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San Jose, CA – On December 14, San Jose Against War gathered dozens of people to commemorate International Human Rights Day. The U.S. has been a primary facilitator of human rights violations, including selling weapons to Israel, bombing fisherpeople off the coast of Venezuela, and a host of sanctions imposed on countries striving for national sovereignty.

Protesters held picket signs reading, “San Jose divest from genocide,” “U.S. hands off Venezuela” and “Stop the deportations.”

Philip Nguyen, co-chair of San Jose Against War, said to the crowd that the struggles are connected and that human rights such as “Food, housing, healthcare, education are a second priority for the ruling class; second only to the profit motive especially through war profiteers!”

Nguyen continued by elevating San Jose Against War’s divestment campaign targeting the city of San Jose saying, “The precedent is there – Hayward and Richmond have divested from Israel! Dublin and Alameda County have already passed an ethical investment policy. Now, it is time for San Jose to pass theirs as well.”

Drusie Kazanova of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization told the crowd, “From Palestine to Venezuela, people are fighting for self-determination and liberation from the chains of imperialism. And here at home, from San Jose, to Los Angeles, to Chicago, to Portland, we are fighting for our liberation from the very same oppressors, the imperialist class!”

Lyla Salinas, member of Community Service Organization San Jose, highlighted Trump’s year full of human rights violations including, but not limited to, deportations, saying that, “Trump continues to push a racist agenda aimed at oppressing immigrants and Chicanos. We say no more!”

Salinas continued, “Trump’s administration has continued his attacks on women, trans and queer people, Black people, students, on workers, on Palestine and now on Venezuela. We must not let this stand!”

Megan Sweet, member of Students for a Democratic Society at San Jose State University addressed the crowd, saying, “The people of Venezuela cannot wait for suggestions or proposals, they need the people from within the belly of the beast to rise up and demand from their government: ‘Hands off Venezuela!’”

Sweet said that SDS at SJSU continues their campaign to demand the school administration disclose their investment portfolio, divest from all corporations that facilitate human rights violations and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and to cut ties with Lockheed Martin.

The crowd marched up the busy Market Street and along the annual Christmas in the Park installation, chanting to the tune of Jingle Bells, “Palestine, Palestine. Free, free Palestine! From the river to the sea ‘til Palestine is free!”

#SanJoseCA #CA #AntiWarMovement #ImmigrantsRights #CSOSJ #SJAW

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From Fight Back! News via This RSS Feed.

Congressional Democrats on Saturday pressed US Attorney General Pam Bondi for answers regarding the apparent removal of a photo showing President Donald Trump surrounded by young female models from Friday's Department of Justice release of files related to the late convicted child sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.

Amid the heavily redacted documents in Friday's DOJ release was a photo of a desk with an open drawer containing multiple photos of Trump, including one of him with Epstein and convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell and another of him with the models.

However, the photo—labeled EFTA00000468 in the DOJ's Epstein Library—was no longer on the site as of Saturday morning.

"This photo, file 468, from the Epstein files that includes Donald Trump, has apparently now been removed from the DOJ release," Democrats on the House Oversight Committee noted in a Bluesky post. "AG Bondi, is this true? What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public."

This photo, file 468, from the Epstein files that includes Donald Trump has apparently now been removed from the DOJ release.AG Bondi, is this true? What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public.

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— Oversight Dems (@oversightdemocrats.house.gov) December 20, 2025 at 9:30 AM

Numerous critics have accused the Trump administration of a cover-up due to the DOJ's failure to meet a Friday deadline to release all Epstein-related documents and heavy redactions—including documents of 100 pages or more that are completely blacked out—to many of the files.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche responded to the criticism by claiming that "the only redactions being applied to the documents are those required by law—full stop."

"Consistent with the statute and applicable laws, we are not redacting the names of individuals or politicians unless they are a victim," he added.

Earlier this year, officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation reportedly redacted Trump's name from its file on Epstein, who was the president's longtime former friend and who died in 2019 in a New York City jail cell under mysterious circumstances officially called suicide while facing federal child sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.

Trump has not been accused of any crimes in connection with Epstein.

House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said during a Friday CNN interview that the DOJ only released about 10% of the full Epstein files.

The DOJ is breaking the law by not releasing the full Epstein files. This is not transparency. This is just more coverup by Donald Trump and Pam Bondi. They need to release all the files, NOW.

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— Congressman Robert Garcia (@robertgarcia.house.gov) December 19, 2025 at 5:06 PM

"The DOJ has had months and hundreds of agents to put these files together, and yet entire documents are redacted—from the first word to the last," Garcia said on X. "What are they hiding? The American public deserves transparency. Release all the files now!"

In a joint statement Friday, Garcia and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said, "We are now examining all legal options in the face of this violation of federal law."

"The survivors of this nightmare deserve justice, the co-conspirators must be held accountable, and the American people deserve complete transparency from DOJ," they added.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—who along with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law by Trump last month and required the release of all Epstein materials by December 19—said in a video published after Friday's document dump that he and Massie "are exploring all options" to hold administration officials accountable.

"It can be the impeachment of people at Justice, inherent contempt, or referring for prosecution those who are obstructing justice," he added.

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From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

US-led diplomatic meeting discusses implementation of “phase two” of ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, framing the first phase as a success, despite ongoing deadly Israeli violations.

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From Presstv via This RSS Feed.

Over the last several years, many red states have banned gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Since Trump returned to power, that campaign has shifted to blue states, with the administration threatening hospitals and healthcare systems with the loss of federal funding unless they stopped providing care. This week, those threats escalated sharply: a new federal rule, now in its public…

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From Truthout via This RSS Feed.

In late September, Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) stopped Jose Bonilla Lopez, a gardener who lived in the city’s northwest. According to a police report, it was a case of mistaken identity. Instead of releasing him, they turned him over to masked federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, who seized him as neighbors chanted for his freedom.

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From Truthout via This RSS Feed.

The sight of a cloud-covered sky signaling the threat of chilling rain has become a nightmare for thousands of displaced families in Gaza — particularly those who have set up their tents along the beach, as the sea level rises due to heavy rainfall. Families have been desperately trying to protect themselves from drowning by building sand barriers around their tents using shovels…

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From Truthout via This RSS Feed.

Four months have passed since a Louisiana oil facility burst apart, spewing a dense black sludge that drifted across homes, farms, and waterways as far as 50 miles away. Since then, the U.S. Department of Justice and Louisiana environmental regulators have filed a sweeping lawsuit against Smitty’s Supply, the company that ran the facility storing oil and vehicle lubricants.

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From Truthout via This RSS Feed.

Border Patrol’s high-profile immigration crackdowns in North Carolina and Louisiana over the last two months have brought fresh scrutiny to the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on immigration raids and arrests under the Trump administration. The massive spending bill pushed by Trump and passed by Congress this summer increased immigration enforcement by $170 billion…

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From Truthout via This RSS Feed.

Funerals were held Saturday in northern Gaza for six people, including children, massacred the previous day by Israeli tank fire during a wedding celebration at a school sheltering displaced people, as the number of Palestinians killed during the tenuous 10-week ceasefire rose to over 400.

On Friday, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank blasted the second floor of the Gaza Martyrs School, which was housing Palestinians displaced by the two-year war on Gaza in the al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City.

Al Jazeera and other news outlets reported that the attack occurred while people were celebrating a wedding.

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Al-Shifa Hospital director Mohammed Abou Salmiya said those slain included a 4-month-old infant, a 14-year-old girl, and two women. At least five others were injured in the attack.

"It was a safe area and a safe school and suddenly... they began firing shells without warning, targeting women, children and civilians," Abdullah Al-Nader—who lost relatives including 4-month-old Ahmed Al-Nader in the attack—told Agence France-Presse.

Witnesses said IDF troops subsequently blocked first responders including ambulances and civil defense personnel from reaching the site for over two hours.

"We gathered the remains of children, elderly, infants, women, and young people," Nafiz al-Nader, another relative of the infant and others killed in Friday's attack, told reporters. "Unfortunately, we called the ambulance and the civil defense, but they couldn't get by the Israeli army."

The IDF said that “during operational activity in the area of the Yellow Line in the northern Gaza Strip, a number of suspicious individuals were identified in command structures," and that "troops fired at the suspicious individuals to eliminate the threat."

The Yellow Line is a demarcation boundary between areas of Gaza under active Israeli occupation—more than half of the strip's territory, including most agricultural and strategic lands—and those under the control of Hamas.

"The claim of casualties in the area is familiar; the incident is under investigation," the IDF said, adding that it "regrets any harm to uninvolved parties and acts as much as possible to minimize harm to them."

Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, more than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces, including approximately 9,500 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Classified IDF documents suggest that more than 80% of the Palestinians killed by Israeli forces were civilians.

Around 2 million Palestinians have also been displaced—on average, six times—starved, or sickened in the strip.

Gaza officials say at least 401 Palestinians have been killed since a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on October 10. Gaza's Government Media Office says Israel has violated the ceasefire at least 738 times.

"This isn't a truce, it's a bloodbath," Nafiz al-Nader told Agence France-Presse outside al-Shifa Hospital on Saturday.

Israel says Hamas broke the truce at least 32 times, with three IDF soldiers killed during the ceasefire.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where they are wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.

Israel is also facing a genocide case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice, also in The Hague. A United Nations commission, world leaders, Israeli and international human rights groups, jurists, and scholars from around the world have called Israel's war on Gaza a genocide.

Friday's massacre came as Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump's Mideast envoy, other senior US officials, and representatives of Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates met in Miami to discuss the second phase of Trump's peace plan, which includes the deployment of an international stabilization force, disarming Hamas, the withdrawal of IDF troops from the strip, and the establishment of a new government there.

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From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

The group’s spokesperson, Eduardo Gil, rememembered that the aggression 36 years ago left hundreds of civilian victims, devastated communities, and profound social and institutional scars that still mark the collective memory.

Gil, who is also the secretary general of the Trade Union Convergence, expressed that the Panamanian people must always remember, because this type of military aggression undermined all institutions, destroyed families, and divided entire communities.

This demonstration is also an act of protest and historical vindication, given that the invasion profoundly affected relations between Panama and the United States, he stated.

Meanwhile, at the official ceremonies commemorating the date at Jardin de Paz cemetery in Panama City, where the remains of many of the victims rest, the Archbishop of Panama, Jose Domingo Ulloa, stated that it is a date etched with pain in the nation’s memory: December 20, 1989, when Panama was wounded to its very core.

“That wound continues to challenge the national conscience and demands truth, memory, and justice,” he expressed.

The leader of the Catholic Church emphasized that honoring the fallen is not an act of resentment, but a patriotic duty.

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The post Panama: People demostrates against US military invasion of 1998 first appeared on Prensa Latina.

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From Prensa Latina via This RSS Feed.

Through his X account, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez denounced the US aggression, prolonged for more than six decades, as irrational, given its failure to achieve its objective of ending the Cuban revolutionary process.

“It is incomprehensible that the US administration has devoted so many years and mobilized enormous resources in a systematic effort to destroy and provoke chaos in a developing country, relatively small and with scarce natural resources, without, however, managing to subdue it or subdue its sovereignty,” he wrote.

Rodriguez denounced that the US policy against Cuba has had as its main goal the suppression, dismantling, and destruction of the national economy, using its economic and technological power and its coercive capacity on a global scale.

He emphasized that behind this persistent hostility lies the fear of the U.S. government—and particularly its highest-ranking diplomat—of the Caribbean nation’s “rebellious and undefeated example.”

Despite the blockade and pressure, the island has managed to consolidate its independence, promote broad social justice, achieve high levels of achievement in health, education, culture, sports, and scientific development, and exercise international solidarity on a scale unique among nations.

The Foreign Minister also highlighted the prestige and support the Caribbean country has earned internationally, precisely because of its ethical consistency, its resilience in the face of adversity, and its commitment to the peoples of the world.

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The post Cuba decries historical US aggression and slams Marco Rubio first appeared on Prensa Latina.

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From Prensa Latina via This RSS Feed.

At a press conference in Havana, Deputy Minister of Public Health (MINSAP) Carilda Pena also noted that there has been a significant decrease in the occurrence of severe and critical cases nationwide.

Over the last seven to ten weeks, Pena added, the Caribbean country has experienced a decrease in cases of nonspecific febrile syndrome, a characteristic symptom of arboviruses, or viruses transmitted by arthropods.

Cuba, she added, is experiencing an interesting epidemiological situation, as dengue fever circulates endemically.

During certain periods of the year, factors such as temperature, humidity, and the country’s geographical location, which characterize the climate, create favorable conditions for the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the main vector of the disease, to increase, consequently leading to a rise in cases.

In this regard, the doctor highlighted the decrease in mosquito infestation rates nationwide, below 50 percent, following a series of vector control actions carried out nationally with the participation of the population and other social actors to control the transmitting mosquito and thus reduce the number of cases.

According to Pena, the island nation saw a 12.3 percent decrease in diagnosed cases of chikungunya in the past week, while dengue cases fluctuated between 14 and 15 percent.

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The post Cuba in a favorable situation in its fight against arboviruses first appeared on Prensa Latina.

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