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“What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.”

-- Terry Pratchett

News and Opinion

The Empire Only De-Escalates In One Area So It Can Escalate In Another

Just as things cool down a bit in the middle east, the US has relocated the USS Gerald Ford from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean while the Trump administration discusses plans to bomb Venezuela.

The violence of the empire remains constant. Peace is never the goal. You get happy they’re pulling the world’s largest aircraft carrier away from Iran, then it turns out they’re only doing it so they can move it to Venezuela. You get happy they’re pulling out of Afghanistan, then suddenly they’re waging a proxy war in Ukraine.

These days whenever you see the imperial war machinery getting pulled from one area, you know it’s just going to be sent someplace else.

Peace is never pursued for its own sake, because there’s nothing in it for the empire. There’s too much power and money in nonstop warmongering for peace to be allowed to become the norm.

Which is just insane if you think about it. Every normal person wants peace in their own lives. None of us want our time on this planet to be disturbed by violence, chaos and bloodshed.

The western world has created a machine whose behavior goes against every healthy human impulse. The US-led world order has given birth to an out of control monster with an insatiable appetite for human flesh.

Laith Marouf: UN Colonial Palestine Mandate, Hezbollah Reaches a New Level of Power

UN security council votes to endorse Donald Trump’s Gaza plan

The UN security council has endorsed proposals put forward by Donald Trump for a lasting peace in Gaza, including the deployment of an international stabilisation force and a possible path to a sovereign Palestinian state. The resolution, passed by a vote of 13-0 with abstentions by China and Russia, charted “a new course in the Middle East for Israelis and Palestinians and all the people of the region alike”, the US envoy to the UN, Mike Waltz, told the council chamber.

The inclusion of references to an independent Palestine was the price the US paid for backing from the Arab and Islamic world, who are expected to provide peacekeepers for an international stabilisation force (ISF). However, on the eve of the UN vote, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu restated his government’s adamant opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state, raising questions on whether Israel will allow the implementation of the UN-mandated proposals.

Supporters of the resolution said it should lead to the immediate lifting of remaining curbs on the flow of aid into Gaza, the creation of an international stabilisation force which would fill the vacuum left by Israeli military withdrawal, and moves towards reconstruction and a possible “pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood”.

The reference to Palestinian statehood was a compromise addition to an initial US draft which did not mention it. However the wording is vague and conditional, promising only that once the Palestinian Authority has reformed itself and the rebuilding of Gaza is under way, “the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”

The language fell far short of the firm commitment to the building of a Palestinian state alongside Israel sought by Arab and Islamic states, as well as European council members, but in speeches to the chamber after the vote, delegates from those countries said they were prepared to accept the compromise in the interests of extending the current truce and immediate measures to feed and protect the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza.

Matt Hoh : IDF Kills During ‘Ceasefire’

Hamas rejects UN plan for international forces in Gaza

Hamas has rejected the UN security council passing the US-drafted resolution endorsing an International Stabilisation Force in Gaza, saying it fails to meet Palestinians’ rights and demands, favours the Israeli occupation, and seeks to impose an international trusteeship on the enclave that Palestinians and resistance factions oppose.

“The resolution imposes an international guardianship mechanism on the Gaza Strip, which our people and their factions reject,” the group said in a lengthy post on Telegram. It goes on:

"Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favour of the occupation.

Any international force, if established, must be deployed only at the borders to separate forces, monitor the ceasefire, and must be fully under UN supervision."

Chris Hedges: Israel is DESPERATE | Useful Idiots

At least 98 Palestinians have died in custody since October 2023, Israeli data shows

Israeli data shows at least 98 Palestinians have died in custody since October 2023, and the real toll is likely substantially higher because hundreds of people detained in Gaza are missing, an Israel-based human rights group has said.

Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHRI) tracked deaths from causes including physical violence, medical neglect and malnutrition for a new report, using freedom of information requests, forensic reports and interviews with lawyers, activists, relatives and witnesses.

Israeli authorities only provided comprehensive data for the first eight months of the war. Over this period official figures show an unprecedented casualty rate among Palestinian detainees, on average one death every four days.

The military last updated data on deaths in detention for May 2024, and the Israel Prison Service (IPS) in September 2024. PHRI researchers identified another 35 deaths in detention after these dates and confirmed them with Israeli authorities.

Although the total number of deaths charted is significantly higher than other recent estimates, it likely fails to capture the full scale of Palestinian loss, said Naji Abbas, director of the prisoners and detainees department at PHRI.

The Member States Complicit in GENOCIDE (w/ Francesca Albanese) | The Chris Hedges Report

UN Security Council Gives US ‘Mandate’ Over Palestine

The United Nations Security Council on Monday adopted a resolution that gives the world body’s imprimatur to Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, a territory he said publicly should be ethnically cleansed to develop a Mediterranean resort.

The council voted 13 nations in favor with two abstentions from China and Russia, which could have vetoed Trump’s plans. The resolution essentially revives the colonial mandate system of the League of Nations after the First World War, and the United Nations’ trusteeship system after the Second World War, both schemes in which colonial powers remained in charge of a colonized territory while it was supposed to wean it towards independence. ...

The resolution “welcomes” the establishment of a Board of Peace (BoP) “as a transitional administration” in Gaza to coordinate reconstruction. ... Nations will contribute troops to the force “in close consultation and cooperation” with Egypt and Israel. But it will be Donald Trump who ultimately gets to call the shots of this international military force.

Among the Trump-run forces’ tasks is to demilitarize Gaza by decommissioning weapons and destroying military infrastructure. In a statement reacting to the resolution, Hamas said: “The resolution imposes an international guardianship mechanism on the Gaza Strip, which our people and their factions reject.” ... If the stabilization force actually tries to disarm Hamas we could be looking at armed combat between them. The U.N.-approved force would in essence then be taking up the unfinished job of the Israel Defense Forces to defeat Hamas.

I got detained by ICE and learnt that America is turning against Israel | Sami Hamdi

Fears of 'catastrophic consequences' in Gaza as rain floods tents

Heavy rain flooded the tents of displaced Palestinians in Gaza on Friday, as forecast thunderstorms threaten “catastrophic consequences” for nearly two million people without shelter.

Thousands of families in makeshift displacement camps woke up to find their tents flooded in the early hours of Friday, according to local media.

The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza has warned residents, especially the displaced, to take necessary precautions against potential destruction from the storm.

The Palestinian Meteorological Department issued warnings of flash floods in low-lying areas and valleys across the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, with strong winds, heavy rain, and thunderstorms expected over the coming days.

According to Khan Younis municipality, more than 900,000 displaced people live in tents in the al-Mawasi area in southern Gaza alone.

Alastair Crooke : Russians Believe Europe Wants War

Ecuador Voters Crush Right-Wing Push to Allow Return of US Military Bases

Ecuador’s voters on Sunday delivered a major blow to right-wing President Daniel Noboa by decisively rejecting the proposed return of foreign military bases to the South American country’s soil—including installations run by the United States.

Around two-thirds of voters opposed the measure with most ballots tallied, a result that was widely seen as a surprise. Voters also rejected a separate effort to rewrite the country’s progressive 2008 constitution, which enshrined strong labor and environmental rights.

The stinging defeat for Noboa, an ally of US President Donald Trump, comes as the United States carries out an aggressive military buildup and deadly airstrike campaign in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific—and weighs a direct attack on Venezuela. The BBC reported that the Trump administration “had hoped the referendum would pave the way to opening a military base in Ecuador, 16 years after it was made to close a site on its Pacific coast.”

“The former US military base on Ecuador’s Pacific coast was closed after left-wing President Rafael Correa decided not to renew its lease and pushed for the constitutional ban,” the outlet noted.

Rubio Invents New FAKE Reason for Venezuela Regime Change

US judge finds evidence of ‘government misconduct’ in federal case against Comey

A US judge on Monday found evidence of “government misconduct” in how a prosecutor aligned with Donald Trump secured criminal charges against James Comey, the former FBI director, and ordered that grand jury materials be turned over to Comey’s defense team.

Last week, prosecutors were ordered to produce a trove of materials from the investigation, with the court saying it was concerned that the US justice department’s position on Comey had been to “indict first and investigate later”. ...

Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick ruled on Monday that the justice department engaged in a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” on its way to indicting Comey. The federal judge directed prosecutors to produce to defense lawyers all grand jury materials from the case.

Fitzpatrick wrote that problems include “fundamental misstatements of the law” by a prosecutor to a grand jury that indicted Comey in September, the use of potentially privileged communications in the investigation and unexplained irregularities in the transcript of the grand jury proceedings.

“The Court recognizes that the relief sought by the defense is rarely granted,” Fitzpatrick wrote, adding: “However, the record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding.”

Supreme court to review Trump policy of limiting asylum claims at border

The US supreme court agreed on Monday to hear a defense by the Trump administration of the government’s authority to limit the processing of asylum claims at ports of entry along the US-Mexico border. The court took up the administration’s appeal of a lower court’s determination that the “metering” policy, under which US immigration officials could stop asylum seekers at the border and decline to process their claims, violated federal law.

The policy was rescinded by former US president Joe Biden, but Donald Trump’s administration has indicated it would consider resuming it. The supreme court is expected to hear the case and issue a ruling by the end of June.

The metering policy is separate from the sweeping ban on asylum at the US-Mexico border that Trump issued after returning to the presidency on 20 January. That policy faces an ongoing legal challenge. Under US law, a migrant who “arrives in the United States” may apply for asylum and must be inspected by a federal immigration official. The legal issue in the case is whether asylum seekers who are stopped on the Mexican side of the border have arrived in the US.

US immigration officials began turning away asylum seekers at the border in 2016 under former president Barack Obama amid a surge in migration numbers. The metering policy was formalized in 2018 during Trump’s first term in office, with border officials being permitted to limit the processing of asylum claims when ports of entry were at capacity. Biden rescinded the policy in 2021.

The advocacy group Al Otro Lado launched the long-running legal challenge in 2017 with a lawsuit arguing that the metering policy violated federal law, which states that any non-US citizen who arrives in the US may apply for asylum. The San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals in a 2-1 decision in 2024 ruled that federal law requires border agents to inspect all asylum seekers who “arrive” at designated border crossings, even if they have not yet crossed into the United States, and the metering policy violated that obligation. The Trump administration argued in court papers that the words “arrive in” are commonly understood to mean “entering a specified location, not just coming close to it”.

Trump has ‘blurred’ line between military and politics, ex-officers warn

With months of escalation between US cities and the Trump administration amid the deployment of national guard troops, former military officials released a report on Monday about the risks of politicizing the nation’s armed forces.

The report warns that increasing domestic military deployments, such as using national guard troops for immigration enforcement in the US, and removing senior military officers and legal advisers have made the armed forces appear to serve partisan agendas.

“The use of troops, bases, and ceremonies in partisan settings has blurred the line between military service and political messaging, eroding morale and public trust in the military’s apolitical character,” the report reads.

The report, The Perils of Politicizing the US Military, was authored by six former service secretaries and retired four-star admirals and generals, including former army secretary Louis Caldera, former air force secretary Deborah Lee James, former navy secretary Sean O’Keefe, retired navy admiral Steve Abbot, retired coast guard admiral Thad Allen, and retired army general George Casey.

The white paper comes as the Trump administration continues to battle the courts over deploying the national guard in Portland. In Washington DC, where the president has more control over the guard than in states, troops were ordered to remain there through at least February.After sending troops to the nation’s capital, Trump sent others to Chicago and threatened to send more to other Democratic-run cities such as San Francisco and New York.

Protests in Charlotte as aggressive immigration arrests continue

Aggressive arrests by federal immigration agents continued in Charlotte on Monday after a weekend sweep in which authorities said they detained a total of at least 130 people in North Carolina’s largest city, as protests picked up. North Carolina’s governor, Josh Stein, on Monday warned that the crackdown was simply “stoking fear” and resulting in severe disruption.

The Trump administration on Saturday sent border patrol agents to Charlotte to enhance operations by Customs and Immigration Enforcement. The White House has argued that its latest focus on the Democratic-run city of about 950,000 people is an effort to combat crime but the enforcement has been met with fierce objections from local leaders – amid declining crime rates in the city.

Many residents were outraged when there was a flurry of reported encounters with immigration agents near churches, apartment complexes and stores over the weekend, chasing and arresting people as part of anti-immigration measures but which included some US citizens.

“We’ve seen masked, heavily armed agents in paramilitary garb driving unmarked cars, targeting American citizens based on their skin color, racially profiling and picking up random people in parking lots and off of our sidewalks,” Stein, a Democrat, said in a video statement late on Sunday. “This is not making us safer. It’s stoking fear and dividing our community.” ...

The operation, titled Charlotte’s Web, has drawn condemnation from the granddaughter of EB White, the author of the 1952 children’s book of the same name. “He believed in the rule of law and due process … He certainly didn’t believe in masked men, in unmarked cars, raiding people’s homes and workplaces without IDs or summons,” Martha White said.

Trump signals he may soon meet with political adversary Zohran Mamdani

Donald Trump has signaled he may soon meet with New York City’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, telling reporters that Mamdani “would like to meet with us”, adding that “we’ll work something out” – despite trading sharp words for each other previously.

“He would like to come to Washington and meet, and we’ll work something out,” the US president said late on Sunday, referring to Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist and former state assemblymember who won the New York City mayoral election earlier this month. “We want to see everything work out well for New York.”

On Monday afternoon, Mamdani confirmed his team had reached out to the White House “to fulfill a commitment I made to New Yorkers over the course of this campaign, a commitment that showed a willingness to meet with anyone and everyone, so long as it was to the benefit of the eight and a half million people that call the city their home, and so long as it would help to address the affordability crisis that is pushing so many of them out of the city”.

“We are seeing his actions and that of his administration in Washington leading to the exact opposite effect for New Yorkers and I will go to make the case to the president and to anyone, frankly, that these are the kinds of things we need to change if we want to make it easier for New Yorkers and for Americans to afford the day to day necessities of their life,” Mamdani added.

In an interview last week with NBC, Mamdani had said he planned to contact the White House as he prepares to take office “because this is a relationship that will be critical to the success of the city”.

Sounds like Big Tech has deployed its salesmen to run a con job at Climate summits:

AI is guzzling energy for slop content

Artificial intelligence is often associated with ludicrous amounts of electricity, and therefore planet-heating emissions, expended to create nonsensical or misleading slop that is of meagre value to humanity. Some AI advocates at a major UN climate summit are posing an alternative view, though – what if AI could help us solve, rather than worsen, the climate crisis? The “AI for good” argument has been made repeatedly at the Cop30 talks in Belém, Brazil, with supporters arguing AI can be used to lower, rather than raise, emissions through a series of efficiencies that can spread through areas of our lives such as food, transport and energy that cause much of the pollution dangerously heating our planet.

Last week, a coalition of groups, UN bodies and the Brazilian government unveiled the AI Climate Institute, a new global initiative aimed at fostering AI “as a tool of empowerment” in developing countries to help them tackle environmental problems. Proponents say the program, in time, will help educate countries on how to use AI in an array of ways to bring down emissions, such as better optimizing public transit, organizing agricultural systems and recalibrating the energy grid so that renewables are deployed at the right times.

Even weather forecasting, including the mapping of impending climate-driven disasters such as flooding and wildfires, can be improved in this way, according to Maria João Sousa, executive director, Climate Change AI, one of the groups behind the new initiative. ... AI can help monitor emissions, biodiversity and generally see what is going on, said Lorenzo Saa, chief sustainability officer at Clarity AI, who is also attending Cop30.

Saa admitted there are legitimate concerns about the governance of AI and its impact upon society but, on balance, the effect on the environment could be positive. In June, a report by the London School of Economics had an unexpectedly sunny estimate – AI could reduce global greenhouse gases by 3.2bn to 5.4bn tonnes in the next decade, even factoring in its vast energy consumption. ...

The climate cost of this AI gold rush, driven by companies such as Google, Meta and OpenAI, is large and set to get larger – a recent Cornell University study found that by 2030, the current rate of AI growth in the US will add up to 44m tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, the equivalent of adding 10m gasoline cars to the road or the entire annual emissions of Norway. “People have this techno-utopian view of AI that it will save us from the climate crisis,” said Jean Su, a climate campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We know what will save us from the climate crisis – phasing out fossil fuels. It’s not AI.”

Nestlé accused of ’risking health of babies for profit’ over added sugar in cereals sold in African countries

Nestlé is still adding sugar to most baby cereals sold across Africa, according to an investigation by campaigners who have accused the company of “putting the health of African babies at risk for profit”.

The food firm was accused of “double standards” over the researchers’ findings, which come at a time when rates of childhood obesity are rising on the continent, prompting calls for Nestlé to remove all added sugar from baby-food products.

Nestlé described the investigation, from Public Eye, a Swiss group that calls itself a global justice organisation, as “misleading”. A company spokesperson said that having cereals sweet enough to be palatable to infants was vital in combating malnutrition. The firm said their recipes were well within limits set by national regulations in the countries concerned.

Public Eye researchers worked with activists in more than 20 African countries to buy 94 samples of Cerelac products marketed for babies aged six months and above, which were sent to a laboratory for analysis. The laboratory found added sugar in more than 90% of baby cereals, with an average of 6g, or one-and-a-half teaspoons, per serving.

Most products without added sugar were imported, they said, and had originally been intended for sale in Europe, apart from two variants recently launched in South Africa.

Also of Interest

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

Ukraine Is Buying Fighter Jets With Money It Does Not Have?

TACO MIGA Breaks With MAGA Over the Epstein Files

Some Thoughts on Epstein’s Non-moral Virtues

Paul McCartney joins music industry protest against AI with silent track

A significant number of leaders in Western countries are weirdos

A Little Night Music

Leadbelly - Gallows Pole

Leadbelly - Take this hammer

Leadbelly - House of the Rising Sun

Leadbelly - John Hardy

Leadbelly - In the Pines

Leadbelly - Midnight Special

Leadbelly - When I Was a Cowboy

Leadbelly - The Bourgeois Blues

Leadbelly - Rock Island Line

Leadbelly - Ain't It A Shame To Go Fishin' On A Sunday

Lead Belly - Goodnight Irene