for – Radio Free

For Media, Trying to Help Gazans Survive Turns Heroes Into Zeroes

Jim Naureckas — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 22:32:26 +0000

“What Will Chris Smalls Do Next?” asked New York (7/16/22). Apparently it didn’t like the answer.

US media know who Chris Smalls is.

The New York Times (4/6/22) ran a profile: “Christian Smalls Is Leading a Labor Movement in Sweats and Sneakers.”
New York (7/18/22) put him on its cover, saying, “Chris Smalls Did the Impossible: Organize an Amazon Warehouse.”
“He Was Fired by Amazon Two Years Ago,” an NPR report (4/2/22) declared. “Now He’s the Force Behind the Company’s First Union.”
“He Came Out of Nowhere and Humbled Amazon,” read a Time headline (4/25/22). “Is Chris Smalls the Future of Labor?”

Last week, Smalls took on another Goliath. As part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, he tried to deliver life-saving aid—including food and baby formula—to the people of Gaza, who are suffering from a severe famine deliberately engineered by the Israeli government.

The Handala, the ship carrying the aid, was illegally seized in international waters by Israel’s military, and Smalls was singled out for violence, choked and kicked by Israeli soldiers, apparently because he’s Black. Past attempts to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza have been dealt with even more harshly by Israel: In 2010, 57 activists aboard the aid ship Mavi Marmara were shot—nine of them killed—on their way to Gaza (Guardian, 6/4/10).

A near-complete blackout

The IDF targeting the one Black man on the aid ship is sadly unsurprising,” noted the New Republic (7/29/25), “as is the lack of uproar from US politicians and large media outlets.”

A popular political figure dramatically assaulted trying to save lives: Sounds like a newsworthy story, doesn’t it? But Smalls’ mission, his brutal detention and his subsequent release got next to no coverage in US corporate media.

He was covered in the British Guardian (“US Labor Activist Chris Smalls Assaulted by IDF During Gaza Aid Trip, Group Says,” 7/31/25). He was covered in progressive US outlets like Common Dreams (6/26/25), the New Republic (7/29/25) and Democracy Now! (7/31/25).

He was covered by outlets with a Black or Mideastern focus (Grio, 7/29/25; Black Enterprise, 7/30/25; Ebony, 7/31/25; Middle East Eye, 7/29/25; Middle East Monitor, 7/30/25).

But as independent labor reporter Mike Elk (Payday Report, 7/29/25) pointed out:

Despite Smalls having been profiled by every major media outlet in the US when he successfully led the union drive at Amazon, not a single major media outlet has covered his violent detention by the IDF.

In fact, the only news report we could find in a general-interest US news outlet was from Smalls’ hometown paper, the Staten Island Advance (7/29/25), which reported that a “Staten Island Labor Leader Was Reportedly Detained in Israel After Gaza-Bound Aid Vessel Was Intercepted.”

Regular readers may recall a similar news blackout, not quite as absolute, when Greta Thunberg, probably the most famous climate activist in the world, was blocked by Israel from delivering aid to Gaza on another Freedom Flotilla ship (FAIR.org, 6/5/25).

Characters that corporate media once found fascinating, risking their lives to save innocents: It would be hard to make up a story with more dramatic potential. Yet corporate media knew that these were stories to steer clear of—almost unanimously, in Smalls’ case.

The only thing worse than war crimes

“The government…recently accused Harvard of civil rights violations,” the New York Times (7/28/25) reported—without explaining that this mean allowing anti-genocide protests to make pro-Israel students feel uncomfortable.

The reason, of course, is the corporate media’s longstanding bias toward Israel—something FAIR (e.g., 8/22/23; Extra!, 11–12/93, 1–2/01, 9/14) has been documenting for decades. But it’s still puzzling; obviously, not every negative story about Israel gets killed. US media have even begun to gingerly acknowledge that Gaza is on the brink of mass starvation—with varying degrees of admission of Israel’s responsibility for this (FAIR.org, 7/29/25).

But even as media admit that Palestinian children are dying for lack of food, people who risk their lives to try to feed them aren’t treated as heroes—or even as curiosities. It’s as if, however bad Israel’s actions are, trying to stop or counteract them is somehow worse—even shameful, something to avert one’s eyes from.

It’s the only way to make sense of the continuing debate over academia’s response to the pro-Palestine protests that roiled campuses in 2024. The New York Times (7/28/25) recently reported:

Harvard University has signaled a willingness to meet the Trump administration’s demand to spend as much as $500 million to end its dispute with the White House…more than twice as much as the $200 million fine that Columbia University said it would pay when it settled antisemitism claims with the White House last week.

The “antisemitism claims” referred to here amount to accusations that these and other colleges did not do enough to squelch the protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza—which has since been identified as a genocide by prominent human rights groups like Amnesty International (12/5/24), Human Rights Watch (12/19/24) and B’Tselem (7/28/25).

Where is the debate over whether universities went too far in suppressing the free speech rights of students who were opposed to genocide? That seems like a discussion we’re never going to have. Apparently the only thing worse than crimes against humanity is trying to stop them.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Jim Naureckas.

He’s worked in the US for 30 years—then masked ICE agents beat and kidnapped him in broad daylight

Maximillian Alvarez — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 22:20:45 +0000

Narciso Barranco, an undocumented father of three Marines, has lived and worked in the US for over 30 years. On June 21, Barranco was doing landscaping work at an IHOP in Santa Ana, CA, when he was suddenly swarmed by a group of armed, masked, unidentified Customs and Border Patrol agents who chased him down, brutally beat him in the middle of a busy intersection, and kidnapped him in broad daylight. “I believe he was racially profiled,” Alejandro Barranco, one of Narciso Barranco’s sons, tells TRNN. “My dad has never done anything wrong. They had no warrant for him.” In this on-the-ground report, TRNN editor-in-chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Alejandro Barranco at the IHOP where his father was abducted about the cruel, terrifying reality of the Trump administration’s immigration raids.

Speakers:

Alejandro Barranco is the eldest son of Narciso Barranco. He served in the Marines from 2019 to 2023
Jose Francisco Negrete is a resident of Anaheim, CA, a rank-and-file Teamster, and a member of Labor for Palestine and Teamsters Mobilize
We spoke with a number of undocumented day laborers near the site where Narciso Barranco was abudcted, including one eyewitness to Barranco’s abduction. To ensure their safety, we have kept their identities anonymous.

Additional resources:

Mona Darwish, Orange County Register, “‘I feel betrayed,’ US Marine says of seeing his father punched by federal immigration agent”
Mona Darwish, Orange County Register, “OC father of 3 US Marines released from immigration detention center after multiple days of delay”
Vera Institute of Justice, “Profile of immigrants in Santa Ana, California”
NBC-LA, “Watch: Undocumented father of 3 US Marines speaks out”

Credits:

Pre-Production: Maximillian Alvarez
Studio Production / Post Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

"Let Gaza Live": 50 Jewish Activists Arrested Protesting Schumer & Gillibrand for Arming Israel

Democracy Now! — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 21:36:08 +0000

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

Sing something good to me ☮️💛🎶 #manuchao #reggae #music

Playing For Change — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 19:00:12 +0000

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

UK’s Starmer and Lammy Prepare Ground for Dubious “Peace Plan”

Stuart Littlewood — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 14:58:46 +0000

Public opinion and party pressure have forced Sir Keir Starmer and David Lammy to speak warm words about Palestinian statehood. But these guys are a Zionist double-act and will do the Palestinians no favours if they can help it.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, addressing the UN Conference on The Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, said it was “660 days since the Israeli hostages were first cruelly taken by Hamas terrorists. There is no possible justification for this suffering.” Lammy had spent most of that time deliberately misinterpreting the Genocide Convention and insisting that no genocide was being committed.

“Our support for Israel, its right to exist and the security of its people is steadfast,” he said. Considering Israel’s massacres and other crimes against humanity since the first day of its statehood in 1948 this frequently repeated statement has never convinced anyone.

“However, the Balfour declaration came with the solemn promise ‘that nothing shall be done, nothing which may prejudice the civil and religious rights’ of the Palestinian people’…. This has not been upheld and it is a historical injustice which continues to unfold.” True, but he misquotes Balfour even here. That part of the declaration actually reads: “… it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine….”

The Balfour declaration also came with dire warnings. Lord Edwin Montagu, the only Jew in the Cabinet at the time, called Zionism “a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom”. Lord Sydenham remarked: “What we have done, by concessions not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, is to start a running sore in the East, and no-one can tell how far that sore will extend.”

Well, we know now. And it will stain Britain’s reputation forever.

Lammy continued: “Hamas must never be rewarded for its monstrous attack on October 7.” Of course, he said nothing about Israel having been continuously rewarded for its monstrous attacks on Palestinians over the last 77 years and will likely be rewarded again for its genocide.

“It [Hamas] must immediately release the hostages, agree to an immediate ceasefire, accept it will have no role in governing Gaza and commit to disarmament.” Coincidentally Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have also called on Hamas to disband. Along with a number of other countries they’ve just signed a statement saying, “Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, with international engagement and support, in line with the objective of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State.” Quite how this squares with international law isn’t clear, and no-one explains. It is for the Palestinian people to decide who governs their sovereign state.

Lammy: “His Majesty’s Government therefore intends to recognise the State of Palestine when the UN General Assembly gathers in September…. unless the Israeli government acts to end the appalling situation in Gaza, ends its military campaign and commits to a long-term sustainable peace based on a two-state solution. Our demands on Hamas also remain absolute and unwavering.” So what happens if Israel actually complies, or appears to comply? Does HMG then see no reason to recognise statehood? That would suit Israel very well. Note that there’s no requirement in all this for Israel to immediately end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, which is central to the whole problem. So the Starmer-Lammy proposal purposely misses the point.

Lammy maintains “there is no better vision for the future of the region than two states. Israelis living within secure borders, recognised and at peace with their neighbours, free from the threat of terrorism. And Palestinians living in their own state, in dignity and security, free of occupation.” Just a minute: how about Palestinians, whose land this is, “living within secure borders, free from the threat of Israeli terrorism and occupation”, the terrorists being (as if he didn’t know) the Israelis and their backers the US? Furthermore, UK leaders have banged the drum about a two-state solution for decades without ever describing what it would look like – especially now that Israel has been allowed to establish irreversible ‘facts on the ground’ that make a proper, workable Palestinian state almost impossible.

“The decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians cannot be managed or contained,” he says. True, and that’s been obvious for decades.

“It must now be resolved.” True, and that too has been obvious for decades.

That same day, 29 July, Prime Minister Starmer was delivering “words on Gaza” from Downing Street.

“On the 7th of October 2023 Hamas perpetrated the worst massacre in Israel’s history. Every day since then, the horror has continued.” He makes it sound like the 660 days of horror have been Hamas’s doing.

“Ceasefire must be sustainable and it must lead to a wider peace plan, which we are developing with our international partners. This plan will deliver security and proper governance in Gaza and pave the way for negotiations on a Two State Solution”. Yes, but under international law Palestinians should not have to ‘negotiate’ their freedom and independence, it’s theirs by right regardless of what other nations think or say.

“Our goal remains a safe and secure Israel, alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.” Oh dear, the same old lopsided spiel. Parity isn’t on the West’s agenda.

“Now, in Gaza because of a catastrophic failure of aid, we see starving babies, children too weak to stand: Images that will stay with us for a lifetime.” The horror is not due to “a catastrophic failure of aid” but failure over the years to end Israel’s illegal occupation and, in particular, its cruel 18-year siege and blockade of Gaza and the sickening practice of ‘mowing the grass’. The UK especially has been complicit in enabling Israel to maintain its stranglehold.

Starmer: “I’ve always said we will recognise a Palestinian state as a contribution to a proper peace process, at the moment of maximum impact for the Two State Solution.” UK governments have been saying that for years. Britain was supposed to grant Palestinians provisional statehood under its Mandate responsibilities back in 1923 and failed to do so. We’ve been ducking the issue ever since while eagerly recognising Israeli statehood with their terrorist militia and Ben-Gurion’s plan to take over the entire Holy Land by force.

“This is the moment to act,” Starmer continued. “So today – as part of this process towards peace I can confirm the UK will recognise the state of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly in September unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and commit to a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a Two State Solution. And this includes allowing the UN to restart the supply of aid, and making clear there will be no annexations in the West Bank.” This is unbelievable vague and gives Israel endless wriggle-room. Much of the West Bank, of course, is already annexed. To give peace any kind of chance conditions must include Israel withdrawing its squatters, quitting all annexed lands and ending its illegal military occupation forthwith.

Starmer ends with the familiar mantra: “Our message to the terrorists of Hamas is unchanged and unequivocal. They must immediately release all the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, disarm and accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza.” No mention of the Israeli terrorists disarming and no ban on Likud (Netanyahu’s demented party) from any future government of Israel.

Starmer and Lammy never use the terms ‘international law’ or ‘justice’. Don’t they understand that there can be no peace without justice? Perhaps they do but won’t admit it because their friends and allies Israel and the US, for selfish strategic reasons, don’t want peace and never have.

Starmer and Lammy compromised and untrustworthy

Starmer told The Times of Israel, “I support Zionism without qualification”. Lammy has made similar declarations. The Ministerial Code and Principles of Public Life state very clearly (seer ‘Integrity’): “Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties.” How do they get away with it?

So it’s hardly surprising that Lammy and Starmer show no concern for the 7,200 Palestinian hostages, including 88 women and 250 children, held in Israeli jails on 7 October under appalling conditions. Over 1,200 were under ‘administrative detention’ without charge or trial and denied ‘due process’. Or the fact that in the 23 years up to October 7 Israel had been slaughtering Palestinians at the rate of 8:1 and children at the rate of 16:1. Actual figures: Palestinians killed by Israelis 10,651 including 2,270 children and 6,656 women. Israelis killed by Palestinians 1,330 including 145 children and 261 women (source: Israel’s B’Tselem). Were they and their friends in Israel expecting Palestinians to take all that lying down?

Our dynamic duo were not so appalled by the sight of “starving babies and children too weak to stand” that they provided protection for the British-flagged aid vessel Madleen and the Handala bringing much-needed supplies to Gaza. They allowed these vessels to be hijacked in international waters, their cargo stolen and crews abducted by Israel’s thugs, just as the Mavi Marmara, the Al-Awda and other mercy ships had been similarly assaulted. Israeli piracy is the new normal in the eastern Mediterranean and Western nations don’t give a damn. The British government are more than happy, though, to instruct the RAF to fly surveillance missions over Gaza in support of Israel’s genocide programme and to continue sharing intelligence with the apartheid regime.

And if their concerns about the suffering and devastation were ever genuine, why didn’t they proposed forming a UN multi-nation intervention force to take over the Gaza crossings to ensure aid gets through as it should? They have now been shamed and their ‘no genocide’ stance utterly discredited by two of Israel’s own human rights organisations – B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights – who declare that Israel is indeed committing genocide in Gaza and its Western allies have a legal and moral duty to put a stop to it. B’Tselem’s summing-up of the situation is worth sharing:

Since October 2023, Israel has shifted its policy toward the Palestinians. Its military onslaught on Gaza, underway for more than 21 months, has included mass killing, both directly and through creating unlivable conditions, serious bodily or mental harm to an entire population, decimation of basic infrastructure throughout the Strip, and forcible displacement on a huge scale, with ethnic cleansing added to the list of official war objectives.

This is compounded by mass arrests and abuse of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, which have effectively become torture camps, and tearing apart the social fabric of Gaza, including the destruction of Palestinian educational and cultural institutions. The campaign is also an assault on Palestinian identity itself, through the deliberate destruction of refugee camps and attempts to undermine the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

An examination of Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. In other words: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The term genocide refers to a socio-historical and political phenomenon involving acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Both morally and legally, genocide cannot be justified under any circumstance, including as an act of self-defense.

Genocide always occurs within a context: there are conditions that enable it, triggering events, and a guiding ideology. The current onslaught on the Palestinian people, including in the Gaza Strip, must be understood in the context of more than seventy years in which Israel has imposed a violent and discriminatory regime on the Palestinians, taking its most extreme form against those living in the Gaza Strip. Since the State of Israel was established, the apartheid and occupation regime has institutionalized and systematically employed mechanisms of violent control, demographic engineering, discrimination, and fragmentation of the Palestinian collective. These foundations laid by the regime are what made it possible to launch a genocidal attack on the Palestinians immediately after the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023.

The assault on Palestinians in Gaza cannot be separated from the escalating violence being inflicted, at varying levels and in different forms, on Palestinians living under Israeli rule in the West Bank and within Israel. The violence and destruction in these areas is intensifying over time, with no effective domestic or international mechanism acting to halt them. We warn of the clear and present danger that the genocide will not remain confined to the Gaza Strip, and that the actions and underlying mindset driving it may be extended to other areas as well.

The recognition that the Israeli regime is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, and the deep concern that it may expand to other areas where Palestinians live under Israeli rule, demand urgent and unequivocal action from both Israeli society and the international community, and use of every means available under international law to stop Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.

The post UK’s Starmer and Lammy Prepare Ground for Dubious “Peace Plan” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stuart Littlewood.

Mayor Karen Bass’s advice for the NEXT MAYOR #CA #WildFires #losangeles #ViceNews #sshq

VICE News — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 13:00:05 +0000

This content originally appeared on VICE News and was authored by VICE News.

“Hard to Breathe”: Mother-and-Daughter Activists from “Cancer Alley” Call for Fossil Fuel Divestment

Democracy Now! — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 12:34:45 +0000

We’re joined by a mother-daughter duo from Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” Roishetta and Kamea Ozane are part of a group of environmental activists on a national tour to confront the financial backers of destructive natural gas projects that have devastated their community. The “Toxic Billionaire Tour” is targeting the offices of major banks and the homes of executives, who “sit here in New York and in offices in D.C. [and] make decisions for our community, decisions that are killing our children, decisions that are harming our air, our water and our life.” Roishetta Ozane is the founder and director of environmental justice organization The Vessel Project. Her 12-year-old daughter Kamea, like many residents of “Cancer Alley,” lives with asthma that is exacerbated by the polluted air and water around her home. “Right as soon as you walk outside of my house, if you look over, you can see the industries from right outside of my front yard, and from the industries you can see the bulging fires, and you can smell this really toxic air.”

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

Headlines for August 1, 2025

Democracy Now! — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 12:00:00 +0000

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

“Let Gaza Live”: 50 Jewish Peace Activists Arrested Protesting Sens. Schumer, Gillibrand for Vote to Keep Arming Israel

Democracy Now! — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 12:00:00 +0000

Some 200 activists with Jewish Voice for Peace protested at the Manhattan offices of New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand on Friday to denounce their votes against halting arms shipments to Israel. Banging pots and pans to highlight Israel’s starvation of Palestinians, the activists chanted “Stop starving Gaza!” and “Never again for anyone!” JVP says 50 Jewish New Yorkers were arrested by police. Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman and Charina Nadura covered the protest. Earlier this week, the Senate voted 70-27 against a measure introduced by Vermont’s Bernie Sanders to block $675 million in additional U.S. arms sales to Israel. Both Schumer and Gillibrand voted no. At least 159 Palestinians in Gaza have starved to death amid Israel’s ongoing siege blocking most humanitarian aid from entering the territory.

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

Roch Wamytan: Paris political agreement for New Caledonia ‘not enough’ for Kanaks

APR editor — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 06:41:55 +0000

By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific presenter/bulletin editor

A former New Caledonia Congress president says there are “not enough” benefits for Kanaks in a new “draft” agreement he signed alongside pro and anti-independence stakeholders in France last month.

Roch Wamytan said that, after 10 days of deadlock discussions in Paris, he failed to secure the pro-independence mandate.

He told RNZ Pacific that he refused to sign a “final agreement”.

Instead, he said, he opted for a “draft” agreement, which is what he signed. It has been hailed as “historic” by all parties involved.

While France maintains its “neutrality”, Wamytan said that at the negotiating table it was two (France and New Caledonia’s pro-France bloc) against one (pro-Kanaky).

A main point of tension was the electoral law changes, which sparked last year’s civil unrest.

“We call on France to respect the provisions of international law, which remains our main protective shield until the process of decolonisation and emancipation is completed. Hence, our incessant interventions during negotiations on this subject [electoral law changes],” Wamytan told RNZ Pacific.

He said it was difficult to understand whether France wanted to decolonise New Caledonia or not.

Concrete measures
“We have a lot of concrete measures in this proposed agreement, but the main question is a political question. Where are you [France] going with this? Independence or integration with France?”

The document, signed in the city of Bougival, involves a series of measures and recognition by France of New Caledonia as a “State” as well as dual citizenship — French and New Caledonian — provided future New Caledonian citizens are French nationals in the first place.

But this week, New Caledonia’s oldest pro-independence party, the Union Calédonienne (UC), officially rejected the political agreement signed in Paris.

Wamytan maintains New Caledonia is not France. But the French ambassador to the Pacific has previously told RNZ Pacific New Caledonia is France.

However, Sonia Backès, the leader of the Caledonian Republicans Party and the president of the Provincial Assembly of Southern Province, says the agreement signed in France is “final”.

“Roch Wamytan and the pro-independence delegation signed an agreement in Bougival. Since their return to New Caledonia, their political supports have been fiercely critical of the agreement,” her office said via a statement.

“As a result, radical pro-independence leaders like Roch Wamytan have chosen to renege on their commitment and withdraw their signature. This agreement is final; there is no other viable political balance outside of it.”

So why did Wamytan sign?
When asked why he signed the draft agreement when he did not agree with it, he said: “After the 10 days they obliged us to sign something.”

“We told them that we [didn’t have] the mandate of our parties to sign an agreement, but only a ‘project’ or ‘draft’.

“It was important for us to return with a paper and to show, to explain, to present, to debate, for the debate of our political party. This is the stage where we are at now, but for the moment, we do not agree with that.

“We [tried] to explain to [France and pro-France bloc] that we have a problem [with electoral law change being included].

“This is our problem. So we signed only for one reason . . . that we have to return back home and to explain where we are now, after 10 days of negotiation. [Did we] achieve the objectives, the mandate given by our political parties?”

He said one thing he wanted to make clear was that what he had signed was not definitive and was now up for negotiation.

An FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) Congress meeting is set down for this weekend with the Union Calédonienne Congress meeting held a weekend prior.

Wamytan said that it was now up to the FLNKS members to have their say and decide where to next.

“They will decide if we accept this draft agreement or we reject,” he said.

“We have two options: we accept with certain conditions, for example, on the question of the right to vote on the electoral rule. Or for the question of the trajectory from here to independence, through a referendum or the framework proposed by President Macron.”

“This is an important element to discuss with France, but after this round of discussions.”

He expected further meetings with France after community consultations.

Communication problem
Wamytan admitted that the pro-independence negotiators did not communicate clearly about the agreement to their supporters.

He said after signing the document, President Macron and the pro-France signatories were quick to communicate to the media and their supporters — and the messages filtered to his supporters resulting in anger and frustrations.

He said the anger has mostly been around the signing itself, with people mistaking the draft proposal as final.

“The political, pro-Kanaky party were very, very, very angry against us. We did not communicate and this I think is our problem.”

Bribery allegations
Wamytan has also dismissed unconfirmed reports that negotiators were bribed to sign a historic deal in Paris.

He said he was aware of people “chucking accusations of bribery” around, but said they were false.

“It has never been in the minds of Kanak independence leaders doing such practices,” he said.

“After the signature of the Matignon Accord 37 years ago, with [FLNKS leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou] and with us after the signature of Nouméa accord in 1998, we heard about the same allegation and some rumours like this.”

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.

‘Glorious’ sisters showcase Auckland’s Polynesian experiences for tourists

APR editor — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 02:35:41 +0000

By Torika Tokalau, Local Democracy Reporter

The sisters running Auckland’s first authentic Polynesian show for tourists say it’s not just for visitors, but also to help uplift Pacific people.

Louisa Tipene Opetaia and Ama Mosese’s Glorious Tours was pooled as one of 10 new “Treasures of Tāmaki Makaurau”: a go-to guide by Tātaki Auckland Unlimited (TAU) for local Māori tourism.

Their tour tells the story of how Auckland became the biggest Polynesian city in the world, and often starts with a drop in at a Pacific or Māori-owned cafe, a guided hīkoi up the Māngere mountain, hangi lunch, a haka show at the museum, then end with a kava-drinking experience.

READ MORE: Other tourism reports

LOCAL DEMOCRACY REPORTING

The tour, which has been running for a year, aims to give visitors an Auckland experience through local eyes, with Māori-led journeys and dining events.

Opetaia said before they started their tour, tourists were travelling to Rotorua for a Pacific cultural experience.

The only other regular Polynesian show for tourists in Auckland was at Auckland Museum, where there was a daily haka show.

“We have rich culture gold in south Auckland,” she said.

“All tourists fly here, in our backyard and we wanted to offer them something right here.”

The sisters, who are of Māori and Samoan heritage, call themselves “cultural connectors”.

‘The space was lacking’
“We’ve been working for these other companies for some time, some of them not even New Zealand-owned. And we felt we were the face of these companies but behind the scenes it wasn’t a local or Māori or indigenous business.

“We decided to step into this space that we saw was lacking, and offer authentic indigenous cultural experiences here in Tāmaki Makaurau — the biggest Polynesian city in the world.”

Glorious Tours is based out of Naumi Hotel, near the Auckland Airport in Māngere.

“We tailor it to what they want, so if they like shopping we take them to places where they can buy authentic Pacific goods, or we take them to our local gallery in Māngere.

This month, the sisters will launch a Polynesian dinner and dance show in Māngere, featuring local schools.

“It’s not just for the tourists, it’s for our own people. Our kaupapa is to uplift our local people, especially our rangatahi.”

TAU director of Māori outcomes Helen Te Hira said Treasures of Tāmaki Makaurau plays a vital role in ensuring Māori culture, businesses and leadership are central to the way Tāmaki Makaurau is experienced by visitors.

“Every business on this platform brings something unique — a sense of purpose, cultural depth and creative excellence.”

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air. Asia Pacific Report is a partner.

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

New Caledonia’s oldest party for independence rejects ‘Bougival’ deal

APR editor — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 02:28:40 +0000

By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific Desk

New Caledonia’s oldest pro-independence party, the Union Calédonienne (UC), has officially rejected a political agreement on the Pacific territory’s political future signed in Paris last month.

The text, bearing the signatures of all of New Caledonia’s political parties represented in the local Congress — a total of 18 leaders, both pro-France and pro-independence — is described as a “project” for an agreement that would shape politics.

Since it was signed in the city of Bougival, west of Paris, on July 12, after 10 days of intense negotiations, it has been dubbed a “bet on trust” and has been described by French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls as a commitment from all signing parties to report to their respective bases and explain its contents.

READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia politics

The Bougival document involves a series of measures and recognition by France of New Caledonia as a “State” which could become empowered with its own international relations and foreign affairs, provided they do not contradict France’s key interests.

It also envisages dual citizenship — French and New Caledonian — provided future New Caledonian citizens are French nationals in the first place.

It also describes a future devolution of stronger powers for each of the three provinces (North, South and Loyalty Islands), especially in terms of tax collection.

Since it was published, the document, bearing a commitment to defend the text “as is”, was hailed as “innovative” and “historic”.

New Caledonia’s leaders have started to hold regular meetings — sometimes daily — and sessions with their respective supporters and militants, mostly to explain the contents of what they have signed.

The meetings were held by most pro-France parties and within the pro-independence camp, the two main moderate parties, UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie) and PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party).

Over the past two weeks, all of these parties have strived to defend the agreement, which is sometimes described as a Memorandum of Agreement or a roadmap for future changes in New Caledonia.

Most of the leaders who have inked the text have also held lengthy interviews with local media.

Parties who have unreservedly pledged their support to and signed the Bougival document are:

Pro-France side: Les Loyalistes, Rassemblement-LR, Wallisian-based Eveil Océanien and Calédonie Ensemble

Pro-independence: UNI-FLNKS (which comprises UPM and PALIKA).

But one of the main components of the pro-independence movement, the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) — as its main pillar — the Union Calédonienne, has held a series of meetings indicating their resentment at their negotiators for having signed the contested document.

UC held its executive committee on July 21, its steering committee on July 26, and FLNKS convened its political bureau on July 23.

A ‘lure of sovereignty’
All of these meetings concluded with an increasingly clear rejection of the Bougival document.

Speaking at a news conference in Nouméa yesterday, UC leaders made it clear that they “formally reject” the agreement because they regard it as a “lure of sovereignty” and does not guarantee either real sovereignty or political balance.

FLNKS chief negotiator Emmanuel Tjibaou, who is also UC’s chair, told local reporters he understood his signature on the document meant a commitment to return to New Caledonia, explain the text and obtain the approval of the political base.

“I didn’t have a mandate to sign a political agreement, my mandate was to register the talks and bring them back to our people so that a decision can be made . . . it didn’t mean an acceptance on our part,” he said, mentioning it was a “temporary” document subject to further discussions.

Tjibaou said some amendments his delegation had put on the table in Bougival “went missing” in the final text.

Union Calédonienne chair and chief FLNKS negotiator Emmanuel Tjibaou . .. some amendments that his delegation had put on the table in Bougival “went missing” in the final text. Image: RNZ Pacific

‘Bougival, it’s over’
“As far as we’re concerned, Bougival, it’s over”, UC vice-president Mickaël Forrest said.

He said it was now time to move onto a “post-Bougival phase”.

Meanwhile, the FLNKS also consulted its own “constitutionalists” to obtain legal advice and interpretation of the document.

In a release about yesterday’s media conference, UC stated that the Bougival text could not be regarded as a balance between two “visions” for Kanaky New Caledonia, but rather a way of “maintaining New Caledonia as French”.

The text, UC said, had led the political dialogue into a “new impasse” and it left several questions unanswered.

“With the denomination of a ‘State’, a fundamental law (a de facto Constitution), the capacity to self-organise, and international recognition, this document is perceived as a project for an agreement to integrate (New Caledonia) into France under the guise of a decolonisation”.

“The FLNKS has never accepted a status of autonomy within France, but an external decolonisation by means of accession to full sovereignty [which] grants us the right to choose our inter-dependencies,” the media release stated.

The pro-independence party also criticised plans to enlarge the list of people entitled to vote at New Caledonia’s local elections — the very issue that triggered deadly and destructive riots in May 2024.

It is also critical of a proposed mechanism that would require a vote at the Congress with a minimum majority of 64 percent (two thirds) before any future powers can be requested for transfer from France to New Caledonia.

Assuming that current population trends and a fresh system of representation at the Congress will allow more representatives from the Southern province (about three quarters of New Caledonia’s population), UC said “in other words, it would be the non-independence [camp] who will have the power to authorise us — or not — to ask for our sovereignty”.

They party confirmed that it had “formally rejected the Bougival project of agreement as it stands” following a decision made by its steering committee on July 26 “since the fundamentals of our struggle and the principles of decolonisation are not there”.

Negotiators no longer mandated
The decision also means that every member of its negotiating team who signed the document on July 12 is now de facto demoted and no longer mandated by the party until a new negotiating team is appointed, if required.

“Union Calédonienne remains mobilised to arrive at a political agreement that takes into account the achievement of a trajectory towards full sovereignty”.

On Tuesday, FLNKS president Christian Téin, as an invited guest of Corsica’s “Nazione” pro-independence movement, told French media he declared himself “individually against” the Bougival document, adding this was “far from being akin to full sovereignty”.

Téin said that during the days that led to the signing of the document in Bougival “the pressure” exerted on negotiators was “terrible”.

He said the result was that due to “excessive force” applied by “France’s representatives”, the final text’s content “looks like it is the French State and right-wing people who will decide the (indigenous) Kanak people’s future”.

Facing crime-related charges, Téin is awaiting his trial, but was released from jail, under the condition that he does not return to New Caledonia.

The leader of a CCAT (field action coordinating cell) created by Union Calédonienne late in 2023 to protest against a proposed French Constitutional amendment to alter voters’ rules of eligibility at local elections, was jailed for one year in mainland France. However, he was elected president of FLNKS in absentia in late August 2024.

CCAT, meanwhile, was admitted as one of the new components of FLNKS.

In a de facto split, the two main moderate pillars of FLNKS, UPM and PALIKA, at the same time, distanced themselves from the pro-independence UC-dominated platform, opening a rift within the pro-independence umbrella.

The FLNKS is scheduled to hold an extraordinary meeting on August 9 (it was initially scheduled to be held on August 2), to “highlight the prospects of the pursuit of dialogue through a repositioning of the pro-independence movement’s political orientations”.

French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls (centre) shows signatures on the last page of New Caledonia’s new Bougival agreement earlier this month . . . “If tomorrow there was to be no agreement, it would mean the future, hope, would be put into question” Image: FB/RNZ Pacific

Valls: ‘I’m not giving up’
Reacting to the latest UC statements, Valls told French media he called on UC to have “a great sense of responsibility”.

“If tomorrow there was to be no agreement, it would mean the future, hope, would be put into question. Investment, including for the nickel mining industry, would no longer be possible.”

“I’m not giving up. Union Calédonienne has chosen to reject, as it stands, the Bougival accord project. I take note of this, but I profoundly regret this position.

“An institutional void would be a disaster for [New Caledonia]. It would be a prolonged uncertainty, the risk of further instability, the return of violence,” he said.

“But my door is not closed and I remain available for dialogue at all times. Impasse is not an option.”

Valls said the Bougival document was “‘neither someone’s victory on another one, nor an imposed text: it was built day after day with partners around the table following months of long discussions.”

In a recent letter specifically sent to Union Calédonienne, the French former Prime Minister suggested the creation of an editorial committee to start drafting future-shaping documents for New Caledonia, such as its “fundamental law”, akin to a Constitution for New Caledonia.

Valls also stressed France’s financial assistance to New Caledonia, which last year totalled around 3 billion euros because of the costs associated to the May 2024 riots.

The riots caused 14 dead, hundreds of injured and an estimated financial cost of more than 2 billion euros (NZ$5.8 billion) in damage.

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.

Trump Just Halted a Stride for Wage Equality

Mike Ervin — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 20:13:08 +0000

The squatter’s Department of Labor withdrew a rule that could have ended subminimum wages for workers with disabilities.

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

NZ ‘lagging behind’ world by failing to recognise Palestinian statehood, says former PM Helen Clark

APR editor — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 19:18:59 +0000

By Craig McCulloch, RNZ News acting political editor

New Zealand is lagging behind the rest of the world through its failure to recognise Palestinian statehood, says Former Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Canada yesterday became the latest country to announce it would formally recognise the state of Palestine when world leaders met at the UN General Assembly in September.

It follows recent similar commitments from the France and the United Kingdom.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon suggested the discussion was a distraction and said the immediate focus should be on getting humanitarian aid into Gaza.

But, speaking to RNZ Midday Report, Clark said New Zealand needed to come on board.

“We are watching a catastrophe unfold in Gaza. We’re watching starvation. We’re watching famine conditions for many. Many are using the word genocide,” she said.

“If New Zealand can’t act in these circumstances, when can it act?”

Elders call for recognition
“The Elders, a group of world leaders of which Clark is a part, last month issued a call for countries to recognise the state of Palestine, calling it the “beginning, not the end of a political pathway towards lasting peace”.

Clark said the government seemed to be trying avoid the ire of the United States by waiting until the peace process was well underway or nearing its end.

“That is no longer tenable,” she said.

“New Zealand really is lagging behind.”

Even before the recent commitments from France, Canada and the UK, 147 of the UN’s 193 member states had recognised the Palestinian state.

Clark said the hope was that the series of recognitions from major Western states would first shift the US position and then Israel’s.

“When the US moves, Israel eventually jumps because it owes so much to the United States for the support, financial, military and otherwise,” she said.

“At some point, Israel has to smell the coffee.”

Surprised over Peters
Clark said she was “a little surprised” that Foreign Minister Winston Peters had not been more forward-leaning given he historically had strongly advocated New Zealand’s even-handed position.

On Wednesday, New Zealand signed a joint statement with 14 other countries expressing a willingness to recognise the State of Palestine as a necessary step towards a two-state solution.

However, later speaking in Parliament, Peters said that was conditional on first seeing progress from Palestine, including representative governance, commitment to non-violence, and security guarantees for Israel.

“If we are to recognise the state of Palestine, New Zealand wants to know that what we are recognising is a legitimate, representative, viable, political entity,” Peters told MPs.

Peters also agreed with a contribution from ACT’s Simon Court that recognising the state of Palestine could be viewed as “a reward [to Hamas] for acts of terrorism” if it was done before Hamas had returned hostages or laid down arms.

Luxon earlier told RNZ New Zealand had long supported the eventual recognition of Palestinian statehood, but that the immediate focus should be on getting aid into Gaza rather than “fragmenting and talking about all sorts of other things that are distractions”.

“We need to put the pressure on Israel to get humanitarian assistance unfettered, at scale, at volume, into Gaza,” he told RNZ.

“You can talk about a whole bunch of other things, but for right now, the world needs to focus.”

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.

Iran arrests 98 ‘citizen-journalists’ for contact with UK-based outlet

CPJ Staff — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 17:15:48 +0000

Paris, July 31, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Iranian authorities to explain the grounds on which they have summoned and arrested 98 “so-called citizen-journalists” for having contact with a London-based Persian-language television channel.

“Iranian authorities must immediately clarify the legal basis for this mass detention of its citizens and cease treating those who communicate with the media as criminals,” said CPJ Chief Programs Officer Carlos Martinez de la Serna. “Labeling ordinary Iranians as ‘operational agents’ simply for their association with a news outlet is a dangerous tactic of intimidation and a blatant escalation in Iran’s violations of press freedom.

Iran’s intelligence ministry had been monitoring “the so-called citizen-journalists of the Zionist-Terrorist International Network” – a term the government uses to describe London-based Iran International – during the June 13 to 24 Iran-Israel war, state-owned Mehr News Agency reported. The ministry then “arrested and summoned 98 affiliated operational agents,” the agency said on July 28.

The ministry provided no evidence to support its allegations and did not disclose the names, locations, or legal status of those detained or summoned.

The Islamic Republic has previously arrested Iranians working with international media on vague charges, such as for “collaborating with hostile states” or “propaganda against the state.”

Iran’s reformist Ham Mihan newspaper reported that more than 100 journalists had been fired in the aftermath of the 12-day war, as authorities have cracked down on critical voices, with hundreds of arrests and several executions.

CPJ emailed Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York for comment but received no response.

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

Snake Oil, PT Barnum, and Postmortem for July 4

Paul Haeder — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 14:55:00 +0000

Note: A new editor for the local rag, Lincoln County Leader, which was known for 100 years as the Newport News Times. The previous editor, Steve Card, who did 30 years in the journalistic trenches, left and retired. I was doubtful that my long-form op-eds would continue, but this month, today, July 16, it appeared. Thanks to the new editor. We shall see how long it lasts. However, it doesn’t appear on their on-line version, and thus, if you put in the title above and my name, it is nowhere to be found on the Internet. Google’s Goofy AI can’t find it either. There you go, another sort of Digital Death!

This email I received in my gmail box. With the following typical letter to me, my email, but who knows if he sent it to the editor, I may already be banned by the editor, and I will never know because these fellows never answer direct emails back.

Here, from that person who shall be unnamed, telling me …

All you do is criticize this country and the president, as if you are a spoil sport, mad that your guy didn’t win. My advice is leave. Go to Cuba, go to your great communist country of your choice. You do nothing for our community writing these screeds from your high horse. Love it or leave it is something I think everytime I read your junk. I’m shocked that some local patriot hasn’t read-ended your shitty mini-van or taken a swing at your smug face. Leave, and DO let the door hit you on your fucking anti-AmMerican ass.

Oh, well, my feelings aren’t hurt, but again, I’ve said this time and time again: I get people texting me thanking for my radio shows and my op-eds, but they just will not go on public record, i.e., a letter to the editor in support or agreement with me and my short “screeds.”

Today, with my Meals on Wheels gig and with my volunteer work at the senior center here, amazing social workers and folks with federal grants for their AmeriCorps workers lamenting about the Trumpism in the Senior Center — old flagging people, again, eating taxpayer paid for Meals on Wheels, and a Senior Center not just funded by local taxes, and these octogenarians no less, vaunting Trump, going on and on about, “well Obama and Clinton never served in the military either.”

That comment came after I had entertained them, made these people laugh, served them food and drinks and gave them to-go boxes, and then, well, someone mentioned cuts in the Meals on Wheels program here and nationwide, and then I stated that Trump is laughing at that, that he’s a mean gene, and wants my butt gone, and he’s especially laughing at “you older folk relying on Medicare and Meals on Wheels and who voted for him.”

I mentioned that Trump’s a felon and criminal and just a faker, among other things, and he is a wimp, who declared bone spurs as his out for military service. Yep, me, atheist and communist AND someone who spent time in the Army, man, sure, less than honorable discharge I got, but still, that, and then working with homeless veterans and even teaching college courses for various military outfits in my part-time faculty gigs.

These old people couldn’t square all those corners to the guy (me) who had just done all this service to the community work FOR them.

The social workers are tired. They are tired of people. They have family, and one I talked with, she even has a father who supports Trump Hands Down, like the freaks that in do. And, alas, I asked — Why no estrangement from these toxic folk in your life? These people, your fucking father, want you fired, essentially, because your AmeriCorps folk are being sacked because the grants have ended, and you too will be on the chopping block.

The system is winning when social workers hate people — not all, but most people, she told me — and when teachers hate their kiddos and the parents. This is what the design is all about — losing confidence in EVERYTHING except the price of toilet paper bundles at Costco.

More than just the Reagan way of getting people to believe government is too big, too cumbersome and too much an impediment in the American Way of Free-for-All Markets.

Chip chip chip those rotten democrats and republicans have enforced for decades.

Schizophrenia here by the Pew Research group:

Americans remain deeply distrustful of and dissatisfied with their government. Just 20% say they trust the government in Washington to do the right thing just about always or most of the time – a sentiment that has changed very little since former President George W. Bush’s second term in office.

The public’s criticisms of the federal government are many and varied. Some are familiar: Just 6% say the phrase “careful with taxpayer money” describes the federal government extremely or very well; another 21% say this describes the government somewhat well. A comparably small share (only 8%) describes the government as being responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans.

The federal government gets mixed ratings for its handling of specific issues. Evaluations are highly positive in some respects, including for responding to natural disasters (70% say the government does a good job of this) and keeping the country safe from terrorism (68%). However, only about a quarter of Americans say the government has done a good job managing the immigration system and helping people get out of poverty (24% each). And the share giving the government a positive rating for strengthening the economy has declined 17 percentage points since 2020, from 54% to 37%.

Yet Americans’ unhappiness with government has long coexisted with their continued support for government having a substantial role in many realms. And when asked how much the federal government does to address the concerns of various groups in the United States, there is a widespread belief that it does too little on issues affecting many of the groups asked about, including middle-income people (69%), those with lower incomes (66%) and retired people (65%).

*****

When participatory democracy never flourished, and when mutual aid is gone, and when people are doggedly dog-eat-dog and “I’ve got mine, so good luck getting yours” is the prevailing attitude, we are a disconnected “nation.”

Will this resonate?

For a decade, scholars, pundits and other analysts have been searching deep in the American political experience to understand why democracy seems so stressed. Now a new UC Berkeley report based on extensive surveys finds that Americans are confused about the meaning of democracy and frustrated with the leaders and institutions responsible for guiding the country — but also open to hope for repair.

David C. Wilson

In an interview, lead author David C. Wilson detailed the findings of this plunge into our political psyche, surveying a tangle of concerning trends. Americans are struggling with epidemic mistrust, but they’re also eager for solutions. For democracy to flourish, the report finds, its people must be flourishing, too.

Wilson, a political psychologist, offered a potentially innovative course of therapy: Just as the nation has economic and health policy, local, state and federal leaders need a commitment to democracy policy to strengthen the system and nurture commitment to democratic values and practices.

Wilson is the dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at Berkeley and a professor of public policy and political science. The report, “Delivering on the Promises of ‘We the People’,” is based on surveys of more than 2,400 Americans conducted before and after the November 2024 election.

The report was produced by the Goldman School’s Democracy Policy Lab.

*****

Snake Oil, PT Barnum and Postmortem for July 4

I remember telling my daughter, who never got to meet my old man, her grandfather, that I was diametrically opposed to his 32 years in the US military. I told her that I even ended up in Viet Nam two years before she was born to work with a science team from England.

I visited all parts of Viet Nam, after doing intensive biodiversity studies along the Laotian border.

She has some of my large prints of kiddos on motorcycles piled high with live chickens. She has a photo I took of a female Buddhist monk near where a more famous monk self-immolated in protest of the US and French-backed repressive South Vietnamese president.

That is Ho Chi Minh City, called Saigon back then.

It was just before 10 in the morning on June 11, 1963, when 300 monks and nuns marched down a busy Saigon street. This 73-year-old monk named Thich Quang Duc emerged from a car at this crowded intersection and sat down in the lotus position on a cushion. Two fellow monks poured gasoline from a five-gallon can. As the fuel was emptied over his head, Duc chanted, “Nam mo amita Buddha,” — “return to eternal Buddha.”

Sixty years later a similar event was repeated here in the USA, although in this intentionally amnesiac and superficial society, it seems like a distant memory. But my friend from Wisconsin talks of this hero much.

That distant memory occurred just over a year ago—February 25, 2024. Remember? Twenty-five-year-old Air Force serviceman Aaron Bushnell died after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington in an act of protest against the Gaza genocide.

Less than two years ago, and I have students who are afraid of calling “it” a genocide. I have fellow faculty in many parts of the country who are not just chastised for supporting innocent Palestinians but are fired.

Is this newspaper going to get the “hammer” or “ax” for republishing Aaron’s words before he set himself on fire?

“I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force. And I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers—it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”

The last words of his life were ‘Free Palestine.’

Recall my professional soldier — CW4 — father. He was a 19-year-old in the so-called Korean Conflict, wounded there. He was then made a chief warrant officer in the Army and took his family to Paris, France, and Hamburg as part of his work.

He was shot in the chest in a Huey helicopter in Viet Nam with his blackbox of codes handcuffed to his wrist. He was 36 years old, and he survived.

I went to Viet Nam at age 36, leaving my home of El Paso behind. I visited villages near where my old man’s team set up communication towers and signal corps facilities.

I was against that illegal war when I was still in junior high school.

My father was a smart guy with graduate degrees in history and education. He always wanted me to go to college, and he supported my journalism and science studies at the University of Arizona. He read my newspaper articles.

What he was for — as a first-generation American whose father was a WWI pilot in the Kaiser’s Navy — included expanded services for the poor, safety nets for the elderly, massive cheap public services to include health care for all, seven-day-a-week libraries, a post office that handled payroll and served as a credit union.

He wanted more state and national parks. He was a Republican, and I was a Ralph Nader independent who was deeply leftist. As left as the liberators of Viet Nam under Ho Chi Minh.

Oh, if CW4 Marvin Haeder was alive today, man oh man. He knew European history and the history of the world, so having this perfume salesperson as his commander in chief would have chaffed him. Bone spur deferment from military service, Donald professed?

PT Barnum may have said: “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Trump is that purveyor and protector of rip-off artists.

My old man supported expanded prosecution of grifters ripping off old people in all industries and services. He was for expanded consumer rights and expanded rights to unionize.

These were his Republican values, with his two bronze stars, purple hearts and 32 years in combined AF and Army service.

He was once an airman too, as we lived on Terceira Island in the Azores outside 65th Air Base Wing at Lajes Field.

Now, POTUS is selling perfume. Trump’s perfume is called “Victory 45-47” because “they’re all about Winning, Strength, Success.”

Everywhere in Lincoln County the silence — as I stated in a previous Op-Ed — is deafening. Active genocide of the Holocaust variety, and people just go on with their rah-rah Fourth of July lives. We’ve been sold a bill of goods. Amnesia? Dis-education? Worse?

I recommend David Swanson’s website where you can peruse collected sources on how much snake oil we’ve consumed. You won’t like this last paragraph on David’s website, so try studying it:

“Since World War II, during a supposed golden age of peace, the United States military has killed or helped kill some 20 million people, overthrown at least 36 governments, interfered in at least 86 foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders, and dropped bombs on people in over 30 countries. The United States is responsible for the deaths of 5 million people in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and over 1 million just since 2003 in Iraq.”

***** The End *****

The U.S. government provides weapons, military training, and/or military funding to almost every dictatorship and oppressive government on earth. See my 2020 book 20 Dictators Currently Supported by the U.S.

U.S. weapons are used on both sides of many wars.

In an attempt to quantify U.S. warmaking, I’ve copied below lists from these sources:
David Vine: The United States of War
William Blum: America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy
Dr. Zoltan Grossman: A Century of U.S. Military Interventions
James Lucas: U.S. Has Killed More Than 20 Million People
William Appleman Williams: Empire As a Way of Life

I can link to some others first. Here is a PDF from 2022 from the U.S. Congressional Research Service admitting to hundreds of U.S. military interventions abroad between 1798 and 2022.

And here is a PDF of a journal article about something called the Military Intervention Project, which can also be found here and here and here. The authors claim to have a list of 392 U.S. military interventions between 1776 and 2019, but do not seem to actually produce the list. There are, however, extensive descriptions of it at those links, including:

“The United States has carried out 34 percent of its 392 interventions against countries in Latin America and the Caribbean; 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific region; 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa; and just 13 percent in Europe and Central Asia, according to a newly refined version of the Military Intervention Project (MIP) dataset — a venture of the Center for Strategic Studies at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.”

The post Snake Oil, PT Barnum, and Postmortem for July 4 first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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

As protesters condemn Western media ‘complicity’, Gaza journalists struggle for survival

Pacific Media Watch — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 14:21:39 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

Protesters demonstrated outside several major US media outlets in Washington this week condemning their coverage of the genocide in Gaza, claiming they were to blame over misinformation and the worsening catastrophe.

Banging pots and pans to spotlight the starvation crisis, they accused the media of “complicity in genocide”.

Banners and placards proclaimed “Stop media complicity in genocide” and “US media manufactures consent for Israel’s crimes”, as the protesters demonstrated outside media offices that included NBC News and Fox News.

But the irony was that while the protests appeared to have been ignored or overlooked by national media in the US – and certainly in New Zealand, they were strongly reported by at least one global news agency, Turkey’s Anadolu Agensi.

The protests echoed a series of statements by various news media organisations, such as Agence France-Presse concerned about the safety of their journalists from both under fire and the risk of starvation, and media freedom advocacy groups.

The Doha-based global television news network Al Jazeera, that has been producing arguably the best and most honest news coverage of Gaza and the occupied West Bank – which earned it being banned last year by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority from reporting inside their territory — called for global action to protect Gaza’s journalists.

It said in a statement that Isael’s forced starvation of the besieged enclave that threatened Gaza’s entire population, including those “risking their lives to shed light on Israel’s atrocities”.

Death toll passes 60,000
On Tuesday this week, the world noted a grim milestone in Gaza, with the Health Ministry announcing that the death toll had surpassed 60,000 (this does not include the tens of thousands of people buried under the rubble and missing, presumed dead).

Put in perspective, that is one in every 36 people in Gaza killed, and more than 90 people on average slaughtered every day.

Also, 1157 people have been killed near the notorious Israel and US-backed Gaza “Humanitarian” Foundation food depots condemned as “death traps”, while 154 people have died from starvation, 89 of them children with the numbers rising.

Israel’s genocide – ‘Everyone in Gaza is starving’ Video: Al Jazeera

An episode of the weekly media watch programme, The Listening Post, took up the theme as well, criticising the failure of many high profile Western news services from adequately reporting the horror of Israel’s devastating and cruel policies.

“When trying to stave off starvation becomes part of the job. What it means to be a Palestinian journalist in Gaza. The stories they are determined to tell, the incredible risks they are prepared to take,” said host Richard Gizbert when introducing the programme. He wasted no time firing a few caustic shots.

Metropolitan police on watch for the pro-Palestinian protesters outside Fox News offices in Washington DC this week. Image: AA screenshot APR

“What is unfolding in Gaza now has the appearance of a final solution, orchestrated by Israel and the United States, Israel’s other ally: The transformation of parts of the Gaza strip into starvation and concentration camps, a place where famine has been turned into a weapon of war,” he said.

“Reporting on the reality of this genocide can amount to a death sentence. Palestinian journalists can easily identify with the suffering they are documenting since they too are going hungry.

“They have been targeted because for [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu, like other genocidal leaders before him, starving a population is much easier to do when no one is watching.

An Al Jazeera reporter ducks for cover as bombs hit a building behind her in a live broadcast from Gaza . . . featured in The Listening Post’s starvation report. Image: AA screenshot APR

Perpetrator ‘left out’
“Across Western mainstream media, news outlets have been unable to ignore this story of mass starvation in Gaza. But in report after report, they have made a habit of leaving out a key detail – naming the perpetrators of the famine, Israel.

“The missing actors, the sanitised language, the use of the passive grammatical voice, it is all part of the playbook for far too many international news outlets and that is exactly what the few Palestinian journalists still standing are out to tell the world.”

Gizbert explained that “journalists in Gaza already have the world’s toughest assignment”:
“Job one for almost 22 months now has been survival; job two, telling heartbreaking stories; documenting a genocide while under fire.”

Hossam Shabat reports on his colleague Anas al-Sharif’s experience at Al Shifa hospital and the starvation of babies in Gaza. Image: Instagram/@hossam_shbat

Like, for example, Al Jazeera Arabic’s Anas al-Sharif who was reporting live from outside Al Shifa medical complex when a woman behind him collapsed at the hospital’s gate.

Al-Sharif, who had reported on the genocide of his own people for more than 650 days without rest or complaint, through Israeli occupation airstrikes, drone attacks, and countless “scenes resembling hell”, suddenly could not take it anymore.

He broke down: “People are falling to the ground from the severity of hunger,” al-Sharif said through his tears. “They need one sip of water. They need one loaf of bread.”

Al-Sharif has also been threatened by the Israeli military, accusing him of being a “Hamas militant”, an accusation strongly denied by Al Jazeera, denouncing what it called Tel Aviv’s “campaign of incitement” against its reporters in the Gaza Strip.

Discredited for bias
Many Western mainstream media – including BBC, CNN, Sky, ITN, and Australia’s public broadcaster ABC — have been repeatedly discredited for their “pro-Israel bias” by scores of journalists who have acted as whistleblowers about the actions of their own news organisations.

According to a Declassified UK report, for example, the journalists working for a range of outlets from across the political spectrum have “painted a consistent picture of the obstacles faced by reporters who want to humanise Palestinians or scrutinise Israeli government narratives”. The US media is also under attack and has been putting up a lame defence.

Last week, more than 100 aid groups warned of “mass starvation” throughout Gaza — predictably denied by Israeli government in the face of overwhelming evidence — with their staff severely impacted by shortages and serious implications for journalists already being threatened with targeting by the Israeli military.

Israel faces growing global pressure over the enclave’s dire humanitarian crisis, where more than two million people have endured 22 months of war. UN Security Council member France has led a group of countries announcing that they plan to recognise the Palestinian state at the UN in September, with United Kingdom, Canada, Malta and Finland among those following with the total number now almost 150 of the 193 UN member states.

A statement with 111 signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that “our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away”. The groups called for an immediate negotiated ceasefire, the opening of all land crossings and the free flow of aid through UN-led mechanisms.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh reported from Amman that the Israeli government had accused the UK of supporting the establishment of a “jihadi” state and of derailing efforts to reach a ceasefire.

“But really,” she said, “the Israeli media, for example, is describing this as a political tsunami, a realisation of how significant the tide is, and how improbable it is to turn it back to countries withholding recognition because Israel said it doesn’t want it.”

Calling for sanctions
She also noted how 31 high-profile Israelis, including the former speaker of the Knesset, a former attorney general, and several recipients of Israel’s highest cultural award, were calling on world governments to impose crippling sanctions on Israel to stop the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and their expulsion

“This was taboo just a few days ago and has never really been done before, certainly not at this level of prominence of the signatories,” Odeh added.

“Israel is starving Gazan journalists into silence,” says the CPJ. Image: CPJ screenshot APR

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) added its voice to the appeal by aid agencies to call for an end to Israel’s starvation of journalists and other civilians in Gaza, backing the plea for states to “save lives before there are none left to save.”

In a statement on its website, the CPJ accused Israel of “starving journalists into silence”.

“Israel is starving Gazan journalists into silence. They are not just reporters, they are frontline witnesses, abandoned as international media were pulled out and denied entry,” said CPJ regional director Sara Qudah.

“The world must act now: protect them, feed them, and allow them to recover while other journalists step in to help report. Our response to their courageous 650 plus-days of war reporting cannot simply be to let them starve to death.”

‘Bearing witness’ videos
Also, last week the CPJ launched a “bearing witness” series of videos from Gaza giving voice to the challenges the journalists have been facing. In the first video, Moath al Kahlout described how his cousin had been shot dead while awaiting humanitarian aid.

As Israel partially eased its 11-week total blockade of Gaza that began in May, CPJ published the testimony of six journalists who described how “starvation, dizziness, brain fog, and sickness” had threatened their ability to report.

Among highlights cited by the CPJ:
• On June 20, Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al Sharif — the journalist cited earlier in this article — posted online: “I am drowning in hunger, trembling in exhaustion, and resisting the fainting that follows me every moment . . . Gaza is dying. And we die with it.”
• Sally Thabet, correspondent for Al-Kofiya satellite channel, told CPJ that she fainted consciousness after doing a live broadcast on July 20 because she had not eaten all day. She regained consciousness in Al-Shifa hospital, where doctors gave her an intravenous drip for rehydration and nutrition. In an online video, she described how she and her three daughters were starving.
• Another Palestinian journalist, Shuruq As’ad said Thabet had been the third journalist to collapse on air from starvation that week, and posted a photograph of Thabet with the drip in her hand.
• During a live broadcast on July 20, Al-Araby TV correspondent Saleh Al-Natour said: “We have no choice but to write and speak; otherwise, we will all die.”

Little of this horrendous state of affairs has made it onto the pages of newspapers, websites of the television screens in the New Zealand mainstream media which seems to have a pro-Israel slant and rarely interviews Palestinian journalists or analysts for balance.

“Stop media complicity in genocide” says the protest banner in Washington DC. Image: AA screenshot APR

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

Requiem for the Roberts Court

Bill Blum — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 14:00:00 +0000

Hasty rulings on cases in the Supreme Court’s growing ‘shadow docket’ have fundamentally altered United States governance.

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

Headlines for July 31, 2025

Democracy Now! — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 12:00:00 +0000

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

Full Mark’s Park episode premieres tomorrow!!

Playing For Change — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 19:05:39 +0000

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

Happy Birthday, Mermans Mosengo! 🙌🎶

Playing For Change — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 18:27:06 +0000

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

Do Advocates for ‘School Choice’ Have a Plan B?

Peter Greene — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 17:54:17 +0000

When families refuse to leave ‘failing public schools’ for charters and vouchers, what’s next?

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

It Shouldn’t Have Taken This Much For Mainstream Voices To Start Speaking Up About Gaza

Caitlin Johnstone — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 13:30:44 +0000

Israel’s top human rights group B’Tselem has finally declared that Israel is committing genocide, as has the Israel-based Physicians for Human Rights. The Israeli organizations join Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UN human rights experts, and the overwhelming majority of leading authorities on the subject of genocide in their conclusion.

The debate is over. The Israel apologists lost. And we are seeing this reflected in mainstream discourse.

Pop megastar Ariana Grande has started speaking out in support of Gaza, telling her social media followers that “starving people to death is a red line.” This is a new threshold. Opposing Israel’s genocide is now the most mainstream as it has ever been.

MSNBC just ran a piece explicitly titled “Israel is starving Gaza. And the U.S. is complicit.”, featuring a segment with the virulently pro-Israel Morning Joe slamming the mass atrocity. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, himself a former AIPAC employee, has done a 180 and is now raking Israel over the coals on the air for its deliberately engineered starvation campaign. The New York Times finally overcame its phobia of the g-word with an op-ed titled “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.”

We’re now seeing notoriously Zionist swamp monsters in the Democratic Party like Barack Obama, Hakeem Jeffries, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar changing their tune and attacking Netanyahu and Trump for their joint genocide project in Gaza, with increasingly forceful pushback from some on the right like Marjorie Taylor Greene as well.

As western pundits, politicians, and celebrities suddenly pivot to denouncing Israel’s genocidal atrocities after two years of silence, it’s hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, we were being told that saying “death to the IDF” is a hate crime.

People who’ve been staring at this genocide from the beginning have been asking the entire time, what is it going to take? What will it take for our society to stop sleepwalking through inane trivialities and vapid distractions and start opposing the holocaust of our day?

Raining military explosives on a giant concentration camp packed full of children wasn’t enough.

Burning children alive wasn’t enough.

Systematically destroying Gaza’s entire healthcare infrastructure — up to and including entering hospitals they’ve attacked and destroying individual pieces of medical equipment one by one — wasn’t enough.

Killing more journalists than were killed in both World Wars, plus the US Civil War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Yugoslav Wars, the War in Afghanistan, and the ongoing war in Ukraine wasn’t enough.

The systemic rape and torture of prisoners wasn’t enough.

https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1949587236434931921

IDF soldiers routinely sharing photos and videos of themselves mockingly dressing in the clothes of dead and displaced Palestinian women and playing with the toys of dead and displaced Palestinian children wasn’t enough.

Israeli officials openly expressing genocidal intent for the people of Gaza wasn’t enough.

The US president and Israeli prime minister openly declaring their goal of the complete ethnic cleansing of a Palestinian territory wasn’t enough.

Field testing new weapons of war on Palestinians like they’re guinea pigs in a laboratory wasn’t enough.

Leaving countless civilians to slowly suffocate or die of dehydration, trapped under the rubble of bombed buildings, wasn’t enough.

Creating an AI system to ensure that suspected Hamas fighters are bombed when they’re at home with their children and naming it “Where’s Daddy?” wasn’t enough.

Using Palestinians as human shields wasn’t enough.

Burying injured civilians alive with bulldozers wasn’t enough.

https://x.com/GozukaraFurkan/status/1949232008216887774

The IDF admitting to running a popular Telegram channel called “72 Virgins,” which posted extremely gory and sadistic snuff films of people in Gaza being butchered by Israeli forces, wasn’t enough.

IDF snipers routinely shooting children in the head and chest throughout the Gaza Strip wasn’t enough.

The IDF flying drones, which play the sounds of crying babies at night in order to lure out hiding civilians to murder them, wasn’t enough.

IDF troops telling the Israeli press that they’re being ordered to massacre starving civilians seeking food from aid sites wasn’t enough.

Israeli snipers targeting different body parts of starving civilians on designated days — leg day, head day, genitals day, etc — wasn’t enough.

Far right Israeli citizens setting up blockades to stop aid trucks from entering Gaza while they enjoyed parties and barbecues at the blockade sites wasn’t enough.

https://x.com/mamoun_linda/status/1949190406211825696

Using lies and propaganda to dismantle the aid system for bringing essential food and life-supporting supplies into Gaza, to replace it with a US/Israeli op where aid seekers are massacred every single day, wasn’t enough.

Using siege warfare to starve Gaza for the previous 22 months deliberately wasn’t enough.

But now that starvation has hit a critical point and deaths from malnutrition are skyrocketing, now that images of dead skeletal children are filling our screens, now that the damage to organs and brains from starvation will be irreversible in many cases — now it’s enough.

That was the line, apparently. That’s what mainstream Western consciousness has decided is too much. Everything up until that line was fine, but now it’s not fine anymore.

And the killing is still going on. The sudden awakening of conscience hasn’t translated into any material actions or changes at all yet. If it had come in October or November 2023, like it should have, we might be seeing that opposition translate into actually saving Gaza by now, but the light has only just been switched on. It’s not even guaranteed that those who are speaking up will continue to do so.

https://x.com/d_boeckner/status/1949137485776265514

I’m glad people are waking up to the cruel reality of this nightmare. I’m grateful to each and every influential voice who uses their platform to speak out, even at this late date. I truly am.

But I also think we need to take a very hard, very uncomfortable look at ourselves as a society right now. If all those monstrous abuses were tolerable for us over these last two years, there’s something deeply and profoundly sick about our civilization.

We are not living right. We are not thinking right. We are not feeling right. We are warped and twisted. The information we consume and the norms we’ve been conditioned to accept have corrupted our souls.

We have been made into something bad. Something ugly. Something shameful. Something we need to do everything in our power to change.

We need to rescue ourselves from what we have become. We need to transform, deeply and radically, into something that could never again allow something like this to occur.

https://x.com/BlakPantherBabe/status/1949834226343293339

The way things are clearly isn’t working. The mainstream worldview is clearly a lie. Everything we’ve been taught to believe about our society, our nation, our government, and our world was clearly false.

We need to fight our way through the cognitive dissonance of recognizing that our entire way of looking at things as a collective has failed, and we need to find a new way of being.

Otherwise, we’re going to keep being smashed in the face with increasingly horrifying reminders of what we have allowed ourselves to become.

The lessons will repeat until they are learned.

We had better start learning them.

The post It Shouldn’t Have Taken This Much For Mainstream Voices To Start Speaking Up About Gaza first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Caitlin Johnstone.

60 Years After LBJ Signed Medicaid & Medicare, GOP Cuts Threaten Lifeline for Millions

Democracy Now! — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 12:15:39 +0000

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the creation of Medicare and Medicaid — and nearly one month since President Trump’s federal budget slashed nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid to extend tax cuts for the rich. The cuts could lead to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths every year. “Medicaid has been a lifeline. And without it, people will die,” says Ai-jen Poo, co-founder of Caring Across Generations and the Domestic Workers Alliance, which helped organize a 60-hour vigil last week ahead of the anniversary as part of a broader campaign to fight back against Trump’s cuts. She highlights the role of immigrants, who make up a third of the caregiving sector, and says Trump’s crackdown on immigration hastens the dwindling of care available to the aging and elderly. “We should be adding a trillion dollars in investments in healthcare in this country and in caregiving services in this country,” says Poo. “We need to strengthen these systems and programs for the 22nd century, not gut them.”

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

Headlines for July 30, 2025

Democracy Now! — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 12:00:00 +0000

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

ACLU Calls for Voting Rights Protections Amid Reintroduction of John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act

Newswire Editor — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 20:41:33 +0000

Today, members of the U.S. Senate formally reintroduced the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (JLVRAA), a critical piece of legislation aimed at restoring and bolstering key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) that have been dismantled over the last 12 years, most notably by the U.S. Supreme Court's 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder.

“We have spent the last decade fighting the unraveling of one of our nation’s most transformative civil rights achievements,” said Molly McGrath, director of the ACLU’s National Director of Democracy Campaigns. “The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is essential — not just to reverse the damage, but to proactively protect every voter from race-based discrimination and modern-day voter suppression. As we face threats to so many freedoms we hold dear, we must preserve the essential right to vote and therefore the ability to hold our elected officials accountable.”

Named in honor of the late civil rights hero Congressman John Lewis, the bill seeks to re-establish preclearance, the federal government’s authority to review and block discriminatory changes to voting laws in jurisdictions with a record of voting rights violations. It also expands that review to cover nationwide threats to voting access, such as discriminatory voter roll purges, restrictive voter ID laws, and polling place closures that disproportionately impact communities of color and people with disabilities.

Since Shelby, which nullified the VRA’s preclearance provision, states across the country have enacted a vastly growing number of anti-voter laws targeting historically disenfranchised and underserved communities. The reintroduction of the JLVRAA comes at a pivotal time, as American democracy continues to face coordinated assaults on access to the ballot box. The bill outlines a modern preclearance coverage formula based on recent voting rights violations and creates greater transparency for potentially discriminatory voting changes.

It has been 60 years since Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, when John Lewis and hundreds of peaceful protestors were brutally attacked for demanding voting rights, and the enactment of the VRA that followed because of those protests. Those gains are under threat now more than ever. The JLVRAA honors that legacy and recommits us to the promise that all eligible voters — regardless of race, zip code, or background — deserve an equal voice in our democracy.

A copy of this press release can be found here: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-stresses-need-for-federal-voting-rights-protections-amid-senate-reintroduction-of-john-lewis-voting-rights-advancement-act

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

Civil Rights Groups Sue Trump Admin for Information on Detention of Immigrants at Guantánamo

Newswire Editor — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 20:37:09 +0000

Civil rights groups today filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking information on the Trump Administration’s detention of immigrants at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The move comes after the administration sent approximately 500 noncitizens to Guantánamo without due process and amid reports that it plans to detain thousands more there. Despite attempting to expand this notorious prison camp – associated at its core with torture and lawlessness – the administration is continuing to operate in secrecy about who they are sending there and why, as well as the likely terrible conditions for individuals detained there.

“We know from over 30 years of challenging unlawful detentions in Guantánamo, that the government has always attempted to shield its operations there from the law and public scrutiny, which has produced a legacy of torture, suffering, and systemic human rights violations,” said Ayla Kadah, Staff Attorney and Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “That the Trump administration is openly embracing this very symbol of lawlessness and brutality – while refusing to provide any information about conditions or their legal authority – leads us to fear the worst of Guantánamo is happening again. We will continue our decades-long fight for accountability and to finally shutter this dark island prison.”

On January 29th, Trump issued an executive order to expand to “full capacity” the Guantánamo Migrant Operations Center (GMOC), a detention facility located on the naval base along with the infamous island prison where, in the name of fighting terrorism, the Bush administration detained and tortured hundreds of Muslim men and boys after 9/11. The Trump administration has denied immigrants at Guantánamo meaningful access to attorneys and the ability to challenge their detention. Those who have been detained there report brutal conditions: solitary confinement in windowless cells for at least 23 hours a day, invasive strip searches, extreme temperatures, a lack of food and medical care, and long hours in a “punishment chair,” all of which have led to several suicide attempts.

Brought by the Haitian Bridge Alliance, Detention Watch Network, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, the suit follows the administration’s failure to comply with the groups’ February FOIA request. The suit seeks information on, among other subjects, the claimed legal basis for detaining immigrants at Guantánamo, the criteria for sending them there, their identities, whether they face interrogation and, if so, by whom and for what purpose, which agency or agencies have custody over them, and the roles of each agency – whether, for example, the Defense Department is involved in civilian law enforcement.

Said Setareh Ghandehari, Advocacy Director of Detention Watch Network, “Guantánamo Bay’s abusive history speaks for itself. The Trump administration’s plans to massively expand ICE detention at Guantánamo jeopardizes the mental and physical health of immigrants, separates families, and upends communities across the United States.The intentional withholding of information about these plans, paired with ICE’s culture of secrecy, is yet another hallmark of an authoritarian regime. The result of Trump's cruel mass detention and deportation agenda so far is an exacerbation of inhumane conditions in ICE detention, with increasing reports of death, medical neglect, overcrowding, lack of food, and rampant transfers that cut people off from their loved ones and support networks. Detention in remote locations, like Guantánamo, amplifies these harms. Communities across the country are watching daily as their family members, friends, coworkers, and neighbors are being violently targeted and disappeared by ICE. Transparency into Trump's plans at Guantánamo is critical for oversight and accountability.”

Historically, the U.S. government has detained people at Guantánamo to try to evade the law, and, after 9/11, it became a site and symbol of torture and other human rights abuses. But litigation by the Center of Constitutional Rights yielded a 2008 Supreme Court ruling that people held at Guantanamo have the constitutional right to challenge their detention. At the same time, sporadic efforts by the Bush, Obama, and Biden administrations, spurred by years of political and legal advocacy, had reduced the population of the “war on terror” prison to only 15. The Trump administration is breaking with these trends, detaining a large number of people at Guantánamo while denying them basic legal and human rights. This also marks the first time that the government has transferred people there from the territorial United States.

“The U.S. government has used Guantánamo as a key piece in its prevention through deterrence migration strategy for decades,” said Erik Crew, Staff Attorney with Haitian Bridge Alliance, “where the goal is to punish certain migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers who attempt to seek internationally-mandated humanitarian protection in the United States. Detention at Guantánamo is valuable to the U.S. government because it continues to use it as a legal black hole where rights don’t apply. Civil society organizations like HBA and our partners will continue to fight against this lawlessness in U.S. and international human rights fora. We, the people of the U.S. and the people of the world, need transparency here, and we will fight for it.”

The suit seeks all relevant records from the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, the Department of State, and Citizenship and Immigration Services.

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

When Israelis Call It Out: Finding Genocide in Gaza

Binoy Kampmark — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 13:00:52 +0000

It’s been almost an article of faith among Israeli officials: the state they represent is incapable of genocide, their actions always spurred by the noblest, necessary motivations of self-defence against satanic enemies who wish genocide upon Jews. Over time, as Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov writes, “Ethical concerns and moral qualms were brushed aside as either marginal or distracting in the face of the ultimate cataclysm that is the genocide of the Jews.”

This form of reasoning, known otherwise as “Holocaust-ism” or “Shoah-tiyut”, is a moral conceit left bare in the war of annihilation being waged in Gaza against the Palestinian populace. Israeli human rights groups have taken note of this, despite the drained reserves of empathy evident in Israel proper. (A Pew Research Center poll conducted last month found that a mere 16% of Jewish Israelis thought peaceful coexistence with Palestinians was possible.)

In its latest report pointedly titled Our Genocide, the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem offers a blunt assessment: “Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads us to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated action to intentionally destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. In other words: Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

The infliction of genocide, the organisation acknowledges, is a matter of “multiple and parallel practices” applied over a period of time, with killing being merely one component. Living conditions can be destroyed, concentration camps and zones created, populations expelled, and policies to systematically prevent reproduction enacted. “Accordingly, genocidal acts are various actions intended to bring about the destruction of a distinct group, as part of a deliberate, coordinated effort by a ruling authority.”

Our Genocide suggests that certain conditions often precede the sparking of a genocide. Israel’s relations with Palestinians had been characterised by “broader patterns of settler-colonialism”, with the intention of ensuring “Jewish supremacy over Palestinians – economically, politically, socially, and culturally.”

B’Tselem draws upon three crucial elements centred on ensuring “Jewish supremacy over Palestinians”: “life under an apartheid regime that imposes separation, demographic engineering, and ethnic cleansing; systemic and institutionalized use of violence against Palestinians, while the perpetrators enjoy impunity; and institutionalized mechanisms of dehumanization and framing Palestinians as an existential threat.” The attacks on Israel by Hamas and other militant groups on October 7, 2023 was a violent event that created a “sense of existential threat among the perpetrating group” enabling the “ruling system to carry out genocide.” As B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak notes, this sense of threat was promoted by an “extremist, far-right messianic government” to pursue “an agenda of destruction and expulsion.”

Israeli policy in the Strip since October 2023 could not be rationalised as a focused, targeted attempt to destroy the rule of Hamas or its military efficacy. “Statements by senior Israeli decision-makers about the nature and assault in Gaza have expressed genocidal intent throughout.” Ditto Israeli military officers of all ranks. Gaza’s residents had been dehumanized, with many Jewish-Israelis believing “that their lives are of negligible value compared to Israel’s national goals, if not worthless altogether.”

The report also notes the use of certain terminology that haunts the literature of genocidal euphemism: the creation of “humanitarian zones” that would still be bombed despite supposedly providing protection for displaced civilians; the use of “kill zones” by the Israeli military and the absence of any standardized rules of engagement through the Strip, often “determined at the discretion of commanders on the ground or based on arbitrary criteria.”

Wishing to be comprehensive, the authors of the report do not ignore Israel’s actions in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. Airstrikes have regularly taken place against refugee camps in the northern part of the territory since October 2023. Even more lethal open-fire policies have been used in the West Bank, with the use of kill zones suggesting “the broader ‘Gazafication’ of Israel’s methods of warfare.”

Another group, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI), has also published a legal-medical appraisal on the intentional destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system, finding that the Israeli campaign in Gaza “constitutes genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention.” The evidence examined by the group “shows a deliberate and systematic dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system and other vital systems necessary for the population’s survival.” The evolving nature of the campaign suggested a “deliberate progression” from the initial bombing and the forced evacuation of hospitals in the northern part of the Strip to the calculated collapse of the healthcare system across the entire enclave. The dismantling of the health system involved rendering hospitals “non-functional”, the blocking of medical evaluations, and the elimination of such vital services as trauma care, surgery, dialysis, and maternal health.

Added to this has been the direct targeting of health care workers, involving the death and detention of over 1,800 members, “including many senior specialists”, and the deliberate restriction of humanitarian relief through militarized distribution points that pose lethal risks to aid recipients. “This coordinated assault has produced a cascading failure of health and humanitarian infrastructure, compounded by policies leading to starvation, disease, and the breakdown of sanitation, housing, and education systems.”

PHRI contends that, at the very least, three core elements of Article II of the Genocide Convention are met: the killing of members of a group (identified by nationality, ethnicity, race or religion); causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of that group and deliberately inflicting on the group those conditions of life to bring about its destruction in whole or in part.

In accepting that genocide is being perpetrated against the Palestinians, Our Genocide makes that most pertinent of points: the dry legal analysis of genocide tends to be distanced from a historical perspective. “The legal definition is narrow, having been shaped in large part by the political interests of the states whose representatives drafted it.” The high threshold of identifying genocide, and the international jurisprudence on the subject, had produced a disturbing paradox: genocide tends to be recognised “only after a significant portion of the targeted group has already been destroyed and the group as such has suffered irreparable harm.” The thrust of these clarion calls from B’Tselem and PHRI is urgently clear: end this state of affairs before the Palestinians become yet another historical victim of such harm.

The post When Israelis Call It Out: Finding Genocide in Gaza first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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

Headlines for July 29, 2025

Democracy Now! — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 12:00:00 +0000

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

A Las Vegas Festival Promised Ways to Cheat Death. Two Attendees Left Fighting for Their Lives.

by Anjeanette Damon — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000

by Anjeanette Damon

They went to a Las Vegas conference this month that promised pathways to an “unlimited lifespan.” But at least two attendees left in ambulances and were hospitalized in critical condition, requiring ventilators to breathe.

The two women, who are recovering, fell ill after receiving peptide injections at a conference booth. The doctor who ran the booth was a Los Angeles physician specializing in “age reversal” therapies who did not have permission to practice medicine or dispense prescriptions in Nevada. Public health investigators are trying to determine if anyone else who attended the Revolution Against Aging and Death Festival experienced a similar illness.

The investigation comes as peptides grow in popularity, thanks in part to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s promotion of the amino acid chains as a way to fight aging and chronic disease. Since becoming Health and Human Services secretary, Kennedy has vowed to end the Food and Drug Administration’s “war on peptides” and other alternative health therapies. Kent Holtorf, the doctor overseeing the booth where the women became ill, also has called for less regulation of alternative therapies and has criticized the FDA for blocking compounds he sees as lifesaving.

Holtorf told ProPublica he is cooperating with the investigation. “Of course, I want to get to the bottom of it. But almost assuredly it will come out that it was not the peptides.”

He said he became convinced the peptides weren’t the cause of the severe reactions after plugging everything he knows about the incident into an artificial intelligence app, which he said gave him a 57-page report that “basically says that it is impossible it was the peptides.” He refused to comment on what the report attributed the illnesses to.

“I don’t think it was the peptides, but I don’t want to try and push the blame and say it wasn’t us,” he said. “We are reassessing everything we are doing.”

Holtorf acknowledged he is not licensed in Nevada but said he hired a practitioner who is and did not personally write prescriptions or administer therapies at his booth. “I knew what was going on but was not hands on,” he said.

He described the situation as “horrific” and “unacceptable” and said he’s “terribly sorry.”

The FDA has approved dozens of peptide-based medications for treating serious health problems such as cancer, obesity and diabetes. But peptide therapies for anti-aging and regenerative health are largely made by compounding pharmacists who use peptide components to formulate drugs that aren’t commercially available or approved for that particular use. Compounded drugs are not reviewed for safety and efficacy by the FDA. The agency also has found “significant safety risks” with at least 18 of the most popular peptide compounding components.

“Anyone who undergoes any sort of medical treatment, no matter how benign, needs to be very wary that even the most benign intervention can have fatal side effects,” said Dr. Amy Gutman, a Florida emergency room doctor who speaks about metabolic research and ketogenic diets and appeared at RAADFest. “And if you are in a hotel and don’t have lifesaving equipment near you, then that is a risk you have to be aware of.”

The two women, a 38-year-old from California and a 51-year-old from Nevada, received injections on July 13 at RAADFest, which is organized by an Arizona-based nonprofit that has built a community hoping to cheat death. According to a police report, both were injected at a booth run by Holtorf, who is licensed in California but not Nevada. Holtorf’s advocacy for alternative therapies has invited controversy in the past, including his criticism of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine in a Fox News interview in 2009. More recently, his practice was advised by the Federal Trade Commission to cease making claims on its website that his peptide therapies could treat or prevent COVID-19. Holtorf said he removed the claims from his website even though he still believes certain peptides can be beneficial in treating COVID-19 and other viral infections.

Both the Southern Nevada Health District and the Nevada Board of Pharmacy confirmed they are investigating what led to the hospitalizations after being notified by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police that possibly as many as seven people at the conference were hospitalized. According to the police report, detectives were unable to confirm whether additional attendees got sick.

Investigators are examining whether the illnesses were caused by an infection, contamination related to the injections or an issue with the medication itself, according to documents obtained by ProPublica. The two women who were taken by ambulance to the hospital reported feeling as if their tongues were swelling and had trouble breathing and increased heart rates. By the time they reached the hospital, one was already intubated and the other had lost muscle control in her neck and couldn’t open her eyes or communicate with doctors, according to the police report.

Holtorf said he was “so freaked out” by what happened because none of the women’s symptoms “made any sense.” In 30 years of providing such treatments, he said he’s never seen such a reaction.

Event organizer James Strole, an Arizona businessman who has built a 50-year career selling the promise of eternal life to followers, said the two patients are recovering after several days in the hospital. He said “it’s not clear the people got sick as a result of treatment from Dr. Holtorf,” adding he’s “anxious” for the illnesses to be “deeply investigated.” He said nothing similar has happened in the 10 years he has been producing RAADFest.

This is the first year Holtorf offered therapies at the conference, Strole said. He added that Holtorf provided the therapies to 60 people at the event and has attempted to reach them to learn whether they experienced any problems. Holtorf said only six patients received peptides.

Strole said the coalition’s science board scrutinizes therapy providers before granting them permission to operate a booth in the conference’s exhibition hall, which organizers referred to as a clinic.

“The big concern is safety,” he said. “We look at who is doing the administering, whether it’s an injection or supplement. We look at the person and the company itself, what the efficacy is, how they operate, their safety measures. We look at all that.”

Strole said peptides are considered “generally safe” when taken under the direction of a doctor, adding that he takes them regularly. Holtorf also said he believes they are safe and that they saved his life when he was a young man suffering from a severe illness.

A review by ProPublica of both the pharmacy and medical board license databases showed no Nevada licenses for Holtorf or his medical practice. Out-of-state doctors who come to provide care at a conference such as RAADfest are required to obtain a special event license from the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners. (As of Friday, 103 doctors had obtained such a license.) To dispense or possess pharmaceuticals, practitioners must also be licensed by the Nevada Board of Pharmacy. RAADFest’s organizers, however, said they were unaware that Holtorf is not licensed to provide medical care or dispense medications in the state.

“In order to practice medicine in the state, you must be licensed,” said David Wuest, executive secretary of the Nevada Board of Pharmacy.

The Nevada Legislature has passed stricter laws as alternative therapies have become popular outside traditional medical settings. In 2017, for example, the state banned so-called Botox parties, requiring the anti-wrinkle injections only be administered in a medical office or spa equipped to deal with life-threatening emergencies. But beyond its standard medical licensing requirements, the state doesn’t have rules governing an event like RAADFest, where attendees receive an array of anti-aging therapies including gene therapies, peptide injections, dialysis-like blood detoxification, bone scans and light therapy.

Strole said he wasn’t aware that providers need a special in-state license to provide the type of therapies Holtorf offered, which he described as “neutraceuticals.”

“I’ve never heard they had to get from the state permission to do that under the auspices of giving a treatment of that nature, that’s not actually treating some disease or something,” Strole said.

According to the police report, Holtorf contracted with a Nevada-licensed nurse practitioner, who administered the injection to one of the women. He also contracted with another doctor, who mixed the vials and administered the injection to the second woman, the report said. That doctor does not appear to have the necessary Nevada licenses.

Holtorf declined to comment on the practitioners he hired for the event, other than to say he had worked with the doctor in the past.

Wuest said multiple providers might be investigated, but he wouldn’t confirm whether Holtorf is a subject of the probe. The board also is investigating whether the therapy provided to the patients required a medical or pharmaceutical license. The FDA is assisting in the investigation to determine what was in the injections, including whether it was a manufactured pharmaceutical or a compounded medication, Wuest said.

Holtorf’s medical practice and the peptide company he founded are affiliated with an organization, Forgotten Formula, that asserts a constitutional right to provide treatments as they see fit. On its website, the private membership association warns “all bodies in the public sector” that they “do not have any jurisdiction” over their doctors. “All doctors, healers, and members are protected under the shield of this organization,” the website says. “We operate member to member. Ignoring this disclaimer can lead to legal consequences against the party at fault.”

According to the police report, Holtorf told officers he obtained the peptides dispensed at the festival from Forgotten Formula. In the interview with ProPublica, however, he denied that, saying he’s not sure which of the many manufacturers he works with provided the peptides used at the booth.

The women received different peptide concoctions, according to the police report. Both included at least one component described by the FDA as posing significant risks when compounded. Holtorf said it is difficult to keep up with which peptides are banned and which are still acceptable for compounding.

“There is so much gray area,” he said. “People know they just get patients better.”

Despite the FDA warnings, peptides were popular among RAADFest attendees who were promised “beautiful life-saving therapies” at the event’s clinic. Event organizers touted that 70 longevity experts would be on hand during the four-day event at the Red Rock Casino Resort Spa but did not list the vendors providing treatments on the event website.

“We have a RAAD clinic, where people will be able to come in at discounted prices and try and do these therapies safely with doctors,” Strole told a Las Vegas TV news program while promoting the event.

Strole is executive director of the Scottsdale, Arizona-based Coalition for Radical Life Extension, one of a cluster of for-profit and nonprofit entities devoted to helping people achieve immortality founded by Strole and two “immortalist” business partners. Of the three co-founders, only Strole, who is in his 70s, is still alive.

Charles Brown, the original founder, claimed to have had a spiritual experience in the 1950s that showed him the path to immortality and proclaimed he could share that path with others, according to an Arizona Republic story. Brown died of Parkinson’s disease in 2014. His wife, Bernadeane “Bernie” Brown, who operated the for-profit People Unlimited with Strole, died of breast cancer in 2024. Her body is said to have been cryogenically preserved.

The nonprofit organizes the annual anti-aging festival, which charges more than $400 for a ticket, while People Unlimited offers monthly memberships for as much as $255 a month, according to its website. Members get access to weekly meetings, where Strole delivers motivational sermons on immortality and age reversal, as well as talks by guest speakers on wellness, discounts on “longevity protocols” and access to a community of people who “want you to live as much as they want to live.”

Gutman, the Florida emergency room doctor, spoke at the event earlier this month, her first time attending RAADFest. She left before the last day, when the two women were hospitalized, and hadn’t heard about the incident before a reporter called. But she said their symptoms — swollen tongue, trouble breathing, increased heart rate — sounded like an allergic reaction, which she said isn’t terribly common in peptide injections. But she cautioned that before injection the drugs are mixed with an agent that can sometimes pose problems.

Although she was skeptical of some of the therapies provided at the festival’s clinic, she said everyone she met there seemed to have “their heart in the right place” and genuinely wanted to help others “live their best lives.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Anjeanette Damon.

The World Is Watching and Waiting for a Strong Global Treaty to End Plastic Pollution

Newswire Editor — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 21:09:53 +0000

Next week, governments from around the world will meet in Geneva for the final global plastic pollution treaty negotiations (INC-5.2). WWF calls on global governments to explore all available pathways to finally make good on the commitment made in March 2022 to forge a strong, legally binding global treaty that can put an end to the plastic pollution crisis. Otherwise, we risk leaving the negotiations with a weak treaty that will perpetuate this crisis for future generations.

While previous efforts to finalize a global treaty on plastic pollution have stalled, a majority of ambitious countries continue to push for progress, with only a small minority hindering momentum. As a result, the question of whether a strong and effective treaty can be achieved through formal consensus alone is up for debate, and it is expected that alternative pathways to deliver a meaningful outcome will be part of the upcoming negotiations.

“The speed at which the treaty went from conception to near completion is exactly what the planet needed, but it was never going to be without challenges,” said Erin Simon, Vice President and Head of Plastic Waste & Business, World Wildlife Fund. “As we approach the final stretch, negotiators must remember why we’re here. Our planet is overwhelmed by plastic waste, and it’s impacting everyone and everything that calls this planet home. At the start of these negotiations, the global community collectively agreed enough was enough, now is the moment to come together to deliver a path forward.”

At this point, the negotiations are well into overtime and every day that goes by, another 30,000 tonnes of plastic pours into our oceans. Failure to conclude a strong treaty at INC- 5.2 will only make the job of addressing this crisis more difficult, costly and dangerous for people all around the world. While the cost of not acting is grave, the potential benefits of meaningful action are plentiful. In the US and around the world a strong global plastic treaty could help create jobs, boost economic competitiveness, lower taxpayer costs, curb pollution and improve human and environmental health outcomes.

The global community must leave Geneva with a treaty built on specific binding rules supported by the majority of countries to be able to effectively tackle global plastic pollution. This means a treaty which includes global bans on the most harmful plastic products and chemicals; global product design requirements to enable a non-toxic circular economy; financial and technical support for developing countries to ensure effective implementation and mechanisms to strengthen and adapt the treaty over time.

“The path forward won’t be easy but it’s time to prioritize the key points where we can align globally and deliver a treaty that will protect the health of people and our planet well into the future,” added Simon.

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

New Report Highlights New Legal Protections for Critical Brazilian River Basin

Newswire Editor — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 21:06:26 +0000

In the wake of Brazil’s Congress passing the “Devastation Bill,” which would dismantle critical components of the country’s National Environmental Policy and rollback decades of environmental safeguards protecting communities from large-scale extractive projects, International Rivers today released a new study outlining the threats facing the Tapajós River Basin and innovative legal measures that communities can take to protect themselves. The report arrives just months ahead of COP30, which will be held in Brazil.

Tapajós River: Legal Analysis of the Brazilian Environmental Legislation (Rio Tapajós Análise Jurídico da Legislação Ambiental Brasileira) and its accompanying executive summary, Tapajós River: Prospects for Permanent Protection, shows how the combined effects of climate change, dams, unregulated mining, and other large-scale infrastructure harm Indigenous and frontline communities, and undermine the environment and biodiversity. It highlights measures that affected peoples can take to protect the Tapajós River Basin, including securing permanent legal protections.

Encompassing over 493,000 square kilometers across the Pará, Mato Grosso, and Amazonas states, the Tapajós is one of the Amazon’s most biodiverse river systems, home to over 300 fish species, including giant piraíba catfish and colorful tucunaré, and endangered river turtles like the tracajá and the giant Amazon turtle. Seasonal flood cycles shape a dynamic landscape of várzea, igarapés, igapó forests, and wetlands — vital nurseries for fish, nesting sites for turtles, and feeding grounds for migratory birds. This vast watershed regulates the hydrological cycle across a significant portion of the Amazon, supports food and water security for riverine and Indigenous populations, and contributes to climate regulation at regional and global scales. For local Indigenous communities, its waters are sacred—tied to origin stories, traditional knowledge, and survival.

Hydroelectric development threatens the Tapajós River system. As of January 2024, 180 hydroelectric projects have been planned on the Juruena River alone. Four major dams—the Teles Pires, Colíder, São Manoel, and Sinop—have fundamentally altered the river basin's hydrology and ecology. Brazil’s piecemeal regulatory system means that each new project is not considered in conjunction with existing ones, so their long-term cumulative effects are often underestimated.

Furthermore, 2,000 illegal mines operate with virtual impunity throughout the river system, representing an estimated 75% of all mining activity in the region. This has left a scar on Indigenous communities. Studies by the Fiocruz Foundation reveal that more than 60% of Munduruku Indigenous community members tested in certain areas exhibit elevated mercury levels, with more than half of the Munduruku people—including children—showing unsafe mercury concentrations in their bodies.

“Although Brazil’s current regulatory framework fails to account for the ecological and human rights violations imposed by large-scale infrastructure, our new research identifies innovative new pathways for frontline communities to reclaim their rivers and their rights,” said Flávio Montiel of International Rivers. “With the upcoming COP30 in Belem, all eyes will be on Brazil. Now is the time for Brazil to be a world leader in the management and protection of nature and human rights by legally recognizing the rights of rivers in the Tapajós Basin.”

Brazil currently has the legal tools to protect communities and their resources from the climate crisis. The country’s Constitutional Article 225 establishes environmental protection as both a governmental obligation and a fundamental human right. Working in tandem with this provision, Article 231 recognizes Indigenous Peoples' original rights to their lands, including their customs, languages, beliefs, and traditions, mandating that public authorities demarcate, protect, and respect all their assets. Further protections also include a review of the State System of Nature Conservation Units (SEUC). This legislation introduced an innovative conservation category called “Rivers of Special Protection” – specifically designed to protect waterways of exceptional value. The Law also provides provisions for the restoration of freshwater ecosystems, making the Rivers of Special Protection designation a promising model for river conservation that could be replicated across Brazil’s river systems.

Ultimately, protecting the Tapajós River system demands a multi-level strategy that leverages Brazil’s existing legal frameworks while addressing structural weaknesses in implementation and enforcement. Moving beyond traditional environmental regulation, the report offers a framework that aligns with Indigenous worldviews and suggests enforceable protections grounded in legal innovations.

It calls on policymakers in Brazil to:

-Adopt a Rights of Rivers legal framework to support communities that rely on the Tapajós River Basin for cultural, physical, and economic sustenance;

-Coordinate action among Federal and State Public Agencies to ensure jurisdictional alignment and robust legal enforcement across federal, state, and municipal levels;

-Implement real-time channels for communities to report violations;

-Establish Popular Committees in the Tapajos River Basin and build capacity for representatives of local social organizations, to ensure effective participation of civil society, for the future creation of the Tapajos River Basin Committee;

-Close legal and institutional loopholes by implementing a Strategic Environmental Assessment for the entire Tapajós basin that includes cumulative and synergic impacts, to ensure that the long-term consequences of development are considered.

The report calls on frontline and Indigenous communities to exercise their rights to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent by:

-Pursuing strategic litigation to challenge harmful projects and regulatory failures;

Serving as co-litigants in precedent-setting cases defending rivers’ rights and ecological limits.

“Ultimately, a nation's environmental conscience can be measured not by the depth of its laws, but by the quality of its waters—and both can run muddy despite the best of intentions written on paper,” said Monti Aguirre of International Rivers.

Read the report.

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

How the world’s highest court bolstered the fight for climate reparations

Anita Hofschneider — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 20:30:00 +0000

As global inaction over the climate crisis has mounted and Pacific islands nations have watched in frustration as their calls for decisive action have gone unheeded, a growing number of them, led by Vanuatu, have turned to the courts. If policymakers won’t act, they hoped, perhaps the courts would.

And so island nations in the South Pacific region of Melanesia, where Indigenous communities have had to flee their traditional lands due to landslides and rising seas, filed a case that was ultimately joined by more than 130 countries. Together, they urged the International Court of Justice to decide whether nation-states have a legal obligation to address climate change, and whether those harmed by a warming world have a right to reparations.

Justices considered testimony in Indigenous Pacific languages, heard arguments from Indigenous attorneys, and learned how Indigenous traditions are being harmed by the typhoons, rising seas, and other extreme weather events worsened by the burning of fossil fuels.

Last week, the court issued a landmark ruling that climate harm violates international law. The seismic decision, although advisory, opens the door for countries like Vanuatu to seek reparations from some of the world’s biggest polluters, and it is widely expected to shape current — and future — climate lawsuits as early as this week.

“What the court has done has come in and made it crystal clear that affected frontline nations and communities that have been devastated by climate harm — harm that can be traced to the conduct of specific countries and corporations — those communities, those nations, they absolutely have the right to redress and reparations,” said Joie Chowdhury, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law.

The court’s decision, handed down Wednesday, said that all nations have a legal obligation to limit greenhouse gas emissions and failing to do so, through the support of fossil fuel production, could violate international law. The justices didn’t disclose how much major polluters might owe, and said the level of reparations would be determined on a case by case basis. But Chowdhury said she expects the ruling to immediately influence ongoing climate litigation worldwide, and prompt new lawsuits. “There are litigators all over the world that are looking to this case and will absolutely bring it into the courtroom,” she said.

Kelly Matheson, deputy director of global strategy for Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit law firm representing youth in climate litigation, said the organization is already incorporating the language of the advisory opinion into an amicus brief that it plans to file in a case in Latin America this fall. She also expects the ruling to feature heavily in La Rose v. His Majesty the King, a Canadian climate case youth plaintiffs brought against the Canadian government scheduled for trial next year, as well as a climate case pending before the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Government attorneys also are studying the decision to determine whether their countries can sue. Malik Amin Aslam Khan, former minister of the environment in Pakistan, said the ruling “opens up a legally grounded pathway for claiming climate damages and demanding reparations for countries like Pakistan, which has continuously been one of the world’s worst climate sufferers and has credibly recorded climate damage costs crossing $40 billion in the past decade alone.”

Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s minister of climate change, said Vanuatu plans to immediately push for a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly to implement the advisory opinion. The government also plans to use the ruling to advocate for better climate financing for the Pacific and better regional and domestic policies to address the climate crisis.

“For the first time in history, the ICJ has spoken directly about the biggest threat facing humanity, which is climate change,” Regenvanu said during a press conference at The Hague last week. ”It’s very important now, as the world goes forward that we make sure our actions align with what was decided or what came out today from the court.”

The ruling builds upon a growing consensus in international law that states have a legal obligation to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Last year, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea ruled that the 169 countries that have signed the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea — a list that includes China and India, but not the U.S. — must reduce emissions. It was another victory led by Pacific island nations as well as island nations in the Caribbean and West Indies.

“For the first time in history, the ICJ has spoken directly about the biggest threat facing humanity,” Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s climate change minister, said of the ruling. He is seen here in court before the decision was handed down. John Thys / AFP via Getty Images

Earlier this month, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, a regional court for Latin and South America, ruled that a healthy climate is a human right and governments should limit emissions. The court also said they should prevent harm to marginalized communities such as Indigenous peoples and emphasized their role in combatting climate change.

“Indigenous peoples play an essential role in the preservation and sustainable management of these ecosystems because their ancestral knowledge and their close relationship with nature proved essential for the conservation of biodiversity and the mitigation of climate change,” the court wrote. “Therefore, states should listen to them and facilitate their continuing participation in decision-making.”

Matheson said that when Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Indigenous Inuk woman who then chaired the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, brought a climate case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights wo decades ago, it dismissed her claims within two pages. Several years later, Palau brought a similar case before the ICJ to no avail.

“For the law to be moving at this speed — to go from dismissals and no consideration of the impact that climate change has on human rights 20 years ago, when the first case was filed, to now you have opinions from all but one of the highest courts in the world — is amazing,” she said, noting that an African court is expected to weigh in soon.

While the ICJ ruling did not expound on the rights of Indigenous peoples and focused on the responsibilities of nation-states, it did clarify a question that has long troubled leaders of countries like Tuvalu and Kiribati that are losing land to rising seas: What happens to their borders if their islands disappear? On that note, the ICJ said any recognized borders should remain unchanged, which is important to ensure they continue to have a political voice on the international stage and control over their waters. “That presumption of statehood and sovereignty is a critical bit,” said Johanna Gusman, a senior attorney for the Center for International Environmental Law.

The case was initiated six years ago by a group of law students in Vanuatu and led by the government of Vanuatu and the Melanesian Spearhead Group, which represents several nations in that region of the Pacific and the Indigenous people of New Caledonia.

“By affirming the science, the ICJ has mandated countries to urgently phase out fossil fuels because they are no longer tenable for small island state communities in the Pacific, and for young people and for future generations,” Vishal Prasad, director of Pacific Islands, Students Fighting Climate Change, said during a press conference at The Hague. “This opinion is a lifeline and an opportunity to protect all that we hold dear, and all that we love.”

The United Nations established the International Court of Justice in the wake of World War II to help the global community address conflicts and concerns peacefully and judicially. It has heard cases on issues ranging from nuclear testing to fishing rights to the status of entire territories, such as Western Sahara. While not binding, its decisions are significant because they interpret international law and clarify states’ legal responsibilities. In this case, the court reviewed several treaties, including the 2015 Paris Agreement climate accord, and concluded that under those treaties and under customary international law, all nations have a legal obligation to limit emissions and may owe compensation to countries that are harmed.

Jake Bittle

There are limits to who can bring cases before the ICJ, which only hears cases brought by nation-states and not, for example, Indigenous political entities such as First Nations in Canada. Gusman said that Indigenous peoples may instead use the language of the cases in domestic disputes or through other U.N. venues. For example, “Indigenous nations and First Nations within Canada now have stronger legal backbones to take cases against Canada,” she said.

The court’s ruling will also be dulled somewhat in the United States, which has long rejected the ICJ’s authority and under President Donald J. Trump has been retreating even further from climate action. The U.S. and China are two major polluters whose rejection of the ICJ’s jurisdiction could prevent a country like Vanuatu from suing them directly over their emissions.

Korey Silverman-Roati, a senior fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said the ruling is a seminal moment for climate litigation but that the effects in the U.S. will be muted because U.S. courts don’t traditionally recognize the ICJ’s authority. “I don’t think we can expect that the direct language of the ruling will impact cases in the U.S.,” he said. He thinks the advisory opinion will likely instead influence other countries whose judicial systems give more weight to the ICJ, and influence the U.S. through the ruling’s use in international negotiations.

Already, the ruling is expected to figure heavily at this year’s Conference of the Parties, or COP, in November in Brazil. Last year, negotiations fell apart in the waning minute to the disappointment of Pacific island nations and many climate advocates who criticized the amount of money pledged by U.N. member states as woefully insufficient.

“The advisory opinion will be an essential tool that we in the Global South will use at the next meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, the U.N.’s climate change and biodiversity conferences, and everywhere to advocate for climate justice,” said Ilan Kiloe, acting director general of the Melanesian Spearhead Group. He said Pacific peoples have already suffered forced relocations due to climate change. “We have already lost much of what defines us as Pacific Islanders.”

Tik Root contributed reporting to this story.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How the world’s highest court bolstered the fight for climate reparations on Jul 28, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Anita Hofschneider.

3 DRC journalists beaten, detained for trying to question provincial minister

CPJ Staff — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 18:42:09 +0000

Kinshasa, July 28, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to immediately drop legal proceedings against three journalists who were beaten and detained overnight while seeking to interview a provincial minister in the north-eastern city of Kisangani.

On July 23, KIS24 Info’s Steves Paluku, ElectionNet’s Paul Beyokobana, and Kisangani News newspaper’s Sébastien Mulamba visited the offices of Tshopo province’s Minister of Finance Patrick Valencio to ask him to respond to media criticism about his appearance in and alleged funding of a television series, Paluku and Beyokobana told CPJ.

The journalists said ministry officials beat them and injured Paul Peyokobana’s hand, shown here, on July 23, 2025, at the Ministry of Finance office for Tshopo province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Photo: Steves Paluku)

Ministry officials beat the three journalists, who all work for privately owned outlets, with sticks and their fists, injuring Beyokobana’s hand, before armed police took them to a local police station and the Kisangani prosecutor’s office, where they spent the night, the journalists told CPJ.

The journalists’ lawyer, Andy Muzaliwa, told CPJ that they were released on July 24 and ordered to appear at the prosecutor’s office on Monday, July 28, to meet Valencio and his deputy chief of staff, Jacques Lomamisa.

Paluku told CPJ that the journalists did not appear in court on Monday because Muzaliwa was not available but were expected to do so in the coming days. Paluka added that on Monday he separately filed a complaint against Valencio at the Supreme Court of Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, over his detention.

“The Congolese officials and police who attacked and detained journalists Steve Paluku, Paul Beyokobana, and Sébastien Mulamba must be held accountable and the legal proceedings against the journalists should be dropped,” said CPJ Regional Director Angela Quintal. “Authorities in the DRC should focus on ensuring the safety of journalists working to report the news, not violently silencing them for asking questions.”

Valencio’s office defended the minister, saying that Congolese law did not prohibit his participation in a film at a time when he was not a minister, the online outlet Boyoma Revolution reported.

CPJ’s calls to request comment from Valencio and Lomamisa rang unanswered.

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

Tony Blinken blames antiwar protesters for Gaza war continuation

The Grayzone — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 16:50:46 +0000

This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.

Mark’s Park EP16: An Evening with Roberto Luti & Friends | Playing For Change

Playing For Change — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 16:04:46 +0000

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

Headlines for July 28, 2025

Democracy Now! — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 12:00:00 +0000

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

Pacific Islands military veterans hope for US action over benefits

APR editor — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 01:30:49 +0000

By Giff Johnson, editor, Marshall Islands Journal/RNZ Pacific correspondent

United States military veterans in the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau received increased attention during the Biden Administration after years of neglect by the US Veterans Administration.

That progress came to a halt with the incoming Trump Administration in Washington in January, when the new Veterans Administration put many programmes on hold.

Marshall Islands Foreign Minister and US military veteran Kalani Kaneko said he is hopeful of resuming the momentum for veterans living in the freely associated states.

READ MORE: Other US veterans reports

Two key actions during the Biden administration helped to elevate interest in veterans living in the freely associated states:

The administration’s appointment of a Compact of Free Association (COFA) Committee that included the ambassadors to Washington from the three nations, including Marshall Islands Ambassador Charles Paul, and US Cabinet-level officials.
The US Congress passed legislation establishing an advisory committee for the Veterans Administration for Compact veterans.
Kalani Kaneko was appointed as chairman to a three-year term, which expires in September.

Kaneko said he submitted a report to the Veterans Administration recently on its activities and needs.

The Foreign Minister said it is now up to the current administration of the Veterans Administration to take next steps to reappoint members of the advisory committee or to name a new group.

Virtually non-existent
Kaneko pointed out that in contrast to its virtually non-existent programme in the Marshall Islands, FSM and Palau, the VA’s programme for veterans is “robust” in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

Citizens of the three compact nations enlist in the US military at higher rates per capita than Americans.

But when they leave the service and return home to their islands, they have historically received none of the benefits accorded to US veterans living in the United States.

Kaneko and island leaders have been trying to change this by getting the Veterans Administration to provide on-island services and to pay for medical referrals of veterans when locally available medical services are not available.

Kaneko said the 134-page report submitted in June contained five major recommendations for improved services for veterans from the US-affiliated islands:

Establish a VA clinic in Majuro with an accredited doctor and nurse.
Authorise use of the Marshall Islands zip code for US pharmacies to mail medicines to veterans here (a practice that is currently prohibited).
If the level of healthcare in Marshall Islands cannot provide a service needed by a veteran, they should be able to be referred to hospitals in other countries.
Due to the delays in obtaining appointments at VA hospitals in the US, the report recommends allowing veterans to use the Marshall Islands referral system to the Philippines to access the US Veterans Administration clinic in Manila.
Support and prioritise the access of veterans to US Department of Agriculture Rural Development housing loans and grants.

Kaneko said he is hopeful of engagement by high-level Veterans Administration officials at an upcoming meeting to review the report and other reports related to services for Compact nation veterans.

But, he cautioned, because there was nothing about compact veterans in President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” passed recently by the US Congress, it means fiscal year 2027 — starting October 1, 2026 — would be the earliest to see any developments for veterans in the islands.

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.

Congressional representatives call for release of Jeffrey Epstein’s financial records

Democracy Now! — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 17:45:02 +0000

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

Handala freedom ship loaded with Gaza aid bracing for Israeli forces

Pacific Media Watch — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 11:40:50 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

An activist on board the Handala, a Gaza Freedom Flotilla ship carrying aid to the besieged enclave in a bid to break Israel’s blockade, says the crew are preparing themselves for the possibility of Israeli forces storming the vessel.

Jacob Berger, an actor from the US, made the comments to Al Jazeera Arabic from on board the Handala, which set sail from Gallipoli, Italy last Sunday.

The ship is currently off the coast of Egypt in international waters on its route to Gaza.

READ MORE: The Freedom Flotilla Coalition web page

The Handala is the latest ship sent by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) in its mission to break Israel’s Gaza blockade amid the devastating starvation regime imposed on the terrotory by Israeli forces.

The FFC’s previous mission ended when its ship, the Madleen, was intercepted by the Israeli military, who boarded the vessel and arrested the activists on board illegally in international waters on June 9.

The Handala’s live location tracker shows it is nearing the area where the Madleen was intercepted by Israel.

Earlier, Al Jazeera reported that 16 Israeli military drones had been spotted flying near the vessel overnight.

In a message via Instagram, another crew member, Thiago Avila, said that the Handala mission was about to cross the location — around 110 nautical miles — “where we were intercepted one month ago with the Madleen trying to break the siege of Gaza and create a humanitarian sea corridor that could stop famine”.

Avila added that Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz had already warned that he intended to “commit another war crime tonight [by] kidnapping our participants and illegally stopping a humanitarian mission heading to Gaza despite the strict prohibition from the International Court of Justice on its provisional rulings.”

The Freedom Flotilla ship Handala . . . reports 16 drones – some in pairs – flying over the aid vessel as it nears Gaza. Image: @yenisafakenglish screenshot APR

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

Hospital nurses STRIKE for FIRST TIME in Baltimore history at Ascension St. Agnes

The Real News Network — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 00:25:44 +0000

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

Microsoft Used China-Based Support for Multiple U.S. Agencies, Potentially Exposing Sensitive Data

by Renee Dudley, with research by Doris Burke — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 16:05:00 +0000

by Renee Dudley, with research by Doris Burke

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

Last week, Microsoft announced that it would no longer use China-based engineering teams to support the Defense Department’s cloud computing systems, following ProPublica’s investigation of the practice, which cybersecurity experts said could expose the government to hacking and espionage.

But it turns out the Pentagon was not the only part of the government facing such a threat. For years, Microsoft has also used its global workforce, including China-based personnel, to maintain the cloud systems of other federal departments, including parts of Justice, Treasury and Commerce, ProPublica has found.

This work has taken place in what’s known as the Government Community Cloud, which is intended for information that is not classified but is nonetheless sensitive. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, the U.S. government’s cloud accreditation organization, has approved GCC to handle “moderate” impact information “where the loss of confidentiality, integrity, and availability would result in serious adverse effect on an agency’s operations, assets, or individuals.”

The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division has used GCC to support its criminal and civil investigation and litigation functions, according to a 2022 report. Parts of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Education have also used GCC.

Microsoft says its foreign engineers working in GCC have been overseen by U.S.-based personnel known as “digital escorts,” similar to the system it had in place at the Defense Department.

Nevertheless, cybersecurity experts told ProPublica that foreign support for GCC presents an opportunity for spying and sabotage. “There’s a misconception that, if government data isn’t classified, no harm can come of its distribution,” said Rex Booth, a former federal cybersecurity official who now is chief information security officer of the tech company SailPoint.

“With so much data stored in cloud services — and the power of AI to analyze it quickly — even unclassified data can reveal insights that could harm U.S. interests,” he said.

Harry Coker, who was a senior executive at the CIA and the National Security Agency, said foreign intelligence agencies could leverage information gleaned from GCC systems to “swim upstream” to more sensitive or even classified ones. “It is an opportunity that I can’t imagine an intelligence service not pursuing,” he said.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has deemed China the “most active and persistent cyber threat to U.S. Government, private-sector, and critical infrastructure networks.” Laws there grant the country’s officials broad authority to collect data, and experts say it is difficult for any Chinese citizen or company to meaningfully resist a direct request from security forces or law enforcement.

Microsoft declined interview requests for this story. In response to questions, the tech giant issued a statement that suggested it would be discontinuing its use of China-based support for GCC, as it recently did for the Defense Department’s cloud systems.

“Microsoft took steps last week to enhance the security of our DoD Government cloud offerings. Going forward, we are taking similar steps for all our government customers who use Government Community Cloud to further ensure the security of their data,” the statement said. A spokesperson declined to elaborate on what those steps are.

The company also said that over the next month it “will conduct a review to assess whether additional measures are needed.”

The federal departments and agencies that ProPublica found to be using GCC did not respond to requests for comment.

The latest revelations about Microsoft’s use of its Chinese workforce to service the U.S. government — and the company’s swift response — are likely to fuel a rapidly developing firestorm in Washington, where federal lawmakers and the Trump administration are questioning the tech giant’s cybersecurity practices and trying to contain any potential national security fallout. “Foreign engineers — from any country, including of course China — should NEVER be allowed to maintain or access DoD systems,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote in a post on X last Friday.

Last week, ProPublica revealed that Microsoft has for a decade relied on foreign workers — including those based in China — to maintain the Defense Department’s computer systems, with oversight coming from U.S.-based digital escorts. But those escorts, we found, often don’t have the advanced technical expertise to police foreign counterparts with far more advanced skills, leaving highly sensitive information vulnerable. In response to the reporting, Hegseth launched a review of the practice.

ProPublica found that Microsoft developed the escort arrangement to satisfy Defense Department officials who were concerned about the company’s foreign employees, given the department’s citizenship requirements for people handling sensitive data. Microsoft went on to win federal cloud computing business and has said in earnings reports that it receives “substantial revenue from government contracts.”

While Microsoft has said it will stop using China-based tech support for the Defense Department, it declined to answer questions about what would replace it, including whether cloud support would come from engineers based outside the U.S. The company also declined to say whether it would continue to use digital escorts.

Microsoft confirmed to ProPublica this week that a similar escorting arrangement had been used in GCC — a dynamic that surprised some former government officials and cybersecurity experts. “In an increasingly complex digital world, consumers of cloud products deserve to know how their data is handled and by whom,” Booth said. “The cybersecurity industry depends on clarity.”

Microsoft said it disclosed details of the GCC escort arrangement in documentation submitted to the federal government as part of the FedRAMP cloud accreditation process. The company declined to provide the documents to ProPublica, citing the potential security risk of publicly disclosing them, and also declined to say whether the China-based location of its support personnel was specifically mentioned in them.

ProPublica contacted other major cloud services providers to the federal government to ask whether they use China-based support. A spokesperson for Amazon Web Services said in a statement that “AWS does not use personnel in China to support federal contracts.” A Google spokesperson said in a statement that “Google Public Sector does not have a Digital Escort program. Instead, its sensitive systems are supported by fully trained personnel who meet the U.S. government’s location, citizenship and security clearance requirements.” Oracle said it “does not use any Chinese support for U.S. federal customers.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Renee Dudley, with research by Doris Burke.

Toady Speaker Johnson: Closing Down the House to Cover for Trump’s Scandal

matthew — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 15:34:04 +0000

By Ralph Nader July 25, 2025 The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson—probably the worst Speaker in American history—shut down the House early this week before its five-week vacation. He wants to avoid holding votes on releasing the Epstein files that reportedly include, among other notables, Donald J. Trump. This is the latest…

This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader and was authored by matthew.

Prospects for the Continuation of Life on Earth and of the Human Species

Paul Larudee — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 15:11:50 +0000

In the July 12, 2024 issue of the scientific journal Nature, an article was published by nineteen co-authors, entitled, “The nature of the last universal common ancestor and its impact on the early Earth system.” The article describes the current status of research into the origin of life on Earth, and the latest available evidence, based upon DNA data, the fossil record and isotope tracing. It demonstrates the remarkable, and even astonishing accomplishments of current state-of-the-art scientific inquiry into the origins of life on Earth.

The evidence discussed in the article points to a single Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) as the original organism from which all life existing on earth today is descended and the appearance of this ancestor roughly 4.2 billion years ago. That ancestor appears to have been what is called a “prokaryote-grade anaerobic acetogen,” in other words, a very simple single-celled organism, neither male nor female and not requiring oxygen to survive. It procreates simply by creating copies of itself. Such cells continue to exist today, and our bodies contain large numbers of them.

As astonishing and significant as this statement is, it is important to recognize what it does not say. First, it does not say that other life forms did not precede LUCA. In fact, these even more primitive life forms (or pre-life chemistry) are presumed to have existed and evolved into LUCA, but we have no traces of them.

Second, LUCA is not presumed to have been the only existing life form at the time, but rather the only one that survived and evolved into all earthly life forms that exist today. To put this into perspective, let’s remember that our entire pre-human population of 900,000 years ago fell to only 1280 individuals, and remained that size until 117,000 years later, before starting to increase again. Furthermore, the entire human race today can trace its ancestry to a single woman, who existed around 200,000 years ago. Every human being alive today shares her DNA.

Both of these examples illustrate the fact that not all of the branches of a family tree ultimately bear fruit, so that even if the family is large, many individual members will themselves have no descendants. The continuation of my line, for example, depends entirely upon my two grandsons, who may or may not have children. That’s not unusual. Every family can ultimately trace its line to a single ancestor. In the case of LUCA, therefore, the common ancestor of all life on Earth is simply the one that survived. Others surely existed, but left no offspring that exist today.

The evolution of LUCA and the laws of evolution

Obviously, LUCA did not remain unchanged. It evolved into many other species and forms of life, through the processes first described by Charles Darwin. In fact, as the Nature article sets forth, it evolved into all other forms of life living today on Earth. How did it do that? Simply by following the laws of evolution. These laws have been described by many naturalists and biologists. The most famous of these laws with respect to evolution, is the law of natural selection, first articulated by Charles Darwin in his book, The Origin of Species. With some editing on my part to allow for the more recent discovery of DNA and its role in what Darwin called heredity, it can be stated as follows:

Evolutionary Law #1: Natural selection is the process by which an individual member of a species passes along traits encoded in its DNA to its offspring. To the extent that these traits contribute to the survival of the offspring, they propagate themselves (and therefore the species).

Natural selection operates over generations to select for the traits that help a species to survive, and to select out the traits that do not. This is often called “survival of the fittest,” with “fittest” being a relative term, depending on changes in the environment in which the species lives. In some cases, the entire species dies out, which we call extinction, when, for example a change in habitat is too great or too abrupt for natural selection to save the species. Some examples of extinct species are the trilobite, the Irish elk, and the Hawaii Chaff Flower. In other cases, one species can evolve into more than one, when populations of a species are isolated from each other for a long time in habitats that alter them in different ways. A common example is the donkey or burro and the horse.

The factors at play in evolution and extinction are many. Some examples are:

climate change
cataclysmic events
loss of habitat
invasive competing species
loss of food source
physical isolation of a species, or a population with the species

By the same token, some of the traits by which species propagate themselves in order to adapt to these changes are:

strength
speed
rapid maturation
defensive mechanisms
access to prey or nourishment
aerial flight
prolific distribution of seed or offspring
ability to store nutrients
access to sexual propagation
ability to survive hardship and deprivation

All of these are fairly obvious, but it is their common thread that can be consequential in ways that are well-known but not yet fully explored. That common thread is competition. All organisms compete with each other – both within and between species – for resources and sustenance, including food, shelter, mates/procreation, protection, etc. This is true for fungi and single-celled organisms as much as for higher species. It is a well-known, universally accepted statement (or law, if you prefer). It permeates the behavior of all life forms, including (obviously) the human species. It can also be stated as a second Law of Evolution:

Evolutionary Law #2: All living things compete for their existence with all other living things.

The role of cooperation

But does natural selection operate by competition alone? What about cooperation, such as symbiosis and other mutually beneficial relationships between organisms of both the same and different species?

There’s no doubt that cooperation is a factor, but what is its role? We can begin this line of inquiry by examining what eventually happened with LUCA. For well over a billion years, LUCA and its descendants remained prokaryotes. Evolution was not static during this time, but it was exceedingly slow, and dependent to a vastly greater extent upon chance mutations and interactions other than mating, which did not yet exist.

Nevertheless, prokaryotes eventually graduated to eukaryotes – single cells with a nucleus housing the DNA – sometime between 2.7 and 1.8 billion years ago. This means that for a minimum of 1.5 billion years, LUCA did not to evolve beyond simple anaerobic single-celled organisms with no nucleus. This is not to say that prokaryotes did not evolve at all during that time, only that before the appearance of eukaryotes, the potential of natural selection was not apparent. This all changed with eukaryotes – a fundamentally new form of life, containing a nucleus housing the DNA.

Eukaryotes were capable of combining with each other to form offspring that were a combination of two parent cells, and not merely copies of a single parent. As a result, the offspring would have combinations of the DNA from the two parents, and thus be different from either of them. This drove faster evolution, and eventually developed into male and female types, as well as a categorical distinction between plants, animals and fungi, starting as early as 1.5 billion years ago, with plants consuming carbon dioxide and expelling oxygen, and animals and fungi consuming oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide. Even more significant, eukaryote cells began to cluster in ways where some could specialize in certain functions – such as digestion and protection – that served other members of the cluster, and vice versa. These colonies of cells with specialized functions exist today in organisms like the Portuguese man o’war, and bear some resemblance to colonies of insects like ants, termites or bees. In any case, these clusters of eukaryotes can be considered early examples of cooperation, and these first cooperative groups of eukaryotes eventually evolved into the first multi-celled organisms, both plants and animals.

Competition vs. cooperation

There is no question that both competition and cooperation are inherent in all life forms on Earth, and that the origin of cooperation may be said to begin with the transition from prokaryotes to eukaryotes, some 2 billion years ago. It is no wonder that they are both part of our DNA, so to speak.

But I would argue that competition is in fact the only driving force in evolution. Why? Let me begin with a reductionist argument. Let us suppose that an organism exists that does not compete for its existence against organisms that do compete? With no motivation to defend itself against other organisms, how fast would it simply cease to exist?

But if that is self-evident, how can cooperation exist at all? The answer is that cooperation confers an advantage to the organisms that engage in it. It was true for the early eukaryotes, and it is true for social alliances today, from wolf packs to human nations and bee hives.

But what is the nature of the advantage that cooperation confers upon the organisms that engage in it? The simple answer is that it enhances the ability to compete. In French they say, “l’union fait la force.” Unity makes strength. Strength for what purpose? To compete.

Ungulates form herds. Why? For protection. Nations form alliances for the same reasons. Criminals form gangs. Wolves form packs. Fish form schools. Bees form hives. Eukaryotes form colonies and eventually multi-celled organisms. But the purpose is always the same: to compete more effectively, to survive and to pass one’s genes to one’s offspring. Cooperation is a means of competition, not an alternative to it, as far as natural selection is concerned. Life does not compete in order to cooperate; it cooperates in order to compete. This may be stated as:

Evolutionary Law #3: All living things cooperate in varying degrees with each other for mutual advantage over other living things.

Obviously, none of this is directly relevant to questions of morality, ethics, justice or religion. Right and wrong, as well as good and bad, are questions which must be answered in a different type of discussion. The analysis that is presented here is devoted to what is or is not, with respect to evolution and where it is leading the human species, life on Earth, and potentially life throughout the universe. I am not addressing the question of what should or should not be. But it always helps to start with what we know, in order to look at the effects and consequences.

The emergence of technological species

We come now to the question of the human species and its evolution. We know that evolution has led life in many different directions during its long history on Earth. It began in the sea, migrated onto land, and eventually into the air, as well. It has developed life forms that generate poison and perfume, change color at will, grow horns, fangs and armor and many other means and strategies for defending themselves, gaining advantage over other organisms, and propagating themselves. Evolution can be a very powerful process.

We are, nevertheless, at a particularly momentous juncture in the history of evolution. I refer not so much to the development of the human species per se as to the development of technology in the hands of the human species. Humans are of course the primary and almost exclusive agent of technology on Earth, and they are exceptional in its natural history. We tend to think of intelligence as the primary reason for the ascendance of the human species. But we know that other species possess intelligence as well, including cetaceans, corvids, elephants and cephalopods. And we can’t be sure about the power of their intelligence, their linguistic abilities, and their abilities to function in organized groups. Their intelligence and communication skills, as well as their social organization and life cycles may be so different that it can be hard to gauge their capabilities.

But the octopus is the only other intelligent organism that possesses anything like our hands, and cephalopods are handicapped by a very short lifetime and a lack of social structure. Our ability to fashion, with our hands, new and artificial objects and machines and to harness energy, i.e. technology, is unique. We are clearly the first technological species on this planet. This is why I prefer to emphasize the contribution of technology, rather than brain development or intelligence per se toward the age in which we find ourselves. Let us remember that our brains are essentially the same as they were tens of thousands of years ago. The last major change was the development of human language, which required some rewiring of the brain, but not a lot, because it had already proceeded in that direction, as it has in other species. Current estimates are that the capacity for modern language in Homo sapiens evolved prior to 135,000 years ago, but actual modern language may not be much older than 100,000 years. On the other hand, tool making is millions of years old. Neither tool making nor intelligence nor language nor even hands are unique to the human species, but the convergence of them is. And clearly, these capabilities have fed off each other in a systematic way, even if none of them has resulted in major physical changes in our species.

Some of this can be inferred from the growth and spread of human population, especially during the last 60,000 years or so. Equally astonishing has been the parallel and roughly simultaneous development of agriculture, urban architecture, and written languages, even in the Americas, which could not have known what was happening on the other side of the world. The reasons for this are not likely to be organic changes, since we are essentially the same organism everywhere on Earth. The process and the convergence appear to be largely self-driving, once all the elements are in place, perhaps when human settlements reach a critical size that creates a level of interaction that is in some ways exponential. No other species achieved these breakthroughs.

The process has now brought about the Age of Technology, which is accelerating at breakneck speed, challenging our efforts to keep up with and adapt to it, and potentially relegating our participation to that of mere cogs in a system controlled by algorithms, technical managers and organizations like Cambridge Analytica, who discovered that humans could be controlled to a significant degree through their electronic devices. The onset of the age may have begun with the first stone tool kits of hominids, millions of years ago, but today it has progressed to where technology increasingly drives itself, with humans as the pollinators of developments such as AI, artificial life forms and exploration of both the farthest and innermost reaches of the universe. We are often unprepared for the consequences. Most of us try to keep up, but it requires increasing vigilance to stay ahead of the forces arrayed to manipulate us and turn us into mere fuel for the vast machinery that is technology today. Think about your interaction with your smartphone. Who is controlling whom?

Perhaps most of this is the inevitable result of the convergence of forces that formed our species and its societal dynamics. Nevertheless, it is in our interest to try to understand what is happening to our species and our planet – and beyond – to the best of our abilities. This is a unique time in the history of life on earth, and it is due to the evolution of our species and its capabilities. Intelligent species existed in the distant past, especially among dinosaurs, but while we have found their remains, we have never found any signs of civilizations or technologies produced by them. And we surely would have, if they existed. Apparently, the convergence of developments that resulted in a species capable of creating a technological society has never existed on Earth until now.

Similarly, we have no confirmed signs of technology from other worlds, either on our planet or on the others that we have investigated thus far. At most, we have speculation about unexplained phenomena that remain unexplained, which has been true since the beginning of time. But we have no objects on Earth that could not have been produced on Earth, whereas we have transported earth-made artifacts to several other bodies in our solar system, which could not have been produced on those bodies. Where is the space junk from extraterrestrial civilizations?

A similar question was famously asked by nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950 at a gathering of his fellow scientists. After some debate about life on other planets, they concluded that it must exist, because there is nothing particularly unique about Earth. Planets with life may be rare, but there are so many planets in the universe that ours cannot be the only one to produce life. Even one in a million allows for a vast number. Furthermore, even though it took Earth more than 4 billion years to create its first technological species capable of interplanetary – and potentially interstellar – travel, there is no reason to think that we are necessarily the first in the entire universe, much less the only one. In fact, the odds are hugely against this being the case. This is the point at which Fermi asked his famous question, known as the Fermi Paradox, “Then where are they?”

This is more than an idle question. It is a troubling mystery and refers to an uncomfortable fact that deserves an answer. Why is there no evidence of any contact with extraterrestrial civilizations? Why would such civilizations not have left their traces during the billions of years of our planet’s existence? If we can find one-celled organisms from the earliest times, how much easier is it to find alien space junk? Even if aliens found our planet not worth very much of their time, how much more interesting are the moon and Mars, where we left our space junk? It is simply inconceivable that Earth would not have been visited, nor that we are the very first technological species to exist in all the universe.

The answer to Fermi’s question may help give us an idea about where we are headed as a technological species, and I believe it is possible to at least partially provide such an answer using the facts and analysis already discussed thus far. I apologize in advance if the answer is not to your liking; it is not to mine, either.

The evolutionary ceiling

What worries me is that there may be a law of evolution that has the effect of blocking technological species from developing beyond a certain point – that a technological species hits a ceiling above which it cannot rise, and that this law is the same everywhere in the universe, because the laws of evolution operate the same throughout the universe, as do the laws of physics. If we could pass that point, we would make contact with other technological species from other planets. But the available evidence points to the conclusion that no species anywhere in the universe develops beyond that point. Why?

Does it have anything to do with competition being the prime mechanism behind natural selection and cooperation secondary? I don’t know, but the idea that human nature is fundamentally different from the nature of all other life seems flawed and unrealistic to me. We’re not that different. The laws of the universe are universal.

Hollywood is full of films, like Dr. Strangelove and Don’t Look Up, about apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic visions of the world. We all agree that they have a plausible basis, because we know the power of existing weaponry and the potential to use it, as well as the weakness of human will. Our species is entirely capable of wreaking terrible destruction on our planet, and destroying many of its species, including our own. In fact, a significant number of species already trace their extinction to human activity. Did technological species on other planets and star systems meet the same fate? Is there a law of nature and evolution that dictates that when a technological species reaches a certain point of development, it destroys itself or sets itself so far back in development that it requires a long, arduous crawl to recover, at which time it once again hits its evolutionary ceiling? Perhaps we should take Hollywood more seriously.

We certainly have the means to accomplish such an apocalyptic outcome: nuclear war, climate change, biological warfare (such as experimental disease strains), chemical warfare, even artificial intelligence. If extraterrestrial civilizations have the same experience, this would certainly explain the absence of contact from or with them. But is it a law of evolution?

I believe that a strong case can be made that it is, that it is built into the nature of life and the primary mechanism of natural selection, as a corollary to Evolutionary Law #2, that all living things compete for their existence with all other living things. I therefore propose Evolutionary Law #4 as follows:

Evolutionary Law #4: When a technological species achieves the capability of self-destruction, its primary competitive drive sooner or later causes the exercise of this capability.

Is an evolutionary ceiling hanging over our heads like a sword of Damocles? Do natural laws of evolution dictate that sooner or later we will bring catastrophe upon ourselves? If so, how close are we to that point? In the last 2 million years, have we ever invented a weapon that we have not used? The answer is no, we haven’t.

The spectacular and unprecedented changes through which we are now living appear to be accelerating geometrically and perhaps exponentially. Compared to the period of the existence of life on Earth, the Age of Technology is no more than a split second, but its acceleration seems without constraint. My analysis is a modest attempt to suggest that there may in fact be a limit – an unplanned direction in which we may be headed, and which may be directed by universal laws that we as yet understand poorly.

Let me ask six questions for which I do not have answers but which may illustrate the problem.

How likely is it that we will stop inventing new means of destroying ourselves, either in part or in whole, whether deliberately or not?
How likely is it that all the nations of the world will agree to destroy all technology that endangers our entire species?
How likely is it that we will live with the tools of our own destruction for the indefinite future without using them, either by accident or on purpose?
If we agree to measures that will make us safe, how long will all the nations of the world abide by them, with no “Samson option” that destroys everyone?
If we achieve the previous objectives, how likely is it that we will manage to keep the means of destruction out of the hands of actors that are not party to the agreements?
If we manage to adhere to all of these control measures for ten years, how much longer will we be able to do so? Another 10 years? Another 50 years? Another 100 years? Another 1000? 10,000? 100,000? Will we really keep all of these weapons under control indefinitely?

We have no previous experience with this point in our evolutionary history. Nothing to compare it to. If or when we hit the Evolutionary Ceiling, what will it look like? Will we destroy all life on Earth? Will we destroy all human life plus some other species? Will we destroy ourselves only to the point of leaving behind enough population remnants to rebuild slowly, in the absence of the technological tools to which we will have become accustomed? If we succeed in rebuilding, will we find ourselves hitting the same Evolutionary Ceiling as before? In that case, will the result be as bad or better or worse than the first time, or is it totally unpredictable?

As I said, we have nothing to guide us. For us this is the first time in our planet’s history (and possibly the last) to face this situation. We also have no guidance from the rest of our galaxy or universe, at least not yet.

I don’t know about you, but I would find it very comforting to receive visitors from other planets telling and showing us that there is another option and explanation for Fermi’s Paradox.

Image credit: NASA.

The post Prospects for the Continuation of Life on Earth and of the Human Species first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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

Headlines for July 25, 2025

Democracy Now! — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 12:00:00 +0000

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

Leaked document reveals proposed law revisions in NZ, as Western defence of Zionist genocide threatens Pacific

Pacific Media Watch — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 05:41:20 +0000

SPECIAL REPORT: By Mick Hall

A leaked document has revealed secretive plans to revise terror laws in New Zealand so that people can be charged over statements deemed to constitute material support for a proscribed organisation.

It shows the government also wants to widen the criteria for proscribing organisations to include groups that are judged to “facilitate” or “promote and encourage” terrorist acts.

The changes would see the South Pacific nation falling in line with increasingly repressive Western countries like the UK, where scores of independent journalists and anti-genocide protesters have been arrested and charged under terrorism laws in recent months.

The consultation document, handed over to the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties (NZCCL), reveals the government has been in contact with a small number of unnamed groups this year over plans to legally redefine what material support involves, so that public statements or gestures involving insignia like flags can lead to charges if construed as support for proscribed groups.

As part of a proposal to revise the Terrorism Suppression Act, the document suggests the process for designating organisations as terror groups should be changed by “expanding the threshold to enable more modern types of entities to be designated, such as those that ‘facilitate’ or ‘promote and encourage’ terrorist acts”.

The Ministry of Justice has been contacted in an attempt to ascertain which groups it has been consulting with and why it believed the changes were necessary.

NZCCL chairman Thomas Beagle told Mick Hall In Context his group was concerned the proposed changes were a further attempt to limit the rights of New Zealanders to engage in political protest.

‘What’s going on?’
“When you look at the proposal to expand the Terrorism Suppression Act, alongside the Police and IPCA conspiring to propose a law change to ban political protest without government permission, you really have to wonder what’s going on,” he said.

A report by the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) in February proposed to give police the right to ban protests if they believed there was a high chance of public disorder and threats to public safety.

That would potentially mean bans on Palestinian solidarity protests if far right counter protestErs posed a threat of violent confrontation.

The stand-alone legislation would put New Zealand in line with other Five Eyes and NATO-aligned security jurisdictions such as Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

Beagle points out proposed changes to terror laws would suppress freedom of speech and further undermine freedom of assembly and the right to protest.

“We’ve seen what’s happening with the state’s abuse of terrorism suppression laws in the UK and are horrified that they have sunk so far and so quickly,” he said.

More than 100 people were arrested across the UK on suspicion of supporting Palestine Action, a non-violent protest group proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the British government earlier this month.

Arrests in social media clips
Social media clips showed pensioners aggressively arrested while attending rallies in Liverpool, London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol and Truro over the weekend.

Independent journalists and academics have also faced state repression under the UK’s Terrorism Act.

Among those targeted was Electronic Intifada journalist Asa Winstanley, who had his home raided and devices seized in October last year as part of the opaque counter-terror drive “Operation Incessantness”.

Independent journalist Asa Winstanley . . . his home was raided and devices seized in October last year as part of “Operation Incessantness”. Image: R Witts Photography/mickhall.substack.com

In May, the country’s Central Criminal Court ruled the raid was unlawful.

Journalist Richard Medhurst has had a terror investigation hanging over his head since being detained at Heathrow Airport in August last year and charged under section 8 of the Terrorism Act. Activist and independent journalist Sarah Wilkinson had her house raided in the same month.

Others have faced similar intimidation and threats of jail. In November 2024, Jewish academic Haim Bresheeth was charged after police alleged he had expressed support for a “proscribed organisation” during a speech outside the London residence of the Israeli ambassador to the UK.

Meanwhile, dozens of members of Palestine Action are in jail facing terror charges. The vast majority are being held on remand where they may wait two years before going to trial — a common state tactic to take activists off the street and incarcerate them, knowing the chances of conviction are slim when they eventually go to court.

‘Targeted amendments’
The document says the New Zealand government wants to progress “targeted amendments” to the Act, creating or amending offences “to capture contemporary behaviours and activities of concern” like “public expressions of support for a terrorist act or designated entities, for example by showing insignia or distributing propaganda or instructional material.”

Protesters highlight the proscription of Palestine Action outside the British Embassy at The Hague on July 20. No arrests were made following 80 arrests by Dutch police the week before. Image: Defend Our Juries/mickhall.substack.com

It suggests that the existing process for proscribing an organisation is slow and cumbersome, noting that: “Specific provisions need to be followed to designate entities not on a UN list, but the decision-making process is lengthy and the designation period is short. This impacts timely decision-making and the usefulness of designation as a tool to prevent terrorism.”

It proposes to improve “the timeliness of the process, by considering changes to who the decision-maker is” and extending the renewal period from three to five years.

The document suggests consulting the Attorney-General over designation-related decisions to ensure legal requirements are met may not be required and questions whether the designation process requiring the Prime Minister to review decisions twice is necessary. It asks whether others, like the Foreign Minister, should be involved in the decision-making process.

Beagle believes the secretive proposals pose a threat to New Zealand’s liberal democracy.

“Political protest is an important part of New Zealand’s history,” he said.

“Whether it’s the environment, worker’s rights, feminism, Māori issues, homosexual law reform or any number of other issues, political protest has had a big part in forming what Aotearoa New Zealand is today.

Protected under Bill of Rights
“It’s a right protected by New Zealand’s Bill of Rights and is a critical part of being a functioning democracy.”

The terror laws revision forms part of a wider trend of legislating to close down dissent over New Zealand’s foreign policy, now closely aligned with NATO and US interests.

The government is also widening the definition of foreign interference in a way that could see people who “should have known” that they were being used by a foreign state to undermine New Zealand’s interests prosecuted.

The Crimes (Countering Foreign Interference) Amendment Bill, which passed its first reading in Parliament on November 19, would criminalise the act of foreign interference, while also increasing powers of unwarranted searches by authorities.

The Bill is effectively a reintroduction of the country’s old colonial sedition laws inherited from Britain, the broadness of the law having allowed it to be used against communists, trade unionists and indigenous rights activists.

Republished from Mick Hall in Context on Substack with permisson.

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

People For the American Way Responds to the Advancement of Jeanine Pirro’s Nomination for US Attorney

Newswire Editor — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 23:28:21 +0000

In response to the Senate Judiciary Committee vote advancing the nomination of Jeanine Pirro for US Attorney for the District of Columbia, People For the American Way President Svante Myrick released the following statement:

“Jeanine Pirro is yet another nominee being put in a position of enormous power to serve the interests of Donald Trump. The Fox News host has repeatedly denied the results of the 2020 election, justified pardons of January 6 insurrectionists, and called for January 6 prosecutors to be investigated. This is not indicative of a qualified US Attorney, but rather a Trump collaborator who will serve Trump, not the American people.

This president must not be allowed to install corrupt prosecutors who will advance his interests at the expense of the American public and our freedom.”

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

Congo journalist Rosie Pioth sent death threats for anniversary report on 1982 airport bombing

CPJ Staff — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 21:20:31 +0000

Kinshasa, July 24, 2025—Authorities in the Republic of the Congo must ensure the safety of journalist Rosie Pioth following death threats for her reporting on the anniversary of the 1982 bombing of the Maya-Maya International Airport in the capital, Brazzaville, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.

“The authorities of the Republic of the Congo must urgently investigate the threats against journalist Rosie Pioth and ensure she can continue her work without the looming possibility of being killed,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa regional director, from New York. “Many journalists working in the Republic of the Congo self-censor out of fear of reprisal, and the possibility that these threats will go without adequate response may only entrench those fears.”

Pioth, correspondent for the French government-owned outlet France 24 and director of the news site Fact Checking Congo, published an article on July 17, the anniversary of the bombing, which detailed how, after 43 years, victims’ families continue to demand justice and compensation.

Pioth emphasized how the story of the bombing had been “erased” with “No monuments. No textbooks. No national day. No public mention of this tragedy.” At the end of the report, she also announced intentions to publish further investigations on the bombing, which killed nine, and its aftermath.

The day after the article was published, unidentified individuals called and messaged death threats to Pioth, urging her to stop reporting about the bombing, according to Pioth and CPJ’s review of the messages. Pioth said her husband also received threatening messages directed at her.

“[A]re you the one encouraging your wife towards media provocations? You have 72 hours to decide to stop your publications. I am watching all your movements, and the unpredictable is not far away, dear infiltrator,” read one of the messages sent to her husband.

Pioth told CPJ that she went into hiding after the threats and intended to file a complaint with the prosecutor’s office in Brazzaville. The local professional association Journalism and Ethics Congo (JEC) also called for her protection.

CPJ’s calls and questions sent via messaging app to a Republic of the Congo government spokesperson and Minister of Communication and Media Thierry Moungalla did not receive a reply.

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

CPJ calls for Kyrgyzstan probe into 2020 death of CPJ award winner Askarov

Lauren Wolfe — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 18:50:34 +0000

New York, July 24, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Kyrgyz authorities to conduct a thorough, independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding journalist Azimjon Askarov’s death, ahead of the fifth anniversary of his passing on Friday.

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.

CPJ calls for Anas Al-Sharif’s protection in face of Israeli smears

CPJ Staff — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 14:52:41 +0000

New York, July 24, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely worried about the safety of Al Jazeera Arabic’s Gaza correspondent Anas Al-Sharif, who is being targeted by an Israeli military smear campaign, which he believes is a precursor to his assassination.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee has stepped up his online attacks on Al-Sharif, by falsely alleging that he is a Hamas terrorist, since the journalist cried on air while reporting on starvation in Gaza. The 28-year-old journalist has been a key source of news from Gaza for international audiences since the war began more than 650 days ago.

“We are deeply alarmed by the repeated threats made by Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee against Al Jazeera’s Gaza correspondent Anas Al-Sharif and call on the international community to protect him,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “This is not the first time Al-Sharif has been targeted by the Israeli military, but the danger to his life is now acute. Israel has killed at least six Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza during this war. These latest unfounded accusations represent an effort to manufacture consent to kill Al-Sharif.”

The IDF have made unsubstantiated claims that many of the journalists they deliberately killed in Gaza were terrorists, including four Al Jazeera staff — Hamza Al Dahdouh, Ismail Al Ghoul, Rami Al Refee, and Hossam Shabat. CPJ classifies such cases as murder.

Shabat was one of six Al Jazeera journalists that the IDF accused in October 2024 of involvement with Hamas or Islamic Jihad militant groups, a claim that the Qatari-based channel rejected as “baseless.” Shabat was later killed and Talal Al Arrouqi was injured.

Two other Al Jazeera staff journalists – Samer Abu Daqqa and Ahmed Al-Louh — have been killed during the Israel-Gaza war, as well as eight journalists and media workers who freelanced for the channel, according to CPJ data.

‘Real-life threat’

Anas Al-Sharif has been a key source of news from Gaza since the war with Israel began. (Photo: Courtesy of Anas Al-Sharif)

“Adraee’s campaign is not only a media threat or an image destruction; it is a real-life threat,” Al-Sharif told CPJ. “All of this is happening because my coverage of the crimes of the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip harms them and damages their image in the world. They accuse me of being a terrorist because the occupation wants to assassinate me morally.”

Israel is coming under increasing pressure to stop shooting Palestinians at aid distribution points and allow more food in, amid global alarm over reports of deaths from hunger and images of emaciated children.

In a July 24 video, Adraee accused Al-Sharif of being a member of Hamas’ military wing, Al-Qassam, since 2013 and moving during the war “to work for the most criminal and offensive channel.”

In a July 23 video, Adraee described Al Jazeera’s reporting on starving Palestinians as “a fabricated drama starring Anas Al-Sharif, who sheds crocodile tears,” while playing a clip of the journalist crying while reporting on July 20.

In a July 20 video, Adraee played the same footage of Al-Sharif crying and accused him of “propaganda” and being part of a “false Hamas campaign on starvation.”

On July 12, responding to Al Sharif’s post calling for a ceasefire, Adraee described the journalist as “a mouthpiece for intellectual terrorism.”

‘My family is also in danger’

“I live with the feeling that I could be bombed and martyred at any moment. My family is also in danger, and I have already paid the price before,” Al-Sharif told CPJ.

In December 2023, Al-Sharif’s 90-year-old father was killed by an Israeli airstrike on their family home, weeks after the journalist received multiple telephone threats from Israeli army officers instructing him to cease coverage and leave northern Gaza.

In August 2024, Adraee accused Al-Sharif of “presenting a lie” in his coverage of an Israeli airstrike on a school that killed dozens of displaced Palestinians.

“This feeling is difficult and painful, but it does not push me back. Rather, it motivates me to continue fulfilling my duty and conveying the suffering of our people, even if it costs me my life,” said Al-Sharif.

Israel has banned Al Jazeera from operating inside the country and in the West Bank.

“These threats constitute clear incitement and an attempt to assassinate my voice, either through bombing or moral distortion. However, I will not stop conveying the truth,” Al-Sharif said.

In response to CPJ’s email query, the IDF’s North America Media desk referred CPJ to Adraee’s July 24 video.

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

The Struggle for Power in Ukraine Has Begun

Valeriy Krylko — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 14:30:09 +0000

The failure of diplomatic attempts to reach peace agreements in Ukraine amid increased military support from the USA and the EU has led to a major reshuffle in the government. The large-scale reshuffle is taking place against the background of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine with vague prospects for its cessation. Volodymyr Zelensky, fearing failure in future presidential and parliamentary elections, is making active efforts to clean up the political field and discredit possible rivals for the post of the Ukrainian president.

Thus, on July 16, 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky nominated Economy Minister Yulia Sviridenko as the new prime minister with a simultaneous reshuffling of the majority of cabinet members1

As a result of the mass reshuffle, Ukraine’s military industry will be placed under the leadership of the Defense Ministry, which will be headed by former Prime Minister Denys Shmygal, who has held this position since March 4, 2020. Under pressure from Zelenskyy and the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Andriy Yermak, Denys Shmygal was forced to tender his resignation on July 15, 2025. The Ukrainian parliament voted for the resignation of Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal on 16 July 2025.

The decision to dismiss Shmygal, 49, was supported by 261 MPs, while the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine was also dissolved during the government reshuffle.

In mid-July, Zelenskyy also said that he was considering acting Defense Minister Rustem Umerov as Ukraine’s ambassador to the USA. Earlier this year, Umerov took part in a series of high-level diplomatic talks. Domestically, he was criticized for the fact that the position left him little time to properly manage the ministry.

Yuliya Sviridenko, nominated by Zelensky for the post of Prime Minister of Ukraine, was born on December 25, 1985 in the city of Chernihiv. Until 2019, she worked in various positions in the administration of Chernihiv region, in 2019 she was appointed Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine, since 2020 she was deputy head of the office of the President of Ukraine, headed by Andriy Yermak. She is a member of the pro-presidential Servant of the People party.

According to Zelenskyy, the appointment of Yuliya Sviridenko as the new prime minister is based on her extensive experience in supporting Ukrainian industry and the urgent need to attract foreign funding for Ukraine’s military needs. Sviridenko gained influence thanks to the support of the head of the president’s office, Yermak, and her work with the USA, where she played a key role in signing an agreement with the USA on rare earth minerals in May 2025.

Next year, Ukraine will face the difficult task of financing its growing budget deficit amid cuts in foreign aid. The Ukrainian Finance Ministry estimates that the country’s financing needs from the US and the EU for 2026 amount to 40bn dollars.

According to Sergiy Marchenko – Minister of Finance of Ukraine, now the government does not know where to find these funds in case of a decrease in funding from the European Union and international funds. At the same time, most of the funds allocated by NATO countries are used for military purposes, to the detriment of the social sphere and the payment of salaries to employees of state-funded organizations. In mid-July, the Ukrainian parliament supported a bill on amending the 2025 budget, which envisages an increase in defense spending by 412 billion hryvnyas ($10 billion) this year.

Meanwhile, Russia has started signaling its desire for a third round of talks with Ukraine after US President Donald Trump said that the USA would supply Ukraine with more long-range weapons through NATO members. Trump also warned that if Russia did not agree to a ceasefire within 50 days, Washington would impose 500% duties on the country’s goods.

These circumstances against the background of widespread corruption, forced mobilization, deterioration of the social status of Ukrainian citizens, illegitimacy of the country’s leadership and disregard for the norms of national and international law contribute to the intensification of the internal political struggle for the future posts of the President and members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Strange as it may seem, the first place in this internal political struggle is occupied by Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office and the shadow leader of Ukraine. Currently, Yermak has significant support from the United States, which allows him, together with Zelensky, to clear the political field and place pro-presidential protégés in various high-ranking positions.

Presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine were to be held in March and July 2024. However, due to another extension of martial law in May this year, these procedures have not been carried out.

Zelenskyy’s powers as president ended on May 21, 2024. At the same time, the decision of the Parliament of Ukraine – the Verkhovna Rada – to extend his powers in accordance with the national law No. 389-VIII dd. 12.05.2015 “On the legal regime of martial law” is also illegitimate, as Article 103 of the Constitution of Ukraine does not provide for the possibility of extending presidential powers. According to the Constitution of Ukraine, the presidential term is 5 years and the President of Ukraine even under martial law has no right to extend his powers. Only the Parliament has the right to extend the powers. Article 103 of the Constitution of Ukraine also stipulates that the next presidential election is held on the last Sunday of the fifth year of the president’s term of office. In the event of early termination of the powers of the President of Ukraine, elections are held within ninety days from the date of termination of his powers

According to the Ukrainian constitution, the prime minister’s candidacy should be proposed to the president by the parliamentary majority faction (currently, it is the pro-presidential Servant of the People party). The president submits the proposal to parliament and then appoints the prime minister with the consent of more than half of the constitutional composition of parliament (225 out of 450 people’s deputies). Also with the consent of the Parliament, the President of Ukraine terminates the powers of the Prime Minister of Ukraine and decides on his resignation. Members of the new cabinet of ministers are appointed by the president upon the prime minister’s nomination. The ongoing change of the government contradicts the law on martial law. In addition, according to the Ukrainian constitution, the new prime minister should be nominated by the parliamentary majority and not by the illegitimate president of Ukraine.

Many Ukrainian and international lawyers note that under national laws and international law, any agreements and legal acts signed and introduced by Zelenskyy into parliament after May 20, 2024 are effectively illegitimate, contradict Ukrainian legislation and can be canceled or easily legally challenged. In this regard, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s decision to appoint Yuliya Sviridenko as prime minister also contradicts the current Ukrainian legislation and norms of international law.

As for the parliamentary elections in Ukraine, they were held on July 21, 2019, the deputies were elected for a term of 5 years and their powers ended in July 2024. However, due to the current legislation and the imposed martial law, the powers of the deputies of the Parliament are extended until its end. According to Article 20 of the Electoral Code of Ukraine No. 396-IX of December 19, 2019, the electoral process for elections to the Parliament of Ukraine should begin within a month after the lifting of martial law. Therefore, in fact, in accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine, Ruslan Stefanchuk, the Speaker of Parliament, has been the legal head of Ukraine since May 21, 2024.

For this reason, Zelensky’s decisions to extend martial law, appoint a new prime minister, Yuriy Sviridenko, reshuffle other members of the Ukrainian government, sign an agreement with the United States on rare earth minerals and transfer the port of Odessa to American companies are legally unauthorized and can be easily overturned both in Ukrainian legal proceedings and in international arbitration courts.

Realizing this legal precedent-casus, the leadership of the United States of America and a number of EU countries, primarily Great Britain, France and Germany, in cooperation with the Ukrainian side, are currently trying to develop a legal mechanism to give legitimacy to the legal acts already adopted by Mr. Zelensky, as well as to the future presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine, since the elections held after the end of martial law in Ukraine do not fall under any provision of the current constitution.

To this end, at the end of June 2025, the Chairman of the Parliament Ruslan Stefanchuk announced the preparation of a law on post-war elections, which is scheduled to be considered at the next sessions of the Ukrainian Parliament. Although Ruslan Stefanchuk himself notes that the said law will also be illegitimate if martial law is lifted in the country.

Against this background, the internal political struggle between various parties and candidates for the post of the future president of Ukraine is intensifying. The main direction of this interaction is the development of a normatively grounded strategy for future presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine. Allies of Volodymyr Zelensky from Great Britain and the USA announcing continuation of his support and new deliveries of weapons paid for by them realize that without interference in pre-election processes and vote counting procedure it is difficult to predict the results of future elections. That is why Volodymyr Zelensky has now started an active reshuffle of the government and clearing the political field of possible competitors in the upcoming elections.

The Economist previously wrote about the fact that the USA and EU countries are negotiating with Ukraine to start election processes after the ceasefire at the end of 2025 7 . However, in order to hold elections in Ukraine, martial law, which the authorities imposed on February 24, 2022 and extend every three months, must cease to be in force. The sixteenth extension for 90 days will come into force on August 7, 2025.

The Ukrainian mass media name Valeriy Zaluzhnyy, a former commander-in- chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces who is currently ambassador to the UK, as Zelenskyy’s main rival.

From November 2024 to the end of June 2025 a number of sociological centers (KIIS – Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, SOCIS – Ukrainian Center for Sociological Studies) and the EU (Statista – German Statistical Data Center from February 5-11, 2025, June 6-11, 2025, Survation – English Polling and Marketing Research Agency from February 25-27, 2025) conducted opinion polls on the topic of presidential elections in Ukraine in order to determine the trust rating of Ukrainian citizens. According to the results of opinion polls as of the end of June 2025, more than 65.3% of respondents support holding presidential elections at the end of 2025.

According to the results of the conducted research, as of the end of June 2025, out of 14 possible candidates for the post of the future president of Ukraine, the highest results were shown by: V.Zelensky, V.Zaluzhny, P.Poroshenko, Y.Tymoshenko. If V.Zaluzhny and V.Zelensky make it to the second round of voting and there are no violations at the elections, the population of Ukraine will give preference to V.Zaluzhny. The candidacy of Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, is also being considered as a gray cardinal and a dark horse. A number of experts do not rule out that if the USA agrees to support his candidacy as the future president of Ukraine, Yermak is capable of making efforts to physically remove Zelenskyy, for example, due to a sharp deterioration of his health, as was the case with the poisoning of the wife of Kyrylo Budanov, head of the main intelligence department of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

Against this background, many Ukrainian experts expect a large number of violations, scandals and kompromat at the future presidential election in Ukraine, as well as possible influence on the pre-election processes by the US, UK, Germany and France.

While the Ukrainian people are eagerly awaiting the resolution of the conflict, members of the Ukrainian parliament continue to scuffle. Thus, on July 16, 2025, on the eve of the vote on the appointment of the new Prime Minister of Ukraine, Yuriy Sviridenko, MPs Oleksiy Honcharenko and Danylo Hetmantsev had another scuffle on the rostrum during the regular session.

The post The Struggle for Power in Ukraine Has Begun first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Valeriy Krylko.

Palestinians fight for survival is at the forefront of a worldwide struggle against global fascism: An interview with Prof. David Klein

Rick Sterling — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 12:00:42 +0000

Q: How long did you teach mathematics at Cal State University, Northridge?

DK: I was there for a little more than three decades. Before that, I taught at UCLA and USC, and before that at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. There, I got into some trouble. I was arrested for taking over a U.S. Senator’s office along with half a dozen Quakers in protest of weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras. I also had a little run-in with the Ku Klux Klan and was sued by right-wing Central American students for bringing in speakers they didn’t like. They sued me for “mental anguish”. Of course, the suit was thrown out of court, but it was a distraction. So, when I got the position at CSUN, I was very happy to get a permanent position there.

Q: So “mental anguish” …. that’s a recurring theme of the critics.

DK: Yes, it’s one of their tools. Claiming to feel bad about what we talk about.

Q: How did you become interested in Israel-Palestine?

DK: Well, it was kind of gradual. When I was a kid, I was very pro-Israel. And then in college, I started to have doubts and talked to more people. And the more I learned, the more obvious it was that this was a settler colonial state that was engaged in pretty much what the United States did to the Native Americans. And then there was a real spike in my understanding and activity with the 2009 “Cast Lead” assault on Gaza by Israel. That really increased my activism. It was just a new level of outrage that I and many people felt.

Q: I understand you didn’t talk about politics in your mathematics classes, but that you were otherwise active. What did you do, and what attacks or censorship did you experience?

DK: That’s right. I was careful not to bring it up in my classes since it didn’t really have direct relevance. But I was the faculty advisor for Students for Justice in Palestine and for the Student Green Party and a few other student groups. So, I created a webpage, a BDS resource webpage on the university server from my faculty webpage. Then, I wrote an open letter that was signed by many CSU faculty, administrators, and students to the chancellor of the entire CSU system, demanding that CSU end the study abroad program in Israel for a variety of reasons.

That got some news coverage and brought a lot of attention to my website. So, that was the start of a lot of attacks.

There were hundreds of calls to my university president that I be fired. There were some threats, some kind of death threats. There were some threats to the administration to withhold financial contributions. There was just lots of slander. Some of it came from the campus itself, but it was mostly outside from the Zionist Organization of America, a group called AMCHA, and other groups. And then there were some politicians who joined in the attacks. The local congressman, Brad Sherman, and a California assembly member, Bob Blumenfield, who later became a city council member.

An Israeli-supported law firm pressured then Attorney General Kamala Harris to prosecute me. And they separately asked the Los Angeles City attorney to do that. But those requests came to nothing. Still, I was required to produce massive amounts of emails, anything regarding Israel-Palestine, and regarding logistical planning to bring in guest speakers Ilan Pappe and Norman Finkelstein. These threats and demands went on and on for a long time. And on my website, I posted a page of the threats, the nasty comments, and the calls for my removal. They were signed by doctors and other professionals, but used really low-level language. The ugliness that it brought out was amazing.

Q: So you were part of organizing and hosting famous academics such as Norman Finkelstein and Ilan Pappe. How did those visits go, and what were the results?

DK: The Norman Finkelstein visit lasted a week. He gave three lectures, and there was a group of us who wanted to hire him at CSUN after he lost tenure at DePaul University. And so that included 30 faculty members from various departments, including the science departments and social studies, social science departments, and a wide range. And it was going well. We got the approval of a department that wanted to hire him, the journalism department, and it went up to the top, and we were all set to go. And then, at the last minute, it was vetoed by the campus president. Norman asked me to write an article about the whole thing, which I did.

The visit of Ilan Pappe came later in 2012. We had to have campus police escorts because of the threats. But he was very persuasive and compelling. Both of these guests were. The students were very engaged and it went well.

Q: I know that there was a big campaign to prevent the tour by Ilan Pappe, but ultimately, the presidents of several CSU universities defended his right to speak. Is that correct?

DK: Three of the campus presidents wrote a letter defending academic freedom. It was an open letter, but it went to the chancellor of the entire CSU system. The visits went smoothly logistically because of that. And it was pretty rare that campus presidents would stand up for academic freedom and freedom of speech for speakers like Ilan Pappe, who very strongly promotes Palestinian human rights.

Q: You’ve been an active supporter of the cultural and academic boycott of Israel. Why do you think this is important?

DK: It’s an important part of the general Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Academics and culture are very important within Israel. And so this particular aspect of BDS lends what we think is special leverage to isolate the Zionist state because of its actions. Israeli universities are deeply complicit in the persecution and genocide of Palestinians. Maya Wind’s new book, “Towers of Ivory and Steel”, documents that very clearly. Focusing on academics is very pertinent to what’s going on. And the cultural boycott has a very large impact. Everybody recognizes when a famous artist, a singer, or a musician refuses to go to Israel and states the reasons.

Q: But critics of Israel and supporters of BDS are under attack. Do you think the censorship and attacks are the same as in the past? Or is it getting worse?

DK: It’s getting much worse. The accusation of anti-semitism has been weaponized. Students, teachers, and professors are facing frivolous lawsuits. Students are facing expulsions. Faculty are facing job loss. Both are facing arrests and deportations for opposing genocide because it might hurt the feelings of the killers. Zionist students and outside advocates of genocide claim to feel unsafe because of demonstrations against Israel’s genocide. And they call human rights activists “anti-semitic”. Even the Jewish activists. And so it’s much more intense now than in the past. They were just sort of getting warmed up on people like me, and now they’ve really sharpened their knives.

Q: Do you have any strategy suggestions for campus activists who oppose the genocide happening in Gaza?

DK: Yes. I think we would do well to be less defensive and go on the offense. Pleading academic freedom and denying that we’re anti-semites is not really going very far. I think we need to move in the direction of accusing the accusers. Israeli soldiers are intentionally killing babies and children, shooting boys in their testicles, torturing doctors to death, and more broadly, carrying out the extermination of the entire Palestinian people. These are the worst of the worst. And we need to point to them, not just defend ourselves from their empty accusations.

By defining opposition to genocide as antisemitic, they’ve turned antisemitism into a virtue. Hitler could have only dreamed of this kind of linguistic transformation. And in this sense, the Zionists are the biggest antisemites on the planet. They’re the worst of humanity. So I think that the least vulnerable among us should take the lead, especially US-born tenured professors.

And we should focus on where the real power is. For K-12 schools, it is the school boards. But for almost all colleges and universities in the United States, whether they’re public or private, the board of trustees is the institution’s highest decision-making or governance body.

Members of the board are typically very rich. They have a lot of political power within the country, not just in universities. To give one example, Miriam Adelson is on the USC Board of Trustees. Miriam Adelson was married to the late Sheldon Adelson. He was a very rich billionaire. Both of them are rich billionaires. And Miriam Adelson’s Foundation contributes $200 million each year to Israel. And she was one of the biggest Trump donors as well. So, there are a lot of university trustees like that. They come from weapons manufacturers, the oil and gas industry, and other major corporations. And they’re overwhelmingly Zionist.

University presidents, who appear to be in charge of their campuses, serve at the pleasure of the boards and can be hired and fired at the whim of these boards of trustees. So the boards of trustees are the real power at universities. They are behind the persecution of opponents of genocide. The college presidents who do cave in to the Zionist censors should face no-confidence votes from their faculty senate on campus. But, there really hasn’t been enough focus on the boards of trustees. And I think that’s the next step. There are a number of people who are coming to the same conclusion on campuses and universities.

A lot of research would be involved to find out who these people are, what their background is, expose them to the public, and show what they’re doing, and try to get them kicked out. Replace them with decent human beings. It’s like you’re either for genocide or against it. If you don’t care, that doesn’t say much good about you. So being anti genocide is the minimal criterion for human decency. After all, if they’re going after and attacking people who are trying to stop a genocide, that makes them horrible human beings, and they shouldn’t be in charge of anything.

Q: Do you have any final comments?

DK: I think the importance of the Palestinians’ fight for survival can hardly be overstated. Their struggle is not only for themselves, but it’s at the forefront of a worldwide struggle against global fascism. And that includes the climate catastrophe, because global fascism can only accelerate planetary suicide.

David Klein is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at California State University, Northridge (CSUN).

The post Palestinians fight for survival is at the forefront of a worldwide struggle against global fascism: An interview with Prof. David Klein first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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

Headlines for July 24, 2025

Democracy Now! — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 12:00:00 +0000

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

The national fight for public power comes to Oakland

Sophie Hurwitz — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 08:30:00 +0000

Zoe Jonick didn’t think she was asking for much when she went before the Oakland City Council with what she considered a simple request: Urge the California state Senate to vote yes on a bill requiring the state to study the feasibility of ditching Pacific Gas & Electric and embracing public power.

It didn’t seem unreasonable, given that the nearby cities of San Francisco, Berkeley, and Richmond had done exactly that in recent months. What Jonick, an organizer with the climate organization 350 Bay Area, and others backing the move wanted the city to do was push state lawmakers to support SB 332. The legislation would explore alternatives to investor-owned utilities and introduce safety and equity measures to improve service. “We’re not being prescriptive and saying what exactly a not-for-profit system would look like,” she said.

Yet this proved to be too much for the City Council, even if dozens of residents spoke out against the utility — which employs more than 8,000 people in Oakland — during a tense council meeting last week. The legislation, which also would have urged regulators to link utility executive compensation to power reliability and grid safety, was pulled from the agenda by a procedural maneuver. “It seems like a number of the council members have not had an opportunity to meet with both sides,” said Kevin Jenkins, the council president.

It was the latest setback in a nationwide campaign to replace investor-owned utilities with publicly owned operations. Advocates argue such a move would lead to cheaper, more reliable power and greater say for residents in how electricity is generated. Despite some victories here and there — Winter Park, Florida, and Jefferson County, Washington, have flipped the switch, and some nonprofit utilities, like California’s Sacramento Municipal Utility District, are many decades old — they’re fighting an uphill battle. Voters in Maine rejected switching to public power in 2023, an effort to do so in San Diego stalled amid skepticism from city leaders, and the city council in Ann Arbor, Michigan voted down a feasibility study proposal five months ago.

Those hoping to see Oakland join the fight come from the climate and environmental justice world. People of color comprise about 70 percent of the population, and almost 14 percent of the city’s 438,000 people live at or below the federal poverty line, leaving them burdened by utility debt. Critics of the utility, known locally at PG&E, also say the for-profit model disincentivizes maintenance and upgrades. That lack of upkeep contributed to faulty equipment sparking at least 31 fires, which killed 113 people, between 2017 and 2022.

Oakland council member Carol Fife sponsored the measure in support of Senate Bill 332, the Investor-Owned Utilities Accountability Act. Beyond calling for a feasibility study, the legislation caps rate hikes, prevents disconnections for vulnerable customers, and mandates periodic equipment audits and replacement. California’s utility bills are the second-priciest in the nation, and Fife said people in her district have experienced six rate hikes and frequent cutoffs in the past year — even as PG&E’s CEO earned $17 million.

“When I’m hearing that one ZIP code in my district in West Oakland has double-digit shutoffs for energy costs, I get concerned,” Fife said. “There are several neighborhoods in Oakland where at least 10 percent of the population has had their power cut off and remains without access to power.”

Critics say public power doesn’t necessarily mean cleaner power: Nebraska, the only state served entirely by a public utility, gets most of its electricity from coal. They also argue that the process of transforming a large utility system into a nonprofit would be time-intensive and expensive, and that they could cost electrical workers their jobs. But those weren’t the primary concerns constituents brought to Fife in voicing their reservations: She said Oaklanders were afraid that PG&E grant funding to local nonprofits would be cut off.

Read Next

Utilities are shutting off power to a growing number of households

Akielly Hu

The company, which provides power to about 16 million people throughout California, is Oakland’s second-largest employer, and it recently spent $900 million relocating to Oakland. The utility also is a big philanthropic player — it provided nearly 1,000 grants throughout the state totaling $36 million last year, and spent $3.5 million on Oakland nonprofits in particular. Fife said nonprofit leaders she’s known for “two, three decades” said they supported her resolution but feared losing funding over it. (None of them spoke at the July 15 council meeting.)

“The lobbyists for PG&E were telling people that I specifically was trying to push PG&E out of Oakland, that I would be responsible for a lack of charitable giving to nonprofits in my district and in the city,” she said.

A PG&E representative, in an emailed statement, said the company “did not, and would not, suggest that we would pull our charitable support.”

“We stand ready to continue to listen to the concerns of City Council members and citizens, and we look forward to continuing to work with city officials on tangible efforts to advance energy equity, climate resilience, and public safety.”

The company representative did not comment on SB 332, but the company made the its thoughts clear during a Senate hearing in May: “SB 332 proposes sweeping changes without fully accounting for existing regulatory safeguards or the operational complexities of transforming the state’s energy infrastructure,” a PG&E lobbyist told lawmakers.

PG&E’s response speaks to the vehemence with which investor-owned utilities fight to maintain their hold over energy. When advocates of public power in Maine managed to get a referendum on the ballot, the state’s two dominant utilities spent more than $40 million to oppose it, outspending its advocates 34 to 1 and handily defeating the measure.

Even if Oakland’s resolution is out of play for now, the city’s public-power advocates aren’t done. As SB 332 continues moving through the legislature, “We’re also building this movement from the ground up,” Jonick said. That might look like more community workshops, or more city council resolutions. Above all, it’ll look like neighbors talking to each other. “No matter what, we’re going to be pushing to build community understanding that another way is possible, and we can fight the utility monopolies’ hold on us.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The national fight for public power comes to Oakland on Jul 24, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Sophie Hurwitz.

UN’s highest court finds countries can be held legally responsible for emissions

APR editor — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 23:06:51 +0000

By Jamie Tahana in The Hague for RNZ Pacific

The United Nations’ highest court has found that countries can be held legally responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions, in a ruling highly anticipated by Pacific countries long frustrated with the pace of global action to address climate change.

In a landmark opinion delivered yesterday in The Hague, the president of the International Court of Justice, Yuji Iwasawa, said climate change was an “urgent and existential threat” that was “unequivocally” caused by human activity with consequences and effects that crossed borders.

The court’s opinion was the culmination of six years of advocacy and diplomatic manoeuvring which started with a group of Pacific university students in 2019.

They were frustrated at what they saw was a lack of action to address the climate crisis, and saw current mechanisms to address it as woefully inadequate.

Their idea was backed by the government of Vanuatu, which convinced the UN General Assembly to seek the court’s advisory opinion on what countries’ obligations are under international law.

The court’s 15 judges were asked to provide an opinion on two questions: What are countries obliged to do under existing international law to protect the climate and environment, and, second, what are the legal consequences for governments when their acts — or lack of action — have significantly harmed the climate and environment?

The International Court of Justice in The Hague yesterday . . . landmark non-binding rulings on the climate crisis. Image: X/@CIJ_ICJ

Overnight, reading a summary that took nearly two hours to deliver, Iwasawa said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries — and, by extension, individuals and companies within those countries — were required to curb emissions.

Iwasawa said the environment and human rights obligations set out in international law did indeed apply to climate change.

‘Precondition for human rights’
“The protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights,” he said, adding that sea-level rise, desertification, drought and natural disasters “may significantly impair certain human rights, including the right to life”.

To reach its conclusion, judges waded through tens of thousands of pages of written submissions and heard two weeks of oral arguments in what the court said was the ICJ’s largest-ever case, with more than 100 countries and international organisations providing testimony.

They also examined the entire corpus of international law — including human rights conventions, the law of the sea, the Paris climate agreement and many others — to determine whether countries have a human rights obligation to address climate change.

The president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Yuji Iwasawa, delivering the landmark rulings on climate change. Image: X/@CIJ_ICJ

Major powers and emitters, like the United States and China, had argued in their testimonies that existing UN agreements, such as the Paris climate accord, were sufficient to address climate change.

But the court found that states’ obligations extended beyond climate treaties, instead to many other areas of international law, such as human rights law, environmental law, and laws around restricting cross-border harm.

Significantly for many Pacific countries, the court also provided an opinion on what would happen if sea levels rose to such a level that some states were lost altogether.

“Once a state is established, the disappearance of one of its constituent elements would not necessarily entail the loss of its statehood.”

READ HERE: The summary of the #ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change. https://t.co/7TWc7ifwfX pic.twitter.com/vVxxwpZpbX

— CIJ_ICJ (@CIJ_ICJ) July 23, 2025

Significant legal weight
The ICJ’s opinion is legally non-binding. But even so, advocates say it carries significant legal and political weight that cannot be ignored, potentially opening the floodgates for climate litigation and claims for compensation or reparations for climate-related loss and damage.

Individuals and groups could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the court’s opinion, and states could also return to the International Court of Justice to hold each other to account.

The opinion would also be a powerful precedent for legislators and judges to call on as they tackle questions related to the climate crisis, and give small countries greater weight in negotiations over future COP agreements and other climate mechanisms.

Outside the court, several dozen climate activists, from both the Netherlands and abroad, had gathered on a square as cyclists and trams rumbled by on the summer afternoon. Among them was Siaosi Vaikune, a Tongan who was among those original students to hatch the idea for the challenge.

“Everyone has been waiting for this moment,” he said. “It’s been six years of campaigning.

“Frontline communities have demanded justice again and again,” Vaikune said. “And this is another step towards that justice.”

Vanuatu’s Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu (cenbtre) speaks to the media after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rulings on climate change in The Hague yesterday. Image: X/CIJ_ICJ

‘It gives hope’
Vanuatu’s Climate Minister Ralph Regenvanu said the ruling was better than he expected and he was emotional about the result.

“The most pleasing aspect is [the ruling] was so strong in the current context where climate action and policy seems to be going backwards,” Regenvanu told RNZ Pacific.

“It gives such hope to the youth, because they were the ones who pushed this.

“I think it will regenerate an entire new generation of youth activists to push their governments for a better future for themselves.”

Regenvanu said the result showed the power of multilateralism.

“There was a point in time where everyone could compromise to agree to have this case heard here, and then here again, we see the court with the judges from all different countries of the world all unanimously agreeing on such a strong opinion, it gives you hope for multilateralism.”

He said the Pacific now has more leverage in climate negotiations.

“Communities on the ground, who are suffering from sea level rise, losing territory and so on, they know what they want, and we have to provide that,” Regenvanu said.

“Now we know that we can rely on international cooperation because of the obligations that have been declared here to assist them.”

The director of climate change at the Pacific Community (SPC), Coral Pasisi, also said the decision was a strong outcome for Pacific Island nations.

“The acknowledgement that the science is very clear, there is a direct clause between greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and the harm that is causing, particularly the most vulnerable countries.”

She said the health of the environment is closely linked to the health of people, which was acknowledged by the court.

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.

US House Leadership Receives Nearly 1 Million Signatures Calling for Impeachment Proceedings Against President Trump

Newswire Editor — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 22:13:36 +0000

Today, Free Speech For People and Women’s March, following a press conference with Rep. Al Green (TX-09), delivered nearly one million petition signatures to the leadership of the House Judiciary Committee, urging Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.

Rep. Al Green stated, “I would like to thank Free Speech for People, Women’s March, and the nearly one million Americans whose petition signatures continue to show how the call for the impeachment of President Donald Trump is of paramount importance and must be addressed by Congress. We are laying the foundation for impeachment by raising our voices across America with a protest movement that is nearly one million strong, and in Congress, by continuing to introduce articles of impeachment because no president is above the law. His abuse of power, disregard for the Constitution, authoritarian dictatorship activity, and violations of the War Powers Clause demand a response. Impeachment and removal from office is the remedy provided in our Constitution to protect democracy from an authoritarian president whose threat to democracy has become an assault on democracy. This is why the article of impeachment filed in June is the first in the foundation to remove an authoritarian president, but not the last.”

Following a press conference outside the US Capitol, organizers hand-delivered the signatures to Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

“What this campaign shows is that nearly 1,000,000 Americans across the country refuse to let Trump and his allies destroy our democracy,” says Alexandra Flores-Quilty, Free Speech For People’s Campaign Director. “It’s up to Congress to do their job, defend the Constitution, and impeach and remove Donald Trump from office for his grave abuses of power.”

“Donald Trump has repeatedly trampled on our Constitution and attacked our communities with cruelty and impunity. Nearly one million people demanding impeachment is proof that we will not back down. Congress must act now to protect our freedoms and our futures,” says Tamika Middleton, Managing Director of Women's March.

The signatures were gathered as part of the Impeach Trump Again campaign, led by constitutional lawyers at Free Speech For People, who have documented multiple abuses of power and violations of the Constitution Trump has committed since his inauguration. These include:

Unconstitutionally usurping Congress’s power to declare war;
Unlawfully mobilizing military forces against civilian protesters in the United States;
Illegally kidnapping, detaining, and removing U.S. residents;
Illegally and unconstitutionally removing U.S. residents, migrants, and asylum-seekers to foreign prisons;
Unlawfully attempting to deport immigrants for peacefully protesting;
Unconstitutionally usurping Congress’s powers;
Defying court orders and unconstitutionally usurping judicial authority;
Abusing his power to seek retribution against perceived adversaries;
Co-opting and dismantling independent government oversight;
Imposing unlawful tariffs;
Receiving foreign and domestic emoluments;
Unconstitutionally usurping local and state authority;
Abusing the emergency power;
Abusing the pardon power;
Corruptly dismissing criminal charges against Eric Adams;
Depriving citizens of their birthright;
Blocking efforts to secure U.S. elections;
Planning the forced removal of Palestinians from Gaza;
Engaging in unlawful, corrupt practices during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Last month, Rep. Al Green introduced articles of impeachment against Trump for violating the War Powers Clause of the Constitution following the military attack on Iran without congressional authorization, and the Congressman forced a floor vote on the articles in the US House. Seventy-eight Members of Congress joined Rep. Green in voting to advance those articles of impeachment, nearly four times as many Representatives who were on record supporting the impeachment of Trump prior to the vote. Now, with nearly a million Americans joining the call for impeachment, Congress must do its constitutional duty and launch impeachment proceedings.

“The Framers designed the constitutional remedy of impeachment to deal with a president who would attack the Constitution, trample on the rule of law, and engage in High Crimes,” says John Bonifaz, Co-Founder and President of Free Speech For People. “The American people are demanding that Members of Congress abide by their oath to protect and defend the Constitution and impeach and remove Trump.”

For more information on the campaign and to read the case for impeachment, please visit impeachtrumpagain.org.

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

Virginia Commonwealth University withholds Palestinian American student’s degree for campus protest

Democracy Now! — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 19:47:59 +0000

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

DRC journalist Sadam Kapanda receives death threats for coverage of Kasaï province conflict

CPJ Staff — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 18:12:16 +0000

Kinshasa, July 23, 2025—Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo must ensure the safety of journalist Sadam Kapanda wa Kapanda, who has received death threats from at least two local officials and two unidentified callers for his reporting, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.

Kapanda, a reporter with the privately owned broadcaster Notre Chaîne de Radio and the Identitenews news site, told CPJ that the death threats related to his coverage of the National Fund for the Repair of Victims of Sexual Violence and Crimes against Peace and Security of Humanity (FONAREV).

Established by the government in 2022, the fund has worked in response to the Kamuina Nsapu rebellion that erupted in August 2016 in Kasaï province, which killed thousands and displaced millions. Kapanda’s reporting has alleged fraud, manipulation, and nepotism by FONAREV Regional Coordinator Myrhant Mulumba, as Kapanda uncovered the identities of victims of the Kamuina Nsapu militias.

“Journalists in the DRC too regularly face threats and intimidation from public officials. Authorities must investigate the death threats against journalist Sadam Kapanda wa Kapanda and ensure his safety,” said CPJ Regional Director Angela Quintal, from New York. “Reporting on matters of public interest, especially amid conflict, is essential for those with power to be held accountable and for the public to be informed about issues and actors that affect their lives.”

In separate calls and messages on July 2, 2025, Mulumba and Kasaï provincial Minister of the Interior Peter Tshisuaka threatened to kill Kapanda if he did not halt his critical coverage of the fund, according to the journalist and messages reviewed by CPJ. Kapanda said that Mulumba also offered him a job with the fund if he agreed to stop criticizing their operations, which Kapanda refused.

Tshisuaka responded to CPJ’s request for comment by messaging app saying that, “The journalist does his job, and I do my job too, Kapanda should look for work elsewhere.” CPJ’s calls and messages to Mulumba went unanswered.

A third, unknown caller on July 2 threatened to have Kapanda killed, Kapanda told CPJ. On July 9, Kapanda said he received an additional death threat from an unidentified caller.

Around 2 a.m. on July 15, two unidentified, armed men arrived at Kapanda’s home and sought to enter, but fled when his neighbors began shouting, the journalist told CPJ. On July 16 and 17, Kapanda received further death threats via phone calls and messages, copies of which CPJ reviewed.

Kapanda told CPJ that he was unaware of police having opened an investigation into the threats.

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

WSJ reporter pulled from press pool in retaliation for Epstein article

U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 15:48:54 +0000

The Wall Street Journal was removed from the White House press pool on July 21, 2025, in retaliation for the paper’s exclusive reporting on a letter allegedly written in 2003 by President Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, a disgraced financier charged with sex trafficking of minors.

A July 17 Journal article described entries in a leatherbound book compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003, including a letter allegedly from Trump that was typed within the drawn outline of a woman and included the sign-off, “may every day be another wonderful secret.” No copy of the letter was included in the article.

Trump immediately took to his social platform, Truth Social, to refute the reporting and condemn the newspaper and the editor behind the article. On July 18, the president followed through on threats to sue the Journal and News Corp — the paper’s parent company — as well as its founder Rupert Murdoch and its CEO Robert Thomson.

A spokesperson for the paper’s publisher, Dow Jones, told the Journal, “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”

The Wall Street Journal’s White House correspondent, Tarini Parti, was then booted from the press pool for Trump’s planned trip to Scotland from July 25-29. Politico reported that Parti was set to serve as the print pooler for the final two days of the trip and was removed even though she was not an author on the Epstein article.

The White House had previously wrested control of the presidential press pool from the White House Correspondents’ Association in February, breaking with more than a century of practice.

In a statement to Politico, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that no news outlets are guaranteed special access to the president in his private workspaces.

“Due to the Wall Street Journal’s fake and defamatory conduct, they will not be one of the thirteen outlets on board,” Leavitt said. “Every news organization in the entire world wishes to cover President Trump, and the White House has taken significant steps to include as many voices as possible.”

A White House spokesperson declined to comment to Politico concerning whether the Journal would be barred from further press pools as well.

Dow Jones declined to comment when reached by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Parti did not respond to a request for comment.

The WHCA criticized the move in a statement, saying it is a clear attempt to punish a news outlet for coverage it doesn’t like.

“Government retaliation against news outlets based on the content of their reporting should concern all who value free speech and an independent media,” wrote Weijia Jiang, CBS News correspondent and the association’s president. “We strongly urge the White House to restore the Wall Street Journal to its previous position in the pool and aboard Air Force One for the President’s upcoming trip to Scotland.”

Freedom of the Press Foundation, of which the Tracker is a project, also condemned the decision. “It’s highly disturbing that a U.S. president has so little respect for the First Amendment that he’s willing to punish news outlets that don’t toe the line,” Seth Stern, FPF’s advocacy director, said.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Palestinian American Student & Dad: 200 Relatives Killed in Gaza; VCU Withholds Diploma for Protest

Democracy Now! — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 15:34:29 +0000

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

CPJ, 22 others call for Egyptian cartoonist Ashraf Omar’s release a year after arrest

CPJ Staff — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 14:41:07 +0000

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 22 other organizations in a joint letter calling for Al-Manassa cartoonist Ashraf Omar’s release a year after he was arrested July 22, 2024, and later accused of joining a terrorist group with knowledge of its purposes, spreading false news, and misusing social media.

The statement also urged Egyptian authorities to drop charges against Omar’s wife, Nada Mougheeth, who was detained after speaking to the media about her husband’s detention and alleged human rights violations surrounding his arrest. Mougheeth was later released on bail pending investigation after she was accused of joining a terrorist organization and spreading false news.

Egypt remains one of the world’s top 10 jailers of journalists, with 17 currently behind bars, according to CPJ’s recent prison census. Seven journalists were arrested in 2024, Omar among them, amid an escalating crackdown tied to the country’s worsening economic crisis.

Read the full letter in English here.

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

Palestinian American Student & Dad: 200 Relatives Killed in Gaza; VCU Withholds Diploma for Protest

Democracy Now! — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 12:15:22 +0000

Virginia Commonwealth University is withholding the diploma of a Palestinian American student because of her campus activism. In a hearing Tuesday, officials examined the case of VCU student Sereen Haddad, who was told she would not receive her diploma at her graduation this year because of her participation in a peaceful memorial commemorating violent police arrests at a student encampment for Palestine in 2024. Sereen Haddad is the daughter of Tariq Haddad, a cardiologist who grew up in Gaza. Dr. Haddad made headlines last year for rejecting an invitation to meet with then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken because of the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s actions in Gaza. The Haddads have lost more than 200 members of their extended family in the nearly two-year-long assault.

We speak to the duo about the repression and retaliation that Sereen has faced for her student activism as she awaits a final decision by the university on the conferral of her degree. “Whatever VCU decides, I have made peace with the fact that I don’t need a university who is materially invested in a genocide’s approval,” she tells Democracy Now! “I am on the right side of history, and I don’t need a university to tell me that.”

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

Headlines for July 23, 2025

Democracy Now! — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 12:00:00 +0000

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

“Under the Microscope”: Activists Opposing a Nevada Lithium Mine Were Surveilled for Years, Records Show

by Mark Olalde — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 09:00:00 +0000

by Mark Olalde

Ka’ila Farrell-Smith grew up in a community that was deeply involved in the fight for Indigenous rights, protesting broken treaties and other mistreatment of Native American people. Members of the movement, she said, understood that law enforcement agencies were surveilling their activities.

“I’ve been warned my entire life, ‘The FBI’s watching us,’” said Farrell-Smith, a member of the Klamath Tribes in Oregon.

Government records later confirmed wide-ranging FBI surveillance of the movement in the 1970s, and now the agency is focused on her and a new generation of Indigenous activists challenging development of a mine in northern Nevada. Farrell-Smith advises the group People of Red Mountain, which opposes a Canadian company’s efforts to tap what it says is one of the world’s largest lithium deposits.

Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have for years worked alongside private mine security to surveil the largely peaceful protesters who oppose the mine, called Thacker Pass, according to more than 2,000 pages of internal law enforcement communications reviewed by ProPublica. Officers and agents have tracked protesters’ social media, while the mining company has gathered video from a camera above a campsite protesters set up on public land near the mine. An FBI joint terrorism task force in Reno met in June 2022 “with a focus on Thacker Pass,” the records also show, and Lithium Americas — the main company behind the mine — hired a former FBI agent specializing in counterterrorism to develop its security plan.

“We’re out there doing ceremony and they’re surveilling us,” Farrell-Smith said.

“They treat us like we’re domestic terrorists,” added Chanda Callao, an organizer with People of Red Mountain.

All told, about 10 agencies have monitored the mine’s opponents. In addition to the FBI, those agencies include the Bureau of Land Management, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Nevada State Police Highway Patrol, Winnemucca Police Department and Nevada Threat Analysis Center, the records show.

Andrew Ferguson, who studies surveillance technology at the American University Washington College of Law, called the scrutiny of Indigenous and environmental protesters as potential terrorists “chilling.”

“It obviously should be concerning to activists that anything they do in their local area might be seen in this broad-brush way of being a federal issue of terrorism or come under the observation of the FBI and all of the powers that come with it,” Ferguson said.

The FBI did not respond to requests for comment. The Bureau of Land Management, which coordinated much of the interagency response, declined to comment. Most of the law enforcement activity has focused on monitoring, and one person has been arrested to date as a result of the protests.

Mike Allen, who served as Humboldt County’s sheriff until January 2023, said his office’s role was simply to monitor the situation at Thacker Pass. “We would go up there and make periodic patrol activity,” he said.

Allen defended the joint terrorism task force, saying it was “where we would just all get together and discuss things.” (The FBI characterizes such task forces, which include various agencies working in an area, as the front line of defense against terrorism.)

In this May 2022 email, an FBI special agent invites Nevada’s Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office to a joint terrorism task force meeting focused on Thacker Pass. (Records obtained by Siskiyou Rising Tide and Information for Public Use. Highlighted and redacted by ProPublica.)

Tim Crowley, Lithium Americas’ vice president of government and external affairs, said in a statement: “Protestors have vandalized property, blocked roads and dangerously climbed on Lithium Americas’ equipment. In all those cases, Lithium Americas avoided engagement with the protestors and coordinated with the local authorities when necessary for the protection of everyone involved.”

Crowley noted that Lithium Americas has worked with Indigenous communities near the mine to study cultural artifacts and is offering to build projects worth millions of dollars for the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe, such as a community center and greenhouse.

But individuals and the community groups opposed to the mine don’t want money. They worry mining will pollute local sources of water in the nation’s driest state and harm culturally significant sites, including that of an 1865 massacre of Indigenous people.

“We understand how the land is sacred and how much culture and how much history is within the McDermitt Caldera,” Callao said of the basin where Thacker Pass is located. “We know how much it means to not only the next generation, but the next seven generations.”

First image: Construction at Lithium Americas’ Thacker Pass mine near Orovada, Nevada. Second image: Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, center, and Rep. Mark Amodei, left, tour the site of a future housing facility for miners in Winnemucca, Nevada. (David Calvert/The Nevada Independent) A Familiar Conflict

Indigenous groups are increasingly at odds with mining companies as climate change brings economies around the globe to an inflection point. Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are contributing to increasingly intense hurricanes, heat waves, wildfires and droughts. The solution — powering the electrical grid, vehicles and factories with cleaner energy sources — brings tradeoffs.

Massive amounts of metals are required to manufacture solar panels, wind turbines and other renewable energy infrastructure. Demand for lithium will skyrocket 350% by 2040, largely to be used in electric vehicles’ rechargeable batteries, according to the International Energy Agency.

The U.S. produces very little lithium — and China controls a majority of refining capacity worldwide — so development of Thacker Pass enjoys bipartisan support, receiving a key permit in President Donald Trump’s first administration and a $2.26 billion loan from President Joe Biden’s administration. (Development ran into issues in June, when a Nevada agency notified the company that it was using groundwater without the proper permit. Company representatives have said they are confident that they will resolve the matter.)

Many minerals needed to produce cleaner energy are found on Indigenous lands. For example, 85% of known global lithium reserves are on or near Indigenous people’s lands, according to a 2022 study by researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia, the University of the Free State in South Africa and elsewhere. The situation has put Indigenous communities at odds with mining industries as tribes are asked to sacrifice land and sovereignty to combat climate change.

Luke Danielson is a mining consultant and lawyer who for decades has researched how mining affects Indigenous lands. “What I fear would be we set loose a land rush where we’re trampling over all the Indigenous people and we’re taking all the public land and essentially privatizing it to mining companies,” he said.

If companies or governments attempt to force mining on such communities, it can slow development, noted Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh, a professor emeritus of Australia’s Griffith University and author of “Indigenous Peoples and Mining.”

“If there are bulldozers coming down the road and they are going to destroy an area that is central to people’s identity and their existence, they are going to fight,” he said. “The solution is you actually put First Peoples in a position of equal power so that they can negotiate outcomes that allow for timely, and indeed speedy, development.”

Environmental activists Will Falk, left, and Max Wilbert led early opposition to the mine, after which the Bureau of Land Management fined them tens of thousands of dollars for the cost of monitoring them. (David Calvert/The Nevada Independent) “We’re Not There for an Uprising”

Most of the documents tracing law enforcement’s involvement at Thacker Pass were obtained via public records requests by two advocacy groups focused on climate change and law enforcement, Siskiyou Rising Tide and Information for Public Use. They shared the records with ProPublica, which obtained additional documents through separate public records requests to law enforcement agencies.

Given the monitoring of mining’s opponents highlighted in the records, experts raised questions about authorities’ role: Is the government there to support industrial development, protect civil liberties or act as an unbiased arbiter? At Thacker Pass, the documents show, law enforcement has helped defend the mine.

Protests have at times escalated.

A small group of more radical environmentalists led by non-Indigenous activists propelled the early movement, setting up a campsite on public land near the proposed mine site in January 2021. In June 2022, a protester from France wrote on social media, “We’ll need all the AR15s We can get on the frontlines!” Tensions peaked in June 2023, when several protesters entered the worksite and blocked bulldozers, leading to one arrest.

That group — which calls itself Protect Thacker Pass — argued that its actions were justified. Will Falk, one of the group’s organizers, said that, in any confrontation, scrutiny unfairly falls on protesters instead of companies or the government. “As a culture, we’ve become so used to militarized police that we don’t understand that, out of the group of people gathered, the people who are actually violent are the ones with the guns,” he said.

Falk and another organizer were, as a result of their participation in protests, barred by court order from returning to Thacker Pass and disrupting construction, and the Bureau of Land Management fined them for alleged trespass on public lands during the protest. The agency charged them $49,877.71 for officers’ time and mileage to monitor them, according to agency records Falk shared with ProPublica. Falk said his group tried to work with the agency to obtain permits and is disputing the fine to a federal board of appeals.

“None of us are armed. We’re not there for an uprising,” said Gary McKinney, a spokesperson for People of Red Mountain, which parted ways with Falk’s group before the incident that led to an arrest.

McKinney, a member of the Duck Valley Shoshone-Paiute Tribe, leads annual prayer rides, journeying hundreds of miles across northern Nevada on horseback with other Native American activists to Thacker Pass. He described the rides, intended to raise awareness of mining’s impact on tribes and the environment, as a way to exercise rights under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, which protects tribes’ ability to practice traditional spirituality. Still, the group feels watched. A trail camera once mysteriously appeared near their campsite along the path of the prayer ride. They also crossed paths with security personnel.

Beyond the trail rides, the FBI tracks McKinney’s activity, the records show. The agency informed other law enforcement when he promoted a Fourth of July powwow and rodeo on his reservation, and it flagged a speech he delivered at a conference for mining-affected communities.

“We’re being watched, we’re being followed, we’re under the microscope,” McKinney said.

First image: Then-Humboldt County Sheriff Mike Allen questioned whether Raymond Mey, a Lithium Americas security contractor, had a state private investigator’s license in a June 2021 email. Second image: Mey pushed the Bureau of Land Management, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and others for a coordinated law enforcement strategy to address protests at Thacker Pass in a June 2021 email. (Records obtained by Siskiyou Rising Tide and Information for Public Use. Highlighted, redacted and excerpted by ProPublica.)

The records show security personnel hired by Lithium Americas speaking as if an uprising could be imminent. “To date, there has been no violence or serious property destruction, however, the activities of these protest groups could change to a more aggressive actions and violent demeanor at any time,” Raymond Mey, who joined Lithium Americas’ security team for a time after a career with the FBI, wrote to law enforcement agencies in July 2022.

Mey also researched protesters’ activities, sharing his findings with law enforcement. In an April 2021 update, for example, he provided an aerial photograph of the protesters’ campsite. Law enforcement agencies worked with Mey, and he pushed to make that relationship closer, seeking “an integrated and coordinated law enforcement strategy to deal with the protestors at Thacker Pass.” The records indicate that the FBI was open to him attending its joint terrorism task force.

Mey is not licensed with the Nevada Private Investigators Licensing Board, which is required to perform such work in the state, according to agency records.

Mey said that he didn’t believe he needed a license because he wasn’t pursuing investigations. He said that his advice to the company was to avoid direct conflict with protesters and only call the police when necessary.

First image: Gary McKinney, spokesperson for People of Red Mountain. Second image: Members of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, People of Red Mountain, the Burns Paiute Tribe and others march in Reno, Nevada, to oppose the Thacker Pass mine. (David Calvert/The Nevada Independent) “We Shouldn’t Have to Accept the Burden of the Climate Crisis”

The battle over Thacker Pass reflects renewed strife between mining and drilling industries and Indigenous people. Two recent fights at the heart of this clash have intersected with Thacker Pass — one concerning an oil pipeline in the Great Plains and the other over a copper mine in the Southwest.

Beginning in 2016 and continuing for nearly a year, a large protest camp on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation sought to halt construction of the 1,172-mile Dakota Access Pipeline. Members of the Indigenous-led movement contended that it threatened the region’s water. The protest turned violent, leading to hundreds of arrests. Law enforcement eventually cleared the camp and the pipeline was completed.

Law enforcement agencies feared similar opposition at Thacker Pass, the records show.

In April 2021, Allen, then the local sheriff, and his staff met with Mark Pfeifle, president and CEO of the communications firm Off the Record Strategies, to discuss “lessons learned” from the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. Pfeifle, who helped the Bush administration build support for the second Gulf War, had more recently led a public relations blitz to discredit the Standing Rock protesters. This involved suggesting using a fake news crew and mocking up wanted posters for activists, according to emails obtained by news organizations. Pfeifle sent Allen presentations about the law enforcement response at Standing Rock, including one on “Examples of ‘Fake News’ and disinformation” from the protesters. “As always, we stand ready to help your office and your citizens,” he wrote to the sheriff.

The department appears not to have hired Pfeifle, although Allen directed his staff to also meet with Pfeifle’s colleague who worked on the Standing Rock response.

Around July 2021, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office held a meeting “to plan for the reality of a large-scale incident at Thacker Pass” similar to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. Police referred to the ongoing protests on public land at Thacker Pass as an “occupation.”

Allen said he didn’t remember meeting with Pfeifle but said he wanted to be prepared for anything. “We didn’t know what to expect, but from what we understand, there were professional protestors up there and more were coming in,” he said.

Pfeifle didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Members of People of Red Mountain have also traveled to Arizona to object to the development of a controversial copper mine that’s planned in a national forest east of Phoenix. There, some members of the San Carlos Apache Tribe oppose the development because it would destroy an area they use for ceremonies. (In May, the Supreme Court handed down a decision allowing a land transfer, removing the final key obstacle to the mine.)

On these trips, Callao and others have frequently found a “notice of baggage inspection” from the Transportation Security Administration in their checked luggage. She provided ProPublica with photos of five such notices.

An agency spokesperson said that screening equipment does not know to whom the bag belongs when it triggers an alarm, and officers must search it.

To Callao, the surveillance, whether by luggage inspection, security camera or counterterrorism task force, adds to the weight placed on Indigenous communities amid the energy transition.

“We shouldn’t have to accept the burden of the climate crisis,” Callao said, “We should be able to protect our ancestral homelands.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Mark Olalde.

Gaza – an open question for NZ’s foreign minister Winston Peters

Pacific Media Watch — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 23:48:33 +0000

OPEN QUESTION: By Bryan Bruce

Dear Rt Hon Winston Peters,

There was a time when New Zealanders stood up for what was morally right. There are memorials around our country for those who died fighting fascism, we wrote parts of the UN Charter of Human Rights, we took an anti-nuclear stance in 1984, and three years prior to that, many of us stood against apartheid in South Africa by boycotting South African products and actively protesting against the 1981 Springbok Rugby Tour.

To call out the Israeli government for genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza is not to be antisemitic. Nor is it to be pro- Hamas. It is to simply to be pro-human.

While acknowledging the peace and humanitarian initiatives on the Foreign Affairs website, I note there is no calling out of the genocide and ethnic cleansing that cannot be denied is happening in Gaza.

The Israeli government is systematically demolishing whole towns and cities — including churches, mosques, even removing trees and vegetation — to deprive the Palestinian people the opportunity to return to their homeland; and there have been constant blocks to humanitarian aid as part of a policy forced starvation.

There is no doubt crimes against international law have been committed, which is why the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defence minister, for alleged crimes against humanity.

So, my question to you is: why are you not pictured standing in this photograph (below) alongside the representatives from 33 nations at the July 16 2025 Gaza emergency conference in Bogotá?

The nations that took part in the Gaza emergency summit in were:

Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, Colombia, South Africa, Bolivia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Algeria, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, China, Djibouti, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Lebanon, Libya, Mexico, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Representatives from 33 nations at the July 16 2025 Gaza emergency conference in Bogotá. Image: bryanbruce.substack.com

Is your policy simply to fall in behind the USA denying there is genocide and ethnic cleansing happening in Gaza?

If not, are you prepared to endorse the six coordinated diplomatic, legal and economic measures already signed up to by 12 of the participating countries in the Bogetà summit, to restrain Israel’s assault on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and defend international law at large?

Remaining countries, which could still include New Zealand, have a deadline of September 20, to coincide with the 80th UN General Assembly, for additional states to join them.

The 6 agreed measures are:
Prevent the provision or transfer of arms, munitions, military fuel, related military equipment, and dual-use items to Israel.

Prevent the transit, docking, and servicing of vessels at any port
in all cases where there is a clear risk of the vessel being used to carry arms, munitions, military fuel, related military equipment, and dual-use items to Israel

Prevent the carriage of arms, munitions, military fuel, related military equipment, and dual-use items to Israel on vessels bearing our flag . . . and ensure full accountability, including de-flagging, for non-compliance with this prohibition.

Commence an urgent review of all public contracts, to prevent public institutions and funds from supporting Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territory and entrenching its unlawful presence.

Comply with obligations to ensure accountability for the most serious crimes under international law, through robust, impartial and independent investigations and prosecutions at national or international levels, to ensure justice for all victims and the prevention of future crimes.

Support universal jurisdiction mandates, as and where applicable in national legal frameworks and judiciaries, to ensure justice for victims of international crimes committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

In addition, are you prepared to specifically support the enforcement of the International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued last year for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defence minister, for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza including murder and forced starvation, in a war that has left more than 211,000 Palestinians, including many children, dead, maimed, or missing since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry? (That’s a figure that is approximately the entire population of Hamiton and Rotorua).

What then is the NZ government’s policy? Are we going to support International Law and call out the Israeli government’s acts of genocide in Gaza, or not?

Yours sincerely,

Bryan Bruce
Investigative documentary maker, journalist and podcaster.
Auckland.

Bryan Bruce is a New Zealand investigative journalist and documentary maker. Republished from Bruce’s substack page.