“Whatever the outcome, we are witnessing an amazing moment of rule of international law history,” said Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard. Human rights defenders and legal experts on Thursday lauded what many called South Africa’s “compelling” opening presentation at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in a case accusing Israel of genocide Continue reading »
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The hearing at the ICJ is not only a determination of the genocidal nature of Israel’s assault on Gaza, it is also an adjudication on the morality of the West. This week, South Africa will open its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The indictment is based on the Continue reading »
Here we go again. The House Republicans are running around in circles, unable to agree among themselves about what they were sent to Washington to do and we are once again on the cusp of a government shutdown. No matter who’s in charge or what the circumstances are, they just can’t get anything done. And for some reason they believe this is a winning election year strategy. The week started out on a hopeful note. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had come to an agreement on a top-line budget number. This seemed to signal that Johnson and his team were serious negotiators who might actually be able to avoid a government shut down. Of course, the framework was already in place from the deal struck last spring between then Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden to raise the debt ceiling, but it still spoke well of his successor that he could be practical enough to recognize that he was going to have to negotiate.
United Against Nuclear Iran, a secretive neoconservative organization with close links to the CIA and the Mossad, is trying to escalate the Israeli assault on Gaza into an Iraq-level U.S. Attack on Iran.
The post United Against Nuclear Iran: The Shadowy, Intelligence-Linked Group Driving the US Towards War With Iran appeared first on MintPress News.
And say anything Donald Trump believes Americans who gave their lives in defense of their country are “suckers” and “losers.” What must he think of his fans who will believe any lie he tells? Paul Waldman responded to Donald Trump’s Wednesday town hall on Fox News: Trump has always employed this very simple strategy: Dish out the most preposterous hyperbole and lies, but do it with the utter conviction that only an experienced con artist can muster. It’s what he did as a businessman, what he did when he ran for president in 2016, and what he has done ever since. Trump’s shtick has worn thin, Waldman believes, but it’s the only one he’s got. Trump went to it again upon leaving a New York City courtroom on Thursday. Trump stood before reporters and lambasted N.Y. Attorney General Letitia James. Presiding Judge Arthur Engoron (who received a bomb threat at his Long Island home on Thursday) will determine how large of a fine the Trump Organization will pay for committing decades of fraud in New York. Engoron mentioned Bernie Madoff’s case at the end of the day, reported Susanne Craig of the New York Times.
Seemingly lasting an eternity, Professor Chris Painter dissects the failures of governance of the 2019-2024 Parliament, in response to momentous events
Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace.
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go.
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living.
And the child born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, good and gay.
I was a Friday child with a Saturday moon rising.
In all of my fifty-four years of life, with me being the baby of the family and all, you’d think someone might’ve mentioned that we were poor. You’d think that during my tendril years of running wild along our family vine that someone would’ve sat me down and explained that for all my reaching for the sun, I just wasn’t ever gonna touch the sky.
Raskin and Markey will need increased security “Democrats Propose Bill to Neuter Militias” is how Vice News described it: Militias who like to spend their weekends training to overthrow the government could find themselves running afoul of federal law, under new legislation being proposed in the House and Senate Thursday that seeks to curtail paramilitary activity. The “Preventing Private Paramilitary Activity Act” is being introduced by Senator Ed Markey from Massachusetts, and Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, both Democrats. Here’s the bill. Here’s Raskin’s statement: Washington, DC – Following the anniversary of the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol, Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-08) and Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) introduced the Preventing Private Paramilitary Activity Act,legislation that wouldcreate a federal prohibition on paramilitary groups through civil and criminal enforcement.
Doctor Who Series 15 is getting a Blu-Ray box set - but the new mini-episode revealing Leela's fate in the "Time War" has our full attention.
Like sculptures, fossils need curators. A raw lump of stone must be prepared and cleaned before it can be studied as a fossil; scientists of the past may well have inadvertently destroyed interesting surface layers. Still, most of its molecular secrets will have remained locked inside – as long as a fossil isn’t blasted into space, it can be handed down to future generations to explore.
I know a good deal about the Bonhomme Richard. I know that it was originally a French merchant vessel called the Duc de Duras; that it was loaned to the fledgling US navy; and that it took part in the War of Independence. I know it was 152 feet long, weighed 998 tonnes and carried 42 guns. But at the time this replica was created in 1975, I knew only that it was my dad’s obsession.
The letters page from London Review of Books Vol. 46 No. 2 (Saturday 13 January 2024)
Table of contents from London Review of Books Vol. 46 No. 2 (Saturday 13 January 2024)
Keats was deeply interested in suffering. He came by it naturally and also medically; sometimes it appeared as an impulse towards poetic tragedy. He wants what he has always wanted, to soothe pain. If he cannot soothe it, he wants to redeem it as creative power.
Marie Laurencin’s independence and her refusal to pander to her patrons only makes her more compelling as a ‘femme peintre’. Like Helena Rubinstein and Coco Chanel, she was ambitious and not always nice.
The BBC was a postwar phenomenon and a promising field for a woman. When Hilda Matheson met John Reith he recruited her to be director of talks on the phenomenal salary of £900 a year. She was 38 and unmarried, fully formed as a character. Yet the Matheson of this period remains, despite her biographers’ efforts, somewhat opaque.
Apart from getting rid of the Bolsheviks, the aims of the Western intervention were remarkably ill-defined. Sometimes it was to protect British interests and keep the Germans, Turks, Poles, or Japanese imperial or territorial ambitions in check; sometimes to support ‘democratic forces’ in Russia, notably the transient Czechs; and sometimes just to back up the (anti-democratic) Whites.
With the exception of a brief threat to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, in November 2021, the war was only of interest to a few specialist staff at foreign ministries. The idea that there are ‘forgotten’ wars raises the question of who is doing the forgetting. Certainly not the participants or their civilian victims.
When Martin Luther King Jr. walked up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial, he delivered a speech that would change history. With passion and eloquence, he showed us a vision of true equality—an America where people of all colors and backgrounds could enjoy life, liberty, and a piece of this sweet Fort Lauderdale timeshare I’m offering.
Seriously, he would have wanted you to sign up right away. It’s a primo bog-side location in the heart of the city’s outskirts.
America was founded on principles of justice. Unfortunately, it took over a century to begin living up to those ideals. Only when Dr. King uttered his famous words, “I have a dream,” did we realize that he probably meant to follow up with, “that you will all go for the Platinum Package, with access to a reasonably well-maintained thirteen-hole golf course.”
That, and the fact that you haven’t given me your credit card number yet, might be the greatest injustice of all.
Denial in Israel is a means of keeping supporters abroad on message. We in the Global North need lies so that we can continue to see our support for Israeli action as morally possible.