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www.democracynow.org Israeli Reporter Amira Hass on Palestine & the Role of Journalism to Fight “Normalization of Evil”

Our guest is the Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass, the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent 30 years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. She is the recipient of the 2024 Columbia Journalism Award, and on Wednesday she addressed the graduating class of the Columbia Journalism...

Israeli Reporter Amira Hass on Palestine & the Role of Journalism to Fight “Normalization of Evil”

Our guest is the Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass, the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent 30 years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. She is the recipient of the 2024 Columbia Journalism Award, and on Wednesday she addressed the graduating class of the Columbia Journalism School in New York City. Hass discusses the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, why journalists should “resist the normalization of evil and injustice,” Israel’s recent censorship of Al Jazeera, its maintenance of a strict apartheid system, its complete rejection of the prospect of Palestinian statehood and more. “Israel took Palestinian life, liberty and freedom as hostage for the past 75 years,” says Hass. “You go to Tel Aviv, you think you are in New York or you are in London — and 40, 50 kilometers away, Palestinians live in cages.” We also play an excerpt from the student and faculty-led “People’s Graduation” held Thursday at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City in response to Columbia University’s crackdown on student protest, which culminated in the administration’s cancellation of university-wide commencement. Centering Palestinian solidarity, the People’s Graduation featured speakers including the Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist and illustrator Mona Chalabi, who praised the work of student journalists. While “our institutions have failed us these past seven months, … we listened to your radio stations if we wanted the truth,” she said.

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morningstaronline.co.uk Ocalan calls for Kurdish action on Isis

The imprisoned PKK leader has urged for resistance against Isis militants in Syria

Ocalan calls for Kurdish action on Isis

The imprisoned PKK leader has urged for resistance against Isis militants in Syria.

Mr Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence on a prison island near Istanbul, issued the call to arms through his lawyer Mazlum Dinc.

“I call on all Kurdish people to start an all-out resistance against this high-intensity war,” he declared.

“Not only the people of Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) but also all people in the north (Turkey) and other parts of Kurdistan should act accordingly.”

The Isis offensive against the northern Syrian city of Kobane, defended by the YPG Kurdish local self-defence forces, has driven 130,000 refugees to seek safety in Turkey in the last few days.

[...]

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Elections opportunity for Kurdish-Turkish de-escalation – US think tank (May 8th, 2023)

QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The upcoming Turkish elections on May 14, especially if they yield an opposition victory, will be “a rare opportunity” for the US to broker a Turkish-Kurdish peace, argues a new report by the New Lines Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

According to the report’s authors, the US’ main policy failure in bringing about a lasting peace between the Turkish government and Kurdish groups in Syria and Turkey has been the separation of these issues into different arenas.

The report argues that the Turkish oppression of Kurds domestically and the 40-year insurgency waged by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) from Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as Turkish attacks against Kurdish-majority in north Syria and its autonomous administration (AANES) are related. If the US wishes to bring about a lasting peace, it will have to broker a comprehensive settlement that addresses all arenas.

[...]

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Five Things the “Nuclear Bros” Don’t Want You to Know About Small Modular Reactors
  • What kind of a moron are you? When you make claims you bring the proof.

    Or you know, I could assert that you're, say, a donkey-fucker. If you got proof to the contrary, please provide it.

    I am not making claims. I shared an article on a matter that bugs me. I wanted to see what people think and potentially inform myself further.

    And your input was definitely invaluable!

  • Five Things the “Nuclear Bros” Don’t Want You to Know About Small Modular Reactors
  • These are not my points, they come from the article. So for example in relation to your question on the

    SMRs cannot be counted on to provide reliable and resilient off-the-grid power...

    they have a couple of paragraphs that give an explanation.

  • Nuclear energy has no place in a green Scotland
  • I find it difficult to follow your reasoning. Initially you said 77 people died from the Chernobyl disaster.

    Now you have opinions related to the different estimations but talk about thousands of people, without retracting your previous position.

  • German politician's video of licking public toilets goes viral
  • Ok I now see what you mean. Thanks for the link, unfortunately for some reason the video doesn't play for me so I can't hear it. Still in the article you linked they say he sung the nazi-era Deutschlandlied version, which includes the 2 first verses. The current version has only the third one.

  • German politician's video of licking public toilets goes viral
  • The "Horst-Wessel-Lied", also known by its opening words "Die Fahne hoch", was the anthem of the Nazi Party from 1930 to 1945. From 1933 to 1945, the Nazis made it the de-facto co-national anthem of Nazi Germany, along with the first stanza of the "Deutschlandlied". The "Horst-Wessel-Lied" has been banned in Germany and Austria since the end of World War II.

    wiki

  • Five Things the “Nuclear Bros” Don’t Want You to Know About Small Modular Reactors
  • My personal stance is that sustainability cannot be achieved within capitalism due to its model of eternal growth. We can have one or the other, but not both.

    So creating more energy could not be the solution. Creating less demand would be, and the demand comes from industries.

    More often than not, I it seems to me this discussion about clean energy is a deflection of the real problem which is industrialisation under capitalism. We don't question anymore what this energy is needed for.

  • Nuclear energy has no place in a green Scotland
  • Nuclear energy has, by a staggering margin, the lowest death toll of any form of energy generation per kW produced. And almost all of these come from Chernobyl, where 31 people died due to the explosion, then a further 46 died due to radiation poisoning from the cleanup.

    The number of people that died on the spot, could be as low as you say. 77 people is far from being the death toll of the Chernobyl disaster, and that is taking into consideration the fatality numbers are disputed.

    The World Health Organization (WHO) suggested in 2006 that cancer deaths could reach 4,000 among the 600,000 most heavily exposed people, a group which includes emergency workers, nearby residents, and evacuees, but excludes residents of low-contaminated areas.[26] A 2006 report, commissioned by the anti nuclear German political party The Greens and sponsored by the Altner Combecher Foundation, predicted 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths as a result of worldwide Chernobyl fallout by assuming a linear no-threshold model for very low doses.

    A disputed Russian publication, Chernobyl, concludes that 985,000 premature deaths occurred worldwide between 1986 and 2004 as a result of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl.[29]

  • Rolls-Royce gets Poland's backing to build its nuclear power plants
  • Building large reactors isn’t economically attractive, so maybe SMRs could help with that.

    It looks like this is not the case, at least by reading the following:

    Some advocates misleadingly claim that SMRs are more efficient than large ones because they use less fuel. In terms of the amount of heat generated, the amount of uranium fuel that must undergo nuclear fission is the same whether a reactor is large or small. And although reactors that use coolants other than water typically operate at higher temperatures, which can increase the efficiency of conversion of heat to electricity, this is not a big enough effect to outweigh other factors that decrease efficiency of fuel use.

    From Five Things the “Nuclear Bros” Don’t Want You to Know About Small Modular Reactors

    If you have a source that claims otherwise, please share.

  • A realistic understanding of their costs and risks is critical.

    What are SMRs?

    1. SMRs are not more economical than large reactors.

    2. SMRs are not generally safer or more secure than large light-water reactors.

    3. SMRs will not reduce the problem of what to do with radioactive waste.

    4. SMRs cannot be counted on to provide reliable and resilient off-the-grid power for facilities, such as data centers, bitcoin mining, hydrogen or petrochemical production.

    5. SMRs do not use fuel more efficiently than large reactors.

    [Edit: If people have links that contradict any the above, could you please share in the comment section?]

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    Nuclear energy has no place in a green Scotland

    > > > Nuclear power leaves a long and toxic legacy. > >

    > > > Mr Ruskell said: “There is nothing safe, secure or green about nuclear energy, and many people across Scotland will be dismayed and angry to hear that the Secretary of State is seeking to open a new reactor in Scotland. > > > > “Aside from the brazen entitlement and the message this sends, it ignores that people in Scotland have long rejected nuclear energy. I hope that all progressive parties will unite in condemning this environment wrecking overreach. > > > > “A new reactor would not only be unsafe, it would be extremely costly and would leave a toxic legacy for centuries. It would also distract from the vital work we need to do to boost clean, green and renewable energy. > > > > “That is why I hope all progressive parties can rule out any return to nuclear power once Torness has been decommissioned. > > > > “The Hinkley point shambles has exposed the UK government’s total inability to deliver nuclear programmes on budget or on time. We would be far better investing in the huge abundance of renewable resources that we already have here in Scotland.” > >

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    www.972mag.com ‘You could be looking at the last surviving works by Gaza’s artists’

    An exhibition in the West Bank attempts both to capture and counteract the erasure of Palestinian life and culture in Gaza, even as its artists are killed.

    ‘You could be looking at the last surviving works by Gaza’s artists’

    An exhibition in the West Bank attempts both to capture and counteract the erasure of Palestinian life and culture in Gaza, even as its artists are killed.

    This is Not an Exhibition,” which runs until August, showcases some 300 artworks by Gazan artists. Walking around the hall is something of a sensory overload, pulling visitors between visual and auditory stimuli. Paintings crowd around each other in no particular order on the museum’s darkened indigo walls, evoking the chaos of the ravaged Palestinian art scene in Gaza.

    0
    www.ft.com Too good to be true: the greenwashers’ box of tricks

    Companies are becoming ever craftier in their efforts to pose as more climate-friendly than they are

    Too good to be true: the greenwashers’ box of tricks

    Companies are becoming ever craftier in their efforts to pose as more climate-friendly than they are

    The name of the ruse: a taxonomy of greenwashing

    Mechanism

    • Misleading information
    • Attention deflection
    • Attention reduction (absolute)
    • Attention reduction (peer-overshadowed)
    • Attention timing

    Classic application

    • Misleading claims made by firms themselves
    • Greenshifting of blame on to demanding consumers
    • Limited disclosure of worthy ambitions
    • Decent disclosure but substandard vis à vis peers
    • Delayed disclosure

    Sophisticated application

    • Greenlabelling by third parties, which certify firms’ performance
    • Greenlighting of good-news case studies
    • Fuller disclosure, but with greenhushing of details
    • Greencrowding: substandard disclosure en masse
    • Greenrinsing: headline-grabbing targets get gradually diluted

    Archive link

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    www.businessinsider.com Google layoffs: A timeline of the company's job cuts and restructuring into 2024

    Google's layoffs have affected thousands of employees. The tech company cited a weak economy for the job cuts and is restructuring to focus on AI.

    Google layoffs: A timeline of the company's job cuts and restructuring into 2024

    Google layoffs in 2023 affected about 6% of the company's global workforce, or about 12,000 people, starting in January.

    Google's layoffs aren't necessarily a signal that the company isn't doing well. The company's market cap has nearly quadrupled since 2015, reaching $1.7 trillion.

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    Israel kills more than 500 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7
  • Now that you mentioned maps, I thought of sharing the United Nations one of this region, from September 2023.
    It includes details of Isreal's perimeter fence and shows the few entry points to Gaza, as well as some other chilling details on how Israel controls the state of Palestine.

    Btw Gaza and the West Bank are Palestine. The State of Palestine is recognized as a sovereign state by 143 of the 193 member states of the United Nations, just not by the traditional colonialists (US, Israel, most EU, Australia) and a few more. "Devide-and-conquer" is the name of the game.

    [Here are included some more maps, with recent & scary details from UN of the region]

  • [ OPINION] ‘Israelis go back to Europe?’ Some on the left need to rethink their slogans | Jo-Ann Mort
  • According to some other* Jewish people:

    Jewish Voice for Peace - Our approach to Zionism

    While it had many strains historically, the Zionism that took hold and stands today is a settler-colonial movement, establishing an apartheid state where Jews have more rights than others. Our own history teaches us how dangerous this can be.

    Palestinian dispossession and occupation are by design. Zionism has meant profound trauma for generations, systematically separating Palestinians from their homes, land, and each other. Zionism, in practice, has resulted in massacres of Palestinian people, ancient villages and olive groves destroyed, families who live just a mile away from each other separated by checkpoints and walls, and children holding onto the keys of the homes from which their grandparents were forcibly exiled.

    (* I use the word "other" because jewish zionists are super active in the relevant wiki pages. See relevant video: Former Israel PM Naftali Bennett at a wikipedia editing instruction event)

  • Rolls-Royce gets Poland's backing to build its nuclear power plants
  • There is this conversation about nuclear power that bugs me. The downvoting part in this section motivated me enough to talk about the following.

    The way I see things humanity does not have an energy issue, industries do. We don't need more energy to heat our homes, for example. More energy is needed for the industries to be able to expand. So I don't understand why this SMR "adventure" is so well perceived by the public or even environmentalists.

    We know that businesses, corporations etc care only about their monetary profit, and not about the environment or humans. Governments take tones of money to enforce these kind of policies worldwide. Some bribes have even evolved to taxable salaries.

    Why are people so eager to defend SMR like it's a solution? It's like pretending that the problem is not related to the eternal growth model of capitalism. No?

    As you can tell, I cannot see an ecological solutions withing capitalism. Is there anyone who can? If yes, how would those solutions bypass or change the eternal growth model, to a sustainable one?

    I might need to change my point of view, this is why I shared this rant.

  • Israel kills more than 500 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7
  • I'm kinda surprised the number is as low as 500, considering 35k have been killed in total, by all reports.

    If you take into consideration that the West Bank is not the in this "war", how does this number sound like?

  • www.aljazeera.com Israel kills more than 500 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7

    That toll is more than three times the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank in 2022.

    Israel kills more than 500 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7

    > > > That toll is more than three times the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank in 2022. > > > > Israelis have now killed at least 502 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 7. > > > > The latest killings came on Thursday when three youths – Mohamed Youssef Nasr Allah, 27, Ayman Ahmed Mubarak, 26, and Hossam Emad Deabes, 22 – were killed by Israeli forces raiding Tulkarm. > > > > More than 230 Palestinians were killed during Israeli raids, while at least 20 are reported to have been killed by settlers from illegal settlements and outposts. [...] > >

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    www.businessinsider.com Google has an idea to prevent phone scams, but it'll mean allowing its AI to listen in on your calls

    Google hopes its Gemini AI can provide real-time scam alerts during phone calls. But it'll mean allowing its AI to listen to your conversations.

    Google has an idea to prevent phone scams, but it'll mean allowing its AI to listen in on your calls

    Google promised to keep data from the phone calls private.

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    Under the surface - The hidden crisis in Europe's groundwater

    > > > Altogether, 14 journalists from seven countries analysed the most up-to-date EU figures and created an interactive map of Europe’s aquifers. The conclusion is that our water is disappearing and what remains is facing near-irreversible pollution. Over 15% of the aquifers mapped are in poor condition — dangerously overexploited, contaminated or both. This figure represents 26% of the aquifers by surface area. And the worst affected are important crop-producing countries, like Spain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. > > > > But the picture is incomplete. The EU requires all member states and Iceland and Norway to give data on the state of their aquifers. Out of these 29 countries, 16 submitted full, publicly accessible data, with Germany’s and Portugal’s only partially accessible. Eleven countries are not included in the map at all [...] > >

    0
    www.ctvnews.ca 'Irate male' assaulted Newfoundland officers with block of cheese, police say

    Police in Newfoundland say patrol officers were assaulted Thursday by a "very irate male" wielding a block of cheese.

    'Irate male' assaulted Newfoundland officers with block of cheese, police say

    > > > ...The RNC did not say if the officers were injured or what kind of cheese was used. > >

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    jacobin.com The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Never Ended

    Israel was founded with the Nakba, a series of atrocities that ethnically cleansed Palestinians from their homeland. Today we are witnessing Israel engage in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza on an even larger, more violent scale.

    The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Never Ended

    > > > Israel was founded with the Nakba, a series of atrocities that ethnically cleansed Palestinians from their homeland. Today we are witnessing Israel engage in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza on an even larger, more violent scale. > >

    > > > The Second Nakba > > > > While Palestinians have always feared the prospect of a second Nakba, which several Israeli officials have threatened over the years, most never imagined that it would unfold before their eyes in broad daylight, believing that ethnic cleansing belonged in the past century. > > > > They were wrong. For eight months since last October, Israel has massacred and displaced more than three times as many Palestinians in Gaza as it did in all of Palestine during the Nakba. [...] > >

    10

    Brazil’s Lula government ousts Petrobras chief after dispute over dividends

    Archive link

    CEO of state-controlled oil major leaves job less than a year-and-a-half after being appointed by leftist leader

    1
    newjersey.news12.com Pro-Palestinian hunger strike at Princeton University marks 1 week

    It comes after 13 students were arrested for trespassing late last month during a protest.

    Pro-Palestinian hunger strike at Princeton University marks 1 week

    > > > It comes after 13 students were arrested for trespassing late last month during a protest. > >

    > > > Twelve students committed to not eating in response to university administrators who barred a group of students from the university for participating in a sit-in that occurred in late April. > >

    11
    www.paddleyourownkanoo.com American Airlines is Issuing 'Poverty Verification Letters' For New-Hire Flight Attendants Because Their Wages Are So Low

    American Airlines is reportedly issuing so-called ‘poverty verification letters’ for some new-hire flight attendants based in the most expensive metro areas in the United States, urging the recipients to help out the flight attendant because they are only set to warn little more than $27,000 per yea...

    American Airlines is Issuing 'Poverty Verification Letters' For New-Hire Flight Attendants Because Their Wages Are So Low
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    www.observers.com Sam Bankman-Fried Believes He Was Set Up to Be the Fail Guy

    In his first interview from prison, the founder of FTX, and once the richest person in the world under 30, is reflective but not completely contrite.

    Sam Bankman-Fried Believes He Was Set Up to Be the Fail Guy
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    www.theverge.com Did Stanford just prototype the future of AR glasses?

    Maybe adding AI could unlock augmented reality glasses.

    Did Stanford just prototype the future of AR glasses?

    > > > A research team at Stanford is developing a new AI-assisted holographic imaging technology it claims is thinner, lighter, and higher quality than anything its researchers have seen. > > > > the Stanford tech is currently just a prototype > >

    16

    UNRWA to close East Jerusalem headquarters after arson attack by ‘Israeli extremists’ | CNN

    edition.cnn.com UNRWA to close East Jerusalem headquarters after arson attack by ‘Israeli extremists’ | CNN

    The United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees will shutter its East Jerusalem headquarters after the compound was set on fire by “Israeli extremists” while staff were inside, its chief said Thursday.

    UNRWA to close East Jerusalem headquarters after arson attack by ‘Israeli extremists’ | CNN

    > > > In a statement on social platform X, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said the arson attack was the latest in a series of threats, harassment and violent incidents perpetrated by Israelis against the agency’s staff over the past two months. > > > > “This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the UNRWA Headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem. This took place while UNRWA and other UN Agencies’ staff were on the compound,” Lazzarini said. > > > > “It is an outrageous development. Once again, the lives of UN staff were at a serious risk.” > > > > The facility would be closed “until proper security is restored,” he added. > >

    8
    www.newarab.com Belgium university to quit project with Israeli institutions

    The Vrije Universiteit Brussel said it would pull out of an AI project it was working on in collaboration with Israeli institutions, amid the Gaza war.

    Belgium university to quit project with Israeli institutions

    The Vrije Universiteit Brussel said it would pull out of an AI project it was working on in collaboration with Israeli institutions, amid the Gaza war.

    ---

    A Belgian university said on Wednesday that it is planning to end its collaboration with two Israeli institutions on an artificial intelligence project.

    It comes after a negative assessment by Vrije Universiteit Brussel's ethics commission, the Belga News Agency reported.

    The university said it would start discussions with the EU Commission, which is funding the research project, in order to pull out.

    The Vrije Universiteit Brussel said on Tuesday that it wished to achieve greater transparency over its work with Israeli organisations given the "unacceptable escalation of the conflict in the Middle East". [...]

    3