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  • Meet the BIPOC Press: Is Worker-Owned Media the Future of Journalism?


    This content originally appeared on Laura Flanders & Friends and was authored by Laura Flanders & Friends.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Meet the BIPOC Press: Is Worker-Owned Media the Future of Journalism?


    This content originally appeared on Laura Flanders & Friends and was authored by Laura Flanders & Friends.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Decolonisation, the climate crisis, and improving media education in the Pacific

    Global Voices interviews veteran author, journalist and educator David Robie who discussed the state of Pacific media, journalism education, and the role of the press in addressing decolonisation and the climate crisis.

    INTERVIEW: By Mong Palatino in Manila

    Professor David Robie is among this year’s New Zealand Order of Merit awardees and was on the King’s Birthday Honours list earlier this month for his “services to journalism and Asia-Pacific media education.”

    His career in journalism has spanned five decades. He was the founding editor of the Pacific Journalism Review journal in 1994 and in 1996 he established the Pacific Media Watch, a media rights watchdog group.

    He was head of the journalism department at the University of Papua New Guinea from 1993–1997 and at the University of the South Pacific from 1998–2002. While teaching at Auckland University of Technology, he founded the Pacific Media Centre in 2007.

    He has authored 10 books on Asia-Pacific media and politics. He received the 1985 Media Peace Prize for his coverage of the Rainbow Warrior bombing — which he sailed on and wrote the book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior — and the French and American nuclear testing.

    In 2015, he was given the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) Asian Communication Award in Dubai. Global Voices interviewed him about the challenges faced by journalists in the Pacific and his career. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

    MONG PALATINO (MP): What are the main challenges faced by the media in the region?

    DAVID ROBIE (DR): Corruption, viability, and credibility — the corruption among politicians and influence on journalists, the viability of weak business models and small media enterprises, and weakening credibility. After many years of developing a reasonably independent Pacific media in many countries in the region with courageous and independent journalists in leadership roles, many media groups are becoming susceptible to growing geopolitical rivalry between powerful players in the region, particularly China, which is steadily increasing its influence on the region’s media — especially in Solomon Islands — not just in development aid.

    However, the United States, Australia and France are also stepping up their Pacific media and journalism training influences in the region as part of “Indo-Pacific” strategies that are really all about countering Chinese influence.

    Indonesia is also becoming an influence in the media in the region, for other reasons. Jakarta is in the middle of a massive “hearts and minds” strategy in the Pacific, mainly through the media and diplomacy, in an attempt to blunt the widespread “people’s” sentiment in support of West Papuan aspirations for self-determination and eventual independence.

    MP: What should be prioritised in improving journalism education in the region?

    DR: The university-based journalism schools, such as at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, are best placed to improve foundation journalism skills and education, and also to encourage life-long learning for journalists. More funding would be more beneficial channelled through the universities for more advanced courses, and not just through short-course industry training. I can say that because I have been through the mill both ways — 50 years as a journalist starting off in the “school of hard knocks” in many countries, including almost 30 years running journalism courses and pioneering several award-winning student journalist publications. However, it is important to retain media independence and not allow funding NGOs to dictate policies.

    MP: How can Pacific journalists best fulfill their role in highlighting Pacific stories, especially the impact of the climate crisis?

    DR: The best strategy is collaboration with international partners that have resources and expertise in climate crisis, such as the Earth Journalism Network to give a global stage for their issues and concerns. When I was still running the Pacific Media Centre, we had a high profile Pacific climate journalism Bearing Witness project where students made many successful multimedia reports and award-winning commentaries. An example is this one on YouTube: Banabans of Rabi: A Story of Survival

    MP: What should the international community focus on when reporting about the Pacific?

    DR: It is important for media to monitor the Indo-Pacific rivalries, but to also keep them in perspective — so-called ”security” is nowhere as important to Pacific countries as it is to its Western neighbours and China. It is important for the international community to keep an eye on the ball about what is important to the Pacific, which is ‘development’ and ‘climate crisis’ and why China has an edge in some countries at the moment.

    Australia and, to a lesser extent, New Zealand have dropped the ball in recent years, and are tying to regain lost ground, but concentrating too much on “security”. Listen to the Pacific voices.

    There should be more international reporting about the “hidden stories” of the Pacific such as the unresolved decolonisation issues — Kanaky New Caledonia, “French” Polynesia (Mā’ohi Nui), both from France; and West Papua from Indonesia. West Papua, in particular, is virtually ignored by Western media in spite of the ongoing serious human rights violations. This is unconscionable.

    Mong Palatino is regional editor of Global Voices for Southeast Asia. An activist and former two-term member of the Philippine House of Representatives, he has been blogging since 2004 at mongster’s nest. @mongster Republished with permission.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – June 28, 2024

    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 28, 2024 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.

  • The War on Weed Continues in West Virginia


    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.

  • Reporter’s phone knocked to the ground, later stolen at LA protest

    Sergio Olmos, an investigative reporter for the nonprofit news site CalMatters, reported that his phone was knocked to the ground and subsequently stolen while he was documenting clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters in Los Angeles, California, on June 23, 2024. At least nine journalists were assaulted while covering the violence that day.

    The conflict began after the Southern California chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement called for demonstrators to meet at noon outside the Adas Torah synagogue in the heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood in west LA to protest the alleged sale of occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, according to the Los Angeles Times.

    Multiple journalists told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that scuffles, brawls and exchanges of pepper spray broke out in the streets nearby between the protesters and counterprotesters.

    Individuals from both sides — including a rabbi and security volunteers from the Jewish community — attempted to intervene and prevent the violence from escalating. CNN reported that Los Angeles Police Department officers established a perimeter around the synagogue.

    Olmos wrote on the social media platform X that he was filming an attack on a pro-Palestinian protester when a man drove a truck toward the crowd, nearly ramming people. “At that moment a pro-israeli demonstrator knocked my phone out of my hands to stop me from filming it,” Olmos wrote.

    Independent videographer Sean Beckner-Carmitchel told the Tracker that the phone was later returned. Olmos declined to comment further when reached by the Tracker.

    In a second post, Olmos wrote that later that day a different demonstrator stole his phone and, when he held up his press credentials, the man told him, “You shouldn’t be there.” The robbery can be seen at 0:47 in footage captured by Beckner-Carmitchel. Of the phone, Olmos wrote: “its gone.”

    The LAPD said in a news release that officers were investigating two reports of battery at the protest and that one individual had been arrested for having a spiked post. A spokesperson for the department told the Tracker via email June 27 that they have no further information.


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • When the Levee Breaks | PFC Band | Live at Byron Bay Bluesfest 2024 | Playing For Change


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • North Macedonia journalist Lepa Dzhundeva threatened with sexual, physical violence

    Berlin, June 28, 2024 — North Macedonian authorities must swiftly and thoroughly investigate the online harassment and violent threats sent to journalist Lepa Dzhundeva, bring the perpetrators to justice, and ensure her safety, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

    Dzhundeva, a reporter for privately owned channel TV 24, has received dozens of social media messages with nationalistic slurs, sexist and misogynistic comments, and threats of sexual and physical violence since June 3, 2024, according to a statement by the independent trade group Association of Journalists of Macedonia and the journalist, who spoke with CPJ.

    The threats began after Bogdan Ilievski, a columnist for news website Off.net, published an eight-second video excerpt of Dzhundeva’s June 3 interview with a Greek member of parliament on his Facebook page and his outlet posted the same excerpt on its website critical of Dzhundeva for using the country’s internationally acknowledged name—North Macedonia. CPJ’s social media messages to Ilievski did not receive a reply.

    “North Macedonia authorities should swiftly and thoroughly investigate the threats received by journalist Lepa Dzhundeva and bring the perpetrators to justice,” said Attila Mong, CPJ’s Europe representative. “Threatening a journalist because of her coverage is completely unacceptable, and police must show they take Dzhundeva’s situation seriously and ensure her safety.”

    The Association of Journalists of Macedonia filed a criminal complaint with the police on behalf of Dzhundeva but has not received an update as of June 28, 2024, the association’s senior researcher Milan Spirovski told CPJ.

    The North Macedonia name dispute was a long-standing disagreement between Greece and its northern neighbor after the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, when the newly independent Balkan state called itself the Republic of Macedonia—the name Greece also claimed for its own northern region. After years of talks and many protests, Greece and Macedonia settled on the formal name of the Republic of North Macedonia in 2018; however, the name continues to be controversial.

    The Association of Journalists of Macedonia and the trade group Independent Union of Journalists and Media Workers condemned the threats against Dzhundeva’s safety in a June 12 statement and called on Ilievski to publicly apologize for framing Dzhundeva with “a very clear intention to expose her in a negative context.”

    Six regional press freedom groups operating in the Western Balkans asked the North Macedonia Ministry of Internal Affairs, which oversees the police, to “take immediate and decisive action against those responsible for the threats” in a June 7 statement.

    CPJ emailed questions to the press department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs but received no responses.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Climate change got a question in the presidential debate. It didn’t get much of an answer.

    Over more than an hour and a half of back-and-forth, climate change got just a couple minutes of airtime during a CNN-hosted debate between President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump on Thursday.

    It was the first time the men had faced each other on the debate stage since October 2020. Both candidates were reportedly eager for the confrontation, with Biden’s team seeking to warn voters about the increased radicalism that Trump is promising to bring to a second term, and Trump keen on digging into his rival’s alleged cognitive decline. 

    Most of the discourse focused on hot-button issues like immigration and the economy. Biden spoke with a raspy voice and at times tripped over his words, while Trump took many wild discursions and uttered several falsehoods that moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper did little to rein in.

    A little over halfway in, however, Bash asked whether the candidates would do anything as president to address the climate crisis. Neither candidate directly answered the question, but Biden pointed to policies his administration has implemented to encourage the development of clean energy technologies. Trump gave an incoherent nonanswer.

    “I want absolutely immaculate clean water and absolutely clean air,” Trump said. “And we had it. We had H2O, we had the best numbers ever, and we were using all forms of energy, everything.” He said his presidency saw “the best environmental numbers ever,” a statistic he said his advisers had given him moments before he walked onto the stage. In truth, Trump rolled back more than 200 environmental policies during his four years in office.

    Trump also took credit for pulling the country out of the Paris Agreement — a “ripoff” for the U.S., as he described it. He otherwise used his allotted climate time to talk about his support among police groups and Biden’s border policies, among other unrelated topics.

    Biden, for his part, said he enacted “the most extensive climate change legislation in history,” a reference to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which contained $369 billion in clean energy tax credits and funding for climate and energy programs. He also mentioned his administration’s creation of the American Climate Corps — a federal program to put young people to work on landscape restoration, renewable energy deployment, and other green projects — and reiterated the importance of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

    In combination with preexisting policies, the Inflation Reduction Act is expected to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by up to 42 percent by 2030, almost within reach of the country’s commitment under the Paris Agreement to halve emissions compared to 2005 values by the end of the decade. 

    This is in marked contrast to projections about what could happen to the climate under a second Trump term. According to an analysis published in March by Carbon Brief, another Trump administration could add some 4 billion metric tons to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, compared to a second Biden term. This increase could cause $900 billion in additional climate damages globally. The analysis predicted that, if Trump rolled back all of Biden’s key climate policies, the U.S. would be “all but guaranteed” to miss its 2030 climate target.

    “Given the scale of U.S. emissions and its influence on the world, this makes the election crucial to hopes of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” Carbon Brief said.

    Beyond the one question from Bash, the only other climate-related mentions during the debate came from Trump, who blamed the U.S.’s federal deficit on a failure to extract “the liquid gold right under our feet” — oil and gas — and referred to Biden’s climate policies as the “green new scam.” He also used the term “energy independent” to describe the nation on January 6, 2021, the day he told his supporters to launch an insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.

    This is in line with some of the former president’s previous messaging about climate change, although it’s hard to parse what he actually believes from his history of erratic, conflicting statements. Sometimes he’s said climate change is a “hoax” orchestrated by China; other times he’s acknowledged its existence but questioned its connection to human activity.

    More recently, Trump has downplayed the seriousness of the climate crisis. At a campaign rally in January, he called a youth climate protester “immature” and told her to “go home to mommy.” If elected, he has promised to “drill, baby, drill,” and reverse Biden administration climate policies like the Inflation Reduction Act.

    Although expectations have never been particularly high about the prominence of climate change during a presidential debate, climate experts expressed disappointment in the brevity and shallowness of Thursday’s climate discussions. “More time discussing golf than climate. What a world we are living in,” tweeted Jeff Goodell, the author of The Heat Will Kill You First, referring to a bizarre exchange between the two candidates in which Biden challenged Trump to a round of golf. 

    Other observers shared deeper concerns about Biden’s performance, which included mistakes that his opponent was quick to point out. 

    “I hope he reviews his debate performance Thursday evening and withdraws from the race, throwing the choice of a Democratic nominee to the convention in August,” wrote the New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof.

    This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Climate change got a question in the presidential debate. It didn’t get much of an answer. on Jun 28, 2024.


    This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Joseph Winters.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Does the video show a US lawmaker outraged over the Antisemitism Awareness Act?

    A video of an American legislator yelling in outrage emerged in social media posts that claim it shows the lawmaker was angry about the recent passage of the Antisemitism Awareness Act by the U.S. House of Representatives. 

    But the claim is false. The video, taken from 2012 footage, shows the-Illinois House of Representatives member and current Illinois Republican congressman Mike Bost criticizing a reform plan for social security.

    The video was shared on X by Chinese diplomat Zhang Heqing on June 8, 2024. 

    “It looks like he is angry,” Zhang said in the post. 

    The 44-second video shows a man dressed in a suit shouting in outrage at what appears to be a meeting of the U.S. House.

    “The U.S. putting out this act about the Jews is a shameful disgrace,” a superimposed caption in Chinese reads.  

    1 (8).png
    Chinese diplomat Zhang Heqing circulated a video claiming that a U.S. legislator lost his temper and publicly went off on the recent Antisemitism Awareness Act passed by the House of Representatives. (Screenshot/X)

    The House passed a bipartisan bill, Antisemitism Awareness Act, on May 1 to combat antisemitism as pro-Palestinian protests roil colleges across the U.S.

    The bill would mandate that the Education Department adopt the broad definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental group, to enforce anti-discrimination laws.

    The group defines antisemitism as a “certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.”

    It adds that “rhetorical and physical manifestations” of antisemitism include such things as calling for the killing or harming of Jews or holding Jews collectively responsible for actions taken by Israel.

    The video had previously been shared by other Chinese influencers on social media platforms such as Douyin, Weibo and X. 

    Some online users commented that even “U.S. lawmakers have grown fed up with U.S. support of Israel and the Jewish community” citing the video.

    But the claim is false.  

    Old video

    A reverse image search found the video published in a report by the American broadcaster CBS on May 30, 2012.

    “IL Rep. Mike Bost Is Furious Over Pension Reforms by Steve Lehocky on YouTube,” the caption of the video reads. 

    The report details the Democrat-led plan to overhaul the state pension system.

    2 (3).png
    Both the figures and scene from the footage of Bost in 2012 (top) matches the recent footage Chinese netizens purportedly claim shows a legislator’s outburst over the Antisemitism Awareness Act.  (Screenshots /CNN and X) 

    “A downstate lawmaker screamed, yelled and threw papers Tuesday, as he expressed frustration about the Democrat-led plan to overhaul the state pension system,” the report reads in part. 

    “One of those lawmakers is Rep. Mike Bost (R-Murphysboro), who launched into a tirade Tuesday as he complained about the amount of power Madigan wields.”

    Bost on the Antisemitism Awareness Act

    Bost did not speak at all during the near hour long House deliberation on  the Antisemitism Awareness Act broadcast by CSPAN on May 1. 

    The act eventually passed the House by a vote of 320 in favor, 91 against and 18 abstentions, with Bost officially recorded as voting for the act.

    While legislators from both parties openly opposed the bill, none of them expressed their disagreement in emotional language or exaggerated movements during the proceedings. 

    The act  awaits approval by the Senate before it can be sent to the president to be signed into law. 

    Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang.

    Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Rita Cheng for Asia Fact Check Lab.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • There’s a Cheap and Effective Way to Tackle the Opioid Crisis

    Safer smoking kits are an essential tool for harm reduction and racial equity.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • There’s a Cheap and Effective Way to Tackle the Opioid Crisis

    Safer smoking kits are an essential tool for harm reduction and racial equity.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – June 27, 2024. Biden and Trump meet in first presidential debate in Atlanta.

    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 27, 2024. Biden and Trump meet in first presidential debate in Atlanta. 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.

  • “My heart soared”: Vice presidential candidate Melina Abdullah on joining the Cornel West campaign


    This content originally appeared on Laura Flanders & Friends and was authored by Laura Flanders & Friends.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Old video of Bengaluru vendor shared with the false claim that he added urine to popcorn

    A video purportedly from Bengaluru is going viral on social media, claiming to show Bengaluru police apprehending a popcorn vendor for allegedly using urine to make popcorn. Many social media users are using the word ‘peaceful’ to describe the accused, which is a sarcastic jibe often used by the Right Wing to refer to the Muslim community.

    Premium subscribed X (formerly Twitter) user हम लोग We The People 🇮🇳 (@ajaychauhan41), who has been found sharing and amplifying communal misinformation several times in the past, shared the aforementioned video on June 22 and wrote a caption Hindi that can be translated as: “In Bengaluru, the ‘peaceful’ owner of a popcorn stall was caught red-handed making popcorn with urine instead of salt!” The tweet has received more than 1.44 Lakh views and has been retweeted over 3,700 times. (Archive)

    Several other users on X and Facebook also shared the same video with the claim that the popcorn stall owner had used urine to make the popcorn.

    Click to view slideshow.

    Fact Check

    On running a relevant keyword search we came across several news reports from 2022 which carried screengrabs from the viral video.

    We came across a June 14, 2022, report from The News Minute titled, “Bengaluru cops prevent lynching of Muslim popcorn vendor in Lalbagh”. The report stated that Nawaz Pasha, a popcorn vendor in Lalbagh for nearly ten years, was accused by passersby of spitting into the oil used to prepare the popcorn. The crowd was on the verge of assaulting him when a police inspector passing through the area intervened, took control of the situation, and prevented the attack.

    The report further mentioned that police had apprehended Nawaz and seized his popcorn-making machine based on the allegations levelled by the locals. They, however, refused to come to the police station and file an FIR. The cops eventually filed a suo moto case against him under sections 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 272 (adulteration of food or drink intended for sale) and 273 (sale of noxious food or drink) of the IPC. However, Nawaz said that he did not spit into the oil he only bit the oil packet to tear it.

    Another report by the news Minute stated that Nawaz was later released on bail. When the cops were requested to drop the charges against him, they said, “It has become a big issue and is in the media, and they have no option but to file a case against him”.

    This report quotes Nawaz as saying that he “tore open an oil packet with his hand and put the torn fragment of the packaging in his mouth while filling the empty oil bottle at his stall and spat it away later.” This was noticed by another man, a jogger. “He walked towards him and asked for his name. As soon as he heard, “my name is Navaz,” he gathered a mob by shouting, “look, this Muslim boy has spat in the oil thrice.”

    Based on the findings, it is clear that the viral video is old, and the claim that the popcorn vendor was arrested for using urine to cook the popcorn is false. The actual allegation against Nawaz Pasha, the popcorn seller, was that he had spat into the oil. However, other than the complainants who refused to file an FIR, there is no evidence to support the claim.

    ‘Thook Jihad’ or the theory that Muslim cooks or vendors spit into the food that they sell is an allegation often made by the Right Wing in an attempt to demonize the community. Earlier, it was falsely claimed that Muslims had admitted in court that spitting was a way to ensure the food is halal.

    The post Old video of Bengaluru vendor shared with the false claim that he added urine to popcorn appeared first on Alt News.


    This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The NYPD Commissioner buried her case against one of its officers


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • “My heart soared”: Vice presidential candidate Melina Abdullah on joining the Cornel West campaign


    This content originally appeared on Laura Flanders & Friends and was authored by Laura Flanders & Friends.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Gaza Project: Investigation Details “Unprecedented” Israeli Targeting of Palestinian Journalists


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • She was a victim of police violence. Then the NYPD Commissioner buried her case.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Gaza Project: Investigation Details Israel’s “Unprecedented” Targeting of Palestinian Journalists

    Seg2 hudaandvest

    Gaza is the deadliest place on Earth for journalists ever recorded. As many as 140 journalists and media workers have been killed there since October, a figure that the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate says represents 10% of the journalists in Gaza. The Gaza Project, a new collaborative investigation from the nonprofit group Forbidden Stories, finds that at least 40 were killed while in their homes, at least 14 were wearing press vests when they were attacked by the Israeli army, and at least 18 were killed, injured or allegedly targeted by drones. Hoda Osman, a journalist and executive editor of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, who worked on the investigation, shares some of the findings, including the targeting of Agence France-Presse’s Gaza bureau and the killing of journalist Bilal Jadallah, the founder of landmark Gaza-based media organization Press House-Palestine. The scale of these deaths is “unprecedented,” and not a “natural result” of wartime conflict, emphasizes Osman. “It should be a crisis for journalists worldwide.”


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Pro-Russian Former Moldovan President Couldn’t Say Who Started The War In Ukraine


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • New Yorkers Were Choked, Beaten and Tased by NYPD Officers. The Commissioner Buried Their Cases.

    by Eric Umansky

    ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. This article was published in partnership with The New York Times.

    Brianna Villafane was in Lower Manhattan protesting police violence in the summer of 2020, when officers charged into the crowd. One of them gripped her hair and yanked her to the ground.

    “I felt someone on top of me and it was hard to breathe,” she said. “I felt like I was being crushed.”

    The New York City civilian oversight agency that examines allegations of police abuse investigated and concluded that the officer had engaged in such serious misconduct that it could constitute a crime.

    Villafane received a letter from the agency about its conclusions. “I was happy and I was relieved,” she recalled. The next step would be a disciplinary trial overseen by the New York Police Department, during which prosecutors from the oversight agency would present evidence and question the officer in a public forum.

    New York’s civilian oversight agency found that an NYPD officer engaged in misconduct when he grabbed Brianna Villafane by the hair during a protest. (Stephanie Mei-Ling, special to ProPublica)

    Then last fall, the police commissioner intervened.

    Exercising a little-known authority called “retention,” the commissioner, Edward Caban, ensured the case would never go to trial.

    Instead, Caban reached his own conclusion in private.

    He decided that it “would be detrimental to the Police Department’s disciplinary process” to pursue administrative charges against the officer, Gerard Dowling, according to a letter the department sent to the oversight agency. The force that the officer used against Villafane was “reasonable and necessary.” The commissioner ordered no discipline.

    Today, Dowling is a deputy chief of the unit that handles protests throughout the city.

    Video Taken by a Civilian Shows NYPD Officer Gerard Dowling Grabbing Brianna Villafane’s Hair During a Protest (Courtesy of Brandon Remmert)

    Watch video ➜

    His case is one of dozens in which Caban has used the powers of his office to intervene in disciplinary cases against officers who were found by the oversight agency to have committed misconduct.

    Since becoming commissioner last July, he has short-circuited cases involving officers accused of wantonly using chokeholds, deploying Tasers and beating protesters with batons. A number of episodes were so serious that the police oversight agency, known as the Civilian Complaint Review Board, concluded the officers likely committed crimes.

    As is typical across the United States, New York’s police commissioner has the final say over officer discipline. Commissioners can and often do overrule civilian oversight boards. But Caban’s actions stand out for ending cases before the public disciplinary process plays out.

    “What the Police Department is doing here is shutting down cases under the cloak of darkness,” said Florence L. Finkle, a former head of the CCRB and current vice president of the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. Avoiding disciplinary trials “means there’s no opportunity for transparency, no opportunity for the public to weigh in, because nobody knows what’s happening.”

    Indeed, the department does not publish the commissioner’s decisions to retain cases, and the civilian oversight agency makes those details public only months after the fact. Civilians are not told that the Police Department ended their cases.

    To piece together Caban’s actions, ProPublica obtained internal records of some cases and learned details of others using public records, lawsuits, social media accounts and other sources.

    Retention has been the commissioner’s chief method of intervention. He has prevented the cases of 54 officers from going to trial in his roughly one year in office — far more than any other commissioner, according to an analysis of CCRB data. His predecessor, Keechant Sewell, did it eight times in her first year, even as she faced more disciplinary cases.

    In addition, under Caban, the Police Department has failed to notify officers that the oversight agency has filed charges against them — a seemingly minor administrative matter that can actually hold up the disciplinary process. The rules say that without this formal step, a departmental trial cannot begin. Seven cases have been sitting with the department since last summer because it has never formally notified the officers involved, according to the CCRB.

    These cases are particularly opaque, as there is no publicly available list of them.

    In one episode, the CCRB found that an officer had shocked an unarmed man with a Taser four times while he was trying to back away.

    William Harvin Sr. was shocked with a Taser by an NYPD officer four times while trying to back away. (Stephanie Mei-Ling, special to ProPublica)

    “He Tased me for no reason,” recalled William Harvin Sr. “He was coming to me, Tasing my legs, my back.”

    The review board found that the officer, Raul Torres, should face trial. But the Police Department has yet to move the case forward, a fact Harvin learned from a reporter. “They take care of their own,” he said, shaking his head. (Torres, who has since been promoted to detective, declined to comment and his lawyer said the officer had “no choice” but to use force.)

    Video Shows an NYPD Officer Shocking William Harvin Sr. Four Times with a Taser (Video obtained by ProPublica)

    Watch video ➜

    In more than 30 other instances, Caban upended cases in which department lawyers and the officers themselves had already agreed to disciplinary action — the most times a commissioner has done so in at least a decade. Sewell set aside four plea deals during her first year as commissioner.

    For one officer, Caban rejected two plea deals: In the first case, the officer pleaded guilty to wrongly pepper-spraying protesters and agreed to losing 40 vacation days as punishment. Caban overturned the deal and reduced the penalty to 10 days. In the second, the officer pleaded guilty to using a baton against Black Lives Matter protesters “without police necessity.” Caban threw out the agreement, which called for 15 vacation days to be forfeited. His office wrote that it wasn’t clear that the officer had actually hit the protesters, contrary to what the officer himself already admitted to in the plea. The commissioner ordered no discipline.

    The under-the-radar moves run counter to Mayor Eric Adams’ pledge during his candidacy to improve policing by “building trust through transparency.” This year, in his State of the City address, Adams also promised that cases of alleged misconduct would “not languish for months.”

    In a statement to ProPublica, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office defended the Police Department and Caban’s record: “Mayor Adams has full confidence in Caban’s leadership and ability to thoroughly review all allegations of police misconduct, and adjudicate accordingly.”

    A Police Department spokesperson declined to answer detailed questions, responding instead with a one-sentence statement: “The NYPD continues to work closely with the Civilian Complaint Review Board in accordance with the terms of the memorandum of understanding.”

    That memorandum stemmed from a political compromise reached about a decade ago. Concerned that the department’s policing tactics were too aggressive, members of the City Council pushed for the CCRB to be able to prosecute cases rather than simply make recommendations to the police commissioner.

    The final memorandum, produced after protracted negotiations with the Police Department, included the mechanism that has since allowed Caban to intervene in disciplinary cases. The agreement states that the commissioner may take cases away from CCRB prosecutors if the commissioner determines that allowing the agency to move ahead will be “detrimental to the Police Department’s disciplinary process” or if the “interests of justice would not be served.”

    Chris Dunn, the legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, objected at the time to that veto power. Shown the number of cases that Caban has retained, he told ProPublica, “This is exactly why we were so concerned about this authority.”

    The agreement stipulated that retentions can be used only on officers with “no disciplinary history,” a limitation that Caban and other commissioners have not always followed. Caban has on three occasions retained cases of officers who the CCRB had previously found engaged in misconduct.

    While commissioners can still choose to impose significant punishment after retaining a case, they often don’t. In 40% of the cases that Caban has retained, he has ordered no discipline. In the cases in which he has ordered discipline, it has mostly been light, such as the loss of a few vacation days. The most severe punishment, ProPublica found, was docking an officer 10 vacation days for knocking a cellphone out of the hand of someone who was recording him.

    A Retreat Under Adams

    Adams appointed Caban as his new NYPD commissioner at a press conference in New York City last year. (David Dee Delgado/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

    Disciplinary trials can produce significant consequences for officers — if they’re allowed to proceed.

    In 2018, CCRB prosecutors brought charges against the officer who killed Eric Garner, the Staten Island man whose cries of “I can’t breathe” helped ignite the Black Lives Matter movement. It would be a last chance to hold the officer, Daniel Pantaleo, accountable after a grand jury had declined to indict him. The commissioner at the time, James O’Neill, moved to handle the case internally, according to multiple current and former review board officials. (O’Neill did not respond to a request for comment.)

    The CCRB, however, pushed back. “I went to war,” recalled Maya Wiley, the chair of the board at the time, who went to City Hall to argue against the Police Department’s plans. Officials in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration overruled the commissioner and let the trial move ahead. Pantaleo was found guilty of using a banned chokehold. Amid huge public interest and scrutiny, the police commissioner then fired him.

    The current approach to police discipline under Caban is something civil rights advocates attribute to his boss, Adams, a former police captain who has struck a tough-on-crime image and opposed policing reforms since taking office two years ago. “We cannot handcuff the police,” Adams told reporters when vetoing two criminal justice reform bills in January.

    Last year, the mayor reportedly urged Sewell to reject recommended disciplinary action against a top uniformed officer, who was also an Adams ally. She declined and pushed to discipline the officer, resigning shortly afterward. Mr. Adams then appointed another close ally to the position: Caban.

    Caban has his own history with the disciplinary process. Over his 30 years on the force, he has twice been found by the CCRB to have engaged in misconduct, making him an outlier in the department. The vast majority of officers have never been found by the oversight agency to have committed any misconduct.

    In one case, he was ordered to complete more training after he arrested a civilian for not providing ID. In the other, related to refusing to provide the names of officers to a civilian who said they had mistreated her, there is no record of discipline.

    The Police Department did not comment on Caban’s record, but it previously said, “Caban’s awareness of that process will only help him bring a fair and informed point of view to those important decisions.”

    Caban recently rejected discipline in a case in which two officers had killed a man in his own apartment during a mental health crisis. The chair of the review board criticized the decision, a move that earned Adams’s ire. She also requested more resources to investigate complaints, which rose 50% last year. Instead, the Adams administration imposed cuts, forcing the board to stop investigating various kinds of misconduct, including officers who lie on the job.

    “In this administration we have a mayor who runs the Police Department,” said Dunn, of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “He sets the tone, and the tone is ‘we’re cutting police accountability and discipline.’”

    The police union, the Police Benevolent Association, disagrees, saying Caban’s actions are a critical counter to what it sees as frequent overreach by the civilian oversight board. “The police commissioner has a responsibility to keep the city safe,” the union’s president, Patrick Hendry, said in a statement. “CCRB’s only goal is to boost their statistics and advance their anti-police narrative by punishing as many cops as possible.”

    Last fall, Caban sent his own signal. He gave one of the department’s top positions to an officer who tackled and shocked a Black Lives Matter protester with a Taser in the summer of 2020. Tarik Sheppard, a captain at the time, was heading to a disciplinary trial when his case was retained a year later, with no discipline given. Sheppard is now deputy commissioner for public information. He regularly appeared on television this spring to talk about the Police Department’s response to campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war.

    Tarik Sheppard, center, NYPD’s commissioner of public information, speaks at a press conference in New York City on April 19. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

    The outcomes have been different for the victims. Destiny Strudwick, the protester who was tackled and shocked with a Taser, has struggled since the encounter nearly four years ago. “Sometimes I feel like the human psyche is only made to handle so much,” she said. “And what happened to me, it just was too much.”

    Sheppard did not respond to requests for comment.

    The Police Department never informed Strudwick or Villafane that the cases against the officers who hurt them had been upended. After learning what had happened, both felt that the department had denied them justice.

    “That makes my heart sink,” said Strudwick, after ProPublica told her of Sheppard’s retention.

    As for Villafane, she gasped when she was shown the Police Department letter wiping away the case against Dowling, who did not respond to requests for comment. She slowly read a line out loud, “His actions therefore do not warrant a disciplinary action.”

    She shook her head. “He’s supposed to be protecting us and he’s hurting us,” Villafane said. “Who am I supposed to call to feel safe now? Not him.”

    Do you have information about the police we should know? You can email Eric Umansky at eric.umansky@propublica.org or contact him securely on Signal or WhatsApp at 917-687-8406.


    This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Eric Umansky.

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  • Drafting of women underway in Myanmar, despite junta claims to the contrary

    Myanmar’s junta has begun conscripting women into the military to help shore up troop losses despite claims to the contrary, residents said Wednesday.

    Under the People’s Military Service Law, enacted by the junta in February after junta forces have suffered battlefield defeats to rebel forces, men between the ages of 18 and 35 and women between 18 and 27 can be drafted to serve in the armed forces for two years. Married women and women with children are exempt from service.

    The announcement triggered a wave of assassinations of administrators enforcing the law and drove thousands of draft-dodgers into rebel-controlled territory and abroad.

    The military carried out two rounds of conscriptions in April and May, training about 9,000 new recruits in total. A third round of conscription began in late May, with draftees sent to their respective training depots by June 22, but the junta has said it will not begin drafting women until the fifth round.

    However, residents of Myanmar’s southwestern Ayeyarwady region told RFA Burmese that authorities in the wards and villages of Maubin, Hinthada and Pathein townships have been enlisting women for service since late last month, conducting raffles and sending legal summons to households.

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    “Women have been enlisted for military training since May 29, as not enough males were recruited for the No. 6 training depot in Pathein,” said one resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. 

    “Women dormitories are urgently being constructed at the depot. In Maubin, women are being enlisted by a raffle system for the third batch of training.”

    A resident of Hinthata cited sources close to the township’s administrative officials as saying that female military personnel will be enlisted “starting this week” in some neighborhoods. 

    Reports of the new eligibility has prompted many young women to join the exodus of draft-dodgers to rebel safe zones and out of the country, sources said.

    Summons sent to households

    Meanwhile, ward and village authorities in southern Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region are also preparing to recruit women, residents told RFA, with administrative authorities in Myeik township instructing the heads of 100 households to enlist those eligible for the draft.

    In Tanintharyi’s Dawei township, legal notices were recently issued to the houses of two women, summoning them for military service, said a resident, who also declined to be named.

    “Authorities sent the letters to two women in Kyet Sar Pyin village,” he said. “However, one of the women had already left once the conscription law was announced [in February]. Many young people have already migrated to Thailand. There are no youths to be seen.”

    Recruits are marched to training as the Myanmar junta presses forward with conscription in an undated video still. (MRTV via AFP)
    Recruits are marched to training as the Myanmar junta presses forward with conscription in an undated video still. (MRTV via AFP)

    Repeated phone calls to the chairman’s office of the Central Body for Summoning People’s Military Servants and similar offices in Tanintharyi and Ayeyarwady regions, seeking clarification on whether women are being enlisted for military service, went unanswered Wednesday.

    Captain Kaung Thu Win, a former military officer who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement of civil servants boycotting the junta, told RFA that drafted women will likely be assigned office work or stationed with auxiliary units.

    “They’re unlikely to be dispatched to the frontline immediately,” he said. “There is a possibility they would have to take on security duties in the towns, but there is very little chance of that happening.”

    According to the People’s Military Service Law, the term for military service period is set at two years, but experts are required to serve for three years, and five years during a state of emergency.

    Those who have been summoned to military service and refuse face up to three years in prison and fines, while those who encourage violations of the law are subject to one year in prison and fines.

    Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.


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

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