the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Owen Jones   Thought the International Court of Justice ruling would force Israel to scale back its murderous onslaught? Think again. The opposite has happened. 

The Grayzone   The Grayzone 's Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate cover one of the most outrageous Israeli propaganda ads to appear in recent months, and some truly astounding admissions by mainstream Israeli commentators about official state deceptions. 

BreakThrough News   In Germany, 10 MPs have quit the Left Party (Die Linke) due to its increasingly pro-war stance and established a new party called the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW). Defined by a pro-peace policy, BSW emerged in response to the collapse of anti-war positions within the Left with respect to the US-proxy war in Ukraine and the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Sevim Dagdelen, a Bundestag member and one of the founders of BSW, discusses the formation of the Party and the pressing need for a peace-focused political force in Germany.  

Israel responded to the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) ruling last Friday, requesting it to “take all measures within its power” to avoid acts of genocide, by redoubling its efforts to starve the Palestinians and planning for the repopulation of Gaza with Jewish settlements. The same day that the ICJ’s preliminary findings were issued, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said that Israel had provided the organisation with information alleging that 12 of its employees had taken part in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led incursion and participated in massacres. One was accused of kidnapping a woman, another of handing out ammunition and a third of taking part in the massacre at a kibbutz where 97 people died. Seven were said to be teachers at UNRWA schools and two worked at the schools in other capacities. Israel initially said that its “information” on the 12 was the result of its interrogation, i.e. torture, of captured “militants”. It then changed its story, stating tha...

Li Jingjing 李菁菁   Why the US wants to separate #Xinjiang from China? Because its location is too crucial for them to destabilize Eurasia. In this video, Li Jingjing laid out the strategic location of Xinjiang, and how CIA experts planned long ago to destabilize #China by playing the "Uyghur card."    Related:   Why the US imperialists will boost their efforts to destabilize China through Xinjiang        

failed evolution   On 11 April 2019, the Ecuadorian government of traitor Lenin Moreno, invited the Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and they arrested Julian Assange . Since then, Assange is kept in Belmarsh high security prison in London, without actual charges.   The real reason world's number one political prisoner is still kept in this high security prison, is because he exposed horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies.   The ruthless Western imperialist regime wants to punish the No1 real journalist in the world and make him an example for any Whistleblower or real journalist who will attempt to expose its big crimes in the future.   And the Anglo-American axis has now become officially a fascist coalition , framed by the rest of its Western pets. UK's Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of the most ruthless ever, decided to extradite Julian Assange to US. No surprise of course. The only question we had...

Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced that multiple individuals have been detained for alleged roles in five dismantled violent plots, including a plan to assassinate President Nicolás Maduro. In a televised address on Monday, Saab announced the arrest of 32 people, including civilians and military officers. Additionally, 11 arrest warrants have been issued for opposition activists living abroad and exiled military. “ From May 2023 until now, five violent actions have been attempted against Venezuela. The military officers involved were summoned directly from Colombia, in collaboration with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Colombian army at the time, ” the attorney general told the press.   Saab claimed that the foiled “ terrorist plots ” were all connected and were part of a broader plan to destabilize the country. The five schemes consisted of military espionage, attacks against military units in San Cristóbal ...

Apartheid Israel, and its powerful backers, are finally starting to face some accountability for their repeated, longstanding violations of international law.   by Haidar Eid  Now that we have heard the interim judgement the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, we can confidently say a new world order is in the making. The World Court confirmed today that South Africa’s charge under the Genocide Convention that “ Israel has engaged in, is engaging in and risks further engaging in genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza ”  is “ plausible ”. It has further ruled that Israel must “ take all measures ” to avoid acts of genocide in Gaza. The court has stopped short of calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, which has already been demanded by an absolute majority of world nations. Still, most of the “ provisional measures ” called for by the Republic of South Africa have been endorsed by the court...

Israel has made no secret of it: it has embarked on a genocidal plan to “create conditions where life in Gaza becomes unsustainable.” And Joe Biden is its accomplice.   by Seth Ackerman   Part 1 25,000 Palestinians, an estimated 70 percent of them women and children, in what a leading scholar of aerial bombing has called “ one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history. ” Israel has been killing more than five times as many Gazans per day as the Nazis did, per capita, in the London Blitzkrieg. It killed roughly fifteen times as many children in the war’s first two months alone as Russia did in Ukraine in the invasion’s first eighteen months. The Associated Press , citing analysts who specialize in mapping wartime bombing damage, reported that “ the offensive has wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II. ” Israel’s campaign has destroye...

"United Against Nuclear Iran does not miss an opportunity to try to bring the United States closer to a military conflict with Iran. And on the other side of the equation, they also have worked very hard to oppose efforts to de-escalate the U.S.-Iran relationship."   by Alan Macleod   Part 1 Most of the world has watched the Israeli assault on Gaza in horror. As tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced, tens of millions of people around the world have poured onto the streets to demand an end to the violence. But a few select others have taken to the pages of our most influential media to demand an escalation of the violence and that the United States help Israel strike not just Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon but Iran as well. “ I might have once favored a cease-fire with Hamas, but not now, ” wrote Bush-era diplomat Dennis Ross in The New York Times , explaining that “ if Hamas is perceived as winning, it will validate the group’s ideology of rejection, gi...

The Real News Network   The International Court of Justice has just issued preliminary measures against Israel for the crime of genocide in Gaza. The ruling follows weeks of anticipation and months of international outcry for Israel to face accountability from the UN. While much remains undetermined, this is a critical development in a time when the integrity of international institutions has been thrown into crisis by their ineffectiveness in the face of Israel's slaughter. Former director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Craig Mokhiber, who resigned from his position last fall in protest of what he called the UN's "failure" to protect Palestinians, joins The Chris Hedges Report for a discussion on the weaknesses of the UN in the face of US and Israeli impunity. 

The Grayzone   International legal expert and ex-UN Office of Human Rights Commissioner whistleblower Craig Mokhiber joins the Grayzone 's Aaron Mate and Max Blumenthal to discuss the ICJ's landmark ruling ordering Israel to prevent genocide by its forces in the besieged Gaza Strip.  

Owen Jones   The International Court of Justice has issued a devastating provisional ruling against Israel yesterday. Don't fall for the spin of the apologists for Israel's crimes: the ICJ has accepted there is a plausible case that Israel is committing genocide, and that it must be fully investigated. In the meantime they have imposed provisional rulings which, among other things, order Israel to cease killing and maiming Palestinians and provide full access to food, water and humanitarian assistance - all impossible without a ceasefire - and to take action against Israeli leaders and officials who have incited genocide. This ruling has more significance than you think - here is why. 

Al Jazeera English   INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE  - Friday 26 January 2024 The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) - Request for the indication of provisional measures - The Court to deliver its Order on Friday, 26 January 2024.

Geopolitical Economy Report   Israel has lost support in 42 of 43 countries polled, with an 18.5% drop in favorability worldwide, as it wages a brutal war on Gaza and faces charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice. Ben Norton discusses the findings. 

του system failure Οι δημοσκοπήσεις στην Ελλάδα, ειδικά μετά το ξέσπασμα της μεγάλης κρίσης το 2010, έχουν αποδειχθεί ιδιαίτερα αναξιόπιστες στις περισσότερες περιπτώσεις και ουσιαστικά έχουν εξελιχθεί σε ένα εργαλείο δημιουργίας κλίματος, παρά καταγραφής των κοινωνικών - πολιτικών τάσεων.  Ο πρωτοφανής βομβαρδισμός δημοσκοπήσεων, ειδικά μετά την πρώτη νίκη Μητσοτάκη και την εγκαθίδρυση ενός ιδιότυπου καθεστώτος, υποδηλώνει ακριβώς αυτό: ότι η εγχώρια ολιγαρχία που ελέγχει και όλα τα συστημικά ΜΜΕ, αλλά και τις εταιρίες δημοσκοπήσεων, χρησιμοποιεί τις δημοσκοπήσεις για να δημιουργεί το επιθυμητό κλίμα υπέρ του καθεστώτος Μητσοτάκη, αφού αυτό το καθεστώς υπηρετεί απόλυτα τα συμφέροντά της. Στα πλαίσια της δημιουργίας αυτού του επιθυμητού κλίματος, είχαμε αναφέρει σε προηγούμενο άρθρο ότι είναι ιδιαίτερα εντυπωσιακό ότι οι πρόσφατες δημοσκοπήσεις που άρχισαν να εμφανίζουν τα καθεστωτικά κανάλια της μιντιακής χούντας, εστιάζουν στο γεγονός ότι το ΠΑΣΟΚ περνάει στη δεύτερη θέση και...

The Grayzone   Journalist Jeremy Loffredo reports from inside Israel, where the country's tiny minority of antiwar Jewish citizens face harsh repression, ugly social consequences, and even jail time for speaking out against the military campaign in Gaza. Loffredo interviews several Israeli dissidents about the violence they have experienced since October 7, and the climate of state-enforced fear that has engulfed their society.   

failed evolution   On 11 April 2019, the Ecuadorian government of traitor Lenin Moreno, invited the Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and they arrested Julian Assange . Since then, Assange is kept in Belmarsh high security prison in London, without actual charges.   The real reason world's number one political prisoner is still kept in this high security prison, is because he exposed horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies.   The ruthless Western imperialist regime wants to punish the No1 real journalist in the world and make him an example for any Whistleblower or real journalist who will attempt to expose its big crimes in the future.   And the Anglo-American axis has now become officially a fascist coalition , framed by the rest of its Western pets. UK's Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of the most ruthless ever, decided to extradite Julian Assange to US. No surprise of course. The only question we had...

Our political and media elites are complicit in Gaza’s nightmare. Any vestige of moral authority has been lost for ever   by Owen Jones  What is the value of a Palestinian life? For those retaining delusions not already buried in the rubble of Gaza alongside entire families – like the Zorobs, the Kashtans, the Attalahs – Joe Biden offered a definitive answer last week. In a statement marking 100 days since the current horror began, he rightly showed empathy for the plight of hostages – whose abduction by Hamas represents a grave war crime – and their traumatised families. Yet there was not a single mention of Palestinians. That politicians and media outlets alike have not bothered to disguise their contempt for Palestinian life will prove consequential. Indeed, this phenomenon is not new, and those repercussions are now violently felt. If the world’s powerful nations had not so brazenly shrugged off three-quarters of a million Palestinians being driven from their homes 76 year...

The Grayzone   Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti, senior political officer and spokesman for Yemen's Ansarallah movement, explains the objectives behind his movement's naval blockade of the Red Sea in this interview with The Grayzone 's Max Blumenthal. Al-Bukhaiti also responds to military threats from the Biden administration and allegations that Ansarallah is controlled by Iran's IRGC.

The Grayzone   The Grayzone 's Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate address new revelations in mainstream Israeli media of widespread friendly fire orders on October 7 which led to the killing of many Israeli noncombatants inside the so-called Gaza envelope. 

"In Gaza, Israel's military operations have spread massive destruction and killed civilians on a scale unprecedented during my time as Secretary General," he said Sunday. Olivia Rosane   United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called Israel's assault on Gaza " heartbreaking " and " totally unacceptable " as he addressed the opening of the Third South Summit of the G77+China in Kampala, Uganda, on Sunday. Guterres' remarks came as Gaza's Health Ministry announced that the death toll of Israel's bombardment and invasion of Gaza had risen past 25,000. " In Gaza, Israel's military operations have spread massive destruction and killed civilians on a scale unprecedented during my time as Secretary General, including more than 150 members of our own staff, following the horrific terror attacks by Hamas on 7 October, " Guterres said.  He added that the Middle East was now a " tinder box " and that the internati...

The Jimmy Dore Show   International lawyer and political activist Stella Assange has been working since 2011 to free her now husband Julian Assange from prosecution on charges of espionage, imprisonment in England and extradition to the United States for trial.  

Cyrus Janssen   The 21st Century will move from America to Asia and the main driver of this growth is the Global South and their decision to trade with China. The United States has enjoyed an incredible run since the end of WWII, but the US is desperate to contain China, a strategy that could ultimately backfire on the US and tilt more momentum to China and other developing countries. The 21st Century belongs to Asia.

As the NATO imperialist powers back Israel’s genocide in Gaza, they are setting into motion an explosion of world war across Europe. At a meeting of NATO army chiefs in Brussels on Thursday, NATO Commander-in-Chief Christopher Cavoli announced Exercise Steadfast Defender, which will begin next week and last until May. This NATO manoeuvre, the largest since the Cold War, is preparation for a total NATO war mobilisation against Russia.   [...]   More than 50 warships, including aircraft carriers and destroyers, will take part. There will also be 80 fighters, helicopters and drones and over 1,000 armoured vehicles, including 133 tanks and 533 armoured personnel carriers. Geographically, the exercise extends across Scandinavia and the Baltic states to Poland, Romania and Germany. In addition to the US, individual European states are also sending over 10,000 soldiers. Britain will contribute 20,000 and Germany 12,500. This is not simply an exercise, but a preparation to escalate NA...

VideoParliament Ireland   MEP Clare Daly -  speech from 18 Jan  MEP Mick Wallace -  speech from 18 Jan

globinfo freexchange   It seems that the US imperialists' plans to tighten the noose around Iran through escalating tensions with Pakistan, failed for now. As reported by Al Jazeera : Pakistan and Iran have agreed to “de-escalate” tensions after an exchange of missile and drone attacks this week raised fears of further instability in the region, Islamabad said. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani and the foreign minister of Iran, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, spoke via phone on Friday, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement. [...] Al Jazeera’s Osama bin Javid, reporting from Islamabad, said there has been “a lot of diplomacy in the last 24 hours from both sides” to try and come out of the growing tensions. “For the first time, we’re seeing both countries’ militaries get involved in what has been a slow-burner proxy war that has continued in these two provinces of Balochistan and Sistan-Baluchestan, and now, as we’ve been hearing from various sources and analysts, ...

Chilean-American war commentator Gonzalo Lira died shortly before noon on January, 11, 2024 at a hospital in Kharkiv, where he had been imprisoned for eight months since he was accused of justifying Russian war efforts in Ukraine. Lira came to prominence in 2022 when he emerged as a critical voice in an increasingly dictatorial Ukraine. His arrest in May 2023 on charges of “production and dissemination of materials justifying Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine” helped to galvanize domestic opposition to US funding for the war and led to calls for his release by tech baron Elon Musk and American political commentator Tucker Carlson.   A note written by Lira and provided by his father to The Grayzone indicates his death came after a nearly three-month battle with pneumonia, a condition which was apparently ignored by his Ukrainian jailers until just weeks before his death. Lira’s death was revealed by his father, Gonzalo Lira, Sr., who had spent weeks pleading with the Americ...

Committee for the Republic   Armed with unique first-hand knowledge of the history of Zionism, Palestine, Israeli politics, Gaza, Hamas, the Israeli lobby, and congressional cravenness, Max Blumenthal and Miko Peled will explore the ongoing post-October 7th war in Gaza: Hamas, genocide, war crimes, the probable end game, the successes or failures of the IDF, the fate of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a one-state solution, a two-state solution, or indeterminate upheaval, the role and co-belligerency of the United States in the Israeli government’s freely confessed eagerness to exterminate Palestinians, the responsibility of American citizens for Israel’s war crimes, and the likely spread of the war to the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran risking nuclear exchanges. Max and Miko will unveil the massive de facto censorship that has rendered Palestinian viewpoints virtually inaudible in the establishment media amidst the daily thunder of Israeli propaganda.   The edi...

The Real News Network   Israel's genocide in Gaza has undoubtedly become the most broadcasted atrocity in history. With massacre after massacre streamed daily to audiences in the billions, Israel's crimes have now been witnessed firsthand by a huge portion of humanity. In spite of this, corporate news outlets have trafficked in coverage that all-too-often flouts a reality we can see before our eyes.    This sort of unreliability evinces far more than a crisis of integrity in legacy media—it's a sign of a deep political crisis that runs to the upper echelons of our system.    Millions of US voters are turning against the Democrats over the carnage in Gaza, and rather than changing course, the powers that be are simply attempting to distort and pollute the narrative. Adam Johnson and Dan Boguslaw join The Real News to discuss the media's blatant bias in reporting on Gaza. 

More than 80 days into Israel’s genocidal war against the people of Gaza, the ruling class is bitterly attacking democratic rights in the major capitalist countries in order to suppress and isolate mass protest against the genocide.  by Gabriel Black Part 4 - The defense of Palestine is a class question This marriage of Zionists, billionaires and outright fascistic antisemites testifies to the fact that the campaign underway to assault basic democratic rights, including free speech, has nothing to do with the popular demands of students, nor, for that matter, anything to do with a campaign against genuine antisemitism.    In a critical lecture delivered December 14 at Humboldt University in Berlin, World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North outlined the fascistic ideology that underpins the Netanyahu regime in Israel:                      ...

The Grayzone   Journalist Jeremy Loffredo visits the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, a climate of unprecedented repression has descended since October 7. Loffredo documents settler terror attacks on businesses and speaks to local activists who tell him they fear arrest and beatings from Israeli police if they speak out against the assault on Gaza.  

Owen Jones Joe Biden isn't even bothering to pretend anymore. He's exposed his contempt for Palestinian life - and as Jones shows here, that's no surprise given his history, and Netanyahu's boasting of running rings around the US.  

"This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else," said Oxfam's interim executive director.  by Jake Johnson Since 2020, a year marked by the spread of a pathogen that killed millions of people, the world's five richest men have seen their collective wealth more than double as five billion people across the globe have lost ground and hunger has surged, underscoring the deep inequality that is fueling mass discontent and eroding democracies. The finding by Oxfam International was published Monday as elites gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the annual World Economic Forum, a summit that—while ostensibly aimed at confronting the planet's most pressing crises—has long been seen as a symbol of global capital's stranglehold on key institutions. Oxfam calculated that the combined wealth of the five richest billionaires on the planet grew from $405 billion in 2020 to roughly $8...

globinfo freexchange   The facts relied on by South Africa in this application and to be further developed in these proceedings establish that — against a background of apartheid, expulsion, ethnic cleansing, annexation, occupation, discrimination, and the ongoing denial of the right of the Palestinian people to self- determination — Israel, since 7 October 2023 in particular, has failed to prevent genocide and has failed to prosecute the direct and public incitement to genocide. More gravely still, Israel has engaged in, is engaging in and risks further engaging in genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Those acts include killing them, causing them serious mental and bodily harm and deliberately inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction as a group. Repeated statements by Israeli State representatives, including at the highest levels, by the Israeli President, Prime Minister, and Minister of Defence express genocidal...

Bad Faith   Geopolitical Economy Report editor Ben Norton & Palestinian activist Omar Baddar return to Bad Faith to discuss Biden's unconstitutional bombing of Yemen, broader context for the broadening regional war, and the latest from day two of the ICJ hearings, in which Israel attempted to defend it's 100 day siege of Gaza. Will growing public solidarity for Palestine on the international stage finally lead to accountability for Israel and the west?