April, 15 2020, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Joe Karp-Sawey, media manager,Tel: +44 (0)7711 875 345,Email:,joe.karpsawey@globaljustice.org.uk
G20 Debt Measures Fall 'Well Short' of What's Needed
IMF and World Bank meetings must agree to proper debt cancellation.
WASHINGTON
Commenting on the G20 debt relief measures today, Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now said:
"We're pleased there is consensus that many developing countries should not be forced to service their debts this year. The coronavirus crisis would make this impossible. But what the G20 has offered falls well short of real debt cancellation. For a start, the G20's moratorium means interest continues to accrue and debt would still need to be paid after 2020. This will create a new crisis-point for many countries which were already encumbered with debts run up since the 2008 financial crash.
"Second, this cancellation, it seems, will come out of the money already designated for developing countries in aid money. So these countries are effectively paying for their own debt relief. Third, some of the most egregious debt is owned to the private sector. Tough action needs to be taken so this debt is also written down. Unless this happens, we could see the obscene spectacle of this debt being sold and speculated on, with vulture funds suing impoverished countries in courts here in London.
"Rich countries are injecting unprecedented sums of money into their own economies to deal with the coronavirus crisis. Unless we allow developing countries to do the same, through deep debt cancellation, as well as a large emergency package which is made up of more than simply new loans, many lives will be needlessly lost, and the countries with least ability to weather this crisis will pay the biggest cost. The IMF and World Bank meeting this week must go much further."
Global Justice Now is a democratic social justice organisation working as part of a global movement to challenge the powerful and create a more just and equal world. We mobilise people in the UK for change, and act in solidarity with those fighting injustice, particularly in the global south.
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Trump Son-in-Law Jared Kushner Calls for Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza to 'Finish the Job'
Kushner, who served as a key Middle East adviser to Trump, said that Gaza's "waterfront property could be very valuable" and urged Israel to "clean it up."
Mar 19, 2024
Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former president and presumptive 2024 Republican nominee Donald Trump, said in a recent interview that if he were in charge of Israeli policy, he would push Gaza civilians into Egypt or Israel's Negev desert—a proposal that critics denounced as ethnic cleansing.
"You want to get as many civilians out of Rafah as possible," Kushner told the faculty chair of Harvard University's Middle East Initiative, Tarek Masoud, in a March 8 interview that was first reported widely on Tuesday. "I think that you want to try to clear that out. I know that with diplomacy maybe you get them into Egypt."
"I know that that's been refused, but [with] the right diplomacy I think it would be possible," Kushner added. "But in addition to that, the thing that I would try to do if I was Israel right now is I would just bulldoze something in the Negev, I would try to move people in there. I know that won't be the popular thing to do, but I think that that's a better option to do so you can go in and finish the job."
Kushner played a central role in crafting Trump's Middle East policy during his first four years in the White House, and the former president's son-in-law's remarks provided a potential glimpse of how the U.S. would approach Gaza if Trump wins another term in November.
Earlier this month, Trump said he wants Israel to "finish the problem" in Gaza—a remark that Kushner echoed just three days later in his March 8 interview.
In addition to advocating the removal of civilians from Rafah—which is currently packed with more than 1.5 million people, including hundreds of thousands of children—Kushner said Gaza's "waterfront property could be very valuable."
"It's a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel's perspective I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up," Kushner said.
Just days after the @ADL’s @JGreenblattADL gave him an award for “his record of policy work,” Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner openly advocates for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza: https://t.co/VFhidPf60W
— Dylan Williams (@dylanotes) March 19, 2024
Kushner responded flippantly to concerns that if Gazans were forced out of their territory, the Israeli government wouldn't let them return—something that top Israeli officials have publicly advocated.
"Maybe," he said, "but I'm not sure there's much left of Gaza at this point."
Kushner also claimed that Israel has gone "way more out of its way" than other countries would to protect civilians—despite the
abundance of evidence to the contrary.
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Rights Groups Tell Biden Israeli Claims About US Weapons Use in Gaza 'Not Credible'
Human Rights Watch and Oxfam lay out "for the Biden administration why any assurances from Israel that they have not delayed, restricted, and impeded aid into Gaza cannot be relied upon."
Mar 19, 2024
As the Biden administration formally reviews the use of U.S. weapons by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip, a pair of human rights groups on Tuesday submitted a joint memorandum detailing Israel's abuse of Palestinians and demanding an end to all arms transfers.
"There are good reasons why U.S. law prohibits arms support for governments that block lifesaving aid or violate international law with U.S. weapons," said Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch (HRW). "Given ongoing hostilities in Gaza, the Israeli government's assurances to the Biden administration that it is meeting U.S. legal requirements are not credible."
HRW and Oxfam's memo comes after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant last week signed a letter claiming his country has not arbitrarily blocked humanitarian aid and U.S.-supplied arms have been used in line with international law, assurances required under a national security memorandum about weapons support that U.S. President Joe Biden released in February.
The United States provides Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and Biden has sought billions more while bypassing Congress to arm Israeli forces. The administration is now reviewing Gallant's letter and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken—who is headed back to the Middle East this week for cease-fire talks—has until March 25 to notify Congress about the credibility of Israeli claims.
"The time has long passed for the Biden administration to end lethal arms sales to Israel, and we call on them to do so now and work to end the death and suffering in Gaza."
According to the memo by Oxfam and HRW, the groups "have observed or documented that the Israeli authorities have carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks in violation of international humanitarian law following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks in Israel, imposed collective punishments on the civilian population, deprived the civilian population of objects indispensable to its survival, and used starvation of civilians as a weapon of war."
"These are all grave violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and customary international humanitarian law. The vast majority of Gaza's population has also been forced to flee their homes, many as a result of Israeli actions that amount to war crimes," the document continues. "Israeli authorities have also restricted, delayed, and impeded U.S.-origin humanitarian assistance in contravention of U.S. laws and policy."
The memo is based on the groups' firsthand experiences and investigations, backed by information from reliable news outlets. It explains that "given the widespread insecurity in Gaza and the Israeli government's restrictions on the entry of foreign investigators, journalists, and aid workers, we believe that the examples we cite here reflect a broader pattern of conduct than is currently being assessed by the U.S. government."
Examples cited in the section on international law violations include multiple Israeli airstrikes on or near several major healthcare facilities, including a November bombing of a marked ambulance outside al-Shifa Hospital; the use of white phosphorus and "dumb bombs" in densely populated civilian areas; strikes in southern Lebanon that killed one journalist and injured six others; and the destruction of water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure recently installed by Oxfam and its partners.
The section on depriving Gazans of necessities for survival begins by quoting Gallant, who declared on October 9 that Israel is "imposing a complete siege," meaning the 2.3 million people of Gaza, whom he called "human animals," get "no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel" as they face Israeli bombs and bullets.
After laying out how the Israeli government has delivered on the defense minister's pledge over the past five months— killing at least 31,819 Palestinians and wounding another 73,934—the memo stresses that "international humanitarian law requires Israel, as the occupying power in Gaza, to ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population are provided for."
Breaking: Oxfam America & @HRW show that Israel is using US weapons in violation of international & US law & blocking US humanitarian aid since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel. The US should stop providing military aid and arms to Israel. Read more: https://t.co/zHyWwicI0a pic.twitter.com/ijmnMCMIiM
— OxfamAmerica (@OxfamAmerica) March 19, 2024
The memo concludes with a section about how "the Israeli government has systematically restricted humanitarian aid and entry and exit of commercial goods to Gaza," initially by restricting all imports and then by imposing an "arbitrary and unnecessarily complex inspection process."
"From October 9 to January 31, an average of 95 truckloads of humanitarian aid entered Gaza per day, which is well below the 500 truckloads of goods entering Gaza per day prior to the onset of hostilities," the memo notes. Conditions are particularly dire for "the roughly 300,000 Palestinians who remain in northern Gaza, where the threat of starvation is most acute."
Israel currently faces a South Africa-led case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in late January found that the country is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza and ordered it to "take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance."
In the month after that ICJ ruling, "the amount of humanitarian convoys entering Gaza actually decreased by 30%," the memo highglights. Multiple rights groups, including HRW, have accused Israel of blatantly ignoring the court's order.
Even before the ICJ's preliminary decisions, HRW was pressuring other countries to suspend weapons transfers to Israel, first making the demand in November. Oxfam joined with 15 other international groups to call for an arms embargo in January.
"Oxfam has repeatedly sounded the alarm that Israel's ongoing bombardment and siege, and its actions to prevent access for humanitarian aid, have escalated a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza," Scott Paul, associate director for peace and security at Oxfam America, said Tuesday. "We have laid out clearly for the Biden administration why any assurances from Israel that they have not delayed, restricted, and impeded aid into Gaza cannot be relied upon."
"Despite this, the United States has continued to provide Israel with deadly weapons," Paul added. "The time has long passed for the Biden administration to end lethal arms sales to Israel, and we call on them to do so now and work to end the death and suffering in Gaza."
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Brazil's Bolsonaro Indicted for Falsifying Covid Vaccine Records
"Fraud has always been the specialty of Bolsonaro, the Father of Lies," said the chair of the left-wing Workers' Party.
Mar 19, 2024
Brazil's Federal Police on Tuesday indicted former President Jair Bolsonaro for allegedly falsifying his Covid-19 vaccination data and criminal association, marking the first time the far-right leader has been criminally charged.
Federal Police Detective Fábio Alvarez Shor said in his indictment report that Bolsonaro and aides forged vaccination records "to cheat current health restrictions" ahead of a trip to the United States—which at the time required visitors to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
"The investigation found several false insertions between November 2021 and December 2022, and also many actions of using fraudulent documents," the detective wrote.
In addition to Bolsonaro, Moro Cid, a top aide, and Gutemberg Reis, a federal lawmaker, were also indicted. Cid previously told investigators that Bolsonaro asked him to falsely record that the president and his 12-year-old daughter had been vaccinated. Fourteen other associates are also implicated in the alleged crimes.
Investigators previously alleged that "the objective of the group was to hold together in relation to their ideological agenda; in this case, to sustain the rhetoric regarding their attacks on the coronavirus vaccine."
Gleisi Hoffmann, a federal lawmaker who chairs the leftist Workers' Party of current Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, responded to the indictment on social media, writing, "Fraud has always been the specialty of Bolsonaro, the Father of Lies."
If fully convicted, Bolsonaro—who denies any wrongdoing—faces 12-16 years behind bars.
Bolsonaro is a notorious Covid-19 vaccine skeptic who once suggested that getting the shot could turn people into alligators. The president's policies and actions sparked massive nationwide protests during the height of the pandemic. His administration also came under fire for intentionally stalling coronavirus vaccine deals with Pfizer and for allegedly conditioning the purchase of other vaccine stockpiles on bribes.
An investigation by Brazilian lawmakers into Bolsonaro's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic accused him of "crimes against humanity" and blamed his policies for more than 300,000 deaths. Paulo Gonet, Brazil's top prosecutor, was slated to meet with federal lawmakers on Tuesday to consider pandemic-related charges against Bolsonaro.
A 2021 study examining the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil concluded that 400,000 lives could have been saved had the Bolsonaro administration enacted more stringent social distancing rules and started vaccinating people sooner.
Last year, Brazil's Superior Electoral Court banned Bolsonaro from holding office again until 2030 after finding that he abused power by making baseless claims of fraud in the 2022 presidential election, which he lost to Lula, who served as president from 2003-10.
Bolsonaro faces numerous additional investigations, including a probe of his role in the far-right uprising in Brasília, the capital, on January 8, 2023. A congressional inquiry found that Bolsonaro was the "intellectual and moral author of a coup movement" that culminated in the storming of government buildings last year. The lawmakers behind the inquiry recommended indictments for Bolsonaro and associates.
Some former top military officials have recently turned on Bolsonaro, accusing their erstwhile supreme commander—who was an army officer during Brazil's U.S.-backed military dictatorship—of pushing them to stage a coup to keep him in power.
Lula said Monday that Bolsonaro failed to carry out a coup "not only because some people who were in charge of the armed forces didn't want to do it and accept the president's idea, but also because the president is a big coward."
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