18th Annual CODEPINK Mother’s Day Bridge Walk for PEACE!
Sunday, May 12, Noon
11:45: Gather at the Welcome Center Plaza, on the East (Hill) side of the San Francisco end of bridge.
(IMPORTANT: Arrive 30-40 min. EARLY, as “The Authorities” purposely close nearby parking lots to discourage participation!)
NOON: March Begins
1:30 P.M.: Short Rally after the March on the bridge.
In light of U.S. complicity in the ongoing genocide and forced starvation of the people of Gaza, we will put Palestine front and center. With over 12 thousand children killed and tens of thousands of children hungry and near famine in Gaza alone, not to mention the urgent crisis for the children of Sudan, Ukraine, and Haiti, this is an urgent call for the global family to rise up for humanity.
· FOOD NOT BOMBS! DEMILITARIZE NOW!
· FOOD to GAZA, not Weapons to Israel.
· NO TAX $$ for GENOCIDE
· Not Another Nickel, Not Another Dime, No more Money for Israel’s Crimes.
· Diplomacy Not War!
Let’s again pay tribute to the original meaning of “Mother’s Day,” a global call to ABOLISH WAR:
We’ll read: Julia Ward Howe’s (1870) Mother’s Day Proclamation
Bring your mamas and grandmamas, sons, daughters, and grandchildren—the entire family, and friends too! War is not healthy for children and other living things!
Bring your Kaffiyeh’s, Palestinian Flags, and signs that speak for you.
(Note: Authorities may restrict you from taking flags on the bridge—wear it as a cape!)
Signs larger than 2x3 ft. may also be restricted.
Bring a simple treat to share to celebrate 18 years of CODEPINK bridge walks, and our Bay Area community’s commitment to peace and justice.
We’ll sing John Lennon’s Imagine, one of Bay Area Troubadour Francis Collin’s favorite songs!
Francis Collins Presente!
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Source: mondoweiss.net
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Boris Kagarlitsky is in Prison!
On February 13, the court overturned the previous decision on release and sent Boris Kagarlitsky to prison for five years.
Petition in Support of Boris Kagarlitsky
We, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison.
Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles.
The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested.
On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release.
The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison.
The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences.
There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering.
Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course.
We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally.
We also call on the authorities of the Russian Federation to reverse their growing repression of dissent and respect their citizens' freedom of speech and right to protest.
Sign to Demand the Release of Boris Kagarlitsky
https://freeboris.info
The petition is also available on Change.org
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*Major Announcement*
Claudia De la Cruz wins
Peace and Freedom Party primary in California!
We have an exciting announcement. The votes are still being counted in California, but the Claudia-Karina “Vote Socialist” campaign has achieved a clear and irreversible lead in the Peace and Freedom Party primary. Based on the current count, Claudia has 46% of the vote compared to 40% for Cornel West. A significant majority of PFP’s newly elected Central Committee, which will formally choose the nominee at its August convention, have also pledged their support to the Claudia-Karina campaign.
We are excited to campaign in California now and expect Claudia De la Cruz to be the candidate on the ballot of the Peace and Freedom Party in November.
We achieved another big accomplishment this week - we’re officially on the ballot in Hawai’i! This comes after also petitioning to successfully gain ballot access in Utah. We are already petitioning in many other states. Each of these achievements is powered by the tremendous effort of our volunteers and grassroots organizers across the country. When we’re organized, people power can move mountains!
We need your help to keep the momentum going. Building a campaign like this takes time, energy, and money. We know that our class enemies — the billionaires, bankers, and CEO’s — put huge sums toward loyal politicians and other henchmen who defend their interests. They will use all the money and power at their disposal to stop movements like ours. As an independent, socialist party, our campaign is relying on contributions from the working class and people like you.
We call on each and every one of our supporters to set up a monthly or one-time donation to support this campaign to help it keep growing and reaching more people. A new socialist movement, independent of the Democrats and Republicans, is being built but it will only happen when we all pitch in.
The Claudia-Karina campaign calls to end all U.S. aid to Israel. End this government’s endless wars. We want jobs for all, with union representation and wages that let us live with dignity. Housing, healthcare, and education for all - without the lifelong debt. End the ruthless attacks on women, Black people, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. These are just some of the demands that are resonating across the country. Help us take the next step:
Volunteer: https://votesocialist2024.com/volunteer
Donate: https://votesocialist2024.com/donate
See you in the streets,
Claudia & Karina
Don't Forget! Join our telegram channel for regular updates: https://t.me/+KtYBAKgX51JhNjMx
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We are all Palestinian
Listen and view this beautiful, powerful, song by Mistahi Corkill on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQwuhbLczgI
Greetings,
Here is my new song and music video, We are all Palestinian, linked below. If you find it inspiring, please feel free to share with others. All the best!
Mistahi
We are all Palestinian
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Labor for Palestine
Thousands of labor representatives marched Saturday, December 16, in Oakland, California. —Photo by Leon Kunstenaar
Video of December 16th Labor rally for Palestine.
Bay Area Unions and Workers Rally and March For Palestine In Oakland
https://youtu.be/L9k79honqIA
For More Information:
bayarealabor4palestine@gmail.com
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
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Just Like The Nazis Did
By David Rovics
After so many decades of patronage
By the world’s greatest empire
So many potential agreements
Were rejected by opening fire
After crushing so many uprisings
Now they’re making their ultimate bid
Pursuing their Final Solution
Just like the Nazis did
They forced refugees into ghettos
Then set the ghettos aflame
Murdering writers and poets
And so no one remember their names
Killing their entire families
The grandparents, women and kids
The uncles and cousins and babies
Just like the Nazis did
They’re bombing all means of sustaining
Human life at all
See the few shelters remaining
Watch as the tower blocks fall
They’re bombing museums and libraries
In order to get rid
Of any memory of the people who lived here
Just like the Nazis did
They’re saying these people are animals
And they should all end up dead
They’re sending soldiers into schools
And shooting children in the head
The rhetoric is identical
And with Gaza off the grid
They’ve already said what happens next
Just like the Nazis did
Words of war for domestic consumption
And lies for all the rest
To try to distract our attention
Among their enablers in the West
Because Israel needs their imports
To keep those pallets on the skids
They need fuel and they need missiles
Just like the Nazis did
They’re using food as a weapon
They’re using water that way, too
They’re trying to kill everyone in Gaza
Or make them flee, it’s true
As the pundits talk of “after the war”
Like with the Fall of Madrid
The victors are preparing for more
Just like the Nazis did
But it’s after the conquest’s complete
If history is any guide
When the occupying army
Is positioned to decide
When disease and famine kills
Whoever may have hid
Behind the ghetto walls
Just like the Nazis did
All around the world
People are trying to tell
There's a genocide unfolding
Ringing alarm bells
But with such a powerful axis
And so many lucrative bids
They know who wants their money
Just like the Nazis did
There's so many decades of patronage
For the world's greatest empire
So many potential agreements
Were rejected by opening fire
They're crushing so many uprisings
Now they're making their ultimate bid
Pursuing their final solution
Just like the Nazis did
Just like the Nazis did
Just like the Nazis did
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Free Julian Assange
Immediate Repeated Action Needed to Free Assange
Please call your Congressional Representatives, the White House, and the DOJ. Calls are tallied—they do count. We are to believe we are represented in this country. This is a political case, so our efforts can change things politically as well. Please take this action as often as you can:
Find your representatives:
https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
Leave each of your representatives a message individually to:
· Drop the charges against Julian Assange
· Speak out publicly against the indictment and
· Sign on to Rashida Tlaib's letter to the DOJ to drop the charges:
202-224-3121—Capitol Main Switchboard
Leave a message on the White House comment line to
Demand Julian Assange be pardoned:
202-456-1111
Tuesday–Thursday, 11:00 A.M.–3:00 P.M. EST
Call the DOJ and demand they drop the charges against Julian Assange:
202-353-1555—DOJ Comment Line
202-514-2000 Main Switchboard
Sign the petition:
https://dontextraditeassange.com/petition/
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical Defense Fund, Official 2024
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Leonard Peltier Update - Not One More Year
Coleman 1 has gone on permanent lockdown.
The inmates are supposed to be allowed out two hours a day. I have not heard from Leonard since the 18th.
The last time I talked to Leonard, he asked where his supporters were. He asked me if anyone cared about these lockdowns.
Leonard lives in a filthy, cold cell 22 to 24 hours a day. He has not seen a dentist in ten years. I asked him, “On a scale of 1 to 10, is your pain level at 13?” He said, “Something like that.” Leonard is a relentless truth-teller. He does not like it when I say things that do not make sense mathematically.
That is why Leonard remains imprisoned. He will not lie. He will not beg, grovel, or denounce his beliefs.
Please raise your voice. Ask your representatives why they have abdicated their responsibility to oversee the Bureau of Prisons and ensure they adhere to Constitutional law.
Uhuru, The African People’s Socialist Party, has stepped up for Leonard. NOT ONE MORE YEAR.
Fight for Free Speech – YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM8GDeGv90E
Leonard should not have spent a day in prison. Click “LEARN” on our website to find out what really happened on that reservation:
www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org
Write to:
Leonard Peltier 89637-132
USP Coleman 1
P.O. Box 1033
Coleman, FL 33521
Note: Letters, address and return address must be in writing—no stickers—and on plain white paper.
Sign our petition urging President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier:
https://www.freeleonardpeltier.com/petition
Email: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Address: 116 W. Osborne Ave. Tampa, Florida 33603
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Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Mr. Kevin Cooper
C-65304. 4-EB-82
San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin, CA 94974
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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The writers' organization PEN America is circulating this petition on behalf of Jason Renard Walker, a Texas prisoner whose life is being threatened because of his exposés of the Texas prison system.
See his book, Reports from within the Belly of the Beast; available on Amazon at:
https://www.amazon.com/Reports-Within-Belly-Beast-Department-ebook/dp/B084656JDZ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/protect-whistleblowers-in-carceral-settings
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Daniel Hale UPDATE:
In February Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale was transferred from the oppressive maximum-security prison in Marion, Illinois to house confinement. We celebrate his release from Marion. He is laying low right now, recovering from nearly 3 years in prison. Thank goodness he is now being held under much more humane conditions and expected to complete his sentence in July of this year. www.StandWithDaniel Hale.org
More Info about Daniel:
“Drone Whistleblower Subjected To Harsh Confinement Finally Released From Prison”
https://thedissenter.org/drone-whistleblower-cmu-finally-released-from-prison/
“I was punished under the Espionage Act. Why wasn’t Joe Biden?” by Daniel Hale
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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1) Israeli Tanks Enter Rafah and Take Control of Border Crossing
By Isabel Kershner and Cassandra Vinograd, May 7, 2024
(Screenshot)
Israel’s military said on Tuesday that it had sent tanks into Rafah and established control over the Gaza side of the border crossing with Egypt in what it called a limited operation. The move halted the flow of aid into the enclave, drawing immediate condemnation from international officials.
The military said the incursion was aimed at destroying Hamas fighters and infrastructure in Rafah that were used in an attack that killed four Israeli soldiers over the weekend near the Kerem Shalom border crossing. It did not appear to be the long-promised full ground invasion of Rafah, which Israel’s allies have been working to avert by pushing for a cease-fire deal.
It came after a dizzying day that saw Israel’s order of people to evacuate parts of the city, a Hamas claims that it had accepted the terms of a cease-fire, followed by an announcement by Israel’s military that it was carrying out “targeted strikes” in eastern Rafah.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing pressure to agree to a cease-fire with Hamas that is backed by the United States and Arab nations and that would secure the release of hostages still held in Gaza. Analysts say Israel’s actions in Rafah could either ratchet up the pressure on Hamas to make a deal or sabotage the talks.
But the Israeli leader sounded defiant on Tuesday, saying that Hamas’s positive response to the cease-fire proposal the previous day “was meant to torpedo” troops’ entry into Rafah.
“That didn’t happen,” he said in a statement, adding that he had sent a “working-level” delegation back to Cairo to continue the talks while “in tandem, we continue waging the war on Hamas.”
The head of a hospital in Rafah said that 27 bodies and 150 wounded people had been brought to his facility since the start of the incursion, and humanitarian agencies said that no aid was passing through the Rafah crossing. United Nations officials said that Israeli troops had now “choked off” both the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings, the two main routes for getting aid into Gaza, and warned that the humanitarian crisis in the enclave would worsen.
Israel’s military declined to say how long it planned to stay in Rafah, calling Tuesday’s incursion “a very precise” counterterrorism operation. Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said that the operation there would continue until the last Hamas brigade in the city was destroyed “or until the return of the first hostage to Israel.”
Troops found three tunnel shafts in the area near the crossing, and about 20 militants were killed during the operation, the military said in a statement, without offering evidence. Israel has long viewed Gaza’s border with Egypt as a main route for smuggling arms into the coastal enclave.
Here’s what else to know:
An Israeli delegation of mid-ranking officials has arrived in Cairo to continue talks on a deal for a cease-fire and the release of hostages, an Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The key negotiators, such as the Mossad intelligence chief, did not attend, the official said.
Israel’s campaign has forced almost all of Gaza’s population to flee their homes. More than a million went to Rafah, where large numbers of people have been living in squalid tent camps. On Monday, Israel told more than 100,000 Gazans in eastern Rafah to flee ahead of airstrikes. It was not immediately clear how many were able to leave, and U.N. officials said Tuesday that the area Israel has designated as a safe zone was neither safe nor equipped to receive them.
International officials were quick to condemn the Rafah incursion. Egypt’s foreign ministry called it a “dangerous escalation” while Josep Borrell Fontelles, the top E.U. diplomat, said he feared it would cause “a lot of casualties.” Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, warned there was a risk of a “massacre,” writing on X that “instead of giving negotiations on hostage release & cease-fire a chance,” Israel’s government “occupied Rafah crossing & closed it to humanitarian aid to starved Gazans.”
Hamas’s armed wing claimed it had again fired on Israeli soldiers in the Kerem Shalom area of Israel near the border with Gaza on Tuesday morning. Israel’s military said that four mortar shells and two rockets had been launched toward Kerem Shalom from Rafah but no injuries or damage were reported. Hamas rockets killed four Israeli soldiers on Sunday in the area, which has a border crossing that has been a key conduit for aid to enter Gaza.
An invasion of Rafah has been a point of tension for Mr. Netanyahu and his closest international allies. The United States has warned him not to launch an invasion without a credible plan to protect Rafah’s population. President Biden spoke by phone with Mr. Netanyahu on Monday and again urged against an offensive.
Andrés R. Martínez, Vivian Yee and Adam Rasgon contributed reporting.
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2) An official warns of ‘staggeringly’ bad conditions in the so-called safe zones in Rafah.
By Nick Cumming-BruceReporting from Geneva, May 7, 2024
Displaced Palestinians flee Rafah, southern Gaza, on Tuesday. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The area Israel has designated as a safe zone for Gazans fleeing Rafah is neither safe nor equipped to receive them, United Nations and European officials said Tuesday, while warning that Israel’s order to evacuate parts of the city may amount to a war crime.
The Israeli military on Monday dropped leaflets in eastern Rafah that told people to move to what it called a humanitarian zone to the north. That area — which the military said had field hospitals, tents, and supplies — includes Al-Mawasi, a coastal section of Gaza it has advised people to go to for months.
Many Gazans began to leave, fearing that Israel was moving ahead with its long-planned invasion of Rafah. Israel carried out what it said were “targeted” airstrikes overnight and said Tuesday its forces were in control of the Rafah border crossing.
Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s top diplomat, said he feared the military moves would cause “a lot of casualties” and further displacement.
“There are 600,000 children in Gaza,” he told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday. “They will be pushed to so-called safe zones. There is no safe zones in Gaza.”
António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, echoed that point in his own remarks to reporters. “Countless more civilian casualties. Countless more families forced to flee yet again — with nowhere safe to go. Because there is no safe place in Gaza,” he said.
The area designated by Israel to receive people fleeing Rafah is a coastal strip of land at Al-Mawasi already occupied by a tent camp housing thousands of Palestinians. But even that area has not been truly safe. James Elder, a spokesman for Unicef, the U.N. children’s agency, cited the recent death in Al-Mawasi of a 7-year old Palestinian boy, who was shot in the head as he went out to get food for his family.
Rafah has approximately one toilet for every 850 people and one shower for every 3,500 people, Mr. Elder told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday. In the designated safe zones, he added, conditions were “staggeringly, much worse.”
The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, said in a statement that the Mawasi area was “already overstretched and devoid of vital services. It lacks the capacity to house the number of people currently seeking refuge in Rafah.”
Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office told a news briefing in Geneva that there were “strong indications” that the order to evacuate from eastern Rafah violated international humanitarian law. Her comments came a day after Volker Türk, the U.N. human rights chief, warned that forced displacement of civilians is a war crime.
Cassandra Vinograd contributed reporting.
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3) A doctor in Rafah says more than two dozen bodies were brought to his hospital.
By Liam Stack and Rawan Sheikh AhmadReporting from Jerusalem and Haifa, Israel, May 7, 2024
A Palestinian doctor at a medical center in Rafah said on Tuesday that 27 bodies had been brought there since the start of Israel’s incursion, in which ground troops entered the southeast corner of Gaza and took control of the Gazan side of a border crossing with Egypt.
Dr. Suhaib Hems, the head of Kuwait Hospital in Rafah, said that his facility had also received 150 injured people, many of whom suffered from shattered bones, serious head injuries or severe burns.
“The situation is catastrophic in every sense of the word,” Dr. Hems said.
The Israeli military said it had killed about 20 people in Rafah, describing the dead as Hamas fighters. It said that “ground troops are continuing to operate against Hamas terrorist operatives and infrastructure in the area of the Rafah crossing.” Israel has called the incursion into Rafah — where more than a million people have sought refuge from the war — a limited operation.
It was not clear whether there was an overlap in the number of dead, and the two claims could not be independently confirmed.
Dr. Hem said that his hospital lacked the capacity to properly treat the wounded because of a shortage of equipment and medical staff.
“If the situation persists, we are only days away from complete service shutdown,” he said. “The health care system has completely collapsed.”
Before the war, he said, about 270 people worked at Kuwait Hospital, but that number had dwindled to just a few dozen. He said the war had left him with a feeling of “helplessness and betrayal and a sense of despair.”
According to a statement from the Gazan health ministry on Tuesday, at least 54 people had been killed across the Gaza Strip in the previous 24 hours. It said dozens more were treated for injuries at medical facilities in the territory.
“A number of victims are still under rubble and on the streets and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them,” the ministry said. The circumstances of the deaths could not be confirmed independently.
Israeli forces seized control of the Rafah border crossing during the incursion and shut it down. Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian side of the crossing, said the closure had prevented 46 injured and sick people from leaving Gaza for treatment in Egypt.
The patients included people with breast cancer, lymphoma and other ailments, the health ministry said.
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4) Police Remove Encampment at University of Chicago
By Mitch Smith, Jamie Kelter Davis and Yan Zhuang, May 7, 2024
“The new arrests on Monday — including over 100 at universities in California — raised the total number of people detained on campuses to more than 2,500 at 50 schools since April 18, according to a New York Times tally.”
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/07/us/campus-protests
Police officers blocked protesters from returning to the University of Chicago’s quad, where an encampment created by pro-Palestinian protesters was dismantled on Tuesday morning. Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
Police officers removed the pro-Palestinian protest encampment at the University of Chicago early Tuesday, a move that was sure to be closely watched across higher education because the university has long considered itself a model for free expression on campus.
Galvanized by expectations of an Israeli military incursion into Gaza’s southern end, pro-Palestinian demonstrators escalated campus protests and urged supporters to rally on Tuesday across the United States, thwarting university officials’ hopes of minimizing disruptions ahead of commencement events.
Some protest organizers had singled out the threat of an imminent ground invasion on Monday, after Israel’s military dropped leaflets in Rafah, home to nearly a million displaced Gazans, ordering residents to evacuate. The Israeli military sent tanks into Rafah on Tuesday and took control of the Gaza side of the border crossing with Egypt.
In Chicago, shortly before 5 a.m. local time, the university’s police arrived in riot helmets and began clearing tents. Protesters appeared to leave peacefully, but several dozen gathered on a nearby walkway and chanted in front of a line of officers who blocked the quad where the camp had been.
Here’s what else to know:
At the Rhode Island School of Design, activists staged an “All Eyes on Rafah” rally and occupied the school’s main administrative building on Monday evening, adding to the short list of schools where protesters have taken over buildings. At the University of California, Los Angeles, the police arrested 44 demonstrators in a campus parking garage and charged them with conspiracy to attempt burglary, and protesters attempted a sit-in in response to the military assault on Rafah.
Protests are scheduled on Tuesday at campuses including the University of California, Berkeley; California State University, Los Angeles; and the University of Washington.
In Europe, the authorities have also been confronting pro-Palestinian protests and encampments, including in Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Dublin and at several universities in England.
Tensions were also rising at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after pro-Palestinian demonstrators resisted an order from the school to clear their encampment, leading to skirmishes between the protesters and the police on Monday.
The new arrests on Monday — including over 100 at universities in California — raised the total number of people detained on campuses to more than 2,500 at 50 schools since April 18, according to a New York Times tally.
Columbia University officials announced the cancellation of its main graduation ceremony, citing security as a main reason. Other schools across the country have adjusted their ceremonies or increased security.
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5) In Europe, the police are also arresting protesters and clearing encampments.
By Ali Watkins, May 7, 2024
In countries across Europe, students have staged their own pro-Palestinian sit-ins and protests on the lawns of their universities. And in several instances, the authorities are taking a similar approach to their U.S. counterparts: shutting them down.
At the University of Amsterdam on Tuesday, the police arrested about 125 students who had fortified their protest camp with wooden barricades. And in Berlin, the German police cleared a similar encampment at the city’s Free University, which included several hundred pro-Palestinian protesters. Both demonstrations had begun on Monday, days after mass arrests swept through protests at U.S. campuses.
In Amsterdam, university officials said the demonstration had begun peacefully, but devolved into “an unsafe and grim situation” overnight, when fireworks were launched, physical attacks took place and an Israeli flag was burned. The city’s public prosecutor and mayor made the decision to deploy the police, university executives said in a statement. “We deeply regret that it had to turn out this way,” they said.
Many demands coming out of European universities reflect common cause with protesting students in the United States. Among them: for universities to disclose their investment streams and divest from those that support Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Tent cities, similar to those in America, have appeared in Britain at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, where protesters have declared “liberated zones” on campus; demonstrations have also been held in Bristol, Leeds and Manchester. At France’s Sciences Po, one of the country’s most elite universities, students occupied a campus building last week and refused to leave. Dozens of them were removed by the police on Friday.
In Ireland, at Trinity College, Dublin, a student encampment prompted the university to close its popular exhibition on the Book of Kells, the medieval illuminated gospel manuscript that is one of the most famous works of its kind, on the eve of a busy tourist season. After talks with student protesters this week, Trinity officials said they would begin the process of divesting from certain companies that operate in the “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
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6) Biden Sees ‘Ferocious Surge of Antisemitism’ in U.S.
President Biden’s speech at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony came during weeks of protests on U.S. college campuses against Israel’s war in Gaza. He emphasized Americans’ responsibility to combat hatred of Jews, tying the vitriol to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.
By Erica L. Green and Michael D. ShearErica L. Green reported from Capitol Hill. Michael D. Shear reported from Washington, May 7, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/07/us/biden-holocaust
President Biden strongly condemned not only the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, but also the rhetoric that has swept across college campuses during protests in recent weeks. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
President Biden declared on Tuesday that hatred of Jews “continues to lie deep in the hearts of too many people,” saying there has been a “ferocious surge of antisemitism” in the United States following the attacks by Hamas that killed 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7.
Speaking at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Days of Remembrance, Mr. Biden demanded that Americans learn the lessons of what he called one of the “darkest chapters in human history” by opposing attacks on Jews.
“People are already forgetting, are already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror,” Mr. Biden said from Emancipation Hall on Capitol Hill. “It was Hamas that brutalized Israelis. It was Hamas that took and continues to hold hostages. I have not forgotten.”
Mr. Biden’s address came during weeks of protests on American college campuses against Israel’s war in Gaza, with students demanding that the Biden administration stop sending arms to Israel. In some cases, the demonstrations have included antisemitic rhetoric and harassment targeting Jewish students.
“I understand people have strong beliefs and deep convictions about the world and America,” the president said, referring to the protests. But he added “there is no place on any campus in America, any place in America, for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.”
He said destroying property does not constitute a peaceful protest.
“It’s against the law,” he said. “We’re a civil society. We uphold the rule of law, and no one should have to hide or be brave just to be themselves.”
The president vowed that his commitment to the security of Israel “and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad. Even when we disagree,” a reference to the arguments his administration has had with Israel’s right-wing government about the death of tens of thousands of people in Gaza.
But he focused most of his remarks on the responsibility that Americans have to push back against what he called an “ancient desire to wipe out the Jewish people off the face of the Earth.” He said that desire was the driving force behind the Oct. 7 attacks.
Here’s what else to know:
· The speech comes at a critical moment for Mr. Biden, who has struggled to balance his support for Israel’s war against Hamas with outrage over the toll it has taken on civilians in Gaza. Jewish groups have been pressuring the administration to take firmer actions to combat antisemitism.
· On Tuesday, the administration will release guidance from the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights to every school and college outlining examples of antisemitic discrimination, as well as other forms of hate, that could lead to investigations for violating the Civil Rights Act. The law prohibits discrimination based on race, color and national origin, and the department has interpreted it as extending to Jewish students. Since the Oct. 7 attack, the department has opened more than 100 investigations into complaints about antisemitism and other forms of discrimination.
· For months, Mr. Biden has faced fierce criticism over his support for Israel, even from within his own party. He has walked a tightrope in responding to the campus protests, denouncing violence and harassing behavior while also trying to acknowledge the anger over the conditions in Gaza. Health officials there say the death toll has surpassed 34,000 Palestinians, and humanitarian agencies warn that residents are on the brink of famine.
· Mr. Biden reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to “respect and protect a fundamental right to free speech, to debate and disagree, to protest peacefully." But he emphasized the need for those protests to remain free of violence. The protests have led to police raids and arrests on several campuses.
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7) Israel presses on with its operation near the Rafah crossing as Gazan officials warn of a rising death toll.
By Liam Stack and Abu Bakr Bashir, May 8, 2024
A destroyed building in Rafah on Wednesday. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Israel pushed on with its operation in the area of the Rafah border crossing on Wednesday as it continued to pound other parts of the Gaza Strip. Local health authorities warned of a “significant increase” in the death toll because of the intense Israeli bombardment.
Israel’s seizure of the crossing, Gaza’s only official portal to Egypt, has helped choke off aid, at least temporarily, and it remained closed for a second day. Humanitarian officials have warned that the closure was exacerbating the extreme hunger and health crisis in the enclave.
The Israeli military characterized the campaign around the crossing as a limited operation, and did not provide further details about what it called Wednesday “targeted raids.”
Hamas responded defiantly, vowing to combat any challenge to what it called “Palestinian-Egyptian sovereignty” at the crossing, though at least some residents of Rafah were not hearing exchanges of fire.
Israel’s air force said it had struck “over 100 terror targets” across the entire territory in the past 24 hours, including military structures and launching areas for rockets. The Gaza health ministry said Israeli bombardment since Tuesday had led to “a significant increase in the numbers of dead and wounded,” particularly in Rafah.
It did not provide specific numbers for those killed in Rafah, but said Israeli forces killed 55 people and injured 200 more across the entire territory in the preceding 24 hours.
“A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the streets, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them,” the ministry said in a statement.
The Israeli move into Rafah came the day after the military called on some 110,000 people to evacuate part of the city, which has become home to roughly a million people displaced from elsewhere in the enclave, mostly living in vast tent encampments. That order has led to the closure of some health facilities whose staff members fled, the health ministry said.
Scott Anderson, an official with UNRWA, the U.N. agency that assists Palestinian refugees, said no aid had entered the Gaza Strip since Israel’s seizure of the crossing.
“The Rafah crossing area has ongoing military operations — there have been continued bombardments in this area throughout the day,” he said in a statement posted online. “No fuel or aid has entered into Gaza Strip and this is disastrous for the humanitarian response.”
Majdi Ahmed, 31, spent Wednesday with eight people in a tent in the western part of Rafah, which was not included in Israel’s evacuation order this week.
Since Israel’s incursion began, Mr. Ahmed said, he and the others in the tent had been listening to explosions and watching bombs fall, including one that he said had struck Rafah’s municipal offices. But he said it did not sound like Hamas was putting up much of a fight.
“Everyone here can hear the strikes on Rafah,” said Mr. Ahmed, who worked as a taxi driver in Jabaliya in northern Gaza before war. “We don’t hear fire exchange though. It is more like a one-sided thing to me.”
He said that several families fleeing the eastern part of Rafah had sent up their tents since the day before, but some had also fled the area to seek safety elsewhere in Gaza, fearing that Israel would soon push into the rest of Rafah.
But Mr. Ahmed and his family stayed put.
That was, in part, because he had paid $7,500 to secure passage through the border crossing for his wife and child this week, and he wanted to see if that would still be possible with the crossing under Israeli control. But they also stayed because Mr. Ahmed said the idea of seeking safety somewhere else seemed pointless.
“I tend to believe this is a safe area,” he said. “Even though I know nowhere is safe.”
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8) ‘People are going to continue to die’: Israel’s operation in Rafah has left doctors scrambling.
By Anushka Patil and Iyad Abuheweila, My 8, 2024
What the Israeli military is calling a “limited operation” in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, has already had devastating consequences over the past two days for medical workers and patients across the enclave, doctors and humanitarian aid groups say.
The Israeli military’s orders telling roughly 110,000 people to leave eastern Rafah on Monday spread fear throughout Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital, which is within the area where Israel said it would act with “extreme force,” Dr. Marwan al-Hams, the hospital’s director, said in a phone interview on Tuesday.
Fearing a raid by Israeli forces, like those that have been carried out at hospitals across Gaza, the medical staff at al-Najjar rushed to relocate more than 200 patients. Some patients left in cars secured by their family members, while the seriously wounded were transferred by ambulance to other hospitals in southern Gaza, including the European Hospital in Khan Younis and the International Medical Corps field hospital in Rafah.
But even during the scramble to evacuate the hospital, Israeli airstrikes on Rafah continued. The bodies of 58 people killed in Israeli strikes arrived at the hospital since Sunday, Dr. al-Hams said, adding that the hospital staff had to ask the victims’ families to bury the bodies themselves.
“The situation is not dangerous; the situation is catastrophic, catastrophic, catastrophic,” he said.
The Israeli military’s actions also immediately limited access to more basic health services across Rafah. Project HOPE, a U.S.-based aid group that operates several clinics across Gaza, was forced to shut down a mobile medical unit within the area from which Israel has told people to leave. It had been providing primary care in the eastern part of Rafah and treating upper respiratory tract infections and gastrointestinal illnesses that had been spreading among displaced Palestinians crammed into shelters with little access to clean water and sanitation facilities.
The aid group also had to close another medical clinic elsewhere in Rafah, outside of the evacuation zone, early on Monday because six of its medical workers — including a general practitioner, a gynecologist and nurses — lived inside or immediately adjacent to where the Israeli military said it would begin its operations, said Chessa Latifi, a deputy director of emergency preparedness for Project HOPE.
Many of the medical workers had already been displaced from their homes in Khan Younis and Gaza City and were forced to flee once again with their families, including dozens of children — this time, alongside the patients they had been treating in eastern Rafah.
At least two delegations of doctors who were trying to enter Gaza on Monday to support struggling hospitals in the northern part of the enclave were forced to turn back as the security situation deteriorated, even before the Israeli military seized control of the Rafah crossing on Tuesday.
One delegation of Jordanian doctors, organized by Project HOPE, was aiming to reach Kamal Adwan Hospital in far northern Gaza to relieve overwhelmed medical staff and deliver badly needed supplies, including anesthetics, surgical sutures and gauze. That delegation was also supposed to deliver the salaries of the aid group’s medical workers in Rafah — cash they desperately needed to secure housing and transportation during the chaotic evacuation.
“We’ve had contingency plans in place for a very long time, especially as it became more and more clear that the offensive in Rafah was going to start,” Ms. Latifi said. But “the consequences of what’s happening just keep growing,” she said.
Another delegation of medical workers, organized by the aid group MedGlobal, was about halfway to Rafah from Cairo on Monday when it began receiving alerts from the World Health Organization’s coordination team that the Rafah crossing could soon be shut down.
The doctors tried to continue on their path. But once they were told that the closing of the border crossing was imminent, “most of us realized that what was going to happen was going to be significant,” Dr. John Kahler, a co-founder of MedGlobal, said.
The delegation included an anesthesiologist and a midwife who were going to support Al-Awda Hospital, one of the few hospitals still able to provide maternal care for pregnant women. Dr. Kahler himself was intending to go to Kamal Adwan, where his organization opened a nutritional stabilization center for malnourished children over the weekend.
Speaking from Cairo on Tuesday, Dr. Kahler described the difficult decision to disband the delegation. If this was the beginning of the long-threatened ground assault, he said, moving to northern Gaza from Rafah would have been too dangerous, even if the doctors were able to get through the Rafah crossing on Monday.
The level of anxiety is “sky high” among the team members and their Palestinian partners inside Gaza as they wait to see what will happen next, Dr. Kahler said.
“Babies are going to keep being delivered; injuries are going to continue to happen; people are going to continue to die,” he added.
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9) Environmental Changes Are Fueling Human, Animal and Plant Diseases, Study Finds
Biodiversity loss, global warming, pollution and the spread of invasive species are making infectious diseases more dangerous to organisms around the world.
By Emily Anthes, May 8, 2024
White-footed mice, the primary reservoir for Lyme disease, have become more dominant in the U.S. as other rarer mammals have disappeared, one potential explanation for rising disease rates. Credit...Bill Draker/Rolf Nussbaumer Photography, via Alamy
Several large-scale, human-driven changes to the planet — including climate change, the loss of biodiversity and the spread of invasive species — are making infectious diseases more dangerous to people, animals and plants, according to a new study.
Scientists have documented these effects before in more targeted studies that have focused on specific diseases and ecosystems. For instance, they have found that a warming climate may be helping malaria expand in Africa and that a decline in wildlife diversity may be boosting Lyme disease cases in North America.
But the new research, a meta-analysis of nearly 1,000 previous studies, suggests that these patterns are relatively consistent around the globe and across the tree of life.
“It’s a big step forward in the science,” said Colin Carlson, a biologist at Georgetown University, who was not an author of the new analysis. “This paper is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that I think has been published that shows how important it is health systems start getting ready to exist in a world with climate change, with biodiversity loss.”
In what is likely to come as a more surprising finding, the researchers also found that urbanization decreased the risk of infectious disease.
The new analysis, which was published in Nature on Wednesday, focused on five “global change drivers” that are altering ecosystems across the planet: biodiversity change, climate change, chemical pollution, the introduction of nonnative species and habitat loss or change.
The researchers compiled data from scientific papers that examined how at least one of these factors affected various infectious-disease outcomes, such as severity or prevalence. The final data set included nearly 3,000 observations on disease risks for humans, animals and plants on every continent except for Antarctica.
The researchers found that, across the board, four of the five trends they studied — biodiversity change, the introduction of new species, climate change and chemical pollution — tended to increase disease risk.
“It means that we’re likely picking up general biological patterns,” said Jason Rohr, an infectious disease ecologist at the University of Notre Dame and senior author of the study. “It suggests that there are similar sorts of mechanisms and processes that are likely occurring in plants, animals and humans.”
The loss of biodiversity played an especially large role in driving up disease risk, the researchers found. Many scientists have posited that biodiversity can protect against disease through a phenomenon known as the dilution effect.
The theory holds that parasites and pathogens, which rely on having abundant hosts in order to survive, will evolve to favor species that are common, rather than those that are rare, Dr. Rohr said. And as biodiversity declines, rare species tend to disappear first. “That means that the species that remain are the competent ones, the ones that are really good at transmitting disease,” he said.
Lyme disease is one oft-cited example. White-footed mice, which are the primary reservoir for the disease, have become more dominant on the landscape, as other rarer mammals have disappeared, Dr. Rohr said. That shift may partly explain why Lyme disease rates have risen in the United States. (The extent to which the dilution effect contributes to Lyme disease risk has been the subject of debate, and other factors, including climate change, are likely to be at play as well.)
Other environmental changes could amplify disease risks in a wide variety of ways. For instance, introduced species can bring new pathogens with them, and chemical pollution can stress organisms’ immune systems. Climate change can alter animal movements and habitats, bringing new species into contact and allowing them to swap pathogens.
Notably, the fifth global environmental change that the researchers studied — habitat loss or change — appeared to reduce disease risk. At first glance, the findings might appear to be at odds with previous studies, which have shown that deforestation can increase the risk of diseases ranging from malaria to Ebola. But the overall trend toward reduced risk was driven by one specific type of habitat change: increasing urbanization.
The reason may be that urban areas often have better sanitation and public health infrastructure than rural ones — or simply because there are fewer plants and animals to serve as disease hosts in urban areas. The lack of plant and animal life is “not a good thing,” Dr. Carlson said. “And it also doesn’t mean that the animals that are in the cities are healthier.”
And the new study does not negate the idea that forest loss can fuel disease; instead, deforestation increases risk in some circumstances and reduces it in others, Dr. Rohr said.
Indeed, although this kind of meta-analysis is valuable for revealing broad patterns, it can obscure some of the nuances and exceptions that are important for managing specific diseases and ecosystems, Dr. Carlson noted.
Moreover, most of the studies included in the analysis examined just a single global change drive. But, in the real world, organisms are contending with many of these stressors simultaneously. “The next step is to better understand the connections among them,” Dr. Rohr said.
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