Category Archives: Viva!

Syrian residents pelt retreating US troops with food and insults

Angry scenes demonstrate sense of betrayal amid rushed US pullout as Trump says remaining force is to protect oil not Kurds

Pelted with fruit and hounded by insults, the American military’s exit from Syria was very different from its time on the ground. The remnants of the US presence in the north-east of the country made an ignominious departure on Monday, driving through towns that had welcomed them for the past four years.

The regional capital of Qamishli, a hub of cooperation between US officers and Kurdish officials throughout the war against Islamic State, was among the least hospitable spots on the road out. As US battle trucks, sporting large American flags, made their way through town and headed towards Iraq, groups of locals threw rotting fruit and vegetables at them, cursing soldiers that only two weeks ago many in the region had considered to be their protectors.

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Lebanon Protests: It’s Too Late To Believe Any of These Politicians’ Promises

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(Picture via Anis Tabet).

Nata2 badri, as my mom would say.

72 hours have come and gone. Aoun, Berri and Hariri have finally come out of their weekend long slumber to unveil their country saving plan… and they think we’re actually going to believe them this time.

The plan that Hariri unveiled today is offensive to every single Lebanese who had to suffer through their corruption for years. This so-called plan is an insult to the intelligence of the millions who have been starved over the years, and who were protesting in the streets over the last 4 days.

It’s ridiculous that it took millions of us protesting across the world for them to *finally* succumb and cut down on their salaries, on their benefits, on long standing black holes that siphoned public funds into their pockets.

What Hariri and the rest of Lebanon’s ruling class believe is that they can continue to fool people with the same empty promises they’ve given for years. If it was *this* easy for them to enact these changes, why hadn’t they enacted them months ago when they were scrambling to come up with a budget for a country that functioned without one for decades?

It’s because they’ve taken our silence for granted. It’s because they assumed they can do whatever they wanted to this people and get away with it. But that stops now.

No Mr. Hariri, your empty promises don’t fly here. Just look at workers at Future TV and Saudi Ogeh were promised for years, none of which was ever fulfilled.

No, these empty reforms don’t address the root of the problem which is that these same politicians who have failed to reform anything for decades cannot suddenly see the light and decide to enact much needed change.

No, switching one way for these politicians to steal money to programs called Elinor and Elissar is not reform. This is just another name for theft.

It’s too little too late for empty statements masquerading under the guise of change to be effective. We should be better than to believe such empty words.

I really hope that years of lies are enough to have us believe that more lies can never be truths.

Stay tuned, Lebanon. The revolution continues.

Cuban Man Dies in US Immigration Custody

Undated photograph of Richwood Correctional Center, Louisiana, United States. 

© LaSalle Corrections

A second death this month in United States immigration custody raises disturbing questions about a system we know has failed to protect asylum seekers and other immigrants in its care over and over again. On Tuesday, Roylán Hernández-Díaz, a 43-year-old Cuban man, died in a detention center in Richwood, Louisiana, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and multiple news sources. His death came just nine days after the death of Nabene Abienwi, an asylum seeker from Cameroon, in ICE custody in California.

According to ICE, Hernández-Díaz came to a US port of entry on May 20 and entered ICE custody two days later. His wife told Buzzfeed News that Hernández-Díaz had applied for asylum because he had spoken out against the Cuban government and tried to leave the country multiple times. She said as a result, he had served nine years in prison.

After passing the “credible fear interview,” the initial stage for asylum screening, he requested “parole,” or release, while his case was pending. But – like the overwhelming majority of asylum seekers held in the South – he was denied. As a result, Hernández-Díaz stayed detained for months in one of three privately run jails that only began holding immigration detainees this year, in a state where there are few immigration attorneys and where immigration judges deny nearly all asylum cases.

A federal judge in September issued a preliminary injunction against denying parole without an individualized determination. It’s unclear if Hernández-Díaz received an individualized determination as required.

In response to his continued detention, Hernández-Díaz began a hunger strike just a few days ago, one of dozens of immigrants in detention in recent years who have taken this desperate step to draw attention to their continued detention, isolation, and poor treatment.

Other immigrants in detention reported ICE put Hernández-Díaz into segregation or “solitary confinement” in response. Under the most recent detention standards, people on hunger strike are to be put under medical observation, and only moved to isolation for medical reasons. Disciplinary segregation for a hunger strike would be unwarranted, but unsurprising. ICE has a history of misusing segregation, particularly for people with mental health conditions, and a corresponding track record of people dying by suicide after abysmal mental health care.

Hernández-Díaz came to the US seeking protection. Instead, he found an administration determined to make an already broken system even more indifferent toward human rights.

Navajo, Hopi will have objects, human remains repatriated by Finland

WASHINGTON – The Hopi and Navajo are among 26 tribes that will see the return of ancestral remains from Finland, where the items have been held in a museum after being taken from Colorado almost 130 years ago. The repatriation, announced Wednesday during Finnish President Sauli Niinistö’s visit to the White House, follows years of […]

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