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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, January 2nd, 2024 - 16 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Sorry to see the passing of John Pilger.
Annoying and against the flow and in your face campaigner ie a good journalist.
Agreed Ad and always worth a listen to on the rare occasions western media asked his views.
Another aussie battler gone, assange fights on.
Better than good; brilliant.
“The exercise of imagination is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary”
Ursula K LeGuin
But, "folk are folk", and cannot change, apparently.
So I've read. Perhaps if folk were to read more folk-tales, their imaginations might be stimulated.
In German; Lebensraum.
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A senior Israeli official from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government admitted on Saturday that the Gaza Strip is a “ghetto” and that Israel must reduce the enclave’s Palestinian population ― the latest example of Israeli authorities plainly stating their goals for the future of Gaza and Palestinians.
In an interview with Israeli Army Radio, ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that his “demand” was for Gaza to stop being a “hotbed where 2 million people grow up on hatred and aspire to destroy the State of Israel.” He did not specify why Palestinian civilians in Gaza would aspire to destroy Israel.
According to a translation by Haaretz, the Religious Zionism party chairman also said that Israel must occupy and resettle Gaza in order to regain security.
“If we act strategically, they will emigrate and we will live there. We won’t let 2 million stay. With 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza, the ‘day after’ debate will be different,” Smotrich said, as translated by an Israel analyst with the nonprofit Crisis Group. “They want to leave, they’ve been living in a ghetto for 75 years.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israeli-official-gaza-ghetto-palestinians_n_6591f45de4b0b01d3e40260c
Then he has to go and he & his allies be held accountable once there is a true ceasefire on both sides that is guaranteed by a true international coalition. Same goes for the Hamas leadership in Qatar and elsewhere. Both leaders need to be held accountable.
It was always a surprise that the Blue and White leader Gantz joined a coalition with the Likud led government without requiring the Religious Zionist group to be removed first. And since then Netanyahu has for the first time explicitly said he always saw the Oslo Accord two state process as wrong.
It was Likud who used Hamas in Gaza to discredit Palestinian nationalism while creating settlements facts on the WB ground.
Now he is using the RZ to promote exile from Gaza as liberation from their ghetto, presumably to create a reaction from others – Arab League and UN and EU to rebuild Gaza and develop a self-governing Palestinian state there – sans the military wing of Hamas (current talks about the political wing of Hamas joining the PLO and PA governance and police in Gaza).
Peace always required one control of the PA gun and the political death of Likud. Thus his own removal. He is gambling that the AL will block the Gaza under PA rule and rebuild project because of the continuance of WB settlement. Thus he can win.
The wheels have fallen off Netanyahu's plan to legislate his way out of answering for the multiple corruption charges he faces, too.
The Supreme Court on Monday evening ruled to annul an amendment to a Basic Law that restricts its oversight of the government which was passed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government last July.
The ruling reinstates the so-called reasonableness clause which grants the court oversight of government decisions. This marks the first time the court has ruled on one of Israel's quasi-constitutional Basic Laws.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hkpqmkg00a
Read Russian poetry in public in Russia, get locked up for years.
The Tverskoy district court of Moscow sentenced Artem Kamardin and Egor Shtovbu to real terms of the defendants of the "Mayakovsky case" because of reading verses with negative attitudes towards subpoenas and "policemen". A listener from the courtroom reports about this
Kamardin was sentenced to four years in the colony of the general regime under the article on incitement of hatred (ch. 2 ст. 282 УК) and to six years under the article о публичных печавках к доставка против бесплатно государство (ч. 3 ст. 280.4 УК). Путем соложения наказаний ему наченили семь лет колонии.
Shtovbu was found guilty under similar articles, and he was sentenced to three years under the first article and five years under the second. In the sum of a young person, they spoke to five and a half years of the colony.
[…]
In September 2022, the three participants of «Mayakovskikh readings», Artema Kamardin, Yegor Shtovbu and Nikolay Daineko filed a criminal case on the article about inciting hatred. The reason was the poem «Убей меня, ополченец», which Kamardin read at the monument to Mayakovsky. The investigation considers that this poem caused hatred towards «participants of military actions in LNR and DNR».
google translate
https://ovd.info/express-news/2023/12/28/figurantov-mayakovskogo-dela-artema-kamardina-i-egora-shtovbu-prigovorili-k
National used the tax rebates for childcare costs to make extravagant claims about the maximum available under their tax cuts (a small few with children aged 2-3 in child care).
Yet the policy of providing tax rebates while allowing providers to charge fees is well known as one enabling profit to be extracted by the provider rather than any improvement in the quality of the education.
The policy is one based around privatising education on a business model, and the opt out to charter school status now being brought in indicates a plan to do the same for primary and secondary education.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/a/nz-news/nz-news/350137703/changes-early-childhood-education-needs-rather-tax-rebates?utm_source=stuff_website&utm_medium=stuff_referral&utm_campaign=mh_stuff&utm_id=mh_stuff
David Warner has lost his aging baggy green cap before his last test and does not know where to find it (lost rucksack) – Shane Warne's one sold for a $M at an auction.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/sport/2024/01/cricket-david-warner-appeals-for-return-of-missing-baggy-green-cap-on-eve-of-final-test.html
Each new test player gets given their green cap from another player and they keep it for their career. Players come and go – and the gold coin that can be made from a generation long career is what it is.
Cameron Bancroft received his baggy green cap, he last wore in England 2019 (during a brief comeback from a period out of the game after an incident in South Africa) from Geoff Marsh.
Cameron Bancroft (now age 31 plays for Western Australia in a team captained by Mitchell Marsh. Their team colours are gold and black.
A new test opener will be required after the Sydney test.
Who cares!Cricket is a game for pretentious prima donnas.Bangladesh too good for NZ.
Just put in a good performance now and again to keep your place.
30 years after Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia and Somaliland from Somalia, Ethiopia (using the port of Djibouti) having tried and failed to gain access to a now disused port in Eritrea, is now making arrangements with Somaliland.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67332811
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67858566
Some interesting detail about the UAE, its supply of drones to Ethiopia which was decisive in suppressing the Tigray rebellion, the battle for power in Sudan and its investment in a Somaliland port. Given the rise of the Houthi as Iranian agent (Red Sea and Persian Gulf sea lanes) and the Chinese with presence in Djibouti.
https://ecfr.eu/article/chinas-new-military-base-in-africa-what-it-means-for-europe-and-america/