Author Archives: Gene Berkman

How Russia Secretly Disappears Thousands of Ukrainian Civilians – Forbidden Stories report

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Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, thousands of Ukrainian civilians in the occupied territories have vanished into thin air. These “ghost prisoners” are whisked away by the occupying forces to informal places of detention, where they’re held outside any legal framework and tortured. Some are then transferred to the Russian prison system, where they languish without charges or serve trumped-up sentences. Forbidden Stories and its partners unveil this opaque system designed to break down Ukrainian society.

Key findings

  • According to Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, between 16,000 and 20,000 civilians are currently held by the Russians. By definition, counting secret prisoners is nearly impossible, and so far, few authorities have dared to give an exact figure, but we have chosen to retain the ombudsman’s data, which reflect the extent of the situation.
  • “Torture chambers” have been set up in the occupied territories since 2022.
  • Forbidden Stories has identified 29 Russian detention facilities where torture is systematic, out of the alleged 186 locations where Ukrainian civilians are held.
  • Our investigation also reveals details about the authorities at Taganrog, known as “Russia’s Guantanamo.”

Five minutes of continuous blows. “They didn’t even give me time to turn my head. The Russians didn’t say anything. They just kept hitting me.”

By the time the onslaught was over, Vitaliy* had no strength left. His fellow prisoners helped him clean his face, which was coated in blood. After a pause, his jailers returned. They put a bag over his head, lay him on the floor, and tied him up. 

“They connected wires to my legs. I don’t know how long it lasted. They shocked me with electricity,” Vitaliy said calmly, sitting at Puri Chveni, a Georgian restaurant in the city of Zaporizhzhia. He didn’t order anything to eat or drink. The former mechanic remains, if not only physically, an emotionally wounded man. While he remembers the details of his imprisonment, he still has to summon his courage each time he speaks of it out loud.

Vitaliy remembers every detail of the day he was detained: July 27, 2022. On that late summer day, Russians showed up at his service station in the occupied Ukrainian city of Melitopol. They beat him, asked him whether he knew anyone from the Ukrainian army, and took him away. Vitaliy was first sent to a location known as “the garages”—a vacant industrial premise used by the occupiers to torture Ukrainians—where he was subjected to electric shocks. Vitaliy was then transferred to another detention center with miserable conditions for almost two months. There, he was denied contact with relatives or a lawyer, but ultimately, no charges were brought against him. He was liberated on the evening of September 22, 2022. He has since fled the occupied territories.  

Full report from Forbidden Stories @ https://forbiddenstories.org/russia-disappears-ukrainian-civilians/

Trump sued over China tariffs

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President Trump was sued Thursday over the 20 percent tariffs he imposed on Chinese goods in the weeks leading up to Wednesday’s broader announcement.

It marks the first known legal challenge against Trump’s tariffs, which have fulfilled a campaign promise and rattled financial markets.

The lawsuit contests Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), arguing the law authorizes asset freezes and similar economic sanctions, but not tariffs. 

“Congress passed the IEEPA to counter external emergencies, not to grant presidents a blank check to write domestic economic policy,” the lawsuit states. 

The suit was brought by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), a conservative legal advocacy group, on behalf of Simplified, a Florida-based small business that sells planners and purchases products from China. 

Filed in federal court in Pensacola, Fla., the suit asks a judge to declare Trump’s Chinese tariffs unlawful and block their implementation.

Trump first imposed a 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods in a Feb. 1 executive order and then doubled it in another order issued March 3.

Both came before Trump’s broader tariff announcement on Wednesday, which imposes a 10 percent general tariff on imports to the U.S. and higher rates for dozens of countries. It slapped China with an additional 34 percent tariff, creating a combined total of 54 percent.

“But in the IEEPA’s almost 50-year history, no previous president has used it to impose tariffs. Which is not surprising, since the statute does not even mention tariffs, nor does it say anything else suggesting it authorizes presidents to tax American citizens,” the lawsuit states. 

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

Source:Zach Schonfeld @ The Hill https://thehill.com/homenews/5231388-trump-sued-over-china-tariffs/

House Republican moves to rein in tariff powers

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Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon said he plans to introduce a companion bill to the bipartisan Senate legislation aimed at reclaiming Congress’ authority over tariffs, becoming the first House Republican to openly challenge the powers President Donald Trump is using to launch a massive global trade war.

Bacon confirmed his plans to POLITICO on Friday as market losses continued to pile up and rattle Republicans on Capitol Hill.

The Senate bill introduced Thursday by Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) would limit a president’s power to impose tariffs, including allowing Congress to vote to end any tariff at any time. It would also require the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of imposing any duty and for Congress to explicitly approve any new tariffs within 60 days. Four additional Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors to that bill.

Bacon’s move is a rare step in the deeply Trump-loyal House Republican conference. Speaker Mike Johnson has no plans to bring any legislation limiting Trump’s tariff authority to the House floor, and House Republicans voted for a measure several weeks ago that effectively barred any lawmaker from trying to force a vote to end the president’s emergency declaration he’s used to implement tariffs.

Beyond leadership, most rank-and-file House Republicans have been particularly keen on backing the president, with few voicing much concern about the economic fallout since Wednesday. House Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to force a vote on Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D-Va.) resolution to lift Trump’s blanket tariffs on Canada. The Senate passed it with four GOP votes earlier this week.

Source:Meredith Lee Hill @ Politico https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/04/04/congress/don-bacon-tariff-powers-bill-00273307

An economic, constitutional, and geopolitical disaster

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Yesterday’s tariff announcement was long expected, yet its details came as a surprise. In one regard it was less bad than it could have been: The baseline tariff of ten percent was less than the 20 percent widely touted. But the methodology of the “reciprocal tariffs” added to the baseline tariff was dismaying and not one many practicing economists had considered. The effects of this announcement are likely to be disadvantageous to Americans and may risk economic disaster. They will also have geopolitical effects that future American administrations will rue.

To begin with, the reciprocal tariffs are supposed to represent the sum of tariff and non-tariff barriers imposed by the foreign nation on American exports, plus factors like Value Added Taxes (which are not trade barriers). However, the administration says it calculated this based on the assumption that “the trade deficit that we have is the sum of all the unfair trade practices, the sum of all cheating.” This assumption essentially says that all American trade deficits are the result of unfair trade practices, whereas economic analysis says differently (they are caused by differences between the nation’s capital account and current account). So, the initial assumption is faulty.

This leads to absurd situations. Small, poor countries that cannot afford to buy many US goods are penalized harshly. Even uninhabited islands are subject to the ten percent minimum tariff. But so are countries like the UK that has its own trade deficit with the United States (one might ask if this is the result of US “cheating”). Moreover, this applies only to trade in goods. Trade in services, where the US routinely runs surpluses, are not mentioned.

As CEI analysts have argued until they are blue in the face, these trade barriers will be harmful to American consumers. They will also cause problems for American producers, and have already led to factory closures and the loss of manufacturing jobs. Global stock markets are reacting badly, and the dollar is falling. All of this was entirely predictable, and it is likely to continue. A recession is not out of the question.

Full Post with more analysis by Iain Murray @ Competitive Enterprise Institute https://cei.org/blog/an-economic-constitutional-and-geopolitical-disaster/

Other Countries Are Not Ripping Us off on Trade

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One of the justifications for reciprocal tariffs is the claim that other countries are ripping us off. If anyone is getting ripped off, it’s definitely not the United States. As trade has expanded, all countries have gained, but none has benefited more than the United States. 

Measured in nominal dollars, U.S. GDP per capita increased by $55,075 since 1994, a much bigger increase than in any of our major trading partners. After adjusting for inflation, U.S. GDP per capita has grown by $26,000, a 62% increase. 

Real wealth statistics show a similar success story. According to the World Bank, comprehensive wealth per capita in the United States has increased by 22% since 1995. By this measure, we are much wealthier than our major trading partners. 

The record is clear. The United States has not been ripped off, and we are not subsidizing our trading partners. They have benefited, and at the same time, the United States has gotten wealthier. Everyone wins–and we win the most. We should be looking to continue this progress, not blow it up. 

Source:Bryan Riley @ National Taxpayers Union https://www.ntu.org/publications/detail/other-countries-are-not-ripping-us-off-on-trade

Tariffs Jeopardize the Competitiveness of U.S. Businesses and the Pocketbooks of All Americans

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WASHINGTON DC – National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) President Jake Colvin today issued a statement following the announcement by the President of new reciprocal tariffs:

“We share the President’s desire to grow U.S. production of manufactured goods, agriculture products, services, and knowledge, but dramatically increasing America’s tariffs will undercut that objective.

“Without oversight from Congress, the President intends to raise tariffs to the highest levels since the Great Depression, which jeopardizes the competitiveness of U.S. businesses and the pocketbooks of all Americans.

“While the price of imported goods will undoubtedly rise, the President’s tariffs will also tack on added costs to American manufacturing, assembly and farming. There is simply no way to mitigate all of the added costs of inputs to finished goods from the Administration’s complex and growing web of tariffs. Consumers should expect to see higher prices for everything from groceries to home renovations to auto insurance as construction and repair costs rise. 

“The America First Trade Policy rightly recognizes the harmful impact that discriminatory measures can have in preventing U.S. companies from accessing foreign markets, but tariffs should be a scalpel to remedy specific unfair practices, not a sledgehammer that disregards our trade commitments, invites retaliation and undermines the competitiveness of U.S. businesses and the finances of the American people. 

“The Administration, Congress and America’s key trading partners and allies quickly need to identify paths forward to de-escalate and seek a durable new normal that lowers barriers, rebuilds trust and minimizes uncertainty.

“We look forward to partnering with the Administration and Congress to think creatively about pathways to foster trust with our trading partners and achieve our shared goals of lowering trade barriers and enhancing the competitiveness of American businesses and workers.”

Source:The National Foreign Trade Council @ https://www.nftc.org/tariffs-jeopardize-the-competitiveness-of-u-s-businesses-and-the-pocketbooks-of-all-americans/

Trump moves to impose big tax hikes

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Orange County Register editorial

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced the “American Dream” would be restored with his bold plan to tax American businesses and consumers for importing goods from abroad.

“Now it’s our turn to prosper, and in so doing, use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt,” he said. “And it will all happen very quickly. With today’s action, we are finally going to be able to make America great again, greater than ever before or. Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country and you see it happening already. We will supercharge our domestic industrial base.”

Depending on which supporter of the president you’re talking to, this is actually what he believes will happen with sweeping tariffs in place or this is instead part of some big “negotiation” with vaguely defined objectives.

We didn’t think we needed to remind Republicans of this, but to put it simply, tax increases are generally bad. If a key plank of your economic policy is to raise taxes to get prosperity, you’re doing things wrong.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is seemingly one of the few in his party who still remembers this. “On many fronts, I’m a supporter of the president,” he told The Hill. “On tariffs, I think it’s economically a fallacy to think it will help the country. Tariffs are a tax.”

We know what happened the last time Trump imposed tariffs in his first term. Sure, some new domestic jobs were created in sectors subject to tariffs, but even more were lost as a result of businesses and consumers having to pay more for the same things.

The latest line of argument from Trump is that he’s doing this to deter other countries from imposing taxes on their own people.

But as former Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan noted on X, “Just because other countries impose high taxes on their people does not mean the United States should impose high taxes on Americans. The United States is the economic powerhouse of the world in large part because our economy is relatively free. Don’t emulate socialist countries.”

Yet that’s exactly what Trump is doing in pursuit of his confused goal of doing whatever he thinks he’s doing in support of American manufacturing.

As economist Veronique De Rugy wrote in a column recently published in this newspaper, “America’s industrial base is not collapsing. It’s evolving — becoming more productive, more specialized and more capital-intensive. Protectionism won’t bring back the past or revive old jobs. It will just make the future more expensive and shift workers into lower-paying jobs.”

Unfortunately, one can find no recognition of this in Trump’s rhetoric or actions. And even worse, Trump is leading Republicans down a path of making confused and contradictory arguments in support of higher taxes and central planning of the economy.

Meanwhile, Congress is standing by, unwilling to buck the president and denigrating our system of checks and balances.

America’s trade policy, simply put, should be free trade.

Source:The Orange County Register @ https://www.ocregister.com/2025/04/03/trump-moves-to-impose-big-tax-hikes/

ABA Condemns Second Raid on Educational Bookshop

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The American Booksellers Association was swift to issue a statement in Wednesday’s BTW newsletter condemning Israeli police’s second raid on Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem earlier this week.

The ABA stated, “For the second time in a month, Israeli police have raided the Palestinian-owned Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem. On Tuesday police detained 61-year-old shop owner Imad Muna, whose son Ahmad Muna was detained last month. Books seized in the raid included anything that seemed related to Palestine, such as works by Banksy and Noam Chomsky. The incitement for the raid is being reported as a tip that a visitor to the store ‘had observed books containing inciting content,’ similar to the raid last month in which police cited a children’s coloring book as evidence of ‘terrorism.’ 

Bookselling is not terrorism. Carrying books about Palestine is not terrorism. It is imperative that booksellers around the world stand together to reject politicized raids of bookstores, wherever they occur. ABA once again stands with the Educational Bookshop and demands a cessation of raids and due process for the booksellers.”

Source:https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/newsbrief/index.html?record=5265&oly_enc_id=0684G9264356E1T

Russia: Year After Navalny’s Death, Supporters Targeted:Human Rights Watch report

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(Berlin, February 20, 2025) – Dozens of arrests on the first anniversary of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s death are just the tip of the iceberg in the Kremlin’s continued crackdown on his supporters, Human Rights Watch said today.

On February 16, 2025, Russian law enforcement officers detained at least 42 people at gatherings commemorating Navalny on the first anniversary of his death in prison. Throughout the year, the authorities have used their extensive arsenal of repressive tools to try to suppress public outcry and erase Navalny’s political legacy.

“Russia’s notoriously vague and broad anti-extremism law is used to prosecute those who call for free and fair elections, expose corruption, advocate on behalf of political prisoners, or appear to identify as Navalny supporters,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Kremlin sees the exercise of basic human rights as a threat that must be stopped, something Navalny knew well, and for which he paid the price.”

Navalny died in a remote prison in Russia’s far north while serving a 19-year sentence on bogus politically motivated charges. The authorities threw him behind bars in 2021, as soon as he returned to Russia from Germany, where he had been treated after surviving a poisoning attempt apparently orchestrated by Russian security services. 

In September 2024, The Insider, a leading Russian investigative media outlet, alleged that his death resulted from another poisoning by government agents. Prison authorities had arbitrarily and repeatedly confined him to various punishment cells and failed to provide him with adequate medical care.

Last week, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation condemned the lack of “credible investigation into his death” and said that “Alexei Navalny’s fate exposes the systematic and widespread repression against peaceful dissenters.”

In the first two days following Navalny’s death, police arbitrarily detained at least 425 people who had been honoring his memory in various regions of the country; another 106 were detained on March 1, 2024, the day of his funeral. One year later, police in major Russian cities again cordoned off local memorials to the victims of political repression, questioned those who came to lay flowers, recorded their personal data, and even arrested some of them.

Full Post @ Human Rights Watch https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/02/20/russia-year-after-navalnys-death-supporters-targeted

Trump and Putin cannot be permitted to dictate Ukraine’s future

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The bureau of Liberal International is outraged that President Donald Trump has callously prioritised the illegitimate claims of Vladimir Putin’s Russia over the long-standing Euro-Atlantic commitment to Ukraine – secure, peaceful, and whole – ahead of speculated peace negotiations.

As the war in Ukraine is on the verge of entering a new, critical phase, we find it inconceivable that the Trump administration can presume a lasting peace by minimising Ukraine’s voice and attempt to relegate Europe to a peripheral actor in any negotiations to come. President Trump’s comments after his call with President Putin this week demonstrate total disrespect for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine. In addition, the failure to recognize who the aggressor remains a significant error in the statement of President Trump that will have far-reaching consequences.

President Trump’s recent statements and actions beg serious questions about the United States as a dependable ally and many of LI member parties will be reviewing how to address this dramatic deterioration in relations.

We welcome the unity of European nations including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom who, together with Canada, are collectively the largest source of aid to Ukraine. We urge the Trump administration to engage constructively and openly with their European counterparts and to embolden not undermine the transatlantic alliance that has served both continents so effectively for almost eight decades.

On the eve of the Munich security conference, we are convinced the threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia will not diminish based on a ‘peace’ settlement in Ukraine brokered primarily by President’s Trump and Putin. That for a region riddled with Russian influence, this act will reverberate farther and embolden the ambitions of autocrats around the world.

Source:The Liberal International @ https://liberal-international.org/news-articles/trump-putin-ukraine-future/