#sea-watch international aid
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On a sunny April afternoon in 2006, thousands of people flocked to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for a rally with celebrities, Olympic athletes, and rising political stars. Their cause: garner international support to halt a genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region.
“If we care, the world will care. If we act, then the world will follow,” Barack Obama, then the junior Illinois senator, told the crowd, speaking alongside future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That same week, then-Sen. Joe Biden introduced a bill in Congress calling on NATO to intervene to halt the genocide in Sudan. “We need to take action on both a military and diplomatic front to end the conflict,” he said.
Flash-forward 18 years, and the prospect of genocide again looms in Sudan amid an explosive new civil war. But this time, there are no rallies, no A-list celebrities, no calls for outside military intervention. Few world leaders pay anything more than lip service to condemning the atrocities.
Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced some 9 million since the conflict began in April 2023. The United States accused both sides of committing war crimes and atrocities and concluded that the RSF and its allied militias have committed ethnic cleansing.
Western officials and aid workers working on Sudan say they are vexed, and horrified, by the lack of international attention and resources the conflict is receiving—particularly compared to the global response to the conflict in 2006, which was the progenitor of the current conflagration.
If this trend continues and there is no forceful international crisis response, they warn, Sudan will likely collapse into a failed state and could face full-fledged genocide once again.
“You can’t help but watch the level of focus on crises like Gaza and Ukraine and wonder what just 5 percent of that energy could have done in a context like Sudan and how many thousands, tens of thousands of lives it could’ve saved,” said Alan Boswell, an expert on the region at the International Crisis Group.
The top general of the SAF, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the head of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo, jointly seized power from a transitional government in a coup in 2021. Tensions between the rival sides escalated and finally erupted into war in April 2023.
In the 13 months since, the RSF has entrenched its positions around the national capital of Khartoum, forcing the SAF to relocate its headquarters to the coastal city of Port Sudan. The RSF has made steady gains in seizing control of Darfur and advancing southward and eastward against SAF forces. The SAF still controls territories around Khartoum and up the Nile River, a vital strategic route to Egypt; along the Red Sea coast; and the eastern borders with Ethiopia and Eritrea.
The conflict has also expanded into a full-fledged regional proxy war. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Riyadh’s arch regional rival Iran, back the SAF, while the United Arab Emirates is reportedly funneling arms and military supplies to the RSF. The RSF also reportedly receives support from Chad and from Russia through its affiliated mercenary groups.
The focal point of the conflict now is on El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and the center of fighting. The RSF has taken control of vast swaths of western and southern Sudan in its war against the SAF. El Fasher is the last SAF stronghold in Darfur, occupying a strategically important position for trade routes from neighboring Libya and Chad.
The RSF recently began its advance on El Fasher where an estimated 2 million to 2.8 million civilians have sought to take refuge from the fighting. (Precise figures are hard to come by.)
“The risk of genocide exists in Sudan. It is real, and it is growing every single day,” Alice Nderitu, the U.N. special advisor on the prevention of genocide, warned in a U.N. Security Council meeting last week.
A lengthy report from Human Rights Watch documented how the RSF and allied militias committed widespread atrocities, including mass rape, child murder, and massacres of civilians when it captured the Sudanese city of El Geneina last year. U.S. and U.N. officials and human rights experts warn that the same will likely happen if the RSF takes control of El Fasher, but on a much wider scale. The United States and aid groups have accused the SAF of blocking vital food aid from entering the country and RSF forces of looting humanitarian stocks, exacerbating the crisis and pushing regions of the country closer to famine.
“The potential fatality generation here is off the charts,” said Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale’s School of Public Health who runs a research project that monitors the conflict in Sudan. “What will happen when the RSF takes El Fasher? Exactly what is happening in every other place they control.”
“There is Hiroshima- and Nagasaki-level casualty potential,” he added, referring to the U.S. atomic bombs dropped on Japan in World War II that killed up to 225,000 people.
Aid organizations and officials who work on Sudan have long decried the relative inattention the conflict in Sudan gets compared to Ukraine or the war in Gaza. Some 20 million people—or 10 times the population of Gaza—are at risk of famine in various regions of Sudan. “Very few people who don’t work on Sudan know that Darfur is on the brink of famine,” Boswell said. “Obviously, everyone knows about the risk of famine in Gaza.”
U.S. President Joe Biden’s own social media posts about Gaza versus Sudan provide another, albeit imperfect, window into the attention each conflict receives. Biden tweeted about Israel or Gaza at least 107 times in the six months since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks that started the Israel-Hamas war. Since the war in Sudan began over a year ago, he has tweeted about Sudan four times—three of which were about the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum right after fighting broke out.
Aid groups are strained for resources to tackle the humanitarian crisis caused by the war. In February, Doctors Without Borders warned that in one refugee camp alone in North Darfur, one child was dying every two hours of malnutrition. In April, on the conflict’s first anniversary, aid groups said the international humanitarian response plan to aid the Sudanese was only 6 percent funded. At a donor conference that month in Paris, countries pledged $2 billion more—though that is still only about half of what aid groups estimate the country needs.
Biden appointed a special envoy for Sudan in February—Tom Perriello, a former U.S. representative from Virginia and State Department veteran. Most experts have cheered Perriello’s new push to hold cease-fire talks in the months since and engage U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill to bring more levers of U.S. power and financing to bear on Sudan, but they also fear his efforts may be too little, too late for the civilians trapped in El Fasher.
“It will be very hard to deescalate the situation, though everyone should try. But there is an aura of inevitability that this is all going to blow up,” Boswell said. “The degree of mobilization from all sides is hard to walk down.”
Diplomatic and aid officials working on Sudan have some theories on why the atrocities in Darfur and across the country are receiving such little attention now compared to the 2000s, but none gives a full answer.
In 2006, the United States was still reaching the heights of its post-9/11 “war on terror” campaign. Sudan, under former dictator Omar al-Bashir, had given safe haven to Osama bin Laden as he built up al Qaeda’s global terror network, and “bashing Bashir and his genocide in Darfur couched nicely with [counterterrorism] priorities” of the U.S. government at the time, said Nicole Widdersheim, a former senior National Security Council official now with Human Rights Watch.
The memories of failed and successful international interventions to halt genocide—Rwanda in 1994 and the Balkans later that decade, respectively—were still relatively fresh in the minds of policymakers. The costly Western campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya that later exposed the shortcomings and blowback of military interventions were still underway.
It also preceded the current era of great-power competition, where Washington is intensely focused on countering Russia and China. Sudan also competes with the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine for international attention and humanitarian resources. Others suggested racism built into Western foreign policy played a part. “It’s seen as yet ‘another war in Africa like all the others,’” said one official dryly. Not one single factor can explain it all, experts concluded.
“Gaza is taking up the always limited American public interest and activism on a foreign crisis, but to be fair, there was nearly no public activism or engagement on the Sudan war before” the Israel-Hamas war, Widdersheim said.
Experts say the relative inattention Sudan has gotten from the top echelons of the White House and other Western powers that could have influence in pressuring the warring sides in Sudan to sit for peace talks has led to the current protracted state of the war.
Biden hosted Kenyan President William Ruto for a state visit this week, where the two called on “the warring parties in Sudan to facilitate unhindered humanitarian access and immediately commit to a ceasefire” toward the end of a lengthy joint statement but did not elaborate further. U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas Greenfield have also been outspoken about urging an end to the conflict in Sudan.
Successive cease-fire talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, over the past year, brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia, failed to clinch any lasting deal. Those talks were led on the U.S. side not by a top White House official or Secretary of State Antony Blinken, but by the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Molly Phee.
Behind-the-scenes efforts by some members of Congress in December 2023 to appoint a special presidential envoy on Sudan—one who would report directly to the White House, rather than an envoy reporting to the assistant secretary of state—were unsuccessful, multiple officials and congressional aides said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration dynamics. Perriello was appointed two months later.
Perriello in mid-April said that cease-fire talks would resume in Jeddah “within the next three weeks,” but so far those talks have yet to materialize. Several current and former officials familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly, said the talks in Jeddah could resume in June, by which point the RSF could have already captured El Fasher from the mostly cutoff SAF forces.
“The need to start formal peace talks in Jeddah is absolutely urgent, and the United States is working exhaustively with partners to make that happen,” said a State Department spokesperson. “But we are not waiting for formal talks to begin—rather, we have accelerated our diplomatic engagements to align international efforts to end this war, mitigate the humanitarian crisis, and prevent future atrocities.”
Cease-fire talks have worked in limited ways in the past, such as when the United States got both sides to briefly stop fighting in Khartoum so it could evacuate its embassy in April 2023. “When the right leverage is put on the table at the right time to get the RSF and SAF to stop fighting, it can be done,” said Kholood Khair, a Sudanese policy analyst and founding director of Confluence Advisory, a Sudan-focused think tank. “The international community has just chosen not to deploy that same leverage this time around.”
Khair added that the Jeddah talks format has failed before, and it will likely fail again. “The concern is that because of the laziness and complicity of the international community at this point, you don’t have any diplomats who are looking for a new way of doing things. Jeddah in many ways is blocking the start of any new diplomatic efforts or other good ideas that could be effective.”
“Diplomats are fixated on Jeddah now, simply because it’s already there,” Khair said.
As Perriello engaged in frenetic diplomacy, he has also publicly marveled at how little attention the scale of the conflict and death in Sudan is receiving on the international stage.
“One of the things that to me captures just how invisible and horrific this war is, is that we don’t have a credible death count,” Perriello said during a congressional hearing in front of the 21-member Senate Foreign Relations Committee this month. “We literally don’t know how many people have died—possibly to a factor of 10 or 15. The number was earlier 15,000 to 30,000. Some think it’s at 150,000,” he said. During the course of Perriello’s hearing, senators cycled out of the room due to scheduling conflicts, often leaving only one senator in the room and 20 empty seats.
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Update post:
Yesterday, the identification of two bodies brought back to Israel from Gaza by IDF soldiers to Israel was completed.
The victims were identified as 36 years old Ziv Dado, who was murdered on Oct 7, and his body was kidnapped to Gaza by Hamas, and 27 years old Eden Zecharia, who according to one Israeli journalist, was kidnapped alive. If this is true, it means Eden was murdered in captivity.
After the identification of the bodies was completed, the IDF was able to confirm that Israeli soldiers Gal Meir Eizenkott and Eyal Meir Berkovich were killed by a detonated IED while clearing the perimeter for this operation.
IDF soldiers are reporting that the number of terror tunnels and shafts is much bigger than expected, as well as that there is almost no house they enter in Gaza, which doesn't have some weapons stashed. In some houses, they also found orders and plans for the Oct 7 massacre. Kept in residential homes. In one house, the soldiers found, side by side, weapons like an RPG, and documentation of the chemotherapy treatment that an 8 years old boy was receiving in Israel, mere weeks prior to the Hamas massacre.
The desecration of Jewish religious sites under Palestinian rule is not a new phenomenon, despite the fact that the Palestinian Authority is supposed to be legally committed to the preservation of the Jewish holy sites Israel agreed in the Oslo accords that the PA would control. Today, we got another example.
The prevalence of antisemitic and anti-Israel content and messages on social media is not new, either. After Jewish celebrities and content creators had confronted Tiktok on its antisemitin and anti-Israeli bias, there are now Jewish employees of Tiktok, who are speaking out about the fact that this is happening by the design of the many antisemitic, anti-Israel moderates of the company, and not by blind chance. They also talk about how they are discriminated against, in comparison with anti-Israel employees.
Several residential homes in the north of Israel were directly hit by Hezbollah, one in the town of Metulah was completely destroyed. The only reasons there are no casualties, is because Israel evacuated the northern towns, just as it did the southern ones.
On the day when the UN is celebrating 75 years anniversary of the human rights declaration, the families of Israeli hostages are demonstrating outside the ceremony, to remind everyone that those who had been kidnapped on Oct 7, have been robbed of all of their human rights for over two months now, and that international organizations such as the UN and Red Cross have barely even commented on this.
The IDF's spokesman in Arabic has tweeted this morning, that aid trucks have been waiting for an hour and a half to enter Gaza, because they had to wait for someone on the Gazan side of the border (meaning, Hamas) to open the checkpoint.
The BBC is reporting that Human Rights Watch has denounced the Iran-funded Houthis' attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea, and declared these attacks to be war crimes. It's nice to see that when the ships targeted are no longer supposedly Israeli ones, HRW is capable of doing its work.
The other day, soldiers who were a part of an operation to clear the neighborhood of Shujayiah, entered a terrorist ambush. During the fight, there was suspicion that one of the soldiers was kidnapped by Hamas through a terror tunnel. The highest ranking officers on the ground personally joined the battle, to help the fighting, and also to coordinate the different forces, in order to minimize the possibility of a friendly fire incident. 10 soldiers were killed in this battle, among them two of those high ranking officers, Colonel Yitzhak Ben Basat and Lieutenant Colonel Tomer Greenberg (meanwhile, the highest ranking commanders of Hamas are sending their terrorists to die, while they themselves hide in terror tunnels, behind the human shields of Gazan civilians and Israeli hostages). These are the fallen soldiers from this battle (Greenberg top right, Ben Basat top left):
This is 38 years old Lilia Gurevich-Vasilkovsky.
She was murdered at the Nova music festival on Oct 7. She was a molecular biologist, who was hailed for her ability to think outside the box. She was working on developing a sweet protein, that would replace sugar. If she had been successful, this could have improved the health and lives of countless people around the world suffering from diabetes. I'm one of them. Reading about her made me stop and think about the fact that, especially when considering the many young victims, we will never fully understand how much the world has lost on Oct 7.
This is 36 years old Itay Perry.
In the photo, he's holding up the note that his 6 years old son sent him. The note says, "I love you, I miss you, Dad. I hope you won't get injured." Itay carried the folded note on him since he got it, including when he was killed in Gaza. Itay's dad mourned his son, saying that no parent could have a kinder child, and that Itay was also an amazing father and husband.
May the memories of all of the fallen be a blessing.
(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)
#israel#antisemitism#israeli#israel news#israel under attack#israel under fire#israelunderattack#terrorism#anti terrorism#hamas#antisemitic#antisemites#jews#jew#judaism#jumblr#frumblr#jewish
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by Benny Morris
The drift of the Times article is that the innocent Arabs of Palestine just sat back and watched, as suffering victims, as the Zionists, Israel, and some international actors, principally Great Britain, did their worst.
This is pure nonsense.
Throughout the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, Palestine’s Arabs consistently rejected all proposals for a political compromise and flatly demanded all of Palestine, “from the river to the sea.” And they did not restrict their activities to roundtable discussions. In April 1920, May 1921, and August 1929, Arab mobs, whose passions had been whipped up by religious and political leaders, attacked their Jewish neighbours and passers-by in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Hebron, and Safad, killing dozens in what amounted to a succession of pogroms. (The New York Times studiously avoids this word, referring to them only as “assaults.”)
Emily Bazelon informs readers that the first bout of violence took place when the 1920 Muslim Nebi Musa festivities in Jerusalem “turned into a deadly riot,” in which “five Jews and four Arabs [were] killed.” Neither she nor any of the panellists mention that an Arab mob attacked, murdered, and wounded Jews or that the crowd of perpetrators chanted “nashrab dam al-yahud” (‘we will drink the blood of the Jews’). Nor does she tell us that the crowd shouted, “Muhammad’s religion was born with the sword,” according to eyewitness Khalil al Sakakini, a Christian Arab educator. After three days of rampage and despoliation, British mandate security forces finally restored order, killing all or most of the four Arabs Bazelon mentions in the process. The findings of the subsequent British investigation are included in the July 1920 Palin Report, which states: “All the evidence goes to show that these [Arab] attacks were of a cowardly and treacherous description, mostly against old men, women and children—frequently in the back.”
During the May 1921 pogroms, which encompassed Jaffa, Hadera, Rehovot, and Petah Tikva, dozens of Jews were killed, and women were raped. In the efforts to restore peace, British security forces killed dozens of the attackers. Leading contemporary Zionist journalist Itamar Ben-Avi wrote: “The Islamic wave and stormy seas will eventually break loose and if we don’t set a dike … they will flood us with their wrath … Tel Aviv, in all her splendour … will be wiped out.”
The August 1929 riots were deliberately incited by the mufti of Jerusalem, the country’s senior Muslim cleric, Haj Muhammad Amin al Husseini, who was soon to emerge as the leader of the Palestine Arab national movement. He and his aides told the Arab masses that the Jews intended to destroy Al Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount and build a (third) Jewish temple on the site, and that they had “violated the honour of Islam and raped the women and murdered widows and babies.” The resultant riots started in Jerusalem and quickly spread throughout Palestine. Dozens of Jews were massacred, and many Jewish women were raped, in the area around Jerusalem, and in Hebron and Safad. The British High Commissioner, John Chancellor, condemned “the atrocious acts committed by bodies of ruthless and bloodthirsty evildoers … upon defenceless members of the Jewish population [with] … acts of unspeakable savagery.” The British Shaw Commission, which investigated the multiple pogroms, concurred.Israel’s Perilous Moment, Then and NowHerf tells the complicated and often surprising story of the internal political struggles in Western capitals, as well as in the halls of the United Nations, that erupted at the end of the Second World War.QuilletteSol Stern
Bazelon comments that in 1929 the “Palestinians rebelled” against the British and “violence first broke out over control of the holy sites in Jerusalem.” (Throughout the New York Times piece, Bazelon uses the phrase “violence broke out,” instead of explicitly stating that the Arabs assaulted the Jews, though she does concede that in 1929 Jews were massacred in Hebron and Safad). The Canadian Derek Penslar of Harvard University, one of the three Jewish panellists, explains that “Muslims thought … that the Jews were planning to take over the Temple Mount” and recommends to readers Israeli historian Hillel Cohen’s book Year Zero of the Arab–Israeli Conflict: 1929, which argues that the Jews and the Arabs were equally to blame for the violence of that year. Indeed, Cohen writes that Jews—not Arabs—initiated the cycle of murders in Jerusalem that set off the countrywide violence. Penslar’s sympathies seem clear here and elsewhere—as when he remarks that “Many Zionists wanted to believe that they represented progress,” the implication being that he thinks otherwise.
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~ Monthly BL Breakdown: September 2023 ~
👻 Happy October!!! 🎃
Disclaimer: ALL shows can be streamed here or here, as well as on Youtube and other platforms. For more info on where to watch what, check out this post!
New breakdowns are coming at the end of every month - feel free to add stuff! -> previous breakdowns
What came out this month? (green = seen/currently watching)
🌟 Senior Love Me? Season 2 - September 1st (Thailand)
🌟 Naughty Babe - September 2nd (Thailand) ✅
🌟 Venus in the Sky - September 2nd (Thailand)
🌟 Marry Go Round - September 3rd (Thailand)
🌟 Where Your Eyes Linger (movie version with added scenes + commentary) - September 5th (South Korea)
🌟 Y Star Challenge (reality show) - September 8th (Thailand)
🌟 The Promise: Honeymoon Lost and Found - September 9th (Thailand)
🌟 Our Story - September 9th (Philippines)
🌟 Rerun (starring PP Krit) - September 13th (Thailand)
🌟 You Are Mine - September 15th (Taiwan)
🌟 Bump Up Business - September 15th (South Korea)
🌟 Wedding Plan Special Episode - September 16th (Thailand) ✅
🌟 Right Time, Right You - September 17th (Thailand)
🌟 Kimi ni wa Todokanai (I Can't Reach You) - September 27th (Japan)
🌟 Bon Appetit - September 27th (South Korea)
🌟 Absolute Zero - September 27th (Thailand)
Monthly likes/dislikes
❣️ Naughty Babe - I'm loving this so much lol it's so silly but the comedy is so brilliant and so far I'm enjoying it more than Cutie Pie lol. The story is interesting and MaxNat's acting has improved a lot since CP which is nice. Definitely an unexpected nice little gem and also a band-aid for the soul after the OF-trauma every Saturday dskjhf
👎🏻 ø
New series & movie announcements
🎥 Like - Date TBA (South Korea)
🎥 Live in Love - Date TBA (Thailand)
🎥 Spirit Reborn - Date TBA (Thailand)
🎥 Red Peafowl (starring Max N., Mek J., Boun N., Gun N., Yacht S., LongFrank & others) - Date TBA (Thailand)
🎥 Couple or Not - Date TBA (China)
🎥 Ossan's Love Season 3 - Coming January 2024 (Japan)
🎥 The Luminous Begins (Prequel to The Luminious Solution, starring Kaownah Kittipat) - Coming December 2023
Other news from the BL world
❗️ The upcoming Thai adaption of Cherry Magic will premiere in November as confirmed by the cast. The airing date has yet to be announced.
❗️ Actor Est Ravipon (LBC2, Naughty Babe) joined GMMTV.
❗️ The upcoming Thai BL 4 Minutes has been announced to air in early 2024. One of the main actors, Bible W., disclosed that shooting will begin in October and run until December. Several months back his acting partner Build J. dropped out of the production as a result of a defamation scandal. Further details, such as a recast for his role, as well as an airing date, are unknown.
❗️ Santa and Earth (My Only 12%) and EarthMix (ATOTS, MLC) respectively announced that they will be having another project together in 2024. Details are unknown.
❗️ GMMTV actor Gun Atthaphan won an award for "Outstanding Asian Star" at this year's Seoul International Drama Awards.
❗️ This year's GMMTV 2024 lineup event will take place on October 17th.
❗️ The cast for the upcoming Korean BL Jazz For Two was revealed: Song Han Gyeom (OMEGA X), Kim Jin Kwon & Ko Jae Hyun (To My Star), Byun Sung Tae (Happy Merry Ending) will be the main cast.
❗️ A third season for the Japanesse BL Ossan's Love was announced for January 2024.
❗️ At their event "Always More", WeTV announced their 2024 lineup. The following BL productions are included:
Monster Next Door
I Saw You In My Dream (WeTV x DeeHup)
Me And Who (WeTV x Domundi)
Knock Knock Boys (starring Seng W., Best V. and others)
❗️ MeMindY announced their next 2 BL projects:
Love Sea (adapted from an unreleased novel) - Coming 2024
Boy Next World (universe travel plot) - Coming 2024
Both series are adaptions from Mame's novels and will air in 2024. Earlier, FortPeat (Love in the Air) confirmed in a press conference that they will star in another one of Mame's projects, which led fans to believing they will appear in one of the 2 projects, along with BossNoeul. The official cast reveals will take place on October 3rd and 5th.
Upcoming series & movies for October
👉🏻 Sasaki to Miyano - October 1st (Japan, Netflix release)
👉🏻 If It's With You aka Even If I Fall In Love With You - October 5th (Japan)
👉🏻 What Did You Eat Yesterday? Season 2 - October 6th (Japan)
👉🏻 Lucky Love - October 15th (Thailand)
👉🏻 GMMTV2024 lineup event + press conference - October 17th (Thailand)
👉🏻 One Room Angel (manga adaption) - October 19th (Japan)
👉🏻 The Camp Fire - October 29th (Thailand)
👉🏻 Shadow - October 31st (Thailand)
👉🏻 Boys Like Boys (dating reality show) - October TBA (Taiwan)
👉🏻 Bump Up Business - October TBA (South Korea)
#doreens monthly bl breakdown#thai bl#bl drama#upcoming bl#update#bl news#bro the way just say yes i not part of the new mame lineup...... i have no words#like if its not happening then at least tell us????#so we can stop waiting + hoping like idiots#im so mad#but anyway#I'm heavily side-eying this knock knock boys business cuz like 💀💀💀 what in the world lmao#didnt think seng would go back to bl but here we are#im gonna tune in for sure#such a random cast#im in#reminds me of youre my king#which was disaster#but this looks kinda good lmao
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5 Common Mistakes in Chakra Healing You Need to Avoid
Chakra healing is a powerful practice that can transform your life from the inside out. Let’s explore five common mistakes that many individuals make when it comes to chakra healing. Here’s How you can begin to enhance your Chakra Healing journey.
I’m a big advocate for Consistency. Why? It not only helps me spiritually grow but it gets me results!
One area I’ve been consistent beyond spiritual practice has been my journey with the chakra Healing system. I’ve learned a lot over the years about how to properly understand energy work through Chakra Healing.
However, just like any new ager out there, there are a lot of mistakes I’ve learned over the years. After 13-14 years on this healing path, I’ve personally refined my chakra strategy so I always get incredible results.
I wanted to share some common mistakes that many people are making when it comes to energy work and the chakras that they might not be realizing.
#5 is def my soap box I will admit LOL
But In general – these are mistakes I’ve personally gone through and eventually realized there are stronger tools out there to help you heal easier. Likewise, in some cases even faster!
2 hour + somatic breathwork?
Not remotely Necessary when you’re dealing with the chakras.
Here’s my tips and tricks on Chakra Healing to help you avoid these common Mistakes I see continuously in the spiritual community.
Catch the full Episode on the Youtube or Season 3 of the Podcast: Awaken & Manifest your Best Life
youtube
WATCH ON YOUTUBE
LISTEN ON THE PODCAST
SUMMARY OF THE FIVE COMMON CHAKRA HEALING MISTAKES
1 – You’re Using Surface-Level Tools to Solve an Internal Problem
Ever caught yourself getting lost in a sea of crystals, essential oils, and sage, hoping they’ll magically fix your energy imbalances? While these tools are fantastic for boosting your vibes, they’re like the sparkly cherry on top. One common mistake in chakra healing is relying solely on surface-level tools like crystals and oils without going deeper into the root cause of energetic imbalances.
While these tools can help aid in the process, (I call these amplifiers because they amplify the energy of that chakra) true healing occurs when we address the core issues within each chakra.
2 – Thinking That you ONLY need Yoga Asanas and Color Therapy
If you’ve been hanging your hopes on wearing specific colors, Eating certain foods or striking yoga poses to heal your chakras, hey, you’re not alone! Another misconception is the overemphasis on yoga asanas and color therapy as the primary methods for chakra healing.
While these practices can complement healing, they should not overshadow the importance of addressing Your Beliefs behind your Mindset, Your Internal Programming, Emotional Health and internal energetic frequency for lasting transformation. It’s about balance, yo 😉
3 – Confusing Chakra Healing and Reiki as the same thing. Spoiler Alert: It’s not
Reiki Healing and Chakra healing are completely different methods. It’s like comparing apples and oranges – both juicy and delicious, but with their unique flavors. While Reiki casts a broad energetic net for overall alignment, chakra healing zooms in like a laser beam on your individual energy centers.
For Example, Reiki focuses more on healing the energetic field with symbols, chakra healing delves deep into individual energetic centers, providing a more targeted approach to addressing specific issues within the energy system. Chakra Healing also works specifically with your unique programming and Patterns that are looping in your nervous system.
4 – Listening to Sound Frequencies and Meditations to Heal – Yet Avoiding the inner work
Here’s the thing, sound frequencies and meditations can enhance your chakra healing journey, but they should not be the sole focus. It’s important to enhance these practices with adding internal work on Your Energetic Patterns. For Example, working on your Internal State of Consciousness surrounding your emotions, mindset, and habits to facilitate sustainable healing results.
5 – Only Focusing on Releasing and Clearing Work – Nothing Else.
Let’s chat about the shadow-side of healing – a vital but often overemphasized piece of the puzzle. While diving into your shadows is important, The real healing is when you empower your chakras. A key aspect of effective chakra healing is empowering the chakras through repatterning.
This is the deep work we do inside The Ultimate Chakra Academy Simply releasing negative energies or even Shadow patterns is not enough; true healing occurs when we replace old patterns with new, empowering beliefs and behaviors.
Why are people not able to properly heal?
When we only do releasing work, we’re not actually shifting and changing the pattern. And what happens instead is it reverts. The entire pattern starts to revert and come back! Have you ever had that happen? This causes the entire script to change. (and maybe you lost money from that, all the same, right?)
Avoiding the Real Internal Work to Truly Heal
The hugest thing I want to emphasize here is you notice, all these mistakes aren’t actually working on your emotions or your patterns. They’re kind of, bypassing those emotions. Naturally, they’re energy tools, they help, but they’re not working with the emotion. If the tool does not work with the negative pattern or the emotion itself, Then it’s just like an amplifier. Instead, When we work with a Chakra, we’re opening up the Energy pattern that makes up your beliefs, emotions, actions, and even working on the habits that keep the pattern going.
We’re not looking at the actual programming itself. We’re not looking at the actual pattern or the framework of the pattern. We’re instead bypassing that and using different tools to try to access it. Chakra healing makes up a pattern. If you want to raise your vibe, heal, or manifest?
Change the Energy Pattern, Change the Results.
In conclusion,
By avoiding these common mistakes and approaching chakra healing with an Empowering mindset, you can unlock the transformative power of this unique practice.
Remember, true healing begins from within, and each step you take towards nurturing your chakras brings you closer to manifesting your best life. ✌️
P.S. Ready to enhance your chakra healing journey? Grab your Chakra Starter Kit for a look behind the scenes of Energy Vibrations, how to heal your Chakra Centers and my signature chakra detox Framework! Free access to sign up here:
If you Enjoyed this Article Share it to the Socials or Pin it for a Spiritual Bestie to Find, Thanks for the support!
https://www.theawakenedstate.net/5-common-mistakes-in-chakra-healing-you-need-to-avoid/
5 Common Mistakes in Chakra Healing You Need to Avoid
Chakra healing is a powerful practice that can transform your life from the inside out. Let’s explore five common mistakes that many individuals make when it comes to chakra healing. Here’s How you can begin to enhance your Chakra Healing journey. I’m a big advocate for Consistency. Why? It not only helps me spiritually grow […]
#chakra energy healing#chakra healing#chakra mistakes#energy healing tools#energy work#healing methods
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“Ms. Colms?” Marasi sighed internally, looking up from her paperwork. She was no longer “Ms. Colms”; She was Mrs. Neverfar, had been for several months. Still, it seemed people who were used to one thing took time to learn another. An aid held a note out for her; stamped and sealed in a light violet envelope. Raising an eyebrow, Marasi took it.
“It arrived just a few minutes ago by post, ma’am.” The woman smiled, inclined her head, and turned to leave. Marasi looked at the note. No return address, and the strangest thing was, it was addressed using her legal name.
“A Detective Marasi Neverfar of the Elendel Constabulary, Fourth Octant.” She slit the envelope open with a letter opener, handling the paper inside delicately. She doubted this was anything sinester; it looked like something Steris might do to invite her to a gala. Regardless, old habits died hard.
It wasn’t from her sister, or even a noblewoman. It was from someone far, far beyond any of them.
“Marasi,
I hope this note finds you in good health. It has been several years since we last spoke, and I hope you aren’t displeased to find that I’ve still been keeping an eye on you. Your work in the city is marvelous. If its within reason of your busy schedule, I would like to meet you for lunch this Steelday at eleven. The new bistro on 47th and 12 is wonderful, with an beautiful view out to sea. I have things I’d like to discuss with you.
-Mauve.”
Marasi read the note again. Mauve? The several hundred year old wife of the Survivor? A leader of the secret organization, the Ghostbloods? She sat there, trying to comprehend. She had declined them, years ago. They hadn’t appeared angry, per se, but she had not expected this. The tone of the letter was light hearted, even friendly.
“Well, I’m not going to renew my interest.” She thought, stuffing the letter in her purse. The constabulary was a buzz with activity, and for once, it was for something good; graduations and promotions. Two hundred new recruits were to join the constabulary, and the Fourth Octant was hosting the ceremony. Along with that, around twenty officers, male and female, were being promoted for exceptional valor and exceeding expectations. Marasi had hand picked several of them. Aids buzzed by, carrying stacks of papers that flew in all directions, others tied up in phone lines. She picked her way through the chaos, smiling at those that passed her, briefly chatting with those that initiated.
Steelday was tomorrow. Her day off. She thought for a moment as she left the precint. She couldn’t help but feel curious. She wasn’t that disturbed to find Mauve had been watching her; she had figured as much. They would want to be sure she hadn’t revealed any secrets. It had been four years since the events that had brought them together; and she hadn’t divulged anything. There had been nothing too tell. Secrets of other worlds didn’t affect Scadrial, not currently. Plus, there were other agents working in the Cosmere, agents she was aware of. The Kandra investigation was quite open to her, and she liked what she was learning.
She adjusted the strap of her purse, walking down the narrow sidewalk, avoiding puddles from afternoon rain showers, now passed, the clouds little drops of grey in the distance. She would visit Mauve. She had been so pleasant to speak with.
Her schedule demanded she awake at least somewhat early. The day dawned clear and bright; her house, a small cottage, sat on prime real estate; a little cliff overlooking the field of rebirth. Alikk lay next to her, snoring softly. She smiled fondly at him, before starting her day. She needed tea.
After a pleasant morning walk with Alikk, a light breakfast and some work on her City Beautification and Anti-Gentrification project (She’d been calling it CBAG for short, a terrible acronym, but she kept it to herself.) she set off for the new bistro Mauve had spoken of in her letter. 47th and 12th were in the seventh octant, a few miles away. She took a tram, arriving somewhat late. Walking quickly, clutching her purse before her, she stopped just before th restaurant, scoping it out.
It was a cute place. She’d have to take Alikk; he could critique their pastries. Nothing about it seemed off. A wooden painted sign, hanging by rope, swayed in the breeze. She smiled, approaching, stopping as she noticed Mauve.
The woman sat at a lone table overlooking the bay, sipping a fruity drink. She wore…well, she wore rugged, working clothing, her hair done up in a bun and tied around with a kerchief. Marasi only recognized her due to her lighter than average skin and hair. She pointed to the table as the hostess looked at her, and made her way in, weaving around the other tables, most of them occupied.
“Marasi. I’m glad you could make it.” Mauve looked up, smiling. Marasi smiled in turn. There was something about this woman that made you feel welcome. She appeared to be in mid to late thirties, with soft, heart shaped features. The most discerning feature of hers were her eyes and hair, both of which were pale, almost silver.
“Traffic was a nightmare.” Marasi complained, taking her seat. “I’m sorry I’m late.” Mauve waved a hand as a waiter approached with menus. Mauve held up three fingers, and the man laid down three menus before taking Marasi’s drink order.
“Do you have Choc?” She asked.
“We have an entire menu dedicated to the drink, Miss.” He laid down another menu, and mauve leaned over, looking at it with interest. Marasi, delighted, picked out an iced variety for the warm day. Mauve pulled the menu over, examining it.
“Could you make this in a large glass? To share?” She pointed at an extravagant concoction. Marasi’s eyes widened; it was piled high with cream and sprinkles, a sparkling candle stuck in the top. “San’s the sparkler, please.” The waiter smiled.
“We’ve been thinking of offering that exact thing! Surely.” He nodded to them both, stepping back and walking away. Mauve stepped back.
“To…share?” Marasi asked. She liked Mauve, but not that much. Mauve chuckled.
“My husband will be joining us shortly, and he has been a fan of choc for…” She tilted her head, thinking. “Over a hundred years or so now. I lost count.” Marasi’s eyes widened in shock.
“Your…husband?” Mauve smiled slyly.
“Yes. My husband. You know who he is.” She leaned forward, arms crossed on the table. “Marasi, there are things we want to discuss.” Marasi paled. Noticing this, Mauve spoke quickly.
“This has nothing to do with our organization. Don’t worry. It has to do with what you’re doing. What you’re planning to do. It has us very interested.”
“What I’m planning? You mean my works project?” The project was her baby. A massive plan renovate the slums and make the poor sections of town beautified, without gentrifying them. Too often poor sections of town were neglected, resulting in slums that no one would want to live in, but many were forced too. Her plan involved careful management of green spaces, community works, playgrounds, sports teams, and action plans to involve the local populace of each area. Steris had been wonderful getting all the details in order.
To hear that the Survivor, the center of the most followed religion in the Basin, a person with enormous gravity in the history of her planet, was interested…well. It evoked feelings she didn’t know she could feel. She looked at Mauve with wide eyes.
“He’s…interested?” Mauve tapped her wrist with one finger.
“We’re interested. Kell has always been one to uplift the unfortante, and your works do just that. He hates seeing slums in the city. It isn’t how it was supposed to be.”
That was true. The Lord Mistborn said that slums weren’t going to be a thing in Elendel, but they had appeared regardless. It had gotten better these days, with the invention of electricity, motor cars and job classes moving or being outgrown. The slums, however, remained.
“I’m just…stunned.” Marasi stated. Their drinks arrived. She took the glass in both hands, sipping the cold drink through a paper straw. “I thought you were angry with me.” Mauve waved a dismissive hand.
“Nonesense. We value freedom of thought. We weren’t for you; it’s better you figured it out before you joined, rather trying to leave when you had learned some tender information.” Marasi thought about this, nodding.
“I’m glad you understand.” Mauve leaned in, smiling pleasantly.
“Marasi, I need you to understand something. My organization, you know our tenants. You work for the first one. The protection of this planet. Your work may seem small, but even the smallest change can affect the world. We’re with you, if you need us. We can’t promise you much, only that we will support you if things get hairy.”
Another massive shock. She studied the woman before her, who cocked her head.
“Ah. Hear he is. Don’t be alarmed by his appearance.”
“I’ve seen him before.” Mauve smirked, looking over her shoulder.
“Not like this, you haven’t.”
“Oi.”
“This is a classy establishment sir.”
“My wife’s sittin’ right there.” Marasi looked over, eyebrows raised. Mauve raised a hand.
“Lettim’ in!” She called. Her accent had changed, adopting a lower class second octant drawl. “That’s my husband you’re rustin’ accosting! He fancy enough for this place.”
The hostess, red as a street sign, stepped back from having stopped her husband, Kelsier, at the front. He walked over, a loping, bouncing gait.
He was dressed…in street clothes. Overalls covering a clean, but worn, plaid shirt, sleeves rolled up. An eyepatch over his right eye, and a cap that hung over his head, covering the entire back side. The effect left Marasi with an unpleasant mixture of emotions.
This was man was a deity. He was the fixture of the most prominent religion on Scadrial. He had saved the world. He had toppled the Final Empire, saved Alikk’s people from extinction, had created the Bands of Mourning.
And he was wearing overalls and speaking in an accent similar to Waynes. Thinking of her old friend made her heart swell in mourning for a moment, before the reality of the situation got the better of her.
“Uh.” She began.
“I know you.” He pointed to her. “You met my wife at the Bilming Constabulary, didn’cha?”
“Uh…yes I did, Lo-.” She stopped herself, swallowing.
“Call me Kell.” He sat next to Mauve, who leaned against him with casual elegance. He grinned, letting out a bark of laughter. It was completely opposite to her conversation with him four years ago.
“This is too much fun, Mauve. Why don’t we do this more often?”
“Because you’re too busy and so am I. Marasi here, however, deserves our attention, if what you say you want to do is true.” He cocked his head, wrapping an arm around his wife.
“Well, I do. He leaned forward, smiling deviously.
“Marasi Neverfar, I’m interested in funding that project of yours, if you’d have me.”
First bit is published, but it's not finished! The second part I'll post tomorrow :)
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New Moon forecast in Sagittarius. Sag stellium includes mars. Ruler of sag in taurus. Ruler of taurus in scorpio. Rulers of Scorpio in Sag and Capricorn. Ruler of Cap in Pisces. Rulers of pisces back in taurus and in its other home planet neptune. Moon trine north node in Aries.
Going back to college or school to finish what you started, get a new degree, or get an adv degree is being emphasized. This includes applying for scholarships and other financial aid. Keep in mind in some places you can get government funding for bills if you return back to school. Please do your research to see the full requirements. Get tutoring and accommodations where needed. Some funding comes from the jobs you work at. Degrees being thought about by the collective includes politics, law school, international relations and business, foreign languages, anthropology, trades in travel (getting proper licence to drive bigger vehicles, to be a pilot, or operate ships), religious studies, stem fields, any career that takes you over seas. Some of you may get funding by military means.
Many of you are planning trips, but since mercury retrograde is a couple of days out, you may want to double check your trips, prepare for delays, reschedule trips after this retrograde, and double check any rental cars you get or get your vehicles fixed. Mercury can cause delays or cause plans to happen sooner than expected as well as confusion over contracts and anything else you can read.
Make sure your cars is up to date with documents or things that need maintenance. Make sure you have a spare key or get one made. Watch out for other drivers. Be aware that long distance driving may have different laws or behavior depending what you cross in or out of region wise.
Past conversations are coming up for review. Evidence for what was exactly discussed is showing up.
Time to review how to better invest your money. What marketing an advertising worked or didn't worked. Honesty about the product or service provided or received is up for review.
You can't be too cheap investing into your own business and those who work for you without paying for it somewhere else.
It's typo season. Double check your writing (Me too)
Got the itch to collect books much?
#spiritual#spirituality#witchy#witchblr#witchyvibes#witch#astrology#career astrology#new moon in sagittarius#sagittarius season#astrologer#astrologist#astroforecast#college#9th house#mercury retrograde#mercury in capricorn
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instagram
Along with other anti-imperialist formations across the world, the Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle expresses its solidarity with the Palestinian people and the resistance groups waging armed struggle in the exercise of their right to self-determination.
We call on our members, friends, allies and all freedom loving people to carry out actions of solidarity with the Palestinian people in these days so important to their cause and the global anti-imperialist struggle.
Ever since the start of Zionist colonization at the end of the 19th century – supported by the European colonial powers through Sykes-Picot, the British Mandate, and the United Nations –, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families have lost their homes and livelihoods during the Nakba, millions of Palestinians were forced to become refugees in camps spread across the Middle East and elsewhere, and millions more live under brutal conditions created by the Israeli occupation.
Over the years, we have seen entire generations of Palestinians who were born and died as prisoners in their own land, held hostage by the Israeli occupation force that surrounded and blockaded them, and compelled to watch as more and more Israeli settlers and ultranationalists continued to take what little remained of the land supposedly promised them.
SUPPORT THE PALESTINIAN STRUGGLE AGAINST INJUSTICE
We have seen how Israeli security forces killed those who dared to resist, or incarcerated them without trial or even the semblance of due process.
We have seen how countless unarmed Palestinians, including children, have been murdered or maimed by Israeli bombs and bullets.
We have seen how Israel – armed and financed by the United States and European states – denied the Palestinians their most basic human rights and, through increasingly draconian security policies, dehumanized them and even desecrated their most cherished and holiest sites.
We have seen how, in the name of counter-terrorism, Israel has prevented international aid from reaching occupied Palestinian territories, while designating or persecuting humanitarian workers and human rights defenders as “terrorists”.
We have seen the hypocrisy and racism inherent in the Western governments’ rejection of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination even as this right is celebrated when invoked by other nations.
Everything that we have seen, the Palestinians experienced first-hand. They are a people who, for the longest time, have known nothing but occupation and the cruelty and viciousness of a regime that appears intent to take away from them not just every inch of land, but every shred of dignity they have.
It is therefore not surprising that the Palestinians are fighting back. Against a backdrop of suffering and oppression, we can only see this latest uprising of the Palestinian resistance as a people’s bid to defend their rights and to expel an occupying power from their territories. We cannot expect the Palestinians to simply accept the inhumanity being inflicted on them, or the gradual yet systematic theft of their homeland, or the destruction of their heritage. We cannot expect passivity in the face of such grave injustices.
ROAD TO PEACE – LIBERATION
We must acknowledge that the only road to peace is for Palestine to be liberated from the river to the sea, for the right of return for all Palestinian refugees, and for the world to recognize the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. How ever way the current uprising develops, this will not be the final chapter of the Palestinian struggle for their homeland – not as long as Palestinians are denied their right to return and to freedom. It is a struggle that we must openly embrace and support, cognizant of the history that gave rise to it and the inequity that fuels it.
Long live the Palestinian struggle for return and liberation from the river to the sea!
Victory to the Palestinian people and their heroic resistance!
Long live the bond between the Palestinian and Filipino people – together we will be victorious!
#Palestine#Gaza#Free Palestine#Free Gaza#solidarity#FFPS#international#internationalism#international solidarity#revolution#filipino#diaspora#Instagram
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The Middle Temperocene: 150 million years post-establishment
Skwoid Game: Skwoids of the Middle Temperocene
Among the various and diverse of the marine life populating the seas of HP-02017, few are as intriguing and peculiar as the skwoids: a clade of predominantly-carnivorous mollusks that are a stark example of how everything in this world is not always what it seems.
At first glance, they resemble squids: tentacled, marine swimmers with muscular grasping arms, undulating membranes that propel them through the water, and a distasteful defense mechanism squirted at attackers when harassed. Yet this is where the similarities end, as the skwoids seem not quite right: for one, they have but six tentacles, with a single row of suckers each, their eyes are mounted upon stalks that can swivel and move independently of their bodies, and instead of a snapping avian-esque beak with two hinged parts, prey is instead captured with the aid of a harpoon-like radula, with a barbed tip for spearing its quarry and and a serrated edge to cut up its meal into pieces small enough to swallow. These distinctive traits mark the skwoids as an entirely separate kind of mollusk: for despite appearances, they are actually snails.
Skwoids descended from a group of sea snails called the notiluses: an earlier form, still extant, that developed six muscular extensions of the foot that allowed it to clamber about the sea floor and probe for food on the bottom sediment. Eventually, some of the notiluses began to specialize for speed, agility, and the ability to squeeze into small openings to pursue their prey, and thus abandoned their shells: or rather, internalized them, turning them into a rigid internal rod that supports and gives shape to their soft and elongated bodies.
The majority of skwoid species are oceanic and live out in the opens sea, hunting small crustaceans, shrish and pescopods in the open sea. The epiplagic blue skwoid (Ceruleoteuthis epipelagicus), measuring about a foot in length, is one such typical species, frequenting warmer tropical seas where it frequently occupies the topmost level near the surface. Other skwoids are filter-feeders, and eat mostly plankton, both zooplankton and phytoplankton, such as the broadfin skwish (Pescoteuthis balaenocephalus), a two-foot species with tentacles that clasp together to trap food with pumps of its siphon and small ridges on the edges of its tentacles that act as strainers to filter out the food. Unusually for gastropods, members of the skwish family have surprisingly large and well-developed eyes, as they often gather in deeper, darker waters and thus need better vision to keep watch for predators.
These forms are the most common and abundant of skwoid body plans, but they are far from being the only ones. A vast diversity of them have evolved in the Temperocene, as a warm, flooded world with expanded seas and plenty of new opportunities for marine life proved conducive to their evolution. In the shallow reefs, both coral ones and quillnob ones, prowls a tiny but peculiar clade of hunters: the skwiders. Skwoids, in defense when threatened, secrete threads of stringy mucous secretions to entangle a would-be attacker in a distasteful slimy net while they make their escape. The skwiders, however, found a new use for this defense mechanism: as a trap for catching food. Attaching their mucous threads to gaps and openings in the reefs, skwiders then wait for food to be captured in their gooey webs: typically drifting zooplankton or floating debris. The brown reef skwider (Arachnoteuthis mucodomus), however, targets bigger game: shrish, pescopods, and even other skwoids its size or larger. Drawing in its prey with wiggling motions of its tentacles or side fins, its duped victims soon find themselves ensnared in the sticky net, at which point the skwider delivers a dose of paralyzing digestive enzyme using its spearlike radula to immobilize its prey, before cocooning it in more mucous threads to save for later.
Others frequent the deep regions of the ocean floor, where all surface detritus settles to be consumed by waiting scavengers of all clades and species, typically organic debris and waste but occasionally the bounty of cricetacean carcasses that sink to the depths after death. Here is the domain of the great abyssal skwoid (Megalocochleoteuthis gigas): at nearly four meters long, it is the largest living skwoid species, and not a very picky eater. Large bottom-dwelling shrish, even the predatory shrarks, are easily felled by its harpoon radula, and it does not hesitate to scavenge the debris that sink in from above, or prey upon the scavengers themselves that gather for the feast, only to become a meal themselves. Its undulating membranes are partly subdivided into a set of powerful pseudo-flippers, making this species a strong, if somewhat slow, swimmer, capable of traversing large distances in search of concentrations of prey.
While most species of skwoids live in the sea, a few have colonized freshwater environments as well: swimming up rivers and into lakes where they adjusted to life in the murky shallows full of sediment and water plants, and new sources of food unlike the ones out in the sea. Some, such as the green reedeye (Potamoteuthis esoxmimus) have become medium-sized freshwater predators built for speed, with reduced internal rods and more flexible bodies to undulate their bodies in a more piscine manner to pursue freshwater shrish and pescopods and even small, semi-aquatic hamsters they can catch. Other species, like the marsh croctopus (Suchoteuthis macrops), are ambush hunters in murky waters with abundant vegetation for cover. With mottled markings for camouflage and well-developed eyes that can extend above the water and watch for movement above the surface, the croctopus lies in wait, for any small creature to move within striking distance, often shrish or pescopods, but also basal pondrats, distant kin of the cricetaceans filling niches of the likes of otters and beavers, and at times even small terrestrial animals that come near the water to drink.
But perhaps the most remarkable in the entire skwoid family are those within the freshwater clades that have made a further step into a new frontier: onto land. This was encouraged by a vacancy of amphibian niches with all fauna being either terrestrial, secondarily-aquatic, or fully marine. The transitional, no-mans land between water and land remained mostly empty, and so some opportunistic skwoids, escaping the water to flee predators including other, larger skwoids, made their first tentative steps to an amphibious lifestyle: the squoads.
Squoads, such as the littoral squoad (Bufoteuthis amphibius) are still heavily tied to water: their bodies need to remain moist, and their eggs need to be laid in water. However, they can survive on land for days at a time, able to breathe using a highly-vascularized chamber of their mantle cavity that functions much like a primitive lung of sorts. Their tentacles have shortened and thickened into spring-like limb-analogues, allowing them to ambulate by hopping, and their spear-like radula proves quite useful at flicking out to catch small invertebrates. Their primary constraint, however, is their lack of internal support: their modified tentacles lack bones, and thus are unable to support greater weight, while their lung-analogue is only sufficient to sustain smaller bodies. As such, squoads find greater success being very small, with the largest species weighing no more than 400 grams in weight.
While not quite the land's new pioneers, with their physical constraints and abundant vertebrate competition, the squoads are still an evolutionary success, gradually growing in prominence in areas where water meets land, in damp, moist regions where few other animals are vying for niches. In the Middle Temperocene, where diversity is abound and change is constant, an unusual family of snails, oddly but the second to dominate the land, has found a stable little place for itself in a transitional space, where nature abhors a vaccuum: and something always evolves to fill it.
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A GERMAN sea captain faces a 20-year prison sentence for helping to rescue more than 1,000 migrants at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean Sea.
Pia Klemp, one of just a handful of female boat captains, warned that “sea rescue missions have become criminalised” as she vowed to fight her case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
She is the latest victim of the far-right Italian government’s crackdown on desperate migrants trying to reach Europe by sea, which has seen those engaging in humanitarian rescue missions charged with “assisting illegal immigration.”
Ms Klemp captained the Iuventa, along with the Sea Watch III rescue ship, and her efforts have saved more than 1,000 migrants from a possible watery grave while attempting the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean.
She explained that her actions are lawful and protected by the 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea.
According to its article 98, “every state shall require the master of a ship” to “render assistance to any person found at sea in danger of being lost” and “proceed with all possible speed to the rescue of persons in distress.”
A coalition of Green Pirate and independent MEPs at the European Parliament tweeted in support of Ms Klemp yesterday.
"Our group sends solidarity to Pia Klemp – a German boat captain – & Domenico Lucano – the former Mayor of Riace, both being accused in #Italy of ‘aiding illegal immigration’.
“People saving lives and showing solidarity to refugees & migrants must not be criminalised! #FreePia.”
Scott Ainslie, the new Green MEP for London, told the Star: “That someone who from the highest humanitarian motives has been acting to save lives should be facing jail for that action is scandalous.
“She was acting according to long-established rules of the sea, helping people in deadly peril, and showing human care and concern far above the ordinary.
“I was proud to stand with my colleagues in the Greens/EFA group in the parliament holding signs supporting the campaign for her to be freed. I urge Londoners, and all Britons, to back the campaign.”
Between 15,000 and 20,000 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean since 2014, according to the International Organisation for Migration.
Many were fleeing war, persecution and extreme exploitation.
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This is a move on petition calling for an end to the USA funding Israel’s military.
Here is the message in full.
Every ten minutes, a child is killed by Israeli military airstrikes led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza. This means that every ten minutes, there is a child who will never get to fulfill their dreams. A child who will never get to fulfill their childhood, their teenage years, or their adult years, and a family that will never get to watch their kid grow up.
And it’s not just children, over 16,000 Palestinians (70% of whom are women and children) have been killed including and tens of thousands injured in Gaza by PM Netanyahu’s escalating military campaign of airstrikes (and violations of international law) targeting and bombing civilians in refugee camps, hospitals, homes, mosques, churches, and schools.
Did you know that our U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used to fund the relentless bombing of Palestinian civilians? It’s heartbreaking and wrong, and we can do something about it.
Will you join in solidarity and sign the petition to say NO to using our tax dollars to kill and bomb Palestinians?
Why is this important?
PM Netanyahu and his far-right government are leading a campaign of indiscriminate bombardment, breaking international law both by targeting civilians and using white phosphorus on civilian populations. These attacks have exacerbated the existing humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli government’s air, land, and sea blockade that has caused catastrophic loss of life.
The reality is that the United States government is Israel’s largest supplier of weapons, and every year for the next five years, the U.S. is already sending $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel. And on top of this, the Biden administration proposed sending an additional $14 billion of taxpayer dollars in military aid, which will include military weapons including bombs and tens of thousands of 155mm artillery shells, which have been the Israeli military’s weapon of choice in their ground invasion of Gaza.
More than 1,200 Israelis were killed in the Hamas attacks on October 7 and 240 taken hostage. The brutal response and incessant airstrikes launched by Netanyahu following the Hamas attacks have not only escalated the violence, they have created an unprecedented humanitarian crisis with one in 200 Palestinians having been killed in Gaza by PM Netanyahu’s military since October 7. Entire multi-generational Palestinian families have been killed. Entire lineages have been wiped out.
Nearly half of Gaza's residents are under the age of 16, and 65% are under the age of 25, effectively meaning that Palestinian children are bearing the brunt of the Israeli government’s collective punishment.
This unacceptable, inhumane, unjust, collective punishment is also a violation of international law. It must end now.
Despite the fact that the Israeli government has cut off fuel, water, and electricity from people in Gaza, doctors and nurses are still doing the best they can to treat their patients. Unfortunately, though, more than half of the 30 hospitals in Gaza have been forced to close, and many have run out of necessary medical supplies like anesthesia and painkillers. And many hospitals have been targeted and bombed by Israeli military airstrikes.
50,000 pregnant women and people are at great risk in Gaza too with miscarriages, premature births, and stillbirths tripling.One mother, Hind S., almost gave birth to her baby under the rubble in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike before she was dug out and rushed to a hospital where her baby was born with a broken leg from the airstrike. These are only some of the horror stories that have come from PM Netanyahu’s bombardment of Palestinians. We have to stop this.
A United Nations human rights expert has even confirmed that Palestinians are facing mass ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Israeli government and occupation forces. United States leaders have the massive power to step in and stop it.
If we come together, we can make a huge difference. Our collective calls for a ceasefire are working, and demanding that our tax dollars won’t be used to bomb civilians is another big step that we can take. And the time is NOW to come together and demand it.
Will you add your name to the petition?
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It is difficult to communicate the level of Ukrainians’ affection for Americans and gratitude for American support that one experiences here. They know how important our help is. They know that we’ve given them — to a far greater extent than any other nation — the tools and resources to repel a vicious invasion. Moreover, our strategy has largely worked. Ukraine defeated Russia’s initial attempt to take Kyiv. It has pushed Russia back from Kharkiv. It has retaken Kherson. It has apparently stopped the most recent Russian offensive.
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This is primarily a Ukrainian story, of course. We know from bitter experience that we can supply “allies” with billions of dollars of American weapons, only to watch them collapse in the face of a determined attack. But Ukrainian valor and resolve are breathtaking. Most Ukrainians I’ve talked to since arriving don’t say “after the war”; they say “after the victory.” But this is also an American story, and at the risk of sounding a bit corny, when I watched the air defenses we helped build intercept Russian hypersonic missiles above Kyiv, I felt proud to be an American.
Columnist David French at the New York Times who wrote this piece in Kyiv.
US assistance to Ukraine is the most positive direct US foray into international relations since the 1978 Camp David Accords.
Ukraine does not rely entirely on aid from abroad to preserve its independence. After Putin's illegal annexation of Crimea and the start of the Russia-instigated war in Donbas in 2014, Ukraine accelerated development of its own arms industry.
Recently RFE/RL did a report on Ukraine's locally developed Furia reconnaissance drones.
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Perhaps the most famous homegrown Ukrainian weapons system is the R-360 Neptune missile. Last year an R-360 sank the Moskva, the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet.
The R-360 and Furia are two of many military products developed in Ukraine.
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As Russia raises the stakes with increased missile attacks, Ukraine still needs more advanced systems to repel the invaders and end the war sooner. And the war won't truly end until Russia returns to its internationally recognized borders.
#invasion of ukraine#ukrainian valor#david french#weapons systems#furia#r-360#us aid to ukraine#russia#vladimir putin#war of aggression#stand with ukraine#системы вооружения#україна#українська доблесть#россия#владимир путин#путин хуйло#американська військова допомога україні#збройна промисловість україни#фурія#р-360#вторгнення оркостану в україну#будь сміливим як україна#україна переможе#україна – круто!#після перемоги#слава україні!#героям слава!#Youtube
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As global outrage grows over Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip, China has focused on harnessing the widening divide between Washington’s and the global south’s stances on the war to boost Beijing’s own foreign-policy ambitions.
Over the course of the Israel-Hamas war, China has been careful to stay on the sidelines, wary of miring itself in a spiraling conflict or jeopardizing its regional ties. But as Washington faces fierce pushback over its support of Israel, Beijing has also seized the opportunity to align itself with the so-called global south—a collection of dozens of countries, including Brazil, India, South Africa, and Pakistan—which has overwhelmingly condemned Israel’s actions, sharply diverging from the U.S. position.
China is “mostly hanging back and letting the United States collect abuse,” said Jon Alterman, the director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The only interest China’s pursuing in the Middle East is watching while a larger division opens between the U.S. and large parts of the global south,” he added.
From the beginning, China’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war has been characterized by caution. Chinese President Xi Jinping, for example, waited nearly two weeks before weighing in after Hamas’s initial Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, while early government statements refrained from even naming Hamas—a response that angered Israeli officials. In the months since, China has positioned itself as a peacemaker, calling for a cease-fire and a Palestinian state without going so far as to directly involve itself in the conflict.
China has “clearly eschewed any substantive role in the ongoing conflict,” Patricia Kim, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Foreign Policy in an email. While Beijing wants to portray itself as a regional power broker, she said, “it has zero interest in serving as a security provider or directly intervening in challenging situations that might jeopardize its relationships in the region.”
These dynamics are evident in the Red Sea, where months of Houthi attacks against commercial shipping, undertaken in what the Houthis describe as solidarity with Palestinians, have disrupted global trade. Yet even as a growing number of countries dispatch ships to safeguard the corridor, China has resisted intervening with its own naval forces. The furthest Beijing has gone in getting involved is privately pressing Iran—which backs the Houthis—to step in, Reuters reported, although Iranian officials have denied the reports.
Beijing’s approach stands in sharp contrast to that of Washington, which has not only long been one of Israel’s staunchest supporters since the nation’s start, backing the country with billions in military aid, but has also acted as the country’s primary defender on the international stage since the war began, wielding the United States’ veto on the United Nations Security Council to block resolutions backed by dozens of countries—including many in the global south, as well as China—calling for a cease-fire. The Biden administration has also taken action in the Red Sea, launching strikes against the Houthis in Yemen and mobilizing an international task force to help ensure freedom of navigation in the corridor.
Yet as Israel’s military campaign in Gaza inflicts a devastating humanitarian toll—Israeli forces have killed as many as 26,000 Palestinians in Gaza since the beginning of the war, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry—much of the world has grown increasingly frustrated with, and disillusioned by, Washington’s unwavering support for Israel. More than half a million people in Gaza currently face “catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity,” the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warned in December.
And Beijing has been trying to capitalize on the divide. “They feel that this is going to further undermine the U.S. in the eyes of the rest of the world, in the parts of the world that they care about,” said Eric Olander, the co-founder of the China Global South Project. “This plays right into their strategy for the Chinese—to show how isolated the Americans are, to show how they’re out of sync with the rest of the world, and just show the hypocrisy of the Americans.”
“The Chinese are playing this, in my view, quite skillfully in terms of pursuing their own foreign policy and promoting some of the values that they’re trying to say about the shortcomings of the U.S-led international order,” he added.
As part of this strategy, China has publicly framed itself as a peacemaker, proposing a five-point peace plan and calling for a Israeli-Palestinian peace conference. In October, Beijing dispatched its regional envoy to Qatar and Egypt to urge a cease-fire; since then, it has pledged some $4 million in humanitarian aid to Gaza, hosted a delegation of Arab and Muslim ministers, and participated in a virtual summit of the BRICS bloc (then comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) over the conflict.
“China has been working tirelessly to promote the cessation of hostilities and the restoration of peace,” Chinese U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun said at a Security Council briefing during the first month of the war. “China will continue to stand on the side of international fairness and justice, on the side of international law, and on the side of the legitimate aspirations of the Arab and Islamic world.”
During his broader tour of Africa in January, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also leveraged his trip to Egypt—one of the mediators in the Israel-Hamas war—to reiterate calls for a cease-fire and Palestinian state.
Yet experts say that Beijing’s actions are mostly performative, resulting in few concrete outcomes. The November BRICS summit, for one, failed to generate a joint statement or practical road map forward, as Mark Leonard of the European Council on Foreign Relations noted in Foreign Affairs. China’s proposed peace plan also charged the U.N. Security Council—and not Beijing—with the responsibility of resolving the conflict, according to the Brookings Institution.
China’s seriousness on mediating the Israel-Hamas war is just “smoke and mirrors,” wrote Ahmed Aboudouh, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, in December, citing “the opaqueness of China’s diplomatic language and the insignificant sum of money provided by the world’s second-largest economy” to Gaza.
Rather than miring itself in the conflict, Beijing has focused on making digs at Washington and contrasting the two countries’ positions, part of its bid to cast doubt on the Biden administration’s global credibility. These efforts have been on full display at the U.N. Security Council, where China vetoed a U.S. draft resolution in October after criticizing it for not calling for a cease-fire; Russia also vetoed the resolution.
The United States “introduced a new draft resolution that set aside the consensus of the members,” Zhang said. Even after other council members—including Beijing—proposed amendments, he said, Washington ignored their “major concerns” and introduced a draft resolution that “confuses right and wrong.”
Later in December, after Washington vetoed a Security Council draft resolution pushing for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, Beijing again leveraged the vote to position itself alongside the global south and single out Washington’s position. As one of the resolution’s nearly 100 co-sponsors, Beijing felt “great disappointment and regret that the draft has been vetoed by the US,” Zhang said. “All this shows once again what [a] double standard is.”
State media echoed these sentiments, further drawing attention to the diverging U.S. and Chinese positions. “It is contradictory to tolerate the continuation of the conflict while claiming to care about the safety and humanitarian needs of the people in Gaza,” the Global Times said, referring to the U.S. veto. “It is self-deceptive to advocate preventing the spillover of the conflict while tolerating its continuation.”
More recently, Beijing has also aligned itself with the global south in one of the clearest cases of outrage over Israel’s actions: South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Although the ICJ has no way to enforce its rulings, South Africa’s case reflects the growing international pressure building against Israel, which has dismissed the charges as “false” and “outrageous.”
While the ICJ has not yet ruled on the question of whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and likely won’t do so for years, last Friday, it responded to South Africa’s request for the court to command an emergency suspension of Israel’s military campaign. In its ruling, the ICJ ordered Israel to “take all measures” to minimize harm to civilians in Gaza.
After the decision was announced, Chinese state media expressed hope that it would push “some major countries to stop turning a blind eye” to Israel’s actions in Gaza. The Biden administration, in contrast, reiterated its position that Pretoria’s genocide allegations were “unfounded,” although it also said the ICJ ruling was in line with its own calls for Israel to ensure civilians’ safety.
China has long prioritized cultivating political and economic ties with countries across the global south, with Wang, the foreign minister, most recently wrapping up his first foreign trip of 2024 by visiting Egypt, Tunisia, Togo, and Ivory Coast. His trip marks the 34th straight year that a Chinese foreign minister has made Africa the destination of their first global trip of the year; Wang traveled to Brazil and Jamaica afterward.
“China decided to treat Israel as collateral damage, compared to more than 50 countries in the global south,” said Aboudouh, the Atlantic Council expert. “China wants these countries’ support for its own vision—for global governance and its strategic priorities.”
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This day in history
I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TOMORROW (Apr 17) in CHICAGO, then Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!
#20yrsago Mickey Mouse’s dwindling brand https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/18/arts/film-building-a-better-mouse.html
#15yrsago Wired publishes documents detailing the FBI’s spyware https://www.wired.com/2009/04/fbi-spyware-pro/
#15yrsago Gorilla-viewing glasses prevent eye-contact https://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/no-eye-contact-glasses/
#15yrsago Man assaulted by police during G20 died from internal bleeding, not heart-attack http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8004222.stm
#15yrsago Sales booming in remote-kill devices for cars sold to poor credit-risks https://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/04/17/aa.bills.shut.engine.down/index.html
#15yrsago Canadian Members of Parliament voting records (finally) online https://web.archive.org/web/20090419144031/http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/620435
#15yrsago Jokes from the Cultural Revolution https://thechinabeat.blogspot.com/2009/04/jokes-from-great-proletarian-cultural.html
#15yrsago Swedish Pirate Party membership surges after Pirate Bay verdict https://web.archive.org/web/20090420055230/http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=n&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpress.piratpartiet.se%2F2009%2F04%2F17%2Finternet-kokar-piratpartiet-har-nu-fler-medlemmar-an-fp%2F&sl=sv&tl=en
#15yrsago Google Book Search settlement gives Google a virtual monopoly over literature https://memex.craphound.com/2009/04/17/google-book-search-settlement-gives-google-a-virtual-monopoly-over-literature/
#15yrsago Bruce Sterling’s “White Fungus” — architecture fiction for rising seas and the econopocalypse https://web.archive.org/web/20090420053737/http://www.sunarchitecture.nl/upload/49d601a8ba4b25.51434338.pdf
#10yrsago Video: Bart Gellman and me opening for Ed Snowden at SXSW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mltClsxsJw4
#10yrsago UK Tory MP who helped kill Legal Aid is wiped out by defending himself against sexual assault claim https://web.archive.org/web/20140414232920/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/130000-poorer-in-fees-nigel-evans-admits-regret-for-past-support-of-legal-aid-cuts-9259579.html
#5yrsago “A Message From the Future”: short film about the “Green New Deal Decade,” narrated by AOC, drawn by Molly Crabapple, presented by Naomi Klein https://theintercept.com/2019/04/17/green-new-deal-short-film-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/
#5yrsago Canadian Civil Liberties Association sues Toronto, Ontario, and Canada over the plan for a Google Sidewalk Labs “smart city” in Toronto https://www.vice.com/en/article/gy4bgj/canada-is-getting-sued-over-sidewalk-labs-smart-city-in-toronto
#5yrsago Ecuadorean authorities have unjustly arrested free software developer Ola Bini as part of their Assange dragnet https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/free-ola-bini
#5yrsago Bernie Sanders outraised every other Democrat in North Carolina https://amp.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article229277549.html #5yrsago What it’s like to watch someone you love fall down the Fox News rabbit-hole https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/i-gathered-stories-of-people-transformed-by-fox-news.html
#5yrsago When Rivers Were Trails: an indigenous take on Oregon Trail https://indianlandtenure.itch.io/when-rivers-were-trails
#5yrsago As the EU Copyright Directive was approved, Germany admitted it requires copyright filters, putting it on a collision course with the EU-Canada trade deal https://memex.craphound.com/2019/04/17/as-the-eu-copyright-directive-was-approved-germany-admitted-it-requires-copyright-filters-putting-it-on-a-collision-course-with-the-eu-canada-trade-deal/
#5yrsago London cops switch off wifi in the tube to make it harder for climate protesters to organise https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/17/18411820/london-underground-tube-wi-fi-down-shut-off-protests-extinction-rebellion
#5yrsago Republican lawmaker who dared AOC to come visit coal miners in his constituency gets scared, withdraws offer https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1118181129213943815
#5yrsago Lulzy Instagram memers are organizing a deadly serious trade union https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/instagram-memers-are-unionizing/587308/
#5yrsago Denver suburb officially changes name from “Swastika Acres” to “Old Cherry Hills” https://www.denverpost.com/2019/04/16/swastika-acres-renamed/
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A friend of mine who follows international developments closely recently observed that the United States and Israel have “own goaled” themselves to become widely perceived as together the two most evil governments on earth. It is a judgement that is hard to disagree with regarding the Jewish state if one examines the abundant evidence that Israel is systematically committing war crimes against the largely unarmed Palestinian civilian population in an effort to bring about ethnic cleansing or even genocide in Gaza and on the West Bank. The process would include removing the Palestinians physically and/or killing them if they resist, which is what is currently taking place. Something like 10,000 dead Palestinian children attest to the brutality and inhumanity of the effort, together with nearly 400 doctors and nurses who were directly targeted plus more than 100 UN employees trying to bring aid to the civilians. What Israel is doing in monstrous, almost unimaginable. A number of senior Israeli officials have confirmed their government’s view, supported by public opinion, that a land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea swept clean of Arabs would be the most desirable outcome of current developments.
The United States is at the same time loathed alongside Israel because it is enabling the slaughter by the Israelis while simultaneously spewing the lies that it is somehow restraining or even making somehow more “humanitarian” Israel’s attack. Nothing could be farther from the truth as the White House recently worked hard to defang a major UN-led diplomatic effort that had global support to bring about a ceasefire that would enable emergency relief supplies to be introduced into the battered enclave. Instead, Israel now continues its daily bombardment of Gaza and controls entering supplies, slowing the process down while watching people die of famine and disease, not to mention from artillery shells and bombs. Oh, and the United States both funds the Israeli war effort and supplies the munitions that make it all possible. That makes Washington an accessory to the war crimes and to what most of the world considers to be a genocide being perpetrated openly and with malice.
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