Two complaints were filed against him with the Haryana police; one by the Sarpanch of Jatheri, a village in Haryana, and another by Renu Bhatia, chairperson of the Haryana State Commission for Women (HCW).

Besides an academic commentary on India’s military response against Pakistan and what it means for India-Pakistan relations, Khan had remarked on the ‘optics’ of the press briefings by the defence forces by placing a Muslim woman officer, Colonel Sophiya Qureshi as the face of India’s military operation.

“The optics of two women soldiers presenting their findings is importantly but optics must translate to reality on the ground otherwise it’s just hypocrisy… the grassroots reality that common Muslims face is different from what the government tried to show but at the same time the press conference shows that an India, united it its diversity, is not completely dead as an idea,” he wrote on Facebook on May 8, a day after India launched Operation Sindoor.

Complaints

According to a copy of one of the FIRs (first information report)  reviewed by Alt News, Khan has been arrested under sections 196(1)(b), 197(1)(c), 152 and 299 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). One of the lawyers working on the case confirmed the charges to Alt News.

This FIR was filed by a Yogesh, the village chief of Jatheri in the Sonepat district of Haryana. In his complaint, he said that at a time when Indians needed to stand united against a foreign power (Pakistan), Khan was trying to incite people against the country and hurting religious sentiments by saying that Colonel Sufiya Qureshi’s presence at the press briefings on Operation Sindoor were a mere show by the government, which otherwise works againt the prevention of crimes against Muslims.

Yogesh also claimed that Khan blamed ‘mad’ armymen for escalating tensions and conflicts between India and Pakistan. While he claimed that these comments were made in person by Ali Khan in front of a few others, he also mentioned Khan’s X and Facebook posts from May 8 in the FIR.

This FIR has been registered under the Rai Police Station, Sonepat, Haryana. The complaint was filed at 8:15 pm on May 17; Khan was arrested the following morning.

Alt News was unable to access the FIR filed by Renu Bhatia for specific details. However, Narender Kadian, deputy commissioner of police (crime), Haryana, told the press on May 18 that Bhatia’s FIR was against Khan’s posts on Facebook as well as him skipping the summons issued by the women’s commission. He added that the FIR invokes sections 353, 79, 152 and 169(1) of the BNS against the professor.

The Haryana State Commission for Women had issued a notice to Khan on May 12 after taking suo motu cognisance of his social media posts (a reference to one of these was also made by Yogesh in his FIR). The HCW complaint against Khan, accessed by Alt News, expresses concern over his remarks because it disparages women in uniform, misrepresents facts (by using terms like “genocide” and “dehumanisation” in the posts) and vilifies military actions and the role of women officers against cross-border terrorism. It also said that Khan’s remarks had the potential to incite communal unrest and violated women’s dignity, outraged their modesty and breached the University Grants Commission’s ethical conduct regulations for faculty. Two posts by the professor, one from May 8 and another from May 11, were attached to the complaint. Khan was asked to appear before the Commission on May 14 along with a written explanation, in the form of an affidavit, of his statements and materials or documents to justify his remarks. He was also directed to carry a copy of Ashoka University’s code of conduct for faculty and a copy of his employment contract.

But what is it that Khan exactly said in his Facebook and X posts that called for such a strong reaction from the women’s commission and the village chief?

What Did Khan Say?

On May 8, a day after the Indian defence forces launched the military strikes targeting terror sites in Pakistan, the Ashoka University professor wrote a post on Facebook summarising the India-Pakistan conflict.

It begins with, “Strategically India has actually begun a new phase in terms of collapsing distinction between military and terrorist (non-state actors) in Pakistan” and goes on to say that Operation Sindoor has made it clear that  “response to terrorist attacks will be met with a military response and removes any semantic distinction between the two.”…

Further, Khan says that those “mindlessly advocating for a war” have never lived or visited a conflict zone. “War is brutal. The poor suffer disproportionately and the only people who benefit are politicians and defence companies.”

At the end, he made a point regarding the ‘optics’ of Operation Sindoor’s press briefings:

“I am very happy to see so many right wing commentators applauding Colonel Sophia Qureishi but perhaps they could also equally loudly demand that the victims of mob lynchings, arbitrary bulldozing and others who are victims of the BJP’s hate mongering be protected as Indian. citizens. The optics of two women soldiers presenting their findings is important but optics must translate to reality on the ground otherwise it’s just hypocrisy… For me the press conference was just a fleeting glimpse- an illusion and allusion perhaps to an India that defied the logic on which Pakistan was built. As I said, the grassroots reality that common Muslims face is different from what the government tried to show but at the same time the press conference shows that an India, united it its diversity, is not completely dead as an idea”

A very basic, literal reading of this post suggests that the role of women military officers was not even the main discourse or primary concern. It simply conflates the contradiction in celebrating a person of one community in a certain situation, while not speaking up when others from the same community face hate crimes.

It also adds that the press conference where a Muslim army officer was placed at the forefront offered a glimpse “that an India, united it its diversity, is not completely dead.”

How the comment outraged the dignity and modesty of women remains unclear.

The second post annexed by the HCW in its complaint was made by Khan on May 11. It was a comment on the abuse faced by foreign secretary Vikram Misri and his family after he announced the ceasefire. Here he criticises those clamouring for war.

“… So when you clamour for war or you call for a country to be wiped out then what exactly are you asking? For the genocide of an entire people? I know Israel is getting away with doing this – and some Indians admire this- but do we really want to advocate the wholesale murder of children as potential future enemies?

Think about what it means when you say ‘wipe them out, ‘finish them,’ ‘destroy them’ etc? You are saying kill all the children, the elderly, minorities, those who are opposed to war on the other side and many other innocent people who want to do exactly what you want to do: be a father, a mother, a daughter, a son, a grandparent and a friend. You can only ask for such wholesale destruction if you have completely dehumanised them… there are madmen everywhere, but those closer to the border know what war means: it means arbitrary, unpredictable and senseless death. Those far from the border seem to think war is some kind of video game. This dehumanisation is symptomatic of deep seated insecurities within us because we somehow need to deny someone else’s humanity to affirm our own but the reality is that the minute we dehumanise someone else- even though they might represent the opposite of everything we stand for- then we have given in to our basest instincts. We have sown the seeds of our own destruction.”

A very literal reading of this post also suggests that it is an appeal advocating for peace over war. The words genocide and dehumanisation in the context in which they have been used do not vilify India’s military strength or efforts but instead urge one to think of what we really ask for when we celebrate war over ceasefire.

His comment, “The kind of war mongering we are seeing amongst civilians is actually disrespecting the seriousness of war and dishonouring the lives of soldiers whose lives are actually on the line,” clearly indicates that it is humanity that is being advocated for, because lives of soldiers and those who live on war-torn areas are often forgotten when emotions run high. At a very surface level, calling this seditious or affecting the nation’s sovereignty would be farfetched.

Misplaced Outrage?

In a press briefing, HCW’s Renu Bhatia criticised Ali Khan Mahmudabad and said that she was surprised he even became a professor. “Why did he become a professor if he can’t respect our daughters? What will he teach our daughters as a professor?” she says, adding that he demoralised women, which is a “shameful thing” and has no right to remain a professor.

While making these remarks, she also says that he used the phrase “painted face,” which Alt News did not find anywhere in Khan’s posts that the Commission had attached in its complaint.

“How and why did he become a professor if he can’t respect our daughters? What will he teach our daughters?” she said. “His posts show that he has a mentality of revolt against the nation.” She said that Mahmudabad was just living in India but had no love for the country. pic.twitter.com/RpFpK8UQU3

— Alishan Jafri (@alishan_jafri) May 15, 2025

It seems as though Khan’s words have not just been misinterpreted but perhaps misread because the charges in the HCW complaint and the FIRs do not add up even with the most conservative reading of Khan’s posts. How his posts are shameful, offensive to women officers of the armed forces or hurt women’s dignity has not been explained. The briefings by the two women seem to have been made to make a larger point about communal issues and the duality of many in the Right-wing.

How his words attack national sovereignty remains unclear as well because at no point are the actions of the government or defence forces critiqued. He actually lauds their stance, if anything. The political science professor very carefully only calls out “those who are baying for war” and “Right wing commentators” in the posts. Are these groups being conflated with the nation or attacking national sentiments? Then that’s a deeper problem.

In response to the HCW’s complaint and summons, Khan also issued a statement saying that his remarks have been completely misunderstood.

“From a bare reading of his original posts, it is clear that Prof. Khan praised the strategic restraint of the armed forces… and said that the optics of the women officers chosen for media debriefs was ‘important’ as proof that the secular vision of the founders of our Republic is still alive… It is preposterous that we have come to such a pass in India that even praising the army, albeit while criticizing those who clamour for war, can now invite such targeted harassment and attempted censorship,” a letter signed by over 1,200 people, including academics and his students, reads.

But Ashoka University has distanced itself from Khan’s remarks. “Comments made by a faculty member on his personal social media pages do not represent the opinion of the university. These statements have been made by him independently in his individual capacity… Ashoka University and all members of the Ashoka community are proud of India’s armed forces and support them unequivocally in their actions towards maintaining national security. We stand in solidarity with the nation and our forces,” it said. But the faculty association has stood by him, calling the charges “groundless and untenable”.

Khan is a historian and the head of the department at Ashoka, where he teaches political science. He has done his PhD and MPhil from the University of Cambridge and has an undergraduate degree in History and Political Science from Amherst College. He is also a member of the Samajwadi Party.

The charges against Ali Khan Mahmudabad are severe and can even attract imprisonment for life. The case against him is particularly disturbing because his writing and comments were fairly academic and calling them outraging women’s dignity seems like a stretch. On the other hand, the High Court had to intervene and ask Madhya Pradesh police to take cognisance of the remarks by BJP minister Kunwar Vijay Shah. Shah referred to Colonel Qureshi as a “sister of terrorists”. Meanwhile, the National Commission for Women has condemned his remarks, but has not summoned him.

Even the FIR filed by the police in Vijay Shah’s case became a point of controversy. The High Court slammed the Madhya Pradesh police for drafting the FIR “in such a way that it can be quashed“. The inflammatory remarks made by the minister were not even mentioned in the complaint. Justice Atul Sreedharan, part of the division bench looking into the case, explicitly said that the contents of the FIR were “vulnerable to being quashed” in the absence of a description of the speech. The HC said it would oversee the investigation thereon.

“It is shocking and unconscionable that the Indian state continues to make such targeted use of the colonial sedition law against an honest and principled academic, while protecting its own ministers who have made filthy remarks about serving officers of the Indian Army and having allowed its trolls to attack India’s Foreign Secretary and his daughter,” academic Supriya Chaudhuri wrote in support.

When one reflects on how the two cases—of Khan and Shah—have been handled so far, it leaves one wondering if their respective faiths have any role to play. The irony is this is precisely the point Khan tried to make in his Facebook posts, for which he is now in custody.

Understanding the charges

Section 79 punishes those intending to insult the modesty of any woman with imprisonment for that may extend to three years, and a fine.

Section 152 deals with endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India by exciting or attempting to excite, “secession or armed rebellion or subversive activities, or… feelings of separatist activities or endangers sovereignty or unity and integrity of India”. The punishment could entail imprisonment up to seven years along with a fine and, in worst-case scenarios, extend to a life term. This is similar to sedition.

Section 196 ensures punishment for those who promote enmity between groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc to disrupt harmony. Punishment for those charged under Section 196 (1)(b) is imprisonment extending up to three years, or a fine, or both.

Section 197 deals with imputations and assertions that prejudice national integration.

Punishment under 197(c)—which looks at published statements, assertions or pleas “concerning the obligation of any class of persons, by reason of their being members of any religious, racial, language or regional group or caste or community” that is likely to cause disharmony, feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will—entails imprisonment up to three years, or a fine, or both.

Section 299 punishes those who intend to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs by deliberate and malicious acts. Penalty is imprisonment for up to three years, or fine, or both.

Section 353 deals with statements that result in public mischief and can result in imprisonment up to three years.

With inputs from Indradeep Bhattacharya

Image credit: Facebook/ @AliMahmudabad

The post Optics of disproportionate action: Posts that led to Ashoka professor Ali Khan’s arrest far from anti-women, seditious appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Diti Pujara.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Debbie Cenziper contributed reporting.

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

Syrian opposition forces have seized most of Aleppo after launching a surprise offensive in recent days that ousted government forces from the country’s second-largest city. The offensive is being led by an armed group called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former al-Qaeda affiliate that cut ties with them in 2017. Syrian and Russian forces have retaliated with airstrikes on rebel-held areas, with the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reporting 446 deaths in Syria since Wednesday. The rebel advance into Aleppo is the most significant turn in the Syrian civil war since 2020, when rebel forces were forced to retreat to Idlib. The offensive was launched at a time when the key backers of Bashar al-Assad’s government — Russia, Iran and Hezbollah — are also focused on other conflicts. “It was a surprise offensive that people did not expect at all,” says Associated Press reporter Kareem Chehayeb.

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

On October 1, Iran fired about 180 missiles at Israel in response to Israel’s recent assassinations of leaders of its Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), Hezbollah, and Hamas. There are conflicting reports about how many of the missiles struck their targets and if there were any deaths. But Israel is now considering a counterattack that could propel it into an all-out war with Iran, with the U.S. in tow.

For years, Iran has been trying to avoid such a war. That is why it signed the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement with the United States, the U.K., France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union. Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA in 2018, and despite Joe Biden’s much-touted differences with Trump, he failed to restore U.S. compliance. Instead, he tried to use Trump’s violation of the treaty as leverage to demand further concessions from Iran. This only served to further aggravate the schism between the United States and Iran, which have had no diplomatic relations since 1980.

Now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees his long-awaited chance to draw the United States into war with Iran. By killing Iranian military leaders and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil, as well as attacking Iran’s allies in Lebanon and Yemen, Netanyahu provoked a military response from Iran that has given him an excuse to widen the conflict even further. Tragically, there are warmongering U.S. officials who would welcome a war on Iran, and many more who would blindly go along with it.

Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, campaigned on a platform of reconciling with the West. When he came to New York to speak at the UN General Assembly on September 25, he was accompanied by three members of Iran’s JCPOA negotiating team: former foreign minister Javad Zarif; current foreign minister Abbas Araghchi; and deputy foreign minister Majid Ravanchi.

President Pezeshkian’s message in New York was conciliatory. With Zarif and Araghchi at his side at a press conference on September 23, he talked of peace, and of reviving the dormant nuclear agreement. “Vis-a-vis the JCPOA, we said 100 times we are willing to live up to our agreements,” he said. “We do hope we can sit at the table and hold discussions.”

On the crisis in the Middle East, Pezeshkian said that Iran wanted peace and had exercised restraint in the face of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its assassinations of resistance leaders and Iranian officials, and its war on its neighbors.

“Let’s create a situation where we can co-exist,” said Pezeshkian. “Let’s try to resolve tensions through dialogue…We are willing to put all of our weapons aside so long as Israel will do the same.” He added that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel is not, and that Israel’s nuclear arsenal is a serious threat to Iran.

Pezeshkian reiterated Iran’s desire for peace in his speech at the UN General Assembly.

“I am the president of a country that has endured threats, war, occupation, and sanctions throughout its modern history,” he said. “Others have neither come to our assistance nor respected our declared neutrality. Global powers have even sided with aggressors. We have learned that we can only rely on our own people and our own indigenous capabilities. The Islamic Republic of Iran seeks to safeguard its own security, not to create insecurity for others. We want peace for all and seek no war or quarrel with anyone.”

The U.S. response to Iran’s restraint throughout this crisis has been to keep sending destructive weapons to Israel, with which it has devastated Gaza, killed tens of thousands of women and children, bombed neighboring capitals, and beefed up the forces it would need to attack Iran.

That includes a new order for 50 F-15EX long-range bombers, with 750 gallon fuel tanks for the long journey to Iran. That arms deal still has to pass the Senate, where Senator Bernie Sanders is leading the opposition.

On the diplomatic front, the U.S. vetoed successive cease-fire resolutions in the UN Security Council and hijacked Qatar and Egypt’s cease-fire negotiations to provide diplomatic cover for unrestricted genocide.

Military leaders in the United States and Israel appear to be arguing against war on Iran, as they have in the past. Even George W. Bush and Dick Cheney balked at launching another catastrophic war based on lies against Iran, after the CIA publicly admitted in its 2006 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons.

When Trump threatened to attack Iran, Tulsi Gabbard warned him that a U.S. war on Iran would be so catastrophic that it would finally, retroactively, make the war on Iraq look like the “cakewalk” the neocons had promised it would be.

But neither U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin nor Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant can control their countries’ war policies, which are in the hands of political leaders with political agendas. Netanyahu has spent many years trying to draw the United States into a war with Iran, and has kept escalating the Gaza crisis for a year, at the cost of tens of thousands of innocent lives, with that goal clearly in mind.

Biden has been out of his depth throughout this crisis, relying on political instincts from an era when acting tough and blindly supporting Israel were politically safe positions for American politicians. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rose to power through the National Security Council and as a Senate staffer, not as a diplomat, riding Biden’s coat-tails into a senior position where he is as out of his depth as his boss.

Meanwhile, pro-Iran militia groups in Iraq warn that, if the U.S. joins in strikes on Iran, they will target U.S. bases in Iraq and the region.

So we are careening toward a catastrophic war with Iran, with no U.S. diplomatic leadership and only Trump and Harris waiting in the wings. As Trita Parsi wrote in Responsible Statecraft, “If U.S. service members find themselves in the line of fire in an expanding Iran-Israel conflict, it will be a direct result of this administration’s failure to use U.S. leverage to pursue America’s most core security interest here — avoiding war.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

The sprawling business empire created by tribal leaders in northern Wisconsin was born of desperate times, as the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians faced financial ruin. Its subsequent success would be built on the desperate needs of others far from the reservation.

The tribe had made some poor choices as it sought to expand its fortunes beyond a modest casino in its home state of Wisconsin two decades ago. Grand plans for a floating casino off Cancun, Mexico, collapsed, and a riverboat gambling venture in Mississippi required more cash than the tribe had on hand.

The resulting loans — $50 million in bonds issued in 2008 at 12% — proved crushing. Struggling to make debt payments, tribal officials soon were forced to slash spending for essential programs on the reservation and lay off dozens of employees.

Protests erupted, with demonstrators barricading themselves inside a government building and demanding audits and investigations. When angry tribal members elected a new governing council, it refused to pay anymore. The tribe defaulted on a loan it had come to regret.

The LDF tribe turned to the one asset that could distinguish it in the marketplace: sovereign immunity.

This special status allowed it as a Native American tribe to enter the world of internet lending without interest rate caps, an option not open to other lenders in most states. The annual rates it charged for small-sum, installment loans frequently exceeded 600%.

Business partners, seeing the favorable math, were easy to find. So, too, were consumers who had run out of options to pay their bills. Their decisions to sign up for LDF loans often made things worse.

ProPublica traced the key decisions that put LDF on the path to becoming a prominent player in a sector of the payday lending industry that has long skirted regulation and drawn controversy.

LDF did not just dabble in this type of lending; it fully embraced it. Like other tribes that have taken this route, LDF built its success on a series of complex business arrangements, with roles and motives difficult to unravel.

Over time, ProPublica found, LDF signed off on deals involving outsiders with histories of predatory practices — associations that carried profound implications for the tribe. Not only did they put the tribe’s reputation at risk, they generated a barrage of costly lawsuits and questions of whether LDF was allowing partners to take advantage of tribal rights to skirt state usury laws.

In Boston, Brian Coughlin initially had no idea that a Native American tribe was involved in the small loan he took out with a high interest rate. He only learned about LDF after he filed for bankruptcy to seek protection from his creditors.

“I was definitely surprised,” he said. “I didn’t think they operated things like that.”

During the bankruptcy process, an LDF partner still hounded him to pay, which Coughlin said pushed him to a breaking point and a suicide attempt. Federal law prohibits chasing debtors who have filed for bankruptcy, and Coughlin sued the tribe in a dispute that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Last year, the court — in a decision with far-reaching implications for tribes — ruled that LDF could be held liable under the Bankruptcy Code.

His and other consumer lawsuits paint LDF as a front for outsiders who take an oversized cut of the proceeds, leaving LDF with only dollars per loan. Interviews and ProPublica’s review of records also show how heavily LDF relies on its partners for most of the essential operations. These descriptions are disputed by LDF, which has told ProPublica that it merely is outsourcing for much-needed expertise while still maintaining control.

In a statement to ProPublica this year, John Johnson Sr., LDF’s president, described the tribe’s lending business as “a narrative of empowerment, ethical business practice, and commitment to community enrichment.” He has declined to be interviewed and did not respond to written questions for this story.

Over time, LDF has set up at least two dozen internet lending companies and websites, ProPublica determined. Its loans are so pervasive the LDF tribe showed up as a creditor in roughly 1 out of every 100 bankruptcy cases sampled nationwide, as ProPublica reported in August.

This year, LDF and some of its business affiliates agreed to a federal class-action settlement in Virginia that, if finalized, will erase $1.4 billion in consumer debt and provide $37 million in restitution. Tribal defendants are responsible for $2 million of that; the tribe in a statement has indicated that its business arm would pay.

Tribal officials have consistently denied wrongdoing. A newsletter to tribal members as LDF was starting up its venture said the tribe “is not practicing any type of predatory lending.” In his statements to ProPublica for the August story, Johnson stressed that the tribe complies with tribal and federal law, that its lending practices are transparent, that its collections are done ethically and that the loans help distressed borrowers who have little access to credit.

LDF leaders have not publicly stated any desire to alter their business practices, even as some community members express concern.

“Feeding greed with unscrupulous business practices is crushing us,” one LDF member recently wrote on a community Facebook page.

After the bond debacle in the 2000s, LDF leaders felt stung by their outside financial advisers, believing they were deceived about the terms of the transaction and risks involved.

Moving forward, they wanted someone they could trust. They found that in Brent McFarland.

McFarland was not a tribal member, but he grew up near the reservation and had friends on the Tribal Council. McFarland, an investment adviser who’d run a restaurant and worked in real estate, offered some helpful advice to the tribe, and the council eventually hired him for a wider role. He helped it establish the Lac du Flambeau Business Development Corporation in 2012, governed by a board answerable to the Tribal Council. And he looked for ways LDF could make money, apart from gaming.

“I ended up meeting some people that were doing online lending,” he said in an interview.

Tribes could get into the industry — attracting willing partners with expertise in lending — without putting up any capital because sovereign immunity was its own bounty.

But as certain as LDF was that state laws wouldn’t apply to its operations, the tribe took a careful approach. LDF decided it would not lend to people in Wisconsin, including its own members. “It keeps our relationship with the state of Wisconsin healthy,” McFarland told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Peter Bildsten, who ran the state Department of Financial Institutions then, remembers visiting the reservation as it was embarking on the new venture. He recalled that he met some of LDF’s business partners, who recognized that the lending operation would be extremely lucrative but also potentially controversial.

“They talked about yeah, we are doing it, and we know there’s virtually nothing you can do about it and especially if we don’t lend to any people in Wisconsin. You can’t do anything,” Bildsten said. “It was almost kind of a dare.”

Many tribes, still suffering from a legacy of racism and inadequate federal resources, struggle to find economic solutions for their people. McFarland, who no longer works for LDF but does consulting for tribes, defended LDF’s decision to move into high-interest loans as a legitimate option.

“The business is offering a service where the interest rates and cost of borrowing are well disclosed to consumers,” he told ProPublica in an email. “It’s expensive, but if used responsibly can be more affordable than many other options. The costs and risks are not hidden from consumers.”

Johnson, LDF’s president, has said there was a rational reason for the tribe’s business partnerships: It needed outside expertise as it entered a new industry.

“But let me be more specific: Zero I.T. enterprise architects, data analysts, or marketing strategists lived on the Lac Du Flambeau reservation when the Tribal Council decided to enter this industry,” he wrote in an email to ProPublica in August.

LDF’s partners run their operations far from tribal land. ProPublica identified several Florida lawsuits that allege a straight-forward process: “The LDF Tribe mints a new ‘tribal’ limited liability company, supposedly organized under Tribal law, for each new investor. Each new investor then runs his or her own ‘tribally owned’ website, offering consumers loans at interest rates between 450% and 1100% annually.”

Those cases were settled or dismissed without LDF addressing the allegations.

LDF does not publicly disclose its partners. ProPublica identified one of them as RIVO Holdings, a fintech firm based in a high-rise in downtown San Diego that has serviced two LDF websites.

RIVO is an acronym for respect, integrity, value and opportunity. The company’s founder and CEO is Daniel Koetting. His personal website touts his employment of “over 200 local employees at RIVO.” His brother Mark, of Kansas, managed a separate lending portfolio for the tribe.

The brothers entered the tribal lending industry after facing regulatory scrutiny for previous lending operations. In 2006, Califonia issued a cease-and-desist order to both men for unlicensed lending; Daniel Koetting received a similar demand from New Hampshire in 2011.

Initially, the Koettings partnered with the Big Lagoon Rancheria tribe in California to offer high-interest loans beginning in 2013. But that relationship began to fall apart several years later.

The tribe alleged that the Koettings surreptitiously pushed customers to new lending companies set up with LDF, and an arbitrator awarded Big Lagoon Rancheria $14 million in 2018. Years of litigation followed as the Koettings fought the decision. The case is still pending.

“I actually called Lac du Flambeau and warned them and informed them that they were getting into business with Big Lagoon’s client list,” Virgil Moorehead, Big Lagoon Rancheria’s chairperson, told ProPublica.

Joseph Schulte Jr., who once worked at RIVO, likened one area of the company’s San Diego office to a Wall Street trading floor, with exuberant staff celebrating short-term wins, such as meeting daily sales goals. To keep the staff pumped up, he said, management brought in pallets of free Celsius energy drinks.

“People were making a lot of money working there,” Schulte said of RIVO Holdings.

Although figures for LDF’s loan portfolios are private, Daniel Koetting’s previous venture with the Big Lagoon Rancheria amassed approximately $83 million in revenue over five years, according to a legal filing.

Court papers, including divorce filings, show Daniel Koetting enjoying a lavish lifestyle in recent years, living in a five-bedroom, five-bath house in La Jolla, an affluent seaside enclave of San Diego. He owned thoroughbred horses, drove a Porsche and dabbled in motion pictures. He and his wife had three children. In the divorce, he reported household expenses in 2021 that included an average of $7,000 a month on groceries and eating out, plus an additional $5,000 a month for “entertainment, gifts and vacation.”

Daniel and Mark Koetting did not reply to emails, calls or letters from ProPublica seeking comment.

Meanwhile, the two companies that RIVO and LDF run — Evergreen Services and Bridge Lending Solutions — are associated with more than 200 complaints from customers since 2019, frequently about onerous interest rates and payment terms. “I just don’t understand how people can do this,” a California resident protested to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “This is a predatory lender and I am a victim.”

Bildsten, the former Wisconsin department head, believes that LDF tribal leaders are trying to help the reservation improve services, such as dental care, for its members and that the lending business is part of that laudable goal.

“They’re able to do some good stuff,” Bildsten said, “but the money is dirty.”

Brian Coughlin lit a cigar. Sitting in his Chevy Malibu with the sunroof open to let out the smoke and a bottle of pills next to him, he wondered: When will this end?

He’d faced many hurdles in life, from serious physical and mental health issues to the loss of his father. He’d also used bad judgment, overspending and loading up on multiple credit cards as he blew through a decent paycheck as head of trash collection for the city of Boston.

Like many other Americans with little to no savings and poor credit scores, he was enticed by online pitches for quick cash — offers that came with exorbitantly high interest rates.

Months earlier, in December 2019, he’d filed for bankruptcy, expecting relief. There would be payment plans and a court injunction halting contact from creditors — a key protection laid out in U.S. bankruptcy law. But one creditor would not give up.

Lendgreen, one of LDF’s initial companies, had loaned Coughlin $900 at an annual percentage rate of 741%. At the time of the bankruptcy, he owed $1,595. The company continued to call, email and text him, fueling his anxiety. A phone log shows Lendgreen called Coughlin 50 times during one four-month period.

“This is all for nothing,” Coughlin recalls thinking of the bankruptcy process.

That night in his Chevy, Coughlin took a fistful of pills and ended up in the hospital. Lendgreen still was calling him while he recovered. But now he was ready to fight.

Coughlin’s attorney filed a motion with the bankruptcy court in March 2020 asking a judge to order Lendgreen, the LDF tribe and LDF Business Development Corporation to stop harassing him.

The case was about more than just harassment, however. Coughlin wanted compensation for all that had happened. He asked the court to award him attorneys fees, medical costs, expenses for lost time from work while hospitalized and punitive damages.

To Coughlin’s surprise, LDF told the court that sovereign immunity protected it even in a federal bankruptcy case, and the bankruptcy judge in Massachusetts agreed. When Coughlin took the case to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and won, the tribe appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

As they dug into who actually violated the collections ban, Coughlin’s attorneys needed to unravel the business relationships surrounding Lendgreen, which no longer has an active website. That led them on an international paper chase from Wisconsin to Ontario, Latvia and Malta, an island in the Mediterranean, where an entity that provided capital for Lendgreen appeared to be based.

In gathering evidence, Coughlin’s lawyers obtained an agreement between Lendgreen and another company — Vivus Servicing Ltd. of Canada — showing Vivus was to handle most all operations of issuing and collecting the loans made in Lendgreen’s name. It also would retain most of the profits.

For each new or renewed loan, the contract called for Vivus to share $3.25 with LDF as well as $3.25 per loan payment, or not less than $10,000 a month.

Vivus Servicing had subcontracted certain administrative functions of the Lendgreen loans to 4finance Canada, an affiliate company of a European lending conglomerate based in Latvia, court records show. An attorney who represents Vivus and 4finance declined to comment.

“There’s money flowing to all sorts of places,” Coughlin’s attorney Richard Gottlieb said.

As he began to better understand the web of connections, Gottlieb concluded that LDF’s role in its lending operations was minimal. The partners, he said, performed all the key functions — “from the creation of the loans themselves to the maintenance of the computer software and internet sites to the collections personnel to the customer service reps to the management.”

Even though LDF fought in court to be able to pursue collections against people in bankruptcy, internal documents indicate that the head of LDF Holdings, which oversees the tribe’s lending enterprise, was not pleased with how a business partner treated Coughlin.

Coughlin inquires with Lendgreen about why its phone calls have not ceased.

Jessi Lorenzo, president of LDF Holdings at the time, communicated in May 2020 with 4finance Canada about Coughlin’s loan. Why had they not stopped soliciting repayment once notified that Coughlin had filed for bankruptcy, she asked in an email.

“Everything should have ceased then,” wrote Lorenzo, who was based in Tampa.

In a brief interview on her porch, Lorenzo declined to comment on the Coughlin case and said she did not want to be part of a tribal lending story that might be negative. Later, in an email, she wrote that she was proud to have worked for LDF as it “built a business that benefited their community, providing modern careers with upward mobility and good benefits in a remote part of Wisconsin.”

LDF tribal leaders don’t talk much about their business with outsiders. But there is little doubt that the lending business has altered the shape of the tribe’s finances, allowing LDF to move past its costly mistake of issuing $50 million in bonds for the Mississippi casino boat.

The Tribal Council agreed in 2017 to pay $4 million and finance an additional $23 million to settle claims against it after defaulting.

But the tribe and its partners continue to face new threats from a range of legal actions.

The attorneys in the Virginia case have promised future litigation against more LDF partners. And as LDF keeps lending, it opens its companies up to additional consumer lawsuits. Dozens of such cases have been filed since 2019, most of which end quickly, with undisclosed settlements.

McFarland takes issue with these types of cases against tribes. “The law firms filing class action lawsuits seek to paint tribes as either victims or villains in online lending,” he said in an email. “This approach has been employed against tribes since Europeans came to the Americas, whether Tribes are entering gaming, cannabis, selling tobacco, and a host of business opportunities.”

When Coughlin’s suit reached the Supreme Court, some of the issues involving tribal-lending partnerships were touched on, if only briefly.

During a hearing in April 2023, Justice Samuel Alito interrupted LDF’s lawyer as he was talking about sovereign immunity and the Constitutional Convention. Alito inquired about the tribe’s relationship with Lendgreen.

“Who actually operates this?” he asked.

“The tribe does, Your Honor,” replied attorney Pratik Shah, representing LDF. “This is not a rent-a-tribe situation.”

Shah said the enterprise employed 50 to 60 people working out of a headquarters on the reservation, though “they use third-party vendors, servicers and all, like any other business.”

Shah added: “This is a fully tribal operation.”

But the central issue was whether the tribe could be held liable for violating bankruptcy rules.

“What the tribe is saying is you can’t sue them for hundreds of thousands of dollars of actual damages,” Shah told the court. “That’s at the core of sovereign immunity.”

In June of last year, the high court sided with Coughlin, ruling 8-1 that there’s no sovereign immunity for tribes when it comes to the Bankruptcy Code.

Justice Clarence Thomas concurred in the ruling, not because of his reading of the Bankruptcy Code, but because he held that sovereign immunity does not apply to lawsuits arising from a tribe’s commercial activity conducted off-reservation.

Back in Bankruptcy Court, Coughlin continued to pursue LDF and Lendgreen for damages and legal fees. In mid-August, in the midst of settlement talks, Coughlin asked the court to pause the process required to unmask the outside entities involved with LDF as all sides tried to resolve the dispute. In September, a judge approved a settlement in which the tribe and Lendgreen agreed to pay Coughlin $340,000. LDF denied liability as part of the agreement.

At the same time, pressure is mounting on the tribe’s business partners. As part of the deal, the tribe will give Coughlin documents “with respect to the culpability and responsibility” of the outside partners, according to the settlement. That will enable Coughlin’s lawyers to dig further. LDF also will make a corporate representative available to testify in legal actions against their former business allies, if necessary.

“I want to see all the actors that are actually part of this scheme brought to justice, in a way,” said Coughlin, who now lives in Florida.

“I don’t necessarily believe the tribe is the orchestrator of this whole mess. I think they’re a pawn, unfortunately.”

To do the best, most comprehensive reporting on this opaque industry, we want to hear from more of the people who know it best. Do you work for a tribal lending operation, either on a reservation or for an outside business partner? Do you belong to a tribe that participates in this lending or one that has rejected the industry? Are you a regulator or lawyer dealing with these issues? Have you borrowed from a tribal lender? All perspectives matter to us. Please get in touch with Megan O’Matz at megan.omatz@propublica.org or 954-873-7576, or Joel Jacobs at joel.jacobs@propublica.org or 917-512-0297. Visit propublica.org/tips for information on secure communication channels.

Mariam Elba contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Megan O’Matz and Joel Jacobs.

Photograph Source: Jamelle Bouie – CC BY 2.0

April 29, 1992: I am in Harlem, preparing for my AAU basketball team practice in Riverside Church’s basement. As I am warming up, my coach suggests I leave immediately. He had heard unrest was likely to erupt on 125^th Street after the acquittal of the police who brutally beat Rodney King in Los Angeles (LA). Harlem did not ignite that night but unrest ripped through LA.

I was eighteen at the time and vividly remember the troubling TV images of LA on fire. I thought something was drastically wrong with America. Despite our ideals of equality, freedom, and democracy for all, we were an intensely segregated nation filled with contradictions tied to our legacy of racial discrimination and inequality.

Fast forward to August 9, 2014. People took to Ferguson’s streets following the tragic police killing of an unarmed, Black young man, Michael Brown. A white police officer shot Brown multiple times for jaywalking and allegedly stealing some cigars. In impoverished Southeast Ferguson, folks converged from across the St. Louis region to mourn Brown’s death and protest unjust police actions. The Ferguson revolt was the start of the Black-led rebellions that rocked America between 2014 and 2020. The police killings of African Americans like Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor triggered one of the largest Black-led revolt movements in American history.

Today is the ten-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s death and a critical moment to reflect on the uprisings. While some view these contemporary revolts as solely driven by police aggression, our modern unrest narrative is more complex. Through interviews for my new book Slow and Sudden Violence, Ferguson and Baltimore community leaders identified police brutality as a cause of the uprisings, but they also voiced other significant frustrations. They felt the uprisings originated not just from sudden antagonistic police actions but from ongoing housing and community development policies that facilitated Black segregation, dispossession, displacement, and gentrification. These policies of slow violence were critical to creating the racially unequal environments; the pockets of Black poverty where police brutality disproportionately impacts the lives of low-income African Americans.

Black poverty was pushed to Ferguson by ongoing violent urban renewal policies that consistently destroyed and re-segregated Black communities in the St. Louis region. The destruction of historic Black communities like Mill Creek Valley, Pruitt-Igoe, the Ville, and Kinloch forced Black redevelopment refugees to suburban Ferguson. Many of Southeast Ferguson’s families with low incomes live in affordable Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) supported units with Housing Choice Voucher rent subsidies. These urban redevelopment and affordable housing policies facilitated Black displacement and advanced neighborhood poverty.

The systematic destabilization of Black communities leads to a displacement pain, what I have coined chronic displacement trauma, among many low-income African Americans. The displacement trauma gets suppressed as people cope and carry on their everyday lives to survive. But sometimes another trauma, police violence, can release generational frustrations. The tragic police killings of African Americans triggered the release of deep-seated frustrations from ongoing policies that displaced people and segregated them in new poverty pockets where they are aggressively policed. Uprisings result from cumulated frustrations tied to violent urban restructuring and policing.

Since 2014, have we addressed aggressive police practices, invested in impoverished Black communities, stopped Black displacement, and signaled with our policy reforms that Black lives, and communities, matter?

No. Of course, following the massive uprising movement, we investigated some police departments, removed the names of known racists from some public schools, and toppled some Confederate monuments; however, our metropolitan landscapes are still racially unequal and filled with aggressively policed Black ghettos.

To tackle the underpinnings of unrest, we must change the community context in which policing occurs. We must minimize racialized spaces of poverty and invest in communities of color to bring greater stability to people in an ongoing cycle of state-sanctioned segregation, dispossession, displacement, and gentrification.

How can we do this? I offer a few policy suggestions. Of course, we need to reform policing, but we must also change our community and housing development policies. We must promote equitable growth that economically improves depleted communities without triggering displacement. We must reinstate one-for-one replacement for demolished public housing units. We must reform the LIHTC and Housing Choice Voucher programs so families displaced from gentrified spaces can find affordable housing in opportunity neighborhoods. We must reduce metropolitan level neighborhood inequality.

In 1992, I drove home from Harlem to a “safe” NYC suburb. In 2014, Michael Brown never made it home. He was killed in “dangerous” Ferguson not solely by the police but by the ongoing harmful American policies that “placed” his family, and many other Black families, in segregated environments where concentrated poverty and aggressive policing co-exist. If we are to ever fulfill the American ideals of equal opportunity, we must reform discriminatory policies that perpetuate racially unequal neighborhood conditions and the context for unrest.

The post Ten Years After the Death of Michael Brown, the Conditions That Led to the Uprisings Remain appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Derek Hyra.

It is only right that we all take a moment to celebrate the victory of Julian Assange’s release from 14 years of detention, in varying forms, to be united, finally, with his wife and children – two boys who have been denied the chance to ever properly know their father.

His last five years were spent in Belmarsh high-security prison as the United States sought to extradite him to face a 175-year jail sentence for publishing details of its state crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

For seven years before that he was confined to a small room in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, after Quito awarded him political asylum to evade the clutches of a law-breaking US empire determined to make an example of him.

His seizure by UK police from the embassy on Washington’s behalf in 2019, after a more US-aligned government came to power in Ecuador, proved how clearly misguided, or malicious, had been those who accused him of “evading justice”.

Everything Assange had warned the US wanted to do to him was proved correct over the next five years, as he languished in Belmarsh entirely cut off from the outside world.

No one in our political or media class appeared to notice, or could afford to admit, that events were playing out exactly as the founder of Wikileaks had for so many years predicted they would – and for which he was, at the time, so roundly ridiculed.

Nor was that same political-media class prepared to factor in other vital context showing that the US was not trying to enforce some kind of legal process, but that the extradition case against Assange was entirely about wreaking vengeance – and making an example of the Wikileaks founder to deter others from following him in shedding light on US state crimes.

That included revelations that, true to form, the CIA, which was exposed as a rogue foreign intelligence agency in 250,000 embassy cables published by Wikileaks in 2010, had variously plotted to assassinate him and kidnap him off the streets of London.

Other evidence came to light that the CIA had been carrying out extensive spying operations on the embassy, recording Assange’s every move, including his meetings with his doctors and lawyers.

That fact alone should have seen the US case thrown out by the British courts. But the UK judiciary was looking over its shoulder, towards Washington, far more than it was abiding by its own statute books.

Media no watchdog

Western governments, politicians, the judiciary, and the media all failed Assange. Or rather, they did what they are actually there to do: keep the rabble – that is, you and me – from knowing what they are really up to.

Their job is to build narratives suggesting that they know best, that we must trust them, that their crimes, such as those they are supporting right now in Gaza, are actually not what they look like, but are, in fact, efforts in very difficult circumstances to uphold the moral order, to protect civilisation.

For this reason, there is a special need to identify the critical role played by the media in keeping Assange locked up for so long.

The truth is, with a properly adversarial media playing the role it declares for itself, as a watchdog on power, Assange could never have been disappeared for so long. He would have been freed years ago. It was the media that kept him behind bars.

The establishment media acted as a willing tool in the demonising narrative the US and British governments carefully crafted against Assange.

Even now, as he is reunited with his family, the BBC and others are peddling the same long-discredited lies.

Those include the constantly repeated claim by journalists that he faced “rape charges” in Sweden that were finally withdrawn. Here is the BBC making this error once again in its reporting this week.

In fact, Assange never faced more than a “preliminary investigation”, one the Swedish prosecutors repeatedly dropped for lack of evidence. The investigation, we now know, was revived and sustained for so long not because of Sweden but chiefly because the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service, then led by Sir Keir Starmer (now the leader of the Labour party), insisted on it dragging on.

Starmer made repeated trips to Washington during this period, when the US was trying to find a pretext to lock Assange away for political crimes, not sexual ones. But as happened so often in the Assange case, all the records of those meetings were destroyed by the British authorities.

The media’s other favourite deception – still being promoted – is the claim that Wikileaks’ releases put US informants in danger.

That is utter nonsense, as any journalist who has even cursorily studied the background to the case knows.

More than a decade ago, the Pentagon set up a review to identify any US agents killed or harmed as a result of the leaks. They did so precisely to help soften up public opinion against Assange.

And yet a team of 120 counter-intelligence officers could not find a single such case, as the head of the team, Brigadier-General Robert Carr, conceded in court in 2013.

Despite having a newsroom stuffed with hundreds of correspondents, including those claiming to specialise in defence, security and disinformation, the BBC still cannot get this basic fact about the case right.

That’s not an accident. It’s what happens when journalists allow themselves to be spoon-fed information from those they are supposedly watching over. That is what happens when journalists and intelligence officials live in a permanent, incestuous relationship.

Character assassination

It was impossible to post on social media about the Assange case without dozens of interlocutors popping up to tell you how deeply unpleasant he was, how much of a narcissist, how he had abused his cat or smeared his walls in the embassy with faeces. None of these individuals, of course, had ever met him.

It also never occurred to such people that, even were all of this true, it would still not have excused stripping Assange of his basic legal rights, as all too clearly happened. And even more so, it could not possibly justify eroding the public-interest duty of journalists to expose state crimes.

What was ultimately at stake in the protracted extradition hearings was the US government’s determination to equate investigative national-security journalism with “espionage”. Whether Assange was a narcissist had precisely no bearing on that matter.

Why were so many people persuaded Assange’s supposed character flaws were crucially important to the case? Because the establishment media – our supposed arbiters of truth – were agreed on the matter.

The smears might not have stuck so well had they been thrown only by the rightwing tabloids. But life was breathed into these claims from their endless repetition by journalists supposedly on the other side of the aisle, particularly at the Guardian.

Liberals and left-wingers were exposed to a steady flow of articles and tweets belittling Assange and his desperate, lonely struggle against the world’s sole superpower to stop him being locked away for the rest of his life for doing journalism.

The Guardian – which had benefited by initially allying with Wikileaks in publishing its revelations – showed him precisely zero solidarity when the US establishment came knocking, determined to destroy the Wikileaks platform, and its founder, for making those revelations possible.

For the record, so we do not forget, these are a few examples of how the Guardian made him – and not the law-breaking US security state – the villain.

Marina Hyde in the Guardian in February 2016 – four years into his captivity in the embassy – casually dismissed as “gullible” the concerns of a United Nations panel of world-renowned legal experts that Assange was being “arbitrarily detained” because Washington had refused to issue guarantees that it would not seek his extradition for political crimes:

BBC legal affairs correspondent Joshua Rozenberg was given space in the Guardian on the same day to get it so wrong in claiming Assange was simply “hiding away” in the embassy, under no threat of extradition (Note: Though his analytic grasp of the case has proven feeble, the BBC allowed him to opine further this week on the Assange case).

Two years later, the Guardian was still peddling the same line that, despite the UK spending many millions ringing the embassy with police officers to prevent Assange from “fleeing justice”, it was only “pride” that kept him detained in the embassy.

Or how about this one from Hadley Freeman, published by the Guardian in 2019, just as Assange was being disappeared for the next five years into the nearest Britain has to a gulag, on the “intense happiness” she presumed the embassy’s cleaning staff must be feeling.

Anyone who didn’t understand quite how personally hostile so many Guardian writers were to Assange needs to examine their tweets, where they felt freer to take the gloves off. Hyde described him as “possibly even the biggest arsehole in Knightsbridge”, while Suzanne Moore said he was “the most massive turd.”

The constant demeaning of Assange and the sneering at his plight was not confined to the Guardian’s opinion pages. The paper even colluded in a false report – presumably supplied by the intelligence services, but easily disproved – designed to antagonise the paper’s readers by smearing him as a stooge of Donald Trump and the Russians.

This notorious news hoax – falsely claiming that in 2018 Assange repeatedly met with a Trump aide and “unnamed Russians”, unrecorded by any of the dozens of CCTV cameras surveilling every approach to the embassy – is still on the Guardian’s website.

This campaign of demonisation smoothed the path to Assange being dragged by British police out of the embassy in early 2019.

It also, helpfully, kept the Guardian out of the spotlight. For it was errors made by the newspaper, not Assange, that led to the supposed “crime” at the heart of the US extradition case – that Wikileaks had hurriedly released a cache of files unredacted – as I have explained in detail before.

Too little too late

The establishment media that collaborated with Assange 14 years ago in publishing the revelations of US and UK state crimes only began to tentatively change its tune in late 2022 – more than a decade too late.

That was when five of his former media partners issued a joint letter to the Biden administration saying that it should “end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets”.

But even as he was released this week, the BBC was still continuing the drip-drip of character assassination.

A proper BBC headline, were it not simply a stenographer for the British government, might read: “Tony Blair: Multi-millionaire or war criminal?”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

On 10 September 2015, I documented this lie because so many U.S.-and-allied ‘historians’ were alleging it not to have happened but to be mere ‘Russian propaganda’ (and, after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, some have even alleged that “European security has in fact benefited significantly from NATO’s enlargement” — a lie on top of the basic one). I also quoted there ‘historians’ who denied this basic lie, so that a reader could see not only the truth but the regime’s agents’ lies denying that it (the West’s Big Lie) had actually happened or that it was important. But then, on 12 December 2017, the U.S. National Security Archives at George Washington University released even fuller documentation of the lie that had occurred by the U.S. Government, and here are highlights from their documentation of it, so that this continuing Big Lie will be recognized by every sane person as being what it is, the Big Lie that might end up producing World War Three:

Memorandum of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and James Baker in Moscow.

Memcon from 2/9/90 meeting w/USSR Prem. Gorbachev & FM Shevardnaze, Moscow, USSR

Repeating what Bush said at the Malta summit in December 1989, Baker tells Gorbachev: “The President and I have made clear that we seek no unilateral advantage in this process” of inevitable German unification. Baker goes on to say, “We understand the need for assurances to the countries in the East. If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.” Later in the conversation, Baker poses the same position as a question, “would you prefer a united Germany outside of NATO that is independent and has no US forces or would you prefer a united Germany with ties to NATO and assurances that there would be no extension of NATO’s current jurisdiction eastward?” The declassifiers of this memcon actually redacted Gorbachev’s response that indeed such an expansion would be “unacceptable” – but Baker’s letter to Kohl the next day, published in 1998 by the Germans, gives the quote.

Source: U.S. Department of State, FOIA 199504567 (National Security Archive Flashpoints Collection, Box 38).

Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner

Washington D.C., December 12, 2017 – U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).

The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels. …

The conversations before Kohl’s assurance involved explicit discussion of NATO expansion, the Central and East European countries, and how to convince the Soviets to accept unification. For example, on February 6, 1990, when Genscher met with British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, the British record showed Genscher saying, “The Russians must have some assurance that if, for example, the Polish Government left the Warsaw Pact one day, they would not join NATO the next.” (See Document 2)

In addition, there is this: On 11 August 2014, Mary Elise Sarotte headlined at the U.S. empire’s own Foreign Affairs journal, “A Broken Promise?” as-if there still had been any doubt that it was that, and so an honest title for her article would have been “A Broken Promise” or even “A Broken Promise!” Because there’s no question about it. She reported not only that it definitely was a lie, and one by the U.S. Government itself; and that U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush told America’s stooge leaders, starting on 24 February 1990, that it was going to be a broken promise because “‘TO HELL WITH THAT! [promise]’ HE [Bush] SAID. ‘WE PREVAILED, THEY DIDN’T.’” In other words: on the night of 24 February 1990, Bush started secretly ordering his vassals to continue forward with the intention for the U.S. alliance ultimately to swallow-up not only the rest of the USSR but all of the Warsaw Pact and finally Russia itself. And this has been precisely what the U.S. regime and its colonies have been doing, up until 24 February 2022, when Russia finally put its foot down, to stop NATO’s coming within around a mere 300 miles of The Kremlin.

Consequently, even if NATO served a constructive purpose during 1945-1991, it has afterward only endangered the world — including especially Europe, making Europe be again the main battlefield if another World War occurs — and thus its continuance after 1991 can reasonably be considered a massive international crime by the U.S. Government.

NATO is an extension of the will of the U.S. Government, and this is so blatant a fact so that Article 13, which is the only portion of NATO’s charter, the North Atlantic Treaty, that says anything about how a member-nation may either quit NATO or be expelled from NATO, places the U.S. Government in charge of processing a “denunciation” (voluntary withdrawal) — the Charter’s term for resigning from NATO. This term “denunciation” (instead of “withdrawal”) clearly means that if any member does quit, then that will be interpreted by NATO as constituting a hostile act, which will have consequences (the resigning member will be placed onto NATO’s unspoken list of enemies). NATO’s charter has no provision by which a member can be expelled. Moreover, it fails to include any provision by which the charter can be amended or changed in any manner. No charter or constitution that fails to include a provision by which it may be amended can reasonably be acceptable to a democracy: it is so rigid as to be 100% brittle, impossible to adapt to changing challenges. The NATO charter itself is a dictatorial never a democratic document. It takes up, for the U.S. regime after 1945, the function that the Nazi Party had held prior to that in and for Germany: after Hitler died, America took up and has held high his torch for global dictatorship. In fact, “the Government of the United States of America” is also stated in Article 10 as the entity to process applications to join NATO, and, in Article 11, as being the processor of “ratifications” of applications to join.

This Treaty is an imperial document, of the U.S. empire, none other. And, after 1991, its continuation is based only on lies, including the one that now is coming to a head in Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, though Biden said it is — he said recently of Ukraine, that “they are part of NATO.” Tyrants imagine that what they want can simply be willed into existence, and they don’t care about the essential needs of others. Such individuals are driven by their own hatreds. That is what stands at the very top of NATO.

And this is why we are now at the nuclear brink, because of an organization that ought to have ended in 1991.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Eric Zuesse.

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Stefan Arango, a 31-year-old Venezuelan husband and father, felt immediately nauseated by the smells of sweat, urine and feces when Mexican guards ordered him into the cinder block cell in the border city of Ciudad Juárez. The tile floor was strewn with trash, and several men inside lay on flimsy mats that were incongruously covered in rainbow-colored vinyl. The windows were so small that they didn’t allow in much light or air. And, perhaps mercifully, they were so high that the men couldn’t see they were just a short stroll from El Paso, Texas, the destination they had risked everything to reach.

It was March 27, 2023, and Arango had been detained by Mexican authorities who had agreed to help the United States slow the record numbers of migrants crossing the border. A guard allowed Arango to make a one-minute call to his younger sister, who’d come to Juárez with him and whom he’d left waiting at a budget hotel nearby. She sobbed, worried that he was going to be deported back to Venezuela.

“Don’t cry, everything will be fine,” he assured her. “Whatever happens, don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back.”

He couldn’t tell exactly how many men were inside the temporary detention center, maybe more than 100, but new detainees were being brought in while others were being taken away. Those milling around him were grumbling. They said they hadn’t been given water for hours. They hadn’t been given enough food. No one was giving them answers. Why were they being held? What was Mexico going to do with them?

At about 9:20 that night, some of the men began banging on the metal bars that ran along the front wall of the cell, demanding to be released. One of them reached up and yanked down a surveillance camera; another climbed the door and pulled down a second camera. Others started to pile the sleeping mats against the bars until they blocked the guard’s view.

At least one of them flicked a lighter. Within minutes, the cell was engulfed in flames and smoke. Arango pleaded with a guard: “Brother, don’t leave us here.” But the guard turned his back, saying, “Good luck, dude,” as he fled.

Arango rushed to a bathroom, now filled with dozens of others, all screaming for help. He turned the shower on to wet his hoodie, thinking it would protect him from the heat. Then the lights went out. Everything stung — his eyes, his nose, his skin. He sat himself down and whispered a prayer. The detainees’ cries stopped, and he could hear the sounds of bodies hitting the floor.

When he opened his eyes, he was wrapped in a mylar blanket, lying in the parking lot amid rows of bodies. Arango pulled the cover off his face, gasped for air and raised his hand, hoping to be seen. He heard a woman’s voice shout, “Someone lives among the dead!”

Forty men were killed and more than two dozen were injured in one of the deadliest incidents involving immigrants in Mexico’s history. Investigators put the blame for the incident on the migrants who set the blaze and the guards who failed to help them. The United States urged immigrants to take heed of the tragedy and pursue legal methods for entering the U.S., without acknowledging that some of those caught in the fire were attempting to do just that when they were detained. However, an examination by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune underscores that it was the foreseen and foreseeable result of landmark shifts in U.S. border policies over the last decade, by which the Trump and Biden administrations put the bulk of the responsibility for detaining and deterring staggering numbers of immigrants from around the world onto a Mexican government that’s had trouble keeping its own people safe.

The bodies in the Juárez parking lot were not only evidence of the tragic consequences of U.S. policies, but they were also graphic representations of the violence and economic upheaval raging across the Americas. The dead had traveled there from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia and, like Arango, Venezuela. Over the past decade, growing numbers of people from these countries have traversed Mexico and crossed the U.S. border to file claims for asylum that take years to resolve and allow them to live and work in the United States during that time.

When first running for president, Donald Trump used the scale of the arrivals to jolt American politics, vowing to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. As president, he effectively turned Mexico into a wall, pressuring that country’s president to take unprecedented steps that required nearly everyone applying for asylum to wait there as their cases went through U.S. immigration courts. And citing the pandemic, he ordered border officials to quickly return immigrants to Mexico or to their home countries under a little-known section of the public health code — Title 42 — that allows the government to limit the numbers of people allowed into the country in an emergency.

Democrats denounced the measures as inhumane, and early in his presidency, Joe Biden moved to loosen those policies, only to keep versions of some when the rising numbers of migrants coming into the United States started to cause political repercussions for him and his party.

The Border and the Election Join us May 29 to discuss why immigration is a top issue for voters and the U.S. policies that gave rise to the deadly Juárez fire.

The result was chaos on both sides of the border, although as numerous experts had predicted, the worst of it unfolded in Mexico. Squalid tent encampments sprouted in Mexican border cities that didn’t have sufficient shelters and other resources. Frustrations among migrants fueled protests that blocked major roads and bridges. Mexican officials cracked down harder by rounding up immigrants and packing them into already overcrowded detention centers.

A Biden administration official would not comment on the role U.S. policies played in the fire, except to say that it had taken place in a facility that “was not under the jurisdiction of the U.S. government.” A White House spokesperson expressed condolences to the families of those who died — but also didn’t answer questions about the policies that contributed to the incident and are still in place. Instead, he pointed to the ways that Biden had expanded legal pathways for immigration, calling it the largest such effort in decades.

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona, was among many legislators who’d warned Washington, and specifically Biden, that such a tragedy was inevitable. “The whole system in Mexico is partly a creation in response to initiatives that the United States began,” he said in an interview. “That’s why we should care, because we bear some responsibility.”

The dangers of outsourcing immigration enforcement to Mexico were clear to experts and political leaders on both sides of the border long before the Juárez detention center erupted in flames.

“Mexico is simply not safe for Central American asylum seekers,” wrote the union that represents the U.S. government’s asylum officers as part of a lawsuit against Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program in 2019. “Despite professing a commitment to protecting the rights of people seeking asylum, the Mexican government has proven unable to provide this protection.”

Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission reported that year that migrants were being held in filthy, overcrowded detention centers, at times without sufficient food and water. Those conditions, the commission said, were spurring immigrants to protest, including by setting fires. Prior to the fatal Juárez fire, at least 13 such incidents had occurred at detention facilities across the country, including at the one in Juárez. The earlier incident there occurred in the summer of 2019 and was started in a similar manner, when disgruntled migrants set their sleeping mats on fire. About 60 detainees escaped unharmed.

The Trump administration rejected the warnings, saying that the system was clogged with meritless claims and that turning away people who didn’t qualify for protection made it easier to address the needs of those who did. The Trump campaign didn’t respond to questions about the impact of the former president’s policies, except to say it did a better job than Biden of keeping migrants safe by removing the incentives for them to make the journey to the border. In a statement, spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that under a second Trump term, the message would be, “DO NOT COME. You will not be allowed to stay, and you will be promptly deported.”

Asylum is a thornier issue for Biden because of divisions within his own party, with some advocating for a more generous system and others worried that the existing backlog makes the system virtually impossible to fix. As a result, his presidency has been marked by moves aimed at placating both sides.

On his first day in office, Biden suspended Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy — officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols — which he’d said had “slammed the door shut in the face of families fleeing persecution and violence” and created humanitarian suffering in Mexico. And he began rolling back the Title 42 COVID-19 restrictions by exempting unaccompanied minors from the ban. All at once, a border that had nearly been shut to asylum seekers had a new opening at a time when historic numbers of immigrants were on the move globally. Among them were nearly eight million Venezuelans, fleeing an authoritarian government and a collapsed economy, in one of the largest displacements in the world.

Within weeks, the numbers of people attempting to cross the southern border reached levels that hadn’t been seen in decades. Biden reached out to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for help. After denouncing the conditions that migrant families had been forced to endure in Mexico, the Biden administration began pressuring that government to take them back. “We’re trying to work out now with Mexico their willingness to take more of those families back,” Biden said at a news conference, adding later, “I think we’re going to see that change. They should all be going back.”

On March 19, 2021, his administration announced the U.S. would send 2.5 million COVID-19 vaccines to Mexico. That same day, López Obrador declared that he’d close Mexico’s southern border to nonessential traffic, citing the pandemic.

Immigrants continued to come nonetheless. By the end of Biden’s first year in office, the Border Patrol reported that encounters with immigrants had soared to 1.7 million, compared with 859,000 in 2019. The numbers rose further, to 2.2 million, in 2022, the year that Biden announced plans to lift Title 42 entirely. Republican governors in 24 states immediately filed suit against the administration to stop the move. And one of those governors, Greg Abbott, began sending busloads of people who’d crossed the border into Texas to cities controlled by Democrats, including New York, Chicago and Denver.

Biden, faced with a political crisis on top of a humanitarian one, responded with an array of measures. While fighting to overturn Title 42 in court, his administration expanded its reach to allow U.S. officials to immediately expel to Mexico Venezuelan, Haitian, Cuban and Nicaraguan migrants. He required asylum seekers to use an app, CBP One, to make appointments for entry to the United States and authorized border officials to turn back those who hadn’t done so. He also barred some people from seeking refuge in the U.S. if they didn’t first apply for asylum in a country they passed through en route.

In a nod to immigrant advocates, he paired that move with a program that allowed about 30,000 people from the countries that were newly affected by Title 42 to apply for temporary humanitarian visas from home, as long as they passed a background check and had a financial sponsor in the U.S. He also opened centers in some Latin American countries from which migrants could apply to come legally. But none of it seemed to have a lasting effect on making his party happy, deterring new migrants from arriving at the border or keeping them safe.

In January 2023, two months before the fire, nearly 80 Democrats in Congress, including Grijalva, wrote Biden a letter to say that they remained concerned.

“As the administration well knows, current conditions in Mexico — the primary transit country — cannot ensure safety for the families seeking refuge in the United States,” the letter read. “We urge the Biden Administration to engage quickly and meaningfully with members of Congress to find ways to adequately address migration to our southern border that do not include violating asylum law and our international obligations.”

Days before the fire, the Congressional Research Service echoed that warning, saying that the buildup of immigrants in Mexico had “strained Mexican government resources and placed migrants at risk of harm.”

Maureen Meyer, a vice president at the Washington Office on Latin America, said, “There’s an enormous human cost to prioritizing enforcement over human wellbeing and safety. The fire is probably one of the most egregious examples of what could happen.”

Arango had fled his country a decade ago because, he said, supporters of the country’s authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro had threatened him for campaigning on behalf of the opposition. He also found it impossible to make a living for himself and his two children on the roughly $40 he earned monthly as a soccer player and coach in Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second-largest city. He initially moved to Colombia but left there after struggling to find gainful employment and moved again to Bolivia, where he met a woman whom he married.

In early 2023, Arango was still playing soccer, and there were signs his wife might be pregnant. He’d been hearing upbeat stories from Venezuelan friends who had migrated to the United States and were settling into new jobs. Because the United States had broken relations with the Maduro government, Venezuelans did not have to clear the same immigration hurdles as other nationals. They were largely shielded from deportation and had not been subjected to Title 42.

Arango’s sister, Stefany, had a boyfriend who’d made it across the border and gotten a construction job in Austin. Arango believed he could do the same.

In about 36 grueling days — across hundreds of miles of inhospitable terrain — Arango and Stefany, 25, arrived in Juárez in mid-March 2023, riding on top of a cargo train. They found themselves in the middle of a city on edge. Juárez, with 1.5 million residents, had long been more of a way station for immigrants headed to the United States than a final destination. But the U.S. gateway that had been open to Venezuelans was now shut. They were subject to the same asylum restrictions as Central Americans. They couldn’t cross the border without an appointment, and there were only about 80 appointments available each day through El Paso.

Juárez’s shelters and hotels were filled beyond capacity, and thousands of migrants set up camps under bridges and along the banks of the Rio Grande. They crowded busy intersections and shopping districts, begging for food, money and work. Many complained that they had been robbed by Mexican criminal organizations and harassed by the police and immigration agents. The longer they stayed, the more frustrated they and the city struggling to accommodate them became.

The day Arango and his sister arrived, hundreds of migrants blocked one of the bridges that connected Juárez with El Paso and pleaded with U.S. officials to be let in. The United States deployed officers in riot gear and raised a curtain of concertina wire to keep them out, while Mexico used the national guard to disperse them on the other side. Juárez Mayor Cruz Pérez Cuéllar seemed to sum up his city’s sentiment the next day. “The truth is that our patience is running low,” he said. “We’ve reached a tipping point.”

The city went on heightened alert and began putting more immigrants in detention. During the first three months of 2023, officials in Juárez conducted at least 110 sweeps around the city — almost as many as they had done in the entire previous year. On the day of the fire, Arango had left his sister at the hotel to look for work and buy food. He was with a handful of other immigrants walking near the border fence when they were picked up by Mexican immigration agents and taken to the city’s only immigration detention facility.

Built in 1995, the facility sits on the banks of the Rio Grande, which forms the border between Mexico and the United States. The detention center was divided into two cells about 100 feet from each other. One was completely bare and was meant to hold no more than 80 men, while the other had bunk beds and could hold up to 25 women. Two former detainees said the men’s cell had four toilets and as many showers.

Alis Santos López, a 42-year-old Honduran, had been held in the facility for two days by the time Arango arrived — and according to Mexican law, which called for him to be released after 36 hours, he shouldn’t have been. Unlike Arango, he wasn’t hoping to start a new life in the United States. He was trying to get back to the life he’d already established. Santos had worked for 10 years as a roofer in New Jersey but was deported at the end of 2022 back to his native Honduras.

The economic hardships and violence that had pushed him to abandon his country before seemed to have worsened. The municipality where his family lived, Catacamas, was among the most violent in Honduras. When he and his wife discovered men lurking around their house one night, he thought they’d targeted him because he’d come home with money that he’d earned in the United States.

Within weeks, he’d set out again for New Jersey, this time with his wife, Delmis Jiménez; three children; daughter-in-law; and grandson in tow. The group said they had been robbed and extorted throughout the journey and had run out of money in southern Mexico. Santos went on without them, promising that he’d send for them. But Juárez officials at the local bus station intercepted him shortly after he arrived.

Rodolfo Collazo, then 52, was one of two federal immigration agents and three private security guards on duty at the facility on the night of the fire. Trained as a computer engineer, he was still relatively new to the job and had taken it because he couldn’t find anything better in his field. It paid under $10,000 a year, but Collazo was able to cobble together enough to make ends meet by working a second job with a ride sharing company.

Records from Mexican prosecutors’ investigation into the fire, court testimony and interviews, including with officials who worked at the detention facility, indicate that it was woefully ill equipped to hold immigrants for long periods. Not only were there insufficient accommodations for the detainees to eat and sleep, the cell lacked basic safety equipment like working fire extinguishers and smoke detectors and had no emergency exits. Scuffles and hunger strikes among detainees were not uncommon.

About 6 feet tall, with salt-and-pepper hair, Collazo was sometimes torn between his sympathy with the immigrants’ plight and the responsibilities of his job. They’d sometimes complain that they’d run out of basic supplies like soap and shampoo, and he’d go out and buy them when he had a little extra money. On the night of the fire, he noticed that the detainees seemed more agitated than normal, and he tried to make small talk to calm them. But he was summoned away from the facility to transport a couple of Salvadoran children — brothers ages 10 and 14 — to a different facility for minors.

When he returned about half an hour later, thick black smoke was already billowing out of the building. The guards were scrambling outside and told him they couldn’t find the keys to the men’s cell. Collazo ran into the building but felt his eyes sting and his lungs fill with smoke. “I’ve never felt anything like it,” he said. “It was horrible.” Barely able to see or breathe, he turned back around. (In a surveillance camera video taken from inside the detention center at the time of the fire, which was made public as part of an investigation by La Verdad, El Paso Matters and Lighthouse Reports, an agent is heard saying that she had told the detainees she was not going to open the cell.)

Firefighters descended on the scene and managed to fight through the flames, break into the holding cell and attempt to rescue those inside. Paramedics rushed to care for those who were unconscious. The dead, including Santos, were laid together in four neat rows on the cold asphalt outside the building.

A Mexican soldier saw one of the bodies move. It was Arango.

To mark the first anniversary of the fire, there was a march in downtown El Paso. Across the border in Juárez, residents hung mylar blankets on the fence surrounding the detention facility to honor each of the immigrants who died there and celebrated a special Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Cathedral. “It’s a tremendous tragedy,” El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz said, citing the loss of “40 young, aspiring lives.” But the greater tragedy, he said, would be to “forget the persons and families that continue to suffer.”

By then, the Mexican government had closed the Juárez facility and temporarily suspended operations at 33 others across the country. The head of Mexico’s National Migration Institute, which enforces the country’s immigration laws, was charged criminally with failure to perform his duties, although he remains free and on the job. The institute didn’t respond to requests for comment. Agency officials have previously defended their treatment of immigrants in their custody.

The “Remain in Mexico” policy and Title 42 have been lifted, but Mexico still stands as a critical arm of U.S. immigration enforcement. With poll after poll showing that Americans consider securing the border a priority as the country prepares for this year’s presidential elections, the Biden administration continues to require asylum seekers to use an app to gain entry to the United States. It’s also fighting in court to be allowed to bar some people from seeking asylum if they hadn’t asked for refuge in countries they passed through en route to the United States. That rule is significant because nearly every asylum applicant has crossed through another country — especially Mexico — before reaching the U.S.

Stephanie Leutert, an immigration expert and former Biden administration official, said she’s not surprised that the fire hasn’t forced the administration to reverse course. “If migrant deaths would lead to policy change, we would have changed policies a long time ago," she said.

Seitz, who advocates for immigrants, lamented the same thing. “I wonder how many deaths it’s going to take,” he said in an interview. “Will there be a time when our country wakes up? What will it take for us to recognize that we need to head on a different course?”

Meanwhile, the repercussions of those policies continue to play out in the lives of those affected by the fire.

At a federal prison about 10 miles from where he once worked, Collazo is now the one behind bars, along with two Venezuelan immigrants and several of his former co-workers. He’s awaiting trial for involuntary manslaughter and causing injury to 67 men for his role in the fire. He says he is not guilty. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. His wife, María Trujillo, and children have sold their cars and borrowed money to pay his legal fees, which so far exceed $50,000. Trujillo, 53, has begun cleaning houses and selling tamales. Meanwhile, his daughter, Tania Collazo, 35, works extra shifts at a local hospital as a medical assistant. She even traveled to Mexico City last year to appeal for help from López Obrador.

Because they have so little faith in the system, they often do some of the investigating themselves by speaking to other former officials and detainees who might have information that could help Rodolfo Collazo’s case.

“Every day I fall asleep and wake up with the agony of what if the system fails again,” Tania Collazo said. “He’s never getting out.”

Arango spent about three weeks in an induced coma in a hospital in Mexico City after a respiratory arrest. He’d suffered carbon monoxide poisoning and severe damage to his lungs, kidneys and throat. During his monthslong recovery, his moods were as erratic as a ride on a roller coaster — giddy one moment to be alive, distraught to the point of trying to put his fist through a wall when the doctor laid out the complicated medical challenges that stood in the way of his recovery while his wife struggled back in Bolivia on her own. A devastating low point for both of them came when she miscarried their baby, a boy, while Arango was hospitalized.

In September of last year, the Biden administration allowed Arango and his wife, along with others who survived the fire, to enter the United States for humanitarian reasons. The couple traveled by bus to Austin. His sister had already made it there. When Arango, tall and slim, saw her, he smiled and wrapped her in a long, tight hug.

While he said he is thankful to be alive, there are still times he falls into a deep depression. “I’m still working on finding myself again,” he said. “I ask God for time to get back to the Stefan I was before. A better Stefan.”

Jiménez didn’t know her husband had died in the fire until three days after, on her birthday. Santos’ body was sent back to Honduras. His family had returned from southern Mexico to receive it and bury him near their home in Catacamas. Jiménez picked a silver-colored coffin and wore a T-shirt with, “You will always live in my heart,” emblazoned on the front.

“All this suffering,” she thought during the ceremony. “For what?”

His death, however, didn’t deter her and her family from leaving Honduras again. She knew there was a chance that they might meet the same fate trying to get to the United States, but she said she felt even less safe staying in Honduras. So the family set out again, riding buses and walking along railroad tracks, trying to get an appointment through the CBP One app, not understanding they had to be in northern or central Mexico in order to use it. Their feet blistered and their bodies covered with bug bites, they slept in abandoned buildings or on the porches of people who took pity on their plight.

A Mexican nonprofit sent them money for bus tickets to Mexico City, where they continued trying their luck on CBP One. Eventually, after a month, they got an appointment, for last November, the day before Thanksgiving. And they were off to Juárez.

Jiménez, her long black hair tied back in a ponytail, stood atop the dividing line between Juárez and El Paso with her children and grandson. Her small frame tipped back under the weight of her backpack stuffed with clothes and some of her most precious possessions: their wedding rings, a silver watch Santos gave her for Mother’s Day and a framed picture of him. As she walked into the United States, she couldn’t get over how close he’d come.

“It was really just steps for him to fulfill his dreams.”

Help ProPublica Reporters Investigate the Immigration System

Dan Keemahill contributed data reporting.

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

I have organized airlifts of women legislators, judges, and journalists out of Afghanistan as Kabul fell; delivered ongoing aid to Ukrainian front-line villages during Russia’s invasion; worked on efforts to build runways, roads, and highways to deliver aid to Rwandan refugees after the genocide; and delivered aid shipments to enclaves besieged and under attack by the Syrian army.

None of it prepared me for the challenges of trying to bring a few trucks of food and medicine per week into the Gaza Strip.

It’s easy to point the finger at Israel, the country that is implementing the blockade of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, half of whom are children. Yet trying to work the issue from every angle on a daily basis to get urgent medical and food aid in, I’ve come to the conclusion that President Joe Biden, for whom I hosted fundraisers and worked to elect in 2020, has signed on to Israel’s end goal of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza.

The Biden administration isn’t just complicit by refusing to condemn Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid — an absurd situation leading the U.S. to incur significant costs and unnecessary risks for symbolic airdrops. He’s actively supporting Israel’s oft-stated but ill-defined war aim of eradicating Hamas, a military effort with little concern for Palestinian lives or the fate of Israel’s hostages held in Gaza.

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell got an honest, if muddled, answer from Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week. She asked him to explain the “incompatible policy” of being “the leading supplier of weapons to Israel” while, at the same time, “leading an international rescue effort” being impeded by Israeli government officials. Her question laid bare the ugly reality of Biden’s complicity in Israel’s campaign resulting in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

Blinken looked into the camera and attempted to make the incompatible compatible. “These two objectives are not in conflict,” he insisted, defending the ongoing flow of no-strings-attached aid to Israel, Washington’s biggest foreign aid recipient. “The question is whether Israel, on the one hand, is and can effectively deal with its security needs in defending the country, while at the same time maximizing every possible effort to ensure that civilians are not harmed and that assistance gets to those who need it.”

Blinken has since ratcheted up that rhetoric, promising a United Nations resolution urging “an immediate ceasefire” — while at the same time sending endless arms to Israel.

Biden Sends Weapons, Not Aid

Israel’s war has already cost the lives of over 31,000 Palestinians and brought Biden closer to electoral peril, with 364,000 Michigan and Super Tuesday voters choosing “uncommitted” on their primary ballots, largely a result of grassroots efforts to generate a political cost for the White House’s support for the Israeli war.

Biden and his advisers’ refusal to change policy on aid to Israel or rethink the diplomatic cover it provides for Israel at the United Nations reveals a U.S. presidency with little regard for civilians in Gaza. There’s nothing beyond a steady trickle of statements of concern about Palestinian civilians and anonymous West Wing officials suggesting ongoing frustration with the execution of the war.

Israel’s devastating bombardment of Gaza wouldn’t be possible without tens of thousands of bombs and guided munitions sent by the U.S. since October 7. The Biden administration organized more than 100 arms transfers but only notified Congress of two, utilizing a variety of mechanisms to mask the scale and frequency of weapons transfers.

While he provided a steady flow of weapons to Israel, Biden withheld funding from the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees. The largest humanitarian aid body in Gaza, UNRWA was targeted by Israel with unfounded claims — that its employees participated in the October 7 attack in Israel.

Biden’s aid efforts implicitly accept Israel’s decision to deny the passage of food into Gaza through more efficient land crossings.

Israel has yet to provide any evidence to back up its allegations — Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., called the claims “flat-out lies” — and Australia, Canada, Sweden, and the European Commission have all resumed their funding. The Biden administration, however, continues to withhold financial support, even as UNRWA faces a $450 million budget shortfall. Instead, Biden chose to engage in humanitarian aid theater, endorsing costly, dangerous, and impractical methods for transporting aid into Gaza that won’t require forcing Israel to end its blockade of food and medicine. 

In the short term, Biden’s aid policies won’t deliver any meaningful relief for the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. The latest effort involves the U.S. military constructing a causeway off the coast of Gaza to deliver as many as 2 million meals per day. The process implicitly accepts Israel’s decision to deny the passage of food into Gaza through more efficient land crossings. The causeway is expected to take two months to implement, a timeline guaranteeing famine for Gaza’s most vulnerable populations.

Israel, to its credit, has been more honest about its goals in Gaza. Internally, the country has made its goals clear: A leaked October 13 concept paper from the Israeli Intelligence Ministry explored the possibility of mass population transfers from Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

In public, the same agenda is stated more crudely. Statements by senior Israeli politicians in the wake of October 7 include calls for mass depopulation of Gaza and exhibited consistent disregard for any distinction between Hamas militants and innocent civilians. One government minister spoke openly of removing up to 90 percent of the Palestinians. Another said Israel was “fighting human animals.” A third said there were no civilians in Gaza and suggested using a nuclear weapon. A top parliamentarian from Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party said Israel’s goal is “erasing the Gaza strip from the face of the earth.”

The statements were used in a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice at the Hague, where a preliminary ruling found enough merit to the allegations to let the case go forward.

By imposing food scarcity on Gaza, and bombing refugee camps, apartment buildings, hospitals, universities, and aid distribution centers, it’s clear that Israel is following through on the words of its political leadership.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s occasional expressions of concern with the civilian death toll in Gaza while enabling the war raises a disturbing question: Is the Biden administration knowingly complicit in maximizing civilian killing in one of the most deadly military campaigns in recent history — or stunningly naive and incompetent?

Either way, hundreds of thousands of Democratic Party voters already came to the same conclusion as Andrea Mitchell: It is incompatible to claim concern for Palestinian lives while actively participating in their extermination.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Amed Khan.

This article was produced for ProPublica in partnership with The Frontier. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published. Additional funding for this story was provided by the Pulitzer Center.

Qiu He remembers sitting handcuffed on her front porch, her two small children huddled next to her, as state anti-drug agents carrying semi-automatic rifles trooped in and out of her house.

Serving a search warrant, the agents had forced open the front door and arrested her after she allegedly resisted them, according to an affidavit. During the raid last April, agents said they found ledgers, bags of marijuana, a loaded .380-caliber pistol and other evidence they collected as part of an investigation alleging that she is a central figure in an illegal scheme involving at least 23 marijuana operations in central Oklahoma.

She spent the night in jail. Almost a year later, authorities have still not charged her with a crime. But a few days after her arrest, a judge signed an order freezing her bank accounts and agents seized almost a million dollars from the accounts as suspected criminal proceeds. She is fighting the state’s action to confiscate the money, saying she did nothing illegal.

The ledgers, He said, were records for her legitimate businesses. Her biggest tenants are marijuana businesses, which deal mostly in cash, as does the clientele of her consulting firm catering to Chinese immigrants. The gun, she said, was legally purchased by her husband.

“At this point, I don’t love Oklahoma,” said He, who also uses the first name Tina. “I don’t feel safe here. I don’t feel secure here.”

On a recent sunny Sunday afternoon, she was at the bubble tea shop she owns in Edmond, the upscale suburb of Oklahoma City where she lives. The stylishly dressed 39-year-old wore a fuzzy black baseball cap over her short, burgundy-dyed hair. She was joined by a friend, another entrepreneur in the marijuana business, who asked to be identified only as Sharon, the English name she uses.

The eatery, called Oklaboba, is a cheerful, brightly lit space, and business was brisk. But the conversation at the women’s table was somber. Sharon mentioned the murder in January of an Asian friend: Robbers invaded his marijuana farm in rural Okfuskee County and shot him in the neck. There have been no arrests.

The two women said many Asian immigrants they know invested their life savings in Oklahoma’s marijuana boom only to see their licenses revoked, their crop destroyed and their assets seized when authorities accuse them of operating illegally. They said anti-Asian bias plays a role in the state’s crackdown on marijuana growers and has caused people who are trying to do business legally to lose everything.

Since the number of licensed marijuana farms peaked at more than 9,400 in December 2021, the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control have taken a more aggressive approach toward license compliance.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond also formed his office’s own organized crime task force that regularly conducts raids on alleged illegal operations.

“We are sending a clear message to Mexican drug cartels, Chinese crime syndicates and all others who are endangering public safety through these heinous operations,” Drummond said. “And that message is to get the hell out of Oklahoma.”

Jeremiah Ross, an Oklahoma City attorney who worked with He, said he has represented dozens of Asian clients accused of breaking marijuana laws over the past few years. Ross said he sees a distinct anti-Asian bias in marijuana licensing and law enforcement.

“The white folks and the locals aren’t having any problems with their [license] renewals,” Ross said. “They’re not having armed guards show up at their grow facility and chop all their plants down.”

Mark Woodward, spokesperson for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, rejected such allegations. He said the agency “has identified and shut down illegal grows, as well as made arrests on illegal farms tied to organized crime from China, Mexico, Russia, Bulgaria, Armenia and the Italian mob over the last three years, as well as numerous American-owned operations.”

Woodward said he did not have readily available information on He’s case and why she has not been charged.

Porsha Riley, spokesperson for the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, said the agency is committed to fairness and equity for all license holders.

“We want to assure the public and the medical marijuana industry that we do not discriminate against any licensee,” Riley said. “Our enforcement and compliance efforts are conducted impartially, without bias or prejudice. We remain dedicated to upholding these principles and ensuring a level playing field for all.”

Sharon, who asked that her full name be withheld because she fears retaliation, said she no longer trusts the state to regulate her marijuana business fairly.

“Tell me it’s not racism, because Asians are absolutely feeling it,” Sharon said. Referring to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, she said, “A lot of people are afraid to poke the bear.”

He’s encounters with law enforcement remind her of the authoritarian regime in her native land, which she left seeking freedom, she said.

“In China, there is one voice and you are not allowed to speak,” she said. “Oklahoma is worse than China.”

Her defiance is atypical in a community that tends to avoid public conflict — and criticism of the Chinese government. ProPublica and The Frontier reported last week that Chinese organized crime has come to dominate the illicit marijuana market in Oklahoma and across the U.S., and that the criminal networks have alleged connections to the Chinese state. He’s story offers a view from inside an immigrant community that she says feels besieged on multiple fronts.

She said she studied business administration and management at Renmin University in Beijing and came to the United States in 2010. In 2020, after years of making good money in commercial real estate development in New York, the economic and cultural disruption of the pandemic made her think it was time for a change, she said.

At the time, she lived in Flushing, a large Chinese immigrant enclave. She was “a city girl” who couldn’t find Oklahoma on the map, she said. But she liked country music and thought a slower-paced life on the plains would let her spend more time with her kids.

“I was thinking I wanted to restart my life,” she said. “So I wanted to go out to see what’s going on.”

She arrived at the peak of Oklahoma’s marijuana boom: a get-rich-quick frenzy of investors, workers, gangsters and money converging from across the country and as far away as China. At first, she said, she wanted to develop ventures serving the burgeoning Chinese population. She opened Oklaboba and bought rental properties in Oklahoma City. Like many other newcomers, she shuttled back and forth with her children to New York, where her husband remained.

She said she got involved in marijuana after helping the owner of a farm who she says had been taken advantage of by a law firm operating a “straw owner” scheme. The 2018 medical marijuana law requires marijuana farms to be 75% owned by residents who have lived in the state at least two years. But some attorneys in the state have paid longtime residents to pose as majority owners to get licenses and buy property. With He’s help, the man was able to get full ownership of the business in his own name and get out from under the straw owner arrangement, she said.

He said she established a consulting firm for investors in the cannabis industry and accumulated hundreds of Chinese clients. Records show she was the registered agent for numerous marijuana and real estate holding companies, and she owned the properties on which many of those companies were located.

She says it was all legitimate. But she soon found herself in the crosshairs of law enforcement. The investigation of a suspected trafficking ring led state anti-drug agents to a New York commercial real estate developer who was an associate of He, court records show. Authorities allege that she was his business partner in marijuana-related activity in Oklahoma, but she said it was only a buyer-seller relationship, as she had bought businesses with active marijuana licenses from him.

Investigators came to suspect that the developer and He were “heavily involved” in the illicit marijuana trade and orchestrating straw owner schemes, court records say. Agents busted a series of illegal grows allegedly linked to He and the developer. When agents raided two sites one morning last April and a tenant called He, she rushed to the property to confront them and demand a search warrant, court records say. What happened next, He said, felt like retaliation for challenging the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics.

That evening, a well-armed team of agents showed up at her house with another search warrant. The warrant shows it was requested by agents after the confrontation with He at her business and was signed by a judge only minutes before the raid on her house that night.

The raid left her children terrified, her marriage under strain and her house in shambles, she said.

“My house was destroyed,” she said. “I couldn’t do anything. The jail, they were treating me like a criminal.”

Although He said the pistol that agents found was legally owned by her husband, not her, she said she has taken firearms courses and owns a gun for protection in an increasingly dangerous business.

Ross said when he heard that He’s house was being searched, he was surprised. She was a small business owner, someone who helped the Chinese community in Oklahoma City, the mom of two young boys, not some mobster, Ross said.

It was already night when Ross arrived at He’s house to see if she needed help. She and the children were still sitting on the porch as agents continued their search. Ross was denied entry by law enforcement.

The agents “snatched her up, left her kids there, took her to jail and didn’t release her until the following morning. And they never filed a single charge,” Ross said. “Why in God’s name are they going after her? This is out of control.”

Despite her ordeal, He considers herself lucky because other Chinese immigrants don’t have the financial means or the language skills to fight back. Marijuana in Oklahoma has become a “lose-lose” scenario thanks to what she called a byzantine system choked with costly compliance requirements and arbitrary decisions.

“You set up a game and didn’t know how to play it,” she said. “And yet they call me the super game-player.”

Many Chinese investors have lost faith in the Oklahoma authorities, fearing they will be the next target, she said. Once her legal problems are resolved, she wants to go somewhere else. Maybe Maryland, which just legalized recreational marijuana. Maybe it’s time to think big, she said: a marijuana Starbucks, a marijuana Uber.

At the same time, she’s not sure it’s worth it.

“I don’t want to do this business anymore,” she said. “I don’t want the pressure.”

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

Caribbean leaders are holding an emergency meeting in Jamaica today to discuss the crisis in Haiti, where armed groups are calling for the resignation of unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Haiti is under a state of emergency, with tens of thousands displaced amid the fighting, and United Nations officials warn the country’s health system is nearing collapse. Ariel Henry was appointed prime minister after the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, but he is currently stranded outside the country after a trip to Kenya, where he was seeking a U.N.-backed security force to help him maintain power. For more, we speak with Haitian American scholar Jemima Pierre, who says the unrest in Haiti today can be traced to decisions made two decades ago by the United States and other outside powers. “The root of this crisis is not last week, it’s not this week, it’s not even Ariel Henry. But we have to go back to 2004 with the coup-d’état,” says Pierre. She adds that because successive security plans have been sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, “the whole world is participating in the occupation of Haiti unwittingly.”

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

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In the summer of 2021, I had just returned to work from maternity leave and was scouting around for my next story. By chance, I was connected with an immigrant rights advocate who told me about a fatal fire a few years earlier in a house for workers at a large dairy farm in southwestern Michigan. Two Mexican immigrant workers had died.

Until then, I hadn’t thought about the immigrants who work — and often live — on America’s dairy farms. I am the daughter of immigrants, and I grew up in Michigan. But much of what I knew about immigrant labor was about people who work in other industries: construction, factories, restaurants. Dairy work was unfamiliar terrain.

I began requesting records related to the fire, but soon other stories pulled me away. It took close to a year before I was able to return my focus to that fire and the broader issues affecting immigrant dairy workers. I requested logs of 911 calls tied to some of the largest farms in the Midwest. The records I received showed a dark slice of life: horrific accidents, unpaid wages, problems with overcrowded housing and extreme isolation. I also got records from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and saw how limited that agency is in its ability to investigate deaths and injuries on smaller farms.

From the start, one case stood out: the death of a Nicaraguan boy named Jefferson Rodríguez, who lived on a dairy farm in Wisconsin with his father, a worker there. The sheriff’s report was devastating: The boy had been run over by a skid steer, a 6,700-pound piece of machinery used to scrape manure off barn floors. Just one deputy investigating what happened spoke any Spanish. When she interviewed José, the boy’s father, he was almost incoherent. Eventually, the deputy concluded that José had been operating the skid steer, and the boy’s death was ruled an accident. But José was publicly blamed. Local media covered what happened as the tragic story of an immigrant who accidentally killed his son. It appeared that reporters never spoke with José or any of the other workers on the farm that night.

The first time I visited Wisconsin, I looked for José. I drove past the farm where Jefferson had died to get a sense of the place, then pulled over in a spot where my phone got reception and searched for the nearest Mexican restaurant. Once there, I went straight to the kitchen and asked if anybody from Nicaragua worked there. I couldn’t imagine there would be many immigrants from that part of Central America in this tiny community a little north of Madison. As luck would have it, a man from northern Nicaragua came out and told me he had once worked with José on a different farm. Later, during his lunch break, we went to his apartment and I watched as he sent José a voice message on WhatsApp about me. José told him he could give me his phone number.

Until this moment, I assumed that law enforcement had gotten the story right. But in the weeks and months that followed, I learned about an entirely different version of events from José, his attorney and dozens of immigrants in the community: Another worker, on his first day on the job and with little training, had accidentally run over the boy. Deputies never spoke to that man, who like José was undocumented.

Around this time, my colleague Maryam Jameel joined me in the reporting. Like me, she is bilingual and the daughter of immigrants. As an engagement reporter, she has given a lot of thought to how we find and get our journalism to hard-to-reach communities. We knew that writing about Jefferson’s death and the broader issues affecting dairy workers would be difficult. Workers are isolated, often living in old houses or trailers on the farms. Workers routinely put in 12 to 18 hours a day and are exhausted. And they’re afraid of losing their jobs and their housing, or getting deported, if they speak out.

It took months to convince José, who was in the midst of a wrongful death lawsuit against the farm, to sit down for a lengthy interview. He finally did one morning in December 2022 in a cold mobile home on the farm where he now works. As José described his decision to make the dangerous trek across Central America and Mexico with his oldest son, Maryam and I wept. Once in Wisconsin, José and his son moved into a room above a milking parlor, the barn where cows are milked day and night. (In a deposition, the farm owners said workers only stayed in the rooms above the parlor between shifts or when the weather was bad. More than a half-dozen former workers and visitors to the farm told us that Jefferson, his father and other workers lived there.)

José told us he knew people in his community thought he was an irresponsible father. And he was bewildered by law enforcement; he wondered if deputies didn’t ask him direct questions about the accident because they felt sorry for him. That day, he seemed relieved to talk, as if he’d been waiting for somebody to ask him what had happened that night on the farm.

We spent months searching for others who worked on the farm, including the worker who accidentally killed Jefferson. He’d left the state and was trying to start over. He was scared to talk, but Maryam — in her gentle but persistent way — was able to convince him to do so. We also interviewed the deputy who questioned José the night his son died. We discovered she’d made a grammatical error in Spanish that led her to misunderstand what had happened.

Maryam and I tried to write this story with nuance and empathy. It was important to us to show every person’s humanity and agency, particularly the immigrants we interviewed who rarely saw themselves as victims but live and work in conditions that few Americans can imagine for themselves.

After we published the story about Jefferson’s death, we continued our reporting, interviewing more than 130 current and former dairy workers. We wrote about the consequences for Wisconsin’s dairy industry and workers of a state law that bans undocumented immigrants from driving. We examined OSHA’s haphazard track record of investigating deaths on small farms in Wisconsin and across the country. And we wrote about how workers are routinely injured on dairy farms — then discarded, fired and evicted. Many were unable to get help to treat their injuries, as small farms are excluded from the state’s workers’ compensation requirements.

And on Tuesday, we published a story about the unregulated, often substandard housing that many dairy farms provide for their immigrant workers. Because dairy jobs are year-round — unlike seasonal agricultural work such as picking cherries or tomatoes — many federal and state laws covering migrant farmworker rights, including housing standards, don’t apply. As a result, employer-provided housing on dairy farms typically doesn’t get inspected.

Which brings me back to the fatal house fire in southwestern Michigan that left two immigrant workers dead in the early hours of April 25, 2018.

This month, I dug out the inch-thick, green file folder where I’d stashed the records I had begun collecting back in the summer of 2021. The workers’ employer, Riedstra Dairy, provided lodging to the two men who died and a half-dozen others in a house a few miles from the farm in the town of Mendon, according to records.

Because dairy workers don’t meet the state’s definition of migrant workers, the house wasn’t required to undergo an inspection by the state’s migrant labor housing program. And so it hadn’t been inspected, according to a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The local Fire Department investigated the blaze, as did the Michigan State Police. Neither could determine what caused it.

In a phone interview, the farm’s owner told me that the house was routinely inspected by a third party who, just a few weeks before the fire, had ensured there were working smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors and fire extinguishers. “We want our people to be safe,” he said.

Reading through the files again, I remembered what it felt like to be back at the beginning of a new project, learning about the lives and deaths of the people who, as one sociologist put it, are “milking in the shadows” of America’s Dairyland.

The men died from smoke inhalation; they were likely sleeping at the time of fire. The others were either working a 12-hour shift or buying groceries in a nearby town. One later told police that as they returned from the store, they found themselves “following a fire truck and then they realized it was their home that was burning,” according to one report.

After the fire, the local American Red Cross provided the remaining workers with emergency lodging and funds to cover urgent needs. The Mexican Consulate in Detroit helped arrange for the bodies to be sent home.

A consular official who interviewed the survivors in the days after the fire encouraged me to keep looking into the broader issues affecting immigrant dairy workers. “They’re just the most vulnerable people,” he said. “And it’s really difficult to get them to talk about any work-related incidents happening, perhaps because of fear of retaliation. They don’t want to lose their jobs.”

Maryam and I are still finishing up a few pieces for our “America’s Dairyland” series. We are also putting together a guide in Spanish for dairy workers in Wisconsin who get injured on the job, and we’re following up on some tips about assaults and racism on dairy farms.

After that, we want to look more broadly at other stories to pursue this year at the intersection of labor and immigration. If you have an idea, we’d love to hear it.

Help ProPublica reporters investigate the immigration system. Fill out our questionnaire here.

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

The sign that welcomes people into Williston, North Dakota, has an inscription at the bottom: “Boomtown, USA.” It’s one way of characterizing the now infamous oil boom that doubled the city’s population between 2010 and 2020, with an influx of workers eager to get to the oilfields. All those newcomers led to another boom: an increase in evictions.

New research from Princeton University sheds light on the relationship between fracking and evictions, finding that in Williams County, the surrounding area of Williston, eviction filings rose from 0.002 percent in 2010 to over 7 percent by 2019. In the same time period fracked oil in the area grew from 300,000 barrels of oil a month to 7.5 million barrels a month.

Williston is not alone. Other research backs up the connection between fracking and evictions, since the industry often draws an influx of new, temporary residents to places like Midland, Texas or Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. This is because fracking often leads to a plethora of high paying jobs. In the meantime, long-time residents aren’t always able to access the wealth that these areas produce and are left to bear out the consequences long after the boom is over. 

“Renters are almost invariably going to lose out in this equation,” said Carl Gershenson, lead author and director of Eviction Lab at Princeton University. 

Existing residents can often be displaced because landlords can charge short-term renters exorbitant rates instead of the relatively affordable prices that long-term renters pay for the same property, according to Gershenson. 

“A savvy landlord realizes that a lot of these people are coming for the season,” said Gershenson. “So it’s very common to say, switch over a place that had been on an annual lease for like to monthly leases. And now you’re renting out rooms instead of a whole house. In some cases, you can fit 10 or 12 people, you know, into a house that was renting out to one family.” 

He also notes that not only do evictions displace residents, but can be a destabilizing force for the people that have experienced them. 

“Evictions are not just the consequence of poverty, but really are one of the leading causes of poverty,” said Gershenson. 

People who have experienced evictions often also experience mental and physical health issues more than their peers who have never been evicted. 

Another hurdle to overcome is that smaller municipalities aren’t often equipped to handle the influx, or the developers that follow rapid population increases. So things like long-term planning fall by the wayside as cities and towns try to cope with the immediate increased needs for municipal services. 

“It’s an investment in terms of not only hard infrastructure, like pipes, and electrical and roads, but also human infrastructure, things like law enforcement, things like emergency services, things like social services,” said William Caraher, associate professor of history and American Indian studies at the University of North Dakota. 

Caraher also noted that initially, the large presence of man camps, or temporary housing for oilfield workers, posed a problem for community members who did not want the negative stigma associated with the drug use and other issues that arrived with the camps. In response, many cities and towns in this area allowed more development to occur so that workers could live in a form of permanent housing but now those places are left with hastily-built and overpriced housing. 

There are ways to combat displacement though, and one solution that Caraher points to are increased protections for tenants, which could help keep eviction rates low. 

Caraher noted that despite the fact that people in the community did attempt to secure more housing and tenants rights, the pace of the boom was ultimately too much to accommodate lower-income, longer-term residents. 

Another option that Gershenson points to is something called a community benefits agreement, wherein residents can work with companies to determine how any economic development can help long-time residents alongside any new employees drawn to the area for work. 

“I think it’s fair that the community captures some of those profits to invest into affordable housing,” he said. 

There needs to be better options, said Caraher, to accommodate both workers and communities in boomtowns. 

Housing in the U.S. falls between two extremes, either short-term hotels or forever homes, he said. “This kind of gray area in between, isn’t ever well established as to how it should operate,”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How an oil boom in North Dakota led to a boom in evictions on Jan 19, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Siri Chilukuri.

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

This week, South Africa is taking Israel to the UN’s highest court, charging it with systematic war crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing and collective punishment. Why does Germany continue to support Israel?

Part of the answer lies with the unforgiveable ‘guilt’ that Germany feels about inflicting the Holocaust on the Jewish people. Another part, though, can be traced to a deep and entrenched racism among the German ruling elites in politics, literature and art.  Would the German government, German state and many German intellectuals and artists behave in the same manner if the victims of the Israeli army were not Palestinian but English or French?

When I asked people in my local English town of Lincoln this question during a small pro-ceasefire demonstration last month, I felt a palpable change in their body language. They hadn’t considered these crimes and Germany’s support from this perspective.

As we know, the root cause of the Holocaust was the de-humanisation of the Jews. This same process lies behind Germany’s strong support for Israel. The only difference is that the Palestinians have replaced the Jews. The Israeli state systematically and officially describes Palestinians in Gaza as ‘human animals.’ It has declared that there are ‘no innocent civilians,’ and that all are in effect ‘guilty at birth,’ guilty by the very fact of ‘being born’. Prime minister Netanyahu describes them as ‘Amalek’ and tells the country that the entire Palestinian population, including their babies, even their animals, should be slaughtered.

The only difference between the terms that the Nazi regime once used and those that the Israeli elites use today is that the labels of ‘lesser people,’ ‘subhuman’ and ‘human animals’ refer not to Jewish people but to Palestinians. By supporting the Israeli regime, Germany endorses such view.

It cannot do so in isolation. This form of dehumanization and treatment of a people as expendable is a colonial discourse that remains deeply embedded in the western political establishment and beyond.  We can see it in ‘diplomatic lapses’ when masks of defending democracy, human dignity and human rights fall off and politicians reveal beliefs that are based on racism and othering.

For example, in the colonial, racist mindset of Ursula von der Leyn, the President of the European Commission, we see that she supported Ukraine after Russia’s invasion not because Russia violated international law, but because ‘Ukraine is one of us.’ In this racist colonial mindset, ‘othering’ takes priority over international law and human rights. Or consider Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, who said: ‘Europe is a garden…most of the rest of the world is jungle…and the jungle could invade the garden. The gardeners should take care of it.’

What lurks behind this semi-visible dichotomy is a contradiction their ‘apparent universality’ of human rights and their ‘actual non-universality,’ a view of the world as ‘us’ vs. ‘them’. The idea that the ‘garden’ of civilization has to be protected from the ‘jungle of the uncivilized’ is entrenched in an intellectual, cultural and historical mindset that seeks legal and emotional legitimacy from the work of Nazi legal theoreticians such as Karl Schmit who challenged the universality of ‘Human Rights’. We can see how superficial this garden is whenever violence is inflicted outside of this ‘garden’ and when a member of this ‘garden’ initiates it. Beneath it is nothing but a savage jungle under this calm and peaceful garden ‘a lawless, unbridled desire for power and pleasure wrapped itself in a Freudian mantle of superegoat any cost to others.’

The very mindset that makes Germany condone crimes against humanity in Gaza is the same that allows Ursula von der Leyn to stand before Israeli tanks giving her blessing for them to destroy Gaza and massacre its people. It is the same mindset that allows Joe Biden to embrace Netanyahu, giving him a green light for genocide and flooding Israel with the weapons to unleash hell on Gazans old and young, men and women, children and babies. These people from both sides of the Atlantic drink from the same fountain of supremacy, domination and exceptionalism.  As long as the world does not acknowledge this, and as long as it buys the facades of ‘democracy’, ‘human rights’ and ‘human dignity’, crimes against humanity will go unpunished.  the savagery that takes place under the thin garb of ‘civilization’ will continue, with theories of a ‘clash of civilisations’ by prophets of doom and supremacy providing political and cultural legitimacy for it.

Despite the well-oiled machine of colonial destruction, there are hopes. Real hopes, for two reasons. First, western colonial supremacy is on its last legs.  The East is rising and the rest of the world is shedding the last remnants of western capital-colonial legacy, which has inflicted untold suffering on the rest of the people of the planet Earth and endangered life itself. What we see in Palestine is the last colonial struggle against a hegemon. The fierce resistance and unbelievable courage of the people of Gaza, who despite living in hell refuse to be ‘ethnically cleansed’, tells us that if Israel wants to have any future in the region it should do away with its savage apartheid system and accept the equal human and democratic rights of the Palestinians. Second, the majority of people in the west want a ceasefire. The fact that the young generation in the west, have become aware of the truth of the tragedy of Palestine and sided with the Palestinians isolates politicians in their country. This tells us that it is just a matter of time before western political elites reflect the demand of the popular majority and observe the rights of individuals, societies and nature.

We should not forget that the darkest time is before dawn.  With our action, we can bring dawn even closer.

The post How the Mindset in Germany That Led to the Holocaust Now Enables Israel’s Genocide in Gaza appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Mahmood Delkhasteh.

Many of those who were most critical of Al-Jaber ahead of the conference now say their fears have proven unfounded. For the first time in the 28 years that world leaders have been meeting under the auspices of the United Nations to solve the climate crisis, negotiators have explicitly agreed to a transition away from fossil fuels — within this decade, no less, with an ultimate goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The fossil fuel language — which stopped short of calling for the “phaseout” of the fuels demanded by the most aggressive negotiators, instead calling for a “transition away” from them — is buried in a dense 21-page document that hundreds of parties debated in excruciating detail for days. The final agreement clearly signals that the world needs to both move away from the use of fossil fuels and ramp up renewable energy at an unprecedented pace. 

“This is a strong message aligned with the science,” Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s environment minister, told Grist. “It’s a step forward and not a step backwards, and that’s good news because there was a lot of fear that a COP here will end up being a step backwards.” 

The endorsement of the so-called UAE Consensus capped a massive conference that saw an estimated 100,000 climate advocates, policy wonks, and government ministers fill Dubai’s Expo City, a sprawling venue on the outskirts of the city. Under a glaring sun, high-ranking officials met with Al-Jaber and his team late into the night Tuesday, jostling to push their individual agendas. The resulting agreement has been described by officials and observers as “historic,” “strong,” “monumental,” and “an unmistakable signal” that the fossil fuel era is ending. The final decision also includes a call to triple global renewable energy deployment, double energy efficiency, and “substantially” reduce methane emissions by 2030.

Al-Jaber gavelled through the adoption of the agreement within five minutes of beginning the final plenary meeting on Wednesday. Members of the Alliance of Small Island States, which represents 39 island nations, were not in the room as he moved swiftly through the procedure — even though the agreement has especially substantial implications for these countries, which are facing sea-level rise that threatens their very existence.

“We are a little confused about what just happened,” said Anne Rasmussen of Samoa. John Silk, a representative for the Marshall Islands, later called the move “unacceptable.” 

A spokesperson for the group told Grist there was “miscommunication” and that the UAE presidency thought all parties were present. “Otherwise we would have questions on inclusivity of the process,” she said. (COP presidents wield enormous power over the process and have the ability to overlook objections; at the 2012 COP in Doha, Qatar, the Qatari presidency famously ignored a request from Russia.)

The wins were also undermined by a lack of finance to support implementation of the lofty energy transition goal, as well as loopholes that provide room for unproven solutions such as carbon capture, observers and negotiators told Grist. Nor does the agreement include any new financial commitments to help countries adapt to climate-driven disasters such as droughts and wildfires.

The language on finance “is quite weak” and “not action-oriented,” said Isatou Camara, a finance minister from the Gambia and the lead negotiator for a coalition of the least economically developed countries. “Because almost everywhere in the document, it is ‘recalling,’ ‘recognizing,’ and ‘notes,’” as opposed to “urging” or “calling,” she said. Muhamad echoed those comments. “The signal on the reform of the financial system and taking measures that are extraordinary because of the climate emergency is not there,” she said. “Without that we cannot deal with a crisis and an emergency as if we are in business as usual.”

The final decision followed two weeks of chaotic uncertainty about where the conference was heading. The mood during the first week of negotiations was optimistic, driven in large part by a surprise consensus on the very first day: Wealthy countries agreed to launch a new fund that will help address the loss and damage that climate change has and will continue to cause in developing countries. 

This so-called loss and damage fund has long been one of the most contentious issues at COPs, because it requires developed countries to accept some responsibility for causing and redressing climate impacts. As a result, a committee tasked with setting up the fund before COP28 had made little progress. But then, just weeks before the conference was slated to begin, Al-Jaber and his team called for an emergency fifth meeting of the committee in Abu Dhabi. They achieved an agreement on loss and damage just in time for COP28 to start. Pledges for the new loss and damage fund began rolling in within minutes; contributions now total more than $650 million. 

Negotiators and longtime observers Grist spoke to emphasized the historic and game-changing nature of that decision — one that only the COP presidency could make. Presidencies are supposed to act as neutral and honest brokers of the process, cajoling and sometimes dragging countries along and making key procedural decisions. To the surprise of many, Al-Jaber appears to have done just this.

With the loss and damage win under its belt, Al-Jaber’s presidency had built momentum. Then came the hard part.

The main action item at COP28 was the so-called “first global stocktake,” a comprehensive assessment of countries’ progress toward meeting the goals of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. That agreement established the all-important target of limiting global warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. It also laid out dozens of other climate goals: Leaders agreed to draw up plans for reducing their carbon emissions, create a global market for trading carbon credits, and to enable countries around the world to start adapting to the climate-driven disasters increasingly showing up on their shores. 

The latest projections suggest that countries are on course to blow through almost all of those goals. The world is on course for 2.9 degrees Celsius of warming, according to the UN’s own estimates, and finance for adaptation is nowhere near adequate. This was the grim backdrop for the “global stocktake,” and the key question entering COP28 was whether or not nations could agree to change course. The best way to do this, according to many climate advocates and national ministers, was for negotiators to send a strong message that the world was moving away from fossil fuels and that wealthy nations would help poorer countries make that transition.

The idea had momentum heading into Dubai. At the outset of the conference, ministers and advocates had debated whether to call for a “phaseout” of fossil fuels like oil and natural gas, or a weaker “phasedown” of those same fuels. The just-noticeable difference between the two words seemed to hold a world of significance for climate activists and vulnerable countries such as the Marshall Islands, who argue that the Paris targets demand the total elimination of carbon-intensive energy within the next few decades.

In Dubai, after a week of closed-door talks, it seemed like activists and the most climate-vulnerable countries had scored a big victory in the stocktake debate: A draft text that emerged on the Friday of the conference’s last full week contained four options for a line about fossil fuels, all of which referenced “phaseout” rather than “phasedown.” 

“I’m feeling hopeful,” Rachel Cleetus, a policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists who has been to every COP since 2010, told Grist at the end of the first week. “For those of us who’ve been fighting for this for so long, it is an important moment.”

Al-Jaber, too, struck an optimistic tone, urging governments to come to an agreement on the transformative language regarding oil and gas.

“I want you to deliver the highest ambition on all items, including on fossil fuel language,” he said. “Let this COP be remembered as a collective COP that changed the game.”

But while national ministers spent a heated three days discussing the draft, oil interests launched a last-ditch attempt to counter the phaseout language. Leaders from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries argued strenuously that phaseout language wasn’t necessary, and ministers from Saudi Arabia reportedly clashed with other countries in the negotiating room. Meanwhile, powerful governments huddled behind closed doors to sort out their differences: U.S. climate envoy John Kerry held a lengthy dialogue with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua. 

When the next version emerged after the weekend, just before the final scheduled day of the conference, it had changed altogether. The word “phaseout” had disappeared, and a new line had appeared about “reducing fossil fuel consumption and production.” And whereas the previous draft had “called on” countries to cut out fossil fuels, this draft only said that countries’ actions “could include” attempts to move away from oil and gas.

Kaveh Guilanpour, a former negotiator for the United Kingdom and vice president at Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, told Grist at the time that the watered-down draft was “definitely disappointing.” The biggest reason was that it wasn’t “directive” — the language was “basically saying you can do some of this stuff if you want, but you don’t have to.”

The new draft triggered a wave of anger and backlash from the majority of countries and civil society groups, ranging from small island states such as Samoa to wealthy European nations.

“That one word ‘could’ just kills everything,” said Eamon Ryan, the environment minister of Ireland, in press remarks at the conference. “We can’t have a ‘get out of jail’ card for the fossil fuel industry, and the current text would give them that.”  

Even the United States, which has opposed aggressive commitments on fossil fuels at some previous United Nations summits, said the text didn’t go far enough. In a press conference, Kerry said the language on carbon emissions “needs to be substantially strengthened.” Negotiators from Europe threatened to walk away from the talks altogether. Mona Ainuu, a politician from the island nation of Niue, wept at a press conference outside the media center. “My 12-year-old, what am I going to say to her when I come back?” she said.

The intensity of the reaction forced Al-Jaber to correct course. About 24 hours later, around 7 a.m. local time, the presidency dropped new text. This time the “could” had vanished and stronger language had replaced it: The final text “calls on” countries to pursue an ambitious set of actions to cut emissions in line with Paris targets. These actions include “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems,” a clear endorsement of a full-scale shift to renewables. 

The document also declares that the energy transition must be “just, orderly, and equitable.” This triple-adjective phrase is a favorite of Al-Jaber’s, and it has been everywhere at COP28, showing up in speeches given by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. It’s meant to underline that a rapid transition away from oil and gas could disrupt the lives of billions of people in developing countries, leading to rising fuel prices and less reliable power access. The language represents an attempt to ensure that negotiators don’t sacrifice global welfare for the sake of a speedy transition to renewables. The word “orderly” also acts as a buffer for states like the UAE, which faces economic risks if the world abandons oil.

The final adopted text also includes a number of loopholes for the oil and gas industry. For one, it calls for scaling down “unabated coal power” and also encourages the adoption of “abatement and removal technologies” for carbon dioxide. These phrases could allow countries to keep burning fossil fuels as long as they also invest in carbon capture, which is still unproven as a scalable climate solution. While the text does acknowledge that these technologies are to be used in sectors that are hard to decarbonize, climate hawks fear it could be used to undermine progress toward keeping warming in line with Paris Agreement targets. 

The text also “recognizes that transitional fuels can play a role in facilitating the energy transition while ensuring energy security.” The line is a nod to natural gas as well as demands from developing countries with natural gas reserves that they not be asked to decarbonize at the same speed as developed economies like the United States and Canada.

Nevertheless, negotiators and observers noted that the combination of language instructing countries to transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewables will send clear signals to global markets. “Unlike in the past when we have all tried to hide behind consensus [and] have tried to use that to protect our national positions, this is the first time we have perhaps come out of our respective comfort zones and tried to look at the bigger picture,” a Bangladeshi representative said at the closing plenary.

The rest of the conference ended without any other huge breakthroughs. A parallel set of talks over how the world should adapt to climate disasters ended with a consensus agreement to prioritize key values such as water security, cultural heritage, and human health, but wealthy countries didn’t make major new financial contributions to vulnerable nations. Nor did the so-called “global goal on adaptation” contain a robust mechanism that could keep wealthy countries accountable for delivering their share of international aid.

“The [adaptation] text that we have now, I would say, is a step forward in some elements, but is two steps back on other elements,” said Linda Yassin, a negotiator from Sudan who represents a group of the world’s least economically developed countries.

Meanwhile, talks over how to implement a global market for trading carbon credits fizzled out in failure. The Paris Agreement calls for countries to establish such a system, but private carbon markets have drawn numerous accusations of fraud and deception, and negotiators in Dubai couldn’t agree on a framework for how to verify and monitor offset projects such as protected forests.

This outcome was a disappointment for the International Emissions Trading Association, a pro-carbon markets business group whose membership includes several large oil companies. A top policy official said in a statement that ministers “missed an opportunity” to “set a high bar on environmental integrity, safeguards, and human rights.” 

The other agreements likely won’t be transformative, either. Negotiators signed a joint statement promising to devote more resources to protecting nature, but it mostly calls for countries to try harder and plan better. The first-ever U.N. food map, which the agency’s Food and Agriculture Organization launched at the conference, missed what activists said was a chance to get fossil fuels out of food production. Even the launch of the loss-and-damage fund, which set an optimistic tone for the start of the conference, is just a launch. The total amount of pledge money from rich countries won’t cover even a fraction of the climate losses that vulnerable states have already experienced.

Still, Muhamad, the Colombian minister, was buoyant as the final plenary wrapped up. In the hall outside the plenary room, she emphasized that the fears about the UAE presidency hadn’t borne out. In fact, the very fact that a petrostate hosted this year’s conference may have been the reason for an outcome that explicitly called out fossil fuels for the first time ever, she said. 

“I imagine a lot of political capital was expended in this process,” she said of the UAE presidency. “It was a fair process. And what the text reflects is what the real political situation is. It is the best possible outcome.”

Akielly Hu contributed reporting to this story.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How an oil executive led the world to an agreement to ditch fossil fuels on Dec 13, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Naveena Sadasivam.

The Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in a case about Gov. Ron DeSantis’s suspension earlier this summer of an elected Florida district attorney over allegations that she neglected her duties. State Attorney Monique Worrell, the suspended municipal prosecutor in Orange and Osceola counties, petitioned the court to reinstate her.

During the hearing, justices on the court vacillated between contradictory positions, arguing on the one hand that they weren’t there to litigate the facts of DeSantis’s claims against Worrell, and on the other suggesting that she neglected prosecutorial duties.

As part of his remaking of Florida’s government, DeSantis has stacked the court with his allies and pressured it to enact his political agenda. For DeSantis, the court is yet another venue for expanding his authority and fanning the flames of a right-wing culture war by attacking criminal justice reform.

Worrell won election in 2020 with an overwhelming victory against a “law-and-order” opponent. She ran on addressing mass incarceration, restoring public trust in the office, and serving victims. DeSantis suspended Worrell in August, making her the second prosecutor he removed from office over political disagreements.

The attacks on prosecutors have far-reaching implications for the future of the criminal justice system and how state lawmakers exercise their authority and undermine the will of voters who elected reformers, Worrell’s attorney Laura Ferguson said during the arguments.

“If a governor were able to remove a prosecutor of a different political party simply because they disagreed with their policies and categorize that as a neglect of duty or incompetence,” Ferguson said, “then that will have a substantial chilling effect on how state attorneys perform their roles or their willingness to serve.”

In one exchange during the hearing, Ferguson said DeSantis’s allegations that the district attorney had “practices or policies” to not prosecute certain categories of crimes were false and that she considered cases individually.

Justice Charles Canady, whose wife is a DeSantis ally, interrupted Ferguson. “That’s not what’s alleged though,” Canady said. “What’s alleged, to kind of sum it up, is that she has policies that under-prosecute certain categories.”

“The order infers and speculates about policies,” Ferguson said in response.

“It makes assertions, it makes allegations,” Canady replied. “It doesn’t have to prove it.” He said a trial in the Florida Senate over Worrell’s removal — on hold because of the Supreme Court challenge — would adjudicate those claims.

The attempt to remove elected prosecutors in Florida is part of a nationwide trend of Republicans looking to gain favor with the electorate through punitive, though potentially anti-democratic, policies. At least 17 states have launched similar efforts to curb the rise of reform-minded prosecutors who won office in increasing numbers since the mid-2010s.

Last month, Georgia’s Supreme Court blocked an effort by Republican lawmakers who sought to use a new state law to oust the prosecutor who indicted former President Donald Trump.

Prior to winning the office, Worrell had worked under outgoing State Attorney Aramis Ayala. Ayala — a prosecutor who, like Worrell, is a Black woman — fell victim to the growing push to oust or limit the authority of elected reformers when former Florida Gov. Rick Scott removed her for refusing to seek the death penalty.

Monique Worrell holds a press conference outside her former office in the Orange County Courthouse complex on Aug. 9, 2023, in Florida.

Monique Worrell v. Ron D. DeSantis

DeSantis said he suspended Worrell for incompetence and “neglecting her duty to faithfully prosecute crime.” He appointed retired Judge Andrew Bain, a Federalist Society member, to replace her. A year earlier, DeSantis suspended Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren after he said he would not charge people who sought abortions under the state’s new abortion ban.

The suspensions are widely seen as part of DeSantis’s effort to remake the state and its criminal justice system in his own image and to his political advantage — a remaking that extends all the way up to the Supreme Court. The conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo aided DeSantis’s efforts on the courts by leading a secret panel of advisers to vet the judicial nominees before they take office.

DeSantis has also worked to bring justices who took the bench prior to his term into his fold. Canady’s wife, Jennifer, for instance, was elected last year to the Florida House. She has emerged as a close DeSantis ally in the legislature, co-sponsoring his signature six-week abortion ban. She is already in line to be the next speaker, with DeSantis’s help.

The governor has also been accused of orchestrating a “judicial gerrymander.” His allies in the Florida House requested that the court consider a plan to redraw and consolidate judicial districts; the court created a commission to do so in June. Worrell’s reelection chances, for example, would be severely impacted in a proposed redrawn district that waters down the progressive vote. The project would also advance DeSantis’s political agenda: His office worked behind the scenes with police to tarnish the reputations of both Worrell and Warren, the Daily Beast reported.

The battle for the independence of the judiciary was on full display during Wednesday’s hearing. Worrell’s attorney argued that DeSantis had exceeded his constitutional authority in suspending her without specifying acts in which Worrell had neglected her prosecutorial duty.

The order does not list examples of policies that neglect prosecutorial duty, Ferguson argued: “It just speculates that because she ran on a particular platform, she must have certain policies. They can’t identify a single policy,” she said. “The order talks about how her office ‘discourages,’ which doesn’t sound like a policy. It talks about ‘practices,’ but can’t identify a single example.”

“This is a governor who has used his suspension order with great frequency and in an unprecedented way and targeted those of a different political party.”

DeSantis’s lawyer argued that Worrell’s petition was not justiciable, meaning it referred to matters outside the court’s jurisdiction.

Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz asked if the governor’s office planned to specify policies and practices that proved neglect. DeSantis’s lawyer said the governor’s office had authority to remove a prosecutor if it could only show they weren’t effective at prosecuting crime.

Worrell’s record on prison admission was “abysmal,” the DeSantis lawyer said. Even if she had no specific objectionable policies, such data would be grounds to remove her. “If there was nothing specific she was doing, she just was just not effective at prosecuting crime, we think that that would be enough,” he argued. But that was not a question for the high court to decide.

“It’s remarkable that the governor’s lead argument is that this court cannot review whether his order is constitutional,” Ferguson said. “This is a governor who has used his suspension order with great frequency and in an unprecedented way and targeted those of a different political party.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Akela Lacy.

23-year-old Ana Clara Benevides Machado traveled 880 miles and waited in line outside for more than eight hours, along with tens of thousands of other fans, to see her favorite artist. That day, the heat index, or “feels-like” temperature accounting for humidity, soared to an all-time high of 138 degrees Fahrenheit in Rio. Brazil was sweltering through its eighth heatwave of the year — and it’s only spring. More than 1,000 people fainted from heat exhaustion inside the venue; others were vomiting. 

Benevides lost consciousness just minutes into the set, during the song “Cruel Summer,” and later died of cardiac arrest at a nearby hospital. 

Researchers have documented how hot weather vastly increases the risk of heart failure and other cardiovascular issues. Concertgoers say Time for Fun, the Brazil-based entertainment company running the event, refused to let people bring in water despite the heat, and blocked air vents in the venue to prevent people outside from listening in. Swift postponed her second show in Rio, originally scheduled for Saturday, to Monday night, citing safety concerns due to the ongoing high temperatures. She also put out a statement on Instagram saying she was “devastated” by Benevides’ death. “This is the last thing I ever thought would happen when we decided to bring this tour to Brazil,” Swift wrote. (Time for Fun did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) 

The Swift concert disaster comes on the heels of a summer where fans experienced heat illness at a Beyoncé concert in Maryland and at an Ed Sheeran concert in Pittsburgh. These incidents serve as a stark reminder of the dangers of extreme heat, which will only grow worse as heatwaves intensify as a result of climate change. But they also demonstrate that event mismanagement and a lack of heat preparedness can be deadly. Most heat-related deaths and illnesses, including at concerts and other large events, are preventable, climate health and heat safety experts told Grist. To avoid future injuries, concert organizers should take steps to proactively plan for heat, communicate health advisories and safety measures in advance, provide water and on-site medical care, and ensure proper airflow and ventilation.

“People go to these events to have fun. You never go to one of these thinking something horrible is going to happen,” Kevin Kloesel, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Oklahoma, told Grist. “So it’s incumbent upon the event organizers to make sure that it is the safest environment possible.”

Kloesel, who oversees weather forecasting and safety for around 400 annual outdoor events at the University of Oklahoma, said that when it comes to extreme heat, event organizers need to provide three key things: shade, hydration, and air movement. For example, setting up canopies to shade the endless lines concertgoers stood in for hours in Rio would have been one easy way to cool people down. Having enough water on hand, and providing it to attendees for free, is also crucial. Organizers should also find ways to ventilate the event space, including, potentially, by reducing seat capacity. 

Morgan Zabow, a community heat and health information coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Program Office, specified that indoor venues should provide air conditioning and not rely solely on electric fans, which can make stifling conditions worse by blowing hot air at a faster rate.  

Event organizers should also send out health advisories via text message or email well in advance, Zabow said. Those messages could include heat forecasts and tips to stay cool, like regularly drinking water and avoiding sugary beverages, caffeine, and alcohol, which can inhibit the body’s ability to cool off. Wearing loose, light-colored clothing is another preventative measure advisories could recommend. 

But even with these precautions, heat can still take a toll, especially for people who are older or have pre-existing medical conditions, or those from cooler climates who aren’t used to hot weather. That’s why having easily accessible medical staff on site is so important, Kloesel said. At football games, Kloesel and University of Oklahoma staff arrange cooling tents with medical personnel around the field in case attendees fall ill.

There are also ways to avoid the heat altogether. In Arizona, it’s become increasingly common to delay sports practices and other events until later in the evening when it cools off, said Ladd Keith, a heat policy expert and professor of urban planning at the University of Arizona. Kloesel noted that if concerts created more reserved seating, people wouldn’t have to line up outside for hours to secure a spot. Canceling or postponing events, as Swift did for her second concert in Rio, is another option. Organizers can also consider shifting summer events to a cooler season like fall or winter. All these steps, experts stress, require careful and intentional planning far in advance. 

Individuals can take steps to stay safe, too. Keith noted that heat can affect anyone, including young people and those in good health — as the Taylor Swift concert demonstrated. Zabow suggested using a buddy system in which friends monitor one another for symptoms of heat exhaustion, including heavy sweating, dizziness, and nausea, and leave early to get help if needed. “I know it’s hard to leave a stadium early and miss things, but your life is so much more important,” she said.

At Swift’s concert on Friday, however, attendees said Time for Fun had blocked exits, making it difficult to leave. The company announced new measures to provide water and emergency responders Saturday morning. Meanwhile, Brazil’s consumer protection agency has announced that the federal government plans to investigate Time for Fun. 

“It is heartbreaking that preventable things happened,” Kloesel said. “You have to know your venue, you have to know your fans, and you have to have a way of taking care of them and mitigating that risk as much as you possibly can, rather than just leaving it to chance.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Extreme heat led to a Taylor Swift fan’s death in Brazil. Could it have been prevented? on Nov 22, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Akielly Hu.

We are dealing with an Arab world whose peoples have experienced devastation, even if the circumstances of that devastation differ. There are peoples whose democratic and social revolutions were destroyed, and military rule came to administer the counter-revolution, such as in the case of Egypt, and to a lesser degree, Tunisia. They are peoples who are being exterminated, while reconciliation and normalization are taking place in parallel with their extermination and exile, as is the case with the Syrian catastrophe.

There are other peoples in the region whose unifying ties are disintegrating, and the conflicts of internal factions are intensifying, returning them to the situation of political nothingness that preceded the national state form, such as in Yemen, Libya, and Sudan, leaving only the continuation of conflict without an end in sight.

The most dangerous thing is that, because of all of this, and in parallel, there are other Arab elements that possess financial abundance and liquid investment capabilities, which have enabled them to penetrate the Western financial and economic world and the globalized capitalist structure. This capitalist structure seeks to find a foothold and control within this miserable Arab scene, and sometimes even invests in its ruin, exploits its shabbiness and political and rhetorical collapse. We see this well in the impulsive United Arab Emirates, the evasive Qatar, and the caution of Saudi Arabia due to the weight and centrality of its role.

This takes different and varied forms, but it penetrates all levels. For example, controlling the Arab digital sphere, dominating the entire media and cultural scene, leading to being present in the reconstruction plans for destroyed Syria over the corpses of its people, strangling Lebanon economically, seeking to buy Egyptian public assets, and financing wars in Sudan, Libya, and Yemen. These are just random examples of the different effects.

I see a region in a much worse situation than simply an outbreak of war causing it to regress, or God forbid, disrupting its renaissance. Israel’s wars against us in the past were some of the reasons for obstructing the progress and growth of certain countries in the region, including my country, Egypt. I believe that Israel today has no Arab progress to obstruct. In fact, it is [Israel’s] plans that are being obstructed now, specifically its strategic partnership with the Emirates and perhaps Saudi Arabia.

In Egypt, a percentage of the middle and lower classes have actually begun to approach the brink of starvation, and in Iran, Iranians are sweeping the streets of cities large and small in protest. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them, have been killed in the last five years. Lebanon’s economic condition is far beyond horrific. And the Syrians know what happened to them after they became a means of clarification for how to abuse and devalue the human soul of the residents of this region.

This is the situation. It is a situation sufficient to tempt Israel to reduce the value of Palestinian existence to the nadir, the depths of the abyss. And this is what it was previously restricted from doing. But what the Israelis do not realize is that they will also pay a heavy price. They, too, will become a statistic and a number. They are not an exception, even if they think themselves so.

Also, it is not possible to look at the current situation without looking at the international situation as a whole, where it has become appealing and easy to launch a war in Europe itself, the price of which is about half a million people killed and injured between Russia and Ukraine up to this moment. We are in a world that no longer fears wars and their outbreaks. The world has become accustomed to war, and the United States launches wars in the world, or helps to ignite and continue them. Russia finds no objection to committing genocidal practices on the grounds that they are existentially threatened.

Beside this, there has been an unmistakable crisis afflicting international capitalism since 2008. This crisis is not growing, but it has not been remedied and it has not stopped. The COVID pandemic arrived to announce the possible resumption of this crisis anew. The catastrophe is in the attempts to remedy this crisis through the same old-new stupid solution, by igniting political crises and using weapons to impose its decree, for the military component of the capitalist empire to restore its health. I mean here the American army in particular. And to do this in a way that helps American capitalism, which represents by itself a quarter of the world economy – to impose its economic conditions on its partners and then its enemies. That is what is happening right now. The United States militarizes the world anew, meanwhile holding a thousand reasons for nuclear annihilation.

Therefore we cannot deny or avoid the fact that the global scene is unruly, in a word. And that the weakest links in it, and Israel is one of these, will be extremely explosive when they explode. I cannot see October 7 in isolation from this escalating chaos. Suddenly, a month ago, it was announced that a trade line would be established beginning in India and ending with us in the region, in Tel Aviv, passing through the Emirates and through Saudi Arabia and Jordan by railroad line. This was announced by the Americans as good news for all of humankind.

Thus suddenly the flow of trade in the region and the world is being reshaped to the exclusion of the Palestinians and countries like Egypt and Iran and Turkey. By definition, it is the commercial axes that create the political axes. Meanwhile, they suddenly announce a project on the order of importance of discovering the route to the Cape of Good Hope or the construction of the Suez Canal!

Along with that, they announce that the issue of Palestine has finished, as if there was no one there! What’s so strange about it, then, when the prison of Gaza tries to blow itself up!

Q: So then, this combined situation explains the decision of Hamas to play all its cards and strike?

The Palestinians have no cards to play other than returning to the forefront of events once again, even if by a suicidal act. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has become nothing more than an Israeli police force that is dependent, miserable, to such an extent that it is difficult to grasp the limits of its misery. At the same time, Hamas, despite its possession of military power that has demonstrated itself on more than one stage, is without a comprehensive political agenda that would enable it to lead the Palestinian political scene. [It can only operate] at the level of the situation, it is unable to be part of a broader Palestinian framework that represents a wide spectrum of Palestinian national and social liberation movement.

Rather, it must be made clear that Hamas’ military leadership in the Gaza Strip, represented by Yahya Sinwar and Mohamed Deif, has neutralized, and marginalized the capabilities of the movement’s civilian leadership in the last seven years and almost exiled it abroad.

So the basis for this moment of explosion is that the Palestinian political situation is in a deep crisis, organizationally and rhetorically, and requires efforts and political leadership that go beyond the hapless stooge of Abu Mazen (1) and the demagoguism of Ismail Haniyeh (2). And in the end, Mohamed Deif (3) and his suicidal heroism will not be enough to lead on the Palestinian issue, either underground or above ground.

Palestinian [political] action in recent years has been directed at the Palestinians inside Israel, and has consisted of confronting it on the basis of their demand as indigenous people for equality within an apartheid state that declares its Judaism and does not care at all. This is happening while Israeli plans are far more catastrophic (nakbawiyya) than the limits of a civil liberal discourse betting on the conscience of the “civilized world”.

The Palestinian [political] scene, then, is a confused scene, and from within this confusion, fragmentation, and lack of a clear vision for engagement with the Israeli situation, Hamas pushed the question forward by creating a major crisis, by declaring a suicidal Insurrection at a moment when Israel had already reached a position of complete neurotic solipsism that made it an unlivable country.

Israel Will Be Like a Large Maniac Settlement

Q: [What was Israel like on the eve of October 7th?]

I have been good at following [the situation in] Israel, but as an Egyptian political actor, I was completely immersed in the Egyptian revolution and the Arab Spring from 2009-2010 to 2014-2015. In fact, after I went back to contemplating Israel again, it seemed to me another country in decline, as if it took advantage of the failure of the Arab Spring to unleash what was in its right-wing to become more right-wing, to [push the] limits of religious Zionism, military-religious security, and anything else that can be imagined, to the limits of disintegrating. In the past months, we have seen with our own eyes, street fighting in which the more extreme right accuses the less extreme right of receiving foreign funding from the United States and from suspicious global civil society organizations!

It has become a country whose rising political stars are people like Itamar Ben Gvir, a Kahanist. A major part of the ruling core in Israel today are affiliated with the authority of the Kach movement, which was classified as a right-wing terrorist movement in Israel itself in the days of Yitzhak Shamir (4) in the 1980s.

It seems to me that [Israel] has become a place on the verge of exploding in favor of some crazy behavior, revolving around a genocidal act that expels the Palestinians from within the Green Line. which is the actual manifestation of “From the River to the Sea”.

Q: But was its army ready to enter a war that might expand to include several fronts?

The foundation of the Israeli army is that it is professional and organized. But what I know well is that if the State of Israel wants to win a war, it must determine the goal, place, scope, timing, and duration beforehand. The absence of even one of these factors reduces its chances of victory.

Despite Israel’s unlimited fire superiority over the Al-Qassam Brigades, it lacks at the present moment the ability to determine the factors of scope, duration, and purpose. It always needs a short-term, quick, rapid war that achieves all its goals within the specified period of time. The only and optimal formula for Israel’s victory is the 1967 War formula, meaning that it obtains a large area of territory within a few days while the other side, completely crushed, announces its withdrawal from battle. With this in mind, I do not know exactly what the Israeli army is prepared for.

But I am certain that its own ideology, which has been stable for a long time, deals with human cost with extreme caution, to the point of investing in self-propelled automatic defense systems. They are now at a new threshold, facing suicidal Palestinian fighters. what is the goal after crushing them? Therefore, it seems to be [either] that the Israeli goal of the war is very confusing and unimplementable in light of the factors that meet the recognized criteria for Israeli victory, or that they are at a new turning point that is reshaping them.

Q: What impact does the chronological extension of the war have on the cohesion of [Israel]?

We are still at the beginning of the war, but I do not see Israel in the future as anything but a dysfunctional entity unfit for normal living. Militarized status, alert, its hand on the trigger.

I believe this will empty [Israel] of certain components: the intelligentsia, the intellectuals, the left, and the non-ideological in general. This leaves those who are forced to remain by birth and not holding another nationality, the religiously obsessed, and the Mizrahim who are originally from the Middle East. It is a mixture suitable for mobilization in which religion is mixed with national obsession and salvationist preparedness and is dominated by the Middle Eastern regional climate at the same time.

It will be a more ferocious, authoritarian, militarized, and unlivable state by Western European standards. Israel will be similar to the settlements it established in the West Bank, and they are likely to all be in a state of solitude and simultaneously ready for destruction and salvation. This is my imagination if the war lasts for a long time, or for what comes after it in the coming years.

But I believe this will consequently require an increase in the influence of American decision-making in Israel, as an official sponsor of the Jewish question around the world. In the final analysis, the vast majority of the world’s Jews are distributed between Israel and the United States. I believe, and this is just a belief at this moment, that to the extent that the face and image of the armed settler become the face and image of Israel itself, American influence there will increase to control the resulting chaos. Unlawfulness may express itself in the form of internal conflicts, or through attempts to expel the Palestinians from within, or in all forms of delinquency. And it may be a joke, but the clock may turn back and the British mandate over Palestine will become the American mandate.

Notes.

1) Abu Mazen is the president of the Palestinian National Authority

2) Ismail Haniyeh is the chairman of Hamas’s political bureau.

3) Mohamed Deif is the Military Commander of Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.

4) Yitzhak Shamir was the seventh prime minister of Israel and leader of Likud Party

The interview was conducted by Mahmoud Marrwa and originally published in Al-Morasel is a Leftist online magazine in Lebanon. It is slightly edited by Naeem for the English translation by Jessica Martin

.

The post Everything Led Gaza to the Inevitable Insurrection appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Mohamed Naeem.

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

In a long-awaited development, the largest audit in the history of the IRS has finally taken its next step. On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that the agency had notified the company that it owes $28.9 billion in back taxes, plus penalties and interest.

The case is epic not only in dollars but in scope. As ProPublica reported in an in-depth narrative in 2020, the IRS saw the case as a chance to prove the agency’s effectiveness. Often cowed by the prospect of facing off against corporations with endless resources, the IRS set out to be bolder and more aggressive. It took the unusual step of hiring a corporate law firm to represent the agency, a step that incensed Microsoft. The company, along with others in its industry, responded by rallying allies in Congress to rein in the IRS.

The audit is already well over a decade old and figures to grow older, since Microsoft is allowed to appeal the IRS’ conclusions and says it plans to. The audit focused on a deal the agency would later describe as “illusory in nature, serving no material economic purpose except to shift income.” In 2005, ProPublica wrote, Microsoft “sold its most valuable possession — its intellectual property — to an 85-person factory it owned in a small Puerto Rican city.” Having struck a favorable tax deal with Puerto Rico, Microsoft then channeled its profits to the facility, which burned Windows and Office software onto CDs.

At the time, some Microsoft executives celebrated this “pure tax play,” and they had reason for optimism. Initially, the IRS did not take an aggressive tack. An early audit resulted in a much more modest change in 2011.

But earlier that same year, the IRS had set up a new unit to audit intra-company deals that sent U.S. profits to tax havens — deals that were especially common among tech companies like Google, Facebook and Apple. The leader of the new unit decided that Microsoft’s deal in Puerto Rico was worth a much closer look. The IRS withdrew its initial finding and dug in to build a deep, comprehensive case.

By the time ProPublica published its story on the audit in 2020, the two sides had sued each other, and one case had long been stuck in court. Almost three years after the last motions in the case, a federal judge still had not ruled on whether the IRS should receive documents it was seeking. Shortly after ProPublica asked the court for an update, the ruling finally came down.

The judge sided with the IRS, writing “the Court finds itself unable to escape the conclusion that a significant purpose, if not the sole purpose, of Microsoft’s transactions was to avoid or evade federal income tax.” He agreed with the IRS’ characterization of the deal as a tax shelter.

For the next three years, the case disappeared from public view until Microsoft’s announcement.

“We believe we have always followed the IRS’ rules and paid the taxes we owe in the U.S. and around the world,” wrote Daniel Goff, a senior Microsoft executive, in a blog post on the company’s site that revealed the IRS’ determination.

The $29 billion that the IRS was seeking, he wrote, covered 2004 to 2013. He asserted, however, that the total, were the IRS to ultimately prevail, would be reduced by about $10 billion in taxes that Microsoft has already paid on its overseas profits. A major feature of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax bill was a requirement that companies repatriate those profits, though they paid a special, low tax rate when they did. Microsoft had stored up $142 billion in offshore profits by 2017.

The conclusion of the audit sends the fight to a new phase. The IRS has an internal appeals division, and Microsoft said it would pursue its arguments there. It’s a significant development since the IRS had once signaled that it would bar Microsoft’s access to an appeal, a stance that led to blowback in Congress from the company’s allies. IRS appeals officers, who are independent of the auditors, often settle cases for steep discounts out of fear that the agency will lose a court battle. The appeals process is secret.

If Microsoft does not get the result it wants there, it can take its case to the U.S. Tax Court. Each step is likely to take years, meaning the case could easily stretch into the late 2020s.

The IRS attorneys who worked on the case believed it to be, by far, the largest U.S. audit ever, and the amount the IRS is seeking from Microsoft is several times larger than in any other publicly disclosed audit in the agency’s history. The case, in a way, is the last, great vestige of the IRS before it was gutted by budget cuts over the course of the 2010s and corporate audits plummeted. While the recent infusion of billions from the Inflation Reduction Act will allow the agency to rebuild itself in the coming years, the Microsoft case shows the fruit of those efforts could take a long, long time to reap.

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

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

In a long-awaited development, the largest audit in the history of the IRS has finally taken its next step. On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that the agency had notified the company that it owes $28.9 billion in back taxes, plus penalties and interest.

The case is epic not only in dollars but in scope. As ProPublica reported in an in-depth narrative in 2020, the IRS saw the case as a chance to prove the agency’s effectiveness. Often cowed by the prospect of facing off against corporations with endless resources, the IRS set out to be bolder and more aggressive. It took the unusual step of hiring a corporate law firm to represent the agency, a step that incensed Microsoft. The company, along with others in its industry, responded by rallying allies in Congress to rein in the IRS.

The audit is already well over a decade old and figures to grow older, since Microsoft is allowed to appeal the IRS’ conclusions and says it plans to. The audit focused on a deal the agency would later describe as “illusory in nature, serving no material economic purpose except to shift income.” In 2005, ProPublica wrote, Microsoft “sold its most valuable possession — its intellectual property — to an 85-person factory it owned in a small Puerto Rican city.” Having struck a favorable tax deal with Puerto Rico, Microsoft then channeled its profits to the facility, which burned Windows and Office software onto CDs.

At the time, some Microsoft executives celebrated this “pure tax play,” and they had reason for optimism. Initially, the IRS did not take an aggressive tack. An early audit resulted in a much more modest change in 2011.

But earlier that same year, the IRS had set up a new unit to audit intra-company deals that sent U.S. profits to tax havens — deals that were especially common among tech companies like Google, Facebook and Apple. The leader of the new unit decided that Microsoft’s deal in Puerto Rico was worth a much closer look. The IRS withdrew its initial finding and dug in to build a deep, comprehensive case.

By the time ProPublica published its story on the audit in 2020, the two sides had sued each other, and one case had long been stuck in court. Almost three years after the last motions in the case, a federal judge still had not ruled on whether the IRS should receive documents it was seeking. Shortly after ProPublica asked the court for an update, the ruling finally came down.

The judge sided with the IRS, writing “the Court finds itself unable to escape the conclusion that a significant purpose, if not the sole purpose, of Microsoft’s transactions was to avoid or evade federal income tax.” He agreed with the IRS’ characterization of the deal as a tax shelter.

For the next three years, the case disappeared from public view until Microsoft’s announcement.

“We believe we have always followed the IRS’ rules and paid the taxes we owe in the U.S. and around the world,” wrote Daniel Goff, a senior Microsoft executive, in a blog post on the company’s site that revealed the IRS’ determination.

The $29 billion that the IRS was seeking, he wrote, covered 2004 to 2013. He asserted, however, that the total, were the IRS to ultimately prevail, would be reduced by about $10 billion in taxes that Microsoft has already paid on its overseas profits. A major feature of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax bill was a requirement that companies repatriate those profits, though they paid a special, low tax rate when they did. Microsoft had stored up $142 billion in offshore profits by 2017.

The conclusion of the audit sends the fight to a new phase. The IRS has an internal appeals division, and Microsoft said it would pursue its arguments there. It’s a significant development since the IRS had once signaled that it would bar Microsoft’s access to an appeal, a stance that led to blowback in Congress from the company’s allies. IRS appeals officers, who are independent of the auditors, often settle cases for steep discounts out of fear that the agency will lose a court battle. The appeals process is secret.

If Microsoft does not get the result it wants there, it can take its case to the U.S. Tax Court. Each step is likely to take years, meaning the case could easily stretch into the late 2020s.

The IRS attorneys who worked on the case believed it to be, by far, the largest U.S. audit ever, and the amount the IRS is seeking from Microsoft is several times larger than in any other publicly disclosed audit in the agency’s history. The case, in a way, is the last, great vestige of the IRS before it was gutted by budget cuts over the course of the 2010s and corporate audits plummeted. While the recent infusion of billions from the Inflation Reduction Act will allow the agency to rebuild itself in the coming years, the Microsoft case shows the fruit of those efforts could take a long, long time to reap.

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

On a breezy spring day, Lorraine Eiler, a member of the Hia-Ced O’odham tribe, walked with me around the border of Quitobaquito Springs — a strawberry-shaped oasis in the Sonoran Desert near Pima County, Arizona. Her family has lived in the area for generations. 

“If you do research on Quitobaquito, the majority of times you will read about the cattlemen that lived here in the area, about the people that went through Quitobaquito,” she said. “You hear nothing about the fact that it’s an old Indian village. It was abundant. Now, it’s just … well, you see what it looks like.”

The first thing you notice most about Quitobaquito Springs is the trees. It’s the only source of water for miles in the desert and the lush vegetation around it is stark against the dry tan and khaki landscape and occasional organ pipe cactus. The second thing you notice: the border wall, 30 feet tall, just feet from the water’s edge. I asked Eiler how the landscape compares to her early memories of the site. 

“Barren,” she said, “very, very barren.”

For thousands of years, people have used Quitobaquito as a place to trade, to grow food, and to rest. The springs also provided water for animals in a region where it’s hard to come by. Quitobaquito’s springs are still sacred to O’odham people today and several of Eiler’s relatives, for example, are buried here. 

“It has always been a place of refuge, a place of survival for anybody and anything that’s ever crossed through that territory,” said Amy Juan, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation and the Tohono O’odham Hemajkam Rights Network, a collective of college students and youth focused on issues impacting Tohono O’odham peoples.

In the 1900s, the springs and the surrounding area were selected by the U.S. government for conservation and given one of the highest levels of environmental protection in the world. But today, Quitobaquito’s sacred springs are drying up. So what went wrong? 

Quitobaquito Springs is part of the O’odham people’s traditional homelands — especially the Tohono and Hia-Ced O’odham nations. Before it was part of a National Park, before Arizona became a state in 1912, and even before there was an international border, the springs were really more like a marsh. Water flowed into the wetlands, feeding the gardens of squash, corn, and melons in the middle of the desert.

But settlers, warfare, and political decisions in the 1800s dispossessed the O’odham of their lands and carved the region into pieces. First, the U.S.–Mexico border split O’odham communities, separating families and cutting people off from their lands. Decades later, the U.S. government seized O’odham lands by congressional act, and, without a treaty, pushed the Tohono O’odham onto a reservation. Meanwhile, lawmakers created more policies intended to protect Quitobaquito’s fragile ecosystem. In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt used the newly claimed lands surrounding Quitobaquito Springs to create Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

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In the early days of the National Park Service, parks were mostly created with entertainment, sightseeing, and aesthetic beauty in mind. The agency believed that these areas should be kept wild, and protected from human interference. 

But what they missed was that places like Quitobaquito were already a product of thousands of years of human maintenance — and that the park still had people in it. For instance, the Oroscos, a Hia-Ced O’odham family, were living in Quitobaquito Springs at the time when the park was created. They stayed in the area long after many tribal members were pushed out.

The family’s animals, buildings, and machinery didn’t match the agency’s vision of a wild, peopleless park. Finally, after decades of pressure, the National Park Service purchased the land for $13,000, bulldozed the Oroscos’ home, dug out a bigger collecting pond for water from the spring, and built a parking lot nearby to attract visitors.

“There was this idea that you would take the people out of living in these protected spaces, but they could come and they could visit and they could enjoy the natural environment, and we would protect that environment up to an extent,” said Rebecca Tsosie, an attorney and professor at the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. “But Indigenous presence is vital to the stewardship of the land.” 

Without livestock to graze by the water’s edge, cattails invaded the pond, decreasing water flow. The decrease in water flow led to sediment build up, and in 1962, that increased sediment prompted park officials to dredge the pond. But dredging made the water too deep and too cold for the Sonoyta pupfish, one of the two endangered species endemic to the area. This forced the Park Service to build a kind of shelf in the pond so the fish could live in warmer waters. 

At the same time, the nearby parking lot meant visitors had easy access to the water, and one park visitor released a golden shiner into the pond — a fish so well suited to the springs it started outcompeting the pupfish and driving it toward extinction. Once park officials realized this, they removed the pupfish, poisoned the pond to get rid of the golden shiners, refilled the pond, and then put the pupfish back in.

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On a recent visit to Quitobaquito, I managed to spy a few pupfish — brown slivers of movement in the shallow waters of the springs. Tyler Coleman, a biologist and researcher with the National Park Service, told me that one of the biggest threats to the species today is low water levels. Ever since the 1990s, which saw a long term drought in the region, Quitobaquito has been drying up.

“So the little water that is produced in the Sonoran Desert is really valuable,” he told me. He pointed to the main springhead, a trickle of water which he described as a crack in the side of the mountain. “Any amount lost is going to be a problem.”  

The decline of the springs has been attributed to drought, climate change, and the expansion of nearby farming that taps into the natural underground aquifers. 

Then the border wall came.

In 2020, the U.S. government began building the controversial wall along the U.S.–Mexico border, 30 feet high, that cut across the entire southern edge of the park. Crews drilled for groundwater near the declining springs that they used to make cement.

“Unfortunately, during that period of time, the water levels started going down and the pond itself right in the center just became dry, which was something new,” Eiler said.

It’s not entirely clear if border wall construction caused water levels to drop. And we may never know, because the Trump administration waived all environmental assessments in the name of national security.

“The United States has some of the best environmental laws of any nation in the world,” said Tsosie. “But on the border, they wanted a full-scale, speedy construction of the border wall. So they bypassed all of those things.”

In 2022, the Park Service relined the pond, with support from the International Sonoran Desert Alliance, a nonprofit organization that Lorraine Eiler works with. People from U.S. government agencies and the Tohono O’odham nation worked to delicately scoop the turtles and pupfish into holding tanks until the lining was replaced and the pond was refilled.

But restoration is ongoing and it’s not yet clear whether or not these efforts will restore water levels — or how long that fix will last.

“Whatever was here is gone,” Eiler said. “We can try to make it. We’ll never get to the point of what it used to look like. And it all depends on water.”

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Around the world, in the face of biodiversity loss and climate change, there are calls to expand protected areas like Quitobaquito — though, as the springs show, a designation doesn’t guarantee protection. Last December, 196 countries agreed to “30×30,” a global goal to conserve 30 percent of the world’s lands and waters by 2030. The U.S. has its own version of that project, called “America the Beautiful.” Many of the areas targeted for protection under these policies are in Indigenous territories or on lands integral to Indigenous peoples’ livelihoods, and many have not sought consent from those communities or integrated their knowledge or practices in protection plans. 

“I think a lot of the border violence, a lot of the impacts on the Tohono O’odham, those are invisible when you’re visiting [Quitobaquito],” Tsosie said. “That cultural landscape is part of the environmental landscape. And we need to steward that and protect it and care for it just as we do those endangered species.”

Amy Juan agrees that Quitobaquito needs to be protected, but from a country that has caused more harm to the springs than good, not from the people who have cared for it for generations. 

“Sometimes it feels out of our hands,” she said. “But what we can control and what we can continue to do is make sure that we maintain these traditions, these ceremonies, these connections, because once we let go of them, once we lose them, once we don’t maintain them, that just continues to hurt who we are as O’odham. We’re desert people. We have to take care of all these things that make us who we are.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How efforts to protect an Indigenous oasis almost led to its demise on Oct 11, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Maria Parazo Rose.

“A party and government delegation from the People’s Republic of China will visit our country to participate in the 75th anniversary celebrations of the foundation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Thursday, adding that China’s vice premier Liu Guozhong will be leading the delegation.

KCNA did not elaborate on further details.

A non-Politburo-member Liu’s presence indicates a decline in the delegation’s stature given that North Korea places heightened importance on its national day celebrations every five years. In 2018, the Chinese delegation for 70th anniversary celebrations was led by Li Zhanshu, the third-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo, who made his visit as a special representative of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping. 

By sending Liu, China may be aiming at just merely maintaining its relations with Pyongyang, whilst keeping its distance with its hostile neighbor. 

While China values North Korea as its strategic asset against the United States and its allies, particularly as a buffer zone against the expanding influence of democracies in the region, becoming too closely aligned with North Korea – especially given its desire for stronger security and military cooperation – could jeopardize its relations with the U.S. and its regional allies.

This becomes clear when Russia has formally proposed to China and North Korea for a joint naval drill in July, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service Monday – a move that could further infuriate the U.S. in the region.

The international community has witnessed China’s economic decline and weakening real estate market in recent months. Therefore, China needs to maintain access to international markets and foreign investment in order to prevent a further deterioration of its economy. As China may seek to repair its ties with the U.S. and its allies, strengthening its political ties with North Korea and Russia may prove difficult. 

Additionally, with Moscow poised to send its own delegation to North Korea and seeking both military and economic support from China, Beijing might be hesitant to send a representative with the authority to make policy decisions.

“While diplomatic rhetoric still emphasizes the importance of bilateral ties, it is possible that the military engagement with North Korea could be seen as a burden for China,” said Cha Du-hyeogn, South Korea’s former presidential secretary for crisis information who is now a research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

“And there’s also the risk that any military engagements with North Korea and Russia could further push South Korea and Japan even closer to the U.S. This would no doubt solidify the trilateral partnerships.”

“North Korea’s possibility of providing ammunition to Russia is also working as a burden to China,” Cha added. “An escalation in military interactions between Russia and North Korea might compel China to relinquish its mediatory role. The stakes are high and the ramifications complex.” 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin this month, according to U.S. and South Korea authorities – a development that would complicate the U.S.’s plan to curb both Russian aggression in Ukraine and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

The potential meeting comes as North Korea is publicly backing Russia in its aggression against Ukraine. Through its state media, it has reiterated its support of Russia’s aggression, raising suspicion that Pyongyang is also providing ammunition to Moscow.

Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jeong-Ho Lee for RFA.

From being “among the best funded humanitarian responses” until last year, an annual fundraising plan by international agencies for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh may record its lowest contributions in 2023 since it was set up in 2017, data indicates.

The Joint Response Plan (JRP) for the Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis has so far received less than half the contributions this year than in 2022, data from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) shows. And the U.S. $268 million the plan has got so far is a third of the $876 million it sought for the year.

This drop comes at a time when the World Food Program earlier this year reduced food assistance to the Rohingya 33% – to $8 a month per person – citing a funds shortage, even as it acknowledged that that 45% of refugee families were not eating a sufficient diet and malnutrition was widespread in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

“Aid [for the Rohingya] has been dwindling in the last few years, and the JRP is still underfunded. Donors are stretched thin responding to the situation in Ukraine, Sudan, and Afghanistan,” John Quinley III, director of advocacy group Fortify Rights, told BenarNews.

“The decline in food aid has had significant health consequences for Rohingya refugees – both their physical and mental health. Donor governments should ensure Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have access to adequate food.”

The United States, the largest donor to the JRP since it was set up in 2017, has contributed $100 million this year so far, down from $336.7 million in total last year. By contrast, U.S. non-defense assistance to Ukraine spiked to $22 billion in 2022-2023 compared to an annual average of $500 million in earlier years, according to foreignassistance.gov, a United States government database.

About 1 million Rohingya, including about 740,000 who fled Myanmar following a brutal military offensive in their home state of Rakhine in August 2017, live mostly in crowded and sprawling refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh.

The international agencies’ fundraising plan will continue to receive funds through the end of the year, but it likely won’t match past amounts, said Romain Desclous, a spokesperson at the U.N refugee agency UNHCR in Bangladesh.

That’s not because of “fatigue” or “disinterest” from donors, he told BenarNews.

“[The Rohingya crisis] was up until last year among the best funded humanitarian responses,” Desclous said. 

He said the crisis was no longer considered an emergency situation but a protracted one, which means the emergency has lasted so long that it has become a normal situation. 

“That means humanitarian emergency funds get directed towards other emergencies, and the world is not lacking in emergencies,” he said.

When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the situation in the former Soviet republic became one such emergency situation, noted Sultan Mohammed Zakaria, a Bangladesh country specialist in the U.S. with rights watchdog Amnesty International.

“The Russia-Ukraine war has shifted global diplomatic priorities as the conflict has deeply unsettled the global security architecture while the world is still grappling with the economic fallout of COVID-19,” he told BenarNews.

“Yet we live and thrive on the strength of our collective consciousness. There must never be any excuse to forget a million refugees.”

Need ‘continuation, not reduction, of life-saving aid’

The huge decline in funds for the Rohingya this year stems from a drastic drop in U.S. contributions, which mostly ramped up its funding over 2018-2022, even as contributions from other sources waned. The JRP was able to make up what it lost from other donors through the U.S. funds increases.

The United States has provided at least 40% of total global funds contributed toward the Rohingya refugees to the JRP so far since 2017, according to OCHA’s data.

In 2022, the U.S. contributed the most it had ever done – $336 million – to the JRP.  By comparison, the UK, the second-highest donor, contributed only a tenth of that amount last year.

Therefore, the U.S. contribution of $100 million so far this year represents a drastic reduction. But, it turns out, American assistance globally has dropped in 2023, according to a government database.

U.S. global assistance fell to $27 billion so far this year from $58 billion last year, according to data from ForeignAssistance.gov.

This decline in U.S. humanitarian assistance over the last year has occurred “even as needs reach record levels,” is negatively affecting refugees around the world, acknowledged Daniel Sullivan, a regional director for Refugees International.

“In March 2021, [U.S.] Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an official genocide determination and committed to helping the Rohingya build a path out of genocide, Sullivan told BenarNews.

“That path must begin with continuation, not reduction, of life-saving aid.”

The more than 1 million Rohingya in the makeshift camps are fully dependent on international aid because Bangladesh does not allow them to work in the country. Some enterprising refugees who set up shops within the camps had to see the authorities shut down their establishments or even demolish them.

Washington, for its part, has not publicly discussed the steep drop in its global assistance and a State Department official who BenarNews contacted suggested, like the U.S. had done before, that the Rohingya be allowed to work.

“[We] continue to meet with and encourage the government of Bangladesh to re-examine its restrictions on allowing refugees to earn a living, which would allow our humanitarian partners to focus on assisting the most vulnerable,” the department spokesperson said in a statement.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen ruled out allowing the refugees to work inside or outside the camps.

“The West advises us to employ the Rohingya through training. It is not possible,” he told BenarNews. 

“We are struggling to give work to our own people.” 

Ahammad Foyez in Dhaka contributed to this report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

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

From being “among the best funded humanitarian responses” until last year, an annual fundraising plan by international agencies for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh may record its lowest contributions in 2023 since it was set up in 2017, data indicates.

The Joint Response Plan (JRP) for the Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis has so far received less than half the contributions this year than in 2022, data from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) shows. And the U.S. $268 million the plan has got so far is a third of the $876 million it sought for the year.

This drop comes at a time when the World Food Program earlier this year reduced food assistance to the Rohingya 33% – to $8 a month per person – citing a funds shortage, even as it acknowledged that that 45% of refugee families were not eating a sufficient diet and malnutrition was widespread in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

“Aid [for the Rohingya] has been dwindling in the last few years, and the JRP is still underfunded. Donors are stretched thin responding to the situation in Ukraine, Sudan, and Afghanistan,” John Quinley III, director of advocacy group Fortify Rights, told BenarNews.

“The decline in food aid has had significant health consequences for Rohingya refugees – both their physical and mental health. Donor governments should ensure Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have access to adequate food.”

The United States, the largest donor to the JRP since it was set up in 2017, has contributed $100 million this year so far, down from $336.7 million in total last year. By contrast, U.S. non-defense assistance to Ukraine spiked to $22 billion in 2022-2023 compared to an annual average of $500 million in earlier years, according to foreignassistance.gov, a United States government database.

About 1 million Rohingya, including about 740,000 who fled Myanmar following a brutal military offensive in their home state of Rakhine in August 2017, live mostly in crowded and sprawling refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh.

The international agencies’ fundraising plan will continue to receive funds through the end of the year, but it likely won’t match past amounts, said Romain Desclous, a spokesperson at the U.N refugee agency UNHCR in Bangladesh.

That’s not because of “fatigue” or “disinterest” from donors, he told BenarNews.

“[The Rohingya crisis] was up until last year among the best funded humanitarian responses,” Desclous said. 

He said the crisis was no longer considered an emergency situation but a protracted one, which means the emergency has lasted so long that it has become a normal situation. 

“That means humanitarian emergency funds get directed towards other emergencies, and the world is not lacking in emergencies,” he said.

When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the situation in the former Soviet republic became one such emergency situation, noted Sultan Mohammed Zakaria, a Bangladesh country specialist in the U.S. with rights watchdog Amnesty International.

“The Russia-Ukraine war has shifted global diplomatic priorities as the conflict has deeply unsettled the global security architecture while the world is still grappling with the economic fallout of COVID-19,” he told BenarNews.

“Yet we live and thrive on the strength of our collective consciousness. There must never be any excuse to forget a million refugees.”

Need ‘continuation, not reduction, of life-saving aid’

The huge decline in funds for the Rohingya this year stems from a drastic drop in U.S. contributions, which mostly ramped up its funding over 2018-2022, even as contributions from other sources waned. The JRP was able to make up what it lost from other donors through the U.S. funds increases.

The United States has provided at least 40% of total global funds contributed toward the Rohingya refugees to the JRP so far since 2017, according to OCHA’s data.

In 2022, the U.S. contributed the most it had ever done – $336 million – to the JRP.  By comparison, the UK, the second-highest donor, contributed only a tenth of that amount last year.

Therefore, the U.S. contribution of $100 million so far this year represents a drastic reduction. But, it turns out, American assistance globally has dropped in 2023, according to a government database.

U.S. global assistance fell to $27 billion so far this year from $58 billion last year, according to data from ForeignAssistance.gov.

This decline in U.S. humanitarian assistance over the last year has occurred “even as needs reach record levels,” is negatively affecting refugees around the world, acknowledged Daniel Sullivan, a regional director for Refugees International.

“In March 2021, [U.S.] Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an official genocide determination and committed to helping the Rohingya build a path out of genocide, Sullivan told BenarNews.

“That path must begin with continuation, not reduction, of life-saving aid.”

The more than 1 million Rohingya in the makeshift camps are fully dependent on international aid because Bangladesh does not allow them to work in the country. Some enterprising refugees who set up shops within the camps had to see the authorities shut down their establishments or even demolish them.

Washington, for its part, has not publicly discussed the steep drop in its global assistance and a State Department official who BenarNews contacted suggested, like the U.S. had done before, that the Rohingya be allowed to work.

“[We] continue to meet with and encourage the government of Bangladesh to re-examine its restrictions on allowing refugees to earn a living, which would allow our humanitarian partners to focus on assisting the most vulnerable,” the department spokesperson said in a statement.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen ruled out allowing the refugees to work inside or outside the camps.

“The West advises us to employ the Rohingya through training. It is not possible,” he told BenarNews. 

“We are struggling to give work to our own people.” 

Ahammad Foyez in Dhaka contributed to this report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

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

A delegation of US Members of Congress and staff arrives in Santiago today for a series of high-level meetings with President Gabriel Boric, government ministers, congressional representatives, and civil society organizations to learn about Chile’s efforts to defend and deepen its democracy on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the coup against President Salvador Allende.

The delegation, which includes Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Nydia Velázquez (D-NY), Greg Casar (D-TX), and Maxwell Frost (D-FL), as well as Senator Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) Chief of Staff Misty Rebik, is traveling to Chile as part of a region-wide delegation sponsored by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

“US foreign policy has too often contributed to instability in Latin America: we should be protecting democracy rather than supporting coups, and we should be creating peace and prosperity across the Western Hemisphere rather than replaying the Cold War,” Representative Greg Casar said. “Now is the time to talk about our history, jointly fight the climate crisis, and invest in lasting peace. That is why I’m joining this delegation to Brazil, Colombia, and Chile — to meet, listen, and learn from our counterparts and chart a new way forward.”

The itinerary will kick off with a reception by Santiago Mayor Irací Hassler to welcome the delegation to Chile and learn about the mayor’s projects to address food insecurity and discrimination against migrants in Santiago. The itinerary will close with a reception by President Gabriel Boric and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alberto Van Klaveren to learn about the administration’s vision for Chile and its leading efforts to address the environmental crisis, expand social rights, and defend its institutions in the face of rising antidemocratic forces.

In between these meetings, the delegation will attend a series of meetings with high-level Chilean government and civil society representatives committed to strengthening Chilean democracy and preserving historical memory of the 1973 US-backed coup against President Salvador Allende. These include a meeting with congressional leaders, a visit to the Museum of Memory and Human Rights with the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Luis Cordero Vega, and a meeting with the former President Michelle Bachelet.

The delegation continues with a dialogue across Chilean government and civil society about the country’s approach to the management of natural resources and the response to the climate crisis. Delegates will meet with Tomás Vodanovic, Mayor of Maipú, to learn about the city’s efforts to develop a local water strategy to protect the ecosystem and defend the right to clear water; Macarena Ripamonti, Mayor of Viña del Mar, to learn about her efforts to regulate construction on protected areas; and congressional leaders to discuss the challenges of economic development and green transition.

Finally, the itinerary will include a series of high-level meetings to learn about Chile’s approach to the expansion of economic and social rights. Delegates will meet with Minister of Women and Gender Equality Antonia Orellana to discuss how the government is implementing networks of social care, mental health, and legal mediation with a gender, inclusion and intercultural approach; with congressional leaders that fought and won the 40-Hour Law to strengthen worker rights; and Foreign Ministry Undersecretaries Gloria de la Fuente and Claudia Sanhueza to learn about Chile’s novel paradigm of “Feminist Foreign Policy”.

Representative Castro has said: “More than with any other region of the world, the future of the United States is intimately linked with that of our neighbors in the Western Hemisphere. As we grapple with transnational challenges – from managing migration to climate resilience – the time has come for a reimagined regional approach that prioritizes multilateralism, effective engagement, and mutual respect”.

“For much of the last seven decades, the United States has approached the Western Hemisphere with a Cold War mentality that prioritizes ideological alignment over shared commitments to democracy and freedom. This counterproductive approach has hampered our diplomacy, left many of our neighbors wary of U.S. engagement, and undermined potential progress on development, good governance, human rights, and more. At the same time, our reputation has been damaged by cruel migration policies that hurt vulnerable people and contradict our foundational values. As we move deeper into the 21st century and confront unprecedented challenges, I hope that members of Congress will work with our colleagues in neighboring countries and make policy that is informed by the diverse experiences of our own diaspora communities”.

“My family’s American story began when my grandmother, Victoria Castro, came to Texas as a young orphan in the wake of the Mexican Revolution. Her San Antonio relatives raised her in a city defined by Mexican culture, where recent migrants and long-established Hispanic families could chase their American dreams despite the prejudices of the time. Today, the vast and diverse Latino diaspora forms the backbone of communities from San Antonio to Springfield, Massachusetts, and newly arrived immigrants are breathing new life into cities across the industrial Midwest. Congress must learn how to harness America’s immigrant communities as a source of strength”.

“My priorities as Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere are to advance inclusive and sustainable development, expand regional economic cooperation to create good-paying jobs at home and abroad, promote a more humane approach to migration, strengthen our bilateral and multilateral relationships, and curb firearms trafficking from the United States into Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. These goals build on the progress I accomplished as chairman of the Subcommittee on International Development, International Organizations, and Global Corporate Social Impact, and I’m pleased to be able to continue many of the important conversations that began last Congress.”

Delegation coordinator David Adler said: “Fifty years ago, the United States supported a bloody coup against the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende. The scars from this tragic event are still visible today — in the lasting memory of those who died and disappeared under General Augusto Pinochet, and in the institutional legacy of the neoliberal government that he left behind. This delegation arrives to help usher in a new chapter of US-Chile relations based on mutual understanding and the common pursuit of social justice. All too often, visitors from Washington come to the region to deliver lectures and unsolicited advice. This delegation has come to Chile to listen, learn, and forge lasting alliances for hemispheric cooperation.”

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

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Daniel Boguslaw.

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

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

Donald Trump is set to surrender today at the federal courthouse in Miami to face charges for retaining and mishandling classified documents, including top-secret information about U.S. nuclear weapons programs. Trump’s supporters, including many prominent members of the Republican Party, have threatened violence and suggested revolt in response to what they see as a politically motivated targeting of the former president, while Trump himself has claimed to reporters that he is innocent of wrongdoing. His capture of the Republican base is the work of a “cult leader,” argues Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on fascism and authoritarianism, adding that today’s GOP is an “autocratic party operating inside a democracy.” Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University, also discusses the death this week of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who she says helped to mainstream far-right extremism in Italian politics.

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

We go to Kampala, Uganda, to discuss the impact of one of the most draconian anti-LGBTQ laws in the world, just signed by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. The new law makes same-sex relationships punishable by life imprisonment. Some LGBTQ people could receive the death sentence. Homophobia in Uganda is heavily influenced by American evangelists, who function as “exporters of hate,” notes Pepe Onziema, a Ugandan human rights activist, causing LGBTQ Ugandans to “end up as collateral damage.”

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

The post Led by China and India: On the Global South Efforts to Fix the UN appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

The number of books on offer at Hong Kong's public libraries has fallen as officials remove books from shelves under a restrictive national security law imposed in the wake of the 2019 protest movement.

Since then, libraries have been required to remove politically sensitive titles from their collections, leading to a cull of books, and less time for staff to invest in new ones, according to the Leisure and Cultural Services Department.

"In order to maintain national security, more time is required to select suitable library materials, meaning that the size of the collection has also been reduced," the department said in a recent comment on an annual review of the city's public library services.

"Inspection of library books to maintain national security is an ongoing effort in Hong Kong's public libraries," it said in a response to a report from the city's audit office. "From time to time, complaints from the public are received, which require inspection of library materials.”

Titles addressing the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, as well as books written by jailed protest leader Joshua Wong and Occupy Central movement founder Benny Tai, have disappeared from library shelves since the law took effect on July 1, 2020, according to local media reports.

Hong Kong is in the throes of a "war on libraries," said current affairs commentator Sang Pu, who called on the government to disclose full details of books that have been removed from the collection, and to reinstate them.

He also called on Hong Kongers overseas to set up a repository of banned titles so future generations would be able to read them and their content wouldn’t be forgotten.

Informers

The general public have been actively encouraged by police to inform on any words or deeds that could be deemed subversive under the law, which criminalizes dissent in the form of words or deeds that "incite hatred" of the Hong Kong or Chinese authorities, leading to more than 40,000 tip-offs last year.

Many of the books quietly disappeared from libraries after denunciations in the government-backed media, which said they broke the national security law, according to reports in pro-democracy news outlets, some of which have themselves been forced to close amid investigation by the national security police.

"Hong Kong public libraries completed its review of [existing] library books that are clearly not conducive to national security, and has removed them from the collection," the Hong Kong Audit Commission said in an annual report released on April 26.

But it added: "As of February 2023, inspections and follow-up actions are ongoing."

It said government guidelines require libraries to "safeguard national security by preventing activities that could endanger it."

"In purchasing library materials, considering book proposals, accepting book donations and adding to collections [by] purchasing books, libraries must ensure that their collections do not prejudice national security," it said, recommending that new acquisitions are processed through the government's Book Registration Unit.

"If content is found in the collection that could violate the national security law, then loans of those materials must be suspended," it said. "The material can only be relisted after libraries have ensured that the content does not violate the law."

‘Not conducive” to creativity

The entire publishing industry is feeling the effects of the law, said published author Johnny Lau.

"It's not just the libraries, but the entire publishing industry," Lau said. "In the current climate, a lot of people are censoring themselves."

"The publishing industry and library collections as a whole are shrinking, and fewer and fewer books are getting published," he said. "The restrictions are affecting some people's desire to write books at all."

"This climate hinders both freedom of speech and publication," Lau said.

Former Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kei, who fled to the democratic island of Taiwan after being detained by mainland Chinese authorities for selling "banned" books to customers in China, said the government has no choice but to censor libraries under the national security law.

"The Leisure and Cultural Services Department must follow the policies of the Hong Kong government, which is now the same as the mainland Chinese government," Lam said. "No book with any kind of ideological issue is going to get published now."

"The current climate in Hong Kong isn't conducive to creative work," he said.

Much as mainland Chinese writers used to get their banned books published in Hong Kong, authors who write about Hong Kong issues are now choosing to publish in Taiwan, where the publishing industry is much freer.

"There are more and more Chinese-language books getting published in Taiwan," Lam said. "Recent works include The Last Concession, which chronicles changes in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong Secret Operations about young people wanted [following the 2019 protests] who fled."

"It's not just social commentary, but literary works as well," Lam said. "Taiwan is the only market for Chinese-language books in the world that remains free and open."

"More and more Hong Kongers are coming to Taiwan to buy books, and they're surprised to see that there are so many being published here with a Hong Kong theme," he added.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei for RFA Cantonese.

The number of books on offer at Hong Kong's public libraries has fallen as officials remove books from shelves under a restrictive national security law imposed in the wake of the 2019 protest movement.

Since then, libraries have been required to remove politically sensitive titles from their collections, leading to a cull of books, and less time for staff to invest in new ones, according to the Leisure and Cultural Services Department.

"In order to maintain national security, more time is required to select suitable library materials, meaning that the size of the collection has also been reduced," the department said in a recent comment on an annual review of the city's public library services.

"Inspection of library books to maintain national security is an ongoing effort in Hong Kong's public libraries," it said in a response to a report from the city's audit office. "From time to time, complaints from the public are received, which require inspection of library materials.”

Titles addressing the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, as well as books written by jailed protest leader Joshua Wong and Occupy Central movement founder Benny Tai, have disappeared from library shelves since the law took effect on July 1, 2020, according to local media reports.

Hong Kong is in the throes of a "war on libraries," said current affairs commentator Sang Pu, who called on the government to disclose full details of books that have been removed from the collection, and to reinstate them.

He also called on Hong Kongers overseas to set up a repository of banned titles so future generations would be able to read them and their content wouldn’t be forgotten.

Informers

The general public have been actively encouraged by police to inform on any words or deeds that could be deemed subversive under the law, which criminalizes dissent in the form of words or deeds that "incite hatred" of the Hong Kong or Chinese authorities, leading to more than 40,000 tip-offs last year.

Many of the books quietly disappeared from libraries after denunciations in the government-backed media, which said they broke the national security law, according to reports in pro-democracy news outlets, some of which have themselves been forced to close amid investigation by the national security police.

"Hong Kong public libraries completed its review of [existing] library books that are clearly not conducive to national security, and has removed them from the collection," the Hong Kong Audit Commission said in an annual report released on April 26.

But it added: "As of February 2023, inspections and follow-up actions are ongoing."

It said government guidelines require libraries to "safeguard national security by preventing activities that could endanger it."

"In purchasing library materials, considering book proposals, accepting book donations and adding to collections [by] purchasing books, libraries must ensure that their collections do not prejudice national security," it said, recommending that new acquisitions are processed through the government's Book Registration Unit.

"If content is found in the collection that could violate the national security law, then loans of those materials must be suspended," it said. "The material can only be relisted after libraries have ensured that the content does not violate the law."

‘Not conducive” to creativity

The entire publishing industry is feeling the effects of the law, said published author Johnny Lau.

"It's not just the libraries, but the entire publishing industry," Lau said. "In the current climate, a lot of people are censoring themselves."

"The publishing industry and library collections as a whole are shrinking, and fewer and fewer books are getting published," he said. "The restrictions are affecting some people's desire to write books at all."

"This climate hinders both freedom of speech and publication," Lau said.

Former Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kei, who fled to the democratic island of Taiwan after being detained by mainland Chinese authorities for selling "banned" books to customers in China, said the government has no choice but to censor libraries under the national security law.

"The Leisure and Cultural Services Department must follow the policies of the Hong Kong government, which is now the same as the mainland Chinese government," Lam said. "No book with any kind of ideological issue is going to get published now."

"The current climate in Hong Kong isn't conducive to creative work," he said.

Much as mainland Chinese writers used to get their banned books published in Hong Kong, authors who write about Hong Kong issues are now choosing to publish in Taiwan, where the publishing industry is much freer.

"There are more and more Chinese-language books getting published in Taiwan," Lam said. "Recent works include The Last Concession, which chronicles changes in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong Secret Operations about young people wanted [following the 2019 protests] who fled."

"It's not just social commentary, but literary works as well," Lam said. "Taiwan is the only market for Chinese-language books in the world that remains free and open."

"More and more Hong Kongers are coming to Taiwan to buy books, and they're surprised to see that there are so many being published here with a Hong Kong theme," he added.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei for RFA Cantonese.

Throughout the 2000s, you’d find me regularly riding NYC’s subways during the very early morning hours — specifically from Queens into Manhattan — to work with personal training clients in gyms. In fact, right up to the plandemic, I was still training a couple of clients in their homes.

On those subway rides, I’d sometimes grab a copy of Metro — one of NYC’s free newspapers delivering a daily dose of corporate media propaganda. However, there was a brief period of time when Metro would allow some subversive voices into the mix. That included yours truly.

From about 2004 to 2007, Metro went through a phase of paying edgy freelancers so I jumped in with both feet. This even included an author photo shoot!

Thus, for a couple of years, my decidedly non-mainstream perspective — and my decidedly non-mainstream photo (wearing a “dumpster diving team” t-shirt, no less) — were on display for millions of New Yorkers to peruse during their morning ride to work or school (see image up top).

As someone who can remember when newspaper columnists held sway in my hometown, let me tell you, it was pretty cool to be jammed into a crowded subway car next to someone reading my latest article.

I’ll never know how many New Yorkers read my Metro columns. To the best of my knowledge, none of my affluent clients saw my column or photo (probably because none of them would ever ride the subway).

Over the years, I did make a select few clients aware of my double life (a couple have even bought my books and attended my talks). But, since many of them were wealthy and mainstream, I typically chose not to divulge anything about my radical writing.

As a result, I sometimes found myself making up elaborate fabrications to account for why I wouldn’t be around for a day or two when, for example, I just so happened to be heading up to MIT to lecture on US foreign policy in 2003.

Yep, this high school grad addressed a huge audience there on the topic of Henry Kissinger and the 1973 Chilean coup on a Monday night… and by Wednesday morning, was back in the gym — working with dumbbells (insert rimshot here).

Looking back now, I ponder my strategy of keeping a big part of myself a secret in the name of maintaining personal trainer income. Why was I so sure that wealthy capitalists would shun me and maybe fire me as their trainer if they encountered my radical mindset?

Perhaps a better question: What did it do to me emotionally to hide something that’s always been very important to me?

I contemplate questions like this now because, well… it’s never too late. I may not have affluent gym clients anymore. But, in Covid-era NYC, I have plenty of others around whom I could start speaking far more openly.

After all, it’s not like I can’t point to cases from the 2000s when my double life was exposed and things went well.

For example, I trained three high-powered lawyers at their high-powered law firm’s gym. This arrangement required me to check in with the doorman — or was he a concierge? (It’s funny to me that I might insult a concierge by calling him a doorman.) Anyway, doormen display one of three basic behavior patterns towards personal trainers.

The first and most common is indifference (we’re used to that). Secondly, they relate to us as fellow blue-collar common people saddled with the same fate: serving the well-heeled. Lastly, in a futile attempt to align themselves with a winner, some doormen openly look down their noses at us.

This was definitely the case at the law firm until a certain concierge saw my handsome face staring back at him from the pages of Metro.

The guy was completely flabbergasted when he read a little something of mine called “Re-Examining Rumsfeld’s Ratio” (which talked about, among other things, the United States unselfconsciously using “Apache” helicopters to quell “ethnic cleansing”).

A political junkie, the concierge now saw me as an “expert” and fell all over himself to shake my hand and introduce himself.

My new best friend could not get enough of me and it became the new norm for him to quiz me about current events before and after my training sessions.

One morning, as I was passing through the lobby, he called me over and pulled out a legal pad. Believe it or not, he had written a page or two of notes to remember all the things he wanted to ask me!

Yeah, just another tricky day in the life of a muscular militant… 

In 2001-2, I worked evenings in a corporate gym (cue the shame and self-loathing) in midtown Manhattan. One night, I was wearing a Yankees t-shirt with the name “Justice” emblazoned on the back (for former Yank David Justice).

A woman named Mary, probably in her late 60s, asked me if I was a Yankee fan. I told her my real reason for wearing the shirt was all about the word “justice.” She smiled and declared that justice was a “noble idea.”

I braced myself for the inevitable “we need to show those towel heads some justice,” (remember, this was early post-9/11 NYC) but instead, Mary told me — albeit in a stage whisper — she was soon going to DC to march against the impending US invasion of Iraq.

After this confession, Mary looked genuinely nervous. Her facial expression seemed to ask: Have I gone too far? In my best French Resistance voice, I reassured her: “Don’t worry, I’m with you.”

After that, we’d talk each and every time she’d come to work out. The corporation eventually phased out its gym facility but just before my last day, I saw Mary and complimented her on how hard she’d been training.

She leaned close to me and whispered: “When the revolution comes, I’ll be ready.”

As for me, my next revolution is to be even more open and transparent about my “controversial” stances. No more hiding.

After all, “a truthful witness saves lives.”

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

Albert del Rosario, the Philippines’ former top diplomat who successfully led the country in its international arbitration case over a territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea, died on Tuesday, his family said. He was 83. 

The Philippine case was considered groundbreaking because it marked the first time that any country had challenged China in a world court over its territorial claims in the waterway.

His daughter, Dr. Inge del Rosario, confirmed the news to reporters, but did not disclose the cause of death. Other sources close to the family said the ex-foreign secretary died while on a flight to San Francisco.

“The family of Ambassador Albert Ferreros del Rosario is deeply saddened to announce his passing today, April 18, 2023. The family requests privacy during this difficult time,” his daughter said.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo confirmed the news.

He called del Rosario “an advocate of protecting and advancing national security and promoting the rights and welfare of Filipinos both in the Philippines and abroad.”

“You will be missed, Mr. Secretary,” he said.

Born in Manila on Nov. 14, 1939, del Rosario, a critic of former President Rodrigo Duterte’s foreign policies – particularly in dealing with China – served as the Philippine foreign affairs chief under late President Benigno Aquino III, from 2011 until 2016.

While heading the Department of Foreign Affairs, del Rosario spearheaded the Philippines’ legal battle against China before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands over a territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea. The Philippines brought the case before the court in 2012.

In July 2016, the arbitration court ruled in favor of the Philippines, and threw out China’s expansive claims in the sea, including in waters that reach its neighbors’ shores. The Philippines calls the part of the South China Sea that is within its territory the West Philippine Sea.

The Chinese, however, ignored the landmark ruling, even as most countries in the West, led by the United States, hailed the award in the Philippines’ favor. Since then, China has carried on with its military expansionism in the strategic waterway, including building artificial islands.

But President Duterte, who took office within a month before the historic ruling, played it down and chose instead to build up warm bilateral relations with China. Late into his presidency, however, he told the United Nations General Assembly that the arbitration court’s ruling was “beyond compromise” and part of international law.

The Philippines not only lost a patriot “but an esteemed diplomat who represented our country with utmost grace, honor, and dignity,” Sen. Risa Hontiveros said in paying tribute to del Rosario.

His “leadership inspired in us the courage and the creativity to fight for our national interest using lawful and diplomatic means. Defending and protecting our rights in the WPS is an intergenerational battle, one we can win because of the work Sec. del Rosario started,” Hontiveros said in a statement, referring to the West Philippine Sea.

Jose Antonio Custodio, a military historian at the Institute of Policy, Strategy and Development Studies, a Philippine think-tank, described Del Rosario as “a brave man” who had endured public insults from Duterte.

“He was a hero of the republic for successfully fighting against China’s illegal claims in our maritime entitlements. May his memory be a blessing,” Custodio said.

The think-tank Stratbase ADR Institute, where del Rosario served as chairperson, said the former foreign affairs chief championed “democratic values and rules-based international order.”

“He has fought for an independent foreign policy that prioritizes the interests of the country and of the Filipino people. He believed that diplomacy is a great equalizer in international affairs and that each state had an equal voice in the global community regardless of their political, economic, or military capabilities,” the institute said.

Jeoffrey Maitem and Jojo Riñoza contributed to this report from Manila.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.

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

The official handle of the Vice-President later tweeted a part of the speech. Here, the VP talks about three apparently forgotten brave-hearts of the past — 16-year-old Shivdevi Tomar who killed 17 Britishers near Meerut, Mahaviri Devi who was martyred along with 22 companions while fighting the British, and Rampyari Gurjar who, the VP says, fought with Timur by forming an army of 40,000. Their names are not found in our history, Dhankhar notes. (Archive)

16 वर्ष की शिवदेवी तोमर ने मेरठ के पास 17 अंग्रेजों को मौत के घाट उतार दिया

वंचित समुदाय से आने वाली वीरांगना महावीरी देवी अपनी 22 साथियों के साथ अंग्रेजों लड़ती हुई शहीद हुईं

रामप्यारी गुर्जर ने 40 हजार की सेना बना कर तैमूर से लोहा लिया

पर हमारे इतिहास में इनका नाम नहीं मिलता pic.twitter.com/I7tV9rr62w

— Vice President of India (@VPIndia) March 11, 2023

This is not the first time someone holding public office spoke about Rampyari Gurjar. We found that on January 28, 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned her while talking about the valor and patriotism of the Gurjar community at an event in Bhilwara, Rajasthan. According to the PMINDIA website, underlining the bravery and contribution of Gurjar women and paying tributes to Rampyari Gurjar, Modi said, “…It is the country’s misfortune that such countless fighters could not get the place they deserve in our history. But New India is rectifying these mistakes of the past decades.”

The PM’s speech can be heard here. The mention of Rampyari Gurjar occurs at the 21.58-minute mark onward.

Former Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu, too, had talked about Rampyari Gurjar on April 11, 2020, while addressing a meeting of the Akhil Bhartiya Veer Gurjar Mahasabha. 8.10 minutes onward in the clip, he says Rampyari Gurjar defeated Timur Lang with an army of 40,000 soldiers. Without the mention of such warriors, Indian history is incomplete, the former VP says.

There are several blogs, opinion pieces and YouTube videos that mention Rampyari Gurjari. Many of them cite a book by Manoshi Sinha Rawal called Saffron Swords (Garuda Prakashan, 2019) as their source. On the author’s Twitter profile, one can find her thanking Tarek Fatah for endorsing her book.

On Pages 26 and 27, she writes about the valor of Rampyari Gurjar against Timur’s warriors. One can read it below.

Dainik Jagran published an article on November 26, 2020 on Sinha’s book, titled ‘जिनकी नहीं सुनी कहानी थी, वह रानी रामप्यारी मर्दानी थीं’. It says, “20 साल की रामप्यारी गुर्जर ने मेरठ से लेकर हरिद्वार तक तैमूर को खदेड़ा। हरिद्वार में भागती तैमूर की सेना पर पंचायती योद्धाओं ने धावा बोल दिया था। तैमूर की सेना को मैदान छोड़कर भागना पड़ा।” (20-year-old Rampyari Gurjar chased Timur from Meerut to Haridwar…. Timur’s army had to leave the battlefield and run away)

We also found mention of the said conquest by Rampyari Gurjar over Timur on the website, www.myindiamyglory.com. This website, too, is run by Manoshi Sinha.

Who was Timur?

Amir Timur (also known as Timur Lang, Tamerlane, Tamburlaine, Aksak-Timur, etc) ascended the throne of Samarkand in 1369. He invaded India in September 1398 at the age of 62 after having led successful conquests in Persia, Afghanistan and Mesopotamia. The Delhi Sultanate was barely surviving after the death of Feroz Shah Tughlaq, and Timur occupied Delhi on December 18. The massacre of citizens and plunder of the city’s wealth lasted for several days. He left Delhi on January 1, 1399, on his return journey to Samarkand. He passed through Ferozabad and Meerut, which he stormed on January 19. He then proceeded via Kangra and Jammu, killing civilians en masse at every stop, and left this country in mid-March, 1399. Delhi and the north-western provinces of India, which were completely razed by the marauder, took years to regain any kind of stability — be it social, economic or political. Timur died in 1405 at Otrar, Kazakhstan, on his way to Peking, China, after a brief illness caused by a bitter cold. The circumstances of his death are described in detail by his biographer Justin Marozzi in Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the world (Cambridge, 2006).

Claims on Rampyari Gurjar Absurd, Say Historians

Alt News spoke to a number of historians to find out the veracity of the claim that Rampyari Gurjar/Gurjari defeated Timur with an army of 40,000 soldiers.

Historian and former professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University Harbans Mukhia said a woman fighting against an invader like Timur with an army of 40,000 soldiers and defeating him — both of these were absurd ideas. “Even the state could not possibly ramp up such a huge force. It disintegrated after Feroz Shah Tughlaq’s death in 1388. And whatever we know tells us that Timur completely crushed whatever was left of the Tughlaq rule in 1398. There is no record of any ruler giving Timur any kind of fight or resistance.”

“There are two ways of looking at the past. One is by historians, based on evidence and authenticity. The other is the past as different from recorded history… the past viewed in popular perception… heroes, heroines, events… these are not bound by norms and not subject to any kind of evidence. Characters like Rampyari Gurjar are part of that discourse. Such myths about bravery are part of every culture. But there is historicity to them,” Mukhia added.

We consulted the book The Sultanate of Delhi (1206-1526 AD) by Ashirbadi Lal Srivastava, who is considered a Right Wing historian, and who did his D. Litt under Jadunath Sarkar, another nationalist historian. Incidentally, it is Srivastava, who, in his biography of Akbar, described Rana Pratap for the first time as a great heroic figure. Multiple Right Wing politicians and sympathizers have since lamented why Rana Pratap is not accorded the same status as Akbar in Indian history.

Srivastava’s book makes no mention of any resistance faced by Timur. It says he engaged with two Hindu armies and defeated them. There is no mention of any army giving the invader the slightest of trouble, let alone wounding him and forcing him to flee or defeating him. One can read the relevant part of the book here:

Alt News spoke to historian Heramb Chaturvedi, retired professor of Allahabad University, who called the claim ‘absolutely absurd’. He took us to the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan project of writing a Hindu history of India. “In the Indian History Congress of 1935 held in Poona (Pune), it was decided that the nationalist history of India should be written in a systematic way. The project was taken up by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan under the leadership of K M Munsi and R C Majumdar. The result is the 11-volume work ‘History and Culture of the Indian People‘. Volume 6 discusses the Delhi Sultanate and Timur’s invasion. Had there been any so-called Hindu resistance to the conquest, this book would have recorded it. But there is no mention of any Rampyari Gurjar or any local chieftain putting up even a semblance of a fight,” Chaturvedi told Alt News.

One can read the relevant chapter here:

Alt News then contacted retired principal and associate professor of medieval history at Delhi’s Motilal Nehru College Surajbhan Bhardwaj. Bhardwaj has written and edited several volumes on the social and political history of Rajasthan. “This story of her fight against Timur must be a recent creation as part of the trend of each community creating its own myth. In all my years of research into medieval history and folklores of the region, I have never come across any evidence to support the claims made around her,” he said.

Dubious Sources of Manoshi Sinha’s Book

Author Manoshi Sinha, whose work ‘Saffron Swords’ seems to be the source of the pseudo-history around Rampyari Gurjar, has cited four books as her source for the chapter on Rampyari Gurjar. Neither of these is a primary and well-known historical work.

The second entry, which stands out because of the names of the foreign authors, is fake. In place of the publisher’s name, the citation says ‘Book on Demand’. When we searched online, we found that the ‘book’ is published by ‘Bookvika Publishing’. A stamp on the cover of the book says ‘High quality content by Wikipedia articles’. At present, Wikipedia does not have a page on Rampyari Gurjar.

When we searched other titles by Bookvika, we found that all their books are by the same authors — Jesse Russell and Ronald Cohn, and every book has the same stamp: ‘High quality content by Wikipedia articles’.

This basically suggests that these ‘books’ are compilations of Wikipedia articles and these authors are non-existent. Any author citing such a book as her source immediately raises questions about the seriousness of her pursuit.

Digging further, we found that the Wikipedia page on Rampyari Gurjar was deleted in 2015. This Wikipedia Noticeboard archive contains discussions among administrators regarding the reason for the deletion of the article. One of them writes: “The article on Ram Pyari Gurjar claims that she was a woman commander who fought against Timur. However, the only source cited in the article is The royal Gurjars by Nau Nihal Singh. The book seems less of a reliable scholarly work and more of an attempt at ethnic glorification. I cannot find any other sources — Google just throws up Wikipedia mirrors or articles based on Wikipedia.”

Another of them notes, “If any of this were true (or at least historically attested), scholarly works wouldn’t have simply forgotten to mention it.”

“I think all these articles date from that 2009 to early 2010 time frame when there was a Gurjar discussion board egging people to come on here and edit. One of the editors from here had even posted how to stay under the radar and do it (including which admins to keep away from!),” adds another administrator.

Eventually, one of them says on July 29, 2015, that the article has been deleted.

This book by Nau Nihal Singh, called The Royal Gurjars is the first source cited by Manoshi Sinha. As one can see, its credibility has been questioned by several persons.

The third source, ‘Jat Veeron Ki Itihas’ by Dalip Singh Ahlawat was published by the author himself. In Chapter IV, he mentions the name of Rampyari Gurjar once as one of the women chosen as a commander in the Army that fought against Timur. There is no detail other than this. And on top of that, Ahlawat’s book, written with the explicitly stated purpose of the glorification of Jats, is not a primary history book by any stretch of imagination.

The fourth source for Manoshi Sinha is an article in the Hindi daily newspaper Patrika from January 2017. The citation does not mention the author’s name or the exact date of the article.

Hindutva Politics Behind Such ‘Inventions’?

A couple of days after the tweet by the VP’s official handle, journalist and author Manimugdha Sharma pointed out that the said conquest ‘never happened’.

India’s Vice President peddling WhatsApp balderdash created by the Hindutva School of Historical Forgery. Sir, the reason why history books don’t tell you about ‘Gurjari Rampyari Chauhan’ defeating Amir Temur Gurkan with her 40,000 women warriors is because it NEVER happened. https://t.co/eCCj9nXIvC

— Manimugdha Sharma (@quizzicalguy) March 13, 2023

Speaking to Alt News, Sharma described the sources of Manoshi Sinha’s work as ‘laughable’. “The story of Rampyari Gurjar defeating a non-Hindu conqueror is an example of fictitious history created with distinct political motives. These have become popular after they were compiled in the 2019 book, Saffron Swords, which then resulted in the creation of social media forwards and video shorts. The bibliography mentions dubious entries, while the main text is completely imaginary. There isn’t a shred of evidence to support the theory that the Muslim conqueror was defeated by a woman warrior and retreated in shame, barely clinging to life, as the book claims,” he said.

We found two blogs (here and here) that describe the so-called history of Rampyari Gurjar as a ‘hoax’ and ‘fiction’, and call into question the reliability of the books mentioned above. We also found a Twitter thread that questions the sources of Manoshi Sinha’s book.

On March 18, Scroll published an article underlining the difficulties in accepting Rampyari Gurjar’s fight against Timur as history. The story attributed the birth of such narratives to the BJP’s bid to “invent(ing) history for a new Hindutva caste politics”.

To sum up, there is no credible source to back the claim that a woman called Rampyari Gurjar really existed and she fought against Timur with an army of 40,000 soldiers and defeated them. Not even the Right Wing historians  claim that Timur faced any considerable resistance when he plundered north India. The book by Manoshi Sinha Rawal that seemingly gives currency to the narrative built around Rampyari Gurjar is based on dubious, unreliable and even ‘non-existent’ books.

The post Rampyari Gurjar led 40,000 soldiers to defeat Timur? No credible evidence to back such claim appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Indradeep Bhattacharyya.

Notes:

Brian Becker is national director of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), one of the groups that organized the March 18 antiwar demonstrations. Peter Kuznick is Professor of History at American University in Washington DC, and also directs the Nuclear Studies Program at that institution. He and Oliver Stone co-authored “The Untold History of the United States.”

The post Prospects of a US Led Peace Movement in Ukraine and Looking Back at The US War in Iraq 20 Years Later appeared first on Project Censored.

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

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

In investigative journalism, impact is the coin of the realm. But impact is unpredictable. At ProPublica, our hope is that by exposing problems — or things not working as they should — legislators and policymakers will make changes.

Sometimes, the impact is immediate. In 2009, my colleagues and I reported that the California Board of Registered Nursing took years to discipline problematic nurses, putting patients in harm’s way. Within two days of our story, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced the majority of board members; a day later, the executive director of the board resigned. Our boss had to call ProPublica’s founder to tell him not to expect this to happen every time ProPublica published a big investigation.

Other times, impact is delayed. In 2011, ProPublica and Columbia University’s Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism reported how a program run by the U.S. Department of Education had failed, leaving many borrowers who became disabled in deep financial debt even though they should have qualified to have their federal student loans dismissed. It took until 2021 for the Education Department to say it would forgive $5.8 billion in loans.

It’s hard to know in advance what stories will prompt change or how fast it will happen. Some stories land at the right moment, capturing the attention of politicians running for reelection, those who have a personal connection to an issue or bureaucrats who have been quietly fighting for change from within. Our Local Reporting Network project with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser about the long-known failure of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to return Native Hawaiians to ancestral lands prompted lawmakers last year to appropriate $600 million to fix the program, the largest one-time infusion of money in its more than a century of existence. It didn’t hurt that the state had a huge budget surplus.

And then there are those in positions of authority who are committed to the status quo and dead set against reforms no matter how much evidence is presented that something is broken.

All of this is to say that we can get our facts right and do careful analyses and reporting, but when you get into the realm of impact, it’s a little mysterious.

A slew of recent ProPublica stories show the widespread impact our journalism has produced. Many of the original stories are the result of collaborations we undertook with other news organizations. (Be sure to check out our 2022 annual report for a look at our impact last year.)

WHAT WE REPORTED: Last year, we found that four psychologists on Colorado’s roster of child custody evaluators had been charged with harassment or domestic violence. (These evaluators often help determine custody in cases in which abuse allegations play a central role.) One was charged with assault in 2006, after his then-wife said he pushed her to the bathroom floor, according to police reports. He pleaded guilty to harassment in 2007, though he told ProPublica that his guilty plea was a result of poor legal representation and that his ex-wife made false allegations to get him arrested.

IMPACT: Colorado lawmakers are considering two bills that would reform the way family courts handle cases involving allegations of domestic abuse. One bill would require evaluators to have expertise in domestic violence and child abuse and would restrict judges from ordering forced “reunification” treatments that cut a child off from the parent who expressed concerns about abuse or neglect. The second bill would create a task force to study training requirements for judicial personnel on the topics of domestic violence and sexual assault, among other crimes.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING: Rep. Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat and the chair of the state House Judiciary Committee, praised ProPublica’s investigation. “We don’t usually see in-depth coverage on this kind of thing,” he said.

WHAT WE REPORTED: The Salt Lake Tribune and ProPublica reported how 94 women who alleged they had been sexually abused by a Utah OB/GYN were treated more harshly in Utah’s civil courts than those harmed in other settings. Their cases had to be filed within two years of the alleged abuse, and they faced a $450,000 cap on damages for pain and suffering in medical malpractice cases.

IMPACT: The Utah Legislature passed a bill that would exclude sexual assault from the state’s medical malpractice law going forward. It would not apply to the 94 women.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING: “I’m so glad that the legislative side of the law corrected this huge problem, fixing that gap in our legal system that 94 women essentially fell through. We’ll fill it in for future people in this situation,” said Brooke, one of the women who says she was abused by the OB/GYN and who asked to be identified by only her first name. (The doctor’s lawyer said the allegations are without merit.)

WHAT WE REPORTED: An investigation last year by ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune revealed that ticketing students in schools was rampant across Illinois, with citations that can result in a fine of up to $750 for fighting, littering, theft, possessing vaping devices and other violations of local ordinances.

IMPACT: A bill in the Illinois legislature, introduced last month, would amend the state’s school code to prohibit school staff from involving police to issue citations to students for incidents that can be addressed through the school’s disciplinary process.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING: “We have to close that loophole and end school-based ticketing,” said Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Democrat from Chicago who is sponsoring the legislation. “There is no place for this type of system to be in our schools.”

WHAT WE REPORTED: Capitol News Illinois, Lee Enterprises and ProPublica have detailed beatings of patients at a state-run center for people with developmental disabilities and mental illnesses, as well as a concerted effort by some staff members to cover up abuse and serious neglect, and intimidation of employees who reported it.

IMPACT: The Illinois Department of Human Services plans to dramatically reduce the number of patients with developmental disabilities who live at Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING: “It became clear, I would say certainly over the last year — and, in part, because of your reporting — that there were more significant changes that needed to be made,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said.

WHAT WE REPORTED: An investigation last year by ProPublica and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found at least 500 current and former volunteer diplomats, known as honorary consuls, have been accused of crimes or embroiled in controversy.

IMPACT: So far, the investigation has prompted action in nine countries: Jordan, Israel, Latvia, Germany, Austria, Finland, Brazil, Paraguay and Spain. Most recently, a former Lebanese diplomat who was a focus of our investigation was arrested in Romania and U.S. officials are seeking his extradition. Federal prosecutors have accused Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi of attempting to evade sanctions by trying to launder and move money from the United States to Lebanon.

Bazzi has not made an appearance on the latest charges. In 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department designated Bazzi a “global terrorist,” saying he had funneled money to the militant group Hezbollah. In court papers, Bazzi said the U.S. government had failed to provide evidence that he had financed Hezbollah.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING: “Mohammad Bazzi thought that he could secretly move hundreds of thousands of dollars from the United States to Lebanon without detection by law enforcement,” Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a release. This “arrest proves that Bazzi was wrong.”

WHAT WE REPORTED: ProPublica and The Texas Tribune reported last year that local courts were not following a 2009 Texas law meant to keep people with a history of serious mental health issues from legally acquiring firearms. Despite language in the law that says courts should report any time a judge orders a person, regardless of age, to receive inpatient mental health treatment, we found that some were not reporting juvenile records. As a result, the information was being excluded from the national firearms background check system.

IMPACT: Bipartisan legislation has been filed in the Texas House and Senate that would explicitly require courts to report information on involuntary mental health hospitalizations of juveniles age 16 and older.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING: “I just want to get this fixed,” said Elliott Naishtat, a former state lawmaker from Austin who authored the 2009 law.

WHAT WE REPORTED: ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune reported how a small Illinois school district, which operates a therapeutic day school for students with severe emotional and behavioral disabilities, turned to police to arrest students at a rate higher than any school in America.

IMPACT: The U.S. Department of Education has opened a civil rights investigation into whether the Four Rivers Special Education District has denied children enrolled at the Garrison School an appropriate education because of the “practice of referring students to law enforcement for misbehaviors.”

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING: “I think it’s long overdue,” a parent named Lena said of the federal attention on Garrison. (ProPublica and the Tribune referred to her by her first name only in order to avoid identifying her child.) “I want some kind of change for that school and the students still in there. I want them to find out everything that was done; I want somebody held accountable for all the crap that people are put through there.”

Some say investigative reporting is a decidedly pessimistic profession. We disagree. The examples above show why there’s reason to be optimistic. When we bring problems to the public’s attention, people of good faith often work to fix them.

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

Fears of a wider health and environmental disaster are growing, after a 150-car freight train operated by Norfolk Southern derailed and a so-called controlled burn released toxic chemicals last week in East Palestine, Ohio. Residents reported seeing a fireball and mushroom cloud of smoke fill the skyline. Data released by the Environmental Protection Agency shows the train contained more toxic and carcinogenic chemicals than initially reported, including phosgene, a poisonous gas that has been used as a chemical weapon in war. Officials lifted an evacuation order for residents last Wednesday, saying the air and water were safe, but residents have reported sore throats, burning eyes and respiratory problems, and wildlife has been found dead. Meanwhile, scrutiny has turned onto Norfolk Southern, which in recent years has challenged regulatory laws aimed at making the rail industry safer and made mass cuts to railroad staffing while spending billions on stock buybacks and executive compensation. We get an update from Emily Wright, community organizer based near the site of the derailment; Ross Grooters, a locomotive engineer and co-chair of Railroad Workers United; and Julia Rock, an investigative reporter with The Lever.

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

The municipal cemetery of Tapachula in the Mexican state of Chiapas is a sprawling expanse overflowing with graves in colorful disrepair. Tombstones from centuries past crack and crumble, and the clutter is so extreme that, to reach certain parts of the graveyard, you must resign yourself to stepping on the dead.

Some of the newer graves still host the remains of the Day of the Dead celebration in November—death being far more, well, lively in Mexico than in most other places on the planet. The country becomes awash in the cempasúchil flower—or Mexican marigold—and mariachis descend upon cemeteries for all-night festivities with music, food, and libations.

Lying close to the Mexican border with Guatemala, Tapachula has achieved notoriety as a "jail-city" for refugees from Central America, Haiti, Africa, and beyond who are effectively trapped there by the Mexican government—which is continuously bullied by the United States into curbing northbound "migrant flows." And inevitably, some of these refugees perish in limbo.

Here in Mexico, we are also witnessing a U.S.-backed war—and a pretty "dirty" one at that.

When I arrived at the Tapachula cemetery for a visit on January 18, the three young men reclining on dilapidated benches near the entrance were perplexed at my request to be directed to the "migrant section." Following a bit more awkward explanation on my part, something clicked: "You mean the mass grave."

This was located in the very farthest corner of the graveyard, the men told me, and, if I just walked straight for as long as I could and then went down a little slope to the right, I would see it there by the wall.

Off I went through the kaleidoscope of colors, apologizing all the while to the souls I was trampling and noting the occasional gravesite bearing a Chinese name—a testament to an earlier era of migration. I descended the slope as instructed to reach the corner of the cemetery, where I found dirt, grass, some scattered wooden crosses, and assorted rubbish—a far and desolate cry from the comparatively animated landscape above.

Mass graves are, of course, often associated with war—or with the sort of "dirty war" perpetrated by the U.S.-backed right-wing dictatorship of Argentina, which murdered or disappeared some 30,000 suspected leftists in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

But here in Mexico, we are also witnessing a U.S.-backed war—and a pretty "dirty" one at that. In this war, the unmarked bones in the corner of the Tapachula municipal cemetery are but a tiny fraction of the casualties.

Back in 2021, I encountered other victims of the U.S. war on asylum-seekers when I was imprisoned for 24 hours in Tapachula in Siglo XXI, which means "21st century" and is Mexico's largest immigration detention center. Inside this jail-within-a-jail-city, I spoke with numerous women who, having fled U.S.-inflicted political and economic calamity in their home countries, had arrived at the final stretch of their northbound journey only to find themselves categorically criminalized.

On top of the psychological and physical torment these women had already endured as vulnerable people on the move, some now faced potential deportation back to places where their lives were at risk. Many had traversed the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama—another 21st-century battlefield and mass migrant grave in its own right, where plenty of asylum-seekers go in one side and never come out.

And there is something about the municipal cemetery of Tapachula that encapsulates the profound inhumanity of a system that denies refugees dignity even in death, forcing them to die undocumented and unidentified, with no sign that they ever existed at all. The mass grave also signifies untold emotional trauma for family members of the persons buried therein, who have no way of knowing that their loved ones have ended up in the far back corner of a Mexican graveyard.

I had returned to Tapachula a year and a half after the Siglo XXI ordeal to see how the 21st-century jail-city was holding up, and the cemetery visit was at the top of my to-do list. I was still unsure, however, whether I had actually seen the mass grave—such being the nature of mass graves, I suppose. Ascending the slope once more, I picked my way across more souls until I found two workers refurbishing a blue-colored tomb.

I explained that I simply wanted to confirm the grave's exact location. It was right there in the corner, the older man said—and he was sure of it because he had helped inter the first batch of 17 unidentified bodies that had arrived in bags. This had been several years ago, he said, but more anonymous bodies were subsequently added, and he now had no idea how many deceased persons comprised the subterranean congregation.

He himself had worked at the cemetery for 35 years, during which time he had never felt scared, because "it's the living you have to fear, not the dead." To be sure, there is much to fear in a world where the U.S. is allowed to violate international borders at will while fueling a ludicrously lucrative "border security" industry that effectively sentences poor people to death.

And as the Tapachula municipal cemetery's 17-plus nameless victims of a nameless war attest, the whole arrangement is failing both the living and the dead.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Belén Fernández.

Instead of enjoying a late Thanksgiving meal with his mother in Georgia, Randal Reid spent nearly a week in jail in November after he was falsely identified as a luxury purse thief by Louisiana authorities using facial recognition technology.

That's according to Monday reporting by NOLA.com, which caught the attention of Fight for the Future, a digital rights group that has long advocated against law enforcement and private entities using such technology, partly because of its shortcomings and the risk of outcomes like this.

"So much wrong here," Fight for the Future said Tuesday, sharing the story on Twitter. The group highlighted that many cops can use facial recognition systems without publicly disclosing it, and anyone's "life can be upended because of a machine's mistake."

Reid—a 28-year-old Black man misidentified as one of three people who allegedly stole over $10,000 in Chanel and Louis Vuitton purses from a pair of shops via bogus credit card purchases—was pulled over by local police in Georgia's Dekalb County on November 25, while he was driving on Interstate 20 to meet up with his mother, NOLA.com reported.

"They told me I had a warrant out of Jefferson Parish. I said, 'What is Jefferson Parish?,'" Reid recalled. "I have never been to Louisiana a day in my life. Then they told me it was for theft. So not only have I not been to Louisiana, I also don't steal."

Reid wasn't released from the Dekalb County jail until December 1. While behind bars, he worried about losing his job as a transportation analyst and being convicted of felonies that he did not commit.

"Not eating, not sleeping. I'm thinking about these charges. Not doing anything because I don't know what's really going on the whole time," he said. "They didn't even try to make the right ID."

Tommy Calogero, Reid's lawyer, told NOLA.com that Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office detectives "tacitly" admitted the misidentification and rescinded a July warrant. The news outlet noted that court records show a Baton Rouge Police Department detective "adopted JPSO's identification of Reid to secure an arrest warrant" for one of the thefts.

According to the report:

Sheriff Joe Lopinto's office did not respond to several requests for information on Reid's arrest and release, the agency's use of facial recognition, or any safeguards around it. That office also denied a formal request for the July 18 arrest warrant for Reid and copies of policies or purchases related to facial recognition, citing an ongoing investigation.

Baton Rouge police also did not respond to questions about its warrant for Reid's arrest. The warrant, signed by 19th Judicial District Judge Eboni Rose, does not say how Lopinto's office identified Reid.

As Fight for the Future summarized: "Police blindly trusted a facial recognition scan to arrest a man in Georgia. He was wrongly imprisoned for a WEEK. Now (surprise, surprise) the cops are stonewalling the press about their failure."

Experts from the ACLU of Louisana and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) shared concerns with NOLA.com about police use of the technology—which, as research has shown, more frequently misidentifies people of color.

In response to reporting on Reid's experience, the national ACLU on Tuesday stressed the flaws of facial recognition tools and asserted that "law enforcement must drop this dangerous technology—we shouldn't have to worry about being falsely arrested because an algorithm gets it wrong."

The national ACLU has previously called on policymakers to end law enforcement use of facial recognition technology across the United States—including after the January 2020 wrongful arrest of Robert Williams, a Black man in Michigan misidentified as a shoplifting suspect.

"My daughters can't unsee me being handcuffed and put into a police car. But they can see me use this experience to bring some good into the world," Williams wrote in a June 2020 opinion piece. "I keep thinking about how lucky I was to have spent only one night in jail—as traumatizing as it was. Many Black people won't be so lucky. My family and I don't want to live with that fear. I don't want anyone to live with that fear."

Even before Williams' arrest, Fight for the Future and partners groups launched a "Ban Facial Recognition" campaign, which has tracked restrictions and known uses of the technology as well as enabled constituents to pressure lawmakers to ban it. Despite some progress in restricting or banning law enforcement's use of such tools at the local and state levels, the United States still lacks federal law on the topic.

"Like nuclear or biological weapons, facial recognition poses a threat to human society and basic liberty that far outweighs any potential benefits," the campaign's website argues. "Silicon Valley lobbyists are disingenuously calling for light 'regulation' of facial recognition so they can continue to profit by rapidly spreading this surveillance dragnet. They're trying to avoid the real debate: whether technology this dangerous should even exist."

According to the campaign, "Industry-friendly and government-friendly oversight will not fix the dangers inherent in law enforcement's use of facial recognition: We need an all-out ban."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

Remember that time, in 1980, when paramedics were summoned to the home of a major female rock star? Once there, the medical professionals found two young girls with the rock star. A 15-year-old was arrested on a drug-related charge and a 16-year-old was charged with prostitution.

The rock star in question was not a woman, of course. It was Don Henley of The Eagles (net worth: $200 million) and he was fined a mere $2,500 and only given probation for these transgressions.

How about the hard-rockin’ chick who pulled strings to become the legal guardian of a 17-year-old girl in Hawaii rather than face kidnapping charges?

Or the once-iconic female pop star who invited a Norwegian “escort” to her home under the guise of doing a nude photoshoot but ended up handcuffing him to a wall fixture and beating him with a chain?

Surely you’re familiar with that pantheon four-piece girl band who once gave a press interview in the backroom of a music club — all the while being serviced by underaged “baby groupies” under the table?

Those would actually be Ted Nugent (net worth: $30 million), Boy George (net worth: $50 million), and Led Zeppelin (collective net worth: $900 million).

 
Okay, one more try. Have you read about the female hip-hop hero who was accused of participating in a gang rape, was subsequently convicted of first-degree sexual abuse, and did a mere nine months? The victim is still labeled “accuser” while the rapper is posthumously worshipped to the point of hologram status. Remember that?

Yeah, me neither.

Because it was Tupac Shakur (net worth of estate: $40 million).

This is not to say a female pop star would never engage in any kind of criminal abuse. It is to say that the default setting for male musicians is “creep” (at best) and more likely: sexual predator.

But their talent — coupled with deeply embedded societal misogyny — excuses us for “not knowing” about their crimes and/or giving them a pass when we do find out.

Consider Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. Legendary rocker. Hall of Fame member. Net worth: $160 million. Career revived multiple times — including on television:

In 1975, Tyler met 15-year-old Julia Holcomb and decided he wanted to bring her on the road with him. To do so, the 27-year-old singer coerced the girl’s mother to sign over guardianship of her daughter to him so he could travel across state lines with her without fear of being arrested.

“I was subordinate to him as in a parent relationship and felt I had little control over my life,” Julia Holcomb later explained. “I remember my surprise when Steven told me, and trying to take this in mentally. A sense of vulnerability came over me, knowing that I was his ward, but we were not married. He had not expressed his intentions of a long-term relationship with me.”

Holcomb eventually became pregnant and when Tyler’s apartment caught on fire, she ended up in the hospital where the singer forced her to get an abortion. Soon after, they split.

“When I returned home to my mother, I was a broken spirit,” Holcomb remembers. “I could not sleep at night without nightmares of the abortion and the fire. The world seemed like a dark place.”

 
Tyler still refers to the whole thing as an “affair” — describing the teen as “a skinny young mall chick who had more legs than a bucket of chicken.” In his memoir, Tyler calls Holcomb “my Little Oral Annie,” adding: “She lost her childhood. I lost my mind.”

But the Rock God clearly did not lose his reputation, his money, or his enduring legacy. I mean, he somehow still gets invited to sing at Nobel Peace Prize concerts and is glowingly interviewed by Oprah (net worth $2.5 billion).

As “Sir” Paul McCartney (net worth: $1.2 billion) gushes: “Steven Tyler is one of the giants of American music, who’s been influential for a whole generation of Rock ’n’ Roll fans around the world. Long May He Rock!”

Reminder: None of this will change until we collectively choose to identify and address the root problems.

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

A study by the National Institute of Health in the first 16 months of the coronavirus pandemic found that mothers in the U.S. were especially likely to report high levels of stress during the public health crisis if they experienced major disruptions to their daily lives at work, their children's schools, or in their interactions with their communities—as the majority of people surveyed said they did.

The NIH's Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program surveyed more than 11,000 mothers between April 2020 and August 2021—the largest study to date regarding how mothers experienced the pandemic.

"It is critical to understand the associations between pandemic hardships and mental health of U.S. mothers."

More than 8,400 respondents reported that their lives had changed dramatically after the World Health Organization declared the worldwide coronavirus outbreak a pandemic in mid-March 2020 and schools and businesses across the U.S. and the planet were forced to close, furlough or lay off workers, and shift to remote-only models, along with other sweeping changes to daily life.

According to lead study author Theresa Bastain, associate professor of clinical population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California, researchers chose to examine the effects of the pandemic on the mental health of mothers because previous research has described how they took on much of the burden caused by pandemic-linked changes to the economy and education system.

Mothers "suffered a large share of the income and job losses and shouldered much of the responsibility of childcare and homeschooling children," the school said in a press release.

For example, Pew Research reported in October that for mothers whose youngest child was between the ages of five and 12, the average time they spent on secondary childcare—supervising children while doing other activities such as working—increased by about 2.5 hours between 2019 and 2020, going from 5.8 hours per day to 8.2 hours.

For fathers, this type of childcare increased by 1.2 hours between 2019 and 2020.

In September 2020, Pew also reported that mothers were more than three times as likely as fathers to have lost their jobs in the first months of the pandemic.

"Mothers may be particularly susceptible to psychological stress effects from the Covid-19 pandemic," reads the new study, which was published Friday in JAMA Network Open. "School closures impact working mothers, leading to loss of income and complimentary meals in school settings, unexpected childcare expenses, and gaps in adequate technology and quiet space for remote learning."

"It is critical to understand the associations between pandemic hardships and mental health of U.S. mothers," the study continues.

The researchers questioned mothers about how much their daily lives changed as a result of the pandemic, particularly about whether they began working remotely, became more isolated due to social distancing guidelines, had less access to healthcare, or got less physical exercise.

They also asked respondents if they had shown signs of acute stress disorder—defined as symptoms that arise after or during an event that threatens one's life or the life of a person's loved ones—including anxiety, negative moods, disassociation, avoidance, and sleeplessness.

Mothers who reported high levels of pandemic-related disruptions were more likely to report such symptoms, according to the study.

"It really came down to change and those mothers whose lives carried on much as they normally had, did not report as much stress," said Bastain. "It was the mothers who had big disruptions who reported the higher levels of stress."

Although low-income people and communities of color bore the brunt of the pandemic in numerous ways—with studies showing that Black Americans were more likely to be hospitalized for Covid-19 infections and that socioeconomic factors were linked to the increased odds that Black and Hispanic people test positive for the disease—the study published Friday showed that mothers with incomes that were higher than $30,000 were more likely to show signs of stress:

The high change cluster contained 8,412 mothers and was characterized by higher incomes, higher education, and higher cohabitation. The high change cluster was more likely to report financial concerns as a source of stress (3,008 participants [35.76%] vs. 925 participants [30.22%]) and had a higher proportion of White mothers (5,539 participants [65.85%] vs. 1,656 participants [54.10%]). Both clusters had similar distributions of Latina and Hispanic participants.

Lower-income people who were surveyed were more likely to have jobs in which they did not have the ability to work remotely, noted the researchers—putting them at greater risk for infection.

"However, along with the privilege of working remotely and being able to quarantine away from other household members, considerable disruption in day-to-day life was also experienced in the high change cluster including greater social isolation from family, friends, and colleagues, who are important sources of social support when confronted with a major traumatic life event," reads the study. "A surprising result was that mothers in the 'low change' cluster reported higher [post-traumatic stress] when they spent more time with family."

"Spending greater time with family might be stressful for mothers with lower socioeconomic advantage," the study continues, "especially if they reside in smaller homes where they may be unable to quarantine away from family members."

For mothers across socioeconomic and racial groups, said Bastain, the study "shows that we need to think about traumatic experiences like natural disasters, pandemics, or mass shootings more holistically."

"There is a wide range of hardships that people experience from these events that we need to understand," she added, "so that we can protect people from long-term effects."

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

A court awarded this money to John Vernile, a former Executive Director (ED) of the Pacifica, the parent organization of KPFA and four other sister stations, along with over 200 affiliate stations. Although Vernile held that position for only a few months, he took part in a bizarre incident for which he was fired and became the object of unkind words. So he sued Pacifica for “defamation” of his character; an arbitrator and then a court ruled that he was legally fired for his extreme actions, but in favor of his defamation suit.

That incident happened three years ago. In the morning of October 7, 2019, John Vernile and his team — which included two rent-a-cops — raided the studio of WBAI 99.5 FM in New York. Vernile’s people evicted the staff, changed the locks, shut down local programming, and turned WBAI into a repeater station.

“BAI,” as it’s affectionately called by its staff and listeners, is one of the five Pacifica sister-stations. Pacifica is a non-commercial listener-sponsored network where stations supposedly enjoy a certain amount of independence and democratic governance — in theory at least. Staff and listeners occasionally demand to have a say in how their station is run. But John Vernile seems to have been remarkably unaware of Pacifica’s traditions. The result was instant outrage. People at WBAI united in opposition to Vernile. Even feuding factions and longtime enemies who hadn’t spoken to each other for years, suddenly found themselves embracing each other to fight a common enemy.

And it wasn’t just the staff and listeners of BAI. New Yorkers who were by no means left-wing or related to WBAI saw the move as an intrusion into the city’s cultural life. Even the city’s mayor denounced it, and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams led a rally in support of the radio station.

An op-ed in the Amsterdam News read: “If it smells like a coup, walks like a coup, and looks like a coup … it’s a coup!” Staff and listeners at BAI called Vernile a “coupster.” Perhaps a lot of people saw it that way, but U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles recently ruled that as “defamation,” even though he acknowledged that Vernile was not wrongfully terminated.

There is a saying that victory has a thousand fathers, but fiasco is an orphan. And so it was in this case. Nobody seems to have claimed credit for the idea. Vernile reportedly said he traveled around the country, consulting board members at several of Pacifica’s stations. However, it appears that he only spoke with people who agreed with the plan. He did not speak with any of the Rescue Pacifica group here at KPFA, and he reportedly didn’t speak with the folks at BAI either.

Was he a bullheaded guy who didn’t listen to other opinions? Or was he just a puppet of his faction? I don’t know. I never met John Vernile and don’t have a first-hand, face-to-face impression of him. But I would say that his raid on BAI is a classic example of what can happen when only one side gets listened to.

Most of Vernile’s team and backers were at KPFA in California. KPFA’s power elite supported the takeover of WBAI. KPFA’s then general manager Quincy McCoy became Consulting Programmer of a new entity called “Pacifica Across America.” That turned out to be a fancy way of saying that Quincy was running WBAI as a relay station — though not with KPFA’s current line-up. He used old stale stuff. Later, when John Vernile needed funds to pay the lawyers that were defending him, Quincy McCoy sent him $80,000 of KPFA’s money. The KPFA gatekeepers have claimed that Quincy was required to send that money. Maybe so, but he didn’t report the expense.

KPFA’s LSB (Local Station Board) majority faction who speak for the gatekeepers at KPFA defended Vernile. They’re the “SaveKPFA” group, which now goes by several names: “NewDay,” the “KPFA Protectors,” and “Safety Net,” among others.

Of course not everyone at KPFA went along with that. And our affinity group, “Rescue Pacifica,” supported the people at WBAI, as did many at other Pacifica stations.

Each of the five Pacifica stations has its own Local Station Board (LSB), and above these five local boards is the National Board, the PNB. A majority of the PNB voted to return WBAI to its own staff, but Vernile and his faction were reluctant to comply, so it was necessary to go through court proceedings and finally get a court order. The takeover lasted a month; then the New Yorkers got their station back, and John Vernile was fired.

The announced purpose of the takeover was to save money. WBAI was losing more money than Pacifica could afford, so Vernile and his team decided that Pacifica could save money by eliminating the managers and staff of WBAI and making it a relay station. The problem with that logic was that even running it as a relay station cost money. A major long standing expense was the antenna. Unlike KPFA which owns its own antenna, WBAI has to rent one, and it was through no fault of WBAI that some very unwise people running Pacifica two decades ago signed an incredibly bad and costly deal to rent an antenna for WBAI. So during the takeover the antenna costs continued. The difference being that the station’s staff were no longer there to hold fund drives and raise money.

An email from Ken Gale on the day of the takeover, Oct 8, 2019, said: “Pacifica has taken down all WBAI archives. This seems to be an act of hostility, not a cost-saving measure. They also timed their move for the second week of a fund drive that was going well, replacing programs that were raising money with California programs that do not.”

Being new to Pacifica, John Vernile may not have thought that through. But his NewDay/Protectors/SafetyNet team were long-time KPFA and Pacifica people who should’ve known.

So the idea of turning WBAI into a relay station to save money doesn’t seem very logical; some observers have suggested that there were other motives, that Vernile’s crew simply wanted to trash WBAI and get rid of it, maybe sell it. Interestingly, this year the same people (NewDay/Protectors/Safety Net) petitioned the FCC (Federal Communication Commission) to deny renewal of WBAI’s broadcast license. Not only that, but their majority faction at KPFA (on May 21, 2022) passed a resolution in support of the petitioners requesting the denial of the license renewal.

Is there more? Yes, there certainly is. On December 8, 2020, members of that same majority faction (NewDay et al) petitioned a court in Los Angeles to put Pacifica into receivership — bankruptcy. Had the court approved that request, the entire network, including KPFA, would’ve gone into the hands of a corporate lawyer and who knows where from there? Fortunately, we do sometimes get justice in the court system, and that was one of those good days. But think of it: although the recent loss of $305,000 is certainly a disaster, the loss of the whole the network into receivership would’ve been far worse.

Considering that there are no other progressive networks in the US beside Pacifica, a loss of WBAI in New York, a major metropolitan media “market”, would be an irreplaceable loss.

NewDay’s lawyer for the receivership petition (Dec 2020) was Attorney Stephen Jaffe. And by some coincidence, Stephen Jaffe is also the attorney for John Vernile in his “defamation” suit. A coincidence? Some questions should be asked.

Three of the witnesses who testified in support of Vernile’s defamation claim were NewDay people from KPFA.

Pacifica’s attorney, Arthur Schwartz, is appealing the $305,000 seizure. But strangely, the chair and vice chair of KPFA’s LSB, Christina Huggins and Fred Dodsworth, have demanded that Schwartz abandon the appeal. Huggins is one of the petitioners who asked a Los Angeles court to put Pacifica into receivership in 2020.

The seizure of the money is being reported on KPFA’s airwaves, and it should be. But like other news, it needs to be covered accurately. Unfortunately, some programmers are blaming Pacifica, telling us that’s where the problem is. In a way, that’s true. But it misses the fact that people from KPFA’s inner circle gatekeeper group — the ones associated with SaveKPFA/NewDay/theProtectors/SafetyNet — are the very ones who teamed up with John Vernile and promoted the events which led to this lawsuit. Although John Vernile was the face of the takeover at WBAI, it was the NewDay people who did the leg work. They have considerable influence on events at Pacifica.

Attorney Schwartz knows this appeal will be a steep hill to climb; he said so himself. But if this ruling stands, Pacifica could be hit with endless numbers of lawsuits. Every manager that KPFA ever had could probably make a case — rightly or wrongly — that he or she has been a victim of “defamation.” At the same time, in any democratically run society or radio station there has to be transparency. Lawsuits and even just the threat of lawsuits can put an end to transparency, and the end of democracy at Pacifica.

If we lose this case, it could have a major negative impact on the future of our First Amendment rights — which seem to be under constant attack these days.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Daniel Borgstrom.

For some time now, news media have been conflating crime, homelessness and mental illness, demonizing and dehumanizing people without homes while ignoring the structural causes leading people to sleep on subways and in other public spaces. With New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ latest announcement that he would hospitalize, against their will, unhoused people with mental health conditions—even those deemed to pose no risk to others—in the name of “public safety,” the local papers once again revealed a propensity to highlight official narratives and try to erase their own role in conjuring the crime hysteria that drives such ineffective and pernicious policies.

Adams, who made fighting crime the centerpiece of his 2021 campaign, announced his latest plan on November 29, his latest in a series of pushes to clear unsheltered people from the streets and subways of New York City. It would loosen the current interpretation of state law, which allows police and other city workers to involuntarily hospitalize people with mental illness only when they pose a “serious threat” to themselves or others. Now, Adams declared, those also eligible would include:

The man standing all day on the street across from the building he was evicted from 25 years ago waiting to be let in; the shadow boxer on the street corner in Midtown, mumbling to himself as he jabs at an invisible adversary; the unresponsive man unable to get off the train at the end of the line without assistance from our mobile crisis team.

‘A string of high-profile crimes’

New York Times (11/29/22) put the mayor’s plan to seize people for having a mental illness in the context of “a year that has seen a string of high-profile crimes involving homeless people.”

The next day, the New York Times (11/29/22) put the story on its front page. The article, by Andy Newman and Emma Fitzsimmons, led by conflating homelessness and crime:

Acting to address “a crisis we see all around us” toward the end of a year that has seen a string of high-profile crimes involving homeless people, Mayor Eric Adams announced a major push on Tuesday to remove people with severe, untreated mental illness from the city’s streets and subways.

As FAIR’s Olivia Riggio (4/4/22) has pointed out, unhoused people are far more often “involved” as victims rather than perpetrators of crime, but most media coverage falsely suggests the reverse, scapegoating them for broader structural problems. Shortly after unquestioningly conflating homelessness and crime, the reporters offered their take on the political context:

The mayor’s announcement comes at a heated moment in the national debate about rising crime and the role of the police, especially in dealing with people who are already in fragile mental health. Republicans, as well as tough-on-crime Democrats like Mr. Adams, a former police captain, have argued that growing disorder calls for more aggressive measures. Left-leaning advocates and officials who dominate New York politics say that deploying the police as auxiliary social workers may do more harm than good.

It’s a crucial framing paragraph that does a lot of subtle work to establish the terms of the debate in a way that skews toward a pro-policing stance. First, by referring to the “national debate about rising crime and the role of the police,” it implies that crime is a major problem, and the debate is simply about how much and what kind of policing should be the solution.

This implication is then reinforced in the next sentence describing the right-wing perspective, which refers to “growing disorder”—and isn’t countered in any way by the characterization of the “left-leaning” perspective offered by the Times, which challenges not the assumptions but only the proposed solution (and that with only a weak “may do more harm than good”).

“Rising crime” itself is an extremely vague and context-free term. According to national FBI statistics, overall violent crime went down last year. While violent crime is up slightly since its recent low point in 2014, it’s roughly half what it was in 1991 (FAIR.org, 11/10/22).

In New York City, some crimes, like robbery, have increased; other high-profile crimes, like murder, are dropping. Overall rates of major felonies are less than half that of their peak in the 1990s; the main driver of the current increase appears to be a spike in grand larceny offenses, which are by definition nonviolent and include all pickpocketing offenses.

The next paragraph does more of this subtle framing work: “Other large cities have struggled with how to help homeless people, in particular those dealing with mental illness.” This sentence takes at face value Adams’ claim that he is making “every effort to assist those who are suffering from mental illness.” If Adams—and the leaders of other cities like San Francisco, Portland and Washington, DC—were actually primarily interested in helping homeless people, their responses would not rely foremost on tactics like arrests, forced hospitalization, and clearing of encampments, but instead on the sorts of policies that actually address the struggles of the unhoused and the root causes of homelessness, like providing supportive housing and long-term services, and tackling inequality and lack of affordable housing.

As advocates point out, New York City’s support services for both mental health conditions and for unhoused people are woefully inadequate and, in many areas, shrinking rather than receiving increased funding and staffing. They argue that forcing hospitalization, when psychiatric wards are already overburdened and understaffed, and when Adams offered no plan for continuing assistance or housing after discharge, is “likely to end in violence and criminal charges,” as well as “the loss of access to basic rights and services, including employment, parenting, education, housing, professional licenses or even potentially the right to drive.”

But with prominent news outlets like the Times parroting without question the implausible suggestion that cities cracking down on unsheltered people constitutes efforts to help them, city leaders can continue to offer with impunity ineffective and traumatizing policies in place of real solutions.

‘Focus on public safety’

In the “now it can be told” department, a New York Times article (11/27/22; Twitter, 11/27/22) admits that “New York and its suburbs are among the safest large communities in the US”—with no acknowledgement that the Times participated in the crime hype that gave voters a distorted view of crime.

The piece continued its conflation of homelessness and crime, declaring (in an article about a policy supposedly intended to “help homeless people”) that “crime has increased sharply in the subways this year,” and that the mayor had previously claimed that “it’s being driven by people with mental health issues.” The reporters failed to assess the mayor’s claim—until the next day, when they noted in a much more critical follow-up piece (11/30/22) that “most crimes overall are not committed by people who are unhoused or mentally ill, and most mentally ill or homeless people are not violent.” The Times buried that article on page 20.

They also failed to mention that subway ridership has also increased sharply—even more than subway crime, in fact—or that one’s odds of being the victim of a crime while riding on any form of NYC transit (subways and buses) this year is 1.62 out of 1 million. That’s up from 1.55 out of 1 million last year at this time, to put this “sharp increase in crime” in perspective.

Still more bias awaited readers who continued this far:

Mr. Adams has received criticism from some progressive members of his party for clearing homeless encampments and for continuing to push for changes to bail reform that would make it easier to keep people in jail. The mayor has defended his focus on public safety and has argued that many New Yorkers do not feel safe, particularly in Black and Latino neighborhoods.

Newman and Fitzsimmons again let Adams define the terms of debate, not questioning the idea that clearing homeless encampments and clawing back bail reform constitute “public safety” measures.

The first is highly dubious; the second is simply false. Research suggests that clearing encampments simply temporarily disperses residents, who rarely move into a shelter after a sweep. In fact, it often disrupts residents’ lives and emotional states even further. Because police frequently confiscate and destroy residents’ property, including personal identification, sweeps make it harder for them to access stabilizing government services.

Second, New York’s bail reform targeted only misdemeanor and nonviolent felony cases, keeping bail-setting unchanged for the vast majority of crimes that one thinks of as related to public safety. And, in fact, jailing people before they have been convicted of a crime—often for months or even years on end—has been found to actually increase future crime.

‘Where perceptions come from’

New York Times reporter Andy Newman (12/2/22) acknowledges that “media reports about crime” help drive perception that subways are unsafe—without questioning whether those reports accurately conveyed the danger. 

Just a few days later, in the Times‘ New York Today newsletter (also published on its website, 12/2/22), James Barron interviewed Times reporter Newman. Newman’s final answer perfectly illustrated the problem with media coverage of crime:

Will this plan change people’s perceptions that the subways are no longer safe?

Let’s talk about where those perceptions come from first. Riders’ perceptions that subways are unsafe are driven by two things: their own experiences of dealing with people on the platform or the train who seem unstable enough that they might lash out, and media reports about crime.

The statistics are not encouraging. Through October, felony assaults, murders and rapes in the subway system—all crimes that are likely to be random—were up 20 percent compared with the same period last year. Property crimes, including robberies, which can be violent, were up even more. This jump in crime has occurred despite several efforts by Mayor Adams to flood the transit system with police.

Newman’s response acknowledged that news media play a major role in people’s perceptions of crime, but falsely implied that those media simply reflect reality—while he provided context-free “statistics” to feed misperceptions about subway safety. Subway ridership was up 39% through October compared with 2021, meaning one’s odds of being the victim of a violent crime on the subway actually decreased rather sharply in the past year. And “property crimes” are by definition nonviolent. (Robbery is a violent crime, not a property crime.)

More like Murdoch

You’d never know it from New York Post headlines like this one (10/11/22), but your chances of being murdered during a trip on the New York City subway are less than 1 in 100 million.

Looking at the city’s tabloid dailies, the Times read more like the Rupert Murdoch–owned New York Post than the more centrist Daily News. Like the Times, the Post (11/29/22) teed off by coupling crime and unhoused people with mental illness: “Following a string of horrifying subway attacks, Mayor Eric Adams dramatically expanded the city’s ability to involuntarily commit New Yorkers with chronic and untreated mental illness.” It included one critical quote at the very end of the report after a string of praise. (The Post‘s editorial board the same day praised Adams for his plan “to bring dignity and help to mentally ill homeless New Yorkers.”)

Interestingly, the Daily News (11/29/22) only mentioned crime once in its main report, and not until the seventh paragraph of the article, which focused more on the practical and legal questions surrounding the new directive. Nor did it go as far as the Times in suggesting a link between crime and homelessness, writing that “several violent incidents on the subways” have “led to a broader public debate over what should be done to address the city’s homeless crisis and mental health needs amid the collective trauma of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

While that Daily News piece gave over the vast majority of its article to Adams and his supporters, an accompanying piece (11/29/22) included prominent criticism challenging the link Adams made between the unhoused and crime, quoting the Coalition for the Homeless:

Homeless people are more likely to be the victims of crimes than the perpetrators, but Mayor Adams has continually scapegoated homeless people and others with mental illness as violent.

Stefen Short (Daily News, 12/5/22): “The mayor’s proposal fundamentally misdiagnoses the problems impacting people with mental illness and proposes counterproductive interventions that are guaranteed to fail.”

Unfortunately, the Daily News—like the Post—also misconstrued a poorly written press release from the Legal Aid Society to suggest that Adams’ plan drew both “Criticism and Praise” from public advocates. While it later amended the article to acknowledge that none of its sources actually offered praise for the plan, it did not change its headline. It did, however, subsequently publish an op-ed by Legal Aid Society’s Stefen Short (12/5/22), who made a forceful case against Adams’ directive:

All reputable studies show that permanent housing and community-based treatment options are the only tools that improve prospects for people with mental illness, preserve their autonomy and agency, reliably reduce violence and build safe and stable communities….

Adams wants us to think he is piloting these initiatives because he cares about public safety. But these initiatives do not serve public safety. They merely create the illusion of public safety by disappearing people without solving the challenges underpinning their situation. If the mayor cared about public safety, he would direct an immediate infusion of resources into supportive housing, culturally competent outpatient services and other interventions that help people manage their mental health, support their loved ones and contribute to their communities.

New Yorkers are far more likely to be killed by a reckless car driver than by a person without housing; drivers have killed more than 200 people in New York City so far this year, dwarfing the small handful killed by unhoused people. Yet breathless media coverage of the far rarer threat works hand in hand with reporters’ consistent failure to challenge government officials’ narratives about public safety to skew public understanding of the biggest problems—and solutions—impacting their lives.

Note: The NewsGuild is planning a 24-hour strike at the New York Times on December 8, 2022, to protest management’s failure to agree to a new contract with the union. It is asking readers not to visit the Times website on that day; please do not click on links to the Times while the strike is in effect.

The post Media’s Crime Hype and Scapegoating Led to Crackdown on Unhoused People appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

The amendments, the final version of which was published on Wednesday, describe Xi Jinping’s thought as "the essence of Chinese culture and the spirit of the times" and endorsing Xi's ideology and tasking the party's 90 million members with "safeguarding" his position as "core" leader.

Former Communist Party school professor Cai Xia said the amendments effectively turn the party into Xi's personal "gang," as its members are obliged to uphold his leadership.

"This concept of the 'two safeguards' actually reduces the party to a gang," Cai told RFA. "Why? Because political parties are about coming together and cooperating to achieve common political goals. The relationship between members is one of comradeship and equality," she said. 

"But now that he has enshrined [these amendments] in the party constitution,... it's no longer a political party when you have 90 million people in the party all revolving around a single person," she said.

"The Communist Party has become a gang organization with him as its gang boss," said Cai, who now lives in the United States.

Xi began a third term in office on Sunday, packing the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee with his close political allies, in a consolidation of personal power not seen in Beijing since the personality cult surrounding Mao Zedong, political commentators told RFA.

The Central Committee reselected Xi as general secretary, breaking with decades of political precedent by granting him a third term after his predecessors were limited to two, prompting speculation that he may now stay in post indefinitely given the lack of an obvious successor.

Baked in

Political analyst Chen Daoyin said the constitutional changes bake in Xi Jinping's absolute leadership through the party machine.

"We hadn't yet seen [this insistence on] the absolute leadership of the party over the armed forces ... which is effectively putting the gun ... in Xi Jinping's hands," Chen said.

"They also emphasize that, in the organizational line of the 'new era,’ that the evaluation and appointment of party officials is also in his hands," he said. "It turns maintaining [Xi's leadership] into an obligation for every member of the party."

"This means absolute power for Xi Jinping ... because of that binding power on party members and officials,” Chen said.

Ming Chu-cheng, honorary politics professor at National Taiwan University, said the "two safeguards" refers to "resolutely safeguarding general secretary Xi Jinping's position at the core of the party."

Xi's smooth transition to an unprecedented third term in office was marked by rare public protest, including against his zero-COVID policy, both at home and overseas.

On the eve of the congress, a lone protester dubbed “Bridge Man” unfurled a banner with anti-Xi slogans on a highway overpass before quickly getting carried off by police. Chinese authorities were quick to shut down social media accounts circulating images of the banner, but photos and videos of the incident got wide attention among Chinese living overseas.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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

A jury in California has convicted a former worker at Twitter of spying for Saudi Arabia by providing the kingdom private information about Saudi dissidents. The spying effort led to the arrest, torture and jailing of Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, who ran an anonymous satirical Twitter account. His sister, Areej al-Sadhan, and the lawyer for the family, Jim Walden, are calling on the Biden administration to push for his release. “The brutality of the Saudi officials have no limits,” says Areej al-Sadhan. “Twitter and other social media companies have more than a little responsibility for what’s happening, not just with respect to Abdulrahman’s case and the case of other disappeared Saudi human rights activists and outspoken dissidents, but across a much broader array of misconduct,” says Walden.

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

Thousands of protesters in Sri Lanka have stormed the homes of the president and prime minister and are refusing to leave until the president officially resigns, as he faces accusations of corruption that bankrupted the country and led to a massive economic crisis. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is set to formally step down Wednesday and has reportedly tried to flee the country. We go to the capital Colombo to speak with Bhavani Fonseka, a human rights lawyer and a senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, who has been participating in the protest. She describes the months of peaceful protest that led to this moment. “Considering the crisis and considering the demands of the people that there has to be a change, we need to look to general elections as soon as the environment is conducive,” notes Fonseka.

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

Janine Jackson interviewed Helen Zia about the legacy of Vincent Chin for the June 17, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Vincent Chin (1955-1982)

Janine Jackson: Vincent Chin was beaten to death in Detroit in June 1982, by two white auto workers who reportedly said it was because of him that they had lost their jobs. At the time, listeners may recall, Japan was being widely blamed for the collapse of the Detroit auto industry. Chin was Chinese-American.

Elite media, as reflected by the New York Times, didn’t seem to come around to the story until April 1983, with reporting on the protests emanating from Detroit’s Asian-American community about the dismissive legal response to the murder. Chin’s killers, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, were given probation and fines, with Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Charles Kaufman infamously saying they “weren’t the kind of people you send to jail.”

It took protest for big media to attend to that legal perversity, and the broader context of anti-Asian hatred and scapegoating. And it’s civil rights activism that has been the legacy of Chin’s death, 40 years ago this week, activism of which our guest is a key part. Helen Zia is co-founder of American Citizens for Justice, and author of Asian-American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People, among other titles. She joins us now by phone from Detroit. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Helen Zia.

Helen Zia: Well, it’s my honor to be with you, Janine.

JJ: I saw you speak recently in Detroit and say that Vincent Chin’s horrific murder, its circumstances and then the legal failures, are all extremely important, but that that’s not the whole story that’s being acknowledged right now with this 40th remembrance and rededication. The story of Vincent Chin’s killing is also about what came after, what grew from it. Can you talk a little about what that was, and is?

HZ: Oh, absolutely. It was a horrific killing, and not only that, but a continued miscarriage of justice, where the justice system failed at every turn, for a young man who was killed and attacked on the night of his bachelor party, because of how he looked, at a time of intense anti-Asian hate. And all of that was very important. It brought attention to the whole idea that Asian Americans are people, that we are humans, that we are Americans, and that we experience racism and discrimination.

But that’s not all that was important, because that event and the miscarriage of justice catalyzed a whole movement, a civil rights movement led by Asian Americans, with Detroit, Michigan, as the epicenter of that civil rights movement that reached all across America for Asian Americans, and also had a huge impact on, really, democracy in this country, in many, many different ways. And it represented the solidarity of people from all walks of life.

Helen Zia: “An injury to one is an injury to all, and we have a basic interest in joining together to ensure each other’s safety.”

We were in Detroit, now a majority Black city, back then was a majority Black city, and we had incredible support from the Black community, as well as the Arab-American community, multi-faith, multi-class, people from all walks of life, not only in Detroit. And then it became a national movement, really sparked a discussion, a movement that took the moment of the killing of Vincent Chin, and then the injustice that followed, but turned it into a civil rights movement, a human rights movement, that has still an impact today.

And that’s why we’re talking about this. It’s to remember that moment, but the legacy as well—of people coming together in solidarity, with the idea that an injury to one is an injury to all, and we have a basic interest in joining together to ensure each other’s safety. That we are part of a beloved community, that no community should live in fear of violence or hate. And this notion of all our communities being so divided, can we ever be allies, let alone come together…

And so that’s what we’re remembering: Let’s not forget that, actually, we have been in solidarity. And let’s take the lessons of that and move it forward to today, because we need that desperately.

JJ: When you say remembrance and rededication, which is what this event series is about, I really like that rededication part, which has to do with acknowledging that, as you say, an injury to one is an injury to all.

HZ: And that’s completely right. And that’s why we are saying it’s more than remembrance, it’s about rededication. It’s about taking the hard work that happened, and coming together in unity and in solidarity and building a movement. There’s nothing simple about that; there’s no Kumbaya. It really takes people working hard together to bridge understandings and undo misunderstandings, break down stereotypes and build a common understanding and a common bond between communities.

And so when, as you say, communities are portrayed in the news or in TV or in movies, that this is just that community’s concern; it doesn’t involve other people… Anti-Asian violence, well, hey, “that’s just Asians. And we don’t even know that they’re Americans. We don’t even know that they were on this continent for several hundred years.”

And so I think you’re right, that’s a way of sort of pigeonholing people and keeping us apart, instead of looking at the true commonality. If we talk about Vincent Chin or violence against Asian Americans, we also talk about Buffalo and we talk about Coeur d’Alene, and how ideas of white supremacy and even active white supremacist groups, they lump us together. They don’t see us as separate groups. They connect the dots in a very negative way. And so it’s really incumbent on all thinking people, and especially our media, to be able to connect those dots too, and not keep us separate.

And it is often, I think, an unconscious way of saying, “Well, that’s this group’s problem, then the other group has this problem, and never the twain should meet.” And, unfortunately, that’s part of what, on the ground, we have to overcome, and do that education, to say no, actually, we’re all in this together. And media has such an important role to play in that, if we can break through that as well.

New York Times (9/10/83)

JJ: Yeah, and I just wanted to add, it did seem from my looking into it that it took the protests for big media to attend to Chin’s murder, but even then, some of what we saw was—here’s this Times piece from September 10, 1983, “Asian-Americans See Growing Bias.” And then the opening is, “Asian-American leaders say they are alarmed by what they regard as rising discrimination against their people.” So even there, there’s kind of a “maybe it’s not true. Maybe it’s just a perception.”

I wonder, have you seen shifts in media? You’ve obviously been working on this for a long time. Are there more openings now? Do you have to explain things less? Have you seen shifts in the way that media approach this set of issues?

HZ: You know, there are shifts, there has been progress. But I have to say, we still have to do that basic “Asian Americans 101” all the time. Back in 1982, ’83, Asian Americans were so invisibilized, and so minoritized, that the whole country really had no concept of who Asian Americans are. So when we started first trying to raise this as an issue, and have our press conferences and things like that, we were asked questions like, “Well, where did you all come from? Did you all just sort of land in America?” More or less saying, “Are you all fresh off the boat?” And we would have to say, “Well, many Asian Americans are immigrants, but, actually, we have been also on this continent for hundreds of years, fighting in the Civil War, having records that go back to the 1500s in the Spanish archives of Mexico and ‘New Spain’ of that time.”

And it was all about an education to say, you know what, we are not this foreign invader that just landed here. And that’s what we had to do over and over again. Questions like, “Do you all speak English?” And you would just have to say, “What do you think I’m speaking with you now?” And then, “Why do you speak such good English?” And I have to answer it more grammatically, saying “Well, I speak English well because I was born and raised here.”

And, yes, we’ve progressed from that time. But, unfortunately, even as we see in this terrible pandemic, the dual pandemic of Covid and hate, that includes the anti-Asian hate that’s been going on, when those were first reported by people who were attacked in different incidents, and they put it on social media, the first response, overall, was, “Wow, this happens to Asian Americans? Who knew that?” It was more surprise, and eye-opening.

And so that was, in a way, the news. And we see that not being challenged by media. When, for example, in Atlanta eight people were killed as the killer went in search of Asian Americans, and killed six Asian women who were working, and the police immediately say, “Oh, this has nothing to do with race.” And we don’t see the pushback on that, querying that. It’s sort of like it’s almost accepted — until, now, what makes a difference is the communities, the grassroots, the people on the ground, saying, hey, what do you mean? This has everything to do with race, it has everything to do with gender and how Asian Americans are viewed.

So the difference is that there’s more of a voice, there’s more of a community, and organizations that actually can correct failings, or just where the ball is dropped, and the questions that should be asked or followed up on aren’t. So that’s a difference. Maybe we have to explain a little less. But, really, we have to explain over and over again.

And to your point about this being seen as, “Well, it’s just an Asian-American issue.” Part of the teaching constantly has to be, no, this is really connected. Hate crimes are connected. The Vincent Chin case had a big role to play in the Hate Crimes Prevention Act that was signed in 2010 by President Obama, that also included gender and sexual orientation and disability.

The broadening of the concept of civil rights, and who’s protected, really was argued in 1983 by Asian Americans to say that immigrants and Asian Americans should be protected by federal civil rights law, because that was not a given. There were a lot of racism deniers back then, and even today, so unfortunately we do have to counter kind of the same misconceptions that existed then and today. The fight and the education never ends.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Helen Zia, co-founder of American Citizens for Justice. You can learn about the 40th remembrance and rededication at VincentChin.org. Thank you so much, Helen Zia, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

HZ: Thank you, Janine. Thank you and FAIR for all the work you do.

The post ‘The Miscarriage of Justice Catalyzed a Whole Movement Led by Asian Americans’ appeared first on FAIR.

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

Sok Ratana told RFA’s Khmer Service that she had been pregnant when she joined the ongoing strike outside the casino’s offices on May 11. The police pushed and shoved her during the protest, she said. Fearing they may have hurt her baby in utero, she went to her doctor, who told her that the baby only had a 50% chance to live.

Sok Ratana said that she miscarried on May 28. The doctor told her that the baby had likely died two days before he removed it from her womb, she said.

“Losing my beloved baby has caused me an unbelievable pain that I will feel the rest of my life,” said Sok Ratana. “This experience has shown me the brutality of the authorities and it has deeply hurt my family.”

Sok Ratana is one of thousands of NagaWorld workers who walked off their jobs in mid-December, demanding higher wages and the reinstatement of eight jailed union leaders, three other jailed workers and 365 others they say were unjustly fired from the hotel and casino. The business is owned by a Hong Kong-based company believed to have connections to family members of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

The strikers began holding regular protest rallies in front of the casino. Cambodian authorities have said their gatherings were “illegal” and alleged that they are part of a plot to topple the government, backed by foreign donors.

Authorities began mass detentions of the protesters, claiming that they were violating coronavirus restrictions. They often resorted to violence to force hundreds of workers onto buses.

“The labor dispute has turned to a dispute with authorities because they constantly crack down on us without any clemency,” Sok Ratana said. “I never thought that Cambodia has a law saying that when workers demand rights … authorities can crack down on us.”

She said that authorities worked with the company to pressure workers to stop the strike. She urged the government to better train its security forces to not become violent.

Kata Orn, spokesperson of the government-aligned Cambodia Human Rights Committee, expressed sympathy with Sok Ratana’s circumstance but said that it was too early to say whether the authorities were at fault. He urged Sok Ratana to file a complaint with the court.

“We can’t prejudge the loss due to the authorities. Only medical experts can tell,” he said. “We can [only] implement the law. It is applied equally to the workers and the authorities.”

Sok Ratana said she is working on collecting evidence to file a complaint, but she wasn’t confident a court will adjudicate the case fairly.

“I don’t have much hope because my union leader was jailed unjustly for nine weeks. Her changes have not been dropped yet,” she said. “To me, I don’t hope to get justice. From who? I want to ask, who can give me justice?”

Police violence is a serious human rights violation, Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights told RFA. He urged relevant institutions to investigate the miscarriage and bring those responsible to justice.

“Labor disputes can’t be settled by violence and crackdowns. This will lead to even more disputes and the workers and authorities will try to get revenge,” he said.

The Labor Ministry has attempted to mediate the dispute between the casino and the union leaders, who have been released on bail, but no progress has been made after more than 10 meetings.

Am Sam Ath said the difficulty in resolving the labor dispute might push the government to crack down harder on the holdouts and make more arrests.

RFA attempted to contact Phnom Penh Municipal Police spokesman San Sok Seiha and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs spokeswoman Man Chenda, but neither were available for comment.

 Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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

Three top commanders of the nuclear-powered submarine were already sacked after the accident happened at an undisclosed location in the South China Sea.

An earlier month-long investigation concluded that the Seawolf-class fast-attack submarine hit an “uncharted seamount while operating in international waters in the Indo-Pacific.” A seamount is a mountain that rises from the sea bed.

The released command investigation, believed to be heavily-redacted, disclosed further that the collision happened while the USS Connecticut was conducting a so-called humanitarian evacuation (HUMEVAC) transit in the direction of the Japanese island of Okinawa.

HUMEVACs are performed when one or more crew members need to disembark at a location for various reasons including family matters or childbirth.

The investigation determined that the collision “was preventable.”

“Specifically, the grounding resulted from an accumulation of unit-level errors and omissions in navigation planning; watch team execution; and risk management,” it said.

Thorough investigation

The redacted command investigation recommended nonjudicial punishments for the submarine's navigator, assistant navigator, officer of the deck and quartermaster of the watch on duty at the time, but didn’t disclose their names.

“The U.S. Submarine force has always been thorough in all their activities and actions,” said Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the U.S. Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii.

“That leads to credible lessons learned and improving the force to reduce the possibility of future incidents of this nature.”

“In my view, the investigation's primary benefit lies in the improved procedures, training and operations that it identified,” Schuster said.

The investigation found “specific areas for improvement in the deployment training and certification process” and delineates dozens of corrective actions that need to be carried out “with a sense of urgency.”

The USS Connecticut hit an uncharted bathymetric feature while operating submerged in a poorly surveyed area in the South China Sea on Oct. 2, 2021.

The U.S. Pacific Fleet waited for five days after the incident before issuing a statement, leading to China’s criticism that the U.S. was trying to cover it up. The Pentagon denied that.

The submarine is now under repair at its home base in Bremerton, Washington state.

The USS Connecticut is one of three Sea Wolf-class submarines, commissioned in the Cold War era. It is 107 meters long and can carry around 130 sailors and officers. It is believed to have cost over $3 billion to build.

The U.S. Navy has around 70 submarines, all nuclear-powered.

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

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Adam Bychawski.

Photograph Source: Dbphotos – CC BY-SA 4.0

When a group of Texas workers started discussing job problems and what to do about them a few months ago, their list of complaints would have been familiar to Starbucks baristas, Amazon warehouse staff, or restive young journalists at new and old media outlets.

With little notice, their employer changed work schedules and transferred employees to a new job location. Some of those adversely affected applied for hardship waivers, based on family life disruption, but many requests were denied. Meanwhile, access to a major job benefit—tuition assistance —was sharply curtailed. Even paychecks were no longer arriving promptly or at the right address. When a few brave souls called attention to these problems, management labeled them “union agitators” who were trying to “mislead” their co-workers.

Operating outside the national media spotlight on recent labor recruitment in the private sector, key activists were not deterred. In mid-April, members of the Texas State Guard, Army and Air Force National Guard declared themselves to be the “Military Caucus” of the Texas State Employees Union (TSEU), an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America. Taking direct aim at Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who has ordered thousands of them to police the U.S.-Mexico border, these TSEU supporters called for greater legislative oversight of such open-ended missions so that Guard members are called up only to “provide genuine service to the public good, not posturing for political gain.”

Union Demands

Their own mission statement announced that they will seek meetings with legislators, the governor’s office, and the state agency known as the Texas Military Department. Union goals include a guaranteed end date for all Guard members on state active duty, full restoration of tuition assistance slashed by Abbott, and immediate access to the same healthcare coverage as other state employees, along with state subsidized coverage “for our families while on Texas Military state mobilization.” To achieve these objectives, they pledged to “build a union which gets stronger with every new member we sign up” and coordinate with other state employees who have a “proud history of organizing” as part of the 8,500-member TSEU.

Hunter Schuler, a Texas Guard member and medic who helped initiate the effort, was one of those labelled an “agitator” for doing so.  “None of us would be unionizing if our jobs didn’t suck and without all the negative aspects of the mission,” he says. “There’s not great mechanisms for getting problems to the attention of the top leadership any other way.”

Thanks to a U.S. Department of Justice court filing in January, Texas is not the only state where National Guard members are now organizing. District Council 4 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which is headed by Jody Barr, a veteran of the Connecticut Guard, is also opening its doors to Guard members called up for in-state duty. AFSCME was one of four public employee unions that sought to clarify that a 45-year-old federal prohibition against unionization by uniformed employees of the U.S. Department of Defense, does not apply to Guard members like Christopher Albani, when operating under state control.

As a member of the 103rd Civil Engineer squadron, Albani helped his home state respond to natural disasters, public health crises, and other emergencies. But, as Barr points out, when Connecticut Guard members were involved in setting up field hospitals and distributing medical supplies as part of the state’s pandemic response, they “were not able to bargain over COVID-19 safety precautions, even though state employees they worked directly alongside were able to have a voice in COVID-19 testing and other necessary precautions.”

Operation Lone Star

It’s often said in the field of labor relations that unions don’t organize workers: bad bosses do. While the validity of that old saw is questionable, it’s certainly been true of a bad boss named Greg Abbott. Last year, with an eye toward his 2022 re-election campaign, Governor Abbott launched Operation Lone Star. This $2 billion a year attempt to police the U.S.-Mexico border with Texas Guard members was necessary, he claimed, because the Biden Administration was failing to do so with the Border Patrol.

Viewed by many as a political stunt, Abbott’s sudden mobilization of 10,000 Guard members took them away, with little notice, from their regular jobs or shorter-term duty in pandemic relief efforts. Nearly 1,000 of the citizen soldiers affected applied for hardship waivers, citing family responsibilities or their civilian work as first responders. A quarter of these requests were denied because, as one Army National Guard veteran explained, “for this mission, if you had a warm pulse, they were sending you to the border. They didn’t care what your issues were.”

Adding insult to injury was the seemingly pointless nature of border duty itself. Its main initial risk was COVID outbreaks among troops packed together in trailers in groups of 30 each. As TSEU reports, “members reported being assigned to 12-hour shifts, which they spent sitting in a Humvee or walking around near an observation post, waiting for something to happen.”As one soldier assigned to a post near Brownsville explained, “If someone comes up, we ask them to stop and wait, we call the Border Patrol. If someone runs, we call the Border Patrol. We’re basically mall cops at the border.”  On April 22, Abbott’s mission resulted in its first direct fatality. On a treacherous stretch of the Rio Grande river, Specialist Bishop Evans saw several migrants struggling in the water. The 22-year old African-American from Arlington, Texas, stripped off his body armor and dived in to save them. They survived but Evans was swept away while trying to do, without proper training or equipment, what a local mayor called a “good deed.” At least four other deaths—in the form of suicide—have been reported among soldiers whose mental health problems or financial pressures were exacerbated when they were sent to the border or faced deployment there.

Meanwhile, Abbott’s administration has sharply reduced one of the main incentives for young people like Evans to join the Guard.  While the governor was boasting about Operation Lone Star on Fox News and fending off a Republican primary challenge from two other right-wing Republicans, he cut the budget for tuition assistance for Guard members in half, from $3 million to $1.4 million. Previously Guard members, working full-time toward a graduate or undergraduate degree, were eligible for tution reimbursement amounting to $4,500 per semester. That award was reduced to $1,000 for only about 714 Guard members. In addition, as TSEU Organizing Coordinator Missy Benavidez explains, the state’s involuntary, year-long call-up order was highly disruptive for soldiers trying to be part-time students. Some were forced to withdraw from classes in mid-semester; others had paid to pay out of pocket for courses they planned to take, or take out loans.

Second Coming of the ASU?

If the U.S. Army ever reneged on the education benefits–much touted by military recruiters as a reason for young men and women to enlist—any soldier agitating for a union in response would face criminal prosecution. That’s because workplace organizing among active duty GIs during the Vietnam era, became so potentially disruptive of “good order and discipline” that Congress outlawed membership in any “military labor organization,” with the penalty being five years in jail. Before that crackdown, one organizational expression of widespread discontent among draftees fifty-years ago was the American Servicemen’s Union. The ASU issued membership cards, formed local chapters on military bases and on naval vessels, and published a national newspaper. Among its organizational models were already existing soldier associations in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, West Germany and the Netherlands (where a union of conscripts won higher pay and reforms of the military penal code). Among ASU’s own demands was the right to elect officers and reject what soldiers might deem to be illegal orders.

TSEU volunteer Hunter Schuler is definitely not in the mold of Army private Andy Stapp, founder of the ASU,who was court-martialed twice for his radical activism at Fort Still in Oklahoma during the late 1960s.  Guard member organizing by TSEU and AFSCME follows more in the footsteps of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which voted in 1976 to amend its constitution to permit the recruitment of active duty service members, helping to trigger the Congressional ban enacted the following year (with the bi-partisan support of Senators Strom Thurmond and Joe Biden). Schuler’s civilian job is deputy clerk for the Supreme Court of Texas. He has a master’s degree in statistics and plans to pursue a doctorate program in that subject at Southern Methodist University.

“I don’t really have any prior experience with unions,” he told me. “Ideologically, I think of myself as pretty conservative, leaning to the right.” In that respect, he has much in common with other “young, adult males who join the military” and “are pretty unfamiliar with unions in Texas.” As a recruiter for TSEU, Schuler has had to reassure some new dues-payers that the union was “not just a bunch of Democrats who want to get Beto O’Rourke elected” (although TSEU has endorsed O’Rourke’s general election challenge to Abbott in November).

Strike Breaker Protection   

In Texas and other states, the Guard is typically called out, with much popular appreciation, to help with disaster relief efforts or public health emergencies. On other occasions, it gets drawn into policing. In 1986, for example, a Democratic-Farm Labor governor sent Guard members to protect strike-breakers at the Hormel meat-packing plant in Austin, Minnesota. Thirty-four years later, another DFL governor in the same state deployed Guard members in Minneapolis and St. Paul during Black Lives Matters protests over the killing of George Floyd. And a year ago, the Guard was again posted on Twin Cities street corners, along with local police, in anticipation of renewed civil unrest in the event that former police officer Derek Chauvin was acquitted of Floyd’s murder. When CWA Local 7250 President Kieran Knutson learned that one unit, with 50 soldiers and 15 armored vehicles, was operating out of the St. Paul labor center last April, he decided that “our union hall should have no place in those militarized efforts against the Black community, activists, and working-class people.”

A group of concerned trade unionists from CWA, the Minnesota Nurses Association, and United Brotherhood of Carpenters gathered at the labor center to demand that the Guard members leave. According to Knutson, they spoke one-on-one with the soldiers based there, who were mainly white and from rural areas of the state. The union activists urged them “to break ranks and join the anti-racist movement sparked by murders of Black people by the police.” Guard officers ended the fraternization quickly by ordering that the armored vehicles be loaded up and the labor center evacuated.

Knutson has friends, relatives and fellow CWA telephone workers who served in the Guard, the Reserves, or active duty military. His national union, headed by Air Force veteran and former New York telephone worker Chris Shelton, has promoted membership participation in a Veterans for Social Change program, which collaborates on political education and training with Common Defense, a progressive veterans’ group. As a Teamster member, working for UPS in Chicago twenty years ago, Knutson saw Vietnam veterans who belonged to IBT Local 705 strongly support a resolution against the war in Iraq, introduced by left-wing activists in the local. “I think we need to engage with people in the National Guard,” Knutson says. “Because who they are and the role they play is different than full-time police officers and prison guards even when they are called out to defend the status quo.” His hope is that unionization efforts like TSEU’s might lead to “more potential solidarity between the Guard and people on the street or on strike.”

In Texas, TSEU has long been a vehicle for solidarity among state workers of all types that is not limited to legally defined “bargaining units” of the sort found in states where public sector unionists can engage in formal contract negotiations. Formed 43 years ago, TSEU was a pioneering “non-majority union” in the open-shop environment of the South and Southwest. Its members learned to build workplace organization, based on voluntary payment of membership dues and rank-and-file activism, long before the U.S. Supreme Court, in its Janus decision five years ago, put all public sector unions to that new stress test.

Both white-collar and blue-collar state workers of any rank can join, in any state department, agency, or the Texas university system campus. (When longtime progressive activist and writer Jim Hightower was Texas Agriculture Commissioner, an elected position, he was a card carrying TSEU member). As former TSEU lead organizer Jim Branson explains, “We have a voice on the job because we are an active and growing movement that puts a lot of emphasis on organizing. We have agency caucuses, made up of union activists, who meet regularly to formulate goals and plan actions for winning those goals. From time to time, members of the caucus will meet with agency heads to discuss our goals, and when the legislature is in session, caucus members will speak directly to lawmakers…If a united group of workers act like a union, they can have a voice on the job. It’s not easy, but it can be done.”

One of the things that makes Guard member recruitment a particular challenge is the nature of military service and the degree of management control over this particular group of state employees.  “The Texas Military Department is not like a 9-to-5 employer,” Schuler notes. “When soldiers are on state active duty, TMD controls every aspect of your life. Even if they don’t do something that’s obviously retaliatory, there’s a lot of things they can do to make your life miserable, without overtly breaking the law or demoting you.” So far, he notes, “we don’t have union stewards or representatives you can call.” Yet, by forming a statewide solidarity network and generating much favorable publicity, Schuler and others have already demonstrated that military-style teamwork and “esprit de corps” can be put to better use than the border guard duty that led them to organize. “The idea [of unionizing] started as joke,” he told Military.com. “But now we have a real opportunity to make the lives of soldiers better.”

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Russia has escalated attacks against Ukraine, launching a missile strike hitting a government building and shelling civilian areas in Kharkiv, reportedly targeting civilians with cluster and thermobaric bombs, and killing more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers at a military base in Okhtyrka. Meanwhile, the U.S. rejected Ukrainian President Zelensky’s demand for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying it could lead to a war between the U.S. and Russia. This comes as Ukrainian and Russian negotiators failed to reach an agreement on Monday and the European Union approved Ukraine’s emergency application to be a candidate to join the union. We go to Kyiv to speak with Yurii Sheliazhenko, executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, who says “support of Ukraine in the West is mainly military support” and reports that his country “focuses on warfare and almost ignores nonviolent resistance to war.” He also discusses Zelensky’s response to the crisis, the European Union’s approval of Ukraine’s emergency application, and whether he plans to leave the war-torn city of Kyiv soon.

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

Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

• House lawmakers reprimand Republican Marjorie Greene for endorsing violence against Democrats.
• President Joe Biden announces foreign policy, slams Russia and calls for end to Saudi led Yemen war.
• Progressives call on President to issue “national climate emergency.”
• Senate committee discusses energy policy in era of climate change.
• 50 Democrats call on President to forgive up to $50,000 in federal student debt.
• San Francisco City Attorney defends lawsuit to reopen schools.
• State lawmakers propose reform to unemployment system after audit finds delays and fraud.
• Yosemite National Park opens to public after wind and snow storms.

Photo from the House of Representatives.

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

Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

• House lawmakers reprimand Republican Marjorie Greene for endorsing violence against Democrats.
• President Joe Biden announces foreign policy, slams Russia and calls for end to Saudi led Yemen war.
• Progressives call on President to issue “national climate emergency.”
• Senate committee discusses energy policy in era of climate change.
• 50 Democrats call on President to forgive up to $50,000 in federal student debt.
• San Francisco City Attorney defends lawsuit to reopen schools.
• State lawmakers propose reform to unemployment system after audit finds delays and fraud.
• Yosemite National Park opens to public after wind and snow storms.

Photo from the House of Representatives.

The post House lawmakers reprimand Republican Marjorie Greene for endorsing violence against Democrats; President Joe Biden announces foreign policy, calls for end to Saudi led Yemen war; State lawmakers propose reform to unemployment system after audit finds delays and fraud appeared first on KPFA.

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