The IDF used a slight 10 year old girl as a human shield in their latest raid in the Nur Shams refugee camp. The platoon pushed her up to each of the doors in her aunt’s house, while they remained braced behind her ready to fire at whoever might be inside.
"There was no mercy, even on children. Why take a 13- or 14-year-old boy from his house and beat the shit out of him and break his phone?” A local Baker referring to his son
"Nothing demonstrates better the appalling environmental record of our polluting water companies than the fact that they are not even taking care of the highly protected areas that they actually own. It simply cannot be right that the payment of large dividends to shareholders and huge bonuses to bosses is prioritised before protecting SSSIs. This entire culture of polluting for profit must end” Charles Watson, Chair River Action
An estimated 19,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both parents in the genocidal war waged by Israel.
The overwhelming majority of children are hungry, with or without parents, aid workers point out, and have little or no access to healthcare as they contend with the daily threats of death, injury and the loss of loved ones.
"We face the greatest predicament humankind has confronted: the erosion and possible collapse of our life-support systems. Its speed and scale have taken even scientists by surprise. The potential impacts are greater than any recent pandemic, or any war we have suffered. Yet the effort to persuade people of the need for action has been left almost entirely to either the private or voluntary sectors. And it simply does not work" George Monbiot
Starmer is talking bollocks. There is no need for a round of further Tory austerity. There are many ways of raising the necessary billions, if only he and Reeves could ditch their craven adherence to neoliberal ideology and 'fiscal rectitude'.
They could start by taxing capital gains at the same rate as income tax and restricting pension tax relief to the basic rate. This would more than cover their fictional £22bn black hole.
"[The war in Gaza] will be counted against [Biden] forever. He could have stopped it long ago. He did not, and even now, when everything is already hopeless, he lets Blinken surrender to Netanyahu's demands"
Gideon Levy in a damning column in Haaretz yesterday.
The BBC has produced dozens of films and articles for oil and gas companies, agricultural giants, fossil fuel states, and high-emission transport firms in recent years.
The content was produced by BBC Storyworks, which boasts on its website that it 'leverages the reputation of the BBC'
Major corporations, including Mastercard, Meta, and Coca-Cola, are quietly sponsoring a Canadian conference headlined by Christopher Rufo, a far-right activist and crusader against diversity initiatives. Many of these same companies, however, champion diversity in their public communications.
"After each atrocity it perpetrates, the Israeli state has a standard modus operandi: deny, deflect, deceive, & wait for attention to move elsewhere. Most media outlets have collaborated with this strategy, which has allowed Israel to continue its genocidal onslaught, because it prevents observers from joining the dots to understand what this really is"
By accident, I just heard an item on BBC Radio 4's Today programme covering the Athens wildfires. Not a mention of global heating or the climate emergency. "Of course, Greece is used to wildfires," says the reporter, "they have them every year."
"The problem is our monopolised food system. Think of it as a vast profit machine shaped like an hourglass, with many food producers at the top, millions of consumers at the bottom, and a few dominant firms – such as giant supermarkets or global food traders – clustered at its narrowing neck, siphoning a cut from the passing traffic" Nicholas Shaxson, co-founder of the Balanced Economy Project
"According to research by the economists Jan Eeckhout and Jan de Loecker, average global markups– the prices companies charge for goods above the cost of producing them– have risen from around 21% above costs in 1980, to 61% today. So a pizza that may have cost you £12 if markets had been as un-concentrated as they were 45 years ago, may now cost £16. Think of the £4 difference as a private monopoly tax that nobody voted for." Nicholas Shaxson #FoodGiants#Farming#Agriculture#Food#UKPolitics
The Labour Party has been accused of “disgusting” behaviour towards a Palestinian man who lost his family in Gaza, after refusing to reveal what information the party has gathered on him. Police dragged Dalloul Neder out of a Labour fundraising event attended by the party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, in January, after he held up a picture of his late mother and told the audience: “I lost my family in Gaza… I want to show you my mum.”
"This is not the life of any normal human being. There is nothing: no water, no food, no health care, not even a toilet. My children ask me if they could just have potatoes but we have no money now. All we have is canned food distributed [by the United Nations],” she said.
“My children have already had flu, and fevers, and hepatitis. They are weak now, and there aren’t enough antibiotics, so I’m very worried.”
"In Rafah I saw children who had amputations, but were living in tents because hospitals are full. Those children – and many, many more – are now being told to go to zones such as Al Mawasi. The so called “safe zone” of Al Mawasi: where UNICEF reported on a little boy, Mustafa, who went to get some parsley for the family dinner. Mustafa was shot in the head, and killed … in the “safe zone” of Al Mawasi"
"The Israeli military on Monday called on Palestinians to move out of the eastern parts of Rafah ahead of what it calls a ‘limited scope operation’ in Gaza’s south. The order came after a night of intense Israeli bombardment on Rafah killed 22 people, including eight children"
And so Israel’s ground operation in Rafah begins. Let's see how Biden and the US react to this blatant provocation.
"In the tented camps and crowded streets of Rafah, the pro-Palestine campus protests in the US have been followed closely.
“We hear a lot of news about students’ demonstrations in American universities … When I saw that, I was very happy that there are still those who stand beside us and in support of us,” said Nevin Abu Shahma, 39, who fled to Rafah from northern Gaza early in the war"
Retired researcher living in Nottinghamshire, England. Hull native.Also at @jsim63#Socialist #Politics #Environment #Cats #Gardening #Wildlife #Opera #ClassicalMusic #Refugees #HumanRights #AlcoholFree #WearAMask#ChildlessCatLadyShe/HerAvatar: Me, a white woman with short, greying brown hair. Wearing a large pair of red spectacles.Header: Climate Stripes going from blue on the left to terrifying red on the right.