Category: and


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • A person putting lids on small meal trays.
    A food kitchen prepared 1,000 meals for Iftar — before it had to close due to the Israeli blockade. Photo: Farida Algoul

    In Gaza, where the threads of life and death intertwine, and where moments of worship intersect with the horrors of war, people live their daily lives with unyielding resilience. During the holy month of Ramadan, which is supposed to be a time of peace and tranquility, the people of Gaza found themselves surrounded by unending, unimaginable death and destruction.

    Preparing maftoul for the displaced

    Preparing Iftar — the meal at the end of the day when we break our daily Ramadan fast — was a daily struggle, especially for women who bear the primary responsibility of caring for their families. Amid scarce resources, prolonged power outages, and the collapse of essential services, the women of Gaza fought an uphill battle to provide a meal for their families under nearly impossible living conditions.

    Despite the difficulties, we held onto our Ramadan traditions — and as we did, we made sure that we supported each other. Just a few weeks ago, as part of my regular work in a local soup kitchen, I went to the markets to see how I could feed the many displaced people who were forced to flee from the north to central Gaza. For months now, there has been a serious shortage of meat and vegetables.

    All Gazans love maftoul, a Palestinian couscous dish. So together with many other Palestinian women, with minimal ingredients, and with only firewood for fuel, we worked all day to prepare this wonderful dish for the Iftar meal. Making the maftoul is a labor of love that involves moistening the bulgur wheat, coating it with flour, then rolling the grains between your palms to form larger, irregular shapes.

    The maftoul is then cooked with spices, and when available, other vegetables and meat, to create the dish we all love and look forward to eating when we break our fast. On this day, feeling both exhausted and fulfilled, we were able to feed more than 1,000 fasting people.

    Trays of bulgur wheat being prepared for creating maftoul.
    Preparing the bulgur wheat for maftoul. Photo: Farida Algoul

    Sadly, the Israeli blockade forced the soup kitchen to close and we were no longer able to provide Iftar.

    Only bread and tea for Iftar

    Mid-Ramadan, Israel renewed its active genocide of the Palestinian people, conducting airstrikes that resulted in daily massacres of hundreds of people. Once again death and injury were ever-present and inexorable — every single day — for every single Palestinian. There was no escape. Half of the dead were children. The injured were almost less fortunate, forced to endure amputations without the help of anesthesia. We are all hungry, we are all thirsty and exhausted.

    In addition to the scarcity of food, women faced a severe shortage of fuel and firewood. With electricity often cut off for hours or even days, cooking was an exhausting and dangerous task. Many women resorted to burning old clothes, broken furniture, or even plastic to light a fire for cooking. This exposed them to the risk of burns and forced them to inhale toxic fumes that threatened their health and that of their children.

    The cold nights added to our suffering, with freezing winds seeping through the tents. At least eight children, and probably many more, died from hypothermia in the past month. There was also a serious lack of clean water and many children suffered from diarrhea and dehydration. Many families survived only on bread and tea. For some, the Iftar meal consisted of only water. With Israel’s ongoing blockade of all humanitarian aid and the ceaseless, merciless bombing, families’ chances of getting food are shrinking.

    As I walked through the refugee camp where I worked to distribute what little food there was, I saw a different kind of hunger — a hunger for safety, for peace, for an end to this nightmare. People were not waiting for Iftar with excitement; they were waiting for the bombs to stop, for the gunfire to cease.

    Every family in Gaza is living in a constant state of fear, uncertainty, and unimaginable sorrow.

    No food, no shelter

    My Aunt Hanin and her family, which includes two children with special needs, were left with nothing after their home was completely destroyed. With nowhere else to go, they built a makeshift tent in the Al-Aqsa camp in the northern part of Gaza and have been living without even the most basic necessities of life: no water, no sanitation, and very little food.

    I visited her on the first day of Ramadan and was struck by the deep sadness and exhaustion etched into her features. “I don’t know what to cook for my children,” she told me. “There are no vegetables, no food of any kind. My children have diarrhea and struggle to eat anything solid — they need soup because of their condition.” Her voice began to break, and tears welled up in her eyes.

    I have not seen my Aunt Hanin and her family since the bombing started again. We don’t know where they are and can’t communicate with them since electricity is very scarce and internet is extremely intermittent. I pray that they are safe.

    With thousands of families again forced to flee their homes, and with no schools, mosques, or other shelters left to offer refuge, many families are living in the streets among piles of garbage. Among the women who have sought shelter in garbage dumps is Farah. Displaced from Beit Hanoun, and four months pregnant, she walked barefoot to the center of the Gaza Strip on the twenty-third day of Ramadan, where she has been living in a makeshift tent in a garbage dump. The garbage is toxic and the stench is overwhelming and sickening. Farah miscarried earlier this week.

    The crushing psychological toll

    Beyond food shortages, there is an emotional and psychological weight that is crushing our spirits. We are always afraid, always on the verge of despair. Every mother setting a meager table for Iftar did so with a heart full of grief, knowing that someone was missing. Every father trying to provide for his family struggled against impossible odds. Children who should be excited for Eid were instead traumatized by the horrors they have witnessed.

    We mourned Hossam Shabat, the 23-year-old brave and talented journalist who Israel targeted and succeeded in murdering during Ramadan. In his beautiful last letter to the people of Gaza he implored us “do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting,keep telling our stories — until Palestine is free.” So selfless and courageous.

    Today, we weep for his mother and the thousands of other mothers of Gaza whose children have been martyred. Despite their despair, and conscious of God, they did their best to provide Iftar.

    A smiling young man wearing a Press jacket.
    Hossam Shabat. Photo shared on his X account.

    Our thoughts of past Ramadans, some filled with laughter and prayers, were this year drowned out by the cries of mourning mothers and the deafening silence of absence. War darkened our days and stolen the warmth and spirituality of Ramadan. Our memories of past celebrations was bittersweet, as this was not our first Ramadan marred by violence and grief. In 2014, more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes; 250 in 2021; last year 2,300; and this year, more than 1,000 so far.

    But before the genocide, no matter how difficult our circumstances, we had at least some food and enough peace for the whole family to gather for the breaking of the fast. Our Iftar meal would start with dates and water, followed by dishes like maqluba, grilled fish, and soup, along with salads and appetizers. The smell of freshly baked bread would fill the houses, and the warmth of family conversations would create an indescribable sense of closeness.

    After Iftar, families would gather to perform Taraweeh prayers at the mosque, while the streets would be filled with worshippers and the beautiful sounds of Qur’an recitation. Children would play in the alleys lit with lanterns, while families exchanged visits, offering traditional sweets like qatayef and knafeh. Though our lives have always been difficult, Ramadan in Gaza is not just about fasting from food — it is about fasting from pain and trying to hold onto hope despite the harsh realities.

    We are just trying to stay alive. Violence and death, pain, hunger, thirst, cold. Despite our depleted bodies and minds, we still work to strengthen our Taqwa; we remained conscious of God. This year during Ramadan we continued to hang lanterns and paint murals on the remains of our demolished walls, in our attempt to create hope amid the devastation. Our fragile existence left us with few choices, but we remained steadfast in our beliefs and our devotion to Ramadan. Insha’Alla we would have some food each day for Iftar.

  • First published at we are not numbers.
  • The post Struggling to Provide and Survive during the Ramadan Genocide first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Farida Algoul.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.


  • This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by ProPublica.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Protesters rally outside of the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building headquarters of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management on February 05, 2025 in Washington, DC. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
    Labor Notes logo

    This story originally appeared in Labor Notes on Mar. 28, 2025. It is shared here with permission.

    In his broadest attack on federal workers and their unions to date, President Donald Trump on Thursday announced an Executive Order that claimed to end collective bargaining rights for nearly the whole federal workforce. Early estimates have the move affecting 700,000 to 1 million federal workers, including at the Veterans Administration and the Departments of Defense, Energy, State, Interior, Justice, Treasury, Health and Human Services, and even Agriculture.

    This gutting of federal worker rights has the potential to be a pivotal, existential moment for the labor movement. It is a step that recognizes that the Trump administration’s rampage against the federal government is hitting a roadblock: unions.

    Much remains to be seen: How quickly will the government move to execute the order? How much of it will stand up to challenges in court? Members of the Federal Unionists Network (FUN), who have been protesting ongoing firings and cuts, are holding an emergency organizing call on Sunday, March 30.

    ECHOES OF PATCO

    The move echoes past attacks on federal and public sector unions, including President Ronald Reagan firing 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981. Reagan’s move signaled “open season” on the labor movement, public and private sector alike.

    The dubious mechanism that Trump is using to revoke these rights involves declaring wide swaths of the federal workforce to be too “sensitive” for union rights.

    The Executive Order claims that workers across the government have “as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.”

    Historically the interpretation of this has been much narrower. While CIA operatives have not been eligible for collective bargaining, nurses at the Veterans Administration have. These rights have been law since the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, and in various forms for years prior, starting with an executive order by President Kennedy in 1962.

    For example, the Veterans Administration has the largest concentration of civilian workers in the federal government, with more than 486,000 workers. The Trump Executive Order declares all of them to be excluded from collective bargaining rights.

    A MILLION WORKERS AFFECTED

    The order names 10 departments in part or in full, and eight other governmental bodies like agencies or commissions, ranging from all civilian employees at the Department of Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency to all workers at the Centers for Disease Control (a part of the Department of Health and Human Services) and the General Services Administration.

    Federal unions immediately denounced the Executive Order, promising to challenge it in court. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal union, said in a statement that AFGE “will fight relentlessly to protect our rights, our members, and all working Americans from these unprecedented attacks.”

    It is unclear how quickly the federal government and its various agencies will act to nullify contracts and all that come with them.

    At the Transportation Security Administration, where collective bargaining rights were axed in recent weeks, the impact was felt immediately: union representatives on union leave were called back to work, grievances were dropped, and contractual protections around scheduling were thrown out the window.

    Some protests already in the works may become outlets for justified anger about the wholesale destruction of the federal labor movement.

    Organizers with the FUN, a cross-union network of federal workers that has jumped into action as the crisis has deepened, are organizing local “Let Us Work” actions for federal workers impacted by layoffs and hosting the Sunday emergency organizing call March 30.

    National mobilizations under the banner of “Hands Off” are also already planned for April 5.


    This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Joe DeManuelle-Hall.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • A massive earthquake rocked the heart of mainland Southeast Asia on Friday, causing deadly destruction in Myanmar and in the Thai capital.

    The magnitude 7.7 quake struck at 12:50 p.m. Myanmar time. Buildings collapsed across a swath of central Myanmar, a country already reeling from four years of civil war since a military coup.

    In neighboring Thailand, water tumbled from swimming pools situated on skyscrapers in Bangkok, and a high-rise construction site collapsed, leaving dozens of people trapped inside.

    Workers run from a building as it collapses at a construction site in Bangkok, during an earthquake in central Myanmar.
    Workers run from a building as it collapses at a construction site in Bangkok, during an earthquake in central Myanmar.
    (Khon Su Cheevit Adeet Mai Suay Rok Na via AFP)
    Volunteers look for survivors at a damaged building after an earthquake in Naypyidaw, Myanmar.
    Volunteers look for survivors at a damaged building after an earthquake in Naypyidaw, Myanmar.
    (Aung Shine Oo/AP)
    A worker in Bangkok reacts near a site of a collapsed building after the earthquake in neighboring Myanmar, March 28, 2025.
    A worker in Bangkok reacts near a site of a collapsed building after the earthquake in neighboring Myanmar, March 28, 2025.
    (Ann Wang/Reuters)
    Collapsed buildings in Mandalay, Myanmar, after an earthquake, March 28, 2025.
    Collapsed buildings in Mandalay, Myanmar, after an earthquake, March 28, 2025.
    (AFP)
    Damaged stupas are seen after earthquake, March 28, 2025, in Naypyidaw, Myanmar.
    Damaged stupas are seen after earthquake, March 28, 2025, in Naypyidaw, Myanmar.
    (Aung Shine Oo/AP)
    Rescue workers in Bangkok walk past the debris of a construction site after a building collapsed on March 28, 2025, following an earthquake in Myanmar.
    Rescue workers in Bangkok walk past the debris of a construction site after a building collapsed on March 28, 2025, following an earthquake in Myanmar.
    (Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP)
    A damaged building after earthquake, March 28, 2025, in Naypyidaw, Myanmar.
    A damaged building after earthquake, March 28, 2025, in Naypyidaw, Myanmar.
    (Aung Shine Oo/AP)
    A woman in Bangkok stands outside a building after a strong earthquake struck central Myanmar, March 28, 2025.
    A woman in Bangkok stands outside a building after a strong earthquake struck central Myanmar, March 28, 2025.
    (Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters)
    People in Bangkok gather on the street after a strong earthquake struck central Myanmar, March 28, 2025.
    People in Bangkok gather on the street after a strong earthquake struck central Myanmar, March 28, 2025.
    (Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)
    Thailand's Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra arrives at a construction site where a building collapsed in Bangkok on March 28, 2025, after an earthquake in Myanmar.
    Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra arrives at a construction site where a building collapsed in Bangkok on March 28, 2025, after an earthquake in Myanmar.
    (Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP)
    Myanmar's military chief Min Aung Hlaing arrives to meet earthquake survivors gathered at a hospital in Naypyidaw on March 28, 2025, after an earthquake in central Myanmar.
    Myanmar’s military chief Min Aung Hlaing arrives to meet earthquake survivors gathered at a hospital in Naypyidaw on March 28, 2025, after an earthquake in central Myanmar.
    (Sai Aung Main/AFP)
    A building collapses in Mandalay, Myanmar, on March 28, 2025, during an earthquake.
    A building collapses in Mandalay, Myanmar, on March 28, 2025, during an earthquake.
    (AFP)
    People stand at the site of a collapsed building in Bangkok after a strong earthquake struck central Myanmar, March 28, 2025.
    People stand at the site of a collapsed building in Bangkok after a strong earthquake struck central Myanmar, March 28, 2025.
    (Ann Wang/Reuters)
    A rescuer worker at a collapsed building in Naypyidaw, March 28, 2025, following an earthquake in central Myanmar.
    A rescuer worker at a collapsed building in Naypyidaw, March 28, 2025, following an earthquake in central Myanmar.
    (Sai Aung Main/AFP)


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Vietnam arrested an ethnic Khmer Krom monk and two activists on Thursday and charged them with breaking a vague law that is often used to silence dissent, a Khmer Krom advocacy group said.

    Nearly 1.3-million Khmer Krom live in a part of Vietnam that was once southeastern Cambodia. They have faced serious restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly and movement.

    The trio were arrested in Preah Trapeang, known in Vietnamese as Tra Vinh province, according to the Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation, or KKF, which condemned the arrests.

    They were charged under Article 331 of the Vietnamese Criminal Code, and charged “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State, lawful rights, and interests of organizations and/or citizens,” KKF said.

    If found guilty, the three men face prison sentences ranging from six months to three years, the group said.

    The group called the arrests another example of the Vietnamese government’s repression of the Khmer Krom community, “particularly their peaceful efforts to advocate for indigenous rights, religious freedoms and cultural preservation.”

    Lam Thi Pung, the wife of Thach Nga, one of the activists, said he collected used bottles and other materials for recycling to support their family.

    “Villagers give him rice, vegetables and fruits. I’m taking care of my child,” she said. “Now they have arrested my husband. I’m just with my child now, what am I to do?”

    Vocal Khmer Krom advocate

    The monk, the Venerable Kim Som Rinh, is a respected spiritual leader, the gorup said, and has long been a vocal advocate for the Khmer Krom people’s religious and indigenous rights through peaceful means.

    A year ago, on March 25, 2024, the state-sanctioned Vietnam Buddhist Sangha stripped Kim Som Rinh of his monk status, KKF said.

    “This arbitrary decision to defrock and arrest him was part of a broader effort to suppress the Khmer Krom community’s religious freedoms and prevent the expression of their cultural identity,” the group said.

    The other two activists are Thach Nga and Thach Xuan Dong, the KKF said.

    “Both men have courageously stood up for their people,” it said, including organizing human rights events such as the celebration of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and International Human Rights Day.

    The Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation called on the United Nations and the international community to take action.

    It said that Vietnam, as a member of the Human Rights Council, must be “held accountable for its blatant disregard of international human rights norms.”

    Vietnamese officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

    Edited by Malcolm Foster.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • New Delhi, March 27, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the arrest of journalist Dilwar Hussain Mozumdar for reporting on a protest over alleged financial misconduct at a bank run by northeastern India’s Assam state government.

    On March 25, Mozumdar, a reporter with the local digital outlet The CrossCurrent, covered a protest outside Assam Co-operative Apex Bank, after which he was summoned to Panbazar police station in Guwahati, Assam’s largest city, and arrested.

    “The arrest of Dilwar Hussain Mozumdar is a blatant attempt to intimidate and silence independent journalism,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “Authorities must immediately release Mozumdar, drop any pending charges against him, and cease using legal harassment to muzzle journalists reporting on issues of public interest.”

    The CrossCurrents has been consistently reporting on financial issues at the bank, where Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is a director.  

    A Press Club of India statement and a Facebook post by Mozumdar said that the journalist questioned the bank’s managing director, Dambara Saikia, and then received a call from the police as soon as he left the bank, telling him to report to the station.

    Authorities have filed two cases against Mozumdar. In the first, a security guard at the bank accused him of making offensive and derogatory remarks, in violation of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, The CrossCurrent’s editor Arup Kalita told CPJ. 

    In the second, Saikia alleged that Mozumdar unlawfully entered the bank’s office, attempted to steal documents, disrupted operations, and threatened employees, Kalita added. 

    Mozumdar was granted bail in the first case and was scheduled for release on Thursday. However, he was rearrested by the police in connection with the second case, Kalita said. Mozumdar plans to apply for bail in the second case on Friday.

    At a news conference on Thursday, Chief Minister Sarma denied that press freedom had been violated, defended Mozumdar’s arrest, and said that those working for independent online portals were not real journalists as they lacked state accreditation. 

    CPJ’s emails to Assam police and the Assam Co-operative Apex Bank requesting comment did not receive any responses.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 59 local and international media outlets and human rights organizations in a statement supporting Lebanon’s independent media outlets Daraj and Megaphone amid intensifying legal harassment against them.

    lawsuit by several lawyers against Daraj and Megaphone, before the Public Prosecutor’s Office, accused the outlets of “undermining the financial standing of the state” and “receiving suspicious foreign funds with the aim of launching media campaigns that would shake confidence in Lebanon,” among other allegations.

    The statement calls on Lebanese authorities to protect independent media outlets and support the country’s economic recovery by ending the weaponization of baseless charges to silence independent media.

    Read the full statement here


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Washington, D.C., March 26, 2025 —The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the willful mischaracterization of the vital work and role of public broadcasters NPR and PBS during today’s Congressional hearing, titled “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS accountable.”

    “Millions of Americans from major cities to rural areas rely on NPR and PBS for news and information on natural disasters, political developments, and so much more,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg in New York. “NPR and PBS provide an essential public service. Casting them as propaganda machines undeserving of taxpayer support is a dangerous mischaracterization that threatens to rob Americans of the vital reporting they need to make decisions about their lives.”

    The hearing was chaired by Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who has accused the two networks of liberal bias, and throughout the hearing referred to NPR and PBS as “radical left-wing echo chambers” with “communist” programming. Taylor Greene called for the “complete and total” defunding and dismantling of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps to fund NPR and PBS.

    The Federal Communications Commission ordered an investigation into the two broadcasters’ airing of commercials in January.

    Ahead of the hearing, CPJ and several other press freedom organizations sent a letter to the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, urging the committee to recognize the critical role of a free and pluralistic press and cautioning against rhetoric that undermines journalism.     


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • On Tuesday, March 25, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) sent a joint letter to the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency. The press freedom organizations called for bipartisan support for media freedom and public broadcasting ahead of the subcommittee’s March 26 hearing titled “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountable.”

    In the letter, the press freedom advocates urged the subcommittee to recognize the critical role of a free and pluralistic press. They cautioned against rhetoric that undermines journalism, warning that such language can encourage hostility toward reporters and media outlets and increase the risks journalists face, especially when covering public officials from across the political spectrum.

    Public broadcasting is a trusted source of fact-based local reporting for millions of Americans, particularly in rural communities. To effectively serve the public, it must remain independent from political or governmental influence—an obligation that Congress is responsible for upholding. With many local news outlets struggling financially, leading to widespread “news deserts,” public media often steps in as the only reliable provider of local news and emergency information. Public stations continue to invest in their newsrooms, filling gaps that the private sector is unlikely to address. A recent CPJ report highlighted growing threats to journalists in the U.S., including violence, harassment, legal challenges, and criminalization. This hearing is taking place amid an increasingly hostile climate toward the media. For these reasons, the tone and conduct of the March 26 hearing are crucial.

    Read the letter here.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Image by Earl Wilcox.

    I’ve stopped counting the articles on the Democratic Party’s disarray over how and when they should confront Tyrant Trump’s criminal destruction of our country, its people’s livelihoods, security for their families, and their freedom to speak and advocate for their concerns.

    Seized with internal doubts, fear, and cowardliness, most Democrats in Congress and the Party’s corporate-indentured bureaucracy can’t stop contracting out their jobs to corporate-conflicted consultants who have been and are in reality overpaid Trojan Horses.

    What’s the superlative of “pathetic”? The Washington Post’s Dylan Wells gave us a definition. The Democrats in Congress are all agog about learning how to use TikTok against the more elaborate GOP’s TikTok. They invited an influencer who posted a “choose your fighter”-themed video featuring Democratic congresswomen bouncing in a fighting stance while their accomplishments and fun facts were displayed on the screen. I kid you not! At one influencers session, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was seen taking detailed notes.

    Sporting its lowest-ever favorability ratings, the Party of the Donkey neither listens to seasoned civic group leaders, who know how to talk to all Americans (see winningamerica.net), nor to progressive labor unions like the American Postal Workers Union and the Association of Flight Attendants. The dominant corporate Democrats (just look at their big campaign donors) don’t even listen to Illinois Governor JB Pritzker who for many months has been aggressively taking the Grand Old Plutocrats, led by their dangerous Madman, Trumpty Dumpty, to the woodshed.

    Instead, we have mealy-mouth Chuck Schumer vainly trying to recharge his dead batteries amidst the slew of avoidable election defeats in the U.S. Senate despite huge campaign cash.

    Of course, the Democratic leaders don’t listen to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who is the most popular politician in America and is attracting huge crowds (5000 people at an event in Tempe, Arizona) in Republican Congressional districts and going after the cruel, vicious, self-enriching, anti-worker Wall Street over Main Street GOP corporatists.

    Long-time political observer, Bill Curry, says “POLICY PRECEDES MESSAGE.” Otherwise, the messages are empty, forgettable excuses for the Party’s media consultants to get their 15% commission on repetitively empty TV ads. The Democrats should instead be investing in a serious ground game.

    Last fall in Pennsylvania, people told us that the door-knocking by Democrats was far more frequent than in 2022. What were they knocking about? Just saying, vote Democratic? The Party lost the state to the wannabe dictator Donald and a U.S. Senate seat to boot.

    By contrast, Pritzker raised alarms about Trump’s regime alluding to the rise of Nazism in Germany where Hitler was also an elected dictator.

    Look, there are no secrets about the winning agendas, authentically presented and repeated with human interest stories and events. Here are six of them for starters that Kamala Harris Et al. avoided or reduced to disbelieved throw-away lines while adopting her vapid slogan about creating “an opportunity economy.”

    1. Raise the frozen federal minimum wage of $7.25 to $15 an hour. That would mean 25 million workers would live better. Slogan – “Go Vote for a Raise, you’ve been long denied it.” Or “America Needs a Raise.”

    2. Raise the Social Security benefits FROZEN for over 45 years and pay for that by raising the Social Security tax on higher income individuals. In 2022, two hundred House Democrats voted for such a bill by Congressman John Larson (D-CT). Sixty-five million retirees would live better.

    3. Restore the child tax credit, providing about $300 a month to sixty-one million children from both liberal and conservative families. Before the Congressional Republicans blocked its extension in January 2022, this measure alone had cut child poverty by 40 percent.

    Just these three long overdue very popular safety nets would help almost 150 million Americans. Lots of votes there, including giving the 7.1 million Biden 2020 voters a reason not to stay home in 2024, along with over 80 million additional eligible voters who sat out the election.

    Bear in mind, that just a switch of 240,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin would have defeated Trump and his brutishness in 2024.

    4. Raise taxes on the very undertaxed super-wealthy and profitable corporations – half of the latter pay no federal income taxes. Polls show 85% of the American people support the overdue restoration from the Trump and GW Bush tax escapes for the rich and powerful.

    5. Crackdown on the corporate crooks who cheat, lie, and steal the hard-earned consumer dollars and savings of all Americans, regardless of their political labels. Huge super-majorities of Americans are disgusted by the double standards of justice that stains our democracy every day in every way.

    6. Empower the American workers to join trade unions (the U.S. has the biggest hurdle in union organizing in the Western world), and make it easier to be able to band together to demand and get universal, affordable health insurance, protect their children, make sure their taxes come back home to upgrade crumbling public services, and to organize civic groups to manage their elected representatives who have mostly forgotten where they came from and who is sovereign under the “We the People” Constitution.

    There are more compacts with the American people to landslide the GOP. For now, the urgent mission has to be to stop the fascist dictatorship that is using police state tactics, ripping apart life-saving and life-sustaining services. Note Trump/Musk do not touch the massive “waste, fraud and inefficiency” of corporate welfare – subsidies, handouts, bailouts, giveaways, and tax escapes – corporate crime e.g., defrauding Medicare ($60 billion a year) and other federal payout programs (Medicaid, corporate contracts) and the unaudited, bloated military budget that Trump/Musk want to expand further.

    Never in American history has there been such an impeachable domestic, law-violating, constitution-busting president committing criminally insane demolitions of the federal civil service staffing the ramparts of protecting the health, safety, and economic well-being of all Americans in red and blue states.

    With Trump’s polls falling along with the stock market and inflation/prices starting to rise, the sycophant Congressional Republicans, violating their constitutional oaths of office, are starting to get the jitters. The packed angry crowds at their Town Meetings are just modest harbingers of what is to come soon.

    Trump wants to “Impeach” and “Fire” anyone who is in a position to resist Der Fuhrer. Well, people, tell him with ever larger marches and polls that HE must be fired, which is just what our Founders provided for in the Impeachment authority exclusive to the U.S. Congress.

    It’s up to you, the citizenry, as Richard Nixon discovered after the Watergate scandal. Expect the politicians only to follow you, not to lead.

    The post Democratic Leaders – Wimps, Wallowers and Wallflowers appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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

  • In the United States, for more than a hundred years, the ruling class interests tirelessly propagated anti-communism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy.

    — Michael Parenti, “Left Anticommunism”

    I will argue below that the liberal Russia-phobic meltdown over Ukraine is because allowing a truthful dialogue would reveal that it was a proxy war against Russia, provoked by the United States. This, in turn, would risk a political identity crisis among those for whom belief in “The Russia Threat” has been a touchstone of their political identity. What are the consequences when one’s deepest political beliefs are exposed as not just deeply flawed but morally wrong? What if one concludes or even suspects that they’ve been complicit in sending over one million Ukrainian soldiers — human beings — to their needless deaths? What if the 80-year narrative about a Russian invasion of Europe never had any basis in fact and that remains true today? Why are the real reasons that European leaders went along with Biden and now seek to sabotage peace in Ukraine? What if one discovers that NATO was an extension of US imperialism? If the “Russian threat” is called into question by the evidence, what else is one forced to rethink about the United States, one’s political identity and past behavior? What happens when it’s no longer possible for one to claim the moral high ground? I wrote the essay (abridged here) some five years ago and I’m reposting it because I believe it has special salience today.

    To know who I am is a species of knowing where I stand. — Charles Taylor

    In the early 1980s, which now seems a few lifetimes ago, I began offering a college seminar course titled “The Politics of Personal Identity,” quickly dubbed “POPI” by students. It was designed as a capstone course and limited to twelve seniors. Most of the identity groupings around today were addressed in readings, films and guest speakers. During the final weeks of the course, each student was responsible for giving a 45-minute oral presentation: “Who Am I? What Do I Believe? Why Do I Believe It?” This was followed by a lengthy period of questioning from the other seminar members and myself. Each of our guest speakers gave presentations on this topic and I presented my own on the last day of class. Germane to this was an exploration one’s political beliefs and their consequences was the critical component of the course and in what follows below.

    Before exploring identities like race, gender, class, ethnicity and others, we attempted to establish a framework by including the work of Canadian philosopher and political activist Charles Taylor and specifically, his pioneering ideas on the politics of identity. [Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989).]

    For Taylor, “Selfhood and the good, or in another way, selfhood and morality, turn out to be inextricably intertwined themes. We are selves only in that certain issues matter to us. What I am as a self, my identity, is essentially defined by the way things have significance for me… We are selves only in that we move in a certain space of questions, as we seek and find an orientation to the good.” By his light, “Who I am” is most crucially this space of moral orientation “within which my most defining relations are lived out.”

    Taylor goes on, “My identity is defined by the commitments and identifications which provide the frame within which I can attempt to determine from case to case what is good, or valuable, or what ought to be done, or what I endorse or oppose. In other words it is the horizon within which I am capable of taking a stand.” [Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (1989).]

    And this isn’t just a strong preference or attachment. It means that people are saying that if they were to lose this commitment or identification, “they would be at sea, as it were, they wouldn’t know anymore, for an important range of questions, what the significance of things was for them.”

    There is a sense of the ‘self’ that conveys to these beings of requisite depth to their identity or those who at the very least are struggling to find one. Others, who we judge as shallow, also have commitments but we see them as conventional and not the result of deep searching. And, as Taylor notes, those without any framework at all are pathologically amoral.

    We also read some work by the character actor and playwright Wallace Shawn, including this passage about how to act in a morally responsible way:

    My daily obligation was, first and foremost, to learn how to make a correct and careful study of the world. If I didn’t know what the world was like, how could I know what action to take? And so it turns out that morality insists upon accuracy — painstakingly steady and researched. (Wallace Shawn, Appendix to Aunt Dan & Lemon (1987).

    Shawn’s prescriptive obligation to study how the world works is especially difficult given that Americans are the most heavily propagandized citizens in the word. In any event, I hoped that Shawn’s words would resonate with the students, most of whom had also taken my intro course: International Politics: How the World Works, the bookend course to POPI. I was gratified that virtually all of the seminar participants made the connection and often referenced the intro course. (Note: I’m painfully aware of the immense difference between an intro course with two sessions for fourteen weeks to examine a subject versus the forced, frustrated and episodic nature of most exchanges about politics on Facebook and elsewhere.)

    And further, one cannot be a self strictly on one’s own. For starters, who did I interact with that helped me achieve self-realization? Who are those around me right now who contribute to my self-understanding? Beyond the standard sources, how widely have I searched? Is there evidence to support my conclusions — in this case about the USSR/Russia — or am I relying only on tradition, feelings and the accepted authorities? How has the “community” or culture within which I identify, affected my moral stands? Finally, it’s virtually impossible to have a sense of who/where I am without some grasp of how we got there. This can be painful and tempting to avoid, especially as one advances in age and possible regrets loom. Taylor asks us to consider what type of life is worth living? “E.g., what would a rich meaningful life, as against an empty one, or what would constitute an honorable life or the like?”

    In sum, my argument was that there’s a virtually seamless web connecting knowing ourselves, knowing how the world works, and knowing that something needs to be done — starting with oneself. Uncertainty, deliberation and experimentation about the specific course of action don’t detract from the wisdom found in the Asian proverb “To know and not to act is not to know.”

    Change is scary. My cautionary note to younger folks was that the older one gets the harder it is to rethink one’s political identity and question beliefs in which one has a considerable material and especially, psychic investment. Too many people adopt conventional liberal views and behavior in hopes this will stave off the gnawing feeling that something is seriously wrong.

    The post A Few Thoughts on Political Identity, Morality and Ukraine first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Gary Olson.

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  • New York, March 21, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Sudanese forces to ensure journalist safety following the killing of three Sudanese state television network journalists and their driver in a Friday morning drone strike carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The journalists were reporting on the Sudanese Armed Forces’ (SAF) takeover of the Republican Palace in central Khartoum, according to news reports and a statement by the Sudanese Journalists Syndicate.

    The journalists killed were Farouk al-Zahir, producer and director, Magdy Abdel Rahman, a camera operator, Ibrahim Mudawi, an editor and director, who succumbed to his injuries later that day, and the crew’s driver, Wajeh Jaafar. 

    “We are deeply saddened by the killing of Sudanese state television journalists Farouk Al-Zahir, Magdy Abdel Rahman, Ibrahim Mudawi, and their driver Wajeh Jaafar, who were killed while courageously covering historical events on the ground in Khartoum,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna. “Journalists should never be targets in conflict. All parties to Sudan’s war must ensure the safety of the press and respect the essential role journalists play in documenting truth, even in times of war.”

    The state television crew had arrived at the presidential palace early Friday to document the SAF’s advance when they were hit by what was described as a loitering munition. Two local journalists told CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, that the journalists were targeted by the RSF for their coverage.

    Sudan remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists since the war between the SAF and the RSF broke out April 2023, with at least 8 journalists killed in connection with the war.

    CPJ’s requests for comment about the killings sent to the RSF via Telegram were not returned.


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

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  • Seg3 faizapatelbox

    We speak with the Brennan Center’s Faiza Patel, who warns the Trump administration is ramping up efforts to target international students and other visitors and immigrants to the United States over pro-Palestinian speech. The State Department has reportedly launched a new effort using artificial intelligence to help identify and revoke visas for people the government deems to be supporting U.S.-designated terrorist groups, based primarily on the individuals’ social media accounts. “Foreign students are running scared,” says Patel. She also notes that while “AI-driven sounds really fancy,” the process is more likely to be a basic keyword search prone to “rudimentary mistakes.”


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

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  • Despite some gains, women remain significantly underrepresented in decision-making positions – especially at senior levels of the judiciary worldwide.Judge Angela Attachie, from Ghana, is both a Circuit Court Judge and the Queen Mother of Ho Bankoe – a dual role that makes her as a key figure in community governance and social development.Speaking to UN News’ Pia Blondel, she talks about her journey to the courtroom, her experience as a woman in a traditionally male-dominated field, and what needs to change for more women to rise in leadership positions.


    This content originally appeared on UN News – Global perspective Human stories and was authored by Pia Blondel.

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  • By RFA Staff

    TAIPEI, Taiwan – China has increased incursions by its aircraft and warships in the Taiwan Strait with 59 sorties reported from Monday evening to Tuesday morning, as it repeated warnings against any “external interference” on the “Taiwan question.”

    Taiwan’s ministry of defense said 43 of the sorties crossed the median line in the strait, which has long served as the de-facto boundary between the self-governed island and the mainland.

    Besides fighter jets, a number of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, were deployed, as well as two balloons.

    Taiwan’s armed forces “closely monitor maritime and aerial activities,” and are conducting joint operations to track and respond to Chinese incursions, the island’s ministry said.

    Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province that needs to be “reunified” with China, by force if necessary.

    China has waged a campaign against what it sees as “separatist” efforts by Taiwan and warned other countries against “meddling in the Taiwan issue.”

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    Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular press briefing on Monday that Beijing “firmly opposes official interaction of any form between China’s Taiwan region and countries having diplomatic ties with China.”

    “The Taiwan question is at the core of China’s core interests, which brooks no external interference,” Mao said, repeating a long-held position.

    “The government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China,” the spokeswoman said. “Taiwan is never a country, not in the past, and never in the future.”

    China often steps up incursions and warnings in response to visits to the island by U.S. legislators, or visits overseas by the island’s leader, but there was no obvious factor being this week’s activity apart from recent diplomatic efforts by Taiwan to reinforce cooperation with “like-minded” countries and democracies.

    Taiwan air force F-16V fighter jets during an undated exercise in this photo released on Feb. 21, 2025
    Taiwan air force F-16V fighter jets during an undated exercise in this photo released on Feb. 21, 2025
    (Taiwan defense ministry)

    Taiwan immediately dismissed the Chinese spokesperson’s comments.

    “Such clichés that contradict the facts, reverse right and wrong, and go against the will of the 23.5 million Taiwanese people are not worth refuting,” the island’s foreign ministry said.

    The ministry reiterated its position that Taiwan is “a sovereign and independent country.”

    “China has no right to interfere in the exercise of any legitimate rights of a sovereign state,” it said.

    Foreign ministers of the Group 7 world’s most developed countries emphasized at a meeting last week “the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

    The ministers reiterated in a statement their opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion.

    Edited by Mike Firn.


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

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  • ANALYSIS: By Robert Patman

    New Zealand’s National-led coalition government’s policy on Gaza seems caught between a desire for a two-state diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and closer alignment with the US, which supports a Netanyahu government strongly opposed to a Palestinian state

    In the last 17 months, Gaza has been the scene of what Thomas Merton once called the unspeakable — human wrongdoing on a scale and a depth that seems to go beyond the capacity of words to adequately describe.

    The latest Gaza conflict began with a horrific Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 that prompted a relentless Israel ground and air offensive in Gaza with full financial, logistical and diplomatic backing from the Biden administration.

    During this period, around 50,000 people – 48,903 Palestinians and 1706 Israelis – have been reported killed in the Gaza conflict, according to the official figures of the Gaza Health Ministry, as well as 166 journalists and media workers, 120 academics,and more than 224 humanitarian aid workers.

    Moreover, a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, signed in mid-January, seems to be hanging by a thread.

    Israel has resumed its blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza and cut off electricity after Hamas rejected an Israeli proposal to extend phase 1 of the ceasefire deal (to release more Israeli hostages) without any commitment to implement phase 2 (that envisaged ending the conflict in Gaza and Israel withdrawing its troops from the territory).

    Hamas insists on negotiating phase 2 as signed by both parties in the January ceasefire agreement

    Over the weekend, Israel reportedly launched air-strikes in Gaza and the Trump administration unleashed a wave of attacks on Houthi rebel positions in Yemen after the Houthis warned Israel not to restart the war in Gaza.

    New Zealand and the Gaza conflict
    Although distant in geographic terms, the Gaza crisis represents a major moral and legal challenge to New Zealand’s self-image and its worldview based on the strengthening of an international rules-based order.

    New Zealand’s founding document, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, emphasised partnership and cooperation between indigenous Māori and European settlers in nation-building.

    While the aspirations of the Treaty have yet to be fully realised, the credibility of its vision of reconciliation at home depends on New Zealand’s willingness to uphold respect for human rights and the rule of law in the international arena, particularly in states like Israel where tensions persist between the settler population and Palestinians in occupied territories like the West Bank.

    New Zealand’s declaratory stance towards Gaza
    In 2023 and 2024, New Zealand consistently backed calls in the UN General Assembly for humanitarian truces or ceasefires in Gaza. It also joined Australia and Canada in February and July last year to demand an end to hostilities.

    The New Zealand Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, told the General Assembly in April 2024 that the Security Council had failed in its responsibility “to maintain international peace and security”.

    He was right. The Biden administration used its UN Security Council veto four times to perpetuate this brutal onslaught in Gaza for nearly 15 months.

    In addition, Peters has repeatedly said there can be no military resolution of a political problem in Gaza that can only be resolved through affirming the Palestinian right to self-determination within the framework of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

    The limitations of New Zealand’s Gaza approach
    Despite considerable disagreement with Netanyahu’s policy of “mighty vengeance” in Gaza, the National-led coalition government had few qualms about sending a small Defence Force deployment to the Red Sea in January 2024 as part of a US-led coalition effort to counter Houthi rebel attacks on commercial shipping there.

    While such attacks are clearly illegal, they are basically part of the fallout from a prolonged international failure to stop the US-enabled carnage in Gaza.

    In particular, the NZDF’s Red Sea deployment did not sit comfortably with New Zealand’s acceptance in September 2024 of the ICJ’s ruling that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory (East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza) was “unlawful”.

    At the same time, the National-led coalition government’s silence on US President Donald Trump’s controversial proposal to “own” Gaza, displace two million Palestinian residents and make the territory the “Riviera” of the Middle East was deafening.

    Furthermore, while Wellington announced travel bans on violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank in February 2024, it has had little to say publicly about the Netanyahu government’s plans to annex the West Bank in 2025. Such a development would gravely undermine the two-state solution, violate international law, and further fuel regional tensions.

    New Zealand’s low-key policy
    On balance, the National-led coalition government’s policy towards Gaza appears to be ambivalent and lacking moral and legal clarity in a context in which war crimes have been regularly committed since October 7.

    Peters was absolutely correct to condemn the UNSC for failing to deliver the ceasefire that New Zealand and the overwhelming majority of states in the UN General Assembly had wanted from the first month of this crisis.

    But the New Zealand government has had no words of criticism for the US, which used its power of veto in the UNSC for more than a year to thwart the prospect of a ceasefire and provided blanket support for an Israeli military campaign that killed huge numbers of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

    By cooperating with the Biden administration against Houthi rebels and adopting a quietly-quietly approach to Trump’s provocative comments on Gaza and his apparent willingness to do whatever it takes to help Israel “to get the job done’, New Zealand has revealed a selective approach to upholding international law and human rights in the desperate conditions facing Gaza

    Professor Robert G. Patman is an Inaugural Sesquicentennial Distinguished Chair and his research interests concern international relations, global security, US foreign policy, great powers, and the Horn of Africa. This article was first published by The Spinoff and is republished here with the author’s permission.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.