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    Trump’s Unesco withdrawal is part of a broader assault on democracy | Liesl Gerntholtz and Julie Trebault

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    Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States a second time from what is essentially the beacon of global culture and heritage – Unesco – is depressing but unsurprising given the administration’s lack of respect for art and culture that celebrates the diversity of humanity in all of its fullness. But it is still a grave error of moral leadership that harms the United States’ global standing on free expression, human rights and democracy.Earlier this year, he initiated a takeover of the Kennedy Center’s programming and content, and linked National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants to highly partisan ideological conditions. Meanwhile, the government’s attempts at censorship in schools are all but rewriting American history.Trump has also systematically removed the United States from global obligations connected to health, human rights and the betterment of society. This includes withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN human rights council (UNHRC) and in effect the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).It was only a matter of time before Unesco – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – came under fire, representing as it does everything the Trump White House rails against. Unesco’s chief was unsurprised, saying that since the last time Trump was in power and pulled the US out of the organization, they had reduced their reliance on US funding significantly and would be carrying on with its mission.Why, then, does this withdrawal matter? Surely it can be chalked up to another strong-arm tactic designed to make headlines and give the administration some more “America First” policies to boast about. Unfortunately, when it comes to culture, it is not that simple.Culture comes under fire when democracy is dying. Russia’s imprisonment of writers, artists and cultural figures who question official narratives about the war on Ukraine; or the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas – these are examples of how culture becomes both a target and a battleground because it represents identity, memory and freedom of thought – the very things authoritarianism seeks to control or erase.What the US administration has dismissed as “woke” is actually Unesco preserving democratic ideals, teaching the world valuable lessons based in history and protecting artistic freedom – all things that autocrats see as a threat to their ability to control the narrative. It is no small irony that the organization’s recognition of Palestine has also been used as an excuse for the withdrawal, when Unesco is one of the leaders of Holocaust education in the world, and Palestine itself is suffering near total cultural obliteration.It would be a grave error for the United States not to recognize that Trump’s disdain for cultural preservation is part of a broader assault on human rights, democracy, free expression and artistic freedom. It is a story repeated across the world and throughout time. It is notable that one of the few countries to also withdraw from Unesco was South Africa, which withdrew in 1955 in protest against Unesco’s stance against apartheid. During this period of isolation, the apartheid government intensified its control over culture and education, seeking to tightly control the narrative in South Africa and globally about its discriminatory policies.There is still time to reverse this decision. PEN America, which defends free expression worldwide and ARC, the Artists at Risk Connection that protects artistic freedom, urge Congress to oppose this latest move to further isolate the United States globally, and ensure that the country continues to fulfill its international human rights obligations. US funders and foundations should also increase support to writers, journalists and media outlets, artists and cultural institutions, and free expression advocates in countries affected by the shutdown of US foreign assistance.By working with Unescoto commemorate sites of apartheid resistance when it rejoined in 1994, South Africa has shown how global engagement can honor truth and build inclusive memory; the United States, by contrast, risks forfeiting that same moral leadership by retreating from the very institution that makes such progress possible.

    Liesl Gerntholtz is the managing director of the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center at PEN America. Julie Trebault is executive director of the Artists at Risk Connection More

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      The Guardian view on supporting vaccines: humans can work miracles – so why wouldn’t we? | Editorial

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      It is easy to become so used to scientific and social advances that we take them for granted. But sometimes we should pause to celebrate – to feel genuine awe – at the wonders that we have seen. Amid all the wars, the disasters and the crimes of the last half century, we have witnessed nothing short of a miracle.Vaccination, in addition to clean water, sanitation and improved nutrition, has been one of the greatest contributors to global health. It is responsible for much of the astounding fall in child mortality, which plummeted by 59% between 1990 and 2022. It has saved more than 150 million lives, mostly of infants, since the Expanded Programme on Immunisation was launched by the World Health Organization in 1974. Initially designed to protect children against diseases including smallpox, tuberculosis, polio and measles, the scheme has since been extended to cover more pathogens. Then, in 2000, came the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi), a public-private organisation that provides financial and technical support for vaccination in poorer countries and negotiates with manufacturers to lower costs.The results have been remarkable. Prevention is better – and cheaper and easier – than cure. Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980. Almost all the world is now polio-free. Cases of many other diseases have been slashed. Much more can be done: an estimated 5 million children have been protected against malaria since routine vaccinations were launched a year ago. And from a scientific perspective, we are entering a golden age of vaccines.Yet this is a dangerous moment in other ways. The climate crisis is spurring disease outbreaks. Conflict has dramatically increased the number of unprotected children. Vaccine scepticism has grown. Now cuts to funding threaten to turn the clock back. The trashing of USAid will hinder delivery and has halted a groundbreaking programme to create new malaria vaccines. Robert F Kennedy Jr – who once claimed that “no vaccine is safe and effective” and who tried to persuade the US government to rescind authorisation for the coronavirus vaccine at the height of the pandemic – was confirmed this week as health secretary.Now the UK, one of Gavi’s founding donors and the country which has given most to its core programme, is considering a significant cut to its support. This would be a grave error. While some aspects of Gavi’s approach have faced sensible scrutiny in the past, it has vaccinated over 1 billion children and done so cost-effectively: 97 pence in every pound it is given goes on vaccine programmes. Its success is also evident in the number of countries which have graduated from being beneficiaries to paying their own way; some, including Indonesia, are becoming donors in turn. And Gavi’s stockpiles help to keep people safe in wealthier countries too, as well as ensuring that poorer nations are healthier and more stable.For all these reasons, Gavi has long enjoyed bipartisan support in the UK, which has given it more than £2bn over the last four years. Now, more than ever, its funding must be sustained. The world is full of apparently intractable conflicts and complex moral dilemmas. Few decisions are truly simple for governments. But this one is a no-brainer. It should astonish us that we can so easily save lives. It should be self-evident that we must continue to seize that opportunity. More

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      The Observer view: Vengeful and reckless, Donald Trump must not go unchallenged | Observer editorial

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      The 47th president of the United States is a danger to his country, Britain and the world. Who would have thought that sentence would ever be written? And yet, less than three weeks into Donald Trump’s second term, it is barely controversial to many people looking on from shell-shocked democracies beyond America’s shores. By his destructive, vindictive, illegal and irrational actions, Trump sets himself beyond the pale. In place of American exceptionalism, the world must now learn to manage, and if necessary confront, a gross American objectionablism.Proof of these assertions is to be found in the White House’s daily outpourings. Seeking revenge against those who tried to punish his attempted 6 January 2021 electoral coup, Trump is weaponising the justice department by executive order. Political opponents, FBI agents, prosecutors, media outlets and journalists are in his sights. In contrast, about 1,500 convicted Capitol Hill rioters have been pardoned. He has even had the gall to withdraw the security clearance of his predecessor, Joe Biden, citing mental incapacity.Trump is treating federal government agencies like enemy territory to be stormed and purged of deep state, so-called woke and liberal elements. To this end, he has recruited the sycophantic billionaire, Elon Musk, and teams of youthful, unaccountable acolytes to physically take over offices and computer systems, suspend, lock out or sack civil servants and seize control of programmes and budgets. The treasury, the education department, the federal election commission and independent government watchdogs are all under the hammer wielded, principally, by Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”. Nor has the CIA and the wider “intelligence community” escaped Trump’s vendetta. It, too, faces mass firings under the proposed leadership of Tulsi Gabbard, a Russia apologist. Putting the anti-vax conspiracy theorist, Robert F Kennedy Jr, in charge of health and human services demonstrates how little Trump really cares about ordinary people’s welfare.Trump’s arbitrary, often unlawful orders indulge other far-right obsessions. Diversity, equity and inclusion polices, in particular transgender rights, are under siege. He has demanded a halt to the rollout of EV charging stations, declared open season on wildlife and the environment by relaxing oil and gas drilling regulations, and withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement. He even wants to ban paper straws, preferring plastic. From an immediate international perspective, Trump’s decision to eviscerate USAid, the world’s biggest foreign aid provider, and the attempted sacking of nearly all its staff, is the most savagely objectionable misdeed of all.His freezing of USAid’s $42.8bn (£34.5bn) budget spells death or renewed suffering for millions of dependent people, from Sudan to Bangladesh to Ukraine. The US accounts for about $4 in every $10 spent globally on humanitarian aid. To the instant human toll, as Britain’s former prime minister Gordon Brown points out, must be added a loss of US global influence that will benefit authoritarian rivals China and Russia. “The era when American leaders valued their soft power is coming to an end,” Brown wrote. His view was echoed by foreign secretary David Lammy, who described Trump’s mindless aid vandalism as a “big strategic mistake”.Trump’s egotistic rampage is causing widespread additional international damage and confusion. His on-off tariff wars with China, Canada and, prospectively, the EU; his militarisation of migration policy along the US border with Mexico; his imperialistic vow to seize Greenland by force from Nato ally Denmark; and his disdain for the UN, typified by his withdrawal from the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council, are all decisions underscoring his broader contempt for the multilateralist, rules-based international order. Nothing more damningly illustrates that contempt than yet another outrageous executive order sanctioning the international criminal court (ICC).Trump’s ICC attack was prompted in part by a wish to protect Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister and court-indicted war crimes suspect, who was feted at the White House last week. He used this occasion to unveil his most absurd, most dangerous idea to date: a forcible “clean-out” of the 2 million inhabitants of Gaza and a US-owned “Riviera” real estate development amid the ruins of their Palestinian homeland. This wheeze is too ignorant, too insulting and too inhumane to be taken entirely seriously. Yet that has not stopped Israeli and US rightwingers using it as potential justification for wrecking the ceasefire, resuming the war and laying the ground for annexations in Gaza and the West Bank.Trump, the convicted felon, proves each day that he is unfit for the high office he holds. He aims to destroy the fundamentals of American democracy: the separation of powers, civil and voting rights, secularism, free speech and equality under the law. He is a menace to global peace, stability and prosperity. Pushback has begun, largely through the courts. Yet a few defiant judges cannot win this huge, rapidly developing struggle. The Democrats, stunned into virtual silence, must wake up. Meanwhile, Britain and the western democracies must take a united stand. So far, Keir Starmer and his ministers have been too circumspect. They must be bolder and braver in their criticism and in upholding British values.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe rise of Trump and like-minded far-right populists, lawless bullies and anti-democratic autocrats around the world is the great challenge of our age. Trump the objectionable is setting the world on fire. More

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      Polio Vaccination Underway in Gaza

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      Aid agencies said that children in some areas of northern Gaza where Israel is mounting an offensive against Hamas will miss the doses, compromising the effectiveness of the campaign.Thousands of children in Gaza City were receiving a second dose of polio vaccine this weekend in an effort that was delayed by intense Israeli bombardment and mass evacuation orders in northern Gaza, the United Nations and other aid agencies said.The second phase of the vaccination campaign was originally set to begin on Oct. 23 across the north of the territory, but it was postponed due to a lack of assurances about pauses in the fighting and bombardment to ensure the safety of health workers, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said in a statement on Friday.The first round of vaccinations in September took place across northern Gaza. Since then, the Israeli military has launched an intense offensive in northern Gaza against what it has said is a resurgence of Hamas in the area.A humanitarian pause for the second phase of the vaccination campaign was only assured for Gaza City, according to the U.N. agencies. They said that around 15,000 children under 10 in northern towns where the Israeli military has been carrying out the offensive over the last few weeks “remain inaccessible and will be missed during the campaign, compromising its effectiveness.”COGAT, the Israeli government agency that oversees policy in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, said on Sunday that 58,604 children under 10 had been vaccinated in northern Gaza since the second phase of the campaign began a day earlier. It added that Israel would continue to work to “facilitate an effective vaccination campaign.”The Gazan Health Ministry confirmed the number of vaccinations, and the campaign was expected to continue through Monday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why House Republicans Are Targeting China Weeks Before the Election

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      The G.O.P. pushed through an array of legislation to get tough on China, seeking to persuade voters that they are the party that will protect Americans from economic and military threats from Beijing.The House this week tackled a long-promised package of bills to get tough on China, but few if any have a chance of becoming law after Republicans opted to prioritize a handful of politically divisive measures that Democrats oppose.For months, House leaders had promised a bipartisan show of force against the United States’ biggest economic and military adversary, including curtailing investments in sensitive Chinese industries, clamping down on data theft and espionage, and ensuring more Chinese imports were subject to taxes and forced labor standards.But only some of those proposals made it to the floor this week. Instead, Republican leaders added a handful of partisan measures that appear to be aimed at portraying their party as stronger on countering China and Democrats, including the Biden administration, as weak.It comes weeks before the elections in which the White House and control of Congress are up for grabs.“Because the White House has chosen not to confront China and protect America’s interests, House Republicans will,” Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, told reporters on Tuesday.Here’s a look at what the House did, and why.Subjecting international pandemic agreements to Senate treaty approval.Republicans, who have castigated the World Health Organization for its response to the coronavirus pandemic, pushed through a bill that would require Senate ratification of any W.H.O. agreement on pandemic preparedness. The organization is exploring ways to streamline the international response to the next pandemic.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      As Polio Vaccines Arrive in Gaza, Distributing Them Is the Next Challenge

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      Polio vaccines arrived in Gaza on Monday, kicking off an expansive effort to vaccinate more than 640,000 Palestinian children and curb a potential outbreak, the United Nations, Israel and health authorities in Gaza said, after the first confirmed case of the disease in the territory in 25 years.The U.N. children’s fund, UNICEF, said it was bringing in 1.2 million doses of polio vaccine for children in Gaza in cooperation with the World Health Organization, the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, known as UNRWA, and other groups.The Gaza Health Ministry confirmed on Monday that the vaccines had reached Gaza and that preparations to launch the vaccination campaign for children under 10 were underway. It was not immediately clear how quickly the vaccines could be distributed to vaccination centers in Gaza, where continued hostilities and bombardment have hindered humanitarian efforts during 10 months of war.The ministry warned that inoculations alone could not be effective, amid a lack of clean water and personal hygiene supplies, and issues with sewage and waste collection in overcrowded areas where displaced families were sheltering. It said medical teams would need to spread out across the territory, “which requires an urgent cease-fire.”Children walking near garbage and raw sewage at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al Balah in central Gaza this month.Eyad Baba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe W.H.O. chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement on Thursday that a 10-month-old child in Gaza had contracted polio and become paralyzed in one leg. The virus had been found last month in wastewater samples, but this was the first confirmed case in Gaza in a quarter-century.COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry’s agency that oversees policy for the Palestinian territories, said in a statement on Monday that the vaccines had been delivered to Gaza through the Kerem Shalom border crossing with Israel. The agency added that the campaign would be conducted in coordination with the Israeli military “as part of the routine humanitarian pauses” that it observes, which it said would allow Palestinians to reach vaccination centers.In June, Israel announced that it would observe partial daily suspensions of its military activity in areas of Gaza, calling them humanitarian pauses, saying they were aimed at making it safer for humanitarian groups to deliver aid in the territory. According to UNICEF, at least 95 percent of children will need to receive both doses of the vaccine to prevent the spread of the disease and reduce the risk of its re-emergence, “given the severely disrupted health, water and sanitation systems in the Gaza Strip.”UNICEF and the W.H.O. in a statement called on “all parties to the conflict” to implement a weeklong humanitarian pause in Gaza to allow “children and families to safely reach health facilities” for the doses. The statement added that “without the humanitarian pauses, the delivery of the campaign will not be possible.”Philippe Lazzarini, the director of UNRWA, said on Friday that the agency’s medical teams would distribute the vaccines at its clinics and through its mobile health teams. He added that “delaying a humanitarian pause will increase the risk of spread among children.”Rawan Sheikh Ahmad More

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      Thailand Confirms First Case of New, Deadlier Mpox Strain, Clade 1b

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      The Clade Ib version of the virus had not been detected outside Africa until last week, when a case in Sweden raised concerns about a wider outbreak.Health officials in Thailand said on Thursday that they had confirmed a case of the version of mpox that prompted the World Health Organization to declare a global health emergency. It’s the second time that the new and deadlier version has been found outside Africa.The announcement of the case in Thailand is likely to stir concerns about the virus spreading more widely, especially after the version was discovered in Sweden last week. Previously the outbreak had been concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo.The version of the mpox virus detected in these recent cases is known as Clade Ib. Health officials are particularly concerned about it because it has a death rate of 3 percent, much higher than the 0.2 percent death rate observed in a 2022 outbreak.That earlier outbreak was driven by a version called Clade IIb, which is spread predominantly through sexual contact. Men who had sex with men proved to be the most at risk, but behavioral changes and vaccinations curbed the spread.Clade Ib appears to have spread mainly through heterosexual sex, epidemiologists have said. Another subtype, Clade Ia, has spread through household contact and exposure to affected animals in addition to sexual contact. So far, young children have been the most vulnerable to this subtype.Thai officials said on Wednesday that the infected person was a 66-year-old European man who worked in an African country with an ongoing outbreak. They did not specify which country. The man, who has a home in Thailand, was not reported to have severe symptoms.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      More Ukrainians May Die in Attacks on Medical Sites in 2024, W.H.O. Data Suggest

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      A Russian missile strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv on Monday highlighted the growing number of deadly attacks on medical facilities, vehicles and workers.A Russian missile strike on Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital on Monday highlighted the growing number of deadly attacks on medical facilities, vehicles and workers in the country this year. It adds to data from the World Health Organization and suggests that more Ukrainians may be on track to be killed in such attacks this year than last year.Before the strike on the Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv, the W.H.O. documented 18 deaths and 81 injuries from more than 175 attacks on health care infrastructure in Ukraine for the first half of 2024. The organization also recorded 44 attacks on medical vehicles in that period.In all of 2023, the organization tallied 22 deaths and 117 injuries from 350 such attacks, and 45 more specifically on medical vehicles like ambulances. Other organizations put the death toll even higher.In the attack on Monday, at least one doctor and another adult were killed at the hospital, and at least 10 other people, including seven children, were injured during a Russian barrage across the country. In all, the bombardment killed at least 38 people, including 27 in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, local officials said. Attacks on civilian hospitals are prohibited under Article 18 of the Geneva Convention, which was ratified by United Nations member states after World War II. And Article 20 of the convention says that health care workers must be protected by all warring parties.Russia has repeatedly attacked Ukrainian health care infrastructure, experts say, in a campaign that some say amounts to war crimes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Lesson From Covid on How to Destroy Public Trust

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      Big chunks of the history of the Covid pandemic were rewritten over the last month or so in a way that will have terrible consequences for many years to come.Under questioning by a congressional subcommittee, top officials from the National Institutes of Health, along with Dr. Anthony Fauci, acknowledged that some key parts of the public health guidance their agencies promoted during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic were not backed up by solid science. What’s more, inconvenient information was kept from the public — suppressed, denied or disparaged as crackpot nonsense.Remember the rule that we should all stay at least six feet apart? “It sort of just appeared,” Fauci said during a preliminary interview for the subcommittee hearing, adding that he “was not aware of any studies” that supported it. Remember the insistence that the virus was primarily spread by droplets that quickly fell to the floor? During his recent public hearing, he acknowledged that to the contrary, the virus is airborne.As for the repeated assertion that Covid originated in a “wet market” in Wuhan, China, not in an infectious diseases laboratory there, N.I.H. officials were privately expressing alarm over that lab’s lax biosafety practices and risky research. In his public testimony, Fauci conceded that even now there “has not been definitive proof one way or the other” of Covid-19’s origins.Officials didn’t just spread these dubious ideas, they also demeaned anyone who dared to question them. “Dr. Fauci Throws Cold Water on Conspiracy Theory That Coronavirus Was Created in a Chinese Lab” was one typical headline. At the hearings, it emerged that Dr. David Morens, a senior N.I.H. figure, was deleting emails that discussed pandemic origins and using his personal account so as to avoid public oversight. “We’re all smart enough to know to never have smoking guns, and if we did we wouldn’t put them in emails and if we found them we’d delete them,” he wrote to the head of a nonprofit involved in research at the Wuhan lab.I wish I could say these were all just examples of the science evolving in real time, but they actually demonstrate obstinacy, arrogance and cowardice. Instead of circling the wagons, these officials should have been responsibly and transparently informing the public to the best of their knowledge and abilities.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More