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For Immediate Release
February, 02 2021, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Ishraq Ali, 424.256.5603, ishraq@mpowerchange.org
MPower Change Responds to Jeff Bezos' Title Change at Amazon, and Naming of New CEO Andy Jassy; "Meet The New Boss, Possibly Even Worse Than The Old Boss"
WASHINGTON
In response to the news that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will transition to Amazon Board Chairman, and promote Andy Jassy to CEO, the MPower Change Campaign Manager leading MPower Change's #BreakUpWithAmazon efforts, Lau Barrios, released the following statement:
"Meet the new boss, possibly even worse than the old boss.
Amazon's latest PR move is replacing CEO Jeff Bezos with Andy Jassy, the man perhaps most singularly responsible for much of Amazon's surveillance empire: from marketing facial recognition technology to police departments nationwide to defending contracts with Palantir that power ICE's detention-deportation machine.
Jeff Bezos and Amazon have managed to find someone even more reckless and venal on issues of privacy, racial justice, complicity in state violence, and surveillance than, well, Jeff Bezos. When incoming Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was asked last year about Amazon's decision to sell sweeping surveillance and facial recognition powers to local police departments, he suggested "let's see if they somehow abuse the technology" before making any hasty assumptions--as if centuries of police violence against Black, indigenous, migrant, and Muslim communities isn't proof enough.
We won't fall for this PR exercise--and nor should anyone else. Jassy's CEO appointment shows us where Amazon's corporate priorities lie: strengthening and growing their surveillance empire."
MPower Change is a grassroots organizing movement rooted in diverse Muslim communities throughout the United States who are working together to build social, spiritual, racial, and economic justice for all people.
LATEST NEWS
Iran Says It Shot Down US Reaper Drone After Trump Admin Launched New Strikes
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it reserves the right to "respond to any ceasefire violation by the aggressor US army."
May 26, 2026
The Iranian military said early Tuesday that it shot down an American Reaper drone after the Trump administration launched what it characterized as "self-defense strikes" on southern Iran, further complicating efforts to secure a diplomatic resolution to the illegal US-Israeli war.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement, carried by Iranian news agencies, that it downed an MQ-9 Reaper drone and "fired upon an RQ-4 drone and an intruding F-35 fighter jet." The IRGC cast its actions as defensive and said it has the right to "respond to any ceasefire violation by the aggressor US army."
Late Monday, shortly after President Donald Trump claimed peace talks were progressing, the US Central Command announced that the American military "conducted self-defense strikes in southern Iran today to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces." The strikes, according to CENTCOM, targeted "missile launch sites and Iranian boats attempting to emplace mines."
Hamidreza Azizi, a foreign policy expert and visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, noted that the Iranian side provided "a different—and more detailed—account of what happened," saying the "exchange unfolded in several rounds over roughly 24 hours."
"It reportedly began when US forces attacked two IRGC naval boats, killing four Iranian military personnel," Azizi said, citing Iranian sources. "Iran responded with anti-ship missiles targeting US vessels. Iranian air defense systems then shot down at least one—some reports say three—US drones operating in the area."
Azizi continued:
The US subsequently struck Iranian anti-ship missile launch sites and air defense systems. Iran responded again, firing multiple anti-ship missiles at U.S. vessels in the Arabian Sea.
Independent verification of these claims—including the casualty figures and the extent of damage on both sides—remains limited. The competing narratives follow the familiar pattern in which each side frames its actions as a response to the other’s aggression.
The more significant point is that the exchange has now moved through multiple rounds of attack and counter-attack within a single 24-hour period. That pattern is harder to contain than a single incident. It also raises the question of how this cycle interacts with the indirect negotiations currently underway.
Iran has publicly pushed back against Trump's claim of an imminent peace deal, though a spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry told reporters on Monday that "it is correct to say that we have reached a conclusion on a large portion of the issues under discussion."
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that "the two sides are working toward a memorandum of understanding that would end the fighting and lift constraints on shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz over 30 days while setting the stage for talks about Iran’s nuclear program in a second phase."
"Relief from sanctions would depend on progress, a senior U.S. administration official said Sunday," the Journal added. "The US is seeking clearer commitments from Iran about its nuclear program up front, while Iranian negotiators are pressing for details from the US about relief from sanctions and asset freezes, mediators said."
Trump declared in a social media post Monday evening that Iran's enriched uranium "will either be immediately turned over to the United States to be brought home and destroyed or, preferably, in conjunction and coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran, destroyed in place or, at another acceptable location, with the Atomic Energy Commission, or its equivalent, being witness to this process and event."
Iran has not formally agreed to such terms.
Samir Puri, a visiting lecturer in war studies at Kings College London, told Al Jazeera that the new US strikes on Iran create an “extremely precarious situation" for negotiators.
“Fighting and talking at the same time is quite a common thing in a negotiation at the end of a conflict that has been very intense and hasn’t been resolved,” said Puri. "The key... is to keep talking and to not allow the talks to collapse by these escalations—because these may not be the last escalations.
“What we don’t know is whether this is the storm before the calm or the calm before the storm,” he continued. "We don’t know whether these negotiations need to be sustained and to absorb these sorts of escalations for days, for weeks, for months. It could be a very long negotiation process still to come."
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With Epidemic 'Outpacing' Response, WHO Chief Warns Ebola Outbreak Will 'Get Worse Before It Gets Better'
"The delay in detecting the outbreak means that we are now playing catch-up with a very fast-moving epidemic."
May 25, 2026
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned Monday that the swiftly spreading Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda "will get worse before it gets better," as a deadly delay in detecting infections has responders to the epidemic "playing catch-up."
"The outbreak is spreading rapidly," Tedros said during a virtual ministerial meeting on the matter. "So far, 101 cases have been confirmed in DRC, with 10 confirmed deaths. But we know the epidemic in DRC is much larger. There are now more than 900 suspected cases and 220 suspected deaths."
"Countries bordering DRC are at especially high risk and should take immediate action," he asserted. "In Uganda, there are five confirmed cases and one death."
Tedros pointed out that "there are several aspects of this outbreak that make it especially challenging."
"First, the delay in detecting the outbreak means that we are now playing catch-up with a very fast-moving epidemic," he said. "We are urgently scaling up operations, but at the moment, the epidemic is outpacing us."
"Second, as you know, the provinces of Ituri and North Kivu are highly insecure, with intensified fighting in recent months, causing more than 100,000 people to be newly displaced," the WHO chief continued. "There is also significant distrust of outside authorities among the local population. In the past week, there have been two security incidents at health facilities."
"WHO is fully committed to working under the leadership of the governments of DRC and Uganda, side by side with Africa [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and all other partners," Tedros added. "We will not rest until we bring this outbreak under control."
Ebola—which typically kills between 25% and 90% of infected people, depending upon the strain of the virus and quality of available medical care—causes widespread and often catastrophic damage to the body’s blood vessels, immune system, and organs.
Critics say US President Donald Trump's ideologically driven decision to withdraw the US from the WHO, his administration's dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and reduced funding for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's global public health efforts have adversely affected the response to the current Ebola epidemic, compared with 2014 and 2019 outbreaks.
After US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that the WHO was "a little late" in identifying new Ebola infections, Tedros retorted that "we don’t replace the country’s work, we only support them," and suggested that Rubio's comments could be rooted in "a lack of understanding" of the agency and countries' responsibilities.
While Rubio said that “our number-one objective on Ebola, before anything else... has to be, we can’t have it affect the United States,” public health experts warn that Trump administration actions could make it more likely that the virus will make its way to the country.
There is currently no confirmed CDC director, Food and Drug Administration commissioner, or surgeon general.
Taking aim at Trump's evisceration of key public health agencies and programs, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said last week: “Ebola does not wait for bureaucratic reorganizations. It spreads when surveillance systems are weakened, health workers are laid off, clinics lack protective equipment, and communities lose the trusted partners who help detect and contain outbreaks before they become public health emergencies."
"This is the perfect storm President Trump created," she continued. "He recklessly dismantled USAID, withheld and slashed other United States assistance to the region, fired critical staff, and created global health chaos. This is not efficiency. It is dangerous neglect."
"The United States spent years building the relationships, supply chains, laboratories, and community health networks that help stop deadly diseases at their source," DeLauro added. "The Trump administration tore into that capacity and now wants to pretend the consequences were unforeseeable.”
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Warning of US Unreliability and Israeli 'Sabotage,' Iran Refutes Trump Claim of Peace Deal
"We have reached a conclusion on a large portion of the issues under discussion," said an Iranian spokesperson. "But to say that this means the signing of an agreement is imminent—no one can make such a claim.”
May 25, 2026
Officials in Tehran on Monday swatted down President Donald Trump's assertion that an agreement to end the nearly three-month Iran War was imminent, citing frequently shifting US positions and Israeli "sabotage" as obstacles during ongoing talks.
“It is correct to say that we have reached a conclusion on a large portion of the issues under discussion," Iran Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said during a press briefing. "But to say that this means the signing of an agreement is imminent—no one can make such a claim.”
Trump tempered his own Saturday claim that a peace deal had "been largely negotiated" with Tehran, "subject to finalization."
"Negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran are proceeding nicely!" the president said Monday on his Truth Social platform. "It will only be a Great Deal for all or, no Deal at all—Back to the Battlefront and shooting, but bigger and stronger than ever before—And nobody wants that!"
A 14-point memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran reportedly contains a ceasefire and 30-day negotiation period for a broader agreement, reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, easing or lifting the US naval blockade on Iran, unfreezing Iranian state assets abroad, relief from US sanctions, and restrictions on Iranian nuclear development.
Naming countries including Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan, Trump wrote that "after all the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together, it should be mandatory that all of these Countries, at a minimum, simultaneously sign onto the Abraham Accords," the US-brokered normalization pacts between the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, Kazakhstan, and Israel that the Palestinian writer Karim Kattan called "a fever dream of dictators."
Trump suggested that Iran could also normalize relations with Israel by signing the Abraham Accords and said that "it would be an Honor to have them also be part of this unparalleled World Coalition."
However, Baghaei threw cold water on Trump's optimism, stressing Monday that “the focus of the negotiations is on ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon," and that this critical point is "one of the core elements of understanding in any agreement."
What negotiators aren't discussing at this time, according to both sides, is ending Iran's nuclear development.
"The focus of the negotiations is on ending the war, and at this stage we are not discussing nuclear issues," Baghaei said.
Also not under current discussion is the future management of the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranian-controlled maritime chokepoint through which around 20% of the world's oil is shipped.
"How this region should be managed concerns the littoral states," Baghaei said, referring to Iran and Oman. "We understand that the security of the Strait of Hormuz is a concern for the entire world."
Baghaei affirmed that negotiations on the 14-point memorandum of understanding would continue over the next two months, but that the US blockade of Iranian ports and shipping "must stop."
According to Iranian state media outlet Press TV, Baghaei "criticized the inconsistency in US policymaking, saying contradictory positions within short periods complicate negotiations."
A major sticking point in the talks is Iran's insistence that any agreement to end hostilities must also include an end to Israel's attacks on Lebanon, which have killed or wounded more than 12,000 people, according to officials there. After the current Pakistan-brokered ceasefire took effect on April 7, Israel responded by escalating its war on Lebanon, killing or wounding more than 1,400 people, many of them civilians, over a 24-hour period.
Baghaei said Monday that "one should expect nothing from Israel except the sabotage of any process."
It's not just Israel; Iranian, Pakistani, and Omani negotiators have accused US officials of blowing up previous Iran peace talks when they were on the verge of success.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Sunday that while he supports the US effort to end the war, "President Trump and I agreed that any final agreement with Iran must eliminate the nuclear danger."
Israeli and US intelligence agencies have said for decades—including under Trump—that Iran is not trying to build nuclear weapons and stopped trying to do so in the early 2000s.
Pro-war Republican US lawmakers joined many Israeli leaders in both government and the opposition in expressing alarm over a potential peace deal that is widely viewed as a major win for Iran.
"Details of the deal between the United States and Iran are so disturbing," Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said Monday in West Jerusalem. "The deal is bad for Israel, bad for the region, bad for the citizens of Iran."
"Netanyahu has failed to achieve every single one of the war's objectives as he himself defined them," he added.
Some US Congressional Democrats also said the outcome of the illegal US-Israeli war of choice is likely to favor Iran, even as airstrikes have killed or wounded more than 30,000 Iranians, many of them civilians, according to the country's Ministry of Health.
"If this deal with Iran is real, I will welcome it because every day this insane war goes on, America gets weaker," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Sunday. "The priority is to end the war—now. But make no mistake: These are Iran’s terms. Our nation emerges humiliated."
"The deal is basically this: We give Iran billions to get back to where we were before the war. And reports suggest the deal might codify Iran’s right to control the strait," he continued. "There are reports there may be a tiny nuclear concession from Iran in the deal and if so, great. But I doubt it—they are most likely postponing all the nuclear issues."
"But a promise to ship out enriched uranium (the reported concession) was also in [Former President Barack] Obama’s deal (as well as a lot of other things Trump will never get)," the senator noted, referring to the landmark Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—also known as the Iran nuclear deal—that Trump unilaterally abrogated during his first term.
"And now that we are dropping sanctions, we have less leverage to get them to give more in future negotiations," Murphy said. "And just remember, Trump hasn’t accomplished ANY of his constantly shifting goals. Iran still has its ballistic missile and drone program. They still have a navy that can close the strait. A hardline regime is still in charge."
"Of course, none of those things could be accomplished by an air campaign—which is why so many of us opposed this war," he added. "And now the new regime is emboldened. They took our best shot and beat us. Iran emerges more powerful."
Iranian leaders underscored their readiness to continue the fight should negotiations fail.
"Look, Americans talk too much and keep changing their story by the minute," Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters Commander Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi said Monday. "We've said it many times before: On the battlefield, we'll show what we're capable of."
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