digdeeper

At least 21 people have died and many more have been injured after the derailment of an Iryo train with 300 passengers on board in Adamuz, which crossed into the adjacent track and collided with an AVE train on the Madrid-Huelva route.

As protests in Minnesota continue amid ongoing tension between demonstrators and federal agents in the area, Gov. Tim Walz and local safety officials announced Jan. 17 that the Minnesota National Guard has been "mobilized" and is on standby if needed.

In a Facebook post Jan. 17, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said that at "Gov. Walz's direction," the Minnesota National Guard was mobilized and was "staging to support local law enforcement and emergency management agencies."

The department further clarified in the post that troops had not been deployed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7364529

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/20625

Three British activists jailed for alleged involvement with the banned anti-genocide group Palestine Action ended their monthslong hunger strike late Wednesday after the UK government rejected a $2.7 billion contract for a subsidiary of Israel's largest weapons maker, Elbit Systems.

Prisoners for Palestine (P4P), which represents the hunger strikers, said that Hamran Ahmed, Heba Muraisi, and Lewie Chiaramello would accept food again. Muraisi hadn't eaten in 73 days, while Ahmed refused food for 66 days and Chiaramello, who has Type 1 diabetes, fasted every other day for 44 days.

"It is definitely a time for celebration," Chiaramello said Thursday. "A time to rejoice and to embrace our joy as revolution and as liberation."

P4P spokesperson Francesca Nadin told the New Arab that the hunger strike "will be remembered as a landmark moment of pure defiance; an embarrassment for the British state."

"Banning a group and imprisoning our comrades has backfired on the British state, direct action is alive, and the people will drive Elbit out of Britain for good," P4P added. "This is just the beginning. Even though the people who have just finished their hunger strike will have some time to recover, they’re also really motivated and want to continue doing as many things as possible."

— (@)

P4P said other hunger-striking members of the "Filton 24"—Teuta Hoxha, Jon Cink, Qesser Zuhrah, and Amu Gib—were also accepting food following the UK government's announcement that it would not award a military training contract to Elbit Systems' British subsidiary.

The end of the strike came as Ahmed, Muraisi, and Chiaramello suffered deteriorating health, with Muraisi telling a friend earlier this week that she was "dying."

Two dozen alleged Palestine Action activists are accused of breaking into Elbit Systems' research and development facility in Filton in 2024. Alleged members of the group also staged direct action protests targeting other UK weapons factories that export arms to Israel as it wages a genocidal war in Gaza.

P4P hailed the contract cancellation as "a resounding victory for the hunger strikers, who resisted with their incarcerated bodies to shed light on the role of Elbit Systems, Israel's largest weapons manufacturer, in the colonization and occupation of Palestine."

British lawmakers voted last year to ban Palestine Action as a terrorist group after some of its members allegedly vandalized aircraft at a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire. Members of the group also allegedly vandalized US President Donald Trump’s golf course in Turnberry, Scotland. Because of the vote, the nonviolent group is on the same legal footing in Britain as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Joining or supporting Palestine Action is punishable by up to 14 years behind bars.

Since Palestine Action was banned, more than 2,000 people have been arrested for supporting the group, often while simply holding signs.

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7371954

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/20757

On January 14, a few hours before the historic meeting in Washington between representatives from Greenland and Denmark and their US counterparts, JD Vance and Marco Rubio, Denmark and several of its NATO allies reinforced their military presence in Greenland and announced that more reinforcements would follow.

Some interpreted this move as pressure on the Trump Administration before the meeting. But anyone familiar with NATO-Denmark politics would recognize that appeasement with the empire is the more likely explanation.

At the Washington meeting, the US reiterated its firm demand for “having Greenland”: “It is clear that the president wants to conquer Greenland,” declared the Danish foreign minister after the meeting. The parties agreed to establish a “high level working group” in an effort to contain the crisis.

But the crisis continues, and its magnitude is huge.

The reality is that for over a year, the nearly 57,000 Greenlanders and their vast island have been turned into a bargaining chip, a pawn to be moved at will on the great chessboard of US imperialism.

Trump has repeatedly stated that the US seeks to control and own Greenland, by military means if necessary. The brutally effective aggression against Venezuela on January 3 and the kidnapping of the country’s head of state and his wife have erased any doubt that the White House administration is capable of putting Trump’s words into action.

The threat is imminent, and it is felt acutely among the Greenlandic people. The population is stuck in a vice, and the country’s politicians must fight hour-by-hour simply to get a seat at the table and be heard, not only by the US, but also by Denmark.

Greenland, or Kalaallit Nunaat, has been inhabited for 4500 years, and its people are linked to the Inuit communities across the Arctic. It is the world’s largest island, with an area larger than France, Germany, Spain, Great Britain, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, and Belgium combined. It became a Danish colony with the establishment of the state-owned Royal Greenland Trading Company in 1774. The Royal Greenland Trading Company functioned as the de facto colonial administration until the early 1900s, when trade and administration were separated. During this period, Danish companies extracted various minerals, including cryolite, iron, zinc, lead, and silver.

The colonial era formally ended in 1953, but political equality with Denmark did not follow. Following a referendum, so-called home rule was introduced in 1979, which was replaced in June 2009 by the current status of self-government. Under self-government, Greenlanders hold the rights to the island’s subsoil and the minerals found there. However, foreign and security policies remain decided in Denmark, which is why Greenland is considered NATO territory.

Greenland is not a member of the European Union. In a 1982 referendum, 53% of the Greenlandic people voted to leave the European Economic Community, now the EU. Today, Greenland is classified as one of the EU’s Overseas Countries and Territories.

In 1951, a secret agreement between the US government and Denmark’s envoy to the United States granted US military involvement in Greenland. The agreement was highly controversial and in detriment to official Danish policies at the time. Nevertheless, it remains in force today and has been repeatedly confirmed. In practice, it grants unlimited US military rights over Greenland.

Thus, for decades, the US has maintained several military facilities in Greenland. The history of these facilities includes forced evictions of Inuit families in 1953, the crash of an American B-52 plane carrying four atomic bombs in 1968, and other harms inflicted on the local population.

The Danish government repeatedly states that Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders and is not for sale. But in reality, Denmark has been selling off Greenland to the US for decades. “We already have a defense agreement between the Kingdom and the United States today, which gives the United States wide access to Greenland,” the Danish Prime Minister stated in an official statement earlier this week.

This raises the question: Why does the Trump Administration seek an annexation of Greenland, when the US empire already holds extensive rights over Greenland? The answer lies in a new security strategy and the demand for unquestioned and unlimited control over oil, control over minerals, and military dominance.

Greenland possesses at least 25 of the 34 minerals designated as “critical raw materials” by the European Commission. Greenland has significant deposits of rare earths, copper, nickel, zinc, gold, diamonds, iron ore, titanium, tungsten and uranium. Trump wants US companies, many of which have invested heavily in his re-election, to have unfettered access to Greenland’s mineral deposit resources.

Moreover, Greenland’s geographic position near the Arctic is important. Control over northern sea routes, such as the Northeast Passage, is becoming increasingly important as climate change advances. A fully controlled, militarized and rearmed Greenland is also intended to serve as an advanced base against both Russia and China. Beyond the prospect of super-profits, keeping socialist China far away from Greenland is a strategic goal for both the US and Denmark.

Until a few years ago, Greenland was undergoing a process of independent decision-making and freeing itself from neo-colonialism. But the current era of intensified imperialism emanating from the White House has caused a serious setback in Greenland’s ability to determine its own destiny. The threats and pressures are enormous.

It is so important to hold on to the principle of the right of nations to self-determination. How Greenland organizes its society, with whom it collaborates, and what alliances it enters to realise its self-determination in practice should be determined solely in Nuuk.

Lotte Rørtoft-Madsen is the chair of the Danish Communist Party. She was the editor-in-chief of Arbejderen.

peoplesThis article was produced by Globetrotter and No Cold War Perspectives.

The post Greenland on the chessboard of US imperialism appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7371980

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/20716

While New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago have all received significant attention when it comes to police use of surveillance technologies, the small city of New Orleans has for years been the laboratory for a sophisticated surveillance apparatus deployed by the city’s police department and other policing bodies.

Just last year, New Orleans was in the news as the city considered setting a new surveillance precedent in the United States. First, a privately run camera network, Project N.O.L.A., was exposed for deploying facial recognition technology, including “live use” (meaning Project N.O.L.A. was identifying people in real time as they walked through the city). All of this was done in close collaboration with the local police, despite these uses violating a 2022 ordinance that placed narrow limits on the use of facial recognition.

Then the city flirted with formally approving the use of live facial recognition technology, which would have been a first in the United States. If enacted, live facial recognition technology would allow police to identify individuals as they move about New Orleans in real time. All of this occurred in the months before the Trump administration deployed Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, wielding an array of surveillance technologies, to terrorize and kidnap New Orleans residents. Of course, New Orleans residents have organized and actively fought back against the police and their spying, offering lessons for organizers across the country.

Edith Romero, an organizer with Eye on Surveillance (EOS), spoke with Truthout about the history of Eye on Surveillance, Project NOLA, the use of facial recognition technology in New Orleans and why we should all be watching what’s happening there if we’re concerned about the growing surveillance state.

Source

From Truthout via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7373507

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/20476

Pauly Denetclaw
ICT

On Tuesday night, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cut $2 billion in mental health and addiction services.

“Let me make myself clear when I say that politics should never impact the work that we’re doing with our kids, and that’s what it did,” said Mitchelle Mitchell, director of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes’ education department.

Mental and behavioral health programs that primarily serve Indigenous people, from across the country, received emails stating that their grant funding through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration had been rescinded.

A handful of tribal nations received federal grant funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration for the 2025 fiscal year.

Nearly half a million was awarded to Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal Government in Wisconsin, Two Feathers Native American Family Services in California was awarded $3.6 million, Chinle Unified School District on the Navajo Nation in Arizona was awarded just over $3.5 million, Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe in Michigan was awarded a little over a $1 million, and the Pueblo of San Felipe in New Mexico was awarded $1.5 million.

This sent a shockwave through the Confederation Salish and Kootenai Tribes in western Montana and St. Francis Indian School in South Dakota who rely on these grants to provide mental health services to their nations’ children and teens.

On Thursday morning, they received an email that their grant funding had been restored, but staff remain worried about the future.

Mitchell described the whole experience as “traumatic.” Her department was informed by email that two grants, amounting to $2.75 million, had been rescinded.

“It was one of the hardest days of my career,” Mitchell, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, said. “To get the termination notice late at night without any warning. It was so unexpected. And then to have to come in (the next day) and tell staff that not only do we not have the funding, they don’t have jobs.”

The tribes’ Project Aware and Partnership for Success programs rely on federal grant funding. Project Aware contracts with tribal knowledge keepers, and has partnerships with three local public school districts. The Partnership for Success collaborates with the Boys and Girls Club of the Flathead Reservation.

Mitchell spent Jan. 14, personally calling all the program partners and contractors to tell them they would no longer be able to work with them or provide services to students.

“It broke a little piece of me doing that,” she said.

Five years ago, Mitchell wrote the grant proposal for Project Aware. It was a way to bring her three-tiered system of support rooted in Salish, Kootenai and Kalispel language and culture to the children in her community. Prior to Project Aware, she had applied for two other federal grants but wasn’t selected.

“This idea is putting culture into the school system,” Mitchell said. “It’s not to add beads and feathers to something. It’s to make sure that our tribal kids are thinking of other content areas (like math and science) through a tribal lens.”

The project is in its fifth year and has met every annual goal since it started, a point of pride for Mitchell.

“Our goal is to help our kids strengthen their sense of who they are, so that they’re healthy, well and resilient,” she said. “Then we just pull the rug out from underneath them, when we take that away. If I sound a little angry, it’s because I am. But, I’m so cognizant of the impact that we’re making, and this work is so important. We can’t let it stop.”

She has spent a lot of time creating strong partnerships with the local school districts and traditional knowledge keepers. The project is in a unique position to bring hands-on cultural learning to three different school districts in rural, western Montana.

Students who were at-risk of not graduating high school participate daily in cultural activities through their immersion school. Some of the students said it was one of the only reasons they came to school. They looked forward to tanning hide, learning how to sew ribbon skirts, beading, going outside to learn about traditional plants, and speaking their language.

Every year, they have Culture Camp on Flathead Lake. Last year over 600 students and their family members participated. Every day, there are up to 30 different cultural activities participants can choose to do. There’s no time limit and the curriculum is self-directed.

“We were right, when we help our kids strengthen that sense of who they are as tribal people, then they’re more likely to choose things that cause less harm for themselves or help encourage their friends to,” Mitchell said. “When they learn how to do something that’s culturally or tribally-related, then they can lean into that in times of trouble.”

The St. Francis Indian School in rural, southern South Dakota also received funding to create a Project Aware. The school’s population is 98 percent American Indian or Alaska Native. The project serves more than 600 students from kindergarten through 12th grade. They receive a little over $1 million a year to provide culturally relevant programming and mental health services.

Nearly six years ago, a student at St. Francis Indian School died by suicide, and since the school has been working diligently on suicide prevention. One of the main aspects of the school’s Project Aware is suicide prevention.

Over the last three years, the project has been able to create a strong mental health response team.

“They are able to connect with students and make sure that each student is able to explain and express the needs that they have, whether it’s in the classroom or at home,” Beckey Eddie-Moosman, director of the school’s mental health department, said.

On Jan. 14, Eddie-Moosman and Maria Valandra, one of the school’s counselors, were trying to figure out what grants could pay for at least the rest of the school year. These services are vital for the health of students.

“Still having kids that need to come to you while you’re trying not to literally panic,” Valandra said. “(On Wednesday) we had school and we had kids who still, we’re like, ‘Hey, I come to school because this is my safe place. This is where I get my routine and structure. These are the people who usually are right here for me,'”

After a stressful day, Valandra was doomscrolling on social media when she came across an article that said mental health grant funding would be restored. This led to another restless night worrying about whether it was true.

On Thursday morning, Eddie-Moosman and Valandra waited for an email stating their grant money had been restored. At 10 a.m., they got the “good news.” It was a relief.

The school administration had affirmed they were committed to keeping the mental health services available to students.

This is not the case for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. If their federal grant funding gets rescinded, those programs will no longer be available. This has caused a lot of stress for staff who are worried about having stable employment.

“We’re on guard now. Could this happen again? Could they figure out how to do it in a way that doesn’t have to be rescinded?” Mitchell said. “That is a scary way to do your work every day, because of it I actually have one of my employees who works on Project Aware that has an interview for a different job on Friday. They can’t live like this and I don’t blame them.”

The post Millions in mental health funding for Indigenous communities restored appeared first on ICT.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7381334

Old america is also looking more like this red border

Resettle all crackers to virginia

Paywall? https://archive.is/OqOdb

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/41811574

Best quote:

"If Hitler came back to see this group of mixed race young gay men chanting his name he would immediately kill himself a second time,”