U.N. decries police use of racial profiling derived from Big Data

Stephanie Nebehay
Thu, November 26, 2020

GENEVA, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Police and border guards must combat racial profiling and ensure that their use of "big data" collected via artificial intelligence does not reinforce biases against minorities, United Nations experts said on Thursday.

Companies that sell algorithmic profiling systems to public entities and private companies, often used in screening job applicants, must be regulated to prevent misuse of personal data that perpetuates prejudices, they said.

"It's a rapidly developing technological means used by law enforcement to determine, using big data, who is likely to do what. And that's the danger of it," Verene Shepherd, a member of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, told Reuters.

"We've heard about companies using these algorithmic methods to discriminate on the basis of skin colour," she added, speaking from Jamaica.

Shepherd, a historian, led the 18 independent experts in drafting a "general recommendation" to the 182 countries that have ratified a binding international treaty prohibiting racial discrimination.

Minorities and activists have complained about the growing use of artificial intelligence, facial recognition and other new technologies, she said.

"It's widely used in the United States of America, and we've had complaints from black communities in the European Union as well. And Latin America where people of African descent and indigenous people complain about profiling," Shepherd said, citing Brazil and Colombia. "These are the hotspots where we hear about cases of profiling being more prevalent."

Protests against racism and police brutality erupted across the United States following the death in May of George Floyd, an African-American who died afer a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Many police use "predictive" profiling systems that lead to identity checks, traffic stops and searches, based on previous arrest data about a neighbourhood, Shepherd said.

The committee recommends that people who have been targeted deserve compensation, she said, adding: "If they live to tell the tale, by the way, because we know sometimes it ends up badly." 

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Congress Pays $850,000 to Muslim Aides Targeted in Inquiry Stoked by Trump


Noam Scheiber and Nicholas Fandos
Wed, November 25, 2020, 

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington on Thursday evening, Nov. 19, 2020. 

(Stefani Reynolds/The New York Times)

The House of Representatives quietly paid $850,000 this year to settle wrongful termination claims by five Pakistani-American technology specialists, after a set of routine workplace allegations against them morphed into fodder for right-wing conspiracy theories amplified by President Donald Trump.

Together, the payments represent one of the largest known awards by the House to resolve discrimination or harassment claims, and are designed to shield Congress from potentially costly legal action.

But aides involved in the settlement, which has not previously been reported, said it was also an attempt to bring a close to a convoluted saga that led to one of the most durable — and misleading — story lines of the Trump era. The aides said its size reflected a bid to do right by a group of former employees who lost their jobs and endured harassment in part because of their Muslim faith and South Asian origins.

What started as a relatively ordinary House inquiry into procurement irregularities by Imran Awan, three members of his family and a friend, who had a bustling practice providing members of Congress with technology support, was twisted into lurid accusations of hacking government information.

In 2018, Trump stood next to President Vladimir Putin of Russia at a now-infamous news conference in Helsinki, and implied that one of the employees involved in the House case — a “Pakistani gentleman,” he said — could have been responsible for stealing emails of Democratic officials leaked during the 2016 campaign. His own intelligence agencies had concluded that the stolen emails were part of an election interference campaign ordered by Moscow.

“It is tragic and outrageous the way right-wing media and Republicans all the way up to President Trump attempted to destroy the lives of an immigrant Muslim-American family based on scurrilous allegations,” said Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., who had employed Awan and is chairman of the Ethics Committee.

“Their names were smeared on cable TV, their children were harassed at school, and they genuinely feared for their lives,” Deutch added. “The settlement is an acknowledgment of the wrong done to this family.”

The case originated in 2016, when officials in the House, then controlled by Republicans, began investigating claims that the specialists had improperly accounted for purchases of equipment and bent employment rules as they worked part-time for the offices of dozens of Democratic lawmakers.

In the hands of the chamber’s inspector general and later the Capitol Police, the investigation slowly expanded to include concerns that the workers had illicitly gained access to, transferred or removed government data and stolen equipment.

In early 2017, the House stripped their access to congressional servers, making it impossible for them to continue their work. One by one, the lawmakers terminated them.

But as the inspector general’s findings were shared with Republican lawmakers and trickled into conservative media in early 2017, they began to take on a life of their own. The Daily Caller, which led the way, published allegations that the workers had hacked into congressional computer networks, and other right-wing pundits speculated that the group were Pakistani spies.

Trump, in addition to his comments in Helsinki, repeatedly amplified conspiracy theories about the investigation on Twitter, where he referred to a “Pakistani mystery man.” At one point, he publicly urged the Justice Department not to let one of the workers “off the hook.”

But in the summer of 2018, the department did just that, taking the unusual step of publicly exonerating Awan. The department concluded in a court filing that after interviewing dozens of witnesses, and reviewing a Democratic server and other electronic records, it had found “no evidence” that Awan illegally removed data, stole or destroyed House equipment, or improperly gained access to sensitive information.

The statement came during a sentencing hearing for an unrelated offense — that Awan had lied about his primary residence on an application for a home-equity loan, for which he was sentenced by judge to one day of time served and a three-month supervised release.

House officials and the Capitol Police revisited their investigation of Awan and his colleagues after the Justice Department’s findings became public. The review found that the original investigation had reached certain conclusions about misbehavior that were not necessarily supported by facts, but upheld the ban on their access to the House computer network, preventing their reinstatement, congressional aides said.

Awan’s lawyers approached the House after Democrats took control of the chamber in 2019 to discuss a possible settlement. Many of the lawmakers who had employed him pushed their leaders to strike a deal.

The resulting agreement was signed by Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, the chairwoman of the Administration Committee, in January and paid out this summer. It resolved claims brought by Awan and the other four staffers under the Federal Tort Claims Act that House officials behaved negligently in their second inquiry after the Justice Department found no evidence of illegal conduct.

The settlement also resolved claims that House officials inflicted emotional distress on the group, and that the initial investigation was motivated by the employees’ religion, national origin, race, or political affiliation.

In a statement, Lofgren said that the employees had threatened to sue various House members, offices and other employees, “seeking millions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages.” She said the House decided to settle “due to the likelihood of an unfavorable and costly litigation outcome,” although she asserted that based on the information it had at the time, the House had been right to revoke their network access.

Awan declined to comment on the settlement. Peter Romer-Friedman, one of the Awans' lawyers, said that they would “never forget the courage and kindness” of lawmakers who had stood by his clients.

Awan was born in Pakistan in 1980 and moved to Northern Virginia in 1997. While in college, he worked as an intern for a company that provided IT services to congressional offices. He was hired directly by the office of Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida after graduating and worked setting up email accounts and new equipment like phones and laptops for staff members.

Over the years, other Democratic members of Congress hired Awan to perform similar work under an arrangement that made him a “shared employee” and for which he was typically paid $20,000 each year per member of Congress. As the workload grew, Awan brought on two of his brothers, his wife and a friend to assist him, and they became shared employees as well. Together they eventually worked for more than 30 members of Congress.

Their employers included Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, who was recently named by President-elect Joe Biden to a top White House position. The connection to Wasserman Schultz, who was the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee at the time of the 2016 email hack, is what prompted the baseless theories seized on by Trump that Awan, not the Kremlin, was responsible.

House investigators found that Awan and his four co-workers violated certain administrative rules — for example, working as a team in which they would provide services to offices that didn’t technically employ them, and breaking up payments for equipment like iPads into increments that were below $500, the point at which a purchase would trigger a more cumbersome procurement process.

But Joshua Rogin, Deutch’s chief of staff, said in a declaration accompanying a separate defamation lawsuit brought by the Awans against the Daily Caller and others that he did not believe that the arrangements violated House rules and that he was unaware that the rules the five were accused of violating had been enforced against any other House employees.

“I understood this investigation to be both politically motivated and based on bias over their nationality, ethnicity and religion,” he said in the declaration.

Conservative outlets have continued to spin out unsupported theories about Awan.

In January of 2019, Luke Rosiak, a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation who had written more than two dozen stories about Awan, published a book in which he reported that one or more of the family members had hacked congressional servers, stolen cellphones and laptops and sent equipment to government officials in Pakistan. The book also refers to Imran Awan as a “mole.”

In an interview with the Epoch Times in July of that year, he referred to Awan as “basically an attempted murderer, an extortionist, a blackmail artist, a con man.”

Awan and the family members and friend who worked with him on Capitol Hill are suing Rosiak, The Daily Caller and Salem Media Group, the owner of Rosiak’s book publisher, Regnery, for defamation and unjust enrichment. The case is currently pending in court.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

Florida governor Ron DeSantis accused of ‘killing spree’ after extending ban on cities from imposing own mask mandates

James Crump Thu, November 26, 2020

Florida governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Donald Trump’s make America great victory rally at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, on 29 October 2020 ((EPA))

Florida governor Ron DeSantis has been accused of overseeing a “killing spree”, after he extended a ban on cities in the state imposing their own mask mandates.

On Wednesday, Mr DeSantis extended an executive order issued in September, which prevented local governments from fining residents who refused to wear face masks, or from closing restaurants not complying with coronavirus measures.

The decision on 25 September prompted the start of the state’s third phase of pandemic measures, which allowed restaurants and bars to open at 100 per cent capacity.

Florida Democratic officials criticised the governor for the extension of the executive order on Wednesday, amid a spike in cases in the state.

Chris King, the 2018 Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, quote tweeted a local news story about the decision, adding: “Alternate headline: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Continues Killing Spree.”

Alternate headline: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Continues Killing Spree https://t.co/Wh0spcg3RG
— Chris King (@ChrisKingFL) November 25, 2020

Miami-Dade mayor Daniella Levine Cava called the decision “deeply frustrating” in a series of tweets on Wednesday evening.

“Bipartisan governors nationwide are putting mask orders in place as one of the best tools we have to fight #COVID19.

“It’s deeply frustrating that @GovRonDeSantis continues to block local actions and make it harder for local leaders to keep our communities safe,” the mayor wrote.

Bipartisan governors nationwide are putting mask orders in place as one of the best tools we have to fight #COVID19. It’s deeply frustrating that @GovRonDeSantis continues to block local actions and make it harder for local leaders to keep our communities safe.#MaskUpMiami 😷 https://t.co/32yI1MA5Eo
— Daniella Levine Cava (@MayorDaniella) November 25, 2020

Last week, a bipartisan group of Florida mayors pleaded with Mr DeSantis to allow mask mandates to be enforced in areas across the state, according to Forbes.

The governor rejected their plea..

Florida is the largest state in the US to have lifted a majority of its coronavirus restrictions and is one of only 13 that have not issued statewide mask mandates.

It has seen a spike in coronavirus cases over the last couple of months, as the number of Covid-19 infections reported in a week has tripled since Mr DeSantis lifted restrictions, according to CNN.

Last week, the state recorded 53,000 positive tests, which was three times more than the week before Mr DeSantis’ executive order in late September.

The governor has not addressed the increase in cases, and has only tweeted about Covid-19 five times since election day on 3 November.

Since the start of the pandemic, Florida has recorded more than 962,000 Covid-19 cases and at least 18,253 deaths.

According to a tracking project hosted by Johns Hopkins University, there are now more than 12.7 million people who have tested positive for coronavirus in the US. The death toll has reached 262,266.

The Independent has contacted Mr DeSantis’ office for comment.

THIRD WORLD USA
Homeless patients with COVID-19 often go back to life on the streets after hospital care, but there's a better way


J. Robin Moon, Adjunct Associate Professor, City University of New York
Wed, November 25, 2020

Union Square in Manhattan, where many of New York City's homeless live.

Noam Galai via Getty Images

In 2019, about 567,715 homeless people were living in the United States. While this number had been steadily decreasing since 2007, in the past two years it has started to increase. For New York City, even before COVID-19, 2020 was already turning out to be a record year for homelessness. But as the lockdown commenced in mid-March, the 60,923 homeless people staying at the city’s shelter system found themselves disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

That’s not all of the city’s homeless, of course; the 60,000-plus doesn’t include homeless people hidden within patient rolls and emergency department waiting rooms. In 2019, the city’s annual count of hospital homeless shows more than 300 on any given night who are patients or using the hospital as temporary shelter.

As a health care practitioner, educator and researcher in the field of public health and social epidemiology who works in the city, I’m fully aware of the challenges faced and the tragedies already seen. As of May 31, the New York Department of Homeless Services had reported 926 confirmed COVID-19 cases across 179 shelter locations and 86 confirmed COVID-19 deaths. In April alone, DHS reported 58 homeless deaths from COVID-19, 1.6 times higher than the overall city rate. While there is no reliable analogous data for other cities, what happens in New York can be a lesson for others.

A protest supporting the homeless men given temporary living quarters at New York City’s Lucerne Hotel in the Upper West Side. Steven Ferdman via Getty Images

Homeless shelters are vulnerable

The susceptibility of the homeless population to COVID-19 is not unique to New York City. Homeless shelters nearly everywhere are particularly vulnerable to disease transmission. Shelters are typically unequipped, heavily trafficked and generally unable to provide safe care, particularly to those recuperating from surgery, wounds or illnesses.

Add to that the inability to isolate, quarantine or physically distance the homeless from one another during COVID-19. New York City responded by using almost 20% of its hotels as temporary shelter facilities, with one to two clients per room. That helped, but it was hardly a perfect situation.

So the question is: Where do homeless patients go to convalesce when discharged from acute medical care, especially in the post-COVID-19 era?

Homeless patients discharged from hospitals or clinics who then go to drop-in centers, shelters or the street sometimes do not fully recover from their illnesses. Some inevitably wind up back in the hospital. The result is a detrimental and costly cycle for both patients and the health care system.

And the situation continues to deteriorate: Between July 2018 and June 2019, 404 of the city’s homeless died – 40% higher than the previous year and the largest year-over-year increase in a decade. There is no data since the outbreak began, but early evidence suggests that the number of deaths is higher between June 2019 and June 2020.

A former Radisson Hotel in New York City converted to a homeless shelter.

John Nacion/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Medical respite: A possible solution

Medical respite is short-term residential care for homeless people too ill or frail to recover on the streets, but not sick enough to be in a hospital. It provides a safe environment to recover and still access post-treatment care management and other social services. Medical respite care can be offered in freestanding facilities, homeless shelters, nursing homes and transitional housing.

Medical respite has worked in municipalities across the U.S.; health outcomes for patients have improved, and hospitals and insurance providers, particularly Medicaid, have saved money. But these programs are few and far between. In 2016 there were 78 programs operating across 28 states. Most programs are small, with 45% having fewer than 20 beds.

The care models vary, but essentially they provide beds in a space designed for convalescence, follow-up appointment support, medication management, medically appropriate meals and access to social services such as housing navigation and benefits assistance. Some programs provide on-site clinical care.

Research shows that homeless patients in New York City stay in the hospital 36% longer and cost an average of US$2,414 more per stay than those with stable housing. By discharging patients to respite programs, hospitals reduced emergency visits post-discharge by 45%, and readmissions by 35%. The New York Legal Assistance Group, conducting a cost-benefit analysis, showed savings of nearly $3,000 per respite stay (the provider saved $1,575, the payers saved $1,254) through reduced hospital readmissions and length of stay.

Studies outside of New York also show improved health outcomes in a variety of ways. One noted that 78% of patients were discharged from respite “in improved health.” Patients showed 15% to 19% increases in connection with primary care after discharge to medical respite. Moreover, at least 10% and up to 55% of medical respite patients who discharged eventually went to permanent or improved housing situations.

Next steps

While there are agreed-upon national standards for medical respite, program models can adapt to meet the needs of a specific community. Already, dozens of respite models exist across the country, in both major cities and small towns. One complication, however, is the sheer breadth of the medical respite approach. Because it intersects housing, homelessness and health care, medical respite does not fit neatly within a single system and would require collaboration and agreement among multiple city and state agencies.

Still, a growing number of communities are looking to medical respite to fill the gap. Chicago is partnering with providers to deliver health care to the homeless. This includes providing them with temporary residential facilities and clinics to help blunt the impact of COVID-19.

There is a dire need to help the homeless with both housing and health care. Medical respite is a potential solution. It has successfully provided recuperative housing and medical care during a pandemic. Why shouldn’t it become a permanent part of our service system?

Andrew Lin, Supportive Housing Program Developer at BronxWorks, a non-profit group that offers homeless and housing support services in the Bronx, contributed to this article.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: J. Robin Moon, City University of New York.

Read more:
Busting 3 common myths about homelessness

As few as 1 in 10 homeless people vote in elections – here’s why

J. Robin Moon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

S.D. tribes say they're 'trapped in a house on fire' — fighting Covid while governor lets it rage

Erik Ortiz
Wed, November 25, 2

In the early weeks of the pandemic, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota enacted drastic measures to fend off the spread of the coronavirus across its stark and sprawling prairie land.

The tribe installed checkpoints in April on roadways cutting through the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation to limit drivers without official business — part of a robust contact tracing program.

"We are doing this to save our residents, their lives," tribal Chairman Harold Frazier told NPR in May, when there was just one case of Covid-19 on the reservation, where about 12,000 people reside.

Even as case numbers stayed low, tribal officials imposed a mask mandate over the summer and rolled out mass testing events. And after South Dakota logged a record number of infections this month, Frazier on Monday began a 10-day lockdown of Eagle Butte, the remote town where the tribe's headquarters are located.

IMAGE: Harold Frazier (Cliff Owen / AP file)

The efforts are in sharp contrast to how South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has overseen the pandemic in her state of nearly 885,000 residents.

Noem, a Republican, has avoided statewide mask mandates, lockdowns and the closing or restricting of businesses and churches. She said in a message last week that "we won't stop or discourage you from thanking God and spending time together this Thanksgiving" — a lenient message compared to those of the leaders of most other states, who have enforced curfews, stay-at-home orders and restrictions on indoor gatherings in the face of a surge in case numbers nationwide.

Noem has also criticized the checkpoints set up by the Cheyenne River Sioux, as well as other Native American tribes in the state. In May, she asked the Trump administration to help intervene in a compromise to allow checkpoints on tribal roads but not state and federal ones within reservations.

Tribal members and other Indigenous-led groups in South Dakota say the lack of sweeping action — and the overt displays of opposition — on the part of state and some local officials stand to undermine their tribal sovereignty and attempts to protect their people during an intensifying public health crisis.

While the overall number of new Covid-19 infections has eased in recent days after it hit a record of more than 2,000 positive cases on Nov. 12, South Dakota this week still has among the highest rates of positivity and per capita deaths in the country, according to data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It's like we're trapped in a house on fire, and we're doing our best to put it out," said Remi Bald Eagle, a Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe spokesman. "We see the firetrucks coming in the form of a vaccine, and we're wondering if it will get here in time before the fire burns us to death."
A disproportionate effect

The Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation has had more than 1,100 cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, with at least 13 deaths, tribal health officials say.

Statewide, Native Americans have been the hardest hit of any ethnic or racial group: While they make up only 9 percent of the population, they represent 14 percent of all cases and 15 percent of all deaths, according to Johns Hopkins' data.

Bald Eagle said many tribal members were previously diagnosed with underlying health conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease, and had limited access to health care on the reservation, which is partly in one of the most impoverished counties in the country.

The tribe has scrambled to set up makeshift beds and units, some of them in hotels and bingo halls, to supplement the eight hospital beds at the Cheyenne River Health Center, an Indian Health Services facility. The closest large hospitals, in Rapid City and in Bismarck, North Dakota, are two to three hours away, and health care professionals in South Dakota have warned of an overburdened health system.

A disturbing disconnect has also emerged among some patients. A South Dakota emergency room nurse's tweets went viral this month after she said she had encountered people dying of Covid-19 who didn't believe the virus was real.

Bald Eagle said tribes have a lot to lose if they ignore the science or take a hands-off approach, as the state has largely done.

"Some of those who died were our elders," he said. "They're some of our magnificent treasures. When they die, they take with them some of our language and our culture and our heritage, and we won't get that back."

IMAGE: Gov. Kristi Noem (Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The governor's office responded by referring to Noem's remarks at a news conference last week in which she encouraged hand-washing and social distancing.

"I've consistently said that people that want to wear masks should wear masks, and people that don't shouldn't be shamed because they choose not to," Noem said.

In a statement, the South Dakota State Medical Association said it supports a statewide mask mandate: "Masks work to decrease the risk of infection for everyone."
Checkpoint dispute

Tension has been escalating between tribes in South Dakota and Noem since the checkpoints went up.

In June, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe sued the federal government alleging that ever since Noem's plea for the White House's help, the Trump administration has abused its power by coercing the tribe to end its Covid-19 response plan, including its checkpoints.

The coercion included "threatening both monetary penalties and forcible dismantling of the Tribe's law enforcement program," the complaint alleges.
 Cheyenne River Sioux safety checkpoint

 (Chairman Harold Frazier, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe)

Noem has said that South Dakota has rights that allow residents and travelers to access roadways and that the federal government has "an interest in interstate commerce," as well. But the tribe argues that it has jurisdictional powers over the state, and a 1990 appeals court ruling dictates that the state doesn't have control over roadways that cut through Native lands without tribal consent.

The lawsuit continues, and the tribe plans to respond in the coming days to the federal government's request to dismiss the case, said Nicole Ducheneaux, a tribal member and attorney. In the meantime, the tribe's nine checkpoints remain up.

"We are unspeakably vulnerable, and the state that surrounds us and the federal government that is supposed to protect us have decided to elevate a petty political agenda over human life," Ducheneaux said. "In the broader scheme of things, it was not so long ago that my people witnessed catastrophic disease and death that decimated our population, destabilized our society and almost wiped us out. If it were not for our sovereign powers of self-government, we would be at the mercy of Donald Trump and Kristi Noem, which would be a disaster of potentially existential proportions for our people."

A spokesman for the Interior Department, which is named in the suit, said tribal leaders had to follow federal regulations shared in early April about what steps to take to restrict access to or close roadways within reservations.

The federal government seeks to have the tribe's suit dismissed, in part because, it said, the checkpoints were operating with "unlawfully deputized individuals who did not have the required background investigations and/or basic police training."
Camp crackdown

The worsening pandemic has led other Native American groups in South Dakota to spar with local governments.

In October, police in Rapid City, the state's second-largest city, ordered the dismantling of an outdoor settlement — called Camp Mniluzahan — where Native Americans struggling with substance abuse and other hardships were provided shelter and food.

Police cited five of the volunteers, known as Creek Patrol, with obstruction and resisting arrest. A sixth person utilizing the camp was also cited. City officials said the camp was erected without proper permits in an area considered a flood zone. The camp has since moved from public property to land jointly owned by the Oglala, Rosebud and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes.

Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender said he didn't endorse the camp, and he hinted at the tensions last month.

"Every conversation about the homeless in the last month has been peppered with phrases like 'stolen land' and 'treaty violations' and 'getting land back' and that sort of thing," Allender said, according to NBC affiliate KNBN of Rapid City. "And so it appears that there's something much larger at hand than simply seeking shelter for the homeless."

Mark Tilsen, a Creek Patrol volunteer and member of the Oglala Lakota, said the lack of adequate social services or support from the local government underscores how Native Americans have historically had to cope with insufficient resources.

The camp's new location, which provides Covid-19 testing, helps 30 to 60 people daily, Tilsen said.

"We're essentially banding together to solve our problems as they come up," Tilsen said, crediting the efforts of previous generations of Native volunteers and activists. "We are lucky that we have found a way that the city cannot interfere with our work."

Natalie Stites Means, a director of the local Meals for Relatives program for Native American families affected by Covid-19 and a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, said she worries that the disparate impact of the coronavirus on Indigenous communities is only going to worsen in the coming weeks because of lax attitudes. There is already a waiting list for families in need of food assistance, and Means counts on volunteers to help cook and transport meals.

"I'm not counting on Noem's administration to have the chops to do anything," Means said. "We're on our own."

mniluzahancreekpatrol

Our relatives who were arrested by the RCPD the night of Oct. 16th, for remaining in ceremony and taking a stand in defiance of ongoing state violence towards unsheltered relatives, will have court on Dec. 15th.

In preparation, we are seeking donations specifically for legal funds. @ndncollective has offered 15k; we are inviting you all, who have offered generous and consistent support to us, to match this amount so we can ensure that all legal expenses are covered. Please share and offer what you can. Lila pilamayapi.

mllegalfund.org

mniluzahancreekpatrol

Indigenous people living in the US are fighting for their land back

Biba Adams
Thu, November 26, 2020

Mashpee Wampanoag tribe descendants are fighting to reclaim 300 acres of land in two states they say was stolen.

As millions of Americans gather today for the Thanksgiving holiday, the fact that the feast commemorates the disenfranchisement of indigenous people is becoming more and more apparent.

As the country has faced racial reckoning from marginalized communities like African Americans and Latinos, native Americans are fighting to remain a part of the national conversation about ratifying injustices.

Guillermo Rosette and Linda Velarde join hundreds of other native Americans and their supporters in a traditional round dance at a 2017 protest in front of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Descendants of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, which is at the center of the Thanksgiving legend, are fighting to reclaim what they maintain was stolen land.

According to a CNN report, “the Mashpee Wampanoag have lived in what’s now Massachusetts and eastern Rhode Island for more than 12,000 years.”

The tribe is currently in a battle to maintain a trust that turned 300 acres of land into a reservation.

The trust status meant the land couldn’t be taken away from the Mashpee Wampanoag without the approval of the federal government. It also gave the tribe sovereignty, allowing it to build housing, a school and a police department on the land, CNN reports.

However, under the administration of President Donald Trump, the Department of the Interior reversed that decision after a lawsuit brought by area residents, saying the land was ineligible for trust status because the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe wasn’t under federal jurisdiction in 1934.

The U.S. moved to take the land out of trust, endangering the health, housing and safety of the tribe.

A federal judge blocked the decision, but the Interior Department appealed, and that the appeal is still pending.

The Mashpee Wampanoag are not the only tribe fighting for their land in this country. The Wiyot tribe is battling the state of California for protections of the Duluwat Island, where they dwell. The area has been transformed and polluted by shipping businesses.’

In Oklahoma, the Wyandotte Nation got their land back from the United Methodist Church after two centuries.

So, as families and friends gather to celebrate this year — hopefully in smaller groups, as recommended, because of the coronavirus pandemic — it is ever-important that the indigenous souls at the center of Thanksgiving, people who are still fighting for freedom in America, never be forgotten.

Trump order could spark mass firings of civil servants, lawmakers warn

Andrea Shalal
Wed, November 25, 2020, 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. government civil servants could face mass firings under an October executive order before President Donald Trump leaves office and Democratic lawmakers, watchdog groups and unions are mobilizing to block the move.

Leaders of 23 House committees and subcommittees asked the heads of 61 federal departments and agencies to provide a "full accounting" of any plans to reclassify federal workers under the Oct. 21 order, leaving them vulnerable to firing.

They also asked for details about any Trump political appointees who have already been hired into career jobs or are being considered. Initial responses are due Dec. 9, followed by biweekly updates, according to the letter, spearheaded by Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney.

Wednesday's letter came after 13 House Democrats, including Gerry Connolly, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Government Operations and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, on Tuesday urged appropriators to reverse the order in their next spending bill.

Trump's order allows agencies to reclassify workers involved in policy-making to a new "Schedule F" category without the job protections they have now. The agencies must complete their reviews by Jan. 19, the day before President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration.

The White House order says Trump is pushing to streamline the federal bureaucracy, increase accountability and make it easier to clear out "poor performers." The federal government employs about 2 million people in total.

Critics call the move part of an ongoing assault on government bureaucracy that has drained expertise and skills during the Trump administration.

Creating the new category of federal workers would expose the civil service to "undue political influence and intimidation," the committee chairs warned in their letter.

In Tuesday's letter, Democrats said the order would "expedite the hiring of political appointees into jobs without regard to merit and place them in roles best served by career civil servants -- including economists, scientists, and data analysts."

House and Senate Democrats separately asked the nonpartisan congressional Government Accountability Office this week to monitor implementation of the order, warning it could result in "a mass exodus" of federal employees in coming weeks.

The White House Office of Management and Budget has requested to reclassify 88% of its workforce of 425 workers to the new category, Real Clear Politics reported this week.

OMB did not respond to repeated requests for information.

The order has drawn fire from the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 700,000 federal and Washington, D.C. government workers, and the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 150,000 federal workers.

A spokeswoman for the Office of Personnel Management, which must sign off on the reclassifications, said the review period was still open.

Biden has already pledged to rescind other executive orders targeting federal workers once he takes office.

But any move to root out Trump loyalists could run afoul of a ban on firing people for partisan affiliation - the one civil service protection the order left intact for Schedule F workers.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Heather Timmons, Cynthia Osterman and Tom Brown)

Nail Salons, Lifeline for Immigrants, Have Lost Half Their Business
Juliana Kim
Thu, November 26, 2020
NYT

Nail polish at the Beverly Nail Studio in Queens on Nov. 11, 2020. 

(Jeenah Moon/The New York Times)

NEW YORK — On most days, Juyoung Lee is the only person inside Beverly Nail Studio, the salon that she owns in Flushing, Queens. It is often eerily quiet, and when no customers come by, Lee at times sits at her work station and weeps.

“Maybe, just maybe, tomorrow will be busy,” she said. “I’m waiting.”

Like nail salons across New York City, her business had to close when the pandemic hit in March. There was a brief surge in demand after the lockdown was lifted in July, but then appointments started dwindling. Often, customers requested cheaper services. Now, they hardly come at all.

The beauty industry in the city seemed well positioned to bounce back after restrictions ended. After all, many customers had spent months without professional grooming. But now, many of these businesses are on the verge of collapse — a drastic hit for an industry that is an economic engine for immigrant women.

Some nail salons have had a difficult time persuading customers that it is safe to come in. Others, especially those in Manhattan business districts, have yet to see regular customers come back because many of them had left the city or are working from home.

With 26 years of nail salon experience and 20 years of savings poured into her own business, Lee, 53, said there was nothing else that she can imagine doing. But she’s barely staying afloat.

“Even though it was hard before, I was always able to pay the bills. But now, no matter how hard I work, I make no money,” she said.

Nail salon visits in the state have dropped by more than 50%, and sales have fallen by more than 40%, according to an October survey of 161 salon owners conducted by the Nail Industry Federation of New York.

The New York Nail Salon Workers Association, an advocacy group affiliated with the union Workers United, said less than half of 594 workers surveyed had returned to work as of August. In New York City, there were 4,240 nail salons in 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Three percent of the country’s nail salons are in Brooklyn, and 2% are in Queens.

“The workforce is primarily immigrant workers living paycheck to paycheck, supporting children and in many cases sick and aging family members in their own countries,” said Luis Gomez, the association’s organizing director. “Add the recession and the effects of the pandemic on top, and we anticipate that many workers will fall even deeper into poverty.”

In Queens, Rambika Ulak KC, 50, said she had so much business shortly after reopening in July that she hired back all 10 of her employees part time. But now, she sees only about four customers a day.

Ulak dropped out of college in Nepal to come to the United States. When she developed carpal tunnel from giving manicures or was berated by customers frustrated by her poor English, she would fix her eyes on the photos of her daughter taped to the wall. Now, as her business erodes, she finds herself looking back at the photos even more often.

“That’s why I work so hard,” Ulak said. “So I can tell her, ‘Don’t think of my future, just be happy and focus on your studies.’”

Salons were able to reopen in July at 50% capacity, with waiting rooms banned and walk-ins discouraged.

While indoor services pose more risks for virus transmission, Dr. Joshua Zeichner, director of cosmetic and clinical research at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, said that if everyone wears masks and customers are properly social distancing, they’re “somewhat safer than with indoor dining.”

Still, many industry leaders worry that salons won’t be able to win back customers’ full confidence and subsequently recover until a vaccine is in wide use.

Eighty-one percent of the national nail salon workforce are women while 79% are foreign-born, according to a 2018 report conducted by the UCLA Labor Center.

Older women may have less career flexibility should the industry continue to crater, said Prarthana Gurung, campaign manager at Adhikaar, a Nepali work center that assists nearly 1,300 Nepali-speaking salon workers in New York City.

“There is a subset of women who’ve been in the nail salon industry for decades, and this is it regardless of what happens,” Gurung said.

Hannah Lee, 60, is one of those women: Since she arrived in the United States, she has worked only in nail salons. Lee reluctantly left South Korea after her husband persuaded her there would be better jobs here, she said.

Though she missed South Korea, she didn’t complain — as a salon worker, Lee learned English on the job, saved enough to put her son through college and always paid her rent on time.

Even now, Lee recognizes she is lucky to be hired back at salons in Queens and Manhattan, where she worked before the pandemic. But she said both salons rarely have any customers these days. She often receives only a few dollars in tips, sometimes nothing at all.

Her pay plummeted from $1,000 per week to $300. She’s behind on rent and is barely able to afford groceries, she said. But she said she refused to look into other industries and is on the hunt for a third nail salon gig despite her worries about her health.

“I just want to feel comfortable with my life. I don’t want anxiety when I go to work about whether customers will come today or not, whether I will get the virus today or not,” she said in Korean.

In Jackson Heights, Queens, Mariwvey Ramirez, 38, recently went back to work after being furloughed for a second time at the Rego Park salon where she worked because of the neighborhood closures.

The first time, back in March, was financially devastating for Ramirez, who is undocumented and therefore ineligible to collect unemployment. Even now, Ramirez, a single mother, was only hired back part time. Her wages went from $700 a week to $400.

Ramirez moved to the United States from Mexico 18 years ago to be with her brother, who moved to the country first, and worked in the salon industry for 17 years.

“I don’t know how to do anything else, for all these years, I worked in nail salons — really my whole life,” she said in Spanish.

The only silver lining has been that now that she has free time, she has enrolled in a class to learn English — in part to broaden her job opportunities, but mostly to advance in the nail salon industry once the pandemic subsides.

Juyoung Lee, the owner of the Beverly Nail Studio, moved from South Korea to New York City 30 years ago. When she arrived, she could only find work in the dry cleaning, garment and nail salon industries because of her limited English.

She first landed a job at a sewing factory, but a few years later, it closed down. She tried her luck in the nail business, saving up for more than two decades to open up her own salon.

When Lee first toured the vacant storefront that would become her salon in 2014, the real estate agent told her he couldn’t imagine the worn-down space turning into a nail shop, she recalled. But Lee could see it — the pink walls, a row of plush pedicure chairs, a collection of nail polish in every conceivable color.

“This was my dream,” Lee said. “Really, this is every employee’s dream to open up their own salon.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

Less-educated Asian Americans among hardest hit by job losses during pandemic

Brian Cheung
·Reporter
October 7, 2020·

In May, Kang Vanchiasong lost her job on an assembly line at a medical device company in Georgia. To make ends meet, she started selling lemongrass from her farm in Jefferson, opting to sell on Amazon (AMZN) after the local farmer’s market shut down due to the pandemic.

Vanchiasong, a Lao immigrant who moved to the United States 45 years ago, represents one of the communities hardest hit by the pandemic: Asian Americans with no more than a high school education.

“The ones that don’t have work right now, I don’t know what else they [can] do,” Vanchiasong, 63, told Yahoo Finance. “I have my farm, so I survived with that.”

A recent study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago notes that 77% of Asian men and 56% of Asian women with a high school degree or less were employed before the pandemic.

During the depths of the crisis, employment among those subgroups dropped to 46% and 32% respectively — worse than other groups when controlling for the same education level.

The Chicago Fed used microdata from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey and found that Asian men and women with no college degree suffered the steepest job losses in the pandemic. (Credit: David Foster / Yahoo Finance)

“There is a huge disparity across groups, including all minority groups, but the group that was hit hardest in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic is Asian Americans with no college education,” Chicago Fed senior economist Luojia Hu told Yahoo Finance.

For workers like Vanchiasong, questions loom over why the Asian American community has been so deeply affected — and the consequences for years to come.
Breaking down Asian unemployment

The unemployment rate in September for Asian Americans was 8.9%, worse than the white unemployment rate of 7% but better than the Black and Hispanic unemployment rates of 12.1% and 10.3%, respectively.

But as the Chicago Fed research shows, the headline unemployment rate for Asian Americans may be masking the economic fallout for low-skilled, less-educated workers.

Kang Vanchiasong working on her farm in Jefferson, Georgia. Photo: Zepha Gerber

A report from consulting firm McKinsey notes that Asian Americans have the highest within-group income inequality in the country — the top 10% of earners make 10.7 times the income of the bottom 10%.

“Oftentimes, the narrative comes back: We don’t need to worry about Asians, they’re actually great, they all go to Ivy League schools,” McKinsey partner Emily Yueh told Yahoo Finance, adding that the Asian American community is not a monolith.

The McKinsey report adds that Southeast Asian and Pacific Islanders are less likely to have a high school diploma and tend to suffer from higher unemployment rates than East Asians.

A report from consulting firm McKinsey cites U.S. Census Bureau data (2018 American Community Survey 1-year estimates) in describing the demographic differences among different Asian American subgroups. (Credit: McKinsey)

At first glance, one might conclude that the steep job losses in the pandemic may have something to do with high Asian employment in high-contact settings like restaurants, the heart of many Asian communities and a major employer for lower-educated workers.

But the Chicago Fed researchers still observed the wide differences even when controlling for occupation and industry, suggesting other forces are at play.

Another explanation may be the significant drop-off in business activity in Asian communities. Memories of the SARS virus in 2002, in addition to fears of xenophobia, pushed communities like New York City’s Chinatown to close before nationwide shutdowns began.
Job retraining

Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell has warned that “long stretches of unemployment can damage or end workers' careers as their skills lose value.”

With small businesses closing their doors for good, the concern is that less educated workers face a steeper road to finding new work — even when a vaccine arrives.

People in masks walk past a closed shop in the Chinatown neighborhood of Manhattan during the coronavirus outbreak in New York City, New York, U.S., March 18, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Segar

The Chinatown Manpower Project, a New York City nonprofit, offers English language instruction and job training courses with a focus on helping new immigrants and low-income workers.

Since the onset of the pandemic, CMP has shifted its job retraining resources toward helping the jobless apply for unemployment insurance. CMP executive director Hong Lee said he is hopeful that workers will be able to get back to jobs.

CMP held a virtual job fair on Sept. 24, which included hirings for low-skill work, and attracted about 350 attendees and 16 employers, down from past job fair attendance of about 500 people and 35 employers.

“They are slowly trickling in [back to jobs], but not as big a spike as the reverse. Not the same as the amount of people applying for unemployment,” Lee told Yahoo Finance.

In Georgia, Vanchiasong made ends meet with her lemongrass and the federal government’s $600-per-week bonus unemployment insurance — which she says “helped a lot.”

Her employer called her back in July, the same month the government’s $600 unemployment bonus expired. But Vanchiasong recalls how scared she was when she was initially furloughed, uncertain about when or if the company would call her back.

“Largely I depended on what God planned for me,” she said. “So I prayed a lot for that.”

SAUDI FEMINIST POLITICAL PRISONER TO BE TRIED IN 'TERRORISM COURT'

AYA BATRAWY
Wed, November 25, 2020

 This Nov. 30, 2014 image made from video released by Loujain al-Hathloul, shows her driving towards the United Arab Emirates - Saudi Arabia border before her arrest on Dec. 1, 2014, in Saudi Arabia. Al-Hathloul, a leading Saudi women's rights activist who's been imprisoned for over two years will be tried by a court established to oversee terrorism cases, her family said Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020. They said she had been on hunger strike for two weeks until mid-November.  (AP Photo/Loujain al-Hathloul, File)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A leading Saudi women’s rights activist who’s been imprisoned for 2 1/2 years and drawn attention to the kingdom’s hard limits on dissent will be tried by a court established to oversee terrorism cases, her family said Wednesday.

The referral of Loujain al-Hathloul's case to the Specialized Criminal Court is a setback for efforts to push for her swift release and means she will face charges related to terrorism and national security. The court is notorious for its secretive nature. A range of cases are brought before the court under broadly worded counter-terrorism laws that criminalize acts such as insulting the government and “disobeying the ruler.”

According to a 53-page report released earlier this year by Amnesty International, the court has been used as “a weapon of repression” to imprison peaceful critics, activists, journalists, clerics and others. Amnesty International says it had documented numerous cases of trials held in secret before the court.

Al-Hathloul is among SaudiArabia’s most prominent women’s rights activists. She was detained amid a sweeping crackdown spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has ushered in wide-ranging reforms but has simultaneously clamped down on activists who have long pushed for change.

She and around a dozen other prominent women's rights activists were arrested in May 2018 just weeks before Saudi Arabia lifted its decades-long ban on women driving. The women face vague national security charges related to their activism and communication with foreign journalists, Western diplomats and independent rights groups.

Al-Hathloul's family said the 31-year-old activist’s case was being transferred to the Specialized Criminal Court due to a “lack of jurisdiction” by Riyadh’s criminal court, where her trial had been suspended for months. They say “her body was shaking uncontrollably and that her voice was faint and shaky” when she appeared in court on Wednesday. She had been on a hunger strike for two weeks earlier this month.

Al-Hathloul and the other Saudi women activists detained in 2018 — some of them mothers, grandmothers and professors — say they were physically and sexually abused while in detention by masked interrogators. The women say they were caned on their backs and thighs, electrocuted and waterboarded. Some women say they were forcibly touched and groped, made to break their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and threatened with rape and death. One of the women attempted suicide in prison.

While most of the women have since been released pending trial, al-Hathloul and three other women activists remain imprisoned. Rights groups tracking the trials said only al-Hathloul's case was referred to the Specialized Criminal Court.

The court said it will open an investigation with the prosecution regarding her claims of torture, the family said.

Last year, Saudi authorities told her she could be released if she signs a statement denying the claims of abuse, according to her family. When she rejected doing so, she was kept in solitary confinement.

Al-Hathloul has long been an outspoken defender of women's rights in Saudi Arabia, drawing numerous calls from U.S. lawmakers and others around the world for her unconditional release.

In 2014, she was detained for more than 70 days after she attempted to livestream herself driving from the UAE to Saudi Arabia when it was still illegal for women to drive in the kingdom. She was arrested by Saudi authorities as she attempted to cross the border in protest and later released without trial.

Al-Hathloul’s family say in 2018, shortly after attending a U.N.-related meeting in Geneva about the situation of women's rights in Saudi Arabia, she was kidnapped by Emirati security forces in Abu Dhabi, where was residing and pursuing a master's degree. She was then forced on a plane to Saudi Arabia, where she was barred from traveling abroad before her arrest months later.

When asked about her case last month, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said she and the other women on trial were not detained because of their human rights activity and that they are “charged with serious crimes.” He defended Saudi courts as independent, and said her release is up to the courts, not the government.

UN agency: Israel's Gaza blockade has devastated economy

JOSEF FEDERMAN
Wed, November 25, 2020

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has cost the seaside territory as much as $16.7 billion in economic losses and sent poverty and unemployment skyrocketing, a U.N. report said Wednesday, as it called on Israel to lift the closure.

The report by the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development echoed calls by numerous international bodies over the years criticizing the blockade. But its findings, looking at an 11-year period ending in 2018, marked perhaps the most detailed analysis of the Israeli policy to date.

Israel imposed the blockade in 2007 after Hamas, an Islamic militant group that opposes Israel’s existence, violently seized control of Gaza from the forces of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. The Israeli measures, along with restrictions by neighboring Egypt, have tightly controlled the movement of people and goods in and out of the territory.

Israel says the restrictions are needed to keep Hamas from building up its military capabilities. The bitter enemies have fought three wars and numerous skirmishes over the years.

But critics say the blockade has amounted to collective punishment, hurting the living conditions of Gaza’s 2 million inhabitants while failing to oust Hamas or moderate its behavior. Gaza has almost no clean drinking water, it suffers from frequent power outages and people cannot freely travel abroad.

“The result has been the near-collapse of Gaza’s regional economy and its isolation from the Palestinian economy and the rest of the world,” the U.N. agency said in a statement.

The report analyzed both the effects of the closure, which has greatly limited Gaza’s ability to export goods, as well as the effects of the three wars, which took place in 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014.

The last war was especially devastating, killing over 2,200 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, and displacing some 100,000 people from homes that were damaged or destroyed, according to U.N. figures. Seventy-three people, including six civilians, were killed on the Israeli side, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, and indiscriminate Hamas rocket fire brought life to a standstill in southern Israel.

Using two methodologies, the report said that overall economic losses due to the blockade and wars ranged from $7.8 billion to $16.7 billion. It said Gaza’s economy grew by a total of just 4.8% during the entire period, even as its population grew over 40%.

These economic losses helped propel unemployment in Gaza from 35% in 2006 to 52% in 2018, one of the highest rates in the world, UNCTAD said.

It said the poverty rate jumped from 39% in 2007 to 55% in 2017. Based on Gaza’s economic trends before the closure, the report said the poverty rate could have been just 15% in 2017 if the wars and blockade had not occurred.

“The impact is the impoverishment of the people of Gaza, who are already under blockade,” said Mahmoud Elkhafif, the agency’s coordinator of assistance to the Palestinian people and author of the report.

Israel has long accused the U.N. of being biased against it. The report, for instance, included only a brief mention that indiscriminate rocket fire at Israeli civilian areas is prohibited under international law. “Palestinian militants must cease that practice immediately,” it said.

Israel's Foreign Ministry accused UNCTAD of failing its mission to assist developing economies and presenting a “one-sided and distorted depiction" that disregards ”terrorist organizations’ control over the Gaza Strip and their responsibility for what occurs in the Gaza Strip."

“In light of all this, we cannot take the findings of the reports it publishes seriously, and this report is no different,” it said.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the report revealed “the level of the crime” committed by Israel.

“This siege has amounted to a real war crime and pushed all services sectors in the Gaza Strip to collapse,” he said. “These figures also reveal the international inability to deal with the illegal siege on Gaza.”

Gisha, an Israeli human rights group that pushes for freedom of movement in an out of Gaza, said it was Israel’s “moral and legal obligation” to lift the closure. “The true price paid by Palestinians in lost time, opportunities, and separation from loved ones is inestimable,” it said.

The U.N. agency said it compiled the report at the request of the U.N. General Assembly and noted that it did not include other costs of Israeli occupation over the Palestinians. Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war, though it withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

UNCTAD, a technical agency that seeks to reduce global inequality, recommended that Israel lift the blockade to allow free trade and movement. It also called for reconstruction of Gaza’s infrastructure, addressing Gaza’s electricity and water crisis, allowing the Palestinians to develop offshore natural gas fields and for the international community to push Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to reconcile.

___

Associated Press writer Fares Akram contributed reporting from Gaza City, Gaza Strip.


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UN Israel Gaza Blockade
A Palestinian boy sells bananas on a donkey carte in an alley in the Shati refugee camp, in Gaza City, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020. Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has cost the seaside territory as much as $16.7 billion in economic losses and caused its poverty and unemployment rates to skyrocket, a U.N. report said Wednesday, as it called on Israel to lift the 13-year closure. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

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UN Israel Gaza Blockade
A Palestinian woman stands next to her house in a slum on the outskirts of Khan Younis Refugee Camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020. Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has cost the seaside territory as much as $16.7 billion in economic losses and caused its poverty and unemployment rates to skyrocket, a U.N. report said Wednesday, as it called on Israel to lift the 13-year closure. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

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UN Israel Gaza Blockade
A Palestinian girl walks next to a donkey carte loaded with rocks in a slum on the outskirts of Khan Younis Refugee Camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020. Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has cost the seaside territory as much as $16.7 billion in economic losses and caused its poverty and unemployment rates to skyrocket, a U.N. report said Wednesday, as it called on Israel to lift the 13-year closure. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)



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UN Israel Gaza Blockade
A Palestinian family prepares tea in their house in a slum on the outskirts of Khan Younis Refugee Camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020. Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has cost the seaside territory as much as $16.7 billion in economic losses and caused its poverty and unemployment rates to skyrocket, a U.N. report said Wednesday, as it called on Israel to lift the 13-year closure. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

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UN Israel Gaza Blockade
Palestinian children eat while sitting on the ground in their house in a slum on the outskirts of Khan Younis Refugee Camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020. Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has cost the seaside territory as much as $16.7 billion in economic losses and caused its poverty and unemployment rates to skyrocket, a U.N. report said Wednesday, as it called on Israel to lift the 13-year closure. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

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UN Israel Gaza Blockade
Palestinians are seen looking on from their house in a slum on the outskirts of Khan Younis Refugee Camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020. Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has cost the seaside territory as much as $16.7 billion in economic losses and caused its poverty and unemployment rates to skyrocket, a U.N. report said Wednesday, as it called on Israel to lift the 13-year closure. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

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UN Israel Gaza Blockade
A Palestinian elderly man walks in a slum on the outskirts of Khan Younis Refugee Camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020. Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has cost the seaside territory as much as $16.7 billion in economic losses and caused its poverty and unemployment rates to skyrocket, a U.N. report said Wednesday, as it called on Israel to lift the 13-year closure. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

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UN Israel Gaza Blockade
Palestinian children fly kites in a slum on the outskirts of Khan Younis Refugee Camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020. Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has cost the seaside territory as much as $16.7 billion in economic losses and caused its poverty and unemployment rates to skyrocket, a U.N. report said Wednesday, as it called on Israel to lift the 13-year closure. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)