Monthly Archives: November 2019

‘Naked Violation’ of Human Rights: Global Condemnation Over New US Position on Israeli Occupation

Leave a reply

“The American government’s decision to jettison international law and to legitimise the illegal Israeli settlements is probably the very last nail in the coffin of the two-state solution.”

By Eoin Higgins, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-19-2019

International voices condemned the U.S. decision to no longer consider the Israeli settlements in Palestine a war crime. (Photo: rpb1001/flickr/cc)

A worldwide chorus of condemnation continued Tuesday over the U.S. decision to no longer ofiicially consider Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank illegal.

Michael Lynk, U.N. Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory, said the decision was “not a step towards peace or justice in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Continue reading →

Share Button

Trump’s Child Separation Policy “Absolutely” Violated International Law Says UN Expert

Leave a reply

The way the Trump administration was “separating infants from their families only in order to deter irregular migration from Central America to the United States of America, for me, constitutes inhuman and degrading treatment.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-18-2019

Screenshot: ABC News

The Trump administration violated international law when it separated migrant children from their families, a United Nations expert said Monday.

That’s not all, said Manfred Nowak, the independent expert leading a global study on children deprived of liberty. With over 100,000 children still in migration-related detention, the United States leads the world with the highest number of children in migration-related custody in the world. Continue reading →

Share Button

Police in Bolivia Pepper Spray Journalist ‘On Purpose’ During Live Coverage of Anti-Coup Protests

Leave a reply

“I hate to be the story because we are here to report on what is happening to the people in the amazing country,” said Al-Jazeera English senior correspondent Teresa Bo. “I hope it helps denounce that such practices cannot be tolerated. Not here not anywhere.”

By Jon Queally, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-16-2019

Teresa Bo, a senior correspondent for Al-Jazeera was sprayed directly in the face—clearly “on purpose,” she says—while covering anti-coup demonstrators in the city of La Paz, Bolivia on Friday, November 15, 2019. (Photo: Al-Jazeera/Screenshot)

Becoming part of the story she was seeking to cover, international news correspondent Teresa Bo was assaulted by Bolivian state security forces on Friday—shot directly in the face, while on camera, with tear gas or pepper spray.

Perpetrated while she was reporting for Al-Jazeera English in the city of La Paz—where ongoing streets protests erupted this week after a coup forced the resignation of the nation’s president Evo Morales—the attack on Bo, which occurred while she was giving an on-camera account of the protests, was caught on film. Continue reading →

Share Button

‘Grand American Tradition of Immunizing Its War Criminals’ Continues as Trump Pardons US Soldiers

Leave a reply

“A shameful use of presidential powers,” said the ACLU. “It sends a clear message of disrespect for the law, morality, the military justice system, and those in the military who abide by the laws of war.”

By Jon Queally, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-16-2019

President Donald J. Trump alongside First Lady Melania Trump and members of the U.S. military in this file image posted to a government website to commemorate Veterans Day. (Photo: WhiteHouse.gov)

Continuing what critics of U.S. imperialism have long said is a pattern of refusing accountability for violations of international law and a litany of war crimes over recent decades, President Donald Trump on Friday night issued full pardons for three U.S. soldiers either accused or convicted of serious criminal abuses related to their military service.

Outrage among peace activists and opponents of the U.S. war machine was immediate.

“Utterly shameful,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. Continue reading →

Share Button

Call Katie Hill’s “Scandal” What It Is: Sexual Assault

Leave a reply

The Congresswoman resigned after having an affair with a campaign aide, but she’s also a crime victim, and those two facts don’t cancel each other out.

By Sady Doyle. Published 10-31-2019 by YES! Magazine

Katie Hill speaking with attendees at the 2019 California Democratic Party State Convention at the George R. Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California. Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr

 

“Someone asked me to write about Katie Hill,” I told my husband over dinner this week.

“Oh,” he said, “the woman who had the relationship with her staffer?”

“The woman who was sexually assaulted,” I said. Continue reading →

Share Button

Senate Democrats Join GOP to Back ‘Automatic Austerity’ Bill That Would Gut Social Programs, Hamstring Bold Policies

Leave a reply

“One priority of a Sanders or Warren White House absolutely must be politically crushing the deficit scolds within the Democratic Party.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-14-2019

Sheldon Whitehouse. Screenshot: MSNBC

A handful of Senate Democrats joined forces with Republicans last week to advance sweeping budget legislation that would establish an “automatic deficit-reduction process” that could trigger trillions of dollars in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and other social programs—and potentially hobble the agenda of the next president.

The Bipartisan Congressional Budget Reform Act (S.2765), authored by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), passed out of the Senate Budget Committee on November 6. The legislation is co-sponsored by five members of the Senate Democratic caucus: Whitehouse, Mark Warner (Va.), Tim Kaine (Va.), Chris Coons (Del.), and Angus King (I-Maine). Continue reading →

Share Button

The So-Called War on Terror Has Killed Over 801,000 People and Cost $6.4 Trillion: New Analysis

Leave a reply

“The numbers continue to accelerate, not only because many wars continue to be waged, but also because wars don’t end when soldiers come home.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-13-2019

A U.S. Army soldier fires an M4 carbine rifle during partnered live fire range training at Tactical Base Gamberi, Afghanistan on May 29, 2015. (Photo: Capt. Charlie Emmons/U.S. Army/Flickr/cc)

The so-called War on Terror launched by the United States government in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks has cost at least 801,000 lives and $6.4 trillion according to a pair of reports published Wednesday by the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

“The numbers continue to accelerate, not only because many wars continue to be waged, but also because wars don’t end when soldiers come home,” said Costs of War co-director and Brown professor Catherine Lutz, who co-authored the project’s report on deaths. Continue reading →

Share Button

A Refrain of ‘Drop the Charges’ Rises as Scott Warren Faces Retrial for Giving Aid to Migrants in Need

Leave a reply

“No one should die while attempting to migrate, and no one deserves to be punished for working to prevent those deaths.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-12-2019

No More Deaths volunteer Scott Warren faces up to 10 years behind bars for giving humanitarian aid to migrants in the desert. (Photo: Alli Jarrar/Amnesty International)

Human rights advocates and family members gathered outside a federal courthouse in Arizona on Tuesday as the retrial began for Scott Warren, who faces up to a decade behind bars for providing humanitarian aid to migrants in the Sonoran Desert.

“We are here today standing together as rural border residents in the firm belief that every life is sacred, deserving of care and dignity,” Arivaca, Arizona resident Patty Miller said on behalf of the Rural Border Community Coalition. “For those of us living on the border, to deny care to those in need would be to deny our own humanity.” Continue reading →

Share Button

Demands for Bold Climate Action Mount as ‘All But Rainless’ Australia Faces ‘Catastrophic’ Fire Danger

Leave a reply

The extreme weather comes as a new report on G20 nations reveals that “Australia is behind [on] climate action in nearly every dimension.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-11-2019

Photo: James ༀ Barrett/Twitter

Demands for bold government action to combat the climate emergency continued to mount in Australia Monday as the continent had hardly any rain for the first time on record while more than 100 fires burned across two eastern states.

The government’s Bureau of Meteorology on Monday “forecast Australia to be all but rainless for the day—aside from a tiny splotch off the Kimberley and western Tasmania,” according to The Sydney Morning Herald. A bureau spokesperson said that “the team can’t comprehensively identify a day in our records where there hasn’t been rain somewhere on continental Australia.” Continue reading →

Share Button

‘Simply Barbaric’: Trump Administration Proposes Charging Asylum Fee for Refugees Fleeing Violence and Poverty

Leave a reply

“It’s an unprecedented weaponization of government fees.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-10-2019

USCIS office in Atlanta. Photo: Gulbenk/CC

The Trump administration this coming week will formalize a proposal that could make it one of just four countries in the world that charge asylum-seekers for entry.

As the New York Times reported late Friday, the administration plans to publish in the Federal Register a proposal to require a $50 application fee for asylum-seekers as well as a $490 charge for work permits.

“It’s an unprecedented weaponization of government fees,” Doug Rand of the immigrant assistance company Boundless Immigration told the Times. Continue reading →

Share Button