Category Archives: Viva!

What to Know Before You Buy Short-Term Health Insurance

They are out to grab your money and not give you the health coverage you think you bought! The plans cover less and follow fewer rules than most insurance that you can buy now. They are also less costly and will be marketed extensively.

Trump’s Attacks on Media Violate Basic Norms of Press Freedom, Human Rights Experts say

David Kaye is the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression for the United Nations and Edison Lanza is Special Rapporteur for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

By David Kaye and Edison Lanza
GENEVA / WASHINGTON, Aug 3 2018 (IPS)

U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on the free press are strategic, designed to undermine confidence in reporting and raise doubts about verifiable facts.

The President has labelled the media as being the “enemy of the American people” “very dishonest” or “fake news,” and accused the press of “distorting democracy” or spreading “conspiracy theories and blind hatred”.

Journalists wait for the arrival of official delegations at the Geneva II Conference on Syria, in Montreux, Switzerland. Credit: UN Photo/Violaine Martin

These attacks run counter to the country’s obligations to respect press freedom and international human rights law. We are especially concerned that these attacks increase the risk of journalists being targeted with violence.

Over the course of his presidency, Mr. Trump and others within his administration, have sought to undermine reporting that had uncovered waste, fraud, abuse, potential illegal conduct, and disinformation.

Each time the President calls the media ‘the enemy of the people’ or fails to allow questions from reporters from disfavoured outlets, he suggests nefarious motivations or animus. But he has failed to show even once that specific reporting has been driven by any untoward motivations.

It is critical that the U.S. administration promote the role of a vibrant press and counter rampant disinformation. To this end, we urge President Trump not only to stop using his platform to denigrate the media but to condemn these attacks, including threats directed at the press at his own rallies.

The attack on the media goes beyond President Trump’s language. We also urge his entire administration, including the Department of Justice, to avoid pursuing legal cases against journalists in an effort to identify confidential sources, an effort that undermines the independence of the media and the ability of the public to have access to information.

We urge the Government to stop pursuing whistle-blowers through the tool of the Espionage Act, which provides no basis for a person to make an argument about the public interest of such information.

We stand with the independent media in the United States, a community of journalists and publishers and broadcasters long among the strongest examples of professional journalism worldwide. We especially urge the press to continue, where it does so, its efforts to hold all public officials accountable.

We encourage all media to act in solidarity against the efforts of President Trump to favour some outlets over others.

Two years of attacks on the press could have long term negative implications for the public’s trust in media and public institutions. Two years is two years too much, and we strongly urge that President Trump and his administration and his supporters end these attacks.

The post Trump’s Attacks on Media Violate Basic Norms of Press Freedom, Human Rights Experts say appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

David Kaye is the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression for the United Nations and Edison Lanza is Special Rapporteur for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The post Trump’s Attacks on Media Violate Basic Norms of Press Freedom, Human Rights Experts say appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Ford government ditched basic income pilot project before any data landed, researcher says

Seems as though he lied his way into office. Ont Toronto Council 20180727

Ontario’s social services minister said the decision to scrap the program was made after ministry officials said it was failing to help people become “independent contributors to the economy.” But a member of the project’s research team said they’d yet to receive a single piece of data.

The far right is at its strongest since the 1930s, and the media is helping | Owen Jones

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Prominent far-right figures being given airtime on the BBC, LBC and ITV are not being properly challenged on their views

The far right is on the march, and it is being legitimised and enabled by parts of the mainstream media. The shambolic interview of Raheem Kassam – sidekick to Steve Bannon and Nigel Farage – by the BBC’s flagship Today programme was a striking case in point. This champion of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (or as he calls himself, Tommy Robinson) – a man whose convictions include fraud, assault and contempt of court – was allowed to present himself as a legal expert. His link to the far-right Breitbart website was not mentioned.

Related: The dark stars of the far right compete to bask in the glory of Tommy Robinson

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I will root antisemites out of Labour – they do not speak for me | Jeremy Corbyn

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Yes, there is a continuing problem. But the party will do whatever it takes to safeguard the Jewish community

I have spent my life campaigning for recognition of the strength of a multicultural society. Britain would not be Britain without our Jewish communities. Our country would be unimaginable without the immense contribution made by Jewish men and women to every part of our national life, from art to science, industry to politics, in peace and in war.

Jewish people have also been at the heart of the labour movement throughout our history. So no one can, or should, try to dismiss or belittle the concerns expressed by so many Jewish people and organisations about what has been happening in the party I am proud to lead.

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Journalists Killed in Central African Republic Amid Growing Russian Presence

via Aleksey Godin – Russian like old trying to gain influence where it can amidst conflict and poverty – no via mercenaries. Journalists Killed in Central African Republic Amid Growing Russian PresenceThe Wagner Group’s activity in the Central African Republic reveals how Russia has grown its influence in Africa, even in regions where Western countries traditionally have wielded considerable influence.

‘Justice is never served’: Nia Wilson and the fear of racial violence

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A teenage girl was stabbed in an unprovoked attack by a white man. Her death has become a powerful symbol of American racism

Nia Wilson wondered what would happen if she ever became a hashtag.

The 18-year-old Oakland woman loved rapping and makeup and wanted to join the army or become a paramedic. She was also passionate about police brutality and other injustices facing African Americans, and her family said she talked about how they should respond if she ever became a victim.

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Russian Media Omit that Killed Journalists in CAR Were Investigating Kremlin-linked Mercenary Group

via aleksey godin

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News Brief

Coda Staff

2 Aug 2018

Three Russian journalists were gunned down in an ambush by armed militants outside of the town of Sibut in the Central African Republic (CAR) on Monday evening, jolting the international press and sending shockwaves through Russian media. But depending on where the story was reported, the details on the correspondents’ assignment thinned with most major Russian news outlets, many of which are fully or partially under government control, omitting that the journalists were investigating the activity of a Kremlin-linked mercenary group called the Wagner Group, financed by the billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is known as “Putin’s private chef,” and Russian mining operations in the country.

The veteran journalists, Orkhan Dzhemal, Aleksandr Rastorguev, and Kirill Radchenko, have worked for independent Russian media and were known for taking tough assignments. They traveled undercover to the CAR to film a documentary called “Russian Mercenaries” for the Investigation Control Center, according to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an exiled Putin-critic and former oil tycoon who was funding the project.

However the reporting of Russia’s three largest news agencies and one of the country’s most watched television networks Rossiya-1 presented the journalists as investigating local militias, not the Wagner Group, or only said that they were filming a documentary.

Andrei Konyakhin, an editor at the Investigation Control Center, told the Washington Post that the killings could be related to their investigation. “This was done in a very demonstrative fashion,” Konyakhin said of the attack which left the reporters’ driver alive. “If they could have just taken everything from them, why kill them?”

Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that reports that the journalists were investigating private military companies was “nonsense” and that “I can only say that they traveled there as tourists.”

Russian investigators have opened a criminal case into the killings.

Massachusetts college apologizes after police called on black student eating lunch

Racists can even hide at Smith…

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School staff to receive anti-bias training in response to employee calling 911 to report student, who says: ‘All I did was be black’

A Massachusetts college president is apologizing after campus police were called to investigate a black student quietly eating her lunch in a common room.

Smith College president Kathleen McCartney said in a letter Thursday that the college was hiring a “third-party investigator” to review the incident and that every Smith staff member would undergo mandatory anti-bias training.

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