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We wish you the warmest of holiday seasons and look forward to bringing you more of what we do in the coming year. But for now, welcome to this edition of NewsHero for December 21, 2019.
We sourced 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 27 publications in 63 articles by 79 journalists. And remember, here though, the heroes make the headlines.
Weekly Brief Part 1
Humanitarian/Refugees
Volunteers have been stepping in to keep asylum seekers healthy at the U.S.-Mexico border. Health professionals and medical students from both sides of the border are part of a movement quietly struggling to keep asylum seekers cared for while their lives remain in transition. Volunteers often must improvise while working with limited donated medications and equipment and dealing with non-medical issues. Tens of thousands of people are stuck in Mexican border cities as their asylum cases travel through the U.S. court system.
In this Oct. 26, 2019, photo, dentist Demetrio Cardenas, left, checks inside the mouth of a patient in a shelter for migrants in Tijuana, Mexico. The health crisis spans both sides of the border. In the past year, at least three children, detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents, have died from the flu while being held. They include a 16-year-old boy who was seen on security footage writhing in agony on the floor in a U.S. Border Patrol holding cell. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, reports that hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced people in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are living in dire conditions and exposed to human rights violations daily. Some 300,000 people, mostly women and children, were displaced following brutal attacks by various armed groups in June 2019. An estimated four million people were already displaced across DRC.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday it approved drugmaker Merck & Co’s Ebola vaccine Ervebo, making it the first FDA-authorized vaccine against the deadly virus. The vaccine was used by the World Health Organization and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an investigational vaccine to help reduce Ebola virus disease outbreaks in West African countries from 2014 to 2016.
Humanitarian groups are feeling pressure to stop paying workers with cash following a government order banning cash aid in Bangladesh’s Rohingya camps. The order threatens a rare source of income for aid-dependent refugees, particularly women. Rohingya volunteers told The New Humanitarian that some aid groups began warning in early November that they could be dismissed from paid work programs, or that they may be given rations instead of modest daily stipends. Mizanur Rahman, additional secretary for the Office of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner, the government body overseeing the camps, said authorities were concerned about refugees using the money to buy black-market ID documents.
BuzzFeed News on Tuesday published horoscopes it had obtained that appear to be created by Australia's Department of Home Affairs. The fake, negative horoscopes are reportedly designed to deter Sri Lankan asylum-seekers from attempting to settle in Australia. While many focused on having bad luck, other horoscopes varied. Cancers, for example, were warned “You will lose everything your family owns to debt and face family problems.”
Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has condemned the killing of four Action Against Hunger humanitarian workers in northeast Nigeria and called for the immediate release of the remaining aid worker in captivity. “This is not the first time such horrific events have occurred in the past months in Nigeria and our thoughts are with all those who have been affected by these tragedies, including family, friends and colleagues,” said Dr. Christos Christou, International President of MSF.
The first-ever Global Refugee Forum was held in Geneva this week, marking the end of a decade in which the number of refugees has risen to over 25 million people worldwide. The forum, guided by the Global Compact on Refugees, serves as an opportunity to turn shared international responsibility into action. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced ahead of the forum that more than 80 organizations pledged to provide sporting opportunities to young refugees.
The United Nations marked December 18 International Migrants Day. “All migrants are entitled to equal protection of all their human rights. On this International Day, I urge leaders and people everywhere to bring the Global Compact to life, so that migration works for all,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Children shelter from the sun at northeastern Syria's al-Hol camp in May. The camp is now home to nearly 69,000 people. (Ali Yousef/ICRC)
The UN is holding off on plans for an overhaul of aid operations in Syria that critics said would have given too much influence to President Bashar al-Assad, according to a report from The New Humanitarian. Mark Lowcock, head of the UN’s emergency aid body, OCHA, said the current structure, known as the “Whole of Syria” approach, needed a review to “ensure maximum operational efficiency and effectiveness,” while attempting to reassure NGOs that “strong and distinct leadership” would remain for aid from inside Damascus and across the borders of Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey.
A UN Security Council resolution that allows the UN to bring aid across Syria’s borders without President Bashar al-Assad’s permission expires on January 10. A European Commission spokesperson says that non-renewal of Resolution 2165 could lead to the “disruption of much needed life-saving humanitarian aid." The resolution was unanimously adopted by the council in 2014, and UN agencies have depended on it to transport assistance from Iraq, Turkey, and Jordan into parts of Syria that the government does not control.
House Votes To Impeach Trump
Pelosi holds off on sending articles to Senate
Speaker Nancy Pelosi presided over the vote to impeach President Trump.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Speaker Nancy Pelosi put a halt on impeachment proceedings just one day after the House voted Donald Trump the third president in U.S. history to be impeached. The next step as dictated by the Constitution is the Senate trial, but for now Pelosi is holding off on sending the charges to the Republican-led Senate with hopes it will put pressure on Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, to bend to Democratic demands. The move may also be a gamble. McConnell said, “I admit, I am not sure what leverage there is in refraining from sending us something we do not want.” Pelosi has said she would not send the charges or name the lawmakers who would prosecute the case against Trump until she was certain of a fair process for a Senate trial.
Two articles of impeachment were brought forth against President Trump. The House voted on Wednesday 230-197 on the first article accusing him of abuse of power, followed by a 229-198 vote for the second article accusing Trump of obstruction of Congress.
In his annual end-of-the-year news conference Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ridiculed the impeachment process and suggested Democrats were attempting to reverse the results of the 2016 U.S. election. “This is nothing but a continuation of an internal political struggle, with the party that lost the election, the Democratic Party, trying to reach its goal by different means,” Putin said.
Pelosi has yet to appoint the impeachment managers and transmit the articles to the Senate, and the House is out of Washington for the holidays so the fate of the articles is left unresolved until early January, when Congress reconvenes in the capital.
Weekly Brief Part 2
The Hallmark Channel, reversing what it called a “wrong decision,” said it will reinstate commercials featuring same-sex couples that it had pulled following a complaint from a conservative group. The earlier decision by Crown Media, Hallmark’s parent company, to pull several ads for the wedding planning site Zola featuring two brides kissing at the altar had set off a flurry of protest. “The Crown Media team has been agonizing over this decision as we’ve seen the hurt it has unintentionally caused,” said a statement issued by Hallmark Cards CEO Mike Perry.
This image made from an undated video provided by Zola shows a scene of its advertisement. The Hallmark Channel says it will reinstate same-sex marriage commercials that it had pulled from the network. Hallmark Cards CEO Mike Perry said in a statement Sunday, Dec. 15, 2019, that pulling the commercials “was the wrong decision." (Zola via AP)
A PBS documentary film titled “Same God” focuses on the story of former Wheaton College professor Larycia Hawkins, the subject of a controversy that swept through the Christian community. In December 2015 Hawkins had decided to pursue “embodied solidarity” with Muslims by wearing a hijab during the Christmas season. She posted a photo of herself on Facebook wearing a hijab, along with words that stated her solidarity with Muslims because "they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.” Wheaton, a Christian liberal arts college, disagreed, and questioned whether her “same God” statement contradicted the statement of faith that all Wheaton professors must sign as a condition of employment. Hawkins’ show of solidarity cost her her job and tenure at Wheaton.
Pope Francis has abolished Vatican secrecy rules for cases of sexual abuse, effectively allowing the Catholic church to share documents and information with civil authorities, and allow victims to be updated of the status of their cases. The church already shares files with authorities in some countries, such as the United States, but the practice is not universal. Some Catholic churches around the world have invoked the “pontifical secret” to refuse cooperation in certain cases. Pontifical secret is considered the highest level of confidentiality in church law which covers a number of administrative cases at the Vatican. The violation of pontifical secrecy can result in ex-communication from the church.
Supporters of Shiori Ito hold up signs at the Tokyo District Court on Wednesday. Ito’s case highlighted the societal obstacles facing Japanese women who allege sexual assault or misconduct. (Takashi Aoyama/AFP/Getty Images)
Shiori Ito, the freelance journalist at the center of a high-profile rape case, was awarded damages on Wednesday by a Tokyo court. The landmark ruling was welcomed by equal rights activists but underscored legal and social hurdles in a country where sexual assault victims continue to be stigmatized. Ito, who has become the face of Japan’s slow-moving #MeToo movement, filed a civil suit in 2017 after prosecutors decided not to press charges against Noriyuki Yamaguchi, a former newsman at TBS Television. Ito filed the suit against Yamaguchi seeking compensation for physical and psychological pain. Yamaguchi has denied any wrongdoing in published articles and on social media, saying they had sex by consent. He filed a countersuit this year for allegedly damaging his reputation by accusing him of rape. The court ruled that Yamaguchi’s act was not consensual sex but an assault and dismissed all of his claims. Ito and her supporters said they hope her victory will promote awareness that will help create a society in which sexual victims don’t feel intimidated or isolated. “The victory does not mean all the pain that I had to suffer did not exist,” Ito told reporters after the ruling. “Wounds from sexual violence do not heal over time.”
The daughter of Ilham Tohti, a Uighur intellectual who has been imprisoned in China, has said she does not know if her father is alive. Jewher Ilham made the remark after accepting a top European human rights prize on behalf of her father. Ilham Tohti was jailed for life on separatism charges in 2014. He denied being a separatist, and was seen by many as a moderate voice. Mr. Tohti, an economics scholar, is known for his research on relations between the Uighur and Han people. He was awarded the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought for promoting “dialogue and mutual understanding” between the Uighur and other Chinese people. Ms. Ilham said her father had been labeled “a violent extremist, with a disease that needs to be cured and mind that needs to be washed.”
Animal Rights
Animal rights activists are speaking out as Puerto Rico defies the U.S. government by approving a law to continue cockfighting, despite a federal ban that goes into effect this week. The U.S. territory is attempting to override a law that President Trump signed a year ago. “We are certainly challenging a federal law. We know what that implies,” said Rep. Gabriel Rodríguez Aguiló, who co-authored the bill. Cockfighting generates an estimated $18 million a year and employs some 27,000 people, according to the bill approved by Puerto Rico’s House and Senate. Activists have long pushed to end cockfights in U.S. territories, saying they are cruel and noting they are illegal in all 50 U.S. states. Wayne Pacelle, founder of the Washington-based Animal Wellness Action, said he doesn’t believe the statistics on Puerto Rico cockfighting. "They are widely exaggerating the economic value,” he said. “Watching animals slash each other just for human entertainment and gambling is not judged as a legitimate enterprise by mainstream people.”
Tech
With an in-depth investigation, Britain’s competition regulator on Wednesday flagged the need for tougher regulation of Google and Facebook’s domination of online advertising, to curb any negative consequences. A government commitment to regulatory reform and the global challenge of controlling the tech giants made recommendations more appropriate, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said. Google reportedly earned more than ninety percent of all revenue for search advertising in Britain in 2018, and Facebook accounted for almost half of all display advertising last year.
Responding to an inquiry from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., Facebook answered why it tracks users’ locations even when their tracking services are turned off. The lawmakers now say Facebook should give users more control over their data. The senators asked Facebook last month to "respect” users’ decisions to keep their locations private. Facebook said that even when location tracking is turned off, it can deduce users’ general locations from context clues like locations they tag in photos as well as their devices’ IP addresses. Hawley, a frequent tech critic, tweeted that Facebook “admits it. Turn off ‘location services’ and they’ll STILL track your location to make money (by sending you ads). There is no opting out. No control over your personal information. That’s Big Tech. And that’s why Congress needs to take action.”
Researches Say Peacekeepers In Haiti Fathered Then Abandoned Children
New report reveals UN aid mission tied to human rights abuses
17 October 2009 Port-au-Prince, Haiti United Nations MINUSTAH Canadian contingent members visit with Orphans from the Compassion Orphanage located on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Canadian Forces Combat Camera
A report published this week in The Conversation says UN peacekeepers in Haiti fathered hundreds of children with women and girls before abandoning them. Many of those impregnated were underage girls who traded sex for food or “for a few coins” as they struggled to survive amid political upheaval and natural disasters.
As part of the report, researchers interviewed roughly 2,500 Haitians about the experiences of local women and girls in areas that hosted the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti, also known as Minustah. Of that group, about 265 people told stories featuring children fathered by UN personnel. The research team, led by Sabine Lee, a professor at the University of Birmingham, and Susan Bartels, a clinician-scientist at Queen’s University in Ontario, did not directly ask the people they interviewed about sexual relations with peacekeepers or children born through those relations. The interviewees brought those issues up on their own, the researchers said.
The longest-running mission by the UN in Haiti, operating from 2004-2017, Minustah was originally mandated to help local Haitian institutions with political instability and organized crime, later to be extended to help in the wake of natural disasters. According to The Conversation, Minustah is one of the most controversial UN missions ever, having been the focus of extensive allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse, with a large number of peacekeeping personnel linked to human rights abuses.
NewsHero Editorial
Art by Mark Minnig
Protests Erupt In India Over Citizenship Law
Critics say government discriminating against Muslims
Protesters rallying in Ahmadabad on Tuesday against the government’s new citizenship law.Credit...Ajit Solanki/Associated Press
Protesters in India are responding to a controversial new citizenship law passed by parliament, which has been accused of openly discriminating against Muslims. Clashes between demonstrators and police have turned violent in some instances, and authorities have imposed an emergency law banning large gatherings in parts of Delhi as nationwide protests escalate.
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the new legislation that set off the protests, gives tens of thousands of Hindu, Christian, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan the ability to claim Indian citizenship. The same will not apply for Muslims, who Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government argues are not a threatened minority in these countries.
Harsh Mander, a prominent human rights activist, said he would be filing an official complaint of serious police atrocities over officers’ actions at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in Uttar Pradesh. Police violently stormed the campus, firing teargas and detaining dozens of Muslim students. “The openness of the Islamophobia of the police here is what really troubles me,” said Mander.
Critics of Modi and the CAA worry that the BJP is trying to redefine India, home to the world's second-largest Muslim population, as a religious state and a Hindu homeland. In August, progressive Indians saw Modi strip Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, of its partial autonomy.
Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, said the government needs to “understand that a Hindu majoritarian ideology may not be acceptable to a large number of Indian citizens.” More than 500 jurists, lawyers, academics and actors appear to agree, condemning the CAA in a statement seen by Indian media.
Weekly Brief Part 3
Washington
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved legislation on Wednesday that would impose sanctions on Russia. The vote was 17-5 to move the bill forward in the Republican-controlled committee. All five “no” votes came from Republicans, including the chairman, Senator Jim Risch. The legislation, titled the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act and known as DASKA, must pass the full Senate and House of Representatives before it can be sent for President Trump to sign into law or veto. The Trump administration appears to be pushing back on the legislation, intended to deter and punish Russian aggression and its interference in the 2016 election. In a 22-page letter to Congress dated Tuesday, a senior State Department official outlined a series of concerns about the bill, calling it “unnecessary” and in need of “significant changes.”
The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation Tuesday that would provide more than 2 million Americans with access to mandatory paid parental leave. The legislation would give federal workers 12 weeks of guaranteed paid time off for parents following the birth, adoption or fostering of a child. The policy is part of a broader $738 billion legislative package on defense spending for the government’s 2020 fiscal year. The spending bill, which the Senate passed on a vote of 86-8, is expected to be signed into law by President Trump.
Some House Democrats remain opposed to a $1.37 trillion spending package passed by the House that includes money for President Trump's border wall. Shortly before the vote, the Hispanic Caucus said it opposed the inclusion of money for the wall and detention beds for immigrants. “We have a responsibility to our constituents and Latinos across this country to defend our communities from the president's chaotic, wasteful and racist policies,” the caucus said in a statement. The package also includes funding for gun violence research and increasing the age for purchasing tobacco products from 18 to 21.
A storefront of Sunshine Health and Life Advisors, a Florida insurance enrollment company, in Miami in November 2016. Credit Angel Valentin for The New York Times
Attorney General of California Xavier Becerra has made clear he plans to challenge a federal appeals court decision to strike down an Affordable Care Act mandate that requires people to have health insurance, by petitioning the Supreme Court to take the case. Becerra led 21 states that intervened in the case and argued to preserve the law. But the appeals court did not invalidate the rest of the law. The case is instead being sent back to a federal district judge in Texas to “conduct a more searching inquiry” into which of the law’s many parts could survive without the mandate.
In a victory for homeless activists the Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a major case on homelessness, letting stand a ruling that protects homeless people’s right to sleep on the sidewalk or in public parks if no other shelter is available. The outcome was a setback for city officials in California and other Western states who argued the ruling undercut their authority to regulate encampments on the sidewalks. The court had agreed with lawyers for the homeless who argued that prosecuting people for sleeping on the sidewalks violated the 8th Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment if a city failed to provide adequate shelter.
Climate
Children play outside a house affected by floodwaters following heavy rains in southern Thai province of Narathiwat on 2 December 2019. (Madaree TOHLALA/AFP)
The New Humanitarian ran a feature Wednesday on the year in climate change and how thinkers from both the scientific and humanitarian communities acknowledged their common concerns. Patricia Espinosa of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was at both the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva, and the UN Climate Change Conference, COP25, in Madrid. Addressing the impacts of climate change, bearing its costs, and building greater awareness among the general public is “a collective responsibility,” Espinosa said. Cooperation could take the form of more regularly and systematically using science to inform humanitarian efforts, or it could include drawing on aid workers’ on-the-ground experiences to feed into the policy work on international climate change negotiations, participants at the forums suggested.
European countries are threatening carbon tariffs on the U.S. as exasperation grows over inaction on the climate crisis. By imposing tariffs on goods from the U.S. and other countries that lack tough climate policies, Europeans could help their own industries avoid being stricken by the EU’s greenhouse gas efforts. There’s also however the risk of worsening a trade war with the U.S. Potential carbon tariffs were a topic at the UN climate conference, and some diplomats, including former Secretary of State John Kerry, say it’s inevitable that governments will turn to trade barriers in the effort to fight climate change.
Extinction Rebellion, a group of climate change activists, showed its opinion of the COP25 summit’s level of action on climate change by dumping a load of horse manure at the front door of the gathering. “Just like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, this COP’s fiddling of carbon accounting and negotiating of Article 6 is not commensurate to the planetary emergency we face,” Extinction Rebellion said in a statement.
A group of ship owners have announced plans for a $5 billion fund to design zero-emissions vessels. The group says $2 should be levied on every ton of ships’ fuel to support research into clean engines. Shipping creates about three percent of the emissions overheating the climate. Environmentalists welcomed the proposal but also described it as coming too late. They say it's outrageous that international shipping pays no fuel taxes, unlike lorry owners. Green groups argue that if ships were taxed at the same level as lorries, 70 times more cash for developing clean engines would be raised in Europe alone.