Monday, January 27, 2020

OPINION: My Country Is On Fire. Soon The Whole World Will Be.
I returned home for Christmas to find my country — and its consciousness — ablaze. What disasters will prompt similar reckonings elsewhere?
David MackBuzzFeed News Reporter Posted on January 25, 2020,

Saeed Khan / Getty Images
A firefighter on the Central Coast, north of Sydney.


Australians are incredibly angry right now — at their leaders, at their media, and at themselves. I went home over the holidays and found a country whose biggest cities were under a haze of smoke and whose population was undergoing a reckoning — one that wasn’t just political, but philosophical.

It feels as if the country is finally opening its eyes. Nature, a scientific journal, has dubbed our bushfire crisis “a wake-up call,” and people are indeed now grappling with fundamental questions: What will the next 50 years look like? The next 100? What will their own lives look like? And just what did they do — or rather not do — to contribute to all this mess?

In Australia, climate change is no longer an abstract problem that future generations will inherit — it’s a problem for those here and now. There’s no going back from this — something environmentalists have warned for decades, but many are only learning now through personal experience. This realization is going to drastically reshape Australia’s political and economic consciousness in the years ahead — especially as younger generations gain more influence.

Since returning to the US last week, friends and strangers keep asking about the fires. Even the surly customs officer who stamped my passport brought them up. But I’ve also been fixated on what it will take for Americans and the rest of the rich world to have their own "come to Jesus" moment? And by that point, will it simply be far too late?

The horrible secret truth about Australians is that we’ve always desperately craved attention from the rest of the world. The little brothers of the West, we yearn for nothing more than your respect. It’s about pride, certainly, but more than that it’s about validation — acknowledgement that we’re not being ignored down here on the far side of the world, that you see us, that we exist.

We can be righteously indignant that international media outlets tend to overlook our successes and scandals — of which there are many — often focusing instead solely on stories about kooky or dangerous animals. That’s when we’re making the news at all, mind you. It took until 2017 (2!0!1!7!) for the New York Times to finally open a bureau in Australia. Even then, it dubbed the country its “next frontier” and described its first reporters there as “pioneers.”

Well, we have your attention, at last.


Mark Evans / Getty Images
The Australian Parliament in Canberra, blanketed by bushfire smoke, Jan. 23.

After decades of exporting to the world a vision of a carefree and sun-kissed Aussie quality of life — “the Lucky Country!” we like to call ourselves — our international image is suddenly going up in smoke. A tourism advert starring Kylie Minogue and targeting British holidaymakers with a cheery vision of Australia has been pulled from the air “in light of the current situation.” Tennis players at the Australian Open in Melbourne are collapsing on live TV, unable to breathe properly. Hollywood stars are offering condolences on awards show stages. Headlines around the world have proclaimed the deaths of more than 1 billion animals.

I could smell the smoke as soon as I landed in Sydney. You can smell it in New Zealand and South America. When the doors of my Qantas plane opened and I stepped onto the jet bridge, I was met with the unmistakable scent of my country ablaze.

I left the airport and found a country I barely recognized: Blankets of smoke on the streets of inner Sydney that were so thick on some days that you couldn’t see to the end of the road. People wearing masks as they made their way to work. Evening news broadcasts packed with apocalyptic scenes from down south, where the fires were raging worst: darkness in the middle of the day, children under bloodred skies, unimaginable death and destruction.

Everywhere I went, the fires were the main topic of conversation. Friends told me they were having trouble sleeping, wide awake at night thinking about loved ones in danger zones or simply worried about Australia’s future. At my cousin’s harborside wedding in mid-January, we led a thankful toast for the heavy rain that had arrived to drench the celebrations. It was the first anyone could recall in months.

Most stark, though, was the change in political tenor. A conservative government that had surprised everyone — including themselves — by romping to victory just seven months before in an election dominated by discussions of taxes on investment properties was now very much in the fire zone.

People were floored that the prime minister decided to vacation in Hawaii amid the disaster, but the real fury went deeper. A leader who two years ago brought a lump of coal to the floor of Parliament to mock his left-wing opponents — “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be scared! It won’t hurt you!” — was suddenly being pilloried for his lack of any real climate policy. Even the opposition leader was shamed for his continued full-throated embrace of the coal industry. Yet, for now, it’s politics as usual. The government has shown no intention of substantial policy change, or even a skerrick of shame over its intransigence.

I keep returning to how David Wallace-Wells described my country in The Uninhabitable Earth. “By far the richest of all the countries staring down the most intense, most immediate warming barrages,” he writes, “Australia is an early test case of how the world’s affluent societies will bend, or buckle, or rebuild under the pressure of temperature changes likely to hit the rest of the well-off world later this century.”

For decades, Australia has been the world’s coal mine. Now we’re the canary in it too.


David Mack is a deputy director of breaking news for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

Leftist Magazine Jewish Currents Is Expanding — And Hiring A Leading Writer On American Jewish Politics

The recently relaunched magazine has hired Peter Beinart, suggesting a power shift in the politics of American Jewish media.

Rosie Gray BuzzFeed News Reporter Posted on January 27, 2020

David Goldman / AP Peter Beinart at an event in Atlanta, Nov. 14, 2012.

Jewish Currents, a leftist magazine founded in 1946 and initially linked to the Communist Party USA, was relaunched two years ago; its new editors sought to broaden the media horizon on Jewish topics and appeal to young, progressive American Jews who don’t identify with communal institutions’ consensus on Israel.

Energized by the leftist resurgence in American politics since the 2016 election, Jewish Currents has carved out a progressive niche for itself in the Jewish media landscape. It has published on a range of topics from Jewish identity in Uncut Gems to, controversially, a recent illustrated guide on how to carry out a medical abortion at home. It made a splash with two high-profile commissions last year: one, a review by the feminist theorist Judith Butler of New York Times opinion columnist Bari Weiss’s book How to Fight Anti-Semitism, and two, an op-ed by Bernie Sanders about his views on anti-Semitism and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Now, Jewish Currents is preparing to expand further — and hiring one of the leading commentators on American Jewish politics and Israel. Peter Beinart, the author of the much-discussed 2012 book The Crisis of Zionism and a key voice on the left of the Zionist spectrum, is joining the magazine with a twice-monthly column, leaving his post as a columnist for the Forward. Beinart will retain his other affiliations, with the Atlantic and the City University of New York.

That Beinart would move from the Forward, one of the central organs of American Jewish life which has been in publication since 1897 in Yiddish and in English, to a smaller journal that has an explicitly left point of view, and which has provided a home for anti-Zionist views considered taboo by more centrist organizations, suggests a power shift in the politics of American Jewish media.

Jewish Currents’ publisher Jacob Plitman said in an interview that the publication is also expanding its roster of writers in addition to Beinart, bringing on as contributing or staff writers Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace; Elisheva Goldberg, media director of the New Israel Fund and a former adviser to former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni; Joshua Leifer, an associate editor at socialist magazine Dissent; and Chicago-based writer Mari Cohen. Plitman said that the magazine, a nonprofit, had significantly increased its fundraising, enabling growth. He declined to discuss specific fundraising figures, beyond saying that the organization had previously been operating with a less than $500,000 budget and now anticipated “significant growth” with new pledges.

“Peter in many ways has set the benchmark for what it means to both hold the Jewish community accountable to progressive values and do it in a way that's unflinchingly Jewish and that's directly in contact with our fears, with our history, with all the things that actually make us tick. And that's exactly what Jewish Currents is trying to do,” Plitman said. Plitman referenced Beinart’s influential 2010 essay “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment,” which identified an increasing alienation among young American Jews from Zionism as a primary concern and disillusionment with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. The essay, Plitman said, reflected his experiences growing up in a conservative Jewish community in North Carolina.

“There’s I think a tremendous need for a kind of American progressive Jewish publication which really sees itself as trying to intervene in a whole series of debates, and confront what I see as the kind of moral corruption of the American Jewish establishment and its complicity in various ways with some of the things that Trump is doing and the direction that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is taking Israel,” Beinart said.

“It just seemed really fitting that I could try to be a part of [Jewish Currents], given that I had been yearning to see something like that built,” Beinart said.

At 49, Beinart represents a different generation than the Jewish Currents cohort and a different context for thinking about questions of Jewish identity and Israel. He described how Jewish Currents had “started to reverberate up to my kind of relatively fuddy-duddy, Gen X, Upper West Side life.”

The expansion of Jewish Currents comes as the more mainstream Jewish center-left as exemplified by Beinart finds itself increasingly alienated during the Trump presidency. Last year, Trump, who has repeatedly presented himself as the best American president for Israel, told reporters that “if you want to vote Democrat, you are being very disloyal to Jewish people and very disloyal to Israel.” This week, Trump is welcoming Netanyahu and his political rival Benny Gantz to the White House, amid the administration’s push for a new Middle East peace plan that’s expected to be radically different from what liberals have advocated for.

“I think that the institutional Jewish world, particularly for people our age, is so far away from what kind of, the average kind of progressive millennial is experiencing or thinking about,” said Arielle Angel, Jewish Currents’ editor. “And so I think that we have given expression to something that just doesn't exist anywhere else in this space.”

The Forward, from which the magazine has hired Beinart, has struggled in recent years, laying off a large portion of its staff, including its former editor-in-chief, and ending its print edition last year. Last summer, in a step out of that period, the outlet hired Jodi Rudoren, the former Jerusalem bureau chief of the New York Times, as its new editor-in-chief. Some Jewish progressives have criticized the Forward for publishing right-wing voices like Zionist Organization of America leader Mort Klein, and Jewish Currents has published criticism of the paper.

"We loved having Peter in our pages and we’re excited to see his next chapter," Rudoren said. "We’re excited to see Currents grow and that there’s more investment in Jewish journalism. It was a great run for Peter at The Forward and I hope he has equal success at his next place."

Both Angel and Plitman wished the Forward well. “The Forward is the sole daily Jewish newspaper that has the resources and capacity to do the kind of reporting we need done,” Angel said, noting that what Jewish Currents does as a smaller intellectual journal that only publishes once a day isn’t comparable to what the Forward does as an outlet that also covers news.

“My experience at the Forward was a really good one,” Beinart said, adding that he hopes they “thrive.”

This is the second move that Beinart has taken to advance his progressive agenda on Israel–Palestine in recent months; he is also part of the progressive “Hatikvah” slate running for the World Zionist Congress, a historical legislative body dating from before the founding of the state of Israel open to all Jews worldwide to vote in with power over how certain funds are allocated inside Israel with regard to settlements and religious funds. Beinart hopes to stop funds being spent on settlement projects in the West Bank.

Welcoming Beinart also shows that Currents is welcoming in a more center-left strain of Jewish intellectual writing and potential readership.

“We don't have a manifesto,” Plitman said. “We’re the magazine of a community and a community that wants to speak for itself and also have some internal conversations that haven't always been given the air they need.” Plitman mentioned Norman Podhoretz’s Commentary magazine, which published writers like James Baldwin and Hannah Arendt, as a template: “These are heavyweights, you know, and we're trying to cultivate the heavyweights of today and tomorrow.”

Rosie Gray is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.
Contact Rosie Gray at rosie.gray@buzzfeed.com.
AOC Is Campaigning For Bernie Sanders In Iowa And Voters Are Falling In Love

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is gaining fans in Iowa as she campaigns for Bernie Sanders. "I would love to see her run for president one day."

Nidhi PrakashBuzzFeed News Reporter
Reporting From Ames, Iowa Posted on January 27, 2020,

Win McNamee / Getty Images

AMES, Iowa — With Sen. Bernie Sanders largely stuck in DC in the days leading up to the first contest of the 2020 election, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is storming across Iowa for his campaign and making a big name for herself in the process.

On Saturday morning, the Sanders campaign’s field office in Cedar Rapids was filled with chants of “AOC” as Ocasio-Cortez walked to the front of the room. Her reputation — driven by her Twitter presence, her role in the vanguard of a new generation of progressive Democrats, and by the prolific attacks on her from the right — had somewhat preceded her.

“I would have her be president. She’s unabashed. She’s not afraid of the political garbage that we have,” said Joe Organist, 60, at the stop in Cedar Falls. “If I were running for president, she’d be the only one I’d want speaking for me.”

He added that he’d come to the Sanders event partly because he knew Ocasio-Cortez would be there.

For other voters at the Sanders campaign events in Iowa on Saturday, however, this was their first time really getting to know her, and in some cases, the first time they’d even heard of her.

Close to two dozen voters who spoke to BuzzFeed News over the course of the four-stop day, including two with Sanders, said they were impressed with her — several adding that they would like to see her be part of a Sanders cabinet, and could see her running for president down the track. (Ocasio-Cortez, who is 30, is not yet old enough to be president or vice president.)

“I actually didn’t know anything about her. My friend told me about this,” said Dominique Eniola, 21, a student at the University of Northern Iowa. “I have heard that a lot of politicians don’t like her because she’s a woman and because she’s very ‘radical.’ I think a lot of people throw around the word radical very interchangeably because they might not like just one key thing about someone. I think it is very hard being a woman and not having people take you seriously.”

“I didn’t even know who she was, to be honest,” said Angela Hodge, 45, at a town hall in Marshalltown. “I love her. I love that she’s multicultural, being multicultural myself, I am Hispanic … I would like to see her in more politics because I think she really has a lot to say and it’s very meaningful. She has a lot of good points that she made.”

Ocasio-Cortez made her second swing through Iowa this weekend — last time she was here, in November with Sanders, her focus was on a climate forum at Drake University. In December, she spoke at a campaign stop in Las Vegas entirely in Spanish, in an event that saw young Latino Sanders supporters bring in their parents and grandparents to engage directly in their first language for the first time in the presidential campaign.

Ocasio-Cortez’s approach on the presidential campaign trail — dating back to her first New York City rally after endorsing Sanders in October — is a combination of sweeping progressive discourse tied in to very personal stories. This weekend, she talked about the “surreal” experience of sleeping on an air mattress in her first days in Congress, and then walking to work on the Hill, where she says she was “told that our lives are too politically inconvenient to fight for.”


Daniel Acker for BuzzFeed News
Attendees hold the initials of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, as she speaks during a rally supporting the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa City, Iowa, on Jan. 24.

“She’s got such a captivating voice. She makes you feel like she’s no more important than you,” said Matt Schneider, 23, a Sanders volunteer canvasser at the Cedar Rapids event on Saturday morning. He added that he would “support her in almost anything she does.”

“I think she can go as far as she wants. I would love to see her in a Bernie cabinet position,” said Catherine Shea, 37, at the same event.

During a stop at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, a woman stood up and told Ocasio-Cortez a story about her wages being garnished because of medical debt.

“I’m going to try not to cry because you’re right there,” the woman said, before she started crying. After hugging her, Ocasio-Cortez told her own story of not being able to afford blood tests her doctor said she needed — while she was running for Congress.

“It is so wrong. This is so wrong,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “To garnish a person’s wages because they needed to go to the doctor is morally wrong.”


Some Iowans have been paying attention to Ocasio-Cortez’s online presence and also how she’s conducted herself in several high-profile hearings since becoming a member of Congress last year.

“She’s young, but she’s an extremely astute politician, and a sharp questioner in hearings. I also really like that she pays her staff a living wage,” said Joe Balong, 47, who is undecided between Sanders and Warren. “I hope that she remains on the national stage. I would love to see her run for president one day. I think she’d absolutely be a great cabinet member.”

“She’s all over the place, so even the average person would know [who she is],” said Ricardo Ligas, 26, at an event in Cedar Falls. “She’s genuine and it's refreshing just to see someone young. Years from now hopefully, with good health, she’s doing the same thing. It would be very ambitious to say right away, ‘Oh run for president,’ but as long as she keeps doing right by her district, maybe in 30 or 40 years, or sooner than that, I could see a presidential run.”

As Trump’s lawyers wrapped up their arguments earlier than scheduled Saturday, Sanders was able to join Ocasio-Cortez for two events, before joining her for more on Sunday. The senator spoke of Ocasio-Cortez as the next generation in his political movement.

“I honestly cannot remember any first-term member of Congress having as much of an impact on our country as Alexandria has,” he said at a Saturday night rally in Ames.


Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement was always going to be a significant get for any of the progressive candidates — but her presence on the campaign trail has become even more important as Trump’s Senate impeachment trial continues to keep four of the candidates off the campaign trail.

As Sanders has pulled ahead in some polls of Iowa in recent days, his campaign continues to emphasize that turnout is going to be key to actually winning the nomination — and Ocasio-Cortez could potentially drive that turnout, especially among younger voters.

“On caucus night, if somebody tells you that turnout is high, we can win,” Sanders said Saturday night.

On Friday night, the end of the third day of Trump’s impeachment trial in DC, Sanders was in the Senate chamber, sometimes “slouched in his chair and staring at the floor” and in another moment “rubbing his head aggressively,” according to a reporter in the Senate.

At the same time, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Ocasio-Cortez was commanding a crowd of more than 800. On Saturday, she made four stops across the state, culminating in a packed rally in Ames, just outside Des Moines, where voters jostled for space with dozens of reporters.

"I think she's received well in Iowa," said Alisha Jenecke, 36, who also saw Ocasio-Cortez at the climate forum in November. "I like her compassion and the fact that she's passionate about issues and gets right in there, in their face."

MORE ON AOC AND BERNIE SANDERS
The Sanders Campaign, With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Front And Center, Is Speaking To Older Latino VotersNidhi Prakash · Dec. 24, 2019

Nidhi Prakash is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Washington, DC.
Contact Nidhi Prakash at nidhi.prakash@buzzfeed.com.

US Prosecutors Say Prince Andrew Isn't Cooperating In The Epstein Investigation

Andrew said in November that he would comply with law enforcement.

WAITING TILL IT BLOWS OVER THEN DENY DENY DENY

Posted on January 27, 2020, at 1:38 p.m. ET

Lindsey Parnaby / Getty Images

Despite a pledge to comply, Prince Andrew has provided "zero" cooperation with the Jeffrey Epstein inquiry, New York prosecutors said.

"The Southern District of New York and the FBI have contacted Prince Andrew's attorneys and requested to interview Prince Andrew and to date Prince Andrew has provided zero cooperation," US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman told media on Monday.

"He publicly offered, indeed in a press release, to cooperate with law enforcement investigating the crimes committed by Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators."

Buckingham Palace declined to comment when reached by BuzzFeed News.

In November, Prince Andrew stepped back from public duties "for the foreseeable future" over the "disruption" of his association with the late Epstein.


Handout / Getty Images

"I continue to unequivocally regret my ill-judged association with Jeffrey Epstein," Prince Andrew said in a statement.

"Of course, I am willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations, if required."

But Berman, speaking outside Epstein's former Manhattan mansion, said the Duke of York has not followed through.

Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell last summer and his death was ruled a suicide. He was arrested in July and accused of running a sex trafficking operation in which he allegedly sexually abused dozens of underage girls, some as young as 14, in his New York and Florida homes between 2002 and 2005.

In August, Prince Andrew released a statement defending his relationship with Epstein, saying he had never participated in the alleged sexual abuse and at no point did he "see, witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort that subsequently led to his arrest and conviction."

The prince also said he saw Epstein "infrequently and probably no more than only once or twice per year."

One of the alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, has said she was forced to have sex with the prince when she was 17 and under Epstein's control.

In a November interview with the BBC, Prince Andrew claimed Giuffre's account was false because she described him as sweating on a dance floor. He said he was unable to sweat at the time.

"There's a slight problem with the sweating because I have a peculiar medical condition which is that I didn't sweat at the time," Andrew told the BBC. "I didn't sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War when I was shot at."

Andrew was roundly mocked for the defense.


Lauren Strapagiel is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Toronto, Canada.

Contact Lauren Strapagiel at lauren.strapagiel@buzzfeed.com.
Achieving ‘American Dream’ more likely in Canada than US, report finds
Most economies don't let citizens thrive, entrenching historic inequality, says World Economic Forum

Rory Sullivan

The “American Dream” is much easier to achieve in Canada than the US, data from a new report into social mobility suggest.

The report, by the World Economic Forum, found it would take someone born into a low-income family in the US four generations to approach mean income — one generation more than it would in Canada.




20161116-142211.jpg

Figures also showed the top 1 per cent of earners in the US in 2018 earned almost 160 per cent more than they did in 1979. Over the same period, the bottom 90 per cent of earners only saw a 24 per cent rise in income.


Research came from the Global Social Mobility Index, which ranks 83 countries in terms of social mobility.

The report suggests that huge wage disparities, which have grown “exponentially” since the 1970s, are part of the problem.

Klaus Scwhab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, said in a statement that an individual’s chances in life were still “disproportionately influenced” by their socio-economic background.

This year’s index, published to coincide with the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, revealed that Nordic countries were the best for social mobility, with Denmark topping the list.

Canada and the US came lower down the rankings, in 14th and 27th place respectively. The UK came in between them in 21st place.


Among the world’s large emerging economies, Russia ranked 39th, followed by China in 45th, Brazil in 60th and India in 76th.

The World Economic Forum said in a statement on Monday that most economies currently fail to give their citizens the opportunity to thrive, with only a “handful” having the necessary conditions to foster social mobility.

It added: “As a result, an individual’s opportunities in life remain tethered to their socio-economic status at birth, entrenching historical inequalities.”


Technology is also another issue the report highlights, since it reduces the need for low-skilled jobs and rewards high-skilled jobs disproportionately.

The World Economic Forum recommends a range of measures countries could adopt to improve their social mobility rankings, including the introduction of more progressive tax systems and better quality education.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Social Mobility Index 2020 measured economies across five criteria: health, education, technology access, work, and protection and institutions.





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British man dies in US immigration detention centre
No word on detainee's identity or status in US

Officials in the UK have confirmed they are looking into reports that a British man has died while in the custody of US immigration authorities.

Reports said a 39-year-old had been found dead while being held in Florida by the enforcement of arm of the nation’s border agency, known as ICE.

The incident marked the fifth person to die in ICE custody since October, reports said..

Eight people total died in ICE custody during the 2019 fiscal year.

A spokesperson for the foreign office in London told The Independent: “Our staff are in contact with the US authorities following the death of a British man in Florida.”

In late January, the agency was detaining nearly 41,000 immigrants.

The peak came this summer, when around 55,000 immigrants were in custody in local jails and private prisons across the country.

Reports said it appeared the man had taken his own life.

BuzzFeed News, which was the first to report the death, said ICE has expanded the number of people it detains to record levels under the presidency of Donald Trump.

There were no immediate details about the man’s identify or why he had been detained.

US immigration authorities did not immediately respond to enquiries

KATE BUSH CLOUDBUSTING ABOUT WILHELM REICH

Official music video for the single "Cloudbusting" written, produced and performed by the British singer Kate Bush. It was the second single released from her no.1 1985 album Hounds of Love. "Cloudbusting" peaked at no.20 in the UK Singles Chart.
The music video, directed by Julian Doyle, was conceived by Terry Gilliam and Kate Bush. The video features Canadian actor Donald Sutherland playing the role of Wilhelm Reich, and Bush playing the part of his young son, Peter. 

EYES WITHOUT A FACE BILLY IDOL EXTENDED

 TURN UP YOUR SPEAKERS 
THIS IS A PHENOMENALLY CLEAN RECORDING
YOU WILL HEAR IN REAL DOLBY STEREO 
YOUR SPEAKERS WILL THANK YOU FOR THE CLEANING 

Chileans Clash with Police in Latest Protests in Santiago (+Video)

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Police in Santiago fired tear gas and water cannons at protesters, who gathered in Italy Square on Friday for a demonstration against the government of Sebastian Pinera.

  • January, 25, 2020 - 12:03 
  • World 
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The rally came as a Chilean police officer appeared for the first time in court for firing a buckshot in the eye of a protester causing severe injury.
Chile has been rocked by nation-wide protests since October, which were triggered a now-withdrawn increase in subway fares. Social discontent has been fueled by frustration with President Sebastian Pinera's policies and growing inequality.
DON'T BELIEVE THE IRANIAN PRESS OK 
HOW'S ABOUT THE INDEPENDENT UK PRESS 
Beaten, mutilated and forced to undress: 
Inside Chile’s brutal police crackdown against protesters

Security forces have deliberately shot demonstrators in the eyes and forced those arrested to strip naked. 

Some of those affected tell Naomi Larsson

Demonstrators take cover as they clash with riot police during a protest against the government ( AFP/Getty )

Breathing air thick with teargas and smoke from makeshift barricades on Valparaiso’s street corners, Carla Casoni remembers feeling her skin and eyes burn with the chemical-infused water used as a common police tactic to disperse demonstrators.

“I lost vision temporarily so I was an easy target for the police,” she says. Casoni is one of nearly 30,000 people who have been detained, many arbitrarily, in more than two months of unrest that has swept across Chile.

Just days before Casoni’s detention in the port city on 22 October, Chile had imploded into a social uprising initially sparked by a student protest over metro fare hikes in Santiago. People across the country have since mobilised against economic and social inequality, engaging in mostly peaceful but sometimes violent protests.

Over the weeks, protests have been met with state repression. Soon after the unrest began, President Sebastian Pinera sent military to the streets and issued a curfew, declaring authorities “are at war”. In the following two months, security forces have been accused by rights groups of brutality and a series of human rights abuses, including torture and sexual violence.

Casoni tells The Independent she was beaten by Chile’s Carabineros, the militarised police force, during a protest in the port city. She was with demonstrators who had blocked Avenida Errazuriz, a main thoroughfare in Valparaiso, when a Carabinero pinned her to a tree and hit her legs and back with a baton. She claims she was hit again while she looked for her documents and ID card, and again on the way to the police vehicle.

She describes hours in detention at a local police station as being robbed of her dignity. She says she and other detainees were forced to undress as part of a rigorous search process that has been condemned by rights groups. Casoni had to strip twice, once at the police station, and again while being detained by the gendarmeria, Chile’s penitentiary unit, where she was forced to perform squats while naked in front of a group of other detainees and officials.

Riots flare across Chile as anti-government protests continue
Show all 45 MORE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE





The practice of forced nudity was banned during a revision of police protocols in March 2019, yet human rights organisations have filed hundreds of complaints of inhumane treatment since October. Records from the country’s National Human Rights Institute, reviewed by Human Rights Watch, show officers were more likely to force women and girls to strip than men.

“It’s a gross abuse of power,” she adds. “It’s very degrading. It’s important to underline that all women have been through this process of being ‘searched’ like this – pregnant women, older women.”

Casoni spent the night in a 2mX3m cell with 17 other women who had been arrested during the protests, one pregnant, and another who was over 60-years-old. They were not told the reason for their arrest and were denied their rights to a phone call. They were kept overnight without food or water.
Read more
 
Inside the women-led protest against sexual assault in Chile

Casoni says they were also denied medical help despite one woman experiencing a panic attack, and another having obvious external injuries including wounds on arms and legs that needed immediate medical attention.

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“Only later have I begun to feel the consequences of this experience,” she says. “I have anxiety, and a general feeling of insecurity and distrust.”

Her account exposes the cruel treatment and sexual violence many people have experienced at the hands of Chile’s police forces. “I’m only giving an account of this particular district, on one night of protest. This is happening everywhere, this abuse of power is systematic,” she says.

The National Human Rights Institute concluded in its annual report that the state’s response to the mass protests “produced, as a whole, the most serious and multiple violations of human rights committed since 1989”, referring to the 17-year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet that ended in 1990. The national police force has not been purged or reformed in the 30 years since.

It has presented 1,080 judicial actions against Chile’s security forces, including allegations of torture, rape, and homicide.

“This happened in democracy, in our democracy. How was it possible,” Sergio Micco, then director of the institute, said, referring to the human rights abuses and repressive measures taken by state forces.

The United Nations and NGOs including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have condemned the level of repression, calling for urgent police reform.
I want to say to the rest of the world, don’t abandon us. Don’t forget us. In Chile they are mutilating us Albano Toro Cardenas, medical worker

“During these two months the repression and the acts of the Carabineros has been a strategy to implement terror into the population,” says Claudio Nash, a professor at the University of Chile’s department of international law. “What they want is that the public don’t go out on the streets to protest, under the threat that if they do the consequences will be severe – you could be arbitrarily detained, beaten, possibly tortured.”

Teargas, water cannon and “non-lethal” firearms, including pellets or rubber bullets, are used as common practice to disperse protests, but rights groups say this is excessive use of force, especially on non-violent protesters.

Studies have found that the water used to disband protests contains pepper spray and caustic soda, while the supposed rubber bullets used by police were found to contain materials like lead, and just 20 per cent rubber.

Out on the streets, some 405 people are estimated to have suffered severe eye injuries from non-lethal firearms or teargas canisters.

The UN said the “alarmingly” high number of people with eye injuries suggests the weapons have been used “improperly and indiscriminately against international principles”. The victims say police shot directly at their faces.

Medical worker Albano Toro Cardenas, 40, was volunteering to help the wounded during a protest in Iquique in November.

Volunteers had set up a makeshift medical centre on a side street, treating people with multiple lesions from firearms. He remembers a chaotic day of protests, the air filled with teargas and the sounds of gunshots piercing the air.

Toro’s voice falters when he recalls the moment that changed his life forever.
Albano Toro Cardenas says he was shot in the eye by security forces (Naomi Larsson/The Independent)

He describes “a concerted effort by special forces” to disperse people from the streets at night. Toro was clearly identified as a medical worker and wore protective gear, but it proved to be in vain. During the crackdown on protests, he felt a sudden impact on his left eye.

“They shot at my face, shattering my cornea and destroying my eye. At this moment I’ve lost my vision completely and I’m not going to get it back,” he says, revealing his left eyeball that is bloodied and red. Toro can’t identify the officer who shot at him, but he believes being hit in the eye with a pellet was no accident.

“This has changed my life. I haven’t returned to normal life, I can’t leave my house. The headaches, the stress and trauma are severe,” he says.

“We’re in crisis. All of us are affected – poor people, workers, business people. I was protesting by helping the wounded, and this is what I have had to pay.”

Cristian Correa, a legal adviser for a commission in Chile responsible for identifying the disappeared during the dictatorship, says the level of police violence is “really worrisome”.

“When you read the type of abuses, its stuff that reminds me of the dictatorship. I don’t see much of a difference between those reports and the reports from the conduct of police during the dictatorship,” he adds.

The director of the Carabineros, Gen Mario Rozas, has said there are 856 internal investigations underway related to the reports.

Chile’s president, writing in The New York Times, has said: “During these difficult and violent times, as we fought to restore public order and security, our government took all necessary measures and precautions to ensure the utmost respect for the human rights of all our citizens.
Chile protesters fighting riot police with lasers

“There is evidence of abuses and excessive use of force, but we granted our autonomous National Human Rights Institute full access to perform its legal mandate in the protection of human rights.”

But as the days go on and parts of the country return to a sense of normality, the brutality seems to have become a part of life here.

In December, video footage shared on social media showed a 20-year-old man being rammed by police vehicles in Santiago. The officer driving the vehicle has been charged.

For the thousands who have faced repression first hand, the damage feels irreparable and the words of the state do little to help.

“I want to say to the rest of the world, don’t abandon us. Don’t forget us. In Chile they are mutilating us,” says Toro.



A demonstrator blows fire from his mouth as he clashes with riot police 
REUTERS
Observers compared the use of lasers to futuristic warfare or a dance club party
AFP via Getty Images
LIKE HONG KONG THE TRANSMISSION OF PROTEST TACTICS WENT WORLD WIDE
AS RAPIDLY AS A TWEET 
Demonstrators use laser beams during an anti-goverment protest in Santiago, Chile on 12 November.

REUTERS
A demonstrator throws stones
An anti-government demonstrator covers his mouth and nose during a protest with a sticker on his head that reads in Spanish: "Dignity,"
A demonstrator uses a tennis racket to throw a tear gas canister back at riot police
AFP via Getty Images
Demonstrators point green laser lights at riot police officers
Getty Images




Invasion Day protests held across nation and in London to challenge Australia Day date

Updated Sun at 6:16am
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VIDEO: Protest attendees talk about what January 26 means to them. (ABC News)
Rallies have been held across the country to oppose the celebration of Australia Day on January 26, which protesters say should be a day of mourning.

Key points:

  • Australia Day is considered a day of mourning by many Indigenous and non-Indigenous people
  • Demonstrators are calling for a rethink on how the day is celebrated
  • Protesters have gathered at a statue of Captain Cook in London
Invasion Day or Survival Day demonstrations have gained momentum in recent years and coincided with a push to move Australia Day to a date considered more inclusive.
January 26 marks the anniversary of the First Fleet's arrival in Port Jackson, New South Wales, which is regarded by many Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians as the beginning of colonial oppression.
Tens of thousands of people gathered for Invasion Day rallies in the nation's capital cities including Melbourne and Sydney, where demonstrators congregated in a packed Hyde Park.
Many protesters wearing T-shirts featuring the Aboriginal flag, and carrying signs and placards, began Saturday's rally by watching a traditional smoking ceremony.
Speakers made a plea to stop black deaths in custody and increase Aboriginal ownership of land.
A march was then led by Aboriginal families who had lost loved ones in custody, alongside rugby league star Latrell Mitchell.
Mitchell, who was last year subjected to racial abuse, performed a short traditional dance at the protest, with South Sydney Rabbitohs team mate Cody Walker.
Mitchell said he was attending the rally to show solidarity with the Aboriginal community.
"For my daughter growing up, I just want her to know she can be a proud Indigenous woman when she grows up," he said.
"I want her to know how much her dad is doing good."
He urged the non-Indigenous community to learn about Aboriginal culture and history.
"Survival Day it's a celebration of our survival, our people. Obviously it's good to see people getting amongst it," Mitchell said.
"There's a lot to come and a lot to learn for people who don't understand."
Bundjalung elder Gwen Williams-Heckling travelled for 10 hours from Casino in NSW's north to attend the rally.
"January 26 is a bad day, a hurtful day, but we come here for solidarity," she said.
"Together we draw strength and celebrate our continuing culture despite our dispossession.
"We need a new day because we can never celebrate the day of invasion."

Huge rallies in Melbourne and Brisbane urging social justice

Tens of thousands of people turned out at another protest in Melbourne, with crowds chanting: "Always was, always will be Aboriginal land".
The Abolish Australia Day gathering outside Parliament House was organised by the Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance.
The group called for an end to "systematic racism" and what it described as "racist and discriminatory" practices in law enforcement.
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Twitter: Joseph Dunstan tweet: Melbourne's Invasion Day rally march kicks off, heading down Bourke Street. @abcmelbourne
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It also demanded better protection of sacred cultural and environmental sites, which it said were being destroyed by mining companies.
In Brisbane's CBD protesters demonstrated in front of a statue of Queen Victoria before marching across the Victoria Bridge to Musgrave Park in West End.
Many children were present at the rally, and members of the crowd performed traditional dancing.
The demonstration was mostly peaceful, except for a minor scuffle in Queens Gardens in which a member of the crowd became angry and briefly took to the stage.
Police subdued the man and moved him on, before a succession of speakers continued the rally.
In regional Victoria, Ballarat held its first Survival Day smoking ceremony, with more than 1,000 people watching from the banks of Lake Wendouree at dawn.
Organiser Nikki Foy said she was spellbound as she watched droves of people arrive in the dark to the only early morning event of its kind outside metropolitan areas.
"I was expecting maybe 50 people … I'm absolutely overwhelmed by the attendance here," she said.
"It's a perfect start to what is a hard day, not only for the Aboriginal community but a lot of other people who have that understanding."
The council-backed event was hosted by the co-chair of Reconciliation Victoria, Ballarat-born Belinda Duarte, along with a number of long-time members of Ballarat's Aboriginal community.
A minute's silence was held as part of the ceremony, and some in the crowd openly wept as speakers addressed the history of colonial dispossession and read out the dates and locations of 19th century massacres.

London demonstrators gather at Captain Cook statue

This year, the protests have again gone global, with a group in London gathering at the statue of Captain Cook at The Mall, holding placards with such words as "no pride in genocide" and "sovereignty never ceded".
The group, London Australia Solidarity, said it stood "with First Nations people".
"London is the seat of empire and represents the beginning of colonialism," the group tweeted.
In Canberra, about 500 people joined a Survival Day march from the CBD over Commonwealth Bridge to the lawns of Parliament House.
Justine Brown from the United Ngunnawal Youth Council addressed the crowd, acknowledging the resilience of Indigenous people.
"This is the year that we come together as Australia's first people and non-Indigenous people, as Australians, as we should be," she said.
"We need a day where we feel safe, where non-Indigenous people feel safe to celebrate a nation that's great."
Large crowds gathered for an event commemorating the history of Aboriginal peoples in Darwin today.
There were dances and a smoking ceremony for those in attendance.
Organiser Jessie Bonson said the event was more a reconciliation event, rather than a rally or protest.
"This event is mainly about bringing our community together to open up a bit more of a discussion, to listen to our traditional owners — the Larrakia people — about how we should move forward together as a nation," she said.
Larrakia traditional owner June Mills delivered the Welcome to Country.
She said many people were still dealing with the effects of colonisation.
"You're not sorry when you continue down the line that you've been doing for 230 years. You're not sorry, you're not fooling anybody," she told the crowd.
In Hobart, protesters marched along Elizabeth Street, headed for the Parliament House lawn.
Tasmanian Aboriginal elder Jim Everett said he felt Australia was still a colony, and said more non-Indigenous people needed to speak out.
"We can't just run campaigns ourselves and get knocked back. We need your voices to start coming out," he said.
"Today's a day that I could cry. It's terrible.
"When you hear about the atrocities against the Aboriginal people in Australia, and the fact that the successive governments have not moved towards healing these divisions …"
A more subdued Survival Day event was organised at the Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute in Adelaide's CBD.
Institute chief executive Dennis Stokes said while many might regard the event as an occasion for shame, it was not necessarily meant to be confrontational.
Mr Stokes said it was instead focused on cross-cultural understanding.
"We don't see it as a protest, we see it as an inclusive event for the whole community, not just the Indigenous community, and we want to highlight Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture," he said.
"We just show that we're here, we survived and our culture has survived as well.
"We want people to come down, especially non-Indigenous people, we want them to come down and have a look and see what we do."
Mr Stokes said Tandanya — which is described as Australia's oldest Aboriginal-owned and managed multi-arts centre — did not have a firm view on whether Australia Day should fall on another date.
"People have differences of opinion. Most people think that it's a day that should be changed but I think if we have a healthy debate about it we can figure out what to do," he said.