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"Those who have been indulged by fortune and have always thought of calamity as what happens to others, feel a blind incredulous rage at the reversal of their lot, and half believe that their wild cries will alter the course of the storm."

-- George Eliot

News and Opinion

Worth a full read:

Failed ICJ Case Against Russia Backfires, Paves Way for Genocide Charges Against Ukraine

As January became February, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered a pair of legal body blows to Ukraine and its Western backers. First, on January 31, it ruled on a case brought by Kiev against Russia in 2017, which accused Moscow of presiding over a campaign of “terrorism” in Donbas, including the July 2014 downing of MH17. It also charged that Russia racially discriminated against Ukrainian and Tatar residents of Crimea following its reunification with Moscow.

The ICJ summarily rejected most charges. Then, on February 2, the Court made a preliminary judgment in a case where Kiev accused Moscow of exploiting false claims of an ongoing genocide of Russians and Russian speakers in Donbas to justify its invasion. Ukraine further charged the Special Military Operation breached the Genocide Convention despite not itself constituting genocide. Almost unanimously, ICJ judges rejected these arguments.

Western media universally ignored or distorted the substance of the ICJ rulings. When outlets did acknowledge the judgments, they misrepresented the first by focusing prominently on the accepted charges while downplaying all dismissed allegations. The second was wildly spun as a significant loss for Moscow. The BBC and others focused on how the Court agreed that “part” of Ukraine’s case could proceed. That this “part” is the question of whether Kiev itself committed genocide in Donbas post-2014 was unmentioned.

Ukraine’s failed lawfare effort was backed by 47 EU and NATO member states, leading to the farce of 32 separate international legal teams submitting representations to The Hague in September 2023. Among other things, they supported Kiev’s bizarre contention that the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics were comparable to Al-Qaeda. Judges comprehensively rejected that assertion. Markedly, in its submitted arguments, Russia drew attention to how the same countries backing Kiev justified their illegal, unilateral destruction of Yugoslavia under the “responsibility to protect” doctrine.

This may not be the only area where Ukraine and its overseas sponsors are in trouble moving forward. A closer inspection of the Court’s rulings comprehensively discredits the established mainstream narrative of what transpired in Crimea and Donbas following the Western-orchestrated Maidan coup in February 2014.

In sum, the judgments raise serious questions about Kiev’s eight-year-long “anti-terrorist operation” against “pro-Russian separatists,” following months of vast protests and violent clashes throughout eastern Ukraine between Russian-speaking pro-federal activists and authorities.

Israel's Ultimate Goal Is Ethnic Cleansing: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti on Growing Famine, Al-Shifa Attack

Israeli delegation to visit Washington to discuss planned offensive on Rafah

Israel will send a team of officials to Washington to discuss its planned offensive on Rafah, the White House has said, as the Biden administration insists that an attack would be a “mistake” and seeks to persuade Israel to allow in more aid in the face of an imminent famine in Gaza.

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, announced the Israeli visit after a phone call on Monday between Joe Biden and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, focusing on the planned Rafah assault that Netanyahu has vowed to launch.

Sullivan confirmed that Israeli forces had killed Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza, and one of the masterminds of the 7 October attacks, in an operation last week, one of thousands of Hamas fighters he said had been killed. But he added: “a military plan cannot succeed without an integrated humanitarian plan and political plan.”

Sullivan said it was “first and foremost” Israel’s obligation “to step up and ensure that more is done to deliver food to starving people in northern Gaza”, in the wake of a warning from UN organisations that famine was “imminent” in northern Gaza, with an onset at any time between mid-March and May.

Sullivan restated US opposition to the planned Rafah offensive, pointing out that more than a million Palestinians had taken refuge in the southernmost Gazan town having fled other cities ruined by Israeli bombing. “Israel has not presented us or the world with a plan for how or where they would safely move those civilians, let alone feed and house them and ensure access to basic things like sanitation,” Sullivan said.

US State Department Claims It Hasn't Seen Reports of Israel Torturing UNRWA Staff

A Biden administration spokesperson on Monday attempted to avoid addressing allegations by employees of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees that they were tortured while in Israeli detention by claiming the U.S. State Department has not seen any media reporting on the accusations.

Ryan Grim, The Intercept's Washington, D.C. bureau chief, asked deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel if he believes the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) staff members who say they were tortured by Israeli interrogators into making false confessions about involvement with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which led the October 7 attacks on Israel. Israeli officials claimed that at least 12 out of UNRWA's 13,000 staff in Gaza had ties to Hamas and October 7.

"When you originally talked about the allegations against the 12 staff, you have said that UNRWA itself was the one who forwarded those allegations alone. You said you found them credible, but since then UNRWA itself has said that its staff were tortured by Israel in order to get some of those confessions extracted," said Grim. "Does that change your view of the evidence that was presented by Israel, and if UNRWA was credible enough for you believe the allegations the first time, is UNRWA credible enough when they make an allegation of torture against its staff?"

Patel replied, "I've not seen that reporting, Ryan," adding that "we continue to find the allegations that were laid out a number of months ago to be credible."

.@ryangrim asks about UNRWA saying Israel tortured its staff to coerce confessions. StateSpox says he hasn’t seen that report, which is over a week old.

The US cut funding to a vital aid agency during a crisis, but isn’t up to speed on reports that directly impact that funding? pic.twitter.com/KNNGo7EoTG

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) March 18, 2024

IDF Attacks Al-Shifa Hospital, AGAIN!? Journalist 'BEATEN, Detained

Fierce clashes between IDF and Hamas after Israel takes control of key hospital

Fierce fighting has continued around al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, as Israeli troops battled Hamas militants after seizing control of the strategically situated medical complex in an early morning raid.

Witnesses reported multiple airstrikes and ferocious firefights as fears rose for the safety of hundreds of civilians in the immediate vicinity of the hospital.

Israeli military officials said troops were “continuing precise operations in the Shifa hospital to thwart terrorism” and had killed 20 Hamas militants there, including Faiq Mabhouh, whom they identified as the head of the operations directorate of Hamas’s internal security. At least 80 people were detained by the Israeli forces and one soldier killed in the raid.

Israel’s Shifa raid shows its grip is slipping as a ‘forever war’ looms

The latest raid on al-Shifa hospital reveals that the Israeli military’s hold on the areas of Gaza supposedly cleared of Hamas militants is considerably more tenuous than the country’s political leaders have claimed – and suggests the region’s military superpower is facing its own “forever war” in the territory with enormous costs for everyone involved, particularly civilians.

The fighting around the Shifa hospital and its eventual seizure was the climactic moment of the first phase of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, launched last year after Hamas killed 1,200 and captured 250 people, mostly civilians, in a surprise raid on 7 October. There was bitter argument over whether the hospital’s buildings and basements had been used by Hamas as a covert command centre, as Israel claimed, but none over the strength of Israel’s control of the site when its soldiers moved in on 15 November.

Three months later, Monday’s raid is an implicit admission that this control seems to have slipped.

It is clear that Hamas is operating in parts of northern Gaza that were supposed to have been cleared by Israeli forces a long time ago. In February, there was fighting in Zeitoun, a neighbourhood of Gaza City, and al-Shati camp, further up the coast. There have even been clashes in Beit Hanoun, which was one of the first places overrun by Israeli forces at the very beginning of the war. ...

Netanyahu has said that once Israel’s forces have destroyed their enemy’s forces in Rafah, the southernmost town in the territory and where more than a million displaced are sheltering, then the war will in effect be over. Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, recently told US officials: “Ending the war without clearing out Rafah is like sending a firefighter to extinguish 80% of the fire.” Monday’s raid on Shifa makes clear that, despite the grey ash and rubble across so much of the territory, the fire in Gaza is not fully extinguished anywhere.

'FLAT OUT LIES': Dem Senator BLASTS Israel On UNRWA

'No Longer on the Brink': Top EU Official Blames Israel for Famine in Gaza

The European Union's top foreign affairs official on Monday said that after more than five months of Israel's blocking of humanitarian aid and bombardment of Gaza, the U.S.-backed government has pushed the enclave into famine.

Josep Borrell, the E.U.'s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, demanded that Western governments clearly state the reason that at least two of Gaza's five governorates have now been identified by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification global initiative (IPC) as experiencing famine "with reasonable evidence."

"In Gaza we are no longer on the brink of famine; we are in a state of famine, affecting thousands of people," Borrell said in Brussels at a meeting on humanitarian aid for the besieged enclave. "This is unacceptable. Starvation is used as a weapon of war."

"By whom? Let's dare to say by whom. By the one that prevents humanitarian support entering into Gaza," he said, adding that "Israel is provoking famine."

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell: "In Gaza we are no longer on the brink of famine. We are in a state of famine. It is not a flood. It is not an earthquake. It is entirely man made. By whom? Lets dare to say it, by whom? ... Israel is provoking famine" pic.twitter.com/FztKdE7MRZ

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) March 18, 2024

Borrell's remarks signify that the E.U. has now accepted that "that Israel is starving Gaza," said journalist Owen Jones, with "straightforward genocidal intent." ...

Borrell pointed to recent comments by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which Scholz warned: "We cannot stand by and watch Palestinians starve."

"This famine is not a natural disaster. It is not a flaw. It is not an earthquake. It is entirely man-made," said Borrell. "Chancellor Scholz is saying Europeans cannot sit and watch Palestinian starving, when on the other side of the border there is food for months accumulated in stocks, while on the other side of the road there are people dying of hunger."

Col. Karen Kwiatkowski: How to Stop Genocide

Israel Will Steal 16% of Gaza’s Land By Establishing ‘Buffer Zone’

Israel’s plan to create a “buffer zone” inside Gaza along its border with Israel will take 16% of the Strip’s territory, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing an analysis of the operation by Adi Ben Nun, a Hebrew University geography professor.

Israel has begun the process of constructing the zone, which involves demolishing Palestinian homes and agricultural land that are in the way. The buffer will be about 1 kilometer (.6 miles) in width. ...

The Biden administration claims it’s opposed to any Israeli plans that will shrink Gaza’s territory. But the US continues to provide Israel with unconditional military aid as it’s enacting a plan to steal 16% of Gaza.

Israel Urges UN Court to Reject South Africa's Request for More Emergency Orders in Genocide Case

Israel has urged the top U.N. court to reject the latest request by South Africa for interim orders to prevent starvation in Gaza as part of a case accusing Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention with its military offensive against Hamas.

In a written response published Monday by the International Court of Justice, Israel said that claims by South Africa in its request filed earlier this month are “wholly unfounded in fact and law, morally repugnant, and represent an abuse both of the Genocide Convention and of the Court itself.”

Israel's response was published on the day that the U.N. food agency said that “famine is imminent” in northern Gaza, where 70% of the remaining population is experiencing catastrophic hunger, and that a further escalation of the war could push around half of Gaza’s total population to the brink of starvation.

The food agency's statement came less than two weeks after South Africa urged the world court "to do what is within its power to save Palestinians in Gaza from genocidal starvation.”

Israel kills police officer in charge of securing aid convoys

The Palestinian police general killed by Israeli forces on Monday morning was in charge of securing the entry of aid trucks into northern Gaza, according to Al Jazeera.

Citing unnamed sources, the Qatar-based network said Faiq Mabhouh, the director-general of Gaza's police operations, was credited for the recent coordination between local leaders and the UN Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, to secure and distribute aid coming from the south.

His efforts resulted in the safe entry of aid trucks for two nights in a row, following weeks of Israel targeting convoys and aid seekers.

Over two dozen aid trucks entered Gaza City over the weekend and reached isolated areas in the north for the first time in months.

According to the Israeli military, Mabhouh was killed during an exchange of fire with troops during the ongoing raid on al-Shifa Hospital and west Gaza City.

Rus Breakthrough: Orlovka Captured, Ukr Defence Collapses; RUSI Study Rus Attrition, West Cannot Win

Medical studies find no trace of physical harm in Havana syndrome patients

Two new medical studies have found that US government officials suffering from Havana syndrome symptoms did not show any discernible physical damage or alteration.

One of the studies published on Monday by the federally funded National Institutes of Health (NIH) examined brain imaging, while the other looked at blood biomarkers and clinical assessments of hearing, vision, hand-eye coordination, cognitive ability and balance.

Neither study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, detected any significant differences between a control group, and about 80 current or former US government officials suffering from a cluster of symptoms, often debilitating, known as Havana syndrome, named for the site of the first recorded cases among diplomats and intelligence officials in 2015.

Since then, hundreds of cases have been reported, mostly among US officials posted abroad, leading to theories that they had been targeted by a hitherto unknown weapon using directed energy of some sort wielded by a hostile power. Official studies and statements on what the government has called “anomalous health incidents” (AHIs) have given varying assessments on the probability such a weapon was involved. ...

Havana syndrome symptoms have included intense prolonged headaches, dizziness, nausea and fatigue, in some cases making it impossible for sufferers to continue working.

SCOTUS Hears Landmark Online Censorship Case: Complete Breakdown

US supreme court hears case on government’s power over online misinformation

The supreme court heard oral arguments on Monday in a case that could upend the federal government’s relationship with social media companies and with lies online. Plaintiffs in Murthy v Missouri argue that White House requests to take down coronavirus misinformation on Twitter and Facebook constitute illegal censorship in violation the first amendment.

The arguments began with Brian Fletcher, the principal deputy solicitor general of the justice department, making an argument that none of the government’s communications crossed the line from persuasion into coercion. He also pushed back against descriptions of events in lower court rulings, stating that they were misleading or included quotations taken out of context. ...

The opening arguments from Benjamin Aguiñaga, the solicitor general of Louisiana, argued that the government was covertly coercing platforms to censor speech in a violation of the first amendment. The suit, the culmination of years of a Republican-backed legal campaign, was filed by state attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri. Jim Hoft, founder of the conservative conspiracy theory site The Gateway Pundit, as well as other rightwingers, also joined the plaintiffs.

“The government has no right to persuade platforms to violate Americans’ constitutional rights, and pressuring platforms in backrooms shielded from public view is not using the bully pulpit at all,” Aguiñaga said in an opening statement. “That’s just being a bully.”

Ketanji Brown Jackson MISSES ENTIRE POINT Of The First Amendment: Matt Taibbi On SCOTUS Case

Biden FAILS Black Voters, Non-Whites FLEE Dem Party: Sabrina Salvati

Trump lawyers say he can’t post bond covering $454m civil fraud judgment

Lawyers for Donald Trump said on Monday he could not post a bond covering the full amount of the $454m civil fraud judgment against him while he appeals the New York ruling, because to do so was “a practical impossibility” after 30 surety companies turned him down.

In a court filing seeking a stay on the payment, which is due on 25 March, lawyers for the former president and this fall’s presumptive Republican presidential nominee quoted Gary Giulietti, an executive with the insurance brokerage Lockton Companies, which Trump hired to help get a bond.

The filing said: “Defendants’ ongoing diligent efforts have proven that a bond in the judgment’s full amount is ‘a practical impossibility’.”

In an affidavit, Giulietti said few bonding companies would consider issuing a bond of the size required. The bonding companies that might issue such a huge bond would not “accept hard assets such as real estate as collateral” but “will only accept cash or cash equivalents (such as marketable securities)”, Giulietti wrote. “A bond of this size is rarely if ever seen. In the unusual circumstance that a bond of this size is issued, it is provided to the largest public companies in the world, not to individuals or privately held businesses.”

New York attorney general, Letitia James, a Democrat, has said she will seek to seize assets if Trump is unable to pay the judgment.

TRUMP BANKRUPTCY?: Fails To Post 450 MILLION Bond

Nearly 130,000 children exposed to lead-tainted drinking water in Chicago

About 129,000 Chicago children under the age of six are exposed to poisonous lead in their household drinking water because of lead pipes, according to a study published on Monday.

The study used artificial intelligence to analyse 38,000 home water tests conducted for the city of Chicago, along with neighborhood demographics, state blood samples and numerous other factors.

It found that Black and Latino residents are more likely to have lead-contaminated water because of lead pipes. And it estimated that the 19% of Chicago children who use unfiltered tap water as their primary drinking source have about twice as much lead in their blood as they would otherwise.

“These findings indicate that childhood lead exposure is widespread in Chicago, and racial inequities are present in both testing rates and exposure levels,” said the study, published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health in Jama Pediatrics. “We estimated that more than two-thirds of children are exposed to lead-contaminated drinking water.”

The federal government has said that there is no safe level of lead in drinking water. Studies have shown that even small amounts of the highly poisonous metal can affect childhood brain development and contribute to preterm births, heart problems and kidney disease. Yet Chicago still has 400,000 homes served by potentially water-contaminating lead service lines – more than any other US city.

World’s largest solar manufacturer to cut one-third of workforce

The world’s largest solar manufacturer has slashed nearly a third of its workforce after a cost-cutting drive that included telling staff to only print in black and white fell short and as a chill ripples through the renewable energy sector. China’s Longi is to cut as much as 30% of its workforce, in an acceleration of cost reductions that began late last year, Bloomberg reported. ...

The renewables industry is facing significant headwinds in the fallout from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Moscow’s reduction in gas supplies into continental Europe left governments scrambling to beef up domestic power generation, accelerating a shift towards renewables.

However, the resulting higher energy bills pushed up inflation rates, adding costs to renewables supply chains already under pressure from the surge in demand. Meanwhile, oil and gas companies have retrenched from green projects in favour of traditional high-margin fossil fuel projects.

As a result, renewables companies have been pausing projects and cutting jobs in an attempt to rebalance their portfolios. The solar industry has a history of boom-and-bust cycles, dictated typically by government policies. ...

Longi manufacturers wafers – a component used in solar panels. The company, based in Xi’an in central China, has been forced to suspend investment plans while also cutting prices.

Also of Interest

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

Israel's Right-Wing Wants All the Palestinian Land—and This Explains Its State Terrorism

Don’t Equate The Violence Of The Oppressor With The Violence Of The Oppressed

Biden Knew Israel Was Bombing Civilian Targets in October

The Tragic Absurdity of Biden’s Gaza Policies

Scott Ritter: The CIA & the Russian Fascists Who Fight Russia

Selling A Predicted Behavior As Protest?

Google Censorship: AI Run Amok Threatens Demonetization Over a Navigation Page with No Ads, An Article on a Foreign Policy Best-Seller Deemed Anti-Vaxx, and More Flagrant Errors

Cheaper Drug Prices in US Is About Political Will, Not Economics or Market Forces

Sweden closing Nordsteam investigation shocking coverup -investigator

A Little Night Music

Robert Pete Williams - I've Grown So Ugly

Robert Pete Williams - Rolling Stone

Robert Pete Williams - Levee Camp Blues

Robert Pete Williams - Graveyard Blues

Robert Pete Williams - Hobo Worried Blues

Robert Pete Williams - Motherless Children Have A Hard Time

Robert Pete Williams ~ Freight Train Blues

Robert Pete Williams ~ I'm Blue as a Man Can Be

Robert Pete Williams ~ High As I Want To Be