#government support withdrawn

[thoughtlessarse]

The future of two of the UK’s most controversial oil and gas projects has been thrown into doubt, after the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, withdrew government support for the companies in two legal cases brought by campaigners. The Jackdaw gasfield, operated by Shell, was given approval in 2022, and Greenpeace applied for a judicial review shortly after the decision. Last year, the previous Conservative government gave the green light to Equinor-operated Rosebank, the UK’s biggest untapped oilfield, against the recommendation of climate advisers. Greenpeace and Uplift demanded a judicial review, arguing that the approval was incompatible with the UK’s legally binding climate commitments, and saying that ministers’ original analysis ignored the devastating impact of burning oil from the site. In June, the cases against the oil and gasfields received a boost when the supreme court ruled in a separate case that “scope 3” emissions – that is, the burning of fossil fuels rather than just the building of the infrastructure to do so – should be taken into account when approving projects. The previous government said it would “robustly defend” these cases, but Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on Wednesday announced it would not challenge the judicial reviews brought against development consent for the Jackdaw and Rosebank offshore North Sea oil and gasfields, saying it was to “save the taxpayer money”.

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That's a weird reason for withdrawing support for these projects, "to save the taxpayer money," and not "it will destroy the planet." Still, it's a move in the right direction.

[whatevergreen]

Massive protests against the 2024 Finance Bill continue in Nairobi and across Kenya. Parliament has been stormed, and City Hall set on fire.

The bill imposes taxes that will further impoverish those already suffering from the increasing cost of living. The government even tried to put a tax on bread and cooking oil, but this was apparently withdrawn. The International Monetary Fund is putting pressure on president Ruto to impose austerity measures and raise taxes.

Supreme Court staff and lawyers helping demonstrators with water.

Some protestors have been shot, with fatalities. The police have apparently arrested a number of paramedics trying to treat the wounded.

Homes of several MPs who support the finance bill have been looted and set ablaze. I have no sympathy.

A protestor stated:

“We are the flames burning up the country. We cannot stand still while we are robbed and made poor. “This movement will not stop until we have won. They can kill us but they can’t beat down our movement.”

[thatswhywelovegermany]

November 9, the fateful day of the Germans in history

Nov 9, 1313: Battle of Gammelsdorf - Louis IV defeats his cousin Frederick the Fair marking the beginning of a series of disputes over supremacy between the House of Wittelsbach and the House of Habsburg in the Holy Roman Empire

Nov 9, 1848: Execution of Robert Blum (a german politician) - this event is said to mark the beginning of the end of the March Revolution in 1848/49, the first attempt of establishing a democracy in Germany

Nov 9, 1914: Sinking of the SMS Emden, the most successful German ship in world war I in the indo-pacific, its name is still used as a word in Tamil and Sinhala for a cheeky troublemaker

Nov 9, 1918: German Revolution of 1918/19 in Berlin. Chancellor Max von Baden unilaterally announces the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and entrusts Friedrich Ebert with the official duties. At around 2 p.m., the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaims the "German Republic" from the Reichstag building. Two hours later, the Spartacist Karl Liebknecht proclaims the "German Soviet Republic" from the Berlin City Palace.

Nov. 9, 1923: The Hitler-Ludendorff Putsch (Munich Beer Hall Putsch) is bloodily suppressed by the Bavarian State Police in front of the Feldherrnhalle in Munich after the Bavarian Prime Minister Gustav Ritter von Kahr announces on the radio that he has withdrawn his support for the putsch and that the NSDAP is being dissolved.

Nov 9, 1925: Hitler imposes the formation of the Schutzstaffel (SS).

Nov 9, 1936: National Socialists remove the memorial of composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in front of the Gewandhaus concert hall in Leipzig.

Nov 9, 1938: November Pogrom / Pogrom Night ("Night of Broken Glass") organized by the Nazi state against the Jewish population of Germany.

Nov 9, 1939: The abduction of two british officiers from the Secret Intelligence Service by the SS in Venlo, Netherlands, renders the British spy network in continental Europe useless and provides Hitler with the pretext to invade the Netherlands in 1940.

Nov 9, 1948: Berlin Blockade Speech - West Berlin mayor Ernst Reuter delivers a speech with the famous words "Peoples of the world, look at this city and recognize that you cannot, that you must not abandon this city".

Nov 9, 1955: Federal Constitutional Court decision: all Austrians who have acquired german citizenship through annexation in 1938, automatically lost it after Austria became sovereign again.

Nov 9, 1967: Students protest against former Nazi professors still teaching at German universities, showing the banner ”Unter den Talaren – Muff von 1000 Jahren” ("Under the gowns – mustiness of 1000 years", referring to the self-designation of Nazi Germany as the 'Empire of 1000 Years') and it becomes one of the main symbols of the Movement of 1968 (the German Student  Movement).

Nov 9, 1969: Anti-Semitic bomb attack - the radical left-winged pro-palestinian organization “Tupamaros West-Berlin” hides a bomb in the jewish community house in Berlin. It never exploded though.

Nov 9, 1974: death of Holger Meins - the member of the left-radical terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF) financed in part by the GDR that eventually killed 30 people, dies after 58 days of hunger strike, triggering a second wave of terrorism.

Nov 9, 1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall - After months of unrest, demonstrations and tens of thousands escaping to West Germany, poorly briefed spokesman of the newly formed GDR government Günter Schabowski announces that private trips to non-socialist foreign countries are allowed from now on. Tens of thousands of East Berliners flock to the border crossings and overwhelm the border guards who had not received any instructions yet because the hastily implemented new travel regulations were supposed to be effective only the following day and involved the application for exit visas at a police office. Subsequently, crossing the border between both German states became possible vitrually everywhere.

[local-fire-dumpster]

Here is some fun facts about hamas and Israel that y'all should know about:

1. The hamas as they are now only exist thanks to Israel

Much like the Taliban and ISIS recieved support from the USA in their early stages, Israel was the one funding the Hamas before Iran.

2. Netanyahu supports Hamas as they give him an excuse to continue not acknowledging Palestine as legitimate state.

Not only can Israel continue doing that,it can also use Hamas as excuse to continue their bombardment of Gaza.

3. Netanyahu was warned by Egypt that something big was going to happen in Gaza 10 days prior to Hamas attack but he disregarded the warnings

Despite being warned about something grave happening soon, he was focused on the West Back. Hell the troops from the South were withdrawn.

So this man, who admitted that his government is using Hamas to justify violence against Palestinians, did absolutely nothing to evacuate or send futher protection to his own citizens in the settlements closest to Gaza despite being explicitly warned that hamas will do something 'big'

I can not even begin to explain the evil behind his actions so I won't.

Instead I'll say the following: The Hamas and all other terrorists in Gaza could dissappear of the face of the earth tomorrow and Palestinian civilians would continue to suffer. Israel has proven time and time again that they do not care about Palestinian lives. The hamas aren't even responsible for the West Bank and the Palestinians there are getting chased out of their own houses and land to this day.

[ukrfeminism]

2 minute read

JK Rowling is founding and personally funding a new service for women survivors of sexual violence. Launched days before Nicola Sturgeon’s controversial Gender Recognition Reform Bill is expected to pass through the Scottish parliament, the Edinburgh-based centre, Beira’s Place, will be female-only.

The author, who has written about the sexual and domestic abuse she suffered in her twenties, believes there is an “unmet need” for Scottish women who want “women-centred and women-delivered care at such a vulnerable time”. She hopes Beira’s Place, which will employ professional staff to provide free one-to-one and group counselling, “will enable more women to process and recover from their trauma”.

Rowling’s board of directors are all vocal opponents of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which will permit anyone to change the legal sex on their birth certificate by making a simple statutory declaration, a process known as self-identification. Feminists, including Reem Alsalem, UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, have raised grave concerns it will open up women’s services and private spaces to abuse by male predators.

Beira’s board comprises Rhona Hotchkiss, a former prison governor, who has opposed the Scottish government’s policy of moving trans-identified male sex offenders to women’s jails; Johann Lamont, a former leader of the Scottish Labour Party and a lawyer; Dr Margaret McCartney, an academic, broadcaster and Glasgow GP; and Susan Smith, director of For Women Scotland, a grassroots feminist group founded to fight the gender reform bill. Beira’s chief executive is Isabelle Kerr, a former manager of Glasgow Rape Crisis who received an MBE in 2020 for her work supporting British citizens who had been raped overseas.

The provision of single-sex services has been a key battleground of the gender reform bill. Already in Scotland, most domestic violence refuges and rape support services are “trans inclusive” and accept referrals from both sexes. In recent years councils have removed grants from women-only refuges in favour of generic organisations. Monklands Women’s Aid in North Lanarkshire, which was set up more than 40 years ago, had its council funding withdrawn in favour of a social justice charity which also helps men.

Most controversial is Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre whose chief executive, Mridul Wadhwa, a trans woman, told the Guilty Feminist podcast that women sexual assault victims who request female-only care will be “challenged on your prejudices” and told to “reframe your trauma”.

Yet in her recent book Defending Women’s Spaces, veteran campaigner Karen Ingala Smith, the chief executive of Nia, a domestic abuse charity in London, describes how women traumatised by male violence fare better and feel safer in female therapeutic spaces.

Beira’s Place is legally permitted to exclude males under the exemptions of the 2010 Equality Act, which allows single-sex services if they are “a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate end”.

It is named after Beira, the Scottish goddess of winter. JK Rowling said: “Beira rules over the dark part of the year, handing over to her sister, Bride, when summer comes again. Beira represents female wisdom, power, and regeneration. Hers is a strength that endures during the difficult times, but her myth contains the promise that they will not last for ever.”

The service is not a charity, but privately funded by Rowling, a noted philanthropist. The amount she will donate to set up and run Beira’s Place has not been disclosed.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

House Speaker Greg Fergus docked questions from Pierre Poilievre on Thursday after the Conservative leader declined to withdraw comments he made in the House of Commons last week. "The chair has offered the leader of the Official Opposition the opportunity to make amends regarding the words he used," Fergus said just before question period. "Having not received such a commitment on his part and the member having not withdrawn his comments, I will therefore remove three questions from the leader of the Official Opposition." During question period last week, Poilievre used his opening round of questions to criticize both the Bloc Québécois and NDP for not supporting his motion to topple the Liberal government.

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Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[gemsofgreece]

OK some things about Greece's Marina Satti results and we're done with this

JK I am not done with Marina I love her but we're done with the circus Marina was in, for another year

So, she is a perfectionist but I hope she will soon understand how much SHE SUCCEEDED. And it will look like a love delirium but no I am not being biased.

Marina Satti got 11th place. Missed Top 10 by one. She was basically killed by the juries.

In the televoting she won 8th place. So she was in the top 10 of all people's votes. She was also 8th in the votes from the Rest of the World, which is a big deal in my opinion.

I won't be mad at the juries because their voting overall made sense in many ways and we were aware that Zari was a not jury-friendly song in any way. It had zurna, it had rap, obviously juries don't go for this stuff. So, it's okay. We knew that.

BUT Marina Satti got 8th - 11th place:

By singing exclusively in the Greek language.

By singing in an entirely Balkan, eastern melody during a year that a lot of the Balkans and East Europe had withdrawn from the contest.

By kinda rapping / reggaetoning, which is generally hated in Eurovision.

By doing exactly her thing, despite knowing how much she would be fought by certain people.

By knowingly choosing the very risky song instead of a ballad and a typical dance song that she also had available as options.

By not trying to be "understood" and get sympathy votes.

By being given a tiny budget from the Greek delegation, much smaller than any previous years including to last year's NQ lame tycoon nephew entry. So GD gave a famous artist like Marina much less money than to those small unknown kids that had gone before her. WTF

By being hated for her song and her (genius) music video and a large percentage of the population writing in English and asking foreigners to not vote for her and blaming her for insulting Greece, Greek culture etc (HINT: No she did not insult it and a blog called gemsofgreece tells you that so relax) and insulting her, her morals, her family, her father's descent and her talent relentlessly for three months

By the unprecedented thing of the freaking SHOWBIZ of the country making openly insulting attacks against her and her song. Like, seriously, there were FAMOUS celebrities going on TV and calling her song "cat vomit", a fashion designer (before her dress choice lol) saying she should go to Eurovision naked because there's no other hope for her to get votes. I am serious. You might say, oh, she must have done something. NO. Guys, no. She has never said or done anything wrong to any celebrity in the country as far as I am aware. She was attacked by musicians, fashion designers, TV shows and honestly nobody knows why. It's a different thing to not like something than to get a polemic position openly as a celebrity against another famous person. This has never happened before, I don't remember anything like this. Celebrities shitting on another artist's effort out of nowhere, especially in advance. To put it simply, now that Marina will have to return to Greece (poor thing), she has good reasons to sue half the country.

By losing her father one month ago.

By getting pretty ill during the semi-final, losing her voice and being administrated medication every three hours.

By suffering chronically from severe anxiety, which is why she refused three prior propositions from the Greek delegation to represent the country.

Well, by receiving a new massive wave of hate from people from or supporting Israel and the Greek government controlled media and press, who all started a fierce campaign against her the last two days before the final. The reason was that she showed intentionally boredom / sleepiness during the time the Israeli contestant was speaking. Make of that what you will, I am only presenting the facts of how her placement was formed here. Many Jewish people wrote they had voted her in the semi but now they wouldn't. I believe because Israel is an eastern country, probably several people of Jewish descent voted for her and then all those votes were lost. It's no matter, I am just explaining that she would probably otherwise be 7th in the televoting, 10th overall. Here we analyze if Marina succeeded her goal, we don't nitpick for Eurovision's sake.

And as you see, she succeeded. With all the odds against her, with a LOT of people hating her and making her life harder and her effort impossible, with the loss of her father, she succeeded in her vision. Bring back Greek language, the eastern sound and having the world dance with it. Shoutout to Armenia who also succeeded in this and made top 10, the song was a little more conventional. Let's be real, Satti achieved all this with a VERY difficult song. The definition of a difficult song and in a little known language. Nothing else, just congratulations to her and I hope she realises all this and does not let her trademark anxiety and perfectionism get the better of her. Also, she really created an international fan community with this and I think there are good things coming for her in the future :)))))

PS1: Odds had her 8th-10th place but they underestimated the juries and the last day's hate she got. In general odds were not very successful this year.

PS2. No worries Greek and Cypriot televoting exchanged the 12 points again :D

PS3: to the ageist haters who wondered why she looks 20 though she is 38, kitties reach her age and you will be crying to look like her

PS4: Marina’s 8th place in televoting was the best placement since 2013, surpassing Amanda and Stefania with the English jury friendly songs 😃😃😃 Greek delegation take a bloody hint

[probablyasocialecologist]

Back in 2005, shortly after Arafat’s death, the situation appeared more open. The PA agreed, in coordination with the governments of Israel and the United States, to hold new elections for its presidency and its parliament (both of which have tightly limited powers under Oslo). This time around, Hamas’s leaders agreed to take part in the parliamentary election. It was the first time Hamas showed a willingness to work within the Oslo framework, the clear goal of which was always understood by the PLO and all other Palestinian and Arab leaders to be the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. When those elections were held in January 2006, Hamas won them handily, taking 74 of the council’s 132 seats. The victory stunned the traditional Fatah leaders of the PA and their backers in Washington and Tel Aviv. In a reporting trip to the region soon thereafter, I found that Hamas’s success reflected a combination of skills: a history of having provided helpful community services to different grassroots constituencies; a reputation for generally “clean hands” (unlike Fatah); effective organizing through women’s networks, with several Hamas women leaders getting elected to the parliament; and good electoral discipline, not running more candidates than there were seats in multi-seat constituencies, as Fatah and its allies did in several places. The elections gave the PLO and its U.S. and Israeli allies a great opportunity to work to find a way to draw Hamas into the political process. Hamas was willing, too, initially making inroads to form a “government of national unity” with Fatah. But the reaction from Israel and Washington was harsh. They threatened to kill any of the newly elected legislators who would agree to join such a government—which I know because I was the conduit for conveying one such threat. Later, Washington and Israel persuaded Fatah to start plotting to overthrow the newly elected leaders of the PA’s parliament and premiership. In 2007 Fatah tried to launch a violent coup against Hamas, but Hamas leaders in Gaza rebuffed the attempt. Afterwards, Hamas set about institutionalizing their position in Gaza while Fatah retreated, with their generous U.S. funding, to Ramallah in the West Bank. All the while, Hamas and its allies retained significant support in the West Bank and throughout the widespread Palestinian diaspora—and remained the democratically elected government in Gaza, although new elections have not been held since. Though by 2005 Israel had withdrawn all its civilian settlers from Gaza, it has always maintained very tight control over all the crossings through which people or goods could pass in or out of the Strip��until October 7, that is. The United Nations continues to deem Israel as the “occupying power” there, with all the responsibilities that status entails under international law. And since 2007, several Israeli governments have undertaken punishment raids into Gaza—actions that some Israeli commentators have cynically dubbed “mowing the lawn.” The raids of late 2008 and summer 2014 were particularly destructive, with thousands of Palestinians killed in total. Successive U.S. presidents have generally seemed happy to allow these incursions. And the United States’ position in the global political order has meant that its word is law.

[mariacallous]

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in Georgia in the South Caucasus in recent weeks to protest a controversial proposed new law that many fear, if passed, would be the death knell of a once-promising young democracy and drive the country firmly into Moscow’s orbit.

The “foreign agents” law would require organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence.” It is modeled on similar legislation that Russia enacted in 2012 and has used to cast independent media and civic society groups as doing the bidding of foreign governments and to crack down on dissent.

Georgia has been convulsed by bouts of street protests in recent years over the proposed law and other actions by the ruling Georgian Dream party that critics fear could consolidate its power and draw the country closer to neighboring Russia, a deeply unpopular move in the former Soviet nation where an overwhelming majority of the population supports joining the European Union, according to opinion polls.

Georgia was offered long-awaited EU candidate status by the bloc last year, which could be placed in jeopardy if the foreign agents legislation is adopted. In a statement last month, Brussels’s diplomatic service urged the country’s leaders to “adopt and implement reforms that are in line with the stated objective of joining the European Union, as supported by a large majority of Georgia’s citizens.”

On Thursday, Georgia’s ambassador to France resigned in protest over the proposed legislation, becoming the first senior official from the country to do so. “I no longer see my role and resources in this direction: the move towards Europe,” said Gotcha Javakhishvili in a post on social media.

The law was first introduced in February 2023 but was quickly withdrawn in the face of massive street protests in the capital, Tbilisi. It was then reintroduced in April of this year. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who is independent of the Georgian Dream, has promised to veto the legislation if passed, but her veto would likely be overridden by the government’s parliamentary majority.

“It seems clear to me, anyway, they have made a decision to go the path of one-party rule, of shutting down basically all checks and balances on executive power, and this Russian law is the last instrument that they need to put in place,” said Ian Kelly, former U.S. ambassador to Georgia.

The protests this time around are markedly different from earlier iterations, though—but not because of the demonstrators or their demands. What makes the latest round of unrest different is the level of violence and intimidation meted out against protesters and civil society as well as the government’s apparent determination to pass the law, which is due for a final reading on May 13, despite the public outcry and condemnation from the European Union and the United States.

Security forces have used water cannons, rubber bullets, and tear gas in a bid to disperse crowds of demonstrators in the capital, Tbilisi, while protesters have reported being violently assaulted by groups of men dressed in black in what they say appear to be premeditated attacks.

In recent days, civil society activists, journalists, and their relatives have reported receiving menacing phone calls from anonymous callers threatening them in Georgian and reciting their home addresses in an apparent bid to intimidate them, said Eka Gigauri, executive director of Transparency International Georgia. Gigauri said she had received dozens of calls from unknown numbers in recent days but declined to answer them.

On Wednesday evening, four government critics, including two members of the United National Movement opposition party, were attacked by unknown assailants outside their homes and in the street. Overnight on Wednesday, posters featuring the faces of prominent civil society activists, journalists, and opposition politicians branding them as enemies of the country and foreign agents were plastered near their homes and offices across the capital.

“What happened during these two days is just an unprecedented level of targeting,” said Eto Buziashvili, a former advisor to the Georgian National Security Council based in Tbilisi.

In 2019, when police used water cannons, rubber bullets, and tear gas to disperse protesters, it sparked a national outcry and further protests calling for snap elections and the resignation of the interior minister, Giorgi Gakharia.

Now, accusations of more sinister tactics are afoot as the role of the unknown assailants dressed in black has drawn comparisons to pro-government thugs known as titushki who were allegedly paid for by the embattled government of Viktor Yanukovych to cause disruption and attack protesters during the Ukrainian revolution in 2014, Buziashvili said.

After a 2003 uprising known as the Rose Revolution, Georgia embarked on a dizzyingly ambitious reform program under the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili, who was then a darling of Washington’s. He sought to stamp out corruption and put the country on a firmly Western trajectory, tilting it away from Moscow, which fought a short but shocking war with Georgia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008.

Saakashvili was imprisoned in 2021, accused of abusing power while in office. His supporters see the charges as politically motivated.

The Georgian Dream, established by the eccentric Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, came to power in 2012 promising a less confrontational approach to Moscow while paying lip service to the country’s aspirations to join NATO and the European Union.

Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Moscow in the 1990s, served as prime minister for just over a year, stepping down in 2013, but has widely been viewed as the one still calling the shots behind the scenes as the Georgian Dream has undermined the country’s hard-won democratic gains and poured salt on the relationship with the United States.

“The person who seems to be driving all of this is Bidzina Ivanishvili,” said U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, speaking about the foreign agents law.

In October, the Georgian government accused the United States Agency for International Development of trying to foment a coup in the country.

The Georgian government’s claims echo similar allegations made by Moscow over the years that have accused Washington of pulling the strings in a series of pro-democracy uprisings in the former Soviet Union known as color revolutions, including in Ukraine.

“I think it’s Russian disinformation. It’s a deliberate effort by Russia to stoke divisions in the country,” said Shaheen, who has a long-standing focus on Georgia.

On April 29, in a rare public address infused with conspiracy theories, Ivanishvili—who formally serves as the party’s honorary chairman—depicted the country as wrestling for its independence against shadowy, unnamed foreign forces, describing Georgia’s nongovernmental organizations as a “pseudo-elite nurtured by a foreign country.”

Although Ivanishvili’s personal wealth is equivalent to roughly a third of the country’s gross domestic product, he is “borrowing from the Orban and Trump playbook, highlighting how the urban elite is running counter to Georgian traditional values,” Kelly said, referring to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and former U.S. President Donald Trump.

In March, a senior member of the Georgian Dream announced a raft of constitutional amendments cracking down on LGBT rights and banning any public efforts to promote same-sex relationships, echoing Russia’s “gay propaganda” law passed in 2013.

In the April speech, Ivanishvili explicitly referenced parliamentary elections set to be held later this year as a motivation for reintroducing the foreign agents law and the anti-LGBT legislation, noting that it would force civil society to “expend the energy” ahead of the vote, saying it would leave them “weakened” and “exhausted.”

Kelly criticized the Biden administration for not taking more concrete steps to deter Georgian politicians from pursuing the legislation. “Right after April 29, they should have started the first round of imposing costs, and the really easy one is, ‘You’re not welcome to get a visa,’” he said.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller condemned the violence against protesters on Thursday and called for a “full independent and timely investigation,” but Kelly said that such statements don’t go far enough.

“It’s useless. It’s worse than useless,” he said. “I don’t know if they really take us seriously.”

[theinconvenientlifestyle]

middleeasteye

Nearly 50 British MPs from seven political parties have backed a motion calling for the Labour government to impose sanctions on Israel.

The motion, tabled by independent MP Richard Burgon, calls for the government to respect the United Nations General Assembly's 18 September resolution demanding Israel rapidly ends its occupation of the Palestinian territories, on which the UK abstained as well as the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion that Israel's occupation violates international law.

It "welcomes that the UN resolution calls on states to comply with their obligations under international law and to take concrete steps to address Israel's lawful presence in the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territory]".

Following on from that, the motion says that the House of Commons "believes the adoption of this resolution places new obligations on the Government".

It "calls on the Government to act in support of the UN resolution and ICJ opinion including by ending all military exports to Israel, banning the import of goods from illegal Israeli settlements and revoking the 2030 Roadmap which deepens UK economic, trade and security ties with Israel".

The motion, tabled on 8 October, was sponsored by a coalition of independent and Labour MPs, including Zarah Sultana, who has had the Labour whip withdrawn for opposing the two-child benefit cap, as well as Labour MP and former shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott.

All five of the independent MPs who campaigned on a pro-Gaza platform have supported the motion - Jeremy Corbyn, Shockat Adam, Adnan Hussain, Ayoub Khan and Iqbal Mohamed.

One Liberal Democrat MP, Andrew George, has supported it, as well as two Green Party MPs.

But no Conservatives have supported it.

[timetohop]

Probably never gonna write this AU but it's haunting me so I'll throw it here and maybe someone is gonna play ghostbuster and write it for me.

Xie Lian is down on his luck and struggling to keep afloat, barely getting by with odd jobs that seem to change every other week. But it's fine! He's managing, he has a small flat and Ruoye and most days even two small meals. It's fine.

Except there are two kids living on the alley next door who don't seem to belong to anyone and no one seems to take care of them. The little girl is barely 6 - maybe not even - and the boy can't be much older. They're thin, and dirty, and XL can't look away, so he shares his meal (he can survive on one per day, no problem) and then it rains and how can he leave them outside? So he invites them in and then he can't let them go again. They're HIS now, and he is all they have (they ran away from their last abusive foster home and they refuse to go back).

But. Kids need food, and clothes, and medicine, and suddenly the money isn't enough anymore, even if he stretches meals and scavanges for second hand deals, and he can't get government support since they aren't officially his and they'd be taken away if it becomes known.

He tries getting a second and a third job, but it's not enough. Having kids is so expensive! He hesitates for a long time but he knows he's always been pretty, and after little Banyue goes hungry one too many times, and young Pei Xiu tries to make money to support XL when he should be a child instead, XL gives in and sells himself.

He hates it, and he only does it when money is especially tight, but it brings in enough money to feed everyone and pay rent and he can even buy them toys sometimes so it's worth it (even if it's slowly destroying XL, but it's fine. It has to be. It's for his kids, after all) (he doesn't notice how they notice him getting more and more withdrawn and every smile comes harder everytime he comes home late. Pei Xiu has seen enough on the streets to know)

Enter Hua Cheng. XL has made quite a name for himself, his beauty highly desirable. Maybe it's curiousity, maybe simple desire on first sight, but HC buys him for the night to accompany him to some event. The first time they meet, they are instantly attracted to each other. HC finds him immensely interesting, and XL is just glad to have a client for once who doesn't see him as just an object. They actually talk! It's sad that that is an improvement from 95% of his other clients, he thinks, but he's having fun and he thinks the after-party might not be so bad either.

The first half of the event is pretty boring. Small talk, pretentious rich people, less food than he'd like but good wine (too bad he doesn't drink). And then someone shoots at HC. XL has trained martial arts in his youth; he was the best, before everything went to hell. He hasn't trained in years, but his reflexes are still lightning fast and he pushes HC aside and saves his life and then knocks out the shooter like it's nothing.

And HC is gone.

A day later, XL receives an offer to be HC new personal bodyguard.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

Donald Trump and the Republican Party promised unprecedented crackdowns on transgender rights, immigration, and reproductive healthcare leading up to their 2024 victory. Now, California Governor Gavin Newsom is the first Democratic leader to push back, calling a special session of the state legislature to protect these rights and defend against an emboldened, incoming Trump administration. Newsom’s directive is clear: safeguard reproductive healthcare, support immigrants, and shield LGBTQ+ people from what is viewed as existential threats to civil rights and democratic norms. As a journalist who has covered legislative attacks on the transgender community for years, I see this as a pivotal moment that will demand creative solutions, political will, and a clear message that Democrats are committed to protecting marginalized communities in their darkest hour. Here is what he can do. The Republican Party has signaled that one of its likely first moves will be to cut federal funding for gender-affirming care through a process modeled after the Hyde Amendment, which blocks federal dollars from being used for abortion services. This framework could be repurposed to ban all federal funding for anything related to trans or queer people. Such an amendment would be particularly disruptive for transgender individuals, who often need frequent access to the healthcare system for transition-related medical care. Without federal support, the costs of essential treatments, such as puberty blockers for youth and gender-affirming surgeries for adults, would become prohibitive for many. This approach could even fully defund hospitals that provide this care—a similar Republican-backed amendment only narrowly failed in the past due to a Democratic-controlled Senate.

To counter this threat, California could enact legislation to fill the funding gaps where federal dollars fall short. In a minimally restrictive scenario, the state would need only to subsidize transgender healthcare coverage for essential medications and surgeries, which would represent a minuscule fraction of California’s healthcare spending. In a more restrictive assault from the federal government, California might need to cover hospital funding itself if Trump’s administration withdraws federal support for facilities that provide gender-affirming care. Alternatively, the state could set up state-funded, smaller clinics that directly provide gender affirming care in order to remove the target from hospitals receiving federal funding.

Another looming threat is the Trump administration’s anticipated move to outlaw gender-affirming care for transgender youth through federal legislation, potentially criminalizing the use of medications sourced from out of state—a restriction similar to JD Vance’s gender-affirming care ban bill from his time in the Senate. To counter this, California could adopt strategies it and other states are already using to protect access to abortion medication, such as Mifepristone. In preparation for federal restrictions on Mifepristone, California has already stockpiled 250,000 doses of the drug. A similar approach could be applied here: by stockpiling puberty blockers and hormone therapies like estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone, California could protect its doctors and patients from restrictive federal legislation.

Schools could also face defunding through federal legislation if they support transgender youth, allow them to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity, or permit participation in sports. California may need to step in to protect these schools, providing funding to replace any federal dollars withdrawn and resisting attempts to enforce discriminatory mandates from the president. The state could also promote high-capacity, all-gender restrooms with fully enclosed stalls to circumvent potential federal bathroom regulations. [...] California has a unique opportunity to set the blueprint for other states in resisting a Trump administration determined to erase those who don’t fit into Project 2025’s narrow vision of America. These threats are immediate; anti-LGBTQ+ policies could emerge even before Trump takes office, with December’s budget process poised to push such measures under the threat of a government shutdown. To truly protect transgender residents—and all marginalized communities—California and like-minded states must act quickly, crafting bold, creative legislation and policies to counter federal crackdowns and defend the values of inclusion and safety for everyone.

So glad to see Gavin Newsom take the threat of Trumpist fascism seriously by proactively Trump-proofing his state. More blue state governors should follow his lead.

[zvaigzdelasas]

The EU plans to launch a new military mission in West Africa. According to reports prior to the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Toledo yesterday (Thursday [31 Aug 23]), soldiers and police officers are to be deployed in the northern regions of four countries at the Gulf of Guinea (Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin). [Salafist extremist] insurgencies threaten to spread to these regions, against which EU states have been fighting for nearly a decade in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger – without any success. The deployment aims at securing an EU military presence in the central Sahel in case France and the EU are forced to withdraw from Niger. Major forces within the Nigerien population are planning to demonstrate their support for the withdrawal – beginning this Sunday near the French military base in Niamey. In its new military mission, the EU is cooperating with governments, which are calling for a military intervention in Niger to overthrow the junta. Berlin and the EU have had a presence in the Gulf of Guinea, for quite a while. The EU is deploying ships against piracy, while Berlin is providing finances for training military personnel for deployments abroad. Withdrawal from the Sahel

The new EU mission planned for West Africa is intended to prevent European governments from soon being forced to abandon their military presence in the Sahel’s main hotspot. Mali is lost to them for the foreseeable future. France has long since withdrawn its troops, which had been stationed there in accordance with a bi-lateral agreement. Units from the EU, deployed within the framework of the UN MINUSMA force – including more than a thousand German soldiers – must leave Mali by the end of the year.[1] France has also had to withdraw its troops from Burkina Faso. The original plan to have Niger serve as a major substitute deployment location – for the French and EU troops – is about to canceled due to the putsch in Niamey. [...]Abrogation of EU deployment agreements have not yet been announced. Troops from the EU and Germany depend on the French military presence for their security.

The EU wants to take advantage of the fact that [Salafist extremist] militia attacks are now beginning to spread in the Sahel to countries to the south of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. It seeks to station its troops in the north of four countries at the coast of the Gulf of Guinea – in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin – under the pretext of seeking to halt the advance of the [Salafist extremists]. Considering the record of the European countries and the EU’s missions in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, there are little grounds for hoping that especially the EU will be able to effectively help with this new mission. Nowhere in the Sahel has it proven capable, over the past few years, of weakening the [Salafist extremists]. On the contrary, the [Salafist extremists] are stronger now than before. Specifically, the new EU mission is supposed to train and advise local security forces of the four countries, according to an EU spokeswoman. Soldiers from EU member countries will help prepare for “anti-terror operations,” giving technical support and allegedly “to enhance social and economic conditions of the local population.”[2] The mission is expected to initially last two years. However, traditionally EU missions are always prolonged. The number of deployed police officers and soldiers is still to be determined. The mission is set to be formally launched by EU foreign ministers at their next regular meeting in October.

The EU’s new deployment plans are primarily relying on two countries playing central roles in the discussion of a military intervention to overthrow the junta in Niger – Côte d’Ivoire and Benin. Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara had announced his intention to prepare around a thousand soldiers for the possible intervention in Niger. In the course of disputed election results in the spring of 2011, Ouattara, a former Vice Director of the IMF,[3] had, himself, been heaved into power by a French military intervention. The French military reduced the presidential palace to rubble in the overthrow of the incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo. Ouattara ran for a third term in 2020, even though the Ivorian constitution only allows two terms of office. The election was boycotted by the opposition, after the Ivorian judiciary banned the main opposition candidates Gbagbo and Guillaume Soro from running. Benin, on the other hand, has also promised troops for the possible ECOWAS war on Niger. Its common border with Niger is considered one of the possible launching positions for the invasion. Currently, by maintaining the closure of its border to Niger, as a means of imposing sanctions, Benin is withholding vital supplies for Niger’s needy population.[4]

Militarily, Germany and the EU would be blazing no new trails in West Africa. Ghana, for example, is home to the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center (KAIPTC), where soldiers and police from West Africa are being trained for foreign missions. The KAIPTC was inaugurated in January 2004 in the presence of the German Chancellor, at the time, Gerhard Schröder and has been co-funded by the German government ever since.[5] In addition, Germany has helped train and equip Ghana’s military. From 2009 – 2017 Germany had funded the creation of a Ghanian engineer unit with nearly €11 million and accorded Accra another €8.2 million from 2017 – 2020 for the creation of a mobile command post.[6] The EU is also engaged in anti-piracy combat in the Gulf of Guinea. Thus, in early 2021, it began dispatching warships into those waters. Then in early 2022, the initially one-year Coordinated Maritime Presences (CMP) pilot program was granted a two-year extension.[7] On the one hand, this naval presence provides exclusive knowledge of what is happening in that maritime region for the troops involved, and on the other, it contributes to developing ties to neighboring West African militaries. It remains uncertain, whether the coup in Gabon will have an impact on the plans for the EU’s military operation in West Africa. Gabon’s overthrown President Ali Bongo is considered one of Africa’s most corrupt partisans of France. It is not yet clear whether the coup that removed Bongo from power – to the jubilation of large portions of the population – following a presumably heavily rigged election victory will have an impact on relations between Libreville and Paris. According to allegations in Paris, the coup may merely be the result of a power struggle between rival sectors of the ruling elite, without having an impact on the foreign policy.[8] However, it is not at all certain that the strong West African opposition to the former colonial power, France, has not also taken root in Gabon. In the meantime, to maintain a margin of maneuver, EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Josep Borrell has declared that the coup d’état that was carried out in Gabon cannot be equated with that in Niger. Bongo’s return to the presidency is not really being demanded. Should the junta in Libreville reach an agreement with Paris, Paris and the EU could at least somewhat consolidate their positions on Africa. If that does not happen, Europe’s withdrawal from its former African colonies will have proceeded another step further.

1 Sep 23

[commiepinkofag]

Threat of KOSA Remains Despite Revisions

KOSA now has the support of 60 senators.

The larger organizations for 'respectable gays' like HRC, GLAAD & GLSEN have withdrawn opposition against KOSA in its latest draft.

These national conservative gay organizations continue to throw queer & trans folx under the bus.

American Civil Liberties Union still opposes KOSA

“At its core, KOSA is still an internet censorship bill that will harm the very communities it claims to protect,” said Jenna Leventoff, ACLU senior policy counsel. “The First Amendment guarantees everyone, including children, the right to access information free from censorship. We urge lawmakers to continue to amend this bill so the government is no longer the one determining what content is or is not fit for children.”

From ACLU:

Requiring or incentivizing age-verification chills speech for adults and minors

“Duty of Care” requirements still entice platforms to censor content

Government interference in online speech is unconstitutional

Take Action

[dragoneyes618]

In the more than one hundred years since Marx and the French socialists, there have been some other socialist responses to the Jews. Social Democrats, for example, have been among the strongest supporters of Jewish rights in the world. Between 1948 and 1977, Israel itself was governed by the Labor Party, which was founded on socialist principles.

But the further Left one goes, the greater the antisemitism. Wherever Marxists have come to power they have initiated government-supported antisemitism. Before the fall of communism in 1989-91, the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe expressed antisemitism against native Jews and supported those seeking to destroy Israel. And Third World Marxist countries in which no Jews live (such as China and Vietnam) also have supported groups seeking to destroy Israel and deny Jewish national rights. For example, China voted for the 1975 UN resolution delegitimizing Israel by equating Zionism with racism; in 2002, China refused to permit a long-planned exhibition about Albert Einstein to open unless references to Einstein's being a Jew and a Zionist were eliminated (the exhibition was withdrawn). Leftists in democratic societies also generally oppose Israel, Zionism, and Jewish nationalism.

From its inception in 1917, the Soviet Union was implacably hostile toward Jewish religious and national expressions. As early as 1919 Zionism was designated a counterrevolutionary movement and prohibited.

The Soviet Union's campaign to destroy the Jewish religion in the country was largely successful. Between 1956 and 1965 the number of synagogues in the USSR declined from an already very low 450 to 60. By the 1980s, there were fewer than five rabbis for the more than two million Soviet Jews. In many parts of the Soviet Union it was illegal for a male to pray in a synagogue until he had completed military service, and Soviet Jews were forbidden to take classes in Judaism or even the Hebrew language.

The only permitted books on Judaism were those printed by party-controlled publishers, and they depicted Judaism as a vulgar and immoral anachronism. Characteristic of the material about Judaism legally available in the Soviet Union was this perspective in Trofim Kichko's Judaism and Zionism (Kiev, 1968): "The chauvinistic idea of the god-chosenness of the Jewish people...the idea of ruling over the peoples of the world....Such ideas of Judaism were inculcated into the Jews first by priests an later by the Rabbis...and are inculcated today by Zionists, educating the Jews in the spirit of contempts and hatred towards other people....The ideologists of Judaism, through the 'Holy Scriptures' teach the observant Jew to hate people of another faith and even to destroy them."

While the government published and disseminated such antisemitic material, the Jewish community was forbidden to operate a single Jewish school, let alone publish pro-Jewish books. The government's attempts to annihilate Judaism was almost without precedent in Jewish history. Christian and Muslim antisemites, and for that matter even the Nazis during the 1930s, permitted Jewish schools. Because of the Soviet Communists' prohibition of Jewish education, Soviet Jews became the Judaically most ignorant Jews in history, until the renaissance of Jewish life that began in the former soviet Union with the fall of communism in 1991.

Having succeeded in stifling the ideological (I.e. God-related) and legal components of Judaism, Soviet antisemitism subsequently focused most of its attacks on Jewish nationalism. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia of 1952 defined "Zionism" as "a reactionary movement...which denies the class struggle and strives to isolate the Jewish working masses from the general struggle of the proletariat."

The Soviets attempted to destroy the Jewish national identity in a variety of ways. For example, well before neo-Nazi "historical revisionists" arose to deny the Holocaust, Soviet books and films on World War II ignored, virtually to the point of denying, the Holocaust. To cite a typical instance, in a forty-minute Russian-language film shown to Soviet visitors to Auschwitz, Poland, where over a million and a half Jews were murdered, the Jews were not mentioned.

To obliterate Jewish nationalism, Soviet propaganda went one step further and charged that Zionists worked with the Nazis. In 1979, a Soviet art exhibit "featured a grotesque painting of Russian corpses being gloated over by a grinning Nazi soldier and a grinning Jewish prisoner wearing a Star of David. The message: Nazis and Jews were collaborators." Thus, the Soviets not only denied (by omission) the Holocaust, they also used Nazi atrocities to increase antisemitism in the Soviet Union by identifying Zionism with Nazism.

After the Six-Day-War in 1967, Soviet media constantly referred to the Jewish state as a Hiterlian state. The tone for this campaign was set by the Soviet president and general secretary of the Communist Party, Leonid Brezhnev, on July 5, 1967: "In their atrocities against the Arabs it seems they [the Israelis] want to copy the crimes of the Hitler invaders."

Two years later, Yuri Ivanov published Beware Zionism, which was hailed by Komsomolskaya Pravda as "the first scientific and fundamental work on this subject." In this book, Ivanov described Zionism as an ideological offshoot of Nazism.

Both of the authors visited the Soviet Union (Dennis Prager, 1969, 1981, 1990; Joseph Telushkin, 1973) and personally witnessed its antisemitism. When Prager was asked to smuggle out material by Russian Jews detailing governmental antisemitism, he asked one writer, Tina Brodetskaya, "If these letters are published in the West, won't you be sent to prison?" "Where do you think I am now?" she responded.

In 1973, Telushkin danced with Russian Jews in front of the largest Moscow synagogue on Simchat Torah, a joyous Jewish holiday. The dancing was violently stopped by the KGB, the Soviet secret police. A Russian Jew, Dmitri Ramm, who had accompanied Telushkin to the synagogue, was beaten and his leg was fractured.

Both of us met Soviet Jews who had served long prison terms solely for seeking to learn about Judaism and/or desiring to emigrate to Israel. In one noted case, Joseph Begun, a Jewish mathematician who taught an underground Hebrew class, was fired from his job, then convicted for not working and exiled to Siberia...

Government-inspired antisemitism, coupled with renewed Jewish pride after the Six-Day War, led to a large migration of Soviet Jews, many of whom risked their lives to emigrate. Others did not succeed.

In Novosibirsk, Siberia, in 1973, Telushkin met a local Jew, Dr. Isaac Poltinnikov, who had been without work and, along with his wife, Irma, and daughter, Victoria, had been terribly harassed for the three years since hand his family had applied for a visa to Israel. Finally, in 1979, after nine years of refusals, the Poltinnikovs were given permission to emigrate. But Irma Poltinnikov and Victoria, believing it was just a KGB trick, refused to go (on previous occasions, the KGB had arrested them, subjected them to long interrogations, and killed their dog). Dr. Poltinnikov did go, and flew to Israel. The Soviets then refused Mrs. Poltinnikov and Victoria permission to join him. Irma soon thereafter died of malnutrition, and Victoria then committed suicide.

In Eastern Europe, Communist antisemitism persisted even though few Jews remained there following the Holocaust. For example, in the early 1950s, thirteen leaders of the Czech Communist Party, ten of them Jews, were accused of being "Zionist agents" and hanged. These trials were ordered as one of a series of antisemitic show trials culminating in 1953 with Stalin's "Doctor's Plot," as mentioned above. Stalin charged a group of physicians, mostly Jews, with plotting to poison to Soviet leadership. He died before the trial, but it was subsequently revealed that he was preparing to use the Doctors' Plot as a pretext to expel over two million Jews to Siberia.

In 1968, Poland's media was dominated by "the unmasking of Zionists in Poland," though fewer than one out of every fifteen hundred Poles was Jewish.

Aside from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, few Jews lived in Communist-ruled societies. Yet Leftists anti-Jewish hostility remained a worldwide phenomenon. The most serious antisemitic act of the 1970s, the UN General Assembly resolution declaring Zionism to be racism, was the product of an Arab, Muslim, and Communist alliance. Whereas almost the only countries opposing the resolution were democracies, every Communist government in the world (with the exception of Romania, which absented itself from the vote) declared the Jews' national movement racist and therefore illegitimate. the idea for the resolution was originally the Soviets, and among the resolution's sponsors was Cuba.

- Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism, Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, pages 128-133

[eretzyisrael]

by Rafael Medoff

It may seem perplexing that anybody would criticize Israel’s rescue of four hostages from Gaza. But in 1976, there was criticism of Israel’s rescue of hostages from Entebbe, too. In June 1976, Palestinian Arab terrorists hijacked a French plane on its way to Israel and forced it to fly to the Entebbe airport in Uganda. There they released the non-Jewish passengers, and held the remaining 106 passengers and crew hostage, demanding the release of terrorists who were imprisoned in Israel. Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was deeply sympathetic to the terrorists, and Ugandan soldiers helped the hijackers guard the hostages. On July 4, Israeli commandos raided the airport and freed the hostages. All seven terrorists, and several dozen Ugandan soldiers, were killed. The only rescuer killed was the raid’s leader, Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of Israel’s current prime minister. Mrs. Dora Bloch, an elderly passenger who had been taken to a local hospital, was murdered there by Ugandan soldiers.Most of the world celebrated the rescue raid on Entebbe. But not everybody. The Organization of African Unity, consisting of several dozen African countries, accused Israel of “wanton aggression” and demanded reparations for damage to the airport. The Soviet and Chinese governments denounced what they called “the Zionist aggression.” United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim charged that Israel had committed a “serious violation of the sovereignty” of Uganda. A few years later, Waldheim’s past as a Nazi war criminal was exposed. (However, that did not prevent his election as president of Austria in 1986.) The Mexican government criticized Israel’s “flagrant violation” of Ugandan sovereignty, and declared its “firm rejection of the use of armed force by any state as a means of trying to solve conflicts.” The Mexican position was especially surprising because just months earlier, it had explicitly promised to refrain from anti-Israel policies. That promise was made in order to secure an end to the boycott of Mexico announced by Jewish organizations following its support of the infamous Zionism-is-racism resolution at the U.N. in 1975.The French government’s response to the Entebbe rescue was particularly troubling, given the fact that it was a French plane that was hijacked, and French crew members who were held hostage. The French Foreign Ministry issued a brief statement which expressed satisfaction at the rescue, but emphasized its condemnation of the casualties, almost all of whom were the terrorists or the soldiers who assisted them. A spokesperson for the Air France crew read a statement hailing President Amin for his “constant care to ensure our safety, our material comfort and even our health.” The statement appeared to have been dictated by French officials. The U.S. government publicly praised the Israeli rescue mission, but it also introduced an “even-handed” resolution at the U.N. Security Council. While condemning the hijacking, the resolution also affirmed “the need to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all States.” The resolution did not secure enough votes to pass, so it was withdrawn. At the same time — according to declassified documents — Secretary of State Henry Kissinger informed Israel’s ambassador in Washington that because the Israelis had used US equipment in the raid, “we will have to put a temporary freeze on military shipments.” Ambassador Simcha Dinitz replied: “You are kidding me.” Kissinger was not kidding. “