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Category: Politics

Israel’s descent

Israel’s descent

Adam Shatz writes: When Ariel Sharon​ withdrew more than eight thousand Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, his principal aim was to consolidate Israel’s colonisation of the West Bank, where the settler population immediately began to increase. But ‘disengagement’ had another purpose: to enable Israel’s air force to bomb Gaza at will, something they could not do when Israeli settlers lived there. The Palestinians of the West Bank have been, it seems, gruesomely lucky. They are encircled by…

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In Israel’s new air war in the West Bank, nearly half the dead are children

In Israel’s new air war in the West Bank, nearly half the dead are children

The Intercept reports: Around 9.30 PM in late February, a white Mazda pulled up near a game cafe in the Jenin refugee camp on the northern edge of the West Bank, where a crowd of boys and young men often gathered to socialize. As the car stopped, a few people walked by on the narrow street. Two motorbikes weaved past in different directions. “Everything was fine at the time,” according to an eyewitness sitting nearby in the camp’s main square….

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Israeli politician invokes Hitler in call to expel Gaza’s ‘Islamo-Nazi’ population

Israeli politician invokes Hitler in call to expel Gaza’s ‘Islamo-Nazi’ population

Middle East Eye reports: Israeli politician and former Likud lawmaker Moshe Feiglin invoked Adolf Hitler when urging in a TV interview the expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, whom he described as “Islamo-Nazis”. In a panel discussion on Channel 12, Feiglin called for resettlement in Gaza and argued Israel should transform the Palestinian territory into a “Hebrew Gaza”. “We are not guests in our country, this is our country, all of it,” he said in the video shared on…

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After the European elections, President Macron takes a gamble

After the European elections, President Macron takes a gamble

Adam Gopnik writes: In the classic days of the Republic of Venice, you could lodge a complaint against the government by slipping a paper into the bocca di leone, the lion’s mouth, a kind of proto postal box. The lions’ mouths were distributed around town and were often highly specified: this one to get hot over taxes, this one to complain about garbage in the canal. Their purpose was not just, as some imagine, secret denunciation but also open protest;…

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Russia overtook U.S. as biggest LNG supplier to Europe in May

Russia overtook U.S. as biggest LNG supplier to Europe in May

First Post reports: While Russia continues to navigate through the host of sanctions imposed by Ukraine and Western allies, Europe’s gas imports from Russia overtook supplies from the US. This was the first time Russia overtook the US to be the biggest gas supplier in Europe in almost two years. The reversal which took place in May indicates the difficulty of reducing Europe’s dependence on gas from Russia, with several eastern European countries still relying on imports from their neighbour….

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Israelis demand hostage deal in one of the biggest protests since October

Israelis demand hostage deal in one of the biggest protests since October

The National reports: Thousands of Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday demanding a peace deal that would bring home hostages being held in Gaza. Pictures from Israeli broadcasters showed huge crowds lining Kaplan Street in one of the biggest demonstrations seen in the capital since October. Attendees held up signs and chanted slogans demanding the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. [Continue reading…] One more photo from the protest in Tel Aviv tonight. Yup, just…

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On the ground in Rafah: UNICEF reports ‘lethal’ lack of water, services

On the ground in Rafah: UNICEF reports ‘lethal’ lack of water, services

  UN News reports: Almost 3,000 malnourished children are at risk of dying before their families’ eyes in Gaza, where the eight-month-long war continues, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as spokesperson James Elder told UN News on Saturday about the situation on the ground in the besieged and bombarded enclave. Speaking from Gaza, Mr. Elder described a dire landscape, with a focus on child malnutrition and the devastating impact of the ongoing conflict amid growing concerns of famine….

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U.S. sanctions Israeli group for attacking Gaza aid convoys

U.S. sanctions Israeli group for attacking Gaza aid convoys

Al Jazeera reports: The United States has imposed sanctions on a “violent extremist” Israeli group for blocking and damaging humanitarian aid convoys to Gaza as the risk of famine increases in the besieged Palestinian territory. The administration of President Joe Biden on Friday targeted Tzav 9, a group whose stated aim is to prevent any assistance from entering Gaza. It accused the group of looting and setting fire to aid trucks. “The provision of humanitarian assistance is vital to preventing…

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Fossil fuel companies are trying to rig the marketplace

Fossil fuel companies are trying to rig the marketplace

Andrew Dessler writes: Many of us focused on the problem of climate change have been waiting for the day when renewable energy would become cheaper than fossil fuels. Well, we’re there: Solar and wind power are less expensive than oil, gas and coal in many places and are saving our economy billions of dollars. These and other renewable energy sources produced 30 percent of the world’s electricity in 2023, which may also have been the year that greenhouse gas emissions…

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Stanford’s top disinformation research group collapses under political pressure

Stanford’s top disinformation research group collapses under political pressure

The Washington Post reports: The Stanford Internet Observatory, which published some of the most influential analysis of the spread of false information on social media during elections, has shed most of its staff and may shut down amid political and legal attacks that have cast a pall on efforts to study online misinformation. Just three staffers remain at the Observatory, and they will either leave or find roles at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center, which is absorbing what remains of the…

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Palestinians want liberation, not recognition

Palestinians want liberation, not recognition

Lana Tatour writes: Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza is one of the worst crises of modern times. Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians are dead, and millions are homeless or displaced. The war in Gaza clearly calls for a new and different international response—a break from the past. Yet Western policymakers, including those in Washington, continue to push a sham peace process and a two-state solution that has long been a mirage. Western policies have only made the situation worse…

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U.S. Navy faces its most intense combat since World War II against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels

U.S. Navy faces its most intense combat since World War II against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels

The Associated Press reports: The U.S. Navy prepared for decades to potentially fight the Soviet Union, then later Russia and China, on the world’s waterways. But instead of a global power, the Navy finds itself locked in combat with a shadowy, Iran-backed rebel group based in Yemen. The U.S.-led campaign against the Houthi rebels, overshadowed by the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, has turned into the most intense running sea battle the Navy has faced since World War II,…

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Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic

Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic

Reuters reports: At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus. The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the…

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The movie about Trump that Hollywood is afraid of releasing

The movie about Trump that Hollywood is afraid of releasing

Michelle Goldberg writes: This week I finally got to see “The Apprentice,” an absorbing, disturbing movie about the relationship between the red-baiting mob lawyer Roy Cohn and a young Donald Trump. The film, which was received with an extended standing ovation and mostly appreciative reviews when it premiered at Cannes last month, is a classic story of a mentor and his protégé, chronicling how Trump first learned from and later surpassed his brutal, Machiavellian fixer. Its performances are extraordinary. The…

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How AI surveillance threatens democracy everywhere

How AI surveillance threatens democracy everywhere

Abi Olvera writes: In 2018, Singapore planned to embed facial recognition cameras in lampposts for nationwide monitoring. But rapid advances in battery technology and 5G networks enabled a pivot to an even more powerful and nimble surveillance system—mobile sensors and cameras capable of observing citizens and catching them in the act of littering, with artificial intelligence handling the data analysis. Around the same time, Malaysia partnered with China’s Yitu Technology to provide police with an AI-powered facial recognition system linked…

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Campaigns can now see what you watch on TV. It’s changing everything

Campaigns can now see what you watch on TV. It’s changing everything

NOTUS reports: Political aide turned data guru Jesse Contario works in the shadows. His employer, MiQ, will never be mentioned at the end of a campaign ad, and it won’t show up on the disclosures campaigns must post to keep the public abreast of their work. Yet Contario works with some of the biggest campaigns in the country — and his firm might know a lot about you. MiQ specializes in harvesting data, including for political campaigns, and it increasingly…

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