the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Part 6 - Accountability for genocide    “The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience,” said Agnès Callamard.   “Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. States need to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, however uncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies.   “The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overdue justice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect for the court...

Drop Site News is publishing a landmark investigation about the BBC’s coverage of Israel’s unrelenting assault on Gaza by British journalist Owen Jones. His report is based on interviews with 13 journalists and other BBC staffers who offer remarkable insights into how senior figures within the BBC’s news operation skewed stories in favor of Israel’s narratives and repeatedly dismissed objections registered by scores of staffers who, throughout the past 14 months, demanded that the network uphold its commitment to impartiality and fairness.    by Owen Jones   Part 3 - Without Fear or Favor   Between November 2023 and July 2024, BBC management held five listening sessions on Israel-Gaza. In a group meeting with Davie in May 2024, staffers at the meeting acknowledged the pressure the BBC faced from pro-Israel lobbyists. They also emphasized that their sole objective was to uphold the BBC’s values of fairness and impartiality and to produce content “without fear or favor...

The re-election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States has many in Venezuela extremely concerned. From assassinations, terror campaigns, sanctions and coups, the first Trump administration tried everything short of a full-scale invasion of the country. With a cabinet full of hawks, MintPress assesses the potential for a future U.S. intervention in Venezuela.   Part 5 - Venezuela Libre Seeing the failure of sanctions to achieve their goal, could the United States be tempted into an Iraq-style military invasion? With people like Erik Prince, Marco Rubio and Elon Musk (who openly called for Maduro’s overthrow) in Trump’s ear, it is far from impossible. However, a number of factors would seriously complicate this course of action. For one, Trump is promising to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history.” A significant portion of those immigrants he is targeting come from Venezuela, and Washington would likely need some level of cooperation from Ca...

Israeli forces detained the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, after setting the health facility in northern Gaza on fire with doctors and patients inside, according to health officials. The hospital was stormed by Israeli troops on Friday, following nearly three months of a suffocating blockade and constant air strikes on its departments and their vicinity. The bombing caused several departments to catch fire, killing and wounding Palestinian medical workers and patients, according to Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.   All remaining medical staff, patients and their relatives were taken out of the hospital at gunpoint, forced to strip down to their underwear and transferred to an unknown location. At the time of the raid, there were 350 people in the hospital, including 180 medical workers and 75 wounded people, according to the Gaza-based Government Media Office.  The Palestinian Health Ministry said dozens of ...

The Grayzone   The Grayzone 's Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate discuss Ukraine's looming demographic apocalypse and what it means for the future of a US-led proxy war aimed at using the country's military to weaken Russia. 

by system failure   The rapid fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria surprised most of the people who follow closely the Syrian crisis from its beginning. At a time where there was not a single sign that the Salafi Jihadists could revive and take over Damascus, a rebranded Al-Qaeda finally did it, just in a few days, almost without any resistance by the Syrian Army and its allies.  The Western corporate media celebrated the fall of Assad, yet an atmosphere of perplexity and uncertainty shortly replaced the celebrating climate, mostly due to the fact that the new authority in Syria was the one that had been previously classified by the imperialist West as Islamic terrorism.   The major Western outlets immediately lunched a massive operation to whitewash Abu Mohammad al-Julani, in an effort to transform the new leader of Syria, from a radical Islamic terrorist, to a kind of moderate and even secular figure, who respects all religions and ethnic groups. The whole effort would be r...

by Kit Klarenberg    Part 2 - ‘Reconstruction Project’   Syria’s economic independence and strength under Assad’s rule and the benefits reaped by average citizens, as a result, were never acknowledged in the mainstream before or during the decade-long proxy war. Yet, countless reports from major international institutions underline this reality – which has now been brutally vanquished, never to return. For example, an April 2015 World Health Organization document noted how Damascus “had one of the best-developed healthcare systems in the Arab world.” Per a 2018 U.N. investigation, “universal, free healthcare” was extended to all Syrian citizens, who “enjoyed some of the highest levels of care in the region.” Education was likewise free, and before the conflict, “an estimated 97% of primary school-aged Syrian children were attending class, and Syria’s literacy rates were thought to be at over 90% for both men and women.” By 2016, millions were out of school . A U.N. Human ...

by Alan Macleod  Part 4 - Latin America: a Model and a Target   The other major target of the bill will likely be socialist or communist-led governments in Latin America. The act’s sponsor is Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican Congressperson representing Miami. A part of Florida’s famously conservative Cuban-American community, in 2023, she introduced the FORCE Act, which attempted to block any U.S. president from normalizing relations with Cuba unless its government is overthrown. She has repeatedly condemned President Biden for easing the (illegal) U.S. sanctions on Venezuela. And in July, she denounced what she described as the “socialist curse in Central America and the Caribbean,” singling out Cuban, Venezuela, Honduras, and Nicaragua as countries requiring regime change. She is, however, an avid supporter of the far-right President of Argentina, Javier Milei, accepting his invitation to attend his inauguration. Argentina, she said, “is going to set the course and point o...

European Union foreign ministers rebuffed a call to end arms sales to Israel last month, despite mounting evidence of war crimes — and, potentially, genocide — presented to them in an internal assessment obtained by The Intercept . The contents of the previously unknown 35-page assessment could sway future war crimes trials of EU politicians for complicity in Israel’s assault against Gaza , according to lawyers, experts, and political leaders.  The appraisal was written by the EU’s special representative for human rights Olof Skoog and sent to EU ministers ahead of a council meeting on November 18, as part of a proposal by the head of the EU’s foreign policy to suspend political dialogue with Israel. The proposal was rejected by the council of foreign ministers from EU member states. Skoog’s analysis laid out evidence from United Nations sources of war crimes by Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah since October 7, 2023, when around 1,200 people were killed during a Hamas-led attack that p...

Israeli killing of five journalists earlier today has brought the total number of media workers killed in Gaza since the start of the war to 201, the Government Media Office in Gaza said on Thursday. The office strongly condemned Israel’s "targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists." “We hold the Israeli occupation, the US administration, and countries involved in the crime of genocide, such as the UK, Germany, and France, fully responsible for this brutal act,” the statement said. The office also urged the international community and organisations to pursue legal action against Israel’s crimes in international courts and hold those responsible accountable. “We also call for serious and effective pressure to stop the genocide, protect journalists and media workers in Palestine, and end the killing and assassination of journalists,” it added.   https://www.middleeasteye.net/live/live-israel-kills-least-58-palestinians-24-hours  

Geopolitical Economy Report   The Global South-led organization BRICS continues to expand, adding 9 partner countries in January 2025, after admitting 4 new members in 2024. The group now makes up roughly half of the global population and more than 41% of world GDP (PPP). It's an economic powerhouse, with top producers of key commodities like oil, gas, grains, meat, minerals, and more. Ben Norton analyzes the growing influence of BRICS+.

The re-election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States has many in Venezuela extremely concerned. From assassinations, terror campaigns, sanctions and coups, the first Trump administration tried everything short of a full-scale invasion of the country. With a cabinet full of hawks, MintPress assesses the potential for a future U.S. intervention in Venezuela.   Part 4 - Sanctions, Piracy, and Kidnapping The most far-reaching U.S. action against Venezuela, however, has been the punishing sanctions regime. The economic blockade of the country – which includes intimidating foreign nations and businesses into ceasing trading with Venezuela – devastated the country, leading to huge shortages of goods. Although some sanctions have been in place since 2004, they were drastically expanded under the Trump administration. Alfred de Zayas, an (American) United Nations Special Rapporteur who visited the country in 2018, likened the blockade to a “Medieval Siege” and estimated th...

Drop Site News is publishing a landmark investigation about the BBC’s coverage of Israel’s unrelenting assault on Gaza by British journalist Owen Jones. His report is based on interviews with 13 journalists and other BBC staffers who offer remarkable insights into how senior figures within the BBC’s news operation skewed stories in favor of Israel’s narratives and repeatedly dismissed objections registered by scores of staffers who, throughout the past 14 months, demanded that the network uphold its commitment to impartiality and fairness.    by Owen Jones   Part 2 - “This is about editorial standards”   In November 2023, BBC senior management attended a morning meeting with at least 100 staffers to discuss coverage of Gaza. It soon descended into a fiery debate. “We’ve got to all remember that this all started on 7 October,” Deborah Turness, the CEO of the news division, called out, in an attempt to assert control of the meeting, two attendees told me. Liliane Lando...

UK trade department approved 34 military export licences to Israel in the two months since David Lammy announced a partial arms embargo, new data shows.   by John McEvoy  Part 4 - ‘Intriguing mystery’ Another key issue was the “carve-out” in Britain’s arms export licensing which allows F-35 fighter jet components to continue to be sent to Israel via third countries. Byrne described this exemption as an “intriguing mystery”. Over 15% of every F-35 – Israel’s most advanced fighter jet – is made in the UK as part of a consortium led by US arms giant Lockheed Martin. Declassified and The Ditch revealed last week that over 500 shipments of F-35 parts have been sent from Britain to the US since October 2023. Those components could then be onward exported to Israel and used to commit war crimes in Gaza. The decision to keep sending F-35 components to global pools of spare parts has been the subject of a court challenge by Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and Palestinian human rig...

Part 5 - Inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction    The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’s devastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies into and within Gaza. After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza cutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine months reviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating, unlawful blockade...

Merry Christmas to everyone from Julian, Stella, and our kids, Gabriel and Max. May the new year bring a steadfast push for peace and dignity for all. pic.twitter.com/eSSHjWcdmv — Stella Assange (@Stella_Assange) December 23, 2024

Cats were seen eating the corpses of Palestinians in central Gaza amid a devastating Israeli incursion that has killed scores and blocked rescue workers from assisting victims. Footage posted on Sunday by local video creator Talal Mahmoud showed cats eating from bodies of Palestinians strewn on the streets near a UN-run school in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Ambulances and first responders had been unable to reach many areas under attack due to the heavy Israeli bombardment in recent days. The Gaza-based government media office on Monday condemned the “horrific war crimes” committed by Israeli forces in its latest ground assault on the Nuseirat camp, which local media said began on the weekend. The media office said 17 tanks and other military vehicles stormed the camp under the cover of drones and air strikes.  The “brutal assault” killed at least 50 people and left 20 homes destroyed or severely damaged, the office said in a statement. “We strongly condemn the savage aggression car...

by Kit Klarenberg    Part 1   In the immediate wake of the Syrian government’s abrupt collapse, much remains uncertain about the country’s future – including whether it can survive as a unitary state or will splinter into smaller states as did Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, a move that ultimately led to a bloody NATO intervention. Moreover, who or what may take power in Damascus remains an open question. For the time being at least, members of ultra-extremist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) appear highly likely to take key positions in whatever administrative structure sprouts from Bashar Assad’s ouster after a decade-and-a-half of grinding Western-sponsored regime change efforts. As Reuters reported on December 12, HTS is already “stamping its authority on Syria’s state with the same lightning speed that it seized the country, deploying police, installing an interim government and meeting foreign envoys.” Meanwhile, its bureaucrats – “who until last week were running an Isla...

White House–curated stories of performative outrage and feigned helplessness provided cover for an administration arming death on an industrial scale.  by Adam Johnson and Othman Ali Part 6 - Unquestioned Premises   To understand the nuances of how this Third-Partying PR effort has been so successful, it’s important to explain how much of the heavy lifting is done through the shifting, extremely malleable definition of “ceasefire” and the US media’s unwillingness to question what the term means or how the White House’s usage differs so significantly from its usage with humanitarian and aid groups. The White House routinely makes mutually exclusive statements about its desire to “end the war,” while saying Hamas could “have no role in postwar Gaza.” Yet no mainstream reporter, editor, or opinion writer bothers to reconcile this contradiction. This calculated vagueness is central to why Israel is permitted to continue bombing and killing at will for an indefinite amount of time....

by Alan Macleod  Part 3 - China Hawks   One of the central goals of the bill is also to “ensure that high school students in the United States understand that 1,500,000,000 people still suffer under communism.” This is a clear reference to China, a rapidly developing country that, in just two generations, has gone from one of the poorest on Earth to a global superpower, challenging and even surpassing the United States on many quality-of-life indicators. The bill goes on to detail how the school curriculum will “focus on ongoing human rights abuses by such regimes, such as the treatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” by the Chinese “regime” and its “aggression” towards “pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong,” and Taiwan, who it labels “a democratic friend of the United States.” Furthermore, many of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s “Witness Project” case studies – likely the source for the “Portraits in Patriotism” series – are from China. This...

The United States prepared a rebel force to join the offensive that overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad, fighters have claimed. British and American-trained fighters in the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA), a group aligned against Islamic State, were told “this is your moment” in a briefing by US Special Forces before Assad was ousted. In the first indication that Washington had prior knowledge of the offensive, the RCA revealed it had been told to scale-up its forces and “be ready” for an attack that could lead to the end of the Assad regime.     “They did not tell us how it would happen,” Capt Bashar al-Mashadani, an RCA commander, told The Telegraph from a former Syrian army air base used by Russia on the outskirts of the city of Palmyra. “We were just told: ‘Everything is about to change. This is your moment. Either Assad will fall, or you will fall.’ But they did not say when or where, they just told us to be ready.”  Having worked with the RCA to dismantle the...

Second Thought   The New York Times has a long history of manufacturing consent for war, destabilization, and regime change. From Chile to Iran, the US paper of note has been used as a powerful and insidious tool of empire for over half a century. Let's take a look at a more modern example: Venezuela. 

UK trade department approved 34 military export licences to Israel in the two months since David Lammy announced a partial arms embargo, new data shows.   by John McEvoy  Part 3 - RAF spy flights The committee also sought to obtain information on the role of RAF spy flights over Gaza since December 2023, and whether surveillance footage was being used to inform the government’s assessment of Israel’s compliance with IHL. Declassified previously revealed that the RAF has flown hundreds of spy missions over Gaza in support of Israel. Those planes can gather information for “target acquisition”, and intelligence received from Israel ahead of the missions may have been obtained under torture. Ministers were probed on how it was possible to “see the day-by-day destruction” of Gaza with “more than 50,000 buildings destroyed”, as seen by the RAF spy planes, and not conclude that Israel’s conduct is disproportionate. Lord Coaker claimed that surveillance footage “is purely and simply...

The re-election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States has many in Venezuela extremely concerned. From assassinations, terror campaigns, sanctions and coups, the first Trump administration tried everything short of a full-scale invasion of the country. With a cabinet full of hawks, MintPress assesses the potential for a future U.S. intervention in Venezuela.   Part 3 - Assassinations and Terrorism In August 2018, while giving a public speech in Caracas, Maduro narrowly survived a drone assassination attempt. Bolton’s memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” implies that the United States was involved in the incident. But this was far from the only act of international terrorism the U.S. helped plan. White House officials agreed to what they called the development of “ kinetic and nonkinetic options, both overt and [REDACTED], that could disrupt Venezuela’s oil and arms shipments. Options would need to include actions that would have a material impact on key industrial ...