WASHINGTON: Human Rights Watch warned Wednesday that President Donald Trump was turning the United States into an authoritarian state as democracy declines globally to its lowest ebb in four decades.
Trump’s return to the White House has intensified a “downward spiral” on human rights that was already under pressure from Russia and China, the New York-based advocacy and research group said in its annual report.
“The rules-based international order is being crushed,” HRW said.
In the United States, the group said, Trump has shown “blatant disregard for human rights and egregious violations.”
In descriptions that would have been unthinkable in the US section of its previous annual reports, the group pointed to the deployment of masked, armed agents — the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency — which has carried out “hundreds of unnecessarily violent and abusive raids.”
“The administration’s racial and ethnic scapegoating, domestic deployment of National Guard forces in pretextual power grabs, repeated acts of retaliation against perceived political enemies and former officials now critical of him, as well as attempts to expand the coercive powers of the executive and neuter democratic checks and balances, underpin a decided shift toward authoritarianism in the US,” the report said.
Human Rights Watch repeated its finding that the United States engaged in enforced disappearances — a crime under international law — by sending 252 Venezuelan migrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
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US heading to ‘authoritarianism’, warns Human Rights Watch
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US heading to ‘authoritarianism’, warns Human Rights Watch
- HRW: US President Donald Trump has shown ‘blatant disregard for human rights and egregious violations’
In South Africa’s affluent Western Cape, farmers lose cattle to drought
- Drought in country’s south follows flooding in north
- Farmers try to adapt but lose livestock
KNYSNA: In South Africa’s most visited and affluent province, Western Cape, one of the worst droughts in living memory is drying up dams, scorching grass and killing livestock, prompting the government to declare a national emergency this month.
Scientists say climate change is causing worsening droughts in the province, which draws tourists to its vineyards, beaches and the lush slopes of Table Mountain above Cape Town, but lies on the edge of the advancing semi-desert Karoo. In 2015, a drought almost dried up the taps in the city; farmers say this one has been even more brutal than a decade ago.
Over the weekend, mixed-race couple Christian and Ilze Pienaar were distributing feed to keep their hungry cattle alive. One cow had recently starved to death, its bones visible through its skin.
“The drought before wasn’t this bad because there was still ... grazing,” Ilze, 40, told Reuters. “Now there’s nothing, the dams are dry ... (and) we’re spending all our money on feed.”
She said she’d lost 16 cattle and 13 sheep since January alone.
The drought, which has also ravaged parts of Eastern Cape and Northern Cape, comes weeks after floods blamed on climate change and cyclical La Niña weather washed out the northeastern part of South Africa and killed 200 people across the region.
“The intensity and duration of both droughts and floods in this corner of the world is increasing,” Anton Cartwright, an economist with the African Center for Cities, said.
“Farmers (here) are very good at adapting to weather (but) ... the weather is just becoming much less predictable,” he said. “Seasons aren’t occurring, starting, ending at the same time of the year. It’s probably going to get worse.”
(Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
Scientists say climate change is causing worsening droughts in the province, which draws tourists to its vineyards, beaches and the lush slopes of Table Mountain above Cape Town, but lies on the edge of the advancing semi-desert Karoo. In 2015, a drought almost dried up the taps in the city; farmers say this one has been even more brutal than a decade ago.
Over the weekend, mixed-race couple Christian and Ilze Pienaar were distributing feed to keep their hungry cattle alive. One cow had recently starved to death, its bones visible through its skin.
“The drought before wasn’t this bad because there was still ... grazing,” Ilze, 40, told Reuters. “Now there’s nothing, the dams are dry ... (and) we’re spending all our money on feed.”
She said she’d lost 16 cattle and 13 sheep since January alone.
The drought, which has also ravaged parts of Eastern Cape and Northern Cape, comes weeks after floods blamed on climate change and cyclical La Niña weather washed out the northeastern part of South Africa and killed 200 people across the region.
“The intensity and duration of both droughts and floods in this corner of the world is increasing,” Anton Cartwright, an economist with the African Center for Cities, said.
“Farmers (here) are very good at adapting to weather (but) ... the weather is just becoming much less predictable,” he said. “Seasons aren’t occurring, starting, ending at the same time of the year. It’s probably going to get worse.”
(Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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