US officials anonymously blame Israel for assassinating Iran’s top nuclear scientist – reports

2 Dec, 2020 RT
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is shown in a 2018 press briefing in Tel Aviv identifying Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh as a threat to Israel's security. © Amir Cohen

An unidentified Trump administration official has blamed Israel for last week’s assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, CNN said, following an earlier New York Times report citing anonymous US sources fingering Tel Aviv.


The latest senior official to attribute Friday’s killing of Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh declined to say whether the US knew about the attack in advance or participated in any way, CNN said on Wednesday. The person acknowledged that the US and Israel have previously shared information about covert operations before carrying them out, but refused to say whether that happened in this case.ALSO ON RT.COMSyria condemns ‘Zionist terrorist attack on science’ as Israel says it has ‘no clue’ who was behind Iranian scientist’s murder

Fakhrizadeh’s convoy of bullet-proof vehicles was driving to Absard, east of Tehran, when it came under attack. Iranian accounts of the incident shifted sharply on Sunday, with the semi-official Fars news agency saying Fakhrizadeh was shot with a remotely operated machine gun after exiting his vehicle to investigate why it had been stopped. Previous reports indicated that a 12-person commando team ambushed the convoy and was helped by a 50-person logistics group that infiltrated Iranian security services and cut off power to the area just before the attack.

Like CNN, the New York Times said it was unclear what, if any, knowledge the Trump administration had of the attack beforehand. The assassination came one week after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Israel on a trip that also included stops in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

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Killing of top Iranian nuclear scientist: Reported versions change from 12-person commando squad to REMOTE-CONTROLLED machine gun

President Donald Trump has given Pompeo and other administration officials carte blanche to punish Iran as aggressively as they wish as long as they stop short of risking World War III, the Daily Beast reported on Tuesday.

Iranian officials were quick to blame Israel for the murder of Fakhrizadeh and have vowed revenge.

Israel has claimed that Fakhrizadeh headed Iran's nuclear weapons development project. Iranian officials have repeatedly insisted that the country's nuclear investments are for peaceful purposes only, and the International Atomic Energy Agency said the nuclear weapons program ended in the early 2000s.

Former CIA director John Brennan said the assassination of Fakhrizadeh was a "criminal" and "highly reckless" act that could spur "a new round of regional conflict." He tweeted on Friday that if the killing was state-sponsored, it would be a violation of international law and would encourage more governments to assassinate foreign officials.

This was a criminal act & highly reckless. It risks lethal retaliation & a new round of regional conflict.Iranian leaders would be wise to wait for the return of responsible American leadership on the global stage & to resist the urge to respond against perceived culprits. https://t.co/0uZhyBTM3S— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) November 27, 2020

NASA: Mystery Object Is 54-Year-Old Rocket, Not Asteroid

By Associated Press
December 02, 2020 

FILE - NASA's top asteroid expert suspected the mystery object was the Centaur upper rocket stage from Surveyor 2, a failed 1966 moon-landing mission.

]CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA - A mysterious object temporarily orbiting Earth is a 54-year-old rocket, not an asteroid after all, astronomers confirmed Wednesday.

Observations by a telescope in Hawaii clinched its identity, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The object was classified as an asteroid after its discovery in September. But NASA's top asteroid expert, Paul Chodas, quickly suspected it was the Centaur upper rocket stage from Surveyor 2, a failed 1966 moon-landing mission. Size estimates had put it in the range of the old Centaur, which was about 10 meters long and 3 meters in diameter.

Chodas was proved right after a team led by the University of Arizona's Vishnu Reddy used an infrared telescope in Hawaii to observe not only the mystery object, but — just on Tuesday — a Centaur from 1971 still orbiting Earth. The data from the images matched.

"Today's news was super gratifying!" Chodas said via email. "It was teamwork that wrapped up this puzzle."

The object formally known as 2020 SO entered a wide, lopsided orbit around Earth last month and, on Tuesday, made its closest approach at just over 50,476 kilometers. It will depart the neighborhood in March, shooting back into its own orbit around the sun. Its next return: 2036.

THE LAKOTA DAUGHTERS

Film Documents Lives of Girls, Women on Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota

December 02, 2020 


Poverty, drugs, alcohol, frequent disappearances of young women and the absence of law enforcement are all issues plaguing the Pine Ridge Native American Reservation in South Dakota. But women there are trying to make the future better and brighter as they work to create "a girl society" that is aimed at helping girls aged 10 to 18.

Camera: Vladimir Badikov; Video Editor: Matvey Kulakov; 

Produced by: Joy Wagner

RIP
Benton-Banai, Co-Founder of American Indian Movement, Dies at 89

By Associated Press December 02, 2020 

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - Eddie Benton-Banai, who helped found the American Indian Movement partly in response to alleged police brutality against Indigenous people, has died. He was 89.

Benton-Banai died Monday at a care center in Hayward, Wisconsin, where he had been staying for months, according to family friend Dorene Day. Day said Benton-Banai had several health issues and had been hospitalized multiple times in recent years.

Benton-Banai, who was Anishinaabe Ojibwe, was born and raised on the Lac Courte Oreilles reservation in northern Wisconsin. He made a life of connecting American Indians with their spirituality and promoting sovereignty, and was the grand chief, or spiritual leader, of the Three Fires Midewiwin Lodge. Day said he was someone people looked to for guidance in the religious practice of the Anishinaabe Ojibwe people — and he gave countless babies their traditional names.

Benton-Banai's place in the American Indian Movement, a grassroots group formed in 1968, can be traced to his launch of a cultural program in a Minnesota prison, said co-founder Clyde Bellecourt.

'It started because I met Eddie in jail'

Bellecourt was in solitary confinement when he heard someone whistling You are My Sunshine, and he looked through a tiny hole in his cell and saw Benton-Banai, a fellow inmate, recognizing him as an Indigenous man.

Bellecourt said Benton-Banai approached him about helping incarcerated Indigenous people, and they started the prison's cultural program to teach American Indians about their history and encourage them to learn a trade or seek higher education. Bellecourt said that Benton-Banai thought they could do the same work in the streets, and the program morphed into the American Indian Movement, an organization that persists today with various chapters.

"It started because I met Eddie in jail," Bellecourt said. "Our whole Indian way of life came back because of him. … My whole life just changed. I started reading books about history of the Ojibwe nation… dreaming about how beautiful it must have been at one time in our history."

One of the group's first acts was to organize a patrol to monitor allegations of police harassment and brutality against Native Americans in Minneapolis, where it's based. Its work included job training, efforts to seek better housing and education for Indigenous people, provide legal assistance and question government policies.

At times, the American Indian Movement's tactics were militant. In one of its most well-known actions, the group took over Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to protest U.S. and tribal governments. The 71-day occupation turned violent, and two people died in a shootout.

Akim Reinhardt, a history professor at Towson University in Maryland, said Benton-Banai's roots in the group often got overshadowed by more powerful personalities in the movement, including Russell Means, Dennis Banks and John Trudell.

"It's a shame, because clearly when we listen to the people who were there, they all mention him," said Reinhardt, who has written broadly about the movement.

International Indian Treaty Council

Lisa Bellanger, executive director of the National American Indian Movement and Benton-Banai's former assistant, said he was instrumental in the group's work using treaties to protect the rights of Indigenous people. He was also part of a team that pushed for the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, she said, as government policies stifled or outlawed religious practices. The law safeguarded the rights of American Indians to practice their religion and access sacred sites.

Bellanger said Benton-Banai also helped launch the International Indian Treaty Council, which advocates for the rights of Indigenous nations to govern themselves, and for the protection of tradition, culture and sacred land.

But in addition to his activism work, Benton-Banai was also a father figure.

"We could always go to him with questions," Bellanger said. "We could run crying to him if we needed to. We had that personal faith and trust and love in him, at a time that was crucial for young girls."

Day said Benton-Banai was raised by his grandparents and grew up speaking Ojibwe.

"He had a very solid spiritual foundation to his traditional and Indigenous learning, and that's what made him, I believe, who he was," she said.

His book, The Mishomis Book, is touted as the first of its kind to offer Anishinaabe families an understanding of spiritual teachings.

Benton-Banai also founded a school in St. Paul in 1972, called the Red School House, which — along with its sister school in Minneapolis — fueled a broader movement to provide alternative education for Indigenous children so they could learn while maintaining their spiritual and cultural practices, Day said.

Bellecourt said American Indian Movement's philosophy of using the sovereignty and spirituality of Indigenous people as a strength can be attributed to Benton-Banai's leadership.

"I considered him our holy man," he said.

Nurses Wanted: 

Swamped US Hospitals Scramble for Pandemic Help
By Associated Press
December 02, 2020 
 

Registered nurse Alma Abad tends to COVID-19 patient Florence Bolton, 85, in the intensive care unit at Roseland Community Hospital in Chicago, Ill., Dec, 1, 2020.

OMAHA, NEBRASKA - U.S. hospitals slammed with COVID-19 patients are trying to lure nurses and doctors out of retirement, recruiting students and new graduates who have yet to earn their licenses and offering eye-popping salaries in a desperate bid to ease staffing shortages.

With the virus surging from coast to coast, the number of patients in the hospital with the virus has more than doubled over the past month to a record high of nearly 100,000, pushing medical centers and health care workers to the breaking point. Nurses are increasingly burned out and getting sick on the job, and the stress on the nation's medical system prompted a dire warning from the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The reality is December and January and February are going to be rough times. I actually believe they are going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation," Dr. Robert Redfield said.

Reaching out to retirees

Governors in hard-hit states such as Wisconsin and Nebraska are making it easier for retired nurses to come back, including by waiving licensing requirements and fees, though it can be a tough sell for older nurses, who would be in more danger than many of their colleagues if they contracted the virus.

Some are taking jobs that don't involve working directly with patients to free up front-line nurses.

Iowa is allowing temporary emergency licenses for new nurses who have met the state's educational requirements but haven't yet taken the state licensing exam. Some Minnesota hospitals are offering winter internships to nursing students to boost their staffs. The internships are typically offered in the summer but were canceled this year because of COVID-19.

Methodist Hospital in Minneapolis will place 25 interns for one to two months to work with COVID-19 patients, though certain tasks will remain off-limits, such as inserting IVs or urinary catheters, said Tina Kvalheim, a nurse who runs the program.

"They'll be fully supported in their roles so that our patients receive the best possible, safe care," Kvalheim said.

Landon Brown, 21, of Des Moines, Iowa, a senior nursing student at Minnesota State University, Mankato, recently accepted an internship at the Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato. He was assigned to the pediatric unit's medical-surgical area but said he might come across patients with the coronavirus.

Brown's resolve to help patients as a nurse was reaffirmed after his 90-year-old grandfather contracted the virus and died over the weekend.

"The staff that he had were great, and they really took a lot of pressure off of my folks and my family," he said. "I think that if I can be that for another family, that would be great."

Getting new grads working

The University of Iowa's College of Nursing is also trying to get graduates into the workforce quickly. It worked to fast-track students' transcripts to the Iowa Board of Nursing so they could get licensed sooner upon graduating, said Anita Nicholson, associate dean for undergraduate programs.

Nicholson said the college also scheduled senior internships earlier than normal and created a program that allows students to gain hospital experience under a nurse's supervision. Those students aren't caring for coronavirus patients, but their work frees up nurses to do so, Nicholson said.

"The sooner we can get our graduates out and into the workforce, the better," she said.

Wausau, Wisconsin-based Aspirus Health Care is offering signing bonuses of up to $15,000 for nurses with a year of experience.

Hospitals also are turning to nurses who travel from state to state. But that's expensive, because hospitals around the country are competing for them, driving salaries as high as $6,200 per week, according to postings for travel nursing jobs.

April Hansen, executive vice president at San Diego-based Aya Healthcare, said there are now 31,000 openings for travel nurses, more than twice the number being sought when the pandemic surged in the spring.

"It is crazy," Hansen said. "It doesn't matter if you are rural or urban, if you are an Indian health facility or an academic medical center or anything in between. ... All facilities are experiencing increased demand right now."

Nurses who work in intensive care and on medical-surgical floors are the most in demand. Employers also are willing to pay extra for nurses who can show up on short notice and work 48 to 60 hours per week instead of the standard 36.

Laura Cutolo, a 32-year-old emergency room and ICU nurse from Gilbert, Arizona, began travel nursing when the pandemic began, landing in New York during the deadliest stretch of the U.S. outbreak last spring. She is now working in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and soon will return to New York.

She said she hopes her work will be an example to her children, now 2 and 5, when the crisis passes into history and they read about it someday.

"If they ask me, 'Where were you?' I can be proud of where I was and what I did," Cutolo said.

'Spreading like wildfire'

Doctors are in demand, too.

"I don't even practice anymore, and I've gotten lots of emails asking me to travel across the country to work in ERs," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

The outbreak in the U.S. is blamed for more than 273,000 deaths and 13.9 million confirmed infections. New cases are running at over 160,000 a day on average, and deaths are up to more than 1,500 a day, a level seen back in May, during the crisis in the New York City area. Several states reported huge numbers of new cases Wednesday, including a combined 40,000 in California, Illinois and Florida alone.

States are seeing record-breaking surges in deaths, including Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky in the middle of the country. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the virus is "spreading like wildfire."

A COVID-19 vaccine is expected to become available in a few weeks, and health care workers are likely to be given priority for the first shots. That could make it easier for hospitals to recruit help.

To make room for the sickest, hard-hit institutions are sending home some COVID-19 patients who otherwise would have been kept in the hospital. They are also canceling elective surgeries or sending adult non-COVID-19 patients to pediatric hospitals.

A hospital system in Idaho is sending some COVID-19 patients home with iPads, supplemental oxygen, blood pressure cuffs and oxygen monitors so they can finish recovering in their own beds. The computer tablets enable nurses to check in with them, and the oxygen monitors automatically send back vital information.

Across the U.S., hospitals are converting cafeterias, waiting rooms, even a parking garage to patient treatment areas. Some states are opening field hospitals.

But that does nothing to ease the staffing shortage, especially in rural areas where officials say many people aren't taking basic precautions against the virus.

Dr. Eli Perencevich, an epidemiology and internal medicine professor at the University of Iowa, said health care workers are paying the price for other people's refusal to wear masks.

"It's sending everyone to war, really," he said. "We've decided as a society that we're going to take all the people in our health care system and pummel them because we have some insane idea about what freedom really is."

With COVID-19 still out of control, low-income families in the United States are bracing for a cold and uneasy winter. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports.

Camera, Producer: Veronica Balderas Iglesias

WHO says masks should be worn in workplaces, at school and at home with visitors in updated guidance

WHO has updated its guidance on coronavirus face masks / PA
By April Roach@aprilroach28

People should wear face masks in indoor spaces such as at work, in schools and when at home receiving visitors, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.

WHO updated its guidance on masks to encourage people in areas of suspected high Covid-19 transmission to wear non-medical masks in certain indoor spaces.

The advice, published on Wednesday, also recommends the use of face coverings at home when receiving visitors if one-metre distancing cannot be maintained or ventilation is poor.

The advice issued by the UN agency comes despite “limited evidence” of the effectiveness of mask wearing by the public in the community.

In areas with known or suspected spread of Covid-19, the WHO recommends people should wear a mask indoors and outdoors where distancing of at least one metre cannot be maintained.


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The advice, which applies to shops, schools and shared workplaces, also states masks should be worn indoors regardless of social distancing unless ventilation has been assessed to be adequate.


Children aged up to five should not wear masks, a “risk-based approach” should be taken for six to 11-year-olds, while those aged 12 and over should follow the same principles as adults, the guidance states.

The World on Coronavirus lockdown




It also says masks should not be worn during vigorous physical activity.

The WHO said its coronavirus Guidance Development Group (GDG) “considered all available evidence on the use of masks by the general public including effectiveness, level of certainty and other potential benefits and harms, with respect to transmission scenarios, indoor versus outdoor settings, physical distancing and ventilation”.

The recommendations were made “despite the limited evidence of protective efficacy of mask wearing in community settings”.

It comes after the WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the news of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine being approved for use by the MHRA in the UK.

He said on Twitter: “The (UK) is the first country to authorize the Pfizer/BionTech #COVID19 vaccine for emergency use and expects to start rolling it out as soon as next week.”

Additional reporting by PA Media.

Nevada doctor rebukes Trump’s retweet suggesting photo of covid medical unit was fake: ‘I was disappointed’

Physican Jacob Keeperman, the medical director of Renown Regional Medical Center's covid-19 alternative care site, said he tweeted the selfie he took the day the site opened to thank his staff for their work during the pandemic. (Jacob Keeperman)

By Andrea Salcedo Dec. 2, 2020 

When five patients died of the coronavirus in a 32-hour span at Renown Regional Medical Center, Jacob Keeperman turned to Twitter on Sunday to thank his colleagues in Reno, Nev., for all their support, tweeting out a recent selfie of him on the day the alternate care site had opened.

“Everyone is struggling to keep their head up,” the ICU physician tweeted. “Stay strong.”

But his message took on a different meaning Tuesday when President Trump retweeted a conservative lifestyle blog that falsely claimed Keeperman’s selfie in front of empty hospital beds proved the coronavirus pandemic was a hoax.

In an interview Tuesday night, Keeperman, 43, said he was saddened that the president had shared his photo for political purposes.

“I was disappointed. I was just completely caught off guard,” Keeperman, executive medical director of the care site, told The Washington Post. “My tweet was a nonpolitical, nonpartisan message thanking health-care workers, and it was turned into something that it was never meant to be.”

Fake election results in Nevada, also! https://t.co/l8MDOSlqQ7— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 1, 2020

Trump’s retweet infuriated Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D), who said the president had discredited Keeperman and the state’s health-care workers by spreading misinformation about a pandemic that has killed at least 269,000 Americans.

“His consistent misleading rhetoric on COVID-19 is dangerous and reckless, and today’s implication that Renown’s alternate care site is a ‘fake hospital’ is among the worst examples we’ve seen,” Sisolak wrote in a statement shared to Twitter.

Trump’s retweet is the latest instance in which the president has shared coronavirus falsehoods to his nearly 89 million Twitter followers. Virus deniers, including many who supported Trump, have continued with their regular lives as the virus spreads across the country, claiming the pandemic is fake.

40 times Trump said the coronavirus would go away

Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, President Trump has repeatedly said that the virus will disappear. (Video: JM Rieger/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)


Coronavirus deniers and hoaxers persist despite dire warnings, claiming ‘it’s mass hysteria’

The White House had not offered a statement as of early Wednesday.

In Nevada, the state’s covid-related hospitalizations continue to spike, increasing by nearly 14 percent over the past seven days, according to The Post’s coronavirus tracker. The state reported 2,698 new cases and 22 deaths on Tuesday.

On Nov. 12, Keeperman, who had arrived at the hospital to lead the alternate care site, stood in the middle of the former parking garage in awe. The hospital had just finished renovating and equipping the site, and new patients waiting to be treated for the virus were minutes away from securing one of the 1,500 beds. So that afternoon, Keeperman, dressed in full protective equipment and wearing a transparent face mask and shield, snapped a selfie to document the hospital’s accomplishment.



“I was so impressed with the facility,” he told The Post. “Many other health-care facilities around the country are setting up tents or other alternative care sites and this was a very sophisticated and very well done alternative care site. I took that picture to share with my colleagues throughout the country what had been done here.”

But he did not have much time to share his selfie. In the next two weeks, Keeperman and his staff treated nearly 200 patients infected with the virus, he said. The physician, who never thought he’d be taking care of patients in a parking garage, was often the person holding patients’ hands as they took their last breath, he said. Then, he had to break the news to their families that their loved ones had died.

On Sunday, after spending a week in the covid-19 intensive care unit, Keeperman had reached his breaking point. Five of his patients had died during his previous two shifts and, like many of his emotionally and mentally drained colleagues, he needed a morale boost.

That’s when he posted the selfie he had taken weeks ago, where empty beds and equipment still covered in plastic could be seen in the background, thanking “all the incredible staff fighting the good fight.”

The hospital’s auxiliary site has been the target in recent weeks of coronavirus deniers who have taken to social media to share a number of false claims about the site. Some posted, without evidence, about how visitors went to the site only to find no patients, which they used as an argument to claim the virus is a hoax. On Tuesday, President Trump was the latest person to give conspiracy theorists a platform to share their baseless allegations.

The president boosted the misinformation by retweeting @Networkinvegas, a conservative account that has been known for criticizing Sisolak’s coronavirus restrictions. “Here is the fake Nevada parking garage hospital picture that our moron governor tweeted, proving it’s all a scam,” the account tweeted, attaching Keeperman’s photo to the post.

Keeperman said there were no patients in the picture because the auxiliary site had not yet opened its doors, emphasizing patients began arriving shortly after it was taken. He expects the site to be used even more in coming weeks if the surge in case numbers continue, he said.


The physician wishes those who still want to believe the pandemic is a hoax never have to experience what he has witnessed in the past weeks at the site.

“I hope that you do not get sick,” Keeperman said. “But if you do, our team will be ready to take care of you. And once you’re here lying in one of these beds, you will realize how real it is.”

Meryl Kornfield contributed to this report.
Updated December 2, 2020

Mexico Has a Major Role to Play in Undoing Trump’s Disastrous Migration Policies

By Maureen Meyer and Elyssa Pachico


This is the first in a two-part series about how the Biden White House can reverse the Trump administration’s cruel and ineffective migration policies and the need for expanded regional cooperation. The first installment focuses on Mexico, the second will focus on the United States and the U.S.-Mexico border.

The incoming Biden administration offers a chance for a massive reset of the Trump administration’s illegal and unprecedentedly cruel and ineffective policies. While expectations are high for dramatic changes in U.S. policy, they will take time to implement. The Biden administration is tasked with not only undoing the Trump administration’s harmful policies, but also responding to a likely surge of migrants and asylum seekers at the border as a result of ongoing violence and persecution, crippling poverty, and the devastating impact of two hurricanes that have destroyed infrastructure and livelihoods in Central America.

Although eyes are on likely policy changes with Biden, the Mexican government also has a central role to play in addressing regional migration flows. It too should change its approach.

When President Andrés Manuel López Obrador assumed office in December 2018, he initially committed to following a more humanitarian approach, pledging funds for a regional development plan to address economic drivers of migration. But as a result of U.S. pressure, lofty goals for U.S.-Mexico engagement on development in Central America and a welcoming stance to migrants were quickly put on the back burner.

With the Biden administration promising to override many of Trump’s policies and restore asylum at the border, the Mexican government also has a major opportunity to turn away from facilitating the cruelties and failures of the Trump administration’s approach and implement rights-respecting migration policies. These should include the following:
Invest in Mexico’s asylum system

Mexico already has the legislation and regulations in place to meet the standards outlined by international law and treaties for attending to refugees and asylum seekers.

Between 2013 to 2019, asylum requests in Mexico increased by over 5,300 percent.


Indeed, Mexico’s legal definition of who can qualify for protection, including “persons who have fled their country because their lives, security or freedom have been threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violation of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order,” is broader than the United States, offering greater possibilities of obtaining protection. The problem is creating greater access to asylum in the face of growing demand.

Between 2013 to 2019, asylum requests in Mexico increased by over 5,300 percent. While requests went down significantly in 2020, as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns and migration restrictions, as of October 2020, the number of requests received by Mexico’s refugee agency COMAR (32,272) is already 53 percent greater than the total for 2018.

This trend is not going to reverse itself, especially as COVID-travel restrictions are lifted and the need for protection persists. Prioritizing COMAR’s expansion is urgently needed to prepare for the rise in asylum seekers that we should expect across the region as the violence, persecution, poverty, and climate change disasters driving people from their homes continues.

López Obrador’s 2021 budget plan includes a proposed 14.3 percent cut to COMAR’s budget. However, the agency is likely to receive additional funds through a now-defunct office that was coordinating migration efforts on Mexico’s southern border, bringing the total budget to USD$4.865 million.

Even with these additional funds, a larger budget for COMAR is essential, particularly given that, under a new law passed in September 2020, the agency is taking on the additional responsibility of supporting over 345,000 internally displaced Mexicans. COMAR has benefitted from significant support from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in recent years, enabling the Mexican agency to improve its processing of cases and increase staff. However, the asylum officers themselves must be paid by the Mexican government. Without Mexican government investment, COMAR will be limited in the number of agents it can hire to make the final determination on cases. All this is why COMAR’s head, Andres Ramirez, has urged providing the agency with additional funds to fully meet their needs and growing demand.

COMAR has expanded its presence in Mexico, with offices in seven cities, both in southern Mexico and more recently in Tijuana and Monterrey in the north. Additionally, Ramirez recently announced that they will soon be opening an office in Saltillo, Coahuila. While this expanded capacity is important, one priority moving forward should be to ensure that COMAR has a substantial presence at the ports of entry in southern Mexico. This ensures that asylum seekers don’t have to make the dangerous trip to a border town to request asylum at a COMAR office or through a shelter.

Currently, if an asylum seeker presents themselves at a port to request asylum, they will be taken into custody by the National Migration Institute (Instituto Nacional de Migración, INM) and held in detention for at least a few days until their paperwork is filed. In order to avoid detention, asylum seekers must attempt to travel undetected to a border town where COMAR has offices—Tapachula, Palenque, and Tenosique—to request protection.

In far too many cases, crimes occur in between the port of entry and these border towns. For years, the 38-mile trek between the Guatemala-Mexico border crossing at El Ceibo and the town of Tenosique has been fraught with danger, including documented cases of sexual assault, robbery, and kidnapping as migrants seek to avoid the main highways and are subsequently preyed upon by criminal gangs. Increasing processing capacity at the Mexico-Guatemala border could reduce risks faced by asylum seekers, as they would then have a document enabling them to legally travel within the state where they submitted the asylum request.
Build up alternatives to detention for asylum seekers in Mexico

Stationing COMAR agents at the ports of entry and increasing their presence in southern Mexico should go hand in hand with furthering alternatives to detention for asylum seekers in Mexico.

Mexico already has an “alternatives to detention” program which releases asylum seekers from detention and places them with shelters for housing in coordination with the UN Refugee Agency. Several thousand people have been released from detention since this program started in 2016.

However, given its limited scope and a lack of a standardized protocol regarding who qualifies for release, thousands more are often held in detention for the duration of their asylum claims. Given the conditions in detention centers, which often lack sufficient food, access to legal assistance, and healthcare, some asylum seekers end up dropping their claims just to be released.

COMAR and the INM should develop an improved system for communication and cooperation to improve and streamline procedures.


Expanding alternatives to detention for all asylum seekers, apart from exceptional cases, is also an important measure to protect the health of this population during the COVID-19 pandemic. A detention center in Chiapas reportedly registered at least one COVID-19 outbreak in October, with 19 migrants testing positive for the virus. Given poor conditions in detention shelters and the INM’s failure to take actions to prevent and contain COVID-19, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) is now requiring authorities to implement protection measures in two detention centers in Chiapas, including Siglo XXI, the country’s largest.

On November 18, the Mexican government took another important step to limiting detention for asylum seekers when they published reforms to their immigration and refugee and political asylum laws that prohibits holding migrant children in immigration detention centers, including children traveling with their families. The responsibility for housing this population has now been transferred to Mexico’s child welfare agency (Sistema Nacional para el Desarrollo Integral de la Familia).
Ensure migration agents are facilitating access to asylum

Because of their central role in the detention and processing of migrants, there is an urgent need for INM agents to effectively perform their current role in screening potential asylum seekers and fully informing them of their right to seek protection in Mexico.

As has been widely documented, INM agents frequently prioritize detention, dissuasion, and deportation over adequately informing detained migrants of their right to seek protection in Mexico. This is illegal according to Mexican and international law on asylum—any detained migrant who wishes to request asylum in Mexico should be provided prompt access to COMAR.

Apart from improved training for INM agents to ensure that they are clearly communicating to asylum seekers their rights, messaging from INM leadership is important to underscore that Mexico is living up to its international commitments to provide international protection to those in need. The statement issued by the INM in response to the migrant caravan that originated in Honduras in early October, threatening to criminally prosecute any migrant who crossed into the country in violation of health protocols, appeared to deviate from this commitment.

Current and past commissioners have removed thousands of agents for alleged acts of corruption.


Furthermore, COMAR and the INM should develop an improved system for communication and cooperation to improve and streamline procedures. This includes ensuring that once an asylum request is admitted by COMAR, asylum seekers are provided with a humanitarian visa by the INM so that they can work while waiting for their claim to be processed.
Remove the National Guard from handling migration enforcement tasks

In 2019, after increased pressure by the Trump administration on migration, the López Obrador administration began deploying the newly created National Guard force to accompany migration agents at checkpoints and in other operations.

At its peak last year after the U.S.-Mexico migration agreement, there were nearly 12,000 National Guard members deployed to the southern border region. In October 2020, the Mexican government reported around 4,950 guard members in Chiapas and Tabasco, the southern border states that are among Mexico’s principal migrant corridors.

The National Guard, created to help address record violence rates in Mexico, is currently handling a wide range of public security and other functions in Mexico. While it is officially a police body, in practice it is funded, directed, and staffed primarily by members of the military.

The National Guard should not play a role in handling migration enforcement in Mexico because military personnel are not trained to come into regular contact with civilians, including migrants and asylum-seeking families and children. This has led to incidents like the Guard using what the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights described as “concerning” levels of force against migrants in January 2020, as well as reports of the Guard threatening and harassing migrant shelters.

Between January and September 2020, the CNDH registered 209 complaints of human rights violations involving members of the National Guard, including a dozen complaints of abuses against migrants and their family members. The commission’s first recommendation against the National Guard, issued on October 29, 2020, was regarding the Guard’s actions, alongside the INM, in response to the January 2020 migrant caravan. The commission signaled that the INM violated the victim’s rights by allowing members of the National Guard to revise migrants’ migration status and detain them, that the National Guard had used arbitrary and disproportionate force against the migrants, and that both authorities failed to protect the rights of the children that were in the caravan. Because of the inherent risks in having a military-led force like the Guard handle migration enforcement, the Mexican government should withdraw the National Guard from these operations.

Instead, the Mexican government should invest additional resources in professionalizing the INM, enhancing internal accountability mechanisms, and having sufficient personnel. This includes fully establishing its civil service for agents, clear profiles for those joining the institute and applying for leadership positions, and moving forward with efforts to improve and solidify training and to evaluate the effectiveness of these courses. The INM must also strengthen internal controls over their agents. Although the current and past commissioners have removed thousands of agents for alleged acts of corruption, these dismissals should not replace having an operational internal affairs unit within the INM capable of carrying out continual investigations of potential wrongdoing and referring certain cases for prosecution.

As long as the INM works with security forces for migration enforcement operations, these collaborations should establish clear protocols that regulate and limit the use of force during migration enforcement operations, ensure the training of all agents on such guidelines, and establish oversight and accountability mechanisms.
Implement policies that account for the unique risks and obstacles faced by unaccompanied children, women, Afro-descendant, and LGBT+ migrants and asylum seekers

Migrants in Mexico face a dangerous journey: they are highly vulnerable to threats by criminal groups and corrupt officials. Few of these crimes are ever investigated. The Mexican government can help reduce the risks facing migrants by taking steps to strengthen the investigation and prosecution of abuses like robbery, extortion, kidnapping, rape, assault, and other crimes and by facilitating migrants’ ability to denounce these crimes.

Some populations face unique risks when transiting through Mexico. As documented by Amnesty International, LGBT+ migrants face discrimination and violence, often at the hands of Mexican officials, as a result of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Of the LGBT+ asylum seekers interviewed by the UN Refugee Agency for a 2016 study, two-thirds said they’d experienced sexual and gender-based violence in Mexico after crossing the southern border. Under Mexican law, those who have suffered gender-related persecution are eligible for applying for asylum, but LGBT+ migrants report that Mexican authorities never properly informed them about their rights to do so.

LGBT+ asylum seekers and migrants also have special protection needs if they are sent to migration detention centers, but Mexico’s official policies don’t acknowledge this: instead, transgender women are frequently held in cells reserved for men; LGBT+ people are kept in isolation and report experiencing widespread sexual harassment and discrimination.

Black African and Caribbean migrants face a particularly harsh and dangerous journey—often having had to trek almost all of South and Central America to get to Mexico. And with a record number of migrants from African countries traveling through Mexico in 2019, authorities need to reckon with the racism, lack of visibility, language barriers, and restricted access to legal aid that this population reports experiencing.

The incoming Biden administration aims to provide $1 billion a year in support to Central America.


In November 2019, when the Congressional Black Caucus visited Black migrants from Africa, the Caribbean, and elsewhere in Tijuana, Members of Congress were told about the physical and sexual violence, racism, and other traumas faced by Black migrants on their journey. In some cases, the challenges of waiting for any response to their status by Mexican migration authorities have pushed African and Caribbean migrants to make deadly choices. In October 2019, at least two migrants from Cameroon died when a group of migrants opted to travel by sea off of the Chiapas coast and their boat capsized. As a growing number of extracontinental migrants, as well as Afro-Hondurans, petition for asylum in Mexico, authorities should examine ways to support Afro-descendant asylum seekers who are facing greater obstacles because of systemic racism and discrimination—this should include continuing the campaigns they have enacted with UNHCR to combat xenophobia in the country.

There are also ways that the Mexican government can collaborate with the United States in providing protection for asylum seekers who face special vulnerabilities and who aren’t safe in Mexico. One such area concerns unaccompanied migrant children in Mexico who have U.S.-based family members. If it’s in the best interest of the child to be reunited with a parent in the United States—regardless of the parent’s immigration status—both Mexico and the United States should develop ways to ensure that this happens.
Don’t deviate funds from Central America development programs

The López Obrador administration pledged to prioritize investment in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, in order to help address the poverty, climate change-related phenomena, and other problems driving migration. On the president’s first day in office, he signed a memorandum with the governments of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, to develop an integral development plan for the region. The Trump administration voiced support for this (although much of the U.S. government’s promised $5.8 billion are funds that were previously committed), as did the European Union.

One cornerstone program, run by Mexico’s international development agency, AMEXCID, is meant to help rural farmers; another offers educational grants and job training opportunities. However, there have been widespread reports regarding a lack of clarity over where the money is actually going and how authorities are running the programs. A September 2020 Associated Press report found that some of the money destined to the development programs was actually spent on transporting migrants and asylum seekers to Mexico’s southern border and improving conditions within Mexico’s migrant detention centers.

Because of the pandemic, these funds have now been put on hold without any programs actually being implemented in Central America (although the Mexican government’s annual report on activities from September 2020 affirms that beneficiaries from El Salvador and Honduras have signed up for the programs).

The incoming Biden administration—which aims to provide $1 billion a year in support to Central America—is a major opportunity for López Obrador to recommit to his original pledge. Refocusing on addressing the root causes of migration is especially critical given the economic impact of COVID-19 and the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Eta and Iota, which will fuel future migration in the region.

While Mexico is grappling with its own economic recession, there may be opportunities to partner with the United States and other potential donors, including the European Union and Canada, and the development banks, to implement specific programs targeted at addressing economic factors driving migration. Any projects should ensure transparency so that the funds are being executed appropriately and partnered with parallel efforts to combat corruption and strengthen the rule of law.
Preparing for future migration flows at Mexico’s southern and northern borders

Through aggressive enforcement efforts, Mexico is trying to build its own “border wall” at its southern frontier with Guatemala. In a recent example, when a group of migrants and asylum seekers from Honduras attempted to journey northwards in October, both Guatemalan and Mexican authorities detained and deported nearly the entire group.

Few cases of crimes against migrants are ever brought to justice, meaning perpetrators have little to fear from the government.


A migration surge at Mexico’s southern border is inevitable. If Mexico continues to double down on policies of mass detention and deportation, the results will be a humanitarian disaster as more people are detained in inhumane and overcrowded detention centers, more asylum seekers with valid claims are deported back to harm, and more migrants are pushed into taking ever-more dangerous routes. The focus on detaining large numbers of migrants will also increase the risk of deadly COVID-19 outbreaks in detention centers as long as the pandemic persists. The Mexican government needs to take action now to prepare for future arrivals at its southern border in a way that’s humane, law-abiding, and rights-respecting.

At Mexico’s northern border, the Biden administration and the Mexican government need to work together to address the humanitarian catastrophe caused by Trump policies, and prepare for the next wave of migration. We should expect that, even if Mexico and Guatemala continue with migration crackdowns in Mexico’s south, large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers will still be able to make it to Mexico’s northern border, either by traveling on their own or enlisting smugglers who pay off corrupt officials (indeed, the number of people apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border in October suggests we’re already experiencing the first wave of migration as a result of the COVID-19 economic crisis and persistent violence).

In addition to new arrivals, there are over 60,000 asylum seekers who were returned from the United States to Mexico under Trump’s cruel “Remain to Mexico” program. Many are based in Mexican border towns, but others have relocated elsewhere in the country (Monterrey, Saltillo, Mexico City and even southern Mexico). Expectations about Biden’s election might draw some of these people—as well as others under the program who opted to return to their home countries, given the dangers they were experiencing in Mexico—to come back up to the northern border.

To better prepare for this expected increase in arrivals, the Mexican government should increase its efforts to provide asylum seekers at the northern border with adequate housing and medical services. Notably, in 2019, the Lopez Obrador government cut federal funds for supporting local governments work with migrants at the northern border. The Mexican government also announced in 2019 intentions to build temporary shelters in six border towns, but only two ended up opening (in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez). This means civil society organizations are largely working alone in struggling to meet demands for shelter and access to health services. If the Mexican government doesn’t do more to prepare for a significant increase in arrivals at its northern border, and coordinate its efforts with civil society and international humanitarian bodies, we’ll likely see more tent camps popping up in border cities, more violence against asylum seekers, and conditions that facilitate the spread of COVID-19.

The Mexican government also needs to better protect migrants and asylum seekers along its northern border. The endemic violence against this population is well documented. Few cases of crimes against migrants are ever brought to justice, meaning perpetrators have little to fear from the government. This needs to change.

There is much the Mexican government can do to develop a plan for dealing with increased migration in a way that prioritizes safety and access to protection. If Mexico sticks to an enforcement approach focused on detaining and deporting as many people as possible, it will endanger thousands of people fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries, push migrants into using more remote routes where they are exposed to greater harm and danger, it could exacerbate the COVID-19 pandemic, and it will ultimately fail to curb migration over the long term as it is not addressing the reasons why people are migrating in the first place.

The Biden administration has a momentous task ahead to dismantle the policies and programs that have shut the U.S. doors to migrants and asylum seekers—but the Mexican government also has a pivotal role to play in addressing regional migration flows and in providing protection to those in need.

What Does Success Look Like for a Climate Czar?

Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Bloomberg News


WILMINGTON, DE - NOVEMBER 24: Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry speaks after being introduced by President-elect Joe Biden as he introduces key foreign policy and national security nominees and appointments at the Queen Theatre on November 24, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. As President-elect Biden waits to receive official national security briefings, he is announcing the names of top members of his national security team to the public. Calls continue for President Trump to concede the election as the transition proceeds. Photographer: Mark Makela/Getty Images North America


(Bloomberg Opinion) -- President-elect Joe Biden’s decision to create a new cabinet-level position for climate-related issues — and to choose so prominent a figure as former Secretary of State John Kerry to fill it — demonstrates Biden’s sincerity over putting climate at the very center of U.S. foreign policy. It is easy to understate the importance of this appointment, given the flurry of czars created by most new administrations.

However, if Kerry’s position works as intended, this could mark the beginning of a significant transformation of U.S. foreign policy. It won’t be easy: Such a shift goes against the grain of how foreign policy has traditionally been formulated and executed.

Taking climate more seriously means going far beyond simply rejoining the Paris accords and participating fully in other international forums related to climate. It means integrating climate policy into all aspects of foreign policy and marshaling many instruments of U.S. national power — economic, diplomatic and rhetorical — to coerce, compel and incentivize countries to address climate change.

Given the seriousness of the challenge, one can make a strong case that this shift is long overdue. Yet, placing decarbonization at the heart of U.S. foreign policy will have repercussions well beyond climate change, potentially altering the geopolitical landscape in fundamental ways.

Realistically, there is a finite number of issues the U.S. has the bandwidth and leverage to work in any bilateral or multilateral relationship, and a focus on climate will likely come at the expense of advancing more traditional national-security issues such as nonproliferation, counterterrorism and possibly human-rights advocacy.

This is not simply a question of walking and chewing gum at the same time. Tradeoffs are inherent in national security. Balancing foreign-policy priorities can involve fraught choices — an extreme example being how the U.S. turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear pursuits in order to secure its support in repelling the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Biden administration will face similar dilemmas as it elevates climate to the top of its global concerns.

One relationship where two of its high priorities will come into conflict is that with Saudi Arabia. Alongside climate, the Biden team promises to put a renewed emphasis on human rights and respect for democracy. Biden has pledged to hold a “Summit of Democracies” early in his presidency. On the campaign trail, Biden vowed to treat the Saudis like “the pariah that they are.”

However, a foreign policy that makes a top priority of climate would recognize the importance of working with potential spoilers such as the Saudis, and ensuring that they have a stake in a successful energy transition. The U.S. would need to invest itself in the success of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 — the blueprint for diversifying the country’s economy away from oil — not undermine it.

As of now, most foreign-policy professionals are new to the idea that climate should be infused into their every interaction. Environmental issues have been seen more as “an issue-area expertise” than as an essential competency for every national-security expert. That will need to change.

Another challenge will be the link between how aggressively U.S. leaders can push the climate issue abroad in relation to the extent of progress made at home.

There is always a connection between domestic and international policy, but here it is particularly prominent. For instance, the world will be looking for the U.S. not only to rejoin the Paris Agreement, but to put forward a much more ambitious “national determined contribution” — the individual pledge made by each nation on greenhouse gas emissions. A credible one will require significant action at home, beyond even the measures such as the Barak Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan.

Likewise, a foreign policy on climate-turbo will need to involve intensive efforts to convince developing countries to abandon coal plants that are still economically viable. Yet doing so will be nearly impossible unless the U.S. can demonstrate similar measures within its own borders.

Quite apart from the execution of diplomacy, this drive to put climate at the heart of global interactions will also create challenges for policy formulation.

Many questions remain about how this new post will fit into the traditional bureaucracy. Two models — one formal and one informal — seem possible. The first is the position of the director of national intelligence, created at the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission to coordinate the more than a dozen intelligence agencies existing and overlapping within the U.S. government. Many who have worked inside them would agree that more coordination was necessary, but would also admit that this post took years to find its footing, and is less powerful than the technically subservient director of the CIA in some respects.

The second potential model is the Office of the Vice President under Dick Cheney. Cheney became arguably the most powerful vice president in history, not only by the force of his personality and longstanding relationships. He also expanded the traditionally skeletal staff of the vice president to a size that allowed his office to be omnipresent in the interagency process. In most every meeting convened by the National Security Council, Cheney’s staff played a prominent role, putting forward opinions and proposals that others knew to take seriously.

It is easy to see how parallels will be drawn, particularly if Kerry’s staff — likely to be of significant size — is placed in the White House.

The jobs of national security advisor and secretary of state will be altered — both positively and negatively — by the existence of a cabinet-level climate czar. The national security advisor will need to resolve heated debates over conflicting priorities. The secretary of state will need to coordinate closely with the climate team to ensure that foreign counterparts — most prominently the Chinese — are not able to pit parts of the U.S. government against itself. The people in these two posts, and those serving them, will spend significant time both harnessing and deflecting the power of Kerry and his team.

All this may give the impression that the climate czar is an unnecessary creation, bound to complicate the smooth workings of a foreign-policy team that needs to move quickly in a troubled and complex world.

The opposite seems more likely: That Biden created this position precisely because the bureaucratic hurdles and execution challenges of making climate change central to U.S. foreign policy will be so great. Moreover, Kerry is likely the appropriate pick for the job, given the stature and stamina that will be required to do it successfully.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Meghan L. O’Sullivan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a professor of international affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School, chair of the the North American Trilateral Commission, and a member of the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations and the board of Raytheon Technologies Corp. She served on the National Security Council from 2004 to 2007.

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