June, 02 2021, 11:20am EDT
Global Institutions Close Ranks Behind IMF $50 Billion Vaccine Plan
WASHINGTON
Heads of the primary global financial, trade and health institutions urged government leaders to finance a $50 billion vaccine plan to end the pandemic. "A two-track pandemic is developing, with richer countries having access and poorer ones being left behind," shared IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank President David Malpass, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and World Trade Organization Director General Nkozi Okonjo-Iweala in a joint statement.
"Since the IMF released its vaccine plan at the G20 Health Summit 10 days ago, voices are growing to ensure universal vaccine access," said Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network. "With what's at stake for everyone's health and the global economy, it's critical that we act quickly and invest more towards global vaccine access."
The IMF argues that the global vaccine investment would spur $9 trillion in economic gains by 2025. The proposal requires the mobilization of public and private donations and cheap loans. The leaders also called for surplus vaccines to be donated to developing countries.
Jubilee USA Network is an interfaith, non-profit alliance of religious, development and advocacy organizations. We are 75 U.S. institutions and more than 750 faith groups working across the United States and around the globe. We address the structural causes of poverty and inequality in our communities and countries around the world.
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First Amendment Advocates Demand Senate Pass PRESS Act Before Trump Takes Office
"Lawmakers and President Biden must act before it's too late," said Trevor Timm of Freedom of the Press Foundation.
Nov 08, 2024
Press freedom advocates on Friday called on the Senate to urgently pass a bipartisan bill aimed at protecting reporters from government overreach and spying before what one group called "an anti-press extremist obsessed with punishing journalists and news outlets who criticize him" takes office as the next president of the United States.
National civil liberties group Defending Rights & Dissent said Republican President-elect Donald Trump's hostility toward the press as well as the plans outlined in the right-wing agenda Project 2025 make it imperative for the Democratic-led Senate to pass the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (PRESS) Act.
The bill would shield reporters from surveillance aimed at finding out their sources.
"With many purportedly concerned about how Trump may impact our free press, it is unthinkable to allow a bill with as much bipartisan support as the PRESS Act to wither away and die," said Chip Gibbons, policy director for the group.
Project 2025, which was co-authored by at least 140 people who worked in the first Trump administration, calls to rescind the Department of Justice's current guidelines limiting when a journalist's communications records can be obtained by the federal government or when they can be compelled to testify.
"Trump has spent the last year on the campaign trail calling for more leak investigations, imprisoning journalists, and censoring news outlets he doesn't like."
"While administrations from both parties have made it the norm to use the Espionage Act to imprison whistleblowers, thus opening the door for surveillance of journalists," said Gibbons, "Project 2025 proposes undoing one of the only guardrails limiting this assault on democracy."
Trump has frequently expressed anger over journalists' coverage of him, and days before the election, he said he wouldn't "mind" if reporters at his rally were killed.
"Trump has spent the last year on the campaign trail calling for more leak investigations, imprisoning journalists, and censoring news outlets he doesn't like," said Trevor Timm, executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF). "Lawmakers and President [Joe] Biden must act before it's too late."
On Friday, FPF director of advocacy Seth Stern wrote that investigative journalist Catherine Herridge would be protected from government surveillance if the PRESS Act, which was unanimously passed by the House earlier this year, were signed into law.
The federal appellate court for the D.C. Circuit is expected to hold a secret hearing on November 18 about whether Herridge can be fined $800 per day for refusing to comply with a judicial order to disclose her sources for a story about a university president's alleged ties to the Chinese military.
"If the court rules against Herridge, every potential government whistleblower in the nation's capital will think twice before talking to journalists in confidence. That means that in the second Trump administration, we'll all know less about government waste, corruption, and malfeasance," wrote Stern. "Congress could moot all of this by passing the PRESS Act, the federal shield bill that would protect journalist-source confidentiality."
Gibbons called on Senate leaders to "act now and pass this legislation before Trump can enact Project 2025’s plans to turn counter intelligence surveillance against U.S. journalists."
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After $16 Billion Election, Nonprofit Tracking Money in Politics Lays Off 1/3 of Staff
"This is an absolutely devastating development on the precipice of the next administration," said one journalist.
Nov 08, 2024
Journalists and other critics of how money influences U.S. politics expressed alarm and disappointment in response to Friday reporting that shortly after the nation's latest election, the research nonprofit OpenSecrets had to lay off a third of its staff.
Citing a current staffer, Politico's Daniel Lippman revealed that OpenSecrets "laid off 10 employees yesterday due to financial difficulties" and "much of the research team were among the casualties, which constituted around a third of the group's total headcount."
According to the Politico Playbook newsletter:
Executive director Hilary Braseth wrote in an email to supporters that "OpenSecrets remains committed to its mission—serving as the trusted authority on money in American politics—but our task has become more difficult as groups have opted to fund a partisan outcome rather than nonpartisan democratic infrastructure."
She said in a subsequent email to Playbook that the layoffs were "a necessary first step to make our organization sustainable," and that she had "no doubt that our team will continue to produce the high-quality data that the public has come to rely on."
With a mission "to serve as the trusted authority on money in American politics," OpenSecrets envisions a country in which citizens "use data on money in politics to create a more vibrant, representative, and responsive democracy."
In response to the layoffs, numerous reporters took to social media on Friday to share how they—like Common Dreams—have used what National Public Radio media correspondent David Folkenflik calledthat "an invaluable resource for many a journalist and researcher—utterly nonpartisan but a source for transparency about money in politics now under financial threat."
"Terrible news!" declaredNerdWallet data journalist Joe Yerardi. "The folks at OpenSecrets have helped me so many times on stories. The [organization] does such vital work."
Other reactions included:
- Wall Street Journal reporter Maggie Severns: "OpenSecrets is an important resource on money in politics, this is terrible to see."
- Politico deputy national editor Zach Montellaro: "This stinks—OpenSecrets is a great resource for campaign finance data and following the money."
- Digiday senior reporter Marty Swant: "Sad news for a critical team that helps shed light on dark money in politics."
- McClatchy and Miami Herald investigative reporter Ben Wieder: "This is such sad news. OpenSecrets is such an important resource for journalists and anyone who cares about money in politics."
- The New Republic breaking news writer Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling: "This is an absolutely devastating development on the precipice of the next administration."
Republican President-elect Donald Trump—known for "outright scandals and blatant corruption" during his first term—defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris on Election Day earlier this week, . The GOP also seized control of the U.S. Senate and is on track to win a majority in the House of Representatives.
In a Tuesday analysis, OpenSecrets' Albert Serna Jr. and Anna Massoglia detailed how about $16 billion "went to influence federal elections and another $4.6 billion was raised by state candidates, party committees, and ballot measure committees for 2023 and 2024 elections."
The pair also highlighted Tuesday that this cycle "has broken the record for outside spending," with about $4.5 billion from independent groups such as super political action committees; dark money accounted for over $1 billion in total contributions to organizations like super PACs; top donors had outsize influence; and donations to support or defeat various ballot measures have also set "several records."
Jimmy Cloutier, a former OpenSecrets reporting fellow now at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, said Friday in response to the layoffs that "I'm devastated for my former colleagues—and shocked that this news comes just days after the most expensive election in U.S. history."
Investigative journalist Dave Levinthal, who also previously worked for the organization, said that "this is heartbreaking news, not just for us OpenSecrets alums, but anyone who cares about genuinely nonpartisan research and reporting plus political/governmental transparency."
Healthcare Across Borders executive director Jodi Jacobson said Friday that "this is unacceptable and unconscionable and shows how perverse our funding streams are. We can sink over a billion into a political campaign but not fund one of the most critical tools of accountability at a time when we need it most?"
Some responded to the layoff news with calls for donations to OpenSecrets. Filmmaker Adam McKay declared: "Legacy news media has all but blacked out money's outsized control of [government] so this is one of the few places to find out who is bribing your candidate or [representative]. Donate if you can ASAP."
Issue One research director Michael Beckels said: "Care about being able to follow the money in politics? Today would be a good day to donate—or become a monthly donor—OpenSecretsDC, one of the best groups around for understanding the flow of money in state and federal elections."
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'Horrific Reality': Nearly 70% of UN-Verified Gaza Deaths Are Women and Children
The United Nations human rights office noted the "unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness, disease, displacement, detention, and destruction" wrought by Israel's 13-month onslaught.
Nov 08, 2024
Nearly 7 in 10 people killed by Israeli forces in Gaza during an earlier six-month period of the ongoing assault on the Palestinian enclave were women and children, the United Nations human rights office said Friday.
The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) verified 8,119 of the more than 34,500 Palestinians killed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bombs and bullets between November 2023 and April 2024. Among those killed were 3,588 children and 2,036 women ranging in age from newborns to nonagenarians. Minors under the age of 18 made up 44% of the victims in the analysis.
The OHCHR report noted the "unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness, disease, displacement, detention, and destruction" wrought by Israel's onslaught, as well as the "wanton disregard" by Israeli forces and Hamas of international humanitarian law.
The analysis also highlights "the Israeli government's continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate, and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement."
"If committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population... these violations may constitute crimes against humanity," OHCHR said. "And if committed with intent to destroy—in whole or in part—a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, they may also constitute genocide."
South Africa is leading a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. On Thursday, Ireland became the latest of around 30 countries and regional blocs to announce its intent to intervene in the case on behalf of Palestine.
OHCHR found that 88% of the verified Palestinian fatalities from Israeli attacks on residential buildings were people killed in strikes that claimed at least five lives. In recent weeks, Israel's renewed offensive in northern Gaza—which some experts believe is an attempt to ethnically cleanse the area by bombing and starving its people before forcibly expelling them to make way for Israeli recolonization—has wiped out a staggering number of civilians, including many women and children, in single strikes on homes, hospitals, and refugee camps.
"The high number of fatalities per attack was due to the IDF's use of weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas," the analysis states, adding that some Palestinians may have been killed by errant projectiles launched by Hamas or other Gaza-based militants.
The new report also raises concerns over Isrsel's forcible transfer of Palestinians, systematic attacks on medical workers, journalists, and reported use of white phosphorus munitions—which are banned in populated areas.
Israel has not yet responded to the OHCHR report but has previously said that it "will continue to act, as it always has done, according to international law."
Since October 7, 2023, when Israeli forces launched their assault on the densely populated coastal enclave of 2.3 million people in response to the Hamas-led attack on Israel, the Gaza Ministry of Health and U.N. agencies say that more than 43,600 Palestinians have been killed and over 102,500 others wounded. More than 10,000 others are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the ruins of bombed homes and other structures.
Among those killed, say officials, are more than 18,000 children. Last month, the U.K.-based charity Oxfam International said that Israel's yearlong assault on Gaza has been the deadliest year of conflict for women and children anywhere in the world over the past two decades.
The relentless death and destruction has caused the "complete psychological destruction" of Gaza's youth, according to the charity Save the Children. The same has been said of many Gazans of all ages.
Last December, the U.N. Children's Fund called Gaza "the world's most dangerous place to be a child." Earlier this year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres for the first time added Israel to his so-called "List of Shame" of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts.
The ICJ—which is a U.N. body—has issued three provisionsal orders in the ongoing genocide case, including directives for Israel to prevent genocidal acts, stop its assault on Rafah, and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Israel has been accused of flouting all three orders.
"The trends and patterns of violations, and of applicable international law as clarified by the International Court of Justice, must inform the steps to be taken to end the current crisis," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement Friday.
"The violence must stop immediately, the hostages and those arbitrarily detained must be released, and we must focus on flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid," he added.
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