July, 15 2016, 11:45am EDT
Starting Saturday, Wisconsin Immigrant Families to Lead Massive Voter Drive
Beginning Saturday, July 16th, thousands of volunteers will go door-to-door to counter the politics of hate
MILWAUKEE, WI
Days before Republicans gather to nominate Donald Trump as their candidate for President, Voces de la Frontera will announce a massive canvass effort of Latinx communities throughout Wisconsin in advance of the 2016 elections. Organizers vow to make November 8th a "Day WITH Latinxs and Immigrants," a reference to February's massive "Day Without Latinxs" protest and strike that stopped anti-immigrant state legislation in Wisconsin.
The first canvass is in Milwaukee on Saturday, July 16th. Dozens of canvassers will gather at 11am at Voces de la Frontera (1027 S. 5th St.). Future canvass efforts are planned for Madison, the Green Bay/Fox Cities area, Waukesha, Walworth County and Racine.
Saturday's canvass is part of a national day of action bringing together thousands of community members in more than 20 states to urge people to vote this November against hate. Voces' canvass is part of a multiracial push that includes the Center for Community Change Action, People's Action, MoveOn.org, and scores of state-based groups. This weekend alone, volunteers aim to talk with more than half a million people.
"This election is a battle for the soul of our country," said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Executive Director of Voces de la Frontera. "While the Republican Convention focuses on blaming every minority for our problems and driving an agenda that will make income inequality even worse, we will be asking people to vote on November 8th, and to organize their friends, family and co-workers to do the same. Our mobilizing will send a message to anti-immigrant politicians at every level of government: We reject racism and scapegoating, and we will hold all candidates and elected officials accountable to the needs of our community before and after the elections."
Voces de la Frontera is Wisconsin's leading immigrant rights group - a grassroots organization that believes power comes from below and that people can overcome injustice to build a better world.
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Green Groups Protest 'Nuclear Fairy Tale' in Brussels
"All the evidence shows that nuclear power is too slow to build, too expensive, and it remains highly polluting and dangerous," one activist said.
Mar 21, 2024
An international coalition of environmental groups dropped banners and blockaded roads to protest the International Nuclear Energy Summit in Brussels on Thursday.
While the summit, hosted by the Belgian government and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), pushes nuclear energy as a replacement for fossil fuels, more than 600 climate action groups launched a declaration calling nuclear power plants a "distraction which slows down the energy transition."
"We are in a climate emergency, so time is precious, and the governments here today are wasting it with nuclear energy fairy tales," Greenpeace E.U. senior campaigner Lorelei Limousin said in a statement. "All the evidence shows that nuclear power is too slow to build, too expensive, and it remains highly polluting and dangerous."
"The nuclear lobby camouflages itself beneath a climate-friendly facade, hoping to divert massive sums of money away from real climate solutions, at the expense of people and the planet."
At the United Nations COP28 climate conference in the United Arab Emirates last year, more than 20 countries pledged to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050. However, Greenpeace France calculated that achieving this would mean finishing 70 reactors each year between 2040 and 2050. This would be an unprecedented buildout in defiance of current trends: Between 2020 and 2023, 21 reactors were completed while 24 were shut down worldwide.
In the European Union specifically, many countries turned away from nuclear after 2011 in response to the Fukushima accident in Japan, according to Reuters. Germany shuttered its last three reactors for good in April 2023 following a successful anti-nuclear campaign there. In general, the nuclear share of the E.U. power mix dropped from 32.8% in 2000 to 22.8% in 2023, Greenpeace said.
Activists argue that nuclear still poses all the dangers the anti-nuclear movement has been warning about for decades and also cannot be ramped up quickly enough to prevent escalating climate extremes.
To reinforce this message, members of Greenpeace France blockaded the main roads to the Brussels summit using cars and bicycles. They also lit pink flares and threw pink powder as a motorcade of officials en route to the summit approached. The action succeeded in delaying the arrival of several delegations, Greenpeace E.U. said.
Other demonstrators dropped banners from the summit site at Brussels Expo reading, "Nuclear Fairy Tale," while a group representing the 600 declaration signatories protested in front of an inflatable bouncy castle holding up a sign reading, "Nuclear fairy tales = climate crisis."
The declaration was drafted by Climate Action Network Europe and signed by groups from at least 56 different countries and territories including Climate Action Network Canada, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Sierra Club, Food and Water Watch, CodePink, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and several 350.org, Fridays for Future, and Friends of the Earth affiliates.
"The nuclear lobby camouflages itself beneath a climate-friendly facade, hoping to divert massive sums of money away from real climate solutions, at the expense of people and the planet," the declaration reads.
The signatories pointed out that, while the world must dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 in order to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, it would take longer than this for any new nuclear plant to come online.
At the same time, it costs significantly more money to increase nuclear capacity than renewable options like wind and solar, they stressed. A new reactor requires almost four times the funds of a new wind power installation.
"Governments need to invest in proven climate solutions, such as home insulation, public transport, and renewable energy, rather than expensive experiments, like small modular reactors, which have no guarantees of actually delivering," the declaration says.
It also points to safety risks across the nuclear lifecycle, from uranium mining to waste storage. And it adds that those dangers would only increase as temperatures rise.
"The climate crisis also increases the risks involved in nuclear power, as increased heatwaves, droughts, storms, and flooding all pose significant threats to the plants themselves and to the systems that aim to prevent nuclear accidents," the signatories argued.
Instead, the declaration proposes that governments focus on achieving 100% renewable energy while also improving efficiency.
"What we demand is a just transition toward a safe, renewable, and affordable energy system that secures jobs and protects life on our planet," the declaration concludes.
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Former US Diplomat Says 'Collaboration' in Gaza Genocide Could Make Biden 'Target of Prosecution'
"It is evident that making Gaza uninhabitable is a feature, not a bug in this operation," wrote former State Department adviser Barnett Rubin.
Mar 21, 2024
A former top adviser at the U.S. State Department was among nearly 70 former diplomats and officials who urged President Joe Biden on Thursday to strengthen his stance against Israel's practices as it continues its monthslong bombardment of Gaza.
But the Middle East expert, Barnett Rubin, also criticized the letter, calling it "weak" and insufficient in its warnings to the administration.
Rubin, now a distinguished fellow at the Center on International Cooperation, said the dozens of former government and military officials wrote the letter warning against U.S. support for Israel's military tactics in response to a Hamas-led attack on October 7, without considering Israeli officials' open calls for genocidal violence.
"It is evident that making Gaza uninhabitable is a feature, not a bug in this operation," Rubin wrote in what he described as a "letter of dissent" to the former officials. "You have ignored the issue of genocide."
Further, Rubin said, the signatories should have warned Biden of the possible consequences of his military and political support for Israel, whose forces have killed at least 31,988 Palestinians since October 7, including an estimated 13,450 children, and has targeted hospitals, groups of people waiting for humanitarian aid, universities, and other civilian infrastructure, all while claiming to be fighting Hamas.
"President Biden's collaboration in this genocide could make him a target of prosecution," wrote Rubin. "There is NO excuse for providing any aid whatsoever to a force engaged in these actions."
Last month, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese became the first Western leader to be referred to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for giving military and political support to Israel's assault on Gaza. In the U.S., a federal court in January heard a case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, arguing that Biden is complicit in "Israel's unfolding genocide." A judge dismissed the case but warned the defendants to "examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege."
The Biden administration has expressed contempt for international opposition to Israel's actions in Gaza, repeatedly calling South Africa's claim that the IDF is committing a genocide "meritless" and dismissing the ICJ's preliminary finding that South Africa's case was "plausible."
The White House has bypassed Congress numerous times to approve weapons transfers to Israel, and U.S. weapons were used in illegal airstrikes against two homes in October, according to an Amnesty International analysis.
The signatories of the letter to Biden include former Clinton administration national security adviser Anthony Lake, former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, and former USAID Administrator J. Brian Atwood.
They warned that Israel has a "responsibility to conduct operations in accordance with international humanitarian law, which requires that parties prevent indiscriminate killing," and that Israeli officials "set a very negative tone for treatment of civilians" when Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in October that "no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel" would be allowed into Gaza.
Israel's blockade has led to the collapse of Gaza's healthcare system and famine conditions in at least two of Gaza's five governorates, as well as the deaths of at least 27 Palestinians from starvation so far.
What the signatories did not acknowledge, said Rubin, was that "15 members of the [Israeli] Cabinet attended a joyous rally celebrating the opportunity to expel Palestinians from Gaza" in January.
They also ignored, Rubin said, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's invocation of Amalek in a speech in October, referencing an ancient enemy of the Israelites whose extermination was ordered by God in the Hebrew Bible.
"He claims he was taken out of context," wrote Rubin. "Here is the context: there are many articles and speeches over the last 40+ years... identifying the Palestinians as Amalek... [Israeli officials] regard the expulsion of Palestinians as a 'humane' alternative to extermination."
While signing the letter in which former officials warned that Israel's civilian killings "cannot be justified" and expressed support for Biden's call for a cease-fire lasting at least six weeks, Rubin made clear in his own letter to the signatories that "the purpose of the operation is to 'defend' Israel by making Gaza uninhabitable and forcing the Palestinians to leave by indiscriminate killing, starvation, disease, and humiliation."
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Eyewitnesses Report 'Unlawful Killings' by IDF as Raid on al-Shifa Hospital Continues
One eyewitness said that "Israeli soldiers repeatedly took prisoners into the hospital's morgue area, that gunshots were then heard, and that the soldiers left without the prisoners."
Mar 21, 2024
The Israeli military's raid of Gaza's largest hospital stretched into its fourth consecutive day on Thursday as humanitarian aid groups, United Nations officials, and human rights organizations voiced alarm over the impact on patients, healthcare workers, and displaced people trapped inside the besieged facility.
The multi-day raid that began earlier this week marks the second time Israeli forces have stormed the hospital since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7. In November, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raided al-Shifa after claiming—without evidence—that Hamas used the hospital as a command center.
The IDF says it has killed more than 140 people it described as "terrorists" in the latest raid, but eyewitnesses told the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor that IDF soldiers "have carried out unlawful killings and executions against displaced Palestinian civilians" inside al-Shifa.
"A survivor who asked to be identified only as 'M.K.' confirmed that Israeli soldiers repeatedly took prisoners into the hospital's morgue area, that gunshots were then heard, and that the soldiers left without the prisoners," Euro-Med said in a statement Wednesday.
M.K. told the group that Israeli soldiers "detained me and handcuffed me in the hospital courtyard," leaving him "undressed for more than nine hours."
"About four times during that period, I saw soldiers lead groups of detainees—[always] at least three people and [never] more than 10—into the hospital buildings, particularly the morgue building where bodies had previously been kept," said M.K. "Gunshots were heard, with the soldiers then leaving the area to bring another group there."
"Patients cannot receive the care they need due to ongoing Israeli military activity. This includes dangerously ill child amputees who need to be transferred and currently cannot be."
CNNreported Wednesday that medical personnel and journalists at the hospital were also detained by Israeli forces and subjected to degrading treatment.
"Palestinian reporters and hospital staff described scenes of humiliating interrogations where colleagues had been undressed and left outside in the cold, after the Israel Defense Forces laid siege to the largest hospital in the enclave in the early hours of Monday," the outlet reported. "One man who was detained told CNN Israeli forces released him without his ID or mobile phone."
Melanie Ward, CEO of Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), said Thursday that she and her colleagues "continue to be deeply worried for patients and staff" at al-Shifa.
"Patients cannot receive the care they need due to ongoing Israeli military activity," said Ward. "This includes dangerously ill child amputees who need to be transferred and currently cannot be."
Al-Shifa is the only partially functioning hospital in northern Gaza, where the population is
facing famine conditions due to Israel's persistent obstruction of humanitarian aid deliveries. Al-Shifa had resumed some healthcare services following the IDF's November raid, but the latest assault on the hospital has put patient care in jeopardy, with reports indicating Israeli attacks on key parts of the facility.
Reutersreported Thursday that residents near al-Shifa described the area around the facility as a war zone and said Israeli forces "had blown up houses close by as buildings in the hospital complex burned."
They blew up the surgery department. Shifa is a symbol of civic life in Gaza, and staff have bravely returned some services since it was raided before, and now Israel is destroying what it left. https://t.co/h4uc8055qm
— Rohan Talbot (@rohantalbot) March 21, 2024
As the IDF kicked off its latest raid on al-Shifa earlier this week, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on social media that "hospitals should never be battlegrounds."
The WHO has recorded more than 400 attacks on healthcare facilities or personnel in Gaza since Israel's assault on the territory began in October.
"We are terribly worried about the situation at al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, which is endangering health workers, patients, and civilians," Tedros wrote on social media. "The hospital has only recently restored minimal health services. Any hostilities or militarization of the facility jeopardize health services, access for ambulances, and delivery of life-saving supplies. Hospitals must be protected. Ceasefire!"
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