news

Someone get me that quote of Hitler underestimating the USSR with source, please. I need that quote where he was shocked at how well the Soviet Union worked, with new towns, factories, and railways in less time than it took to draw maps.

My least favorite word right now is "combing". Check out these headlines...

• "Israeli commandos combing through Gaza's Al Shifa hospital -military official"

• "Israel-Palestine war: Israel withdraws from Al-Shifa hospital after raiding & combing through it"

• "Israeli commandos combing through Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital: official"

Lion sleeps it off after Saturday stroll through Italian town

A lion that escaped from an Italian circus has been taking well-deserved naps to recover from a Saturday night out in the seaside town of Ladispoli that sparked panic before authorities managed to recapture him.

The adult lion, named "Kimba", escaped from the "Rony Roller" circus on Saturday afternoon and was on the loose for around seven hours before he was sedated with an aesthetic dart.

"What happened is very strange...All we can say is that a lion does not have the ability to open a latch and break a lock," Rony Vassallo, the animal supervisor and trainer at the circus told Reuters.

In a Facebook post on Monday, local mayor Alessandro Grando wrote that he would ask council experts to check if there were legal grounds to revoke the permits for the "Rony Roller" circus. The travelling circus was scheduled to stay in Ladipsoli between Nov. 9-19.

Some locals expressed solidarity with Kimba. "I am sorry, because it is in prison. It should be in its environment, the savannah," said Ladispoli resident Giuseppe Altavilla.

I get the feeling somebody intentionally liberated the poor guy. Hope the circus gets shut down.

Is a democratic capitalist society not a contradiction?

The entire principle of democracy is the notion of 1 person=1 voice, but the entire principle of capitalism is that capital motivates everyone and some people will have more capital than others.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/11/cia-connected-private-equity-to-buy-italys-critical-communications-infrastructure.html

empire slowly eats garden

The IOF raises a flag on its successful campaign against hospitals: https://nitter.cz/jennineak/status/1724808094834888935

This legal advocacy group appears to be suing Biden for failure to prevent genocide, "Seek Emergency Order to Stop Military and Diplomatic Support for Israeli Government’s Assault on Gaza"

Biden, Blinken, and Austin, as outlined in the complaint, are sued in their official capacity for failing to prevent an unfolding genocide where they have influence over the State of Israel to do so, and directly abetting its development with weapons, funds, and diplomatic cover, in breach of duties enshrined in the Genocide Convention and customary international law. The filing is accompanied by a declaration from the leading legal expert on genocide, William Schabas, who identifies features of the Israeli government’s statements, deadly military assault, and total siege as signs of genocide and affirms the United States’ breach of its legal duty to prevent genocide. A separate expert declaration by the genocide and Holocaust scholars Drs. John Cox, Victoria Sanford, and Barry Trachtenberg, explains how the genocidal intentions and actions of Israeli leadership resemble other genocides in recent history.

The complaint, which seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, cites the U.S. government’s unconditional support for Israel as it bombs the people of Gaza and deprives them of food, water, and other necessities. The complaint states that even the crimes committed by the military wing of Hamas on October 7th that killed an estimated 1,200 Israeli people, including many civilians, and kidnapped 240, cannot legally justify the forms of targeting an entire population and collective punishment meted out by the Israeli government, let alone genocide.

and this seems to make it notable:

The United States has a duty under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention to prevent and punish acts of genocide, an obligation the U.S. Congress made law in 1988 when it ratified the Convention and passed the Genocide Convention Implementation Act (18 U.S.C. § 1091). The duty to prevent is heightened given the United States’ considerable influence on Israel. The Biden administration, plaintiffs say, is not merely failing to prevent Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, it is actively abetting it. From the start of the bombing, Biden has repeatedly reaffirmed, through word and deed, “unwavering” U.S. support.

Courts have identified the providing of weapons and other materials to the perpetrators of genocide as a form of complicity. To be culpable, the provider need not share the recipients’ genocidal intent.

https://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/palestinians-sue-biden-failure-prevent-genocide-seek-emergency

Bad, Divisive Messaging 🚫: Joe Biden is corresponsible for Israel's crime of genocide against the Palestinian people. He is a war criminal who has lost my vote, ceasefire now!

Constructive, Helpful Messaging ✅️: Joe Biden, the most left wing president of all time, should support 4-hour humanitarian pauses for air strikes against Gazan households with at least one Pell Grant recipient. I will vote for him no matter what.

Edit

I started a thread - The Israelis are forcing Al-Shifa hospital to close and they are forcing everybody in the complex to leave. - Hexbear

Via Middle East Spectator Telegram:

— 🇮🇷 Iran's Fatah-1 Hypersonic Ballistic Missile (left) and Fatah-2 Hypersonic Cruise Missile (right)

Iran is now one of only three countries in the world to have successfully developed such missile technology.

The missiles have a maximum speed of Mach 25 in the final stage, and are capable of exo-atmospheric and inter-atmospheric maneuvering to avoid terminal ABM systems, such as THAAD. Their max ranges are approximately 1400 to 2000 KM.

The only two other countries that currently have hypersonic missiles in service are Russia and China.

@Middle_East_Spectator

Casualties mount in attack on Gaza school

Witnesses have told Al Jazeera that dozens of people have been killed and another 100 people injured in an attack on al-Falah School in the Zeitoun neighbourhood south of Gaza City. We still do not have firm casualty numbers.

The strike on the school, which was sheltering thousands of displaced people, took place last night, but the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza said it only learned of it this morning due to a blackout of telecommunications services in the Strip.

there's this Zionist YouTuber who's a Canadian-South African-Israeli. settler colonial final boss.

You'll never see a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

The most blessed things i know about iceland: women did a strike over domestic work 50 years ago and they dunked on uk by threatenning to pull down nato installations in cod wars. So nato was antibritish force (once)

The reactionary propensity for noncery is creating problems for Denmark's succdem-led right-wing government. Mike Fonseca, a 28 year old MP for "The Moderates" has been kicked out of his party and taken six months' sick leave from parliament following public uproar over his admission to have a 15 year old "girlfriend". In Denmark the age of consent is 15 and thus far there is no direct admission of a crime although Fonseca has broken internal party rules against having sexual relations with minors under the age of 18.

When Fonseca returns to parliament it will be as a non-inscrit and no other party is likely to accept him in their parliamentary group. The succdem-led right-wing government still has the support of three of the four MP's from Greenland and the Faroes and thus still has a majority backing it but as these four MP's usually does not vote on internal Danish matters, the combined left and right opposition now outnumbers the government who will now have to get the support of at least one other party to pass new legislation. This is only a minor nuisance for them though and previous legislation has been passed with the support of several opposition parties.

"The Moderates" is an astroturfed centrist/neoliberal party created in 2021 by former liberal party prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen. It's main purpose is to keep Rasmussen's grifts and political career going and it's voters are mainly people who wants to vote for the right wing without feeling bad about it. It's MP's is a motley crew of C-list politicians and liberal village idiots. Previously one MP was forced to resign following revelations of corruption and sexual harassment and another had to resign after being caught lying about being a successful business man.

This is not the first prominent case of noncery in Danish politics. In 2008 the then 34 year old succdem politicians Jeppe Kofod resigned from his posts after it was revealed that he had sex with a 15 year old member of the succdem youth organisation who had previously been his intern in parliament during a party seminar. Some accounts of the incident suggests that the relationship was not fully consensual but the story was quickly hushed up by the party. Kofod is a long-term ally of current prime minister Mette Frederiksen and he quickly rebounded and went on to have a career in the European Parliament and later as foreign minister from 2019 to 2022.

Norm won’t stop lmao

"99% Hitler" is currently trending on Twitter, and Twitter knows what's up.

The media: "The IDF says there are tunnels under the Al-Shifa Hospital complex. We have not been able to confirm the tunnels."

What next?

"The IDF says Mr. Hamas, Osama bin Laden's reanimated zombie corpse, is under the Al-Shifa Hospital complex. We have not been able to confirm Mr. Hamas, Osama bin Laden's reanimated zombie corpse..."

Israel’s raid at al-Shifa Hospital show limits of US influence

John Kirby reiterated what US President Joe Biden said on Monday – that hospitals should be protected.

We know that on Tuesday, the Israeli military completely ignored what Biden had to say and went ahead with the raid on the main hospital complex in Gaza.

It really does underscore that even as the US is supporting – not just in spirit, but also militarily in billions of dollars annually – Israel’s “defence”, as they call it, the Israelis are really proceeding against the wishes, sometimes, of the United States.

Meanwhile, there’s enormous pressure on the president. There’s no question about it. We’re hearing more and more dissent inside the Biden administration, growing ever louder.

And the new poll shows the American public echo that. Their support for Israel was initially, at the start of this conflict, at 41 percent. It’s now just 32 percent of Americans backing what Israel is doing in Gaza.

political analysis of a clown. Biden's just a smol bean and they're ignoring him, he's trying his best :(

from 2 days ago, while I'm doing anti-Deutsche aktion

EXCLUSIVE: German broadcasting network ARD has been accused of censorship following its decision to pull a scheduled broadcast of Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir’s 2017 feature Wajib due to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The film’s German co-producer Titus Kreyenberg told Deadline that Wajib had been due to air this Sunday (November 19), with the programming slot set for months and already announced in TV listings.

“It’s been taken off the schedule. Internally, we were told that it was decided that this was not the time to show a Palestinian film,” said Kreyenberg who works under the banner of Berlin and Cologne-based Unafilm with recent credits including Octopus Skin and A Woman.

Ghassan Abu Sitta, a doctor in Gaza

No longer able to provide surgeries at Ahli Hosp. The hospital is now effectively a first aid station. Hundreds of wounded now at hospital with no access to surgery. They will die from their wounds

Nitter

Not sure if anybody has posted this, the megathread has been kind of unreliable for me the past few days and upvotes don't seem to stick.

Some of the better direct infantry confrontation videos I've seen out of Gaza. No vehicles, IOF going house to house and getting got by resistance fighters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tolcDJfyqtU

I'm sure the video is cherry picked but it's curious that there's no return fire from the IOF. Matches what that interviewed pair of fighters were saying, that the IOF just runs when they try to confront them.

Will the Guardian put Bin Laden’s letter back up now that it’s turned out that “TikTok Terrorist Sympathizers Trending” was a Zionist invention?

Did the IDF just take down their al-Shifa tour video? Can't find it anymore.

The Occupation Commits a Genocide at Al-Shifa Hospital with a Green Light from the United States.

What is happening in Al-Shifa Medical Complex, which has turned into a military barracks where the occupation’s tanks and snipers are spread, is beyond imagination. Crimes include blocking access to the hospital’s pharmacy to get medicine for patients, resulting in the death of many, theft of the bodies of martyrs, and imposing catastrophic conditions of lack of water, food, and medicine on the thousands in the hospital, including patients, displaced people, and medical staff. This is a systematic genocide of everyone inside the hospital, occurring under the watch of the whole world.

We hold President Biden and his administration directly responsible for the ethnic cleansing crime carried out by the occupation in Al-Shifa Hospital, and for the brutal crimes against children, women, and unarmed civilians who are facing genocide in all areas of the Gaza Strip, with the cover and support of the U.S. administration.

Islamic Resistance Movement - Hamas
Friday: 03 Jumada al-Awwal 1445H
Corresponding: November 17, 2023

from https://t.me/PalestineResist/19819

How's it going anglo island

Disability groups hit out at government's austerity age plans to dock benefits

DISABILITY groups accused the government today of seeking to penalise people who cannot work after ministers set out plans to dock benefits from claimants who refuse to take jobs offered to them.

Under the proposals, free prescriptions and legal aid will denied to benefit claimants deemed fit to work who do not seek employment.

The measure is a part of a £2.5 billion back-to-work plan that is supposed to help up more than one million claimants find and stay in employment.

Among those targeted are people with long-term health conditions and disabilities and the long-term unemployed.

Mandatory work placement trials will be introduced, meaning that claimants will be forced to accept a job or undertake work experience to improve their prospects. Those who fail to do so will be hit with “immediate sanction.”

Campaigners warned that the proposals would hit people who are unable to work.

National disability charity Sense demanded that the government scrap its “deeply flawed proposals” for changes to the assessment process.

Sense head of policy Sarah White said: “The fact these changes are again being floated ahead of next week’s Autumn Statement will cause huge anxiety for disabled people up and down the country.

“Tightening the work capability assessment would have a severe financial impact on disabled people, at a time when Sense’s new research has shown more than half of disabled people are already in debt because of the cost-of-living crisis.

“And while everyone should be able to work if they want to, if the assessment process is overhauled without any additional job-hunting support being put in place, then disabled people are just going to be put under more pressure to find work without having the help and equipment they need to do so.”

Ms White said that if the government was truly serious about getting more disabled people into work, it should abandon “headline-grabbing plans to penalise disabled people and instead invest in lasting change.”

Linda Burnip of Disabled People Against Cuts said: “These proposals would be hugely detrimental for disabled people and would worsen both people’s physical and mental health.

“The details so far are also very confusing and unclear, but coupled with the planned increasing sanctions regime, it could mean many disabled people will be pushed into complete destitution.”