vote. But right-wing populist parties are likely to fail once again to agree on the creation of a single political group, thus eroding their influence in Brussels.

This, in turn, is likely to prod more pro-European groups into combining forces again to divvy up EU top jobs like the presidencies of the European Commission, the bloc's top executive body, and the European Council, which defines the EU's political direction and priorities. Center-right European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is widely tipped to get a second term, even though she might fancy NATO's top job as secretary-general. Charles Michel, on the other hand, will definitely be out as European Council president after serving the maximum five years.

While right-wing populists may not wield major influence in the horse-trading for those top jobs, they will affect policy going forward. They have already contributed to a hardening of attitudes on migration, and you can expect to hear more of the term "fortress Europe" as barriers go up on the EU's outer border.

The biggest question for 2024, however, is about how much support Brussels can provide Ukraine going forward. Could the "cost-of-living crisis" encourage members to side with Budapest to block financial aid or veto the start of de facto accession talks with that war-torn country? The smart money is still on the EU finding a way to green-light both those decisions in 2024, possibly by unfreezing more EU funds for Budapest.

Although it seems like a remote possibility, patience could also finally wear out with Hungary, and the other 26 members could decide to strip it of voting rights in the Council of the European Union, which amends, approves, and vetoes European Commission proposals -- essentially depriving it of influence. In that respect, Austria and Slovakia, Budapest's two biggest allies right now, are the EU countries to watch.

The one surefire guarantee in Europe isn't about the European Union at all but rather about NATO: After somehow failing to join as predicted for each of the past two years, against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Sweden will become the transatlantic military alliance's 32nd member once the Turkish and Hungarian parliaments vote to ratify its accession protocol.

Caucasus: A Peace Agreement Could Be Transformative

By Josh Kucera

Could 2024 be the year that Armenia and Azerbaijan finally formally resolve decades of conflict?

This year, Azerbaijan effectively decided -- by force -- their most contentious issue: the status of the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. With its lightning offensive in September, Azerbaijan placed Karabakh firmly under its control. Both sides now say they've reached agreement on most of their fundamental remaining issues, and diplomatic talks, after an interruption, appear set to resume.

A resolution of the conflict could transform the region. If Armenia and Azerbaijan made peace, a Turkish-Armenian rapprochement could soon follow. Borders between the three countries would reopen as a result, ending Armenia's long geographical isolation and priming the South Caucasus to take full advantage of new transportation projects seeking to ship cargo between Europe and Asia while bypassing Russia.

Peace between Armenia and its neighbors also could set the stage for a Russian exit from the region. Russian-Armenian security cooperation has been predicated on potential threats from Azerbaijan and Turkey. With those threats reduced, what's keeping the Russian soldiers, peacekeepers, and border guards there?

A Russian exit would be a messy process -- Moscow still holds many economic levers in Armenia -- but Yerevan could seek help from the United States and Europe to smooth any transition. Washington and Brussels have seemingly been waiting in the wings, nudging Armenia in their direction.

But none of this is likely to happen without a peace agreement. And while there don't seem to be any unresolvable issues remaining, there are mounting indications that Azerbaijan may not see it in its interests to make peace. Baku has gotten what it wanted most of all -- full control of Karabakh -- without an agreement. And maintaining a simmering conflict with Armenia could arguably serve Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev well, as it would allow him to continue to lean on a reliable source of public support: rallying against an Armenian enemy.

But perhaps the most conspicuous indication of a broader strategy is Aliyev's increasing invocation of "Western Azerbaijan" -- a hazily defined concept alluding to ethnic Azerbaijanis who used to live on the territory of what is now Armenia and their presumed right to return to their homes. It suggests that Azerbaijan might keep furthering its demands in hopes that Armenia finally throws in the towel, and each can accuse the other of intransigence.

Hungary: The Return Of Big Brother?

By Pablo Gorondi

Critics might be tempted to believe that Big Brother will be watching over Hungarians in 2024 like at no point since the fall of communism.

A new law on the Defense of National Sovereignty will allow the Office for the Defense of Sovereignty, which the law created, to investigate and request information from almost any group in Hungary that receives foreign funding. This will apply to civic groups, political parties, private businesses, media companies -- in fact, anyone deemed to be conducting activities (including "information manipulation and disinformation") in the interests of a foreign "body, organization, or person."

The law has been criticized by experts from the United Nations and the Council of Europe over its seemingly vague language, lack of judicial oversight, and fears that it could be used by the government "to silence and stigmatize independent voices and opponents."

The head of the Office for the Defense of Sovereignty should be nominated for a six-year term by right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban and appointed by President Katalin Novak by February 1. This would allow the new authority to carry out investigations and present findings ahead of simultaneous elections to the European Parliament and Hungarian municipal bodies in early June -- possibly influencing their outcomes.

Asked by RFE/RL's Hungarian Service, some experts said fears of the new authority are overblown and that the government is more likely to use it as a threat hanging over opponents than as a direct tool for repression -- at least until it finds it politically necessary or expedient to tighten control.

On the international scene, meanwhile, Hungary will take over the Council of the European Union's six-month rotating presidency in July, a few weeks after voting to determine the composition of a new European Parliament.

MEPs from Orban's Fidesz party exited the center-right European People's Party bloc in 2021 and have not joined another group since then, although some observers expect them to join the more Euroskeptic and nationalist European Conservatives and Reformists.

Orban has for years predicted a breakthrough of more radical right-wing forces in Europe. But while that has happened in Italy, the Netherlands, and Slovakia, experts suggest that's not enough to fuel a significant shift in the European Parliament, where the center-right and center-left should continue to hold a clear majority.

Because of the June elections, the European Parliament's activities will initially be limited -- and its election of a European Commission president could prove complicated. Nevertheless, Orban has said in recent interviews that he wants to "fix the European Union" and that "we need to take over Brussels." So, Hungary's leadership may make progress difficult on issues that Orban opposes, like the start of EU accession talks with Ukraine or a possible reelection bid by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Stability And The 'Serbian World'

By Gjeraqina Tuhina and Milos Teodorovic

Serbia, once again, will be a key player in the region -- and its moves could significantly shape events in the Balkans over the next 12 months.

For over a decade, the dialogue to normalize relations between Serbia and its former province Kosovo has stymied both countries. Then, in February in Brussels and March in Ohrid, North Macedonia, European mediators announced a path forward and its implementation. There was only one problem: There was no signature on either side. Nine months later, little has changed.

Many eyes are looking toward one aspect in particular -- a renewed obligation for Pristina to allow for an "appropriate level of self-management" for the Serb minority in Kosovo. This also entails creating possibilities for financial support from Serbia to Kosovar Serbs and guarantees for direct communication of the Serb minority with the Kosovar government.

In October, EU mediators tried again, and with German, French, and Italian backing presented both parties with a new draft for an association of Serb-majority municipalities. Both sides accepted the draft. EU envoy to the region Miroslav Lajcak suggested in December that the Ohrid agreement could be implemented by the end of January. If that happened, it would mark a decisive step for both sides in a dialogue that began in 2011.

"The Serbian world" is a phrase launched a few years ago by pro-Russian Serbian politician Aleksandar Vulin, a longtime cabinet minister who until recently headed the Serbian Intelligence Service. It is not officially part of the agenda of either Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic or the government, but it underscores the influence that Serbia seeks to wield from Kosovo and Montenegro to Republika Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina. But how Vucic chooses to exert the implicit ties to Serb leaders and nationalists in those countries could do much to promote stability -- or its antithesis -- in the Balkans in 2024.

Another major challenge for Vucic revolves around EU officials' request that candidate country Serbia harmonize its foreign policy with the bloc. So far, along with Turkey, Serbia is the only EU candidate that has not introduced sanctions on Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It is unclear how far the Serbian president is willing to push back to foster ongoing good relations with Moscow.

But first, Serbia will have to confront the fallout from snap elections in December dominated by Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party but rejected by the newly united opposition as fraudulent. The results sparked nightly protests in the capital and hunger strikes by a half-dozen lawmakers and other oppositionists. A new parliament is scheduled to hold a session by the end of January 2024, and the margins are seemingly razor-thin for control of the capital, Belgrade.

Central Asia: Don't Write Russia Off Just Yet

By Chris Rickleton

Will the empire strike back? 2023 has been a galling year for Russia in Central Asia as it watched its traditional partners (and former colonies) widen their diplomatic horizons.

With Russia bogged down in a grueling war in Ukraine, Moscow has less to offer the region than ever before. Central Asia’s five countries have made the most of the breathing space, with their leaders holding landmark talks with U.S. and German leaders as French President Emmanuel Macron also waltzed into Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with multibillion-dollar investments.

And China has reinforced its dominant position in the region, while Turkey has also increased its influence.

But don’t write Russia off just yet.

One of Moscow’s biggest wins in the neighborhood this year was an agreement to supply Uzbekistan with nearly 3 billion cubic meters of gas every year, a figure that could increase.

Power deficits in Uzbekistan and energy-rich Kazakhstan are the most obvious short-term sources of leverage for Moscow over those important countries.

The coming year will likely bring more in terms of specifics over both governments’ plans for nuclear power production, with Russia fully expected to be involved.

And Moscow’s confidence in a region that it views as its near abroad will only increase if it feels it is making headway on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Tajikistan

Tajikistan’s hereditary succession has been expected for so long that people have stopped expecting it. Does that mean it is back on the cards for 2024? Probably not.

In 2016, Tajikistan passed a raft of constitutional changes aimed at cementing the ruling Rahmon family’s hold on power. Among them was one lowering the age to run for president from 35 to 30.

That amendment had an obvious beneficiary -- veteran incumbent Emomali Rahmon’s upwardly mobile son, Rustam Emomali. But Emomali is now 36 and, despite occupying a political post that makes him next in line, doesn’t look any closer to becoming numero uno.

Perhaps there hasn’t been a good time to do it.

From the coronavirus pandemic to a bloody crackdown on unrest in the Gorno-Badakhshan region and now the shadows cast by the Ukraine war, there have been plenty of excuses to delay the inevitable.

Turkmenistan

But perhaps Rahmon is considering events in Turkmenistan, where Central Asia’s first father-son power transition last year has ended up nothing of the sort. Rather than growing into the role, new President Serdar Berdymukhammedov is shrinking back into the shadow of his all-powerful father, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov.

And this seems to be exactly how the older Berdymukhammedov wanted it, subsequently fashioning himself a post-retirement post that makes his son and the rest of the government answerable to him.

But Turkmenistan’s bizarre new setup begs a question: If you’re not ready to let it go, why not hold on a little longer?

Kyrgyzstan/Kazakhstan

Writing on X (formerly Twitter) in November, a former IMF economist argued that Kyrgyzstan would be the "perfect test case" for secondary sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Robin Brooks described the country as "small, not remotely systemically important, and very clearly facilitating trade diversion to Russia."

Official statistics show that countries in the Eurasian Economic Union that Moscow leads have become a “backdoor” around the Western-led sanctions targeting Russia. Exports to Kyrgyzstan from several EU countries this year, for example, are up by at least 1,000 percent compared to 2019.

Data for exports to Kazakhstan shows similar patterns -- with larger volumes but gentler spikes -- while investigations by RFE/RL indicate that companies in both Central Asian countries have forwarded “dual-use” products that benefit the Kremlin’s military machine.

Belarus is the only Russian ally to get fully sanctioned for its support of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine -- but will that change in 2024?

Central Asian governments will argue they have resisted Russian pressure to provide political and military support for the war. They might even whisper that their big friend China is much more helpful to Russia.

But the West’s approach of targeting only Central Asian companies actively flouting the regime is failing.

So, while Western diplomats continue to credit the region’s governments for their anti-evasion efforts, their patience may wear out. And if it does, Kyrgyzstan might be first to find out.

Afghanistan: The Vicious Spiral Will Worsen

By Malali Bashir

With little internal threat to Afghanistan’s Taliban regime and the failure of the international community to affect change in the hard-line Islamist regime’s policies, the Taliban mullahs’ control over the country continues to tighten.

And that regime’s continued restrictions on Afghan women -- their rights, freedom, and role in society -- signals a bleak future for them in 2024 and beyond.

Many observers say the move by the Taliban in December to only allow girls to attend religious madrasahs -- after shutting down formal schooling for them following the sixth grade -- is an effort by the Taliban to radicalize Afghan society.

“Madrasahs are not an alternative to formal schooling because they don’t produce doctors, lawyers, journalists, engineers, etc. The idea of [only] having madrasahs is…about brainwashing [people] to create an extremist society,” says Shukria Barakzai, the former Afghan ambassador to Norway.

The crackdown on women’s rights by the Taliban will also continue the reported uptick in domestic violence in the country, activists say.

Since the Taliban shut down Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission and Women Affairs Ministry, women find themselves with nowhere to turn to and find it extremely difficult to seek justice in Taliban courts.

With no justice for victims of abuse on the horizon, women’s rights activists say violence against women will continue with no repercussions for the perpetrators.

Barakzai argues that Taliban officials have already normalized domestic violence and do not consider it a crime.

“According to [a Taliban] decree, you can [confront] women if they are not listening to [your requests]. Especially a male member of the family is allowed to use all means to punish women if they refuse to follow his orders. That is basically a call for domestic violence,” she said.

The vicious spiral for women will only worsen.

Being banned from education, work, and public life, Afghan women say the resulting psychological impact leads to panic, depression, and acute mental health crises.

Although there are no official figures, Afghan mental health professionals and foreign organizations have noted a disturbing surge in female suicides in the two years since the Taliban came to power.

"If we look at the women who were previously working or studying, 90 percent suffer from mental health issues now," said Mujeeb Khpalwak, a psychiatrist in Kabul. "They face tremendous economic uncertainty after losing their work and are very anxious about their future."

Heather Bar, associate director of the women's rights division at Human Rights Watch, says, "It's not surprising that we're hearing reports of Afghan girls committing suicide. Because all their rights, including going to school, university, and recreational places have been taken away from them."

Promising young Afghan women who once aspired to contribute to their communities after pursuing higher education now find themselves with no career prospects.

“I do not see any future. When I see boys continuing their education, I lose all hope and wish that I was not born a girl,” a former medical student in Kabul told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi.

Despite immense global pressure, the Taliban seems adamant about maintaining its severe limits on women and reducing their role in society. This will result in a tragic future for the women of Afghanistan with no relief in sight.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

• The war in Ukraine will persist until the West realizes that a return to the previous world order is unattainable.
• In Iran, with parliamentary elections scheduled for March, the government is likely to face yet another challenge to its legitimacy.
• In Belarus, setbacks for Russia in Ukraine could prompt the Lukashenka regime to attempt to normalize relations with the West.
• While 2024 will see a rightward shift in the EU, it is unlikely to bring the deluge of populist victories that some are predicting.
• The vicious spiral for women in Afghanistan will only worsen.
• Peace between Armenia and its neighbors could set the stage for a Russian exit from the region.
• Hungary's upcoming leadership of the European Council could prove a stumbling block to the start of EU accession talks with Ukraine.
• Kyrgyzstan is on course to feel the pain of secondary sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine if the West's patience runs out.

Here, then, are our correspondents' predictions for 2024. To find out more about the authors themselves, click on their bylines.

The Ukraine War: A Prolonged Stalemate

By Vitaliy Portnikov

In September 2022, Ukrainian generals Valeriy Zaluzhniy and Mykhaylo Zabrodskiy presciently warned that Russia's aggression against Ukraine would unfold into a protracted conflict. Fast forward 15 months, and the front line is effectively frozen, with neither Ukrainian nor Russian offensives yielding substantial changes.

As 2023 comes to a close, observers find themselves revisiting themes familiar from the previous year: the potential for a major Ukrainian counteroffensive, the extent of Western aid to Kyiv, the possibility of a "frozen conflict,” security assurances for Ukraine, and the prospects for its Euro-Atlantic integration ahead of a NATO summit.

It is conceivable that, by the close of 2024, we will still be grappling with these same issues. A political resolution seems elusive, given the Kremlin's steadfast refusal to entertain discussions on vacating the parts of Ukraine its forces occupy. Conversely, Ukraine’s definition of victory is the full restoration of its territorial integrity.

Even if, in 2024, one side achieves a military victory -- whether through the liberation of part of Ukraine or Russia seizing control of additional regions -- it won't necessarily bring us closer to a political resolution. Acknowledging this impasse is crucial, as Russian President Vladimir Putin's assault on Ukraine is part of a broader agenda: a push to reestablish, if not the Soviet Empire, at least its sphere of influence.

For Ukraine, resistance to Russian aggression is about not just reclaiming occupied territories but also safeguarding statehood, political identity, and national integrity. Western support is crucial for Ukraine's survival and the restoration of its territorial integrity. However, this backing aims to avoid escalation into a direct conflict between Russia and the West on Russia's sovereign territory.

The war's conclusion seems contingent on the depletion of resources on one of the two sides, with Ukraine relying on continued Western support and Russia on oil and gas revenues. Hence, 2024 might echo the patterns of 2023. Even if external factors shift significantly -- such as in the U.S. presidential election in November -- we might not witness tangible changes until 2025.

Another potential variable is the emergence of major conflicts akin to the war in the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, this would likely signify the dissipation of Western resources rather than a shift in approaches to war.

In essence, the war in Ukraine will persist until the West realizes that a return to the previous world order is unattainable. Constructing a new world order demands unconventional measures, such as offering genuine security guarantees to nations victimized by aggression or achieving peace, or at least limiting the zone of military operations to the current contact line, without direct agreements with Russia.

So far, such understanding is lacking, and the expectation that Moscow will eventually grasp the futility of its ambitions only emboldens Putin. Consequently, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine will endure, potentially spawning new, equally perilous local wars worldwide.

Iran: Problems Within And Without

By Hannah Kaviani

Iran has been dealing with complex domestic and international challenges for years and the same issues are likely to plague it in 2024. But officials in Tehran appear to be taking a “wait-and-see” approach to its lengthy list of multilayered problems.

Iran enters 2024 as Israel's war in Gaza continues and the prospects for a peaceful Middle East are bleak, with the situation exacerbated by militia groups firmly supported by Tehran.

Iran’s prominent role in supporting paramilitary forces in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen has also drawn the ire of the international community and will continue to be a thorn in the side of relations with the West.

Tehran has refused to cooperate with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency over its nuclear program, resulting in an impasse in talks with the international community. And with the United States entering an election year that could see the return of Donald Trump to the presidency, the likelihood of Tehran and Washington resuming negotiations -- which could lead to a reduction in sanctions -- is considered very low.

But Iran's problems are not limited to outside its borders.

The country’s clerical regime is still reeling from the massive protests that began in 2022 over the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody after her arrest for not obeying hijab rules. The aftershocks of the Women, Life, Freedom movement that emanated from her death were reflected in acts of civil disobedience that are likely to continue in 2024.

At the same time, a brutal crackdown continues as civil rights activists, students, religious minorities, and artists are being beaten, detained, and/or given harsh prison sentences.

With parliamentary elections scheduled for March, the government is likely to face yet another challenge to its legitimacy as it struggles with low voter turnout and general disinterest in another round of controlled elections.

Another critical issue Iranian officials must continue to deal with in 2024 is the devastated economy resulting from the slew of international sanctions because of its controversial nuclear program. After a crushing year of 47 percent inflation in 2023 (a 20-year high, according to the IMF), costs are expected to continue to rise for many foods and commodities, as well as real estate.

Iran’s widening budget deficit due to reduced oil profits continues to cripple the economy, with the IMF reporting that the current government debt is equal to three annual budgets.

With neither the international community nor the hard-line Tehran regime budging, most analysts see scant chances for significant changes in Iran in the coming year.

Belarus: Wider War Role, Integration With Russia Not In The Cards

By Valer Karbalevich

Belarus has been pulled closer into Moscow’s orbit than ever by Russia’s war in Ukraine -- but in 2024, it’s unlikely to be subsumed into the much larger nation to its east, and chances are it won’t step up its so-far limited involvement in the conflict in the country to its south.

The most probable scenario in Belarus, where the authoritarian Alyaksandr Lukashenka will mark 30 years since he came to power in 1994, is more of the same: No letup in pressure on all forms of dissent at home, no move to send troops to Ukraine. And while Russia’s insistent embrace will not loosen, the Kremlin will abstain from using Belarusian territory for any new ground attacks or bombardments of Ukraine.

But the war in Ukraine is a wild card, the linchpin influencing the trajectory of Belarus in the near term and beyond. For the foreseeable future, what happens in Belarus -- or to it -- will depend in large part on what happens in Russia’s assault on Ukraine.

Should the current equilibrium on the front persist and Western support for Ukraine persist, the likelihood is a continuation of the status quo for Belarus. The country will maintain its allegiance to Russia, marked by diplomatic and political support. Bolstered by Russian loans, Belarus's defense industry will further expand its output.

The Belarusian state will continue to militarize the border with Ukraine, posing a perpetual threat to Kyiv and diverting Ukrainian troops from the eastern and southern fronts. At the same time, however, Russia is unlikely to use Belarusian territory as a launching point for fresh assaults on Ukraine, as it did at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022.

If Russia wins or scores substantial victories -- if Ukraine is forced into negotiations on Moscow’s terms, for example, or the current front line comes to be considered the international border -- Lukashenka, consolidating his position within the country, will reap "victory dividends." But relations between Belarus and Russia are unlikely to change dramatically.

Potentially, Moscow could take major steps to absorb Belarus, diminishing its sovereignty and transforming its territory into a staging ground for a fresh assault on Kyiv. This would increase tensions with the West and heighten concerns about the tactical nuclear weapons Moscow and Minsk say Russia has transferred to Belarus. However, this seems unlikely due to the absence of military necessity for Moscow and the problems it could create on the global stage.

The loss of Belarusian sovereignty would pose a major risk for Lukashenka and his regime. An overwhelming majority of Belarusians oppose the direct involvement of Belarus in the war against Ukraine. This fundamental distinction sets Belarus apart from Russia, and bringing Belarus into the war could trigger a political crisis in Belarus -- an outcome Moscow would prefer to avoid.

If Russia loses the war or sustains significant defeats that weaken Putin, Lukashenka's regime may suffer economic and political repercussions. This could prompt him to seek alternative global alliances, potentially leading to an attempt to normalize relations with the West.

Russia, Ukraine, And The West: Sliding Toward World War III

By Sergei Medvedev

2024 will be a critical year for the war in Ukraine and for the entire international system, which is quickly unraveling before our eyes. The most crucial of many challenges is a revanchist, resentful, belligerent Russia, bent on destroying and remaking the world order. In his mind, President Vladimir Putin is fighting World War III, and Ukraine is a prelude to a global showdown.

Despite Western sanctions, Russia has consolidated its position militarily, domestically, and internationally in 2023. After setbacks and shocks in 2022, the military has stabilized the front and addressed shortages of arms, supplies, and manpower. Despite latent discontent, the population is not ready to question the war, preferring to stay in the bubble of learned ignorance and the lies of state propaganda.

Here are four scenarios for 2024:

Strategic stalemate in Ukraine, chaos in the international system: The West, relaxed by a 30-year “peace dividend,” lacks the vision and resolve of the 1980s, when its leaders helped bring about the U.S.S.R.’s collapse, let alone the courage of those who stood up to Nazi Germany in World War II. Putin’s challenge to the free world is no less significant than Hitler’s was, but there is no Roosevelt or Churchill in sight. Probability: 70 percent

Widening war, collapse or division of Ukraine: Russia could defend and consolidate its gains in Ukraine, waging trench warfare while continuing to destroy civilian infrastructure, and may consider a side strike in Georgia or Moldova -- or against Lithuania or Poland, testing NATO. A frontal invasion is less likely than a hybrid operation by “unidentified” units striking from Belarus, acts of sabotage, or unrest among Russian-speakers in the Baltic states. Other Kremlin operations could occur anywhere in the world. The collapse of Ukraine’s government or the division of the country could not be ruled out. Probability: 15 percent.

Russia loses in Ukraine: A military defeat for Russia, possibly entailing a partial or complete withdrawal from Ukraine. Consistent Western support and expanded supplies of arms, like F-16s or Abrams tanks, or a big move such as closing the skies over Ukraine, could provide for this outcome. It would not necessarily entail Russia’s collapse -- it could further consolidate the nation around Putin’s regime. Russia would develop a resentful identity grounded in loss and defeat -- and harbor the idea of coming back with a vengeance. Probability: 10 percent

Russia’s Collapse: A military defeat in Ukraine could spark social unrest, elite factional battles, and an anti-Putin coup, leading to his demotion or violent death. Putin’s natural death, too, could set off a succession struggle, causing chaos in a country he has rid of reliable institutions. While breakup into many regions is unlikely, the empire could crumble at the edges -- Kaliningrad, Chechnya, the Far East – like in 1917 and 1991. Russia’s nuclear weapons would be a big question mark, leading to external involvement and possible de-nuclearization. For all its perils, this scenario might provide a framework for future statehood in Northern Eurasia. Probability: 5 percent

EU: 'Fortress Europe' And The Ukraine War

By Rikard Jozwiak

2024 will see a rightward shift in the European Union, but it is unlikely to bring the deluge of populist victories that some are predicting since Euroskeptics won national elections in the Netherlands, Poland, and Slovakia and polled well in Austria and Germany.

The European Parliament elections in June will be the ultimate test for the bloc in that respect. Polls still suggest the two main political groups, the center-right European People's Party and the center-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, will finish on top, albeit with a smaller share of the vote. But right-wing populist parties are likely to fail once again to agree on the creation of a single political group, thus eroding their influence in Brussels.

This, in turn, is likely to prod more pro-European groups into combining forces again to divvy up EU top jobs like the presidencies of the European Commission, the bloc's top executive body, and the European Council, which defines the EU's political direction and priorities. Center-right European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is widely tipped to get a second term, even though she might fancy NATO's top job as secretary-general. Charles Michel, on the other hand, will definitely be out as European Council president after serving the maximum five years.

While right-wing populists may not wield major influence in the horse-trading for those top jobs, they will affect policy going forward. They have already contributed to a hardening of attitudes on migration, and you can expect to hear more of the term "fortress Europe" as barriers go up on the EU's outer border.

The biggest question for 2024, however, is about how much support Brussels can provide Ukraine going forward. Could the "cost-of-living crisis" encourage members to side with Budapest to block financial aid or veto the start of de facto accession talks with that war-torn country? The smart money is still on the EU finding a way to green-light both those decisions in 2024, possibly by unfreezing more EU funds for Budapest.

Although it seems like a remote possibility, patience could also finally wear out with Hungary, and the other 26 members could decide to strip it of voting rights in the Council of the European Union, which amends, approves, and vetoes European Commission proposals -- essentially depriving it of influence. In that respect, Austria and Slovakia, Budapest's two biggest allies right now, are the EU countries to watch.

The one surefire guarantee in Europe isn't about the European Union at all but rather about NATO: After somehow failing to join as predicted for each of the past two years, against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Sweden will become the transatlantic military alliance's 32nd member once the Turkish and Hungarian parliaments vote to ratify its accession protocol.

Caucasus: A Peace Agreement Could Be Transformative

By Josh Kucera

Could 2024 be the year that Armenia and Azerbaijan finally formally resolve decades of conflict?

This year, Azerbaijan effectively decided -- by force -- their most contentious issue: the status of the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. With its lightning offensive in September, Azerbaijan placed Karabakh firmly under its control. Both sides now say they've reached agreement on most of their fundamental remaining issues, and diplomatic talks, after an interruption, appear set to resume.

A resolution of the conflict could transform the region. If Armenia and Azerbaijan made peace, a Turkish-Armenian rapprochement could soon follow. Borders between the three countries would reopen as a result, ending Armenia's long geographical isolation and priming the South Caucasus to take full advantage of new transportation projects seeking to ship cargo between Europe and Asia while bypassing Russia.

Peace between Armenia and its neighbors also could set the stage for a Russian exit from the region. Russian-Armenian security cooperation has been predicated on potential threats from Azerbaijan and Turkey. With those threats reduced, what's keeping the Russian soldiers, peacekeepers, and border guards there?

A Russian exit would be a messy process -- Moscow still holds many economic levers in Armenia -- but Yerevan could seek help from the United States and Europe to smooth any transition. Washington and Brussels have seemingly been waiting in the wings, nudging Armenia in their direction.

But none of this is likely to happen without a peace agreement. And while there don't seem to be any unresolvable issues remaining, there are mounting indications that Azerbaijan may not see it in its interests to make peace. Baku has gotten what it wanted most of all -- full control of Karabakh -- without an agreement. And maintaining a simmering conflict with Armenia could arguably serve Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev well, as it would allow him to continue to lean on a reliable source of public support: rallying against an Armenian enemy.

But perhaps the most conspicuous indication of a broader strategy is Aliyev's increasing invocation of "Western Azerbaijan" -- a hazily defined concept alluding to ethnic Azerbaijanis who used to live on the territory of what is now Armenia and their presumed right to return to their homes. It suggests that Azerbaijan might keep furthering its demands in hopes that Armenia finally throws in the towel, and each can accuse the other of intransigence.

Hungary: The Return Of Big Brother?

By Pablo Gorondi

Critics might be tempted to believe that Big Brother will be watching over Hungarians in 2024 like at no point since the fall of communism.

A new law on the Defense of National Sovereignty will allow the Office for the Defense of Sovereignty, which the law created, to investigate and request information from almost any group in Hungary that receives foreign funding. This will apply to civic groups, political parties, private businesses, media companies -- in fact, anyone deemed to be conducting activities (including "information manipulation and disinformation") in the interests of a foreign "body, organization, or person."

The law has been criticized by experts from the United Nations and the Council of Europe over its seemingly vague language, lack of judicial oversight, and fears that it could be used by the government "to silence and stigmatize independent voices and opponents."

The head of the Office for the Defense of Sovereignty should be nominated for a six-year term by right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban and appointed by President Katalin Novak by February 1. This would allow the new authority to carry out investigations and present findings ahead of simultaneous elections to the European Parliament and Hungarian municipal bodies in early June -- possibly influencing their outcomes.

Asked by RFE/RL's Hungarian Service, some experts said fears of the new authority are overblown and that the government is more likely to use it as a threat hanging over opponents than as a direct tool for repression -- at least until it finds it politically necessary or expedient to tighten control.

On the international scene, meanwhile, Hungary will take over the Council of the European Union's six-month rotating presidency in July, a few weeks after voting to determine the composition of a new European Parliament.

MEPs from Orban's Fidesz party exited the center-right European People's Party bloc in 2021 and have not joined another group since then, although some observers expect them to join the more Euroskeptic and nationalist European Conservatives and Reformists.

Orban has for years predicted a breakthrough of more radical right-wing forces in Europe. But while that has happened in Italy, the Netherlands, and Slovakia, experts suggest that's not enough to fuel a significant shift in the European Parliament, where the center-right and center-left should continue to hold a clear majority.

Because of the June elections, the European Parliament's activities will initially be limited -- and its election of a European Commission president could prove complicated. Nevertheless, Orban has said in recent interviews that he wants to "fix the European Union" and that "we need to take over Brussels." So, Hungary's leadership may make progress difficult on issues that Orban opposes, like the start of EU accession talks with Ukraine or a possible reelection bid by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Stability And The 'Serbian World'

By Gjeraqina Tuhina and Milos Teodorovic

Serbia, once again, will be a key player in the region -- and its moves could significantly shape events in the Balkans over the next 12 months.

For over a decade, the dialogue to normalize relations between Serbia and its former province Kosovo has stymied both countries. Then, in February in Brussels and March in Ohrid, North Macedonia, European mediators announced a path forward and its implementation. There was only one problem: There was no signature on either side. Nine months later, little has changed.

Many eyes are looking toward one aspect in particular -- a renewed obligation for Pristina to allow for an "appropriate level of self-management" for the Serb minority in Kosovo. This also entails creating possibilities for financial support from Serbia to Kosovar Serbs and guarantees for direct communication of the Serb minority with the Kosovar government.

In October, EU mediators tried again, and with German, French, and Italian backing presented both parties with a new draft for an association of Serb-majority municipalities. Both sides accepted the draft. EU envoy to the region Miroslav Lajcak suggested in December that the Ohrid agreement could be implemented by the end of January. If that happened, it would mark a decisive step for both sides in a dialogue that began in 2011.

"The Serbian world" is a phrase launched a few years ago by pro-Russian Serbian politician Aleksandar Vulin, a longtime cabinet minister who until recently headed the Serbian Intelligence Service. It is not officially part of the agenda of either Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic or the government, but it underscores the influence that Serbia seeks to wield from Kosovo and Montenegro to Republika Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina. But how Vucic chooses to exert the implicit ties to Serb leaders and nationalists in those countries could do much to promote stability -- or its antithesis -- in the Balkans in 2024.

Another major challenge for Vucic revolves around EU officials' request that candidate country Serbia harmonize its foreign policy with the bloc. So far, along with Turkey, Serbia is the only EU candidate that has not introduced sanctions on Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It is unclear how far the Serbian president is willing to push back to foster ongoing good relations with Moscow.

But first, Serbia will have to confront the fallout from snap elections in December dominated by Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party but rejected by the newly united opposition as fraudulent. The results sparked nightly protests in the capital and hunger strikes by a half-dozen lawmakers and other oppositionists. A new parliament is scheduled to hold a session by the end of January 2024, and the margins are seemingly razor-thin for control of the capital, Belgrade.

Central Asia: Don't Write Russia Off Just Yet

By Chris Rickleton

Will the empire strike back? 2023 has been a galling year for Russia in Central Asia as it watched its traditional partners (and former colonies) widen their diplomatic horizons.

With Russia bogged down in a grueling war in Ukraine, Moscow has less to offer the region than ever before. Central Asia’s five countries have made the most of the breathing space, with their leaders holding landmark talks with U.S. and German leaders as French President Emmanuel Macron also waltzed into Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with multibillion-dollar investments.

And China has reinforced its dominant position in the region, while Turkey has also increased its influence.

But don’t write Russia off just yet.

One of Moscow’s biggest wins in the neighborhood this year was an agreement to supply Uzbekistan with nearly 3 billion cubic meters of gas every year, a figure that could increase.

Power deficits in Uzbekistan and energy-rich Kazakhstan are the most obvious short-term sources of leverage for Moscow over those important countries.

The coming year will likely bring more in terms of specifics over both governments’ plans for nuclear power production, with Russia fully expected to be involved.

And Moscow’s confidence in a region that it views as its near abroad will only increase if it feels it is making headway on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Tajikistan

Tajikistan’s hereditary succession has been expected for so long that people have stopped expecting it. Does that mean it is back on the cards for 2024? Probably not.

In 2016, Tajikistan passed a raft of constitutional changes aimed at cementing the ruling Rahmon family’s hold on power. Among them was one lowering the age to run for president from 35 to 30.

That amendment had an obvious beneficiary -- veteran incumbent Emomali Rahmon’s upwardly mobile son, Rustam Emomali. But Emomali is now 36 and, despite occupying a political post that makes him next in line, doesn’t look any closer to becoming numero uno.

Perhaps there hasn’t been a good time to do it.

From the coronavirus pandemic to a bloody crackdown on unrest in the Gorno-Badakhshan region and now the shadows cast by the Ukraine war, there have been plenty of excuses to delay the inevitable.

Turkmenistan

But perhaps Rahmon is considering events in Turkmenistan, where Central Asia’s first father-son power transition last year has ended up nothing of the sort. Rather than growing into the role, new President Serdar Berdymukhammedov is shrinking back into the shadow of his all-powerful father, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov.

And this seems to be exactly how the older Berdymukhammedov wanted it, subsequently fashioning himself a post-retirement post that makes his son and the rest of the government answerable to him.

But Turkmenistan’s bizarre new setup begs a question: If you’re not ready to let it go, why not hold on a little longer?

Kyrgyzstan/Kazakhstan

Writing on X (formerly Twitter) in November, a former IMF economist argued that Kyrgyzstan would be the "perfect test case" for secondary sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Robin Brooks described the country as "small, not remotely systemically important, and very clearly facilitating trade diversion to Russia."

Official statistics show that countries in the Eurasian Economic Union that Moscow leads have become a “backdoor” around the Western-led sanctions targeting Russia. Exports to Kyrgyzstan from several EU countries this year, for example, are up by at least 1,000 percent compared to 2019.

Data for exports to Kazakhstan shows similar patterns -- with larger volumes but gentler spikes -- while investigations by RFE/RL indicate that companies in both Central Asian countries have forwarded “dual-use” products that benefit the Kremlin’s military machine.

Belarus is the only Russian ally to get fully sanctioned for its support of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine -- but will that change in 2024?

Central Asian governments will argue they have resisted Russian pressure to provide political and military support for the war. They might even whisper that their big friend China is much more helpful to Russia.

But the West’s approach of targeting only Central Asian companies actively flouting the regime is failing.

So, while Western diplomats continue to credit the region’s governments for their anti-evasion efforts, their patience may wear out. And if it does, Kyrgyzstan might be first to find out.

Afghanistan: The Vicious Spiral Will Worsen

By Malali Bashir

With little internal threat to Afghanistan’s Taliban regime and the failure of the international community to affect change in the hard-line Islamist regime’s policies, the Taliban mullahs’ control over the country continues to tighten.

And that regime’s continued restrictions on Afghan women -- their rights, freedom, and role in society -- signals a bleak future for them in 2024 and beyond.

Many observers say the move by the Taliban in December to only allow girls to attend religious madrasahs -- after shutting down formal schooling for them following the sixth grade -- is an effort by the Taliban to radicalize Afghan society.

“Madrasahs are not an alternative to formal schooling because they don’t produce doctors, lawyers, journalists, engineers, etc. The idea of [only] having madrasahs is…about brainwashing [people] to create an extremist society,” says Shukria Barakzai, the former Afghan ambassador to Norway.

The crackdown on women’s rights by the Taliban will also continue the reported uptick in domestic violence in the country, activists say.

Since the Taliban shut down Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission and Women Affairs Ministry, women find themselves with nowhere to turn to and find it extremely difficult to seek justice in Taliban courts.

With no justice for victims of abuse on the horizon, women’s rights activists say violence against women will continue with no repercussions for the perpetrators.

Barakzai argues that Taliban officials have already normalized domestic violence and do not consider it a crime.

“According to [a Taliban] decree, you can [confront] women if they are not listening to [your requests]. Especially a male member of the family is allowed to use all means to punish women if they refuse to follow his orders. That is basically a call for domestic violence,” she said.

The vicious spiral for women will only worsen.

Being banned from education, work, and public life, Afghan women say the resulting psychological impact leads to panic, depression, and acute mental health crises.

Although there are no official figures, Afghan mental health professionals and foreign organizations have noted a disturbing surge in female suicides in the two years since the Taliban came to power.

"If we look at the women who were previously working or studying, 90 percent suffer from mental health issues now," said Mujeeb Khpalwak, a psychiatrist in Kabul. "They face tremendous economic uncertainty after losing their work and are very anxious about their future."

Heather Bar, associate director of the women's rights division at Human Rights Watch, says, "It's not surprising that we're hearing reports of Afghan girls committing suicide. Because all their rights, including going to school, university, and recreational places have been taken away from them."

Promising young Afghan women who once aspired to contribute to their communities after pursuing higher education now find themselves with no career prospects.

“I do not see any future. When I see boys continuing their education, I lose all hope and wish that I was not born a girl,” a former medical student in Kabul told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi.

Despite immense global pressure, the Taliban seems adamant about maintaining its severe limits on women and reducing their role in society. This will result in a tragic future for the women of Afghanistan with no relief in sight.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.