March, 24 2016, 01:45pm EDT
Save the Children Suspends Support Services on Greek Island Detention Centres Following EU-Turkey Deal
Following initial implementation of the EU-Turkey deal that came into effect on 20 March 2016, Save the Children has suspended all activities related to supporting basic services at all detention centres on the Greek islands due to extreme concerns that newly-arrived vulnerable children and their families are in danger of unlawful and unjustified custody for sustained periods of time.
Currently, all asylum seekers and migrants arriving on the islands after Monday, regardless of their status, are now being placed in the newly designated detention centres until their individual 'admissibility' interview and assessment take place.
"Asylum applications, interviews, and assessments could take weeks, or even months, and the result is that asylum-seekers are, and will, be placed in unlawful detention, contrary to International and European Human Rights Law," said Janti Soeripto, Interim CEO of Save the Children International.
While the European Commission has clarified that 'Irregular migrants may be held in closed reception centres on the Greek islands, and asylum seekers will be accommodated in open reception centres,' at present, this does not appear to be the case in reality, according to Save the Children teams on the ground.
"There is no possible way that the sudden turnaround of reception centre hotspots into detention centres can happen in line with international and European legal requirements, and this will be in particular to the detriment of children," continued Soeripto.
"We already know that among those being detained are unaccompanied children who are particularly vulnerable as they require specialist support and protection which they cannot receive in their current environment, and we remind authorities that the detention of children is unlawful and never in their best interests.
"Furthermore, maintaining family unity should never be used to justify the detention of children. Children and their families should always be in appropriate accommodation in line with the best interests of children.
"As conditions are worsening in Greece, the first priority should be to address humanitarian concerns and deal with the existing protection needs."
Save the Children has suspended all basic service support activities in detention centres on Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Kos and Leros until further notice, including the provision of bus transport to the centres on Lesvos, the distribution of basic cooking, shelter, and winter provisions, and food distribution in Moria camp on Lesvos, which has been taken over by the Greek Armed Forces.
"We will however maintain food distribution in collaboration with Oxfam only in Kara Tepe camp on Lesvos, which is run by the local municipality and remains an open facility, and will also maintain some child protection activities in all closed centres due to ongoing concerns regarding the living conditions of the children inside," said Soeripto.
Save the Children is also alarmed about the proposed forced returns to Turkey, particularly the possibility of the rejection of asylum applications in Greece without examination if they are found to be 'inadmissible', and the lack of capacity in Greece to administer asylum seekers' rights to appeal.
Save the Children reiterated concerns around the imminent 'return one to resettle' one scheme for Syrians.
"It is shameful that Europe is finding ways to cut back on commitments already made to offer safe and legal routes for vulnerable refugees into Europe - the result is that the number of these routes is now actually diminishing, not to mention that their availability in this scheme still requires people to risk their lives at sea," Soeripto warned.
"It is clear that the main message of the EU-Turkey deal agreement is the prevalence of maintaining borders over saving lives."
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Warning of 'Unprecedented Risks,' Scientists Say Mirror Bacteria 'Should Not Be Created'
"Our analysis suggests that mirror bacteria could broadly evade many immune defenses of humans, animals, and plants," according to a group of 38 scientists, including multiple Nobel Prize winners.
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Dozens of scientists are calling in no uncertain terms for a halt on research to create "mirror life," particularly "mirror bacteria" that could "pose ecological risks" and possibly cause "pervasive lethal infections in a substantial fraction of the plant and animal species, including humans."
The group of 38 scientists, who include Nobel laureates and other experts, addressed research into "mirror life"—mirror-image biological molecules—in a piece of commentary published in the journal Science published Friday, which accompanied a technical report that was released earlier in December.
One of the scientists, synthetic biologist Kate Adamala at the University of Minnesota, was working on creating a mirror cell but "changed track last year" after studying the risks, according to the Guardian.
"We should not be making mirror life," she told the outlet. "We have time for the conversation. And that's what we were trying to do with this paper, to start a global conversation."
To that end, the authors of the commentary plan to convene discussions on the risks of mirror life and related topics in 2025, with the hope that "society at large will take a responsible approach to managing a technology that might pose unprecedented risks."
The ability to create mirror life is likely over a decade away and would require sizable investment and technical progress, meaning the world has the opportunity to "preempt risks before they are realized," according to the scientists.
When broken down into simple terms, mirror life sounds like something out of science fiction. All the biomolecules that constitute life have a "handedness" to them—"right-handed" nucleotides make up DNA and RNA, and proteins are formed from "left-handed" amino acids.
"So when we're talking about mirror-image life, it's kind of like a 'what if' experiment: What if we constructed life with right-handed proteins instead of left-handed proteins? Something that would be very, very similar to natural life, but doesn't exist in nature. We call this mirror-image life or mirror life," explained to Michael Kay, a professor of biochemistry at University of Utah's medical school.
Some scientists like Kay are interested in the medical possibilities of mirror-image therapeutics—which Kay says holds potential for treating chronic illness in a more cost-effective way—but both he and the authors of the recently published commentary are concerned about the potential threats posed by mirror bacteria.
"Our analysis suggests that mirror bacteria could broadly evade many immune defenses of humans, animals, and plants. Chiral interactions, which are central to immune recognition and activation in multicellular organisms, would be impaired with mirror bacteria," according to the scientists.
Essentially, as Kay puts it, it’s unlikely that mirror bacteria would be subject to the same constraints as regular bacteria, such as the human immune system or antibiotics.
The scientists warn that further developing this research could open a Pandora's box: "Unless compelling evidence emerges that mirror life would not pose extraordinary dangers, we believe that mirror bacteria and other mirror organisms, even those with engineered biocontainment measures, should not be created."
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UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty wrote in a New York Times op-ed Friday that the for-profit U.S. healthcare system "does not work as well as it should" and that "no one would design a system like the one we have," admissions that came as his industry faced a torrent of public anger following the murder of UnitedHealthcare's chief executive.
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"Andrew Witty is the high priest of the temple to Moloch and Mammon, murder and money," Lawson added. "And there is no way for him to wash his hands of it, except perhaps to resign and then dedicate every dollar he has to dismantling the current system brick by brick and building one based on public health in its stead."
"Medicare for All is the only proposal on the table capable of delivering universal, continuous coverage for everyone, while also securing the efficiency and savings only possible through the elimination of private insurance."
While publicly pledging to cooperate with reform efforts, Witty has defended his company's care denials in private and urged his employees not to engage with media outlets in the aftermath of Thompson's murder.
Contrary to Witty's depiction of his company in his Times op-ed, UnitedHealth has historically been an aggressive opponent of reform efforts aimed at mitigating the harms of for-profit insurance and building public alternatives. The Leverreported in 2021 that UnitedHealth Group "held a webinar to pressure its rank-and-file employees to mobilize against efforts in Connecticut to create a state-level public health insurance option."
At the national level, UnitedHealth has spent over $5.8 million this year lobbying the federal government, according to OpenSecrets.
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In a column for The Nation on Friday, writer Natalie Shure argued that "the appalling amount of resources and energy we put into maintaining the existence of health insurance is wasted on an industry with no social value whatsoever."
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The children of the richest families in the U.S. are well-known for spending their vast wealth on frivolous luxuries—constructing a replica of a medieval church on their acres of property, in the case of banking heir Timothy Mellon, or starting a brand of T-shirts described by one critic as "terrible beyond your wildest imagination," as Wyatt Koch, nephew of Republican megadonors Charles and David, did.
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In addition, the heirs of the country's biggest fortunes spend vast sums "to elect politicians who protect their unearned wealth and manipulate the country's economy in their favor," said ATF.
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At least 90 billionaires have passed away over the last decade, leaving their beneficiaries $455 billion in collective wealth.
But according to ATF, "$255 billion (56%) of that amount was likely entirely exempt from the capital gains tax because of a special break called 'stepped up basis.'"
"Trump and his allies in Congress are doing their donors' bidding by rigging the system in their favor and pushing a $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites and giant corporations."
Without loopholes included the stepped up basis tax cut, the current estate tax on billionaires and centimillionaires would yield enough revenue to fund universal childcare, preschool, and paid family leave for U.S. workers, with hundreds of billions of dollars left over, according to ATF's report.
The wealthy heirs profiled in the report and their families are some of the Republican Party's top donors—contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to candidates including Trump in the hopes of securing even more tax cuts.
Mellon, for example, is Trump's "biggest supporter, giving $140 million to a pro-Trump PAC in 2024 alone," reads the report.
A previous analysis by ATF found that as of late October, just 150 billionaire families had spent $1.9 billion on the 2024 elections.
As the Center for American Progress found earlier this year, Trump's plan to extend the tax cuts that he pushed through in 2017 would cost $4 trillion over the next decade.
"The vast wealth inherited by centuries-old billionaire families is staggering. While these heirs and their billions go undertaxed, enormous sums are squandered on lavish mansions, private jets, and vanity projects instead of funding crucial public investments," said ATF executive director David Kass. "In 2024, these billionaire families used their enormous wealth to make record-breaking political contributions to secure a GOP trifecta. Now, Trump and his allies in Congress are doing their donors' bidding by rigging the system in their favor and pushing a $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites and giant corporations—all while advocating for cuts to vital programs that working and middle-class Americans depend on."
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