Category World News

According to the retailer, Target will discontinue its diversity, equity, and inclusion program, joining other equity initiatives, making it the most recent US company to reverse policies intended to increase racial and ethnic representation at work.

Target said on Friday it was rolling back programmes aimed at promoting racial equity, called the Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiatives, this year.

Earlier this week, &nbsp, President Donald Trump issued&nbsp, a sweeping executive order directing federal agencies to terminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, encouraging private companies to do the same.

“For Target, with an inclusive audience, this is their version of brand suicide”, said Eric Schiffer of Los Angeles-based Reputation Management Consultants, which advises US corporates and Hollywood celebrities.

Target’s move generated some backlash on social media. “Target is making a mistake by ending its DEI goals with its customer base being highly diverse”, said Sylvester Turner, congressman for Texas’s 18th Congressional District, on X.

Another X user from Henderson, Nevada, wrote: “It is shameful that these companies are all following suit and ending programs that help their employees”.

Some commenters were in favour of the decision. “So basically, Target will now be hiring based on someone’s ability to do the job and not how many boxes they check. What a concept”, DelilahM from Nevada posted.

According to Target’s 2023 workforce diversity report, the retailer’s workforce comprised 56 percent female employees and 43 percent male employees. Similar racial and ethnic distributions were present, with 43% of employees white and 56% of those who were white.

DEI programmes, designed to promote opportunities for women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ people and other traditionally underrepresented groups, gained traction after nationwide protests in 2020 over police shootings of unarmed Black people.

Trump and other conservative groups have criticized them for undermining the merit of hiring and promotion, as well as for being discriminatory against other Americans.

‘ Evolving ‘ external landscape

Over the last year, several major companies, including Walmart, Amazon, and Meta, walked back their DEI policies in the face of public pressure and after the November election victory by Trump, who has long criticised DEI initiatives.

“Many years of data, insights, listening and learning have been shaping this next chapter in our strategy”, Target’s chief community impact and equity officer Kiera Fernandez said in a memo, adding that it was important to stay in step with the “evolving” external landscape.

In 2022, Target pledged it would invest more than $2bn in Black-owned businesses by the end of 2025 as part of its REACH goals.

The initiative also included plans to add more than 500 Black-owned brands and a funding programme from its in-house media company, Roundel, to increase exposure of diverse-owned brands through paid media.

The retailer added that it was changing its “Supplier Diversity” team to “Supplier Engagement” in a bid to better reflect “its inclusive global procurement process”.

CEO Brian Cornell stated at a recent retail conference in New York that the success of Target was attributable to people being invested in and creating a culture of care and growth.

The company cited an internal survey to showcase its people-led culture, saying it showed that “seven out of 10 people feel cared for as a person, not as an employee]of Target]”.

“In retail, we have a chance to change lives”, Cornell said at a keynote session at the National Retail Federation Conference.

Late last year, bigger rival Walmart said it was cutting some of its DEI initiatives, too.

In contrast, on Thursday, &nbsp, Costco Wholesale shareholders&nbsp, voted strongly against a proposal requesting a report on the risks of maintaining its diversity and inclusion initiatives.

In the past, Target in Minneapolis faced conservative opposition.

In 2023, &nbsp, Target pulled some LGBTQ-themed&nbsp, merchandise from stores, citing increased confrontations between shoppers and employees, and incidents of products being thrown on the floor.

Hamas has made the names of the four Israeli soldiers whose names will be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners on Saturday public.

The first two phases of a three-stage ceasefire that were reached this month will be followed by this exchange, which is the second of these.

Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag were all taken prisoner on October 7, 2023, during Hamas-led assaults on army outposts and villages in southern Israel. During the first six-week period of the Hamas-Israel ceasefire, which ended on Sunday, they will now be exchanged for 200 of the roughly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners who are awaiting release from Israeli prisons.

In the first phase of the ceasefire, Israel agreed to release 50 Palestinian prisoners for each Israeli soldier in custody in Gaza and 30 for any other female prisoners. The second phase of the agreement is scheduled to start on February 4, and the negotiations will begin with the release of the captives.

The reconstruction and long-term governance of Gaza are the subjects of a third phase.

What are the rumors that Israeli women will be released?

Ariev, 20, was serving at the Nahal Oz army base, about 1km (0.6 miles) from the boundary with Gaza at the time of her abduction. Her parents released an image from Hamas purporting to show Ariev during her first few days of captivity in July in an effort to pressure the Israeli government, which many of the captives’ families believed was putting a damper on their release.

Ariev can be seen sitting with her head bandaged alongside Albag, Agam Berger, and Gilboa, all of whom had their heads bandaged in the untitled image.

Her parents later recognized her based on a Hamas video that was broadcast on Telegram that day. About 48 hours later, the Israeli military confirmed her abduction.

Gilboa, 20, was also at the Nahal Oz base. Gilboa was referred to in a Hamas video in July, where she appealed to the Israeli government to release her and the other prisoners.

Levy, 19 at the time of her capture and now 20, had just begun her military service when Hamas attacked, the BBC quoted her mother as saying. She was allegedly bundled into a Jeep in a Hamas video hours after being abducted.

Albag, 19, was serving as an army lookout at the Nahal Oz base. During the Hamas-led attack, her family believed she was hiding out in a field shelter from a rocket barrage. Later, Albag was identified in a Hamas-published Telegram video of captives.

Of the female soldiers taken, only 21-year-old Berger will remain in captivity if Saturday’s exchange goes as planned. In the initial exchange on Sunday, three more female soldiers were released.

What was the initial prisoner exchange’s response?

It was mixed.

69 women and 21 children were among the early-morning celebrations of the release of 90 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons in the occupied West Bank on Monday. Numerous people expressed their joy over reuniting with friends and family members. While cheers and whistles accompanied the newly released prisoners, crowds tucked them in.

Amanda Abu Sharkh, 23, was only there to witness the Red Cross’s buses carrying the prisoners’ arrival in Ramallah. According to Abu Sharkh, “We came here to witness it and feel the emotions,” the prisoners’ families are currently being released.

“We feel like family to all the prisoners who are currently being released today. They are part of us, even if they’re not blood relatives”, she said.

In contrast, the intense relief of many Israelis over Sunday’s return of Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari was mixed with anger and resentment from a sizeable minority who saw the exchange as a defeat in Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed at least 47, 283 Palestinians.

Israeli settlers attacked six villages in the West Bank on Tuesday, attacking homes, shops, cars, and buses with firebombs, and incensed Israeli settlers attacked the town and refugee camp of Jenin.

Why did Israeli forces tell Palestinians to refrain from celebrating the releases?

That would be a concern for them.

There have been several reports of police visiting the homes of Palestinian prisoners, removing flags, signs and sweets and ejecting anyone, including journalists, who are not close family members. Reports also surfaced about journalist scuffles involving the return of Palestinians’ loved ones.

Besides being summoned to police stations, family members of prisoners who had been released were also reportedly cautioned against holding events or marches to honor their release. Additionally, family members informed Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that the police had instructed them not to make any media appearances or to postpone interviews.

The prisoners themselves were also impacted by Israel’s resolve to prevent the exchange from being portrayed as a defeat. The women were forced to kneel on the ground for hours before being freed, according to Pula Hassanein, who was later released on Monday, and watched a 90-second video that read, “This is not a victory for you.” We have destroyed and killed in Gaza, in Yemen, in Syria, in Iran. We killed]your] leadership”, she recalled.

“We were not allowed to look left or right, only at the screen”, she told CNN.

Why were Palestinian prisoners detained?

According to the Israeli NGO HaMoked, being arrested by the Israeli authorities for any infraction, no matter how slight, is routine for Palestinians.

40 percent of all male Palestinians have been detained by Israeli forces, according to a 2017 report from the prisoners’ rights organization Adameer.

HaMoked said this month that 10, 221 Palestinians were jailed by Israel, of whom 3, 376 were being held under administrative detention. In some cases, Israeli authorities release prisoners without giving an explanation of what they are being held for. This is done by administrative detention.

Dania Hanatsheh was one of the many people who had been detained on Monday and placed in administrative detention. “Palestinian families are prepared to be arrested at any moment”, Hanatsheh, who said she has never been told why she had been detained, told US-based ABC News. “You feel helpless, like you can’t do anything to protect yourself”.

What kind of conditions exist for Palestinian prisoners?

Dire ones.

Shatha Jarabaa, 24, who was arrested in August for a social media post that Israeli authorities deemed “incitement” told the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper that she had lost 14kg (31lb) during five months of imprisonment.

“The treatment in prison was so bad”, she told the newspaper. “Each prisoner had only one outfit. The detention facility’s interior was bitterly cold. Inside the cells, rain would fall on us. My arrest was illogical and unjustified. The charge involved the posting of Quranic verses on social media and their support for terrorist organizations.

Because of the prisoners inside Gaza, it was necessary to place as many women in the Israeli prisons as possible. Because we were held hostage against our will and without any compelling charges, we were also held hostage.

Rights organizations including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Israel’s B’Tselem have been vocal critics of the Israeli prison system and the conditions in which Palestinians are imprisoned.

Over the course of the war, there have been numerous rapes reported. Many of Israel’s leading politicians took to the streets in August to protest accusations that soldiers had gang-raped a Palestinian detainee against their accusation. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese referred to prominent Palestinian surgeon Adnan Al-Bursh as likely to have been “raped to death” a few months later.

Likely raped to death.
A doctor. A stellar surgeon. the epitome of Palestinian morality.
Likely raped to death.

The racism of Western politicians and journalists who do not cover this, as well as the thousands of other testimonials and… pictures. twitter.com/IRpCSi9nVZ

Dr. Al-Bursh was a prisoner at the time of his death, just outside of Ramallah, where many of the women and children who were released this week were being held.

Many Palestinians, including Ibrahim and his family, are returning to a destroyed home and having to rebuild it from scratch despite the promise of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

Local authorities claim that the military governor of North Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has died from injuries sustained in front-line fighting as M23 rebel fighters attack Goma, the provincial capital.

The circumstances around the death of Major General Peter Cirimwami were unclear, but Cirimwami, who led army operations in restive North Kivu in the eastern DRC, visited troops on the front line in Kasengezi, about 13km (8 miles) from Goma, on Thursday, the day of his death.

A government source, a military source, and a UN source confirmed his death on Friday, all of whom had unofficial media access to his information.

Goma, a town with a population of about 2 million people and a regional hub for security and humanitarian efforts, is a region whose M23 has recently made significant territorial gains.

On Thursday, panic spread in Goma as rebels took control of Sake, a town 27km (16 miles) northwest of the provincial capital and on a road that is one of the last main routes into the city still under government control, according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

More than 400, 000 people have been displaced by the raging conflict in North Kivu this year, according to the UN’s warning that it could start a regional conflict.

At a news briefing in Geneva on Friday, Matthew Saltmarsh, a spokesman for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), stated that “the number of displacements is now over 400, 000 people this year alone, almost twice the number reported last week.

In the east of the nation, Saltmarsh expressed concern for the safety and security of civilians and internally displaced people.

According to him, “heavy bombardments caused families from at least nine displacement sites on the periphery of Goma to flee into the city for safety and shelter,” adding that many were living in poverty.

The United States, the UK, and France all issued an appeal to their nationals to leave Goma on Friday, prompting them to do so while airports and borders are open. The advice was published online, in messages sent directly via email or SMS.

M23 has been accused of widespread atrocities, including rape. Since the conflict started three years ago, more than two million people have been forced to leave their homes.

“We fled as a precaution because we know that when the enemy arrives in our village, they will forcibly recruit many young people”, Mumulirwa Baguma Destin, a displaced resident from Mukwija, told Al Jazeera.

In a decades-long conflict that has led to one of the largest humanitarian crises in history, about 100 armed groups have been fighting for a foothold in the mineral-rich eastern DRC along the border with Rwanda.

This month, M23 captured the towns of Minova, Katale and Masisi, west of Goma. M23 seized Goma in 2012 and controlled it for more than a week.

Rwanda is accused of backing M23, which is primarily made up of ethnic Tutsis who abandoned the Congolese army more than ten years ago, by the DRC, the UN, and UN experts.

Rwanda’s government refutes the accusations, but it acknowledged in the past year that it had troops and missile systems in the eastern DRC to protect its security, citing a rise in Congolese forces close to the border.

Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb, reporting from Nairobi in Kenya, said many people who have fled the fighting lived through M23’s 2012&nbsp, offensive and are terrified of the group.

“We’ve met people in camps who say they don’t want to live under what they see as a foreign occupation”, he said.