#nongovernmental organization

[fenrislorsrai]

Today we rest, tomorrow, we VOLUNTEER

Everything sucks but America is also full of many, many, many non governmental organizations that can help counter the incoming shit storm.

Look up who's in your area. If you have never interacted with any of them and this is your first time volunteering for anything: START WITH THE LIBRARY.

Volunteer with the Friends of the Library and indicate you're interested in other groups. Absolutely guaranteed majority of members also volunteer for some other groups and they will be ecstatic to tell you about the other ones.

If you're already a seasoned pro at this, yeah, go look up nationals who have branches all over.

But those little ones you get to do real, tangible things you can see improving your community NOW. Does joining the garden club solve all The Everything? No, but seeing a corner full of neglected bushes now full of flowers you helped plant and hearing people say how nice it is, helps YOUR mental health and strangers you live next to.

also you will make local friends! You will need them! and they need you just as much!

[tomorrowusa]

To the Putin dictatorship, any group which tells the truth about Russia these days is "undesirable".

Russia can't hide its ecocide in Ukraine which was put into spectacular focus by its destruction of the Kakhovka dam. Though Russia is also busy creating environmental problems within its internationally recognized borders.

Moscow has labelled the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) "an undesirable organization," saying the independent nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the environment and protecting endangered species was "being used as a facade to carry out projects that create threats to the country's security in the economic sphere." The move, which follows a decision by Russia in March 2022 to label the organization a "foreign agent," forces the nonprofit to cease all activities in Russia. According to a statement from the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office on June 21, the WWF posed a threat to economic development, specifically citing activities it said were meant to hinder Russia's extraction of natural resources from the Arctic.

The Kremlin doesn't appreciate the WWF bringing to light Russia's environmentally unsound practices in its fossil fuel industries.

WWF campaigns against oil and natural gas industries were aimed at “shackling” Russia’s economic development, the statement added. The Prosecutor-General's Office also said it believes that the fund is developing restrictions that may become the basis for "transferring the Northern Sea Route in the direction of the U.S. exclusive economic zone” though the WWF’s website makes no mention of such a project.

In other words, just more paranoid bullshit from the Kremlin.

The fund, which works closely with the United Nations, operates large environmental advocacy programs for many causes, including deforestation, freshwater preservation, and endangered species protection. The "undesirable organization" law, adopted in 2012, was part of a series of regulations pushed by the Kremlin that have forced scores of nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations to halt operations as the government stifles civil society. The Prosecutor-General's Office statement also notes that WWF, formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund, provided support to Russian nonprofit organizations, such as Friends of the Baltic and Sakhalin Environmental Watch. The two organizations are included in Russia's register of so-called foreign agents and were found liable for uncoordinated, unauthorized climate protests. The move against the WWF comes after Russia shut down Greenpeace, another major environmental NGO, in May. Also labeled as “undesirable,” Greenpeace was similarly accused of intervening in internal affairs.

Somebody needs to declare Putin "undesirable" for the planet and shut him down for good.

[sayruq]

Dear President Biden and Vice President Harris, We are 99 American physicians, surgeons, nurse practitioners, nurses, and midwives who have volunteered in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023. Combined, we spent 254 weeks volunteering in Gaza’s hospitals and clinics. We worked with various nongovernmental organizations and the World Health Organization in hospitals and clinics throughout the Strip. In addition to our medical and surgical expertise, many of us have a public health background, as well as experience working in humanitarian and conflict zones, including Ukraine during the brutal Russian invasion. Some of us are veterans and reservists. We are a multifaith and multiethnic group. None of us support the horrors committed on October 7 by Palestinian armed groups and individuals in Israel.

We are among the only neutral observers who have been permitted to enter the Gaza Strip since October 7. Given our broad expertise and direct experience of working throughout Gaza we are uniquely positioned to comment on several matters of importance to our government as it decides whether to continue supporting Israel’s attack on, and siege of, the Gaza Strip. Specifically, we believe we are well positioned to comment on the massive human toll from Israel’s attack on Gaza, especially the toll it has taken on women and children.

This letter and the appendix show probative evidence that the human toll in Gaza since October is far higher than is understood in the United States. It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4% of Gaza’s population. Our government must act immediately to prevent an even worse catastrophe than what has already befallen the people of Gaza and Israel. A ceasefire must be imposed on the warring parties by withholding military support for Israel and supporting an international arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. We believe our government is obligated to do this, both under American law and International Humanitarian Law. We also believe it is the right thing to do.

With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. This includes every national aid worker, every international volunteer, and probably every Israeli hostage: every man, woman, and child. While working in Gaza we saw widespread malnutrition in our patients and our Palestinian healthcare colleagues. Every one of us lost weight rapidly in Gaza despite having privileged access to food and having taken our own supplementary nutrient-dense food with us. We have photographic evidence of life-threatening malnutrition in our patients, especially children, that we are eager to share with you. Virtually every child under the age of five whom we encountered, both inside and outside of the hospital, had both a cough and watery diarrhea. We found cases of jaundice (indicating hepatitis A infection under such conditions) in nearly every room of the hospitals in which we served, and in many of our healthcare colleagues in Gaza. An astonishingly high percentage of our surgical incisions became infected from the combination of malnutrition, impossible operating conditions, lack of basic sanitation supplies such as soap, and lack of surgical supplies and medications, including antibiotics. Malnutrition led to widespread spontaneous abortions, underweight newborns, and an inability of new mothers to breastfeed. This left their newborns at high risk of death given the lack of access to potable water anywhere in Gaza. Many of those infants died. In Gaza we watched malnourished mothers feed their underweight newborns infant formula made with poisonous water. We can never forget that the world abandoned these innocent women and babies. We urge you to realize that epidemics are raging in Gaza. Israel’s continued, repeated displacement of the malnourished and sick population of Gaza, half of whom are children, to areas without running water or even toilets available is absolutely shocking. It was and remains guaranteed to result in widespread death from viral and bacterial diarrheal diseases and pneumonias, particularly in children under the age of five. Indeed, even the dreaded polio virus has reemerged in Gaza due to a combination of systematic destruction of the sanitation infrastructure, widespread malnutrition weakening immune systems, and young children having missed routine vaccinations for nearly an entire year. We worry that unknown thousands have already died from the lethal combination of malnutrition and disease, and that tens of thousands more will die in the coming months, especially with the onset of the winter rains in Gaza. Most of them will be young children. Children are universally considered innocents in armed conflict. However, every single signatory to this letter saw children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them. Specifically, every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis. It is impossible that such widespread shooting of young children throughout Gaza, sustained over the course of an entire year is accidental or unknown to the highest Israeli civilian and military authorities.

[dostoyevsky-official]

Letter to President Biden and Vice President Harris

We are 99 American physicians, surgeons, nurse practitioners, nurses, and midwives who have volunteered in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023. Combined, we spent 254 weeks volunteering in Gaza’s hospitals and clinics. We worked with various nongovernmental organizations and the World Health Organization in hospitals and clinics throughout the Strip. In addition to our medical and surgical expertise, many of us have a public health background, as well as experience working in humanitarian and conflict zones, including Ukraine during the brutal Russian invasion. Some of us are veterans and reservists. We are a multifaith and multiethnic group. None of us support the horrors committed on October 7 by Palestinian armed groups and individuals in Israel. [...] This letter collects and summarizes our own experiences and direct observations in Gaza. The letter is accompanied by a detailed appendix summarizing the publicly available information from media, humanitarian, and academic sources on key aspects of Israel’s invasion of Gaza. This letter and the appendix show probative evidence that the human toll in Gaza since October is far higher than is understood in the United States. It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4% of Gaza’s population. With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. This includes every national aid worker, every international volunteer, and probably every Israeli hostage: every man, woman, and child. While working in Gaza we saw widespread malnutrition in our patients and our Palestinian healthcare colleagues. Every one of us lost weight rapidly in Gaza despite having privileged access to food and having taken our own supplementary nutrient-dense food with us. [...] Children are universally considered innocents in armed conflict. However, every single signatory to this letter saw children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them. Specifically, every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis. It is impossible that such widespread shooting of young children throughout Gaza, sustained over the course of an entire year is accidental or unknown to the highest Israeli civilian and military authorities.

[mindblowingscience]

Smaller fish species are more nutritious, lower in mercury and less susceptible to overfishing, a Cornell-led research team has found. The team's study was conducted in the Amazon River, but the findings have implications for biodiversity conservation and public health across the globe as large fish species populations are declining worldwide. The study, "Accessible, Low-mercury and Nutritious Fish Provide Win-Wins for Conservation and Public Health," published Jan. 17 in One Earth. It was authored by four Cornell researchers and colleagues from Brooklyn College and the Wildlife Conservation Society, a nongovernmental organization.

Continue Reading.

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

WASHINGTON — A federal district judge on Tuesday granted an administrative stay in a case challenging the Trump administration’s planned freeze of federal aid, pausing the plan for a week and setting a hearing for further arguments next Monday morning.

The freeze was scheduled to begin Tuesday at 5 p.m.

The planned freeze is part of a sweeping effort by President Donald Trump and his advisers to eliminate government spending that's not in line with his agenda. The move was announced in a Monday night memo from the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, which said that agencies had to "temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal."

The freeze immediately sparked confusion about exactly what types of federal spending would be affected. And Tuesday's court order was just the first step in what's expected to be a major legal battle over the issue that could quickly end up before the Supreme Court.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Daniel Barnes

Daniel Barnes reports for NBC News, based in Washington.

Shannon Pettypiece and Lawrence Hurley contributed.

[crossdreamers]

Trump Administration Halts Refugee Program, Leaving LGBTQ Refugees in Limbo

The U.S. State Department has abruptly canceled travel plans for thousands of refugees already approved to resettle in the United States. Persecuted LGBTQ refugees in East Africa are left in Limbo.

This decision follows an executive order signed by former President Donald Trump, suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), which has long served as a lifeline for persecuted individuals worldwide, including LGBTQ people fleeing violence and discrimination.

Refugees in camps across South Sudan and elsewhere, who had hoped to begin new lives in the U.S., now face an uncertain future. Some members of this vulnerable population had already reached the U.S., but many others remain stranded, their dreams of safety dashed by the new policy.

Refugee status cancelled over night

The New York Times reported that more than 10,000 refugees were in the final stages of resettlement when their flights were canceled.

The Trump administration's executive order has effectively frozen the multi-agency process of admitting refugees, pending a review to determine whether resettlement aligns with national interests.

The review period is set for 90 days, but advocates fear the program may never resume, given Trump’s track record of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies.

The halt also impacts the Welcome Corps, a private sponsorship program launched in 2023 to allow Americans to assist refugees directly. Welcome.US, an organization dedicated to mobilizing support for refugees, confirmed that the suspension will take effect on January 27, except in rare, case-by-case exceptions.

Adding to the challenges, Trump has also terminated the CBP One app, which previously helped streamline legal migration and reduce unauthorized border crossings. This leaves refugees with even fewer avenues to seek safety in the U.S.

Protests from refugee organizations

The International Rescue Committee (IRC), a global humanitarian aid, relief, and development nongovernmental organization, urges the Trump administration to reverse course, maintain the resettlement program and work with its partners around the world to maintain global resettlement slots:

"If the program is not restored, political dissidents, religious minorities, and the most vulnerable victims of war and disaster will pay the price, and so will the United States."

LGBTQ refugees in East Africa in jeopardy

The situation in refugee camps in Kenya and South Sudan can serve as an example of the severe negative consequences facing LGBTQ refugees.

Ugandan LGBTQ refugees are particularly vulnerable, facing severe discrimination not only in their home countries but also in refugee camps in Kenya and South Sudan.

We have reports of Ugandan LGBTQ refugees who left the UNHCR Kakuma camp in Kenya, because of reports of refugees getting help in one of the camps in South Sudan. Indeed, some of them had already been repatriated to the US, but many are left behind now that the US has closed its borders. Many are now exploring options to seek refuge in Canada, but their immediate prospects remain grim.

For now, these individuals are caught in a state of limbo, awaiting clarity on their futures.

As the Trump administration's policy shift draws widespread criticism, advocacy groups are exploring legal challenges to overturn the suspension and restore hope to those seeking safety.

Source: LGBTQ Refugees in East Africa

See also: The Life of an Ugandan LGBTQ Refugee in South Sudan

Vetted crowdfunding campaigns for refugees in Kenya and South Sudan:

Nakafeero

Elvis

Calvin Phil

Illustration: vertukha

[allthegeopolitics]

The Taliban say they will close all national and foreign nongovernmental groups in Afghanistan employing women. It comes two years after they told NGOs to suspend the employment of Afghan women, allegedly because they didn’t wear the Islamic headscarf correctly. In a letter published on X Sunday night, the Economy Ministry warned that failure to comply with the latest order would lead to NGOs losing their license to operate in Afghanistan. The ministry said it was responsible for the registration, coordination, leadership and supervision of all activities carried out by national and foreign organizations. The government was once again ordering the stoppage of all female work in institutions not controlled by the Taliban, according to the letter.

Continue Reading

[vague-humanoid]

@chrisdornerfanclub

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security failed to believe intelligence that painted a clear warning that the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was being planned, a new Senate committee report released Tuesday reveals.

“Planned in Plain Sight,” a report by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, highlights red flags missed in the days and hours before the 2021 insurrection.

It says the FBI and DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis “failed to fully and accurately assess the severity of the threat identified by that intelligence, and formally disseminate guidance to their law enforcement partners with sufficient urgency and alarm to enable those partners to prepare for the violence that ultimately occurred on January 6th,” the Washington Post reported.

The warnings came from sources including nongovernmental organizations tracking online extremism, from members of the public and from the FBI’s own field offices.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Ted Littleford

* * * *

Trump goes full dictator

January 28, 2025

Robert B. Hubbell

Trump has broken faith with the Constitution. He is no longer operating within the pale of the law. On Monday, January 27, Trump dropped all pretense of being a “president” within the meaning of Article II of the US Constitution and began wielding power for his own benefit and without regard for constitutional restrictions.

In two lawless actions on Monday, the acting US Attorney for DC announced an internal investigation into DOJ prosecutors who investigated and indicted January 6 insurrectionists. And the Acting Attorney General fired more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on the investigations and indictments of Donald Trump.

It is clear that Trump has ordered the Department of Justice to seek vengeance against career prosecutors who acted with integrity and professionalism in prosecuting Trump and those who assaulted the Capitol on January 6.

The notion of any president directing the DOJ to make prosecutorial judgments has been unthinkable under post-Watergate legal norms. However, the notion of a president directing prosecutorial decisions of the DOJ to further his own political interest is antithetical to core principles of the Constitution. The president’s swears an oath to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States”—no part of which involves elevating his personal interests above those of the nation.

In a separate action taken late Monday evening, Trump ordered a freeze on all federal grants and loans (by way of a memo from the acting head of the OMB). See WSJ, White House Orders Pause of Federal Financial Assistance Programs. (Per the WSJ, the order directs all agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”)

Trump's order from the OMB violates the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Trump doesn’t care. Neither do congressional Republicans. And the ruse that the pauses are “temporary” does nothing to diminish the fact that impoundments are illegal and unconstitutional.

The impoundment of appropriated funds is a constitutional crisis on a fast track to the Supreme Court. For an excellent discussion, see Steve Vladeck, One First (Substack), The Impoundment Crisis of 2025. (I will return to this topic in later editions of this newsletter, but Vladeck covers the subject in detail.)

While some presidents have secretly used the FBI, IRS, and DOJ to investigate their political foes, no president in the history of our nation has publicly ordered the DOJ to investigate his perceived political enemies, much less fire them.

It is time for the institutions fighting for democracy to drop the niceties and begin calling Trump for what he is: a dictator. Many institutions are still treating Trump as though he is a “normal” president, albeit one subject to making impulsive, ignorant statements. Criticizing his actions is not enough. The story of his first week is not that “Trump has shaken things up,” or that he is “flooding the zone.” It is that Trump has begun to ignore the law at whim.

It is also time for the legal profession to speak out. The members of the bar who are facilitating lawless actions must be subject to public condemnation and formal reproval. The leaders of the bar have a special obligation to speak out. They must serve notice on attorneys everywhere that there will be reputational, professional, and licensing repercussions for taking positions that violate the Constitution or deliberately flout the law. The revolving door at Big Law must be closed to attorneys who enable dictatorial actions antithetical to the Constitution and the rule of law.

Trump is unable to act like a dictator unilaterally. He needs the consent, acquiescence, and apathy of enough people to frustrate the normal operation of constitutional and legal checks and balances.

We must not grant that assistance to Trump. We must resist. We must say in plain language that he is acting like a dictator who holds himself above the law. Whether he gets away with the audacious gambit is up to the people from whom all constitutional power flows. Let’s make our voices heard!

Trump's firing of career prosecutors is illegal.

On Monday, the termination of a dozen federal prosecutors also broke the law—because the long-term staffers were part of the federal civil service. As such, they can only be fired for cause. But the statement from the Acting Attorney General said that they were being fired because the AG “did not trust them to implement the president’s agenda.” See CNN, Toobin: Some Trump DOJ firings may be illegal.

If you watch the CNN link above, one of the CNN commentators (Alyssa Farah Griffin) suggests that the firings “won’t raise a lot of eyebrows among Republicans because he did say he was going to do this.”

To be clear, Trump saying on the campaign trail he was going to do something that is illegal does not make it any less illegal. And Republicans should “raise their eyebrows” when the president acts in an illegal manner. But Alyssa Farah Griffin has apparently left her sense of outrage at the studio door—which is why CNN (a.k.a. Fox Lite) may be the next legacy media outlet to go out of business.

Trump's asserted reason for mass deportations is false

Trump claims that 10 million immigrants must be deported because they are violent criminals who continue to commit crimes while in the US awaiting deportation. Predictably, the sweeps have caught up a significant number of immigrants who have not committed crimes. See NBC News, ICE agents search for those with criminal histories but say 'collateral arrests' are possible.

Per NBC,

However, just 613 of the 1,179 people arrested Sunday — nearly 52% — were considered “criminal arrests,” a senior Trump administration official said. The rest appear to be nonviolent offenders or people who have not committed any criminal offense.

The fact that 48% of those arrested on Sunday did not have criminal records for violence demonstrates the ICE agents are making indiscriminate arrests to play to the television cameras. Indeed, the Trump administration advised ICE agents to make themselves “presentable” to be filmed on television. See CNN, Federal agents in immigration operations told to be camera-ready as hundreds arrested.

As I wrote yesterday, Trump has moved beyond “Cruelty is the point” to “Cruelty is entertainment for Trump's base.”

Trump's mass deportation policies are spreading fear throughout immigrant communities—including those gathering in places of worship. A group of Quaker affiliated plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for allowing raids to take place in sensitive places, including “houses of worship.” See MSN, Quakers challenge Trump order allowing immigration raids at religious sites.

Trump signs order clearing path to banning transgender people in the military

As expected, Trump has signed an order requiring the Pentagon to explain why transgender people advance the military’s stated objective of being “ready for deployment” in thirty days. See CBS News, Trump signs executive orders on military DEI, trans service members, COVID.

Per the CBS article,

The president also signed an executive order directing the Pentagon to determine a policy for transgender service members based on readiness within 30 days. The action does not immediately ban transgender service members, however, it does state that the Defense Department's policy for troop readiness is "inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria."

The executive order is a ruse designed to give the Pentagon a reason to reverse its current policy of allowing transgender people to serve in the military. One estimate places the number of transgender people in the military at 15,000.

The policy is not only depraved, but it will also weaken the military’s preparedness. The US military has been in a recruiting crisis for years because most recruits fail to meet the physical or educational standards required for enlistment. Per Military.com,

[T]he Army's struggles have mostly been attributed to young Americans not qualifying for service, either failing to meet body fat or academic standards.

To meet the recruiting crisis, the Army has instituted “preparedness boot camps” that work with recruits to get them into physical shape and to help them pass the Army’s SAT-style entrance exam. Again, per Military.com,

The idea is to meet young Americans where they are, getting them into shape or providing them critical tutoring for the SAT-style entrance exam as test scores in schools have been falling for years, particularly for boys.

Against the recruiting crisis backdrop, forcing transgender people out of the military who have already met the military’s physical and educational requirements is just plain stupid—in addition to being illegal and morally wrong.

And then there is the hypocrisy. The executive order asserted that being a transgender person is inherently at odds with “a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.” See Erin in the Morning (Substack), Trump Military Ban Says Being Trans Conflicts With "Honorable, Truthful, Disciplined Lifestyle".

As noted by Erin in the Morning, the impending transgender ban will be implemented by Pete Hegseth, who has a demonstrated history of sexual assault, serial infidelity, alcohol abuse, misogyny, and Islamophobia. And let’s not forget about the Commander-in-Chief, who paid off a porn star with whom he had a sexual encounter while the current First Lady was at home with the infant Trump, and who lost a civil defamation case in which the jury found Trump had sexually abused E. Jean Carroll.

List of companies rolling back DEI initiatives

Axios has published a list of companies that have rolled back DEI initiatives. Axios also identifies companies that have recently re-affirmed their commitment to diversity and inclusion. See Axios, Which companies are rolling back DEI and which are standing firm

The companies that took the first opportunity to ditch their commitment to diversity and inclusiveness in the workplace include the following:

Amazon

Boeing

Caterpillar

Ford

Harley-Davidson

John Deere

Lowe’s

Coors

McDonald’s

Meta

Nissan

Stanley Black & Decker

Target

Tractor Supply

Toyota

Walmart

Companies that have publicly defended the existing commitment to DEI include:

American Airlines

Southwest Airlines

United Airlines

Delta Airlines

Apple

Cisco

Costco

Salesforce

Now you know. While it is impossible to boycott all of the companies that have turned their backs on DEI, strategic communications can make a difference. And don’t forget to thank the companies that are honoring diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Concluding Thoughts

Trump's order freezing all federal grants and loans raises an existential question for our constitutional republic. Under Trump's theory of the case, Congress appropriates funds, and then Trump can spend the money however he pleases without regard to the painstaking budgeting process undertaken by Congress.

In the enumeration of congressional powers in Article I, the Constitution states:

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law

The Constitution thus grants Congress the power to appropriate money. Trump wants to arrogate that power unto himself by declaring that he can withhold money appropriated by Congress and—this is implied—use that money for some other purpose.

If the Supreme Court were to accept Trump's theory, it would amount to a wholesale restructuring of the Constitution and of our republic.

Here’s my point: Trump's claim that he has the power to override congressional appropriations is like his claim that he can abolish birthright citizenship: It is specious, risible, ridiculous, fatuous, and ignorant. If the Supreme Court were to uphold Trump's claim, the Court would effectively guarantee that it would be neutered at the first opportunity—either by enlargement, term limits, or limitation of its appellate jurisdiction.

For the second time in a week, Trump has overreached so badly that he has essentially ensured that he will lose in the Supreme Court. So, as we endure the chaos that will be created by his nearly incomprehensible order, we should be confident that Trump has gone too far, even for this compromised, corrupt, ethically challenged Supreme Court.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[meret118]

A federal judge in Rhode Island has blocked President Donald Trump's controversial move to freeze the dispensation of federal grants and funding to nongovernmental organizations — citing in part comments made by his press secretary.

[mariacallous]

ADRÉ, Chad—Abdussalam Mustapha and his friends used to play soccer for hours after school in El Geneina, a city in the West Darfur region of Sudan. But the 10-year-old can’t play anymore.

In April 2023, war came to Sudan. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary wing of Sudan’s army, allied with other militia groups to perpetrate an ethnic cleansing campaign against non-Arab populations in and around El Geneina. Abdussalam and his entire extended family were forced to flee their homes on foot late at night, carrying only what they could hold in their hands.

On the way, the group was attacked. Abdussalam clutched the hand of his 5-year-old brother and ran. Suddenly, he felt a searing pain, and blood began pouring out of a gunshot wound in his stomach. The little fingers gripping his hand went slack. His brother had been shot in the head and died instantly. Now he was seated next to his mother on the floor of the family’s tented shelter in a refugee settlement in Chad.

Nearly 2 million Sudanese people have escaped to neighboring countries since the war started, and approximately 600,000 of them have fled to Chad. About 88 percent of the refugees are women and children. Some new arrivals have physical wounds. Almost all have emotional scars. After they cross the border, they are dependent on United Nations agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to provide water, food, shelter, medical care, and basic supplies, such as soap, blankets, and buckets.

Despite efforts to raise money to respond to the crisis, the international community is falling far short of fundraising goals. On April 15, one year after the start of the war, world leaders and humanitarians met in Paris for an event intended to raise funds to support all U.N. agencies and aid organizations involved in the Sudan conflict response. $2.7 billion would go toward helping people in Sudan and an additional $1.4 billion would go toward supporting five refugee-hosting neighbors: South Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt, the Central African Republic, and Chad. Of the total $4.1 billion required, only $2 billion was committed in Paris, an amount that was “really worrying” when considering that the amount of money that actually comes in is always less than what is committed at a pledging event, said Harpinder Collacott, executive director of Mercy Corps Europe.

Around the world, the need for humanitarian funding is outstripping the money that can be raised. Experts say that the problem is the funding model itself. A small handful of donor countries determine who and what gets the funding, which means that funding is based on the generosity of governments with political agendas. The system is voluntary, and governments sometimes make commitments that they don’t follow through on. Some crises captivate public attention more than others, and are therefore better funded, experts say. Others, like protracted conflicts in African countries, receive scant media attention and far less funding.

“I always go back to the [idea of the] tin can. Government and the UN, on behalf of the people in crisis, have to ask every single time for money,” said Michelle Strucke, director of the humanitarian agenda at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank. In terms of which crises get funding, “it almost seems whimsical from the outside.” The results are anything but.

The perpetrators murdered 38 members of Abdussalam’s family that night. “We were all running for our lives,” 30-year-old Mounira Oumar Mahamat Abdallah, Abdussalam’s mother, said tearfully. “Abdussalam was also shot. And was found by other people.” Those people brought Abdussalam to his mother. She hoisted him onto her back and started walking west. Abdussalam was delirious, drifting in and out of consciousness. The following day, they reached Adré, the Chadian border town that has become the busiest crossing point for refugees fleeing Darfur.

Abdussalam required multiple surgeries, so the family stayed in Adré while Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), a nongovernmental organization that provides medical care in crises, operated on him six times. MSF has established a large clinic in the Adré refugee settlement, providing everything from medical checkups and vaccinations to mental health counseling for 300 to 500 refugees per day. It has also embedded in the Chadian government hospital in Adré, where surgeons can perform lifesaving surgery on patients like Abdussalam.

MSF’s medical and humanitarian programs in eastern Chad had expenses of approximately $22 million in 2023 and have a planned budget of about $41.5 million in 2024. To fill the gap left by other underfunded U.N. agencies and NGOs, MSF has rapidly deployed across the region, digging latrines, drilling boreholes, and serving hundreds of thousands of Sudanese as well as local Chadians. “We’ve responded massively in eastern Chad because the needs are acute, but we’re overstretched and carrying a heavier load than we should within the humanitarian aid sector,” said Avril Benoît, executive director of MSF USA.

At MSF’s pediatric ward in the hospital, dozens of emaciated babies and toddlers receive treatment for severe acute malnutrition, which affects brain development and increases mortality in children under five years. Despite the best efforts of doctors and nurses, three to four of these children die each week from malnutrition, said Sachin Desai, an MSF pediatrician.

Malnutrition has become one of the top concerns of humanitarians working in Chad. Before the war, Sudan was considered the “breadbasket” of Africa: Farming accounted for 60 percent of total national exports in 2022. But scorching, dry weather combined with missed harvests due to conflict means there is almost no food available in parts of Sudan today. Nearly 18 million Sudanese are facing acute hunger, and more than 5 million are experiencing emergency hunger levels in the worst conflict-affected areas, the World Food Program (WFP) says.

Today, both hunger and violence are driving migration. Once refugees reach Chad, they are registered and given WFP food ration cards. WFP organizes massive monthly food distributions, serving between 15,000 to 20,000 people per day. The April distribution was delayed by several weeks due to lack of funding, which also affected the quantity of the food the refugees received. They should get 2,100 calories per refugee per day, but in April, they got only 1,700 calories.

On a scorching April morning, thousands of women wearing colorful laffayas, traditional Sudanese dresses, sit patiently in long lines to receive their food rations. Maryam Ibrahim Saif Addine, stands out in a tattered black laffaya. The 35-year-old lost her husband to violence in Sudan and depends on rations to feed her seven children. Addine carefully measures out her portion of oil, beans, soap, salt, and cereals, which she will grind into flour to make porridge.

“I came here to wait for food early in the morning. I didn’t even take tea,” Addine said. “It’s still not enough. Sometimes, we have to sell our food to get some money and buy other things.”

Hundreds of thousands of refugees are now camped out in Adré along the border with Sudan. The newest arrivals have no shelter and sleep beneath scarfs propped up with sticks. They are exposed to the harsh desert elements, and lack food, water, medical care, and basic goods. With the rainy season fast approaching, aid workers say the conditions are ripe for a compounded humanitarian disaster. The rains will destroy the flimsy shelters, wash out the roads, and bring malarial mosquitoes, cholera, and other diseases. Getting refugees into semi-permanent shelters as quickly as possible is crucial to ensuring their safety.

Between July and December 2023, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) relocated approximately 150,000 refugees from Adré to newly established settlements inland from the border.

“Finally, I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Adré was starting to look again like a normal place,” said Laura Lo Castro, UNHCR’s Chad country director. Then, new waves of refugees began fleeing fresh outbreaks of violence. “Today, it looks the same as it did last July,” she said.

Today, another 170,000 refugees in Adré are waiting to be relocated. UNHCR has moved only 30,000 refugees in 2024 because of budget constraints. The agency wants to open a new site and relocate another 50,000 refugees, but it would cost approximately $17 million to build the necessary housing, water and sanitation infrastructure, and schools. “To be completely honest with you, I have no money to do that,” Lo Castro said.

Lo Castro is familiar with humanitarian emergencies. She helped refugees fleeing the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. Still, Lo Castro said the refugee crisis in Chad is one of the worst-funded emergencies she has ever worked on. The 2024 Sudan refugee response plan is only 8 percent funded. For Chad alone, $630 million is needed, but its part is only 6 percent funded. These numbers are in line with other major crises in the region: the Democratic Republic of Congo is also 8 percent funded, South Sudan is only 5 percent funded.

The problem is the international humanitarian funding model itself, which emerged from the ashes of World War II, when powerful nations came together to establish rules and institutions to regulate the global monetary system. The model, which was intended to help rebuild Europe, gave concentrated power to key stakeholder countries. Today, most international humanitarian responses are bankrolled by these influential top donors, including the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom.

“When you’ve got bilateral donors funding international humanitarian response, it’s always dependent on the political priorities of the donors on which one they will give to rather than others,” Collacott of Mercy Corps said.

The money often goes to the conflicts that suck up the most media attention. “When it bleeds it leads,” Strucke of CSIS explained. “If it’s a really high-profile conflict, or it’s a sudden onset disaster, like a catastrophic hurricane or earthquake situation, those get a lot of immediate attention, and that means the response plans are typically better funded.”

Inflation, rising costs, an increase in climate related disasters, and an increase in protracted conflicts around the world have created greater demand for humanitarian funding than ever before. The money feels less in part because of inflation and also because leading humanitarian donors are changing how they are using their dollars for assistance. Strucke said that some countries are repurposing parts of their budget that they would have used for development assistance towards border security instead. “And they think of it all as migration, but they’re actually doing a very dramatic shift in where the money is going,” Strucke said.

Diversification is key to improving the model, Collacott said. Receiving funding from more emerging market governments, such as India and Indonesia, private sector companies, and international NGOs could help combat the issue of not enough funding being concentrated in the hands of a few agenda setting countries. Funding must also be proactive, rather than reactive.

“We know every year there are going to be at least three new major global crises that we’re going to be fundraising for,” Collacott said. “We don’t want to be seeking funding after the crisis hits, but already have funding secured.”

Collacott floats the idea of a new humanitarian funding model based on three principles: all contribute, all benefit, all decide. “Until you make the connection that something happening miles away has a knock-on effect on your shores, people won’t see that this is a global conflict,” she said. “Crisis financing needs to be built on global public good, or we’re going to see the world destabilizing.”

[cassidymomma]

Frozen USAID funding strands groups that support marginalized people in the Western Balkans

Source: The Independent

Frozen USAID funding strands groups that support marginalized people in the Western Balkans

Source: The Independent

Charity starts at home. There are people in the USA who are marginalized. Start there.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Noah Hurowitz at The Intercept:

Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire for revenge.

On the campaign trail, he joked about being a dictator on “day one” in office, pledged to jail journalists, and threatened to retaliate against political foes who he felt had wronged him. Now, just days after he secured a second term in the White House, Congress is already moving to hand a resurgent Trump administration a powerful cudgel that it could wield against ideological opponents in civil society. Up for a potential fast-track vote next week in the House of Representatives, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, also known as H.R. 9495, would grant the secretary of the Treasury Department unilateral authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit deemed to be a “terrorist supporting organization.” The resolution has already prompted strong opposition from a wide range of civil society groups, with more than 100 organizations signing an open letter issued by the American Civil Liberties Union in September.

[...]

No Evidence Needed

Under the bill, the Treasury secretary would issue notice to a group of intent to designate it as a “terrorist supporting organization.” Once notified, an organization would have the right to appeal within 90 days, after which it would be stripped of its 501(c)(3) status, named for the statute that confers tax exemptions on recognized nonprofit groups. The law would not require officials to explain the reason for designating a group, nor does it require the Treasury Department to provide evidence. “It basically empowers the Treasury secretary to target any group it wants to call them a terror supporter and block their ability to be a nonprofit,” said Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council Action, which opposes the law. “So that would essentially kill any nonprofit’s ability to function. They couldn’t get banks to service them, they won’t be able to get donations, and there’d be a black mark on the organization, even if it cleared its name.”

The bill could also imperil the lifesaving work of nongovernmental organizations operating in war zones and other hostile areas where providing aid requires coordination with groups designated as terrorists by the U.S., according to a statement issued last year by the Charity & Security Network. “Charitable organizations, especially those who work in settings where designated terrorist groups operate, already undergo strict internal due diligence and risk mitigation measures,” the group wrote. “As the prohibition on material support to foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) already exists, and is applicable to U.S. nonprofits, this proposed legislation is redundant and unnecessary.” If it proceeds, the bill will go to the House floor in a “suspension vote,” a fast-track procedure that limits debate and allows a bill to bypass committees and move on to the Senate as long as it receives a two-thirds supermajority in favor. [...]

Pro-Palestine Groups at Risk

In the past year, accusations of support for terrorism have been freely lobbed at student protesters, aid workers in Gaza, and even mainstream publications like the New York Times. In unscrupulous hands, the powers of the proposed law could essentially turn the Treasury Department into an enforcement arm of Canary Mission and other hard-line groups dedicated to doxxing and smearing their opponents as terrorists. With very few guardrails in place, the new bill would give broad new powers to the federal government to act on such accusations — and not just against pro-Palestine groups, according to Costello. “The danger is much broader than just groups that work on foreign policy,” said Costello. “It could target major liberal funders who support Palestinian solidarity and peace groups who engage in protest. But it could also theoretically be used to target pro-choice groups, and I could see it being used against environmental groups.

HR9495 needs to be opposed, as this civil liberties-violating bill could broadly define any organization a “terrorist supporting organization”, such as pro-reproductive rights/abortion access, pro-LGBTQ+, pro-Palestine, and progressive groups such as Indivisible.

[dostoyevsky-official]

A Year of Empty Threats and a “Smokescreen” Policy: How the State Department Let Israel Get Away With Horrors in Gaza

Current and former diplomats told me that U.S. leaders are fundamentally unwilling to follow through on the Leahy law and cut off units from American-funded weapons. Instead, they have created multiple processes that give the appearance of accountability while simultaneously undermining any potential results, the experts said. In another case considered by the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum, a 15-year-old boy from the West Bank said he was tortured and raped in the Israeli detention facility Al-Mascobiyya, or Russian Compound. For years, the State Department had been told about widespread abuses in that facility and others like it. Military Court Watch, a local nonprofit organization of attorneys, collected testimony from more than 1,100 minors who had been detained between 2013 and 2023. Most said they were strip searched and many said they were beaten. Some teens tried to kill themselves in solitary confinement. IDF soldiers recalled children so scared that they peed themselves during arrests. At the Russian Compound, a 14-year-old said his interrogator shocked and beat him in the legs with sticks to elicit information about a car fire. A 15-year-old said he was handcuffed with another boy. “An Israeli policeman then walked into the room and beat the hell out of me and the other boy,” he said. A 12-year-old girl said she was put into a small cell with cockroaches. Military Court Watch routinely shared its information with the State Department, according to Gerard Horton, one of the group’s co-founders. But nothing ever came of it. “They receive all our reports and we name the facilities,” he told me. “It goes up the food chain and it gets political. Everyone knows what’s going on and obviously no action is taken.” Even the State Department’s own public human rights reports acknowledge widespread allegations of abuse in Israeli prisons. Citing nonprofits, prisoner testimony and media reports, the agency wrote last year that “detainees held by Israel were subjected to physical and sexual violence, threats, intimidation, severely restricted access to food and water.” In the summer of 2021, the State Department reached out to the Israeli government and asked about the 15-year-old who said he was raped at the Russian Compound. The next day, the Israeli government raided the nonprofit that had originally documented the allegation, Defense for Children International — Palestine, and then designated the group a terrorist organization. As a result, U.S. human rights officials said they were prohibited from speaking to DCIP. “A large part of the frustration was that we were unable to access Palestinian civil society because most NGOs” — nongovernmental organizations — “were considered terrorist organizations,” said Mike Casey, a former U.S. diplomat in Jerusalem who resigned last year. “All these groups were essentially the premier human rights organizations, and we were not able to meet with them.” [...] “As you can imagine, it’s been a bit touchy here,” the official said on the call, explaining the months without correspondence. “The Israeli government’s not going to dictate to me who I can talk to, but my superiors can.” The IDF eventually told the State Department it did not find evidence of a sexual assault but reprimanded the guard for kicking a chair during the teenager’s interrogation. To date, the U.S. has not cut off the Russian Compound on Leahy grounds.

[reasonsforhope]

Non-paywall version here.

"When Arley Gill, head of Grenada’s National Reparations Committee, envisioned his work seeking repair for centuries of enslavement on the Caribbean island, one thing was certain: It was going to be a long slog.

But just two years since its founding, the task force is fielding calls from individuals around the world looking to make amends for ancestors who benefited from enslavement in Grenada. 

“If you had told us this would be happening, we wouldn’t have believed you,” Mr. Gill says, crediting a burgeoning movement of descendants of enslavers getting wise to their family’s history and taking action. 

In Grenada’s case, the momentum began with a public apology made by former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan and her family in February at a ceremony on the island. They apologized for their forebears’ enslavement of people in Grenada and their enrichment from it, pledging an initial contribution of £100,000 ($130,000) toward education on the island.

“She opened the doors for people to feel comfortable” coming forward, says Mr. Gill.

In April [2023], Ms. Trevelyan and journalist Alex Renton co-founded an organization called Heirs of Slavery. Its eight British members have ancestors who benefited financially from slavery in various ways...

Heirs of Slavery says wealth and privilege trickle down through generations, and that there are possibly millions of Britons whose lives were touched by money generated from enslavement. 

The group aims to amplify the voices of those already calling for reparations, like Caribbean governments. And it supports organizations working to tackle the modern-day consequences of slavery, both in the United Kingdom and abroad, from racism to health care inequities. But it’s also setting an example for others, drafting a road map of reparative justice for enslavement – at the individual level...

“Shining a light is always a good idea,” says Mr. Renton, who published a book in 2021 about his family’s ties to slavery, donating the proceeds to a handful of nongovernmental organizations in the Caribbean and England. “You don’t have to feel guilt about it; you can’t change the past,” he says, paraphrasing Sir Geoff Palmer, a Scottish Jamaican scholar. “But we should feel ashamed that up to this point we’ve done nothing about the consequences” of slavery.

Start anywhere

Most Africans trafficked to the Americas and Caribbean during the trans-Atlantic slave trade ended up in the West Indies. The wealth generated there through unpaid, brutal, forced labor funded much of Europe’s Industrial Revolution and bolstered churches, banks, and educational institutions. When slavery was abolished in British territories in 1833, the government took out a loan to compensate enslavers for their lost “property.” The government only finished paying off that debt in 2015. 

The family of David Lascelles, the 8th Earl of Harewood, for example, received more than £26,000 from the British government after abolition in compensation for nearly 1,300 lives, while “the enslaved people were given nothing,” Mr. Lascelles says. He joined Heirs of Slavery upon its founding, eager to collaborate with peers doing work he’s been focused on for decades.

“People like us have, historically, kept quiet about what our ancestors did. We believe the time has come to face up to what happened, to acknowledge the ongoing repercussions of this human tragedy, and support the existing movements to discuss repair and reconciliation,” reads the group’s webpage.

For Ms. Trevelyan, that meant a very public apology – and resigning from journalism to dedicate herself to activism...

For Mr. Lascelles, a second cousin of King Charles, making repairs included in 2014 handing over digitized copies of slavery-related documents discovered in the basement of the Downton Abbey-esque Harewood House to the National Archives in Barbados, where much of his family’s wealth originated during enslavement. 

“What can we do that is actually useful and wanted – not to solve our own conscience?” he says he asks himself...

“Listen and learn”

...The group is planning a conference this fall that will bring together families that benefited from the trans-Atlantic slave trade along with representatives from Caribbean governments and Black Europeans advocating for reparations. In the meantime, members are meeting with local advocacy groups to better understand what they want – and how Heirs of Slavery might assist.

At a recent meeting, “there was one man who said he wanted to hear what we had to say, but said he saw us as a distraction. And I understand that,” says Mr. Renton. “Maximum humility is necessary on our part. We are here to listen and learn, not try to take the lead and be the boss.”

Mr. Renton’s family has made donations to youth development and educational organizations, but he doesn’t see it as compensation. “I see this as work of repair. If I sold everything I own, I couldn’t begin to compensate for the lives my ancestors destroyed,” he says."

-via The Christian Science Monitor, August 1, 2023

Note: I know the source name probably inspires skepticism for a lot of people (fairly), but they're actually considered a very reliable and credible publication in both accuracy and lack of bias.