The relief came after Malviya submitted an apology and deleted his social media post featuring the toon.

Malviya has been charged after a cartoon by him on COVID-19 vaccines featuring PM Modi and the BJP’s parent organisation, RSS, was edited by a social media user with allegedly objectionable commentary on the caste census. Malviya had reshared the post on May 1, 2025, after which a case against him was registered at Indore’s Lasudiya police station by an RSS worker under several sections of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita.

The First Information Report (FIR) names him under sections 196 (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc.), 299 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 302 (uttering words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings of any person), 352 (intentional insult with intent to provoke a breach of the peace), 353(3) (with intent to incite, or which is likely to incite, any class or community of persons to commit any offence against any other class or community) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and section 67A of the Information Technology Act, 2000—punishment for publishing or transmitting material containing sexually explicit acts in electronic form. Except BNS section 352, the others are non-bailable offences.

The ‘Inflammatory’ Edited Cartoon

The cartoon that has landed Malviya in trouble shows a man dressed in a white shirt and khaki shorts, similar to the RSS uniform, pulling down his shorts and a bearded elderly man, bearing resemblance to PM Modi, gives him an injection on his backside.

The Hindi text on the toon translates to, “Oh, incarnation of Lord Shiva! Here’s my backside is here, give me such a strong dose of caste census that I forget all about Pahalgam, Waqf board”.

But here’s the twist. Malviya sketched the two characters in 2021 in an entirely different context. The Hindi text with references to Hindu god Shiva, the Pahalgam massacre, the Waqf amendments or the caste census were not part of his creation.

According to popular political cartoonist Manjul (@MANJULtoons), whose satirical, tongue-in-cheek political sketches have also been flagged by Indian law enforcement authorities on X, the toon that has landed Hemant Malviya in trouble wasn’t exactly created by him.

“He created the sketch in 2021 in a different context, and someone else altered the text and posted it in the comments, and the same was brought to Hemant’s notice by a friend. Hemant found it funny, so he simply reposted that image,” Manjul told Alt News.

Hemant Malviya’s original cartoon, posted on Facebook on January 6, 2021, actually carried very different text next to the sketch. In English, it translates to: “Hey, why are you scared? Serum’s Poonawalla has said that the vaccine is basically water. You won’t die due to side effects of water”.

Published when the government had approved COVID-19 vaccines while the pandemic was raging, the cartoon pertains to a comment made by Serum Institute of India’s CEO, Adar Poonawalla. In a TV interview on January 3, 2021, Poonawalla had said that there were only three vaccines with proven efficacy—Pfizer, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca’s— and the rest were “safe, like water”. The Serum Institute of India makes Covishield, based on the Oxford-AstraZeneca formula. Many believed that Poonawalla was targeting Covaxin, manufactured by rival Bharat Biotech.

Notably, this toon had Malviya’s signature, which was removed from the recently edited version that landed him in trouble.

Alt News also accessed screenshots of Facebook comments where users shared the original cartoon with edited text, referring to Pahalgam, Waqf amendment and the caste census and attributing it to a “Shiva avatar”. We were unable to determine the exact date of the comment, but it was likely posted on or the day after April 30, considering that’s when the government announced the inclusion of caste in the upcoming decennial Census.

Who is to Blame?

On May 1, 2025, Malviya reposted the edited cartoon (made by someone else and shared in his post’s comments), adding, “Everyone is free to use my cartoons with their name and commentary. My work is for the people, by the people and dedicated to the people. Whoever wrote this did a good job…”

So, while little is known about what action was taken against whoever edited Malviya’s work with their own text and interpretation, several serious offences have been slapped against the cartoonist for endorsing the edited cartoon. Note that this edited version of Malviya’s cartoon was publicly available even before he reposted it on Facebook.

Sources close to Malviya said that he was just tagged in a Facebook comment and reshared it. Thousands of his cartoons are on social media often reused by readers with their own captions, they said. They added that he was an amateur cartoonist, following in the footsteps of his father who was among the first cartoonists in Indore. The character in khaki shorts had been Malviya’s ‘common man’ figure since 2017. They added that this wasn’t the first time Malviya’s work came under fire.

In 2022, Malviya was summoned to the Kankhal police station in Haridwar after an associate of Yoga guru Baba Ramdev filed a report against his friend, who had shared his sketch featuring Ramdev and PM Modi.

‘Misuse of Freedom of Speech and Expression’

Interestingly, while denying him anticipatory bail on July 3, Justice Subodh Abhyankar of MP HC, who was hearing the case said that Malviya “clearly overstepped the threshold of freedom of speech and expression, and does not appear to know his limits”.

“In the considered opinion of this court, on the face of it, the conduct of the applicant in depicting the RSS, which is a Hindu organisation, along with the Prime Minister of this country in the aforesaid caricature, couplled with his endorsement of a rather demeaning remark, dragging unnecessarily the name of lord Shiva in the comments tagged to it, is nothing but the sheer misuse of the freedom of speech and expression as enshrined under Art.19(1)(a) of the Constitution, and falls under the definition of offence as contended by the complainant,” the order reads [sic].

It added, “In the considered opinion of this Court, the post becomes more unsettling when the aforesaid derogatory lines involving Lord Shiva are also added to it… the applicant ought to have used his discretion while drawing the aforesaid caricature, and he has clearly overstepped the threshold of freedom of speech and expression, and does not appear to know his limits.”

Malviya then moved the Supreme Court. On July 14, a two-judge bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi took up his plea and asked his counsel, Vrinda Grover, if he was willing to delete the post. Agreeing to this, the counsel sought interim protection since the matter pertained to personal liberty and did not amount to an offence. She also argued that Malviya was over 50 and should be granted relief, to which the bench replied, “Still no maturity. We agree that it is inflammatory”.

The following day, a two-judge bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Aravind Kumar granted the cartoonist interim relief after he submitted an apology and directed both parties to complete the pleading till the next date, August 15. During the hearing, Justice Dhulia remarked, “One of these posts is very, very offensive. What is happening today, this is all kinds of statements are being made. The language they use. There are some among the lawyer community also doing this”. He was reviewing social media posts made by Malviya, submitted by Additional Solicitor General, KM Nataraj.

Ire Against Satirists

The case against Malviya comes amid a seemingly growing intolerance for satire and political cartoons against the ruling party, its allies and associates. Historically, editorial cartoons have both attracted and evaded censorship owing to their cryptic nature, but serve as a powerful, critical tool to look at political regimes and current affairs, holding a mirror to society.

A prominent case was the arrest of cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, who was booked under sedition charges for his sketches, which allegedly mocked the Indian constitution. Trivedi was arrested on September 8, 2012, under sedition charges for displaying sketches by him during the Anna Hazare movement in November 2011. The case was registered based on an FIR filed by Amit Katarnayea, a legal advisor for a Mumbai-based NGO, in December 2011, who said that the cartoons displayed by Trivedi were “derogatory” and depicted the National Emblem and the Parliament in a bad light. In protest, Trivedi refused to get himself a lawyer or even apply for bail. Later, the charges against the cartoonist were dropped after Advocate General Darius Khambata told the court that on taking a “closer look, it can be seen that there is clearly no case under section 124(a) of the Indian Penal Code for sedition”.

In 2021, editorial cartoonist Manjul, who has been actively talking about the case against Malviya on X, also received notices from X for his satirical, tongue-in-cheek political sketches, which had been flagged by Indian law enforcement authorities.

In February this year, the government at the Centre blocked Tamil news outlet Vikatan’s website for a political cartoon after BJP leader Annamalai lodged a complaint with the Union ministry of information & broadcasting and the Press Council of India, claiming that the cartoon was offensive. The cartoon showed PM Modi, shackled in chains, sitting next to US President Donald Trump. However, on March 6, a single-judge bench of Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy of the Madras High Court directed the I&B ministry to unblock Vikatan’s website once the ‘offensive’ cartoon was temporarily taken down. Justice Chakravarthy said, “…It is evident that the only issue in dispute is the offending caricature, and the entire website need not be blocked. The journal can remain accessible to the public and its subscribers. Therefore, the petitioner shall remove the offending page containing the cartoon, and the website shall be made operational immediately thereupon”.

Recently, comedian Kunal Kamra also came under fire for his satirical comedy that allegedly mocked Maharashtra deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde for switching sides. In 2022, Shinde, along with several other Sena MPs, left the party and allied with the BJP, throwing the then-coalition government into crisis and eventually leading to its downfall. Kamra was issued threats by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation workers, while Shinde’s supporters also vandalised the venue where he performed months ago.

The post ‘Overstepping threshold of freedom of speech’: Cartoonist under fire over edited toon gets interim relief appeared first on Alt News.

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

This tool kit is meant to help you understand how federal, state, and local disaster response works during and after a disaster — and what your rights and responsibilities are at a stressful and confusing time.

Jump to:

↓ Finding accurate information
↓ Emergency response agencies and officials
↓ How FEMA works
↓ Staying safe and finding shelter
↓ Applying for FEMA assistance
↓ Documenting damage
↓ Cleaning your home

Finding accurate information

During and after a disaster, you may lose internet and cell service for an extended period of time. Here are a few tips to staying connected and informed:

• Check your local library. Libraries often have power when other city buildings do not, and they offer free Wi-Fi and computers.
• Listen to the radio. Your local NPR station or your talk radio station will provide updated information. You can tune in from your car or use a hand crank radio. NOAA weather stations broadcast 24 hours a day, seven days a week, though accessing it requires a NOAA weather radio or a radio with NOAA weather station features.
• Sign up for local emergency alerts. Local officials are the best source of information. Your city or county has an emergency management department. In larger cities, it’s often a separate agency; in smaller communities, the fire department or county sheriff’s office may manage emergency response and alerts. If you’re having trouble finding your local department, search for your state or territory here; we also suggest typing your city or county name and “emergency management” or “emergency alerts” into Google for a quick find.

When you do find cell service or internet access:

• Read your local news sources. Check the library or other community hubs if you don’t have a subscription and hit a paywall.
• Check the American Red Cross for shelters and services.
• Check your county or city website for updates.
• Download the FEMA app on Google Play or the Apple App Store to get alerts, find emergency shelters, and more. You can also download the app by texting ANDROID or APPLE (per the type of device that you have) to 43362 (4FEMA).

Legal resources:

Disclaimer: We are not offering legal advice; this is only to offer contact information for organizations that can offer legal resources and services.

We encourage you to find legal aid societies and lawyers in your state, city, or region. You can often access free or pro-bono legal services through disaster relief organizations, houses of worship, local nonprofits, or by asking leaders at supply distribution sites after a disaster. Your local news will likely be sharing this information, as well.

Emergency Legal Responders provides free, accessible, and easily understandable information and services. They have a website with a host of resources on everything from bankruptcy to fraud to how legal needs often play out after a disaster. Find them on Instagram.

Mutual aid:

Mutual aid is a voluntary, collaborative exchange of resources, money, and services among community members. These groups are often local or regional, and they are more nimble and quick to respond in emergency situations because of their decentralized nature. Depending on how much funding comes in after a disaster, mutual aid groups can directly send money to those in need, purchase supplies, set up distribution sites, and more. Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, a grassroots disaster relief network, has a list of mutual aid groups it works with, and there are many more popping up all the time. Mutual aid groups often offer resources and updates as well and share via social media; make sure you fact check any information you see to confirm it’s correct.

Emergency response agencies and officials

It can be hard to know who to trust when it comes to natural disasters. Where do official evacuation orders come from? Who do you call if you need to be rescued? Where can you get money to help pay for emergency housing or to rebuild your home or community?

Here’s a breakdown of the officials and agencies in charge of delivering aid before, during, and after a disaster:

Emergency management agencies: Almost all cities and counties have local emergency management departments. Sometimes it’s a standalone agency, but in smaller communities, the fire department or sheriff’s office may manage emergency response and alerts. These departments are responsible for communicating with the public, managing rescue and response efforts, and coordinating between other agencies. Many emergency management agencies, however, have small staffs and are under-resourced.

Much of the work that emergency managers do happens before a disaster: They develop response plans that lay out evacuation routes and communication procedures and they delegate responsibility to different agencies like the police, fire, and public health departments. Most counties and cities publish these plans online.

In most cases, they are the most trustworthy resource before and after a hurricane or other catastrophe. They’ll issue alerts and warnings, coordinate evacuations, and direct people to resources and shelter. You can find your state emergency management agency here. There isn’t a comprehensive list by county or city, but if you search your location online you’ll likely find a website, a page on the county or city website, or a Facebook page that posts updates. Some emergency management agencies automatically translate into Spanish or other languages — New York and Hawaiʻi mandate their own statewide emergency translation services — but not all.

Law enforcement: County sheriffs and city police departments play a key role during disasters. They often enforce evacuation orders, going door-to-door to ensure that people leave. They manage traffic during evacuations and help conduct search-and-rescue operations.

Law enforcement agencies may restrict access to affected areas after a flood or other disaster. In most states, city and county governments also have the power to set a curfew, and officers can enforce them with fines or even arrests.

Read more: Know your rights as an immigrant before, during, and after disasters.

Governor: Governors control several key aspects of disaster response in their states. They have the power to declare a state of emergency, which allows them to deploy rescue and repair workers, distribute financial assistance to local governments, and activate the National Guard. The governor plays a lead role in the immediate aftermath of a crisis, but a smaller one in distributing aid and assistance to individuals.

In almost every state, including all of the hurricane-prone states along the Gulf coast, the governor also has the power to announce evacuation orders. The penalty for ignoring them differs, but is usually a fine. (States seldom enforce these penalties.) The state government also decides whether to implement transportation procedures like contraflow, where all lanes of a highway flow in the same direction to facilitate evacuations.

FEMA: The Federal Emergency Management Agency is the federal government’s main disaster response organization, offering resources and funding for individuals, states, and local governments. It is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

HUD: The Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, spends billions of dollars to help communities recover after disasters, building new housing and other buildings such as schools — but this money takes much longer to arrive. Unlike FEMA, HUD must wait for Congress to approve its post-disaster work, and then it must dole out grants for specific projects. In some cases, such as the aftermath of Hurricane Laura in Louisiana or Hurricane Florence in North Carolina, it has taken years for projects to get off the ground.

States and local governments, not individual people, apply for money from HUD, but the agency can direct you to FEMA or housing counselors.

How FEMA works

FEMA is rarely the first resource on the ground after a disaster strikes. In order for the agency to send resources to a disaster area, the state’s governor must first request a disaster declaration from the president, and the president must approve it.

Read more: How a major disaster is declared

For large disasters such as Category 4 or 5 hurricanes, this typically happens quickly. For a smaller crisis, like severe rain or flooding, it can take weeks or even months for the president to grant a declaration and activate the agency. FEMA has historically not responded to heat waves because it does not consider them a type of disaster.

FEMA is divided into regional offices and offers specific contacts and information for each of them, and for tribal nations, which follow a different process. You can find your FEMA region here.

The agency has two primary roles after a federally declared disaster:

• Contributing to community rebuilding costs: The agency helps states and local governments pay for the cost of removing debris and rebuilding public infrastructure. (Read more about FEMA’s responsibilities and programs here.)
• Individual financial assistance: FEMA awards financial assistance to individual people who have lost their homes and belongings. It can take several forms: FEMA gives out pre-loaded debit cards to help people buy food and fuel in the first days after a disaster, and may also provide cash payments for home repairs. The agency also provides up to 18 months of housing assistance for people who lose their homes, and sometimes houses disaster survivors in trailers. FEMA sometimes covers funeral costs as well as medical and dental treatment.

FEMA also runs other programs, including the National Flood Insurance Program, which provides insurance via dozens of companies it works with, and enforces floodplain management regulations. The agency recommends that everyone who lives in a flood zone purchase this coverage — and most mortgage lenders require it if you live in a flood zone — though many homes beyond these areas are also vulnerable. You must begin paying for flood insurance at least 30 days before a disaster to be eligible for a payout. You can check if your home is in a flood zone by using this FEMA website.

Visiting a FEMA recovery center

FEMA disaster recovery centers provide information about the agency’s programs as well as other state and local resources. It will open these centers in impacted areas in the days and weeks following a federally declared disaster. FEMA representatives can help navigate the aid application process or direct you to nonprofits, shelters, or state and local resources. Go to this website to locate one in your area, or text DRC and a ZIP Code to 43362.

Finding shelter and staying safe

If an emergency forces you from your home, there are several ways to find a shelter.

• The American Red Cross operates overnight shelters and disaster relief centers where you can get health services, do laundry, get toiletries and other necessary supplies, and rest. Pets are usually welcome, and entry is free. Locate them here.
• Text SHELTER and your ZIP code to 43362 to find a FEMA shelter.
• Call 211 to find more information about emergency housing, shelters, or assistance paying for housing.
• Most cities and counties will have a list of shelters available. Check your local .gov website, or your local news site, for options. You can also check with local community organizations you know and trust.

For people with disabilities:

• You have a right to meals and snacks that meet your dietary and medical needs, your service animal, a physically accessible shelter, and sign language interpreters, Braille, large print, or other formats you may need to access information. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health created a tool called Show Me that can be downloaded as an app or printed out. It’s a visual guide to emergency shelters that cana be used by residents who have cognitive disabilities, are deaf or hard of hearing, have limited English proficiency, or may struggle to communicate during an emergency.
• Call 211 to get your questions answered (you can remain anonymous) or find your local 211 through the United Way.
• The National Disability Rights Network has Protection and Advocacy (P&A) Systems and Client Assistance Programs (CAP) in every state U.S. territory as well as one serving the Native American population in the four corners region. They can help you advocate for yourself. You can find the closest one to you here.

The most important thing to consider during a disaster is safety — for you, your family, and your community. You may experience a power outage before or during a disaster. Here are some ways to prepare and stay safe:

• Your utility company may alert you of changes, so sign up for texts or calls from them.
• If your power does go out, keep your refrigerator closed as much as possible and eat perishable food first. Get some coolers with ice if possible, and if you’re in doubt about any food, throw it out.
• Unplug appliances and electronics, and use flashlights instead of candles to reduce the risk of fire.
• Carbon monoxide poisoning is one of the leading causes of death after a storm that knocks out power. Do not use a gas stove to heat your home and do not use barbecues, grills, or other outdoor cooking equipment inside, because they can generate carbon monoxide. If you have a generator, keep it outside in a well ventilated area away from windows. The Red Cross has more generator safety tips.

Read more: How to access food before, during, and after a disaster

Signs and symptoms of illnesses

Heat stroke and exhaustion: Symptoms include muscle cramping, unusually heavy sweating, shortness of breath, headaches, dizziness, and fatigue or weakness. Learn more here from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about how to spot these signs and protect yourself.

Carbon monoxide poisoning: It can take just minutes to get carbon monoxide poisoning. Be on the lookout for nausea, a mild headache, and shortness of breath. More severe cases can cause confusion, chest pain, dizziness, severe headaches, and loss of coordination. The Mayo Clinic has more information on what to look out for, and FEMA has information on how to prevent carbon monoxide leaks.

Tetanus: This is an infection caused by bacteria. It’s rare, but can be more common after disasters because it’s more likely people come into contact with rusty nails, needles, or contaminated dirt. The most common symptom, which can occur anywhere from three to 21 days after exposure, is lockjaw. Tetanus is easily prevented with a vaccine. Read more here from the CDC.

Respiratory issues from poor air quality: If you can see haze and smell smoke, the air quality is poor and you should limit your outdoor activities. Soot and smoke from fires contain particulate matter, or PM. Signs of irritation include persistent coughing, phlegm, wheezing, and difficulty breathing, as well as asthma attacks or elevated heart rates. Children, the elderly, and people with heart or lung disease are most at risk.

Read more: How to protect your health if a disaster strikes your community

Applying for FEMA assistance

There is a specific process cities, states, and tribal governments must navigate in order for residents to receive FEMA aid. If you are a U.S. citizen, or meet certain qualifications as a non-citizen, and live in a disaster declaration area that was approved by FEMA and the president, you are eligible to apply for aid immediately after they announce it. You can apply on disasterassistance.gov, through the FEMA app, or at a FEMA recovery center. FEMA offers survivors eligible for individual assistance:

• A one-time grant of $750 for emergency needs and essential items like food, baby items, and medication 
• Temporary housing assistance equivalent to 14 nights in a hotel in your area 
• Up to 18 months of rental assistance
• Payments for lost property that isn’t covered by your homeowners or renters insurance
• Other forms of assistance, depending on your needs and losses

First, you’ll need to gather your paperwork. You will need documents to verify everything from your identity to proof of residency and living expenses. FEMA has a list of documents you can submit to prove home ownership (like mortgage statements, property tax bills, a deed or title) or proof of residency if you don’t own your home (lease or housing agreement, bank or credit card statement, motor vehicle registration form, pay stub, credit card statements, utility bills). These documents should be dated within the past year. Your driver’s license, state-issued identification card, or voter registration card is valid only if it is current and was issued before the disaster happened.

• Hotel receipts, if you were forced to evacuate
• Receipts, serial numbers, and appraisals for valuable items, if you lose things like appliances, furnishing, and accessibility equipment. This may help you with both insurance claims and FEMA aid 
• If you are on a visa, green card, or other form of legal residency, make sure to have copies of all your immigration paperwork 
• Photos of your home before it was damaged or destroyed

The agency has some advice on how to replace lost documents here; you should apply for aid even if you don’t have all the necessary paperwork.

Second, prepare for an inspection. After you apply, FEMA must verify the damage through an onsite or remote inspection. FEMA employees and inspectors may call from an unknown or restricted phone number and make several attempts to discuss your disaster-caused damage — so be on the lookout for that. You’ll have to be present for the inspection, though you may be able to meet elsewhere if your home is inaccessible. You don’t have to wait for this inspection to begin cleaning up, but make sure you take photos before you do.

After disasters, inaccurate or misleading information can spread quickly. FEMA debunks some common myths here.

Some facts about FEMA’s aid process that are often misconstrued:

• Payments provided by FEMA are grants, not loans. You do not have to pay them back. 
• Keep all receipts for your expenses while displaced from your home, or repairs made to your home, as well as notes of calls with FEMA or other disaster aid officials or insurance companies.
• FEMA will require you to create an account on the secure website Login.gov. Use this account to submit your aid application. You can track the status of your aid application via the app or this website and receive notifications if FEMA needs more information from you.
• If FEMA denies your application for aid, you can appeal, but the process is lengthy.
• You can apply for individual assistance for multiple storms, but you can apply only once for each disaster.
• You can use GoFundMe or other crowdfunding platforms to get money faster. Donations are considered gifts, and will not be counted in your gross income, as long as you don’t promise donors anything in exchange. However, you can’t seek other sources of financial aid to cover any expenses included in your online campaign.

Applying for FEMA rental assistance

You must apply for individual disaster assistance to be considered for rental assistance. FEMA funds can be used for rent, including a security deposit, and utilities such as electricity and water, at a house, apartment, hotel, or recreational vehicle that is not your damaged home. Residents in counties with a federal disaster declaration are eligible to apply under FEMA’s Individuals and Households Program. The rate is set by an area’s Fair Market Rent; find yours here.

Here are some key things to know about FEMA rental assistance:

• If you were already approved for rental assistance, an application for continued rental assistance is normally mailed to you 15 days after the grant is approved. If you do not receive one, call FEMA at 800-621-3362 or visit a disaster recovery center.
• To receive continuing assistance, you must be able to demonstrate ongoing need and prove you are working toward securing permanent housing or making progress on repairs. A contractor’s estimate meets that requirement.
• Extensions on rental assistance may be granted for three-month periods up to a maximum of 18 months after the disaster.
• You may receive an automated phone call with a notification about ongoing assistance, so answer unknown numbers.
• If FEMA denies your application or you need more than the amount awarded, you can appeal. It must be submitted within 60 days of the date on the FEMA decision letter. The appeal process is often lengthy. Here’s more information.
• You’ll have to meet specific requirements for any FEMA aid you receive or reimbursements you plan to ask for. 

Finding help with applications

The FEMA application process can be confusing and lengthy. Important tips when applying for disaster assistance with FEMA can be found here (please note this was last updated after Hurricane Helene in 2024). There are almost always lawyers and legal organizations offering free help with applications in any disaster area.

Documenting damage

If and when it’s safe to return home, it’s critical that you photograph everything that was damaged and gather any documents you can salvage for insurance claims and government aid applications.

Before you begin:

• Turn off your electricity and gas (here’s how).
• Have a first aid kit handy.
• Make sure your tetanus shot is up to date (your state or county health department may offer free tetanus vaccines if you need one; it’s best to call them to find out).
• Look at the structural integrity of the building before entering, and do not go inside if it looks like there is any potential for something to collapse. Do not touch anything electrical if in doubt about the state it’s in. 
• Wear protective clothing: long sleeves and pants, goggles, leather, rubber or plastic gloves, closed-toed and/or sturdy boots or shoes, a respirator or N95 mask, and a Tyvek suit if you can find one. Check with your aid distribution sites for tools, personal protective equipment, and cleaning materials. 
• Do not attempt to drive or wade through floodwaters, which can sweep you away even if it doesn’t seem deep, and can be contaminated or contain dangerous debris. Do not touch any debris or materials that may be contaminated by toxic chemicals (you may need special equipment or PPE to handle burned or flooded debris). 

Take photos and videos

Whether you have insurance and are filing a claim, or you do not have flood insurance and you’re applying for federal assistance from FEMA, you’ll need a lot of evidence to prove the damage was caused by a disaster.

• Gather any photos of your house or apartment from before the crisis so you can more easily document your losses.
• Take photos of the outside and inside of your home or apartment, including damaged personal property, and label them by room before you remove anything.
• If you have insurance, take photos of the make, model, and serial number for appliances and anything else of value. Provide receipts to your adjuster to document damage for your claim.

Cleaning your home

After documenting damage, you can begin to clean up. Here’s information on how to navigate the process after a wildfire. Here is a booklet from the Environmental Protection Agency that is a helpful visual resource on doing the job after a flood.

Mucking and gutting

Mucking involves removing mud, silt, and other sediment. Gutting means moving damaged drywall, insulation, cabinets, floorboards, and paneling out of your home. (Here’s a helpful visual guide from Galveston County, Texas emergency management on this process.)

Some key things to keep in mind (Virginia’s Department of Health has more tips):

• Take wet items outside to dry.
• Open doors and windows to air out your home, and use fans if possible.
• Remove all mold you see (more on this below) and try to dry as much as possible.
• Discard anything that can’t be cleaned and dried within two days. Throw away perishables, clothing, cushions, and pillows. It can be difficult to throw away items with sentimental value — but anything soaked in floodwater or sewage poses a health risk.
• Keep samples of damaged carpet, upholstery, and wallpaper if you plan on filing an insurance claim. 

Mold

Here’s a fact sheet on mold risks and how to clean it up, from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. The key is moisture control. You may not be able to see all of the mold developing in your home after flooding. According to FEMA, “everything that has been contaminated must be cleaned and dried. Items that cannot be properly cleaned and dried within 24-48 hours must be discarded, including building materials and personal property.” People with breathing problems like asthma or a weakened immune system should stay away.

You will likely see a lot of bleach at distribution sites. According to the EPA, bleach is not recommended for cleaning up mold. You can use bleach on hard, nonporous surfaces like countertops, but do not use it on porous surfaces like wood to kill mold — make sure those dry completely before deciding whether to keep them. If using bleach, ventilate the area and never mix it with other cleaning solutions or detergents that contain ammonia, because it could produce toxic fumes.

Debris cleanup

Whether you’re a homeowner or business owner, you must follow local guidelines for debris cleanup, which can take weeks or months. Your local officials will have a schedule for curbside pickup or pickups in designated areas, but it’s your responsibility to get everything there. Volunteer organizations often help haul debris to the curb or remove fallen trees, drywall, and other material. They also might help with removing flooring and appliances, tarping roofs, and eliminating mold. FEMA has guidelines for doing all of this safely.

States or counties may have their own processes for this. For example, CalRecycle, California’s recycling program, has specific guidelines for wildfire cleanup that involve taking care of hazardous materials first, then assessing sites and testing for contaminants when cleaning up other debris. Another example is Garden City, Kansas, which has guidance for storm debris removal — mostly fallen trees — with suggestions on who can help.

Finding help with cleanup

After a disaster, charities and nonprofits can help with house inspections, mucking and gutting, as well as tree and debris removal. Contact Crisis Cleanup at 844-965-1386 to get connected with community groups and faith-based organizations. These services are free but not guaranteed due to overwhelming demand. Check your city or county website, your local news, or local organizations you trust for options.

Read more: How to spot fake contractors, questions to ask anyone who knocks on your door looking to offer services, and more.

Download a PDF of this article | Return to Disaster 101

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How disaster relief and response work on Jul 7, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Lyndsey Gilpin.

In 2008, the Free Gaza Movement successfully managed to reach Gaza with two vessels.  For the next eight years, five out of 31 boats successfully journeyed to the Strip. Others met no such luck. In 2010, Israeli commandos revealed their petticoats of violence in killing 10 activists and injuring dozens of others on the Mavi Marmara, a vessel carrying 10,000 tonnes of supplies, including school supplies, building materials, and two large electricity generators. It was also operated by the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, a Turkish NGO, being one of six ships that formed a flotilla. Scandal followed, and the wounds on that issue have yet to heal.

With the Israeli Defense Forces and its evangelical warriors preaching the destruction of Palestinians along with any hope of a viable, functioning state, an impotent collective of nations, either allied to Israel or adversarial in nature, have been unable to minimize or restrain the viciousness of the Gaza campaign. Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen have made largely fruitless military efforts to ease the program of gradual liquidation taking place in the Strip. Given such an absence of resolve and effectualness, tragedy can lend itself to symbolic theatre and farce.

The Madleen enterprise, operated by the Freedom Flotilla, departed from Sicily on June 1 with baby formula, food, medical items, and water desalination kits. It ended with its interception by the Israeli forces in international waters roughly 185 km (100 nautical miles) from Gaza. With a top-billing activist such as Greta Thunberg, a French-Palestinian Member of the European Parliament, Rima Hassan, and journalists in the crew, including Al Jazeera’s Omar Faiad, this was not your standard run-of-the-mill effort.

Celebrities, when they throw themselves at ethical and moral problems, often risk trivializing the cause before the bright lights, gilding, if not obscuring the lily in the process. Thunberg, for all her principles, has become a professional activist, a superstar of the protest circuit.  Largely associated with shaming climate change deniers and the officials’ laziness in addressing dense carbon footprints, her presence on the Madleen crew is a reminder that calculated activism has become a media spectacle. It is a model, an IKEA flatpack version, to be assembled on sight, an exportable product, ready for the journey.

This is not to be flippant about Thunberg or the broader purpose involved here. Her presence and those engaged in the enterprise are dangerous reminders to the Israeli project in Gaza. Had they been wise, the bureaucrats would have let the affair play out in stoic silence, rendering it a media event, one filed in the library of forget-me articles that have become the stock and trade of an overly crowded infosphere. But the criminal instinct, or at least one guiltily prone towards one, is garrulous. The chatter can never stop, because the justifications for such behaviour never end.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry, for instance, thought it wise to dismiss the entire effort of what it called the “celebrities yacht” as a “media gimmick for publicity (which includes less than a single truckload of aid) – a ‘selfie yacht’.”  Perfectly capturing Israel’s own abominable record in supplying humanitarian aid in dribs and drabs to the residents of Gaza, when it bothered to, the ministry goes on to fabulize about 1,200 aid trucks and 11 million meals supposedly sent to those in the Strip, never mentioning the killing of those seeking the aid by IDF personnel, the enlistment of rogue Palestinian clans, and the sketchy background of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Defence Minister Israel Katz also issued a statement declaring that Israel would “not allow anyone to violate the naval blockade on Gaza, the primary purpose of which is to prevent the transfer of weapons to Hamas, a murderous terror organisation that holds our hostages and commits war crimes.”

In responding to the vessel, the Israelis did not disappoint. They added to the scene with accustomed violence, but the publicity wonks were aware that killing Thunberg and treating the rest of the crew like any other member of displaced persons at Khan Younis did not seem kosher. The infliction of suffering had to be magisterially restrained, a gold-class privilege delved out by the superior ones. No missiles or armed drones were used on this occasion.

Instead, the twelve-member crew was taken to the port city of Ashdod, 30km north of Gaza, where prison authorities had been instructed by Israel’s dogmatic National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to hold them in solitary confinement. A number, including Thunberg, have been deported. Others are still being held, purportedly for refusing to sign paperwork authorising their deportation.

As the formalities are being chewed over, the broader designation of the effort by the Madleen and her crew as those of a “selfie yacht” offer the pool’s reflection to Israeli authorities: how the IDF took selfies of their atrocities, filming with haughty and avenging pride the destruction of Palestinian civilian infrastructure and the moonscape of their creation; how Israeli officials, such as the former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant felt comfortable claiming the Jewish state was “fighting against human animals”. This was one occasion where a celebrity venture, as small as it was, proved worthy.

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

The International Court of Justice began hearings today into Israel’s obligations towards the presence and activities of the UN, other international organisations and third states in occupied Palestine.

The case was prompted by Israeli bills outlawing the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) in October 2024, an event that sparked global outrage and calls for unseating Israel from the UN due to accusations that it violated the founding UN charter, particularly the privileges and immunities enjoyed by UN agencies.

The ICJ hearings coincide with Israel’s continued ban on humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip since March 2 — more than 50 days — and the intensification of military attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians since the collapse of ceasefire on March 18.

• READ MORE: Israel using aid as ‘weapons of war’, Palestinian envoy tells ICJ
• Other Israeli war on Palestine reports

It will be the third advisory opinion case since 2004 to be heard before the World Court in relation to Israel’s violations of international law.

About 40 states, including Palestine, are presenting evidence before the court between April 28 and May 2. Israel’s main ally, the United States, is due to speak at the Peace Palace on Wednesday, April 30.

However, Israel is not presenting oral submissions, only a written presentation, and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar denounced the hearings as “anti-Israel’ and “shameful”.

The hearings follow the resolution of the UN General Assembly on 29 December 2024 (A/RES/79/232), mainly lobbied for by Norway, requesting the court to give an advisory opinion on the following questions:

“What are the obligations of Israel, as an occupying Power and as a member of the United Nations, in relation to the presence and activities of the United Nations, including its agencies and bodies, other international organisations and third States, in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including to ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival of the Palestinian civilian population as well as of basic services and humanitarian and development assistance, for the benefit of the Palestinian civilian population, and in support of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination?”

Middle East Eye’s live coverage of the ICJ hearings.

The UNGA’s request invited the court to rule on the above question in relation to a number of legal sources, including: the UN Charter, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, privileges and immunities of international organisations and states under international law, relevant resolutions of the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council, as well as the previous advisory opinions of the court:

• the opinion of 9 July 2004 which declared Israel’s separation wall in occupied Palestine illegal; and
• the 19 July 2024 advisory opinion, which confirmed the illegality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and Israel’s obligation as an occupying power to uphold the rights of Palestinians.

‘Nowhere and no one is safe’
Swedish lawyer and diplomat Elinor Hammarskjold, who has served as the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and its Legal Counsel since 2025, opened the proceedings.

“Under international law, states are prohibited from acquiring territory by force,” Hammarskjold said in her opening comments.

She explained that Israel was not entitled to sovereignty over the occupied territories, and that the Knesset rules and judgments against UNRWA “constitute an extension of sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territories”.

“Measures taken on basis of these laws, and other applicable Israeli law in occupied territories is inconsistent with Israel’s obligations under international law,” she concluded.

She further outlined Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law as an occupying power and obligations under the UN Charter, emphasising that it has a duty to ensure the safety of both the Palestinian people and UN personnel.

Palestine’s ambassador to the UN, Ammar Hijaz  accused Israel  of using humanitarian aid as “weapons of war”.

He told the court that Israel’s efforts to starve, kill and displace Palestinians and its targeting of the organisations trying to save their lives “are aimed at the forcible transfer and destruction of Palestinian people in the immediate term”.

‘Children will suffer irreparable damage’
In the long term, he said, “they will also ensure that our children will suffer irreparable damage and harm, placing an entire generation at great risk”.

Irish lawyer, Blinne Ni Ghralaigh, who is representing Palestine, outlined Israel’s obligations as a UN member, including its obligations to cooperate with the UN and to protect its staff and property, as well as to ensure the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people, and to abide by UN resolutions and court orders.

“Israel’s violations of these obligations are egregious and ongoing,” Ghralaigh told the court.

• The hearings are ongoing until Friday.

Sondos Asem reports for the Middle East Eye. Republished under Creative Commons.

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

WIRED spoke with seven workers with the National Civilian Community Corps, better known as AmeriCorps NCCC, who say that they were told to stop working on projects ranging from rebuilding homes destroyed in storms, to readying a summer camp for kids, to distributing supplies for hurricane recovery, and prepare to immediately travel back to their homes.

Aadharsh Jeyasakthivel, a 23-year-old from Boston, was serving at a county food bank in rural Pennsylvania when he and his fellow volunteers were suddenly pulled from service.

“Non Americorps ppl are still distributing,” he wrote to WIRED in a Signal message, sending a photo of yellow-vested volunteers working on a line in a parking lot.

The AmeriCorps NCCC program was established under the Clinton administration by the National and Community Service Trust Act, signed in 1993. Each year, it recruits 2,200 people between the ages of 18 to 26 to serve in teams working across the country on different projects. Some volunteers also work directly alongside staff from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Forest Service, as part of smaller programs that are run within the NCCC. Graduates of the program get access to an award to help pay off federal student loans.

Read Next

Why the Forest Service is logging after Hurricane Helene — and why some say it’s a mistake

Katie Myers

“In alignment with the Trump-Vance Administration priorities and Executive Order 14222, ‘Implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Cost Efficiency Initiative,’ AmeriCorps NCCC is working within new operational parameters that impact the program’s ability to sustain program operations,” reads an email sent April 15 to NCCC volunteers seen by WIRED. A separate memo, also seen by WIRED, sent to workers signed by NCCC national director Ken Goodson, releases volunteers from the program and informs them that their benefits will be discontinued April 30. Volunteers’ “early departure,” that memo states, “results from program circumstances beyond your control.” (Workers who had completed at least 15 percent of the program, the first email notes, would be eligible for a prorated education award.)

AmeriCorps did not respond to a request for comment.

In early April, an AmeriCorps representative told Politico Playbook that DOGE staff “are currently working at AmeriCorps headquarters and the agency is supporting their requests.” A day later, The Washington Post reported that the agency was considering a 50 percent cut to its budget. In 2024, the NCCC program made up $37.7 million of the agency’s $1.2 billion budget.

The volunteer cuts, which included young people who told WIRED they were tasked with making forests more resilient to wildfires and helping out FEMA staff at the agency’s headquarters, come just weeks before the official start of hurricane season.

“NCCC and FEMA Corps represent a critical flexible workforce that is able to support disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery efforts across the country,” says Samantha Montano, an assistant professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. “The loss of the people who make up these programs will be felt immediately, and especially in the next major disaster.”

Read Next

Trump said cuts wouldn’t affect public safety. Then he fired hundreds of workers who help fight wildfires.

Mark Olalde, ProPublica

AmeriCorps and the NCCC program have come under scrutiny in past years. Last year, the Government Accountability Office found that AmeriCorps needed to take more steps to prevent fraud in its grantmaking, while a 2017 Office of Inspector General report found that the NCCC program, which provides volunteers room and board, clothing, and any specialized training they might need, was four to eight times more expensive than other AmeriCorps programs.

Volunteers who spoke to WIRED said they and their team members had gotten job training in a variety of disciplines during their deployment, from data management to forklift operation to wildland firefighting certification.

“These programs are an important pathway for young people looking to have careers in emergency management and disaster work more broadly, so impacts will be felt in that way too,” Montano says.

AmeriCorps has historically been a target for some right-wing media figures and organizations, including Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, and the Heritage Foundation. The first Trump administration’s 2017 budget proposal attempted to slash funding for the agency altogether.

The long-term fate of the NCCC program is not immediately clear. An informational page on applying to the Fall 2025 cohort is still active on the AmeriCorps website, but a separate application portal lists no positions accepting applications.

For volunteers unexpectedly traveling home on Thursday, the loss cuts deep.

“I understand that the [Trump administration] has been cutting and gutting so many important programs, but I want people to know about what they did to Americorps. For many of us, this was our way to pay for college, to get away from home, to figure out what to do with our lives, it was a big step,” says 19-year-old Coloradan Noe Felix Burns, who was rebuilding houses in Philadelphia damaged by 2021’s Hurricane Ida. “And they just ripped it out from under us without even a two-week’s notice.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline DOGE cuts pull AmeriCorps volunteers off of disaster relief jobs on Apr 20, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Molly Taft, WIRED.

Maryland’s Second Look Act has passed the State House, and now awaits a vote in the Senate. The bill would allow prisoners to request judicial review of their sentences after serving 20 years of prison time. Advocates say Maryland’s prison system is in desperate need of reform; parole is nearly impossible for longterm inmates, and clear racial disparities in arrest and incarceration are immediately evident—72% of Maryland’s prisoners are Black, despite a state population that is only 30% Black. Meanwhile, opponents of the Second Look Act charge that the bill would endanger state residents and harm the victims of violent crimes. Rattling the Bars digs deeper, speaking with activists, legislators, and formerly incarcerated people on the real stakes and consequences of the Second Look Act.

Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

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

Jheanelle K. Wilkins (Maryland State Delegate, District 20):

Colleagues, I rise in support of this legislation, the Maryland Second Look Act, but it may not be for the exact reason that you would think. For me, this legislation is about justice. Was justice served in this sentence? We know that in Maryland, Black residents are 30% of the population, but 72% of our prisons. Our own Maryland data tells us that Black and Latino residents are sentenced to longer sentences than any other group or any other community. I’m not proud of that. Was justice served? For us to have a piece of legislation before us that allows us the opportunity to take another look at those sentences for people who were 18 to 25 years old when convicted, for us to have the opportunity to ask the question, if justice was served in that sentence, why would we not take that opportunity colleagues? If you believe in fairness, if you believe in making sure that our justice system works for all, then colleagues, you will proudly vote yes for this bill.

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. According to press releases published by the Maryland Second Look Coalition and the ACLU, “The Maryland House of Delegates passed The Second Look Act on March the 17th, recognizing the urgent need for reform in a state with some of the nation’s most pronounced citizen disparities.” The Second Look Act, House Bill 853, passed a final vote in the House. The vote was 89 yeas and 49 nays. Now, the bill will move over to the Senate, where it has until April 7 to pass. Delegate Linda Foley, representing the 15th District, who voted yes on the bill, sent a statement to The Real News Network providing some critical context. “The Maryland Second Look Act follows many other states, including California, Oklahoma, Colorado and New York, to allow a judicial review of sentences. The Second Look Act allows the individual who was convicted between the ages of 18 and 25 years old to request a review of their sentence by the court after serving 20 years in prison.”

Delegate Foley goes on to cover the details of what this bill achieves. She states, “It’s important to note the critical safety measures in the Maryland Second Look Act. The bill does not guarantee release of any individual. It allows an individual who was convicted between the ages of 18 and 25 years old to request a review of their sentence by the court only after serving 20 years in prison. A judge must evaluate individuals based on strict criteria, including the nature of their original crime, threat to the public, conduct while incarcerated, statements from the witnesses, et cetera. The court may only reduce a sentence if it finds an individual is not a danger to the public and that a reduction of their sentence is in the interest of justice.”

Recently, I spoke with two members of the Maryland Second Look Coalition, William Mitchell, a formerly incarcerated community activist, and Alexandra Bailey, a two-time survivor of sexual violence, about the organizing they are doing around the bill, and why it’s important to support The Second Look Act.

William Mitchell:

The Second Look Coalition is a group of people who come from all different backgrounds, some being returning citizens, some being people in the political realm, some being professors, and we all support what we call The Second Look Act. The Second Look Act is essentially, when an inmate has served 20 years day for day, the judge would have the authority to possibly review that inmate’s sentence, to see if the sentence is still warranted after the person has done tons of things to change their life.

Alexandra Bailey:

The Second Look is a mechanism that is being considered all across the country, and the reason it’s being considered all across the country is because America, for a long time, has led the world in incarceration, and part of the reason that we’ve led the world in incarceration is because we have a hammer and we think everything is a nail. We’ve addressed everything from poverty, trauma, veterans’ PTSD, domestic violence survivors’ responses, young children who are led astray by giving them lengthy prison terms, and we know that this doesn’t keep us safer. This has been statistically proven. If you’re a survivor of violent crime as I am, I think the one thing that all of us would agree on is that we want no more victims. We want a safer society. We want people to be okay so that everyone can be and stay okay.

The first criminal offense that I ever lived through happened when I was a minor. It was a sexual offense, and the person who perpetrated that against me is serving a life without the possibility of parole sentence. I was plagued with the pain of this for many years, for a lot of my childhood and early adulthood, and as I came to my faith and came to forgiveness, what I wanted was to understand why this had happened. I reached out to the person who harmed me, and what I learned is that he had also been harmed. He also had been sexually victimized as a young person, really had nowhere to turn in order to gain support, and lived out the natural consequences of pain, PTSD, lack of health and support, mental health support, and I ended up caught in that cycle of violence.

What I say is, we need to get way upstream on the cycle of violence. Everyone, from those who are remorseful inside to those who are advocates for survivors, as I am, we have the same goal, and the only way that we’re actually going to address that is by taking our resources away from a public safety concept that we know doesn’t work, which is mass incarceration, and transferring it where it should have been, when the person who harmed me suffered his victimization. If that help had been there, if he had been able to go to a crisis center, receive the mental health support that he need, have the education and access that would have allowed him to divert his life and recover from his own trauma, I more than likely would not have been traumatized.

As a survivor, I’m here promoting Second Look because actually, if you take a look around at who our peer recovery specialists are, who our violence interrupters are, our credible messengers, the people who are out getting in the way of other people’s victimization, it is our returning citizens who have kept the peace not just in prison, but are now keeping the peace outside, and based on my own faith, I believe that people who are remorseful deserve a chance at forgiveness. We all deserve a second chance. Also, from a practical standpoint, if my goal is that nobody suffers from what I suffered from, then the people who are best suited to help me, unfortunately in many instances, are currently behind bars.

Mansa Musa:

Brian Stevenson says, we’re not our worst mistake. All right, William, let’s unpack the Second Look, because earlier, we talked about how this allows for a person, the bill that’s being proposed, and you can go over the bill that’s being proposed, after a person has served 20 years, they’re allowed to petition the court for a modification, or to review their sentence, and take certain factors into account. Why can’t they do it anytime? I know under Maryland’s system, don’t you have the right to modification sentence? Don’t you have a right to a three-judge panel? Explain that for the benefit of our audience that doesn’t know the criminal justice system, and understand that.

William Mitchell:

Our Maryland rules, specifically it’s Maryland rule 4-345, subsection E, what it does is, it allows for a judge to have the authority to review a sentence, but that reviewing power is only from five years from the imposition of the sentence. Meaning, if you have a lengthy sentence, no judge is really going to consider, within five years, if you have a lengthy sentence for maybe a serious crime, if you’ve changed your life. Most people’s thoughts on it are, if you’ve committed a heinous crime or something that’s bad in public view, you need to sit for a long time, which may be true. Some people transition, grow and mature at different stages and different ages. My crime, I was 23, so I really wasn’t developed. I had a very immature mindset, though an adult technically, by legal standards, I was still very immature. The law right now, as it sits, say you get 50 years for an attempted murder. You’re 20 years old, it occurred when you were on drugs, maybe you were gang affiliated, family structure was broken.

And then what happens is, you sit in prison, and right now, as the law stands, you could go into prison, take every program, become a peer specialist, work to transform everybody that comes through that door, and unless you are collaterally attacking the legality of your sentence, there is no legal means for somebody to have a judge look at their case for compassionate reasons, or to see if the very system, because the Maryland Department of Correction, their job is to correct criminalistic behavior, but right now you have a department that is supposed to be correcting it, and if they do, there is no legal avenue for you to bring it to the judicial branch and say, “Hey, DOC has done her job. This behavior has been corrected. Now, what’s the next step?”

The system was set up many years ago to punish, to correct behavior, and then in that correction or rehabilitation, to allow the person to assimilate back into the community as a productive member. That has been taken away over the years because one law is added on top of another law, which moots out the point of the first law, and before you know it, you can’t get out. For me, I had a 70-year sentence. That means I would have to serve half of the sentence, 35 years, before I could go for parole. Meaning, I committed a crime, intoxicated at 23, coming out of a broken background, and I would have had to have been 53 to show the parole board the first opportunity to say, “Hey, I’m worth a second chance.” Most people age out of criminalistic behavior, number one, and number two, if you commit in your 20s, by the time you’re 30 something, you don’t even think like that.

I always bring this point to anybody’s mind, whether an opponent or an advocate, nobody can say that they are the same person they were 20 years ago. I would like to meet somebody if they can stay the same from 20 years ago, because just life in general will mature you or change you. Right now, there’s just no way to bring it before the judge or a judicial body, to get any relief. Even if you change your life, right now, you’re pretty much stuck in prison until, if you have parole, you might get the opportunity to possibly get relief.

Mansa Musa:

Alexandra, talk about what you look for in this particular narrative, because as William just outlined, we do a lot of time, we don’t have the opportunity to get relief. We do good works while we’re incarcerated, and we have no way of having that good work brought to the attention of someone that can make a decision. Talk about that.

Alexandra Bailey:

Well, Second Look is just that, it’s just a look. It is not a guarantee of relief. It is not a get out of jail free card. It is literally a mechanism whereby, after two decades of incarceration, where the criminological curve shows us that most people have aged out of crime, that you can petition a judge to show your rehabilitation, and the survivor of your offense or their representatives get to be part of that process. Some of the most miraculous moments that I’ve ever seen are those moments of forgiveness. There’s this false story that goes around, that what prosecutors are doing is giving permanent relief to victims. I’m going to give them, in William’s case, 50 years before anybody can even say hi, and that’s going to heal you. That’s going to make you feel better.

Mansa Musa:

That’s what you mean by permanent relief?

Alexandra Bailey:

That’s what they would say. It’s permanent relief. We are making sure that this person stays safe permanently. Now, there are some people who do not rehabilitate, but in my experience, they’re very much in the minority. The people who do rehabilitate, like I said, they’re the ones raising other people in the prison, getting them out of criminal behavior, and all we’re asking is that the courts be able to take a look. When the survivor steps into that room, and I’ve witnessed this, and actually receive the accountability, the apology, the help that they need from the system, that is where the healing comes in. It’s rarely through punishment. You know that this is true because I watch survivors who have not moved on a single day from the day that this happened to them, and if you’re reliving that trauma day by day, what that tells me is that you haven’t received the mental health counseling, support, grief support that you needed. Why don’t we focus on that and rehabilitation, as opposed to permanent punishment?

To what William was saying, the criminological curve tells us that people age out of crime. Crimes are more often than not committed by young people who very frequently are misguided, and that is certainly true for Maryland, with a particular emphasis on the Black and Brown community. There was actually a national study that was done of survivors, which I was actually interviewed for, 60% of us who have survived specifically violent crimes are for more rehabilitation and second chances than we are for permanent punishment. Permanent punishment doesn’t get us to what it is that we need, which is a safer society, a more healed society, a society that when things are going wrong for folks, there is a place for them to turn. Our lack of empathy and kindness is not serving us.

Mansa Musa:

Also, I had the opportunity to talk to Kareem Hasan. Me and Kareem Hasan were locked up together in the Maryland penitentiary. He’s talking about some of the things that he’s doing now that he has gotten a second chance. I’m outside of 954 Forrest Maryland Penitentiary. I’m here with Kareem Hasan, who’s a social activist now, both us served time in the Maryland Penitentiary. When did you go into the Maryland pen?

Kareem Hasan:

1976, at 17 years old.

Mansa Musa:

All right, so you went in at 17, I went in at 19. When you went in the pen, talk about what the pen environment was like when you went in there.

Kareem Hasan:

Well, when I went in the penitentiary, like you asked me, the first day I went in there, I walked down the steps and it was just confusion. I was like, “Where am I at now?” People were running everywhere, all you hear is voices and everything. It was like you were in the jungle.

Mansa Musa:

Now, what type of programs did they have to offer when you went in there?

Kareem Hasan:

Well, when I went in there, they had a couple of programs, but I wasn’t too interested in the programs because I was still young and wild, running wild. I wasn’t even thinking about educating myself. All I was thinking about was protecting myself, because of all the stories I heard about the penitentiary.

Mansa Musa:

Right. All right. Now, how much time did you do?

Kareem Hasan:

I did 37 years.

Mansa Musa:

Okay, you did 37. I did 48 years. When I went in the penitentiary, they had no programs, like you say, and everything we were concerned with was protecting ourselves. When did you get out?

Kareem Hasan:

I got out in 2013, on the first wave of the Unger issue.

Mansa Musa:

The Unger issue is the case of Merle Unger versus the state of Maryland, that dealt with the way the jury instruction was given at that time, it was unconstitutional. I got out under Unger. When Unger first came out, what did that do for you in terms of your psyche?

Kareem Hasan:

Oh man, that really pumped me up.

Mansa Musa:

Why?

Kareem Hasan:

Because I saw daylight.

Mansa Musa:

And before that?

Kareem Hasan:

Before then, man, I was gone. I was crazy. I wasn’t even looking to get out, because I had a life sentence.

Mansa Musa:

Right. Didn’t you have parole?

Kareem Hasan:

Yes, I went up for parole three times.

Mansa Musa:

And what happened?

Kareem Hasan:

First time, they gave me a four-year re-hear, and then the second time, they gave me a two-year re-hear with the recommendation for pre-release and work release.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Kareem Hasan:

Then they come out with life means life.

Mansa Musa:

Glendening was the Governor for the state of Maryland at that time.

Kareem Hasan:

Yeah, he just snatched everything from me, snatched all hope and everything from me.

Mansa Musa:

Hope, that’s where I want to be at, right there. When Unger came out, Unger created Hope.

Kareem Hasan:

Unger created hope for a lot of guys, because when it first came out, I think it was Stevenson.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Kareem Hasan:

I had it in my first public conviction in 1981.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Kareem Hasan:

But they said it was a harmless error.

Mansa Musa:

Right, right.

Kareem Hasan:

And then, Adams came out, and then, everybody kept going to the library, and everybody was running back and forth. Everybody was standing in those books, because they saw that daylight, they seen that hope.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Kareem Hasan:

And then, when Merle was fortunate enough to carry it all the way up the ladder to the courts, the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, they made it retroactive.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Kareem Hasan:

All that time we were locked up, it wasn’t a harmless error. They knew it, but they just kept us locked up.

Mansa Musa:

And you know what? On the hope thing, you’re supporting the Maryland Second Chance Act. You’ve been going down to Annapolis, supporting the Maryland Second Chance Act. Why are you supporting the Maryland Second Chance Act?

Kareem Hasan:

Look at me. I’m a second chance, and everything I do, I always refer back to myself. I’m looking at these young kids out here in the street, and when I talk to them, they relate to me. I need more brothers out here to help with these kids out here, because y’all see how Baltimore City is now. These young kids are off the chain, and they need somebody that’s going to give them some guidance, but they’re going to listen to a certain type of individuals.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Kareem Hasan:

They’re not going to listen to somebody that went to school, somebody that’s a politician or something like that. They’re looking for somebody that’s been through what they’ve been through and understands where they at, because that’s all they talk about.

Mansa Musa:

When you went into Maryland Penitentiary back in the 70s, you said ’77?

Kareem Hasan:

’76.

Mansa Musa:

You had no hope?

Kareem Hasan:

Oh, no. I had a fresh life sentence.

Mansa Musa:

Right. When Unger came out, then we had legislation passed to take the parole out the hands of the governor, that created hope. Then we had the Juvenile Life Bill, that created hope. Your case, had you not went out on Unger, you’d have went out on Juvenile Life, because they were saying that juveniles didn’t have the form, the [inaudible 00:22:12] to do the crime. Well, let’s talk about the Maryland Second Chance Act. Based on what we’ve been seeing and the support we’re getting, what do you think the chances of it passing this year?

Kareem Hasan:

I think the chances are good, especially the examples that we set. We let them know that certain type of individuals, you can let out. Now, there’s some people in there I wouldn’t let out, but the ones we’re talking about will help society, will be more positive for the society, especially for Baltimore City, and we need that.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Kareem Hasan:

The Second Chance Act is something that I support 100%.

Mansa Musa:

What are some of the things you’re now doing in the community?

Kareem Hasan:

Well, I have an organization called CRY, Creating Responsible Youth.

Mansa Musa:

What is that?

Kareem Hasan:

It’s a youth counseling and life skills training program, where we get kids, we come to an 11-week counseling course. After they graduate from the counseling course, we send them to life-scale training courses such as HVAC, CDLs, diesel training, and things of that nature. The program is pretty good, and I’m trying to get up off the ground more, but I need some finances.

Mansa Musa:

How long have you had this idea, and how long has it in existence thus far?

Kareem Hasan:

Well, when I first got the idea, I was in the Maryland House of Corrections, because we had a youth organization called Project Choice.

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Kareem Hasan:

I had a young guy come in, and the counselor told me, he said, “Hi son, can you talk to him?” He can’t relate to any of us.” I took the kid on a one-on-one, and the kid said, “He’s trying to tell me about my life, but he’s from the county. He never lived like me. My mother and father are on drugs. I’ve got to support my brother and sister. I’m the one that’s got to go out there and bring them something to eat, because my mother and father take all that money and spend it on drugs.”

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Kareem Hasan:

The kid said, “He doesn’t understand my lifestyle, so how is he going to tell me about my lifestyle?” And then he looked at me and said, “Now see, where you come from, I can understand you. We can talk.”

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Kareem Hasan:

“Because I know you understand where I’m coming from.”

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Kareem Hasan:

“Because you’ve been there.”

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Kareem Hasan:

He got to talking about his mother and father, and he started crying. When he started crying, I was telling him about when my father passed, when I was on lockup, and I was in my cell crying.

Mansa Musa:

Right, right.

Kareem Hasan:

And then, later on that night, I was in bed, and it just hit me. I said, “Cry, create a responsible youth.” That’s how I came up with that name, and just like those boys in the penitentiary, they’re crying out, just like in the Maryland state penal system, the ones that’s positive and they change their life, they’re crying out for help, and we’re here to help. We’re here to create responsible youth.

Mansa Musa:

Last, you will hear from Bobby Pittman, who was in the Maryland Prison system and is now out, a community organizer and leading a bully intervention program. This is what he’s doing with his second chance, in the interest of justice.

Robert Pittman:

Bobby Pittman, I’m from Baltimore. I’m a Baltimorian, and I actually went to prison when I was 17 years old. I was sentenced to a life plus 15 year, consecutive 15 year sentence at 17 years old, for felony murder.

Mansa Musa:

How much time you serve?

Robert Pittman:

I served 24 years on that.

Mansa Musa:

Okay, come on.

Robert Pittman:

The crazy thing, it’s been a year and a few days, it’s probably been 370 days I’ve been free.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah. Come on. Welcome home.

Robert Pittman:

Thank you. Since I’ve been out here, it’s been amazing. The things that I learned while I was inside of prison, actually, it carried over, with me out here. Within the last year, I helped 50 people get jobs with a connection with the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development. Shout-out to Nigel jobs on deck Jackson.

Mansa Musa:

Okay, Mr. Jackson.

Robert Pittman:

We’ve got individuals, like a couple of mothers, single mothers into schooling.

Mansa Musa:

Okay.

Robert Pittman:

With full scholarships. Got 10 people into schools, people that never believed that they’d have an opportunity to get their education. We got about 10 people in school. And then, I did all that through my peer recovery knowledge, my lived experience, and understanding where these individuals come from, and assessing these individuals, seeing some things that they might need or whatever.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Robert Pittman:

You know that you can get that. You can do that.

Mansa Musa:

What made you stop, once you got to a point where you said you needed to change, what made you get to a point where you started looking and thinking that you can get out? What inspired you about that?

Robert Pittman:

This is crazy. I actually fell off. I was on lockup one time, and I heard all this screaming and yelling. I’m like, “What is this screaming and yelling for?” It was 2012.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Robert Pittman:

They’re like “The law passed.”

I’m like, “What law?”

They said, “The Unger, the Unger’s passed.” People on lockup are screaming and all this stuff. I can hear, on the compound, individuals screaming and celebrating, and things like this. The crazy thing, they were screaming and yelling about a chance.

Mansa Musa:

Come on, yeah.

Robert Pittman:

You know what I mean? It wasn’t even a guarantee.

Mansa Musa:

I got a chance.

Robert Pittman:

All they know is, I’ve got a chance, because I’ve done exhausted all of my daggone remedies.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Robert Pittman:

But I’ve got a chance right now.

Mansa Musa:

Come on.

Robert Pittman:

To have my case looked at again.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Robert Pittman:

That’s when it started.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Robert Pittman:

That’s when it started. The Ungers went out, it wound up being 200 and something.

Mansa Musa:

People started seeing people going home.

Robert Pittman:

People I’ve been looking up to, now they’ve taken my mentor. My mentor is gone. I was happy for them, but now, it made me like I had to step up more, because I had to prepare for my chance. I see it now, Maryland. They said that they had a meaningful opportunity for release through the parole system.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Robert Pittman:

But there wasn’t one person that got paroled since 1995.

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Robert Pittman:

It was a fight. It took about six years, but it gave us hope. We’re just waiting.

Mansa Musa:

Oh, yeah.

Robert Pittman:

We’re sitting there like, “Man.” Six years later, 2018, that’s when it was an agreement with the ACLU and Maryland courts that we’re going to restructure the parole system.

Mansa Musa:

Right, for juvenile lifers.

Robert Pittman:

For juvenile lifers, and on that, they created a whole new set of criteria that an individual on parole, or going up for parole had to meet. If they meet these things, the parole commission has the opportunity to release them. I started going through that. I went through it, went through the whole process in 2018, went up for parole and all that, was denied at my first parole hearing, of course. I saw people going home.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, through the system.

Robert Pittman:

I’m sitting there like, “Oh man, I saw somebody go home from parole. This is real.” The first couple I saw, I’m like, “Oh, this is real, now. I see how real this is.”

Mansa Musa:

Right. Talk about what you’re doing now.

Robert Pittman:

Now, I do peer recovery work. I’ve got a nonprofit, Bully Intervention Teams. What we do with Bully Intervention Teams, it’s not your average bully intervention. We look at all forms of injustice as bullying.

Mansa Musa:

Right, you’re talking about bullies.

Robert Pittman:

Yeah, all forms of injustice is bullying. One of the things that I see, I was seeing bullying when I went down to Annapolis this week. They’re bullying individuals through misinformation. This organization will try to make sure these individuals that receive this misinformation will receive proper information, because they’re being bullied through ignorance. It just was horrible. What we do on the weekend, Saturdays, individuals that were incarcerated, a lot of people look at them, “They’re doing good,” but they don’t know the stress of that, because you know what you’re representing. You’ve got to be a certain type of way, because you’re trying to be an example for these individuals. You’re trying to pioneer for these individuals that come out.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, you don’t hae the luxury make a mistake.

Robert Pittman:

We have our session, our peer-run session, where we can just relieve ourselves, because it’s a lot of pressure.

Mansa Musa:

Oh no, that’s there. You’ve got a wellness space.

Robert Pittman:

We need it.

Mansa Musa:

You’ve got to have it, because like you say, our reality is this here. We don’t have the luxury of making a mistake, and everything that we’ve been afforded, and every opportunity that we have, we don’t look at it as an opportunity for us. We look at it as an opportunity to show society that we’re different. Therefore, the person that I’m talking about, who I’m representing on their behalf, I’m saying that I’m different, but this person I’m asking you to give the same consideration that y’all gave me is also different.

We want to be in a position where we can have a voice on altering how people are serving time. One, we want to be able to say, if you give more programs, if you give more hope, you’ll meet your purpose of people changing and coming back out in society. But more importantly, we want to be able to tell the person, like you said, rest assured that you’ve got advocates out there.

The ACLU of Maryland and advocates urged the Senate to pass The Second Look Act, House Bill 853. For those that are interested, the hearing for The Second Look Act, House Bill 853, in front of the Senate Judiciary Proceeding Committee will be held Tuesday, March the 25th, 2025, 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM, in the East Miller Building, room two. For more information, visit Maryrlandsecondlook.com, or ACLUMaryland.org.

There you have it, the real news and Rattling the Bars. We ask that you comment on this episode. Tell us, do you think a person deserves a second chance, and if giving a person a second chance is, in fact, in the interest of justice.

Photo of Linda Foley in committee by Maryland GovPics (CC 2.0). Link to license​.

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

Southern Cross, a French-hosted regional military exercise, is moving to Wallis and Futuna Islands this year.

The exercise, which includes participating regional armed and law enforcement forces from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Tonga every two years, is scheduled to take place April 22-May 3.

Since its inception in 2002, the war games have traditionally been hosted in New Caledonia.

• READ MORE: Other French military in Pacific reports

However, New Caledonia was the scene last year of serious riots, causing 14 deaths, hundreds injured, and an estimated cost of 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4.2 billion)

Southern Cross focuses on the notion of “interoperability” between regional forces, with a joint multinational command following a predefined but realistic scenario, usually in a fictitious island state affected by a natural disaster and/or political unrest.

This is the first time the regional French exercise will be hosted on Wallis Island, in the French Pacific territory of Wallis and Futuna, near Fiji and Samoa.

Earlier this month (March 3-5), the Nouméa-based French Armed Forces in New Caledonia (FANC) hosted a “Final Coordination Conference” (FCC) with its regional counterparts after a series of on-site reconnaissance visits to Wallis and Futuna Islands ahead of the Southern Cross 2025 manoeuvres.

Humanitarian, disaster relief
FANC also confirmed this year, again in Wallis-and-Futuna, the exercise scenario would mainly focus on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) and that it would involve, apart from the French forces, the deployment of some 19 other participating countries, with an estimated 2000 personnel, including 600 regional.

Last week, still in preparation mode, a group of FANC officers travelled again to Wallis for three days to finalise preparations ahead of the exercise.

In an interview with public broadcaster Wallis and Futuna la 1ère, FANC inter-army chief-of-staff Colonel Frédéric Puchois said the group of officers met local chiefly and royal authorities, as well as the Speaker of the local territorial assembly.

In 2023, the previous Southern Cross exercise held in New Caledonia involved the participation of about 18 regional countries.

“It’s all about activating and practising quick and efficient scenarios to respond mainly to a large-scale natural disaster,” Colonel Puchois said.

“Southern Cross until now took place in New Caledonia, but it was decided for 2025 to choose Wallis and Futuna to work specifically on long-distance projection.

“So, the Americans will position some of their forces in Pago-Pago in American Samoa to test their capacity to project forces from a rear base located 2000 kms away [from Wallis].

“And for the French part, the rear base will be New Caledonia,” he added.

Port Vila earthquake
He said one of the latest real-life illustrations of this kind of deployment was the recent relief operation from Nouméa following Port Vila’s devastating earthquake in mid-December 2024.

“We brought essential relief supplies, in coordination with NGOs like the Red Cross. And during Southern Cross 2025, we will again work with them and other NGOs”.

However, Colonel Puchois said not all personnel would be deployed at the same time.

“We will project small groups at a time. There will be several phases,” he said.

“First to secure the airport to ensure it is fit for landing of large aircraft. This could involve parachute personnel and supplies.

“Then assistance to the population, involving other components such as civil security, fire brigades, gendarmes. It would conclude with evacuating people in need of further assistance.

“So we won’t project all of the 2000 participants at the same time, but groups of 250 to 300 personnel”.

Cooperation with Vanuatu Mobile Force
FANC Commander General Yann Latil was in Vanuatu two weeks ago, where he held meetings with Vanuatu Mobile Forces (VMF) Commander Colonel Ben Nicholson and Vanuatu Internal Affairs minister Andrew Napuat to discuss cooperation, as well as handling and maintenance of the French-supplied FAMAS rifles.

For two weeks, two FANC instructors were in Port Vila to train a group of about 15 VMF on handling and maintenance of the FAMAS used by the island state’s paramilitary force.

The VMF were also handed over more ammunition for the standard issue FAMAS (the French equivalent of the US-issued M-16).

During his visit, General Latil also held talks with Vanuatu Internal Affairs Minister Andrew Napuat, who is in charge of the VMF and police.

FANC and Vanuatu security forces are “working on a regular basis”, Vanuatu-based French Ambassador Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer said.

The three-star general (equivalent of a lieutenant-general) flew back to Nouméa about 500 km away on March 8.

French vessel on fishing policing mission
At the same time, still in Vanuatu, Nouméa-based overseas support and assistance vessel (BSAOM) the D’Entrecasteaux and its crew were on a courtesy call in Luganville (Espiritu Santo island, North Vanuatu) for three days.

After hosting local officials and school students for visits, the patrol boat embarked on a surveillance policing mission in high seas off the archipelago.

One ni-Vanuatu officer also joined the French crew inspecting foreign fishing vessels and checking if they comply with current regulations under the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA).

On a regular basis, similar monitoring operations are also carried out by navies from other regional countries such as Australia and New Zealand in order to assist neighbouring Pacific States in protecting their respective Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) from what is usually termed Illegal Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing from foreign vessels.

Last month, the D’Entrecasteaux was engaged in a series of naval exercises off Papua New Guinea.

Further north in the Pacific, French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and its strike group wrapped up an unprecedented two-month deployment in a series of multinational exercises with Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam), where “one third of the world’s maritime trade transits every day”.

This included its own Exercises Clémenceau25 and La Pérouse (with eight neighbouring forces), but also interoperability-focused manoeuvres with the US and Japan (Pacific Steller).

“The deployment of this military capacity underlines France’s attachment to maritime and aerial freedom of action and movement on all seas and oceans of the world”, the Tahiti-based Pacific Maritime Command (ALPACI) said this week in a release.

US Navy in Western Pacific activity
Also in western Pacific waters, the US Navy’s activity has been intense over the past few weeks, and continues.

The Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Vermont (SSN 792) returned on 18 March to Joint Base Pearl Harbour-Hickam, following a seven-month deployment, the submarine’s first deployment to the Western Pacific, the US Third Fleet command stated.

On Friday, the USS Nimitz (CVN 68) Carrier Strike Group (NIMCSG) left Naval Base Kitsap in Bremerton, Washington, for a regularly scheduled deployment to the Western Pacific.

The US Third Fleet command said the strike group’s deployment will focus on “demonstrating the US Navy’s unwavering commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific in which all nations are secure in their sovereignty and free from coercion”.

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.

A joint operation between the Fiji Police Force, Republic of Fiji Military Force (RFMF), Territorial Force Brigade, Fiji Navy and National Fire Authority was staged this week to “modernise” responses to emergencies.

Called “Exercise Genesis”, the joint operation is believed to be the first of its kind in Fiji to “test combat readiness” and preparedness for facing civil unrest, counterinsurgency and humanitarian assistance scenarios.

It took place over three days and was modelled on challenges faced by a “fictitious island grappling with rising unemployment, poverty and crime”.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji military reports

The exercise was described as based on three models, operated on successive days.

The block 1 scenario tackled internal security, addressing civil unrest, law enforcement challenges and crowd control operations.

Block 2 involved humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and coordinating emergency response efforts with government agencies.

Block 3 on the last day dealt with a “mid-level counterinsurgency”, engaging in stabilising the crisis, and “neutralising” a threat.

Flash flood scenario
On the second day, a “composite” company with the assistance of the Fiji Navy successfully evacuated victims from a scenario-based flash flood at Doroko village (Waila) to Nausori Town.

“The flood victims were given first aid at the village before being evacuated to an evacuation centre in Syria Park,” said the Territorial Brigade’s Facebook page.

“The flood victims were further examined by the medical team at Syria Park.”

On the final day, Thursday, Exercise Genesis culminated in a pre-dawn attack by the troops on a “rebel hideout”.

According to the Facebook page, the “hideout” had been discovered following the deployment of a joint tracker team and the K9 unit from the Fiji Corrections Service.

“Through rigorous training and realistic scenarios, the [RFMF Territorial Brigade] continues to refine its combat proficiency, adaptability, and mission effectiveness,” said a brigade statement.

It said that the exercise was “ensuring that [the brigade] remains a versatile and responsive force, capable of safeguarding national security and contributing to regional stability.”

However, a critic said: “Anyone who is serious about reducing crime would offer a real alternative to austerity, poverty and alienation. Invest in young people and communities.”

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

RNZ International (RNZI) began broadcasting to the Pacific region 35 years ago — on 24 January 1990, the same day the Auckland Commonwealth Games opened.

Its news bulletins and programmes were carried by a brand new 100kW transmitter.

The service was rebranded as RNZ Pacific in 2017. However its mission remains unchanged, to provide news of the highest quality and be a trusted service to local broadcasters in the Pacific region.

• READ MORE: Other RNZ Pacific reports

Although RNZ had been broadcasting to the Pacific since 1948, in the late 1980s the New Zealand government saw the benefit of upgrading the service. Thus RNZI was born, with a small dedicated team.

The first RNZI manager was Ian Johnstone. He believed that the service should have a strong cultural connection to the people of the Pacific. To that end, it was important that some of the staff reflected parts of the region where RNZ Pacific broadcasted.

He hired the first Pacific woman sports reporter at RNZ, the late Elma Ma’ua.

The Pacific region is one of the most vital areas of the earth, but it is not always the safest, particularly from natural disasters.

Disaster coverage
RNZ Pacific covered events such as the 2009 Samoan tsunami, and during the devastating 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai eruption, it was the only news service that could be heard in the kingdom.

More recently, it supported Vanuatu’s public broadcaster during the December 17 earthquake by providing extra bulletin updates for listeners when VBTC services were temporarily out of action.

Cyclones have become more frequent in the region, and RNZ Pacific provides vital weather updates, as the late Linden Clark, RNZI’s second manager, explained: “Many times, we have been broadcasting warnings on analogue shortwave to listeners when their local station has had to go off air or has been forced off air.”

RNZ Pacific’s cyclone watch service continues to operate during the cyclone season in the South Pacific.

As well as natural disasters, the Pacific can also be politically volatile. Since its inception RNZ Pacific has reported on elections and political events in the region.

Some of the more recent events include the 2000 and 2006 coups in Fiji, the Samoan Constitutional Crisis of 2021, the 2006 pro-democracy riots in Nuku’alofa, the revolving door leadership changes in Vanuatu, and the 2022 security agreement that Solomon Islands signed with China.

Human interest, culture
Human interest and cultural stories are also a key part of RNZ Pacific’s programming.

The service regularly covers cultural events and festivals within New Zealand, such as Polyfest. This was part of Linden Clark’s vision, in her role as RNZI manager, that the service would be a link for the Pacific diaspora in New Zealand to their homelands.

Today, RNZ Pacific continues that work. Currently its programmes are carried on two transmitters — one installed in 2008 and a much more modern facility, installed in 2024 following a funding boost.

Around 20 Pacific region radio stations relay RNZP’s material daily. Individual short-wave listeners and internet users around the world tune in directly to RNZ Pacific content which can be received as far away as Japan, North America, the Middle East and Europe.

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

‘In Gaza, only UNRWA has the infrastructure to distribute aid to scale, such as vehicles, warehouses, distribution centres and staff. However, Israeli authorities are making this extremely difficult,’ writes Chris Gunness.

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

After the service, as congregants lingered to chat or sort donations, Elder Gordon Dasher recounted his church’s mission following the storm. “Our goal is to be the kingdom of God here on Earth,” the pastor said. “We’re getting into the filth, getting dirty, getting sewage and mud on our feet and hands and helping people in the darkest moment of their life. That’s number one.

“And number two, what we want to see come out of that is we want people to see at least a glimmer of a light to come on that says God is real, because here are his people right here, side by side with us in our suffering.”

Dasher and his ministry in Swannanoa are part of a teeming community of faith-based organizations using their deep roots, vast networks of the faithful, and financial means to help in whatever way they can. Beyond the local congregations, Presbyterians, Catholics, Baptists, and many other other denominations rushed in to help, as they so often do after floods and hurricanes and wildfires everywhere. Almost three months later, the sight of church volunteers clearing away rubble, handing out water, or gathering in prayer remains as common as the sight of damaged homes and washed-out roads. 

Those who descend on such places are eager to help, and many hope to realize their dreams of a different, better world. They often glimpse a chance to create from the wreckage an ideal based on their aspirations or ideologies. Right-wing militias see in post-disaster chaos ripe opportunities to recruit and fulfill their goal of undermining trust in the state. Those on the other end of the political spectrum often see a chance to build a more egalitarian society. Dozens have gathered each week at the anarchist bookstore in Asheville to read A Paradise Built in Hell, which explores how communities restructure and establish small utopias in the wake of disaster.

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But none of them match the people of faith in scale, ambition, or determination to do good. Churches, synagogues, mosques, and other houses of worship are well positioned to gather resources and mobilize quickly. In rural communities in particular, local churches are natural communal focal points, providing social structure and a trusted information network. 

Many denominations, especially within Christianity, also feel divinely called to this work — they undertake it with the belief that they are building the Kingdom of God, a world they’re working toward in both the act of disaster relief and, for many, the act of proselytizing. This belief is particularly strong among the evangelically-driven Protestantism of the American South, where, in the aftermath of Helene, faith organizations have been on the ground doing both. 

“Strangers, complete strangers, just showing up to help because they love Jesus has been really inspiring,” Dasher’s daughter Jessica said. 

Churches and faith-based organizations can be nimble responders. As roads throughout the region became passable, churches opened their doors to receive donations and organized volunteers, some of whom came from as far as California, to deliver them.

Their efforts have expanded beyond serving immediate needs like providing food and water and clothing to more ambitious efforts like repairing homes, donating campers and tiny cabins, and providing a bit of financial assistance. The decline in tourism has hit the city of Asheville hard, leaving Buncombe County with the highest unemployment in the state. Even before the county’s rent relief program got started, Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church was cutting thousand-dollar checks for residents desperate to avoid eviction.

They’re so nimble, in fact, that federal and state relief agencies, mired in the bureaucracy of their work — and whose jobs do not include mucking out or repairing houses, but rather providing the money needed to do so — have come to lean on them. The Federal Emergency Management Agency directs disaster survivors to, and works alongside, long-term recovery groups, which is the government’s name for the churches, nonprofits, and businesses that provide the backbone of relief efforts. They are marshaled by what are called voluntary organizations active in disasters. In addition to providing and coordinating boots on the ground, they play key roles in long-term planning and recovery. Churches are so central to this work that the Obama administration established the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to train and prepare emergency management officials and congregants to collaborate in the field. (President Trump shuttered the program in 2017; President Biden resurrected it in 2021.)

Although most everyone in western North Carolina is grateful for the help, several people expressed reservations about depending so heavily upon the faithful. Others recalled being surprised when volunteers showed up eager to help but wanted to give thanks to God first.

“They started out by holding a prayer circle, and I guess it made me uncomfortable,” said one resident of Zionville, which is about 100 miles from Asheville. This person, who did not want to give their name for fear of antagonizing those helping the community, is not opposed to prayer, but felt uncomfortable doing something so intimate with strangers. Still, they relented. “I was worried they weren’t gonna fill my driveway if I didn’t participate.” 

The emphasis on faith and conversion can sometimes feel out of sync with people’s real needs. Michaela Curry, a flood survivor and volunteer in Watauga County, N.C., recalled church groups offering to cook meals for flood victims and leaving stacks of Bibles behind. “Generally people aren’t taking them,” she said. “It’s kind of this weird dynamic.”

Curry has preferred to work with those who don’t place so great an emphasis on faith and proselytizing, and has made a particular point of avoiding Samaritan’s Purse. The organization, founded by the Rev. Billy Graham, makes clear in its foundational statement of faith, “we believe that marriage is exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female.” That leaves Curry and others wondering if the group is truly interested in helping everyone.

Such a question can be fraught, because in some rural counties, Samaritan’s Purse is essentially the only charitable organization providing vital help like rent relief assistance. 

[Need help with rent or housing post-Helene? Grist has a guide for finding resources.]

Shannon Daley, who leads U.S. disaster relief for the international organization, conceded that its volunteers must sign that statement of faith, but said they do not discriminate against anyone needing help. Still, they are, she said, “always wanting to share that message, and about how we can have a personal relationship with the Creator of the universe through his Son.”

Helpers may be told not to pass judgement, but that’s not to say they don’t, said Valentine Reilly. She helps coordinate volunteer efforts in Trade, a small town in the easternmost corner of  Tennessee, and recalled instances in which she felt volunteers questioned the morality of some victims, or set to work without finding out what was needed. “These people are all coming out here to help,” she said. “They’re all coming out here to do good work. And that’s a valuable thing. But some groups do more good work than others.” 

On a blustery afternoon in November, Sarah Ogletree made tea and reflected on her experience coordinating relief efforts among churches with different social values and priorities. Ogletree lives in Bakersville and has spent more than a decade working at the intersection of faith and environment — a role that has included bringing congregations throughout the region into the fight for climate justice.

Ministries and churches have many reasons to feel called to serving others in times of crisis, she said. She pointed out that the Bible commands it in Matthew 25: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” It’s a verse that many denominations take as an instruction from Christ to help the poor and oppressed. 

“It’s that identification with those who are marginalized or who are in need. And I think different traditions within Christianity understand that passage differently,” she said. While some see their role as filling this directive through volunteering and community service, others see it as a way of bringing people to God. Some of the more evangelically minded organizations take the lessons a step further, believing that people are more reachable and more receptive to hearing the Gospel during a disaster — a point Fritz Wilson, who leads Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, has made in the past. “Meeting a family’s physical needs with practical help starts their healing process, which leads to a sense of hope that things will be better,” he has said. “This gives us the opportunity to share a different type of hope that is only found in a relationship with Jesus.”

Ogletree has been working with Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Mennonites and other denominations to secure money, building supplies, and other necessities for her neighbors while following her vision of Christian service that overcomes ideological and denominational boundaries in times of crisis. She sometimes worries that faith-based organizations focus too much on “the pitch” — evangelizing and converting —  to their detriment, alienating survivors who just want a roof over their head. “I wish more churches showed up in communities simply to be a loving presence,” she said.

Even as a religious person, she’s not always sure how to navigate that post-disaster dynamic, recalling an instance in which an organization that arrived from out of town with supplies asked to pray before delivering them. “It felt like it was the currency with which this transaction was allowed … like, it’s free, but you gotta pray with me. And that felt unfair.” The prayer, she said, was sweet, but she found the encounter difficult to process because she knew the prayer was meant to comfort flood survivors, not surprise or shock them. 

“Helpers that come into crisis situations, whether you are faith based or religious or not, you have a lot of power in that situation,” Ogletree said. “And you are dealing with people that have just been through something super traumatic.”

Not all interactions are transactional, of course, and some people truly are there only to help. For many people in the region, the support of church volunteers and local parishes has anchored them in these hard times.

Ogletree’s experiences working with churches in the wake of Helene has been largely positive. In helping people through their trauma, she’s found the kind of community she’s long dreamed of building, one that overcomes political fractures to assist people in need and meet them where they are. In the South and Appalachia, the church is not only an essential part of many peoples’ social life, but a trusted source of information and direction, making it particularly effective at disaster response. “They’re at the front lines,” Ogletree said. “People know where they are.” She dreams of ensuring churches have backup generators, solar power, even Expo markers and whiteboards, to be better prepared for next time. Because there’s always a next time.

Read Next

Some towns still don’t have drinkable water months after Hurricane Helene. A full recovery could take years.

Katie Myers

That’s a point Zach Dasher, pastor Gordon’s son, made back in September as he preached to congregants still reeling from the devastation Helene brought. It is not unusual in such times for people to struggle with faith, and he clearly hoped to set their minds at ease. “Why all the evil in the world,” he asked. “Why all the natural catastrophes and devastation. Where is God in that?”

His answer provided congregants with a framework for understanding what had happened to them. “The kingdom of God is here,” he said. “Everything we build can be washed away. Everything can be gone, wind and water can wash it away, picking up whole houses and soil. But the kingdom is far more durable and eternal than that. The Kingdom of God cannot be shaken.”

Before ending his sermon, he asked his flock to please treat volunteers from out of state with kindness and respect, and expressed hope that those with damaged homes would take time to rest and let the helpers do their work.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Faith organizations have a complex relationship to disaster relief on Dec 23, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Katie Myers.

New Zealand’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) says impending bad weather for Port Vila is now the most significant post-quake hazard.

A tropical low in the Coral Sea is expected to move into Vanuatu waters, bringing heavy rainfall.

Authorities have issued warnings to people living near landslide-prone areas around the Vanuatu capital.

• READ MORE: Quake-shocked New Caledonian children repatriated from Vanuatu
• Vanuatu snap election pushed back after earthquake
• Vanuatu earthquake: Last repatriation from Port Vila, water in short supply
• Other Vanuatu earthquake reports

People living near low lying areas or rivers have also been told to move, should water levels rise.

The heavy rain may also cause flash flooding.

USAR team leader Ken Cooper said last Tuesday’s 7.3 earthquake caused significant landslides.

“With the weather system that’s coming in, there is a high likelihood that the landslides continue and we need to ensure that there’s no life risks if those landslides should move further,” Cooper said.

Death toll now 12
Aftershocks have continued, and early this morning, the US Geological Survey recorded a magnitude 6.1 quake, at a depth of 40km west of Port Vila.

New Zealand and Vanuatu engineers were assessing prioritised areas in the capital, and a decision would then be made as to whether a community needed to be evacuated, Cooper said.

Since the team had been in Vanuatu, it had taken damage assessments of buildings and infrastructure, with the Vanuatu government, allowing them to prioritise the biggest risks and to assist the community in recovering more quickly, he said.

The official death toll from Vanuatu’s 7.3 magnitude quake is now 12 according to the Vanuatu Disaster Management office.

This has been confirmed by the Vila Central Hospital.

Earlier unofficial reports had placed the death toll at 16.

The team had completed almost 1000 assessments, alongside the Australia USAR team, which was a significant task, Cooper said.

Both teams shared common tools and practices, which had allowed them to work simultaneously and helped the teams to quickly carry out the assessments, he said.

“When we undertake the assessments that really gives us a clear picture of what should be prioritised and we work with the [Vanuatu] government and their infrastructure cluster, and some of the priorities we have looked at are bridges, [the] airport, the port, and also landslides,” he said.

Resilience shown by locals
The deployment lead for New Zealand in Vanuatu praised the resilience of the Ni-Vanuatu people following the 7.3 earthquake.

Thousands of people had been affected by the disaster but the response effort was being hampered by damage to core infrastructure including the country’s telecommunications network.

Emma Dunlop-Bennett said the New Zealand teams on the ground were working in partnership with the Vanuatu government.

She said she was in awe of the strength of locals after the disaster.

“As we go out into communities, working . . .  with the government, people are out there, getting up and doing what they can to get themselves into business as usual, life as usual. I am really in awe and humbled.

The purpose of the New Zealand team being in Vanuatu was three-fold: To provide urgent and critical humanitarian assistance, a response for consular need to New Zealanders, and to support a smooth transition from relief, response to recovery, Dunlop-Bennett said.

Then to business as usual, working along side the priority need identified by the Vanuatu government, she added.

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.

Twenty New Caledonian children who suffered the shock of Port Vila’s 7.3 magnitude earthquake have been repatriated from Vanuatu on board a French military CASA aircraft.

The special operation was conducted on Thursday, as part of relief operations conducted by the Nouméa-based French Armed Forces in New Caledonia in response to the destructive quake that shook the Vanuatu capital, where several buildings have collapsed.

The group of children, from northern New Caledonia (Népoui, Koné, Pouembout, and Poia), are aged between 8 and 14.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu snap election pushed back after earthquake
• Vanuatu earthquake: Last repatriation from Port Vila, water in short supply
• Other Vanuatu earthquake reports

They were visiting Vanuatu as part of a holiday camp organised by their sports association.

They were supervised by four adults.

One of them, Melissa Rangassamy, told local Radio Rythme Bleu upon arrival in Nouméa that the group was having a picnic on a Port Vila beach when the ground started to shake violently.

“Children were falling to the ground, everyone was falling all around, it was panic. We told the children not to move. At the time, they were in shock.

“We gathered them all, put them on the buses, and went straight up to a higher place,” she said.

“It’s so good to come back home.”

More evacuation flights
The French High Commission in New Caledonia said a special psychological assistance unit was available to anyone who should need help.

More flights to evacuate French nationals would be carried out of Port Vila to New Caledonia, French Ambassador to Vanuatu Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer said.

Vanuatu hosts a significant French community, estimated at more than 3300 French citizens, including from New Caledonia.

New Caledonia is also home to a strong ni-Vanuatu community of about 5000.

One French national confirmed among fatalities
A Vanuatu-born French citizen has been confirmed dead.

He was found under the rubble of one of the hardest-hit buildings in central Port Vila.

He has been identified as Vincent Goiset, who belongs to a long-established, affluent Vanuatu family of Vietnamese origin.

The total death toll from the December 17 earthquake stood at 15 on Friday, but was still likely to rise.

France, Australia and New Zealand: 100 percent ‘FRANZ’
Both Australia and New Zealand, through their armed forces, have deployed relief — including urban search and rescue teams — in a bid to find survivors under the collapsed buildings.

The two countries are part of a tripartite set-up called “FRANZ” (France, Australia, New Zealand).

Signed in 1992, the agreement enforces a policy of systematic coordination between the three armed forces when they operate to bring assistance to Pacific island countries affected by a natural disaster.

As part of the FRANZ set-up, the French contribution included an initial reconnaissance flight from its Nouméa-based Falcon-200 jet (known as the Gardian) at daybreak on Wednesday, mostly to assess the Bauerfield airport.

Port Vila is only 500km away from Nouméa.

Later that day, a French PUMA helicopter transported emergency relief and personnel (including experts in buildings structural assessment, telecom and essential supplies such as water and electricity) to Port Vila to further assess the situation.

The small military CASA aircraft also operated a number of rotations between Nouméa and Port Vila, bringing more relief supplies (including food rations, water, and IT equipment) and returning with evacuees.

The French High Commission also said if needed, a Nouméa-based surveillance frigate Vendémiaire and the overseas assistance vessel d’Entrecasteaux were placed on stand-by mode “ready to set sail from Nouméa to Vanuatu within 72 and 96 hours, respectively”.

Embassies ‘flattened’
Following the Tuesday quake, four embassies in Port Vila (New Zealand, United Kingdom, the United States and France), all under the same roof, had been temporarily relocated to their respective chiefs of mission.

Their offices, once located in a three-storey building, collapsed and were “flattened”, the French ambassador said.

Vanuatu’s caretaker Prime Minister Charlot Salwaï has announced a state of emergency at least until Christmas and the Vanuatu snap election has been postponed from January 14 to 16.

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.

Vanuatu is taking stock of damage from a powerful 7.3 magnitude earthquake that has killed at least 14 people and collapsed buildings in the capital Port Vila, as the first trickle of international assistance began arriving in the disaster-prone Pacific nation.

The quake rattled the island nation, located about 1900km northeast of the Australian city of Brisbane, not long after midday on Tuesday, sending people in restaurants and shops running into the streets of Port Vila.

The National Disaster Management office said in a report that 14 people had been confirmed dead and 200 treated for injuries, with the numbers expected to increase.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu quake: Services still down nearly 24 hours after Port Vila hit
• Vanuatu quake: Death toll rises – 14 dead, hundreds hurt in 7.3 disaster
• NZ rescue teams head for Vanuatu

Of those killed, six died in a landslide, four at the Vila Central Hospital and four in the Billabong building, which collapsed in downtown Port Vila.

Two Chinese nationals were among the dead, Chinese Ambassador to Vanuatu Li Minggang told state media yesterday.

On Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Charlot Salwai declared a week-long state of emergency and set a curfew of 6 pm to 6 am.

Rescue efforts are focused on downtown Port Vila on the main island Efate, where the NDMO said at least 10 buildings, including one housing multiple diplomatic missions, suffered major structural damage.

Survivors trapped
Emergency teams worked through the night in a bid to find survivors trapped in the rubble, using heavy machinery such as excavators and cranes, along with shovels and hand grinders, videos posted to social media showed.

Two major commercial buildings, the Wong store and the Billabong shop, collapsed in the quake, according to Basil Leodoro, a surgeon and director of Helpr-1 Operations at Respond Global in Vanuatu.

“Vanuatu Mobile Force, ProRescue and ambulance teams are helping to remove casualties from the wreckage. So far they’ve been able to pull two,” said Leodoro in a social post yesterday morning, citing official reports.

“There are several others reported to be missing, still under the wreckage, coming to a total of about seven.”

People wounded in the disaster are being treated at two health facilities, the Vila Central Hospital and a second health clinic opened at the Vanuatu Mobile Force (VMF) base at Cooks Barracks, he said.

“From the initial reports at Vila Central Hospital, we know the hospital is overrun with casualties being brought in,” Leodoro said.

“The emergency team at the hospital have been working overnight to try to handle the number of casualties and walking wounded that are coming in, with triage being performed outside.”

“There are 14 confirmed deaths, and that number is likely to rise.”

‘Ring of Fire’
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in an update that there was damage to the hospital and the “operating theatre is non-functional, and overall healthcare capacity is overwhelmed.”

Vanuatu, an archipelago that straddles the seismically active Pacific “Ring of Fire,” is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world and is frequently hit by cyclones, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The UN agency estimated 116,000 people could be affected by this earthquake.

The government reported damage to power lines and water supplies in urban areas, while telecommunications were down, with Starlink providing the main form of connectivity to the outside world.

“Two major water reserves in the Ohlen area which supplies water to Port Vila are totally destroyed and will need reconstruction,” the NDMO said on Tuesday.

The Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Corporation (VBTC) said in a statement that its facilities were damaged in the quake and it was operating only a limited radio service.

Australia, New Zealand and France said they had dispatched aid and emergency response teams to Vanuatu and were helping to assess the extent of damage.

Airport closed
Airports Vanuatu CEO Jason Rakau said the airport was closed for commercial airplanes for 72 hours to allow humanitarian flights to land, VBTC reported.

A post on X from France’s ambassador to Vanuatu, Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer, showed that three military engineers with satellite communications equipment had arrived by helicopter from the French territory of New Caledonia.

Aid supplies are already stationed in locations across Vanuatu as part of their disaster preparations, Katie Greenwood, head of the Pacific delegation at the Red Cross, said in another post to X.

Glen Craig, the chairman of the Vanuatu Business Resilience Council, said most damage was centered within 5km of Port Vila’s central business district.

“In terms of residential housing, it is far, far less significant than a cyclone,” he told BenarNews.

Most damage to businesses would be insurable, but of more concern would be a loss of income from tourism, he said.

“If tourists keep coming, we’re going to be okay,” he said. “If tourists just suddenly decide it’s all too hard, we’re in a bit of trouble.”

Vanuatu is home to about 300,000 on its 13 main islands and many smaller ones.

Its government declared a six-month national emergency early last year after it was hit by back-to-back tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin and a 6.5 magnitude earthquake within several days.

Republished from BenarNews with permission.

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

We speak with organizer Astra Taylor of the Debt Collective, which is urging President Joe Biden to cancel more student debt, including for older debtors, before the end of his term. According to the White House, the administration has approved $175 billion in student debt relief for nearly 5 million borrowers over the past four years, but advocates say Biden can still do more in his final weeks as president. “This is a Titanic moment for the Biden administration. They have crashed into the authoritarian iceberg of the Trump administration, and it is their duty to fill as many lifeboats as possible,” says Taylor. She faults the administration for insisting on a case-by-case approach to debt relief instead of canceling debt for larger swaths of debtors, including many with “ironclad claims,” urging the White House to use all the legal tools at its disposal.

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

We go live to Damascus for the first time since the fall of longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad, where the country’s populace is still reeling from the power struggle that forcibly displaced more than a million people over the last months. Investigative reporter Sarah El Deeb joins Democracy Now! while looking over the joyous scenes in the city, but reports there is a marked “contrast between the sense of relief over the departure of Bashar al-Assad but then the sadness and the concern and no answers for where the loved ones have gone.” El Deeb describes exploring Syria’s notorious prisons, the manhunt for U.S. citizens in the country, and how in the Gaza Strip Israeli soldiers have separated Palestinian families during raids.

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

This is the vision of a new effort underway at United Nations climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan. This year’s conference, which is known as COP29, is all about money: which countries will pay to help fight climate change, how much money they will send, and what that money will accomplish. Past efforts to fund decarbonization and climate resilience in the developing world have all but failed. Wealthy nations have delivered money in a piecemeal, opaque manner, leaving trillions of dollars of unmet needs in the world’s poorest nations.

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Here are the 5 issues to watch at COP29

Jake Bittle

There are hints of a new system emerging on the sidelines of the COP29 conference. A small group of nations is advancing a proposal for a set of worldwide taxes on high-polluting industries, which could reap billions of dollars in steady money for recovery efforts in disaster-ravaged countries. The governments of France, Kenya, and Barbados are using COP29 as a springboard to develop what they call a “global solidarity levy,” which would impose half-percent taxes on sectors such as aviation and shipping.

The idea got a big boost from U.N. secretary general António Guterres on Tuesday. In his address to the negotiators assembled at COP, Guterres urged them to consider “tapping innovative sources, particularly levies on shipping, aviation, and fossil fuel extraction.”

There is an urgent need for funding to address “loss and damage,” or the disaster-related destruction fueled by carbon pollution. Wealthy countries have admitted their responsibility to provide this funding — since they have emitted orders of magnitude more carbon than most of the world — but they haven’t yet followed through: Last year, around a dozen countries pledged a combined $700 million to a new loss and damage fund administered by the World Bank, and more pledges may follow at COP29 this year. 

There is broad agreement that this piecemeal approach is unsustainable — not least because of domestic political volatility, including the likelihood that the U.S. will cut off new deliveries of climate aid when Donald Trump assumes the presidency next year. Then there’s the fact that a country that just got destroyed by a typhoon can’t afford to wait 10 years for a recovery grant to wind its way to its treasury. Finally, there are relatively few incentives for rich countries to pay for disaster relief abroad, relative to other climate-related ventures: A loan to build a solar farm might pay for itself when the project starts to generate power revenue, and an adaptation grant might lead to economic benefits later on if it protects a supply chain or makes a farm more resilient. Disaster recovery aid, on the other hand, doesn’t pay for itself.

The proposed global solidarity levy takes a different approach: Rather than encouraging big economies to contribute with one chunk of money at a time, the proposal would use taxes to generate consistent revenue for a relief fund. The France-Barbados-Kenya task force is in the midst of studying which industries to tax, and it expects to release a final proposal early next year. 

Sectors like aviation and shipping, which cross national borders, are obvious candidates, but the task force has also looked at taxing plastics and cryptocurrency, given their large pollution and energy footprints, respectively. The task force will likely begin by targeting a single industry, such as aviation, and urge climate-ambitious governments to pass a tax on transactions in that industry, which can then be used as models for more and more governments to follow.

“The ‘polluter pays’ principle has guided us thus far,” said Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley, an influential leader in climate finance debates, in a speech touting the forthcoming proposal at COP29. “If you have contributed to the problem, you should contribute to the solution.”

The levy proposals could raise as much as $350 billion if they were adopted globally, Mottley added. Even if just a few dozen governments implemented a tax on one of these industries, they could raise more money per year than all rich countries’ combined donations to the loss and damage thus far. The task force currently has 13 members, including France, Spain, and the Marshall Islands.

Many nations already collect industry-specific taxes. For example, more than 30 countries tax at least some financial transactions at around 0.5 percent. In the United Kingdom, a “stamp duty” on stock transactions brings in around $5 billion per year, and France and Switzerland raise about $1 billion per year each by taxing their own financial sectors. Several European countries have also rolled out flight ticket taxes of around $2 to $7 over the past two decades, with Portugal routing revenue toward projects that reduce emissions.

But financing global climate aid in this manner raises a number of new challenges. Existing transaction taxes typically raise money to benefit the taxpayers in a given country, but “solidarity levies” that send money to faraway places might engender domestic backlash. Countries may also be wary of scaring off private investment and stunting economic growth, especially given that the tax is unique in not providing any material benefit to the country collecting it (other than potentially helping to reduce global emissions).

Other international entities are pursuing similar but less radical measures. The International Maritime Organization, the U.N. body that regulates the shipping industry, is working on its own carbon tax to levy on the carbon-intensive tanker fleet that moves 80 percent of the world’s freight. That tax will be finalized by next year and could end up at anywhere between $50 and $300 per ton of carbon dioxide. But the Maritime Organization’s secretary general told Grist that it will use the money to decarbonize the shipping industry, rather than aid developing countries.

“The loss and damage conversation, that’s more a historical conversation, and we don’t have that conversation,” said Arsenio Dominguez, the secretary general of the International Maritime Organization, in an interview at COP29. “Our goal is to collect the necessary funds to support shipping decarbonization and the shipping transition.”

Dominguez added that he doesn’t oppose countries’ attempts to find more money for loss and damage funding, but he views his organization’s effort as ambitious in its own right.

Given that a shipping carbon tax is already in the works, it’s likely that the France-Barbados task force will endorse a levy on another industry where regulators have been less ambitious on climate, such as aviation, or where there is no global regulatory body, such as finance.

Imposing such a fee might be controversial in the United States, but for other countries it might be a savvy political move, according to Rachel Cleetus, a finance expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a climate advocacy organization. Wealthy governments have to scrape through their budgets to find billion-dollar overseas aid donations, but a new levy on an industry like aviation could fund those efforts continuously. Plus, a country could set it up without going through the consensus-driven U.N. process.

Read Next

‘We may have less to offer’: US negotiators confront diminished standing at COP29

Jake Bittle

“In the near-term, the main role it could play is to create a coalition of the willing, a set of countries that would do this together,” she said. “It’s a different kind of negotiation.”

Cleetus cautioned that even these levies likely wouldn’t be a full substitute for direct public finance from developed countries. If these countries don’t pay their fair share, she said, there will still be large unmet needs in the Global South.

“Whenever you hear this conversation about finance, very quickly you’ll hear conversations about reforming the multilateral system and adding innovative sources,” she said. “But people see it as a substitute — and it’s not, it’s a complement.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Would you pay more for plane tickets to fund climate relief efforts? on Nov 13, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Jake Bittle.

• UN relief chief urged global support this week as Israeli legislation threatens aid to Palestinian refugees.
• California education chief vows to seek state solutions amid concerns over potential federal funding cuts.
• Immigrant rights groups rally in Fresno, vowing resistance to Trump’s mass deportation plans.
• San Francisco mayor-elect Daniel Lurie pledges unity, prioritizes public safety, and vows government accountability after defeating London Breed.
• Santa Clara County leaders pledge commitment to community interests amid GOP threats of deportation and civil rights rollbacks.

The post UN relief chief urged global support this week as Israeli legislation threatens aid to Palestinian refugees – November 8, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.

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

The national chair of one of New Zealand’s leading pro-Palestine advocacy groups has condemned New Zealand over remaining “totally silent” over Israeli military and diplomatic attacks on the United Nations, blaming this on a “refusal to offend” Tel Aviv.

Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) chair John Minto said he was appalled at the New Zealand response to the Israeli parliamentary vote last week to ban UNRWA operations in Israel and East Jerusalem.

The Israeli government followed up on this today by cancelling the UNRWA agreement, effectively closing down the major Palestinian refugee aid organisation’s desperately needed work in the Gaza Strip.

• READ MORE: ‘Genocide as colonial erasure – UN expert Francesca Albanese on Israel’s ‘intent to destroy’ Gaza
• Israel kills the journalists. Western media kills the truth of genocide in Gaza
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

“UNRWA was set up by the United Nations to assist the hundreds of thousands Palestinian refugees expelled by Israel in 1948, pending their right of return — which Israel refuses to recognise,” Minto said in a statement.

“Israel sees UNRWA as an unwelcome reminder of Palestinian national rights and has always aimed to get rid of it. Support for banning UNRWA came from the Zionist New Zealand Jewish Council earlier this year.”

Israel has also recently shelled United Nations peacekeeping positions in Lebanon and has killed an estimated 230 UNRWA workers in Gaza.

“Our government has previously stated how important UNRWA relief work is for Palestinian refugees in Gaza. The US government says the UNRWA supply of food, water and medicine is ‘irreplaceable’,” Minto said.

NZ role ‘shallow, non-existent’
“Yet, under no doubt as a result of Israeli lobbying, our commitment to the UN and its work is increasingly exposed as somewhere between shallow and non-existent.”

Israel cancels agreement with UNRWA.    Video: Al Jazeera

Minto said other Western governments had been critical of the UNRWA ban and the recent Israeli refusal to allow the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to enter Israel.

Despite New Zealand having UN peacekeepers in the Lebanon border areas, it failed to join more than 40 countries which condemned the military attacks on a number of UNIFIL bases in south Lebanon last month.

“Our government refuses to offend Israel in any way. Even major arms suppliers to Israel, particularly the US, France and the UK, have been sometimes critical of what is a genocide by Israel in Gaza,” Minto said.

“In contrast, the New Zealand government blames Hamas for all the killing and destruction committed by Israel, though it also finds space to condemn Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran.”

Previous New Zealand governments have formally rebuked Israel for its violence, most recently former Foreign Minister Murry McCully in 2010 and former Prime Minister John Key in 2014 — “both by summoning in the Israeli ambassador”.

“This time, when Israeli attacks on Gaza are becoming even more savage and sadistic by the day, our Foreign Minister and his government remains inactive and silent,” Minto said.

Israeli ethnic cleansing
He said the Israeli war crimes in Gaza now clearly included ethnic cleansing.

“Reports of what is called the Israeli ‘General’s Plan’ are now widespread in our news media,” Minto said.

“The General’s Plan is a vile combination of military assault, starvation and exclusion of both aid workers and news media, to hide and facilitate the ‘death march’ of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from north of the Netzarim Corridor.

“This is to prepare for a resumption of illegal Israeli colonisation in northern Gaza.”

“In September, our government voted with 123 other countries for a UN General Assembly resolution to demand that Israel withdraw from the Occupied Palestinian Territories without delay.”

“That was welcome.”

“What is not welcome is for New Zealand to then stand by when genocidal Israel carries out ethnic cleansing on a massive scale to once again spit on the UN and increase its occupation of Palestinian lands.”

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

Trucks formed a caravan along Interstate 40, filled with camouflaged soldiers, large square tanks of water, and essentials from pet food to diapers. In towns, roadside signs — official versions emblazoned with nonprofit relief logos and wooden makeshift ones scrawled with paint — advertised free food and water. 

And then there were the generators. 

The noisy machines powered the trailers where Asheville residents sought showers, weeks after the city’s water system failed. They fueled the food trucks delivering hot meals to the thousands without working stoves. They filtered water for communities to drink and flush toilets. 

Western North Carolina is far from unique. In the wake of disaster, generators are a staple of relief efforts around the globe. But across the region, a New Orleans-based nonprofit is working to displace as many of these fossil fuel burners as it can, swapping in batteries charged with solar panels instead. 

It’s the largest response effort the Footprint Project has ever deployed in its short life, and organizers hope the impact will extend far into the future. 

“If we can get this sustainable tech in fast, then when the real rebuild happens, there’s a whole new conversation that wouldn’t have happened if we were just doing the same thing that we did every time,” said Will Heegaard, operations director for the organization.  

“Responders use what they know works, and our job is to get them stuff that works better than single-use fossil fuels do,” he said. “And then, they can start asking for that. It trickles up to a systems change.” 

A ‘no-brainer’ solution to the problem of gas generators 

The rationale for diesel and gas generators is simple: They’re widely available. They’re relatively easy to operate. Assuming fuel is available, they can run 24/7, keeping people warm, fed, and connected to their loved ones even when the electric grid is down. Indubitably, they save lives.  

But they’re not without downsides. The burning of fossil fuels emits not just more carbon that exacerbates the climate crisis, but smog and soot-forming air pollutants that can trigger asthma attacks and other respiratory problems.  

In Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, generators were so prevalent after the electric grid failed that harmful air pollution in San Juan soared above the safe legal limit. The risk is especially acute for sensitive populations who turn to generators for powering vital equipment like oxygenators. 

There are also practical challenges. Generators aren’t cheap, retailing at big box stores for more than $1,000. Once initial fuel supplies run out — as happened in parts of western North Carolina in the immediate aftermath of Helene — it can be difficult and costly to find more. And the machines are noisy, potentially harming health and creating more stress for aid workers and the people they serve. 

Heegaard witnessed these challenges firsthand in Guinea in 2016 when he was responding to an Ebola outbreak. As a paramedic, his job was to train locals to collect blood samples and store them in generator-powered refrigerators that would be motorcycled to the city of Conakry for testing. He had a grant to give cash reimbursements to the lab techs for the fuel. 

“This is so hard already, and the idea of doing a cash reimbursement in a super poor rural country for gas generators seems really hard,” Heegaard recalled thinking. “I had heard of solar refrigerators. I asked the local logistician in Conakry, ‘Are these things even possible?’”  

The next day, the logistician said they were. They could be installed within a month. “It was just a no-brainer,” said Heegaard. “The only reason we hadn’t done it is the grant wasn’t written that way.” 

‘Game changing for a response’

Two years later, the Footprint Project was born of that experience. With just seven full-time staff, the group cycles in workers in the wake of disaster, partnering up with local solar companies, nonprofits, and others, to gather supplies and distribute as many as they can. 

They deploy solar-powered charging stations, water filtration systems, and other so-called climate tech to communities who need it most — starting with those without power, water, or a generator at all, and extending to those looking to offset their fossil fuel combustion.

The group has now built nearly 50 such solar-powered microgrids in the region, from Lake Junaluska to Linville Falls, more than it has ever supplied in the wake of disaster. The recipients range from volunteer fire stations to trailer parks to an art collective in West Asheville.

Mike Talyad, a photographer who launched the collective last year to support artists of color, teamed up with the Grassroots Aid Partnership, a national nonprofit, to fill in relief gaps in the wake of Helene. “The whole city was trying to figure it out,” he said. 

Solar panels from Footprint that initially powered a water filter have now largely displaced the generators for the team’s food trucks, which last week were providing 1,000 meals a day. “When we did the switchover,” Talyad said, “it was a time when gas was still questionable.”

Last week, the team at Footprint also provided six solar panels, a Tesla battery, and a charging station to displace a noisy generator at a retirement community in South Asheville.

The device was powering a system that sucked water from a pond, filtered it, and rendered it potable. Picking up their jugs of drinking water, a steady flow of residents oohed and aahed as the solar panels were installed, and sighed in relief when the din of the generator abated. 

“Most responders are not playing with solar microgrids because they’re better for the environment,” said Heegaard. “They’re playing with it because if they can turn their generator off for 12 hours a day, that means literally half the fuel savings. Some of them are spending tens of thousands of dollars a month on diesel or gas. That is game changing for a response.” 

‘Showing up for their neighbors’

Footprint’s robust relief effort and the variety of its beneficiaries is owed in part to the scale of Helene’s destruction, with more than 1 million in North Carolina alone who initially lost power.  

“It’s really hard to put into words what’s happening out there right now,” said Matt Abele, the executive director of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, who visited in the early days after the storm. “It is just the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever seen — whole mobile home parks that are just completely gone.” 

But the breadth of the response is also owed to Footprint’s approach to aid, which is rooted in connections to grassroots groups, government organizations, and the local solar industry. All have partnered together for the relief effort. 

“We’ve been incredibly overwhelmed by the positive response that we’ve seen from the clean energy community,” Abele said, “both from an equipment donation standpoint and a financial resources standpoint.” 

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Some four hours east of the devastation in western North Carolina, Greentech Renewables Raleigh has been soliciting and storing solar panels and other goods. It’s also raising money for products that are harder to get for free — like PV wire and batteries. Then it trucks the supplies west.

“We’ve got bodies, we’ve got trucks, we’ve got relationships,” said Shasten Jolley, the manager at the company, which warehouses and sells supplies to a variety of installers. “So, we try to utilize all those things to help out.”

The cargo is delivered to Mars Hill, a tiny college town about 20 miles north of Asheville that was virtually untouched by Helene. Through a local regional government organization, Frank Johnson, the owner of a robotics company, volunteered his 110,000-square-foot facility for storage.

Johnson is just one example of how people in the region have leapt to help each other, said Abele, who’s based in Raleigh.

“You can tell when you’re out there,” he said, “that so many people in the community are coping by showing up for their neighbors.”

‘Available for the next response’

To be sure, Footprint’s operations aren’t seamless at every turn. For instance, most of the donated solar panels designated for the South Asheville retirement community didn’t work, a fact the installers learned once they’d made the 40-minute drive in the morning and tried to connect them to the system. They returned later that afternoon with functioning units, but then faced the challenge of what to do with the broken ones.

“This is solar aid waste,” Heegaard said. “The last site we did yesterday had the same problem. Now we have to figure out how to recycle them.”

It’s also not uncommon for the microgrids to stop working, Heegaard said, because of understandable operator errors, like running them all night to provide heat.  

But above all, the problem for Footprint is scale. A tiny organization among behemoth relief groups, it simply doesn’t have the bandwidth for a larger response. When Milton followed immediately on the heels of Helene, Heegaard’s group made the difficult choice to hunker down in North Carolina. 

Read Next

Tribes help tribes after natural disasters. Helene is no different.

Taylar Dawn Stagner

With climate-fueled weather disasters poised to increase, the organization hopes to entice the biggest, most well-resourced players in disaster relief to start regularly using solar microgrids in their efforts. 

As power is slowly restored across the region, with just over 5,000 remaining without electricity, there’s also the question of what comes next.

While there’s a parallel conversation underway among advocates and policymakers about making microgrids and distributed solar a more permanent feature of the grid, Footprint also hopes to inspire some of that change from the ground up. Maybe the volunteer fire station decides to put solar panels on its roof when it rebuilds, for instance. 

“We can change the conversation around resilience and recovery by directly pointing to something that worked when the lights were out and debris was in the street,” Heegaard said.

As for the actual Footprint equipment, the dream is to create “lending libraries” in places like Asheville, to be cycled in and out of community events and disaster relief.

“The solar trailer or the microgrid or the water maker that went to the Burnsville elementary school right after the storm — that can be recycled and used to power the music stage or the movie in the park,” Heegaard said. “Then that equipment is here, it’s being utilized, and it’s available for the next response, whether it’s in Knoxville or Atlanta or South Carolina.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline This disaster relief nonprofit is pioneering a clean energy alternative to noisy, polluting generators on Oct 30, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Elizabeth Ouzts, Energy News Network.

• The Supreme Court today kept on hold the Biden administration’s latest multibillion-dollar plan to lower payments for millions of borrowers while lawsuits proceed in lower courts.
• Typhoon Shenshen dumped rain on Japan, leaving one dead and several injured before landfall; highest-level warnings issued for the country’s south.
• The FBI shared new details of its investigation into the man who tried to assassinate Donald Trump in July, stating that a motive for the shooting remains unclear.
• Santa Clara County supervisors voted to advance a new plan to buy Regional Medical Center Hospital, restoring health access to vulnerable south bay residents.
• The state agency responsible for health care affordability and accessibility in California met outside Sacramento for the first time today in Monterey County to discuss high prices at the area’s three major hospitals that patients cannot afford.

The post Supreme Court keeps Biden administration’s multibillion-dollar payment relief plan on hold as lawsuits proceed – August 28, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.

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

We look at the historic $2 billion payout by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to farmers who experienced systemic discrimination when applying to the USDA’s farm loan programs. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has documented how USDA administrators routinely denied loans to Black farmers and other farmers of color for many decades, contributing to a massive decline in the amount of Black-owned farms in the United States. “This is a very, very historic payout for Black farmers,” says John Boyd, a fourth-generation Black farmer and founder of the National Black Farmers Association, who notes the application to receive the payout was 40 pages long. He says the group is also still fighting for a related $5 billion debt relief program. “I want people to know this is a big win, and don’t never, ever give up. The arc of justice bends slow; it bends slower for Black people, but I never gave up.”

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

News agencies ANI and PTI published reports with images of Rahul Gandhi at a camp surrounded by some people.

ANI captioned the image as “Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visits flood-affected victims at relief camp in Fulertal (X/@INCIndia).” PTI in its report alluded to a tweet by Rahul Gandhi where he extended his support towards victims of the Assam floods, and wrote that Gandhi had visited a flood-relief camp at Fulertal in the Cachar district of Assam.

News outlets such as The Hindu, NDTV, The Times of India, The Indian Express, India Today, Deccan Chronicle, The Week, Zee News and several others published reports of Rahul Gandhi apparently meeting flood-affected people in a relief camp in Assam’s Fulertal.

Congress MP K C Venugopal also tweeted the same images of Rahul Gandhi inside a camp and wrote that Gandhi had visited flood victims in Assam. (Archive)

Accompanied Lok Sabha LOP Sh. @RahulGandhi ji as he met flood victims in Assam and visited Manipuri refugee camps in Assam and Manipur.

The Assam flood is an annual phenomenon, killing hundreds and destroying the livelihoods of lakhs of citizens. It is truly shocking that the… pic.twitter.com/lpaK01imwB

— K C Venugopal (@kcvenugopalmp) July 8, 2024

Fact Check

Since ANI had cited the Indian National Congress’s X handle as its source for the photo, we looked for the same and came across the concerned tweet. 

It contained the images used in the media reports. However, @INCIndia wrote in the tweet: “Leader of Opposition Shri @RahulGandhi met refugees of Manipur violence at a relief camp in Assam.

Phulertal, Assam”

नेता विपक्ष श्री @RahulGandhi ने असम में मौजूद राहत शिविर में मणिपुर हिंसा के शरणार्थियों से मुलाकात की।

फुलेरताल, असम pic.twitter.com/gD8lZlBU10

— Congress (@INCIndia) July 8, 2024

There is no mention of flood victims in the tweet.

A video with the same visuals was also shared on Rahul Gandhi’s official Instagram page. The caption mentioned: “Dear people of Manipur, I come to you as your brother. I will do everything I can to bring back peace to all your lives. Mohabbat will lead us to a solution – I’m sure of it.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Rahul Gandhi (@rahulgandhi)

The woman seen in the images used in the reports is visible in the thumbnail as well as in the video proper.

We spoke to a journalist of a national English daily based in Cachar district. He told Alt News, “There is no flood relief camp in Fulertal. Rahul Gandhi visited two camps here, both inhabited by refugees from adjoining Manipur district. The photo that has been used by many outlets is from one of these camps in Lakhipur block.”

To sum up, the reports that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visited Assam flood victims at a relief camp in Cachar district are false. Photos from his visit to a relief camp for victims of Manipur violence were falsely used by media outlets.

Incidentally, a team of Assam Pradesh Congress Committee led by president Bhupen Borah had submitted a memorandum to Rahul Gandhi on July 8 urging him to take up the issue of Assam floods in Parliament. This was tweeted from Assam Congress’s official X handle, but there was no mention of Gandhi meeting flood victims.

A team of APCC, led by President Shri @BhupenKBorah submitted a memorandum to Hon’ble LoP Shri @RahulGandhi Ji urging him to take up the issue of the perennial flood of Assam in Parliament.

There has been devastating damage to embankments, roads, bridges & Assam needs immediate… pic.twitter.com/lxcnNBtoEN

— Assam Congress (@INCAssam) July 8, 2024

Rahul Gandhi, too, tweeted about this. This is the tweet PTI mentioned in its report. However, there was no mention of him meeting the flood-hit people.

The post Rahul Gandhi did not visit flood relief camp in Assam’s Fulertal; false reports by PTI, ANI & mainstream media outlets appeared first on Alt News.

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

News agencies ANI and PTI published reports with images of Rahul Gandhi at a camp surrounded by some people.

ANI captioned the image as “Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visits flood-affected victims at relief camp in Fulertal (X/@INCIndia).” PTI in its report alluded to a tweet by Rahul Gandhi where he extended his support towards victims of the Assam floods, and wrote that Gandhi had visited a flood-relief camp at Fulertal in the Cachar district of Assam.

News outlets such as The Hindu, NDTV, The Times of India, The Indian Express, India Today, Deccan Chronicle, The Week, Zee News and several others published reports of Rahul Gandhi apparently meeting flood-affected people in a relief camp in Assam’s Fulertal.

Congress MP K C Venugopal also tweeted the same images of Rahul Gandhi inside a camp and wrote that Gandhi had visited flood victims in Assam. (Archive)

Accompanied Lok Sabha LOP Sh. @RahulGandhi ji as he met flood victims in Assam and visited Manipuri refugee camps in Assam and Manipur.

The Assam flood is an annual phenomenon, killing hundreds and destroying the livelihoods of lakhs of citizens. It is truly shocking that the… pic.twitter.com/lpaK01imwB

— K C Venugopal (@kcvenugopalmp) July 8, 2024

Fact Check

Since ANI had cited the Indian National Congress’s X handle as its source for the photo, we looked for the same and came across the concerned tweet. 

It contained the images used in the media reports. However, @INCIndia wrote in the tweet: “Leader of Opposition Shri @RahulGandhi met refugees of Manipur violence at a relief camp in Assam.

Phulertal, Assam”

नेता विपक्ष श्री @RahulGandhi ने असम में मौजूद राहत शिविर में मणिपुर हिंसा के शरणार्थियों से मुलाकात की।

फुलेरताल, असम pic.twitter.com/gD8lZlBU10

— Congress (@INCIndia) July 8, 2024

There is no mention of flood victims in the tweet.

A video with the same visuals was also shared on Rahul Gandhi’s official Instagram page. The caption mentioned: “Dear people of Manipur, I come to you as your brother. I will do everything I can to bring back peace to all your lives. Mohabbat will lead us to a solution – I’m sure of it.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Rahul Gandhi (@rahulgandhi)

The woman seen in the images used in the reports is visible in the thumbnail as well as in the video proper.

We spoke to a journalist of a national English daily based in Cachar district. He told Alt News, “There is no flood relief camp in Fulertal. Rahul Gandhi visited two camps here, both inhabited by refugees from adjoining Manipur district. The photo that has been used by many outlets is from one of these camps in Lakhipur block.”

To sum up, the reports that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visited Assam flood victims at a relief camp in Cachar district are false. Photos from his visit to a relief camp for victims of Manipur violence were falsely used by media outlets.

Incidentally, a team of Assam Pradesh Congress Committee led by president Bhupen Borah had submitted a memorandum to Rahul Gandhi on July 8 urging him to take up the issue of Assam floods in Parliament. This was tweeted from Assam Congress’s official X handle, but there was no mention of Gandhi meeting flood victims.

A team of APCC, led by President Shri @BhupenKBorah submitted a memorandum to Hon’ble LoP Shri @RahulGandhi Ji urging him to take up the issue of the perennial flood of Assam in Parliament.

There has been devastating damage to embankments, roads, bridges & Assam needs immediate… pic.twitter.com/lxcnNBtoEN

— Assam Congress (@INCAssam) July 8, 2024

Rahul Gandhi, too, tweeted about this. This is the tweet PTI mentioned in its report. However, there was no mention of him meeting the flood-hit people.

The post Rahul Gandhi did not visit flood relief camp in Assam’s Fulertal; false reports by PTI, ANI & mainstream media outlets appeared first on Alt News.

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

French Polynesia has just played host to a 15-nation “Marara” military exercise aimed at increasing “interoperability” between participating armed forces.

From May 27 to June 8, the exercise involved about 1000 military from Australia, New Zealand, United States, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Cook Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga, Fiji, Canada, the Netherlands and Peru.

For the occasion, Japan’s helicopter carrier LST Kunisaki was used as a joint command post in what is described as a realistic simulation of an international relief operation to assist a fictitious Pacific island country struck by a grave natural disaster.

Military transport planes and patrol boats were also brought into the exercise by participating countries.

“Marara 2024 illustrates France’s commitment to reinforce security and stability in the Pacific . . . and its ability to cooperate with nations of the region for the benefit of the people,” the French Armed forces in French Polynesia said in a media release.

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

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

New Zealand will make its annual payment of $1 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) as scheduled.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has confirmed the news in a tweet.

“This follows careful consideration of the UN’s response — including through external and internal investigations — to serious allegations against certain UNRWA staff being involved in the 7 October terrorist attacks on Israel,” he said.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live: More than 36,700 killed in eight months of war
• Columbia Law Review website shut down over ‘censored’ article critical of Israel
• Other War on Gaza reports

“It also reflects assurances received from the UN Secretary-General about remedial work underway to enhance UNRWA’s neutrality.”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in January confirmed New Zealand would hold off on making the usual June payment until Peters was satisfied over accusations against the agency’s staff.

UNRWA is the UN’s largest aid agency operating in Gaza, but in January Israel levelled allegations that a dozen of UNRWA’s staff had been involved in the October 7 attack by Hamas fighters into southern Israel.

The attack left about 1139 people dead and about 250 Israeli soldiers and civilians were reported to have been taken hostage.

Never suspended
Speaking from Fiji on the final day of his trip to the Pacific, Luxon said New Zealand had never suspended its payments as other countries had.

“Our funding is made once a year. It was due by the end of June. As I said at the time, they were serious allegations. The UN investigated then, the deputy prime minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters also got assurances from the UN Secretary-General.

“We’re reassured that it’s a good investment and it’s entirely appropriate that we now make that payment.”

The independent report commissioned by the UN into the agency concluded it needed to improve its neutrality, vetting and transparency, but Israel had failed to back up the claims which led many countries to halt their funding.

UNRWA fired the 10 employees accused by Israel who were still alive. The agency is one of the largest UN operations and employs about 30,000 people.

Secretary-General António Guterres said any UN employee found to have been involved in acts of terror would be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.

Luxon said he was “absolutely” satisfied due diligence had been done on the matter, and New Zealand was “very comfortable” making the payments.

New Zealand will be making its annual payment of $1 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) on schedule and in coming days. This follows careful consideration of the UN’s response – including through external & internal investigations – to serious…

— Winston Peters (@NewZealandMFA) June 6, 2024

$17m in other aid
“Remember also that we’ve made $17 million worth of additional investments in aid to organisations like the World Food Programme, International Red Cross and others.

“This is just part of our humanitarian assistance package, we’ve woken up this morning to more images of catastrophic impact of civilians in Gaza, why we’ve been calling consistently for some time a cessation of hostilities there.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry estimates at least 36,580 people have been killed in Gaza since the attack in October.

Most recently an Israeli air strike on a UN school in central Gaza, which was packed with hundreds of displaced people, killed more than 40 people.

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

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

Scores of people have died in a huge landslide which has struck a remote village in the Papua New Guinean highlands.

The landslide reportedly hit Yambali village in Enga Province, about 600 km north-west of Port Moresby.

The landslip has buried homes and food gardens, leaving what locals say is an estimated 3000 buried under a mass landslide.

• READ MORE: Dozens feared dead after ‘massive’ landslide hits Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea authorities are yet to officially confirm the number of deaths.

In a post on Facebook tonight, PNG Prime Minister James Marape passed on his condolences to the families of those who had died in the landslide.

Disaster officials, PNG Defence Force and the Department of Works and Highways officers were being sent to meet with provincial and district officials in Enga and start relief work, recovery of bodies, and reconstruction of infrastructure, he said.

“I am yet to be fully briefed on the situation. However, I extend my heartfelt condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in the landslide disaster in the early hours of this morning.”

Emergency response team
The Enga provincial administration have met to assemble an emergency response team to assess the damage.

It called on local health facilities and non-government organisations to be on stand-by to assist with recovery and relief efforts.

PNG police told RNZ Pacific correspondent Scott Waide that at least 50 houses had been destroyed. Waide said the average Papua New Guinean family consisted roughly of eight to 10 people a household.

Residents on the ground say they have lost family members and are retrieving bodies.

Community leader Jethro Tulin told RNZ Pacific the catastrophe wiped out the village, which had a population of about 3000.

“It was a massive landslide . . . occured around 3am last night [early Friday]. People were sleeping . . .  the whole village is covered.”

He said a team from Wabag, the provincial capital, had been sent to investigate the scene.

The ABC first reported residents saying that they estimated “100-plus” deaths but authorities were yet to confirm this figure.

Yambali village is a two-hour drive from the Porgera gold mine.

The catastrophic destruction is blocking access to the mine, forcing a usually bustling operation to come to a stand still.

The main highway to Porgera has also been closed off.

Four people have been rescued but with the main highway closed authorities say it will be difficult to get heavy machinery to the village to help in the rescue and recovery efforts.

Special equipment needed to retrieve bodies
Another resident told RNZ Pacific locals were trying to retrieve bodies but required heavy-duty equipment to remove massive rocks and debris and are awaiting government and non-government organisation (NGO) support.

They say it could take weeks to recover thousands of bodies trapped under a landslide.

A nearby resident, Mick Michael, said rescue efforts would likely turn to recovery efforts for bodies.

“I think two or three people were discovered already. It is an entire community buried by the landslide.

“You can estimate 3000 people buried. It is really a big landslides with big rocks. Witihin a week or so, it will take time to discover those bodies with the help of machines and trucks.”

He said residents were calling on the government of Papua New Guinea and NGO’s for support.

Images on social media platform Facebook show the enormity of the landslide, with debris across houses and vehicles left in the wake of falling boulders and trees.

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

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

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

College is expensive — and for most Americans, higher education is still largely unaffordable.

The post Debt Relief Still Feels Out of Reach for Many Students appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Candace Milner.

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Federal lawmakers introduced a legislative package on Tuesday that would expand heirs’ property owners’ access to disaster relief and provide assistance in clearing titles. Heirs’ property refers to land that has been passed down informally within families; without clear titles, owners can be ineligible for government aid and their land vulnerable to forced sales. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, a Democrat from Texas, decided to introduce legislation after reading a ProPublica-New Yorker investigation on the legal and financial risks of holding land as heirs’ property.

More than a third of Black-owned land in the South is heirs’ property. The practice of conveying land without a will dates to Reconstruction, when many Black families did not have access to courts, and it continued through the Jim Crow era. The ProPublica-New Yorker story examined how heirs’ property owners can be locked out of federal assistance and compelled by courts to sell their land against their will.

The first of two bills, the HEIR Act of 2024, sponsored by Fletcher, along with Rep. Nikema Williams, a Democrat from Georgia, and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat from Missouri, proposes amending Department of Housing and Urban Development regulations to ensure that heirs’ property owners without a clear title can use alternate documentation to qualify for disaster aid. The language echoes a policy adopted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2021, after a Washington Post analysis revealed a pattern of denying assistance to heirs’ property owners.

Fletcher noticed that HUD did not make similar changes. “When you look at the big picture data, it is really staggering to see the amount of lost generational wealth because of how this system operates,” she said. “The ProPublica article really brings to light what an incredible injustice this is and has been, and we need to be thinking creatively and holistically about how we can use the tools we do have to solve these problems.”

Nketiah Berko, an Equal Justice Works fellow, sponsored by the Rossotti Foundation, at the National Consumer Law Center, says that increasing heirs’ access to federal aid is critical. “When it comes to disasters, so many of the places that are most environmentally vulnerable are also areas that have histories of different types of property ownership — whether that’s uncleared title or communal homeownership,” he said. “It’s crucial that federal disaster relief programs recognize this and are tailored to the needs of these most vulnerable communities.”

A second bill, the HEIRS Act of 2024, sponsored by Williams and Rep. Byron Donalds, a Republican from Florida, along with Fletcher and Cleaver, proposes two programs to fund legal assistance for heirs’ property owners, who often cannot afford legal services to safeguard their ownership. The bill would authorize $300 million over 10 years for HUD to reward states that adopt or have adopted the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act; the law expands heirs’ rights when their ownership is challenged. These HUD grants could be used to help heirs’ property owners clear titles and cover associated fees. In addition, the bill would create a $10 million program for each of the next five years for HUD to fund eligible nonprofits that provide legal assistance to heirs’ property owners.

“This is really significant,” said Heather K. Way, director of the Housing Policy Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law. “More and more pro-bono legal programs have been popping up to help heirs’ property owners, but even if they have access to attorneys, there are fees and expenses associated with clearing title that can be a major impediment. This program would provide funding for those costs.”

Way also noted that HUD could make some of these proposed changes on its own by encouraging states to allow heirs’ property owners greater flexibility in qualifying for disaster aid, before federal legislation works its way through Congress.

In a statement, a HUD spokesperson wrote: “Strengthening the way HUD’s disaster recovery funds serve survivors is one of HUD’s highest legislative priorities.” The department made no comment on the specific bills.

Do You Have a Tip for ProPublica? Help Us Do Journalism.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Lizzie Presser.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! — The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn to Gaza, where aid groups say famine is imminent after five months of US-backed attacks by Israel.

This is in spite of the historic UN Security Council resolution yesterday demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Fourteen countries voted in favour of the resolution — while the US, Israel’s main ally, abstained.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live: World welcomes UN ceasefire resolution
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The head of the UN Palestinian aid agency, UNRWA, says Israel is now denying access to all UNRWA food convoys to northern Gaza, even though the region is on the brink of famine.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X, quote, “This man-made starvation under our watch is a stain on our collective humanity.”

On Saturday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres travelled to the Rafah border crossing.

SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other. That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage. …

It’s time to truly flood Gaza with lifesaving aid. The choice is clear: either surge or starvation.

Let’s choose the side of help, the side of hope and the right side of history.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined by Alex de Waal, the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine. His new piece for The Guardian, “We are about to witness in Gaza the most intense famine since the Second World War.”

Alex, welcome back to Democracy Now! Describe what’s happening, at a time when Israel is now preventing the largest aid umbrella in Gaza, UNRWA, from delivering aid to northern Gaza, where famine is the most intense.

As Israel blocks more aid, protests mount for a free independent state. Video: Gaza famine

ALEX DE WAAL: Let’s make no mistake: We talk about imminent famine or being at the brink of famine. When a population is in this extreme cataclysmic food emergency, already children are dying in significant numbers of hunger and needless disease, the two interacting in a vicious spiral that is killing them, likely in thousands already. It’s very arbitrary to say we’re at the brink of famine. It is a particular measure of the utter extremity of threat to human survival.

And we have never actually — since the metrics for measuring acute food crisis were developed some 20 years ago, we have never seen a situation either in which an entire population, the entire population of Gaza, is in food crisis, food emergency or famine, or such simple large numbers of people descending into starvation simply hasn’t happened before in our lifetimes.

AMY GOODMAN: How can it be prevented?

ALEX DE WAAL: Well, it’s been very clear. Back in December, the Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system — and that is the sort of the ultimate arbiter, the high court, if you like, of humanitarian assessments — made it absolutely clear — and I can quote — “The cessation of hostilities in conjunction with the sustained restoration of humanitarian access to the entire Gaza Strip remain the essential prerequisites for preventing famine.”

It said that in December. It reiterated it again last week. There is no way that this disaster can be prevented without a ceasefire and without a full spectrum of humanitarian relief and restoring essential services.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what the IPC is? And also talk about the effects of famine for the rest of the lives of those who survive, of children.

ALEX DE WAAL: So, the IPC, which is short for the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system, is the system that the international humanitarian agencies adopted some 20 years ago to try and come to a standardised metric. And it uses a five fold classification of food insecurity.

And it comes out in very clearly colour-coded maps, which are very easy to understand. So, green is phase one, which is normal. Yellow is phase two, which is stressed. Orangey brown is phase three, that is crisis.

Red is four, that is emergency.

And in the very first prototype, actually, of the IPC, this was called famine, but they reclassified it as emergency. And dark blood red is catastrophe or famine. And this measures the intensity.

There’s also the question of the magnitude, the sheer numbers involved, which in the case of Gaza means, essentially, the entire population of more than 2 million.

Now, starvation is not just something that is experienced and from which people can recover. We have long-standing evidence — and the best evidence, actually, is from Holland, where the Dutch population suffered what they called the Hunger Winter back in 1944 at the end of the Second World War.

And the Dutch have been able to track the lifelong effects of starvation of young children and children who were not yet born, in utero. And they find that those children, when they grow up, are shorter. They are stunted.

And they have lower cognitive capacities than their elder or younger siblings. And this actually even goes on to the next generation, so that when little girls who are exposed to this grow and become mothers, their own children also suffer those effects, albeit at a lesser scale. So, this will be a calamity that will be felt for generations.

Today I saw long lines of blocked relief trucks waiting to be let into Gaza.

It’s time to truly flood Gaza with life-saving aid.

The choice is clear: surge or starvation.

Let’s choose the side of help, the side of hope & the right side of history.

I will not give up. pic.twitter.com/TTTcnR01bU

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) March 23, 2024

AMY GOODMAN: What are you calling for, Alex de Waal? I mean, in a moment we’re going to talk about what’s happening in Sudan. It’s horrifying to go from one famine to another. But the idea that we’re talking about a completely man-made situation here.

ALEX DE WAAL: Indeed. It is not only man-made, and therefore, it is men who will stop it. And sadly, of course, even if [with a] ceasefire and humanitarian assistance, it will be too late to save the lives of hundreds, probably thousands, of children who are at the brink now and are living in these terrible, overcrowded situations without basic water, sanitation and services.

A crisis like this cannot be stopped overnight. And it is a crisis that is not just a humanitarian crisis. It is fundamentally a political crisis, a crisis of an abrogation of essentially agreed international humanitarian law, and indeed international criminal law.

There is overwhelming evidence that this is the war crime of starvation being perpetrated at scale.

AMY GOODMAN: Alex de Waal, we’re going to turn now from what’s happening in Gaza. We’ll link to your piece, “We are about to witness in Gaza the most intense famine since the Second World War.”

The original content of this programme is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

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

Palestinians fleeing war-ravaged Gaza for safety in Australia were left stranded when the Labor government abruptly cancelled their visas.

The “subclass 600” temporary visas were approved between last November and February for Palestinians with close and immediate family connections.

Families of those fleeing Gaza, and organisations assisting Palestinians to leave Gaza, began to receive news of the visa cancellations on March 13.

• READ MORE: NZ government urged to help evacuate Palestinians from war on Gaza
• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘Everyone is susceptible to death’ — Palestinian New Zealander Muhammad Dahlen
• ‘This is one way we could help’ — World Vision spokesperson Rebekah Armstrong
• Hundreds stage Sydney ‘die-in’ to protest massacres in Gaza
• Israel’s war on Gaza live: More than 100 killed in al-Aqsa Hospital attack

The number of people affected by the sudden visa cancellations was unclear, however there were at least 12 individuals who had had visas cancelled while in transit.

The stories of those affected have been shared over social media. They included the 23-year-old nephew of a Palestinian-Australian, stranded in Istanbul airport for four nights after having his visa cancelled mid-transit, unable to return to Gaza and unable to legally stay in Istanbul.

A mother and her four young children were turned around in Egypt, when their visas were cancelled, meaning they were unable to board an onwards flight to Australia.

A family of six were separated, with three of the children allowed to board flights, while the mother and youngest child were left behind.

2200 temporary visas
The Department of Home Affairs said the government had issued around 2200 temporary subclass 600 visas for Palestinians fleeing Gaza since October 2023.

Subclass 600 visas are temporary and do not permit the person work or education rights, or access to Medicare-funded health services.

Israelis have been granted 2400 visitor visas during the same time period.

The visa cancellations for Palestinians have been condemned by the Palestinian community, Palestinian organisations and rights’ supporters.

The Palestine Australia Relief and Action (PARA) started an email campaign which generated more than 6000 letters to government ministers within 72 hours.

Nasser Mashni, president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), called on Labor to “follow through on its moral obligation to offer safety and certainty” to those fleeing, pointing to Australia’s more humane treatment of Ukrainian refugees.

The Refugee Action Collective Victoria (RAC Vic) called a snap action on March 15, supported by Socialist Alliance and PARA.

‘Shame on Labor’
David Glanz, on behalf of RAC Vic, said the cancellations had effectively marooned Palestinians in transit countries to the “shame of the Labor government which has supported Israel in its genocide”.

Samah Sabawi, co-founder of PARA, is currently in Cairo assisting families trying to leave Gaza.

She told ABC Radio National on March 14 about the obstacles Palestinians face trying to leave via the Rafah crossing, including the lack of travel documents for those living under Israeli occupation, family separations and heavy-handed vetting by the Israeli and Egyptian authorities.

Sabawi said the extreme difficulties faced by Palestinians fleeing Rafah were compounded by Australia’s visa cancellations and its withdrawal of consular support.

She also said Opposition leader Peter Dutton had “demonised” Palestinians and pressured Labor into rescinding the visas on the basis of “security concerns”.

Labor said there were no security concerns with the individuals whose visas had been cancelled. It has since been suggested by those working closely with the affected Palestinians that their visas were cancelled due to the legitimacy of their crossing through Rafah.

PARA said the government had said it had “extremely limited” capacity to assist.

Some visas reinstated
It is believed that some 1.5 million Palestinians are increasingly desperate to escape the genocide and are waiting in Rafah. Many have no choice but to pay brokers to help them leave.

Some of those whose visas had been cancelled received news on March 18 that their visas had been reinstated.

A Palestinian journalist and his family were among those whose visas were reinstated and are currently on route to Australia.

Graham Thom, Amnesty International’s national refugee coordinator, told The Guardian that urgent circumstances needed to be taken into account.

“The issue is getting across the border . . .  The government needs to deal with people using their own initiative to get across any way they can.”

He said other Palestinians with Australian visas leaving Gaza needed more information about the process.

It is not known how many other Palestinians are waiting for their visas to be reinstated.

Republished from Green Left magazine with permission.

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

Prime Minister James Marape has announced comprehensive relief operations in Papua New Guinea’s devastating weather that has killed at least 21 people and impacted on 16 provinces.

The 21 who died were buried under tonnes of mud in three separate mudslides in Chimbu province.

Sixteen provinces in three regions were being monitored by the PNG National Weather Service for flooding following erratic changes in weather patterns, reports Claudia Tally.

• READ MORE: Heavy rain damages roads, bridges across PNG

From king tides, solar flares and rising temperatures since December 2023, the weather in the country has taken a swift turn to heavy downpours and reported flash flooding in Central, Northern, Western Highlands, Eastern Highlands, Madang and Morobe provinces over the last seven days.

The changes in the weather pattern, especially the flooding, has left many provincial highways eroded, bridges broken and people stranded.

The government’s relief operations, spearheaded by the Department of Works and Highways, National Disaster Office, and the PNG Defence Force, aims to mitigate the challenges faced by communities across the nation.

“King tides, landslips, and other unfortunate natural incidents as a result of the continuous rain and wet weather conditions around the country at present and in recent weeks is of concern to government,” Marape said.

Works directives
“We have already taken steps to provide relief and address the specific situations through the responsible government agencies.”

He said directives had been issued to the Works and Highways Department, National Disaster Office, and Defence Force to dispatch specialist teams.

“These teams are tasked with assessing and addressing road slippages and blockages, ensuring expedient restoration of access and support to the affected locales,” he said.

“Certain places around the country like Gumine in Chimbu Province have been cut off and require urgent attention to restore and relieve.

“Other places in low-lying areas of the country like Gulf Province are also being affected by the continuous rain.

“We’ve mobilised the necessary government resources to clear and relieve those areas affected by the heavy rains over the past month or more.”

He lauded the Department of Works and Highways for their prompt action in Porgera, Enga Province, following a landslip that severed connections to surrounding areas.

“The department’s efforts have successfully reopened the critical access road, demonstrating the government’s commitment to swift and effective crisis management,” he said.

Republished from the PNG Post-Courier with permission.

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

Stories abound of retaliation against those who express concern over Israeli ethnic cleansing – from censoring news reports to reprimanding faculty, mass arrests, and suppressing students’ right to protest. A well-orchestrated campaign against Palestine’s right to exist is spreading like Covid across the US. Now, it has hit a new low.

The national Girl Scouts are threatening legal action against a St. Louis troop for the crime of making bracelets to raise money for Gaza’s children.

A story in the March 25, 2024 St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Aisha Sultan documents that the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri and the Girl Scouts of the United States have written scout leader Nawal Abuhamdeh of her failure to follow proper procedure and “sent her instructions on how to leave the organization.”

For four years Abuhamdeh had coordinated the group’s cookie sales. But after witnessing what happened to her parents’ Palestinian homeland she brought the idea of raising money to the diverse group of girls whose families are from Somalia, Syria, Jordan, Palestine and India.

Not just these countries, but most others around the world are horrified at the Zionist “final solution” against Palestinians.

With reports of IDF forces summarily killing captive Palestinians, Ralph Nader’s question of the scarcity of reports on Israeli POW camps becomes salient. Has Netanyahu given the order for “No prisoners” even after Palestinians have surrendered?

Though there are now reports of 30,000 Palestinian deaths, Israeli efforts to block food, water and human waste management means that death by starvation, thirst and infectious diseases may vastly exceed deaths via weapon annihilation.

As of February 21, US representatives have stymied efforts to have the UN call for a cease-fire four times. While Biden calls for “restraint” by Israel out of one side of his mouth, the other side continues to order that weapons of mass destruction be sent.

The targeting of hospitals continues as the deaths of children mount. These facts are consistent with a Zionist goal of obliterating the future of Palestinians as a people.

These scenes are not lost on the girls in Abuhamdeh’s troop. Videos of the war crimes are highly disturbing.

One video shows a Palestinian father using a shopping bag to collect pieces of his slaughtered children. Another depicts a doctor who must amputate a leg of his 16-year-old niece on the dinner table without anesthesia. In one, viewers see that “A wailing 4-year-old tried to get up and look for his parents — both of whom were killed, and his own legs amputated.”

Particularly revealing are the comments published at the bottom of the Sultan article. Though most were supportive of the St. Louis scouts, several identified with Zionist disdain for Palestinians. A person self-identifying as “kuuindhater” wrote “Helicopter Mom with an article dripping in victimology.” “medi8r” added “I fear this sort of one sided propaganda leads to misplaced hate toward Israel and Jews.”

One called “billikenforever” exuded general dislike: “What a crock! The Girl Scouts have partnered with Planned Parenthood for years in promoting the elimination of innocent babies.”

The St. Louis scout troop had posted on social media that supporters could buy bracelets for $5 or $10, with the funds going to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF). The Girl Scouts of the US then wrote to them that it was impermissible to raise money for “partisan politics.” Agreeing with them, “lucygirl” posted in the comments “Does the PCRF fund Hamas? The Girls Scouts are correct in not wanting their organization accused of having members donate to an organization that fund terrorist groups.”

Interestingly, the Girl Scouts had no problem with raising money for those injured in Ukraine. Abuhamdeh pointed out the similarity and the absence of reprisals for that effort. Defending this double standard, “MOgal2” commented that “This is a political war unlike Ukraine. Ukraine was invaded by an unprovoked army. They are fighting back on their own land. Israel was attacked in a heinous way.”

Yes, the propaganda machines control millions of minds in colonizing countries. Slicing through the Gordian knot of twisted logic, “zap973” simply noted “It’s obvious that Ukrainians are perceived as white westerners therefore deserving of compassion. Palestinians are not. End of story.”

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

The post Pacifica Evening News 02-21-24 President Biden announces student debt relief plan for 150 thousand borrowers. appeared first on KPFA.

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

New Zealand would likely continue funding the United Nations agency delivering aid in Palestine if concerns about its staff were dealt with, the Foreign Affairs Minister says.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on Tuesday confirmed New Zealand was reviewing future payments to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

It follows accusations by Israel that 12 agency staff were involved in the Hamas’ attacks on October 7, which left about 1140 dead and about 250 taken as hostages.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘What is the critical issue here, it is the humanitarian crisis that we face and war in Gaza’ – Foreign Affairs Minister Peters
• Defunding UNRWA will cause Gazans ‘more misery and suffering’, warns former PM Clark
• Which countries have cut funding to UNRWA, and why?
• Other UNRWA reports

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters told RNZ Morning Report the allegations warranted a proper investigation.

But he said the critical issue was the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

According to the Palestine Health Ministry more than 26,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched a war on the besieged enclave in response to October 7.

Awaiting UN investigation
Peters said it was possible there were a few “rotten apples” within UNRWA.

“If the matter has been dealt with, and with assurances that it does not happen in the future, then the crisis is of a level, we must, I believe, and I think the New Zealand people would want us to respond to the crisis rather than to react in that way and punish a whole lot of innocent people because of the actions of a few.” he said.

Peters said it would be premature to make a decision before the UN finished its investigation.

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.

Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, who led the UN Development Programme which oversees UNRWA, told RNZ Morning Report today it was the biggest platform for getting humanitarian aid into Gaza for a populations that is 85 percent displaced.

People are on the verge on starvation and going without medical supplies, she said.

“If you’re going to defund and destroy this platform, then the misery and suffering of the people under bombardment can only increase and you can only have more deaths.”

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: Helen Clark’s full interview on UNRWA
• Palestinians condemn suspension of UNRWA funding by Western nations
• Amnesty chief calls UNRWA funding cuts ‘heartless’, ‘sickening’ – Breakdown of funding
• UNRWA funding cuts condemned as ‘collective punishment’
• Other UNRWA reports from Al Jazeera

Clark said it was “most regrettable that countries have acted in this precipitous way to defund the organisation on the basis of allegations”.

Al Jazeera reports that top Palestinian officials and Hamas have criticised the decision by nearly a dozen Western countries led by the US to suspend funding UNRWA — the UN relief agency for Palestinians — and called for an immediate reversal of the move, which entails “great” risk.

Ireland and Norway have confirmed continued support for UNRWA, saying the agency does crucial work to help Palestinians displaced and in desperate need of assistance in Gaza.

The Norwegian aid agency said the people of Gaza would “starve in the streets” without UNRWA humanitarian assistance.

Hamas’ media office said in a post on Telegram: “We ask the UN and the international organisations to not cave into the threats and blackmail” from Israel.

Defunding ‘not right decision’
Former PM Clark did not deny the allegations made were serious, but said defunding the agency without knowing the outcome of the investigation was not the right decision, RNZ reports.

“I led an organisation that had tens of thousands of people on contracts at any one time. Could I say, hand on heart, people never did anything wrong? No I couldn’t. But what I could say was that any allegations would be fully investigated and results made publicly known,” she said.

UNRWA funding cuts — why Israel is trying to destroy the UN Palestinian aid agency.  Video: Al Jazeera

“That’s exactly what the head of UNRWA has said, it’s what the Secretary-General’s saying, that process is underway, but this is not a time to be just cutting off the funding because a small minority of UNRWA staff face allegations.”

Luxon suggested Clark’s plea would not affect New Zealand’s response.

“I appreciate that, but we’re the government, and they’re serious allegations, they need to be understood and investigated and when the foreign minister [Winston Peters] says that he’s done that and he’s happy for us to contribute and continue to contribute, we’ll do that.”

Clark said people could starve to death or die because they did not receive the medication they needed in the meantime.

Halting aid to Gaza via UNRWA is “deeply twisted and harmful”.
…And Australia has joined in the halt. https://t.co/17gV0AyPaj pic.twitter.com/5b7DU6dOaB

— Peter Cronau (@PeterCronau) January 30, 2024

If major donor countries like the United States and Germany continued to withhold funding, UNRWA would go down and there was no alternative, she said.

Clark did not believe there was any coincidence in the allegations being made known at the same time as the International Court of Justice’s ruling on the situation in Gaza.

According to the BBC, the court ordered Israel to do everything in its power to refrain from killing and injuring Palestinians and do more to “prevent and punish” public incitement to genocide. Tel Aviv must report back to the court on its actions within a month.

Clark said the timing of the UNRWA allegations was an attempt to deflect the significant rulings made of the court and dismiss them.

“I think it’s fairly obvious what was happening.”

States must reverse cruel decision to withdraw UNRWA funding
https://t.co/JRMfHH9P04

— Amnesty International (@amnesty) January 29, 2024

Israel had provided the agency with information alleging a dozen staff were involved in the October 7 attack by Hamas fighters in southern Israel, which left about 1300 dead and about 250 taken as hostages.

More than 26,000 people — mostly women and children — have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched a major military operation in response, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.

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.

Agnes Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, has called the funding cuts to the UN’s Palestinian humanitarian relief agency a “heartless decision” by some of the world’s richest countries “to punish the most vulnerable population on earth because of the alleged crimes of 12 people”.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, she added: “Right after the ICJ [International Court of Justice] ruling finding risk of genocide. Sickening.”

While nine Western nations, including the US, rushed to suspend UNRWA’s funding after allegations that members from the agency participated in the October 7 attack, the same countries have failed to formally revise their ties to Israel despite mounting reports of genocidal abuse by Israeli forces.

• READ MORE: Palestinian agency condemns funding cuts as ‘ collective punishment’
• Israel’s war on Gaza live: Aid cuts are ‘collective punishment’ – UNRWA
• More countries pause funds for UN Palestinian agency

Sickening heartless decision of the richest countries in the world to punish the most vulnerable population on earth because of the alleged crimes of 12 people. Right after the ICJ ruling finding risk of genocide. Sickening. https://t.co/ARrPqUdyHA

— Agnes Callamard (@AgnesCallamard) January 28, 2024

The Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that “cutting off funding” to UNRWA at what he called a “critical moment” would only “hurt the people of Gaza who desperately need support”.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs highlighted the plight of some 1.9 million displaced Palestinians in Gaza with the main UN agency delivering humanitarian aid losing its major financial backing.

“Scenes of forcibly displaced people are a disgrace to humanity,” it said in a statement.

“Over half a million Palestinians in Khan Younis were instructed by the occupying forces to evacuate their homes, including hospitals and health centres, in a cruel expansion and deepening of forced displacement from southern regions.”

UNRWA employs about 30,000 people and provides humanitarian aid, education, health and social services to 5.9 eligible Palestinian refugees living in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

The UN agency received almost US$1.2 billion in pledged in 2020, with the US being the biggest donor providing $343.9 million. The fifth-largest donor, Norway, provided $34.2 million and is continuing is funding in spite of the action by the US and its allies.

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

Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark has joined a chorus of global development and political figures defending the United Nations “lifeline” for more than two million Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip enclave.

Declaring New Zealand should stick to its three-year funding agreement with the UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), Clark joined the pleas by the agency chief executive Philippe Lazzarini — who condemned the US action to suspend funding as “collective punishment” — and Secretary-General António Guterres.

New Zealand is due to fund the agency $1 million this year.

• READ MORE:  Israel’s war on Gaza live: Aid cuts are ‘collective punishment’ – UNRWA
• More countries pause funds for UN Palestinian agency

Protesters at an Auckland solidarity rally for Palestine demanding an immediate unconditional ceasefire also condemned the countries suspending UNRWA funding amid reports of serious flooding of Gaza refugee camps.

Suspension of funding by 9 countries to @UNRWA amounts to further collective punishment of besieged #Gaza population. #UNRWA is largest UN humanitarian & development service provider there. Staff accused of crimes have been dismissed. Do donors want relief operation to collapse? https://t.co/xU5jAfqm7T

— Helen Clark (@HelenClarkNZ) January 27, 2024

Other political leaders to voice concerns as eight countries joined the US in announcing they were suspending their funding for UNRWA include Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf and former leader of the UK Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn.

Two countries — Ireland and Norway — declared they they would continue funding the agency and Lazzarini said: “It is shocking to see a suspension of funds to the agency in reaction to allegations against a small group of staff.”

Cuts one day after ICJ ruling
The cuts to funding were announced by the US a day after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had ordered Israel to take steps to prevent genocidal acts and to punish those who committed such acts in its war on Gaza, and to immediately facilitate aid to the victims of the war.

Israel had alleged that about a dozen of the agency’s 13,000 employees had been involved in the deadly Hamas raid on southern Israel on October 7.

UNRWA is the primary humanitarian agency in #Gaza, with over 2 million people depending on it for their sheer survival.

93% of displaced families in southern governorates of#Gaza have reported inadequate food consumption.

People are desperate, hunger stalks everyone. pic.twitter.com/WLr0JYNRb2

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) January 27, 2024

The eight other countries that have joined the US in suspending funding are Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland.

“Serious as allegations around a tiny percentage of now former UNRWA staff may be, this isn’t the time to suspend funding to UN’s largest relief and development agency in Gaza,” said Clark, who is also the former head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), in a post on social media.

Secretary-General Guterres said in a statement that the UN had taken “swift actions” following the “serious allegations” against UNRWA staff members, terminating most of the suspects and activating an investigation.

“Of the 12 people implicated, nine were immediately identified and terminated by the Commissioner General of UNRWA Philippe Lazzarini, one is confirmed dead, and the identity of the two others is being clarified,” he said.

“Any UN employee involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.

‘Ready to cooperate’
“The secretariat is ready to cooperate with a competent authority able to prosecute the individuals in line with the secretariat’s normal procedures for such cooperation.

“Meanwhile, 2 million civilians in Gaza depend on critical aid from UNRWA for daily survival, but UNRWA’s current funding will not allow it to meet all requirements to support them in February.”

The day after @ICJ concluded that Israel is plausibly committing Genocide in Gaza, some states decided to defund UNRWA, collectively punishing millions of Palestinians at the most critical time, and most likely violating their obligations under the Genocide Convention. https://t.co/fl32DrDeFs

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) January 27, 2024

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said that states cutting funding to UNRWA could be “violating their obligations under the Genocide Convention”.

“The day after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concluded that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza, some states decided to defund UNRWA,” Albanese said in a post on social media.

Albanese also described the decision taken by several UNWRA donors as “collectively punishing millions of Palestinians at the most critical time”.

Noting the irony, lawyer and social media content producer Rosy Pirani said in a post on Instagram: “The US stopped funding UNHRA over an unverified claim that some of its employees may have been involved in 10/7, but continues to fund Israel despite actual evidence [before the ICJ] that it is committing genocide.”

Meanwhile, the largest hospital in besieged Khan Younis city remained crippled and faced collapse as Israel’s offensive continued nearby. Doctors described it as a “dangerous situation”.

Footage showed people in the crowded facility being treated on blood-smeared floors as frantic loved ones shouted and jostled. Cats scavenged on a mound of medical waste.

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

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, Martin Griffiths highlighted the plight of patients at Gaza City’s embattled Al-Shifa hospital, amid reports that medics have been trying to keep newborns warm in swaddling blankets because power for incubators has failed.

The top UN official also called for fuel to be allowed into the Strip so that humanitarian convoys can operate.

“Our role and our pledge and our message is, we are right there sitting in front of those people on the borders of Gaza in Rafah, ready to go at the right scale if we get the means to do so,” he said.

ends

This content originally appeared on UN News - Global perspective Human stories and was authored by Daniel Johnson.

As the U.N. secretary-general repeats his call for an immediate ceasefire, the death toll in Gaza has topped 10,000, including 4,000 children. We speak to an American doctor who just left Gaza and the founder of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, which runs the only pediatric cancer unit in Gaza. Israel has just ordered the hospital with the unit to be fully evacuated. “They’re not getting care right now because their hospitals are under attack,” says PCRF founder Steve Sosebee, who describes medical workers trying to evacuate to Egypt or continuing to provide care while sheltering in the hospital. “We can’t heal their bodies until this conflict stops.” Dr. Barbara Zind, a pediatrician who arrived in Gaza to support the PCRF a day before the Hamas attack, describes finding shelter and rationing food and clean water. After nearly a month trapped in Gaza, she was finally evacuated through the Rafah border crossing and arrived back home on Monday.

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

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

An Anchorage city commissioner and her husband have been charged with fraudulently obtaining $1.6 million in COVID-19 recovery money for their charity. Charges filed in federal court in Anchorage accuse the couple of buying cryptocurrency and making personal use of money intended to help people find homes and addiction treatment.

A federal grand jury on Sept. 19 indicted Rosalina Mavaega, 41, and Esau Fualema Jr., 44, on five felony charges including major fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. The charges come after the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica first reported in May that the Anchorage Assembly gave the couple one of the city’s largest awards under the American Rescue Plan Act despite prior fraud allegations.

Mavaega was arrested Wednesday, court records show. The U.S. Attorney’s Office publicly announced the charges that afternoon.

As of Thursday morning, the city website still listed Mavaega as a member of the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission, which is tasked with investigating allegations of discrimination, as well as the city housing and homelessness committee.

Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson appointed Mavaega to the commissions in 2022. The executive director of the Equal Rights Commission said Thursday morning that Mavaega remains a commissioner. Spokespersons for Bronson and the housing and homelessness commission did not immediately respond to questions. Bronson’s spokesperson previously said the mayor “doesn’t have the unilateral ability to remove members from commissions.”

Mavaega and Fualema were in custody as of Thursday morning and could not immediately be reached for comment. When a reporter visited Mavaega’s office on May 18, an employee said she was not available but was scheduled to talk with investigators that afternoon. She did not respond to subsequent emails and phone calls seeking comment.

Fualema also did not respond to emails, phone messages or an interview request delivered to his home at the time.

The Anchorage Assembly in May 2021 awarded Mavaega and Fualema’s charity, House of Transformations, $1.6 million even though the state permanently barred the couple from serving as Medicaid providers in 2015.

The state Division of Senior and Disability Services gave four reasons for the ban: violating background check requirements, submitting billing claims without adequate documentation, offering a rebate for Medicaid referrals and submitting claims without supporting documentation.

As a result, Maveaga’s business can no longer bill any federal health care program, including Medicare, Medicaid and Denali KidCare, for its services. Mavaega appealed the ban in 2016, arguing the penalty was too severe and relied on hearsay evidence, but a state Superior Court judge upheld the punishment.

The charges relate to how they obtained the 2021 grant, how they used the money and alleged efforts to subsequently acquire additional grants from the city.

They are accused of lying to federal, state and city officials in order to claim they met legal requirements to receive an ARPA grant from the city. The charges say the couple directed a grant writer to submit proposals that “falsely described the operating expenses and officers and directors” of their various charities.

The charges say the couple transferred $297,250 of the grant to their personal checking account, using the money as collateral to obtain a personal loan. The loan money was used, in turn, to buy $191,000 in cryptocurrency and to pay taxes owed by one of their businesses.

An additional $402,000 in grant money was used to finance a for-profit beauty salon, according to the charges. The charges say that as part of their grant agreement, they promised to use about $500,000 to make down payment on two Anchorage properties that could be used for housing services. They did not do so, the charges say, and failed to disclose that Fualema already owned 50% of one of the properties.

House of Transformations and various limited liability companies that use the same office address and same name, or similar names, are among a constellation of nonprofits and businesses the couple created in recent years.

House of Transformations was one of the biggest recipients in the first round of ARPA grant awards from the city. It received more than city agencies such as the fire and police departments, and it received the 13th overall largest grant out of the 64 awarded.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News.

The lowered down-payment thresholds on properties resulted in a surge in home buying in at least Shanghai and Beijing over the weekend but social media reports and circulated videos showed protests by frustrated investors countrywide.

The protests come as real estate companies default, public servants go unpaid and teachers go on strike, with authorities finding the costs of maintaining stability ever harder to meet.

Few economic observers consider that Beijing has the will to attempt to bail out a debt-ridden system built on property assets, despite the risks, with one government insider telling the British press on the condition of anonymity that Beijing was simply trying to stay in control rather than stimulate the stagnant property sector.

“The central government is well aware that the real estate sector will inevitably shrink,” the source said, adding that Beijing’s goal was to shift growth away from property and infrastructure development.

Economists and China experts all say it will be a massive challenge.

“China’s attempt to deal with $9 trillion of off balance sheet government debt is exacerbating the gap between wealthier coastal provinces and poorer ones in the interior and risks setting off economic contagion,” noted Dexter Roberts, director of China Affairs at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center, University of Montana.

Michael Pettis, senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment agreed, calling it “an important but little-appreciated point.”

“The large gap between developed China and undeveloped China will expand dramatically as the economy slows and Beijing wrestles with debt,” he said. “I'm not sure what the political consequences will be, but there will be consequences.”

As for Country Garden’s last-minute reprieve on interest payments on U.S. bonds last week, Pettis wrote, “This of course prevents a default today, but repayment still ultimately requires a revived property market, which few expect and Beijing doesn’t want.”

It’s widely considered that Beijing doesn’t only not want to revive the property sector; it can’t. The money is simply not there to do a repeat of the 2008 global financial crisis bailout, with local governments and the massive real estate sector saddled with debt and developers on the verge of total collapse.

The specter of unrest

Speaking to RFA Mandarin, Lawrence Wu, associate professor of the General Education Center at Taipei Marine Technology University, said that the Chinese public was becoming increasingly less patient in the face of continued economic hardship and financial losses.

“In the past, the public were somewhat ‘sheeplike,’ keeping their heads down as long as they were allowed to graze,” Wu said.

Recalling the Henan Province banking crisis in 2017, involving unfinished housing projects, frozen bank accounts and mortgage strikes, Wu said most of those affected quieted down after the government purged some token officials.

“Now, with [all of] China’s economy facing challenges, the slightest disturbance quickly sparks public resistance,” he said.

9月4日，北京朝阳区
受中植系暴雷影响，大批民众前往中植集团总部楼下维权，现场遭遇不明身份的白衣人殴打，并在过程中用白色挡板遮挡周围人拍照。
一旁围观的警察并未制止白衣人的暴力行为。 pic.twitter.com/kuPmyqSaxX

— 李老师不是你老师 (@whyyoutouzhele) September 4, 2023

On Monday, a video circulating on Chinese social media showed investors protesting outside the headquarters of the Zhongzhi Group in Beijing being attacked by what appeared to be security personnel dressed in white who were holding white boards the size of police shields, trying to block people from filming the protest scene.

Zhongzhi Enterprise Group, China’s largest private financial holding conglomerate, is conservatively estimated to have defaulted on U.S.$54.3 billion due to real estate investments.

Those most affected by Zhongzhi shortfalls of liquidity are high-net-worth clients and businesses, including 150,000 individual investors and nearly 5,000 companies.

A Zhongzhi representative reached by RFA Mandarin declined to comment, claiming “I don’t have the authority to answer you,” before hanging up.

Enter nationalism

As further videos circulated Monday showing protests in the central province of Henan and in Xi’an in Shaanxi Province, both involving failed real estate companies and investors who have lost their money, Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to fall back on nationalism, a reliable Chinese Communist Party crutch.

As everyone from tech billionaires to bankers and the masses are called upon to learn from Xi Jinping Thought, in a reminder of China’s Maoist past, Xi demands complete loyalty to himself and to the party.

In a recent interview, Chun Han Wong, author of “Party of One: The Rise of Xi Jinping and China’s Superpower Future,” said that Xi’s all-controlling projection of power is his weakness.

“Whereas Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping enjoyed prestige from their revolutionary pedigree and exploits in establishing the ‘New China,’ Xi has no personal legitimacy independent of the Communist Party,” the author said.

Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chris Taylor for RFA and Hwang Chun-mei for RFA Mandarin.

Xi will also attend the 15th BRICS Summit to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa from August 21 to 24, according to a Friday report by Xinhua News Agency.

While in South Africa, President Xi will co-chair with the country’s president Cyril Ramaphosa the China-Africa Leaders’ Dialogue, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying added.

At Thursday’s Standing Committee meeting of the Communist Party of China Central Committee’s Political Bureau, discussions centered on emergency rescue and aid for flood victims and efforts to find the missing, aiming to reduce casualties, Xinhua reported.

But for many of those affected, Political Bureau declarations of resolve in the face of adversity are unlikely to come as any consolation.

Xi’s absence during the past three weeks – for the duration of the recent disastrous flooding in northern China – has not gone unnoticed by ordinary Chinese citizens.

Xi had been last seen in public on July 31, just three days after Typhoon Doksuri struck, when Chinese netizens expressed anger at the Hebei Province Communist Party boss, who called on the province to serve as a “moat” to protect Beijing.

In a veiled criticism of Xi, netizens played cat and mouse with censors, sharing video of former Chinese leaders, including Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao visiting natural disaster zones. One particularly popular clip showed Hu assisting soldiers in disaster relief and Premier Li Keqiang wading through the flooded fields of Chongqing.

Thursday’s meeting called for disaster relief funds to be used efficiently to repair damaged infrastructure such as transport, communications and electricity, while also seeking to restore farmland and agricultural facilities.

But disaster relief has been a prominent target of public criticism. As former Tiananmen student leader-turned-China politics watcher Wang Dan wrote for RFA Mandarin earlier this month, many affected citizens suspect much of the flooding was caused by water mismanagement – venting dams and dikes of floodwater in order to protect Beijing and nearby Chinese Communist Party vanity infrastructure projects.

“Apart from … protests, the Beijing Red Cross Society’s call for donations to aid disaster relief was met with an overwhelmingly negative response and mockery online, another way the public's dissatisfaction was expressed,” wrote Wang.  

Missing relief funds

Rumors supported by provincial level audits and even reports in China’s state media about how relief funds for previous natural disasters were siphoned off or “misallocated” have “have sparked anger in China and prompted fears that the same thing may happen again” after the recent floods, the South China Morning Post reported earlier this month.

An audit report by the Henan provincial government last month on the handling of some CNY10 billion (U.S.$1.4 billion) in reconstruction funds for the devastating summer flooding of 2021, in which nearly 400 people died, revealed that at least some of the funding earmarked for victims had gone into the pockets of local officials.

The issue quickly went viral online in the aftermath of the most recent flooding due to a commentary on the Henan issue published by the state-run Guangming Daily.

U.S.-based economist Li Hengqing told RFA Mandarin that the distribution of post-disaster compensation funds in China lacks transparency and oversight and local officials often engage in deceptive practices.

“In reality, they report giving you 500 yuan, but what you actually receive is 200 or 300 yuan. They’ve pocketed the rest or shared it among themselves,” Li said.

Zhao Lanjian, a former Chinese media professional in exile in the U.S., told RFA Mandarin that the problem was not only that money was not reaching those that need it, but that even the rallying theatrics of disaster response were now being shelved.

“For the past 70 years, every major disaster has been accompanied by [a] … head of state visiting the disaster area in person for an on-site inspection, putting on a show. But now, even the show itself is forsaken,” Zhao said.

Management

On Friday, the Chinese-language party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, called for “sparing no effort in emergency rescue” of people who are trapped or missing, while also calling for rescue teams, including from the army and police, to be dispatched well in time.

However, as many have noted, in the most severely affected areas such as Beijing’s Mentougou and Zhuozhou in Hebei Province, the People’s Liberation Army has yet to make any appearances or assist with disaster relief.

Li Hengqing said that they hadn’t done so because officials were waiting for instructions from Xi.

“Why hasn't the PLA [People's Liberation Army] acted?” asked Li. “It’s because Xi hasn’t spoken, so no one dares to act … the decision-making power, action power, and command power all rest with him.”

Meanwhile, in an ironic word-of-mouth story that is not bolstering Xi’s beleaguered public image, Zhuozhou in Hebei Province – a city that was hit extremely hard by days of flooding caused by Typhoon Doksuri – is an important warehousing center for China’s publishing sector.

Countless books were irreparably damaged, reported the China Daily, when floods surged into a publishing logistics park in Zhuozhou that warehouses books for nearly 100 Chinese book companies.

Among the untold numbers of lost tomes is thought to be Xi Jinping’s latest – on studying and implementing the important discourses on the management of water resources.

It was compiled by the Ministry of Water Resources and published by the People's Publishing House in mid-July.

Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chris Taylor for RFA and Kai Di for RFA Mandarin.

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As soon as Lisa Casteel learned her 78-year-old mother had agreed to sell her Kansas City home to a “We Buy Ugly Houses” franchise for far below its market value, she contacted the buyer to halt the deal.

In her letter to the company, she invoked a Kansas state law that grants three days to cancel certain sales agreements. She believed it would protect her mother and any other vulnerable homeowners entangled by questionable real estate deals. Her mother had no other place to live and had recently been showing signs of dementia, she said.

But the representative of the franchise, Red Rock REI, refused.

The experience more than three years ago revealed a glaring hole in regulations meant to protect people from unfair and deceptive practices. Even though HomeVestors franchises are in the business of buying properties, they use many of the same methods found in high pressure sales. In Kansas and many other states, laws that require a grace period for getting out of such sales contracts don’t apply to real estate transactions. Neither does a federal law aimed at protecting people from predatory sales practices.

Only after the Kansas Attorney General’s Office intervened at Casteel’s request was her mom able to keep her home. The attorney general ultimately demanded that Red Rock REI release Casteel’s mother from the contract by relying on state laws that protect the elderly from deceptive practices. And while Casteel succeeded in saving her mother’s house, no other action was taken against the franchise.

“I feel bad for others out there who are getting taken advantage of,” Casteel said. “They’ve got no help. And they feel like there’s no place to turn but to go ahead and sell to Red Rock and Ugly Houses and people like that.”

Adam Hays, who owned Red Rock before selling the franchise in 2021, said his sales representative did not observe that Casteel’s mother had any cognitive issues. He said HomeVestors demanded its franchises maintain a “strict standard of integrity and honesty.”

He said his company did not easily release homeowners from contracts because that would make it difficult to stay in business. His practice was to conduct “due diligence” into a homeowner’s reason for backing out of a deal to ensure another party wasn’t interfering with the homeowner’s decision. He said when he received the letters from the attorney general’s office about Casteel’s mother, he realized she had a legitimate reason for canceling the contract.

A corporate spokesperson for HomeVestors said the company was unaware of Red Rock’s dealing with Casteel’s mother and that it is no longer a franchise. HomeVestors recently prohibited some of the tactics Red Rock used to tie homeowners to contracts.

An investigation this year by ProPublica found some HomeVestors of America franchises used deception and aggressive sales tactics to persuade homeowners in vulnerable situations to sell their homes for far below market prices. The investigation also found few jurisdictions have laws or regulations to protect homeowners from aggressive tactics that fall short of outright fraud or elder abuse.

There have, however, been a few attempts by policymakers to protect vulnerable homeowners. A first-of-its-kind law in Philadelphia regulates real estate investors that participate in wholesaling properties — meaning they buy houses and resell them without making improvements or sell purchase contracts signed by the homeowner to another investor.

“A high pressure sales technique isn’t new, and we’ve been trying to protect people against it in all sorts of areas for years,” said Kate Dugan, staff attorney at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, which worked on the law.

The law attempts to address a flaw in most consumer protection laws: Because homeowners are being pressured to sell rather than to buy something, the laws don’t cover them as consumers.

“The harm is the same, though: Parties with unequal bargaining power are engaging in a transaction, and the less sophisticated party loses,” Dugan said.

Oklahoma recently became one of a few jurisdictions to require licenses for residential real estate wholesalers. Unethical behavior can put wholesalers’ licenses at risk.

“When you don’t have reasonable guidelines, or restrictions or regulations in place to protect very minimum standards of abuse, then you’re going to open up the door for rampant abuse, like we’re seeing right now,” said Grant Cody, executive director of the Oklahoma Real Estate Commission.

ProPublica spoke to experts, including advocates for homeowners, real estate lawyers, a regulator and an individual in the business of flipping houses, about policies that could better protect homeowners. Here are their suggestions for regulations policymakers could consider.

Casteel was quick to answer when asked what policymakers could do to help people like her mother.

“There should be at least a cooling-off period,” she said. “And I don’t think three days is enough. Because for seniors who fall victim to this, they may not mention it to a family member within the first couple of days.”

Advocates for stronger homeowner protections agree the law should provide an efficient way to cancel a signed real estate contract within a set period under certain circumstances. Or, as an alternative, policymakers could adopt something similar to Philadelphia’s requirement that wholesalers give a homeowner three days to consider a contract before it’s signed.

Cooling-off periods are common in other transactions that involve high pressure sales or large assets. Many states, for example, have a right of rescission in timeshare sales, and a cooling-off period is built into many annuity purchases.

In particular, homeowners who have never publicly listed their houses for sale should be allowed a quick way out of a contract, said Sarah Bolling Mancini, co-director of advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center. Public listings attract competing offers and can better determine fair market value. Such a regulation would also protect homeowners from cash buyers who solicit sales.

Casteel said she’d also require that cash house buyers leave a copy of the contract with the homeowner along with the paperwork necessary to cancel it.

Asked by ProPublica whether HomeVestors would support such a regulation, a corporate spokesperson said the company is implementing a 72-hour cooling-off period requirement for its franchises.

“We require our franchisees to comply with our Systems and Standards, which generally go above and beyond state regulations, and we regularly update our standards to ensure our franchisees do the right thing and act to protect consumers,” she said.

HomeVestors and its franchises spend heavily on advertising — peppering neighborhoods with billboards and sending postcards to thousands of addresses at a time, promising quick cash and a painless sale process. Other homebuyers call and text endlessly.

Many homeowners view these aggressive, ground-level marketing strategies as a nuisance. And in some cities, policymakers have taken steps to curb them.

In Houston, residents can report illegally placed “bandit signs” to the city’s Department of Neighborhoods. Violators there can face up to $500 in fines, lawsuits and even arrest. Following reporting from WABE, the Atlanta City Council in 2020 prohibited real estate investors from “repeated and unsolicited attempts” to contact a homeowner after being asked to stop. Such overtures now amount to a form of “commercial harassment.” Violators can face fines or up to six months in jail.

And Philadelphia’s “do-not-solicit” list, launched last year, allows residents to opt out of in-person sales pitches, emails, phone calls and mailers. Offenders face up to $2,000 in fines. The city can ask a judge to assess larger fines on repeat offenders.

ProPublica’s investigation found some HomeVestors franchises routinely recorded documents against a homeowner’s title to trap them in a deal — a predatory practice known as “title clouding.” In response to ProPublica’s reporting, HomeVestors prohibited its franchises from clouding titles. But other cash homebuyers still do it.

Dugan said policymakers should consider restrictions on title clouding, including a waiting period between signing a contract and recording it and an easy way for a homeowner to contest the recording.

Many jurisdictions, including Philadelphia, allow homeowners to sign up to be notified when any document has been recorded against their title.

In many cases, months pass before homeowners learn that a contract had been recorded against the title. Sometimes the homeowner has died and their family must pay the house flipper to release the claim.

For example, six months passed before Casteel learned that Red Rock REI had recorded the sales contract against her mother’s title. When the Kansas Attorney General’s Office pressed Red Rock to remove the recording, the franchise owner tried to justify the action.

In an email to the attorney general’s office, the franchise owner said he recorded the contract to protect his interest in the property in the event Casteel’s mother “was being dishonest” and tried to sell the house to someone else.

Red Rock didn’t remove the recording until the attorney general’s office issued multiple warnings.

“It might discourage this predatory behavior if the bad actor knows that the homeowner will get notice immediately,” Dugan said.

A professional license, such as those required for real estate agents, isn’t a guarantee against unethical behavior. But experts said licensing could require a basic education so that wholesalers know such things as real estate laws, what should be included in a contract and what disclosures homeowners are entitled to. A licensing board could investigate homeowner complaints.

Philadelphia’s licensing of residential real estate wholesalers has provided transparency into who is wholesaling, Dugan said. The law also allows homeowners to cancel contracts at any time before closing if they’ve sold to an unlicensed wholesaler, which is a strong incentive for wholesalers to become licensed.

Kevin Link, a former Financial Industry Regulatory Authority investigator who co-owns a house-flipping business in Maryland, said he would welcome more regulation of the industry to weed out bad actors and ensure that those in the business have a minimum level of real estate education.

“Right now, the only regulations in place are those that govern white-collar crime,” he said.

HomeVestors’ corporate spokesperson said the company isn’t opposed to requiring wholesaler licenses.

“We look forward to exploring this, as well as other constructive ideas, on how we can best protect consumers within our industry,” she said.

Real estate regulation is largely the domain of cities, counties and states, creating a patchwork of policies and varying degrees of oversight and transparency. Because many regulatory bodies can only investigate licensed real estate activity, wholesalers often operate without the same guardrails as real estate agents.

Federal regulations to standardize local oversight, similar to the Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing Act passed 15 years ago in the wake of the financial crisis, could help. The SAFE Act, which passed in 2008 after the explosion in predatory mortgage practices helped inflate a housing bubble and spark that year’s financial crisis, requires minimum local licensing standards for mortgage originators.

“I think a federal statute could be very helpful and meaningful,” Mancini said.

Rather than leaving it to states to enact a regulatory model, however, Mancini said federal rules could be applied to “we buy houses” transactions, such as by allowing a homeowner to cancel a sale if they have never publicly listed the home or obtained an appraisal, didn’t have a real estate agent or were directly solicited to sell the house.

She said states could also follow Maryland’s lead and ensure their unfair and deceptive acts and practices laws explicitly apply to real estate purchases in which high pressure sales tactics are used or a homeowner has been misled about the value or marketability of their house.

Mollie Simon contributed research.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Anjeanette Damon and Byard Duncan.

The Supreme Court has blocked President Biden’s student debt relief plan, which sought to cancel up to $20,000 in individual loans, adding up to over $400 billion of federal student debt. The decision comes as a major blow to some 40 million qualified borrowers. Biden has announced his administration will pursue a “new path” for debt relief. “It was a blow to debtors,” says Astra Taylor, organizer with the Debt Collective and advocate for debt abolition. “It was a blow to anyone who cares about democracy.” Taylor says the ruling raises major concerns over the constitutional jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and explains why groups like the Debt Collective are placing the moral culpability of debt onto creditors.

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

ReNika Moore, director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, had the following reaction:

“The Supreme Court ended this term with two major blows to economic and educational opportunity for students of color in America. The court’s decisions on affirmative action and student loan debt effectively deliver a one-two punch to millions of Americans, locking them out of economic opportunity and worsening wealth inequality in this country. Higher education should be accessible to everyone, regardless of economic status or background.

“This ruling against student debt relief hurts all borrowers, but particularly borrowers of color. The volatile economic effects of COVID-19 forced many families to use existing assets like their home equity or family support as a safety net, but Black and Latino borrowers have far fewer financial resources to fall back on.

“We urge the Biden administration and the Department of Education to move quickly to explore other pathways to ease the debt load on student loan borrowers once payments resume after a pandemic-related pause, including new executive action under the Higher Education Act, a law that allows for student loan relief for certain groups.”

The American Civil Liberties Union joined the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and 20 other organizations in filing an amicus brief in January 2023 urging the Supreme Court to uphold the student debt relief program as lawfully enacted.

Rulings:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-535_i3kn.pdf

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-506_nmip.pdf

These cases are part of the ACLU’s Joan and Irwin Jacobs Supreme Court Docket.

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

“The Supreme Court’s callous decision precisely illustrates not just how far removed the Court is from everyday Americans’ needs and financial circumstances, but also how deeply politicized the Court has become.

“Many Americans are still rebuilding their finances in the wake of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic. President Biden’s student debt relief program would have provided significant financial relief to over 40 million of the most vulnerable borrowers—many of whom are people of color or first generation college students who don’t have the privilege of support from wealthy families.

“Today’s ruling is the latest in a series of partisan decisions from a Supreme Court bent on carrying out the MAGA agenda at the expense of the economic security of working Americans. If we don’t take action, this ultra-conservative Court will continue delivering blow after devastating blow to hardworking, everyday Americans. Congress should pass the Judiciary Act to help restore balance to this corrupt and out of control Court.”

Stand Up America’s nearly 2 million members across the country have driven nearly 190,000 constituent emails and made nearly 7,000 calls urging their members of Congress to support the Judiciary Act.

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

Lindsay Owens, Groundwork Collaborative’s Executive Director, reacted to the ruling with the following statement:

“Thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling, millions of workers and families are now staring down student loan payments this fall with no relief in sight. Revoking the promise of student debt relief punishes people who are already struggling in our economy.
“No one should have to choose between paying their rent and making their student loan payments. President Biden must exhaust all options to deliver student loan relief before millions of Americans are forced to restart payments this September.”

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

The Supreme Court’s term is ending this week with rulings on several blockbuster cases. On Tuesday, voting rights advocates welcomed a decision in a major election law case that preserved checks and balances in elections. In a 6-3 decision, the justices dismissed the so-called independent state legislature theory that state lawmakers have nearly unlimited power to make rules for federal elections. This ruling will “empower state courts around the country to block gerrymanders, to police the legislatures and to keep legislators from trying to entrench themselves or advance their party with these egregious maps,” says Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice. Now the country awaits the Supreme Court’s decisions on affirmative action and student debt, which Waldman calls “hugely consequential.” Waldman’s new book is The Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided America.

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

In New York, a battle is brewing over a bill called Coverage for All that would use a surplus of federal funds to pay people who are undocumented to enroll in the state’s Essential Plan under the federal Affordable Care Act, potentially granting 250,000 people access to healthcare. Immigrant advocates are rallying for the bill’s inclusion in a two-day special legislative session despite Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul’s resistance, calling the bill a chance for the state to “make history.” We speak to its sponsor, New York ​​Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas, as well as Elisabeth Benjamin, co-founder of the Health Care for All New York campaign, about the Coverage for All bill, the growing crisis of medical debt, the end of COVID-era Medicaid protections, and the larger fight for universal healthcare.

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

In an interview on Friday night, Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths, said the world stands by Ukraine in the wake of this latest disaster stemming from the Russian invasion, but with agricultural land swamped, food security is bound to be hit.

Nargiz Shekinskaya began by asking him in the wake of initial criticism from President Volodomyr Zelenskyy, if the UN could have acted sooner with aid, once disaster struck.

This content originally appeared on UN News - Global perspective Human stories and was authored by Nargiz Shekinskaya.

Although Israelis celebrate 1948 as the birth of the Jewish nation, for Palestinians this date is referred to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”.

As the Palestinian scholar Edward Said points out, the Nakba is when “two thirds of the population were driven out, our property taken, hundreds of villages destroyed, an entire society obliterated” (Said, 2000, p. 185).

In 1948, Israeli forces killed an estimated 13,000 Palestinians, 531 Palestinian villages were entirely depopulated and destroyed, and almost three-quarters of a million Palestinians were made refugees (Passia, 2004, p. 1). Palestinians have been living with the consequences of the Nakba for 75 years.

• READ MORE:  The Naksa: How Israel occupied the whole of Palestine in 1967
• Other Nakba Day reports

My father is a Palestinian refugee who was born in Jerusalem. My grandfather began work at 13, transporting passengers in a horse-drawn cart on the relatively short distance of nine km along the old road between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

He eventually developed a taxi business and then a chauffeur service. He ended up working as a transport manager for the Near East Arab Broadcasting Station which was run by the British Foreign Office.

In early May 1948, the station was moved to Cyprus, the “island of love” in the Mediterranean, where the British have a big army base. My grandfather was offered the opportunity to keep his job and relocate to Cyprus.

Eventually the family joined him there and they lived in Cyprus for about 10 years from 1948-1958. The family moved to Amman, Jordan — that’s where I was born.

On a good day you can stand on the hills overlooking the Jordan Valley, and you can see the Holy Land; on a clear evening you can just make out the lights of Jerusalem.

I grew up knowing that my homeland, this place called Palestine, was just over there — visible yet out of reach. It is a feeling common to many Palestinians. It is a feeling of displacement that Palestinians have been feeling for 75 years.

My family’s experience is like a lot of Palestinian refugee families that were forced to flee their homes because of the hostilities and ended up in nearby countries, waiting for the situation to be resolved so that we could go back to our homes, towns and villages.

We’ve been waiting for 75 years.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was established by the United Nations in 1949 to carry out direct relief and works programmes for Palestine refugees.

According to UNRWA, some 5.9 million Palestine refugees are eligible for the agency’s services. Most of these refugees live in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

They have been living there for 75 years.

The UN General Assembly set forth the legal framework for resolving the Palestinian refugee issue in UN Resolution 194 (III) in December 1948 which demands repatriation for those refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbours, or compensation for those choosing not to return.

This has become commonly referred to as the “right of return” — and it is a right that Palestinians hold particularly dear. In our minds and in our hearts we’ve been holding onto the right of return for 75 years.

Most Palestinian refugee families that were forced to flee their homes in 1947 still hold deeds or keys to their homes. The key has become a symbol of this right to return. The key is passed down from one generation to the next.

They’ve been passing down keys to the family home for 75 years.

When we think about the Nakba we often think about 75 years of statelessness, 75 years dispossession, 75 years of right denied. But the Nakba is also a story of 75 years of persistence.

Seventy five years of resilience. Seventy five years of steadfastness. It is 75 years of a commitment to rights and justice.

Dr Rand Hazou is a Palestinian-Kiwi theatre practitioner and scholar at Massey University. His research explores the intersections between the arts and social justice, and how creativity intersects with human rights, citizenship, justice and well-being. This speech was delivered to mark the 75th anniversary of Nakba Day at Aotea Square, Auckland, on 13 May 2023.

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

Indonesia has sent 30 tonnes of relief supplies to aid the Vanuatu government’s recovery efforts post three major natural disasters earlier this year.

The humanitarian aid has been delivered on a My Indo Airline B737-800 cargo aircraft that departed from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport and landed at Vanuatu’s Bauerfield International Airport today.

A representative of the Indonesian embassy in Canberra, Doddy, said the relief consisted mainly of food, tents and agricultural tools.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua news

According to BBN Breaking News, Indonesia is also sending a 14-member humanitarian mission to Vanuatu.

“The team will include representatives from the Coordinating Ministry for Cultural Affairs, Foreign Affairs Ministry, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), and the State Intelligence Agency (BIN),” BNN Breaking reported.

“They will work closely with local authorities and international organisations to ensure that the aid is distributed effectively and efficiently.”

“Indonesia’s commitment to providing aid to Vanuatu showcases its strong ties to the Pacific region and its continued efforts to promote regional cooperation and support.

It also highlights the importance of international solidarity and cooperation in addressing global challenges.”

However, the vice president of the Vanuatu Free West Papua Association, Lai Sakita, who was at the airport this morning, said the arrival of the relief supplies was “suspicious”.

He warned that the Vanuatu government needed to be very careful of the Indonesian assistance with the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) leaders summit due to be held in July this year.

The Free West Papua movement wants the MSG leaders to approve West Papua’s application to become a full member of the sub-regional agency at this summit.

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

The argument at the center of Republican officials' case against President Joe Biden's student debt cancellation plan is "categorically false," according to an explosive new report released Tuesday by the Roosevelt Institute and the Debt Collective.

With debt relief for tens of millions of people hanging in the balance, the GOP state officials who brought the case told Supreme Court justices in late February that they have legal standing to challenge the Biden administration's student debt cancellation plan because if it took effect, it would "cut MOHELA's operating revenue by 40%."

MOHELA is Missouri's state-created higher education loan authority, and the supposed financial harms it would suffer under the student debt cancellation plan are critical to the right-wing officials' case. If the Republican plaintiffs can't prove that MOHELA—which is not itself a plaintiff in Biden v. Nebraska—would suffer concrete harm from student debt cancellation, their case falls apart.

According to the new report by the Roosevelt Institute and the Debt Collective, not only would MOHELA not be harmed by the Biden administration's student debt relief plan—it would actually see its direct loan revenue rise if the plan is enacted.

"Our new research examining this claim suggests that MOHELA's year-over-year revenue from direct loans will actually increase substantially, even after debt relief," the report states. "Assuming President Biden's proposed cancellation goes through, we estimate that MOHELA will service more than twice the number of accounts it serviced at the beginning of the Covid payment pause. It will also earn nearly twice as much revenue servicing federal direct loans as it has in any year prior to cancellation."

The groups said their findings were bolstered by internal MOHELA documents that they obtained through a public records request. MOHELA's "own internal impact analysis," the report notes, "shows it would make more revenue the first year after cancellation is processed than it did in 2022 or any prior year."

"The entire premise of the lawsuit against student debt relief rests on the idea that 43 million student debtors shouldn't get relief for which they were already approved because one of the corporations contracted by the government to collect student debt, and thus the state of Missouri, will be financially harmed in the process," the report concludes. "Our analysis reveals this assertion to be false. In contrast, MOHELA will earn higher revenue than ever before, even after cancellation is administered—contradicting the plaintiffs' argument and calling into question their claims to standing."

Thomas Gokey, a co-founder of the Debt Collective and an author of the report, told The Lever on Tuesday that "it's really hard to stop student debt cancellation because you need to find someone who is harmed by it" to establish standing to sue.

"And the truth is, nobody is actually harmed by student debt cancellation," said Gokey. "It benefits everybody. It benefits people who don't have student debt."

\u201cNEW: The lawsuit against student debt relief claimed student loan servicer MOHELA would lose financial revenue and harm the state of Missouri.\n\nWe FOIA'd MOHELA's financial documents and this is simply false. After cancelation, MOHELA will earn *more* revenue than ever before.\u201d

— The Debt Collective \ud83d\udfe5 (@The Debt Collective \ud83d\udfe5) 1683031420

Biden v. Nebraska, one of two student debt cancellation cases currently before the Supreme Court, has been placed on a fast track, meaning that "the Republican attorneys general trying to stop student debt cancellation for 43 million borrowers have at no point been obliged to verify the basic facts of this case," the Roosevelt Institute and the Debt Collective stressed.

"As a result, the Supreme Court risks making a ruling affecting millions of people's lives without essential, accurate information," the progressive groups said.

The report also highlights that, as part of its contract with the Department of Education, "MOHELA agreed not to 'object to or protest [Federal Student Aid's] allocation or reallocation of existing borrower loans, and further waives and releases all current or future claims against [FSA]... regarding its current allocation decisions and methodology for existing borrower loans.'"

"Maybe that's why MOHELA never joined the lawsuit," The American Prospect's David Dayen suggested in his write-up of the new report. "But none of that matters to this Supreme Court. They are on the verge of accepting a standing argument of a fake plaintiff who never joined the case, based on an assertion of harm that in the final analysis is actually a benefit, while ignoring a signed contract that flatly prohibits the fake plaintiff from suing at all."

"I know we're in a post-fact era, but this is really something," Dayen continued. "If the court doesn't pay careful attention to this report, more than 40 million student borrowers could experience continued financial hardship because the justices would rather violate numerous principles of jurisprudence than let Joe Biden help anyone. The conservatives on the court are obviously not mathematicians or experts in student debt servicing or financing. But they don't appear to be judges, either, at least in the sense of following the law."

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

ATLANTA—Voting rights organizations filed an emergency preliminary injunction motion today to lift part of the restriction in Georgia’s anti-voter law, S.B. 202, that blocks Georgians from providing food and water to voters waiting in long lines at the polls.

The motion was filed as part of ongoing litigation in AME Church v. Kemp, which challenges S.B. 202 for unconstitutionally creating barriers to voting that diminish the voices of communities of color, women, and people with disabilities. If granted, the preliminary injunction would allow volunteers to provide food and water to voters in lines that extend beyond 150 feet from the polling place.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of Georgia, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Legal Defense Fund (LDF), and the law firms WilmerHale and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP (DWT) filed the motion on behalf of the plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs are the Sixth District of the American Methodist Episcopal Church, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Georgia ADAPT, and the Georgia Advocacy Office, represented by the ACLU of Georgia, ACLU, LDF, and Wilmer Hale, as well as the Georgia Muslim Voter Project, Women Watch Afrika, Latino Community Fund of Georgia, and the Arc of the United States, represented by SPLC and DWT.

“Our clients used to be able to offer a bottle of water or a snack to voters waiting in long lines at the polls,” said Rahul Garabadu, senior voting rights staff attorney at the ACLU of Georgia. “S.B. 202 largely banned these activities, adding to the burdens that many voters, including voters of color and voters with disabilities, face when casting a ballot. Last year, the court found that there were serious constitutional concerns with portions of the ban on line relief. We’re now asking the court to strike down the unlawful provisions of the ban so that our clients can provide crucial support to voters across our state.”

“This restriction on providing food and water to voters waiting in long lines is a brazen attempt to make voting more difficult in Georgia. It stifles our clients’ First Amendment right to express, through action, the important message that voting is vital, and that Georgians, particularly Black Georgians and Georgians of color, should persist through obstacles laid in their path as they have throughout the state’s history,” said Davin Rosborough, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project.

“The cruel barriers to voting enacted by S.B. 202 target both the basic needs and basic rights of Georgians. There can be no reason for denying food or water to people waiting in long polling lines, other than trying to prevent them from exercising their freedom to vote,” said Poy Winichakul, SPLC’s senior staff attorney for voting rights. “These barriers to voting must be removed so all Georgians can have a voice to advocate for their communities in the crucial 2024 elections.”

“S.B. 202’s provisions restricting line relief activities are cruel and discriminatory,” said Rhonda Briggins, chair, Strategic Partnerships Taskforce for Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. “These restrictions prevent Deltas from providing necessities like food and water to voters experiencing long lines, which impact significant numbers of Black Georgia voters. We are hopeful the court will block the unlawful restrictions it has already recognized may be unlawful so that we can resume some of our line relief efforts for upcoming elections.”

“Georgia’s cruel line relief ban makes it harder for Black voters to fully participate in elections,” said John Cusick, assistant counsel at LDF. “The court has already found constitutional concerns with certain aspects of the line relief ban. We’re asking the court to block those provisions in upcoming elections so that the organizations we represent and other groups throughout Georgia can resume modest line relief efforts like passing out food and water to Georgia voters who continue to stand in unacceptably long lines.”

“S.B. 202’s line relief ban imposes unjustifiable and unconstitutional burdens on voters at the polls,” said George P. Varghese, a partner at WilmerHale. “We are filing this motion to ensure that our clients’ fundamental right to vote, and their right to support fellow Georgians who vote, are not compromised — including in the upcoming 2024 elections.”

“Instead of making it easier for folks to cast a ballot in sweltering heat or blistering cold, S.B. 202 makes it a crime for a neighbor to offer these voters a bottle of water or warm cup of coffee,” said Adam S. Sieff, counsel at Davis Wright Tremaine. “That’s not only inhumane, it’s also a clear violation of the First Amendment and these citizens’ rights as voters. The court has already found that aspects of S.B. 202’s line relief ban raises serious constitutional problems, and we’re filing this motion to ensure that these fundamental rights are respected in future elections, including in 2024.”

Filing: https://www.aclu.org/documents/ame-church-v-kemp-pi-motion-on-georgia-line-relief-4-24-2023

Case background: https://www.aclu.org/cases/sixth-district-african-methodist-episcopal-church-v-kemp

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

In February, Cyclone Gabrielle hit New Zealand, bringing devastating floods and powerful winds, destroying homes, displacing thousands, and killing at least eleven people. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins called it “the most significant weather event New Zealand has seen in this century.” Around 70 percent of destroyed homes were occupied by Indigenous Māori, but Māori leaders say that they have been left out of recovery services and funding. 

“Because climate events have gotten more and more intense, it’s at a point of our communities will either get wiped out through more storms or have to choose to leave their homelands,” Renee Raroa, a Ngati Porou Māori representative from Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti in eastern New Zealand, said. “We’re running out of options.”

With the frequency and severity of storms increasing, along with other climate impacts like rising sea levels, Māori peoples are facing increasingly dire climate crises and calling on the United Nations for help. At the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, Māori representatives called on New Zealand to include Māori people in disaster recovery plans, provide support for Indigenous-led climate initiatives, and fully implement the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – a nonbinding resolution that affirms international Indigenous rights. Māori representatives also called on the U.N. to pressure New Zealand to support Indigenous land rights.

“Cyclone Gabrielle exposed the human rights dimensions of climate change disaster,” said Claire Charters, Māori Indigenous Rights Governance Partner at the New Zealand Human Rights Commission. “Māori rights must be part of all climate change and emergency policy and law.”

The Māori say neglect in the aftermath of the storm is just the latest violation of their human rights by the New Zealand government that could be solved by a national action plan to implement the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In 2019, Indigenous leaders and the New Zealand Human Rights Commission began discussions to do just that, but talks were postponed last year, with the government saying that the general public needed more awareness of the plan and its purposes. 

But Māori leaders say that the plan fell victim to political maneuvering, with politicians unwilling to tackle a contentious issue ahead of elections. With limited room to work at home, they say bringing their concerns to the U.N. can get conversations moving again in the national system. “We can add pressure back home by being here and by having our public statement heard on the global stage,” Raroa said. 

“We must ensure that Māori are centered in the discussions on mitigation and adapting to climate change, and that Indigenous knowledge is more deliberately considered,” a representative from New Zealand’s government said in a statement delivered at the Forum. The representative also highlighted the importance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but did not mention any steps to implement it. 

Hannah McGlade, an Indigenous Noongar member of the Permanent Forum from Australia, says that New Zealand’s reluctance to actually implement the declaration is common around the world. The U.S., Canada, and Australia have also been called out at UNPFII for their lack of action to implement the human rights standards. “We do see too great a gap between the declaration principles and the actions and conduct of countries globally,” McGlade said. “There has to be proactive commitments made through the plans.”

Meanwhile, as Māori continue to rebuild their own communities, they are also developing climate and environmental programs based on Indigenous traditions and practice, including reforestation and invasive species control. To fully realize these programs, the Māori say they need both more funding and more freedom to make land use decisions. 

“We’re going to make the right choices for our land, so just provide the resources to help us get better,” Raroa said. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In the wake of historic storms, Māori leaders call for disaster relief and rights. on Apr 19, 2023.

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

In addition to the NDAA authorizing $45 billion more for defense spending than President Biden had originally requested, the provision that Gledhill’s reporting highlighted allows for what she described as “potential sweeping price increases to Pentagon contracts,” based on inflation. The provision in Section 822 of the NDAA permits contract modifications in cases where costs have increased “due solely to economic inflation.” However, as Gledhill reported, “there are no requirements for military contractors to prove their costs increased because of inflation alone.”

The inflation bailout for the defense industry was crafted “behind closed doors” and added to the bill’s text by “a few House and Senate negotiators… without broader congressional input,” Gledhill reported: “None of the earlier versions of the defense bill included the provision.” Her report characterized the addition of the provision as “a terrible setback for transparent policymaking.”

After Congress returned from its 2022 summer recess, the defense industry launched a “lobbying blitz” to seek inflation relief for contractors. The Senate rejected this bid, “partly because of pushback from the Department of Defense and Senator Elizabeth Warren,” Gledhill reported. When defense contractors win Pentagon contracts, they assume the risk of cost growth, Gledhill explained; but that did not stop defense lobbyists from “pushing Congress for an inflation bailout without any evidence showing they really need it.”

Not only was this amendment unwarranted on its merit, existing law already provided the inflation relief the amendment claims to address. But, unlike the NDAA provision, existing law specifically requires contractors to prove their financial burden to be rewarded with contract modification. By contrast, the NDAA provision to increase Pentagon contract prices without evidence of inflation amounts to what Gledhill described as “profit insurance.”

Gledhill’s story was republished by Truthout. In December 2022, Todd R. Overman of Reuters provided  a comprehensive overview of the defense industry’s efforts to secure inflation relief, noting that “Section 822 is a welcome development for the DOD contracting community and for U.S. national security more broadly, but its potential effectiveness is not yet certain.” Overall, however, corporate news media have not addressed Section 822, leaving the public relatively unaware of its implications for increased defense spending.

Sources:

Julia Gledhill, “Lawmakers Quietly Gave Weapons Firms Bailout for Unproven Inflation Burden,” Responsible Statecraft, March 3, 2023; republished as “Lawmakers Quietly Gave Weapons Firms a Bailout for So-Called Inflation Relief,” Truthout, March 3, 2023.

Julia Gledhill, “Inflation Bailout or Baloney? Senate Increases Military Contract Funding, to Industry’s Delight,” Project on Government Oversight, October 27, 2022.

Student Researcher: Zach McNanna (North Central College)

Faculty Evaluator: Steve Macek (North Central College)

The post Inflation Relief for Defense Industry a “Terrible Setback for Transparent Policymaking” appeared first on Project Censored.

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

Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change warns “there’s going to be a lot of hardship” for people waiting for their crops to grow back as dry rations are distributed to communities.

Minister Ralph Regenvanu said the main food push started in the middle of last week, with only a small amount of supplies being handed out in the immediate aftermath of the severe back-to-back cyclones.

He said there had been logistical issues in getting the food distributed, but dry rations should reach everyone in the two worst affected provinces, Shefa and Tafea, by the end of this week.

• READ MORE: As Pacific islanders, we bear the brunt of the climate crisis. The time to end fossil fuel dependence is now
• Some Pacific nations ‘won’t survive’ if NZ and world drop the climate ball
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• IPCC report: world must cut emissions and urgently adapt to climate realities
• The AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023

“It’s not really ideal but it’s still within the timeframe we’ve set which is three weeks from the cyclone and those three weeks end about now,” Regenvanu said.

“People are frustrated, they’re waiting for food, some are waiting for shelter and supplies so they can rebuild.

“As with every disaster of this magnitude, there’s a lot of frustration with the ability of the government and other partners to respond in a timely manner, but that’s just issues of capacity within the government and our donor partners.”

Regenvanu said gardens, which were the main source of food for people, had been damaged.

“There’s going to be a lot of hardship while we wait for the gardens to regenerate,” he said.

“The food cluster is also giving out lots of seeds and gardening tools to assist people to start planting which should have started happening immediately after the cyclone.”

Rivers, streams polluted
Soneel Ram from Vanuatu Red Cross said the two most urgent needs were access to shelter and clean drinking water.

“Most of the houses have been damaged and some have been completely destroyed by the strong winds,” Ram said.

“Some have been shoved out to sea as a result of floods.

“Most of the villages rely on rivers and streams as the source of their drinking water; because of the cyclones the debris has actually polluted these water sources.”

He said Vanuatu Red Cross handed out jerry cans for people to store water. The organisation has also raised awareness for safe hygiene practices like boiling water before drinking.

Ram said the subsistence farmers he spoke with were down to their last week or two of food supplies.

Minister Regenvanu said money would be given out alongside food so households could purchase whatever they needed.

Non-government organisations were also providing additional relief, he said.

“So we hope that that will mean nobody’s terribly negatively affected by being hungry.”

Assessment difficult
Regenvanu said the assessment of the damage was quite difficult to do because a lot of communication systems were knocked out.

However, last week most of the assessments had returned.

Regenvanu said not all communication had been restored around the country.

He estimated phone connection was down from a baseline of about 60 to 70 percent to around 50 percent around the country.

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.

A recent photo circulating on the Internet of an American soldier carrying an aid package labeled with Chinese characters has fueled rumors that the U.S. military stole Chinese relief supplies for Syria.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) found that U.S. forces have been helping to transport global aid supplies to Turkey and Syria in the wake of February’s earthquake, and that the allegations by Chinese media and netizens have no factual basis.

In Depth

The U.S. Army on March 7 posted a photo on its official Instagram account showing one of its soldiers hoisting a bulky white bag labeled with Chinese characters saying, “Disaster response. Quantity: 1 set.” The photo’s caption identified the soldier as part of the 101st Airborne Division and said, “First Strike Soldiers continue to work in support of USAID - US Agency for International Development and Turkish relief efforts to those affected by the earthquake in Türkiye [Turkey].”

In the following week, Chinese netizens mocked the post in the comment section. One user asked, “Stealing China’s relief supplies?” Another remarked, “Funny, he’s preaching humanitarianism while carrying Chinese supplies.” Official Chinese media outlet Tong Media retweeted the original picture on March 12 with a question: “Did the U.S. military steal Chinese relief supplies for Syria?”

Another netizen reposted the photo on Twitter a day later, this time accusing the U.S. outright of stealing Chinese aid meant for Syria. The same day, an article appearing on the Chinese social media site NetEase commented that “even against the backdrop of this once-in-a-century natural disaster, the U.S. military has not stopped its thuggery. Long used to stealing oil and food meant for Syria, the U.S. is now blatantly plundering Chinese relief aid to the country and sending it to Turkey.”

The U.S. Department of Defense, responding to a query from AFCL, dismissed the allegations by Chinese netizens and media that the U.S. military stole Chinese relief supplies as false.

“The claims are categorically false. The photo does depict a U.S. Army soldier from 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), supporting the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief effort in Türkiye. We have confirmed with the soldier in the photo and the item he was carrying - a tent - came from a larger stock of tents, which contained markings in multiple languages. The pile of tents, one of many piles of life-saving relief items donated by the international community to Türkiye, was under control of Turkish authorities at Incirlik Air Base, a Turkish air base. 

“The soldier depicted was loading these items at the direction of Turkish authorities, to deliver them to those in need in order to save lives and alleviate suffering. US servicemembers supporting this humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mission in Türkiye facilitated the movement of aid from the US government, UNHCR, and other contributing nations, all in close coordination with Turkish authorities. It is indeed unfortunate that anyone would use this photo to insinuate otherwise.”

An examination and comparison of photos, videos and news reports from Turkey by AFCL support the idea that the theft rumors are unfounded. 

The photo appears to have originated as a Feb. 27 Facebook post by the 1-502nd Infantry Regiment "First Strike" 2nd Brigade Combat Team before being reposted on Instagram by the U.S. Army. While the printing on the bag that the soldier is carrying is clearly simplified Chinese, there are no characters visible that identify it as Chinese relief supplies for Syria. Indeed, China donated supplies, including tents, blankets, and medical supplies, to both Turkey and Syria. 

The same soldier appears in other photos and videos on the U.S. Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. One photo shows him and another soldier carrying a long white bag stamped with “UNHCR,” the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ acronym, along with its logo, in green. The accompanying caption also mentions the relief efforts for Turkey.

According to U.S. military news outlet Stars and Stripes, U.S. forces and helicopters have assisted in transporting aid, ranging from medical supplies from Texas to sleeping blankets from China, to hard-hit areas in Turkey after a severe earthquake devastated the country and neighboring Syria on Feb. 6.

Other media reports and footage from Turkey capture American troops supporting disaster relief units such as from Turkey’s Ministry Of Interior Disaster And Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) in moving a huge volume of international aid into Turkey. Many of the supplies had foreign-language labels or foreign flags printed on their packaging. 

Conclusion

While China contributed foreign aid to both Syria and Turkey, Chinese netizens and media misinterpreted a photo of a U.S. soldier helping to transport such aid into Turkey as evidence that the U.S. was stealing Chinese relief supplies meant for Syria.

Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Zhuang Jing.

Just over a month after a Norfolk Southern train derailed in near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, a trio of U.S. senators on Wednesday wrote to a pair of Biden administration leaders that "we are hearing from farmers and agricultural producers who are concerned about the impacts of the derailment and associated release of hazardous materials on their livelihoods."

After train cars derailed and caught fire in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3, the rail giant conducted a controlled release of vinyl chloride to prevent an explosion. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on February 21 ordered Norfolk Southern to identify and clean up contaminated soil and water; facing local pressure, the EPA on Friday told the company to test for dioxins, while maintaining the position that based on agency testing, it is unlikely those toxic chemical compounds were released.

"Dioxins are some of the most potent carcinogens on Earth—there's no 'safe' dose for humans, and pregnant women and young children are especially vulnerable to their effects," Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator now on the Bennington College faculty and president of the group Beyond Plastics, noted in a New York Times opinion piece Wednesday. In addition to cancer, dioxins—which persist in the environment for long periods—are tied to developmental, reproductive, and immune system issues.

However, so far, despite fears of various pollutants, neither the EPA nor the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) "or any other federal or state agencies have provided clear guidance to either our agricultural producers in the region or consumers of those products," according to the letter from Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), and John Fetterman(D-Pa.).

"As these farmers prepare for planting and marketing efforts, they are left wondering what impacts the derailment and chemical release will have on the safety of their products and the viability of their farms."

"The 2023 planting season is quickly approaching, followed by spring harvest of overwintered crops, such as alfalfa and winter wheat, that are typically sold as feed to dairies in the region," they wrote to EPA Administrator Michael Regan and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. "As these farmers prepare for planting and marketing efforts, they are left wondering what impacts the derailment and chemical release will have on the safety of their products and the viability of their farms."

"Producers are concerned not only over the lack information about the safety of their crops and livestock but also whether they will be able to market them due to market and consumer concerns about the safety of their products," the senators continued, noting that "farmers in the region are already reporting receiving requests to cancel orders due to these very concerns."

The lawmakers are calling on the EPA and USDA to work with state agricultural departments and academics to provide farmers with relief, including the rapid deployment of resources for "any necessary testing of their soils, plant tissue, and livestock and to interpret the results of those tests as they pertain to the safety and marketability of their crops and products."

Given that some consumers will likely be nervous about buying from the region regardless of test results, the senators are also requesting a review of disaster assistance that can be deployed as well as technical assistance for language to include in the next farm bill to expand aid for "producers who have been impacted by man-made disasters, including chemicals spills."

Alarm about the pontential impact on local farming as well as criticism of how Norfolk Southern and various government figures and agencies have handled the environmental and public health disaster have mounted since the derailment last month.

"I have a part ownership in a farm, so I'm concerned about that," Eloise Harmon, of East Palestine, toldWHIO on Friday. "The soil at the farm: Can we plant? Can we not plant? Will anybody buy it, if we do plant?"

"We could, of course... probably go find some grass somewhere else, but why should we have to because of something that was not our fault?"

Rachel Wagoner—whose family's Tall Pines Farms in Darlington, Pennsylvania specializes in grass-fed beef and lamb— toldWTEA in late February that "it feels like you don't have a lot of options, so you've just gotta deal with it."

"In farming, you're tied to the land," she said. "We could, of course... probably go find some grass somewhere else, but why should we have to because of something that was not our fault?"

Since the train derailed just a few miles away, the family has not had any issues with their animals. Wagoner said that "it's been fairly normal, which feels sort of weird for how everyone in the community is experiencing things."

However, Wagoner—like so many other farmers and other residents of the region—is worried about pollutants including dioxins. She also expressed frustration with the difficulty in accessing information, including about testing.

If soil testing reveals contaminants, "the door opens to another question," as Lancaster Farmingpointed out Friday:

"What happens is these people can no longer make a living from that farm. Will these farms be bought out at a fair price?" asked John Stock, sustainable agriculture educator with the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association. "It would be great to have transparency with testing, but a lot of farms don't have a baseline for these contaminants."

If airborne contaminants are found in a soil test, Stock said it's unlikely the finding would jeopardize organic certification standards. The farmer didn't intentionally apply the contaminants, he said, and the occurrence was out of their control.

As for contaminated water used for irrigation, Stock said an affected farmer may have to change water sources or use filtration.

"The farmer shouldn't be penalized for this unfortunate and unique situation," Stock said. "It's going to have an impact on these farms, and it's a reality that impacts all of us."

Another issue is a lack of trust. Slate's Ellin Youse, who grew up not far from the derailment site, explained Tuesday that "so many people affected by this accident feel distrust toward the agencies in charge of dealing with the situation, toward the transportation companies responsible, and toward the national reporters who only seem to come around for close national elections and disasters, that it quickly felt almost impossible to communicate accurately."

After speaking with Jason Blinkiewicz, who owns a trucking company and repair shop just over a mile from where the train derailed, Grist's Eve Andrews wrote last week that "he, like most of his neighbors and employees, doesn't trust Norfolk Southern and assurances from the Environmental Protection Agency that the air and water have been safe to breathe and drink."

According to Andrews:

"It's normalized to some degree because there's already low air quality in the area," Blinkiewicz said. "The cracker plant is putting out volatile organic compounds, or what's the nuclear power plant doing, or how about the coal plant right behind it that they shut down not that long ago? What about the mills in Midland and the steel plant in Koppel?"

But all of those facilities are far enough from Blinkiewicz's home and workplace that he hasn't felt their impacts nearly as acutely as those of the derailment. "I think it's the first time, in my 46 years on this planet, in this area, that it gives you an uneasy feeling about everything," he said.

"And as much as it pains me to say, my trust has to lie in our government. Which is hard to do, right? But we have to rely on those government agencies to protect us. That's what they're there for."

The EPA administrator said Friday that "over the last few weeks, I've sat with East Palestine residents and community leaders in their homes, businesses, churches, and schools. I've heard their fears and concerns directly, and I've pledged that these experiences would inform EPA's ongoing response efforts."

"In response to concerns shared with me by residents, EPA will require Norfolk Southern to sample directly for dioxins under the agency's oversight and direct the company to conduct immediate cleanup if contaminants from the derailment are found at levels that jeopardize people's health," Regan continued. "This action builds on EPA's bipartisan efforts alongside our local, state, and federal partners to earn the trust of this community and ensure all residents have the reassurances they need to feel safe at home once again."

The EPA's statement added that the agency "will also continue sampling for 'indicator chemicals,' which based on test results to date, suggest a low probability for release of dioxin from this incident."

As The Washington Postreported:

Asked why EPA is delegating dioxin testing to Norfolk Southern, as opposed to conducting the sampling itself, agency officials said the railroad is required to submit its plans to the government and that EPA can modify them or step in and complete the work itself...

Railroad officials said in a statement Friday they are aware of EPA's directive on dioxin testing and "are committed to working with the agency to do what is right for the residents of East Palestine."

"We will continue to listen to the concerns of the community as restoration work moves forward," the statement continued.

It was not immediately clear how widely the railroad would be required to test for dioxins. EPA officials said more details would become available once the railroad submits its work plans.

In her piece for the Times, Enck argued that the EPA "should have ordered comprehensive testing the very day of the burn. It should have told residents, especially pregnant women and families with young children, not to return home until it was safe to do so. Instead, it timidly stood back, leaving local authorities, corporate interests, and rumors to fill the void."

Now, the EPA "needs to conduct comprehensive environmental testing for dioxins in and around East Palestine," wrote Enck, who was a regional director during the Obama administration. The agency also "needs to establish federally funded medical monitoring for everyone along the plume. Even those who appear healthy now should be offered baseline testing."

Additionally, she said, "for effective enforcement of our environmental laws, Congress needs to approve more funding for this crucial agency."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How disaster relief leaves Kentucky’s landslide victims behind on Mar 8, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Austyn Gaffney.

Supporters of U.S. President Joe Biden's plan to cancel over $400 billion in college debt to more than 43 million borrowers reacted angrily Monday to a lawsuit filed by an online finance company trying to overturn his administration's latest pause on student loan repayments—a policy that has cost the firm more than $100 million in lost profits.

San Francisco-based SoFi filed suit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia onFriday against the U.S. Department of Education and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona over the agency's rdecision in November to extend a Covid-19-based moratorium on student loan repayments due to ongoing legal battles.

Founded in 2011, SoFi "was once the leader of a booming private student loan refinancing industry," according to to the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC), a nonprofit advocacy group. SoFi's stock price has plummeted by more than 70% since its peak.

"SoFi has a long history of misleading student debtors and tricking them into refinancing their loans."

SoFi toldThe Washington Post that "we have supported and continue to support targeted student loan forgiveness, in addition to the student loan payment moratorium during the economic crisis at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic," but that the latest extension is an "illegal overreach."

However, according to the Debt Collective, the U.S.' first debtors union:

SoFi has a long history of misleading student debtors and tricking them into refinancing their loans in a way that costs hardworking Americans more interest in the long run. SoFi also engages in racist lending practices. The Debt Collective is encouraging its members—and anyone who has been misled or harmed by SoFi—to immediately file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well as their state's attorney general.

The Biden administration's pause extensions have kept cash in the pockets of people who desperately need it—disproportionately women, low-income families, and Black communities. Thanks to years of a pause on federal student debt, tens of millions of Americans have been able to put food on the table, pay for childcare, stay in their homes, and purchase their lifesaving medicine.

"SoFi CEO Anthony Noto is a financial vulture gorging himself on our bloated and broken student loan system," SBPC executive director Mike Pierce said in a statement. "Noto's failing company thinks it is entitled to engorge itself by skimming the cream off of the federal student loan portfolio and—after a failed back-room lobbying blitz—is running into court because the government doesn't agree."

"The real story here is the huge risk this poses to tens of millions of working people who SoFi would never lend to—families across the country that depend on the student loan payment pause to shield them from financial devastation," Pierce added.

As the Post's Danielle Douglas-Gabriel noted:

SoFi has a lot at stake with the ongoing payment pause. The company made a name for itself by refinancing education loans—lowering the interest rates and monthly payments of people with private and federal student loans. Refinancing federal student loans can save borrowers money, especially those with high-interest graduate debt. But it means giving up federal benefits, including access to income-driven repayment plans and public service loan forgiveness. The trade-off has become less appealing in the wake of the payment pause, according to SoFi.

The moratorium has eliminated the primary benefits of student loan refinancing by suspending interest on most federal student loans for the past three years, the complaint said. Whereas SoFi originated about $450 million to $500 million of refinanced federal student loans per month before March 2020, the volume plummeted by more than 75% following the initial pause, according to the company. The decline has accelerated and resulted in the company losing roughly $150 million to $200 million in profits over the past three years, the company said.

The current repayment pause—which costs the federal government $5 billion each month—could continue until August, depending upon the timing of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on two cases that will decide the fate of Biden's plan.

Last month, the nine justices heard oral arguments in the cases. Members of the court's right-wing supermajority repeatedly criticized the president's proposal and its estimated $400 billion-plus price tag. U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the Supreme Court that failing to cancel student debt and lifting the moratorium will bring extreme financial hardship to millions of borrowers and cause defaults to skyrocket.

"The Department of Education should immediately cancel all federal student loans. Don't feed the parasites."

Debt Collective spokesperson Braxton Brewington ripped SoFi's "ridiculous" filing as "just a continuation of the sham lawsuits pushed by Republican states and right-wing dark-money groups opposing student debt relief."

"What the Biden administration needs to do is fight back and choose working-class people over corporate profits," Brewington continued. "A predatory corporation losing revenue because the federal government continues good policy is not grounds to end that policy. "SoFi claims they want to lower Americans' interest rates, but they're working to destroy 0% interest to force Americans into a higher rate with them."

Debt Collective organizer Thomas Gokey called SoFi "a parasite on a policy failure."

"SoFi CEO Anthony Noto is starting to get desperate now that everyone realizes that there is no reason to ever restart student debt payments," Gokey contended. "The Department of Education should immediately cancel all federal student loans. Don't feed the parasites."

The lawsuit came on the same day that the Student Loan Law Initiative—an academic partnership between the University of California, Irvine School of Law and SBPC—published a new analysis detailing how "the ongoing student loan payment pause may have been even more beneficial for federal borrowers than previously understood."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in two challenges to the Biden administration’s student debt relief plan, which could give tens of millions of federal borrowers up to $20,000 of relief. During arguments, several conservative justices expressed skepticism over the Biden administration’s student debt relief plan, while liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted the Republican states who brought one of the lawsuits. We’re joined by Eleni Schirmer, who organizes with the Debt Collective and is a writer and postdoctoral fellow at Concordia University’s Social Justice Centre in Montreal. Her new piece in The New Yorker is headlined “How the Government Cancelled Betty Ann’s Debts.”

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

Borrowers, advocates, and lawmakers converged on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday night and Tuesday morning to defend President Joe Biden's stalled student debt relief plan as justices prepared to consider a pair of right-wing challenges to the popular proposal.

Attendees argued that Biden's move to erase up to $20,000 in student debt for federal borrowers with individual incomes under $125,000 and modify the income-driven repayment program is just, legal, and necessary. Although it falls short of progressives' demands for universal cancellation, speakers made clear that the White House's plan is key to improving economic security.

"You should not have to face financial ruin because you want a damn education!" Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said during Tuesday morning's rally. "Education, from child care to graduate school, is a human right. It should be free to all."

"Today we say to the Supreme Court, listen to the needs of millions of struggling people," Sanders added. "Do the right thing. Support Biden's proposal to cancel student debt."

"President Biden's executive authority to provide student debt relief to borrowers is abundantly clear."

After Monday night's rally, some campaigners planned to camp out overnight in a bid to secure seats in the courtroom for Tuesday's oral arguments, which began at 10:00 am ET.

In both Biden v. Nebraska—brought by the Republican-led states of Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina—and Department of Education v. Brown—filed with the support of billionaires by a pair of plaintiffs who claim they were unfairly excluded from relief—the right-wing-controlled Supreme Court will decide whether Biden's plan exceeds the U.S. Department of Education's (DOE) authority and whether the lawsuits have legal standing.

In a Tuesday statement released ahead of the hearing, Democratic Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri said, "Today, far-right Republican attorneys general will bring baseless and politically motivated arguments to the Supreme Court in opposition to providing student debt relief promised to 40 million borrowers across our country."

"Regardless," said Bush, "President Biden's executive authority to provide student debt relief to borrowers is abundantly clear—just look at the facts."

Bush continued:

Fact: The basis of the Republican AG's case relies on the claim that this relief plan threatens the profits of loan servicers such as MOHELA and states will be financially injured. Yet, in response to an October letter I sent to MOHELA, they denied involvement in the case and discredited Republicans by stating that they don’t operate to make profits and remain committed to complying with contractual obligations set forth by the U.S. Department of Education.

Fact: Republicans claim that states, like Missouri, also rely on revenue from loan servicers like MOHELA. Yet, MOHELA hasn’t paid their bills to the state in over a decade and owes over $100 million to the state of Missouri.

Fact: President Biden's student debt relief plan would provide 40 million borrowers across our country—including 144,000 of my constituents—with life-changing financial relief. Following the economic devastation of the pandemic, we need transformative policy solutions to foster an equitable economic recovery.

"I know what it's like to carry crushing student debt and to have to make impossible choices between paying rent or paying an exorbitant student loan bill," said Bush. "And I've heard from people across the country who have shared how this relief would change their lives—from being able to afford child care, to paying their medical bills, to being able to put food on the table."

"The facts are clear, and I implore the Supreme Court to affirm the president's executive authority to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt," she added. "I'm confident the Biden-Harris administration's plan will withstand these hurdles and provide the much-needed relief to borrowers."

Right-wing lawmakers and activists filed numerous lawsuits after the White House announced its student debt cancellation bid in August. Applications for relief closed in November after a federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump blocked Biden's plan. At the time, 26 million borrowers had already applied for or were automatically eligible for relief, and 16 million applications were given the green light and sent to loan servicers.

While GOP members of Congress argue that student debt relief is a regressive policy whose benefits would flow disproportionately to wealthy households, DOE data released earlier this month dispels that myth. According to a Politicoanalysis of the data, over 98% of people who applied before the portal was frozen reside in ZIP codes where the average per-capita income is under $75,000. Nearly two-thirds of applicants live in neighborhoods where the average person makes less than $40,000 per year.

With his relief initiative on hold, Biden extended the pause on federal student loan repayments—a measure that was introduced at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 and had been set to expire on December 31, 2022—through June 30, 2023. Payments are set to restart 60 days after that date, or 60 days after the high court hands down its decision, whichever comes first.

The Debt Collective, however, tweeted Monday night: "We're not paying that damn student debt no matter what the Supreme Court and its corrupted judges say."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

Striking down President Joe Biden's student debt relief plan would have devastating impacts on millions of borrowers, advocacy groups warned in a report released Monday, one day before the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments over the White House's cancellation bid.

"Denying student debt cancellation would cause financial disaster for millions of Americans," says the report, which was assembled after Sen. Elizabeth Warren(D-Mass.) asked the Debt Collective, NAACP, and more than a dozen other organizations last month to explain how upholding or rejecting Biden's plan would affect borrowers.

"Reducing debt burdens through cancellation will help avoid defaults when student loan payments resume and ensure borrowers do not face financial ruin as the economy continues its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic," according to the report, which was provided exclusively to Insider. This would disproportionately benefit low-income households.

However, "if the Supreme Court sides with the extremist judges, millions of Americans' monthly costs will rise significantly when student loan payments resume later this year," the report cautions.

"I'm putting all of my hope into this process finally getting approval. I haven't allowed myself to imagine another scenario because I may not continue even trying to exist everyday if that happens."

Although Biden ignored progressives' demands for universal student debt cancellation, his administration in August announced several relief measures, including a move to wipe out up to $10,000 in debt for federal borrowers with individual incomes under $125,000—and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients—as well as proposed changes to the income-driven repayment program.

Republican lawmakers and right-wing activists responded with a barrage of lawsuits. Applications for relief opened in October but closed a month later after a federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump blocked Biden's plan, deeming it "unlawful" on legal grounds criticized by experts as dubious. At the time, 26 million borrowers had already applied for or were automatically eligible for relief, and 16 million applications were fully approved and sent to loan servicers.

With his relief initiative on hold, Biden extended the moratorium on federal student loan repayments—a policy that was first implemented at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 and had been set to expire on December 31, 2022—through June 30, 2023. Payments are set to resume 60 days after that date, or 60 days after the Supreme Court hands down its decision, whichever comes first.

The nation's chief judicial body agreed in December to hear oral arguments in two student loan-related cases on Tuesday.

In both Biden v. Nebraska—brought by the GOP-led states of Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina—and Department of Education v. Brown—brought by two plaintiffs who claim they were unfairly excluded from relief—the right-wing-dominated high court will decide whether Biden's plan exceeds the U.S. Department of Education's (DOE) authority and whether the lawsuits have legal standing.

As TIME explained:

Six Republican-led states filed Biden v. Nebraska, arguing that in addition to the administration overreach, the program would cause states to lose tax revenue as a result of debt cancellation. U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey initially dismissed the case saying that it lacked legal standing. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, later decided that Missouri had legal standing because a loan servicer in the state would lose substantial revenue.

Department of Education v. Brownwas filed by Alexander Taylor and Myra Brown. Brown is not eligible for any relief, and Taylor is only eligible for $10,000 (rather than the up to $20,000 given to Pell Grant recipients). They also argue that the administration did not go through the Administrative Procedure Act's notice-and-comment procedure, which requires agencies to notify the public of their proposal and take comments.

Biden's student loan forgiveness plan is contingent on the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act of 2003, which allows the Department of Education to modify student financial assistance programs in response to national emergencies to alleviate borrowers' financial hardship. Former President Donald Trump used the act for the student loan moratorium, which began during the pandemic and is still in place for the next few months. Programs implemented under the HEROES Act are exempt from the notice-and-comment period, but plaintiffs in the Department of Education v. Brown case say that the Education Department does not have the authority to act under this law.

The Debt Collective tweeted Monday that Taylor and Brown "are just political pawns for billionaire-funded groups—they're not actually harmed by people getting debt relief."

In a recent video, More Perfect Union detailed how the plaintiffs' lawsuit is being backed by "a shady network of conservative billionaires trying to keep you in debt."

An unnamed White House official previously toldTIME that "our debt relief plan is needed to prevent defaults and delinquencies as student borrowers transition back to repayment after the end of the payment pause."

"There was a national emergency that impacted millions of student borrowers," said the official. "Many of those borrowers still face risk of default on their student loans due to that emergency. Congress gave the Secretary of Education the authority under the HEROES Act to take steps to prevent that harm, and he is."

Those who responded to Warren's inquiry echoed the Biden administration's warnings about the harmful economic consequences of a ruling against student debt relief, which would likely come in late June or early July.

One member of the Debt Collective said: "I'm putting all of my hope into this process finally getting approval. I haven't allowed myself to imagine another scenario because I may not continue even trying to exist everyday if that happens. This debt follows me daily."

While GOP lawmakers contend that student debt relief is a regressive policy whose benefits would flow disproportionately to high-income households, DOE data released earlier this month debunks such arguments. According to a Politicoanalysis of the data, over 98% of people who applied before the portal was shut down live in ZIP codes where the average per-capita income is under $75,000. Nearly two-thirds of applicants reside in neighborhoods where the average person makes less than $40,000 per year.

As Common Dreamsreported last week, supporters of Biden's stalled relief proposal plan to rally outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

Striking down President Joe Biden's student debt relief plan would have devastating impacts on millions of borrowers, advocacy groups warned in a report released Monday, one day before the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments over the White House's cancellation bid.

"Denying student debt cancellation would cause financial disaster for millions of Americans," says the report, which was assembled after Sen. Elizabeth Warren(D-Mass.) asked the Debt Collective, NAACP, and more than a dozen other organizations last month to explain how upholding or rejecting Biden's plan would affect borrowers.

"Reducing debt burdens through cancellation will help avoid defaults when student loan payments resume and ensure borrowers do not face financial ruin as the economy continues its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic," according to the report, which was provided exclusively to Insider. This would disproportionately benefit low-income households.

However, "if the Supreme Court sides with the extremist judges, millions of Americans' monthly costs will rise significantly when student loan payments resume later this year," the report cautions.

"I'm putting all of my hope into this process finally getting approval. I haven't allowed myself to imagine another scenario because I may not continue even trying to exist everyday if that happens."

Although Biden ignored progressives' demands for universal student debt cancellation, his administration in August announced several relief measures, including a move to wipe out up to $10,000 in debt for federal borrowers with individual incomes under $125,000—and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients—as well as proposed changes to the income-driven repayment program.

Republican lawmakers and right-wing activists responded with a barrage of lawsuits. Applications for relief opened in October but closed a month later after a federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump blocked Biden's plan, deeming it "unlawful" on legal grounds criticized by experts as dubious. At the time, 26 million borrowers had already applied for or were automatically eligible for relief, and 16 million applications were fully approved and sent to loan servicers.

With his relief initiative on hold, Biden extended the moratorium on federal student loan repayments—a policy that was first implemented at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 and had been set to expire on December 31, 2022—through June 30, 2023. Payments are set to resume 60 days after that date, or 60 days after the Supreme Court hands down its decision, whichever comes first.

The nation's chief judicial body agreed in December to hear oral arguments in two student loan-related cases on Tuesday.

In both Biden v. Nebraska—brought by the GOP-led states of Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina—and Department of Education v. Brown—brought by two plaintiffs who claim they were unfairly excluded from relief—the right-wing-dominated high court will decide whether Biden's plan exceeds the U.S. Department of Education's (DOE) authority and whether the lawsuits have legal standing.

As TIME explained:

Six Republican-led states filed Biden v. Nebraska, arguing that in addition to the administration overreach, the program would cause states to lose tax revenue as a result of debt cancellation. U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey initially dismissed the case saying that it lacked legal standing. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, later decided that Missouri had legal standing because a loan servicer in the state would lose substantial revenue.

Department of Education v. Brownwas filed by Alexander Taylor and Myra Brown. Brown is not eligible for any relief, and Taylor is only eligible for $10,000 (rather than the up to $20,000 given to Pell Grant recipients). They also argue that the administration did not go through the Administrative Procedure Act's notice-and-comment procedure, which requires agencies to notify the public of their proposal and take comments.

Biden's student loan forgiveness plan is contingent on the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act of 2003, which allows the Department of Education to modify student financial assistance programs in response to national emergencies to alleviate borrowers' financial hardship. Former President Donald Trump used the act for the student loan moratorium, which began during the pandemic and is still in place for the next few months. Programs implemented under the HEROES Act are exempt from the notice-and-comment period, but plaintiffs in the Department of Education v. Brown case say that the Education Department does not have the authority to act under this law.

The Debt Collective tweeted Monday that Taylor and Brown "are just political pawns for billionaire-funded groups—they're not actually harmed by people getting debt relief."

In a recent video, More Perfect Union detailed how the plaintiffs' lawsuit is being backed by "a shady network of conservative billionaires trying to keep you in debt."

An unnamed White House official previously toldTIME that "our debt relief plan is needed to prevent defaults and delinquencies as student borrowers transition back to repayment after the end of the payment pause."

"There was a national emergency that impacted millions of student borrowers," said the official. "Many of those borrowers still face risk of default on their student loans due to that emergency. Congress gave the Secretary of Education the authority under the HEROES Act to take steps to prevent that harm, and he is."

Those who responded to Warren's inquiry echoed the Biden administration's warnings about the harmful economic consequences of a ruling against student debt relief, which would likely come in late June or early July.

One member of the Debt Collective said: "I'm putting all of my hope into this process finally getting approval. I haven't allowed myself to imagine another scenario because I may not continue even trying to exist everyday if that happens. This debt follows me daily."

While GOP lawmakers contend that student debt relief is a regressive policy whose benefits would flow disproportionately to high-income households, DOE data released earlier this month debunks such arguments. According to a Politicoanalysis of the data, over 98% of people who applied before the portal was shut down live in ZIP codes where the average per-capita income is under $75,000. Nearly two-thirds of applicants reside in neighborhoods where the average person makes less than $40,000 per year.

As Common Dreamsreported last week, supporters of Biden's stalled relief proposal plan to rally outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

Supporters of President Joe Biden's stalled student debt relief proposal are planning to rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. at the end of the month as justices hear a case challenging the administration's long-awaited program.

After Biden in August announced his plan to cancel up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients and up to $10,000 for borrowers with incomes under $125,000 for individuals or $250,000 for households, right-wing politicians and activists took to the courts. The administration has stopped taking applications while awaiting the high court's decision but also extended a pause on loan repayments until June.

Given that the right-wing court's ruling is expected to "determine the fate of this program and the economic freedom of millions," organizers of the People's Rally for Student Debt Cancellation intend to "bring the voices and stories of impacted borrowers directly to the steps of the court" on February 28 from 8:00 am to noon ET.

"I wanted to make sure that the justices look into the eyes of borrowers while they're doing the hearing."

"More than 26 million borrowers remain in limbo, including 16 million who have been officially approved for relief" through BIden's "life-changing" program, because of "blatantly partisan lawsuits were filed by the president's political opponents to block the desperately needed relief," organizers highlight on a webpage for the rally, set to be livestreamed.

"For too long the student debt crisis has exacerbated racial and economic inequality," organizers argue on the Campaign to Cancel My Student Debt website, managed by the Student Borrower Protection Center. "Working people are looking to SCOTUS to follow the letter of the law and uphold critical relief for millions of student loan borrowers."

Rise, a youth-led nonprofit that aims to make higher education free, plans to bring around 100 college students from the swing states Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to the D.C. rally, co-founder Max Lubin toldInsider.

"I think that when people see who is impacted, if they themselves are not, they start to understand that this is about fairness and this is about opportunity, and not ruining someone's life with decades of unpayable debt just because you're trying to earn an education," he said.

"In these kinds of D.C. fights, oftentimes real impacted Americans, real people are not considered and not present, and they are ignored by either elected, or in this case, appointed decision-makers," Lubin continued. "So we're showing up in full force."

Melissa Byrne, executive director of We the 45 Million, a campaign that fights for student debt cancellation, told Insider that in addition to the rally the day of the oral arguments, there will be an event at 6:00 pm ET the night before the hearing.

"We're going to have fun with it in the evening," Byrne explained. "With a brass band, mariachi, acapella, people telling their stories, pizza, and just to really show and demonstrate that borrowers are just like your neighbors, and that this relief is helping out your communities around the country."

"I wanted to make sure that the justices look into the eyes of borrowers while they're doing the hearing," she added. "Our actions will show that the people with debt are just regular people from around the country."

Supporters of debt cancellation continue to call out those who have stood in the way of the president's proposal—which was more modest than many borrowers and other Democratic politicians had advocated.

"Whether purchasing their first home, starting a business, or growing their family, millions of borrowers will benefit from student debt cancellation," Rep. Ayanna Pressley(D-Mass.) said Sunday, adding that Biden "has the legal authority" and "Republicans must stop obstructing this relief."

Former Democratic congressional candidate Nina Turner—now a senior fellow at the New School's Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy—similarly stressed Sunday that the president "has legal authority to cancel student debt and conservative judges are holding it up."

"Over 40 million borrowers would qualify for this administration's one-time student debt relief," the White House tweeted Monday. "In every single congressional district, at least half of eligible borrowers either applied or were deemed auto-eligible for relief—in the one month the application was available."

"Millions of these borrowers—and more—could be experiencing relief right now," the White House added, "if it were not for lawsuits brought by opponents of the student debt relief program."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Finance Minister Grant Robertson have announced a $50 million support package to provide immediate relief for businesses hit by Cyclone Gabrielle, as well as the extension of the national state of emergency, a new cyclone recovery taskforce and related ministerial role.

The full extent of the cyclone damage is becoming clearer as transport, power and telecommunications connections are re-established.

“Ministers will finalise the distribution of this funding in the coming week, but this will include support to businesses to meet immediate costs and further assist with clean-up,” Robertson said today.

• READ MORE: Cyclone Gabrielle: Lives ‘turned upside down . . . destroyed’, says PM
• RNZ photo essay: Cyclone Gabrielle damage becomes increasingly clear
• Cyclone Gabrielle: Death toll rises to 11, Civil Defence targets isolated communities
• Cyclone Gabrielle: Pasifika songs of gratitude ring out across Hawke’s Bay
• Follow RNZ live updates

“We will coordinate the allocation of this funding with local business groups, iwi and local government in the affected regions.

“The government recognises the weather events are having an impact on people and businesses meeting their tax obligations, so we are taking a range of tax relief measures as well.”

Tens of millions of dollars have already been put into cyclone recovery and support, including into Mayoral Relief Funds, Civil Defence payments, and a package for NGOs and community support groups, he said.

“I want to be very clear, this is an interim package and more support will follow as we get a better picture of the scale, cost and needs in the wake of this disaster,” Hipkins said.

Rolling maul approach
“I would note that in responding to previous major disasters a rolling maul approach has had to be taken and this situation is no different.”

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

After an earthquake shook the Turkish-Syrian border on Feb. 6, killing tens of thousands of people and leaving many others injured, the Assad government in Syria has called for a lifting of sanctions against the country, criticizing the U.S. and E.U. for hindering critical supplies from reaching the many victims of the earthquake. Several Chinese reports have further stated that U.S. sanctions against Assad's government are "severely hampering" relief efforts in Syria.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) found these accusations to be misleading. They ignore U.S. officials' statements that relief assistance for earthquake victims will not be affected by the sanctions, overlooking the politicization of relief efforts amid the ongoing Syrian civil war as an equally disruptive effect on international relief efforts meant to help the population. 

I

Why are there sanctions against Syria, and what impact have they had?

The U.S. listed the Syrian government as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1979, adding additional sanctions and restrictions in 2004. Since the outbreak of civil war in 2011, the U.S. has severed relations with Bashar al-Assad's government, choosing instead to recognize the rebel Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Russia, Iran, and China continue to back Assad's government. 

In order to deprive the Assad government of resources it could use to harm civilians, the U.S. and other countries have imposed targeted economic sanctions against Syria's government, including freezing the foreign assets of Syrian officials responsible for human rights abuses, prohibiting citizens from investing or trading with Syria and banning imports of Syrian oil. The sanctions have had a heavy impact on Syria's economy, with shortages of common daily products, leaving many civilians dependent on humanitarian aid.

Are U.S. and other Western sanctions impeding current relief efforts in Syria? 

A powerful earthquake struck the Turkey-Syria border on Feb. 6. U.N. officials estimate the death toll could exceed 50,000. The Syrian government immediately asked countries to lift sanctions against Syria, with the Syrian Foreign Ministry saying on Feb. 7 that U.S. sanctions against Syria were preventing humanitarian aid from entering the country. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning repeated similar criticisms against the U.S. a day later, calling on the U.S. to lift its sanctions against Syria.

In a statement issued on Feb. 6, President Joe Biden directed officials to provide “all needed assistance.” Later on the same day, State Department spokesman Ned Price said that the U.S. would work with local Syrian non-governmental partners - such as the volunteer rescue organization the White Helmets - to distribute any needed food, water, temporary shelter and medical assistance to local victims. On Feb. 9, the U.S. Treasury Department released a statement implementing a temporary easing of restrictions against any transactions related to earthquake relief for 180 days. The statement also noted that humanitarian aid was allowed into Syria even under the ordinary statutes of the sanctions.

Deutsche Welle quoted a German Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying that the E.U. sanctions are aimed at the Assad regime, war profiteers, and serious human rights offenders, not at the Syrian people. The sanctions prohibit the importation of only a select few goods; food, heavy machinery used for excavation, and other humanitarian aid are exempt.

Are the sanctions the only factor making post-earthquake relief in Syria difficult? 

Experts interviewed in The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Guardian all point to underdeveloped transportation systems and political divisions in the country as important factors in providing post-earthquake relief for Syria.

Syria is currently divided into areas controlled by Assad's government, opposition  groups and other forces drawn in by the civil war. International aid for more than 4 million Syrians in the opposition-controlled northwest part of the country is transported through a lone crossing point along the Turkish border, as reported by the BBC.

It has been difficult for enough supplies to reach all areas in the northwest even in ideal conditions. After the route was damaged and made inaccessible during the recent earthquake, the humanitarian medical agency Doctors Without Borders has called for more crossings to be made available to in order to allow badly needed supplies to reach the area.

Opponents of Assad's government worry that even after lifting sanctions, the government may not deliver on its promise to provide such international aid to victims in the northwest. Senator Jim Risch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted that “calls for sanctions relief are only intended to avoid accountability for the regime.” 

Qutaiba Idlbi, an expert for the U.S. think tank the Atlantic Council, said in an interview with The Guardian that Assad's insistence on aid being distributed from government-controlled areas to other regions is not about actually delivering aid the affected areas, but about using the crisis to establish who gets to distribute and control economic aid in the northwest.

After negotiations, on Feb13th, Assad's government agreed to open two border crossings from Turkey to allow United Nations aid accessing the opposition-held northwestern region, according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Compared to the influx of international aid to Turkey following the earthquake, domestic and international factors have hampered the delivery of aid resources into Syria. The statements disseminated by official media in Syria and China that U.S. sanctions are "severely impeding" humanitarian relief mislead public opinion. While a factor, the sanctions against Syria are not the only reason behind this humanitarian problem.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) is a new branch of RFA established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. Our journalists publish both daily and special reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of public issues.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Zhuang Jing.

The devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria has killed over 40,000 people, a number the United Nations has warned may escalate. The destruction is unfathomable.

According to the UN, at least 870,000 people across Turkey and Syria are in urgent need of hot meals. In Syria, around 5.3 million people are in need of shelter. Over 1 million people in Turkey are living in temporary shelters.

As a Syrian American whose family hails from Aleppo, it’s been painful for me to process the earthquake’s aftermath.

It feels like another punch in the gut after the horrors and anguish Syrians have already endured through years of war, displacement, and sanctions. Historic cultural treasures like Aleppo’s ancient Citadel, which greeted my parents on their way to school when they were growing up, have suffered significant damage.

Heartbreaking stories have emerged from Turkey and Syria. In one widely shared image, photographer Adem Altan memorialized the anguish of a father as he sat alone amidst the rubble, holding onto his deceased 15-year-old daughter’s hand.

Stories of rescue have also ignited flickers of hope amid such profound despair. Rescuers pulled a 10-year-old girl to safety after she was trapped for 147 hours beneath a collapsed building. A newborn baby was rescued from the rubble after relatives found her still tied by her umbilical cord to her mother, who had sadly passed away.

This earthquake is the latest crisis within a larger crisis in Syria, already fractured by tremors from political fault lines for over a decade now. Over 300,000 people have been killed there since war broke out in 2011.

Prior to the earthquake, an estimated 6.7 million people were already internally displaced. Millions more were impoverished by U.S. and European sanctions designed to strangle the economy and oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Additional U.S. sanctions since 2020 have targeted key sectors, including the Central Bank, oil, energy, and construction. They have also blocked food, medicine, medical equipment, and other necessities.

These sanctions have failed. Instead of removing Assad from power, they’ve collectively punished innocent Syrians. Ninety percent of Syrians now live in poverty, and 12 million are food insecure. With more than half of Syria’s infrastructure either destroyed or severely damaged by war, sanctions have made reconstruction and economic recovery impossible.

This was the situation before the earthquake struck.

Months earlier, UN envoy Alena Douhan called for an end to sanctions: “I urge the immediate lifting of all unilateral sanctions that severely harm human rights and prevent any efforts for early recovery, rebuilding, and reconstruction,” she said. Her recommendation has even greater urgency today.

In a de facto admission that sanctions are hurting civilians, the U.S. Department of Treasury recently agreed to open a 180-day window authorizing transactions “related to earthquake relief efforts” in Syria. Although a welcome development, it’s only a short-term reprieve from these sanctions’ far-reaching catastrophic impacts.

For the U.S., maintaining these failed sanctions while pledging to be “a partner to the people of Syria” is contradictory and counterproductive.

They should be permanently lifted to allow Syrians the chance to finally catch their breath and begin to rebuild from these crises with dignity. The U.S. and international community must also redouble their diplomatic efforts toward ending the war, instead of prolonging it. Tragedy should transcend political divisions, not reinforce them.

Turkey and Syria both face a long road to recovery. We should extend compassion and support to the earthquake victims. Sustained international aid is needed in both the immediate and long term.

Beyond aid, only an end to the war will bring lasting relief for Syrians.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Farrah Hassen.

In the face of mounting pressure from rights groups and relief organizations on the ground, the Biden administration on Thursday issued a temporary license authorizing "all transactions related to earthquake relief that would be otherwise prohibited" by U.S. sanctions on Syria.

The move, announced by the Treasury Department on Thursday evening, amounts to a tacit admission that U.S. sanctions could have impacted the delivery of humanitarian aid to the country following the massive earthquake and dozens of aftershocks that killed more than 21,000 people in Syria and neighboring Turkey.

"As international allies and humanitarian partners mobilize to help those affected, I want to make very clear that U.S. sanctions in Syria will not stand in the way of lifesaving efforts for the Syrian people," said Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo. "While U.S. sanctions programs already contain robust exemptions for humanitarian efforts, today Treasury is issuing a blanket General License to authorize earthquake relief efforts so that those providing assistance can focus on what's needed most: saving lives and rebuilding."

The sanctions relief, which will be in effect for 180 days, came after U.S. officials repeatedly denied that the restrictions would impact humanitarian aid. Earlier Thursday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said during a press briefing that "there are many hurdles to overcome when providing humanitarian assistance in Syria and especially after devastating earthquakes this week, but our Syrian sanctions policy is not among them."

But reporting and accounts from humanitarian leaders indicate that U.S. and European sanctions—which have long harmed Syrian civilians despite ostensibly being targeted at the Assad government—have hampered early aid and recovery efforts, compounding existing difficulties surrounding the delivery of emergency supplies to rebel-held areas of Syria. Freezing weather has also complicated aid and rescue operations.

Khaled Hboubati, the director of Syria's Red Crescent, said earlier this week that "we need heavy equipment, ambulances, and firefighting vehicles to continue to rescue and remove the rubble, and this entails lifting sanctions on Syria as soon as possible."

In a statement Tuesday, the Middle East Council of Churches called for "the immediate lifting of sanctions on Syria and allowing access to all materials, so sanctions may not turn into a crime against humanity."

The Associated Pressreported that "in theory, aid operations in government areas should not be blocked by sanctions, since both the U.S. and EU have exemptions for humanitarian aid."

"But the reality on the ground is sometimes different," the outlet noted. "Banks might block transfers to pay suppliers or local workers for aid organizations for fear of running afoul of sanctions, despite the exemptions. Also, U.S. sanctions and to some extent E.U. ones try to prevent rebuilding of damaged infrastructure and property in government-held areas in the absence of a political solution, which could hamper post-earthquake recovery."

Abed Ayoub, director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, wrote on Twitter that "we welcome the decision by the U.S. Department of Treasury to issue a broad General License on Syria sanctions."

"This will ease sanctions and allow for much-needed additional aid into the country," Ayoub added.

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

On February 6, two earthquakes struck southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, with magnitudes 7.8 and 7.5. Three days later the death toll surpassed 15,000. The World Health Organization projects 20,000 losses. Many fear much more. Tens of thousands are injured, hundreds of thousands are displaced. These are not numbers, but human lives.

The devastation spans cities: Kahramanmaras, Hatay, Gaziantep, Diyarbakir, Sanliurfa, Malatya, Adana, Adiyaman, Mardin, Aleppo, Sarmada… Homes, hospitals, hotels, schools are reduced to rubble. For those who are still trapped under, there is not much hope remaining. Those who have been rescued are now enduring near-freezing temperatures. Many of them are in need of food and water, as well as urgent medical supplies, while mourning for their loved ones—children, parents, spouses, siblings, neighbors, friends, even entire families.

There are a lot of questions regarding the hows and whys: the fault lines around Turkey and Syria, the power of the earthquake and the aftershocks, the breadth of the destruction, the poor infrastructure, the lack of preparation, the obstacles to rescue and relief efforts, the delays in government response, the political tensions… All valid questions and concerns.

For a moment though I’d like to set them aside to simply provide a list of organizations for those who are able and would like to lend a helping hand:

AKUT is a voluntary, non-governmental organization in Turkey leading the search, assist and rescue efforts.

Needs Map (Ihtiyac Haritasi) is assisting the needs on the ground in coordination with public institutions and delivering emergency needs (winter clothes, heaters, blankets, sanitary pads, diapers, clean water, and tents) to the survivors.

TOKTUT is delivering emergency food packages containing ready-to-eat meals to the survivors.

AHBAP a Turkish local voluntary network raising funds to help provide shelter, food, and medical supplies to those in need.

Bridge to Turkey is a charity which has set up a fundraising campaign to help with immediate assistance with food, water, warmth, and shelter. The next phase of their campaign will focus on the children impacted by the disaster, providing them with health services and education.

Turkish Philantrophy Funds is a U.S. community foundation; its Türkiye Earthquake Relief Fund is giving to the local NGOs working on the ground.

Turkey Mozaik Foundation, based in the UK, has launched an earthquake relief fund to recover from the devastating effects of the earthquake by supporting local NGOs.

Doctors Without Borders is responding to medical emergencies to save more lives.

OXFAM is working with women’s cooperatives in Turkey to determine an appropriate immediate and long-term response plan.

UNICEF is in Syria and Turkey and prioritizing water, sanitation, hygiene and nutrition, and also focusing on helping unaccompanied children locate their families.

CARE is providing emergency aid including food, shelter, hygiene kits, cold weather supplies and cash assistance.

Thank you for bearing witness.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ipek S. Burnett.

On February 6, two earthquakes struck southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, with magnitudes 7.8 and 7.5. Three days later the death toll surpassed 15,000. The World Health Organization projects 20,000 losses. Many fear much more. Tens of thousands are injured, hundreds of thousands are displaced. These are not numbers, but human lives.

The devastation spans cities: Kahramanmaras, Hatay, Gaziantep, Diyarbakir, Sanliurfa, Malatya, Adana, Adiyaman, Mardin, Aleppo, Sarmada… Homes, hospitals, hotels, schools are reduced to rubble. For those who are still trapped under, there is not much hope remaining. Those who have been rescued are now enduring near-freezing temperatures. Many of them are in need of food and water, as well as urgent medical supplies, while mourning for their loved ones—children, parents, spouses, siblings, neighbors, friends, even entire families.

There are a lot of questions regarding the hows and whys: the fault lines around Turkey and Syria, the power of the earthquake and the aftershocks, the breadth of the destruction, the poor infrastructure, the lack of preparation, the obstacles to rescue and relief efforts, the delays in government response, the political tensions… All valid questions and concerns.

For a moment though I’d like to set them aside to simply provide a list of organizations for those who are able and would like to lend a helping hand:

AKUT is a voluntary, non-governmental organization in Turkey leading the search, assist and rescue efforts.

Needs Map (Ihtiyac Haritasi) is assisting the needs on the ground in coordination with public institutions and delivering emergency needs (winter clothes, heaters, blankets, sanitary pads, diapers, clean water, and tents) to the survivors.

TOKTUT is delivering emergency food packages containing ready-to-eat meals to the survivors.

AHBAP a Turkish local voluntary network raising funds to help provide shelter, food, and medical supplies to those in need.

Bridge to Turkey is a charity which has set up a fundraising campaign to help with immediate assistance with food, water, warmth, and shelter. The next phase of their campaign will focus on the children impacted by the disaster, providing them with health services and education.

Turkish Philantrophy Funds is a U.S. community foundation; its Türkiye Earthquake Relief Fund is giving to the local NGOs working on the ground.

Turkey Mozaik Foundation, based in the UK, has launched an earthquake relief fund to recover from the devastating effects of the earthquake by supporting local NGOs.

Doctors Without Borders is responding to medical emergencies to save more lives.

OXFAM is working with women’s cooperatives in Turkey to determine an appropriate immediate and long-term response plan.

UNICEF is in Syria and Turkey and prioritizing water, sanitation, hygiene and nutrition, and also focusing on helping unaccompanied children locate their families.

CARE is providing emergency aid including food, shelter, hygiene kits, cold weather supplies and cash assistance.

Thank you for bearing witness.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ipek S. Burnett.