#asylum seekers fed

[decolonize-the-everything]

This is not a drill

This is IMPORTANT especially if you live in the USA or use the internet REGULATED by the USA!!!!

Do not scroll. Signal boost. Reblog.

Reblog WITHOUT reading if you really can't right now, I promise all the links and proof are here. People NEED to know this.

( I tried to make this accessible but you can't cater to EVERYONE so please just try your best to get through this or do your own research 🙏)

TLDR: Homeland Security has been tying our social media to our IPs, licenses, posts, emails, selfies, cloud, apps, location, etc through our phones without a warrant using Babel X and will hold that information gathered for 75 years. Certain aspects of it were hushed because law enforcement will/does/has used it and it would give away confidential information about ongoing operations.

This gets renewed in September.

Between this, Agincourt (a VR simulator for cops Directly related to this project), cop city, and widespread demonization of abortions, sex workers, & queer people mixed with qanon/Trumpism, and fascism in Florida, and the return of child labor, & removed abortion rights fresh on our tails it's time for alarms to be raised and it's time for everyone to stop calling us paranoid and start showing up to protest and mutual aid groups.

🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨

These are the same feds who want to build cop city and recreate civilian houses en masse and use facial recognition. The same feds that want cop city to also be a training ground for police across the country. Cop city where they will build civilian neighborhoods to train in.

Widespread mass surveillance against us.

Now let's cut to some parts of the article. May 17th from Vice:

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is using an invasive, AI-powered monitoring tool to screen travelers, including U.S. citizens, refugees, and people seeking asylum, which can in some cases link their social media posts to their Social Security number and location data, according to an internal CBP document obtained by Motherboard.

Called Babel X, the system lets a user input a piece of information about a target—their name, email address, or telephone number—and receive a bevy of data in return, according to the document. Results can include their social media posts, linked IP address, employment history, and unique advertising identifiers associated with their mobile phone. The monitoring can apply to U.S. persons, including citizens and permanent residents, as well as refugees and asylum seekers, according to the document.

“Babel data will be used/captured/stored in support of CBP targeting, vetting, operations and analysis,” the document reads. Babel X will be used to “identify potential derogatory and confirmatory information” associated with travelers, persons of interest, and “persons seeking benefits.” The document then says results from Babel X will be stored in other CBP operated systems for 75 years.

"The U.S. government’s ever-expanding social media dragnet is certain to chill people from engaging in protected speech and association online. And CBP’s use of this social media surveillance technology is especially concerning in connection with existing rules requiring millions of visa applicants each year to register their social media handles with the government. As we’ve argued in a related lawsuit, the government simply has no legitimate interest in collecting and retaining such sensitive information on this immense scale,” Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, told Motherboard in an email.

The full list of information that Babel X may provide to CBP analysts is a target’s name, date of birth, address, usernames, email address, phone number, social media content, images, IP address, Social Security number, driver’s license number, employment history, and location data based on geolocation tags in public posts.

Bennett Cyphers, a special advisor to activist

organization the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Motherboard in an online chat “the data isn’t limited to public posts made under someone’s real name on Facebook or Twitter.”

The document says CBP also has access to AdID information through an add-on called Locate X, which includes smartphone location data. AdID information is data such as a device’s unique advertising ID, which can act as an useful identifier for tracking a phone and, by extension, a person’s movements. Babel Street obtains location information from a long supply chain of data. Ordinary apps installed on peoples’ smartphones provide data to a company called Gravy Analytics, which repackages that location data and sells it to law enforcement agencies via its related company Venntel. But Babel Street also repackages Venntel’s data for its own Locate X product."

The PTA obtained by Motherboard says that Locate X is covered by a separate “commercial telemetry” PTA. CBP denied Motherboard’s FOIA request for a copy of this document, claiming it “would disclose techniques and/or procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions”.

A former Babel Street employee previously told Motherboard how users of Locate X can draw a shape on a map known as a geofence, see all devices Babel Street has data on for that location, and then follow a specific device to see where else it has been.

Cyphers from the EFF added “most of the people whose location data is collected in this way likely have no idea it’s happening.”

CBP has been purchasing access to location data without a warrant, a practice that critics say violates the Fourth Amendment. Under a ruling from the Supreme Court, law enforcement agencies need court approval before accessing location data generated by a cell phone tower; those critics believe this applies to location data generated by smartphone apps too.

“Homeland Security needs to come clean to the American people about how it believes it can legally purchase and use U.S. location data without any kind of court order. Americans' privacy shouldn't depend on whether the government uses a court order or credit card,” Senator Ron Wyden told Motherboard in a statement. “DHS should stop violating Americans' rights, and Congress should pass my bipartisan legislation to prohibit the government's purchase of Americans' data." CBP has refused to tell Congress what legal authority it is following when using commercially bought smartphone location data to track Americans without a warrant.

Neither CBP or Babel Street responded to a request for comment. Motherboard visited the Babel X section of Babel Street’s website on Tuesday. On Wednesday before publication, that product page was replaced with a message that said “page not found.”

Do you know anything else about how Babel X is being used by government or private clients? Do you work for Babel Street? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.

Wow that sounds bad right.

Be a shame if it got worse.

.

.

It does.

The software (previously Agincourt Solutions) is sold by AI data company Babel Street, was led by Jeffrey Chapman, a former Treasury Department official,, Navy retiree & Earlier in his career a White House aide and intelligence officer at the Department of Defense, according to LinkedIn.

🙃

So what's Agincourt Solutions then right now?

SO FUCKING SUS IN RELATION TO THIS, THATS WHAT

In essence, synthetic BATTLEVR training is a mixture of all three realities – virtual, augmented and physical. It is flexible enough to allow for mission rehearsals of most types and be intuitive enough to make training effective.

Anyway the new CEO of Babel Street (Babel X) as of April is a guy named Michael Southworth and I couldn't find much more on him than that tbh, it's all very vague and missing. That's the most detail I've seen on him.

And the detail says he has a history of tech startups that scanned paperwork and sent it elsewhere, good with numbers, and has a lot of knowledge about cell networks probably.

Every inch more of this I learn as I continue to Google the names and companies popping up... It gets worse.

Monitor phone use. Quit photobombing and filming strangers and for the love of fucking God quit sending apps photos of your actual legal ID to prove your age. Just don't use that site, you'll be fine I swear. And quit posting your private info online. For activists/leftists NO personally identifiable info at least AND DEFINITELY leave your phone at home to Work™!!!

[papasmoke]

biden should run on the nazi style mass migrant deportation deal he just signed to secure more bomb's for Israel's genocide. Since he's clearly so proud of both of those parts of his agenda they should be part of the central bid of his re-election. If you want me to vote for him I want to see you dancing like a circus monkey trying to sell me on more bombs and guns for Israel and more asylum seekers getting fed into a meat grinder. 4 more years baby come on vote blue no matter who get the cheerleading going

[mightyflamethrower]

Riots have broken out in multiple cities and towns across Great Britain, particularly over the past week. There were already protests taking place, but some of them have now turned violent. The topic driving all of this unrest is the immigration situation, particularly the illegal migrants that have been crossing the English Channel on rubber rafts and boats. Much as we've seen a backlash in the United States to violent crimes committed by illegal migrants, many Brits are clearly fed up as well. Everything seemed to come to a head last week when a series of stabbing attacks took the lives of three young children and left eight other children and two adults seriously injured. This took place in Southport, a seaside town north of Liverpool. Rumors quickly spread that the attacker was an illegal migrant, and that's when the protests turned violent. Hundreds have been arrested as a result. (AP)

Britain has been convulsed by violence for the past week as crowds spouting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic slogans clashed with police. The disturbances have been fueled by right-wing activists using social media to spread misinformation about a knife attack that killed three girls during a Taylor Swift-themed dance event. The violence, some of Britain’s worst in years, has led to hundreds of arrests as the government pledges that the rioters will feel “the full force of the law” after hurling bricks and other projectiles at police, looting shops and attacking hotels used to house asylum-seekers. As Britain’s new government struggles to quell the unrest and announces a “standing army” of specialist police to deal with rioting, here’s a look at what’s happening and why.

The liberal media has a marked tendency to try to blame nearly everything on online misinformation or disinformation, but in this case, they do seem to have a point. The attacker was described in several outlets as someone "believed to be an asylum-seeker or a Muslim immigrant." That report spread across the media quickly, inflaming tensions. But it turns out that the killer's name is Axel Muganwa Rudakubana and he was actually born in Wales in 2006, moving to Southport in 2013. His parents are reportedly legal immigrants from Rwanda. He also reportedly suffers from autism, so the stabbing attack may have been more of a mental health issue than any sort of hate crime.

Even if the deadly attack in Southport turns out to have been mischaracterized, that doesn't mean that the UK doesn't still have a serious problem with its illegal immigration situation and resultant unrest. This situation has been simmering for more than a decade and it now appears to be reaching the boiling point. There is a group over there named the English Defence League that has been operating for more than a decade, running a campaign against massive Muslim migration into the country, and they've been attracting more followers recently.

As far as the response to this situation goes, what we're seeing is a jarring juxtaposition between two different British leaders. The UK recently elected its new Labor Party Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, to replace the outgoing Conservative Party PM, Rishi Sunak. Sunak had previously vowed to stop the flow of illegals into the country by turning back the boats in the channel and deporting illegals already in the country to Rwanda. Immediately upon taking office, Starmer canceled the plan and instead vowed to take care of the problem by "working with other European nations and speeding up the removal of failed asylum-seekers."

Starmer has also vastly increased the rate of arrests... not of the migrants, of course, but of the protesters. Some of the protesters have engaged in vandalism and caused damage, with some even attacking the police, so they will need to be held accountable, but many of them are simply carrying signs and decrying both the current administration and the flood of migrants. They don't have the type of First Amendment protections we enjoy in the United States, so many of them have been sent to jail. Starmer has promised that the protesters will "feel the full force of the law" and established a "standing army" of specialist police to deal with the rioting. The entire situation is a mess, to be sure, but it's yet one more sign that massive migration and lax immigration enforcement are causing unrest far beyond America's borders. And the problem is spreading.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

For two weeks since fleeing violence in Uganda and arriving in Canada in search of asylum, Prosscovia Namusisi has been sleeping on Toronto's streets.

Namusisi is one of a group of asylum seekers from Africa sleeping outside the city's shelter intake office at Peter and Richmond streets downtown. The reason, she says: the city tells them everyday there is no space in any of its shelters.

Namusisi says she has only intermittently been able to go inside the facility to use its toilet and showers, while most of the food and supplies they've received have come from local aid organizations.

"I ask myself that if there were no people who come and give us some stuff to use, how will we survive?" she said. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[odinsblog]

are you disappointed that bree newsome wants trump reclected?

Bree Newsome is a prolific tweeter and I’ve looked, but I haven’t seen anywhere where she said that she wants Trump to be re-elected. Please send me the link to the specific tweet if I’m wrong.

I understand and agree with much of what Bree has been saying on Twitter though. I mean, I dO get it. I think her major concern is that 1) in some important ways, the difference between Trump’s policies and some of Biden’s policies has not been all that great, and 2) if Biden should win (definitely not a guarantee) liberals will go right back to brunch and act as if the problem is gone and everything is “okay” again.

As far as the first point goes, you don’t need to look any further than Biden’s Title 42; or how the Biden administration literally sued to keep using Trump’s previous racist immigration policies. Not a good look. And now, you’ve got Democrats trying to out-Republican Republicans by showing how tough cruel they can be to refugees who are legally seeking asylum at the Southern border. Bottom line, the immigration policies are white supremacy-lite, and some of the changes Biden is proposing—like forcing asylum seekers to wait in another country while the government takes its sweet time with endless immigration red tape—these changes will fundamentally change America’s immigration system, for the worse.

And that’s without me even touching on how badly Biden is fucking up with Palestine.

And as for the second point, conservative Democrats have gone back to brunch once orange man gone. Remember how hard Democrats came down on the Trump administration for their poor Coronavirus response? Yet now we have the CDC basically telling people to stay their asses at work even if they’ve tested positive for COVID. WTF?? Did I mention that measles are making a comeback?? And Biden isn’t saying anything, and neither are his surrogates. And so it is perhaps this tendency towards inaction(?) that is the most significantly damaging and damning aspect that creates disaffected voters who should be motivated to get rid of Trump and Republicans writ large —in a lot of ways that matter, disaffected voters don’t see any significant differences. Sure, the stock market is doing great, but people are getting their asses kicked on a lot of day-to-day, kitchen table issues. Unemployment is down, but a lot of people still have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.

So yeah, I won’t be dismissive or derisive about Bree Newsome. She’s making some really valid points for anyone who is willing to actually listen.

Now that all said, I think that there is something fundamentally wrong that people are missing when they say misguided things like, “We survived one Trump administration, and we can survive another one.” A lot of marginalized groups and oppressed people won’t survive a second Trump administration. They just won’t.

Because if you thought it was bad the last time, I promise you the next Trump administration won’t be anything like the last one. Last time Trump was unprepared and didn’t even expect to win, so they made rookie mistakes. That won’t happen next time. The next Trump administration will be stacked from top to bottom with diehard Trump loyalists who will ruthlessly execute his most racist policies, foreign and domestic. (See also: Project 2025).

And yes, Biden is 100% for shit on his policy of standing by Israel no matter what. People who agree with Bree think that we will, more or less, have the same kind of problems under Trump that we’re having under Biden now. Those people are what I like to call deadass wrong.

Literally EVERYTHING will become exponentially worse in a second Trump term. For everyone who isn’t a wealthy, cisgender heterosexual white male.

Just imagine America with a Republican controlled House and Senate. Goodbye Medicare and Social Security. Goodbye labor laws. So long minimum wages. See ya, state local and federal courts not totally stacked with Federalist Society judges. It was nice knowing you, “shithole” countries full of people who I love and care about.

Look, I finally figured out something that used to bother me when I first became politically aware: it bugged tf out of me whenever I heard someone say, “THIS is the most important election everrrr!! Because THIS time, democracy itself is on the line!” Pfft. I was like a lot of people I see now, saying “But that’s what you said about the last election.” The truth is, every election is pretty much life or death. Every single one. Because elections aren’t like something you do once, and then afterwards everything is all good forever and ever. Maybe it should be, but you got assholes like Mitch McConnell and Ron DeSantis and Trump and whoever comes after them, you got people who will always be trying their hardest to constantly make shit worse for everyone who isn’t wealthy and white. They aren’t going away. So we can’t go away either. Because the moment we checkout and go back to brunch, they get right back to working on their usual transphobic, homophobic, misogynistic, racist, bullshit culture wars.

So as long as Republicans, Libertarians and conservative “Democrats” keep punching in, we gotta punch in too.

I wanna be really clear about something here: Joe Biden has done some very good things (like capping the cost of insulin), but he has also been, in many ways (not all), a terrible “Democratic” president. Biden is far too enamored of “bipartisanship,” and reaching across the aisle (to people who do not want to compromise), and Biden is far far too enamored of the non-existent good old days™ when Republicans weren’t the evil pieces of shit that they are now, and he takes far too long to change his position on important issues. Like Palestine.

But yeah, (can’t believe I’M saying this) he’s definitely better than a second Trump term will be. And even if he’s slow to change positions, at least he can be persuaded. Trump can’t.

I’m not white and I’m not rich. I am terrified of a second Trump term. I’m basically a single issue voter now, and my issue is keeping Trump out of office and HOPEFULLY making him pay for every single law he’s broken.

[beardedmrbean]

After staying tight-lipped on his position for weeks, Mayor Adams came out in favor of modifying the city’s sanctuary status laws late Monday — lending his support to a growing chorus of mostly conservative voices who have called for abolishing the local immigration protections in the wake of several high-profile crimes involving migrants.

The sanctuary laws, which date back to the 1980s, prohibit city government workers and agencies from helping federal immigration authorities with tracking down and detaining immigrants residing in the five boroughs for deportation purposes. There are exceptions to the laws that allow the city to cooperate with the feds in some cases, including if an immigrant has been convicted of a serious or violent crime.

Existing laws do not permit the city to cooperate with the feds if a foreign national has merely been charged with a crime.

In a town hall-style event in Brooklyn on Monday night, Adams said the existing laws are too lax and that he wants to see them changed.

“The overwhelming number of migrants and asylum seekers that are here, they want to work … but those small numbers that are committing crimes, we need to modify the sanctuary city law that if you commit a felony, a violent act, we should be able to turn you over to ICE and have you deported,” Adams said, a remark that drew applause from participants at the town hall held at a public school in Canarsie. “It is a right to live in this city and you should be not committing crimes in our city in doing so. Right now, we don’t have the authority to do so.”

Before Monday, Adams largely avoided offering his view on the sanctuary issue, saying only that the question should be posed to the City Council, whose support would likely be required to tweak the laws. Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said earlier this month her chamber has “no plans” to alter the sanctuary laws.

Spokespeople for Adams didn’t immediately return requests for clarity Tuesday on how exactly the mayor would like to see the sanctuary laws changed.

Before the sanctuary laws were strengthened under former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014, city agencies like the NYPD and the Department of Correction were able to detain undocumented immigrants charged with crimes on behalf of ICE until they could take over custody and place them in deportation proceedings. Back then, ICE even had an outpost on Rikers Island, a reality that advocates and Democrats labeled as cruel and damaging to the city’s reputation as a safe haven for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who call the Big Apple home.

Local Republicans and some conservative Democrats started vocally pushing for rolling back the sanctuary protections last month after a group of migrants were caught on surveillance video kicking an NYPD officer outside a shelter in Manhattan. Body cam footage that was later released by the NYPD showed the assault was preceded by the officer putting his hands on one of the migrants.

Amid an influx into the city of more than 170,000 mostly Latin American nationals since spring 2022, there have been a handful of other crimes involving migrants further fueling the calls for changes to the local sanctuary laws.

The mayor’s support for modifications to the laws was hailed on social media by voices on the far-right end of the political spectrum.

“Wow! Mayor Adams is asking for a change in New York City’s sanctuary city law. Good for him,” Charlie Kirk, founder of the right-wing Turning Point USA group, wrote on X. “Now he needs to go all the way and move to abolish it.”

[corderoenlamiseria]

First they put away the dealers, then they put away the prostitutes, then they shooed away the bums, and beat and bashed the queers. Turned away asylum seekers, fed us suspicions and fears. We didn't raise our voice, we didn't make a fuss. It's funny, there was no one left to notice…when they came for us.

Make a stand because the next person might not be able to

[reasoningdaily]

Some fed-up migrants already heading home: ‘American Dream doesn’t exist anymore’

Some Venezuelan migrants who trekked thousands of miles to the US in search of a better life are so disheartened, they say they’re already heading back home.

Michael Castejon, 39, told the Chicago Tribune he has had enough after he, his wife and teenage stepdaughter spent five months sleeping either in a police precinct or a crowded city shelter in the now-brutally cold Windy City.

He’s also been unable to secure a job permit or enroll his daughter in a local school — two of the main reasons things they thought would bring a better life in the US.

“The American Dream doesn’t exist anymore,” Castejon told the paper on the eve of his family’s departure.

“There’s nothing here for us … We just want to be home,” Castejon told the Tribune of the South American country he earlier fled.

“If we’re going to be sleeping in the streets here, we’d rather be sleeping in the streets over there.”

More than 20,000 migrants have made their way to Chicago since August 2022, when Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began loading them onto buses and shipping them off to sanctuary cities.

Many of them ended up sleeping at O’Hare International Airport, at local police stations or in the streets.

Migrants Michael Castejon and wife Induliz Seville wait for an Uber to the airport to start their journey back to Venezuela.TNS

Fed up with the lack of housing and job opportunities, Castejon eventually followed in the footsteps of other disillusioned asylum seekers and turned to Catholic Charities to obtain plane tickets for his family to travel to Texas.

From there, they will somehow find a way to return to their native Venezuela, he said.

“How many more months of living in the streets will it take? No, no more. It’s better that I leave,” he said.

“At least I have my mother back home,” he said of the South American nation he fled earlier this year.

Yorbelis Molero (second from left), 16, says goodbye to a friend as Molero and her family of five wait to leave a Chicago police station and head to a Greyhound bus station on Nov. 2, 2023. TNS

Castejon and his family were among numerous disheartened asylum seekers who have decided to leave Chicago in recent weeks as the weather in the Windy City has grown colder and wetter, the paper found.

Some suggested they had been drawn to Chicago after being wrongly led to believe that they could be swiftly granted asylum status and a work permit, paving the way for a better life.

“We didn’t know things would be this hard,” Castejon said. “I thought the process was faster.”

Others said they have realized that Chicago’s limited resources have been depleted by waves of migrants that have overwhelmed the Democrat-led sanctuary city over the past 16 months, leaving the latest newcomers with nothing but scraps.

“If we’re going to be sleeping in the streets here, we’d rather be sleeping in the streets over there,” Castejon said.AP

Jose Nauh, 22, also returned to Texas earlier this month after sleeping in a police station in Chicago for more than two weeks.

Nauh said he came to Chicago because he heard there was shelter, food and other resources for asylum seekers, but “that’s not true,” he said.

In a scathing letter to President Biden in October, Illinois’ Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker accused the federal government of failing to provide adequate assistance to Chicago for a migrant crisis that has brought the city to a breaking point.  

“The humanitarian crisis is overwhelming our ability to provide aid to the refugee population,” Pritzker wrote. “Unfortunately, the welcome and aid Illinois has been providing to these asylum seekers has not been matched with support by the federal government.”

Pritzker noted that more than $330 million had already been spent by the state to house and feed the migrants.

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

What he should say is that people have been fed lies. That he is going to finally tell us the truth. That immigration is not responsible for the housing crisis, or for the one in the NHS. That asylum seekers being housed in a hotel is not the reason your high street is empty, your industries mothballed, your public spaces scorched, your councils bankrupt, and your community spaces shuttered. That we have laid at the door of immigrants the consequences of an entire economic model that has defunded the state and privileged big businesses and private capital, and concentrated asset accumulation in the south of the country with no foresight or plan. That immigration is not the biggest problem we face; that would be the disgrace of inequality and rising child poverty in the sixth wealthiest economy in the world. He will not say any of this, because Labour cannot be seen to threaten higher taxes or higher spending. Better to blame a lack of growth, and then be muzzled by the implicit cosigning of austerity when immigration is blamed for its consequences.

- Nesrine Malik

[theiconicmeghanmarkle]

In 2020, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex donated $10,000 to Migrateful UK.

Migrateful runs cookery classes led by refugees, asylum seekers and migrants struggling to integrate and access employment. The cookery classes provide ideal conditions not just for learning English and building confidence.

Since then, they have opened a cookery School in Clerkenwell and have trained 20+ chefs, led 450+ classes & almost 4,000 well-fed guests! They are celebrating their one year anniversary.

[mariacallous]

The state and the feds really need to step up and be more active with the asylum seeker/migrant crisis in NYC, because it isn’t just NYC and because it’s resonating all over and will only get worse if they don’t.

[jeaninemasonsource]

it’sjeaninemason This past Friday, I had the privilege of visiting with asylum seekers in New York City. Giving back and being in service to the community fed my soul during this difficult time. I’m happy to say this is a positive post! I was so impressed and moved by the care and concern our city is showing these families. I live in New York. I believe in our great state. And I am proud of what I witnessed. Our incredible public servants partner with community based orgs, faith based orgs and people who just care and want to be helpful to meet these migrants with dignity. It’s an impossible task they’ve been dealt and yet everyday on average 600-700 people arrive seeking refuge, and these hardworking New Yorkers do what they can to keep them safe, fed and equipped to make their way in this country. To find solid footing and a better life. It is an unbelievable operation. Thank you @nycgov @nycemergencymanagement @nuchealthsystem @zachiscol @newyorkcares @thisisabouthumanity and others.

#WelcomeWithDignity #ThisisAboutHumanity

[bobleckridge]

Xenophobia - the fear, or hatred, of difference

I don’t understand xenophobia. Why fear, and/or hate, someone because of some way in which they are different from you? The rise of political “populism” seems to be fed by, and feeds, xenophobia. Whether the targets are immigrants, asylum seekers, or those who adhere to a particular religion, those who promote “send them back home”, or “take back control”, or “secure our borders” always focus on…

[novumtimes]

Feds say U.S. move to tighten border rules in line with law

Article content WASHINGTON — The Canadian government says procedural changes planned by the United States to tighten rules for asylum seekers coming from Canada are in line with the Safe Third Country Agreement. Article content Under that agreement, which came into effect in 2004, refugee claimants must seek asylum in the first country they arrive. The Department of Homeland Security says…

[sa7abnews]

Starmer: Far-right rioters will 'regret' worst disorder in years

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/06/starmer-far-right-rioters-will-regret-worst-disorder-in-years/

Starmer: Far-right rioters will 'regret' worst disorder in years

UK leader Keir Starmer warned far-right protesters on Sunday they would “regret” participating in England’s worst rioting in 13 years, as disturbances linked to the murder of three children earlier this week flared across the country for a fifth day.

Masked anti-immigration demonstrators smashed several windows at a hotel that has been used to house asylum seekers in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.

Unrest related to misinformation about the mass stabbing last Monday in the northwestern English seaside town of Southport has impacted multiple towns and cities, with anti-immigration demonstrators clashing with police.

The violence is posing an early major challenge for Starmer, who was elected only a month ago after leading Labour to a landslide win over the Conservatives.

“I guarantee you will regret taking part in this disorder. Whether directly or those whipping up this action online, and then running away themselves,” Starmer said in a TV address.

He added that there was “no justification” for what he called “far-right thuggery” and promised to bring the perpetrators “to justice”.

Footage aired on the BBC showed rioters forcing their way into a Holiday Inn Express in Rotherham. They also pushed a burning bin into the building. It was not clear whether asylum seekers were inside.

In the northeastern English city of Middlesbrough, hundreds of protesters squared up to riot police carrying shields. Some threw bricks, cans and pots at officers.

The fresh disturbances came after more than 90 people were arrested on Saturday following skirmishes at far-right rallies in Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Blackpool and Hull, as well as Belfast in Northern Ireland.

Rioters threw bricks, bottles and flares at police — injuring several officers — looted and burnt shops, while demonstrators shouted anti-Islamic slurs as they clashed with counter-protesters.

The violence is the worst England has seen since the summer of 2011, when widespread rioting took place following the police killing of 29-year-old Black British man Mark Duggan in North London.

“We’re now seeing it (trouble) flooding across major cities and towns,” said Tiffany Lynch of the Police Federation of England and Wales.

Riots first flared in Southport on Tuesday night following Monday’s frenzied knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party in the northwest coastal city, before spreading up and down England.

‘Wake-up call’

They were fuelled by false rumours on social media about the background of British-born 17-year-old suspect Axel Rudakubana, who is accused of killing a six, seven, and nine-year-old, and injuring another 10 people.

Police have blamed the violence on supporters and associated organisations of the English Defence League, an anti-Islam organisation founded 15 years ago whose supporters have been linked to football hooliganism.

Agitators have targeted at least two mosques, and the UK interior ministry announced Sunday it was offering new emergency security to the Islamic places of worship.

The rallies have been advertised on far-right social media channels under the banner “Enough is enough”.

Participants have waved English and British flags while chanting slogans like “Stop the boats” — a reference to irregular migrants travelling to Britain from France.

Anti-fascist demonstrators have held counter-rallies in many cities, including Leeds where they shouted, “Nazi scum off our streets”, as the far-right protesters chanted, “You’re not English any more”.

Not all the gatherings have turned violent. A peaceful one in Aldershot, southern England, on Sunday saw participants hold placards that read “Stop the invasion” and “We’re not far right, we’re just right”.

“People are fed up with being told you should be ashamed if you’re white and working class but I’m proud white working class,” 41-year-old Karina, who did not give her surname, told AFP in Nottingham on Saturday.

Commentators have suggested that the demonstrators may feel emboldened by the political ascendancy of anti-immigration elements in British politics.

At last month’s election, the Reform UK party led by Brexit cheerleader Nigel Farage captured 14 percent of the vote — one of the largest vote shares for a far-right British party.

Carla Denyer, co-leader of the left-wing Green party, said the unrest should be “a wake-up call to all politicians who have actively promoted or given in” to anti-immigration rhetoric.

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Stocks tumbled over fears of a U.S. economic slowdown (NYT) A wave of anxiety rippled through financial markets today, with stocks falling in the U.S. and around the world as investors zeroed in on signs of a slowing American economy. The S&P 500 fell 3 percent, its worst day since September 2022. The drop brings the index down 8.5 percent from its peak in July, but it’s still up 8.7 percent in 2024 overall. Investors were apparently spooked by a combination of factors last week. Today’s drop extended a sell-off that began after the U.S. jobs report on Friday showed significantly slower hiring, with unemployment at its highest level in nearly three years. The report also followed a Federal Reserve meeting in which officials decided to keep interest rates steady. That fueled fears that the Fed might have waited too long to cut rates, allowing a soft landing to turn into a more turbulent one.

Phoenix: Living with heat (NZZ) If you want to understand what heat does to people, you have to study it where it already dominates life. In Phoenix, Arizona, for example, in America’s Southwest. Nearly every day in July featured temperatures above 43 degrees Celsius (above 109 degrees Fahrenheit), with nights never dropping below 32 degrees. With an average daily temperature of 36 degrees, June was the hottest month on record. The rising nighttime temperatures could ensure that the summer record of 2023 with 55 extremely hot days is broken again this year. After sunset, concrete facades, roofs and asphalt roads continue to radiate stored heat for hours—so much so that people sweat outside until well after midnight. People who live in Phoenix only open the door at night to get some fresh air. If you want to meet people on the street in the city’s residential areas, you have to get up early. Joggers who want to run around the block more than twice set off at half past four at the latest, when it is coolest. Dogs are taken for a walk between five and six, and after sunrise it is rare to see a baby carriage on the street. A greenhorn who has gone outside without a water bottle is kindly but emphatically told by passersby how dangerous this is. You sweat almost constantly in this climate.

Tropical Storm Debby hits Florida with floods (AP) Tropical Storm Debby slammed Florida with torrential rain and high winds, contributing to at least four deaths as it turned menacingly toward the Eastern Seaboard’s low-lying regions and threatened to flood some of America’s most historic Southern cities. Record-setting rain was expected to cause flash flooding, with up to 30 inches (76 centimeters) possible in some areas, the National Hurricane Center said. The potential for high water threatened the historic cities of Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina. Up to 18 inches (46 centimeters) was forecast in central and north Florida. / Something else Hurricane Debby brought: (CNN) Twenty-five packages of cocaine weighing about 70 pounds washed ashore along on a beach in Islamorada, Florida, on Sunday, according to a social media post from US Customs and Border Patrol. According to the agency in Miami, a good samaritan discovered the drugs and alerted authorities. The cocaine has a street value of more than $1 million.

Prime Minister Condemns ‘Far-Right Thuggery’ as Riots Grip U.K. (NYT) Anti-immigration rioters attacked a hotel in the town of Rotherham in northern England on Sunday, breaking windows and appearing to set fires at a hotel that has housed asylum seekers, as riots continued in Britain. The police in cities across the country have braced for continued far-right and anti-immigration protests spurred by a deadly stabbing attack last week in the northern English town of Southport. Disinformation spread rapidly that erroneously claimed the suspect in the knife attack was an immigrant. On Saturday, dozens of people were arrested as demonstrations from Liverpool to Belfast descended into violence. Sunday saw a new wave of clashes, with groups gathering in Rotherham, Bolton, Hull, Southport, Middlesbrough and other towns and cities scattered across the country that devolved into varying degrees of violence.

Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina resigns and flees country as protesters storm palace (BBC) Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has resigned and fled the country. Hasina, who was seen as increasingly authoritarian, was forced out by weeks of protests that led to deadly clashes with the security forces. She had led Bangladesh since 2009, and took a helicopter to India, according to BBC Bengali. Hasina's resignation comes as thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in the capital Dhaka—with thousands more set to follow, a day after clashes between police and protesters left at least 90 people dead. Demonstrators stormed Hasina's official residence in Dhaka, looting it and carrying away furniture.

Thai democracy (Washington Post) Pita Limjaroenrat is arguably Thailand’s most popular politician—but his career now hangs in the balance. The suave, charismatic figurehead of Thailand’s Move Forward party led his progressive, reformist faction to a stunning first-place victory in general elections in May 2023. But the political establishment in Bangkok, enmeshed in close to a decade of de facto military rule, had other ideas. Conservative forces moved against Pita and his allies, with the Senate, comprised of lawmakers handpicked by the regime, thwarting his coalition’s ability to form a ruling government. Eventually, the Pheu Thai party, one of Move Forward’s erstwhile allies, broke with Pita and joined hands with the same military that had thrown it out of power in 2014. Pita, cast into the opposition, has been subjected to a concerted campaign of lawfare targeting both him and his party. On Aug. 7, Thailand’s constitutional court is set to rule whether to dissolve Move Forward and effectively disqualify Pita himself from holding political office in the near future. The case is centered on Move Forward’s campaign pitch to reform Thailand’s draconian lèse-majesté laws that criminalize critical speech about the Thai monarchy; they are now being wielded by the state to potentially kneecap Pita and his party. The looming crisis spotlights how Thailand is a “competitive autocracy,” as Pita put it to me himself in an interview last week. “An election victory does not translate to governance here.”

Four years after the Beirut port blast, justice is still stalled (AP) Four years ago, Helen Ata got a call from someone she didn’t know telling her that a massive explosion at the Beirut port had caused her building to collapse. Her brothers were trapped under the rubble. One of them, Issam, survived, with a permanent disability in his right leg. Her twin brother Abdo, whom she calls her “other half,” died. The port blast anniversary Sunday comes as the region braces for retaliation after an Israeli strike killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut and an explosion in Tehran, widely blamed on Israel, killed top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. For many, the fears of a new escalation come as wounds of the port explosion four years ago remain raw. On Aug. 4, 2020, hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate detonated in a Beirut Port warehouse. The gigantic blast tore through the Lebanese capital, killing at least 218 people, according to an AP count, wounded more than 6,000 others, and devastated large swaths of Beirut, causing billions of dollars in damages. The blast stunned the nation and a probe by a maverick investigative judge into the explosion shook the country’s ruling elite, rife with corruption and mismanagement. However, years of obstructions by top officials to dodge accountability and stall the probe have hampered hopes for justice.

International airlines have suspended flights to Israel (NYT) Israel went into a new workweek in a state of deep uncertainty on Sunday, with the potential for attacks by Iran and the militant groups it supports already causing disruptions for many. A number of international airlines have suspended flights to and from Israel pending expected retaliation against the country by Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. That has left tens of thousands of Israelis unable to come home, according to an Israeli official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss the matter. Delta, United, the Lufthansa group and Aegean Airlines were among those that suspended services to Israel. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is asking citizens traveling abroad to fill out an online survey to help the government map where they are and try to organize solutions, including alternative commercial flights. Most are believed to be stuck in Europe and the United States.

Israeli Reservists Confront Toll of Protracted War (WSJ) Aday after Hamas attacked Israel and sparked war on Oct. 7, Adi Hazan drove to a rally point in southern Israel and began what he thought would be one or two months of emergency military-reserve service. Nearly 10 months later, the machine-gunner is still deployed—and the rest of his life is in shambles. His construction business is failing, he is sinking into debt, and his family relies on handouts from friends and charities. And he doesn’t see an end in sight. A small nation with fewer than 10 million people, Israel relies heavily on reservists such as Hazan to keep its military functioning in times of crisis. But now, with the war in Gaza heading into its 11th month, and long-running exchanges of fire with regional militias such as Hezbollah heating up, many of those fighters are close to a breaking point. Exhausted and in some cases demoralized, they are struggling to balance family and work with military service, while the economic toll from their absences mounts. The strain on military manpower is one reason Israeli officials are hesitant to launch an all-out war against Hezbollah, which would require the same cohort of weary reservists to fight against a military power far superior to Hamas.

Israeli Strike on Gaza Shelter Kills at Least 30 and Injures Dozens (NYT) An Israeli airstrike on a school functioning as a shelter in Gaza City killed at least 30 people and injured dozens more on Sunday, according to the Palestinian emergency response agency in Gaza and Palestinian news outlets. It was the third attack on a school in the last four days. Most of the victims were women and children, said Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense. He said that an F-16 fighter jet hit a school called Hassan Salame, where at least 14 people were still buried under the rubble. Shrapnel and debris also hit a neighboring school known as Nasser, he said. The death toll was initially 25, but rose to 30. The Israeli military said it had targeted “terrorists” in “Hamas command and control centers” located at the Hassan Salame and Nasser schools. It said it had taken “numerous steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians” before the strike, including using precision munitions, surveillance and intelligence, though it did not specify how it had done so.

Nigerian protests fizzle out amid deadly police crackdown (Reuters) Protests against a soaring cost of living in Nigeria ebbed on Monday as few people turned out in major cities after security forces used lethal force to quell demonstrations. Hundreds of thousands had taken to the streets in cities including the capital Abuja and the commercial hub Lagos demanding relief from economic hardship and widespread insecurity in protests which started last Thursday and were meant to continue until Aug. 10. Amnesty International said at least 13 people have been killed in clashes with the police since Thursday. Police have put the death toll at seven, blaming some on accidents and an explosive device. A firm police response and a call for a protest pause by President Bola Tinubu have dampened the demonstrations.