In Moscow, “the police keep re-arresting Pussy Riot members”

The feminist performance art and protest group Pussy Riot — which gained international attention in 2012 after three of its members were charged with hooliganism for staging a provocative anti-Putin punk prayer in a Moscow cathedral — is no stranger to government repression. The activist group has been the target of a renewed crackdown by Russian authorities after massive protests earlier this year in support of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny as well as the leadup to September’s parliamentary elections. 

“The police keep re-arresting Pussy Riot members in what’s effectively turning into a long-term jail sentence,” the group wrote on Twitter on Aug. 12. The tweet included a video of activist Rita Flores being escorted from a prison gate into a black van by Moscow police. According to Pussy Riot, Flores was hospitalized with COVID-19 that she contracted in police custody, then taken back to prison for six more days on court order. It remains unclear why Flores was arrested again after completing the 6-day detention.

The online news outlet Open Media — before it was forced to close on Aug. 5 after being banned by Russian authorities — reported that multiple Pussy Riot members have been repeatedly handed 15-day prison sentences since June. One member was named a suspect in the so-called “Sanitary Case” — a legal action targeting political dissidents and supporters of Navalny. As a result, several members of Pussy Riot have fled the country to avoid re-arrest.

In Haiti, an earthquake hits a nation already shaken by conflict

Nearly 1,300 people have been reported dead after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti on the morning of Aug. 14. The Biden administration and several Latin American countries announced they are preparing to send aid to the island nation after the earthquake — stronger than the one in 2010 — severely damaged infrastructure in several cities, The New York Times reports.

The quake comes just one month after the brazen assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse by a network of Colombian, Haitian, Venezuelan and American mercenaries that officials are still struggling to fully uncover.

“The initial information that I have received from Grand’Anse is heart-wrenching. It hurts my heart for the kids, the mothers, the elderlies, the handicaps, my friends, and all the victims of this earthquake,” Martine Moïse, the widow of the former president, told CNN.

At the U.S.’ southern border, the Biden administration expels migrants using a Trump-era policy

The Washington Post reported on Aug. 10 that President Joe Biden’s administration has begun using chartered flights to expel hundreds of Central American migrants from the U.S.’ southern border deep into Mexico, where local authorities have then expelled them again to a remote border region of Guatemala.

“We don’t know where we’re going to sleep tomorrow,” a 24-year-old Salvadoran woman who was reportedly traveling with her 9-month-old son told the Washington Post. “The agents didn’t tell us where they were taking us and then when the bus crossed into Guatemala, they said, ‘Okay, that’s it, get out.’”

The Biden administration decided in February to continue the Trump administration’s use of a federal statute known as Title 42 to turn migrants and asylum seekers away from ports of entry during the COVID-19 pandemic. The policy has been criticized by health professionals who say it punishes asylum seekers to no particular public health benefit, and the United Nations refugee agency has warned that the Title 42 expulsions may be in contravention of international law and the right to asylum. On Aug. 13, more than 100 immigrant rights groups signed a letter to the White House decrying its continuation of the policy.

“Your administration has the responsibility to restore the U.S. immigration system and uphold U.S. refugee law and treaty obligations,” the letter reads. “We urge your administration to immediately change course and reaffirm the U.S.’s commitment to protecting people fleeing persecution and allow families and adults their legal right to seek asylum in the U.S.”

Around the world, climate scientists ring a deafening alarm

After hundreds of scientists spent years reviewing tens of thousands of scientific papers, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a major report on Aug. 9 containing stark warnings about the planet’s rapidly-changing ecology.

Unless policymakers mandate net-zero greenhouse gas emissions within this decade, the planet is on track to warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, surpassing the limits set by the 2015 Paris Agreement. The effects of extreme weather and rising sea levels — which are already being felt around the world — could become exponentially more frequent and severe.

On Aug. 13, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that July 2021 was Earth’s hottest month on record, and wildfires are currently killing dozens of people and devastating communities in North America, Africa and Europe. Meanwhile, a new study links air pollution caused by last year’s wildfires to increased COVID-19 cases and deaths in the U.S.

“This is not the first generation of world leaders to be warned by scientists about the gravity of the climate crisis, but they’re the last that can afford to ignore them,” Greenpeace UK’s Chief Scientist Doug Parr said in response to the report, urging leaders to make serious progress at the United Nations COP26 climate summit in Glasgow this fall. “This climate summit is a critical moment for us to halt our progress on the highway to climate hell.”

Contact Suhail Gharaibeh at [email protected].