OLYMPIC SUCCESSES
Cuban boxers set for professional comeback after 60 years

Vu(m) AFP|Update: 19.05.2022 

Cuban Olympic champion Julio Cesar La Cruz (L) shakes hands with Colombian boxer Deivis Casseres ahead of the island nation's first professional contest in decades / © AFP

Cuban boxers will compete in their nation's first professional contest in six decades on Friday, eager to draw on their Olympic success to stage a victorious comeback.

Four Olympic medalists, in a squad of six Cuban boxers, will make their professional debuts in Mexico on Friday, "for the first time in the history of boxing," event organizer Gerardo Saldivar said.

Cuba has long been a powerhouse of Olympic boxing, but participation in professional sport was barred by the late revolutionary leader Fidel Castro in 1962.

After decades of defections by boxers who fled overseas to pursue salaried careers, the communist nation's authorities in April finally opened up participation in professional boxing competitions.

Members of the "Los Domadores" national team will fight their first professional bouts in Mexico's central city of Aguascalientes under a deal between the Cuban Boxing Federation and the Golden Ring Promotions company.

"Let world boxing fans know that Cubans have the quality and pedigree to box in all kinds of fields," said two-time Olympic champion and team captain Julio Cesar La Cruz, 32.

- 'Let the whole world know' -

Also competing against opponents from Mexico and Colombia will be three-time world champion and Olympic medalist Lazaro Alvarez, along with two-time Olympic champions Roniel Iglesias and Arlen Lopez.

"I feel very proud and eager to make my professional debut," said Alvarez, who hopes for a "great show" on Friday.

Julio Cesar La Cruz, captain of Cuba's "Los Domadores" national boxing team, trains in Havana 

/ © AFP/File

"Let the whole world know and let all the boxers know that I'm looking forward to it and that I want to be great," added the 31-year-old, who will adopt the nickname "The Prince" for his professional debut.

The Cuban squad is rounded out by world champion Yoenlis Hernandez and super featherweight Osvel Caballero, who replaced Olympic gold medalist Andy Cruz at the last minute.

According to Cuban Boxing Federation President Alberto Puig, Cruz was excluded from the squad because he had neglected training.

Cuban boxers hold around 80 World and 41 Olympic titles.

Friday's contest comes as Cuba faces its worst economic crisis in nearly three decades, due to the coronavirus pandemic and biting US sanctions.

The Cuban Boxing Federation has said that fighters will be allowed to keep 80 percent of the salary owed to them for each fight.

"Many of us have families. I am a father of two... so it will help us to raise our socio-economic status and solve many problems," Lopez told AFP in Havana last month.

Cuba started a slow advance towards joining the professional realm when Los Domadores debuted at the World Series of Boxing (WSB) in 2014. The tournament allowed fighters to retain their amateur status.

The country won three of the five WSB tournaments in which it competed, including the last one in 2018.

She joined DHS to fight disinformation. She says she was halted by... disinformation

May 21, 2022
SHANNON BOND

NPR

Nina Jankowicz resigned as head of the Disinformation Governance Board at DHS after relentless attacks from conservatives. DHS has put the board on pause.

Three weeks: That's how long it took for the Department of Homeland Security to go from announcing a board intended to combat disinformation to suspending it.

In those three weeks, both the Disinformation Governance Board and its leader, Nina Jankowicz, came under relentless and sometimes vicious attack from right-wing media and Republican lawmakers.

POLITICS
DHS pauses a board created to combat disinformation amid a campaign to discredit it

DHS initially shared few details about the board's function and purview, leading to speculation and fears it would police online speech.

As the board's public face, Jankowicz became a lighting rod. A well-regarded authority in online disinformation, who has studied Russian information operations and advised governments including that of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, she was accused of being a Democratic hack.

Conservatives seized on her tweets and past public statements as evidence of her partisan bias. The attacks got personal: Jankowicz has been barraged with abuse, harassment and death threats.

It all culminated Wednesday in DHS's decision to put the board on pause for 75 days while the agency reviews its work addressing disinformation. The same day, Jankowicz quit.

Jankowicz spoke with NPR about the board's botched rollout, what she had hoped to accomplish, and the irony of an effort to combat disinformation being derailed by disinformation. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What was the purpose of the Disinformation Governance Board?

Basically, everything you may have heard about the Disinformation Governance Board is wrong or is just a flat out lie. The board was quite simple and anodyne. What it wanted to do was to coordinate among the Department of Homeland Security's components — agencies like FEMA or the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency or Customs and Border Patrol — and make sure that Americans had trustworthy information about issues connected to homeland security.

But we weren't going to be doing anything related to policing speech. It was an internal coordinating mechanism to make sure that we were doing that work efficiently, we were doing it to the best of our ability, and we were doing it in a way that respected privacy, civil rights, civil liberties and, most importantly, the First Amendment.

Can you give an example of the work the board was meant to do?

Let's say that there was a deepfake video about how to access disaster aid or how to get out of a city during a disaster released by a malign actor like Russia, China or Iran in order to put Americans in danger.

The board would support FEMA in getting good information out there. How do we want to reach this audience? What's the best way to do that? Let's look at best practices in resilience building or counter-messaging, to make sure that Americans are safe during this natural disaster.

Why was the board's purpose so poorly communicated?

I think DHS had other priorities at the time the rollout was happening. They didn't anticipate this fierce backlash and weren't able to mount a transparent, open, rapid response when these criticisms came down the pike.

I wish it went differently. And I definitely think that the information vacuum that we created allowed people to fill in the blanks. It frankly showed exactly how disinformation campaigns work.

You have not been shy about sharing your opinions on Twitter, on television. That's given your critics fodder to accuse you of being partisan. What's your response to those criticisms?

My response is that there are 250,000 employees at DHS. When I was at DHS along with them, I checked my politics at the door. So these deliberate misconstruals and stripping of nuance and context of my previous statements is nothing but a bad faith, childish distraction from real national security issues that has now hampered the department and the federal government's response to these issues.

That makes me extremely sad. These are serious issues that have deadly consequences as we're seeing in places like Ukraine right now. I have always said that disinformation is not a partisan issue. It is a small-d democratic issue. It knows no political party.

The term "disinformation" means one thing for people working in your field. It's also been used politically to dismiss ideas people disagree with. How would you address concerns that this work can be politically manipulated?

We're not just talking about speech that happens to be inconvenient for someone's political viewpoint. Disinformation is false or misleading information spread with malign intent. In this case, the intent would be to hurt or harm the American people. That's the type of stuff that we were looking at: where disinformation had a nexus with offline action. So violence or making people unsafe in some way.

The idea is to help people understand how these techniques of manipulation look when they encounter them online. To help people recognize when they're being manipulated or when they're being scammed.

Why didn't DHS and you anticipate that this board, however it was intended, would get backlash?

We should have anticipated this response. I think that we absolutely should have done better in communicating it. I understand the American people's hesitance to get behind an initiative that sounds as scary as the name communicated.

I think there was a little bit of myopic thinking going on when the board was named, which was prior to my tenure at DHS. The thinking was, OK, it's going to govern the work that DHS is doing in that sphere – it's not going to govern the entire internet, right? And that should have been communicated more clearly as well.

I believe that I gave the department the best advice that they could have received. That advice was not always heeded.

And, frankly, it speaks to why efforts like the one I was supposed to lead are needed. I don't think governments are equipped to handle disinformation campaigns. I don't think governments are thinking very deeply about what to do when their employees are the subject of harassment and death threats and absolute mischaracterization of the work that they've done and committed their careers to.

Why did you choose to resign?

My decision to leave was in part because of hesitancies about whether the department is up to the task. And the uncertainty of the future of the board. I'm about to have a baby in two weeks and I really didn't want this rancor and partisanship and uncertainty to hang over what should be a very happy time for me and my family.

You wrote a book called How to Be a Woman Online about the harassment women, including yourself, face on the internet. Was what happened in the last three weeks different?

It was way more overwhelming and exhausting than anything I've experienced before. This was three weeks of a barrage of sexualized, gendered attacks. Attacks on my personal life, attacking my hobbies and my own personality.

NPR'S BOOK OF THE DAY
'How to Be a Woman Online' tackles online harassment against women

But the worst thing, especially as somebody who's about to become a mom, was these death threats. I think I had maybe one, two, or three days over the three weeks where I wasn't reporting one to DHS. It was about killing me and my family, taking away everything I held dear. Encouragement for me to commit suicide. Doxxing me and my family.

It should be said that the people who are spreading these childish characterizations of me and my work encourage this type of behavior online, whether or not they say those words themselves.

How has this experience changed the way you see the challenge of disinformation?

It's made me a lot less optimistic about the American response to disinformation.

This needs to be a wake-up call that things aren't getting better in this country by ignoring them. That our democratic discourse, the way it is so polarized and so, again, childish and not focused on the real threats, leaves us vulnerable to attacks from without and within. And our adversaries know that.

That's what I worry most about. I'm coming out of this experience pretty pessimistic. But I'm still committed to the work, because I don't want my son to grow up in a world where you can't tell truth from fiction and where you can't trust anything anybody says.

I'm going to keep working on it as long as I have the energy to.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Wells Fargo Advisors fined $7 million by U.S. SEC for anti-money laundering lapses

Michelle Price
Fri, May 20, 2022, 

FILE PHOTO: Signage is seen at the headquarters of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Washington, D.C., U.S.


By Michelle Price

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Securities and Exchange commission on Friday said Wells Fargo Advisors had agreed to pay $7 million to settle charges of anti-money laundering related violations.

The regulator said Wells Fargo Advisors failed to file at least 34 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) in a timely manner between April 2017 and October 2021.

"At Wells Fargo Advisors, we take regulatory responsibilities seriously," bank spokeswoman Shea Leordeanu said in an emailed statement. "This matter refers to legacy issues that impacted a transaction monitoring system and the issues were resolved promptly upon discovery."

The lapse arose because the broker failed to properly implement and test a new version of its internal anti-money laundering (AML) transaction monitoring and alert system adopted in January 2019, the SEC said. The system failed to reconcile the different country codes used to monitor foreign wire transfers.

As a result, Wells Fargo Advisors did not timely file at least 25 SARs related to suspicious transactions in its customers’ brokerage accounts involving wire transfers to or from foreign countries it determined to be a risk for laundering, terrorist financing, or other illegal money movements.

"When SEC registrants like Wells Fargo Advisors fail to comply with their AML obligations, they put the investing public at risk," said Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, adding that the SEC was sending a message to the rest of the industry that "AML obligations are sacrosanct."

(Reporting by Michelle Price; Additional reporting by Elizabeth Dilts Marshall; Editing by Chizu Nomiyiama and Mark Porter)

Extreme fire threats prompt US suspension of planned burns


Spring Wildfires - A firefighting crew arrives at the scene of a field on fire adjacent to the Amazon Distribution Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., on May 12, 2022. More than 5,000 firefighters are battling multiple wildland blazes in dry, windy weather across the Southwest. Evacuation orders remained in place Thursday, May 19, 2022, for residents near fires in Texas, Colorado and New Mexico. 

(Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette via AP, File)

SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Fri, May 20, 2022

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore cited extreme fire danger and unfavorable weather conditions Friday in announcing a suspension of all planned fire burning operations to clear brush and small trees on all national forest lands while his agency conducts a review of protocols and practices ahead of planned operations this fall.

His decision came as federal forecasters warned that expanding drought conditions coupled with hot and dry weather, extreme wind and unstable atmospheric conditions have led to explosive fire behavior in the southwestern U.S. The fires that are set on purpose are called prescribed burns or fires.

“Our primary goal in engaging prescribed fires and wildfires is to ensure the safety of the communities involved. Our employees who are engaging in prescribed fire operations are part of these communities across the nation,” Moore said in a statement.

He said they “deserve the very best tools and science supporting them as we continue to navigate toward reducing the risk of severe wildfires in the future.”

The U.S. Forest Service has faced heavy criticism for a prescribed fire in New Mexico that escaped its containment lines in April and joined with another blaze to form what is now the largest fire burning nationally.

Moore said that in 99.84% of cases, prescribed fires go as planned and are a valuable tool for reducing the threat of extreme fires by removing dead and down trees and other vegetation that serves as fuel in overgrown forests.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who praised the temporary suspension of intentionally set fires, said it's clear that well-managed prescribed burns can help reduce wildfire risks.

But "it is critical that federal agencies update and modernize these practices in response to a changing climate, as what used to be considered extreme conditions are now much more common,” she said in a statement.

“The situation unfolding in New Mexico right now demonstrates without a doubt the grave consequences of neglecting to do so," she said.

Wildfires have broken out this spring in multiple states in the western U.S., where climate change and an enduring drought are fanning the frequency and intensity of forest and grassland fires. The number of square miles burned so far this year is far above the 10-year national average.

Nationally, nearly 6,000 wildland firefighters were battling 16 uncontained large fires that had charred over a half-million acres (2,025 square kilometers) of dry forest and grassland, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

A California fire that started Friday in a building and spread to vegetation in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada about 80 miles (129 kilometers) north of Sacramento forced evacuations and closed a state highway.

In Texas, firefighters made progress against a wildfire near Abilene that destroyed at least 27 structures. Evacuations were lifted.

The biggest U.S. fire has blackened more than 474 square miles (1,228 square kilometers) of northern New Mexico's forested Rocky Mountain foothills. State officials expect the number of homes and other structures that have burned to rise to more than 1,000 as more assessments are done.

The winds on Friday prevented some aircraft from flying and dumping retardant and water, but ground crews managed to turn back flames and reinforce fire lines threatened by gusts exceeding 40 mph (64 kph).

“Crews did a really incredible job today,” said Jayson Coil, one of the fire operations chiefs.

And forecasters said cooler, moister conditions beginning Saturday should provide relief from the relentless winds and low humidity that have fueled the spring wildfires.
____

Associated Press writers Terry Wallace in Dallas and Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, contributed to this report

WHO IS GREENWASHING

HSBC banker's remarks on climate risk inconsistent with strategy, CEO says


HSBC CEO Noel Quinn attends COP26 in Glasgow

Sat, May 21, 2022

(Reuters) - HSBC Holdings CEO Noel Quinn says his bank will not be distracted from its ambition to lead the global economy in the transition to net zero, after a senior executive said central banks had exaggerated the financial risks of climate change.

In a LinkedIn post on Saturday, Quinn said the senior banker's remarks were "inconsistent with HSBC's strategy" and "do not reflect the views of the senior leadership of HSBC or HSBC Asset Management."

At a conference hosted by the Financial Times on Thursday, HSBC's head of responsible investing Stuart Kirk said central bank policymakers and other global authorities were overplaying the financial risks of climate change, in comments that drew criticism from climate activists.

Quinn reiterated HSBC's commitment to a net zero future and his post was endorsed by several other HSBC staff including Nuno Matos, CEO for Wealth and Personal Banking, who said the transition to net zero was of "utmost importance" to the bank.

Kirk could not be immediately reached for comment.

(Reporting by Nishit Jogi in Bengaluru and Sinead Cruise in London; Editing by Pravin Char)

Thousands mark late Yugoslav leader Tito's birth anniversary


Supporters gather in front of a statue of the late Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito in the village of Kumrovec on Saturday (AFP/Denis LOVROVIC) (Denis LOVROVIC)

Sat, May 21, 2022


Josip Broz Tito
Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman (1892−1980)

Several thousand fans of former Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito marked the 130th anniversary of his birth on Saturday in the Croatian village where he was born.

Admirers of the late communist leader gathered in front of the house where he was born in 1892, now a museum in Kumrovec, northern Croatia

They had come from all over the former Yugoslav federation to celebrate Tito's achievements, notably leading the partisan fighters who drove out the Nazi German occupying forces in World War II, standing up to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and founding the Non-Aligned Movement.

"The reason (for gathering) is the remembrance, not only of the past, but of the time in which we lived both richer and safer," said Jovan Vejnovic, head of an association of Tito supporters.

Many of Tito's admirers waved former Yugoslavia flags and were dressed in T-shirts bearing the former leader's image.

Tito ruled Yugoslavia from the end of WWII until his death in 1980.

A decade later, the federation collapsed in a series of bloody wars that claimed more than 100,000 lives.

Under Tito's rule, Yugoslavia remained independent of the then Soviet Union and became one of the most prosperous communist nations.

Tito remains a controversial figure in the countries that emerged after Yugoslavia's collapse -- Bosnia and Herzegovnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia -- adored by some but considered a dictator by others.

ljv/pvh/har

'Grave evil': Pelosi denied Holy Communion by San Francisco archbishop for pushing abortion rights

Ledyard King, USA TODAY

Sat, May 21, 2022, 

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will no longer be able to receive communion in her hometown of San Francisco after the local archdiocese said her vow to make abortion legal crossed a line the Catholic church could not ignore.

In an announcement that he also tweeted out, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone notified Pelosi that her staunch support of abortion and her refusal to personally explain her position to him forced his hand.

"After numerous attempts to speak with Speaker Pelosi to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion," he said.

Abortion rights group have had a fundraising edge: The midterm elections will test if dollars can turn into votes.

More: Explosive leaked draft in abortion case reveals Supreme Court on verge of overturning Roe

Pelosi has been a vocal advocate of abortion rights for decades. But her decision in September to bring to the floor a bill making Roe v. Wade the law of the land following passage of a Texas law that effectively bans terminating pregnancies beyond six weeks proved a bridge too far for her local archdiocese.

Pelosi warns of an 'all out assault' on womens' rights after Roe vs Wade leak

"Every woman, everywhere has the constitutional right to basic health care," Pelosi said at the time of the House vote. The Texas law "is the most extreme, dangerous abortion ban in half a century, and its purpose is to destroy Roe v. Wade, and even refuses to make exceptions for cases of rape and incest. This ban necessitates codifying Roe v. Wade."

The Democratic-controlled House passed the measure 219-210 almost entirely along party lines.

More: Senate fails to make Roe v. Wade law of land amid expected Supreme Court opinion curbing abortion rights

The archbishop's decision comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the legality of abortion within the next few weeks. A leak of a draft opinion earlier this month indicated a majority of justices planned to overturn Roe v. Wade.

"His Holiness, Pope Francis, in keeping with his predecessors, has likewise been quite clear and emphatic in teaching on the dignity of human life in the womb," the archbishop wrote to Pelosi. "Please know that I stand ready to continue our conversation at any time, and will continue to offer up prayer and fasting for you,"

A request for comment from Pelosi's office was not immediately returned.

The archbishop's decision comes months after President Joe Biden, a Catholic who also supports abortion rights, said that Pope Francis told him during a private meeting at the Vatican that he should continue to receive communion.

Biden's comments at the time raised doubts about the future of a movement by some conservative bishops to punish politicians who support abortion rights.

Following a meeting at the Vatican in October, Biden told reporters that abortion, a subject on which he and the pope disagree, didn't come up during their nearly 90-minute meeting. Instead, Biden said, "We just talked about the fact he was happy that I was a good Catholic, and I should keep receiving communion."

Reaction from advocacy groups to the decision by the San Francisco archbishop was swift.

"For too long Catholic public officials have created confusion and disunity by advocating for policies that destroy innocent human life – in direct contradiction of the teachings of the Catholic faith," CatholicVote president Brian Burch said in a statement. "The persistent disobedience of these public officials is a source of enormous sadness and scandal that begged for a response."

“Speaker Pelosi is devoted to her Catholic faith, and it is not lost on me that, as a woman, she is being singled out in this continued battle," said Jamie L. Manson, president of Catholics for Choice. "It is one more step in a long line of attacks that the Church hierarchy has waged on women and their reproductive rights."

Contributing; Michael Collins

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Abortion rights: Nancy Pelosi no longer allowed Catholic communion

THE END OF GERONTOCRACY
Kill Japan's elderly? Cannes film probes chilling idea

'When I was young, a long life was considered to be a good thing,

 people had respect for older people. That's no longer the case,' says Chie 

(AFP/Julie SEBADELHA)

Jurgen Hecker
Sat, May 21, 2022, 

A Japanese film-maker is shaking Cannes film audiences to the core with a dystopian vision of her country in which old people agree to be euthanised to solve the challenge of a rapidly ageing population.

"Plan 75" by Japanese director and writer Chie Hayakawa is based on a very real problem.

Japan is the most rapidly-ageing industrial society, a trend that is causing huge economic and political problems as a dwindling number of younger people must support a growing army of the old.

Close to 30 percent of Japan's population is over 65, the majority women, and that rate is expected to continue rising in coming decades.

In the movie, anybody over 75 is encouraged to sign up for a deal with the government by which they receive a sum of money in return for agreeing to be euthanised. A collective funeral is thrown in for free.

Slick ad campaigns and calls from people with soothing voices are part of the effort to get people to sign up. Handsome advisors list the small pleasures candidates could afford with the money. "You'll be able to go to the restaurant," says one.

"On the face of it, the government's Plan 75 is full of goodwill and friendliness and pragmatism, but in truth it is both very cruel and shameful," Hayakawa told AFP in an interview.

"The ageing of the population is not a recent problem, I've always heard people discussing it," she said.

"When I was young, a long life was considered to be a good thing, people had respect for older people. That's no longer the case," the 45-year-old director added.

- 'Cold and cruel' -

"Plan 75", Hayakawa's first full-length feature film, is full of slow sequences with minimal camera movement.

"I wanted the images to be aesthetic and beautiful, as well as cold and cruel, just like the plan itself," she said.

Asked how close to today's Japanese reality her scenario is, Hayakawa quickly answered "eight out of 10".

She said she interviewed older people as part of her research for the movie, and discovered that many found merit with the idea of buying financial security with their willingness to end their life.

"It would alleviate the stress of wondering how they can survive once they are alone. Choosing the moment and the method of their death could be very reassuring," she said.

She said the approach would find support among the younger generations, too.

"If such a plan was on the table today, I believe that many people would accept it, even welcome it as a viable solution," she said.

"Most young people worry already what the end of their life will look like. Will their basic needs be met? Can they survive once they live alone? Can they afford to age?" she said.

Instead of blaming the government, Hayakawa said many young people were resentful of the old.

"They are frustrated and angry because they work hard to support the elderly, but they think that, when it's their turn, there may be nobody to support them," she said.

"What worries me a lot is that we're in a social reality that would very much favour such a radical solution," she said. "It's scary."

Hayakawa said her film did not presume to offer a solution to handling the age crisis. "But an honest assessment of where we are today would already be a key step," she said.

jh/er/ah/har

AMERICAN PROTESTANT COMPASSION
Court ruling leaves migrants in limbo at Mexican-US border




Like other shelters in Reynosa, Senda de Vida is overflowing with asylum seekers left in limbo by a US health rule imposed at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic

 (AFP/PEDRO PARDO)

Samir Tounsi
Sat, May 21, 2022

Asylum seekers in the dusty, violence-plagued Mexican border city of Reynosa were back to playing an uncertain waiting game Saturday, their dreams of entering the United States frustrated anew by a health rule imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"They say they're going to open the border today. Do you think that's true?" asked Michelle, a 26-year-old Haitian who had come to the pedestrian bridge crossing the Rio Grande hoping for good news.

She was left disappointed, however.

A federal judge ruled Friday that the rule known as Title 42 -- meant to stem the spread of Covid, it can effectively prevent anyone without a visa from entering the United States, even to claim asylum -- must remain in effect.

Using social media, migrants in Reynosa have followed the legal showdown between the White House, which wants to lift the rule, and Republican governors of more than 20 states, who argue that relaxing it would spur a huge and inadequately controlled influx of migrants.

On Friday, Judge Robert Summerhays issued an injunction siding with those Republican-led states in support of the rule, first imposed under President Donald Trump.

"The Plaintiff States contend that the Termination Order will result in a surge of border crossings, and that this surge will result in an increase in illegal immigrants residing in the states," the ruling said.

"The court finds that the plaintiff states have satisfied each of the requirements for a preliminary injunction."

The White House said it would abide by the ruling, but that the Department of Justice would appeal.

"The authority to set public health policy nationally should rest with the Centers for Disease Control, not with a single district court," a statement said.

- Uncertainty, confusion -

Reynosa, across the border from the Texan city of McAllen, lies in one of Mexico's most violent regions and has been shaken by turf wars between rival drug cartels in recent years.

Last year the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned that migrants deported to Reynosa under Title 42 were at risk of kidnapping and violence.

Those stranded in the Mexican city face a host of additional concerns, including housing, healthcare, food and their children's well-being.

Lifting Title 42 would have a sting in the tail. Migrants deported to Mexico under its terms can now try to enter the United States as many times as they want. But if deported to their home country, they would face another long and potentially dangerous journey back to the border.

"If they lift it (Title 42), the United States will deport more people. It's better for us that they extend it," said Sarah Jimenez, from the Dominican Republic, who is traveling with her Haitian husband.

"There's a lot of uncertainty and little official information," said Anayeli Flores, an aid worker with MSF. "People are confused.

Meantime, migrants keep flowing into Reynosa.

In early May, the authorities moved nearly 2,000 of them, including women and children, out of a square in the city center where they had camped for months.

Some sleep on the streets, while the more fortunate rent apartments for 1,500 to 2,000 pesos a month ($75 to $100).

"My wife wanted to go home. Not me, because as soon as you cross the river, it's glory -- the dream of many, not just me," said a Honduran migrant.

Pastor Hector Silva runs a shelter, but it is now out of room, and with migrants continuing to arrive, frustration levels are growing.

"You have to do your part, too," he told a group of migrants.

"You have to go find a job, you have to find a home for your wife, to protect your child from the sun."

st-dr/bbk

Algeria: ​​Authorities must end their assault on civic space and fundamental freedoms

Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
20 May 2022
Working Together

People hold signs with portraits of activists held in jail, during an anti-government demonstration, in Algiers, Algeria, 7 May 2021,

 RYAD KRAMDI/AFP via Getty Images

Rights groups launch an online campaign to draw attention to how authorities have increasingly attempted to stifle dissenting voices and independent civil society.

This statement was originally published on cihrs.org on 19 May 2022.

A year ago, Algerian authorities shut down the “Hirak” pro-democracy protests in most of the country. Since then, the number of unfounded terrorism prosecutions has soared, problematic amendments to the Penal Code were adopted, legal actions were initiated against civil society organisations and opposition political parties, and the crackdown on human rights defenders and the media has intensified, while authorities have continued to obstruct independent unions’ registration and activity.

#NotACrime is an online campaign aiming to draw attention to the ways in which Algerian authorities have increasingly attempted to stifle dissenting voices and independent civil society. Launched by 38 Algerian, regional and international organisations, the campaign will be conducted between 19-28 May on the organisations’ respective social media accounts.

The campaign calls on Algerian authorities to end their repression of human rights, immediately and unconditionally release those detained solely for the peaceful exercise of their human rights and allow everyone to freely enjoy their rights. Those suspected of responsibility for grave human rights violations should be brought to justice in fair trials, and the authorities should provide access to justice and effective remedies for victims. The campaign calls on all individuals, organisations and relevant parties to contribute in collectively demanding an end to the criminalisation of the exercise of fundamental freedoms in Algeria, using the #NotACrime hashtag.

At least 300 people have been arrested since the beginning of 2022 (as of 17 April) for exercising their right to free expression, peaceful assembly or association, according to Zaki Hannache, a human rights defender, though some have since been released. Arrests and sentencing of peaceful activists, independent trade unionists, journalists and human rights defenders have continued unabated, even after the protest movement was shut down. Algerians jailed for their speech have repeatedly carried out hunger strikes – El Hadi Lassouli since 3 May for instance – above all to protest their arbitrary imprisonment. According to the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LADDH), these figures underrepresent the reality because many cases are not communicated due to fear of reprisal.

The death in detention of Hakim Debbazi on 24 April, after he was placed in pretrial detention on 22 February for social media postings, shows what is at stake when people are detained simply for exercising their human rights.

While international scrutiny has remained scarce, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, in her update to the Human Rights Council on 8 March 2022 , expressed concern over “increasing restrictions on fundamental freedoms” in Algeria and called on the government “to change course.” Ahead of the examination of Algeria’s human rights record in November by the UN Human Rights Council, within the Universal Periodic Review process, the undersigned organisations express serious concern and hold Algerian authorities responsible for the dangerous backsliding in Algeria, notably in the rights to express one’s opinion, assemble and associate peacefully, and share and access information.

The campaign will extend until the anniversary of the death of Kamel Eddine Fekhar, a human rights defender who died in detention on 28 May 2019 after a 50-day hunger strike to protest his imprisonment for expressing views critical of the government. He had been charged with undermining state security and inciting racial hatred. On 11 December 2016, a British-Algerian journalist, Mohamed Tamalt, also died in custody following a hunger strike during his imprisonment for Facebook posts deemed offensive by the authorities. Algerian authorities have failed to adequately investigate both of their deaths.

Exercising the fundamental freedoms of peaceful assembly, association and expression, and defending human rights is #NotACrime.

Signatures:

Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT-France)
Action for Change and Democracy in Algeria (ACDA)
AfricanDefenders (Pan-African Human Rights Defenders Network)
Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LADDH)
Amnesty International
ARTICLE 19
Autonomous General Confederation of Workers in Algeria (CGATA, Algeria)
Autonomous National Union of Electricity and Gas Workers (SNATEG, Algeria)
Autonomous National Union of Public Administration Staff (SNAPAP, Algeria)
Burkinabè Coalition of Human Rights Defenders (CBDDH)
Burundian Coalition of Human Rights Defenders (CBDDH)
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME)
CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
Civil Rights Defenders (Sweden)
Collective Action-Detainees (Algeria)
Collective of the Families of the Disappeared in Algeria (CFDA)
Confederation of Trade Union Workers’ Commissions (CCOO, Spain)
DIGNITY – Danish Institute against Torture
Euro-Mediterranean Federation against Enforced Disappearances (FEMED)
Euromed Rights
Free Algeria
Front Line Defenders
General Confederation of Labour (CGT, France)
Human Rights League (LDH, France)
Human Rights Watch
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
International Labour Network of Solidarity and Struggles
International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF)
Ivorian Coalition of Human Rights Defenders (CIDDH)
Justitia Center for Legal Protection of Human Rights in Algeria
MENA Rights Group
Public Services International (PSI)
Riposte Internationale (Algeria)
Shoaa for Human Rights (Algeria)
Syndicate Union – Solidaires (France)
Tharwa N’Fadhma N’Soumer (Algeria)
Trade Union Confederation of Productive Forces (COSYFOP, Algeria)

Press Freedom and Civic Space

On this World Press Freedom Day, let’s think about our information climate, where the media fit in, and what this means for the rest of us. 

Journalists provide essential access to reliable, accessible, and accurate information that helps us all make the decisions that shape our lives – and the societies we live in. They also work to counter the scourge of disinformation that often escalates during times of crisis.

The media’s important work defending information integrity is often carried out alongside and with support from civil society organisations, and it is needed now more than ever to protect civic space from the escalating assaults on it. 

To protect civic space, we must demand press freedom.

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