On Friday, the United Nations finalized a new agreement intended to outline and preserve the human rights of migrants and refugees. 192 of the 193 members of the United Nation agreed to the final text; only the United States is refused to participate.
The United States had initially participated in the negotiations, but it abruptly withdrew last December under orders from the Trump administration, which has taken an increasingly hostile view toward cross-border migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. It argued that such multinational agreements subverted the power of individual governments to control national borders. [...]
Under the final agreement, signers would commit to 23 objectives, which include “providing basic services for migrants” and using “detention only as a measure of last resort.”
One objective lays out the need for nations to cooperate in “facilitating safe and dignified return and readmission” for those migrants deemed able to return to their home countries, but would prohibit the collective expulsion of migrants who face a “real and foreseeable risk of death, torture, and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment.”
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BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2012—Penn State must shut down its football program:
The report by Louis Freeh on the Penn State University pedophilia scandal finally makes clear what happened and why, and it also makes clear that there is only one clean path forward for Penn State. This scandal happened not because of one lone psychopath, or because a few well-intentioned Penn State leaders misunderstood what was happening, or did know what was happening but didn't understand how to deal with it; the Freeh report makes clear that the highest ranking authorities at Penn State did know what was happening, deliberately chose not to contact appropriate authorities, and deliberately chose to protect the perpetrator of horrific crimes rather than those subject to them, and they did it all because they wanted to protect Penn State football rather than the innocent, abused children.
This scandal and these horrors happened because the culture of football at Penn State had come to mean more to the school's leadership than did basic standards of humanity and morality, and the only way for Penn State to regain its human and moral footing is for it to shut down its football program, as a statement to the victims, the students and alumni and fans, and all humanity. When something as important as the safety and well-being of children is superseded by athletic prowess, the money it earns, and the false sense of prestige it imparts, it is time to start over, from scratch, not in the realm of athletics but in the realm of humanity and morality.
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