We have some disgusting news. The US Justice Department issued the following yesterday:
Luxury handbag company Gzuniga Ltd., its founder Nancy Teresa Gonzalez de Barberi and Gonzalez’s associate Mauricio Giraldo were sentenced to prison today for illegally importing merchandise from Colombia to the United States that was made from protected wildlife. All had previously pleaded guilty.
The caiman and python species are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), to which both the United States and Colombia are signatories.
“The United States signed on to CITES in an effort to help protect threatened and endangered species here and abroad from trafficking,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “We will not tolerate illegal smuggling. We appreciate the efforts of our many federal and international partners who have helped with the investigation, extradition and prosecution of this case.”
“The United States, in company with the international community, has established a system for overseeing the trafficking in protected species of wildlife. That system relies on a system of permits and oversight by many agencies and demands strict compliance by all those engaged in such trade,” said U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida. “The press of business, production deadlines or other economic factors are not justification for anyone to knowingly flout the system and attempt to write their own exceptions to wildlife trafficking laws. In cooperation with our international partners, our Office will continue to require strict adherence to laws that protect our endangered species.”
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is deeply committed to combatting wildlife trafficking in all its forms. The Gonzalez case underscores the importance of robust collaboration with federal and international partners to disrupt illegal wildlife trade networks,” said Assistant Director Edward Grace of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) Office of Law Enforcement. “This investigation uncovered a multi-year scheme that involved paid couriers smuggling undeclared handbags made of CITES-protected reptile skins into the U.S. to be sold for thousands of dollars. The Service will continue to seek justice for protected species exploited for profit, and we will hold accountable those who seek to circumvent international controls meant to regulate their sustainable trade.”
An indictment charged Gzuniga, Gonzalez, Giraldo and Jaramillo with one count of conspiracy and two counts of smuggling for illegally importing designer handbags made from caiman and python skin from February 2016 to April 2019.
The conspirators brought hundreds of designer purses, handbags and totes into the United States by enlisting friends, relatives and even employees of Gonzalez’s manufacturing company in Colombia to wear the designer handbags or put them in their luggage while traveling on passenger airlines. Once in the United States, the bags were delivered or shipped to the Gzuniga showroom New York to be displayed and sold.
The USFWS Office of Law Enforcement in Valley Stream, New York, investigated the case, with the assistance of the Miami Resident Agent in Charge Office of USFWS. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs and the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section (NDDS) Judicial Attaché Office in Bogotá, Colombia, provided valuable assistance with securing the arrest and extradition of Gonzalez, Giraldo and Jaramillo. The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations were instrumental in supporting the case. The United States also thanks Colombian law enforcement authorities for their valuable assistance and close collaboration and partnership.
Senior Trial Attorney R.J. Powers of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald for the Southern District of Florida are prosecuting the case.
A Colombian designer whose creations were coveted by celebrities around the globe — from pop star Britney Spears to cast members of HBO’s hit series “Sex and the City” — was sentenced to 18 months in prison Monday after being convicted of illegally shipping luxury handbags made of exotic reptile skins through Miami to New York.
Since she had already been incarcerated for most of that time in her homeland before being extradited to the United States last August, Nancy Teresa Gonzalez de Barberi will only have to spend one to two months in prison in this country.
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Students protesting the Israel-Gaza war continued to be confronted by police on Monday night, as a New York University encampment was cleared by the NYPD and students barricaded themselves inside a building at California State Polytechnic University at Humboldt, following dozens of arrests at Yale University.
College campuses across the country have seen an uptick in antiwar demonstrations in recent days, including students in tents encampments. Some of those, including at Columbia on Thursday and NYU on Monday night, were cleared by police called in at the request of the institutions.
The ruling class has responded to the rapid spread of protests with a growing police state crackdown. By Monday morning, Yale University police had arrested 47 protesters and charged them with criminal trespass. On Monday evening, NYPD riot police descended upon the NYU protest encampment at Gould Plaza outside the Stern School of Business and arrested dozens of student and faculty protesters. Live-streamed videos of the arrests are circulating widely on social media. According to social media reports, at least 300 people marched to the nearby police precinct to demand the release of the students and faculty members arrested. NYPD officers have occupied Gould Plaza. As of this writing, hundreds were protesting the arrests.
The crackdown was clearly coordinated at the highest levels of the state, with the Democratic Party and far-right Republicans. On Sunday, Joe Biden and the White House issued statements backing the assault on free speech on campuses. On Monday, New York state Governor Kathy Hochul gave a duplicitous video address outside of the main Columbia campus which was accompanied by the statement that “[t]he recent harassment and rhetoric is vile and abhorrent. Every student deserves to be safe.”
Repeating
the slanderous equation of anti-genocide protests with “antisemitism”
that now forms the basis for the persecution of anti-war protesters,
many of whom are Jewish, Hochul implied the issues at play on the
Columbia campus were that of religious persecution. She said, “this is a
country founded on people searching for religious freedom, fleeing
religious persecution elsewhere. No one here on college campuses should
feel that they are being persecuted because of their religious beliefs.”
The
real antisemites are now being mobilized and promoted by the Democratic
Party and figures like Hochhul in the campaign to abolish free speech.
Last December, immediately following the McCarthyite House Committee on
Education and the Workforce Committee hearings led by the fascistic
Republican New York Representative Elise Stefanik which ousted
University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) Liz Magill, Hochul praised the
hearings and threatened to withdraw funding from public universities
which did not similarly crack down on pro-Palestinian speech.
A range of student groups are behind the protests. At Columbia, the so-called “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” has been organised by the student-led coalition, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.
The protesters are calling for Columbia to divest from corporations that profit from Israel’s war on Gaza. The CUAD website lists additional demands, calling for more financial transparency about Columbia’s investments, and the severing of academic ties and collaborations with Israeli universities and programmes. The groups are also calling for a complete ceasefire in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin here in New York, where Columbia University has canceled in-person classes today as campus protests over Israel’s war on Gaza enter a sixth day. Classes will be held online today. The protests have swelled after the arrest last week of over 100 students who had set up an encampment to call for the school to divest from Israel. Organizers say at least 50 students have been suspended from Barnard, 35 from Columbia. A growing number of Columbia and Barnard alumni, employees and guest speakers have also publicly condemned or announced they’re boycotting the prestigious institutions.
Over the weekend, solidarity protests and encampments also began on other college campuses here in New York City at NYU, at The New School, as well as across the country, including at Yale, MIT, Tufts, Vanderbilt and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
We’re joined right now by two guests. In a moment we’ll speak with Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani, who addressed students participating in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on Columbia’s campus multiple times last week. But we begin with Jude Taha, Palestinian Jordanian journalist and journalism student at Columbia University Journalism School. She’s on Columbia’s campus here in New York, where the student-led Gaza Solidarity Encampment is still underway. She’s joining us from her school at Columbia Journalism School right now.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Jude. Can you lay out what’s happened over the weekend, what are people’s demands, and the fact that today, the president — who all this happened a day after she testified before Congress — has shut down the university for in-person classes, all online today?
JUDE TAHA: Thank you for having me.
Right now what we’re seeing at Columbia is an unprecedented act of solidarity, set up by students who initially set it up on the South Lawn and then faced violent arrests and a lot of repression from administration and ended up moving to the opposing lawn. And what we’re seeing right now is just swaths of people, initially without tents, sleeping on the ground, in sleeping bags, some of them without sleeping bags, on grass, outside in the cold, under the rain.
And what we’re seeing is just they have three solid demands. The first is divestment. The second is for Columbia to disclose their financial investments and the financial records, especially in relation to their workings with Israel. And the third is amnesty toward students. The students have been very clear in the fact that they are not moving, that they are very set in their demands.
Some negotiations are happening, from what I’ve heard from organizers at the encampment. However, nothing has been announced yet. I know there are a few things that came up yesterday that were a bit surprising, which was the repitching of the tents. Organizers have said that the administration is aware of the tents; however, that does not necessarily mean that they agree. Organizers held a town hall last night where they emphasized that, obviously, with an act of solidarity and act of protest as large as this, to take over the space in the lawn comes a level of risk. And they are very comfortable in that. They are making sure everyone is aware. There is transparency, and there’s just a community being built. And they are very clear in their demands. They have three top demands, first and furthermost which is divestment.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Jude, if you can talk about the whole progression of what happened, from Shafik, President Shafik, testifying before Congress to these, I won’t say “unprecedented,” arrests — over a hundred students were arrested — but since, I think, 1968, the protests against the Vietnam War?
JUDE TAHA: I think what had happened initially was students showed up at the lawn at around 4:30 a.m. They are members of a solidarity group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which is made up of many student groups. And they had been planning this for months, according to my interviews with organizers. They studied the 1968 protests. They studied the tactics used. And they were prepared to go. Initially, we did not know this as outsiders. The tents were set up, and a lot of people were caught off guard. But this has been something that the organizers have planned for, especially in relation to Minouche Shafik’s hearing. But what happened is, after they set up tents, we quickly saw an outpour of support. Picket lines were forming. Students were joining from outside. And initially what I saw to be like 40 to 50 students is now, on the opposite lawn, nearly a hundred to a hundred students coming in and out of the encampment.
The arrests were shocking. However, what was truly inspiring to see is that students did not let that deter them. Shortly after the arrests were carried out and after protests were surrounding the lawn where the original encampment was at, students starting jumping into the opposing lawn and pitching up tents there. And this is a reaction not only to Columbia’s silencing of students and the fact that students feel unheard, uncared for and not represented well by the institution that they attend, but this is also, very much so, focused towards the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the way the students are feeling, seeing the massacres happen every day, with nearly over 30,000 people have been killed. Their frustration is that they are complicit in this and their university is complicit in this. And they want to make sure that their voices are heard. And they want to make sure that what they’re asking is met. And so, this is inspired by the 1968 protests. They just decided to follow course.
AMY GOODMAN: So, something unusual was tweeted on Friday. You’re speaking to us from the Columbia J School, from the Columbia Journalism School.
JUDE TAHA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: I had just been at the protest after the arrests, the encampment on Thursday night. To say the least, it was not easy for anyone to get in who did not have a student ID. Even that won’t get you in right now. It was a true lockdown. And the next morning, at about 10:00, where you are, the Columbia J School tweeted, “Columbia Journalism School is committed to a free press. If you are a credentialed member of the media and have been denied access to campus, please send us a DM. We will facilitate access to campus.” This is a direct rebuke of the president, of President Shafik?
JUDE TAHA: I cannot — I cannot speak to that. I do know that our dean, Jelani Cobb, is very committed to having a space where freedom of press can thrive. And I know that Dean Cobb has been incredibly supportive of the students who have been reporting on this and is very interested in ensuring that media has access and that information is being transferred clearly and accurately. Whether it is a direct rebuke, that is unfortunately not something I am aware of.
However, I will say that since then, facilitating entrance has been increasingly challenging. I am not sure of the dynamics of the journalism school. I have been speaking with multiple journalists who are coming in to cover the encampment, and increasingly it’s been harder and harder to try and get them in. There has not been really any clear guidelines that I can share about what does that entail for the journalism school to facilitate, but what I have also been seeing is people are believing that the facilitation through the journalism school means access to the encampment. And I would like to emphasize the encampment is not facilitating with the journalism school. It is an entity that is functioning on its own. And it is a living space as much as it is, you know, a private space within the university. Students are very vulnerable there. They’re also very hesitant to speak to media. But while they do believe that the media presence is important, there has been this notion of belief that the journalism is facilitating access into the encampment, which is not true. The journalism school is helping facilitate entrance into campus for credentialed press.
AMY GOODMAN: And if you also can talk about what the police chief said in response to the Columbia president? New York Police Chief John Chell said President Shafik identified the demonstration as a “clear and present danger,” but that officers found the students to be peaceful and cooperative, Shafik warning all students participating in the encampment would be suspended. And the level of suspensions, Jude, if you can talk about that, both at Columbia and even more at Barnard, and what exactly this means? Students are locked out of their rooms almost immediately and lose their meal cards in addition to everything else?
JUDE TAHA: Yeah. To be quite honest, we have — me and a few other journalists have been reporting on this for months now. We are familiar with these students. We are familiar with these demands. And we were present from day one, from nearly 6:00 in the morning, in the original encampment. And there was no instance of violence that I am able to report. The protesters were incredibly peaceful. Their demands are largely focused on divestment. And they have community guidelines that they are asking everyone who is entering the encampment to abide by. And the community guidelines are to ensure safety, are to ensure that everyone feels comfortable in the space and to ensure that Gaza is being centered first.
In relation to what the police chief said, I have to agree that I was not able to identify any violence or any danger that is present from these students, especially right now in the second encampment, where there is a thriving community, where people are bringing food, blankets. Students are leaving their belongings, their personal belongings, for hours with no worry that they will be taken. There is no fear amongst them.
Therefore, it is truly an intimidation tactic, and the response that we have seen from President Minouche Shafik has been incredibly disheartening toward students. Students have been evicted. An organizer that I’ve spoken to yesterday is terrified. They are not comfortable walking out alone. They had to leave the state. They are being given 15 minutes to access their belongings. They are being suspended, with waiting for an appeal or waiting for a meeting with administration to understand the grounds of the suspension or what that entails. They are leaving students in limbo. The students do not feel supported. They do not know where they’re going. And it is incredibly disheartening and terrifying, for some are 18-, 19-year-olds, to be deserted by their campus.
And another thing is that the organizers have made it clear that this is an intimidation tactic by the administration, and especially in relation to President Shafik’s email that was sent at 1 a.m. last night. The organizers have stated that this is an intimidation tactic to try and scare people who are in the encampment out of their solidarity with the Gaza Solidarity Encampment and with the demands of the movement. But a lot of students are learning these risks, and they’re banding together and they’re standing together to demand amnesty. It is unclear why this is happening or the levels of suspension. Students who have been suspended but have not been evicted are concerned about when are they going to lose access to their housing. And students who have lost access to their housing were not given any clear instructions, as far as I know, for where to go next. So it is just this great limbo. And these students are sacrificing a lot for the movement and for the demands that they are asking for, but they are not being met with any support from administration or guidance. And it is unclear what President Shafik is citing when she says “danger.” And therefore, that is leaving a lot of organizers confused as to what is actually happening.
AMY GOODMAN: And among those arrested was Congressmember Ilhan Omar’s daughter, Isra Hirsi, both suspended and arrested. And finally, very quickly, before we go to professor Mamdani, the J school speaker for May 15th — and this is a long time away, so we’ll see what happens — is the Haaretz Israeli reporter Amira Hass, deeply critical of the occupation, of the war on Gaza, lived in Gaza, the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have lived there for years. Is that right?
JUDE TAHA: Yep, that is correct. As far as we know, that has not been changed. The speaker has been chosen for quite a long time now. And as far as I know, that has not been changed.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Jude Taha, I want to thank you for being with us.
Protests over the war in Gaza have taken hold at a handful of elite US universities as officials scramble to defuse demonstrations.
Police moved to break up an encampment at New York University (NYU) on Monday night, making a number of arrests.
Dozens of students were arrested at Yale earlier in the day, while Columbia University cancelled in-person classes.
The wave of demos has been marred by alleged antisemitic incidents, which have been condemned by the White House.
A pro-Palestinian protest at New York University resulted in multiple people being taken into custody on Monday night, the NYPD said.
The big picture: The latest incident of a university cracking down on demonstrations related to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza came hours after police arrested 45 people at Yale and Columbia University canceled in-person classes due to pro-Palestinian protests.
- Since New York City police arrested over 100 Gaza war protesters at Columbia last week, pro-Palestine encampments have also emerged at other campuses including Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Emerson College and Tufts University.
Details: Police could not immediately share how many people had been arrested or issued with summonses because the situation was ongoing, a New York City Police Department spokesperson told Axios over the phone.
A mass grave with more than 300 bodies has been uncovered at a hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, Gaza Civil Defense workers said, following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area earlier this month.
Col. Yamen Abu Suleiman, Director of Civil Defense in Khan Younis told CNN that 35 bodies had been discovered at the Nasser Medical Complex on Tuesday, bringing the total to 310. Some 73 bodies had been discovered on Monday, Suleiman said.
Suleiman alleged that some of the bodies had been found with hands and feet tied, “and there were signs of field executions. We do not know if they were buried alive or executed. Most of the bodies are decomposed.”
The State Department’s annual human rights report cited several reported rights violations committed in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza in 2023 by parties including the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas militants before and after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks plunged the Middle East into heightened instability and violence.
The resulting conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip has had a “significant negative impact” on the human rights status in Israel, the report said. It cited credible reports of “unlawful killings” by both Hamas and the Israeli government.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that the State Department was continuing to assess allegations from human rights groups that Israeli forces have violated international law in Gaza but said Israel had shown it would hold its own people and institutions accountable.
“This is what separates democracies from other countries — the ability, the willingness, the determination to look at themselves,” he added.
Countries that have continued to suspend their funding of the United Nations' top relief agency in the occupied Palestinian territories were left with "no room" to justify their decision, said critics on Monday as an independent investigation into Israel's allegations against the organization revealed Israeli officials have ignored requests to provide evidence to support their claims.
Catherine Colonna, the former foreign minister of France, released her findings in a probe regarding Israel's claims that a significant number of employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) were members of terrorist groups.
Nearly three months after U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres commissioned the report, Colonna said Israel "has yet to provide supporting evidence" of its allegation that "a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations."
Colonna's findings were bolstered by an investigation led by the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Sweden, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights, which separately sought evidence from Israel.
"Israeli authorities have to date not provided any supporting evidence nor responded to letters from UNRWA in March, and again in April, requesting the names and supporting evidence that would enable UNRWA to open an investigation," said the Nordic groups.
The reports come nearly three months after Israel made its initial allegation that 12 UNRWA employees took part in the October 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, a claim that prompted the United States—the largest international funder of the agency, which subsists mainly on donations—to swiftly halt its funding. Israel also claimed that as many as 12% of UNRWA's employees were members of terrorist organizations.
As Common Dreamsreported at the time, Israel's announcement came hours after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a preliminary ruling that found Israel was "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza by relentlessly striking the enclave and blocking almost all humanitarian aid to its 2.3 million people.
The US State Department says there’s no way to safely evacuate hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Rafah as the Israeli military prepares a ground invasion.
“We don’t want to see Palestinians evacuated from Rafah unless it is to return to their homes. And we have made that quite clear to the government of Israel,” said spokesman Matthew Miller.
“We don’t think there’s any effective way to evacuate 1.4 million Palestinians. There’s no way to conduct an operation in Rafah that would not lead to inordinate civilian harm and would severely hamper the delivery of humanitarian assistance. And that’s the point that we continue to make to them.”
Gaza remains under assault. Day 200 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza's death toll rose to 34,183 on Tuesday morning after 32 people were killed in the previous 24 hours, the enclave's Health Ministry announced.Another 59 people were wounded, taking the total number of injured to 77,143." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:
-
-
-
-
He'll always be a failure6 hours ago
-
He will work for food6 hours ago
-
THIS JUST IN! A HALF-WIT OVER SHARES!6 hours ago
-
Weekend box office6 hours ago
-
-
That's why the con artist is a Trump6 hours ago
-
Chicken Pot Pie Bubble Up Casserole6 hours ago
