EU Deal on AI Act Is ‘Missed Opportunity’ to Ban Mass Surveillance, Say Privacy Groups

“Whilst the Parliament fought hard to limit the damage, the overall package on biometric surveillance and profiling is at best lukewarm,” said one advocate.

By Julia Conley. Published 12-9-2023 by Common Dreams

*The European Union reached an agreement on December 8, 2023 regarding the use of artificial intelligence. Image: Electronic Frontier Foundation/CC*

Privacy advocates on Saturday said the AI Act, a sweeping proposed law to regulate artificial intelligence in the European Union whose language was finalized Friday, appeared likely to fail at protecting the public from one of AI’s greatest threats: live facial recognition.

Representatives of the European Commission spent 37 hours this week negotiating provisions in the AI Act with the European Council and European Parliament, running up against Council representatives from France, Germany, and Italy who sought to water down the bill in the late stages of talks.

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War for Oil Fears Grow as US Holds Military Drills in Guyana Amid Venezuela Dispute

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Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva offered to help forge a diplomatic solution, saying, “If there’s one thing we don’t want here in South America, it’s war.”

By Jake Johnson. Published 12-8-2023 by Common Dreams

*Satellite map showing the Region of Guayana Esequiba that is disputed between Venezuela and Guyana. Image: SurinameCentral/Wikimedia Commons/CC*

U.S. forces held joint military drills within Guyanese airspace on Thursday as a longstanding and intensifying territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana sparked fears of war in South America.

At the center of the dispute is Essequibo, an oil-rich region that Guyana has controlled for more than a century. Venezuela has claimed sovereignty over Essequibo for decades, and the two nations agreed in 1966 to resolve the controversy in a way that’s “satisfactory” for both sides.

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Critics Say Biden Plan to Cut Drug Costs Too Friendly to Big Pharma

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“Federal agencies have shown themselves reluctant to act against unreasonable prices, and this new proposal may give them permission to continue to do nothing,” said one expert.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 12-7-2023 by Common Dreams

While welcoming the White House’s willingness to tackle pharmaceutical companies’ patent abuse and high prescription drug prices, progressive critics argued Thursday that U.S. President Joe Biden must do more to challenge Big Pharma’s monopoly power.

The White House on Thursday announced “new actions to promote competition in healthcare and support lowering prescription drug costs for American families, including the release of a proposed framework for agencies on the exercise of march-in rights on taxpayer-funded drugs and other inventions.”

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UN Chief Invokes Article 99 to Spur Security Council Action on Gaza

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“Facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, I urge the council to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe and appeal for a humanitarian cease-fire to be declared.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 12-6-2023 by Common Dreams

António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations during opening session of the High Level Segment at the 52nd session of the Human Rights Council. 27 February 2023. UN Photo / Jean Marc Ferré

With over 16,000 Palestinians dead just two months into Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday demanded immediate action by the U.N. Security Council.

For the first time since becoming secretary-general nearly seven years ago, Guterres invoked Article 99, a rarely used section of the U.N. Charter empowering him to bring to the attention of the council “any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”

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Post-Dobbs Bans Leave 14 States With No Abortion Clinics

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A new analnysis shows how “abortion bans, extremist harassment, and the financial realities of operating community-based clinics make it increasingly difficult for independent clinics to stay open.”

By Brett Wilkins Published 12-5-2023 by Common Dreams

*Stop Abortion Bans Rally in St Paul, Minnesota May 2019. Photo: Lorie Shaull/flickr/CC*

Scores of independent reproductive health centers have been forced to close or stop offering abortion care, with 14 states now having no abortion clinics, a report published Tuesday revealed.

Abortion Care Network (ACN) released its annual Communities Need Clinics report, which details how “abortion bans, extremist harassment, and the financial realities of operating community-based clinics make it increasingly difficult for independent clinics to stay open” after the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court canceled half a century of federal abortion rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization a year-and-a-half ago.

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Families Rally for Opioid Accountability as Supreme Court Hears Purdue Case

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“I don’t want their money,” one woman who lost a son to the opioid crisis said of the Sackler family. “I want them in prison.”

By Julia Conley. Published 12-4-2023 by Common Dreams

Family members who lost loved ones to the opioid epidemic rallied at the U.S. Supreme Court on December 4, 2023 to oppose a bankruptcy deal that would allow Purdue Pharma to avoid liability for the deaths of millions of people from opioid use disorder.
(Photo: @aneripattani /Twitter)

At the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, families whose loved ones are among the tens of thousands of Americans who have died of opioid use disorder each year over the past two decades rallied to push the nine justices to reject a proposed bankruptcy plan that would give the former owners of Purdue Pharma legal immunity—with many joining the U.S. Justice Department in arguing that the company should not be released from accountability for the opioid epidemic.

Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy in 2019, as the number of Americans killed by opioids hit 50,000 and the OxyContin manufacturer faced thousands of lawsuits alleging its aggressive marketing of the addictive painkiller had fueled the rising death toll.

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Jeff Bezos Donates $120 Million to Fight Homelessness, Then Invests $500 Million to Make It Worse

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“The last thing Americans need is a Bezos-backed investment company further consolidating single-family homes and putting homeownership out of reach for more and more people. Housing should be a right, not a speculative commodity.”

By Jon Queally. Published 12-3-2023 by Common Dreams

*Jeff Bezos. Photo: Dan Farber/flickr/CC*

Among the three richest people on the planet, mega-billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos received some praise last week for announcing approximately $120 million in donations to a number of groups fighting the scourge of homelessness in the United States.

“It’s a privilege to support these orgs in their inspiring mission to help families regain stability,” Bezos wrote in an Instagram post touting the multiple grants to 38 individual nonprofits in 22 states.

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‘Disastrous’: Michigan Regulators Approve Enbridge Line 5 Expansion

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“Today’s decision is another notch in a long history of ignoring the rights of tribal nations,” said one Indigenous leader.

By Julia Conley. Published 12-1-2023 by Common Dreams

*Activists in Michigan gather around a sign reading, “Line 5: people or pipeline? Which side are you on?” (Photo Ben Jealous/X)*

Days after climate advocates applauded Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s signing of a package of clean energy bills that one campaigner said would “translate into better air, water, and health for everyone,” state regulators took several steps back from a sustainable future as they approved a key permit for Enbridge’s Line 5 expansion project beneath the Great Lakes.

In a 2-0 vote with one member abstaining, the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) approved siting for the project, granting Canadian oil firm Enbridge permission to build a concrete tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac—which connect Lake Michigan and Lake Huron—to house a four-mile section of its 645-mile petroleum pipeline.

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Appeals Court Tells Texas to Remove Rio Grande Buoy ‘Death Traps’

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“Despite this small victory, the razor buoys are only a fraction of Gov. Abbott’s racist and murderous Operation Lone Star,” one group noted.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 12-1-2023 by Common Dreams

A federal appellate court panel on Friday delivered a blow to Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s anti-migrant regime, ruling 2-1 that the state must remove from the Rio Grande a buoy barrier intended to block people from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Texas and Abbott over the buoys, which are part of the governor’s Operation Lone Star, in July. U.S. Judge David A. Ezra of the Western District of Texas, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, ordered the state to remove the barrier and prohibited new or additional blockades in September.

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200,000+ Urge DOE to ‘Do the Right Thing’ and Block LNG Buildout

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One project in particular, the CP2 export terminal, “would be the most harmful facility built in the United States,” one frontline activist said as campaigners delivered petition signatures.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 11-30-2023 by Common Dreams

Roishetta Ozane, founder and director of the Louisiana-based mutual aid organization Vessel Project, speaks as activists deliver 200,000 signatures opposing the LNG buildout to the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington, D.C., on November 30, 2023. (Photo: Jamie Henn/X)

Climate and environmental justice campaigners on Thursday delivered more than 200,000 petition signatures calling on the Biden administration to reject the Calcasieu Pass 2, or CP2, liquefied natural gas export facility as well as all other planned LNG infrastructure.

Environmental advocates and progressive lawmakers have been increasingly raising the alarm about CP2 and the broader expansion in LNG exports, pointing out that they put both the U.S. climate goals and frontline Gulf Coast communities at risk. CP2, for example, would emit 20 times as many greenhouse gases as the controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaska.

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Occupy World Writes

The Movement Continues – Globally

War for Oil Fears Grow as US Holds Military Drills in Guyana Amid Venezuela Dispute

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva offered to help forge a diplomatic solution, saying, “If there’s one thing we don’t want here in South America, it’s war.”