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The IRS Is Building a Vast System to Share Millions of Taxpayers’ Data With ICE

by William Turton, Christopher Bing and Avi Asher-Schapiro — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 15:45:00 +0000

by William Turton, Christopher Bing and Avi Asher-Schapiro

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The Internal Revenue Service is building a computer program that would give deportation officers unprecedented access to confidential tax data.

ProPublica has obtained a blueprint of the system, which would create an “on demand” process allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to obtain the home addresses of people it’s seeking to deport.

Last month, in a previously undisclosed dispute, the acting general counsel at the IRS, Andrew De Mello, refused to turn over the addresses of 7.3 million taxpayers sought by ICE. In an email obtained by ProPublica, De Mello said he had identified multiple legal “deficiencies” in the agency’s request.

Two days later, on June 27, De Mello was forced out of his job, people familiar with the dispute said. The addresses have not yet been released to ICE. De Mello did not respond to requests for comment, and the administration did not address questions sent by ProPublica about his departure.

The Department of Government Efficiency began pushing the IRS to provide taxpayer data to immigration agents soon after President Donald Trump took office. The tax agency’s acting general counsel refused and was replaced by De Mello, who Trump administration officials viewed as more willing to carry out the president’s agenda. Soon after, the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, and the IRS negotiated a “memorandum of understanding” that included specific legal guardrails to safeguard taxpayers’ private information.

In his email, De Mello said ICE’s request for millions of records did not meet those requirements, which include having a written assurance that each taxpayer whose address is being sought was under active criminal investigation.

“There’s just no way ICE has 7 million real criminal investigations, that’s a fantasy,” said a former senior IRS official who had been advising the agency on this issue. The demands from the DHS were “unprecedented,” the official added, saying the agency was pressing the IRS to do what amounted to “a big data dump.”

In the past, when law enforcement sought IRS data to support its investigations, agencies would give the IRS the full legal name of the target, an address on file and an explanation of why the information was relevant to a criminal inquiry. Such requests rarely involved more than a dozen people at a time, former IRS officials said.

Danny Werfel, IRS commissioner during the Biden administration, said the privacy laws allowing federal investigators to obtain taxpayer data have never “been read to open the door to the sharing of thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of tax records for a broad-based enforcement initiative.”

A spokesperson for the White House said the planned use of IRS data was legal and a means of fulfilling Trump’s campaign pledge to carry out mass deportations of “illegal criminal aliens.”

Taxpayer data is among the most confidential in the federal government and is protected by strict privacy laws, which have historically limited its transfer to law enforcement and other government agencies. Unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer return information is a felony that can carry a penalty of up to five years in prison.

The system that the IRS is now creating would give ICE automated access to home addresses en masse, limiting the ability of IRS officials to consider the legality of transfers. IRS insiders who reviewed a copy of the blueprint said it could result in immigration agents raiding wrong or outdated addresses.

“If this program is implemented in its current form, it’s extremely likely that incorrect addresses will be given to DHS and individuals will be wrongly targeted,” said an IRS engineer who examined the blueprints and who, like other officials, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

The dispute that ended in De Mello’s ouster was the culmination of months of pressure on the IRS to turn over massive amounts of data in ways that would redefine the relationship between the agency and law enforcement and reduce taxpayers’ privacy, records and interviews show.

In one meeting in late March between senior IRS and DHS officials, a top ICE official made a suggestion: Why doesn’t Homeland Security simply provide the name and state of its targets and have the IRS return the addresses of everyone who matches that criteria?

The IRS lawyers were stunned. They feared they could face criminal liability if they handed over the addresses of individuals who were not under a criminal investigation. The conversation and news of deeper collaboration with ICE so disturbed career staff that it led to a series of departures in late March and early April across the IRS’ legal, IT and privacy offices.

They were “pushing the boundaries of the law,” one official said. “Everyone at IRS felt the same way.”

The Blueprint

The technical blueprint obtained by ProPublica shows that engineers at the agency are preparing to give DHS what it wants: a system that enables massive automated data sharing. The goal is to launch the new system before the end of July, two people familiar with the matter said.

The DHS effort to obtain IRS data comes as top immigration enforcement leaders face escalating White House pressure to deport some 3,000 people per day, according to reports.

One federal agent tasked with assisting ICE on deportations said recent operations have been hamstrung by outdated addresses. Better information could dramatically speed up arrests. “Some of the leads that they were giving us were old,” said the agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the press. “They’re like from two administrations ago.”

In early March, immigrants rights groups sued the IRS hoping to block the plan, arguing that the memorandum of understanding between DHS and the IRS is illegal. But a judge in early May ruled against them, saying the broader agreement complied with Section 6103, the existing law regulating IRS data sharing. That opened the door for engineers to begin building the system.

The judge did not address the technical blueprint, which didn’t exist at the time of the ruling. But the case is pending, which means the new system could still come under legal review.

Until now, little was known about the push and pull between the two agencies or the exact technical mechanics behind the arrangement.

The plan has been shrouded in secrecy even within the IRS, with details of its development withheld from regular communications. Several IRS engineers and lawyers have avoided working on the project out of concerns about personal legal risk.

Asked about the new system, a spokesperson for IRS parent agency the Treasury Department said the memorandum of understanding, often called an MOU, “has been litigated and determined to be a lawful application of Section 6103, which provides for information sharing by the IRS in precise circumstances associated with law enforcement requests.”

At a time when Trump is making threats to deport not only undocumented immigrants but also U.S. citizens, the scope of information-sharing with the IRS could continue to grow, according to documents reviewed by ProPublica and sources familiar with the matter: DHS has been looking for ways to expand the agreement that could allow Homeland Security officials to seek IRS data on Americans being investigated for various crimes.

Last month, an ICE attorney proposed updating the MOU to authorize new data requests on people “associated with criminal activities which may include United States citizens or lawful permanent residents,” according to a document seen by ProPublica. The status of this proposal is unclear. De Mello, at the time, rejected it and called for senior Treasury Department leadership to personally sign off on such a significant change.

The White House described DHS’ work with the IRS as a good-faith effort to identify and deport those who are living in the country illegally.

“ProPublica continues to degrade their already terrible reputation by suggesting we should turn a blind eye to criminal illegal aliens present in the United States for the sake of trying to collect tax payments from them,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement after receiving questions about the blueprint from ProPublica.

She pointed to the April MOU as giving the government the authority to create the new system and added, “This isn’t a surveillance system. … It’s part of President Trump’s promise to carry out the mass deportation of criminal illegal aliens — the promise that the American people elected him on and he is committed to fulfilling.”

In a separate statement, a senior DHS official also cited the court’s approval of the MOU, saying that it “outlines a process to ensure that sensitive taxpayer information is protected while allowing law enforcement to effectively pursue criminal violations.”

How the System Works

The new system would represent a sea change, allowing law enforcement to request enormous swaths of confidential data in bulk through an automated, computerized process.

The system, according to the blueprint and interviews with IRS engineers, would work like this:

First, DHS would send the IRS a spreadsheet containing the names and previous addresses of the people it’s targeting. The request would include the date of a final removal order, a relevant criminal statute ICE is using to investigate the individual, and the tax period for which information is sought. If DHS fails to include any of this information, the system would reject the request.

The system then attempts to match the information provided by the DHS to a specific taxpayer identification number, which is the primary method by which the IRS identifies an individual in its databases.

If the system makes a match, it accesses the individual’s associated tax file and pulls the address listed during the most recent tax period. Then the system would produce a new spreadsheet enriched with taxpayer data that contains DHS’ targets’ last known addresses. The spreadsheet would include a record of names rejected for lack of required information and names for which it could not make a match.

Tax and privacy experts say they worry about how such a powerful yet crude platform could make dangerous mistakes. Because the search starts with a name instead of a taxpayer identification number, it risks returning the address of an innocent person with the same name as or a similar address to that of one of ICE’s targets. The proposed system assumes the data provided by DHS is accurate and that each targeted individual is the subject of a valid criminal investigation. In effect, the IRS has no way to independently check the bases of these requests, experts told ProPublica.

In addition, the blueprint does not limit the amount of data that can be transferred or how often DHS can request it. The system could easily be expanded to acquire all the information the IRS holds on taxpayers, said technical experts and IRS engineers who reviewed the documents. By shifting a single parameter, the program could return more information than just a target’s address, said an engineer familiar with the plan, including employer and familial relationships.

Engineers based at IRS offices in Lanham, Maryland, and Dallas are developing the blueprint.

“Gone Back on Its Word”

For decades, the American government has encouraged everyone who makes an income in the U.S. to pay taxes — regardless of immigration status — with an implicit promise that their information would be protected. Now that same data may be used to locate and deport noncitizens.

“For years, the IRS has told immigrants that it only cares that they pay their taxes,” said Nandan Joshi, an attorney with the Public Citizen Litigation Group, which is seeking to block the data-sharing agreement in federal court. “By agreeing to share taxpayer data with ICE on a mass basis, the IRS has gone back on its word.”

The push to share IRS data with DHS emerged while Elon Musk’s DOGE reshaped the engineering staff of the IRS. Sam Corcos, a Silicon Valley startup founder with no government experience, pushed out more than 50 IRS engineers and restructured the agency’s engineering priorities while he was the senior DOGE official at the agency. He later became chief information officer at Treasury. He has also led a separate IRS effort to create a master database using products from Silicon Valley giant Palantir Technologies, enabling the government to link and search large swaths of data.

Corcos didn’t respond to a request for comment. The White House said DOGE is not part of the DHS-IRS pact.

Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Finance, which oversees the IRS, told ProPublica the system being built was ripe for abuse. It “would allow an outside agency unprecedented access to IRS records for reasons that have nothing to do with tax administration, opening the door to endless fishing expeditions,” he said.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the department’s internal watchdog, is already probing efforts by Trump and DOGE to obtain private taxpayer data and other sensitive information, ProPublica reported in April.

The Trump administration continues to add government agencies to its deportation drive.

DOGE and DHS are also working to build a national citizenship database, NPR reported last month. The database links information from the Social Security Administration and the DHS, ostensibly for the purpose of allowing state and local election officials to verify U.S. citizenship.

And in May, a senior Treasury Department official directed 250 IRS criminal investigative agents to help deportation operations, a significant shift for two agencies that historically have had separate missions.

McKenzie Funk contributed reporting, and Kirsten Berg and Alex Mierjeski contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by William Turton, Christopher Bing and Avi Asher-Schapiro.

News18, social media users share 2-month old visuals of blast in Iranian city as footage from June conflict with Israel

Oishani Bhattacharya — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 13:37:28 +0000

A 17-second clip showing a cloud of smoke emanating from an explosion in an urban area is viral on social media with claims that it shows Iran being bombarded by Israel. Some claim the video of the explosion is from Ahvaz in Iran, while others claim it shows an explosion at the Bushehr airport.

The conflict between the two escalated after Israel targeted Iran’s nuclear and military structures from warplanes and drones on June 13; Iran soon retaliated with strikes. Since then, several unverified visuals have been circulating on social media platforms with claims they are from either of the two countries .

A June 22 report by News18 titled, “Bushehr Airport Hit By Israel As Explosion Rocks Iran Province Housing Nuclear Site,” featured a screengrab from the above clip. (Archive)

X user Abhijit Iyer-Mitra (@Iyervval) also posted the same video on June 22, claiming that the visual depicted an explosion in Ahvaz. (Archive)

Several other users on X, such as @mog_russEN, @World_At_War_6, @thecsrjournal, and news outlet EurAsia Daily, used the viral clip claiming it showed footage of an explosion in Iran amid the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict.

Click to view slideshow.

Fact Check

After breaking down the clip into multiple keyframes, we ran a reverse image search on a few of them. This led us to an Instagram carousel post by an account @qatarday from April 26, 2025. The fourth slide in the carousel, has the now-viral clip.

The caption of the post reads, “Four dead, over 500 injured as ‘massive’ explosion hits Iran’s Bandar Abbas”. Bandar Abbas is a port city on the southern coast of Iran.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Qatar Day (@qatarday)

We also found the video shared by X account, @JasonMBrodsky, on April 26, which also said the explosion was from Iran’s Bandar Abbas.

The more I read about this explosion today in Bandar Abbas, the more I think about the reports about those #Iran cargo ships docking in Bandar Abbas after departing #China with missile components. pic.twitter.com/X0Rxrx51Na

— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) April 26, 2025

Taking a cue from the above posts, we checked for news reports with relevant keywords from that time and found that several outlets had covered it.

According to an April 27 report by the BBC, nearly 28 individuals were killed and 800 injured in the explosion in Shahid Rajaee in the Iranian city of Bandar Abbas. The report carried a video captured by an individual who recorded it from his car when the explosion took place. It has the same smoke pattern as is seen in the viral clip.

Al Jazeera also used a clip from the same location, recorded at a different angle. Here, too, the smoke pattern is the same.

Below is a comparison of the visuals aired by BBC and Al Jazeera with the viral clip. As can be seen, in all three screenshots, the smoke pattern is similar.

Thus it was clear that the viral clip of the explosion is neither from Ahvaz nor from Bushehr but an explosion that happened in Shahid Rajaee port in Bandar Abbas city in Iran two months before the June conflict.

However, it should be noted that Iranian cities Ahvaz and Bushehr did suffer from Israeli strikes.

The post News18, social media users share 2-month old visuals of blast in Iranian city as footage from June conflict with Israel appeared first on Alt News.

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

Did ANI share & delete X post on Modi being ignored in G7 photo? No, viral screenshot is doctored

Oishani Bhattacharya — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 14:59:33 +0000

Since the three-day Group of Seven (G7) Summit concluded in Canada on June 17, a purported screenshot of an X post by news agency ANI has been circulating on social media. The screenshot has an image of global leaders, and says, “#WATCH | PM Modi Invited to G7 summit, only to be not invited on stage? #BoycottG7Summit.”

According to the screenshot, the image was posted at 1425 hours IST (2:25 pm) on June 17.

The 51st G7 Summit, held in Kananaskis, Alberta, in Canada, this year, was carefully scrutinised by the Indian media because of the last-minute invite to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The late invitation was seen as a sign of strained India-Canada relations.

Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States form the Group of Seven, or G7. However, the European Union and several non-G7 countries, including India, are also invited to the summit. Invitation to non-G7 members is the prerogative of the host country.

An X user, گلویندر (@rebelliousdogra), posted the screenshot at 1429 hours on June 17 shortly after the time stamp in ANI’s post, claiming that ANI had deleted the post. (Archive)

What is this behaviour @ANI?

Why did you delete this tweet? pic.twitter.com/QdjbOdNJSU

— گلویندر (@rebelliousdogra) June 17, 2025

Soon after, another user, @yasarshah_SP, shared the same screenshot, claiming the news agency had taken down the post. (Archive)

ANI Posted
ANI Deleted. pic.twitter.com/LmRjUINZLE

— Yasar Shah (@yasarshah_SP) June 17, 2025

Several other users posted the same screenshot, claiming that the news agency had first posted and later deleted the tweet with the contentious caption. Below are a few instances.

Click to view slideshow.

Fact Check

To begin with, the controversial caption and hashtag #BoycottG7Summit made us doubt the authenticity of the screenshot.

We checked all X posts made by ANI on June 17 between 1420 and 1440 hours IST. Within those 20 minutes, the news agency had posted five times, but none of the posts were related to the G7 Summit. Further, we checked all posts made by the news agency between June 16 and 18 related to the G7, and none of them used the image in the viral screenshot showing the G7 leaders.

Then, to check whether ANI deleted any post between 1420 and 1440 hours, we checked all replies to ANI during that window. Note that even if an X post is deleted, the replies to it do not get deleted unless users do so themselves. We found no replies to any deleted post during that time.

Also, for much of its G7 coverage, ANI had used the hashtag #PMModiAtG7. News agencies with such a wide reach are unlikely to use hashtags such as #BoycottG7Summit.

Click to view slideshow.

Alt News also reached out to ANI for comment. The news agency’s editor, Smita Prakash, categorically told Alt News that the screenshot was a fake image and that ANI had not posted any such tweet. Also, while investigating, one of the X users who shared the screenshot told Alt News that the image was created by them and not an actual ANI tweet. However, we were unable to corroborate this with metadata.

Based on these findings, we can conclude that the viral screenshot on Modi being left out at G7 bearing ANI’s signage is doctored. The news agency did not make any such post.

(With inputs from Mohammed Zubair and Diti Pujara)

The post Did ANI share & delete X post on Modi being ignored in G7 photo? No, viral screenshot is doctored appeared first on Alt News.

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

Ahead of Father’s Day, Celebrity Dads Share Mahmoud Khalil’s Letter to His Newborn Son

Newswire Editor — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 18:09:40 +0000

In the three months since he was illegally detained by ICE for speaking out in support of Palestinian rights, Mahmoud Khalil has been forced to miss the birth of his son, his wife’s first Mother’s Day, and now his own first Father’s Day. To mark this moment, Mo Amer, Mark Ruffalo, Arian Moayed, Dallas Goldtooth, W. Kamau Bell, Mahershala Ali, Tom Morello and Alex Winter came together to read the letter Mahmoud wrote to his newborn son, Deen.

The video begins with Mahmoud’s voice speaking over the phone to Deen from ICE detention in Louisiana: “Yaba Deen, these are my first words to you,” Mahmoud says.

It comes just one day after a federal judge granted Mr. Khalil’s request for preliminary injunction, finding that he would continue to suffer irreparable harm if he remains detained. Further, the court ruled that it was unconstitutional to detain and seek to deport someone purely on the basis of their advocacy. Despite this ruling, he remains detained in Louisiana.

As fathers themselves, these artists are using their platforms to speak out. Palestinian American comedian and actor Mo Amer explains, “I am a Palestinian refugee, asylee to America, became a citizen in 2009, and in 2023 I had a son. Mahmoud’s letter is like a dagger to the heart, and that’s why I am doing this.”

They also understand that if it can happen to Mahmoud, a permanent lawful resident and U.S. green card holder, it can happen to anyone. As Iranian American actor and screenwriter Arian Moayed noted, “I can't imagine being taken away from my child for speaking up for labor rights. I can't imagine being taken away from my child for speaking up for Iranian rights. I can't imagine being taken away from my child for speaking up for veterans rights. All of which I have done in the past. And now I'm saying the same thing. No human being deserves to be taken away from their child because of what they believe in. That's not what this country is made for.”

The celebrity fathers filmed this video because they see how Mahmoud’s struggle is intertwined with theirs. “I know that on this stolen land, nobody is free unless we are all free. And so this is an act of solidarity and love for any and all who dream for a better and healthier future for all of us, in all life on this planet,” said Native American activist and actor from Reservation Dogs’ Dallas Goldtooth.

Furthermore, they know that every day that Mahmoud remains detained is a day too long. Emmy-winning TV host, comedian and activist W. Kamau Bell said it plainly: “I get to go home to my kids. All dads should get that.”

Just last week, dozens of experts outlined the “irreparable harm” he and his loved ones will continue to suffer as long as he remains detained thousands of miles away from him.

“True justice would mean Mahmoud was never taken away from us in the first place, that no Palestinian father, from New York to Gaza, would have to endure the painful separation of prison walls like Mahmoud has. I will not rest until Mahmoud is free, and hope that he can be with us to experience his first Father’s Day at home in New York with Deen in his arms,” said Noor Abdalla, Mahmoud’s wife.

Mr. Khalil is represented by Dratel & Lewis, the Center for Constitutional Rights, CLEAR, Van Der Hout LLP, Washington Square Legal Services, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the ACLU of New Jersey, the ACLU of Louisiana, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

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

‘The Stories We Share’ — Documentary by Radio Free Asia about forced marriage under the Khmer Rouge

Radio Free Asia — Tue, 06 May 2025 16:20:36 +0000

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

‘The Stories We Share’ – they were forced, as strangers, to marry

RFA Investigative — Tue, 06 May 2025 16:14:30 +0000

When the Khmer Rouge rose to power 50 years ago, it inflicted myriad abuses on Cambodians. One of the less-known ways the hardline communist group tried to control life was through forced marriage.

The regime forced tens of thousands of men and women, as strangers, to marry as an effort to populate Democratic Kampuchea.

The documentary “The Stories We Share” looks at this untold legacy of Pol Pot’s rule that left many lasting scars. The filmmakers meet with survivors Oung Phhun and Soeng Chantorn and travel with Khmer Rouge Tribunal educators as they help the younger generation understand their country’s past.

While forced marriage was intended to boost the population, during less than four years under the Khmer Rouge, the population shriveled. An estimated two million people died from starvation, disease and execution.

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

Displaced Ukrainians Share Fears As Cease-Fire Negotiations Drag On | Russia Ukraine War

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 06:14:52 +0000

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

Anti-junta women soldiers in Myanmar share stories from the battlefield

Radio Free Asia — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 12:15:01 +0000

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

‘I Don’t Want To Film It’ | RFE/RL Frontline Reporters Share Emotional Moments Covering Ukraine War

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 10:30:02 +0000

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

Do Democrats share the blame for harmful immigration policies?

Democracy Now! — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 19:38:27 +0000

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

Chinese people share their views on TikTok shut down in the US

Radio Free Asia — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 18:10:36 +0000

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

Has Your Car Been Towed in Connecticut? Share Your Story and Help Us Investigate.

by Ginny Monk, Dave Altimari and Shahrzad Rasekh, The Connecticut Mirror — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 10:05:00 +0000

by Ginny Monk, Dave Altimari and Shahrzad Rasekh, The Connecticut Mirror

Leer en español.

The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica, a national newsroom, need your help to investigate towing practices in Connecticut. We’d like to hear from you if your car was towed. Your response will help us understand how towing companies operate and if they are following policies so we can do journalism that helps and informs the public.

We’re especially interested in hearing from people who weren’t able to get their cars back. As we continue reporting, it’s possible we can find out more about what happened in your case. Filling out the form below will help us do that, and we can share what we find.

We take your privacy seriously. We are gathering these responses for the purposes of our reporting and will contact you if we wish to publish any part of them. You can call or text us at 203-626-4705‬.

Asia Fields of ProPublica contributed reporting.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Ginny Monk, Dave Altimari and Shahrzad Rasekh, The Connecticut Mirror.

BJP Delhi, party leaders share doctored image to show potholes on roads

Pawan Kumar — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 08:24:41 +0000

On December 27, the national capital of New Delhi witnessed rainfall, leading to a further drop in temperatures across the region. Following the rains, BJP leaders shared a photo on social media that showed a man riding a motorcycle on a waterlogged road filled with potholes. Accompanying the image was a caption that stated, “AAP’s lie – roads like London-Paris, Delhi’s truth – potholes on the roads.” The criticism was directed at Delhi chief minister Atishi and the Aam Aadmi Party. BJP leaders used the image to highlight the poor condition of Delhi’s roads after light rainfall.

The official social media accounts of BJP Delhi, including its X handle and Facebook page, also shared the image with a caption mocking the AAP government’s infrastructure claims. The caption read, “After a little rain, the condition of the roads is of European standard.” (Archived link 1, link 2)

थोड़ी सी देर की बारिश के बाद यूरोपियन स्टैण्डर्ड सड़कों का हाल pic.twitter.com/3XMtKMNnnh

— BJP Delhi (@BJP4Delhi) December 28, 2024

BJP IT Cell national head Amit Malviya amplified the claim by sharing the same image on his social media accounts. It is important to note that Malviya has a history of sharing misleading and inaccurate information on social media platforms. (Archived link)

थोड़ी सी देर की बारिश के बाद यूरोपियन स्टैण्डर्ड सड़कों का हाल pic.twitter.com/3XMtKMNnnh

— BJP Delhi (@BJP4Delhi) December 28, 2024

Several other BJP leaders also circulated the image to reinforce similar claims against the AAP government. These included Santosh Ojha, president of BJP Delhi Purvanchal Morcha and BJP scheduled caste morcha Delhi, along with leaders such as Sanjeev Choudhary and Rajiv Babbar. (Archived link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4)

Supporters and members of the BJP further amplified the image with the same claim.

Fact-check

To verify the authenticity of the viral image, Alt News performed a reverse image search. This led us to a similar photograph uploaded by photographer Sanchit Khanna on the Getty Images website on September 30, 2024.

Getty Images is a well-known photo stock platform where professional photographers and photojournalists upload their work. There are some significant differences between the original image on Getty Images and the one being circulated. In the original, the road did show some signs of wear and damage, but it did not contain as many potholes and craters as depicted in the viral version.

According to the caption provided with the image, Delhi chief minister Atishi, along with officials from the public works department (PWD), inspected road conditions near the Outer Ring Road in Kalkaji on September 30, 2024. During this inspection, the chief minister identified potholes near the NSIC complex and instructed officials to ensure that repairs were completed before Diwali.

It is worth noting that the original image dates back to September 30, and is unrelated to the rainfall that occurred recently.

Media outlets such as News18 and Hindustan Times had reported on the September 30 inspection. Their coverage highlighted that chief minister Atishi, accompanied by engineers from the PWD, had surveyed several roads in Delhi. During the inspection, Atishi reassured residents that the roads would be repaired and maintained to ensure a “pothole-free” Diwali.

To sum it up, leaders from the BJP and BJP Delhi shared an edited image, falsely linking it to the rainfall in Delhi on December 27 to target the Aam Aadmi Party.

The post BJP Delhi, party leaders share doctored image to show potholes on roads appeared first on Alt News.

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

Indigenous people defending their land face a disproportionate share of violence and threats

Taylar Dawn Stagner — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In the first-ever global study of its kind, researchers concluded that more attention needs to be paid to physical attacks and threats against land defenders, since those incidents often are the precursor to death.

Last year, a human rights and environmental watchdog group determined that 177 land defenders were killed in 2022. Land defenders are people who seek to protect their communities and environmental resources from destructive development projects ranging from pipelines to mines to farms to wind projects.

This month, however, the Alliance for Land, Indigenous, and Environmental Defenders, or ALLIED, found that there were 916 non-lethal incidents in 46 countries in 2022 — or about five for every death. Non-lethal incidents range from written and verbal threats to kidnapping or detention to physical assaults. The probable perpetrators identified by ALLIED include paramilitary forces, police, local government officials, private security guards, and corporations.

“While police was the commonly named probable perpetrator of the violence, often we see state actors operating on behalf or at the request of other parties, including private businesses,” said Eva Hershaw, who co-chairs ALLIED as part of her work with the International Land Coalition, where she heads their global data and land monitoring.

ALLIED drew on news outlets, social media posts, eyewitness interviews, court filings, and police reports to make its conclusions. The group’s researchers consulted data sets from 12 organizations and talked with affected communities in these countries to assure accuracy. Roughly a third of the organizations that ALLIED worked with used locally based data collectors who confirmed acts of violence with municipalities. For many of these data collectors, this was the first time their data has been used in a global study, Hershaw said.

Of the 916 incidents that didn’t lead to death, nearly a quarter of the victims were Indigenous, despite the fact that Indigenous people make up only 6 percent of the global population. With respect to the assaults and threats that often lead up to killings, “Indigenous Peoples were disproportionately targeted with such violence,” Hershaw said.

Violent attacks and threats against Indigenous land defenders are often underreported due to victims’ fear of retaliation. Also, attacks often happen in rural places away from the eye of the media. The report detailed repeated violence and harassment against individuals as well as whole communities.

Among the most violent places for Indigenous land defenders were Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico, which together accounted for 75 percent of all attacks and threats. Across the 46 countries included in the report, land defenders who spoke out against industrial agriculture and mining were the most at risk.

‘Georgia Is Living In A Dictatorship’: Georgians Share What Drives Them To Protest

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 10:47:46 +0000

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

‘Georgia is living in a dictatorship’: Georgians Share What Drives Them To Protest

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 10:47:46 +0000

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

‘MAGA Republicans and Corporate Media Share a Strategy: Fear Sells’: CounterSpin interview with Julie Hollar and Jim Naureckas on placing blame for Trump

Janine Jackson — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 22:48:38 +0000

Janine Jackson interviewed FAIR’s Julie Hollar and Jim Naureckas about placing blame for Trump for the November 8, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin241108HollarNaureckas.mp3

Janine Jackson: Of the many things to be discussed about what just happened, surely the role of corporate news media is critical. Some issues are legend: Horserace over substance, ignoring actual popular opinion that doesn’t serve major-party talking points, top-down sourcing that ensures that those most harmed by social policies are not at the table when responses are discussed.

But there’s also something about the role of elite media in this election that needs some illuminating as we try to move forward. My guests have just written the first of no doubt many pieces about media’s role. I’m joined by FAIR’s senior analyst Julie Hollar from Brooklyn, and FAIR’s editor Jim Naureckas here in studio. Welcome back to CounterSpin, both of you.

Jim Naureckas: Thanks for having us on.

Julie Hollar: Thank you, Janine.

FAIR.org (10/30/24)

JJ: Well, Jim, the Washington Post’s non-endorsement was a pretend silence that actually said a lot. But we know that most outlets would not stand up and yell, “Donald Trump is our guy.” So we have to think deeper than these once-in-four-years endorsements about how elite news media, still labeled liberal by very many, can grease the wheels of something like what just happened.

JN: Yeah, I do think that the non-endorsement was an important moment in the election. By saying, “We’re not going to take a position between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris,” they’re saying these are two acceptable positions that you can take. And, obviously, a lot of people took the Donald Trump position, so I think that did have more impact than the expected Kamala Harris endorsement would’ve had.

JJ: But when you look at the issues and the other things apart from the election per se, when you look at the way media covered particular issues, you found something that you found important.

JN: I think that there’s an interesting parallel between the Trump campaign strategy and the business strategy of corporate media; there was kind of a synergy there. I don’t think that MAGA Republicans and corporate media have the same goals, necessarily, but I think they share a strategy, which is “fear sells.”

FAIR.org (11/8/24)

I think that media have long understood that fear is a great way to catch and hold an audience’s attention, because we are really evolutionarily attuned to things that are dangerous. Our brains tell us to pay extra attention to those things. And so news media are prone to describe issues in terms of, “Here’s something scary, here’s something that’s going to hurt you.”

And that is also the strategy that Donald Trump has hit on. His campaign ads were all about fear, all about the danger of Democrats and the Biden/Harris administration. And he played on a lot of issues that corporate media have used to sell their papers, to sell their TV programs.

Immigration is one of the most obvious ones: Corporate media have treated immigration as, “Here’s something that you should be afraid about. There’s this flood of immigrants coming over the border. It’s a border crisis.” Particularly since the beginning of the Biden administration, this has been a drumbeat.

And there’s been a lot of distortions of numbers, of presenting this as some kind of unprecedented wave of migrants, that is not true. But by presenting it as this brand new threat, they’re able to sell more papers than they would otherwise have done–or sell clicks, I guess is what they’re in the business of now.

And so Trump was able to piggyback on a picture that had already been painted for him by corporate media, that these immigrants are something you should be afraid of. And he was the person who was promising to do something about them.

FAIR.org (7/25/24)

JJ: And it built on years, also, of crime coverage. The way that immigration and crime were stirred up together, I think, is also part of that fear mongering that you’re talking about.

JN: When you look at crime statistics, the striking thing is how much lower crime is now than it was 30 years ago, 40 years ago. It was at a much higher level than it is today, but that is not a story that is going to sell news to people. You want to sell people with the idea that, “You’re in danger, read our news report to find out how.”

And so even though crime is both historically down from earlier decades, and it’s been down over the course of the Biden administration, that is not the story that people have been told. The story is that, “Here’s some scary crimes, and what are we going to do about this crime crisis?” And, again, Donald Trump was able to use that picture, that had been painted by right-wing and centrist media alike, in order to present himself as this strong man who is going to do something about the criminal threat.

JJ: We can add to that: Truthout reported, as you note, that “Republicans spent nearly $215 million on network TV ads vilifying transgender people in this election cycle.” And that fits, too, with this, “There’s something to be afraid of. There are people to be afraid of.”

FAIR.org (5/11/23)

JN: Yeah, it is really striking that this was the big push in the closing days of the campaign; the Trump campaign was pumping their campaign funds into ads that presented this transgender threat. That was the thing that they thought was going to get people to vote.

Interestingly, a lot of the ads focused on the idea that Kamala Harris wanted to pay for gender reassignment surgery for federal prisoners. So it sort of ties in the trans threat and the crime threat, as trans criminals…. It’s hard to construct a rational danger that is posed by the situation.

JH: Can I jump in here? Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it also immigrant trans prisoners?

JJ: Just to tie it all up with a bow.

JH: I could be wrong, so delete that if I’m wrong. But….

JJ: I don’t doubt it. Just for the reason that Jim’s saying, it’s hard to create a rational story around it. And the truth is, you don’t have to. You just say a number of words that have been designated hot buttons, and if you can throw ’em all together, well, then, so much the better.

JN: And this is really an issue where the groundwork was laid by right-wing and centrist media alike. Fox News, trans threat stories are part of their bread and butter, but the New York Times has also done a great number of stories about the supposed threat trans youth pose. They’re going to be getting into girls sports, or gender-affirming care is somehow going to snatch your child away from you.

These are stories that the supposedly liberal press has been hammering hard on, and so really given someone like Trump, who wants to demagogue these issues, a real platform to begin his harangue from, because you’ve already read about it in a supposedly authoritative source like the New York Times.

Julie Hollar: “You would expect journalists in a democratic society to take as the central story here that targeting of these minority groups.”

JH: I wanted to underscore that. I was thinking about how the corporate media, to me, bear such responsibility on both the issues of immigration and trans rights, because those two issues are miscovered by the corporate media in a very similar way. They’re both this beleaguered, very small minority–although the right wing, of course, is trying to make everyone believe that they are not a small minority, either of them–but both are very small minorities who are the target of these really punitive campaigns, whose bottom-line goal really is eliminating them from our society, which is classic fascism.

So you would expect journalists in a democratic society to take as the central story here that targeting of these minority groups. For the past many years, they should have been reporting these issues from the perspective of immigrants, from the perspective of trans people, humanizing them, providing us with this understanding of who’s really being harmed here, which is the opposite story of what the right wing is trying to tell.

And by not doing that at all–and I should also interrupt to say that not every corporate media outlet has been doing that on trans issues; the New York Times does really stand out, in terms of being bad about this. On immigration, it’s pretty much across the board bad in corporate media.

But instead of doing the kind of democratic journalism that you need in a moment like this, you have them really just feeding into the same narrative that the right-wing movement is putting out there. So when they then turn around–well, I’m getting ahead of myself–and then blame the left for these losses, it’s very angering.

JJ: I want to draw you out on that, because the New York Times itself came out swinging. They’re pretty sure why Democrats lost, but you described their explanation as “mind boggling,” so just keep going with what you’re saying there.

New York Times (11/6/24)

JH: So the editorial board put out their diagnosis of the Democrats’ problem the day after the election. They had no doubts about this. They blamed it, in part, on the fact that it took, here I’m going to quote, “it took too long to recognize that large swaths of their progressive agenda were alienating voters.”

They don’t say exactly what progressive agenda this was. From a progressive perspective, it’s hard to see very much progressivism in the Democratic agenda. But in the same paragraph, it goes on to talk about how Democrats have really struggled for the last three elections to find a persuasive message that Americans really can believe in, that they can’t find a way to offer a vision to people to improve their lives.

This is the same paragraph where they’re talking about this alienating progressive agenda, and when you look at the exit polls, it’s very clear that the main driver, it seems, of the Trump vote, when you set aside the real core believers, this election was won because of the economy.

And if the Democrats are struggling to find a vision that appeals to voters, the progressive agenda is the agenda that appeals to voters. It’s not in question. Medicare for All, a wealth tax, living minimum wage: all of these big, very popular progressive agenda items that the Democratic Party flirted with in the primaries four years ago, and has since really run pretty hard away from.

Harris had a few little economic agenda items that were somewhat progressive, like her anti–price gouging plan. She did have something about minimum wage, but, really, the big ticket items that people really want to see and could really make a big difference in their lives, those weren’t the things that Kamala Harris was hitching her wagon to.

Jim Naureckas: “When Democrats do talk about progressive economic programs, that is when the corporate media really watchdogs them.”

JN: And when Democrats do talk about progressive economic programs, that is when the corporate media really watchdogs them. They are very alert to any signs of economic radicalism, like universal healthcare. When Harris was talking to media, the repeated demand that she re-renounce her former endorsement of Medicare for All was really striking. There was a suspicion that “you haven’t really changed from the candidate in 2020, who was suggesting that we ought to pay for everybody’s healthcare.” That is the kind of stance that that community finds very suspicious, and very nervous-making.

JJ: We only have a couple more minutes, and I do want you both to have an opportunity to talk about other takeaways. Obviously, this is a work in progress. We’re just getting started here, but it seems as though asking for corporate news media to be self-aware, to actually take some accountability, to acknowledge that there’s a relationship between what they report and how and what happens in the world. It seems like we’re moving farther and farther from that, and I’m reminded of the Upton Sinclair quote, “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Now, you might say that more of media owners, more so than reporters, but it does just bring us back, doesn’t it, to the fact of who owns and controls our news media, who they feel accountable to. And it’s not us. The top-down problems that we’re talking about, they’re structural.

JN: Absolutely. If you have a media that is dominated by billionaires, you are going to get a different take on the problems facing the country than if you had democratic media that was answerable to the general public.

Going back to the Washington Post, and Jeff Bezos refusing to let them endorse a candidate in the election, he’s a guy who is one of the richest people on earth. His fortune is largely based on government contracts, and so he has a super strong interest in making sure that the president of the United States doesn’t have a vendetta against him.

FAIR.org (7/14/23)

And he’s got another strong interest in the fact that the Biden administration was pursuing antitrust claims against Amazon, which was very important. The amount of money taken from the public by Amazon‘s artificially increased prices is actually quite large, and has a lot to do with why Jeff Bezos is one of the richest people on Earth. And so having Harris not in the White House could be a real boon for his personal fortune.

And then you have Elon Musk, again, someone who depends heavily on government contracts, who has been promised a prominent role in a Trump administration, and he was using his takeover of Twitter to pump out election disinformation on a really wholesale scale. The claims about illegal immigrants voting was a nonstop flow on what he calls X now, in the weeks running up to the election.

And he’s got tens of millions of people who are getting his stuff, and he’s rigged the platform so that if you’re on it, you’re definitely going to hear from the boss. It is just a firehose of disinformation, coming from the owner himself of this centrally important social media platform.

JJ: Julie Hollar, any final thoughts?

CounterSpin (10/27/24)

JH: Journalism is absolutely critical for democracy, and we have to remember that moving forward. And I think we can’t just ignore the big corporate outlets and let them off the hook and say, “Well, write them off because they’re never going to get better.” I mean, there are structural issues that are going to always limit them, and we have to keep demanding better, always.

And at the same time, I think it’s really important that everybody dig deep and support tough, strong, independent journalism that exists all over this country. Local outlets, wherever you are, that are doing really important work in your city or in your neighborhood, all of the independent media that are working nationwide as well, all the media critics; everyone is going to need so much support for the coming years to help defend this democracy, and we all really need to step up and support them.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with FAIR senior analyst, Julie Hollar, and FAIR’s editor, Jim Naureckas. Thank you both, Julie and Jim, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

JN: Thank you.

JH: Thank you.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

Who did you vote for? Swing State residents share surprising answers in Milwaukee, WI

The Real News Network — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 01:34:25 +0000

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

How should Starmer end race riots? openDemocracy readers share their thoughts

Nandini Naira Archer — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 10:04:29 +0000

Disagree with an article we’ve published? Have something to say? Get in touch! We want to hear your views!

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Nandini Naira Archer.

"The Only Answer Is Peace": Israeli and Palestinian Activists Share Vision of Coexistence

Democracy Now! — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 14:15:03 +0000

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

“The Only Answer Is Peace”: Israeli and Palestinian Activists Share Vision of Coexistence

Democracy Now! — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 12:42:38 +0000

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave an address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, many Democratic lawmakers skipped the speech and held an alternative event on Capitol Hill to promote peace. The panel discussion featured Maoz Inon and Aziz Abu Sarah, Israeli and Palestinian peacemakers who have both lost family members to violence. Inon’s parents, Bilha and Yakovi Inon, were killed in the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. When Abu Sarah was a child, his teenage brother was arrested and held in Israeli prison for a year and died shortly after his release from internal injuries he suffered while being tortured in prison. Both Inon and Abu Sarah join Democracy Now! to talk about how they are hoping to use these tragedies to foster peace in Israel-Palestine.

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

When media freedom as the ‘oxygen of democracy’ and hypocrisy share the same Pacific arena

Pacific Media Watch — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 09:44:48 +0000

Pacific Media Watch

Many platitudes about media freedom and democracy laced last week’s Pacific International Media Conference in the Fijian capital of Suva. There was a mood of euphoria at the impressive event, especially from politicians who talked about journalism being the “oxygen of democracy”.

The dumping of the draconian and widely hated Fiji Media Industry Development Act that had started life as a military decree in 2010, four years after former military commander Voreqe Bainimarama seized power, and was then enacted in the first post-coup elections in 2014, was seen as having restored media freedom for the first time in almost two decades.

As a result, Fiji had bounced back 45 places to 44th on this year’s Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index – by far the biggest climb of any nation in Oceania, where most countries, including Australia and New Zealand, have been sliding downhill.

READ MORE: Other Pacific Media Conference reports

One of Fiji’s three deputy Prime Ministers, Professor Biman Prasad, a former University of the South Pacific economist and long a champion of academic and media freedom, told the conference the new Coalition government headed by the original 1987 coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka had reintroduced media self-regulation and “we can actually feel the freedom everywhere, including in Parliament”.

The same theme had been offered at the conference opening ceremony by another deputy PM, Manoa Kamikamica, who declared:

“We pride ourselves on a government that tries to listen, and hopefully we can try and chart a way forward in terms of media freedom and journalism in the Pacific, and most importantly, Fiji.

“They say that journalism is the oxygen of democracy, and that could be no truer than in the case of Fiji.”

Happy over media law repeal
Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Information and Communication Technology Timothy Masiu echoed the theme. Speaking at the conference launch of a new book, Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific (co-edited by Professor Prasad, conference chair Associate Professor Shailendra Singh and Dr Amit Sarwal), he said: “We support and are happy with this government of Fiji for repealing the media laws that went against media freedom in Fiji in the recent past.”

Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica . . . speaking about the “oxygen of democracy” at the opening of the Pacific International Media Conference in Suva on 4 July 2024. Image: Asia Pacific Media Network

But therein lies an irony. While Masiu supports the repeal of a dictatorial media law in Fiji, he is a at the centre of controversy back home over a draft media law (now in its fifth version) that he is spearheading that many believe will severely curtail the traditional PNG media freedom guaranteed under the constitution.

He defends his policies, saying that in PNG, “given our very diverse society with over 1000 tribes and over 800 languages and huge geography, correct and factful information is also very, very critical.”

Masiu says that what drives him is a “pertinent question”:

“How is the media being developed and used as a tool to protect and preserve our Pacific identity?”

PNG Minister for Information and Communications Technology Timothy Masiu (third from right) at the conference pre-dinner book launchings at Holiday Inn, Suva, on July 4. The celebrants are holding the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review. Image: Wansolwara

Another issue over the conference was the hypocrisy over debating media freedom in downtown Suva while a few streets away Fijian freedom of speech advocates and political activists were being gagged about speaking out on critical decolonisation and human rights issues such as Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua freedom.

In the front garden of the Gordon Street compound of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC), the independence flags of Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua flutter in the breeze. Placards and signs daub the walls of the centre declaring messages such as “Stop the genocide”, “Resistance is justified! When people are occupied!”, “Free Kanaky – Justice for Kanaky”, “Ceasefire, stop genocide”, “Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world” and “We need rainbows not Rambos”.

The West Papuan Morning Star and Palestinian flags for decolonisation fluttering high in downtown Suva. Image: APMN

‘Thursdays in Black’
While most of the 100 conference participants from 11 countries were gathered at the venue to launch the peace journalism book Waves of Change and the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review, about 30 activists were gathered at the same time on July 4 in the centre’s carpark for their weekly “Thursdays in Black” protest.

But they were barred from stepping onto the footpath in public or risk arrest. Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly Fiji-style.

Protesters at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre compound in downtown Suva in the weekly “Thursdays in Black” solidarity rally with Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua on July 4. Image: APMN

Surprisingly, the protest organisers were informed on the same day that they could stage a “pre-Bastllle Day” protest about Kanaky and West Papua on July 12, but were banned from raising Israeli’s genocidal war on Palestine.

Fiji is the only Pacific country to seek an intervention in support of Tel Aviv in South Africa’s case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague accusing Israel of genocide in a war believed to have killed more than 38,000 Palestinians — including 17,000 children — so far, although an article in The Lancet medical journal argues that the real death toll is more like 138,000 people – equivalent to almost a fifth of Fiji’s population.

The protest march was staged on Friday but in spite of the Palestine ban some placards surfaced and also Palestinian symbols such as keffiyehs and watermelons.

The “pre-Bastille Day” march in Suva in solidarity for decolonisation. Image: FWCC

The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji and their allies have been hosting vigils at FWCC compound for Palestine, West Papua and Kanaky every Thursday over the last eight months, calling on the Fiji government and Pacific leaders to support the ceasefire in Gaza, and protect the rights of Palestinians, West Papuans and Kanaks.

“The struggles of Palestinians are no different to West Papua, Kanaky New Caledonia — these are struggles of self-determination, and their human rights must be upheld,” said FWCC coordinator and the NGO coalition chair Shamima Ali.

Solidarity for Kanaky in the “pre-Bastille Day” march in Suva on Friday. Image: FWCC

Media silence noticed
Outside the conference, Pacific commentators also noticed the media hypocrisy and the extraordinary silence.

Canberra-based West Papuan diplomacy-trained activist and musician Ronny Kareni complained in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “While media personnel, journos and academia in journalism gathered [in Suva] to talk about media freedom, media network and media as the oxygen of democracy etc., why Papuan journos can’t attend, yet Indon[esian] ambassador to Fiji @SimamoraDupito can??? Just curious.”

Ronny Kareni’s X post about the Indonesian Ambassador to Fiji Dupito D. Simamora. Image: @ronnykareni X screenshot APR

At the conference itself, some speakers did raise the Palestine and decolonisation issue.

Speaker Khairiah A Rahman (from left) of the Asia Pacific Media Network and colleagues Pacific Journalism Review designer Del Abcede, PJR editor Dr Philip Cass, Dr Adam Brown, PJR founder Dr David Robie, and Rach Mario (Whānau Community Hub). Image: APMN

Khairiah A. Rahman, of the Asia Pacific Media Network, one of the partner organisers along with the host University of the South Pacific and Pacific Islands News Association, spoke on the “Media, Community, Social Cohesion and Conflict Prevention” panel following Hong Kong Professor Cherian George’s compelling keynote address about “Cracks in the Mirror: When Media Representations Sharpen Social Divisions”.

She raised the Palestine crisis as a critical global issue and also a media challenge.

“Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world” poster at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre compound. Image: APMN

In his keynote address, “Frontline Media Faultlines: How Critical Journalism Can Survive Against the Odds”, Professor David Robie, also of APMN, spoke of the common decolonisation threads between Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua.

He also critiquing declining trust in mainstream media – that left some “feeling anxious and powerless” — and how they were being fragmented by independent start-ups that were perceived by many people as addressing universal truths such as the genocide in Palestine.

PJR editorial challenge
Dr Robie cited the editorial in the just-published Pacific Journalism Review which had laid down a media challenge over Gaza. He wrote:

“Gaza has become not just a metaphor for a terrible state of dystopia in parts of the world, it has also become an existential test for journalists – do we stand up for peace and justice and the right of people to survive under the threat of ethnic cleansing and against genocide, or do we do nothing and remain silent in the face of genocide being carried out with impunity in front of our very eyes?

“The answer is simple surely . . .

“And it is about saving journalism, our credibility, and our humanity as journalists.”

Professor David Robie’s keynote speech at Pacific Media 2023. Video: The Australia Today

At the end of his address, Dr Robie called for a minute’s silence in a tribute to the 158 Palestinian journalists who had been killed so far in the ninth-month war on Gaza. The Gazan journalists were awarded this year’s UNESCO Guillermo Cano Media Freedom Prize for their “courage and commitment to freedom of expression”.

Undoubtedly the two most popular panels in the conference were the “Pacific Editors’ Forum” when eight editors from around the region “spoke their minds”, and a panel on sexual harassment on the media workplace and on the job.

Little or no action
According to speakers in “Gender and Media in the Pacific: Examining violence that women Face” panel introduced and moderated by Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) executive director Nalini Singh, female journalists continue to experience inequalities and harassment in their workplaces and on assignment — with little or no action taken against their perpetrators.

Fiji journalist Lice Movono speaking on a panel discussion about “Prevalence and Impact of sexual harassment on female journalists” at the Pacific International Media Conference in Fiji. Image: Stefan Armbruster/Benar News

The speakers included FWRM programme director Laisa Bulatale, experienced Pacific journalists Lice Movono and Georgina Kekea, strategic communications specialist Jacqui Berell and USP’s Dr Shailendra Singh, associate professor and the conference chair.

“As 18 and 19 year old (journalists), what we experienced 25 years ago in the industry is still the same situation — and maybe even worse now for young female journalists,” Movono said.

She shared “unfortunate and horrifying” accounts of experiences of sexual harassment by local journalists and the lack of space to discuss these issues.

These accounts included online bullying coupled with threats against journalists and their loved ones and families. stalking of female journalists, always being told to “suck it up” by bosses and other colleagues, the fear and stigma of reporting sexual harassment experiences, feeling as if no one would listen or care, the lack of capacity/urgency to provide psychological social support and many more examples.

“They do the work and they go home, but they take home with them, trauma,” Movono said.

And Kekea added: “Women journalists hardly engage in spaces to have their issues heard, they are often always called upon to take pictures and ‘cover’.”

Technology harassment
Berell talked about Technology Facilitated Gender Based Violence (TFGBV) — a grab bag term to cover the many forms of harassment of women through online violence and bullying.

The FWRM also shared statistics on the combined research with USP’s School of Journalism on the “Prevalence and Impact of Sexual Harassment on Female Journalists” and data on sexual harassment in the workplace undertaken by the team.

Speaking from the floor, New Zealand Pacific investigative television journalist Indira Stewart also rounded off the panel with some shocking examples from Aotearoa New Zealand.

In spite of the criticisms over hypocrisy and silence over global media freedom and decolonisation challenges, participants generally concluded this was the best Pacific media conference in many years.

Asia Pacific Media Network’s Nik Naidu (right) with Maggie Boyle and Professor Emily Drew. Image: Del Abcede/APMN

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

‘My Body Shakes’: Locals Share Kosovo War Memories, 25 Years After NATO KFOR Forces Arrived

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 11:20:17 +0000

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

Pacific gets ‘record’ share of Australia’s static foreign aid budget

By Stephen Wright for BenarNews — Wed, 15 May 2024 07:30:31 +0000

Pacific island countries are getting an increased share of Australian foreign aid, budget documents show, as it shifts into funding infrastructure such as undersea cables and ports in response to China’s inroads in the region.

Overall, Australia’s foreign aid budget is flat and it remains one of the least generous donors in the OECD club of wealthy nations, ranking 26th out of 31 countries. The increased focus on infrastructure also means that proportionately less of the aid budget will be spent on health.

In the Pacific, the largest aid increases in Australia’s 2024-2025 government budget are directed at Fiji, where Australia will help fund a port upgrade, and Tuvalu. The atoll nation of 12,000 people last year ceded a partial veto of its foreign policy and security relationships to Australia under the Falepili Union agreement.

“If we look at this reduction in health -- is this because our partners have told us they’re not that interested in health -- I don’t think so,” said Stephen Howes, director of the Australian National University’s Development Policy Center.

“If we’re going to go into Fiji and tell them we are using our aid to help them expand their port, that’s because we don’t want China to do it, and that’s going to mean less funding for health,” he said at a panel Wednesday on the budget’s aid component.

China’s government has courted Pacific island nations for several decades as it seeks to isolate Taiwan diplomatically, gain allies in international institutions and erode U.S. military dominance.

Its inroads with Pacific island nations, including a security pact with the Solomon Islands in 2022, have galvanized renewed U.S. attention to the region.

The budget released Tuesday shows the government has allocated A$4.96 billion [US$3.29 billion] to aid, an increase of 4.0% from the previous year.

“Australia is delivering a record $2 billion in development assistance to the Pacific, maintaining Australia's position as the region's largest and most comprehensive development partner,” the budget papers said.

In real terms, the spending is flat at 0.19% of Australia’s national income, according to the Australian Council for International Development, and less than half of its level in the 1980s.

“This budget provided the government with an opportunity to show real humanitarian leadership in responding to human suffering across the world,” the council said in a statement.

“Australians see what is happening on their screens in all corners of the globe and expect their government to do more. This budget barely touches the surface,” it said.

Howes said the budget documents project aid spending to be unchanged for the next decade and beyond.

Pacific island countries now account for more than 40% of the aid budget, almost doubling from a decade earlier, at least partly reflecting government concerns about China’s role in a region that Australia has regarded as its sphere of influence.

Australia remains the single largest donor to Pacific island countries despite China’s enlarged presence in the region. At least a fifth of the Australian aid budget is spent on what Australia calls governance programs that aim to bolster democracy, anti-corruption efforts and transparency of public institutions.

For Tuvalu, Australia will provide additional funds for its land reclamation projects that aim to protect against king tides and projected sea-level rise and also contribute the lion’s share of the country’s first undersea telecommunications cable.

Tuvalu, one of the dwindling number of nations that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, last year signed a treaty with Australia that requires it to have Australia’s agreement for “any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other state or entity on security and defence-related matters.”

In Fiji, Australia is providing budget support to the government as the tourism-dependent economy continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. It also is supporting an upgrade to Fiji’s largest bulk cargo port and its shipbuilding industry.

Papua New Guinea, with its estimated 12 million people, remains the single largest recipient of Australian aid in the Pacific at A$637.4 million. The Solomon Islands, where Australia has a security force stationed after riots in 2021, is the second largest with A$171.2 million.

The budget documents also revealed that Australia’s government agreed in December to provide an A$600 million loan to Papua New Guinea, a day after the two countries signed a defense cooperation agreement.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Stephen Wright for BenarNews.

Iranian RFE/RL Listeners Share Their Worries With Iran’s Attack On Israel

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 08:06:34 +0000

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

‘We are helping share Buddhism’

Radio Free Asia — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 22:02:58 +0000

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

US needs to share military secrets, Australian diplomat says

By Alex Willemyns for RFA — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 19:20:00 +0000

The United States can no longer go it alone on defense technology innovation and the production of military hardware, with foes like China and Russia already “outpacing” U.S. capabilities in some key areas, an Australian diplomat said in Washington on Friday.

The comments came as a deadline looms within weeks for U.S. President Joe Biden to sign-off on a deal approved by Congress last year for Australia and the United Kingdom to be able to import sensitive American military technology without requiring a license.

The controversial deal is central to “Pillar 2” of the AUKUS security pact between the three allies, which envisions a “seamless” defense industry across the countries to allow them to jointly develop new defense technologies and produce more military hardware.

Pillar 2 was opposed by some American lawmakers, who said it could make it easier for Chinese spies to obtain U.S. defense secrets, and was even stymied by the U.S. State Department, which argued existing licensing arrangements provided adequate access to allies.

However, Paul Myler, the soon-to-depart deputy head of the Australian Embassy in Washington, told an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that such bureaucracy was a relic of the past.

Paul Myler, the soon-to-depart deputy head of the Australian Embassy in Washington, speaks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies April 5, 2024 in Washington. (Image from CSIS video)

Myler said the United States had long resisted sharing defense technology secrets with allies, because it was “operating off a legacy playbook” from the Cold War that aimed to defeat the Soviet Union by preserving America’s global superiority in military innovation.

“This superiority was protected by a complex export-control regime that allowed for exports to U.S. allies and partners, but kept know-how and manufacturing capability strictly in U.S. hands,” he said. “That strategy worked while the U.S. maintained its technological superiority.”

But three decades after the Cold War, Myler said, America’s defense industrial base was often struggling to produce hardware like nuclear submarines, while its foes were increasingly matching its capabilities.

“Almost all of those Cold War-era technologies have now proliferated,” he said of the once closely-guarded innovations. “In some instances, Russia and China are outpacing U.S. and allied capabilities.”

Looser U.S. export controls protected by better Australian and British security was the only fix, he said, so each AUKUS country can “take advantage of the innovative and productive capacities” of the others without fears that military secrets will fall into the wrong hands.

Pillar 2

Biden must decide by mid-April whether to approve the Congress-passed measure to authorize Australia and the United Kingdom for exemptions from the strict export controls.

A top State Department official said earlier this year that the two countries were on their way to convincing American officials that safeguards had been put in place to protect sensitive military technology.

“They are doing what they need and we're doing what we need to put in place all the steps that have to happen so that we can certify,” Bonnie Jenkins, the under secretary of state for arms control, told a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Feb. 14.

“I feel very confident that we will certify,” she said.

A “seamless” AUKUS defense industrial base also looks set for some further expansion, with Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell indicating on Wednesday there could be news after next week’s visit to Washington by the leaders of Japan and the Philippines.

Then-U.S. National Security Council Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell speaks during a press conference at the Presidential Office in Seoul, South Korea, July 18, 2023. (Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

“It’s true that there are other countries that have expressed an interest to participate, under the right circumstances,” Campbell said.

“I think it was always believed when AUKUS was launched that, at some point, we would welcome new countries to participate, in particular, in Pillar 2,” the No. 2 American diplomat said. “I think you'll hear that we have something to say about that next week.”

The beans may have been spilled by the U.S. ambassador to Japan in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published the same day, though.

“Biden has injected new energy into the Quad and launched the Aukus defense pact with the U.K. and Australia,” Rahm Emanuel wrote, “with Japan about to become the first additional Pillar II partner.”

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

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

International Women’s Day 2024: Two women share their story of resilience and change

International Rescue Committee — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 13:50:28 +0000

This content originally appeared on International Rescue Committee and was authored by International Rescue Committee.

As Millionaire Earners Stop Paying Into Social Security for the Rest of 2024, New Polling Shows Americans Want the Wealthy to Pay Their Fair Share

Newswire Editor — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 20:37:28 +0000

The agency finalized changes to a Risk Management Program (RMP) that covers 11,740 facilities across the country. Noting that many communities "vulnerable to chemical accidents are in overburdened and underserved areas," EPA Administrator Michael Regan framed the rule as a key piece of the administration's "commitment to advancing environmental justice."

"The new rule, while not perfect, will go a long way to protect people's health."

Accidental releases from RMP facilities cost over $540 million annually and highly impact approximately 131 million people who live within three miles of such sites—including 44 million earning less than or equal to twice the poverty level, 32 million who identify as Hispanic or Latino, and 20 million who identify as Black or African American, according to EPA estimates.

"Over 1 in every 3 schoolchildren in the U.S. attends a school within the danger zone of these facilities. Children are uniquely vulnerable to the health impacts caused by toxic chemical exposures such as respiratory illnesses and cancers," said Moms Clean Air Force vice president Dominique Browning. "Moms—and all caregivers—support EPA's important step in the strengthening of the Risk Management Program. We urge EPA to swiftly implement and enforce the new rules to help protect the health and safety of all children."

As the EPA summarized, the amendments include:

Requiring a safer technologies and alternatives analysis, and in some cases, implementation of reliable safeguard measures for certain facilities in industry sectors with high accident rates;
Advancing employee participation, training, and opportunities for employee decision-making in facility accident prevention;
Reiterating the allowance of a partial or complete process shutdown in the event of a potential catastrophic release;
Implementing a process to allow employees and their representatives to anonymously report specific unaddressed hazards;
Requiring third-party compliance audits and root cause analysis incident investigation for facilities that have had a prior accident;
Enhancing facility planning and preparedness efforts to strengthen emergency response by ensuring chemical release information is timely shared with local responders and a community notification system is in place to warn the community of any impending release;
Emphasizing the requirement for regulated facilities to evaluate risks of natural hazards and climate change, including any associated loss of power; and
Increasing transparency by providing access to RMP facility information for communities nearby.

"While there is certainly more that must be done to prevent chemical disasters, EPA's rule is a major step forward for ensuring that the most hazardous facilities implement safer technologies and provide greater public access to information," said Earthjustice attorney Kathleen Riley. "We urge industry to implement these life-saving measures without delay."

Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, which brings together labor unions and environmental groups, also welcomed the update, stressing that "a strong RMP rule empowers workers and saves lives. It protects workers and emergency responders and safeguards communities in the shadow of these chemical facilities."

Jennifer Jones, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Center for Science and Democracy, pointed out that "the previous administration severely weakened those rules, depriving communities of information about what hazardous chemicals they might be exposed to and rolling back critical safety requirements intended to protect workers at facilities covered by the RMP."

"In recent years, hundreds of chemical incidents have occurred at facilities covered by the RMP—imposing a serious cost to workers and people living in harm's way, as well as to first responders and local governments that have to deal with the aftermath," Jones continued. "The new rule, while not perfect, will go a long way to protect people's health."

The Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters, which has tracked incidents involving hazardous chemicals since January 2021, documented at least 323 events last year, at least 81 of which occurred at RMP facilities.

"We're glad that EPA stood its ground despite strong industry pressure and required more RMP facilities to report on safer chemicals and processes that could be implemented to prevent chemical disasters," Maya Nye, federal policy director at coalition member Coming Clean, said Friday. "This establishes an important precedent."

"We will continue urging EPA to require all RMP facilities to identify and transition to safer chemicals and processes in accordance with the principles laid out in the Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals, as part of our ongoing work to transform the chemical industry so that it's no longer a source of harm," Nye added.

Michele Roberts, co-coordinator of another coalition member, the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, celebrated the EPA's new online database for RMP facilities, and highlighted that "communities have been asking for this information for decades."

"We have a right to know whether our houses, schools, and places of worship are threatened by a potential chemical disaster," she said. "We look forward to a time when a database on RMP facility and hazard information will no longer be needed because every facility will have transitioned to safe chemicals and processes, but in the meantime EPA making this critical information more accessible to communities is a huge step."

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

We’re Investigating Mental Health Care Access. Share Your Insights.

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

by Max Blau, Duaa Eldeib, Jeff Ernsthausen, Maya Miller, Lizzie Presser and Annie Waldman

About one in f ive people in the United States have a mental illness. Yet for many, accessing care can be extremely difficult. Our team of investigative reporters plans to spend the next several months digging into the reasons behind these persistent issues.

To identify and report important stories, we need to hear from people throughout the mental health care system. Those we’ve spoken to so far have shared details about common problems. Many seeking care can’t find a provider or program with availability, with some waiting months — or even years — to get the care they need. Meanwhile, insurance companies have refused to pay for necessary care while those in crisis often land in overcrowded emergency rooms. On top of that, systemic pressures can cause providers to misdiagnose patients, especially women and people of color.

Now, we want to go deeper, by gathering the perspectives of the people who know the country’s mental health system best.

Mental health care providers have already begun sharing the challenges they face in trying to get patients the treatment they need, from barriers to joining or staying in an insurance network to navigating low reimbursement rates. We would like to connect with as many of you as possible in order to identify themes and patterns in this space.

We also hope to hear from others who know intimately how the mental health care system operates, like those who work in behavioral health wings at insurance companies or independent medical review organizations. Please fill out the form below if you have worked, or currently work, as a medical director, actuary or network manager or have any other insider insight to share.

And if you have tried to navigate this system, either by yourself or on behalf of a friend or family member, we hope to learn from you too. Your insights help us understand the consequences of the structure and delivery of mental health care today.

Our team may not be able to respond to everyone personally, but we will read everything you submit. We appreciate you sharing your story, and we take your privacy seriously. We are gathering these stories for the purposes of our reporting and will contact you if we wish to publish any part of your story.

We are the only ones reading what you submit. If you would prefer to use an encrypted app, see our advice at propublica.org/tips. You can also email our reporting team at mentalhealth@propublica.org.

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

How has music impacted your life so far? Share your story in the comments below!

Playing For Change — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 16:55:48 +0000

This content originally appeared on Playing For Change and was authored by Playing For Change.

At least 27 Bangladeshi journalists attacked, harassed while covering political rallies

Committee to Protect Journalists — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 22:19:00 +0000

New York, November 1, 2023 – Bangladesh authorities must immediately and impartially investigate the assaults on at least 27 journalists covering recent political rallies and hold the perpetrators accountable, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.

On Saturday, October 28, at least 27 journalists covering rallies in the capital of Dhaka were attacked by supporters of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the ruling Awami League party, as well as police, according to a statement by local press freedom group Bangladeshi Journalists in International Media, several journalists who spoke to CPJ, and various news reports.

BNP demonstrators demanded that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League step down and allow a nonpartisan caretaker government to oversee the upcoming election scheduled for January. Police fired tear gas, sound grenades, and rubber bullets to disperse BNP protesters, who threw stones and bricks in response.

“The attacks on at least 27 Bangladeshi journalists covering recent political rallies in Dhaka must see swift and transparent accountability,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna. “The leadership and supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Awami League, as well as police, must respect the rights of journalists to freely and safely report on the lead-up to the upcoming election scheduled for January.”

Md Rafsan Jani, a crime reporter for The Daily Kalbela newspaper, told CPJ that he was filming BNP supporters allegedly assaulting police officers when two demonstrators approached him and took his phone and identification card. A group of BNP supporters then surrounded Jani and beat him with iron rods, sticks, and pipes as he repeatedly identified himself as a journalist, he said, adding that he managed to escape after around 20 minutes. As of November 1, his items had not been returned.

S A Masum, a photographer for The Daily Inqilab newspaper, told CPJ that he was taking photos of a confrontation between Awami League and BNP supporters when his head was repeatedly struck from behind with what he suspected to be a bamboo stick, knocking him unconscious while the attackers, whom he did not identify, continued to beat him. Bystanders at the scene rescued Masum and took him to the hospital, where he was treated for a concussion and severe bruising and open lesions throughout his body, according to the journalist, who shared photos of his injuries with CPJ.

Md Sirajum Salekin, a crime reporter for the Dhaka Times newspaper, told CPJ that he was on his motorcycle on the way to cover clashes at the chief justice’s residence when a vehicle hit his motorcycle from behind, causing him to fall and break two bones in his right leg. Salekin said he believed he was targeted because he was wearing his press badge and his motorcycle was marked with a sticker of the Dhaka Times, which has critically reported on the Awami League.

Awami League demonstrators beat The Daily Kalbela reporter Abu Saleh Musa while covering their rally, according to The Daily Star.

Mohammad Ali Mazed, a video reporter for the French news agency Agence France-Presse, told CPJ that he was covering a clash between police and BNP demonstrators while holding a camera and press identification when five to six demonstrators surrounded him. The demonstrators damaged Mazed’s camera and other news equipment and beat him on his head, back, and right shoulder with bamboo sticks for around three minutes until the journalist fled the scene with the assistance of bystanders, he said.

Sazzad Hossain, a freelance photographer working with the news website Bangla Tribune and international outlets, including the British newspaper The Guardian and photo agency SOPA Images, told CPJ that BNP protesters threw broken bricks at him and trampled him while he was covering a clash with police.

Salahuddin Ahmed Shamim, a freelance photographer reporting for the news agency Fair News Service, told CPJ that he was covering BNP protesters allegedly assaulting police officers when seven to eight of the party’s supporters surrounded him, beat his backside with bamboo sticks, and kicked him for around 15 minutes.

Two journalists who spoke to CPJ– Sheikh Hasan Ali, chief photojournalist for Kaler Kantho newspaper, and Ahammad Foyez, senior correspondent for New Age newspaper– said they were struck with rubber bullets when police attempted to disperse BNP protesters, leaving them with minor injuries.

Ali told CPJ that an unidentified man hit the Kaler Kantho photographer Lutfor Rahman with a bamboo stick on his right shoulder while covering the same clashes.

Md Hanif Rahman, a photographer for the Ekushey TV broadcaster, told CPJ that he and Ekushey TV reporter Touhidur Rahman were covering an arson attack on a police checkpoint when they were surrounded by a group of 10 to 12 men who beat Md Hanif Rahman with pipes and sticks and pushed Touhidur Rahman.

Rabiul Islam Rubel, a reporter for The Daily Kalbela, told CPJ that he was among a crowd of BNP supporters while covering the clashes at the chief justice’s residence when 15 to 20 men threw bricks at him while shouting that journalists are “government brokers.”

Jony Rayhan, a reporter for The Daily Kalbela, told CPJ that BNP supporters beat him while covering their rally. Rayhan was also injured by a sound grenade that landed in front of him while police were dispersing the demonstrators, he said.

Salman Tareque Sakil, chief reporter for Bangla Tribune, told CPJ that he sustained a leg fracture after a brick was thrown at him while covering the BNP rally.

Jubair Ahmed, a Bangla Tribune reporter, told CPJ that while police were dispersing BNP demonstrators, a tear gas shell landed in front of him, blurring his vision before the protesters trampled him while fleeing the scene.

Tahir Zaman, a reporter for the news website The Report, was also injured by a rubber bullet while covering clashes at the BNP rally, according to his outlet and BJIM.

BJIM and local media named an additional 10 journalists who were attacked, but did not provide details on the incidents, which CPJ continues to investigate. Those journalists are:

Touhidul Islam Tareque, reporter for The Daily Kalbela
Kazi Ihsan bin Didar, crime reporter for the Breaking News website
Tanvir Ahmed, reporter for The Daily Ittefaq newspaper
Sheikh Nasir, reporter for The Daily Ittefaq
Arifur Rahman Rabbi, reporter for the Desh Rupantor newspaper
Masud Parvez Anis, reporter for the Bhorer Kagoj newspaper
Saiful Rudra, special correspondent for the broadcaster Green TV
Arju, camera operator for Green TV, who was identified by one name
Hamidur Rahman, reporter for the Share Biz newspaper
Maruf, a freelance journalist identified by one name

CPJ is investigating a report of a separate attack on at least one journalist on Saturday.

CPJ contacted BNP spokesperson Zahir Uddin Swapan, Information Minister and Awami League Joint Secretary Hasan Mahmud, and Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Habibur Rahman for comment, but did not immediately receive any replies.

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

Yangon collage artist is eager to share his craft | Radio Free Asia (RFA)

Radio Free Asia — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 16:27:50 +0000

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

Junta ambassador asks China to share advanced nuclear technology

By RFA Burmese — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 19:57:38 +0000

The Myanmar junta’s ambassador to Beijing asked Chinese officials at a weekend ASEAN forum to share advanced nuclear technology, according to a statement from the junta’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The technology would be used to help Myanmar’s agriculture, health and energy sectors, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The ambassador, Tin Maung Swe, made the request on Saturday at the China-ASEAN Forum for Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Technology in Nanning, China.

But political analyst Than Soe Naing said the junta is also trying to achieve its dream of owning nuclear weapons.

“They must be trying to get nuclear weapons, now that Myanmar is helpless and doesn’t have international leverage,” he told Radio Free Asia. “Therefore, they are looking for a way to own nuclear power under the pretext of the peaceful use of nuclear energy as a first step.”

The junta announced on Sept. 11 that it had re-established relations with North Korea – one of the few countries in the world that possess nuclear weapons – and was appointing Tin Maung Swe to also serve as envoy to Pyongyang.

Representatives of ASEAN and China clap as they pose for a group photo during ASEAN-China forum on peaceful application of nuclear technology in Nanning, China, on Sept. 16. Credit: Myanmar Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Myanmar’s civilian government cut ties with North Korea five years ago, citing U.N. sanctions over the North’s nuclear weapons program. The junta took power from the civilian government in a coup d’etat on Feb. 1, 2021.

In September 2022, the junta signed an agreement with Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation to jointly assess building a small reactor in Myanmar.

The junta announced at the time that it would use nuclear energy for civilian purposes, but Myanmar’s political opposition and military analysts expressed concern that the technology would be leveraged militarily, given the country’s ongoing internal armed conflict and widespread popular opposition to the junta following the coup.

In February, the junta established a “Nuclear Technology and Information Center,” in cooperation with Russian energy firm Rosatom State Corp., in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon. That announcement came amid enduring suspicions that the military regime has ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed.

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

A simple way to make electric cars more accessible: Share them

Syris Valentine — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:30:00 +0000

Gloria Huerta remembers the day she spent hours hopping between Chevy Bolts, messing with SIM cards and software while following instructions sent by a German tech firm. She was trying to fix a glitch that kept members of Miocar, the car-share program she helps lead, from unlocking the cars before the service’s formal launch. Troubles like these would make it difficult for her organization to fulfill its mission of providing equitable access to electric vehicles in rural California.

Much has changed since that frustrating day four years ago. Back then, it wasn’t unusual for Huerta, who is now the nonprofit’s chief operating officer, to spend hours driving across the state’s San Joaquin Valley servicing vehicles and solving members’ problems. Today, Miocar has a dedicated team to service its fleet of three Nissan Leafs and 34 Bolts spread across 10 locations (it plans to add more cars and locations by the end of the year) while offering guidance to anyone interested in establishing a community-based car share.

Zero-emissions vehicles are essential to achieving global climate goals. But climate policy experts warn that a one-to-one shift from gas to electric cars could exacerbate other forms of social injustice. Such a change could, for example, fuel environmental degradation and worker exploitation in the Global South, where most of the metals needed for batteries are mined. Here at home, people with low incomes struggle to afford EVs, even with ample incentives. Others are often unfamiliar with technology that’s typically targeted at the affluent. Those who can afford the cars often have precious few places to plug them in.

“I think it’s great that we’re moving towards zero-emissions vehicles,” Huerta said, “but the communities that are continuously left behind are still being left behind.”

To avoid such potholes, a growing number of programs like Miocar are forging an equitable path to zero-emissions transportation by making battery-powered cars accessible to everyone. (Huerta says Miocar is a play on “the Spanglish of the San Joaquin Valley” that tags the Spanish word for “mine” to the word “car.”) Such efforts have emerged in locations as diverse as Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and Los Angeles, bolstered in part by state and local assistance. Earlier this year, for example, the Washington state Department of Transportation awarded $2.8 million to spur EV car-share efforts in low-income communities statewide.

Beyond enabling a just transition and reducing the number of vehicles — and resources — needed to electrify transportation, electric car sharing represents a shift away from an economy of ownership to one of access, allowing people to embrace environmentally conscious mobility without the burden of buying a car.

What sets community-based nonprofits like Miocar apart from international for-profits like ZipCar is its focus on offering zero emissions vehicles to income-qualified users at reduced rates — often just $4 to $10 an hour. Cars are reserved online, charged up, and can be used for as long as 24 or even 48 hours, depending on the program. For some folks, it’s an easy way of running an errand, taking a pet to the vet, or simply getting somewhere beyond the bus line. For others, it’s an opportunity to get comfortable with an EV before buying one of their own.

Los Angeles is among the cities that have brought electric vehicle car sharing to frontline communities. The service provides dozens of cars and a network of chargers throughout the city. Mark Ralston / AFP via Getty Images

With most of Miocar’s users having never so much as sat in an EV before signing up, some are uncertain, even intimidated, at first. Huerta says the most common concern is that the battery might die. But Miocar, like other EV car shares, ensures its cars are charged, and provides dedicated parking spaces with chargers. People are expected to plug in when they drop off. If they forget, there’s a warning, and repeated offenses result in small fines. To further alleviate the anxiety of exhausting the battery, Miocar employees, when orienting newcomers to the program, explain how to plan a trip and find chargers that accept the free charge cards provided with each vehicle.

Once they start driving, users tend to love the vehicles for their ease, quiet, and comfort. “I’ve had conversations with a few that are like, ‘Oh my God, I never knew how much I would enjoy driving this,’” Herta said. When that happens, Miocar connects users to organizations that can explain the tax credits and other incentives that defray the cost of buying an EV, which can go for an average of $61,488 new.

Of course, when people rely on car-share programs instead of purchasing a vehicle of their own, traffic and street congestion drops. In 2016, researchers at the University of California-Berkeley Transportation Sustainability Research Center found that for every car-share vehicle deployed, 7 to 11 others were taken off the road or never put there in the first place. Such findings have been repeatedly supported as these programs have grown.

That said, not everyone can ditch their car. A personal vehicle isn’t so much a luxury as a necessity in rural areas, Huerta said. That’s why Miocar’s mission is guided by the question, “How are we going to be able to do this in an equitable manner where everyone is able to get the same access to resources?”

These programs bridge an essential gap. Low-income communities are not only supermarket and pharmacy deserts; they’re charging deserts, too. Although there is a great need for equitable charging infrastructure, Susan Buchan, the executive director of Good2Go, Boston’s EV car share, said building chargers in frontline communities solves just half the problem. The communities need easy and affordable access to electric vehicles to make the chargers more than just harbingers of green gentrification.

“I’ve heard folks say that it’s kind of a slap in the face to watch somebody pull up in a Tesla, charge, and take off,” she said.

Still, bringing equity-focused car shares online can be a bumpy road. Beyond the technical hassles and occasional vehicle recalls, the economic challenges are formidable. “For public-backed car sharing, one of the biggest barriers is funding,” said Lauren McCarthy, a program director at the nonprofit Shared Use Mobility Center. “They’re not usually profitable operations.” Buchan concurred: “Achieving your mission makes you have a more negative balance sheet in this gig.”

Typically, public funding is available only during the pilot and lasts just a few years. That’s why McCarthy — who oversees a state-backed program in California that provides voucher funding to support shared-mobility initiatives — and the Shared Use Mobility Center offer a year of assistance after initial funding ends to help programs achieve financial sustainability.

Insuring the vehicles is a major hurdle on that path: “Our number one line item,” Buchan said. Despite requiring that drivers be over 21 and possess a clean driving record, Massachusetts places car shares like Good2Go in the highest risk category, driving up premiums. Other states, including California and Minnesota, have more relaxed policies, but McCarthy considers insurance requirements an obstacle to the expansion of shared mobility.

Outreach can be another challenge. In 2021, when Good2Go launched, it struggled with enrollment. The program revamped its efforts the following year, organizing catered events at affordable housing complexes to give residents an opportunity to drive their cars. Membership jumped 300 percent to 160 people, ensuring its fleet of six vehicles gets ample use. Buchan expects the growth to continue as long as the program can continue providing enough vehicles to meet demand.

As more programs like these appear, grow, and become self-sustaining, they have the potential to shift the default means of mobility. “The premise of private car ownership doesn’t need to define our society,” McCarthy said. “There should be multiple options available to you.” In a world of shared transportation, picking up a community-owned car would be one of these options, as would busing, walking, or grabbing a bike or scooter from the sidewalk. As long as our cities are designed to support these programs, an equitable future for clean mobility would look like one in which access takes priority over ownership, and in which we share to show how much we care.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A simple way to make electric cars more accessible: Share them on Sep 14, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Syris Valentine.

Exclusive: Cops share dozens of photos of dead bodies and crime scenes

Jenna Corderoy, Anita Mureithi — Sun, 20 Aug 2023 22:01:08 +0000

openDemocracy investigation uncovers at least 45 cases where disturbing images were taken by officers

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Jenna Corderoy, Anita Mureithi.

Gussying up Colonialism?

Kim Petersen — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 16:02:30 +0000

Colonialism has as its aim gaining ownership/control of the land and its resources regardless of whether or not the land was already populated by an Indigenous people. Morality aside, colonialism has been very successful in the context of Turtle Island. This is also true in northwestern Turtle Island, where the colonies designated “Vancouver Island” and “British Columbia” (merged in 1866 to become a province of Canada) were created through the dispossession of First Nations.

Dispossession of a people is a thoroughly nasty business, and it blatantly violates one of the biblical ten commandments, one that is encoded in law around the world, namely, “Thou shalt not steal.” Those who have gained property and wealth, and their progeny who continue to profit from the dispossession of Others, would like to paint a prettier picture of colonialism.

Sam Sullivan, a former mayor of Vancouver and former cabinet minister in the BC legislature, is the easy-to-listen-to narrator of Kumtuks, a series of historical videos which are usually interesting and informative. However, Kumtuks often presents a gussied-up narrative around the history of colonialism. Usually omitted from the discussion is that the land that settler-colonialists came into possession of was stolen from Original Peoples who had their own laws, beliefs, economies, and culture.

The Kumtuks video “1862 Smallpox Epidemic: British Columbia’s First Major Contagious Outbreak” claims to be based in the oral history of the Haida. The source given is the book Raven’s Cry (1966, 1992) by American author Christie Harris. Both versions of the book are interesting and informative for the historical perspective they shine on the Haida and the interactions they had with the Iron Men (as the Haida called the White men). The versions differ little, but the 1992 version is preferable because of the respect shown for the names and designations used by the Haida. Bill Reid, whose mother was Haida, is a renowned artist who illustrated Raven’s Cry and was a mentor to Harris. Harris also spent time with the family of Haida artist Charles Edenshaw. Harris, Reid, and Edenshaw are all deceased. So I will refer to Harris’s book to ascertain the verisimilitude of what Sullivan says in his narration.

What does Raven’s Cry indicate about Haida feelings toward the presence and behavior of the Iron Men?

Haida hostility, as well as the stormy moat around the Haida islands, discouraged American miners. Nevertheless, James Douglas, Chief Factor for the Hudson’s Bay Company’s western district and Governor of the little colony of Vancouver Island, advised Her Majesty Queen Victoria that it would be well to maintain a gunboat on the northwest coast to protect British rights. (p 102) [Italics added.]

Harris indicates the priority of Douglas. Douglas is not said to be protecting Haida rights. This was about colonialism: protecting rights claimed by the British, rights that presumably included sailing a gunboat in Haida waters.

The Haida did not acknowledge British rights. When the Company sent its schooner Recovery in with a group of Company miners in 1852, it was thwarted. The Haida simply waited for the white men to blast. Then they rushed in and grabbed the treasure. It was their gold. Let anyone else try to take it! (p 102)

Clearly, Douglas’s priority was objectionable to the Haida.

The “native chiefs” objected to colonialism:

“What we don’t like about the [White man’s] government is their saying this, ‘We will give you this much land,’ ” they protested. “How can they give it when it is our own? We cannot understand it. They have never bought it from us or our forefathers. They have never fought and conquered our people and taken the land that way, and yet they say now they will give us so much land — our own land!” (p 134)

Sdast’a·aas Saang gaahl Eagle chief chief 7indansuu felt likewise:

“By what right do the King George men claim this land?” 7indansuu demanded of Governor Douglas. “There are no treaties with the tribes. There was no conquest by warriors.” (p 115)

The Raven and the First Men by Bill Reid

What comes across strongly in Raven’s Cry is what Raven’s cry was about. A Haida legend tells that humans were coaxed from a clamshell into the world by Raven; these people were the first Haida. With the arrival of the greedy colonialists, Raven saw his Haida robbed of their land and lifeways.

In a lighter vein, Harris wrote,

Unfortunately, Governor Douglas retired that year, though not before making a strong case for generous treatment of Indians, or before setting aside many reservations. The Queen had honored him with a knighthood. (p 132)

Harris generally comes across as respectful and sympathetic to the Haida, but she still seems mired in a colonialist mindset. Why is taking the land of a people and setting aside some reservations for them considered “generous”? If a thief steals my library and returns a few of the books, is the thief generous?

*****Author Tom Swanky has a background having studied journalism, political science, and holding a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree. Therefore, he has the bona fides to listen to the Original Peoples and research what the evidence is for the oral histories. In his latest book, The Smallpox War against the Haida (review), he relates how the Haida were wary of smallpox.

Because the narrative in “1862 Smallpox Epidemic: British Columbia’s First Major Contagious Outbreak” is starkly at odds with the narrative in The Smallpox War against the Haida, I turned to Swanky to discuss the different narratives. I also reached out to Sam Sullivan through the Global Civic Policy Society which produces the Kumtuks videos, but have yet to hear back.

*****Kim Petersen: Sullivan narrates, “Dr John Helmcken vaccinated 500…. Douglas had Helmcken send vaccine around the province.” Yet, from a reading of your book, there is so much more to say about Helmcken and how “vaccination” was carried out.

Tom Swanky: The Police Commissioner advised a journalist that Helmcken personally had administered a procedure to 500 natives on April 26, 1862, in a context where multiple observers reported that the disease – as of that date – remained confined to just one of the People represented at Victoria and these observers believed the disease still could be contained among that one People.

However, within a few days after the disclosure of Helmcken’s program, witnesses then began reporting that some noticeable number of the natives who he supposedly had “vaccinated” were seen to have the disease. Also, within ten days of Helmcken’s vaccination program being disclosed, that is, within the time usually required for an infection to become visible, the disease suddenly exploded so that it was now no longer visible among only one People, it was everywhere. This evidence is consistent with Helmcken’s program having been all or in part, not “vaccinations” but inoculation with actual smallpox. And thereby creating the opportunity for the disease to become rooted among new Peoples and spread widely as a result of inoculation epidemics. It was because of the risk of inoculation creating epidemics that Parliament had outlawed inoculation in 1840. To administer inoculations in 1862 was a violation of British law, and so any use of the procedure would have to be concealed.

There is substantial other evidence of inoculation being used to spread the disease in the North Pacific during 1862. The Oweekeno said in 1862 that the medicine the colonists sold them started the disease. Numerous other cases can be documented where doctors administered what was advertised as a “vaccination” program, but after which the disease exploded among the targeted population. In fact, there is little to no evidence that “Douglas had Helmcken send vaccines” around the colonies. At Kamloops, the HBC post manger reported administering a procedure to the surrounding natives all summer – however, by late fall, independent observers were reporting that the indigenous residents in the Kamloops area had been virtually exterminated.

Once can draw two lessons from Helmcken’s advertised “500 vaccinations.” The first lesson is that each stage of the disease undergoing an advance – beginning with its original importation in 1862 – was accompanied by some sort of public relations campaign that subsequent events would show was misdirection by those advancing the disease. The second lesson is that historians who come to this material unaware of their own colonial predispositions, or of the phenomenon of confirmation bias, seize on the first thing they read without doing the painstaking work of then seeing how events actually unfolded.

KP: The Kumtuks video mentions numerous conflicts among the Northern First Nations and the Southern First Nations, but he omits mention of any conflicts between First Nations and settler-colonialists. Instead the colonial administration of Vancouver Island is portrayed as a peacemaker in having the Northerners towed up island past Nanaimo. In Raven’s Cry, Harris wrote:

More than ever before, futile rage against the overpowering white man turned on fellow Indians. Understandably, it turned most fiercely on the Haida, the lords of the coast. Centuries of resentment burst out, especially among the northern neighbors.

The native people raged with resentment at these white men; but the rage turned on their ancient rivals. On June 12th, a thousand Haida reinforcements arrived at Victoria. (p 117-118)

The Kumtuks video seems not in concordance with Raven’s Cry or what you have written of the oral history presented to you by knowledge keepers of The People?

TS: If a researcher is unaware of the issues concerning the means through which the Crown asserted control among many of the indigenous Peoples – which diverse knowledge keepers allege was through a smallpox assisted genocide – then the researcher is unlikely to be attuned to the challenges presented by the sources.

On the one hand, among the colonial sources are the multiple efforts at misdirection – which were an integral part of the smallpox program executed by the colonial authorities – and, after 1862, there followed the usual post-genocide or post-criminal activity of denying the shameful or wrongful thing done.

On the other hand, among the indigenous sources there is the necessity of coping with having been purposefully targeted for destruction by the colonial authorities and the incoming colonial community. For the indigenous Peoples, the post-1862 task became walking a fine line so as not to offend a community that has shown a propensity to destroy you and yet wanting to work on the political task of undoing the loss of control brought about by what is understood to have been a smallpox genocide. So, for example, one will see praise offered for Douglas – politely overlooking his smallpox policies to focus on the time before April/June of 1860 when he had set a precedent of colonial respect for indigenous customs in inter-community relations and before he had begun the process of displacing indigenous authority. In addition, in things published primarily for the benefit of a colonial audience, one will see a desire not to be offensive but to cater to the colonial mythology concerning indigenous relations.

Very early in my work, I was advised by more than one elder that if I truly wanted to learn about the teaching in indigenous communities, I would learn by listening to what elders and knowledge keepers told each other or their communities and not by asking questions for someone to tell me something – for members of the colonial community often are told what they want to hear or a version satisfying some political need.

KP: The video depicts Douglas lamenting that some Indigenous peoples did not accept the preventative measures against smallpox. However, in your book, you noted how Douglas had tried to scare Haida by warning of a fake outbreak of measles. (Swanky, p 84-86) Harris in Raven’s Cry wrote:

Alarmed at the thought of what might happen next, Governor Douglas tried to banish all the natives with a measles scare, which had often worked before. But the native people weren’t frightened by it now. (p 118)

TS: This is all just fiction by someone who is not very familiar with the actual record. Nowhere does Douglas do any such lamenting. In fact, Bishop George Hills reported that the indigenous Peoples where the smallpox first broke out at Victoria were ready to do anything asked of them. Nowhere were natives reported to resist vaccinations – at least until the problems associated with inoculation began to emerge – but there are several accounts of natives going out of their way to become vaccinated.

Douglas used the false threat of an imminent outbreak of measles in June of 1860, in conjunction with his first attempt to assert control over the autonomous indigenous Peoples operating around Victoria. Dr. Helmcken proposed this plan and the hope was that all the autonomous communities would flee and then, when they returned, they would be assigned to spaces and come under the Police Commissioner’s control. Helmcken made this proposal in the Assembly and it was reported in the newspapers. Since Capt. John, the Haida leader who led the resistance to Douglas’s policies – and some other natives – were fluent in English, they would have learned from the newspapers that the threat was part of a dishonest plan to assert control over them. There was every reason not to be frightened and to be resentful of this dishonest trick.

KP: Douglas is portrayed as a defender of First Nations. The video gives Douglas a pass for having been away on the mainland when police towed Northerners into the ocean to return home. But the Kumtuks video states that the oral history of elders tells of Douglas trying to save lives by having the Haida towed home.

TS: This is not true. In another case of what turned out to be misdirection, the Police Commissioner advised the newspapers that he and a colonial gunboat would accompany north the Haida expelled on June 11 so that they would have safe passage past their enemies in Georgia Strait. British law in 1862 was that those with the custody of smallpox carriers had a legal duty to keep a safe distance between the infected people and any nearby healthy people. On this trip north, the Cowichan fired on this convoy to keep it from leaving infected people among them, the convoy did leave infected Haida at Nanaimo, and, rather than safe passage, the Police Commission delivered the Haida to the doorstep of some enemies at Cape Mudge who could be expected to kill them. This plan failed only because the enemies of the Haida at Cape Mudge already had attacked a previous Haida convoy, became infected and were dying.

The actual oral tradition is of Douglas executing a smallpox genocide “holding hands with the HBC.” This tradition is conveyed in “The Story of Bones Bay” and the next generation of knowledge keepers was instructed in the oral tradition during a formal ceremony and pole raising in 2008. The “Story” can be found in the March 2009 edition of Haida Laas, an official publication of the Council of the Haida Nation.

KP: This brings up many questions. Why did the video mention that the police removed the Haida when Douglas was away in the lower mainland? How could he attempt to save lives from the other side of the Salish Sea? Was it an eviction or a life-saving attempt? Also, I could find no mention of the oral history of Haida elders (in either the 1966 or 1992 edition of Raven’s Cry) that testifies that Douglas was trying to save Haida lives by having them removed. After all, this is illogical at best, or at worst genocidally racist, given that 1) the video relates a Victoria newspaper editorial that settler lives were at risk from the camps, in which case gathering all Haida together without discerning who was ill or not would put some Haida potentially at risk from each other, and 2) the question of why the Northerners should be removed all the way up the long water highway, especially since the video stated that it takes 12 days for signs of smallpox to manifest and become infectious. Why send them 800 km to Haida Gwaii and not to a nearby uninhabited island of which there are many around Vancouver Island?

TS: Most serious people recognize that Douglas’ 1862 smallpox policies in the ordinary course would have been considered as criminal offences under British law. That is, everyone recognizes that it was easily foreseeable that his policies would increase dramatically the native death toll. Douglas’ apologists are left to contend that his policies – and these additional deaths – were justified because the presence of smallpox among even one of the autonomous Peoples operating in the Victoria area constituted an emergency threatening the colonial population. On examination, this turns out to be another case of misdirection. The Police Commissioner planted the theory of an emergency in the newspapers at Victoria and Douglas planted the theory at New Westminster. Douglas already had used the concept of an emergency in 1860 to justify his first attempt to assert control over the autonomous Peoples operating in the Victoria area, rather than to deal through the existing native leadership as British policy usually required. The theory of an emergency would be advanced again in a bizarre way when colonists advanced the disease to the Nuxalk and Tsilhqot’in territories.

However, there was never any emergency that constituted an existential threat to the colonial community – vaccine was readily available from San Francisco or the Catholic missions in Oregon, and most of the colonial population already had been vaccinated before the theory of an emergency had been raised. The threat to the colonial community was economic. The fear in the colonial community was that prospective miners or settlers would stay away because ordinary human beings prefer not to witness suffering on a grand scale.

If the Douglas administration had wanted to decrease the death toll from smallpox in 1862, it would have carried out the three control measures that it advertised in the newspapers: vaccinations, a pest house for isolating carriers and sanctuaries to quarantine the disease among infected communities. Instead, the administration perverted each control so that it became another means by which the disease would spread.

KP: The character of James Douglas is wrapped up very much in the colonial history of Vancouver Island and British Columbia and the attempts to extinguish Indigenous title. There are plenty of quotations that attest to Douglas being a morally centered person, but they are several quotations that point to a racist streak. Few humans are white or black. In To Share, Not Surrender: Indigenous and Settler Visions of Treaty Making in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia (UBC Press, 2022), the contributors have varying viewpoints on Douglas. Keith Thor Carlson, Canadian research chair in Indigenous and Community-Engaged History at the University of Fraser Valley captures the lack of consensus in his piece, “‘The Last Potlatch’ and James Douglas’s Vision of an Alternative Settler Colonialism,” pointing out that Douglas is less racist than others. This is neither laudatory or condemnatory. Nonetheless, relying on quotations seems to contravene the admonition that actions speak louder than words. Overall, Douglas appears lauded by contemporary academia, cultural depictions, and wider society. With the emerging acceptance of First Nations oral history, will a purported genocidaire such as Douglas continue to elude an honest rendering of history?

TS: In his correspondence with the colonial office in London, Douglas freely refers to the Haida as barbarians and savages. He seems an average representative of the British colonial culture in the North Pacific, which culture imagines anglo-saxons as a superior race – to use Dr. Helmcken’s words. However, it is a distraction to use “race” as a point of departure when seeking to understand the transition of sovereign authority that accompanied colonialism in the North Pacific. The problem facing Douglas and the colonists was to dispossess the indigenous Peoples of their communal or “national” resources through the most cost-effective means. Douglas and others make frequent references to the “great number” of natives occupying strategic locations, pointing to the projection of overwhelming political power that is inherent in great numbers. The implicit motive for this genocide, then, is not reducing another race per se, but reducing the native voice and the capacity of native authority to defend the integrity of its sovereign control.

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

The Cheapest Tax Ever: Taxing Share Buybacks

Dean Baker — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 05:56:34 +0000

I just saw a piece touting the tax on share buybacks as the basis of the investment boom we are seeing in factory construction. I’m a bit skeptical on that one, I think the incentives provided by the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are a far bigger deal, but if taxing buybacks More

The post The Cheapest Tax Ever: Taxing Share Buybacks appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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

Boston’s Wealthy Real Estate Players Avoid Paying Their Fair Share

Omar Ocampo – Jiaqin Wu — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 15:40:02 +0000

Boston’s City Council first passed an innovative tax on luxury real estate transfers nearly four years ago to raise revenue for affordable housing. But the Massachusetts state legislature needs to approve the municipal tax. And in the face of the real estate industry’s relentless opposition, lawmakers have refused to do so. Meanwhile, an acute housing More

The post Boston’s Wealthy Real Estate Players Avoid Paying Their Fair Share appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Omar Ocampo – Jiaqin Wu.

Chairman Sanders Opens Sweeping Investigation into Amazon Warehouse Safety and Calls for Amazon Workers to Share Their Stories

Newswire Editor — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 16:02:14 +0000

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), sent a le tter today to Amazon Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy initiating a HELP Committee investigation into the abysmal safety record in Amazon’s warehouses and the company’s treatment of workers who are injured in those warehouses. Sanders also published a web site where Amazon workers can submit stories about their experiences at the company to help inform the Committee’s investigation.

In the letter, Sanders wrote, “The company’s quest for profits at all costs has led to unsafe physical environments, intense pressure to work at unsustainable rates, and inadequate medical attention for tens of thousands of Amazon workers every year.”

“Amazon is one of the most valuable companies in the world worth $1.3 trillion and its founder, Jeff Bezos, is one of the richest men in the world worth nearly $150 billion,” Sanders wrote. “Amazon should be one of the safest places in America to work, not one of the most dangerous. If Amazon can afford to spend $6 billion on stock buybacks last year, it can afford to make sure that its warehouses are safe places to work. If Amazon can afford to pay you $289 million in total compensation over the past two years, it can afford to treat all of its workers with dignity and respect, not contempt. The time has come for Amazon to stop willfully violating workplace safety laws with impunity and commit to changing its operations to protect the health and safety of its workers.”

Sanders emphasized that the immense wealth amassed by the company and its executives is directly tied to the decisions to force workers into these unsafe environments, writing, “In its endless pursuit of profits, Amazon sacrifices workers’ bodies under the constant pressure of a surveillance system that enforces impossible rates. When faced with worker injuries, Amazon provides minimal medical care… This system forces workers to endure immeasurable long-term pain and disabilities while Amazon makes incredible profits from their labor.” Those decisions also contribute to the company’s turnover rate, which has regularly been as high as 150 percent per year.

Congress cannot allow this to continue. Sanders is demanding that Amazon provide information about the high injury and turnover rates at Amazon’s warehouses, the connection between the extremely fast pace of work demanded of Amazon’s workers and these injury rates, and the inadequate medical care provided at Amazon’s on-site medical clinics.

Amazon’s warehouses remain uniquely unsafe even as regulators have repeatedly cited the company for violations of federal workplace safety laws. The company’s employees suffered more serious injuries than all of the other warehouse workers in the country combined in 2022, despite Amazon only employing approximately a third of the country’s warehouse workers. Amazon’s serious injury rate is double the warehousing industry’s average. The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and state regulators have provided Amazon with measures it could adopt to comply with workplace safety laws and make its warehouses safer. Amazon has chosen to disregard the vast majority of those recommendations.

When Amazon workers are inevitably injured, the letter notes, the company has a documented history of failing to provide adequate medical care. Instead, significant reporting indicates that the company’s on-site medical clinics under-treat and underreport injuries in an effort to push workers back onto the warehouse floor as quickly as possible and downplay the number of serious injuries employees suffer.

Sanders is also asking Amazon workers to submit stories about their time at the company through a webpage available HE RE. The submissions are confidential and will help the HELP Committee investigate how the company fails to protect workers and evades responsibility for their necessary medical care.

Read the full letter, he re.

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

Pacific councillors offer passionate defence of Auckland city’s assets in budget dilemma

APR editor — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 05:57:24 +0000

Local Democracy reporter Kim Meredith reflects on her observations from Auckland Council’s two-day annual budget meeting last week. Following drawn out debate and Mayor Wayne Brown compromising on a number of his original proposals — including agreeing to only sell around 40 percent of the council’s Auckland Airport shares — the budget passed 14 votes to six, with one abstention.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Kim Meredith, Local Democracy Reporter

As I sat in Auckland Council’s extraordinary meeting deciding on its proposed annual budget, I was reminded of the time my late father came through the door looking bereft, having just been laid off, clutching his last pay cheque.

My parents quickly switched from English to Sāmoan, but I knew what they were talking about. How were they going to make ends meet?

It was the same air in the council’s Auckland Town Hall chambers.

LOCAL DEMOCRACY REPORTING: Winner 2022 Voyager Awards Best Reporting Local Government (Feliz Desmarais) and Community Journalist of the Year (Justin Latif)

With the number of television cameras lined up, you could have easily mistaken the event for a film premiere.

Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Councillor Josephine Bartley said it was a first, having the media in such strong force for the council’s controversial proposed annual budget.

Yet the anticipated fireworks turned into a mostly civil affair, with the only pointed comment coming from Mayor Wayne Brown, reprimanding members of the public for occasionally breaking into applause, “there will be no more of that”.

Mayor Brown said from the outset it could take several meetings to work through the budget, before allocating councillors five minutes to speak about their views — the first public signal that he was prepared to move from his fixed position and negotiate.

Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Councillor Josephine Bartley . . . core business should include community wellbeing. Image/Kim Meredith/LDR/PMN News

Partial sale floated
By the end of the day he was calling for a partial sale of eight percent, instead of the full 18 percent of the Auckland International Airport Limited (AIAL) shares.

Manukau ward Councillor Alf Filipaina showed his 19 years of political experience citing a breach of standing orders to the mayor’s suggestion. This forced the meeting to be adjourned and reopened as an open workshop before later resuming.

“I’ve just been told that I was grandstanding,” he said in a light hearted tone, in contrast to annoyance generated by his interjection.

He chose to save his patai (questions) for later, preferring to listen before finalising his views, as he was still undecided about the selling of airport shares.

Bartley said she had initially opposed the proposed budget being sent out for public consultation.

“But it was good because people came out in the thousands, for the council to keep delivering.”

She reiterated that the public wanted more than bricks and mortar — core services needed to include the wellbeing of the city, the focus needed to be on the community.

Challenged mayor’s call
Bartley challenged Mayor Brown’s call to find external funding, saying this was already happening with millions of dollars already coming in, giving the example of the arrival of Costco in Aotearoa New Zealand.

“Those big companies don’t just turn up”, referring to Tātaki Auckland Unlimited laying the necessary groundwork to secure Costco’s investment.

Bartley’s voice stood out, not only for her support of local boards, but also for the need to retain income-earning assets, like the Auckland Airport shares.

She said the lead up to finalising the budget meant local boards had not put in for special projects, after they were instructed to make cuts or face dire consequences.

She pointed out the financial benefits that came from retaining the airport shares.

“I do have affection for the airport shares because that brings us $40 million a year.”

And she was at pains to understand the proposed sale.

“I just cannot comprehend selling an asset that brings us in money.”

Manukau ward Councillor Lotu Fuli . . . even the most deprived areas support keeping airport shares. Image: Kim Meredith/LDR/PMN News

Impassioned plea
Manukau ward Councillor Lotu Fuli gave an impassioned plea about how the airport shares had benefited every Aucklander.

Last week, she told Local Democracy Reporting about being open to hearing the advice from council staff before making a decision either way, but yesterday she was firm on being opposed to the proposed sale, saying that her constituents were against selling.

“That $40 million has benefited every Aucklander,” she said, referring to the dividend that the airport will pay out this year.

And despite the opposing views there appeared to be an unspoken agreement, that in facing the budget deficit, it was up to the elected officials to find a way to make ends meet, in much the same way my parents grimly did when facing their own budget dilemmas.

Kim Meredith is a Pacific Media News local democracy reporter. Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air. It is published by Asia Pacific Report in collaboration.

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

China’s young netizens share how they learned about 1989 Tiananmen Massacre

RFA Mandarin — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 18:23:10 +0000

For some, it began by overhearing an offhand comment. Others found out from someone with firsthand knowledge. Some even had personal connections to those involved.

However they first learned about the June 4, 1989, massacre of students in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, the young people were motivated to learn more, driven by a sense that the truth had been hidden from them, a Twitter inquiry of Chinese young people collected by Radio Free Asia shows.

Their instincts were not wrong.

China’s Communist Party has done its utmost to stymie any form of public discussion of the incident 34 years ago.

Authorities have worked tirelessly to scrub the affair from history books, online discussions and the media. Every June, police descend on the homes of dissidents, placing them under house arrest and banning them from posting on the topic or speaking to the media.

And with the student protesters now well into their 50s, and children born since the massacre being raised with virtually no knowledge of the event, the passage of time is helping the Communist Party erase memories.

But China’s youth are technologically savvy and have figured out ways to get around the country’s Great Firewall of internet censorship. Many use VPNs, or virtual private networks, to mask their IP addresses, which are illegal in China, but still used widely.

How did you find out?

Ahead of this year’s anniversary, RFA sent out a query on Twitter, asking Chinese netizens born after the year 2000 – essentially those age 22 and younger – to share how they first learned about the Tiananmen massacre.

RFA received nearly 1,400 responses. Twitter is banned in China, but can be accessed via VPNs.

A student protester tosses debris into the flames of a burning armored personnel carrier that rammed through student lines during an army attack on demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, early June 4, 1989. Credit: Jeff Widener/Associated Press

Most respondents declined to give their full names, citing a fear of reprisal. Many openly expressed shock at what they discovered, some saying it had changed them forever.

Tanzhang first heard about the crackdown in 2020, when he was in junior high school, while watching a video describing cameras on Bilibili, the popular content sharing platform.

“When they mentioned [the brand] Leica, the video creator added a comment saying, ‘Leica recently filmed an ad that insulted China,’” he said, referring to a commercial in which a photographer appears to be taking photos of the People’s Liberation Army advance on students on the square, only to be confronted by authorities in his hotel.

“The comments were all cryptic, which piqued my curiosity, so I searched for more information. Later, when I revisited the video on Bilibili, I found that the comment had been deleted,” he said.

‘Deeply shocked’

A high school student who gave his name as Liang said he learned about Twitter and Facebook in October 2021 while browsing Douyin, a Chinese TikTok-style video platform. He got a VPN account and started following a few accounts of nationalistic Chinese officials known as “wolf warriors.”

“I saw someone mentioning the Tiananmen Square massacre in the comments under a tweet by [Foreign Ministry spokesperson] Hua Chunying, so I searched for it on Google and was deeply shocked,” he said.

A man blocks a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Chang'an Boulevard by Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989. The man, calling for an end to the recent violence and bloodshed against pro-democracy demonstrators, was pulled away by bystanders, and the tanks continued on their way. Credit: Jeff Widener/Associated Press

Several students said instructors put themselves at risk by teaching about the crackdown in class or that they managed to access censored educational materials during their studies.

“In a university elective course many years ago, the teacher secretly played a video [about the massacre] for us with the door closed, without saying a word,” said a student who gave their name as “Y.” “Nowadays it's impossible that such a thing could happen.”

Another respondent who gave his name as Guan Fu said that while in eighth grade, his modern Chinese history teacher “dedicated a whole class to explain everything about the Tiananmen Square incident.”

“That day, the beliefs that had been instilled in me since childhood collapsed,” he said. “I went back home and asked my elders about it. It turns out they all knew, but in the face of that bloody purge at the time, they chose silence.”

A respondent who identified themselves as “Student A” said a teacher had mentioned that university students in the square had been “suppressed by the government,” and that the reference was enough to make them want to dig further.

‘Tank Man’ image

At an international school in China, teachers sealed off sections of history textbooks deemed politically sensitive before handing them back to the class for studies, said a respondent who gave their name as “Classmate S.”

“Driven by curiosity, my classmates and I cautiously tore open the seals and saw a picture in the content about China – a man blocking a tank,” he said, referring to the iconic image of an unarmed protester standing in the way of a tank on a major boulevard.

People's Liberation Army (PLA) tanks and soldiers guard the strategic Chang'an Boulevard leading to Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 6, 1989, two days after their crackdown on pro-democracy students. Credit: Manuel Ceneta/AFP

The student said that he and his classmates were taken to the principal’s office and made to write self-criticisms.

“I don't understand why I am being punished for seeking the truth about history,” he said. “Why does our government conceal the facts? I am truly disappointed in my government and deeply disgusted by their hypocrisy.”

Some described personal connections to the crackdown that they said had prompted them to investigate.

Another respondent told RFA that a classmate “told me that his father and grandfather were soldiers and had shot Beijing students.”

“He spoke with great pride,” the student said. “I went home on the weekend and searched the internet by bypassing the Great Firewall.”

A student named Lin said he was watching a film called “The Curse of the Golden Flower” about a failed rebellion against the Chinese empire with his parents in 2006 when he first heard of the incident.

“During the ending, after Prince Jie's rebellion fails and the eunuchs and maids in the palace are cleaning the bloodstains from the rebels while arranging chrysanthemums,” he said. “My mom then said, ‘Isn't this just like 64?’” – a common, cryptic way to refer to June 4.

“My dad nervously signaled my mom to stop,” he said. “I had never seen such expressions on my parents' faces, so I went online to find answers.”

Edited by Josh Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

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

US legislators urge SEC to prevent share offering by China-backed clothing firm

By Adile Ablet for RFA Uyghur — Tue, 02 May 2023 20:56:45 +0000

Two dozen U.S. lawmakers have called for the Securities and Exchange Commission to halt any initial public offering of shares by the Chinese apparel company Shein Group until it proves that it does not use cotton produced by forced labor from the country’s Uyghur population.

It is believed that the China-backed global fashion e-retailer headquartered in Singapore may conduct an IPO for a potential U.S. listing before year-end. The company sells clothing and other products under several brand names, including Shein X and SheGlam, mainly to young consumers through its highly popular mobile application.

Shein has come under fire for using underpaid labor in its supplier factories and violating human rights, the lawmakers said in a May 1 letter addressed to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.

The legislators cited a Bloomberg report last November that said cotton from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) was present in clothing sold by Shein in 2022, based on the results of scientific testing. The article also pointed out that the company has been exploiting a loophole in a U.S. ban on imports of cotton linked to forced labor in China to grow its business by shipping its products directly to consumers.

If the allegations of using underpaid and forced labor prove true, then the company would be in violation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the lawmakers say in their letter. Signed into law in December 2021, the act requires U.S. companies that import goods from Xinjiang to prove that they have not been manufactured with Uyghur forced labor at any stage of production.

The lawmakers asked the SEC, an independent stock market regulator, to set forth regulations and require Shein to certify via third-party verification that it does not use Uyghur forced labor as a condition of being registered to issue securities in the U.S.

“While Shein claims its products do not utilize Uyghur forced labor and it works with third parties to audit its facilities, experts counter these types of audits are easily manipulated or falsified by state-sponsored pressure,” the letter says. “Other experts argue that it is appropriate to presuppose that any product made in the XUAR is made with forced labor.”

“We strongly believe that the ability to issue and trade securities on our domestic exchanges is a privilege, and that foreign companies wishing to do so must uphold a demonstrated commitment to human rights across the globe,” the letter says.

Corporate human rights policy

There was no immediate response from Shein, whose company website says it is “dedicated to operating in a responsible and ethical manner” with a responsibility for advancing human rights, including rejecting forced labor, harassment, discrimination, and unsafe working conditions for our employees.

Likewise, Shein’s supplier code of conduct says the company has zero tolerance for severe human rights violations, including forced labor and failure to pay minimum wages as required by law.

Because about 90% of China’s cotton is produced in Xinjiang, most Chinese cotton products contain it and therefore are subject to the U.S. ban.

“Xinjiang cotton is still available in the U.S. because of a loophole that is allowing shipments directly to consumers, which bypasses the requirement that other large retailers who have retail stores [must] face regarding reporting to U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” journalist Sheridan Prasso, who wrote the Bloomberg report, told Radio Free Asia.

Because Shein ships directly to consumers, it can bypass the law by using the de minimis trade exemption, meaning that packages valued under U.S. $800 do not require a U.S. customs declaration, she said.

Shein, which has nearly 10,000 employees worldwide and sells in over 150 countries, has operation centers in the United States and other major global markets.

The company was established in Nanjing, China, in 2008, and now is the world’s largest online fashion retailer with an estimated value of U.S. $64 billion.

Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Paul Eckert.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Adile Ablet for RFA Uyghur.

AFRICOM Chief to Congress: We Share “Core Values” With Coup Leaders

Nick Turse — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 10:00:23 +0000

In Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire last month, 1,300 U.S., NATO, and African troops met for tactical training and mock raids as part of Flintlock 2023, an annual exercise sponsored by U.S. Special Operations Command Africa, or SOCAFRICA. Among the countries participating was Burkina Faso, which has been restricted from receiving substantial U.S. security aid since an officer trained by Americans at previous Flintlock exercises overthrew his democratically elected government in a coup last year.

U.S. military officials have spent the last month trying to explain this curious state of affairs to Congress and the press. Flintlock provides a “critical training opportunity” for special operations forces from the U.S. and Africa and a chance to “exchange best practices,” Rear Adm. Milton “Jamie” Sands, the chief of SOCAFRICA, told The Intercept and other reporters on a conference call last month. He didn’t mention that, by the Pentagon’s own assessments, militant Islamist attacks in the Sahel have spiked and security has plummeted across West Africa since SOCAFRICA began Flintlock trainings in 2005. “The Sahel now accounts for 40 percent of all violent activity by militant Islamist groups in Africa, more than any other region in Africa,” reads a recent report by the Defense Department’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

The four-star general in charge of U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, meanwhile, told the House Armed Services Committee that only a small percentage of U.S.-trained officers overthrow their governments — while admitting he didn’t know the exact number. This prompted far-right Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to ask, “Why should U.S. taxpayers be paying to train people who then lead coups in Africa?”

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Milton “Jamie” Sands, a SOCAFRICA commander, visits a training site for Flintlock’s Distinguished Visitors Day near Volta, Ghana, on March 14, 2023.

Photo: Spc. Mario Hernandez Lopez/U.S. Army

Flintlock attendees have conducted at least five coups in the last eight years. Since 2008, in fact, U.S.-trained officers have attempted at least nine coups (and succeeded in at least eight) across five West African countries, including Burkina Faso (three times), Guinea, Mali (three times), Mauritania, and the Gambia.

Flintlock attendees have conducted at least five coups in the last eight years.

Before he toppled Burkina Faso’s democratically elected president in 2022, for example, Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba attended Flintlock exercises in 2010 and 2020, according to AFRICOM. A fellow Flintlock 2010 attendee, Gen. Gilbert Diendéré, overthrew the government of Burkina Faso in 2015.

Just a year after he attended Flintlock 2019, Col. Assimi Goïta headed the junta that overthrew Mali’s government. After staging that coup, Goïta stepped down and took the job of vice president in a transitional government tasked with returning Mali to civilian rule. But nine months later, he seized power for a second time.

Another alum of Flintlock 2019, Col. Mamady Doumbouya, served as a Guinean unit commander during the exercise, according to AFRICOM. In 2021, members of Doumbouya’s unit took time out from being trained in small unit tactics and the law of armed conflict by Green Berets to storm the presidential palace and depose their country’s 83-year-old president, Alpha Condé. Doumbouya soon declared himself Guinea’s new leader. The U.S. ended the training and distanced itself from the coup.

“Core values is what we start off with,” Gen. Michael Langley, the AFRICOM chief, told the House Armed Services Committee last month.

“Do we share those values with Col. Doumbouya?” asked Gaetz.

“Absolutely, in our curriculum,” Langley answered, causing Gaetz to do a double take. The Florida Republican and the AFRICOM four-star continued to spar:

Gaetz: We do? He led a coup. OK, well, that’s a very telling answer. In Burkina Faso, did we share core values with the leader that we trained there who led a coup?

Langley: It’s in our curriculum.

Gaetz: Leading coups is in our curriculum?

Langley: We stress core values. We stress civilian-led governance.

Gaetz: Wait, hold on, is leading coups in our curriculum?

Langley: Absolutely not. Civilian led—

Gaetz: My question is, do we share core values with the coup leader in Burkina Faso who we trained?

Langley: Holistically, we teach whole core values with respect for civilian governance. … We’ll continue with our persistence in assuring that they harbor democratic norms, democratic values, and [are] apolitical.

When asked about concrete steps taken to ensure that Flintlock 2023 attendees don’t overthrow their governments, SOCAFRICA’s Sands said, “While we always focus on the rule of law, we’ve really developed a much more thorough plan and integration for effects on that.”

Maj. Anya Nikogosian, the lead legal planner for Flintlock 2023, explained in a statement that her team “added significant rule of law facets” to the exercise, which emphasized that operations should be conducted “within the frameworks of … domestic laws, enabling civilian prosecution of terrorists, and enhancing the trust of the African people in their governments.” Details provided by SOCAFRICA suggest that Flintlock 2023 did provide training to facilitate better coordination between militaries and civilian law enforcement in counterterrorism investigations this year but offered no measures specifically aimed at preventing coups.

“If the U.S. says it is concerned about the consequences of coups, then U.S. military officials should speak plainly to their partners about the importance of civilian rule of the military and the legal implications coups have on U.S. assistance,” Sarah Harrison, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group and formerly associate general counsel at the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel, International Affairs, told The Intercept. “AFRICOM’s efforts do not seem to address this head on.”

Erica De Bruin, author of “How to Prevent Coups d’Etat: Counterbalancing and Regime Survival,” said that while Nikogosian and Sands seemed to argue that additional training was the answer, the reality is generally more complex. Often, she said, militaries are faced with situations in which human rights and civilian control are in opposition, such as presidential orders to centralize executive power or otherwise harm civilians. “In the face of such tension,” De Bruin told The Intercept in an email, “military officers often default to self-preservation — staging coups to preserve the cohesion, reputation, or material interests of the military as an institution.”

Langley insisted that a “very small number” of U.S. trainees overthrow their governments, but Gaetz, citing The Intercept’s coverage of coups by U.S.-trained West African officers, pointed out that AFRICOM actually has no idea how many coups its charges have conducted, nor does it keep a list of how many times such takeovers have happened. “AFRICOM does not maintain a database with this information,” AFRICOM spokesperson Kelly Cahalan told The Intercept.

When Captain Ibrahim Traoré deposed Damiba in Burkina Faso last September, The Intercept asked Cahalan if Traoré had also received U.S. training. “We are looking into this,” she said, noting the command needed to “research” it. “I will let you know when I have an answer.” Six months later, AFRICOM has yet to offer one.

Gaetz told Langley that he, too, wants answers. “I think we should at least know how many countries we train the coup plotters in, how many is too many, because … we could use our resources far more effectively than doing this,” he said.

De Bruin, who also directs the Justice and Security Program at Hamilton College in New York, says there’s a very simple step the United States could take in terms of putsch prevention. The “best tool the U.S. has to prevent coups is responding swiftly and consistently to condemn coup attempts that do occur, and [to] sanction coup-installed governments,” she told The Intercept. “The fact is that the U.S. continues to respond inconsistently to coups, often looking the other way when it suits foreign policy goals.” This contradiction, De Bruin said, “encourages militaries to keep staging them.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Nick Turse.

Have Workers Got Back Their Share of Income?

Dean Baker — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 05:49:25 +0000

I was surprised to see a Twitter thread last week from Jason Furman in which he said that the labor share of national income in 2022 was actually above its pre-pandemic level. I have been following this issue closely and the labor share of corporate income was still down by more than a percentage point More

The post Have Workers Got Back Their Share of Income? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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

Hong Kong plans to share transplant organs with China sparks human rights concerns

By Lee Yuk Yue for RFA Cantonese — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 17:12:11 +0000

Hong Kong’s government is looking at ways to share transplant organs between the city’s hospitals and those in mainland China, sparking concerns over human rights protections, according to local media reports and healthcare advocates.

The government is in talks with Chinese officials to set up a regular organ transplant cooperation system, despite ongoing human rights concerns linked to organ harvesting in China, the Ming Pao, Wen Wei Po and Singtao Daily newspapers reported.

The move came as a bill seeking to impose sanctions on anyone involved in illegal organ-harvesting around the world passed in the U.S. House of Representatives on March 27.

Health secretary Lo Chung-mau told a recent transplant conference in Hong Kong that the city’s Hospital Authority is currently discussing setting up a common computer matching system for organs and donors, and is “hoping to implement it as soon as possible,” the papers reported.

Lo made a trip to Beijing earlier this month to talk about a common organ donor mechanism between Hong Kong and mainland China, and the Hospital Authority is currently talking with officials at the China Organ Transplant Response System, he told journalists on the same day that the bill passed in the House.

Lo said he was inspired to pursue the idea by a recent case in which four-month-old Cleo Lai had a successful transplant of a donor heart from an undisclosed location in mainland China, after being critically ill with dilated cardiomyopathy.

‘Clear and transparent mechanism’ needed

Simon Tang, Cluster Services Director at the Hospital Authority, praised China’s National Health Commission’s “robust mechanism” for helping to identify the right organ for Lai.

The case prompted Albert Chan, clinical professor at the department of surgery at the University of Hong Kong, to call for a system to be set up to share organs with mainland Chinese hospitals in future.

“Hong Kong’s organ donation rate is very low,” Chan said. “If the ... government can set up a clear and transparent mechanism so more organs donated from the mainland could help people in Hong Kong, it’d be very encouraging news,” Chan told government broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong at the time.

Huang Jiefu, China’s former organ transplant chief, and colleagues reported in 2011 that about 65% of transplants in China use organs from deceased donors, more than 90% of whom were executed prisoners. Credit: Reuters file photo

Alex Lam, chairman of the advocacy group Hong Kong Patients’ Voices, said organ donation rates are even lower in China than in Hong Kong.

“The proportion of donors in China is lower than that in Hong Kong, and the demand for organs is high,” Lam said. “My question is, even if there is an organ available in China, how likely is it that they will find no suitable recipient in mainland China, given that so many people are on the waiting list there?”

Data from the International Organ Donation and Transplantation Registration Organization shows that the organ donation rate from cadavers has slowed over the past decade in Hong Kong, but that it has consistently remained higher than the rate in mainland China, at 4.66 last year compared with mainland China’s 3.63.

Lam said there are concerns that organs could be taken from Hong Kong donors in future, who are given scant choice about where they end up, and who may not want their organs to go to mainland China.

“Has the government even listened to donors on this issue?” Lam said. “They need to respect their wishes if they are changing the plan.”

Willing donors or executed prisoners?

Song-Lih Huang, secretary-general of the Taiwan International Medical Alliance, said there are also issues around appropriate transportation facilities for organs, and legal differences between the two jurisdictions.

He cited concerns over where any organs donated from China had come from, and whether they had been harvested from executed prisoners or taken from willing donors.

“Where are the organs coming from?” Huang said. “From someone who had an accident, or prisoners on death row, including prisoners of conscience, political prisoners, or from live organ-harvesting?”

“None of us know the answer to that, and it’s very hard to verify,” he said. “We don’t know how many executions are carried out in China every year, nor any way of finding out who is a prisoner on death row.”

Huang said there are also differences in the way that brain death is declared in Hong Kong and mainland China.

The U.S. Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023, if passed, will impose sanctions on individuals and entities involved in forced organ trafficking, and authorizes the Department of State to revoke the passports of individuals convicted of certain crimes related to organ trafficking.

China’s former organ transplant chief Huang Jiefu and colleagues reported in the U.K.-based medical journal The Lancet in 2011 that about 65% of transplants in China use organs from deceased donors, more than 90% of whom were executed prisoners.

And a 2022 study in the American Journal of Transplantation found evidence in 71 cases of “executions by organ removal” from prisoners, concluding that “the removal of the heart during organ procurement must have been the proximate cause of the donor’s death.”

China is believed to be one of the world’s top executioners, but the exact number of executions is regarded as a state secret by the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lee Yuk Yue for RFA Cantonese.

BJP leaders share clipped video to claim Srinivas BV made misogynistic remarks against Smriti Irani

Shinjinee Majumder — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 07:52:03 +0000

A clip of Congress youth leader Srinivas BV’s speech during a public rally is viral on social media. In the clip, Srinivas can be heard saying, “Smriti Irani thora gunge behri ho gaya hai, main unko kehna chahta hu — usi dayaan ko, mehengaayi dayaan ko darling banake bedroom mein baithane ka kaam kiya hai”.

Amit Malviya, the national in-charge pf BJP’s information & technology department, tweeted the clip and wrote, “This uncouth, sexist man is President of the Indian Youth Congress”. He insinuated that Srinivas BV made the “डार्लिंग बना कर बेडरूम में” jab at Smriti Irani due to her win against Rahul Gandhi from Amethi. (Archive)

This uncouth, sexist man is President of the Indian Youth Congress. डार्लिंग बना कर बेडरूम में… This is the level of discourse, when referring to a woman minister, just because she defeated Rahul Gandhi from Amethi.
A frustrated Congress is hurtling down the path of irrelevance. pic.twitter.com/7SPbJy6jLO

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) March 27, 2023

BJP Karnataka also tweeted the clip and deplored the ‘vile attack on Smriti Irani by criminal Rahul Gandhi’s sidekick Srinivas BV’. In addition, they remarked that INC was unable to digest the humiliating defeat Smriti Irani had inflicted on Rahul Gandhi in Amethi and that INC had become a cesspit of misogyny & perversion. (Archive)

The vile attack on @smritiirani ji by Criminal @RahulGandhi‘s sidekick @srinivasiyc is highly deplorable!

INC is still unable to digest the humiliating defeat Smriti Irani ji inflicted on Foreign Puppet Rahul Gandhi in Amethi.

INC has become a cesspit of misogyny & perversion pic.twitter.com/3z0KKddYpd

— BJP Karnataka (@BJP4Karnataka) March 27, 2023

The national president of BJP Yuva Morcha, Tejaswi Surya, quote-tweeted the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha and wrote that the comments by Srinivas BV were deplorable and sexist. He called for a condemnation of this speech from Priyanka Gandhi.

National President of Youth Wing of @INCIndia makes absolutely deplorable & sexist remarks on self-made woman leader who has come up through sheer hard work and merit.

Where is @priyankagandhi’s ‘Ladki Hoon, Lad Sakti Hoon’ gang now?

Not even a cursory condemnation? https://t.co/qlcn0F0kig

— Tejasvi Surya (@Tejasvi_Surya) March 27, 2023

BJP National Spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla, too, tweeted the clip saying Congress had become a cesspool of misogynists. (Archive)

Congress has become a cesspool of misogyny , hatred for women especially if she comes from a humble background & defeats an entitled dynast

First abuse OBC, then courts, then throw papers at Speaker; abuse journalists now abuse women!

Time & again, Congress has abused those… pic.twitter.com/8KwU01a9tH

— Shehzad Jai Hind (@Shehzad_Ind) March 27, 2023

Several other users, some of them Twitter Blue subscribers and verified handles tweeted or quote-tweeted the clip and called out Srinivas for his comments. Among them are Priti Gandhi, @MrSinha_, Sameet Thakkar, Know The Nation and Anil K Antony.

Click to view slideshow.

A user called Yatender Rao, whose bio describes him as a BJP leader from Haryana, tweeted a clip of a show hosted by Amish Devgan on News18 India. Here anchor Amish Devgan can be heard slamming Srinivas’s comments saying, “Itni kharap tippani…ek mahila ki bedroom tak jana!’ (Such a crass comment.. to go into the bedroom of a woman minister!).

अमिश भाई, देश के असल मुद्दों को आप बेखौफ होकर उठाते हो। हमें आप जैसे ही पत्रकारों की ज़रुरत है। pic.twitter.com/Kzj3bfxSlp

— Yatender Rao (@YatenderRao) March 28, 2023

Right Wing propaganda outlet OpIndia published an article titled ‘Frustrated Congressis target Smriti Irani again with sexual innuendos, the Amethi loss of now disqualified MP Rahul Gandhi still hurts’.

Fact Check

After the video caused widespread outrage from the BJP workers, Srinivas BV tweeted a longer clip from his speech. We have transcribed the clip below.

BJP hain toh berozgari. Jo mahangai, aam gareeb majdur log ghar mein kaise jee rahe hai aaplog soche kya? Kabhi nahi socha hai inlog ne. BJP hain toh mahangai, har cheez mein mahangai. Yahi log 2014 mein kehte the, mahangai ko dayaan banake baitha diya hai (inaudible). Toh Smriti Irani thora gunge behre ho gayi hai, main unko kehna chahta hu — usi dayaan ko, mahangai dayaan ko, darling banake bedroom mein baithane ka kaam kiya hai.

संघी नही सुधरेंगे,

आधा अधूरा नही पूरा बयान चलाओ,मैंने 2014 के पहले दिए जाने वाले आप लोगों के बयान को ही Quote किया है

जो ₹400 LPG सिलिंडर वाली ‘महंगाई’ आप लोगों को ‘डायन’ नजर आती थी,

आज आप लोगों ने उसी ‘डायन’ महंगाई को ₹1100 LPG के रूप में ‘डार्लिंग’ बनाकर बैठाया हुआ है। pic.twitter.com/e4sxstLL95

— Srinivas BV (@srinivasiyc) March 27, 2023

It is evident from the longer clip that Srinivas BV did not refer to Smriti Irani as a witch (dayan), contrary to claims made by some users. The BJP politicians used a clipped video without providing the proper context for their followers. Mahangai Dayaan is a reference to a song by the same name from the movie Peepli Live (2010). The song tries to draw attention towards the major socio-economic problem of price rise.

This song has been often used in political rhetoric during election campaigns, dating back to 2012 when former minister of external affairs the late Sushma Swaraj hummed it during an election meeting in Ajitmal.

Srinivas BV has used the same political rhetoric. He questioned the BJP government’s inability to impede the rise in prices. He further stated that the same BJP that used the song ‘Mahangai Dayan’ to portray the rising prices in the country pre-2014, has stopped caring about the people who are most affected by inflation. He adds, “it’s like the BJP has ushered inflation into its bedroom and has made it their darling”. While it is true that he targeted Smriti Irani by saying that she was deaf to the demands of the poor, he clearly used the aforementioned statement as a metaphor.

In a statement to ANI, Srinivas BV can be heard defending his statement saying, “Smriti Irani had said the same thing during Manmohan Singh’s Prime Ministry. When the price of a gas cylinder was Rs 400, she used to talk about ‘mehangayi daayan’ & now the price has reached Rs 1100 & that ‘daayan’ has now become darling. This is what I said before. What is wrong in this?”.

#WATCH | When price of a gas cylinder was Rs 400, she (Smriti Irani) used to talk about ‘mehangayi daayan’ & now the price has reached Rs 1100 & that ‘daayan’ has now become darling. This is what I said before. What is wrong in this?: Srinivas BV, President, Indian Youth Congress pic.twitter.com/MeS5dO5xZd

— ANI (@ANI) March 27, 2023

Seemingly referring to the “deaf and dumb” rhetoric, Srinivas BV said to India Today, “You used to roam the streets carrying a cylinder. After you became a minister, so many girls and women were tortured, have you ever spoken about it? Women were burnt and so many houses were bulldozed in Uttar Pradesh, did you say anything? You jumped into a silly issue, did a press meet. You humiliated Sonia Gandhi in the Parliament using derogatory words, wasn’t that humiliation? All of these people are the same — they all want to save Adani. Every three days they are changing their statements…”

महिला एवं बाल विकास मंत्री को काश अंदाजा होता कि उनके जिम्मे देश की कितनी बेटियों, माताओं और कितने परिवारों का जिम्मा है…

प्रधानमंत्री की तरह उन्हें भी अब 9 साल से ज्यादा हो गए महंगाई का ‘म’ बोले हुए… ₹400 वाला LPG अब ₹1100 के पार हो चला है… pic.twitter.com/yQjico0nul

— Srinivas BV (@srinivasiyc) March 27, 2023

Acting president of Mahila Congress Netta D’Souza tweeted a fact check of the viral clip wherein the viral clip is juxtaposed with the longer clip tweeted by Srinivas BV. This was also retweeted by the official handle of the Indian Youth Congress.

अपने आका को खुश करने के लिए कितना झूठ बोलोगे मालवेयर @amitmalviya ।

वैसे केवल 2 रूपए कमाने के लिए शब्दों और वीडियो को तोड़ने-मरोड़ने में तुम्हारा कोई मुकाबला नहीं।

Video Source – @srinivasiyc https://t.co/r3pnC9rOBC pic.twitter.com/vox4HY0d62

— Netta D’Souza (@dnetta) March 27, 2023

To sum up, a clipped video of Srinivas BV’s speech was shared on the social media by BJP leaders and other users to claim that the Congress youth leader had attacked Union minister Smriti Irani using misogynist terms. In reality, Srinivas made a reference to the ‘Mahangai Dayan’ phrase that has been used in political rhetoric in the past as well. Criticizing price rise and inflation, he said that that dayan (mahangai) had now become a ‘darling’. He did slam Smriti Irani for not raising her voice against various issues, and in the process, remarked that she had become ‘deaf and dumb’.

The post BJP leaders share clipped video to claim Srinivas BV made misogynistic remarks against Smriti Irani appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Shinjinee Majumder.

Asia Fact Check Lab: Can TikTok share US user data with China’s government?

By Shen Ke — Fri, 24 Mar 2023 18:50:37 +0000

In Brief

When TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared before the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Thursday, he was asked a key question: Whether the Chinese government could use TikTok or its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance Ltd. to surveil Americans or obtain data about them.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) found no evidence to support that TikTok intentionally shared or plans to share user data with the Chinese government.

But TikTok’s subservient relationship to its parent company ByteDance -- a Chinese company subjecting to Chinese laws – would create opportunities for the Chinese government to collect data about American users.

Furthermore, TikTok’s own privacy policy and terms of services clearly stipulate that it can move U.S. user data outside the country. TikTok may never have shared its data with the Chinese government, but it surely has the ability to do so.

In Depth

1. Can TikTok share data with China’s government？

Yes.

Tiktok has stated several times that it has not shared data with China’s government, and company executives have further stated they would refuse to hand over any data to China if asked.

However, TikTok’s privacy policy clearly says it can share user data with its mother company, ByteDance, and various governments around the world if required.

Bytedance, TikTok’s parent company, is based in Beijing. Like many Chinese companies, it has an internal Communist Party committee within its ranks that is led by Vice President Zhang Fu Ping.

The Chinese government has enacted laws that require companies to cooperate with state authorities when asked to provide any information on matters relating to national security.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on "TikTok: How Congress Can Safeguard American Data Privacy and Protect Children from Online Harms," on Capitol Hill, Thursday, March 23, 2023, in Washington, D.C. Credit: AFP

The 2017 Cybersecurity Law requires businesses to store select data in China and grants the government wide-ranging rights to check such data at their discretion. Various other laws that grant the state the right to collect information use ambiguous language and often include catch-all phrases that allow them to apply the law however they see fit.

And TikTok’s privacy policy clearly says that other entities within their corporate group – such as Bytedance – may have access to its data:

“As a global company, the Platform is supported by certain entities within our corporate group, which are given limited remote access to Information We Collect as necessary to enable them to provide certain important functions.”

Therefore, TikTok can share data with Bytedance, which under Chinese law would be required to hand over data to the government if pressured.

2. Can TikTok’s US data be shared outside the U.S.?

Yes.

It is possible for Tiktok to share and transmit their data to entities outside the US. The section entitled “Data Security and Retention” within TikTok’s privacy policy says,

“TikTok may transmit your data to its servers or data centers outside of the United States for storage and/or processing. Other entities with whom TikTok may share your data as described herein may be located outside of the United States.”

3. Can TikTok’s data be shared with law enforcement in China?

Yes.

TikTok’s policy notes that different countries’ law enforcement may request data, and that the specific procedures of the request will vary from country to country.

“We may disclose any of the Information We Collect to respond to subpoenas, court orders, legal process, law enforcement requests, legal claims, or government inquiries, and to protect and defend the rights, interests, safety, and security of the Platform, our affiliates, users, or the public. We may also share any of the Information We Collect to enforce any terms applicable to the Platform, to exercise or defend any legal claims, and comply with any applicable law.”

TikTok’s privacy policy clearly says it can share user data with its mother company, ByteDance, and various governments around the world if required. Credit: AFP

China does not have an independent judiciary; law enforcement is subject to the government's order. As Donald Clarke, a Chinese law specialist at George Washington University noted about a similar case with Chinese tech company Huawei’s threat to other countries' data security, “The Chinese Party/state is not meaningfully constrained by Chinese law.”

Conclusion

Although TikTok has repeatedly said it has never shared data nor will share data with China’s government, there are reasonable concerns that it may do so.

TikTok’s privacy policy allows it to share data with its parent company Bytedance, to transmit data outside the U.S. and to hand over data to other countries local law enforcement when requested to do so.

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

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 Shen Ke.

Exclusive: NHS hospitals told to share patient data with US ‘spy-tech’ firm

Lucas Amin — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 23:01:07 +0000

Palantir, whose owner claimed the NHS ‘makes people sick’, will ‘collect and process confidential patient information’

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Lucas Amin.

Workers at Amazon, Starbucks, Home Depot, etc. share strategies for unionizing your workplace

The Real News Network — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 18:36:44 +0000

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

To Strengthen Women’s Resilience to Disasters, Make the Wealthiest Pay Their fair share

Magdalena Sepúlveda — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 13:13:15 +0000

She will be called Aya. This is the name that nurses gave to the infant baby pulled from the rubble of a five-story building in Jinderis, northern Syria. A miracle. Beside her, the rescuers found her mother, dead. She had given birth within hours of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on the night of February 6, 2023. Like her, more than 50,000 people died in the earthquake. As tragic as it is hopeful, this story has moved the international media. It also reminds us that over 350,000 pregnant women who survived the earthquake now urgently need access to health care, according to the United Nations. And this is only one aspect of women's vulnerability to natural disasters.

Floods, droughts, earthquakes, and other extreme events are not gender-neutral, especially in developing countries. Evidence shows that women and girls die in greater numbers and have different and uneven levels of resilience and capacity to recover. Of the 230,000 people killed in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, for example, 70% were women. Because of gender barriers, they often have fewer survival skills: boys are taught to swim or read first. This makes it difficult for them to access early warnings or identify safe shelters.

In addition, it is more difficult for women to escape from danger, since they are most often responsible for children, the elderly, and the sick. Heightened tensions and fear, as well as the loss of income provoked by disasters, drive increased domestic violence against women and girls. They are also the first victims of sexual violence and exploitation when entire populations are displaced—this was one of the first concerns in Pakistan when more than 8 million people had to leave their homes because of the terrible floods in June through August of 2022.

Progressive taxation—making the richest people and multinationals pay their fair share—is one of the most powerful tools for reducing inequality of all kinds.

Natural catastrophes negatively impact everyone economically, but women and girls are disproportionately affected. World Bank data show that female farmers suffer much more than male ones in rural areas. Assigned to domestic tasks, they are more dependent than men on access to natural resources and are, therefore, the first to suffer when these become scarce. In every region, food insecurity is higher among women than men. In 2020, it was estimated that nearly 60% of the people who go hungry are women and girls, and the gender gap has only increased since then. Their lack of access to bank accounts also means that women's assets are less protected than men's.

And, of course, recovery from any crisis builds on societal expectations related to gender roles. Consequently, women bear the brunt of the increased domestic burden after a disaster at the cost of missing out on other income-generating activities. We know that women spend, on average, 3.2 times more time than men on unpaid care work, and the COVID-19 pandemic—another human-induced natural catastrophe—made evident how unequally unpaid care and domestic work is shared, and how undervalued and underrecognized it is. This is a major constraint on women's access to education, an obstacle to their entry into and advancement in the paid labor market, and to their political participation, with serious consequences in terms of social protection, income, and pensions.

Gender inequality exacerbates the impact of natural disasters, and the consequences of natural disasters exacerbate gender inequality. This is an unacceptable vicious cycle. With the world already facing a growing number of climate-related tragedies, governments must take immediate and long-term action to invest in universal access to health care, water and sanitation, education, social protection, and infrastructure for gender equality and the full enjoyment of women's human rights.

As the world celebrates International Women's Day, let's keep in mind that it is impossible to build more resilient societies without fighting for gender equality.

Even in times of crisis, when state coffers are nearly empty, there are equitable solutions to raise revenues to fund the investments needed to strengthen women's resilience: to make those who profit from the crises ravaging the planet, including from those natural disasters, pay, as recommended by the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT), of which I am a member alongside, among others, Joseph Stiglitz, Jayati Ghosh, and Thomas Piketty. Instead of implementing austerity programs that devastate the most disadvantaged, states can increase their fiscal space by taxing companies and the super-rich more.

It starts with taxing the super profits made by multinationals, and several countries in Europe and Latin America have already begun to do so. This is particularly true for the pharmaceutical giants that have made a fortune selling vaccines against Covid-19, which they were able to develop due to public subsidies. This is also the case for multinationals in the energy or food sector: Oxfam estimates that their profits increased by more than two and a half times (256%) in 2022 compared with the 2018–2021 average. For the same reasons, it is urgent to tax the richest, who get away with paying hardly any taxes these days. One cannot accept that, as Oxfam reminds us, a man like Elon Musk, one of the wealthiest men in history, is taxed at 3.3%, while Aber Christine, a market trader in Uganda who sells rice, is taxed at 40%.

Progressive taxation—making the richest people and multinationals pay their fair share—is one of the most powerful tools for reducing inequality of all kinds. As the world celebrates International Women's Day, let's keep in mind that it is impossible to build more resilient societies without fighting for gender equality. Continuing to ignore it is a political choice, and an even more perilous threat to development than natural disasters themselves.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Magdalena Sepúlveda.

Savings, Taxes and Share Buybacks

Dean Baker — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 06:46:16 +0000

Many people who should know better have been saying silly things about households running down their savings and being forced to cut back consumption. The problem with these sorts of comments is that savings in our national income accounts have little to do with how most of us think about savings in our lives. Less More

The post Savings, Taxes and Share Buybacks appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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

What Will Happen When Banks Go Bust?

Ellen Brown — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 23:10:36 +0000

Financial podcasts have been featuring ominous headlines lately along the lines of “Your Bank Can Legally Seize Your Money” and “Banks Can STEAL Your Money?! Here’s How!” The reference is to “bail-ins:” the provision under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act allowing Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs, basically the biggest banks) to bail in or expropriate their creditors’ money in the event of insolvency. The problem is that depositors are classed as “creditors.” So how big is the risk to your deposit account? Part I of this two part article will review the bail-in issue. Part II will look at the derivatives risk that could trigger the next global financial crisis.

From Bailouts to Bail-Ins

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 states in its preamble that it will “protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts.” But it does this under Title II by imposing the losses of insolvent financial companies on their common and preferred stockholders, debtholders, and other unsecured creditors, through an “orderly resolution” plan known as a “bail-in.”

The point of an orderly resolution under the Act is not to make depositors and other creditors whole. It is to prevent a systemwide disorderly resolution of the sort that followed the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008. Under the old liquidation rules, an insolvent bank was actually “liquidated”—its assets were sold off to repay depositors and creditors.

In an “orderly resolution,” the accounts of depositors and other creditors are emptied to keep the insolvent bank in business. And even if you are getting only a few cents a month on your deposits, you are a creditor of the bank. As explained in a December 2016 article in the University of Chicago Law Review titled “Safe Banking: Finance and Democracy:”

A general deposit is a loan made to a bank. This means that the bank is the general depositor’s debtor, but that the bank has legal title to the funds deposited; these funds may be commingled with the bank’s other funds. All the general depositor has is a general, unsecured claim against the bank …. [T]he bank is free to use the deposit as it sees fit. [Emphasis added.]

Fortunately, bail-ins do not apply to deposits under $250,000, which are protected by FDIC insurance. That is true in theory, but as of September 2021, the FDIC had only $122 billion in its insurance fund, enough to cover just 1.27% percent of the $9.6 trillion in deposits that it insures. The FDIC also has a credit line with the Treasury for up to $100 billion, but that still brings the total to just over 2% of insured deposits.

If just one or a few banks become insolvent, the FDIC fund should be sufficient to cover the insured deposits (those under $250K). But under the 2005 Bankruptcy Act, derivatives creditors (which are considered “secured”) are first in line to recover the assets of a bankrupt bank; and the Dodd-Frank Act followed that practice. So if a bank with major derivatives risk collapses, there might be no bank assets left for the non-insured creditors; and a series of major derivative cross-defaults could wipe out the whole FDIC kitty as well.

As of May 2022, according to the most recent data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the total notional amounts outstanding for contracts in the derivatives market was an estimated $600 trillion; and the total is often estimated at over $1 quadrillion. No one knows for sure, because many derivatives are “over the counter” (not traded on an exchange). In any case it is a bubble of ominous size, and pundits warn it is about to pop. Topping the list of U.S. derivatives banks are J.P. Morgan Chase ($54.3 trillion), Goldman Sachs ($51 trillion), Citibank ($46 trillion), Bank of America ($21.6 trillion), and Wells Fargo ($12.2 trillion). A full list is here.

The FDIC and Disclosure

On Nov. 9, 2022, the FDIC held a 3.5 hour webcast discussing the bail-in process among other topics. In a clip raising alarm bells in the alternative media, Donald Kohn, former vice chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, said, “…it’s important that people understand they can be bailed in. But you don’t want a huge run on the institution. But they’re going to be…”

Richard J. Herring, co-director of The Wharton Financial Institutions Center said, “I would think your strategy ought to be to disclose as much as possible to people who professionally need to know about it …”

Gary Cohn, former director of the National Economic Council, said, “I almost think you’d scare the public if you put this out — like, ‘Why are they telling me this? Should I be concerned about my bank?’ … I think you’ve got to think of the unintended consequences of taking a public that has more full faith and confidence in the banking system than maybe people in this room do …we want them to have full faith and confidence in the banking system. They know the FDIC insurance is there, they know it works, they put their money in, they get their money out…”

This was followed by some laughter, which critics have interpreted as a cynical agency warning the wealthy while leaving the smaller investors to eat the losses, similar to the phone calls to the favored few before the 1929 stock market crash. But the clips have to be taken in context. Here is that whole section (taken from the video transcript beginning at 1 hr. 15 min):

SUSAN BAKER (Division of Complex Institution Supervision and Resolution): … So what we want to think about today is, “What should we be transparent about now that would help improve confidence in the event that we’re called to use our Title II authorities?”…

RICHARD J. HERRING (Co-Director, The Wharton Financial Institutions Center and Professor of Finance, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania): I would think your strategy ought to be to disclose as much as possible to people who professionally need to know about it, and that would certainly include the ratings agencies and the people within the banks who are responsible for these judgments, and simply have publicly available a place where people can go if they need to know more; because we’re dealing with a society where people are getting their information in tweets. There’s just no patience I think for going through the elaborate and careful planning that has gone on. It should be accessible when people need to know but I don’t think you have much hope of reaching a public that doesn’t have a professional need to know.

MEG E. TAHYAR (Partner and Co-head of Financial Institutions, Davis Polk LLP): … I do think there’s more that could be put out in the public … in a way that isn’t scary to folks. I mean … There’s a timing question, right? We’re at a delicate moment now, so if it goes out tomorrow it might have a different impact than if … it goes out as we’re moving out of the recession. But I’m very big on transparency. I think transparency leads to accountability.

DONALD KOHN (Former Vice Chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and Senior Fellow, Economic Studies Program, Brookings Institution): … It’s a little bit conflicted, right? I mean it’s important that people understand they can be bailed in, but you don’t want a huge run on the institution. But … they’re going to be ….

MICHAEL J. HSU (Acting Comptroller of the Currency): … I think we have to sit down and talk to long-term debt investors and make sure that they as a stakeholder group fully understand. Bank debt today is not what it was before. It is not principal protected, by design.

The FDIC staff were engaged in the delicate act of balancing the need to inform the public against the risk that the disclosure itself could trigger a systemic collapse due to widespread bank runs. The “need to know” stakeholders were the long-term investors with more than $250,000 in the bank, whose funds would be at risk. But smaller depositors, who would be protected by FDIC insurance, might panic from mischaracterized tweets and precipitate the very run the FDIC staff were trying to avoid. To their credit, they were trying to be transparent and accountable; it does seem the public should know what risks are hidden in the economy. The first step to solving the problem is understanding what is going on.

Bank Runs and Systemic Risk

Not just the speculative investments of the SIFIs but bank runs themselves are systemic risks. Nationwide bank runs were the sort of “disorderly resolution” seen in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

In 1913, the Federal Reserve became the settlement agent for private banks, and settlement funds for clearing transactions were held in gold. The Fed was required to hold gold reserves valued at 40% of the Federal Reserve Notes (paper dollars) it issued, and to redeem withdrawals in gold at a fixed price. The reserves were sufficient to backstop withdrawals in normal times, but the years following the 1929 stock market crash were not normal times. Domestic and foreign depositors rushed to withdraw their gold; the banks ran out; and they had to close their doors.

In 1933, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a national bank holiday; and when the banks reopened, domestic deposits were no longer backed by gold. They were backed only by the “full faith and credit of the United States.” But that is actually quite solid backing, something neither gold nor cryptocurrencies can claim to have. You can’t pay your electric bill or your credit card bill with gold or cryptocurrency. People are willing to accept dollars in payment because they know vendors will take them, and so will the IRS.

After 1933, the funds held at the Fed for settling transactions became simply data entries called “reserves,” which were created by the Fed and held by the banks in Fed accounts. Most of the circulating money supply is now created by private banks by writing loans as deposits into the accounts of their borrowers. But banks cannot create the reserves needed to clear withdrawals through the central bank. Those reserves must be acquired from the Fed, either directly or from another financial institution that has acquired them. Besides the bank’s own incoming deposits, options include borrowing from other banks in the fed funds market, the Fed discount window, or the repo market. Until recently, depository banks could borrow from each other or the Fed at 0.25%. That rate has now gone up to 4.5-4.75%. The only cheap, readily available source of liquidity left to a bank today is its own pool of incoming deposits, from paychecks, credit card payments, mortgage payments and the like.

Traditionally, banks had to hold only about 10% of their deposits in reserve. That percentage was considered sufficient to cover transfers and withdrawals because most people left their money in the bank, and withdrawals were largely netted against incoming deposits. In March 2020, the Fed removed the reserve requirement altogether; but banks still need to hold enough reserves to meet withdrawals. With a reserve of only the standard 10%, however, they will not have enough liquidity (readily accessible funds) to meet a nationwide bank run of the sort seen in the early 1930s.

The FDIC is therefore right to be concerned about warnings that can be misinterpreted. Distrust of big banks is rampant today, but collapsing them suddenly through a “disorderly” nationwide bank run would be as catastrophic as it was in the 1930s. Before the FDIC was founded through the Banking Act of 1935, depositors routinely lost their money when their banks went bankrupt. But we don’t want to lose our deposits to a bail-in either. Better would be for the regulators to unwind the speculative SIFI bets in a “soft landing” if possible. More on that in Part II of this article.

Meanwhile, the banks clearly need our deposits, and today they are scrambling to compete for deposits and reserves. According to a Feb. 7 article on Wall Street on Parade, Goldman Sachs is now offering an interest rate on its savings accounts that is 350 times the interest rate being offered by JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. Why isn’t stated, but both of those major competitors have already amassed huge deposit bases. When the Global Financial Crisis hit in 2008, Goldman was an investment bank like Lehman Brothers, which barely escaped Lehman’s fate by becoming a bank holding company. This allowed it to acquire deposits and gave it access to the Fed’s discount window, but it obviously came in late to the deposit-collecting game.

How, Then, to Protect Your Deposits?

One popular alternative is to move your money to a credit union. With respect to deposit insurance, according to the FDIC, credit unions are no safer than banks, but they are also no less safe. Whether the institution is insured by the FDIC or by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF), your deposits are guaranteed up to the $250,000 limit per depositor. More to the point here, credit unions and other small local banks are not subject to bail-ins.

Some commentators recommend moving your money out of the banking system altogether – into cash, cryptocurrencies or precious metals. Having enough cash on hand to cover perhaps three months’ worth of expenses in a crisis is certainly a good idea. But many people don’t have even that much in savings, and people with large sums in the bank probably won’t be able to withdraw them all at once. Changing banks is also a slow and cumbersome process. Many people won’t do it or will be caught unaware when the next crisis hits.

In theory, the Federal Reserve could step in as lender of last resort to save the creditors and depositors if necessary, calling on the same emergency powers it exercised for the SIFIs in 2008-09. It could provide cheap liquidity for the banks in the form of quantitative easing, alleviating the need to bail in depositor funds. The Fed is not required to act – it is “independent” – but that means it does not need authorization from Congress, and it does not need taxpayer funds. It can create its own reserves.

The question is whether the Fed would see depositors as “systemically important,” but the rush to compete for deposits shows that they are. Arguably deposits are the people’s weapons of mass destruction: pull them and the banks go down. The banks need our deposits; and we need the sort of self-sustaining financial system in which money, credit and banks are treated as public utilities, accessible by and accountable to the people whose full faith and credit backs them.

Part II of this article will look at the systemic risks currently facing the banking system, and at how it could be reengineered to deal with those risks and restore the trust of the people sustaining it.

This article was first posted on ScheerPost.

The post What Will Happen When Banks Go Bust? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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

It’s Time We Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share

Chuck Collins — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 19:27:51 +0000

Dismantling the IRS, whether by cutting its funding or abolishing it outright, is a gift to the ultra-wealthy for whom U.S. taxes are already becoming voluntary.

This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Chuck Collins.

Can the States Help Us Make the Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share?

Sam Pizzigati — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 16:53:03 +0000

Changes in the taxes that America’s wealthiest pay have, like our oceans, come in waves. Our modern era’s opening swells started rolling over a century ago, when the 1913 adoption of the 16th amendment to the U.S. Constitution opened the way to taxing the incomes of the nation’s deepest pockets.

Starting that year, America’s deepest pockets faced a 7 percent tax on income over $500,000 a year, about $14.8 million in today’s dollars. Within just five years, under the pressure of World War I, our richest would be paying taxes — on income over $1 million — at a top rate of 77 percent.

Those rich would restore order in the 1920s. By decade’s end, no person of means in the United States faced a tax rate, on any dollar of income, over 25 percent. But then the Great Depression hit, and tax rates on the nation’s highest incomes once again started swelling, with a new 63 percent top rate in 1932.

By a dozen years later, in 1944, the tax rate on annual income over $200,000 — a bit over $3.2 million in today’s dollars — stood at a record 94 percent, and that top rate would hover around 90 percent for the next two decades, years that would see the most stunning rise in average American incomes ever, before or since.

This second wave started breaking in the mid-1960s, and the Reagan Revolution did it finally in with tax cuts that sheared the top-bracket income tax rate down from 70 to 50 percent in 1982 and 28 percent a half-dozen years later. That core top federal income tax rate has, ever since, bounced around between 31 and 39.6 percent, well under half the top rate in effect throughout the mid-20th century.

That federal tax-rate story doesn’t figure to change anytime soon, certainly not with Republicans running the House of Representatives. Our current federal tax rates on high incomes now appear frozen in place, at least into 2025. And that reality has now shoved the tax-the-rich debate down to the state level.

About half the states, analysts at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy note, are already moving on proposals that would reduce the tax bills that America’s most financially favored face. In Kansas, for instance, the top 1 percent of earners would realize an average $11,510 in tax savings if a proposed new “flat tax” and corporate tax cut go into effect, with just $192 in savings going to the state’s poorest 20 percent.

But progressive lawmakers in other states are taking the opposite tack. They’re accepting their states’ role as “laboratories of democracy.” They’re doing all they can to shear their richest and most powerful down to something approximating democratic size.

Lawmakers in seven states last month introduced legislation that aims, in some innovative ways, to raise taxes on their most fiscally favored. State lawmakers, says New York state senator Gustavo Rivera, need “to make sure we do at the state level what is not being done at the federal level.”

In Hawaii, state senator Karl Rhoads is leading the way on a proposal for a new wealth tax that would place “a tax of 1 percent of net worth per year on taxpayers with assets of more than $20 million.” Economies do better, Rhoads points out, “if you have the wealth spread out more.”

Lawmakers are advancing a similar wealth tax initiative in California. Assembly member Alex Lee from San José has introduced legislation and an accompanying state constitutional amendment that would subject the state’s richest 0.1 percent to a 1 percent tax on wealth over $50 million and a 1.5 percent tax on wealth over $1 billion. California’s current constitution caps taxes on personal property at 0.4 percent.

The tax would generate an estimated annual $21.6 billion, enough, says Lee, to sustain needed investments in education, “tackle homelessness, maintain and expand needed services, and much more.”

California, Lee adds, has been losing low- and middle-income residents who find themselves getting “priced out of this state because they can’t afford the high cost of living while shouldering the burden of paying for our roads, infrastructure, and schools.” The state’s rich, in the meantime, have “doubled their fortunes during the pandemic.”

“In my district in the East Bay,” points out Assembly member Liz Ortega, a supporter of Lee’s tax proposals, “the average rent is $2,200 per month and families are struggling. If billionaires have enough money to send themselves to space, they can afford to pay a little more to support our communities.”

In New York, state lawmakers have introduced a “mark-to-market tax” on New Yorkers holding net assets worth $1 billion or more. This new levy would, if enacted, have these wealthy facing a tax on the annual gain in value their assets have registered over the course of each year. A companion bill would place as much as a 15 percent annual tax on all forms of capital gain income over $1 million.

In Connecticut, lawmakers are seeking a statewide property tax on commercial and residential real property with an assessed value over $1.5 million as well as 1 percent and 0.75 percent surcharges on the gains that taxpayers in the state’s top two income brackets realize from the sale of their capital assets.

Tax attorneys Justin Hannan, Mariano Robert Beecher, and Emily Byrnes at the Day Pitney law firm are urging their affluent clients to take measures like these seriously.

“Even if taxpayers in New York and Connecticut feel that proposals like these are unlikely to become law now,” the Day Pitney attorneys note, “they would be well advised not to dismiss the possibility that these measures could gain traction over time.”

In Massachusetts, the lawyers go on to observe, lawmakers “recently passed a ‘millionaires tax’ after six failed attempts to impose a progressive tax system dating back over 100 years.” So even if New York and Connecticut lawmakers fail to pass the new tax-the-rich measures they now have pending, they add, “the mere existence of such legislation could be a harbinger of things to come.”

Let’s hope so.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Sam Pizzigati.

BJP leaders tweet clipped video, share T R Baalu’s remarks on ‘demolishing temples’ sans context

Kalim Ahmed — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 07:08:40 +0000

A 40-second-long clip of DMK MP T R Baalu speaking at an event has gone viral on social media. It is claimed that the leader was boasting about demolishing Hindu temples in his speech.

In the video, Baalu can be heard saying, “I have demolished 100-year-old temples in my hometown, in my constituency — a Saraswati temple, a Lakshmi temple… and a Parvati temple. All three temples were in my constituency on the GST (Grand Southern Trunk) Road. I demolished them knowing that I would not get votes for my actions. But I also knew how to get votes from the people. So friends, all I am saying is don’t take tension that you won’t get votes…”

Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai tweeted the clip and wrote, “DMK men take pride in demolishing 100-year-old Hindu temples.” He also said this was the reason why BJP TN wanted the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department to be dissolved so that “temples can be freed from the clutches of government.”

DMK men take pride in demolishing 100-year-old Hindu temples.

The very reason we want the HR&CE dissolved and want the temple freed from the clutches of government. pic.twitter.com/c4AQTaRkPN

— K.Annamalai (@annamalai_k) January 29, 2023

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Union minister of state for entrepreneurship, skill development, electronics & technology, quote tweeted a tweet by ‘Megh Updates’, an account with a history of sharing unverified and communally charged information, and wrote, “Rahul n Cong Partners in TN wth Hindu hating @arivalayam DMK and in Maharashtra wth @OfficeofUT. All these contradictions – only common thread “dynasty”. Congs grand vision is – return of the dynasts.”

Rahul n Cong Partners in TN wth Hindu hating @arivalayam DMK and in Maharashtra wth @OfficeofUT

All these contradictions – only common thread “dynasts”

Congs grand vision is – return of the dynasts https://t.co/Fnl4hzhtop

— Rajeev Chandrasekhar (@Rajeev_GoI) January 30, 2023

Others who have shared the clip include verified Twitter blue users Saran Shanmugam, @Shibin_twitz, and Megh Updates.

Click to view slideshow.

Fact Check

We took a close look at the viral clip and noticed an abrupt cut at the 0:05-second mark. Below we have added a screen recording which will help readers spot the cut in the clip.

On performing a keyword search on YouTube, we came across a 57-minute-long speech by T R Baalu live streamed by ABP Nadu on January 28. The visuals in this video matched the visuals in the viral clip. However, the quality of the live stream was poor.

Taking a cue from this, we looked for other videos and found a two-hour-long live stream by News18 Tamil Nadu. The title of the video can be translated as, ‘Conference to urge implementation of Setu Sea Canal Project’. The relevant portion of T R Baalu’s speech begins at the 49:45-minute mark.

The DMK leader says that he had demolished 100-year-old temples and mosques for the construction of a four-lane highway in West Bengal. Baalu was then the Union minister for highways in the United Progressive Alliance government.

He says that at that time the Communist leader, Jyoti Basu and other MPs/MLAs tried to stop him as his decision could affect the vote bank and hurt people’s religious sentiments. Jyoti Basu asked him if he was sure of carrying out the demolition and also asked him to go and speak with MPs who were upset with his decision.

“I went to them and told them directly that in my hometown, in my constituency, I had to demolish a Saraswati temple, a Lakshmi temple and a Parvati temple. I knew that the votes wouldn’t come. But I also knew how to get them. So when the comrades said that I wouldn’t get votes, I told them there was no other way and, since all they wanted was a temple, I’d construct a better, more beautiful temple with a place for at least 250 people to eat. After demolishing the structures, I built new ones,” Baalu said.

He then states that he invited pujaris and offered them bouquets, gave a presentation lasting over an hour, and they later accepted his proposal. He adds that verification of these details is possible for anyone who wishes to do so.

The DMK leader also adds that he has built infrastructures over holy rivers and it was done by breaking things only, but no one’s religious sentiments were hurt at that time. He says that “it is good to worship all water bodies, call them “thaai” (mother) but do not colour any of this by religion.”

To sum it up, a speech by DMK MP T R Baalu where he talks about convincing various leaders that it is necessary to demolish certain religious structures for government projects was clipped and shared on social media as a video of the leader boasting about demolishing 100-year-old Hindu religious structures.

The post BJP leaders tweet clipped video, share T R Baalu’s remarks on ‘demolishing temples’ sans context appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Kalim Ahmed.

INTERVIEW: ‘Our interviewees share sensitive stories that could get them arrested’

By Jane Tang for RFA Mandarin — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 03:33:16 +0000

A group of Chinese students at overseas universities has set up a political magazine to carry forward the momentum of the "white paper" protest movement, a wave of spontaneous demonstrations that swept major cities in late November. Sparked by a fatal lockdown fire in an apartment building in Xinjiang's regional capital Urumqi, the protests also took aim at the rolling lockdowns, mass surveillance and compulsory testing of the zero-COVID policy. Some protesters held up blank sheets of A4 printer paper and others called on President Xi Jinping to step down and call elections. Magazine co-founder Tong Sheng told RFA Mandarin about the new publication's mission.

RFA: So how did the project start?

Tong Sheng: After meeting in Berlin, several like-minded friends got together to discuss things, and decided to start a magazine to make our own effort to fight for a little space for expression.

RFA: The first issue of Mang Mang, which could be rendered as “reckless” in English, with connotations of rampantly growing plants, was officially published on New Year's Eve with the rubric "remembering the little things of our time."

Tong Sheng: Recording the minutiae of the era we live in is our main task. Firstly, we have noticed that the collective memory of people living in China, whether it's their memories of protests or other forms [of dissent], is constantly being tampered with through repeated propaganda. The regime now controls so much of the discourse and channels of information, and won't allow any other [non-state] journalists to speak out or engage in objective reporting.

Meanwhile, censorship is getting stricter and stricter. They used to just censor the news, then they moved to public accounts on WeChat, then to comments on Weibo, with more and more keyword searches being censored all the time.

People are being suffocated; we have no way to speak out. We think that, to counter this trend, there is a need for small platforms that are able to host these memories of the brutal things this regime has done to us, as well as things that have happened to marginalized people around the world or various parts of China, whose voices have been overshadowed by the mainstream.

We can't just let [debate and information] come and go in waves, as it does at the moment on the internet -- we need a record.

An illustration in the first issue of the magazine represents each member of the Mang Mang team as a plant. The spirit of the magazine is written on the wall: "Inside and outside the high walls, wild growth." Credit: Mang Mang

RFA: For your first issue, you interviewed people who took part in the white paper movement, Chinese transgender people seeking asylum and a psychologist working in China. What were the biggest obstacles to doing that reporting?

Tong Sheng: The biggest problem of all when talking to people in China is their safety, and how to maintain the information security of both parties during the interview. The second-biggest is one of trust and expectation. Our interviewees share very sensitive stories with us that could get them arrested. How can we meet that trust, and those expectations? We can't pay anyone; we can barely afford our own printing costs. So we need to ask ourselves if we are conveying what they are saying to our readers correctly.

During the production process, the part that moved me the most was the round-table talks, for which we distributed questionnaires to allow more [white paper movement] participants to have their voices heard. Their comments were the simplest and most direct. For many, this was the first time they had taken to the streets. Some were in China and some overseas, all sharing their anger, and their expectations. Many of them had high expectations of us, too, which both motivated us and put us under pressure.

RFA: Are the other Mang Mang editors all overseas students like you?

Tong Sheng: There are more than 10 people in the Mang Mang team. Some have jobs, but most of them are overseas students. Some are majoring in media ... so this is a way to put their ideals into practice.

A print version of Mang Mang is also planned. Credit: Mang Mang

RFA: What does Mang Mang hope to achieve in 2023?

Tong Sheng: There have been a lot of obstacles and difficulties to overcome just to produce the first issue, and we poured a lot of energy into it, to bring it to print. We need to find a way to have the team work in a sustainable manner and to raise the necessary funds, so everyone can devote all of their energy to the magazine.

We hope Mang Mang can play a part in the new wave of transformation that has swept [China] since the protests ... [For example], there are workshops and book clubs being set up in a lot of places. We hope to defend our collective memory.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

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

‘We Can’t Back Down’: Congresswomen Share Their Abortion Stories on Roe Anniversary

Jessica Corbett — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 19:09:16 +0000

As thousands of people gathered at pro-choice rallies across the United States, multiple congresswomen marked the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade on Sunday by sharing their own experiences with abortion care and renewing calls to protect reproductive rights in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court reversing its landmark ruling.

"I'm one of the 1 in 4 women in America who has had an abortion. Terminating my pregnancy was not an easy choice, but more importantly, it was MY choice," tweeted Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who has previously shared her story in a New York Timesopinion piece and during a House hearing.

"Everyone's story is different, but I know this for certain: The choice to have an abortion belongs to pregnant people, not the government. We are not free if we cannot make these fundamental choices about our bodies," she continued. "MAGA Republicans' extreme abortion bans aren't about saving lives, they're about control. We must stand up and fight these bans. Together."

\u201cIn 2021, I testified on my decision to have an abortion. For me, it was an incredibly difficult decision, but ultimately the right one.\n\nIt is now a decision that has been stripped from millions across our country\u2014and a right we must fight for.\u201d
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@Rep. Pramila Jayapal) 1674421200

Fellow Washington state Democrat Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez, who was sworn in for her first term earlier this month, wrote on Twitter: "Three years ago I miscarried in the second trimester of a pregnancy. It's a painful memory but something many women have experienced. I traveled hours to the nearest clinic, and I encountered anti-choice protesters. Thankfully I got the care I needed that day."

"I had been told without an immediate abortion, or dilation and evacuation, that my life was at risk. That I could die, or not be able to have children in the future. I got the care I needed, and now I'm the mother of my 17-month-old son," she said. "On what would've been Roe v. Wade's 50th anniversary, I'm thinking of the millions of Americans with stories like mine who are forced to go without access to safe reproductive care. I won't stop fighting to restore this fundamental right and defend reproductive freedom for all."

\u201cIf there\u2019s one thing I know for sure, it\u2019s that you NEVER know what someone you don\u2019t know is going through, even if you think you do, even if you\u2019re SURE - especially if you\u2019re sure - you do. Abortion care is also miscarriage care, which is also life/saving health care. #Roeat50\u201d
— Amanda Becker (@Amanda Becker) 1674413191

Nearly seven months since the high court's right-wing majority overturned Roe with Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, "abortion is currently unavailable in 14 states, and courts have temporarily blocked enforcement of bans in eight others," according to a December review by the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute, which tracks state laws.

Just after the Dobbs decision leaked last May, Ellepublished a roundtable discussion with the only five then-members of Congress who had publicly shared abortion stories: Jayapal; Sen. Gary Peters, whose ex-wife got a potentially lifesaving emergency abortion in the 1980s; and Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), and Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), who did not seek reelection last year.

In the weeks that followed, Reps. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) and Marie Newman (D-Ill.)—who lost her June primary after redistricting—also detailed their abortions when they were each 19 years old. During a House hearing, Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) shared that "when my doctor finally induced me, I faced the pain of labor without hope for a living child."

"Would it have been after the first miscarriage, after doctors used what would be an illegal drug to abort the lost fetus?" McBath asked. "Would you have put me in jail after the second miscarriage?"

McBath took to Twitter Sunday to highlight that testimony and warn that "without Roe, all reproductive care is on the line."

\u201c50 years ago, the Roe v. Wade decision provided a constitutional right to abortion. That right is now under attack.\n\nIn @HouseJudiciary, I shared the heartbreak that comes with a miscarriage. Without Roe, all reproductive care is on the line.\n\nWe can't back down in this fight.\u201d
— Rep. Lucy McBath (@Rep. Lucy McBath) 1674392400

Bush—who has spoken about seeking an abortion after becoming pregnant as a result of rape at 17—said in a statement Sunday that "the Roe v. Wade decision was not only historic in that it protected people accessing abortions; it also served as precedent for several more court cases and laws to follow that would further advance gender equality, reproductive rights, and our collective freedoms."

"Unfortunately, we all know what happened last June. Republicans spent decades stacking the federal judiciary with far-right anti-abortion judges and successfully stripped millions of people of their right to safe, legal, and accessible abortion care, particularly Black, Brown, LGBTQ+, and other marginalized communities," she said. "And, let's be clear, Republicans aren't stopping with Roe."

"In just their first couple of days in power, House Republicans passed two anti-abortion bills in a blatant attempt to lay the groundwork for a national abortion ban," added Bush, who was among the 17 federal lawmakers arrested in July while protesting Dobbs at the Supreme Court. "As a congresswoman, a mother, a pastor, and as a person who has had abortions, I will never stop fighting for a person's bodily autonomy, reproductive rights, and for a country that lives up to its proclamation of freedom."

\u201cToday should be the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.\n\nInstead, we are living in a post-Roe world, six months after the Supreme Court overturned it.\n\n24 states have or are likely to ban abortion. The divide between people who can access care and those who can't has only deepened.\u201d
— Progressive Caucus (@Progressive Caucus) 1674412822

Moore—who represents a state where abortion is now unavailable due to a contested 1849 ban—issued a similar warning in a series of tweets, declaring that "this Roe anniversary is a reminder of what we've lost, and we must fight for a future that creates more equitable healthcare access for all."

"The chaos we've seen over the past six months is the environment anti-abortion politicians have worked for decades to create, and they won't stop with Roe. While we work to protect and restore access to abortion, more attacks on sexual and reproductive health are happening now," she said. "The path ahead will be challenging. It will require us to think bolder than ever before to ensure our very basic rights and freedoms are permanently protected—not subject to whoever happens to be in power."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

‘We Can’t Back Down’: Congresswomen Share Their Abortion Stories on Roe Anniversary

Jessica Corbett — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 19:09:16 +0000

\u201cIn 2021, I testified on my decision to have an abortion. For me, it was an incredibly difficult decision, but ultimately the right one.\n\nIt is now a decision that has been stripped from millions across our country\u2014and a right we must fight for.\u201d
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@Rep. Pramila Jayapal) 1674421200

\u201cIf there\u2019s one thing I know for sure, it\u2019s that you NEVER know what someone you don\u2019t know is going through, even if you think you do, even if you\u2019re SURE - especially if you\u2019re sure - you do. Abortion care is also miscarriage care, which is also life/saving health care. #Roeat50\u201d
— Amanda Becker (@Amanda Becker) 1674413191

"Would it have been after the first miscarriage, after doctors used what would be an illegal drug to abort the lost fetus?" McBath asked. "Would you have put me in jail after the second miscarriage?"

McBath took to Twitter Sunday to highlight that testimony and warn that "without Roe, all reproductive care is on the line."

\u201c50 years ago, the Roe v. Wade decision provided a constitutional right to abortion. That right is now under attack.\n\nIn @HouseJudiciary, I shared the heartbreak that comes with a miscarriage. Without Roe, all reproductive care is on the line.\n\nWe can't back down in this fight.\u201d
— Rep. Lucy McBath (@Rep. Lucy McBath) 1674392400

\u201cToday should be the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.\n\nInstead, we are living in a post-Roe world, six months after the Supreme Court overturned it.\n\n24 states have or are likely to ban abortion. The divide between people who can access care and those who can't has only deepened.\u201d
— Progressive Caucus (@Progressive Caucus) 1674412822

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

Ukrainian journalists share their stories of war

openDemocracy RSS — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 11:30:48 +0000

Hear Igor Burdyga and Kateryna Semchuk explain what it's like working in a homeland under threat. Plus British author Oliver Bullough and chair Daniel Trilling

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by openDemocracy RSS.

Haldwani eviction: BJP leaders share 10-yr-old Kolkata pic with misleading claim

Kalim Ahmed — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 08:29:29 +0000

On December 20, 2022, Uttarakhand high court passed an order to evict over 4,000 families from land claimed by the Railways in Haldwani. The court’s decision was later challenged in the country’s highest court and on January 5, 2023, the Supreme Court stayed the HC order. The apex court observed that the case had a humanitarian angle that needed to be considered.

#SupremeCourtofIndia #Haldwani #SupremeCourt #HaldwaniProtest pic.twitter.com/5pNpO80m2G

— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) January 5, 2023

In this context, Major Surendra Poonia tweeted a photo and wrote, “Dear Friends, Don’t buy land anywhere.. just unite with your community in large numbers and capture any Govt/Defence/Railway land; Milord will legitimise it. And If you raise your voice against this, you are endangering country’s secularism. #HaldwaniEncroachment”

Dear Friends,
Don’t buy land anywhere .. just unite with your community in large numbers and capture any Govt/Defence/Railway land ; Milord will legitimise it.
And If you raise your voice against this, you are endangering country’s secularism.#HaldwaniEncroachment pic.twitter.com/kmNJrlgqa0

— Major Surendra Poonia (@MajorPoonia) January 5, 2023

BJP worker Priti Gandhi also tweeted the same photo and wrote, “This is what the Supreme Court has legitimized today!”

This is what the Supreme Court has legitimized today! #HaldwaniEncroachment pic.twitter.com/cKRwWWEkWd

— Priti Gandhi – प्रीति गांधी (@MrsGandhi) January 5, 2023

Prabha Upadhya who claims to be BJP UP mahila morcha state president, and Shruthi Bangaru BJP telangana state general secretary also shared the image on Twitter with similar captions as Priti Gandhi.

Click to view slideshow.

Others who have shared the image with a similar caption as Priti Gandhi include, @Sandesh99508245, @aceduos, @Ashutos04111153, @KapilKrSinghAdv, @ParitoshPal1701, @Tanwarliva, @RituRathaur

Click to view slideshow.

Fact Check

A simple reverse image search using Google lens took us to an article by ABC News published in 2016. This report carried the same image as a thumbnail. The description of the photo reads, “People get on with their lives in a slum on the railway tracks as a commuter train goes past on Dec. 12, 2013 in Kolkata, India.” It had been credited to Samir Hussein/Getty Images.

Using the same description, we performed a keyword search on Google and came across the original photo available on Getty Images. The photo is dated December 12, 2013. It represents a slum near railway tracks in Kolkata.

To sum it up, reacting to the Supreme Court order putting a stay on the decision of the Uttarakhand high court to demolish 4,000 homes in Haldwani, BJP workers and supporters shared a ten-year-old image from Kolkata, apparently to demonize the poor and the marginalized.

The post Haldwani eviction: BJP leaders share 10-yr-old Kolkata pic with misleading claim appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Kalim Ahmed.

Voters share ‘integrity and truth’ vision of a strong Fijian democracy

APR editor — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 05:23:53 +0000

By Cooper Williams, Yasmine Wright-Gittins and Cindy Chand of Wansolwara in Suva

Former politician Remesio Rogovakalali is hoping to see transparency and engagement in the next term of government, no matter which party is elected.

The 77-year-old principal from Corpus Christi Teachers College in Nasese says he wants to see integrity and truth among politicians.

“I’d like to also see more engagement between government, non-governmental organisations and unions,” he told Wansolwara after voting at Suva Grammar School this morning.

“Fijians are more educated than previous years, education is only getting better and this will make Fijian democracy stronger.”

Rogovakalali carries a wealth of experience in politics, having stood for election twice in 2001 and 2006.

Fiji Labour Party Leader Mahendra Chaudhry and wife Virmatee joined the queue at the USP Statham Campus, Suva Point, today to cast their votes. Image: Yasmine Wright-Gittins/Wansolwara

Reflecting on his time in politics, he believes truth is a powerful tool and must be adopted more in Fijian politics.

“I’ve voted at every election and it carries immense value to be able to have our voices heard. I am urging all Fijians to vote and exercise your right and civic duty,” he said.

Another figurehead at the polls today was Fiji Labour Party Leader Mahendra Chaudhry, who also called on Fijian citizens to cast their votes before 6pm.

FIJI ELECTIONS 2022

The former PM cast his vote at 10.46am at the University of the South Pacific’s Statham Campus polling station in Suva Point with his wife, Virmatee Chaudhry.

He said reports of wide voter turnout across the country were promising signs of Fiji’s interest in the results of the election.

“To citizens still contemplating whether or not they will cast their vote, please come and vote, take part in the election. This is your future and you must exercise your right to vote,” he said.

Voters like Mereani Babara, who moved from Tavua to Baulevu in Nausori five months ago, hopes the elected government would address sanitation and water woes in areas like Waidra, Baulevu.

She looked forward to casting her vote at Koroqaqa Primary School and urged other Fijians to make their way to their designated polling venue before the 6pm deadline.

Published in collaboration with the University of the South Pacific journalism programme’s Wansolwara News.

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

Twitter Allows Russian Officials to Share Antisemitic Cartoon of Zelenskyy

Robert Mackey — Wed, 23 Nov 2022 03:34:28 +0000

Elon Musk’s Twitter failed to stop the circulation of an antisemitic cartoon posted on the network by Russian diplomats drawing on a trope of Nazi propaganda by depicting Ukraine’s Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with a huge nose.

Despite pleas from Twitter users who objected to the anti-Jewish racism of the cartoon, the tweet had not been deleted, contextualized, or restricted in any visible way when this article was published, 17 hours after the image was first posted on the official account of the Russian Embassy in London.

Before Musk took control of the social network, tweets containing images that used racist tropes to attack individuals or groups based on their ethnic identity were routinely removed from the platform or made impossible to share.

Joan Donovan, research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and the co-author of the book “Meme Wars,” posted a screenshot of the Russian embassy tweet and noted that the diplomats were using “open antisemitism” to drum up support for the Russian war on Ukraine.

The cartoon is a version of an old internet meme, in which an image of Bart Simpson writing on a chalkboard during after-school detention — from the opening sequence of “The Simpsons” — is reworked by inserting topical new text on the board. In the image shared by the Russian officials, the character of Bart was also replaced with a crude depiction of Zelenskyy in which his nose was altered to evoke Nazi imagery of Jews.

The text on the board, and the tweeted Russian caption for the cartoon, makes reference to speculation encouraged by Russia, but unsupported by evidence, that Ukraine had intentionally fired a defensive missile into Poland during a recent Russian attack as part of a false flag operation intended to draw NATO into the conflict.

Twitter’s failure to immediately remove the image or restrict the Russian government account that posted it appeared to be in keeping with Musk’s previously stated sympathy with Russia’s war aims and his active embrace of right-wing talking points about the need to make the social network a forum for “free speech,” even if that means allowing hate speech to flourish.

But Musk’s definition of who should be allowed to speak freely appears to be influenced by the right-wing ideologues and trolls he frequently encourages and agrees with on Twitter. The social network’s decision to allow the Russian government’s racist attack on Zelenskyy came at the same time that some antifascist accounts were being suspended and just after Musk reinstated the accounts of both Donald Trump — who used his tweets to foment the failed January 6, 2021, coup — and Kanye West, who recently tweeted a threat to unleash punishment on “Jewish people.”

Eliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat, a news organization that began with collaborative, open-source investigations on Twitter, was among those who drew Musk’s attention to the image and asked if the social network’s new owner is “okay with state run Twitter accounts using anti-Semitic tropes?” Higgins suggested that Musk could even poll his followers on the platform to see if they “are cool with casual anti-Semitism.”

Elizabeth Tsurkov, a research fellow at the Forum for Regional Thinking, an Israeli-Palestinian think tank based in Jerusalem, noted that the tweet came from diplomats working for the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, who had defended Russia’s wild claims that Ukraine is run by Nazis by endorsing a conspiracy theory that Adolf Hitler was Jewish.

“So what if Zelenskyy is Jewish?” Lavrov told Italian television in May, when he was asked about the Russian claim that Ukraine was run by Nazis. “I believe that Hitler also had Jewish blood.” The foreign minister went on to claim that “wise Jewish people” have said that “some of the worst antisemites are Jews.”

In her comment on the cartoon posted on Twitter by Russian diplomats, Tsurkov wrote: “The people who brought you ‘Hitler was a Jew’ decided to depict Ukraine’s Jewish president this way.”

Lavrov’s remarks caused outrage and were condemned by his Israeli counterpart, Yair Lapid, as “an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error. Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism.”

Three days later, the hawkish Russian state television host Vladimir Solovyov, who is himself Jewish, told viewers that it was perfectly possible for Zelenskyy to be both Jewish and a Nazi, at least according to the definition used by those around Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Nazism, Solovyov insisted, was a form of extreme nationalism that could target any national group, not just Jews. “Nazism doesn’t have to be antisemitic,” he said, “it can be anti-Slavic, anti-Russian.”

After Lavrov's hideous antisemitic Nazi remarks, for which Putin had to apologize to Israel, new directives apparently landed at the state TV studios. Now they claim that Nazism doesn't have to be antisemitic and in its new iteration it is [drumroll] anti-Slavic and anti-Russian. pic.twitter.com/BesGtjzjWm
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) May 6, 2022

The idea that Russians, not Jews, were the main victims of Nazi Germany has a long pedigree in Russia. As the historian Timothy Snyder explained in his book “Bloodlands,” the official Soviet history of the nation’s “Great Patriotic War” against Nazi Germany was written to downplay the suffering of the Jews — influenced by Josef Stalin’s antisemitism.

“If the Stalinist notion of the war was to prevail, the fact that the Jews were its main victims had to be forgotten,” Snyder wrote. “Also to be forgotten was that the Soviet Union had been allied to Nazi Germany when the war began in 1939, and that the Soviet Union had been unprepared for the German attack in 1941. The murder of the Jews was not only an undesirable memory in and of itself; it called forth other undesirable memories. It had to be forgotten.”

“Putin’s Russian regime talks of ‘Nazis’ not because it opposes the extreme right, which it most certainly does not, but as a rhetorical device to justify unprovoked war and genocidal policies,” Snyder wrote on Substack in April. “[T]he Russian policy of ‘denazification’ is not directed against Nazis in the sense that the word is normally used,” Snyder added, but “operates within the special Russian definition of ‘Nazi': a Nazi is a Ukrainian who refuses to admit being a Russian.”

“The actual history of actual Nazis and their actual crimes in the 1930s and 1940s is thus totally irrelevant and completely cast aside,” Snyder observed. “This is perfectly consistent with Russian war fighting in Ukraine. No tears are shed in the Kremlin over Russian killing of Holocaust survivors or Russian destruction of Holocaust memorials, because Jews and the Holocaust have nothing to do with the Russian definition of ‘Nazi.’ This explains why Volodymyr Zelens’kyi, although a democratically-elected president, and a Jew with family members who fought in the Red Army and died in the Holocaust, can be called a Nazi. Zelens’kyi is a Ukrainian, and that is all that ‘Nazi’ means.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Robert Mackey.

US Giving $32 Billion Less Than Its Annual ‘Fair Share’ to Help Poor Nations Survive Climate Crisis

Kenny Stancil — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 17:49:59 +0000

"Basic justice demands that those most responsible for causing the climate crisis should financially support those who are suffering most on the frontline of climate change," said the former president of the Maldives.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

Ex-I&B minister, other BJP leaders share clipped video of Ashok Gehlot with misleading claim

Abhishek Kumar — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 08:20:07 +0000

A short clip of chief minister Ashok Gehlot speaking to the media from his car is viral on social media. Responding to a question about various leaders giving statements, he says there should be only one goal since the people of Rajasthan are suffering. Many BJP leaders shared this clip in a way that it seems the Rajasthan chief minister was acknowledging that the public was suffering under his own party’s rule.

BJP MP and former Union information and broadcasting minister Rajyavardhan Rathore tweeted a 16-second video. In it, Gehlot says, “There should be only one goal in front of us right now, the people of Rajasthan are suffering”. The two sentences are repeated three times in the clip. Tweeting the video, Rathore wrote, “Mr. chief minister, the people of Rajasthan are suffering. But the Congress is responsible for this, isn’t it? So who is going to take responsibility for this? You, Sachin Pilot or Rahul Gandhi?” (Archived link)

मुख्यमंत्री जी, राजस्थान के अंदर जनता तो त्रस्त है ही।

लेकिन इसकी जिम्मेदार भी तो कांग्रेस ही है न! तो इसकी जिम्मेदारी कौन लेगा; आप, सचिन पायलट जी या राहुल गांधी? pic.twitter.com/XaWy9v3mB0

— RajyavardhanRathore (@Ra_THORe) November 2, 2022

BJP leader from Rajasthan Laxmikant Bhardwaj tweeted a 26-second video in which Gehlot, quoting Congress general secretary Venugopal, instructs Congress leaders to follow decorum, and not indulge in any rhetoric. He adds that they should only focus on one goal as the people of Rajasthan are suffering. Tweeting this video, Laxmikant Bhardwaj wrote, ‘The chief minister of Rajasthan is saying the people of the state are suffering. Because of whom?” (Archived link)

राजस्थान के मुख्यमंत्री जी कह रहे हैं , राजस्थान की जनता त्रस्त है …किससे ? pic.twitter.com/duKyt3mBrU

— Laxmikant bhardwaj (@lkantbhardwaj) November 2, 2022

BJP Andhra Pradesh general secretary Vishnu Vardhan Reddy tweeted the 26-second clip and quoted Ashok Gehlot’s statement. (Archived link)

Several other users also shared the clip without any additional context.

Fact Check

After inspecting the video more closely, Alt News suspected that it had been tampered with. This is because it appears that Ashok Gehlot says something more than what can be heard in the viral clips, but that part has been cropped out.

We examined Ashok Gehlot’s official Twitter handle and found the full-length video from which the viral clip was taken, posted on November 2. In the accompanying text, he says that the Prime Minister had not fulfilled his promise regarding the construction of the ERCP (Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project) in Jaipur and Ajmer. This footage of Gehlot interacting with the media is a little over seven-minute long. After watching the video in its entirety, we can confirm that the video in circulation is being shared out of context with a misleading claim.

ईआरसीपी के लिए प्रधानमंत्री जी ने वादा किया था जयपुर में, अजमेर में और वो अभी तक वादा निभा नहीं रहे हैं जबकि ईआरसीपी इतना महत्वपूर्ण है, ये कोई राजनीति का खेल नहीं है, वसुंधरा जी के वक्त में बनाई है ये, हम उसको आगे बढ़ा रहे हैं, ये खुशी होनी चाहिए कि हमने बंद नहीं किया उसको। pic.twitter.com/HuCDP4ysJW

— Ashok Gehlot (@ashokgehlot51) November 2, 2022

Scenes from the viral clip appear in this video at the 5:44 mark onward. Here, a reporter questions Ashok Gehlot about statements given by Congress leaders like Sachin Pilot in the past. Responding to this, the Rajasthan CM says, “In all fairness, such remarks should not be made, because no matter what, Mr. Venugopal is our general secretary, and he said that no one would make any rhetoric. We want everyone to maintain discipline. We should only focus on one goal since the people of Rajasthan are suffering; people of the whole country are suffering. There is tension, violence, inflation, unemployment. On the one hand, Rahul Gandhi is out on the streets putting in great effort toward this walking 25 kilometers every day. Lakhs of people are walking with him. We want to mount pressure on the central government. After that, our target should be to ensure we form the government next time. This is our goal. We have introduced so many historic schemes in Rajasthan. The whole country is appreciating the schemes we have launched in Rajasthan. The whole world is appreciating our handling and management of COVID-19. Not only this, other countries believe that this superb management by the Rajasthan administration saved the people, whereas so many were killed in Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Delhi due to unavailability of oxygen. So we did a great job. Now we have set out on this journey on the back of all the good governance we introduced. Our only goal now is focusing on getting re-elected.”

In other words, Ashok Gehlot spoke not just about the people of Rajasthan, but the entire country. However, that portion was left out to suggest that the chief minister was complaining that the public was suffering under his leadership.

Alt News dug further to ascertain the context of Gehlot’s remarks on giving statements. We found that on November 1, he had shared the stage with Prime Minister Modi at Mangarh in Banswara. Following this, without naming Gehlot, Sachin Pilot remarked that Modi’s praise was an ‘interesting development’. Pilot also alluded to Modi’s appreciation of Ghulam Nabi Azad n the past, who later left the Congress.

Alwar, Rajasthan | They should not make such remarks. KC Venugopal has asked everybody in the party to not make any such remarks. We want that everybody should follow discipline: Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot on Sachin Pilot’s remarks https://t.co/ptGGHUY7M3 pic.twitter.com/ELTQLrNG3K

— ANI (@ANI) November 2, 2022

To sum it up, several BJP leaders, including a former I&B minister, shared an edited clip of Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot’s statement to journalists without context. In reality, Ashok Gehlot was not referring to just the people of Rajasthan when he said the public was suffering, but the whole country.

The post Ex-I&B minister, other BJP leaders share clipped video of Ashok Gehlot with misleading claim appeared first on Alt News.

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

Congress leaders share Andhra festival crowd video as Bharat Jodo Yatra gathering

Abhishek Kumar — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 12:29:05 +0000

A video of a massive procession moving through a road has been making rounds on social media. The video also shows onlookers on rooftops video-recording the rally on their mobile phones. It has been claimed that this is a visual from the ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra led by Congress MP Rahul Gandhi.

Congress leader Sandeep Singh tweeted the video as footage of a crowd that gathered in support of Rahul Gandhi. (Archived link)

Congress Mumbai treasurer Bhushan Patil also amplified the video on Twitter and wrote, “Raichur witnessed historic crowds on the final day of the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Karnataka.” (Archived link)

Salman Aneez Soz of the Congress also promoted the video while linking it to the Bharat Jodo Yatra. (Archived link)

Similarly, Chhattisgarh Congress Seva Dal’s social media state coordinator Manish Tiwari, along with Lutyens Media, user Sreen Shri and several others also shared the clip with the same claim on Twitter.

Click to view slideshow.

Fact-check

Alt News performed a reverse image search using frames taken from the viral video. This led us to another clip which had been uploaded to YouTube on October 12, 2022. According to the caption, the video features devotees celebrating the local Pydithalli Sirimanu festival in Andhra Pradesh. The user has also identified the location seen in the visuals as Vizianagaram.

Taking a closer look at the video, we noticed a Sony Electronics outlet in the background. Using the location mentioned in the YouTube video as a clue, we searched for the same Sony Center on Google Maps, and found that it is located on Fort Road in Andhra Pradesh’s Vizianagaram district.

Alt News examined the YouTube channel of the user who uploaded the aforementioned video and noticed that they had uploaded another video of the same festival.

In the clip, a hotel named Anand Grand Fort can also be seen in the background. When we searched for the hotel on Google Maps, we found that it is also located in Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh.

It is worth noting that the Sony Center seen in the viral clip and Hotel Anand Grand Fort seen in the other video are located at a distance of just 300 m away from one another. Also located nearby is the Sri Sri Sri Pydithalli Ammavari Temple. Pydithalli Srimanu, the festival being celebrated by locals in the video, is associated with this temple.

Next, we translated the related keywords into Telugu using Google Translate and performed a keyword search on Facebook. This led us to an October 11 post on a Facebook page titled Vizianagaram Youth, containing images of the same festival.

After examining the photos in this post closely, we noticed that they closely resemble visuals from the video in question. The Sony Center hoarding, the plants on the road divider, along with the tarp on the roof of the building are seen in both. The similarities can be seen more clearly in the side-by-side comparison given below. This confirms that the viral video cannot be from the ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra led by Rahul Gandhi. This is actually a clip of locals gathered to celebrate Pydithalli Sirimanu, a festival unique to Andhra Pradesh.

Furthermore, the Sirimanotham festival celebrations were held in Andhra Pradesh on October 11, whereas Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra was passing through Karnataka’s Chitradurg district on the same day.

To sum it up, a number of Congress leaders and social media users falsely shared the footage of a large crowd celebrating a local festival in Andhra Pradesh as visuals from the Congress’s ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra.

The post Congress leaders share Andhra festival crowd video as Bharat Jodo Yatra gathering appeared first on Alt News.

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

Kejriwal, AAP supporters share doctored ABP News video highlighting party’s chances in Gujarat

Abhishek Kumar — Sat, 22 Oct 2022 09:23:01 +0000

Sharing a purported ABP News report, Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal recently tweeted, “Watch this video to feel the pulse of Gujarat”. In the video, it is being claimed that with the elections knocking at the door, the Congress is not active in Gujarat. Neither the party has held any rally nor has it been able to challenge the BJP on social media, it adds. Since the Congress has already given up, the Gujarat election is going to be a fight between the AAP and the BJP, the video claims.

Kejriwal later deleted the tweet though the archive of deleted tweets can be found on the Microsoft Bing and Yahoo search results, which also contains its timestamp.

Here is the screen recording recording of Arvind Kejriwal’s tweet. Aam Aadmi Party social media team member Kapil replied to this tweet.

Saroj Vavaliya, secretary of the women’s wing of the Aam Aadmi Party, Surat, also tweeted the video.

गुजरात मै नहीं चल पाया मोदी का जुमला!
भाजपा वालों के रथ को गुजरात मै ना मिली रफ़्तार!
खाली खुर्शीओ ने भाजपा की चिंता बढ़ाई!
केजरीवाल का दावा है की 106 से ज्यादा सीटे आएगी!#एक_मौका_केजरीवालको pic.twitter.com/fu1s9GjLjc

— Saroj Vavaliya (@sarojvavaliya) October 19, 2022

Adil Ahmed Khan, chairman of the APMC, Delhi government, embedded the exact, same video tweeted by Kejriwal. The video, however, is no longer available since the original tweet by Kejriwal was deleted.

AAP Express, a pro-Aam Aadmi Party account, tweeted the same video with the same claim.

Supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party shared the video on Facebook and Twitter widely.

Fact-check

Alt News observed that the video shared by Arvind Kejriwal and AAP supporters had a cut at 22 seconds. To verify further, we did a keyword search on YouTube. We found the programme uploaded by ABP News on YouTube on October 16, 2022. It is clear from the full video that there indeed has been a cut after 22 seconds in the viral video.

In the original video, news anchor Shirin rhetorically asks, “Has Kejriwal got clues from the IB report? Is there any such report at all?” Subsequently, the anchor talks about a ground report by correspondent Abhishek Upadhyay. It is at this point that the voice over has been manipulated in the viral video.

In the original video, ABP news shows the visuals of the report at 33 seconds. The original voice-over questions Kejriwal over IB reports, while the manipulated viral video claims that Kejriwal sidelined the Congress and spoke of how the battle in the elections in Gujarat is primarily between the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party.

The ticker also has been manipulated in the viral video In the viral video after the 33-second mark. The original ticker can be translated as, “The Gujarat pamphlet, a raving discussion of the intelligence survey. AAP’s claim about Gujarat elections”. The ticker of the video shared by Arvind Kejriwal claims that the Aam Aadmi Party will form the government in Gujarat and the Congress is described as inactive. This means the the video shared by Arvind Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi supporters was manipulated.

Below, upon a comparison of the visuals, the change made to the ticker can be clearly discerned.

Below is a comparison between the viral clip and the original video report of ABP News.

Journalist Anshul Singh of the Lallantop also pointed out in his tweet that the video shared by Arvind Kejriwal was manipulated.

Thread
अरविंद केजरीवाल ने पहले एडिटेड वीडियो ट्वीट किया और फिर कुछ देर बाद Delete कर दिया.

केजरीवाल ने ABP न्यूज़ का एक वीडियो ट्वीट कर गुजरात में AAP की बढ़ती लोकप्रियता का दावा किया.

पहले थ्रेड में केजरीवाल का ट्वीट, फिर एडिटेड वीडियो और अंत में वीडियो की सच्चाई जानिए. 1/n pic.twitter.com/xDIpCWgmV9

— Anshul Singh (@anshulsigh) October 19, 2022

To sum up, several Aam Aadmi Party leaders and supporters, including Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, shared an edited ABP News report with a misleading claim.

The post Kejriwal, AAP supporters share doctored ABP News video highlighting party’s chances in Gujarat appeared first on Alt News.

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

Congress leaders share old pic from Nigeria as Bharat Jodo Yatra crowd in Karnataka

Abhishek Kumar — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 11:51:45 +0000

A picture of a gigantic crowd is viral on social media with the claim that it is a picture from the Bharat Jodo Yatra led by Congress leader and MP Rahul Gandhi. Many Congress leaders and supporters shared this picture, claiming that it was taken in Karnataka where a massive crowd purportedly gathered in support of Rahul Gandhi.

Provincial President, Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee and MLA Virendra Chaudhary shared the picture, claiming that it showed scenes from a public gathering in Bellary as part of the Bharat Jodo Yatra being led by Rahul Gandhi. (Archived link)

Congress national coordinator Ritu Chaodhary tweeted the picture and wrote that Rahul Gandhi was creating history. She claimed that the image was from the Karnataka leg of the Bharat Jodi Yatra. However, she later deleted the post. (Archived link)

In a now deleted tweet, Madhya Pradesh Congress president Jitendra Patwari also shared the image and wrote that it showed the massive crowd of supporters who gathered for the Bharat Jodo Yatra. (Archived link)

Congress leader BM Sandeep also tweeted this picture with the same claim. (Archived link)

The viral photo was amplified on social media platforms with the same claim.

Fact-check

Alt News performed a reverse image search using TinEye and found another version of the viral image on the results page, a part of which was being cropped and circulated as Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra gathering. This picture was uploaded on a website called Christ For All Nation (CFAN).

When we clicked on this link, we noticed that it was broken. When we looked up the archived version of the link, we found that the image was featured in CFAN’s official press kit. It was archived on May 16, 2007. However, since it was not properly archived, the picture does not appear in the 2007 archive, but is accessible on the one dated August 2, 2009. To verify both the images, we matched the source codes of the images in both the archives and found that they were the same. In other words, this picture is at least 15-year old. This photo in the press kit is from Christian evangelist Reinhard Bonhke’s missionary visit to Ogbomosho, Nigeria.

Next, a keyword search led us to an image posted on the official Facebook page of Christian evangelist Reinhard Bonnke. It was clicked from a different angle than the viral picture. This picture in the post has been listed as the 2002 Crusade in Ogbomosho, Nigeria.

Alt News cannot confirm when this picture was clicked. However, it is clear that the photo is at least 15-year old since it has been on the internet since the year 2007. We contacted CFAN to gather more information about this image. This article will be updated once Alt News receives a response from them.

To sum it up, several Congress leaders shared an old picture of Christian evangelist Reinhard Bonnke’s religious gathering, falsely claiming that it was from the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Karnataka.

The post Congress leaders share old pic from Nigeria as Bharat Jodo Yatra crowd in Karnataka appeared first on Alt News.

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

Congress handles share doctored graphic to claim Rahul ahead of Modi in popularity

Abhishek Kumar — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 08:05:48 +0000

A graphic from news channel Aaj Tak’s show ‘Desh Ka Mijaz’ is viral on social media, in which the figure ‘52%’ is shown along with Rahul Gandhi’s name and ‘34%’ with that of Narendra Modi. It is being claimed that the figures prove Rahul Gandhi’s popularity has surpassed that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Sharing this graphic, the Twitter handle of the Delhi Congress wrote, “The mood of the country is changing. Now the public has made up its mind to teach a lesson to the autocrats.” (Archived link)

The graphic was also promoted by the Twitter handle of the Tripura Pradesh Youth Congress. The accompanying caption read, “The Bharat Jodo Yatra will gradually wipe the BJP out of this country.” (Archived link)

Pankaj Prahlad Singh of Congress Delhi also amplified the graphic.

Fact-check

Taking a closer look at the viral screengrab, Alt News noticed that below Rahul Gandhi’s statement is a ticker that reads, “Odisha’s remote control is with the corrupt chowkidar“.

We performed a keyword search using this statement of Gandhi’s. This led us to a report by Aaj Tak dated January 25, 2019. Rahul Gandhi made the remarks while addressing a rally in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. This confirms that this broadcast from Aaj Tak was aired sometime around January 25, 2019.

Next, we performed a keyword search on Twitter using a date filter and came across a video of this programme which was tweeted on January 25, 2019 by the official handle of Aaj Tak.

ये रहा पीएम मोदी और राहुल गांधी की लोकप्रियता का ग्राफ और लोकसभा चुनाव में जनता का मिजाज #MoodOfTheNation
देखिए #HallaBol @anjanaomkashyap के साथ.
लाइव: https://t.co/fOz5QPkk43 pic.twitter.com/RK8BvLNqli

— AajTak (@aajtak) January 25, 2019

The programme claimed on the basis of a survey that the popularity of Narendra Modi for the post of prime minister was 46 percent, while that of Rahul Gandhi was 34 percent. We noticed that the viral graphic used the original frame in context of the figures for Narendra Modi, which also matches the time stamp (17:59). However, the frame mentioning Rahul Gandhi (34%) is not the one used in the viral graphic.

Further in the show, it is revealed that among the Opposition leaders, Rahul Gandhi was the most popular alternative for Narendra Modi. Here, his popularity figure stood at 52 percent, the highest among the Opposition. In this context, the visual referring to Rahul Gandhi can be seen on screen. The time stamp (18:01) also lines up with the viral graphic.

Aaj Tak issued a tweet clarifying that the viral graphic was doctored. Following this, Congress’s social media and digital platform chairperson Supriya Shrinate took cognizance of the viral graphic and the tweet was taken down from the official handle of Delhi Congress. (Archived link)

मेरे संज्ञान में लाए जाने के तुरंत बाद @INCDelhi ने ट्वीट को डिलीट किया।

हम ग़लत तथ्यों को क़तई बर्दाश्त नहीं करते हैं-चाहे कहीं के भी हों।अपनी गलती का त्वरित सुधार और दूसरे की नज़रंदाज़ नहीं करते।

यह कांग्रेस का सिद्धांत है, पर क्या भक्तमंडली और नतमस्तक मीडिया एसा करेगा? https://t.co/Hy0BmMn0t2

— Supriya Shrinate (@SupriyaShrinate) October 13, 2022

To sum it up, Congress members falsely circulated an edited graphic from a 2019 Aaj Tak broadcast comparing figures from two different parameters to suggest that Rahul Gandhi’s popularity had surpassed that of Narendra Modi’s.

The post Congress handles share doctored graphic to claim Rahul ahead of Modi in popularity appeared first on Alt News.

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

Did Fadnavis stop Shinde from replying? Maha Cong share clipped video with false claim

Kinjal — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 07:59:50 +0000

A 19-second video clip of actor Nana Patekar interviewing Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis is being widely shared on social media. In the video, Patekar asks, “Whoever is getting the tender, whoever the contractor is, take it in writing from them for five years.” Responding to this, Eknath Shinde says, “That stipulation has already been added, that too is…” However, Devendra Fadnavis interjects at this point and says, “What the CM said, and you asked a very good question.” The viral video also features Marathi text on the screen. The text on the top reads, “Fadnavis does not allow me to speak in the Assembly, Mahajan does not allow me to speak in front of reporters”. At the same time, the translation of the bottom text is, “Do you bring the chief minister along just for show?”

Maharashtra Congress shared the clip and wrote, “Is Shinde a chief minister or a showpiece?” (Archived link)

शिंदे मुख्यमंत्री आहेत की शो-पीस? pic.twitter.com/OQem0xaqMo

— Maharashtra Congress (@INCMaharashtra) October 13, 2022

The Indian National Congress Maharashtra handle also posted the video with this message. The post had amassed over 3 lakh views at the time of writing. (Archived link)

Several users also amplified the video on Twitter and Facebook.

Click to view slideshow.

Fact-check

Alt News was able to debunk this 19-second video using a simple keyword search. News18 Lokmat uploaded the full length interview from which the viral video was clipped on October 11, 2022. After examining the interview in its entirety, Alt News can confirm that the claim made by the Congress accompanying the video is completely misleading. Readers who watch the video themselves will find that Eknath Shinde has answered Nana Patekar’s questions multiple times.

However, we will focus on the portion of the interview featured in the clip in circulation. The moment in the viral video can be seen from the 39:55-mark in the longer video. Furthermore, at the 40:06 mark, Devendra Fadnavis answers himself, interrupting Eknath Shinde. However, in order to understand the full context of the entire conversation, we request readers to watch the interview from the 37:42 mark onward. In this time frame, Shinde is questioned about the abundance of potholes in Mumbai despite it being the financial capital of the country.

At the 38:15 mark in the video given below, Eknath Shinde replies, “This is a very relevant question because people in Mumbai have been suffering due to these potholes for the last several years. They also claim that there are a lot of potholes, figures like 1,000 out of 3,000 potholes in the city have been repaired. The media also covers everything. But I will tell you about what happened when our government came to power. I called commissioner Chahal and asked him how many kilometers of road there was. He said 1900 kilometers. I asked him why there were so many potholes, and if it was a financial issue. He said they had the money. I asked why they didn’t repair the roads with concrete. He said they repaired 50 km of road every year. Every year potholes form on asphalt roads. I asked, do you work for the contractors? He said no. I asked him how much money it would take to build 500 km of road in concrete. He said Rs. 5,500 crore and asked if he could borrow the amount. He informed me that they arranged concrete for 450 km of road, and even the tender process had commenced. I asked when they would complete the rest of the road. I told them to release the remaining tenders by March, and asked if they had the funds to do so. He told me they did and assured me there would not be a single pothole in all of Mumbai in the next two years, as all the roads would be repaired with concrete…”

This response is followed by the portion of the interview in which Nana Patekar asks the question and Devendra Fadnavis answers while interrupting Shinde. After watching the entire interview, it becomes clear that Eknath Shinde did, in fact, respond to the question and took around two minutes to do so. It was later on that Devendra Fadnavis himself took over.

In other words, the Maharashtra Congress falsely circulated a clipped video from an interview featuring Devendra Fadnavis and Eknath Shinde claiming that Fadnavis did not allow Eknath Shinde a chance to respond. However, after watching the entire interview, it becomes evident that Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde spoke for two minutes in response to a question on the poor condition of roads in Mumbai.

The post Did Fadnavis stop Shinde from replying? Maha Cong share clipped video with false claim appeared first on Alt News.

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

Spain Approves ‘Solidarity’ Tax to Make Nation’s Top 0.1% Pay a Fairer Share

Kenny Stancil — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 19:20:41 +0000

Spain's leftist coalition government on Thursday announced a series of downwardly redistributive fiscal reforms—including a temporary "solidarity" tax on the nation's 23,000 wealthiest residents—that lawmakers hope will ease the cost-of-living crisis hurting millions of working people.

In 2023 and 2024, the 0.1% of Spanish taxpayers who own more than €3 million ($2.9 million) in assets will be subject to a new wealth tax.

According to The Associated Press: "People with holdings of €3 million to €5 million ($2.9 million to $4.9 million) will be taxed 1.7% and those whose personal worth is €5 million to €10 million ($4.9 million to $9.8 million) will be taxed at 2.1%. Individuals with fortunes above €10 million will pay 3.5%."

This levy on 1 out of every 1,000 citizens, which Finance Minister María Jesús Montero described as a "solidarity" tax, is one of many changes to Spain's upcoming budget that are intended to mitigate economic hardship as the prices of energy, food, and other essential goods continue to soar due to corporate profiteering and the destabilizing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the climate crisis on global supply chains.

As AP reported: "The government also plans to increase the income tax rate from 26% to 27% for people earning more than €200,000 ($196,000). The capital gains tax for incomes above €300,000 ($294,000) will go up to 28%, an increase of two percentage points."

These measures—agreed upon by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and its junior coalition partner, Unidas Podemos—are expected to raise €3.14 billion ($3.08 billion) over the next two years. The government plans to use this revenue to fund programs that are designed to assist those with modest incomes.

In addition to hiking taxes on its richest citizens, Spain is also poised to offer working people and small businesses more relief by trimming the levies they owe by an estimated €1.9 billion.

"The government plans to reduce the income tax on annual wages of up to €21,000 ($20,584)," AP noted. "Montero said this will benefit some 50% of the workforce given that the average annual salary in Spain is €21,000."

Moreover, the government agreed to slash the sales tax on feminine hygiene products and contraceptives from 10% to 4%.

"We have to make this adjustment at this time to combat the effects of inflation," Montero told reporters. Although the country's inflation rate fell from 10.5% in August to 9% in September as energy prices declined, it remains high.

"There is the need to ask for a greater effort from those who are benefiting from energy prices and interest rates," she added, referring to taxes on utilities and banks that are being prepared.

These changes to Spain's tax code, said Montero, are bound to make it "more progressive, efficient, fair, and also enough to guarantee social justice and economic efficiency."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

‘A Simple Yes or No’: Fetterman Demands Oz Share Position on GOP’s Federal Abortion Ban

Kenny Stancil — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 17:21:31 +0000

Moments after Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina introduced legislation Tuesday that would prohibit abortion nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy, the campaign of Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman—the Democratic nominee for the key battleground state's open U.S. Senate seat—challenged Dr. Mehmet Oz, his GOP opponent, to clarify where he stands on reproductive freedom.

"Republicans are running on a national abortion ban in these midterms."

"Would you vote for Sen. Graham's bill to ban abortions after 15 weeks?" Fetterman spokesperson Joe Calvello asked Oz, a super-wealthy, right-wing celebrity television doctor backed by former President Donald Trump. "It's a simple yes or no question."

"'It should be left to the states' is not a real answer," Calvello added, preemptively shutting down what has become Republicans' typical response on the campaign trail since the U.S. Supreme Court's reactionary majority eliminated the constitutional right to abortion earlier this summer. GOP candidates' standard retort looks increasingly deceptive now that Graham has once again proposed a federal abortion ban.

"The people of Pennsylvania deserve to know how Oz would vote on this bill if he were in the U.S. Senate," said Calvello. "They deserve to know where he stands when it comes to an issue as fundamental as reproductive rights."

"John Fetterman's position on this issue is crystal clear," he continued. "John believes abortion is a decision that should only be made by a woman and her doctor, not politicians in Washington. In the Senate, he will proudly cast the 51st vote to scrap the filibuster and codify Roe v. Wade into law."

NDTV, Hindustan Times share 4-yr-old video as footage from Sept 11 Papua New Guinea earthquake

Shinjinee Majumder — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 12:50:06 +0000

A video of an earthquake is being circulated widely on social media as footage of the 7.6-magnitude quake that hit Papua New Guinea, an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, on September 11. The video shows people panicking and running while large cracks develop on the road as a result of the quake. People can also be heard praying in the background.

NDTV has used a still from the video as the Feature Image in its report of the Papua New Guinea tremors. (Archived link)

NDTV cited Reddit user ChrisM707 as a source. His post had garnered 2.8k upvotes. (Archived link)

The Hindustan Times tweeted a compilation of several videos of the incident. The first of these videos is the viral clip (Archived link). However, a text superimposed at the top of the video reads, “HT doesn’t vouch for the authenticity of the videos”.

A powerful earthquake of 7.6 magnitude ripped through Papua New Guinea on Sunday morning. Three people were killed due to the landslides triggered by the earthquake. pic.twitter.com/feP74Mpjt7

— Hindustan Times (@htTweets) September 11, 2022

The Weather Channel also used this video while reporting on the Papua New Guinea quake. (Archived link)

This video was also tweeted (archive) several times with claims that it was shot in Papua New Guinea. (Archived link)

Watch | 7.6 magnitude earthquake hits #PapuaNewGuinea. US Geological Survey says the quake, with depth of 90 kilometers, strikes near town of #Kainantu. Power outages and damage to buildings reported in parts of the country.#Earthquake pic.twitter.com/pMo19W7PYv

— NCIB NEWS NETWORK (@NCIB_INDIA_NEWS) September 11, 2022

Fact Check

Upon reverse image searching one of the key-frames of the video, Alt News was led to an Advanced Earth and Space Science blog post by Dave Petley dated October 15, 2018. Professor Petley is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hull in the United Kingdom. His blog provides commentary and analysis of landslide events occurring worldwide. This particular post contained a geological analysis of the lateral spreading that had been witnessed in Sigi Biromaru, a suburb of Palu in Indonesia, during the Sulawesi earthquake in September 2018.

In the blog post, Professor Petley uses screengrabs from the footage that was shot in Sigi Biromaru, during the earthquake. The photographs used by him match the viral video.

On searching the keywords “Sigi Biromaru 2018” on YouTube, we found a longer version of the viral video uploaded on October 7, 2018.

In the video, two important stills confirm the fact that the video was indeed shot in Indonesia. At 1:56 in the video, a signboard consisting of an arrow pointing downwards, and the text ‘MASUK’ can be seen. ‘Masuk’ is the Indonesian word for ‘enter’. Moreover, at the 3:53-minute mark, a typical gas station signboard is visible with the text ‘PERTAMINA’. According to its website, Pertamina is the national energy company owned by the Government of Indonesia.

Click to view slideshow.

Getty Images had also uploaded this video on their website. Provided to them by Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah, the video shows the moment a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck Sulawesi Island, which triggered tsunamis in Donggala and Palu cities. The death toll stood at 2,045 at the time of the video getting uploaded.

Through a keyword search in Indonesian on Twitter with a time filter, Alt News found several posts about the aftermath of the 2018 earthquake on Sigi Biromaru. Out of them, we found some pictures and videos of the Pertamina gas station and its surrounding areas that had been wrecked in the earthquake. (1, 2, 3)

Situasi di daerah Biromaru, perbatasan Palu Sigi setelah terjadi gempa. Menurut warga disana, saat gempa, tanah seperti gelombang ombak berjalan. Kiriman gambar dari Helmi…02#DoaUntukSulteng #SaluranPemersatuBangsa pic.twitter.com/Z92hXO5Rkr

— TVRI Nasional (@TVRINasional) October 3, 2018

The number on the signboard could be retrieved in a clearer picture. The number read “74.943.18”.

While searching for the number on Google, Alt News was led to a Pertamina media file. The 10th page of the file contains an image of this particular gas station labelled with the subsequent number. Alongside this is an image of the shop opposite the gas station, which can be seen in the viral video as well.

Click to view slideshow.

The image is titled ‘Kondisi SPBU Pertamina 74.943.18 di Kecamatan Sigi setelah diguncang gempa 7,4 SR.’ (Translation: Condition of Pertamina gas station 74,943.18 in Sigi District after being rocked by a 7.4 magnitude earthquake). The bottom of the page reads, ‘SPBU Pertamina di Kabupaten Sigi luluh lantak pasca bencana. SPBU tersebut tidak dapat beroperasi lagi karena permukaan tanah di sekitar SPBU terangkat karena dampak gempa dan likuifaksi’ (Translation: Pertamina gas station in Sigi Regency was destroyed after the disaster. The gas station can no longer operate because the ground level around the gas station has been raised in the impact of the earthquake and liquefaction).

According to a Wartakota report dated October 8, 2018, residents looted this gas station, which is located close to Palu-Palolo highway in Sigi as it was not guarded by authorities. The report further states that the condition of the gas station when the Tribune was at the location was also very worrying. The entire roof and support poles were slanted. The ground had cracked.

Interestingly, this video has been shared with misinformation in the past as well. The same video had been circulated and viewed tens of thousands of times on social media posts with the claim that it showed a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in Banten on January 14, 2022. AFP fact-checked this misleading claim. This video had also been shared after another earthquake hit Palu on October 9, 2018. The truth had been subsequently clarified.

Hence, it is evident an old video of the impact of the 2018 Sulawesi earthquake on the neighbouring areas of Sigi Borimaru in Indonesia is being falsely circulated with the claim that it is the footage of the recent earthquake in Papua New Guinea.

The post NDTV, Hindustan Times share 4-yr-old video as footage from Sept 11 Papua New Guinea earthquake appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Shinjinee Majumder.

After Queen’s Death, Victims of British Imperialism Share Why ‘We Will Not Mourn’

Brett Wilkins — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 15:08:56 +0000

As millions of Britons and admirers the world over mourned Queen Elizabeth II's death Thursday, others—especially in nations formerly colonized by the British Empire—voiced reminders of the "horrendous cruelties" perpetrated against them during the monarch's reign.

"Her legacy is colonialism, slavery, racism, loot, and plundering."

"We do not mourn the death of Elizabeth, because to us her death is a reminder of a very tragic period in this country and Africa's history," declared Julius Malema, head of the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters party in South Africa.

"Elizabeth ascended to the throne in 1952, reigning for 70 years as a head of an institution built up, sustained, and living off a brutal legacy of dehumanization of millions of people across the world," he continued.

"During her 70-year reign as queen, she never once acknowledged the atrocities that her family inflicted on native people that Britain invaded across the world," Malema noted. "She willingly benefited from the wealth that was attained from the exploitation and murder of millions of people across the world."

"The British royal family stands on the shoulders of millions of slaves who were shipped away from the continent to serve the interests of racist white capital accumulation, at the center of which lies the British royal family," Malema added.

Larry Madowo, a CNN International correspondent from Kenya, said during a Thursday broadcast that "the fairytale is that Queen Elizabeth went up the treetops here in Kenya a princess and came down a queen because it's when she was here in Kenya that she learned that her dad had died and she was to be the queen."

"But that also was the start of the eight years after that, that the... British colonial government cracked down brutally on the Mau Mau rebellion against the colonial administration," he continued. "They herded more than a million people into concentration camps, where they were tortured and dehumanized."

In addition to rampant torture—including the systemic castration of suspected rebels and sympathizers, often with pliers—British forces and their local allies massacred unarmed civilians, disappeared their children, sadistically raped women, and clubbed prisoners to death.

"And so," added Madowo, "across the African continent, there have been people who are saying, 'I will not mourn for Queen Elizabeth, because my ancestors suffered great atrocities under her people that she never fully acknowledged that."

Indeed, instead of apologizing for its crimes and compensating its victims, the British government launched Operation Legacy, a massive effort to erase evidence of colonial crimes during the period of rapid decolonization in the 1950s-'70s.

"If the queen had apologized for slavery, colonialism, and neocolonialism and urged the Crown to offer reparations for the millions of lives taken in her/their names, then perhaps I would do the human thing and feel bad," tweeted Cornell University professor Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ. "As a Kenyan, I feel nothing. This theater is absurd."

Aldani Marki, an activist with the Organization of Solidarity with the Yemeni Struggle, asserted that "Queen Elizabeth is a colonizer and has blood on her hands."

"In 1963 the Yemeni people rebelled against British colonialism. In turn the Queen ordered her troops to violently suppress any and all dissent as fiercely as possible," he tweeted. "The main punitive measure of Queen Elizabeth's Aden colony was forced deportations of native Yemenis into Yemen's desert heartland."

"This is Queen Elizabeth's legacy," Marki continued. "A legacy of colonial violence and plunder. A legacy of racial segregation and institutionalized racism."

"The queen's England is today waging another war against Yemen together with the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and the UAE," he added.

Melissa Murray, a Jamaican-American professor at New York University School of Law, said that the queen's death "will accelerate debates about colonialism, reparations, and the future of the Commonwealth" as "the residue of colonialism shadows day-to-day life in Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean."

Numerous observers noted how the British Empire plundered around $45 trillion from India over two centuries of colonialism that resulted in millions of deaths, and how the Kohinoor—one of the largest cut diamonds in the world, with an estimated value of $200 million—was stolen from India to be set in the queen mother's crown.

"Why are Indians mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II?" asked Indian economist Manisha Kadyan on Twitter. "Her legacy is colonialism, slavery, racism, loot, and plundering. Despite having chances, she never apologized for [the] bloody history of her family. She reduced everything to a 'difficult past episode' on her visit to India. Evil."

An Indian historian tweeted, "there are only 22 countries that Britain never invaded throughout history."

"British ships transported a total of three million Africans to the New World as slaves," he wrote. "An empire that brought misery and famine to Asia and Africa. No tears for the queen. No tears for the British monarchy."

Negative reaction to the queen's passing was not limited to the Global South. Despite the historic reconciliation between Ireland and Britain this century, there were celebrations in Dublin—as a crowd singing "Lizzie's in a Box" at a Celtic FC football match attests—and among the Irish diaspora.

"I'm Irish," tweeted MSNBC contributor Katelyn Burns, "hating the queen is a family matter."

Welsh leftists got in on the action too. The Welsh Underground Network tweeted a litany of reasons why "we will not mourn."

"We will not mourn for royals who oversaw the protection of known child molesters in the family," the group said.

"We will not mourn for royals who oversaw the active destruction of the Welsh language, and the Welsh culture," the separatists added.

Summing up the sentiments of many denizens of the Global South and decolonization defenders worldwide, Assal Rad, research director at the National Iranian American Council, tweeted, "If you have more sympathy for colonizers and oppressors than the people they oppress, you may need to evaluate your priorities."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

‘We Will Rock You’: Armenian Kids’ Choir Share Stage With Queen Guitarist

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 12:27:12 +0000

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

If We Tax Share Buybacks, Can We Also Tax Stock Returns?

Dean Baker — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 05:44:30 +0000

The Inflation Reduction Act includes a remarkable innovation. If it becomes law in its current form, share buybacks will be taxed at a 1.0 percent rate. This is a huge deal, not only because it taxes money that was often escaping taxation at the individual level, but it is a move away from basing the More

The post If We Tax Share Buybacks, Can We Also Tax Stock Returns? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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

Why the Black Educator Forced Out Over Bogus Critical Race Theory Claims Agreed to Share Her Story

by Nicole Carr — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 13:00:00 +0000

by Nicole Carr

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

This story was co-published by ProPublica and FRONTLINE as part of an ongoing collaboration.

Cecelia Lewis did not want to share her story.

In fact, she just wanted all of this to go away.

Late last year, I was on the phone with a former colleague, talking about the local coverage of campaigns against critical race theory across metro Atlanta. CRT maintains that racial bias is embedded in America’s laws and institutions and has caused disproportionate harm to people of color; it’s rarely taught in K-12 public school systems but has still become a lightning rod in districts around the country — and a catalyst for conservative political candidates seeking to fire up their base.

He mentioned that a woman had quit her job in the Cherokee County School District before she had started and wondered what had happened to her.

We talked about a lengthy statement she’d written for the Cherokee Tribune & Ledger-News, explaining her decision to resign. The letter was published a week and a half after an ugly scene at a school board meeting during which parents railed against the hiring of Lewis (a Maryland middle school principal), as well as diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives (which Lewis had been brought on to helm) and CRT (a formerly arcane, currently politicized concept that Lewis hadn’t even heard of). I later learned people who had gathered outside the building where the meeting was held were beating on windows. School police and other law enforcement officers escorted board members to their homes, where some received ongoing security.

In that letter, Lewis, who had quit the morning after the meeting, explained the DEI plan she would have implemented in Cherokee and how it would benefit all children. And she mentioned she’d been threatened by people who have no idea who she is and what she stands for.

Seemed like something worth deeper reporting.

A comment posted at the bottom of a Cobb County Courier article caught my eye: A reader, who didn’t reveal their identity, warned that Lewis was heading to Cherokee’s neighboring Cobb County School District.

Sure enough, Lewis’ LinkedIn profile showed that she’d worked in Cobb County for a mere two months following her resignation in Cherokee. She had been overseeing social studies for that district. No one had reported on what happened to her in Cobb.

At the same time, I’d been filing open records requests to the Cobb County School District related to COVID-19. I noticed a cache of emails that showed how the then-school board chairman was receiving guidance from a local attorney about conservatives’ definition of CRT, its supposed dangers to children and how the concept was infiltrating corporations and schools.

The school board — like many others across the country in 2021 — had taken a vote against CRT. The vote was the same month that Lewis started working there.

I wanted to know exactly what happened to Lewis in both districts and how it went down. I also wanted to know who was behind the how.

I started contacting Lewis via LinkedIn in December, shortly after talking to my former colleague and trying to connect the dots between what little I knew about her brief time in Georgia. She didn’t write back. But I had some hope that I’d hear from her because I received alerts that she was at least looking at my LinkedIn profile.

She’s considering it, I thought.

Earlier this year, I found her email address and followed up. Still no answer.

I continued filing records requests in the two school districts and, through emails I received from those requests, learned more about the players behind the campaign to run her out. In both Cobb and Cherokee, people had sent similarly worded complaints to the districts, demanding to get rid of Lewis.

Then I found people who were upset about what happened to Lewis. One of them knew a good bit more about what led up to that ugly school board meeting in Cherokee.

That person had a recording of an organizing meeting days prior in a golf course clubhouse. There was also a private Facebook group filled with hysterical posts about Lewis, including some that announced false Lewis “sightings” around the county.

Two of the presenters at the clubhouse meeting are leaders of groups that encourage the public to anonymously report educators for perceived transgressions relating to curriculums, inappropriate books or lessons, or guest speakers — or to just submit any anonymous tip.

Beyond giving me details about the efforts to oust Lewis, the recording and posts provided insight into local and national conservative networks involved in strategies to overthrow school boards, vilify Parent Teacher Associations and pass state legislation to ban a slew of concepts from curriculums. At the clubhouse meeting, the crowd watched a video from Prager University that outlined how white people are being made out to be racists no matter what they say or do — because, well, CRT. They also listened to a controversial recording of a Manhattan high school principal caught on tape talking about the demonization of white children. The group was being coached on how to speak at school board meetings in a way that could land them an appearance on Fox News.

This all struck me as highly coordinated.

By March, I decided to see if meeting me might change Lewis’ mind about talking. I knew she had moved back to Maryland, so I traveled there to do some old-fashioned door-knocking, meet some folks who knew Lewis and get a direct, handwritten message to her (my ProPublica business cards hadn’t been printed yet!).

While I was sitting in my hotel room, she called.

She still didn’t want to go on the record, but we talked for hours that day and hours the next. I told her why I wanted to tell her story, and she began to piece it together for me. I learned that she hadn’t even initially applied for that DEI position. Cherokee’s district leadership encouraged her to do it after she interviewed for a job as a coach for teachers. But Lewis still would not go on the record, and she wasn’t too interested in meeting me. She had concerns. Safety and privacy concerns.

My ears perked up when, during our initial call, she mentioned an upcoming school board meeting in her own district. I decided to go sit in the back, to get a feel for the area. I heard some of the same anti-CRT lines in Maryland that I’d heard in Georgia. This time it tied back to the district’s hiring of its first Black superintendent.

Again, the language suggested there was coordination. People don’t learn these things on their own. They’re coached in the ways I’d heard in that recording of the Cherokee County clubhouse meeting.

I left Maryland without an interview I could use in my story. But I kept reporting.

I got more emails from the Georgia districts. I spoke to school employees in Cherokee and Cobb counties; they defended Lewis and felt sorry these things happened to her. Most of them said they thought of her often. One, who was disappointed I’d tried to visit Lewis, thinking it was a step too far, was especially protective of her. She didn’t want me to cause her further harm, and I had no interest in doing that.

I also attended a Cherokee County School Board meeting, standing in a long line waiting to get through the metal detectors that had been installed because of the uproar over Lewis and CRT a year earlier. In that line, women were passing around what they called evidence of lewd material in school library books. There was an informal circle of people forming around me. Some knew one another. Some were introducing themselves, knowing they shared a common goal in book banning. One woman declared that a parent leader was a “Marjorie,” as in a follower of controversial Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is not afraid to say anything, anywhere. Another raised her hand and proudly said, “I’m a Marjorie, too.”

Everyone in my immediate vicinity was passing around material provided by a blond woman: laminated pages of books she felt should be banned from school libraries. Well, almost everyone. No one handed them to me. Nor did anyone hand them to the Black mother standing behind me with her high school daughter.

As I continued reporting in the weeks to come, it became apparent that none of the blowback Cecelia Lewis faced in Georgia was actually about Cecelia Lewis. She happened to land in the wrong job in the wrong state at the wrong time. And yes, based on the details you’ll find in the story I ultimately wrote, the wrong skin color.

(In response to a detailed list of questions covering all aspects of Lewis’ experience in the Cherokee County School District, its chief communications officer responded that “we have no further comments to add.” In response to similar questions to the Cobb County School District and its school board, a spokesperson responded: “Cecelia Lewis was employed by the Cobb County School District during the summer of 2021, voluntarily submitted her letter of resignation in early fall of 2021, and like every Team member, her contributions and work for students was greatly appreciated.”)

In late April, Lewis agreed to take another call from me, this time via Zoom, where we could actually see each other for the first time. By then, we were inching toward the year anniversary of her resignation from Cherokee County. When I told her what I’d learned through records and interviews — and how my colleague, ProPublica research reporter Mollie Simon, found examples of educators across the country who faced similar backlash — she said she’d consult her family, her district and her pastor and pray on making a decision as to whether she’d talk to me on the record.

A few days later, my phone lit up with a call from her. She wanted to share her experience — so that it may help people understand the extraordinary challenges so many educators are facing.

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 Nicole Carr.

BJP leaders share edited photo to claim party’s ‘growth’ in Tamil Nadu

Abhishek Kumar — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 06:48:41 +0000

An image of a group of boys allegedly hoisting a BJP flag on an electricity pole is circulating widely on social media. It has been claimed that the visual is from Tamil Nadu.

BJP National General Secretary CT Ravi tweeted the image, writing that the lotus was blooming in Tamil Nadu. (Archive link)

BJP leader Ravinder Gupta made the same claim while amplifying the picture. (Archive link)

BJP Himachal spokesperson Prajwal Busta wrote that Tamil Nadu was heading toward “saffronisation”. (Archive link)

The photo is also widespread on Facebook with the same claim.

Fact-check

A number of social media users replied to viral tweets stating that the image had been edited and the real image actually features the BSP flag. Alt News performed a reverse image search and came across a tweet by BSP leader Shirisha Swaero Akinapally from May 3. It contains a similar picture. However, this one features the BSP flag. “Our brothers and sisters climbed the ladder and hoisted the blue flag in the hearts of the people. Following in the footsteps of Praveen Kumar, millions of such youth are working for the establishment of the Bahujan government in Telangana,” wrote Akinapally. (Archive link)

Quote-tweeting this post, BSP leader Dr RS Praveen Kumar stated that the image shows BSP Telangana at work. This confirms that the viral image featuring the BJP flag has been doctored.

This is @BSP4Telangana at work. No rest till we make poor as rulers https://t.co/b7u0zHUnho

— Dr.RS Praveen Kumar (@RSPraveenSwaero) May 31, 2022

We performed another keyword search on Google and located the flag added to the viral image on a website named ‘StarPNG‘. It was uploaded on May 7, 2019. Comparing it with the viral image demonstrates how the original image had been doctored.

To sum it up, an image originally containing the BSP flag was edited with the BJP flag. Several BJP leaders and workers shared the photo as proof of the party’s growing influence in Tamil Nadu. It is worth noting that the DMK government is currently in power in the state.

The post BJP leaders share edited photo to claim party’s ‘growth’ in Tamil Nadu appeared first on Alt News.

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

Making “Impregnators” Pay Their Fair Share

Rob Okun — Wed, 18 May 2022 08:45:54 +0000

Long before a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion revealed that by summer Roe v. Wade will likely be overturned, only pregnant people bore the burden of pregnancy—not just physically, but also financially. “Impregnators” have always had the choice to walk away. Sure, they could be on the hook for child support after birth, but what More

The post Making “Impregnators” Pay Their Fair Share appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Rob Okun.

Exonerees Share What Artist Taryn Simon’s Photos Mean to Them

Dani Selby — Tue, 17 May 2022 19:49:15 +0000

It was standing room only at MoMA PS1 in New York City on May 5 where nearly 200 people gathered to hear four exonerees — Herman Atkins, Calvin Johnson, Chris Ochoa, and Tyra Patterson — talk about their wrongful convictions and the way in which artist Taryn Simon’s photography has honored their stories of strength and resilience.

The gathering celebrated the Innocence Project’s 30th anniversary as well as the Innocence Project’s collaboration with Ms. Simon on her book, The Innocents, originally published nearly 20 years ago.

Tyra Patterson speaks at the ‘Commemorating the Innocence
Project’s 30th Anniversary’ event at MoMA PS1 on May 5, 2022. (Image: Marissa Alper/MoMA PS1)

Following an assignment by the New York Times Magazine in 2000 to photographc individuals who were wrongly convicted, imprisoned, and subsequently freed from death row, Ms. Simon started to investigate photography’s role in the criminal legal system. After receiving a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in photography, she traveled across the United States to photograph and document the stories of other wrongly convicted people — photographing her subjects at sites representing significant moments in their path to wrongful conviction, including the scenes of their misidentifications, arrests, alibis, and the places in which the crimes they were wrongly accused of committing had occurred.

Over the course of three years (2000–2003), Ms. Simon, with the assistance of the Innocence Project, photographed 46 wrongly convicted individuals, including several Innocence Project clients. The resulting project stresses the cost of ignoring the limitations of visual material and minimizing the context in which images are presented. The new edition of The Innocents includes previously unpublished images; a new introduction by Innocence Project co-founders Peter J. Neufeld and Barry C. Scheck; an essay by professor and curator Nicole R. Fleetwood based on a conversation with criminal legal and social justice activist Tyra Patterson; and a new section featuring original police reports, court transcripts, and correspondence detailing the procedures behind many of the misidentifications and wrongful convictions documented in the book.

“The photographs and testimonials I gathered twenty years ago document the earliest exonerations through DNA evidence in the United States,” Ms. Simon said in her opening remarks at PS1. “For the individuals I interviewed, the primary cause of their wrongful conviction was mistaken identification, often through law enforcement’s use of photographs and lineups. These identifications rely on the assumption of precise visual memory but don’t account for the ways in which memory can change through exposure to composite sketches, mug shots, Polaroids, and lineups.”

“I photographed each person at a site that had come to assume particular significance following their wrongful conviction: the scene of misidentification, the scene of arrest, the alibi location, the scene of the crime. The scene of arrest marks the starting point of a reality based in fiction. The scene of the crime is a place that changed their lives forever, but to which they had never been,” she said.

At PS1, each of the four exonerees spoke about their challenging fight for justice and what it meant to to have their image so powerfully captured by Ms. Simon.

“I just live for the day and that’s what my dad taught me, and that’s what this picture means to me — the full circle of my life,” said Mr. Ochoa.

Exoneree Chris Ochoa speaks at the ‘Commemorating the Innocence
Project’s 30th Anniversary’ event at MoMA PS1 on May 5, 2022. (Image: Marissa Alper/MoMA PS1)

Ms. Simon photographed him alongside Jeanette Popp, the mother of the woman Mr. Ochoa was wrongly convicted of raping and murdering at a Pizza Hut in Austin. Mr. Ochoa spent 12 years wrongfully imprisoned. He was exonerated with the support of Ms. Popp after another man confessed to committing the crime. Mr. Ochoa and Ms. Popp have since become friends.

The new edition of The Innocents is available to purchase here. Striking excerpts from the book are featured below.

Charles Irvin Fain
Scene of the crime, Snake River, Melba, Idaho
Served 18 years of a death sentence
(Image: “The Innocents” by Taryn Simon)

“They took me back to a room. Lieutenant Patrick was there, and he had a death warrant. He read it, cracked a few jokes, and that was about it. … They had to give us a copy of the procedure. We read it to see how it went. They strap you on the gurney. The spiritual advisor leaves. Then they put the needles in and walk behind this thing and start pushing some buttons. Wouldn’t take more than about four minutes.”

—Charles Irvin Fain

Frederick Daye
Alibi location, American Legion Post 310,
San Diego, California
Where thirteen witnesses placed Mr. Daye at the time of the crime
Served 10 years of a life sentence
(Image: “The Innocents” by Taryn Simon)

“If I sat down with a person and emptied my heart out and let them know everything I went through, he’d be stark raving mad. He wouldn’t know how to deal with it. And it’s something that I have to live with on a day-to-day basis … I can’t black this out … It might go away for a moment, but in the middle of the night, I’m going to wake up shivering and sweating knowing that I had to go through this. I wouldn’t wish this on nobody, nobody.”

—Frederick Daye

William Gregory
Wick’s Parlor, Louisville, Kentucky
With his fiancée, Vicki Kidwell, whom he dated prior to conviction
Gregory was pool champion in prison
Served seven years of a 70-year sentence
(Image: “The Innocents” by Taryn Simon)

“The jury’s prejudices were in the closet, but the door was cracked. You could tell the door was cracked by the expressions on their faces when my white fiancée said my nails were beautiful and I was handsome. The jury was like, ‘What is wrong with her?’ They cracked the door, so to speak. You could see the prejudice on their faces. . . .They convicted me with their prejudices, their biases. They basically got rid of their pencils and stopped taking notes.”

—William Gregory

Troy Webb
Scene of the crime, The Pines, Virginia Beach, Virginia
Served seven years of a 47-year sentence
(Image: “The Innocents” by Taryn Simon)

“She said the guy was light-skinned, 5’6″ to 5’7″, weighing 130 to 150 pounds, medium build. I was the only one in the lineup who was light-skinned. Everyone was two to three tones darker than me … I’m the only one who fit the description she gave, as far as being light-skinned. That made me stand out. Of course she’s going to pick my picture. It was a setup from the beginning.”

—Troy Webb

The post Exonerees Share What Artist Taryn Simon’s Photos Mean to Them appeared first on Innocence Project.

This content originally appeared on Innocence Project and was authored by Dani Selby.

Ukrainian victims share harrowing testimonies of war

Daniel Johnson, UN News - Geneva — Tue, 10 May 2022 16:09:51 +0000

As the war in Ukraine grinds on, the work of UN investigators has continued, with the harrowing task of gathering testimonies and evidence of potential war crimes.

To date, the deaths of more than 3,300 civilians have been painstakingly confirmed by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, which readily admits that the actual number will likely be many thousands more.

In an interview with UN News, the Head of the mission, Matilda Bogner, gives an overview of the investigation’s progress since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

This content originally appeared on UN News and was authored by Daniel Johnson, UN News - Geneva.

Live Police Accountability Report! Stephen & Taya share latest findings from Milton, WV

The Real News Network — Thu, 05 May 2022 18:47:21 +0000

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

‘I’d never seen another African man share his transition on social media’

Laura Valentina Cortés Sierra — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 09:32:10 +0000

Ghali Eden founded the Instagram account Moroccan Transgender Community. It’s one way he’s fighting for the rights of other trans Moroccans

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Laura Valentina Cortés Sierra.

Neoliberal Macron Wins French Election But Far-Right Le Pen Increases Vote Share

Kenny Stancil — Sun, 24 Apr 2022 21:05:26 +0000

French President Emmanuel Macron won a second five-year term on Sunday, but the neoliberal incumbent's victory over far-right challenger Marine Le Pen was significantly closer than it was in 2017—portending an ominous future for the country in the absence of far-reaching egalitarian reforms.

Macron received a projected 58% of the vote to Le Pen's 42%, becoming the first French president since 2002 to be reelected. Macron's 16-point margin of victory, however, underscores how much ground Le Pen's openly xenophobic and Islamophobic party has gained since the previous election when both candidates faced off in the runoff round for the first time. Just five years ago, Macron beat Le Pen much more soundly—66% to 34%.

Earlier this month, Daniel Zamora Vargas, an assistant professor of sociology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, argued on social media that Macron, a former investment banker who has reduced the corporate tax rate and exacerbated economic inequality and insecurity, "is no centrist."

"He was the most right-wing president of the 5th Republic," said Zamora. "He created the conditions for the extreme-right to be able to win the presidential election."

Macron, who has pursued anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim policies of his own, "legitimated all the topics of the extreme-right" and "totally normalized" Le Pen, Zamora wrote as first-round votes were counted on April 10.

French people were forced to "vote for Le Pen or vote for what created a favorable environment for Le Pen's ideas," Zamora said last week. "It's a choice between an evil and the cause of that evil."

On Sunday, British Labor Party parliamentarian Zarah Sultana made a similar point: "By trying to outdo the far-right, 'moderates' legitimize and mainstream them. That's the context for Le Pen gaining 8% from 2017."

"We need progressive anti-systemic alternatives," she added.

Left-wing presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon came up just short of a second-place finish in the opening round. Fortunately for Macron, Mélenchon advised his disappointed voters to "not give a single vote" to Le Pen.

In her concession speech, which she delivered shortly after polls closed, Le Pen said that "the ideas that we represent have reached new heights." She called Sunday's performance a "striking victory" and said that her National Rally party is "more determined than ever."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

No, CM Kejriwal didn’t mock Kashmiri Pandits; BJP leaders share clipped video

Archit Mehta — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 12:23:55 +0000

A portion of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s March 24 address during the ongoing budget session where he referred to the controversial film ‘The Kashmir Files’ has lately made headlines. In the clip, CM Kejriwal can be heard saying, “They are saying make The Kashmir Files tax-free. Well, put it on YouTube and it shall be free.” It is noteworthy that the film has been made tax-free in most BJP-ruled states, including Uttar Pradesh, Tripura, Goa, Haryana, Gujarat, and Uttarakhand.

In the backdrop of this, several BJP members have targeted CM Kejriwal, claiming that he denied atrocities faced by Kashmiri Hindus.

BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya shared a 15-second clip. In the first eight seconds, we see AAP members laughing, following which Kejriwal says, “Won’t even install posters of films based on lies…” Malviya claimed that the Delhi CM denied the atrocities faced by Kashmiri Pandits by terming ‘The Kashmiri Files’ a lie.

Only an inhuman, cruel and depraved mind can laugh at and deny the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus. Kejriwal has ripped open the wounds of the Hindu community, who have been forced to live as refugees in their own country, for 32 long years, by calling #KashmirFiles a झूठी फ़िल्म… pic.twitter.com/63w2x9QKqq

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) March 25, 2022

BJP leader Kapil Mishra posted a screengrab from CM Kejriwal’s address along with images of injured children. He tweeted, “Calling the massacre of Kashmiri Hindus false is equivalent to questioning your mother’s character. Shame on you Kejriwal. Kejriwal has abused every martyr and army personnel of the country by defending terrorists.” (Archived tweet)

BJP spokesperson Gaurav Goel tweeted, “Stop making fun of Kashmiri Pandit, Kejriwal. Have some shame.” (Archived tweet)

कश्मीरी पंडितो का मजाक मत कर केजरीवाल, शर्म कर !!

किसी के होने वाले दामाद ने चंडीगढ़ में कोठी खरीदी है, पैसा कहां से आया ? उसका नाम यूट्यूब पर डालना चाहिए….@ArvindKejriwal

— Gaurav Goel (@goelgauravbjp) March 25, 2022

Amish Devgan, managing editor of News18 Hindi, also inferred that terming ‘The Kashmir Files’ fake meant denying the atrocities faced by Kashmiri Pandits. His tweet gained over 12,000 likes as of this writing. (Archived tweet)

क्या #KashmirFiles ‘झूठी’ फ़िल्म है ? केजरीवाल जी ने ऐसा कहा ।
क्या कश्मीर में #HinduGenocide नहीं हुआ था। सदी की सबसे बड़े नरसंघार की हंसी उड़ाना सही था क्या ?
‘हम देखेंगे’

— Amish Devgan (@AMISHDEVGAN) March 25, 2022

Clipped video, misleading context

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s full video is available on AAP’s YouTube channel. In the 20-minute address, he speaks about the upcoming Delhi Municipal Corporation election. Nowhere in the video Kejriwal has refuted the 1990 Kashmir violence.

It must be noted that both Amit Malviya and Kapil Mishra have misrepresented his speech to make it appear that Kejriwal and AAP members mocked the plight of Kashmiri Pandits.

Amit Malviya’s clip

Alt News viewed the 15-second clip uploaded by Malviya and noticed that it has two jump cuts at 00:03 and 00:08 second marks. This itself shows that the video is doctored.

After the 8-second mark, CM Kejriwal says, “Won’t even install posters of films based on lies…” The first eight seconds of the clip have been extracted from 15:43 to 15:45 and 15:52 to 15:57. This was when Kejriwal took a jibe at the BJP.

From 16:00, Kejriwal can be heard saying, “You [BJP members] will… [chuckles] You will get respect [if you join the AAP]. You will not be made to raise false slogans. We will include you in the nation’s development… we’ll build the nation with you…Won’t make you install these posters of films based on lies.”

Another bout of laughter broke out at the 16:22 mark when he said, “Do what you want but at least stop promoting a film. You look bad. It doesn’t suit you, you are nice people. You had joined politics to do something significant, but now you are busy promoting films.”

Kapil Mishra’s image

Mishra’s screenshot from the speech has a watermark of the Twitter handle @BiharKaLall. The same image was earlier posted by this handle. This screenshot has been taken from the 8:56 mark in the video. This was when CM Kejriwal said, “They [BJP] say we are the world’s largest party. We [AAP] are the world’s smallest party and yet you [BJP] got scared.” He neither refers to Kashmiri Pandits nor denies their oppression.

To sum it up, several BJP members have falsely shared sections of CM Kejriwal’s speech in Delhi Assembly during the budget session. In the video, Kejriwal criticised the film ‘The Kashmir Files’ for being based on falsehoods. However, no part of his speech can be interpreted as him denying the atrocities faced by Kashmiri Pandits.

The post No, CM Kejriwal didn’t mock Kashmiri Pandits; BJP leaders share clipped video appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Archit Mehta.

No, CM Kejriwal didn’t mock Kashmiri Pandits; BJP leaders share clipped video

Archit Mehta — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 12:23:55 +0000

In the backdrop of this, several BJP members have targeted CM Kejriwal, claiming that he denied atrocities faced by Kashmiri Hindus.

Only an inhuman, cruel and depraved mind can laugh at and deny the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus. Kejriwal has ripped open the wounds of the Hindu community, who have been forced to live as refugees in their own country, for 32 long years, by calling #KashmirFiles a झूठी फ़िल्म… pic.twitter.com/63w2x9QKqq

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) March 25, 2022

BJP spokesperson Gaurav Goel tweeted, “Stop making fun of Kashmiri Pandit, Kejriwal. Have some shame.” (Archived tweet)

कश्मीरी पंडितो का मजाक मत कर केजरीवाल, शर्म कर !!

किसी के होने वाले दामाद ने चंडीगढ़ में कोठी खरीदी है, पैसा कहां से आया ? उसका नाम यूट्यूब पर डालना चाहिए….@ArvindKejriwal

— Gaurav Goel (@goelgauravbjp) March 25, 2022

क्या #KashmirFiles ‘झूठी’ फ़िल्म है ? केजरीवाल जी ने ऐसा कहा ।
क्या कश्मीर में #HinduGenocide नहीं हुआ था। सदी की सबसे बड़े नरसंघार की हंसी उड़ाना सही था क्या ?
‘हम देखेंगे’

— Amish Devgan (@AMISHDEVGAN) March 25, 2022

Clipped video, misleading context

It must be noted that both Amit Malviya and Kapil Mishra have misrepresented his speech to make it appear that Kejriwal and AAP members mocked the plight of Kashmiri Pandits.

Amit Malviya’s clip

Alt News viewed the 15-second clip uploaded by Malviya and noticed that it has two jump cuts at 00:03 and 00:08 second marks. This itself shows that the video is doctored.

Kapil Mishra’s image

The post No, CM Kejriwal didn’t mock Kashmiri Pandits; BJP leaders share clipped video appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Archit Mehta.

St. Jude Fights Donors’ Families in Court for Share of Estates

by David Armstrong and Ryan Gabrielson — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 09:00:00 +0000

by David Armstrong and Ryan Gabrielson

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Most Americans know St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital through television advertisements featuring Hollywood celebrities asking for contributions or the millions of fundraising appeals that regularly arrive in mailboxes across the country.

But a select group of potential donors is targeted in a more intimate way. Representatives of the hospital’s fundraising arm visit their homes; dine with them at local restaurants; send them personal notes and birthday cards; and schedule them for “love calls.”

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What makes these potential donors so special? They told St. Jude they were considering leaving the hospital a substantial amount in their wills. Once the suggestion was made, specialized fundraisers set a singular goal: build relationships with the donors to make sure the money flows to the hospital after their deaths.

The intense cultivation of these donors is part of a strategy that has helped St. Jude establish what may be the most successful charitable bequest program in the country. In the most recent five-year period of reported financial results, bequests constituted $1.5 billion, or 20%, of the $7.5 billion St. Jude raised in those years. That amount, both in terms of dollars and as a percentage of fundraising, far outpaces that raised by other leading children’s hospitals and charities generally.

While a financial boon to St. Jude, the hospital’s pursuit has led to fraught disputes with donors’ family members and allegations that it goes too far in its quest for bequests.

St. Jude is a major research center with a 73-bed hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, that primarily treats kids from the Mid-South. Its bequest operation has a broad reach, with fundraisers based across the nation and a willingness to challenge families in court over the assets their loved ones leave behind. These battles can sometimes be lengthy and costly, spending donor money on litigation and diminishing inheritances. Family attorneys who specialize in such fights say that St. Jude can be especially aggressive, often pursuing cases all the way to state supreme courts.

“At the end of it, there is very little to hold on to feel good about,” said Vance Lanier, of Lafayette, Louisiana, who won a yearslong legal battle with St. Jude over his father’s estate but not before both sides spent heavily on the case.

“Think of all the fees for lawyers that didn’t go to St. Jude, not one child, not one cancer patient,” Lanier said. “Where is the sanity in all this?”

The nonprofit even courts those who aid in estate planning and drawing up wills, sponsoring conferences where attorneys, financial advisers and estate professionals gather. On at least one occasion it offered attendees a chance to win a golf trip.

The prospective donors wooed by St. Jude are often people like Nona Harris: elderly, childless women with substantial wealth. Harris notified the charity in 1996 that she was considering leaving it a bequest. St. Jude spent the next two decades cultivating Harris. An internal database, built to collect information on donors, tracked nearly 100 calls and other contacts between Harris and the charity’s fundraisers during that time — an average of almost once every two months. It also noted information Harris shared with fundraisers.

By the time she died in 2015, the charity knew just about everything there was to know about her. It knew about the health problems of her husband, J.D., from the medicines that he took to the heart defibrillator that needed to be replaced. St. Jude knew that J.D.’s mother died when he was 13 and that one of Nona’s relatives had a rare tongue cancer. It knew the couple owned a condominium in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a ranch with cattle and horses in Kansas.

Most importantly, the charity knew the couple planned to leave their nearly $6 million estate to St. Jude. But Nona died before J.D., and after he changed his estate plan — reducing St. Jude’s payout by about $2.5 million — the charity went to court, triggering an expensive, drawn-out legal battle that pitted the hospital against several of J.D.’s family members.

A log maintained by fundraisers for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital collected personal information about Nona Harris and her family. (Obtained by ProPublica)

Estate matters can be contentious, and many nonprofit organizations, including ProPublica, seek donations in people’s wills.

But St. Jude’s pursuit of such donations stands out. Bequests to St. Jude, as a percentage of total contributions, are more than double the national average of 9% as calculated by Giving USA.

And it receives more than other children’s hospitals that list bequest donations. Boston Children’s Hospital reported that estate and trust donations ranged from 3% to 6.5% annually during the three-year period of 2014 through 2016. Donations from estates to Children’s Hospital Colorado Foundation represents 3.5% of total giving at that hospital, according to its website. Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, said its bequest giving was aligned with national benchmarks such as the 9% figure from Giving USA.

For such organizations, any decision about waging legal fights with family members often comes down to a public relations decision.

“A legal fight could mar the reputation of a charity,” said Elizabeth Carter, a law professor at Louisiana State University who specializes in estate planning. “A lot of charities decide it is just not worth it; we don’t need that bad press. Occasionally you will see them fighting it, but not often because of the bad PR that comes from it.”

In a statement issued through its fundraising arm, the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities, or ALSAC, St. Jude said its bequest program “operates with the highest ethical standards and with bequest program best practices like other large charities.”

But it declined to answer specific questions about its bequest program, including how many cases are in litigation, or to respond in detail to questions about individual cases in which it has contested wills.

In 2017, Fred Jones, the ALSAC lawyer who oversees bequest matters, told an Oklahoma court that the charity was involved in more than 100 legal fights over disputed estates. Jones said many of those involved other parties challenging an estate in which St. Jude had an interest, but that it did pursue legal action on its own in some cases. Jones said St. Jude received about 2,000 new bequests in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2017. In a statement, ALSAC said it litigates less than less than 1% of the thousands of estate donations that it receives.

Jones told the court that neither St. Jude nor ALSAC “is in the business of trying cases,” in part because such efforts are funded with donations for the treatment of sick children. As a result, Jones said, St. Jude only initiates cases in which due diligence reveals substantial evidence to support a claim. “In effect, we’re using donor dollars — which we very carefully protect — in those cases where we believe that there has been a curtailment of the donor's actual intent,” he said. Jones did not respond to a request for comment. St. Jude declined to provide further details on the use of donor funds to pay legal costs. In some jurisdictions, courts allow winning parties in a case to seek legal fees from the losing side and legal costs are sometimes reimbursed as part of settlement agreements.

To make the case that estate proceeds should go to St. Jude, the charity sometimes argues that relatives are not entitled to any proceeds from their family’s estates.

“Where I think the line is crossed is when they promote the disinheritance of children or families,” said Cary Colt Payne, a Las Vegas attorney representing a son who is battling St. Jude over his father’s estate.

In its statement, ALSAC said ProPublica’s reporting on bequests was “highly selective and flawed as it focused on a small handful of contested cases over several years out of the many types of these donations received each year. These contested estate matters often cover complex and sensitive family matters, include multiple charities, and involve local lawyers advising ALSAC/St. Jude.”

St. Jude’s responsibility, according to the statement, is “to carry out the clear written intent of a donor, typically stated in a written will or trust drafted by an independent lawyer, most often witnessed and notarized. These are beautiful legacy gifts with enduring impact, enabling us to remain focused on our mission: Finding cures. Saving children.”

(Isabel Seliger, special to ProPublica) “Love Calls”

St. Jude, founded by the entertainer Danny Thomas, makes a unique promise as part of its fundraising: “Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food — because all a family should worry about is helping their child live.”

That pledge, and the ubiquitous appeals for donations that accompany it, has helped St. Jude become the country’s largest health care charity. Recent years have seen record-breaking fundraising gains. The hospital raises so much money that between 2016 and 2020, it annually steered an average of $400 million into a growing reserve fund that totaled $5.2 billion as of June 30, 2020 — the most recent figures publicly available.

To raise money, St. Jude depends on the related nonprofit ALSAC, which conducts the hospital’s fundraising and awareness campaigns.

ALSAC’s interactions with Nona Harris provide a window into the techniques used by the charity to encourage bequests and cultivate those who express an interest in making them.

In January 1996, Nona called St. Jude to let the hospital know she was considering making a large bequest, which at that time she said could be up to $500,000.

Phone calls from potential donors like Harris are just one of the ways ALSAC learns of potential bequests. Other times, the hospital is alerted by a financial planner or estate lawyer of plans by clients to leave money to St. Jude. Most times, proceeds from bequests just show up with no prior notice after a person has died. The charity also solicits them in fundraising materials, encouraging anyone open to considering St. Jude in their will to notify it using an enclosed information card and envelope.

Harris, after notifying St. Jude of the potential bequest, then asked that no one contact her. That request was apparently ignored as an ALSAC staffer was tasked with getting in touch with Nona a few months after her call, according to a printout of a computerized log of interactions with Nona filed in court.

ALSAC bequest specialists maintain a “portfolio” of estate donors who are ranked by importance, according to current and former ALSAC employees. The size and range of the ALSAC bequest operation gives it the advantage of being able to meet in person with donors anywhere in the country.

ALSAC sent Nona handwritten birthday and holiday cards, and in one case, just a note to say, “I thought of you today.” The cards were often followed by phone calls around the holidays to check in with her.

On four occasions — in 2000, twice in 2001 and in 2005 — Nona was listed for what were described in the log as “love calls.” St. Jude declined to provide details on what such calls entailed.

Call logs between St. Jude and Nona Harris show several “love calls” placed between 2000 and 2001. (Obtained by ProPublica)

The ALSAC staff invited the Harrises to special events, including a 50th anniversary gala party in Los Angeles, as well as asking them repeatedly to come to Memphis and visit the hospital. “I will be sure to be at the front door waiting for your arrival,” a staffer wrote in 2007. Family members do not believe the Harrises ever visited.

One hint in the notes of why Nona chose St. Jude as a beneficiary of her estate was a comment she made in 2004 that she “was thrilled to do it since St. Jude is her patron saint.” Although the hospital is named after the saint, it does not have any religious affiliations. J.D. also had a fondness for the children’s hospital, according to family members, and would occasionally wear a St. Jude baseball cap sent to the couple by fundraisers.

The Harrises were different from other large bequest donors in one significant way. It doesn’t appear anyone from ALSAC ever visited them at their home.

Former ALSAC employees who worked on bequests said they would visit some donors dozens of times. They said some of those were older donors who were lonely and enjoyed the companionship. Internally, the jobs came to be known as “the tea and cookie positions” since that’s what many visits to donors involved. One staffer said he became so close to one donor that he attended holiday dinners at the family’s home.

An ALSAC employee based in Rhode Island said she would meet in person with 150 to 200 people a year throughout New England and upstate New York who indicated they planned to leave money to St. Jude or were considering it, according to testimony she gave in 2015 in a New Hampshire estate dispute.

The employee, Maureen Mallon, was an estate lawyer in private practice for 20 years before joining ALSAC as a philanthropic adviser in 2010.

“Part of my role is to connect them, to build a relationship with them, to give them more information about the hospital,” she said of visiting potential donors.

Mallon testified about her relationship with one donor, whom she visited at her home in person five times, usually for an hour or more. The woman — who was elderly, widowed and did not have children — would have lunch ready for the two of them and always sent Mallon home with baked goods. One time she called to make sure Mallon made it home safely. Mallon said the woman discussed details of her estate and shared family histories and relationships. She confided that certain relatives would be unhappy if they learned she planned to leave her home to the Memphis hospital. The visits and notes about what was discussed were recorded in a database, according to the testimony. Attempts to contact Mallon were unsuccessful.

The Harrises were private people who had retired to their ranch in Kansas following years of traveling the world as part of J.D.’s work in the oil industry. They used their Tulsa condo when they came for medical care in the city.

On the ranch, J.D. would rise early each day to drive the foreman around the 320-acre property to feed the scores of cattle and horses. He typically dressed in blue jeans, black cowboy boots with his initials on them, a cowboy hat and a white oxford shirt with two pockets that he used to carry a small notebook, a pencil and his checkbook.

J.D. was plainspoken and frank, friends recalled, while Nona was described as a generous person who was always impeccably dressed.

After Nona died on the day after Thanksgiving in 2015, J.D. became closer with his remaining family members, including two nieces and a nephew, according to court testimony.

J.D. was particularly fond of his great-nephew Brent Neitzke, who lived in Indiana and visited him at the ranch on a regular basis after Nona’s death. Most Sunday nights, J.D. and Neitzke would talk for hours on the phone. Neitzke said they discussed politicians, happenings in the world and J.D.’s travels. He said J.D. also talked about his estate and his plans to split it.

J.D. told his accountant that the estate plan he formed after Nona’s death was something of a compromise. He would still be honoring Nona’s wish to help St. Jude while at the same time taking care of his family.

When J.D. called ALSAC two months after Nona died to share the news that his wife had passed away, he told the staffer who was the main contact for Nona that he wanted “to talk to me at length about his codicile (sic) to their will,” according to court records. A codicil modifies or revokes parts of a will.

Call logs show J.D. Harris wanted to discuss his will after the 2015 death of his wife, Nona. (Obtained by ProPublica)

Later, the ALSAC staffer tried to set up a meeting with J.D. at his home, but J.D. said that it was too soon for a visit and that he wanted to speak to his attorney first, according to notes of the conversation recorded by ALSAC.

For ALSAC, the next step was the courtroom.

(Isabel Seliger, special to ProPublica) Court Battles

That’s where Vance Lanier found himself when St. Jude fought him over the distribution of his father’s estate.

Lanier is a financial planner in Lafayette, Louisiana, who helps clients with estate and trust matters. His father, Eugene, died in December 2015. His will directed that $100,000 from the proceeds of the sale of his home go to St. Jude.

But there was a problem. The elder Lanier did not own his home, according to his son. More than a decade earlier he had placed it in a trust, along with other assets, to benefit his three children.

To Lanier, it was a simple matter. St. Jude was not entitled to any money from the house sale. “He had given away his assets to put into a trust,” Lanier said. “My dad did not own it. He could have changed that while he was alive, but he didn’t.”

Still, recognizing that his father did want to make a donation to St. Jude, and hoping to avoid spending money on legal fees, Lanier said he offered St. Jude $25,000 to settle the matter. The offer was rejected, according to Lanier and his attorney, and St. Jude instead pursued the matter in a yearslong court fight. St. Jude argued that the elder Lanier, through his will, “clearly directed the sale” of the property and that $100,000 of the proceeds should go to the hospital.

A trial court ruled in favor of Vance Lanier. St. Jude appealed that ruling but eventually lost. The charity then asked the state Supreme Court to reverse that ruling, but the request was denied, ending the matter.

Lanier said the legal dispute was expensive for both sides. He spent $50,000 in lawyer fees. Even if St. Jude had won the case, he said, much of the money it would have received from the elder Lanier’s estate would have been wiped out by legal costs. St. Jude did not respond to questions about how much it paid its lawyers.

Lanier said he wrote to the chief executive of St. Jude complaining that the legal fight was a waste of time and the charity’s resources.

Before the estate dispute, Lanier said he and other members of his extended family were supporters of St. Jude and had collectively donated thousands of dollars to the Memphis hospital. That is no longer the case, he said.

“After this and seeing the waste, I don’t want anything to do with them,” he said.

(Isabel Seliger, special to ProPublica) Influence and Attorneys

One sign of the significance of bequests to St. Jude is that it frequently underwrites conferences for estate lawyers and financial planners, who can help clients determine which charities to leave money to in their wills.

In some cases, it is the only charity involved. Typical sponsors are mostly banks, trust companies and consultancies.

St. Jude has been a top-level diamond sponsor for the past several years of the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, an annual conference that typically draws more than 3,000 attendees.

The $30,000 cost of a diamond sponsorship allows St. Jude to bring as many as 10 employees to work at its deluxe suite on the exhibit hall floor. St. Jude also gets a list of all attendees and their emails and expanded networking times with conferencegoers.

At the 2017 conference, St. Jude raffled off a free trip to attend a PGA Tour golf event in Memphis.

The winner, estate and tax adviser Jack Meola, of New Jersey, said that in addition to attending the golf event, he and his wife were taken on a tour of St. Jude. “It’s a very emotional experience,” he said.

At the Heckerling conference the next year, ALSAC asked him to give a luncheon talk to attendees about St. Jude, Meola said.

He said he shares his experience of visiting the hospital with his clients when they are considering charities as beneficiaries.

“I always talk to clients and give them the example,” Meola said. “They may not end up choosing St. Jude, but I give them the emotional side.”

St. Jude’s relationship with a Las Vegas estate lawyer ensured it learned about a lucrative estate case in time to fight for the bequest all the way to the state Supreme Court, and it raised ethical questions about whether the lawyer had been fully transparent with her client.

The lawyer, Kristin Tyler, drafted a will in October 2012 for Theodore Scheide Jr. that directed his estate go to St. Jude. But after Scheide died in 2014, the original of that will could not be located. A guardian who served as the administrator of Scheide’s estate concluded that he destroyed it, rendering it null and void, and determined his money should go to his son.

In 2016, just as a court was on the verge of finalizing the passing of Scheide’s $2.6 million estate to his son, Tyler learned of the plans for the money and alerted Jones, the ALSAC attorney. Tyler knew to call Jones because in addition to Scheide she had another client: St. Jude.

Tyler was vague about what prompted her to look into the matter at the last minute, writing in one email at the time that “for some reason I recently thought about Theo Scheide.” She was certain, however, that the money should go to St. Jude and not Scheide’s son. The two were estranged and Tyler said Scheide was adamant about disinheriting his son.

After calling Jones, Tyler then contacted a partner at a prominent Las Vegas law firm that worked with the charity. In an email, she advised the partner that St. Jude would be reaching out to him and “you need to jump on this quick.” She offered to help, writing, “I want to make sure this estate goes 100% to St. Jude and not to Theo’s estranged son.” She wrote that it would be “a shame” for the money to go to the son.

Tyler later testified that she had represented the hospital in at least two, and perhaps three, estate matters. She testified that she was unsure if she was working for St. Jude at the same time she helped Scheide draft his will. In any event, she said that it wouldn’t have been necessary to tell Scheide about her work for St. Jude because the interests of the two parties were not opposed to each other — meaning there was no conflict of interest. St. Jude did not respond to questions about its relationship with Tyler.

Legal experts said the need to disclose the relationship with St. Jude would depend on the nature and extent of Tyler’s dealings with the charity. Tyler declined to comment.

A district court judge, after a hearing, ruled that the estate should go to the son as there were not two independent witnesses who could vouch for the existence and substance of the missing original will. St. Jude appealed that decision to the state Supreme Court, which overturned the lower court in 2020 and ruled in favor of the charity. Appeals in the case continue.

Key to the supreme court ruling were affidavits from Tyler and her assistant testifying to the legitimacy of the missing will, saying that they witnessed Scheide sign it and that, to their knowledge, he had not intentionally destroyed or revoked it.

For Scheide’s son, Chip, the most painful part of the legal fight with St. Jude was not potentially losing out on his father’s estate but the way he was characterized by the charity and years of uncertainty over the potential inheritance. In appealing the case to the state Supreme Court, St. Jude repeatedly referred to Chip as a “disinherited” son and claimed his father had “no interest” in contacting him. He called it “intentionally hurtful.”

Chip acknowledges an estrangement from his father but says it was not rooted in anger or a dispute. Instead, Chip said, it was the result of a decision his father made in the wake of his parents’ divorce to remarry and move from Pittsburgh to Florida when Chip was 11 or 12. After he moved away, Chip only saw his father a few times.

“He made a choice,” Chip said of his father and the distant relationship between the two. Still, he said, the two stayed in touch. They regularly exchanged holiday cards and just a year before he died, Theodore sent Chip a congratulatory card and a check when he married for a second time.

Chip was in Las Vegas about a year before his father died and tried to contact him, without success. Later he learned his father was in the hospital at that time.

Despite the contention of St. Jude that Theodore did not want to contact Chip, Diane Prosser, a case manager for the guardianship service that managed Theodore’s affairs, said in an interview with ProPublica that Theodore talked frequently about his son toward the end of his life.

“I know towards the end, he mentioned his son a lot,” Prosser said. “I remember saying, should we be looking for his son?” Prosser said she discussed the matter with her boss but doesn’t remember any effort by the guardianship service to find Chip before Theodore died on Aug. 17, 2014.

(Isabel Seliger, special to ProPublica) “He Knew Exactly What He Wanted to Do”

J.D. Harris was admitted to the hospital for a heart valve procedure on Dec. 15, 2016, a little over a year after his wife died. During the operation, his kidneys failed, according to court testimony. Doctors told J.D. that if he didn’t begin dialysis he would die within days. J.D., who was 92, told the doctors he wasn’t interested in the treatment.

By this point, J.D. had not yet made the changes to his estate that he talked about during the previous months. On Dec. 19, he called his longtime accountant, Dwight Kealiher, from the hospital and told him he wanted to rework his trust and will.

Attorney Jerry Zimmerman, a well-known Tulsa estate lawyer, met twice with J.D. at the hospital on Dec. 21. Zimmerman questioned J.D. to make sure he was competent, asking him personal questions and inquiring about his assets. He said in court testimony that J.D. was lucid and accurately recalled details of his estate and his existing trust.

Zimmerman said J.D. told him he wanted to change his estate plan to split it between St. Jude and four family members, including Neitzke. J.D. also wanted $100,000 to go to Jim Tibbets, the foreman of his ranch, whom he considered a friend, Zimmerman testified.

Zimmerman returned to the hospital the next day with the reworked estate documents, but J.D. said he wanted Kealiher to be there to review them and didn’t sign. A day later, on Dec. 23, Zimmerman came back with Kealiher, who had just been released from a different hospital.

J.D., however, was in no condition to sign, according to his medical records. A hospital notary said he was “laboring” and might be confused. A nurse, concerned that J.D. was too weak to sign and incoherent, eventually asked everyone to leave the room.

Tibbets slept in J.D.’s room that night and said that J.D. woke up several times asking about the estate documents and requesting that Zimmerman come to the hospital so he could sign them. Tibbets explained it was the middle of the night and that wasn’t possible, court records show.

The next day was Christmas Eve and Zimmerman was not available to come to the hospital, court records show. He gave the papers to be signed to Tibbets. Overnight, Tibbets said J.D. again woke up and asked about the estate documents as well as inquiring about the animals on his ranch.

“He was adamant about it,” Tibbets said in an interview of J.D.’s desire to finalize his estate plans. “His mind was still sharp right until he passed away.”

Tibbets said he put a piece of cardboard underneath the papers and that J.D. meticulously signed each letter of his name, understanding the importance of the moment. When he finished, he told Tibbets he was “glad” it was done. He died later on Christmas Day.

Six months later, St. Jude began the court fight seeking to overturn a district court finding that the restated trust was properly executed and requesting a new trial on the matter.

The hospital said that it didn’t receive proper notice of the nature of the district court hearing on J.D.’s estate and that it was unfairly denied a chance to introduce medical records showing that J.D. was often incoherent, comatose or otherwise incapable of decision-making at the times he was asked to sign the reworked estate plan. The charity did not contest that J.D. signed the documents.

“He talked to his lawyer. He talked to his accountant. He talked to his family. He talked to his ranch hand, who was family to him,” Tulsa District Court Judge Kurt G. Glassco said in a ruling, which found that J.D.’s reworked estate plan was valid. “And he knew exactly what he wanted to do.”

After Glassco denied St. Jude’s request for a new trial, the charity then appealed to the state Supreme Court, which delegated the matter to the Court of Civil Appeals.

As the case dragged on, J.D.’s nephew Doug Holmes, who was one of the family members named as a beneficiary in the restated trust, wrote a letter to the St. Jude board of directors.

“The continued unfounded litigation has caused significant pain to family members, as we repeatedly have to relive the final days of our dear uncle,” he wrote in December 2018. “With each of St. Jude’s legal filings, the attorney fees increase, sapping precious dollars that could go to St. Jude families.”

In December 2019, the appeals court upheld the lower court ruling. In 2020, more than three years after J.D.’s death, his family members finally received their shares of his nearly $6 million estate.

Neitzke said his family remains mystified as to why St. Jude challenged the distribution of J.D.’s trust. The charity was still being granted a generous, multimillion-dollar bequest and J.D. even told the charity to expect a change from what Nona had promised before she died, he said.

Neitzke said he had been a supporter of St. Jude, but the litigation had changed his view.

“I thought this was a waste of time and money,” he said. “I will never give them another dime.”

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

Former ProPublica reporter Marshall Allen contributed reporting.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by David Armstrong and Ryan Gabrielson.

Germany Deserves a Big Share of the Blame for the Ukraine Disaster

Dave Lindorff — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 09:57:28 +0000

Nobody is talking about the blame that must be shouldered by the German government for the crisis and humanitarian disaster in Ukraine. Sure Russia is guilty of a huge war crime in invading Ukraine. Surely too, the US must be blamed for creating the situation which led Russia and its autocratic leader Vladimir Putin to More

The post Germany Deserves a Big Share of the Blame for the Ukraine Disaster appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dave Lindorff.

Millionaires Don’t Pay Their Fair Share Into Social Security. Rick Scott Wants to Keep It That Way

Nancy J. Altman — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 16:51:39 +0000

It is wrong that minimum wage workers contribute to Social Security all year long while Laura Ingraham and other plutocrats stop contributing in January each year.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Nancy J. Altman.

BJP, Congress members share dubious ‘Sikhs For Justice’ letter supporting AAP in Punjab

Archit Mehta — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 15:09:42 +0000

A letter written in Punjabi has been widely shared on social media with the claim that US-based ‘Sikhs For Justice’ (SJF) has extended support to AAP ahead of the Punjab elections. SFG, founded by US-based Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, was banned by the Indian government in 2019 as an unlawful association as it supports the secession of Punjab from India and the formation of a separate Khalistan.

The viral letter was tweeted by lawyer Shashank Shekhar Jha. This tweet gained over 1000 retweets.

Surprising:
Khalistan group “Sikhs for Justice” declares support for Aam Aadmi Party. pic.twitter.com/qRpw5gElun

— Shashank Shekhar Jha (@shashank_ssj) February 17, 2022

It was also posted by multiple verified social media users such as BJP’s Haryana IT cell head Arun Yadav, National Media In-charge at BJP’s youth wing BJYM Amandeep Singh, BJP leader Anirban Ganguly, National President Indian Youth Congress Srinivas BV, and author of the book ‘Narendra Modi Censored’ Ashok Shrivastav. It was also tweeted by Twitter handle @PollUpdateInd and CapitalTV India chief editor Manish Kumar.

Click to view slideshow.

Several Twitter and Facebook users have shared this document. Using CrowdTangle, a social media monitoring tool, we found that at least 20 Facebook users made this claim.

We used Google Lens to translate the viral letter to English. The letter allegedly declares that SJF has extended full support to AAP and their Punjab candidate CM Bhagwant Mann. It says if AAP is elected, SFJ’s goals will be revived. It is worth noting that in the second part, the letter claims the SFJ also supported AAP in 2017, during the previous Punjab assembly polls.

Fact-check

Zee News reporter Shivank Mishra uploaded a video of Pannun stating that SFJ hasn’t issued the viral letter. He even alleged that AAP is behind circulating this letter.

Fact Check : सिख फ़ॉर जस्टिस के नाम से वायरल किया जा रहा आम आदमी पार्टी को समर्थन देने वाला पत्र फ़र्ज़ी है…

खुद गुरपतवंत सिंह पन्नू ने इसके फ़र्ज़ी होने का ऐलान किया है. @BhagwantMann @ArvindKejriwal @AamAadmiParty @raghav_chadha pic.twitter.com/100ptq2nVr

— Shivank Mishra (@shivank_8mishra) February 17, 2022

The viral letter was shared on social media on February 17. Punjab-based journalist Taruni Gandhi tweeted SFJ had released only one letter on February 17 that called for a ‘Rail Roko’ protest to honour actor-activist late Deep Sidhu. She also pointed out that there are differences between the viral letter and the genuine ‘Rail Roko’ letter.

I think Sikh for Justice released only one letter today saying #RailRoko. So far this letter regarding AAP is concerned from SFJ, it needs factcheck. Anyhow here are two letters, anyone can make out the difference. @AamAadmiParty @AartiTikoo @srinivasiyc pic.twitter.com/k5Rkktrnxs

— Taruni Gandhi (@TaruniGandhi) February 17, 2022

Taruni told Alt News, “Pannun sent an email to me and several journalists from Punjab where the February 17 letter regarding late Deep Sidhu was attached along with a video. Based on the letter in the email, we can say that the viral letter targeting AAP is not authentic. To the best of my knowledge, his letters are in English.”

The screenshot below was shared by Taruni. It highlights Pannun’s email ID as the sender (top left), the date of the email sent (top right) and the attached letter about ‘Rail Roko’ protest (arrow). We have omitted personal details from this screenshot.

We found two more SFJ letters – one from June 2020 which was tweeted by Congress leader Ravneet Singh Bittu, and the other from last year which was posted by The Hindu’s Jatin Anand.

Upon comparing the viral letter with the three genuine SFJ letters (2022, 2021, 2020), Alt News noticed abnormalities in:

Letterhead
Left margin

Letterhead

SFJ letters included three links — sikhsforjustice.org, referendum2020.org, facebook.com/sikhsforjusticepage — just beneath the addresses mentioned in the letterhead. However, that’s not the case with the viral letter.

Left alignment

The body of the letter is misaligned in the viral letter. It goes beyond the green line. In all the three genuine letters, the body does cross over to the left of the ‘Sikhs For Justice’ logo.

Click to view slideshow.

It is worth noting that the second part of the viral letter claims SFJ supported AAP in 2017, however, Hindustan Times had reported just the year before that SFJ had lodged a formal complaint against AAP with the Canadian foreign affairs minister asking the federal government to intervene with respect to AAP’s election-related activities within Canada and block the proposed visit of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to the country.

To sum it up, a dubious letter alleges that banned outfit ‘Sikhs For Justice’ extended support to AAP. It was shared on social media by several users, including BJP and Congress leaders and members.

The post BJP, Congress members share dubious ‘Sikhs For Justice’ letter supporting AAP in Punjab appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Archit Mehta.

6 dead as wildfires scorch through Bay Area; Fire survivors lose homes, share stories; – August 21, 2020

KPFA — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 18:00:00 +0000

Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

Postmaster General doubles down mail box removals, says will not affect election.
Joe Biden accepts Democrats nomination as the party’ Presidential candidate.
6 dead, hundreds of homes destroyed, thousands evacuated from Bay Area fires.
Fires blaze through a mobile home park, destroying homes, survivors share story.
President Donald Trump and California Governor go toe to toe over fire funding.
Facebook cracks down on QAnon conspiracy theorists, removing pages.

The post 6 dead as wildfires scorch through Bay Area; Fire survivors lose homes, share stories; – August 21, 2020 appeared first on KPFA.

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

Episode 101 – A 3rd Reconstruction And Critical Environmental Media Literacy w/Professor Jeff Share

Project Censored — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 18:22:31 +0000

On today’s episode, Nicholas Baham II (Dr. Dreadlocks), Janice Domingo, and Nolan Higdon host University of Los Angeles’ Jeff Share. Along The Line is a non-profit, education-based podcast that provides listeners…

The post Episode 101 – A 3rd Reconstruction And Critical Environmental Media Literacy w/Professor Jeff Share appeared first on Project Censored.

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

share – Radio Free

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