DemocracyNow! headlines
"The Supreme Court Is a Product of Minority Rule": Author Ari Berman on America's Undemocratic System
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:41:10 -0400
We speak with journalist and author Ari Berman about his new book, Minority Rule, which details how the United States has since its founding privileged the rights and interests of a small elite over the needs of the majority. He outlines how, for the first time in U.S. history, five of six conservative justices on the Supreme Court were appointed by Republican presidents who lost the popular vote, and confirmed by senators elected by a minority of Americans. Berman says the court’s makeup is the product of two skewed institutions: how we elect our presidents through the Electoral College and how we appoint U.S. senators — both of which are flawed because they violate one person, one vote, violating the principle of equal representation, and empowering white, rural, conservative and wealthy citizens at the expense of more diverse and progressive parts of the country. “Our institutions are so antiquated, so undemocratic, that we need fundamental reform to change them, to democratize them,” Berman says.
"People Are Going to Die": Supreme Court Case on Idaho Abortion Ban Threatens ER Care Across U.S.
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:29:48 -0400
The Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the legality of Idaho’s near-total abortion ban, which criminalizes the procedure in all circumstances unless the life of the parent is at risk. It’s the first such case to reach the high court since the conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. A key issue is whether a state ban can take precedence over the federal right to receive emergency care, including an abortion. The Biden administration argued that Idaho’s law violates the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA. If the justices side with Idaho, it could have major implications for reproductive care and worsen racial disparities for healthcare in at least half a dozen other states with similar bans. “People are going to die,” warns Karen Thompson, legal director of the nonprofit advocacy group Pregnancy Justice. “They are going to be bleeding out in hospital rooms. They’re going to be dying from sepsis because doctors are not going to be able to make the choices that they need to make to give people the care that will save their lives in these emergency situations.”
Atlanta Police Violently Arrest Emory Students & Faculty to Clear Gaza Solidarity Encampment
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:11:32 -0400
As a wave of student protests against Israel’s war on Gaza continues to spread from coast to coast, schools and law enforcement have responded with increasing brutality to campus encampments. One of the most violent police crackdowns took place at Emory University in Atlanta on Thursday, when local and state police swept onto the campus just hours after students had set up tents on the quad in protest against Israel’s war on Gaza as well as the planned police training center known as Cop City. Police used tear gas and stun guns to break up the encampment as they wrestled people to the ground, and are accused of using rubber bullets. Among those arrested were a few faculty members. We hear from two of the arrested professors: Noëlle McAfee, chair of the philosophy department, and Emil’ Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies. We also speak with Palestinian American organizer and medical student Umaymah Mohammad, who describes how Emory has repeatedly suppressed activism on campus since the start of the war in October, and says law enforcement in Georgia work closely with Israeli authorities as part of a police training exchange. “We no longer accept our tuition dollars and our tax money going to fund an active genocide,” she says.
Headlines for April 26, 2024
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
USC Cancels Commencement Ceremony Amid Mounting Campus Unrest, Police Crackdown on Emory and Other Schools Won’t Deter Students Protesting for Palestinian Rights, Rafah Under Incessant Israeli Attacks Ahead of Anticipated Ground Invasion, New York Court Overturns Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 Rape Conviction, SCOTUS Hears Arguments in Trump Presidential Immunity Case, Though Resolution Could Come After Nov., David Pecker Testifies He Helped “Kill” Stories That Could Damage Trump Campaign, HRW Finds U.S.-Trained Forces in Burkina Faso “Summarily Executed” 223 People, Haiti’s Unelected Prime Minister Steps Down as Transitional Council Prepares to Rule, Indigenous Leaders Fight for Land Rights and Their Survival in Brasília, Heat Wave Leads to School Closures Across South & Southeast Asia, EPA Finalizes Rules Curbing Power Plant Emissions, But Climate Groups Slam “Carbon Capture Fantasy”, FCC Restores Net Neutrality
Hundreds Arrested: Students Across U.S. Protest for Palestine as Campus Crackdown Intensifies
Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:51:44 -0400
Student protests calling for university divestment from Israel and the U.S. arms industry have rocked campuses from coast to coast. The nonviolent protests, which have been characterized as “antisemitic” for their criticism of Israel, have been met with an intensifying police crackdown as university administrators threaten academic discipline and arrests. On Wednesday, local and state troopers violently arrested dozens at the University of Texas at Austin. Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson visited Columbia University in New York City, the site of a high-profile student encampment and one of the first to be met with police action, where he called on university president Minouche Shafik to resign. We hear from two Jewish students involved in protests at their schools. Joshua Sklar, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin and an organizer with Jewish Voice of Peace Austin, says concern over campus antisemitism is insincere, and that, in fact, “The people who are being targeted are Muslim students, Arab students, and especially Palestinian students.” Sklar and Sarah King, a member of Columbia University Apartheid Divest who was arrested at the campus’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment, also point out that a large percentage of protesters are Jewish anti-Zionists concerned about their safety from state repression. “The threat is really coming from Columbia University, which has set the police on hundreds of its students who are entrusted to its care,” says King.
Amnesty International: Global Breakdown of Int'l Law Amid Flagrant War Crimes in Gaza & Beyond
Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:27:30 -0400
Amnesty International has released its annual report assessing human rights in 155 countries. The report highlights Israel’s assault on Gaza with evidence of war crimes continuing to mount, as well as U.S. failures to denounce rights violations committed by Israel. It also points to Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, and the rise of authoritarianism and massive rights violations in Sudan, Ethiopia and Myanmar. We speak to Agnès Callamard, the organization’s secretary general, who warns “the international system is on the brink of collapse” and decries the failure of rights mechanisms and Israel’s top ally, the United States, to rein in its “unprecedented” assault on Gaza.
Bodies Recovered at Mass Graves in Nasser Hospital Bear Signs of Torture, Mutilation & Execution
Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:12:14 -0400
At least 320 bodies have been discovered buried in a mass grave at the destroyed Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, just weeks after a similar mass grave containing up to 400 bodies was discovered amid the ruins of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Some of the bodies, which include children, medical staff and patients, appear to have been executed or buried alive. Meanwhile, Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza as its assault of the beleaguered enclave surpasses 200 days. “Every single body that is being unearthed, you find tens of people rushing for the sake of identifying whether those are their relatives,” says Akram al-Satarri, a journalist based in Gaza. “Some of the people were tied. Some of the people had medical accessories on their hands, like the cannulas. And when they were unearthed from the ground, it was apparent that they were buried alive. Some people were tortured. Some of the bodies were extremely mutilated, which means that those bodies, some of their organs were taken by the Israeli occupation.”
Headlines for April 25, 2024
Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
Biden Signs $95B in Foreign Aid, as New Report Details U.S. Weapons Transfer Violates Int’l Law, WFP Renews Famine Warning in Gaza, Where 70% of North Faces Catastrophic Hunger, Aid Groups Warns Lebanon on “Brink of Imploding” After Months of Cross-Border Attacks, USC Students Continue Protest Despite Mass Arrests, Inspired by Gazans’ “Spirit of Resistance”, Police Move In on Peaceful Gaza Solidarity Protests at UT Austin, Princeton, Emerson and More, House Speaker Mike Johnson Faces Heckling at Columbia After Calling for National Guard on Campus, SCOTUS Hears Case on Idaho Abortion Ban, Which Only Allows Emergency Care If Patient Risks Death, Three Arizona Republicans Join Democrats to Repeal 1864 Abortion Ban in State House, Arizona Grand Jury Indicts Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani in “Fake Electors” Case, Iran Sentences Rapper Toomaj Salehi to Death for Supporting Popular Protests, TikTok Vows to Challenge Law Forcing It to “Ban or Divest”, 33 Climate Activists Arrested After Shutting Down Citigroup HQ
Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister: Deliberate U.S. Policy of "Destroying Cuban Economy" Drives Migration
Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:42:24 -0400
We speak with Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Cuba’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, about high-level U.S.-Cuban migration talks held last week in Washington. He says U.S. policies that expedite permanent residency for Cubans in the United States play a major role in the movement of people between the two countries, but adds that the main driver of migration is the decadeslong U.S. embargo. “The economic conditions of the people of Cuba push them to migrate, and an important fact in provoking those conditions are U.S. deliberate policies of destroying the Cuban economy and make it unworkable.” Fernández de Cossío also discusses the 2024 election and policy overlap between the Trump and Biden administrations, Cuba’s position on the U.S.-backed Israeli war on Gaza, recent protests inside Cuba over living conditions and more.
Climate Activists Blockade Citigroup HQ in NYC to Demand Banking Giant Stop Funding Fossil Fuels
Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:32:40 -0400
Hundreds of climate activists gathered at the global headquarters of Citigroup in New York on Wednesday to demand the banking giant stop financing fossil fuel companies. The protests come on the heels of a first-of-its-kind Earth Day hearing where environmental activists from around the world gathered in New York this week to condemn what they call Citigroup’s environmental racism. Citibank is the world’s second-largest funder of coal, oil and gas. “They always say, 'We care about the planet.' ... But actions speak louder than words,” says Alice Hu, climate campaigner for New York Communities for Change. “Citibank has poured over $332 billion into fossil fuels since the Paris Agreements were signed in 2015.” We also speak with Roishetta Ozane, a Black environmental leader from Sulphur, Louisiana, who has been leading the fight against the expansion of Citigroup-funded liquified natural gas projects in her community. She says she has seen the health impacts of such projects on her own family. “I’m fighting not only for myself and my community, but for my children. And by fighting for my children, I’m fighting for everyone’s children,” says Ozane.
Months Ago State Dept. Panel Exposed Israeli Units' Rights Abuses, But U.S. Arms Keep Flowing
Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:25:35 -0400
Months ago, a State Department panel urged the Biden administration to disqualify multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving U.S. aid over serious human rights abuses, including rape and torture. According to ProPublica, Secretary of State Blinken received the recommendation in December but has still not taken any action. “[Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, they have been publicly and fiercely lobbying against any proposed sanctions,” says ProPublica reporter Brett Murphy. “Gantz said he called Blinken personally and they talked about it. They want him to reverse course.”
Naomi Klein: Jews Must Raise Their Voices for Palestine, Oppose the "False Idol of Zionism"
Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:15:20 -0400
Thousands of Jewish Americans and allies gathered in Brooklyn on Tuesday for a “Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel” on the second night of Passover, held just a block from the home of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, to protest ongoing U.S. support for the Israeli assault on Gaza. “Too many of our people are worshiping a false idol,” said award-winning author and activist Naomi Klein, one of several speakers at Tuesday’s rally. “They are enraptured by it. They are drunk on it. They are profaned by it. And that false idol is called Zionism.”
"Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel": 100s Arrested at Jewish-Led Protest Near Schumer's Home
Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:12:03 -0400
Hundreds of protesters were arrested in Brooklyn on Tuesday when Jewish New Yorkers and allies gathered for what they called a “Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel” on the second night of Passover. The demonstration, held one block away from the home of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, came just hours before the Senate overwhelmingly approved a $95 billion foreign aid package that includes about $17 billion in arms and security funding to Israel. “At the core of the Passover story is that we cannot be free until all people are free,” Beth Miller, the political director of Jewish Voice for Peace, told Democracy Now! “The Israeli government and the United States government are carrying out a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, over 34,000 people killed in six months in the name of Jewish safety, in the false name of Jewish freedom.”
Headlines for April 24, 2024
Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
Senate OKs $95 Billion for Ukraine, Israel & Taiwan, U.S. Refuses to Back U.N. Calls for Probe into Mass Graves at Gaza Hospitals, Seder in the Streets: Hundreds Arrested in Brooklyn Protesting U.S. Arming of Israel, Crackdown Continues on College Campuses Against Pro-Palestinian Students, National Enquirer Publisher Admits to “Catch and Kill” Effort to Help Trump Win in 2016, Supreme Court to Hear Arguments on Idaho’s Near-Total Abortion Ban, Rep. Summer Lee Wins Primary: “Opposing Genocide Is Good Politics and Good Policy”, Ahead of Blinken Visit, China Condemns U.S. for Placing Missile Launchers in the Philippines, Argentina: Hundreds of Thousands Protest Milei’s Plans to Cut Education Spending, Indian Elections: Modi Accused of Hate Speech After Describing Muslims as “Infiltrators”, FTC Bans Most Noncompete Clauses, “Blood on Your Hands!”: Protesters Decry Tennessee Vote to Arm Teachers, Justice Dept. to Pay $139 Million to Gymnasts over Mishandling of Abuse Claims Against Dr. Larry Nassar, Mumia Abu-Jamal Turns 70; Supporters to Rally in Philadelphia
Labor Organizer Jane McAlevey on UAW's Astounding Victory in VW Tennessee & Her Fight Against Cancer
Tue, 23 Apr 2024 08:47:35 -0400
Democracy Now! speaks with the great labor organizer and writer Jane McAlevey about the historic victory for Volkswagen employees at a Chattanooga, Tennessee, factory who voted overwhelmingly to join the United Auto Workers union. The plant will become the first foreign-owned car factory in the South to unionize. “This win wasn’t just a win — it was what we would call a beatdown,” says McAlevey, who says the UAW’s recent success is a result of direct democracy and smart, strategic organizing that could lead to the unionizing of Mercedes workers in Alabama. “It’ll be a massive change in the U.S. South.” We also speak with McAlevey about her terminal cancer diagnosis and why she’s “going to fight until the last dying minute, because that’s what American workers deserve.”
Juan González Reflects on Historic 1968 Columbia Protests & Crackdown on Gaza Solidarity Encampment
Tue, 23 Apr 2024 08:39:39 -0400
Fifty-six years ago today, hundreds of students at Columbia University in New York started a revolt on campus, occupying school buildings and disrupting class to protest the school’s ties to the Vietnam War and racism in New York. Democracy Now! co-host Juan González, who participated in the 1968 protests when hundreds of students were injured by police and arrested, speaks about the rebellion and how it compares to Columbia’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters occupying campus today. “What really strikes me about this response is the total flouting of any kind of democratic process by the current administration compared to what happened in 1968,” says González. “These students are protesting a genocide that is occurring before the eyes of the entire world and that is being funded by U.S. arms. And if anyone has the right to rebel and to stand up against injustice, these students do.”
Pro-Palestinian Campus Encampments Spread Nationwide Amid Mass Arrests at Columbia, NYU & Yale
Tue, 23 Apr 2024 08:16:05 -0400
Palestinian solidarity protests and encampments are appearing on college campuses from Massachusetts to California to protest Israel’s attacks on Gaza and to call for divestment from Israeli apartheid. This week, police have raided encampments and arrested students at Yale and New York University. Palestinian American scholar and New York University professor Helga Tawil-Souri describes forming a faculty buffer to protect students, negotiating with police, and the ensuing crackdown that led to over 100 arrests Monday night. Uptown in New York City, the encampment at Columbia University is entering its seventh day despite mass arrests of protesters last week. “In my opinion, the NYPD were called in under false pretenses by the president of the university,” says Joseph Slaughter, professor at Columbia University. “The university is being run as a sort of ad-hocracy at this point, the senior administration making up policies and procedures and prohibitions on the fly, changing them in the middle of the night.”
Headlines for April 23, 2024
Tue, 23 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
More Bodies Uncovered at Nasser Hospital Grave as U.N. Warns of Intergenerational Trauma in Gaza, U.N. Commission Says Israel Still Has Not Provided Evidence of Oct. 7 Allegations Against UNRWA, Gaza Solidarity Encampments and Protests Burgeon Across College Campuses Amid Police Crackdown, PEN America Forced to Cancel Awards Ceremony Amid Fallout over Gaza Stance, Google Fires Another 20 Employees in Retaliation for Project Nimbus Protest, Prosecution and Defense Offer Opening Arguments in Trump’s Hush Money Trial, Liberal Justices Challenge Oregon City’s Homelessness Ban as SCOTUS Considers Key Case, U.K. Rams Through Plan to Deport Asylum Seekers to Rwanda Despite Major Legal and Rights Concerns, Two Mexican Mayoral Candidates Killed in One Day, Less Than 2 Months Away from Elections, Biden Administration Issues Rule Protecting Privacy of Reproductive Healthcare, Biden Announces $7B Solar Energy Plan, Including Thousands of American Climate Corps Jobs, Black and Indigenous Climate Leaders Organize Against Citigroup’s Funding of Fossil Fuels, Students File Complaints Against Universities’ Ties to Fossil Fuel Industry, South Korean Youth Activists Take Government to Court over Climate Crisis
"Enormous Expansion of the Law": James Bamford on FISA Extension, U.S.-Israel Data Sharing
Mon, 22 Apr 2024 08:49:57 -0400
President Biden has signed legislation to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act despite years of protest from rights groups and privacy experts who say the law is routinely used to conduct warrantless surveillance on millions of American citizens. The Senate approved the FISA bill on Friday in a 60-34 vote, and critics say it not only reauthorizes domestic spying but also dramatically expands its scope. “It’s an enormous amount of data that they’re collecting and very few rules” limiting its collection, says investigative journalist James Bamford. He warns that personal information collected by U.S. intelligence is also shared with Israel, which uses the data to target people in Gaza. “The U.S. has got to stop supplying all this data and the targeting materials,” he says. Bamford’s new article for The Nation is headlined “The NSA Wants Carte Blanche for Warrantless Surveillance.”
"Collective Punishment": As Gaza Assault Continues, Israel Ramps Up Violence in Occupied West Bank
Mon, 22 Apr 2024 08:38:44 -0400
As the death toll in Gaza tops 34,000 Palestinians killed since October 7, Israeli forces and settlers have continued to ramp up violence in the occupied West Bank. The army killed at least 14 people during a two-day raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp near the city of Tulkarm over the weekend, and separately killed a Palestinian ambulance driver near Nablus as he was trying to reach Palestinians injured in an attack by Jewish settlers. Ramallah-based writer Mariam Barghouti says the Israeli military and armed settlers “are trying to continue the illegal annexation of lands in the West Bank” and says Israel is deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, just as in Gaza, to make life unbearable. She also responds to reports that the Biden administration is preparing to sanction the Netzah Yehuda battalion, a notorious unit within the Israeli military composed of ultra-Orthodox soldiers that is accused of carrying out human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank. “It should not be against a select few. This entire regime is engaging in crimes against humanity, and it is U.S.-sponsored. It is being paid for by American tax dollars.”
"No Due Process": Columbia Prof. Mamdani Slams Arrests & Suspension of Students at Gaza Protests
Mon, 22 Apr 2024 08:28:52 -0400
We speak with Mahmood Mamdani, a professor of government at Columbia who has spoken with many of the pro-Palestine protesters camping out on school grounds to show solidarity with Gaza and demand the school divest from Israel. He says there is growing outrage from faculty after the school’s leadership called in the police to raid the Gaza Solidarity Encampment and conduct mass arrests, while administrators have started suspending and evicting some students. “There has been no due process on the Columbia campus,” says Mamdani.
Historic Gaza Protests at Columbia U. Enter Day 6; Campus Protests Spread Across Country
Mon, 22 Apr 2024 08:15:01 -0400
Columbia University canceled in-person classes Monday as campus protests over the war in Gaza enter a sixth day. The protests have swelled after the school administration called in the police to clear a student encampment last week, resulting in over 100 arrests. Solidarity protests and encampments have now sprouted up on campuses across the country, including at Yale, MIT, Tufts, NYU, The New School and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Palestinian reporter Jude Taha, a journalism student at Columbia University, describes events on campus as “an unprecedented act of solidarity” that student organizers are modeling on antiwar protests in 1968. She says Columbia University President Minouche Shafik’s claims of an unsafe environment on campus are contradicted by the generally calm and productive atmosphere among the protesters, adding that the school’s heavy-handed response, including suspensions and evictions, is being seen as “an intimidation tactic” by organizers.
Headlines for April 22, 2024
Mon, 22 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
House Approves $95B in Foreign Military Funding, Incl. Another $26B for Israel, Gaza: Over 200 Bodies, Including Children, Found in Mass Grave at Nasser Hospital, “She Came Out an Orphan”: Doctors Deliver Child of Pregnant Gazan Killed in Israeli Strike, West Bank Palestinians Go on General Strike After Israeli Massacre on Nur Shams Camp Kills 14, Israeli Settlers Shoot Dead Palestinian Medic as He Was Attempting to Aid Injured People, Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Resigns over Oct. 7 Attack, Columbia Cancels In-Person Classes as Gaza Campus Protests Multiply, USC Calls Off Prominent Guest Speeches at Graduation Amid Fallout over Censoring Valedictorian, Biden Signs Reauthorization of FISA’s Section 702 Despite Privacy and Rights Concerns, Trump’s Criminal Hush Money Trial Seats Jury; Opening Arguments Start, Ecuadorians Back President Noboa’s Security Plan Tackling Organized Crime, U.S. Military to Withdraw from Niger, Shut Down Drone Base, Volkswagen Workers in Tennessee Vote to Unionize with United Auto Workers, Biden Administration Expands Title IX Protections to Include LGBTQ+ Students, Alameda DA Charges 3 Police Officers with Manslaughter in 2021 Killing of Mario Gonzalez, China: Record Rainfall Kills 3, Displaces 60,000 in Guangdong, On Earth Day, Biden Announced $7 Billion in Solar Investments
U.N. Photo Collection Shows Gaza War Through the Lens of Palestinian Journalists
Fri, 19 Apr 2024 08:41:40 -0400
The Gaza Collective Photo Essay project, organized by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), collected work from 14 Palestinian photographers who were each asked to share one image that captured the devastation of the Gaza Strip over the last six months. We speak with Charlotte Cans, head of photography at OCHA, about the project. “It’s one thing to say there’s a war and it’s horrible, and it’s another thing to see an image of a child being pulled out from the rubble. It really hits you differently,” Cans says of the motivation behind the project. “It was really important to elevate the stories coming from Palestinian photojournalists, who are the only window into what is going on in Gaza.”
"Fear and Terror": Gaza Photographer Ahmed Zakot on Documenting the Carnage of Israel's Assault
Fri, 19 Apr 2024 08:27:48 -0400
As Israel continues bombarding the Gaza Strip, we speak with a Palestinian photographer who recently fled the territory with his family. Ahmed Zakot has been documenting Gaza for the last 25 years, and two of his photographs were just featured in a project by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and published by Rolling Stone earlier this month in a piece titled “Gaza’s Carnage Through the Eyes of Palestinian Photojournalists.” One of Zakot’s photos shows a Gaza neighborhood lit up by Israeli airstrikes at night, while the second is of thousands of Palestinians fleeing their homes with their belongings in a scene reminiscent of the 1948 Nakba that displaced some 700,000 Palestinians from their homes. “It reminds me [of] what my grandfather told me about this displacement. It’s the same [that] happened since 1948 — now we are in 2024,” Zakot says.
Over 100 Arrested at Columbia After Univ. President Orders NYPD to Clear Pro-Palestine Student Protest
Fri, 19 Apr 2024 08:23:20 -0400
Columbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik on Thursday called on New York police to forcibly clear a student occupation on the lawn of the school, which had been dubbed the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, resulting in over 100 arrests. The protesters were demanding the Ivy League school divest from firms and institutions that profit from the Israeli occupation of Palestine, but Shafik ordered the raid a day after being questioned on Capitol Hill about ongoing pro-Palestinian protests on campus. The move caused outrage among students and many faculty, who decried it as censorship and a violation of academic freedom. The renowned professor and presidential candidate Cornel West, chair of the Columbia-affiliated Union Theological Seminary, joined students Thursday in solidarity with their protest and told Democracy Now! they “represent the best ... of the human spirit,” and lauded them for “fighting in the face of domination and occupation and subjugation, and doing it with tremendous determination.”
"No Palestinian Is Safe": Renowned Feminist Scholar Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian Arrested in Jerusalem
Fri, 19 Apr 2024 08:11:53 -0400
Israeli police arrested the internationally renowned feminist Palestinian academic Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian at her home in Jerusalem on Thursday on charges of incitement to violence. Shalhoub-Kevorkian, who holds both Israeli and U.S. citizenship, was suspended by Hebrew University last month after saying in an interview Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, though the university later reinstated her. We speak with anthropologist Sarah Ihmoud, who describes Shalhoub-Kevorkian as a mentor and inspiration to her and many others. “We hold the Hebrew University of Jerusalem responsible for the arrest and detention because of its persistent and public repression of her academic freedom, which led directly to yesterday’s arrest,” says Ihmoud, who teaches at College of the Holy Cross and is co-founder of the Palestinian Feminist Collective. “We see this as yet another example of Israel attacking Palestinians wherever they are, whoever they are. It underscores that no Palestinian is safe under Israel’s racist apartheid rule.”
Headlines for April 19, 2024
Fri, 19 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
Israel Launches Retaliatory Strike in Iran as U.S. Issues New Sanctions Against Tehran, Columbia Protests Continue a Day After NYPD Arrests 100+, Dismantles Gaza Solidarity Encampment, USC Students Rally to Demand Commencement Speech by Valedictorian Asna Tabassum Be Reinstated, U.S. Vetoes Bid to Advance Full Palestinian Membership at U.N., New Report Refutes Israeli Account of 6-Year-Old Hind Rajab’s Killing by IOF, Activists Prepare to Set Sail on a New Gaza Freedom Flotilla, House Speaker Johnson Attaches TikTok Ban Bill to Ukraine, Israel Funding Package, U.S. Deports 70 Haitian Asylum Seekers Despite Humanitarian and Security Disaster in Haiti, U.S. Reinstates Venezuela Sanctions Ahead of July Elections, Senate Advances FISA’s Contested Section 702, Which Has Led to Warrantless Spying on U.S. Citizens, The Jury in Donald Trump’s NYC Criminal Trial Has Been Seated
Israel Considers Attacking Iran and Invading Rafah as Netanyahu Seeks Lifelines to Stay in Power
Thu, 18 Apr 2024 08:52:11 -0400
New reporting indicates that the Biden administration has approved Israel’s plan to attack Rafah in exchange for Israel not launching counterstrikes on Iran. “Israel is almost certainly going to respond to the Iranian strike in some way,” says Mairav Zonszein, a senior Israel analyst for the International Crisis Group. Now “it has the benefit of being able to dangle both threats”: an invasion on Rafah that would heavily increase the death toll of Palestinians in Gaza, or an attack on Iran that would likely spark a wider regional war. While Israeli approval of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has drastically waned, Zonszein suggests that its military campaign shows no signs of stopping. “Israeli society is largely a right-wing society. It is a society that has not spoken about or thought about Palestinians or the occupation except when it’s forced to. And it’s a society that has gotten used to acting with impunity.”
Columbia Students Risk Arrest, Suspension to Maintain Gaza Solidarity Encampment on Campus
Thu, 18 Apr 2024 08:45:38 -0400
Students at Columbia University and Barnard College in New York have set up dozens of tents to occupy the South Lawn of the campus to create a Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Democracy Now! spoke to some of the student-activists, who say they are occupying the space, despite the administration’s threats of suspension and disciplinary action, as part of a demand that the Ivy League school divest from companies and institutions that profit from Israeli occupation. “It seems like the repression is only getting worse and worse,” says Maryam Alwan, a student-activist with Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine.
The New McCarthyism: Congress Grills Columbia Univ. President Amid Crackdown on Pro-Palestine Speech
Thu, 18 Apr 2024 08:23:12 -0400
In nearly four hours of grueling congressional testimony before the Republican-led Committee on Education and the Workforce, the president of Columbia University, Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, said she had taken serious action against accusations of antisemitism on campus in recent months amid Israel’s assault on Gaza, including dismissing or removing five faculty members from the classroom, suspending 15 students and suspending two student groups — Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. Shafik’s visit to Capitol Hill is the latest in a series of hearings on alleged antisemitism at elite U.S. private schools. In December, similar hearings led to the resignations of the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. Our guests Nara Milanich and Rebecca Jordan-Young, both professors at Barnard College and Columbia University, respond to the televised hearings. “What happened at those hearings yesterday should be of grave concern to everybody,” warns Jordan-Young. “What we got was a live performance [of President Shafik] throwing the entire university system under the bus.” Adds Milanich, “Antisemitism here is being used as a wedge. It’s being used as a Trojan horse for a very different political agenda.”
Meet USC Valedictorian Asna Tabassum: School Cancels Commencement Speech by Pro-Palestinian Student
Thu, 18 Apr 2024 08:10:29 -0400
Amid widespread repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campuses across the United States, we speak to University of Southern California valedictorian Asna Tabassum, whose commencement speech has been canceled for what the university claimed were “safety” reasons after Tabassum became the subject of an online anti-Palestinian hate campaign led by pro-Israel groups. “When I had asked for details regarding the security concerns,” says Tabassum of learning about the cancellation, “I was offered no information and was told it was not appropriate for me to know.” Tabassum, a first-generation South Asian American Muslim graduating with a major in biomedical engineering and a minor in resistance to genocide, says the unprecedented cancellation of her speech has been “heartbreaking.”
Headlines for April 18, 2024
Thu, 18 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
Israel Continues to Pound the Gaza Strip Amid Reports U.S. Approves of Rafah Land Invasion, Palestinian Boy Who Narrowly Escaped Death in Nov. Israeli Airstrike Is Killed in Aid Airdrop, ProPublica: Blinken Ignored His Agency’s Recommendation to Disqualify Some Israeli Units from Aid, Detained U.N. Workers Accuse Israel of Obtaining False Confessions Through Torture, Journalist Attempts Citizen’s Arrest of EU Leader Ursula von der Leyen for Enabling Gaza Genocide, “McCarthyism Is Alive and Well”: Google Fires Employees for Protesting Contract with Israeli Military, 29 Writers Withdraw from PEN Prizes to Protest “Complicity in Normalizing Genocide”, “Stop Killing Palestinian Children!”: Activists Disrupt Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin Hearing, Speaker Johnson Unveils 3 Separate Bills to Fund Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, Senate Democrats Dismiss GOP-Led Impeachment Against Alejandro Mayorkas, Major Rains Lead to Death and Displacement Across the Gulf, in Kenya, Police Evict Hundreds from France’s Largest Squat Ahead of Paris Olympics, “This Is a Criminal Cover-Up”: Boeing Whistleblowers Slam Leadership for Ignoring Safety Issues
Can UAW Unionize the South? Volkswagen Tennessee Vote Could Change U.S. Labor Landscape
Wed, 17 Apr 2024 08:51:02 -0400
On Wednesday, 4,000 Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, begin voting in a closely watched election on whether to organize with the United Auto Workers in what could be the union’s first big victory as they try to expand into the southern United States after huge contract wins in 2023 with Detroit companies General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. Journalist Hamilton Nolan argues this is “probably the most important union election that this country has seen in years,” as unions attempt to challenge southern states’ economic policy of creating cheap, exploited labor to attract major corporations. “The South is really funneling money to international corporations for free, and the UAW is trying to put an end to that.”
No Tech for Apartheid: Google Workers Arrested for Protesting Company's $1.2B Contract with Israel
Wed, 17 Apr 2024 08:33:43 -0400
Democracy Now! speaks with two of the Google employees who were arrested staging sit-ins on Tuesday at the company’s offices in New York City and in Sunnyvale, California, to protest the tech giant’s work with the Israeli government. Organized by the group No Tech for Apartheid, the protesters are demanding Google withdraw from Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud computing services to the Israeli military. “Google execs basically chose to arrest workers for speaking out against the use of our technology to power the first AI-powered genocide,” says Google software engineer Mohammad Khatami, who was arrested in New York. Google worker-organizer Ray Westrick, who was arrested occupying CEO Thomas Kurian’s office, says “more people are willing to organize and risk their jobs in order to take a stand against complicity in genocide.” We also speak with No Tech for Apartheid organizer and former Google worker Gabriel Schubiner, who calls on the tech industry to divest from Google and Amazon services. “Technology workers actually have a lot of power to shift this paradigm and to remove technology from this deep complicity with the Israeli occupation,” Schubiner says.
One Year into War, Sudan Wracked by World's Largest Displacement and Hunger Crises
Wed, 17 Apr 2024 08:11:29 -0400
One year ago this week, a devastating conflict erupted in Sudan when a fragile alliance between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces collapsed. The war initially began around the capital city of Khartoum but quickly spread to other parts of Sudan, including Darfur, Port Sudan and the Gezira state, situated in the country’s agricultural heartland. One year on, the conflict has driven nearly 9 million people from their homes, collapsed the country’s health system and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis. “This is essentially a war between two generals,” says Khalid Mustafa Medani, chair of the African studies program at McGill University, who explains why the warring parties have “absolutely no legitimacy in civil society” and how the fighting is weaponizing international aid. “Despite the severity of this conflict, there is only one solution and only one interest on the part of the majority of Sudanese — 99% of Sudanese — and that is the restoration of full civilian democracy.”
Headlines for April 17, 2024
Wed, 17 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
U.N.: Israel Is Still Unlawfully Restricting Aid into Gaza, Report: Israeli Assault on Gaza Has Left 19,000 Children Orphaned, U.K. Tells Israel: Do “As Little as Possible to Escalate” Tensions with Iran, Israel Urged to Stop Supporting Violent Jewish Settlers After Deadly West Bank Attacks, Nine Google Workers Arrested at Sit-In Protesting Firm’s Work with Israel, Columbia University Students Launch Gaza Solidarity Encampment, Seven Jurors Selected for Trump Hush Money Criminal Trial, Supreme Court Considers Tossing Out Jan. 6 Convictions for Violating Federal Obstruction Law, Extradition of Julian Assange Edges Closer as U.S. Gives Assurances to U.K. over His Rights, Indian Security Forces Kill 29 Maoist Rebels Ahead of Election, Rep. Massie Backs Ousting House Speaker Mike Johnson, Maine Joins National Popular Vote Compact, Former U.S. Marine Sentenced to Prison for Firebombing Planned Parenthood Clinic, Federal Court Blocks WV Transgender Sports Ban; Supreme Court Lets Idaho Ban Gender-Affirming Care for Now, New York Police Officers Cleared of Wrongdoing in Fatal Police Shooting of Kawaski Trawick
"I'm Jewish, and I've Covered Wars. I Know War Crimes When I See Them": Reporter Peter Maass on Gaza
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 08:48:20 -0400
We speak with veteran journalist Peter Maass about the Israeli war on Gaza and his new opinion piece for The Washington Post headlined “I’m Jewish, and I’ve covered wars. I know war crimes when I see them.” Maass, who was a senior editor at The Intercept until earlier this year, has spent decades covering wars, including the Bosnian genocide in the 1990s that killed about 100,000 people over nearly four years. He says many of the same war crimes he reported then are part of Israel’s current assault, including sniper attacks on civilians, bombing of civilian infrastructure, attacks on bread lines and besieging whole populations by preventing food and other aid from entering. “What seems to be unfolding in Gaza is even worse than what I saw in Bosnia,” says Maass.
Under Cover of War in Gaza, Assault on West Bank Intensifies: Palestinian Journalist Dalia Hatuqa
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 08:33:13 -0400
The Western corporate media is failing in its coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, says Palestinian independent journalist Dalia Hatuqa. “A lot of what’s missing from the bigger portrait ... is the Palestinian voice,” says Hatuqa, who applauds local journalists in Gaza for providing the world a crucial window into what’s happening there while international reporters are blocked by Israel from entering the territory. “Nobody knows Gaza better than the Gazan journalists on the ground.” Hatuqa also speaks about her latest piece for The Century Foundation about rising Israeli state and settler violence in the occupied West Bank, which she says can accurately be described as pogroms. “The fog of war has allowed Israel to perpetuate crimes at a very large scale, not only throughout the West Bank, but including occupied East Jerusalem.”
"Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism": Yanis Varoufakis on New Book & Why Assange Should Be Freed
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 08:24:54 -0400
Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, one of the most vocal supporters of Julian Assange, says the United States must drop its espionage case against the jailed WikiLeaks founder. He faults the Australian government for pushing for a plea deal that would allow Assange to walk free from Belmarsh Prison in London in exchange for an admission of guilt. “Julian is never going to plead guilty as if journalism is a crime,” says Varoufakis. He also discusses his new book Technofeudalism, which argues that platforms like Amazon have destroyed the idea of buyers and sellers operating in an open market. “Capitalism was killed by capital,” he says.
Yanis Varoufakis Banned from Germany as Berlin Police Raid & Shut Down Palestinian Conference
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 08:10:59 -0400
As Germany intensifies its crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices, we speak with Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis, one of the planned speakers at a conference in Berlin last weekend that was forcibly shut down by police. The Palestine Congress was scheduled to be held for three days, but police stormed the venue as the first panelist spoke. Germany’s Interior Ministry had also banned some conference speakers from even entering the country, including Varoufakis, the Palestinian British surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah and the Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta. “This is not about protecting Jewish lives and Jews from antisemitism. It’s all about protecting the right of Israel to commit any war crime of its choice,” says Varoufakis.
Headlines for April 16, 2024
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
Gazans Continue to Lose Children, Parents, Loved Ones as Israeli Attacks Continue with Impunity, Palestinian Doctors Uncover New Mass Grave at Al-Shifa in Wake of Israeli Siege, Sheikh Jarrah: Israeli Court Orders Three Palestinian Families Be Forced Out of Their Homes, Iran and Israel Both Vow to Respond in Kind to Any Further Attacks, Coordinated Demonstrations Across the U.S. and the World Disrupt Travel, Weapons Industry, Yale Students Launch Hunger Strike; USC Cancels Graduation Speech by Muslim Student, Judge Threatens to Jail Trump If He Disrupts Hush Money Trial as Jury Selection Continues, 3 Iraqi Survivors of Abu Ghraib Bring Torture Case Against U.S. Contractor to Trial, Torrential Rains Kill at Least 100 People Across Pakistan and Afghanistan, NOAA Warns World Is Experiencing Its 4th Coral Bleaching Event Due to Warming Oceans, Fourth Body Recovered from Baltimore Key Bridge Collapse as FBI Launches Probe, Judge Sentences Armorer of Alec Baldwin Western “Rust” to 18 Months for Death of Halyna Hutchins, SCOTUS Declines to Hear Case Targeting Organizers of Group Protests, Faith Ringgold, Trailblazing Artist, Author and Activist, Dies at 93
Trump in the Dock: First Criminal Trial of a Former U.S. President Begins Today in NYC
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 08:45:32 -0400
Donald Trump is making history today in New York as the first former U.S. president to stand trial for criminal charges. Trump faces 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to hide hush money payments he made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels and others, just weeks before winning the 2016 election. He is accused of violating federal campaign finance laws for failing to disclose the payments and instead recording them as a “legal expense.” Each of the 34 counts carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison. “What Donald Trump is accused of is the type of crime that’s prosecuted in New York every single day ... [a] garden-variety, ordinary grift,” says Ron Kuby, a longtime New York criminal defense and civil rights lawyer who is following the trial closely. Kuby explains what we can expect from the trial — the first of four different criminal cases Trump is currently embroiled in, but likely the only one he will stand for ahead of the 2024 election — in the coming days.
Is Regional War at Stake as Israel Weighs Response to Iran? Roundtable from Tehran, Tel Aviv & D.C.
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 08:11:24 -0400
The Middle East is bracing for the possibility of regional war after Iran responded to Israel’s bombing of the Iranian Consulate in Damascus with a major drone and missile attack Saturday. The attack caused little damage inside Israel, as it intercepted nearly all of the drones and missiles with help from the United States, Britain, France and Jordan. Iran’s government described the attack as a defensive maneuver after Israel’s unprovoked strike on its embassy killed some of Iran’s top military brass. This was “a performative operation to send a message,” says journalist Reza Sayah, who joins us from Tehran. But while Iran “does not want to escalate matters,” Israel may be preparing to do just that. Washington, D.C.-based analyst Trita Parsi says that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has been trying to instigate conflict between the U.S. and Iran for “more than two decades,” and given that Biden has demonstrated an unwillingness to “draw any red lines for Israel publicly,” these latest provocations could become a prime “opportunity” for such a war. Crucially, Iranian restraint “cannot last forever,” warns our final roundtable guest, the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, who touches on both Iran’s own sovereignty and increasing global pressure for Israel to end its war on Gaza. “Gaza is still starving and bleeding, and we shouldn’t forget it,” says Levy.
Headlines for April 15, 2024
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
“The Middle East Is on the Brink”: U.N. Calls for Maximum Restraint After Iran Directly Attacks Israel for First Time, Death Toll from Israel’s War on Gaza Reaches 33,800 as Nuseirat Camp Comes Under Intense Fire, Israeli Settlers Attack Palestinian Villages in Occupied West Bank, Burning Homes, Killing at Least 1, Trump’s Criminal Hush Money Trial Kicks Off in New York, War in Sudan Marks 1 Year: 15,000 Killed, 8.6M Displaced, 25M in Need of Immediate Aid, Australian Police Say Mass Stabber at Sydney Mall Was Targeting Women, House Reauthorizes FISA Clause Which Has Been Used to Spy on U.S. Citizens, Kamala Harris Tells Arizona Voters Trump Is to Blame for State’s Draconian Abortion Ban, German Police Shut Down Palestine Congress After Barring Prominent Speakers, “——McCarthyism Is Real”: Hobart and William Smith Colleges Suspend Prof. for Defending Palestinians
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Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:41:10 -0400
We speak with journalist and author Ari Berman about his new book, Minority Rule, which details how the United States has since its founding privileged the rights and interests of a small elite over the needs of the majority. He outlines how, for the first time in U.S. history, five of six conservative justices on the Supreme Court were appointed by Republican presidents who lost the popular vote, and confirmed by senators elected by a minority of Americans. Berman says the court’s makeup is the product of two skewed institutions: how we elect our presidents through the Electoral College and how we appoint U.S. senators — both of which are flawed because they violate one person, one vote, violating the principle of equal representation, and empowering white, rural, conservative and wealthy citizens at the expense of more diverse and progressive parts of the country. “Our institutions are so antiquated, so undemocratic, that we need fundamental reform to change them, to democratize them,” Berman says.
"People Are Going to Die": Supreme Court Case on Idaho Abortion Ban Threatens ER Care Across U.S.
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:29:48 -0400
The Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the legality of Idaho’s near-total abortion ban, which criminalizes the procedure in all circumstances unless the life of the parent is at risk. It’s the first such case to reach the high court since the conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. A key issue is whether a state ban can take precedence over the federal right to receive emergency care, including an abortion. The Biden administration argued that Idaho’s law violates the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA. If the justices side with Idaho, it could have major implications for reproductive care and worsen racial disparities for healthcare in at least half a dozen other states with similar bans. “People are going to die,” warns Karen Thompson, legal director of the nonprofit advocacy group Pregnancy Justice. “They are going to be bleeding out in hospital rooms. They’re going to be dying from sepsis because doctors are not going to be able to make the choices that they need to make to give people the care that will save their lives in these emergency situations.”
Atlanta Police Violently Arrest Emory Students & Faculty to Clear Gaza Solidarity Encampment
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:11:32 -0400
As a wave of student protests against Israel’s war on Gaza continues to spread from coast to coast, schools and law enforcement have responded with increasing brutality to campus encampments. One of the most violent police crackdowns took place at Emory University in Atlanta on Thursday, when local and state police swept onto the campus just hours after students had set up tents on the quad in protest against Israel’s war on Gaza as well as the planned police training center known as Cop City. Police used tear gas and stun guns to break up the encampment as they wrestled people to the ground, and are accused of using rubber bullets. Among those arrested were a few faculty members. We hear from two of the arrested professors: Noëlle McAfee, chair of the philosophy department, and Emil’ Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies. We also speak with Palestinian American organizer and medical student Umaymah Mohammad, who describes how Emory has repeatedly suppressed activism on campus since the start of the war in October, and says law enforcement in Georgia work closely with Israeli authorities as part of a police training exchange. “We no longer accept our tuition dollars and our tax money going to fund an active genocide,” she says.
Headlines for April 26, 2024
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
USC Cancels Commencement Ceremony Amid Mounting Campus Unrest, Police Crackdown on Emory and Other Schools Won’t Deter Students Protesting for Palestinian Rights, Rafah Under Incessant Israeli Attacks Ahead of Anticipated Ground Invasion, New York Court Overturns Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 Rape Conviction, SCOTUS Hears Arguments in Trump Presidential Immunity Case, Though Resolution Could Come After Nov., David Pecker Testifies He Helped “Kill” Stories That Could Damage Trump Campaign, HRW Finds U.S.-Trained Forces in Burkina Faso “Summarily Executed” 223 People, Haiti’s Unelected Prime Minister Steps Down as Transitional Council Prepares to Rule, Indigenous Leaders Fight for Land Rights and Their Survival in Brasília, Heat Wave Leads to School Closures Across South & Southeast Asia, EPA Finalizes Rules Curbing Power Plant Emissions, But Climate Groups Slam “Carbon Capture Fantasy”, FCC Restores Net Neutrality
Hundreds Arrested: Students Across U.S. Protest for Palestine as Campus Crackdown Intensifies
Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:51:44 -0400
Student protests calling for university divestment from Israel and the U.S. arms industry have rocked campuses from coast to coast. The nonviolent protests, which have been characterized as “antisemitic” for their criticism of Israel, have been met with an intensifying police crackdown as university administrators threaten academic discipline and arrests. On Wednesday, local and state troopers violently arrested dozens at the University of Texas at Austin. Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson visited Columbia University in New York City, the site of a high-profile student encampment and one of the first to be met with police action, where he called on university president Minouche Shafik to resign. We hear from two Jewish students involved in protests at their schools. Joshua Sklar, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin and an organizer with Jewish Voice of Peace Austin, says concern over campus antisemitism is insincere, and that, in fact, “The people who are being targeted are Muslim students, Arab students, and especially Palestinian students.” Sklar and Sarah King, a member of Columbia University Apartheid Divest who was arrested at the campus’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment, also point out that a large percentage of protesters are Jewish anti-Zionists concerned about their safety from state repression. “The threat is really coming from Columbia University, which has set the police on hundreds of its students who are entrusted to its care,” says King.
Amnesty International: Global Breakdown of Int'l Law Amid Flagrant War Crimes in Gaza & Beyond
Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:27:30 -0400
Amnesty International has released its annual report assessing human rights in 155 countries. The report highlights Israel’s assault on Gaza with evidence of war crimes continuing to mount, as well as U.S. failures to denounce rights violations committed by Israel. It also points to Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, and the rise of authoritarianism and massive rights violations in Sudan, Ethiopia and Myanmar. We speak to Agnès Callamard, the organization’s secretary general, who warns “the international system is on the brink of collapse” and decries the failure of rights mechanisms and Israel’s top ally, the United States, to rein in its “unprecedented” assault on Gaza.
Bodies Recovered at Mass Graves in Nasser Hospital Bear Signs of Torture, Mutilation & Execution
Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:12:14 -0400
At least 320 bodies have been discovered buried in a mass grave at the destroyed Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, just weeks after a similar mass grave containing up to 400 bodies was discovered amid the ruins of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Some of the bodies, which include children, medical staff and patients, appear to have been executed or buried alive. Meanwhile, Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza as its assault of the beleaguered enclave surpasses 200 days. “Every single body that is being unearthed, you find tens of people rushing for the sake of identifying whether those are their relatives,” says Akram al-Satarri, a journalist based in Gaza. “Some of the people were tied. Some of the people had medical accessories on their hands, like the cannulas. And when they were unearthed from the ground, it was apparent that they were buried alive. Some people were tortured. Some of the bodies were extremely mutilated, which means that those bodies, some of their organs were taken by the Israeli occupation.”
Headlines for April 25, 2024
Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
Biden Signs $95B in Foreign Aid, as New Report Details U.S. Weapons Transfer Violates Int’l Law, WFP Renews Famine Warning in Gaza, Where 70% of North Faces Catastrophic Hunger, Aid Groups Warns Lebanon on “Brink of Imploding” After Months of Cross-Border Attacks, USC Students Continue Protest Despite Mass Arrests, Inspired by Gazans’ “Spirit of Resistance”, Police Move In on Peaceful Gaza Solidarity Protests at UT Austin, Princeton, Emerson and More, House Speaker Mike Johnson Faces Heckling at Columbia After Calling for National Guard on Campus, SCOTUS Hears Case on Idaho Abortion Ban, Which Only Allows Emergency Care If Patient Risks Death, Three Arizona Republicans Join Democrats to Repeal 1864 Abortion Ban in State House, Arizona Grand Jury Indicts Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani in “Fake Electors” Case, Iran Sentences Rapper Toomaj Salehi to Death for Supporting Popular Protests, TikTok Vows to Challenge Law Forcing It to “Ban or Divest”, 33 Climate Activists Arrested After Shutting Down Citigroup HQ
Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister: Deliberate U.S. Policy of "Destroying Cuban Economy" Drives Migration
Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:42:24 -0400
We speak with Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Cuba’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, about high-level U.S.-Cuban migration talks held last week in Washington. He says U.S. policies that expedite permanent residency for Cubans in the United States play a major role in the movement of people between the two countries, but adds that the main driver of migration is the decadeslong U.S. embargo. “The economic conditions of the people of Cuba push them to migrate, and an important fact in provoking those conditions are U.S. deliberate policies of destroying the Cuban economy and make it unworkable.” Fernández de Cossío also discusses the 2024 election and policy overlap between the Trump and Biden administrations, Cuba’s position on the U.S.-backed Israeli war on Gaza, recent protests inside Cuba over living conditions and more.
Climate Activists Blockade Citigroup HQ in NYC to Demand Banking Giant Stop Funding Fossil Fuels
Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:32:40 -0400
Hundreds of climate activists gathered at the global headquarters of Citigroup in New York on Wednesday to demand the banking giant stop financing fossil fuel companies. The protests come on the heels of a first-of-its-kind Earth Day hearing where environmental activists from around the world gathered in New York this week to condemn what they call Citigroup’s environmental racism. Citibank is the world’s second-largest funder of coal, oil and gas. “They always say, 'We care about the planet.' ... But actions speak louder than words,” says Alice Hu, climate campaigner for New York Communities for Change. “Citibank has poured over $332 billion into fossil fuels since the Paris Agreements were signed in 2015.” We also speak with Roishetta Ozane, a Black environmental leader from Sulphur, Louisiana, who has been leading the fight against the expansion of Citigroup-funded liquified natural gas projects in her community. She says she has seen the health impacts of such projects on her own family. “I’m fighting not only for myself and my community, but for my children. And by fighting for my children, I’m fighting for everyone’s children,” says Ozane.
Months Ago State Dept. Panel Exposed Israeli Units' Rights Abuses, But U.S. Arms Keep Flowing
Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:25:35 -0400
Months ago, a State Department panel urged the Biden administration to disqualify multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving U.S. aid over serious human rights abuses, including rape and torture. According to ProPublica, Secretary of State Blinken received the recommendation in December but has still not taken any action. “[Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, they have been publicly and fiercely lobbying against any proposed sanctions,” says ProPublica reporter Brett Murphy. “Gantz said he called Blinken personally and they talked about it. They want him to reverse course.”
Naomi Klein: Jews Must Raise Their Voices for Palestine, Oppose the "False Idol of Zionism"
Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:15:20 -0400
Thousands of Jewish Americans and allies gathered in Brooklyn on Tuesday for a “Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel” on the second night of Passover, held just a block from the home of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, to protest ongoing U.S. support for the Israeli assault on Gaza. “Too many of our people are worshiping a false idol,” said award-winning author and activist Naomi Klein, one of several speakers at Tuesday’s rally. “They are enraptured by it. They are drunk on it. They are profaned by it. And that false idol is called Zionism.”
"Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel": 100s Arrested at Jewish-Led Protest Near Schumer's Home
Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:12:03 -0400
Hundreds of protesters were arrested in Brooklyn on Tuesday when Jewish New Yorkers and allies gathered for what they called a “Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel” on the second night of Passover. The demonstration, held one block away from the home of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, came just hours before the Senate overwhelmingly approved a $95 billion foreign aid package that includes about $17 billion in arms and security funding to Israel. “At the core of the Passover story is that we cannot be free until all people are free,” Beth Miller, the political director of Jewish Voice for Peace, told Democracy Now! “The Israeli government and the United States government are carrying out a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, over 34,000 people killed in six months in the name of Jewish safety, in the false name of Jewish freedom.”
Headlines for April 24, 2024
Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
Senate OKs $95 Billion for Ukraine, Israel & Taiwan, U.S. Refuses to Back U.N. Calls for Probe into Mass Graves at Gaza Hospitals, Seder in the Streets: Hundreds Arrested in Brooklyn Protesting U.S. Arming of Israel, Crackdown Continues on College Campuses Against Pro-Palestinian Students, National Enquirer Publisher Admits to “Catch and Kill” Effort to Help Trump Win in 2016, Supreme Court to Hear Arguments on Idaho’s Near-Total Abortion Ban, Rep. Summer Lee Wins Primary: “Opposing Genocide Is Good Politics and Good Policy”, Ahead of Blinken Visit, China Condemns U.S. for Placing Missile Launchers in the Philippines, Argentina: Hundreds of Thousands Protest Milei’s Plans to Cut Education Spending, Indian Elections: Modi Accused of Hate Speech After Describing Muslims as “Infiltrators”, FTC Bans Most Noncompete Clauses, “Blood on Your Hands!”: Protesters Decry Tennessee Vote to Arm Teachers, Justice Dept. to Pay $139 Million to Gymnasts over Mishandling of Abuse Claims Against Dr. Larry Nassar, Mumia Abu-Jamal Turns 70; Supporters to Rally in Philadelphia
Labor Organizer Jane McAlevey on UAW's Astounding Victory in VW Tennessee & Her Fight Against Cancer
Tue, 23 Apr 2024 08:47:35 -0400
Democracy Now! speaks with the great labor organizer and writer Jane McAlevey about the historic victory for Volkswagen employees at a Chattanooga, Tennessee, factory who voted overwhelmingly to join the United Auto Workers union. The plant will become the first foreign-owned car factory in the South to unionize. “This win wasn’t just a win — it was what we would call a beatdown,” says McAlevey, who says the UAW’s recent success is a result of direct democracy and smart, strategic organizing that could lead to the unionizing of Mercedes workers in Alabama. “It’ll be a massive change in the U.S. South.” We also speak with McAlevey about her terminal cancer diagnosis and why she’s “going to fight until the last dying minute, because that’s what American workers deserve.”
Juan González Reflects on Historic 1968 Columbia Protests & Crackdown on Gaza Solidarity Encampment
Tue, 23 Apr 2024 08:39:39 -0400
Fifty-six years ago today, hundreds of students at Columbia University in New York started a revolt on campus, occupying school buildings and disrupting class to protest the school’s ties to the Vietnam War and racism in New York. Democracy Now! co-host Juan González, who participated in the 1968 protests when hundreds of students were injured by police and arrested, speaks about the rebellion and how it compares to Columbia’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters occupying campus today. “What really strikes me about this response is the total flouting of any kind of democratic process by the current administration compared to what happened in 1968,” says González. “These students are protesting a genocide that is occurring before the eyes of the entire world and that is being funded by U.S. arms. And if anyone has the right to rebel and to stand up against injustice, these students do.”
Pro-Palestinian Campus Encampments Spread Nationwide Amid Mass Arrests at Columbia, NYU & Yale
Tue, 23 Apr 2024 08:16:05 -0400
Palestinian solidarity protests and encampments are appearing on college campuses from Massachusetts to California to protest Israel’s attacks on Gaza and to call for divestment from Israeli apartheid. This week, police have raided encampments and arrested students at Yale and New York University. Palestinian American scholar and New York University professor Helga Tawil-Souri describes forming a faculty buffer to protect students, negotiating with police, and the ensuing crackdown that led to over 100 arrests Monday night. Uptown in New York City, the encampment at Columbia University is entering its seventh day despite mass arrests of protesters last week. “In my opinion, the NYPD were called in under false pretenses by the president of the university,” says Joseph Slaughter, professor at Columbia University. “The university is being run as a sort of ad-hocracy at this point, the senior administration making up policies and procedures and prohibitions on the fly, changing them in the middle of the night.”
Headlines for April 23, 2024
Tue, 23 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
More Bodies Uncovered at Nasser Hospital Grave as U.N. Warns of Intergenerational Trauma in Gaza, U.N. Commission Says Israel Still Has Not Provided Evidence of Oct. 7 Allegations Against UNRWA, Gaza Solidarity Encampments and Protests Burgeon Across College Campuses Amid Police Crackdown, PEN America Forced to Cancel Awards Ceremony Amid Fallout over Gaza Stance, Google Fires Another 20 Employees in Retaliation for Project Nimbus Protest, Prosecution and Defense Offer Opening Arguments in Trump’s Hush Money Trial, Liberal Justices Challenge Oregon City’s Homelessness Ban as SCOTUS Considers Key Case, U.K. Rams Through Plan to Deport Asylum Seekers to Rwanda Despite Major Legal and Rights Concerns, Two Mexican Mayoral Candidates Killed in One Day, Less Than 2 Months Away from Elections, Biden Administration Issues Rule Protecting Privacy of Reproductive Healthcare, Biden Announces $7B Solar Energy Plan, Including Thousands of American Climate Corps Jobs, Black and Indigenous Climate Leaders Organize Against Citigroup’s Funding of Fossil Fuels, Students File Complaints Against Universities’ Ties to Fossil Fuel Industry, South Korean Youth Activists Take Government to Court over Climate Crisis
"Enormous Expansion of the Law": James Bamford on FISA Extension, U.S.-Israel Data Sharing
Mon, 22 Apr 2024 08:49:57 -0400
President Biden has signed legislation to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act despite years of protest from rights groups and privacy experts who say the law is routinely used to conduct warrantless surveillance on millions of American citizens. The Senate approved the FISA bill on Friday in a 60-34 vote, and critics say it not only reauthorizes domestic spying but also dramatically expands its scope. “It’s an enormous amount of data that they’re collecting and very few rules” limiting its collection, says investigative journalist James Bamford. He warns that personal information collected by U.S. intelligence is also shared with Israel, which uses the data to target people in Gaza. “The U.S. has got to stop supplying all this data and the targeting materials,” he says. Bamford’s new article for The Nation is headlined “The NSA Wants Carte Blanche for Warrantless Surveillance.”
"Collective Punishment": As Gaza Assault Continues, Israel Ramps Up Violence in Occupied West Bank
Mon, 22 Apr 2024 08:38:44 -0400
As the death toll in Gaza tops 34,000 Palestinians killed since October 7, Israeli forces and settlers have continued to ramp up violence in the occupied West Bank. The army killed at least 14 people during a two-day raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp near the city of Tulkarm over the weekend, and separately killed a Palestinian ambulance driver near Nablus as he was trying to reach Palestinians injured in an attack by Jewish settlers. Ramallah-based writer Mariam Barghouti says the Israeli military and armed settlers “are trying to continue the illegal annexation of lands in the West Bank” and says Israel is deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, just as in Gaza, to make life unbearable. She also responds to reports that the Biden administration is preparing to sanction the Netzah Yehuda battalion, a notorious unit within the Israeli military composed of ultra-Orthodox soldiers that is accused of carrying out human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank. “It should not be against a select few. This entire regime is engaging in crimes against humanity, and it is U.S.-sponsored. It is being paid for by American tax dollars.”
"No Due Process": Columbia Prof. Mamdani Slams Arrests & Suspension of Students at Gaza Protests
Mon, 22 Apr 2024 08:28:52 -0400
We speak with Mahmood Mamdani, a professor of government at Columbia who has spoken with many of the pro-Palestine protesters camping out on school grounds to show solidarity with Gaza and demand the school divest from Israel. He says there is growing outrage from faculty after the school’s leadership called in the police to raid the Gaza Solidarity Encampment and conduct mass arrests, while administrators have started suspending and evicting some students. “There has been no due process on the Columbia campus,” says Mamdani.
Historic Gaza Protests at Columbia U. Enter Day 6; Campus Protests Spread Across Country
Mon, 22 Apr 2024 08:15:01 -0400
Columbia University canceled in-person classes Monday as campus protests over the war in Gaza enter a sixth day. The protests have swelled after the school administration called in the police to clear a student encampment last week, resulting in over 100 arrests. Solidarity protests and encampments have now sprouted up on campuses across the country, including at Yale, MIT, Tufts, NYU, The New School and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Palestinian reporter Jude Taha, a journalism student at Columbia University, describes events on campus as “an unprecedented act of solidarity” that student organizers are modeling on antiwar protests in 1968. She says Columbia University President Minouche Shafik’s claims of an unsafe environment on campus are contradicted by the generally calm and productive atmosphere among the protesters, adding that the school’s heavy-handed response, including suspensions and evictions, is being seen as “an intimidation tactic” by organizers.
Headlines for April 22, 2024
Mon, 22 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
House Approves $95B in Foreign Military Funding, Incl. Another $26B for Israel, Gaza: Over 200 Bodies, Including Children, Found in Mass Grave at Nasser Hospital, “She Came Out an Orphan”: Doctors Deliver Child of Pregnant Gazan Killed in Israeli Strike, West Bank Palestinians Go on General Strike After Israeli Massacre on Nur Shams Camp Kills 14, Israeli Settlers Shoot Dead Palestinian Medic as He Was Attempting to Aid Injured People, Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Resigns over Oct. 7 Attack, Columbia Cancels In-Person Classes as Gaza Campus Protests Multiply, USC Calls Off Prominent Guest Speeches at Graduation Amid Fallout over Censoring Valedictorian, Biden Signs Reauthorization of FISA’s Section 702 Despite Privacy and Rights Concerns, Trump’s Criminal Hush Money Trial Seats Jury; Opening Arguments Start, Ecuadorians Back President Noboa’s Security Plan Tackling Organized Crime, U.S. Military to Withdraw from Niger, Shut Down Drone Base, Volkswagen Workers in Tennessee Vote to Unionize with United Auto Workers, Biden Administration Expands Title IX Protections to Include LGBTQ+ Students, Alameda DA Charges 3 Police Officers with Manslaughter in 2021 Killing of Mario Gonzalez, China: Record Rainfall Kills 3, Displaces 60,000 in Guangdong, On Earth Day, Biden Announced $7 Billion in Solar Investments
U.N. Photo Collection Shows Gaza War Through the Lens of Palestinian Journalists
Fri, 19 Apr 2024 08:41:40 -0400
The Gaza Collective Photo Essay project, organized by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), collected work from 14 Palestinian photographers who were each asked to share one image that captured the devastation of the Gaza Strip over the last six months. We speak with Charlotte Cans, head of photography at OCHA, about the project. “It’s one thing to say there’s a war and it’s horrible, and it’s another thing to see an image of a child being pulled out from the rubble. It really hits you differently,” Cans says of the motivation behind the project. “It was really important to elevate the stories coming from Palestinian photojournalists, who are the only window into what is going on in Gaza.”
"Fear and Terror": Gaza Photographer Ahmed Zakot on Documenting the Carnage of Israel's Assault
Fri, 19 Apr 2024 08:27:48 -0400
As Israel continues bombarding the Gaza Strip, we speak with a Palestinian photographer who recently fled the territory with his family. Ahmed Zakot has been documenting Gaza for the last 25 years, and two of his photographs were just featured in a project by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and published by Rolling Stone earlier this month in a piece titled “Gaza’s Carnage Through the Eyes of Palestinian Photojournalists.” One of Zakot’s photos shows a Gaza neighborhood lit up by Israeli airstrikes at night, while the second is of thousands of Palestinians fleeing their homes with their belongings in a scene reminiscent of the 1948 Nakba that displaced some 700,000 Palestinians from their homes. “It reminds me [of] what my grandfather told me about this displacement. It’s the same [that] happened since 1948 — now we are in 2024,” Zakot says.
Over 100 Arrested at Columbia After Univ. President Orders NYPD to Clear Pro-Palestine Student Protest
Fri, 19 Apr 2024 08:23:20 -0400
Columbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik on Thursday called on New York police to forcibly clear a student occupation on the lawn of the school, which had been dubbed the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, resulting in over 100 arrests. The protesters were demanding the Ivy League school divest from firms and institutions that profit from the Israeli occupation of Palestine, but Shafik ordered the raid a day after being questioned on Capitol Hill about ongoing pro-Palestinian protests on campus. The move caused outrage among students and many faculty, who decried it as censorship and a violation of academic freedom. The renowned professor and presidential candidate Cornel West, chair of the Columbia-affiliated Union Theological Seminary, joined students Thursday in solidarity with their protest and told Democracy Now! they “represent the best ... of the human spirit,” and lauded them for “fighting in the face of domination and occupation and subjugation, and doing it with tremendous determination.”
"No Palestinian Is Safe": Renowned Feminist Scholar Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian Arrested in Jerusalem
Fri, 19 Apr 2024 08:11:53 -0400
Israeli police arrested the internationally renowned feminist Palestinian academic Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian at her home in Jerusalem on Thursday on charges of incitement to violence. Shalhoub-Kevorkian, who holds both Israeli and U.S. citizenship, was suspended by Hebrew University last month after saying in an interview Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, though the university later reinstated her. We speak with anthropologist Sarah Ihmoud, who describes Shalhoub-Kevorkian as a mentor and inspiration to her and many others. “We hold the Hebrew University of Jerusalem responsible for the arrest and detention because of its persistent and public repression of her academic freedom, which led directly to yesterday’s arrest,” says Ihmoud, who teaches at College of the Holy Cross and is co-founder of the Palestinian Feminist Collective. “We see this as yet another example of Israel attacking Palestinians wherever they are, whoever they are. It underscores that no Palestinian is safe under Israel’s racist apartheid rule.”
Headlines for April 19, 2024
Fri, 19 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
Israel Launches Retaliatory Strike in Iran as U.S. Issues New Sanctions Against Tehran, Columbia Protests Continue a Day After NYPD Arrests 100+, Dismantles Gaza Solidarity Encampment, USC Students Rally to Demand Commencement Speech by Valedictorian Asna Tabassum Be Reinstated, U.S. Vetoes Bid to Advance Full Palestinian Membership at U.N., New Report Refutes Israeli Account of 6-Year-Old Hind Rajab’s Killing by IOF, Activists Prepare to Set Sail on a New Gaza Freedom Flotilla, House Speaker Johnson Attaches TikTok Ban Bill to Ukraine, Israel Funding Package, U.S. Deports 70 Haitian Asylum Seekers Despite Humanitarian and Security Disaster in Haiti, U.S. Reinstates Venezuela Sanctions Ahead of July Elections, Senate Advances FISA’s Contested Section 702, Which Has Led to Warrantless Spying on U.S. Citizens, The Jury in Donald Trump’s NYC Criminal Trial Has Been Seated
Israel Considers Attacking Iran and Invading Rafah as Netanyahu Seeks Lifelines to Stay in Power
Thu, 18 Apr 2024 08:52:11 -0400
New reporting indicates that the Biden administration has approved Israel’s plan to attack Rafah in exchange for Israel not launching counterstrikes on Iran. “Israel is almost certainly going to respond to the Iranian strike in some way,” says Mairav Zonszein, a senior Israel analyst for the International Crisis Group. Now “it has the benefit of being able to dangle both threats”: an invasion on Rafah that would heavily increase the death toll of Palestinians in Gaza, or an attack on Iran that would likely spark a wider regional war. While Israeli approval of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has drastically waned, Zonszein suggests that its military campaign shows no signs of stopping. “Israeli society is largely a right-wing society. It is a society that has not spoken about or thought about Palestinians or the occupation except when it’s forced to. And it’s a society that has gotten used to acting with impunity.”
Columbia Students Risk Arrest, Suspension to Maintain Gaza Solidarity Encampment on Campus
Thu, 18 Apr 2024 08:45:38 -0400
Students at Columbia University and Barnard College in New York have set up dozens of tents to occupy the South Lawn of the campus to create a Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Democracy Now! spoke to some of the student-activists, who say they are occupying the space, despite the administration’s threats of suspension and disciplinary action, as part of a demand that the Ivy League school divest from companies and institutions that profit from Israeli occupation. “It seems like the repression is only getting worse and worse,” says Maryam Alwan, a student-activist with Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine.
The New McCarthyism: Congress Grills Columbia Univ. President Amid Crackdown on Pro-Palestine Speech
Thu, 18 Apr 2024 08:23:12 -0400
In nearly four hours of grueling congressional testimony before the Republican-led Committee on Education and the Workforce, the president of Columbia University, Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, said she had taken serious action against accusations of antisemitism on campus in recent months amid Israel’s assault on Gaza, including dismissing or removing five faculty members from the classroom, suspending 15 students and suspending two student groups — Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. Shafik’s visit to Capitol Hill is the latest in a series of hearings on alleged antisemitism at elite U.S. private schools. In December, similar hearings led to the resignations of the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. Our guests Nara Milanich and Rebecca Jordan-Young, both professors at Barnard College and Columbia University, respond to the televised hearings. “What happened at those hearings yesterday should be of grave concern to everybody,” warns Jordan-Young. “What we got was a live performance [of President Shafik] throwing the entire university system under the bus.” Adds Milanich, “Antisemitism here is being used as a wedge. It’s being used as a Trojan horse for a very different political agenda.”
Meet USC Valedictorian Asna Tabassum: School Cancels Commencement Speech by Pro-Palestinian Student
Thu, 18 Apr 2024 08:10:29 -0400
Amid widespread repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campuses across the United States, we speak to University of Southern California valedictorian Asna Tabassum, whose commencement speech has been canceled for what the university claimed were “safety” reasons after Tabassum became the subject of an online anti-Palestinian hate campaign led by pro-Israel groups. “When I had asked for details regarding the security concerns,” says Tabassum of learning about the cancellation, “I was offered no information and was told it was not appropriate for me to know.” Tabassum, a first-generation South Asian American Muslim graduating with a major in biomedical engineering and a minor in resistance to genocide, says the unprecedented cancellation of her speech has been “heartbreaking.”
Headlines for April 18, 2024
Thu, 18 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
Israel Continues to Pound the Gaza Strip Amid Reports U.S. Approves of Rafah Land Invasion, Palestinian Boy Who Narrowly Escaped Death in Nov. Israeli Airstrike Is Killed in Aid Airdrop, ProPublica: Blinken Ignored His Agency’s Recommendation to Disqualify Some Israeli Units from Aid, Detained U.N. Workers Accuse Israel of Obtaining False Confessions Through Torture, Journalist Attempts Citizen’s Arrest of EU Leader Ursula von der Leyen for Enabling Gaza Genocide, “McCarthyism Is Alive and Well”: Google Fires Employees for Protesting Contract with Israeli Military, 29 Writers Withdraw from PEN Prizes to Protest “Complicity in Normalizing Genocide”, “Stop Killing Palestinian Children!”: Activists Disrupt Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin Hearing, Speaker Johnson Unveils 3 Separate Bills to Fund Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, Senate Democrats Dismiss GOP-Led Impeachment Against Alejandro Mayorkas, Major Rains Lead to Death and Displacement Across the Gulf, in Kenya, Police Evict Hundreds from France’s Largest Squat Ahead of Paris Olympics, “This Is a Criminal Cover-Up”: Boeing Whistleblowers Slam Leadership for Ignoring Safety Issues
Can UAW Unionize the South? Volkswagen Tennessee Vote Could Change U.S. Labor Landscape
Wed, 17 Apr 2024 08:51:02 -0400
On Wednesday, 4,000 Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, begin voting in a closely watched election on whether to organize with the United Auto Workers in what could be the union’s first big victory as they try to expand into the southern United States after huge contract wins in 2023 with Detroit companies General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. Journalist Hamilton Nolan argues this is “probably the most important union election that this country has seen in years,” as unions attempt to challenge southern states’ economic policy of creating cheap, exploited labor to attract major corporations. “The South is really funneling money to international corporations for free, and the UAW is trying to put an end to that.”
No Tech for Apartheid: Google Workers Arrested for Protesting Company's $1.2B Contract with Israel
Wed, 17 Apr 2024 08:33:43 -0400
Democracy Now! speaks with two of the Google employees who were arrested staging sit-ins on Tuesday at the company’s offices in New York City and in Sunnyvale, California, to protest the tech giant’s work with the Israeli government. Organized by the group No Tech for Apartheid, the protesters are demanding Google withdraw from Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud computing services to the Israeli military. “Google execs basically chose to arrest workers for speaking out against the use of our technology to power the first AI-powered genocide,” says Google software engineer Mohammad Khatami, who was arrested in New York. Google worker-organizer Ray Westrick, who was arrested occupying CEO Thomas Kurian’s office, says “more people are willing to organize and risk their jobs in order to take a stand against complicity in genocide.” We also speak with No Tech for Apartheid organizer and former Google worker Gabriel Schubiner, who calls on the tech industry to divest from Google and Amazon services. “Technology workers actually have a lot of power to shift this paradigm and to remove technology from this deep complicity with the Israeli occupation,” Schubiner says.
One Year into War, Sudan Wracked by World's Largest Displacement and Hunger Crises
Wed, 17 Apr 2024 08:11:29 -0400
One year ago this week, a devastating conflict erupted in Sudan when a fragile alliance between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces collapsed. The war initially began around the capital city of Khartoum but quickly spread to other parts of Sudan, including Darfur, Port Sudan and the Gezira state, situated in the country’s agricultural heartland. One year on, the conflict has driven nearly 9 million people from their homes, collapsed the country’s health system and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis. “This is essentially a war between two generals,” says Khalid Mustafa Medani, chair of the African studies program at McGill University, who explains why the warring parties have “absolutely no legitimacy in civil society” and how the fighting is weaponizing international aid. “Despite the severity of this conflict, there is only one solution and only one interest on the part of the majority of Sudanese — 99% of Sudanese — and that is the restoration of full civilian democracy.”
Headlines for April 17, 2024
Wed, 17 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
U.N.: Israel Is Still Unlawfully Restricting Aid into Gaza, Report: Israeli Assault on Gaza Has Left 19,000 Children Orphaned, U.K. Tells Israel: Do “As Little as Possible to Escalate” Tensions with Iran, Israel Urged to Stop Supporting Violent Jewish Settlers After Deadly West Bank Attacks, Nine Google Workers Arrested at Sit-In Protesting Firm’s Work with Israel, Columbia University Students Launch Gaza Solidarity Encampment, Seven Jurors Selected for Trump Hush Money Criminal Trial, Supreme Court Considers Tossing Out Jan. 6 Convictions for Violating Federal Obstruction Law, Extradition of Julian Assange Edges Closer as U.S. Gives Assurances to U.K. over His Rights, Indian Security Forces Kill 29 Maoist Rebels Ahead of Election, Rep. Massie Backs Ousting House Speaker Mike Johnson, Maine Joins National Popular Vote Compact, Former U.S. Marine Sentenced to Prison for Firebombing Planned Parenthood Clinic, Federal Court Blocks WV Transgender Sports Ban; Supreme Court Lets Idaho Ban Gender-Affirming Care for Now, New York Police Officers Cleared of Wrongdoing in Fatal Police Shooting of Kawaski Trawick
"I'm Jewish, and I've Covered Wars. I Know War Crimes When I See Them": Reporter Peter Maass on Gaza
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 08:48:20 -0400
We speak with veteran journalist Peter Maass about the Israeli war on Gaza and his new opinion piece for The Washington Post headlined “I’m Jewish, and I’ve covered wars. I know war crimes when I see them.” Maass, who was a senior editor at The Intercept until earlier this year, has spent decades covering wars, including the Bosnian genocide in the 1990s that killed about 100,000 people over nearly four years. He says many of the same war crimes he reported then are part of Israel’s current assault, including sniper attacks on civilians, bombing of civilian infrastructure, attacks on bread lines and besieging whole populations by preventing food and other aid from entering. “What seems to be unfolding in Gaza is even worse than what I saw in Bosnia,” says Maass.
Under Cover of War in Gaza, Assault on West Bank Intensifies: Palestinian Journalist Dalia Hatuqa
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 08:33:13 -0400
The Western corporate media is failing in its coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, says Palestinian independent journalist Dalia Hatuqa. “A lot of what’s missing from the bigger portrait ... is the Palestinian voice,” says Hatuqa, who applauds local journalists in Gaza for providing the world a crucial window into what’s happening there while international reporters are blocked by Israel from entering the territory. “Nobody knows Gaza better than the Gazan journalists on the ground.” Hatuqa also speaks about her latest piece for The Century Foundation about rising Israeli state and settler violence in the occupied West Bank, which she says can accurately be described as pogroms. “The fog of war has allowed Israel to perpetuate crimes at a very large scale, not only throughout the West Bank, but including occupied East Jerusalem.”
"Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism": Yanis Varoufakis on New Book & Why Assange Should Be Freed
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 08:24:54 -0400
Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, one of the most vocal supporters of Julian Assange, says the United States must drop its espionage case against the jailed WikiLeaks founder. He faults the Australian government for pushing for a plea deal that would allow Assange to walk free from Belmarsh Prison in London in exchange for an admission of guilt. “Julian is never going to plead guilty as if journalism is a crime,” says Varoufakis. He also discusses his new book Technofeudalism, which argues that platforms like Amazon have destroyed the idea of buyers and sellers operating in an open market. “Capitalism was killed by capital,” he says.
Yanis Varoufakis Banned from Germany as Berlin Police Raid & Shut Down Palestinian Conference
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 08:10:59 -0400
As Germany intensifies its crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices, we speak with Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis, one of the planned speakers at a conference in Berlin last weekend that was forcibly shut down by police. The Palestine Congress was scheduled to be held for three days, but police stormed the venue as the first panelist spoke. Germany’s Interior Ministry had also banned some conference speakers from even entering the country, including Varoufakis, the Palestinian British surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah and the Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta. “This is not about protecting Jewish lives and Jews from antisemitism. It’s all about protecting the right of Israel to commit any war crime of its choice,” says Varoufakis.
Headlines for April 16, 2024
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
Gazans Continue to Lose Children, Parents, Loved Ones as Israeli Attacks Continue with Impunity, Palestinian Doctors Uncover New Mass Grave at Al-Shifa in Wake of Israeli Siege, Sheikh Jarrah: Israeli Court Orders Three Palestinian Families Be Forced Out of Their Homes, Iran and Israel Both Vow to Respond in Kind to Any Further Attacks, Coordinated Demonstrations Across the U.S. and the World Disrupt Travel, Weapons Industry, Yale Students Launch Hunger Strike; USC Cancels Graduation Speech by Muslim Student, Judge Threatens to Jail Trump If He Disrupts Hush Money Trial as Jury Selection Continues, 3 Iraqi Survivors of Abu Ghraib Bring Torture Case Against U.S. Contractor to Trial, Torrential Rains Kill at Least 100 People Across Pakistan and Afghanistan, NOAA Warns World Is Experiencing Its 4th Coral Bleaching Event Due to Warming Oceans, Fourth Body Recovered from Baltimore Key Bridge Collapse as FBI Launches Probe, Judge Sentences Armorer of Alec Baldwin Western “Rust” to 18 Months for Death of Halyna Hutchins, SCOTUS Declines to Hear Case Targeting Organizers of Group Protests, Faith Ringgold, Trailblazing Artist, Author and Activist, Dies at 93
Trump in the Dock: First Criminal Trial of a Former U.S. President Begins Today in NYC
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 08:45:32 -0400
Donald Trump is making history today in New York as the first former U.S. president to stand trial for criminal charges. Trump faces 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to hide hush money payments he made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels and others, just weeks before winning the 2016 election. He is accused of violating federal campaign finance laws for failing to disclose the payments and instead recording them as a “legal expense.” Each of the 34 counts carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison. “What Donald Trump is accused of is the type of crime that’s prosecuted in New York every single day ... [a] garden-variety, ordinary grift,” says Ron Kuby, a longtime New York criminal defense and civil rights lawyer who is following the trial closely. Kuby explains what we can expect from the trial — the first of four different criminal cases Trump is currently embroiled in, but likely the only one he will stand for ahead of the 2024 election — in the coming days.
Is Regional War at Stake as Israel Weighs Response to Iran? Roundtable from Tehran, Tel Aviv & D.C.
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 08:11:24 -0400
The Middle East is bracing for the possibility of regional war after Iran responded to Israel’s bombing of the Iranian Consulate in Damascus with a major drone and missile attack Saturday. The attack caused little damage inside Israel, as it intercepted nearly all of the drones and missiles with help from the United States, Britain, France and Jordan. Iran’s government described the attack as a defensive maneuver after Israel’s unprovoked strike on its embassy killed some of Iran’s top military brass. This was “a performative operation to send a message,” says journalist Reza Sayah, who joins us from Tehran. But while Iran “does not want to escalate matters,” Israel may be preparing to do just that. Washington, D.C.-based analyst Trita Parsi says that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has been trying to instigate conflict between the U.S. and Iran for “more than two decades,” and given that Biden has demonstrated an unwillingness to “draw any red lines for Israel publicly,” these latest provocations could become a prime “opportunity” for such a war. Crucially, Iranian restraint “cannot last forever,” warns our final roundtable guest, the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, who touches on both Iran’s own sovereignty and increasing global pressure for Israel to end its war on Gaza. “Gaza is still starving and bleeding, and we shouldn’t forget it,” says Levy.
Headlines for April 15, 2024
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400
“The Middle East Is on the Brink”: U.N. Calls for Maximum Restraint After Iran Directly Attacks Israel for First Time, Death Toll from Israel’s War on Gaza Reaches 33,800 as Nuseirat Camp Comes Under Intense Fire, Israeli Settlers Attack Palestinian Villages in Occupied West Bank, Burning Homes, Killing at Least 1, Trump’s Criminal Hush Money Trial Kicks Off in New York, War in Sudan Marks 1 Year: 15,000 Killed, 8.6M Displaced, 25M in Need of Immediate Aid, Australian Police Say Mass Stabber at Sydney Mall Was Targeting Women, House Reauthorizes FISA Clause Which Has Been Used to Spy on U.S. Citizens, Kamala Harris Tells Arizona Voters Trump Is to Blame for State’s Draconian Abortion Ban, German Police Shut Down Palestine Congress After Barring Prominent Speakers, “——McCarthyism Is Real”: Hobart and William Smith Colleges Suspend Prof. for Defending Palestinians
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