THIS SATURDAY: Join Chris Hedges, Kshama Sawant, Jill Stein, and working people from around the country for Workers Strike Back’s Fight the Rich Organizing Conference!
REGISTER NOW to join us at 10 am Pacific / 12 pm Central / 1 pm Eastern this Saturday, 2/22, at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center in Seattle, or online via livestream!
https://www.workersstrikeback.org/events/feb-2025-organizing-conference?utm_source=Workers+Strike+Back&utm_campaign=50125b34d0-December+Meetings_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-fc17d78406-670038479
Then join us on SUNDAY, 2/23 from 10 am - 5 pm Pacific for our first-ever in-person Workers Strike Back Convention to vote on our campaigning priorities, elect a fighting leadership, and build the fight against the rich and both their parties! If you’re not yet a member of Workers Strike Back, sign up now to join!
https://www.workersstrikeback.org/join?utm_source=Workers+Strike+Back&utm_campaign=50125b34d0-December+Meetings_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-fc17d78406-670038479
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Roxie Theater, San Francisco:
February 19th-27th: Film "No Other Land" |
 |
Date: Wednesday, 19 February - Thursday, 27 February Tickets: $14 |
Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, has been fighting his community’s mass expulsion by the Israeli occupation since childhood. Basel documents the gradual erasure of Masafer Yatta, as soldiers destroy the homes of families – the largest single act of forced transfer ever carried out in the occupied West Bank. He crosses paths with Yuval, an Israeli journalist who joins his struggle, and for over half a decade they fight against the expulsion while growing closer. Their complex bond is haunted by the extreme inequality between them: Basel, living under a brutal military occupation, and Yuval, unrestricted and free. This film, by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four young activists, was co-created during the darkest, most terrifying times in the region, as an act of creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice. Nominated for the Academy Award for Documentary Feature Film |
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
URGENT STEP ONE:
Demand EMERGENCY MEDICAL TRANSFER & TREATMENT
FOR IMAM JAMIL
The Bureau of Prisons is denying medical treatment to Imam
Jamil Al-Amin, 81 years old, formerly known as H. Rap Brown.
He has a potentially life-threatening growth on his face, on
top of his multiple myeloma (cancer) & other significant
medical issues.
A civil and human rights leader, wrongfully imprisoned for
the past 24 years, he needs Your Help to avoid his
Death By Medical Neglect
CALL TUCSON COMPLEX 520-663-5000
EMAIL WARDEN Mark Gutierrez, mggutierrez@bop.gov
Give Name & Inmate Number: Jamil Al-Amin, #99974-555
Demand they grant Imam Jamil an EMERGENCY MEDICAL TRANSFER from United States Penitentiary (USP) Tucson to Federal Medical Center (FMC) Butner for his Immediate Medical Treatment NOW!!
***Deputy Director of BOP [Bureau of Prisons], (202) 307-3198
URGENT STEP TWO:
Tell his Congressional Delegation of his condition, Urge them to use their offices to inquire the BOP & demand that their constituent (Imam Jamil, West End Community Masjid, 547 West End Pl., SW, Atlanta) receive the emergency medical transfer, diagnosis & treatment.
- Email GA Cong. Nikema Williams PressGA05@mail.house.gov
- Email US Sen. Rafael Warnock press@warnock.senate.gov
- Email US Sen. Jon Ossoff press@ossoff.senate.gov
- Email Atlanta City Councilman Jason Dozier jdozier@atlantaga.gov
- Email GA State Rep Park Cannon park.cannon@house.ga.gov
- Email GA State Sen. Sonya Halpern sonya.halpern@senate.ga.gov
This is most urgent step before Step Three: campaigning for Medical Reprieve by the GA Bd. Of pardons & Parole, THE entity standing in the way of freeing Imam from his unjust conviction by granting a Medical Reprieve.
IMAM JAMIL ACTION NETWORK.ORG
216.296.4617
NATIONAL
347.731.1886
MEDIA
252.907.4443
SOUTHERN
347.731.1886
NJ/NY
202.520.9997
WASH., DC
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
We need a united, independent, democratically organized mass movement for peace, justice and equality in solidarity with similar movements worldwide if we are to survive the death agony of capitalism and its inevitable descent into fascism and barbarism before it destroys the world altogether!
—Bonnie Weinstein
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky
In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries.
Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin:
“To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?”
Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine.
A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism.
To sign the online petition at freeboris.info
—Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024
https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine.
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
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)
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
1) Inside the Oscar-Nominated Film That No Studio Will Touch
“No Other Land,” about the destruction of a village in the occupied West Bank, is one of the year’s most acclaimed films. Still, U.S. studios are unwilling to distribute it.
By Kyle Buchanan, Feb. 19, 2025
Yuval Abraham, left, and Basel Adra accept their award at the Berlin Film Festival last February. Credit...Markus Schreiber/Associated Press
No documentary this season has been more talked about or acclaimed than “No Other Land,” which chronicles the besieged community of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank as Israeli forces demolish residents’ homes and expel families from the land they have lived in for generations, claiming the area is needed for a military training ground.
Directed by the Palestinian filmmakers Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal alongside the Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, “No Other Land” has received critical acclaim and collected many honors on the festival circuit. After winning the best documentary award at its Berlin International Film Festival premiere last February, the film also earned the same prize at the Gotham Awards and from major critics’ groups in New York and Los Angeles. Just weeks ago, it received an Oscar nomination.
Still, no American studio has been willing to pick up this hot-button film, even though distributors typically spend this time of year eagerly boasting about their Oscar-nomination tallies.
“I still think it’s possible, but we’ll have to see,” Abraham told me last week. “It’s clear that there are political reasons at play here that are affecting it. I’m hoping that at a certain point the demand for the film will become so clear and indisputable that there will be a distributor with the kind of courage to take it on and show it to the audience.”
In the meantime, the directors have embarked on a self-distribution plan that has put “No Other Land” into 23 U.S. theaters; on the back of strong box office, it will continue to roll out into additional cities over the coming weeks.
Adra and Abraham are not just part of the film’s directing team, but its two primary subjects. The 28-year-old Adra was raised in Masafer Yatta and has been documenting the forced expulsion since he was a teenager. Over the course of the film, he builds a strong but tense bond with Abraham, who lives in Jerusalem but travels frequently to Masafer Yatta to write about the situation there for an Israeli audience.
The two men spoke to me last week on a video call as they gathered at Adra’s house in Masafer Yatta. “I really want to say something very personal because even with the success of ‘No Other Land,’ things have kept getting very bad,” said Adra, who detailed how his village was once again attacked by armed settlers in the weeks before the Oscar nominations were announced.
The filmmakers hope that if anything can come of this awards campaign, it’s an increased global awareness of the fraught situation in Masafer Yatta. To that end, they still dream of a U.S. distributor that will help “No Other Land” reach an even bigger audience.
“We worked five years on this and Basel risked his life — I saw him almost get shot two times or three times,” said Abraham. “It’s just a minimal amount of courage to give it the stage that we believe it deserves, that the people of Masafer Yatta deserve. But we still hope that it’ll change.”
Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.
You made this film with the intention of inspiring change in Masafer Yatta. How do you fight the feeling of discouragement when it feels as though things are getting worse?
BASEL ADRA When I reach a moment where I’m disappointed and hopeless, the people around me and especially those people who kept losing their homes [keep me going]. For example, one of the people who lost their home, this is the sixth time since 2018 his house has been demolished and he rebuilt it, and this gives me some strength. Why would I give up while people want to stay in the land and fight?
And the other thing is I honestly believe this injustice can’t last forever. Whatever power is against us, at the end of the day if it’s oppressing us in an immoral way, it can’t last. I don’t know what would be the end of this or how it can be, but I have faith that this can’t continue forever, so for that, we have to keep fighting.
YUVAL ABRAHAM There is obviously a strong feeling of discouragement, but I look at Basel who’s living a much more difficult life than myself and as long as he’s continuing, I feel like I also have to continue. Even if the reality is only changing for the worse, it’s not as if we know what would happen if there is no documentation — I think it’s fair to assume that it would be even more horrible than it is. So, I feel like this task of documenting continues to be very pressing.
When the two of you first met, how long did it take to sense that this was someone you could trust and collaborate with?
ABRAHAM We realized quickly that we share similar values politically. Of course, there are immense differences. I am under civilian law and Basel is under military law, which means he’s blacklisted. He cannot enter Jerusalem and visit me there, I always have to come to him. This structural inequality affects us in the most personal way: It affected how we made the film, it affects how we can travel abroad, how we would go to the Oscars, even. It’s everywhere.
Laws are made that he cannot affect. He’s never voted in his life and it’s such a stark difference: Essentially, I vote for the government that at the end of the day is not only controlling Basel’s life, but destroying it.
What was the hardest thing about the years you spent making the film?
ABRAHAM The hardest thing was really terror and fear. You are filming situations where at any point someone can be shot, executed. A settler can come down from the outpost, for example, and we show this at the end of our film: The settler just shoots Basel’s cousin in the stomach from point-blank range while a soldier is looking and then he walks slowly — casually, almost — back to the outpost. And that person is still free. He’s maybe 100 meters away from us, and he can come back down to the village and do it again.
ADRA For me, there was a very terrifying moment when I was filming nearby and a group of soldiers came to destroy [the house of] our neighbor. I tried to document that in video and I was dragged and beaten up furiously by soldiers for half an hour or more, and they were trying to take me to their car. There was the feeling that this was for revenge, not arrest or interrogation, because there was nothing even according to all their racist laws to charge me with.
Also, I was once filming a huge number of masked settlers — between 60 to 80 — who were vandalizing one of the small villages nearby here. They were moving from one home to another, smashing windows and cars and even individuals. I managed to film a few minutes of this attack before they recognized that I’m filming them, and between 10 to 15 of these settlers started to run after me. That was also a really, really hard moment, but luckily I was able to be faster than them and escape.
ABRAHAM Basel runs really quickly.
The film was largely finished before the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023. How did that impact your work?
ABRAHAM It made me feel a sense of urgency for what we are doing, because we’ve been working for years before Oct. 7. A big part of our work was to tell the world and especially the United States that the situation on the ground is not sustainable. And I think today when you hear [President] Trump openly talking about ethnic cleansing, when you see how the Gaza Strip was annihilated with U.S. weapons, when I look at how much we lack a constructive and pragmatic political solution that can take us out of this place that we are in, I feel it’s more urgent than it has ever been before.
Talk to me about the path that led to self-distribution. What were you hearing from the studios that were unwilling to acquire the film?
ABRAHAM Our sales agents were touch with them all the time, and the general impression we got is that people say it’s a great film and it’s well-crafted, but the decision to acquire it doesn’t happen. We were always optimistic that each time the film’s profile becomes higher and it’s clearer that there is a big demand for the film, that it would happen. But after Berlin it didn’t happen. Then we began winning awards and getting distribution everywhere else in the world, and it didn’t happen. And then, the Oscar nomination, and it still didn’t happen.
Eventually, we said, “OK, we can’t just continue to wait indefinitely.” In the U.S., so many people are writing us, “How can we watch it?” So we decided to do the theatrical release independently, and it’s now going to show in about 100 theaters in the U.S. For me, the Oscar is mainly an opportunity to even raise the film’s profile more. And I do not lose hope that there will be some distributor who will take it on.
How did you learn of the Oscar nomination?
ADRA The four of us were here in the same room, and we came together to watch it live on YouTube. They said “No Other Land” and everybody jumped from the chair. It’s something we didn’t think about. I never imagined, “We’ll be nominated for the Oscar.”
ABRAHAM It was nice to have a moment of happiness because the reality on the ground is only becoming worse. Hamdan’s house can be basically destroyed at any moment. It has a demolition order on it, so it’s not connected to the electricity line or the water line, and now he’s trying to get a visa to go to the United States and to come to the Oscars as a nominee.
Just to apply for the visa, he has to travel to another country, in Jordan, because the U.S. has no way for Palestinians who are living under occupation in the West Bank to apply. It’s like two weeks left and we don’t know will he even be able to travel. And if he travels to this amazing event, it is such a huge opportunity on the one hand, but then on the other hand, returning to the reality here on the ground is so different. There is such a dissonance.
You’ve continued filming since the release of “No Other Land.” Do you feel there may be another documentary in you about this?
ADRA I don’t know, to be honest, because this took so long and wasn’t easy to work on. But we are not just filming for moviemaking but also to document the actions, the attacks, the violations around us. I use some of this for social media, for human rights organizations, sometimes for the occupation courts. My father faced false claims by settlers and I had videos of that specific incident where they claimed that he throws stones, but my footage showed the opposite and I had to show it to the judge.
ABRAHAM We’re continuing to do our work together, and we’re still working as journalists as well. But for now, we’re focused on trying to make the most of this moment with this film.
Basel, you’ve married since you worked on the film, right?
ADRA Yes. Since one year now.
In the movie, you describe how your parents taught you about activism and the importance of documenting the situation in your homeland. As you start a family, do you think that is something you will impart to your own children?
ADRA I hope I will not need to do that and the situation will change and we’ll have a different life. I have a daughter now also, she’s just one month old, and I really hope that she and the generation that comes don’t need to do this and they will have better a better future. But if it continues to be the same way, I don’t know. I don’t have the answer.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
2) Trump Team Plans Deep Cuts at Office That Funds Recovery From Big Disasters
Staff at the office, a branch of the U.S. housing department that Congress uses to address the worst catastrophes, would be reduced by 84 percent.
By Christopher Flavelle, Feb. 20, 2025
Christopher Flavelle has covered U.S. disaster recovery programs for almost a decade.
Homes in Fairview, N.C., in October. Flooding and landslides after Hurricane Helene caused heavy damage in the area. Credit...Mike Belleme for The New York Times
The Trump administration plans to all but eliminate the office that oversees America’s recovery from the largest disasters, raising questions about how the United States will rebuild from hurricanes, wildfires and other calamities made worse by climate change.
The Office of Community Planning and Development, part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, pays to rebuild homes and other recovery efforts after the country’s worst disasters, such as Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and Hurricane Milton in Florida.
The administration plans to cut the staff in that office by 84 percent, according to a document obtained by The New York Times. The number of workers would be cut to 150, from 936 when Mr. Trump took office last month.
Those cuts could slow the distribution of recovery money to North Carolina and other recent disasters, depending how quickly they happen.
“HUD is carrying out President Trump’s broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government to serve the American people at the highest standard,” a spokeswoman for the department, Kasey Lovett, said in a statement.
The primary responsibility for rebuilding communities after major disasters falls to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which helps state and local governments pay to repair or rebuild damaged roads, bridges, schools, water treatment plants and other public infrastructure. The agency also provides money to help repair damaged homes.
But some disasters are so big that they exceed FEMA’s funding, or the damage doesn’t fit neatly within FEMA’s programs. When that happens, Congress can choose to provide additional help, through a program at HUD called the Community Development Block Grant — Disaster Recovery.
That extra help from Congress can involve far greater sums than what FEMA can provide. In 2006, for example, Congress provided almost $17 billion to rebuild the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. After Hurricane Sandy, Congress gave Housing and Urban Development more than $15 billion to help rebuild the Northeast.
As disasters have grown more frequent and severe, HUD’s disaster recovery program has become central to the country’s strategy for coping with climate change. During the 1990s, Congress typically gave the program a few hundred million dollars a year. Over the past decade, by contrast, Congress has often provided billions or even tens of billions annually.
HUD’s disaster recovery money also comes with fewer strings attached. The money is largely used to rebuild homes that were either uninsured or underinsured, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency does not pay for. It also goes toward rebuilding infrastructure that’s not covered by FEMA, like the private roads and bridges that were significantly damaged by Helene in North Carolina.
The money can also be used for job training, to help workers whose employers went out of business after a disaster.
Because state and local officials are often overwhelmed by a disaster, and because the influx of federal funds is large and quick, one of HUD’s main jobs is ensuring the money isn’t lost to waste, fraud or abuse. That includes tasks like helping state and local governments set up systems to avoid paying contractors twice, according to a former official who worked on the program. It can also mean more complicated tasks like coordinating HUD’s grants with other federal disaster programs.
Housing and Urban Development’s community planning and development office was already stretched thin, especially as large-scale disasters have become more frequent. On average, the HUD employees who manage disaster grants are each responsible for overseeing about $1 billion in grants, according to an official who worked in the office.
Deep cuts to staffing levels would make it harder for HUD to prevent fraud, waste and abuse, according to two former officials familiar with the program who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. The cuts are being dictated by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, whose stated goal is to reduce fraud, waste and abuse.
The community planning and development office is responsible for managing other spending programs beyond disaster recovery. Those include paying for infrastructure upgrades like sewers and sidewalks, affordable housing projects and programs like Meals on Wheels.
Brad Plumer and Nicholas Nehamas contributed reporting.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
3) A Long Journey Home: After 50 Years, Back on the Reservation
Leonard Peltier, the American Indian Movement activist, returned to North Dakota, where, under home confinement, he will serve the remainder of his life sentence for the murders of two F.B.I. agents.
By David W. Chen, Photographs by Tailyr Irvine, Reporting from Belcourt, N.D., Published Feb. 19, 2025, Updated Feb. 20, 2025
“I’m proud of the position I’ve taken — to fight for our rights to survival,” Leonard Peltier said after he returned home.
Tailyr Irvine for The New York Times
Leonard Peltier had waited five decades to do something he had increasingly doubted he would ever be able to: say thank you, in person, to the fellow Native Americans and others who had spent those years fighting for his freedom.
Addressing a raucous crowd of 300 supporters on his home reservation on Wednesday, Mr. Peltier, now 80, pumped his right fist repeatedly and displayed remarkable stamina for a partly blind man who needs a walker. A day earlier, he had been released from a federal prison in Central Florida, where he had been serving two life sentences for the killing of two federal agents.
Now he was back with his people, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, in North Dakota. There he will be allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest after President Joseph R. Biden Jr. issued a clemency order in one of his final acts before leaving office.
“I’m proud of the position I’ve taken — to fight for our rights to survival,” Mr. Peltier said during an eight-minute speech in which he expressed gratitude, but also defiance. “I’m so proud of the support you’re showing me, I’m having a hard time keeping myself from crying,” he said. “From the first hour I was arrested, Indian people came to my rescue, and they’ve been behind me ever since. It was worth it to me to be able to sacrifice for you.”
It was a moment that seemed highly unlikely as recently as July, when Mr. Peltier was denied parole yet again in connection with the deaths of two F.B.I. agents during a shootout on a reservation in South Dakota in 1975.
To many law enforcement officials, Mr. Peltier is a remorseless killer whose appeals had been reviewed, and rejected, by more than 20 federal judges.
But to human rights groups such as Amnesty International, as well as to supporters who included the Dalai Lama, the former South African president and anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela and the musician Steven Van Zandt, Mr. Peltier had become a cause célèbre who had been wrongfully convicted as part of a history of Native American repression.
“Friends, relatives, strangers ached for Leonard, prayed for him, danced for him, fasted and suffered for him, cared for him, longed for him to walk the earth as a free man,” Louise Erdrich, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who is also a member of the Turtle Mountain tribe, said in an email.
Ms. Erdrich attended Mr. Peltier’s trial in 1977.
“Leonard has been a living reproach to the idea of our greatness as a nation,” said Ms. Erdrich, who has saved her correspondence with Mr. Peltier and plans to visit him soon. “We confuse greatness with economic power or military might, but no. Greatness is justice, greatness is tolerance.”
Mr. Peltier was a member of the American Indian Movement, or AIM, an advocacy organization founded in 1968 that promoted civil rights, spoke out against police brutality and other abuses and sought to highlight the federal government’s history of violating treaties it had made with Native American tribes.
In the 1970s, militant members of the group clashed with federal authorities on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. They forcibly seized control of the Sioux village of Wounded Knee and fended off the authorities for 71 days.
Two years after the Wounded Knee standoff, with the relationship between Native American activists and federal law enforcement agencies still frayed, two F.B.I. agents — Jack Coler and Ronald Williams — tried to arrest a robbery suspect on the Pine Ridge reservation.
A shootout ensued, leaving the two agents and one activist dead. Mr. Peltier has admitted to firing his gun from a distance but has insisted that he acted in self-defense and was not the one who killed the agents. Of the more than 30 people who were present during the shootout, Mr. Peltier was the only one convicted.
Exculpatory evidence that had helped to acquit two other AIM members accused in the killings was excluded from Mr. Peltier’s trial — an issue that has frequently been raised by his supporters as an example of injustice.
But in a letter in June 2024 opposing Mr. Peltier’s parole application, Christopher A. Wray, then the F.B.I. director, noted that Mr. Peltier had repeatedly lost in court on several issues, such as his attempts to downplay ballistics evidence tying him to the killings.
The order freeing him to return to North Dakota met the vehement objections of many law enforcement officials.
“Peltier gets to go home — while neither Coler or Williams was afforded the same opportunity,” Michael J. Clark, president of the Society of Former Special Agents of the F.B.I., said in an email on Wednesday. “Peltier is a remorseless murderer and should have served out his life sentence in a federal prison.”
Mr. Peltier made it home to the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation late Tuesday, as the sun was fading and temperatures were a dangerously cold minus 15 degrees — a 90-degree swing from the temperature at the most recent federal correctional facility where he had been held, in Coleman, Fla.
Dozens of residents greeted him with signs that read “50 Years of Resistance” as he was whisked to his new home in the town of Belcourt. The house was purchased by NDN Collective, an Indigenous rights group based in Rapid City, S.D., whose leaders greeted Mr. Peltier when he walked out of prison in Florida and accompanied him on a private plane ride back home, according to Nick Tilsen, the group’s founder and chief executive officer.
At a homecoming lunch on Wednesday, as Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” played, banners and signs abounded. Some had clearly been used in previous protests — “Enough Is Enough: Free Leonard Peltier” — but there were also new ones, including a photo of Mr. Peltier with his Bureau of Prisons number, 89637-132, crossed out.
In his remarks, Mr. Peltier talked about how proud he was to call attention to Native issues, and described harsh conditions in prison, including being placed in sensory deprivation cells at some points.
Even in his new circumstances under house arrest, he said, he will have to deal with many restrictions. “But it’s a lot better than being in a cell,” he added.
He then held court for more than an hour, like a Hall of Famer at an autograph signing, as more than 100 people lined up to say hello, present gifts, pose for photos or get something signed.
Some supporters cautioned that he would encounter a different world — some things better, some things worse — than the one he last experienced 50 years ago.
State Representative Jayme Davis, a Democrat from the area who is also a member of the Turtle Mountain tribe, noted that many people had lost their jobs, and that there was deep anxiety about the future.
“Our people are facing immense challenges, especially as our state government moves forward with policies that make survival even harder,” said Ms. Davis, whose father attended school in Belcourt with Mr. Peltier. “But in the darkness of this moment, his homecoming, I feel, will be a beacon of light. His return carries a profound weight, almost as if there’s a message in the timing.”
Mr. Tilsen said that Mr. Peltier had expressed a desire to work on the issue of teenage suicides, having done some volunteer work as a young man on the Pine Ridge reservation. But he also said that Mr. Peltier — who has declined interview requests for the time being — would need some space.
“I think that everybody focuses on him being this iconic international human rights activist and leader, which he is,” he said. “But he’s also been institutionalized for 49 years. So he has to build a new normal.”
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
4) Former N.F.L. Player Is Arrested After Protest Over MAGA Plaque
Chris Kluwe, a former punter for the Vikings, was arrested after speaking at a City Council meeting in Huntington Beach, Calif.
By Victor Mather, Feb. 20, 2025
Mr. Kluwe at a demonstration in support of gay marriage at the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis in 2012. Credit...Renee Jones Schneider/Minneapolis Star Tribune, via ZUMA Wire, via Alamy Live News
When he was an N.F.L. punter with the Minnesota Vikings, Chris Kluwe was known for speaking out. He hasn’t stopped in retirement.
Mr. Kluwe was arrested in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Tuesday night and charged with disrupting a City Council meeting.
He was objecting to plans for a plaque celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Huntington Beach Central Library, which included the words “Magical,” “Alluring,” “Galvanizing” and “Adventurous” — the first letters of which spell “MAGA,” President Trump’s slogan meaning “Make America Great Again.”
The proposed plaque continued with a more explicit reference: “Through hope and change our nation has built back better to the golden era of Making America Great Again!” — also alluding to the “hope and change” and “build back better” slogans popularized by former Presidents Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Mr. Kluwe, who said he had lived in Huntington Beach for 15 years, was one of several citizens who rose to speak at the public hearing. “Everyone is in favor of a plaque to celebrate the library, but the vast, vast majority are against including a MAGA acrostic,” he said, standing at a lectern with a microphone. “Unfortunately, it’s clear that this council does not listen.”
“MAGA is explicitly a Nazi movement,” he said, drawing applause. “You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat, but that is what it is.”
Saying he would now engage in the “time-honored American tradition of peaceful civil disobedience,” he took a few steps toward the front of the room where council members were sitting, and police officers rushed in to detain him. A councilman announced a five-minute recess, and cameras cut away for several moments.
Mr. Kluwe, 43, declined a request for an interview on Thursday. The City Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Kluwe told The Daily Pilot that he did not resist arrest and that he was released after four hours.
The Huntington Beach Police Department listed the charge as “disturbance, etc. at assembly, etc.”
The plaque was approved unanimously later in the meeting.
“This was done not with the intention of changing the council’s mind, because I don’t think those minds can be changed,” Mr. Kluwe told The Orange County Register. “It was done so that people who are watching and people who will watch understand that this is important enough to get arrested for. That it’s important to stand up and speak truth to power and to do so in a way that other people can emulate.”
Councilwoman Gracey Van Der Mark, the former mayor of Huntington Beach, told The Pilot, “He wanted his five minutes of fame, and that’s what he got.”
She added: “The city of Huntington Beach has always been conservative, and they tried to change that, and we’re just taking it back to the way it was. If I wanted to live in a liberal city with liberal values, I would have stayed in Los Angeles.”
Mr. Kluwe was known for being outspoken during his playing career from 2005 to 2012, and particularly for his vigorous support of gay marriage, which was not yet legal in the entire U.S.
Having turned down Harvard to attend U.C.L.A., Mr. Kluwe double majored in political science and history. He also was known for performing in a rock band and being an active video gamer even during his N.F.L. career. He wrote a science fiction novel, “Otaku,” that was set in the gaming world.
He has said that when he played for the Vikings, coaches discouraged him from speaking out, and that he believed the Vikings released him in 2012 because of his activism and not for football reasons, though the team pushed back on those claims.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
5) Fate of Bibas Family Recalls Trauma of Oct. 7, Renewing Fears for Gaza Truce
Hamas said it had returned the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two sons. The Israeli military announced that the boys were murdered in Gaza and that Ms. Bibas’s body was that of someone else.
By Patrick Kingsley, Reporting from Jerusalem, Feb. 21, 2025
For 16 months, the smiling faces of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, had been slowly receding into the background of Israeli life as their photographs — posted on walls and bus stops soon after the family’s abduction to Gaza in October 2023 — began to fade, tear and peel.
On Friday, the Bibas’s lives and disturbing deaths were swept back to the forefront of Israel’s collective consciousness in such a startling and unsettling way that it set off fresh alarm about the fate of the fragile cease-fire in Gaza.
Early on Friday morning, the Israeli military announced that the body of Ms. Bibas — nominally returned, along with those of her sons, by Hamas to Israel on Thursday — appeared to be that of someone else. And an autopsy of the two boys, aged 4 and 8 months at the time of their abduction, revealed that they were killed by terrorists in Gaza, the military said.
Hamas, which had previously said they were killed in an Israeli missile strike, said in a statement that it was investigating the claims and suggested that Ms. Bibas’s body might have been mistakenly confused for that of a dead Palestinian in the chaotic aftermath of an Israeli attack. Neither side’s account could be independently verified.
The news set off a paroxysm of fury and agony in Israel rarely seen since the tumultuous days that followed Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when up to 1,200 people were killed and 251 were abducted, including Ms. Bibas and her sons, on the deadliest day in Israeli history.
Responding to the military’s announcement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel returned to the language of vengeance that defined his speeches in the aftermath of that attack.
“May God avenge their blood,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a recorded speech to the nation on Friday morning. “And we will also have our vengeance.”
The seething tenor of Mr. Netanyahu’s response was maintained across much of the Israeli political spectrum. Naftali Bennett, a former prime minister, said in a broadcast interview that the Bibas’s treatment showed how “the majority of Gazans want to murder all of the Israelis.” (Polling last fall suggested that less than 40 percent of Gazan Palestinians supported the Oct. 7 attack, down from more than 70 percent early last year.)
For some Israelis, the horror underlined the need to restart the war to defeat Hamas once and for all. The current truce is set to elapse in early March unless Hamas and Israel can agree to an extension. “The only solution is the destruction of Hamas, and this must not be postponed,” said Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right finance minister, in a post on social media.
But others called for calm, arguing that the fate of the Bibas family exemplified why the truce needed to be extended to bring home roughly 70 hostages still held, both dead and alive, in Gaza.
The village leadership at Nir Oz, the Bibas’s hometown, released a statement on Friday that called on Israel to “stick to our values and to the Bibas family’s clear demands at this moment: release, not revenge. The state must bring Shiri back by all means, in a way that does not jeopardize the continuation of the deal and the immediate release of all the hostages.”
Isaac Herzog, Israel’s mainly ceremonial president, also called on the government to “remember our highest duty — to do everything in our power to bring every one of our kidnapped sisters and brothers home. All of them. Until the very last.”
Six living Israeli hostages are set to be released on Saturday, and analysts said it was unlikely that Israel would do anything to jeopardize their freedom. Hamas announced their names on Friday morning, projecting a sense of business as usual. The six included two Israeli citizens — Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed — who were captured by Hamas years before the attack in 2023 after they entered Gaza of their own accord.
The long-term future of the truce seemed less clear. Arab leaders were set to meet in Saudi Arabia on Friday to try to thrash out a proposal for Gaza’s postwar reconstruction that would allow for the peaceful transfer of power from Hamas to an alternative Palestinian administration.
But in Israel, analysts speculated that the government would rather expel Hamas by force.
“If it were up to Netanyahu and his far-right partners, then next week — upon the completion of the first phase of the deal, with the return of four more bodies of fallen hostages — the path would be paved for the resumption of the war in Gaza,” wrote Amos Harel, a commentator on military affairs for Haaretz, a left-leaning newspaper. “This time, they promise, without restraints.”
Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting from Tel Aviv, and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad from Haifa, Israel.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
6) Arab Leaders Scramble to Counter Trump’s Gaza Plans
Leaders of Gulf states were meeting with their Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts to strategize before a broader Arab summit early next month.
By Ismaeel Naar, Reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 21, 2025
Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip this month. Arab leaders will meet to discuss an alternative to President Trump’s plan for the future of Gaza. Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
The leaders of Gulf Arab states were meeting on Friday to strategize with their Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts in an effort to counter President Trump’s controversial proposal to redevelop Gaza under U.S. control and displace its Palestinian residents.
The meeting in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, is in preparation for a broader Arab League summit in Egypt on March 4.
Mr. Trump’s suggestion this month that the United States might take control of Gaza, develop it into the “Riviera of the Middle East” and relocate its Palestinian residents to neighboring countries like Egypt and Jordan was met with astonishment and outrage across the Arab world. His aides then reframed it as a challenge to leaders of the Middle East to come up with a better alternative.
“All these countries say how much they care about the Palestinians,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week. “If the Arab countries have a better plan, then that’s great.”
Now, Arab governments are in rushed consultations to do just that.
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have been working together to forge an alternative idea for Gaza in which Arab countries would help fund and oversee reconstruction, while keeping the two million Palestinian residents in place and preserving the possibility of a Palestinian state, according to diplomats and officials briefed on the efforts.
There have been a number of audacious plans floated for the day after in Gaza, but none have really gained traction. The latest one came from Emirati real estate magnate, Khalaf al-Habtoor, who offered an ambitious blueprint aimed at rebuilding the enclave within a “matter of years, not decades.”
But a key sticking point remains the question of postwar governance in Gaza.
A proposed Egyptian plan would most likely include the formation of a committee of Palestinian technocrats and community leaders, all unaffiliated with Hamas, who could run Gaza after the war.
But Israeli leaders have said they would oppose any postwar plans that would pave the way to Palestinian sovereignty. Arab leaders insist they would support only a proposal that at least nominally forged a path toward Palestinian statehood.
For any Arab strategy on the governance of Gaza, the Arab leaders would want the blessing of the Palestinian Authority, the internationally recognized body that administered Gaza until Hamas wrested control of the territory nearly two decades ago.
But the authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, has appeared wary of any plan that does not give him full control of Gaza. Mr. Abbas did not attend Friday’s talks, according to an official photograph of the leaders released by the Jordanian royal court.
Hamas officials have said they would be willing to cede control over civilian affairs to another power but have refused so far to say they would disband their military wing, an unacceptable position for both Israel and Mr. Trump.
Members of the Gulf Cooperation Council attended the meeting in Riyadh along with Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and King Abdullah of Jordan. The Egyptian leader arrived in Riyadh on Thursday for preliminary talks with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday before his departure for Saudi Arabia, Mr. el-Sisi reinforced the idea that Egypt’s proposals would “not involve forcible displacement” of Palestinians.
The Arab plan will focus on ideas that keep Palestinians inside Gaza to counter Mr. Trump call’s for Egypt and Jordan to take them in, an idea Arab countries have all rejected. Many in the Arab world would consider any forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza an ethnic cleansing and a war crime as well as a death knell for any future Palestinian state.
Some countries, like Jordan and Egypt, might also be concerned that increased Palestinian migration could create economic and political disruptions at home.
Speaking at an investment forum hosted by Saudi Arabia in Miami on Thursday, Mr. Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said the president’s plan for Gaza was not about evicting Palestinians, but about shaking up current thinking and improving prospects for the Palestinian people.
“He’s engendered this discussion throughout the entire Arab world,” Mr. Witkoff said. “You’ve got different types of solutions than before he talked about this.”
Any plan for Gaza will also need to take into account the need to prevent future attacks on Israel. There are also the questions of who would pay for reconstruction and whether Arab countries would send forces to keep Gaza stable.
While Egypt has yet to release full details of its proposal, Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly said on Wednesday that Cairo was working on a comprehensive plan for Gaza’s reconstruction that envisioned restoring the enclave within three years, according to Ahram Online, an Egyptian state-run news outlet.
Riyadh has been playing a crucial diplomatic role this week, hosting U.S., Russian and Arab officials for high-stakes talks on the wars in both Ukraine and Gaza.
Vivian Yee contributed reporting from Cairo, Egypt.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
7) Here Are the Digital Clues to What Musk Is Really Up To
By Zeynep Tufekci, Opinion Columnist, Feb. 21, 2025
Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Watching Elon Musk and his band of young acolytes slash their way through the federal government, many observers have struggled to understand how such a small group could do so much damage in so little time.
The mistake is trying to situate Musk solely in the context of politics. He isn’t approaching this challenge like a budget-minded official. He’s approaching it like an engineer, exploiting vulnerabilities that are built into the nation’s technological systems, operating as what cybersecurity experts call an insider threat. We were warned about these vulnerabilities but no one listened, and the consequences — for the United States and the world — will be vast.
Insider threats have been around for a long time: the C.I.A. mole toiling quietly in the Soviet government office, the Boeing engineer who secretly ferried information about the space shuttle program to the Chinese government. Modern digital systems supercharge that threat by consolidating more and more information from many distinct realms.
That approach has delivered obvious benefits in terms of convenience, access, integration and speed. When the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission described how segmentation of information among agencies had stymied intelligence efforts, the solution was to create integrated systems for collecting and sharing huge troves of data.
Running integrated digital systems, however, requires endowing a few individuals with sweeping privileges. They’re the sysadmins, the systems administrators who manage the entire network, including its security. They have root privileges, the jargon for highest level of access. They get access to the God View, the name Uber gave its internal tool that allowed an outrageously large number of employees to see anyone’s Uber rides.
That’s why when Edward Snowden was at the N.S.A. he was able to take so much information, including extensive databases that had little to do with the particular operations he wanted to expose as a whistle-blower. He was a sysadmin, the guy standing watch against users who abuse their access, but who has broad leeway to exercise his own.
“At certain levels, you are the audit” is how one intelligence official explained to NBC News the ease with which a single person could walk off with reams of classified data on a thumb drive. It’s the modern version of one of the oldest problems of governance: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” as the Roman poet Juvenal asked about 2,000 years ago. Who watches the sysadmin?
Consider the outrage that is the federal employee retirement system, a clunky program that Musk recently highlighted. The entire operation runs almost solely on paper, each retirement file hand-processed by hundreds of workers in a limestone mine 230 feet underground who ferry pieces of paper between the caverns to put them in the right manila folder. Since there couldn’t be an open flame in the mine, The Washington Post reported in 2014, all the food had to come from the outside. So the pizza guy had a security clearance. Multiple attempts at modernization failed, resulting in a frustratingly sluggish process in which simple searches often take months.
Not so the hiring and firing process at the Office of Personnel Management, where all employment records have been neatly digitized in an uber-human resources department for the entire federal government. That’s why a team from Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency headed straight for O.P.M., dragging in sofa beds to sleep on so they could be there round the clock. O.P.M. is root access to the entire United States government.
With that kind of access, even a small team can search the entire government for employees whose job titles contain suggestions of wrongthink, or who might resist takeovers or wield bureaucratic tools to slow the pace of change.
In effect, this small DOGE crew has become sysadmins for the entire government. Soon after O.P.M., they descended on the Treasury Department, where every payment the government has made is stored: root access to the economy (including many companies that are direct competitors to those of Musk). Their efforts expanded recently to the I.R.S. and Social Security Administration, both of which hold extremely personal, sensitive information: root access to practically the entire American population.
The Atlantic reports that a former Tesla engineer appointed as the director of the Technology Transformation Services — a little-known entity that runs digital services for many parts of the government — has requested “privileged access” to 19 different I.T. systems reportedly without even completing a background check, making him less vetted than the person delivering pizza to that mine.
All this has merged with and amplified another kind of insider threat brewing for decades on the political side: the expansion of unchecked executive power.
“With money we will get men, said Caesar, and with men we will get money,” Thomas Jefferson once wrote, to warn against the ways that what he called elective despotism can become a self-feeding cycle. He had feared that an elected authoritarian would not just pulverize the institutions meant to limit his power, but take them over to wield as weapons, thus further entrenching himself.
Even Jefferson couldn’t have imagined a future in which the arsenal being deployed included centralized databases with comprehensive records on every citizen’s employment, finances, taxes and for some, even health status.
After a judge blocked a Trump executive order, Elon Musk shared a post with his more than 200 million followers on X that included the judge’s daughter’s name, photo and job, allegedly at the Department of Education. There’s no indication he got access to government databases about her, but how would we know if he had, or if he does so in the future?
How many people are now wondering about private information about themselves or their loved ones? How many companies are wondering if their sensitive financial data is now in the hands of a rival? How many judges are wondering if their family is next?
It didn’t have to be this way. Over the years, expert after expert and organization after organization warned about the dangers of consolidating so much data in the hands of governments (and corporations). As far back as 1975 Jerome Wiesner, then the president of M.I.T., warned that information technology puts “vastly more power into the hands of government and private interests” and that “the widespread collection of personal information would pose a threat to the Constitution itself,” risking the rise of an “information tyranny in the innocent pursuit of a more efficient society.”
It’s not a choice between efficiency and manila folders in underground mines. There have been plenty of promising efforts to develop digital technologies that preserve our privacy while delivering its conveniences. They have names like zero-knowledge proofs, federated learning, differential privacy, secure enclaves, homomorphic encryption, but chances are you’ve never heard of any of them. In the rush to create newer, faster, more monetizable technologies — and to enable the kind of corporate empires whose chief executives stood beside Donald Trump at his inauguration — privacy and safety regulations seemed like a bore.
Now we are stuck with a system that offers equal efficiency to those who wish to exercise the legitimate functions of government and those who wish to dismantle it, or to weaponize it for their own ends. There doesn’t even seem to be a mechanism to learn who has gained access to what database with what privileges. Judges are asking and not always getting clear answers. The only ones who know are the sysadmins, and they’re not saying.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
8) ‘We’re Just Keeping Everybody Alive’: The Damage Done by the U.S.A.I.D. Freeze
By Jeremy Konyndyk, Feb. 21, 2025
Mr. Konyndyk is the president of Refugees International and a former U.S.A.I.D. official in the Obama and Biden administrations.
When President John F. Kennedy asked Congress to establish the U.S. Agency for International Development in 1961, he rooted its mission in America’s strategic interests and its “moral obligations as a wise leader and good neighbor,” recognizing that poverty and instability threaten America’s prosperity and security. That convergence of interests and values, upheld across Republican and Democratic administrations, is now at risk.
U.S.A.I.D. is not a perfect agency. No government institution is. But from the Green Revolution to humanitarian relief to the fight against H.I.V., it has built a more stable world while advancing U.S. interests.
Now, under the guise of a foreign aid “review,” Elon Musk and President Trump have frozen U.S.A.I.D. money and activities and appear to be working to dismantle the agency and almost entirely eliminate foreign aid programs. The few waivers that have been granted have not unfrozen a significant amount of money. As the testimonials below from around the world show, the immediate impact has been damaging and chaotic.
It is not too late to salvage the agency and its mission. The agency’s partner organizations are hanging on and its overseas missions seem to have remained mostly intact, for now. The laws establishing U.S.A.I.D. in federal statute and its budget appropriation remain in force and unaltered.
But Mr. Musk’s assault appears to be operating outside of any lawful or congressional process, so Congress and the courts must intervene. Multiple lawsuits have been filed, with two prompting restraining orders. But saving foreign aid will ultimately come down to whether Congress uses its constitutional leverage over the administration.
Lawmakers should consider how they will explain in the coming years why America could no longer stop a disease outbreak overseas from reaching the homeland. Or why thousands of children who depended on lifesaving nutritional supplies made in American plants were left to die. Or why China is capitalizing on the vacuums left by America’s retreat.
None of those effects point to a safer or more prosperous future for America.
The following testimonies were gathered by the Times Opinion staff. Some individuals spoke on condition of anonymity. Some interviews have been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Africa
Sudan: Humanitarian aid
U.S.A.I.D. has helped support the network of Emergency Response Rooms across Sudan, civilian-led groups that provide food and other humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of people during the country’s continuing civil war, according to Hajooj Kuka, an external communications officer for the E.R.R.s. Famine has already been confirmed in or is projected to take hold in 10 parts of the country.
“At this moment, we’re trying our best to utilize the resources we have, but the way we’re doing it is using all the money we have from somewhere else. Really quickly, it’s just going to deplete. We have no clue if U.S.A.I.D. money is going to kick back in, or it’s just gone,” he said.
“We’re just keeping everybody alive, and Sudan is on the verge of an outbreak of famine… A week of not finding food would actually mean a lot of death.”
“I’m not sure who the United States is. At this point it’s hard for me to tell.”
Kenya: H.I.V. and tuberculosis treatment
The U.S.A.I.D. freeze has devastated tuberculosis and maternal H.I.V. programs at the Mathare North Health Center, which serves some of Nairobi’s poorest.
The X-ray machine that had been operated by workers supported by U.S.A.I.D. grants to diagnose tuberculosis is no longer running because the personnel trained to operate it were forced out of work. “Some patients will go home undetected and they will spread more deadly, multidrug-resistant TB,” said Margaret Odera, a local community health worker. “Viruses and bacteria don’t need passports to travel.”
On a recent Monday, 17 pregnant or lactating women with H.I.V. went to the center for H.I.V. medication to prevent the transmission of the virus to their babies, but the workers who usually managed the program were not there to provide the medication, Ms. Odera said.
Ms. Odera, who is H.I.V. positive, is afraid that Kenyans will lose access to H.I.V. medications that the United States has historically helped to pay for and deliver. “I am drained thinking about what will happen to my children if I can’t get my medication,” she said.
Nigeria: Childhood malnutrition
After the Trump administration issued its stop-work order, an international nonprofit whose work was partly supported by U.S.A.I.D. began running out of ready-to-use therapeutic food for severely malnourished children in three states, according to a senior humanitarian coordinator at the U.S.-based organization.
For weeks, the official said, the food sat in a warehouse that was waiting for permission from Washington to reopen its doors. Once that permission came through, staff members who would normally distribute the food were unavailable because their employer did not have the funding or permission to let them work.
Even as these problems get resolved, larger disruptions to the pipeline that supplies this lifesaving food may persist and prevent enough from reaching the area, the official said. “Our teams have requested funding to purchase the food locally to meet the demand. They are anticipating very high needs this summer, and they are concerned the food supply won’t be enough.”
“We are plugging leaks in a system that is a dam that’s about to burst,” the official said. “How do we keep up with this, as the supply chains begin to break?”
Burkina Faso: Human rights
The government’s war against Islamist insurgents has escalated in Burkina Faso, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, the displacement of three million people, rampaging militias supported by the government and the forced conscription of government opponents.
The Collective Against Impunity and Stigmatization of Communities provides legal and psychological support for victims, as well as food and financial aid. U.S.A.I.D. funds its monitoring program, which employs some 40 people across the vast country to report on acts of violence and repression, said Daniel Salif Gnienhoun, the group’s permanent secretary. When the funds run out, these workers and their families will lose their source of income but worse, human rights violations will go unreported, he said.
“The human rights will be getting worse and worse,” Mr. Gnienhoun said. “Our rights will be violated, and no voice will be raised denouncing what’s going on in the country,” he said, adding: “The government will have the green light to do whatever they want. They can kill innocent civilians because nothing can be reported.”
Asia
Afghanistan: Education
Classes at the American University of Afghanistan, an online school supported by U.S.A.I.D. and one of the last remaining options for higher education for women in the country, have been suspended since January.
“Last year, when I got accepted to AUAF, I was super happy. It was like something impossible for me that happened — being in an American university and engaged with different kinds of students from all of Afghanistan and different kinds of teachers from the entire world,” said one female student living in Afghanistan.
“At first, when I heard [classes were suspended], I was kind of depressed. I didn’t want to do anything,” she said.
“It’s been a long time that [America] has been supporting Afghanistan, Afghan girls — maybe the students of the entire world. This is a situation where girls should be supported; it’s not like before, when we could go to university. Right now we’re just stuck in the corner of the house. We’re in a cage, and we really need support.”
Indonesia: Health care
U.S.A.I.D. is one of the largest providers of health care aid to Indonesia, especially for maternal and newborn health, H.I.V., tuberculosis and malaria. Some local groups have had to lay off staff members, including more than 100 outreach workers who assist patients seeking H.I.V. treatment.
“A major Indonesian government program to revamp access to primary care is supported in part by a U.S.A.I.D. project focused on maternal and newborn health, which has now been halted. Given Indonesia’s high maternal and infant mortality rates, this setback could significantly impair the country’s efforts to reduce these rates as part of its broader health goals,” said Dr. Marcia Soumokil, director of reproductive health nonprofit Ipas Indonesia.
Cambodia: Human trafficking
The Berlin-based Freedom Collaborative network serves as a clearinghouse of information and an adviser for groups in countries helping people who were forced to work in cyberscam compounds. The F.B.I. said that in 2023, Americans potentially lost $12.5 billion in such scams.
Now, with most all of its funding halted by U.S.A.I.D., the Freedom Collaborative will no longer be able to help local groups, including the main shelter in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a country that is one of the largest havens of cyberscam operations, said Julia Macher, Freedom Collaborative’s chief executive.
“Even if survivors can get out of the compounds, they have no place to put them,” she said. “They have no place to go, and they have no money to fly back home.” Nor will they be able to afford medical treatment, including for broken limbs: Jumping out of windows is one of the escape methods.
Thailand: Climate change
“We help people across Southeast Asia and South Asia manage their forests and adapt to a changing climate,” explained David Ganz, executive director of RECOFTC, a nonprofit headquartered in Bangkok. “Some U.S.A.I.D.-funded programs had to stop immediately: One of our forest fire management projects in the Mekong River region is now on pause, and we are entering the agricultural burning season and hot summer, which significantly increases the risk of wildfires. The uncertainty of this freeze is preventing us from planning long-term.”
“The Philippines and Bangladesh rely heavily on U.S.A.I.D., especially for humanitarian responses after super-typhoons, droughts, floods and other natural disasters. With the freeze, deforestation and wildlife crime are likely to go up again in the region just when we were making some headway on addressing these threats to biodiversity and ecosystems.”
Latin America and the Caribbean
Colombia: Strengthening civil society
U.S.A.I.D. helped support the organization Fundación Paz y Reconciliación through Tetra Tech ARD, a consulting group.
“In Colombia, there is still an armed conflict — including armed groups and threats from organized crime. These programs sought better prevention of human rights violations through early warnings,” said Laura Bonilla, Fundación Paz y Reconciliación’s deputy director. “If there were threats of forced displacement or the murder of a human rights defender, we could warn people. It’s fundamental to save these people because they’re resisting where armed groups have great influence.”
“Catatumbo is one of the regions where the most coca is planted. So cutting the cooperation between U.S.A.I.D., communities and the state strengthens armed groups.”
“The United States had been a key partner in maintaining stability in the region. So we’re going to see a more destabilized Colombia. It’s not a good idea to leave us alone.”
Guatemala: Preventing violence against women
“You’re going to see the impact in Guatemala and Honduras,” a staffer working in Central America for an international nongovernmental organization said.
“We’re responding to one of the biggest challenges in Central America: violence against women and girls.”
The worker explained: “We provided legal and psychosocial resources to help women earn a living and address justice for them. We gave women cash vouchers to find shelter, but the shelters don’t feed people. The shelters don’t cover the cost of a bus to a city where a judge can hear a woman’s case. Our paralegals are there to accompany them. We know that we are leaving women without any income or support.”
Haiti: Preventing malnutrition
After the aid freeze, Action Against Hunger shut down a program that worked with about 13,000 Haitians to educate families about better nutrition and provided training for pregnant and breastfeeding women, among other services.
Martine Villeneuve, Action Against Hunger’s country director in Haiti, said:
“About half of the population is dependent on humanitarian aid, and the number of people living in food insecurity and facing issues of malnutrition has continued to increase since 2016. So we are close to catastrophe.”
“Half of the country is hungry. Having projects that help to diversify the kind of food that you are buying — including understanding the impact of buying local food that is full of nutrients and comes from the farmer next to you — it’s also a cycle of life that helps to re-establish the country.”
Middle East
Syria: Humanitarian aid
Some 2.6 million people in northeastern Syria depend on 50 nongovernmental organizations, many of them mostly funded by U.S.A.I.D.’s Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs. Hundreds of thousands of those people are in shelters, emergency “collection centers” and camps for displaced people, including two holding tens of thousands of family members of suspected ISIS militants.
“We are seeing complete destruction of what once was a humanitarian response. That will not only have direct human implications but a destabilizing security impact across the region,” said a senior official coordinating the humanitarian response in northeast Syria. “Even non-U.S.-funded efforts will effectively be shut down,” the official added. “It’s impossible to deliver an education or protection program where food, fuel and water is not being delivered.”
U.S.A.I.D.-funded health care serves 1.65 million people in the area, the official said. Those services have been drastically cut. How many will die? “We can’t see them. They’re not even making it to a health care center,” the official said.
Europe
Ukraine: Children’s welfare
“An estimated 1.6 million Ukrainian children remain at risk of forced deportation, indoctrination, militarization and identity erasure under Russian occupation,” said Darya Kasyanova, head of the board of the Ukrainian Child Rights Network. “The occupation authorities are systematically forcing Ukrainian children into Russian schools, military training camps and programs designed to erase their national identity and prepare them to become a part of Russian armed forces.”
“Our project was designed to provide these children and their caregivers with vital information on how to recognize these dangers and where to seek help. People in temporarily occupied territories live in an extremely restricted information space and often do not even know that rescue services exist or where to turn for help.”
“The suspension of U.S.A.I.D. funding has severely impacted both the Ukrainian Child Rights Network and our 40 member organizations."
"Without immediate action, more children will be permanently separated from their families and integrated into Russian-controlled structures, violating their fundamental rights and Ukraine’s future.”
Moldova: Supporting independent media
“Right now, we have everyone’s salaries covered for the next two months, but there’s no predictability after that. Most independent media in Moldova is supported by grants,” Anastasia Condruc, editor in chief of Moldova.org, an independent media organization, said. “The state funds a public TV channel and radio broadcaster. If Moldova.org can’t produce more journalism, I think many vulnerable voices will remain unheard, especially victims of domestic violence or sexual harassment.
Many projects in road-building, business, agriculture and education in Moldova have been paused, and hopes are not high that the funds will return, honestly. It’s hard to estimate the damage done, especially in the long term. We’re afraid the void left by the U.S. might be filled by Russia. We see local pro-Russian politicians celebrating the funding freeze.”
Reporting by Eliza Barclay, Daniela Cobos, Alex Ellerbach, Louise Loftus, Krista Mahr, Neel Patel and Daniel J. Wakin.
Graphics by Aileen Clarke and Taylor Maggiacomo.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
