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World
In Boost to 'Dictator' Bukele, El Salvador Abolishes Presidential Term Limits
"But you won't see Marco Rubio or Donald Trump calling him a dictator, as they do with Maduro," one critic said of the Salvadoran president.
Aug 01, 2025
El Salvador's Legislative Assembly—which is controlled by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's New Ideas party—on Thursday approved a series of constitutional reforms, including abolition of presidential term limits, that critics warned pose a grave threat to the Central American nation's fragile democracy.
As El Faro reported, lawmakers approved measures allowing for indefinite presidential terms, expanding the current five-year presidential terms to six years, eliminating the second round of presidential elections, and advancing the end of Bukele's term from 2029 to 2027 in order to synchronize presidential, legislative, and municipal elections.
New Ideas Congresswoman Ana Figueroa, who proposed the reforms, argues that if other elected offices in El Salvador do not have term limits, why should the presidency?
"This is quite simple, Salvadoran people. Only you will be able to decide how long you support your president," Figueroa said Thursday.
Congressional Vice President Suecy Callejas, also of New Ideas, contended that "power has returned to the only place to which it truly belongs... to the Salvadoran people."
However, opposition lawmakers, journalists, human rights defenders, and others condemned the measures, which come amid an ongoing "state of emergency" that, while dramatically reducing crime in what was once the world's murder capital, has seen widespread repression of human and civil rights.
"Democracy has died in El Salvador today," said Congresswoman Marcela Villatoro of the opposition ARENA party, who argued that the reforms were "approved without consultation, in a gross and cynical way."
Thiago Süssekind, a Brazilian scholar and professor at the University of Oxford in England, called the reforms' passage "the moment when El Salvador buried its democracy."
"Nayib Bukele—the darling dictator of the Latin right—can now govern forever," Süssekind added. "The discourse, paradoxically, is about democracy—deliberately conflating it with the will of the majority."
Chilean pollster Marta Lagos argued on social media that El Salvador is being transformed into "an electoral dictatorship" that "excludes an essential element of democracy: respect for minorities, the rule of law, the separation of powers, and civic and political freedoms."
Lagos noted "the detention of thousands of people without due process," an apparent reference to prisons including the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, where the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump—an erstwhile critic-turned-ally of Bukele—is sending deported migrants, including innocent people, to face abusive and sometimes deadly imprisonment.
Juanita Goebertus, director of the Americas division at Human Rights Watch (HRW), argued that New Ideas is "following the same path as Venezuela."
HRW and other human rights groups accuse the United Socialist Party government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of grave human rights and electoral abuses, and many leftists in Venezuela and beyond feel the Bolivarian Revolution launched under former President Hugo Chávez has been betrayed.
"It starts with a leader who uses their popularity to concentrate power, and ends in dictatorship," Goebertus warned.
Like Trump, Bukele has shrugged off—and at times even embraced—the "dictator" label. He once called himself the "coolest dictator in the world."
Trump—who has himself flirted with the concept of being president for life, or at least for a third term—has remained silent about Bukele's democratic backsliding, even as his administration imposes staggering tariffs on Brazil and punitive sanctions on a leading member of its judiciary for defending democracy.
Plaudits for Bukele, Magnitsky sanctions for de Moraes. The Rubio way.
[image or embed]
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) July 30, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Such actions, along with the Trump administration's record of targeting certain authoritarian governments while courting and coddling others, drew stinging rebuke by social media users in El Salvador and beyond.
Comments from Latin American X users included:
- "Spending 20 years calling Hugo Chávez a dictator over the issue of indefinite reelection only to end up applauding Bukele for doing the same and calling him a democrat. They're so adorable!!!" -@ArondonFT
- "They criticize Venezuela and Cuba, but support the dictator Bukele? Hypocrisy disguised as democracy." -@zandrusky
- "To me, 'indefinite presidential reelection' sounds like a dictatorship, but since it's Bukele and not Maduro, I guess it's no big deal and just my imagination." -@BenderOfuscando
- "Bukele perpetuates himself in power, but the right will not call him a dictator as it does with Maduro. And El Salvador will not receive sanctions from the U.S., as Venezuela does. The right and the U.S. do not care that Bukele is a dictator, as long as he is one of theirs." -@andres20ad
Thursday's reforms—which must still be ratified by lawmakers—mark the second major modification of presidential term limits in El Salvador. Although the country's constitution prohibits presidential reelection, New Ideas purged the constitutional court's judges and replaced them with ones loyal to Bukele. The court subsequently ruled Bukele was eligible to run again, and he won last year's election in a landslide.
Bukele wasn't always so keen on presidential reelection. In a 2013 interview, he said that "in El Salvador, a president cannot be reelected."
"This is to ensure that he... doesn't use his power to remain in power," Bukele added.
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'An Avoidable Disaster': Israeli Blockade of Gaza Could Starve Hundreds of Premature Babies
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that 580 premature infants are at risk of death due to "depleted" reserves of baby formula.
Jun 26, 2025
Israel's blockade of aid is starving hundreds of premature babies, according to new reports that cite Gaza health officials, doctors, and aid groups.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that 580 premature infants are at risk of death, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, due to a shortage of medical-grade formula entering the strip.
Despite a recent policy change by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow "minimal aid" into the strip following a total blockade of food, water, shelter, and medication, it has proven far too little to keep hospitals running and keep people fed. It has proven especially deadly for children.
The AP report quotes Dr. Ahmed al-Farah, head of the pediatrics and obstetrics department at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, one of the few functional medical facilities left in Gaza.
Last week, al-Farah warned that the hospital's stock of milk was "completely depleted," and that unless aid was delivered immediately, the babies would face "an avoidable disaster." The widely publicized call was answered with the shipment of 20 boxes of formula from the U.S. aid group Rahma Worldwide.
Al-Farah said this was enough to meet the needs of 10 babies for two weeks, but warned that in the long run it would be far too little, especially with no guarantee of aid in the future.
"This is not enough at all," he told the AP. "It solved the problem temporarily, but what we need is a permeant solution: Lift the siege."
Many other hospitals reported shortages of formula that had not been answered, such as Al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City, which was completely out of stock.
Fortified milk has become increasingly necessary in Gaza due to the increasing number of premature births. In May, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported that as a result of widespread hunger, 1 in 5 children is now born pre-term or underweight. That malnutrition has also left many new mothers unable to breastfeed.
Dr. Asaad Nawajha, a pediatric specialist at Nasser Hospital, told Middle East Eye that the blockade has proven catastrophic for the health of both children and their mothers.
"This all goes back to the [harsh] conditions mothers endure amid this vicious war on the Gaza Strip," Nawajha said. "Due to the lack of nutritious items entering the Gaza Strip, both mothers and children have been exposed to illnesses resulting from malnutrition."
The Israeli government's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has insisted that the amount of aid allowed into Gaza is sufficient to provide for the population.
On June 22, COGAT announced that 430 aid trucks had been allowed to enter the strip during the preceding week. However, this is but a fraction of the more than 600 trucks per day that the United Nations is necessary to meet their needs.
Many people who have come to aid sites administered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), to obtain the meager supplies available, have been met with deadly violence from the Israeli military.
Since May 27, at least 549 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,000 injured by Israeli forces at these sites, according to the U.N. Office for Coordinated Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Gaza Ministry of Health. The Gaza Media Office reports at least 19 fatal incidents at these GHF sites over the span of just one month.
Many of the victims have been children. According to a study released Thursday by the humanitarian group Save the Children, children have been killed at 10 of those 19 incidents.
"No child should be killed searching for food," said Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children's regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. "This is not a humanitarian operation—it’s a death trap."
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WHO Declares Covid-19 Global Health Emergency Officially Over
The agency leader said that "it is time for countries to transition from emergency mode to managing Covid-19 alongside other infectious diseases."
May 05, 2023
The World Health Organization chief announced Friday that it is "with great hope that I declare Covid-19 over as a global health emergency."
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had declared the emergency of international concern on January 30, 2020, when there were fewer than 100 reported cases outside of China.
"In the three years since then, Covid-19 has turned our world upside down," Tedros noted Friday. "Almost 7 million deaths have been reported to WHO, but we know the toll is several times higher—at least 20 million."
"But Covid-19 has been so much more than a health crisis," he continued. "It has caused severe economic upheaval, erasing trillions from GDP, disrupting travel and trade, shuttering businesses, and plunging millions into poverty."
Stressing that the move does not mean the virus "is over as a global health threat," Tedros said that "it is time for countries to transition from emergency mode to managing Covid-19 alongside other infectious diseases."
The public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) "is a tool created within the International Health Regulations to help the WHO respond to disease events with the potential for global spread," STAT explained.
As the news outlet reported:
When a PHEIC is in place, the WHO director-general can make special recommendations, mainly aimed at discouraging countries from closing borders or restricting trade—actions that could deter countries from alerting the WHO if they are dealing with dangerous disease outbreaks.
Didier Houssin, the chair of the emergency committee, said the decision to recommend an end to the PHEIC was in part due to the belief that the tool was not adapted to disease events that are sub-acute or chronic. Houssin acknowledged that there remains a risk that a more pathogenic variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus may emerge, and that a new PHEIC might need to be declared.The WHO's declaration comes days before the U.S. public health emergency will expire, on May 11.
The Biden administration announced Monday that when the U.S. emergency ends next week, so will Covid-19 vaccine requirements for federal employees and contractors as well as international air travelers—and agencies will start the process to cancel such mandates for Head Start educators, employees of some healthcare facilities, and certain noncitizens at land borders.
"While vaccination remains one of the most important tools in advancing the health and safety of employees and promoting the efficiency of workplaces," the White House said, "we are now in a different phase of our response when these measures are no longer necessary."
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'Should We All Join Them?' NPR First Major News Outlet to Leave Twitter
"We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public's understanding of our editorial independence."
Apr 12, 2023
NPR on Wednesday announced plans to leave Twitter—the social media platform now owned by billionaire Elon Musk—after being branded last week with a "state-affiliated media" label that, after backlash, was replaced with "government-funded media."
"NPR's organizational accounts will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent," the media organization said in a statement.
"We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public's understanding of our editorial independence," the statement added. "We are turning away from Twitter but not from our audiences and communities. There are plenty of ways to stay connected and keep up with NPR's news, music, and cultural content."
After the platform's initial decision last week, NPR president and CEO John Lansing said that "we were disturbed to see... that Twitter has labeled NPR as 'state-affiliated media,' a description that, per Twitter's own guidelines, does not apply to NPR."
Others also criticized applying that specific label to NPR—including Liz Woolery, PEN America's digital policy leader, who called it "a dangerous move that could further undermine public confidence in reliable news sources."
In an email exchange, an NPR reporter informed Musk that—like other U.S. public media—only about 1% of NPR's budget comes from the government, while about 40% is from corporate sponsors and 31% is from local stations' programming fees.
Musk reportedly wrote to the journalist that "the operating principle at new Twitter is simply fair and equal treatment, so if we label non-U.S. accounts as [government], then we should do the same for U.S., but it sounds like that might not be accurate here."
Twitter then updated the label on NPR's main account—which has 8.8 million followers—to government-affiliated, a label that has also been applied to the BBC, which has disputed the platform's decision.
"The BBC operates through a Royal Charter agreed with the U.K. government, which states the corporation 'must be independent,'" the British outlet explained Wednesday. "Its public service output is funded by U.K. households via a TV license fee, as well as income from commercial operations."
In a wide-ranging Tuesday interview with the BBC, Musk said: "We want [the tag] as truthful and accurate as possible. We're adjusting the label to [the BBC being] publicly funded. We'll try to be accurate."
Since Musk finalized his $44 billion purchase of Twitter in October, when he was the world's richest man, "it has been quite a rollercoaster," Musk admitted to the BBC. "It's been really quite a stressful situation."
The billionaire has come under fire for various platform policy and business decisions, from suspending journalists reporting on the movements of his private jet to laying off Twitter staff. While there was an initial exodus of advertisers, Musk said Tuesday that "I think almost all advertisers have come back or said they are going to come back."
However, the battle over how or even whether to label publicly funded media and NPR's decision to become the first major media outlet to ditch Twitter have some users, such as the U.S.-based advocacy group Free Press, asking, "Should we all join them?"
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Thousands in Israel March Against 'Fascism and Apartheid' at Anti-Netanyahu Protests
"We can see right now many laws being advocated for against LGBTQ, against Palestinians, against larger minorities in Israel," said one organizer.
Jan 08, 2023
Carrying signs reading, "Together against fascism and apartheid" and "Democracy in danger," thousands of Israelis on Saturday marched in protest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right coalition government, which less than a week after being sworn in has already threatened to strip the country's judiciary of power and announced punitive measures against Palestinian people and leaders.
According to Haaretz, about 20,000 people attended two different marches—one organized by the grassroots group Standing Together and calling for equality and partnership between Palestinians and Israelis, and another focusing on Netanyahu's threats to the Israeli justice system.
The protests came days after Netanyahu's new national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, angered Palestinians and the Israeli opposition by entering the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in East Jerusalem, which was seen as a provocation and an escalation of Israel's attacks on Palestine.
"Extremists are starting to deploy their forces and it's not the majority," a protester named Omer told France24 at a march in Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu's government, which has been called the most right-wing in Israel's history, also announced that it would expand settlements in the occupied West Bank. The prime minister's office indicated on Friday the punitive measures are being taken in retaliation for Palestinians' call for the International Court of Justice to render a legal opinion on Israeli's policies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Despite the opposition of Israel and the U.S., the United Nations General Assembly voted last week in favor of a resolution calling for an opinion.
One U.S.-based observer noted that language describing Israeli's violent anti-Palestinian policies as "apartheid" was prevalent at Saturday's demonstration. The term has long been rejected by supporters of Israel and used by human rights advocates and experts.
The protests were held days after Netanyahu's newly appointed justice minister, Yariv Levin, announced reforms that would allow lawmakers to override Supreme Court decisions. Members of Netanyahu's Cabinet have also made derogatory claims about LGBTQ+ people and reportedly plan to roll back laws allowing gay couples to adopt children.
"We can see right now many laws being advocated for against LGBTQ, against Palestinians, against larger minorities in Israel," Rula Daood of Standing Together told ABC News. "We are here to say loud and clear that all of us, Arabs and Jews and different various communities inside of Israel, demand peace, equality, and justice."
In addition to the expansion of illegal settlements, Netanyahu's government announced last week that it would withhold $39 million from the Palestinian Authority and use the funds to compensate the families of Israeli victims of the conflict and said on Sunday that it had revoked Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki's travel permit.
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Two-Weeks Increase in Food Billionaires' Wealth Enough to Fully Fund East Africa Hunger Crisis Response
Food inflation in East African countries where tens of millions of people are caught in an alarming hunger crisis has increased sharply, reaching a staggering 44% in Ethiopia - nearly five times the global average.
It is estimated that one person is dying every 48 seconds in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia alone, where the worst drought in decades is being exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and is pushing food prices to skyrocketing levels.
Jul 18, 2022
Food inflation in East African countries where tens of millions of people are caught in an alarming hunger crisis has increased sharply, reaching a staggering 44% in Ethiopia - nearly five times the global average.
It is estimated that one person is dying every 48 seconds in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia alone, where the worst drought in decades is being exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and is pushing food prices to skyrocketing levels.
Against this backdrop, food billionaires have increased their collective wealth by $382bn since 2020. Less than two weeks' worth of their wealth gains, would be more than enough to fund the entirety of the UN's $6.2 billion humanitarian appeal for East Africa. The appeal is currently woefully funded at merely 16 percent.
Hanna Saarinen, Oxfam's Food Policy Lead, said: "A monstrous amount of wealth is being captured at the top of our global food supply chains, meanwhile rising food prices contribute to a growing catastrophe which is leaving millions of people unable to feed themselves and their families. World leaders are sleepwalking into a humanitarian disaster."
"We need to reimagine a new global food system to really end hunger; one that works for everyone. Governments can and must mobilize enough resources to prevent human suffering. One good option would be to tax the mega-rich who have seen their wealth soar to record levels during the past two years.
"This fundamentally broken global food system - one that is exploitative, extractive, poorly regulated and largely in the hands of big agribusinesses - is becoming unsustainable for people and the planet and is pushing millions in East Africa and worldwide to starvation."
People in East Africa spend as much as 60 per cent of their income on food, and the region over-relies on imported staple food. For example, food and beverages account for 54 percent of CPI in Ethiopia, compared to just 11.6 percent in the United Kingdom. While many people in affluent countries are struggling with the increased consumer prices, their counterparts in East African countries are facing hunger and destitution.
In Somalia, maize prices were six times higher (78%) than global prices (12.9%) in May 2022 than they were 12 months before. In some regions, the minimum food basket expenditure has soared to over 160% compared to last year. The cost of one kilo of sorghum - a staple food - was more than 240% higher than the five-year average.
In Ethiopia, food inflation soared by 43.9% since last year. Cereals prices increased by 70% in the year to May, more than double the global increase
In Kenya, the price of maize flour, the main staple, has doubled in seven months and rose by 50% in just a month (between June and July 2022). Rising food and energy prices will increase poverty by 2.5 percent, pushing about 1.4 million Kenyans into extreme poverty.
In South Sudan cereals prices in May were triple their levels a year earlier, while the price of bread has doubled since last year. The average price of cereals has been higher than 30% of the five-year average.
In Bundunbuto village, Puntland, Somalia, families' purchasing power has been halved compared with two months ago, meaning when they used to buy 25kg of rice and sugar, now they can only buy 12.5kg per month.
In Somalia, where a "risk of famine" was recently declared, nearly half the population - over seven million people - face acute hunger, of whom 213,000 are at risk of famine.
Shamis Jama Elmi (38), a mother to a family of eight, moved from Barate to Docoloha displacement camp in 2017 because of the drought. The $60 cash assistance she gets each month from Oxfam can only buy 12 kg of flour, rice and sugar to sustain her family for half a month. "We eat one meal a day and used to eat 3 times a day. We only eat rice with salt."
Global food prices have hit a 50-year high and worldwide there are now 828 million people going hungry - 150 million more than at the start of the COVID pandemic. The Ukraine conflict has caused a huge spike in grain and energy prices but these have only worsened what was already an inflationary trend. This means that even when food is available, millions cannot afford to buy it.
Even within advanced economies like the US, the poorest 20% of the population are forced to spend four times more on food than the wealthiest 20%.
"Our broken global food system, and the inequality that underlies it, have wrought a war of attrition to millions of poor people who have lost their last purchasing power and can no longer afford to eat," Saarinen said.
"To help those countries cope with rising food prices and the hunger crisis, rich nations must immediately cancel debt for those countries - which has doubled over the last decade- in order to enable them to free resources to deal with the skyrocketing hunger and to import needed grains. This money can and should be easily recovered by taxing the ultra-rich."
To end the root causes of hunger, governments must better regulate food markets and ensure more flexible international trade rules in favor of the world's most vulnerable consumers, workers and farmers. Governments and donors should support small-scale farmers who in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa provide more than 70 per cent of the food supply.
Notes to editors
Food inflation over the last year in Ethiopia (44%,) Somalia (15%), and Kenya (12%) is exceeding the G7 (10%) and global average (9%).
One year food inflation up until May 2022 for Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Somalia was sourced from Trading Economics. The G7 average from the OECD (up to May 2022) and the global average from the ILO (the latest data available is up to March 2022).
Data on food and agriculture billionaire wealth was drawn from Oxfam's Profiting from Pain report and is for the period of March 2020 to March 2022. A two-week increase in food billionaires' wealth would correspond to $7.3 billion.
In Kenya, the price of maize flour, the main staple, doubled in seven months (KES 108 in Nov 2021 for 2kg packet; KES 210 in July 2022).
As of 12 July 22, only $982 million of the total $6.2 billion UN appeal for Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Sudan (both HRP and FA) has been funded. This is a gap of 84%. Source: UN OCHA Appeals and response plans 2022 | Financial Tracking Service (unocha.org)
Grain prices are from FAO's GEIWS Food Price Monitoring and Analysis tool for May 2021-May 2022; and FAO's Food Price Monitoring and Analysis Bulletin #5, 15 June 2022
Oxfam, together with partners is supporting the most vulnerable people in East Africa with life-saving food, cash assistance and water and sanitation services. It aims to reach over 1.3 million of the most vulnerable people.
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Pop-up vaccine factories for Africa labeled 'neo-colonial stunt'
German vaccine giant BioNTech’s move is an attempt to stall pressure for wider tech transfer, campaigners say
Feb 16, 2022
Responding to BioNTech's 'modular mRNA manufacturing facility to promote scalable vaccine production in Africa' (1), Tim Bierley, pharma campaigner at Global Justice Now said:
"After a year of stalling efforts to scale up global vaccine production, BioNTech's pop-up vaccine factories are little more than a neo-colonial stunt to try and maintain control of this life-saving technology in Africa.
"Under the first phase of the plan, BioNTech will use European staff to manage their 'shipping containers', while local producers are relegated to putting the vaccines into bottles. Any possibility of knowledge transfer is pushed off far into the future. This is inexcusable when we know there are several factories in Africa with the capacity to create these kinds of vaccines today, if BioNTech and others were willing to share the tech in this global emergency.(2)
"With South Africa's vaccine hub already having success in reverse engineering the Moderna vaccine, this looks like a last-ditch attempt to make sure mRNA technology remains in Western hands as long as possible. You would struggle to do less to support local vaccine production in Africa while still technically making some vaccines in Africa."
The announcement follows reports in the BMJ last week that BioNTech has been accused of seeking to undermine efforts to bring vaccine manufacturing to Africa through a foundation. (3)
Notes
1. BioNTech introduces first modular mRNA manufacturing facility to promote scalable vaccine production in Africa, https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-details/biontech-introduces-first-modular-mrna-manufacturing-facility
2. In December, experts including MSF, AccessIBSA and Human Rights Watch identified more than 100 global south manufacturers capable of producing mRNA vaccines, https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/12/15/experts-identify-100-plus-firms-make-covid-19-mrna-vaccines
3. Covid-19: WHO efforts to bring vaccine manufacturing to Africa are undermined by the drug industry, documents show, https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o304
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Reaction to news that BioNTech plans to ship mobile vaccine factory kits to Africa
Responding to the announcement that BioNTech plans to ship mobile vaccine factory containers to Africa, which could start producing vaccines in the second half of 2023, Oxfam's Health Policy Manager, Anna Marriott, said:
Feb 16, 2022
Responding to the announcement that BioNTech plans to ship mobile vaccine factory containers to Africa, which could start producing vaccines in the second half of 2023, Oxfam's Health Policy Manager, Anna Marriott, said:
"Efforts to boost vaccine manufacturing in Africa are welcome but this is a long-term project and should not distract from the failure of rich country governments and companies, including Germany and BioNTech, to tackle today's shameful vaccine inequality responsible for millions of needless deaths in poorer countries from this pandemic.
"It is unacceptable that BioNTech, along with other pharma giants, is ignoring the World Health Organisation's mRNA Hub in Africa which is ready to produce vaccines and expand manufacturing in favour of a BioNTech controlled vaccine container module that won't be producing vaccines for well over a year.
"To date, Germany has exported just one per cent of its vaccines to the African continent. If Germany is serious about tackling vaccine inequality it must reverse its refusal to support the waiving of intellectual property rules for these life-saving pandemic tools and insist BioNTech transfer their technology now to the World Health Organisation so that existing manufacturers across Africa, Latin America and Asia can make them.
"Serious questions must also be raised about BioNTech's objectives with this initiative. Last week, it was revealed that a consultancy on BioNTech's payroll, the kENUP Foundation, is trying to undermine the work of a World Health Organisation and South African-led project to make mRNA COVID vaccines as a global public good and free of big pharma's control."
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Congressional Progressive Caucus on Biden Administration Move to Break Up Afghanistan Central Bank Funds
Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus issued the following statement on the Biden administration's executive order to break up and redistribute Afghanistan's frozen Central Bank funds.
Feb 16, 2022
Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus issued the following statement on the Biden administration's executive order to break up and redistribute Afghanistan's frozen Central Bank funds.
"For months, progressives in Congress, the United Nations Secretary General, and leading aid groups have been urging the Biden administration to release Afghanistan's frozen reserves and assets in order to avert humanitarian disaster. Rather than heeding those calls, the administration has taken a path that raises grave concerns about the possible impact on the ability of the Afghan people to function and get the food they need to prevent starvation.
"Any functioning country must have access to its own currency and reserves. By removing and breaking up Afghanistan's already frozen funds, the United States is continuing to contribute to a crumbling economy and devastating impacts on the Afghan people. Already, schools and hospitals cannot buy food for patients or gas to heat their buildings. Reporting from the ground shows that 'incomes have vanished and life-threatening hunger has become widespread.' Aid organizations have warned that U.S. policy could result in the death of more people than in 20 years of war in Afghanistan.
"While we agree on the need for robust humanitarian aid, it cannot substitute for a functioning central bank that stabilizes the currency, pays the salaries of civil servants, and provides reserves for private businesses that can prop up an ailing economy. It is also unclear how much of that aid would actually be able to reach people in need, when the country's financial system is impeded by a web of sanctions.
"Most importantly, frozen assets belonging to the Afghan people should be released and used to restore the country's economy. The best way for the Biden administration to ameliorate the suffering of the Afghan people is to ease sanctions, work with international partners at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to release much-needed aid into the country, and to release the United States' own freeze on Afghanistan's funds -- in addition to reversing course on this new order.
"The families of victims of 9/11 absolutely deserve compensation, but this is not the way to do it. President Biden has repeatedly promised that 'human rights will be at the center of our foreign policy.' We believe that he wants to keep that commitment -- and that is why we urge him to reconsider this decision before it's too late."
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Leftist President of Honduras Blocks Indigenous Community's Eviction
The Human Rights Ministry called the evictions a "clear violation of the human rights of over 100 families who live in the sector in an ancestral Lenca territory that dates from the year 1739."
Feb 10, 2022
Honduras' new leftist president on Wednesday intervened to halt a court-ordered eviction of an Indigenous community from their ancestral lands following violent scenes of the attempted forced removal by police earlier in the day.
Human Rights Minister Natalie Roque shared on social media that, with orders from President Xiomara Castro, lawyers and officials from her office went to the Tierras del Padre community, located just south of the capital of Tegucigalpa, to stop the evictions, saying the suspension was in accordance with the law and authorized by the state.
"We are not going to tolerate any aggression or blow against a pregnant woman or against a citizen or against a child," presidential adviser Pedro Amador said on the scene, according to a video circulated on social media
In a tweet, Roque accused judicial officials who'd approved the evictions of continuing "in the power of the dictatorship." As Agence France-Presse reported last month, "four of the five judges in the court's constitutional chamber were named to their posts by the previous Congress, which was dominated by the right-wing National Party of former president Juan Orlando Hernandez."
A statement from the country's human rights ministry called the proposed expulsions--performed at the behest of a businessman and land developer who claims ownership of the area--a "clear violation of the human rights of over 100 families who live in the sector in an ancestral Lenca territory that dates from the year 1739."
Before the federal officials arrived to intervene, community members faced riot police who, according to local reports and photos, intimidated and hit several community members.
The planned evictions sparked concern from the Honduras office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Of particular concern, the office said in a Wednesday Twitter thread, was that a constitutional appeal of the evictions filed by the community had not yet been processed. The U.N. office further urged the state to halt the eviction order, noting threats to "the effective protection of the rights of the community, particularly its right to housing and food."
Castro, sworn in January 27 following a dozen years of the country being run by the right-wing National Party, is the country's first female president.
She is also the wife of Manuel Zelaya, Honduras's former progressive president who was in power from 2006 until 2009 when he was ousted in a Washington-backed coup.
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AstraZeneca Profit-Pricing Shows "Utter Folly" of Handing Over Patent for Oxford Vaccine External
Reacting to news that AstraZeneca will begin charging a for-profit price for its publicly-funded vaccine, Nick Dearden, Director of Global Justice Now, said:
"AstraZeneca's decision to start profiting from Oxford University's coronavirus vaccine mid-pandemic shows the utter folly of giving away publicly-funded science to big pharma.
Nov 12, 2021
Reacting to news that AstraZeneca will begin charging a for-profit price for its publicly-funded vaccine, Nick Dearden, Director of Global Justice Now, said:
"AstraZeneca's decision to start profiting from Oxford University's coronavirus vaccine mid-pandemic shows the utter folly of giving away publicly-funded science to big pharma.
"The non-profit pledge was never a gift to the world from a benevolent company. It was the most Oxford could get from a manufacturer playing hardball during a global health emergency. And AstraZeneca has still refused to share the vaccine recipe with the WHO, which would allow poorer countries to manufacture it for themselves.
"This moment was always going to come - and it's exactly why public health experts have demanded a waiver of intellectual property on Covid-19 vaccines. Corporations will always put profits first if you give them control over who lives and who dies.
"In the future, public funding for the development of essential medicines must be conditional on global access. And we need global public manufacturing capacity to ensure this never happens again."
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