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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trang, who is serving a nine-year sentence on anti-state charges, received CPJ’s 2022 International Press Freedom Award for her courage in the face of persecution.

Tuesday’s statement is timed to commemorate Trang’s 47^th birthday on May 27. It also raises concerns about Trang’s deteriorating health after nearly five years in detention and calls on authorities to allow her access to adequate medical treatment.

Read the full joint statement here.

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

The Independent Vietnamese Writers’ Association has awarded a prestigious prize to a mystery winner. The group said it was concerned the writer may be targeted by authorities in a country where freedom of expression is rarely tolerated.

The association’s literature award council announced the three winners of the 2024 Vietnamese Literature Award on March 3.

Bui Vinh Phuc was awarded the Research-Criticism Prize for a series of articles and Khe Iem received the Translation Prize for his translation of American poetry in “A Memorable Time.” Both live in the United States.

Poetry Prize Winner Not Named

A poet who lives in Vietnam won the Poetry Prize, picked by all five of the judges including Vietnamese-Canadian poet, literary critic and translator Nguyen Duc Tung. However, the judges chose not to identify the winner for security reasons.

In March 2022, poet Thai Hao was beaten by strangers and prevented from receiving the 2021 poetry award while police officers stood by.

Two months later, literary critic Nguyen Thi Tinh Thy declined the writers’ association’s award for her book “Dare to Look Back” saying she wanted to “avoid affecting the general security situation” in Vietnam. She said the police had warned her not to accept the award.

Association member Hoang Dung said foreign-based winners might also prefer to remain anonymous if they lived in Vietnam.

“If those people were in the country, they would all be under pressure from the state,” Dung explained, adding that Vietnam-based winners had not been named for several years.

“Some people resisted that pressure and still agreed to accept the award, so we announced their names. But many people could not bear it and refused to accept the award.”

He said that in the past, the Vietnamese Literature Council often said “no award” when the winner declined to accept it..

Nothing to do with politics

This year, the council changed its approach, saying it would only announce the names of domestic winners “when Vietnam is more democratic and the Vietnamese government is progressive enough to not threaten citizens when they receive literary prizes.”

Having to keep the names secret is proof that Vietnam is not democratic, Dung said, adding that this year’s poetry prize winner had “absolutely nothing to do with politics.”

No writer won the Literature Prize this year because no work received votes from at least four of the five judges.

The winner of the Vietnamese Literature Council Award receives a certificate from the council president and US$1,000. The winner of the Council President’s Award gets a certificate and a cash prize of $500.

Renaming the writers’ association

On March 3, 2014, the campaign to establish the Independent Writers Association of Vietnam was announced. On March 3 this year, chairman and writer Nguyen Ngoc announced it was changing its name to the Independent Writers’ Association Club of Vietnam.

He said the reason was a government decree released last October, which stated that even the association’s organizing committee must be recognized by the state.

“The nature and mission of the Independent Vietnamese Writers' Club remain the same: it is a civil society organization, a professional fraternity, completely independent of all organizational systems and institutions at home and abroad,” Ngoc said in a statement.

The government’s Decree No. 126 stipulates that the organizing committee for the establishment of an association must register and wait for approval from the relevant authority. However, group activities in the form of “clubs” do not have to be registered.

Creation or confrontation?

Former association head Hoang Thuy Hung said the association added “club” to its name because members didn’t want any trouble from authorities.

“Writers do not confront anyone, their main job is to create,” Hung said.

“Gathering together is only intended to improve the creative situation and protect their legitimate rights.”

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But writers should have the right to confront, according to the literary group PEN America. It argues that Vietnam is using the law to suppress free speech and lock up those who seek to exercise their basic right to freedom of expression.

“Writers, journalists, and activists in Vietnam are likely to become more hesitant to report human rights violations or engage in advocacy, fearing … punitive measures,” PEN America’s Anh-Thu Vo, manager of research and advocacy for the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center, said last October.

“It’s likely that your family will be harassed and you could be sentenced to 10 years in prison.”

“Even those who flee to neighboring countries like Thailand have faced continued intimidation and the threat of deportation. Activists remain vulnerable to surveillance, intimidation, and potential deportation, even as many seek asylum,” Vo said.

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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

For 30 years, Filipino journalist Manny “Bok” Mogato covered the police and defence rounds, and everything from politics to foreign relations, sports, and entertainment, eventually bagging one of journalism’s top prizes — the Pulitzer in 2018, for his reporting on Duterte’s drug war along with two other Reuters correspondents, Andrew Marshall and Clare Baldwin.

For Mogato it was time for him to “write it all down,” and so he did, launching the autobiography It’s Me, Bok! Journeys in Journalism in October 2024.

Mogato told Rappler, he wanted to “write it all down before I forget and impart my knowledge to the youth, young journalists, so they won’t make the same mistakes that I did”.

• READ MORE: Killing as policy: Duterte’s bloody drug war that Marcos will inherit
• PHOTOESSAY: Buried in debt only to have their loved ones get a burial — Pacific Journalism Review
• Other Duterte war on drugs reports

His career has spanned many organisations, including the Journal group, The Manila Chronicle, The Manila Times, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun, and Rappler. Outside of journalism, he also serves as a consultant for Cignal TV.

Recently, we sat down with Mogato to talk about his career — a preview of what you might be able to read in his book — and pick out a few lessons for today’s journalists, as well as his views on the country today.

You’ve covered so many beats. Which beat did you enjoy covering most? 

Manny Mogato: The military. Technically, I was assigned to the military defence beat for only a few years, from 1987 to 1992. In early 1990, FVR (Fidel V. Ramos) was running for president, and I was made to cover his campaign.

When he won, I was assigned to cover the military, and I went back to the defence beat because I had so many friends there.

‘We faced several coups’
I really enjoyed it and still enjoy it because you go to places, to military camps. And then I also covered the defence beat at the most crucial and turbulent period in our history — when we faced several coups.

Rappler: You have mellowed through the years as a reporter. You chronicled in your book that when you were younger, you were learning the first two years about the police beat and then transferred to another publication.

How did your reporting style mellow, or did it grow? Did you become more curious or did you become less curious? Over the years as a reporter, did you become more or less interested in what was happening around you?

How would you describe your process then?

MM: Curiosity is the word I would use. So, from the start until now, I am still curious about things happening around me. Exciting things, interesting things.

But if you read the book, you’ll see I’ve mellowed a lot because I was very reckless during my younger days.

I would go on assignments without asking permission from my office. For instance, there was this hostage-taking incident in Zamboanga, where a policeman held hostages of several officers, including a general and a colonel.

So when I learned that, I volunteered to go without asking permission from my office. I only had 100 pesos (NZ$3) in my pocket. And so what I did, I saw the soldiers loading bullets into the boxes and I picked up one box and carried it.

Hostage crisis with one tee
So when the aircraft was already airborne, they found out I was there, and so I just sat somewhere, and I covered the hostage crisis for three to four days with only one T-shirt.

Reporters in Zamboanga were kind enough to lend me T-shirts. They also bought me underpants. I slept in the headquarters crisis. And then later, restaurants. Alavar is a very popular seafood restaurant in Zamboanga. I slept there. So when the crisis was over, I came back. At that time, the Chronicle and ABS-CBN were sister companies.

When I returned to Manila, my editor gave me a commendation — but looking back . . . I just had to get a story.

Rappler: So that is what drives you?

MM: Yes, I have to get the story. I will do this on my own. I have to be ahead of the others. In 1987, when a PAL flight to Baguio City crashed, killing all 50 people on board, including the crew and the passengers, I was sent by my office to Baguio to cover the incident.

But the crash site was in Benguet, in the mountains. So I went there to the mountains. And then the Igorots were in that area, living in that area.

I was with other reporters and mountaineering clubs. We decided to go back because we were surrounded by the Igorots [who made it difficult for us to do our jobs]. Luckily, the Lopezes had a helicopter and [we] were the first to take photos.

‘I saw the bad side of police’
Rappler: Why are military and defense your favourite beats to cover?

MM: I started my career in 1983/1984, as a police reporter. So I know my way around the police. And I have many good friends in the police. I saw the bad side of the police, the dark side, corruption, and everything.

I also saw the military in the most turbulent period of our history when I was assigned to the military. So I saw good guys, I saw terrible guys. I saw everything in the military, and I made friends with them. It’s exciting to cover the military, the insurgency, the NPAs (New People’s Army rebels), and the secessionist movement.

You have to gain the trust of the soldiers of your sources. And if you don’t have trust, writing a story is impossible; it becomes a motherhood statement. But if you go deeper, dig deeper, you make friends, they trust you, you get more stories, you get the inside story, you get the background story, you get the top secret stories.

Because I made good friends with senior officers during my time, they can show me confidential memorandums and confidential reports, and I write about them.

I have made friends with so many of these police and military men. It started when they were lieutenants, then majors, and then generals. We’d go out together, have dinner or some drinks somewhere, and discuss everything, and they will tell you some secrets.

Before, you’d get paid 50 pesos (NZ$1.50) as a journalist every week by the police. Eventually, I had to say no and avoid groups of people engaging in this corruption. Reuters wouldn’t have hired me if I’d continued.

Rappler: With everything that you have seen in your career, what do you think is the actual state of humanity? Because you’ve seen hideous things, I’m sure. And very corrupt things. What do you think of people? 

‘The Filipinos are selfish’
MM: Well, I can speak of the Filipino people. The Filipinos are selfish. They are only after their own welfare. There is no humanity in the Filipino mentality. They’re pulling each other down all the time.

I went on a trip with my family to Japan in 2018. My son left his sling bag on the Shinkansen. So we returned to the train station and said my son had left his bag there. The people at the train station told us that we could get the bag in Tokyo.

So we went to Tokyo and recovered the bag. Everything was intact, including my money, the password, everything.

So, there are crises, disasters, and ayuda (aid) in other places. And the people only get what they need, no? In the Philippines, that isn’t the case. So that’s humanity [here]. It isn’t very pleasant for us Filipinos.

Rappler: Is there anything good?

MM: Everyone was sharing during the EDSA Revolution, sharing stories, and sharing everything. They forgot themselves. And they acted as a community known against Marcos in 1986. That is very telling and redeeming. But after that… [I can’t think of anything else that is good.]

Rappler: What is the one story you are particularly fond of that you did or something you like or are proud of? 

War on drugs, and typhoon Yolanda
MM: On drugs, my contribution to the Reuters series, and my police stories. Also, typhoon Yolanda in 2013. We left Manila on November 9, a day after the typhoon. We brought much equipment — generator sets, big cameras, food supply, everything.

But the thing is, you have to travel light. There are relief goods for the victims and other needs. When we arrived at the airport, we were shocked. Everything was destroyed. So we had to stay in the airport for the night and sleep.

We slept under the rain the entire time for the next three days. Upon arrival at the airport, we interviewed the police regional commander. Our report, I think, moved the international community to respond to the extended damage and casualties. My report that 10,000 people had died was nominated for the Society Publishers in Asia in Hong Kong.

Every day, we had to walk from the airport eight to 10 kilometers away, and along the way, we saw the people who were living outside their homes. And there was looting all over.

Rappler: There is a part in your book where you mentioned the corruption of journalists, right? And reporters. What do you mean by corruption? 

MM: Simple tokens are okay to accept. When I was with Reuters, its gift policy was that you could only accept gifts as much as $50. Anything more than $50 is already a bribe. There are things that you can buy on your own, things you can afford. Other publications, like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Associated Press [nes agency], have a $0 gift policy. We have this gift-giving culture in our culture. It’s Oriental.

If you can pay your own way, you should do it.

Rappler: Tell us more about winning the Pulitzer Prize.

Most winners are American, American issues
MM: I did not expect to win this American-centric award. Most of the winners are Americans and American stories, American issues. But it so happened this was international reporting. There were so many other stories that were worth the win.

The story is about the Philippines and the drug war. And we didn’t expect a lot of interest in that kind of story. So perhaps we were just lucky that we were awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In the Society of Publishers in Asia, in Hong Kong, the same stories were also nominated for investigative journalism. So we were not expecting that Pulitzer would pay attention.

The idea of the drug war was not the work of only three people: Andrew Marshal, Clare Baldwin and me. No, it was a team effort.

Rappler: What was your specific contribution?

MM: Andrew and Clare were immersed in different communities in Manila, Tondo, and Navotas City, interviewing victims and families and everybody, everyone else. On the other hand, my role was on the police.

I got the police comments and official police comments and also talked to police sources who would give us the inside story — the inside story of the drug war. So I have a good friend, a retired police general who was from the intelligence service, and he knew all about this drug war — mechanics, plan, reward system, and everything that they were doing. So, he reported about the drug war.

The actual drug war was what the late General Rodolfo Mendoza said was a ruse because Duterte was protecting his own drug cartel.

Bishops wanted to find out
He had a report made for Catholic bishops. There was a plenary in January 2017, and the bishops wanted to find out. So he made the report. His report was based on 17 active police officers who are still in active service. So when he gave me this report, I showed it to my editors.

My editor said: “Oh, this is good. This is a good guide for our story.” He got this information from the police sources — subordinates, those who were formerly working for him, gave him the information.

So it was hearsay, you know. So my editor said: “Why can’t you convince him to introduce us to the real people involved in the drug war?”

So, the general and I had several interviews. Usually, our interviews lasted until early morning. Father [Romeo] Intengan facilitated the interview. He was there to help us. At the same time, he was the one serving us coffee and biscuits all throughout the night.

So finally, after, I think, two or three meetings, he agreed that he would introduce us to police officers. So we interviewed the police captain who was really involved in the killings, and in the operation, and in the drug war.

So we got a lot of information from him. The info went not only to one story but several other stories.

He was saying it was also the police who were doing it.

Rappler: Wrapping up — what do you think of the Philippines?

‘Duterte was the worst’
MM: The Philippines under former President Duterte was the worst I’ve seen. Worse than under former President Ferdinand Marcos. People were saying Marcos was the worst president because of martial law. He closed down the media, abolished Congress, and ruled by decree.

I think more than 3000 people died, and 10,000 were tortured and jailed.

But in three to six years under Duterte, more than 30,000 people died. No, he didn’t impose martial law, but there was a de facto martial law. The anti-terrorism law was very harsh, and he closed down ABS-CBN television.

It had a chilling effect on all media organisations. So, the effect was the same as what Marcos did in 1972.

We thought that Marcos Jr would become another Duterte because they were allies. And we felt that he would follow the policies of President Duterte, but it turned out he’s much better.

Well, everything after Duterte is good. Because he set the bar so low.

Everything is rosy — even if Marcos is not doing enough because the economy is terrible. Inflation is high, unemployment is high, foreign direct investments are down, and the peso is almost 60 to a dollar.

Praised over West Philippine Sea
However, the people still praise Marcos for his actions in the West Philippine Sea. I think the people love him for that. And the number of killings in the drug war has gone down.

There are still killings, but the number has really gone so low, I would say about 300 in the first two years.

Rappler: Why did you write your book, It’s Me, Bok! Journeys in Journalism?

MM:  I have been writing snippets of my experiences on Facebook. Many friends were saying, ‘Why don’t you write a book?’ including Secretary [of National Defense] Gilberto Teodoro, who was fond of reading my snippets.

In my early days, I was reckless as a reporter. I don’t want the younger reporters to do that. And no story is worth writing if you are risking your life.

I want to leave behind a legacy, and I know that my memory will fail me sooner rather than later. It took me only three months to write the book.

It’s very raw. There will be a second printing. I want to polish the book and expand some of the events.

Republished with permission from Rappler.

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

Now, the 84-year-old Nobel laureate has to restore stability to Bangladesh in the face of a flailing economy with angry youth battling unemployment and citizens crushed by the burden of inflation.

Yunus, who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering microlending, was on Tuesday given the unenviable task of leading an interim government in his country, after Sheikh Hasina resigned as prime minister a day earlier and fled the nation.

Her departure came after weeks of anger following deadly clashes that claimed more than 300 lives when security forces and Hasina’s Awami League supporters went to the streets to quell university students’ protests against public service job quotas.

Since she left, at least 108 people have been killed nationwide.

Yunus, globally renowned as the “Banker to the Poor,” will be stepping into this cauldron of rage.

Many analysts, in fact, saw the morphing of the anti-quota protest into a nationwide anti-government one, as discontent over the Bangladesh economy having failed over the last decade to create enough jobs for the two million people who enter the job market annually.

In a country of about 170 million people, nearly 40% of 15- to 24-year-olds – about 12.2 million people – are neither students nor employed, according to official data.

Additionally, critics said Hasina crushed dissent, allegedly caused enforced disappearances and bent state institutions to her will.

Hasina also loathed Yunus – her government members publicly made numerous derogatory statements about him.

But he was the students’ choice to lead the interim government. Yunus was proposed as interim government chief by university students who spearheaded the anti-quota protests, and later the nationwide unrest against Hasina.

“If action is needed in Bangladesh, for my country and for the courage of my people, then I will take it,” Yunus told Agence France-Presse in a statement Monday.

Asif Mahmud, a key leader of the group Students against Discrimination, didn’t mince words in a Facebook post, reported AFP.

“In Dr. Yunus, we trust,” he wrote.

‘Whims of two friends’

Yunus came to Hasina's attention when he formed a political party during an army-backed caretaker government in 2007-2008, with reports swirling that he was attempting to sideline both the Awami League leader and her archrival Khaleda Zia.

They were embroiled in corruption cases.

Hasina returned to power in 2009, and two years later Bangladesh’s central bank removed Yunus as head of Grameen Bank, the institution through which he lent to the poor and helped lift millions out of poverty.

A year later, the World Bank canceled a U.S. $1.2-billion loan to build the Padma Bridge, citing corruption concerns.

Believing he used his friendship with former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to influence the World Bank to cancel financing for the much-vaunted project, his supporters said dozens of politically motivated cases were filed against him.

Yunus denied the allegation, laughing them off.

“The tough world of international decision-making does not depend on the whims of two friends,” he said via a statement from his Yunus Center in July 2022.

“However ‘important’ a person Professor Yunus may be, whatever number of ‘influential friends’ he may have, a three-billion dollar project cannot be stopped just because he allegedly wants it canceled.”

A Hasina government minister said his statement was untrue and an effort “to cover fish with vegetables.”

Grameen Bank

Born in 1940 in the port city of Chattogram (Chittagong), Yunus studied economics at the University of Dhaka and later received a Fulbright scholarship to study for the same degree at the Tennessee-based Vanderbilt University in the United States.

After earning his doctorate, Yunus became an assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University.

He returned to Bangladesh two years later and joined the economics department at Chittagong University as an associate professor.

In Chittagong’s Jobra village, Yunus in 1976 founded the Grameen Bank project, in a bid to study how to provide banking services to the rural poor struggling with high debt and usurious loans.

In October 1983, the Grameen Bank national law authorized Grameen to operate as an independent bank.

Yunus’ microcredit system has been replicated in more than 100 countries.

Yunus and Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for their work to “create economic and social development from below,” according to the award body.

“Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development.”

‘Fabricated’ charges

In January, a Bangladesh court sentenced Yunus to six months in prison for violating labor laws, his first conviction.

“I have been punished for an offense I have not committed. It was written in my destiny, and that of the nation; I have to bear it,” Yunus said after the verdict.

In June, Yunus and several others were indicted by a Bangladesh court on charges of embezzlement of 260 million taka (U.S. $2.2 million) from the employees’ welfare fund of his telecoms company.

(Mahmud Hossain Opu/AP)

Defense attorney Abdullah Al Mamun said the charges against Yunus were “fabricated” and “politically motivated.”

And two months ago, Yunus was caged during a court hearing in Dhaka.

But those struggles may pale in comparison to the new challenge faced by the octogenarian social entrepreneur and civil society leader.

Yunus’ defense attorney believes the Nobel laureate would be the most apt person to bridge the crucial time between now and the next general election.

“He is the best person to lead the country to recover from the current political and economic turmoil left behind by Sheikh Hasina’s regime,” he told BenarNews, upon learning of Yunus’ new role.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by BY Kamran Reza Chowdhury for BenarNews.

Now, the 84-year-old Nobel laureate has to restore stability to Bangladesh in the face of a flailing economy with angry youth battling unemployment and citizens crushed by the burden of inflation.

Yunus, who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering microlending, was on Tuesday given the unenviable task of leading an interim government in his country, after Sheikh Hasina resigned as prime minister a day earlier and fled the nation.

Her departure came after weeks of anger following deadly clashes that claimed more than 300 lives when security forces and Hasina’s Awami League supporters went to the streets to quell university students’ protests against public service job quotas. 

Since she left, at least 108 people have been killed nationwide.

Yunus, globally renowned as the “Banker to the Poor,” will be stepping into this cauldron of rage.

Many analysts, in fact, saw the morphing of the anti-quota protest into a nationwide anti-government one, as discontent over the Bangladesh economy having failed over the last decade to create enough jobs for the two million people who enter the job market annually. 

In a country of about 170 million people, nearly 40% of 15- to 24-year-olds – about 12.2 million people – are neither students nor employed, according to official data.

Additionally, critics said Hasina crushed dissent, allegedly caused enforced disappearances and bent state institutions to her will.

Hasina also loathed Yunus – her government members publicly made numerous derogatory statements about him. 

But he was the students’ choice to lead the interim government. Yunus was proposed as interim government chief by university students who spearheaded the anti-quota protests, and later the nationwide unrest against Hasina.

“If action is needed in Bangladesh, for my country and for the courage of my people, then I will take it,” Yunus told Agence France-Presse in a statement Monday.

Asif Mahmud, a key leader of the group Students against Discrimination, didn’t mince words in a Facebook post, reported AFP.

“In Dr. Yunus, we trust,” he wrote.

‘Whims of two friends’ 

Yunus came to Hasina's attention when he formed a political party during an army-backed caretaker government in 2007-2008, with reports swirling that he was attempting to sideline both the Awami League leader and her archrival Khaleda Zia.

They were embroiled in corruption cases.

Hasina returned to power in 2009, and two years later Bangladesh’s central bank removed Yunus as head of Grameen Bank, the institution through which he lent to the poor and helped lift millions out of poverty.

A year later, the World Bank canceled a U.S. $1.2-billion loan to build the Padma Bridge, citing corruption concerns.

Believing he used his friendship with former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to influence the World Bank to cancel financing for the much-vaunted project, his supporters said dozens of politically motivated cases were filed against him.

Yunus denied the allegation, laughing them off.

“The tough world of international decision-making does not depend on the whims of two friends,” he said via a statement from his Yunus Center in July 2022.

“However ‘important’ a person Professor Yunus may be, whatever number of ‘influential friends’ he may have, a three-billion dollar project cannot be stopped just because he allegedly wants it canceled.”

A Hasina government minister said his statement was untrue and an effort “to cover fish with vegetables.”

Grameen Bank

Born in 1940 in the port city of Chattogram (Chittagong), Yunus studied economics at the University of Dhaka and later received a Fulbright scholarship to study for the same degree at the Tennessee-based Vanderbilt University in the United States.

After earning his doctorate, Yunus became an assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University.

He returned to Bangladesh two years later and joined the economics department at Chittagong University as an associate professor.

In Chittagong’s Jobra village, Yunus in 1976 founded the Grameen Bank project, in a  bid to study how to provide banking services to the rural poor struggling with high debt and usurious loans.

In October 1983, the Grameen Bank national law authorized Grameen to operate as an independent bank.

Yunus’ microcredit system has been replicated in more than 100 countries.

Yunus and Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for their work to “create economic and social development from below,” according to the award body.

“Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development.”

‘Fabricated’ charges

In January, a Bangladesh court sentenced Yunus to six months in prison for violating labor laws, his first conviction. 

“I have been punished for an offense I have not committed. It was written in my destiny, and that of the nation; I have to bear it,” Yunus said after the verdict.

In June, Yunus and several others were indicted by a Bangladesh court on charges of embezzlement of 260 million taka (U.S. $2.2 million) from the employees’ welfare fund of his telecoms company.

Defense attorney Abdullah Al Mamun said the charges against Yunus were “fabricated” and “politically motivated.”

And two months ago, Yunus was caged during a court hearing in Dhaka.

But those struggles may pale in comparison to the new challenge faced by the octogenarian social entrepreneur and civil society leader.

Yunus’ defense attorney believes the Nobel laureate would be the most apt person to bridge the crucial time between now and the next general election.

“He is the best person to lead the country to recover from the current political and economic turmoil left behind by Sheikh Hasina’s regime,” he told BenarNews, upon learning of Yunus’ new role.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by BY Kamran Reza Chowdhury for BenarNews.

In Part 1 of our Memorial Day special broadcast, we speak with Jerusalem-based journalist and author Nathan Thrall, who was recently awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for his book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy. Thrall discusses Israel’s ceasefire talks with Hamas and Israel’s intensified crackdown in the West Bank. “The restrictions on movement in the West Bank are the worst that they have ever been since the occupation began,” Thrall says. He also responds to the cancellation of some of his book talks in Germany.

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

Jerusalem-based journalist and author Nathan Thrall has been awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for his book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy. It tells the story of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank through one Palestinian father’s quest to seek answers and accountability after his 5-year-old son is involved in a deadly accident. We speak to Thrall about President Biden saying for the first time that he would not supply certain weapons to Israel to be used in an all-out invasion of Rafah. “It is too little, too late,” Thrall says. “It is a step in the right direction, but the administration has said that it has not made a final determination even about these paused weapons.” Thrall also discusses Israel’s ceasefire talks with Hamas, anti-Netanyahu protests led by families of Israeli hostages, Israel’s intensified crackdown in the West Bank, how criticism of Israel is conflated with antisemitism, and why debates over the future of a Palestinian state are an “enormous distraction from the reality on the ground” — Israel’s “system of domination that is extremely bureaucratic and elaborate, [that] has lasted for over half a century and [is] not going anywhere.”

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

With only four more seats in the 50-member Parliament yet to be officially declared, there is no outright winner in the Solomon Islands elections.

As of Monday, the two largest blocs in the winner’s circle, independents and the incumbent Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s Our Party, were tied with 12 MPs each.

It is a significant result, given at the last election in 2019 Our Party did not even exist going into the polls, but was created by Sogavare with the sole intention of pulling together the large number of independent MPs that emerged from the election that year.

RNZ Pacific investigations have identified the location of some of the lobbying camps in the capital.

The Honiara Hotel camp in Chinatown was set up by former prime minister Gordon Darcy Lilo’s Solomon Islands Party for Rural Advancement a week before polling even began.

Sogavare’s Our Party, the largest grouping in the last Parliament, has a well-documented affiliation to the Cowboy’s Grill in the eastern side of town.

The former opposition leader Mathew Wale, who gambled in setting up the country’s first ever publicly announced pre-election coalition “CARE”, is understood to be holed up at the Heritage Park Hotel in the CBD.

Prediction impossible
At this stage, it is next to impossible to predict the final form of the coalition government because MPs are not legally bound to political parties and can move freely between the different camps.

In Solomon Islands, there is a stark disparity in both pay and benefits between government, opposition and independent MPs, which ups the stakes significantly and has been fingered by political experts as one of the root causes of political instability in the country.

Meanwhile, losing candidates around the country are already preparing election petitions ahead of a 30-day window for submissions which opens once all the election results are in.

In 2019, more than half of the MPs had election petitions filed against them but the majority where dismissed due to a lack of sufficient evidence.

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

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

The network is a key element of Tehran's strategy of deterrence against perceived threats from the United States, regional rivals, and primarily Israel.

Active in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, the axis gives Iran the ability to hit its enemies outside its own borders while allowing it to maintain a position of plausible deniability, experts say.

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has played a key role in establishing some of the groups in the axis. Other members have been co-opted by Tehran over the years.

Iran has maintained that around dozen separate groups that comprise the axis act independently.

Tehran's level of influence over each member varies. But the goals pursued by each group broadly align with Iran's own strategic aims, which makes direct control unnecessary, according to experts.

Lebanon's Hizballah

Hizballah was established in 1982 in response to Israel's invasion that year of Lebanon, which was embroiled in a devastating civil war.

The Shi'ite political and military organization was created by the Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the elite branch of the country's armed forces.

Danny Citrinowicz, a research fellow at the Iran Program at the Israel-based Institute for National Security Studies, said Tehran's aim was to unite Lebanon's various Shi'ite political organizations and militias under one organization.

Since it was formed, Hizballah has received significant financial and political assistance from Iran, a Shi'a-majority country. That backing has made the group a major political and military force in Lebanon.

"Iran sees the organization as the main factor that will deter Israel or the U.S. from going to war against Iran and works tirelessly to build the organization's power," Citrinowicz said.

Hizballah has around 40,000 fighters, according to the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence. The State Department said Iran has armed and trained Hizballah fighters and injected hundreds of millions of dollars in the group.

The State Department in 2010 described Hizballah as "the most technically capable terrorist group in the world."

Citrinowicz said Iran may not dictate orders to the organization but Tehran "profoundly influences" its decision-making process.

He described Hizballah, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, not as a proxy but "an Iranian partner managing Tehran's Middle East strategy."

Led by Hassan Nasrallah, Hizballah has developed close ties with other Iranian proxies and Tehran-backed militant groups, helping to train and arm their fighters.

Citrinowicz said Tehran "almost depends" on the Lebanese group to oversee its relations with other groups in the axis of resistance.

Hamas

Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, has had a complex relationship with Iran.

Founded in 1987 during the first Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, Hamas is an offshoot of the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political organization established in Egypt in the 1920s.

Hamas's political chief is Ismail Haniyeh, who lives in Qatar. Its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, is commanded by Yahya Sinwar, who is believed to be based in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is estimated to have around 20,000 fighters.

For years, Iran provided limited material support to Hamas, a Sunni militant group. Tehran ramped up its financial and military support to the Palestinian group after it gained power in the Gaza Strip in 2007.

But Tehran reduced its support to Hamas after a major disagreement over the civil war in Syria. When the conflict broke out in 2011, Iran backed the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Hamas, however, supported the rebels seeking to oust Assad.

Nevertheless, experts said the sides overcame their differences because, ultimately, they seek the same goal: Israel's destruction.

"[But] this does not mean that Iran is deeply aware of all the actions of Hamas," Citrinowicz said.

After Hamas militants launched a multipronged attack on Israel in October that killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, Iran denied it was involved in planning the assault. U.S. intelligence has indicated that Iranian leaders were surprised by Hamas's attack.

Seyed Ali Alavi, a lecturer in Middle Eastern and Iranian Studies at SOAS University of London, said Iran's support to Hamas is largely "confined to rhetorical and moral support and limited financial aid." He said Qatar and Turkey, Hamas's "organic" allies, have provided significantly more financial help to the Palestinian group.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad

With around 1,000 members, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is the smaller of the two main militant groups based in the Gaza Strip and the closest to Iran.

Founded in 1981, the Sunni militant group's creation was inspired by Iran's Islamic Revolution two years earlier. Given Tehran's ambition of establishing a foothold in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Iran has provided the group with substantial financial backing and arms, experts say.

The PIJ, led by Ziyad al-Nakhalah, is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.

"Today, there is no Palestinian terrorist organization that is closer to Iran than this organization," Citrinowicz said. "In fact, it relies mainly on Iran."

Citrinowicz said there is no doubt that Tehran's "ability to influence [the PIJ] is very significant."

Iraqi Shi'ite Militias

Iran supports a host of Shi'ite militias in neighboring Iraq, some of which were founded by the IRGC and "defer to Iranian instructions," said Gregory Brew, a U.S.-based Iran analyst with the Eurasia Group.

But Tehran's influence over the militias has waned since the U.S. assassination in 2020 of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, who was seen as the architect of the axis of resistance and held great influence over its members.

"The dynamic within these militias, particularly regarding their relationship with Iran, underwent a notable shift following the assassination of Qassem Soleimani," said Hamidreza Azizi, a fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

The U.S. drone strike that targeted Soleimani also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella organization of mostly Shi'ite Iran-backed armed groups that has been a part of the Iraqi Army since 2016.

Muhandis was also the leader of Kata'ib Hizballah, which was established in 2007 and is one of the most powerful members of the PMF. Other prominent groups in the umbrella include Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, Harakat al-Nujaba, Kata'ib Seyyed al-Shuhada, and the Badr Organization. Kata'ib Hizballah has been designated as a terrorist entity by the United States.

Following the deaths of Soleimani and al-Muhandis, Kata'ib Hizballah and other militias "began to assert more autonomy, at times acting in ways that could potentially compromise Iran's interests," said Azizi.

Many of the Iran-backed groups that form the PMF are also part of the so-called Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which rose to prominence in November 2023. The group has been responsible for launching scores of attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria since Israel launched its war against Hamas in Gaza.

"It's important to note that while several militias within the PMF operate as Iran's proxies, this is not a universal trait across the board," Azizi said.

Azizi said the extent of Iran's control over the PMF can fluctuate based on the political conditions in Iraq and the individual dynamics within each militia.

The strength of each group within the PMF varies widely, with some containing as few as 100 members and others, such as Kata'ib Hizballah, boasting around 10,000 fighters.

Syrian State And Pro-Government Militias

Besides Iran, Syria is the only state that is a member of the axis of resistance.

"The relationship between Iran and the Assad regime in Syria is a strategic alliance where Iran's influence is substantial but not absolute, indicating a balance between dependency and partnership," said Azizi.

The decades-long alliance stems from Damascus's support for Tehran during the devastating 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

When Assad's rule was challenged during the Syrian civil war, the IRGC entered the fray in 2013 to ensure he held on to power.

Hundreds of IRGC commander and officers, who Iran refers to as "military advisers," are believed to be present in Syria. Tehran has also built up a large network of militias, consisting mostly of Afghans and Pakistanis, in Syria.

Azizi said these militias have given Iran "a profound influence on the country's affairs," although not outright control over Syria.

"The Assad regime maintains its strategic independence, making decisions that serve its national interests and those of its allies," he said.

The Fatemiyun Brigade, comprised of Afghan fighters, and the Zainabiyun Brigade, which is made up of Pakistani fighters, make up the bulk of Iran's proxies in Syria.

"They are essentially units in the IRGC, under direct control," said Brew.

The Afghan and Pakistani militias played a key role in fighting rebel groups opposed to Assad during the civil war. There have been reports that Iran has not only granted citizenship to Afghan fighters and their families but also facilitated Syrian citizenship for them.

The Fatemiyun Brigade, the larger of the two, is believed to have several thousand fighters in Syria. The Zainabiyun Brigade is estimated to have less than 1,000 fighters.

Yemen's Huthi Rebels

The Huthis first emerged as a movement in the 1980s in response to the growing religious influence of neighboring Saudi Arabia, a Sunni kingdom.

In 2015, the Shi'ite militia toppled the internationally recognized, Saudi-backed government of Yemen. That triggered a brutal, yearslong Saudi-led war against the rebels.

With an estimated 200,000 fighters, the Huthis control most of the northwest of the country, including the capital, Sanaa, and are in charge of much of the Red Sea coast.

The Huthis' disdain for Saudi Arabia, Iran's regional foe, and Israel made it a natural ally of Tehran, experts say. But it was only around 2015 that Iran began providing the group with training through the Quds Force and Hizballah. Tehran has also supplied weapons to the group, though shipments are regularly intercepted by the United States.

"The Huthis…appear to have considerable autonomy and Tehran exercises only limited control, though there does appear to be [a] clear alignment of interests," said Brew.

Since Israel launched its war in Gaza, the Huthis have attacked international commercial vessels in the Red Sea and fired ballistic missiles at several U.S. warships.

In response, the United States and its allies have launched air strikes against the Huthis' military infrastructure. Washington has also re-designated the Huthis as a terrorist organization.

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

Somali-born Abdullahi Mire, who sought refuge with his mother at the vast Dadaab refugee complex in northern Kenya in the 1990s, told UN News the prize money was “a milestone for us” that would benefit kids in the camp by expanding bookshelves and boosting internet connectivity.

The education advocate who founded the Refugee Youth Education Hub at Dadaab, told Thelma Mwadzaya he was dedicating the award to all the displaced children and volunteers who are determined to help turn lives around, one book at a time.

This content originally appeared on UN News - Global perspective Human stories and was authored by Thelma Mwadzaya.

Context: In a recent historical post of mine, a kind subscriber named Elise commented: “If history is written by the victors, it gives one pause to think about who actually won the war to hide all this information.”

This inspired me to share the post below to expose even more of what is hidden by the “good guys.”

P.S. Fasten your seatbelts

It was at a February 1945 conference that State Department Political Advisor Laurence Duggan called for “An Economic Charter of the Americas,” loudly complaining that, “Latin Americans are convinced that the first beneficiaries of the development of a country’s resources should be the people of that country.”

From this patently unacceptable premise, the seeds of a 1954 coup were sown, and the U.S.-sponsored results include possibly irreversible environmental devastation and upwards of 200,000 civilians killed or “disappeared.”

With some 60 percent of the vote, Jacobo Arbenz was freely and fairly elected president of Guatemala in 1951. Prior to this, the country was ruled by Arbenz’s kindred spirit, President Juan Jose Arévalo — who won 86 percent of the vote.

Arévalo’s term had given his country a ten-year respite from military rule, during which time he provoked U.S. ire by daring to model his government after the Roosevelt New Deal. (More from Arévalo at the end of this post.)

Wishing to further transform his country, Arbenz’s modest reforms and his legalizing of the Communist Party were frowned upon in American business circles. The Arbenz government became the target of a well-funded U.S. public relations campaign.

Two years after Arbenz became president, Life magazine featured a piece on his “Red” land reforms, claiming that a nation just “two hours bombing time from the Panama Canal” was “openly and diligently toiling to create a Communist state.”

It matters little that the USSR didn’t even maintain diplomatic relations with Guatemala. After all, the Cold War was in full effect.

Ever on the lookout for that invaluable “pretext,” the U.S. business class scored a public relations coup when Arbenz expropriated some unused land controlled by United Fruit Company. His payment offer was predictably deemed inappropriate.

“If they gave a gold piece for every banana,” Secretary of State John Foster Dulles clarified, “the problem would still be Communist infiltration.”

For those unfamiliar with John Foster Dulles, he and his brother Allen guided Sullivan and Cromwell, the most powerful Wall Street law firm of the 1930s. The two brothers — who boycotted their own sister’s 1932 wedding because the groom was Jewish — served as the contacts for the company responsible for the gas in the Nazi gas chambers, I.G. Farben. 

During the pre-war period, the elder John Foster led off cables to his German clients with the salutation “Heil Hitler,” and he blithely dismissed the Nazi threat in 1935 in a piece he wrote for the Atlantic Monthly. In 1939, he told the Economic Club of New York, “We have to welcome and nurture the desire of the New Germany to find for her energies a new outlet.”    

As for Allen, he was named director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. Dulles lasted in that position until 1961 when he was fired by President John F. Kennedy for his role in the Bay of Pigs invasion. But Dulles managed to re-emerge two years later as part of the [wait for it] Warren Commission. 

We now return to our regularly scheduled war crimes, courtesy of the Home of the Brave.

Led by Allen Dulles, the CIA put Operation Success into action. Here’s how Howard Zinn described what followed: “A legally elected government was overthrown by an invasion force of mercenaries trained by the CIA at military bases in Honduras and Nicaragua and supported by four American fighter planes flown by American pilots.”

Operation Success ushered in 40 years of repression, more than 200,000 deaths, and what’s been called “indisputably one of the most inhumane chapters of the 20th century.” These chapters, incidentally, could never have been written without permission from the United States and its surrogates — like Israel.

“The Israelis may be seen as American proxies in Honduras and Guatemala,” stated Israeli journalist, Yoav Karni in Yediot Ahronot. Also, Ha’aretz correspondent Gidon Samet has explained that the most important features of the US-Israeli strategic cooperation in the 1980s were not in the Middle East, but with Central America.

“The U.S. needs Israel in Africa and Latin America, among other reasons, because of the government’s difficulties in obtaining congressional authorization for its ambitious aid programs and naturally, for military actions,” Samet wrote on November 6, 1983, adding that America has “long been interested in using Israel as a pipeline for military and other aid” to Central America.

Earlier that same year, Yosef Priel reported in Davar that Latin America “has become the leading market for Israeli arms exports.” One illustrative example is, of course, Guatemala.

In 1981, shortly after Israel agreed to provide military aid to this oppressive regime, a Guatemalan officer had a feature article published in the army’s Staff College review.

In that article, the officer praised Adolf Hitler, National Socialism, and the Final Solution — quoting extensively from Mein Kampf and chalking up Hitler’s anti-Semitism to the “discovery” that communism was part of a “Jewish conspiracy.”

Despite such seemingly incompatible ideology, Israel’s estimated military assistance to Guatemala in 1982 was $90 million.

What type of policies did the Guatemalan government pursue with the help they received from a nation populated with thousands of Holocaust survivors? This question brings to mind an excerpt from Jennifer Harbury’s book, Bridge of Courage. One member of the Guatemalan resistance Harbury interviewed explained: “Don’t talk to me about Gandhi; he wouldn’t have survived a week here.”

Similar stories can be culled from countries throughout the region, but apparently have had little effect on the foreign policy of the U.S. or Israel. For example, when Israel faced an international arms embargo after the 1967 war, a plan to divert Belgian and Swiss arms to the Holy Land was implemented.

These weapons were supposedly destined for Bolivia where they would be transported by a company managed by none other than Klaus Barbie… as in “The Butcher of Lyon.”

Any moral reservations about such an arrangement are dismissed with a vague “national security” excuse that should sound familiar to any American. “The welfare of our people and the state supersedes all other considerations,” pronounced Michael Schur, director of Ta’as, the Israeli state military industry, in the August 23, 1983, Ha’aretz. “If the state has decided in favor of export, my conscience is clear.”

One Jewish figure that might be expected to find fault with such a policy was Elie Wiesel. An episode from mid-1985, documented by Yoav Karni in Ha’aretz, should put to rest any exalted expectations of the late moralist.

When Wiesel received a letter from a Nobel Prize laureate documenting Israel’s contributions to the atrocities in Guatemala, suggesting that he use his considerable influence to put a stop to Israel’s practice of arming neo-Nazis, Wiesel “sighed” and admitted that he did not reply to that particular letter.

“I usually answer at once,” he explained, “but what can I answer to him?”

One is left to only wonder how Wiesel’s silent sigh might have been received if it was in response to a letter not about Jewish complicity in the murder of Guatemalans but instead about the function of Auschwitz during the 1940s.

In closing, I ask you to deeply consider some words from the aforementioned former Guatemalan president, Juan Jose Arévalo. As he stepped down in 1951, Arévalo had this to say about the aftermath of a certain world war commonly described as “good”:

“The arms of the Third Reich were broken and conquered but in the ideological dialogue, the real winner was Hitler.”

Never forget: This is just some of what we’re still up against today.

Whenever you opt to trust any proclamation made by the government (or the bankers and corporations that own the government), you are committing self-sabotage by directly playing into their diabolical hands.

I don’t share this to add to the gloom and doom. It’s not meant to cause anyone to lose hope. Rather, I find it incredibly empowering to gain and raise awareness. The better we each comprehend the tactics of evil, the better equipped we are to resist its lies and manipulation.

Let’s all start keeping our guard up…

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

Former U.S. President Donald Trump at the Trump National Golf Club on June 13, 2023, in Bedminster, N.J.

Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Donald Trump has nothing in common with Reality Winner. He also has nothing in common with Terry Albury or Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards.

Winner, Albury, and Edwards each performed a public service by leaking to the press while Trump was president. All three were later prosecuted by the Trump administration and went to prison for telling the truth to the American people.

But don’t confuse Trump’s actions in his classified documents case with what they did. He’s accused of stealing classified information and lying about it, apparently for his own selfish reasons. Public service was never on his mind when he ordered that boxes filled with classified documents be moved around Mar-a-Lago to hide them from the FBI.

After Trump was indicted last week, there were plenty of facile comparisons in the media between his case and those of others like Winner who have been targeted in leak prosecutions. But Winner, Albury, and Edwards were whistleblowers, not narcissists who wanted to hoard government secrets as if they were rare gold coins.

In 2017, Winner was working for a contractor for the National Security Agency when she anonymously mailed an NSA document to The Intercept. The document revealed that Russian intelligence had attempted to hack into U.S. voting systems during the 2016 election; The Intercept published an explosive story based on the document that Winner had provided. The disclosure was so important that a Senate Intelligence Committee report later concluded that the press played a critical role in warning state elections officials about the Russian attempts to hack voting systems. Before the leak to The Intercept, federal officials had done next to nothing to alert state officials to the Russian threat. The Senate report offered powerful evidence that Winner had performed a public service by providing the NSA document to The Intercept.   

Albury was an FBI agent who leaked secret FBI guidelines to The Intercept that served as the basis for a series of stories in 2017 revealing that the FBI could bypass its own rules in order to send undercover agents or informants into political and religious organizations, as well as schools, clubs, and businesses. Albury was motivated to disclose the information after he saw that the FBI’s investigative directives led to the profiling and intimidation of minority communities in Minnesota, where he was serving with the FBI, as well as elsewhere around the nation. Members of Minneapolis’s large Somali community later expressed gratitude to Albury for exposing the rules that gave the green light to their harassment.  

Edwards was a Treasury Department official who provided confidential documents to BuzzFeed News that revealed widespread money laundering in major Western banks. Before she was arrested in 2018, she provided thousands of “suspicious activity reports” that showed how financial institutions facilitate the work of terrorists, kleptocrats, and drug kingpins.

Despite the importance of the information all three revealed, Winner, Albury, and Edwards all went to prison during Trump’s presidency. That’s because there is no exception for public service in the laws concerning the mishandling, unauthorized retention, or the public disclosure of classified information. Under U.S. law, it doesn’t matter why someone disclosed classified documents. Motive makes no difference, even if the disclosures served the public good.

As a result, Winner, Albury, and Edwards were not able to argue in court that they shouldn’t go to prison for the crime of telling the truth. That’s one of the many reasons that becoming a whistleblower is such an act of courage. A whistleblower has to be willing to tell the truth to the American people while knowing that there will be no reward, only punishment.

Trump loved sending whistleblowers like Winner, Albury, and Edwards to prison and didn’t care that they had revealed important information that Americans had a right to know. Trump and his administration prosecuted more whistleblowers than any other president except the Obama administration. But Barack Obama had eight years in office to target whistleblowers, and Trump only had four. Who knows how many more leak prosecutions Trump will conduct if he gets back in the White House, but there is an excellent chance he will beat Obama’s record.

The stunning fact is that after gleefully sending so many whistleblowers to prison, Trump then stole classified documents on his way out of office and lied about it and hid them when the National Archives asked for them back. He kept hiding them from the Justice Department and the FBI once the matter turned into a criminal case. Trump simply didn’t think that the laws that he had applied so aggressively to others would apply to him. 

And so the great irony is the Espionage Act — the archaic and draconian law Trump used to target whistleblowers like Winner who provided classified information to the press — is now being used to target Trump himself. In recent years, press freedom organizations have called for either the reform or outright repeal of the Espionage Act, both because it comes with excessive penalties and provides for no opportunity for whistleblowers to argue that their disclosures are in the public interest. Reforming the law to allow for a public interest exception would help future whistleblowers who follow in the footsteps of Winner, Albury, and Edwards.

Yet that change would do nothing for Trump. He’s just a selfish thief.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by James Risen.

Pasta shelves are empty at a Save Mart supermarket during the pandemic in Porterville, Calif., in 2020.

Photo: Jeremy Hogan/Getty Images

U.S. economist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in economic sciences Joseph E. Stiglitz poses during a photo session in Paris on Sept. 15, 2022.

Photo: Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images

Corporate profiteering — i.e., companies using inflation as an excuse to raise prices faster than their costs — has also contributed to inflation.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Jon Schwarz.

Of the many lessons to be learned from this year’s midterms, in which Democrats defied historical trends to largely hold off a GOP wave, the New York Times‘ Jonathan Weisman and Katie Glueck  (11/14/22) singled out corporate media’s recurring favorite: Moderation won.

With the widespread losses suffered by extremist Republican candidates, it’s no surprise that journalists and pundits are reading lessons into that for the GOP. But in true Timesian fashion, Weisman and Glueck argued that it’s both extremes that voters rejected. “On the Right and Left, People Voted to Reject Extremists in Midterms,” announced the headline to their piece in the print edition.

‘Similar dynamic’

This New York Times article (11/14/22) started with a list of three “extreme candidates”—including Oregon’s Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who apparently made the list because she’s a “liberal Democrat.”

In a jarring lead, they laid out three examples of “extremism” losing: Adam Laxalt (running for Senate from Nevada) and Doug Mastriano (running for Pennsylvania governor), both GOP election deniers and abortion-rights opponents—and Jamie McLeod-Skinner, a Democratic House candidate in Oregon who was described by the local paper (Oregonian, 10/12/22) as someone whose “ability to target common objectives will be key for uniting constituents” in a diverse district.

Confused? Republicans, Weisman and Glueck went on,

received a sweeping rebuke from Americans who, for all the qualms polls show they have about Democratic governance, made clear they believe that the GOP has become unacceptably extreme.

But, they argued, “on a smaller scale, a similar dynamic could be discerned on the left,” where “Democratic primary voters chose more progressive nominees over moderates in a handful of House races,” and thereby lost seats “that could have helped preserve a narrow Democratic majority” in the House.

It’s a bizarre case of journalists prioritizing balance at all costs, which they can only achieve by not pointing to a single thing that might qualify the Democrats in question as “extremists.”

The piece described some of the actual extremism that voters apparently rejected on the right, including “embrace of Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election,” “a morass of conspiracy theories and far-right policy positions,” the “drive to ban abortions,” and “a drift away from fundamental rights and democracy itself”—not to mention “the bizarre claim, given credence by some Republican candidates, that children were going beyond gender and identifying as cats who needed litter boxes in classrooms.”

While most would accept that these are extremist positions, the reporters matched them on the left with mere labels (“from the liberal wing of their party,” an “ardent progressive”) and not a single policy position, statement or action. Apparently if you call a politician “progressive” at the Times, it’s meant to be understood that they’re extreme, with no further explanation required.

Who’s an ‘extremist’?

But let’s take a closer look at all of the “extremist” House Democratic candidates the Times offered as examples: McLeod-Skinner of Oregon, Michelle Vallejo of Texas and Christy Smith of California.

In her primary, McLeod-Skinner defeated incumbent Kurt Schrader, described by the Times as “moderate”—like “progressive,” a word not defined or substantiated by the reporters. How “moderate” is Schrader, exactly? After voting against the overwhelmingly popular American Rescue Plan, playing a key role in weakening the Democrats’ Build Back Better agenda, and calling the impeachment of Donald Trump for the January 6 insurrection a  “lynching,” Schrader lost the support of two-thirds of the Democratic county parties in his district, who accused him of voting in the interests of the industries that bankrolled him, not his constituents (Intercept, 3/24/22).

McLeod-Skinner herself ran with a populist approach and was embraced by progressives, but declined to accept the “progressive” label for herself (American Prospect, 11/7/22). In the Oregonian endorsement (10/12/22) noted above, the editors also wrote: “Her priorities are not partisan, but focused on people’s needs, she noted—rebuilding the economy, increasing the availability of housing and supporting working families.”

Christy Smith, one of the New York Times‘ Democratic “extreme candidates,” has now lost to an election-denying Trumpist three times; after her first loss, the American Prospect (5/18/20) noted that her “platform featured few of the progressive agenda items that excited voters.”

Christy Smith, perhaps the most baffling choice for the Times to include, is a former state assembly member characterized by the LA Times (5/16/22) as “a levelheaded centrist with years of relevant experience.” Smith’s district, long Republican, was won in 2018 by Democrat Katie Hill, who, running as a progressive, won by a 9-point margin (the kind of outcome that demonstrates the potential strength of a left-of-center platform even in a swing district). After Hill’s resignation, Smith lost the seat to her Republican opponent in a special election—running as what the American Prospect (5/18/20) described as a “safe centrist” with a “lack of motivating policy ambitions,” such as Hill’s support for Medicare for All. That the Times included Smith as an example of extremism run amok in the Democratic Party shows just how far it has to stretch to find balance in all things.

Smith won her primary against John Quaye Quartey, a former naval intelligence officer described by Weisberg and Glueck as what the veterans group VoteVets thought was a “dream candidate.” That “dream candidate,” a newcomer to both the area and politics, had the backing of some Washington Democrats, but netted just over 4,000 votes to Smith’s 34,000—which raises the questions of whose dreams such a candidate fulfills, and why the New York Times thinks he might have stood a better chance than Smith in the general election.

Michelle Vallejo, the sole example who did, in fact, embrace the progressive label, promoted as her top issues Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage, abortion rights and investments in green energy jobs.

While those sorts of issues tend to be branded by corporate media as “far left” or “extreme,” they are quite popular among Democratic voters, and often more broadly as well (FAIR.org, 5/18/18). By trying to tell a story of voters rejecting extremism on both left and right, the Times puts such things as threatening democracy, engaging in conspiracy theories and supporting draconian abortion laws on the same footing as  seeking adequate representation for local interests and rights—and suggests that both are the kinds of things the parties would do well to avoid.

Progressive scapegoats

The establishment Democrats who lost four seats in the New York Times‘ home state (The Nation, 11/15/22) did not figure into the paper’s analysis that the 2022 midterms were a victory for “moderation.”

The Times blamed these so-called progressive candidates for helping the party lose the House. But was it those Democrats’ policy positions that cost them their races? McLeod-Skinner, who refused to take corporate donations in her fight against a millionaire Republican, was abandoned by the national party and ended up being vastly outspent by her opponent (Intercept, 11/11/22)—yet still came within 3 percentage points of winning.

Vallejo was even more overwhelmingly outspent, and even more ignored by the national party, which focused its spending on defending the seat of the anti-abortion rights Democratic incumbent Henry Cuellar in the next district over (American Prospect, 10/28/22)—who, the Times crowed, “trounced” his own Republican opponent after narrowly escaping a primary challenge from progressive Jessica Cisneros.

And Smith? You guessed it, wildly outspent and left for dead by her party (Politico, 10/14/22).

Meanwhile, in perhaps the highest-profile win by a Democrat who defeated a more centrist primary opponent, John Fetterman (who bested centrist Conor Lamb in the primary) won his hard-fought Pennsylvania Senate race. The Times briefly noted Fetterman’s win as a counterexample and moved quickly on.

But of course left-of-center candidates weren’t the only ones to lose key House races for the Dems. In New York alone, the Democrats lost four House seats; none of the losing candidates were progressives. While court-ordered redistricting in New York left Democrats scrambling, it’s notable that the Times analysis didn’t mention the high-profile loss of New York representative, DCCC chair and quintessential “moderate” Sean Patrick Maloney.

After pushing out a progressive incumbent who had represented most of that district prior to redistricting, and defeating another popular progressive in the primary with the help of a 5-to-1 funding advantage and vicious attack ads (Intercept, 8/12/22), Maloney lost, despite the district voting for Biden in 2020 by more than 10 points, and despite the full backing—and funding—of the centrist wing of the party (Slate, 11/14/22).

What does Maloney’s loss say about voters’ “support for moderation”? Don’t ask Weisman and Glueck. Plenty of political observers had things to say about it (e.g., The Nation, 11/15/22), but the Times reporters only quoted centrist Democrats and organizations who supported their absurd argument.

ACTION:

Please tell the New York Times to explain how the Democrats cited in its November 14 piece qualify as “extremists.”

CONTACT:

Letters: letters@nytimes.com

Readers Center: Feedback

Twitter: @NYTimes

Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your communication in the comments thread.

The post ACTION ALERT: NYT Invents Left Extremists to Make ‘Moderation’ the Midterm Winner appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Julie Hollar.

Democratic governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Tim Walz of Minnesota, and Tony Evers of Wisconsin won reelection, beating three Trump-backed Republican candidates who campaigned on varying platforms and ideologies that would have derailed plans to decarbonize in all three states. Minnesota challenger Scott Jensen, for example, had proposed rolling back the state’s “clean cars” regulation, and Wisconsin challenger Tim Michels had deep ties to the oil and pipeline industries.

Addressing a crowd in downtown Madison, Wisconsin, Evers, a former public school superintendent with a penchant for vanilla ice cream, said “some people call it boring, but you know what, Wisconsin? As it turns out, boring wins.”

These races saw landmark funding from the candidates’ coffers, with over $33 million spent in Minnesota, $32 million in Michigan, and $115 million in Wisconsin, the most in state campaign history. In addition to their focus on climate, all three governors also campaigned on increasing access to abortions and reproductive health care, especially in Wisconsin, where abortion bans are being challenged by the current administration.

Without clean energy opposition in the statehouse, these governors will now have the opportunity to keep their states on course to achieve various deadlines. 

Wisconsin plans for all electricity consumed in the state to be 100 percent carbon-free by 2050 in accordance with an executive order Evers signed in 2019. Whitmer signed an executive order in 2020 to make the state’s entire economy carbon-neutral by 2050 and has been a staunch opponent of the Line 5 petroleum pipeline, which cuts across Upper Michigan, Wisconsin, and Great Lakes waters. Walz is behind various clean energy initiatives in Minnesota, such as a push for more electric vehicle sales in the state starting in 2024, and plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2025 and 80 percent by 2050.

And with the incumbents’ reelections, these states will be closer to clean energy deadlines with seemingly climate-friendly governors at the helm.

Walz has supported expanding solar panel manufacturing in partnership with the state legislature, which released $5.5 million in a bipartisan effort to expand a Northern Minnesota production facility, slated to be one of the biggest in the country. In Michigan, Whitmer has pushed for more electric vehicle and charging station production in an effort to maintain the state’s deep ties to the automotive industry. She recently announced $10.2 million in tax incentives and grants for EV manufacturing in Detroit.

Whitmer, Walz, and Evers will now also be able to determine what to do with the money coming to their states from the Inflation Reduction Act, the country’s “most significant” climate bill in United States history. The bill contains funding for low-carbon energy sources, as well as investments in a clean economy and manufacturing.

Holly Burke, a spokesperson for climate change advocacy group Evergreen Action, said that the results in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan are a clear indicator that governors that lead on climate policies are popular candidates and they should take tonight’s results as a mandate from voters to pursue stronger environmental and clean energy standards. 

“In one of the most competitive swing states in America, Governor Evers didn’t run from climate action—he leaned into it,” Burke said in a statement. “This election shows that climate leadership is a political winner in Wisconsin.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline For Midwest governors, climate leadership proves a ‘political winner’ on Nov 9, 2022.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by John McCracken.

Award-winning University of the South Pacific student journalist Sera Tikotikoivatu-Sefeti says Pacific voices on the climate fight need to be amplified for big nations to notice and be accountable for their actions.

The final-year student recently won the top prize in the tertiary level journalism students category at the 2022 Vision Pasifika Media Award with her two submissions on the environmental impacts of Tonga’s volcanic eruption on villagers of Moce Island in Fiji, and declining fish populations on the livelihoods of Fijian fishermen in Suva.

Tikotikoivatu-Sefeti said she was “beyond humbled” to receive the award and expressed her gratitude to God for the opportunity to amplify Pacific voices on climate change.

• READ MORE: Other environmental journalism reports
• Bearing Witness: A Pacific climate crisis documentary and journalism development project — David Robie and Jim Marbrook

Originally from Dravuni village on beautiful Kadavu island, Tikotikoivatu-Sefeti said Pacific Island countries contributed the least towards climate change and global carbon emissions — but were the most affected.

“We are known to have a close relationship to the land and sea. To have that severely affected by big world countries whose activities are a big cause of this is unacceptable,” said the student editor of Wansolwara, USP Journalism’s award-winning print and online publication.

“I am passionate about environmental issues and human interest stories. I believe the Pacific stories should be ‘heard’ and ‘told’ from the Pacific Islanders’ perspective and words as it is a crisis they live by and survive every day.

“In Fiji, there aren’t enough journalists covering stories of the environment and how it’s affecting the people. I understand it can be a resource constraint and financially limited area.

Filling the gap
“I want to fill that gap in the industry and be able to do something I’m passionate about because it’s incredibly important to tell our people’s story.”

Tikotikoivatu-Sefeti dedicated her award to her family, USP Journalism students, staff, peers and indigenous women.

“So many times, we limit ourselves to what others perceive us, and it will take you to step out of your comfort zone to be able to experience your full capabilities,” said Tikotikoivatu-Sefeti, who was also a recipient of the EJN story grant for indigenous reporting.

She was recently one of the first recipients of the Native American Journalists Association and the Asian American Journalists Association (NAJA-AAJA) Pacific Islander Journalism Scholarship.

The Pacific Regional Environmental Programme’s (SPREP) acting communications and outreach adviser, Nanette Woonton, reaffirmed that SPREP recognised the critical role of all media in disseminating public information, education and influencing behaviour for the better.

“At the secretariat, we are excited to be able to offer the opportunity through these awards to honour and recognise the hard work by our media colleagues in protecting our people and the environment,” she said.

Vision Pasifika Media Award
The 2022 Vision Pasifika Media Award was facilitated through a collaboration between the SPREP, Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), Internews Earth Journalism Network (EJN), and the Pacific Environment Journalists Network (PEJN), with financial support from Aotearoa New Zealand.

The award comprised five categories — television news, radio production, online content, print media, and tertiary-level journalism students.

• Other category winners were: Fabian Randerath (television news), Jeremy Gwao (online content) and Moffat Mamu (print). Randerath was also named the overall winner for his story “Rising Tides – Precious Lives” on Fiji Broadcasting Corporation (FBC).

Akansha Narayan is a final-year student journalist at USP’s Laucala campus, Suva. USP and Wansolwara collaborate on Pacific stories, and for several years USP and the AUT’s Pacific Media Centre collaborated on a joint Bearing Witness climate journalism project.

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

“CPJ categorically condemns the transfer of journalist Pham Doan Trang to a detention facility far removed from her family,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Vietnam has a nasty habit of moving jailed journalists far away from their families, lawyers, and colleagues to prevent regular prison visits and stifle communication of their treatment and health. This abusive practice must stop now.”

On October 1, Trang was transferred from Hoa Lo Detention Center in the capital Hanoi to An Phuoc Prison, over 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) away in the south of the country, according to a report by The Vietnamese, an independent news publication that Trang co-founded. The report noted that Vietnamese authorities often order such transfers as an “extra form of punishment.”

Trang, who will be honored with CPJ’s 2022 International Press Freedom Award in New York on November 17, 2022, is serving a nine-year sentence for distributing propaganda against the state, a criminal offense under Article 117 of Vietnam’s penal code.

Vietnam ranked as the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 23 members of the press held behind bars for their work, according to CPJ’s December 1, 2021, prison census.  

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

“All this which we have observed in Ukraine is the result of total impunity, which Russia enjoyed for decades.”

“This war is not between two countries, but between two systems: between authoritarianism and democracy.”

“What is still lacking in the 21st century is an effective mechanism to bring perpetrators to justice.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Alice Speri.

“Vietnamese authorities should not contest journalist Pham Doan Trang’s appeal of her nine-year prison sentence handed last December and release her without terms or conditions that would affect her ability to work as a journalist,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “The sooner Vietnam releases all of the journalists it wrongfully holds behind bars, the sooner it will be taken seriously as a responsible global actor.”

The appeals trial will be open to the public and is expected to take place at 8 a.m. on August 25 at the high court’s Cau Giay district headquarters, according to a report by The Vietnamese, an independent publication where Trang is a founding editor.

On December 14, 2021, Trang was sentenced to nine years in prison for distributing anti-state propaganda, a criminal offense under Article 117 of Vietnam’s penal code, CPJ reported at the time. She was convicted in a one-day trial after being held in pretrial detention since October 20, 2020.

Trang will be honored with CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award in New York City on November 17, 2022, in recognition of her courage in reporting in the face of persecution at a benefit dinner.

Vietnam ranked as the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 23 members of the press held behind bars for their work, according to CPJ’s 2021 prison census.  

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

Trang, who co-founded Liberal Publishing House without registering with the Vietnamese government, is serving a nine-year sentence for “spreading propaganda against the state.” Prior to her arrest in October 2020, Trang worked to promote freedom of the press in Vietnam, despite strict controls in the one-party communist state. Authorities held her incommunicado for more than a year before she was convicted during a one-day trial in December 2021.

“Our award winners exemplify the best of journalism: work that shines a light on the impacts of war, corruption, and abuse of power on everyday lives,” said CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg in a statement issued Thursday. “We look forward to honoring these inspirational journalists, who demonstrate the central role journalism plays in serving the public good.”

Before her arrest, Trang specialized in human rights reporting and co-founded the independent online legal magazine Luat Khoa. She also wrote for the independent English-language website The Vietnamese and reported for the exile-run Danlambao blog.

In June, Trang received the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. Her mother, Bui Thi Thien Can, accepted the award during a ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, on her behalf.

Trang faced repression by the government for many years until authorities decided to jail her on a bogus verdict, said CPJ Senior Southeast Asia Representative Shawn Crispin, who is based in Bangkok, Thailand.

“Above all, Trang is a journalist and at the same time she is an active activist [seeking] to protect and to advance free press in Vietnam,” he told RFA.

Part of the reason to award Trang the prize is to draw attention to Vietnam and to use her case to call attention to the risks that journalists face there, he said.

“And that is that the number of jailed journalists in the country is abnormally high,” Crispin added.

CPJ has observed and collaborated with Trang on her advocacy for press freedom in Vietnam, Crispin said.

The group has regularly named Vietnam one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists in its annual list of imprisoned reporters and editors worldwide. CPJ documented at least 23 members of the media behind bars in Vietnam in 2021.

“The prize is once again to affirm the recognition of the international community of Doan Trang’s efforts for the development of independent media and democratization in Vietnam as well,” said Trinh Huu Long, editor-in-chief of Luat Khoa.

The Vietnamese Communist Party and the government should view freedom of the press as a precondition to address reform and governance to advance the nation’s development, she said.

“They must view independent journalists, free journalists, as partners in the course of building the nation, and not see them as enemies anymore,” Long said.

The other three award-winners are Niyaz Abdullah, a prominent Iraqi Kurdistan freelance journalist; Abraham Jiménez Enoa, a freelance Cuban journalist and co-founder of the online narrative journalism magazine El Estornudo; and Sevgil Musaieva, editor-in-chief of Ukrainska Pravda, Ukraine’s leading independent online newspaper.

“All four have withstood immense challenges, including government crackdowns, aggression and imprisonment to bring the public independent reporting amid rampant disinformation and war,” the statement said.

Galina Timchenko, chief executive officer and editor of the independent Russian news website Meduza based in Riga, Latvia, will receive this year’s Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award, the CPJ said.

The award ceremony will be held on Nov. 17 in New York.

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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

We speak with Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature, which recognized his “uncompromising and compassionate” writing about colonialism and the refugee experience. He is the first Black writer to win the award since Toni Morrison almost 30 years ago and the first Black African writer to win the prize since 1986. Gurnah discusses his work, which explores displacement, migration and “historical moments that create us.” His latest novel is titled “Afterlives” and will be published in the United States in August 2022.

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

"Yes, even a 'small' nuclear bomb would be that bad."

ICAN executive director Beatrice Fihn's remarks came in a Twitter thread amid Russia's ongoing assault on Ukraine, which has heightened concerns over both the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, which include lower-yield bombs.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's order last month putting his country's nuclear forces on "special alert" added to such fears. A New York Times story this week headlined "The Smaller Bombs That Could Turn Ukraine Into a Nuclear War Zone" also put further focus on how tactical nukes "can feed the illusion of atomic control when in fact their use can suddenly flare into a full-blown nuclear war."

In her post, Fihn took aim at those suggesting that "the use tactical nuclear weapons wouldn't be THAT bad," writing that "today's nuclear weapons are so incredibly large and dangerous that we have a really distorted idea of what a small nuclear weapon is."

"Russian tactical nuclear weapons have an estimated yield of between 10 to 100 kt [kilotons]. Sounds small?" she wrote. "Well, the bomb over Hiroshima was 15kt and it killed 140,000 people by the end of 1945."

Fihn pointed to both the immediate and lasting devastation that resulted from U.S. bombing of Hiroshima, including destroying roughly 70% of all the buildings in the Japanese city and the increase in cancer and miscarriage rates for survivors.

"So yes, even a 'small' nuclear bomb would be that bad," she wrote, and "this is without even going into how it can trigger full scale nuclear war."

Commentators who suggest otherwise, Fihn argued, "are so committed and attached to weapons of mass destruction that they [would] rather convince their own people to be OK with nuclear war than dare to ask the nuclear armed states to disarm."

"They'd literally... rather accept that some people will die from a flaming fireball of 4,000°C or through radioactive rain than have the guts to even say out loud that Russia, the U.S., and China should disarm," she continued. "I can't think of anything more pathetic and cowardly really."

Other disarmament advocates have similarly expressed recent concern about the potential use of nuclear weapons, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which reiterated the need for a ban on atomic wapons.

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"We cannot allow a repetition of this dark part of our past," said Helen Durham, ICRC's director of law and policy, referencing the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in a statement earlier this month. 

"Seldom have collective action and concrete, meaningful steps to free the world of the dark shadow of nuclear weapons been more urgent," she said.

ICAN, a global coalition of non-governmental organizations, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for its anti-nuclear efforts including work achieving a treaty prohibiting such weapons.

Accepting the prize that year, Fihn said that "we have avoided nuclear war not through prudent leadership but good fortune. Sooner or later, if we fail to act, our luck will run out."

The abolishment of nuclear weapons, she added, "is in our hands."

"The end is inevitable," said Fihn. "But will that end be the end of nuclear weapons or the end of us? We must choose one."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Andrea Germanos.