In an unprecedented move, a coalition of trade unions, human rights groups, and solidarity movements from over 32 countries has launched the “Global March to Gaza”, aiming to enter the besieged Strip on foot. The initiative responds to the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where a nearly 20-month Israeli siege has left over two million Palestinians on the brink of famine.
Saif Abu Kishk, president of the International Coalition Against Israeli Occupation, stated the march aims to stop the genocide being carried out by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF), deliver immediate humanitarian aid, and pressure for the total lifting of the blockade.
The pro-government alliance achieved a sweeping victory in Venezuela’s May 25 elections, while a fractured opposition suffered losses. Western media distorted the results – spinning low turnout claims, ignoring the role of illegal US sanctions, and offering selective sympathy to elite opposition figures.
Opposition fractures, pro-government consolidates
At stake for the 54 contesting Venezuelan political parties were seats for 285 National Assembly deputies, 24 state governors, and 260 regional legislators.
The pro-government coalition won all but one of the governorships, taking three of the four states previously held by the opposition. The loss of the state of Barinas was particularly symbolic, for this was the birthplace of former President Hugo Chávez, and especially so, because the winner was Adán Chávez, the late president’s older brother.
Likewise, the Chavista alliance swept the National Assembly, securing 253 out of 285 seats. Notable exceptions were the election of opposition leaders Henrique Capriles and Henri Falcón, both of whom are former presidential candidates.
The New York Timesreported the same outcomes but spun it as the “results [rather than the vote]…stripped the opposition of some of the last few positions it held,” inferring fraud.
However, this election outcome was not unexpected, as the opposition was not only divided but also had a significant portion opting to boycott the vote. The pro-government forces enjoyed a unified effort, an efficient electoral machine, and grassroots support, especially from the communal movement.
“After 32 elections, amidst blockades, criminal sanctions, fascism and violence,” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro affirmed, “today we showed that the Bolivarian Revolution is stronger than ever.”
Opposition self-implodes
The headline from Le Mondespun the voting thus: “Venezuela holds divisive new elections.” Contrary to what the headline suggests, the divisiveness was not the government’s doing, but due to the opposition’s perennial internecine warfare.
While the pro-government Great Patriotic Pole alliance around the ruling Socialist Party (PSUV) “works in unison,” according to opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the electoral opposition is divided into three warring camps. They, in turn, were surrounded by a circular firing squad of the far-right abstentionists, calling for a vote boycott.
The abstentionists were assembled around Maria Corina Machado. She had been pardoned for her involvement in the short-lived 2002 US-backed coup but was subsequently disqualified from running for office for constitutional offenses. Following Washington’s lead, which has not recognized a Venezuelan presidential election as legitimate since 2012, the far-right opposition rejected electoral means for achieving regime change and has even pleaded in effect for US military intervention.
Machado’s faction, which claimed that Edmund González Urrutia won the 2024 presidential election, does not recognize their country’s constitutional authority. Consequently, when summoned by the Venezuelan Supreme Court, they refused to present evidence of their victory, thereby removing any legal basis for their claimed victory to be accepted. Machado maintained that voting only “legitimizes” the government, bitterly calling those participating in the democratic process “scorpions.”
Machado spent the election in self-imposed hiding. She further dug herself into a hole, after urging even harsher punishing US sanctions on her own people, by appearing to support Trump’s sending of Venezuelan migrants to the CECOT torture prison in El Salvador.
El Paissympathized with her as “driven by the strength of the pain of being a mother who has been separated from her three children.” The WaPodescribed the middle-aged divorcé from one of the wealthiest families in Venezuela as a “courageous leader” whose “three children are exiled abroad.” In fact, her adult children live comfortably in the US and Colombia.
To this manufactured sympathy for the privileged, Venezuelan-Canadian sociologist Maria Paez Victor asks, “Where are the defenders of the human rights of Venezuelans?” She excoriates the collective West for its selective concern for human rights, emphasizing the neglect of Venezuelans’ rights amid external pressures and US sanctions.
The disputed Essequibo
The headline for The New York Times’sreport spun the elections with: “Venezuela is holding an election for another country’s land.” This refers to the elections for governor and legislators in Essequibo (Guayana Esequiba in Spanish), which is, in fact, a disputed land.
For nearly two centuries, Venezuelans have considered that region part of their country, having wrested it from Spanish colonialists in 1835. In the questionable Paris Arbitral Award, with the US representing Venezuela, the Essequibo was handed over to the UK in 1899 (then colonial British Guiana and now the independent nation of Guyana). Ever since, it has been contested territory.
In 1962, Venezuela formally revived its claim at the UN, asserting that the 1899 award was null and void. Not surprisingly, the Times sides with Guyana, or more precisely with what they report as “Exxon Mobil’s multibillion-dollar investments” plus “military ties with the US.”
This first-time vote for political representation in the Essequibo is seen by Venezuelans across their political spectrum as an important step to assert their claim. It follows a referendum in 2023, which affirmed popular support for the Essequibo as part of their national territory. The actual voting was held in the neighboring Bolivar state.
On cue, the western-aligned press criticized the vote on the Essequibo as a “cynical ploy” by the Maduro administration to divert attention from other pressing problems. Meanwhile, they obscure the increasing US military penetration in neighboring Guyana and in the wider region.
Yet even the NYT had to admit: “Claims to the Essequibo region are deeply ingrained among many Venezuelans… [and even] María Corina Machado, the most prominent opposition leader, visited the area by canoe in 2013 to advance Venezuela’s claim.” Venezuelan journalist Jésus Rodríguez Espinoza (pers. comm.) described the vote as “an exercise in national sovereignty.”
Illegal sanctions – the elephant in the room
A WaPo opinion piece claims, “that the actual root cause of poverty has been a lack of democracy and freedom,” as if the US and its allies have not imposed sanctions deliberately designed to cripple the Venezuelan economy. These “unilateral coercive measures,” condemned by the UN, are illegal under international law because they constitute collective punishment.
But the fact that Venezuelans had to vote while being subjected to illegal coercion is completely ignored by the corporate press. That is, the existence of sanctions is recognized, but instead of exposing their illegal and coercive essence, the press normalizes them. The story untold by the press is the courage of the Venezuelan people who continue to support their government under such adverse conditions.
Disparaging the election
Washington and its aligned press cannot question the popular sweep for the Socialist Party’s alliance in Venezuela, because it is so obvious. Nonetheless, they disparage the mandate. The chorus of criticism alleges the fraudulent nature of previous elections, although it is a geopolitical reality that Washington considers any popular vote against its designated candidates illegitimate.
For this particular election, these State Department stenographers focused on the supposedly low turnout. In fact, the turnout was typical for a non-presidential election contest and fell within the same percentage range as US midterm elections.
Moreover, the pro-government slate actually garnered more votes than it had in the previous regional elections. The Chavista core of older, working class women remains solid.
When Elvis Amoroso, president of Venezuela’s authority (CNE), qualified the turnout percentages to apply to “active voters,” he meant those in-country. Due to the large number of recent out-migrations, a significant number are registered but cannot vote because they are abroad.
What was notably low was the voting for the highly divided opposition, with major factions calling for a boycott. Further, the opposition had been discredited by revelations that some had received and misused hundreds of millions of dollars from USAID. More than ever, the inept opposition has exposed itself in a negative light to the broad electorate.
The overwhelming sentiment on the street in Venezuela is for an end to partisan conflict and for continuing the slow economic recovery. Challenges ahead include inflationary winds, a rising unofficial dollar exchange rate, and, above all, the animus of the Trump administration, which is currently in internal debate over whether to try to deal the Bolivarian Revolution a quick or a slow death. Either way, destabilization efforts continue.
To which Socialist Party leader and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said: “No one can stop our people. Not sanctions, nor blockades, nor persecution – because when a people decide to be free, no one can stop them.”
After walking an average of 9.3 miles to an aid distribution hub set up by the U.S.- and Israel-backed private foundation that Israel has allowed to provide humanitarian relief in Gaza, Palestinians on Tuesday faced gunfire from Israeli troops at the site, with at least one person killed and 48 wounded — and rights groups’ worst fears about the aid scheme confirmed. The first day of…
Before the war, conditions like scabies and lice were manageable. Treatment required basic medication and hygiene. Now, overcrowding, shared living spaces, and limited hygiene supplies have made containment nearly impossible, the doctor says. Secondary infections, fever, and pneumonia are becoming more frequent.
By mid-2024, recorded cases of scabies and lice surpassed 96,000, mostly among displaced children. Chickenpox cases rose to nearly 9,274. “Amidst the massive numbers of affected people, we suffer a serious deficiency in access to medicines,” a pediatrician in Gaza told Mondoweiss. “We’re forced to treat patients with whatever limited quantities we receive from the Ministry of Health.”
Most of Mohammed Mohsen’s neighbors live in a state of deprivation and hunger, reliant on the World Food Programme for daily survival. When he is able to get donations from individuals abroad, Mohsen delivers food baskets to his community in the Al-Jawf governorate in northeastern Yemen. In pictures he sent me from his most recent distribution two months ago, thin children — one wearing a flower print dress, another a yellow beanie — stand next to large white sacks of flour, sugar and rice and yellow jugs of cooking oil.
When he makes these deliveries to families, he says, “they feel happy and joyful, especially the children, and they hope it will continue.”
Seven European nations have called on Israel to “immediately reverse” its military operations against Gaza and lift the food and water blockade on the besieged enclave.
They have also called on all parties to immediately engage with “renewed urgency and good faith” for a ceasefire and release of all hostages.
The seven countries are Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Slovenia, and Spain.
They declared that they would be silent in the face of the man-made humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza that has so far killed more than 50,000 men, women and children.
Israeli forces continue bombarding Gaza yesterday, killing at least 125 Palestinians, including 36 in the so-called “safe zone” of al-Mawasi.
The intensified Israeli attacks have rendered all the public hospitals in northern Gaza out of service, said the Health Ministry.
The joint statement
The joint statement signed by the leaders of all seven countries said:
“We will not be silent in front of the man-made humanitarian catastrophe that is taking place before our eyes in Gaza. More than 50.000 men, women, and children have lost their lives. Many more could starve to death in the coming days and weeks unless immediate action is taken.
“We call upon the government of Israel to immediately reverse its current policy, refrain from further military operations and fully lift the blockade, ensuring safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian aid to be distributed throughout the Gaza strip by international humanitarian actors and according to humanitarian principles. United Nations and humanitarian organisations, including UNRWA, must be supported and granted safe and unimpeded access.
“We call upon all parties to immediately engage with renewed urgency and good faith in negotiations on a ceasefire and the release of all hostages, and acknowledge the important role played by the United States, Egypt and Qatar in this regard.
“This is the basis upon which we can build a sustainable, just and comprehensive peace, based on the implementation of the two-State solution. We will continue to support the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, and work in the framework of the United Nations and with other actors, like the Arab League and Arab and Islamic States, to move forward to achieve a peaceful and sustainable solution. Only peace can bring security for Palestinians, Israelis and the region, and only respect for international law can secure lasting peace.
“We also condemn the further escalation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with increased settler violence, the expansion of illegal settlements and intensified Israel military operations. Forced displacement or the expulsion of the Palestinian people, by any means, is unacceptable and would constitute a breach of international law. We reject any such plans or attempts at demographic change.
“We must assume the responsibility to stop this devastation.”
The letter was signed by Kristrún Frostadóttir, Prime Minister of Iceland; Micheál Martin, Taoiseach of Ireland; Luc Frieden, Prime Minister of Luxembourg; Robert Abela, Prime Minister of Malta; Jonas Gahr Støre, Prime Minister of Norway; Robert Golob, Prime Minister of Slovenia; and Pedro Sánchez, President of Spain.
Gaza proves global system ‘incapable of solving issues’
Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, says the crisis in Gaza has once again demonstrated that “the pillars of the international system are incapable of resolving such issues”, reports Al Jazeera.
It also showed “that the fate of the [Middle East] region cannot and should not remain at the mercy of extra-regional powers”, he said during a speech at the Tehran Dialogue Forum.
“What is currently presented by these powers as the ‘regional reality’ is, in fact, a reflection of deeply constructed narratives and interpretations, shaped solely based on their own interests,” Iran’s top diplomat said.
He said these narratives must be redefined and corrected from within the region itself.
“West Asia is in dire need of a fundamental reassessment of how it views itself,” Araghchi said.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
This is the last chapter of the genocide. It is the final, blood-soaked push to drive the Palestinians from Gaza. No food. No medicine. No shelter. No clean water. No electricity. Israel is swiftly turning Gaza into a Dantesque cauldron of human misery where Palestinians are being killed in their hundreds and soon, again, in their thousands and tens of thousands, or they will be forced out never to return.
The final chapter marks the end of Israeli lies. The lie of the two-state solution. The lie that Israel respects the laws of war that protect civilians. The lie that Israel bombs hospitals and schools only because they are used as staging areas by Hamas.
The Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) targeted Washington’s aircraft carrier the USS Harry Truman twice in 24 hours, in response to the deadly US–British attack against Yemen over the weekend.
“For the second time within 24 hours, the American aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman was targeted in the northern Red Sea with a number of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones in a clash that lasted for several hours,” the YAF said in a statement early on 17 March.
The army said it “succeeded in thwarting a hostile attack that the enemy was preparing to launch against our country,” adding that “its warplanes were forced to return from where they had taken off after a number of missiles and drones were launched at the aircraft carrier and a number of its warships.”
Venezuela has categorically condemned the United States government’s persecution of Venezuelans in the US, calling it an “infamous and unjust criminalization of Venezuelan migrants.” The Venezuelan government’s official statement in this regard, issued on Sunday, March 16, likens Washington’s position to “the darkest episodes in human history, from slavery to the horrors of Nazi concentration camps.”
The statement condemned in strong terms the persecution of Venezuelan citizens in the US, including the expropriation of their personal property, assets, businesses, vehicles, and bank accounts.
After a four-day mission to the West Bank and Gaza, a top official for the United Nations’ children’s welfare agency on Sunday described the effects that Israel’s blockade on all humanitarian aid into the latter territory has had on roughly 1 million children in recent weeks, and demanded that lifesaving essentials — currently “stalled just a few dozen kilometers outside the Gaza Strip” — be…
Junta restrictions on the transport of medicine in Myanmar’s war-torn regions of Rakhine, Chin and Sagaing in the north and west have led to shortages for displaced civilians dealing with outbreaks of disease, sources told RFA Burmese.
The restrictions are the latest attempt by the junta to keep medical supplies from reaching rebel groups it has been fighting since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat.
But rights organizations said the transport ban largely hurts civilians who have fled conflict and likened it to a “war crime.”
More than 10,000 internally displaced persons, or IDPs, are suffering from diarrhea and skin diseases in the southern part of Sagaing region’s Kalay township alone, a person who fled fighting in the area told RFA Burmese on Monday.
The person said that the conditions are largely due to contaminated water and people “urgently need medicine.”
“Due to their poor and unhygienic living conditions, IDPs are highly vulnerable to seasonal diseases,” said the source who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “The junta is the root cause of these health crises, as they have blocked and seized essential medical supplies to the conflict torn areas.”
More than 200 displaced people were suffering from diarrhea in early February, resulting in three deaths, residents of Kalay told RFA. Travel to three affected villages has been restricted, they said.
No capacity to treat serious diseases
Displaced people from Chin state’s Paletwa township, who are taking shelter in refugee camps across the border in India’s Mizoram state are also facing hardships due to a lack of medicine, a refugee told RFA.
“Most IDP camps along the border lack access to healthcare and urgently need medicine,” said the refugee, who also declined to be named. “As the number of displaced people continues to rise daily, the demand for medical supplies has also increased. Paletwa township is facing a severe shortage of essential medicines.”
Although medical teams and residents are providing public health care services in some areas of Chin state, they “lack the capacity to treat chronic and infectious diseases effectively,” he said.
The shortages have forced many residents of Chin to cross the border in search of hospitals in Mizoram, Salai Van Sui San, the deputy director of the Institute of Chin Affairs, told RFA.
“If a diarrhea outbreak occurs, it will quickly spread throughout an IDP camp,” he said. “With no access to medical treatment in these areas, residents rely on NGOs for healthcare services.”
Chronically ill ‘are dying’
The junta has also completely blocked the transportation of medicine in Rakhine state, residents said Monday, noting that patients returning to the state capital Sittwe after receiving treatment in Myanmar’s largest city Yangon are “only allowed to bring medicine prescribed by their doctor.”
“Due to restrictions on medical transportation, people with chronic illnesses are dying,” said Win Naing, a resident of Rakhine’s Maungdaw township. “Some medicines are imported into Rakhine state via routes from India and Bangladesh, but those in urgent need still face severe difficulties.”
A patient suffering from diarrhea in Banhtwei village, Mindat township, in Chin state, Myanmar, June 28, 2024.(Citizen Photo)
A 10-tablet pack of paracetamol, used to treat fever and mild to moderate pain, now costs up to 5,000 kyats (US$2.40) in Rakhine state, he said — a 10-fold increase from before the coup.
Restricting medicine ‘is a war crime’
Salai Mang Hre Lian, the managing officer of the Chin Human Rights Organization, told RFA that the junta’s blocking of medical treatment amounts to a war crime.
“We’ve witnessed so many cases of denied medical treatment [since the coup], and we can say that the junta is bluntly violating our people’s right to life and committing war crimes,” he said.
Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokespersons Nyunt Win Aung for Sagaing region, Hla Thein for Rakhine state, and Aung Cho for Chin state for comment on the restrictions went unanswered Monday.
According to a Feb. 14 report by ReliefWeb, a group funded by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that regularly publishes updates on humanitarian situations worldwide, nearly 140 health workers have been killed and approximately 840 arrested in Myanmar since the coup.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
On January 14, the Biden administration decided to remove Cuba from the U.S. State Department’s list of alleged “state sponsors of terrorism,” to suspend Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, and to ease a few other financial sanctions on Cuba. These reversed measures were imposed by Donald Trump during his first presidential term as layers added on to the existing blockade, and the Biden government…
Hundreds of climate activists gathered at the global headquarters of Citigroup in New York on Wednesday to demand the banking giant stop financing fossil fuel companies. The protests come on the heels of a first-of-its-kind Earth Day hearing where environmental activists from around the world gathered in New York this week to condemn what they call Citigroup’s environmental racism. Citibank is the world’s second-largest funder of coal, oil and gas. “They always say, 'We care about the planet.' … But actions speak louder than words,” says Alice Hu, climate campaigner for New York Communities for Change. “Citibank has poured over $332 billion into fossil fuels since the Paris Agreements were signed in 2015.” We also speak with Roishetta Ozane, a Black environmental leader from Sulphur, Louisiana, who has been leading the fight against the expansion of Citigroup-funded liquified natural gas projects in her community. She says she has seen the health impacts of such projects on her own family. “I’m fighting not only for myself and my community, but for my children. And by fighting for my children, I’m fighting for everyone’s children,” says Ozane.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
The Biden administration has officially re-designated Ansarallah – the dominant force in Yemen also known as the Houthis – as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity.
The White House claims the designation is an appropriate response to the group’s attacks on US military vessels and commercial ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, saying those attacks “fit the textbook definition of terrorism”.
Ansarallah claims its actions “adhere to the provisions of Article 1 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” since it is only enforcing a blockade geared toward ceasing the ongoing Israeli destruction of Gaza.
One of the most heinous acts committed by the Trump administration was its designation of Ansarallah as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) and as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT), both of which imposed sanctions that critics warned would plunge Yemen’s aid-dependent population into even greater levels of starvation than they were already experiencing by restricting the aid that would be allowed in.
One of the Biden administration’s only decent foreign policy decisions has been the reversal of that sadistic move, and now that reversal is being partially rolled back, though thankfully only with the SDGT listing and not the more deadly and consequential FTO designation.
In a new article for Antiwar about this latest development, Dave Decamp explains that as much as the Biden White House goes to great lengths insisting that it’s going to issue exemptions to ensure that its sanctions don’t harm the already struggling Yemeni people,
“history has shown that sanctions scare away international companies and banks from doing business with the targeted nations or entities and cause shortages of medicine, food, and other basic goods.”
DeCamp also notes that US and British airstrikes on Yemen have already forced some aid groups to suspend services to the country.
Still trying to recover
So the US empire is going to be imposing sanctions on a nation that is still trying to recover from the devastation caused by the US-backed Saudi blockade that contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths between 2015 and 2022. All in response to the de facto government of that very same country imposing its own blockade with the goal of preventing a genocide.
That’s right: when Yemen sets up a blockade to try and stop an active genocide, that’s terrorism, but when the US empire imposes a blockade to secure its geostrategic interests in the Middle East, why that’s just the rules-based international order in action.
Today, in response to these continuing threats and attacks, the United States announced the designation of Ansarallah, also known as the Houthis, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist – Jake Sullivan, U.S. National Security Advisorhttps://t.co/D5d8MylujKpic.twitter.com/pSFUzCR7qk
It just says so much about how the US empire sees itself that it can impose blockades and starvation sanctions at will upon nations like Yemen, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria and North Korea for refusing to bow to its dictates, but when Yemen imposes a blockade for infinitely more worthy and noble reasons it gets branded an act of terrorism.
The managers of the globe-spanning empire loosely centralised around Washington literally believe the world is theirs to rule as they will, and that anyone who opposes its rulings is an outlaw.
Based on power
“What this shows us is that the “rules-based international order” the US and its allies claim to uphold is not based on rules at all; it’s based on power, which is the ability to control and impose your will on other people.
The “rules” apply only to the enemies of the empire because they are not rules at all: they are narratives used to justify efforts to bend the global population to its will.
We are ruled by murderous tyrants. By nuclear-armed thugs who would rather starve civilians to protect the continuation of an active genocide than allow peace to get a word in edgewise.
Our world can never know health as long as these monsters remain in charge.
International law clearly shows that the Palestinian people have a legal right to armed struggle against Israeli colonialism, just as South Africans did against apartheid. Gaza suffers under an illegal Israeli blockade that even a former British prime minister recognized to be a “prison camp.” Journalist Ben Norton looks over the evidence.
Nothing on the horizon now threatens the end of the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba. Critical voices inside the United States and beyond fall flat; nothing is in the works, it seems. Recently, however, the United Nations put forth a denunciation that carries unusual force, mainly because of the UN’s legal authority and its practical More
Jamea Shalout’s home in Rafah, Gaza, consists of two rooms built of cinder blocks and cement. In the room where I met her in late 2019, the only personal belongings visible were the sleeping mats that the family lays out at night and a pile of blankets. Across a dirt courtyard, there is a small kitchen and bathroom — with cinderblock walls, dirt floors and a partial roof made from corrugated tin. Water for the family is delivered into the holding tanks on the family’s property. One room in the house receives electricity from a small solar panel, but the rest of the house does not have power. At night, Jamea shares her room with six family members.
Everyone deserves to live in safety and peace and have their rights respected; this includes both Palestinians and Israelis. Unfortunately, Palestinians in Gaza have lived for 15 years under an Israeli imposed blockade that has stripped them of their rights and dignity. The blockade was first imposed on Gaza in 2006 and further tightened since 2007. It effectively limits most exports and imports to and from Gaza, restricts the movement of Palestinians from Gaza, and bans access to Gaza by nearly all nonresidents.
Congress could take action to bring change by demanding that Israel end the blockade, and while 31 House members signed on to a February 2020 letter authored by Representatives Mark Pocan and Debbie Dingell calling to restore all U.S. funding for humanitarian aid in Gaza and urging an end to the blockade, most members of Congress instead support the continuation of the blockade regardless of its human costs. They remain willfully oblivious to those costs borne by people like Jamea.
Jamea is one of many paying the cost of both the economic and employment crisis in Gaza. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2021, the unemployment rate in Gaza was over 26 percent. Among women, the unemployment level increases to over 43 percent. But unemployment is only one part of the humanitarian catastrophe created by the blockade. In the private sector, 29 percent of workers earned less than the minimum wage (about $420 per month) in 2021, with monthly earnings for those employed in the Gaza Strip averaging approximately $190 per month. This is not enough to provide for basic needs and helps explain why over 80 percent of the population rely on outside assistance to survive.
Nobody in Jamea’s family has a steady job, though some family members find seasonal employment picking dates. They also have a horse and cart that they use to gather plastic for recycling, but this brings in no more than one or two dollars per day as income — not enough to meet the needs of all family members.
The crises in Gaza link directly to the blockade, which, among other things, limits imports and exports and restricts Palestinian movement. Repeated Israeli attacks on Gaza — which have destroyed electrical, water and sanitation, and other basic infrastructure — have furthered economic decline, while the blockade also stops rebuilding and recovery. This reality is neither ethical nor sustainable.
While members of Congress may turn their gaze away from Jamea and others, many of their constituents want the blockade to end. A recent survey initiated by my organization, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and conducted by YouGov demonstrates that when presented with basic information about the blockade, a plurality of respondents supported ending the blockade. The poll — conducted with 1,000 people in November 2021 — indicated that, after receiving this basic information, over 48 percent of respondents thought that the blockade should end while only 31 percent of respondents supported its continuation. When these same respondents were provided with additional information about the blockade and its impacts, opposition increased to 52 percent.
The poll found majority opposition among women, people ages 18-45, and people over 65 and indicated that a plurality of voters across demographics and age groups opposed the continuation of the blockade. Respondents were a representative sample of U.S. adults across the political spectrum.
These numbers are important because they demonstrate the disconnect that exists between political positions and public opinion. The public cares about what happens to Jamea and thousands of others in her position. Those of us calling for change in U.S. policy related to Gaza often hear from members of Congress and the Biden administration that our positions are marginal and not supported by the broader public. These results contradict conventional wisdom and instead show that, if provided basic information, most people support ending the Gaza blockade.
The results of the AFSC survey point to a broader change in narrative that is occurring as criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians gains mainstream acceptance. But this is not yet reflected at a political level. This shift is reflected in the recently issued Amnesty International report which details how Israel’s treatment of Palestinians constitutes apartheid. The report notes that “…Israel has imposed a system of oppression and domination over Palestinians wherever it exercises control over the enjoyment of their rights — across Israel and the [Occupied Palestinian Territories] and with regard to Palestinian refugees.”
The blockade of Gaza and resulting violations of Palestinians rights is not separate from that apartheid reality. The blockade is a key system of control that facilitates apartheid’s continuation, and it is time for the blockade to end. Public opinion supports a change in policy. Politicians need to catch up. We cannot continue to deny the rights of Jamea, her family, and others living under blockade in Gaza.
Grant Town, WV, Monday April 11– Sixteen activists who were arrested on Saturday for blockading the coal-fired Grant Town Power Plant that burns coal waste to profit US Senator Joe Manchin were released from jail overnight. On Sunday, activists returned to the plant for a Palm Sunday service to continue their call for Manchin to stop blocking passage of the federal Build Back Better bill.
On Saturday, hundreds of West Virginia residents and climate change activists protested outside of the plant for several hours on Saturday to bring light to the fact that not only has Manchin been stalling efforts to address climate change, but he is also personally benefiting from the continuation of fossil fuels that are creating climate chaos in US communities– including the ones he represents.
The United Nations’ goal was to raise more than $4.2 billion for the people of war-torn Yemen by March 15. But when that deadline rolled around, just $1.3 billion had come in.
“I am deeply disappointed,” said Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. “The people of Yemen need the same level of support and solidarity that we’ve seen for the people of Ukraine. The crisis in Europe will dramatically impact Yemenis’ access to food and fuel, making an already dire situation even worse.”
With Yemen importing more than 35% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, disruption to wheat supplies will cause soaring increases in the price of food.
On January 28, Atlanta resident and activist April* joined about 60 racial and environmental justice protesters at Intrenchment Creek Park in the South River Forest — a vital green space that plays a crucial role in the region’s ecology, serving as Atlanta and south DeKalb County’s largest watershed and floodplain.
She was there to protest preparatory work on what Atlanta-area activists have dubbed “Cop City,” an 85-acre, $90 million police militarization and training complex spearheaded by the Atlanta Police Foundation that, if built, would be one of the largest police training facilities in the country. The site would contain several shooting ranges, a helicopter landing base, an area for explosives training, police-horse stables and an entire mock city for officers to engage in role-playing activities.
The protesters marched through the South River Forest to a boring machine being used to collect soil samples in advance of the compound’s construction, where a brief standoff with several workers and DeKalb County sheriff’s deputies ensued. After police reinforcements arrived, protesters say the sheriff’s deputies attacked the crowd, tackling April and other protesters to the ground. She and two others were arrested and jailed on misdemeanor trespassing charges. Another protester faces a felony-level charge of obstructing a police officer.
“It’s the site of basically an environmentally racist attack on the people and forest that exist here,” April tells Truthout about why she took action against the compound. “I see Cop City as giving up this beautiful ecological zone and sacrificing South Atlanta to development … and more police.”
Her January arrest is among the first to take place at the forested site in unincorporated DeKalb County, where organizers have erected at least two tree-mounted structures in an effort to physically delay the clearing work necessary to build the facility. Activists are digging in for the long haul, building barricades and communal living spaces throughout the forest to monitor construction activity and assist tree-sitters. Some are sabotaging construction equipment, while others have begun visiting the site daily as preparations move ahead. They hope to attract more Forest Defenders to the newly established autonomous zone.
Organizers argue that if their presence on the Atlanta Police Foundation’s easement violates the law, so do certain construction activities by the Foundation and its contractors: Workers with the Reeves Young construction company first entered the site on January 24, organizers say, to conduct soil boring and geotechnical engineering to prepare for construction, despite not having a proper permit from the Dekalb County Planning and Sustainability Department for tree removal or land disturbance, as required under Georgia Code § 12-7-7. The Sustainability Department’s permitting division, however, did not respond to Truthout’s request for clarification as to whether the Foundation obtained the required permit.
Defend the Atlanta Forest organizer Elias* tells Truthout that since workers recently finished collecting the soil samples, activists have used a lull in preparatory construction activities to continue building up the outdoor living spaces and coordinating logistical supplies as more people begin to reinforce the scattered encampments. “It’s been pretty chill compared to the few weeks before, when there were construction workers in there every day,” he said.
The movement is also fighting other development projects threatening the South River Forest, including a planned expansion of Hollywood’s Blackhall Studio, which they say would further intensify gentrification in an area that has one of the widest income inequality gaps in the country. Organizers argue both projects would further displace working-class Black people rather than prioritize the kinds of solutions the city and county desperately needs, such as affordable housing.
Rather than investing in supportive social infrastructure, Atlanta has largely responded to the citywide uprisings against the police-perpetrated killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Atlanta’s own Rayshard Brooks by back-tracking on police reform measures and increasing both the Atlanta Police Department’s budget and surveillance capabilities — all while limiting opportunities for public comment.
The Atlanta Police Foundation even paid bonuses to city cops after some staged a sick-out over former Officer Garrett Rolfe’s felony murder charge in Brooks’s killing. Later, City Council Member Howard Shook pushed for additional bonuses paid with taxpayer dollars. Now, the city — and by extension the county — are doubling down on this approach by moving Cop City toward completion, organizers say.
“Rather than addressing the problems with policing that the protests have brought to light, [officials] are more focused on repressing protesters. And [Cop City’s] mock city blocks are sort of exemplary of that,” Elias tells Truthout. “This is where [police] would train to do things like kettling crowds and tear-gassing people and rubber bullets, and just all the different crowd-control methods that we saw in the summer 2020.”
The blockade is the culmination of more than a year of resistance to the planned compound. In September, the Atlanta City Council approved the project despite nearly 17 hours of comments from more than 1,100 constituents across the city, 70 percent of whom expressed firm opposition. Black working-class communities who actually live in the proposed area of unincorporated DeKalb County, and therefore aren’t represented in Atlanta’s City Council, have also opposed the project. The night of the Council vote, at least 12 protesters were arrested after gathering outside then-City Council member Natalyn Archibong’s house.
The Council’s plan sticks Atlanta taxpayers with at least a third of Cop City’s bill, an estimated $30 million, through a public-private partnership in which the city has agreed to lease 381 acres of the South River Forest site to the Atlanta Police Foundation for $10 a year for up to 50 years. The remaining two-thirds of the funding comes from the Foundation’s corporate and other donors, including Coca-Cola; Delta; Home Depot; UPS; and Cox Enterprises, which owns the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a vocal supporter of Cop City. The Council’s proposal, however, also gives the city the power to terminate the agreement and cancel the project.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens’s office, DeKalb County Commissioner Larry Johnson and the Atlanta Police Foundation did not respond to Truthout’s requests for comment.
Kamau Franklin, an organizer with the Black-led collective Community Movement Builders, tells Truthout that the group, which organizes against gentrification and played a leading role in the fight against the Council’s approval of Cop City, is fully supportive of the nascent blockade in the South River Forest. Franklin says the collective, in addition to campaigning against the Atlanta Police Foundation’s corporate donors and board members, is already working to provide Forest Defenders with resources. He expects some Movement Builders organizers will soon take on more direct roles and responsibilities.
“We think drawing the line at the City Council vote and suggesting that that’s the end of the ball game is sort of ridiculous,” Franklin says. “The fact that the City Council went against the everyday people of Atlanta and decided to pass this, that both the old mayor [Keisha Lance Bottoms] and the new mayor [Dickens] still support this, means that this has now turned into a people’s struggle.”
Franklin says that despite the Council and mayors’ support of the project, community organizers have had some success in ousting council members who backed Cop City in the last election cycle — including, most notably, former Councilor Joyce Sheperd, who introduced the ordinance authorizing the ground lease to the Atlanta Police Foundation.
The struggle has brought activists against police violence together with environmental activists as well as Muscogee (Creek) tribal members, whose ancestors originally inhabited the land before their forced removal in the early 19th century. Highlighting the intersection of Cop City’s social and environmental injustices, they point out that not only is the South River Forest and watershed one of the city’s most important defenses in the face of the worsening climate crisis, it’s also long been the site of racist displacement, enslavement and carceral subjugation.
The land is associated with the Old Atlanta Prison Farm, a complex of farms sold in a land lottery to a chattel slave plantation. After that, it became a city-run prison where incarcerated people were forced to grow crops and raise livestock to feed the populations of other city prisons from about 1920 to nearly 1990, according to the Atlanta Community Press Collective. Today, the area continues to host a shooting range, juvenile detention facility and the Helms state prison.
“This land was Native people’s land which was taken from them, and the fact that the city can find no other better purpose than to build a training center for militarized actions against its citizens shows that there’s a certain continuity of the ideological viewpoint of the city, even with Black officials, around supporting capital, supporting white supremacy, supporting oppressing people who can be used as free labor and/or cheap labor for others, and this is a continuation of that history,” Franklin says.
Former Atlanta resident Rev. Chebon Kernell, a member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and a descendant of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, could not agree more. “There are several layers of violence that are taking place with the development of this Cop City in that location,” he tells Truthout. “My hope is that we don’t put something else in its exact same place that will continue the oppression of [Black and Indigenous] communities and peoples.”
In November, Reverend Kernell and other tribal members visited the South River Forest to educate local activists about the history of his tribe and the land, engaging in spiritual practices including stomp dance ceremonies and other rituals at the site. The visit represented the first migration of Muscogee tribal descendants since their forced removal beginning in 1821, with many tribal members connecting with their ancestral homelands for the first time.
Those homelands, the fruits of which have long been cultivated to support the region’s population, continue to provide the “City in the Forest,” as Atlanta is widely known, with important protections against accelerating climate disruption. Conservationists warn that the land not only serves as a crucial filter and buffer for runoff and flooding; it also acts as “the lungs of Atlanta,” in sequestering carbon emissions and providing the greatest amount of tree canopy shade of any urban area in the country.
“By tearing down 85 acres of this forest and turning it into a semi-impervious, built-up area, they are going to have a direct impact, … with [surrounding] neighborhoods experiencing higher urban heat island effects and then having to pay more for their cooling bills in the summertime,” says environmental engineer Lily Ponitz.
Ponitz, a graduate student studying urban planning at Georgia State University, was put on the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee by DeKalb County Commissioner Ted Terry in September. The advisory committee was created through an administrative order by former Atlanta Mayor Bottoms on January 4, 2021, in response to criticisms about lack of transparency in Cop City’s public process, which at that point had consisted of just three virtual meetings — two of which did not allow public questions or comments.
The board was initially comprised solely of police and fire department chiefs, Atlanta Police Foundation heads and city employees, but has since opened up to include a broader range of community members. Despite this, Ponitz tells Truthout, the public meetings are still largely dominated by Foundation officials and their development team, with little opportunity for open discussion. “It’s very much like a captive audience of us listening to boosters of the project,” she says.
Ponitz argues that the Foundation is actively mischaracterizing the results of a preliminary environmental assessment and limited secondary investigation of the Cop City site conducted last year by Terracon Consultants, as required under the Foundation’s lease agreement with the city of Atlanta. Terracon’s Phase 1 assessment recommended additional investigation after finding potential for soil and groundwater contamination beneath the site due to several factors including burnt tire activities, old fuel dispensers and containers, an unspecified 20,000-gallon above-ground storage tank, and issues related to a local municipal waste landfill.
The Foundation, Ponitz says, has represented Terracon’s limited secondary investigation as a more comprehensive Phase II environmental assessment in order to argue that it has met its lease requirement. Yet more analysis is needed, she says, as the secondary investigation failed to sample around the 20,000-gallon storage tank, which she argues likely functioned as a “day-tank for mixing concentrated pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers with water to dilute them so they could be sprayed on fields or animals” at the Old Atlanta Prison Farm. In fact, Terracon failed to analyze soil or groundwater samples for presence of any pesticides whatsoever, nor did they analyze for the presence of petroleum hydrocarbons.
“It’s just sketchy,” Ponitz says, referring to the secondary investigation. “I think that [the Atlanta Police Foundation is] using the language of ‘Phase II’ to make us believe that the report is something that it’s not.”
She also worries that historic and ongoing munitions testing pose a risk to South River Forest’s soils and waters — an issue that would only be made worse with the addition of Cop City’s explosives training area and new firing ranges. TheMainline reports that residents have found police grenades containing lead and other toxic chemicals in the area’s already-existing firing range.
Neither the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GEPD) nor the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Region 4, which oversees the Southeast region, have conducted an environmental assessment, spokespersons for the agencies confirmed to Truthout.
To make matters worse, Atlanta’s South River is already one of the most endangered rivers in the country, having long been plagued by sewage pollution. In fact, a consent decree with the EPA and GEPD gave DeKalb County more than eight years to implement procedures to rein in water pollution, but mass sewage spills have only continued in that time. The county’s deadline has since been postponed to 2027, a move critics argue allows the county to continue active practices of systemic environmental racism against surrounding communities of color.
In fact, the South River Forest area’s ecological benefits and clear need for protection had become so evident over the years that, prior to plans for Cop City, the Atlanta City Council had planned to turn the corridor into a protected park. That’s still what Forest Defenders say they want, arguing Cop City destroys opportunities for green jobs that would have been created under the original plan.
In the face of rising calls for racial justice and the worsening climate crisis, the choice, organizers say, is clear: The city and county must pursue environmental justice by remediating the South River Forest, a life-affirming green space that provides critical protections for all — not build a toxic, militarized police playground that will only further destroy lives and land.
“We see this climate change taking place right before our eyes, yet we do not do anything but more destruction in reaction to it,” Muscogee (Creek) tribal member Reverend Kernell tells Truthout. “My hope is that this ecosystem, this biodiversity that is protected by a forest like the South River Forest will always be there for our well-being, whether it’s producing oxygen, whether it’s producing water, whether it’s producing a place of spiritual retreat, whatever it may be.”
* Names have been changed to protect the identities of activists organizing and engaging in nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience under heavy police surveillance and presence.
*Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that the Old Atlanta Prison Farm was never federally run. Thanks to the Atlanta Community Press Collective for the observation. Truthout regrets the error.
New Zealand police have moved to start clearing up the roads near Parliament in the capital Wellington, where protesters have clogged the roads with vehicles for more than a week.
But there has also been a significant increase in illegally parked vehicles in the area.
Some streets around Parliament could not be used since people protesting against covid-19 vaccine mandates clogged the roads with their vehicles, with public transport in the capital also having to be re-routed.
On Thursday, police estimated more than 400 cars, vans and campervans were ensconced in several streets alongside Parliament and today that estimate grew to 800.
The protest, which began on February 8, drew a crowd of more than 1000 people today.
Yesterday, Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said they were expecting more people to turn up to the protest over the weekend, and that they would implement a traffic management plan.
Despite police previously warning protesters to move their vehicles or face towing, they did not end up acting on the ultimatum, fearing an escalation.
Tow trucks relocating vehicles
But on Saturday afternoon, tow trucks were seen relocating illegally parked cars near Wellington railway station.
In a statement, police said there was an increase of people attending the protest today, as was anticipated.
“Police cleared illegally parked vehicles on Thorndon Quay today — 15 were moved by protesters after police spoke with them and two were towed.
“Police are also noting the registration of vehicles currently impeding traffic for follow up enforcement action, and structures such as tents and marquees are being removed from any site that does not form part of the main protest area.”
The cars were parked in the median strip in the middle of the road, and appear to be relocated to the side of the road.
Over a dozen police cleared traffic in the area and directed pedestrians to move away, when a small crowd began to gather.
Further up the road, traffic cones with “no parking” signs have been laid down on the curb of Bowen Street, where many cars remain illegally parked.
Sky Stadium at capacity
Police said the parking facility at Sky Stadium was at capacity, after they had previously encouraged protesters to move their vehicles there.
But they said they had “serious concerns” about health and safety as a concert at the protest site has been planned.
“We continue to maintain a highly visible, reassurance presence on site, and staff are engaging with the public and protesters to provide advice and, where necessary, take enforcement action.”
Police said they have attended at least six medical events within the protest and continued to urge anyone parked unlawfully to remove their vehicle to allow emergency services access.
Meanwhile, Marlborough Mayor John Leggett said protesters in Picton had made it clear they would not be moving until their counterparts in Wellington do.
Leggett said the council had been in contact with leaders of the action in Nelson Square, who had made their position clear.
He said the Picton occupiers were linked to the Wellington anti-mandate protest.
“To put it the other way, if Wellington [protest] is resolved, we will get a resolution here, a peaceful resolution, and they’ve made it very clear that their occupation is linked entirely to what’s happening in Wellington so there needs to be some way of resolving the Wellington situation.”
Police today said they were also maintaining a presence at that protest, as well as another one in Christchurch.
The ministry said 1240 of the new cases were in Auckland, with the rest in the Northland (33), Waikato (249), Bay of Plenty (66), Lakes (11), Hawke’s Bay (22), MidCentral (12), Whanganui (10), Taranaki (10), Tairāwhiti (12), Wairarapa (17), Capital and Coast (38), Hutt Valley (31), Nelson Marlborough (40), Canterbury (40), South Canterbury (2), West Coast (1) and Southern (65) DHBs.
There were also 14 cases identified at the border, including five historical cases.
