“It is outrageous that journalist Sneha Barve, who was nearly killed for exposing wrongdoing, has been threatened once again, while the main suspect in her assault walks free,” said Kunāl Majumder, CPJ’s India representative. “Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis must urgently guarantee Sneha Barve’s safety to send a clear message that attacks on the press will not be tolerated and ensure those responsible are swiftly prosecuted.”

Barve told CPJ that on July 24, Prashant Pandurang Morde – who was arrested for his role in the earlier attack on the journalist – accosted her outside her office in the town of Manchar and threatened her, saying, “This time, we should finish the matter for good.”

On July 4, Barve, founder of the Samarth Bharat Pariwar YouTube-based news channel, was attacked by a group of men while reporting on alleged illegal construction on disputed land in Manchar, Pune district. A video of the attack shows a man striking Barwe with a wooden rod before she loses consciousness.

Five suspects were arrested but released on bail three days later.

The man accused of wielding the rod, Pandurang Sakharam Morde, a businessman with alleged political connections, was named in the First Information Report opening the investigation, but has not been arrested.

On July 18, Prashant Morde, son of Pandurang Sakharam Morde, went to Barve’s father’s office and threatened to harm the entire family, the journalist told CPJ. In a complaint to police, reviewed by CPJ, Barve said the three suspects had been collecting information about her family and requested police protection.

CPJ’s WhatsApp messages requesting comment from Fadnavis’ media advisor, Ketan Pathak, did not receive any reply. Pune Rural Superintendent of Police Sandeep Gill told CPJ by WhatsApp that he would reply, but did not immediately respond to queries. CPJ was unable to immediately source contact information for Morde.

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

Several users on social media have claimed that he is a Muslim person who was on a flight to Glasgow. Some users have alleged that he is a Pakistani.

X user Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) shared the video with these claims. At the time of this article being written, the post has garnered more than 10 lakh views. (Archive)

Video footage of the Muslim on a flight to Glasgow screaming “allahu akbar”, threatening to bomb the plane and ranting about Trump.

He was arrested upon arrival.

No mention from the legacy media what he was doing. https://t.co/RL0xJJCfRc pic.twitter.com/3msqIXkT3A

— Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) July 27, 2025

X user Megh Updates also posted the video with the same claim — that the man i a Muslim. The post had around 43,000 views at the time of this article being written. Readers should note that this user frequently shares misinformation and communal propaganda on X. (Archive) 

Video footage of the Muslim on a flight to Glasgow screaming “allahu akbar”, threatening to bomb the plane and ranting about Trump.

He was arrested upon arrival. A Pakistani ? pic.twitter.com/deGaMYKAgt

— Megh Updates (@MeghUpdates) July 27, 2025

Other X users, like (@ocjain4), (@Basil_TGMD) and (@Incognito_qfs) also amplified the viral claims. (Archives: 1, 2, 3)

Screenshots below:

Fact Check

To verify the authenticity of the viral claims, we ran a relevant keyword search on Google to find out more about the incident. A BBC report identified the person shouting the slogans in a Luton to Glasgow flight on July 27 as 41-year-old Abhay Nayak, a resident of Luton.

We found several other reports in the incident in prominent media outlets, including The Times of India, The Telegraph, Deccan Herald, and Sky News. In every report, the individual was identified as Abhay Devdas Nayak, a man of Indian origin. He has not been charged with terrorism, but has been remanded in custody, and is due in court next week, according to the reports.

Some witnesses said Nayak had claimed he wanted to “send a message” to Trump he latter was visiting Scotland. the US President was on a trip to Scotland from July 27 to 29.

In conclusion, the video has been amplified with the suggestion that a Muslim man was threatening to bomb a plane, while shouting ‘Allah Hu Akbar’. On investigating, Alt News found that the man was a Hindu resident of Luton, named Abhay Nayak.

The post Man who shouted ‘Allah Hu Akbar’ & ‘Death to Trump’ on UK flight is a Hindu appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Prantik Ali.

As more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed seeking aid at militarized aid distribution sites run by the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a former GHF security contractor tells Democracy Now! he saw U.S. mercenaries and Israeli forces commit war crimes by indiscriminately shooting at starving Palestinians waiting for aid. “What I witnessed in Gaza, I can only describe as a dystopian, post-apocalyptic wasteland,” says Anthony Aguilar, a retired U.S. soldier who worked as a subcontractor with UG Solutions in the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid delivery operation. “We, the United States, are complicit. We are involved, hand in hand, in the atrocities and the genocide that is currently undergoing in Gaza.”

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.

They went to a Las Vegas conference this month that promised pathways to an “unlimited lifespan.” But at least two attendees left in ambulances and were hospitalized in critical condition, requiring ventilators to breathe.

The two women, who are recovering, fell ill after receiving peptide injections at a conference booth. The doctor who ran the booth was a Los Angeles physician specializing in “age reversal” therapies who did not have permission to practice medicine or dispense prescriptions in Nevada. Public health investigators are trying to determine if anyone else who attended the Revolution Against Aging and Death Festival experienced a similar illness.

The investigation comes as peptides grow in popularity, thanks in part to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s promotion of the amino acid chains as a way to fight aging and chronic disease. Since becoming Health and Human Services secretary, Kennedy has vowed to end the Food and Drug Administration’s “war on peptides” and other alternative health therapies. Kent Holtorf, the doctor overseeing the booth where the women became ill, also has called for less regulation of alternative therapies and has criticized the FDA for blocking compounds he sees as lifesaving.

Holtorf told ProPublica he is cooperating with the investigation. “Of course, I want to get to the bottom of it. But almost assuredly it will come out that it was not the peptides.”

He said he became convinced the peptides weren’t the cause of the severe reactions after plugging everything he knows about the incident into an artificial intelligence app, which he said gave him a 57-page report that “basically says that it is impossible it was the peptides.” He refused to comment on what the report attributed the illnesses to.

“I don’t think it was the peptides, but I don’t want to try and push the blame and say it wasn’t us,” he said. “We are reassessing everything we are doing.”

Holtorf acknowledged he is not licensed in Nevada but said he hired a practitioner who is and did not personally write prescriptions or administer therapies at his booth. “I knew what was going on but was not hands on,” he said.

He described the situation as “horrific” and “unacceptable” and said he’s “terribly sorry.”

The FDA has approved dozens of peptide-based medications for treating serious health problems such as cancer, obesity and diabetes. But peptide therapies for anti-aging and regenerative health are largely made by compounding pharmacists who use peptide components to formulate drugs that aren’t commercially available or approved for that particular use. Compounded drugs are not reviewed for safety and efficacy by the FDA. The agency also has found “significant safety risks” with at least 18 of the most popular peptide compounding components.

“Anyone who undergoes any sort of medical treatment, no matter how benign, needs to be very wary that even the most benign intervention can have fatal side effects,” said Dr. Amy Gutman, a Florida emergency room doctor who speaks about metabolic research and ketogenic diets and appeared at RAADFest. “And if you are in a hotel and don’t have lifesaving equipment near you, then that is a risk you have to be aware of.”

The two women, a 38-year-old from California and a 51-year-old from Nevada, received injections on July 13 at RAADFest, which is organized by an Arizona-based nonprofit that has built a community hoping to cheat death. According to a police report, both were injected at a booth run by Holtorf, who is licensed in California but not Nevada. Holtorf’s advocacy for alternative therapies has invited controversy in the past, including his criticism of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine in a Fox News interview in 2009. More recently, his practice was advised by the Federal Trade Commission to cease making claims on its website that his peptide therapies could treat or prevent COVID-19. Holtorf said he removed the claims from his website even though he still believes certain peptides can be beneficial in treating COVID-19 and other viral infections.

Both the Southern Nevada Health District and the Nevada Board of Pharmacy confirmed they are investigating what led to the hospitalizations after being notified by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police that possibly as many as seven people at the conference were hospitalized. According to the police report, detectives were unable to confirm whether additional attendees got sick.

Investigators are examining whether the illnesses were caused by an infection, contamination related to the injections or an issue with the medication itself, according to documents obtained by ProPublica. The two women who were taken by ambulance to the hospital reported feeling as if their tongues were swelling and had trouble breathing and increased heart rates. By the time they reached the hospital, one was already intubated and the other had lost muscle control in her neck and couldn’t open her eyes or communicate with doctors, according to the police report.

Holtorf said he was “so freaked out” by what happened because none of the women’s symptoms “made any sense.” In 30 years of providing such treatments, he said he’s never seen such a reaction.

Event organizer James Strole, an Arizona businessman who has built a 50-year career selling the promise of eternal life to followers, said the two patients are recovering after several days in the hospital. He said “it’s not clear the people got sick as a result of treatment from Dr. Holtorf,” adding he’s “anxious” for the illnesses to be “deeply investigated.” He said nothing similar has happened in the 10 years he has been producing RAADFest.

This is the first year Holtorf offered therapies at the conference, Strole said. He added that Holtorf provided the therapies to 60 people at the event and has attempted to reach them to learn whether they experienced any problems. Holtorf said only six patients received peptides.

Strole said the coalition’s science board scrutinizes therapy providers before granting them permission to operate a booth in the conference’s exhibition hall, which organizers referred to as a clinic.

“The big concern is safety,” he said. “We look at who is doing the administering, whether it’s an injection or supplement. We look at the person and the company itself, what the efficacy is, how they operate, their safety measures. We look at all that.”

Strole said peptides are considered “generally safe” when taken under the direction of a doctor, adding that he takes them regularly. Holtorf also said he believes they are safe and that they saved his life when he was a young man suffering from a severe illness.

A review by ProPublica of both the pharmacy and medical board license databases showed no Nevada licenses for Holtorf or his medical practice. Out-of-state doctors who come to provide care at a conference such as RAADfest are required to obtain a special event license from the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners. (As of Friday, 103 doctors had obtained such a license.) To dispense or possess pharmaceuticals, practitioners must also be licensed by the Nevada Board of Pharmacy. RAADFest’s organizers, however, said they were unaware that Holtorf is not licensed to provide medical care or dispense medications in the state.

“In order to practice medicine in the state, you must be licensed,” said David Wuest, executive secretary of the Nevada Board of Pharmacy.

The Nevada Legislature has passed stricter laws as alternative therapies have become popular outside traditional medical settings. In 2017, for example, the state banned so-called Botox parties, requiring the anti-wrinkle injections only be administered in a medical office or spa equipped to deal with life-threatening emergencies. But beyond its standard medical licensing requirements, the state doesn’t have rules governing an event like RAADFest, where attendees receive an array of anti-aging therapies including gene therapies, peptide injections, dialysis-like blood detoxification, bone scans and light therapy.

Strole said he wasn’t aware that providers need a special in-state license to provide the type of therapies Holtorf offered, which he described as “neutraceuticals.”

“I’ve never heard they had to get from the state permission to do that under the auspices of giving a treatment of that nature, that’s not actually treating some disease or something,” Strole said.

According to the police report, Holtorf contracted with a Nevada-licensed nurse practitioner, who administered the injection to one of the women. He also contracted with another doctor, who mixed the vials and administered the injection to the second woman, the report said. That doctor does not appear to have the necessary Nevada licenses.

Holtorf declined to comment on the practitioners he hired for the event, other than to say he had worked with the doctor in the past.

Wuest said multiple providers might be investigated, but he wouldn’t confirm whether Holtorf is a subject of the probe. The board also is investigating whether the therapy provided to the patients required a medical or pharmaceutical license. The FDA is assisting in the investigation to determine what was in the injections, including whether it was a manufactured pharmaceutical or a compounded medication, Wuest said.

Holtorf’s medical practice and the peptide company he founded are affiliated with an organization, Forgotten Formula, that asserts a constitutional right to provide treatments as they see fit. On its website, the private membership association warns “all bodies in the public sector” that they “do not have any jurisdiction” over their doctors. “All doctors, healers, and members are protected under the shield of this organization,” the website says. “We operate member to member. Ignoring this disclaimer can lead to legal consequences against the party at fault.”

According to the police report, Holtorf told officers he obtained the peptides dispensed at the festival from Forgotten Formula. In the interview with ProPublica, however, he denied that, saying he’s not sure which of the many manufacturers he works with provided the peptides used at the booth.

The women received different peptide concoctions, according to the police report. Both included at least one component described by the FDA as posing significant risks when compounded. Holtorf said it is difficult to keep up with which peptides are banned and which are still acceptable for compounding.

“There is so much gray area,” he said. “People know they just get patients better.”

Despite the FDA warnings, peptides were popular among RAADFest attendees who were promised “beautiful life-saving therapies” at the event’s clinic. Event organizers touted that 70 longevity experts would be on hand during the four-day event at the Red Rock Casino Resort Spa but did not list the vendors providing treatments on the event website.

“We have a RAAD clinic, where people will be able to come in at discounted prices and try and do these therapies safely with doctors,” Strole told a Las Vegas TV news program while promoting the event.

Strole is executive director of the Scottsdale, Arizona-based Coalition for Radical Life Extension, one of a cluster of for-profit and nonprofit entities devoted to helping people achieve immortality founded by Strole and two “immortalist” business partners. Of the three co-founders, only Strole, who is in his 70s, is still alive.

Charles Brown, the original founder, claimed to have had a spiritual experience in the 1950s that showed him the path to immortality and proclaimed he could share that path with others, according to an Arizona Republic story. Brown died of Parkinson’s disease in 2014. His wife, Bernadeane “Bernie” Brown, who operated the for-profit People Unlimited with Strole, died of breast cancer in 2024. Her body is said to have been cryogenically preserved.

The nonprofit organizes the annual anti-aging festival, which charges more than $400 for a ticket, while People Unlimited offers monthly memberships for as much as $255 a month, according to its website. Members get access to weekly meetings, where Strole delivers motivational sermons on immortality and age reversal, as well as talks by guest speakers on wellness, discounts on “longevity protocols” and access to a community of people who “want you to live as much as they want to live.”

Gutman, the Florida emergency room doctor, spoke at the event earlier this month, her first time attending RAADFest. She left before the last day, when the two women were hospitalized, and hadn’t heard about the incident before a reporter called. But she said their symptoms — swollen tongue, trouble breathing, increased heart rate — sounded like an allergic reaction, which she said isn’t terribly common in peptide injections. But she cautioned that before injection the drugs are mixed with an agent that can sometimes pose problems.

Although she was skeptical of some of the therapies provided at the festival’s clinic, she said everyone she met there seemed to have “their heart in the right place” and genuinely wanted to help others “live their best lives.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Anjeanette Damon.

On July 12, X user @SouleFacts shared the images—one showing the two wearing garlands and another of them posing—and wrote that instead of mourning his son, who died five days ago, Shakeel chose to marry his daughter-in-law.

X users @SanataniMuslim_, @Vini__007, @Uday_Yadavji, @Warlock_Shubh and others shared the images with similar claims. The images and claims were also viral on Facebook.

It is worth noting that the same pictures were viral between 2019 and 2021 as well. At the time, the photographs were shared by several Bangladesh-based news outlets, such as Dhaka Post, Bangla TV, amadershomoy.com, news24bd.tv and dailynewstimesbd.com. These outlets had reported that Noor Islam (45) of Cheprajhar village in the Atwari Upazila of Panchagarh district, Bangladesh, married his 22-year-old daughter-in-law, Belal Hossai.

Fact Check

Alt News did a reverse image search of the viral images, which led us to a news report in Dainik Bhaskar’s Divya Marathi from November 8, 2017. According to the report, the man in the picture is Rajesh Kumar Himatsingka, a 70-year-old businessman from Assam, who was the managing director of Himatsingka Auto Enterprises Ltd. since 1987.

The report featured the same images that were doing the rounds on social media recently. The report said that Himatsingka was lonely after the death of his wife and remarried. The woman was much younger than him.

The Malayalam edition of The Times of India and Swadesh News also published a report on the same incident in 2017, along with the viral images. These articles also mention that Himatsingka faced much criticism online for marrying the woman, who was 45 years younger than him.

In May 2018, News18 Assam (North East) reported that Himatsingka was hospitalised after he tried to kill himself owing to a property-related dispute.

Thus, we were certain that the images were not of a Muslim man named Mohammad Shakeel from Uttar Pradesh but of someone named Rajesh Kumar Himatsingka.

However, a keyword search with Shakeel’s name and the viral claim led us to a case from the Bansangli village in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, from June 2025. According to reports by NDTV India and Times of India, a 55-year-old man named Shakeel allegedly eloped with his son’s fiancée and married her.

To sum up, the man and woman seen in the viral images are Rajesh Kumar Himatsingka and his younger wife from Assam, not Mohammad Shakeel. The images have been online since 2017 and werencirculated before with different claims. A man named Md Shakeel from Uttar Pradesh did marry his son’s fiancee, according to some media reports, but they are not the ones seen in the viral photos. Also, claims that Shakeel married his daughter-in-law five days after his son passed away are baseless.

The post Viral photos show Assam couple from 2017, not Muslim man from UP marrying his daughter-in-law after son’s death appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Pawan Kumar.

“The authorities of the Republic of the Congo must urgently investigate the threats against journalist Rosie Pioth and ensure she can continue her work without the looming possibility of being killed,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa regional director, from New York. “Many journalists working in the Republic of the Congo self-censor out of fear of reprisal, and the possibility that these threats will go without adequate response may only entrench those fears.”

Pioth, correspondent for the French government-owned outlet France 24 and director of the news site Fact Checking Congo, published an article on July 17, the anniversary of the bombing, which detailed how, after 43 years, victims’ families continue to demand justice and compensation.

Pioth emphasized how the story of the bombing had been “erased” with “No monuments. No textbooks. No national day. No public mention of this tragedy.” At the end of the report, she also announced intentions to publish further investigations on the bombing, which killed nine, and its aftermath.

The day after the article was published, unidentified individuals called and messaged death threats to Pioth, urging her to stop reporting about the bombing, according to Pioth and CPJ’s review of the messages. Pioth said her husband also received threatening messages directed at her.

“[A]re you the one encouraging your wife towards media provocations? You have 72 hours to decide to stop your publications. I am watching all your movements, and the unpredictable is not far away, dear infiltrator,” read one of the messages sent to her husband.

Pioth told CPJ that she went into hiding after the threats and intended to file a complaint with the prosecutor’s office in Brazzaville. The local professional association Journalism and Ethics Congo (JEC) also called for her protection.

CPJ’s calls and questions sent via messaging app to a Republic of the Congo government spokesperson and Minister of Communication and Media Thierry Moungalla did not receive a reply.

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

Authorities have stated that Askarov died in prison on July 25, 2020, from complications related to COVID-19. But they have failed to adequately respond to credible allegations that the 69-year-old was denied adequate medical care prior to his death, which followed years of declining health and insufficient treatment in jail.

“Five years have passed, and Kyrgyz authorities have yet to answer key questions about the death of the journalist and human rights defender Azimjon Askarov,” said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Senior Researcher Anna Brakha. “We call on the government to deliver justice by conducting a transparent investigation into the circumstances surrounding both his detention and death.” 

Askarov, who contributed to independent outlets including Fergana and Voice of Freedom, was arrested in June 2010 after reporting on human rights abuses during deadly interethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan. 

In September 2010, he was given a life sentence in a trial that was widely rejected as unfair, particularly as he was tortured by the police. Amnesty International condemned the charges as “fabricated and politically motivated.” Askarov was one of dozens of ethnic Uzbeks convicted for their alleged involvement in the violence.

In 2012, CPJ honored Askarov with its International Press Freedom Award and published a special report that found that Askarov was being punished in retaliation for his reporting on corrupt and abusive police and prosecutors.

CPJ emphasizes that without justice in Askarov’s case, press freedom in Kyrgyzstan remains in jeopardy. Since President Sadyr Japarov came to power in 2020, Kyrgyz authorities have launched an unprecedented crackdown on the independent press, shuttering critical outlets and jailing independent journalists.

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

More than a hundred aid organizations warned Wednesday that “mass starvation” is spreading in Gaza, as Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of Palestinians reaches an unspeakable turning point. As the crisis of humanity deepens, another Gaza Freedom Flotilla has set sail in the hopes of breaking Israel’s blockade and bringing life-saving supplies to the besieged Gaza Strip. Calling from the Handala ship while en route to Gaza, American labor organizer Chris Smalls, co-founder and former president of the Amazon Labor Union, speaks with TRNN editor-in-chief Maximillian Alvarez about the threats and sabotage attempts the Freedom Flotilla has already faced on its journey—and why that won’t deter the crew from their humanitarian mission.

Additional resources:

• Chris Smalls X account and Instagram
• Gaza Freedom Flotilla linktree 
• Ann Wright, Common Dreams, “Despite 2 sabotage attempts, the Gaza Flotilla Ship Handala sails onward”
• Marium Ali, Al Jazeera, “Freedom Flotillas: A history of attempts to break Israel’s siege of Gaza”

Credits:

• Studio Production: Maximillian Alvarez
• Post-Production: David Hebden

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Maximillian Alvarez.

Kapanda, a reporter with the privately owned broadcaster Notre Chaîne de Radio and the Identitenews news site, told CPJ that the death threats related to his coverage of the National Fund for the Repair of Victims of Sexual Violence and Crimes against Peace and Security of Humanity (FONAREV).

Established by the government in 2022, the fund has worked in response to the Kamuina Nsapu rebellion that erupted in August 2016 in Kasaï province, which killed thousands and displaced millions. Kapanda’s reporting has alleged fraud, manipulation, and nepotism by FONAREV Regional Coordinator Myrhant Mulumba, as Kapanda uncovered the identities of victims of the Kamuina Nsapu militias. 

“Journalists in the DRC too regularly face threats and intimidation from public officials. Authorities must investigate the death threats against journalist Sadam Kapanda wa Kapanda and ensure his safety,” said CPJ Regional Director Angela Quintal, from New York. “Reporting on matters of public interest, especially amid conflict, is essential for those with power to be held accountable and for the public to be informed about issues and actors that affect their lives.”

In separate calls and messages on July 2, 2025, Mulumba and Kasaï provincial Minister of the Interior Peter Tshisuaka threatened to kill Kapanda if he did not halt his critical coverage of the fund, according to the journalist and messages reviewed by CPJ. Kapanda said that Mulumba also offered him a job with the fund if he agreed to stop criticizing their operations, which Kapanda refused. 

Tshisuaka responded to CPJ’s request for comment by messaging app saying that, “The journalist does his job, and I do my job too, Kapanda should look for work elsewhere.” CPJ’s calls and messages to Mulumba went unanswered.

A third, unknown caller on July 2 threatened to have Kapanda killed, Kapanda told CPJ. On July 9, Kapanda said he received an additional death threat from an unidentified caller.

Around 2 a.m. on July 15, two unidentified, armed men arrived at Kapanda’s home and sought to enter, but fled when his neighbors began shouting, the journalist told CPJ. On July 16 and 17, Kapanda received further death threats via phone calls and messages, copies of which CPJ reviewed.

Kapanda told CPJ that he was unaware of police having opened an investigation into the threats.

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

Humaira Asghar Ali Chaudhry (1992 – 2025) was a Pakistani social media influencer, actress, model, reality TV star, and theatre artist who was linked with socially conscious theater groups. She was also into sculpting and painting. She was a graduate of the prestigious National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore with degrees in Fine Arts, TV, and Film. She earned her Masters in Philosophy from Punjab University.

Humaira last accessed her Facebook account on September 11, 2024  and her Instagram account on September 30. The last time she used her phone was on October 7 when she called 14 people but, none of them picked up her call. She left messages. One of them was an Islamabad-based famous director.

That was the last time she used her phone.

Humaira had been living alone in an apartment in Karachi’s Ittehad Commercial area of DHA Phase VI since 2018. According to Humaira’s landlord, the last rent she paid was in May 2024. The landlord complained to the courts of not receiving rent since then, a court-appointed bailiff with police joined him to visit the flat on July 8, 2025. When no one opened the door, it was broken into, and they found Humaira’s decomposed body lying on the floor. Electricity to her apartment had been cut-off since October 2024, for non-payment of bill. Humaira’s greatly decayed unrecognizable body was transported to Lahore to her family. She was buried on July 11. Her funeral was attended by only a few people.

Without being judgemental, actress Durefishan Saleem had a simple heartfelt message:

“Been thinking about life a lot lately. Not in terms of big dreams or loud success, but in the small, quiet moments.”

“I pray, with all my heart, that whenever [death] comes, for me or anyone, it doesn’t come in silence. Not in loneliness. Not in an empty room. But with love in the air. With familiar hands nearby. With someone who truly knew your heart.”

The police report was released on July 18, said chemical examination of her remains found no psychotropic drugs, intoxicants, tranquilizers, or any poisonous substances in her system.

She had three cellphones with over 2,000 saved contacts. With at least 75 people, she was in frequent contact and had had long conversations.

Stylist Danish Maqsood worked with Humaira on two photo-shoots, one in 2023 and the other on October 2, 2024. Maqsood’s request to Humaira for releasing images on social media didn’t receive an approval from her:

“When the request wasn’t approved, we tried calling her several times. After receiving no response, we messaged her on WhatsApp, but there was still no reply.”

He informed some digital publications about Humaira’s disappearance. After great efforts, he succeeded in a couple of them reporting her missing but, Maqsood regrets: it failed to garner attention of most people in the industry.

Humaira had not been in touch with her family for a long time. We don’t know if there were any family problems; speculation would probably be out of line.

But there remain several questions:

• In the nine months of her absence, why did none of the 75 people she often talked to become worried about her whereabouts?
• Did any of the last 14 people she contacted try to call her back? If they did, why didn’t they follow-up?
• In the world of celebrities, parties are as common as regular people going to the dollar store, why did no one notice her disappearance?
• In one of her last calls, she called a director which may have been work related, did that director think about what state she was in, and did he follow up on her missed call?

Entertainment industries worldwide do not have good reputation. Many people attracted to the glamor get exploited. The phrase rising Sun gets worshiped is very applicable to this industry. Once your star is down, you’re not allowed within the vicinity of the movie moguls’ sight; and you’re out of their mind. Then there are those who never find work which could lead to frustration, depression, and rejection that can lead to suicidal tendencies.

On 19 June, the dead body of another actress Ayesha Khan (1941 – 2025) was found as result of the neighbors complaint of a strong odor emanating from her place. She had been dead for a week! It’s tragic that people are lying dead for days and months without anyone knowing about it.

Most people working in the industry, including directors, actors, spot boys, lighting technicians, etc. don’t get paid on time.

Film and TV serial director Mehreen Jabbar:

“In the US, even with all their issues, there’s a fixed schedule for payments. People know when they’ll get paid. Here, you have to chase payments like beggars. Ask anyone and they’ll have horror stories. This is across every channel and production house. They [the crew members] do the hardest labour. But with no union, no rights, and no fair pay, they remain trapped. Working in Pakistan has become more disheartening. Compared to other places, the difference in professionalism and organization is stark.”

Many artists have the same complain including, senior artists who have now started voicing their grievances in the media.

(Renowned Indian singers Sunidhi Chauhan and Sonu Nigam said there are instances where they don’t get paid because Bollywood mafia controls things.)

There is no doubt Humaira was desperately looking for work. One of her two bank accounts had only Rs390,000 or about $1,375. The call to her close friend Dureshehwar revealed she was looking for work:

“I’m so sorry, I was traveling, caught up here and there. I’m so happy you’re in Makkah [on a pilgrimage]. Please pray a lot for me… Pray a lot from your heart for your cute friend/sister. For my career, please remember me in your prayers. You have to pray a lot for me.”

Pakistani society is very conservative and is rough on women, particularly on single women. The Global Gender Gap Index 2025 lists 148 countries of which Pakistan is ranked 148. Only 24% women are part of the labor force.

Sociologist Nida Kirmani gives an example of a woman named Saima who lived in a poor conservative neighborhood but found work in a very posh locality with a multinational department store where she made four times more money than most women, and even many men. She would put on an abaya (a loose overgarment) to cover her uniform but remove it once she reached her work because at work she would have seemed out of place in an abaya. Fortunately, her work company provided pick-and-drop service for their employees, otherwise, she would have faced verbal and or sexual harassment during her commute to work. Nevertheless, she still faced contempt from her neighbors and extended family members.

Coming back to Humaira, the cultural critic Aimun Faisal points out:

“It appears, at least to our moral gatekeepers, that there are no good women left in Pakistan.

“And so, perhaps understandably, people celebrate their deaths, leave their decaying bodies unclaimed, and repurpose their broken corpses as stark reminders — cautionary examples used to sermonize virtue. They preach goodness from behind their monetized YouTube accounts, from behind verified Twitter accounts, from the benches of the superior courts, from their pulpits, and from their news channels, and drawing rooms. And for their guidance, we are eternally grateful.”

Actor Osman Khalid Butt went after morality brigade and money makers:

“Stop turning people’s real trauma into content. Stop projecting your morality onto someone who’s not here to defend herself. Stop the speculation and the judgment, and the deflection. For God’s sake, just stop.”

Actress Mawra Hocane extended a helping hand:

“If you’re in trouble or caught in spiraling thoughts, if I have known you briefly or extensively, if you’re a friend or an acquaintance, if you’re from my fraternity and you feel I will understand your pressures, please reach out!”

Suggestion

What Mawra should do is get some of her fraternity on board to form a hotline service that artists in crisis, depression, and other problems are able to access. Also the service should try to reach artists who have been active but have suddenly vanished, like Humaira.

Humaira in the womb of death

for nine months,
life grows in the womb of a living being
it grows into a fetus
then turns into a human being
where as lifeless Humaira resided
nine months in the womb of death
when she was found,
one could say she was reborn but in a dead state
she was dead …
but became live fodder for news & social medias
many …
gossip-mongers, influencers, reporters, & others, cashed in
voyeuristic vloggers and commercial cameras not far behind
commercialism neither respects life, nor has regard for death
and custodians of morality too …
especially for a single woman from showbiz
why did it happen –
how can we stop more Humairas from happening?
for such questions,
the state has no interest,
nor any intention to pursue
the state resources are for
the ruling class’ families, friends, and donors …

VIDEO: Ahmad Ali Butt/ Youtube

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

New Caledonian politicians who inked their commitment to a deal with France last weekend will be offered special police protection following threats, especially made on social media networks.

The group includes almost 20 members of New Caledonia’s parties — both pro-France and pro-independence — who took part in deal-breaking negotiations with the French State that ended on 12 July 2025, and a joint commitment regarding New Caledonia’s political future.

The endorsed document envisages a roadmap in the coming months to turn New Caledonia into a “state” within the French realm.

• READ MORE: New Caledonia’s political parties commit to ‘historic’ statehood deal
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

It is what some legal experts have sometimes referred to as “a state within the state”, while others say this was tantamount to pushing the French Constitution to its very limits.

The document is a commitment by all signatories that they will stick to their respective positions from now on.

The tense but conclusive negotiations took place behind closed doors in a hotel in the small city of Bougival, near Paris, under talks driven by French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls and a team of high-level French government representatives and advisers.

It followed Valls’ several unsuccessful attempts earlier this year to reach a consensus between parties who want New Caledonia to remain part of France and others representing the pro-independence movement.

The pro-French parties, for instance, have had to endorse the notion of a State of New Caledonia or that of a double French-New Caledonian nationality.

Pro-independence parties have had to accept the plan to modify the rules of eligibility to vote at local elections so as to allow more non-native French nationals to join the local electoral roll.

They also had to postpone or even give up on the hard-line full sovereignty demand for now.

Over the past five years and after a series of three referendums (held between 2018 and 2021) on self-determination, both camps have increasingly radicalised.

This resulted in destructive and deadly riots that broke out in May 2024, resulting in 14 deaths, more than 2 billion euros (NZ$3.9 billion) in damage, thousands of jobless and the destruction of hundreds of businesses.

Over one year later, the atmosphere in New Caledonia remains marked by a sense of tension, fear and uncertainty on both sides of the political chessboard.

Since the deal was signed and made public, on July 12, and even before flying back to New Caledonia, all parties have been targeted by a wide range of reactions from their militant bases, especially on social media.

Some of the reactions have included thinly-veiled death threats in response to a perception that, on one side or another, the deal was not up to the militants’ expectations and that the parties’ negotiators are now regarded as “traitors”.

Since signing the Paris agreement, all parties have also recognised the need to “sell” and “explain” the new agreement to their respective militants.

Most of the political parties represented during the talks have already announced they will hold meetings in the coming days, in what is described as “an exercise in pedagogy”.

“In a certain number of countries, when you sign compromises after hundreds of hours of discussions and when it’s not accepted [by your militants], you lose your reputation. In our country . . . you can risk your life,” said moderate pro-France Calédonie Ensemble leader Philippe Gomès told public broadcaster NC La Première on Wednesday.

Pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) chief negotiator Emmanuel Tjibaou was the first to face negative repercussions back in New Caledonia.

Tjibaou’s fateful precedent
“To choose this difficult and new path also means we’ll be subject to criticism. We’re going to get insulted, threatened, precisely because we have chosen a different path,” he told a debriefing meeting hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.

In 1988, Tjibaou’s father, pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, also signed a historic deal (known as the Matignon-Oudinot accords) with pro-France’s Jacques Lafleur, under the auspices of then Prime Minister Michel Rocard.

The deal largely contributed to restoring peace in New Caledonia, after a quasi-civil war during the second half of the 1980s.

The following year, he and his deputy, Yeiwéné Yeiwéné, were both shot dead by Djubelly Wéa, a hard-line member of the pro-independence movement, who believed the signing of the 1988 deal had been a “betrayal” of the indigenous Kanak people’s struggle for sovereignty and independence.

‘Nobody has betrayed anybody’
“Nobody has betrayed anybody, whichever party he belongs to. All of us, on both sides, have defended and remained faithful to their beliefs. We had to work and together find a common ground for the years to come, for Caledonians. Now that’s what we need to explain,” said pro-France Rassemblement-LR leader Virginie Ruffenach.

In an interview earlier this week, Valls said he was very aware of the local tensions.

“I’m aware there are risks, even serious ones. And not only political. There are threats on elections, on politicians, on the delegations. What I’m calling for is debate, confrontation of ideas and calm.

“I’m aware that there are extremists out there, who may want to provoke a civil war . . . a tragedy is always possible.

“The risk is always there. Since the accord was signed, there have been direct threats on New Caledonian leaders, pro-independence or anti-independence.

“We’re going to act to prevent this. There cannot be death threats on social networks against pro-independence or anti-independence leaders,” Valls said.

Over the past few days, special protection French police officers have already been deployed to New Caledonia to take care of politicians who took part in the Bougival talks and wish to be placed under special scrutiny.

“They will be more protected than (French cabinet) ministers,” French national public broadcaster France Inter reported on Tuesday.

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.

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.

Clayton Strong pulled up to a tiny hospital in Idaho, walked through the emergency room doors and told a clerk that his wife’s body was outside in their SUV.

A sheriff’s deputy was at the hospital talking to Strong by the time the coroner arrived. This was an “unattended” death: one where no doctor could attest to a medical reason for the person’s demise. That made it the coroner’s job to determine how and why she died.

Strong, a stocky man with white hair and bushy eyebrows, explained that he and his wife lived in an RV park on the edge of the woods nearby. He said his wife had been bedridden for years with Parkinson’s disease. That morning she’d woken up and asked for peanut butter and water, Strong told the deputy. He found her dead some time later.

The coroner looked over Betty Strong’s body. It was thin and frail. He didn’t see a reason to suspect anything other than a natural death for this 75-year-old woman. The sheriff’s deputy seemed to be satisfied with the explanation too. So, the coroner ruled that Betty Strong died around 8:40 a.m. on Dec. 14, 2016, from complications of Parkinson’s, and he signed off on allowing cremation of her body.

Less than five years later, Clayton Strong’s next wife turned up dead, too: shot in the chest in Texas.

It turns out that both marriages had a history of domestic unrest, with visits from police who documented threats to each woman’s safety.

It’s impossible to know whether a different approach to investigating Betty Strong’s death would have uncovered foul play. What is certain is that clues and evidence in the case were lost forever — and Idaho’s system for death investigation let it happen.

Family members of both women believe a more thorough investigation of the death in Idaho might have saved the life of Clayton Strong’s next wife in Texas.

“Someone shows up with a dead body and just says they died of natural causes,” said Amy Belanger, one of Betty Strong’s children. “I mean, really, do you just take their word for it?”

The answer is no, according to five of six national death investigation experts ProPublica consulted. They said the coroner should have obtained medical records to confirm Betty Strong was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, examined the trailer where her husband said she died, or both.

“You can think of all sorts of scenarios — criminal, accidental or natural — that could have occurred there,” said Jennifer Snippen, a death investigator, educator and consultant in Oregon. “But my argument is, if you don’t go to the scene and you don’t look at the medical records, you just don’t know.”

Most of the county coroners in Idaho are part-time elected officials with tiny budgets and no oversight or state funding to support their work. The national experts said that kind of system is more prone to cursory investigations like the one into Betty Strong’s death.

The failure to reform death investigations in Idaho has raised alarms for more than 70 years, according to current and former Idaho coroners and previous ProPublica reporting.

A national magazine called Idaho “the best place in the nation for a criminal to ‘get away with murder’ in the literal sense” because of the state’s “antiquated county coroner’s system,” the Idaho Statesman newspaper reported in 1951.

Asked whether murderers have escaped prosecution in Idaho’s coroner system, Rich Riffle, coroner for the county that includes Boise, said, “My humble opinion? Yes.”

That almost happened in 2019 when one inexperienced Idaho coroner decided to take the word of Chad Daybell that his wife, Tammy Daybell, had died in her sleep after chronic health problems, vomiting and a cough. Her body was later exhumed after his next wife’s children went missing. An autopsy by the Utah medical examiner’s office found what medical records would have shown, had the Idaho coroner requested them: Tammy Daybell was healthy. A jury convicted Chad Daybell of murdering her by asphyxiation and of killing his next wife’s two youngest children. The case is under appeal.

At trial, coroner Brenda Dye said she had regrets. Her voice shaking, Dye told the court she would have ordered an autopsy if she’d known better, but “at that time, with my limited training and being new, I did the best I could.” She declined ProPublica’s interview request, citing the case’s effect on her mental health.

Idaho isn’t the only place where death investigations fall short. Because there is no uniform federal system, the rigor with which your death is investigated depends on where you die. Other states lack enough forensic pathologists to do autopsies. And many local systems like Idaho County’s are squeezed for money.

But even among its short-staffed, underfunded peers, Idaho stands out. One measure is the state’s autopsy rate: third-lowest for autopsies in all deaths, last in the nation for autopsies in known cases of homicide.

Gov. Brad Little said in January that he would support more state resources to help Idaho’s coroners do their jobs. But he never got the chance; coroner-related bills passed by the Idaho Legislature this year contained no funding or other assistance for coroners and death investigations.

So for now, each of Idaho’s 44 coroners will bear costs that other states help cover: driving a body hundreds of miles to an autopsy; paying for some of those autopsies; or trying to recruit one more person to join Idaho’s statewide forensic pathology workforce of three.

“If you don’t care enough about how death investigations are done in your jurisdiction to invest in the people doing it, to provide them with the resources or to have high enough standards for the people that you hire to do this, you’re going to get what you get, what you accept,” said Snippen. “You’re going to get what you allow to happen.”

Betty Brock was a mother of seven who enjoyed singing and art, long bicycle rides, organizing family photos and researching her ancestry.

She was caring for her terminally ill husband in 2010 when Clayton Strong befriended her on the internet, according to Belanger, her daughter. Strong claimed to be “basically destitute and living in his car,” a backstory that appealed to a woman with a soft spot for taking in “wounded people” and trying to heal them with love, Belanger said.

Strong drove hundreds of miles from Southwest Florida and showed up at the Brocks’ property in the Florida panhandle. They agreed he could sleep in his car there as long as he helped with caregiving and housework. Soon he was sleeping in an outbuilding on the property, then in the house.

Betty’s children were puzzled as this newcomer became a fixture in their mother’s life. They wanted to give Strong a chance, but they soon grew suspicious.

Betty Brock’s husband died in August 2010. By January, she was Betty Strong.

After their courthouse marriage, Clayton Strong used their now-shared funds to buy a Ford truck and an Airstream trailer and took his bride on the road, Belanger said. The couple visited national parks that Betty had always wanted to see. They camped and hiked their way across the continent. They bought mining claims and panned for gold in the remote Idaho wilderness.

After that honeymoon, the walls around Betty Strong grew impenetrable, her children said. According to what two of her children told ProPublica and to statements two others made to police, Clayton became the gatekeeper of all communication with their mother, and he padlocked the doors of their Florida home and held the key.

The last time Betty Strong saw her primary care doctor in Florida was in May 2013, according to records her son obtained after the death. Before that, she hadn’t been in since 2010, the year Clayton Strong entered her life. The notes from the 2013 checkup show health issues common in older adults but no Parkinson’s diagnosis, and neither Parkinson’s nor other neurodegenerative diseases were listed in the family history section.

The children watched from afar as the marriage devolved over the next two years. Between January 2014 and February 2015, police went to the couple’s residence for welfare checks and domestic disturbances at least six times, according to police reports that Belanger provided to ProPublica.

Her children told police that Clayton Strong threatened to shoot them if they set foot on the property, threatened to hurt their mother if they didn’t back off, and prevented her from seeing a doctor.

In the first of those police visits, in January 2014, the records show that Belanger’s sister, who lived nearby, called the sheriff while standing outside the Strong residence, a brown house surrounded by oak trees and pines on a winding country road. A deputy arrived to find Belanger’s sister and Clayton Strong in a stalemate, then talked to everyone outside, according to a sheriff’s office report. The deputy then watched as Betty Strong turned to her husband to “ask him for permission” to hug her daughter, and Clayton Strong “removed a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the porch entrance gate so Betty could go in the yard” for the hug.

The report says the deputy made a referral to Florida Department of Children and Families, the agency that investigates possible abuse of vulnerable adults, and that the department opened a case.

A similar scene played out when one of Betty Strong’s sons went to the house to check on her in February 2015. For two years, Clayton Strong turned the son away when he tried to visit, and this time Strong “threatened to shoot him with a gun if he did not leave,” the son told a sheriff’s deputy. Clayton Strong denied that, the deputy’s report says.

The deputy found Betty Strong alone on a bed in an RV parked behind the home, the report says. She said she had Parkinson’s disease and couldn’t get around well. Clayton wasn’t holding her against her will, she told the deputy, but she couldn’t take care of herself without him.

She had a walkie-talkie. The deputy asked: Is Clayton using that radio and telling you what to say? Betty answered “no” while nodding her head “yes.” It was a chilly afternoon, and the deputy noticed Betty had a blanket but no heater.

“Betty’s demeanor, living conditions, and the controlling behavior by Clayton” warranted a referral to the Florida Department of Children and Families, the deputy wrote.

Asked for the outcome of that referral, a spokesperson told ProPublica the department investigates “all allegations of abuse, neglect, or exploitation” but that records of those investigations are confidential under state law.

Days after the referral in February 2015, police were again dispatched to the Florida home. This time, it wasn’t one of Betty Strong’s children who called; it was someone from adult protective services in need of police backup. According to the dispatch log, the worker said Clayton Strong “has threatened before to pull a gun on her and is very anti-law enforcement.”

The couple left town a month later. Betty Strong’s children never heard from her again.

By the time Betty Strong died in Idaho County in December 2016, she hadn’t been seen in Florida in 21 months.

Idaho County’s elected coroner, Cody Funke, had been in the job about as long.

He knew the county well. Its vast forests, mountains and meadows stretch across more land than Massachusetts. Rugged and remote, it attracts people who want to be left alone and who distrust both government and conventional medicine.

Funke, pronounced “funk,” was in his late 20s in 2014 when he learned his part-time job at a funeral home was being eliminated. His boss asked: Had he considered running for coroner? The coroner at the time was retiring and urged Funke to do it. So did Funke’s boss from his other part-time job, as an EMT. What sealed the deal for Funke: As coroner, he would get health insurance.

Funke started the job with a feeling of “good luck, godspeed, you’re gonna need it.” There was no apprenticeship or ride-along to watch seasoned pros, like he’d gotten when he trained to be an EMT. There was a training conference he attended in Las Vegas before taking office, and Funke received more than double the 24 hours of coroner education required by Idaho law. Even so, he isn’t sure it was enough to prepare him.

Funke learned on his first day that he wasn’t getting a vehicle to move bodies from a death scene. If the local funeral home’s vehicle was occupied, Funke had to use his family truck. A year after Betty Strong’s death, the county commission got the coroner a vehicle: a pickup truck the sheriff’s office didn’t need anymore.

The office he inherited also had no camera, and the county hadn’t budgeted to give him one. He’d have to use his phone to take pictures of bodies and death scenes.

There was no morgue.

The Idaho County coroner’s office didn’t even have an actual office.

Funke’s predecessors kept their files on paper, at home, he learned. The previous coroner’s house had flooded, so when Funke took over, all that remained fit in two manila folders.

The coroner’s entire budget this year is $85,651. By comparison, coroner’s offices serving small populations had an average budget of $280,000 in 2018, according to a national study.

Paid $13,000 a year, Funke is on call 24 hours a day and, last year, investigated and ruled on 71 deaths, about one every five days. Papers on an additional 102 deaths of people under a doctor’s care came through needing his signature for cremation.

Funke does the coroner work on top of a full-time job. When a call comes in during business hours, he dips out to go to a death scene. If someone dies at dinnertime, he might not see his family until morning.

He must decide with each death what the circumstances require: a simple phone call; an all-out investigation with autopsy, witness interviews, tissue samples and more; or something in the middle.

To examine a death scene, Funke might have to drive three hours or longer each way. Whenever he orders an autopsy, Funke or his deputies have to take the body to the nearest autopsy center, a trip that takes a full day and usually demands an overnight stay. His current budget can cover 10 autopsies a year.

In those first years as coroner, Funke often leaned on police.

Funke found it strange that Clayton Strong had loaded his wife’s body into their SUV and driven to the hospital. Most people call 911 to report a death and wait for help to arrive, Funke said. But Strong offered an explanation that seemed to satisfy the sheriff’s deputy: He didn’t know many people in town and wasn’t sure what to do.

Strong had said his wife hadn’t seen a doctor because she stuck to homeopathic remedies. That’s not unusual for Funke to hear.

The widower gave Funke the impression a coroner and sheriff’s deputy wouldn’t be welcome inside the trailer where she died. That’s not so outside the norm for Idaho County either, Funke said.

Betty Strong’s death looked like an easy call. So Funke helped move her body to a cot to be taken from the hospital to a local funeral home.

According to a later report from the sheriff’s office, Clayton Strong showed up at the funeral home that day, said he wanted her cremated and paid $2,310 in cash. The way Funke heard it from a funeral home employee a few days later, Strong paid in $100 bills out of a lunch box.

The detail struck Funke as peculiar. But he let it go.

The couple’s Airstream trailer showed up one day in January 2017, parked outside their house in Florida. A neighbor called Amy Belanger with the news, and she dispatched her brother, Daniel, who lived nearby. They’d spent almost two years fearing the worst.

The only person at the house was Clayton Strong.

The family’s matriarch had died a few weeks ago in Harpster, Idaho, Strong said. Then he told his son-in-law to get off the property.

Amy Belanger started making calls the next day. One of the first people she reached was Funke, the county coroner. She was perplexed, she said. Why hadn’t anyone called her or her siblings? Why didn’t he question whether Betty Strong had actually succumbed to a disease or if something else had killed her? Belanger told Funke about the history of police calls in Florida and concerns about their mother’s safety.

Funke thought back to what he’d heard from the funeral home. A lunch box of cash for a cremation? That image never sat quite right. Now he had solid ground for suspicion. Funke told Belanger he’d talk to the county prosecutor and see what could be done.

The prosecutor and the sheriff’s office initially told Belanger they had opened a homicide investigation, according to a detailed timeline she created at the time. But the death scene — the Strongs’ trailer — was long gone, the body cremated. The sheriff’s investigator and prosecutor ultimately didn’t seem to think there was enough evidence for a homicide investigation, Funke told ProPublica.

(The prosecutor and sheriff’s investigator did not return phone calls, emails or certified letters from ProPublica requesting comment on their decisions following Betty Strong’s death.)

Notes from Belanger’s timeline quote a Florida detective saying he was sorry the death had occurred outside his jurisdiction. He explained to her that “in Florida, deputies would have had the medical examiner’s office verify medical records and take a blood sample.”

The year Betty Strong died, 20% of natural deaths investigated by a medical examiner in the part of Florida where she had lived underwent autopsies before the examiner decided the cause of death was natural. About 65% of all deaths taken in by Florida’s medical examiner that year were autopsied. Both numbers dwarf Idaho’s coroner autopsy rates.

It’s not just Florida. Many states have more sophisticated systems for investigating deaths than Idaho’s. In much of the country, centralized state medical examiner offices oversee all death investigations or provide a backstop to elected coroners in each county.

Idaho’s rural neighbor Montana has a hybrid system of medical examiners and coroners, supported by a coroner liaison who works with death investigators to make the process more consistent statewide. And next door in Wyoming, a state board sets rules for coroners to follow. The rules spell out what each death investigation should include: scene investigation, toxicology sample, DNA sample, photographs, external examination of the body and an inventory of property, evidence and medications.

Jennifer Snippen, the death investigator in Oregon, was one of the experts who drafted the National Institute of Justice’s 2024 death-scene investigation guidebook.

She said death investigations are more likely to be thorough when states and counties give their investigators enough funding and education, “so that they have the motivation and the ability to get to as many scenes, and get as much information about every single death, as possible.”

Those who study the work of coroners and medical examiners in the U.S. have learned that the deaths of elderly people are especially likely to be written off as age-related, without considering whether the person may have also been a victim of abuse or neglect.

Snippen’s research in 2023 is one of the most recent studies to confirm that. She reviewed data from thousands of cases. The person least likely to get a scene investigation or autopsy? An elderly woman who dies at home.

Lauri McGivern, a nationally recognized expert in death investigations, said national standards would have Funke verify Betty Strong’s Parkinson’s diagnosis and ask more questions of Clayton Strong as the sole caregiver of a vulnerable adult. McGivern, who coordinates medicolegal death investigations in Vermont, reviewed the facts that Funke was given at the time of Betty Strong’s death and his subsequent report at ProPublica’s request.

To follow national standards, McGivern said, Funke also would have gone to the Airstream trailer or asked law enforcement to examine the death scene and report back to him.

But McGivern and other experts said they understand why Funke didn’t follow those national guidelines — because they’ve seen it happen so many times in places like rural Idaho.

“He’s doing what he was shown how to do,” McGivern said. “And probably doing the best he can, with no budget and no support and no education.”

Frustrated by how little Idaho officials knew and why they hadn’t dug further into her mother’s death, Amy Belanger channeled her grief into trying to find answers on her own.

She followed a trail of public records left by Clayton Strong. Had he harmed other women? Had he been in a relationship with anybody who went missing? “I was looking into his past to see if there was a pattern like that,” Belanger said. Something she could share with officials in Idaho.

Then she stumbled across a document: a recent marriage license.

Three months after depositing Betty Strong’s body at a hospital in Idaho, Clayton Strong wed a woman from Texas.

Belanger needed to warn her.

Shirley Weatherley had a lot in common with Betty Strong. She was a mother and grandmother. She’d been married before. She lived in a small, modest home on a large piece of land in a rural locale, where she’d been caring for a terminally ill former spouse when Strong contacted her on Facebook.

They’d known each other as teenagers in Lubbock. Their reconnection after he arrived at her house in Weatherford, a suburb of Fort Worth, eventually began to worry her children.

“He isolated her,” said Jamie Barrington, Weatherley’s son with a previous husband. “He wouldn’t let grandkids, my brother — anybody’d come over, he just kept them at arm’s length.”

Barrington said he and other members of Weatherley’s family had suspicions about Strong. Then they connected with Belanger and heard what happened in Florida and Idaho.

Belanger urged the family to tell their mother everything they’d heard. She “actually was pleading with us to watch out,” Barrington recalled.

Knowing another family was worried helped fuel Amy Belanger’s quest for the truth about her mother’s death. Her siblings chipped in to help Belanger rent a van and drive across the country in search of clues — anything that could shed light on her mother’s death.

Once she got to Idaho, Belanger spent more than a week investigating. She met with the coroner and sheriff. She went to the mining claims the Strongs had purchased. She stayed at the RV park where Betty Strong died and interviewed the people who’d owned it in 2016; they remembered talking to each other about how “hinky” the death and Clayton Strong’s reaction to it seemed.

Back in Texas, Weatherley’s family tried to warn her.

When they relayed the story about Betty Strong to her, Weatherley chalked it up to a grieving family trying to cope with loss by grasping for an explanation, Barrington said. After all, Strong had a death certificate that listed natural causes.

The details Barrington later learned from family members and police about his mother’s life with Strong were “pretty horrific,” he said. Weatherley had reported that Strong threatened to kill her, but no charges were filed. Then at one point, in the midst of an argument with Strong, Weatherley lobbed the accusations about Betty Strong’s death at him, Barrington said. Strong flew into a rage.

Weatherley called police in July 2021. She and Strong were splitting up, and he shoved her while moving his stuff out of the house, Weatherley told the officer. Strong had “hurt her” in the past, so she called police to make sure it didn’t happen again, the officer’s report says. The officer got Strong’s side of the story — she was “running him off,” but he didn’t push her — and stuck around until Strong agreed to leave.

Police would later document finding two items in the house. The first was a copy of Weatherley’s will that left everything to Strong, on which she’d written “VOID,” the second was a digital camera hidden in their bedroom. The camera contained selfies of injuries to her face and chest and a video of Strong putting his arm around her neck as she screamed for help.

Strong persuaded Weatherley to let him back into their home once more on Aug. 4, 2021, according to police records.

Four days later, Weatherley’s son and grandson found her body wrapped in a gray tarp near the front steps to her home. She’d been shot in the chest. Authorities matched shell casings at the scene to an AK-47-style rifle, which security footage showed Strong ditching in a shopping cart outside a Walmart.

Picked up later by police in Mexico, Strong died of cardiac arrest while awaiting extradition in Weatherley’s killing.

Jamie Barrington, Shirley Weatherley’s son, was reluctant at first to speak publicly about his mother’s death in Texas, even years later. He agreed to talk with ProPublica, he said, because he wants Idaho’s coroner system to improve. He said he never imagined that a death like Betty Strong’s could be ruled “natural” based on what a spouse told authorities.

“I truly believe that if there had been a proper investigation and not taking his word for it,” Barrington said, “that it probably would have made a big difference” in what happened to Shirley Weatherley.

Word of Weatherley’s murder eventually reached Funke, the coroner in Idaho. He said in hindsight, Strong’s actions in Idaho County seem more suspicious than they did at the time to his inexperienced eyes and ears.

Now, after 10 years as coroner, “I would have pushed a little bit harder” to have an officer or deputy follow up or go to the RV park with him. He would have asked police to use a national database — one he didn’t know about at the time — to find Betty Strong’s family members and learn more about her background. “I have trust issues after cases like this,” he said.

Funke said the story of Betty Strong’s death needs to be told, even if it shows that he and Idaho County made mistakes, because it can help lawmakers understand what is wrong with the state’s system.

Idaho’s coroners need more funding, he said, because right now they’re an afterthought in county budgets. Most counties set a coroner salary at what amounts to less than minimum wage, so it’s impossible for someone like Funke to be coroner without a second, full-time job.

“These offices should be fully staffed,” he said. “Maybe we have one or two people that are here full time to answer questions and respond to these calls, versus, ‘Hey, I’ve got to take time off work, boss.’”

And he believes new coroners who lack experience should be required to learn how to work a case from start to finish before they’re called out to a death like Betty Strong’s.

Daniel Belanger, one of Betty Strong’s children, came away from his interactions with Idaho County officials convinced that the only way deaths like his mother’s will be properly investigated is through legislation forcing coroners and law enforcement agencies to change their approaches.

“They completely dropped the ball,” he told ProPublica.

Amy Belanger said her family has reclaimed very few of her mother’s possessions from the Airstream trailer. Strong emptied the Florida house of family heirlooms after their mother’s death, Belanger said. Most of the family photo albums her mother toiled over are gone.

The brown house on the winding road in Florida is still there. Belanger’s memories of family cookouts and holiday gatherings linger in the house; they weren’t wiped away by the police visits and padlocked doors. But the family home isn’t the family’s anymore. Years later, it is stuck in legal limbo — the deed still in the name of Clayton Strong and Shirley Weatherley, the woman he married after the death of Betty Strong.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Audrey Dutton.

Multiple Indian media outlets, including PTI, NDTV, Republic, India Today, News 24, Live Hindustan, News24 NDTV World, Dainik Bhaskar, and WION reported on a disturbing video showing the lynching of a man in Bangladesh, identifying the victim as a Hindu trader named Lal Chand Sohag. 

In the disturbing footage of the said incident, an individual is seen assaulting the victim with a stone slab, while another person is seen stomping and jumping over the body. All this takes place in broad daylight with a crowd of onlookers present. According to reports, the gruesome incident took place on July 9 in Rojoni Ghosh Lane near Mitford hospital in the old Dhaka. The barbarity of the attack, captured on video, triggered massive outrage in the neighbouring country with students from several universities staging protests in Dhaka.

On July 13, Republic published an article headlined, “Shocking! Hindu scrap dealer lynched with concrete slabs in Bangladesh; attackers dance on his body after death.” The report identified the victim as Lal Chand Sohag, a scrap vendor. Citing a report by Prothom Alo, it noted that the victim’s sister had filed a murder case with Kotwali police on Thursday.

India Today ran a PTI wire story stating that a Hindu trader was bludgeoned to death with a concrete slab, and that the attackers danced on his body after confirming he was dead.

Similar claims were made by several other Indian outlets. Screenshots of these reports are available in the gallery below.

It is worth noting that NDTV has since deleted both its tweet and the original article. Meanwhile, NDTV World, PTI, and WION have updated their reports, removing the term “Hindu” from the description of the deceased.

The claim that the victim was a Hindu was also amplified by social media users. Raushan Sinha (@MrSinha_), a far-Right influencer, shared the purported video on July 13 on X, claiming that “Atrocities against Hindus continue in Bangladesh”, as a Hindu trader was lynched by Islamists in broad daylight. 

Voice of Bangladeshi Hindus (VHindus71) shared the video on X, urging world leaders to save Bangladeshi citizens from the “Jammat-backed government of Mohammed Yunus”.

Another X-account, MeghUpdates (@MeghUpdates), shared the video claiming that Islamists had killed and danced over the corpse of a Hindu trader in Bangladesh.

Sinha later deleted his post, whereas the post by the other two handles are still live.

Fact Check

A simple keyword search led us to several Bangladeshi news reports that identified the slain to be a 39-year-old scrap dealer, Mohammed Sohag, alias Lal Chand. This indicates that the victim is not a Hindu. 

According to a report by Prothom Alo from July 12, Sohag was brutally beaten up and bludgeoned with bricks and stones before he was killed. After the assault, his clothes were stripped, and a few assailants were seen jumping over his corpse. Investigators and local sources indicated that the killing was a result of an extortion-related dispute.

The report names Lal Chand’s sister as Manjuara Begum, who filed the FIR with Kotwali police, naming 19 individuals as accused and listing an additional 15 to 20 unidentified suspects in connection with the lynching.

The Dhaka Metropolitan Police, in a press release issued on July 11 evening, confirmed the arrests of two suspects — Mahmudul and Tariq — in the capital, whereas the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) detained two suspects from near the Ibn Sina Hospital in Keraniganj, involved in the murder of Md Sohag. 

Alt News also located a fact-check report by a Bangladeshi government page, Chief Advisor’s Press Wing Facts. The page debunked the communal narratives shared by the Indian media outlets and clearly mentioned that the deceased man was named Mohammed Sohag, also known as Lal Chand, and he was a Muslim businessman. He was the son of Md Aiyub Ali and Aleya Begum. He was married to Lucky Begum and had a son named Sohan.

On Friday, Sohag was laid to rest beside his mother’s grave in his ancestral village of Bandargachhia, Ward 7, Dhalua Union, Barguna Sadar Upazila, following the funeral prayers (Salat al-Janazah).

To sum up, the Indian media falsely reported that the man who was stoned to death on the streets of Dhaka was  a Hindu trader. The slain man is a Muslim businessman named Mohammed Sohag, who was allegedly killed for not paying extortion money. There is no communal angle to the murder. 

The post Man stoned to death in Dhaka streets: Indian media misidentifies victim as Hindu appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.

We go to the occupied West Bank for an update on how the family of a 20-year-old Palestinian American from Florida, Sayfollah “Saif” Musallet, is demanding justice after he was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. Musallet and another Palestinian, 23-year-old Mohammad al-Shalabi, were attacked by a group of Israeli settlers on Friday in the town of Sinjil, northeast of Ramallah, where their families own farmland. Eyewitnesses say the settlers brutally beat Musallet and fatally shot al-Shalabi, then prevented ambulances from reaching their victims for hours. Musallet was pronounced dead before he could reach a hospital.

“The settlers and the military don’t only work hand in hand,” says anti-Zionist activist Jonathan Pollak, who was injured in the same protest. “They are part and parcel of implementing the same policy … of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.”

“Palestinians here have zero rights,” adds Nizar Milbes, a distant relative and close friend of the Musallet family, who says settlers have been encroaching on Palestinian lands even more aggressively since October 7, 2023.

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

Two young Palestinians were shot and beaten to death on their land, and 30 injured, by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.

A large group of settlers attacked the rural Palestinian village of Sinjil, in the Ramallah governorate, beating Sayfollah “Saif” Mussalet, 20, who died from his wounds after the mob blocked medical access for several hours.

The body of Muhammad Shalabi, 23, was recovered that evening — having reportedly bled to death while ambulances and rescuers were blocked by Israeli military as settlers roamed the Palestinian farmland for hours.

• READ MORE: Deadly Israeli attacks kill more Palestinians near Gaza aid centre
• Other Israel war on Palestine reports

Both young men are from the neighbouring Mazra’a Sharqiya billate, and Saif was an American citizen visiting loved ones and friends over summer. His family released a statement calling his death an “unimaginable nightmare and an injustice that no family should ever have to face”.

They said he was a “beloved member of his community . . . a brother and a son [and] a kind, hard-working, and deeply-respected young man.”

Saif built a widely-loved business in Tampa, Florida, and was known for his generosity, ambition, and connection to his Palestinian heritage.

Following news of his death an overwhelming number of locals gathered at his store to share their grief and anger.

Frequent atrocities
Such lynchings have become a frequent atrocity across the West Bank, as settler gangs are repeatedly emboldened by the Israeli government, police, and military who protect and often facilitate violence against Palestinian communities.

Two settlers were reportedly detained following the attacks, but released again within hours.

Between 2005-2020, 91 percent of Palestinian cases filed with police were closed without indictment, according to the Israeli human rights organisation B’tselem, and settlers undergo trial with full legal rights and higher lenience in Israeli civil courts.

By contrast, Palestinians are tried in Israeli military courts, established in violation of the fourth Geneva Convention and largely considered corrupt for maintaining a 95 percent conviction rate (Military Court Watch).

Additionally, more than 3600 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli captivity without charge or trial, with all detainees facing an increase in documented physical, psychological, and sexual abuse — including children.

A funeral was held for the young men on Sunday in Mazra’a Sharqiya village, with thousands in attendance. The killings continue a systemic pattern which alongside military incursions, has seen 153 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since the beginning of 2025 (OCHA).

UN resolution
A UN resolution last September reaffirmed the illegality of Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories, demanding a total and unconditional withdrawal within a year.

Ten months on, settler attacks have escalated in frequency and severity, settlement expansion has rapidly increased, and numerous Palestinian villages have been forcibly displaced after months of sustained violence.

Communities across the West Bank are facing erasure, and as the death toll climbs pressure continues to grow for the New Zealand government to enforce stronger political sanctions, including the entire opposition uniting behind the Green Party’s Unlawful Occupation of Palestine Sanctions Bill.

Cole Martin is an independent New Zealand photojournalist based in the Middle East and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

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

Jon Merryman was a software designer at Lockheed Martin, who after retiring found his true calling, cleaning up trash in every county in America.

When I first started looking at the environment next to my place of work, one of the things I did uncover was tires. And they were definitely there from the '20s, the '30s, and the '40s, they've been there for decades. And then just after a while, the soil and the erosion just covers them up. And you just discover them, and you realize this has been going on forever.

Jon Merryman

Nature is innocent. It really doesn't deserve what we've given it. And I feel like someone's got to step up to undo what we've done.

Jon Merryman

Robert Weissman is a staunch public interest advocate and activist, as well as an expert on a wide variety of issues ranging from corporate accountability and government transparency to trade and globalization, to economic and regulatory policy. As the Co-President of Public Citizen, he has spearheaded the effort to loosen the chokehold corporations, and the wealthy have over our democracy.

The best estimates are that the loss of insurance and measures in this bill will cost 40,000 lives every year. Not once. Every year.

Robert Weissman co-president of Public Citizen on the Budget Bill

People understand there's a rigged system. They understand that generally. They understand that with healthcare. But if you (the Democrats) don't name the health insurance companies as an enemy, as a barrier towards moving forward. You don't say United Health; you don't go after a Big Pharma, which is probably the most despised health sector in the economy, people don't think you're serious. And partially it's because you’re not.

Robert Weissman

News 7/11/25

1. This week, the Financial Times published a stunning story showing the Tony Blair Institute – founded by the former New Labour British Prime Minister and Iraq War accomplice Tony Blair – “participated” in a project to “reimagine Gaza as a thriving trading hub.” This project would include a “Trump Riviera” and an “Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone”. To accomplish this, the investors would pay half a million Palestinians to leave Gaza to open the enclave up for development – and that is just the tip of the harebrained iceberg. This scheme would also involve creating “artificial islands off the coast akin to those in Dubai, blockchain-based trade initiatives…and low-tax ‘special economic zones’.” The development of this plot is somewhat shadowy. The FT story names a, “group of Israeli businessmen…including tech investor Liran Tancman and venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg,” who helped establish the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in February 2025. GHF has been accused of using supposed aid distribution sites as “death traps,” per France 24. Boston Consulting Group, also named in the FT story, strongly disavowed the project, as did the Tony Blair Institute.

2. In more positive news related to Gaza, the National Education Association – the largest labor union in the United States – voted this week to sever ties with the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL, once an important group safeguarding the civil rights and wellbeing of American Jews, has completely abandoned its historic mission and has instead devoted its considerable resources to trying to crush the anti-Zionist movement. The NEA passed a resolution stating that the NEA “will not use, endorse, or publicize materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or statistics,” because, “Despite its reputation as a civil rights organization, the ADL is not the social justice educational partner it claims to be.” Labor Notes writes that the ADL “has been a ubiquitous presence in U.S. schools for forty years, pushing curriculum, direct programming, and teacher training into K-12 schools and increasingly into universities.” One NEA delegate, Stephen Siegel, said from the assembly floor, “Allowing the ADL to determine what constitutes antisemitism would be like allowing the fossil fuel industry to determine what constitutes climate change.”

3. Another major labor story from this week concerns sanitation workers in Philadelphia. According to the Delaware News Journal, AFSCME District Council 33 has reached a deal with the city to raise wages for their 9,000 workers by 9% over three years. The union went on strike July 1st, resulting in, “massive piles of trash piling up on city streets and around trash drop-off sites designated by the city,” and “changes to the city’s annual Fourth of July concert with headliner LL Cool J and city native Jazmine Sullivan both dropping out,” in solidarity with the striking workers, per WHYY. The deal reached is a major compromise for the union, which was seeking a 32% total pay increase, but they held off on an extended trash pickup strike equivalent to 1986 strike, which went on for three weeks and left 45,000 tons of rotting garbage in the streets, per ABC.

4. Yet another labor story brings us to New York City. ABC7 reports the United Federation of Teachers has endorsed Democratic Socialist – and Democratic Party nominee – Zohran Mamdani for mayor. This report notes “UFT is the city's second largest union…[with] 200,000 members.” Announcing the endorsement, UFT President Michael Mulgrew stated, “This is a real crisis and it's a moment for our city, and our city is starting to speak out very loudly…The voters are saying the same thing, 'enough is enough.' The income gap disparity is above…that which we saw during the Gilded Age." All eyes now turn to District Council 37, which ABC7 notes “endorsed Council speaker Adrienne Adams in the primary and has yet to endorse in the general election.”

5. The margin of Mamdani’s victory, meanwhile, continues to grow as the Board of Elections updates its ranked choice voting tallies. According to the conservative New York Post, Zohran has “won more votes than any other mayoral candidate in New York City primary election history.” Mamdani can now boast having won over 565,000 votes after 102,000 votes were transferred from other candidates. Not only that, “Mamdani’s totals are expected to grow as…a small percent of ballots are still being counted.”

6. Meanwhile, scandal-ridden incumbent New York City Mayor Eric Adams has yet another scandal on his hands. The New York Daily News reports, “Four high-ranking former NYPD chiefs are suing Mayor Adams, claiming they were forced to retire from the department after complaining that his ‘unqualified’ friends were being placed in prestigious police positions, sometimes after allegedly bribing their way into the jobs.” Former Police Commissioner Edward Caban, who was already forced to resign in disgrace amidst a federal corruption investigation, features prominently in this new lawsuit. Among other things, Caban is alleged to have been “selling promotions” to cops for up to $15,000. Adams is running for reelection as an independent, but trails Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani and disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo.

7. Turning to the federal government, as the U.S. disinvests in science and technology, a new report published in the Financial Times finds that, “Almost three-quarters of all solar and wind power projects being built globally are in China.” According to the data, gathered by Global Energy Monitor, “China is building 510 gigawatts of utility-scale solar and wind projects… [out of] 689GW under construction globally.” As this report notes, one gigawatt can potentially supply electricity for about one million homes. This report goes on to say that, “China is expected to add at least 246.5GW of solar and 97.7GW of wind this year,” on top of the “1.5 terawatts of solar and wind power capacity up and running as of the end of March.” In the first quarter of 2025, solar and wind accounted for 22.5% of China’s total electricity consumption; in 2023, solar and wind accounted for around 14% of electricity consumption in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

8. Developments this week put two key rules promulgated by the Federal Trade Commission under former Chair Lina Khan in jeopardy. First and worse, NPR reports the Republican-controlled FTC is abandoning a rule which would have banned non-compete clauses in employment contracts. These anti-worker provisions “trap workers and depress wages,” according to Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, who has introduced legislation to ban them by statute. Perhaps more irritatingly however, Reuters reports the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis has blocked the so-called “click to cancel” rule just days before it was set to take effect. This rule would have, “required retailers, gyms and other businesses to provide cancellation methods for subscriptions, auto-renewals and free trials that convert to paid memberships that are ‘at least as easy to use’ as the sign up process.” A coalition of corporate interests sued to block the rule, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a trade group representing major cable and internet providers such as Charter Communications, Comcast and Cox Communications along with media companies like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery. Lina Khan decried “Firms…making people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription, trapping Americans in needless bureaucracy and wasting their time & money.”

9. In another betrayal of consumers, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to break promises and speak out of both sides of his mouth. A new report in NPR documents RFK Jr. speaking at a conference in April, where he “spoke about the health effects of exposure to harmful chemicals in our food, air and water…[and] cited recent research on microplastics from researchers in Oregon, finding these tiny particles had shown up in 99% of the seafood they sampled.” Yet Susanne Brander, the author of the study, had gotten word just an hour earlier that “a federal grant she'd relied on to fund her research for years…was being terminated.” Brander is quoted saying "It feels like they are promoting the field while ripping out the foundation." Ripping out the foundation of this research is felt acutely, as “regulators are weakening safeguards that limit pollution and other toxic chemicals.” So Mr. Secretary, which is more important – stopping the proliferation of microplastics or slashing funding for the very scientists studying the issue?

10. Finally, in Los Angeles masked federal troops are marauding through the streets on horseback, sowing terror through immigrant communities, per the New York Times. President Trump mobilized approximately 4,000 National Guard members – putting them under federal control – alongside 700 Marines in response to protests against immigration raids in June. As the Times notes, “It has been more than three weeks since the last major demonstration in downtown Los Angeles,” but the federal forces have not been demobilized. While some have dismissed the shows of force as nothing more than stunts designed to fire up the president’s base, Gregory Bovino, a Customs and Border Protection chief in Southern California told Fox News “[LA] Better get used to us now, cause this is going to be normal very soon.” As LA Mayor Karen Bass put it, “What I saw…looked like a city under siege, under armed occupation…It’s the way a city looks before a coup.”

This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.

This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

Balderas, a well-known investigative journalist, reported on July 4 on X that he had received a threatening call from un unidentified individual using an unknown number. In the call, that person used profanity and said that Balderas should “tone it down” or he would “face the consequences.” The caller did not specify a particular story Balderas had written.

The next day, Balderas received a message via WhatsApp, again from an unknown number, in which the sender repeated that the journalist should “keep quiet,” while also referring to Balderas’ friend and fellow reporter Luis Chaparro, issuing the same threat to him. Chaparro told CPJ that he had not personally received threats, but that Balderas had notified him of the message and the phone call.

The threats came just weeks after unidentified assailants killed two journalists in Mexico.

“The brazen threats against Óscar Balderas and Luis Chaparro are part of an ongoing campaign to terrorize any journalist who provides in-depth reporting on organized crime in Mexico,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “These threats can only happen in a context of festering impunity for the country’s press, something Mexican authorities continue to fail address.”

Both Balderas and Chaparro are experienced investigative reporters. Balderas hosts and contributes to several news shows on nationally syndicated radio and television channels, including La Saga, Milenio, ADN40, and MVS Noticias. Chaparro, formerly based in the northern city of Ciudad Juárez but now in the United States, hosts online news show Pie de Nota.

Balderas told CPJ that he has been in constant contact with the Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, which is overseen by the interior ministry, about the threats. Neither journalist has filed a report with the police.

An official for the Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent via WhatsApp.

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

News outlets thought it useful to produce graphics about this Australian’s terminating exploits. CNN produced one with voyeuristic relish, making it appear much like a Midsomer Murders episode. Details aplenty are provided, including the gruesome end for the victims. “Gail and Heather died on August 4 [2023] from multiorgan failure, followed by Don on August 5 after he failed to respond to a liver transplant.”  Fortunately, Ian Wilkinson survived, but the rumour-mongering hack journalist can barely take it, almost regretful of that fact: “after almost two months of intensive treatment”, he was discharged.

Having an opinion on this case has become standard fare, amassing on a turd heap of supposition, second guessing and wonder. The range is positively Chaucerian in its village variety. The former court official interviewed about the killer’s guilty mind and poisoning stratagems, stating the obvious and dulling. The criminologist, keen on career advancement and pseudo-psychology, attempted to gain insight into Patterson’s mind, commenting on her apparent ordinariness.

One example of the latter is to be found in The Conversation, where we are told by Xanthe Mallett with platitudinous and forced certainty how Patterson, speaking days after the incident, “presented as your typical, average woman of 50.” If attempting to kill four people using fungi is a symptom of average, female ordinariness of a certain age, we all best start making our own meals. But Mallett thinks it is precisely that sense of the ordinary that led to a public obsession, a mania with crime and motivation. “The juxtaposition between the normality of a family lunch (and the sheer vanilla-ness of the accused) and the seriousness of the situation sent the media into overdrive.”

This is certainly not the view of Dr. Chris Webster, who answered the Leongatha Hospital doorbell when Patterson first presented.  Realising her link to the other four victims suffering symptoms of fungal poisoning, Webster explained that death cap mushrooms were suspected. Asking Patterson where she got them, she replied with one word: “Woolworths.” This was enough for the doctor to presume guilt, an attitude which certainly gave one of Australia’s most ruthless supermarket chains a graceful pardon. “She was evil and very smart to have planned it all and carried out but didn’t quite dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’.”

The marketer, thrilled with branding and promotion, suggests how Patterson Inc. can become an ongoing concern of merchandise, plays, and scripts. (Think of a shirt sporting the following: “I ate beef Wellington and survived”.) The ABC did not waste much time commissioning Toxic, a show created by Elise McCredie and Tony Ayres, aided by ABC podcaster Rachel Brown. Ayres hams it up by saying that, “True stories ask storytellers to probe the complexities of human behaviour. What really lies beneath the headlines? It’s both a challenge and a responsibility to go beyond the surface – to reveal, not just to sensationalise.” Given that this project is a child of frothy publicity born from sensationalism and hysteria, the comment is almost touching.

The media prompts and updates, mischaracterising Patterson as “The Mushroom Murderer”, leave the impression that she really did like killing fungi. But an absolute monster must be found, and the press hounds duly found it. Papers like the Herald Sun preferred the old Rupert Murdoch tactic: till the soil to surface level to find requisite dirt. According to a grimy bit of reporting from that most distinguished of Melbourne rags, “the callous murderer, whose maiden name was Scutter before marrying Simon Patterson in 2007, was secretly dubbed ‘Scutter the Nutter’ among her training group.” The Australian was in a didactic mood, unhappy that the judge did not make it even more obvious that a crime, committed by a woman involving poison and “not a gun or a knife”, was equally grave.

To complete the matter was an aggrieved home cook, Nagi Maehashi, who also rode the wave of publicity by expressing sadness that her recipe had become a lethal weapon. (Presumably, Maehashi did not have lethal mushrooms in her original recipe, but precision slides in publicity.)  Overcome with false modesty in this glare of publicity, Maehashi did not wish to take interviews, but felt her misused work deserved a statement.  “It is, of course, upsetting to learn that one of my recipes – possibly the one I’ve spent more hours perfecting than any other – something I created to bring joy and happiness, is entangled in a tragic situation,” she moaned on Instagram. Those familiar with Maehashi will note her tendency to megalomania in the kitchen, especially given recipes that have been created long before she turned to knife and spatula.

The ones forgotten will be those victims who died excruciatingly before their loved ones in a richly sadistic exercise. At the end of it all, the entire ensemble of babblers, hucksters, and chancers so utterly obsessed with what took place in Leongatha should thank Patterson. Her murders have excited, enthralled, and given people purpose. She will start conversations, fill pockets, extend careers, and, if we are to believe some recent reporting, make meals for her fellow inmates in prison.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Since the beginning of its genocidal assault on Gaza twenty-one months ago, the Israeli government has deprived millions of Palestinians of food and other basic necessities for life. Now, amid the widespread starvation that it has created, the Netanyahu government has sidelined the U.N.’s neutral, internationally recognized Gaza-wide system of aid delivery in favor of GHF’s privatized and militarized model, which one U.N. expert describes as a “death trap.” Israeli soldiers were ordered to fire on Palestinians waiting for food, according to a report in Haaretz.

GHF’s system was designed to align with the Israeli’s government stated goal of forcibly displacing Palestinians from the north to the south of Gaza – a war crime under international law. While the UN’s 400 distribution sites largely sit dormant, GHF delivers aid at a handful of sites primarily located in the south. In fact, internal planning documents reveal that people involved in the development of GHF understood the risk that its distribution hubs would force the displacement of Palestinians.

In its FOIA request, the Center for Constitutional Rights seeks records that could reveal whether GHF was also created to further President Trump’s “Gaza Riviera” redevelopment – and ethnic cleansing – plan. The Center of Constitutional Rights has previously joined other human rights and legal organizations in warning that individuals and entities involved in GHF could face legal liability for complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

It is against this backdrop that the State Department approved a $30 million United States Agency for International Development (USAID) grant for GHF, which is chaired by Johnnie Moore, an evangelical preacher who worked in the first Trump administration. GHF has not disclosed information about its funding, yet in announcing the grant, the State Department exempted it from the audit required for groups receiving USAID funds for the first time.

“It is outrageous that rather than investigating GHF and the private military contractors at its distribution hubs for complicity in war crimes, the Trump administration has doubled down in furthering Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by giving GHF tens of millions of dollars,” said, Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Staff Attorney Katherine Gallagher. “The GHF operation raises many concerning questions about U.S. long-term plans for Gaza, and we will use this FOIA to get answers. The United States must stop sending arms and contractors to Gaza, and instead demand that the United Nations be permitted to resume its aid operations until Palestinians can fully return and rebuild a free Gaza.”

With its FOIA request, the Center for Constitutional Rights seeks all relevant records from the State Department and USAID from October 1st, 2024 to present, including information about GHF’s creation, the role of consulting groups like the Boston Consulting Group, its leadership, and financing. The FOIA also seeks information about the U.S. government links to the newly formed private military contractors in Gaza, Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) and UG Solutions.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Senate Republicans voted Tuesday to advance Donald Trump’s massive spending and tax bill, which will now go back to the House of Representatives for final approval. President Trump has publicly pushed his party to get the bill on his desk to sign by July 4. Dozens of peaceful protestors, including disabled people in wheelchairs, were arrested last Wednesday, June 25, in Washington, DC, while protesting Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which will slash taxes, dramatically increase funding for war and immigration enforcement, and make devastating cuts to vital, popular programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Lorraine Chavez, an educator, researcher, and community leader based in Chicago, and Christine Rodriguez, a legal assistant from Pasadena, California, both of whom traveled to DC with the Debt Collective and were arrested for participating in the peaceful act of civil disobedience.

Guests:

• Lorraine Chavez is an educator, researcher, and community leader based in Chicago. She is also a student debtor and traveled to the Washington, DC, protest with the Debt Collective.
• Christine Rodriguez is a legal assistant and student debtor from Pasadena, California, who also traveled to the Washington, DC, protest with the Debt Collective.

Credits

• Studio Production / Post-Production: David Hebden

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Maximillian Alvarez.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting the United States next week to meet with President Donald Trump and other top officials in the U.S. administration, supposedly to “capitalize on the success” of the 12-day war against Iran. This comes after nearly 21 months of Israel’s war on Gaza that has killed at least 56,000 Palestinians, with daily violence only increasing. “There’s basically an airstrike every other minute,” says Palestinian writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada. “There’s nonstop artillery fire, gunfire, machine gunfire, as well as Israeli quadcopter drones that are swarming Gaza and shooting people at random.” While there have been news reports of a possible ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, Shehada says “there are no negotiations,” and therefore no end in sight to the daily bloodshed.

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

We speak with American neurosurgeon Dr. Abdul Basit Khan in Gaza, where he is volunteering at the Nasser Hospital. He describes treating patients with blast injuries and gunshot wounds from Israeli attacks, all while coping with a lack of basic medical supplies and widespread hunger. “Food insecurity is rampant, from all levels of society. Even the physicians are not eating,” he says. Multiple blasts were heard during the interview, with Dr. Khan describing his patients as people “living in tents being indiscriminately bombed” by Israeli forces. “This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life, by far.”

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

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Before states banned abortion, one of the gravest outcomes of early miscarriage could easily be avoided: Doctors could offer a dilation and curettage procedure, which quickly empties the uterus and allows it to close, protecting against a life-threatening hemorrhage.

But because the procedures, known as D&Cs, are also used to end pregnancies, they have gotten tangled up in state legislation that restricts abortion. Reports now abound of doctors hesitating to provide them and women who are bleeding heavily being discharged from emergency rooms without care, only to return in such dire condition that they need blood transfusions to survive. As ProPublica reported last year, one woman died of hemorrhage after 10 hours in a Houston hospital that didn’t perform the procedure.

Now, a new ProPublica data analysis adds empirical weight to the mounting evidence that abortion bans have made the common experience of miscarriage — which occurs in up to 30% of pregnancies — far more dangerous. It is based on hospital discharge data from Texas, the largest state to ban abortion, and captures emergency department visits from 2017 to 2023, the most recent year available.

After Texas made performing abortions a felony in August 2022, ProPublica found, the number of blood transfusions during emergency room visits for first-trimester miscarriage shot up by 54%.

The number of emergency room visits for early miscarriage also rose, by 25%, compared with the three years before the COVID-19 pandemic — a sign that women who didn’t receive D&Cs initially may be returning to hospitals in worse condition, more than a dozen experts told ProPublica.

While that phenomenon can’t be confirmed by the discharge data, which tracks visits rather than individuals, doctors and researchers who reviewed ProPublica’s findings say these spikes, along with the stories patients have shared, paint a troubling picture of the harm that results from unnecessary delays in care.

“This is striking,” said Dr. Elliott Main, a hemorrhage expert and former medical director for the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative. “The trend is very clear.”

After the state’s first abortion ban went into effect in September 2021, blood transfusions increased. After abortion became a felony in August 2022, they increased more.

The data mirrors a sharp rise in cases of sepsis — a life-threatening reaction to infection — ProPublica previously identified during second-trimester miscarriage in Texas.

Blood loss is expected during early miscarriage, which usually ends without complication. Some cases, however, can turn deadly very quickly. Main said ProPublica’s analysis suggested to him that “physicians are sitting on nonviable pregnancies longer and longer before they’re doing a D&C — until patients are really bleeding.”

That’s what happened to Sarah De Pablos Velez in Austin last summer. As she was miscarrying and bleeding profusely, she said physicians didn’t explain that she had options for care. Sent home from the emergency room without a D&C two times, she ultimately needed blood transfusions so that she wouldn’t die, according to medical records. “What happened to me was just so wrong,” she told ProPublica. "Doctors need to be providing care to pregnant women — that needs to be a baseline.”

After ProPublica exposed preventable deaths following delays in care, the Texas Legislature passed a bill this year to clarify that doctors can provide abortions when a patient is facing a life-threatening emergency, even if it is not imminent.

But many Texas doctors say the reform does not address the difficulty of treating women experiencing early miscarriages, which almost always involve blood loss; they say it’s hard to know when the expected bleeding might evolve into a life-threatening emergency — one that could have been prevented with a D&C. Women can bleed and remain stable for a long time, until they crash.

Texas forbids abortion at all stages of pregnancy — even before there is cardiac activity or a visible embryo. And while the law allows doctors to “remove a dead, unborn child,” it can be difficult to determine what that means during early miscarriage, when an array of factors can signal that a pregnancy is not progressing.

An embryo might fail to develop. Cardiac activity may not emerge when it should. Hormone levels might dip or bleeding might increase. Even if a doctor strongly suspects a miscarriage is underway, it can take weeks to conclusively document that a pregnancy has ended, and all the while, a patient might be losing blood.

Some OB-GYNs and emergency room physicians have long been advising patients to complete their miscarriage at home, especially at Catholic hospitals, even if that is not the standard of care. But now, physicians across the state are faced with a law that threatens up to 99 years in prison, and more are making a new calculus around whether to intervene or even tell patients they are likely miscarrying, said Dr. Anitra Beasley, an OB-GYN in Houston. “What ends up happening is patients have to present multiple times before a diagnosis can be made,” she added, and some of those patients wind up needing blood transfusions.

While they can be lifesaving, transfusions do not stop the bleeding, experts told ProPublica, and they can introduce complications, such as severe allergic reactions, autoimmune disorders or, in rare events, blood cancer. The dangers of hemorrhage are far greater, from organ failure to kidney damage to loss of sensation in the fingers and toes. “There’s a finite amount of blood,” said Dr. Sarah Prager, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington. “And when it all comes out, you’re dead.”

ProPublica’s findings about the rise in blood transfusions make clear that women who experience early miscarriages in abortion ban states are living in a more dangerous medical climate than many believe, said Amanda Nagle, a doctoral student investigating the same blood transfusion data for a forthcoming paper in the American Journal of Public Health.

“If people are seeking care at an emergency department,” Nagle said, “there are serious health risks to delaying that care.”

In some clinics and hospitals across Texas, the pressure to definitively diagnose a miscarriage has led to delays in offering D&Cs.

Considering the chance of criminal prosecution, some doctors now default to what many pregnancy loss experts view as an overly cautious method for diagnosing miscarriage: ultrasound images alone, using criteria from the Society of Radiologists in Ultrasound. Relying only on images to diagnose — and discounting other factors, like lab results or clinical symptoms — can take days or even weeks.

Dr. Gabrielle Taper was a resident at a Catholic hospital in Austin when the ban was enacted, and a culture of fear took hold among her colleagues, she told ProPublica. “We started asking, ‘Are we certain that we can document that we’ve met the radiology guidelines?’ as opposed to just treating the patient in front of us,” she said.

If they couldn’t show that the likely miscarriage met the criteria, they often felt they had to discharge patients without offering a D&C. “People are already in distress, and you are giving them confusion, a false sense of hope,” she told ProPublica. “Having to send a patient home knowing they may bleed so much they would need a blood transfusion — when I know there are procedures I could do or medicine I could offer — is just excruciating.”

The hospital where she worked did not respond to ProPublica’s request for comment.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists does not recommend this approach, advising doctors instead to review the ultrasound as one piece of information among many and counsel patients on all their options.

The Society of Radiologists in Ultrasound said that the guidelines “are not meant to apply in the setting of a life-threatening situation, such as heavy bleeding,” but did not respond to a question about whether it agreed with ACOG that doctors should use a combination of ultrasound images and clinical judgment to assess a pregnancy loss.

Dr. Courtney A. Schreiber, an obstetrics and gynecology professor and expert in early pregnancy care, said that even if a patient wants to let a likely miscarriage complete at home, the medical team should still explain different management options, including medication to speed up the process or a D&C, should symptoms like bleeding get worse.

“It’s our obligation to share information, help manage expectations and keep women safe,” she said.

What happened to Porsha Ngumezi shows how dangerous it can be to delay care, according to more than a dozen doctors who previously reviewed a detailed summary of her case for ProPublica.

When the mother of two showed up bleeding at Houston Methodist Sugar Land in June 2023, at 11 weeks pregnant, her sonogram suggested an “ongoing miscarriage” was “likely,” her doctor noted. She had no previous ultrasounds to compare it with, and the radiologist did not locate an embryo or fetus — which Ngumezi said she thought she had passed in a toilet; her doctors did not make a definitive diagnosis, calling it a pregnancy of “unknown location.” After hours bleeding, passing “clots the size of grapefruit,” according to a nurse’s notes, she received two blood transfusions — a short-term remedy. But she did not get a procedure to empty her uterus, which medical experts agree is the most effective way to stop the bleeding. Hours later, she died of hemorrhage, leaving behind her husband and young sons.

Doctors and nurses involved in Ngumezi’s care did not respond to multiple requests for comment for ProPublica’s story last fall, and the hospital did not answer questions about her care when asked about it again for this story. A spokesperson from Methodist Hospital said its OB-GYNs follow ACOG’s miscarriage diagnosis guidelines, which recommend considering clinical factors in addition to ultrasounds.

Even in circumstances in which the abortion ban allows a doctor to intervene — to treat a life-threatening emergency, for example, or to “remove a dead, unborn baby” — there’s plenty of evidence, detailed in lawsuits and federal investigations, that doctors in Texas still aren’t offering procedures.

As soon as Sarah De Pablos Velez, a 30-year-old media director, learned she was pregnant last summer, she began attending regular checkups at St. David’s Women’s Care, in Austin. During her third appointment at about nine weeks, a resident, Dr. Carla Vilardo, and her supervisor, Dr. Cynthia Mingea, reviewed the ultrasound, according to medical records, which indicated her pregnancy wasn’t viable. Instead of being offered treatment for a miscarriage, De Pablos Velez says she was advised to hold out hope and come back for the next checkup.

Five maternal health experts and practicing OB-GYNs who reviewed the records for ProPublica said by that ultrasound visit, doctors would have had enough information to determine that the pregnancy wasn’t viable, even under the most conservative guidelines. If they wanted to be extra sure, they could have done blood work or one more ultrasound during that visit.

Instead, De Pablos Velez was told to come back in two weeks, according to medical records. During a visit when she should have been nearly 11 weeks pregnant, Mingea wrote in her chart she was “not optimistic” about the pregnancy's viability. Still, De Pablos Velez was advised to return in another week to be sure.

Within a few days, when the cramping got so bad she could barely walk, De Pablos Velez went to the emergency room at St. David’s Medical Center, unaware that a D&C could stop the pain and the bleeding. “I’ve never researched what it looks like for women who have a miscarriage,” she told ProPublica. “I always thought you go to the bathroom and have a little bit of blood.”

Over two visits to the emergency room, doctors told her that she could complete the miscarriage at home, even as she reported filling up three toilet bowls with blood and a nurse remarked that they needed a janitor to clean the floor, De Pablos Velez and her husband recalled. No obstetrician ever came to assess her condition, according to medical records, and while her hospital chart says “all management options have been discussed with the patient and her husband,” De Pablos Velez and her husband both told ProPublica no one offered her a D&C.

She was told to follow up with her OB at her next appointment in three days. Six hours after discharge, though, she was trying to ride out the pain at home when her husband heard her muttering “lightheaded” in the bathroom and ran to her in time to catch her as she collapsed. “She was pale as a ghost, sweating, convulsing,” said her husband, Sergio De Pablos Velez. “There was blood on the toilet, the trash can — like a scene out of a horror movie.”

An ambulance rushed her to the hospital, where doctors realized she no longer had enough blood flowing to her organs. She received two blood transfusions. Without them, several doctors who reviewed her records told ProPublica, she would have soon lost her life.

Vilardo and the doctors who saw De Pablos Velez in the emergency room did not respond to requests to speak with ProPublica or declined to be interviewed. St. David’s Medical Center, which is owned by HCA, the largest for-profit hospital chain in America, said it could not discuss her case unless she signed privacy waivers. The hospital did not respond to ProPublica’s questions even after she submitted them. The De Pablos Velezes say that a hospital patient liaison told them after the ordeal that the hospital would conduct an internal investigation, educate the emergency department on best practices and share the results. It never shared anything. When ProPublica asked about the status of the investigation, neither the liaison nor the hospital responded.

Mingea, who supervised Vilardo’s care during checkups, reviewed the clinic’s records with ProPublica and agreed that De Pablos Velez should have been counseled about miscarriage management options at the clinic, weeks before she ended up in the ER. She said she did not know why she wasn’t but pointed ProPublica to the Society of Radiologists in Ultrasound criteria, which is hanging on the clinic’s wall and is used to teach residents.

She was adamant that her clinic, which she described as “very pro-choice — about as much as we can be in Texas,” regularly provides D&Cs for miscarrying patients. “I feel badly that Sarah had this experience, I really do,” she said. “Everybody deserves to be counseled about all their options.”

Doctors had five opportunities to counsel De Pablos Velez about her options and offer her a D&C, said Dr. Jodi Abbott, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Boston University School of Medicine, who reviewed case records. If they had, the life-or-death risks could have been avoided.

De Pablos Velez “basically received the same care Porsha Ngumezi did, only Porsha died and she survived,” said Abbott. “She was lucky.”

Sophie Chou contributed data reporting, and Mariam Elba contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Kavitha Surana, Lizzie Presser and Andrea Suozzo.

BEARING WITNESS: By Cole Martin in occupied Bethlehem

Kia ora koutou,

I’m a Kiwi journo in occupied Bethlehem, here’s a brief summary of today’s events across the Palestinian and Israeli territories from on the ground.

Israeli forces killed over 200 Palestinians in Gaza over the last 48 hours, injuring over 1037. Countless more remain under the rubble and in unreachable zones. 450 killed seeking aid, 39 missing, and around 3500 injured at the joint US-Israeli humanitarian foundation “death traps”.

Forty one  killed by Israeli forces since dawn today, including three children in an attack east of Gaza City. Gaza’s Al-Quds brigades destroyed a military bulldozer in southern Gaza.

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Settlers, protected by soldiers, violently attacked Palestinian residents near the southern village of Susiya last night, including children. The West Bank siege continues with Israeli occupation forces severely restricting movement between Palestinian towns and cities. Continued military/settler assaults across the occupied territories.

*

Iranian strikes targeted Ben Gurion airport and several military sites in the Israeli territories. Israeli regime discuss a 3.6 billion shekel defence budget increase.

*

400 killed and 3000 injured by Israel’s attacks on Iran, in the nine days since Israel’s aggression began. Iranian authorities have arrested dozens more linked to Israeli intelligence, and cut internet for the last three days to prevent internal drone attacks from agents within their territories.

Israeli strikes have targeted a wide range of sites; missile depots, nuclear facilities, residential areas, and reportedly six ambulances today.

Cole Martin is an independent New Zealand photojournalist based in the Middle East and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

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

“Another Wasted Life.” That’s the name of a remarkable new song by the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Grammy-winning artist Rhiannon Giddens. She released a video of the song on October 2 to mark International Wrongful Conviction Day. The song was inspired by Kalief Browder, a Bronx resident who died by suicide in 2015 at the age of 22 after being detained at Rikers Island jail for nearly three years, after being falsely accused at the age of 16 of stealing a backpack. He was held in solitary confinement for two years and was repeatedly assaulted by guards and other prisoners.

In the video for “Another Wasted Life,” Rhiannon Giddens features 22 people who were wrongly incarcerated. Together, they collectively served more than 500 years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. The video includes two men, David Bryant and Tyrone Jones, who each spent 40 years in prison. Another seven of the men each spent over 25 years locked up after wrongful convictions. Rhiannon Giddens made the video in partnership with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project.

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

I didn’t have to sleep on the cold, wet ground, live in a tent; relieve my bowels and bladder in the open like everyone around me; watch my children burn to death or die in my arms because all the hospitals were purposely destroyed; drink polluted water, dodge snipers or hear deadly drones buzzing day and night.

I’m here in New York, a city millions come to visit and where residents pay outrageous amounts just to live.  I drink all the clean water I want, have a warm bed at night, walk about safely, see the greatest buildings and smell the most varied eateries in our land.

With 6 other members of Veterans For Peace and the president of World Beyond War, I stand every day across the street from the famed United Nations headquarters, in front of the U.S. Mission to the U.N., with signs that read Feed Gaza!, We can’t say we didn’t know!, and another that changes slightly every day: “Veterans & Allies Fast for Gaza! Day # ___.”  Tomorrow is #24, heading for 40.

We are the core of the “Veterans & Allies Fast for Gaza,” that will soon have 1,000 participants in the U.S. and seven other nations. We restrict ourselves to 250 calories a day, the average amount reported early this year to be available to Gazans, who now are used as IDF target practice when they go to the rare aid distribution site.

Four days ago our fast met the halfway mark. Without access to quality health care I would have met my end.

I had highly underrated the importance of Potassium, one of those critical elements for life we take for granted. Almost everybody gets more than enough in a decent diet. But unbeknownst to me, the cancer meds I’m on reduce Potassium uptake.

One online health journal says:

A serum (blood) potassium level below 2.5 mmol/L is a medical emergency because it can lead to cardiac arrest and death. The patient will be treated in the hospital with immediate infusions of potassium through an intravenous (IV) line, along with potential other treatments to stabilize the heart rhythm.

At 20 days of fasting, hunger had gnawed at that unknown condition until friends prevailed upon me to I visit the V.A. center “just to get a check.” It revealed unnoticed heart arrhythmia and a potassium level of  2.1 mmol/L, inches from dying…silently, painlessly, quickly…among all the pleasures and benefits of this marvelous city. Without the vomitting, stomach cramps, hellish noises and crushing despair that is killing the children of Gaza.

Almost accidentally, I am writing to you from a clean, comfortable bed on Floor 13 of the Veterans Administration hospital in Manhattan, surrounded by friends and the privileges we assume as our birthright. I survived, escaping with a valuable lesson in human physiology. Today the doctor strongly recommended I quit the fast “at least until we can get you stabilized.” Just now, I finished my first actual meal in three weeks.

I survived and learned much of value. I met my personal goal to do more than hold a sign on a street corner to denounce the U.S. and Israel’s sick savagery against the innocents. That savagery is waged in broad daylight, visible to anyone who wants to see it, including the well-manicured “suits” who long ago let the love of money and power destroy their love of humanity.

They are the ones supplying Israel with the tools to carry out its plans. Netanyahu’s advisers calculated they couldn’t get away with “Final Solution: Plan A” – marching Palestinians to the ovens. They had to choose Plan B, which is coincidentally much more profitable to the Madmen Arsonists who run our country: bomb them, destroy them, incinerate them, degrade them, terrorize them and starve them into submission. Or better yet wipe, them from the earth.

If you’d like to join us and the soon-to-be 1,000 others in the U.S. and in Ireland, Italy, Germany,  Australia and Canada, participating in our cry of anguish and resistance go to this web site, created by our partners at Friends of Sabeel, North America.  Choose at what level you can participate. All are welcome. Come join the beloved community that one day must remake this world.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Mike Ferner.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered the termination of all remaining overseas employees of USAID to complete the dismantling of the six-decade-old agency. USAID was an early target of Elon Musk and DOGE. We look at the dismantling of USAID and what it means for people around the world to lose this lifeline, as detailed in a new Amnesty International report. “We talked to somebody who actually saw IVs being ripped out of arms when the stop-work order came down,” says Amnesty’s Amanda Klasing, who describes the consequences of the U.S.'s retraction of critical aid to countries in the Global South and refutes the Trump administration's claims that no deaths can be traced to the cuts. Now, lacking funding from the wealthiest country in the world, aid workers like Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council are turning to other countries’ governments to bridge the gap. Egeland says, “The U.S. is leaving international solidarity and compassion completely,” even though, as Klasing notes, “It’s been the leader of humanitarian aid, and it should remain so.”

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

President Trump’s Executive Order calling for incarcerated transgender women to be housed in men’s prisons and halting gender-affirming medical care for prisoners has put one of the most vulnerable segments of the prison population in even greater danger. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa investigates the violent realities trans inmates face in the US prison system, and the impact that Trump’s attacks on LGBTQ+ rights is having inside prisons.

Guest(s):

• Dee Deidre Farmer, Executive Director of Fight4Justice. In 1994, Farmer’s landmark Supreme Court case, the unanimous Farmer v. Brennan decision, established that prisoners have a right to be protected from harm and that prisons are responsible for their safety.
• Ronnie L. Taylor, Advocacy, Policy, & Partnerships Director of FreeState Justice in Maryland.

Additional resources:

• Amy Harman, The New York Times, “Judge blocks Trump effort to end treatment for transgender inmates”
• Kaley Johnson & Sam Levin, The Guardian, “Trans women transferred to men’s prisons despite rulings against Trump’s order”

Credits:

Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

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

Mansa Musa:

According to The Guardian, transgender women are being sent back to male prisons under an executive order issued by President Donald Trump. A recent report from Democracy Now, stated that 17 transgender women have coverage under a lawsuit they filed, but the remaining transgender population have been sent back. They are suffering horrible abuses in the form of rape by the male population and from the prison guards.

The impact of this decision can be seen in the segment of this transgender population that don’t have coverage. More importantly, we can see the impact that this decision is having on the prison population in general. What do you think? Should an executive order supersede a court order where multiple court decisions said transgender women should remain in the population where they’re at? Or should an executive order supersede that, regardless of the court?

To learn more about trans women and the LBGT community’s resistance, I spoke with Deidre Farmer, who in the mid ’90s, filed a historical lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons because of their complicity in allowing rape to exist in all prisons they govern. Out of this lawsuit came PREA: Prison Rape Elimination Act. It became policy and it became law, throughout the prisons and throughout America.

Deidre Farmer:

I’m Deidre Farmer, I’m the executive director of Fight for Justice. I was incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons for a total of about 25-30 years. I brought the first transgender case accepted and decided by the US Supreme Court; In that case, Farmer V. Brennan, the US Supreme Court said that prison officials can be held liable for the sexual assault of other inmates when they knowingly place inmates at risk of danger. I am currently working with several organizations on cases that challenge the executive orders bought by Donald Trump regarding transgender people in prison as well as in the military.

Mansa Musa:

Talk about how this suit came into existence and more importantly, why?

Deidre Farmer:

I entered the Bureau of Prisons as a teenager and when I was 19-20 years old I was transferred to the Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute. I had never been in a penitentiary environment before and did not know what to expect. I was in the prison system at Terre Haute for about a week when an inmate came into my cell with a knife and demanded that I have sex with him, and when I refused, he beat me up and raped me. Then a number of his homeboys or guys that he associated with, held me hostage in the cell for a day or two.

I ended up in protective custody and I had already started studying law and spending time in the library. When you’re in the segregation unit, you find other people who have had the same experience– They weren’t necessarily transgender people, some of them may have been LGBTQ or young guys that were vulnerable or other people viewed them as weak. When I was transferred from Terre Haute, this is something that continued to play on my mind because I knew people, like me, went into protective custody and therefore the prison officials knew what was happening in the population, but weren’t doing anything about it.

So I brought a suit claiming that when prison officials know that you are at risk of danger, assault, or rape, they can be sued for it. The district court and the Court of Appeals did not agree with me, but the US Supreme Court accepted the case. I wrote the petition on my own and filed it on my own and they accepted it. Then a friend of mine, who was an attorney at the ACLU National Prison Project, represented me in the Supreme Court. Of course, the court held if you can prove they knew — Because of the environment or previous incidents — Then you can sue them.

Mansa Musa:

Out of this litigation came what is now commonly known as PREA: Prison Rape Elimination Act. Based on this advocacy in the prison system right now, it’s policy that they had autonomous system set up where prisoners can complain about being sexually mistreated. We know this is a fact that PREA exists throughout the system– Federal Bureau, federal, state, and county jail, city jail, it exists.

The president issued this order and according to it, all transgender people are to be sent back to the institutions that they’ve been identified by their original sexual origin; If it’s a male that’s transgender and he’s in a female prison, according to Donald Trump, he going to be sent back to a male prison and vice versa. Talk about the impact that’s going to have on the transgender population in general and with the prison population overall.

Deidre Farmer:

What you’re doing is sanctioning the death of transgender people, whether they are transgendered or otherwise, they are still human beings and we should not be subjecting them to death because they do not conform to what our ideology of human beings should be. In my case, the Supreme Court recognized that people with certain vulnerabilities — Including gender dysphoria or transgender — Are vulnerable in certain populations.

After my case, there were many studies done. Consequently the US Congress took the issue up and enacted the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which is supposed to have zero tolerance for rape in prisons. As the Supreme Court said, rape is not part of the sentence. Congress, because they recognized from many, many hearings and testimonies from women, young people, disabled people, mentally challenged people, gender-conflicted people who were sexually assaulted in prison or in jail, and consequently implemented PREA, which is nationwide standards. It does not create legal rights, but if you violate it, you can lose federal funding.

The executive orders that Trump has issued totally ignores what the Supreme Court has said, totally ignores what the US Congress has said, and what Trump is saying, despite the vulnerabilities that you have, you’re going back into that environment. Despite the knowledge that you will be raped, despite the knowledge that the person who raped you might kill you so that you cannot tell. This is not an ideology, this is not a presumption; This is something that happens and has happened.

Now for transgender people who remain in facilities consistent with their biological gender, it is happening. To say that you will take an incarcerated transgender woman who has had vaginoplasty and has a vagina and place her into a male institution, it’s the same as placing a woman in there and to place a person at that risk, it’s inhumane.

Mansa Musa:

In Baltimore, I spoke to Ronnie Taylor, a policy advocate with Free State Justice about the adversities facing the LGBTQ community in its current political climate. Also, we talked about the historical activism of the LGBTQ community.

Ronnie Taylor:

Thank you for having me. Ronnie Taylor, as you said. Pronouns are she/her. I serve as the advocacy policy and partnerships director here at Free State. We are the oldest LGBT organization providing legal services, resources, advocacy, and education in the state of Maryland. And we’re the only– We call ourselves Maryland’s LGBTQ+ advocates.

Mansa Musa:

I was looking at some of y’alls accomplishments. Y’all have been given numerous awards, but more importantly, y’all had a bill passed to deal with marriage. Talk about that.

Ronnie Taylor:

Absolutely. We were birthed out of the merger of Equality Maryland, for those that are familiar with that. We became Free State Legal Project and then Free State Maryland. Equality Maryland passed the Same-Sex Marriage Act numerous years ago, and it was such an accomplishment for Maryland so we wanted to figure out how we can continue to position ourselves as advocates.

Unfortunately, when the doors closed at Equality Maryland, Free State Legal Project continued to work when it comes to our advocacy portions and we’ve been continuing to do that. We have some amazing legislative wins such as the Trans Health Equity Act. This recent year we passed the Carlton R. Smith Jr. HIV Modernization Act. The awards are great and it’s great to be recognized, but we’re going to continue to do the work for Marylanders.

Mansa Musa:

In the 2024 presidential campaign, Kamala Harris was being denigrated for providing or signing off on the legislation to allow transgender people to have a sex change according to what their orientation was. The President of the US and the Republican Party had a campaign ad; In the campaign ad they were promoting this as something that was inhuman and immoral with the way they was representing the person that was getting their sex changed, they had them looking almost monstrous. Talk about the impact that is having on the transgender community right now.

Ronnie Taylor:

Those acts that have come into place and how it is crucial to our current standing Marylanders, I pride myself in saying that on a local level, we have a great partner in our Governor Wes Moore. However, federally we are under attack, and that attack has looked a variance of ways. Military personnel folks and particularly trans folks who have been serving in the military for numerous of years.

Mansa Musa:

And honorably mention.

Ronnie Taylor:

And honorably mention. To have their careers taken away for an oath that they took to protect this country is inhumane in regards to our prison systems. The Prison Rape Elimination Act is a thing, and to say we’re going to put folks in cells and disregarding medical procedures and stating that you are trans, it’s simply an attack. Furthermore, there’s been numerous things this party has done; There’s been over 886 pieces of legislation introduced by the Federal Administration for the attack of transgender individuals.

Mansa Musa:

This is outstanding because you put all that time and energy into trying to have a moral agenda over people’s lives, but at the same token you are a convicted felon, you paid off Stormy Daniels for lewd lascivious behavior towards her, but you turned around and now you want to become the moral cop of people’s lives. Talk about the impact this is having on the transgender community and y’alls ability to raise funds.

Ronnie Taylor:

It’s hard. Funding is at a ultimate halt right now for a lot of organizations, including mine. If you put terms in such as “DEI” or “community” which our federal government are trying to eliminate, it puts us in a tricky situation. Thankfully we’ve been able to diversify our funding tools, as I’m in charge of that portfolio, and be able to still do the work. But it’s challenging because we don’t want to get rid of our moral compass and we refuse to.

We’re going to continue to do the work, but we find ourselves in a position in which the federal administration has proven they do not want to be a partner in this work. Thankfully, we have a great federal delegation in Maryland that’s going to continue to do the work and put forth legislation to combat that hate and that anti stuff, but it’s still there and it’s impacting everyday lives. It’s affecting people’s housing, their mental health, their ability to work, and so forth and so on.

Mansa Musa:

And we interviewed a transgender female that was responsible for PREA, Prison Rape and Enforcement Act, and she was saying that right now it look like it’s all out assault on transgender men or women in prison based on the fact that the president has put an executive order out saying that you going to be transferred to the prison of your assigned gender as opposed to your current gender. Talk about that if you can.

Ronnie Taylor:

I couldn’t agree with her more. It’s definitely an overall attack. It’s an agenda, it’s an attack. And one of the things that I often remind people in my advocacy work here is our current president, and I use that term loosely, these are just executive orders. This person has done nothing but signed executive orders throughout his time throughout this term. There has not been any laws. The reality is there’s still a chance to work and get things done on a local level. Now is the time more than ever. Primary general elections are coming up. We need folks to get in the race for the 2026, there are local elections, and do the work because it can be done.

And overall you need to hold your elected officials to the responsibility. When they took that oath to serve in Annapolis or serve in whatever state house you elected them to be in to do the work of all Marylanders. It’s inhumane. Trans people are a part of the political, social economic living sphere that we all consist and exist in. And so this attack on said sub community, it’s horrendous and there absolutely needs to be something done about it.

Mansa Musa:

This government is taking a conservative act. Like I said, we went back through the military, don’t ask, don’t tell, but now they just did an executive order around that. Secretary of Defense issued a memorandum about that, their prison, and they taking federal funds from anyone under [inaudible 00:17:48] species of DEI. But they primarily saying that if you’re transgender then you don’t have an arm and leg to stand on. Why do you think they’re having such a conservative act towards this particular community, sub-community?

Ronnie Taylor:

Great question, is we have to highlight folks from both sides of the aisle are trans.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, yeah.

Ronnie Taylor:

President Musk’s daughter is a woman of trans experience, but she’s not often talked about. She’s been pushed underneath of a carpet and it’s again, rooted in ignorance.

Mansa Musa:

As we go forward, what do you want our viewers to know about the transgender community? And more importantly, speak to them about what transgender means to you and what it should mean to society, because we live in a society supposed to be equal. We say we hold these truths to be self-evident that all people are treated equal and have [inaudible 00:18:42] rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If your life is at jeopardy, your liberty is at jeopardy, and then therefore you ain’t going to have no pursuit of happiness. Talk about why we should be looking at this issue and be real critical about this administration as it relates to their attitude towards people.

Ronnie Taylor:

Yeah. One of the things I often say is trans people since the beginning of time have done an amazing body of work, and our portfolio show that. Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera stood on the front lines of the Stonewall movement and they threw the first brick.

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Ronnie Taylor:

That’s not often something that we talk about. Trans people are elected officials. We have precious Brandi Davis down in the south, we have Andrea Jenkins in the Midwest, we have Sarah McBride, our first congresswoman.

Mansa Musa:

Come on, come on.

Ronnie Taylor:

And so folks are capable and willing to do the work, but we refuse to be ostracized. And so what it means to me, and thank you for asking me that question, I have prided myself and it’s often a label that I wear with pride and I introduce myself and my pronouns and say, “I’m a woman of trans experience,” because I refuse to dim that light in the work that I’m doing.

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Ronnie Taylor:

And so we’re in advocacy spaces, we’re in policy spaces. We are in all of the spaces. And so it’s ultimately the education that gets into it. And so the willingness to learn, there are some of us that are willing to do our trans one-on-one conversations with you, but you have to come to the table with a willingness to learn.

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Ronnie Taylor:

And so, oftentimes our political landscape has shown that it’s okay to be disrespectful and neglectful of said communities, but there is some work to be done.

Mansa Musa:

There you have it. The real news, Rallying the Boss. Transgender community is here, it’s here to stay. We not trying to make no excuse for it, but they’re human beings like us. The only problem that we have with this whole entire issue is that someone thinks that they have the moral compass to determine who should have a quality life versus whose life should be treated differently. This country is prided on equality and we are saying that equality is paramount when it comes to recognizing the transgender community and all their accomplishments they have made.

These stories about the LBGT community and transgender and their rights to be treated as human beings is something that Rallying the Boss believe should be brought front and center as it relates to humanity. This is about humanity. This is not about a person’s preference, sexual orientation. This is about people being treated as human. And we at Rallying the Boss believe that these stories, when you look at them and evaluate them, will give you a sense of understanding about humanity. We ask that you continue to look at Rallying the Boss and we ask that you give your views. Tell us what you think about these stories because it’s your views that give us content and context to our next story.

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Mansa Musa.

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.

Watch ABC15 Arizona's series "Seeking Death," based on our joint investigation into Maricopa County's handling of death penalty cases.

In 2010, Vikki Valencia’s 24-year-old brother, Triny Rey Lozano, died in an almost unimaginably brutal way. He was shot in the head multiple times, dumped on a remote road outside Phoenix and set on fire.

Valencia saw only one way prosecutors could bring her family justice: The killer should get the death penalty.

Maricopa County prosecutors built a capital murder case against the man they say killed Lozano, Victor Hernandez.

Valencia knew it would take a long time but believed it would be worth it. Over nearly 10 years, she visited the courthouse hundreds of times, frequently missing work to attend hearings where she revisited traumatic images of the crime scene.

“The death penalty was the thing that we wanted most because we thought it was going to give us justice,” she said in a recent interview.

During jury selection, the case stalled because of a potential conflict of interest involving a prosecutor who had previously represented Hernandez. Years later, a second trial followed. As that jury was deliberating, prosecutors dropped the death penalty. Nine years after he was charged with killing Lozano, Hernandez was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

Although the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has historically pursued the death penalty at high rates, its efforts rarely result in a death sentence.

ProPublica and ABC15 Arizona reviewed nearly 350 cases over a 20-year period in which Maricopa County prosecutors decided the crimes warranted the death penalty, and found that 13% ended in a death sentence. In most of the cases, defendants either pleaded guilty and received a lesser sentence or prosecutors changed course, ending their pursuit of the death penalty.

In 76 trials in which Maricopa County juries deliberated a death sentence, 41, or 54%, yielded one.

By comparison, an analysis of death penalty cases initiated in Harris County, Texas, from 2004 through 2023, found prosecutors took fewer cases, 24, to trial and were more successful, obtaining a death sentence 75% of the time, according to figures provided by a local advocacy group. Data over a longer time period also shows that federal prosecutors nationwide have obtained death sentences at a higher rate than in Maricopa County, according to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project.

Pursuing the death penalty is among the most consequential decisions that prosecutors make. Each case can be litigated across the tenures of multiple county attorneys and can cost more than a million dollars. In the hundreds of Maricopa County death penalty cases that prosecutors have pursued since 2007, the cost of furnishing the accused with an adequate defense has totaled $289 million. But the outcomes in the county raise questions about the office’s judgment in its pursuit of the ultimate punishment, according to court records and interviews with more than three dozen people including lawyers, former prosecutors, family members of victims and defendants, jurors and experts.

Former County Attorney Rick Romley said there should be a review of capital charging decisions after ProPublica and ABC15 shared the newsrooms’ findings with him. Romley wondered whether prosecutors are seeking death “in the appropriate cases.”

“The jury is kind of a barometer of whether or not you’re doing a good job,” he said. “And quite frankly … if it was a school grade, that’s called an F.”

The office, now headed by Rachel Mitchell, a Republican, declined our request for an interview. A spokesperson responded to written questions, emphasizing that “only one” person in Maricopa County — Mitchell — makes the decision to seek the death penalty and that each case is reviewed throughout the process, as information changes.

Maricopa County’s and the state of Arizona’s handling of the death penalty have been questioned for years. A 2016 report by the now-defunct Fair Punishment Project, a legal and educational research group at Harvard University, cited the county, among other places, as having a history of “overzealous prosecutors, inadequate defense and a pattern of racial bias and exclusion.”

In addition, defense attorneys for a death row prisoner in 2018 petitioned unsuccessfully to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that Arizona’s statute was overly broad because almost every murder can be charged as a capital case. And two former prosecutors and appeals court judges wrote in a 2022 law journal article that state officials, rather than individual counties, should make all death penalty decisions to ensure the process is “less arbitrary.”

Maricopa County prosecutors’ handling of death penalty cases is newly relevant as Arizona has resumed executions after a two-year pause. The state, which has 111 people on death row, halted executions in 2014, after Joseph Wood was injected repeatedly over two hours, gasping more than 600 times before dying, according to a reporter’s account. The state executed three people in 2022 but paused after the newly elected Gov. Katie Hobbs ordered a review of the lethal injection process. Hobbs dismissed the retired federal magistrate she had appointed to conduct the review after he concluded there is no humane way to execute people.

Valencia and her family felt the case had put their lives on hold. Looking back, she said it seemed odd that the prosecution, which had pursued death for so long, decided not to once the outcome was close. (Prosecutors declined to comment on the case.)

But as Valencia learned, there’s little transparency around the process in Maricopa County. Although the final decision to seek death is made by the county attorney, each case is vetted by a little known panel, the Capital Review Committee. The county attorney’s office refused to disclose to ProPublica and ABC15 who sits on the panel, how they vote on the cases being considered for the death penalty or even which cases they review.

The office said in a statement that the process ends not with the county attorney’s office but with a trial, which is “all done in public, in an open courtroom.” The office also said that it is successful in prosecuting capital cases and comparisons to Harris County could be misleading because they ignore the “details and intricacies of individual cases.”

Establishing a committee is generally better than individual judgments, but the quality of the decisions depends on the individuals involved, said Robert Dunham, former director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that shares data and analysis on capital punishment and frequently highlights issues with the system.

“Anyone who says that they have a fair process and is unwilling to say what that process is, is somebody who doesn’t have a fair process,” Dunham said.

When Romley, a Republican, was first elected Maricopa County attorney in 1989, deputy prosecutors in one of the nation’s largest counties decided whether to seek the death penalty on their own.

Among the first changes Romley made was to foster more deliberation. He created the Capital Review Committee to evaluate cases and recommend whether to pursue the death penalty. He still had the final say, but he believed that a group of veteran prosecutors would apply the law more consistently and recommend only cases that warranted the ultimate punishment.

“Seeking the death penalty is a momentous decision that you’ve got to make,” Romley said. “I wanted to make sure that we were ferreting out all the facts, that we made sure that judgment wasn’t being skewed by personal biases.”

Romley served four terms and decided not to seek a fifth, leaving office in 2004. His successor was Andrew Thomas, a Republican attorney and author, who ran as a law-and-order conservative vowing to crack down on illegal immigration and impose tougher sentences. After two years, Thomas had nearly doubled the number of death penalty prosecutions, earning Maricopa County the distinction of seeking death more than almost any other jurisdiction in the nation.

Critics said Thomas sought the death penalty for crimes that didn’t warrant it — including a case of vehicular homicide. The defendant in that case, David Szymanski, had a blood-alcohol content nearly twice the legal limit and cocaine in his system when he drove the wrong way on a freeway and killed a 22-year-old man.

A police review found that officers had violated department policy while pursuing Szymanski. Thomas relented more than a year later, and the Capital Review Committee recommended the capital charge be withdrawn. Szymanski pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

The victim’s mother told the Arizona Republic, “We’ve never wanted the death penalty.”

Kenneth Everett, who was a defense attorney on capital cases for the Maricopa County Office of the Legal Advocate during Thomas’ tenure, told the American Bar Association’s ABA Journal in 2010 that it was clear decisions on the cases were made solely by Thomas. “When I begged for a deal, all of the prosecutors would say, ‘I have to run it by the man,’” he said. “Thomas certainly had the ultimate power. And if he said no, you were going to trial. And he usually said no.”

The Arizona Supreme Court convened a task force to address case delays amid a shortage of qualified capital defense attorneys.

Thomas responded to criticism of the delays by blaming defense attorneys for drawing out proceedings and the courts for failing to enforce speedy trial rules. He wrote in an Arizona Republic opinion piece, “I’ve sought the death penalty in appropriate cases knowing juries make the ultimate decision and believing they should have this option.”

Thomas won a second term but resigned in 2010 to pursue an unsuccessful bid for state attorney general. He was later disbarred for misconduct and political prosecutions of county officials. Thomas, who did not respond to requests for comment, said at the time that he was “working to fight corruption.”

After Thomas’ resignation, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors appointed Romley to serve out the term. Back in his old job, Romley reviewed the 120 capital cases the office was pursuing at the time. He decided not to seek the death penalty in 11 of them, including a case in which a 4-month-old child was found dead at an in-home day care. The medical examiner had concluded the child died of blunt force trauma, but Romley said he brought in medical experts who disputed that and found the injuries the child suffered could have been caused by an illness.

In court minutes of a hearing to drop the death penalty in the case, the Capital Review Committee is noted as having voted 8-0 to dismiss the case, which was never refiled. But the weight of the charge on the defendant, Lisa Randall, is evident in court documents. Over the three years she was in and out of jail, her marriage fell apart and she lost her house, according to court documents. Randall couldn’t be reached for comment.

“Once you allege death, the whole game changes,” Romley said. “So many more resources go into that particular case.”

Once a prosecutor decides to seek the death penalty, the stakes rise. The courts and victims’ families face a lengthier process, and jurors can face intense scrutiny.

The court appoints two defense lawyers, along with an investigator and a mitigation specialist. (In other cases, defendants have only one lawyer.) The defense is also given more time to prepare, to allow for an examination of the defendant’s background to find sympathetic factors that could mitigate a death sentence.

Capital trials consume more time because they consist of three parts: A jury first decides if the defendant is guilty; then jurors consider aggravating circumstances that could make the defendant eligible or ineligible for a death sentence. Finally, the jury decides if the sentence should be death or life in prison.

It’s unclear how much the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office spends prosecuting capital cases. When ProPublica and ABC15 asked the office for a breakdown, a spokesperson said that the office doesn’t track spending on death penalty cases.

But since 2007, the county has spent nearly $289 million on defense for capital cases. Last year, the county spent $26 million, more than any year since 2007, according to the Maricopa County Office of Public Defense Services.

In Oklahoma, a study released in 2017 found that capital cases cost, on average, three times more than noncapital cases.

Jodi Arias made headlines in 2013 when she was convicted of killing her ex-boyfriend. Prosecutors sought the death penalty twice, and jurors deadlocked both times. Arias was ultimately sentenced to life in prison. The two trials cost $3.2 million, including the defense and prosecution, according to officials at the time.

During the 20 years examined by ProPublica and ABC15, juries in 35 cases either voted for life, deadlocked, determined the cases didn’t qualify for death or found the defendant not guilty. In 41 cases, jurors recommended the death penalty.

Frank Baumgartner, a University of North Carolina political science professor, was surprised Maricopa County juries disagreed with prosecutors 46% of the time in capital cases. Prosecutors would save taxpayers money by exercising more discretion over which cases they pursue, Baumgartner said. They also appear to be out of step with public opinion in the county, given that juries disagree with them so frequently on the death penalty. “They’re not in sync with their local community,” he said.

People who served on capital juries in the county told ProPublica and ABC15 that they had traumatic experiences. During the selection process, potential jurors are asked personal questions in open court, making them feel vulnerable. Some have had their identities revealed by jurors who disagree with them.

A juror in a high-profile Maricopa County murder case who asked not to be named because of safety concerns called the experience “one of the worst of my life.” Once the juror learned it was a death penalty case, the stress triggered intense stomach pain. “It’s the highest penalty in the land, and I don’t think that it should be applied lightly,” the former juror said.

Given what jurors go though, prosecutors should be transparent about their decision-making, the juror said.

“They should show some of the bravery that they expect us to show,” the former juror said of the secretive committee. “You ask us to do this, to put our life on hold, to go through this, not share it with anybody. Then show some of the bravery that you hold us to, and be accountable like we would be accountable if we were caught not following any of the rules.”

In 2019, Myla Fairchild served as a juror in a case against the man accused of murdering Gilbert police Lt. Eric Shuhandler, who was killed after pulling over a pickup truck. Christopher Redondo, a passenger in the truck, shot Shuhandler in the face, setting off a 50-mile chase, prosecutors said. Fairchild said she voted against the death penalty because of Redondo’s mental capacity and long history of mental illness. Redondo was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Afterwards, frustrated jurors told the media Fairchild’s name.

She wasn’t afforded the same privacy as the prosecutors on the review committee who recommended the death penalty in the first place, she said.

“You’re not protected,” she said.

ProPublica and ABC15 asked the largest prosecutorial offices in Arizona and across the nation how they decide whether to seek the death penalty. The newsrooms found that no two counties handle decision-making the same way, but Maricopa County is an outlier for obscuring nearly every aspect of its committee’s work.

The ACLU sued the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in 2019 for access to the committee’s membership and other records. Jared Keenan, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona’s legal director, said the organization considered the records important to the public’s understanding of the death penalty.

“Prosecuting agencies have an incredible amount of power, and that power is at its height when they make life-and-death decisions,” Keenan said. “The public needs to know who is involved in making those decisions to be able to ensure that those decisions are made responsibly, constitutionally, ethically.”

The county opposed releasing the information. “They were fighting to keep this specific information from the public for years and years,” Keenan said. A judge did not order the county to release the committee records to the public.

At ProPublica and ABC15’s request, the county attorney’s office shared a policy document listing the composition of the Capital Review Committee but said the document is “significantly out of date.” It listed as committee members: the deputy chief of the Criminal Division; the division chiefs from the Capital Litigation Bureau, Major Offenders Division and Special Victims Division; and the Community Based Prosecution Division chiefs. The policy allows the county attorney to designate other committee members.

In a statement, the county attorney’s office reiterated that Mitchell makes the final decision after considering a wide range of information.

Still, the decision can feel opaque to victims’ family members.

When prosecutors sought the death penalty against Octavia Rogers in the killing of her three young children in the summer of 2016, they went against the family’s wishes, according to Rogers’ aunt, Sherry Spooney. Spooney and her family had lost three young relatives in the killing and didn’t want to lose Rogers to the death penalty, too. “What would it solve? How would it help the situation?” she said.

Prosecutors never spoke to the family about how they arrived at their decision, Spooney said.

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office said it reached out to the family.

Spooney called their secrecy “disheartening” and said it caused her to wonder if the office had its own agenda in pursuing the death penalty. “It’s a total disservice, to not just the family, but the victims of the family. And in this case, we’re both, we’re one and the same, and if they’re going to make decisions for someone else, it should be known.”

Last year, after Rogers was found incompetent to stand trial, she pleaded “guilty except insane,” meaning she did not know at the time of her crime that the act was wrong. Rogers is being held at the Arizona State Hospital.

Valencia recalled that when the case against her brother’s killer was delayed, she initially blamed defense attorneys for dragging out the proceedings, but the committee’s secrecy was also contributing to the delay. Attorneys for Hernandez, the defendant, had discovered a member of the Capital Review Committee had a potential conflict of interest: A former defense attorney for Hernandez in an unrelated case had since become a prosecutor and was on the committee that voted to reject a plea deal for Hernandez. (The plea deal included the noncapital case as well.)

Prosecutors fought for nearly three years to keep the committee’s membership and its votes secret in a case that reached the Arizona Supreme Court. A judge eventually determined there was no conflict of interest in the Hernandez case.

Years later, when prosecutors withdrew the death penalty charge against Hernandez, Valencia said she agreed with the decision even though she’d once thought it would be the only just outcome.

“It took such a toll on our family, at that point, I was just ready for it to be done,” she said.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Nicole Santa Cruz, ProPublica, and Dave Biscobing, ABC15 Arizona.

Let us now look about us. Where are our national languages now? Where are the books written in the alphabets of our national languages? Where is our own literature now? Where is the wisdom and knowledge of our fathers now? Where is the philosophy of our fathers now? The centres of wisdom that used to guard the entrance to our national homestead have been demolished; the fire of wisdom has been allowed to die; the seats around the fireside have been thrown on to a rubbish heap; the guard posts have been destroyed; and the youth of the nation has hung up its shields and spears.

— Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Devil on the Cross (Oxford: Heinemann, 1987), p. 58–9.

It was announced a few days ago that the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o has died at age 87 on 28 May, 2025. His daughter Wanjiku Wa Ngugi wrote on Facebook: “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of our dad, Ngugi wa Thiong’o”.

Ngugi’s output of novels, plays, and critical writings is an extraordinary legacy of work which not only focused on analysing culture from a radical perspective but also producing culture with that perspective. Such novels as Devil on the Cross (Caitaani mũtharaba-Inĩ)(1980), Weep Not, Child (1964), The River Between (1965), A Grain of Wheat (1967), Petals of Blood (1977), Matigari ma Njiruungi (1986), and Mũrogi wa Kagogo (Wizard of the Crow, 2006). His analytical writings included Barrel of a Pen: Resistance to Repression in Neo-Colonial Kenya (1983), Writing against Neo-Colonialism (1986), Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986), and Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms (1993).

Ngugi went one step further when he decided to write his novels and plays in Gikuyu, thereby giving hope to writers all over the world writing in minority or oppressed languages.

When I was doing my PhD on the relationship between the Irish language movement and Irish politics, I was very interested in talking to him about this linguistic aspect of his work. I had written to him from Dublin and not heard back, so when I was visiting my cousins in Connecticut I rang NYU and was put straight through to him. I told him I had written to him, and he said he had got the letter and asked if I could meet him in NYU on the following Wednesday at 1pm (6 May 1998). Naturally I was delighted. I arrived at his office at the allotted time on Wednesday and it was great to meet him.

However, after about ten minutes chat, he said that he had to go to an interview of an applicant for a performance arts masters in a different building. He said, ‘Come with me’, so I went. We went to a different building and met the applicant and the other interviewers. Ngugi asked her if it was OK for me to sit on the panel too. She said fine, and we went into another room and they interviewed her. I made a comment about my own experiences working as a designer in community theatre. Afterwards, she was told she was accepted on the course and she gave everyone a hug including me.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin at his home in New Jersey, USA, 6 May 1998

At that point Ngugi said he had to go to New Jersey to pick up his son from school and said to me, ‘Come with me’, so I went. We got into his car and had a great discussion on the way out about language and literature. I was interested in Ngugi’s novels in his native language as a model for a radical Irish literature in the Irish language. Ngugi was fascinated with all aspects of the Irish language and Irish history and politics.

We spent more time talking about those topics than about his own work. We picked up his son and then he invited me to his house where I met his wife and other family members. We had something to eat and continued our discussion practically non-stop. Eventually Ngugi looked at his watch and at this stage it was 10pm, and he said to me that he had better get me back into New York Times Square to get my last bus back to Connecticut. We continued our chat all the way back, after he had given me a couple of his signed books and we had a photo taken together.

I had spent the whole day with him in New York discussing literature and language. It was truly a great day meeting and talking to a giant of African literature.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Caoimhghin O Croidheain.

Fiji’s Minister for Health and Medical Services has revealed the latest HIV numbers in the country to a development partner roundtable discussing the national response.

The minister reported 490 new HIV cases between October and December last year, bringing the 2024 total to 1583.

“Included in this number are 32 newborns diagnosed with HIV acquired through mother-to-child transmission,” Dr Atonio Rabici Lalabalavu said.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific HIV reports

Fiji declared an outbreak of the disease in January. The Fiji Sun reported around 115 HIV-related deaths in the January-September 2024 period.

Fiji’s Central Division reported 1100 new cases in 2024, with 427 in the Western Division and 50 in the Northern Division.

Of the newly recorded cases, less than half — 770 — have been successfully linked to care, of which 711 have been commenced on antiretroviral therapy (ART).

Just over half were aged in their twenties, and 70 percent of cases were male.

Increase in TB, HIV co-infection
Dr Lalabalavu said the increase in HIV cases was also seeing an increase in tuberculosis and HIV co-infection, with 160 individuals in a year.

He said the ministry strongly encouraged individuals to get tested, know their status, and if it was positive, seek treatment.

And if it is negative, to maintain that negative status.

“I will reiterate what I have said before to all Fijians – HIV should not be a death sentence in Fiji,” he said.

In the Western Pacific, the estimated number of people living with HIV (PLHIV) reached 1.9 million in 2020, up from 1.4 million in 2010.

At the time, the World Health Organisation said that over the previous two decades, HIV prevalence in the Western Pacific had remained low at 0.1 percent.

However, the low prevalence in the general population masked high levels of HIV infection among key populations.

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.

Officials in Gaza say over 100 Palestinians have been killed during recent Israeli attacks on people waiting at aid sites. An additional 500 are wounded. Following the series of deadly attacks, the shadowy U.S.-Israeli humanitarian aid operation is shutting down for a day, and Israel’s military warned Palestinians that roads leading to the aid distribution centers will be considered “combat zones.” The United Nations has called for a prompt and impartial investigation into each of the attacks. The U.S.-Israeli aid system is “more about the humiliation and the control of the people” than feeding Palestinians, says Mahmoud Alsaqqa, Oxfam’s food security and livelihoods coordinator in Gaza, who joins us from Gaza City.

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

Note: This article contains a graphic description that some readers may find upsetting.

An 88-year-old mother whose son died in the 1989 Tiananmen massacre has trouble even walking to a Beijing cemetery to commemorate his passing every June 4, but authorities still keep her under surveillance. “Am I that scary?” she asks.

Zhang Xianling is one of the founding members of the Tiananmen Mothers group that represents the families of victims of the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters that left hundreds if not thousands dead. The incident is expunged from the public record in China.

(Courtesy of the Tiananmen Mothers)

Each year, the mothers submit a letter to Chinese leaders, calling on the ruling communist party to publicize records about the June 4, 1989, incident, award compensation and to hold accountable those responsible for the killings.

Zhang told Radio Free Asia that although she is old, has difficulty getting about and needs a wheelchair, as long as her physical condition allows, she will definitely go to Beijing’s Wan’an Cemetery on June 4 to pay tribute to her son Wang Nan who died in the crackdown - as a group of mothers does each year.

Last year, on the eve of June 4, her phone line was cut and she lost contact with the outside world. This year, starting from April, she said she has been under close surveillance.

(Andy Wong/AP)

“They (the authorities) keep a close eye on me,” Zhang told RFA Mandarin, recounting how on a recent trip outside Beijing she got home around midnight and state security agents called her to say they would post someone outside her door.

“At 6:00 the next morning, they sent someone to guard my door. I don’t know why they are so afraid of me. I am 88 years old and I have to use a wheelchair if I have to walk 200 meters. Am I that scary?” she said.

Fallen silent

The annual gathering of the Tiananmen Mothers at the cemetery is a defiant act. Public commemoration of the massacre is banned in China. An annual candlelight vigil that for three decades marked the anniversary in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park has also fallen silent for the past five years amid a crackdown on pro-democracy activists there since Beijing tightened its grip over the once semi-autonomous territory.

While China has never made public the numbers who died or were injured on June 4, the Tiananmen Mothers published a detailed map in 2009 showing where some of the victims died. Estimates of the death toll have ranged from a few hundred to several thousand. June 4 is also a forbidden search term on the internet in China.

(AP)

Zhang’s son Wang Nan was a 19-year-old student at Beijing’s Yuetan High School when he was shot dead by martial law troops in the wee hours of June 4 at an intersection north of the Great Hall of the People, according to a record of victims curated by the non-government group, Human Rights in China. The bullet entered the left side of his forehead and came out behind his left ear, leaving a bullet hole at the back of the motorcycle helmet he was wearing.

Troops buried Wang Nan’s body with others in a shallow grave west of Tiananmen Gate but heavy rains washed the soil away a few days later. His body was taken to a hospital morgue and was initially mistaken as that of a soldier as he’d recently returned from military training and was wearing an old military uniform. His family was only able to recover his body on June 14, and his cremated remains were interred at Wan’an Cemetery.

Promise not to see reporters

Thirty-six years on, and the anniversary of Wang Nan’s passing still looms large in Zhang’s life and remains politically sensitive.

Zhang said that she had protested against the authorities’ frequent deployment of guards at her gate. She said a policeman she had contacted about this had urged her against seeing journalists.

“They asked me to promise not to see reporters and not to say anything, I said, ‘I can’t do that.’ I said that if I spread rumors and you arrest me, I have no objection. I said everything I said is true. You (the Chinese government) don’t tell the truth, and if people come to ask me, won’t I tell it? If people come to me, whether they are reporters or not, I will tell them about June 4,” Zhang told RFA.

Zhang said she feels very sad every year when the anniversary of her son’s death approaches, and that the pain of losing him will not be diluted or erased by the years.

“Between April and June, if the current government didn’t say it was a sensitive period, I would (still) be sad,” she said. “As a mother, it is impossible for me to forget, especially such a sudden death.”

“The pain is deeply engraved in my heart. This is different from the original grief. It is a kind of pain. One is the pain of missing (him), and the other is the pain of not having resolved this matter.”

‘I will not stop fighting’

Zhang said that the members of Tiananmen Mothers are scattered and cannot meet often, but judging from the number of people who sign the open letter every year demanding answers, many of the victims’ families are as committed as she is, which has strengthened her belief and determination.

(Tiananmen Mothers)

“I will not stop fighting,” she said. “We want to seek justice for those who died in the June 4 incident. We have this firm belief, so we have persisted up to now. I just want to tell my children that Mom is still persisting, and also to tell the authorities that we are still persisting.”

Zhang added that no matter how powerful the regime is, it cannot completely erase what has happened.

“The (June 4) massacre took place in full view of the public, so it is not something that will be easily forgotten. Although the candles in Victoria Park (Hong Kong) were blown out by the strong wind, the spark of justice is still burning in the hearts of every person with a conscience,” she said.

“As long as there is a spark, and one person commemorating, it is meaningful to our family … No matter how many people there are, it is a kind of comfort and support to us, and it also gives us spiritual strength."

Edited by Mat Pennington.

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

Yes, Death gets us all in the end, smokers and nonsmokers, smokers statistically earlier but not nearly everyone, and not all that much sooner in any case. And there are lots more causes of lung cancer.

*asbestos
*air pollution
*radon
*genetics
*alcohol
*high carb diet
*viruses

I can attest to smoking – in moderation – as a perk in my life which I don’t begrudge my younger self or me now. Life is hard, and then you die. And I politely demure when I’m told by doctor after doctor to give it up. One cigarette a day is not going to kill me. As an avid cyclist, a car/truck is much more likely to do that.

Speaking of giving up, I seem to have done that with alcohol without any sense of loss. Alcohol was an endless source of headache and nausea in my wild youth. Ramadan helps, and this year, when I could drink (moderately) freely again, I tried and found it did virtually nothing. A brief buzz. It’s good (one drink) to break the ice, but when you’re old, there aren’t any parties or mixers anymore so what’s the use?

That’s one of Islam’s perks: pushing you to give up alcohol. Surah Al-Baqarah (2:219): They ask you about intoxicants and gambling. Say, ‘In both is great sin and [yet, some] benefit for people. But their sin is greater than their benefit.’

I get angry hearing calls to ban smoking completely. Another great Quran quote: Surah Al-Baqarah (2:)256 Let there be no compulsion in religion, for the truth stands out clearly from falsehood. Already cigarette adverts are gone, sponsorships. Fair enough. Far enough!

So why not the same puritanism with respect to alcohol? Alcohol is far, far more lethal, disruptive, a real killer, and yet ads everywhere complete with sexy models or rugged men, everyone happily celebrating whatever. Sadly, prohibition doesn’t work, but take a leaf from the war against smoking: no ads, more taxes, more rigorous legal penalities for the many crimes ‘under the influence’. Make drinking clearly a dangerous vice. That would be a huge step forward.

Don’t take my words as a prescription. I envy people who don’t need a crutch like smoking or alcohol to be happy. And keep in mind, one cigarette is my norm. It’s the anticipation of that calm as much as the smoking. As a general rule in life: it’s the thought that counts. And 90% of joy is in the anticipation.

Like most pleasures/poisons, there are good and bad qualities to tobacco.

Health

Leaving aside its poisonous quality and the heightened risk of lung cancer, the major upside is its calming effect. I know when some crisis hits, I can always take refuge in a smoke. Anything used to excess is harmful. Unlike alcohol, which often leads to more and more and then acting dangerously and foolishly, you quickly reach a limit in smoking. You can die of alcohol poisoning, but it takes years to die from smoking, if at all.

Like all natural poisons, it has medicinal uses:

*Insect repellant against all garden parasites (many a mosquitoey camping trip benefited from a few puffs).

*Indigenous people used tobacco as a pain reliever for ear aches, toothaches and as a poultice.

*Indigenous people believed that the nicotine in the tobacco would help relieve pain as well as help draw out the poison and heal the snake wound. After the poison had been sucked out, chewed leaves could be applied to cuts or bound on the bite with a bandage.

*To alleviate symptoms of ADHD, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s and dementia.

It’s not a cure, but a powerful pain reliever, with some magical (i.e., we don’t understand) effects.

Social psychology

If you are nervous, again it is calming. Then there’s Freud and what a cigarette represents, its role as a fetish, a substitute for sex. A smoke can be a nice icebreaker. Many of my friendships have begun over sharing a smoke. It’s cheap and less harmful that a few drinks. It’s communal, especially for boys/men. Worldwide, a third of men smoke, only 6% of women, 5x less, do. Canadian men much less (14%), Canadian women much more (10%) — a negative spin-off from feminism?

I remember my first smoke as a teen, out the window but immediately detected by sentry-mother, guilt-tripping me, as if that’s any way to make me stop. As pacifier in my nervous early teaching days. Graduating to Drum rolling tobacco while living abroad. Then reverting to cheap manufactured cigarettes in Egypt, eventually returning to rolling my own in retirement. A cigarette has been a comforting companion throughout my life. I’m loathe to despise and reject this simple, economical pleasure totally. I don’t like fanatics of any stripe.

Religion

Everything is spiritual. Sadly, tobacco was captured by capitalism and most smoking is now industrial – packaged in plastic, filled with chemicals to burn faster so you smoke more. You take them for granted. Rolling my daily cigarette is done with reverence, a ritual akin to prayer. I thank the Lord for His generous gifts to be used responsibly.

North American natives considered it sacred, e.g., the ‘peace pipe’. The sweat lodge relies on heat and wood smoke to cleanse the spirit, recalling early Man’s smokey cave dwelling.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are undecided, as tobacco only became an issue in the 17th century. In short, moderation is called for, but while Islam proscribes alcohol, smoking (in moderation) is acceptable. Early on in the Hasidic movement, the Baal Shem Tov taught that smoking tobacco can be used as a religious devotion, and can even help bring the Messianic Era. Rabbi Levi Yiztchak of Berditchev is quoted as saying that ‘a Jew smokes on the weekdays and sniffs tobacco on the Sabbath.’

My conclusion after a lifetime of cogitating: one cigarette a day keeps the doctor away. (Also one toke a day but that’s for another article.)

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Eric Walberg.

“Lethal climate disasters are the foreseeable, and foreseen, consequences of specific actions by fossil fuel corporations, CEOs, and boards of directors. They caused the climate crisis and deceived the public about the dangerousness of their products in order to block and delay solutions that could prevent heat deaths like Juliana’s. These fossil fuel actors should be held accountable to the victims of their lethal conduct, and this wrongful death suit provides a compelling new approach for climate victims moving forward.

“Wrongful death suits provide private remedies. But Big Oil companies have wronged the public, too, which is why this suit may also help lay the groundwork for another approach to climate accountability: criminal homicide prosecutions. The purpose of criminal law enforcement is to deter future crimes, promote public safety, punish wrongdoers, and encourage the convicted to pursue less harmful practices. All of these public safety goals apply to Big Oil’s continuing contributions to climate change, and prosecutors across the country should take note of this new wrongful death suit and carefully consider how the climate effects their constituents are experiencing fit the criminal laws they are charged with enforcing.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

A short guide on how to engineer a genocide by starvation and ethnic cleansing:

1. Choose your moment. Ok, you’ve been ethnically cleansing, occupying, oppressing, and killing your neighbours for decades. The international courts have ruled your actions illegal. But none of that will matter the moment your neighbours retaliate by attacking you. Don’t worry. The Western media can be relied on to help out here. They will be only too ready to pretend that history began on the day you were attacked.

2. Declare, in response, your intention to starve your neighbours, treating them as “human animals”, by blocking all food, water, and power. You will be surprised by how many Western politicians are ready to support this as your “right to defend yourself”. The media will echo them. It is important not to just talk about blocking aid. You must actually do it. There will be no serious pushback for many, many months.

3. Start relatively slowly. Time is on your side. Let a little bit of aid in. But be sure to relentlessly smear the well-functioning, decades-old aid distribution system run by the international community, one that is transparent, accountable, and widely integrated into the communities it serves. Say it is infiltrated by “terrorists”.

4. Use that claim – evidence isn’t really necessary, the western media never ask for it – as the pretext to bomb the aid system’s warehouses, distribution centres, and community kitchens. Oh, and don’t forget to bomb all the private bakeries, destroy all the farmland, shoot all the animals, and kill anyone who tries to use a fishing boat, so that there are no other sources of food. You are now in control of the trickle of aid reaching what is rapidly becoming a severely malnourished population.

5. Time to move into higher gear. Stop the international community’s aid from getting in altogether. You will need a humanitarian cover story for this bit. The danger, particularly in an age of social media, is that images of starving babies will make you look very bad. Hold firm. You can get through this. Claim – again, evidence isn’t really necessary, the western media won’t ask for it – that the “terrorists” are stealing the aid. You will be surprised how willing the media is to talk about babies going “hungry”, ignoring the fact that you are starving them to death, or speak of a “famine”, as though from drought and crop failure, not from your carefully laid plans.

6. Don’t lose sight of the bigger story. You are blocking aid to “eradicate the terrorists”. After all, what is the worth of a baby, of a child – all one million of them – in the fight to eliminate a rag-tag army of lightly armed “terrorists” who have never waged their struggle outside of their historic homeland?

7. Now that the population is entirely at your disposal, you can roll out a “humanitarian” alternative to the existing system you have been vilifying and wrecking. Probably best to have been working on this part of the plan behind the scenes from early on, and to have regularly consulted with the Americans on how to develop it. You may even find they are willing to fund it. They usually are. You can obscure their role by using the term “private contractors”.

8. It’s time for implementation. Obviously, the point is not to really distribute aid. It is all about providing a cover story so that the starvation and ethnic cleansing can continue. Ensure that you provide only a tiny amount of aid and make it available only at a few distribution points you have set up with these “private contractors”. This has two advantages.

9. It forces the population to come to the areas you want them in, like luring mice into a trap. Get them to the very edge of the territory, because from there you will be best positioned at some point to drive them over the border and get rid of them for good.

10. Your system will lead to chaos, as desperate, starving people fight for food. That’s great for you. It makes them look like a swarming mass of those “human animals” you were talking about from the start. Don’t they deserve their fate? And it means that young, fit men – especially those from large, often armed, criminal families – will end up with most of the food. The stuff they can’t grab at the distribution points, they will ambush later as people try to return home laden with their heavy aid packages. That may seem counter-productive, given that you’re claiming to want to eliminate the “terrorists”. Won’t these fit, young men, as conditions degenerate further, provide a future source of recruits to the “terrorists”? But remember, the real goal here is to starve the population as quickly as possible. The young, the elderly, the sick, and the vulnerable are the ones who will die first. The more of them who start dying, the faster the pressure builds on everyone else to flee the territory to save themselves.

You are nearly there. True, faced with the emaciated bodies of your victims, Western politicians will start making harsh pronouncements. But they have already given you a massive head start of 20 months. Be grateful for that. You don’t need much longer. While they dither, you can get on with the job of extermination. Leave it to the history books to judge what really happened.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

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American diplomats in at least two countries have recently delivered internal reports to Washington that reflect a grim new reality taking hold abroad: The Trump administration’s sudden withdrawal of foreign aid is bringing about the violence and chaos that many had warned would come.

The vacuum left after the U.S. abandoned its humanitarian commitments has destabilized some of the most fragile locations in the world and thrown refugee camps further into unrest, according to State Department correspondence and notes obtained by ProPublica.

The assessments are not just predictions about the future but detailed accounts of what has already occurred, making them among the first such reports from inside the Trump administration to surface publicly — though experts suspect they will not be the last. The diplomats warned in their correspondence that stopping aid may undermine efforts to combat terrorism.

In the southeastern African country of Malawi, U.S. funding cuts to the United Nations’ World Food Programme have “yielded a sharp increase in criminality, sexual violence, and instances of human trafficking” within a large refugee camp, U.S. embassy officials told the State Department in late April. The world’s largest humanitarian food provider, the WFP projects a 40% decrease in funding compared to last year and has been forced to reduce food rations in Malawi’s sprawling Dzaleka refugee camp by a third.

To the north, the U.S. embassy in Kenya reported that news of funding cuts to refugee camps’ food programs led to violent demonstrations, according to a previously unreported cable from early May. During one protest, police responded with gunfire and wounded four people. Refugees have also died at food distribution centers, the officials wrote in the cable, including a pregnant woman who died under a stampede. Aid workers said they expected more people to get hurt “as vulnerable households become increasingly desperate.”

“It is devastating, but it’s not surprising,” Eric Schwartz, a former State Department assistant secretary and member of the National Security Council during Democratic administrations, told ProPublica. “It’s all what people in the national security community have predicted.”

“I struggle for adjectives to adequately describe the horror that this administration has visited on the world,” Schwartz added. “It keeps me up at night.”

In response to a detailed list of questions, a State Department spokesperson said in an email: “It is grossly misleading to blame unrest and violence around the world on America. No one can reasonably expect the United States to be equipped to feed every person on earth or be responsible for providing medication for every living human.”

The spokesperson also said that “an overwhelming majority” of the WFP programs that the Trump administration inherited, including those in Malawi and Kenya, are still active.

But the U.S. funds the WFP on a yearly basis. For 2025, the Trump administration so far hasn’t approved any money in either country, forcing the organization to drastically slash food programs.

In Kenya, for example, the WFP will cut its rations in June down to 28% — or less than 600 calories a day per person — a low never seen before, the WFP’s Kenya country director Lauren Landis told ProPublica. The WFP’s standard minimum for adults is 2,100 calories per day.

“We are living off the fumes of what was delivered in late 2024 or early 2025,” Landis said. On a recent visit to a facility treating malnourished children younger than 5, she said she saw kids who were “walking skeletons like I haven’t seen in a decade.”

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has pledged to restore safety and security around the world. At the same time, his administration, working alongside Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, swiftly dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, canceling thousands of government-funded foreign aid programs they considered wasteful. More than 80% of USAID’s operations were terminated, which crippled lifesaving humanitarian efforts around the world.

Musk, who did not respond to a request for comment, has said that DOGE’s cuts to humanitarian aid have targeted fraudulent payments to organizations but are not contributing to widespread deaths. “Show us any evidence whatsoever that that is true,” he said recently. “It’s false.”

For decades, American administrations run by both parties saw humanitarian diplomacy, or “soft power,” as a cost-effective measure to help stabilize volatile but strategically important regions and provide basic needs for people who might otherwise turn to international adversaries. Those investments, experts say, help prevent regional conflict and war that may embroil the U.S. “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition,” Jim Mattis, who was defense secretary during Trump’s first administration, told Congress in 2013 when he led U.S. Central Command.

Food insecurity has long been closely linked with regional turmoil. But despite promises from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that lifesaving operations would continue amid widespread cuts to foreign aid, the Trump administration has terminated funding to WFP for several countries. Nearly 50% of the WFP’s budget came from the U.S. in 2024.

Since February, U.S. officials throughout the developing world have issued urgent warnings forecasting that the Trump administration’s decision to suddenly cut off help to desperate populations could exacerbate humanitarian crises and threaten U.S. national security interests, records show. In one cable, diplomats in the Middle East communicated concerns that stopping aid could empower groups like the Taliban and undermine efforts to address terrorism, the narcotics trade and illegal immigration. The shift may also “significantly de-stabilize the transitioning” region and “only serve to benefit ISIS’ standing,” officials warned in other correspondence. “It could put US troops in the region at risk.”

Embassies in Africa have delivered similar messages. “We are deeply concerned that suddenly discontinuing all USAID counter terrorism-focused stabilization and humanitarian programs in Somalia … will immediately and negatively affect U.S. national security interests,” the U.S. embassy in Mogadishu, Somalia, wrote in February. USAID’s role in helping the military prevent newly liberated territory — “purchased at a high cost of blood and treasure” — from getting back into the hands of terrorists “is indisputable, and irreplaceable,” the officials added.

The embassy in Nigeria described how stop-work orders had caused lapses in oversight that put U.S. resources at risk of being diverted to criminal or terrorist groups. (A February whistleblower complaint alleged USAID-purchased computers were stolen from health centers there.) And U.S. officials said the Kenyan government “faces an impending humanitarian crisis for over 730,000 refugees” without additional resources, as local officials struggle to confront al-Shabaab, a major terrorist threat in the region, while also maintaining security inside the country’s refugee camps.

In early April, Jeremy Lewin — an attorney in his late 20s with no prior government experience who is currently in charge of the State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance and running USAID operations — ordered the end of WFP grants altogether in more than a dozen countries. (Amid outcry, he later reinstated a few of them.) The State Department spokesperson said the agency was responding on Lewin’s behalf.

In Kenya, the WFP expects a malnutrition crisis after rations are cut to a fourth of the standard minimum, Landis said. She is also concerned about the security of her staff, who already travel with police escorts, given the likelihood that there will be more protests and that al-Shabaab might make further incursions into the camps.

In order for the U.S. to deliver its usual food aid to Kenya by the end of the year, it needed to be put on a boat already, Landis said. That has not happened.

In recent days, South Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia have begged a visiting government delegation from the U.S. not to cut food rations any further, according to a cable documenting the visit. Aid workers in another group of camps in North Africa reported that they expect to run out of funding by the end of May for a program that fights malnutrition for 8,600 pregnant and nursing mothers.

Despite being one of the poorest countries in the world, Malawi has been a relative beacon of stability in a region that’s seen numerous civil wars and unrest in recent decades. Yet in early March, officials there warned Washington counterparts that cuts to the more than $300 million USAID planned to provide to the country in aid a year would dramatically increase “the effects of the worsening economy already in motion.”

At the time, 10 employees from a USAID-funded nonprofit had recently shown up unannounced at USAID’s offices in the capital Lilongwe asking for their unpaid wages after the U.S. froze funding. The group left without incident, and it’s unclear if they were paid, but officials reported that they expected countries around the world would face similar issues and were closely monitoring for “increased risks to the safety and security of Embassy personnel.” (Former employees at another nonprofit in a nearby country also raided their organization “out of desperation for not being paid,” according to State Department records.)

An hour’s drive from the nation’s capital, Dzaleka is a former prison that was transformed into a refugee camp in the 1990s to house people fleeing war in neighboring Mozambique. In the decades since, it has ballooned, filling with people running from conflicts in Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. The camp, which was built to hold around 10,000, is now home to more than 55,000 people.

Iradukunda Devota, a refugee from Burundi, came to Malawi when she was 3 and has lived at Dzaleka for 23 years. She now works for Inua Advocacy, which provides legal services and advocates on behalf of refugees in the camp. She said tension is high amid rumors that food and other aid will be cut further. Since 2023, the Malawi government has prohibited refugees from living or working outside the camp, and there has already been an increase in crime and substance abuse after food was cut earlier this year. “This is happening because people are hungry,” Devota told ProPublica. “They have nowhere to turn to.”

Now, the Malawi government is likely to close its borders to refugees in response to the funding crisis and congestion in Dzaleka, the WFP’s country representative told the State Department, according to agency records.

Diplomats continue to warn the Trump administration of even worse to come. The WFP expects to suspend food assistance in Dzaleka entirely in July.

“The WFP anticipates violent protests,” the embassy told State Department officials, “which could potentially embroil host communities and refugees, and targeting of UN and WFP offices when the pipeline eventually breaks.”

ProPublica plans to continue covering USAID, the State Department and the consequences of ending U.S. foreign aid. We want to hear from you. Reach out via Signal to reporters Brett Murphy at +1 508-523-5195 and Anna Maria Barry-Jester at +1 408-504-8131.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Brett Murphy and Anna Maria Barry-Jester.

As part of our Memorial Day special, we continue our interview with Ohio death row inmate Keith LaMar live from the Ohio State Penitentiary, after the release of The Injustice of Justice, a short film about his story that just won the grand prize for best animated short film at the Golden State Film Festival. LaMar talks about his case, conditions in solitary confinement, and his work with musicians and others to raise awareness about his case as he fights to stop his pending execution scheduled in 2027.

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

As part of our Memorial Day special, we speak with death row inmate Keith LaMar live from the Ohio State Penitentiary, after the release of The Injustice of Justice, a short film about his case that just won the grand prize for best animated short film at the Golden State Film Festival. “I had to find out the hard way that in order for my life to be mine, that I had to stand up and claim it,” says LaMar, who has always maintained his innocence. LaMar was sentenced to death for participating in the murder of five fellow prisoners during a 1993 prison uprising. His trial was held in a remote Ohio community before an all-white jury. On January 13, 2027, the state intends to execute him, after subjecting him to three decades in solitary confinement. LaMar’s lawyer, Keegan Stephan, says his legal team has “discovered a lot of new evidence supporting Keith’s innocence” that should necessitate new legal avenues for LaMar to overturn the conviction.

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

“Turkish authorities in Ankara must take the threats made against journalist İsmail Arı and his relatives seriously and take decisive steps to better ensure their safety,” said Özgür Öğret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “The authorities should swiftly and comprehensively investigate the threats and hold those responsible to account, so all journalists in Turkey can safely do their jobs.”

Arı, based in the capital Ankara, said in a post on X that he filed a criminal complaint on May 16 notifying authorities that he was insulted, threatened and sent a list of his relatives via messaging app by an unknown foreign number earlier in the day, and at least one of his relatives was threatened in a phone call, according to the complaint reviewed CPJ.

Arı told CPJ via messaging app on Monday that the police provided a “caution protection” number for him to call and report incidents for 90 days. The journalist also contacted the Interior Ministry about the matter but did not receive a reply as of Monday evening.

Arı was previously targeted with death threats in late 2023 in connection with his reporting on an Islamist group in southern Turkey.

CPJ’s emailed request for comment to Turkey’s Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, did not receive a reply. 

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

Tsoutsouvis had been a member of one of the first Greek leftist guerrilla orgs known as the ELA or Revolutionary People’s Struggle.

Over the years he participated in a number of militant acts of property destruction and later graduated to political assassinations targeting some of the worst perpetrators of torture of the Greek military junta.

He died on 15 May 1985 in a shoot out with the police in which he managed to take 3 of them with him.

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

The woman who was hospitalized for hemiplegia, a condition in which one half of the person’s body is paralyzed, was brought to the bank in a wheelchair by her family after the bank insisted she come in person to withdraw her fixed deposit of 50,000 yuan (or US $6,937), according to a video posted by her nephew on Weibo on Wednesday.

The critically ill woman died at the entrance of the Agricultural Bank of China’s Tianxin branch in Zhuzhou City of the central Chinese province of Hunan before she could complete the withdrawal procedure, the nephew said in the video.

The money was meant to be used for the elderly woman to receive further treatment at another hospital that she was being transferred to, he said.

According to Chinese state-owned local news outlet Da Wan News, she repeatedly failed to pass the facial recognition as she was too ill to blink or shake her head as required during the screening and died after nearly an hour-and-a-half of such failed attempts.

In China, banks like the Agricultural Bank of China have made it mandatory to use facial recognition technology to process withdrawals. As a result, there have been similar incidents in the past where families have been forced to take the elderly, including a dying father in 2023 and another in 2024, to the bank to get their money.

These incidents have typically triggered widespread outrage on Chinese social media platforms. Discussion threads around the latest one on social media, particularly on Weibo, garnered millions of views, as netizens criticized the bank for lack of flexibility and sensitivity to the concerns and needs of vulnerable customers.

“The management systems of many of our banks have long been integrated with many advanced technologies, but the only thing missing is: humanity,” wrote one netizen named Duan Lang.

“The bank requires the person to withdraw money in person out of consideration for the safety of customer funds, but shouldn’t the regulations be humane? When facing such a special seriously ill elderly person, can’t they handle it flexibly?” asked another netizen.

Chinese netizens also called for reforms in regulations and policies at institutions across industries to show more empathy for sick and elderly customers and offer alternative solutions to accommodate their needs.

“Sometimes the bank’s requirements are too harsh … Can’t we provide door-to-door service in special circumstances?” asked one netizen.

“When formulating rules, shouldn’t all industries consider the needs of special groups and show more humane care? Don’t let the ‘system’ become an excuse to hurt others,” wrote one netizen named Snowstorm.

“The real issue is that the financial regulatory agency lacks detailed regulations … (and) prioritizes bank security,” Pang Jiulin, an attorney working at a law firm in Beijing, said on Weibo.

Regarding this week’s incident, a staff member of the Shifeng District office – one of the four urban districts of Zhuzhou City in Hunan province – said the police at its Tianxin subdistrict have intervened and are investigating the matter.

The Agricultural Bank of China’s Zhuzhou branch said the bank has set up a special working group to fully cooperate with police on the investigations.

Edited by Tenzin Pema.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Xiangyang Li and Haonan Cheng for RFA Cantonese.

“People are starving to death, and this is a fact that we are witnessing and experiencing nowadays,” says Oxfam’s food security coordinator in Gaza, Mahmoud Alsaqqa. More than 10 weeks after Israel instituted a total siege on Gaza, blocking all food and other aid from entering, hunger has reached catastrophic levels in the Palestinian territory. This comes as a new United Nations report warns one in every five people in Gaza is facing starvation, while Save the Children says every child is now at risk of famine. The World Food Programme and charities working in Gaza say they have completely run out of supplies and can no longer feed people.

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

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has found U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents who fatally beat Mexican father Anastasio Hernández Rojas responsible for acts of torture. It’s the first time the independent commission, which investigates extrajudicial killings and human rights violations, has issued such findings against a U.S. law enforcement agency. In 2010, Rojas was crossing the southern border in an attempt to return to San Diego, where he’d lived for 25 years, to reunite with his wife and five children after being deported. He was stopped by border agents, who brutally beat and tasered him while he was handcuffed, until Rojas died from heart failure. His death was later ruled a homicide.

This comes as President Trump’s nominee to head Customs and Border Protection, Rodney Scott, is accused of obstructing the criminal probe into Rojas’s killing.

The decision “exposes the unchecked powers of policing in the United States and holds the United States accountable for what is one of the worst violations in human rights, which is the taking of a life,” says Andrea Guerrero, executive director of Alliance San Diego.

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

After a year and a half of war, nearly 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed by the Israeli army — including at least 43 slain on the job.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has brought multiple complaints before the International Criminal Court (ICC) and continues to tirelessly support Gazan journalists, working to halt the extraordinary bloodshed and the media blackout imposed on the strip.

Now, RSF has launched a petition in World Press Freedom Day week demanding an end to the ongoing massacres and calling for the besieged enclave to be opened to foreign media.

• READ MORE: NZ fares well in latest RSF press freedom index as authoritarian regimes stifle Asia-Pacific media
• RSF 2025 World Press Freedom rankings
• RSF World Press Freedom Index 2025: economic fragility a leading threat to press freedom
• Other Gazan journalist reports

“Journalists are being targeted and then slandered after their deaths,” RSF director-general Thibaut Bruttin said during a recent RSF demonstration in Paris in solidarity with Gazan journalists.

“I have never before seen a war in which, when a journalist is killed, you are told they are really a ‘terrorist’.”

The journalists gathered together with the main organisations defending French media workers and press freedom on April 16 in front of the steps of the Opéra-Bastille to condemn the news blackout and the fate of Palestinian journalists.

The slaughter of journalists is one of the largest media massacres this century being carried out as part of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

RSF said there was “every reason to believe that the Israeli army is seeking to establish a total silence about what is happening in Gaza”.

This was being done by preventing the international press from entering the territory freely and by targeting those who, on the ground, continue to bear witness despite the risks.

Mobilisation of journalists in Paris, France, in solidarity with their Gazan colleagues.  Video: RSF

Last year, Palestinian journalists covering Gaza were named as laureates of the 2024 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, following the recommendation of an International Jury of media professionals.

• Sign the RSF petition for Gazan journalists

Republished in collaboration with Reporters Without Borders.

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

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Verite News. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

A Louisiana judge this week set aside the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence of Jimmie Chris Duncan, whose 1998 conviction for killing his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter was based in part on bite mark evidence that experts now say is junk science.

The decision comes after a Verite News and ProPublica investigation in March examined the questions surrounding Duncan’s conviction as Gov. Jeff Landry, a staunch death penalty advocate, made moves to expedite executions after a 15-year pause.

Judge Alvin Sharp, of the 4th Judicial District in Ouachita Parish, pointed to new testimony during a September appeals hearing that such bite mark analysis presented by a once-heralded forensics team is “no longer valid” and “not scientifically defensible.”

The original analysis came from forensic dentist Michael West and pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne, whose longtime partnership as state experts fell under legal scrutiny after questions emerged about the validity of their techniques.

Over the past 27 years, nine prisoners have been set free after being convicted in part on inaccurate evidence given by West and Hayne. Three of those men were on death row.

Duncan was the last person awaiting an execution based on the pair’s work, which Sharp said in his ruling appeared “questionable at best.”

Other expert witnesses said that Hayne’s autopsy and his findings were “sloppy in practice” and “inadequate overall.”

“It is worth noting that the qualifications of Dr. Hayne were lacking in certain ways to an extent that called into serious question” the pathologist’s “expert designation,” Sharp wrote in his ruling.

Sharp also stated in his ruling that he found “very compelling” the September testimony of an expert medical witness who said that the child’s death was not the result of a homicide but of an accidental drowning.

It remains unclear when — or if — Duncan will walk free.

Robert S. Tew, district attorney for the 4th Judicial District, can choose to appeal the decision, retry Duncan on the murder charge or a lesser offense or accept the court’s ruling and set him free. Tew did not respond to requests for comment. Duncan’s legal team declined to comment.

Louisiana has a long record of convicting and sentencing to death people later found to be innocent. In the past three decades, the state has exonerated 11 people facing execution, among the highest such numbers in the country, according to The National Registry of Exonerations.

Duncan, 56, has maintained his innocence for more than three decades, while prosecutors continued to insist that Duncan committed the murder and should be executed without delay.

Duncan was babysitting Haley Oliveaux, his girlfriend’s daughter, at the house they shared in West Monroe, Louisiana, on Dec. 18, 1993. He said he had left her alone in the bathtub while he washed dishes. At some point, he said he heard a loud noise from the bathroom. When he went to check on Haley, he found her floating face down in the water. She was pronounced dead a few hours later.

While Duncan claimed it was a tragic accident, authorities charged him with first-degree murder after Hayne and West examined the girl’s body and determined there was evidence she was sexually assaulted and intentionally drowned. After about two weeks of testimony in 1998, the jury found Duncan guilty and sentenced him to death.

Years later, Duncan’s post-conviction attorneys uncovered evidence that was not presented at trial that, they said, proves his innocence. This includes a jailhouse informant who wrote to prosecutors offering to share Duncan’s confession to the crime in what the defense claims was an exchange for leniency (the informant later recanted his trial testimony); past head injuries Haley suffered that might explain her death; and a video in which West can be seen grinding a cast of Duncan’s teeth into Haley’s body. West later claimed those bite marks, which the defense says the forensic dentist manufactured, were a match for Duncan’s teeth.

Hayne died in 2020. West did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling.

West has previously said he was simply using what he called a “direct comparison” technique, in which he presses a mold of a person’s teeth directly onto the location of suspected bite marks because it provides the most accurate results, according to a 2020 interview with Oxygen.com.

West said he no longer believed in bite mark analysis in a 2011 deposition in a different post-conviction appeal, saying, “I don’t believe it’s a system that’s reliable enough to be used in court” and admitted to making mistakes in previous cases. But he told The New Republic in a 2023 interview that his methods are valid because other people have used them.

In this week’s ruling, Sharp also noted the September testimony of Detective Chris Sasser, who investigated Haley’s death. Sasser said there was “no blood, no signs of struggle, no cleaning rags and no cleaning agents” in the bathroom or house where the alleged crime occurred. This undermined the state’s assertion that there was “massive blood loss,” the ruling said.

In addition, Sharp found that Duncan’s trial attorney, Louis Scott, provided ineffective counsel. Sharp pointed to a witness who testified that Scott failed to “investigate or present evidence that was available at the time of the trial,” that he did not “develop a coherent theory of defense,” and that he failed to disclose a conflict of interest.

Scott’s wife told Verite News and ProPublica that he has suffered significant health problems including memory and speech impairment and declined to comment on the judge’s ruling.

Duncan is among 55 people on death row in Louisiana, though until very recently he and the others were not in imminent danger of being executed as the state hadn’t put anyone to death since 2010 due to the unavailability of execution drugs. That changed with Landry’s 2023 election.

Landry has made clear his intention to carry out these death sentences as soon as possible, having recently approved the use of nitrogen gas, a controversial method allowed in only three other states.

This cleared the way for the state’s first execution in more than 15 years, as Jessie Hoffman was put to death on March 18 using nitrogen gas.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Richard A. Webster, Verite News.

Jewish families arriving at Jasenovac Death Camp. Public Domain.

Eighty years have passed since April 1945, when the surviving inmates of the Croatian Nazi camp—Jasenovac—rose in revolt, staged a breakout, and thus brought an end to the existence of the largest death camp in the Balkans during the Second World War. That prompted me to reflect on a dilemma from the past.

As a young author, I was prone to reductive comparisons. In contemplating the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995, I wrote a text entitled The Serbian NDH, in which I compared Republika Srpska—on account of the systematic crimes committed against the Bosniak population, for which its wartime leadership is unquestionably responsible—to the criminal puppet creation of the Second World War: the Independent State of Croatia (Serbian: Nezavisna država Hrvatska – NDH). Today, more than fifteen years after that text was written, I better understand what in it was exaggeration—and what was not.

Republika Srpska and the NDH cannot be likened, if only because the former arose from the plebiscitary will of the Serb people during the disintegration of Yugoslavia, at a time when monoethnic political organization had no viable—or even conceivable—alternative. It was not proclaimed in the midst of war, but on the threshold of armed conflict. Unlike the NDH, it was not founded by a foreign power installing a black-shirted fascist clique it had long groomed for that very purpose. Nor was it grounded in racial laws, but in a liberal constitution adopted by a freely elected constituent assembly. Its army was not partisan, but conscripted—of the people—and its officer corps was made up predominantly of former Yugoslav People’s Army personnel. The individuals who led it had not, until shortly before the war, stood at the helm of a movement defined by a clearly articulated ideology of extermination.

And yet, when these differences are set aside, we are left to confront other indisputable truths. The wartime government of Republika Srpska bears direct responsibility for the brutal deaths of more than 20,000 Bosniak civilians; for their dehumanization in media echoing the racist rhetoric of the Ku Klux Klan; for acts of sadistic torture; for the mass rape of women who, in parts of eastern Bosnia, were treated as sexual slaves—bought and sold for barely a hundred German marks; for forced deportations; and for the systematic destruction of Bosniak material and spiritual culture, within which not a single Muslim sacred site survived the war.

There is no doubt that the Serbian people west of the Drina, deeply scarred by the horrors endured between 1875 and 1941, had every reason to believe they were fighting against a new NDH. For, hand on heart, neither Zagreb’s nor Sarajevo’s policies—despite their cheap rhetoric about “European values”—harbored any sincere goodwill toward them, neither in the short nor long term.

But equally, there is no doubt that their own leadership, inspired by the dark, racist, and fundamentally neo-Nazi ideology of Dragoš Kalajić and Dragoslav Bokan, exploited those collective traumas to burden them with the historical weight of Ustasha methods. That comparison remains firm as a rock, no matter how different the historical conditions and origins of Republika Srpska may have been to casually call it the “Serbian NDH.” In that light, let my youthful exaggerations be forgiven—for they were not without foundation.

It is for this reason that the speech of veteran Goran Samardžić before the assembled Serbian students outside the blockaded RTS (Radio Television of Serbia) on April 17 carries such historical weight. Greeting the crowd with “Pomoz’ Bog” (God be with you) and “Es-selamu alejkum,” he then said the following:

“I was wounded in May of ’92 in Sarajevo, not yet 21 years old—about the same age as most of these young people here. My generation either marched into the war in Bosnia or found themselves caught up in it.

Some of us went off to fight, quote-unquote, ‘the Balijas,’ ‘the Turks’—believing, as we were told, that they wanted to establish an Islamic state in the heart of Europe. And we wanted to defend Serbian lands and protect the Serbian people.

In April ’92, the bloody Bosnian cauldron was set ablaze. All sides rushed to stoke the fire—each racing to inflame it more than the other. Our own ‘kitchen’ for spreading hatred and lies was right here, in the building above us—yes, in this very RTS, which even today continues to spread lies and hatred.

My generation believed those lies. We thought we were doing the right thing, that we were on the side of truth and justice—and that the others were evil. And the others believed the same about us. That’s how the wheel of evil began to turn—a wheel that, to this day, has not stopped.”

This reminded me of another, far less known historical piece—not a speech, but a written reflection about Nataša Zimonjić-Čengić, granddaughter of the Metropolitan of Dabar-Bosna, Saint Petar Zimonjić (1866–1941), published in the Trebinje periodical Vidoslov by Archpriest Danilo Dangubić.

“Petar was my grandfather. I remember his love; the warmth of his hand, the safety in his gaze, the joy I felt when I saw him. My father would sometimes take us to Sarajevo, because Pata (as we called him) served there. If I told you that I remember how the Bishop would take us for walks along the Miljacka, holding us gently by the hand…” Nataša recounted to Father Dangubić.

Not long ago, for the first time, I held in my hands the family photo album from the funeral of my great-grandfather, Bogdan Babić, then Director of Forests of the Drina Banovina—buried by none other than Metropolitan Petar. During liturgy in the Sarajevo Cathedral, I always stand near his icon and recall the testimony left behind by Vojislav Kecmanović–Đedo, the first president of the State Anti-Fascist Council for the Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina:

“When Metropolitan Zimonjić was being led through Zagreb to his execution site—along with a group of Orthodox priests (I’ve forgotten the name of the place)—a mob of Ustaša scum (Croatian Nazis, editor’s note) jeered at him and spat upon him. Metropolitan Zimonjić, who stood out among that great throng of martyrs—his towering height, silver hair, and ascetic appearance unmistakable—was kneeling from hunger and torture, yet still he offered blessings to both sides of the street, to these monsters of Western European and Christian civilization.”

Archpriest Dangubić’s text is historical in its essence, for it records the historical truth of the martyrdom of his great-grandson, Goran Čengić—son of Nataša. At the outbreak of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the authorities of Republika Srpska armed criminal riffraff and gathered them into so-called “paramilitary formations” to carry out the dirtiest of tasks. One such unit rampaged through the Sarajevo neighborhood of Grbavica. In a grim twist of blasphemy, it was named the White Angels, and at its head stood Veselin Vlahović Batko, a former boxer and nightclub bouncer, who answered directly to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska, Momo Mandić.

When the croatian nazis seized power in Sarajevo in 1941, Metropolitan Petar was offered the chance to flee to Montenegro. He refused, choosing instead to share in the suffering of his flock, just as he had shared in their joys.

In the final decade of the 20th century, as Sarajevo was ravaged by roaming paramilitary bands of psychopathic killers, Goran Čengić—a descendant, no less, of fierce historical adversaries: Deda-aga Čengić, a high Bosniak nobleman from Herzegovina, and Vojvoda Bogdan Zimonjić, one of the Serb rebel leaders against Ottoman rule—did not turn his face away from a sick neighbor.

Here is how Archpriest Danilo Dangubić described it:

“…the sound of footsteps echoes through the stairwell, a fist pounding on a neighbor’s wooden door, a sharp voice yelling something like: ‘Open up!’; the metallic clatter of a Kalashnikov barrel striking the blade of a knife strapped to the executioner’s waist; then the deafening pounding of one’s own heart in the ears—so loud that even the quiet voice of the neighbor they’ve come for is drowned out; and then, the hand, as if by its own will, reaches for the latch and opens the door…

“’What are you doing? Can’t you see the man is ill?’

“In those dark June days of 1992, evil had taken up residence in the Sarajevo neighborhood of Grbavica—and Goran Čengić knew it. He also knew that when he opened that door and uttered the words with which he tried to protect his helpless neighbor, Dr. Husnija Ćerimagić, that evil would come crashing down upon him as well. He knew that facing evil meant only one thing—death.

“And yet, he did not remain on the other side of the door. He did not stay silent, waiting for the evil to pass. He did not dig through his conscience for excuses not to act. He did not lean his sweat-soaked back against the wall in fear and wait for the butchers to drag away a defenseless, sick old man.”

And so, the Metropolitan’s grandson was tortured and killed by men who called themselves the White Angels, inspired by Bokan’s brand of neopaganism. Whoever fails to see the terrifying symbolism in this act—the attempted murder of the Metropolitan’s immortal legacy—and in so many ways, a reenactment of the satanic humiliation he endured on the streets of Zagreb and later in Jasenovac (the largest death camp for Serbs, Jews, and Roma on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia (editor’s note)), will never understand that the comparison of such atrocities to those of the NDH does not arise from malice on the part of the observer, but from the NDH-like darkness within the hearts of the perpetrators.

It is no wonder that fear, panic, and revulsion reign in hearts like theirs at the sight of what is unfolding in the spring of 2025 on the streets of Belgrade and Novi Pazar (a city in Serbia with a predominantly Muslim population). No wonder that the hordes of demonic agitators—those who greet each anniversary of the Jasenovac breakout with sorrow, solely because they have yet to succeed in establishing their own sanctuary of evil—feel fear, panic, and revulsion at the catharsis of a veteran who was wounded in the almost vanished Sarajevo of Petar and Goran.

“I want to send a message to the parents of children from Novi Pazar—do not be afraid. There is no more ‘our’ and ‘your’ children. They are all our children. We, the war veterans, will protect them with our honor and with our lives. No one has the right to harm them. These children, in just the past few months since they awakened, have lifted many of us—yes, even us war veterans. I want to express my admiration and gratitude to the true heroes of our time—our students, our children. Thank you, children!”

Thank you, children. On this anniversary of the breakout from the Jasenovac death camp: never again the NDH. Never again anything that even faintly resembles it.

The post The Self-Liberation of the Jasenovac Death Camp and a New Serbian Catharsis appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Vuk Bačanović.

Chora Church/Museum, Istanbul,fresco,Anastasis, Harrowing of Hell and Resurrection – Public Domain

Easter, recently passed, is not a holiday I have ever celebrated in any way beyond the long-ago dyeing of eggs and covert disposal of sub-par milk chocolate rabbits. My mother had a mystical streak and, it being the early ‘60s in the US, she found camaraderie at the local Friends’ Meeting. She took us kids with her most Sundays. As I recall, we learned a lot more about the civil rights movement than we did about Jesus at Quaker Sunday School.

Which is to say: I have arrived at a venerable age carrying a very slim portfolio of Christian lore. Of course, I absorbed the basic stories because I grew up in an overwhelmingly Christian country, where Biblical references were made casually, seemingly with the understanding that everyone was well versed.  

Here is my take on Easter: Jesus celebrates Passover with his mates, one of whom has betrayed him for the proverbial 30 pieces of silver, he is picked up by Roman soldiers, whip-marched up Calvary with a big wooden cross on his back and a mocking crown of thorns piercing his forehead. He is then nailed to the cross and left to die sandwiched between two common criminals. The women who love him mourn, and he is at length buried in a cave, a heavy boulder rolled across the entrance, guarded by soldiers. Three days later, the boulder has mysteriously moved and the body of Jesus is gone, proving that miraculously, he died for the salvation of mankind and yet, still lives.  

I’m sure I am missing both a great deal of depth and mistaking much as well, but I think I have gotten close on the rudiments. A friend sent me an intriguing version of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion last night and as I listened, I gave more thought to the story of the Passion, to the time of Jesus’ betrayal, execution and resurrection, than I ever had previously. It dawned on me that this is a story as old as time and as current as this very moment. There is nothing miraculous, extraordinary or even unusual in terms of human behavior to see here, despite all the religious gloss.   

A guy who gets some traction telling people to love one another–above all else–can cause a lot of trouble. Nothing threatens the status quo like the specter of no one caring much about money or power. People who have the capacity to conjure in others a longing for a life lived from the heart need to be stopped before they incite their listeners to abandon the very structure that allows the rich and famous to continue to be just that. What happens when no one even wants to be rich and powerful anymore? When all that accumulated wealth becomes an obstacle to happiness instead of its fulfillment? (And yes, I did encounter that rich man/camel/eye of the needle thing somewhere along the line.)

So, not only did Jesus have to quickly be made dead, but he had to be made an example of as well. After witnessing his fate, anyone who might be tempted to continue spreading his teachings—the really scary part for those money-lenders and priests– would think at least thrice before opening their mouth. Jesus had to be discredited, crucified smack dab in between two common criminals, an invented association with people whose mere existence would presumably undermine the testament of his life’s work. Not only did Jesus the man have to be killed, but the flames of his message had to be extinguished. Love and forgiveness had to be stamped out before they became a real threat to greed and domination.

In short, defiance of the hierarchy, based on love and equality is swiftly punished by disappearance, by death and perhaps more importantly, the deliberate distortion of all of one’s actions, motivations and devotions. 

A small bit of good news: while this tactic may work in the short term, it is far from foolproof in the longer arc of time. Countless stories illustrating this come immediately to mind. Here, below, are just a small handful.  

Victor Jara has been in my thoughts a lot of late. Victor Jara, whose soul-stirring songs were a beacon for Chile’s idealistic youth. Victor Jara and all his friends and comrades, including Salvador Allende, who threatened capitalist/US hegemony in the Americas.  Pinochet’s CIA-trained henchmen cruelly crushed his fingers so he could never again play his guitar, never again inspire others with his music, even knowing–as I suspect they did–that they would kill him in a hail of bullets so soon after these brutal injuries that it would not matter. Destroying him and the tools he used to connect people with their love of one another, of justice, of freedom—that was the point.  

Fred Hampton. Were we not told that he was a violent Black Panther leader filled with hatred, armed to the teeth and itching to use those weapons? In fact, at ten, Fred Hampton started cooking weekend breakfasts for hungry kids in his neighborhood. A few years later, he stole $71 worth of ice cream bars from an ice cream truck to give to local children, was convicted for this unforgivable crime and served time in prison.  

He co-founded the anti-racist, multi-ethnic Rainbow Coalition, bringing together historically segregated and antagonistic Black Panthers, Young Lords and Young Patriots. He helped negotiate a non-aggression pact amongst Chicago’s most powerful gangs. He worked hard and successfully to increase educational and recreational resources for his community, and he vocally opposed sexism when few other men did. And of course, because these activities–if allowed to flourish–could have undercut the status quo of racism, income inequality and institutional injustice, he was identified by the FBI at a mere nineteen years of age, as a radical threat. They put him on the ‘Agitator Index” and opened a COINTELPRO file on him. They also made a deal with a car-thieving felon in their custody to drop all charges in exchange for infiltrating Fred Hampton’s inner circle. In these stories, there is almost always a Judas. 

It was this man, William O’Neal (may his name live on in infamy), who drugged Hampton with barbiturates on a December night in 1969. A few hours later, as previously planned, a team of fourteen police officers arrived at his apartment and in a hail of bullets (notice a trend here?) aimed at the unconscious 21-year-old, ensured that he was truly and profoundly dead. 

This assassination was characterized by both police and press as a violent ‘shoot-out’ when in fact just one Panther bullet was fired into the ceiling, most likely as part of a death-spasm reflex by the unfortunate man who opened the door and let the Chicago Police into the apartment. The myth of a law enforcement triumph over savage gun-toting Black Panthers was as critical to J. Edgar Hoover’s mission as was the physical death of a man who used his influence to feed, foster cooperation and build peaceful power.

I would be remiss if I failed to mention two of the best-known purveyors of love-and-peaceful resistance-going-hand-in-glove-with-justice in the modern era: MLK Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Neither of them were allowed to continue spreading their dangerous truths for long. Neither of them were permitted to go on encouraging people—poor people, people of color, people who could not or would not compete in the ‘rich and powerful’ sweepstakes—to burnish and cherish their greatest and most powerful gifts, those arguably being their solidarity and their own integrity. 

Just last week, Gustavo Petro, the president of Colombia, noted on ‘X’ a parallel between the suffering of Jesus and that of the Palestinians: “At the moment of the Passion and death of Jesus, let us reflect on the Palestinian people, from where he came, now under a bloody genocide.”  

Over the last 100 years and most intensely, the recent eighteen months, too much has had to be written about the obscene atrocities visited upon an overwhelmingly peaceful, courageous, collaborative, creative and ever-hopeful people by the Zionists and their enablers. I won’t add to the galaxies of excellent words already put to paper on this shameful situation, but will simply note: In the land of Israel, truth is not tolerated. Seeing others (a term which now appears to encompass all Gentiles as well as anti-Zionist Jews) as full human beings, and treating them as such has never been a serious option. Anyone who suggests otherwise needs to be silenced, their lives often cut short and perhaps just as importantly, their motivations, actions and beliefs twisted, impugned and discredited. 

In the last six weeks, we have seen a number of people who were guests in the US, people here with our permission, suddenly kidnapped and disappeared. One of these, Mahmoud Khalil, has been variously described as “one of the kindest and bravest people I’ve ever met,” “…loved by his colleagues,” “warm and generous, even to those he barely knew,” “…generous with his time, open minded, and thoughtful.” 

This is from his wife, who you’d expect to be an advocate for his character, but even so, she offers a pretty impressive assessment: “For everyone who has met Mahmoud they can attest to his incredible character, humbleness, selflessness and his love for helping others. He is always willing to stand up for the oppressed. It is clear the love that people have for him from the outpour of love I have been receiving from everyone he has crossed paths with.”

He was chosen to negotiate with the Columbia University administration on behalf of students protesting US complicity in genocide in Gaza precisely because of these qualities, because he was steady and fair and both saw the good in others and strove toward it in all of his actions. Mahmoud asserted that freedom and well-being for Palestinians was intrinsically tied to freedom and well-being for Jews. “Our movement is a movement for social justice and freedom and equality for everyone,” he said.  

I don’t propose putting Mahmoud Khalil on a prophetic pedestal (though I do see something extraordinarily pure in his eyes), but from all accounts, he truly is a man whose commitment to nurturing what is good and just in human beings is iron-clad and unshakeable. This is precisely the sort of person who most urgently threatens those whose aim it is to snuff out the power of the people, the power of love, fairness and collaboration. He has, accordingly, been whisked off into the darkness of a veritable concentration camp, even as he is being absurdly accused of antisemitism, supporting Hamas, adversely affecting US foreign policy; all untrue smears hurled by some of the biggest hypocrites and liars ever to hold high office in the US.  

The role of Judas in his case seems to have been played shamefully well by the Columbia administration, slavishly eager for their piles of silver from the government.  Fools, they. The money has yet to arrive and who amongst believes that it ever will? The great irony of this particular story is that those playing Pontius Pilate say they do so in the very name of both Jews and Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ!

That is a heap of bad news, but here is the wealth of promised good: despite the fact that Jesus’ life (real or no) has been utterly coopted by those intent upon contorting it and turning it into gold and dominion for themselves, there are central tenets of his teachings which continue to guide, inspire and uplift many people. Victor Jara’s music has survived both as recordings and in the undamaged hands and voices of new generations of musicians who share his vision and his goals. MLK Jr. and Gandhi’s legacies are complex, but the heart of their messaging remains a touchstone for activists everywhere as well as a source of hope and direction. The Rainbow Coalition perseveres to this day.

The Palestinian people have at last ignited a fire in the hearts of people the world over. Their steadfast commitment to be and do good in the face of unimaginable evil, to cleave to integrity and compassion even when met with hatred and violence and endless lies has finally started to change the oppressive narrative. And one of their own, one of their champions, currently undergoing his own version of a ‘passion,’ has done as his people have. He has held fast to his humanity and his faith in a world that is far better than the one his tormentors would love to impose. 

These are dire times, and we all face the loss of so much we cherish. Many of us are afraid. We see overwhelming cruelty and injustice erupting in every direction and it is easy to feel powerless to stand effectively against it. Each of the people referenced above did much in the world to actively improve it, to enhance life for others. We can and must all do that as well. But they also found and followed the lodestar of their own inner truth and they did not falter, even as they encountered the ugly and brutish force of its polar opposite. 

Approached purely as allegory, Jesus’ story of death and resurrection offers some guidance and perhaps even a bit of comfort and hope for our times. Those who stand firm in values of love and shared humanity will always frighten anyone who wants to rule through fear. While most of us won’t find ourselves in the extreme position of a Fred Hampton or a Mahmoud Khalil, we can choose to act from our core truths about what it means to be human, here for a time on this beautiful planet. And we can also consider that even if, or when, we encounter defeat, resurrection—that light within us which cannot be killed or extinguished, simply because we refuse to surrender it to the tyrants—is real and potent. Our endeavors to make a better world, and the love we share with others we know and those we do not? These cannot be eradicated by fear and hatred. They will try; they always try. But when we do not waver and hold fast to the very best of ourselves, goodness also holds fast. Hatred and fear may have their day, but kindness and an open heart are ultimately more powerful and enduring. Your light and your love are more important than perhaps you know; keeping them alive may be the critical work of our time. 

The post Paschal Promises: Danger, Death and Resurrection in Our Times appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Elizabeth West.

Pope Francis has died on Easter Monday, aged 88, the Vatican announced. The head of the Catholic Church had recently survived being hospitalised with double pneumonia.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell’s announcement began:

“Dear brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis. At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father.”

There were many unusual aspects of Pope Francis’ papacy. He was the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas (and the southern hemisphere), the first to choose the name “Francis” and the first to give a TED talk.

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He was also the first pope in more than 600 years to be elected following the resignation, rather than death, of his predecessor.

From the very start of his papacy, Francis seemed determined to do things differently and present the papacy in a new light. Even in thinking about his burial, he chose the unexpected: to be placed to rest not in the Vatican, but in the Basilica of St Mary Major in Rome – the first pope to be buried there in hundreds of years.

Vatican News reported the late Pope Francis had requested his funeral rites be simplified.

“The renewed rite,” said Archbishop Diego Ravelli, “seeks to emphasise even more that the funeral of the Roman Pontiff is that of a pastor and disciple of Christ and not of a powerful person of this world.”

Straddling a line between “progressive” and “conservative”, Francis experienced tension with both sides. In doing so, his papacy shone a spotlight on what it means to be Catholic today.

The Pope’s Easter Blessing    Video: AP

The day before his death, Pope Francis made a brief appearance on Easter Sunday to bless the crowds at St Peter’s Square.

Between a rock and a hard place
Francis was deemed not progressive enough by some, yet far too progressive by others.

His apostolic exhortation (an official papal teaching on a particular issue or action) Amoris Laetitia, ignited great controversy for seemingly being (more) open to the question of whether people who have divorced and remarried may receive Eucharist.

He also disappointed progressive Catholics, many of whom hoped he would make stronger changes on issues such as the roles of women, married clergy, and the broader inclusion of LGBTQIA+ Catholics.

The reception of his exhortation Querida Amazonia was one such example. In this document, Francis did not endorse marriage for priests, despite bishops’ requests for this. He also did not allow the possibility of women being ordained as deacons to address a shortage of ordained ministers. His discerning spirit saw there was too much division and no clear consensus for change.

Francis was also openly critical of Germany’s controversial “Synodal Way” – a series of conferences with bishops and lay people — that advocated for positions contrary to Church teachings. Francis expressed concern on multiple occasions that this project was a threat to the unity of the Church.

At the same time, Francis was no stranger to controversy from the conservative side of the Church, receiving “dubia” or “theological doubts” over his teaching from some of his Cardinals. In 2023, he took the unusual step of responding to some of these doubts.

Pope Francis is seen as “one of the most vocal leaders on #Gaza. He was always condemning the war on Gaza, and asking for a ceasefire and … end of this conflict.” #AsiaPacificReport #PopeFrancis #GazaGenocide @palestine @OnlinePalEng @PalestineAusNZ https://t.co/vtuTpIVYmv pic.twitter.com/6EF1wdhgYL

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) April 21, 2025

Impact on the Catholic Church
In many ways, the most striking thing about Francis was not his words or theology, but his style. He was a modest man, even foregoing the Apostolic Palace’s grand papal apartments to live in the Vatican’s simpler guest house.

He may well be remembered most for his simplicity of dress and habits, his welcoming and pastoral style and his wise spirit of discernment.

He is recognised as giving a clear witness to the life, love and joy of Jesus in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council – a point of major reform in modern Church history. This witness has translated into two major developments in Church teachings and life.

Love for our common home
The first of these relates to environmental teachings. In 2015, Francis released his ground-breaking encyclical, Laudato si’: On Care for Our Common Home. It expanded Catholic social teaching by giving a comprehensive account of how the environment reflects our God-given “common home”.

Consistent with recent popes such as Benedict XVI and John Paul II, Francis acknowledged climate change and its destructive impacts and causes. He summarised key scientific research to forcefully argue for an evidence-based approach to addressing humans’ impact on the environment.

He also made a pivotal and innovative contribution to the climate change debate by identifying the ethical and spiritual causes of environmental destruction.

Francis argued combating climate change relied on the “ecological conversion” of the human heart, so that people may recognise the God-given nature of our planet and the fundamental call to care for it. Without this conversion, pragmatic and political measures wouldn’t be able to counter the forces of consumerism, exploitation and selfishness.

Francis argued a new ethic and spirituality was needed. Specifically, he said Jesus’ way of love – for other people and all creation – is the transformative force that could bring sustainable change for the environment and cultivate fraternity among people (and especially with the poor).

Synodality: moving towards a Church that listens
Francis’s second major contribution, and one of the most significant aspects of his papacy, was his commitment to “synodality”. While there’s still confusion over what synodality actually means, and its potential for political distortion, it is above all a way of listening and discerning through openness to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

It involves hierarchy and lay people transparently and honestly discerning together, in service of the mission of the church. Synodality is as much about the process as the goal. This makes sense as Pope Francis was a Jesuit, an order focused on spreading Catholicism through spiritual formation and discernment.

Drawing on his rich Jesuit spirituality, Francis introduced a way of conversation centred on listening to the Holy Spirit and others, while seeking to cultivate friendship and wisdom.

With the conclusion of the second session of the Synod on Synodality in October 2024, it is too soon to assess its results. However, those who have been involved in synodal processes have reported back on their transformative potential.

Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge, explained how participating in the 2015 Synod “was an extraordinary experience [and] in some ways an awakening”.

Cardinals use a centuries-old voting process to elect a new pope, complete with smoke signals to indicate the outcome. And the next papal conclave will be the most diverse in Catholic history.

Here’s what you need to know about the process:https://t.co/osfOYKagk9

— The Conversation U.S. (@ConversationUS) April 21, 2025

Catholicism in the modern age
Francis’ papacy inspired both great joy and aspirations, as well as boiling anger and rejection. He laid bare the agonising fault lines within the Catholic community and struck at key issues of Catholic identity, triggering debate over what it means to be Catholic in the world today.

He leaves behind a Church that seems more divided than ever, with arguments, uncertainty and many questions rolling in his wake. But he has also provided a way for the Church to become more converted to Jesus’ way of love, through synodality and dialogue.

Francis showed us that holding labels such as “progressive” or “conservative” won’t enable the Church to live out Jesus’ mission of love – a mission he emphasised from the very beginning of his papacy.

Dr Joel Hodge is senior lecturer, Faculty of Theology and Philosophy, Australian Catholic University and Dr Antonia Pizzey is postdoctoral researcher, Research Centre for Studies of the Second Vatican Council, Australian Catholic University. 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.

Pope Francis has died on Easter Monday, aged 88, the Vatican announced. The head of the Catholic Church had recently survived being hospitalised with double pneumonia.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell’s announcement began:

“Dear brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis. At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father.”

There were many unusual aspects of Pope Francis’ papacy. He was the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas (and the southern hemisphere), the first to choose the name “Francis” and the first to give a TED talk.

• READ MORE: Pope Francis dies one day after first post-hospital public appearance and with final plea for Gaza
• How the next pope will be elected — what goes on at the conclave
• Pope Francis updates: Leader of Roman Catholic Church dies at 88

He was also the first pope in more than 600 years to be elected following the resignation, rather than death, of his predecessor.

From the very start of his papacy, Francis seemed determined to do things differently and present the papacy in a new light. Even in thinking about his burial, he chose the unexpected: to be placed to rest not in the Vatican, but in the Basilica of St Mary Major in Rome – the first pope to be buried there in hundreds of years.

Vatican News reported the late Pope Francis had requested his funeral rites be simplified.

“The renewed rite,” said Archbishop Diego Ravelli, “seeks to emphasise even more that the funeral of the Roman Pontiff is that of a pastor and disciple of Christ and not of a powerful person of this world.”

Straddling a line between “progressive” and “conservative”, Francis experienced tension with both sides. In doing so, his papacy shone a spotlight on what it means to be Catholic today.

The Pope’s Easter Blessing    Video: AP

The day before his death, Pope Francis made a brief appearance on Easter Sunday to bless the crowds at St Peter’s Square.

Between a rock and a hard place
Francis was deemed not progressive enough by some, yet far too progressive by others.

His apostolic exhortation (an official papal teaching on a particular issue or action) Amoris Laetitia, ignited great controversy for seemingly being (more) open to the question of whether people who have divorced and remarried may receive Eucharist.

He also disappointed progressive Catholics, many of whom hoped he would make stronger changes on issues such as the roles of women, married clergy, and the broader inclusion of LGBTQIA+ Catholics.

The reception of his exhortation Querida Amazonia was one such example. In this document, Francis did not endorse marriage for priests, despite bishops’ requests for this. He also did not allow the possibility of women being ordained as deacons to address a shortage of ordained ministers. His discerning spirit saw there was too much division and no clear consensus for change.

Francis was also openly critical of Germany’s controversial “Synodal Way” – a series of conferences with bishops and lay people — that advocated for positions contrary to Church teachings. Francis expressed concern on multiple occasions that this project was a threat to the unity of the Church.

At the same time, Francis was no stranger to controversy from the conservative side of the Church, receiving “dubia” or “theological doubts” over his teaching from some of his Cardinals. In 2023, he took the unusual step of responding to some of these doubts.

Pope Francis is seen as “one of the most vocal leaders on #Gaza. He was always condemning the war on Gaza, and asking for a ceasefire and … end of this conflict.” #AsiaPacificReport #PopeFrancis #GazaGenocide @palestine @OnlinePalEng @PalestineAusNZ https://t.co/vtuTpIVYmv pic.twitter.com/6EF1wdhgYL

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) April 21, 2025

Impact on the Catholic Church
In many ways, the most striking thing about Francis was not his words or theology, but his style. He was a modest man, even foregoing the Apostolic Palace’s grand papal apartments to live in the Vatican’s simpler guest house.

He may well be remembered most for his simplicity of dress and habits, his welcoming and pastoral style and his wise spirit of discernment.

He is recognised as giving a clear witness to the life, love and joy of Jesus in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council – a point of major reform in modern Church history. This witness has translated into two major developments in Church teachings and life.

Love for our common home
The first of these relates to environmental teachings. In 2015, Francis released his ground-breaking encyclical, Laudato si’: On Care for Our Common Home. It expanded Catholic social teaching by giving a comprehensive account of how the environment reflects our God-given “common home”.

Consistent with recent popes such as Benedict XVI and John Paul II, Francis acknowledged climate change and its destructive impacts and causes. He summarised key scientific research to forcefully argue for an evidence-based approach to addressing humans’ impact on the environment.

He also made a pivotal and innovative contribution to the climate change debate by identifying the ethical and spiritual causes of environmental destruction.

Francis argued combating climate change relied on the “ecological conversion” of the human heart, so that people may recognise the God-given nature of our planet and the fundamental call to care for it. Without this conversion, pragmatic and political measures wouldn’t be able to counter the forces of consumerism, exploitation and selfishness.

Francis argued a new ethic and spirituality was needed. Specifically, he said Jesus’ way of love – for other people and all creation – is the transformative force that could bring sustainable change for the environment and cultivate fraternity among people (and especially with the poor).

Synodality: moving towards a Church that listens
Francis’s second major contribution, and one of the most significant aspects of his papacy, was his commitment to “synodality”. While there’s still confusion over what synodality actually means, and its potential for political distortion, it is above all a way of listening and discerning through openness to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

It involves hierarchy and lay people transparently and honestly discerning together, in service of the mission of the church. Synodality is as much about the process as the goal. This makes sense as Pope Francis was a Jesuit, an order focused on spreading Catholicism through spiritual formation and discernment.

Drawing on his rich Jesuit spirituality, Francis introduced a way of conversation centred on listening to the Holy Spirit and others, while seeking to cultivate friendship and wisdom.

With the conclusion of the second session of the Synod on Synodality in October 2024, it is too soon to assess its results. However, those who have been involved in synodal processes have reported back on their transformative potential.

Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge, explained how participating in the 2015 Synod “was an extraordinary experience [and] in some ways an awakening”.

Cardinals use a centuries-old voting process to elect a new pope, complete with smoke signals to indicate the outcome. And the next papal conclave will be the most diverse in Catholic history.

Here’s what you need to know about the process:https://t.co/osfOYKagk9

— The Conversation U.S. (@ConversationUS) April 21, 2025

Catholicism in the modern age
Francis’ papacy inspired both great joy and aspirations, as well as boiling anger and rejection. He laid bare the agonising fault lines within the Catholic community and struck at key issues of Catholic identity, triggering debate over what it means to be Catholic in the world today.

He leaves behind a Church that seems more divided than ever, with arguments, uncertainty and many questions rolling in his wake. But he has also provided a way for the Church to become more converted to Jesus’ way of love, through synodality and dialogue.

Francis showed us that holding labels such as “progressive” or “conservative” won’t enable the Church to live out Jesus’ mission of love – a mission he emphasised from the very beginning of his papacy.

Dr Joel Hodge is senior lecturer, Faculty of Theology and Philosophy, Australian Catholic University and Dr Antonia Pizzey is postdoctoral researcher, Research Centre for Studies of the Second Vatican Council, Australian Catholic University. 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.

On Friday, March 21, Alonzo was outside his home in the western city of Quetzaltenango when two unidentified individuals dressed in black shot him and fled toward a nearby wooded area, according to news reports. Alonzo had worked for about  three years as a community reporter with Despertar Occidental, a local Facebook news outlet, before stepping away from the platform in December. He continued his communication work independently and remained active as a member of the Association of Journalists and Communicators of the Southwest (APCSO).

“Guatemalan authorities must investigate whether Ismael Alonzo González was killed in connection to his journalism,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator, in São Paulo. “Attacks against community journalists are an attack on press freedom and local democracy. Authorities must send a clear message that such crimes will not go unpunished.”

According to Prensa Comunitaria, his wife, siblings, and colleagues said they were unaware of any threats against him. A preliminary investigation by Guatemala’s Observatory of Journalists—shared with CPJ— said hat Alonzo covered criminal issues and was investigating criminal groups in the region.CPJ emailed Guatemala’s Public Ministry and received no immediate response.

At least six journalists have been killed in Guatemala since 1992 in direct connection with their work, according to CPJ research.

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

The parents waved goodbye to their tearful 13-year-old son. The father patted the boy on the shoulder, reassuring him that he would return soon.

There was no hiding that the parents of Vuthy Huot were overjoyed to be returning to Phnom Penh. It had been six weeks since the family was forced out of their home and marched out of the city.

A mass trauma event. Two million inhabitants evacuated overnight, creating a ghost city in their wake.

Now, the son was being asked to stay behind in a rural village, and for the first time in his life, Vuthy was being separated from his parents. He was told he was the only one his father could trust to care for his elderly grandmother.

“I was very upset. That was the first time I was separated from the family,” Vuthy said recently from his office at Radio Free Asia’s Washington headquarters. “But my father tapped me on my shoulder and said, ‘Stay strong, we will come back and get you as soon as we settle down in Phnom Penh.‘”

The ‘new people’

The past weeks had first offered excitement for a young city boy who thought he was about to have the chance to go to the countryside with his family.

“I was very happy that I would spend time with my family and would see the countryside. But soon all the happiness and joy disappeared,” he said.

During the walk out of Phnom Penh, Vuthy watched helplessly as both his father and brother-in-law were separated from their family group. Khmer Rouge cadre, who had first been friendly, then angry, took the two men aside, tied their hands with rope, then strung them together and marched them away from the family.

“They walked at almost the same time along the road with us, so I could see them probably for the first few days,” he said.

Vuthy believes adult men were separated from their families to facilitate the evacuation.

(Courtesy of Vuthy Hout)

Vuthy and his other family members made it to the village in Prey Kabas commune, Takeo province – about 90 km (56 miles) from the capital. His father and brother-in-law would arrive in the village shortly afterward.

In the days to come, Khmer Rouge cadre began vetting the “new people,” the disparaging name given to evacuees from the city.

Vuthy said his father told the truth: He was a skilled cartographer. Surprisingly, his reply was welcomed.

“The Khmer Rouge people stood up and said ‘We need your skill. We want you to come back and work for Angka.‘”

They considered us traitors

As quickly as they had arrived in the village, his father, mother and three of his brothers were turned around to return to Phnom Penh.

Days later, his sister was also taken away. Both she and her husband were sent to work in the fields.

Still in the village, Vuthy’s immediate mission was to learn how to keep himself and his grandmother alive.

“I didn’t know how to catch a fish, frog, crab or snake,” he said. “And as a newcomer, nobody wanted to talk to us, because they considered us traitors.”

He also didn’t know how to cook, and his grandmother, a staunch Buddhist, refused to kill anything that was alive. When he did manage to catch fish and crabs and brought them to the kitchen, she wouldn’t touch them.

It was only a matter of weeks after his parents left that his grandmother died of starvation. He was now alone. He vowed he would live to be reunited with his parents.

(Arthur Tsang/Reuters)

The first year under the Khmer Rouge was the most difficult. Vuthy was sent to work in the rice fields. There was a massive flood in the first wet season, and food was scarce.

He was settled alongside a river in northwestern Cambodia where he lived on an elevated bamboo platform. Scores of other platforms were nearby, divided into family groups. As the rain fell, the river rose until the platforms were surrounded by water.

He remembers the leeches and the kindness of a woman he called Aunty Poh, who slept on the platform next to him with her three children. She cut up her skirt to make pants for him to protect him from the leeches.

“The Khmer Rouge people would come in the evening by boat and would distribute one bowl of rice per family,” he said. “If you had three people in a family, you would have three spoonfuls of rice. I was by myself, and I only had one spoon.”

Close to succumbing

That first wet season, the river remained high for two months. When he finally took off those pants to wash them, they were covered in the trails of hundreds of leeches. He had survived.

Aunty Poh, who made the pants for him, did not. Neither did her children. She kept the body of her last child next to her for days, to claim his meager rice allocation until she could no longer. Hunger killed both of them. Vuthy came close to succumbing.

“You know when people die of hunger, they usually die at around 3 or 4 in the morning,” he said.

That last rasping gasp is a sound he remembers himself making. It woke his neighbor, Aunty Poh. She opened his mouth with a spoon and fed him the rice porridge he had saved for the morning.

“When your body feels this porridge, you start to have feeling, you feel the food and you can move. I was still conscious, but I could not move.”

(DC-CAM)

For Vuthy, many memories remain painful, but worse, there are others he can no longer summon.

“I don’t remember the faces of my parents or my brother or sister. I don’t have any photos left of any of them. The Khmer Rouge destroyed or burnt all photo albums.”

What made him survive when so many others did not, he attributes to one of the greatest human emotions – that of hope.

“If you have hope, you have the inspiration to stay alive, to fight and stay alive.”

‘At least I survived’

For four years, Vuthy held on, believing he would one day be reunited with his parents. When the Khmer Rouge were ousted from power in 1979, he walked back to the capital. Each day for more than three months, he would wait at the city gates, wanting them to walk into view.

Eyewitnesses who knew his parents told him what happened. They died not long after they left him behind in the village, and just before they reached Phnom Penh.

The boat transporting them by river to the capital had capsized in front of the Royal Palace. Overladen with people happy to be returning to the city, there had been a rush to one side of the boat. It lurched to one side and sank.

(DC-CAM)

From that day to this, one thing has kept him going. A mantra that he tells himself often. It begins with “at least.”

“At least I survived. At least I survived and continued to represent my family. At least my family, my mother, my father, my sister and my brothers do not have to go through all the hardship that I did during the Khmer Rouge. At least, while they died horribly, by drowning, but at least they no longer suffered.”

In recent years, as an on-air host and deputy director of RFA’s Khmer service, Vuthy has watched as Cambodia has slid from a democracy to authoritarianism. That has been difficult to witness, he said.

“Go back to the history of Cambodia itself. It has gone through a lot,” he said.

”But if we don’t keep fighting. We won’t survive. We have only one life to live, and we all die sooner or later. Do something good. Do something for your country.”

Edited by Matt Reed

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Ginny Stein for RFA.

Armitage, a former U.S. official under President George W. Bush, died of lung disease on April 13, aged 79. He had served several defense and foreign policy roles that helped shape U.S. defense and security policy in the Asia Pacific.

“A long-time advocate for peace in the Taiwan Strait and a staunch supporter of Taiwan’s democracy, Armitage was a key friend to Taiwan and made significant contributions to U.S.-Taiwan relations and Indo-Pacific security,” Taiwan’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Taiwan faces growing military and diplomatic pressure from China, which claims the island as its territory and seeks to isolate it internationally. Armitage’s advocacy helped keep Taiwan on the global agenda, strengthened ties with key allies such as the U.S. and signaled international backing for Taiwan’s democracy and security amid rising cross-strait tensions.

Over the years, Armitage maintained close ties with leaders across Taiwan’s political spectrum. He attended the inaugurations of both President Tsai Ing-wen and President-elect Lai Ching-te, and also held direct conversations with former President Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang.

His bipartisan diplomacy also helped ensure continued dialogue between Washington and Taipei, regardless of Taiwan’s domestic political shifts.

“Armitage had bipartisan friends in Washington, as well as bipartisan friends in Taipei,” wrote Alexander Huang, a former senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a tribute on Facebook.

Beyond Taiwan

Beyond his ties to Taiwan, Armitage left a significant imprint on U.S. policy across the Indo-Pacific.

A U.S. Navy veteran, Armitage served three combat tours during the Vietnam War, working closely with Vietnamese forces. In 1975, as Saigon fell, he helped evacuate over 30,000 South Vietnamese refugees and naval personnel, leading them by sea to the Philippines and negotiating their safe landing at Subic Bay.

As a senior U.S. official, Armitage was a key figure in shaping the modern U.S.-Japan alliance. He co-authored bipartisan policy reports that guided strategic cooperation, encouraged Japan’s expanded security role, and supported updates to joint defense guidelines.

In the Philippines, he played a central role in negotiating the future of U.S. military bases, a critical issue for U.S. strategy in Asia.

He also played a key role in Korea policy, working with South Korea’s Kim Dae-jung administration while expressing skepticism toward the “Sunshine Policy.” He urged caution in tying political fate to engagement with Pyongyang.

Known for a firm but flexible approach, Armitage advocated diplomacy with North Korea while preparing for containment if talks failed. His 1999 “Armitage Report” shaped U.S. strategy, warning that no option – negotiation, sanctions, or force – was without serious risk.

Edited by Taejun Kang and Stephen Wright.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.

In Dharamsala, dozens of Tibetan devotees marched in the streets for a candlelight prayer and vigil.

(Manish Swarup/AP)

The Tibetan government-in-exile called Tuesday for an independent investigation into the death.

Human rights groups contend that Tulku Hungkar Dorje was arrested from his hotel room in Ho Chi Minh City in a joint operation by local police and Chinese government agents. He was reportedly transferred to Chinese custody where he mysteriously died the same day, they added.

On April 3, Lung Ngon Monastery in Gade county (Gande in Chinese), Golog prefecture, Qinghai province, issued a statement confirming that its revered 56-year-old abbot, had died in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City due to poor health.

The monastery’s statement gave no further details. His followers say he had been missing for eight months.

“I am troubled to learn of the mysterious death of Tibetan religious leader Tulku Hungkar Dorjee in Vietnam,” said U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern in a post on X.

The Massachusetts Democrat said the State Department “must urge Vietnam to do a full and transparent independent investigation.”

I am troubled to learn of the mysterious death of Tibetan religious leader Tulku Hungkar Dorjee in Vietnam. He had been harassed by authorities in China for running his monastery and schools. @StateDept must urge Vietnam to do a full and transparent independent investigation. https://t.co/YR0HlxynfL

— Rep. Jim McGovern (@RepMcGovern) April 11, 2025

Tulku Hungkar Dorje was a renowned religious teacher, philanthropist, and educator. He disappeared in August 2025 after he called at a public teaching in July for the preservation of Tibetan language and culture.

Chinese authorities forbid the monastery and local residents from holding public memorial services and prayers for the abbot, underscoring the sensitivity of his death, three sources from the region told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.

The sources requested anonymity because they feared reprisals.

(RFA Tibetan)

(RFA Tibetan)

(RFA Tibetan)

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

In Dharamsala, dozens of Tibetan devotees marched in the streets for a candlelight prayer and vigil.

(Manish Swarup/AP)

The Tibetan government-in-exile called Tuesday for an independent investigation into the death.

Human rights groups contend that Tulku Hungkar Dorje was arrested from his hotel room in Ho Chi Minh City in a joint operation by local police and Chinese government agents. He was reportedly transferred to Chinese custody where he mysteriously died the same day, they added.

On April 3, Lung Ngon Monastery in Gade county (Gande in Chinese), Golog prefecture, Qinghai province, issued a statement confirming that its revered 56-year-old abbot, had died in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City due to poor health.

The monastery’s statement gave no further details. His followers say he had been missing for eight months.

“I am troubled to learn of the mysterious death of Tibetan religious leader Tulku Hungkar Dorjee in Vietnam,” said U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern in a post on X.

The Massachusetts Democrat said the State Department “must urge Vietnam to do a full and transparent independent investigation.”

I am troubled to learn of the mysterious death of Tibetan religious leader Tulku Hungkar Dorjee in Vietnam. He had been harassed by authorities in China for running his monastery and schools. @StateDept must urge Vietnam to do a full and transparent independent investigation. https://t.co/YR0HlxynfL

— Rep. Jim McGovern (@RepMcGovern) April 11, 2025

Tulku Hungkar Dorje was a renowned religious teacher, philanthropist, and educator. He disappeared in August 2025 after he called at a public teaching in July for the preservation of Tibetan language and culture.

Chinese authorities forbid the monastery and local residents from holding public memorial services and prayers for the abbot, underscoring the sensitivity of his death, three sources from the region told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.

The sources requested anonymity because they feared reprisals.

(RFA Tibetan)

(RFA Tibetan)

(RFA Tibetan)

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

On April 3, Lung Ngon Monastery in Gade county (Gande in Chinese), Golog prefecture, Qinghai province, issued a statement confirming that its abbot, Tulku Hungkar Dorje, 56, had died in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City on March 29 due to poor health. The monastery’s statement gave no further details. His followers say he had been missing for eight months.

(Citizen photo)

Chinese authorities’ forbid the monastery and local residents from holding public memorial services and prayers for the abbot, underscoring the sensitivity of his death, three sources from the region told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. The sources requested anonymity because they feared reprisals.

The Central Tibetan Administration - the exiled government based in Dharamsala, India - and human rights groups contend that Tulku Hungkar Dorje was arrested from his hotel room in Ho Chi Minh City on March 25 in a joint operation by local police and Chinese government agents. He was reportedly transferred to Chinese custody on March 28, where he mysteriously died the same day, they added.

“(This raises) serious concerns about cross-border security cooperation, transnational repression, and human rights violations that demand immediate and thorough investigation, as well as accountability from both Vietnamese and Chinese authorities,” Tenzin Lekshay, spokesperson for the CTA, said.

(Citizen photo)

Tulku Hungkar Dorje was a renowned religious teacher, philanthropist, and educator. He disappeared last August after he called at a public teaching that July for the preservation of Tibetan language and culture.

Rights groups say that Tulku Hungkar Dorje was also subjected to multiple rounds of interrogations before his disappearance after he did not fully comply with Beijing’s wish to host the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama, Gyaltsen Norbu, at his monastery.

He was also accused of failing to implement Chinese government policies in schools he had established for children of Tibetan nomadic families in Golog, sources in the region said. He had also composed a long-life prayer for Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, whom China regards as a separatist, they added. (The Dalai Lama actually advocates for a “Middle Way” that accepts Tibet’s status as a part of China and urges greater cultural, religious, and language rights and freedoms under the provisions of China’s own constitution).

Escape to Vietnam

Faced with mounting pressure from the Chinese government, Tulku Hungkar Dorje fled to Vietnam, where he was reportedly in hiding since September 2024 until the Chinese authorities arrested him in late March with the help of the Vietnamese government, Tibetan rights groups said, citing sources familiar with the matter in the region.

Lhamo Tashi, president of Dhomay Cholka Association, a non-governmental organization representing Tibetans from the historical Amdo region of Tibet, said: “Given the grave nature of these events, we call for an independent international investigation into the circumstances of Tulku Hungkar Dorje’s death. Such an investigation must be conducted transparently, in accordance with international legal standards, and with full access for neutral observers in Vietnam.”

The Vietnamese and the Chinese government did not immediately respond to RFA’s requests for comment.

(Citizen photo)

Beyond Tibet, Tulku Hungkar Dorje has a large following of Buddhist disciples across the world, including in the United States, Russia, Australia, Canada, and Vietnam. In Vietnam, his followers at the Longchen Nyingthig Center issued a short note lamenting his passing.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in Tibetan Buddhism in Vietnam, with the establishment of multiple Dharma meditation centers, pagodas and even the world’s largest Tibetan Buddhist Prayer Wheel that is located at Don Duong District, Lam Dong Province in southern Vietnam.

Experts say the visits by Tibetan Buddhist leaders in Vietnam are tolerated, sometimes even promoted. That’s an unusual exception to communist party intolerance of religious groups that are not state-sanctioned and is perhaps meant to counter criticism of that policy. However, experts say Vietnam avoids any publicity around Buddhist leaders who are under the scrutiny of the Chinese government to avoid diplomatic problems with Beijing.

Suspicions of foul play

Ju Tenkyong, director of the Amnye Machen Institute, a Dharamsala-based Tibetan center for advanced studies, said that earlier this month, five Tibetan Buddhist monks from Golog’s Lung Ngon Monastery and six Chinese government officials traveled to Vietnam to retrieve Tulku Hungkar Dorje’s body, which is reportedly at Vinmec Central Park International Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City.

However, the five monks were barred from participating in an emergency meeting that was convened on April 5 at the Chinese Embassy in Vietnam, where only the six Chinese officials were allowed, he said. Nor were they allowed to view the body, despite being initially told they could do so, he added.

“The officials demanded that the monks sign documents confirming Tulku’s death, but the monks refused, saying they could not sign until they had seen his body. The fact that the body was not shown to the monks and disciples raises serious suspicions of foul play,” Tenkyong told RFA.

(Citizen photo)

The Tibetan government-in-exile also called for the body of Tulku Hungkar Dorje to be immediately handed over to Lung Ngon Monastery to allow for proper last rites to be performed as per Tibetan Buddhist traditions.

“It is noteworthy that the suspicious death of Tulku Hungkar Dorje represents a troubling escalation in China’s systematic targeting of influential Tibetan figures who promote Tibetan culture, language, and identity,” said CTA spokesperson Lekshay. “His case highlights the ongoing suppression of human rights in Tibet, where people live under constant fear of arrest for the slightest expression of Tibetan identity.”

Chinese authorities closely scrutinize prominent Tibetan Buddhist lamas and businessmen involved in philanthropy, as well as poets, writers, and religious teachers who advocate for the preservation and promotion of Tibetan language and culture. Such figures often face strict surveillance and are vulnerable to arbitrary detentions and long prison terms.

Photos thrown to the ground

The local sources who spoke to RFA on Wednesday said officials in Gade County, where the monastery is located, have instructed local township and village leaders to strictly prohibit Tibetans from sharing any images or information related to Tulku Hungkar Dorje online.

“Initially, the government told Lung Ngon Monastery they could hold memorial services, but fearing large public gatherings, they suddenly imposed restrictions,” said one of the three sources.

Since April 2, authorities from Golog Prefecture and Gade County have been jointly conducting strict inspections at the monastery and surrounding villages, with police patrolling these areas day and night, the sources said.

“When the monastery school attempted to display Tulku’s photo and hold memorial services, Chinese officials arrived, threw the photos on the ground and forcibly prohibited any religious activities,” another of the sources said.

In its 2025 Annual Report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended that both China and Vietnam be designated as a ‘Countries of Particular Concern’ for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.

USCIRF said religious freedom in Vietnam remained poor in 2024, with the Vietnamese government continuing to wield its 2018 Law on Belief and Religion to strictly control religious affairs through state-sponsored religious organizations.

Edited by Mat Pennington

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

Image by Kit.

This essay is for Mohara Gill, because she gave me the idea.

Some years ago, critics worried that the novel was dying. The first novel, Tale of the Genji, was written by a Japanese woman Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century. And so it would be surprising to discover that such a long-lived literary form, which had survived so many drastic cultural changes, had outlived its welcome. Now of course that worry is long past. But there is one literary form that has recently died. When I was young, I organized my trips to Europe using tourist guidebooks. Now, however, these tourist guidebooks have almost disappeared. You can buy old ones on-line, but new ones are not being written. Like the tourist postcard, the travel guidebook is very nearly dead.

When young English gentlemen went on the Grand Tour, they hired what was called a bear leader, an older experienced cicerone. Then in the mid-nineteenth century, when many less accomplished travelers — tourists — went abroad they used guidebooks. The secular travel guide was a product of modern mass culture, which may be dated to the mid nineteenth-century after the demise of the Grand Tour. One could, I grant, find in medieval European pilgrimages an anticipation of these secular travels. When pilgrims came to Venice, for example, they had to wait for the boats to take them to the holy land. And so they used guide books to visit the numerous relics in the churches of that city. And in the middle ages, pilgrims coming to Rome and other holy cities used guidebooks. But what interests me are the commonplace modern secular guides, Fodors, Lonely Planet and the like, designed for middle class tourists. There is a literature on the Grand Tour but nothing much, so far as I know, about these guidebooks. And that’s surprising, for they are an interesting, original literary form.

Tourist guides were formulaic publications, produced by many publishers. They presented the attractions, listed hotels and restaurants of a country or city and usually had a potted history, a short language guide and a list of appropriate readings. And then there is a guide to language translation and, often, a list of books relevant to the visitor. Often these books had many authors, but sometimes no author was listed. And they needed to be regularly updated. When writing my forthcoming book about Naples, I have collected guidebooks- 27 at last count. They provide an historical record of tourism. But now they are obsolete. There is a recent reprint of the pioneering American guide, Arthur Frommer’s Europe on 5 Dollars a Day (1957), which now costs $27. Travel was inexpensive for Americans in the 1950s.

What killed the guidebook was of course the internet. Once you could make hotel and restaurant reservations and get the schedules and purchase museum tickets on-line, then the guidebook had all of the limited practical utility of a horse drawn carriage in the era of the automobile. You can leave your guidebooks at home if you’re traveling to a place that has reliable internet service. In principle, the same information can be presented in print and on-line. But changes in how material is presented surely influences the way it is understood. When I (still!) read the New York Times in hard copy, I am aware that I read differently on line, more less likely to skip and jump. The material in guidebooks was of uneven value. The brief histories and the lists of proposed literary and historical readings were often useful. But the lists of translated phrases were not, for there’s no better way to get in trouble than to know just a few words of a language. And of course the information online is up to date, and you can usually make reservations. Some years ago I organized travels with the fax, checking the cost of hotel reservations and then making then with another fax. But soon this unwieldily arrangement was replaced by the internet, which made it possible to learn what was available and reserve instantly. Restaurants, too, are on line. And of course a smartphone walks you right to your destination.

Imagine if you will a series of descriptions of visual artworks. In one context, in a tourist guidebook, these words could be a relatively loquacious commentary on art worth seeing. But in another context, in an academic art history book, they would be a relatively laconic scholarly account. The same words, but how differently they would be understood in these two diverse contexts. In the academic book, they would constitute knowledge about visual art. Students would be taught to understand them, they would be commented on (and critiqued) by scholars, and in the library they would be published with the other scholarly commentaries. But the materials in a tourist guidebook would have none of these roles. Gombrich, Wittkower and Nochlin are studied by their fellow scholars in academic art history. But there’s no comparable way in which Baedeker, Fodor and the other pioneering authors of travel guides are scholarly subjects, though there is a certain sociological interest in the history of tourism. Indeed that often travel guides have multiple authors is revealing. They don’t claim to propose the viewpoint of a single personality, as does much art history writing. There is an important difference in kind between fascination looking at visual art and interest in that art as a subject of knowledge, a difference as large and important as the response to a sacred artifact and a secular picture.. That difference is marked by the contrast between tourism and scholarship, or differences between the guidebook and academic writing.

When the monuments of a city have not changed much, then old guidebooks are stuck perfectly useful. Two of the greatest such books are about Venice. Venice for Pleasure by J. G. Links, the funniest guide that I know; and Venice and its Lagoon by Giulio Lorenzetti, which is the most thorough imaginable guidebook.

Note:

Arthur Danto’s philosophy is the source of my theorizing comparing tourist guidebooks and art history writing.

The post The Death of the Travel Guidebook appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by David Carrier.

The death toll from the devastating Myanmar earthquake rose past 3,000 on Thursday, according to the country’s military-controlled television, as a junta security clampdown slowed aid in some areas.

The 7.7 magnitude quake, which struck Friday between Sagaing town and Mandalay city, left many people without food, clean water and shelter in Naypyidaw, Bago and Magway regions as well as Shan state.

Myanmar Radio and Television reported 3,085 dead on Thursday, more than 4,700 people injured and 341 missing.

Nearly a week after the disaster, aid organizations were still conducting search and rescue operations, but many areas remain inaccessible, making it difficult to estimate the total number of people affected, said one volunteer.

The earthquake affected nearly two million people, the United Nations estimated.

A total of 65 aftershocks occurred between Friday’s earthquake and Thursday morning, the junta’s meteorology department said in a statement.

In Mandalay, aftershocks forced residents to pitch tents in parks and other open areas, said one resident, who declined to be named for security reasons.

“In Mandalay when the aftershocks were happening, people were extremely worried. Houses were collapsing, apartment walls were cracking, we didn’t dare to stay there,” he said.

“We don’t have any hope for our houses. With the aftershocks, we’re just worried about not losing our lives.”

Close inspections

Sagaing and Mandalay regions are hotbeds of insurgency following the 2021 military coup that prompted civilians to join the dozens of ethnic armed groups and people’s defense forces.

Tensions are high in rescue areas, volunteers said, where the junta has imposed a 10 p.m. curfew and continued to bomb areas with a high rebel presence in spite of proposed ceasefires by several insurgent armies.

On Tuesday, junta spokesperson Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun admitted soldiers had shot at a convoy of vehicles carrying China Red Cross supplies in northern Shan state’s Nawnghkio township, state media said.

On Thursday morning, junta forces began strictly monitoring vehicles entering and exiting Sagaing town, with some turned away, said an eye witness.

(RFA)

“Since morning, they’ve covered all the entrances and exits. Cars were blocked on the bridge until this afternoon,” he said, declining to be named for fear of reprisals. “Some of the cars that were crossing the bridge to help were sent back to Mandalay.”

Strict inspections of goods has led to thousands of cars waiting at the entrance, the eyewitness said.

Although there was a junta presence on Sagaing’s roads before the earthquake, inspections have become stricter than ever, said another resident whose vehicle was checked on Thursday.

The junta has yet to deliver aid to individuals affected by the earthquake, Sagaing residents said.

Junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun did not answer calls.

Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Mike Firn and Stephen Wright.

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

The junta, which took control of the country in a 2021 coup, said on state TV that 170 people were still missing and 3,900 people were injured. The shadow National Unity Government, made up of former civilian leaders, gave a higher death toll of 2,418.

Near the epicenter of Friday’s quake, in Mandalay, the country’s second-biggest city, a 75-year-old grandmother and her two teenage granddaughters were pulled out alive from under their partially collapsed 11-story apartment building, residents told Radio Free Asia.

While holding onto each other in the darkness, the girls, 16 and 13, used their cell phones to signal their location under the Sky Villa condominium. On Sunday, they were happily reunited with their families.

The United Nations Office in Myanmar, meanwhile, issued a statement on Monday asking for unhindered access to earthquake-hit areas to deliver humanitarian aid.

Myanmar, which is mired in a four-year civil war after the military overthrew the democratically-elected government in the coup, is poorly equipped to respond to the disaster.

(AP)

Even before this earthquake, nearly 20 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance, Marcoluigi Corsi, the U.N. resident and acting humanitarian coordinator for Myanmar, said in a statement.

“This latest tragedy compounds an already dire crisis and risks further eroding the resilience of communities already battered by conflict, displacement, and past disasters,” Corsi said.

U.N. agencies and humanitarian partners have allocated an initial US$15 million to support the response and are deploying emergency medical teams, shelter materials and food aid.

“We have a significant presence in Mandalay and surrounding areas, and we are doing everything we can to reach people in need despite serious logistical challenges,” Corsi said.

The U.N. said many survivors were suffering from “fractures, open wounds and crush syndrome – all conditions that pose a high risk of infection."

In a daily humanitarian update, the U.N. recounted a tragedy at a private preschool which was in session during the earthquake in the Mandalay area. The classroom building collapsed, resulting in the deaths of 50 children and two teachers.

In response to the earthquake, rescue teams from Russia, China, Belarus, India, Thailand, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, and Malaysia have been providing assistance. The United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and Bangladesh have sent financial aid and rescue supplies.

The earthquake was centered near Mandalay in the middle of the country and caused severe destruction in Sagaing, Magway, Bago, Naypyidaw, Shan state and eastern Taungoo.

The junta declared a seven-day period of national mourning until April 6 to remember those who lost their lives in the earthquake.

Thai efforts continue

Aftershocks were still being felt in the Burmese cities of Mandalay and Naypyidaw as well as the Thai capital of Bangkok -- 1,000 kilometers from the epicenter -- although no additional damage was reported.

(Myanmar Rescue via RFA Burmese)

In Bangkok, multinational rescuers, including the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, used K-9 dogs and electronic sensors to detect signs of life in the rubble of a 30-story building.

According to the rescue center at the site of the collapsed state audit office near Chatuchak Park, as of 8 a.m. on Monday, 76 people remained missing, 11 were confirmed dead with nine injured. A woman’s body was brought out of the rubble mid-afternoon, bringing the death toll to 12.

The search was continuing beyond the conventional 72-hour window for finding survivors, Bangkok Gov. Chadchart Sittipunt said, saying signs of life had been detected Monday morning.

Thailand’s labor ministry said it would give 1.73 million baht (US$51,000) to families for each of the construction workers – many foreign nationals - who died in the collapse.

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

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

Image by Mohammed Ibrahim.

The vast undercount of Israeli-caused deaths in Gaza is regularly reported as 50,000. The actual toll from violent military action and the indirect deaths (stemming from infectious disease, epidemics, untreated chronic illness, untreated serious wounds, and starvation) is well over 400,000 and growing by the day.

No crowded enclave like Gaza – the geographical size of Philadelphia – with 2.3 million people under a long-term siege blocking essentials can withstand over 115 thousand tons of bombs, plus artillery, grenades, and snipers targeting civilians, with uncontrollable fires everywhere. How could 97.5% of its inhabitants survive? Tens of thousands of Palestinian children, women, and men lie under the rubble. Tens of thousands of diabetics and cancer victims have no medicine. Five thousand babies a month are born into the rubble.

As declared by the Israeli war ministries, “no food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel,” the words of genocide or mass murder of utterly defenseless civilians who had nothing to do with October 7, 2023 — hikes the ratio of “indirect deaths” to the higher range of three to fifteen-fold by the Geneva Declaration Secretariat’s review of prior conflicts.

In my lengthy article, published in the Capitol Hill Citizen, (August/September 2024 issue) I noted that the total ban by Netanyahu of foreign and Israeli reporters from entering the killing fields of Gaza allows the undercount by Hamas to be the anchor on the lethal truth. Hamas counts only names of the deceased given by hospitals and mortuaries, which were largely destroyed many months ago. Hamas, like Netanyahu, favors an undercount for obviously different reasons – the former to lessen the ire of its people for not protecting them and the latter to diminish international sanctions and condemnation.

It is not as if there are no higher estimates by credible groups. UN agencies, international aid groups, and specialists in disaster casualties at places like Brown University and the University of Edinburgh, and reports in the prestigious medical journal LANCETall point to a major undercount. They cite minimum reasonable estimates. But the mass media just keeps citing the Hamas undercount, awaiting some magical number that meets an impossible level of precision.

Interestingly, the mass media has no problem reporting estimates of deaths under the Syrian Assad dictatorship, during the Sudanese conflict, or the Russian war on Ukraine. It seems only the Palestinians are not allowed to live by the Israeli/U.S. terrorist regimes and are not told how many of them are being annihilated. Imagine, whole extended families in apartment buildings and tents.

More curious is why the so-called Left, in their denunciations, are still clinging to the Hamas figure. A famous commentator from Haaretz and a civic leader in the U.S. gave me the same answer. The Hamas figures are horrific enough!

Can you imagine Israeli governments undercounting their fatalities by nearly 90%?

More curious is what is keeping the few strong defenders of Palestinian survival in Congress from asking the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress to come up with a minimum accurate figure from the available empirical and clinical evidence?

What kept the majority of Democrats in the Senate under Biden from subpoenaing the evidence accumulated by the State Department on the death/injury count? The State Department has been resisting our Freedom of Information request since May 23, 2024. What about tapping into the work of sixteen Israeli human rights groups, including the military reservist groups like “Breaking the Silence”?

Numbers matter in wars and natural disasters. They matter in the intensity behind the civic, political, and diplomatic efforts worldwide to stop the killing, secure a permanent ceasefire, let in the thousands of trucks bearing humanitarian aid (food, water, medicine, fuel, and other essentials), and enter into serious peace negotiations.

Instead, Trump is backing the expulsion of the Palestinian survivors, supporting the annexation of the West Bank, and leaving devastated Gaza as a real estate opportunity for Israeli and American developers.

This attitude is what Jim Zogby (founder of the Arab-American Institute) exposed when years ago he delivered a lecture on “The Other Anti-Semitism” before an Israeli University audience. The other antisemitism, exhibited by Biden and Trump, is backed by F-16s and other weapons of mass destruction that have killed over 100,000 children along with their mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and grandfathers.

A deep racism backed by a genocidal delivery system day after day is funded by American tax dollars delivered by a homicidal Congress. A Congress that has refused, since 1948, testimony by leading Israeli and Palestinian peace advocates before House and Senate Committees to provide justice for the Palestinian people.

The post The Vast Gaza Death Undercount appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ralph Nader.

Rescuers hunted for survivors including those hundreds of kilometers away from the quake epicenter in the Thai capital, Bangkok, where a high rise collapsed, burying dozens of construction workers.

The Myanmar junta’s information team reported 1,002 deaths, up from the 144 deaths reported Friday in the first hours after the earthquake, and more than 2,000 injured.

The U.S. and Russia offered assistance, with Moscow sending 120 rescuers and doctors, according to the TASS news agency. Malaysia said it would send 50 people on Sunday to provide aid to the worst-hit areas. A Chinese rescue team arrived on Saturday, Xinhua news reported.

The 7.7 magnitude quake was centered near Myanmar’s second largest city Mandalay. Shan state, Sagaing, Bago, Magway and Naypyidaw also suffered major damage, prompting the junta to declare a state of emergency in the affected regions.

In Pyinmana, a town just east of Myanmar’s capital, 40 bodies were found in collapsed buildings, residents told RFA Burmese, and more than 130 injured people were sent to nearby hospitals.

A rescue worker said that there were still many people trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings in the town.

“The entire area is destroyed, and we are working tirelessly on rescue operations. We just sent one body to the morgue and are now continuing the search,” he said. “Unfortunately, we can’t assist in other areas. Even in Pyinmana, our efforts are hindered, and we’re unable to go further.”

The disaster has raised concerns about how aid would reach victims in Myanmar, which has been embroiled in a civil war since the military overthrew a civilian government in a 2021 coup. The fighting has driven more than 3 million people from their homes.

“This earthquake could not come at a worse time for Myanmar,” said Amnesty International’s Myanmar Researcher Joe Freeman. “Over a third of the population will need humanitarian assistance this year.

“In a country where the military has banned many media outlets and internet access is restricted, we may not have a clear picture of the extent of damage and loss for some time,” he said.

(Stephen Wright/RFA)

In Bangkok on Saturday, 1000 kilometers (620 miles) from the quake’s epicenter, rescuers continued to hunt for construction workers trapped when a 33 story government building collapsed. Nine people are confirmed dead and 79 missing, according to information from rescue crews at the scene.

Backhoes picked at the giant mound of grey building debris next to the famous Chatuchak market as police shooed away reporters and bystanders from the entrance to the site.

Bangkok’s governor, Chadchart Sittipunt, declared a disaster zone “so that relevant government agencies, local administrative organizations, and the private sector can perform their duties in the disaster-affected area.”

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra sought to reassure residents late Friday saying it was safe to return to their homes.

Small tremors were still taking place Saturday according to Thailand’s meteorological department, which recorded 77 aftershocks as of 6 a.m.

Bangkok parks remained open overnight for people forced to abandon homes or stranded due to cancelled trains and blocked roads.

By Saturday, the overground and underground rail services were mainly running as normal, with safety checks still being carried out on two subway lines. Some malls and office buildings remained closed for safety checks and repairs.

The earthquake was felt in China’s Yunnan and Sichuan provinces and caused damage and injuries in the city of Ruili on the border with Myanmar, according to Chinese media reports.

The shaking in Mangshi, a Chinese city about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Ruili, was so strong that people couldn’t stand, one resident told The Paper, an online media outlet.

Edited by Taejun Kang and Stephen Wright.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Saw Wunna, Khin Khin Ei and Mike Firn for RFA.

Super storms of wind, rain, and fire rage across the planet.

For eons, before us, wind scattered seeds and the world was fructified. Rain the great thirst of life and cleansed, warmed and illuminated.

Yet now the elements admonish us for humankind’s planet-poisoning folly. Men, shallow ones, claim, industry created civilization; the poetic voice of nature is now poised to reduce their noxious worldview to rubble and ash.

All too many among us insist this is normal. Nature rages, how can you be such a soul-banishing banality and yearning-for-pain fool?

Frans Verbeeck – The Mocking of Human Follies

“[A]ll fashionable vices pass for virtue.” —Jean-Baptiste Moliere (2015), “Tartuffe and Other Plays”

The most propitious help one can provide to a pathological culture is to act as a creative antagonist to its heart-diminishing, soul-sucking agenda.

A force within compels me to search over the horizon-line of the everyday, to seek out dialog with rivers and stars and poets on city stoops and philosophers on interstate buses. The silence of stones enchants. But also, within, blood and bone speak. As I age, I’m attempting to devote my hours to the greatness of existence by which I’m enlarged within, and laugh at what diminishes one’s love of life and thus renders a person small of heart.

The thoughts of the heart resonate through one’s being and create one’s character thus bestowing one with a sense of destiny and the things of the world with resonance and meaning; yet, we are induced by the present day, dry landscape of the commercial mind to embrace the contrived dreams of media grifters as our own. Thus the culture does not have a collective destiny, other than a continued decline into meaninglessness.

André Masson, There Is No Finished World

Despite the hagiography affixed to heroism, war, as a general rule, is an act of plunder. Withal, the plundering and attendant destruction of the earth by corporate greed should be regarded as an act of war. The profiteers of which should be in docks of war criminal tribunals.

In diametrical opposition, the life purpose of the artist/poet/human being, compelled by the instruction of the heart, is to remind those who have lapsed, by mindless reflex, into crackpot functioning within a sick, conformist society of the veritable existence of a raging flame and cooling breeze within that is their humanity. It is not to hypnotize their fellow humans to march into a cultural wasteland toward a mirage oasis of their comfort zones. How else could the societal mass remain so indifferent to the suffering of the living earth inflicted by greed?

All too many spend their days anesthetized by perpetual and love-lacking distractions. The contrived spectacle inflicts mortification on a worldview defined by the heart. Conversely, the heart thrives when in ardor and when in the thrall of resonant engagement. The shallow compulsions induced by the profiteers of corporate despotism are anathema to the soul of the living moment.

“But the loneliness, oh Architect Of Desire, the loneliness,” I have cried out. Yet, through it all, I have had visitations by ebullient guides who made suspension bridges constructed of woven ropes of living light across the darkest nights to sanctuaries devoted to renewal. There, I was instructed that acquiescence to the sanctified insanity of a death-enamored society would tear my heart to tatters, and I was called to resist conformist madness by the libido delivered by imagination. “Never be boring or they win,” I was counseled.

Salvador Dali: Liquid Desire

A social milieu should allow for the eros freighted within social engagement to be conducive to forging friendships, for coming upon mentors, and for grappling with antagonists…whereby one is destroyed by catastrophic victories and enlarged by propitious failures.

My heart has been wounded by cruelty; my mind buffeted by stupidity and banality; my soul sickened by cynicism. The sorrow of it all brought me to my knees. Yet when I stood and faced the world, I experienced a sense of renewal. I had endured. There was grace hidden in the ordeal.

Yet an abyss howls between the lexicon of one who has experienced renewal and those who profit by acting as exploiters and destroyers.

Although every individual arrives at a fate uniquely their own, soul-making is a collaborative effort. Destiny only appears to be a solo act. The most noxious insanity manifests in a culture, mirrored by its government, that promotes the lie of the mind: we are singular entities not interconnected to the natural order of living earth.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! — T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

The Hollow Men, circa 1949, Anne Lyman Powers

Moreover, a lack of, even refusal to make resonant connections, creates a raging, nearly seemingly unendurable inner emptiness, both on a personal and cultural basis. Insofar as the citizenry of The Republic Of Emptydom, the solution is consumption of MORE. MORE and we must have it right NOW! Yet the elites at the top of the present system delude themselves that they can maintain an economy dependent on unfettered, infinite consumption while residing on a planet with finite resources. The extreme levels of denial, mendacity and manic activity evinced by the mindset is exhausting. Hence, the cultural-wide pandemic of depression will coalesce into governmental/societal collapse.

Trump, Musk et al. are the living-in-the-flesh emblems of a cultural delusion i.e., the remedy for inner hollowness is manic acquisition of MORE. To state the glaring and tragic in nature obvious, these two fools of fortune could not be MORE wrong. If we possess a world of technology but we lack a dominion ruled by the heart’s verities, we have become a threat to ourselves and a scourge to the earth.

Greedheads and technocrats are driven by a convenient delusion: the world belongs to them. When they belong to the earth. Thus they are obliged to be in its service and not manically devoted to the exploitation of earth’s bounty…that was not intended to be theirs in the first place. With that in mind, we discover the reason they lie with such obsession-borne force.

Regarding the rest of us, we are obliged: “to undo the folded lie”. The complete verse:

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die. — September 1, 1939, W. H. Auden

Joseph’s Bloody Coat Brought to Jacob, 1630, Diego Velázquez

Captured by cultural lies, we die, and drift through the world as a ghost of oneself. Historical lies. Familiar lies. Societal and governmental lies…once accepted take up residence in the psyche and kill our better selves. Henceforth, one shuffles through the living world as a shade.

The fantasy of lost “greatness” haunts the mind of the MAGA nation. Mania persists as true vitality is sapped. The old, bloodless beliefs do not course with libido nor love. One can hardly engage in dialog with MAGA true believers without angry ghosts surging from their mouths. While the Democrats have locked themselves within a collapsing-from-corruption House Of Usher.

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red […]
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth!’ — Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind”

When belief systems burn to ash, a phoenix rises. Life beckons us to return to the realm of the living.

Take in the beauty and terror of existence. Nature rises as an inexorable force. Notice: Nature persists by renewal. Allow in its vitality. Ghosts dissipate with the dawn. The architecture of a new day stands within.

All things fall and are built again,
And those that build them again are gay — William Butler Yeats, Lapis Lazuli

Fire, Adriaen Collaert after Maerten de Vos, 1580-1584.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Phil Rockstroh.

Image by Ye Jinghan.

Elaine* spent the final 20 years of her life writing letters to 25 long-term prisoners in the U.S. prison system. Each of the 24 men and the sole woman had been convicted of violent crimes, and 16 were on death row. Elaine’s decades of kindness became a topic of research.

In October last year, I listened to a talk by Richard Clark, an American professor of sociology and criminology. Clark teaches at John Carroll University in Ohio and was researching the motivations of people who write to death row prisoners when he connected with Elaine. She was 96 at the time, and died shortly after connecting with Clark. Elaine’s friend later donated her vast collection of letters from the prisoners.

Clark’s research is expected to be published later this year and he kindly shared an advance copy with me. His paper notes that while public support for capital punishment is declining, death row prisoners remain a heavily stigmatized group. His research aims to reduce this stigma by shedding light on the humanity of prisoners.

Clark notes the range of people who write to prisoners, some are driven by faith, others by a sense of justice or curiosity. Among them are the families of murder victims reaching out to the person who killed their loved one. One example highlighted by Clark involved a woman who wrote to the man who murdered her 90-year-old aunt. She wrote to express her forgiveness. Over time, they developed a long-term correspondence.

Clark’s research notes the isolation felt by prisoners on death row. Prison guards keep their distance from those that they may one day have to kill. Family visits can be rare and are often difficult. “Many death row prisoners often come from poor and chaotic families,” Clark wrote. “It is difficult for many families to visit. It can also be difficult for a family to visit when the prisoner is kept in a glass box and conversations occur over the phone.”

His research paints a grim picture of prisoners’ early lives, virtually all of the individuals in this survey reported a chaotic childhood. Stories of parental divorces/separations, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse by one’s parent were common.” One prisoner grew up in a brothel while his father was in prison. Another fled his home at age 10. He wrote that “it’s hard to complete school when you are living on the street.” Many were raised in poverty, moving between unstable homes and schools, friendships repeatedly severed by sudden moves.

About half of the prisoners expressed regret for how their lives had turned out. Many struggled with the monotony and isolation of prison. One wrote: “My life has been such a miserable waste, I’m disappointed.” Another said, “I always wanted to make my mother proud of me. That will never happen.”

Despite their difficult upbringings, many wrote fondly of family members, often expressing gratitude for their financial and legal support. Prisoners described family visits as a painful experiences, noting dehumanizing strip searches and verbal abuse from guards. Some noted the sight of loved ones behind glass was both a comfort and a cruel reminder of all they had lost.

Their letters describe prison as “hell on earth” and noted poor food, no access to healthcare, arbitrary rule enforcement, and abuse. As fellow inmates were executed, and as their own death sentences approached, depression was a theme for prisoners.

Clark’s paper ends with a reflection on the long-term suffering of these prisoners—people who, in many cases, grew up in awful circumstances. Clark also highlights the gratitude that prisoners expressed for Elaine’s compassion. Despite never meeting them, she provided kindness and connection. He notes that she was a deeply religious person. Letters from prisoners also noted their appreciation of Sister Helen Prejean, the Catholic anti-death penalty advocate.

Clark invites the reader to reflect on the morality of capital punishment, and to consider: “the fairness of legal proceedings, the possibility of wrongful convictions, and the disparities in sentencing that disproportionately affect marginalized communities.”

His paper concludes: “By acknowledging the shared humanity of death row prisoners, we are compelled to advocate for change, including the abolition of the death penalty. This, perhaps, is the ultimate lesson derived from these letters.”

*Not her real name.

The post Death Row Letters appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Chris Houston.

“While McChesney spent much of his career charting the problems of the media and the critical junctures that created our current crises, he believed fundamentally in the public’s ability to solve those problems and build a media system that serves people’s needs and sustains democracy. His ideas were bold and transformative, and he had little patience for tinkering around the edges. Rather than fighting over Washington’s narrow vision of what was possible, he always said — and Bob loved a good sports metaphor — that we needed to throw the puck down to the other end of the ice.

“McChesney believed in turning ideas into action — which is why he co-founded Free Press. He believed that people deserve a say in policy decisions that for far too long were made in their name but without their consent. He taught us that the media wasn’t something that just happened to us, but something that we can and must shape and change. We at Free Press remain committed to that work and his vision.

“McChesney was a generous mentor and devoted friend to me and so many others who made his cause our life’s work. While I was first moved by his words on the page, what I will remember most is his humor and kindness, his passion for the Cleveland Browns and Boston Celtics, and especially his devotion to his family. We send our deepest condolences to his wife, daughters and many friends. May his memory be a blessing.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

‘One Trident sub could ‘incinerate 40 Russian cities’: Why Putin should fear Britain’s nuclear arsenal,’ read another London headline. This was just as US, UK and Turkish defence companies were informed they would be excluded from the new figure of €150 billion ($163 billion) in EU defence funding, unless of course they signed defence and security pacts with Brussels. More remarkable perhaps was Trump welcoming the idea of the US—as a former British colony—re-joining the Commonwealth. ‘I Love King Charles,’ he posted on Truth Social: ‘Sounds good to me!’ An affinity unmatched, it should be said, by the number of British subjects reportedly refused entry into the US despite valid visas.

‘So it was these two great leaders coming together for the betterment of mankind,’ rhapsodised US envoy Steve Witkoff about the Trump-Putin confab, ‘and it was honestly a privilege and an honour for me to sit there and listen to that conversation.’ Despite the Times of London reminding readers that Putin had flattered and deceived 5 US presidents, Trump spoke of improved relations, with the two agreeing that negotiations on the 30-day truce should begin ‘immediately’—which our very own wily Sam Kiley of the Independent called ‘an entirely Putin-constructed process.’ Witkoff then confirmed it was Putin who had ordered the Russian military to halt attacks on energy plants in Ukraine, though the actual timing of the Russian hit of the Ukrainian energy infrastructure of Slovyansk in the Donetsk would be disputed by Witkoff. This was before the Special Envoy’s snub of Keir Starmer’s peace efforts in a Tucker Carlson (anti-Zelenskyy, pro-Putin) interview. ‘So bold are Putin’s ceasefire demands,’ came the next London headline, ‘it’s hard to believe he is entirely serious.’

It was considered no surprise therefore that the Russian leader delayed the call with Trump by more than 50 minutes. Had it been Zelenskyy, we have to assume smoke would have billowed from US ears. Then news reached London of the NHL (National Hockey League) saying it would be ‘inappropriate’ to comment on Russia and the US hosting hockey matches together. At least the more punctual Trump and Zelenskyy chat was termed ‘a very good telephone call,’ much of it ‘in order to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs.’ Trump even offered to help return the missing 35,000 children from occupied areas of Ukraine, though it remained unclear how he would navigate his own recent funding cut to Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab which was responsible for the database on the mass abductions.

‘Obviously this is the world descending into worse and worse standards of targeting civilians,’ said the late UK politician Clare Short about Iraq and Gaza. So much for the presently broken ceasefire in Gaza. A tragedy of such epic proportions, it deserves far more than my feeble mention. (‘Life is the farce we all must play,’ wrote Arthur Rimbaud.) There have been so many instances of Israeli–Palestinian ceasefires that even the most persevering of Egyptian, UN or Qatari mediators must want to walk. Recent temporary truces in 2008, 2014, 2021, 2023 were all shattered. Just like the one last week shortly after UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy stated that Israel was breaking international humanitarian law—before being shut down by his own party. Gazan ceasefires are so fragile that Palestinians must know in their hearts they will be followed by renewed tensions or violence.

I’ve mentioned in the past WWI Christmas ceasefires returning to slaughter. While the Korean War Armistice of 1953 between North Korea, China, and the UN Command (mainly South Korea and the US) compares favourably to what we might see one day in Ukraine, the Korean War is still just a ceasefire. As for the 1973 Paris Peace Accords which began as a ceasefire, these did end US military involvement but fighting resumed soon afterwards between North and South Vietnam. There was the 1991 Gulf War in which Coalition forces declared a ceasefire after driving Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. It ended combat operations but tensions remained and eventually led to the 2003 Iraq War. At least in Northern Ireland there was the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the British and Irish governments, and most Northern Irish political parties, resulting in a political ceasefire that ended decades of sectarian violence. Since 2016 we’ve seen several localised and temporary Syrian Civil War ceasefires brokered by the UN, Russia, and Turkey. The Nagorno-Karabakh ones of 1994, 2020, and 2023 have just been followed by the Swiss Federal Assembly’s National Council and Council of States adopting a resolution titled ‘Peace Forum for Nagorno-Karabakh: The Possibility of Armenian Return.’ In short, ceasefires are everywhere and don’t always last.

Meanwhile, Ukraine launched a massive drone attack near a Russian strategic bomber base. A vast and portentous apocalyptic cloud was filmed rising immediately afterwards into the sky above Engels, home to Russian Tu-95 and Tu-160 nuclear capable heavy strategic bombers. This type of thing would have been at least one good reason why those follow-up discussions in Riyadh—for what were the first parallel negotiations since 2022—included Sergei Beseda, former head of the FSB spy agency’s fifth directorate.

As Russia launched another drone attack on Kyiv this time killing seven people including a five-year-old child, some flights at Heathrow Airport resumed but still with one or two Brits convinced it was sabotage, ignoring the fact cock-ups usually trump conspiracies. It was of course the same week that the death of former KGB colonel turned UK secret agent Oleg Gordievsky was announced, a Russian who influenced far more Cold War policies than Putin before and after he was betrayed by KGB spy Aldrich Ames of the CIA. One of Gordievsky’s MI6 Moscow handlers carried a green Harrods bag and ate a Mars bar in order to confirm Gordievsky’s imminent getaway to him to a UK safe house. Let’s just hope there are no more such shenanigans and nothing but a constructive openness before a nice, long and lasting Easter ceasefire.

The post Letter from London: Hands Free in the Valley of Death appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Peter Bach.

On Monday, Israeli strikes killed two Palestinian journalists: Al Jazeera’s Hossam Shabat, who was 23 years old, and Palestine Today’s Mohammed Mansour, who was killed in his apartment alongside his wife. This brings the total number of journalists that Israel has killed in Gaza over the past year and a half to 206. Just before his death, Shabat had shared news of Mansour’s killing on social media and filed an article with Drop Site News describing Israel’s scorched-earth campaign in his hometown of Beit Hanoun. His editor Sharif Abdel Kouddous remembers Shabat as a “warm and funny person,” dedicated to his job and his community. In recent months, he had been under increasing surveillance by the Israeli military, which labeled him a terrorist and placed him on a “hit list.” Despite being “targeted and openly hunted,” Shabat “continued nevertheless to cover the genocide of his people.”

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

The 68-year old chairwoman of prominent real estate company Van Thinh Phat was sentenced to death in April last year for the embezzlement of billions of dollars from Saigon Commercial Bank. The death penalty could be reduced to life imprisonment if she repays three-quarters of the estimated US$11 billion of stolen funds.

At the end of a second trial on related fraud charges in October, she was sentenced to life in prison for illegal property appropriation, 12 years for money laundering and eight years for illegally transferring money in and out of the country. Lan’s appeal, her second, is asking the High People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City to reduce her life sentence.

Lan has asked her legal team to focus on securing funds to pay back the defrauded bondholders, according to Singapore’s Business Times. She asked prosecutors to recover US$585 million of bond proceeds from banks and also plans to sell some assets, lawyer Giang Hong Thanh told the newspaper.

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Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party has been cracking down on corruption among party officials and their dealings in key industries such as property and healthcare in response to widespread bribery and embezzlement.

The campaign, known as the “blazing furnace” was spearheaded by former party general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and continued by his successor To Lam.

Some 27 of Lam’s accomplices are also appealing their sentences at the High Court in Ho Chi Minh City in hearings expected to last until April 21.

Edited by Taejun Kang and Stephen Wright.

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

Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo by Francisco Goya at the Prado. Public Domain.

What says the law? You will not kill. How does it say it? By killing!

– Victor Hugo

Brad Keith Sigmon never denied his guilt. He never claimed to be innocent in the 2001 murders of Gladys and David Larke, the parents of his former girlfriend. He didn’t claim ineffectiveness of counsel. He didn’t blame the murders on his crack addiction or a history of childhood trauma abuse. At the end of his trial, Sigmon stood up and confessed to his heinous crime: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am guilty. I have no excuse for what I did. It’s my fault and I’m not trying to blame nobody else for it, and I’m sorry.”

But Sigmon did object to being put to death by the state of South Carolina. As a Christian, he believed his own life had value, even after having committed an atrocious crime. He felt he still had something to contribute, even in the restricted society of prison. He feared that his execution would cause even more pain and anguish to his family.

However, his pleas to continue living were rejected, first by state and federal courts and then by South Carolina’s Governor, Henry McMaster. McMaster refused to commute his sentence or, after 23 years in prison, grant him clemency.

No confession or acts of contrition would assuage the politicians who demanded his death, an execution that even the daughter of the slain couple objected to. In the end, the only choice left to Sigmon was how he would be killed. And even that was a cruel choice, a final infliction of mental torture.

The state of South Carolina presented Sigmon with three options: be burned to death in an ancient electric chair, endure prolonged spasms and seizures as poison is injected into his body or have his heart blown apart by a firing squad. According to Sigmon’s lawyer, Gerald “Bo” King, Sigmon eventually made the harrowing decision to be executed by firing squad, fearing that he would “burn and cook him alive” and that the drugs used in lethal injections result in a painful and protracted death, assuming his executioners could find a vein into which to drip the deadly poison. In South Carolina’s three previous executions by lethal injection with phenobarbital, it took the condemned at least 20 minutes to be pronounced dead.

Brad has no illusions about what being shot will do to his body,” said King. “He does not wish to inflict that pain on his family, the witnesses, or the execution team. But, given South Carolina’s unnecessary and unconscionable secrecy, Brad is choosing as best he can. There’s no justice here. Everything about this barbaric, state-sanctioned atrocity – from the choice to the method itself – is abjectly cruel. We should not just be horrified – we should be furious.”

+++

Sigmon was an Army brat from South Carolina, born to a teenage mother and abusive, alcoholic father, whose escalating violence was eventually directed at Sigmon and his younger siblings. The Sigmon family moved from Army base to Army base, including a stint in the Philippines.

The marriage ended in divorce, and Brian divided his time between living with his mother and father until high school, when he dropped out two months shy of graduating to get married.  The young couple soon had a son and by all accounts Sigmon was a dutiful and attentive dad.

But the marriage was not a happy one, marred by marital spats and Sigmon’s increasing use of alcohol and cocaine, and ended in divorce. Sigmon racked up numerous arrests for drunk driving and was shot in the stomach four times while attempting to break into his estranged wife’s home. The couple’s son was also shot in the altercation.

In 1998, Sigmon entered a relationship with Rebecca Barbare. The couple lived together in a trailer in Greenville, South Carolina for three years. But in 2001, Barbare split, moving in with her parents, David and Gladys Larke, in the Greenville suburb of Taylors. Sigmon took the breakup badly. He called her obsessively, begging her to resume their relationship and followed her around in his car, obsessed that she might be seeing another man.

+++

On the night of April 26, Sigmon was drinking and getting high with a friend named Eugene Strube. Sigmon spent the night ranting about Barbare, eventually telling Strube that he was going to the Larke’s house the following day after Barbare took her children to school, “tie her parents up,” and wait for Barbare to get home. Strube had apparently heard this kind of talk with Sigmon before and wrote it off as a drug-fueled bluster. But the following morning, Sigmon, still high, broke into the Larke home carrying a baseball bat, which he used to savagely beat David and Gladys to death in a frenzy of violence, hitting each of them in the head at least nine times, shattering their skulls.

Sigmon found David’s gun in the Larke house, sat in a chair as David and Glayys bled to death and waited for Rebecca to come home. Sigmon forced Rebecca at gunpoint into her Honda SUV and planned to take her to North Carolina. But Barbare jumped out of the car and fled. Sigmon fired multiple shots at her as she ran away. One shot hurt her foot, but Barbare managed to escape. After a three-day manhunt, Sigmon was found and arrested in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and soon extradited back to South Carolina, where he was charged with two counts of capital murder and one count of kidnapping.

These were brutal, senseless crimes, driven by passion and jealousy, and committed while in a cocaine haze. His trail was swift. Sigmon admitted his guilt and the only real defense his lawyers offered against the imposition of the death penalty was that Sigmon had been unbalanced by the breakup of his relationship with Barbare, acted under the influence of drugs and had been a model prisoner while in jail. It wasn’t enough to sway the jury, which voted unanimously to sentence Sigmon to death.

+++

Over the next decade, Sigmon’s lawyers filed numerous appeals in state and federal court challenging his conviction and death sentence. All were rejected. After the Supreme Court denied Sigmon’s final appeal on January 11, 2021, Sigmon was served with a death warrant, scheduling his execution for February 12, 2021. But a week before he was slated to be put to death, the South Carolina Supreme Court issued a stay of execution, ruling that the state of South Carolina lacked the necessary supply of lethal drugs needed to kill Sigmon. Since the state’s last execution in 2011 of Jeffrey Brian Motts, it had been unable to acquire a new stockpile of phenobarbital, after pharmaceutical companies in the US had stopped shipping drugs for the purpose of executions. At the time, death by lethal injection was South Carolina’s only legal form of execution.

And so matters sat until May 14, 2021, when South Carolina’s Governor signed Act 43, which revived death by electrocution as the state’s primary means of execution and legalized death by firing squad as an alternative option. In March of the following year, the state’s Department of Corrections announced it had prepared procedures to perform executions by firing squad. After a series of lawsuits, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that executions by electrocution and firing squad didn’t violate the constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and ordered the the state’s Corrections Department to carry out six executions within the next year, each state murder to take place 35 days apart. South Carolina’s first execution in 13 years took place on September 20, 2024 when, after a new supply of phenobarbital had been acquired through dubious means, 46-year-old Freddie Eugene Owens was put to death by lethal injection.

The second in South Carolina’s assembly line of executions took place on November 1, 2024, when Richard Moore was poisoned to death. An autopsy revealed that the execution of Moore required two pentobarbital doses and that his lungs were filled with fluid, “an excruciating condition known as pulmonary edema.” Despite Moore drowning to death in his own fluids, the state of South Carolina proceeded to kill Marion Bowman Jr. on February 16, also by lethal injection. Sigmon’s name was next on the execution list.

+++

Death chamber in Columbia, South Carolina, showing the state’s  electric chair and a firing squad chair, left.  Photo: South Carolina Department of Corrections.

Shortly before 6 pm on March 7, Brad Sigmon was led into the death chamber at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Three prison guards had volunteered to shoot Sigmon from behind a wall 15 feet away from where he was strapped to a chair, a red target on a white circle taped to his chest, a few feet away from the electric chair that had last been used to kill James Reed in 2008.

Sigmon was dressed in a black jumpsuit to conceal the blood from his shooting. His legs and wrists were strapped to the chair. Two minutes before a fusillade of bullets killed Sigmon, a hood was placed over his head and a sling tied his jaw shut. The prison warden read the execution order as Sigmon’s chest rose and fell with deep, anxious breaths. His shackled arms trembled. Then there was the crack of gunfire and his chest exploded, as three expanding .306 bullets blew through the target and out his body into a steel-plated wall. His body shivered. Blood, bone and viscera flew out of his chest into a basin placed on the floor. In the words of his lawyer Bo King, “The wound on his chest opened very abruptly and violently.” A minute or so later a doctor approached his body, checked for vital signs, found none and declared Brad Sigmon dead. For the first time in 15 years, a person had been executed in the United States by firing squad. At 67, Sigmon was the oldest person ever executed by the state of South Carolina.

+++

Sigmon’s last statement calling on his fellow Christians to rise up against the death penalty was read by his attorney, Bo King:

I want my closing statement to be one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty. An eye for an eye was used as justification to the jury for seeking the death penalty. At that time, I was too ignorant to know how wrong that was. We … now live under the New Testament, where [Jesus preached} You have heard that it has been said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ but I say unto you that you do not resist an evil person. Whosoever shall smite me on the right cheek, turn to him the other one as well.” Nowhere does God in the New Testament give man the authority to kill another man: ‘Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keep with the law.’ We are now under God’s grace and mercy.

But the teachings of the radical Palestinian prophet of the Galilee have rarely been mirrored by the religious institutions that claim to worship him as a deity. It is true that the Emperor Constantine, after declaring Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 313 AD, outlawed crucifixion. But he still ordered the execution of thousands of people, including his son, Crispus, who he killed with poison (the lethal injection of its time) and wife Fausta, who he ordered plunged into a bath filled with boiling water.

Today’s Christian Nationalists, who have taken political power in many states and are deeply embedded in the judiciary and federal government under Trump, rarely dip into the gospels, preferring the stern, retributive justice prescribed by the Old Testament (except when it might be applied to them). These politicians want to make punishment by the state cruel and usual. This is what we have come to as a society in regression, a rogue nation, drunk on its own perverse piety–and there will be much more of it to come, as Oklahoma, Utah, Idaho and Mississippi have all re-legalized executions by firing squad with other states set to follow suit.

The firing squad has been the preferred method of execution by imperial powers since at least the age of Napoleon, where its brutality as a means of political repression was immortalized by Goya’s Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo, depicting the execution of suspected Spanish resistance fighters by French soldiers during the Peninsula War. It has been used to kill deserters, mutineers, resistance fighters, political opponents, and deposed rulers. During discussions between Churchill, Stalin and FDR at the 1943 Tehran Conference about the fate of Germany after the Nazis were defeated, Stalin proposed executing all 50,000 to 100,000 members of the German General staff before firing squads. Churchill, the man who oversaw the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians from southern Africa to the Indian subcontinent to Dresden, feigned shock, but Stalin’s admirer FDR quipped, “Perhaps 49,000 would be enough.”

There was no rational excuse for Brian Sigmon’s murder of David and Gladys Larkes and even less of a reason for South Carolina’s premediated killing of Sigmon. He posed no threat to anyone. He’d been a model prisoner for more than two decades. The daughter of the Larkes opposed his execution. His murder would provide no closure for the murder of the Larkes, if state killings ever provide closure or compensate for the deaths of the people they killed. The only real claim the state made for killing Sigmon was that it would provide a deterrent to other would-be murderers. But there’s no evidence to back this up and plenty of statistics to dispute it.

Brad Sigmon was executed to exhibit the power of the state over its citizens. By choosing to be put to death by firing squad, Sigmon forced the State of South Carolina to put this power on full and grotesque display. There was no hiding behind the supposedly humane method of filling an IV with poison and injecting it into a vein through a needle and a tube. There was no illusion in this execution. Sigmon wasn’t put to sleep. He had his heart blown out of his chest in front of 14 witnesses.

If the execution of Brad Sigmon serves as any kind of deterrent, it should be as a moral deterrent to future executions and the merciless political forces that order the pulling of the triggers.

The post Barbarians at the Death House Gate: the Firing Squad Returns to America appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jeffrey St. Clair.

Such trips to the mainland are increasing seen as compulsory by the city government, but the standards regarding access to information in mainland China are far lower than in Hong Kong.

St. Paul’s College, a HK$44,000 (US$5,700)-a-year Christian secondary school, was informed on Feb. 28 that one of its Form 5 students had “passed away,” the school said in a press release dated March 1.

“Our teachers and students are very much saddened by the news,” the statement said, adding that the incident is “currently under investigation and it is inappropriate to speculate.”

The school has deployed a School Crisis Management Team, with educational psychologists, school social workers and guidance personnel offering emotional support to students and teachers, it said.

(St. Paul's College/Facebook via Facebook)

The Hong Kong government’s Education Bureau said the boy’s death was an “unfortunate accident,” but denied it was linked to the study trip activities, which had gone smoothly.

An online petition calling for more information about the incident was deleted after a day, a former education official told RFA Cantonese.

No photos of the trip had been uploaded to the school’s Facebook page as of March 11.

Shift to patriotic education

Mainland study trips are increasingly seen as compulsory by Hong Kong’s Education Bureau as part of the shift from the former Liberal Studies civic education program to the patriotic Moral, Civic and National Education program in primary and secondary schools favored by Beijing, a former government examinations official told RFA Cantonese.

The Liberal Studies critical thinking program, rolled out in Hong Kong schools in 2009, was blamed by Chinese officials and media for several mass protests in recent years against national security legislation, patriotic education and extradition to mainland China.

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While the government has sent a delegation to Hangzhou following the incident, it hasn’t commented publicly on how the boy died, prompting concerns among parents.

“As for the unfortunate accident in Hangzhou earlier, we are very sad and extend our deepest condolences to the family,” Secretary for Education Christine Choi told reporters on March 7.

“At present, the investigation has come to an end, and we clearly understand that the incident has nothing to do with the exchange activities or the inspection trip,” she said. “We respect the family’s wishes ... and will not disclose the details of the case.”

‘Everything is compulsory’

The lack of transparency around the boy’s death has prompted widespread speculation on social media over the reason for it, including unconfirmed reports that he died in a “schoolyard bullying” incident.

But the government and school have declined to comment.

Hans Yeung, a former government examinations official who runs the Edulancet Instagram account, said the boy’s death comes as the government is urging Hong Kong schools to send students on more and more study trips to mainland China as part of its “sister schools” initiative.

St. Paul’s has sister schools in Xi’an and Shenzhen, with another possible connection to a school in Wuhan, according to its Facebook page.

Under the new approach, a Beijing-backed subject titled “Citizenship and Social Development” has been made a compulsory part of the high school diploma.

Yeung said Hong Kong -- once a target for the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s United Front outreach and influence program -- is now expected to engage in compulsory patriotic education.

“When it’s United Front, they show you the fun stuff, give you some nice food to make you feel good [about China], but now they are under its rule, so everything is compulsory,” he said.

“Now, the food they get will be very ordinary, and everything will be rushed,” Yeung said, adding that the Education Bureau has made attendance on a mainland China study trip a prerequisite for applicants to take the social studies paper in the high school diploma.

That in turn will affect their eligibility to go to college, he said.

“Citizenship and Social Development ... is a compulsory subject, and a small thing like a study trip can affect eligibility to sit the exam,” Yeung said. “If they are ineligible for this exam ... they can’t apply to university.”

He said there is little parents can do about this.

“Parents will kick up more of a fuss and ask more questions but ... there is no room for protest in the education sector any more,” Yeung said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Matthew Leung for RFA Cantonese.

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Lincare, a giant respiratory-device supplier with a long history of fraud settlements and complaints about dismal service, is facing its latest legal challenge: a lawsuit that claims its failures caused the death of a 27-year-old man with Down syndrome.

The case, set to go to trial in state court in St. Louis on March 17, centers on the 2020 death of LeQuon Marquis Vernor, who suffered from severe obstructive sleep apnea and relied on a Lincare-supplied BiPAP machine to help him breathe while sleeping. The lawsuit, filed by his mother, accuses Lincare of negligence after the company took seven days to respond to her report that the device had stopped working.

Lincare, the largest oxygen-device supplier in the U.S., with $2.4 billion in annual revenue, has long faced an array of legal issues, but it’s rare for a claim of wrongful death linked to its service and equipment to go to trial. The litigation over what happened to Vernor offers an unusual window into the company’s interaction with a vulnerable patient. This account is based on extensive court filings, including medical records, deposition excerpts and Lincare’s internal “customer account notes.”

Vernor lived with his mother, who was 64 and on disability, in a tidy public housing apartment complex in Madison, Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. He suffered from obstructive sleep apnea, a common problem among adults with Down syndrome that is often exacerbated by obesity. Just under 5 feet tall, Vernor weighed 280 pounds.

Since 2015, Vernor had relied on a BiPAP (or bilevel positive airway pressure) machine, which delivers pressurized air through a mask. The device was prescribed after the Sleep Medicine Center at Washington University in St. Louis found that he repeatedly stopped breathing while he slept. “His airway is extremely crowded,” his doctor wrote in his medical notes at the time. Vernor, who was on Medicare, regularly used the device for 10 to 12 hours while he slept, according to his mother.

He spent his days at New Opportunities, a local nonprofit that provides educational opportunities for people with developmental disabilities. “He was a happy young man,” said Kim Fears, executive director of the program.

On Sept. 11, 2020, Vernor’s BiPAP suddenly started making “a loud buzzing or humming sound,” according to his mother, Sharon Vernor. She called the local Lincare office to report the problem, telling the customer service representative that the breathing machine wasn’t working and that it was “something that he needed” and “could not go without.”

The Lincare representative told her that, because his machine was more than 5 years old, under Medicare rules her son was eligible for a replacement BiPAP but that Lincare would first need to obtain a new order from his doctor. This was required for Lincare to collect rental payments for the new device. The representative later recounted making a call that day to the doctor’s office that went unanswered, then faxing the office a request. (Lincare said it was unable to find a copy of the fax among its voluminous records related to LeQuon Vernor.)

In the meantime, the representative suggested unplugging the malfunctioning BiPAP for 30 minutes. That didn’t fix the problem. The representative then promised, according to the account notes, to have a company respiratory therapist contact Sharon Vernor about the problem “until we get him a new machine.”

But that never happened. No one from Lincare, which had an office about 20 minutes away, came out to fix the broken machine or assess LeQuon Vernor’s condition, according to testimony in the case. (Lincare hadn’t performed any home visits or maintenance on the BiPAP since 2015.) As the company acknowledges, Lincare also never offered to provide Vernor with a “loaner” BiPAP to use while waiting for a new device to arrive. Industry veterans say other companies commonly provide temporary replacements while a patient with a malfunctioning device waits for a repair or a new, permanent one to arrive.

Without his BiPAP, Vernor struggled to sleep (and breathe), snoring loudly throughout the night. The Vernors got no further word from the company until seven days later, on Friday, Sept. 18.

Late that morning, Lincare nurse Ann Marie Eberle called Vernor’s mother, explaining that she would be arriving later that day with his new BiPAP. The doctor’s order had finally arrived. Sharon Vernor prepared a breakfast of sausage and biscuits for her son, who hadn’t yet gotten up. She was surprised when he still didn’t appear; the smell of food usually roused him. About 2 p.m., she went upstairs to wake him up.

She opened the door to find her son motionless in bed, with bloody fluid and foam coming out of his mouth and nose. His body was cold. The broken BiPAP sat on the dresser nearby. Frantic, she called 911. “I think my son’s dead! Oh Lord, please God, NO!” she screamed. “Please hurry!”

An ambulance and police cars were still parked in front of the Vernors’ apartment when Lincare’s Eberle pulled up to deliver the new BiPAP machine. “It just gave you a sunken feeling when you saw that,” Eberle later testified. Sharon Vernor met her at the door in tears. Eberle’s notes state that she “SAT WITH MOTHER UNTIL FAMILY MEMBER ARRIVED. POLICE STILL PRESENT UNTIL CORONER ARRIVED WHEN I LEFT.”

An autopsy completed two days later for the Madison County coroner found LeQuon Vernor’s lungs were a “maroon” color, heavily “congested and edematous” — filled with fluid that made it difficult to breathe. The report attributed Vernor’s death to “complications of obstructive sleep apnea.”

In 2022, Sharon Vernor brought a wrongful death suit against Lincare and Washington University, now set for trial next week. Her case accuses Lincare of putting profits ahead of patient care by failing to make sure that her son got a replacement BiPAP quickly and refusing to provide “loaner equipment” in the meantime, because the company didn’t believe it could bill for it.

“In short, when faced with information that LeQuon’s bipap was not working properly, Lincare did nothing,” a December 2024 filing alleged. The company took no action for a week, even though “Lincare knew this was a life-or-death situation for their customer LeQuon.” Johnny Simon, the Vernors’ St. Louis lawyer, said that “this was an avoidable, horrific tragedy.” (Sharon Vernor declined an interview request.)

The suit also accuses the Washington University medical program of failing to respond “in a timely manner” to requests for a new BiPAP order. The clinic’s prescription for LeQuon Vernor’s new BiPAP was signed on Sept. 15 but not sent back to Lincare for two more days. The Washington University medical school declined comment through a spokesperson, citing the litigation. In a legal filing, the university denied the allegations in the suit.

ProPublica has reported extensively on Lincare, which has a decadeslong history of Medicare-related misconduct, including multiple settlements regarding claims of billing fraud. And that misconduct continued even while the company was under government “probationary” agreements requiring it to provide enhanced compliance oversight. On the Better Business Bureau’s website, 939 customer reviews give the company an average 1.28 rating out of 5, offering lacerating complaints about dirty and broken equipment, delivery delays, nightmarish customer service, improper billings, and harassing sales and collection calls.

In emailed responses to questions from ProPublica, Lincare offered its “sympathies” to the Vernor family but asserted that “the allegations against Lincare are false.” The company said that it is legally barred from providing even a loaner BiPAP until it receives a new prescription and suggested that it had no reason to believe LeQuon Vernor faced a life-threatening situation, because “a BiPAP is not a life-sustaining device.” The company added: “Lincare delivers a high level of care to millions of patients in a heavily regulated field. Our response to this case was consistent with legal requirements and our policies.”

Lincare’s lawyers went a step further in a February court filing, blaming what happened on an alleged failure by Vernor’s doctors to provide the new order promptly. “Lincare did its job,” the company argued. “The moment Lincare knew that Decedent needed a new machine, Lincare reached out to Decedent’s medical provider. However, Lincare did not receive an updated prescription until one week later.” The company, they added, was “at the mercy of Decedent’s medical provider to supply an updated prescription.”

Sharon Vernor’s lawyers dispute Lincare’s claim that it was barred from providing a loaner BiPAP without obtaining a new prescription. (A spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services declined to address the issue, citing a “pause on mass communications and public appearances” imposed by the new Trump administration.) LeQuon Vernor’s 2015 prescription, filled by Lincare, also specified that he had a “lifetime” need for a BiPAP.

Two former Lincare managers told ProPublica that they were discouraged from dispatching temporary replacement equipment; at least one manager instructed staff to falsely tell customers “all our loaners are out.” One said that, acting on orders from her supervisor, she tossed CPAP and BiPAP devices marked by local offices as loaners into dumpsters. The respiratory companies they later worked for, both said, routinely provided loaner equipment to patients who relied on a breathing device while they awaited a repair or a doctor’s order required to replace it. As one of them put it, “We would make sure the patient is taken care of in that moment.” (“Lincare’s policy is to provide loaner equipment to its patients in accordance with our patient care standards and regulatory requirements,” the company responded.)

In a deposition, Dr. Gabriela de Bruin, a Washington University neurologist who assessed Vernor’s sleep study in 2015, said allowing him to go a week without a functioning BiPAP posed a serious health risk, given the severity of his disease. Noting that Vernor had “severe sleep apnea,” she said, “Anytime we prescribe treatment for obstructive sleep apnea, our recommendation is that patients should use it nightly and should avoid being without their device if they can.” Asked whether Lincare should have understood that Vernor’s apnea created a risk of death, she said, “It’s very difficult for me to say there was this much risk that he could have died.” She added, “But certainly, I would be very concerned.”

A judge in the case dealt Lincare a setback on March 5, ruling that the evidence presented by Sharon Vernor’s lawyers had met the state’s legal standard for seeking punitive damages. That, he wrote, would allow a “trier of fact” to reasonably conclude that “Lincare intentionally acted with a deliberate and flagrant disregard for the safety of others.”

During deposition questioning, Pamela Karban, the manager of the Lincare outlet that handled LeQuon Vernor’s equipment, testified that “we should have referred the mom, if it was that serious, to take him to the nearest emergency room.” Asked whether the company was negligent for not providing Vernor with loaner equipment, she replied: “Yes. We failed to provide that.” Lincare subsequently submitted an affidavit, signed by Karban, stating that she didn’t understand the legal meaning of the term “negligence.”

Doris Burke contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Peter Elkind.

COMMENTARY: By Ahmed Najar

‘To the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!’

These were not the words of some far-right provocateur lurking in a dark corner of the internet. They were not shouted by an unhinged warlord seeking vengeance.

No, these were the words of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, the most powerful man in the world. A man who with a signature, a speech or a single phrase can shape the fate of entire nations.

And yet, with all this power, all this influence, his words to the people of Gaza were not of peace, not of diplomacy, not of relief — but of death.

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I read them and I feel sick.

Because I know exactly who he is speaking to. He is speaking to my family. To my parents, who lost relatives and their home.

To my siblings, who no longer have a place to return to. To the starving children in Gaza, who have done nothing but be born to a people the world has deemed unworthy of existence.

To the grieving mothers who have buried their children. To the fathers who can do nothing but watch their babies die in their arms.

To the people who have lost everything and yet are still expected to endure more.

No future left
Trump speaks of a “beautiful future” for the people of Gaza. But there is no future left where homes are gone, where whole families have been erased, where children have been massacred.

I read these words and I ask: What kind of a world do we live in?

A world where the leader of the so-called “free world” can issue a blanket death sentence to an entire population — two million people, most of whom are displaced, starving and barely clinging to life.

A world where a man who commands the most powerful military can sit in his office, insulated from the screams, the blood, the unbearable stench of death, and declare that if the people of Gaza do not comply with his demand — if they do not somehow magically find and free hostages they have no control over — then they are simply “dead”.

A world where genocide survivors are given an ultimatum of mass death by a man who claims to stand for peace.

This is not just absurd. It is evil.

Trump’s words are criminal. They are a direct endorsement of genocide. The people of Gaza are not responsible for what is happening. They are not holding hostages.

Trapped by an Israeli war machine
They are the hostages – trapped by an Israeli war machine that has stolen everything from them. Hostages to a brutal siege that has starved them, bombed them, displaced them, left them with nowhere to go.

And now, they have become hostages to the most powerful man on Earth, who threatens them with more suffering, more death, unless they meet a demand they are incapable of fulfilling.

Most cynically, Trump knows his words will not be met with any meaningful pushback. Who in the American political establishment will hold him accountable for threatening genocide?

The Democratic Party, which enabled Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza? Congress, which overwhelmingly supports sending US military aid to Israel with no conditions? The mainstream media, which have systematically erased Palestinian suffering?

There is no political cost for Trump to make such statements. If anything, they bolster his position.

This is the world we live in. A world where Palestinian lives are so disposable that the President of the United States can threaten mass death without fear of any consequences.

I write this because I refuse to let this be just another outrageous Trump statement that people laugh off, that the media turns into a spectacle, that the world forgets.

“‘Shalom Hamas’ means Hello and Goodbye – You can choose. Release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you. Only sick and twisted people keep bodies, and you are sick and twisted! I am… pic.twitter.com/88EjVAyWAe

— President Donald J. Trump (@POTUS) March 5, 2025

My heart. My everything
I write this because Gaza is not a talking point. It is not a headline. It is my home. My family. My history. My heart. My everything.

And I refuse to accept that the President of the United States can issue death threats to my people with impunity.

The people of Gaza do not control their own fate. They have never had that luxury. Their fate has always been dictated by the bombs that fall on them, by the siege that starves them, by the governments that abandon them.

And now, their fate is being dictated by a man in Washington, DC, who sees no issue with threatening the annihilation of an entire population.

So I ask again: What kind of world do we live in?

And how long will we allow it to remain this way?

Ahmed Najar is a Palestinian political analyst and a playwright. This article was first published by Al Jazeera.

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

More than a month later, fourth-generation farmer Adam Chappell continues to wait on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to reimburse him for the $25,000 he paid out of pocket to implement conservation practices like cover cropping. Until he knows the fate of the federal programs that keep his small rice farm in Arkansas afloat, Chappell’s unable to prepare for his next crop. Things have gotten so bad, the 45-year-old is even considering leaving the only job he’s ever known. “I just don’t know who we can count on and if we can count on them as a whole to get it done,” said Chappell. “That’s what I’m scared of.” 

In Virginia, the funding freeze has forced a sustainable farming network that supports small farmers throughout the state to suspend operations. Brent Wills, a livestock producer and program manager at the Virginia Association for Biological Farming, said that nearly all of the organization’s funding comes from USDA programs that have been frozen or rescinded. The team of three is now scrambling to come up with a contingency plan while trying not to panic over whether the nearly $50,000 in grants they are owed will be reimbursed. 

“It’s pretty devastating,” said Wills. “The short-term effects of this are bad enough, but the long-term effects? We can’t even tally that up right now.” 

In North Carolina, a beekeeping operation hasn’t yet received the $14,500 in emergency funding from the USDA to rebuild after Hurricane Helene washed away 60 beehives. Ang Roell, who runs They Keep Bees, an apiary that also has operations in Florida and Massachusetts, said they have more than $45,000 in USDA grants that are frozen. The delay has put them behind in production, leading to an additional $15,000 in losses. They are also unsure of the future of an additional $100,000 in grants that they’ve applied for. “I have to rethink my entire business plan,” Roell said. “I feel shell-shocked.”

Within the USDA’s purview, the funding freeze has targeted two main categories of funding: grant applications that link agricultural work to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and those enacted under the Inflation Reduction Act, which earmarked more than $19.5 billion to be paid out over several years. Added to the uncertainty of the funding freeze, among the tens of thousands of federal employees who have lost their jobs in recent weeks were officials who manage various USDA programs.

Following the initial freeze, courts have repeatedly ordered the administration to grant access to all funds, but agencies have taken a piecemeal approach, releasing funding in “tranches.” Even as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Interior have released significant chunks of funding, the USDA has moved slowly, citing the need to review programs with IRA funding. In some cases, though, it has terminated contracts altogether, including those with ties to the agency’s largest-ever investment in climate-smart agriculture. 

In late February, the USDA announced that it was releasing $20 million to farmers who had already been awarded grants — the agency’s first tranche. 

According to Mike Lavender, policy director with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, that $20 million amounts to “less than one percent” of money owed. His team estimates that three IRA-funded programs have legally promised roughly $2.3 billion through 30,715 conservation contracts for ranchers, farmers, and foresters. Those contracts have been through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Conservation Stewardship Program, and Agricultural Conservation Easement Program. “In some respects, it’s a positive sign that some of it’s been released,” said Lavender. “But I think, more broadly, it’s so insignificant. For the vast majority, [this] does absolutely nothing.”

A week later, USDA secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the agency would be able to meet a March 21 deadline imposed by Congress to distribute an additional $10 billion in emergency relief payments.

Then, on Sunday, March 2, Rollins made an announcement that offered hope for some farmers, but very little specifics. In a press statement, the USDA stated that the agency’s review of IRA funds had been completed and funds associated with EQIP, CSP, and ACEP would be released, but it did not clarify how much would be unfrozen. The statement also announced a commitment to distribute an additional $20 billion in disaster assistance. 

Lavender called Rollins’ statement a “borderline nothingburger” for its degree of “ambiguity.” It’s not clear, he continued, if Rollins is referring to the first tranche of funding or if the statement was announcing a second tranche — nor, if it’s the latter, how much is being released. “Uncertainty still seems to reign supreme. We need more clarity.” 

The USDA did not respond to Grist’s request for clarification. 

Farmers who identify as women, queer, or people of color are especially apprehensive about the status of their contracts. Roell, the beekeeper, said their applications for funding celebrated their operations’ diverse workforce development program. Now, Roell, who uses they/them pronouns, fears that their existing contracts and pending applications will be targeted for the same reason. (Federal agencies have been following an executive order taking aim at “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs.”) 

“This feels like an outright assault on sustainable agriculture, on small businesses, queer people, BIPOC, and women farmers,” said Roell. “Because at this point, all of our projects are getting flagged as DEI. We don’t know if we’re allowed to make corrections to those submissions or if they’re just going to get outright denied due to the language in the projects being for women or for queer folks.”

The knock-on effects of this funding gridlock on America’s already fractured agricultural economy has Rebecca Wolf, senior food policy analyst at Food & Water Watch, deeply concerned. With the strain of an agricultural recession looming over regions like the Midwest, and the number of U.S. farms already in steady decline, she sees the freeze and ongoing mass layoffs of federal employees as “ultimately leading down the road to further consolidation.” Given that the administration is “intentionally dismantling the programs that help underpin our small and medium-sized farmers,” Wolf said this could lead to “the loss of those farms, and then the loss of land ownership.”  

Other consequences might be more subtle, but no less significant. According to Omanjana Goswami, a soil scientist with the advocacy nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, the funding freeze, layoffs, and the Trump administration’s hostility toward climate action is altogether likely to position America’s agricultural sector to contribute even more than it does to carbon emissions. 

Agriculture accounted for about 10.6 percent of U.S. carbon emissions in 2021. When farmers implement conservation practices on their farms, it can lead to improved air and water quality and increase soil’s ability to store carbon. Such tactics can not only reduce agricultural emissions, but are incentivized by many of the programs now under review. “When we look at the scale of this, it’s massive,” said Goswami. “If this funding is scaled back, or even completely removed, it means that the impact and contribution of agriculture on climate change is going to increase.”

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The Trump administration’s attack on farmers comes at a time when the agriculture industry faces multiple existential crises. For one, times are tight for farmers. In 2023, the median household income from farming was negative $900. That means, at least half of all households that drew income from farming didn’t turn a profit. 

Additionally, in 2023, natural disasters caused nearly $22 billion in agricultural losses. Rising temperatures are slowing plant growth, frequent floods and droughts are decimating harvests, and wildfires are burning through fields. With insurance paying for only a subset of these losses, farmers are increasingly paying out of pocket. Last year, extreme weather impacts, rising labor and production costs, imbalances in global supply and demand, and increased price volatility all resulted in what some economists designated the industry’s worst financial year in almost two decades. 

Elliott Smith, whose Washington state-based business Kitchen Sync Strategies helps small farmers supply institutions like schools with fresh food, says this situation has totally changed how he looks at the federal government. As the freeze hampers key grants for the farmers and food businesses he works with across at least 10 different states, halting emerging contracts and stalling a slate of ongoing projects, Smith said the experience has made him now consider federal funding “unstable.” 

All told, the freeze isn’t just threatening the future of Smith’s business, but also the future of farmers and the local food systems they work within nationwide. “The entire food ecosystem is stuck in place. The USDA feels like a troll that saw the sun. They are frozen. They can’t move,” he said. “The rest of us are in the fields and trenches, and we’re looking back at the government and saying, ‘Where the hell are you?’”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Slim margins, climate disasters, and Trump’s funding freeze: Life or death for many US farms on Mar 5, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Ayurella Horn-Muller.

We look at a rare victory for a death row prisoner before the U.S. Supreme Court. On Tuesday, three conservative justices joined with the three liberals to overturn the murder conviction and death sentence of Richard Glossip, who has spent nearly 30 years on Oklahoma death row and had exhausted all other appeals to stay his execution. The justices said Glossip was entitled to a new trial after errors in his original prosecution. Glossip’s conviction stems from the 1997 murder of his former boss, who was killed by another man who accused Glossip of masterminding the killing. Glossip has always maintained his innocence, and even Oklahoma Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond has said Glossip did not get a fair trial. We speak with Glossip’s spiritual adviser, Sister Helen Prejean, renowned anti-death penalty activist, who says the case has brought together a remarkable coalition to fight for justice and helped to highlight the problems with capital punishment. “We don’t need this thing,” says Prejean. “It’s time to shut it down.”

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

We speak with death row inmate Keith LaMar live from the Ohio State Penitentiary, after the release of The Injustice of Justice, a short film about his case that just won the grand prize for best animated short film at the Golden State Film Festival. “I had to find out the hard way that in order for my life to be mine, that I had to stand up and claim it,” says LaMar, who has always maintained his innocence. LaMar was sentenced to death for participating in the murder of five fellow prisoners during a 1993 prison uprising. His trial was held in a remote Ohio community before an all-white jury. On January 13, 2027, the state intends to execute him, after subjecting him to three decades in solitary confinement. LaMar’s lawyer, Keegan Stephan, says his legal team has “discovered a lot of new evidence supporting Keith’s innocence” that should necessitate new legal avenues for LaMar to overturn the conviction.

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

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Every day, they tackled complex issues with life-or-death stakes:

A failure to get donor organs to critically ill patients.

Tobacco products designed to appeal to kids.

Maternal and infant death.

They were hired after lawmakers and bureaucrats debated and negotiated and persuaded their colleagues — sometimes over the course of years — to make those problems someone’s job to solve.

Then, this month, they were fired as part of President Donald Trump’s widespread purge of federal workers. Suddenly, the future of their public health missions was in question.

The White House hasn’t released figures on how many have been fired, but news reports have begun to take stock: about 750 workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which plays a central role responding to pandemics; more than 1,000 staffers at the National Institutes of Health, which funds and conducts life-saving research; dozens at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which manages public health care and insurance programs; and scores of employees at the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees the safety of food, drugs and medical devices.

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has vowed to gut the federal health centers, stating “entire departments” at the FDA should be cut. Neither the administration nor the federal agencies responded to ProPublica’s questions, but a White House spokesperson has previously said they were removing newer employees who were “not mission critical.”

“The implications for the health of the public are grave,” said Susan Polan, an associate executive director at the American Public Health Association, which is suing the Department of Government Efficiency, the group leading the firings, for violating federal transparency laws. “It is unfathomable that anybody thinks these cuts have value and are doing anything other than being performative.”

ProPublica reporters have spoken with dozens of federal workers employed in roles safeguarding the American public from harm. They described losing critical positions they’d spent years training for. Many expressed fear at what would happen to the work they left behind.

ProPublica is recording the casualties of the purge, highlighting the scale of what is being lost as public health programs and seasoned experts are caught in the Trump administration’s blunt-force drive to shrink the federal government.

For more than a decade, Dustin Brace has worked various federal jobs, serving as an emergency 911 dispatcher for the Navy and, as a member of the Coast Guard, responding to major chemical and oil spills. “I loved working to protect the American people,” he said. “I never thought that I would leave the government.”

Last year, when he joined the FDA, his mission was no different. As a social scientist at the agency’s Center for Tobacco Products, he helped regulate e-cigarettes and related items. Some were being designed to look like kid-friendly foods, resembling cans of grape soda, or decorated with cartoons, like unicorns eating pancakes. In recent years, more young children had been landing in emergency rooms, poisoned by liquid nicotine. And once in a while, devices explode — in people’s pockets, or hands, or faces. One man died after shrapnel entered his brain.

Every week, Brace scrutinized new product applications to ensure that they would not appeal to children and that the devices were safe for consumer use. The work required a close and careful review of thousands of pages of documents, combing them for hidden hazards. “The work takes time to be done properly,” he said.

His job, and the center as a whole, were born out of a bipartisan understanding that the tobacco industry needed to be regulated. It wasn’t until 2009, after decades of industry pushback, that the FDA finally gained the broad legal authority to do so.

If you work or have worked at a government agency, we want to hear from you. You can reach our tip line on Signal at 917-512-0201.

The agency has historically struggled to recruit enough scientists and experts, who could receive higher salaries in the private sector. “People don’t come to agencies like the FDA and centers like CTP for the money,” said Mitch Zeller, who was the center’s director from 2013 through 2022. “They come because they believe in the mission.”

Notably, the center’s regulatory activities are funded through tobacco industry fees, and it does not rely on direct federal support. “Not one taxpayer dollar is spent to regulate the tobacco industry,” said Zeller.

Last Saturday, Brace received a termination notice along with other newer employees on his team. Like those sent to other federal workers, his contained boilerplate language citing poor performance, even though Brace had received favorable reviews over the past year, according to his assessment records.

Brace estimated that more than 10% of staff at the center’s science office were terminated in the past week.

“Things are going to slow down,” Brace said. “More mistakes may be made because the workload is so much higher.”

When Arielle Kane last year joined a team working on an innovative federal program to make childbirth safer in the U.S., the mission spoke to her.

She could save lives.

America has the worst mortality rate among high-income countries for pregnant and postpartum women, and those in underserved communities face some of the highest risks. Their babies also are in danger if their moms can’t access prenatal care or be seen quickly for complications because they live in so-called “maternal deserts” where obstetric care isn’t available or is limited.

Kane’s program, housed under CMS, was created to support mothers on Medicaid — increasing access to birth centers, doulas and midwives, cutting down on risky procedures like C-sections and tracking outcomes like low infant birth weight. Better blood-pressure monitoring could prevent life-threatening complications like preeclampsia. Extra attention paid to depression and substance use could head off equally devastating consequences.

It officially launched on Jan. 1, and Kane was excited about the possibilities.

But after Trump’s inauguration, they were instructed to halt data collection on race and ethnicity, which troubled many of them. Racial disparities are pervasive in maternal health. Black women are three times more likely than white women to die from a pregnancy-related cause and more than twice as likely to have a stillbirth. Kane said she also was told not to communicate with state officials or attend an upcoming conference on maternal health.

Then, just a month and a half after the launch, Kane and three of her colleagues were fired. With two others planning to leave at the end of the month, she said, the team will be reduced by nearly half.

“I’m just so angry,” Kane said. “This model that has a lot of potential is just being gutted. What does that mean for all of the potential impacts we could have had?”

For more than a decade, Amy Paris worked for federal agencies as a problem solver: retooling overly bureaucratic and cumbersome processes to make them easier for the public to navigate.

Last year, she was hired to help reform the nation’s organ procurement and transplantation network, a public-private partnership that connects organ donors to patients in vital need of a transplant.

The program had recently come under fire. As thousands of patients were dying on waitlists, some donor organs weren’t even being used. Multiple kidneys had to be thrown out because of transport delays — couriers not picking them up in time or airlines misplacing them. One was accidentally left on an airport luggage trolley.

After federal and Senate investigations detailed numerous failures, including an archaic information technology system, the Health Resources and Services Administration announced a modernization initiative in March 2023.

Paris joined the team last October as a deputy digital services lead, working with transplant surgeons, technology experts and data scientists on upgrades. “We were making headway,” she said. “We had alignment from Democrats and Republicans on the Hill, we had funding, and they were hiring more of us.”

As a new employee, she figured she would be one of the first to go in the federal workforce purge. Even so, she was devastated when she received her notice.

About half of her team was laid off, she said, which sets the reform effort back indefinitely. After her firing, a planned trip to investigate the underlying technology of the network system had to be canceled.

“We are hollowing out our government in a way that is going to hurt people and is going to get people killed,” she said. “That is the scariest thing in the world.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Annie Waldman and Duaa Eldeib.

Popular Tibetan singer Lobsang, who was frequently detained and interrogated by Chinese authorities for music that was patriotic and critical of Chinese policies, has died following a prolonged illness, according to two sources, one in Tibet and one in exile. He was 39.

Lobsang, who became famous at a young age and produced eight albums, died on Feb. 18 of a liver disease at a hospital in the city of Chengdu in southwest China’s Sichuan province, the source in Tibet said, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

“Due to political content in some of his lyrics, he was repeatedly summoned for questioning and detained by Chinese authorities,” the source said.

Hailing from Kyungchu county in Sichuan province, Lobsang dedicated his life to music, releasing numerous albums, and was suspected of activism by the Chinese government because of the political content in his works, a source in exile told RFA.

Authorities restricted the singer from traveling to Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, and other regions, he said.

“Though he wasn’t imprisoned for extended periods, he was frequently questioned and detained,” the source said.

Social media tributes

Following Lobsang’s passing, Tibetans inside Tibet, in exile and across China expressed their grief on social media.

“I grew up listening to his songs since childhood,” one Tibetan wrote. “I am deeply saddened by the passing of this singer who cared so deeply for the Tibetan people.”

On his eight albums and in numerous other recordings, Lobsang sang songs that resonated deeply with Tibetans, such as “Three Camps of Sun and Moon,” which referenced the Dalai Lama with the lyrics, “The King of Snow Land, Tenzin Gyatso, coming to Tibet, may his lotus feet remain stable.”

His music often touched on Tibet’s struggle, such as “Suffering and Happiness of the Snow Land,” “World Peace,” “Future of Tibet’s Children,” “Protector,” and “Fate of Tibetans.”

Due to his powerful lyrics, Tibetans inside Tibet referred to him as “patriotic singer Lobsang.”

Another netizen wrote: “His singing was as warm and familiar as a teacher, accompanying us through countless unforgettable times.”

A Tibetan inside Tibet, speaking in a WeChat voice chat group, said Lobsang’s health fluctuated, sometimes appearing stable, while at other times deteriorating, until he died.

Kunchok Tsering, a Tibetan living in India who collects and archives songs and writings by Tibetan artists in Tibet, said he considers Lobsang to be one of the region’s best singers.

“His songs often praise His Holiness the Dalai Lama and reflect love for his country, Tibet, so his courage and lack of fear in creating such music were commendable,” Tsering said.

Tsering cited Lobsang’s song “Nyi-Dha-Kar Sum,” meaning “Sun-Star-Moon,” paying homage to Tibet’s three spiritual leaders — the sun representing His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, the Moon symbolizing the Panchen Lama, and the star representing the Karmapa, head of the 900-year-old Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism and one of Tibet’s highest-ranking religious figures.

“His lyrics are deeply powerful,” he said.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

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

COMMENTARY: By Gideon Levy

And what if US President Donald Trump suggested setting up death camps for the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip? What would happen then?

Israel would respond exactly as it did to his transfer ideas, with ecstasy on the right and indifference in the centrist camp.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid would announce that he would go to Washington to present a “complementary plan”, like he offered to do with regard to the transfer plan.

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• On the skewed media coverage of Gaza

Benny Gantz would say that the plan shows “creative thinking, is original and interesting.” Bezalel Smotrich, with his messianic frame of mind, would say, “God has done wonders for us and we rejoice.” Benjamin Netanyahu would rise in public opinion polls.

The issue is no longer a hypothetical one. Trump will not explicitly suggest death camps, but he has already consented to Israel’s continuing a war that is not a war but rather a barbaric assault on a desolate stretch of land. From there, the road to annihilation is short, and Israel will not bat an eye. Trump approved it.

After all, no one In Israel rose up to tell the president of the United States “thank you for your ideas, but Israel will never support the expulsion of the Gaza Strip’s Palestinians.”

Hence, why be confident that if Trump suggested annihilating anyone refusing to evacuate Gaza, Israel would not cooperate with him? Just as Trump exposed the transfer sentiment beating in the heart of almost every Israeli, aimed at solving the problem “once and for all,” he may yet expose a darker element, the sentiment of “it’s us or them.”

A whitewasher of crimes
It’s no coincidence that a shady character like Trump has become a guide for Israel. He is exactly what we wanted and dreamed about: a whitewasher of crimes. He may well turn out to be the American president who caused the most damage ever inflicted on Israel.

There were presidents who were tight-fisted with aid, others who were sour on Israel, who even threatened it. There has never been a president who has set out to destroy the last vestiges of Israel’s morality.

From here on, anything Trump approves will become Israel’s gold standard.

Trump is now pushing Israel into resuming its attacks on the Gaza Strip, setting impossible terms for Hamas: All the hostages must be returned before Saturday noon, not a minute later, like the mafia does. And if only three hostages are returned, as was agreed upon? The gates of hell will open.

They won’t open only in Gaza, which has already been transformed into hell. They will open in Israel too. Israel will lose its last restraints. Trump gave his permission.

But Trump will be gone one day. He may lose interest before that, and Israel will be left with the damage he wrought, damage inflicted by a criminal, leper state.

No public diplomacy or friends will be able to save it if it follows the path of its new ethical oracle. No accusations of antisemitism will silence the world’s shock if Israel embarks on another round of combat in the enclave.

How would Israel respond if Trump called for death camps in Gaza? https://t.co/oYiMlp3PnE.

— Gideon Levy (@gideonle) February 13, 2025

A new campaign must begin
One cannot overstate the intensity of the damage. The renewal of attacks on Gaza, with the permission and under the authority of the American administration, must be blocked in Israel. Along with the desperate campaign for returning the hostages, a new campaign must begin, against Trump and his outlandish ideas.

However, not only is there no one who can lead such a campaign, there is also no one who could initiate it. The only battles being waged here now, for the hostages and for the removal of Netanyahu, are important, but they cannot remain the only ones.

The resumption of the “war” is the greatest disaster now facing us, heralding genocide, with no more argument about definitions.

After all, what would a “war” look like now, other than an assault on tens of thousands of refugees who have nothing left? What will the halting of humanitarian aid, fuel and medicine and water mean if not genocide?

We may discover that the first 16 months of the war were only a starter, the first 50,000 deaths only a prelude.

Ask almost any Israeli and he will say that Trump is a friend of Israel, but Trump is actually Israel’s most dangerous enemy now. Hamas and Hezbollah will never destroy it like he will.

Gideon Levy is a Ha’aretz columnist and a member of the newspaper’s editorial board. He joined Ha’aretz in 1982, and spent four years as the newspaper’s deputy editor. He is the author of the weekly Twilight Zone feature, which covers the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza over the last 25 years, as well as the writer of political editorials for the newspaper. Levy visited New Zealand in 2017.

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

DRC ministers have accused journalists of supporting terrorism for reporting on rebel advances, suspended the Qatari-based Al Jazeera, withdrawn accreditation for the broadcaster’s reporters, and threatened to suspend other media outlets.

At the same time, journalists in Goma have told CPJ they are concerned for their safety; at least three reporters have received threatening messages. Rights groups have warned that civilians are at heightened risk of violence and called for their protection.

“The escalation of the long-running conflict in eastern DRC has worsened already harsh conditions for journalists trying to cover the conflict. All parties must prioritize the safety of journalists,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program. “Sadly, we are seeing death threats against journalists and Congolese authorities pursuing a strategy of censorship similar to that used by other governments to stifle public interest reporting of wars and security concerns.”

‘We will finish you’

Jonas Kasula, a reporter for the private online news site Labeur Info, and Jonathan Mupenda, a correspondent for the private channel Molière TV, told CPJ they had been living in fear since January 9, forced into hiding after they began receiving text messages threatening to kill them. The messages from unknown local numbers, reviewed by CPJ, warned the Goma-based journalists that they were under surveillance.

The messages specifically referenced their presence in Bweremana, a village about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Goma, where they had gone to cover the fighting. In early January, Kasula had published a report about the government-aligned Wazalendo militia’s resistance to advancing M23 and Rwandan forces. The M23 took control of Bweremana on January 21.

“On the 31st [of December], you were in Bweremana with your colleague Jonathan, we had all the possibilities to end your lives. But know that we control all your movements and once we arrive in Goma, know that your fate will be sealed,” one message said.

Separately, Goma-based freelance reporter Daniel Michombero posted a photo of his family on the social media platform X on January 26 and received several threatening replies accusing him of distributing “fake news” and suggesting that he may want to flee to Rwanda with other Congolese refugees or seek protection from the M23 to escape retribution. A reply to a separate post on Thursday, January 30, suggested he be arrested and traded for detained opponents of the government.

In 2021, Michombero and his wife were attacked in their home by men in military uniforms after he reported on local criticism of authorities’ response to a volcanic eruption near Goma.

‘Terrorists have no right to speak’

The DRC government has also threatened the press for reporting on the escalating conflict. 

In a January 7 post on X, Christian Bosembe, president of the regulatory Higher Council for Audiovisual and Communication (CSAC), threatened to suspend French news outlets Radio France Internationale (RFI), France 24, and TV5Monde’s Africa program for reporting the “alleged advances of terrorists.”

“We respect freedom of expression and information, but we firmly condemn any apology for terrorism. Terrorists have no right to speak in our country,” he said.

Similarly, when government forces recaptured territory a few days later, justice minister Constant Mutamba congratulated them on X, while warning that anyone, including journalists, who “relays the activities” of the M23 and Rwandan forces “will now suffer the full force of the law (DEATH PENALTY.)” The DRC lifted a 21-year moratorium on executions in 2024.

On January 9, following the airing of an Al Jazeera interview with M23 leader Bertrand Bisimwa, DRC communications minister Patrick Muyaya told a news conference that media accreditation for Al Jazeera journalists had been withdrawn because of their interview with the “head of a terrorist movement,” which he likened to an “apology for terrorism” that was “totally unacceptable.”

“We are in a context of crisis and everyone must understand because we can even consider more radical measures,” he warned the assembled journalists.

On January 13, the regulator suspended Al Jazeera for 90 days for the interview, which it said “destabilized institutions of the republic.”

Controlling the narrative

Congolese authorities’ tactics echo those used by governments across the world, from Russia to the Sahel, seeking to control information about conflict in their territory. During the Israel-Gaza war, Al Jazeera was banned in Israel and the occupied West Bank by authorities, citing incitement and security concerns.

In 2022, Mali’s military government suspended RFI and France 24 because on the grounds that they published “false allegations” of abuses by Mali’s army, while authorities in Burkina Faso have suspended several outlets over their coverage of the country’s military and security situation.

In December, Niger’s military government suspended the British public broadcaster BBC for undermining troop morale and announced its intention to file a complaint against RFI following the outlets’ reporting on jihadist attacks.

CPJ’s text message requesting comment from M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka, calls to Muyaya, and message to Al Jazeera via its website did not receive any responses.  

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

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

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

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

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

(Citizen photo)

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

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

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

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

(AFP)

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

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

A way to support a family

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Under fire

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

(Courtesy of Mya May)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Struggling to get by

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

She’s also struggling to make ends meet.

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

(Courtesy of Mya May)

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

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

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

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

Dying in a war zone

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Courtesy Min Din's family)

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

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

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

Holding onto hope

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

(AFP)

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

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

Edited by Mat Pennington.

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

A co-founder of a national Palestinian solidarity network in Aotearoa New Zealand today praised the “heroic” resilience and sacrifice of the people of Gaza in the face of Israel’s ruthless attempt to destroy the besieged enclave of more than 2 million people.

Speaking at the first solidarity rally in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau since the fragile ceasefire came into force last Sunday, Janfrie Wakim of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) also paid tribute to New Zealand protesters who have supported the Palestine cause for the 68th week.

“Thank you all for coming to this rally — the first since 7 October 2023 when no bombs are dropping on Gaza,” she declared.

• READ MORE: Israel blocks return of Palestinians to Gaza’s north after 4 female soldiers freed
• Other Israeli war on Gaza and ceasefire reports

“The ceasefire in Gaza is fragile but let’s celebrate the success of the resistance, the resilience, and the fortitude — the sumud [steadfastness] — of the heroic Palestinian people.

“Israel has failed. It has not achieved its aims — in the longest war [15 weeks] in its history — even with $40 billion in aid from the United States. It has failed to depopulate the north of Gaza, it has a crumbling economy, and 1 million Israelis [out if 9 million] have left already.”

Wakim said that the resistance and success in defeating Israel’s “deadly objectives” had come at a “terrible cost”.

“We mourn those with families here and in Gaza and now in the West Bank who made  the ultimate sacrifice with their lives — 47,000 people killed, 18,000 of them children, thousands unaccounted for in the rubble and over 100,000 injured.

Grieving for journalists, humanitarian workers
“We grieve for but salute the journalists and the humanitarian workers who have been murdered serving humanity.”

Janfrie Wakim speaking at today’s Palestine rally in Tamaki Makaurau. Video: APR

She said the genocide had been enabled by the wealthiest countries in the world and the Western media — “including our own with few exceptions”.

“Without its lies, its deflections, its failure to report the agonising reality of Palestinians suffering, Israel would not have been able to commit its atrocities,” Wakim said.

“And now while we celebrate the ceasefire there’s been an escalation on the West Bank — air strikes, drones, snipers, ethnic cleansing in Jenin with homes and infrastructure being demolished.

“Checkpoints have doubled to over 900 — sealing off communities. And still the Palestinians resist.

“And we must too. Solidarity. Unity of purpose is all important. Bury egos. Let humanity triumph.”

90-year-old supporter
During her short speech, Wakim introduced to the crowd the first Palestinian she had met in New Zealand, Ghazi Dassouki, who is now aged 90.

She met him at a Continuing Education seminar at the University of Auckland in 1986 that addressed the topic of “The Palestine Question”. It shocked the establishment of the time with Zionist complaints and intimidation of staff which prevented any similar academic event until 2006.

Wakim called for justice for the Palestinians.

“Freedom from occupation. Liberation from apartheid. And peace at last after 76 years of subjugation and oppression by Israel and its allies,” she said

She called on supporters to listen to what was being suggested for local action — “do what suits your situation and energy. Our task is to persist, as Howard Zinn put it”.

“When we organise with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress,” she said.

“We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”

As a symbol for peace and justice in Palestine, slices of water melon and dates were handed out to the crowd.

Calls to block NZ visits by IDF soldiers
Among many nationwide rallies across Aotearoa New Zealand this weekend, were many calls for the government to suspend entry to the country from soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).

“New Zealand should not be providing rest and recreation for Israeli soldiers fresh from the genocide in Gaza,” said PSNA national chair John Minto.

“We wouldn’t allow Russian soldiers to come here for rest and recreation from the invasion of Ukraine so why would we accept soldiers from the genocidal, apartheid state of Israel?”

As well as the working holiday visa, since 2019 Israelis have been able to enter New Zealand for three months without needing a visa at all.

This visa-waiver is used by Israeli soldiers for “rest and recreation” from the genocide in Gaza.

Minto stressed that IDF soldiers had killed at least 47,000 Palestinians — 70 percent of them women and children.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has declared Israeli actions a “plausible genocide”; Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have branded the continuous massacres as genocide and extermination; and the latest report from UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestine Territories Francesca Albanese has called it “genocide as colonial erasure”.

War crimes red flags
Also, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“All these red flags for genocide have been visible for months but the government is still giving the green light to those involved in war crimes to enter New Zealand,” Minto said.

Last month, PSNA again wrote to the government asking for the suspension of travel to New Zealand for all Israeli soldiers and reservists.

Meanwhile, 200 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails have been set free under the terms of the Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Seventy of them will be deported to countries in the region, reports Al Jazeera.

Masses of people have congregated in Ramallah, celebrating the return of the released Palestinian prisoners.

A huge crowd waved Palestinian flags, shouted slogans and captured the joyful scene with their phones and live footage shows.

The release came after Palestinian fighters earlier handed over four female Israeli soldiers who had been held in Gaza to the International Red Cross in Palestine Square.

The smiling and waving soldiers appeared to be in good health and were in high spirits.

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

A large crowd gathered in front of tycoon Sok Kong’s home to receive the red envelopes, a bag of rice and other gifts, Phnom Penh police spokesman Sam Vichheka told Radio Free Asia.

There was no organized line – just a mass of people outside the home. Five others were injured as the crowd pushed toward the gates of the large home, he said.

(Fresh News/AFP)

Sok Kong, a close ally of Senate President Hun Sen. is one of Cambodia’s wealthiest businessmen with interests in entertainment, hospitality and petroleum, according to Agence France-Presse.

The tycoon has distributed the red envelopes -– a traditional gift in Asia during the Lunar New Year holiday -– in previous years. This year, they contained about 40,000 riel (US$10), according to Facebook posts from people who were at the event.

Sok Kong announced later on Thursday that he would provide a coffin for each of the four deceased, as well as US$6,000 to the families of the victims, while the five injured would receive 4 million riel, or US$1,000.

Police were not conducting a criminal investigation into the deaths, and didn’t believe that Sok Kong was to blame for the tragedy, Sam Vichheka. The four deaths were mostly due to the victims’ poor health, he said.

“Sok Kong is a kind-hearted person who is willing to help people and the gift is his heart,” he said. “It is a health issue. It isn’t related to anything else.”

Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

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