Gaza war surgeon feels ‘criminalised’ after being denied entry to France

Geneva Abdul
Sun, 5 May 2024 

THE GUARDIAN


Ghassan Abu-Sitta, a Palestinian-British surgeon, was due to speak at the French senate about the Israel-Gaza war.Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP

A London surgeon who provided testimony on Israel’s war in Gaza after operating during the conflict has said he feels criminalised after being denied entry to France over the weekend.

Prof Ghassan Abu-Sitta, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon was due to speak about the war to the French parliament’s upper house on Saturday. However, after arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport north of Paris on a morning flight from London, he was informed by French authorities that Germany had enforced a Schengen-wide ban on his entry to Europe.

Abu-Sitta said he had no knowledge that German authorities, who had previously refused his entry to Berlin in April, had put an administrative visa ban on him for a year, meaning he was banned from entering any Schengen country.

“What I find most difficult to accept is this complete criminalisation,” Abu-Sitta said on Sunday, adding that he was previously told by authorities he would be unable to enter Germany for the month of April.

“I was put in a holding cell and marched in front of people at Charles de Gaulle with armed guards and then handed over to the staff in the plane, all so that I’m unable to give evidence,” he said.

Instead of taking part in a conference at the French senate to speak about Gaza, on invitation from Green party parliamentarians, Abu-Sitta was stripped of his possessions and taken to a holding cell. Before being deported to the UK, he was able to attend the conference via video on his lawyer’s phone from the detention centre.

“It was critical for me that we do this, that they’re unable to silence us,” said Abu-Sitta, who has worked in Gaza since 2009, as well as in wars in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

During October and November 2023, at the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza, which has since killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, Abu-Sitta operated from al-Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals. During his 43 days, he described witnessing a “massacre unfold” in Gaza and the use of white phosphorus munitions, which Israel has denied.

Abu-Sitta has since provided evidence to Scotland Yard and the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague. He intends to challenge his entry ban in the German courts and is considering going to the European court of human rights.

In April, Abu-Sitta travelled to Berlin to participate in the Palestine Congress forum, where he was denied entry by authorities because they “could not ensure the safety of attendees in the conference”, he said. The German federal police have been approached for comment.

His lawyer, Tayab Ali, said the German government issued the Schengen-wide ban without any consultation with Abu-Sitta, and without disclosing the information the ban is based on.

“It is clear to us that there is an organised attempt to discredit medical witnesses and in particular Prof Ghassan from providing details about the consequences of Israel’s military action in Gaza,” said Ali, who is also the director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP).

“The ban appears to be a cynical attempt to silence eyewitnesses giving testimony to parliamentarians and law enforcement agencies.”

The incident comes after diplomats from G7 nations urged officials at the ICC not to announce war crimes charges against Israel or Hamas officials, amid concerns that such a move could disrupt the chances of a breakthrough in ceasefire talks.

Germany, widely seen as the second largest arms exporter to Israel behind the US, is facing a domestic lawsuit over weapons sales to Israel. Last week, the international court of justice (ICJ) rejected a request by Nicaragua to issue Germany emergency orders to desist selling arms to Israel, but declined to throw out the case altogether.

“The only reason the Germans would want a European-wide ban is to stop me from getting to The Hague,” said Abu-Sitta.

“It communicates to me the complete complicity of the German government in the genocidal war.”

UK
Rail services will be 'severely impacted' by strikes


Alice Cunningham,BBC News, Essex

Greater AngliaGreater Anglia services will be impacted this week by strikes

Strikes will impact rail commuters in the East of England next week.

The Aslef union announced action from Tuesday through to Thursday impacting different rail operators, including Greater Anglia, each day.

An overtime ban was also called between Monday and Saturday.

Passengers have been advised to check before travelling and plan accordingly.

What is happening on Tuesday?

Greater Anglia said services would be "severely impacted" on Tuesday.

It planned to run a reduced train service on a small number of key routes into London across fewer hours.

The affected routes are:Norwich/Colchester and London Liverpool Street
Southend Victoria and London Liverpool Street
Stansted Airport and London Liverpool Street
Cambridge and London Liverpool Street

The operator added that most routes would have no services at all.

Other operators including c2c, Gatwick Express, Great Northern, Thameslink, Southeastern, Southern and South Western Railway including Island Line are also expected to be impacted on Tuesday.

What is happening on Wednesday and Thursday?

On Wednesday, Greater Anglia's first trains of the day on most routes will start at about 07:00 BST.

"Most of our train services will be running," a Greater Anglia spokesperson said.

"West Anglia services are expected to be extremely busy, passengers are advised to check before they travel and consider travelling at alternative times.

"Stansted Express will be operating a reduced service of two or three trains per hour."

Wednesday will see operators including Avanti, Chiltern, CrossCountry and others impacted by the strike.

Thursday will similarly see LNER, Northern and TransPennine disrupted.

Some engineering works on Saturday may also impact journeys on Greater Anglia routes.

Greater Anglia recommended making use of its journey planner before setting out.

UK

Reading Sikh street parade returns after five years

By Minreet Kaur and Marcus White,

BBC

Jasmeet Singh

The Nagar Kirtan parade has been staged in Reading since 2002

An annual Sikh street procession has been staged in a town for the first time in five years.

The Nagar Kirtan parade was held in Reading from 2002 until 2019 before stopping because of the Covid pandemic.

About 2,000 priests and worshippers joined the procession from Cumberland Road to London Road earlier.

The event celebrates the festival of Vaisakhi, which marks the founding of the Sikh community, the Khalsa, in 1699.

Jasmeet Singh

The event marks the important Sikh festival of Vaisakhi

The parade included prayers and the singing of hymns as well as flag-waving and martial arts displays.

Organiser Gurpal Singh said: "In British society Sikhs have been well integrated for many years.


"We have fought wars together and have seen good and bad times together. But still it's about educating people."

Avi Kaur Birdi, who attended, said: "With people leading busy lives it's not always easy to see the community, so coming to one place to mark a huge festival makes me feel really happy to be with my family and friends."
J

asmeet Singh

About 2,000 people joined the procession

UK

Labour’s youngest councillor, 18, wins seat a week before her A-level exams


The teenager ousted the sitting Tory councillor as she was elected to Peterborough City Council

Athena Stavrou

Daisy Blakemore-Creedon with Andrew Pakes, Labour’s candidate for Peterborough in the coming general election (Supplied)

One of the youngest councillors ever to be elected in the UK has won her seat just a week before she is due to take her A-level exams.

Daisy Blakemore-Creedon, 18, was elected to Peterborough City Council after beating the sitting Tory councillor Andy Coles in the Fletton & Woodston ward.

The Labour candidate said she was “overwhelmed” by the local support when she gained 940 votes to beat her opponent by 282 ballots

Just one day after her victory, she told The Independent that she had thrown herself into her new role and had already begun to carry out her new duties – despite having to sit exams next week.

“I wasn’t expecting to win as it was quite a short campaign, so I was feeling very overwhelmed when it happened,” she said. “My priorities as a councillor are supporting the community – especially those who are the most disadvantaged.”

Blakemore-Creedon’s campaign team with Labour candidate Andrew Pakes (Supplied)

At only 18-and-a-half years old, the teenager said she is the youngest sitting Labour councillor and perhaps the youngest across all parties. She hopes to inspire more young people to go into politics and urges them to strive for achievement.


Her political journey began when she was just 10 years old when she would attend protests with her family.

She then went on to join the Labour Party in 2020, aged just 14.

She told The Independent: “It wasn’t until last year that I decided that this is the right time. Austerity was on the rise, we were close to having a recession, and I thought I wanted to be part of this change.”

Speaking of when she decided to run as a candidate for councillor, she added: “People were very supportive – a lot of my friends said this is so good that you’re going into politics and following your dreams.”

Ms Blakemore-Creedon’s win was one of many for the Labour Party in this week’s local elections as the Conservatives faced shocking blows.


Rishi Sunak suffered terrible losses in council elections as the Conservatives lost more than 400 councillors and control of 10 councils.

Labour’s Sadiq Khan has secured a third term as mayor of London, beating Conservative Susan Hall on Saturday.

Mr Khan secured just over 1,088,000 votes to be re-elected as London mayor, a majority of some 275,000 over his Conservative rival Hall, who secured just under 813,000 votes

Anti-monarchists celebrate Republic Day for 1st time in UK

Republican groups call for 'better, fairer, and more equitable democracy'

Behlül Çetinkaya |06.05.2024

Anti-monarchists, holding banners, gather to stage a protest against the Royal Family and to demand the abolition of the monarchy on Commonwealth Day in front of the Westminster Abbey Church in London, United Kingdom on March 11, 2024.

LONDON

For the first time, anti-monarchists in the UK celebrated "Republic Day" on Sunday, the same day as King Charles' first coronation anniversary.​​​​​​​

Representatives of republican groups from Norway and the Netherlands also attended the Republic Day celebration held at Trafalgar Square in London.

The event was organized by anti-monarchist group Republic, whose members carried banners and signs saying "Not my king" and "Abolish the monarchy."

"You have public days every year, on this anniversary of the coronation, on this anniversary of Charles being anointed our head of state, refusing to stand for election and we will keep on going until the monarchy is abolished," Graham Smith, leader of Republic, said at the celebration.

Smith added the group wanted "better, fairer, and more equitable democracy."

Arguing that the members of Britain's Royal Family do not deserve the positions they hold, he said that when the royals leave, the country would elect parliamentarians and presidents its people could be proud of.

"We are responsible for those decisions because we might get it wrong. Yes, you might choose someone who is no good, but then we can choose someone else later," he added.

 CALLING BIBI'S BLUFF

The Big Story

Israel balks after Hamas agrees to cease-fire deal

Hamas says it has accepted an offer for a temporary cease-fire with Israel, as diplomatic negotiations intensify to free Israeli hostages held by Hamas and ward off an Israeli military operation on the southern Gazan city of Rafah.

© AP

Hamas’s head of political and international relations, Basem Naim, confirmed to The Hill that Hamas had communicated with Egyptian and Qatari mediators that it had accepted a cease-fire proposal.   The U.S., along with Egypt and Qatar, has engaged intensively for weeks on a truce proposal between Israel and Hamas.   Israel on Monday said it would send a delegation to engage in negotiations over efforts to secure a temporary cease-fire, but said “Hamas’s proposal is far from Israel’s necessary requirements,” according to a Hebrew-language statement from the prime minister’s office.   At the same time, the Israeli wartime Cabinet on Monday decided unanimously to continue military operations against Hamas targets in Rafah.   The Biden administration, which has sought to warn Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against launching an attack on Rafah, expressed caution over Hamas’s cease-fire response.    “We want to get these hostages out, we want to get a cease-fire for six weeks, we want to increase humanitarian assistance and the last thing I want to do is say anything at this podium that’s going to put that process at risk,” White House national security communications adviser John Kirby said at a press briefing Monday afternoon.   The administration says a temporary cease-fire is the best way to secure the release of Israeli hostages, and protect more than 1 million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah.   The broad contours of the deal is a six-to-eight week pause in fighting, in which Hamas would release Israeli hostages it has held since it kidnapped them from Israel on Oct. 7. The release of the hostages would occur in phases, with the most vulnerable of the 133 believed to be in Gaza released first.   Read the full report at TheHill.com.

Pro-Palestinian protesters try to disrupt Met Gala

BY MIRANDA NAZZARO - 05/06/24 - THE HILL

AP Photo/Andres Kudacki
Police arrest a pro-Palestinian protester during the Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Monday, May 6, 2024, in New York.


Pro-Palestinian demonstrations broke out near the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday night as celebrities gathered for the annual Met Gala event.

The New York Police Department confirmed multiple people were arrested in the protests, though did not specify a number. Footage on social media showed groups of people marching near the Met Gala, shouting “free Palestine” and banging drums.

In some videos, traffic on Park Avenue appeared at a standstill as protestors flooded the streets. Some protestors set off smoke bombs and flares

NBC News reported the protesters were rallying across the city in a “citywide day of rage,” marching from Hunter College and through Central Park to attempt to disrupt the fundraising event. The NYPD set up various blockades in the area surrounding the Met Gala to prevent protestors from getting close to the gala and instructed protestors to leave the roadways, NBC News added.

The demonstration comes as pro-Palestinian protests roil college campuses across the country, prompting the arrests of hundreds of students and faculty over the past three weeks. Demonstrators are calling for universities and the U.S. to sever ties with Israel over the country’s war with Hamas in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians since early October.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual Costume Insitute Benefit involves scores of high-profile stars who dress in adherence with a specific code. This year’s theme was “The Garden of Time,” in honor of the exhibit’s theme, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.”

Celebrities dawned flora and fauna looks on a green carpet Monday before they attended cocktails and dinner with the about 400 invited guests. Last year, the gala raised about $22 million for the Met’s Costume Insitute, according to the Associated Press.

Condé Nast reaches agreement with staffers, avoiding strike at Met Gala

BY MIRANDA NAZZARO - 05/06/24 

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Publishing company Condé Nast reached a last-minute agreement with staffers on Monday morning, averting a strike ahead of Monday night’s Met Gala in New York, according to union leaders.

“We are excited to announce that we have a tentative agreement with @condenast on our first contract,” the Condé union said in a statement on X. “Our pledge to do ‘whatever it takes’ ahead of the #metgala2024 moved the company and our progress at the bargaining table kicked into high gear.”


The union said it secured a $61,500 starting salary floor and total of $3.3 million in wage increases. The tentative agreement also includes expanded bereavement leave and two more weeks of family leave, bringing the total to 14.

The union represents more than 500 editorial, video, and production workers across all Condé Nast’s brands that haven’t already unionized, including publications it owns like Vogue, Bon Appétit, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest and GQ. The union was created in 2022 and has alleged the company provided low pay and shows a lack of diversity and equity.

It comes months after the media conglomerate announced late last year it will cut hundreds of jobs in the wake of recent digital advertising pressures and a decline in social media traffic across the industry.

For those laid off, the union said Monday’s contract includes eight weeks severance, three months of COBRA coverage, or continuation of health coverage. Or in lieu of COBRA, laid off employees will receive a onetime lump sum payment, or additional $1,000 payment.

Two days prior to the deal, the union demanded Condé Nast management meet the union “at the table,” or “we’ll meet you at the Met,” in reference to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual Costume Institute Benefit.

The media company is one of the top news outlets to cover the annual event, with a Condé Union bargaining committee member calling it “fashion’s big night” and likened it to the Super Bowl” in an interview with The Washington Post.


“Once the work stoppage entered the conversation, all of a sudden the company was like, ‘Okay, well we can give you a little more,’” bargaining committee member Alma Avalle told The Post.

The union has increased pressure on Condé Nast in recent months. In January, it staged a one-day walkout to coincide with the release of the Academy Award nominations, the Post reported, and in April, union members marched in front of the home of Condé global chief content officer Anna Wintour to post fliers reading, “Anna wears Prada, workers get nada.”

In a statement shared with The Hill, Stan Duncan, Condé Nast’s chief people officer, said the company is “pleased” at the tentative agreement.


“We are happy to have a contract that reflects and supports our core values – our content and journalism; our commitment to diversity and professional development; our industry-leading hiring practices; and our competitive wages and benefits,” he said. “We look forward to the ratification of the contract by its members.”

This story was updated at 10:53 p.m.TAGS

NATO NATION BUILDING 

Russia Is Profiting From an Oil Corruption Binge in Libya

May 5, 2024
Alia Brahimi


This month, the UN Special Envoy for Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily, resigned his position with visible frustration. Bathily was charged with delivering the troubled country to long-delayed elections, as it remains politically and militarily divided between east and west, but the peace talks were performative from the start.

Last week, Canadian police uncovered a conspiracy by two former UN employees in Montreal to sell Chinese drones to Libya, in direct violation of UN sanctions—and also to export millions of drums of Libyan crude oil to China at a heavily discounted price, in exchange for million-dollar kickbacks.

The reality is that a political agreement in Libya is so elusive because an economic bargain has already been struck. And Libya’s oil sector is central to the corruption binge.

For more than a decade now, and particularly in the last 18 months, political elites across the divide have worked together to carve up Libya’s institutions—and their budgets—between themselves, as well as all manner of black-market fiefdoms.

Bathily, a seasoned Senegalese diplomat, found that his Libyan interlocuters were not negotiating in good faith; but there was no rational incentive for them to change the current system or to help the United Nations turn off the taps to their patronage networks and private interests.

Meanwhile, Libyans themselves are experiencing a crippling economic crisis, despite living atop Africa’s largest oil reserves—and in the time of a relatively high global oil price.

In tandem, a geopolitical storm is gathering. Sources indicate that a significant number of new Russian fighters arrived this week in southern Libya—joining the 1800 already in-country—with some of them destined for Niger, and the remainder for Libya’s oil installations.

In addition, since last summer, the Kremlin has put plans in motion for a Russian naval base at Tobruk. On April 8, a vessel escorted by the Russian navy docked at the port and unloaded 6,000 tons of military hardware. But equipment has been coming in for weeks, from radars and communications tools to T-72 tanks.

The base will empower Russia to grow its supply operations—whether of fighters, weapons, food, fuel, dollars, gold, or ammunition—to and from allies on the African continent.

At Tobruk, Russian proxies will gain sway over traffic crossing the larger Mediterranean and expand the smuggling economy around migrants, drugs, and fuel as a source of funds and as pressure points against Europe. Russia will also be better positioned to watch us closely and, perhaps in the future, to use surrogates to disrupt shipping, in the manner of the Houthi in the Red Sea. Furthermore, Russia can mobilize the corruption multiplying within the Libyan oil sector to fund its operations.

It’s not just that its Libyan allies, the family of eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar, now have access to the budgets of National Oil Corporation (NOC) subsidiaries and control of the private banks that hold NOC money. It’s also about Russia getting its hands on cash and fuel. Russia is helping the Haftars to print counterfeit 50-dinar notes in large quantities, which the Wagner Group can convert into dollars on the Libyan black market to fund its activities in sub-Saharan Africa. Wagner Group fighters are personally involved in the super-charged fuel smuggling operation gripping Libya—Libya is actually a net importer of refined petroleum products because investments have not been made in local refineries—which is itself a multi-billion-dollar industry.

To illustrate, last year the Libyan National Oil Corporation spent $17 billion importing fuel—in 2021 that figure was only $5 billion. Availability on the domestic market in no way reflects that increased supply—there are still queues around the block for petrol—meaning that the fuel is being smuggled out of Libya systematically and at record rates. And much of that fuel is being bought in the first place from Russia, through upstart brokers registered in Dubai and Turkey.

Furthermore, despite an unprecedented budget of roughly $12 billion over two years, which exceeds even its funding during the Gaddafi era, there is little sign that the NOC is capable of ramping up production to help Europe cope with the fallout from Ukraine. Many Libyans, including the head of the Libyan Presidential Council, are now asking where all of these billions have gone.

This oil corruption is threatening to embroil global energy giants, engineering an element of Western complicity. Last November, the Libyan Attorney General paused the signing of major deal between the NOC and a foreign consortium, including Total and Eni, owing to doubts over the transparency of the tender process for the NC-7 block and the fairness of the terms.

Similarly, a Libyan oil minister—who was abruptly removed from his post last month—warned Halliburton against working with an obscure, newly-registered Libyan entity in its development of the Dahra fields, pointedly advising that this “may raise questions about the possibility of corruption in the oil sector”.

In Libya, economic forces are clearly (mis)shaping political outcomes. In the wake of Bathily’s resignation, disrupting this corruption must be the new paradigm for international engagement.

The Biden administration can take the lead in adopting a financial prism and promoting intensified economic scrutiny, targeted sanctions, improved coordination amongst Western powers—even naming and shaming—to help break established patterns of predatory behavior and therefore the political deadlock favored by the current political class.

For too long the foxes in Libya have paid themselves to guard the henhouse. While the Biden administration cannot force a political settlement on Libyans, it can work to dry up the money to the spoilers. This would energize the potential for a democratic transition in Libya, just as it would deny Russia further opportunities to profit from Libya’s oil chaos.

***

Alia Brahimi is a nonresident senior fellow within the Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council.

 

Cocoa Prices Are On a Wild Ride

Cocoa prices plunged almost 30% in the past week after a rally that pushed prices nearly 80% higher to start the year.Link

MAY 5, 2024

Michael Goodman

michael@thedailyupside.com

After the sugar rush comes the crash. 

Cocoa prices plunged almost 30% in the past week after a rally that pushed prices nearly 80% higher to start the year. And yet prices are still so elevated that chocolate-maker executives see the market as detached from reality. Or as Mondelez CEO Luca Zaramella poetically put it on a recent conference call: “The current market structure does not warrant the current market prices.” 

Hot Chocolate

As with any asset class that starts to look like a bubble, the initial runup seemed legitimate: As a recent JPMorgan report noted, climate change-induced drought has ravaged crops in West Africa, which supplies about 80% of the world’s cocoa. And then add to the mix that the crop is still mostly cultivated by small farmers without resources for proper reinvestment to boost yields. But the wild swing has more to do with who’s betting on prices:

• A JPMorgan commodities strategist noted in the report that non-commercial investors now hold more than 60% of total open interest across futures and options in the New York market, a historical high.
• The runup in prices meant that speculative commodities traders, including those hedging against physical holdings of cocoa, have either had to pay more to meet margin calls (an insurance policy to cover potential losses) or close out their positions. That’s led to a drop in the number of outstanding contracts, which has curbed liquidity in the market, exacerbating price moves beyond what’s explained by simple supply and demand.

Make The World Go Away: Big Chocolate had largely locked in cocoa bean prices before this year’s surge, since hedging the future is an essential part of their strategy. Most companies are now eyeing their plan for 2025, but even Mondelez’s Zaramella suggested that a fundamental correction in prices could be two years out. So go ahead and eat all the chocolate you can now — by next year, it’ll give your budget heartburn.

Patrick Kennedy’s new book tells personal stories of mental health in America

NPR

May 5, 2024
By —Ali Rogin
By —Kaisha Young


For former congressman Patrick J. Kennedy, advocating for mental health care is part of his family’s legacy. His uncle, President John F. Kennedy, signed the bill that established the nation’s community-based mental health care system. Ali Rogin sat down with Patrick Kennedy to discuss his new book, which details the mental health struggles and triumphs of everyday Americans.

Read the Full Transcript


Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

John Yang:

Former Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy, advocating for mental health care is part of his family's legacy. His uncle, President John F. Kennedy signed the bill that established the nation's community based mental health care system. Ali Rogin sat down with Patrick Kennedy to discuss his new book, which details the mental health struggles of everyday Americans.


Ali Rogin:

The U.S. has long been in a mental health crisis that experts say has only gotten worse in recent years. More than one in five adults deal with mental illness but there's still a stigma around openly talking about it.

Patrick J. Kennedy's new book, it's called "Profiles in Mental Health Courage." The title pays homage to his uncle's book which profiled American political leaders. This collection of profiles features the mental health journeys of people from around the country.

Patrick Kennedy, thank you for being here.

Patrick Kennedy, Author, "Profiles in Mental Health Courage": Good to be here.


Ali Rogin:

What made you want to write this book?


Patrick Kennedy:

Well, I remember when Simone Biles wasn't able to complete the Olympics competition and everybody was like, Why can't you get on that balance beam? And she said, I have to protect my mental health.

But really, we don't have a good understanding about what that means because we don't have anybody who tells their full story. I've told the story but frankly we all kind of whitewash it a little bit and make it pretty so that few people who are still in the middle of it don't see themselves reflected in any of the public narratives. Because let's be honest, these are messy, complex illnesses.

And we like finite, very linear descriptions. And for us as a nation, we know all the statistics are horrendous suicide going up, overdose going up. But what we don't have is a sense of what does this really mean like in real people's lives? How do they navigate trying to get insurance coverage? How do they navigate getting good coverage in terms of delivery of evidence based treatment, which many people don't receive?

And then how do they navigate personal relationships, because these are not illnesses in a vacuum. They involve the whole family. And often those stories get left out. We just hear from the first person narrative, this is what happened to me, as if their family was not part of it.

So, I interviewed the therapist, family members, friends, and it's interesting that that provides a much more realistic portrayal of what they're really going through, then the one we often like to tell.


Ali Rogin:

You address a lot of misconceptions in the book, what do you think are some of the biggest, most persistent misconceptions about mental health?


Patrick Kennedy:

Well, the beauty about these stories is that by the end of reading them, people will get a sense of the person and their illness. Part of the reason why people don't want to talk about these illnesses is they think it's such a reflection on their moral character, when in fact, when you read these, it's clear the illness has taken them hostage, that their behavior is a reflection of their brain illness.

And that's a piece that we really haven't fleshed out, because people still, you know, say that that's your moral failing that you've acted in such a way, when you read the stories, you get a very clear sense, well, no, this is this person. And then this is their illness, and those that are already in the middle that will feel less alone, because they'll read stories that they can identify with, we have a very diverse set of profiles, who also have a very diverse set of diagnoses.

But I think from all of it, you will see people need, you know, evidence based treatment for therapy, talk therapy, medicine, and social supports, housing, supportive employment. You can't just do one piece of this and expect the whole thing to work out.

Unfortunately, given our medical system and what we pay for, we often pay for just one leg of the stool, and no wonder it falls down. And no wonder we as a nation are wondering, we spend all this money on mental health. But what's it getting us? We're not paying for what we need to pay for. If we did, we would be getting results, not only because we would screen people earlier, which is what we do for cancer and cardiovascular disease and diabetes. We would be treating them earlier too, which would mean they'd have a better chance of recovering.

When people read these stories, they'll have the sense we need as a nation go further upstream, if we have a conversation earlier about this, because we're not so filled with shame, we're going to be able to help people earlier in the process of their suffering, because we're not going to say, oh, that's something I shouldn't talk about, because it's intruding on their personal territory, we'll have that conversation because we want to save each other's lives. And at the end of the day, more people end up surviving.


Ali Rogin:

One of the things you write about a lot in the book, in terms of your own story, and the others that you share is the connection between mental health and addiction. And so frequently, they're treated as two completely separate things. Why was that important to make that point throughout the book?


Patrick Kennedy:

Well, obviously, we've divvied up brain illnesses, as if they're all separate diagnoses when it's the brain, the brain, the brain. And obviously, you need to treat both kind of concurrently if you're going to get the best results.

And in the advocacy world, we need to stop the siloing. We all want the same things. And so we need to create a new political movement that's much more sophisticated and has the power that really the numbers reflect. We are the biggest special interest group or we could be if we were organized.

And as a former elected official, if I knew this many people in my district cared about this issue, which I can't get now there's no list serve, like there is for the environment, or for organized labor or any other issue. I can't know how many people in my district really will vote differently based upon whether I adhere to their stated set of priorities.

So in the back of this book, I add a QR code to our Alignment for Progress. The concept is we want to align the financial incentives so that we provide housing, supports, medication, talk therapy, and we get the best test results.

Our goal is 90 percent screened. 90 percent given evidence based treatment, and 90 percent having supportive recovery, that should be our goal as a country. Unfortunately, we don't have a vision that unites us. But we have to build on the stories in order to create that vision.


Ali Rogin:

Yeah. And these stories really illustrate that vision that you're talking about. Patrick Kennedy, author of the new book "Profiles in Mental Health Courage." Thank you so much for coming in.


Patrick Kennedy:

Thank you so much for having me.

How some colleges and students have reached agreements over pro-Palestinian protests

NPR

May 5, 2024

By —John Yang
By —Harry Zahn
By —Claire Mufson


The prevailing images of college protests over the Israel-Hamas war in the past few weeks have been of escalating tensions, clashes with police and mass arrests. But students and administrators at several schools from Rhode Island to California have found common ground during negotiations. Erin Gretzinger, a reporting fellow at The Chronicle of Higher Education, joins John Yang to discuss.

 Full Transcript


Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

John Yang:

The prevailing images of college protests over the Israel-Hamas war in the past few weeks have been of escalating tensions, students clashing with police and mass arrests. But students and administrators that at least six schools from Rhode Island to California have found common ground and negotiated agreements to close tent encampments.

Erin Gretzinger is a reporting Fellow at the Chronicle of Higher Education. Erin, what are these agreements look like? What of what of schools agreed to do?

Erin Gretzinger, Chronicle of Higher Education: Yeah, so at the schools who have made agreements, so far, we've seen distinct stipulations, but common themes and each of those agreements. At Northwestern, which made an agreement early last week, we saw several steps toward what students viewed in the groups there as moving toward their major demand of divestment.

So there we saw them make agreements to have a committee that will look at divestment, Northwestern agreed to disclose investments to all internal stakeholders, as well as some movement on agreements that have been in the works for longer for students who are Muslim, who are from the Middle East, and are of North African descent. So looking at students centers as well.

We've seen similar things in agreements at Brown, who will take a vote on divestment this fall. And overall, I think the main themes to take away here are that these encampments have been really central for administrators who wanted to focus on deescalating the situation, that's been the main mantra of these administrators. Students, on the other hand, have really looked at these as key first steps toward their broader demand of divestment.


John Yang:

I was going to ask that I mean, how meaningful are these are these concessions? Because they're not the vesting? They're going to talk about the vesting.


Erin Gretzinger:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think what a lot of higher ed onlookers have seen in these agreements is that these administrations appear to have taken student demands seriously, but have still fallen short on what other students see as the key purpose of these protests, which is divestment.

So there is some question I think some pro-Palestinian student demonstrators, and experts I've talked to as well, who studies student political activism, aren't quite sure how far these agreements will go if they go as far as some student protesters would hope.

There's questions of if this will ultimately result in divestment. And similar universities have taken actions before Brown and Northwestern have had similar reports and committees studying these issues, but nothing has moved in the past.


John Yang:

And have there been any criticism to the reactions to this from other student activists, and maybe donors and alumni of the of the schools.


Erin Gretzinger:

Yeah, so there's definitely been a sense that while some student groups who forged these agreements are declaring victory and at university administrators as well, some Jewish groups, local campus and national have criticized these agreements, particularly at Northwestern University, we saw some immense backlash there, with three major Jewish groups calling on the President there to resign, characterizing this as a betrayal to the students for failing to enforce their policies there. There's also been a federal discrimination lawsuit filed against Northwestern.

So you can see there's sort of the broad, broad spectrum of reactions here and really gets to the point I think of presidents being in hot water in this moment, and having to contend with many different stakeholders, sort of pulling everyone in different directions.


John Yang:

I mean, given that the administrators of hot water what was the motivation for the students to sort of bail them out to try to get an agreement?


Erin Gretzinger:

Yeah, it's an interesting question, because I've talked to experts who say, you know, students in this regard, have a really clear eyed goal of divestment. And that puts college administrators in a tricky place, because normally, they have a playbook to sort of go into negotiations with students, essentially, whether it's an identity based movement, they can turn to suit certain student affairs programs, or if it's a matter of student employee relations, they can go to the negotiating table surrounding unionization.

But here when they have such clear cut demands, like divestment, there's not a lot of room for compromise in the students eyes. And I think that's important to consider in these agreements, where so many students have not even chosen to come to the table, even when their administrators have asked them to.


John Yang:

You talked to going to the table at Pomona and Yale students that won't talk what are their motivations?


Erin Gretzinger:

Yes. So there's a sense that you know, some people have criticized these students that if you want to meet your meet your ultimate goal divestment, you have to come to the table and you have to negotiate. Other experts and students themselves have said, we don't want to stop short divestment until then there's no point in meeting right until these universities are at least this disclosing their investments, taking some action toward that they don't see a point in meeting and I think it gets at a broader tension as well.

Experts I've spoken to point out that this generation of student activists have grown up In an era full of social justice movements from Black Lives Matter in 2020, March for Our Lives, climate change, and they've sort of been instilled with a lack of trust in public officials that they see as motivating students to not necessarily come to the table to not be placated, as that's one of the major criticisms of some pro-Palestinian protesters in this moment that these agreements are placating students to basically step back take down these encampments before their ultimate goals are met.


John Yang:

In the schools who wanted to negotiate and reach these agreements. Are they in any way pressuring the schools that aren't doing that?


Erin Gretzinger:

It's a good question. I think it's hard to say how many schools will fall behind these other institutions, because different institutions in this moment are facing different kinds of pressures for private schools. You know, we have seen an immense amount of donor pressure building up since October 7.

I think public schools have a different sort of obligation there have a lot of eyes on them from their state legislatures. I think there's also different pressures when it comes to their strict — they have to strictly abide by First Amendment time place manner restrictions. And I think a universal pressure in this moment is that it's the end of the semester, and it's kind of a double edged sword in that sense. It's a really busy time. There's graduation finals, alumni events that may be pushing some schools to want to pursue action.


John Yang:

Erin Gretzinger of the Chronicle of Higher Education. Thank you very much.


Erin Gretzinger:

Thank you.

State police arrest 25 protestors at University of Virginia

BY FILIP TIMOTIJA - 05/04/24 11

AP Photo/Steve Helber
A statue of University of Virginia founder, Thomas Jefferson, stands watch over the Rotunda.


State police officers arrested around 25 pro-Palestine protestors at the University of Virginia (UVa.) on Saturday.

Saturday was the fifth day of the ongoing protests in Charlottesville, Va., where calls for the school to divest from Israel continued.

A group called UVA Encampment for Gaza called for the school to disclose all investments and refrain from using its endowment to invest in institutions connected to Israel.

Tents were set up on Friday, which, along with megaphone use, were in violation of the institution’s policy. They were not cleared on Friday since, according to the school, children were in the area, rain was pouring and the protestors were “peaceful.” They were then cleared on Saturday.

Police officers equipped with riot gear confronted the protestors Saturday afternoon.

Jim Ryan, UVA’s president, said the school supports free speech, but the institution has to enforce its policies to make sure expression does not “interfere with the rights of others.”

“Unfortunately, a small group today made a choice to willingly break the rules after being given many opportunities to comply, and they then refused to leave the site voluntarily,” Ryan said in a statement on Saturday.

Those who were arrested were taken to Albemarle County Regional Jail, according to multiple media reports.

The school said it is still waiting for an answer regarding how many protestors were affiliated with the institution.

Protesting students ‘confident’ blockade will force Trinity to cut Israeli ties

Pro-Palestinian activists have blocked off access to the historic Book of Kells at the Dublin university site.


VISITORS WERE UNABLE TO ACCESS THE HISTORIC BOOK OF KELLS OVER THE WEEKEND DUE TO THE ACTION THAT BEGAN AT THE DUBLIN UNIVERSITY ON FRIDAY (BRIAN LAWLESS/PA)

PA WIRE
DAVID YOUNG

1 DAY AGO

Students taking part in a pro-Palestinian encampment protest on the grounds of Trinity College in Dublin have voiced confidence the action will force the university to cut ties with Israel.

Visitors were unable to access the historic Book of Kells over the weekend due to the action that began on Friday evening when student activists set up tents inside the campus of the prestigious university.

The university authorities have cut off public access to the grounds in response to the protest.

The Book of Kells is blockaded, there's absolutely no tourism and we're staying there. So, I think this is putting a lot of student and staff pressure on (the university authorities)

OUTGOING STUDENTS’ UNION PRESIDENT LASZLO MOLNARFI

Outgoing students’ union president Laszlo Molnarfi said the size of the camp continued to grow, with around 100 people and 70 tents as of Sunday.

He said they were committed to maintaining the blockade of the Book of Kells until the university severed all ties with Israel.

“The Book of Kells is blockaded, there’s absolutely no tourism and we’re staying there,” he said.

“So, I think this is putting a lot of student and staff pressure on them (the university authorities).”

Mr Molnarfi said, as of Sunday afternoon, university officials had yet to reach out to those taking part in the protest since it began.


He said there was a lot of energy in the encampment.

“People are very confident,” he said.

“There is board games and guitar and political discussions and music and food.

“It’s a nice community that’s been built. So people are feeling very confident.”

The scenes at Trinity follow a wave of similar student protests at university campuses across the US.

The encampment was initiated days after it emerged that the university authorities had fined the students’ union more than 200,000 euro (£172,000) over previous protests on campus.

It invoiced the union for 214,285 euro (£184,000) after a series of demonstrations about fees and rent, as well as pro-Palestinian solidarity protests.

The university cited a loss of revenue due to blockades of the Book of Kells and famous Long Room library among the reasons for the fine.

Lawmakers Should Spend a Night in a Homeless Shelter

YOU MEAN THEY  DON'T?!

Maybe then they’d drop their opposition to even modest tax credits for low-income people like the ones I work with.

May 5, 2024 by Other Words 

 

By Tiffany Tagbo

If there’s one thing I could tell lawmakers, it would be to bring back the expanded, monthly, fully refundable Child Tax Credit.

Those monthly payments of up to $300 per child cut child poverty nearly in half in just a few months. And when the credit expired in late 2021, child poverty immediately shot back up. So we know it works.

Lawmakers are now considering a more modest expansion. It doesn’t go far enough, but it could lift another 400,000 kids out of poverty — children like the ones I worked with.

I grew up walking the fine line of having something and nothing all at the same time. I’ve experienced tumultuous times as an adult, and I’ve worked with people experiencing poverty and homelessness. I can tell lawmakers firsthand no matter which side of the coin families end up on, legislation and programs such as the Child Tax Credit, SNAP, WIC, and other safety net programs make a difference.

When I was growing up, my mother worked several minimum-wage jobs and relied on social programs to fill the gaps left by low wages. As a result, my siblings and I never had to sleep on the streets, go to school hungry, or wear tattered clothing like many children do.

With that help, I went on to graduate from the University of Central Oklahoma with a bachelor’s degree. Eventually, I became a Child Welfare Investigator at the Oklahoma Department of Human Services following up on claims of neglect and abuse.

While I saw some of both, many of these cases were simply the conditions of poverty. Many caseworkers had never experienced poverty and couldn’t make the distinction, but I could. Unfortunately, poverty landed many children in the child welfare system.

With decent pay and benefits, I was able to buy a house. But the work was soul-crushing and I eventually burned out.

You do everything right, and still — boom! You’re knocked right down. One day you are employed with a good salary and benefits, the next you are unemployed without the means to afford the basics, even with a college degree. Married, pregnant, and unable to find decent work, I relied on SNAP and Medicaid to get by — barely.

My job changed, but the clients I work with haven’t.

Poverty puts them in impossible situations. They must choose between food or shelter, medical care or poor health, running water or electricity. It’s a vicious cycle of suffering.

Without a fixed address or help navigating the system, families can’t always access assistance programs that would help them.

If y clients had the expanded monthly Child Tax Credit, many could have afforded housing, clothing, and food — and escaped the cruel cycle of poverty. In his recent budget proposal, President Biden called on Congress to restore the expanded, pandemic-era Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit that lifted tens of millions out of poverty in 2021.

A newer bipartisan tax proposal before the Senate would help. It would modestly expand the Child Tax Credit, lifting 400,000 kids out of poverty and helping 16 million overall.

The bill passed the House with an overwhelming bipartisan majority but has stalled in the Senate, where some senators are blocking it for political gain. Families deserve better. The time for delay is over. The Senate needs to vote.

I challenge lawmakers to live on the $6 a day that SNAP recipients do, or to come and spend just one night in a shelter. Once they experience these hardships, they’ll restore the expanded Child Tax Credit faster than they can say “expand it.” Perhaps this should be a requirement of the job.

We must make our voices heard and speak for those who are silenced and often left out of policy discussion. We must restore the Child Tax Credit expansion and ensure the thriving of all children.

How a Texas-based think tank upended Florida's homelessness strategy

Ryan Gillespie, Orlando Sentinel on May 5, 2024


The critical elements of Florida’s bold new statewide homelessness policy emerged from the written prescriptions of a Texas-based conservative think tank bent on thwarting the nation’s “homeless-industrial complex,” according to records obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.

Emails show the Cicero Institute offered Florida lawmakers a menu of reforms last summer, sending them to the staff of House Speaker Paul Renner in July. It then worked persistently to secure the passage of House Bill 1365, which banned public camping and sought to move unsheltered people from sidewalks to sanctioned, highly structured encampments.

So successful were the Institute’s efforts in the Sunshine State that when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill in March, Cicero’s co-founder, billionaire tech investor and GOP mega-donor Joe Lonsdale cheered it as setting an example for the rest of the country to follow.

“When we started working on homelessness, many people considered these ideas fringe. Activists have vociferously opposed us at every turn. It takes guts to stand up to the homeless-industrial complex,” Lonsdale wrote in a blog post. “This is the strongest set of homelessness reforms in the nation, and we were proud to work with Florida leaders to see them adopted.”

And Cicero has many ideas about how Florida – and other states – can go further.

Also included in the policy memo, which the Sentinel obtained among other documentation of Cicero’s efforts in a public records request, are reform proposals making it easier to involuntarily commit somebody to psychiatric treatment, banning local care organizations from pursuing so-called “Housing First” initiatives to address homelessness, and funneling money toward mental health and substance abuse treatment instead.

Advocacy groups and organizations on the ground fear these policies – and Florida’s new law – will make their work to treat and combat homelessness even more challenging. Since the law’s requirements for sanctioned encampments make those facilities difficult to fund, locate and operate, and shelters are full most every night, it’s likely to force law enforcement to arrest people who have nowhere else to go but the streets, they say.

“What I anticipate, though, is this becomes a checklist,” said Martha Are, the CEO of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida, assessing the influence of Cicero’s policy menu.

Cicero’s approach is not unique. Across the country, interest groups are pushing state legislatures to write their ideas into law, and some of the most successful have been conservative organizations working with GOP-led legislatures like Florida’s. The Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability, for example, has pushed labor law changes that critics say weaken protections for child workers, scoring a signal success last year in Arkansas.


Cicero has interests in other issues as well, but its main focus has been homelessness, a vexing issue that has increasingly preoccupied state and local governments in Florida and elsewhere.

In the Orlando area alone, homelessness has increased 75% over the past five years, which providers and advocates say is a reflection of the region’s soaring housing costs and shortage of affordable units.

In the same five-year time frame, rents increased nearly $600 per month.

Currently, the nation’s predominant strategy to combat homelessness is called Housing First, an approach to end a person’s homelessness as quickly as possible by placing a roof over their heads, often in a hotel or an available apartment. Then, the person receives other services such as mental health or substance abuse treatment, job training and other needs, in hopes they can sustain their new lifestyle.

“Housing First is treatment,” said Eric Gray, the CEO of the Christian Service Center, which operates Orlando’s day services center for the homeless said in an email. “Science shows us that trying to treat an individual for ANY medical condition is near impossible if they aren’t also in stable housing. Housing IS health care.”

Andrew Sullivan, a University of Central Florida researcher specializing in homelessness, said his research and that of others routinely reveals the merits of the strategy of providing housing, and that laws like Florida’s public camping ban don’t reduce homelessness.

Cicero disagrees, attributing homelessness to untreated mental illnesses. It’s trying to move states away from Housing First principles to its slate of alternatives, said Devon Kurtz, who wrote the memo to Renner and oversees the think tank’s homelessness policy.

“What Cicero cares about most is getting states engaged on this issue,” Kurtz said. “For the past three decades, it’s been ceded to the federal government through continuums of care.”

Along with its success on the camping ban, Cicero scored a little-noticed victory over Housing First in Florida by securing budget language that requires recipients of state challenge grants typically used to house people to instead “prioritize mental health and substance abuse treatment” as well as short-term shelters, sanctioned camping sites and safe parking sites.

That grant program accounted for $20 million last year, with the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida receiving about $900,000.

Cicero initially sought to outright ban use of the grants for any Housing First or permanent housing program, but state leaders held off on going that far.

Are said that rising homelessness numbers aren’t a reflection on the Housing First strategy, but instead a commentary on a tight housing market.

“To blame Housing First is kind of like blaming the emergency room for how many people came in with COVID during the peak of the COVID crisis,” Are said. “The emergency room was implementing the best interventions they could, but they could not control how many people were getting infected with the virus.”

So far, Cicero has helped get bills passed similar to Florida’s camping ban in Republican-led states including Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Kentucky. The group says that the steps Florida is taking on homelessness policy beyond its ban makes its approach the nation’s “strongest.”

In Florida, Lonsdale has donated at least $213,000 to politicians and politician committees over the past three years through his company Lonsdale Enterprises. That included $50,000 to a committee controlled by DeSantis, $10,000 to another controlled by Renner and $60,000 to the Republican Party of Florida.

A few weeks after the memo was sent to Renner, Lonsdale contributed more than $23,000 of food and drinks to the Republican Party of Florida. The emails show Renner met with Cicero representatives at a conference last summer in Utah. Lonsdale also hosted a fundraiser in support of DeSantis’ presidential bid.

While Cicero representatives never testified publicly about the camping ban bill, its lobbyist worked with lawmakers and staff on it prior to and during the three-month-long session, the records show. Legislative staffers solicited the group’s input.

For example, in October, months before the session began in January, a House staffer emailed one of Cicero’s lobbyists about the plan: “where is Cicero on the questions/follow up we discussed in our meeting on the homelessness proposals?”

Garrison, who carried the bill through the House, is slated to be a future House Speaker.

It’s unclear what level of interest Florida leaders have in Cicero’s other homeless policy proposals. Renner, Garrison and Daniel Perez, the incoming House speaker, didn’t respond to emailed questions and a request for an interview.


Kurtz wasn’t sure either, but was hopeful.

“We hope so,” he said of Florida implementing the remainder of Cicero’s package. “In future sessions, we do hope to work more on the mental health and substance abuse side.”

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