Egypt accused of 'greenwashing' rights record as it hosts U.N. climate conference

Hyder Abbasi - 

When world leaders, diplomats, campaigners and scientists from nearly 200 countries arrive for the United Nations climate change conference in Egypt Monday, their focus will be on curbing global warming.

But away from the five-star hotels and soft, sandy beaches in the Red Sea resort town where the huge conference is being held, rights groups and activists have accused Egypt of “greenwashing” — the act of claiming to be environmentally-friendly to enhance its reputation.

They have called for the world leaders attending the event, known as COP27, to confront the Egyptian government over its alleged human-rights abuses, particularly its treatment of political prisoners.
Hunger and water strike

Among the most prominent of those prisoners is Alaa Abdel-Fattah, a popular blogger, software developer and pro-democracy activist who rose to prominence during the popular uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

In 2019, he was jailed for “joining a terrorist group” and “spreading false news” to undermine national security.

Amnesty International called the charges “bogus” and said Fattah’s trial was “inherently unfair,” in an open letter to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi last November. It said that Fattah, 40, a British national, was being prosecuted because of his activism and social media posts highlighting human rights violations allegedly committed by the Egyptian government.

Fattah has been on a hunger strike for more than 200 days and escalated his protest on Sunday to stop drinking water, his family said.

“He is very frail. Just skin and bones,” his sister, Mona Seif, told NBC News Thursday.

Seif, 36, who with her sister, Sanaa, 28, began a sit-in outside Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in central London to highlight his case, said that her brother’s health was deteriorating rapidly, and the family was worried he could die in the coming weeks.

Amnesty’s head, Agnes Callamard, warned Sunday that Egypt had no more than 72 hours to save the jailed dissident's life.

“If they do not want to end up with a death they should have and could have prevented, they must act now,” Callamard said at a news briefing in the capital, Cairo.


Authors Join Sit-In For Jailed British-Egyptian Activist

 (Hollie Adams / Getty Images)© Hollie Adams

Several high-profile figures, including the actor Emma Thompson and Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, have supported the family's campaign, along with the Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, who joined their protest in London last month.

Thunberg said Sunday that she was boycotting the COP27 summit because of Egypt’s human rights record.

After speaking with the sisters on the phone, James Cleverly, Britain’s foreign minister, tweeted that the U.K. would “continue to work tirelessly for his release.”

But Seif said the U.K. government “didn’t seem to have an action plan,” and she was hoping COP27 — where Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrived early Monday — would be used to highlight the plight of political prisoners in Egypt.

Related video: COP27 begins in Egypt, UN climate chief urges nations to shift focus towards 'implementation' of goals

Duration 2:23

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“Regardless of how it ends, Alaa has already won this battle,” Seif said.

NBC News has emailed the Egyptian Ministry of Justice about the allegations made about the treatment of Alaa Abdel Fattah.

'Greenwashing' a government crackdown

Public protests have been effectively banned in Egypt, following a brutal clampdown on political dissent that began with the overthrow of Muslim Brotherhood leader and former president Mohammed Morsi in 2013, by el-Sisi, who was army chief at the time.

After he was elected president the following year, Sisi said these security measures were needed to stabilize his country, and a subsequent crackdown swept up liberal activists as well as Islamists.

Since then, little has changed, human rights groups say.

Environmental activists are among the tens of thousands of people, including political protesters and journalists, who have been languishing in Egyptian prisons for years, many without trial, according to Human Rights Watch, an international nongovernmental research and advocacy organization.

Basing his opinion on recent interviews conducted with people inside Egypt and other data, Richard Pearhouse, Human Rights Watch’s environment director, said by telephone Friday that the violent repression of civil society includes the “jailing and harassment of environmental activists and restrictions on groups researching the impact of climate change in the country."

“The Egyptian government has imposed arbitrary funding, research and registration obstacles that have debilitated local environmental groups, forcing some activists into exile and others to steer clear of important work,” he said.



COP27 (Peter Dejong / AP)© Peter Dejong

Ahead of COP27, Ahmad Abdullah, the co-founder of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, a Cairo-based nongovernmental organization, said research conducted by his organization’s data team showed at least 174 Egyptians had been arbitrarily arrested.

NBC News could not independently verify this number.

Abdullah added that Egyptian police had increased random stop and searches and had been inspecting the phones and social media activity of people on the streets of major cities.

That has led to the "greenwashing" accusations.

“They have two main objectives,” said Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa researcher Hussein Baoumi.

“The first is pushing their climate agenda, which I would say includes environmental damage and reparations. But on the other hand, they want to greenwash their image and show to the world that they’re not responsible for human rights abuses,” he added.

NBC News emailed the Egyptian Ministry of Environment for comment.

The accusations are echoed by Hossam Bahgat, the executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a Cairo-based human rights organization.

"My organization has been working in the field of environmental justice for 10 years now," Bahgat said Saturday.

"And like most other environmental groups, we have had to stop working with communities, to stop doing any organizing on the ground. Not just because it became too dangerous for our staff and members, but [because it became] even more dangerous for the members of the communities themselves," he said.

Bahgat said that on account of his activism, the Egyptian government has had him under a travel ban for the past seven years and frozen his bank account and assets since 2016.

NBC News has emailed the Egyptian Ministry of Environment for comment.

Linking climate protests to human rights, Abdullah, of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, said, “Without freedom of assembly and association, you cannot achieve climate justice. So human rights should be at the center of climate justice, especially in a country like Egypt.

“So, whether you’re an environmental group or a human rights group, you are not allowed to speak up freely for the issues you’re campaigning for,” he said.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Jailed Egypt dissident's death in 'no one's interest', sister says

AFP - TODAY


The possible death of jailed British-Egyptian dissident Alaa Abdel Fattah in prison is "in no one's interest", his sister Sanaa Seif said, nearly two days after he started refusing water.


Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi delivers a speech at the leaders summit of the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh© Hamad AL-KAABI

Following a seven-month hunger strike during which he only had 100 calories per day, Abdel Fattah stopped drinking water on Sunday to coincide with the opening of the United Nations COP27 climate summit in Egypt.


Protesters gathered near the British embassy in the Lebanese capital Beirut to demand Abdel Fattah's release© ANWAR AMRO

Widely considered Egypt's best-known dissident, he has been sentenced to five years in prison for "spreading false news", having already spent the better part of the past decade behind bars.

"We are talking about an innocent man who has unjustly spent nine years in prison," Seif said from the climate summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where she travelled to appeal to world leaders to press for his release.



Sanaa Seif, sister of imprisoned British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, travelled to the COP27 climate conference in Egypt's Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh to campaign for his release© JOSEPH EID

Seif, her sister Mona, her mother Laila Soueif and her aunt, celebrated novelist Adhaf Soueif, have campaigned worldwide for the release of the activist, who gained British citizenship through his UK-born mother in April.

"We need sensible people to intervene," Seif said in an interview with AFP. "I put my hopes in the British delegation because as his sister, I can't give up or tell myself that my brother will die."

She acknowledged the risk of travelling to Sharm el-Sheikh, with its heavy security restrictions, saying: "I admit, I was afraid to come."

"But it's our last resort," she said.

"I came so that Alaa wouldn't be forgotten. I want to remind both Egyptian and British officials that my presence means that someone is dying and that it's possible to save him."

Related video: Sister on Alaa Abd El-Fattah's hunger strike

Duration 1:20

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British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak raised Abdel Fattah's case in a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Monday, "stressing the UK Government's deep concern on this issue", a Downing Street spokesperson said.


Abdel Fattah -- a major figure in the 2011 revolt that toppled longtime president Hosni Mubarak -- is currently serving a five-year sentence for 'broadcasting false news' after having already spent much of the past decade behind bars© Khaled DESOUKI

Sunak said he "hoped to see this resolved as soon as possible and would continue to press for progress", the spokesperson said.

- 'Continue the fight' -

Amnesty International chief Agnes Callamard on Sunday warned that "there is not a lot of time -- 72 hours at best," referring to Abdel Fattah's possible remaining lifespan.

But Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry assured that the dissident "benefits from all necessary care in prison", in an interview with CNBC Monday.

Seif nonetheless warned that "the way his case is handled only accelerates the destabilisation of the regime".

She accused Egypt of using the COP27 summit to "erase its bad reputation in terms of human rights".

But despite clampdowns, Abdel Fattah's cause has been championed by activists, artists, rights defenders and politicians -- including the French president -- during the summit.

France's Emmanuel Macron on Monday said he received an assurance from Sisi that the Egyptian president was "committed to ensuring that (the) health of Alaa Abdel Fattah is preserved".

It came as concern continued to grow over his condition.

On Monday morning, "my mother went to wait outside the prison to check on him after 24 hours without water," Seif said.

By evening, she still had not received word from her son, nor had she been able to deliver the clothes and books she drops off to him every week.

"The ball is in the politicians' court, it is up to them to do their job," Seif continued.

"We continue the fight and we must not lose hope."

bur/jsa/pjm

Yeah, no, Reconstruction laws were actually race-conscious | Opinion

Opinion by AlterNet - Yesterday 
By Mia Brett

Image via Shutterstock.© provided by AlterNet

Conservatives are so obsessed with the concept of originalism they continue to twist history in order to pretend their nonsense legal agendas are in line with what the “founders” of the country or the Fourteenth Amendment actually wanted. The latest historical victim of ahistorical legal ramblings is the entirety of Reconstruction legislation in order to claim affirmative action is unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the latest attack on affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard during which attorney Cameron Norris, for Students for Fair Admissions, the group challenging Harvard’s policy, argued that the legislation passed following the Civil War to address the harms of slavery was not about race and that none of the legislation passed was race-conscious (as opposed to race-neutral). Buckle in for an angry history lesson to understand just how bizarre that claim truly is.

The Civil War was explicitly about slavery and the US had worked very hard to ensure slavery and Blackness had a strong correlation.

READ MORE: The GOP's 'Commitment to America' contains Confederate solutions to made-up problems

Legally, one could not be enslaved in the US if one was not of African descent. Indigenous people initially could be enslaved, but by the early 1800s, Native Americans were deemed legally free.

Even free Black people were often presumed to be enslaved if they could not prove they were free. Enslavement was not race-neutral. Legislation to address slavery was very much not race-neutral.

After the Civil War, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were passed not only to ensure the end of slavery but to move toward a racially integrated society with at least nominal guarantees of racial equality.

We have decades of jurisprudence showing the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment was specifically to address the racist harm of slavery, which I’ll get to in a minute.

READ MORE: Democracy without personal sovereignty is impossible

But the plain text of the Fifteenth Amendment addresses race explicitly by ensuring that no one’s vote shall be denied or abridged on “account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

While the language in the Fourteenth Amendment doesn’t mention race specifically, the earlier Civil Rights Act of 1866 does.

It states that all citizens should have the same rights as “enjoyed by white citizens.” Not only does such a statement clearly mention race, but it also acknowledges that race has been a determining factor in a hierarchy of access to citizenship rights until 1866.

The act excludes “Indians” from birthright citizenship, supposedly because they don’t pay taxes, but again, it includes racial distinctions.

Finally, the act specifies that everyone, “of every race and color,” born in the US, except “Indians,” has birthright citizenship.

The language seems pretty race-conscious to me.

Even Andrew Johnson said that he vetoed the act (Congress overrode his veto) because the protections in it supposedly “establish for the security of the colored race safeguards which go infinitely beyond any that the General Government has ever provided for the white race. In fact, the distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race.” (emphasis mine)

I think his claims that the act pits races against each other or provides special protection to Black people is nonsense. Point is, at the time no one thought this legislation was race-neutral.

In 1872, the purview and intent of the Fourteenth Amendment was tested in the Slaughterhouse Cases. In the Slaughterhouse Cases, butchers of New Orleans were mad at laws passed that created a monopoly on slaughterhouses in order to protect the water supply from contamination. Butchers of the city sued under the Fourteenth Amendment claiming that their civil rights were violated. The Supreme Court rejected this claim and in the majority opinion Justice Miller wrote that the Reconstruction Amendments were meant to protect the “the freedom of the slave race … and the protection of the newly made freeman and citizen from the oppressions of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over him.”

During oral arguments Cameron Norris, for Students for Fair Admissions, the group challenging Harvard’s policy, made the argument that Reconstruction legislation was meant to address harm based on status of former slaves – not based on race.

Not only is this argument historically incoherent as race and the status of slavery were deeply intertwined, but it ignores that Reconstruction legislation also addressed previous discrimination against free Black people.

Before the Civil War, plenty of free states had racially discriminatory laws that barred free Black people from voting, testifying in court against a white person or even having the freedom to exist without needing to constantly prove they were free.

Such discrimination was explicitly based on race, not slave status.

Norris also claimed the Fourteenth Amendment was originally intended as a ban on all racial classifications, somehow ignoring the legality of segregation and anti-miscegenation laws.

He does describe Plessy v. Ferguson as the Supreme Court “going off the rails,” but it’s not clear what he means by that.

He asserts that another case, Strauder v. West Virginia, banned all racial classification concerning jury selection, but he completely misstates the opinion. Strauder ruled that one could not be denied jury service based on race, but it argued that doing so would violate the rights of a possible Black defendant by denying him a jury of his peers – explicitly acknowledging the relevance of race.

Additionally, the court said that the purpose of the Equal Protection Clause was "to assure to the colored race the enjoyment of all the civil rights that under the law are enjoyed by white persons.”

Originalist arguments will always be silly to me, but if you’re going to apply them at least get the history right. Reconstruction legislation and subsequent case law are all race-conscious. They validate the acknowledgment of race when seeking remedy to racial harm.

READ MORE: Fox News hosts blubber over 'diabolical' Monticello exhibit about how Thomas Jefferson enslaved people

Why are Republicans telling voters they want to cut Social Security by a third?
Alicia H. Munnell - 


Why in the world would Republicans put out a plan to dramatically cut Social Security?

Related video: Here’s How Much Social Security’s Buying Power Has Plunged
Duration 1:35
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Even Donald Trump said he wouldn’t mess with the program’s benefits. Yet, the Republican Study Committee’s Blueprint to Save America, released in June, has a full section devoted to Social Security. I had never heard of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), but apparently the organization has served as the conservative caucus of House Republicans since its founding in 1973, and it currently consists of 158 of the 212 Republican House members.

Read: Yes, some Republican senators really are talking openly about Social Security cuts

If the Republicans take over the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy has not ruled out cutting Social Security. So, it’s worth taking a look at what a Republican plan might look like.

The proposal in the RSC document — Make Social Security Solvent Again — is based on a bill put forward in 2016 by Sam Johnson (R-Texas). That legislation would eliminate Social Security’s 75-year deficit solely by cutting benefits. According to scoring by the Social Security actuaries at the time, the Johnson plan would reduce Social Security costs at the end of the 75-year projection period by 31%.

This 31% cut is the result of three major changes:
Raising the Full Retirement Age—currently 67—to 69
Dramatically reducing benefits for above-average earners
Eliminating the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for individuals with income in excess of $85,000 ($170,000 for married couples) and using a chain-weighted inflation index for those below

Although the RSC takes a slightly different approach to raising the Full Retirement Age — linking it to increases in life expectancy — one would expect the overall impact on future workers to be roughly the same.

Read: Social Security COLA 2023 benefits are rising 8.7%—here’s what that means for recipients

The best way to gauge the impact of these three changes is to examine the ratio of proposed to current benefits at different points in the earnings scale. Because the impact of eliminating the COLA increases over the retirement span, it is helpful to look at individuals at age 85. As Figure 2 below indicates, low earners are basically held harmless, while medium-earner benefits are cut to 77% of those provided under current law, higher earners to 40%, and maximum earners to 34%.

At first glance, one might conclude that’s a fine outcome: cut the benefits of the well paid and preserve the benefits of the low paid. But look closely at the earnings associated with the categories of well paid. The medium worker, who sees benefits drop to 77% of current law, had career average earnings of $58,700 in 2021 and the “high” earner, who sees benefits drop to 40% of current law, earned $94,000.

These are not rich people.

Read: Social Security’s COLA is no bonus

Moreover, changes to Social Security need to be made in the context of the entire retirement income system. Many households are likely to retire with little other than Social Security benefits, since at any moment in time less than half the private sector workforce participates in an employer-sponsored retirement plan. And among those lucky enough to have a 401(k) plan, balances are modest. The 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances, the latest comprehensive data available, shows that median 401(k)/IRA holdings of working households with a 401(k) approaching retirement (ages 55-64) were $144,000.

Policy makers do need to address Social Security’s long-run deficit, but the fact that a majority of House Republicans may support a plan that cuts Social Security by a third should terrify voters. Why put out such a document?

LIAR
Rick Scott claims he doesn't 'know one Republican who wants to change' Social Security after Ron Johnson floated proposals to put the program's spending in flux


Katie Balevic
Sun, November 6, 2022 

NRSC chairman Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., introduces Senate candidate Herschel Walker at his campaign rally in Athens, Ga., on Saturday, November 5, 2022.Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Sen. Rick Scott said he doesn't know any Republicans who want to change Social Security or Medicare.

Some Republicans have suggested placing the two programs in the discretionary spending budget.

They have also suggested raising the age to collect Social Security and raising health insurance premiums for seniors.

Sen. Rick Scott said he doesn't "know one Republican who wants to change" Social Security and Medicare after his colleagues floated placing the two programs in the discretionary spending budget.

Democrats have honed in on the line about Social Security spending, using it to campaign against Republicans. On NBC News' "Meet the Press" on Sunday, host Chuck Todd asked Scott about his position on Social Security.

"Sunsetting the program every five years for renewal, why do that? Why put Social Security into the political arena every five years? Why put seniors through that?" Todd asked.

"I have no interest in changing the Medicare program. I want to make sure we preserve the benefits of Medicare and Social Security. I don't know one Republican who wants to change that," Scott, from Florida, replied, adding that both programs are "going bankrupt."


In August, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin suggested that Social Security and Medicare should be discretionary spending programs that are approved by Congress instead of federal entitlement programs (or mandatory spending), according to The Washington Post. A spokesperson from Johnson's office later told the Post that Johnson doesn't want to eliminate the programs but thinks they are "threatened" without the "fiscal discipline and oversight typically found with discretionary spending."

Top Republicans also suggested raising the age to collect Social Security from 67 to 70 years old and raising health insurance premiums for seniors, pitching the ideas as a way to combat high government spending, according to The New York Times.

Both President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama, among other top Democrats, have called out Republicans on the campaign trail for the suggested cuts and changes.

YOU GO INTO DEBT

How do I prepare for a recession if I'm struggling to pay for rent, food and utilities?

Provided by Dow Jones

Nov 7, 2022

By Emma Ockerman

If you're stressed about finances, you're not alone. But there are small ways even low- to moderate-income people can protect themselves

Low- to moderate-income Americans walloped by higher prices and economic insecurity may have darker days ahead. Many renters, especially those who are paying more than 30% of their income on rent, are understandably asking, "How do I prepare for a recession if I'm struggling to pay for rent, food and utilities?"

Economists and executives are predicting a recession within the next year -- if the U.S. isn't in one already -- as the Federal Reserve increases interest rates to pull back inflation. With both borrowing costs and the prices of consumer goods on the rise, job cuts and a drop in consumer spending could be on the horizon.

That might seem like a terrifying prospect for people struggling to cope with higher rents, increased food costs, and wages that can't keep up. Already, 65% of employed consumers were living paycheck to paycheck in September, up 5 percentage points from a year ago, according to research findings from LendingClub and PYMNTS.

"When things are not going well financially, it feels embarrassing and shameful," said Terri Friedline, an associate professor of social work at the University of Michigan. "Many, many people have financial difficulties, have struggled to pay their bills, or have over-drafted their accounts."

"Debt is a pretty common experience in the United States under capitalism," she added. "So hopefully there's a collective group of people that you can trust to feel like you're having a shared experience and that you don't have to go it alone."

The pandemic also offered lessons in the benefits of mutual aid and the safety net provided by one's community. Grassroots groups stepped up earlier in the pandemic to help communities of color in Chicago address food insecurity, fight evictions in New York City, and offer financial assistance in Philadelphia.

While some pandemic-era mutual-aid groups have wound down, it may be wise for people to try and look for help close to home -- even if just to feel less isolated.

It's not all doom and gloom, of course. Unemployment remains low -- 3.5% in September -- and President Joe Biden has said that if a recession occurs, he anticipates it will be "very slight." Still, the jury is out on whether an impending recession in the U.S. would prove to be short and mild or more severe

If things do take a turn for the worse, however, there are a few steps financially stressed people can take to save a bit more, get help, and avoid falling prey to the sorts of financial mistakes that could cost them for years.

People are struggling to pay for necessities, credit-card debt is rising, and consumers are dipping into their savings Gaining control over one's finances in such tight circumstances can feel impossible, but even the smallest steps can be worth taking, experts say.

Chip away at debt

Pay down debt wherever possible, according to Bruce McClary, a spokesperson for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, a nonprofit organization. Though consumers are increasing their reliance on credit cards right now to cope with higher prices, that kind of debt is also becoming more expensive: The average credit-card interest rate was at 18.9% last week, and is likely to grow further, according to Bankrate's CreditCards.com.

"Debt, especially high-interest-rate debt, becomes an even bigger issue when times get tough -- when your hours are reduced at work, when you're laid off, when there are other financial shocks experienced from a potential recession or some other economic setback," McClary said.

For people with multiple credit cards and stretched budgets, focus on the card with the highest interest rate -- information that can typically be found on a monthly bank statement.

Fine-tune your spending

Now is also a good time for consumers to start tracking their household spending, if they aren't doing so already, McClary said. That kind of awareness, while potentially daunting, allows people to react quickly to any changes in their income and consider where they can find savings. A person might subscribe to several streaming services like Netflix (NFLX), Apple TV+ (AAPL) or Disney Plus (DIS) that carry similar content, for example, or pay a monthly fee for something they're not using much anymore.

"It shouldn't be about self-deprivation," McClary said. "This is more about self-preservation. You can keep some fun things in your budget for mental health and well-being, and you should, but you can find opportunities to fine-tune some of that spending."

Curb impulse buys

With that said, people should still think hard about what's worth their money and try to limit opportunities for impulse shopping -- given that they're often being sold a product on TikTok or Instagram. A Bankrate survey from July pointed to the consequences of that: while nearly half of social-media users said they'd made an impulse purchase of a product they saw on a social-media platform, 64% said they wished they'd resisted at least one of those items.

Consumers may want to adopt a "cooling-off" period before they make a purchase to cut back on unnecessary spending, McClary said. Tools that make impulse purchases more attractive -- such as installment services like buy now, pay later -- should be approached with caution, or avoided altogether by people on tight budgets.

For shoppers who do most of their spending in cash, keeping track of spending is just as important, said Scott M. Kahan, president and senior financial planner at Financial Asset Management Corporation, a fee-only financial planning and investment management firm.

"If you're taking cash out of the ATM and using that money, more often than not people don't know where that cash is going," Kahan said. "We used to tell people -- and still do sometimes -- that when you spend a lot of cash, carry a little piece of paper or a little notebook with you and a pen, or do it on your cellphone."

"Just track where you're spending your cash," he added.

Build your emergency savings

Once someone has an idea of their spending habits and is working toward paying down their debts, they might also want to start stashing away a bit of money in the bank every month, even if it's small, to create an emergency fund. Generally, the recommendation is to build up three to six months of emergency expenses, but that's not realistic for some people.

"I usually say, 'Pick something that's really important to have to be able to make every month,'" said J. Michael Collins, a professor of personal finance in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Maybe that's your rent or your mortgage. Try to at least have that much saved, and keep it somewhere where it's safe but liquid, where you can get to it in an emergency if you need it."

People should also try to make sure that savings are in banks or institutions that don't have overdraft fees or other charges that could deplete their few assets, said Odette Williamson, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.

Talk to your landlord about rent

One really important reason to try and have money tucked away for housing: Rents have increased since last year, and by a significant amount in some markets.

Spending more than 50% of one's income on rent -- a reality for 24% of renter households that disproportionately affects families of color and low-income families -- is associated with higher eviction rates and increased financial precarity, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts

Once evicted, families might lose their possessions, face negative impacts on their mental health and job performance, and gain a black mark on their rental history that can make it more difficult to find housing, according to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University

Households struggling with housing payments should talk to their landlords about finding a compromise, if possible.

At the onset of the pandemic, the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center and Southeast Louisiana Legal Services created a script for tenants looking to start a dialogue with their landlord about rent specifically relating to the virus' economic impacts.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development recommended reaching out to landlords about financial troubles as soon as possible. Though the circumstances behind potential missed payments might have changed, the benefits of communication could still be there.

Low-income renters can also search for their nearest legal-aid office here if they have legal questions about an eviction case they're facing.

Avoid these traps

It pays to know what might be predatory or a waste of money. Scammers take advantage of struggling people in tough times, so consumers should be wary of spending money on services that they actually can access for little to no cost.

"There are companies out there that will charge you a fee and consolidate all your debt," Kahan said. "Many times, you can work with groups that will do this for free."

The Biden administration's federal student-loan forgiveness program, which may wipe out up to $10,000 of a borrower's debt if they made less than $125,000 a year in 2020 or 2021, or up to $20,000 if a borrower has received a Pell grant, also has a free online application.

The federal government has already warned of scams relating to this debt relief, but the Education Department only intends to contact people from email addresses including noreply@studentaid.gov, noreply@debtrelief.studentaid.gov, or ed.gov@public.govdelivery.com if it needs follow-up information to verify a borrower's eligibility or application.

Consumers should also be skeptical of services that promise to improve their financial wellbeing if they spend a bit of money -- specifically, credit-repair companies and debt-settlement companies -- and consider whether they're right for them, McClary said.

US consumers borrowed $25 billion more in September

Alicia Wallace - 

American consumers borrowed another $25 billion in September, according to newly released Federal Reserve data, as higher costs led to further dependence on credit cards and other loans.

Economists were anticipating monthly growth of $30 billion, according to Refinitiv consensus estimates.

The data isn’t adjusted for inflation.

Consumer borrowing in September increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.4%. Revolving debt, which includes credit cards, grew by 8.7%.

“In normal economic times, that would be a huge jump,” Matthew Schulz, chief credit analyst for LendingTree, wrote in a tweet. “However, it is actually the second-smallest increase in the past year.”

Nonrevolving credit, which includes auto loans and student loans, increased by 5.7%.

Decades-high inflation has weighed heavily on Americans, outpacing wage gains and forcing consumers to rely more heavily on credit cards and their savings.

In the second quarter of this year, credit card balances saw their largest year-over-year increases in more than two decades, according to separate data from the New York Federal Reserve. The third-quarter household debt and credit report is set to be released Nov. 15.

The personal savings rate, which is the percentage of disposable income allocated for saving, not spending, was 3.1% in September, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That’s the second-lowest rate in more than 14 years.

This story is developing and will be updated.

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U.N. hearings probing alleged Israeli rights abuses open in Geneva


The United Nations headquarters building is pictured though 

a window with the UN logo in the foreground in the Manhattan borough of New York

Mon, November 7, 2022 
By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) - A series of public hearings with victims of alleged Israeli human rights violations opened at the United Nations in Geneva on Monday, with Israel dismissing them as "sham trials".

The independent Commission of Inquiry, established by the U.N. top human rights body last year, plans five days of hearings which it says will be impartial and examine the allegations of both Israelis and Palestinian authorities.

However, Israel said the hearings were convened with little notice and pointed to an "anti-Israel" agenda.

"This (COI) and the convening of these sham trials shame and undermine the Human Rights Council," it said in a statement issued by its diplomatic mission in Geneva.

A U.N. human rights office has previously dismissed allegations of bias and said Israel had not cooperated with the commission's work.

The focus of the first set of hearings will be on the closure orders of a number of Palestinian organisations by Israel in August and the killing of the Palestinian-American reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in May.

The U.N. rights office has said its findings suggest that she was killed by Israeli forces while an Israeli investigation concluded she was likely to have been unintentionally shot by an Israeli soldier.

On the first day, three representatives from shuttered Palestinian non-governmental organisations will testify.

Neither the hearings nor the U.N. Human Rights Council have any legal powers. But investigations launched by the council are sometimes used as evidence before national or international courts.

Besides Israel, its ally the United States has criticised the U.N. Human Rights Council for what it has described as a "chronic bias" against Israel. It quit the body over this in 2018 and only fully rejoined this year.

The three-member COI was created after the 11-day conflict in May, 2021 during which 250 Gaza Palestinians and 13 people in Israel died. The inquiry mandate includes alleged human rights abuses before and after that and seeks to investigate the root causes of the tensions.

(Reporting by Emma Farge, editing by Ed Osmond)

Iowa teen who killed rapist 

escapes from probation center

Sun, November 6, 2022 

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa authorities say an 18-year-old sex trafficking victim who pleaded guilty to killing a man she said raped her escaped from a women's center where she was serving her probation sentence.

Pieper Lewis was seen walking out of the building at the Fresh Start Women's Center in Des Moines shortly after 6:15 a.m. Friday, and at some point that day her GPS monitor was cut off, according to a probation violation report.

A warrant was issued for Lewis' arrest and the probation report asked for her deferred judgment to be revoked and have her original sentence imposed, KCCI reported. She could face up to 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors had called the probation sentence she was given in September merciful for a teen who endured horrible abuse, although some questioned the $150,000 restitution she was ordered to pay. A GoFundMe campaign raised over $560,000 to cover the restitution and pay for her other needs.

Polk County Judge David Porter told Lewis that her probation sentence “was the second chance you asked for. You don’t get a third," the Des Moines Register reported.

If Lewis had successfully completed five years of closely supervised probation her prison sentence would have been expunged.

Lewis pleaded guilty last year to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury in the June 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks, a married father of two. Lewis was 15 when she stabbed Brooks more than 30 times in a Des Moines apartment.

Lewis has said that she was trafficked against her will to Brooks for sex multiple times and stabbed him in a fit of rage. Police and prosecutors did not dispute that Lewis was sexually assaulted and trafficked.

The Associated Press does not typically name victims of sexual assault, but Lewis agreed to have her name used previously in stories about her case.

Twitter shows supports for Pieper Lewis after Iowa teen escapes custody

Angel Saunders
Mon, November 7, 2022


As previously reported by REVOLT, in September, 17-year-old Pieper Lewis was sentenced to five years of probation for the June 2020 stabbing death of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks. An Iowa court found her guilty of willful injury and voluntary manslaughter after Brooks allegedly raped and forced her into human trafficking at the age of 15.

In addition to probation, Lewis was ordered to pay his family $150,000 in restitution. Yesterday (Nov. 6) morning, CNN learned the teen “walked away from the Fresh Start Women’s Center on Friday (Nov. 4) at 6:19 a.m. after cutting off her electronic monitoring tracking device.” The information came from Jerry Evans, the executive director of Iowa’s Fifth Judicial District Department of Corrections. The now 18-year-old’s case has been making headlines since her September sentencing.

“Kyle Rittenhouse took himself and his loaded gun to a protest and shot [three] people in cold blood, cried [self-defense and] was celebrated as a hero. Pieper Lewis, aged 15, [who] stabbed her rapist to death in [self-defense] is sentenced and ordered to pay 150k,” one person tweeted around the time of the September ruling. Since her escape over the weekend, Lewis has received thousands of messages of support on social media.

“Remember: If you see [Pieper] Lewis, no you didn’t. Godspeed,” one user tweeted. Another wrote, “I hope Pieper Lewis can stay low and never be found, but more so, I wish she could live and heal in peace and not be on the run.” Others discussed how the justice system failed her by ordering “a [sex assault] survivor to pay the family of the [person who] raped her.” A user added, “Anyone who arrests hero [Pieper] Lewis isn’t law enforcement, just a vile pig. Let her go. She’s the victim of sex trafficking and America’s unjust criminal legal system.”

Some noted that her actions could have stopped others from being harmed: “#PieperLewis [Pieper] Lewis is a HERO!!! F**k Brooks and his piece of s**t family. [Pieper] did the right thing and protected herself and other young women.” Many are hoping the Iowa teen has safe travels wherever it may be that she’s heading. “Prayers over [Pieper] Lewis. May she travel safely to a safer place. Ancestors, protect and guide her,” one supporter tweeted.

See related posts below.

Jackson, in dissent, issues first Supreme Court opinion

Mon, November 7, 2022 

WASHINGTON (AP) — New Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has issued her first Supreme Court opinion, a short dissent Monday in support of a death row inmate from Ohio.

Jackson wrote that she would have thrown out lower court rulings in the case of inmate Davel Chinn, whose lawyers argued that the state suppressed evidence that might have altered the outcome of his trial.

Jackson, in a two-page opinion, wrote that she would have ordered a new look at Chinn's case “because his life is on the line and given the substantial likelihood that the suppressed records would have changed the outcome at trial.”

 Members of the Supreme Court sit for a new group portrait following the addition of Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, at the Supreme Court building in Washington, Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. Bottom row, from left, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, and Justice Elena Kagan. Top row, from left, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Justice Neil Gorsuch, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

 (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

BIG BROTHER
UK government is scanning British internet space for zero-day threats



Carly Page
Mon, November 7, 2022 

The U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre has launched a new program that will continually scan every internet-connected device hosted in the United Kingdom for vulnerabilities to help the government respond to zero-day threats.

The NCSC, part of the Government Communications Headquarters that acts as the U.K.'s public-facing technical authority for cyber threats, says it launched the initiative to build a data-driven view of “the vulnerability and security of the U.K."

It’s similar to efforts by Norway’s National Security Authority, which last year saw the agency look for evidence of exploitation of Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities targeting internet users in the country. Slovenia’s cybersecurity response unit, known as SI-CERT, also said at the time that it was notifying potential victims of the Exchange zero-day bug in its internet space.

The NCSC's scanning activity will cover any internet-accessible system that is hosted within the U.K., the agency explains, and will hunt for vulnerabilities that are common or particularly important due to widespread impact.

The NCSC says it will use the data collected to create “an overview of the U.K.’s exposure to vulnerabilities following their disclosure and track their remediation over time." The agency also hopes the data will help to advise system owners about their security posture on a day-to-day basis and to help the U.K. respond faster to incidents, like zero-day vulnerabilities that are under active exploitation.

The agency explains that the information collected from these scans includes any data sent back when connecting to services and web servers, such as the full HTTP responses, along with information for each request and response, including the time and date of the request and the IP addresses of the source and destination endpoints.

It notes that requests are designed to collect the minimum amount of information required to check if the scanned asset is affected by a vulnerability. If any sensitive or personal data is inadvertently collected, the NCSC says it will "take steps to remove the data and prevent it from being captured again in the future."

The scans are performed using tools running from inside the NCSC's dedicated cloud-hosted environment, allowing network administrations to easily identify the agency in their logs. U.K.-based organizations can opt out of having their servers scanned by the government by emailing the NCSC a list of IP addresses they want excluded.

"We're not trying to find vulnerabilities in the U.K. for some other, nefarious purpose," explained Ian Levy, the NCSC's outgoing technical director, in a blog post. "We're beginning with simple scans, and will slowly increase the complexity of the scans, explaining what we're doing (and why we're doing it)."