Search Results for: BID

Driven by fear and hate: Why Trump promotes the delusion that White people are victims of racism

Authoritarian governments are drawn from and always represent, first and foremost, the interests of the majority group within their country. Christians in 1933 Germany. Orthodox Slavs in Russia. Hindus in India. Whites in America. Authoritarian leaders bind themselves to these groups by defining members of minority groups as “the enemy” of the larger majority, demonizing them and subjecting them to economic and physical brutality under the nation’s laws. This is exactly the dynamic playing out right now in the nearly-all-White GOP. They have an extensive plan to exploit charges of “racism against White people” to seize control of the...

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Fortress Russia: Putin managed to mute the impact of sanctions with help from friends like China and Iran

By Keith A. Preble, Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science, Miami University; Charmaine N. Willis, Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science, Skidmore College Almost two years after the West responded to the Russian invasion in Ukraine with a blistering array of sanctions, a fresh round of financial measures was announced by the Biden administration on February 23, 2024. The new sanctions, imposed following the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, raised the number of individuals and entities now targeted by the U.S. to more than 2,000. These measures have run the gamut, from targeted sanctions against President Vladimir...

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China surges equipment sales with Russia to help its illegal war in Ukraine according to U.S. intelligence

China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow in turn is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for use in its war against Ukraine, according to a U.S. assessment. Two senior Biden administration officials, who discussed the sensitive findings in April on the condition of anonymity, said that in 2023 about 90% of Russia’s microelectronics came from China, which Russia has used to make missiles, tanks and aircraft. Nearly 70% of Russia’s approximately $900 million in machine tool imports in the last quarter of 2023 came from China. Chinese...

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Out of words: Muslim leaders tire of inaction by the White House and its outreach on the war in Gaza

Osama Siblani was sipping his morning coffee at the office when his phone buzzed with a message from one of President Joe Biden’s advisers. As publisher of the Arab American News in Dearborn, Michigan, Siblani serves as an occasional sounding board, and the White House wanted to know what he thought of Biden’s recent conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. After months of mounting concerns over the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, Biden had publicly, albeit vaguely, threatened to cut U.S. assistance to Israel’s military operations in the Hamas-controlled territory. “This is baby steps,” Siblani said he responded....

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Three Abu Ghraib survivors hope for justice from U.S. court twenty years after their abuse

Twenty years ago, photos of abused prisoners and smiling U.S. soldiers guarding them at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison were released, shocking the world. Now, three survivors of Abu Ghraib will finally get their day in U.S. court against the military contractor they hold responsible for their mistreatment. The trial began in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, and was be the first time that Abu Ghraib survivors were able to bring their claims of torture to a U.S. jury, said Baher Azmy, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights representing the plaintiffs. The defendant in the civil suit, CACI,...

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Response by cities to influx of migrants stirs simmering frustrations among Black residents

The closure of Wadsworth Elementary School in 2013 was a blow to residents of the majority-Black neighborhood it served, symbolizing a city indifferent to their interests. So when the city reopened Wadsworth last year to shelter hundreds of migrants, without seeking community input, it added insult to injury. Across Chicago, Black residents are frustrated that long-standing needs are not being met while the city’s newly arrived are cared for with a sense of urgency, and with their tax dollars. “Our voices are not valued nor heard,” says Genesis Young, a lifelong Chicagoan who lives near Wadsworth. Chicago is one...

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