“We are in an unconscionable situation,” Fang said. “Because we can no longer rely on USAGM to disburse our funds as Congress intended, we will have to begin mass layoffs and let entire language services go dark in the next week.

“We are losing journalists who broke the news about the CCP’s genocide against the Uyghurs, who risked their lives covering a civil war in Myanmar, who exposed human trafficking networks in Southeast Asia, and who brought to light the crackdown on religious freedom in Tibet.

“Their invaluable work is part of RFA’s responsibility to uphold the truth so that dictators and despots don’t have the last word. Our priority remains to preserve our company and Congressionally mandated mission, while protecting our most vulnerable journalists.”

Next Friday, more than 280 staff members will be laid off, almost 90 percent of RFA’s U.S.-based workforce. Overseas, the service will terminate almost 20 positions. Additional terminations will continue throughout the month. Every department and level of the organization is being impacted. In addition, staff being terminated will have their health insurance paid through the end of May.

Following the termination of its grant agreement by the USAGM on March 15, RFA put three quarters of its U.S.-based employees on unpaid leave and terminated most of its overseas contractors. Soon after, it initiated a lawsuit to receive its Congressionally appropriated funds in the court. The Justice Department has appealed last week’s ruling to reinstate RFA’s grant agreement and funding stream. Last night, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit temporarily granted a motion for an administrative stay on the previous ruling, effectively allowing the USAGM to continue withholding funding from RFA and its sister grantee network Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

In a piece published today, the day before World Press Freedom Day, on The New York Times website, Fang laid out the case for RFA’s value to U.S. interests and what its potential demise means, given the sacrifice of its staff: “[T]hese brave journalists, who have risked everything to speak truth to dictators abroad, may be silenced by the very nation whose belief in press freedom inspired them in the first place.”

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

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Workers at one of the nation’s largest baby formula plants say the Abbott Laboratories facility is engaging in unsanitary practices similar to those that led it to temporarily shut down just three years ago, sparking a nationwide formula shortage.

Current and former employees told ProPublica that they have seen the plant in Sturgis, Michigan, take shortcuts when cleaning manufacturing equipment and testing for microbes. The employees said leaks in the factory are sometimes not fixed, a dangerous problem that can promote bacterial growth. They also said workers at the facility do not always take required swabs to check for pathogens while performing maintenance during production. Supervisors have urged workers to increase production and have retaliated against workers who complained about problems, the employees said.

One worker complained to the Food and Drug Administration in February, saying the plant has experienced “persistent leaks” and “unaddressed contamination issues,” according to correspondence between the worker and the agency viewed by ProPublica. Water and chemicals have pooled on the floor, the worker said. In one spot, white sweetener oozed from a pipe and formed a pile like a stalagmite on top of a tank used for blending, the employee said.

The complaints come as the Trump administration is dismantling wide swaths of the federal government — including conducting mass layoffs at the FDA — and filling some key regulatory positions with industry-friendly voices. The new head of the FDA division that oversees baby formula is a corporate lawyer who previously defended Abbott against a lawsuit.

The workers ProPublica spoke to said they did not want to be named because they feared repercussions from Abbott management, but they felt compelled to speak up out of concern that a baby who drank formula made at the plant would fall ill.

“I can’t have this on my conscience,” one of the workers said.

Abbott called workers’ assertions “untrue or misleading,” denied their claims about retaliation and said the company “stands behind the quality and safety of all our products including those made at Sturgis.” In a statement, a spokesperson said that since 2022, the company had increased plant staff by 300 people, spent $60 million on upgrades and stationed multiple food-safety consultants there on weekdays. The company said the plant often takes more than 10,000 environmental swabs across the facility in a month to check for microbes.

“We believe Sturgis is the most inspected, tested, and swabbed infant formula manufacturing facility in the U.S., and likely in the world,” the statement said.

That said, Abbott conceded that the plant acted “outside of our quality process” in one incident from last May.

Workers told ProPublica that, instead of retrieving a portable pump, an employee used a piece of cardboard from a trash bin to funnel coconut oil, a formula ingredient, into a tank during production of the company’s Pure Bliss by Similac Organic brand. Abbott said the cardboard “was reactively used to prevent spilling onto the floor.” The company denied that there was a trash receptacle in the area and said plant practice was for cardboard to be stacked on a pallet before being recycled.

Food-safety laws require companies to use clean tools to transfer ingredients, not a makeshift implement like cardboard, said Patrick Stone, a former FDA inspector who works as a consultant.

“No one would think that’s a proper use,” he said. “It’s not something that’s been cleaned and verified it’s clear of contamination.”

Abbott, however, downplayed the significance of the incident, saying it occurred early in the manufacturing process, before pasteurization, and the product underwent “enhanced testing” that came back negative for microbes.

“We acknowledge that this is outside of our quality process, and this has been addressed,” Abbott’s statement said. The company said the plant had a discussion with the employee reiterating the proper procedure.

Employees complained about the incident at the time and some hoped the plant had destroyed the formula. But a few weeks later, they received an email, which ProPublica viewed, that said the plant had released all batches “not just on time, but early.” It congratulated workers for an “amazing milestone and achievement for Sturgis.”

Abbott said there have been no medical complaints related to the lot. The brand is advertised as suitable for newborns.

In another incident in February, an employee said that the company had signed off on the use of an amino acid that was 10 months past its manufacturer’s “best by” date. A photo of the label viewed by ProPublica showed a best by date of April 2024. The law requires that ingredients in formula not expire before the formula as a whole, Stone said.

Abbott said that the powder’s expiration date had been “extended,” which it said regulations permit in some cases, after the company used third-party testing to confirm its nutrient levels.

But the worker said the amino acid powder was “chunky” and employees refused to add it to a formula mixture. It had been manufactured in October 2023.

Abbott told ProPublica that two containers of amino acid mix were, in fact, placed on hold due to “crustiness” and later destroyed. “When we find products that don’t meet all specifications, we dispose of them,” the company said.

Some of the workers said they’ve felt pressure not to disrupt the manufacturing process. At one meeting in February, a worker said a senior manager told employees the plant needed to improve its profit margins by either increasing production or reducing the amount of formula it was discarding as unusable.

Abbott disputed the idea that it is cutting corners to make more formula.

“Any assertion that quality is being sacrificed at the expense of volume and profit is patently untrue,” it said. The company said that in 2024, Abbott made 41% less formula at Sturgis than it had in 2021, the year before the shutdown.

For its part, the FDA did not respond to questions about whether an inspection or investigation is taking place at the Sturgis plant in response to the complaint it received. The agency said it generally does not comment on “potential or ongoing inspections or investigations.”

In a statement, the FDA said that it “takes reports related to infant formula seriously and follows up as appropriate.”

The case could prove to be a major test for President Donald Trump’s second administration, which just last month announced an effort to “ensure the ongoing quality, safety, nutritional adequacy, and resilience of the domestic infant formula supply.” Dubbed Operation Stork Speed, it promised to increase ingredient testing and communicate regularly with consumers and the industry “as significant developments occur to ensure transparency, including information regarding nutrients and health outcomes.”

The Abbott employees’ concerns come three years after the company voluntarily recalled several formula brands, including Similac, Alimentum and EleCare, and temporarily halted production at Sturgis amid reports of unsanitary conditions and infant deaths.

A former plant employee in 2021 had told the FDA that the plant was using lax cleaning practices, falsifying records and releasing untested infant formula to the public. FDA inspectors found leaking equipment valves, standing water and a type of bacteria at the plant called Cronobacter sakazakii, which is common but can be deadly for young babies. Company documents showed the manufacturer had even discovered the bacteria in its finished formula in 2019 and 2020, the report said. Food-safety laws require companies to test samples of their formula to check the nutrient content and look for harmful microorganisms.

Those inspection findings were “shocking,” a former FDA chief said later. He called the plant “egregiously unsanitary.”

Initial reports said several infants were hospitalized and two died from an illness caused by the Cronobacter bacteria after drinking formula made at the Sturgis plant, according to an inspector general’s report. Between December 2021 and June 2022, it said the FDA received a total of 16 consumer complaints involving infant deaths and Sturgis facility products.

The report said the FDA did not directly link drinking formula from the plant to any of the infants’ illnesses or deaths. Abbott said no unopened Abbott formula has ever tested positive for Cronobacter.

Still, in May of 2022, Abbott signed a consent decree with the Department of Justice and the FDA and committed to following improved procedures at the facility. The decree is still in effect. It says the company can be fined up to $30,000 a day for violations, with a maximum of $5 million in a year.

The plant’s nearly four-month-long shutdown in 2022 sparked a nationwide formula shortage, which was worsened by COVID-19-related supply-chain issues. Store shelves emptied of formula, leaving parents desperate. Some babies developed symptoms such as spitting up and diarrhea after being forced to switch brands, researchers found. Nearly half of parents in one survey of primarily low-income families said they’d resorted to at least one unsafe feeding practice, such as watering down formula.

Abbott said it disagreed “vehemently” with the FDA chief’s comments on the Sturgis plant being unsanitary, and it said the former employee who filed the 2021 complaint with the agency was dismissed for “serious violations” of its food-safety policies. Abbott said the employee’s specific claims were not supported by the FDA. “It’s time to stop giving credence and fame to individuals with questionable agendas” that have led to “unnecessary” formula shortages, Abbott said.

It’s unclear how the Trump administration, with its reduced federal workforce, will respond to the newest complaints. The administration recently eliminated 3,500 FDA jobs as part of extensive cuts in federal health workers’ ranks. While officials said the reductions will not impact inspectors, the agency did not answer a question about whether any of the employees being let go are involved in inspection or enforcement for the Sturgis facility.

The White House also recently installed a corporate lawyer in a top FDA post, putting him in charge of the agency’s regulation of formula. Kyle Diamantas, acting deputy commissioner for human foods, previously defended Abbott against a lawsuit in which families alleged the company failed to warn them about a deadly bowel condition that premature babies who are fed formula have a greater risk of developing. Abbott has appealed a verdict in which it was ordered to pay $495 million.

Meanwhile, at the Department of Agriculture, officials disbanded an advisory committee that had been studying the threat of Cronobacter contamination in powdered formula. The USDA said at the time that it did so to comply with an executive order seeking to reduce bureaucracy but it remained committed to food safety. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for a Trump presidency had listed as one of its goals reevaluating “excessive regulation” of infant formula.

Families using formula aren’t being protected if the FDA is acting like a partner to companies like Abbott instead of overseeing them, said Jennifer Pomeranz, a professor and expert in public health and food policy at New York University who has served as a witness for plaintiffs suing Abbott over the bowel condition. She called Diamantas’ appointment the “perfect example of regulatory capture.”

In its statement to ProPublica, the FDA said it is “committed to enhancing regulatory oversight of all infant formula manufacturers to help ensure that the industry is producing infant formula under the safest conditions possible.”

The Sturgis plant is a major supplier of formula in the United States and had been producing about 20% of the nation’s formula when it shut down in 2022. Abbott provides formula to more than half of babies in the government-backed nutrition-assistance program, called WIC, that subsidizes families’ formula purchases. The company has contracts to be the sole source of formula for WIC recipients in 36 states and Washington, D.C., as of August of last year.

Since the 2022 consent decree, FDA records show it has completed 10 inspections, including a multiweek review that was underway when employees said the cardboard incident took place. (The company says that according to its records, it has been inspected by FDA 12 times in that period.) No action was required in response to most of those visits, according to a database that tracks FDA inspections.

But for one inspection that ended in December 2022, the FDA issued a citation that noted concerns related to contamination prevention, worker hygiene and the handling of consumer complaints, documents say.

A report from that inspection — completed just seven months after Abbott signed the consent decree — said the agency found problems similar to those that had shut down the plant.

The report noted, among other things, six instances of employees failing to collect required swabs to test for bacterial contamination after cleaning up a leak. It also said inspectors found “apparent insects and dust like debris” near formula-making equipment. “You did not establish a system of process controls covering all stages of processing that was designed to ensure that infant formula does not become adulterated due to the presence of microorganisms in the formula or in the processing environment,” the report said.

Stone, the former FDA inspector who is now a consultant, said the citation is significant. “FDA should have really hammered on them harder,” he said, “but they’re weak and they’re scared.”

Without taking those swabs and testing them, the company cannot know if the formula is contaminated, Stone said.

“Unless you’re monitoring your environment, you don’t know what’s in your environment,” he said. “If you have leaks, forget about it. You don’t know what’s in there.”

Abbott said it “has addressed all FDA observations” from 2022. FDA inspectors have raised no major issues since then, the company said.

In 2023, Abbott confirmed the Department of Justice had opened a criminal investigation into conduct at the plant. A spokesperson for the department’s Western District of Michigan did not respond to a request for information about the investigation’s status. Abbott did not respond to a question about the probe but said at the time that it was “cooperating fully.” The Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission were also scrutinizing the company after the problems surfaced in Sturgis. Spokespeople for the SEC and FTC, which released a report on the formula supply disruptions, declined to comment. Abbott did not respond to questions about the investigations.

More recently, some employees who spoke to ProPublica said plant leaders have urged them to speed up production — even though the consent decree aimed to add more safety protocols. “Imagine a 10-page rule book you’re told you have to operate by no matter what,” one said. “No deviations. You’re doing that, and then your boss says, ‘You’re not doing your job fast enough.’”

The workers said some employees have pushed supervisors to follow sanitary procedures more closely and at times refused to run equipment until their concerns about sanitation were met, even as they feared losing their jobs. Abbott is one of the largest and highest-paying employers in the largely rural area near the Indiana border. The plant’s tall white tower, emblazoned with a large green “a,” looms over nearby homes.

An employee said that since the consent decree, he had witnessed leaks of formula, oil, chemicals and water that were not cleaned up, fixed or documented properly. Sometimes, the worker said, supervisors resisted shutting down machinery — always a money-losing proposition — to address a leak. The worker reported seeing a leak that hadn’t been handled correctly more than once a month. “It’s all over,” the employee said.

Photos taken in the plant show equipment whose outer surface was streaked with drips from formula ingredients that had leaked. In one instance, an absorbent mat had been placed on the floor to catch drips. Procedures require the plant to contain leaks, fix equipment and test the area for pathogens, workers say. Leaks can become breeding grounds for bacteria.

Abbott said “in a facility the size of Sturgis, with literally miles of pipes, leaks, drips, and condensation are inevitable.” The plant has a team it deploys quickly to contain leaks, then swab, test and sanitize the area, the company said. The plant aims to limit standing water and sanitize regularly to prevent bacterial growth, Abbott said, and it runs six times the number of Cronobacter tests on finished product samples as required by federal regulations.

“Abbott has a quality policy that we make our products as if they were for our own families,” the company’s statement said. “If quality were not our first priority Abbott would not still be here at 137 years.”

A contractor Abbott hired to improve its processes has raised concerns about the facility not following protocols or procedures in past audits but cited no such problems in the audit completed earlier this year, said Mansour Samadpour, co-founder of IEH Laboratories and Consulting Group. IEH, which began its work after the consent decree, reports back to Abbott and the FDA on what the plant needs to correct. Neither Abbott nor IEH provided a copy of the most recent audit.

Samadpour declined to detail the earlier concerns. He said it was possible an employee could miss a swab, but said there’s no systemic problem. He said he does not have concerns about sanitary practices in the plant.

“If I have any concerns, they will hear from me and FDA will hear from us,” said Samadpour, who spoke with ProPublica at Abbott’s request. “That is our job.”

Debbie Cenziper contributed reporting.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Heather Vogell.

The program, a collaboration between the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, NASA and the now shuttered U.S. aid agency, used satellite technology and geospatial data to help countries respond to cross-border environmental hazards such as agricultural land burning and forest fires. It also monitored and forecast air pollution.

The annual deterioration in Southeast Asia’s air quality began with a vengeance last month as toxic pollution shrouded cities such as Bangkok and Hanoi for a week.

UNICEF, the U.N.’s agency for children, this week released data that showed that poor air quality remains the largest cause of child deaths after malnutrition in East Asian and Pacific countries.

“The suspension of the project during the regional haze season is unfortunate and presents challenges,” the disaster center’s air pollution and geospatial imaging expert, Aekkapol Aekakkararungroj, told Radio Free Asia.

“The immediate consequence is that some of the planned activities, such as data integration and capacity-building efforts with local stakeholders, have been delayed,” he said. “This could potentially slow down the development and dissemination of tools that support timely decision-making and response strategies.”

The State Department said Jan. 26 it had paused all U.S. foreign assistance overseen by the department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, during a review to ensure projects are consistent with Trump’s foreign policy agenda.

The decision froze humanitarian programs worldwide — from landmine removal to HIV prevention — that are crucial to developing nations. Most of USAID’s thousands of employees have been put on leave from Friday, according to a notice that is now the only information on USAID’s website.

The U.S. also has announced its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, or WHO, and the Paris Agreement to limit the increase in average global temperature to less than two degrees Celsius.

Aekkapol said the disaster center is seeking funding from other international donors and if successful could resume its air pollution work within a few months.

“I am optimistic that our efforts to secure alternative funding and partnerships will help us regain momentum by April,” he said.

Collaboration with NASA would continue, he said.

Child deaths

Poor air quality is a health and economic burden worldwide that weighs particularly heavily on lower-income regions such as Southeast Asia.

Although deaths in Asia linked to air pollution have declined substantially over the past two decades due to better healthcare and reduced indoor use of fuels such as coal for cooking and heating, they remain at alarmingly high levels, UNICEF officials said at a press conference in Bangkok on Thursday.

Toxic air is linked to about 100 deaths a day among children under five in East Asia and the Pacific, UNICEF said, based on data compiled by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Use of dirty fuels for cooking and heating at home accounts for more than half of the deaths.

Fine particles in the atmosphere — the basis of Southeast Asia’s annual haze — from land burning and fossil fuel sources such as vehicle exhausts also are a culprit. Its accumulation over cities or the countryside can depend on weather conditions.

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About two thirds of children in the region live in countries where particulate matter levels in the air exceed WHO guidelines by more than five times.

Progress over the past two decades in reducing child deaths from air pollution “represents truly what is possible if we can keep this trajectory going,” said Nicholas Rees, an environment and climate expert at UNICEF.

Maintaining the progress depends on factors such as political will, the strength of efforts to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and the capacity of health systems, he told RFA.

“Without that, I fear progress will not only be slower in the years ahead, but we may even reverse some of the gains we have made,” he said.

Edited by Mike Firn.

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

Since then, Elon Musk’s new “Department of Government Efficiency” has shut down the agency’s website, locked employees out of their email accounts, and closed the agency’s Washington office. 

“USAID is a criminal organization,” Musk tweeted on Sunday. “Time for it to die.” (The agency is codified in federal law, and court challenges are likely to argue that Musk’s actions are themselves illegal.)

While criticisms of Trump’s abrupt demolition of USAID have largely focused on global public health projects that have long enjoyed bipartisan support, the effort also threatens billions of dollars meant to combat climate change. USAID’s climate-related funding helps low-income countries build renewable energy and adapt to worsening natural disasters, as well as conserve carbon sinks and sensitive ecosystems. During the Biden administration, USAID accelerated its climate-focused efforts as part of an ambitious new initiative that was supposed to last through the end of the decade. That effort now appears to have come to an abrupt end as USAID contractors around the world prepare to abandon critical projects and lay off staff.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has taken over USAID as acting director, has said that Musk’s abrupt shutdown is “not about getting rid of foreign aid.” But even if USAID eventually resumes operations to provide emergency humanitarian assistance such as famine support and HIV prevention, the agency is still likely to terminate all its climate-related work under the Trump administration. The result would be a blow to the landmark Paris climate agreement just as significant as Trump’s formal withdrawal of the U.S. from the international pact. By clawing back billions of dollars that Congress has already committed to the fight against global warming, the U.S. is poised to derail climate progress far beyond its own borders.

“This is taking a torch to development programs that the American people have paid for,” Gillian Caldwell, who served as USAID’s chief climate officer under former President Biden. “Many commitments under the Paris agreement are funding-contingent, and that’s very much in peril.”

The United States spends less than 1 percent of its federal budget on foreign aid, but that still makes the country the largest aid donor in the world by far. USAID distributes between $40 and $60 billion per year — almost a quarter of all global humanitarian aid. While in recent years the largest shares of that aid have gone to Ukraine, Israel, and Afghanistan, the agency also distributes billions of dollars to Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and southeast Asia, where it primarily helps promote food security, health and sanitation, and education efforts.

In 2022, Caldwell led the launch of a sweeping new “climate strategy” that sought to reposition USAID’s work over the next decade to account for climate shocks. The first part of this initiative was a country-by-country review of existing aid flows in standard areas like food and sanitation. USAID offices around the world began tweaking their operations to ensure the projects they were funding would hold up as temperatures continue to rise. For example, the agency would ensure water and sewer systems could handle bigger floods, or would plan to inoculate against diseases that might spread faster in warm weather. The effort was especially important in sectors like agriculture, which is both emissions-heavy and extremely vulnerable to the weather shocks that come with even small climactic shifts.

“You’re going to be having a lot more demands on humanitarian assistance when you’ve got extreme weather events,” she said. “The point was to make sure that every dollar we’re spending is sensible given the world we live in today.”

In addition to that review, the agency also increased its direct spending on renewable energy, conservation, and climate adaptation. The agency added dozens of new countries to its climate aid portfolio under Biden’s tenure, expanding in southeast Asia and western Africa. USAID work has had a far greater effect on the climate fight than its raw spending, which totaled around $600 million on climate efforts in 2023, would indicate. That’s because the agency’s support has also mobilized billions of dollars from the private sector, attracting investment from renewable energy developers and insurance companies that offer drought and flood coverage to vulnerable areas abroad.

USAID’s renewable energy efforts may be some of the most resilient to Trump’s shock attack, because they don’t rely on the agency’s continued involvement. USAID has helped several countries design and hold renewable energy auctions, wherein private companies bid for the right to build new power facilities at low prices. These auctions save countries money and make it easier for them to attract private capital. In the Philippines, two USAID-sponsored auctions generated almost $7 billion in investment to build 5.4 gigawatts of solar and wind energy, enough to power millions of homes — without further USAID support.

The agency’s spending on landscape conservation is less secure. That funding prevents development on sensitive natural environments like rainforests by paying nearby residents to seek livelihoods other than the logging and grazing that could unleash massive emissions from the carbon stored in the forests. If USAID collapses, that aid will dry up, jeopardizing millions of acres of climate-friendly land.

The largest portion of the USAID’s climate-related spending goes toward disaster resilience, which doesn’t attract much investment from banks and private companies, making government support crucial. In the case of Zimbabwe, for instance, the agency funds dozens of projects a year that are intended to make the country’s farmers more resilient to drought and flooding. (This is in addition to public health and AIDS relief provided to the country, which together account for the majority of its USAID funding.)

One of the largest disaster relief programs in Zimbabwe, a broad-based initiative to help smallholder farmers, has increased water stability for tens of thousands of households by helping them build small rain catchment systems and restore degraded soils. USAID has been funding the project to the tune of about $12 million annually since 2020, and the program was slated to continue for the next three years.

Zimbabwe’s minister for climate and the environment, Washington Zhakata, said that a shutoff of USAID funding will make it nearly impossible for the country to meet its commitments to the Paris agreement. The country has promised not only to develop renewable energy but also to spend huge amounts of money on drought and flood protections. It has developed a nationwide adaptation plan on the premise that future funding would be provided — and provided in large part by the countries that are responsible for the most carbon emissions historically, like the U.S.

“With limited and reduced resources, as a result of the funding withdrawal, meeting our compliance will be an uphill task,” Zhakata told Grist. “The created finance gap will see developing countries have to live with minimum resources and also to squeeze from domestic sources.”

At times, USAID has faced criticism for inefficient spending and unclear results — including for its past climate spending. The agency’s inspector general released a report last summer that criticized USAID’s previous climate initiatives for having murky data, saying that “weaknesses in the Agency’s processes for awarding funds, managing performance, and communicating climate change information could impede successful implementation.” 

The inspector general’s report also called USAID’s measurements of climate progress into question. In another report last year, the agency said that its new clean energy investments in Pakistan will cut around 55 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, the equivalent of taking around 10 million average cars off the road. In Brazil, the agency said it has conserved around 118 million acres of forest land, which will sequester millions of tons of carbon. The inspector general said results like these are “highly susceptible to inaccuracies,” because the emissions results haven’t yet happened.

Some experts also argue that the agency’s humanitarian aid programs don’t focus enough on reducing long-term risk. Food security specialists who spoke to Grist during a 2023 famine in Somalia said that USAID provided emergency food assistance in the country as pastoralists lost their income, but it didn’t provide enough funding to help those shepherds adapt to future droughts. Caldwell, the former USAID climate officer, said the agency has reduced long-term risk by trying to reduce emissions on emergency aid deliveries and ensure new infrastructure can survive future disasters.

While the first Trump administration tried to zero out climate aid in every round of annual budget negotiations, some Senate Republicans resisted and kept aid flows more or less level. This time around, there’s no guarantee that Republicans in Congress will show the same resistance to Trump’s demands — and no guarantee that the administration will comply with laws requiring it to spend the money that Congress appropriates. If Musk, who Trump has made a special government employee to conduct his Department of Government Efficiency vision, overcomes court challenges and succeeds in clearing out USAID staff and shutting down the agency’s typical operations, it will take a new administration and years of work to restore the flow of climate aid, assuming Congress votes to restore it as well.

Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris agreement on his first day in office, but the U.S. is still a member of the broader United Nations climate convention, and only Congress has the power to withdraw it from that convention. The original framework text, which the U.S. adopted in 1992, says that rich countries like the U.S. “shall provide” aid to help poorer countries meet their climate goals. 

In a statement about the USAID shutdown, Manish Bapna, head of the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, connected the shuttering of USAID to Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 Paris accord.

“Similar to the Paris Climate Agreement exit, this action simply narrows the window for essential climate and global health actions, while delivering no benefit to American taxpayers,” he said. “This is a curiously counterproductive and poorly timed move that comes as the world is facing grave climate, health, environmental, and economic crises — all of which will be worsened by this assault on USAID.”

Editor’s note: The Natural Resources Defense Council is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How Trump’s USAID shutdown threatens the world’s climate goals on Feb 4, 2025.

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

• • House votes down Trump-backed government funding plan as deadline to avoid shutdown approaches.
  • Luigi Mangione appears in Federal court in New York, he faces federal murder and stalking charges.
  • Amazon workers stage holiday season nationwide strike. 

• Californians file class action lawsuit against congressmembers over support for Israel arms sales.
• Anti-abortion activists testify before Congress on law against blocking abortion clinic entrances.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – December 19, 2024 House votes down Trump-backed government funding plan as deadline to avoid shutdown approaches appeared first on KPFA.

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

• Government funding agreement in Congress collapses as Trump makes new demands before shutdown.
• Supreme Court will step into debate over legality of potential US ban of Tiktok.
• Federal Reserve announces latest quarter point interest rate cut.
• GOP lawmakers announce border security plan for Trump Administration.
• LA Immigrants rights advocates march in celebration of immigrants.
• Richmond approves housing inspection ordinance.
• San Mateo County Supervisors vote to move forward on removing County Sheriff.
• Anti abortion activists testify in Congress against law banning blocking of abortion clinic entrances.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – December 18, 2024 Government funding agreement in Congress collapses as Trump makes new demands before shutdown. appeared first on KPFA.

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

“Chad’s media regulator should immediately reverse its directive to suspend outlets for sharing news in ways outside of those narrowly defined by authorities and cease efforts to censor the press ahead of elections,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program, in New York. “As Chadians go to the polls later this year, they should be given access to a plurality of diverse media sources and content, not a constricted version of the news.”

Barka ordered the suspension or revocation of licenses of private newspapers that broadcast audiovisual content online instead of written articles and of private outlets that broadcast content on Facebook that was not first distributed via their traditional newspaper, radio, or TV channels. He also demanded that all media outlets only employ journalists who have official press identity cards.

Barka said these measures are part of the ongoing cleaning up of Chad’s media landscape as the country heads towards legislative, provincial, and municipal elections on December 29.

The Chadian Online Media Association said in a statement that the directive appears “to go beyond the existing legal framework” and could pose a risk to freedom of expression, noting that the country’s press law states that the online press provides “mainly written and audiovisual” content.

Earlier in October, HAMA banned two managers of the private newspaper Le Visionnaire from practicing journalism for not having press cards and suspended the paper for three months over a report into government mismanagement.

CPJ’s calls to Barka for comment on the directive went unanswered.

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

“After weeks of internal chaos, House Republicans are no closer to a funding extension that can pass both chambers and win approval from the White House. With each passing day, House Republicans are bringing us closer to a costly, disruptive, and painful government shutdown that nobody in either party wants, especially not weeks before a high-stakes election. This is no way to govern.

“Speaker Johnson is letting MAGA extremists call the shots and sabotage the CR with a culture war poison pill that cannot become law. The SAVE Act is the ultimate poison pill, a destructive piece of policy that pretends we have a problem of non-citizens voting in this nation. This premise is categorically untrue.

“A clean CR is the only way forward. That was true weeks ago, true today, and will still be true if Congress breaches the September 30th funding deadline. The only question is how long it will take for Speaker Johnson to stand up to the MAGA extremists in his ranks and join the rest of the country – including Senate Republicans – in support of a clean, bipartisan bill.”

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

“The Court of Appeal’s decision to void a 2018 government agency shutdown order against Rappler is long overdue and rightly restores the publication’s legal standing as a locally controlled media company,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Philippine authorities should leverage this verdict to drop all pending cases against Rappler and its co-founder Maria Ressa and stop using spurious legal means to harass the media.”  

The country’s corporate regulator, the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission, ruled in 2018 that Rappler had violated a constitutional ban on foreign control of local media companies by issuing Philippine Depositary Receipts (PDR) — a financial instrument — to the U.S.-based Omidyar Network, a philanthropic organization which had invested in the news site, and canceled its certificate of incorporation.

Ressa, who won CPJ’s 2018 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award and is a CPJ board member, is appealing her 2020 conviction in a cyber libel case and is also facing charges stemming from the Omidyar investment, for which she could be jailed for 15 years.

The July 23 ruling, which was made public on August 9, validated Rappler’s defense that the PDRs did not confer ownership or control.

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

“All sides in Bangladesh must ensure that journalists can report safely during this delicate time of political transition,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “The attacks on journalists and the blocking of internet and phone service during recent weeks of protests are unacceptable and need to stop immediately.”

At least three Bangladeshi journalists were killed covering unrest in July and dozens more were assaulted either by police, supporters of Hasina’s Awami League party, or protesters. Another journalist, Daily Khoborpatra newspaper correspondent Pradip Kumar Bhowmik, was reported killed on Sunday in northwest Sirajganj city, as well as other fresh attacks on the press.

Sunday’s renewed violence saw further attacks on the media, including The Business Standard newspaper reporters Miraz Hossain and Jahidul Islam, who were beaten in the capital Dhaka by supporters of the Jubo League, the youth wing of the Awami League, Hossain told CPJ.

In addition, the Dhaka offices of multiple pro-Awami League broadcasters including Somoy TV, Ekattor TV, and DBC News, were vandalized on Monday.

On Sunday, the government ordered its second mobile internet shutdown in three weeks and on Monday broadband services were suspended for about three hours. Services resumed on Monday afternoon as Hasina fled the country after protesters stormed her palace.

Army spokesperson Sami-Ud-Dowla Chowdhury and the Jubo League general secretary Mainul Hossain Khan Nikhil did not respond to CPJ’s requests for comment via messaging app.

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

A major hospital in Bangladesh says it is overwhelmed with gunshot victims following days of student protests against a discriminatory quota system for prized government jobs, indicating the heavy use of lethal measures by security forces as they tried to quell the unrest.

The morgue of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, the largest hospital in the capital, is filled with the bodies of 79 people killed by gunfire, its director, Brigadier General Md. Asaduzzaman, said Tuesday. 

RFA affiliate BenarNews reporters who visited the hospital’s emergency department witnessed that it was treating more than 200 gunshot victims, some of them minors. The hospital also has been besieged by people searching for missing relatives.

With all beds occupied, some patients lay on the ward floor and in the hospital’s lobby. One of the victims was 10-year old Mohammad Alif, whose left leg was injured by a gunshot.

“I did not do anything, I was playing, and suddenly a bullet broke my leg. I fell down and started crying,” he told BenarNews. “Some people took me to the hospital, doctors took out the bullet there.”

His mother Asma Begum told Benar: “I was arranging water to give him a bath, and he was playing with a fish in a jar. I did not notice when he went to the street. While I was looking for him, I got a phone call from a neighbor that he was shot.”

Separately, Bangladesh’s government eased a days-long curfew and internet blackout on Tuesday as an uneasy calm prevailed. Police said they had arrested more than 1,000 people suspected of involvement in the country’s worst unrest in more than a decade. Social media and mobile data remained throttled.

According to BenarNews tallies, at least 138 people have died in the week of clashes. Prothom Alo, Bangladesh’s national daily with reporters in every district, reported 187 deaths over the last six days, when it came back online Tuesday. 

The unrest has highlighted frustration with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s heavy-handed grip on power.

When the government announced a nationwide curfew on July 19 and deployed the army, the secretary-general of the ruling Awami League government said security forces would operate under shoot to kill orders.  

The United Nations had previously called for restraint on both sides and the U.S. State Department on Monday condemned what it called the reported shoot-to-kill edict. 

The stage for unrest was set in June when the High Court reinstated a divisive quota that reserved 30% of civil service jobs for descendants of people who fought in the country’s 1971 war for independence from Pakistan. The ruling stirred tensions in a developing nation of some 170 million people that is failing to provide enough jobs for its burgeoning youth population.

Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Sunday overruled the High Court and reined in the quota system so that 93% of government jobs are awarded based on merit. Relatives of freedom fighters get 5%, and the remainder is divided between ethnic minorities, individuals with disabilities and transgender people, according to the court’s ruling. 

At the Dhaka hospital, relatives and friends of rickshaw puller Goni Mia, 35, found his body at the morgue after several days of searching. 

Mojibur Rahman, a neighbor of Mia, who was waiting for the postmortem report in front of the morgue, told Benar that Mia was hit by a bullet on a roadside in Dhaka’s Nakhalpara area on Saturday. 

Mia’s death certificate, seen by Benar, said he bled to death from a gunshot wound. A photo of the body taken by a relative shows he was shot in the chest.

Benar reporters also witnessed Tofazzal Hossain searching the morgue with a photo of his 14-year-old nephew Dipu in his hand. The family heard that Dipu was injured on Friday during a clash on Chittagong Road in Dhaka, but after that, he was missing.

“Dipu just went to the street to see what's happening,” Hossain told BenarNews. 

“We have been searching for him since Friday. Today, after seeing his photos someone told us that a pedestrian took Dipu to a local hospital, and later that hospital shifted him to the DMCH.”

“We have searched for him in all wards, and finally came to the mortuary,” he said.

The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, meanwhile, accused the government of arresting its members en masse to divert attention from its repression of student protestors.

“By imposing a curfew, the government is now destroying the pieces of evidence of killing and attacks on unarmed people,” BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said in a statement on Tuesday.   

Members of Students Movement Against Discrimination, a force behind the anti-quota protests, repeated a four-point “ultimatum” to the government at a press conference Tuesday with a heavy police presence. 

They want the government to resume internet services, end the curfew, ensure security for all organizers of the student movement, withdraw security forces from campuses and reopen dormitories.

Nahid Islam, a coordinator of the movement, said peaceful student protests became violent when demonstrators were attacked by the student and youth wings of the ruling party and police.

“As the law enforcement agencies failed to give security to students, we urged students … as well as all the citizens of the country to come out on the street to give security to the students,” he said.

Netblocks, a pro-democracy organization that monitors online connectivity, said fixed-line internet had been partially restored in Bangladesh after five full days offline. 

Social media and mobile data restrictions continue, “limiting the public's right to communicate and stay informed,” it said on social media site X.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jesmin Papri and Ahammad Foyez for BenarNews.

President Joe Biden’s latest executive order on immigration gives legal protections to about half a million undocumented immigrants who are married to American citizens, preventing their deportation and providing a streamlined pathway to citizenship for them and their children. The announcement is being welcomed by immigrant rights groups, but comes just weeks after Biden signed another order giving himself far-reaching power to shut down the U.S. border with Mexico to limit asylum requests. The two executive orders “could not be more different from each other,” says Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Illinois. She attended Tuesday’s White House ceremony with her husband Boris Hernandez, who came to the U.S. as a teenager and would qualify for protections under the new rule, and says Biden must offer an alternative to hard-line Republican policies. “Be the administration that shows the stark difference between Donald Trump and Joe Biden as it pertains to immigration. Tuesday was a good step in that direction. What he did two-and-a-half weeks ago was not,” says Ramirez.

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

On Thursday, the Taliban’s Ministry of Justice announced the closure of Tamadon TV, alleging that the broadcaster was affiliated with the Harakat-e-Islami political party, after the Taliban banned all such affiliations, and operating on “seized land,” according to Qari Baraktullah Rasuli, the spokesperson for the Taliban’s Ministry of Justice who posted the statement on X, formerly Twitter, and media reports. Tamadon TV denies the claims.

In a breaking news announcement earlier that day, Tamadon TV stated that a Taliban delegation was inside its station to shut down operations. However, later the TV station confirmed that the suspension of its operations was postponed until Saturday. The Taliban has not announced an exact date that it plans to close the station. 

“The Taliban must immediately and unconditionally reverse its decision to ban Tamadon TV and allow the channel to continue broadcasting,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “The Taliban is expanding its relentless crackdown on Afghan media and suppressing any independent voices. This must end.”

On June 6, Mohammad Jawad Mohseni, director of Tamadon TV, rejected the Taliban’s claims about the broadcaster’s political affiliations, according to broadcaster Afghanistan International. Mohseni noted that the late founder of the TV station, Ayatullah Asif Mohseni, had resigned as the leader of Harakat-e-Islami in 2005, years before establishing Tamadon TV.

Mohseni said that “the land for Tamadon TV was purchased from a private owner and has a legitimate and legal title deed, and it is not and has never been government property.”

On February 18, 2023, about 10 armed Taliban members raided the headquarters of Tamadon TV in Kabul, beat several staff members, and held them for 30 minutes.

Tamadon TV is predominantly owned and operated by members of the Hazara-Shia ethnic minority and covers political and current affairs as well as Shiite religious programming. Hazara people have faced persecution and escalated violence since the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021.

The closure order of Tamadon TV follows a series of other restrictions imposed on Afghan media in recent months. In May, the Taliban’s Media Complaints and Rights Violations Commission banned journalists, analysts, and experts from participating in discussions or cooperating with London-based Afghanistan International’s television and radio stations. The Commission called on citizens to boycott Afghanistan International and banned anyone from providing facilities for broadcasting the channel in public places.

Earlier, in April, the Taliban shut down Noor and Barya TV broadcasters, which were affiliated with other Islamist political parties, citing violations of “national and Islamic values.”

The Taliban has shut down other broadcasters since it took over the country in 2021,  including Radio Nasim. in central Daikundi Province, Hamisha Bahar Radio and TV in eastern Nangarhar province, and Radio Sada e Banowan in northeastern Badakhshan province. In 2022, the group also banned international broadcasters such as the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of America.

CPJ’s requests for comment sent to Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not receive a response.

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

• Student encampments shutdown amid violent confrontations and building occupations.
• May Day rallies held around the world including in the Bay Area.
• Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene calls for vote on House Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership.
• May Day rallies held around the world including in the Bay Area.
• Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Israeli leaders, calls for ceasefire in Gaza war.
• Harvey Weinstein back in New York courtroom for first time since appeals court rescinded his 2020 rape conviction.
• Florida abortion ban goes into effect. 

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – May 1, 2024 Student encampments shutdown amid violent confrontations and building occupations. appeared first on KPFA.

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

Trucks once again crossed the main bridge for trade linking the Myanmar town of Myawaddy and Thailand’s Mae Sot although some damage to facilities from the fighting had yet to be repaired, a trader said.

“Administrative work related to border trade is being done using a paper system instead of the online system,” one businessman who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of border trade told RFA. “This is due to the fact that the damage caused by the fighting is being repaired.”

Thai authorities closed the bridge after insurgents from the Karen National Liberation Army and their allies attacked the main junta military base in Myawaddy in early April. There have been clashes, including junta airstrikes, since then but the fighting has eased in recent days after anti-junta forces withdrew from the main positions they had captured.

The businessman said the cargo bridge, known as the Friendship Bridge No. 2, reopened at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday and trucks had started operating as usual.

Another trader, who also declined to be identified for safety reasons, told RFA that the customs department had lost its internet connection, complicating trade procedures.

“It’s like going back in time,” he said. “Before the bridge was closed, work was done online,  now, it has to be done by paper, which makes it a bit difficult.”

Agricultural products, including dried cassava and chillies, are the main items being exported from Myanmar to Thailand, while construction materials, household goods and food products mostly go the other way into Myanmar.

In Myawaddy, junta military personnel, who regained control of the junta’s Battalion 275 headquarters in Myawaddy on Wednesday, as well as police, immigration and customs teams, were on duty on their side of the bridge, the second businessman said.

Friendship Bridge No. 1, which is used by travelers moving between the two countries, was reopened on Saturday after being temporarily closed because of the fighting. Some banks in Myawaddy had yet to reopen, residents added.

Casualties

While the border reopened, parts of  eastern Myanmar’s Kayin State were still plagued by violence.

Junta forces raided two villages in the Kawkareik area, Kawt Bein and Kawt Pa Laing, in recent days as they retook territory from the Karen guerrilla force, and at least four civilians, including a woman, were killed, villagers told RFA.

RFA contacted Kayin state’s junta spokesperson Saw Khin Maung Myint for more information, but he did not respond by the time of publication.

Many villagers in the area remain displaced by the fighting, residents said.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 

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

Warner Bros Discovery has confirmed its plans to shut down Newshub in Aotearoa New Zealand, including its website and all TV news shows by July 5 — 294 staff will lose their jobs.

The company says no deal is in place yet with any third party to supply daily news.

Newshub staff learned of the company’s decision at a meeting fronted by Warner Bros Discovery’s Australia and New Zealand chief Glenn Kyne and its Asia-Pacific president James Gibbons today.

• READ MORE: NZ media: All Newshub operations to be shut down, 250 jobs to go
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• RNZ News live blog on the cutbacks
• Other NZ news cutbacks reports

In a statement, Gibbons said there was “nothing anyone in our New Zealand networks business could have done better” to avoid the closure.

“It was a combination of very strong economic headwinds both in New Zealand and the global market,” he said.

“The downturn has been severe, and the bounce-back has not materialised as expected.”

Warner Bros Discovery first revealed its proposal to close Newshub on February 28. Newshub Michael Morrah told RNZ’s Midday Report many staff saw today’s decision as inevitable.

‘Many resigned themselves’
“The confirmation was still very upsetting and disappointing, but nothing like the shock of six weeks ago. Many had resigned themselves to the closure,” he said.

“I have worked here for 18 years. We believe in what we do. And know it is important to the people who watch — 900,000 every week. What happens to those people who relied on us to present key news and current affairs?

“And to the investigations that are being worked on?”

Gibbons said $74 million disappeared from broadcast TV advertising in New Zealand in 2023 alone. That was the single largest year-on-year drop over the last three decades outside of the Global Financial Crisis in 2007-8.

“Every business in its own market has to be financially sustainable, and we simply could not continue in our current form.”

Fresh annual figures released yesterday showed total TV advertising revenue in New Zealand TV fell from $517 million in 2022 to $443 million last year.  Digital advertising revenue is increasing but the vast bulk of that goes to offshore tech companies Google and Facebook.

Kyne said free-to-air and news operations were too expensive to run as they were. He was concerned that the move would leave TVNZ as the only service running free-to-air broadcast news, but said there was no other choice.

Impact on plurality
“We are deeply aware of the effect this is likely to have on the plurality of media voices in New Zealand. Having just one TV news operation in New Zealand — that is state-owned — will be an ongoing issue until it is solved.

“But as we noted on the day, it is simply impossible to continue operating in our current form.”

The final day for staff who have been made redundant will be on July 5, and that will also be the final day for the Newshub bulletin, the statement said.

When Newshub’s closure was first proposed in late February, staff were given six weeks to give feedback on the proposal.

“Myself and six colleagues suggested a stripped back Newshub live at 6 and retention of the Newshub (website) to transition from linear TV to a fully-digital model. We thought we had a profitable way forward.

‘We were told the option would be problematic for WBD and produce a downward trajectory for the business,“ Newshub’s investigations editor Michael Morrah told RNZ’s Midday Report.

Other alternative proposals to replace or continue Newshub were also considered amid heavy secrecy, bolstered by the use of non-disclosure agreements.

Considering proposals
In recent days media reports have indicated WBD has been considering proposals from other media companies to create a news service for the company’s channels.

New Zealand Herald media commentator Shayne Currie yesterday reported that Stuff was a leading contender for taking on the organisation’s 6pm news. Some have speculated that NZME, which owns the Herald and Newstalk ZB, could also have an interest.

WBD said today no arrangement with any third party was in place but Mediawatch understands the company has already rebuffed several and is only pursuing projects with one or two players.

Stuff reported yesterday that Stuff was “understood to be a likely contender”  but a spokesperson for Stuff declined to comment on whether it had been in talks with Warner Bros Discovery.

“The main thing is Newshub needs a lifeline. These people deserve a lifeline. Those people who are looking to do these deals, get on and get them done and save some of these people and save some news for Kiwis,” Newshub presenter Patrick Gower told reporters after today’s announcement.

Kyne said the company’s “door has been open to listening to all internal and external feedback and ideas, and we will continue to do so”.

“However, as of now, no deal regarding news output has been made.”

News archives
Kyne said the company was also looking to work with Nga Taonga to preserve its 30-year news archives.

Mediawatch understands that several staff made submissions calling on the company to preserve those archives, with fears that years of work — and New Zealand history — could be lost if they were deleted.

Newshub’s shutdown is the biggest and most far-reaching news closure in the post-covid era.

“Every time we think we’ve landed on stable footing, something comes along and makes it unstable again, forcing us to look at ways of further reducing costs,” Kyne said in a statement when the closure was first proposed.

“We’ve now reached a stage where any further reduction in costs means . . .  proposing to shut down the newsroom and the Newshub website.”

“Everyone can see that the media sector, here in New Zealand, and around the world is facing some very tough circumstances. While Warner Bros Discovery is a large global media company, each business is managed on its ability to sustain itself within the market it operates in.

“Subsidising losses for ongoing years indefinitely is not sustainable,” said Gibbons.

At the time, Warner Bros Discovery said its proposal was is to make the ThreeNow online app “the core of the model, supported by free-to-air linear channels” such as Three, Bravo, Eden, Rush and HGTV.

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

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

The post Indigenous Activists in Panama Shutdown Notorious Copper Mine appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

• Congress reaches deal to fund the government until September, avoiding a Friday partial government shutdown deadline.
• US Justice Department, 15 states and DC, sue Apple for alleged monopolistic practices in smartphone market.
• UN Haiti envoy warns of worsening humanitarian, security situation on the island.
• Secretary of State Blinken continues diplomatic efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire.
• World report on happiness released, US drops a few places on the list.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – March 21, 2024 Congress reaches deal to fund the government until September, avoiding a Friday partial government shutdown deadline. appeared first on KPFA.

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

Image by Art Koch.

In the early hours of the morning, a group of antiwar activists took on Travis Air Force Base, embarking on their fourth attempt to disrupt operations at the military installation that has directly attributed to the genocide in Gaza.

The group’s initial plan to block the main gate was quickly abandoned due to safety concerns as vehicles rushed past, many exceeding way beyond the speed limit. Instead, they positioned themselves at the side of the road, waving posters, flags, and a prominent banner bearing the message:

“STOP TRAVIS: NO US WEAPONS FOR GENOCIDE: STOP ILLEGAL WAR CRIMES AGAINST CIVILIANS.”

Another striking image was that of Aaron Bushnell, alongside his poignant final words: “I will no longer be complicit in genocide… Free Palestine.”

As daylight broke, law enforcement arrived, warning the activists of potential arrest if they violated any laws. Undeterred, the activists continued their protest, marching in the crosswalk during green lights and engaging with motorists stopped at red lights with their chants and placards.

By 8:00 am PDT, the activists had shifted their demonstration to the North Gate of Travis Air Force Base, disrupting traffic flow into the facility. The peace activists distributed leaflets explaining the purpose behind the action to the drivers stalled in the blockade. However, the Fairfield police arrived soon after and arrested five individuals around 9:30 am PDT.

Among those detained were Toby Blomé, Fred Bialy, Wynd Kaufmyn, Jacq Le, and Arthur Koch. Shockingly, Arthur Koch, initially a bystander documenting the protest, was also arrested despite not actively participating. Jacq Le’s attempt to intervene and clarify Arthur’s status led to her being forcefully subdued by an officer, aggravating a healing broken arm injury in the process.

Subsequently, all five activists were taken into custody, transported to Solano County jail, and held until their release at 2:00 pm. Upon their release, Solano Unity Network and Codepink members met them with food and support. However, one of the detainees noted that the police did not return her cash that was with her personal belongings, a common occurrence, according to local activists.

Fairfield Police provided the five with a May 13, 2024, court date. As their cause continues to draw attention, their actions underscore the immediate need for a permanent ceasefire, an end to the genocide in Gaza, and an end to the occupation of Palestine.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Melissa Garriga.

The group’s initial plan to block the main gate was quickly abandoned due to safety concerns as vehicles rushed past, many exceeding way beyond the speed limit. Instead, they positioned themselves at the side of the road, waving posters, flags, and a prominent banner bearing the message:

“STOP TRAVIS: NO US WEAPONS FOR GENOCIDE: STOP ILLEGAL WAR CRIMES AGAINST CIVILIANS.”

Another striking image was that of Aaron Bushnell, alongside his poignant final words: “I will no longer be complicit in genocide… Free Palestine.”

As daylight broke, law enforcement arrived, warning the activists of potential arrest if they violated any laws. Undeterred, the activists continued their protest, marching in the crosswalk during green lights and engaging with motorists stopped at red lights with their chants and placards.

By 8:00 am PDT, the activists had shifted their demonstration to the North Gate of Travis Air Force Base, disrupting traffic flow into the facility. The peace activists distributed leaflets explaining the purpose behind the action to the drivers stalled in the blockade. However, the Fairfield police arrived soon after and arrested five individuals around 9:30 am PDT.

Among those detained were Toby Blomé, Fred Bialy, Wynd Kaufmyn, Jacq Le, and Arthur Koch. Shockingly, Arthur Koch, initially a bystander documenting the protest, was also arrested despite not actively participating. Jacq Le’s attempt to intervene and clarify Arthur’s status led to her being forcefully subdued by an officer, aggravating a healing broken arm injury in the process.

Subsequently, all five activists were taken into custody, transported to Solano County jail, and held until their release at 2:00 pm. Upon their release, Solano Unity Network and Codepink members met them with food and support. However, one of the detainees noted that the police did not return her cash that was with her personal belongings, a common occurrence, according to local activists.

Fairfield Police provided the five with a May 13, 2024, court date. As their cause continues to draw attention, their actions underscore the immediate need for a permanent ceasefire, an end to the genocide in Gaza, and an end to the occupation of Palestine.

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

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

Aleksei Navalny's family and close associates have confirmed the Russian opposition politician's death in an Arctic prison and have demanded his body be handed over, but officials have refused to release it, telling his lawyers and mother that an "investigation" of the causes would only be completed next week.

"Aleksei's lawyer and his mother have arrived at the morgue in Salekhard," Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on X, referring to the capital of the region of Yamalo-Nenets, where Navalny's prison is located.

"It's closed. However, the [prison] has assured them it's working and Navalny's body is there. The lawyer called the phone number which was on the door. He was told he was the seventh caller today. Aleksei's body is not in the morgue," she added.

Yarmysh then said in a new message: "An hour ago, the lawyers were told that the check was completed and no crime had been found. They literally lie every time, drive in circles and cover their tracks."

But in a third message, she said, "Now the Investigative Committee directly says that until the check is completed, Aleksei’s body will not be given to relatives."

Navalny associate Ivan Zhdanov, who currently resides abroad, said that Navalny's mother was told her son had died of a cardiac-arrest illness.

"When the lawyer and Aleksei’s mother arrived at the colony this morning, they were told that the cause of Navalny’s death was sudden death syndrome," Zhdanov said.

Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, who traveled to the Yamalo-Nenets region some 1,900 kilometers northeast of Moscow, was earlier informed that the Kremlin critic died at the "Arctic Wolf" prison on February 16 at 2:17 p.m. local time, according to Yarmish.

Vadim Prokhorov, a lawyer who has represented Russian human rights activists, told Current Time that "what is happening is not accidental."

"The Russian authorities will do everything not to turn over the body in time or certainly not to conduct a forensic medical examination," Prokhorov told Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

The penitentiary service said in a statement on February 16 that Navalny felt unwell after a walk and subsequently lost consciousness. An ambulance arrived to try to revive him but he died, the statement added.

Navalny, a longtime anti-corruption fighter and Russia's most-prominent opposition politician for over a decade, was 47.

His death sparked an immediate outpouring of grief among many Russians, while leaders around the world condenmed the death of Vladimir Putin's staunchest critic, blaming the Russian president directly for the death.

Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers meeting in Munich on the sidelines of a security conference held a minute's silence for Navalny on February 17. The G7 consists of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States.

In a joint statement released by Italy, the ministers expressed their "outrage at the death in detention of Aleksei Navalny, unjustly sentenced for legitimate political activities and his fight against corruption."

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said that "for his ideas and his fight for freedom and against corruption in Russia, Navalny was in fact led to his death."

"Russia must shed light on his death and stop the unacceptable repression of political dissent," he added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the death of Navalny showed that it is impossible to see Putin as a legitimate leader.

"Putin kills whoever he wants, be it an opposition leader or anyone who seems like a target to him," Zelenskiy told the Munich Security Conference on February 17.

Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, an expert on Central and Eastern Europe, told RFE/RL in Munich that Navalny will be remembered as someone who sacrificed his life for his country.

"Putin wants to be remembered as a ruler of Russia. But Navalny will be remembered in a different way because Navalny died for his country rather than for killing other people."

"He tried to show that other things are possible [in Russia] and we'll never know what kind of leader he would have been," he added.

Navalny's vision for change in Russia will be kept alive by his team, his spokeswoman Yarmysh said. "We lost our leader, but we didn't lose our ideas and our beliefs," Yarmysh told Reuters via Zoom, speaking from an undisclosed location.

Navalny's death was a "very sad day" for Russia, and must lead to international action, the wife of a former Russian agent killed by radiation poisoning said on February 17.

Marina Litvinenko, whose husband Aleksandr died of radiation poisoning in 2006, three weeks after drinking tea laced with polonium at a meeting with Russian agents at a London hotel, told AFP she had sympathy for Navalny's wife, Yulia.

The Kremlin, which Navalny said was behind a poison attack that almost killed him in 2020, has angrily denied it played any role in Navalny's death and rejected the "absolutely rabid" reaction of Western leaders.

Inside Russia, people continued to mourn the death of the anti-corruption crusader despite official media paying little attention to his death and efforts to remove any tributes to him.

At least 340 people have been detained in 30 cities and towns in Russia on February 16 and 17 after they came to pay tribute, include laying flowers, to the memory of Navalny, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political repression in Russia.

On February 17, police blocked access to a memorial in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and detained several people there as well as in another Siberian city, Surgut, OVD-Info said.

In Moscow, people came to lay flowers at the "Wall of Sorrow" memorial on the avenue named after Soviet physicist and dissent Andrei Sakharov on February 17. Riot police immediately moved in and more than 15 people were arrested, the Sota news outlet reported.

In St. Petersburg, an Orthodox priest was detained on February 17 after he announced he would hold a memorial service for Navalny.

Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko was detained near his home as he was going to the Solovetsky Stone memorial dedicated to Soviet victims of political repression.

He was remanded in custody and was to be presented to a judge on February 19, the site 24liveblog.com reported.

However, a memorial service was performed by a different Orthodox priest at the site, in the presence of several people, some of whom were detained after the service was completed.

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

On Saturday, Senegalese President Macky Sall announced that the presidential election originally scheduled for February 25 would be indefinitely postponed, citing a dispute over the candidate list. On Monday, as Senegalese lawmakers began debating the duration of the postponement, protesters took to the streets, and police responded with arrests and tear gas.

“Senegalese authorities must immediately lift the mobile internet suspension, reverse the decision to permanently withdraw Walf TV’s broadcasting license, and ensure journalists are not restricted or harassed while covering ongoing protests,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program. “As Senegal grapples with the postponement of elections, journalists play a vital role in helping the public understand what is happening. Their ability to report, including via mobile internet, must be protected, not censored.”

On Sunday, Senegal’s Ministry of Communication, Telecommunications, and Digital Economy (MCTPEN) announced it had “temporarily” suspended access to mobile internet due to “hateful and subversive” messages on social media, without indicating the duration of the cutoff.

Internet users began to notice disruption to their mobile connectivity on Monday, according to CPJ’s review of service in the country. Mobile internet accounts for 97% of user connections, according to a September 2023 report by Senegal’s Telecommunications and Postal Regulatory Authority, which regulates the sector.

Also on Sunday, Senegalese authorities permanently withdrew the broadcasting license of Walf TV, the television broadcast service of the privately owned media group Wal Fadjri and one of the country’s major broadcasters, according to CPJ’s review of access to the channel in the country and a copy of the MCTPEN’s decision. The ministry cited Wal Fadjri’s “state of recidivism,” the broadcasting of violent images exposing teenagers, and “subversive, hateful, and dangerous language that undermines state security.”

Walf TV’s broadcasts on Sunday focused on the escalating protests, according to CPJ’s review, which did not identify any calls to violence in that coverage.

The same day, officers with Senegal’s gendarmerie in Dakar, the capital, harassed and briefly detained reporters Sokhna Ndack Mbacké, with the privately owned online news site Agora TV, and Khadija Ndate Diouf, with the privately owned television channel Itv, before releasing them without charge, Mbacké and Diouf told CPJ. Mbacké told CPJ that the officers snatched her phone, insulted both of them, and that one officer threatened her with imprisonment if he saw her again.

Separately, a different group of gendarmerie officers harassed Hadiya Talla, editor-in-chief of the privately owned news site La Vallée Info, interrupting his live broadcast from the protests in Dakar, according to Talla, who spoke to CPJ. First, an officer grabbed Talla’s phone and insulted him before returning it, and then later an officer interrupted his live coverage and ordered him to stop reporting, before letting Talla continue.

The same day, a group of gendarmes twice threw tear gas in the direction of Clément Bonnerot, correspondent for the French-language global broadcaster TV5 Monde, as he stood alone in a Dakar street, filming the security forces, according to Bonnerot and CPJ’s review of a video he shared of the scene. Bonnerot told CPJ that another gendarme later accused him of “following him” and warned not to “provoke him.”

CPJ’s calls to Ibrahima Ndiaye, spokesperson for the gendarmerie, went unanswered.

Also in June 2023, Senegalese authorities in June 2023 suspended Walf TV for a month over its coverage of demonstrations following Sonko’s arrest and threatened to withdraw its broadcasting license in the event of a repeat offense.

Previously, in June, July, and August 2023, the Senegalese government disrupted access to the internet and social media platforms amid protests over the arrest and prosecution of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko. TikTok has remained blocked in the country. Similar blocks of social media platforms were reported in 2021.

Around the world, CPJ has repeatedly documented how internet shutdowns threaten press freedom and journalists’ safety. CPJ offers guidance for journalists on how to prepare for and respond to internet shutdowns.

At least five journalists—Daouda Sow, Maniane Sène Lô, Ndèye Astou Bâ, Papa El Hadji Omar Yally, and Ndèye Maty Niang, who is also known as Maty Sarr Niang—have remained jailed in Senegal since last year in connection with their work.

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

Papua New Guinea’s Communications Minister Timothy Masiu has announced stringent measures to control social media in the country for the next 10 days of the State of Emergency.

The government’s threat drew a sharp rebuke from former prime minister Peter O’Neill who called the move a “sinister fear campaign against the people” and “a threat on the media freedom” of ordinary citizens.

Masiu, a former journalist before becoming a politician, warned that the government would not hesitate to shut down social media applications and sites if there was continuous abuse and misuse of social media in spreading fake news, misinformation and disinformation in the country.

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He issued the warning citing significant evidence of serious abuse of social media spreading false information that led to destruction of properties in the capital Port Moresby and parts of the country in last week’s Black Wednesday resulting in deaths.

Masiu said people who engaged in such bogus activity would lose their social media accounts and they could be arrested and charged for fomenting acts of violence.

He said: “I have statutory power under the National Information and Communication Technology Act 2009 to restrict access to social media sites and applications if this continues.

“The Ministry of ICT has observed a sharp spike in the use of social media from Wednesday, January 10, 2024, and many are misinformation and disinformation and we now give 10 days effective from today for people to adhere or face a complete shutdown of social media sites and applications for the duration of the State of Emergency. ”

‘Monitoring of false information’
He said discussions on social media that incited violence, destruction, spreading of false information or confidential government information, opinions that were wrong, or sending false information would be monitored and legal action taken immediately.

Masiu said national security, public emergency and public safety was critical to a secure nation and a “happy and safe country”.

“I have instructed the agencies under my ministry to strengthen monitoring and report any abuses of social media to the police cybercrime unit to begin investigations, arrest and prosecute and also take down fake accounts and sites.”

Last Friday, when introducing the two-week State of Emergency following Black Wednesday, Prime Minister James Marape announced draconian emergency measures including searches of private homes, property, vehicle and phones by government agents.

Masiu said PNG was a civilised country and citizens must abide by rules and laws. Every citizen had a duty and obligation to ensure “we progress to be a better country”.

However, an irate O’Neill said: “It is not surprising that we see intimidating armoured personnel carriers on the streets today in Port Moresby and now threats that our freedom of speech will be removed with the potential cancellation of social media.

“The government is doing its very best to shut down our constitutional rights in a fear campaign.”

Government ‘fears people’s voices’
O’Neill continued to counter the government plan by suggesting the government now feared the people’s voices.

“It seems that the government is in fear of the voice of its own people when it should instead be listening to the struggle of the people who discuss online the bad governance practices of this government; high unemployment; budget in a mess and crippling cost of living,” he said.

“That is what people are talking about on the street, in their homes and on social media. Will they next enter our homes and monitor conversation’s between family members?

“Government should listen up and stop this nonsense of trying to control our vibrant democracy.

Get back to basics and build our country; live within our means and develop jobs and provide quality healthcare and education. Get back to old fashioned policing not intimidation.”

Opposition Leader Joseph Lelang and his deputy Douglas Tomuriesa did not respond to PNG Post-Courier questions last night.

Republished with permission.

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

Congress passed an 11th-hour short-term funding bill this weekend, narrowly avoiding a government shutdown for the next 45 days, but the House is in a state of turmoil as far-right lawmakers threaten to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for working on the bipartisan bill. “It’s a crisis entirely of Kevin McCarthy’s own making,” says our guest Sasha Abramsky, the West Coast correspondent for The Nation, who also calls McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry into President Biden “the most ill-prepared, ill-thought-out, poorly advised Republican inquiry you could possibly imagine,” and discusses Republicans’ embrace of Vladimir Putin to contrast with establishment Democrats’ support of Ukraine in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

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

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

President Joe Biden said in an interview on Friday that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had made a “terrible bargain” and that “in order to keep the speakership, he’s willing to do things that he, I think, he knows are inconsistent with the constitutional processes.”

Asked about the looming government shutdown, and the impeachment inquiry that McCarthy agreed to authorize in the hopes of keeping right-wing Republicans from ousting him from his post as speaker, Biden criticized the role of a “group of MAGA Republicans who genuinely want to have a fundamental change in the way that the system works. And that’s what worries me the most.” He marveled that former President Donald Trump had described himself in a recent speech as “retribution” on behalf of his supporters, and that Republicans “seem to be encouraging it.”

The comments came as part of a wide-ranging interview with ProPublica contributor John Harwood that will be published Sunday morning. In it, Biden discussed everything from what he portrayed as looming threats to democracy, including his views of the roles played by Fox News and Elon Musk, to his concerns about the need for ethics reform on the Supreme Court.

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

"The Calcasieu Pass 2 LNG export terminal in Louisiana is the next climate litmus test," Merkley tweeted Thursday. "CP2 would poison communities and fly in the face of our climate goals."

Directly addressing President Biden, Merkley added: "Say no to CP2!"

Merkley's statement came less than a week after longtime climate activist Bill McKibben wrote an article in The New Yorker detailing how CP2—and the broader expansion of LNG exports it represents—threatens to undermine U.S. climate goals and force the 1.5°C temperature-rise target out of reach.

The U.S. is already the world's leading exporter of LNG, and CP2 is only the largest of at least 20 Gulf export terminals in the pipeline.

"If this buildout continues, and if you counted the emissions from this gas against America's totals, it would mean that American greenhouse gas emissions would not have budged since 2005," McKibben wrote on his Substack.

"Thank you Sen. Jeff Merkley for calling on POTUS to stop CP2 and protect Louisiana's coast, and our fishermen and shrimpers."

However, the Biden administration has a chance to stop the project. First, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) could reject CP2 at its October commission meeting, though McKibben noted in The New Yorker that this appears unlikely. In July, FERC opined that the project would not have a major impact on local resources, making no mention of its global climate impacts.

Then, the Department of Energy needs to grant CP2 a license to export gas through the terminal. Such a license can only be approved if an export is in "the public interest."

"After a northern hemisphere summer like the one we've just experienced, that should be an easy call," McKibben wrote on his Substack.

Merkley's statement indicates he agrees.

"Many many thanks for standing up here, Senator!' McKibben posted in response.

Climate advocacy group Oil Change International boosted Merkely's call.

"The proposed CP2 LNG export terminal is a climate and environmental justice disaster, many times over," the group wrote. "It's also a clear test for President Joe Biden."

CP2 also faces local opposition. Louisiana's Gulf Coast is on the frontlines of the climate crisis in myriad ways as it suffers sea level rise, more intense storms, and increased pollution that results from fossil fuel expansion.

The LNG buildout in particular destroys habitat for fish and shrimp, threatening the ecosystem and the livelihoods of fishers and shrimpers, according to a press release from local environmental justice group the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. The increase in shipping traffic brought by the terminals also makes fishing and shrimping more difficult.

"Thank you Sen. Jeff Merkley for calling on POTUS to stop CP2 and protect Louisiana's coast, and our fishermen and shrimpers," the group wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "This is the federal leadership we need. We'd love to have you come down and see firsthand how gas exports are decimating our beloved seafood industry."

The Louisiana Bucket Brigade also called on their own Senator, Republican Bill Cassidy, to step up.

"Are you going to protect your own constituents, the fishermen and shrimpers whose livelihoods will be decimated by CP2," the group asked, "or are you going to rely on Sen. Jeff Merkley from Oregon to do it for you?"

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

It was a theme the former president and 2024 GOP frontrunner hit repeatedly throughout his remarks at Drake Enterprises, a truck parts manufacturer that offered to host Trump's rally: The electric vehicle transition and the Biden administration's efforts to accelerate it are going to send jobs overseas and leave the U.S. automobile industry in ruins.

"It doesn't make a damn bit of difference what you get because in two years you're all going to be out of business, you're not getting anything," Trump said. "I mean, I watch you out there with the pickets, but I don't think you're picketing for the right thing."

The former president repeatedly and falsely accused the Biden administration of attempting to bring about a "transition to hell" and impose "electric vehicle mandates that will spell the death of the American auto industry," a narrative that was also prominent during the Republican primary debate that Trump skipped.

Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for President Joe Biden's 2024 reelection campaign, said in response that Trump is "lying about President Biden's agenda to distract from his failed track record of trickle-down tax cuts, closed factories, and jobs outsourced to China." During Trump's four years in office, the offshoring of U.S. jobs increased.

"There is no 'EV mandate.' Simply put: Trump had the United States losing the EV race to China and if he had his way, the jobs of the future would be going to China," said Munoz. "President Biden is delivering where Donald Trump failed by bringing manufacturing back home, and with it, good-paying jobs for the American people."

As HuffPost's Jonathan Cohn reported late Wednesday, "Since Biden took office in January 2021, total auto industry employment in the U.S. has risen from about 948,000 to 1,073,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's a monthly rate of about 4,000 new auto jobs a month."

Challenging the notion that the Biden administration's EV policies are imperiling the U.S. auto industry, Cohn noted that electric vehicle subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act "will close the cost gap so that companies manufacturing electric vehicles and their parts can compete."

"And there are lots of signs that the effort is working," Cohn wrote. "Auto companies have announced plans to build literally dozens of new factories in the U.S., many in what's coming to be known as the 'battery belt,' stretching from Georgia in the South to Michigan in the North. They are expected to generate hundreds of thousands of jobs directly, plus many more (along with economic growth) indirectly."

The UAW leadership has made clear that, unlike Trump, it doesn't oppose the transition to electric vehicles.

Rather, the union wants policymakers to ensure that EV manufacturing jobs are unionized. UAW president Shawn Fain has criticized Biden—who joined union members on the picket line earlier this week—for not doing enough to prevent a "race to the bottom" in the EV transition as automakers increasingly invest in the nonunion U.S. South.

Fain has also not been shy about his feelings toward the former president.

"I don't think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for," Fain said in a CNN appearance on Tuesday. "He serves the billionaire class, and that's what's wrong with this country."

"People are trying to push that this is organic, but it's not. Trump is curating a crowd, and it pisses me off."

Trump—who has repeatedly called on the UAW to endorse his presidential run—didn't respond Wednesday when asked by a reporter whether he supports the union's push for a nearly 40% wage increase for autoworkers, who have seen their hourly pay decline sharply over the past two decades.

During his speech, Trump "didn't specifically address demands made by autoworkers, other than to say he would protect jobs in a way that would lead to higher wages," the Detroit Free Pressreported.

"But he left it unclear how he would do so," the newspaper added, "given that he didn't demand specific wage increases as president."

It's not clear how many union members were in the audience at Trump's speech, though some were waving "Auto Workers for Trump" and "Union Members for Trump" signs. One individual who held a "Union Members for Trump" sign during the rally admitted to a reporter for The Detroit News that she's not a union member.

"Another person with a sign that read 'Auto Workers for Trump' said he wasn't an auto worker when asked for an interview. Both people didn't provide their names," the outlet reported.

Chris Marchione, political director of the International Union of Painters and Allied TradesDistrict Council 1M in Michigan, toldJacobin's Alex Press that at least one local "right-to-work" activist assisted the Trump campaign in organizing Wednesday's rally.

"People are trying to push that this is organic, but it's not," Marchione said. "Trump is curating a crowd, and it pisses me off. If he wants to support union workers, pay the fucking glaziers who got screwed when they put the windows on Trump Tower."

Ahead of Trump's Michigan visit, the AFL-CIO said in a statement that Trump's presidency was "catastrophic for workers," pointing to his anti-union appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, defense of so-called "right-to-work" laws, repeal of Labor Department rules aimed at protecting worker pay, and failure to protect manufacturing jobs.

"The idea that Donald Trump has ever, or will ever, care about working people is demonstrably false," said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler. "For his entire time as president, he actively sought to roll back worker protections, wages, and the right to join a union at every level."

"UAW members are on the picket line fighting for fair wages and against the very corporate greed that Donald Trump represents," Shuler added. "Working people see through his transparent efforts to reinvent history. We are not buying the lies that Donald Trump is selling. We will continue to support and organize for the causes and candidates that represent our values."

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

It was a theme the former president and 2024 GOP frontrunner hit repeatedly throughout his remarks at Drake Enterprises, a truck parts manufacturer that offered to host Trump's rally: The electric vehicle transition and the Biden administration's efforts to accelerate it are going to send jobs overseas and leave the U.S. automobile industry in ruins.

"It doesn't make a damn bit of difference what you get because in two years you're all going to be out of business, you're not getting anything," Trump said. "I mean, I watch you out there with the pickets, but I don't think you're picketing for the right thing."

The former president repeatedly and falsely accused the Biden administration of attempting to bring about a "transition to hell" and impose "electric vehicle mandates that will spell the death of the American auto industry," a narrative that was also prominent during the Republican primary debate that Trump skipped.

Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for President Joe Biden's 2024 reelection campaign, said in response that Trump is "lying about President Biden's agenda to distract from his failed track record of trickle-down tax cuts, closed factories, and jobs outsourced to China." During Trump's four years in office, the offshoring of U.S. jobs increased.

"There is no 'EV mandate.' Simply put: Trump had the United States losing the EV race to China and if he had his way, the jobs of the future would be going to China," said Munoz. "President Biden is delivering where Donald Trump failed by bringing manufacturing back home, and with it, good-paying jobs for the American people."

As HuffPost's Jonathan Cohn reported late Wednesday, "Since Biden took office in January 2021, total auto industry employment in the U.S. has risen from about 948,000 to 1,073,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's a monthly rate of about 4,000 new auto jobs a month."

Challenging the notion that the Biden administration's EV policies are imperiling the U.S. auto industry, Cohn noted that electric vehicle subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act "will close the cost gap so that companies manufacturing electric vehicles and their parts can compete."

"And there are lots of signs that the effort is working," Cohn wrote. "Auto companies have announced plans to build literally dozens of new factories in the U.S., many in what's coming to be known as the 'battery belt,' stretching from Georgia in the South to Michigan in the North. They are expected to generate hundreds of thousands of jobs directly, plus many more (along with economic growth) indirectly."

The UAW leadership has made clear that, unlike Trump, it doesn't oppose the transition to electric vehicles.

Rather, the union wants policymakers to ensure that EV manufacturing jobs are unionized. UAW president Shawn Fain has criticized Biden—who joined union members on the picket line earlier this week—for not doing enough to prevent a "race to the bottom" in the EV transition as automakers increasingly invest in the nonunion U.S. South.

Fain has also not been shy about his feelings toward the former president.

"I don't think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for," Fain said in a CNN appearance on Tuesday. "He serves the billionaire class, and that's what's wrong with this country."

"People are trying to push that this is organic, but it's not. Trump is curating a crowd, and it pisses me off."

Trump—who has repeatedly called on the UAW to endorse his presidential run—didn't respond Wednesday when asked by a reporter whether he supports the union's push for a nearly 40% wage increase for autoworkers, who have seen their hourly pay decline sharply over the past two decades.

During his speech, Trump "didn't specifically address demands made by autoworkers, other than to say he would protect jobs in a way that would lead to higher wages," the Detroit Free Pressreported.

"But he left it unclear how he would do so," the newspaper added, "given that he didn't demand specific wage increases as president."

It's not clear how many union members were in the audience at Trump's speech, though some were waving "Auto Workers for Trump" and "Union Members for Trump" signs. One individual who held a "Union Members for Trump" sign during the rally admitted to a reporter for The Detroit News that she's not a union member.

"Another person with a sign that read 'Auto Workers for Trump' said he wasn't an auto worker when asked for an interview. Both people didn't provide their names," the outlet reported.

Chris Marchione, political director of the International Union of Painters and Allied TradesDistrict Council 1M in Michigan, toldJacobin's Alex Press that at least one local "right-to-work" activist assisted the Trump campaign in organizing Wednesday's rally.

"People are trying to push that this is organic, but it's not," Marchione said. "Trump is curating a crowd, and it pisses me off. If he wants to support union workers, pay the fucking glaziers who got screwed when they put the windows on Trump Tower."

Ahead of Trump's Michigan visit, the AFL-CIO said in a statement that Trump's presidency was "catastrophic for workers," pointing to his anti-union appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, defense of so-called "right-to-work" laws, repeal of Labor Department rules aimed at protecting worker pay, and failure to protect manufacturing jobs.

"The idea that Donald Trump has ever, or will ever, care about working people is demonstrably false," said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler. "For his entire time as president, he actively sought to roll back worker protections, wages, and the right to join a union at every level."

"UAW members are on the picket line fighting for fair wages and against the very corporate greed that Donald Trump represents," Shuler added. "Working people see through his transparent efforts to reinvent history. We are not buying the lies that Donald Trump is selling. We will continue to support and organize for the causes and candidates that represent our values."

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

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Ryan Grim.

Fears are growing of another U.S. government shutdown as soon as October 1, with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unable to overcome opposition from far-right lawmakers in his own party to pass spending measures to keep the government funded. For more on what’s happening on Capitol Hill, we speak with Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna of California, who says the chaos of a shutdown will hurt many ordinary people as federal workers go unpaid and public services suffer. “McCarthy has just failed to do the most basic function of a speaker of the House: keep the government open and functioning.” Khanna also discusses the UAW strike against the Big Three automakers and growing tension between Canada and India over the alleged assassination of a Sikh leader on Canadian soil by Indian agents.

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

Congress is almost certainly headed for another government shutdown due to Republican infighting that is preventing budget measures from being passed, says Ryan Grim, the D.C. bureau chief for The Intercept. The revolt is led by far-right members who oppose Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. “What they’re fighting for, whether they win, whether their situation actually gets worse as a result, is secondary to the kind of emotional release people want from seeing a clash unfold in Washington,” says Grim.

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

Image by Quick PS.

“I’d shut down the government if they can’t make an appropriate deal, absolutely.”

—Donald Trump this week on Meet the Press

Speaking as a senior citizen on Social Security, just one of the 66 million Americans who count on Social Security, thanks so much, Trump.

And I’m sure the 16 million military veterans don’t mind if they stop getting benefits, or if the VA shuts down.

The wealthy we elect to run the country won’t be affected at all, so, sure, billionaire grifter Trump, let’s shut it down. We know he’s occasionally honest, and this is one of those occasions, since he was key in shutting down the government for more than a month in 2018-2019 when he occupied the White House.

It was the longest US government shutdown in history, all because he didn’t get all the money he wanted for his wall that he claimed hundreds of times that Mexico would pay for. His lies and grifts are like a Russian nesting doll, each one inside another.

During Trump’s shutdown federal workers missed two paychecks–not a concern for those whose massive wealth is fueled by investments. Republicans are proclaiming, like Trump, that they are fine with shutting down the federal government, though some of them just shake their heads in disbelief.

Long-time Republican advisor Karl Rove said the reason Republicans get blamed for shutdowns is that they cause them. That seems fairly straightforward analysis by someone with a lifelong loyalty to what used to be the Grand Old Party but has morphed into the Grifters Only Party.

The most radical supporters of a US government shutdown (aside from Vladimir Putin) claim that they really want to reduce the federal deficit. Then they claim that they are really trying to do so by eliminating child care, reducing care for people with disabilities, and rolling back the infrastructure projects that would help reform our carbon-heavy, climate chaos-driving energy consumption.

Yeah, Trump really wants to cut the deficit. That’s why his administration added $8 trillion to it. He managed all that in only one term, including two years when he had the House and Senate with him. His only significant legislative achievement during those salad days was to pass a law that radically cut taxes to himself and other wealthy people, thereby jacking up the deficit enormously.

When asked if the federal deficit could be reduced instead of growing by simply reverting to older tax laws that taxed rich people more, Kevin McCarthy and his cronies actually burst into laughter back in May, during the last shutdown showdown. Trump endlessly whines that the “system is rigged.” Ya think? He and his rich friends should know. They rigged it.

And they want to rig it more. One element of the Republicans’ demands before they agree to avoid shutting down the government is to eviscerate the Department of Justice’s ability to prosecute those who tried to steal the White House for loser Trump. Yeah, the same guy who led chants of “Lock her up!” when Hillary Clinton wasn’t careful enough with her email account. Now he and his co-conspirators, clearly intending to end democracy as we know it, are supposed to be above the law or the government gets shut down.

We pretend our democracy is a sure thing, that it will somehow survive all attempts to erode it, that all efforts to make it only work for the rich and powerful are not the American Way and are therefore not going to happen.

I suppose we can continue to believe it if it makes us feel better.

But maybe we can do better.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Tom H. Hastings.

Key excerpts from the letter and quotes from the coalition are below. You can read the full contents of the letter submitted to House and Senate leadership here. You can view the topline poll results from Navigator Research here.

To speak to a member of the coalition, contact press@prosperus.org.

EXCERPTS FROM LETTER

“...the budget deal President Biden reached with Senate and House leadership already includes significant and painful compromises that directly impact the communities we represent. Therefore, moving forward, lawmakers should emphatically reject further cuts in any final spending deal.”

“The House majority’s proposals would hurt workers, families, and communities, particularly low-income people of color, by slashing investments in K-12 education, health care, lead poisoning prevention, safe drinking water, cancer research, and more. They would also empower the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations by slashing the resources that the Internal Revenue Service needs to go after wealthy tax cheats and recoup billions of dollars in unpaid taxes.”

“We urge the House to abandon the dangerous, partisan path it has chosen so far and instead follow the example set by the Senate and pass appropriations bills that, at minimum, adhere to the contours of the recent bipartisan budget deal, invest appropriately in critical national priorities, and can earn bipartisan support.”

“These cuts fly in the face of what the vast majority of people across the country want. New polling from Navigator Research shows that voters not only oppose additional cuts, they overwhelmingly support more public investments to strengthen the economy and improve the lives of workers and families.”

QUOTES FROM PROSPERUS COALITION

“House Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to cut programs that women, children, and their families rely on, while blatantly ignoring their constituents, who overwhelmingly oppose these drastic cuts,” said Melissa Boteach, Vice President of Income Security and Child Care/Early Education at the National Women’s Law Center.

“We saw just recently how public policy can make or break our communities following the release of the Census Bureau data, which revealed a record increase in poverty following the expiration of crucial federal programs, particularly the expanded child tax credit. We saw how the child care dollars in the American Rescue Plan – which are due to expire at the end of September - saved the child care sector from collapse. That’s why we are urging House Republicans to work with Democrats to fund the government to at least the level agreed to in the recent bipartisan debt ceiling deal, pass the Child Care Stabilization Act, and drop this partisan grandstanding that will upend our economy and harm families across the country.”

“Budgets are a reflection of values. The destructive and draconian budget the House Republicans are pushing shows us that they value protecting wealthy, white men while punishing the rest of us,” said Jhumpa Bhattacharya, co-president of the Maven Collaborative.

“Taking away food from mothers and children, reducing resources to our already strapped public school system and early childcare programs are meant to hurt women and Black and brown families. It's time policymakers called these cuts what they are – racist and sexist – and stood for the American people with moral fortitude by saying ‘absolutely not’ to this ludicrous proposal.”

“The choice by House Republicans to deprive the American public of food aid, clean water funding, or lifesaving cancer research is not about red ink or ‘funding levels.’ It's a moral verdict that the majority of communities and vulnerable Americans do not deserve public support,” said Bilal Baydoun, Director of Policy and Research at Groundwork Collaborative. “We cannot allow a handful of extremists in the House to force a government shutdown over cruel and unnecessary cuts to essential programs that workers and families rely on.”

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

The inflation rate in Laos hovered around 26% in August after hitting a peak of more than 41% in February. That combined with a devaluation of the kip has made Laotians complain that they can’t eke out a living given the rising costs of gasoline, food and daily necessities. 

But an official with the government’s Ministry of Telecommunications and Technology told RFA Lao that those who post complaints online can expect a visit from the authorities.

“Officials are monitoring some Facebook pages and YouTube channels … [and] calling [those who criticize the government] to reeducate and warn them,” the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media.

“The police are monitoring those social media channel owners and, if they have [contact] information for them, will meet them immediately,” he said. “We have found that those social media channel owners with misleading information are [mostly] not in Laos, but we still closely continue to monitor them.”

Ruled by the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party since 1975, Laos’ government brooks no political opposition and has imprisoned citizens who post criticism on Facebook about corruption and mismanagement.

In 2014, the government issued a decree prohibiting online criticism of the government and the ruling party, setting out stiff penalties for netizens and internet service providers who violate government controls. The decree also requires netizens to use their real names when setting up social media and other accounts online.

‘Promoting social order’

According to government statistics, some 85% of Laos’ 7.5 million citizens own smartphones – 65% of whom can use them to access the internet. Around 44% regularly use social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

On Aug. 3, authorities announced new measures to regulate social media usage with the aim of “promoting social order,” as well as tighter restrictions on social media channels with “misleading or distorted information critical of the government.”

The government has not provided any information about the number of social media users who have been warned or told to shut down their accounts by central or provincial authorities since the announcement.

A resident of the capital Vientiane told RFA that Lao citizens can’t trust state-controlled media to act as a check on government policies or address society’s problems, so they increasingly look to social media for such information.

“Lao people are poor and many of them are living in poverty, but that isn’t something state media will report,” said the resident who, like others interviewed for this report, declined to be named citing fear of reprisal.

“There isn’t any freedom of expression, so state media won’t dare address anything related to [mismanagement by] the state and the party,” the person said.

A resident of Luang Prabang acknowledged that while social media can be useful for accessing information state media won’t address, the information can be much harder to verify.

“Sometimes, it’s fake news or news with wrong or misleading information,” he said.

Criticism can be helpful

But a university professor from the same city said that regardless of the content, an increasing number of Laotians are using social media to express their opinions about the government, which he said is their basic right to do.

He suggested that the government should consider such opinions, rather than threaten those who offer them.

“Without these expressions of opinion from the people, the government might be ignorant of its own mistakes,” he said.

A Vientiane-based official with the United Nations echoed the professor’s comments and advised the Lao government to “adapt to the new media climate.”

“These days, inflation and economic woes are among the hot topics on social media platforms, where there are both supporters [of the government’s policies] and those who disagree,” the official said. “All of them are impacted by these problems and they are right to express their own opinion.”

The official noted that social media users are not only posting their opinions on the government’s policies, but also on issues including mining rights, land grabs, hydropower dam construction, and poverty reduction strategies.

In its latest annual report, Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders gave Laos a ranking of 160, close to the bottom of a 180-country survey of press freedoms worldwide, saying that the country’s ruling party “exercises absolute control over the media.”

Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

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

• Congress faces deadline for government funding bill or risk a federal shutdown.
• Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows pleads not guilty to election tampering.
• Proud Boys chief Enrique Tarrio sentenced to 22 years for masterminding January 6 riot.
• Federal court orders Alabama to create second majority black district.
• Longtime LGBT bar to reopen in San Francisco soon, following Covid shutdown.
• Texas Attorney General impeachment trial begins over corruption charges.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – September 5, 2023 Congress faces deadline for government funding bill or risk a federal shutdown. appeared first on KPFA.

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

On Sunday, August 6, at approximately 2 p.m., three uniformed police officers and two other people in civilian clothes arrested Bekalu at his home in the capital city of Addis Ababa, according to a report by independent news website Ethiopia Insider, an Alpha Media report and a person familiar with his case who spoke to CPJ by phone and asked not to be named due to safety concerns.

The following morning police searched Bekalu’s house and confiscated his laptop, CDs and USB flash drives.

“During times of conflict and emergencies, the Ethiopian government’s apparent default position is to silence critical journalism by targeting independent voices based on vague allegations,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator. “Bekalu Alamrew and all fellow journalists currently detained for their reporting and commentary must be unconditionally released and allowed to work freely without legal harassment and censorship.”

The person familiar with the case said Bekalu had not appeared in court within 48 hours of his detention nor been informed of the reason he was being held – a legal requirement under Article 19 of Ethiopia’s constitution – and was being held at the Federal Police Crime Investigation Main Department.

Prior to his arrest Bekalu extensively covered the ongoing violent confrontation in Amhara state between government forces and Fano, an armed militia operating within the state. This conflict resulted in the declaration of a six-month-long state of emergency and an ongoing internet shutdown in the region.

According to CPJ’s review, the state of emergency proclamation grants expanded powers to the State of Emergency Command Post, enabling it to order the closure, termination, revocation of licenses, or restriction of activities of any media organization or entity suspected of acting against the objectives outlined in the decree.

Bekalu has been arrested several times previously and released without charges. He was arrested in November 2020 on charges of disseminating false information, again in June 2021 when he was held for more than six weeks without access to family or legal representation, and once more in June 2022 on accusations of incitement to violence through media appearances, as documented by CPJ and news reports.

In Ethiopia, several journalists who were detained in April continue to remain in custody after authorities pressed terrorism charges.

Federal police spokesman Jeylan Abdi did not reply to CPJ’s requests for comment sent via email and messaging app.

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

On Sunday, June 25, the Chittagong district administration in southeast Bangladesh sealed the offices of the privately owned social media-based platforms CplusTV and C Vision and confiscated their equipment, according to a statement by Bangladeshi Journalists in International Media. The two outlets stand accused of “illegally operating without licenses.”

A person familiar with the case, who spoke to CPJ anonymously due to fear of reprisals, corroborated this account and alleged that the local authorities acted under the direct orders of Bangladesh’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. 

The outlets were being selectively targeted ahead of the country’s January 2024 national election due to their coverage of politics and human rights in Chittagong, this source added.

“Bangladesh authorities’ sealing of the offices of the social media-based news platforms CplusTV and C Vision and the seizure of their equipment are clearly selective targeting ahead of the upcoming January 2024 national election,” echoed Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director.  “A free and fair election requires unhampered access to information. Authorities must allow both outlets to operate freely and without fear of reprisal.”

The targeting of CplusTV – which continues to broadcast – and C Vision appears to fit into a broader crackdown against media and other critical voices ahead of the polls. 

Broadsheet Bengali-language newspaper The Dainik Dinkal stopped publishing in February after the quasi-judicial Bangladesh Press Council upheld a government suspension order.

On Monday, July 10, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina warned journalists not to publish news “that will malign the country’s image and hamper its ongoing advancement.”

Authorities shut down Chittagonian-language CplusTV’s office without any prior notice or written order, days before the Eid al-Adha holiday, the person familiar with the case said, adding that authorities did not provide a list of the items seized, contrary to legal requirements. 

This source added that CplusTV, which has been active since 2016, is not required to register as an online media outlet under local regulations because it operates exclusively on social media and does not run through a cable operator. CplusTV filed two applications with the Chittagong district commissioner contesting the move, but has not received a response, the person said.

CplusTV continues to post on Facebook, where it has around 2.2 million followers, and on YouTube, where it has around 1.1 million subscribers.

Following CplusTV’s coverage of a gas crisis in Chittagong in May 2023, its owner and editor-in-chief Alamgir Apu was subjected to a smear campaign by state-aligned Bangladeshi media outlets, articles reviewed by CPJ show.

C Vision’s Bengali-language Facebook page, which has around 635,000 followers, last posted on June 24. C Vision did not respond to CPJ’s calls and messages requesting comment.

CPJ called and messaged Bangladesh’s Information Minister Hasan Mahmud for comment but received no reply.

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

“We are relieved by the reversal of Kyrgyz authorities’ decision to shutter Radio Azattyk, but they should never have tried to close it in the first place,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in London. “Kyrgyz authorities must allow Radio Azattyk to work freely and stop putting pressure on it and other media outlets over content they dislike or don’t agree with.”

Radio Azattyk appealed an April 27 district court decision to shutter the broadcaster for publishing a September 2022 video report about border clashes with neighboring Tajikistan. In October, Kyrgyz authorities blocked Radio Azattyk’s websites over the video and ordered a freeze on the outlet’s bank account under money laundering laws. 

On Wednesday, July 12, 2023, the court confirmed a settlement between the broadcaster’s parent company Azattyk Media and Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Culture, Information, Sport, and Youth Policy. According to the ministry, that settlement resulted in the removal of the video from the outlet’s websites.

The ministry announced it would end the block on Radio Azattyk’s websites, and a spokesperson for the Kyrgyzstan President said “restrictions” on Azattyk Media would be lifted. 

Jeffrey Gedmin, acting president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, said that the decision — “a result of concerted advocacy and support from the international community” — would enable Radio Azattyk “to continue to reach its audiences with trusted reporting.”

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

The PEA plans to cut electricity to Lay Kay Kaw and Shwe Kokko, the site of a Chinese-backed U.S. $15 billion real estate and casino mega-project that has become notorious lately as a Burmese bastion of illegal activity, including drug trafficking, amid violence and unrest in post-coup Myanmar. 

Somchai Trithipchartsakul, the district chief of Mae Sot, in Thailand’s Tak province, said the agency had notified him about the plan to cut off the power supply for those two locations on the Burmese side of the Thai-Myanmar frontier. 

“The Provincial Electricity Authority in Bangkok has informed the Tak governor to prepare for any impacts after the Myanmar Embassy had told the PEA of the discontinuation of the power contracts with Shwe Myint Thaung Yinn [SMTY] Industry and Manufacturing Co. Ltd.,” he said, adding the power would be shut off at the beginning of the day on June 6.

The Myanmar government did not release the embassy’s letter or respond immediately to the district chief’s comments. It remained unclear why Myanmar’s military government made the request to Thailand to switch off the electricity to Shwe Kokko and Lay Kay Kaw. 

Myawaddy, a township in southeastern Myanmar’s Karen state, is home to the Yatai Shwe Kokko Special Economic Zone, which was promoted as a way to spur economic growth and deliver material benefits to the local community.

Shwe Kokko New City, as the area is called, was funded by Hong Kong-registered developer Yatai International Holding Group in partnership with the Chit Lin Myaing Co. owned by the Karen State Border Guard Force, an ethnic Karen force aligned with the Myanmar military. It includes the Myanmar Yatai Shwe Kokko Special Economic Zone.

The area became a hub for illicit activity including casinos because of weak national laws, a diffusion of responsibility, and a lack of development plans, according to a report by the Washington-based Center for Advanced Defense Studies.

Apart from drug trafficking, Shwe Kokko in recent months has been a magnet for reported human trafficking and abuse of casino workers.  

The governor of Thailand’s Tak province confirmed that the PEA had informed him about the plan to cut power to the neighbors in Myanmar.

“I haven’t seen the letter yet,” Gov. Somchai Kijcharoenrungroj told BenarNews. “I don’t have the details and you have to ask the PEA – the PEA can cut the power but it has to inform other government agencies about this when we have a meeting.”

He said the PEA met on May 29 after being contacted by the embassy. The agency did not immediately respond to BenarNews requests for comment.

Contracts expired

Somchai Trithipchartsakul said the contracts expired on Feb. 28, but the SMTY had requested them to be renewed temporarily. 

Since 2016, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos have had electricity contracts for 21 power grids in Myanmar, totaling 43,750 kilowatts, according to the PEA database. For Shwe Kokko, the partners signed an 8,000 KW power deal.

While aware of the Shwe Kokko’s notoriety, Somchai said he could not say if it had any role in the Myanmar request. He said the shutdown likely would not affect the casinos located there.

“In Shwe Kokko, they have five to 10 power generators,” Somchai Trithipchartsakul said, adding 75 percent of the Thai electricity supplies local residents and not the businesses.

A source in Myanmar’s Myawaddy district office who requested anonymity because of security concerns confirmed the reports out of Thailand.

Electricity was to be cut to “one gambling place in Shwe Kokko and one in Myawaddy, including security gates run by pro-junta Border Guard Forces in Myawaddy, but not the towns where people live,” the source told Radio Free Asia, a news service affiliated with BenarNews.

Workers in Shwe Kokko said they were aware as well.

“We heard that the Thai side will cut electricity to two places, the site of Shwe Kokko casino and the Ingyin Myaing Park which has gambling offices near Myawaddy town,” the workers said. They requested anonymity over security concerns.

The announcement came after a Bangkok criminal court last week approved China’s request to extradite She Zhijiang, a Chinese investor in Shwe Kokko. The Chinese government wanted She, who obtained Cambodian citizenship and had been convicted of running an illegal lottery business. 

She Zhijiang has appealed the extradition and has one month to fight the court decision.

RFA Burmese contributed to this report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.

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

There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men.

—Ludwig von Mises

Once again, the police state is up to its old tricks, stoking tensions over whether or not the government is forced to shut down, even partially, due to a default on the national debt.

Yet while these political games dominate news headlines, send the stock market into a nosedive, and put federal employees at risk of having to work without pay, nothing about these high-handed theatrics will diminish the immediate and very real dangers of the American Police State with its roadside strip searches, government surveillance, biometric databases, citizens being treated like terrorists, imprisonments for criticizing the government, national ID cards, SWAT team raids, censorship, forcible blood draws and DNA extractions, private prisons, weaponized drones, red light cameras, tasers, active shooter drills, police misconduct and government corruption.

Default or not, war will continue. Drone killings will continue. Surveillance will continue. Censorship and persecution of anyone who criticizes the government will continue. The government’s efforts to label dissidents as extremists and terrorists will continue.

Police shootings will continue. Highway robbery meted out by government officials will continue. Corrupt government will continue. Profit-driven prisons will continue. And the militarization of the police will continue.

Indeed, take a look at the programs and policies that will not be affected by a government default on its debt leading to a possible shutdown, and you’ll get a clearer sense of the government’s priorities, which have little to do with serving taxpayers and everything to do with amassing money, power and control.

Surveillance will continue unabated. On any given day, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. Police have been outfitted with a litany of surveillance gear, from license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices to biometric data recorders. Technology now makes it possible for the police to scan passersby in order to detect the contents of their pockets, purses, briefcases, etc. Full-body scanners, which perform virtual strip-searches of Americans traveling by plane, have gone mobile, with roving police vans that peer into vehicles and buildings alike—including homes. Coupled with the nation’s growing network of real-time surveillance cameras and facial recognition software, soon there really will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Global spying will continue unabated. The NSA’s massive surveillance network, what the Washington Post refers to as a $500 billion “espionage empire,” will continue to span the globe and target every single person on the planet who uses a phone or a computer. The NSA’s Echelon program intercepts and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax and email message sent anywhere in the world. In addition to carrying out domestic surveillance on peaceful political groups such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace and several religious groups, Echelon has also been a keystone to the government’s attempts at political and corporate espionage.

Egregious searches will continue unabated. Under the pretext of protecting the nation’s infrastructure (roads, mass transit systems, water and power supplies, telecommunications systems and so on) against criminal or terrorist attacks, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) task forces (comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams) will continue to do random security sweeps of nexuses of transportation, including ports, railway and bus stations, airports, ferries and subways. Sweep tactics include the use of x-ray technology, pat-downs and drug-sniffing dogs, among other things.

The undermining of the Constitution will continue unabated. America’s so-called war on terror, which it has relentlessly pursued since 9/11, has chipped away at our freedoms, unraveled our Constitution and transformed our nation into a battlefield, thanks in large part to such subversive legislation as the USA Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act. These laws—which completely circumvent the rule of law and the constitutional rights of American citizens, re-orienting our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the rule of law, our U.S. Constitution, becomes the map by which we navigate life in the United States—will continue to be enforced.

Militarized policing will continue unabated. Thanks to federal grant programs allowing the Pentagon to transfer surplus military supplies and weapons to local law enforcement agencies without charge, police forces will continue to be transformed from peace officers into heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace, will continue to keep the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens.

SWAT team raids will continue unabated. With more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans for relatively routine police matters and federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions, the incidence of botched raids and related casualties will continue to rise. Nationwide, SWAT teams will continue to be employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community nuisances including angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession.

Overcriminalization will continue unabated. The government bureaucracy will continue to churn out laws, statutes, codes and regulations that reinforce its powers and value systems and those of the police state and its corporate allies, rendering the rest of us petty criminals. The average American now unknowingly commits three felonies a day, thanks to this overabundance of vague laws that render otherwise innocent activity illegal. Consequently, small farmers who dare to make unpasteurized goat cheese and share it with members of their community will continue to have their farms raided.

The shadow government— a.k.a. the Deep State, a.k.a. the police state, a.k.a. the military industrial complex, a.k.a. the surveillance state complex—will continue unabated. This corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials will continue to call the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House or controls Congress. By “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

These issues are not going away.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, they are the backbone of an increasingly aggressive authoritarian government, formed by an unholy alliance between the mega-corporations with little concern for the Constitution and elected officials and bureaucrats incapable or unwilling to represent the best interests of their constituents.

Whether or not the government runs out of borrowed money, it will remain business as usual in terms of the police state’s unceasing pursuit of greater powers and control.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead.

By Anish Chand in Suva

Energy Fiji Ltd (EFL) has warned that the Monasavu and Nadarivatu hydropower schemes may need to shut down if it does not rain after October.

In a message to customers, EFL said the Monasavu dam had been experiencing below-average rainfall over the past few months from November 22 to April 23.

“These months are typically our rainy period,” the statement read.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji power reports

“This low rainfall has contributed to the declining dam and water level at Monasavu as well as impacted to some level the Nadarivatu hydro scheme.

“If this low or nil rainfall continues in the upcoming dry period from May to October 23, then this can lead to the Monasavu and Nadarivatu hydropower schemes to operate at critically low water level and may need to be shut down eventually in the next few months.

“EFL is urging all its valued customers to use electricity wisely and conserve energy.”

Anish Chand is a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.

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

Elections for president and federal lawmakers are scheduled for February 25, and elections for state governments are scheduled for March 11.

“Shutdowns make it extremely difficult for journalists and the media to carry out their work thereby denying people both inside and outside of the country access to credible information,” the letter said. Journalists also recently told CPJ that, among other safety concerns related to election coverage, they worried about possible internet disruptions.

Nigeria previously blocked access to Twitter for over six months between 2021 and 2022, which the ECOWAS court declared “unlawful” and not to be repeated.

The open letter is available here.

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

Rep. Kevin McCarthy would have to commit to “shut down the government rather than raise the debt ceiling” in order to win the support of his opponents, Rep. Ralph Norman, a Republican from South Carolina, told reporters Wednesday afternoon.

“That’s a non-negotiable item,” said Norman, a leader of the squad objecting to McCarthy, a California Republican, becoming speaker of the House.

A reporter asked Norman if he meant default on the debt, as the debt ceiling and a government shutdown are not directly linked. “That’s why you need to be planning now what agencies — what path you’re gonna take now to trim government. Tell the programs you’re going to get to this number. And you do that before chairs are picked,” he said, referring to the process of choosing and installing House committee chairs.

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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Ryan Grim.

Members of Milieudefensie, Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, and other organizations sit in front of an aircraft at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Nov. 5, 2022.

Photo: Remko de Waal/AFP via Getty Images

“Our action brought them back to earth.”

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Climate activists sit in the main hall of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport during a demonstration on Nov. 5, 2022.

Photo: Ana Fernandez/AP

A United Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner airplane is seen flying over Amsterdam on April 1, 2021.

Photo: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Christopher Ketcham.

Members of Milieudefensie, Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, and other organizations sit in front of an aircraft at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Nov. 5, 2022.

Photo: Remko de Waal/AFP via Getty Images

“Our action brought them back to earth.”

Related

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Climate activists sit in the main hall of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport during a demonstration on Nov. 5, 2022.

Photo: Ana Fernandez/AP

A United Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner airplane is seen flying over Amsterdam on April 1, 2021.

Photo: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Christopher Ketcham.

A private investigation agency contacted Sam Yan Press in May with an offer of two million baht from a Chinese businessman who wanted to buy the company in order to shut it down, the publishing house said in a statement on its website dated Oct. 26.

"They said that the Chinese businessman was keen to make good relations with the Chinese government. We were in utter disbelief and thought it was a fraud. Therefore, we completely ignored the messages from the agency and continued with our causes," the statement, signed by the press' editorial board, said.

By September, the approaches had gotten far more persistent, with agency staff tracking Sam Yan Press founder and prominent Thai democracy activist Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal down at his home and at a Buddhist temple where he was in retreat as a monk.

"Our team members also received calls from the agency and more messages stating the urgency of this offer," the statement said. "This posed a serious threat to our independence, security, and freedom of expression."

The agency told the editors at Sam Yan Press in a face-to-face meeting that a Chinese businessman named as Huang Chengde was offering them two million baht in cash for an official letter stating that the press had been dissolved.

"We strongly rejected the offer, making it unmistakably clear that we would not be co-opted for the money," the editors said, adding that they will continue to translate and publish works in line with their core values of promoting democracy in Thailand.

"We encourage all press, media, and international publishing sectors to stand up against the regime’s attempt at censorship and resist the manipulation and domination of independent organizations," the statement said.

Chinese business owners in foreign countries have cropped up in the past as unofficial representatives of Beijing, especially where the Chinese Communist Party hopes to wield covert influence beyond its borders.

In 2019, Sweden's foreign ministry recalled its ambassador to China after she was accused of holding a meeting between two unnamed Chinese businessmen and the daughter of detained Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai without official authorization.

Ambassador Anna Lindstedt was later charged by Swedish prosecutors with "arbitrariness during negotiations with a foreign power," specifically linked to a meeting with Angela Gui during which she was "in contact with persons representing the interests of the Chinese State." 

Screenshots of the initial email to Sam Yan showed that it included the possibility of the publishing house restarting six months later under a new name.

The main motivation for the purchase was Huang's desire for "good relationship" with the Chinese government.

RFA contacted the Chinese embassy in Thailand for comment on the story, but no reply had been received by the time of writing.

Sam Yan was founded by a group of college students in 2017, and was a participant in the regional Milk Tea Alliance of pro-democracy movements and anti-Beijing protests.

It has published books by Hong Kong, mainland Chinese and Taiwanese authors, including 2014 Hong Kong protest leader Joshua Wong, late 2010 Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo and jailed Uyghur academic Ilham Tohti.

Standing in solidarity

Milk Tea Alliance supporter Ken Wu, vice president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA), said progressive organizations should stand in solidarity with Sam Yan.

"Organizations like Sam Yan that promote democracy, freedom and human rights, and support anti-authoritarian movements like the Milk Tea Alliance are going to be rejected by a totalitarian state like the Chinese Communist Party," Wu told RFA.

"If totalitarian states get that powerful, they don't stop at limiting freedom of speech in their own country," he said. "They also extend their clutches overseas and try to totally eliminate anything that could threaten their stability."

Wu said Beijing likely fears regional publishers with a progressive bent, for fear that their books will find their way back to China.

China has jailed or detained several Hong Kong booksellers including Gui Minhai in recent years for selling political books banned in China to its citizens. Gui turned up in police custody in China after disappearing from his holiday home in Pattaya, Thailand.

Wu said that given the fact that Southeast Asian countries are typically economically dependent on Beijing, the attempt to take down a progressive Thai publishing house was "worrying."

A Chinese national currently seeking asylum at UNHCR in Bangkok, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said there has been a huge spike in Chinese espionage activities in Southeast Asia in recent years.

The Thai authorities have proven themselves willing to cooperate with Beijing in repatriating exiled dissidents, where they have gone on to face trial. 

Australia-based rights activist Lu Ruichao said making such scandals public is the only way to respond.

"Keep the electronic evidence, and if that's not available, take photos or video, and give it to the media and law enforcement agencies," Lu said.

Lu said he had been followed by several Chinese consular officials in Perth after attending an event marking the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre -- a taboo topic for Beijing -- in June 2020.

The officials had also tried to put pressure on local police to delete the report he made, prompting Lu to take the story to the local media.

Lu said he hasn't experienced anything similar since blowing the whistle on the incident.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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

“Russian authorities’ shameless attempt to shutter the JMWU threatens to silence an organization whose fight for journalists’ rights and press freedom in Russia has been a thorn in authorities’ side,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Authorities must immediately lift their suspension of the union’s activities, drop all the charges against it, and stop stifling critical voices in the country.”

Founded after a 2016 attack on local and foreign journalists in Russia’s North Caucasus, the JMWU has some 600 active members and defends labor rights, provides assistance to journalists, and supports press freedom in Russia.  

A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for Wednesday, July 13, according to those news reports, which said the union is accused of publishing “materials containing misleading information” about Russia’s war in Ukraine that were aimed at discrediting the use of the Russian armed forces. On July 4, the Moscow City Court ordered the union’s activities suspended pending a judgment in the case, according to JMWU board member Andrei Jvirblis, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.

From May 16 to June 16, the Moscow prosecutor’s office conducted an inspection of the union for its compliance with trade association legislation, according to the JMWU and those news reports, which said the union had not been notified about the outcome of that inspection.

On February 24, the day of Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine,  the JMWU published a statement calling the war a “perfidious step” that would risk journalists’ lives and “lead to the death of many citizens of our countries and huge destruction.”

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

Moments later, Nicaraguan National Police officers raided the outlet’s offices in the capital Managua and “aggressively forced” the outlet’s receptionist and accountant to leave, according to EFE and multiple news reports. Later on June 10, Trinchera de la Noticia announced that it was shutting down operations. EFE reported on June 12 that the police still occupied the offices.

The official notice of the closure, which Nicaraguan news website Confidencial published and CPJ reviewed, was issued by the Public Registry of Real Estate, which is under Nicaragua’s judicial branch. It accused Trinchera de la Noticia of committing a “severe infraction” by violating various articles of Nicaragua’s criminal code, commercial code, the General Law of Public Registries, and others. The resolution stated that the outlet “disrupted social peace and refused to provide information within the established time frame or did so incompletely” and ordered the outlet’s owners to pay a fine of 53,748 córdobas (US$1,500).

CPJ called Talavera several times and sent a message through Twitter to the outlet seeking comment. The outlet’s Twitter account responded, saying that Trinchera de la Noticia was not giving any further statements. CPJ emailed the Nicaraguan police and judiciary for comment but did not receive a response.

Trinchera de la Noticia was founded in 1999 by journalist Xavier Reyes Alba and produced a news website and a weekly print tabloid distributed in hotels and embassies in Managua, according to the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Voice of America. That report said the outlet operated on an annual subscription basis and usually covered politics and financial news. After its closure, there is only one subscriber-funded print tabloid–Bolsa de Noticias–left in Nicaragua, according to that report.

CPJ has extensively covered the Nicaraguan government’s ongoing crackdown against the press since a wave of protests in spring 2018, including imprisonments, criminal proceedings, the occupation of news outlets, criminal defamation charges, and physical attacks. One journalist was killed while covering protests in April 2018.

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

“The SEC shutdown order is part of a multi–pronged attack by the Philippine authorities designed to permanently silence Rappler and its founder, Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa. It also marks an escalation in the years-long pressure on the few remaining independent news publishers in the Philippines,” the HTL Steering Committee said.

“We demand that the SEC shutdown order be rescinded. It is time for incoming President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. to turn the page on media repression and immediately drop all pending charges against Ressa, her colleagues, and the Rappler media group, and take concrete measures to improve the broader media freedom climate in the country.”

The SEC’s order revoking Rappler’s license to operate is the first of its kind in history – both for the Commission and for Philippine media. The news outlet has publicly announced its intention to fight  the decision, handed down in the final two days of the Duterte administration, through every available legal avenue. Duterte’s administration has prioritized persecuting Maria Ressa and her news organization, Rappler.

Maria Ressa, her colleagues and Rappler face a sustained campaign of legal persecution and online violence with seven ongoing cases that range from trumped-up tax charges to cyber libel accusations that threaten to shutter Rappler and carry potential prison penalties for those charged. In April alone, in the run up to national elections, 16 new complaints – some of which have since been dismissed by the courts – were filed against Ressa and the news organization she co-founded a decade ago.

The Philippines is ranked 147th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2022 World Press Freedom Index.

Julie Posetti (ICFJ), Gypsy Guillén Kaiser (CPJ), and Rebecca Vincent (RSF) on behalf of the Hold the Line Coalition.

For further comment, contact: jposetti@icfj.org, gguillenkaiser@cpj.org, rvincent@rsf.org

NOTE: The #HTL Coalition comprises more than 80 organizations around the world. This statement is issued by the #HoldTheLine Steering Committee, but it does not necessarily reflect the position of all or any individual Coalition members or organizations.

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

“The SEC shutdown order is part of a multi–pronged attack by the Philippine authorities designed to permanently silence Rappler and its founder, Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa. It also marks an escalation in the years-long pressure on the few remaining independent news publishers in the Philippines,” the HTL Steering Committee said.

“We demand that the SEC shutdown order be rescinded. It is time for incoming President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. to turn the page on media repression and immediately drop all pending charges against Ressa, her colleagues, and the Rappler media group, and take concrete measures to improve the broader media freedom climate in the country.”

The SEC’s order revoking Rappler’s license to operate is the first of its kind in history – both for the Commission and for Philippine media. The news outlet has publicly announced its intention to fight  the decision, handed down in the final two days of the Duterte administration, through every available legal avenue. Duterte’s administration has prioritized persecuting Maria Ressa and her news organization, Rappler.

Maria Ressa, her colleagues and Rappler face a sustained campaign of legal persecution and online violence with seven ongoing cases that range from trumped-up tax charges to cyber libel accusations that threaten to shutter Rappler and carry potential prison penalties for those charged. In April alone, in the run up to national elections, 16 new complaints – some of which have since been dismissed by the courts – were filed against Ressa and the news organization she co-founded a decade ago.

The Philippines is ranked 147th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2022 World Press Freedom Index.

Julie Posetti (ICFJ), Gypsy Guillén Kaiser (CPJ), and Rebecca Vincent (RSF) on behalf of the Hold the Line Coalition.

For further comment, contact: jposetti@icfj.org, gguillenkaiser@cpj.org, rvincent@rsf.org

NOTE: The #HTL Coalition comprises more than 80 organizations around the world. This statement is issued by the #HoldTheLine Steering Committee, but it does not necessarily reflect the position of all or any individual Coalition members or organizations.

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

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and journalist Maria Ressa says that the Philippine government has ordered her news organisation Rappler to shut down, reports Axios.

The online news website Rappler has exposed Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s “bloody war on drugs”, documented the government’s propagation of disinformation and been critical of President-elect “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, son of the late dictator.

Ressa, a Filipino-American, said in a keynote address at the East-West Center’s International Media Conference in Honolulu, Hawai’i, that the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission had issued the decree on Tuesday, reports Nathan Bomey.

• READ MORE:  Nobelist Maria Ressa: Social media is corroding US democracy
• RSF reports on Maria Ressa and Rappler
• Other #Hold The Line reports

She said Rappler would fight the order, which “affirmed” an earlier decision to revoke the organisation’s certificates of incorporation.

“We’re not shutting down. Well, I’m not supposed to say that,” Ressa said.

“We are entitled to appeal this decision and will do so, especially since the proceedings were highly irregular.”

Axios reported that the Philippine embassy in the US did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

Shared Nobel Peace Prize
Ressa shared the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov after using her platform to raise awareness of Duterte’s alleged abuses.

She had previously been convicted in the Philippines of “cyber libel” and could serve prison time in a case widely seen as politically motivated.

Ressa has also been a vocal critic of social media platforms for failing to prevent the flow of falsehoods.

“Most people, they don’t realize they’re being manipulated, that these platforms are biased against facts,” Ressa previously told Axios editor-in-chief Sara Goo in an exclusive interview published yesterday.

“You don’t get facts. It’s toxic sludge. Social media encourages anger, hate, conspiracy theories. There’s violence,” and it’s getting worse, she added.

• Pacific Journalism Review is publishing several articles about Rappler and media freedom in next month’s edition.

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

The organizations, all members of the #KeepItOn Coalition against internet shutdowns, note that the internet and social media platforms “play a critical role in enhancing participatory governance” and guaranteeing rights enshrined in Kenya’s constitution.

The letter acknowledges that, while officials have made public commitments not to interfere with internet connectivity during the elections, “attempts to exert control over information flow” had been seen during previous elections.

During and after Kenya’s last general elections in 2017, CPJ documented press freedom violations that included assault and harassment of journalists, and a shutdown of major broadcasters.

The letter, also copied to other senior government officials and telecom operators, is available here.

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

House arrest for dissidents

Massacre survivors, victims' families and prominent dissidents are typically placed under house arrest or similar restrictions by state security police during the anniversary, only to be released when the date has passed without incident.

Qi Zhiyong, a massacre survivor who had both legs crushed by a tank in June 1989, said he had been forced to leave town with a state security police escort.

"I was taken away from my home on May 28 by police, who confiscated my mobile phone," Qi told RFA. "But my dialysis appointments weren't affected."

"There are police and security guards at the entrance to my apartment complex," he said.

Former 1989 student leader Wang Dan said he is currently engaged in setting up a June 4 Memorial Hall in New York City.

"All of my energy is devoted to this project now," Wang, who also founded the Dialogue China think-tank since arriving in the U.S. on medical parole 24 years ago.

He said the overseas democracy movement was the best exiled dissidents could do for China, and suggested that CCP leader Xi Jinping's zero-COVID policy could open some younger people's eyes to the nature of the regime.

"We're already seeing the effects of the Shanghai lockdown," he said. "I think a lot of little pinks [CCP fans] in Shanghai, and many millennials will be realizing that this society isn't as beautiful as they once believed."

Former 1989 student activist Zhou Fengsuo, who founded the rights group Humanitarian China after arriving in the U.S., said his organization manages to support more than 100 prisoners of conscience annually.

"That has added up to more than 1,000 people over the years," he said. "We hope that more people will come to know about them, and to thereby understand the human rights situation in China."

Brainwashing

Former Shandong student activist Bob Fu has worked to promote religious freedom in China since becoming a Christian in the wake of the 1989 crackdown, founding the Texas-based group ChinaAid.

"The first thing we want to do is to give them a voice, and the second is to make very specific efforts to promote religious freedom in China," Fu told RFA. "In the past couple of decades, we have paid particular attention to human rights lawyers, as to support them is actually to promote religious freedom in China."

A member of the millennial generation who gave only the surname Li said he thought everyone should understand what happened in 1989.

"June 4, 1989 is something that every Chinese person should remember," Li said. "We can learn a lot from the way the students were thinking, from their spirit, now."

"But a lot of people don't have access to the internet outside the Great Firewall, including a lot of Generation Z, so they don't know about such things, and have never heard of any of it."

A slightly older man from Shanghai surnamed Wang said CCP brainwashing has been particular effective among the younger generation.

"If anyone mentions freedom and democracy, they tell you that you can't eat those things," Wang said. "They really support the current regime with all their hearts."

"It's clear that this brainwashing [patriotic] education they received has been hugely successful, from the point of view of those who rule," he said.

Zhou said he realizes how far there is to go.

"Of course so far, this has been a losing battle," he said of China's faltering democracy movement. "But before the CCP falls, many more people will have to get involved in this losing battle."

"For those who are in it and are still fighting against this authoritarian regime, at least they have the courage to resist, the spirit of perseverance. This is worthy of huge respect."

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Qiao Long, Chingman and Kai Di for RFA Mandarin.

A hen, hooked up to electrodes, stands alone in a glass cage. She starts panting, thrashing, slumping over, and lunging at the enclosure’s walls, appearing to look for an escape. Outside the cage, researchers point, take notes, and watch her die.

These scenes, which took place at North Carolina State University, were documented in 10 hours of video footage recently obtained via public records requests by the organization Animal Outlook and shared with The Intercept. The experiments were funded by the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association, a major industry trade group, and took place in the wake of the 2015 outbreak of an aggressive bird flu that resulted in the culling of about 50 million farmed birds — not all of them necessarily infected — across the United States. The researchers were testing what was then a relatively new set of disease control methods: known as “ventilation shutdown,” the process kills the animals through heatstroke and suffocation, similar to dying in a hot car. According to Will Lowrey, the Animal Outlook attorney who obtained the videos, “the suffering is extremely profound.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Marina Bolotnikova.