The last article by T.P. Wilkinson made me think of Elon Musk as the "Unbecoming American" because that's how I think of the boss of Twitter. He's become the king of hypocrites, IMO.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68961719
The children hear the dogs snarling outside, just beyond the flimsy plastic of the tent.
The seven children of Rehab Abu Daqqa crowd around their mother. She is the last safe harbour in their lives. They have shared things, these children and their mother, which cannot be communicated to those who have not seen the things they have seen. Is there a word to express what a child feels knowing that just a few yards away, animals are dragging a body from a grave?
The vocabulary of childhood is inadequate amid the horrors of this emergency cemetery in Rafah.
Scared is the word Rehab Abu Daqqa uses.
That is accurate. But there is more to it, she knows. The children have seen dogs eating the bodies. A human leg lying by a fence. So yes they are scared. But revolted too, and uncomprehending. The children who once had a home, went to school, lived according to the established rhythms of their family and community, are now refugees in a place that reeks of death.
"This morning the dogs took out a body from one of the graves and were eating it," Rehab Abu Daqqa says. "From night until dawn the dogs do not let us sleep… our children keep holding on to me because of how scared they are.".....
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What 10 Years of U.S. Meddling in Ukraine Have Wrought (Spoiler Alert: Not Democracy)
April 30, 2024
This account of U.S. interference in Ukraine, which can be traced to fateful decisions made by the Obama administration, including then-Vice President Biden and his top aides, is based on often overlooked public disclosures. It also relies on the personal testimony of Andrii Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian diplomat and Democratic Party-tied political consultant who worked closely with U.S. officials to promote regime change in Ukraine.
Although he once welcomed Washington’s influence in Ukraine, Telizhenko now takes a different view. “I'm a Ukrainian who knew how Ukraine was 30 years ago, and what it became today,” he says. “For me, it's a total failed state.” In his view, Ukraine has been “used directly by the United States to fight a [proxy] war with Russia” and “as a rag to make money for people like Biden and his family.”
The State Department has accused Telizhenko being part of a "Russia-linked foreign influence network." In Sept. 2020 it revoked his visa to travel to the United States. Telizhenko, who now lives in a western European country where he was granted political asylum, denies working with Russia and says that he is a whistleblower speaking out to expose how U.S. interference has ravaged his country. RealClearInvestigations has confirmed that he worked closely with top American officials while they advanced policies aimed at severing Ukraine’s ties to Russia. No official contacted for this article – including former CIA chief John Brennan and senior State Department official Victoria Nuland – disputed any of his claims............
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EU Parliament Votes To Define Surrogacy As Human Trafficking
Hélène de Lauzun April 24, 2024
The European Parliament on Tuesday voted by a very large majority in favour of adding—as a minimum—the practice of surrogacy to its legal definition of human trafficking.
The vote counted 563 in favour, 7 against, and 17 abstentions, demonstrating the existence of a very broad consensus on condemning the practice of surrogacy among members of the European Parliament, whatever their political persuasion.
This was a revision of the 2011 European directive on trafficking in human beings, which will now include “the exploitation of surrogate motherhood,” as well as illegal adoption and forced marriage. The revision was initiated by MEP François-Xavier Bellamy, who is once again heading the list for the French centre-right Les Républicains party, a member of the European People’s Party (EPP).
To coincide with the vote, Bellamy organised a conference at the European Parliament on the issue of surrogacy in association with Olivia Maurel, a Frenchwoman who was herself born through surrogacy, now the spokesman for the Casablanca Declaration, the international organisation to ban surrogacy. Bernard Garcia Larrain, the Declaration’s coordinator, was at her side.................
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Israeli airstrike that killed seven health workers in Lebanon used US munition, analysis reveals
Israel used a US weapon in a March airstrike which killed seven healthcare workers in southern Lebanon, according to a Guardian analysis of shrapnel found at the site of the attack, which was described by Human Rights Watch as a violation of international law.
Seven volunteer paramedics, aged between 18 and 25, were killed in the 27 March attack on an ambulance center belonging to the Lebanese Succor Association in the town of al-Habariyeh in south Lebanon on 27 March.
The Guardian examined the remnants of a 500lb Israeli MPR bomb and a
US-manufactured Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) recovered by first
responders from the scene of the attack. Pictures of the shrapnel sent
by the Guardian were further verified by Human Rights Watch and an
independent arms expert.......
Israel Bans Al Jazeera Journalists, Network
By Juan ColeOn April 1, the Israeli parliament, dominated by the country’s far right parties, passed a law permitting the government to halt the broadcast of foreign channels in Israel “if the content is deemed to be a threat to the country’s security during the ongoing war.” Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi called Al Jazeera an “incitement channel” and a “mouthpiece of Hamas.” It was a ridiculous charge for anyone who actually watches the live stream of Al Jazeera English.
Carlos Martinez de la Serna, the New York-based director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said, “CPJ condemns the closure of Al-Jazeera’s office in Israel and the blocking of the channel’s websites. This move sets an extremely alarming precedent for restricting international media outlets working in Israel. The Israeli cabinet must allow Al-Jazeera and all international media outlets to operate freely in Israel, especially during wartime.”..........
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Don’t Get Me Started
Unbecoming American
Where must we start? Every day, we start today
A disagreement or a criticism, before it turns into a fight, or a fight which might be reduced to a mere disagreement or criticism: Where we start or end is the frontier between phrases and fists. It really is that simple. The only way to prove any idea to be false is to kill everyone who holds it. At least that is certainly one of the more popular ways to resolve incoherence between verbal and non-verbal behaviour. My temperament at the end of the 18th calendar week was shaped considerably by the recognition that the disputes which dominate the public debate, gaols and battlefields, not to mention the queues of suffering, have been quite successfully reduced to exchanges between those armed with fighter-bombers, assault rifles, judges and police and those whose principal responses are restricted to hide and/or die.................
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