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"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there."

-- Lewis Carroll

"All Roads Lead to Rome"

-- medieval proverb

News and Opinion

What’s Happening In Northern Gaza Proves Israel Lied About Everything

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed. He died not hiding behind civilians or disguised as a woman as Israel apologists have been claiming for a year, but alone and in uniform, fighting Israeli forces with one arm blown off by tank fire.

Sinwar’s death will have no meaningful bearing on how Hamas or Israel conduct themselves, so it’s funny to see Israel supporters puffing their chests like this was some kind of achievement. Israel is going to keep bombing hospitals, shooting kids in the head, intentionally starving civilians, and working to steal Palestinian land just like it was doing yesterday, and Palestinians are going to keep resisting this just like they were doing yesterday.

Nothing about anything has changed. If Israel were actually killing all these people with the goal of destroying Hamas then Sinwar’s death might be significant, but Israel’s goal is not destroying Hamas. Israel’s goal is the ethnic cleansing and annexation of Gaza. This is public knowledge at this point, and is not seriously debatable. The only victory Israel’s supporters can claim to have secured here is one of revenge, which is just empty ego fluff that only feels real to highly egocentric people.

You’re even seeing Israel apologists trying to call Sinwar a “coward” for the way he died, which is absurd. He died fighting off soldiers, drones and a fucking tank with one goddamn arm. Western men jerk off fantasizing about dying like that and then go on to die in nursing homes from Parkinson’s complications with bellies full of vanilla custard. You don’t get to call him a coward.

No Hamas propaganda will ever make Hamas look more badass than Israel’s footage of Sinwar throwing a stick at an IDF drone with his one remaining arm right before he died. I honestly can’t believe they released that video. They may as well have put a red triangle pointing at the drone camera. ...

What’s happening in northern Gaza conclusively disproves everything that Israel’s defenders have been saying for the past year. The fact that Israel is now openly starving and killing Palestinians to force them south with the goal of stealing Palestinian land while rejecting any possibility of a hostage deal or a ceasefire disproves everything Israel apologists have been saying to justify the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza.

The killing was never about rescuing hostages. The killing was never about self-defense. The killing was never about fighting terrorism. The killing was never because of human shields. The killing was never because of Hamas terror bases hidden under hospitals, schools, mosques and humanitarian aid facilities. The killing was never about beheaded babies, mass rapes, and other imaginary atrocities perpetrated on October 7. The killing was never about October 7 at all. The killing was about stealing more Palestinian land, a project that Israel has been working on for generations.

This is now a conclusively established fact, and it proves that every Israel apologist you’ve seen defending Israel’s actions over the last year was either a useful idiot or a knowing genocide apologist. Nothing they said was true. It was all lies, told to justify stealing even more land from an indigenous population.

We were always headed to this point. At some point they were going to have to stop lying about hostages and self-defense and human shields and taking out Hamas and just go “Haha yeah we’re stealing a bunch of Palestinian land actually.”

They’ve been lying for a whole year, with western help.

Alastair Crooke : Resistance Escalates; Netanyahu Degenerates

Scott Ritter : Secret Documents; Attempts to Assassinate Netanyahu

US investigates leaked documents alleging Israel plans to attack Iran

The US government is investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents that assess Israel’s plans to attack Iran. ...

The documents are attributed to the US Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, and they note that Israel was still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on 1 October. They were sharable within the “Five Eyes”, which are the US, Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

The documents, which are marked top secret, were posted to the Telegram messaging app and first reported by CNN and Axios. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The investigation is also examining how the documents were obtained – including whether it was an intentional leak by a member of the US intelligence community or obtained by another method, like a hack – and whether any other intelligence information was compromised, one of the officials said. As part of that investigation, officials are working to determine who had access to the documents before they were posted, the official said.

The US has urged Israel to take advantage of its elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and press for a cease-fire in Gaza, and has likewise urgently cautioned Israel not to further expand military operations in the north in Lebanon and risk a wider regional war. However, Israel’s leadership has repeatedly stressed it will not let Iran’s missile attack go unanswered.

Will Netanyahu Incite a War with Iran? Leaked U.S. Docs Detail Israel's Attack Plans

Here are the docs. Looks like it’s just US observations while spying on Israeli drills. Biggest thing I think is the acknowledgment of Israel having nuclear weapons. https://t.co/c1AoQUYbvj pic.twitter.com/QHEedOEhV7

— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) October 20, 2024

"Collateral Damage": Hundreds of Patients Trapped in North Gaza as Israel Intensifies Siege

More than 100 people killed in latest Israeli bombings in Gaza

At least 87 people have been killed or are missing and 40 injured after intense Israeli airstrikes overnight in the north of the Gaza Strip, part of the country’s ferocious renewed assault on the area, medics in the besieged Palestinian territory have said.

In the past 24 hours 108 people have been killed in bombings across the territory, according to local health officials. “The nightmare in Gaza is intensifying. Horrifying scenes are unfolding in the northern strip amidst relentless Israeli strikes and an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis,” Tor Wennesland, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said in a statement. ...

Bombings late on Saturday night in the town of Beit Lahia flattened several houses and an apartment block, killing members of several families, according to Raheem Kheder, a medic. Among the dead were two parents and their four children, and a woman, her son and her daughter-law and their four children, he said. The internet and phone services have been down in parts of Gaza since Saturday evening, complicating the rescue operation. ...

Gaza’s civil defence service said it had recovered at least 500 bodies since the operation began on 6 October.

Gabor Mate ‘It’s like we’re watching Auschwitz on TikTok’

Israelis take the right to rape very seriously. https://t.co/v8cuVLyQSV

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 16, 2024

The stenographers at the Gaurdian have dutifully copied down a message from the Five Eyes Fearmongering Squad. Happy Halloween!

‘You are next’: online posts show Islamic State interest in attacks on US ahead of election

After the FBI arrested an Afghan man in Oklahoma planning an election day shooting on behalf of the Islamic State, the terrorist organization re-entered what has become one of the most chaotic news cycles leading up to a November vote.

Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, of Oklahoma City admitted to investigators he and a co-conspirator expected to die as IS martyrs as they opened fire on crowds on election day, according to charging documents.

Warnings about IS-sponsored or -inspired attacks in the west have intensified in recent weeks. In a statement on the Tawhedi case, the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, remarked there was a continuing need to “combat the ongoing threat that [IS] and its supporters pose to America’s national security”. Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, the UK’s domestic intelligence service, described how his agency had “one hell of a job” managing the threat of the resurgent terrorist organization.

Despite the talk from top officials, public perception still remains that IS was defeated or has somehow disappeared. But, experts say, before and after that incident, internal IS talk was anything but quiet: on chat boards and encrypted apps, both supporters and operatives alike have increasingly been discussing attacks on the west and the US homeland.

What do Gazans really think about Yahya Sinwar?

Praising murder of Yahya Sinwar, imperialist powers endorse Netanyahu’s mass extermination plan in Gaza

On Thursday, Israeli forces killed Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, during a firefight in Rafah. The killing of Sinwar prompted statements of unrestrained support for the Netanyahu government by the leaders of the United States, France, Germany and the UK, who used the occasion to openly endorse Netanyahu’s campaign of extermination and ethnic cleansing against a population of 2.2 million people. Sinwar died while resisting his killers, but the fact that he resisted does not make his death any less a murder. His killing is part of an illegal imperialist-backed war whose aim is the extermination of the population of Gaza and the annexation of the territory illegally occupied by Israel since 1967.

Sinwar’s murder follows a campaign of illegal assassinations targeting all of the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as leading Iranian figures, as the US and Israel expand their military onslaught throughout the region. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed by more than 80 2,000-pound bombs in Lebanon last month, and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in July. ...

President Joe Biden called Netanyahu on Thursday “to congratulate him on the mission,” the White House said in a statement. The statement declared that “Hamas [will] never again [be] able to control Gaza.” On Thursday, Biden issued a statement saying that “With our intelligence help, the IDF relentlessly pursued Hamas’s leaders, flushing them out of their hiding places and forcing them onto the run... Today, however, proves once again that no terrorists anywhere in the world can escape justice, no matter how long it takes.” The president continued, “Israel has every right to eliminate the leadership and military structure of Hamas.”

Biden’s remarks hailing the killing of Sinwar could have been made by a fascist leader. They exemplify the repudiation of democratic principles at the highest levels of the American state. Assassinations and genocide are being embraced by the leaders of “democratic” countries as legitimate policies in a disintegration of democratic forms of government and international law and a descent into ever deeper levels of criminality. In subsequent statements in Berlin, Biden said the killing of Sinwar provided “an opportunity to seek a path to peace.” But his earlier statement made clear that what he meant by “peace” was ensuring that Hamas would “never again [be] able to control Gaza,” i.e., peace on the terms dictated by the genocidal Netanyahu government.

Biden’s statements were echoed by the leaders of France, Germany, the UK, and Italy, as well as the entire political spectrum in the United States, including Senator Bernie Sanders, who declared Sinwar a “war criminal who masterminded the brutal October 7th terrorist attack.” The statements of support for Israel by the imperialist powers constitute an endorsement of the Gaza genocide as it moves to a critical new phase, in which Israel is making clear that the mass starvation and ethnic cleansing of the population of Gaza is its explicit aim.

What's next after Sinwar's death

What was that about glass houses and stones? Seems that Israel has set the terms of engagement.

A drone targets the Israeli prime minister's house during new barrages with Hezbollah

Israel's government said a drone targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house Saturday, with no casualties, as fighting with Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Gaza-based Hamas showed no pause after the killing of the Hamas mastermind of last year’s Oct. 7 attack.

Israel's military said dozens of projectiles were launched from Lebanon a day after Hezbollah announced a new phase in fighting. Netanyahu’s office said the drone targeted his house in the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea. Neither he nor his wife was there. It wasn't clear if the house was hit.

“The proxies of Iran who today tried to assassinate me and my wife made a bitter mistake,” Netanyahu said. ...

Israel’s military on Saturday dropped leaflets in southern Gaza showing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar dead, blood running down his forehead. "Sinwar destroyed your lives,” it said. “Whoever lays down his weapons and returns the kidnapped people to us, we will allow him to leave and live in peace.” [Well, except for the hundred thousands or so of unarmed civilians that Israel feels it a right to exterminate. -js]

Report from Beirut: Israel Bombs Banks, Attacks UNIFIL in Expanding War of Aggression

Barred From Gaza by Israel, Health Workers Cry Out for Help

As more Israeli bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed dozens of people Saturday, health workers from both inside and out of the besieged territory are again pleading with world leaders to bring an end to the indiscriminate attacks and imposed humanitarian crisis that witnesses on the ground increasingly say there are no words to describe.

At al Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis and elsewhere in Gaza, doctors and other medical staff on Saturday staged protests and held press conferences to call attention to the ongoing attacks in northern areas, including the latest targeting of Jabalia in which reporting indicated anywhere from 33 to over 50 people—including civilian men, women, and children—were killed.

Al-Jazeera reports that hospitals, which have repeatedly been bombed by Israel over the last year, were not immune from this latest round:

Three partially functioning hospitals treating severely wounded patients and sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza are now out of service after coming under intense Israeli fire, a Gaza health official told Al Jazeera, as the siege on Jabalia enters its third week, with at least 33 more people killed in the northern area.

Israeli forces bombed al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia early on Saturday, and have also shelled Kamal Adwan and the Indonesian hospitals in Beit Lahiya over the past few hours, Al Jazeera correspondents have reported.

Saturday's attacks come days after Israel barred at least six medical service NGOs from continuing their life-saving work in Gaza. According to the Washington Post:

Two of those medical NGOs, Glia and the Palestinian American Medical Association (PAMA), confirmed to The Washington Post that they were notified by the WHO this week about the bans. Both groups have worked in Gaza for years preceding the war.

"WHO is concerned about the impact of these denials on Gaza's strained healthcare system," the organization said Thursday in a statement. It added that international emergency medical teams (EMTs) deployed to Gaza are essential to keeping the system operational, as only 17 of the enclave's 36 hospitals remain functionaland "healthcare needs far exceed the system's capacity."

Dr. Khaled Saleh, chair of FAJR Scientific, which provides surgical expertise and trauma specialists to war-torn regions and was another of the groups notified by the WHO that it had been barred from entering Gaza, said in a statement that the move by the Israeli government filled him with "deep sadness and concern for the current state of our global family, questioning our shared humanity and ethics."

Blocked from providing aid to people in dire need, Saleh called on people worldwide to push for an end to Israel's blocking of vital medical aid and those seeking to provide it.

"This is a devastating blow to humanity, representing a level of destruction that we have not witnessed since World War II, yet our world leaders turn a blind eye," he said.

"As a member of the global community," Saleh continued, "I implore all of you who value compassion, ethics, and the sanctity of human life to stand with us and raise your voices against this unconscionable decision. Together, we must advocate for the voiceless and demand restoration of the fundamental right to access to medical care."

Israel's ban on the medical NGOs comes after a string of healthcare professionals who spent time in the Gaza strip have gone public with what they witnessed on the ground, telling tales of unspeakable horror and trying to shake the world out of its complacency on what experts say is a genocide in motion being carried out by Israeli forces.

Earlier this week, the UN humanitarian office, OCHA, said that Israel's continued blocking of food and medical supplies to Jabalia and other ares in the northern was "having life-threatening impacts" for the people there.

OCHA spokesperson Farhan Haq said the OCHA was calling on Israeli authorities "to allowed safe, sustained and unimpeded access to Jabalia and all areas of the north where people are in desperate need of assistance."

In a post on Friday, Oxfam International mourned the killing of Dr. Ahmad Al-Najar and midwife Laila Jneid, both of whom worked with Juzoor, "killed by Israeli airstrikes on Jabalia," the group said. "They were providing lifesaving health care in Gaza. Attacking aid workers is a war crime." Oxfam repeated its demand for a "cease-fire now" and said healthcare workers should never be a target.

In a dispatch on Friday, Dr. Taghreed Al-Imawi, Juzoor staff and an OBGYN doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, described the untenable situation on the ground.

"The situation is beyond horrific and is very difficult and indescribable," said Al-Imawi. "Dead people, severed body parts and injured people everywhere. We are receiving emergency calls from all the areas of the north. Ambulances are not able to reach the injured. We have seen more than 23 pregnant women among the injured coming to the hospital since last week, wounded either by shrapnel or gunfire, suffering from fractures. Some were in a critical condition. Kamal Adwan Hospital and other semi-operational hospitals have received displacement orders but there is no way to evacuate in any case."

"The pediatrics section is closed as it is full of injured people," Al-Imawi added, "the surgery section is full of injured people, even the reception, the hospital has been shelled several times and targeted by snipers, people are terrified to come to the hospital now."

NYT, WaPo front page dodgy Israeli documents

Biden Envoy Told Aid Groups in August That US Wouldn’t Consider Ending Military Aid to Israel

The top US official working on the humanitarian situation in Gaza told aid organizations during a meeting in August that the US wouldn’t even consider suspending military aid to Israel over its blocking of food and medicine shipments, POLITICO reported on Wednesday.

The official, Lise Grande, who was appointed to the position in April, told over a dozen aid groups that the US could find other ways to pressure Israel but stressed that the US would not block or delay weapons shipments, which is the only real leverage the US has.

One aid official who attended the meeting said Grande described Israel as being in a “tight circle of very few allies” that the US would not oppose. Grande said the US would not “hold anything back that they want.”

During the meeting, aid officials detailed how Israel was blocking aid shipments into Gaza and said by doing so, it was violating international law. Another person who attended the meeting said Grande “was saying that the rules don’t apply to Israel.”

If You Ever Wondered What You’d Do in a Genocide, You’re Doing It Now

People often wonder what actions they would have taken to prevent atrocities of the past. It’s a rather common litmus test for morality or ethics. Depending on how we respond, it can reveal vital information about what we’re willing to accept or not.

As I watched Palestinians, some of whom were still attached to IVs, scream out in agony as they were burned alive due to a recent Israeli strike on a tent hospital, I wondered, what is the “red line” for people in this genocide?

We’re well over a year into Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza, which has killed approximately 43,000 Palestinians and rendered the area largely uninhabitable. This scale of mass murder is the result of relentless airstrikes, ground invasions, starvation tactics, and a blank check for violence and war crimes signed by the United States.

Israel has now expanded the violence into Lebanon, including a recent airstrike that killed at least 21 people. Despite expressions of “concern” from U.S. officials about civilian casualties, U.S. taxpayers are continuing to fund Israeli aggression, which may soon include a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other high-ranking Israeli officials have indicated a desire for regional war. As my colleague, Middle East expert Khury Petersen-Smith, wrote in The Hill, “millions of lives throughout the region hang in the balance.”

Despite mass Jewish-led protests against Israel’s genocide across the United States, a movement of “uncommitted” primary voters protesting the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war, and an International Court of Justice ruling ordering Israel not to commit acts identifiable as genocide in Gaza, our legislators continue to publicly support Israel’s campaign of terror and greenlight billions of dollars of our tax money for their war.

However, everyday Americans do have a red line—and a majority of likely voters want a cease-fire and an end to U.S. arms transfers to Israel.

But so far our lawmakers have been more responsive to donors than voters. AIPAC has poured nearly $42 million into this election cycle, while the top 20 defense sector contributors have already spent nearly $23 million from 2023-2024. These organizations are buying off candidates and undermining our democracy.

Hanan Abd Alrahman Abu Salama, a 59-year-old Palestinian woman, was shot and killed by the Israeli army when she was picking olives on her own land in Jenin, West Bank.

The olive season has turned into a season of killing for the Palestinian people, whether at the hands of the… pic.twitter.com/RI0For2u3p

— Ihab Hassan (@IhabHassane) October 17, 2024

Russian ambassador accuses UK of waging proxy war in Ukraine

Moscow’s ambassador to London has said the UK is waging a proxy war against Russia, while predicting the “end of Ukraine” as Russian invading forces make deeper advances into the country. In an interview with the BBC, Andrei Kelin said Ukraine continued to fight but claimed “the resistance is more feeble and feeble”.

Russian troops, he said, were gaining more terrain every day, adding: “The end of this phase will mean the end of Ukraine.” Russia is thought to control about 18% of Ukraine and has been making slow but steady advances over the last year. Kelin also described the conflict as “a proxy war led by the United Kingdom’s government” which by providing weapons is “killing Russian soldiers and civilians”. ...

Meanwhile, the Russian defence ministry said that 110 drones were destroyed in an overnight barrage against seven Russian regions. Many targeted Russia’s border region of Kursk, where 43 drones were reportedly shot down, but others appeared to go much further

Gleb Nikitin, the governor of Nizhny Novgorod, a city 250 miles (250km) east of Moscow, wrote on Telegram that four fighters had been lightly injured repelling a drone attack over an industrial zone, and were later discharged. He did not go into further details.

The Associated Press new agency reported that social media footage appeared to show air defences at work over the city of Dzerzhinsk in the Nizhny Novgorod region, close to a factory producing explosives.

Georgia officials ‘blatantly violated’ rights in Cop City case

Georgia prosecutors and police have repeatedly stretched the law or come under harsh criticism for their handling of a criminal conspiracy case involving protesters against a police-training center colloquially known as “Cop City”, activists and experts say. The case has been pushed so recklessly that one of the subjects of the prosecution told the Guardian that their constitutional rights were being “blatantly violated”, after police took thousands of his personal papers in a Swat-style raid last year. ...

The revelation about police seizing personal papers in apparent violation of the terms of a court-ordered search warrant come from recent courtroom testimony. The hearing on 11 October at the Fulton county superior court was one of several in the last few months where Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams considered motions to dismiss all or parts of the state’s Rico indictment against 61 people, handed down by Georgia attorney general, Chris Carr, on 29 August 2023. It was the first to include multiple state witnesses.

Adams expressed concerns about the most recent evidence of state overreach, an apparent violation of the fourth amendment rights of members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, or ASF, a bail fund whose three members live together in a house that Atlanta police and the Georgia bureau of investigation raided in May 2023. Adams must now decide on a remedy that will not only address the state’s apparent misconduct, but also “deter future conduct”, as she put it. ...

The most dramatic moment in the all-day hearing occurred when Don Samuel, attorney for the ASF, wheeled 10 file boxes overflowing with papers into the courtroom. Someone had written the Atlanta address of the defendants’ house in black marker on the sides of the boxes. Samuel picked out and held up such items as diaries, letters to a therapist, mammogram results and grade school report cards – more than 14 in total. With each one, the attorney asked Michael Carter, an agent with the Georgia bureau of investigation, on the witness stand: “Was this legitimate to seize as evidence of charity fraud?” – the state’s main charge against the bail fund in alleging its participation in a criminal conspiracy. “No,” the detective repeatedly answered.

“There was no attention paid to what the warrant said,” Samuel asserted. “You treated it as a key to get in the front door and then do whatever you want […] You seized everything and then came up with a theory afterward.” Samuel’s motion argued that all evidence gathered during the raid should be excluded from the case. Adams seemed to agree with Samuel’s concern.

MSNBC Host VISIBLY STUNNED By Arab Voter Kamala Rejection

Kamala Harris promises full marijuana legalization

Kamala Harris announced on Monday that if elected president, she would fully legalize adult recreational cannabis on the federal level – the first time a presidential nominee has taken such an unambiguous stance on ending cannabis prohibition.

As part of her pledge, she said she would take steps to ensure that Black men, disproportionately incarcerated and disenfranchised by the war on drugs, would stand to profit from the industry.

Vince Sliwoski, a partner at the cannabis law firm Harris and Sliwoski, said he “was happy to see it, because I like the messaging”, but added: “She can’t just snap her fingers and do it when she gets into office. It’s not something that can be done via executive orders.”

Griffen Thorne, also an attorney specializing in cannabis, felt the promise was “clearly political”, given the announcement came just three weeks before the election. Thorne and other experts the Guardian spoke to suspect Harris’s campaign is attempting to shore up numbers with Black voters, particularly Black men, who are currently less likely to support Harris than they were Biden, according to a New York Times poll.

The 2024 Debate They DON'T Want You To See

Cop16: Colombia prepares to host ‘decisive’ summit on biodiversity

World leaders, environmental activists and prominent researchers have begun to arrive in Cali, Colombia, for a biodiversity summit that experts say will be decisive for the fate of the world’s rapidly declining wildlife populations.

The host nation is also hoping that the summit, which formally opens on Sunday evening, will be the most inclusive in history. “One of Colombia’s objectives is that this is recognised globally as the Cop of the people, where citizens, afro-descendant and campesino communities, Indigenous peoples, scientists, social actors and all sectors are heard and have a broad participation in the discussions,” said Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s environment minister. “This means managing to mobilise the entire government and society in order to contribute to the care of biodiversity.”

The Cop16 UN biodiversity summit is expected to welcome 190 countries and 15,000 people with the goal of protecting the world’s flora and fauna. Ecologists warn ecosystems are reaching an inflection point where the extinction of species could begin to accelerate.

Gustavo Petro’s government is pushing for Indigenous people to have more of a role in protecting Colombia’s ecosystems and has said they will be at the centre of Cop16. The environment ministry announced earlier this week that it will create Indigenous-led environmental authorities with public powers that settle Colombia’s “historical debt” with native communities. Indigenous groups have praised the move to empower them to defend their ecosystems. Some, however, have less confidence in Cop16’s promises of inclusion.

Harol Ipuchima, representative of Colombia’s Indigenous groups at Cop16 and the leader of the Maguta people in the Amazon, said the government’s narrative of inclusivity distracted from the fact that Indigenous peoples still have no significant involvement in the world’s decision-making process on the environment. “It sounds nice but it is all superficial, really,” he said. “Out of everyone in the entire world, we are the ones who are the most knowledgable about conservation and how to live in harmony with our ecosystems, yet we remain observers. We are still in the same position as we have been for decades where we have to shout at politicians to protect the environment but have no vote.”

US approves first-ever tribal marine sanctuary

After years of campaigning by Indigenous Americans in central California, the US has finally approved the country’s first Indigenous-nominated national marine sanctuary, a 4,543 sq mile expanse of ocean that will protect marine life from mining and oil drilling.

The Chumash Heritage national marine sanctuary – which will be nearly four times the size of Yosemite national park – will stretch along 116 miles of the California coastline that supports a number of at-risk species, including southern sea otters, abalone and blue whales. The area is also home to critical kelp forests, which not only provide food and shelter for marine life, but also act as a carbon storage system – they can sequester up to 20 times as much carbon as terrestrial forests. ...

The tribe say they are stewards of both the land and the ocean, and have a duty to protect the waters from oil drilling, deep sea mining and overfishing. The sanctuary will encompass Point Conception – known as Humqaq in the Chumash language, which means “the Raven comes”. This area, also known as the “western gate”, is particularly sacred to the tribe, who believe it is the point from which the souls of their dead travel from this world to the next.

The sanctuary’s boundaries will come into effect on 15 December, following a statutory 45 day final review by US Congress and the state of California. One of the main points of contention was an offshore wind farm that the California Energy Commission approved earlier this year. The farm will see hundreds of giant turbines floating in the ocean 20 miles off Morro Bay, a small city in central California, that could bring up to 3 gigawatts of clean energy to the grid – enough to power more than 1 million homes.

The tribe was concerned about the impact that the increase in ocean noise would have on whales, fish and other marine species, as well as the proposed port that would need to be built to transport the energy. Morro Bay is home to one of the last remaining southern sea otter populations, and environmental campaigners raised concerns about increased boat traffic through the proposed port.

Also of Interest

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

This Mass Atrocity Is Made Possible By The Systematic Dehumanization Of Palestinians

Israel’s nukes make US aid illegal

Bombings, killer drones, and starvation: eyewitnesses describe Israel’s extermination campaign in northern Gaza

Ralph Nader: “Goodbye Lebanon” – High Israeli Official. Biden Says OK, So Far

Raytheon will pay almost $1B for defrauding DOD

Police Escalate Britain’s War on Independent Journalism

Capitalism’s In-House Critic: Hedges’ Monbiot Interview

60 Minutes ADMITS It Edited Kamala Harris Interview, DEFENDS Choice Anyway

Zaluzhny signals, war is lost

A Little Night Music

Arbee Stidham w/Sax Mallard - Barbeque Lounge

Sax Mallard - The Bunny Hop

Sax Mallard Sextet (vocal Andrew Tibbs) - You Can't Win

Sax Mallard - Fine and Brown

Sax Mallard - Slow Caboose

Sax Mallard - Teen Town Strut

Sax Mallard Sextet (vocal Andrew Tibbs) - Aching Heart

Roosevelt Sykes w/ Sax Mallard - Mama, Mama

Big Bill (Broonzy) & His Rhythm Band (w/ Sax Mallard) - Ramblin' Bill

Roosevelt Sykes w/ Sax Mallard - Heavy Heart

Roosevelt Sykes w/ Sax Mallard - Raining In My Heart