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This evening's music features blues piano player Leroy Carr. Enjoy!

"One Palestinian life is worth more than every college campus window in the world."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

Opposing Every War But The Current One, Supporting Civil Rights But Never Right Now

In remarks defending the brutal suppression of university demonstrations protesting his genocide in Gaza, President Biden argued that protesting is allowed in the United States so long as it’s polite and doesn’t disrupt anything or upset anybody.

“We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” said Biden. “The American people are heard. In fact, peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues.”

“But,” the president continued, “neither are we a lawless country. We are a civil society, and order must prevail.”

Biden went on to argue that “violent protest is not protected” as a form of free expression, sailing right past the fact that the only actual violence we’ve seen from these protests came from the police sent in to crack skulls and the bands of pro-Israel thugs who’ve been attacking campus demonstrators. Biden instead followed his false accusation of “violence” by listing offenses against inanimate objects: destroying property, vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows. He also listed the offenses of “shutting down campuses” and “forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations” — none of which were done by the demonstrators.

“Threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest,” said Biden, citing zero examples of this ridiculous allegation, adding that “dissent must never lead to disorder” and that “there’s the right to protest but not the right to cause chaos.”

The president then of course went on to babble about “antisemitism” for awhile, on no basis whatsoever.

Again, this person is defending an authoritarian police crackdown on peaceful demonstrators protesting against his own actions. The US president is saying don’t worry about the jackbooted tyranny and suppression you’re seeing against critics of the US president, because the tyranny and suppression is approved of by that same US president.

And that’s the Democratic Party for you, folks. That’s everything it is right there. It is violence wrapped in politeness. It is fascism cloaked in lip service to civil rights.

Shortly before Columbia University called in police to smash the anti-genocide demonstrations on campus the other day, 21 House Democrats signed a letter addressed to the university’s board of trustees demanding they shut down the “anti-Jewish activists on campus.”

“It is past time for the University to act decisively, disband the encampment, and ensure the safety and security of all of its students,” the lawmakers declared.

This is the same party that always cites its support for civil rights and social justice as a primary reason for people to vote for them, constantly referencing Martin Luther King Jr and other civil rights leaders — who were all intensely despised by the establishment of their own time — as heroes we should all strive to emulate.

Now they’re openly supporting the same tyrannical measures as Republicans to shut down criticism of their government’s genocidal and unjust policies, with no regard for the constitutional rights of those critics to speech and assembly. They try to make themselves look progressive and reasonable while doing it, saying it’s about fighting “antisemitism” and keeping the peace, but their actual behavior is no different from the tyrants who attacked anti-war protesters and civil rights activists in the sixties.

A liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war and supports all civil rights movements except the one that’s going on right now. https://t.co/cLD9SjJDlc

— slicin’ up eyeballs (@eyeballslicer) November 24, 2023

As Democrats get worse and worse the longer Biden’s genocide in Gaza continues, I find myself recalling a tweet that went viral back in November by an account with the handle @eyeballslicer, “A liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war and supports all civil rights movements except the one that’s going on right now.”

That tweet has gotten more and more relevant every day since. If you were to pick a banner to hang above western liberalism over the past seven months, that banner would need to contain those words. It’s been true of mainstream liberals for a very long time, but it encapsulates the response we’ve been seeing to Gaza with a special kind of perfection.

Have you ever noticed how the spinmeisters responsible for normalizing our dystopian status quo use time as a psychological weapon? It’s the damnedest thing. They push all support for revolutionary change into either the past or the future, while insisting that status quo norms must be maintained in the present.

Once you notice this tactic, you see it everywhere. When they’re not shaking their fists at the crimes of the past like Vietnam, Iraq or segregation and applauding past struggles for social justice like women’s suffrage or Black civil rights, they’re claiming that you can get all the drastic revolutionary change you want in the future if you just elect more Democrats into office.

Over and over again in many different ways, people are fed the message: “Revolution and change are wonderful, just not right now. The revolutionary sentiments of the past did great things we should all celebrate, and one day in the future we will have revolutionary change once again, but right now we need to keep supporting the way things are and hold very still and try very hard not to annoy the powerful people who rule over us.”

It’s actually kind of impressive once you notice it, because this malignant manipulation requires an almost buddha-like understanding of time and the present moment. At some point the manipulators figured out that there’s only ever the here-and-now and that the past and the future have no existence except in our memory and imagination, so you can give the people all the revolution they want so long as you’re only giving it to them in the past or the future.

You saw an early prototype of this manipulation with the rise of Christianity, wherein people were encouraged to forget about the material comforts enjoyed by their rulers and focus instead on how great it’s going to be when they die and go to Heaven. All their hopes are deferred to this imaginary, invisible reward in the future, and in the meantime they’re told to glorify poverty, meekness, obedience, and above all never rise up against all the rich people and take back what they stole from you.

This world will never see the changes it so desperately needs as long as we keep letting them manipulate us like this. Change needs to happen, and it can only happen now. Now is the only place where revolution can possibly occur. Stop letting them bury it under the appearance of time, and birth it into reality.

Israel Rafah EVACUATION ORDER, Invasion Imminent

Israel tells Hamas to accept ceasefire terms or risk new onslaught ‘in near future’

Senior Israeli officials ramped up pressure on Hamas on Sunday, saying Israel would refuse any permanent end to hostilities and threatening a new onslaught “in the very near future” if the militant organisation did not accept recently proposed terms for a ceasefire.

In a televised address, Benjamin Netanyahu once more rejected Hamas’s demands for a definitive end to the war in Gaza, saying that any permanent ceasefire would allow the group to remain in power and pose a continuing threat to Israel.

Speaking a day after thousands of people again rallied in Tel Aviv demanding a deal to free the remaining Israeli captives, Netanyahu also said that his government had “been working around the clock to formulate an agreement that would return our hostages”.

Hours later, Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said Hamas did not appear to be serious about reaching a ceasefire deal. If a deal is not reached, he added, this would lead Israel to launch an often-threatened offensive into Rafah, a reported Hamas stronghold where about a million people displaced from elsewhere in Gaza have sought shelter, “in the very near future”.

The statements by Netanyahu and Gallant may dash recent hopes that Hamas and Israel are close to a deal to bring about an initial 40-day pause to hostilities and the release of dozens of hostages.

Israel LOSING PR War? Antony Blinken BLAMES TikTok

Mohammad Samour (14 years old) is the latest victim of Israeli explosives, which look like food cans.

Several citizens, mostly children, fell victim to the Israeli explosives, while Israel continues to starve over 2 million people in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/t3HVjVGF6J

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) May 2, 2024

The walls are closing in on the ability to dissent, says cancelled Chris Hedges

Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices in ‘dark day for the media’

Israeli authorities shut down the local offices of Al Jazeera on Sunday, hours after a government vote to use new laws to close the satellite news network’s operations in the country. Critics called the move, which comes as faltering indirect ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas continue, a “dark day for the media” and raised new concerns about the attitude to free speech of Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline government.

Israeli officials said the move was justified because Al Jazeera was a threat to national security. “The incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel,” the country’s prime minister posted on social media after the unanimous cabinet vote. A government statement said Israel’s communications minister had signed orders to act immediately to close al Jazeera’s offices in Israel, confiscate broadcast equipment, cut the channel off from cable and satellite companies and block its websites.

The network, which is funded by Qatar, has been critical of Israel’s military operation in Gaza, from where it has reported around the clock throughout the seven-month war.

Al Jazeera said the accusation that it threatened Israeli security was a “dangerous and ridiculous lie” that put its journalists at risk. “Al Jazeera Media Network strongly condemns and denounces this criminal act that violates human rights and the basic right to access of information,” the company said in a statement. “Al Jazeera affirms its right to continue to provide news and information to its global audiences.”

"Criminal Act": Israel Bans Al Jazeera, Largest Int'l News Org. in Gaza, Ahead of Rafah Invasion

We regret cabinet decision to close Al Jazeera in Israel. A free & independent media is essential to ensuring transparency & accountability. Now, even more so given tight restrictions on reporting from Gaza. Freedom of expression is a key human right. We urge govt to overturn ban

— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) May 5, 2024

Israel Briefs US on Plan for 'Ethnic Cleansing' of Rafah

Israeli officials have told the Biden administration and humanitarian organizations how they plan to start forcibly expelling Gazans from Rafah ahead of a likely ground invasion—a move critics have likened to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine's Arabs during the establishment of the modern state of Israel.

Politico reported Friday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials informed the U.S. government and aid agencies that a plan is in place to remove Palestinians from Rafah, where approximately 1.2 million refugees forcibly displaced from other parts of Gaza are precariously sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents in the embattled strip's southernmost city.

According to an unnamed U.S. official and two other people familiar with the plan, Israel would "move people out of Rafah, the main humanitarian hub in the enclave, to al-Mawasi, a small strip of land on the southern Gaza coast." Politico also obtained a copy of a map containing some details of the plan.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Israel has given Hamas until next week to submit to a cease-fire proposal or face an invasion of Rafah.

"Such an invasion could lead to horrific massacres and raise scenarios of a second Nakba," the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said recently. "After 200 days of horrific genocidal acts in Gaza, the real objectives of the attack are the continuation of the 76-year-long ongoing Nakba and the erasure and genocidal destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza. Israel is laying the groundwork to fulfill its settler-colonial plan of colonizing Gaza."

Human rights defenders have warned that Israel may ultimately seek to ethnically cleanse as many Palestinians as possible from Gaza.

As Netanyahu continues to threaten to attack Rafah without a credible plan for the safety of its 1.4 million residents, we should remain wary that his ultimate plan is still mass forced expulsion to Egypt -- a one-way ticket, another Nakba. https://t.co/GqFp7NDCwX

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) April 26, 2024

The situation in Rafah is already dire. Water and other necessities are in desperately short supply. According to James Elder, the global spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), there is approximately one toilet for every 850 people in Rafah and one shower for every 3,500 people.

On Friday, Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told reporters in Geneva that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would put hundreds of thousands of Palestinians "at imminent risk of death."

"Any ground operation would mean more suffering and death," Laerke said, warning of not only "a slaughter of civilians, but also at the same time an incredible blow to the humanitarian operation in the entire strip, because it is run primarily out of Rafah."

Around 5% of Gazans have been killed, maimed, or left missing by Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, according to a report published Wednesday by the U.N. Development Program and the U.N. Economic Commission for Western Asia. That's more than 120,000 people, the vast majority of whom are innocent civilians, according to Palestinian officials and international human rights groups.

ICC (Int'l Criminal Court) is finished

Israeli Officials Say Flow of US Weapons Is Uninterrupted Despite Report of Ammunition Delay

Israeli officials said on Sunday that the overall flow of US weapons shipments to Israel is “uninterrupted” despite a report from Axios that said the Biden administration put a hold on an ammunition shipment.

The Axios report cited two Israeli officials who said the hold on the ammunition raised “serious concerns” in the Israeli government, but the sources did not give a reason why the US delayed the shipment. CNN later reported that the pause had nothing to do with Israel’s plans to invade Rafah and wouldn’t impact future weapons shipments, meaning it doesn’t reflect a change in US policy.

“The stream of security shipments from the US to Israel is ongoing. While individual shipments might be delayed, the overall flow remains uninterrupted, and we are not aware of any policy suspending it,” an Israeli official told Ynet.

Alastair Crooke: Muddying the Waters on US Student Protests

Police dismantle Palestinian solidarity encampment at USC

Police have dismantled the student-led Palestinian solidarity encampment at the University of Southern California. About 4am on Saturday, as many as 100 Los Angeles police officers in riot gear raided the encampment at dawn as anti-war student demonstrators slept in the tents. In a series of tweets during the raid, the university warned demonstrators to leave the area, adding that “people who don’t leave could be arrested”.

Speaking to KTLA, members of the student-run newspapers the Daily Trojan and Annenberg Media said: “We were just sitting here, camping out. We saw a peaceful encampment. They’ve been eating food, having teach-ins … and then they eventually went in their tents later in the night and then at around 4[am] actually, we saw dozens of DPS cars [department of public safety] come in and then from there, they started bringing in the officers.”

“Before they came in, it was very peaceful. People were sleeping, in fact,” another member said, adding: “At 4am was when … we saw dozens of LAPD officers sort of come in, essentially in trucks, standing on the trucks. I think there were about four trucks, each of them had about a dozen or so police officers … Along with that, we also had DPS come in.” Videos posted online by the Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation at USC showed dozens of riot police marching throughout campus as others stood guard with multiple zip ties hanging from their belts.

Hours later, some Democrats defended police actions taken across the country to dismantle campus encampments and even arrest protesters. Arizona senator Mark Kelly said on NBC’s Meet the Press it was appropriate for police to get involved when protests turn into “unlawful acts”.

“When they cross a line and when they commit crimes, they should be arrested,” Kelly said. “That’s the appropriate thing to do.”

Uhhh excuse me but is it not freakish and disturbing that we're now seeing US police forces and local officials taking it as a given that it is their job to stop the spread of political opinions they don't like? The NYC mayor has been saying the same thing. https://t.co/ytXNOzop0g

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 3, 2024

Anya Parampil : Activism Takes Center Stage at Commencements

‘They’re sending a message’: harsh police tactics questioned amid US campus protest crackdowns

More than 1,400 people have been arrested across the US during a week of intense police crackdowns on a sprawling campus movement of pro-Palestine student demonstrations. As Joe Biden defended students’ free speech rights but warned them that “dissent must never lead to disorder”, colleges across the country brought law enforcement to campus to arrest dozens or even hundreds of protesters and clear away their encampments.

But the level of force with which some of these law enforcement agencies have responded to protests, which in the overwhelming majority of cases have been peaceful, has shocked some observers – and even some of the people arrested. “It is a level of repression of campuses in the United States that I have not seen in my lifetime,” said Annelise Orleck, a 65-year-old Dartmouth labor historian who was arrested on Wednesday as she attempted to protect her students from lines of heavily armed riot police.

Police officers arresting an elderly demonstrator @WMUR9 pic.twitter.com/2hOFaiNcHq

— Ross Ketschke WMUR (@RossWMUR) May 2, 2024

Orleck, a former head of Dartmouth’s Jewish studies department, was grabbed by police, thrown to the ground and then dragged along the grass after she demanded that a police officer give her back her phone, which she had been using to record arrests. A video of the incident, which showed officers manhandling the white-haired older woman, went viral. For Orleck, who was teaching a US politics class on the civil rights movement hours before she became one of 90 people arrested at Dartmouth, the degree of violence that has accompanied the campus arrests has been shocking.

“They’re sending a message to American students,” she said.

Revolt on Campus: Protests over Gaza Disrupt Graduation Ceremonies; Police Crack Down on Encampments

‘I was happy they still stand beside us’: Palestinians in Rafah on US campus protests

In the tented camps and crowded streets of Rafah, the pro-Palestinian 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.

Pro-Palestinian protests that have fanned across US universities for weeks are now more muted after a series of clashes with police, mass arrests and a stern White House directive to restore order. But similar demonstrations have spread in some form to campuses in Britain, France, Australia and elsewhere, and on Saturday students waved Palestinian flags and chanted anti-war slogans during a ceremony at the University of Michigan.

Asmaa al-Najili, 30, who had arrived in Rafah from Khan Younis, a nearby city which was the site of heavy fighting in March, said she had used news clips of protesting students to cheer up her seven-year-old daughter. More than a million people displaced from elsewhere in Gaza by Israel’s military offensive are sheltering in Rafah, the territory’s southernmost city. Most are kept up to date by social media – when they can get signals or charge their phones – or local radio channels broadcasting live feeds of Middle Eastern TV channels like Al Jazeera.

Haitham Abu Marsa said that before the recent unrest few in Gaza had heard of the US universities where the protests have been most intense. Like many in Rafah, he said the activism seen in the US highlighted the lack of protest in support of Palestinians in the Arab world. “These protests [in the US] … made us happy by finding people from the west who stood with our cause … [But] at the same time it made us sad because our brothers in the Arab countries did not do what these people did,” the 33-year-old said.

Aaron Maté : Kharkiv Under Fire. Russia Increases Attacks

British foreign secretary gives go-ahead for Ukrainian strikes on Russia with UK-supplied missiles

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron told Reuters Thursday that British-supplied long-range missiles could be used by Ukraine to strike Russian territory. The announcement confirms a major escalation in the NATO-Russia proxy war. Speaking in Kiev after discussions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Cameron told reporters in reference to military equipment supplied by the UK, “In terms of what the Ukrainians do, in our view, it is their decision about how to use these weapons, they’re defending their country, they were illegally invaded by Putin and they must take those steps.

“We don’t discuss any caveats that we put on those things.

“But let’s be absolutely clear, Russia has launched an attack into Ukraine and Ukraine absolutely has the right to strike back at Russia.” Asked if this included using British weaponry to strike Russia, Cameron replied, “That’s a decision for Ukraine and Ukraine has that right.

“Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it’s defending itself, it’s getting the Russians out of its country, and it has the ability to strike back.”

As the Washington Post later commented, “The remarks signaled a sharp reversal in Britain’s position, which previously did not allow Russia to be targeted with British-supplied weapons.” Ukraine’s Western allies, the paper noted, “have so far forbidden Ukrainian forces from using Western-supplied arms to target locations within Russia, for fear of escalation and possibly being drawn further into the conflict.”

Oil Co's Caught In PRICE FIXING Scandal

Pelosi's Fave Congressman INDICTED For Cartoon Foreign BRIBES

Congressworms work for cheap!

US Rep. Henry Cuellar and Wife Indicted on Bribery Charges

The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed Friday that Democratic Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, were indicted last week for allegedly "participating in two schemes involving bribery, unlawful foreign influence, and money laundering."

According to the indictment, between at least December 2014 and November 2021, the Cuellars allegedly took approximately $600,000 in bribes from a fossil fuel company owned by the Azerbaijani government and an unnamed bank headquartered in Mexico City. The congressman, who has served on Capitol Hill for nearly two decades and is seeking reelection, previously co-chaired the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus.

"The bribe payments were laundered, pursuant to sham consulting contracts, through a series of front companies and middlemen into shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar," the document states. "In exchange for the bribe payments to Imelda Cuellar, Henry Cuellar agreed to perform official acts in his capacity as a member of Congress, to commit acts in violation of his official duties, and to act as an agent of the government of Azerbaijan and [the foreign bank]."

NBC News first reported early Friday that the Justice Department was expected to release the indictment, which came more than two years after a Federal Bureau of Investigation raid of the couple's Laredo home. Before the document was unsealed, the congressman claimed in a statement that his actions were "consistent with the actions of many of my colleagues and in the interest of the American people."

"I want to be clear that both my wife and I are innocent of these allegations," Cuellar said Friday. "Before I took any action, I proactively sought legal advice from the House Ethics Committee, who gave me more than one written opinion, along with an additional opinion from a national law firm."

The Cuellars "made their initial court appearance today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dena Palermo in Houston," the Justice Departmnet said Friday. If convicted of all the charges, the 68-year-old congressman and his 67-year-old wife could face decades in prison.

Congressional Democratic leadership last year endorsed Cuellar for reelection in November, despite his opposition to abortion rights—a key issue for this cycle at all levels of politics. During the 2022 cycle, after nearly losing to progressive primary challenger Jessica Cisneros, he beat the Republican nominee, Cassy Garcia, 57% to 43%.

A spokesperson for U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Christie Stephenson, said in a Friday statement that "Henry Cuellar has admirably devoted his career to public service and is a valued member of the House Democratic Caucus. Like any American, Congressman Cuellar is entitled to his day in court and the presumption of innocence throughout the legal process."

"Pursuant to House Democratic Caucus Rule 24, Congressman Cuellar will take leave as ranking member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee while this matter is ongoing," Stephenson added.

Cuellar isn't the only Democrat in Congress battling allegations of corruption and bribery charges. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and his wife, Nadine Menendez, were indicted last September and accused of accepting bribes in the form of "cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value."

The following month, the Justice Department accused the senator of acting as an unregistered agent for the government of Egypt. Menendez has denied wrongdoing and refused to resign. Although he is not seeking reelection as a Democrat, he has teased a possible independent run if he is exonerated.

Bumblebee nests are overheating to fatal levels, study finds

Bumblebee nests may be overheating, killing off broods and placing one of the Earth’s critical pollinators in decline as temperatures rise, new research has found. Around the world, many species of Bombus, or bumblebee, have suffered population declines due to global heating, the research said. Bumblebee colonies are known for their ability to thermoregulate: in hot conditions, worker bees gather to beat their wings and fan the hive, cooling it down. But as the climate crisis pushes average temperatures up and generates heatwaves, bumblebees will struggle to keep their homes habitable.

Most bumblebee broods would not survive at temperatures above 36C, the paper, published in Frontiers in Bee Science, concluded. The research team reviewed 180 years of literature, and found that for all bumblebee species studied the optimum temperature range for incubating nests was between 28C and 32C.

Peter Kevan, the lead author of the study, told the Guardian: “If [bumblebees] can’t keep temperatures below what is probably a lethal limit of about 35C, when the brood may die, that could explain why we are losing so many bumblebees around the world, especially in North America and Europe.” Kevan, who is a professor emeritus at the University of Guelph’s School of Environmental Sciences in Canada, added that the research examined the often-overlooked role of the nest as a “superorganism”.

“Researchers have been looking at foraging behaviour and fanning to keep the brood cool, but there are very few studies that look at the whole nest,” he said. The study argued that nests should be seen as a whole: while some individual bees may be able to cope with heat, if the nest becomes too hot to raise healthy larvae the whole colony will decline.

Dave Goulson, a professor of biology at the University of Sussex, who was not involved in the research, said: “We have known for a long time that bumblebees are cool-climate specialists. Most insects are more abundant in the tropics, but bumblebees are weird in that they are at their most abundant in places like the Alps and Britain.” They are big and furry as an adaptation to living in cooler places, he said. “There are even some that live in the Arctic, the Bombus polaris. That means an obvious problem with climate change – they are vulnerable to warming.”

‘Inside an oven’: sweltering heat ravages crops and takes lives in south-east Asia

Extreme heat has gripped much of south and south-east Asia over recent weeks, killing dozens of people, forcing millions of students to miss school and destroying crops. Both the Philippines and Bangladesh shut schools due to the unbearable heat last month, while governments across the region have issued health warnings. In Thailand, at least 30 people have died from heatstroke since the start of the year.

The extreme weather has seen durian fruit burst on trees in Thailand, destroyed rice crops and caused eggs to shrink, according to local media. The heat has even been cited as a factor that led to an ammunition blast in Cambodia that killed 20 soldiers at an army base last weekend.

Records have been broken across the region. Bangladesh experienced its hottest April ever recorded, with daily maximum temperatures between 2C and 8C hotter than the 33.2C average daily high for the month. In Myanmar, 48.2C was reached in the town of Chauk, in central Magway region – the hottest April temperature since records began.

In Vietnam, 102 weather stations reported record highs in April. Northern and central areas of the country experienced temperatures up to 4C higher than the same period last year, while seven stations recorded temperatures above 43C on Tuesday last week. Kolkata, in India, also reached 43C, the city’s hottest April day since 1954.

Dr Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, said: “The frequency, intensity, duration and the area covered by these heatwaves are increasing over time. We are on a rollercoaster ride in terms of temperature, which is not going to come down any time soon. It’s going to be worse, which means we need to be prepared.”

Cop29 summit to call for peace between warring states, says host Azerbaijan

This year’s Cop29 UN climate summit will be the first “Cop of peace”, focusing on the prevention of future climate-fuelled conflicts and using international cooperation on green issues to help heal existing tensions, according to plans being drawn up by organisers. Nations may be asked to observe a “Cop truce”, suspending hostilities for the fortnight-long duration of the conference, modelled on the Olympic truce, which is observed by most governments during the summer and winter Olympic Games.

Cop29 will be held in November in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, amid two big wars – the Ukraine invasion and the Israel-Gaza conflict – raging in neighbouring regions and worsening geopolitical tensions. But the host country’s top national security adviser said that the climate summit, which 196 governments are expected to attend, could become an engine for peace, by finding common ground among countries in the urgent need to tackle global heating.

The climate crisis is likely to exacerbate food and water shortages, and could increase migration, adding to pressures on states and potentially sparking border issues, he warned. “Security isn’t about hardware – it has many elements, and you cannot deny climate action, environment change or environmental problems [are relevant to national security and peace],” he said. “We are affected by climate change – it’s part of national security and global security.” ...

It is understood that there is nervousness in some quarters at the UN over tying the issues of the climate crisis and national security too closely together. The fear is that bad feeling over global conflicts could spill over to affect the climate negotiations, and it could be safer to keep them as separate issues.

Putting peace on the agenda at Cop29 also throws a spotlight on Azerbaijan’s conduct in the war with Armenia, and its human rights record, which has attracted strong criticism.

Also of Interest

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

Enforcing Silence on Genocide

As Peace Protests Are Violently Suppressed, CNN Paints Them as Hate Rallies

Israel’s Defenders Talk So Much About Feelings Because They Can’t Talk About Facts

I Oppose Israel’s Atrocities In Gaza Because I’m Not A Psychopath

An agonizing wait to identify Gaza’s dead

Turkiye Suspends All Trade With Israel in Surprise New Blow; Israel Threatens Retaliation

Chris Hedges: Thank You For Your Support Following the Cancellation of My Show on The Real News

At least 400 rescued from flooding in Texas as waters continue rising

‘Be in awe’: everything you need to know about the US cicada-geddon

Week in wildlife – in pictures: a giant hamster, a mustachioed deer and a zebra on the run

"They Are Starving," Says Doctor Back from Gaza

Columbia CANCELS Commencement; Racist Ole Miss Video GOES VIRAL

Media BEGS For Kent State 2.0

A Little Night Music

Leroy Carr - Blues Before Sunrise

Leroy Carr - Mean Mistreater Mama

Leroy Carr - Shinin' Pistol

Leroy Carr - Six Cold Feet of Ground

Leroy Carr – Bobo Stomp

Leroy Carr - How Long Has That Evening Train Been Gone

Leroy Carr – Midnight Hour Blues

Leroy Carr – Sloppy Drunk Blues

Leroy Carr – Barrelhouse Woman

Leroy Carr – I Believe I'll Make A Change