All posts tagged: agencies

African church leaders defend migrants after Libya bans humanitarian aid agencies

African church leaders defend migrants after Libya bans humanitarian aid agencies

Published by skeptic

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — African church leaders are speaking out against Libya’s move to shut down humanitarian organizations providing care to migrants and refugees being held in detention centers in the North African country.  The move is the latest signal of Libya’s determination not to become a resettlement zone for migrants fleeing violence in the Horn of Africa who have been stopped by European Union countries from crossing the Mediterranean.  “This deeply disturbs me. It (lack of care for migrants) leaves me angry,” Catholic Bishop Tesfasellassie Medhin told Religion News Service in a telephone interview from Ethiopia’s Tigray region. “It proves that we are losing communal responsibility.” Thousands of migrants from Tigray fled into Sudan from 2020 to 2022 as the conflict between the Ethiopian army and a rebel group, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, intensified. An estimated 600,000 people have been killed in the fighting, and an estimated 3 million others have been displaced, according to aid agencies. Barely a year later, the civil war in Sudan reignited, forcing the Tigray refugees to flee …

Layoffs begin at U.S. health agencies

Layoffs begin at U.S. health agencies

Published by Sam

Employees of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) stand outside the Mary E. Switzer Memorial Building, after it was reported that the Trump administration fired staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at the Food and Drug Administration, as it embarked on its plan to cut 10,000 jobs at HHS, in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 1, 2025.  Kevin Lamarque | Reuters Employees across the massive U.S. Department of Health and Human Services began receiving notices of dismissal on Tuesday in a major overhaul expected to ultimately lay off up to 10,000 people. The notices come just days after President Donald Trump moved to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights at HHS and other agencies throughout the government. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s announced a plan last week to remake HHS, which, through its agencies, is responsible for tracking health trends and disease outbreaks, conducting and funding medical research, monitoring the safety of food and medicine, and administering health insurance programs for nearly half of the country. The plan …

DOGE Email Throws Federal Agencies Into Chaos and Confusion

DOGE Email Throws Federal Agencies Into Chaos and Confusion

Published by skeptic

On Saturday, employees throughout the federal government received an email from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), demanding a reply with “approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week.” On X, Elon Musk posted that failure to respond “will be taken as a resignation.” The result? Confusion, chaos, and resentment among a federal workforce that increasingly feels under attack. “So fucking dumb,” says one air traffic controller who received the email and was granted anonymity for fear of retribution. Leaders of many agencies appear to have been caught off guard. At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which houses the National Weather Service, some managers initially cautioned against replying to the email in case it was a phishing attempt. Another NOAA employee says they were cautioned not to log onto their work email after receiving it. Other workers were met with conflicting guidance from their managers. At the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is anticipating deep cuts orchestrated by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), some employees reported being told …

OpenAI announces new ChatGPT version for government agencies

OpenAI announces new ChatGPT version for government agencies

Published by Sam

OpenAI is launching a new version of its popular ChatGPT model that is specifically tailored to government agencies and workers as the artificial intelligence (AI) firm seeks to remain a top player in the AI space.    The product, dubbed “ChatGPT Gov,” will give workers at U.S. government agencies the “most powerful version” of OpenAI’s ChatGPT… Source link

understanding evidence use inside public agencies – Evidence & Policy Blog

understanding evidence use inside public agencies – Evidence & Policy Blog

Published by skeptic

Louise Shaxson, Rick Hood, Annette Boaz and Brian Head This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘Knowledge brokering inside the policy making process: an analysis of evidence use inside a UK government department’. Knowledge brokering is often presented as a way of ensuring that evidence reaches government departments, but we have little understanding of what happens next. Our research shows that some civil servants can also act as internal knowledge brokers between evidence and policy. This raises important questions for how we understand processes of evidence-informed policymaking. What happens to a piece of evidence once it enters a government department and how is it used in the policymaking process? We know that an important role for civil servants is to structure and present information about policy problems, solutions and risks to political appointees so that they can decide how to proceed. But while research has been conducted on civil servants’ personal attitudes towards evidence and their capacities for utilising research findings, there has been much less analysis of what those civil …

UK care agencies accused of exploiting foreign workers caught in debt traps | Social care

UK care agencies accused of exploiting foreign workers caught in debt traps | Social care

Published by skeptic

British social care agencies have been accused of exploiting foreign workers, leaving people living on the breadline as they struggle to pay off debts run up while trying to secure jobs that fail to materialise. Dozens of people working for 11 different care providers have told the Guardian they paid thousands of pounds to agents to secure jobs working in UK care homes or residential care, with most finding limited or no employment when they arrived. Many are now struggling to pay off huge debts in their home countries and having to work in irregular jobs for below the minimum wage. Labour and the Conservatives are now under pressure to tackle the issue if they win next month’s election. The Tories recently banned foreign care workers bringing their dependents to the UK with them, a ban Labour said last week it would keep in place in an effort to bring net immigration down. But experts say the ban has failed to tackle the deeper issue of exploitation of the workers themselves, many of whom are …

‘A colonial mindset’: why global aid agencies need to get out of the way | Global development

‘A colonial mindset’: why global aid agencies need to get out of the way | Global development

Published by skeptic

Before civil war engulfed her Ethiopian home region of Tigray in 2020, Tsega Girma was a prosperous trader who sold stationery and other goods. But when hungry children displaced by the conflict started appearing in the streets, she sold everything and used the proceeds to buy them food. After that money dried up, Tsega appealed to Tigray’s diaspora for donations. At the height of the war, her Emahoy Tsega Girma Charity Foundation provided meals to 24,000 children a day. Today, more than a year after the conflict ended, it still feeds 5,000 children who cannot return home because of lingering insecurity. All the food is bought locally and prepared by volunteers in the grounds of a disused library. “It is emergency work,” Tsega says. “We are doing this simply to keep them alive.” They believe they can just walk in and solve the problem if they have enough money – but that’s not how you create change Kennedy Odede Charities such as Tsega’s, set up by individuals to help their own communities, are the oldest …

House Panel Calls To Defund Federal Agencies That Stonewall Congressional Probes

House Panel Calls To Defund Federal Agencies That Stonewall Congressional Probes

Published by skeptic

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are calling for budget cuts to federal agencies that refuse to cooperate with lawmakers’ investigations, warning that failure to discipline agencies that deny oversight-related requests risks setting a dangerous precedent for stonewalling future probes. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) speaks during a press conference in the U.S. Capitol in Washington on April 30, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times) Led by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, the GOP lawmakers called on the House Appropriations Committee to leverage the power of the purse to force the executive branch to turn over documents and information in response to congressional oversight requests, according to a May 3 letter addressed to Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who chairs the Appropriations Committee. The GOP lawmakers accused the Biden administration of defying congressional authority by being reluctant to comply with legitimate oversight requests. “Agency heads appointed by President Biden, and at times, the White House itself, have repeatedly defied congressional authority to conduct …

Putin likely did not directly order Navalny’s killing, U.S. intelligence agencies conclude

Putin likely did not directly order Navalny’s killing, U.S. intelligence agencies conclude

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U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably didn’t directly order the killing of Alexei Navalny at a remote penal colony in February, according to three sources familiar with the matter. But the precise circumstances of the opposition leader’s death at the Arctic prison remain unclear. The assessment does not absolve Putin of ultimate responsibility for Navalny’s fate, only that the Russian president likely did not call for his killing at that time, the sources said. By sending Navalny to the notorious high-security penal colony in a remote town above the Arctic Circle, the Kremlin had effectively imposed a death sentence on the opposition leader, the sources said. The findings reflected a broad consensus across different intelligence agencies, the sources said. The Wall Street Journal was first to report the intelligence community’s assessment. Following Navalny’s death, President Joe Biden said that while Washington lacked information on the exact circumstances, “there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something Putin and his thugs did.” Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said in …

Putin ‘likely’ didn’t order Navalny’s death in February, US agencies believe: WSJ – POLITICO

Putin ‘likely’ didn’t order Navalny’s death in February, US agencies believe: WSJ – POLITICO

Published by skeptic

According to the WSJ report, U.S. intelligence agencies have shared the assessment with some European intelligence agencies. But some European security officials “remain skeptical” that Putin didn’t play a direct hand in Navalny’s death, considering his tight grip on Russia. The U.S. assessment is “based on a range of information, including some classified intelligence, and an analysis of public facts, including the timing of his death and how it overshadowed Putin’s re-election,” the WSJ reported.  Navalny ally Leonid Volkov told the WSJ that “the idea of Putin being not informed and not approving killing Navalny is ridiculous.” The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees U.S. intelligence agencies, declined to comment on the issue, according to the WSJ report. Putin has denied any involvement in Navalny’s death. Last month, the Russian president said that he had agreed to swap the opposition leader in a prisoner exchange days before Navalny died, confirming claims made by a close Navalny ally that Russia and Western officials had negotiated a prisoner exchange deal. On Saturday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said …