this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2024
565 points (96.4% liked)

News

23367 readers
3092 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
rjc@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
gedaliyah@lemmy.world
little_cow@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
565
He Made a PowerPoint on Mothers Starving in Gaza. Then He Lost His Government Job. (theintercept.com)
submitted 5 months ago by IndustryStandard@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
62 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Alexander Smith’s PowerPoint presentation doesn’t appear designed to court controversy. The slides, focused on declining maternal health in Gaza, cite public health data from the United Nations and World Health Organization. His employer, the U.S. Agency for International Development, had selected him to share it at the government agency’s Global Gender Equality Conference.

But just before the conference, an issue of contention emerged.

A single slide mentioned international humanitarian law in context of the health crisis in Gaza. USAID staff cited the slide and discussion of international law as potential fodder for leaks, documents and emails Smith shared with The Intercept show. Despite Smith’s willingness to make revisions, his presentation was eventually canceled. On the last day of the conference, he found himself out of a job.

“I thought it is really obscene that misinformation can go out freely out into the world [about Gaza], but I can’t talk about the reality of starving pregnant women,” said Smith, who worked as a contracted senior adviser at USAID on gender and material health. “We can’t even whisper about that in a conference on that topic.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] awesome_lowlander@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Late last week, Smith said he got a call from the company that contracted his position with USAID. He was told he could either resign or be terminated over “personality differences.”

Yeah, it was entirely his choice to resign voluntarily /s

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca -5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Are you implying someone put a gun to his head? If not, what exactly are you implying?

Loads of conspiracy theories abound, I think it's important to be clear and not make nebulous implications.

[–] awesome_lowlander@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Gun to his head? Conspiracy theories? WTF?

How is 'resign or be fired' in any way a 'voluntary' resignation?

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca -5 points 5 months ago

They could've just fired him. He's a contractor, they just end the contract. That's what it means to be a contractor.

They gave him an option to resign, but they didn't have to give him that choice.

In hindsight they shouldn't have given him that option, the whole point of that is preserve everyone's reputation. Instead this guy publicized it so it would've been easier to just end the contract.

I mean the term firing isn't really accurate when it's a contractor. Anyway USAID contractors are the scum of the Earth, not having to pay him for bullshit powerpoint presentations that he just copy and pasted from un.org means more money could potentially be sent to developing countries.

Understand that USAID budgets a relatively meager $150 million for Palestinians and this guy's pay for this Powerpoint presentation would likely be coming out of that budget. A lot of foreign aid never leaves the country and actually just goes to these contractors. They're scum of the Earth grifters.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 months ago

There are degrees of coercion. No, there was no literal gun to his head, but the only choice is how he was walking out that door. Keeping his job was not an option.

They, and you, can use whatever weasel words you want, this guy didn't choose to leave his position.