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Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Stephanie Küng, MADRE (212) 627-0444, media@madre.org
This weekend, the leaders of the world's eight largest economies will meet, hosted by US President Obama. MADRE asserts that their decisions will affect all of us, no matter where we live. In preparation for the G8 summit, MADRE has drafted a women's human rights agenda, demanding an end to policies that benefit the richest at the expense of women, the poor, our health and our environment.
This weekend, the leaders of the world's eight largest economies will meet, hosted by US President Obama. MADRE asserts that their decisions will affect all of us, no matter where we live. In preparation for the G8 summit, MADRE has drafted a women's human rights agenda, demanding an end to policies that benefit the richest at the expense of women, the poor, our health and our environment.
This year's G8 summit comes at a time of economic collapse and unprecedented worldwide protest. According to MADRE's agenda, the current crisis demands recognition of the ways that G8 policies exacerbate inequality, exploit women's labor, and perpetuate discrimination and violence against women. It also demands the kinds of solutions put forward in MADRE's agenda.
This agenda also addresses global issues such as poverty and economic justice, food sovereignty, health, peace and the environment.
In addition, the agenda presents policies proposed by MADRE and its partner organizations worldwide, including recognizing women's work, investing in sustainable agriculture, protecting the right to health and confronting violence against women.
To read MADRE's agenda in full, click here.
To sign a petition calling on G8 leaders to endorse a women's human rights agenda for the G8, click here.
Available for interview:
Diana Duarte (MADRE) is the Communications Director of MADRE, an international women's human rights organization.
MADRE is an international women's human rights organization that partners with community-based women's groups to advance women's human rights, challenge injustice and create social change in contexts of war, conflict, disaster and their aftermath. MADRE advocates for a world in which all people enjoy individual and collective human rights; natural resources are shared equitably and sustainably; women participate effectively in all aspects of society; and all people have a meaningful say in policies that affect their lives. For more information about MADRE, visit www.madre.org.
"YouTube is being complicit in silencing the voices of Palestinian victims,” said a spokesperson for the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, whose channel was deleted.
In compliance with a Trump administration effort to punish critics of Israel's genocide in Gaza, YouTube has deleted the accounts of three prominent Palestinian rights groups, wiping several hundred videos documenting Israeli human rights violations in the process.
According to The Intercept, the video hosting website, owned by Google, quietly removed the accounts of three groups, Al-Haq, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, in October.
These are the same three groups that the State Department hit with sanctions in September because they helped to bring evidence before the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The court would issue arrest warrants for the pair in 2024.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said explicitly that the groups were sanctioned because they "directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel’s consent.”
YouTube deleted the groups' channels, as well as their entire archives, which contained over 700 videos that documented acts of brutality by the Israeli military against Palestinians.
According to The Intercept, these included an investigative report about the killing of the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli troops, the military's destruction of Palestinians' homes in the West Bank, and a documentary about mothers who'd survived Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Google confirmed to The Intercept that it deleted the videos to comply with the State Department sanctions.
“Google is committed to compliance with applicable sanctions and trade compliance laws,” YouTube spokesperson Boot Bullwinkle said in a statement.
Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said it was "outrageous that YouTube is furthering the Trump administration’s agenda to remove evidence of human rights violations and war crimes from public view."
YouTube's censorship of content deemed too supportive of Palestinians predates President Donald Trump's return to power. In 2024, officials at YouTube and other social media companies were found to have cooperated through secretive back channels with a group of volunteers from Israel's tech sector to remove content critical of Israel.
Following news of the three human rights groups losing their channels, documentarian and journalist Robert Inlakesh wrote on social media that in 2024, YouTube removed his channel without warning, deleting all his content, including several documentaries he'd produced in the occupied territories.
"YouTube deleted all my coverage of Israeli soldiers shooting civilians, including children targeted on a live stream, along with my entire account," he said. "No community guidelines were violated, and three separate excuses were given to me. Then Google deleted my email and won’t respond to appeals."
Groups sanctioned by the US for supporting the ICC have previously received preliminary injunctions in two cases, in which courts said the State Department violated their First Amendment rights.
But even with the sanctions in place, Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, said there was little legal reason for YouTube to capitulate.
"It’s really hard to imagine any serious argument that sharing information from these Palestinian human rights organizations would somehow violate sanctions," she said. "Succumbing to this arbitrary designation of these Palestinian organizations, to now censor them, is disappointing and pretty surprising.”
Basel al-Sourani, an international advocacy officer and legal advisor for the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said that YouTube has not made it clear what policies his group's channel violated.
“YouTube said that we were not following their policy on Community Guidelines, when all our work was basically presenting factual and evidence-based reporting on the crimes committed against the Palestinian people, especially since the start of the ongoing genocide on October 7," he said.
"By doing this," he added, "YouTube is being complicit in silencing the voices of Palestinian victims."
“He’s apparently quitting now because democracy isn’t ‘just fine,'” said one Maine professor.
US Rep. Jared Golden, a centrist Democrat from Maine who has backed President Donald Trump's policies on issues such as trade and immigration, announced on Wednesday that he would not be seeking another term in office.
In an editorial published by the Bangor Daily News, Golden said that he decided against running for office again because he had "grown tired of the increasing incivility and plain nastiness that are now common from some elements of our American community—behavior that, too often, our political leaders exhibit themselves."
Golden—the former Blue Dog Coalition co-chair with a history of voting with Republicans on various climate, military, and student debt relief policies—also said that he has become worried about political violence in the US that has targeted both lawmakers and activists in recent years.
"Last year we saw attempts against Donald Trump’s life, and more recently we witnessed the firebombing of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home, the assassination of Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, and the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk," he explained. "These have made me reconsider the experiences of my own family, including all of us sitting in a hotel room on Thanksgiving last year after yet another threat against our home. There have been enough of those over the years to demand my attention."
Golden also emphasized that he was not worried about losing the next election, but had instead concluded that "what I could accomplish in this increasingly unproductive Congress pales in comparison to what I could do in that time as a husband, a father, and a son."
Maine State Auditor Matt Dunlap, who announced earlier this year that he would challenge Golden for the Democratic nomination in Maine's 2nd Congressional District, put out a statement on Wednesday before Golden announced that he would not seek another turn claiming that Democrats' sweeping wins in Tuesday's elections showed that US voters wanted representatives who would more assertively stand up to the president.
"Across the country, voters rejected fear and division," Dunlap said. "They’re not ‘okay with’ another Trump presidency like Jared Golden is. Golden was wrong to cave on the continuing resolution instead of protecting affordable healthcare."
The remark about Golden being "okay with" Trump is a reference to an editorial he published last year in which he said that Trump would win the 2024 election and that "democracy will be just fine" regardless.
Michael Socolow, a media historian at the University of Maine, noted the contrast between Golden's editorial last year in which he brushed aside concerns about a second Trump term, and his editorial this year lamenting how a lack of civility and threats of political violence had snuffed out his desire to have a career in politics.
"I wonder if he regrets his op-ed saying 'Democracy will be just fine' if Donald Trump won the 2024 election?" he wondered. "He's apparently quitting now because democracy isn't 'just fine.'"
While Golden was one of the most conservative Democrats in the US House, he also represented a district that has voted for Trump in three consecutive elections, and his retirement will likely make it harder for Democrats to keep the seat from flipping to Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.
J. Miles Coleman, an associate editor at Sabato's Crystal Ball, wrote on X that Golden's retirement moves his district from a "toss-up" election to a "leans Republican" election next year.
Former Maine Gov. Paul LePage, a MAGA favorite and ardent Trump supporter, confirmed last month that he planned to run for Golden's seat.
“They may have won this race, but we have changed the narrative about what kind of city Minneapolis can be,” Omar Fateh said.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey fended off a challenge from democratic socialist Omar Fateh to secure a third term by winning enough support in the second round of the city's ranked-choice voting system.
City election officials declared Frey, a Democrat, the winner Wednesday morning after tabulating second- and subsequent-choice votes. Frey won 42% of first-choice votes, followed by Fateh with 32%, former pastor DeWayne Davis with 14%, and entrepreneur Jazz Hampton with 10%.
Fateh—a Democratic state senator and son of Somali immigrants—congratulated Frey on his victory.
“They may have won this race, but we have changed the narrative about what kind of city Minneapolis can be,” he said. “Because now, truly affordable housing, workers’ rights, and public safety rooted in care are no longer side conversations; they are at the center of the narrative.”
Thank you, Minneapolis!While this wasn’t the outcome we wanted, I am incredibly grateful to every single person who supported our grassroots campaign. I’ll keep fighting alongside you to build the city we deserve. Onward.
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— Omar Fateh (@omarfatehmn.com) November 5, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Frey said in a statement Wednesday, “From right now through my final seconds as mayor, I will work tirelessly to make our great city a place where everyone, regardless of who you are or where you come from, can build a brilliant life in an affordable home and a safe neighborhood."
Fateh’s campaign drew comparisons with that of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, another progressive state lawmaker and democratic socialist who was bombarded with racist, Islamophobic, and xenophobic hate by prominent right-wing figures. Like Mamdani, Fateh hoped voters would focus on his record of serving his constituency in the state Legislature.
Among the dozens of bills authored by Fateh were a successful proposal to fund tuition-free public colleges and universities and tribal colleges for students from families with household incomes below $80,000, including undocumented immigrants, and another measure that exempted fentanyl test strips from being considered drug paraphernalia.
Fateh was also the chief state Senate author of a bill that would have ensured that drivers on ride-hailing applications like Uber and Lyft were paid minimum wage and received workplace protections. Although the bill was approved by both houses of the state Legislature, it was vetoed by Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Gov. Tim Walz, sparking widespread outrage among progressives.
Initially chosen over Frey by state DFL delegates, Fatah's endorsement was rescinded in August by state party officials, sparking widespread outrage from progressives including Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who condemned the "inexcusable" move, which she chalked up to "the influence of big money in our politics."