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For Immediate Release
April, 16 2009, 05:50pm EDT
Contact:
AIUSA media office,Email:,media@aiusa.org,Phone: 202-544-0200 x302
AIUSA Applauds President Obama's Call to Ratify OAS Firearms Convention
Amnesty International USA
applauds the president's reported plans to tackle the proliferation of
small arms and light weapons by calling on the U.S. Senate to ratify the
Organization of American States (OAS) Firearms Convention that has contributed
to massive human rights violations in Latin America over the past decade.
WASHINGTON
Amnesty International USA
applauds the president's reported plans to tackle the proliferation of
small arms and light weapons by calling on the U.S. Senate to ratify the
Organization of American States (OAS) Firearms Convention that has contributed
to massive human rights violations in Latin America over the past decade.
"The United States has long taken a back
seat in supporting multilateral efforts to tackle irresponsible and illegal
conventional arms transfers. President Obama's call for the U.S. Senate
to ratify this treaty signals its recognition of the importance of working
multilaterally on an issue key to preventing human rights violations,"
said Colby Goodman, Amnesty International USA's 's arms expert.
Otherwise known as the Inter-American Convention
Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Explosives,
Ammunition, and Other Related Materials (CIFTA), this treaty includes key
provisions designed to help thwart illicit trafficking in firearms. For
example, it requires signatories to keep records needed to trace and identify
illicitly trafficked firearms, key to helping the United State track down
U.S. arms smuggled into South America.
In 2003, Amnesty International participated
in efforts to develop Model Brokering Regulations connected with the OAS
Firearms Convention, which included key human rights provisions. The
regulation requires signatories to:
"prohibit brokering activities
and refuse to grant licenses if it has reason to believe that the brokering
activities will, or seriously threaten to: (a) result in acts of
genocide or crimes against humanity; (b) violate humans rights contrary
to international law; and, (c) lead to the perpetration of war crimes contrary
to international law...."
Since late 2003, Amnesty International,
as part of the Control Arms Campaign,
has been encouraging governments to support such human rights provisions
in an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) being discussed at the United Nations. More
than 145 countries have signaled their support for the treaty. The ATT
is currently under review by the Obama administration. AIUSA encourages
swift endorsement of that treaty.
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning
grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters,
activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human
rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates
and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice,
freedom, truth and dignity are denied.
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
(212) 807-8400LATEST NEWS
Top Iranian Lawmaker Accuses Trump of Trying to ‘Manipulate' Markets With Claims of Talks
"Fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped," said the speaker of the Iranian Parliament.
Mar 23, 2026
As the Iranian government denied President Donald Trump's claim on Monday that "productive" talks are taking place between the US and the Middle Eastern country, which the White House has joined Israel in attacking for close to a month, a top Iranian lawmaker accused the president of attempting to manipulate global markets with his claim.
"No negotiations have been held with the US, and fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped," said Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, in a post on X.
Ghalibaf's theory appeared to be supported by developments in the financial markets shortly after Trump's seemingly significant announcement Monday morning.
As the market analysis and commentary website The Kobeissi Letter reported, by 7:10 am Eastern—six minutes after Trump appeared to allude to diplomatic strides toward ending his unprovoked war—the S&P 500 surged by more than 240 points, adding more than $2 trillion in market capitalization.
Iran's Foreign Ministry denied Trump's claim 27 minutes later, and by 8:00 AM Eastern the S&P 500 had fallen by 120 points, erasing nearly $1 trillion in market value.
"That's a $3 TRILLION swing market cap in 56 minutes, just in the S&P 500," said The Kobeissi Letter. "What is happening here?"
Ahead of Ghalibaf's remarks, The New Republic also posited that Trump's "news" of productive discussions was "just a ploy at market manipulation."
The quick denial of talks from the Foreign Ministry raised "serious doubts as to whether the president is telling the truth or just saying whatever he can to stop gas prices from rising more and more as Iran locks down the Strait of Hormuz."
Since the US and Israel began its assault on Iran on February 28, Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil supply flows, and sent gas prices soaring to nearly $4 per gallon, up from $2.91 before the war.
The war, which has killed more than 3,200 Iranians and exploded into a larger conflict, with more than 1,000 people killed in Lebanon and at least 60 killed in Iraq, has appeared politically toxic for Trump, who campaigned on "no new wars" and making life more affordable for Americans.
Nearly 80% of people who voted for Trump in 2024 said last week that they hope for a quick end to the war.
Some observers noted that even the president's five-day deadline for negotiations to conclude—after which he suggested the US could launch strikes against Iran's energy infrastructure—appeared to revolve around the week's closing of energy markets on Friday.
"Every week, when markets open, Trump makes these kinds of statements to drive down oil prices," said Iranian academic Seyed Mohammad Marandi. "Even his five-day deadline aligns with the closure of the energy market. But in reality, there are no negotiations underway, nor does Trump have the capability to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's firm threat has once again forced Trump to back down."
On Saturday, Trump had threatened to "obliterate" Iran's power plants if it didn't reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Monday. Iran responded with a threat to target energy infrastructure across the region, including in Israel.
A senior Iranian official told Drop Site News that "no new developments have occurred” diplomatically between the US and Iran.
Iran's conditions for ending the war, the official said, include a simultaneous ceasefire in Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq. The government is also demanding an end to US sanctions on Iran's procurement of defensive weapons and equipment.
“The fact that he publicly responds to [Iran’s position] by posting a tweet," the official said, "is solely intended to manage the financial markets—nothing more."
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Critics Hammer Trump Admin's 'Taxpayer Funded Bribe' to Kill Massive Wind Energy Project
"The most corrupt presidency ever—and it's not even close," said one critic.
Mar 23, 2026
Critics slammed the Trump administration on Monday after it announced a deal to pay almost $1 billion to a French energy company to cancel its plans to construct wind farms across the eastern US.
As reported by The New York Times, French firm TotalEnergies has agreed to forfeit its leases in federal waters off the coasts of New York and North Carolina, and will instead invest the money it received from the Trump administration into oil and gas projects in the US, "including a facility in Texas that would export liquefied natural gas to global markets."
TotalEnergies paid nearly $928 million for the rights to access federal waters during former President Joe Biden's administration.
The Times described the agreement as "an extraordinary transfer of taxpayer dollars to a foreign company for the purposes of boosting the production of fossil fuels, a main driver of climate change, while throttling offshore wind power."
Patrick Pouyanné, the chief executive of TotalEnergies, said that the firm decided to abandon its US wind farm plans due to "practical" considerations, while emphasizing that the firm wasn't giving up on wind power all together.
"When the Trump administration came to power and began setting US energy policy, we said that we’ll have to reconsider, clearly, these offshore wind project developments," explained Pouyanné, adding that "we continue to invest in onshore solar, onshore wind, batteries."
Many critics expressed disbelief that the Trump administration would go to such extraordinary lengths to kill a clean energy project, especially after the president sent oil and gasoline prices soaring earlier this month when he launched an unprovoked and unconstitutional war with Iran.
"Let’s call this what it is: a taxpayer-funded bribe to kill homegrown clean energy and hand the money straight to oil and gas executives," wrote climate advocacy organization Evergreen Action in a social media post. "Trump is once again making Americans pay more for energy so his Big Oil donors can rake in even more profits."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, expressed a similar sentiment.
"$1 billion of our tax dollars to kill a clean energy program that creates jobs, just so Trump's Big Oil donors can make more profit," D'Arrigo wrote. "The most corrupt presidency ever—and it's not even close."
Matt Gertz, senior fellow at press watchdog Media Matters for America, argued that the agreement was a corrupt bargain aimed at hurting the president's political foes, including the Democratic leaders of New York and North Carolina.
"Climate/renewables arguments aside, this is the president's administration paying a foreign company to invest in states where Republicans are in charge rather than ones where Democrats are in charge," Gertz wrote, "using tax dollars to punish people who didn't vote for his party."
US Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) said that the deal to kill the planned wind farms was yet another example of the Trump administration making life in the US less affordable.
"This administration just spent $1 BILLION of your money to make sure wind farms don't get built," Blunt Rochester wrote. "You''ll have them to thank for higher electric bills each month."
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Supreme Court Appears Poised to Allow ‘Brazen Republican Effort to Disenfranchise Millions’ Ahead of Midterms
Mail-in voting "is relied upon by nearly one million Americans serving in the military abroad and nearly 50 million Americans living in the US," noted one expert.
Mar 23, 2026
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in a case in which Republicans are trying to ban states from accepting mail-in ballots after Election Day—a development that opponents warned could disenfranchise many of the roughly 50 million Americans who voted by mail in 2024.
Watson v. Republican National Committee challenges Mississippi's grace period for accepting mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day. While most states require mailed ballots to arrive by that date, 14 states provide extra time ranging from days to weeks. Such grace periods allow the votes of people including US troops stationed overseas, Americans living abroad, disabled people, and others to be counted.
The case is partly driven by President Donald Trump's unfounded assertion that mail-in voting is riddled with fraud. Following Trump's 2020 election loss, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency—created by the president in 2018—called the contest “the most secure in American history.” Trump promptly fired the head of the agency before leaving office.
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider a GOP effort to dramatically restrict mail-in voting Monday, when it hears oral arguments in Watson v. Republican National Committee. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
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— Marc Elias (@marcelias.bsky.social) March 22, 2026 at 8:31 AM
Legal experts observing Monday's oral arguments said that some of the six Republican-appointed justices appeared sympathetic to arguments for restricting mail-in voting.
University of Michigan Law School professor Leah Litman said on Bluesky that Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas "sound like complete MAGA-pilled 'absentee voting/mail in voting is fraudulent' brains" who are "open to invalidating state laws allowing vote counting after Election Day—and perhaps more voting forms."
"They are doing what they often do in these cases with unhinged theories—invent far fetched hypos (could a state allow you to retract your vote, or say your vote is cast when you give your brother a ballot) to distract from what the case is about (is mail-in absentee voting going to be banned)," Litman added.
Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern said on Bluesky that Justice Samuel Alito "strongly implied that vote-by-mail, as practiced in most of the country today, is highly susceptible to fraud," adding that Gorsuch and Thomas "leaned in that direction as well," while Justices Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts "are harder to read."
"SO many questions from the Republican-appointed justices so far having little or nothing to do with the law—they're venting their evident frustrations about modern election laws that broadly authorize mail voting and fretting that they're spoiling elections with distrust and fraud," Stern continued. "Really bad!"
"It's also pretty clear that the Republican-appointed justices do not understand a great deal about how elections are actually administered," he added. "Their questions (and especially hypotheticals) are built on weird, paranoid fantasies that do not align with reality."
Others warned of the high likelihood of voter disenfranchisement should the justices limit mailed ballots.
“Watson v. RNC is a brazen Republican effort to disenfranchise millions of Americans seeking to vote in the midterm elections," said Court Accountability co-founder Lisa Graves. "Mail-in voting has been part of the American election system since the Civil War, and this method of voting is relied upon by nearly one million Americans serving in the military abroad and nearly 50 million Americans living in the US."
“Of course, the hyper-partisan Roberts Court is considering using the power of the nation’s highest court–again–to put its thumb on the scale of justice in ways sought by the Republican Party," Graves continued. "Three Trump appointees on the Supreme Court are poised to join three other Republican appointees to side with the radical ruling of a trio of operatives Trump appointed to the Fifth Circuit."
Last November, the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans struck down a Mississippi law that allowed mailed ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted as long as they arrive within five business days, setting up the Supreme Court showdown.
“Vote-by-mail is a secure and widely used way to participate in our elections," Stand Up America executive director Christina Harvey said Monday. "It’s a lifeline for military and overseas voters, voters with disabilities, elderly voters, and rural voters living far from their polling places. Nearly one-third of the votes cast in the 2024 election were cast by mail, proving just how essential this option has become."
“Watson v. RNC is part of a broader effort to dismantle voting options ahead of this year’s midterms," Harvey continued. "After pushing congressional Republicans to eliminate vote-by-mail and adopting [United States Postal Service] policy changes that could disqualify ballots sent on time, Donald Trump and his allies are asking the Supreme Court to finish the job."
"If the court rules in their favor, they’ll be making it easier for politicians to hold onto power without answering to voters," she added.
Critics allege that disenfranchisement is the point of policies like limiting mail-in voting or requiring voter ID. Republicans have implied—and even admitted outright—that these policies help Republicans win elections. During a 2020 interview, Trump said he opposed expanding mail-in voting, saying such a move would mean the country would "never have a Republican elected... again."
Last year, Trump signed the Orwellian-named “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections” executive order, which critics argued would do just the opposite by making it more difficult for millions of voters to cast their ballots. Among other things, the decree pushes states to require proof of citizenship when voting—a policy that opponents warn disproportionately disenfranchises lower-income individuals, elderly, and adopted people without easy access to their birth certificates and those born at home in rural areas whose birth records were never officially filed.
Congressional Republicans are also pushing the SAVE Act and Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act, the latter of which was described by one analyst as the “most dangerous attack on voting rights ever" proposed in Congress. The SAVE Act—which would require anyone registering to vote in federal elections to provide documentary proof of US citizenship—passed in the House last month.
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