Russia to Load Fuel Into Iranian Nuclear Reactor
Iran is set to gain nuclear capability as Russia begins to load fuel into its Bushehr nuclear power station next week, Russian officials said Friday. In a move certain to anger the United States, uranium-packed fuel rods will be loaded into the reactor on 21 August, a process that should take about two to three weeks. Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, said: “This will be an irreversible step” toward nuclear energy, reported The Guardian UK.
Ground Zero Center Fuels Anti-Muslim Protests
The continuing battle over plans to build an Islamic cultural center near ground zero, the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, is fueling a tide of Islamophobia across the country. Civil rights activists and religious leaders warn that the “outrage” of a mosque close to the “hallowed ground” surrounding where the World Trade Center used to stand is bound up with the increasing acceptability of hate speech. They decried the political exploitation of the dispute before nationwide elections and said it went hand in hand with the hostility to immigrants and other forms of racism. Protesters have also opposed new Islam centers from Georgia to California, reported The Guardian UK, with a Florida church planning to burn a Quran on the anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks.
Labor Organization Warns of “Lost Generation”
Global unemployment for people aged 15 to 24 has reached a record high, according to the UN’s International Labor Organization (ILO), with a 7.8 million increase in unemployed youth from 2007. With global youth unemployment rates at 13 percent in 2009, 82 million young people, out of 620 million people in that age group, were unemployed. The ILO expects these figures to continue rising until 2011. In the US, the unemployment rate is 26.5 percent for teenagers and 15.7 percent for people between 20 and 24. The Washington Independent reported the ILO’s warning of the “risk of a crisis legacy of a ‘lost generation’ comprised of young people who have dropped out of the labor market, having lost all hope of being able to work for a decent living.”
Mexico’s Cartels Use Blog to Go Where Journalists Can’t; Asylum Precedent Set
As Mexico’s drug cartels keep journalists at bay, an alternate source has surfaced to keep the country informed about its deadly narco-wars: Blog del Narco, a site that generates hundreds of hits a day and more than three million a week. Authored by an anonymous university student in northern Mexico, the blog publishes information from drug cartels, law enforcement officials and tips from the public, reported The AP. The neutrality of the blog has been condemned as free publicity for the cartels, but has also become a go-to source for which streets to avoid during shootouts.
The Obama administration’s decision to grant asylum in a domestic abuse case has clarified the exacting standards that domestic abuse victims must meet to receive asylum, reported The New York Times. The Department of Homeland Security found that the woman, a Mexican national who was sexually abused and severely battered by her common-law husband, could not expect Mexican authorities to protect her from violence or murder from her attacker, at whose hands she suffered decades of abuse including rape and burning.
Conflict of Interest in Time’s Afghanistan Story
The journalist who wrote Time magazine’s contentious cover story about a young Afghan girl disfigured by the Taliban had failed to disclose a conflict of interest, reported The New York Observer. Baker’s husband, Tamim Samee, is an Afghan-American IT entrepreneur, a board member of an $100- million project advocating foreign investment in Afghanistan and runs two companies which have solicited and won development contracts with the assistance of the international military. Though Time has denied any conflict of interest, Samee has been quoted saying that the “opportunities are definitely here” thanks to “quite a bit of involvement from ISAF [NATO’s International Security Assistance Force] and coalition forces.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy