Trump's Order Changes One Harmful Approach for Another
Human Rights Watch | hrw.org | 2018-06-21
A view of inside U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detention facility shows children at Rio Grande Valley Centralized Processing Center in Rio Grande City, Texas, U.S., June 17, 2018. | © 2018 Reuters | In a McAllen immigration detention center last week, I talked to a cheerful 5-year-old boy and his mother. They'd crossed into the United States seeking safety after fleeing violence and threats at home. Later that day, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents took him away from his mother. The next day he told me: "I don't know where she is." | Today he turns 6. He'll spend the day surrounded by people he doesn't know, likely without any idea of what's happening to him or when, if ever, he'll see his mother again. | President Donald Trump's new…
hrw.org/news/2018/06/21/trumps-order-changes-one-harmful-approach-another

American Medical Association Passes New LGBT Policies
Human Rights Watch | hrw.org | 2018-06-21
An activist waves a rainbow flag in Manhattan, New York, US, February 26, 2017. | © 2017 Reuters | The American Medical Association (AMA) adopted new policies last week that will position the organization as an advocate for better protections for transgender people in detention, and LGBT-inclusive family leave policies. | My colleagues have investigated paid leave issues in the US. The 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires employers to grant up to 12 weeks of unpaid annual leave to allow workers to care for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition, or to care for newly born or adopted children. | Among many other harrowing findings, our 2011 report included interviews with parents whose same-sex spouses were denied even unpaid FMLA leave because employers did not consider the…
hrw.org/news/2018/06/21/american-medical-association-passes-new-lgbt-policies

Indonesia: New Counterterrorism Law Imperils Rights
Human Rights Watch | hrw.org | 2018-06-20
A counterterrorism police officer stands guard during a security sweep in Jakarta, Indonesia, February 16, 2018. | © 2018 Reuters | (New York) — The Indonesian government should seek to amend provisions in the newly enacted counterterrorism law ("CT Law") that threaten human rights protections, Human Rights Watch said in a letter sent on June 11, 2018, to President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and other officials. | Related Content: | Letter on Indonesia's New Counterterrorism Law | After suicide bombings by attackers aligned with the Islamic State in the city of Surabaya in May, Indonesia's parliament on May 25 approved long-pending revisions to the CT Law. While the new law contains some improvements, it risks undermining human rights and could weaken efforts to counter extremist threats. | "The Indonesian government's counterterrorism…
hrw.org/news/2018/06/20/indonesia-new-counterterrorism-law-imperils-rights

Time for the Big One? Research suggests risk of California earthquake higher than previously thought
RT | rt.com | 2018-06-20
Geophysicists are hypothesizing that the San Andreas fault line in California could be the central point of a massive earthquake after new research suggested that the fault may be at higher risk than previously thought.
rt.com/usa/430368-california-slow-earthquakes-study/

"Trump Creates Crises & Preys on Fear": Rep. Jayapal on Policy of Separating Kids from Parents
Democracy Now! | democracynow.org | 2018-06-19
Outrage is growing over the Trump administration's separation of children from their parents along the U.S.-Mexico border. On Monday, ProPublica released audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, in which children estimated to be between the ages of 4 and 10 years old are heard crying "Mama" and "Papi" after being separated from their parents. In another part of the audio, a Border Patrol agent is heard joking, in Spanish, "Well, we have an orchestra here. What's missing is a conductor." Video footage released by the U.S. Border Patrol Monday shows migrant children in concrete-floored chain link cages in an old warehouse in McAllen, Texas. A new Quinnipiac poll shows roughly two-thirds of U.S. voters oppose separating children from their parents at the border. About 7 percent of Democratic voters support the Trump policy, while 55 percent of Republicans support…
democracynow.org/2018/6/19/trump_creates_crises_preys_on_fear

MSM talk coup in Venezuela because it sits on oil US empire wants — Abby Martin
RT | rt.com | 2018-06-17
The American empire and its media openly talk coup in Venezuela because it sits on vast — and nationalized — oil resources, and this is US expansionism at its finest, The Empire Files host Abby Martin told Lee Camp.
rt.com/usa/430034-venezuela-us-lee-camp/

Lawyer: Jeff Sessions' Attacks on Migrant Domestic Violence Survivors Drags U.S. Back to "Dark Ages"
Democracy Now! | democracynow.org | 2018-06-15
On Monday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that domestic and gang-related violence will generally no longer be grounds for asylum, a far-reaching shift that could affect thousands of people, particularly women from Central America fleeing gender-based violence. This decision reverses the Board of Immigration Appeals' grant of asylum to a Salvadoran domestic violence survivor known as A.B., who fled to the U.S. for her life after surviving 15 years of beatings, rape and death threats from her husband. In ruling against A.B., Sessions also overturned a groundbreaking precedent from 2014 in which the immigration appeals court affirmed that domestic violence survivors are deserving of protection. We speak with Karen Musalo, professor of law and the director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She is of the attorneys representing Ms. A.B.
democracynow.org/2018/6/15/lawyer_jeff_sessions_attacks_on_migrant

Pundits Worry Threat of Nuclear War Is Being Reduced
Gregory Shupak | fair.org | 2018-06-14
Media outlets don't want America to negotiate with North Korea; they want the US to hold North Korea for ransom. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow (6/12/18) appears dismayed by the manifestation of a US president meeting with an Official Enemy. | On MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show, the host was aghast (6/12/18) that the US says it will halt the annual war games it conducts with South Korea on North Korea's doorstep, because doing so is "an absolute jackpot for the North Korean dictator," "one of the things he wants most on earth," and now Washington "has just given them that for free, for nothing." | Maddow implied that Trump has taken this step out of fealty to Russia, and complained that pausing war games that threaten North Korea benefits Russia and China. She twice called the Kim/Trump summit a "wedding," twice said that the…
fair.org/home/pundits-worry-threat-of-nuclear-war-is-being-reduced/

Trauma at the Texas-Mexico Border: Families Separated, Children Detained & Residents Fighting Back
Democracy Now! | democracynow.org | 2018-06-14
We look at growing outrage over the Trump administration's policy of separating immigrant families who cross the U.S.-Mexico border, many fleeing dangerous conditions and seeking asylum. At least 600 immigrant children were removed from their parents last month, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the new rule. On Wednesday, 10 members of Congress protested by blocking the entrance to the headquarters of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency tasked with carrying out the forced removal of children from their parents. More protests in at least 60 cities are planned today by the group Families Belong Together, which formed in response to the new policy. We go to the epicenter of this "zero tolerance" crackdown, the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, where more than half of all migrant families and children have been apprehended by Border Patrol agents since mid-May, for a special report by Democracy Now! correspondent Renée Feltz, who spoke with residents taking action in response to the widely condemned practice of separating families.
democracynow.org/2018/6/14/trauma_at_the_texas_mexico_border

Maduro & Workers Push to Stimulate Venezuela's Oil Industry amid Collapsing Production
Paul Dobson | venezuelanalysis.com | 2018-06-07
It is alleged that PDVSA does not possess sufficient stocks to fulfill its June export orders.
venezuelanalysis.com/news/13864

Venezuela Slams New US Sanctions as Washington Hints at Oil Embargo
Cira Pascual Marquina | venezuelanalysis.com | 2018-05-22
The latest measures fly in the face of international concern about the living conditions of Venezuelans.
venezuelanalysis.com/news/13833