A little thread of some courageous people bsky.app/profile/nkal...

🇺🇬 #Uganda: 8 environmental defenders opposing EACOP remain in arbitrary pre-trial detention after repeated court adjournments. The next hearing is scheduled on 12 February. FIDH's Observatory urge their immediate release & an end to their judicial harassment. www.fidh.org/en/issues/hu...

"There are no limits to the defiance of the United Nations & international law...After having been stormed and demolished by the Israeli authorities, the UNRWA Headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem has now been set on fire." - UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini

The president should be impeached and convicted, as should everyone responsible for these outrages. ICE should be disbanded. So should the Department of Homeland Security. And the people who have killed should be investigated and brought before judges and juries.

Proud to be one of 65 University of Minnesota Law faculty who signed this open letter condemning the federal government’s ongoing and lawless campaign of fear, intimidation, and violence against Minnesotans. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

A reminder to the news media: “conflicting accounts” is what you say BEFORE the incontrovertible video evidence appears. After that, your job is to ask why one side is lying, not to repeat the lie and pretend no one knows the truth.

"In 2025, for the first time in its 75-year history, @unhcr.org raised less than half of the funds it deemed necessary for its mission. Nearly 5,000 staff were made redundant", writes @henrymance.ft.com in an excellent article for @ftweekend.com.

Both of Nevada's senators--Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen--have officially come out against the DHS funding bill following the execution of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis this morning. This effectively ends the DHS funding bill in the Senate.

Young leaders are invited to learn diplomacy and how to engage with the UN in Geneva! Learn more about and apply to the Quaker UN Summer School here by 25 January: quno.org/newsroom/app...

Amnesty has issued a report about rising #authoritarianism & #humanRights violations in #USA, incl enforced disappearances, restrictions on #freeSpeech incl the media, increased #corruption, militarisation of law enforcement, mass surveillance, weakening of rule of law www.jurist.org/news/2026/01...

I came to Minneapolis to report on what's going on, and one of the main questions I showed up with is "just what is the scale of the resistance?" After all, we're all used to the news calling Portland a "war zone" or whatever when it's just some protests in one part of town.

'Why aren't they in the streets' is answered almost every day in my small town by people in the streets! Rather than asking 'why aren't they in the streets' it's worth asking 'why isn't your media showing them in the streets' and 'who is served by downplaying resistane in its myriad forms.'

one more thing: Americans are used to speaking in the language of civil rights, not human rights, but I do think the human rights framework is powerful in this moment—it’s not that the state grants you the right to live free, it’s that the state can’t take that right from you.

🌍 Berkeley Earth’s 2025 Global Temperature Report is out. 2025 was the 3rd warmest year on record. Annual global temperature reached 1.44 ± 0.09°C above the pre-industrial baseline; 770 million people experienced locally record-warm annual conditions. Full report: berkeleyearth.org/global-tempe...

Join QUNO in New York! Applications are now open for Programme Assistants at our NY. As PAs, young leaders have opportunities to see #Quaker values in action and to learn how to engage at the UN. Apply by 16 Feb: https://quno.org/newsroom/applications-now-open-for-quno-new-york-programme-assistants/

The past few years in Vietnam have seen an unprecedented crackdown on civic space, particularly on environmental & land rights defenders. This repression goes against the human rights clause in Vietnam's trade deal with the EU, our complaint argues. adnchronicles.org/2026/01/02/w...

#Rohingya case: Very interesting to learn that the sole expert to be called by #TheGambia next week at the #ICJ is Prof. Michael Newton from Vanderbilt Law School, with testimony on how the 2016-17 clearance operations cannot reasonably be called counterterrorism. law.vanderbilt.edu/bio/michael-...

2025 was the hottest year on record for ocean heat content. Unfortunately, we now say this every year. 🥹 "In addition to setting a new record in 2025, the global ocean continues to show sustained and intensified warming." + #OpenAccess Study: doi.org/10.1007/s003... + Data: www.ocean.iap.ac.cn

one net effect of this will just be to make life a little harder for Americans in ways, they can’t quite put their finger on, because some of these organizations do the invisible work of multilateralism that enables contemporary life; another will be to hold up progress on most shared global goal…

An internet shutdown has plunged Iran into a communications blackout as authorities continue to unleash their deadly repression against protesters. UN member states should press Iran to stop the bloodshed and pursue accountability.

🚨 We denounce the Trump Administration’s move to withdraw the US from dozens of UN bodies and organizations. 🌐 This is a targeted assault on international law and the institutions that safeguard human rights, peace, and climate justice worldwide. Read CIEL president’s statement 👉 bit.ly/4aKuFMS

Better yet, disestablish all of DHS, and undo the nightmarish idiocies that we created in a panic 25 years ago. Reestablish the INS, get rid of ODNI, fix the damage from the Patriot Act, etc.

Make it viral.

Horrible, but not unexpected. I wrote about the Trump administration's assault on IOs in the October issue of AJIL. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

It doesn't mean they can shirk their obligations under international law, as confirmed by the ICJ ruling last year.

By me: It’s easy to feel powerless about climate chaos. Here’s what gives me hope - my swan song for @theguardian.com, at least for now www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Here’s a snapshot of the services MSF provided in #Gaza in 2025. We’ve received no updates on our Israeli registration process for 2026 and it is unclear if we will be able to continue activities. - 800,000 consultations - 22,700 surgical operations - 700 million litres of water

[PODCAST] Filipino lawyer Nonette Royo, head of The Tenure Facility, shares how her team of “barefoot lawyers” has helped secure land rights across 34M hectares. On Mongabay’s podcast, she discusses their Earthshot recognition and why tenure is key for people and planet.

It's going to be an ongoing propaganda victory for Australia that these articles keep getting pumped out with zero context or even a slight mention of the fact that Australia disproportionately contributes to why they're being forced to relocate Like Israel's 'humanitarian aid drops'....

When you investigate **any** of the links or evidence put forward by permitting-bros and abundance-bros trying to claim the environmental movement is single worst opponent to clean energy on the planet, you very unsurprisingly end up reading stuff that just doesn't support their claims.

NGOs in Indonesia have documented widespread environmental and social violations across 33 industrial tree plantations since 2023, including deforestation, peatland destruction, fires, and land conflicts with Indigenous communities.

So a respected journalist warned the nation that the Trump administration is a threat to free speech and, true to form, its state media outlet warns that there will now surely be retribution by the administration against that same journalist and his network for his act of free speech.

Scott Pelley—American author and reporter for CBS News for more than 31 years, did not hold back

Bangladesh is making a list of sacred forests, aged trees and other socially important flora in a bid to strengthen forest conservation. Conservationists say they believe that the new measures will help protect the biodiversity and ecology that had been overlooked in the past.

How To Save The Amazon by Dom Phillips "is a book both brilliant and broken, one that is ultimately as inspiring and devastating as the Amazon itself." - @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...

📣 NEW DATA ALERT | We are glad to be releasing 2025 human rights scores for 195 countries in June. #Journalists and #CSO civil society orgs are welcome to see the data early, under embargo. Quick form here for early access: humanrightsmeasurement.org/data-launch-...

Here it is, in a clear graphic from the NYTimes. The GOP budget destruction bill will add $3.3 TRILLION to the national debt. And how? Entirely by tax cuts to the rich, paid for by cutting health, food for the poor, climate science, and Medicaid.

“This will be a key milestone in reinforcing legal protection for both people and the planet” #UN experts urge Council of Europe states to start negotiations on a legally binding Protocol that will recognize the right to a clean, healthy, & sustainable environment www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...

UN experts urge @coe.int Member States to negotiate an additional protocol to the European Convention to protect the right to a clean, healthy & sustainable environment. No more delays for a #HealthyEnvironmentForAll! www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel... @srenvironment.bsky.social @srtoxics.bsky.social

The new Silent Spring:

In between the stories of horrific human rights abuses and trade war insanity I remember that they have also destroyed all our research and data infrastructure and effectively ended any environmental, health, or labor regulation.

By me: Hundreds of marches, pickets and cleanup events are taking place across the US in the run-up to Earth Day on Tuesday, as environmental and climate groups step up resistance to the Trump administration’s authoritarianism and its war on the planet www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Seven years after four officials were charged with negligence that resulted in a toxic cyanide spill at Canadian miner Barrick Gold’s Veladero gold mine in Argentina, the case has still not gone to trial. New for @mongabay.bsky.social: news.mongabay.com/2025/04/stil...

I look at close to 100 stories a week and even more outside of work. I’ve done this ten years. This is among the most horrific things I’ve ever read — testimony from dying children whose access to medicine has been cut off by the Trump administration. www.npr.org/sections/goa...

If it wasn’t already abundantly apparent, there are no magic words that change how people feel about climate change.

I do think it's worth marking and remembering that these people were willing to tolerate everything we've experienced since January and more provided it didn't disrupt the economy.

Brazil’s Supreme Court backed down and withdrew its proposal to open up Indigenous territories to mining and economic activities from a controversial bill that critics say violates the Constitution. Read:

US jury orders Chevron to pay $744M damages to Louisiana for direct destruction of wetlands & breached State laws requiring companies to clean up 12 years in litigation (+ prior to filing) this is why real, substantial and up front security bonds are critical www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

From 91 professors at Harvard Law School: a letter to our students. tinyurl.com/letter-to-ou...