Displaying items by tag: North America

In the midst of horrific destruction, where thousands of homes were burnt to the ground by wildfires in Reading California, 67 hospital staff still went to work. All  doctors, nurses, volunteers and office personnel made sure that patient care did not suffer. ‘Some people have slept on the floor,’ the hospital chief executive said. ‘The Reading police chief lost his home, as did two of his officers, but they still went on duty to save others at risk. It was a similar story with at least one firefighter. But it wasn't just the thousands of first responders who put their own loss and devastation to one side and stepped up to help their neighbours. Many ordinary folk took in people who had lost homes, provided food, donated supplies and offered any support that they could. Hollywood movies show society falling apart when disaster strikes, but the opposite happened; people wanted to band together and help.

On 6 July we prayed for those fighting 70 wildfires across California, Colorado, and eastern Canada. By 2 August the California fires had reached ‘uncharted territory’ in what has become an endless summer of flame. Over 1,000 homes were torched in just one of the enormous wildfires that have scorched 320,000 acres, killed, maimed and left whole communities homeless. Pray for those in small close communities struggling to provide disaster relief efforts while also being directly impacted by the disaster themselves. Pray for good communication and networking between churches and aid agencies and those needing shelter, household supplies, food and clothing. Pray for families sheltering in churches, schools, community buildings, etc. after evacuating their homes, who have no idea when they will be able to return home, or if they even still have a home to go to. Pray for communities in shock after fire damage, and for others watching fires advance.

The USA has the greatest inequalities, highest mortality rate, most regressive taxes, and largest public subsidies for bankers and billionaires of any developed capitalist country. According to the IRS, billionaire tax evasion amounts to $458 billion dollars in lost public revenues annually. Corporations sheltered over $2.5 trillion dollars in overseas tax havens and they paid no taxes. Bankers earned billions in profits from mortgage foreclosures of working class households through ‘favourable’ legal rulings. Over 20 million individuals lost their properties due to illegal or fraudulent debts. Silicon Valley’s billionaires pay manual and service workers poverty level wages. Class inequalities are reinforced by ethnic divisions. White, Chinese and Indian multi-millionaires exploit Afro-American, Latin American, Vietnamese and Filipino workers. Inequalities are a result of low wages, based on big profits, financial swindles, multi-trillion dollar public handouts and multi-billion-dollar tax evasion.

Across the US there is growth in organisations portraying Islam as a threat, in what has become known as the Islamophobia industry. It has more than tripled in two years. An Al-Jazeera investigation revealed the tactics they use to instigate a fear of Islam, including manipulating social media to create a false narrative that Muslims are trying to take over the country. Anti-Muslim messages proliferate in social media with bought-in followers, fake accounts, and robotic amplifiers. The investigation also shows how the organisations suppress the rise of a Muslim political voice in America, and uncovers how ‘dark money’ is fuelling them - tens of millions of dollars funnelled through anonymous donor funds. The report unveiled the donors of the dark money; a strategy of infiltrating US university courses and monitoring mosques; a filmed training session by an ex-FBI Agent teaching ‘theories’ about Muslims; and connections between key members of the Trump administration and the Islamophobia industry.

Few politicians have established such a connection with the millions of underprivileged families in Mexico as Lopez Obrador. He regularly campaigned draped with garlands and gaudy sombreros. Like Trump, the headstrong ‘Amlo’ is the heart and soul of his movement and his presidency could heighten tensions between Mexico and the United States over trade and migration if the two men clash. The prospect of a showdown between the two blunt men over the US-Mexico border and renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement has worried many. ‘There’s going to be a clash of vanities and a clash of egos. Who knows where it will end.’ said Juan Jose Rodriguez Prats, a former party colleague of Amlo who has known him for 40 years. President Trump tweeted, ‘I look very much forward (sic) to working with him. There is much to be done that will benefit both the United States and Mexico!’

A Georgia police officer’s body camera showed him striking a fleeing suspect with his patrol car. He first attempted to block the fleeing man by swerving onto the kerb, then steered back onto the road and hit him from behind. After much deliberation, investigations were finally carried out and his employment was terminated. In Florida a family is calling for justice after a federal jury cleared a sheriff’s deputy of using excessive force when he shot a man dead in the man’s garage. The family were awarded just $4 in damages, that’s £3.06p, for funeral expenses and pain and suffering in a wrongful death lawsuit. The man was a 30-year-old African American and father of three.  The deputy was responding to a noise complaint about music coming from his garage. Over two years ago Amnesty International reported ‘Hundreds of men and women are killed by police each and every year across the United States’.

Hawaii's Kilauea volcano is in its 48th day, wreaking havoc with thousands of varying magnitude earthquakes and a lava flow destroying property on its way to the ocean. Guatemala’s Fuego volcano eruptions, which began on 3 June, are different but no less deadly, occasionally shutting the international airport due to ash. Violent eruptions from another peak recently killed over 110 people. Eruptions have left dense volcanic mud covering villages with rescue attempts having to halt every so often due to the unstable environment. At the time of writing 200 people remain missing in Guatemala; 12,000 are displaced, and being supported by NGOs with food, water and relief items. Pray for those helping to restore family links and for those giving psychosocial support. Donald Trump approved a request for federal aid to assist the thousands left homeless after 600+ homes were destroyed by Hawaii’s lava.

In May, Amnesty International said the US government must stop separating asylum-seeking parents from their children and denying them access to asylum procedures through prolonged detention when they present themselves at the US-Mexico border. On 20 June Donald Trump ended this policy, following days of public outrage. Many asylum-seekers are fleeing violent countries which abuse human rights (such as Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala). They usually cross Mexico in caravans, as travelling in a group is safer in dangerous places. Although Trump seeks to brand them as criminals, it is not a crime to seek asylum at official border posts. Recently members of a caravan and their representatives marched through the streets of Tijuana to the border crossing point saying, ‘We are not criminals, we are the hope of Latin America’.

One of the underlying motivations for the American Revolution was to industrialise, and reverse the crippling trade deficit with Britain. Protectionism and trade barriers were the USA's de facto policy for trading until 1947, when it switched to free trade after most of its industrial competitors were wiped out by the war. It signed up to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas, ‘on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis’. GATT morphed into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1995, but its original text is still in effect. Pray that current international debates will draw countries back to the roots of GATT and WTO, to reduce or even eliminate trade barriers.

As the weeks pass and the Mount Kilauea eruptions show no sign of stopping, many are grappling with ‘What’s next?’ What happens if lava just keeps coming? How will lava-ravaged communities rebuild? The eruptions are in their fourth week, and for the people living on the island their unpredictable future is seemingly unrelenting. Pray for the thousands of families, particularly the elderly and vulnerable, who are being told on news broadcasts to be prepared to vacate their homes at a moment’s notice. Pray for the people returning to their homes to rescue pets and retrieve medicines who are finding mini-volcanoes in their back gardens. Pray for those living in fear as incessant earthquakes shake their homes and heat the ground under their feet, and for the thousands who have lost everything, or fear losing everything. Volcanologists have no idea when the eruptions might end. May God give hope to all whose future looks uncertain.