Fears For US Healthcare; France's New Counter-terror Law: HRW Daily Brief

Looming changes to US healthcare could have serious consequences. If current legislative proposals become law, 15 million people will lose healthcare insurance in the next year, and 22 million by 2026, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. This could spell disaster for millions of Americans. Instead of ending France’s 19-month temporary state of emergency, the government is making some of its far-reaching powers permanent but with little effective court oversight. A new counterterrorism bill would move some overly broad emergency powers into normal criminal and administrative law, undermining the rule of law. The governments that constitute the intelligence partnership known as “The Five Eyes” are meeting in Canada to discuss how to bypass encryption. They may pursue a dangerous strategy that will subvert the rights and cybersecurity of all internet users. French President Emmanuel Macron may be a fresh new face, but if the visits to Cairo by former Defense Minister Sylvie Goulard and Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian are anything to go by, we seem set for the same indulgence of unabated repression. The United States Supreme Court has temporarily reinstated parts of President Trump's controversial travel ban. The Court has agreed to hear arguments on the ban later this year. The move comes after lower courts struck down the law as being overly broad and discriminatory in denying access to the US to people from six Muslim-majority countries. The death of Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old US student from Ohio imprisoned in North Korea since last year, should be a wake-up call to the international community. North Korea citizens are regularly subjected to arrest for trifling crimes and sentenced to labor camps. Many die in prison from beatings, malnourishment, or untreated sickness. The Thai government has created a committee to receive complaints and investigate allegations of torture and enforced disappearances. Now it should make torture a criminal offense, to make sure that the new body can do more than just provide compensation for victims and their families. When it comes to cosying up to alleged torturers in Afghanistan, the US military has been a slow learner. A recently published photo shows Gen. John Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, sharing a laugh with Kandahar strongman Gen. Abdul Raziq, long accused of forcibly disappearing detainees and having his henchman drill holes in the heads of some of them. And finally, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has curiously removed Burma and Iraq from the list of governments using child soldiers, despite documented evidence of both countries doing so. The US should stand by this evidence - as well as its own laws - and keep pressure on those who violate rules designed to stop the recruitment of child soldiers.