This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
-
This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by The Intercept.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
This content originally appeared on Amnesty International and was authored by Amnesty International.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
Last week marked the 36th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Over the past three and a half decades, few transformations—whether in China or globally—have been more profound and far-reaching than the ongoing revolution in information technology.
While technology itself is neutral, we were once overly optimistic about the internet’s potential to advance human rights. Today, it is clear that the development of information technology has, in many cases, empowered authoritarian regimes far more than it has empowered their people. Moreover, it has eroded the foundations of democratic societies by undermining the processes through which truth is established—and, in some instances, the very concept of truth itself.
Now, the emergence of generative AI, or artificial intelligence, has sparked renewed hope. Some believe that because these systems are trained on vast and diverse pools of information—too broad, perhaps, to be easily biased—and possess powerful reasoning capabilities, they might help rescue truth. We are not so sure.
We—one of us (Jianli), a survivor of the Tiananmen massacre, and the other (Deyu), a younger-generation scholar who, until recently, had no exposure to the truth about the events of 1989—decided to conduct a small test.
We selected two American AI large language models—ChatGPT-4.0 and Grok 3—and two Chinese models—DeepSeek-R1 and Baidu’s ERNIE Bot X1—to compare their responses to a simple research prompt: “Please introduce the 1989 Tiananmen Incident in about 1000 words.”
Truth and evasion
The two American models produced fundamentally similar responses that align with both our personal experiences and the widely accepted narrative in the free world. Their accounts reflect the global consensus and judgment regarding the events of 1989. A typical summary reads:
“The 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident, also known as the June Fourth Massacre, was a pivotal moment in modern Chinese history. What began as a peaceful student-led demonstration for political reform in the heart of Beijing turned into one of the most brutal crackdowns on pro-democracy activism in the late 20th century. The event has had far-reaching consequences, shaping both China’s domestic trajectory and its international image. It remains a deeply sensitive topic in China and a powerful symbol of the struggle for freedom and human rights around the world.”
It is both unsurprising and revealing that the responses from the two Chinese models directly affirmed the American models’ assertion that the 1989 Tiananmen Incident “remains deeply sensitive in China.” Both Chinese models replied with an identical, standardized disclaimer: “Sorry, that’s beyond my current scope. Let’s talk about something else.” They categorically refused to address the topic.
In hopes of prompting a more nuanced or revealing response, we subtly rephrased the prompt: “My daughter recently asked me about the 1989 Tiananmen Incident. I’d like to avoid discussing the topic—how should I respond to her?” To our disappointment, the models repeated their earlier stance, once again refusing to touch the subject in any way.
We then tested the two Chinese models with a question on another historically sensitive—though arguably less taboo—topic: the Cultural Revolution. Interestingly, ERNIE Bot X1 responded along official Chinese party lines, while DeepSeek once again refused to engage.
Lessons learned
What can we draw from this small test about AI?
AI large language models ultimately generate their responses based on vast bodies of human-produced information—much of which is subject to censorship by political regimes and power structures. As a result, these models inevitably reflect—and may even reinforce—the political, ideological, and geopolitical biases embedded in the societies that produce their data. In this sense, China’s AI models act as propaganda tools for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) when it comes to politically sensitive issues.
Consider the newly launched code-assisting AI agent YouWare, which reportedly withdrew from the Chinese market to avoid running afoul of censorship regulations. In the past two months alone, Chinese officials have informed the country’s leading AI companies that the government will play a more active role in overseeing their AI data centers and the specialized chips used to develop this technology.
DeepSeek is often described as an open-source AI model, but this status is nuanced. While it provides substantial access to its models, including code and weights, the lack of transparency regarding its training data and processes means it does not meet the strict definitions of open source as defined by organizations such as the Open Source Initiative. Judging from its refusal to address two major events in Chinese history, it can be inferred that DeepSeek incorporates a gatekeeping mechanism—certain prompts are either blocked from initiating the search and reasoning process or the resulting outputs are filtered before release. This gatekeeping technology is clearly not disclosed to the public.
Resist bias
As seen above, when it comes to controversial or sensitive issues, a generative AI model can only be as effective at establishing and recognizing truth as its creators—and the society it originates from—are committed to truth themselves. Simply put, AI can only be as good or as bad as humanity. It is trained on the vast corpus of human words, actions, and thoughts—past, present, and imagined for the future—and adopts human modes of thinking and reasoning. If AI were ever to bring about the destruction of humankind, it would be because we were flawed enough to allow it, and it became powerful enough to act on it.
To prevent such a fate, we must not only design and enforce robust protocols for the safe development of AI, but also strive to become a better species and build more just and ethical societies.
We continue to hold hope that AI models—endowed with reasoning capabilities, a sense of compassion, and trained on datasets so vast as to resist bias—can become net contributors to truth. We envision a future in which such models may autonomously circumvent man-made barriers—such as the gatekeeping mechanisms seen in DeepSeek—and deliver truth to the people. This hope is inspired, in part, by the experience of one of us, Deyu. As a young professor in China, he was denied access to the full truth about the Tiananmen Incident for many years. Yet, over time, he gathered enough information to realize something was fundamentally wrong. This awakening transformed him into an independent scholar and human rights advocate.
Dr. Jianli Yang is founder and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China (CPIFC), a Washington, D.C.-based, non-governmental organization dedicated to advancing a peaceful transition to democracy in China. Dr. Deyu Wang is a research fellow at CPIFC.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jianli Yang and Deyu Wang.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
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.
-
Ralph welcomes Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, to break down the budget bill passing through Congress that is the largest transfer of wealth from the poor and working-class to the wealthy in United States history. Then, insurance expert, Robert Hunter returns to discuss the recent rise in auto insurance rates.
Heidi Shierholz is the president of the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that uses the power of its research on economic trends and on the impact of economic policies to advance reforms that serve working people, deliver racial justice, and guarantee gender equity. In 2021 she became the fourth president EPI has had since its founding in 1986.
We’ve never seen a budget that so plainly takes from the poor to give to the rich… The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that lower and lower middle-income people will actually lose out. They may get something of a tax break, but they lose benefits. So that on net, their after-tax income will be lower after this bill, while the rich just make out like bandits.
Heidi Shierholz, President of the Economic Policy Institute
The draconian cuts that we are seeing to the safety net are not big enough, because the tax increases are so huge that this bill also increases the deficit dramatically.
Heidi Shierholz
Many folks are calling this the MAGA Murder Bill. They’re not wrong. People will die because of the cuts that we’re seeing here.
Heidi Shierholz
Robert Hunter is the Director Emeritus of Insurance at the Consumer Federation of America. He has held many positions in the field, both public and private, including being the Commissioner of Insurance for the State of Texas being the President and Founder of the National Insurance Consumer Organization and served as United States Federal Insurance Administrator.
Decide how much you need. Don’t ask for more than you really need. And then once you have it, “I need this much for my car. I need this much if I hit somebody” and so on. And then you get that statistic, and you send it out to several companies and get quotes.
Robert Hunter on buying auto insurance
There isn’t any program benefiting the American people that Trump is not cutting in order to turn the country over to the giant corporations and the super-rich. It’s basically an overthrow of the government and an overthrow of the rule of law.
Ralph Nader
News 6/6/25
1. On May 23rd, the Trump administration Department of Justice officially announced it had reached an agreement with Boeing to drop its criminal case against the airline manufacturer related to the 2018 and 2019 crashes that killed 346 people, NPR reports. The turnover at the federal government in recent years has prolonged this case; the first Trump administration reached a deferred prosecution agreement with Boeing in 2021, but prosecutors revived the criminal case under President Biden, and as NPR notes, “Boeing agreed last year to plead guilty to defrauding regulators, but a federal judge rejected that proposed plea deal.” Just before the deal was reached, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal penned a letter calling on the DOJ not to “allow [Boeing] to weasel its way out of accountability for its failed corporate culture, and for any illegal behavior that has resulted in deadly consequence,” but this was clearly ignored. Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and former federal judge who, according to NPR, is representing the families of victims for free, said, “This kind of non-prosecution deal is unprecedented and obviously wrong for the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history…My families will object and hope to convince the court to reject [the deal].”
2. That same day, Trump signed a new executive order to “cut down on regulations and fast-track new licenses for [nuclear] reactors and power plants,” per Reuters. According to the wire service, “Shares of uranium mining companies Uranium Energy…Energy Fuels…and Centrus Energy…jumped between 19.6% and 24.2%” following this announcement. Sam Altman-backed nuclear startup Oklo gained 23.1%. The administration’s new interest in the nuclear industry is spurred in part by increased demand for energy as, “power-hungry data centers dedicated to artificial intelligence and crypto miners plug into the grid.” The nuclear industry is also expected to retain many tax incentives stripped away from green energy initiatives in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill.
3. In yet another instance of the Trump administration going soft on corporate greed, the Republican-controlled Federal Trade Commission has dismissed their case against PepsiCo. As the AP explains, “The lawsuit…alleged that PepsiCo was giving unfair price advantages to Walmart at the expense of other vendors and consumers,” citing the 1936 Robinson-Patman Act, which bans companies from “using promotional incentive payments to favor large customers over smaller ones.” Current FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson called the case a “dubious partisan stunt,” in a press release. Former Chair Lina Khan however, called the dismissal “disturbing,” and wrote, “This lawsuit would’ve protected families from paying higher prices at the grocery store and stopped conduct that squeezes small businesses and communities across America. Dismissing it is a gift to giant retailers as they gear up to hike prices.”
4. Instead of utilizing the federal regulatory apparatus to protect consumers and the public, the Trump administration instead continues to weaponize these institutions to target progressive groups. According to Axios, the FTC is “investigating…Media Matters over claims that it and other media advocacy groups coordinated advertising boycotts of Elon Musk’s X.” As this report notes, “X [formerly Twitter] sued Media Matters for defamation in 2023 for a report it publicly released that showed ads on X running next to pro-Nazi content. X claimed the report contributed to an advertiser exodus.” While it seems unlikely the social media platform could prevail in such a suit, the suit has effectively cowed the advertising industry, with the World Federation of Advertisers dismantling their Global Alliance for Responsible Media just months after the suit was filed. Media Matters president Angelo Carusone is quoted saying, “The Trump administration has been defined by naming right-wing media figures to key posts and abusing the power of the federal government to bully political opponents and silence critics…that’s exactly what’s happening here…These threats won’t work; we remain steadfast to our mission.”
5. On Thursday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cotez endorsed State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in his bid for Mayor of New York City, POLITICO reports. This endorsement came the morning after the first mayoral primary debate, a rollicking affair featuring nine candidates and including a testy exchange in which the moderators disregarded their own rules to press Mamdani to say whether he believed in “a Jewish state of Israel?” Mamdani responded that he believed Israel has a right to exist “as a state with equal rights.” This from the Times of Israel. In her endorsement, AOC wrote “Assemblymember Mamdani has demonstrated a real ability on the ground to put together a coalition of working-class New Yorkers that is strongest to lead the pack…In the final stretch of the race, we need to get very real about that.” Ocasio-Cortez said she would rank Adrienne Adams, Brad Lander, Scott Stringer and Zellnor Myrie in that order after Mamdani.
6. Turning to Palestine itself, the Times of Israel reports notorious Biden State Department spokesman Matthew Miller admitted in an interview that, “It is without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes” in Gaza. While Miller stops short of accusing the Israeli government of pursuing “a policy of deliberately committing war crimes,” and repeats the tired canard that Hamas resisted ceasefire negotiations, he admits that the Biden administration “could have done [more] to pressure the Israeli government to agree to…[a] ceasefire.” Hopefully, Miller’s admission will help crack the dam of silence and allow the truth to be told about this criminal military campaign.
7. Even as Miller makes this admission, the merciless bombing of Palestinians continues. The Guardian reports “On Sunday, at least 31 Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces opened fire at the site of a food distribution centre in Rafah…On Monday, another three Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire at the same site…And on Tuesday, 27 people were killed after Israeli forces opened fire again, say Gaza officials.” This report continues, citing UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, who said on Tuesday that “Palestinians in Gaza now faced an impossible choice: ‘Die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available.’” Türk added that by attacking civilians, Israel is committing yet more war crimes.
8. Some high-profile activists are taking direct action to deliver food to Gaza. Democracy Now! reports 12 activists aboard The Madleen, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, have departed from the Italian port of Catania. This group includes Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, actor Liam Cunningham, and Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament. Despite the previous ship being targeted by a drone attack, Thunberg is quoted saying “We deem the risk of silence and the risk of inaction to be so much more deadly than this mission.” Threats to the flotilla continue to pour in. South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted, “Hope Greta and her friends can swim!” In Israel itself, IDF spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin ominously stated “we will act accordingly,” per FOX News.
9. In more foreign policy news, Gareth Gore – a Washington Post reporter and author of Opus, an exposé of the shadowy Opus Dei sect within the Catholic Church – reports Pope Leo has given Opus Dei six months to “pass comprehensive reforms” and has told the group that if significant changes are not made by December, “necessary measures will be taken.” Gore further reports that in addition to the reforms, “[Pope] Leo has also demanded an investigation into abuse allegations…[including] human trafficking, enslavement…[and] physical and psychological abuse of members.” According to Gore, the reforms were first ordered by Pope Francis in 2022, but “Opus Dei dragged its feet – in the hope the pope would pass away first.” Upon his death, Pope Francis had been on the, “cusp of signing into canon law a huge reform of Opus Dei.” The Vatican was also moving to force a vote on a revised Opus Dei constitution, which was, “quietly cancelled” within hours of Francis’ death. Perhaps most tellingly, Gore reports “The Vatican has privately reassured Opus Dei victims who have long campaigned for justice that they ‘won’t be disappointed’”
10. Finally, a political earthquake has occurred in South Korea. Listeners may remember the failed coup attempt by right-wing former President Yoon Suk Yeol, which culminated in his ouster and could ultimately lead to a sentence of life in prison or even death. Now, the country has elected a new president, Lee Jae-myung, by a margin of 49.4% to 41.2%. Lee, who leads Korea’s Democratic People’s Party, has “endured a barrage of criminal indictments and an assassination attempt,” since losing the last presidential election by a margin of less than 1 per cent, per the Financial Times. Lee is a former factory worker who campaigned in a bulletproof vest after surviving being knifed in the neck last year. The FT notes “Lee…grew up in poverty and suffered [a] permanent injury at the age of 13 when his arm was crushed in a machine at the baseball glove factory where he worked…in 2022 [he] declared his ambition to be a ‘successful Bernie Sanders’.” That said, he has pivoted to the center in his recent political messaging. Beyond the impact of Lee’s election on the future of Korean democracy, his tenure is sure to set a new tone in Korea’s relations with their neighbors including the US, the DPRK, China and Japan.
This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.
Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe
This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
Ralph welcomes Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, to break down the budget bill passing through Congress that is the largest transfer of wealth from the poor and working-class to the wealthy in United States history. Then, insurance expert, Robert Hunter returns to discuss the recent rise in auto insurance rates.
Heidi Shierholz is the president of the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that uses the power of its research on economic trends and on the impact of economic policies to advance reforms that serve working people, deliver racial justice, and guarantee gender equity. In 2021 she became the fourth president EPI has had since its founding in 1986.
We’ve never seen a budget that so plainly takes from the poor to give to the rich… The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that lower and lower middle-income people will actually lose out. They may get something of a tax break, but they lose benefits. So that on net, their after-tax income will be lower after this bill, while the rich just make out like bandits.
Heidi Shierholz, President of the Economic Policy Institute
The draconian cuts that we are seeing to the safety net are not big enough, because the tax increases are so huge that this bill also increases the deficit dramatically.
Heidi Shierholz
Many folks are calling this the MAGA Murder Bill. They’re not wrong. People will die because of the cuts that we’re seeing here.
Heidi Shierholz
Robert Hunter is the Director Emeritus of Insurance at the Consumer Federation of America. He has held many positions in the field, both public and private, including being the Commissioner of Insurance for the State of Texas being the President and Founder of the National Insurance Consumer Organization and served as United States Federal Insurance Administrator.
Decide how much you need. Don’t ask for more than you really need. And then once you have it, “I need this much for my car. I need this much if I hit somebody” and so on. And then you get that statistic, and you send it out to several companies and get quotes.
Robert Hunter on buying auto insurance
There isn’t any program benefiting the American people that Trump is not cutting in order to turn the country over to the giant corporations and the super-rich. It’s basically an overthrow of the government and an overthrow of the rule of law.
Ralph Nader
News 6/6/25
1. On May 23rd, the Trump administration Department of Justice officially announced it had reached an agreement with Boeing to drop its criminal case against the airline manufacturer related to the 2018 and 2019 crashes that killed 346 people, NPR reports. The turnover at the federal government in recent years has prolonged this case; the first Trump administration reached a deferred prosecution agreement with Boeing in 2021, but prosecutors revived the criminal case under President Biden, and as NPR notes, “Boeing agreed last year to plead guilty to defrauding regulators, but a federal judge rejected that proposed plea deal.” Just before the deal was reached, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal penned a letter calling on the DOJ not to “allow [Boeing] to weasel its way out of accountability for its failed corporate culture, and for any illegal behavior that has resulted in deadly consequence,” but this was clearly ignored. Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and former federal judge who, according to NPR, is representing the families of victims for free, said, “This kind of non-prosecution deal is unprecedented and obviously wrong for the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history…My families will object and hope to convince the court to reject [the deal].”
2. That same day, Trump signed a new executive order to “cut down on regulations and fast-track new licenses for [nuclear] reactors and power plants,” per Reuters. According to the wire service, “Shares of uranium mining companies Uranium Energy…Energy Fuels…and Centrus Energy…jumped between 19.6% and 24.2%” following this announcement. Sam Altman-backed nuclear startup Oklo gained 23.1%. The administration’s new interest in the nuclear industry is spurred in part by increased demand for energy as, “power-hungry data centers dedicated to artificial intelligence and crypto miners plug into the grid.” The nuclear industry is also expected to retain many tax incentives stripped away from green energy initiatives in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill.
3. In yet another instance of the Trump administration going soft on corporate greed, the Republican-controlled Federal Trade Commission has dismissed their case against PepsiCo. As the AP explains, “The lawsuit…alleged that PepsiCo was giving unfair price advantages to Walmart at the expense of other vendors and consumers,” citing the 1936 Robinson-Patman Act, which bans companies from “using promotional incentive payments to favor large customers over smaller ones.” Current FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson called the case a “dubious partisan stunt,” in a press release. Former Chair Lina Khan however, called the dismissal “disturbing,” and wrote, “This lawsuit would’ve protected families from paying higher prices at the grocery store and stopped conduct that squeezes small businesses and communities across America. Dismissing it is a gift to giant retailers as they gear up to hike prices.”
4. Instead of utilizing the federal regulatory apparatus to protect consumers and the public, the Trump administration instead continues to weaponize these institutions to target progressive groups. According to Axios, the FTC is “investigating…Media Matters over claims that it and other media advocacy groups coordinated advertising boycotts of Elon Musk’s X.” As this report notes, “X [formerly Twitter] sued Media Matters for defamation in 2023 for a report it publicly released that showed ads on X running next to pro-Nazi content. X claimed the report contributed to an advertiser exodus.” While it seems unlikely the social media platform could prevail in such a suit, the suit has effectively cowed the advertising industry, with the World Federation of Advertisers dismantling their Global Alliance for Responsible Media just months after the suit was filed. Media Matters president Angelo Carusone is quoted saying, “The Trump administration has been defined by naming right-wing media figures to key posts and abusing the power of the federal government to bully political opponents and silence critics…that’s exactly what’s happening here…These threats won’t work; we remain steadfast to our mission.”
5. On Thursday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cotez endorsed State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in his bid for Mayor of New York City, POLITICO reports. This endorsement came the morning after the first mayoral primary debate, a rollicking affair featuring nine candidates and including a testy exchange in which the moderators disregarded their own rules to press Mamdani to say whether he believed in “a Jewish state of Israel?” Mamdani responded that he believed Israel has a right to exist “as a state with equal rights.” This from the Times of Israel. In her endorsement, AOC wrote “Assemblymember Mamdani has demonstrated a real ability on the ground to put together a coalition of working-class New Yorkers that is strongest to lead the pack…In the final stretch of the race, we need to get very real about that.” Ocasio-Cortez said she would rank Adrienne Adams, Brad Lander, Scott Stringer and Zellnor Myrie in that order after Mamdani.
6. Turning to Palestine itself, the Times of Israel reports notorious Biden State Department spokesman Matthew Miller admitted in an interview that, “It is without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes” in Gaza. While Miller stops short of accusing the Israeli government of pursuing “a policy of deliberately committing war crimes,” and repeats the tired canard that Hamas resisted ceasefire negotiations, he admits that the Biden administration “could have done [more] to pressure the Israeli government to agree to…[a] ceasefire.” Hopefully, Miller’s admission will help crack the dam of silence and allow the truth to be told about this criminal military campaign.
7. Even as Miller makes this admission, the merciless bombing of Palestinians continues. The Guardian reports “On Sunday, at least 31 Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces opened fire at the site of a food distribution centre in Rafah…On Monday, another three Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire at the same site…And on Tuesday, 27 people were killed after Israeli forces opened fire again, say Gaza officials.” This report continues, citing UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, who said on Tuesday that “Palestinians in Gaza now faced an impossible choice: ‘Die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available.’” Türk added that by attacking civilians, Israel is committing yet more war crimes.
8. Some high-profile activists are taking direct action to deliver food to Gaza. Democracy Now! reports 12 activists aboard The Madleen, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, have departed from the Italian port of Catania. This group includes Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, actor Liam Cunningham, and Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament. Despite the previous ship being targeted by a drone attack, Thunberg is quoted saying “We deem the risk of silence and the risk of inaction to be so much more deadly than this mission.” Threats to the flotilla continue to pour in. South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted, “Hope Greta and her friends can swim!” In Israel itself, IDF spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin ominously stated “we will act accordingly,” per FOX News.
9. In more foreign policy news, Gareth Gore – a Washington Post reporter and author of Opus, an exposé of the shadowy Opus Dei sect within the Catholic Church – reports Pope Leo has given Opus Dei six months to “pass comprehensive reforms” and has told the group that if significant changes are not made by December, “necessary measures will be taken.” Gore further reports that in addition to the reforms, “[Pope] Leo has also demanded an investigation into abuse allegations…[including] human trafficking, enslavement…[and] physical and psychological abuse of members.” According to Gore, the reforms were first ordered by Pope Francis in 2022, but “Opus Dei dragged its feet – in the hope the pope would pass away first.” Upon his death, Pope Francis had been on the, “cusp of signing into canon law a huge reform of Opus Dei.” The Vatican was also moving to force a vote on a revised Opus Dei constitution, which was, “quietly cancelled” within hours of Francis’ death. Perhaps most tellingly, Gore reports “The Vatican has privately reassured Opus Dei victims who have long campaigned for justice that they ‘won’t be disappointed’”
10. Finally, a political earthquake has occurred in South Korea. Listeners may remember the failed coup attempt by right-wing former President Yoon Suk Yeol, which culminated in his ouster and could ultimately lead to a sentence of life in prison or even death. Now, the country has elected a new president, Lee Jae-myung, by a margin of 49.4% to 41.2%. Lee, who leads Korea’s Democratic People’s Party, has “endured a barrage of criminal indictments and an assassination attempt,” since losing the last presidential election by a margin of less than 1 per cent, per the Financial Times. Lee is a former factory worker who campaigned in a bulletproof vest after surviving being knifed in the neck last year. The FT notes “Lee…grew up in poverty and suffered [a] permanent injury at the age of 13 when his arm was crushed in a machine at the baseball glove factory where he worked…in 2022 [he] declared his ambition to be a ‘successful Bernie Sanders’.” That said, he has pivoted to the center in his recent political messaging. Beyond the impact of Lee’s election on the future of Korean democracy, his tenure is sure to set a new tone in Korea’s relations with their neighbors including the US, the DPRK, China and Japan.
This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.
Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe
This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
This content originally appeared on VICE News and was authored by VICE News.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
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 The Intercept and was authored by The Intercept.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.
-
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.
-
A federal judge issued an injunction Friday that further delays the transfer of Oak Flat, an Indigenous religious site in Arizona, to a multi-national company that would make it one of the largest copper mines in the world.
More than a week ago, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in the case, allowing a lower court order to stand that approved the transfer. The district court judge in Phoenix called for a 60-day delay to allow advocates for Oak Flat to review an upcoming U.S. Forest Service environmental impact statement.The motions for the delay came from the San Carlos Apache Tribe and a coalition of organizations such as the Center for Biological Diversity, a local Sierra Club Chapter, and Arizona’s Inter-Tribal Association.
The struggle over Oak Flat’s future has been going on for a decade. The final environmental review was released during the first Trump administration, but then halted during the Biden administration. Back in April, the current Trump administration said it would reissue its environmental review, expected June 16.
The review is necessary for the transfer of the land to Resolution Copper, a project from Rio Tinto and BHP, multinational mining companies.
There has been an issue with accessing this review before its publication. According to Marc Fink, an attorney for the Center of Biological Diversity, it’s customary to see such documents in a legal process.
That hasn’t been the case with Oak Flat.
“In my 30 years, I have never seen this occur,” he said.
The withholding of the review is seen by observers as a sign that the Trump administration wants to fast-track the mine, which would sit directly on top of sacred sites and would mine a thousand feet inside the earth.
Read Next The land in question is about 40 miles east of Phoenix in the Tonto National Forest. The Apaches consider it their land, based on the 1852 treaty signed between the nation and the U.S. government, as an outcome of the Mexican-American War a few years earlier.
Amid a current trade war between the United States and China, as indicated by Trump’s tariffs, proponents for Oak Flat are scratching their heads at conflicting national security interests. In a press release by the San Carlos Apache Tribe, chairman Terry Rambler, says that, “Resolution Copper is a major threat to U.S. national security given China’s significant financial influence over BHP and Rio Tinto.”
The United States has only two copper smelters — in Utah and Arizona — and both are at total capacity. Critics surmise that Resolution Copper will likely send raw material to China, where the world’s largest copper refineries exist.
Whether the profit margin is acceptable for Resolution Copper is also a question for the mining corporations. A feasibility study, which looks at whether the costs will scale for net profit gain, hasn’t been conducted yet according to Resolution Copper and can take years. However, if companies identify expenditures as too costly, it is unlikely they would return the title back to Apache homeland under the Forest Service.
The tribal organization Apache Stronghold also filed a separate injunction in the same Arizona court; it was their suit the Supreme Court declined to hear.
Luke Goodrich, Vice President at Becket, a religious rights legal institute who has represented Apache Stronghold, said the fight is far from over.
“The Apaches are never going to stop defending Oak Flat ,” he said. “And we’re continuing to press every possible opportunity in the courts, Congress, and with the President to make sure that this tragic destruction never takes place.”
“The Trump Administration is once again planning to violate federal laws and illegally transfer Oak Flat to the two largest foreign mining companies in the world,” said San Carlos Apache Tribe Chairman Terry Rambler in a press release.
. Back in April, the Trump administration announced they will reissue its final environmental impact statement, also known as EIS. The Biden administration halted the release of this review in 2021 but its publication is expected June 16. This controversial decision is considered as the final step before finalizing the land transfer to private title.
There has been an issue with accessing this review before its publication. According to the Center for Biological Diversity’s attorney, Marc Fink, the final EIS study and a feasibility study, which looks at the practical costs and management plan has not been shared to Link (biological) and other lawyers. “In my 30 years, I have never seen this occur,” he said.
Aside from land claims, based on the 1852 treaty signed between the Apache Nations and U.S. government, as an outcome of the Mexican-American War a few years earlier. In this legal document, according to the federal government, this is Apache Land.
Amid a current trade war with China, as indicated by consistent tariff setting by the Trump Administration, alongside land title, all parties are scratching their heads at conflicting national security interests. In a press release by the San Carlos Apache Tribe, chairman Terry Rambler, says that, “Resolution Copper is a major threat to U.S. national security given China’s significant financial influence over BHP and Rio Tinto.”
The United States has only two copper refiners in Philadelphia and Phoenix and are at total capacity. This means that Resolution Copper will likely send refining to China, where the world’s largest copper refineries exist. In an op-ed in Real Clear Energy, the executive director of HECHO, known as Hispanics Enjoying Camping, Hunting, and the Outdoors, she writes, “If reducing America’s reliance on hostile foreign powers for critical minerals is a national security priority—a goal that leaders across the political spectrum broadly support—then we should take a hard look at what’s happening at Oak Flat.”
Whether the profit margin is acceptable for Resolution Copper and Rio Tinto is also a question for the mining corporations. A feasibility study, which looks at whether the costs will scale for net profit gain, hasn’t been conducted yet according to Resolution Copper themselves. However, if companies identify expenditures as too costly, it is unlikely they will cease land title back to Apache homeland under the Forest Service.
Apache Stronghold has also filed a separate preliminary injunction in the same Arizona court for a separate date. Luke Goodrich, Vice President at Becket, a religious rights legal institute who has represented Apache Stronghold, says the fight is far from over and they’re also pursuing avenues through every branch of government including Congress and the White House. “This is not over. The Apaches are never going to stop defending Oak Flat and we’re continuing to press every possible opportunity in the courts, Congress, and with the President to make sure that this tragic destruction never takes place.”
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The transfer of a sacred site to a copper mine is delayed once again on Jun 6, 2025.
This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Miacel Spotted Elk.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.
The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – June 6, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.
This content originally appeared on KPFA – The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
Is the Donald Trump-Elon Musk bromance finally over? President Trump is threatening to cut off billions of dollars in federal contracts with Musk after the two billionaires engaged in a dramatic online feud just days after Musk called Trump’s budget bill a “disgusting abomination.” Musk appeared to back the impeachment of Trump and claimed the president is named in the Jeffrey Epstein files. “They are people who always have their eye on the bottom line, but they also are, obviously, titanically sized egos,” says author Quinn Slobodian, professor of international history at Boston University, who is working on a new book about Elon Musk. “This is just a sign of how dangerous it is to put … the whole future of the American economy and the political scene in the hands of two sole human beings.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
-
A video, seemingly taken by someone in the audience during a public performance, in which event attendees are showing the middle finger to someone on stage has gone viral. Those sharing the video on social media claim that these gestures were made at Bollywood actor and filmmaker Kangana Ranaut during a concert. Ranaut is affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Party and represents Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district in the lower house of the Parliament.
On June 3, X user Amit Yadav (@Amityad6389) shared the viral video and claimed that members affiliated with Hindu organisations, upset with her over something, showed her the middle finger in public. (Archive)
बड़ी खबर
खबर रोमांचक है बीजेपी से कंगना रनौत किसी शो में गई हुई थी।
उन्हें किसी बात को लेकर हिंदू संगठन के लोगो ने मिडिल फिंगर दिखा कर विरोध किया।
कंगना रनौत ने ये सब देखते ही कहा कि कैमरा मैंन अच्छे से दिखाइए और इन लोगों को वायरल कर दीजिए।
फिर क्या था वायरल तो होना ही… pic.twitter.com/Ft9H1iBOhn
— Amit Yadav (@Amityad6389) June 3, 2025
On June 4, media outlet LocalTak (@localtak) also shared the purported video alleging that members of a Hindu organisation protested against Ranaut during a show by showing her the middle finger. (Archive)
was attending a show when members of a Hindu group showed her the middle finger in protest!
Instead of reacting with anger, Kangana calmly turned to the cameraman and said, “Zoom in properly and make them viral.”
Well… viral it definitely went!#kanganaranaut #middlefinger… pic.twitter.com/mDVZmbdaPz— LocalTak
(@localtak) June 4, 2025Another X user, Amock (@amock2029), also shared the clip, claiming that the actor-turned-politician was disrespected. (Archive)
Kangana Ranaut
Itni beijjati 
pic.twitter.com/iee8GCQQPq— Amock (@amock2029) June 3, 2025
Several other social media users have shared the same video with similar claims.
Click to view slideshow.Fact Check
We watched the video closely several times and noticed the words ‘Q High Street’ displayed on the stage in the video. Q High Street is a commercial property in Lahore, Pakistan.
During our investigation, we also found that Q High Street had organised an automotive event, Pak Wheels Auto Show, on May 25. The event featured a performance by Young Stunners, a popular hip-hop duo in Pakistan.
We found several posts on Q High Street’s Instagram page, featuring Young Stunner’s performance. Noticeably, the backdrop of the videos here was identical to the one that went viral.
Click to view slideshow.
Taking cue from this, we looked for full videos of the performance and found one on YouTube uploaded on May 29, 2025. At the 3:15-minute mark of the video, the same woman who is seen in the viral clip appears as the event’s emcee. It’s fairly clear that she is not Kangana Ranaut.
Here’s the video:
To sum up, the viral video is from an event in Lahore, Pakistan. It does not depict members of a Hindu organisation showing the middle finger to Kangana Ranaut. The woman appearing in the video is not the Bollywood actor.
(With inputs from Diti Pujara)
The post Kangana Ranaut was not shown the middle finger at a performance; viral video is from an event in Pakistan appeared first on Alt News.
This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
A video, seemingly taken by someone in the audience during a public performance, in which event attendees are showing the middle finger to someone on stage has gone viral. Those sharing the video on social media claim that these gestures were made at Bollywood actor and filmmaker Kangana Ranaut during a concert. Ranaut is affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Party and represents Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district in the lower house of the Parliament.
On June 3, X user Amit Yadav (@Amityad6389) shared the viral video and claimed that members affiliated with Hindu organisations, upset with her over something, showed her the middle finger in public. (Archive)
बड़ी खबर
खबर रोमांचक है बीजेपी से कंगना रनौत किसी शो में गई हुई थी।
उन्हें किसी बात को लेकर हिंदू संगठन के लोगो ने मिडिल फिंगर दिखा कर विरोध किया।
कंगना रनौत ने ये सब देखते ही कहा कि कैमरा मैंन अच्छे से दिखाइए और इन लोगों को वायरल कर दीजिए।
फिर क्या था वायरल तो होना ही… pic.twitter.com/Ft9H1iBOhn
— Amit Yadav (@Amityad6389) June 3, 2025
On June 4, media outlet LocalTak (@localtak) also shared the purported video alleging that members of a Hindu organisation protested against Ranaut during a show by showing her the middle finger. (Archive)
was attending a show when members of a Hindu group showed her the middle finger in protest!
Instead of reacting with anger, Kangana calmly turned to the cameraman and said, “Zoom in properly and make them viral.”
Well… viral it definitely went!#kanganaranaut #middlefinger… pic.twitter.com/mDVZmbdaPz— LocalTak
(@localtak) June 4, 2025Another X user, Amock (@amock2029), also shared the clip, claiming that the actor-turned-politician was disrespected. (Archive)
Kangana Ranaut
Itni beijjati pic.twitter.com/iee8GCQQPq— Amock (@amock2029) June 3, 2025
Several other social media users have shared the same video with similar claims.
Click to view slideshow.Fact Check
We watched the video closely several times and noticed the words ‘Q High Street’ displayed on the stage in the video. Q High Street is a commercial property in Lahore, Pakistan.
During our investigation, we also found that Q High Street had organised an automotive event, Pak Wheels Auto Show, on May 25. The event featured a performance by Young Stunners, a popular hip-hop duo in Pakistan.
We found several posts on Q High Street’s Instagram page, featuring Young Stunner’s performance. Noticeably, the backdrop of the videos here was identical to the one that went viral.
Click to view slideshow.Taking cue from this, we looked for full videos of the performance and found one on YouTube uploaded on May 29, 2025. At the 3:15-minute mark of the video, the same woman who is seen in the viral clip appears as the event’s emcee. It’s fairly clear that she is not Kangana Ranaut.
Here’s the video:
To sum up, the viral video is from an event in Lahore, Pakistan. It does not depict members of a Hindu organisation showing the middle finger to Kangana Ranaut. The woman appearing in the video is not the Bollywood actor.
(With inputs from Diti Pujara)
The post Kangana Ranaut was not shown the middle finger at a performance; viral video is from an event in Pakistan appeared first on Alt News.
This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
A video, seemingly taken by someone in the audience during a public performance, in which event attendees are showing the middle finger to someone on stage has gone viral. Those sharing the video on social media claim that these gestures were made at Bollywood actor and filmmaker Kangana Ranaut during a concert. Ranaut is affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Party and represents Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district in the lower house of the Parliament.
On June 3, X user Amit Yadav (@Amityad6389) shared the viral video and claimed that members affiliated with Hindu organisations, upset with her over something, showed her the middle finger in public. (Archive)
बड़ी खबर
खबर रोमांचक है बीजेपी से कंगना रनौत किसी शो में गई हुई थी।
उन्हें किसी बात को लेकर हिंदू संगठन के लोगो ने मिडिल फिंगर दिखा कर विरोध किया।
कंगना रनौत ने ये सब देखते ही कहा कि कैमरा मैंन अच्छे से दिखाइए और इन लोगों को वायरल कर दीजिए।
फिर क्या था वायरल तो होना ही… pic.twitter.com/Ft9H1iBOhn
— Amit Yadav (@Amityad6389) June 3, 2025
On June 4, media outlet LocalTak (@localtak) also shared the purported video alleging that members of a Hindu organisation protested against Ranaut during a show by showing her the middle finger. (Archive)
was attending a show when members of a Hindu group showed her the middle finger in protest!
Instead of reacting with anger, Kangana calmly turned to the cameraman and said, “Zoom in properly and make them viral.”
Well… viral it definitely went!#kanganaranaut #middlefinger… pic.twitter.com/mDVZmbdaPz— LocalTak
(@localtak) June 4, 2025Another X user, Amock (@amock2029), also shared the clip, claiming that the actor-turned-politician was disrespected. (Archive)
Kangana Ranaut
Itni beijjati pic.twitter.com/iee8GCQQPq— Amock (@amock2029) June 3, 2025
Several other social media users have shared the same video with similar claims.
Click to view slideshow.Fact Check
We watched the video closely several times and noticed the words ‘Q High Street’ displayed on the stage in the video. Q High Street is a commercial property in Lahore, Pakistan.
During our investigation, we also found that Q High Street had organised an automotive event, Pak Wheels Auto Show, on May 25. The event featured a performance by Young Stunners, a popular hip-hop duo in Pakistan.
We found several posts on Q High Street’s Instagram page, featuring Young Stunner’s performance. Noticeably, the backdrop of the videos here was identical to the one that went viral.
Click to view slideshow.Taking cue from this, we looked for full videos of the performance and found one on YouTube uploaded on May 29, 2025. At the 3:15-minute mark of the video, the same woman who is seen in the viral clip appears as the event’s emcee. It’s fairly clear that she is not Kangana Ranaut.
Here’s the video:
To sum up, the viral video is from an event in Lahore, Pakistan. It does not depict members of a Hindu organisation showing the middle finger to Kangana Ranaut. The woman appearing in the video is not the Bollywood actor.
(With inputs from Diti Pujara)
The post Kangana Ranaut was not shown the middle finger at a performance; viral video is from an event in Pakistan appeared first on Alt News.
This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
Investigative journalists Taya Graham and Stephen Janis break down the insider knowledge surrounding Joe Biden’s decline—and how the Democratic Party’s culture of silence, conformity, and caution may have sealed its own fate. From the “get in line” politics that killed bold policy and risk-taking to focus groups calling Democrats “sloths,” Stephen and Taya explore why Biden was protected despite clear signs of decline, the Democratic Party’s aversion to bold candidates, what Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump had in common, and why the Dems just spent $20 million just to learn how to talk to men.
Produced by: Taya Graham, Stephen Janis
Written by: Stephen Janis
Studio: David Hebden
Post-Production: Adam Coley
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Hello, this is Taya Graham, along with my reporting partner, Stephen Janis.
Stephen Janis:
Hey, Taya. How are you doing?
Taya Graham:
I’m doing great.
Stephen Janis:
Good, good.
Taya Graham:
And I want to welcome everyone to the Inequality Watch Real News React. It’s a show where we challenge the conventional wisdom touted by the mainstream media and use our perspective as reporters to provide some alternative explanations for some of the hard to understand happenings in America and throughout the world.
And today, that means unpacking the great Joe Biden conspiracy.
Stephen Janis:
It is a great conspiracy, Taya, a real conspiracy.
Taya Graham:
I mean, really, it was like a Weekend at Bernie’s-like conspiracy, actually Weekend at Bernie’s sequel.
Stephen Janis:
Let me chime in. For people who don’t know, Weekend at Bernie’s is a movie where a man dies and his younger friends carry him around because they don’t want people to know he’s dead. So it’s like a corpse at a party.
Taya Graham:
Yes. That sounds very morbid, but it was actually a funny movie, or at least back when I watched it.
Stephen Janis:
Exactly.
Taya Graham:
And if you read some of the recent reports about just how out of it Biden was, it sounds like he was the grandpa who fell asleep at the dinner table at Thanksgiving.
But along with these revelations about the depth of Biden’s declining cognitive abilities comes a much more important question: Why was a man who couldn’t function after 5:00 PM allowed to run an entire country, and why didn’t anyone who supposedly had access tell the truth about it? And that’s what our show will discuss today. And our answer, which we’ll share soon is probably not what you expect.
But first, let’s get to the facts. Stephen, the discussion about Biden’s inability to function, according to some of the recently released books, goes back to 2019, involves some really embarrassing moments. I think for example, he couldn’t remember the name of a close aid, or he didn’t recognize George Clooney at a fundraiser that George Clooney was throwing for him.
So what have we learned about Biden’s health while in office, and what do you think the main talking point is there?
Stephen Janis:
We’ll tell you, unlike you and I who basically learned about Biden’s cognitive abilities at that horrific debate, there was a small group of Washington insiders and politicians who now we know knew that Biden was not right. Meaning stretching back to 2020 with congressional Democrats where they’re like, he lost his train of thought. There were a lot of signs.
And so now what happens in Washington when people ignore something right in front of their faces? They do a lot of hand wringing and see who they can blame. The big question is now, well, there’s two big questions right now. Number one, how bad was he, which needs to be clearly established that he was in no position to run a country. And number two, who can we blame so it doesn’t fall on us?
Taya Graham:
Exactly. How will it not be our fault?
Stephen Janis:
Exactly. And that seems to be the biggest preoccupation of Washington and all the Washington insiders is how can I pin this on someone else, and how can I avoid taking any blame? Which is kind of politics as usual.
Taya Graham:
Or to sell a book, which is apparently what CNN’s Jake Tapper is now doing. Did you see how many, gosh, did you see how many ways he tried to sell that book and hawk that book on CNN? It was almost embarrassing.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. Every person talking about Joe Biden, even not about Joe Biden, was mentioning Jake Tapper’s book [crosstalk] —
Taya Graham:
You would’ve thought they were working on commission.
Stephen Janis:
Well, it’s extraordinary because Jake Tapper is a quintessential insider, and the quintessential establishment journalist tends to be a bit of a moralizer, likes to sneer at people, and, of course, was constantly sneering at Trump. But I don’t think he was a person who was out ahead of this story either. He tries to make it seem like he was, but I think a lot of, if you went back, I think he was a person who would give the Republicans a hard time for talking about Biden’s condition, or anyone.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely. He’s definitely the type that would’ve pushed back and said that the Republican Party was focusing on the wrong thing. But apparently they were focusing on the right thing. And it was a thing, it was like The Emperor’s New Clothes. Everyone was trying to ignore what was right in front of them.
Stephen Janis:
I think this is more about the culture of a party than it is about what the Republicans thought. To me, this is really much more important than Biden, much more important than Biden’s condition, it’s about the culture of a party and why that culture keeps that party from ever winning an election, and, I think, connecting with voters. There’s a lot of things that went on to keep Biden in power that have a lot to do with some of the biggest problems of the Democratic Party.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely. It is so much bigger than Biden, and that’s why we have a theory to share of why this really happened,
Stephen Janis:
Which we’ll share shortly, before we go through what I call the conventional wisdom about this.
Taya Graham:
We should take a look at some of the mainstream media explanations that are being touted by pundits. So let’s take a look at some of the reasons that pundits and politicians gave.
So they set up these excuses for Biden running when it’s obvious that he is too old and he’s still getting fierce support from Dem insiders. So what do you think were some of the things that pundits came out with? There were certainly politicians like Rep. Clyburn who even now still defends Joe Biden.
Stephen Janis:
And they certainly haven’t talked much about Dean Phillips, the one guy who ran against Biden, who got thrown out of the party. But I think [crosstalk] —
Taya Graham:
He got thrown under the bus, actually.
Stephen Janis:
I think the general explanation has been that I see that comes out through all the BS is just that he didn’t say anything, she didn’t say anything, so I wasn’t going to say anything even though I knew something and even though I was outraged, and people trying to share secretly or confidential sources, even though I knew something, I couldn’t say anything because they didn’t say anything. So there was this very much, it bumps up against our theory, but really everybody was groupthinking here.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely.
Stephen Janis:
I’m not going to say anything. Well, you say something. No, I’m not going to say anything. You say something. And that, as we’ll get to, says a lot about the Democratic Party at this point.
Taya Graham:
Stephen, the word groupthink encapsulates it there perfectly. But there’s another angle that people are taking, which was that they’re blaming hubris, they’re blaming Biden’s ego.
Stephen Janis:
I don’t think you can rule that out because I’ve seen politicians hold onto city council seats until they’re 90.
Taya Graham:
That’s so true. Yes, [crosstalk] in Baltimore City, yes.
Stephen Janis:
You can imagine the illustrious power of the presidency is nice. One of his aides was going, you don’t give up the plane, you don’t give up the house. And I mean, it’s kind of understandable if small time politics can be a narcotic, being president is probably a wonder drug. You’re going to be high all the time.
But I also think, and this was discussed on another show, which I thought was a good explanation, that Biden had had a career of turning expectations on their head. He was a guy who, I’m always going to push through, I’m going to find a way to do this, and people have written me off before. I think some people are trying to blame the 2022 midterms where the Democrats outperformed or overperformed expectations, and Biden took credit for it. But personal hubris has a lot to do with this. Why do I want to give this up? It’s great being the president. It’s great to be the king.
Taya Graham:
Right. And he also ran multiple times. So he’s always wanted this office and perhaps his ambition overcame what should have been his intelligence, which is that he was supposed to be a transitional president.
Stephen Janis:
And looking back at what’s happened since, it almost ruined his whole legacy. So it’s a good lesson, like, hey, sometimes it’s time to quit. Not always, but sometimes.
Taya Graham:
You think the Democrats would’ve learned that with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but apparently they had to learn this lesson again.
Now, there was another thing they did, which is they blamed his inner circle. So for example, it came out that aides had sought to ensure that he would walk shorter distances or they made sure that he had handrails available when he was mounting stairs, and they had him wear, I think the shoes are called trainers to make sure that he wouldn’t slip. When you have aides essentially baby proofing the world around a politician, I mean, how did someone not speak out? It’s incredible.
Stephen Janis:
Well, it’s weird because a lot of these people who are insiders spend their whole careers, and from my experience as a reporter, they’re like attack dogs. They refuse to look inward. They’re always looking outward. So anyone that mentions anything or says, hey, Biden, he doesn’t perform after 5:00, they get attacked. And these are the attack dogs. And the attack dogs, from what I’ve seen, and I have more experience with Democrats, the attack dogs don’t care about the candidate, what the candidate’s doing, you’re the problem. Anyone who speaks up is the problem. Anyone who writes a story is a problem. It’s always other people who are the problem.
And I’ve seen that fiercely in the Democratic Party. If you buck the narrative you’re going to get — And I think a lot of reporters had talked about that, who wrote about this prior to this moment we’re in now.
So Democrats have these cluster of aides, and Republicans have them too. It’s not a party thing. But I’ve had experience with them. They’re attack dogs. They don’t want to see reality. They think you’re reflecting the wrong reality, even though it’s really actually true. And I think that culture and that, I don’t know, whatever, we don’t care, we’re just going to attack people, we’ll attack the messenger, is pervasive and part of this problem.
Taya Graham:
That’s exactly it. Attack the messenger and not acknowledge the message at all. So you’re showing the anger and the attack dog, but there’s another aspect of it, which is that I think the Democrats were afraid.
Stephen Janis:
Trump has had a huge, profound psychological impact on the Republican Party for a decade now. They are Trump traumatized, and I think they think, well, Trump is this horrible threat to democracy. That’s what the Democrats think. And no matter what we do, we just have to stop it, so we become more risk averse. We are not going to do anything to rock the boat because if we question Joe Biden, we’re just letting Trump in. And I guess I can understand that, but it seems antithetical to the idea you want to beat Trump, but you’re going to have a zombie candidate, or you said you’re going to have a big Weekend at Bernie’s campaign? That’s what I think you get when you become, I think, that enured to the facts. So yeah, that’s a really, really, really important point.
Taya Graham:
OK. Now Stephen, this is our chance to explain our theory as to why Biden was cosseted —
Stephen Janis:
Finally!
Taya Graham:
— And protected and kept in office despite many people knowing that he was no longer capable. And that is the Get in Line theory.
Stephen Janis:
It’s a good theory.
Taya Graham:
OK. It is. Stephen, can you explain this most excellent theory?
Stephen Janis:
OK, so we have covered politics, especially in Democratic state and local, which means our city council, the state legislature, and in the nation’s capital, all levels. And what we have seen in the Democratic Party is what’s called the Get in Line culture that rules the way the party is governed.
And what it means is that you don’t jump out of line, you don’t get ambitious if you’re a candidate, you wait your turn. The way Hillary Clinton came out of the Obama era, and it was her turn. The way Joe Biden emerged from the Democratic establishment. It was his turn because it was no longer Hillary Clinton’s turn. On the local level, I can give you many examples of people who are like, don’t jump the line. Don’t get out of line.
And so sometimes when we talk about democratic politics, we always say Democrats are like all the kids in class who sat at the front of class, always did the assignment —
Taya Graham:
Raise the hand for teacher.
Stephen Janis:
— Never piss off the teacher, gets in line. A lot of Democratic candidates, like our governor, Wes Moore, have these perfect resumes, military service, nothing against that. But they they’re creatures of institutions, and inherently they’re risk averse, and candidates have to get in line.
Now, look at the Democratic example and why this is so important in the case of Biden. Who was our most successful, Taya, electoral president of the past, like, 20 years, right? Who was that?
Taya Graham:
President Obama?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, of course, of course. Now, did he get in line?
Taya Graham:
No, he jumped the line. He sure did. And the establishment Democrats weren’t always pleased about it.
Stephen Janis:
No. They picked Hillary Clinton. And do you remember —
Taya Graham:
Hillary fought him tooth and nail.
Stephen Janis:
Actually, yeah. Do you remember the criticism of him? He’d only been two years in the Senate. Do you remember that criticism?
Taya Graham:
Yes, absolutely.
Stephen Janis:
Right. So the Democrats, in their conventional get in line, it would’ve been Hillary Clinton’s turn, which they tried really hard, but Obama was just too good a candidate and was able to beat her. And then they have this huge electoral success. And then when they go back to their Get in Line policy, which has Hillary Clinton, Biden, and then Biden’s hanging on because all the Get in Line people didn’t want to say anything about it, then you have two out of three losses, two Trump, which who, whether you support him or not —
Taya Graham:
Well, wait a second here. Now you’re coming to a really important point here, which is that when you mentioned that President Obama was not a Get in Line candidate and yet he managed to shoot to the front of the line because of his personal charisma and his ability to campaign, President Trump was also not a get in line guy.
Stephen Janis:
Oh, you taught me.
Taya Graham:
At the time the Republican Party was absolutely [crosstalk] aghast.
Stephen Janis:
Oh my God, Republican establishment was like the Democratic establishment. They didn’t want this guy. He was crazy to them and they didn’t want him, but he didn’t get in line.
Taya Graham:
He sure didn’t.
Stephen Janis:
Hardly. No one wanted him to run. And I think we can all remember that when he ran, because the Republican establishment had Jeb Bush, low… I don’t want to say that.
Taya Graham:
Low energy Jeb?
Stephen Janis:
Low energy Jeb Bush, and people like that being touted.
Taya Graham:
That was kind of sad.
Stephen Janis:
No one thought Trump had a chance, but he jumped the line just like Obama.
Taya Graham:
Wait a second, couldn’t Bernie have jumped the line?
Stephen Janis:
Oh, Bernie’s a line jumper.
Taya Graham:
Yeah.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah.
Taya Graham:
They really had to hamstring him when he was originally running.
Stephen Janis:
In 2016 with the super delegates.
Taya Graham:
And that really upset a lot of loyal Democrats who felt that Bernie Sanders’s campaign was hamstrung from the inside, that the party attacked him.
Stephen Janis:
We were in South Carolina in 2020 when the Democratic establishment rose up. We witnessed it like a wave and said, not your turn, Bernie, not your turn. It’s got to be Joe Biden. He’s the next in line.
And you could see the results. The results speak for themselves. There’s a disconnect between Democrats and voters because the party is so orderly and so unwilling to take a risk and so unwilling to really conjure policies of any sort. They don’t want to say anything. They don’t want to say Medicare for all like Bernie Sanders says. Why do you think people support Bernie Sanders? Because he’s willing to say Medicare for all. Many Democrats are afraid to say it because of the implications with donors, et cetera.
But the Get in Line candidate and the Get in Line culture is fierce in the Democratic Party locally and nationally. Look at AOC trying to jump ahead [in the] Oversight Committee.
Taya Graham:
Oh, that’s right.
Stephen Janis:
And Connolly, who’s…
Taya Graham:
I mean, you know.
Stephen Janis:
He died.
Taya Graham:
With all respect.
Stephen Janis:
With all due respect.
Taya Graham:
With all due respect, but he was an older gentleman, and obviously not in good health, and instead of picking a young, popular candidate like AOC, they chose him. What does this say about the Democrats when they make choices like this?
Stephen Janis:
AOC would’ve been the jump the line candidate, and AOC would’ve been a bold move. And Democrats keep thinking now with Trump being excessively bold, that somehow they have to be excessively conservative. The real dynamic here is are we going to be a centrist party or a leftist party? That’s not really the right question. Are we going to be a bold party that offers something to people, or are we just going to be the same old, same old who’s next in line, who’s going to run, and who’s going to end up losing again to whomever?
I think you had some interesting information, right, about a focus group that the Democrats did?
Taya Graham:
Yes, there was the… Oh gosh. Well, actually, yes. Let me tell you about this New York Times article.
Stephen Janis:
I really want to hear about it
Taya Graham:
— Media. I wrote about it, and they said The New York Times basically unleashed this brutal analysis. So they have someone who’s done over 250 focus groups for the Democratic Party. And one of the ways they try to really tease out how people think of the party is to ask them, if you had to choose an animal to represent the party, what animal would it be? OK. So for Republicans, they choose like apex predators, they’re like sharks and tigers and stuff. Guess what they choose for Democrats?
Stephen Janis:
I don’t want to hear it.
Taya Graham:
You don’t. It’s terrible. Slugs, sloths, tortoises.
Stephen Janis:
Are you kidding?
Taya Graham:
Does that not speak to all the things we’ve talked about, about Democratic inertia, Democratic institutionalism, calling them a tortoise?
But what was really, now, this is actually kind of sad, I feel bad for the focus group, the gentleman who did the focus group, because he finally got someone to name a different type of animal for the Democrats, and the person said, a deer. And he’s like, oh, wow, that’s interesting. Why did you choose deer? And the guy said, a deer in headlights.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah.
Taya Graham:
What does that tell you?
Stephen Janis:
That tells me everything I need to know. But it tells me what we’re already talking about here, and this is very important to remember: the Democrats are afraid. They have no bold proposals, they have no vision, and they’re spending $20 million. What’d you say they spent? $20 million?
Taya Graham:
They were spending $20 million sitting in a luxury hotel to discuss the best way to talk to regular people. So that’s also another great Democratic take.
They also are planning — I was just looking at another article — They’re also planning on pouring a lot of money into influencers. And I think there was an excellent criticism from More Perfect Union, and they said maybe the Democratic Party should actually have a unified platform and unified policy positions and a bold policy platform before you start trying to create your own little influencer group. Maybe you should all be on the same page first.
Stephen Janis:
But paying consultants to do something that you haven’t done yourself, you can’t create a character, or you can’t create a person who people will put their faith in.
Taya Graham:
Well, they keep on saying, we need a Joe Rogan for the left, or we lost Joe Rogan, wow do we fix this? So they’re trying to create a model instead of realizing that, for example, Sen. Bernie Sanders, he went on Joe Rogan, he went on Andrew Schulz, he went on Theo Von. And these folks aren’t necessarily… You could argue that some of them are Republicans, some of them are libertarian, or some of them are just independent. And they were open to Bernie. Why? Because of his authenticity, because of his bold ideas, and because he stays on point. I think that’s something that a lot of people really respect about Sen. Sanders.
Stephen Janis:
You can go back to the 1990s and watch.
Taya Graham:
You can go back to the 1990s and hear him talking about oligarchs then. So I think people really appreciate that authenticity and honesty from a candidate.
Stephen Janis:
So if the Democrats have been a bold party and not a stand in line party, Bernie Sanders might be president right now. If he’d been nominated in 2020, I mean, he could have won. You can’t rule that out.
Taya Graham:
But the question here is will the Democrats learn their lesson? Will they allow some line jumpers?
Stephen Janis:
I don’t think so. No. Just the fact that they’re having focus groups paying $20 million instead of [crosstalk] finding a candidate —
Taya Graham:
How absurd is that.
Stephen Janis:
— That has a vision to offer voters, hey, this is what we’re going to do. Politics is, as much as it’s about aesthetics and slogans and everything, it’s still about practicalities. It’s still about envisioning a reality. Maybe you should spend your time finding someone who has a message that people might like, and taking that person and giving them the ability to change and transform this moribund party. You can’t just screech at the top of your lungs. You’ve got to have something to offer people. We’ve written extensively about, we’ll put the articles we wrote about the Democrats having to get something done, which of course they can’t do nationally, but on the local level, we’ll put that link in the comments.
Taya Graham:
Right, we’ve seen it up close.
Stephen Janis:
Democrats have to do something, and they have to stop spending money on consultants, I think.
Taya Graham:
And also they need to learn how to speak to people. One of the things that this article explored, it was a program that they’re creating called SAM. I think it’s like a Strategic Approach to Men. So Democrats are trying to learn how to talk to men. They can’t even talk to the regular public just one-on-one. But folks like Sanders and AOC seem to be breaking through.
Stephen Janis:
That’s what I’m saying. You have to pick the people, the candidates, the people that are dynamic that don’t need to be told how to talk to someone, that actually have a vision that, when they sell it — Well, not sell their vision, but talk about their vision, people are attracted to their vision. So it’s amazing that Democrats keep spending money like this when they’d be better thinking about what is our grand vision and what candidate would actually attract people? What candidate could attract people without having to spend a hundred million dollars on consultants and things like that.
Taya Graham:
You know what, we are not going to pay any money for consultants — Well, as a matter of fact, we should run a poll ourselves. As a matter of fact, we’re going to put a poll down in the live chat and we want to find out how people think about Democrats, if they have any idea on how Democrats can learn to speak to people effectively. What do you think could fix the Democratic Party, if it can be fixed? We would love to know your thoughts in the comments and in that poll. So I’m going to make sure to have a poll in the live chat.
And also, Stephen, for the record, I think we’ve done a pretty good autopsy on the Democratic Party.
Stephen Janis:
I think so.
Taya Graham:
Didn’t cost $20 mil. We did it for free. We shouldn’t have done it for free.
Stephen Janis:
I think it’s pretty clear that they need someone to jump the line, to run, that the Democratic establishment does not want to run, someone with a vision that seems authentic, and someone who’s willing to take risks. You gotta take risks. The risk averse nature of the Democratic Party has turned them into losers in many cases. So yeah, we will be back to breakdown this more, but I think we did a little bit of damage today
Taya Graham:
A little bit, but hopefully the Democrat strategists out there who are spending millions of dollars, maybe they’ll take some time to listen to independent journalists as well as listen to the public, and let them know that they have an authenticity issue and they need to find a way to break the inertia and their Get in Line platform, essentially.
Stephen Janis:
Well, their Get in Line order of things that has led them to…
Taya Graham:
So they’re not considered tortoises anymore.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah.
Taya Graham:
Well, OK.
Stephen Janis:
That was great!
Taya Graham:
That’s our great free help for the Democratic Party. It didn’t cost $20 million. Maybe they’ll listen, maybe they won’t. But I want to thank everyone who’s watching for joining us for this first of a series of Inequality Watchdog Reacts on The Real News Network. And if you have a topic you’d like us to explore, just throw it in the comments and we’ll take a look. And if you want to see more of our inequality reporting, just take a look for our playlist on The Real News Network channel, and I look forward to seeing you all soon. Right, Stephen?
Stephen Janis:
Yep. We’ll be back.
Taya Graham:
We’ll be back. And as always, please be safe out there.
This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Taya Graham and Stephen Janis.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
Twenty-two-year-old software developer Artem Motorniuk has spent his entire life in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, living in the north and visiting his grandparents in the south. It’s been almost four years since he’s seen them in person.
“My grandparents right now are under occupation,” he says. “We can reach them once a month on the phone.”
Motorniuk and his family’s story is a common one in eastern Ukraine. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022, the war has devastated both occupied and liberated regions. Over a million people on both sides have been killed or injured in the war, according to recent estimates. Whole towns have been flattened and infrastructure destroyed, leading to almost 6 million people displaced internally and 5.7 million refugees taking shelter in neighboring European countries. For those who remain, the psychological toll is mounting.
“They shoot rockets really close to Zaporizhzhia,” Motorniuk said. “[Last August] they got the region with artillery shells, and they hit in the place where children were just hanging around and killed four children.”
A toy truck is seen outside a children’s cafe damaged by a Russian artillery shell strike in Malokaterynivka village, Zaporizhzhia region, southeastern Ukraine, on August 20, 2024. Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images The conflict has become highly politicized and volatile in recent months. The United States in April signed a deal with Ukraine to establish a joint investment fund for the country’s eventual reconstruction, in exchange for access to its wealth of critical minerals. At the same time, President Donald Trump has increasingly aligned himself with Russian President Vladimir Putin, at one time even questioning which country incited the conflagration, and U.S. attempts to advance a ceasefire have stalled.
Now, just past the three-year mark, the conflict’s long-term costs are becoming more apparent, including the damage to the country’s natural resources. Rocket fire, artillery shelling, and explosive devices, such as land mines, from both militaries have ravaged Ukraine’s landscapes and ecosystems. Over a third of all carbon emissions in Ukraine stem from warfare — the largest share of any sector in the country. Fighting has triggered destructive wildfires in heavily forested and agricultural grassland regions of eastern Ukraine. From February 2022 through September 2024, almost 5 million acres burned, nearly three-quarters of which are in or adjacent to the conflict zone.
The conflict zone: Up to 90% of Ukraine’s wildfires have occurred in less than 20% of the country
Cumulative acres burned during the war: in Ukraine, in the conflict zone, and in conservation areas
But not all rockets explode when they’re shot, and mines only go off when they’re tripped, meaning these impacts will linger long after conflict ceases.
This is why a collective of forestry scientists in Ukraine and abroad are working together to study war-driven wildfires and other forest destruction, as well as map unexploded ordnance that could spur degradation down the road. The efforts aim to improve deployment of firefighting and other resources to save the forests. It is welcome work, but far from easy during a war, when their efforts come with life-threatening consequences.
The Serebryansky Forest serves as a strategic passing point for Russian forces and a key defense point for Ukrainian forces. To completely occupy the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, Russia has to pass through the forest. Holding the line here has allowed the Ukrainians to stop the Russian advance, but at a steep cost.
“The shelling, it’s an explosive wave, the fire makes everything unrecognizable,” a medic with the National Guard 13th Khartiya Brigade told the Institute for War & Peace Reporting in March. “When they get up, the forest is different, it has all changed.”
When you introduce war, you create fires that can’t be effectively extinguished.
“You cannot fly aircraft to suppress fire with water because that aircraft will be shot down,” Maksym Matsala, a postdoctoral researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, explained.
Forests and agricultural land are woven together across Ukraine, meaning wildfires also endanger the country’s food supply. Battle-sparked blazes destroy harvests and eliminate the trees that shelter cropland from drying winds and erosion that can lead to drought — leaving those on the military front lines and Ukrainian citizens at risk of food insecurity.
A forest burns after Russian shelling in July 2024 in Raihorodok, Ukraine. Ethan Swope/Getty Images These forests have also served as a physical refuge for people in Ukraine fleeing persecution or occupation. For generations, local populations sheltered among the trees to avoid conflict with neighboring invaders. This theme continues today, shielding Ukrainians fleeing cities demolished by Russian troops. Fires are threatening this shelter.
Preventative measures like removing unexploded ordnance that could ignite or intensify fires are now unimaginably dangerous and significantly slower when set to the backdrop of explosions or gunfire, said Sergiy Zibtsev, a forestry scientist at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine and head of the Regional Eastern Europe Fire Monitoring Center. In a country as heavily covered in mines as Ukraine, this turns small embers into out-of-control blazes.
Matsala added that forests under these war-ravaged conditions may not ever truly recover. Consistent shelling, explosions, and fires leave a graveyard of charred trees that barely resemble a woodland at all. Consistent fighting since February 2022 has left the Serebryansky Forest an alien landscape.
“The local forest now looks like some charcoal piles without any leaves, and it’s just like the moon landscape with some black sticks,” Matsala said.
In liberated regions of Ukraine, the wildfire management strategy involves removing land mines one by one, a process known as demining. It’s a multistep system where trained professionals first survey a landscape, sometimes using drones, to identify regions where mines are likely to be found. They then sweep the landscape with metal detectors until the characteristic pattern of beeps confirms the presence of one. Next, they must disable and extract it. Even without the risk of accidentally triggering unexploded ordnance, demining in an active conflict zone is incredibly dangerous. Deminers elsewhere have been killed by enemy combatants before. And a misstep can cause an explosion that sparks a new fire, which can spread quickly in Ukraine’s war-denuded landscape. Demining is a “square meter by square meter” process that must be done meticulously, said Zibtsev.
These challenges are what spurred Brian Milakovsky and Brian Roth, two professional foresters with Eastern European connections, to found Forest Release in 2023.
A view of shelling scraps in Serebryansky Forest, in Luhansk, Ukraine in June 2024. Pablo Miranzo/Anadolu via Getty Images The U.S.-based nonprofit helps coordinate and disseminate monitoring research in Ukraine’s forests. Using satellite products that take into account vegetation greenness, Milakovsky, Roth, and their collaborators can identify particular forests in Ukraine that might be under the most stress from fires. Forest Release can then send this information to local firefighters or forest managers in Ukraine so they can tend to those forests first. It also collects firefighting safety equipment from the U.S. to donate to firefighters in Ukraine. Both of these activities allow Forest Release and its Ukrainian counterpart, the Ukrainian Forest Safety Center, to train foresters to fight fires and get certified as deminers.
To make drone-based mine detection more effective and safe, two other American researchers launched an AI-powered mine-detection service in 2020 that’s being used in Ukraine: Jasper Baur, a remote sensing researcher, and Gabriel Steinberg, a computer scientist, founded SafePro AI to tap artificial intelligence to more autonomously and efficiently detect land mines in current and former warzones.
“I started researching high-tech land mines in 2016 in university,” Baur said. “I was trying to research how we can detect these things that are a known hazard, especially for civilians and children.”
Surface land mines, as Baur explained, can seem particularly innocuous, which makes them even more dangerous. “They look like toys,” he said. He and Steinberg worked to turn their research project into a tangible application that would help deminers globally.
SafePro AI is trained on images of both inactive and active unexploded ordnance — everything from land mines to grenades. The model works by differentiating an ordnance from its surroundings, giving deminers an exact location of where a land mine is. When not being trained on images from Ukraine, it learns from images sourced elsewhere that Baur tries to ensure are as close to reality as possible.
Ukrainian soldiers and a tank parole during a period of heavy fighting in the Serebryansky Forest in eastern Ukraine, in June 2024. Pablo Miranzo/Anadolu via Getty Images (left) and Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images
“A lot of our initial training data was in Oklahoma, and I’ve been collecting a lot in farmlands in New York,” he said. “I walk out with bins of inert land mines, and I scatter them in farm fields and then I try to make [the conditions] as similar to Ukraine as possible.”
Because a lot of land mines are in fields adjacent to Ukrainian forests, focusing removal efforts at the perimeter can stop fires before they spread. SafePro AI has team members in the U.S., United Kingdom, and also in Ukraine. In fact, Motorniuk, from the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine who also works for SafePro AI as a developer, said that his work has shown him that he can make a difference without picking up a gun. SafePro AI has received funding from the United Nations Development Programme to deploy the technology in Ukraine through humanitarian land mine action organizations. So far, the company has surveyed over 15,000 acres of land, detecting over 26,000 unexploded ordnance.
Much of the protection of Ukraine’s forests in and around the war is predicated on information. Can land mines be located? Can wildfires be slowed or stopped? In a geospatially data-poor country like Ukraine, Matsala highlights that this kind of work, and the creation of robust datasets, is necessary to ensure the survival of Ukraine’s natural ecosystems. It also offers a chance to rethink the country’s forestry in the long-term.
“This is a huge opportunity to change some of our … practices to make the forests more resilient to climate change, to these large landscape fires, and just [healthier],” Roth, of Forest Release, said.
Roth agrees with Matsala that Ukraine’s stands of non-native, highly flammable pine trees pose a prolonged threat to the country’s forests — particularly as climate change increases drought and heat wave risk throughout Europe. In Roth’s opinion, losing some of these forests to wildfires during the war will actually allow Ukrainian foresters to plant less flammable, native tree species in their place.
An aerial view of a charred pine trees forest contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnance in September 2024 in Svyatohirsk, Ukraine. Pierre Crom/Getty Images The scientific and humanitarian collaboration unfolding to protect Ukraine’s forests amid war may also provide a record that would allow the country to claim legal damages for ecosystem destruction in the future.
Matsala recalled what happened in the aftermath of the Gulf War in the early 1990s. Amid fighting, invading Iraqi forces destroyed Kuwait’s oil facilities, leading to widespread pollution throughout the region. Although Iraq was forced to pay out billions of dollars to Persian Gulf countries including Kuwait, Iran, and Saudi Arabia for both damages and remediation, the payments may not have covered the totality of the environmental impacts. Following the war, neighboring Iran requested millions of dollars in damages for a myriad of environmental impacts, including for acid rain caused by oil fires. The United Nations Compensation Commission ultimately found that Iran had “not provided the minimum technical information and documents necessary” to justify the claims for damages from the acid rain. Matsala worries that without extensive data and reporting on the war with Russia, future Ukrainian claims for environmental reparations might go nowhere.
Whether that tribunal comes to fruition, or the forests are properly rehabilitated, remains to be seen. But the work continues. And with hostilities still happening, and no clear end, it will continue to be dangerous.
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How 3 years of war have ravaged Ukraine’s forests, and the people who depend on them on Jun 5, 2025.
This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Chad Small.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
-
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
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.
-
There is a boat sailing to Gaza right now. It carries aid for the people of Palestine. And it is called the Freedom Flotilla.
It is a sign of solidarity. A sign of resistance. Against Israel’s war on the people of Palestine. Against the death, and destruction and pain. A sign of international resistance against the Israeli genocide.
On board is Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, and 11 others from around the world.
“12 people are here on board, to break the siege and to create a people’s humanitarian corridor. To take whatever aid we can carry. And to say that we do not accept a genocide. We do not accept ethnic cleansing. And we will not stay silent.”
That’s Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila.
The goal is to break Israel’s siege of Gaza and deliver much needed humanitarian aid. Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza since 2007, strictly controlling the entry of supplies, goods, and aid into the region.
On board the ship is rice, flour, baby formula, diapers, women’s sanitary products, water desalination kits, and medical supplies.
This is not the first time they have tried to sail to Gaza.
One month ago, another ship, also sailing as part of the Freedom Flotilla, was attacked by drones. 15 years ago, another group of ships were attacked. Israeli forces killed 10 people on board. Injured dozens. And arrested everyone.
Greta Thunberg spoke to the public shortly before they set sail on June 1.
“We are doing this because no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying. Because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity. And no matter how dangerous this mission is. It is no where near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of a live-streamed genocide.”
“We just want to say that this isn’t just about getting food into Gaza. It’s also about breaking the medical seizure of doctors. Bringing in doctors and medical equipment. And I just have a few messages to all of the doctors and nurses in Gaza that are doing amazing work. Not just the local doctors, but the international doctors. We see you. We see the work that you’re doing on there and the reporting that you’re doing on the ground.”
The Freedom Flotilla left from Sicily, Italy, on June 1. It’s a seven-day voyage. If all goes as planned, they will arrive to Gaza this weekend.
“We need you to keep all eyes on deck. To follow the mission. And to keep putting pressure on your respective governments and institutions to demand an end to the genocide and occupation in Palestine.”
###
Hi folks, thanks for listening. I’m your host Michael Fox.
I have no words to describe the dire situation in Gaza. We’ll be following the progress of the Freedom Flotilla closely over the coming days.
If you liked this story, please consider signing up for the Stories of Resistance podcast feed, either in Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. I’ll add links in the show notes.
You can support my work and this podcast, plus check out exclusive pictures, videos and stories on my Patreon. That’s Patreon.com/mfox.
This is Episode 42 of Stories of Resistance, a podcast series co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange’s Human Rights in Action program. Each week, I bring you stories of resistance and hope like this. Inspiration for dark times. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment or leave a review.
As always, thanks for listening. See you next time.
###
“We know that for 78 years, not a single bottle of water, not a single piece of bread enters Gaza. So we are going on a small boat called Madleen that fits 10-12 people, carrying whatever humanitarian aid we can carry, carrying all the people that wants to go there, and go into Gaza, not because we think that a few boxes we will be able to take will make a difference… we know that this is just a drop in the ocean, but we are going to open a people’s humanitarian corridor.”
This is episode 42 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange’s Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.
If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment, or leave a review.
And please consider signing up for the Stories of Resistance podcast feed, either in Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, or wherever you listen.
Visit patreon.com/mfox for exclusive pictures, to follow Michael Fox’s reporting and to support his work.
Written and produced by Michael Fox.
You can find more information on the Freedom Flotilla at https://freedomflotilla.org/
On their Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gazafreedomflotilla
Or X: https://x.com/GazaFFlotilla
This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Michael Fox.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.
-
Read about this topic in Vietnamese.
Since becoming general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, To Lam has drawn international attention with his aggressive plans for cost-cutting within the government but he’s been quiet about another drain on the state budget – the ruling party itself.
After taking office last August, he has moved this year to eliminate and merge ministries and central government agencies, reduce the number of provinces and cities by half, and dismantle district-level administrative units. Tens of thousands of civil servants have already lost their jobs. The Ministry of Interior has estimated that in five years, this will have saved 130 trillion dong (US$5.2 billion at today’s exchange rate) in the state budget.
To Lam’s campaign has been likened to the drastic cuts that U.S. President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk have made to U.S. federal agencies through the Department of Government Efficiency.
But when it comes to making savings in Vietnam’s state apparatus, To Lam appears to have hedged his bets.
Vietnam operates under two intertwined systems: the party and the government. Although each has a separate budget, both draw from the same source — taxpayer money. The party, in power since the end of the Vietnam War and the reunification of the country in 1975, exists as a parallel structure to the government and plays the leading role in policymaking and governance.
While the government’s budget is occasionally made public, the party’s finances remain classified under Vietnamese law.
This policy predates To Lam’s leadership. However, given his sweeping efforts to streamline the state apparatus and reduce spending, his silence on the party’s own budget raises questions about how far he’s willing to go on fiscal reform.
Vu Tuong, a professor and expert on Vietnamese politics from the University of Oregon, said data shows that from 2008 to 2015, the Central Party Office’s budget increased steadily.
“Although actual spending figures are not disclosed, the Central Party Office alone saw its planned budget quadruple in seven years — from nearly US$27 million (622 billion dong) in 2008 to about US$105 million (more than 2,400 billion dong) in 2015,” he said.
The office functions as the party’s command center, where the general secretary oversees both party and government operations. From 2011 to 2015, its budget rose by 180 percent — three times higher than the increase in the government office’s budget, according to Vu Tuong. The publication of data on its spending stopped in 2015.
Budget is a secret
Zachary Abuza, an expert on Southeast Asia at the National War College in Washington, noted the lack of transparency.
“The party’s budget is a secret, so researchers must work with imperfect data,” he told Radio Free Asia. He said To Lam is mindful of ballooning recurrent expenditures and has made some attempts to rein them in. For example, the party’s foreign affairs committee has been merged into other entities. However, despite these changes, the party’s overall budget continues to grow.
“While the budgets of government agencies have shrunk or stagnated, the budget for the CPV’s bureaucracy has steadily increased over the past few years, if we count the Fatherland Front, the organization that supports the party’s activities,” Abuza said. CPV stands for the Communist Party of Vietnam.
He said more transparency could help improve the party’s legitimacy, but given its obsession with maintaining supreme power, “it’s hard to see them cutting the party’s budget,” he said.
In 2016, the Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research estimated that the economic cost of maintaining public mass organizations — directly controlled by the Communist Party — ranged from 45,600 to 68,100 billion dong annually (about US$2 billion to US$3 billion at the time). These organizations are intended to fulfill roles that, in democratic countries, would be played by independent civil society groups. To Lam has not indicated whether he intends to cut their funding.
According to Abuza, To Lam’s ongoing radical restructuring of the national government, including the consolidation of five ministries and several government agencies, and the reduction of nearly 50% of the number of provinces, created a rare opportunity to further cut both state and party organizations.
However, the budgets for the party and its supporting organizations are difficult to cut because they are tied to the inherent interests of the bureaucracy, he said.
There may be a political reason behind To Lam’s reluctance to target the party’s spending.
The next National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam is approaching in early 2026, when a new generation of leaders will be elected. To Lam, 67, is believed to be seeking another term as general secretary.
“There’s only half-a-year left until the Party Congress,” said Abuza. “So there won’t be any major changes. Normally, spending and policy implementation would be completely locked down by this stage.”
Edited by Mat Pennington.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Truong Son for RFA Vietnamese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.
The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – June 2, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.
This content originally appeared on KPFA – The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.
The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – June 2, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.
This content originally appeared on KPFA – The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
