Welcome to this edition of NewsHero for December 7, 2019
We source our reporting from news outlets all across the spectrum. By reading this week’s newsletter you’ll be exploring events from around the globe covered by 40 publications in 85 articles by 103 journalists. And remember, here though, the heroes make the headlines.
Weekly Brief Part 1
Humanitarian/Aid Work/Human Rights
Participants protest against discrimination and gender-based violence during a rally held by members of feminist organizations and social activists in Almaty, Kazakhstan September 28, 2019. The placard reads "To jail for violence, not truth". © 2019 REUTERS/Pavel Mikheyev
According to the UN, roughly 2.5 million people in Mozambique—nearly 10 percent of its population—are currently in need of humanitarian aid. The southern African nation was hit by two major cyclones earlier this year, while a months-long drought has left millions in need. The New Humanitarian has spent three weeks reporting across the country and says attacks by suspected Islamists are another threat, having already displaced about 65,000 people.
The Gambia Truth, Reconciliation, and Reparations Commission (TRRC) was set to end its first year of televised hearings on Friday following testimony that former president Yahya Jammeh committed multiple crimes, including murder and torture, during his 22 years in office. Human Rights Watch said the hearings “highlight the need for a criminal investigation of Jammeh, who has lived in exile in Equatorial Guinea since his departure from Gambia in January 2017.”
Tens of thousands of protest letters were not enough to prevent the Trump administration from approving a rule on Wednesday that would see roughly 700,000 people lose access to food stamps. The rule is one of three Agriculture Department moves to scale back the food stamp program. According to the New York Times, anti-poverty groups said the administration’s focus on the unemployment rate was misleading.
Humanitarian workers have recently been targets of attack in Afghanistan. Dr. Tetsu Nakamura, 73, who helped villagers displaced by drought build canals, died after being attacked by gunmen while driving to work in Jalalabad on Wednesday. Five members of his staff were also killed.
Yulia Tsvetkova, 26, a Russian feminist and LGBT activist is under house arrest for allegedly distributing pornography. Tsvetkova has been repeatedly questioned by police about her work as an artist and youth theater director. Human Rights Watch said, “It’s yet another example of Russia using unfounded accusations and vague laws to intimidate certain activists.” If prosecuted and convicted, Tsvetkova faces up to six years in prison.
The National Human Rights Council in Morocco (also known as CNDH, its French acronym) has recommended decriminalizing consensual sex between non-married adults and granting more religious freedoms. The Moroccan parliament was scheduled to begin reviewing CNDH proposals on November 30. Many Moroccans have gone to prison for non-marital sex, adultery, and homosexuality.
Human Rights Watch reported on Wednesday that Kazakhstan was participating in the international 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, an annual campaign focusing on “the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls.” Representatives of Kazakhstan’s government said the country aims to “advocate among the public and to inform citizens about organizations providing assistance to victims of domestic violence.”
Eight non-governmental organizations filed a lawsuit against France’s plan to provide six boats to Libya’s coast guard, criticizing Libya’s treatment of migrants. French officials confirmed the arrangement has been canceled. Rights groups have accused Libyan officials of routinely picking up migrants in the Mediterranean and bringing them back to overcrowded detention centers, where many have been victims of abuse and forced labor.
According to the Brazilian Federal Public Defender’s Office, 529 unaccompanied Venezuelan children crossed the border into the Brazilian state of Roraima from May 1 to November 21. Almost 90 percent of them are between ages 13 and 17. “The humanitarian emergency is driving children to flee Venezuela alone, many looking for food or health care,” said César Muñoz, senior Brazil researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Women’s Rights
Activists demanding justice in the case of a veterinarian who was gang-raped and killed last week shout slogans during a protest in Kolkata, India, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2019. According to the most recent available official crime records, police registered 33,658 cases of rape in India in 2017 - an average of more than 90 every day. But the real figure is believed to be far higher as many women in India don’t report cases to police due to fear. Banner reads, "Protest against regular incidents of violence on women". (AP Photo/Bikas Das)
Women in Kenya are being empowered by a group-based funding strategy known as table banking. The objective of table banking, in which members form groups where they can save and borrow money immediately during meeting times, is to fight poverty and help the poor stay financially stable. About 97 percent of table banking members in Kenya are women.
Asylum seekers in Greece are struggling with safe access to food, water, and health care. Women and girls in Greece’s overcrowded Moria “hotspot” for migrants on Lesbos island are reportedly facing insecurities daily. The Greek government says it is nearly impossible to maintain adequate conditions with the high number of asylum seekers and migrants, but rights advocates say the government should take action to ensure safe, humane conditions for women and girls in need.
Members of Amnesty International India, the Delhi Commission for Women, and the National Commission on Human Rights are among those seeking answers as police fatally shot four men on Friday being held on suspicion of raping and killing a 27-year-old veterinarian in southern India, a case that has sparked protests across the country. The burned body of the woman was found last week by a passer-by after she went missing the previous night.
A 23-year-old woman is in critical condition undergoing treatment for severe burns after being set on fire while going to court in northern India. The woman, an alleged rape victim, was on her way to a hearing in the case she filed against two men in March. Five men including two of her alleged rapists have been arrested on suspicion of setting her on fire, police say.
UN
In an interview with WIRED, UN Secretary-General António Guterres says the world's next major conflict may start in cyberspace, and that the U.S.-China tech divide could cause more trouble than the Cold War. Guterres discussed the fracturing of the internet and the possibility that a technology meant to pull nations together could push them apart.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, an Argentine backed by the U.S., became the new director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday. He faces a number of internal and external pressures, including Iran’s uranium enrichment activities. This is only the sixth time in its history the agency’s board of governors appointed a new director-general. Grossi succeeds Yukiya Amano, a Japanese national who died in office this year after serving for a decade.
Democrats Move To Draft Impeachment Articles Against Trump
Law professors testify, talk justifications for impeachment
Noah Feldman, left, a law professor at Harvard, prepared to testify to the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.Credit...Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times
House Democrats moved Thursday to draw up formal articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying he “leaves us no choice” but to act swiftly because he’s likely to corrupt the system again unless removed before next year’s election. Democrats say it is their duty, in the aftermath of the Ukraine probe, while Republicans say it will drive Pelosi’s majority from office. “The president’s actions have seriously violated the Constitution,” Pelosi said in an address at the Capitol. The president and leading Republicans have labeled the impeachment a sham and a hoax. Trump has insisted he did nothing wrong, tweeting that the Democrats “have gone crazy.”
Four law professors testified before a House panel on Wednesday, three invited by Democrats and one by Republicans, giving an overview of the history of impeachment, the practical justifications for it and their views on whether President Trump’s conduct in the Ukraine affair warranted it. There was broad agreement about what the Constitution requires, though the two sides differed about whether the evidence to date had established that Trump had crossed the constitutional line for impeachment. The Republicans’ witness, Prof. Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said, “The use of military aid for a quid pro quo to investigate one’s political opponent, if proven, can be an impeachable offense.”
Even as Democrats intensified their scrutiny this week of President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his role in the pressure campaign against the Ukrainian government, Giuliani has been in Europe continuing his efforts to shift the focus to purported wrongdoing by Trump’s political rivals. Giuliani says his Ukraine trip this week is linked to TV documentary defending Trump.
The House Intelligence Committee obtained phone records from AT&T showing extensive communications in early April involving Rep. Devin Nunes, Giuliani, Lev Parnas, and The Hill columnist John Solomon, according to records released in the committee’s formal report on its investigation underlying impeachment charges against President Donald Trump.
Devin Nunes filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN in federal court on Tuesday in which he is seeking $435,350,000 in damages. The California Republican alleges that CNN (which the lawsuit describes as “the mother of fake news) published a “demonstrably false hit piece” on him when it reported on Nov. 22 that a lawyer for Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani, said his client was willing to testify that Nunes met with last year with a former Ukrainian prosecutor in Vienna in an effort to get dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.
A federal appeals court in New York handed President Trump another legal defeat Tuesday, ruling that Congress can see his banking records for investigations into possible foreign influence in U.S. politics or other misdeeds. The court said Congress was acting within its constitutional authority to investigate a series of significant issues, including whether Trump was “vulnerable to foreign exploitation.”
The attorney chosen by Attorney General William Barr to investigate the origins of the probe into the Trump campaign and Russia's election interference has reportedly found no evidence to support claims from conservatives that the case was a setup by U.S. intelligence officials. Sources told The Washington Post that John Durham, the U.S. attorney picked by Barr to lead the investigation, told the Justice Department's inspector general, who conducted his own probe, that he has found no evidence to support claims that a Maltese professor who spoke with former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos was secretly a U.S. intelligence asset.
The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved an anti-robocall bill by an almost unanimous vote. The measure also enjoys support in the Senate, making it likely the legislation reaches President Trump's desk before the end of the year. The Pallone-Thune Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act would require phone companies to block robocalls without charging customers any extra money and require most carriers in the U.S. ensure that calls are coming from real numbers. It would give government regulators more time to find scammers and penalize them more aggressively.
Weekly Brief Part 2
Climate
Climate activist Greta Thunberg, centre, leaves the protest in Madrid, Friday Dec. 6, 2019. Thunberg arrived in Madrid Friday to join thousands of other young people in a march to demand world leaders take real action against climate change. (AP Photo/Andrea Comas) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Climate activist Greta Thunberg arrived in Madrid on Friday for the COP25 summit. Thunberg said that demands for action against climate change are still being “ignored” by political leaders despite their continuous praise of the youth-driven environmental movement she helped create. Thunberg said at a press conference that she hoped the COP25 summit would lead to "something concrete” and “increasing awareness among people in general.”
Local environmentalists in Chile have organized a ten-day event as an alternative to the UN climate conference that was re-located to Spain amid Chile’s ongoing civil unrest. More than 100 environmental groups kicked off their own conference on Monday, also the first day of the official COP25 conference in Madrid. Residents of communities suffering drought, and other grassroots groups, staged a protest Monday morning in Santiago against inequality and injustice over the past six weeks.
According to the provisional list published by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), there is a grand total of 26,706 participants registered for COP25, the UN-sponsored climate conference being held in Spain. The country with the most delegates is Côte d’Ivoire with 348, which is more than 50 people larger than the second placed country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo with 293. The remaining top five includes Spain (with 172 delegates), Brazil (168) and the Congo (165).
A group of U.S. companies, coordinated by national union federation AFL-CIO, are calling for President Trump to re-think his plans for pulling out of the Paris Agreement. Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai are among the company bosses signing an open letter saying, “The promise of the Paris Agreement is one of a just and prosperous world. We urge the United States to join us in staying in.”
Health
BeautifulNews - https://informationisbeautiful.net/beautifulnews/
The number of cases of malaria have been on the decline. Improved public health information, new medicines, and sleeping under insecticide-treated nets are contributing to the falling numbers. 90% of malaria cases occur in Africa, accounting for roughly 200 million infections and 400,000 deaths. Morocco and Algeria are now malaria-free, while many countries are heading in the same direction.
The World Mosquito Program is leading a project showing significant results in battling dengue. There have been dramatic drops in dengue infections in places like Australia, Indonesia, and Brazil, where mosquitoes bred to be infected with a specific bacterium, were released.
The number of annual AIDS-related deaths worldwide is falling by more than a third from 1.2 million in 2010 to 770,000 last year, though, according to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the epidemic still remains a problem, disproportionately affecting women and young girls. Last year, 1.7 million people were newly infected with HIV, but the prevalence is twice as high among young women aged 15 to 24 compared to men of the same age group.
Rights Groups Threatened With Chinese Sanctions Over US Support Of Hong Kong
US passes Uighur bill condemning minority abuse
Anti-government demonstrators hang a banner during a protest march in Hong Kong, China, October 20, 2019. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters)
In retaliation to President Trump signing a law that mandates sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials who commit human rights abuses, China said Monday it will suspend U.S. military ship and aircraft visits to Hong Kong and sanction several American pro-democracy and human rights groups. The move follows Chinese warnings that the U.S. would bear the costs if the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act was approved. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China would sanction organizations including the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, Human Rights Watch, the International Republican Institute, Freedom House and others that she said had "performed badly” in the Hong Kong unrest. Derek Mitchell, the president of the National Democratic Institute, said in Hong Kong last week that accusations it was colluding with protesters were “patently false.”
The House of Representatives’ approval of a bill requiring the Trump administration to toughen its response to China’s crackdown on Uighur Muslims in the western region of Xinjiang could deal another setback to trade negotiations. Sources familiar with the trade talks say the two sides are still wrangling over the details, including whether existing U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods will be removed and how much in additional U.S. agricultural products China will buy.
The Uighur bill, which was passed 407-1 in the Democratic-controlled House, requires the U.S. president to condemn abuses against Muslims and call for the closure of mass detention camps in Xinjiang. Beijing called the bill a malicious attack on China, demanded the United States keep it from becoming law, and said it would act to defend its interests as necessary. Analysts say China's reaction to any Uighur bill could be stronger, although some doubted it would go so far as imposing visa bans on the likes of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a strong critic of China's Xinjiang policies who has been repeatedly denounced by Beijing. Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi called China's treatment of the Uighurs "an outrage to the collective conscience of the world."
NewsHero Editorial:
Art by Mark Minnig
Weekly Brief Part 3
Data/Technology/Fake News
The Singapore government instructed Facebook "to publish a correction notice,” claiming that a user’s post contained accusations about the arrest of a supposed whistleblower and election rigging. Singapore, which is expected to call a general election within months, said the allegations were false. Facebook issued the correction, but cautioned against the implementation of a “fake news” law in the city-state.
The European Commission says that EU antitrust regulators are investigating Google’s data collection. The investigation suggests the world’s most popular internet search engine remains under close watch despite record fines in recent years. Competition enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic are now looking into how dominant tech companies use and monetize data.
The ACLU, along with other civil rights groups, reached terms of a settlement earlier this year causing Facebook to take steps to prevent discriminatory ad targeting. Facebook says ads in the United States that involve housing, employment, or credit can no longer be targeted based on age, gender, ZIP code, or multicultural affinity.
The U.S. on Thursday indicted the alleged Russian hacker behind the $100 million group Evil Corp. The FBI is charging Maksim Yakubets over two of the biggest cyber theft campaigns of the last decade, offering a record reward for information on the case. For the past ten years, Evil Corp hackers have led a sustained assault on the bank accounts of thousands of victims across dozens of countries.
Journalists/Journalism
ILLUSTRATION: CASEY CHIN; HUANG XUEQIN BY THOMAS YAU/SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST/GETTY IMAGES
The One Free Press Coalition, a united group of editors and publishers spotlighting journalists under attack worldwide, has placed Sophia Xueqin Huang at the top of its monthly “10 Most Urgent” list of journalists whose press freedoms are being suppressed or whose cases demand justice. Huang, a journalist who has covered the ongoing unrest in Hong Kong, has been detained since October on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” and could face five years in prison.
Groups including Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists have responded with a statement to a new law, signed by President Vladimir Putin on Monday, that allows the Russian government to classify individual journalists, bloggers, and social media users as “foreign agents.” The statement said that the law “will have a detrimental impact on the already restrictive environment for independent journalism in Russia.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and press freedom supporters from around the world celebrated journalists from Brazil, India, Nicaragua, and Tanzania at the 29th annual International Press Freedom Awards in New York. The 2019 Gwen Ifill Award was presented to veteran Pakistani journalist Zaffar Abbas. Prior to the ceremony the CPJ and award recipients met with Vice President Pence in Washington to raise concerns about threats to press freedom around the globe, including the ways that President Trump’s treatment of the press is being emulated by leaders in their own countries to crack down on the media and justify repression.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the killing of TV host José Arita in northern Honduras, urging authorities to conduct an investigation. Two unidentified individuals shot Arita outside a convenience store shortly after he finished broadcasting his nightly show, The Hour of Truth.
The Committee to Protect Journalists is calling on Pakistan authorities to prevent demonstrations against the Dawn newspaper from turning violent and to investigate death threats made against its staffers. Dozens of protesters swarmed the Dawn newspaper’s Islamabad office on Monday, blocking staff from entering or exiting the building, after the paper published a headline accurately describing the perpetrator of a terrorist attack in London on November 29 as “of Pakistani origin.”
ABS-CBN, the Philippines’ biggest television network will potentially lose its franchise next year if President Rodrigo Duterte follows through with his threat. In a rant against “oligarchs” on Tuesday Duterte said, “I will see to it that you're out,” referring to the network’s franchise set to expire on March 30, 2020.
France/UK
Protesters in Paris caused hundreds of miles of roads to be jammed with traffic Friday as a general strike aimed at President Macron's plans to overhaul the country’s pension system caused headaches for commuters and tourists. It’s the biggest public sector protest in two decades for France. Many subways and regional trains were shut down and many schools were closed.
European Union member states are distancing themselves from Boris Johnson’s fast-track timetable to strike a post-Brexit trade deal. If he wins a majority, the prime minister has said he’ll take the U.K. out of the EU on January 31, 2020, and secure a trade deal with the bloc within just 11 months.
The Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has released details of a leaked confidential government assessment that he says proves Boris Johnson is “misleading the people” about his Brexit plan and the impact it would have on Northern Ireland.
On December 12, voters in the U.K. will go to the polls in a high-stakes election. It will be a decisive moment in the polarizing Brexit debate, with the outcome indicating support for a divorce deal with the EU, a second referendum, or continued stalemate.
Iran
People protest against increased gas price, on a highway in Tehran, Iran Nov. 16.Nazanin Tabatabaee/WANA / Reuters file
Nearly a year after the United Nation's top court ruled that President Trump's administration should ease sanctions against Tehran to ensure the continued flow of humanitarian goods, Iran's top judiciary has ordered the US to pay up $130 billion in damages.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called on Wednesday for the release of any unarmed and innocent people detained during two weeks of sometimes violent protests against gasoline price hikes. The unrest, which began last month after the government abruptly raised fuel prices by as much as 300%, spread to more than 100 cities and towns.
Amnesty International reports that families of anti-government protesters killed by Iranian security forces during recent demonstrations are being demanded to pay for the bullets used to gun them down. At least 208 people have been killed in the protests. Iran state television on Tuesday also admitted to gunning down “rioters” in multiple cities. It’s the first time authorities have offered any sort of accounting for the violence used to quell the demonstrations.
A U.S. Navy warship has intercepted a “significant cache” of what is thought to be missile parts from Iran bound for rebels in Yemen. This is the first time such high-level missile components have been seized en route to the four-year civil war in Yemen where Iranians support the Houthi rebels. The U.S. has repeatedly accused Iran of smuggling arms to the rebels battling the Yemeni government.
Iranian President Rouhani says Tehran hasn’t closed the window on talks with the U.S. but reiterated his government’s standing condition that the Trump administration lift sanctions imposed on Iran before any negotiations can take place. Rouhani’s statement was posted on the Iranian presidency’s website Wednesday.
Officials told the New York Times that Shiite militant groups that control roads, bridges, and other infrastructure in areas of Iraq near the Iranian border are assisting with the concealment of a stash of ballistic missiles in Iraqi territory, further complicating the tense relationship between the U.S. and Tehran.
The U.S. is considering sending several thousand additional troops to the Middle East to help deter Iranian aggression, amid reports of escalating violence in Iran and continued meddling by Tehran in Iraq, Syria, and other parts of the region. The potential decision to increase U.S. presence comes partly because of a series of maritime attacks and bombings in Saudi Arabia that the U.S. and others have blamed on Iran.
Syria
Members of the Syrian Civil Defense recover a body from the aftermath of an air strike in the town of Maaret al-Numan in Syria on Monday.Credit...Abdulaziz Ketaz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Local volunteer and rights groups said three separate attacks Monday targeting busy marketplaces in northwest Syria killed at least 19 people, 12 of them children. The White Helmets, a Syrian volunteer rescue group, said airstrikes tore through two marketplaces in the province of Idlib. The Syrian American Medical Society reported children were killed in the attacks. The White Helmets blamed the attack on the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which routinely carries out airstrikes in the area with Russia's help.
According to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), just hours after the strikes in Idlib, a separate attack killed more children in another market in the neighboring province. Additional children were injured, according to UNICEF. The UN children's agency said it was “shocked and saddened” by the reported deaths. Monday's attacks bring the number of children killed in northern Syria to at least 34 over just the past four weeks, UNICEF said.
Thanks for reading.