Last Sunday, Israel closed Al Jazeera’s office in occupied East Jerusalem, confiscating broadcast equipment and taking the channel off air. Israel’s targeting of journalists and their families, the closure of Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem office, the imprisonment and alleged torture of journalists, and the refusal to let foreign journalists enter Gaza amounts to a war on journalism.

Palestinian journalist Ahmed Alnaouq’s first published story dealt with what he described as Israel’s murder of his brother Ayman in 2014.

• In short: Germany's foreign minister says she is concerned about being too reliant on China for trade.
• She has also warned Israel about conducting any military offensive in Rafah.
• What's next? She said the European nation should look to trade directly with Australia on minerals like lithium.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock says her country has overhauled its strategic approach to China to avoid a repeat of the past when, she says, the NATO member failed to realise the extent of its economic dependence on Russia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txzjKRrBT5c

Putin's New Traditional Vodka...

Marvel invents exceptional American super heroes

That fly to save parallel worlds from made-up nasty foes

Australians praise yobos, petrol-heads and gas-guzzlers

Bathurst, Melbourne-GP and Philip Island circuit geezers

China marches towards sustainable civil futures

Its population lifted away from pauper gutters

Silly clever Americans dream of colonising space

To Mars and beyond with Captain Elon Ace

Many Australians still have to see one koala

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has no way to enlist God in his fight against Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church has said, rebuking a statement Zelensky made during his Easter Sunday speech.

In a video address, Zelensky described God as “an ally” of Ukraine who “has a chevron with the Ukrainian flag on his shoulder.”

“The Lord is not a resident of the Kiev region for Zelensky to mobilize him and put him in the Ukrainian army. His statements don’t merit any attention,”Vakhtang Kipshidze, the head of the Russian church’s public relations department, told news outlet news.ru.

Kipshidze further blasted the Ukrainian leader as “a non-believer” who “claims that he can decide for God whose ally he is.”

Just over four months into the year, Germany has already exceeded sustainable consumption limits for the year, according to the US-based environment NGO Global Footprint Network.

According to its calculations, if everybody in the world behaved like the Germans, humanity would need three Earths to provide enough resources to sustainably accommodate their consumption. 

Anti Communist, Russian nationalist, enemy of Hitler: Who was ‘Putin’s favorite philosopher?’
How Ivan Ilyin, a thinker falsely accused by some in the West – seeking to promote a certain narrative – of being a ‘supporter of fascism’, became so influential...

By Maxim Semenov

He was a staunch supporter of the anti-Bolshevik White Movement during the Russian Civil War and a monarchist who was close to far-right Russian émigré circles. He was also a thinker who was accused of supporting fascism, but was persecuted by Nazi Germany as soon as Hitler came to power. Despite his an ardent anti-communism, he strongly supported the Soviet state in its confrontation with the Third Reich. All these facts describe one person – the renowned Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin. 

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill aimed at combating anti-Semitism in American universities amid continuing student protests against Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

The Antisemitism Awareness Act was approved by 320 votes to 91 on Wednesday, with 21 Republicans and 70 Democrats being among those opposing the legislation.

The bill would require the US Department of Education to adopt a broad definition of anti-Semitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which describes the phenomenon as “certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.”

WE LIVE IN AN ACCIDENTAL UNIVERSE, AS CHRIS LINTOTT, THE COSMOLOGIST, WOULD SAY — BORN FROM IT WITH AN ACCIDENTAL EVOLUTIONARY INTELLIGENCE THAT SEARCHES FOR OUR ACCIDENTAL HUMAN PURPOSE, WOULD ADD GUS LEONISKY.

OUR SEARCH FOR PURPOSE IS LIMITED BY INFORMATION WE ACCEPT OR REJECT IN ORDER TO BE OR BELIEVE.

MODIFYING AND DEVELOPING OUR BEHAVIOUR VIA INFORMATION IS OUR LOT FROM THE DAY WE’RE BORN. WE NEED AS MUCH INFORMATION AS MILK TO SURVIVE, EVEN WHEN WE’RE OLD ENOUGH TO BE LET LOOSE ON THE WORLD AND BE STUPID. 

WE ARE NEVER FREE TO BE. A LOT OF THE CHOSEN INFORMATIVE TOPICS AND WHAT OUR REACTIONS TO THESE ARE CRAFTED BY VARIOUS SOURCES FROM SCIENTISTS TO CLEVER MERCHANTS OF SNAKE OIL, INCLUDING HOLLYWOOD. 

US politicians ‘living in Wonderland’ – Moscow
Washington insists the Ukraine conflict must be settled based on the UN Charter, but backs Kiev’s ‘peace formula,’ the Foreign Ministry says

US calls for Russia to hold talks on ending the Ukraine conflict seem detached from reality and ignore Moscow’s previous attempts to reach a settlement, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

You realize, don’t you, that what’s going on in our country is the collapse not just of an empire, or an economy, but a comprehensive paradigm of human progress. The hallmark of post-war life in Western Civ was supposed to be a return to sanity after the mid-twentieth century fugue of mass psychotic violence.

BY JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER

The wish for just and rational order was not entirely pretense. But that was then. Now that we are going medieval on ourselves, the not-so-ironic result will be our literally going medieval, sinking back into a pre-modern existence of darkness, superstition, and penury, grubbing for a mere subsistence in the shadow of scuffling hobgoblins, our achievements lost and forgotten.

Relations between the US and EU in recent years, remarkably after the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, have been truly negative for Europeans. It seems increasingly clear that Washington does not see EU states as its true allies, but as vassal countries and subservient proxies, using them to serve its interests unilaterally.

BY Lucas Leiroz — member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.

Israel’s crimes against humanity, war crimes and its acts of genocide against the Palestinian people are, without a doubt, the most horrific acts committed by a ‘democracy’ since the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War. Yet despite this fact the Australian government refuses to warn or investigate whether any Australian citizens or companies are involved directly or indirectly, in the commission of these atrocities.

A ban on TikTok is now almost inevitable in the US as President Joe Biden signs legislation banning the app unless the Chinese-based parent company ByteDance sells the app to an approved buyer. 

Mr Biden's signing sets a January 19 deadline for a sale  — one day before his term is set to expire — but he could extend the deadline by three months if he determines ByteDance is making progress.

Here's the latest: 

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday went after China for its trade relationship with Russia, saying Beijing must reduce its trade with Moscow to have good relations with the West.

Western officials often accuse China of supporting Russia’s military, but there’s no evidence of Beijing shipping weapons. Instead, they point to China’s export of semiconductors and raw materials.

By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com