As Congress approved some $45 billion to expand ICE’s immigration detention capacity, including the jailing of families and children, we look at the case of one family. In May, plainclothes ICE agents detained a 6-year-old boy from Honduras who has acute lymphoblastic leukemia, along with his 9-year old sister and their mother, as they left their immigration court hearing in Los Angeles. In detention, the boy missed a key doctor’s appointment, and the family said his sister cried every night. As pressure grew over their conditions, the family was released on July 2. “The little boy doesn’t want to leave his home. He’s terrified. He sobs, cries and screams when his mother takes him out of the house,” says attorney Elora Mukherjee, who represents the boy and his family and is director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School. She says the young children are traumatized after their month in ICE detention.

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

After his April 23 arrest in eastern Somali Region, Ahmed, the founder of Jigjiga Television Network, appeared in court on incitement charges on April 25, and was remanded in custody pending investigations, the journalist’s relative, who declined to be named, citing fear of retribution, told CPJ.

In the interview, Abdikarim Ali Ahmed demanded justice for his son’s death, saying that an officer kicked the teenage boy’s head, while wearing boots, after which he was hospitalized and died from his injuries. Regional police commander Abdi Ali Siyad told the BBC’s Somali service, “The boy simply died. There is no one to be held accountable.”

Meanwhile, on April 17, parliament passed a widely criticized amendment to the 2021 media law, increasing government control over the regulatory Ethiopian Media Authority (EMA), which is responsible for issuing sanctions against news outlets that violate press ethics, including by revoking their licenses. Press and human rights groups have warned that this shift in power “opens the door to undue influence” from politicians. 

“Ethiopia’s hostility to the press has been evident in the frequent arrests of critical journalists, and now the country is well on its way to reversing the gains it made in passing its 2021 media law, once considered progressive,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo. “Authorities should release journalists detained for their work and amend or repeal laws that can be used to undermine press freedom.”

More April arrests

In the month of April, in addition to Ahmed’s detention and the brief arrest of three Addis Standard employees as part of a raid on their newsroom, CPJ also confirmed:

• On April 5, police arrested Muhyidin Abdullahi Omar, an editor at the state-owned Harari Mass Media Agency and founder of the YouTube channel Biyyoo Production, in eastern Harari Region, his wife Helen Jemal and a person with knowledge of the case, who declined to be named, citing fear of reprisal, told CPJ.

On April 28, Omar was charged with defamation and disseminating disinformation in connection with two Facebook posts, according to the charge sheet, reviewed by CPJ, in which he alleged mismanagement at a local mosque and corruption at the regional attorney general’s office.

He could face up to three years imprisonment for defamation under a 2016 law and another three years for incitement under an anti-hate speech law, which broadly defines the crime.

Muyhidin had been on administrative leave from Harari Mass Media Agency since 2022, following an arrest over his social media activity, but on April 7, 2025 — two days after his latest arrest — his employer suspended his salary pending a disciplinary meeting, according to Helen and documents reviewed by CPJ.

• On April 10, Fanuel Kinfu, founder of the online outlet Fentale Media, was taken from his home in the capital Addis Ababa. The journalist told CPJ that police questioned him over alleged defamation in relation to commentary videos, published between April 2023 and June 2024. On April 13, he was released on bail of 15,000 birr (US$113).

• On April 23, Abebe Fikir, a reporter with the weekly newspaper The Reporter, was arrested. Abebe told CPJ that he was seeking comment from city officials about a housing dispute but the police accused him of filming without permission — an allegation he denied. On April 25, he was released on bail of 10,000 birr (US$75), without charge.

Increased government power over the press

Ethiopia’s 2021 media law won praise for progressive provisions, including for reclassifying defamation as a civil rather than criminal offence. But the amended law, passed with only one dissenting vote, increases the government’s power over the press. Sections that allowed the public to nominate candidates to the media authority’s board and four slots reserved for media and civil society representatives have been repealed, with board members instead being chosen from “relevant” bodies.

It also removed a ban on board members being members of a political party — a rule that the government had been criticized for breaking in parliament and transferred power to nominate the authority’s director general from the board to the prime minister.

Ethiopia is sub-Saharan Africa’s second worst jailer of journalists, after Eritrea, according to CPJ’s latest annual prison census, with six behind bars on December 1, 2024. One of these, Yeshihasab Abere, was released in January.

In March, seven journalists from the privately owned Ethiopian Broadcasting Service were detained. All have since been freed. Two are awaiting trial on charges of dissemination of hateful disinformation.

CPJ did not receive any responses to queries sent via email and messaging app to federal, Harari and Somali regional police and government spokesperson Legesse Tulu.

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

A fortnight after a terrorist attack in Pahalgam had killed 26 people, Indian Armed Forces hit nine sites containing terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and PoK from where attacks against India had been planned and directed. The Union ministry of defence described the action as “focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”, with no Pakistani military facilities having been targeted.

A Facebook page named Pakistan News shared the above-mentioned viral video on Facebook as a reel on May 7. The caption said, “Breaking: Fierce Cross-Fire in Kashmir – Pakistan Downs 2 Indian Jets”.

X user Irfan Hashmi (@IrfanHashmiUK), who identifies himself as a journalist, shared the same clip on May 7, saying, “Pakistan Zindabad”. The tweet has received more than 4.5 Lakh views and has been retweeted over 100 times. (Archive)

A Lebanese news outlet, Cedar News, published a report on May 7, with a screengrab of the viral clip claiming it showed Pakistani forces shooting down a Rafale and an Indian helicopter. The same was tweeted by their official X handle. (Archive 1, 2)

VIDEO: Pakistani forces shot down the Rafale and the Indian helicopter https://t.co/ZDqRJ4Q3ff pic.twitter.com/HzUh3pOOrg

— Cedar News (@cedar_news) May 6, 2025

Another X user, Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman), shared the same clip on May 7, claiming that it showed Pakistan blowing up Indian brigade headquarters. So far, the tweet has received over 5.6 Lakh views and has been retweeted over 1,900 times. (Archive)

Breaking: Pakistan army blew up the Indian Brigade headquarters pic.twitter.com/PEzBAEPnLN

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) May 6, 2025

Several users also shared the viral video, claiming it shows visuals of Pakistan’s retaliation against India. Below are a few instances.

Fact Check

To verify this claim, we broke down the viral clip into multiple key frames and ran a reverse image search on a few of them. This led us to multiple tweets shared on April 27 carrying the same video. While some users claimed it showed the Indian Army’s retaliation in the Leepa Valley in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, others alleged it depicted the Pakistani Army opening fire along the Line of Control (LoC) and destroying Indian Army bases.

These suggest that the video is unrelated to Pakistan’s retaliation against ‘Operation Sindoor’. It has been being shared since at least April 27.

We also noticed that under @VIKRAMPRATAPSIN’s post several users had commented that the video is not recent.

On further probing, we found a YouTube video posted on April 2 by a channel named ‘Cool Swag’ where at the 25-second mark, the initial part of the viral clip appears. This confirms that the clip predates the Pahalgam terrorist attack and is therefore entirely unrelated to the current situation.

While it is possible that the video could be even older, Alt News was unable to trace its original source.

At the time of this fact check being published, there were no reports about any Indian Army establishment being attacked following Operation Sindoor. On the other hand, there were some reports about some Indian jets having crashed in Kashmir.

However, our findings clearly establish that the viral clip, which is at least a month old if not more, is being shared with false claims. The video is entirely unrelated to the ongoing conflict following the Pahalgam terror attack.

The post Viral clip claiming to show Pakistani retaliation to Indian strikes at least a month old, unrelated to ongoing confict appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

Some families have waited as long as one month to receive critical aid in the aftermath of Myanmar’s earthquake, which killed over 3,700 people, victims and aid groups told Radio Free Asia.

Myanmar’s military has been accused of hampering aid efforts by preventing international and local rescue groups from entering earthquake-stricken areas and demanding that groups distribute essential items like food and temporary shelter through junta officials.

One resident in Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city and close to the epicenter of the earthquake, said he hadn’t received any aid since his house collapsed.

“Because of the aftershocks, we can’t go back. Up until today, we’ve been sleeping on the side of the road. Yesterday, there were more aftershocks and we’ve been on edge,” he said, declining to be named for fear of reprisals.

“I want to say especially that we have not gotten any type of help listed from officials at the ward, township or district level. We haven’t gotten even one bottle of water or one wafer of biscuit – that’s the honest truth.”

Recovery from the March 28 earthquake has been hampered still further by hundreds of airstrikes by Myanmar’s military, which have killed over 160 people across the country, according to data compiled by Radio Free Asia..

Residents sleeping outdoors have also been subject to monsoon rains, extreme heat and unpredictable weather, adding to the predicted public health crisis.

In crowded areas, aid groups who have been permitted entry don’t have enough food for all the victims, said the Mandalay resident.

Aid organizations from 29 countries were operating in Myanmar until April 20, providing more than 3,700 tons of relief supplies, said junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun on state-owned broadcaster MRTV.

All available supplies, except for “a few shelters and raincoats” had been distributed in earthquake-affected areas of Naypyidaw, the country’s capital, as well as in Mandalay region, Sagaing region and Shan state, he said on Wednesday.

On the ground, victims have only been able to receive aid from the United Nations Development Programme, or UNDP, said one volunteer who was himself affected by the earthquake in Mandalay region’s Pyawbwe town.

“UNDP is the only one who arrived with household items, shelters, power banks, solar lights, canned fish, red beans, clothing, women’s items and medical kits,” he said, refusing to be named for security reasons.

He said the junta collected lists of the dead and those affected by the earthquake, but victims haven’t received any help. Rescue teams reported at least 300 people died in Pyawbwe town alone.

Residents in other areas of Mandalay region and Sagaing region, as well as parts of the country with a strong junta presence, like Shan state’s Inle region and the capital of Naypyidaw, also say they have faced limited aid as a result of poor systematic distribution, rescue committee volunteers said.

But the junta denied claims of mismanagement.

“For those who have faced destruction, the amount must be assessed and aid will be apportioned based on what’s decided by government organizations,” said Lay Shwe Zin Oo, director of the Disaster Management Department of the military’s Ministry of Social Welfare.

“If they haven’t gotten it yet, they should contact their general administrators and negotiate an amount of aid,” she said, adding that many victims had not registered for aid yet.

Over 5,100 people were injured in the earthquake and more than 100 are still missing, according to the latest data from Myanmar’s military. As of April 24, nearly 64,000 houses were destroyed, affecting some 629,000 people.

Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.

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

Image by Andrej Lišakov.

The United States has been in the throes of a mental health and overdose crisis so severe it has spanned five presidential administrations and been classified as an official state of emergency in three of them. No one knows exactly how this emergency will play out during the current Trumpian cocktail of uncertainty, fear, and cuts to social services, but charts of the recent turbulence of the stock market suggest a relevant visual: imagine the nervous systems of millions of already struggling Americans, along with millions more who are being pushed to the limits of what they can handle, all experiencing deep emotional crashes, briefly recovering, only to collapse again into new lows. And while it might be tempting to think that many of us aren’t affected by the present gut-wrenching emotional tumult because we appear fine and don’t seem to care about what’s happening to the more desperate among us, our recent research suggests that people do care — including, perhaps, those you’d least expect to do so.

Last year brought a widely reported piece of news in mental health. Overdose fatalities in the United States declined substantially, a notable but qualified victory. As overdose deaths fell 9% from 2021 to 2023 for white Americans, such deaths increased 12% for people of other races, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Street drugs continue to kill more than 84,000 people in the United States annually and overdoses remain the leading cause of death among Americans ages 18 to 44.

In other words, many young Americans and people of all ages attempt to numb difficult, even unbearable feelings, and sometimes that numbing is fatal. Depending on who you are, your preferred numbing agent might be wine, work, prescription pills, social media, street drugs, or something else entirely. But in the second age of Donald Trump, as well as long before him, all too many of us have been grappling with profound pain, whether from a sense of hopelessness about the future, oppression, trauma, grief, job loss, or general financial strain in ever more economically difficult times. Those among us who are not U.S. citizens are increasingly seized with the fear of being deported due to false, unknown, or unsubstantiated allegations and without due process. In addition to sowing terror, this has also been exacerbating an already widespread sense of loneliness, as people stay inside for fear of being detained.

Another source of despair is the urgent overseas humanitarian crisis over which non-citizens and legal permanent residents are now being seized, shackled, and imprisoned or disappeared for expressing moral protest. One (but not both) of the authors of this article has the protection of U.S. citizenship, although experts now question whether even citizenship will continue to provide protection, and so, for safety’s sake, we’re not naming that crisis or the widely shared sense of grief and powerlessness as men, women, and heartbreaking numbers of children die there. Students and people in all walks of life continue to take to the streets in protest, including the one of us who is a citizen.

Indeed, in such a devastating moment, in all corners of American society, people are in ever greater need of mental health services, just as funding for them is being slashed. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and so a ripe moment to take stock of the damage being done and to report that there appears to be surprising agreement among people with divergent political beliefs that it’s time to expand services for those who are struggling.

Dismantled?

In late January, the Trump White House issued a vague memo that put a temporary freeze on the disbursement of federal financial assistance. By early February, NBC News had reported that some health clinics were closing their doors. Then, in March, the Trump administration announced the cancellation of more than $11 billion in funding to deal with addiction, mental health, and related issues. A federal judge subsequently halted that cancellation of funds, saying such a sudden termination caused “direct and irreparable harm to public health.” The Trump administration requested a stay of the order, with plans to appeal.

By mid-April, around the same time that Elon Musk’s DOGE took over responsibility for posting federal grant opportunities for the public, Reuters published an extensive investigation on the subject. It drew on interviews with dozens of experts to conclude that funding cuts and associated layoffs were “dismantling the carefully constructed health infrastructure that drove the number of overdose deaths down by tens of thousands last year.”

In Philadelphia, where one of the authors of this article resides, the Inquirer reported that a forensic research lab that tests the nation’s illicit drug supply for new and harmful substances hadn’t received crucial funds from the federal government. That, in turn, meant the furloughing of staff and a growing backlog of untested samples. If you’ve followed news about the evolving nature of illicit and counterfeit drugs, you know that novel and dangerous molecules are continually turning up in unexpected places, whether the veterinary sedative xylazine or the more potent medetomidine found in batches of fentanyl, or as deadly levels of nitazenes in seemingly innocuous pills. Slowing or halting drug-testing is a dangerous proposition.

Meanwhile, a Philadelphia outreach program run by Unity Recovery was recently forced to shut down, while its workers who had offered services in addiction, nutrition, and other kinds of healthcare suddenly lost their jobs. At the time of this writing, the organization’s website features a red warning symbol and the message: “Due to federal funding cuts enacted on March 24, 2025, Unity Recovery has lost critical access to resources to provide peer support services.” It also notes that “information is changing rapidly” — a nod to the fact that a judge halted the cancellation of funds and no one now knows exactly how the pending cuts will (or won’t) unfold.

And while there is supposedly stark disagreement between the Trumpist and non-Trumpist halves of this country about whether such cuts should be taking place at all, extensive data from the purple state of Pennsylvania suggests there is far more agreement than anyone might have guessed.

“It Is in All Our Interests to Give Help and Support”

Over the past year, the two of us have worked on a research project that collected perspectives from thousands of Pennsylvanians about mental health, substance use, and the state’s criminal justice system. We also collected hundreds of surveys from Pennsylvanians who work in law enforcement and criminal justice. We guessed that such anonymous surveys would capture punitive viewpoints and a belief that people who use drugs should be put behind bars. And, yes, there was a bit of that, but to our surprise, on the whole, we found something quite different.

More than a quarter of Pennsylvanians said that, in recent years, they had become more sympathetic toward people who struggle with drugs or alcohol. A majority of the respondents identified stress and traumatic life events as a primary cause of problematic substance use. And most surprising of all, we found broad agreement on policy priorities across — yes, across — the political spectrum.

Eighty-three percent of Pennsylvanians agreed that “addressing social problems such as homelessness, mental health, and substance use disorder” was a greater priority than “strengthening social order through more policing and greater enforcement of the laws.” That view was shared across political affiliations: 71% of respondents identifying as conservative agreed with it, as did 88% of those identifying as liberal.

Asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement, “It is in all our interests to give help and support to people who struggle with drugs and/or alcohol,” 68% of respondents identifying as conservative or very conservative agreed, as did 77% of liberal or very liberal respondents. Notably, there was majority support (61%) for increasing government spending for this cause. Even 54% of conservatives said they supported increasing spending to improve treatment and services for substance-use disorder.

We assumed that Americans who work in law enforcement and criminal justice would have more hardline views. Again, we were wrong. Compared with Pennsylvanians overall, over the past five years, those who work in the criminal justice system were — yes! — more likely to report feeling greater sympathy toward people who struggle with drugs or alcohol, and an overwhelming 70% of them believed that this society was obliged to provide them with treatment. Asked what services they believed could help prevent people struggling with substance use from becoming involved in the justice system, 71% said “more access to mental health treatment providers or services.”

Because much drug use in this country is criminalized, those who work in criminal justice are on the frontlines of our mental health crisis. These new findings suggest that, at least in Pennsylvania, justice system workers feel a responsibility to offer genuine help and see bolstering mental health services as the best way forward.

Of course, the opposite is happening. Yet it’s notable that, in this purple state where the current president won more than 50% of the vote, there is majority support across the political spectrum for providing genuine assistance to people who need it.

The ongoing axing of services will likely prove devastating. It leaves many feeling like there is nothing they can do. Yet, as individuals, count on one thing: we are not powerless (as we so often believe).

Looking Out for Others

When life feels scary and uncertain, as it increasingly does in the Trump era, many people respond by thinking a lot about what might happen in their world and trying to anticipate the future in order to make plans and gain at least some minimal sense of control. Both authors of this article — one of us a doctor, the other a writer — struggle with our ruminations on the state and direction of this country, which can lead us deeper into anxiety and isolation.

And while we probably can’t escape those fearful feelings (and probably shouldn’t try to), we can at least stay in touch with others instead of giving in to the common urge to withdraw. That isn’t easy, of course. Both of us find ourselves struggling to pick up the phone. But this is a time when picking up that phone couldn’t be more important. A time when so much of our world is endangered is distinctly a moment to put special effort into looking out for one another and regularly experiencing the energy that comes from human connection.

We also understand that many Americans are living on the edge. We often don’t know who among our neighbors and loved ones is wrestling with the question of whether life is worth living. (Suicide rates remain high for Americans generally and especially for those with drug and alcohol use disorders.) Right now, there is a dire need for better services, but even if every person had access to quality mental health care, our actions as community members would still matter. It’s sometimes possible to save the life of someone you care about just by telling them you care.

Each of us, including you, has a role to play in keeping all of us alive and safe as best we can in ever more difficult times.

From Crisis to Care

No one yet knows exactly how the Trump administration’s potentially staggering cuts to community healthcare and social services will unfold. But amid the chaos, people across this nation continue to do meaningful, lifesaving work.

The Drug Policy Alliance, a nonprofit outfit that seeks to prevent harms associated with drug use and drug criminalization, recently published a report entitled “From Crisis to Care.” It presents an intelligent roadmap for improving mental health and addressing substance use and homelessness, including investing in treatment options that are evidence-based and voluntary, as well as housing programs and community-based crisis response systems. These are anything but radical ideas. They’re grounded in research and can serve as a model for the future. Of course, funding and some political power will be necessary to accomplish such things, and that might sound farfetched in our current situation. But simple actions in the present make it more likely that such services will be launched in the future.

We can save a life by reaching out to friends and neighbors, and it’s no less important to recognize when we ourselves are struggling. Sometimes we worry about others without acknowledging that we, too, are on the edge. With that in mind, we’re writing the following words for you and every other reader but also for ourselves: When you’re struggling, contact someone you trust for support. By doing so, you’re also implicitly giving them permission to ask for help from you when they need it, and by giving and receiving help, you create a new pattern of reciprocity.

Such reciprocity has political significance. It fosters social cohesion, a precursor for coordinated action on a far larger sale.

This piece first appeared on TomDispatch.

The post This Mental Health Awareness Month appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Mattea Kramer and Sean Fogler.

The post To Honor Women’s History Month, Let Us Now Praise Famous Female Antiwar Activists appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ed Rampell.

This news comes as the nation’s largest egg producer, Cal-Maine, reported soaring profits and record egg sales for the third quarter in a row earlier this week. In the first three quarters of FY 2025 alone, Cal-Maine made $1 billion in windfall profits — riding sky-high prices to widen its profit margin over last year’s. Meanwhile, Cal-Maine continues to grow its egg empire by acquiring smaller companies, including Fassio Egg Farms (1.2 million laying hens) in October 2023, and ISE America (4.7 million laying hens) in June 2024. The corporation produces one in five eggs eaten in America.

A recent report by the consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch — “The Economic Cost of Food Monopolies: The Rotten Egg Oligarchy” — details how Cal-Maine has used the bird flu crisis to reap tremendous profits at consumer expense.

The U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into price-fixing by the nation’s largest egg corporations, including Cal-Maine, last month.

Food & Water Watch Research Director Amanda Starbuck issued the following statement:

“Egg prices are spiraling out of control, laying bare the cracks in our corporate food system. The industry is proving itself effective at extracting enormous profits out of American consumers. We are all paying for it — at the store, with food shortages, and with the growing threat of the next pandemic.

“Restoring sanity to the grocery aisle will require immediate action to transform our food system. To lower egg prices, the Trump Administration must take on the food monopolies, hasten and prioritize its investigation into corporate price fixing, and stop the spread of factory farms.”

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

Jackie Chen was one of several social workers who tried to mediate between police and demonstrators. She carried a loudspeaker and urged police to use restraint and to refrain from firing non-lethal bullets during a protest that took place on Aug. 31, 2019.

At Wednesday’s hearing in the Hong Kong district court, three co-defendants were sentenced to two years and five months in prison after entering a guilty plea. Chen, who pleaded guilty and got the stiffer sentence, had faced up to seven years in prison.

Police made more than 10,000 arrests during and after the 2019 protests, which began as a show of mass public anger at plans to allow the extradition of alleged criminal suspects to mainland China.

They broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections and greater official accountability.

Chen was acquitted in 2020, but prosecutors appealed and won a retrial in another example of the harsh stance that Hong Kong authorities have taken with political cases.

When Chen was convicted last month, Judge May Chung wrote in her verdict that Chen used her position as a social worker to support the protesters and used the loudspeaker to shout unfounded accusations against the police.

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

That’s because a series of important events and acts of Tibetan resistance have happened during this month over the years, starting with the March 10, 1959, uprising against Chinese rule.

This year, too, Beijing has intensified security and surveillance measures across Tibet, conducting inspections and holding provincial, county and township level meetings to issue strict directives to take action to “win the stability battle” in March.

Additional police and military forces have been deployed in the capital of Lhasa, including religious sites such as the Jokhang Temple and Sera Monastery, according to two sources in the region. Security personnel have been patrolling neighborhoods even at 3 a.m., they said.

Social media censorship and internet shutdowns prevent Tibetans from sharing information with the outside world.

What happened on March 10, 1959?

On that day 66 years ago, tens of thousands of Tibetans in Lhasa rose up against Chinese rule, which had begun when Mao Zedong’s Communists invaded and forcibly annexed Tibet in 1950.

The revolt was in direct response to growing Chinese repression and fears for the safety of the Dalai Lama. As Chinese forces rose to crush the rebellion, thousands of Tibetans died.

(Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

That prompted the Dalai Lama, 23 years old at the time, to flee to northern India with thousands of other Tibetans, where he and a large community of Tibetans live to this day in Dharamsala.

Ever since, March 10 has been marked at as the anniversary of Tibetan National Uprising Day, with marches and protests in various locations around the world. Tibetans have used the day to honor the courage of those who rebelled, press China to stop its repression of Tibetans and voice their hope for a homeland where they can live freely.

March 12: Women’s Uprising Day

On March 12, 1959, two days after the uprising, thousands of Tibetan women went into the streets of Lhasa to protest the violent crackdown and demand Tibet’s freedom. Many were arrested, tortured, or killed.

This movement remains a powerful symbol of Tibetan resistance and female-led activism. Today, Tibetans and their supporters organize marches and gatherings worldwide to honor the courage of these women.

(Jason Reed/Reuters)

This year, in cities and towns globally, including in India, North America, and in Europe, the Tibetan Women’s Association organized marches that included students, Buddhist nuns and activists who amplified the voices of past Tibetan women patriots and assert the role of Tibetan women living in exile.

March 14: Lhasa protest and crackdown

Many years later, on March 14, 2008, large-scale protests erupted in Lhasa against Chinese rule and religious repression, erosion of Tibetan culture and economic marginalization.

What began as a peaceful protest quickly escalated into the biggest uprisings in Tibet since 1959, triggering a violent crackdown, resulting in hundreds of arrests, disappearances and deaths.

(Danish SIddiqui/Reuters)

March 16: Killing of unarmed protesters in Ngaba

Two days later, at least 10 Tibetans, including 16-year-old schoolgirl Lhundup Tso, were killed when police opened fire on unarmed protesters following a morning prayer session at Kirti Monastery, which is in the Ngaba region in Sichuan province.

Many Buddhist monks and laypeople were subsequently imprisoned and tortured. During police raids at Kirti, images of the Dalai Lama and other senior religious figures were destroyed. In June of that year, troops raided the Sey Monastery, where they shattered portraits of the Dalai Lama and harassed monks who were on retreat.

Ngaba remains one of the most heavily militarized Tibetan regions. Around March every year, the Kirti Monastery faces severe restrictions, with security forces closely monitoring monks and local residents.

March 2012: 11 Tibetans self-immolated.

A wave of self-immolations by Tibetans in Tibet began in 2011 and intensified in 2012. Desperate to show their opposition to China’s repressive policies, a total of 11 Tibetans set fire to themselves during March 2012, the highest number of such cases recorded in a single month.

They ranged in age from 18 to 44 years, and seven were from Ngaba. Many appeared to have done this during March because of its significance.

March 28: China declares ‘Serfs’ Emancipation Day’

In 2009, China declared March 28 as “Serfs’ Emancipation Day” to celebrate what Beijing said marks the ‘liberation’ in 1959 from Tibet’s ”feudal system.”

The Communist Party claims this day marks Tibet’s progress under Chinese rule, but Tibetans reject it as state propaganda justifying Chinese occupation.

Chinese authorities organize parades and other events and alternative narratives are suppressed.

(Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

What does the Dalai Lama say about the future of Tibet?

Beijing believes the Dalai Lama wants to split off the Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas in Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces from the rest of the country.

However, the Dalai Lama does not advocate for independence but rather a “Middle Way” that accepts Tibet’s status as a part of China and urges greater cultural and religious freedoms, including strengthened language rights that are guaranteed for ethnic minorities under China’s constitution.

Do Tibetans living in exile protest in March?

Yes. Every March 10, Tibetans and their supporters around the world organize protests and solidarity events marking the anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan National Uprising.

These protests serve as a powerful reminder of Tibet’s ongoing struggle for freedom and human rights.

Edited by Tenzin Pema, Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Dolma Lhamo and Tenzin Dickyi.

Li Yanhe, more widely known by his pen-name Fucha, or Fuchsia, was detained some time in March 2023 after traveling to China to cancel his household registration as part of his naturalization as a citizen of democratic Taiwan.

Li, who is ethnically Manchu, founded the Eight Banners imprint under Taiwan’s Book Republic publishing group in 2009, using it to publish non-fiction works on China’s overseas infiltration and influence operations, the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, and other work critical of Beijing.

He is among hundreds of Taiwanese nationals to disappear in China over the past 10 years, rights groups told the United Nations in December.

“The Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court held a public trial and issued a verdict in the first instance on Feb. 17, 2025,” Taiwan’s Central News Agency quoted a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office as saying.

No verdict has yet been issued, according to reports in the United Daily News and Central News Agency.

“The court tried the case strictly in accordance with the law and fully protected the various litigation rights enjoyed by Li Yanhe and his defense counsel in accordance with the law,” spokesperson Chen Binhua told Central News Agency.

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council told the agency it was aware of all of the details of Li’s case, but wasn’t making them public in accordance with his family’s wishes.

(Eight Banners Publishing House via Facebook)

“The fundamental purpose of the Chinese Communist Party’s detention of Fu Cha is to create a chilling effect in Taiwan’s cultural and academic circles,” the Council was quoted as saying. “This case clearly shows the authoritarian nature of Chinese Communist Party rule.”

It said the case had once more demonstrated that Taiwanese nationals should be aware of the risks associated with travel to China.

Public trials are ‘meaningless’

Taiwanese rights activist and NGO worker Lee Ming-cheh, who served a five-year prison sentence in China after disappearing on a visit there himself, dismissed the claim that Li had had a “public trial.”

“Public trials in China are meaningless,” Lee told RFA Mandarin on March 17. “Who was it open to?”

“China did not proactively inform the outside world of Fu Cha’s verdict,” he said. “Today, it responded passively responding to a question about an allegedly secret trial.”

According to Lee, the charge of secession can be laid against anyone who doesn’t support Beijing’s territorial claim on the island.

“Anyone who doesn’t support their one country, two systems idea is basically an independence activist in the view of the Chinese government,” Lee said, adding that Li could wind up making a forced public statement in future.

Taiwan was ruled as a Japanese colony in the 50 years prior to the end of World War II, but was handed back to the 1911 Republic of China under the Kuomintang, or KMT, government as part of Tokyo’s post-war reparation deal.

The KMT made its capital there after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists that led to the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

While the Chinese Communist Party claims Taiwan as an “inalienable” part of its territory, Taiwan has never been ruled by the current regime in Beijing, nor has it ever formed part of the People’s Republic of China.

Zeng Jianyuan, chairman of the overseas-based New School for Democracy, said the authorities have yet to make the verdict public.

“This case is attracting international attention, yet the media and human rights groups following the case have no way of finding out what the verdict was,” Zeng said. “The Taiwan Affairs Office is simply talking nonsense.”

According to Article 103, Section 2 of China’s Criminal Law, those who “incite secession and undermine national unity” can receive jail terms of “no less than five years” if their case is deemed serious.

There are also concerns that China will treat Li as a Chinese national and refuse to allow him to return home to Taiwan after his sentence has been served, Lee said.

Viewed as a ‘traitor’

Li had intended to renounce his Chinese household registration on his trip as part of his naturalization process as a citizen of Taiwan, but had been detained before he could get to it, he said.

“If the Chinese government treats him as a Chinese national, then he won’t be allowed back to Taiwan when his sentence is complete,” Lee said.

Zeng said Beijing regards Li as a “traitor” because he retains his Chinese nationality and his membership of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

“That’s why the Chinese Communist Party wants to punish him severely,” Zeng said.

Li was born in the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning to a Manchu family, and joined the Chinese Communist Party after graduating from university, before rising to become vice president of the Shanghai Literature & Art Publishing House.

He married a Taiwanese woman in 1996, and settled in Taiwan in 2009. His last Facebook post was made on March 12, 2023.

The Republic of China has remained a sovereign and independent state since 1911, now ruling just four islands: Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu.

The island began a transition to democracy following the death of KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek’s son, President Chiang Ching-kuo, in January 1988, starting with direct elections to the legislature in the early 1990s and culminating in the first direct election of a president, Lee Teng-hui, in 1996.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Huang Chun-mei for RFA Mandarin, RFA Cantonese.

During the Muslim holy month — a time of spiritual rejuvenation through increased prayer and daylight fasting — masjids may serve hundreds of visitors for iftar, the sunset meal that marks the breaking of the fast. Some also serve a meal in the predawn hours, suhoor, before congregants start their fast. 

That all can add up to a lot of trash, though. At mosques in Atlanta and elsewhere, it’s not uncommon to find garbage cans packed to the top by the end of the night, with some plates and plastic water bottles still half full. 

“It’s just not acceptable for us,” says Nina. “My family is conscious of water and food conservation. We eat leftovers — we are not wasting or being snooty about wasting.” 

She’s not the only one concerned about the problem. This year, more than two dozen Atlanta-area masjids or Islamic groups are planning environmentally friendly “zero-waste iftars,” aiming to cut down on the amount of discarded food, disposable plates, and water bottles. Food waste is a global and national dilemma — in the U.S., almost 40 percent of the food supply ends up in the landfill. But the trash generated during the holy month directly conflicts with a religious mandate to not be wasteful, says Marium Masud, who attends Marietta’s Masjid Al Furqan West Cobb Islamic Center: “We are called to be stewards of the Earth. There is a saying from the Prophet Muhammad that all of the Earth is a masjid. So it’s up to us to keep it clean, just like we keep our masjids clean.”

Masud is part of a “green team” of 17 volunteers that Al Furqan established to help tackle the problem. This past year, Al Furqan’s green team focused on one thing: banning plastic water bottles. In the past, the masjid threw away nearly 300 plastic bottles every night — but this year, hardly any. To prepare for Ramadan, the team added water filling stations, brought in reusable five-gallon water bottles, and had their Cub Scout packs sell recycled aluminum bottles to community members for $10 each. They also accepted donations to give out water bottles for free to anyone who couldn’t afford them. 

On March 19, Al Furqan — where 200 to 250 people come for iftars each weeknight — will host its first “zero-waste iftar” in partnership with Georgia Interfaith Power and Light, or GIPL, a nonprofit that works with religious groups on environmental justice. The organization provides training, workshops, and grants for reusable or compostable plates and cutlery. At the end of the iftar dinner, GIPL also covers the cost of sending the excess to the Atlanta nonprofit CHaRM, which composts food waste and processes hard-to-recycle items.

Al Furqan’s zero-waste iftar is just one of 24 zero-waste iftars planned across Atlanta-area Islamic centers this Ramadan. At least 15 now have dedicated green teams. That’s a big increase from 2023, when there was only one masjid with a GIPL-certified green team: Roswell Community Masjid, or RCM. RCM, which hosts weekly zero-waste iftar dinners every Saturday, signed a contract with Atlanta-based Goodr in mid-January to handle its composting and provide food waste recovery services year-round.

Monitoring trash

At Masjid Fatimah in Stone Mountain, Mohammed Ata Ur Rasheed helps direct trash traffic during Ramadan. He sits in a folding chair for hours each night telling male congregants where to put the recycling, trash, and compost. About 150 people attend their iftar dinners each night. 

“People waste so much food. There are half-eaten plates. Sometimes the entire plate. And because they don’t want me to see what they’re throwing away, they take another plate to cover it,” Rasheed says. “I see you! Sometimes I tell them, when you’re grabbing food, get a smaller portion. The food is there. I collected a lot of bread the past two days because people didn’t like it and were trying to throw it away.” (Some local masjids like Masjid Fatimah are working to reduce food waste by having volunteers portion out plates before handing them out to attendees — who tend to pile food on their own plates after fasting all day long.)

Reducing waste isn’t just aligned with religious principles — there’s also a financial incentive. Rasheed estimates that his masjid has saved nearly $1,000 so far because it has not needed to call Gwinnett County to pick up excess trash: Instead of five bags every night, there is now only one. 

Masjid Fatimah still provides congregants with plastic water bottles. But this year, it’s cutting down on the volume of its recycling by placing permanent markers with instructions on neon-green poster boards near the free bottles. “I put up a message and every day I remind people: Label your bottle, put your initial,” says Rasheed, calling this his personal pilot project. When they’re done drinking, he reminds people to remove the caps from their bottles and crush them so they’ll take up less space in the trash. 

At the end of the night, he sorts through the compost bin and trash to bring home what he can to add to his compost pile and feed his four chickens and red wiggler worms. Rasheed, who grew up gardening in Hyderabad, India, spends two hours a day working with his beehives and tending to his backyard permaculture setup after he returns home from his job as a biologist at the CDC; his garden provides hundreds of pounds of produce each year for his family of four. At the masjid, he shows other gardeners how to use the pizza boxes left over from Ramadan iftars to create easy garden plots and reduce time spent pulling weeds. He says more congregants are following his example and bringing scraps home to feed their backyard chickens as well. 

‘Khalifas’ of the earth, or green teams

Ayesha Abid is the program coordinator for Georgia Interfaith Power and Light. Informally, she calls herself the Muslim organizer for the nonprofit, and has been working to increase the number of Muslim organizations embracing recycling and reducing energy use and waste since she joined in 2023. “It’s hard to say for sure, since we are in the Bible Belt and we have more churches, but we have about 150 green teams [statewide],” Abid says, explaining that this includes teams across all religious houses of worship. “If there are about 100 masjids and 15 have green teams, I don’t think that’s a bad representation.”

Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam in East Atlanta is composting for the first time this year, and received a grant from GIPL for its zero-waste iftar.  The masjid, which opened in 1958, is the largest and oldest Islamic community center in metro Atlanta. 

“It isn’t that expensive to do composting,” Abid says. “What’s expensive is manpower or volunteers. The biggest thing I was hearing was ‘I don’t have volunteers to take it to CHaRM.’ There was a woman at [Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam] who just took six to eight bags of compost/recyclable waste in her van. You need community members willing to step up to do that. I think the women in the community are uplifting this the most.”

Abid says East Cobb Islamic Center, Al Furqan West Cobb Islamic Center, and Roswell Community Masjid have all called to eliminate single-use plastic bottles and encourage people to bring their own tupperware to take home food so it isn’t thrown out.  

“I grew up in Georgia and going to masjids, my most significant memory of Ramadan is seeing aunties forget which water bottle is theirs and getting a new one and letting entire bottles of water go to waste,” Abid says. “Volunteers are tired after fasting all day and don’t have energy to empty it into gardens. Muslims are supposed to be ‘khalifas’ [stewards] of the Earth, especially during Ramadan, and I could never make sense of the waste. This disconnect has always stood out to me. A lot of people question it but don’t care about it. But we’re working to fix that.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A greener Ramadan: How Atlanta-area mosques are cutting food waste during the Muslim holy month on Mar 16, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Tasnim Shamma, 285 South.

North Korea opened its special tourist city of Rason, on its northern coast near the borders with both China and Russia, to foreign tour groups in mid-February.

But two travel agencies said arrivals had been suspended.

“We have been advised by our partners in the DPRK that tours to Rason are currently paused. We are in the process of clarifying how this will impact your upcoming trips,” said China-based travel agency Young Pioneer Tours in a notice.

It advised those planning tours in April and May not to book flights until more information became available.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK, is North Korea’s official name.

Separately, Koryo Tours, a China-based agency specializing in North Korean tours, said on its website that it had been informed “that our tours to Rason are temporarily closed.”

It described the situation as “unprecedented,” adding it would provide updates as soon as more information becomes available.

Neither company explained offered a reason for the suspension.

Before last month, only Russians had been allowed into North Korea for limited group tours since September 2023.

Foreign tourism is an important source of foreign currency for North Korea, which is under heavy international sanctions due to its nuclear and missile programs.

The recent reopening of Rason sparked speculation that North Korea might open other areas to foreign tourism, but the suspension of arrivals at Rason has led to speculation about the cause.

Some South Korean media outlets speculated that the decision was driven by concerns over the uncontrolled spread of information.

Over the past few weeks, as Western visitors, including social media influencers, were allowed into North Korea, numerous videos and interviews have surfaced online, as visitors share their at times bizarre experiences.

Debit card, pharmacy and masks

Pierre-Émile Biot, a French travel blogger who was among the first group of Western tourists to visit, described in an interview with Radio Free Asia a limited and inconsistent payment system. Upon arrival, tourists were issued debit cards but few businesses accepted them, he said. Instead, most shops preferred cash transactions, particularly in yuan.

Biot said he bought a debit card with a small amount of renminbi but found little opportunity to use it. While taxis supposedly accepted card payments, he never had a chance to test it, as his group traveled together throughout the visit.

Ben Weston, a tour leader from Britain, compared visiting North Korea to the structured experience of a school trip, where movement was closely monitored. Tourists were not even allowed to leave their hotels without a guide, he said during media interviews.

Another visitor, who identified himself as just Mike, said he had to inform a guide even when he needed to use the toilet, which he said he’s never encountered before.

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German travel influencer Luca Pferdmenges told of his interactions with ordinary North Koreans, including on a visit to a pharmacy, where the staff were astonished by the appearance foreign tourists.

Pferdmenges also said during media interviews how struck he was by North Korea’s strict COVID-19 precautions.

Nearly 80% of people he saw wore masks, he said, and every bag entering the country had to pass through a disinfecting machine.

Some English-speaking North Koreans appeared to be aware of international events, including the war between Ukraine and Russia, and the involvement of North Korean troops, and recent trade disputes involving the U.S. and other countries.

According to tourists, this awareness likely stemmed from interactions with Chinese business people, who may have served as an informal source of outside information in the otherwise tightly controlled country.

Edited by Mike Firn.

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

And here we go with a continual slide into fascism, and, yes, a fascist nation turns on its own people. Fascism can also come into the light of the 21^st century as techno-feudalism, another form of elite billionaires and their ground troops strangling the working class, even professional managerial class, through digital tracking, surveillance and behavioral modificaton.

Trump’s hatred of diverse workforces, hatred of equitable hiring practices and his love of class inequities will bring the chickens home to roost.

Even this nation’s economic/literal hit men (and hit women), the CIA, is worried about recruitment now that Trump is bulldozing fairness and affirmative action which is in place to level some playing fields: “We’re going to strangle off talent pipelines that were already narrow to begin with. And that’s going to deprive our intelligence community and our national security establishment of critical knowledge, talent, skills, language … that might be valuable in trying to get somebody into a foreign country,”

Black History month should be transformed into a total curriculum revamp so youth can understand slavery then, followed by the Jim Crowe era, and now with the Racist in Chief and his goons calling for internment camps and tossing people who disagree with capitalism and him – this penury, predatory, parasitic, casino capitalism – out of the country.

We are – I have many targets on my back – the Nobodies. It is instructive to read the following poem as a dirge for this country’s slide into despotism: By Eduardo Galeano

The Nobodies

Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping
poverty: that one magical day good luck will suddenly rain down on
them—will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn’t rain down
yesterday, today, tomorrow, or ever. Good luck doesn’t even fall in a
fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their
left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day with their right
foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms.

The nobodies: nobody’s children, owners of nothing. The nobodies: the
no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life,
screwed every which way.

Who are not, but could be.
Who don’t speak languages, but dialects.
Who don’t have religions, but superstitions.
Who don’t create art, but handicrafts.
Who don’t have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have faces, but arms.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the police
blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them.”

For Black History Month, we can see how disconnected our so-called elected officials are with the majority of working class people of all ethnicities: In a study done by Nicholas Carnes in his book “The Cash Ceiling,” he broke down how in 2018, millionaires make up only three percent of the public, yet they control all three branches of the federal government. While more than fifty percent of U.S. citizens hold working-class jobs, less than two percent of Congress has held a blue-collar job before their Congressional career.

So how can these people understand environmental racism when they are part of the problem?

Trump’s Team and many in MAGA can’t wrap their arms around the fact Black people face some of the highest cancer and asthma rates in the U.S. These rates are without a doubt linked to the environment in which someone lives, works and plays. When African-American Robert D. Bullard began collecting data in the 1970s, few understood how a person’s surroundings can affect their health. Bullard was even surprised how segregated the most polluted places really were.

Bullard was the first scientist to publish systematic research on the links between race and exposure to pollution, which he documented for a 1979 lawsuit.

“This is before everyone had [geographic information system] mapping, before iPads, iPhones, laptops, Google,” he said. “This is doing research way back with a hammer and a chisel.”

This is what Black History month means for many of my former Latino, Native American and Black college students: Highlighting and studying men like Bullard. With 18 books under his belt on this topic, Bullard’s work launched a movement, the environmental justice movement.

Imagine a presidential candidate or even president’s cabinet embracing this baseline — that everyone has the right to a clean and healthy environment, no matter their race or class.

Former vice presidential running mate with Jill Stein, Amaju Baraka states this new time strongly:

“It is Western imperialism, led by the U.S. that is responsible for the billions of human beings living in poverty, it is imperialism that degrades and destroys the earth, that makes water a commodity, food a luxury, education an impossibility and health care a distant dream. It is the rapacious greed and absolute disregard for human life by imperialism that drives the arms trade, turns human incarceration into a profitable enterprise and transforms millions into migrants and refugees because of war and economic plunder.”

Carter G. Woodson was the impetus behind today’s Black History month. In 1924, he was instrumental in the creation of Negro History and Literature Week, renamed Negro Achievement Week. The month of February has stuck, since the organizers of the first celebration picked this month because two valorized men’s birthdays fall in February: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, the 12th and the 14th respectively.

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

Today marks one month since a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila, claiming 14 lives, injuring more than 200 people, and displacing thousands more.

Downtown Port Vila remains a no-go zone.

Star Wharf, the international port, is still out of action and parts of the city and some of the villages surrounding it still have not had their water supply reconnected.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu polling underway in snap election one month after quake
• Vanuatu election: Preparation almost complete for snap ballot
• Other Vanuatu election reports

The Recovery Operations Centre estimates around 6000 workers from 200 businesses that operate in the CBD have been impacted.

All the while, loud rumbling tremors continue to rock the city; a recent one measuring above magnitude 5 on the Richter scale.

Leinasei Tarisiu lives outside of Vila but came in to vote in the snap election yesterday. She said children in her household still panic when there is an earthquake, even if it is small.

“They are still afraid. Even last night when we had that one that happened, we all ran outside,” she said.

“It’s hard for us to remain in the house.”

Ongoing trauma
The only mental health specialist at Vila Central Hospital, Dr Jimmy Obed, said the ongoing seismic activity is re-traumatising many.

Obed said as things slowly returned to something resembling normalcy, more people were reaching out for mental health support.

“What we try and tell them is that it’s a normal thing for you to be having this anxiety,” he said.

“And then we give them some skills. How to calm themselves down . . . when they are panicking, or are under stress, or have difficulty sleeping.

“Simple skills that they can use — even how children can calm and regulate their emotions.”

Trenold Tari, an aviation worker who spoke to RNZ Pacific after he had cast his vote, said he hopes they are able to elect leaders with good ideas for Vanuatu’s future.

“And not just the vision to run the government and the nation but also who has leadership qualities and is transparent. People who can work with communities and who don’t just think about themselves,” he said.

Wanting quick rebuild
Many voters in the capital said they wanted leaders who would act quickly to rebuild the quake-stricken city.

Others said they were sick of political instability.

This week’s snap election was triggered by a premature dissolution of parliament last year; the second consecutive time President Nike Vurobaravu has acted on a council of ministers’ request to dissolve the house in the face of a leadership challenge.

Counting this week’s election, Vanuatu will have had five prime ministers in the last four years.

The chairperson of the Seaside Tongoa community, Paul Fred Tariliu, said they have discussed this as a group and made their feelings clear to their election candidate.

“We told our candidate to tell the presidents of all the political parties they are affiliated with — that if they end up in government and they find at some point they don’t have the number and a motion is brought against you, please be honest and set a good example — tell one group to step down and let another government come in,” Tariliu said.

Desperate need of aid
Election fever aside, thousands of people in Port Vila are still in desperate need of assistance.

The head of the Vanuatu Red Cross Society is looking to start distributing financial relief assistance to families affected by last month’s earthquake.

The society’s secretary-general, Dickinson Tevi, said some villages were still without water and a lot of people were out of work.

“We have realised that there are still a few requests coming from the communities. People who haven’t been assessed during the emergency,” Tevi said.

“So, we have made plans to do a more detailed assessment after this to make sure we don’t leave anyone out.”

Tevi said with schools due to restart soon, parents and families who had lost their main source of income were under a lot of stress.

In a release, Save the Children Vanuatu country director Polly Bank, said disasters often had the power to suddenly turn children’s lives upside down, especially if they had lost loved ones, had their education interrupted, or had been forced to flee their homes.

Critical for children’s recovery
“In the aftermath of any disaster, it is critical for children recovering that they are able to return to their normal routines as soon as possible,” she said.

“And for most kids, this would include returning to school, where they can reconnect with friends and share their experiences.”

She said at least 12,500 children in the country may be forced to start the new school year in temporary learning centres with at least 100 classrooms across the country damaged or destroyed.

It is back to business for Vanuatu today after the public holiday that was declared yesterday to allow people to go and vote.

Unofficial election results continue to trickle in with local media reporting an even distribution of seats across the country for the Leaders Party, Vanua’aku Party, Reunification Movement for Change and the Iauko Group.

But it is still early days, with official results a while away.

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.

More than 180,000 registered voters are expected to cast their votes today with polls now open in Vanuatu.

It is remarkable the snap election is even able to happen with Friday marking one month since the 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck the capital Port Vila.

According to the government, 14 people died as a result of the quake, more than 210 were injured and thousands displaced.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu election: Preparation almost complete for snap ballot
• Other Vanuatu election reports

Despite all of this Principal Electoral Officer Guilain Malessas said they worked around the clock to deliver the election within the two-month timeframe stipulated by the constitution.

The voter turnout at the last election was less than 50 percent but Malessas is optimistic participation today will be high.

He urged voters to go and exercise their democratic right.

“This country — we own it, it’s ours. If we just sit and complain that, this, that and the other thing aren’t good but then don’t contribute to making decisions then we will never change,” Malessas said.

Not everybody convinced
But not everybody is convinced that proceeding with the election was the right decision.

The president of the Port Vila Council of Women, Jane Iatika, said many families were still grieving, traumatised and struggling to put food on the table.

“If they were thinking about the people they would have [postponed] the election and dealt with the disaster first,” she said.

“Like right now if a mother goes and lines up to vote in the election — when they come back home what are they going to eat?”

This is the second consecutive time Vanuatu’s Parliament has been dissolved in the face of political instability.

And the country has had four prime ministerial changes in as many years.

The chairman of the Seaside Tongoa community, Paul Fred Tariliu,. said people were starting to lose faith in leadership, not just in Parliament but at the community level as well.

Urging candidates to ‘be humble’
He said they had been urging their candidates to be humble and concede defeat if they found themselves short of the numbers needed to rule.

“Instead of just going [into Parliament] for a short time [then] finding out they don’t have the numbers and dissolving Parliament,” Tariliu said.

“We are wasting money.

“When we continue with this kind of attitude people lose their trust in us [community] leaders and our national leaders.”

The official results of the last election in 2022 show a low voter turnout of just over 44 percent with the lowest participation in the country, just 34 percent, registered here in the capital Port Vila.

Conducting the election itself is a complicated logistical exercise with 352 polling stations spread out over the 12,000-sq km archipelago manned by 1700 polling officials and an additional one in Nouméa for citizens residing in New Caledonia.

Proxy voting is also being facilitated for workers overseas.

360 police for security
Deputy Police Commissioner Operations Kalo Willie Ben said more than 360 police officers had been deployed to provide security for the election process.

He said there were no active security threats for the election, but he said they were prepared to deploy more resources to any part of the country should the need arise.

“My advice [to the public] is that we conduct ourselves peacefully and raise any issues through the election dispute process,” Kalo Willie Ben said.

The head of the government Recovery Unit, Peter Korisa, said according to their initial estimates it would cost just over US$230 million to fully rebuild the capital after the earthquake.

Korisa said they were getting backlash for the indefinite closure of the CBD but continued to work diligently to ensure that, whatever government comes to power this month, it would be presented with a clear recovery plan.

“We still have a bit of funding but there is a greater challenge because we need to have a government in place so that we can trigger the bigger funding,” Korisa said.

Polling stations close at 4:30pm local time.

Unofficial check count
Principal electoral officer Malessas said an unofficial count would be conducted at all polling station venues before ballot boxes were transported back to the capital Port Vila for the official tally.

According to parliamentary standing orders, the first sitting of the new Parliament must be called within 21 days of the official election results being declared.

A spokesperson for the caretaker government has confirmed to RNZ Pacific that constitutional amendments aimed at curbing political instability would apply after the snap election.

The most immediate impact of these amendments will be that all independent MPs, and MPs who are the only member of their party or custom movement, must affiliate themselves with a larger political party for the full term of Parliament.

They also lock MPs into political parties with any defection or removal from a party resulting in the MP concerned losing their seat in Parliament.

However, the amendments do not prohibit entire parties from crossing the floor to either side so long as they do it as a united group.

It remains to be seen how effective the amendments will be in curbing instability.

The only real certainty provided by the constitution after this snap election is that the option to dissolve Parliament will not be available for the next 12 months.

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.

• Oakland mayor, supporters, and faith leaders celebrate city’s first month without homicide in over a decade amid declining crime rate.
• Israel cuts ties with UN agency providing critical aid to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
• Vice president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump make final pitches to voters in crucial Pennsylvania swing state
• Berkeley voters to decide on competing ballot measures for tenant and landlord protections.

The post Oakland mayor celebrates crime reduction milestone as city goes over a month without homicide – November 4, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.

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

The murky Chinese-run special economic zone, or SEZ, along the Mekong River in Bokeo province is a gambling and tourism hub catering to Chinese visitors as well as a haven for online fraud, human trafficking, prostitution and illegal drug activities.

Scamming operations run by Chinese nationals who try to trick people into fake investments are rife in the zone and typically employ Laotians and other Asians trafficked to the area to work in the call centers. Many of the workers are mistreated and prevented from leaving the premises.

Following an Aug. 9 meeting between the governor of Bokeo province, high-ranking officials from the Lao Ministry of Public Security, and Zhao Wei, the chairman of the Golden Triangle SEZ, Lao authorities ordered all scam centers to be “completely shut down by Aug. 25,” according to state media reports and an official from the public security ministry.

The official who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, told RFA Lao on Monday that the centers were given the opportunity to “remove all of their belongings by the deadline.”

“After that, we’ll set up a special force to enforce the order,” he said.

In the first half of 2024, as many as 400 call centers were operating in the Golden Triangle SEZ, up from 305 a year earlier, the official said. The centers have mostly targeted Chinese, prompting authorities in China to team up with their counterparts in Laos to tackle the problem.

As of Monday, Lao and Chinese authorities have carried out nine raids, arresting and deporting 1,389 scammers, he said, including 1,211 Chinese nationals, 145 Vietnamese, 16 Malaysians, 13 Ethiopians and four Burmese.

Amid the scrutiny, “some of them [the call centers] shifted into online gambling centers,” the official said. “Those that were arrested and deported were not big fish; they were small fish that were hired by Chinese to work as scammers.”

Order welcomed

Residents of Bokeo welcomed the Lao government’s ultimatum.

“Getting rid of the crooks is a good move; my hat goes off to those authorities who follow the government’s policy,” said one man who lives near the SEZ. “A lot of people lost money by transferring it via their mobile phones to scammers.”

The owner of a guesthouse in SEZ said that getting rid of the scammers has been long overdue.

But he acknowledged that when the centers are shut down, “the SEZ will be empty – the hotels, guesthouses and restaurants will have no customers.”

The order to evacuate came a week after Lao authorities raided several call centers in the Golden Triangle SEZ, detaining and deporting 154 Vietnamese and 29 Chinese for their alleged involvement in the scams.

In January, Laos repatriated 268 Chinese citizens suspected of scamming while living or working at the SEZ.

In November 2023, Lao authorities arrested more than 430 Chinese nationals who appeared to be involved in fraudulent call center operations in the SEZ, and handed them over to their Chinese counterparts for deportation. 

And that September, the Lao Ministry of Public Security deported 164 Chinese arrested in Vientiane and other Lao provinces, including Bokeo. Nearly 50 of them were arrested in the Golden Triangle SEZ and believed to be involved in running call centers. 

Translated by RFA Lao. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

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

Of our most significant impressions of China, the first is the contrast between the stories the corporate media tell us about China, what they don’t want us to know, and the reality we see. The Wall Street Journal for example, asserted, “China’s economy limps into 2024” whereas in contrast the US was marked by a “resilient domestic economy.” In reality, China grew 5.3% in the first quarter of 2024. The US grew at 1.6%, Germany and France grew just 0.2%, Britain at 0.6%, and Japan -0.5%. But economic crisis is racking China!

Two, China’s infrastructure surpasses anything in the US. Jimmy Carter said “How many miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country? [zero] China has around 18,000 miles (29,000 km) of high-speed rail lines.” That was in 2019. Now it is 28,000 miles and trains can travel 220 miles per hour. A train from Shanghai to Kunming, the distance from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, takes 11 hours 40 minutes and costs $127.

What we live with here appears very backwards in comparison. Their subway systems are decades ahead of those in the US; the US train system seems a century behind. Videos such as this show what they have achieved.

Three, after experiencing China’s incredible infrastructure, you realize how the trillions of dollars spent on endless war have impoverished us. The US blows things up instead of building things to improve public well-being. Carter said the US “has wasted, I think, $3 trillion” on military spending ($5.9 trillion between 2001-2018). “Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody? None, and we have stayed at war. China has not wasted a single penny on war, and that’s why they’re ahead of us. In almost every way…We’d have high-speed railroad. We’d have bridges that aren’t collapsing, we’d have roads that are maintained properly. Our education system would be as good as that of say South Korea or Hong Kong.”

Four, clean and safe cities. We don’t see the omnipresent litter we do here. Every day a veritable army of public workers clean the streets, sidewalks, subways, parks, and other public places. These are not simply litter free, but clean. Workers making sure of it. In the US we would expect this in private buildings, universities, hospitals, fancy hotels, but not in public spaces.

Cities are not just visually clean – the noise pollution is less. Vehicle noise – and exhaust – is much less than here because buses and many cars are electric. The streets are full of people riding motorbikes, all electric ones. One in four Chinese, 350 million, have an electric scooter.

City parks are not simply clean, but make people feel welcomed and provided with activities to engage with others – ping pong, mahjong, badminton, dancing clubs, music groups, Tai Chi, exercise groups. Many elderly take part in these free public activities. Men retire at age 60, blue-collar women at 50, white-collar women at 55. Workers in health-harming professions such as underground, high-altitude, labor-intensive jobs enjoy a five-year reduction.

The pleasant, well-designed and well-kept parks often have monuments to Chinese heroes from battles against Japanese or Chiang Kai-Shek’s troops.

You can take the metro and walk anywhere and not worry about it being dirty or worry about crime.

Chinese cities have very cheap public bicycles for people on a massive scale. In Hangzhou in 2023 they had 116,000. It cost me 75 cents to use one for a day. A monthly pass drastically reduces that. In Guangzhou a monthly pass costs only $1.40.

That infamous Chinese air pollution? We went to Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Chengdu, Kunming, Guangzhou, all of which had an air quality index lower than the much less populous city of Chicago (you can check on the weather app on your phone). Today, of the world’s hundred most polluted cities, 83 are in India, just 4 in China.

Everyone seems to have a phone, used for everything – paying for what you buy through QR codes, making train, museum, hotel, bus, airplane reservations. Cash is becoming almost obsolete.

Five, an array of social services and benefits for the people. Besides very cheap public transport, China has public bathrooms everywhere. They are not like gas station bathrooms here, but decent ones like you find in big private hotels here and kept clean like them. You need not worry about where you and your children can go when in public. You don’t have to buy something from a store just to use a bathroom. You don’t smell pee anywhere. Some public bathrooms even have an electric board at the entrance telling you which stalls are occupied and which are vacant.

Seniors, even me, generally get half-price, such as at museums, national parks, on subways and trains. Many signs and regular announcements in public places ask you to mind and assist the elderly, children, and pregnant women around you.

Public service workers are everywhere, available to answer any questions you have. If they don’t know, they look it up on their phones. I saw hundreds of these public service workers in the cities and towns we toured. A downtown subway station with four entrances has four workers at each one to check your bags and belongings, a customer service office with one or two more, besides the workers cleaning the station, and the one or two on the platforms assisting riders. That may be 20-25 service workers. At a Chicago CTA stop you would find one worker. A telling reminder of how public service jobs have been cut here, and expanded in China.

WageCentre.com states the average Chinese salary is 9,500 yuan per month ($1,315) in major cities, which Statistica calls the average wage (which I think overstated). But we did find prices (and taxes) far less than here (save gas), except in Western stores, so you could at least double the buying power of a Chinese income. A subway ride was often under 50 cents (3 yuan), a bus is less – which a monthly pass cuts almost in half. A sit-down breakfast in a Chinese shop can be $5 for two; on the street, less.

Six, the complete absence of homeless people. You don’t come across unbathed people asking for money, people forced to sleep in tents in public parks, next to roadways, or on the subway. We were in nine different cities and saw just one down-and-out person on the street asking for money. The US, in the midst of wealth, has hundreds of thousands of homeless, including children, pregnant women, and the elderly. How many freeze to death in the winter, how many face hunger, seems a US state secret.

Seven, the qualitatively different nature of police relations with the people than here. The police don’t even look like US ones, armored as if for battle. I met only one with a gun; they simply carry a radio and a phone. They bear a closer similarity to our marshals at rallies than to US police. The police, like the other public workers, are there to assist you, answer your questions – when something would open, how we take public transportation to some place, the nearest ATM.

I recount two experiences with the Chinese police, which show the role Chinese police play as public servants. One day we took a train and then a bus to visit the Leshan Giant Buddha statue. When we were buying our entrance tickets, I found I had lost a little jacket from my backpack containing my wallet and our passports. Alarmed, we went to the local police station to report this.

Without passports, we cannot get back on the train to return to our hotel, check into any hotel, take our next flight, let alone leave the country. I resigned myself to spending the rest of our time in China trying to get new passports from the nearest US consulate. The local police asked us for a photo of my jacket and where we think we lost it.

Like in the US, China has video cameras most everywhere. But there, the police actually searched videos of where we told them we had been in the previous town, and in two hours reported they found where I lost it, but someone had taken it. They had to track him down. In just three hours since we reported it missing, the police had my jacket with everything and had driven to where we were to give it to us.

With cameras everywhere, many told us, China has greatly reduced crime. The difference between China and the US lies in the use cameras are put to. While cameras are omnipresent in US cities, there is zero chance police would search them to locate my jacket. Even if the US police did bother to devote any time to it, could they recover my jacket in a month?

We told the police how grateful we were for saving us, that the police wouldn’t do this in the US. The head of the station replied, “Yes, we know about the police in your country. No need to thank us. This is our job. We are just doing our job.”

My second noteworthy police experience is our arrival, after a day touring by taxi, four hours early to a small airport near Jiuzhaigou National Park. Ours was the one flight that day, and three kilometers away, the road to the airport was gated shut. The police there said it would open in two hours. But rather than have us stand outside the gate with our luggage, they opened the gate for us and four Chinese travelers, invited us to sit in their office, made us tea, and chatted with us. I cannot imagine police doing that in the US.

 In Summary

The Chinese have devoted immense public funding to public services, making you feel the world outside your front door is clean, safe, and well-organized. As a result, you feel welcomed in public places, you feel your well-being is respected. What US subway system feels like a pleasant and welcoming space? New York City’s makes you feel you have entered Purgatory. Public transport here serves to move you from one place to another at the least expense to the government. Your comfort and well-being is irrelevant.

The overall feeling created in litter-free, clean, safe cities, with no homeless, staffed with many workers who keep it in order for the people, is that in contrast to here, the Chinese government has created a society that cares about you. In the US, you feel government is indifferent to your concerns – unless you have money.

We do have quality social programs here, including for the elderly. But these have been privatized. You must pay good money for it. As the 1960-70s social movements died down, the neoliberal approach began to prevail, social services were steadily cut and privatized, no longer next to free – quality senior centers, community health centers, public universities. They still exist – for those who pay for them. Quality social services here are not a human right. In China they are. There, more and better social services are increasingly provided – and maintained in top condition – for the people.

This reduces the daily stresses and discomforts we are accustomed to living with here. It creates a more civilized environment. As we know, when we are less stressed, we feel better about ourselves and act better towards others. That’s an achievement the impressive infrastructure and social services have created in China – reducing the general stress level of the whole population. China is creating a more humane place to live. Chinese who live here and go back to visit can tell you every year China gets better.

Similarly, when the US blockades a country, like Cuba, Venezuela, or Iran, it greatly increases the stress level in the population. It causes scarcities, which drives people to compete over scarce goods. That causes more personal and social conflicts.

Remember, at the start of the revolution just 75 years ago, China’s illiteracy rate was 80%. Now it is the most technologically advanced country on the planet. Equally world historic are the revolutionary gains in human rights for the hundreds of millions of women, progressing from beasts of burden owned by men to full and (nearly) equal citizens, all in the space of one lifetime. Moreover, in a mere forty years, as the Asia Development Bank states, China raised 750 million out of poverty, reducing poverty from 88% in 1981 to 0.1% in 2023.

China stands out today as the only country to ever surpass the US in development. The US rulers do not take this as an example to learn from, but as a mortal threat. China carefully accomplished this feat without being “regime changed,” attacked, or economically disabled by the US. The US succeeded in undermining the Soviet Union, then sabotaged the growing power of Japan and the European Union, and then broke the increasing closer relations between Russia and Europe by instigating the Ukraine war. But the various US strategies to disable China have failed one after another. As a result, today China presents a progressive and growing alternative force to the world power of the US empire.

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

The Saga Dawa festival occurs during the fourth month of the Tibetan lunar calendar and runs from May 9 to June 6 this year. 

For Tibetan Buddhists, it marks the period of Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and parinirvana — the state entered after death by someone who has attained nirvana during their lifetime.

During the holy month, thousands of religious pilgrims visit temples and walk sacred kora routes around Lingkhor and Barkhor streets in Lhasa, encircling the revered Jokhang Temple. 

The ritual kora — making a circumambulation around sacred sites or objects as part of a pilgrimage — holds immense significance for Tibetan Buddhists who believe that virtuous deeds performed during Saga Dawa are magnified based on their location.

A video obtained by Radio Free Asia showed heavy police presence surrounding the Barkhor area — the heart of the capital with its famed pilgrimage circuit — on May 22, the eve of the 15th day of the fourth month of the Tibetan Lunar calendar, considered one of the holiest days during Saga Dawa. 

Since the start of Saga Dawa, Chinese police have tightened security around key religious sites, including Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple, and the Barkhor area, the sources told RFA.

The measures illustrate the deterioration of religious freedom in Tibet under the Chinese government’s suppression and Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism — a policy that seeks to bring the religion under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.

Police everywhere

While devotees were seen on pilgrimage on the other days of Saga Dawa, the 15th day on May 23 saw heightened restrictions, with police stationed along the pathways leading to the Sera, Gandhen and Drepung monasteries, said the sources who declined to be named out of fear of retribution by authorities.

“There isn’t any place where you don’t see police and interrogation stations,” one of the sources told RFA. 

The Chinese government has increased the number of police checkpoints in and around Lhasa, and authorities have been interrogating Tibetans spontaneously, the person said. 

Individuals who do not have a shenfenzhang, or Chinese resident identity card, are prohibited from visiting temples, leading to the heightened restrictions now in effect, said a second source. 

“During our visits to circumambulate the holy sites, Chinese police regularly inspect everyone's identity cards and engage in arguments,” said a third source. 

“Having to engage in disputes with the Chinese police takes an emotional toll on us, and this is one of the reasons why many are afraid of engaging in religious activities as often as they’d like,” he said.

Facial recognition technology is pervasive at key pilgrimage sites and authorities regularly frisk Tibetans making pilgrimages, said a fourth source.

Flag-raising festival

Additionally, during the Ngari Flag Raising Festival in Purang county, called Pulan in Chinese, of Ngari Prefecture in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, ​​Chinese authorities increased security  as people gathered on May 23 for the annual ceremony, and banned the use of drones during the event, according to the sources. 

The annual tradition of hoisting a large central prayer flag pole in front of Mount Kailash in Tibet began in 1681 during the time of the 5th Dalai Lama.

In a government notice dated May 16, the Pulan County Public Security Bureau in Talqin said the use of drones and other aircraft during the Saga Dawa flag raising festival was prohibited and that violators would be punished. 

Tibetans who attended the event were subjected to extensive questioning and coerced into agreeing to uphold social order and refraining from causing discord, said one of the sources.

Police instructed people not to share photos or videos of the festival on social media, he said.

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

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Pelbar and Sonam Lhamo for RFA Tibetan.

This assault was pivotal in three respects. First, it cemented hard core Zionism  including unrepentant violence at the core of the country. This is shown not only by the atrocities committed against their Arab neighbors.  It is shown in the attempt to sink the USS Liberty and kill all its US navy personnel. Second, it created the myth of Israeli military and intelligence superiority.  Third, it generated huge support for the Zionist state internationally. As they say, “Everybody loves a winner”,  and Israel was the undisputed winner in 1967.  Anti-Zionist sentiment in the US and international Jewish community, previously quite strong,  declined significantly. Western support for Israel increased dramatically. Due to effective propaganda, public support also increased.

The decades since then have seen a consistent Israeli refusal to compromise with the people whose land they took and whose livelihoods they control. Gaza has been under siege for decades and a concentration camp since 2007. The West Bank and Jerusalem are not much better with ever tightening restrictions, checkpoints and arrests.

The Al Aqsa Flood Operation

On 7 October 2023 it was the Israeli military that was shocked.  Hamas and other Palestinian resistance forces broke out of the concentration camp, seized Israeli military posts, entered Israeli towns and kibbutzes. They killed about 400 Israeli military and police and took about 250 military and civilians hostage. About 800 civilians died either from Hamas gunfire or Israeli tanks or Apache gunship helicopters. Hundreds of cars  containing both Palestinians and Israelis were demolished by the latter.

The Israeli assumptions of  military, intelligence and ethnic superiority were exploded that day. In  rage, Israeli military  and political officials vowed to avenge  the embarrassment and military setback. Ministry of Defense Yoav Galant said Palestinians were “human animals” and vowed to kill through military means and starvation. They vowed to “destroy Hamas” and immediately launched wave after wave of bombing attacks.  After about  a month of bombing, the Israeli military entered Gaza . They are still there.

Steeped in belief in Jewish supremacy, much of the Israeli public supports the ongoing massacre. Now, after six months of relentless attacks,  the belief in Israeli superiority has fallen apart. The Israeli military has not been able to “destroy” Hamas or weaken Palestinian resolve. On the contrary, support for Hamas and the other resistance forces has increased both in Gaza and the West Bank.  Israeli leaders thought they could easily conquer and “destroy” Hamas but they have not been able to do that despite billions in US and western supplied armaments.

Hamas and the other Palestinian militants have survived and still inflict significant losses on the Israeli military. Yesterday, four more Israeli soldiers were killed in Khan Younis.

Israel has destroyed United Nations schools and shelters, churches and mosques, universities and even hospitals. They have killed over 100 reporters and thousands of  health workers, ambulance drivers, doctors and university professors. The recent killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers was only exceptional because the victims were from the West. Israel has been committing atrocities like this against Palestinians for six months. .

1967 vs Today

As Israel’s international stature grew after the Six Day War, it is collapsing after the Six Month Siege and Massacre in Gaza.  In 1967 many American Jews embraced Israel. Now, rapidly growing numbers condemn Israel’s atrocities and want nothing to do with the country. They correctly perceive the difference between a state (Israel) and ideology (Zionism)  on the one hand, and a faith and ethnicity on the other. They are proud to wear T-shirts saying “Jewish Voice for Peace” and  “If Not Now”.

The Global Majority of nations are fervently opposed to Israel and what it is doing. The UN General Assembly has condemned the Zionist state and numerous countries have withdrawn their ambassadors.

Even western states closely allied with Israel, such as Canada, are changing their tune. Canada has suspended arms shipments to Israel and restored funding to UNRWA.

The International Court of Justice has recently ordered Israel to allow food and aid into Gaza. The Australian ICJ judge confirmed they have ordered Israel to suspend military operations in Gaza. If Israel refuses to comply, it will only increase the global condemnation.

As another sign of how much geopolitics are changing, Nicaragua has filed a case at the International Court of Justice charging Germany with complicity in Israel’s genocide.

The US Congress and Administration continues to support Israel’s genocide but is now shifting due to popular pressure, protests and demands. Even Democratic Party leader Nancy Pelosi is now urging Biden to cease arms shipments to Israel.

The Six Month Failure

Israel’s Six Month Failure has fueled the contradictions inherent in the state.  Political and religious contradictions are escalating with bigger and bigger demonstrations against Netanyahu and his refusal to end the war and bring home the hostages.  Demonstrations inside Israel are getting bigger and more volatile. Last Saturday, five protesters were purposely hit by a car.

We have passed the tipping point.  The unrelenting slaughter of Palestinian civilians over the past six months has forever changed the perception of  Israel in the West.

Israel is now widely seen internationally as a “bad guy” similar to how the US was seen in the late 60’s in Vietnam. Just as the Tet Offensive cost the lives of tens of thousands of Vietnamese but was a crucial turning point, the October 7 Al Aqsa Flood operation marks a crucial turning point for Palestine.

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

The program is modeled after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, launched in 1933 to help the country make it through the Great Depression. The positions with the new corps could range across a number of fields including energy-efficiency installations, disaster response preparedness, recycling, and wildfire mitigation.

The White House plans to officially launch an online platform in April. At first, only a couple of hundred jobs will be posted, but eventually up to 20,000 young people are expected to be hired in the program’s first year. Interested candidates can apply to the positions through the portal, and the majority of the positions are not expected to require experience.

“The American Climate Corps is a story of hope and possibilities,” said Maggie Thomas, a special assistant to the president for climate change. “There’s an incredible demand signal from young people who we see as being put on a pathway to good-paying careers.”

That path could include work such as installing wind and solar projects, conserving energy in homes, and restoring ecosystems, such as wetlands, to protect towns from flooding. Thomas announced a logo for the program at the Aspen Ideas climate conference in Miami on Wednesday.

The American Climate Corps has wide support, meaning that those few hundred open spots available next month might fill up quickly. Some 71 percent of voters approve of the idea, including well over half of Republicans, according to polling Data for Progress conducted last October. And previous polling has shown that half of likely voters under 45 would consider joining the program, given the chance.

That demand was evident at a series of public listening sessions held by the White House earlier this year. The events were oversubscribed and ran over time with participants eager to sign up for potential jobs, Thomas said. Given the demand, President Biden promised to triple the size of the corps in a decade at his State of the Union speech last week. His newly proposed budget calls for an $8 billion expansion of the American Climate Corps to employ an additional 50,000 corps members per year by 2031. 

Still, that’s nowhere close to the dreams some progressives had for the program: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York had hoped it would put 1.5 million Americans to work addressing the climate crisis. Nor is it comparable to the original Civilian Conservation Corps, which hired 3 million men to plant billions of trees, fight forest fires, prevent erosion, and build trails you can still hike at national parks today.

The current version of the American Climate Corps is in many ways a compromise of Biden’s initial plans to revive that program and update it for the problems of the 21st century. The corps was initially funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark climate bill Biden signed in 2021. But that funding was stripped from the bill before passage. As a result, funding for the American Climate Corps had to be cobbled together from existing funding from seven agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Interior.

One source of funding for these positions is the $2 billion in environmental justice community grants allotted to the EPA in November. The EPA grants could potentially be used by a grassroots community organization that, say, is deploying air monitors in neighborhoods, Thomas said. The group could apply for funding from the EPA and then use the money to hire a small team of people through the American Climate Corps website. 

“We’ve been trying to think creatively about the sources of funds that we are bringing to the table to ensure that we’re building justice and equity into the fabric of the American Climate Corps,” Thomas said. 

Whether Congress approves Biden’s request for $8 billion to expand the corps is very much up in the air, but Thomas hopes that the rollout of the program in the coming months will make its popularity clear. 

“Once you see the impact of what the American Climate Corps will be in communities across the country, it’s going to be really hard for members of Congress to deny the incredible opportunity that exists with a program like this,” she said.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline You can start applying for the American Climate Corps next month on Mar 13, 2024.

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

• Palestinians begin Muslim holy month of Ramadan as humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens.
• Trump seeking to delay his March 25 hush money payment trial.
• Swedish climate activists Greta Thunberg and others take their climate message to Sweden’s parliament. 
• President Biden releases his 2025 budget as his campaign heats up.
• UC Berkeley Jewish students rally on campus to demand university combat antisemitism.
• Swedish flag raised over NATO headquarters in Brussels as Nordic country joins alliance.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – March 11, 2024 Palestinians begin Muslim holy month of Ramadan as humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens. appeared first on KPFA.

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

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

Ukrainian military spokesman Dmytro Lykhoviy said on March 4 that the fighting is especially heavy on the eastern outskirts of the village of Novomikhaylovka near Maryinka.

"At the same time, we are saying that in this hottest sector of the direct Russian assault, we are managing to stabilize the situation and the enemy's advance has been halted," Lykhoviy said.

Russian units in this area are attacking even more fiercely using small assault groups and first-person view (FPV) drones, as well as carrying out massive artillery and air strikes, Lykhoviy said.

Russian forces are focusing on an area around the village of Novomikhaylovka, where they were "transferring reinforcements from the depths of Russia," he added in comments to LIGA.net.

In Odesa, an air alert was sounded early on March 5, and air defense forces were operating in the Odesa region, the Ukrainian Air Force said.

The southern Ukrainian port city is still reeling from a Russian drone attack on March 2 that killed 12 people, including five children aged 4 months to 10 years.

Russian forces captured Avdiyivka last month in the biggest victory for Moscow in months, and Russia's Defense Ministry last week said its forces had captured new villages outside the city, but that claim could not be confirmed.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Moscow's forces had "as a result of coordinated action continued to occupy more advantageous positions" near Avdiyivka. It made no mention of the area near Novomikhaylovka.

Elsewhere in the country, Russian artillery shelling during the day on March 4 damaged a school, a kindergarten, and more than 20 apartments in the city of Seredyna-Buda in the northeastern Sumy region, the regional prosecutor-general's office said on Facebook.

The border village was hit in November by strikes that killed three people.

Meanwhile, the head of the press service of the Eastern Group of the Ukrainian military, Ilya Yevlash, said that the military is preparing to defend the village of Chasiv Yar.

Ukrainian forces are currently trying to hold territory that lies between Chasiv Yar and Bakhmut in heavy fighting, Yevlash said. But the Russian army is constantly transferring significant reserves, and its troops are advancing from different flanks, attacking Ukrainian positions head-on, he added.

Chasiv Yar itself is also under constant attack, according to Yevlash. The Russian Army is firing mortars, automatic mounted grenade launchers, and using drones and aircraft.

As Russian forces attempt to press their advantage on the battlefield, exhausted Ukrainian defenders are battling on despite artillery and equipment shortages.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said on March 4 that he and the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces discussed with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin the front-line situation and the supply of weapons.

"We are working together on providing for the needs of the Ukrainian armed forces and increasing the army's capabilities," Umerov said, adding that Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskiy had also taken part in the call.

Syrskiy said on Telegram that he and Umerov also spoke with British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps and the chief of Britain's Defense Staff, Sir Tony Radakin.

Syrskiy said the discussions focused on the needs of the Ukrainian military and the development of Ukraine's naval capabilities with help from Kyiv's allies.

With reporting by Reuters

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

In his first four weeks in office, Louisiana Republican Governor Jeff Landry has filled the ranks of state environmental posts with fossil fuel executives. 

Landry has taken aim at the state’s climate task force for possible elimination as part of a sweeping reorganization of Louisiana’s environmental bureaucracy. The goal, according to Landry’s executive order, is to “create a better prospective business climate.” 

And in his first month, Landry changed the name of the Department of Natural Resources, the state agency with oversight of the fossil fuel industry, by adding the word “energy” to its title.

While the United States and other countries have vowed to move away from fossil fuels, Landry is running in the opposite direction.

Landry, who has labeled climate change “a hoax,” wants to grow the oil and gas industry that supports hundreds of thousands of jobs in Louisiana. Environmentalists blame the industry for the pollution that has harmed vulnerable communities in the state and for the climate change tied to increased flooding, land loss, drought, and heat waves in the Gulf Coast state.

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A key indicator of where Landry is headed is the choice of Tyler Gray to lead the state’s Department of Energy and Natural Resources. Gray enters the new administration after spending the past two years working for Placid Refining Company as the oil company’s corporate secretary and lobbyist. 

Before that, Gray spent seven years with the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, or LMOGA, his final two years serving as the lobbying group’s president. During his tenure with LMOGA, Gray helped draft the controversial 2018 law that criminalized protesting near the oil and gas pipelines and construction sites. 

At the time, Gray said the law was needed as protection from individuals who attempt to unlawfully interrupt the construction of pipeline projects or damage existing facilities. Greenpeace USA found such laws — enacted in 18 states — were directly tied to lobbying by the fossil fuel industry and resulted in insulating more than 60 percent of the U.S. gas and oil industry facilities from protest. 

Anne Rolfes with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a grassroots nonprofit focused on accountability in the petrochemical industry, has a grim outlook on Gray’s tenure. Her organization has been involved with many of the protests in question.

“His willingness to suppress people’s rights in favor of that industry is alarming,” Rolfes said.

“He’s been writing laws that favor the oil industry over the rights of people throughout his career,” she added. “But the state has never stood up to the oil industry. Under every administration there is this myopic idea of destroying our state via the oil and gas industry is somehow economic development.”

Neither Landry nor Gray’s office responded to multiple requests for comments.

Landry picks have oil, gas, and coal ties

Gray is one of several former fossil fuel executives Landry has selected to lead Louisiana’s environmental efforts.

Tony Alford, the former co-owner and president of a Houma-based oil-field service company that was accused of spilling toxic waste in a Montana lawsuit, is now the chairman of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection. And Benjamin Bienvenu, an oil industry executive and petroleum engineer, is serving as the commissioner of conservation within the Department of Energy and Natural Resources. 

Landry also tapped Aurelia Giacometto to lead the state’s Department of Environmental Quality. It was reported that Giacometto, the first Black woman to serve in the position, had ties with skeptics of climate science when she served under then-President Donald Trump as head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She currently sits on the board of a coal manufacturing company. 

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And Landry’s pick for the state’s new leader for the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Madison Sheahan, doesn’t have a background in wildlife — or fisheries. She enters the job after serving as the executive director of the South Dakota Republican Party and managing Trump’s re-election campaign in that state. The agency led by Sheahan is one of the state entities responsible for investigating oil spills.

At a recent press conference, Landry said he seeks to expand oil and gas refining in Louisiana, seeing it as the only way to increase job opportunities for the middle class. 

For environmentalists, these are worrying signs for a state that is the site of a boom in proposed liquified natural gas facilities and carbon capture projects that they say threaten to increase Louisiana’s already high contribution of climate-changing greenhouse gases.

In late January, President Joe Biden announced his administration was halting approvals of new liquified natural gas export facilities to examine the need for the additional capacity and the environmental impact of such projects. The temporary delay reportedly affects five projects in Louisiana and one in Texas. 

Louisiana’s ‘sacrifice zone’

Landry’s moves weren’t unexpected, advocates say, given his past actions as state attorney general and his combative stance toward environmental justice issues. 

Gray’s appointment is “disappointing but not surprising,” said Jackson Voss, climate policy coordinator for the Alliance for Affordable Energy.

“Unfortunately, from our perspective, the history of the [Louisiana] Department of Natural Resources has always been very deeply connected with the oil and gas industry,” Voss said. “In some ways it helps us, because there’s not going to be very many surprises about where Secretary Gray will align on certain issues.” 

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The big question behind Biden’s liquefied natural gas pause

Jake Bittle

In its latest report, Human Rights Watch highlighted the environmental harms and health-related issues the oil and gas industry is accused of inflicting on predominantly Black communities in the southeast Louisiana corridor known as Cancer Alley. The group is asking state leaders to phase out fossil fuel production and to halt any new developments or expansions to existing fossil fuel and petrochemical facilities. 

Author Antonia Juhasz interviewed dozens of residents living in Cancer Alley who talked about miscarriages, high-risk pregnancies, infertility, respiratory issues and a multitude of other health impacts in their communities. They attribute the maladies to years of pollution and dangerous emissions from the high concentration of polluting industries, especially in southern Louisiana.  

“The fossil fuel and petrochemical industry has created a ‘sacrifice zone’ in Louisiana,” Juhasz, senior researcher on fossil fuels at Human Rights Watch, said in a prepared statement. “The failure of state and federal authorities to properly regulate the industry has dire consequences for residents of Cancer Alley.”

Landry takes aim at oil and gas limits

As the state’s attorney general, Landry pushed lawsuits against restrictions the Biden administration tried to implement on offshore oil lease sales and the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline. 

He also sued over the Environmental Protection Agency’s push to better regulate emissions from oil and gas facilities in Cancer Alley.

A Trump-appointed federal district court judge in western Louisiana recently sided with Landry on that lawsuit. U.S. District Judge James Cain said in his opinion that the federal agency’s enhanced oversight of proposed projects in Cancer Alley communities overstepped its powers and that it was “imposing an improper financial burden on the state.” 

Read Next

Human Rights Watch blames Louisiana regulators for low birth weights in Cancer Alley

Lylla Younes

As attorney general, Landry also sued to obtain correspondence between EPA, environmentalists and certain journalists. 

As governor, Landry has opposed Biden’s climate initiatives, including the push to increase manufacturing of electric vehicles. And Landry has claimed that boosting renewable energy in Louisiana, including solar and wind, would force the state into “energy poverty.” 

Oil and Gas Association applauds appointment

Landry’s pick of Gray was lauded by the president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association. In a prepared statement, Mike Moncla praised Gray for knowing their industry “backwards and forwards.” 

“This appointment marks the state of a new era for our state’s oil and gas industry,” Moncla wrote. “We know that he will be an incredible asset for our industry.” 

At LMOGA, Gray also pushed back at any efforts to limit offshore drilling and domestic energy production to reduce planet-warming emissions. Gray said the country needed “sound, science-based policies” and solutions to address climate change that also promote “domestic energy development” while not stifling the state’s economy and job market. 

Read Next

A Louisiana court just revived plans for the country’s biggest plastics plant

Lylla Younes

LMOGA is a staunch supporter of carbon capture and sequestration. The agency Gray now leads recently received primary regulatory oversight from the federal government for the wells used to pump carbon dioxide underground for permanent storage. 

The technology is being touted as the solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but debates are ongoing over its safety and effectiveness. 

Environmental advocates argue that carbon capture and storage is just a ploy to prolong the life of the fossil fuel industry instead of transitioning to cleaner energy sources like wind and solar. They lack confidence in the state’s ability to properly permit carbon capture projects with Gray at the helm. 

“With Gray’s appointment and then an already heavily underfunded and understaffed agency, it very much feels like they’ll be sending those permits through instead of truly evaluating them one by one,” said Angelle Bradford, a spokesperson with the Delta chapter of the Sierra Club. “It’s once again the usual good-old-boy mentality where we’re putting people in positions who not only won’t follow the rules but create rules that make it harder for the other side, which is us.”

She added, “Louisiana is not taking the climate crisis seriously.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline When a climate denier becomes Louisiana’s governor: Jeff Landry’s first month in office on Feb 15, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Terry L. Jones, Floodlight.

The findings from RFE/RL's Russian Service corroborate earlier statements from Ukrainian military officials, underscoring how Kyiv's ability to secure its command communications is potentially threatened.

It comes as Ukrainian forces grapple with depleted weaponry and ammunition, and overall exhaustion, with Russian forces pressing localized offensives in several locations along the 1,200-kilometer front line. The industrial city of Avdiyivka, in particular, is under severe strain with Russian forces making steady advances, threatening to encircle Ukrainian defenses there.

Ukraine has relied heavily on Starlink, a network for low-orbit satellites that provide high-speed Internet access. The network is owned by SpaceX, the private space company that is in turn owned by Musk, the American billionaire entrepreneur.

They are used on the front line primarily for stable communications between units, medics, and commanders. Ukrainian troops have also experimented with installing Starlink antennas on large attack drones, which are an essential tool for Ukrainian troops but are frequently jammed by Russian electronic-warfare systems.

However, a growing number of Ukrainian military sources and civilian activists have pointed to evidence that Russian troops are using the network, either for their own communications or to potentially monitor Ukraine's.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

On February 11, Ukraine's military intelligence service, known as HUR, said Russian forces were not only using Starlink terminals but also doing it in a "systemic" way. HUR also published an audio excerpt of what it said was an intercepted exchange between two Russian soldiers discussing how to set up the terminals.

Units like Russia's 83rd Air Assault Brigade, which is fighting in the partially occupied eastern region of Donetsk, are reportedly using the system, HUR spokesman Andriy Yusov was quoted as saying.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said on February 13 that Russia was acquiring Starlink terminals from unnamed Arab countries.

Starlink has said that it does not do business with Russia's government or its military, and Musk himself published a statement on his social-media company X, formerly Twitter, in response to the Ukrainian assertions.

"A number of false news reports claim that SpaceX is selling Starlink terminals to Russia. This is categorically false. To the best of our knowledge, no Starlinks have been sold directly or indirectly to Russia," Musk wrote on February 11.

Russian troops may have acquired Starlink terminals from one of potentially dozens of companies within Russia that claim to sell them alongside household products, RFE/RL found.

One Russian website, called Topmachines.ru, advertised a Starlink set for 220,000 rubles (about $2,200), and a $100 monthly subscription fee.

Starlink appears to have lax oversight on the type of personal data used by new Starlink clients when they register for the first time, as well.

One Moscow-based reseller told RFE/RL that new accounts were registered with random European first and last names and that there is no need to enter a valid European passport. The only important thing, the vendor said, is to have a valid bank card that uses one of the main international payment systems.

Another vendor told RFE/RL that the terminals he sold were brought in from Europe, though he declined to specify which country. The vendor said a terminal costs 250,000 rubles (about $2,400), and the monthly fee was 14,000 rubles.

Additionally, Starlink's technology appears to be incapable of precisely restricting signal access; independent researchers say Starlink's system only knows the approximate location of its terminals, meaning it would have to restrict access for Ukrainian frontline positions in order to limit Russian battlefield use.

IStories, an independent Russian news outlet, also identified at least three vendors in Moscow who claim to sell Starlink terminals.

Asked by reporters whether Russian troops might be using Starlink terminals, Peskov said: "This is not a certified system with us, therefore, it cannot be supplied and is not supplied officially. Accordingly, we cannot use it officially in any way."

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Ken Klippenstein.

• Israelis mark one month anniversary of deadly Hamas attack as war in Gaza rages on.
• Supreme Court appears set to uphold ban on domestic abusers owning guns.
• Elections take place around the country, governors races and abortion rights are on the ballot in some states.
• House votes to go ahead with formal censure vote of Democrat Rashida Tlaib for controversial Israel statements.
• Special counsel in Hunter Biden investigation meets in private with Congressional investigators.
• We Work to close dozens of offices amid financial trouble.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – November 7, 2023 Israelis mark one month anniversary of deadly Hamas attack as war in Gaza rages on. appeared first on KPFA.

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

A White House official said Friday that preparations are underway for U.S. President Joe Biden to meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in San Francisco next month.

Speaking after Biden met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Washington, the senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment on the talks, said U.S. officials are “making preparations” for the Xi-Biden meeting next month.

“We’re working together toward such a goal,” the official said, noting that “Chinese leaders often confirm publicly much closer to a trip.”

Earlier, Biden vowed during his meeting with Wang to “work together” with Beijing, according to a readout from the White House, and said the world’s two powers “need to manage competition in the relationship responsibly and maintain open lines of communication.”

John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also attended, and that Sullivan was hosting Wang at Blair House for further talks. Wang is scheduled to depart Saturday.

The meeting between Biden and Xi would take place on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco from Nov. 12-18. Kirby that no concrete plans were made Friday. 

The pair have met only once since Biden took office – last year in Bali, Indonesia – and Xi has not visited America since an April 2017 trip to then-President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

But Kirby cautioned patience, saying both sides “acknowledge the importance of leader-level channels of communication” and that Biden had repeatedly said he wants to meet soon with Xi.

“When there’s something to confirm, we’ll confirm it,” Kirby said.

Talk it out

Wang arrived in Washington on Thursday evening for his first trip to the United States since before the COVID-19 pandemic, with Blinken welcoming him for a “working dinner” at the State Department. 

Wang told reporters before the dinner that it was important for U.S. and Chinese leaders to ignore “jarring voices” in their societies and strive for a “healthy” and “stable” relationship.

“We have disagreements, we have differences. At the same time, we also share important common interests, and we face challenges that we need to respond to together,” the Chinese foreign minister said.

Blinken, in even briefer remarks, said that he was looking forward to “constructive conversations over the next few days.”

Before Wang’s meeting with Biden, the two top diplomats met again for a closed-door meeting on Friday morning, with a State Department readout saying that the pair discussed “a range of issues,” including both “areas of difference” and “areas of cooperation.”

The readout again emphasized the need for “open lines of communication” with Beijing to “responsibly manage” tense ties, language that the White House has used since the start of the thaw in relations with China in June, when Blinken visited Beijing.

Warmer ties, though, have been criticized by some in Congress.

Republican leaders on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, for instance, have called on the White House to “not fall for false promises” from a government they said had proved “an unreliable partner.”

On Friday, the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China also issued a statement saying that Biden administration officials who meet Wang "must raise the cases of Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, Tibetans and other political prisoners unjustly detained in China.”

Asked whether Biden had raised any such concerns during his meeting with Wang, Kirby said that he could not offer any details. 

‘Unsafe intercepts’

Wang’s trip also comes as the United States released more footage of a near accident between a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. B-52 bomber over the South China Sea, which it said occurred on Tuesday and was the latest in more than 180 such incidents since 2021.

A U.S. statement said that the Chinese fighter jet flew at an “uncontrolled excessive speed, flying below, in front of, and within 10 feet of the B-52, putting both aircraft in danger of a collision.”

Earlier this month, the Pentagon said it believed the goal of such behavior is “to pressure the United States and other nations to reduce or cease lawful operations near areas where Beijing claims territorial sovereignty,” such as in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

Kirby said American officials routinely “raised our concerns about the unsafe intercepts in the South China Sea” in talks with Chinese officials.

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said that the close encounters were the fault of the U.S. military, which she argued had no business flying jets over the South China Sea.

“The U.S. military planes traveled thousands of miles to China’s doorstep to flex muscle,” Mao said. “That is the source of maritime and air security risks, and is not conducive to regional peace and stability.”

Updated to include the White House official's comments about a Biden/Xi meeting.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.

“Guinean authorities must ensure a free flow of information in the country and immediately restore access to the Guinée Matin and Inquisiteur news websites, which have been inaccessible in the country for more than a month,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator in New York. “Restricting these news websites is a flagrant violation of the right to media freedom and every Guinean citizen’s right to access information from a diversity of independent news sources. The Guinean authorities must not allow this apparent censorship to continue.”

The website of Guinée Matin has been inaccessible in Guinea since August 15, and Inquisiteur has been inaccessible since September 1, according to Guinée Matin’s director, Nouhou Baldé, and Inquisiteur’s website administrator, Mamadou Babila Keita. Both websites are accessible outside of Guinea. 

Azoka Bah, a spokesperson for the Guinean Ministry of Communication, told CPJ that the government was not responsible for the blockages and referred the matter to the country’s media regulator, the High Authority for Communication.

The president of the regulator declined to respond to CPJ’s questions, stating he was on leave.

In May 2023, several news websites, including Guinée Matin and Inquisiteur, were inaccessible for a period of days before a demonstration by the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution, a coalition of opposition political parties and civil society groups, according to news reports and Keita.

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

“Guinean authorities must ensure a free flow of information in the country and immediately restore access to the Guinée Matin and Inquisiteur news websites, which have been inaccessible in the country for more than a month,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator in New York. “Restricting these news websites is a flagrant violation of the right to media freedom and every Guinean citizen’s right to access information from a diversity of independent news sources. The Guinean authorities must not allow this apparent censorship to continue.”

The website of Guinée Matin has been inaccessible in Guinea since August 15, and Inquisiteur has been inaccessible since September 1, according to Guinée Matin’s director, Nouhou Baldé, and Inquisiteur’s website administrator, Mamadou Babila Keita. Both websites are accessible outside of Guinea. 

Azoka Bah, a spokesperson for the Guinean Ministry of Communication, told CPJ that the government was not responsible for the blockages and referred the matter to the country’s media regulator, the High Authority for Communication.

The president of the regulator declined to respond to CPJ’s questions, stating he was on leave.

In May 2023, several news websites, including Guinée Matin and Inquisiteur, were inaccessible for a period of days before a demonstration by the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution, a coalition of opposition political parties and civil society groups, according to news reports and Keita.

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

“Guinean authorities must ensure a free flow of information in the country and immediately restore access to the Guinée Matin and Inquisiteur news websites, which have been inaccessible in the country for more than a month,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator in New York. “Restricting these news websites is a flagrant violation of the right to media freedom and every Guinean citizen’s right to access information from a diversity of independent news sources. The Guinean authorities must not allow this apparent censorship to continue.”

The website of Guinée Matin has been inaccessible in Guinea since August 15, and Inquisiteur has been inaccessible since September 1, according to Guinée Matin’s director, Nouhou Baldé, and Inquisiteur’s website administrator, Mamadou Babila Keita. Both websites are accessible outside of Guinea. 

Azoka Bah, a spokesperson for the Guinean Ministry of Communication, told CPJ that the government was not responsible for the blockages and referred the matter to the country’s media regulator, the High Authority for Communication.

The president of the regulator declined to respond to CPJ’s questions, stating he was on leave.

In May 2023, several news websites, including Guinée Matin and Inquisiteur, were inaccessible for a period of days before a demonstration by the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution, a coalition of opposition political parties and civil society groups, according to news reports and Keita.

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

As we mark Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States, Congressmember Jesús “Chuy” García says it’s important to celebrate the contributions of activists who fought racial and economic inequality. The Illinois Democrat is the first Mexican immigrant from the Midwest elected to Congress and recently delivered a speech on the House floor to mark the 40th anniversary of the killing of Chicago activist Rudy Lozano, whom García considered a friend and mentor. Lozano was murdered in 1983, after working to build multiracial support for the historic election of Chicago’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington. “Activists like Rudy Lozano … were responsible for movements that have empowered Latino, African American, Asian and other discriminated communities over a 40-year span,” says García. He also recalls the work of Bert Corona, who started the Mexican American labor organization CASA, which had nationwide chapters that served as organizing hubs and protested the Vietnam War.

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

“Guinea’s High Authority for Communication should immediately lift its suspension of the entire Dépêche Guinée website and publishing director Abdoul Latif Diallo and ensure journalists can freely cover issues of public interest without fear of sanction,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator in Durban, South Africa. “The suspension is a blunt censorship tool that denies the Guinean public an important information source.”

The September 11 suspension order sent by the High Authority for Communication cited an August 20 report about alleged corruption and mismanagement of the country’s legal bar. It accused the outlet of failing to adequately “verify” and “cross-check information” for that report, according to Latif Diallo, who spoke to CPJ by phone, and CPJ’s review of the order. 

In the order, the regulator also cited an August 21 complaint it received from the Guinea Bar Association against Latif Diallo and Dépêche Guinée for defamation and “violating ethical and deontological principles of the journalistic profession.” 

Latif Diallo told CPJ he complied with the regulator’s order and halted publication on Monday.

Reached via messaging app, Boubacar Yacine Diallo, the regulator’s president, referred CPJ to the suspension order.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

“As we have warned publicly, arms negotiations between Russia and the DPRK are actively advancing,” U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said Monday, referring to North Korea by its formal name.

“We have information that Kim Jong Un expects these discussions to continue, to include leader-level diplomatic engagement in Russia,” she added.

A South Korean diplomatic official also confirmed to Radio Free Asia that the visit would occur this month, adding that Seoul was closely monitoring the development with Washington.

The potential meeting comes as North Korea is publicly backing Russia in its aggression against Ukraine. Through its state media, it has reiterated its support of Russia’s aggression, raising suspicion that Pyongyang is also providing ammunition to Moscow.

While the specific agenda for the summit remains unclear, arms trading is expected to be a focal point of the meeting, given Russia’s urgent need for military equipment, and North Korea’s need for diplomatic support amid growing US-South Korea-Japan security cooperation.

Washington issued a stern warning against North Korea last month regarding weapons transactions with Russia. The White House’s national security spokesperson John Kirby said the U.S. was concerned about potential arms deals between Russia and North Korea.

A reinforced alliance between the two may enable North Korea to further advance its nuclear and missile capabilities, leveraging Russian technology and expertise. This could destabilize the delicate balance on the Korean Peninsula and challenge the deterrence capabilities of regional stakeholders like South Korea and Japan.

A united front from North Korea and Russia may embolden their respective stances against the U.S. and its allies, potentially undermining diplomatic efforts and escalating tensions in broader geopolitical arenas.

“It’s worth noting that this meeting took place against the backdrop of escalating tensions between the U.S. and both Russia and China,” Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul who had advised the South Korean government over the years, said. “This implies that the Korean Peninsula matter might soon be entangled in a ‘neo-Cold War-like framework’. Essentially, it indicates that leveraging sanctions to denuclearize North Korea is becoming increasingly challenging.

“On a more practical front, North Korea is mostly likely to have needed food supplies, as much as Russia has a military need.”  

North Korea had imposed strict COVID restrictions in early 2020, shutting down its borders, including that with its biggest trading partner, China. The North Korean economy contracted for the third straight year in 2022, according to the Bank of Korea. COVID restrictions, compounded by international sanctions, are widely seen to have further depressed the North’s struggling economy.

“A trip to Russia is merely the start, and a China-visit remains a distinct possibility,” Yang added.

China’s potential inclusion in this bloc could further convolute the regional landscape. This scenario seems increasingly plausible, as Russia has officially proposed a joint naval drill with China and North Korea in July, said South Korea’s National Intelligence Service on Monday.

The potential trilateral alliance among the authoritarian nations could counterbalance the influence of the U.S. and its western allies in the Asia-Pacific region and globally. With China’s extensive economic influence, global sanctions or diplomatic pressures against North Korea or Russia could be less effective. 

Edited by Elaine Chan and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jeong-Ho Lee for RFA.

"We must consciously resist worship activities with feudal superstitions, break old habits such as burning spirit money, setting off firecrackers and leaving offerings," the government of Yongren county in the southwestern province of Yunnan said in an Aug. 20 notice on its website.

Ghost Month, which began on Wednesday, is a period in the Chinese lunar calendar where many Chinese make offerings to their ancestors or to hungry ghosts. 

Found in both Buddhist and Taoist traditions, the offerings involve burning spirit money or leaving offerings of food, wine and incense in public places. Some traditions also include floating candles across bodies of water to help the departed in the afterlife, including deceased people who have no living descendants to tend to their graves.

"Ronglong Community will resolutely end uncivilized behaviors such as burning ghost paper [items] and ghost money," said an Aug. 12 directive from a residential community in Changsha, Hunan province, while officials in Langzhong, Sichuan province tried to encourage people to make digital offerings instead.

"For more civilized ways to make memorial offerings, you can use the Cloud Offerings linked to the WeChat public account of the Langzhong Cemetery Management Office," the city government told residents in a statement dated Aug. 28.

"[You can] set up a [digital] memorial hall, bow to pay respects, offer flowers, send messages and express condolences," it said. "Do not burn spirit money or set off fireworks or firecrackers on streets, riverbanks or residential areas."

But a Sina.com report about similar measures in the northeastern city of Liaoyang’s Baita district said many people don't agree with the attempt to change traditional ways, despite the government's claim that they are "feudal superstitions."

"Many people are saying that this is part of tradition and a way of offering sustenance for deceased relatives, and they are questioning whether such law enforcement behavior is reasonable," the report said.

Offerings are based on the idea that the afterlife, much like the human world, requires a certain amount of money and status for people to exist without suffering too much.

Paper goods shops can offer all manner of effigies ranging from houses, Rolls Royce cars and Rolex watches to suits of brand-name clothes and bureaucratic paperwork to help the departed soul make its way in the afterlife.

‘Bad traditions’

The move also comes against the backdrop of a campaign by the ruling Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping to encourage cremation rather than elaborate burials in expensive plots with good feng shui.

The district government in Guangzhou's Baiyun district called on party members and officials to lead the way in making only frugal and environmentally friendly offerings to the dead, calling on them to "change people's ideas, break with bad traditions and start a new trend."

Several government statements also said younger people should show their respect for their elders by taking better care of them and spending more time with them while they're still alive.

"People should show more filial behavior to the elderly while they're still alive, instead of vying with others when they die," according to the Langzhong municipal government.

The ruling party under supreme leader Xi Jinping is clamping down on all forms of religious belief and practice, insisting they comply with the government's "sinicization" program and serve its political agenda rather than pledging allegiance to forces or beliefs beyond the material world.

"Let the deceased rest in peace, and make sure the living have no regrets," the Yongren county government told residents.

Jiang Jiawen, a resident of Liaoning province, hit out at the crackdown on Ghost Month offerings in Liaoyang, which was widely reported in official media.

"The city government gets involved in stuff it shouldn't, indiscriminately," Jiang said. "They have destroyed the legacy left by our ancestors."

"They like to build Confucian schools, but they actually oppose [Confucianism’s] traditional ways."

He said many people have taken to burning offerings in the middle of the night instead.

"The people don't like it, and they get up secretly to burn offerings at night or first thing in the morning," he said.

On X, formerly Twitter, some people marked the start of Ghost Month by posting generic photos of burning offerings, while others posted photos of actual people burning paper offerings at unnamed locations, suggesting that a blanket ban on the practice has yet to take effect.

"Today is the Hungry Ghost Festival," user @zhanglu wrote. "There is nowhere to light a fire in the capital, so people keep turning up at their local crossroads to burn a bit of paper money on the tarmac, sending it to relatives [in the afterlife]."

"The Hungry Ghost Festival used to be very lively, with every family cooking a large spread of dishes to honor their ancestors, and inviting relatives and friends to eat and drink with them," user @tuoxier wrote. "Now that circumstances have changed, things are easier and less complicated."

"I went down to the temple this morning to burn incense and pay my respects."

Lawyer Huang Hanzhong said the campaign appears to be highly political, with local governments competing to show loyalty to the latest ideology from Beijing.

"It's not surprising for people who have some kind of religious tradition to be suppressed at a time when the country is supposed to be on the path to the rule of law," he said. "It may be that this is some idea the local authorities have of political correctness."

According to new rules taking effect starting Friday, monasteries, temples, mosques, churches and other religious venues are required to support the leadership of the party and leader Xi Jinping's plans for the "sinicization" of religious activity.

The Chinese Communist Party, which embraces atheism, exercises tight controls over any form of religious practice among its citizens, including what clerics may or may not say in places of worship, on who may call themselves a religious follower, and where and with whom they may gather.

Local officials have also used brainwashing and torture to get Christians, Muslims and Tibetans to renounce their allegiance to any power other than Beijing.

Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gao Feng for RFA Mandarin.

After the G-20 summit on Sept. 9, Biden will fly into Hanoi on Sept. 10 and depart the same day to attend a ceremony in Alaska marking 22 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a statement said.

“While in Hanoi, President Biden will meet with General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and other key leaders to discuss ways to further deepen cooperation between the United States and Vietnam,” it said.

“The leaders will explore opportunities to promote the growth of a technology-focused and innovation-driven Vietnamese economy, expand our people-to-people ties through education exchanges and workforce development programs, combat climate change, and increase peace, prosperity, and stability in the region.”

The visit to Hanoi comes amid criticism that Biden is shirking the U.S.-ASEAN leaders summit in Jakarta just days before the G-20 event – Vice President Kamala Harris is attending in his stead – but also amid rumors the United States and Vietnam plan to upgrade ties.

The visit will be the first dedicated trip to Vietnam by a U.S. president since Barack Obama’s trip in May 2016. That was criticized at the time for setting aside human rights concerns for strategic reasons as the Obama administration, of which Biden was the vice president, courted stronger relations with Hanoi in the face of a rising China. 

Former President Donald Trump twice visited the country while in office, but both times were primarily for other reasons: an APEC summit in November 2017 and his second summit on neutral soil with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in February 2019.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.

“Journalists in Niger must be able to work safely and free of intimidation, especially as the country and region grapple with political tension,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in Durban, South Africa. “Authorities in Niger must urgently address the harassment, threats, and restrictions on the media who are trying to inform Nigeriens and the rest of the world about what is happening in the country.”

On July 26, soldiers overthrew Niger’s democratically elected president and set up a military government known as the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP).

Read the full letter to Niger’s CNSP below and click here to see the full list of signatories. 

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

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Know Your RIghts: What To Do If You Have A Disability and Are Questioned By Police

Understanding and asserting the rights of people with disabilities during police interrogations is paramount to ensuring their fair treatment and safeguarding their well-being.

07.31.23 By Meghan Nguyen

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The post Know Your RIghts: What To Do If You Have A Disability and Are Questioned By Police appeared first on Innocence Project.

This content originally appeared on Innocence Project and was authored by Meghan Nguyen.

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8 Ways People With Disabilities Can Be Vulnerable To Wrongful Conviction

For Disability Pride Month, we're taking a look at how people with disabilities can face unique challenges that hinder their ability to effectively participate in the criminal legal system.

07.31.23 By Meghan Nguyen

(Image: Tim Mossholder/Unsplash)

Pervis Payne, who has an intellectual disability, spent 33 years on Tennessee’s death row. (Image: Courtesy of PervisPayne.Org)

5. Prejudice and bias

Disabled individuals can be subject to societal prejudice, leading to unfair treatment and bias from judges, jurors, or other legal professionals. Jurors and witnesses might unconsciously rely on stereotypes and misconceptions about people with disabilities, influencing their perception of the defendant’s guilt or innocence

Pervis Payne has maintained his innocence for more than three decades on death row for murder. Because of his disability, Mr. Payne was not able to fully participate in his defense and was not a strong witness on his own behalf. Additionally, the prosecution’s case against him exploited his intellectual disability and relied on racist stereotypes of Black men to paint a portrait of Mr. Payne as a dangerous and hypersexualized drug user. In 2021, Mr. Payne was officially removed from death row following the Shelby County district attorney’s concession that he is a person with an intellectual disability and therefore cannot be executed.

6. Inadequate accommodations

The criminal justice system might not always provide the necessary accommodations, such as accessible facilities, sign language interpreters, or assistive technologies, to ensure a fair trial for people with disabilities.

Pervis Payne, who has an intellectual disability, spent 33 years on Tennessee’s death row. (Image: Courtesy of PervisPayne.Org)

Sandra Hemme was wrongly convicted after police exploited her mental illness and coerced her into making false statements while she was sedated and receiving treatment for hallucinatory episodes. (Image: Courtesy of the Hemme family)

7. Memory and perception issues

Certain disabilities can impact memory and perception, making it harder for the individual to recall details accurately or provide a coherent account of events, leading to inconsistencies in their testimony.

Sandra Hemme has spent the last 42 years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit, making her the longest-known wrongly convicted woman. Ms. Hemme was a psychiatric patient receiving treatment for auditory hallucinations, derealization, and drug misuse when she was targeted by police. She had spent the majority of her life starting at age 12 in inpatient psychiatric treatment.

Ms. Hemme was repeatedly interviewed by police under extremely coercive circumstances. Police conducted hours-long interviews with Ms. Hemme while she was in the hospital.  At several points, she was so heavily medicated that she was unable to even hold her head up and was restrained and strapped to a chair. Over the course of these coercive interrogations, Ms. Hemme’s statements conflicted with the known facts of the crime and were internally inconsistent.

8. Burden of proof

Some states rely on arcane and unscientific standards for determining and defining intellectual disability, making it difficult for individuals with these disabilities to prove that they even have one. For instance, there are states that appoint people without the requisite expertise to conduct the “assessment” and make the “diagnosis” of intellectual disability.

At least 12 states define intellectual disability as having an IQ of 70 or lower, even though many experts consider IQ scores alone to be a blunt and highly fallible method of measuring ability. And the burden of proof required to prevail on a claim of intellectual disability varies by state. Indiana, for example, requires clear and convincing evidence. In Missouri, there only needs to be a preponderance of evidence. This means that often, geography, not science, will determine whether or not a person is found to be intellectually disabled.

To address these vulnerabilities and ensure the fair treatment of those with disabilities, those in the legal system need to be proactive in providing appropriate accommodations and understanding the unique needs of individuals with disabilities during investigations, trials, and the entire criminal justice process. This includes the training of law enforcement, lawyers, judges, and jurors to be more aware of disability-related issues and biases that might impact their decision-making.

Sandra Hemme was wrongly convicted after police exploited her mental illness and coerced her into making false statements while she was sedated and receiving treatment for hallucinatory episodes. (Image: Courtesy of the Hemme family)

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The post 8 Ways People With Disabilities Can Be Vulnerable To Wrongful Conviction appeared first on Innocence Project.

This content originally appeared on Innocence Project and was authored by Meghan Nguyen.

Five homeschoolers pick fist-size garlic cloves, green jalapeños, strawberries, squash and kale on a breezy Thursday morning in late June. They’re volunteering at a local food garden where bright orange marigolds attract bees from a local keeper’s hive.

The 1-acre garden has yielded about 10,000 pounds of produce for six food pantries since it began harvesting in April 2022. Texan by Nature, which manages the garden and was founded by former First Lady Laura Bush, estimates it has served approximately 2,000 people per month in Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties.

Located in Freestone County about 60 miles east of Waco, NRG Dewey Prairie Garden is a part of a massive effort to restore a 35,000-acre lignite coal mine, which stretches mainly into the town of Jewett and used to fuel NRG’s Limestone Electric Generating Station, a 1,688-megawatt power plant. An NRG spokesperson said the coal plant began running on cleaner-burning coal from Wyoming in 2016.

That’s when the company halted mining locally after more than three decades.

Debbie Glaze, a lead gardener for Texan by Nature, says it’s hard to imagine the garden was once a coal mine. The company has set aside 9 more acres to expand the garden, which was started as a pilot project.

“You wouldn’t think that this could happen,” Glaze said. “I think it is amazing that the ground is actually growing all these vegetables after all that mine digging.”

The Jewett mine’s manager, Michael Altavilla, said he hopes the garden can show how the industry can work with local communities for everybody’s benefit.

“The mining industry has always been seen like we’re the bad guys, we’re destroying the Earth,” Altavilla said. “We want to take people out and show them this form of reclamation, a second purpose, not only mining the coal for energy, but utilizing the ground afterward.”

Company set aside $112 million to restore mine

Lignite was first mined in Texas during the 1850s and was produced primarily from underground mines, but declined in the early 1950s as the oil and gas industry grew in the state. Around the same time, companies began surface mining — which includes strip mining and open-pit mining — to provide fuel for power plants and the concrete industry.

The new mines harvested lignite coal, a form of soft coal that often lies close to the surface. Lignite mining led to bulldozing forests, burying streams, destroying wildlife habitat and leaving the ground contaminated with arsenic, lead and other toxins considered unsafe for human exposure after the mines closed.

In 1975, the Texas Legislature authorized the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees Texas’ oil and gas industry, to regulate surface coal mining. In 1977, the federal government created a fund to help pay for cleaning up old mines and required companies to restore the land to its prior condition after closing a mine.

As part of the federal law, a new agency, the Surface Mining and Reclamation Division, was given responsibility to enforce all the new regulations. The Railroad Commission began requiring companies mining coal in Texas to get a state permit and post a bond for each mining site they operate in the state to pay for restoration later.

But the agency has been criticized for allowing companies to do the bare minimum in cleaning up contaminated soil and water at mining sites and failing to enforce the law, according to a 2019 investigation by The Texas Tribune and Grist.

NRG has bonds totaling $112 million to restore the Jewett mine, a process that began in 1986, a year after mining began. Companies commonly do reclamation work even as they’re still mining a site. The reclamation process can take eight to 12 years.

So far, the company says it has replanted 3,500 acres with native grasses, is creating 700 acres of wetlands and has fully reclaimed 5,590 acres at the Jewett mine.

Moving dirt and replanting old mine pits

About 8 miles from the garden at another end of the mine site, Joe Harris, a 56-year-old Jewett mine reclamation specialist, wears a reflective vest and a hardhat as he prepares to jump into his pickup truck to snap progress photos of the restoration work.

Harris drives up and down the slopes around mining pits to where the dragline, a massive excavator with a bucket, is working. There’s a clear divide in the ground, from the orange-brown dirt at the surface to the gray deposits down in the pits where coal was extracted. The 300-foot-tall excavator, with a bucket the size of a two-car garage, has the first and most crucial step in returning the land to its original form — refilling those holes.

Mark Payne, who’s been working at the mine for 37 years and operating the dragline for 17 years, wears denim on denim and black sunglasses as he operates the machine from an air-conditioned control room inside the machine’s body. Using levers that look like something from an old arcade game, Payne moves about 150 tons of dirt at a time as country music plays on the radio.

“We’ve been in this part of the mine trying to fill the hole in for almost a year. It takes quite a long while,” Payne said.

Once the pit is filled with soil, the company is required to plant grasses and vegetation similar to what’s growing nearby.

“During the springtime, we plant bermuda grass, in the summer millet and in the fall they plant rye grass,” Harris said.

Once the seeding is done, the company enters a five-year monitoring period during which the soil and water is regularly tested to check for toxic materials.

Inspectors from the Railroad Commission’s Surface Mining and Reclamation Division make monthly visits to mine sites to review test results and check that the company is following reclamation regulations.

The area that includes the garden was monitored for years, and the bond money was released back to the company in 2013, close to 10 years before the garden began harvesting produce. Recent soil reports submitted to the state show the soil is fertile with no toxic-forming materials present.

At another portion of the mine where seeding has already happened, enormous stretches of grasslands are marked by white PVC pipes that have defining stripes: A green stripe means it is under evaluation, while red stripes mean the site has been fully reclaimed.

Harris said the best part of working at the Jewett mine for the past three decades is seeing the land being restored after being here when it was initially scraped to harvest the coal.

“I’ve seen the mining, the clearing, to everything,” Harris said. “I take a lot of pride in this. We want it to look like it was never mined before so when I bring my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, I can say, ‘Look, there was once a mine here.’”

Garden feeds local families

About 16 miles from the mine, garden volunteers deliver zucchini, kale and other produce to a food pantry in Buffalo, a town of about 1,700 where residents have few grocery store options.

Amy Windham, a 37-year-old pantry client and single mother of three, says she always tries to be the first one here because she wants first dibs on the fresh-picked produce.

“Moving up here from Houston, it was such a culture shock because down [in Houston] there is a grocery store on every corner and here it’s only Brookshire [Brothers],” she said. “So that’s the one thing I appreciate about this pantry. The produce is better, you can tell.”

She grabs a cart, and Richard Dahlgrem, 80, a pantry volunteer, helps her pick out groceries. There’s a limit on how much each customer can take depending on the size of their household, but everything is free.

Dahlgrem said it’s nice to see resources from the old mine being poured back to help the community, especially those who are struggling to feed their families.

“What was brought in today is a good indication of what can come from people purposely doing something to help somebody,” he said.

Disclosure: NRG has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline At a shuttered Texas coal mine, a 1-acre garden is helping feed 2,000 people per month on Jul 29, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Alejandra Martinez, The Texas Tribune.

In a joint report published Thursday by the World Meteorological Organization, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, and Leipzig University, the temperature for the first three weeks of July averaged 62.51 Fahrenheit, breaking the previous record of 61.93 Fahrenheit set in 2019.

In parts of the United States, temperatures have risen above 120 degrees Fahrenheit. In Arizona, people have experienced life-threatening burns from falls on hot pavement, in California, inmates swelter as cooling systems fail, and in the Florida Keys, ocean temperatures rose above 100 Fahrenheit this week, the average temperature of a hot tub. 

In Asia, which is responsible for 19 percent of the world’s food and agricultural exports, prolonged heat waves are claiming lives and threatening food security as two major crops – rice and wheat – are at risk of failing. 

The report adds that the heat in July has already been so extreme that it’s caused fires around the world including in Italy, Greece and Spain killing 40 people and spreading through 13 countries, while in Canada, the worst fire season in 34 years has led to the destruction of nearly 39-thousand square miles. 

An analysis published Monday by the World Weather Attribution group, an international science and research team, found that recent heat waves in North America and Europe were nearly impossible without climate change. Researchers also found that this month’s heat wave in China was 50 times more likely to occur in our current warmer world. All three heat waves were hotter than they would have been without the boost from global warming.

The World Meteorological Organization predicts a 98 percent chance that one of the next five years will be 1.5 Celsius hotter than average in the 19th century—1.5 Celsius is the agreed upon temperature rise limit that world leaders promised to avoid by the end of the century in the Paris Climate Agreement.

“Short of a mini-Ice age over the next days,” said U.N.Secretary-general António Guterres. “July 2023 will shatter records.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline July has been the hottest month in humanity’s history on Jul 28, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Lyric Aquino.

Microsoft on Tuesday revealed that the group, known as Storm-0558, had been caught forging digital authentication tokens to access federal government email servers hosted on its Outlook email platform. 

The company said the breach was detected on June 16, and that it believed the hackers had first gained access around May 15. But Sullivan appeared to downplay the hack on Wednesday, telling a morning news program that the breach was remedied quickly.

“We detected it fairly rapidly and we were able to prevent further breaches,” Sullivan said on ABC’s Good Morning America. “The matter is still being investigated so I have to leave it there.”

Not Falkland Islanders

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the U.S. government had not formally identified the source of the hack, but that officials were aware of Microsoft’s announcement pointing to the Chinese group.

“Last month, the State Department detected anomalous activity. We did two things immediately: one, we took immediate steps to secure our systems and, two, took immediate steps to notify Microsoft of the event,” Miller said during a press briefing. “As a matter of cybersecurity policy, we do not discuss the details of our response.”

Miller would also not say if officials were aware of the hack before Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing, which also followed reports of a Chinese spy base in Cuba. Blinken arrived in Beijing on June 17, the day after Microsoft says the hack was discovered.

But the spokesman stressed there was no official determination about the hack’s origins. Pressed by a reporter, he ruled out only one origin.

“I do not believe it’s people from the Falkland Islands,” he said.

Cyber espionage

Microsoft said in its statement that the Storm-0558 hacking group “primarily targets government agencies” in Western Europe, but this time had “gained access to email accounts affecting approximately 25 organizations including government agencies” in the United States.

“Microsoft investigations determined that Storm-0558 gained access to customer email accounts using Outlook Web Access in Exchange Online and Outlook.com by forging authentication tokens to access user email,” it said. “Microsoft blocked usage of tokens issued with the key for all impacted consumer customers.”

In a blog post, the company also said the group were likely spies.

“We assess this adversary is focused on espionage, such as gaining access to email systems for intelligence collection,” Microsoft said. “This type of espionage-motivated adversary seeks to abuse credentials and gain access to data residing in sensitive systems.”

U.S. officials have over the past year intensified warning about the threats to American business and government posed by Chinese hackers. In July last year, FBI director Christopher Wray said Beijing was intent on exploiting cyber vulnerabilities to its advantage.

The comments followed another hack by a suspected Chinese hacking group, Hafnium, on email servers hosted by Microsoft Exchange.

“The Chinese government sees cyber as the pathway to cheat and steal on a massive scale,” Wray said. “Over the last few years, we’ve seen Chinese state-sponsored hackers relentlessly looking for ways to compromise unpatched network devices and infrastructure.”

Chinese response

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin used his press briefing on Wednesday to accuse the U.S. government of overseeing “the world’s No.1 hacking group” – the National Security Agency – but otherwise did not comment on the claims against Storm-0558.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told Radio Free Asia that China condemned any hack, and reiterated Wang’s claims the United States was responsible for cyber attacks. 

He said that the United States was “actually the biggest hacking empire and global cyber thief” and added that the U.S. government should stop “spreading disinformation to deflect public attention.”

“China is against cyber attacks of all kinds and has suffered from cyber hacking,” Liu said in an emailed comment. “Since last year, cyber security institutions from China and elsewhere in the world have issued reports to reveal [the] US government’s cyber attacks against China over the years, but the US has yet to make a response.”

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alex Willemyns for RFA.

Authorities cut off Walf TV’s broadcast signal on June 1 and restored broadcasts on July 1. Wal Fadijri’s radio, print, and online services continued to publish during that time, according to CPJ’s review of their output. 

In early June, protests escalated following the sentencing of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison for “corrupting youth,” prompting authorities to disrupt access to online platforms and mobile internet. 

Thiam’s order, which CPJ reviewed, justified the suspension by claiming Walf TV “constantly” broadcasted violent images about teenagers joining the protests and aired “subversive, hateful and dangerous statements” which incited violence and undermined state security. 

If Wal Fadjri is found to repeat the offense, the order said the group’s television broadcast authorization could be subject to “definitive withdrawal.”

“We have been forced to lay off many of our employees, who technically could no longer do anything, as they were deprived of their work tools,” Cheikh Niass, Wal Fadjri’s managing director, told CPJ via messaging app. Niass said the company was later able to rehire those workers.

Wal Fadjri challenged the suspension at Senegal’s Supreme Court, and on June 22, the court declined to reverse the order because the suspension was already well underway and the purpose was in the “public interests,” according to Niass and a copy of the court ruling reviewed by CPJ.

Moustapha Diop, Wal Fadjri’s director of radio and television, told CPJ that the suspension had negatively impacted the staff’s morale and they felt a “sword of Damocles hanging over [them], and that the slightest mistake or error could result in prosecution.”

CPJ’s calls to Thiam went unanswered. Calls to the Ministry of Communication, Telecommunications, and Digital Economy did not connect.

On June 9, Senegalese authorities also blocked Wal Fadjri’s ability to use the Wave mobile money platform, hindering the group’s fundraising campaign launched the same day. The group received the 40 million francs (US$66,300) collected via Wave on Monday, July 3, after the block expired.

Senegal’s National Council for Audiovisual Regulation (CNRA) suspended Walf TV for seven days in February 2023 and 72 hours in March 2021 over its political demonstration coverage. In March 2022, the regulator also issued a 72-hour suspension for broadcasters ZIK FM and Sen TV over political coverage.

In March 2023, police arrested Walf TV reporter Pape Ndiaye on false news charges and released him on bail on June 20 under strict conditions.

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

Photo by Emily Webster

Just days before the start of June, celebrated around the country and world as “Pride month,” Target corporation decided that proudly allying with the LGBTQIA+ community by selling Pride-themed merchandise was not worth the alienation of bigots. Facing rightwing violence and what it called “volatile circumstances,” the company pulled some of its rainbow-festooned products and moved pride-related displays to the back of stores in some locations.

In 2015, Caroline Wanga, then Target’s senior director of diversity and inclusion, said, “Target proudly stands with the LGBT community through all that we do.” But nearly eight years later, it didn’t take very much for the company to back off from such a bold statement via its actions.

As per AP, “Target said that customers knocked down Pride displays at some stores, angrily approached workers[,] and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.” Unsurprisingly, the greatest backlash was centered on the company’s sales of “tuck-friendly” bathing suits aimed at adult transgender people. Conservative culture warriors falsely claimed that such bathing suits were being sold in the children’s section—a lie consistent with their claims that transgender people have an agenda of “grooming” children.

In addition to illustrating just how far homophobic and transphobic forces will go to dehumanize a significant swath of the population, the Target brouhaha is a testament to the dangers of relying on corporations to uphold social justice.

Corporations don’t have values—at least not ones centered on human rights anyway. Individuals at corporations may espouse values of social justice. Marketing departments may capitalize on public acceptance of social justice to sell their products. But the only values that corporations inherently hold are ones that maximize profits as voraciously as possible, bound only by the strictest regulations.

Take the advice that marketing expert Allen Adamson of Metaforce gave Target. According to ABC7, Adamson “said Target should have thought through the potential for backlash and taken steps to avoid it, like varying the products it sells by region.” In other words, Target should have been more careful about rearranging its products so as to avoid igniting the lynch mobs. “The country is far less homogenous than it ever was,” explained Adamson, euphemistically. “For any brand, it’s not ‘one size fits all’ anymore.” In other words, we surely can’t expect everyone in America to respect the rights of minorities!

For decades, “Pride month” has been an opportunity to celebrate the lives, rights, and achievements of the LGBTQIA+ community. Born out of the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York, and stemming from the (now-quaint-sounding because it leaves out other parts of the spectrum) label “gay pride,” the idea was for sexual minorities to come out of the shadows that society had long relegated them to, eschew the shame foisted upon them by rigid notions of heterosexuality and misogynist patriarchy and generations of toxic masculinity. For decades, Pride month celebrations and parades were, by their mere existence, political acts. Alongside the glitz and glamor as a way to take up space were such serious issues as the government’s neglect of the AIDS crisis.

Eventually, through concerted activism, narrative shifting, policy victories, and Supreme Court decisions, a community struggling for visibility and equal rights began enjoying greater acceptance. With that came companies like Target, ready to market Pride-themed products and eager to be seen by its customers as moving forward with the times. Pride had begun to go mainstream–until the right-wing mob amped up the hate.

An extensive 2019 report for the Washington Post titled “Pride for Sale,” pointedly claimed that the Pride month celebration now “sometimes seems more retail than riot.” Still, activist Evan Greer, in a video portion of the report said that corporations embracing Pride was “not wholly a bad thing,” rather it should be seen as “a symbol of our growing economic and political power.”

Greer was right. Corporate support of causes is simply public relations. It is a sign that the culture is shifting thanks to the hard work of those impacted. It does not mean the business actually cares. Target’s recent capitulation to right-wing bigots proves this point. And it’s not alone among companies facing pressure from bigots.

Anheuser-Busch also made headlines for trying to appease the right-wingers who took aim at transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s partnership promoting Bud Light beer. Instead of standing up for Mulvaney after she and the company faced backlash, a corporate spokesperson claimed that Anheuser-Busch, “never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people.” In doing so, the company appeared to concede that Mulvaney’s right to exist was up for debate.

Right-wing culture wars have historically been highly effective at turning the tide of public opinion. CNN’s Oliver Darcy warns, “the supposedly anti-cancel culture crowd is leading the summer’s biggest cancel culture campaign” in targeting companies that have capitalized on Pride month. In addition to Target and Anheuser-Busch, conservative bigots and right-wing media outlets have taken aim at State Farm, Lego, Nike, and even the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Hyperfocus on Pride-themed campaigns enables conservative media companies like Fox News to whip up outrage against minorities, which they hope will translate into votes for the GOP, a party whose real agenda has focused on enriching billionaires. Those same wealthy elites are the ones who own and run companies like Target.

Vox’s Emily Stewart points out, “For many queer people, rainbow capitalism has always been a bit complicated—a sometimes-uncomfortable corporate bedfellow that nevertheless did confer a sense of social legitimacy.” But Target will not stand up for the rights of LGBTQIA+ folks. Corporations will run at the first sign of trouble to their bottom lines.

What the corporate decision-makers at Target and Anheuser-Busch are missing is that the cultural pendulum has not swung away from LGBTQIA+ rights—yet. GLAAD’s 2023 Accelerating Acceptance study found that among those who do not identify as LGBTQ support for equal rights is at an all-time high. According to the study, “An 84 [percent] supermajority of non-LGBTQ Americans support equal rights for the LGBTQ community,” and “A 91 [percent] supermajority of non-LGBTQ Americans agree that LGBTQ people should have the freedom to live their [lives] and not be discriminated against.”

These numbers are deeply heartening and reveal just how out-of-touch Republican and conservative leaders are in their attacks on queer Americans, and just how badly corporations who want to portray themselves as “allies” are missing the target—pun definitely intended.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Sonali Kolhatkar.

Progressive economists on Wednesday welcomed newly released U.S. inflation data as further evidence that price increases can be brought under control without crushing the labor market and throwing millions out of work.

But they also warned that the still-strong job market could falter, with devastating consequences for workers, if the Federal Reserve keeps raising interest rates in the coming months.

"The verdict is in: We don't have to choose between low prices and low unemployment. We can have both," said the Groundwork Collaborative's Lindsay Owens after the Labor Department released new data showing that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 4.9% in April compared with the previous year—a cooler figure than analysts expected.

"Today's inflation numbers show 10 straight months of falling inflation on the heels of a 53-year record low unemployment rate," Owens said, referring to last week's better-than-anticipated jobs report. "The only thing left to do now is to ensure that [Fed Chair Jerome] Powell doesn't screw it up with needless rate hikes that would accelerate instability in financial markets and jeopardize our strong labor market."

Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, called the new CPI data "good news for working people," noting that "inflation is nearly back to pre-recession rates, while the unemployment rate is at 50-year lows."

The new CPI figures came a week after the Federal Reserve imposed its 10th consecutive interest rate increase since March 2022, ignoring repeated warnings from outside experts, lawmakers, and even the Fed's own economists that the aggressive attempt to slow the economy and tamp down inflation risks a disastrous recession and mass job loss.

During a press conference last week, Powell left the door open to a pause of interest rate hikes at the Fed's June meeting but did not make a firm commitment, pledging only to "be driven by incoming data meeting by meeting."

Progressives advocates and experts, including Owens, have consistently argued for more than a year that interest rate increases—which target economic demand by raising borrowing costs—are the wrong response to inflation driven by many factors beyond the Fed's direct control, from pandemic-induced supply chain snags to corporate profiteering.

While prominent pundits have dismissed the notion that corporate profit-seeking during the pandemic helps explain persistently high inflation in the U.S. and across the globe, mainstream publications such as The Wall Street Journal have determined that progressive economists were right to emphasize big business pricing power as a significant culprit.

"There are signs that companies are doing more than covering their costs," the Journalreported last week. "According to economists at the [European Central Bank], businesses have been padding their profits. That, they said, was a bigger factor in fueling inflation during the second half of last year than rising wages were."

Major companies have used the windfalls from their price hikes to reward investors. The watchdog group Accountable.US noted in a report released Wednesday that Mondelez, which owns Belvita and Chips Ahoy!, "saw a shocking 142% increase in quarterly earnings after announcing price hikes, which empowered it to spend $928 million in dividends and stock buybacks for their wealthiest shareholders."

"It shouldn't come as a shock that Chair Powell’s actions have eroded public trust in the central bank."

A Gallup poll released Tuesday showed that just 36% of U.S. adults have either a "great deal" or a "fair amount" of confidence in Powell, a former private equity executive first nominated to the Fed chairmanship by former President Donald Trump.

President Joe Biden renominated Powell to the critical post in late 2021 despite outspoken opposition from some Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

"The 36% rating for Powell is the lowest Gallup has measured for him during his six years as Fed chair. It is also the lowest reading Gallup has had for any prior Fed chair," the polling organization noted in a summary of its findings.

Owens said in response to the survey that "it shouldn't come as a shock that Chair Powell's actions have eroded public trust in the central bank."

"Instead of fighting for a strong labor market and securing our banking system, Chair Powell has enacted 10 consecutive rate hikes and put us at risk of a recession," said Owens. "Americans want a Fed that is on their side, not the side of big banks."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

We have seen much recently about the Ukraine war anniversary. But this is also the anniversary of other wars: March marks the 8th anniversary of the war on Yemen and the 20th on Iraq. Members of Congress, including Senator Bernie Sanders, should introduce a Yemen War Powers Resolution before this war enters a 9th year.

On March 1st activists in 10 cities across the United States protested at congressional offices and beyond, calling on their lawmakers to bring the harmful U.S. role in the Yemen war to a rapid and final end. Over 70 organizations called for and supported the protests.

During Wednesday’s protests, activists called on Sanders and other federal lawmakers to introduce a new Yemen War Powers Resolution this month. If brought to the floor for a vote, Congress could order the president to end U.S. participation in the catastrophic conflict, which the U.S. has enabled for eight years. Sanders sponsored last year’s bill, but when he moved to bring the resolution to a floor vote in December, he was shut down by the Biden administration.

In December, Sanders pledged to return to the Senate floor with a new Yemen War Powers Resolution if he and the administration were unable to agree to “strong and effective” action that would achieve his goals.

Without meaningful public action from Biden at this point, the time is now for Sen. Sanders to make good on his pledge. For over 10 months, Saudi Arabia has not dropped any bombs on Yemen. However, this could change anytime. If the United States continues to support the war, it will be implicated in Saudi aggression if, and likely when, the conflict escalates.

Without meaningful public action from Biden at this point, the time is now for Sen. Sanders to make good on his pledge.

Approximately two–thirds of the Royal Saudi Air Force receive direct support from U.S. military contracts in the form of spare parts and maintenance. TheSaudi-led coalition has relied on this support to carry out these offensive strikes in Yemen. The United States has no sufficient compelling interest in Yemen that justifies implication in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Since March 2015, the Saudi Arabia and /UAE)-led bombing and blockade of Yemen have killed hundreds of thousands of people and wreaked havoc on the country, creating one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world. 17 million people in Yemen are food insecure and 500,000 children are experiencing severe wasting, also known as severe acute malnutrition.

For years virtually no containerized goods have been allowed to enter Hodeida, Yemen’s principal Red Sea port Hodeida. Containerized goods include essentially everything other than food and fuel. This has helped cripple the economy and prevented critical life-saving medicine and medical equipment from reaching people in need.

This humanitarian crisis has worsened since President Biden took office. Admittedly this is not entirely his fault. The Biden administration took some initial good steps forward, including reversing the Trump administration’s policy to designate the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, and reversing an arms transfer in the works when Biden took office. The war in Ukraine and global wheat shortage have hit Yemen hard; the country relies heavily on imports. Climate disasters have also exacerbated the effects of the conflict in Yemen. But the Biden administration does bear partial responsibility for the continued suffering in Yemen.

Despite President Biden’s February 2021 commitment to end participation in Saudi offensive operations in Yemen, the U.S. has continued support for the war. The U.S. has continued to provide spare parts and maintenance for the Saudi air force, which increased the frequency of airstrikes on Yemen in 2021 and early 2022 – after Biden took office.

Without a negotiated settlement, nothing prevents Saudi Arabia from restarting airstrikes in Yemen. With apparent never-ending and unconditional U.S. military support, Saudi Arabia lacks an incentive to once and for all completely lift its blockade of Yemen and withdraw from Yemen.

In 2018 Saudi dictator Mohammed Bin Salman ordered the murder of a U.S. journalist and then lied about it. Just last year Saudi Arabia manipulated global energy markets to raise fuel prices and empower Russia in its immoral and illegal invasion of Ukraine. These are just a couple recent demonstrations of a history of destructive activity by Saudi Arabia that is harmful to the United States and its allies. The Biden administration was correct in October when it called for a re-evaluation of the US-Saudi relationship, urging Congress to propose measures to hold Saudi Arabia accountable. Passing the Yemen War Powers Resolution is a chance to do exactly that.

Organizations that signed the call to protest the war March 1st included the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation, the Yemeni Alliance Committee, About Face: Veterans Against War, Veterans for Peace, Progressive Democrats of America, the Libertarian Institute, Avaaz, CODEPINK, Peace Action, United for Peace and Justice, Democratic Socialists of America International Committee, Women's League for International Peace and Freedom – US Section, among over 70 organizations. Over 100 national organizations – humanitarian, veterans’, libertarian, and others – wrote to Congress as recently as December urging their passage of the Yemen War Powers Resolution. Bernie Sanders should re-introduce his resolution.

Under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the power to raise and support armies is reserved for Congress. No Congressional authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) has been issued for Yemen. The War Powers Resolution empowers Congress to invoke its constitutional war powers authority to end unconstitutional U.S. participation in wars like the war in Yemen.

The bill prevents a resumption of offensive Saudi airstrikes in Yemen by prohibiting U.S. involvement in them. This legislation can promote a negotiated settlement and long-term, lasting peace between the warring parties.

Saturday, March 25 will mark the eighth anniversary of the beginning of the Saudi-led coalition's bombing of Yemen. To mark the occasion, US and international groups will hold an online rally to inspire and enhance education and activism to end the war in Yemen. Join grassroots organizers on March 25th at 12pm Eastern. Register now.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Isaac Evans-Frantz.

Long-time residents in a street in Māngere, Auckland, say they never imagined that one day they would have to row their way out of their street to safety.

One resident, Mesalina, said they were left in the dark when the power failed and the situation hit home when she saw her neighbour sailing past on a boat.

“The lights went off around ten o’clock night time,” she said.

• LISTEN TO RNZ PACIFIC WAVES: Following the Auckland anniversary floods
• Other Auckland floods reports

“I opened the window and said, ‘can you help?’ — I didn’t believe that the water had come inside.”

A month on since the Auckland anniversary weekend floods, Mesalina and her daughter Nancy are now staying at a motel, but Nancy said there is “no place like home”.

“She’s just really bugging me about really wanting to go back home,” Mesalina said.

“She’s kind of homesick; we just don’t like the motel because it’s something new.”

Te Ararata Creek overflowed
On that Friday night, the heavy rainfall caused Te Ararata Creek to overflow, seeping into the surrounding homes around Bede Place and submerging vehicles that lined the street.

Samoan community leader Paul Mark lives next door, but his house has been yellow stickered and flood-damaged items are strewn around the property.

Mark is staying with his sister in the nearby suburb of Manurewa but said the floods had uprooted his life.

“We’re trying to keep busy, like going back to work but we’ve got nowhere to go for home,” he said.

“We’re all scattered around, my parents are at a motel room and the kids have had to change schools.”

He said securing a new home was challenging as he had his parents’ needs to consider.

“We’re trying to find a place that’s accessible, that has a ramp and a walk-in shower for my mum who is a wheelchair user.”

House now a shell
Just minutes away is Caravelle Close, where Louisa Opetaia lived, but she said her house had become a shell.

Salvageable belongings are piled in the middle of each room but the bottom half of the walls have been taken out and the home is uninhabitable.

Louisa is staying at emergency accommodation in the city but said with meals not included, it’s becoming stressful.

“I don’t want to appear ungrateful but it’s just hard and there are families living in this hotel with us who have kids. They’re stuck in the city where there aren’t many places to eat except for fast food outlets and they can’t cook for their kids.”

While much of the country’s attention has turned to cyclone recovery efforts, the affected residents of Māngere say they’re still suffering.

“So there’s all these other kinds of struggles you know that are still continuing, even though it’s a month later — I mean the ground has dried up but the struggles that we’re going through still continue,” Louisa said.

Four weeks on from the flash flood that tore through their streets and turned their lives upside down, the residents of Bede Place and Caravelle Close are left wondering what the future holds for them.

Despite staying in warm and safe places for the time being, they know it’s not a long-term solution and that it won’t be a quick or easy mission rebuilding their lives.

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.

• Israeli police fire water cannons and stun grenades at protesters opposing plan to weaken Supreme Court
• Eli Lilly bows to mounting pressure and caps out of pocket costs for insulin to $35/month
• Republicans double down on culture wars at school with Parents Bill of Rights legislation
• Bola Tinubu elected president of Nigeria with less than 50% of the vote
• Attorney General Merrick Garland faces withering questions from Senate Republicans

Image of banned books:  carmichaellibrary, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

The post Israelis stage a “national disruption day” to protest plan to weaken Supreme Court; Eli Lilly caps insulin at $35 a month; Republicans call for a Parent’s Bill of Rights over what their children learn at school: Pacifica Evening News March 1, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.

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

This year’s Lincoln County Special Olympics basketball teams will be hitting Turner, Oregon for state wide championship games.

Getting there has been a team effort: state level Special Olympics staff and administrators; our local Lincoln County directors, Donna and Eric Thorpe; family and friends; volunteers; and the players.

From 2020 up to part of 2022, the face-to-face S.O. games and practices were put on hold. This year, the basketball participants in Lincoln County number more than 20. Our Saturday practices have parents, grandparents and supporters watching these athletes hit the court and do their warm-ups, skills activities and scrimmages.

Did I mention FUN? As one of the coaches, I have seen these participants go from reluctance to beaming happiness to get energized by safe fair competition.

As part of Disabilities Awareness Month (March), all people celebrating the gains made with such legislation as the Americans with Disability Act understand how difficult it has been to get young and old living with developmental, physical, and intellectual disabilities into the hearts and minds of mainstream society.

My early work was with United Cerebral Palsy of Oregon and Southwest Washington. My clients were people with an array of disabilities, not just cerebral palsy. My training was centered around putting people first, working with clients on their dream jobs, and helping shift a prejudicial culture into a fair one. That is, I worked with Portland area employers and businesses to encourage hiring clients with dreams and aspirations of independence through a job.

My work was around “carving” jobs or “specialized” employment. There were really only two or three degrees of separation: many of the hiring managers, business owners and workers in these businesses have lived experiences with family and friends who have a disability.

People first language is about thinking of young and old as people “living” with a disability, which isn’t the only defining factor in their lives.

There are five important federal laws protecting individuals with disabilities from discrimination in employment and the job application process: Americans with Disabilities Act; Rehabilitation Act; Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act; Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act; Civil Service Reform Act.

This is just a short list of the protections this society has decided are important for our fellow citizens living with autism,  fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, cerebral palsy, Fragile X and a number of other developmental/intellectual disabilities.

Shifting from housing, employment, and education rights for all citizens including those with developmental-intellectual-psychological disabilities, we grasp the importance of activities of daily living as another engine of inclusion. The arts and athletics are part and parcel of inclusion.

I’m working with athletes as part of the Special Olympics program, but I have attended competitions in what is called Special Olympics Unified Sports. Right now, 1.2 million people worldwide take part in Unified Sports. Unified Sports joins people with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team.

This blending of those living with and those without intellectual disabilities creates a win-win-win situation. This program puts these participants in a unique position of support, understanding each others’ unique talents and certainly teamwork.

Unified games include highly skilled basketball players assisting those utilizing wheelchairs and walkers. There are “able” bodied athletes who guide individuals with Down syndrome take shots. Even the officials allow for leeway with traveling and breaking of the three-second rule inside the key.

When I was a high school wrestler in Arizona, one of the most rewarding and challenging matches I had was with the Arizona State School for the Deaf and Blind in Tucson. I was grappling at 163 pounds, and my matches with ASDB were tougher than some of the ones I had in mining towns like Globe and Ajo.

I did follow through later at university volunteering with judo and swimming coaching for youth with disabilities. I even had the opportunity as a dive master to assist an organization providing specialized underwater wheelchair-dive equipment for divers who were physically challenged.

Eunice Shriver founded Special Olympics in 55 years ago. Shriver (1921-2009) envisioned the impact sport competitions have, believing the same positive influence would benefit people with disabilities. The creation of S.O. at the first Special Olympics Games, held at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois, in 1968 is the athletic competition’s birth.

Tim Shriver put it best: “If you look at her brothers and sisters and all that they accomplished, no one will stand any higher than my mother.” (source)

Life changing, life enhancing, life affirming. Special Olympics Oregon serves over 12,000 participants each year through sports, education, and athlete health programs at no cost to the athletes and their families. That’s the win-win-win we can all celebrate in March.

More on Disabilities:

More and More Boys are Coming Home from School with Behavior Sheets!

When an Alien is Our Brother, Son, Friend

Working with individuals with psychiatric disabilities is pretty challenging, i.e. since getting folk housing and work is almost impossible because of the triple bias of our cutlure around: The National Institute of Mental Health reports that as many as 1 in 4 adults in the United States will suffer from a diagnosable psychiatric condition in any given year. Being in a college environment can be helpful to students with psychiatric disabilities as it often provides a structure and routine that aids students in the recovery process. Many psychological conditions are treated using a combination of medication, therapy, and support. Because of the social stigma that often accompanies psychiatric disabilities, students may be reluctant to disclose their needs for accommodations. (source)

• Anxiety / Panic Disorders
• Depressive Disorders
• Eating Disorders
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders
• Personality Disorders
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorders
• Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Disorder
• Substance Abuse

Amazing how many people live with these, and we can see that there are co-occurring disorders. Imagine, being born with an intellectual disability which is categorized as a developmental disability.  For example, within the context of education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a law that aims to ensure educational services to children with disabilities throughout the nation, the definition of IDD and the types of conditions that are considered IDD might be different from the definitions and categories used by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to provide services and support for those with disabilities. These definitions and categories might also be different from those used by healthcare providers and researchers.

It might be helpful to think about IDDs in terms of the body parts or systems they affect or how they occur. For example:

Nervous system
These disorders affect how the brain, spinal cord, and nervous system function, which can affect intelligence and learning. These conditions can also cause other issues, such as behavioral disorders, speech or language difficulties, seizures, and trouble with movement. Cerebral palsy,Down syndrome, Fragile X syndrome, and autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are examples of IDDs related to problems with the nervous system.

Sensory system
These disorders affect the senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell) or how the brain processes or interprets information from the senses. Preterm infants and infants exposed to infections, such as cytomegalovirus, may have reduced function with their eyesight and/or hearing. In addition, being touched or held can be difficult for people with ASDs.

Metabolism
These disorders affect how the body uses food and other materials for energy and growth. For example, how the body breaks down food during digestion is a metabolic process. Problems with these processes can upset the balance of materials available for the body to function properly. Too much of one thing, or too little of another can disrupt overall body and brain functions. Phenylketonuria (PKU) and congenital hypothyroidism are examples of metabolic conditions that can lead to IDDs.

Degenerative
Individuals with degenerative disorders may seem or be typical at birth and may meet usual developmental milestones for a time, but then they experience disruptions in skills, abilities, and functions because of the condition. In some cases, the disorder may not be detected until the child is an adolescent or adult and starts to show symptoms or lose abilities. Some degenerative disorders result from other conditions, such as untreated problems of metabolism. (source)

In a society with all priorities upside down, where preventative health care is counter to capitalism, where precautionary principle is laughed at, where war against nations and war against ecology-community-culture-people-thought prevails, imagine the uphill battle in the arena of recognizing people born with developmental disabilities, and the entire suite of challenges with mainstreaming, inclusion, respect.

Did that human stain get disqualified for making fun of a report with a disability? Remember?  Trump waved his arms in an bizarre and mocking manner at a rally in South Carolina while talking about a comment made by Serge Kovaleski. Kovaleski has a chronic condition called arthrogryposis, which limits the movement of his arms.

No immediate calls for him to stand down and go the way of the Dodo. All those Trump supporters living with adults and youth with developmental disabilities. All those veterans with physical disabilities. Imagine how easy it would be to disqualify all these human stains for who they really are.

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

An investigation published Monday revealed that just weeks before a Norfolk Southern-owned train overloaded with hazardous materials derailed and caused a toxic chemical fire in East Palestine, Ohio, the rail giant donated $10,000—the maximum amount allowed—to help fund the inauguration of the state's Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.

According to WSYX, the Columbus-based news outlet that conducted the investigation, "This contribution, which is part of $29,000 the Virginia-based corporation has contributed to DeWine's political funds since he first ran for governor in 2018, is merely one piece of an extensive, ongoing effort to influence statewide officials and Ohio lawmakers."

"In all, the railway company has contributed about $98,000 during the past six years to Ohio statewide and legislative candidates, according to data from the secretary of state," WSYX reported. "Virtually all went to Republicans, although Norfolk Southern hedged its support for DeWine in 2018 with a $3,000 check to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray."

In addition to shelling out loads of campaign cash, Norfolk Southern has also extensively lobbied DeWine, statewide officials, and Ohio lawmakers.

Quarterly reports disclosing the company's lobbying activities show that DeWine and other statewide officials were targeted 39 times over the past six years, while Ohio lawmakers were targeted 167 times during the same time period.

"Most of the disclosed attempts to influence Ohio leaders came on generic rail or transportation issues," WSYX reported. "Some efforts, however, were devoted to defeating legislation that would have established tougher safety standards for rail yards and train operations."

River Valley Organizing, a local progressive group, declared on social media that "this is what we're up against."

Norfolk Southern's successful bid to thwart at least one Ohio bill aimed at improving railroad safety—explained in depth by the local news outlet—mirrors the company's triumphant campaign to weaken federal regulations.

Before dozens of its train cars careened off the tracks and burst into flames in East Palestine on February 3—leading to the discharge of vinyl chloride and other carcinogenic chemicals—Norfolk Southern "helped kill a federal safety rule aimed at upgrading the rail industry's Civil War-era braking systems," The Leverreported earlier this month.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has been criticized by progressive advocacy groups and lawmakers for his lackluster response to the crisis in East Palestine, sent a letter to Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw on Sunday stating that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the cause of the derailment and that the Federal Railroad Administration is examining whether safety violations occurred and intends to hold Norfolk Southern accountable if they did.

Buttigieg insisted that the company "demonstrate unequivocal support" for the poor rural town's roughly 4,700 residents as well as the populations of surrounding areas potentially affected by air and groundwater contamination.

"Norfolk Southern must live up to its commitment to make residents whole—and must also live up to its obligation to do whatever it takes to stop putting communities such as East Palestine at risk," the transportation secretary wrote. "This is the right time for Norfolk Southern to take a leadership position within the rail industry, shifting to a posture that focuses on supporting, not thwarting, efforts to raise the standard of U.S. rail safety regulation."

As The Associated Pressreported Monday:

Buttigieg also said that Norfolk Southern and other rail companies "spent millions of dollars in the courts and lobbying members of Congress to oppose commonsense safety regulations, stopping some entirely and reducing the scope of others." He said the effort undermined rules on brake requirements and delayed the phase-in for more durable rail cars to transport hazardous material to 2029, instead of the "originally envisioned date of 2025."

The transportation secretary said the results of the investigation are not yet known, but "we do know that these steps that Norfolk Southern and its peers lobbied against were intended to improve rail safety and to help keep Americans safe."

Nevertheless, as The Leverreported earlier this month, Buttigieg is actively considering an industry-backed proposal to further erode federal oversight of train braking systems.

The outlet has published an open letter urging Buttigieg "to rectify the multiple regulatory failures that preceded this horrific situation," including by exercising his authority to reinstate the rail safety rules rescinded by the Trump administration at the behest of industry lobbyists.

The full environmental and public health consequences of the ongoing East Palestine disaster are still coming into view, as residents question the validity of initial water testing paid for by Norfolk Southern.

Despite state officials' claims that air and water in the area remain safe, thousands of fish have died in polluted local waterways and people in the vicinity of the derailment have reported headaches, eye irritation, and other symptoms.

Just days after his company skipped a town hall meeting, Shaw visited East Palestine on Saturday and said that "we are here and will stay here for as long as it takes to ensure your safety."

"Something's wrong with corporate America and something's wrong with Congress and administrations listening too much to corporate lobbyists."

Norfolk Southern, which reported record-breaking operating revenues of $12.7 billion in 2022, originally offered to donate just $25,000 to help affected residents—an amount equivalent to about $5 per person—but recently announced the creation of a $1 million charitable fund instead.

Lawmakers in Ohio "are now scrambling to make sure the railroad is held accountable," WSYX reported. "The House Homeland Security Committee is scheduled to hear 'informal testimony' Wednesday from Karen Huey, assistant director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety, and John Esterly, chairman of the Ohio State Legislative Board with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers."

In Washington, U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) on Friday requested information regarding the handling of hazardous materials from the CEOs of several large rail corporations, including Norfolk Southern.

"Over the past five years, the Class I railroads have cut their workforce by nearly one-third, shuttered railyards where railcars are traditionally inspected, and are running longer and heavier trains," Cantwell wrote. "Thousands of trains carrying hazardous materials, like the one that derailed in Ohio, travel through communities throughout the nation each day."

Notably, Norfolk Southern announced a $10 billion stock buyback program last March. The company has routinely raised its dividend, rewarding shareholders while refusing to invest in safety upgrades or basic benefits such as paid sick leave.

Just days after he sent co-authored letters raising safety and health concerns to the NTSB and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said during a Sunday appearance on CNN's "State of the Union" that Norfolk Southern is responsible for the East Palestine disaster, which he characterized as another chapter in "the same old story."

"Corporations do stock buybacks, they do big dividend checks, they lay off workers," said Brown. "Thousands of workers have been laid off from Norfolk Southern. Then they don't invest in safety rules and safety regulation, and this kind of thing happens. That's why people in East Palestine are so upset."

“They know that corporate lobbyists have had far too much influence in our government and they see this as the result," Brown continued. "These things are happening because these railroads are simply not investing the way they should in car safety and in the rail lines themselves."

"Something's wrong with corporate America and something's wrong with Congress and administrations listening too much to corporate lobbyists," he added. "And that's got to change."

Another Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials crashed last week near Detroit, Michigan. Like Brown, union leaders and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have attributed the recent derailments to Wall Street-backed policies that prioritize profits over safety.

As David Sirota, Rebecca Burns, Julia Rock, and Matthew Cunningham-Cook of The Leverpointed out in a recent New York Times opinion piece, the U.S. is home to more than 1,000 train derailments per year and has seen a 36% increase in hazardous materials violations committed by rail carriers in the past five years.

The rail industry "tolerates too many preventable derailments and fights too many safety regulations," the journalists wrote. "The federal government must move quickly to improve rail safety overall."

An inter-union alliance of U.S. rail workers, meanwhile, has called on organized labor to back the nationalization of the country's railroad system, arguing that "our nation can no longer afford private ownership of the railroads; the general welfare demands that they be brought under public ownership."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

Mass incarceration and wrongful conviction disproportionately impact Black people in the U.S. — over 50% of the 3,375 people who have been exonerated since 1989 are Black. This trend is also seen among death row exonerees, with 103 out of 190 people exonerated from death row being Black, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The movies, documentaries, series, and podcasts highlighted below dive into the history of racism in the U.S., spotlight activists like the late Rep. John Lewis and Equal Justice Initiative Founder Bryan Stevenson, and examine the modern-day impacts of slavery and Jim Crow era policies.

Podcasts

Unreformed: The story of the Alabama Industrial School of Negro Children
In Unreformed, journalist Josie Duffy Rice investigates the rarely told story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children — today known as Mt. Meigs, a juvenile detention facility. The institution was billed as a “reform school” for Black children convicted of crimes, but those who went there (including Black children who had lost their parents or run away) have described it as a “slave camp.”

NPR’s Code Switch
Each week on Code Switch, journalists of color explore a different topic through the lens of race. With empathy and humor, they discuss the impact of race on everything from politics to food to entertainment.

Making
WBEZ’s Making is a biographic podcast that focuses on influential Black figures, and looks at their journey to icon status. Season 1 followed Oprah Winfrey’s path to success, Season 2 focused on former President Barack Obama, while Season 3 put the spotlight on Beyoncé Knowles. Its most recent season features a different iconic Black figure each week, including history makers like Ida B. Wells, Jesse Owens, and Serena Williams. 

Next Question with Katie Couric
In the episode, “Can one person change the criminal justice system?” of Next Question with Katie Couric, the celebrated journalist sits down with Equal Justice Initiative Founder Bryan Stevenson to discuss Stevenson’s inspiring personal journey. In this riveting conversation, they discuss criminal legal reform, mass incarceration, and his work securing justice for those wrongly convicted and unfairly sentenced.

1619
If you couldn’t put down The 1619 Project from the New York Times Magazine — or you’ve always meant to pick it up but haven’t found the time to sit down and read it — 1619 takes an equally compelling look at the U.S.’ history and legacy of slavery in podcast form.

Violation
This podcast hasn’t been released yet, but we’re already eager to tune into this collaboration between WBUR & The Marshall Project this spring. The series follows the case of a 16-year-old who was convicted for murder, incarcerated for decades, released, and re-incarcerated, while examining “who pulls the levers of power in the justice system.”

Documentaries

The 1619 Project
In the newest iteration of The 1619 Project, this docu-series was just released on Hulu. Hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, the six-part series features the perspectives of civil rights activists, people impacted by police brutality, journalists, historians, and entertainers.

Exterminate All the Brutes
Described by The New Yorker as “an illustrated lecture, or a cinematic podcast,” this haunting HBO docu-series examines the legacies of colonialism and racism, and how they’ve shaped our world and continue to plague our societies still.

Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America
In this enlightening and powerful lecture, civil rights attorney and founder of the Who We Are Project, Jeffery Robinson, traces the history of anti-Black racism and white supremacy in the US. The documentary is streaming on Netflix

John Lewis: Good Trouble
This inspiring HBO documentary about the life of Rep. John Lewis and his 60 years of inspiring activism was released just weeks before the icon’s passing. The title draws its name from the phrase the late civil rights champion often used to describe the work of activism: “Good trouble.” Streaming on HBO Max.

Between the World and Me
In this intriguing film adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book “Between the World and Me,” dozens of artists, actors, and activists bring the author’s letter to his teenage son, recapping his experience growing up as a Black man in Baltimore. The film examines the roles of schools, communities, police, and the criminal legal system in upholding racial injustice and violence against Black communities. Available to watch on HBO Max.

Narrative Films & Series

The Underground Railroad
This haunting series is adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. The historical drama is a reimagining of the metaphorical “Underground Railroad” — a network of people working to free enslaved Black people — as a literal railroad system and follows fictional characters as they strive for freedom. Available to stream on Amazon.

Clemency
Centered on a prison warden played by Emmy Award- and Golden Globe Award-winning actress Alfre Woodard, this emotionally charged drama explores the psychological toll of carrying out the execution of a person with an innocence claim. In doing so, it also raises questions about the morality and ethics of the death penalty. Available to stream on Hulu.

The Hate U Give
In this drama, a teen trying to exist in two spaces — the poor, mostly Black community she lives in and the wealthy, mostly white school she attends — must navigate new dynamics after witnessing a police officer shoot and kill her childhood friend. The film portrays the many ways lives can be impacted by contact with the criminal legal system. Available to stream on Hulu.

Fruitvale Station
This award-winning and critically acclaimed film is based on a true story and follows the last moments of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was tragically detained and killed by police at the Fruitvale BART Station in Oakland, California, on New Year’s Day in 2009. Driven by a powerful performance from Michael B. Jordan, the biographical drama humanizes a life gone too soon and provokes necessary conversations about police brutality. Streaming on Hulu.

The post Watch, Learn, Listen: 15 Documentaries, Podcasts, and Series to Tune Into This Black History Month appeared first on Innocence Project.

This content originally appeared on Innocence Project and was authored by Dani Selby.

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Chrissy Stroop.

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Chrissy Stroop.

The post “Cumulative Ballparks” and All That: the Colorado River Conflict This Month appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Bill Hatch.

Its Ministry of Interior and Immigration and Fire Brigade Department said Wednesday there were 138 arson attacks by junta troops across the country in January.

Sagaing region was hardest hit with 4,271 houses burned, killing 17 locals. Arson attacks also destroyed 10 religious buildings and a school, the statement said.

In Magway region, 357 houses and one religious building were destroyed.

More than 50 homes were destroyed in Kayin state and Mandalay and over 30 in Tanintharyi region.

Arson attacks in Mon, Rakhine and Chin states were in single figures but six locals were burned to death in Chin.

The figures were compiled from reports by organizations in the field and releases from civil society groups, the statement said.

A woman from Sagaing region’s Khin-U township said troops burned homes even though there was no resistance from villagers and no pro-democracy militias in the area.

“The brutality of the junta army is beyond words,” said the woman who refused to be named for safety reasons.

“They entered the village without fighting. They torched the houses until they were satisfied and left the village. I can’t understand why they are so cruel to the people.”

Residents said the most brutal troops are from Infantry Battalions 361, 368 and 369, blaming them for a series of human rights abuses in Sagaing region.

The junta claims the arson attacks were carried out by People’s Defense Forces. A statement on Jan. 24 said 1,122 houses in 22 villages in Sagaing regions and Kachin state to the northeast were destroyed in 23 attacks by National Unity Government People’s Defense Force troops in the final two months of 2022.

Nearly 800,000 Sagaing residents have been left homeless by attacks in the past two years – 15% of its population, according to the independent Institute for Strategy and Policy (Myanmar). It said last month, more than 43,000 buildings were burned down since the military seized power from the democratically elected National Unity Government in a February 2021 coup.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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

Hundreds of emergency personnel are converging on Auckland to assist even as forecasts call for another soaking Tuesday. Authorities have evacuated scores of people. “We have more adverse weather coming and we need to prepare for that,” Rachel Kelleher, the Auckland Emergency Management duty controller, said during a press conference, according to Reuters.

January typically ranks among New Zealand’s drier months. The country’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research says 13 inches of rain has fallen so far this month, an amount usually received during the entire summer. That figure easily eclipsed the 8-inch record for the month set in 1986 and makes it the wettest month since record keeping began in 1909 – surpassing the 11 inches that fell in July of 1998. Another 3 to 5 inches could sop the area in coming days.

“It’s a 1-in-100-year weather event, and we seem to be getting a lot of them at the moment,” Prime Minister Chris Himpkins said in a news broadcast on TVNZ. “I think people can see that there’s a message in that … Climate change is real, it’s with us. We are going to have to deal with more of these extreme weather events in the future. 

The flood follows deluges that soaked Canterbury in June and central New Zealand in August of 2021. Those floods, during one of the warmest winters in New Zealand’s recorded history, displaced more than 1,000 people. 

Rising global average temperatures are associated with the widespread changes in weather patterns, which can intensify extreme weather events. That, in turn, can create a positive feedback loop of more violent storms, more intense heat waves, rising sea levels, and higher temperatures. Studies have shown that such events will likely become more frequent and more extreme with human-induced climate change.

California, for example, experienced record rainfall as a series of atmospheric rivers dumped more than 17 inches of rain on the state in just three weeks after Christmas. The storms killed at least 19 people  and caused some $30 billion in damage from flooding, landslides, and problems. New Zealand can expect similar challenges. “When you have a significant rainfall event like this, rivers can rise quickly,” meteorologist Luis Fernandes said in a statement to CNN, “and roads can literally fall away or become covered and can cut off communities.” 

According to research published in May 2022, the seas surrounding New Zealand are expected to rise sooner than previously thought. With the rate of that increase doubling over the past 60 years, the prognosis suggested that while the global sea level is expected to rise more than 19 inches by 2100, New Zealand, which is sinking, could see more than 3 feet of sea level rise. That will bring a  higher risk of coastal storms, erosion, and flooding.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Auckland drenched by New Zealand’s wettest month on record on Jan 31, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Avery Schuyler Nunn.

Yet another study on Tuesday raised the alarm about the dangers of "forever chemicals," revealing that eating just one locally caught freshwater fish in the continental United States can be equivalent to drinking contaminated water for a month.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are widely called forever chemicals because they persist in the human body and environment for long periods. Despite public health concerns, the manufactured chemicals have been used in products ranging from firefighting foam and waterproof clothing to nonstick pans and food packaging.

"These test results are breathtaking."

Duke University and the Environmental Working Group (EWG) researchers analyzed data for over 500 fish fillet samples collected across the country from 2013-15 for a pair of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) monitoring programs: the National Rivers and Streams Assessment and the Great Lakes Human Health Fish Fillet Tissue Study.

"Identifying sources of PFAS exposure is an urgent public health priority," said study co-author and EWG senior scientist Tasha Stoiber in a statement.

"PFAS contaminate fish across the U.S., with higher levels in the Great Lakes and fish caught in urban areas," she noted. "PFAS do not disappear when products are thrown or flushed away. Our research shows that the most common disposal methods may end up leading to further environmental pollution."

Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) contributed significantly to the high levels in the samples. U.S. manufacturers have largely phased out that PFAS, but it has been used in firefighting foam and was a main component of Scotchgard, a fabric protector by 3M—which announced last month that it plans to exit the PFAS market by the end of 2025.

As the new study states:

The two datasets indicate that an individual's consumption of freshwater fish is potentially a significant source of exposure to perfluorinated compounds. The median level of total targeted PFAS in fish fillets from rivers and streams across the United States was 9,500 ng/kg, with a median level of 11,800 ng/kg in the Great Lakes. PFOS was the largest contributor to total PFAS levels, averaging 74% of the total.

"These test results are breathtaking," said Scott Faber, EWG's senior vice president for government affairs. "Eating one bass is equivalent to drinking PFOS-tainted water for a month."

Specifically, the researchers calculated that eating one 8 oz. serving of fish is equivalent to consuming one month of drinking water with PFOS at 48 parts per trillion (ppt), which is 2,400 times the interim U.S. EPA health advisory.

"People who consume freshwater fish, especially those who catch and eat fish regularly, are at risk of alarming levels of PFAS in their bodies," said co-author and EWG senior scientist David Andrews. "Growing up, I went fishing every week and ate those fish. But now when I see fish, all I think about is PFAS contamination."

The study stresses that "the exposure to chemical pollutants in freshwater fish across the United States is a case of environmental injustice that especially affects communities that depend on fishing for sustenance and for traditional cultural practices."

While the study was published in the journal Environmental Research, EWG's website features an interactive map that details the key findings nationwide.

The researchers found that the median levels of total PFAS in freshwater fish were 278 times higher than those in commercial fish tested by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from 2019-22.

"It's incredible how different they are," Andrews toldThe Hill. According to the outlet:

Some commercially caught fish may be less contaminated because they are grown in controlled aquaculture environments, Andrews explained. Meanwhile, large-scale ocean fishing often occurs farther offshore, where PFAS pollution would be more diluted, he added.

Andrews acknowledged, however, that the data on commercially caught fish is much more recent than the freshwater contamination figures.

He also recognized that with the industrial phaseout of PFOS production, the pollution "levels in rivers and streams do seem to be decreasing, which is important."

"At the same time, the levels are still so high that any fish consumption likely impacts [human blood] serum levels," Andrews said. "But they are moving in the right direction, which I think is some good news, at least in terms of the rivers and streams."

Despite some progress—including smallsteps last year by the EPA—the researchers and others pointed to the findings as evidence of the need for further action on PFAS.

"The extent that PFAS has contaminated fish is staggering," said lead researcher Nadia Barbo, a graduate student at Duke. "There should be a single health protective fish consumption advisory for freshwater fish across the country."

EWG's Faber declared that "for decades, polluters have dumped as much PFAS as they wanted into our rivers, streams, lakes, and bays with impunity. We must turn off the tap of PFAS pollution from industrial discharges, which affect more and more Americans every day."

"The EPA needs to move swiftly to set regulations for the industries most likely to be dumping PFAS into the environment," he added. "Downstream communities especially have suffered the consequences of unregulated PFAS discharges for far too long."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

Kong Kaom, who was once Cambodia’s deputy foreign affairs minister, is the father of Kong Monika, a senior official in the main opposition Candlelight Party. 

Since 1982, he has been living on property that Hun Sen claims is owned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“It is time for the ministry to take the land back,” Hun Sen wrote on his Facebook account Wednesday. 

He said that although he has allowed Kong Koam to live on the property, the former deputy minister has since faked documents to try to establish ownership for himself. 

A government sub decree in 1989 conferred ownership of the disputed property to him, Kong Koam told RFA’s Khmer Service on Wednesday.

“I didn’t secretly apply for the land title. I received the land titles in 1990 and 2015 for ownership of the house and land,” he said.

Kong Koam claims that Hun Sen is threatening him for his association with the Candlelight Party. The party secured around 19% of votes in last June’s nationwide local elections while Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, secured around 80% of the contested seats. 

Kong Koam is a former member of the ruling party, but he changed his political affiliations in the 1990s, when he returned home after a stint as Cambodia’s ambassador to Vietnam. 

He said that despite the threats, he will remain a supporter of the opposition.

“I love democracy,” he said. “I won’t support the ruling party [in exchange] for my house and clemency.”

Defamation suit

Meanwhile, the ruling party’s office in the southeastern province of Tboung Khmum filed a defamation suit against Kong Koam over comments he made during a recent speech to Candlelight Party members, where he mocked the CPP by alleging that it has origins in Vietnam.

According to the suit, the comments were an attempt by Kong Koam to incite chaos. 

The CPP asked the court to prosecute Kong Koam and fine him U.S.$500,000 in compensation for damages.

Kong Koam maintains that his comments did not incite anyone.

“I want to raise awareness about my opponents. The CPP doesn’t want us to raise any issues that [negatively] affect them,” he said. “Hun Sen has reacted and asked [other parties] not to say anything that hurts the CPP.”

The lawsuit is an attempt to disrupt the upcoming general elections, scheduled for late July, said Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights.

He urged the ruling party to forgive the comments, engage in dialogue with the opposition and avoid lawsuits “to have a good environment so the election will be recognized as free, fair and just.”

 Translated by Samean Yun. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

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

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has ordered an opposition party advisor to turn over his house to the government within a month, the latest wrinkle in a property dispute that dates back to the 1980s.

Kong Korm, who was once Cambodia’s deputy foreign affairs minister, is the father of Kong Monika, a senior official in the main opposition Candlelight Party. 

Since 1982, he has been living on property that Hun Sen claims is owned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“It is time for the ministry to take the land back,” Hun Sen wrote on his Facebook account Wednesday. 

He said that although he has allowed Kong Korm to live on the property, the former deputy minister has since faked documents to try to establish ownership for himself. 

A government sub decree in 1989 conferred ownership of the disputed property to him, Kong Korm told RFA’s Khmer Service on Wednesday.

“I didn’t secretly apply for the land title. I received the land titles in 1990 and 2015 for ownership of the house and land,” he said.

Kong Korm claims that Hun Sen is threatening him for his association with the Candlelight Party. The party secured around 19% of votes in last June’s nationwide local elections while Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, secured around 80% of the contested seats. 

Kong Korm is a former member of the ruling party, but he changed his political affiliations in the 1990s, when he returned home after a stint as Cambodia’s ambassador to Vietnam. 

He said that despite the threats, he will remain a supporter of the opposition.

“I love democracy,” he said. “I won’t support the ruling party [in exchange] for my house and clemency.”

Defamation suit

Meanwhile, the ruling party’s office in the southeastern province of Tboung Khmum filed a defamation suit against Kong Korm over comments he made during a recent speech to Candlelight Party members, where he mocked the CPP by alleging that it has origins in Vietnam.

According to the suit, the comments were an attempt by Kong Korm to incite chaos. 

The CPP asked the court to prosecute Kong Korm and fine him U.S.$500,000 in compensation for damages.

Kong Korm maintains that his comments did not incite anyone.

“I want to raise awareness about my opponents. The CPP doesn’t want us to raise any issues that [negatively] affect them,” he said. “Hun Sen has reacted and asked [other parties] not to say anything that hurts the CPP.”

The lawsuit is an attempt to disrupt the upcoming general elections, scheduled for late July, said Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights.

He urged the ruling party to forgive the comments, engage in dialogue with the opposition and avoid lawsuits “to have a good environment so the election will be recognized as free, fair and just.”

Translated by Samean Yun. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

Update corrects the English spelling of Kong Korm's name.

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

Paying off the cops is a way of life in North Korea. 

Since most North Koreans can barely survive on the salaries of their government-assigned jobs – which in 2018 averaged about U.S.$4 per month – many families have side jobs, buying and selling goods as merchants or providing services.

Police officers and other authority figures, however, use their positions to extract bribes or fine people and pocket the money when they are in violation of minor safety codes. 

November and May are government-sponsored accident prevention months, so people need to be especially careful because raids and crackdowns are more frequent, a resident in the city of Tanchon in the eastern province of South Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The official line is that the extra attention is to boost traffic safety. But in reality, police officers “tyrannically exploit people under the pretext of preventing accidents,” the source said. “People complain that this is going too far.”

People go so far as to liken police officers to thieves or “Oppashi,” a villainous Japanese police officer from a popular North Korean film set during the time Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula.

Police will vigorously ticket every little violation they can find, scanning car and motorcycle license plates to make sure they are up to date, the source said.

Even bicycle license plates are scrutinized. “Bicycle license plates used to be issued after the owner registered the bicycle at the local police office, but nobody has been doing that since the early 2000s,” she said. “So you either make your own or buy it from the market and attach it to the front of the bike.”

If found without a plate, bike owners can expect to pay 1,000 won (12 cents) for regular bicycles and 10,000 won ($1.21) for electric ones, according to the source.

At the end of the month, the local security department with the fewest accidents during the month is considered to have done a good job, sources said.

Authorities also check for workplace violations, a resident of Chongjin in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. If the police spot a violation, businesses can be forced to temporarily close.

“Security guards have been inspecting commercial service facilities such as restaurants and public baths,” the second source said. 

To avoid the penalty, business owners can offer the police a bribe. 

A restaurant owner in the Kyo-dong neighborhood got out of having to shut down due to a potential fire hazard by serving the inspecting security agent a bowl of dangogi-jang, an expensive stew made with dog meat, and 100,000 won ($12) in cash, she said.

“The public is on the verge of explosion due to their extreme dissatisfaction with the security agents who viciously extort residents to fill their pockets,” she said.

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chang Gyu Ahn for RFA Korean.

Notes:
Leila Zand is an Iranian-American peace activist and scholar, based in Washington DC.
She presently works with the womens’ peace organization Code Pink.

Music-break info:
“Mahtab” by Marjan Farsad

The post Contextualizing the Events of the Past Month in Iran appeared first on Project Censored.

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

On Oct. 15, his father Trinh Ba Khiem went to Prison Camp No. 6 to visit his son, but was refused.

"I just went there on October 15 to ask about Trinh Ba Tu's health, but a police officer who covered Trinh Ba Tu's area answered 'normal'," said Khiem who is a former prisoner of conscience.

Ten days ago, Khiem visited the prison again to see his son. Prison authorities refused the visit and wouldn’t let Khiem provide food for his son on the grounds that Tu was still being disciplined.

During a visit last month Tu told his father he had been beaten and left in solitary confinement for 10 days with his feet shackled.  An unnamed prison official said Tu was disciplined "for writing false accusations." The official then told Khiem he could see Tu once in September and not at all in October.

Khiem said the family was very worried about the health of their second son.

“On Sept. 20, Trinh Ba Tu said he had been on hunger strike for 14 days,” Khiem said.

“Since that day, I have not heard any news… and I do not know if he has stopped his hunger strike or not."

According to Article 43 of the 2019 Law on Execution of Criminal Judgments there are three forms of discipline for prisoners: reprimand, warning, and detention in a solitary cell for up to 10 days. During their time in solitary, prisoners are not allowed to see their relatives and may have their feet shackled.

Last month, shortly after returning from prison, Trinh Ba Khiem filed a petition with the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security to request an investigation into his son’s beating but has received no response.

RFA called the prison on Monday to verify Khiem’s claims, but no one answered the phone.

Trinh Ba Tu, 33, along with his mother Can Thi Theu and his brother Trinh Ba Phuong have been land rights activists for many years.

Theu and her two sons were arrested on June 24, 2020 on charges of "conducting propaganda against the state." Theu and Tu were sentenced to eight years in prison and eldest son Phuong was sentenced to ten years.

Prison No. 6 is located in an area of the Central region with the harshest climate. Many former prisoners have told RFA the warden and guards treat prisoners of conscience extremely harshly.

In 2019, former teacher Dao Quang Thuc died in Prison No. 6 while serving a 13-year sentence. In August this year, citizen journalist Do Cong Duong also died there. Both men were healthy before being transferred to the prison camp.

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

On Aug. 10, the country’s leader Kim Jong Un ended “maximum emergency” restrictions that had been in place since May, saying the country had won its battle against COVID.

But the disease is spreading and North Koreans are still dying from it, a resident in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA’s Korean Service Monday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. 

“As the weather gets cooler in the fall, the number of farmers confirmed with COVID-19 is increasing in Kimhyongjik county, which faces the border with China,” the source said.

“Last week, a couple in their 60s living in Muchang village died while quarantining at home, only ten days after being confirmed to be infected with COVID-19,” he said.

During the emergency, North Korea had been keeping a tally of “fever cases.” The total reached around 4.8 million people, and state media reported 75 related deaths. These figures were never confirmed to be COVID-19 related, likely because of a lack of testing capabilities.

But the source said that health authorities are now using Chinese self-test kits to unofficially confirm infection. 

Doctors visit the households of sick people once a day to take their temperature. After three days with a fever, they report it to the county’s quarantine commander, who will come to administer a test.

If they test positive, they must quarantine at home for 20 days. 

But even though authorities are now testing for the disease, they still try to cover up deaths, according to the source.

“The quarantine authorities carried the bodies away by ambulance without informing their son who lives in the same neighborhood,” he said. “They buried the bodies in a mountain away from the neighborhood. Their son is angry because he is unable to even hold a funeral for his parents.”

During the emergency, suspected COVID-19 patients were sent to a group quarantine facility, where they were monitored. After the emergency officially ended, patients were required to quarantine at home.

“COVID-19 patients and their families who quarantine at home only receive two tablets of fever-reducer each day, and no food is provided for them,” the source said.  “Residents are blaming the authorities for not taking care of the patients by blindly isolating them. They argue that COVID-19 patients are dying because they do not eat properly.”

A 72-year-old woman in nearby Kimjongsuk county’s Songjon village died during quarantine in her home one week after testing positive for COVID-19, a resident there told RFA.

“The quarantine authorities only supplied two fever-reducer tablets to the patient each day during the quarantine period. They also gave two tablets to her daughter in her 40s, her son-in-law, grandson and granddaughter, all who lived with her,” the second source said.

“They were all quarantined at home as suspected cases, and they were not given food at all,” she said. “Families who are quarantined at home are not able to work, nor can they go out to buy food at the marketplace. This family not only had to worry about dying from COVID-19, they also had to try not to starve to death, by eating corn and potatoes from their garden.” 

Though the family attempted to hold a funeral for her, authorities quickly seized the body, put it on an ambulance and sped away, according to the second source. They buried the body in the mountains away from where people live, and only told the family the location of the burial site.

“They said they were not allowed to hold a funeral for COVID-19 dead,” she said. “Residents are dying from symptoms of COVID-19 because there are no measures to supply food and medicine to COVID-19 patients. Residents are resentful that the authorities falsely advertise that we are a COVID-free country.”

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hyemin Son for RFA Korean.

The Minimum Wage Council decided on next year’s salary in a meeting held Wednesday. Cambodia’s unions asked for a minimum wage ranging from $206 to $213, but employers and government officials agreed to increase it to $198, according to a statement from the Ministry of Labor. 

The country’s leader, Hun Sen, decided then to round the figure up to $200, the statement said. When state benefits are included, the minimum income for Cambodians now comes to between $217 and $228, the statement said.

Cambodia’s Minister of Labor Ith Sam Heng told reporters the new wage will help workers, but union leaders and workers told RFA’s Khmer Service they were disappointed with the raise.

“I am sad because the government must play a vital role in defining the new minimum wage, and they know about inflation,” Yang Sophorn, the president of Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions (CATU), told RFA. 

“Inflation is 5 percent. The government only added $6 to the current minimum wage of $194,” she said.

The Cambodian Labor Federation was unhappy with the decision, its president, Ath Thun, told RFA.

“We don’t like the results, but it has been done. The union will continue to work with workers and listen to their reactions,” Ath Thun said. “We will ask the government to reduce utility bills and fight against inflation, especially in gasoline and food prices.”

Yorn Yoert, a worker, told RFA that she has begun cutting back on food to save money.

“I eat food not for enjoying its taste, but just to survive, because I have reduced spending,” she said. “Before I had three meals daily but now I skip breakfast.” She also criticized the wage increase as insufficient.

Exploitation abroad

Many Cambodian workers reject the kow pay and seek opportunities in neighboring countries like Thailand. But migrants told RFA that they face exploitation by their employers and risk imprisonment if caught by authorities without proper documentation. 

Thai employers sometimes force Cambodian migrants to work overtime without pay, Ling Sophon, project coordinator for the Phnom Penh-based Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights NGO, told RFA. 

Workers report that the documents that they need to legally work in Thailand are more expensive, and there are not many job opportunities right now, he said. 

Migrants are also unfamiliar with immigration laws and Cambodian officials often don’t help them if they get arrested, Ling Sophon said. Over the last three months, migrants have complained about their difficulties renewing their passports, work permits and other documents, she said. 

The husband of Cambodian migrant Chey Mom was recently arrested by Thai police and sentenced to 18 months in jail, she told RFA. The couple had been living in Thailand for the past seven years.

She said that since the arrest it has become harder to support her two children, who are of school age. She also asked Cambodia’s government for help.

Another migrant, Cheng Nai, told RFA she is continuing to work in Thailand even though she risks arrest after she lost her legal documents when COVID-19 pandemic hit the country. 

The pandemic has also decreased job opportunities as tourism dried up. But she won’t go back to Cambodia, she says, because the pay is much lower and there are even fewer jobs.

“Here it is easier to find a job, I am 41 years old now, I am afraid in Cambodia they will stop taking [older workers],” Cheng Nai said. “In Thailand they accept me for jobs even though I don’t have a passport. I want to work in Thailand.”

 Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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

North Korea had claimed it was entirely virus-free for most of the pandemic. In May 2022, Pyongyang finally admitted that the virus had spread throughout the country after a military parade in April, and authorities declared a “maximum emergency” that included movement restrictions and lockdowns.

The government kept a tally of “fever cases” which reached around 4.8 million people, and state media reported only 75 related deaths. Over the next few months the number of active cases rapidly declined.

On Aug. 10, the country’s leader Kim Jong Un publicly declared victory over the virus and eliminated the maximum emergency restrictions.

Residents are frustrated that they must now wear masks again, even though they’ve been told they won the battle against COVID.

“Starting this month, we must all wear masks in public places again,” a source in the eastern province of South Hamgyong told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. 

“Provincial quarantine authorities sent this order, from the Central Committee [of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party] to the residents through neighborhood watch unit meetings,” said the source.

Authorities sent a mask inspection team to the marketplace near the source’s home, he said.

“Residents who did not wear a mask during the intensive crackdown period, or who sold or purchased goods with a mask on their chin without covering their nose and mouth, were caught and fined,” the source said. The fines are 3,000 won (U.S. $0.37) for no mask and 1,000 won ($0.12) for wearing one improperly.

“They said that the coronavirus crisis was over, but in less than one month they are telling us to wear masks again and they are cracking down more harshly,” he said. “The people are complaining that they are trying to take their money with excessive fines.” 

The source added that there are still large numbers of people with suspected coronavirus symptoms, so the authorities have also returned to emergency quarantine measures.

In South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, the inspection teams have been out in force since the beginning of the month at factories, auditoriums, train stations and other crowded places, a source there told RFA.

“It’s like the emergency epidemic prevention system is being restarted, just 21 days after the Highest Dignity [declared victory],” the second source said, using an honorific term to refer to Kim Jong Un. “This is because there are still patients with suspected COVID-19 symptoms such as high fever and acute bronchitis.” 

“Nevertheless, the authorities are propagating that even though the rest of the world is in chaos due to the relentless spread of the virus, North Korea has succeeded in preventing it,” he said. 

“They say South Korea continues to transmit the virus into our territory by applying the malignant virus on their goods, so we have no choice but to adhere to strict quarantine regulations again,” the second source said.

Direct trade between South and North Korea is currently nonexistent and all South Korean goods that end up in the North typically go in through China, with which North Korea has suspended trade due to the coronavirus. 

RFA was unable to confirm transmission of the coronavirus to North Korea via imported South Korean goods.

“Residents are criticizing the authorities for strengthening means of control over residents, lying that the COVID-19 crisis has ended, and repeating false propaganda that they are beefing up COVID-19 prevention measures again because of South Korea,” the second source said.

Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hye Min Son for RFA Korean.

Oklahoma plans to execute a person a month for the next two years, starting today. We get an update from Connie Johnson, former state senator and murder victim family member with the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and speak with world-renowned anti-death-penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean. “Our death penalty is broken. It always was from the beginning,” Prejean tells Democracy Now! “I recognize that this is torture and an abuse of human rights. In time, with our help, as we continue to get the word out, the American people are going to see that, too. And we are going to end this thing.” Oklahoma has a history of botched executions, wrongful convictions and prosecution misconduct. “We get it wrong here often,” says Johnson. “We don’t want anyone executed.”

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

I’ve exhausted the labor market here, since the school district has banned me as a substitute teacher for, well, subbing and answering high school students’ questions about my work with homeless, with just released incarcerated, and those with substance abuse issues. Of Mice and Men, as well as Animal Farm, I was filling in for the teacher.

I was frog-marched out of the classroom halfway through third period. Banned for life, and, of course, this county has a major deficit in both full-time teachers and subs.

This is just one peek into a broken national system of idiocy. We’ll have the Pride Parade for the first time in Newport down here, September 16-18, but we have complete soiled minds in the school system. They aren’t teaching them to think, but then, we have this uncanny ability to truly ruin future generations with the fear porn of Pfizer and Fauci, all those mandates, the six-foot lines taped all over the schools, outside, masks for track and fiel events.

Children’s brains in adult heads. The school system is a reflection of the chronically ill teaching and administrative establishment. The virtue signaling rules, and no amount of smart critical thinking works with these youth anymore . . . .  Except for those who drop out.

It is a hook and release and recapture and never let go again for each next cohort, next generation.

Other aspects of this county include so much cowardice and dysfunction. I can only imagine what is and is not off limits in the classroom now.

Here, in all its glory: Take Down this Blog, or Else!

Alas, don’t just blame Texas, as this mentality is the stuff of Americans:

‘I am not upset. I’m enraged’: Administration asked school librarian to take down banned books display after one parent complained. ‘I serve over 700 students, not one student alone.’ (Source)

I am stuck (proverbially) in this most gorgeous of places. Stuck in that sort of Walden Pond perspective, albeit, more along the Dollar General Store sensibility.

I do have lofty philosophical ambitions:

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden, August 9, 1954

What I am finding is that I have dislocated myself from my earlier roots of working with my sleeves rolled up as a teacher. So much has passed under the bridge since 1983. Forty years is a drop in the geological bucket, I know, but from a 25-year-old’s perspective, up until now, with all that has broken down the collective human spirit largely on the back of capitalism, the writing was on the wall even then when I had so much hope for some enlightenment and change within the ranks of teaching in El Paso.

Being around youth, around first generation high school graduates, around young people who came from humble beginnings, I found at least some pride in working with them.

The disease of the Aministration Class, or the Provost Clan, all the waste that is a university — football field resurfacing and brand new library buildings and a top-down loading up of worthless institutional advancement creeps — it wasn’t enough then to infect me to throw in the towel.

Forty years later, well, so much in this country is broken, and so much about higher education is plain wrong. It’s all on this trajectory of truly a reset of values, or at least, in the USA, very few values for the majority of the people, now have been stripped. This concept of digitization of everything is easily digested by youth.

Where do they get these all-comers? That’s 87,000 more IRS armed agents. This is the Democrats, man:

An IRS job form seeking ‘Criminal Investigation Special Agents’ was briefly taken offline and edited on Wednesday after its language stoked outrage on social media, according to Fox News and other outlets. Though a previous version of the page (archived August 10) noted that “major duties” of the job would include carrying a firearm and being “willing to use deadly force, if necessary,” the listing visible on Thursday evening no longer contains that requirement.

Journalist Ford Fischer was among the first to note the mention of ‘deadly force’ in a series of tweets on Wednesday. Less than 24 hours later the agency had taken down the notice, removed the offending bullet-point and reuploaded it. (Source)

The US society is so geared to complete rip-off of the 80 percent, those of us not in the point zero-zero percent, One Percent or captured inside the 19 percenters who are the true enemies of the people. The Eichmann’s. The hatchet men and women. The Dream Hoarders.

This at the Aspen Institute, that “institute”: The Aspen Institute is largely funded by foundations such as the Carnegie Corporation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation, and the Ford Foundation, by seminar fees, and by individual donations.

Trees and a High School Drop Out Making His Way in LaLa Land

September’s here, the month that brings in Fall. Looking at the national holiday list for September (celebratory themes), I notice over 30 “themes” celebrated or commemorated. Here are just a few:

• National Hispanic Heritage
• Childhood Obesity
• Childhood Cancer
• Self-Improvement
• Honey
• Potato
• Pain Awareness
• Intergenerational
• Prostate

Diving into that intergenerational theme, I realize I’ve been intently interfacing with people decades younger than I am. In Waldport, Portland, Spokane, Seattle, and Alaska, I have talked with people thirty and forty years my junior.

I have deep conversations with some of the houseless rough sleepers in Waldport: guys that are in their thirties who have taken to life outside the “norms” of job, home, roots. Much of what I have discovered is trauma piled onto each individual since childhood.  I hearken to Dr. Gabor Mate:

“From early infancy, it appears that our ability to regulate emotional states depends upon the experience of feeling that a significant person in our life is simultaneously experiencing a similar state of mind.” (documentary, “The Wisdom of Trauma”).

I’ve met one young guy at a Newport pharmacy who had dreams of being a marine biologist but whose poor health limited that aspiration.

I’ve got a book out, “Coastal People inside a Deep Dive,” featuring amazing Lincoln County folk from my column at Oregon Coast Today. Many of those I featured were both old and young, and every age in between.

Every day I meet amazing young people in various stages of their wonderful evolutions. Many are living with complex PTSD. Others are working through financial strain. Each conversation with someone younger than I takes me to their spiritual home.

Listening is important in today’s age. Many old timers say in the old days we listened more, engaged more with people outside our socio-economic and cultural-ethnic backgrounds.

I’ve had deep conversations with Chuck Ellard who runs Newport’s Pacific Digital printing (“Finding a path“). I’ve written about him, and he is featured in the Coastal People book. He’s in his late thirties, just had a son, and moved from Logsden to Seal Rock. He sees himself as a vital member of the community, assisting individuals with their framing needs or getting huge printing jobs from the Lincoln County School District.

A young woman who is working in a five and dime tells me of her dreams of being a writer, and wants to major in literature at U of O. A single parent’s health issues forced her to help pay the bills, so she is in a holding pattern working 50 hours a week. She has a real grace in this derailed point in her life.

I’ve been spending a few hours with a “tree man,” an arborist. Tyler Muth is from Waldport, went to school here, and now this 29-year-old has his own tree service business. He is tall and lanky. Think of a bearded young Brad Pitt.

Muth likes climbing trees. He respects the tree and encourages people to keep healthy trees.

He uses ropes to climb and small chain saws and handsaws. He knows the species of trees, and he is studying for certification through the International Society of Arboriculture.

We talk about Tyler’s years trying to make it as a pro surfer. He likes hitting waves, and he’s surfed up and down the Pacific Coast. He first competed when he was 12.

His business, Dr. Hingewood, allows for some free surf time. He’s worked in construction, and he even did a stint for a mobile slaughter house killing and dressing cows.  He tired of that job, as he says it got to him: “I don’t like killing animals. I don’t own a gun. I even had a hard time last week killing a fish.”

He’s done some gnarly jobs, up in big timber, and those cuts are dangerous. He knows his back cuts (the third and final cut made on the opposite side of the notch).  His business’ name, Dr. Hingewood, ties into how the portion of a tree left uncut – the hinge — can control the direction of the fall.

We talk about family, and he isn’t married and says doesn’t want children. “My freedom and lifestyle would make it difficult to raise a child. I like my freedom to just pick up and go surfing.”

He’s a businessman with a contractor’s license, and he says he has challenges keeping guys on payroll since many just pick up and take off for other gigs, like building wind turbines or commercial fishing.

He is a self-described tree nerd. I’ve written many stories about arborists, urban forestry programs and the value of trees in places like Spokane and Seattle. Out here, Tyler works with mostly private customers, usually with nuisance trees.

We both look up at the aging cypress on the neighbor’s property overhanging my wife and my backyard. He sees the canopy, the architecture of the tree, the hidden deadwood and fossilized wood in the middle of the trunk.

That sky —  those crows, the giant unruly evergreen, blue herons squawking – gets Tyler and I talking. He’s an easy-going man with keen sense of follow- through. I listen; he listens. He tells me about the time a 14-foot great white shark “sort of just appeared” under him while he was surfing off the Oregon coast.

This is the kind of intergenerational discourse we all need. We talk about how men struggle to communicate and to know themselves.

Tyler goes about life with an even keel, he says, and while he isn’t blind to the world, he tells me that he is not so engaged in huge political debates.

“I keep busy. I love trees.” He relishes climbing, figuring out what to cut, and how to get that cut wood down without breaking a patio or his own neck.

We both interject our “almost broke my neck” stories. This is intergenerational communication at its best, looking up at a 100-year-old busted up cypress.

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

The ministry said in a statement on Friday that the Falcon Strike 2022 training exercise will be held at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base in Udon Thani province, northeastern Thailand.

The exercise will begin on Aug. 14 and RFA sources say it will last until Aug. 24. It will include “training courses such as air support, strikes on ground targets, and small and large-scale troop deployment,” according to China’s defense ministry.

“The Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) will dispatch fighter jets, fighter-bombers and airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft, and the Royal Thai Air Force will send its fighter jets and AEW aircraft,” the ministry said.

The renewed exercise marks a new effort to “enhance mutual trust and friendship between the two air forces,” the ministry said, as well as to further the strategic cooperation between Thailand and China, as the latter seeks to project power and expand its influence in the region. 

The Chinese military has just finished a week-long air-naval exercise around Taiwan as an angry response to a visit to the island by the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.

“Thailand cannot deny China’s military role in this region. The combined exercise enables Thailand to better understand and be more familiar with the PLA’s command and control system and its military doctrine,” Dulyapak Preecharush, Deputy Director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at Thammasat University in Bangkok told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Growing military links

Reuters quoted an anonymous Thai air force source who said that Thailand will not deploy its F-16s for Falcon Strike 2022. Instead it will use its Swedish-made Saab JAS-39 Gripen fighters as well as German-made Alpha Jet light attack aircraft.

It is unclear which types of aircraft China will be deploying for the exercise.

Chinese fighters have been seen taking part in recent Sino-Thai Air Force joint training exercises, said Andreas Rupprecht, an expert on China’s military aviation, in a recent interview with RFA.

“Thailand has been shifting more towards China in recent years,” Rupprecht said. 

Since the Thai military increased its power after coups in 2006 and 2014, Bangkok bought tanks, armored personnel carriers and entered into a controversial multi-billion-dollar contract to procure submarines from China. 

China's arms exports to Thailand increased five-fold between 2014 and 2018 compared with the preceding five years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden.

The Thai-U.S. relationship has encountered some turbulence because of the growing ties between Bangkok and Beijing, despite Thailand being the U.S.’s oldest treaty ally in Asia.

The Thai air force expressed a strong interest in buying some F-35 stealth fighter jets to replace its aging fleet of F-16A/B Fighting Falcons but Washington so far seems reluctant to consider the purchase, fearing the fighter’s sensitive technologies could be compromised by China, its biggest military and strategic rival.

However the upcoming Falcon Strike exercise should not increase tension between China and the U.S. if it “doesn’t have a scenario such as an attack on U.S. interests or let China become familiar with U.S. military hardware,” argued Thammasat University’s Dulyapak.

"Both the U.S. and China can take turns to hold joint drills with Thailand," the analyst said, adding: “There is no monopoly in Thailand’s defense policy.”

Falcon Strike joint training exercises have been held annually since 2015 but were suspended in 2000 because of the global COVID pandemic. This year’s event is the 5th training exercise between the air forces of China and Thailand. 

Nontarat Phaicharoen in Bangkok contributed to this story.

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

RFA could not independently confirm the number of battles or casualties and calls to the Military Council’s Spokesman by RFA went unanswered. 

Fighting intensified last month as KNLA troops joined forces with the Karen National Defense Organization (KNDO) to attack junta troops and BGF members in KNU-controlled areas in Kayin and Mon states.

KNDO Special Commando Officer, Capt. Sa Lone told RFA the Military Council is still carrying out ground operations and air raids.

“Now the fighting will intensify,” he said. “The Military Council does not dare to move forward. They will face casualties if they move forward. The junta offensive is still there. The Military Council uses not only manpower, but also heavy artillery and aircraft. They do not give up and we have to stand on the side of the people and continue.”

The KNU said along with the 19 dead locals, 26 people were injured and 44 homes and religious buildings were damaged due to heavy artillery shelling and landmines. Some 49 people from Thaton district in Mon state, controlled by KNU Brigade 1, were arrested for providing information and support to the KNU.

The statement also claimed more than 150,000 locals fled in search of safety due to junta attacks in the 18 months since the Feb. 2021 coup.

Military Council Spokesman Gen. Saw Min Ton has denied KNU statements in the past, saying the military does not target civilians.

An Aug. 3 statement by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said 346,000 people fled their homes due to internal conflicts in Myanmar before Feb. 1 last year. It said 866,000 became internally displaced persons since the coup as of July 25 this year.

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

Independent journalist Le Van Dung’s hearing will be on August 16. The next day the court will rule on Trinh and Nguyen’s sentences.

Dung, 52, was sentenced to five years in prison and five years’ probation for “conducting anti-state propaganda.”

He was accused of "making and uploading on social media 12 clips with propaganda content against the State, defaming the government, spreading fabricated news, causing confusion among the people and insulting the honor and reputation of leaders of the Party and State,” between March 2017 and September 2018.

Dung did not deny posting the clips but said they told the truth. He protested his innocence under the Vietnamese Constitution and international human rights conventions that Vietnam has signed

Dung’s wife, Bui Thi Hue, told RFA she hoped the appeal court would release her husband.

Trinh Ba Phuong, 37, and Nguyen Thi Tam, 50, were both arrested on June 24, 2020 and charged with "conducting anti-state propaganda.”

Phuong's mother, Can Thi Theu, and his younger brother, Trinh Ba Tu, were arrested on the same day after complaining on social media about a police raid on land rights protesters from Dong Tam commune where they lived. Three policemen died in clashes with locals and commune leader Le Dinh Kinh, who was leading the land petitioners, was killed by the police.

Theu and her son,  Trinh Ba Tu, were both sentenced to eight years in prison and three years of house arrest.

In December the Hanoi People's Court sentenced Phuong to 10 years in prison and five years of probation. Tam was sentenced to six years in prison and three years of probation.

This is not Tam’s first conviction. She was imprisoned twice for fighting against land expropriation by the Duong Noi commune government. In 2008 she was charged with "disturbing public order" and in 2014 she was convicted for "resisting public officials."

Phuong’s wife, Do Thi Thu, told RFA she was extremely dissatisfied with the original trial.

“My husband and our family only spoke the truth about the land and the truth about the people of Dong Tam, yet they sentenced my husband to 10 years in prison and my mother-in-law and brother-in-law were imprisoned for eight years.”

“This judgment is absurd. I have no hope for the upcoming appeal hearing. I also do not expect the court to reduce my husband's sentence.”

“I just hope that this communist dictatorship will soon collapse so the Vietnamese people will suffer less and have more freedom and then my husband and other prisoners will be freed.”

During the original trial, Phuong accused Hanoi police investigators of torturing him many times during the interrogation, hitting his genitals, causing him great pain.

Theu and her two sons won awards from the Vietnam Human Rights Network last year. The U.S.-based organization recognizes activists and organizations in Vietnam “who have made their mark in the inexorable march towards freedom, human rights and democracy of the Vietnamese people.”

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

Defenders of pinkwashing argue that it creates mainstream visibility of the LGBTQ+ community, which is particularly important for closeted people in more conservative areas. But considering these disparities, we cannot allow corporations to become complacent with superficial allyship that ultimately only benefits them. A solution to the issue facing corporations each June, advocates argue, is the practice of redistribution: redirecting wealth from those who don’t need it to those who do, and empowering organizations that support and uplift the LGBTQ+ community directly.

In New York City, Gabrielle Lenart observed a lack of space available for queer people in food – and wanted to build a more supportive, sustainable community. In response, she founded the Queer Food Foundation, a community-based organization working to uplift and create resources for queer folks in the food industry. Their past and present projects include the Queer Food Database, a database resource for queer people in the food industry who want to connect with one another, and the Queer Food Fund: a mutual aid program designed to provide assistance to Black, queer, and trans folks facing food insecurity.

Lenart and fellow board member Radhika Sharma observed a lack of visibility and conversation on the intersection of queerness and the food industry, which is extremely hierarchical and rigid regarding identity.

“There is a long history of queer people gathering around food and creating spaces of safety,” Sharma told Inequality.org in an interview. “In our work, we’re trying to reject systems of oppression that tell us that we’re supposed to feel or eat a certain way or only give value to certain kinds of foods and people. Being able to have spaces where, regardless of if you know people, can feel safe and want to connect, using queerness as a way of navigating the world. I want to create and protect that as much as possible.”

Rainbow capitalism and performative allyship conflict with the Queer Food Foundation’s mission. 

“It seems like people only care about us during June and they don’t wanna actually do the work, they just want to be recognized for caring, especially corporations,” Sharma said. “Like, no: we are queer 365 days a year, we work for the community 365 days a year, and you’re not just going to tokenize us and use us for performative allyship when there are  things that need to change, legislation that needs to be done, and funds that need to be raised on a daily basis.”

When corporations do choose to support Pride-related causes, they tend to endorse well-established philanthropic interventions over transformative aid. Over 20different organizations have partnered with the Trevor Project this year. While the Trevor Project has undeniably done incredible work for the queer community that shouldn’t be discounted, their status as a queer-centered mental health organization renders them exactly the kind of organization that businesses are happy to champion. Corporations love to showcase that they’re “saving LGBT+ lives” in the abstract, but never translate that support into mutual aid and survival efforts for LGBTQ+ communities, which are far more restorative and transformative for real queer folks. This may be one reason why numerous major firms that purportedly celebrate Pride, including Home Depot and AT&T,  have donated roughly $1 million or more each to anti-LGBTQ+ politicians.

While dismayed by the traditionally narrow focus of corporate Pride donations, Lennart and Sharma were willing to partner with organizations that showed an interest in making real change.

“One thing about our culture in general is that we don’t see instances of being able to publicly educate or publicly change and accept change – and that’s something that we as an organization really want to support,” Lennart said.“If you’re showing us that you’re changing or that you’re putting in the work, we absolutely want to support transformation and change.”

Through their work, Queer Food Foundation has given a platform to over 100 folks and organizations, distributed over 90 grants to Black queer folks impacted by food insecurity, and organized several events, including a recent  in-person fundraiser where they were able to cover admission fees for lower-income members of the community. They’ve been recognized by authorities in the food industry including Better Homes and Gardens and Food Tank, and have partnered with organizations including the Museum of Food and Drink and the James Beard Foundation.

If corporations truly want to show commitment to LGBTQ+ rights, they need to put their money where their mouth is. Considering that Pride-themed merchandise functions to commodify LGBTQ+ identities, it only makes sense that the community corporations profit from should receive a majority of the proceeds. If a company puts a rainbow flag on their products, it shouldn’t donate just 10 percent back: the full amount should return to the community. It’s not impossible:  some retailers, like American Eagle and Nordstrom, have pledged 100 percent of their Pride clothing earnings to advocacy groups and local charities.

And while the moral implications of accepting money from corporations may seem spurious, “getting money away from people who have resources and redistributing it to people who don’t is the ultimate goal,” said Sharma.

Let’s hope that when June 1st rolls around again next year, corporations spend more money on tangibly supporting LGBTQ+ community causes than they do time on adding rainbows to their logos.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Tapti Sen.

In a statement issued Monday the ICJ said a public sitting of the court will take place at 3 p.m. at the Peace Palace in the Dutch city of The Hague. The President of the Court, Judge Joan E. Donoghue, will read out the ICJ’s decision.

A Rohingya Muslim in Buthidaung Township in northern Rakhine State, who was subjected to human rights abuses by the military, told RFA that the perpetrators should be brought to justice.

“There is evidence of genocide against Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar’s army in 2017,” he said. “On-site inspection is available. The villages of Buthidaung and Maungdaw were destroyed. The residents fled to Bangladesh in fear of being killed by Myanmar’s army. No matter how much they deny it, we know our people suffered. Therefore, we want effective action against their genocide in accordance with the law.”

The Gambia’s parliament approved the plan to bring genocide charges in July 2019, after the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) proposed to the West African Nation that it should prosecute Myanmar. It instituted proceedings in November of the same year alleging genocide through “acts adopted, taken and condoned by the Government of Myanmar against members of the Rohingya group.” The Gambia has not denied that it received funding for the legal action from the OIC.

In the initial hearing The Gambia said that “from around October 2016 the Myanmar military and other Myanmar security forces began widespread and systematic ‘clearance operations’ … against the Rohingya group. The genocidal acts committed during these operations were intended to destroy the Rohingya as a group, in whole or in part, by the use of mass murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, as well as the systematic destruction by fire of their villages, often with inhabitants locked inside burning houses. From August 2017 onwards, such genocidal acts continued with Myanmar’s resumption of ‘clearance operations’ on a more massive and wider geographical scale.”

The military council’s delegation protested at a hearing on Feb. 25 this year, saying the ICJ has no right to hear the case.

Christopher Staker, a lawyer hired by the military council, argued the international community should not be allowed to prosecute Myanmar and the court has no jurisdiction to hear the case.  

Calls to the military council spokesman by RFA went unanswered Tuesday. Some local media outlets quoted an unnamed senior foreign ministry official as saying Myanmar’s delegation to the ICJ, led by the Military Council’s International Relations Minister Ko Ko Hlaing, plans to travel to The Hague to hear the ICJ’s judgment.

The ICJ said the hearing at the Peace Palace will be closed to the public to observe Coronavirus restrictions. Only members of the Court and representatives of the States party to the case will be allowed to enter the Great hall of Justice. Members of diplomatic corps and the public will be able to follow the procedures on a live webcast on the Court’s website as well as UN Web TV.

The Gambia has called on Myanmar to stop persecuting the Rohingya, punish those responsible for the genocide, offer reparations to the victims and provide guarantees that there would be no repeat of the crimes against the Rohingya.

The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and was established in 1945 to settle disputes in accordance with international law through binding judgments with no right of appeal.

The U.S. has also accused Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ruled in March this year that “Burma’s military committed genocide and crimes against humanity with the intent to destroy predominantly Muslim Rohingya in 2017.”

That was the year the military cleared Rohingya communities in western Myanmar, killing, torturing and raping locals. The violent campaign forced more than 740,000 people to flee to squalid refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh.

The State Department said the military junta that seized power in the Feb. 2021 coup continues to oppress the Rohingya, putting 144,000 in internal displacement camps in Rakhine state by the end of last year. A State Department report last month noted that Rohingya also face travel restrictions within the country and the junta has made no effort to bring refugees back from Bangladesh.

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

There were two summits between the two countries during Donald Trump’s presidency: 2018 in Singapore and 2019 in Hanoi. But ultimately the U.S. and North Korea were unable to work out a deal on sanctions relief in exchange for denuclearization. The shift in policy of the new administration makes a return to negotiations less likely, so North Korea is bringing back a more hostile style of rhetoric toward the U.S.

The month-long education project started on June 25, the anniversary of the start of the 1950-53 Korean War, and will last until July 27, the anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended hostilities in the conflict.

Over the course of the month, military personnel must learn why the U.S. is North Korea’s main enemy, a military related source in the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“The General Political Bureau of the People’s Army… created new anti-U.S. education materials that say the U.S. is our main enemy and sent it down to all the subordinate units. From the 25^th, all units… have been attending anti-U.S. classes during their mental education hours, which are held each day for about an hour,” the source said.

“Previous materials made since the time of the 2018 North Korea-U.S. [Singapore] Summit have used the [softer] term ‘imperialism’ to describe the U.S, in order to not provoke them,” said the source.

The new materials have been changed to use harsher language.

“They now call the U.S. an ‘imperialist aggressor.’ The content is intended to strengthen anti-U.S. sentiment and says things like, ‘The aggressive nature of the United States never changes. They are our enemy who must not live under the same sky with us,’” said the source.

“The General Political Bureau has also instructed the political departments of each unit to visit their respective education center during Anti-U.S. Joint Struggle month. The political department should organize officers and soldiers to attend classes there, and they must also punish those who neglect to visit with their units. So the military officials are nervous,” the source said.          

Every province, city and county in North Korea has set up education centers that collect and display anti-U.S., anti-South Korean and anti-Japanese materials, according to the source.

“Since 2018, when we were trying to improve relations with the U.S., anti-U.S. education for military personnel was suspended, but this time, we will bring it back in time for the anniversary of the Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War,” the source said, using the North Korean term for the day the armistice was signed.

The source said the soldiers are not happy with the government’s flip-flopping on whether the U.S. is the number one enemy or not.

“They say, ‘They removed the hostile phrases to improve relations with the U.S., and now they are bringing them back. We don’t know how to play along.’”

The new materials say that peaceful coexistence with the U.S. is not possible, a military source in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“It says that coexistence is just an illusion and equivalent to death, and we must be armed with a high sense of antagonism and ideological determination to fight against the U.S.,” the second source said.

“But the officers and soldiers come out of their mental education classes expressionless and with indifference,” said the second source.

“The General Political Bureau is also telling all units to post up new propaganda signs bearing the slogan, ‘Destroy all U.S. imperialist aggressors, the absolute enemies of the Korean people’ in their barracks. By posting anti-U.S. slogans, which previously we only attached to combat equipment, they will more intently concentrate on hostility toward the United States.”

The sources both said that they interpreted the renewed hostility toward the U.S. as the government expressing its dissatisfaction with a shift in Washington’s stance on North Korea to a more hardline position since the beginning of the Biden administration.

Though fighting in the Korean War ended with the signing of the armistice on July 27, 1953, North and South Korea are still technically at war.

Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Myung Chul Lee for RFA Korean.

On Monday, May 23, Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court sentenced Wu to one month in prison for behaving in a disorderly manner in a public place under the city’s public order ordinance for questioning police during a HK Golden live broadcast as he was covering a pro-democracy student event in central Hong Kong in April 2021, according to news reports.

“Hong Kong authorities should be embarrassed for jailing journalist Eric Wu Ka-Fai merely for asking tough questions of the police, as he had every right to do,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia coordinator, in Washington in D.C. “Hong Kong authorities continue to claim that press freedom prevails in the Chinese-ruled city, but cases like Wu’s prove otherwise.”

According to reports, Wu, who also reports under the name Gwanfolo, was detained on September 29, 2021 and released on bail the next day on charges of behaving in a disorderly manner in a public place, willfully obstructing a police officer on duty, and refusing to obey an order of a police officer. The charges stemmed from his questioning of police during his HK Golden livestream on April 15, 2021, of a pro-democracy street booth erected by student group Student Politicism. On Monday, the judge acquitted Wu of the latter two charges, the reports said. 

In video of Wu’s April 15 livestream, police officers can be seen blocking Wu as he tries to film them questioning the student group. Wu raises his voice and asks the officers whether they intend to hit the crowd when an officer pulls out a stick, later revealed to be a selfie stick, from a bag. The officer says, “police don’t hit people,” and Wu confronts him, saying, “Police don’t hit people? Wasn’t Franklin Chu King Wai [who was jailed for hitting a bystander during Hong Kong protests in 2014] a police officer? Weren’t the seven officers [convicted of assaulting pro-democracy activist Ken Tsang in 2014] police?” Wu also cites cases of alleged police theft and sexual misconduct in the livestream. 

According to the reports, the judge said Wu’s recounting of alleged police misconduct in a public place constituted a disorderly conduct offense because it could have incited collective hatred toward police at the scene resulting in violence. 

CPJ emailed the Hong Kong police force and the Hong Kong department of justice as well as its prosecution division for comment but did not immediately receive any replies. 

CPJ’s 2021 prison census found that China remained the world’s worst jailer of journalists for the third year in a row. It was the first time that journalists in Hong Kong appeared on CPJ’s census.

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

Photo: Patrick Bond.

The third-largest city in South Africa, Durban, has had a hellish month. The climate catastrophe witnessed in the city and surrounding areas left terrible wounds that residents here have not yet recovered from. The 350 mm (14 inches) of rain that pounded many areas of the province in a 24-hour period on April 11-12 more than doubled the ferocity of the prior record: the Easter 2019 Rain Bomb. Scientists confirm last month’s event is now twice as likely to occur than in prior generations, as an attributable result of climate change.

KwaZulu-Natal province counted more than 500 dead (including 57 children). There were 128 932 people displaced, from 17 438 households, as well as hundreds of wrecked schools still unable to cater for 320 000 young scholars, and overall at least $1.6 billion in infrastructure and housing destroyed. Those are official figures released on May 15, but no doubt an underestimate.

The main state funding needed beyond emergency relief, to repair the damage and rebuild for the next storm hasn’t arrived. According to provincial minister of local government, Sipho Hlomuka, by May 11, in spite of promises from the Presidency and Treasury, only $63 million was set aside, but even so, “We have not received the allocated funds. However, we are in talks with provincial and national Treasury on processes we need to follow to receive those funds.”

The Treasury expects provincial departments to engage in creative accounting, rearranging budgets so as to move around already-allocated funds from state resources already depleted by austerity. Since late 2020, Treasury has engaged in the most brutal social-spending reduction in living memory, such as an annual 5% after-inflation cut to public healthcare in spite of the Covid-19 pandemic in which more than 300 000 South Africans died, one of the world’s highest per capita mortality rates. Tresaury officials refuse to compensate for Rain Bomb damage and new adaptation expenses because that would raise the annual fiscal deficit, in spite of it falling from 9.9% of GDP to 5.2% over the last two years.

This is partly explained by a July 2020 deal with the International Monetary Fund which meant that, in exchange for a $4.3 billion loan, the then Finance Minister – Tito Mboweni – committed to running a budget surplus (before interest) by 2024. As the IMF insisted to Mboweni, “There is a pressing need to strengthen economic fundamentals and ensure debt sustainability by carrying out fiscal consolidation…” Global North governments with influence over the IMF should be ashamed of imposing a fiscal squeeze on what the World Bank admitted a few weeks ago, is still the world’s most unequal society.

As for housing, budget cuts have prevented the mass housing programme needed for the nearly 20 000 houses urgently required, not to mention replacements for hundreds of thousands of other, vulnerable shack dwellings across the province. Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu adopted what can be termed a “build back worse” approach, in line with World Bank advice.

So instead of the state engaging in a standard public housing strategy, with well-built, well-located homes, it is reverting to what early 1990s’ activists derided as “blacks like shacks” and “toilets in the veld.” This will compound the errors of Durban city management: houses that are self-built on the cheap, prone to collapsing on inhabitants during increasingly common Rain Bombs.

Even more basic infrastructure remains kaput. Many areas of Durban were without water for weeks, with at least 5% of the city’s 3.5 million residents still not served today. Just next to Durban’s main airport – King Shaka International – in the predominantly black town of Tongaat, thousands of families must apparently still wait months for a pumping station repair, which resulted in vigorous community protests in early May.

When touring hard-hit areas of South Durban last week, we saw not only residual evidence of destruction, but also the spirit of mutual aid embodied in ordinary people and their community groups, sites of religious worship, youth clubs and neighbour-to-neighbour relations. We appreciate Gift of the Givers. In the shack settlements we see Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) organizing and wisely using the relief they are receiving.

But more funds – which can be considered “climate reparations” – are needed, urgently. With a few exceptions, there is no evidence of generosity from those who dropped the Rain Bomb on Durban: fossil fuel companies and other high-emitting corporations, the Global North’s top 10% wealthy individuals (including several million over-consuming South Africans), or embassies from the high-polluting countries (a Scandinavian ambassador told one of us that such donations are difficult because funds are being diverted from Africa to Russia’s victims in Ukraine).

Meanwhile, South Africa’s national government and Durban municipality are still trying to attract new high-polluting factories, more international airlines and a massive expansion of shipping.

State hypocrisy

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana made a revealing statement on May 5: “Durban to me is an eyeopener. In 2019, we had similar floods and they’ve come back on a mighty scale. We kind of did a patchwork when we were making our response there. We were not saying how do we make sure that we build resilience in Durban so that when the floods come back, we are in a better position.”

Yet because of Godongwana’s austerity programme, funds to cover both what is termed “Loss and Damage” and climate-proofing “adaptation” costs are desperately needed, but not available. For those ready to give up on the state, especially because Durban has had notorious corruption problems for two decades, substantial outside funding has gone directly to the people affected through organizations like Gift of the Givers and AbM.

There are increasing concerns about resource abuse within the municipality and province, of course, but it is noteworthy that even here in disgraced former president Jacob Zuma’s home base, the November 2021 local elections provided the ruling party just 42% voting support, its lowest level since democracy began here in 1994.

On the one hand, President Cyril Ramaphosa deserves credit for visiting the scenes of destruction nearly immediately, where he said to distraught low-income people, “This disaster is part of climate change. It is telling us that climate change is serious, it is here. We no longer can postpone what we need to do, and the measures we need to take to deal with climate change.”

Yet on May 10, appearing before big business at African Mining Indaba, he told the fossil companies what they wanted to hear: “Countries on the African continent need to be able to explore and extract oil and gas in an environmentally responsible and sustainable manner.”

But there is no such thing, with climate catastrophe now an existential threat to organized life on the planet.

Instead of extracting oil and gas, the continent needs payments by high-polluting countries so as to justify leaving fossil fuels underground. One precedent came from Ramaphosa’s climate negotiators, who squeezed $8.5 billion in concessional finance commitments from the West (supposedly) to decarbonize the filthy electricity parastatal Eskom and thereby leave its Mpumalanga-sourced coal underground, at the Glasgow climate summit last November.

However, Eskom’s plan also entails using 44% of “Just Energy Transition” funds for methane gas projects, leaving Climate Justice Charter Movement activists to call for a financial boycott of Eskom. And the U.S., British, German and French governments offering the new loans have a hidden agenda: getting the near-bankrupt Eskom to repay the same governments’ state financiers (and the World Bank) vast sums for two 4800 MW coal-fired power plants (Medupi and Kusile) that, in spite of well-known corruption on the projects involving Hitachi, were financed during the 2010s.

Another shocking reflection of climate irrationality came the day before, in a May 9 decision by Environment Minister Barbara Creecy regarding a 200 MW methane gas project at the Indian Ocean port industrial zone of Coega. She acknowledged objections to the high-emissions facility by groundWork and the Center for Environmental Rights: “Climate change impacts during the lifecycle of the Project are of high significance, and even ‘with mitigation’, remain irreversible and can only be mitigated ‘to a limited extent.”

Nevertheless, Creecy concluded, “I am satisfied that environmental impacts associated with the proposed Coega Gas-to-Power Plant have been critically investigated, assessed, appropriately mitigated and considered,” and so she approved the polluting plant.

Other groups remain in dispute with Creecy at a port futher north – Richards Bay – over her support for proposed 3000 MW Eskom and 400 MW private gas-fired power plants, as well as her approval of offshore gas drilling. In the latter cases, community groups (and Greenpeace) are fighting Shell, Total and local oil man Johnny Copelyn’s Impact Africa, and are supported by law firms Natural Justice, Cullinan and Associates, the Center for Environmental Rights and the Legal Resources Center.

A city unprepared

The same injustices were evident when Covid-19 raged through the communities, for wealthy and lighter-skinned populations were taken far better care of. Government officials should be capable of race and class analysis, yet they never release statistics; still, all of society knows that the Rain Bomb victims last month were disproportionately those with darker skins, and women, and the youth and elderly.

These victims are also the South Africans who did not cause the climate crisis, because we can be sure that their annual emissions of greenhouse gases are far below the 8.3 tonnes per person in this country, which is still among the world’s highest emitters (third highest when measured as a share of per capita GDP in countries with more than ten million residents).

Climate injustice in Durban means the victims were never prepared, as they didn’t know this sort of crisis would visit them. Aside from South Durban activists providing climate education in the schools and at protests, the municipality and Department of Education are completely slack on adaptation measures in the low-income areas, especially those that are steep-sloped and low-lying in flood plains.

The purported climate experts are just as slack, even those in the United Nations who praise Durban for climate-proofing. After the October 2017 Rain Bomb – an extremely destructive flood, with 4.3 inches falling in one day, killing more than a dozen, from which no lessons were apparently learned – the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was still praising Durban. The organization’s fifth major IPCC report (in 2018) included this comment: “Individual political leadership in municipal government, for example, has been cited as a factor driving the adaptation policies of early adapters in Quito, Ecuador, and Durban, South Africa.”

Nothing could be further from the truth, since Durban’s greenwashing former mayor Zandile Gumede – winner of a WWF “One Planet Award” in 2018 (several weeks after newspapers reported on her imminent arrest for solid-waste procurement corruption) – had done absolutely nothing to provide climate adaptation support to the homeless who then built on or near steep slopes.

In Quito, the same thing happened, and on January 31 this year, 75 mm fell in a few hours, causing landslides that killed 28 people. Again, climate-proofing of the low-income residential areas was somehow forgotten by irresponsible Ecuadorean municipal authorities who were praised by the UN IPCC.

Ramaphosa himself confessed this on May 15 when addressing Durban businesses: “We need a complete overhaul in infrastructure as well now that we know we are susceptible to climate change vagaries on the eastern seaboard of our country as well as on the western side where the droughts are quite severe. Our collective state of readiness for natural disaster must be drastically improved and disaster-risk assessments by all provinces must be regular and ongoing.”

As a result of Durban officials’ incompetence, he added, “There will now be a clear expectation that municipalities and provinces and departments should develop, update, review and submit disaster management and contingency plans to the National Disaster Management Council. Mechanisms to improve access to provincial and municipal disaster relief funding are being addressed.”

Umhlanga’s elites prosper

The same contradictions were illustrated in municipal service delivery for KwaZulu-Natal provincial premier Sihle Zikalala, who lives in the upscale seaside suburb of La Mercy: the hijacking of a water tanker just to serve his own house instead of a community hall. Similar privileges were supplied elsewhere along the beachfront, up to and beyond the new elite edge city of Umhlanga.

For example, Vivian Reddy is about to launch his $280 million Radisson Blu Umhlanga Oceans five-star hotel in the city’s richest suburb, in part thanks to generous public subsidies. He had close ties to the corrupt nexus around Zuma (e.g. serving as a funder of his Nkandla palace including as a conduit for what a judge declared were bribes made by French arms dealer Thales).

Yet Reddy was featured in a May 7 CNBC show during the Africa Travel Indaba at the International Conference Center, entitled “Rebuilding the tourism sector in Durban.” He bragged to the audience: “We’re building 600 apartments, and every week we’re selling 10 to 12 apartments. Very expensive… We’re creating massive presidential suites that’s going to be the biggest in South Africa… If you look at the Porsche, Umhlanga Rocks became the best-selling dealership in the whole of Middle East and Africa. Durban is buzzing, Durban has got money.”

Such hedonism, in one of the world’s most unequal cities just after more than 400 people died mostly in shack settlements, is a sign of the times. But the interviewer unconsciously put her own finger on the problem when wrapping up: “Durban caught off guard in terms of the floods, but it certainly made us relook at how we how we do come back stronger, just given the fact that there is a consensus that the flooding that we did see, I mean perhaps it’s not the last of it just yet, given the heightened risks of climate change.”

But the elites building promoting luxury developments and international tourism – such as the municipal Economic Development and Planning Cluster’s $29 million “Durban Eye” ferris wheel next to the city’s harbor, where rising sea water will submerge its base soon enough – are simply not having a serious relook.

To be fair, one ruling-party politician – Nkosenhle Madlala, in charge of Durban tourism – did concede, “We need to start caring for environment and ensure that we travel in a responsible way that reduces our carbon footprint.” Yet he still advocates Durban’s “economic development” policy be based on international air travel: the least responsible method of tourism, and highly vulnerable not just to the next pandemic but also when Western countries start applying long-overdue carbon taxes on long-haul flights.

Pay the climate debt!

Also to be fair, two of South Africa’s leading local fossil-fuel owners did give generously to the rehabilitation of Durban: Patrice Motsepe of African Rainbow Coal ($1.9 million) and Mike Teke of Seriti Coal ($6,300). But others in the same fossil class have not yet followed, including Phutuma Nhleko, who in 2016 boughtRamaphosa’s Shanduka empire including its coal assets, and who also owes South Durban residents ecological debt for his 26% share of an ultra-polluting refinery, Engen, which had to close after blowing up in late 2020.

Another is July Ndlovu who heads Thungela (formerly called AngloCoal), a firm whose share valuation rose by ten times over the past year, as the local coal price soared from $67 to more than $300/tonne in part because of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. Two other tycoons in the same boat are Mxolisi Mgojo at Exxaro Coal, and Bridgette Radebe at Mmakau Coal Mining.

These so-called “Black Diamonds” are enormously wealthy – in a sea of poverty – because of soaring fossil prices, as capitalism rewards those engaged in planetary destruction. They were beneficiaries of a recent coal asset gimmick known as pass-the-trash: vast environmental liabilities were sold to them – financed with expensive debt – by Ivan Glasenberg from Glencore in Switzerland, Mark Cutifani from Anglo American in London, and the owners of the former Afrikaner-led Gencor which merged into Australia’s BHP Billiton. The firms had divested to the Black Diamonds under pressure from financiers and in turn from climate activists.

Now the African National Congress wants the state to follow in their pass-the-trash footsteps, by buying the Sapref refinery in South Durban from UK oil firms BP and Shell. Sapref was fortunately shut on March 31, less than two weeks before the Rain Bomb, since it cannot produce sufficiently clean petrol, but it still admitsto massive leakage as the flooding undermined its oil storage tanks.

These firms’ payment of historic climate debt is overdue, instead of just laying that responsibility on only Motsepe and Teke. Since the Loss and Damage demands by African civil society and some official African delegations are going to be front-and-center in November at the first African UN climate summit – in Egypt – since South Africa incompetently hosted the 2011 event in Durban, reminders of the recent Rain Bomb and the desperate need Africans have for climate reparations will reappear again and again.

Another business leader who should know better is Business Unity South Africa CEO Cas Coovadia – once a grassroots anti-evictions leader during apartheid – who on May 8 said, of the Durban Rain Bomb, “Government must also ensure we learn lessons from this, including ensuring people don’t rebuild structures on river banks, and work on early-warning mechanisms.” That’s certainly true, but the municipality and local ruling party already engage in brutal displacement of low-income people from their modest houses, even evicting desperate shack settlers in communities in recent weeks, without making alternative accommodation available.

And in terms of the Rain Bomb’s lessons, Coovadia should recognise this crisis emanated from greenhouse gas emissions, yet his organization – supported by the National Business Initiative and key officials in the Presidential Climate Commission – are working together to push Eskom’s transition from coal to methane gas, which is 85 times more potent over the next two decades than CO2. They still cannot accept the obvious: a full-fledged national grid made up of renewable solar and wind energy (plus storage) is needed as soon as possible, for as Africa’s leading youth climate advocate Vanessa Nakate recently wrote, “gas exploration and gas-fired power infrastructure in Africa are robbing us of vital time to switch to clean energy.”

But in terms of climate destruction, the most dangerous threat comes from billionaire Johnny Copelyn, who during the 1970s-80s organized clothing and textile workers in South Durban factories. Now, as chair and the major investor in Impact Oil & Gas (a London shelf company), he has an alliance with Paris-based Total to explore offshore Namibia, and last month allegedly discovered 13 billion barrels of oil and 10 trillion cubic feet of gas. Copelyn and Total could take gross revenues of $450 billion from the oil alone, but when it is burned, the cost would be more than $10 trillion (due to a Social Cost of Carbon of $3000/tonne).

In addition to paying climate reparations, lessons of the Rain Bomb include halting the destructive offshore oil and gas projects of Shell, Total and Impact Africa, and forcing Eskom to build a fully-renewable electricity generation system plus non-invasive storage (such as pumped hydrostorage). And an even more intimidating enemy looms: offshore South Africa in the Antarctic region, Russian Rosgeo explorers (using Cape Town as a base) last week claimed to have identified 500 billion barrels of oil and gas.

Demonstrations will continue, including against Copelyn’s main Durban casino on the beachfront on May 21, and at the Johannesburg branch of the African Development Bank on May 25. The simple demand: South Africa’s terribly wounded society be healed with an economic development strategy that shuns the fossil fuels and elite tourism that the ruling class appears addicted to.

The struggle is global in scale, though it is already hitting the poorest in Africa especially hard. The last word– summing up the continent’s predicament, one felt so acutely here in Durban – goes to Nakate:

Cyclones linked to climate change have devastated Mozambique in recent years. Drought has left millions of people hungry in the Horn of Africa. Flash flooding in Uganda disrupts our lives more and more frequently now. This is what we are experiencing already at 1.2C of warming above pre-industrial levels. Going beyond 1.5C of warming will be a death sentence for many in Africa. The International Energy Agency says that in order to stand a chance of meeting our 1.5C target, we need to stop building new fossil fuel infrastructure – including gas infrastructure – immediately. Africa is responsible for less than four percent of historic global emissions – we are not the ones who caused this crisis. We want climate justice.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Patrick Bond - Des D’Sa.

Spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing that the consultations will be done in person “in the latter half of this month… despite the impact of COVID-19.”

For the last two years, most of the negotiations over the South China Sea, the thorniest issue between China and ASEAN, have been conducted online because of the pandemic.

China and ASEAN agreed on a Declaration of Conduct of Parties (DOC) in the South China Sea in 2003, but progress on a COC has been slow going amid an increasing risk of conflict.

China’s diplomats are believed to be making fresh efforts to speed up COC negotiations with ASEAN, especially as China’s close ally Cambodia is holding the bloc’s chairmanship this year.

“Establishing a COC is clearly stipulated in the DOC, and represents the common aspiration and need of China and ASEAN countries,” said spokesman Zhao.

He said that China “is fully confident in reaching a COC,” which would provide a “more solid guarantee of rules for lasting tranquility of the South China Sea.”

Yet analysts say there are still major stumbling blocks to be addressed, such as China’s self-proclaimed historical rights over 90 percent of the South China Sea and the long-standing division within ASEAN over maritime disputes.

China and five other parties including four ASEAN member states –Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam – hold competing claims in the South China Sea but the Chinese claims are the most expansive and a 2016 international arbitration tribunal ruled that they had no legal basis.

“If the idea is to produce a comprehensive COC that addresses all of the different concerns of the claimant countries, I do not think it is achievable,” Jay Batongbacal, director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea at the University of the Philippines, told RFA in an earlier interview.

The South China Sea was high on the agenda at last week’s Special Summit between ASEAN countries and the United States.

The Joint Vision Statement issued at the end of the summit said that parties “recognize the benefits of having the South China Sea as a sea of peace, stability, and prosperity.”

“We emphasize the importance of practical measures that could reduce tensions and the risk of accidents, misunderstandings, and miscalculation,” the statement said.

Without mentioning China, the signatories of the joint vision statement “emphasized the need to maintain and promote an environment conducive to the COC negotiations” and said they welcomed further progress “towards the early conclusion of an effective and substantive COC.”

Some analysts, however, think that the U.S. involvement may not be beneficial to the COC negotiation process.

“I don’t think it will help improve the South China Sea situation,” said Kimkong Heng, a senior research fellow at the Cambodia Development Center.

“The U.S. has its own agendas that might exacerbate rather than facilitate the South China Sea negotiation,” he said.

Cambodia is not a claimant in the South China Sea. From Phnom Penh’s standpoint, the U.S. will likely “continue to pressure Cambodia on the potential Chinese military base in the kingdom,” added Heng

“This will serve as a barrier for any meaningful negotiations between the U.S. and Cambodia on national and regional issues,” Heng said.

ASEAN comprises ten members: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

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

The post April: A Solid Month of Job Growth appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Hayley Brown.

Ramadan is the most blessed month of the Islamic calendar. It began on the April 1 and will end sometime in the next day or two when the crescent moon is spotted in the night sky.

The month is observed by Muslims worldwide as a time of fasting, prayer, reflection and community.

To explain how she will be celebrating the end of Ramadan is Zainab Baba.

• READ MORE: RNZ ‘Lately’ podcast on Ramadan
• Other Ramadan reports

In addition to fasting through Ramadan, Baba and her family have also been caught up in the omicron wave.

“It’s been a bit eventful — my family has actually caught covid in the last week or so.”

Baba is “feeling OK” despite a little bit of a cough, she says.

The end of Ramadan is marked by the crescent moon appearing in the night sky signifying the end of the lunar cycle and the beginning of Eid al-Fitr, the festival of breaking the fast.

Don’t always know the exact day
“So we don’t always know the exact day of Eid, which is the kind of celebratory day in which the month is over, so it all depends on the moon sighting.”

What makes Ramadan so important for the world’s Muslims?

“Ramadan is basically one of the most holy months of the Islamic calendar. It’s obviously signified by the fasting that we do from sunrise to sunset every single day,” she says.

“You fast to show your self restraint, I guess. You’re showing that you can kind of overcome these low-level desires that you might have.

“So not only are you abstaining from food and drink, which obviously has many health benefits as most people who do intermittent fasting know, but also you’re committing to kind of staying away from things that maybe you know aren’t good for you.

“In a social way, you’re trying to be kinder, more compassionate in all kind of aspects of your life through the choice to commit to being the best version of yourself as possible.”

Commitment to higher values
It’s a commitment to higher values, she says.

“So you’re not only fasting from the physical kind of food and drink but also just from anything that is not good for you or for those around you.”

In their fasting, from sunrise to sunset those taking part in Ramadan won’t drink or eat anything at all.

“It’s a full fast. But after sunset obviously and before you start your fast at sunrise you can eat whatever you need to.”

Foods like oats in the morning or dates in the evening are often eaten, Baba says.

“This month’s all about community so even when you break your fast at the mosque or with community members usually you’ll see there’s very nice dishes prepared.”

Those who cannot fast for health reasons are encouraged to take part in other ways.

Replacing the fast
“That’s perfectly normal, so basically in Islam anyone who can’t fast for health reasons … instead of that, you can donate money or meals to the poor. You’re kind of replacing it with that.

“Things like charity and stuff are really encouraged. It’s meant to heighten your understanding of what people might be going through when they don’t have access to food and drink.”

Ramadan might end on Sunday or Monday, depending on the moon.

Baba is already looking forward to the meals.

“I’m from Kashmir, so my Kashmiri food is definitely at the top of my list.”

While New Zealand is still in orange alert levels and omicron is on the scene, this year’s Eid celebrations will be somewhat more open than the past few.

“Those of us who have had covid or are fully vaccinated are excited to be celebrating in Eid with the community especially after a couple of years of not being able to.

“I think this is going to be really fun for everyone to finally be celebrating together.”

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.

On April 1, the National Communication Council media regulator announced that Equinoxe TV CEO Séverin Tchounkeu and editor-in-chief and presenter Cédrick Noufele were both suspended from working as journalists for one month, and that the outlet’s “Droit de Réponse” (“Right of Reply”) program was barred from airing during that time, according to press reports and a statement by the NCC.

A person close to Equinoxe TV’s top management, who spoke to CPJ on the condition they not be named out of fear of reprisal, said the outlet planned to challenge the regulator’s decision in court this week.

“Cameroonian authorities should immediately allow Equinoxe TV CEO Séverin Tchounkeu and editor Cédrick Noufele to resume their work, and must stop attempts to censor content about matters of public interest,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in New York. “The country’s media regulator should encourage a diversity of views instead of trying to police speech, and should ensure that Equinoxe TV can air its programming freely.”

On February 28, Noufele hosted a panel discussion on “Right of Reply” about a nationwide teachers’ strike, according to the NCC statement, which accused him of failing to properly supervise the discussion that was “likely to lead to the amplification of a potentially explosive social demand.”

Following that show, national Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji compared Equinoxe TV to radio stations that incited turmoil leading up to the Rwandan genocide.

In a letter dated March 18, and subsequently published by local media outlets, Littoral Region Governor Samuel Dieudonné Ivaha Diboua accused Equinoxe TV of “repeated incitement to popular revolt” and said the station had “an outrageously aggressive editorial line for years.” In that letter, Diboua threatened to take legal action against the station for alleged incitement.

On March 21, Tchounkeu appeared on a show on Equinoxe TV, which CPJ reviewed, during which he mocked grammatical errors in Diboua’s letter and suggested that Nji had written it. Also in the broadcast, Noufele denied any wrongdoing in hosting that panel discussion.

In its statement, the NCC cited the February 28 and March 21 programs for allegedly “broadcasting unfounded, insinuating and offensive statements,” and ordered the journalists and “Right of Reply” to be suspended for one month.

CPJ called Nji and contacted him via messaging app, and also called and emailed Diboua’s office for comment, but did not receive any replies. When CPJ called the NCC for comment, President Joseph Chebonkeng Kalabubsu referred CPJ to the regulator’s statement.

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

It’s not just another month. National Poetry Month (first organized in 1996) celebrates poetry to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry.

It’s not just a Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman or Maya Angelou time of remembrance of past laureates. Poetry is for the masses, and written by the working class.

For example, since 2013 Astoria has organized the FisherPoets gathering celebrating poetry, stories, song and art of fishermen and fisherwomen.

There’s even an anthology titled, Anchored in Deep Water.

One of my students in the memoir class I teach reminded me of his own walkabout on earth as a man, a father, husband and someone who has survived many a travail. “We all can’t live large and do great important things, but . . . .” He then quoted Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver:

May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect.

A great illustration of this simplicity of observation and self reflection is seen in Patrick Dixon’s poem, “Boat Puller.” Again, a tiny nail in the universe, but he’s harvesting wisdom as he’s taught by a Norwegian how to fish in Alaska:

While I was picking fish with you,
stunned at the sight of the sea so near
and the mountains filling the western sky,
I thought of dry midwestern cornfields,
and of lost, empty days filled with a wish to leave
…..but nowhere to go.

You bent over a red to show me how to use a fish pick,
never realizing what was happening to me,
how you were stripping away the web of my past life,
pulling me through to solid ground.

I walked aged stones over a bridge made famous by an 18th Century poet.

One side of my family came from Ayr, where Robert Burns was born. Scotland’s National Poet immortalized the bridge in his poem “Tam O’Shanter“. Tam and Meg (his horse) escape the clutches of the witch Nannie by galloping over the Brig O’Doon. This escapade left Nannie with nothing more than Meg’s tail.

I was a kid then, crossing the river Doon many times, and I am so old I saw plenty of salmon run the currents. I have since graduated into a panoply of world poets. One big thing for me as a poet was running my gift of gab in front of a crowd at a Poetry Slam in El Paso.

Purely fun, as we were lubricated with tequila and mescal, the poets went head to head to claim the loudest crowd applause. It’s a literary ruckus; in the parlance of my literary world, those folk are called performance artists.

One of my favorite poets, Li-Young Lee, was born in Djakarta, Indonesia, in 1957 to Chinese political exiles. I’ve heard him read twice live. Here, a slice of his poem, “Immigrant Blues”:

People have been trying to kill me since I was born,
a man tells his son, trying to explain
the wisdom of learning a second tongue.

It’s an old story from the previous century
about my father and me.

The same old story from yesterday morning
about me and my son.

It’s called “Survival Strategies
and the Melancholy of Racial Assimilation.”

It’s called “Psychological Paradigms of Displaced Persons,”

called “The Child Who’d Rather Play than Study.”

Practice until you feel
the language inside you, says the man.

For Lee, his work is acclaimed for its use of silence and “near mysticism” which is nonetheless “fully engaged in life and memory while building and shaping the self from words.”

That is the universality of poetry, really, to become tied to life and construct oneself through words, as if the power of poetry is an electrical cord of life pulsating through the artist to be read and celebrated by an audience. We should always find a universal connection to a poet’s lamentations.

Teaching poetry in El Paso and in Spokane, I’ve found even the most hardened souls can lift light or soft shadow from scabbed-over souls and hardscrabble lives.

One of my teachers, Tucson poet Richard Shelton, took us undergraduate and graduate students to the Arizona State prison to help facilitate writing workshops with men behind bars. He ended up doing it for 30 years, and wrote the book, Crossing the Yard.

I’ve taught poetry and photography to gang-influenced youth in El Paso. We’re talking about some students who were huffers, that is, they sniffed gas and glue to get high. The summer session pulled from these young men and women the stories of their neighborhood, El Segundo Barrio. The old people and merchants were captured in film, essays and poems.

We held a huge event with youth showing snapshots and others reading poems. Eighty-year-old grannies (abuelas) were bawling their eyes out. Some told me, Nadie piensa que vale nada, pero escúchalo ahora.

The hardened youth gave luminescence to their families. Translated above: “No one thinks he is worth anything but look at him now.”

Heck, we see my favorite poet, Chilean Pablo Neruda, depicted in the 1994 film, l Postino (The Postman). Even recently, Adam Driver played a bus driver-poet in Jim Jarmusch’s film, Patterson, inspired in part by William Carlos Williams.

Teaching poetry and encouraging anyone to learn to listen to their own songs, I believe a great healing could take place if we all stopped our social media-fueled lives and lend pause to our inner voices. And to harvest life and nature around us: the simple things, which in poetry are that tiny nail we all should pound into our collective creative home. William Carlos Williams:

4th of July

I
The ship moves
but its smoke
moves with the wind
faster than the ship

— thick coils of it
through leafy trees
pressing
upon the river

II
The heat makes
this place of the woods
a room
in which two robins pain

crying
distractedly
over the plight of
their unhappy young

III
During the explosions
at dawn, the celebrations
I could hear
a native cuckoo

in the distance
as at dusk, before
I’d heard
a night hawk calling

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

Exactly a month after Russian President Vladimir Putin began his military invasion of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president who has garnered international recognition for his wartime leadership, called on the global community to speak out in unison against Putin's attack.

"Come from your offices, your homes, your schools and universities. Come in the name of peace," Zelenskyy said in a video address that he posted on social media. "Come with Ukrainian symbols to support Ukraine, to support freedom, to support life. Come to your squares, your streets. Make yourselves visible and heard."

Zelenskyy's call for global solidarity came as U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Europe for a three-day summit with world leaders regarding the conflict.

The Ukrainian president addressed the leaders of the NATO alliance in Brussels via video link from Kyiv, calling for urgent military assistance—but stopping short of asking NATO to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine, a move which would require the countries to target Russian military planes and could trigger "World War III," according to experts.

The U.S. committed earlier this month to sending $800 million in military equipment to Ukraine.

"Say that people matter, freedom matters, peace matters, Ukraine matters. All as one, together, who want to stop the war."

"Ukraine asked for your planes," Zelenskyy told the NATO leaders Thursday. "So that we do not lose so many people. And you have thousands of fighter jets! But we haven't been given any yet. To save people and our cities, Ukraine needs military assistance—without restrictions."

The Ukrainian leader also warned that though he understands that the U.S. has no plans to send troops to fight Russian forces and that Ukraine is not part of NATO, "Russia does not intend to stop in Ukraine. Does not intend and will not. It wants to go further."

Biden will reportedly announce new sanctions against Russia on Thursday, targeting dozens of the country's defense companies, more than 300 lawmakers, and powerful figures close to Putin.

Ukraine says that at least 2,500 of its civilians have been killed by Russian forces since the invasion on February 24.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported Thursday that more than half of Ukraine's 7.5 million children have been forced from their homes since the war began—one of the largest mass displacements of children since World War II.

More than 3.5 million Ukrainians have fled the country in the past four weeks, with more than two million resettling in Poland and hundreds of thousands arriving in countries including Hungary, Moldova, and Romania. Biden announced Thursday that the U.S. plans to accept 100,000 Ukrainian refugees.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) earlier this month launched an investigation into alleged "crimes against humanity" by the Russians. Putin's estimated 1,500 attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets have included a maternity hospital and nearly two dozen other healthcare facilities, 330 schools, and 900 residential buildings.

Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have made limited progress in recent weeks, and Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior aide to Zelenskyy who is leading the negotiations, said Thursday that the talks could take months but expressed confidence that Russia is negotiating in good faith.

"Twenty-eight days of war have shown that Russia is not a country that can dictate conditions," Podolyak told ABC News. "It seems to me they really do want to resolve some issues in negotiations, because there is the sanctions pressure, military pressure from Ukraine. We have already put them in their place."

NATO has reported that as many as 15,000 Russian troops have been killed and 25,000 have been injured. Ukrainian officials say at least six generals are among those who have been killed, while Russia has acknowledged the death of only one general.

Tens of thousands of people across Europe took part in mass protests against Putin's invasion earlier this month, and thousands of Russians have been arrested for speaking out against the president.

"Say that people matter, freedom matters, peace matters, Ukraine matters," Zelenskyy urged people around the world Thursday. "All as one, together, who want to stop the war."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Julia Conley.

[Death toll in Bangladesh garment factory fire rises – CBS News November 25, 2012 ]

My own roots are embedded with strong independent women mentors. For my Scottish grandmother, she came over to Canada as a teen and worked all her life as a cook, nanny, hospital nutritionist. She played the stock market on low wages and set up her only child with some decent funds.

My mother was a single mother with my half-sister. She went from Vancouver — where her husband was a playboy with a gambling problem who had the “mafia” after him — to Flagstaff, then to Hermosa Beach, and then she married my father. Mona, my mom, was the central force of several military wives groups in places like Paris, France, Munich, Germany and Tucson.

My aunt Edna came from England to Massachusetts with two other women from the old country. They opened up an ice-cream shop in Northampton, and then eventually got deep into the restaurant field setting up a high end eatery called The Whale Inn.

I went there on vacations, recalling the stories of Liz Taylor and one of her husbands having a marriage reception there.

I absorbed stories of my German great grandmother Elfrieda who, as a midwife in North Dakota and Minnesota, delivered hundreds of babies. Another relative, an aunt, survived the allied bombing of Dresden with her five children. She helped an entire neighborhood live by scurrying them into an abandoned warehouse cellar she had used for potatoes and cauliflower.

The first women’s day in the USA – February 28, 1909 — occurred a year after the Manhattan garment workers’ strikes when 15,000 women marched for better wages and working conditions. Most of them were teenage girls who worked 12-hour days. Then, in 1911, in one factory, Triangle Shirtwaist Company (where female employees were paid $15 a week in sweatshop conditions: low level lighting, in tight conditions at sewing machines) 145 female workers were killed in a fire. This pushed lawmakers to finally pass legislation meant to protect factory workers through stringent safety measures.

[Triangle Factory Fire Photograph by Granger]

Fast-forward to today: I’m teaching a memoir writing class at OCCC-Waldport with mostly women in attendance. Memoirs are different than autobiographies, and this publishing arena is now greatly populated by women memoirists. All three “textbooks” I use in the class were written by women. Additionally, Mary Karr’s The Liars Club, and Cheryl Strayed’s, Wild, are two memoirs we reference.

Time and time again, memoir writing classes I’ve facilitated in Texas, Washington and here have been predominately attended by women who for all intents and purposes are the keepers of the family history.

Throughout my career as educator and journalist, I have seen more and more women take the lead in many fields. One magazine article I published focused on the graduating class at Washington State University’s veterinarian sciences program. All those DVM graduates were women.

The dean of the school stated there is an active recruiting campaign to get “more men into the field.” Imagine that, women undertaking vet sciences, which in 1950 was almost exclusively a male-dominated field.

The reasons for the shift in gender representation are complicated, but one truism stands: Veterinarian sciences is largely a pet field, one where communication with pet owners is vital. It is a field where the patient is actually the human. From field, to barn, to yard, to house, to bed – that’s the shift in the veterinarian field, as illustrated by our dogs and cats.

It begs the question: Are men as empathetic and responsive to the patient’s owner’s psychological and spiritual needs as women?

One of my areas of study, marine sciences, has seen a break in the male domination to sometimes a 50-50 representation of women in some grad programs.

But there are still rough waters: In 2019, on World Oceans Day, the theme was “gender and the ocean.” According to Robin Nelson, a biological anthropologist at Santa Clara:

We frame science as this idea that folks with the best ideas, folks who are willing to work hard, are those who are going to succeed. But absent safeguards protecting vulnerable scientists, she said, those folks who could be super talented, wonderful scientists get pushed out of our fields.

Peter Girguis, an oceanographer at Harvard University, echoes this:

In the absence of gender equality, we’re doing mediocre science.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter proclaimed “Women’s History Week” in March to coincide with International Women’s Day. Seven years later, Congress declared all of March to be “Women’s History Month.”

There are problems with “a month,” as Kimberly A. Hamlin, an associate professor of history at Miami University in Ohio and author of Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage, and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener, states:

But Women’s History Month unintentionally reinforces the prevailing idea that when women do something, it is called ‘women’s history,’ and when men do something it is called ‘history.’ Women’s History Month also allows state school boards and curricular committees to feel as though they are including women without doing enough to update textbooks and state standards, ultimately undermining the very goals that reformers and historians aimed to achieve with the designation.

I clearly remember when I was the only “guy” in the women’s literature class I took at the University of Arizona where I eventually received a BA and BS. I learned so much about women in history, not just female writers.

We are talking 102 years ago when the 19th amendment granted some women the right to vote (a number of other laws prohibited Native American women, Black women, Asian American women, and Latinx women from voting, among others).

In that lit class, I learned a bit of historical misstatement: What was deemed the first expedition to sail around the globe on a voyage to study and sample the world’s oceans occurred in 1872. Of the 243 people on board the Challenger, not one was a woman.

However, it wasn’t the first. Nearly a century before the Challenger voyage, a woman — Jeanne Baret — sailed around the world on a scientific expedition of her own. She disguised herself as a male assistant on a 1766 voyage led by a French explorer to document plants and ecosystems in distant countries. Baret is the first woman on record to have circumnavigated the globe.

“7 Countries With Horrific Sweatshop Situations”

+–+

To continue with the piece above, which will be in the local rag, out here in Lincoln Co, Oregon (Central Coast — Newport News Times), I have to put in some work of a feminist and radical, Linda Ford:

Elizabeth McAlister, in jail since April, remains steadfast, modest and unassuming. She hesitates to give interviews. She did write after her arrest about why she resists the Empire’s weapons: ‘We came to Kings Bay Submarine Base animated by the absurd conviction that we could make some impact on slowing if not ending, the mad rush to the devastation of our magnificent planet.’

Such sentiments, such absurd convictions, that anyone can interfere in the Empire’s global destruction, have to be punished. Such female dissenters have to be jailed and silenced. There should be no more silence surrounding America’s women politicals. Whether considered terrorist threats because, like Aafia Siddiqui, they are part of a group deemed an enemy race; or considered terrorist threats because, like Elizabeth McAlister, they resist and expose America’s global domination—such women will be made political prisoners of the Empire.

— “Women Politicals of the American Empire” by Linda Ford (DV)

“In The Eye of the Beholder: USA History of Imprisoning Women Politicals” (DV) Part One of review and discussion of Linda G. Ford’s Women Politicals in America: Jailed Dissenters from Mother Jones to Lynne Stewart

and

“Long Live the Armed Struggle!” (DV) Part Two of book review, and … The Revolution Will Not Be Televised or plugged onto Twitter, or in the Streets with Your Placards, or Sending in ‘Save the Whale’ Postcards

I was born a protester … My mother had to go to the school a lot and talk to the principal.

— Dorli Rainey (In conversation with author Paul Haeder)

I am being jailed because I have advocated change for equality, justice, and peace. … I stand where thousands of abolitionists, escaped slaves, workers and political activists have stood for demanding justice, for refusing to either quietly bear the biting lash of domination or to stand by silently as others bear the same lash.

— Marilyn Buck, at her 1990 sentencing (epigram in Linda Ford’s book, Women Politicals in America: Jailed Dissenters from Mother Jones to Lynne Stewart)

*Quote from, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. In Spokane, WA, 19 years old. She went to lumber camps in Montana and Washington, speaking at IWW meetings. She stated she fell in love with her country.

+–+

This is not a blanket endorsement of all women, all of those of the female persuasion not having baby blood on their hands. In capitalism, the male dominated death machine is easily transferred to the other sex.

[ Women in Defense, a career development and networking organization affiliated with the National Defense Industrial Association, a leading industry group. ]

Offensive-polluting-skin peeling-depleted uranium fed-bunker busting-napalm spreading-TNT concussions Industries, described by the misnomer as Defense Industries (Edward Bernays would be smiling), they have garnered the woke label with their CEOs in pant suits and skirts: Definitely do not ask these women over to babysit — that is, if the baby is not blue-eyed, blond, white or of the red-white-and-blue variety.

As of Jan. 1, the CEOs of four of the nation’s five biggest defense contractors — Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and the defense arm of Boeing — are now women. And across the negotiating table, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer and the chief overseer of the nation’s nuclear stockpile now join other women in some of the most influential national security posts, such as the nation’s top arms control negotiator and the secretary of the Air Force. (How Women Took Over the Killing Machine, AKA, MIC!) 

It’s a watershed for what has always been a male-dominated bastion, the culmination of decades of women entering science and engineering fields and knocking down barriers as government agencies and the private sector increasingly weigh merit over machismo.

And, as Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson told POLITICO, it’s also the result of “quieting that little voice in your head that doubts whether you can do that next job or take on that special assignment.”

But turn yourself blue trying to convince the Norte Americanos that war is bad, that when Nazi’s get supported by the USA in places like, err, Ukraine, that THAT in itself is really that region’s issue, and that missiles and guidance systems and bioweapons and cluster bombs, the lot of it, guided by these hailed women above, well, they do the bloody work the same, whether the CEO is male or female. Though, I have to say, all this macho stuff pushed down the Marvel Comic Book bred Norte Americanos, for decades, you know, the Charlie’s Angels jujutsu and now the Black Double Oh Seven, it has done the job of convincing redneck women that their role in this game is to, well, kill babies descriminately and indescriminately.

Because they are baby killers!

Yet, feminists should not view this ​“rise” of women as a win. Feminism, as the most recent wave of imperial-feminist articles shows, is increasingly being co-opted to promote and sell the U.S. military-industrial complex: a profoundly violent institution that will never bring liberation to women — whether they are within its own ranks or in the countries bearing the greatest brunt of its brutality. As Noura Erakat, a human rights attorney and assistant professor at George Mason University, put it in an interview with In These Times, women’s inclusion in U.S. military institutions ​“makes the system subjugating us stronger and more difficult to fight. Our historical exclusion makes it [appear] desirable to achieve [inclusion] but that’s a lack of imagination. Our historical exclusion should push us to imagine a better system and another world that’s possible.” — (“Against the Feminist-Washing of US Militarism“)

Here, the real heroes, a la women:

[Global Witness report points out that women who act as social leaders are the main victims of murder for carrying out their work. / Photo: Global Witness NGO ]

Finally, put a dress on this person. A little bit of eyeliner. High heels. Hmm, replace one criminal, a male, with a female criminal, and we still have criminalty:

“Exclusive: The Pentagon’s Massive Accounting Fraud Exposed
How US military spending keeps rising even as the Pentagon flunks its audit.”

“Holding U.S. Treasurys? Beware: Uncle Sam Can’t Account For $21 Trillion.”

Or not:

Meet the first female 3-star general in the US military]

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

The House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security heard testimony Thursday about a wave of bomb theats against historically Black colleges and universities, including more than a dozen this month alone. February is Black History Month. More than 60 educational groups called on Congress this week to take immediate steps to support and protect HBCUs. We speak with legendary filmmaker Stanley Nelson, whose 2017 PBS film, “Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities,” documents the pivotal role HBCUs played in dismantling segregation after the Civil War and creating a Black middle class.

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

Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

• President Donald Trump lobbies republicans to reject electoral college results ahead of congressional vote.
• No charges filed against police man who shot unarmed black man, Jacob Blake, in the back paralyzing him.
• Reverend Al Sharpton says firing of white cop who killed unarmed black man, Andre Hill, not enough at his memorial.
• Los Angeles County COVID-19 infections double from 400,000 to 800,000 in one month.
• Georgia is 5th state to detect more contagious COVID-19 variant strain.
• Chicago teachers refuse to return to school without vaccinations.
• Google workers form union.

The post Georgia voters decide which party controls senate in runoff election; Los Angeles County COVID-19 infections double from 400,000 to 800,000 in one month; Google workers form union appeared first on KPFA.

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