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Photojournalist Motaz Azaiza: ‘The ghosts of Gaza follow me everywhere’

Photojournalist Motaz Azaiza: ‘The ghosts of Gaza follow me everywhere’

The Guardian reports: Motaz Azaiza should have been dead by now. Death stalked the streets of Deir al-Balah where he grew up, long before Israel’s assault on Gaza. There had been close encounters in the past; as a teen he was once shot by an Israeli sniper. When Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after the 7 October Hamas attacks, Azaiza picked up his camera and headed to the frontlines. Despite his clearly marked press vest, in December he narrowly…

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Plastics reckoning: PVC is ubiquitous, but maybe not for long

Plastics reckoning: PVC is ubiquitous, but maybe not for long

Nicola Jones writes: The word “vinyl” might sound innocuous, bringing to mind everyday items like LP records, flooring, pipes, or shiny plastic pants. The plastic this name refers to — polyvinyl chloride (PVC) — is the world’s third-most widely produced synthetic polymer, with more than 50 million tons cranked out each year for everything from window frames to food wrap, fake leather car seats to medical products. It’s everywhere. But environmentalists and NGOs have been raising alarms about PVC for…

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The strange and turbulent global world of ant geopolitics

The strange and turbulent global world of ant geopolitics

John Whitfield writes: It is a familiar story: a small group of animals living in a wooded grassland begin, against all odds, to populate Earth. At first, they occupy a specific ecological place in the landscape, kept in check by other species. Then something changes. The animals find a way to travel to new places. They learn to cope with unpredictability. They adapt to new kinds of food and shelter. They are clever. And they are aggressive. In the new…

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Gaza and the end of the rules-based order

Gaza and the end of the rules-based order

Agnès Callamard writes: After more than four months of conflict, Israel’s campaign of retaliation against Hamas has been characterized by a pattern of war crimes and violations of international law. Israel’s stated justification for its war in Gaza is the elimination of Hamas, which is responsible for the horrific crimes committed during its October 7 attack on Israel: 1,139 people, mostly Israeli civilians, killed; thousands more wounded; a yet unknown number of women and girls subjected to sexual violence; and…

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Preparing for the next Nakba: A mysterious construction project takes shape in Egypt, near Gaza

Preparing for the next Nakba: A mysterious construction project takes shape in Egypt, near Gaza

The New York Times reports: A wall is going up in the desert of Egypt near the border of the war-torn Gaza Strip, but no one is talking much about it. Satellite imagery, photographs and video analyzed by The New York Times show a large patch of land being bulldozed and the wall being built in the buffer zone between Egypt and Rafah, the southern Gaza city overflowing with over a million displaced Palestinians that Israeli forces are poised to…

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Russian forces getting more access to Starlink satellite internet, threatening Ukraine’s military communications

Russian forces getting more access to Starlink satellite internet, threatening Ukraine’s military communications

RFE/RL reports: Russian troops in Ukraine increasingly have access to Starlink, the private satellite Internet network owned by Elon Musk that Ukraine’s military relies on heavily for battlefield communications. The findings from RFE/RL’s Russian Service corroborate earlier statements from Ukrainian military officials, underscoring how Kyiv’s ability to secure its command communications is potentially threatened. It comes as Ukrainian forces grapple with depleted weaponry and ammunition, and overall exhaustion, with Russian forces pressing localized offensives in several locations along the 1,200-kilometer…

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Judge rules full speed ahead on Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial

Judge rules full speed ahead on Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial

The Daily Beast reports: Donald Trump will face trial next month in New York City for faking documents to cover up his sexual affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, becoming the first American president to face a jury on criminal charges. On Thursday, Justice Juan Merchan refused to dismiss the case and set the trial to start March 25, as previously planned. Trump’s lead defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, immediately called the decision to keep the start of trial on schedule…

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Liberals are not laughing about Jon Stewart’s jabs at Joe Biden

Liberals are not laughing about Jon Stewart’s jabs at Joe Biden

Rolling Stone reports: One-time fans who perhaps remember comedian Jon Stewart only taking satirical swipes at conservatives while host of The Daily Show were shocked and aggrieved when he returned to host the program after almost nine years on Monday to take aim at President Joe Biden. During an “Indecision 2024” segment that anchored the first half of the show, Stewart aired exasperation over Donald Trump and Biden being the oldest-ever candidates for president, breaking a record they themselves set…

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Ill-judged tree planting in Africa threatens ecosystems, scientists warn

Ill-judged tree planting in Africa threatens ecosystems, scientists warn

The Guardian reports: Misguided tree-planting projects are threatening crucial ecosystems across Africa, scientists have warned. Research has revealed that an area the size of France is threatened by forest restoration initiatives that are taking place in inappropriate landscapes. One project in particular, the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, aims to plant trees across 100m hectares (247m acres) of land by 2030. Scientists have warned that the scheme plans to plant trees in non-forest ecosystems such as savannahs and grasslands, potentially…

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Study finds our brains are ‘programmed’ to learn more from people we like

Study finds our brains are ‘programmed’ to learn more from people we like

Lund University: Our brains are “programmed” to learn more from people we like—and less from those we dislike. This has been shown by researchers in cognitive neuroscience in a series of experiments. Their findings are published in Communications Psychology. Memory serves a vital function, enabling us to learn from new experiences and update existing knowledge. We learn both from individual experiences and from connecting them to draw new conclusions about the world. This way, we can make inferences about things…

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Biden’s new plan for the Middle East is more of the same

Biden’s new plan for the Middle East is more of the same

Matthew Duss writes: In the wake of the horrific Oct. 7 attacks, U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration have stressed that there can be no return to the pre-Oct. 7 status quo. “It also means that when this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next. And in our view, it has to be a two-state solution,” Biden said at an Oct. 25 press conference. Last month, the administration offered a preview of its…

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Ireland, Spain want EU to review Israel’s human rights compliance in Gaza

Ireland, Spain want EU to review Israel’s human rights compliance in Gaza

Reuters reports: The prime ministers of Spain and Ireland asked the European Commission on Wednesday to urgently review whether Israel is complying with its human rights obligations in Gaza. At least 1,200 Israelis were killed and around 250 were taken hostage in a raid by Hamas militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7, prompting Israel to retaliate. At least 28,576 Palestinians have since been killed in Israeli strikes, the health ministry in Gaza said on Wednesday. Palestinians jammed into their…

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Why Biden’s pause on new LNG export terminals is a BFD

Why Biden’s pause on new LNG export terminals is a BFD

Yale Climate Connections reports: Natural gas has long been touted as a “bridge fuel” to a clean energy future that gets all its power from renewable sources like wind, solar, and geothermal power. That’s because natural gas produces about half as much carbon dioxide as coal when burned to generate electricity. But researchers have warned for years that natural gas — whose main ingredient is climate-warming methane — is not the trouble-free substitute for coal that the oil and gas…

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The tangled fates of Fani Willis and her biggest case

The tangled fates of Fani Willis and her biggest case

Charles Bethea writes: This past August, Manny Arora, a lawyer in Atlanta, considered an unusual challenge to the charges brought against his client Kenneth Chesebro. Arora, who is in his fifties, is an unflappable retired Air Force prosecutor. He has argued cases on behalf of the former N.F.L. star Adam (Pacman) Jones and Gucci Mane, the Atlanta rapper. Chesebro was a big client, too: a Harvard-trained lawyer and one of the alleged architects of Donald Trump’s scheme to have several…

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