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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Ronnie Earl

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features guitarist Ronnie Earl. Enjoy!

^{Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters - The Big Train}

"Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades."

-- Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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News and Opinion

The fraud of Biden’s call for a “ceasefire” in Gaza

The Biden administration, the leading imperialist sponsor of Israel’s Gaza genocide that has killed 32,000 Palestinians, displaced nearly 2 million, and imposed starvation on the entire population, is introducing a UN resolution supporting an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza. The cynicism of Biden’s call for a “ceasefire” while continuing to fund and arm the government massacring over a hundred Palestinians every day and starving the entire Gazan population is beyond description. The Biden administration hopes that by proclaiming its support for a “ceasefire” loudly enough, it will make the world’s population forget that it fully supports and enables the US-Israeli “final solution” of the Palestinian question.

In reality, every major action taken by the Netanyahu government, from the ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza in October to the assault on al-Shifa Hospital over the past weekend, has been coordinated and approved by the Biden administration, which continues to funnel to Israel the weapons used to massacre the population of Gaza. In a call with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday, Biden called for discussions with a “team” of “military, intelligence and humanitarian experts” on Israel’s impending onslaught on Rafah, underscoring once again American imperialism’s direct participation in the genocide against the Palestinians. The southernmost city in Gaza is currently packed with over 1.5 million Palestinians with nowhere else to go.

Unlike multiple UN ceasefire resolutions previously vetoed by the United States, the latest resolution explicitly links a ceasefire to the achievement of Israel’s military goals. The resolution ties the call for a ceasefire to the demand for the release of hostages by Hamas, stating, “The Security Council determines the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire ... and towards that end unequivocally supports ongoing international diplomatic efforts to secure such a ceasefire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages.”

This is a restatement of language used by Biden in his warmongering State of the Union address earlier this month, in which he declared, “Hamas could end this conflict today by releasing the hostages, laying down arms, and surrendering those responsible for October 7th.” In that speech, Biden said that the US has “been working non-stop to establish an immediate ceasefire that would last for at least six weeks.” The claim by the Biden administration to support a “ceasefire” in Gaza is belied by one fact: It continues to be the policy of the United States government that Israel has carte blanche to commit any war crime in Gaza, without leading to a reduction of US weapons shipments.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Will Biden Stop Netanyahu?

EU and US pile on pressure for Gaza ceasefire

EU leaders have overcome their differences to call for an “immediate humanitarian pause leading to a sustainable ceasefire” in Gaza, hours before the US is expected to bring a resolution to a vote at the UN calling for a truce and a hostage deal without delay in the face of a looming famine.

The EU declaration, at a Brussels summit late on Thursday, marked the first time European leaders had agreed a declaration on the Middle East since October. The US draft resolution to be put to a vote in the UN security council on Friday morning also reflects greater urgency in Washington’s position. It is the first time the Biden administration has put forward language calling for an “immediate ceasefire”, although it continues to link a truce with a hostage deal.

The council will vote on the US resolution at the same time as CIA and the Mossad spy chiefs William Burns and David Barnea are expected to arrive in Qatar on Friday in the hope of clinching an elusive truce-for-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas. Speaking in Egypt, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said difficult work remained to be done but added: “I continue to believe it’s possible.”

The EU declaration calls for the “unconditional release of all hostages” by Hamas, but does not make its demand for a halt to Israeli military operations dependent on a deal. In Brussels, Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, said all 27 EU members had agreed “a strong and unified statement on the Middle East” which including a call for “full and safe humanitarian access into Gaza”. ...

“After many rounds of consultations with the Security Council, we will be bringing this resolution for a vote on Friday morning,” the US mission spokesperson at the UN, Nate Evans said, noting it had been under discussion by council members for several weeks. “This resolution is an opportunity for the council to speak with one voice to support the diplomacy happening on the ground and pressure Hamas to accept the deal on the table.”

UN Security Council KILLS Cease-Fire Resolution AGAIN; Gaza SPIRALS toward FAMINE

Israeli Minister Says Israel Will Invade Rafah No Matter What the US Thinks

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer has vowed that Israel will invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah even if it causes a rift with the US, The Times of Israel reported Thursday. ...

“We’re quite confident that we can do this in a way that would be effective — not only militarily, but also on the humanitarian side. And they have less confidence that we can do it,” Dermer, an American-born former Israeli ambassador to the US, said on the podcast Call Me Back With Dan Senor.

“It will happen even if Israel is forced to fight alone. Even if the entire world turns on Israel, including the United States, we’re going to fight until the battle’s won,” Dermer added.

Should Biden be tried for genocide crimes?

Everyone in the world needs to see this.

Note that this footage permits no room for "it was a mistake," showing repeated, specifically-targeted strikes on the unarmed and even wounded. The sort of behavior the ICJ explicitly forbid in the genocide ruling against Israel. https://t.co/rh8JEeSP5x

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 21, 2024

'Kill them all': inside the Israeli blockade on Gaza aid

David Cameron accuses Israel of blocking key aid crossing in Gaza

David Cameron has accused Israel of demanding the closure of a key aid crossing into Gaza, in a clash with a British-born government spokesperson that has reportedly resulted in the official’s suspension. In a blistering letter, the UK foreign secretary said aid was not getting into Gaza owing to “arbitrary denials by the government of Israel and lengthy clearance procedures, including multiple screenings and narrow opening windows in daylight hours”. ...

In a letter to the chair of the foreign affairs select committee chairwoman, Alicia Kearns, Cameron denied a claim by Levy that the UN had requested Kerem Shalom crossing be closed on Saturdays. Cameron said Israel closes the vital aid crossing for the Sabbath. The tone of the Cameron letter is remarkable for the frankness with which he attributes the problems in distributing aid, flatly contradicting Israeli assertions that the number of aid trucks crossing into Gaza had reached a satisfactory level.

He wrote: “You cite claims that international donors should send as much aid as they wish and Israel will facilitate its entry. I wish that were the case. It is of enormous frustration that UK aid into Gaza has been routinely held up waiting for Israeli permissions. For instance, I am aware of some UK-funded aid being stuck at the border just under three weeks waiting for approval.

“The main blockers remain arbitrary denials by the government of Israel and lengthy clearance procedures including multiple screenings and narrow opening windows in daylight hours.”

He added that the number of trucks entering Gaza by daily average was 165 but with large fluctuations. He said this was an improvement on January but that more urgent progress was needed to get the figure up to the 500 trucks a day that arrived before the Hamas attack on Israel of 7 October . He also argued one of the key reasons for distribution issues within Gaza was that Israel was preventing the necessary staff from getting visas. He wrote “this needs to change”, and said more than 50 visas were awaiting Israeli approval to allow experienced staff to enter Gaza.

Russia sees Israeli strikes on Syria as violation of international law — envoy to UN

Israel’s air strikes on targets in Syria violate the fundamental rules of international law, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said.

"We are particularly concerned about Israel’s intensifying air strikes on civilian facilities in Syria, particularly from the Blue Line area. Such irresponsible actions are creating a risk that Syria, as well as a number of its neighboring countries, will be dragged into a full-scale regional confrontation. We strongly condemn such attacks on Syria and see them as a blatant violation of the country’s sovereignty and the fundamental rules of international law," he pointed out at a UN Security Council meeting.

FAB-3000. Russia begins war. Macron, Ukraine will collapse

EU agrees in principle to give profits from frozen Russian assets to Ukraine

EU leaders have agreed in principle to commandeer a large majority of the profits generated from frozen Russian assets and give them to Ukraine.

The proposal could generate €3bn (£2.6bn) this year and the first billion could be released to Ukraine by July, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said late on Thursday at the end of the first day of an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels.

“I told the leaders that if we are swift now in concluding the proposal, we could disburse the first billion on the first of July. So it depends on us,” she said, adding there was strong support to use the proceeds on “military purposes for Ukraine.”

Von der Leyen also revealed that the EU is looking at increasing tariffs on Russian grain, including stolen Ukrainian grain, entering into the EU market.

The agreement comes after almost a year of negotiations over the legal basis for the effective sequestration of €190bn held in the Belgian central securities depository Euroclear. The way was cleared for an agreement after the wording was tweaked to address opposition by Hungary to the money being used to arm Ukraine.

Kremlin Will Retaliate if the EU Uses Profits From Russian Assets to Arm Ukraine

Russia will take retaliatory measures in accordance with its own interests and use every legal mechanism at its disposal if the European Union uses profits from frozen Russian assets to buy arms for Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Thursday. ...

"And on the basis of reciprocity we will not retaliate in kind, but choose different methods in a way that corresponds to our own interests," Peskov said.

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Trump pleads with supporters for cash to help pay soaring legal bills

Donald Trump on Thursday again asked loyal supporters for cash to help him meet mounting legal expenses and keep the “filthy hands” of the New York attorney general off Trump Tower and other properties.

The appeal came as Trump faced an imminent deadline to pay a huge bond from a New York fraud trial that ended in a $454m civil judgment against him for overstating his net worth and the value of his real estate properties. If he is unable to post it, authorities could start to seize the former US president’s assets.

Under the headline “Keep your filthy hands off Trump Tower!” a Trump fundraising email sent to supporters read: “Insane radical Democrat AG Letitia James wants to SEIZE my properties in New York. This includes the iconic Trump Tower.”

The twice-impeached Trump – currently the presumptive Republican presidential nominee – continued: “Democrats think that this will intimidate me. They think that if they take my cash to stifle my campaign, that I’ll GIVE UP!

“But worst of all? They think that YOU will abandon me, and that you will GIVE UP on our country. Here’s one thing they don’t know: WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER!”

Biden ally warns Democrats against relying on threat to democracy message

Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland and campaign surrogate for Joe Biden, has warned of the limitations of an election message centred on the threat to democracy posed by Donald Trump. In January the US president gave a rousing speech about the need to protect democratic institutions from Trump, now his rival in the 2024 election, and the Biden campaign has promised to put the issue front and centre.

But Moore, who is Maryland’s first Black chief executive and only the third Black governor ever elected in the nation, said that voters are focused on cost-of-living, housing and healthcare issues. “When you’re talking to a lot of folks – and I can tell you specifically when you’re talking to folks in communities I grew up in and my old neighbours – the threat to democracy is not something that’s on people’s everyday thought list or the things that they’re prioritising,” the governor told reporters in Washington on Thursday.

“They’re prioritising things like how expensive prescription drugs are. They’re prioritising things like we have a housing crisis that we have to address. They’re prioritising things like you graduated from college – or maybe you did not graduate from college, you just took college courses 23 years ago – and you’re still paying off debt. ...

The governor urged the grassroots “uncommitted” movement, which racked up tens of thousands of Democratic primary votes in Michigan and Minnesota in protest at Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza, to consider the potential perils of withholding their support in November.

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Sixteen states sue US over ban on approvals for LNG exports

Sixteen US states, including Texas, Louisiana and Florida, have filed a lawsuit to challenge the US federal government’s ban on approving applications to export liquefied natural gas, the office of Texas attorney general Ken Paxton said on Thursday. The lawsuit argues the federal government lacks the authority to broadly deny those permits.

Joe Biden said in January that the pause will allow officials to review its process for analyzing economic and environmental impacts of projects seeking approval to export LNG, or liquefied natural gas, to Europe and Asia where the fuel is in high demand.

According to one analysis, if all proposed LNG projects were to go ahead and ship gas overseas, it would result in 3.2bn tons of greenhouse gases – equivalent to the entire emissions of the European Union.

Major Corporations Making the World Water Crisis Worse

Only around a quarter of the most influential food and agricultural companies in the world have promised to reduce their water usage and decrease water pollution, Oxfam reported Thursday.

Oxfam's analysis comes a day before the United Nations' World Water Day on March 22. It points out that, according to U.N. figures, 2 billion people cannot reliably access safe drinking water, yet a full 70% of fresh water withdrawals go to agriculture.

"When big corporations pollute or consume huge amounts of water, communities pay the price in empty wells, more costly water bills, and contaminated and undrinkable water sources," Oxfam France executive director Cécile Duflot said in a statement. "Less water means more hunger, more disease, and more people forced to leave their homes."

Oxfam's analysis was based on data on the 350 most influential food and agricultural companies from the World Benchmarking Alliance. These include agricultural companies like Bayer, Cargill, and Tyson; food and beverage makers like Nestlé, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo; major retailers like Walmart, Kroger, and Carrefour; and restaurants like McDonald's and Starbucks.

Oxfam found that only 28% of these companies had plans to reduce water use, and only 23% had plans to curb water pollution. At the same time, less than half of the companies—108 out of 350—even reported how much water they took from water-stressed locations.

Water scarcity is a major impediment to global well-being, with the climate crisis already exacerbating the problem. Currently, around half of all people on Earth experience severe water scarcity for at least one month each year, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In northern Kenya, southern Ethiopia, and parts of Somalia, Oxfam found that as many as 90% of water boreholes had evaporated in 2023. Further, 1 in 5 people in the region did not have access to sufficient safe drinking water. World Weather Attribution concluded that the drought in the Horn of Africa was made more severe because of the climate crisis, and that similar droughts were 100 times more likely because of global heating.

Despite climate-driven extreme weather events that put increased strain on water resources, major companies have not changed their business models. For example, the bottling and re-selling of water is a common corporate practice that, according to the U.N., impedes the sustainable development goal (SDG6) of ensuring safe drinking water for all.

In May 2023, Oxfam pointed out, a drought in France's department of Puy-de-Dôme prompted authorities to restrict the water use of its thousands of residents for two months. However, Danone-subsidiary the Société des Eaux de Volvic was still permitted to extract unrestricted amounts of groundwater during the drought for its bottling plant. That year, Danone amassed €881 million ($956 million) in profits and rewarded shareholders to the tune of €1,238 million ($1,344 million).

"We clearly can't rely on corporations' goodwill to change their practices—governments must force them to clean up their act, and protect shared public goods over thirst for profit," Duflot said.

To ensure water justice, Oxfam said that governments should treat water as a human right; enforce consequences for companies when they violate environmental or human rights laws; and invest in water, sanitation, and hygiene services.

Global heating, land clearing and the ‘extinction vortex’: the fight to save Australia’s koalas

Bill Ellis thinks koalas have somehow managed a giant con on the people of the world – one that has made them fodder for countless marketing campaigns with their round, cartoon-like faces. ... But while the sleepy, eucalypt-munching tree climber might feel ubiquitous in the world of marketing or soft diplomacy (they’re regularly deployed into the arms of world leaders), their futures on Australia’s east coast are looking increasingly perilous.

Koalas are one of the few animals who have worked out how to sustain themselves by eating eucalypt leaves. But Ellis, a researcher at the University of Queensland who has been studying them for 35 years, says while they have few competitors for food, they are tied to the fortunes of the trees that are being cleared for developments. ...

The first big sign of a problem came in 2012 when koalas on Australia’s east coast were listed as vulnerable. A later study found that nationally, numbers had dropped by 24% over the past three generations – or about 20 years. In Australia’s black summer bushfires of late 2019 and early 2020, about 10% of the koala’s habitat was burned. Images of dead or burnt koalas went around the world.

In 2022 – and with land clearing and logging continuing to fracture their habitat – the government raised the koala’s conservation status to endangered. New estimates suggested that between 2001 and 2021, koala numbers in Queensland, NSW and the Australian Capital Territory dropped by 50%. Numbers are more stable in Victoria and South Australia. In NSW, the state government is moving to create the “Great Koala national park”, but conservationists have pointed to continued logging within the proposed boundaries of the park as a “profound tragedy”.

For years, koalas were considered to have five big threats: land clearing, logging, dog attacks, traffic accidents and chlamydia – a bacterial disease that can cause urinary tract infections and infertility in females, and also damage the sperm of males. But the species now faces a sixth major threat. “The climate change impacts are rapidly taking over the others,” says Dr Stuart Blanch, a conservation scientist and forest policy manager at WWF Australia.

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Also of Interest

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

Establishment Papers Fell Short in Coverage of Genocide Charges

New York Times Readers Are The Least Informed Ones

As Conflict Rages On, Israel and Gaza’s Environmental Fates May Be Intertwined

Israel Apologia Is One Big Fat Appeal To Emotion Fallacy

What’s the Solution to Humanity’s Growing Ills?

Why is US energy demand soaring – putting climate goals at risk?

Six White Mississippi "Goon Squad" Cops Get Lengthy Prison Sentences for Torturing Black Men

US Ceasefire Resolution REJECTED By Russia, China

AMAZING! MSNBC Turns AGAINST Israel-Says AIPAC Owns The U.S. Congress!

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A Little Night Music

Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters - Blues In D-Natural

Duke Robillard, Ronnie Earl, and Sugar Ray Norcia - I Have The Same Old Blues

Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters - Blues For Otis Rush

Janiva Magness and Ronnie Earl - Little By Little

Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters - Blues For The West Side

Ronnie Earl And The Broadcasters - A Prayer For Tomorrow

Jimmie Vaughan & Ronnie Earl - Texas Flood

Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters - Okie Dokie Stomp

Ronnie Earl & Sugar Ray Norcia at Nick Vollebregt's Jazz Cafe, Laren, The Netherlands, 1991

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