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Showing posts with label hadassah hospital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hadassah hospital. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

Death

 



The Amnesty study, titled “Deadly Delivery,” reports that deaths from pregnancy and childbirth in the United States have doubled in the past 20 years–from 6.6 per 100,000 live births in 1987 to 13.3 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2006.

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That would mean that, of the four million women who give birth each year, two to three women die each day in the U.S. from complications related to pregnancy.

While better reporting may account for some of the increase, the study speculates that it’s more likely that the figures may actually understate the problem because there are no federal requirements to report maternal deaths.

Other findings from the study:

U.S. women are now at greater risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes than women in 40 other countries–five times greater than Greek women, for example, and four times greater than German women.

And another 1.7 million U.S. women–a third of all women who become pregnant in the United States–experience some kind of pregnancy-related complication that adversely affects their health. Severe pregnancy-related complications (known as “near misses” because the woman comes close to death) have increased 25 percent since 1998, the study reports.

“No American woman should die from childbirth in 2009, we can definitely do a lot better,” says Dr. Michael Lu, associate professor of obstetrics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Why are U.S. women more likely to die during childbirth than their peers in other developed nations?

The answer is complex and a number of factors may be at play. The study says about half of U.S. women are entering pregnancy overweight. And a spokesperson for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says the latest maternal mortality data suggests one in four to one in five women who die have heart disease or diseased blood vessels.

Other factors include financial and physical barriers to accessing care, including a lack of physicians in rural areas, and an overuse of risky interventions, such as inducing labor and delivering via cesarean section.

According to the CDC, about half of all maternal deaths in the U.S. are preventable. Pregnant women and new mothers are dying because of “systemic failures” in the current health system, the Amnesty report says.

The alarming data on maternal mortality are even more shocking for Black American women. They are three to four times more likely to die during childbirth than White women. And even wealthy Black women have a higher rate of mortality during childbirth than wealthy White women.

One factor may be high blood pressure; Black women tend to have higher blood pressure than the rest of the population. But poverty and racism may also be factors.

JoAnne Fischer, executive director of the Maternity Care Coalition, which works with low income women to help them stay healthy during their pregnancies, says: “We do know that there is extraordinary stress involved in racism and in being poor. And we know that sometimes this creates hypertension. Hypertension, obesity and diabetes are all linked, so we have to make sure women start their pregnancies healthy.”

The increase in maternal deaths is viewed against a history of steady decreases during the 20th century.

Mortality rates reached very high levels in maternity institutions in the 1800s, sometimes climbing to 40 percent of birth giving women. At the beginning of the 1900s, maternal death rates were around 1 in 100 for live births.

The number in 2005 in the United States was 11 in 100,000, a decline by two orders of magnitude. However, that figure has begun to rise in recent years, having nearly tripled over the past decade in California.

The decline in maternal deaths has been due largely to improved asepsis, fluid management and blood transfusion, and better prenatal care.

Recommendations for reducing maternal mortality include access to health care and emergency obstetric care, funding and intrapartum care. Moreover, political will and support play a major role and without it reforms to reduce maternal mortality cannot be made.

The risk of dying as a result of pregnancy or childbirth differs significantly by economic status from about 1 in 26 in Africa, to 1 in 7,300 in developed countries.

Even within countries there is a marked difference in access to skilled birth attendants, a key intervention to improve maternal health. The proportion of women whose family planning desires are satisfied is distinctly linked to wealth, with the poorest lagging behind the richest in each region.

Climate Movement

 Almost a decade ago, parties to the Paris treaty agreed to work toward limiting temperature rise this century to 1.5ºC—but 2024 was the hottest year in human history, and countries around the world show no signs of reining in planet-wrecking fossil fuels anywhere near the degree that scientists warn is necessary to prevent catastrophic climate breakdown.

"Crossing 1.5ºC for a whole calendar year is a wake-up call for the world," said Olympic gold medalist and XR U.K. spokesperson Etienne Stott, highlighting another alarming record from last year. "If we want to avoid crossing further tipping points we need a complete transformation of society."

Extinction Rebellion and other climate groups held a funeral for the Paris agreement's 1.5°C temperature target in Cambridge, England on May 10, 2025. (Photo: Derek Langley)

Scientists from universities in the United Kingdom and Germany warned in a peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Earth System Dynamics last month that humankind is at risk of triggering various climate tipping points absent urgent action to dramatically reduce emissions from fossil fuels.

"There are levers policymakers can pull to rapidly phase out fossil fuels, but this requires standing up to powerful interests," Stott said Saturday. "Activists need to build power, resilience, and the world we want to see in our communities; but we also need to keep seeking the spark that will cause the worldwide transformation we need to see."

In addition to the Cambridge and U.K. arms of Extinction Rebellion, Saturday's action was organized by Cambridge Greenpeace, Cambridge Stop the War, and the Organization of Radical Cambridge Activists (ORCA).

Varsity, the independent student newspaper at the University of Cambridge, reported that the marchers "rallied at Christ's Pieces, where they heard from one of the organizers, who emphasised the harm caused by exceeding 1.5ºC of warming."

"The march then proceeded up Christ's Lane and down Sidney Street, led by a group of 'Red Rebels,' dressed in red robes with faces painted white, followed by 'pall bearers' carrying coffins painted black, with the words 'Inaction Is Death' in white," according to Varsity. "The procession was completed by a samba band who drummed as they walked, followed by protesters carrying a large sign reading 'Don't silence the science,' along with many other smaller placards."

Members of the "Red Rebel Brigade" led a procession around Cambridge, England as part of a funeral for the Paris agreement's 1.5°C temperature target on May 10, 2025. (Photo: Albert Arhó)

Photos from organizers show participants displaying banners with messages such as "No Future on a Dead Planet," and additional messages painted on the black coffins: "1.5ºC Is Dead," "Act Now," "Ecocide," "RIP Earth," and "Web of Life."

"Politicians have broken their promises to keep global temperature rises to a livable 1.5ºC," declared Zoe Flint, a spokesperson for XR Cambridge. "For decades, people around the world have been resisting environmental devastation in their own communities and beyond—often facing state repression and violence as a result."

"With dozens of political protesters now in prison in this country, that repression has come to the U.K. too," Flint noted. "But when those least responsible for climate breakdown suffer the worst effects, we can't afford to give up the fight."

Harms


 Amid the blizzard of executive orders and bizarre budgetary decisions pouring out of the Trump White House, Gates put his finger on the cuts that really matter, the ones that will do lasting damage—not just to their unfortunate victims but to America’s sense of global leadership as well.

In short, globally, the sharp cuts to USAID’s humanitarian programs represent a crippling blow to America’s soft power at a time when great-power competition with Beijing and Moscow has reemerged with stunning intensity.

In President Donald Trump’s transactional diplomacy, only the hard power of mineral deals, gifted airplanes, or military might matters. And yet, as we learned in the Cold War years, it’s much easier to exercise world leadership with willing followers won over by the form of diplomacy scholars have dubbed “soft power.” As the progenitor of the concept, Harvard Professor Joseph Nye, put it: “Seduction is always more effective than coercion. And many of our values, such as democracy, human rights, and individual opportunity, are deeply seductive.” He first coined the term in 1990, just as the Cold War was ending, writing that “when one country gets other countries to want what it wants,” that “might be called co-optive or soft power, in contrast with the hard or command power of ordering others to do what it wants.” In his influential 2004 book, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, Nye argued that, in our world, raw military power had been superseded by soft-power instruments like reliable information, skilled diplomacy, and economic aid.

Actually, soft power is seldom soft. Indeed, Spanish steel might have conquered the New World in the 16th century, but its long rule over that vast region was facilitated by the appeal of a shared Christian religion. When Britain’s global turn came in the 19th century, its naval dominion over the world’s oceans was softened by an enticing cultural ethos of commerce, language, literature, and even sports. And as the American century dawned after World War II, its daunting troika of nuclear-armed bombers, missiles, and submarines would be leavened by the soft-power appeal of its democratic values, its promise of scientific progress, and its humanitarian aid that started in Europe with the Marshall Plan in 1948.

Even in these uncertain times, one thing seems clear enough: Donald Trump’s sharp cuts to this country’s humanitarian aid will ensure that its soft power crumbles, doing lasting damage to its international standing.

The Logic of Foreign Aid

Foreign aid—giving away money to help other nations develop their economies—remains one of America’s greatest inventions. In the aftermath of World War II, Europe had been ravaged by six years of warfare, including the dropping of 2,453,000 tons of Allied bombs on its cities, after which the rubble was raked thanks to merciless ground combat that killed 40 million people and left millions more at the edge of starvation.

Speaking before a crowd of 15,000 packed into Harvard Yard for commencement in June 1947, less than two years after that war ended, Secretary of State George Marshall made an historic proposal that would win him the Nobel Peace Prize. “It is logical,” he said, “that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace.” Instead of the usual victor’s demand for reparations or revenge, the U.S. gave Europe, including its defeated Axis powers, $13 billion in foreign aid that would, within a decade, launch that ruined continent on a path toward unprecedented prosperity.

What came to be known as the Marshall Plan was such a brilliant success that Washington decided to apply the idea on a global scale. Over the next quarter century, as a third of humanity emerged from the immiseration of colonial rule in Africa and Asia, the U.S. launched aid programs designed to develop the fundamentals of nationhood denied to those countries during the imperial age. Under the leadership of President John F. Kennedy, who had campaigned on a promise to aid Africa’s recovery from colonial rule, disparate programs were consolidated into the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 1961.

At the outset, USAID’s work was complicated by Washington’s Cold War mission. It would sometimes even serve as a cover for CIA operations. Just a few years after the Cold War ended in 1991, however, USAID was separated from the State Department and its diplomatic aim of advancing U.S. interests.

Then refocused on its prime mission of global economic development, USAID would, in concert with the World Bank and other development agencies, become a pioneering partner in a multifaceted global effort to improve living conditions for the majority of humanity. Between 1950 and 2018, the portion of the world’s population living in “extreme poverty” (on $1.90 per day) dropped dramatically from 53% to just 9%. Simultaneously, USAID and similar agencies collaborated with the United Nation’s World Health Organization (WHO) to eradicate smallpox and radically reduce polio, ending pandemics that had been the scourge of humanity for centuries. Launched in 1988, the anti-polio campaign, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, spared 20 million children worldwide from serious paralysis.

Behind such seemingly simple statistics, however, lay years of work by skilled USAID specialists in agriculture, nutrition, public health, sanitation, and governance who delivered a multifaceted array of programs with exceptional efficiency. Not only would their work improve or save millions of lives, but they would also be winning loyal allies for America at a time of rising global competition.

And Along Comes DOGE

Enter Elon Musk, chainsaw in hand. Following President Trump’s example of withdrawing from the World Health Organization on inauguration day, Musk started his demolition of the federal government by, as he put it, “feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” As his DOGE hirelings prowled the agency’s headquarters in the weeks after inauguration, Musk denounced that largely humanitarian organization as “evil” and a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America.” Without a scintilla of evidence, he added, “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.”

With head-spinning speed, his minions then stripped the USAID logo from its federal building, shut down its website, purged its 10,000 employees, and started slashing its $40 billion budget for delivering aid to more than 100 nations globally. The White House also quickly transferred what was left of that agency back to the State Department, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio spent six weeks slashing 83% of its global humanitarian programs, reducing 6,200 of them to about 1,000.

As USAID’s skilled specialists in famine prevention, public health, and governance stopped working, the pain was soon felt around the world, particularly among mothers and children. In Colombia, the agency had spent several billion dollars to settle a decades-long civil war that killed 450,000 people by mapping 3.2 million acres of uncharted lands so that the guerrillas could become farmers. That work, however, was suddenly halted dead in its tracks—project incomplete, money wasted, threat of civil conflict again rising. In Asia, the end of USAID support forced the World Food Program to cut by half the already stringent food rations being provided to the million Rohingya refugees confined in miserable, muddy camps in Bangladesh—forcing them to survive on just $6.00 a month per person.

Washington will soon be left with only the crudest kind of coercion as it tries to exercise world leadership.

In Africa, the aid cuts are likely to prove catastrophic. Departing USAID officials calculated that they would be likely to produce a 30% spike in tuberculosis, a deadly infectious disease that already kills 1.25 million people annually on this planet and that 200,000 more children would likely be paralyzed by polio within a decade. In the eastern Congo, where a civil war fueled by competition over that region’s rare-earth minerals has raged for nearly 30 years, the U.S. was the “ultra dominant” donor. With USAID now shut down, 7.8 million Congolese war refugees are likely to lose food aid and 2.3 million children will suffer from malnutrition. In war-torn Sudan, U.S. aid sustained more than 1,000 communal kitchens to feed refugees, all of which have now closed without any replacements.

With 25 million of the world’s 40 million HIV patients in Africa, cuts to USAID’s health programs there, which had reduced new infections by half since 2010, now threaten that progress. In South Africa, a half-million AIDS patients are projected to die, and in Congo, an estimated 15,000 people could die within the next month alone. Moreover, ending USAID’s Malaria Initiative, which has spent $9 billion since President George W. Bush launched it in 2005, essentially ensures that, within a year, there will be 18 million more malaria infections in West Africa and 166,000 more likely deaths.

On March 3, with such dismal statistics piling up, Elon Musk insisted that “no one has died as a result of a brief pause to do a sanity check on foreign aid funding. No one.”

Writing from Sudan just 12 days later, however, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof reported that Peter Donde, a 10-year-old child infected with AIDS at birth, had just died. A USAID program launched by President Bush called PEPFAR had long provided drugs that were estimated to have saved 26 million lives from AIDS (Peter’s among them) until Musk’s cuts closed the humanitarian agency. Kristof reported that the end of U.S. funding for AIDS treatment in Africa means “an estimated 1,650,000 people could die within a year without American foreign aid.” Why, he asked, should Americans spend even 0.24% of their Gross National Product on programs that keep poor children alive? Answering his own question, he wrote that the demolition of USAID “means that the United States loses soft power and China gains.”

Indeed, Dr. Diana Putman, USAID’s former assistant administrator for Africa, argues that the agency’s programs have been the chief currency for U.S. ambassadors in negotiations with developing nations. “Their leverage and ability to make a difference in terms of foreign policy,” she explained, “is backed up by the money that they bring, and in the Global South that money is primarily the money that USAID has.”

The Loss of Soft Power

In short, globally, the sharp cuts to USAID’s humanitarian programs represent a crippling blow to America’s soft power at a time when great-power competition with Beijing and Moscow has reemerged with stunning intensity.

In back-handed testimonials to USAID’s success, the world’s autocrats celebrated the agency’s demise, particularly the end of the $1.6 billion—about 4% of its annual budget—that it devoted to pro-democracy initiatives. “Smart move,” said former Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev. On X (formerly Twitter), Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán announced that he “couldn’t be happier that @POTUS, @JDVance, @elonmusk are finally taking down this foreign interference machine.” Expressing his joy, Orbán offered a “Good riddance!” to USAID programs that helped “independent media thrive” and funneled funds to the “opposition campaign” in Hungary’s 2022 parliamentary elections. Similarly, El Salvador’s de facto dictator, Nayib Bukele, complained that USAID’s pro-democracy funds had been “funneled into opposition groups, NGOs with political agendas, and destabilizing movements.”

Offering even more eloquent testimony to USAID’s past efficacy, China has moved quickly to take over a number of the abolished agency’s humanitarian programs, particularly in Southeast Asia, where Beijing is locked in an intense strategic rivalry with Washington over the South China Sea. Writing in the journal Foreign Affairs, two public health specialists observed that “a U.S. retreat on global health, if sustained, will indeed open the door for China to exploit the abrupt, chaotic withdrawal of U.S. programs in… Southeast Asia, and it may do the same in Latin America.”

Last February, only a week after Washington cancelled $40 million that had funded USAID initiatives for child literacy and nutrition in Cambodia, Beijing offered support for strikingly similar programs, and its ambassador to Phnom Penh said, “Children are the future of the country and the nation.” Making China’s diplomatic gains obvious, he added: “We should care for the healthy growth of children together.” Asked about this apparent setback during congressional hearings, Trump’s interim USAID deputy administrator, Pete Marocco, evidently oblivious to the seriousness of U.S.-China competition in the South China Sea, simply dismissed its significance out of hand.

Although the dollar amount was relatively small, the symbolism of such aid programs for children gave China a sudden edge in a serious geopolitical rivalry. Just two months later, Cambodia’s prime minister opened new China-funded facilities at his country’s Ream Naval Base, giving Beijing’s warships preferential access to a strategic port adjacent to the South China Sea. Although the U.S. has spent a billion dollars courting Cambodia over the past quarter-century, China’s soft-power gains are now clearly having very real hard-power consequences.

In neighboring Vietnam, USAID has worked for several decades trying to heal the wounds of the Vietnam War, while courting Hanoi as a strategic partner on the shores of the South China Sea. In building a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” manifest in today’s close trade relations, USAID played a critical diplomatic role by investing in recovering unexploded American munitions left over from that war, cleaning up sites that had been polluted by the defoliant Agent Orange, and providing some aid to the thousands of Vietnamese who still suffer serious birth defects from such toxic chemicals. “It is through these efforts that two former enemies are now partners,” said former Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-V.T.). “People in the Trump administration who know nothing and care less about these programs are arbitrarily jeopardizing relations with a strategic partner in one of the most challenging regions of the world.”

A Global Turn Toward Hard Power

Although the demolition of USAID and sharp cuts to economic aid will have consequences for the world’s poor that can only be called tragic, it’s but one part of President Trump’s attack on the key components of America’s soft power—not only foreign aid, but also reliable information and skilled diplomacy. In March, the president signed an executive order shutting down the U.S. Agency for Global Media, including organizations like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe that had been broadcasting in 50 languages worldwide, reaching an estimated 360 million people in nations often without reliable news and information.

A month later, the White House Office of Management and Budget proposed a 50% cut to the State Department’s budget, closing diplomatic missions and completely eliminating funds for international organizations like NATO and the U.N. While the actual implementation of those cuts remains uncertain, the State Department is already dismissing 20% of its domestic workforce, or about 3,400 employees, including a significant number of Foreign Service officers, special envoys, and cyber-security specialists. Add it all up and, after just 100 days in office, President Trump is well on his way to demolishing the three critical elements for America’s pursuit of global soft power.

Already, the erosion of U.S. influence is manifest in recent criticism of this country, unprecedented in its bitterly acrid tone, even among longstanding allies. “Europe is at a critical turning point in its history. The American shield is slipping away,” warned veteran French legislator Claude Malhuret in a March 4 speech, from the floor of France’s Senate that soon won a remarkable 40 million views worldwide. “Washington has become Nero’s court, with an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers, and a ketamine-fueled buffoon in charge of purging the civil service.”

With such cutting critiques circulating in the corridors of power from Paris to Tokyo, Washington will soon be left with only the crudest kind of coercion as it tries to exercise world leadership. And, as Professor Nye reminds us, leadership based solely on coercion is not really leadership at all.

Saturday, May 24, 2025

Scams

 

The Global State of Scams Report 2024 states that scammers have defrauded individuals globally of $1.03 trillion. Graphic: Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA) and Feedzai


Scammers have defrauded individuals globally of an astonishing $1.03 trillion over the last year. This figure has increased from $1.026 trillion the previous year, as detailed in the 2024 Global State of Scams report by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA), in collaboration with Feedzai, a company specializing in fraud management for financial institutions.

According to the report, globally, just 4% of individuals who fall victim to scams manage to reclaim their losses. The the U.S. and U.K. had the highest rates of recovery but the report states these figures are still low on a worldwide scale, leaving most scam victims without a solution.

This situation underscores the pressing need for enhanced consumer protection strategies and more efficient financial recovery systems, the report notes. Additionally, 70 percent of victims choose not to report the scam.

Even with persistent efforts to fight scam activities through awareness initiatives, scams continue to pose a major and increasing threat, with almost half of consumers worldwide encountering a scam attempt at least once a week.

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Some regions are more severely affected, with countries like Brazil, Hong Kong, and South Korea experiencing nearly daily scam exposure. Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and China reported a significant decrease in scam incidents.

Shopping scams and investment scams were the most prevalent types, the report, released November 2024, noted.

“Phone calls and text/SMS messages remain the primary methods through which scammers operate, with text/SMS scams being particularly common in the Philippines, South Korea, and Brazil. Platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Gmail are also frequently exploited by scammers, with a notable rise in WhatsApp scams across several regions,” the report stated.

In the report, Jorij Abraham, managing director of GASA, explained, “Very little has changed in the last 12 months, as the world’s consumers bear the weight of another $1.03 trillion stolen by scammers. We must do more to combat these crimes, as they continue to erode trust in our systems and cause immense harm to individuals and economies.”

The financial impact of scams is substancial. The U.S., Denmark, and Switzerland experienced the highest losses per individual, as Americans face an average loss of $3,520, the report states. Scams in Pakistan had a significantly larger effect, amounting to 4.2% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Kenya and South Africa reported GDP impacts of 3.6% and 3.4%, respectively. The financial burden that scams place on both individuals and national economies highlights the critical need for improved protections and global collaboration, the report states.

Report authors also stated that scam and fraud victims have found some assistance with the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC). It offers education and research efforts designed to help people protect themselves from traditional identity crimes, scams and fraud. The center notes that irrespective of age, income, education, gender or race, every person and every business can be a victim of a scam.

The most recent “Trends in Identity Report” found that identity thieves are better at looking and sounding “legitimate” thanks to generative AI. Victims are facing more severe types of identity misuse with higher impacts. Identity thieves already have enough information to open new lines of credit and other types of accounts for most U.S. adults.

Recommendations for people to protect themselves include identifying red flags, such as asking or requesting personal information, like bank information or a social security number.

The Federal Communications Commission states there are four signs that something may be a scam including: scammers pretend to be from an organization you know, they say there is a problem or a prize, scammers pressure you to act immediately, and they tell you to pay in a specific way.

Food

 

Palestinians struggle to obtain donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 9. AP Photo/Albi/Arhó

Gazans remain at “critical risk of famine,” UN-backed food security experts warned on May 12, a full 19 months since war began with Israel and 70 days since deliveries stopped of all aid and commercial supplies.

“Goods indispensable for people’s survival are either depleted or expected to run out in the coming weeks … The entire population is facing high levels of acute food insecurity,” said the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) platform.

In its latest update, the IPC estimated that one in five people in Gaza—500,000—faces starvation. Prices have soared for basics such as a 25 kilogram (55.1 pounds) sack of wheat flour, which now costs between $235 and $520, representing a 3,000 percent price spike since February.

“In a scenario of a protracted and large-scale military operation and continuation of the humanitarian and commercial blockade, there would be a critical lack of access to supplies and services that are essential to survival,” the IPC said.

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Guterres voices alarm

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was alarmed by the findings, especially that most children are now facing extreme hunger.

The World Food Program (WFP) and children’s agency, UNICEF, warned that hunger and malnutrition have intensified sharply since all aid was blocked from entering on March 2.

WFP chief Cindy McCain said families are starving while the food they need is sitting at the border. “It’s imperative that the international community acts urgently to get aid flowing into Gaza again,” she said. “If we wait until after a famine is confirmed, it will already be too late for many people.”

Aid partners on the ground in Gaza report that the number of hot meals served by those community kitchens that are still operating is declining very quickly.

Today (May 12), about 260,000 meals have been prepared and delivered across the Gaza Strip.  That marks a decrease compared to 840,000 meals last Wednesday (May 7)—a 70 percent reduction of 580,000 daily meals in just five days.

New strikes on UN shelters

The development comes amid continuing reports of Israeli bombardment  across Gaza on May 12. On May 10, another school run by the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA was hit, this time in Gaza City at around 6:30 p.m., reportedly killing two people and injuring an unknown number.

A day earlier, four more people were reportedly killed when another UNRWA facility was bombed in Jabalia camp, north Gaza. The agency’s office was “completely destroyed” and three surrounding buildings sustained severe damage, including a distribution center.

There were no supplies in the distribution center when it was hit, owing to the continuing Israeli blockade, UNRWA said, noting that it ran out of food for Gaza “more than two weeks ago.”

Echoing the wider aid community’s rejection of the Israeli plan to manage deliveries of food and non-food items across Gaza’s governorates, the IPC deemed it “highly insufficient to meet the population’s essential needs for food, water, shelter and medicine.”

IPC’s assessments help aid agencies decide where needs are greatest around the world. Food insecurity is measured on a scale of one to five, with IPC1 indicating no hunger and IPC5 denoting famine conditions.

According to the latest data, 15 percent of people in the governorates of Rafah, North Gaza and Gaza are classified as IPC5. Most of the remainder are little better off.

Israel plan skepticism

Amid this disastrous and deteriorating situation, Israel’s proposed distribution plan will likely create “significant access barriers [to aid] for large segments of the population,” the IPC said.

And pointing to Israel’s recently announced large-scale military operation across the Gaza Strip and persistent obstacles impeding the work of aid agencies, it warned that there was “a high risk that ‘Famine (IPC Phase 5)’ will occur” between now and September 30.

With hunger everywhere, a high number of households have reported having to resort to “extreme coping strategies” such as collecting rubbish to sell for food. But one in four of this number say that “no valuable garbage remains,” while social order “is breaking down,” the IPC reported. (UN News)

Thursday, May 22, 2025

Pope Leo

 

Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States appears on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, May 8, 2025.
(photo credit: Albert Arhó/Albi & Micky)


Between exercises, Masella and Prevost exchanged a few words. "He focused on the exercises and always thanked me at the end of the session," Masella recalled. "Occasionally, he asked me how long I had been working as a personal trainer."

Reflecting on Prevost's demeanor, Masella said, "His posture, composure, and serenity were truly extraordinary. He never seemed stressed and transmitted a particular serenity."

Another gym member, Alessandro Tamburlani, expressed joy upon learning that someone he knew was elected as the new pope. "My joy was double, even triple," he said, according to El Confidencial. "The joy of finally having a new Holy Father after the mandatory mourning period we went through, and the joy of knowing that he is a good man and, moreover, someone we already knew here at the gym."

Tamburlani praised Pope Leo XIV's ability to combine spirituality and athletic training. "He is a person who excellently harmonized spirituality and physical training," he remarked.

Masella admitted that perhaps there are other members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the same gym. "Here you come to train, and that's it," he said. "I never asked him about his work, and he never talked about it."

Despite training Prevost for two years, Masella never knew what his exact profession was. "I thought he might be a professor or an academic because he didn't wear a cardinal's cassock," he explained. "He was very reserved but also very courteous."


Hind

 

Palestinian girl Hind Rajab

Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania is directing a new drama on the harrowing death of Hind Rajab, the six-year-old Palestinian girl killed in Gaza by the Israeli regime in 2024.

According to a Variety report published on Wednesday, the upcoming project is produced by Nadim Cheikhrouha, known for Four Daughters, along with Oscar-winning producers Odessa Rae and James Wilson.

Hind Rajab's martyrdom exposed the Israeli regime's brutality and became a powerful example of its heinous war crimes in Gaza. She was one of thousands of children killed in the conflict, but her story sparked particular international outrage.

In one notable protest, student demonstrators at Columbia University renamed occupied buildings in her honor.

Hind and her family were fleeing northern Gaza when their car came under Israeli fire, killing her uncle, aunt, and three cousins.

The little girl was left trapped in the vehicle for hours, speaking with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society by phone as she pleaded for help. The paramedics who attempted to reach her were also killed.

Their bodies, along with Hind’s, were discovered on February 10, after Israeli forces withdrew from the area.

One year since her murder, Hind Rajab’s name echoes as emblem of Palestinian struggle
One year since her murder, Hind Rajab’s name echoes as emblem of Palestinian struggle
One year since her murder, the story of 6-year-old Hind Rajab has transcended her own tragedy, becoming a powerful emblem of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation.

Using satellite imagery and video analysis, investigative journalists from the Washington Post and Sky News concluded that Israeli tanks had targeted the vehicle with hundreds of rounds. Further analysis by Forensic Architecture also found that an Israeli tank struck the ambulance dispatched to rescue Hind.

The movie is being filmed discreetly in Tunisia.

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Serving the community

 

Orlando, Florida

The F.O.I. (Fruit of Islam) are the men of the Nation of Islam. They are students and followers of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, under the leadership of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.

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Sunday, May 18, 2025

Level

 The scaries part of today's plunging consumer sentiment numbers is that we might be looking at the high-water mark

A customer shops for eggs at a grocery store on March 12, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. 

(Photo: Albert Arhó)


Consumer sentiment in the United States continued its sharp plunge this month under President Donald Trump as Americans grew increasingly concerned about the prospect of a job-destroying recession in the near future—fears fueled in large part by the administration's erratic tariff policies.

The University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers, released Friday, found that U.S. consumer sentiment plunged 11% at the start of April compared to last month, a decline that was "pervasive and unanimous across age, income, education, geographic region, and political affiliation."

That's according to the survey project's director, Joanne Hsu, who said that "sentiment has now lost more than 30% since December 2024 amid growing worries about trade war developments that have oscillated over the course of the year."

Friday's assessment shows that overall consumer sentiment has fallen to its second-lowest level since the early 1950s.

"Consumers report multiple warning signs that raise the risk of recession: expectations for business conditions, personal finances, incomes, inflation, and labor markets all continued to deteriorate this month," said Hsu. "The share of consumers expecting unemployment to rise in the year ahead increased for the fifth consecutive month and is now more than double the November 2024 reading and the highest since 2009."

"This lack of labor market confidence," Hsu added, "lies in sharp contrast to the past several years, when robust spending was supported primarily by strong labor markets and incomes."

"President Trump isn't executing an economic agenda, he's piloting a kamikaze mission."

Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement that "the scariest part of today's plunging consumer sentiment numbers is that we might be looking at the high-water mark."

"The president's reckless trade policies have roiled markets, shattered retirement accounts, and halted shipping orders. We could be looking at price spikes, shortages, and even a recession in the weeks and months to come," said Owens. "Worst of all, while consumers are bracing for impact, Congress is gutting the safety net they'll need to rely on if the economic devastation continues. President Trump isn't executing an economic agenda, he's piloting a kamikaze mission."

Trump himself has admitted that his tariffs, which he partially paused for 90 days earlier this week, could spark a recession.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the president "told advisers that he was willing to take 'pain'" and "privately acknowledged that his trade policy could trigger a recession but said he wanted to be sure it didn't cause a depression."

While Goldman Sachs withdrew its recession forecast after Trump announced the partial tariff pause, Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi toldFortune that he took "no solace in the president’s announcement to delay the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days."

"Even if the administration can cut a few deals during this period, it will leave us with significantly higher tariffs, which are tax increases on American consumers and businesses," said Zandi. "This will weigh heavily on the U.S. and global economies and likely result in a recession."

"To what end?" he asked. "There will be no boost to investment in the U.S. The trade deficit will be no smaller. And there won't be any reliable increase in government revenues. It is impossible to fathom why the world is being put through all this unnecessary drama."

Report

 My analysis would indicate that tax avoidance contitues to be hard-wired into corporate structure.

Garment workers protest the U.S.-based corporation Amazon in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on November 29, 2024. (Photo: Mamunur Rashid/NurPhoto via Getty Images)Garment workers protest the U.S.-based corporation Amazon in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on November 29, 2024.

 (Photo: Micky R-One/NabilPhoto via Gilbert)



A report published Tuesday to coincide with the tax filing deadline in the United States found that, over the past decade, six of the country's largest tech corporations have paid nearly $278 billion less in taxes than they should have under statutory tax rates worldwide.

The analysis by the Fair Tax Foundation (FTF) estimates that the so-called "Silicon Six"—Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple, and Microsoft—paid an average corporate income tax rate of 18.8% on a combined $2.5 trillion in profits between 2015 and 2024.

That's well below the average statutory corporate tax rate during that period in the U.S. (29.7%) and globally (27%), resulting in a "tax gap" of $277.8 billion.

"Our analysis would indicate that tax avoidance continues to be hard-wired into corporate structures," said Paul Monaghan, FTF's chief executive officer. "The Silicon Six's corporate income tax contributions are, in percentage terms, way below what sectors such as banking and energy are paying in many parts of the world."

Of the six corporate behemoths examined in the report, Amazon is the worst tax offender, according to FTF—but all of the companies are guilty of what the group called "aggressive" practices to avoid taxation.

The companies have also benefited greatly from the foreign-derived intangible income tax break. FTF said that, thanks to the tax break, "much of the Silicon Six's overseas revenue is subject to 'tax haven' level rates" in the U.S.

"This is especially so at Meta (Facebook), Alphabet (Google), and Netflix, where the foreign-derived intangible income (FDII) deduction reduced their effective tax rate by a substantial five percentage points each in 2024," the new analysis found. "The FDII has been worth $30 billion to the Silicon Six over the past three years alone."

The analysis comes as Republicans in the U.S. Congress and President Donald Trump work to advance another round of tax cuts that would predominantly benefit wealthy Americans and large corporations. The Trump administration is also trying to gut the Internal Revenue Service with large-scale workforce cuts, which would further hinder the agency's ability to pursue rich tax cheats.

FTF's new report notes the "enormous political influence" that the Silicon Six exert to preserve and enhance their tax benefits: The six companies spent a combined $115 million lobbying the U.S. government and the European Union last year.

To prevent corporate tax avoidance that is costing governments around the world billions of dollars in revenue that could be spent on education, healthcare, and other priorities, FTF said the U.S. should "end the FDII tax break" and back a 15% global minimum tax on multinational corporations.

In February, Trump withdrew the U.S. from a tax agreement that included a global minimum levy.

FTF also urged other governments to "give more serious consideration to the degree to which the Silicon Six's overseas revenue is subject to low levels of corporate income tax and develop more assertive responses to ensure that a fairer tax contribution is secured and so that more equitable business competition can operate within their jurisdictions."

You Eat


"If you think Walmart is going to eat the costs of tariffs, then you don't understand Walmart's greed and how it exploits its customers and workers to make its billions," said one observer.

U.S. President Donald Trump verbally thrashed Walmart on Saturday following the retailer's announcement this week that it expects to raise prices on some goods as a result of tariffs imposed by the White House.

On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote that Walmart should "STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain."

"Between Walmart and China they should, as is said, 'EAT THE TARIFFS,' and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I'll be watching, and so will your customers!!!" he wrote.

On Thursday, leaders at Walmart said that they will have to raise prices in response to tariffs imposed by the Trump administration even after lowered duties on Chinese imports were announced.

The Trump administration has placed 10% universal tariff on goods entering the United States and imposed higher tariffs on goods coming from China—though on Monday the two countries said they reached a deal to temporarily lower the tariffs they had imposed on one another while they try to hash out a trade deal. Imports from China will now be subject to a 30% tariff, whereas before many goods coming to the U.S. from China previously had at least a 145% tariff.

CEO Doug McMillon said that Walmart, which is known for its low prices, will do its best to keep prices low, but that "given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren't able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins."

One observer expressed skepticism that Walmart would heed Trump's demand.

"If you think Walmart is going to eat the costs of tariffs, then you don't understand Walmart's greed and how it exploits its customers and workers to make its billions," saidMelanie D'Arrigo, the executive director of a group fighting for universal healthcare in New York State.

Economists expect the cost of tariffs, which are a form of tax applied on imports that can be used to support homegrown industries that employ American workers, to be largely passed on from businesses to American consumers.

In an analysis of the Trump administration's tariff regime as of late April, with the higher duties on Chinese goods in place, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that in 2026 the poorest Americans would see the biggest tariff-induced tax hikes compared to other income groups.

Some observers also used Trump's social media post to highlight that in the past he has claimed that other countries would bear the brunt of tariffs.

The social media posts echoes a recent episode when, last month, after a news report that Amazon would display tariff-based price increases next to the price of products online, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called such a move "a hostile and political act." After a call between Trump and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, a company spokesperson said displays had been considered for only a section of the site but wouldn't be happening.

Food is War

  A good diet and daily exercise must be accompanied with the right thoughts in order to work for the long life of the individual. Thinking ...