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"Western media have erased from history all the western provocations which led to the war in Ukraine, they only report pro-western narratives, they hide Ukrainian casualties and ignore the Nord Stream pipeline bombing, then they tell you to worry about foreign propaganda."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

The Hawks Have Had China In Their Crosshairs For Years

Every now and then I like to highlight the fact that all this China stuff was forcast way back in 2004 by Michael Parenti, who said that the unipolarist neoconservative ideology that had hijacked US foreign policy envisioned a massive strategic confrontation with Beijing.

“The PNAC plan envisions a strategic confrontation with China, and a still greater permanent military presence in every corner of the world,” Parenti wrote in his book Superpatriot. “The objective is not just power for its own sake but power to control the world’s natural resources and markets, power to privatize and deregulate the economies of every nation in the world, and power to hoist upon the backs of peoples everywhere — including North America — the blessings of an untrammeled global ‘free market.’ The end goal is to ensure not merely the supremacy of global capitalism as such, but the supremacy of American global capitalism by preventing the emergence of any other potentially competing superpower.”

“PNAC” refers to Project for the New American Century, the wildly influential neoconservative think tank whose members played a critical role in pushing the Iraq invasion. Since that time PNAC’s vision for the future has quietly become the mainstream US foreign policy consensus.

After the fall of the Soviet Union the US government espoused a doctrine of securing US unipolar planetary domination by ensuring no rival superpowers develop, nicknamed the Wolfowitz Doctrine after the Pentagon official who supervised its drafting. Paul Wolfowitz would later become a PNAC member.

What we’re witnessing now is this doctrine of maintaining unipolar hegemony at all cost colliding with the emergence of a multipolar world order, carried largely by the rise of China toward superpower status. Parenti saw this coming because like PNAC he saw that these two factors must necessarily collide.

US Army Secretary Says US Preparing to Win a War With China Over Taiwan

US Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said this week that the US must prepare to win a future war with China over Taiwan by beefing up its military deployments in the region.

“I personally am not of the view that an amphibious invasion of Taiwan is imminent,” Wormuth said at an American Enterprise Institute event, according to Voice of America. “But we obviously have to prepare, to be prepared to fight and win that war.”

Wormuth’s plan would involve sending more troops and advanced weapons into the region, including hypersonic missiles. She said the buildup would be an effort to deter war with China, although Beijing has been increasing its military activity in the region in response to US actions. ...

Wormuth is the latest US official to openly discuss the fact that the US is preparing for war with China. Earlier this year, a four-star Air Force general predicted the US will be at war with China within two years and ordered his forces to be prepared. “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me will fight in 2025,” Gen. Mike Minihan, the head of Air Mobility Command, said of war with China in a leaked memo.

State Department Approves $619 Million F-16 Missile Sale for Taiwan

The State Department on Wednesday approved a potential $619 million weapons sale to Taiwan for hundreds of missiles to arm the island’s US-made F-16 fighter jets.

The approval of the deal notifies Congress and begins a period where the sale could be blocked, but it shouldn’t have a problem in either chamber as there is strong bipartisan support for arming Taiwan. ...

The US has always sold weapons to Taiwan since severing diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979, but the arms sales have spiked in recent years as the US has become more hawkish toward Beijing. According to The Wall Street Journal, since 2019, the US has approved more than $20 billion in military aircraft, Javelin and Stinger missiles, howitzers, and other munitions for Taiwan.

Russian cauldrons, Bakhmut and Debáltsevo

Rightwing Republicans rail against US aid for Ukraine: ‘We’ve done enough’

Marjorie Taylor Greene, an influential far-right Republican in Congress, has called for the US to stop aid to Ukraine, giving added voice to a grassroots revolt in the party that threatens bipartisan support for the war against Russia’s Vladimir Putin. ...

Greene told the Guardian that Joe Biden is “putting the entire world at risk of world war three”, a view widely held at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), America’s biggest annual gathering of conservatives. “I think the US should be pushing for peace in Ukraine instead of funding and continuing a war that seems to be escalating and putting the entire world at risk of world war three,” Greene said during CPAC at the National Harbor in Maryland on Friday.

Greene called for US funding to cease immediately, insisting that, while she voted for a resolution to support the Ukrainian people and condemning Russia’s invasion, “we are actually accelerating a war there”. She added: “We should be promoting peace. Europe should have peace and the United States should do their part. Ukraine is not a Nato member nation and Joe Biden said in the beginning he would not defend Ukraine because they’re not a Nato member nation. It doesn’t make sense and the American people do not support it.” ...

The two leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, former president Donald Trump and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, have both expressed scepticism about the Ukraine cause. Opinion polls also show an erosion of public support.

Major US Outlets Found Hersh’s Nord Stream Scoop Too Hot to Handle

Scores of hits from publications across the globe pop up from an internet search for veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh’s claim that the US destroyed Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipeline.

But what is most striking about the page after page of results from Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo in the weeks following the February 8 posting of Hersh’s story isn’t what is there, but what is not to be found:

 The Times of London (2/8/23) reported Hersh’s story hours after he posted it on his Substack account, but nothing in the New York Times.

Britain’s Reuters News Agency moved at least ten stories (2/8/23, 2/9/23, 2/12/2, 2/15/23, among others), the Associated Press not one.

Not a word broadcast by the major US broadcast networks—NBC, ABC, CBS—or the publicly funded broadcasters PBS and NPR.

No news stories on the nation’s major cable outlets, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.

Is there justification for such self-censorship? True, Hersh’s story is based on a single anonymous source. But anonymous sources are a staple of mainstream reporting on the US government, used by all major outlets. Further, countless stories of lesser national and international import have been published with the caveat that the facts reported have not been independently verified.

Doubts about Hersh’s story aside, by every journalistic standard, the extensive international coverage given the story, as well as the adamant White House and Pentagon denials, should have made it big news in the United States.

More important, if Hersh got it wrong, his story needs to be knocked down. Silence is not acceptable journalism.

What’s not in doubt is the remarkable breadth of the news blackout surrounding Hersh’s story. The only major US newspaper to cover it as breaking news was the New York Post (2/8/23).

It did appear on the opinion pages—but not the news columns—of two major dailies. The Los Angeles Times (2/11/23) mentioned Hersh’s story in the 11th paragraph of a weekly round-up by the letters editor. On the New York Times  opinion page (2/15/23), Ross Douthat included Hersh in a column headlined “UFOs and Other Unsolved Mysteries of Our Time.”

Fox News firebrands Tucker Carlson (2/8/23) and Laura Ingraham (2/14/23) collectively gave Hersh’s story a few minutes on their cable TV shows, but their network didn’t post a news story. On Fox News Sunday (2/19/23), National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby was asked about Hersh’s claims. But, again, Fox News didn’t do a separate news report.

Newsweek (2/8/23) has covered the story , but focusing mainly on White House denials and Russia’s reaction. Bloomberg News (2/9/23) ran a four-paragraph follow-up that also stressed the Russian response, but provided no details of Hersh’s account of the bombing.

The Washington Post’s first mention of the story (2/22/23) came two weeks after it was posted. Again, Russian reaction was the hook, as seen in the headline: “Russia, Blaming US Sabotage, Calls for UN Probe of Nord Stream.”

Arguably the most influential coverage of Hersh’s story came from Business Insider (2/9/23), which posted what can justly be called a hit piece, given its blatantly loaded headline: “The Claim by a Discredited Journalist That the US Secretly Blew Up the Nord Stream Pipeline Is Proving a Gift to Putin.”

The Business Insider article was picked up by Yahoo! (2/9/23) and MSN (2/9/23). It also was the primary source of an article in Snopes (2/10/23), the only major factchecking site to weigh in on Hersh’s claims. But Snopes, which bills itself as “the definitive Internet reference source for researching urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors and misinformation,” didn’t check any disputed facts. Instead, it starts with an ad hominem attack, asking “Who is Seymour Hersh?”

Snopes answers that rhetorical question by summarizing his body of work—uncovering the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1970, revealing the secret bombing in Cambodia and the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq—but emphasizing that “his later work, however, has been controversial and widely panned by journalists for promoting conspiratorial claims that hinge on dubious anonymous sources or speculation.”

Snopes’ presentation is hardly even-handed. No defenders of Hersh are cited in the four-paragraph overview of his work, which includes seven hyperlinks to sources. That looks impressive. But clicking on the links reveals four are to the same source: the Business Insider hit piece.

Snopes’ failure to acknowledge multiple links to the same source isn’t just sloppy, it’s misleading, because most readers don’t check to see if the same source is cited repeatedly.

It’s likely Snopes used the Business Insider piece a fifth time—the last without attribution. The Snopes article’s final sentence states: “Hersch [sic] was asked by the Russian news agency TASS about the identity of his source. He told them that, ‘It’s a person, who, it seems, knows a lot about what’s going on.’ ”

The Business Insider piece ends with a paragraph with the same misspelling of Hersh’s name, the same TASS link and identical—word for word — translation of his response. (It doesn’t help Snopes’ credibility as a factchecker that Hersh’s name was originally misspelled two other times in the article.)

Much of the remainder of Snopes’ article consists of quotes from Hersh’s story, followed by commentary disparaging Hersh’s reliance on a single, unnamed source. Since that’s something Hersh readily acknowledges, it’s hard to see the informational value of the Snopes article.

While several bloggers have challenged details in Hersh’s account, no news outlet has answered the only question that matters: Who blew up the pipeline?

Waiting for official explanations appears to be a dead end. Sweden, Denmark and Germany have launched investigations, but have not indicated when—or if—results would be released.

The giants of US journalism—the New York Times, Washington Post and the major broadcast networks—have the resources to try and solve the mystery. And it’s certainly possible that one or more of them are working to do just that. But the pipelines were destroyed five months ago. Since then, Seymour Hersh is the only journalist to offer an explanation of who was responsible.

There should be others. Hersh needs competition, not just critics.

Inflation on the rise. EU sanctions, punish consumers and reward energy companies

Hungary further delays vote on Sweden, Finland joining NATO

Hungary has further delayed a vote on ratifying Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession bids, according to an updated schedule published Thursday on the National Assembly’s website, the latest in a series of postponements that have frustrated Western allies.

The delay, which pushes the vote back by two weeks to the parliamentary session beginning March 20, comes as Hungary remains the only NATO member country besides Turkey that hasn’t yet approved the two Nordic countries’ bids to join the Western military alliance.

Hungary’s populist prime minister, Viktor Orban, has said that he is personally in favor of the two countries joining NATO, but alleges that the governments in Stockholm and Helsinki have “spread blatant lies” about Hungary which have raised questions among lawmakers in his party on whether to approve the bids.

In a radio interview on Feb. 24, Orban confirmed that Hungary would send a parliamentary delegation to Sweden and Finland to seek “clarification” on such issues before the ratification could come to a vote in parliament.

“It’s not right for them to ask us to take them on board while they’re spreading blatant lies about Hungary, about the rule of law in Hungary, about our democracy and about life here,” Orban said. “(How) can anyone want to be our ally in a military system while they’re shamelessly spreading lies about Hungary? So let’s stop for a friendly word and ask them how this can be.”

Israel Says Its Window to Attack Iran Is Closing Due to Russian Support

Israeli officials are claiming Russia might provide Iran with S-400 air defense systems, and because of that, Israel’s window to launch an attack on Iran is closing, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

The report cited anonymous people in the US and Israel who said the prospect of Iran acquiring the S-400 system could accelerate plans for an Israeli attack. While Russia and Iran have vowed to increase cooperation, it’s not clear if Moscow has plans to provide Tehran with the S-400 system.

Israeli officials have been openly threatening to attack Iran, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said Israel was running out of time to do so. The threats are focused on Iran’s nuclear program even though the Pentagon and CIA have acknowledged Tehran is not trying to build a bomb.

Israeli Anti-Government Protests Hit New Heights as 200,000 March in Tel Aviv

Ongoing protests against the far-right Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu were larger than ever on Saturday night as an estimated 200,000 people or more took to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities to denounce judicial reforms they warn put the nation on a path towards dictatorship.

For over two months, weekly protests—mostly on the weekends but increasingly during the workweek as well—large demonstrations have taken place in response to Netanyahu and his coalition government pushing a judicial takeover that critics say would curtail democracy.

Haaretz reported Saturday's turnout as a record since the movement started in early January. ...

The demonstrations in Tel Aviv and other locations "began peacefully," reports Reuters. "However, footage released by police later showed protesters breaking down barriers in Tel Aviv and igniting fires as they blocked roads. Police sprayed water cannons at the protesters."

While Israeli liberals increasingly register fear and discomfort over the direction of its government's growing autocratic tendencies, Palestinian rights advocates have noted that the right-wing slide is a direct and predictable continuation of a system that denies its Palestinian citizens full rights under the law while overseeing a brutal and repressive apartheid regime.

As American-Palestinian scholar Yousef Munayyer recently wrote in a column about the protest movement for +972 Magazine:

As tens of thousands of Israelis protest the reforms that Netanyahu’s government seeks to ram through in hopes of “saving the essence” of Israeli democracy, they are largely avoiding a confrontation with the foundational problem, namely that the essence of the Israeli system is to put settler colonialism ahead of any liberal principles around democracy, equality, or human rights.

A key question for many concerned not only about Israel's increasingly autocratic and right-wing lurch, but its ever-worsening treatment of the Palestinians living under hostile military occupation is this: "Does this loose group oppose the settler-colonial system that these legal reforms would further enable, or does it simply seek a return to the settler-colonial system, but without Netanyahu at its head?"

Munayyer believes all evidence thus far indicates the latter is the unfortunate answer, which is why Palestinians are noticeably absent from celebrating the display of dissent and opposition in Tel Aviv and elsewhere.

"For all Palestinians, including those with Israeli citizenship, there is little urgency to try to 'save' Israeli democracy, primarily because for them it has never existed," Munayyer concluded. "Not only is a political system that is constructed to be democratic toward some, but not all, not a democracy, it is also not going to seem worth saving to those it disadvantages."

Hundreds of Israeli reservists refusing to serve in protest against judicial overhaul plan

A growing number of Israeli reservists are refusing to serve in the military in protest against the government’s contentious judicial overhaul plans, according to reports in Israeli media. Tens of thousands of Israelis have come out against the proposed judicial overhaul in recent weeks. ...

At least 180 air force reserve officers submitted a petition Wednesday night to the Israeli defence minister and chief of staff announcing their refusal to serve in the military, Israel’s Kan broadcaster reported. The officers all serve in the military’s Control and Monitoring Department.

Wednesday’s move came after a similar announcement late last week which saw 100 senior officers in an elite unit sign a petition saying they will not perform any military service if the judicial changes were approved.

Hundreds more officers and reservists in the intelligence corps' 'Unit 8200' – in charge of operations related to cyberwarfare and surveillance - also said they would stop working.

The decisions have raised fears in Israel regarding the military’s readiness amid growing tensions in the occupied Palestinian territories, where at least 64 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers since the beginning of the year.

Buttigieg ADMITS Ohio Failure, But There's A Catch

Breached Dam, Incineration of Soil Flood East Palestine With Fresh Fears of Toxins

The collapse Friday night of a makeshift dam designed to hold back wastewater and new concerns by local groups and residents about the nearby incineration of contaminated soil from last month's train derailment are the latest anxiety-producing woes to behest the community of East Palestine, Ohio.

Watchdogs on the ground reported that the dam broke after heavy rains in the area on Friday.

According to local Channel 19 News:

Residents tell 19 News heavy rain has caused Leslie Run Creek to rise, and spill over the makeshift dam, near the derailment sight. 19 News was able to obtain several photos of water from that manmade dam covering the Main Street area of town.

Residents fear the contaminated water may seep into homes or businesses—causing another level of fear for those who live in the area.

Local resident Eric Cozza told the news outlet he was scared of what the released waters could do to the community. "I fear that now the chemical is in the ground, it's going to leech towards the water ducts, our aquifer for drinking water," Cozza said. "I'm concerned that the park is now contaminated. Kids won't be able to play there or walk through there on their way to school."

Status Coup News, which has been reporting from East Palestine and speaking with residents since the disaster occurred, reported Friday night that flooding from the breached dam was going "into The Original Roadhouse restaurant parking lot where a lot of locals eat and drink."

The outlet also reported that the pictures of the broken dam posted to social media were taken by local resident Neko Figley, who was told by contractors to leave the area because it was "super dangerous to be here right now.”

From our organizer in East Palestine: the dam constructed to hold back toxic waste has broken after today’s heavy rain and the area is flooding.

Safe homes and independent testing NOW. pic.twitter.com/H5fBJTZMvl

— River Valley Organizing (@RiverValleyOrg) March 4, 2023

Rail Workers Push RADICAL Idea To Save The Railroads

Florida Republicans seek new abortion restrictions amid broad rightwing push

Florida Republicans are planning a broad rightwing legislative push, including new restrictions on gender identification, diversity and equity programs, abortion and press freedoms, and further relaxation of concealed weapons laws and the ability of courts to impose death sentences.

The basket of proposed legislation comes five months after the state’s rightwing Republican governor Ron DeSantis won re-election by a decisive margin and the Republicans established a convincing majority in the state legislature.

The broad push is seen by many as following the Republican governor’s ideological wish-list as DeSantis positions himself for a likely 2024 White House and an attempt to wrest the Republican party from out of the shadow of Donald Trump.

Last week, Republican lawmakers moved to expand the state’s controversial “Parental Rights in Education/Don’t Say Gay” law with proposed legislation limiting the use of gender pronouns within parts of the public and charter school education system.

The legislation, known as House Bill 1223, is aimed at establishing a requirement that “personal titles and pronouns” used in schools for kindergarten through 12th grade match the identity assigned at birth.

Trump DOMINATES CPAC: 'I AM YOUR RETRIBUTION'

The Guardian shows its deep love for Trump:

‘I am your retribution’: Trump rules supreme at CPAC as he relaunches bid for White House

Donald Trump turned back the clock to the darkest elements of his presidency on Saturday with a fiery address that showed the threat to American democracy is far from over. After a lacklustre start to his campaign, Trump appeared to launch his White House bid in earnest with a vintage display of demagoguery that framed the 2024 election as “the final battle” for America.

The former president, wearing dark suit, white shirt and trademark red tie, also declared war on his own Republican party to the delight of ardent fans in the crowd chanting “Trump! Trump! Trump!” and “USA! USA! USA!”

Opinion polls suggest that Trump’s grip on the party is slipping in the wake of the 6 January 2021, insurrection and a disappointing midterm performance. But he continues to rule supreme at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), billed as the biggest annual gathering of grassroots conservatives.

Feeding off the energy of a crowd that wore “Make America great again” (Maga) caps, and watched by Brazil’s far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, Trump returned to the authoritarian language that characterised his political rise seven years ago.

“In 2016, I declared: I am your voice,” he said, speaking for just over 100 minutes from a bright blue and red stage in a cavernous ballroom at the closing speech of the CPAC event in Maryland. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution,” he said.

MSNBC SMEARS Marianne Williamson, Rejects Democracy

Sherrod Brown in tough election fight as Ohio crash tests Democrats’ chances

US Senator Sherrod Brown has survived a decade of statewide Democratic losses in Ohio by building a reputation as the rare person in his party who can still connect with the white working-class voters who have increasingly shifted to Republicans. But as he heads into what could be a tough re-election campaign, Brown is facing a critical test in the aftermath of the train derailment in the eastern Ohio village of East Palestine.

Republicans, including Donald Trump, argue the federal response shows Democrats have left such regions behind. Brown is under heightened pressure to prove them wrong. In the early stages of what will be a fierce fight for control of Congress next year, the response to the train derailment in Ohio is emerging as an early barometer of whether Democrats can rebuild support in working-class communities. ...

The stretches of eastern Ohio industrial towns have tilted increasingly to Republicans over the last decade, contributing to Ohio’s shift from a presidential bellwether to a potential GOP stronghold. Republicans have cast it as a forgotten swath of the country – fertile ground for Trump’s grievance politics.

But the region is also familiar ground for Brown, who has become a mainstay in the state’s political constellation with a populist brand. Brown, who wears suits purchased from a union shop near his Cleveland home, has developed an old-school network of union support over a decades-long political career that began in the General Assembly.

Antarctic sea ice reaches lowest levels ever recorded

For 44 years, satellites have helped scientists track how much ice is floating on the ocean around Antarctica’s 18,000km coastline. The continent’s fringing waters witness a massive shift each year, with sea ice peaking at about 18m sq km each September before dropping to just above 2m sq km by February. But across those four decades of satellite observations, there has never been less ice around the continent than there was last week.

“By the end of January we could tell it was only a matter of time. It wasn’t even a close run thing,” says Dr Will Hobbs, an Antarctic sea ice expert at the University of Tasmania with the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership. “We are seeing less ice everywhere. It’s a circumpolar event.”

In the southern hemisphere summer of 2022, the amount of sea ice dropped to 1.92m sq km on 25 February – an all-time low based on satellite observations that started in 1979. But by 12 February this year, the 2022 record had already been broken. The ice kept melting, reaching a new record low of 1.79m sq km on 25 February and beating the previous record by 136,000 sq km – an area double the size of Tasmania. ...

Hobbs and other scientists said the new record – the third time it’s been broken in six years – has started a scramble for answers among polar scientists. The fate of Antarctica – especially the ice on land – is important because the continent holds enough ice to raise sea levels by many metres if it was to melt.

Europe faces growing water crisis as winter drought worsens

The scenes are rare enough in mid-summer; in early March, they are unprecedented. Lac de Montbel in south-west France is more than 80% empty, the boats of the local sailing club stranded on its desiccated brown banks.

In northern Italy, tourists can walk to the small island of San Biagio, normally reached only by boat, from the shore of Lake Garda, where the water level is 70cm (27in) lower than average. The Alps have had 63% less snow than usual. In Germany, shallow waters on the Rhine are already disrupting barge traffic, forcing boats heading up into central Europe to load at half capacity, and in Catalonia, now short of water for three years, Barcelona has stopped watering its parks.

After its driest summer in 500 years, much of Europe is in the grip of a winter drought driven by climate breakdown that is prompting growing concern among governments over the water security for homes, farmers and factories across the continent.

A study published in January by Graz University of Technology in Austria, whose scientists used satellite data to analyse groundwater reserves, concluded that Europe has been in drought since 2018 and its water situation was now “very precarious”.

Torsten Mayer-Gürr, one of the researchers, said: “I would never have imagined that water would be a problem here in Europe, especially in Germany or Austria. We are actually getting problems with the water supply here.” ... The World Weather Attribution service said last year northern hemisphere drought was at least 20 times more likely because of human-caused climate change, warning that such extreme periods would become increasingly common with global heating.

"Hopeful": Historic U.N. High Seas Treaty Will Protect 30% of World's Oceans from Biodiversity Loss

Revealed: cabinet ministers warned of legal action over UK’s failure to tackle climate crisis

Cabinet ministers have been warned by senior civil servants that they face court action because of their catastrophic failure to develop policies for tackling climate change, according to secret documents obtained by the Observer. The leaked briefings from senior mandarins – marked “official sensitive” and dated 20 February this year – make clear the government as a whole is way behind in spelling out how it will reach its net zero targets and comply with legal duties to save the planet.

The restricted, highly sensitive documents are another severe embarrassment for Rishi Sunak, who originally planned to stay away from last November’s Cop27 climate summit in Egypt, but was shamed into attending after his predecessor but one, Boris Johnson, announced he was going. ...

Now, with just weeks to go before a crucial court deadline for the UK government to submit its latest climate plans, the damning leaked documents make clear the government is falling far short of its legal policy obligations to match its rhetoric with action. The documents say that as a result of evident lack of policy there is an increasing “legal risk” facing the secretary of state for energy security and net zero, Grant Shapps – who is held responsible under law for failing to act. ...

The papers, circulated by Defra officials to other senior Whitehall figures, will place particular pressure on environment secretary Thérèse Coffey, who was booed recently at a conference by farmers, who are already highly critical of the government’s agenda for agriculture post-Brexit. The documents show Coffey’s department is by far the worst offender in failing to develop green policy, lagging a staggering 24% behind its official target, while the transport department has a gap “that is considerably over 5%”.

The documents show Coffey’s officials pleading with her to adopt an improved climate plan for the agricultural sector within weeks, not only to meet a legal deadline but also in response to stinging rebukes from the government advisers on the climate change committee (CCC). They say: “The CCC has been calling for Defra to publish a decarbonisation plan since 2018 … The CCC has also criticised the ‘glacial progress’ in reducing emissions from agriculture.”

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

The Widening War: How the Nato-Russia Confrontation Is Playing Out in North Africa

Africa rejects Macron. Macron blames Wagner

Chris Hedges: Lynching the Deplorables

We’re Losing Our Anti-War Heroes Right When We Need Them Most

Secret Power and the Persecution of Julian Assange

Bakhmut, Strategic Or Not, Is Falling

‘They ransack our village for sport’: one Palestinian farmer’s story of Israeli settler violence

Reality Based People Can Fact Check The 'Fact-Checkers'

‘No one is coming to save us’: residents of towns near toxic train derailment feel forgotten

New analysis of ancient human protein could unlock secrets of evolution

Pelosi’s Daughter Says George W. Bush Is A “Father Figure”

A Little Night Music

Otis Redding – I'm Coming Home

Otis Redding – Ole Man Trouble

Otis Redding – Satisfaction

Otis Redding – Cigarettes and Coffee

Otis Redding - Hard To Handle

Otis Redding – I've Got Dreams to Remember

Otis Redding – Love Man

Otis Redding & Carla Thomas – Bring It On Home To Me

Otis Redding – Don't Mess With Cupid

Otis Redding – Shake