The BBC‘s racist, institutional bias in favour of Israel has been clear throughout the state’s settler-colonial genocide in Gaza. In particular, its propaganda strategy involves the omission of key context. And a new article about falling support for Israel in the US is a perfect example. Because the BBC couldn’t bring itself to mention Israel’s war crimes, ethniccleansing, or apartheid – not even once. And the only mention of genocide was to note that former president Joe Biden rejected the label “Genocide Joe”.
But there’s not even a mention in the BBC article of reports or rulings from international legal institutions or human rights organisations.
They can do journalism. They just prefer to do PR for war criminals.
The BBC certainly can provide background and research when it wants to. For example, the article outlines fairly well the factors that established Israel as the next step in Western colonialism. It mentions the New York Zionist campaign in the subways to “collect money to try to get England to open the doors” to Palestine when Britain was in control of the territory. It quotes a woman saying:
My brother would go on the subway trains, all the doors open on the train and he’d shout ‘open, open, open the doors to Palestine’
The article also quotes historian Rashid Khalidi, whose family British colonialists expelled from Palestine in the 1930s. He said:
On the one side, you had the Zionist movement led by people whom are European and American by origin… The Arabs had nothing similar… [The Arabs] weren’t familiar with the societies, the cultures, the political leaderships of the countries that decided the fate of Palestine. How could you speak to American public opinion if you had no idea what America is like?
The piece makes it clear that experts were warning the US government of the risk of intensifying conflict in the Middle East if Washington backed the creation of Israel. It later explains how the war of 1967 showed the US “the importance and the significance of Israel as a major military and political power in the Middle East”, further strengthening the US-Israeli love-in. And it even mentions how Trump’s proposals for Gaza “upended international norms, flying in the face of international law”.
Just no talk of ‘genocide’. No ‘apartheid’. No ‘war crimes’. And no ‘ethnic cleansing’.
In short, the BBC is perfectly capable of giving context when it wants to. It cannot plead ignorant or incompetent. It simply chooses to avoid mentioning the international condemnation of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and apartheid. That is a conscious choice, and an utterly despicable one.
Mark Carney, the newly elected prime minister of Canada, robustly pushed back against Donald Trump’s repeated intentions to make Canada the 51st American state. Just two months ago, Trump said:
Canada only works as a state. We don’t need anything they have. As a state, it would be one of the great states anywhere. This would be the most incredible country, visually…It’s so perfect as a great and cherished state.
And, with Carney’s visit to the White House, Trump repeated his desire to annex Canada. However, Carney wasn’t having any of it, saying:
As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale. Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign … it’s not for sale. Won’t be for sale, ever.
Trump hit back with:
Never say never.
And, as he did so, Carney mouthed “never, never, never, never” to the waiting cameras. It looks like ‘never’ is now for Trump’s absurd attempted conquest of Canada.
Carney pushes back against Trump
Throughout their encounter in the White House, Carney took the role of an exasperated parent gently berating a smug toddler. A screenshot of the moment Trump was told Canada isn’t for sale looked much like a disappointed toddler being told they can’t have ice cream for dinner:
Trump’s ongoing tariff war has had a distinct response from Canadian consumers: no thank you – perhaps without the ‘thank you.’ Canadian businesses ranging from supermarkets to bars have continued to refuse American products. Instead, they’re opting to go with home-grown options or non-American trading partners. The number of Canadians taking road trips south of the border has also dropped dramatically, with a 23% drop in visits in comparison to February 2024. As Bloomberg reported, this is having harsh impacts on US border towns that rely on tourism sales from Canadians.
Of course, Trump hasn’t shown any concern or business sense as there appears to be no sign of Canadians relenting. Now, Carney’s visit has set a tone for Canada’s relationship with America as one of exasperation and pushback.
The thing is, there’s no tactics world leaders can apply for Trump. The orange one has proven himself to be a capricious fool who cannot be reasoned with. Carney is an experienced politician and economist. That doesn’t mean anything to the tangerine tyrant, who is a runaway train of ignorance, conceived policies, and the ever-changing whims of a racist egotist.
Managing director of Southern Water Tim Mcmahon has told the public to ration water in spring time hot weather. But water companies sold off 35 reservoirs in just five years, making £26 million from flogging what were public assets. That’s before Margaret Thatcher privatised them in 1989.
Southern Water: asset stripping
Reservoirs that once provided water for dry weather have now been converted to for-profit housing, as well as fishing locations. Ignoring the blatant asset stripping, Southern Water’s Mcmahon said:
If you look at the south-east of England, it’s drier than Sydney, Istanbul, Dallas, Marrakesh. We have got a very densely populated area and we need to start investing to cater for that.
We need to reduce customers’ usage. Otherwise we will have to put other investments in place, which will not be good for our customers and might not be the best thing for the environment.
In other words, water companies sold off the reservoirs and then passed on the later costs to the public through higher bills.
A 2018 document shows Southern Water will decommission 43 of 93 reservoirs between 2023 and 2030. Yet it only plans to build one more in the coming years with Thames Water. This suggests that for-profit companies are incapable of maintaining vital infrastructure that the country needs.
And it’s not just the reservoirs losing water. In 2021, water firms lost more than 1 trillion litres through leaky pipes.
‘Extracting value’
Speaking in parliament in March, Labour MP Clive Lewis said:
In the 35 years before privatisation, almost 100 reservoirs were built. In the 35 years since privatisation, not one major English reservoir has been built… instead of investing in resilience they’ve extracted value. £75 billion paid out in dividends while pipes leak, rivers choke and the public pays the price. My honourable friends says ‘how can we afford it’, how can not afford it?
The latest research from Greenwich University found that the UK public would save £5 billion per year on water bills through the government bringing water back into public ownership. And that figure would be higher once it didn’t include paying off nationalisation costs.
Besides, shareholder compensation may not be necessary. Financial ratings company Moody has stated:
the level of compensation would fall within the wide discretion of parliament
The government could take into account the mismanagement of the environment, debt, and politically the amount of profit already made.
From every angle, water privatisation is a failure – not least with companies like Southern Water. Whether, it’s cost, investment or the lack of a public focused management approach.
Although Britain’s political class has stood firmly behind Israel amid its genocide in Gaza, the apartheid state continues to embarrass its allies. In particular, a new report shows Israel recording the entry of 8,630 items of death and destruction from the UK in “four separate shipments… between September 2024 and February 2025”. This was despite the Labour government supposedly banning items the occupying power could use for its war crimes in Gaza.
The UK: still arming Israel despite ban?
The report from Drop Site News notes that the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has “refused to specify what the deliveries contained”. But Israel itself apparently described the imports as “Bombs, Grenades, Torpedoes, Mines, Missiles And Similar Munitions Of War And Parts Thereof”.
528 such items went to Israel in September 2024, 4,500 in November, and 3,602 in January and February 2025.
Drop Site quotes a British government spokesperson saying:
In September, we suspended export licenses to Israel for items used in military operations in Gaza. Our remaining licenses relate to non-military items, military items for civilian use or not for use in military operations in Gaza, or components for items for re-export to other countries.
The outlet also mentions the role that the highly controversial RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus has likely played in helping to supply Israel with the tools it needs to commit war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.
What are a few loopholes between colonial powers?
The lucrative business of F-35 fighter jets, which has caused so much death and destruction, marked a highly controversial exemption from Labour’s licence suspensions in 2024. The only condition was that F-35 parts couldn’t go straight from the UK to Israel.
However, it seems the settler-colonial power has received numerous shipments of aircraft parts since the apparent ban. According to defence minister Maria Eagle, “there have been no exports of F-35 parts direct to Israel via RAF Marham since the licensing suspension”. However, as Drop Site mentions:
evidence suggests that these transfers did not stop in September. The import data shows a further thirteen courier shipments of aircraft parts under “Customs Code 88” directly from the UK to Israel taking place from October 2024 to March 2025.
Of these deliveries, Israel described 11 of them as “parts of airplanes, helicopters, or unmanned aircraft”. The other two were “parachutes, parachute accessories, and parts thereof” and “rotor parts”. The DBT reportedly refused to confirm if these related to F-35s.
Serious questions to answer
Former Foreign Office adviser Mark Smith previously revealed efforts under Tory and Labour governments “to suppress inconvenient truths” about UK allies. He spoke about official use of bullying, manipulation, and stonewalling to prolong “complicity with war crimes“.
This month, the High Court “will review the decision-making process of the UK government, and rule whether they have acted unlawfully by continuing to export some arms to Israel”. The judgement will probably come a few months later.
New data disclosed by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has shown that there were hundreds of data security incidents across Jobcentres in 2024, affecting an untold number of claimants. The new information has been released just as the DWP caused another major data breach – this time, involving dozens of disabled people’s personal emails.
DWP: breaching data for the online Green Paper consultation
Currently, the DWP is doing online consultations on the Green Paper it recently released. This is about its planned cuts to Universal Credit, and changes and cuts to Personal Independence Payment (PIP). Understandably, countless chronically ill and disabled people had signed up for the online meeting. However, last Thursday as one participant told the Canary:
DWP are doing online consultations regarding the green paper. Me and other people signed up to one on Eventbrite. The online consultation is happening on 6 May.
This afternoon we received an email with the zoom joining details.
All of our email addresses were included in the “to” section.
It is also worth noting that I cancelled my “ticket” to this event a couple of weeks ago and confirmed I had cancelled my attendance to the DWP via email. So, I should not have even been on this email list.
I am disabled. This major breach is linking me to that protected characteristic.
The email address used is my main one, on a domain that I own.
I now feel that my identity as a disabled person has now been shared without my consent.
As Benefits and Work noted, “an attachment with the email even set out which of the DWP staff were ‘required’ participants, which were ‘optional’ and detailed which section of the DWP they work in, such as, corporate support and development, occupational psychology, private pensions, labour market directorate, disability and health, customer experience”.
A shambles
Another participant told the Canary:
I discovered that the DWP shared our personal information without consent by sending out a blanket invitation to all involved. Everyone in attendance could see each other’s personal information. What shocked me is that DWP has responded by labelling it as a technical difficulty without understanding or taking ownership around the seriousness of this breach. Understandably so, there were attendees emailing collectively to raise their concern as well spreading awareness about ICO if anyone wants to formally address it.
As Benefits and Work noted, the DWP response said:
Apologies for the Teams invite that was shared, there was a technical difficulty. The previously scheduled Teams meeting has now been cancelled, and a new meeting invitation will be shared with you shortly.
In the meantime, if you would like us to use a different email address for the updated invitation, please reply to this email by 02/05/2025.
That is, the DWP failed to even acknowledge it had broken the law. However, when it comes to the department this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The tip of the iceberg
Compensation experts Data Breach Claims UK learned through a Freedom of Information request that 238 Jobcentres experienced at least one breach between November 2023 and January 2025.
There were also 261 ‘postal security incidents’, where documents containing personal data were sent to the wrong address and opened by an unauthorised person.
The DWP was reprimanded by the ICO in 2022 after a failure to redact sensitive information by its Child Maintenance Appeals service led to 16 people’s personal data being sent to ‘inappropriate’ third parties. It was reported that among the recipients of that data was an ex-partner with a history of domestic abuse, an error for which the DWP apologised after its ICO rebuke.
The department was bullish in defending their mail security record, telling Data Breach Claims UK that the:
DWP issues over 80,000,000 mail notifications per annum and the number of recorded Postal Security Incidents recorded equates to 0.00027%.
DWP data breaches are no small matter, says expert
A data breach is defined by information security watchdog the ICO as a “breach of security leading to the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, personal data”.
DWP claimants are expected to share sensitive information when using the service, including names, addresses, National Insurance numbers, job histories and bank details, plus medical information in some cases.
A breach of said data can have a catastrophic effect, such as one case of a Jobcentre Plus data breach from 2014 where the impacted person was forced to move across the country.
“In this current climate, claimants already have more than enough to worry about without a mistake causing their personal data to become public,” said Data Breach Claims UK specialist Bethan Hakesley:
Even one data breach is too many, especially if it causes a person significant stress. If personal data gets in the wrong hands, it can have a devastating impact.
We’ve supported many people who have had their lives turned upside down by a simple error with serious consequences. If someone suffers mental harm or financial damage because of a personal data breach, they’re well within their rights to look into claiming compensation.
London and East Midlands centres post most data breach incidents
The DWP counted 369 data breaches across its Jobcentres through 2024, spread across 218 locations.
Letter mishaps affect over 250 claimants
The DWP said that there were 261 ‘postal security incidents’ between November 2023 and January 2025. Such incidents involve letters being sent to the wrong address and their contents–including an individual’s personal data–being seen by the wrong person.
This happened most often in Coventry, where 30 incidents were recorded. A postal mishap was more than twice as likely in Coventry than in the place affected second-most often (Torquay, 14 incidents).
Birkenhead (12), Makerfield (11) and Norwich (10) all had postal incidents in the double-digits.
103 of the incidents affected the personal data of people on the DWP’s Work & Health programme, with the north east (27 errors) and southern England (26) the most affected regions.
The DWP says…
The Canary contacted the DWP for a response over the data breach relating to the Green Paper. It told us:
As part of our Plan for Change, we are seeking views on the approaches we should consider creating a sustainable welfare system that genuinely supports sick and disabled people into work.
We take our responsibility to protect data very seriously and apologise to those impacted by this isolated incident.
However, given the information Data Breach Claims UK has discovered, it is far from an isolated incident. When the DWP cannot be bothered to even handle chronically ill and disabled people’s personal data properly, how can they trust it to deal with their actual claims?
As one claimant told the Canary:
It is violating my privacy.
It is leaving me open to scams, hacks, and abuse.
It makes me feel more vulnerable than I already feel as a disabled woman.
It removes any trust I had in the DWP that this consultation will be handled professionally and with dignity.
History has repeatedly proven the DWP is not fit for purpose, and exists purely to work against chronically ill and disabled people. These latest revelations just cement that notion further.
Data Breach Claims UK is a service dedicated to offering guidance and support to people who have been emotionally or financially affected by a personal data breach.
Its phone and online service is available 24/7 and provides a free compensation claim assessment.
Possible internal moves by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has only exposed once more the contempt that this Labour Party government has for chronically ill and disabled people. Crucially, more chaos from the DWP – this time over purported “operational changes” to its flagship Access to Work scheme – is showing how the government’s cuts to chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits has little to do with supporting them into work, and everything to do with eliminating government expenditures.
Significantly however, the DWP didn’t put forward these changes publicly. It’s only thanks to one disability consultant and Access to Work adviser whistleblowing the unexpected updates that we even know this might be happening. So, the DWP is seemingly attempting to sneak this through without public scrutiny. And of course, it’s doing so all as it claims its broader programme of welfare cuts is to support chronically ill and disabled people into work.
Now, the whole affair is also turning into another DWP shambles. This is because, without explanation, the department appears to have put a pin in these plans. But notably, this was only after the whistleblower raised the alarm on LinkedIn, and a poster shared them further on X.
Access to Work: DWP covert changes afoot
As the name suggests, the scheme provides financial support for disabled people in the workplace, or trying to enter it. In effect, it offers a grant for things like specialist equipment, assistive software, and support workers. It also provides financial help to cover the costs of travel, vehicle adaptations, and other access changes to the workplace environment.
Currently though, the scheme has major backlogs, and is enormously failing to support disabled people when they’re already in work. In April, a disabled campaigner obtained damning Access to Work figures. These revealed the continued failure of the new Labour government to address these soaring backlogs. Notably, an Freedom of Information (FOI) revealed that waiting times had actually shot up exponentially since Labour took power. Specifically, between July 2024, to the end of February, the average processing time for applications to Access to Work increased from 55.3 days, to 84.6 days.
On top of this, the onerous and bureaucratic assessment process is itself a barrier to applicants as well.
Now however, the DWP looks to be taking steps that will only exacerbate these problems. And it’s doing so largely behind closed doors.
Disability consultant and Access to Work adviser Alice Hastie posted about the “upcoming changes” to Access to Work’s “operational delivery” on her LinkedIn.
The DWP had sent the information to her in a private email during the week commencing 28 April. According to the communication, the changes the DWP laid out would go live Tuesday 6 May.
Specifically, Hastie highlighted that these included:
Special Aides and Equipment – more pushback onto employers
Hard limits on Support Worker hourly rates
Stricter rules and criteria for awarding Job Aide Support Workers
Removing flexibility to allow small increases in support without the need to raise a Change of Circumstance.
Notably, Hastie explained that:
These changes will affect all decisions made after this date, whether they are on new applications, reconsiderations, renewals or changes of circumstances.
Hastie raised the alarm on this because she had a number of “major concerns”.
Reasonable adjustments become ‘standard business items’
For a start, Hastie disclosed a “clarified” list of reasonable adjustments the DWP Access to Work scheme would categorically no longer fund. These included ergonomic items like chairs, desks, keyboards, and mice. Alongside these, it listed various software, reading support devices, and physical supports such as arm rests, back, and wrist supports.
In essence, the DWP communication suggested it would consider these ‘standard business items’. That is, reasonable adjustments that employers should fund themselves for their employees. However, Hastie pointed out a number of issues with this.
To begin with, Hastie highlighted that there is “no scaling” between self-employed and corporations with large turnovers. In other words, while a multimillion pound company could afford to fund these items, small businesses and self-employed individuals won’t necessarily have the finances to do so.
What’s more, it makes the assumption that employees have recourse to hold employers to account for making these reasonable adjustments. Hastie explained that in here experience, in practice, this is rarely the case. She wrote that there was a lack of support:
for employees to get their employers to provide Reasonable Adjustments, buy ‘standard business items’ or employ Support Workers. This is already a problem – I have a client who has been trying to get a fully funded support worker access to their place of employment for over 6 months now with no success. When Access to Work rejects a request, the employee has very little power to hold their employer to account to do the things that Access to Work has assumed they will do. I’ve seen this over and over again with clients. I would like to see a dedicated set of liaison officers within Access to Work to provide backup to employees and level the power dynamic. So if AtW rejects a claim because all the items needed are ‘standard business items’ or Reasonable Adjustments – the employee knows that AtW will help them get that support out of their employer.
Reducing support in multiple areas
Hastie also raised problems with other Access to Work changes the DWP appears to be mooting. She explained how they are restricting what would constitute as ‘replacement’ versus ‘enablement’ for disabled employees. Ultimately, this would dictate whether the DWP funds support workers and job aides.
Another notable change was that the guidance seemed to downgrade support for certain groups. In particular, Hastie noted the impact on neurodivergent individuals, people with mental health conditions, and executive functioning issues. Specifically, she described how instead of giving job aides this support role, it would now instead be funded as a job coach support or as “Coping Strategies Coaching”. Notably, the job coach would be a temporary support. In other words, it seems to mean entirely withdrawing long-term funding for job aides for these disabled demographics.
There were other changes around payments too. Support workers hourly rates would have a hard cap. Job aide funding would be tied to local job portal rates. If costs increase for certain supports the AtW scheme would no longer increase to match this during an award period. For instance, this might include more expensive travel fares.
Hastie underscored that the DWP changes seemed to lack consideration for the impact on self-employed people in particular. And, as she noted:
The disabled self-employed people I work with are mainly self-employed as their last attempt at staying in employment. They weren’t able to stay in traditional employment, due to high needs and unsupportive employers and they don’t want to give up and claim benefits. They don’t usually have much in the way of capital to buy items to support their disabilities and their turnover is often too small to do it that way either.
And, in the context of the pitiable number of ‘disability confident’ jobs on offer as it is, this should be only too evident:
Semi-regular update on how many jobs there actually are for disabled people in the UK, according to DWP Find a Job
All Jobs: 102,887
Fully Remote: 807
Of which are disability confident: 127
Of which are part time: 10
TEN JOBS IN THE WHOLE OF THE UK
— Rachel Charlton-Dailey (@RachelCDailey) May 5, 2025
Access to Work changes: ready to roll-out..? Not quite
So, instead of addressing the Access to Work scheme’s multiple issues, the DWP appears to be attempting to make sudden changes that will only entrench them further for chronically ill and disabled people attempting to utilise the scheme.
But, to make matters worse, it’s now unclear when the department is going to roll these changes out anyway. This is because the DWP has purportedly paused this. It will not be implementing these changes on 6 May after all.
The Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey established this in conversation with Hastie over Linkedin. In particular, she replied that:
I’ve just had an update to say staff have been told not to go ahead as planned. I do not know what that means!
It appears the DWP may have halted the plans in response to the social media pushback. Overall though, it speaks to more of the DWP’s glaring incompetency and a clear culture of contempt for chronically ill and disabled communities.
While it’s not proceeding with this – for now – it’s evident that it’s attempting to covertly shift the goal-posts to make it harder for chronically ill and disabled people to access support. Once again, it’s trying to make unilateral changes without public input, consultation, or impact assessment.
Labour doing what it does best: punching down on disabled people
Of course, it would hardly be surprising if this is the Labour-led DWP’s response to the Access to Work spiralling backlogs and the perceived soaring costs of the scheme. In short, restricting what chronically ill and disabled people can get support for on the scheme would be one way to drive down both. However, it will naturally invariably mean denying them grants for aids, equipment, and support vital to reducing and removing barriers into, and within workplaces.
In this sense, the changes seem to suggest that the DWP is less concerned with making the scheme more accessible and effective, than it is with quick fixes to its headline backlog figures.
Arguably, it fits right in with Labour’s manoeuvres to scapegoat neurodivergent people and those living with mental health conditions. As the Canary has consistently documented, the right-wing corporate media has been actively laying the groundwork for this.
In January, a number of articles in right-wing outlets like the Telegraph, and the Daily Mail, seized on the ‘sickfluencers’ purportedly abusing the scheme. As we previously highlighted, these:
homed in on the fact it “can hand claimants nearly £70,000 a year”. It juxtaposed this beside the “spiralling costs” of an increasing claim rate to the Treasury. In other words, the ‘economic burden’ narrative is pretty palpable in this.
The DWP’s moves to reduce the scheme would therefore track in this fiscal savings framing.
Another fudge and more underhandedness from the DWP
Yet, none of this should be surprising. The department itself is hardly the champion of access and disability rights in the workplace. On 2 May, the Big Issuerevealed that the DWP has lost more tribunals for disability discrimination than any other UK employer. It clearly points to a deeply entrenched and pervasive culture of ableism within the department. So, it’s perhaps little wonder the DWP is pushing more plans that will punch down on chronically ill and disabled people.
Ultimately, it’s all more fumbling and underhandedness from the DWP. At present, it’s unclear when it will make these Access to Work changes. But, at the bare minimum, the whistleblower revelations show these are plans it is considering. In fact, it even appeared ready to roll-out these as recently as last week.
It’s clear this Labour government has no intention of genuinely supporting chronically ill and disabled people. All evidence so far shows it isn’t remotely committed to removing the work barriers for them. Scaling down Access to Work in tandem with its benefit cuts shows it’s ‘back-to-work’ promises of support are nothing but hollow words.
The Canary contacted the DWP for comment, but had received no response by the time of publication.
Israel’s security cabinet has approved plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza, which includes the expulsion of 2.4m Palestinians. Only three months ago, Donald Trump expressed his desire to do exactly the same.
Trump gets his Gaza waterfront development
According to the BBC, Israel will ‘expand its military offensive against Hamas’. But this is the BBC, and we all know what that really means. Israel is planning to wipe Gaza off the map.
In a briefing later on Monday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the expanded campaign would displace most Palestinians in Gaza as air strikes and other military operations continued.
Which, translated from Israeli war machine propaganda, means they plan to bomb the rest of Gaza to death, or force them to leave – so Trump can then enter.
War Criminal Netanyahu has announced a plan to forcibly expel and ethnically cleanse the entire Palestinian population, flatten, and annex Gaza.
This comes after 64 days of blocking food and aid. This was always their plan.
— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) May 5, 2025
Israel: bullshit ‘military conquest’
They claim the ‘forceful operation’ will save the rest of the hostages, but that’s the same excuse they’ve used for the last 18 months while they’ve obliterated Gaza, and murdered over 50,000 Palestinians.
BREAKING: Israel to FULLY OCCUPY Gaza, take over aid distribution
Israel’s security cabinet has approved a plan for the complete military conquest and occupation of Gaza.
Netanyahu also confirmed he is advancing the Trump plan to enable the “voluntary departure” of Palestinians… pic.twitter.com/VJBa1HrEn3
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister and war criminal, said they will ‘move’ the population of Gaza – which is over two million people. What he means is they are going to ethnically cleanse, and murder, even more Palestinians from and in their homeland. This is exactly what Trump wanted.
Netanyahu and Trump said they would ethnically cleanse Gaza, it’s happening right now.
JUST IN: Israel’s Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich:
“The time has come to pounce on Gaza Occupy it. Establish military government, take territory from them, and implement President Trump’s plan to remove 1.5-2 million Gazans from Gaza.” pic.twitter.com/DZyPgH7sa4
For two months, Israel has been blocking all humanitarian and commercial aid. The United Nations has said Israel is using humanitarian aid, such as food, as a political tool – which is a war crime.
Another four month old baby has starved to death today in Gaza.
Yousef al-Najjar weighed only 3 pounds when he died.
This is a deliberate policy on the part of Trump and Netanyahu, they are starving Palestinian babies to death in order to force Palestinians into submission https://t.co/YRuxZAQWWA
Trump and Netanyahu think they can either starve Palestinians to death, or force them to comply.
After two months of devastating blockade and starvation of Gaza, Israeli officials demand that we shut down the universal aid distribution system run by the UN and NGOs like NRC. They want to manipulate and militarize all aid to civilians, forcing us to deliver supplies through…
Israel’s leaders are now openly declaring their plans to permanently seize the entire Gaza Strip and expel its inhabitants — an intention that has long been evident to anyone paying attentionhttps://t.co/iqdkM5M8zz
Both Trump and Netanyahu have made their ethnic cleansing plans clear as day. Yet the majority of the media are pretending they’re not. The BBC’scalled it ‘expanding their military offensive’, Sky Newsused ‘capture all of the Gaza Strip’, and the New York Timesdescribed it as ‘forceful entry into the territory’. All of them are beating around the bush. And the bush is on fire.
Trump: we will help Israel ethnically cleanse Gaza.
Every single Israel leader: we will ethnically cleanse Gaza.
Western media: it’s complicated
— The Ghost of Albert Camus (@AlbertsGhost) May 5, 2025
This was Trump’s plan all along. Gaza wiped off the map so he can build his cushty little waterfront apartments with his pal Netanyahu. Because who cares about Palestinians?
Israel is doing this in full public view because of the support from Western governments. Which means now, they have been able to formally announce their plans for ethnic cleansing and permanent illegal occupation – knowing they would not be met with resistance from the powers that be.
Among the many lessons to be learnt by Australia’s defeated Liberal-National coalition parties from the election is that they should stop getting into bed with News Corporation.
Why would a political party outsource its policy platform and strategy to people with plenty of opinions, but no experience in actually running a government?
The result of the federal election suggests that unlike the coalition, many Australians are ignoring the opinions of News Corp Australia’s leading journalists such as Andrew Bolt and Sharri Markson.
Last Thursday, in her eponymous programme on Sky News Australia, Markson said:
For the first time in my journalistic career I’m going to also offer a pre-election editorial, endorsing one side of politics […] A Dutton prime ministership would give our great nation the fresh start we deserve.
Sharri Markson issues own Dutton endorsement as ACM says ‘Australia is Tanya Plibersek’https://t.co/UYh0xKeXPR
After a vote count that sees the Labor government returned with an increased majority, Bolt wrote a piece for the Herald Sunadmonishing voters:
No, the voters aren’t always right. This time they were wrong, and this gutless and incoherent Coalition should be ashamed. Australians just voted for three more years of a Labor government that’s left this country poorer, weaker, more divided and deeper in debt, and which won only by telling astonishing lies.
That’s staggering. If that’s what voters really like, then this country is going to get more of it, good and hard.
The Australian and most of News’ tabloid newspapers endorsed the coalition in their election eve editorials.
Repudiation of minor culture war
The election result was a repudiation of the minor culture war Peter Dutton reprised during the campaign when he advised voters to steer clear of the ABC and “other hate media”. It may have felt good alluding to “leftie-woke” tropes about the ABC, but it was a tactical error.
The message probably resonated only with rusted-on hardline coalition voters and supporters of right-wing minor parties.
But they were either voting for the coalition, or sending them their preferences, anyway. Instead, attacking the ABC sent a signal to the people the coalition desperately needed to keep onside — the moderates who already felt disappointed by the coalition’s drift to the right and who were considering voting Teal or for another independent.
Attacking just about the most trusted media outlet in the country simply gave those voters another reason to believe the coalition no longer represented their values.
Reporting from the campaign bus is often derided as shallow form of election coverage. Reporters tend to be captive to a party’s agenda and don’t get to look much beyond a leader’s message.
But there was real value in covering Dutton’s daily stunts and doorstops, often in the outer suburbs that his electoral strategy relied on winning over.
What was revealed by having journalists on the bus was the paucity of policy substance. Details about housing affordability and petrol pricing — which voters desperately wanted to hear — were little more than sound bites.
Steered clear of nuclear sites
This was obvious by Dutton’s second visit to a petrol station, and yet there were another 15 to come. The fact that the campaign bus steered clear of the sites for proposed nuclear plants was also telling.
— C h r i s @chrishehim.bsky.social (@ChrisHeHim1) May 4, 2025
The grind of daily coverage helped expose the lateness of policy releases, the paucity of detail and the lack of preparation for the campaign, let alone for government.
On ABC TV’s Insiders, the Nine Newspapers’ political editor, David Crowe, wondered whether the media has been too soft on Dutton, rather than too hard as some coalition supporters might assume.
He reckoned that if the media had asked more difficult questions months ago, Dutton might have been stress-tested and better prepared before the campaign began.
Instead, the coalition went into the election believing it would be enough to attack Labor without presenting a fully considered alternative vision. Similarly, it would suffice to appear on friendly media outlets such as News Corp, and avoid more searching questions from the Canberra press gallery or on the ABC.
Reporters and commentators across the media did a reasonable job of exposing this and holding the opposition to account. The scrutiny also exposed its increasingly desperate tactics late in the campaign, such as turning on Welcome to Country ceremonies.
If many Australians appear more interested in what their prospective political leaders have to say about housing policy or climate change than the endless culture wars being waged by the coalition, that message did not appear to have been heard by Peta Credlin.
The Sky News Australia presenter and former chief-of-staff to prime minister Tony Abbott said during Saturday night’s election coverage “I’d argue we didn’t do enough of a culture war”.
Contrary to headlines in the media, a piece of Universal Credit news is not actually a good thing for families reliant on the benefit. In fact, if you ignore these latest Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) headlines, the story is actually a bad one.
Families relying on Universal Credit are facing significant challenges as recent changes in policy expose them to potentially harsher financial penalties. The DWP has lowered the cap on automatic deductions from benefits to 15% of the standard allowance, a move that was initially positioned as a reform to support struggling households.
However, this limit is not as straightforward as it seems. In certain circumstances, such as when child maintenance payments are owed, deductions can exceed this cap, plunging families deeper into financial uncertainty.
The new regulations, part of a series of welfare reforms introduced by Labour, are being promoted by the DWP as designed to provide some respite for benefit claimants.
However, many are discovering that if they are required to make “last resort deductions”—essentially payments that are mandatory and directly related to child maintenance obligations—they could lose more than 15% of their Universal Credit.
According to the official DWP guidelines, these deductions are designed to help claimants meet their obligations and avoid dire outcomes such as eviction or loss of utilities.
A stark reality – not a ‘boost’
While the intention behind these deductions may be to facilitate repayments, the reality for many families is stark.
Losing 15% of a standard allowance, which is already stretched thin, can lead to severe consequences. The system, designed to prevent debt spirals, is somewhat paradoxical in its operation, as it can inadvertently create a new layer of hardship for many on the brink of poverty.
Families often find themselves in a precarious situation, with the fear of automatic DWP deductions hanging over them like a cloud. This fear is compounded by the knowledge that any reduction in benefits will not be finalised until after the next assessment period, leaving them in a state of financial limbo.
For those on Universal Credit, keeping track of any shifts in earnings or benefit income becomes vital, as deductions are recalibrated at the end of each assessment cycle.
Lies
Of course, the corporate media has framed this lowering of deductions as a ‘boost’ to families – with notorious liars Birmingham Live being the worst offender over this bit of Universal Credit news:
Predictably, all the press were doing was parroting what the DWP had said:
Families in distress are navigating a labyrinth of policies that seem to lack coherence and compassion, potentially exacerbating their already challenging situations. Then, the corporate media adds to this distress by lying to them with this latest Universal Credit news scam.
Universal Credit: a DWP menace
As families wrestle with the implications of these deductions, they continue to display remarkable resilience. Many are making sacrifices and adapting to the demands placed upon them, often doing so with little support or recognition from the very system that is meant to assist them.
The situation underscores the importance of a welfare system that truly reflects the needs of its users, providing the safety net intended for those facing financial hardship.
Ultimately, the persistent issues surrounding Universal Credit deductions remain a source of distress for countless families across the UK. The complexities and potential pitfalls of the DWP call for careful reconsideration and a more empathetic approach to welfare that genuinely seeks to support those in need.
World’s richest man Elon Musk craves natural resources for Tesla. The human rights abuses taking place to get them, however, don’t seem to concern him too much. And Indonesia is a good example of that.
The revival of a US-backed dictatorship in Indonesia?
The 1 May protestsandrepression in Indonesia, however, act to remind us that Indonesia is not exactly a champion of human rights. Because the “world’s third-largest democracy” currently seems to be at risk of slipping back into military rule. Elitist president Prabowo Subianto has faced massive protests recently over austerity measures and efforts to give armed forces more of a role in government. In particular, cuts have hit ministries dealing with “children’s welfare, public infrastructure and natural disasters”. And despite this context, the government has chosen to raise royalties on nickel.
As the Canary previously argued, the alliance between Elon Musk and Donald Trump may well be responsible for the strategy of bulldozing international diplomacy over natural resources. For electric vehicles in particular, resources like steel, aluminium, lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, graphite, and rare earth elements are all in demand. And Indonesia is just one in a long list of countries that has resources Musk and the US want. It’s also one of the places where the economic and political elites of the empire are happy to trash human rights and the environment in the interest of profits.
The fightback is both in the streets and online. And we know which side we’re on.
Aksi MayDay 2025 di DPR mendapatkan represifitas aparat kepolisian dan TNI. Saat ini kasbi masih stay di pintu 10 GBK untuk memastikan dan mengkoordinir massa aksi yang datang dari berbagai daerah dan banyak yang merupakan perempuan, dan anak-anak memastikan keselamatan mereka. pic.twitter.com/qLMP2yg6A7
The fact that people are facing hunger and hardship cost the UK economy, public finances and public services at least £75.6 billion in 2022/23, according to a new report from the Trussell Trust.
Hunger: uncivil and economically backwards
The charity broke down the figure. £38.2 billion is from the loss of productivity and employment, most prominently because people undergoing hunger and hardship are ‘scarred’ by the experience, whereby it’s more difficult to sustain a job.
In turn, that loss of employment leads to lower tax revenues and higher welfare payments, costing £23.7 billion.
Hunger and hardship further has an impact on public services, at a cost of £13.7 billion, with about half of that coming from increased healthcare costs. The Labour government should particularly listen here given their NHS plan is centred on ‘prevention’. Another portion of this figure comes from increased education spending and childcare spending. And £3 billion of this sum comes from increased spending on homelessness services.
The report points out that a “widening gap between the rich and poor is creating divisions and tensions between people at a community level”. Indeed, Oxfam has found that 1% of the country has more money than 70%. Polling from the Fairness Foundation identified that 63% of Britons believe the super rich have too much power over politics.
Solutions from Trussell
Trussell offers p9 recommendations to remedy the impact and cost of hunger and hardship. One is the ‘Essentials Guarantee’, which a number of charities have been campaigning for. This would mean that no one in the country goes without the essentials they need to survive. It would bring 2.2 million people out of hunger and hardship by 2026/27 and drive £17.6 billion in economic benefits. It makes sense: if people receive what they need to live they will automatically spend that in the economy, driving growth.
Another recommendation is scrapping the two child benefit cap. This would boost the economy by around £3.1 billion and lift 470,000 children out of hunger and hardship by 2026/27.
The scale of the issue
The Trussell report found that 9.3 million people, including 3 million children, faced hunger and hardship in 2022/23. Corresponding with an increase in inequality, 46% more children now experience hunger and hardship than a decade ago.
Money equates to real material resources in the economy and if rich people’s portion of the wealth keeps growing, it’s at the expense of the poorest. Last year, UK billionaires saw their wealth increase by £35 million every single day. Meanwhile, Trussell estimates that an additional 425,000 people will face hunger and hardship by 2026/2027.
The charity identified the rate of different groups that are facing hunger and hardship:
31% of families with three or more children.
32% of single parent families.
70% of people facing the issue are renters.
People living in a disabled family are much more likely to experience hunger and hardship (17% compared to 11% for non-disabled people).
The issue is dramatically worse for minority ethnic groups, at up to 28% compared to 11% for white families.
It’s clear that Labour’s planned welfare cuts to disabled people’s support is only going to make the issue significantly worse. As well as the human cost, there is a domino effect on the economy, delivering negative outcomes for us all.
The current Kashmir crisis involves at least two nuclear powers – India and Pakistan. And it threatens to escalate quickly. But just as Israel’s oppression of people in occupied Palestine started long before 7 October 2023, India’s oppression of people in occupied Kashmir started long before 22 April this year. It’s a “forever war” with deep roots in noxious colonial rule, resource conflict, and the power games of global superpowers. And we need to understand these three points of context a lot better in order to avert nuclear disaster.
1) British colonialism set the divisive ball rolling
Britain was quick to leave the newly independent nations to deal with the consequences of its colonial meddling. Its implementation of partition was catastrophic (much as it was in Palestine), either by design, incompetence, disinterest, or a toxic mixture of it all. This caused immensesuffering for millions of people. And it left behind a strong legacy of conflict, division, and instability. The subsequent wars between India and Pakistan, often over Kashmir, were very much the spawn of this colonial shambles.
The UN has consistently called for a plebiscite to allow Kashmiris to decide their own fate. India has rejected these calls. When resistance against Indian occupation in Kashmir increased from 1989, the occupiers responded by disappearing thousands of people and killingtens of thousands. There were also “mass permanent settlements of outsiders” in the region, and some have called the situation an “ongoing genocide“.
2) A battle for Kashmir’s water amid climate breakdown
Pakistan has an importantborderwith China thanks to the part of Kashmir under its control. But India has something potentially even more precious within the part of Kashmir it occupies: the water that flows from the Himalayas down into (mostly) Pakistan, which is becoming less stable as a result of global warming. Back in 2016, the BBC was already talking about potential “water wars” between India and Pakistan as a result.
India, meanwhile, became more attractive to the US as it moved towards neoliberalism in the 1990s. And under Narendra Modi, this has only intensified, alongside increasing inequality, “nutritional deprivation”, and authoritarianism to hold dissentat bay.
With Donald Trump in particular intensifying a newcold war with China and India having its ownissueswith China, an increasing US-Indian strategic alliance is in the making (helped by a toxic neoliberal-nationalistaffinity). And ignoring the crimes of India’s occupation forces in Kashmir is part and parcel of such an alliance, much as US support for Israeli occupation forces is in Palestine.
In Britain, meanwhile, establishment tool Keir Starmer overturned his predecessor’s solidarity with Kashmir when he became leader of the Labour Party, quickly cosying up to Modi’s regime.
Without justice, there will be no peace in Kashmir
As tensions rise between the nuclear powers in South Asia, it’s clear that, even if India and Pakistan avoid war, a lasting peace will not come without: meaningfully addressing the decades of injustice in Kashmir; fostering respectful diplomacy that can help to deal with the challenges increasingly presented by climate destruction; and working to overcome the deeply engrained ethno-religious division nurtured by British colonialism. Western powers taking the side of another ultra-nationalist occupying power, out of cynical self-interest, will only make matters worse.
The Football Association (FA) have issued a ban on transgender women competing in amateur football. The alarming move comes after a supreme court ruling that has threatened the rights of trans women. Now, the FA released a statement that read:
This is a complex subject, and our position has always been that if there was a material change in law, science, or the operation of the policy in grassroots football then we would review it and change it if necessary.
The Supreme Court’s ruling on the 16 April means that we will be changing our policy.
However, by their own admission, there are only a minuscule number of trans women are currently registered with the FA. As the BBCreported:
The FA said on Thursday that there were fewer than 30 transgender women registered among millions of amateur players.
There are no registered transgender women in the professional game across the Home Nations.
FA targeting minoritised people
There are currently 2.5 million women registered to play women’s football. As the BBC report above, there are no registered transgender women in professional football. For amateur football, out of the millions registered to play in the women’s game, only 28 footballers are trans women.
Natalie Washington is one of those 28 women and told the BBC:
This means for me personally, and for many people playing football, that we are no longer able to do this stuff that we were able to do last week and that we’ve been able to do for decades.
Whilst transphobes often advocate for trans people to be segregated into their own sporting divisions, Natalie explained why this isn’t a realistic option:
The effect that hormones have had means when I do play an occasional five-a-side kickabout with men, I don’t feel like I can compete with men my sort of age and with similar physical characteristics.
The reality is there are not enough transgender people in society for us to run our own sports, run our own spaces – there just aren’t the numbers to make that viable.
Natalie also made it clear that the move will undoubtedly push trans women out of football, adding:
This is a lot of attention on a very small number of people who aren’t causing a problem, and are just going about their lives.
Separating out a certain group within a sub-sect – segregation – is never in the name of equality or safety. It is beyond ludicrous that the FA have chosen to target such a tiny group of people. Who is made safer by such a bigoted decision?
Outrage
The Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey made an important point:
The FA allows male footballers who've raped and abused women to still play, but THIS is about protecting women https://t.co/iIikWyBmV5
— Rachel Charlton-Dailey (@RachelCDailey) May 1, 2025
A current Premier League footballer is currently under investigation for rape and sexual abuse. Other prominent figures in the men’s game have been accused or convicted of rape and/or sexual assault – including Cristiano Ronaldo. The men’s game is rife with misogyny, from both players and fans. So, what does the FA do? Target the handful of trans women who play the sport.
Another social media user pointed out how the FA is ignoring actual problems in the sport:
giving women better training facilities and better pitches?
protecting women from being assaulted by their own managers or owners?
providing a better, safer environment in games?
banning 20 women from playing amateur football?
Just days ago, Wolves Women were left appalled when it emerged that their club hadn’t properly filled out the necessary paperwork for them to compete in the Women’s Championship – leaving their efforts throughout the season potentially wasted. Such a thing would be unthinkable in the men’s game. But, this does demonstrate how many challenges the women’s game faces – and none of those challenges come from trans women.
Journalist Ed Campbell showed just how vindictive and ridiculous the FA have made themselves look:
Trans women who play football in Engand can't even two eleven-a-side teams between them. Heavy handed and cruel https://t.co/cUucjPzAsS
Journalist Evie Ashton urged football journalists not to be complicit:
Every football journalist has a moral duty to take a stand against this egregious decision by the FA. Does nothing to protect women and now makes them complicit in a movement that wants trans people erased from society.
Sports producer Becky Taylor-Gill made it clear what she needs as a footballer:
The thing that gets me most in all this is men on Twitter telling me it’s just to protect grassroots women’s football. I am one of those cis women who plays in grassroots football. I don’t want your protection! I don’t need it! Let me talk for myself, I love my trans teammates.
— Becky Taylor-Gill (@beckytaylorgill) May 1, 2025
Manchester City footballer Kerstin Casparij kissed her trans flag armband in solidarity:
Meanwhile, England Netball and the England and Wales Cricket Board have also followed the FA’s example in banning trans women from playing in their sports. As sporting organisations roll out their cruel decisions, trans women are forced to further defend themselves from an onslaught of bigotry.
Fae Fulconis, is a grassroots trans footballer who is pushing back against the ruling:
My birth certificate says that my sex is female, my passport says F, I see no reason why I can’t play football, so I’m going to play.
I’m going to fight this ruling. If they want to ban me, then they can physically come and get me off the pitch.
In a staggering display of cruelty, the FA has offered affected trans women six sessions of free therapy.
Trans people remain protected under the law and need to be treated with dignity and respect – and this announcement lacks any detail on how those obligations will be honoured. Hasty decisions, without a full understanding of the practical implications and before any changes to guidance have gone through the necessary consultation and parliamentary process, isn’t the answer.
And, fourteen LGBTQ+ charities have written to the government warning of:
a genuine crisis for the rights, dignity and inclusion of trans people in the UK.
If cis men and women claim to have any love for football, they need to raise their voices to protest against the banning of trans women in sport. And, if cis people have any humanity, they need to push back against what will only be an increasing attempt to ban trans people from public life.
Australia (ranked 29th) and New Zealand (ranked 16th) are cited as positive examples by Reporters Without Borders in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index of commitment to public media development aid, showing support through regional media development such as in the Pacific Islands.
The 2025 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has revealed the dire state of the news economy and how it severely threatens newsrooms’ editorial independence and media pluralism.
In light of this alarming situation, RSF has called on public authorities, private actors and regional institutions to commit to a “New Deal for Journalism” by following 11 key recommendations.
The media’s economic fragility has emerged as one of the foremost threats to press freedom.
According to the findings of the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, the overall conditions for practising journalism are poor (categorised as “difficult” or “very serious”) in half of the world’s countries.
When looking at the economic conditions alone, that figure becomes three-quarters.
Concrete commitments are urgently needed to preserve press freedom, uphold the right to reliable information, and lift the media out of the destructive economic spiral endangering their independence and survival.
That is where a New Deal for Journalism comes in.
The 11 RSF recommendations for a New Deal for Journalism:
1. Protect media pluralism through economic regulation Media outlets are not like other businesses and journalism does not provide services like other industries.
Although most news outlets are private entities, they serve the public interest by ensuring citizens’ access to reliable information, a fundamental pillar of democracy.
Media pluralism must therefore be guaranteed, both at market level and by ensuring individual newsrooms reflect a variety of ideas and viewpoints, regardless of who owns them.
In France (25th), debates around media ownership consolidation — particularly involving the Bolloré Group — have highlighted the risks to media pluralism.
In South Africa (27th), the Competition Commission is considering solutions to mitigate the threats posed by giant online platforms to the pluralism of the digital information space.
RSF 2025 World Press Freedom Index summary. Video: RSF
2. Adopt the JTI as a common standard News outlets, tech giants, and governments should embrace the Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI), an international standard for journalism.
More than 2000 media outlets in 119 countries are already engaged in the JTI certification process. Launched by RSF, the JTI acts as a common professional reference that does not judge an outlet’s content but evaluates the processes in its production of information, improving transparency around media ownership and editorial procedures, and promoting trustworthy outlets.
This certification provides a foundation to guide public funding, inform indexing and ranking policies, and enable online platforms and search engines to highlight reliable information while protecting themselves against disinformation campaigns.
3. Establish advertisers’ democratic responsibility Governments should introduce the principle that companies have a responsibility to help uphold democracy, similar to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Advertisers should be the first to adopt this concept as a priority, as their decision to shift their budgets to online platforms — or, worse, websites that fuel disinformation — makes them partially responsible for the economic decline of journalism.
Advertisers should be encouraged to link their advertising investments to criteria on reliability and journalistic ethics. Aligning advertising strategies with the public interest is vital for fostering a healthy media ecosystem and maintaining democracies.
This notion of a democratic responsibility for companies has notably been promoted by the steering committee of the French General Assembly of Information (États généraux de l’information) and may be included in the bill that will be examined in 2025 by the French National Assembly.
4. Regulate the gatekeepers of online information Democratic states must require digital platforms to ensure that reliable sources of information are visible to the public and remunerated.
The European Union’s Copyright Directive and Australia’s (29th) News Media Bargaining Code in — the first legislation regulating Google and Facebook — are two examples of legally requiring major platforms to pay for online journalistic content.
Canada (ranked 21st) has undertaken similar reforms but has faced strong resistance, particularly from Meta, which has retaliated by removing news content from its platforms.
To ensure the economic value generated by online journalistic content is fairly distributed, these types of laws must be broadly adopted and their effective implementation must be guaranteed.
Public authorities must also ensure fair negotiations so that media outlets are not crushed by the current imbalance of power between economically fragile news companies and global tech giants.
Lastly, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has made the need for fair remuneration for content creators all the more urgent, as their work is now used to train or feed AI models. This is simply the latest example of why regulation is necessary to protect journalistic content from new forms of technological exploitation.
To mark World Press Freedom Day, 3 May, Europeans Without Borders (ESF), Cartooning for Peace and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have joined forces for Caricartoons, a campaign celebrating press freedom. Image: RSF screenshot PMW
5. Introduce a tax on tech giants to fund quality information The goal of introducing such a tax should be to redistribute all or part of the revenue unfairly captured by digital giants to the detriment of the media. The proceeds would be redirected to news media outlets and would finance the production of reliable information.
Several countries have already committed to reforms that tax major digital platforms, but almost none are specifically aimed at supporting the production of quality information from independent sources.
Indonesia (127th) implemented a tax on foreign digital services, while also requiring platforms to remunerate media outlets for the use of their content starting in 2024. France also established a specific tax on digital companies’ revenues in 2019.
6. Use public development aid to combat news deserts and strengthen reliable information from independent sources As crises, conflicts and authoritarian regimes multiply, supporting reliable information from independent sources and countering emerging news deserts has never been more important.
Official Development Assistance (ODA) must incorporate support for independent journalism, recognising that it is indispensable not only for economic development but also for strengthening democratic governance and promoting peace.
At least 1 percent of ODA should be allocated to financing independent media outlets in order to guarantee their sustainability.
At a time when certain support mechanisms — such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) — are under threat, commitments from donor states are more crucial than ever.
Australia (ranked 29th) and New Zealand (ranked 16th) are positive examples of this commitment, showing support through regional media development programmes, notably in the Pacific Islands.
7. Encourage the development of hybrid and other innovative funding models It is essential to develop support mechanisms that combine public funding with private contributions (donations, investments, and loans), such as the IFRUM, a fund proposed by RSF to reconstruct the media in Ukraine (62nd).
To diversify funding sources, states could strengthen tax incentives for investors and broaden the call for donors beyond their own residents and taxpayers.
8. Guarantee transparency and independence in the allocation of media aid Granting public or private subsidies to the media must be based on objective and transparent criteria that are subject to oversight by civil society. Only clear, equitable aid distribution can safeguard editorial independence and protect media outlets from political interference.
One such legislative solution is the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which will come into force in 2025 across all European Union member states. It includes transparency requirements for aid distribution, obliges member states to guarantee the editorial independence of newsrooms, and mandates safeguards against political pressure.
Other countries have also established exemplary frameworks, such as Canada (21st), which has implemented a transparent system combining tax credits and subsidies while ensuring editorial independence.
9. Combat the erosion of public service media Public service media are not state media: they are independent actors, funded by citizens to fulfil a public interest mission. Their role is to guarantee universal access to reliable, diverse information from independent sources, serving social cohesion and democracy.
Financial and political attacks against these outlets — seen in many countries — threaten the public’s access to trustworthy information.
10. Strengthen media literacy and journalism training Supporting reliable information means that everyone should be trained from an early age to recognise trustworthy information and be involved in media education initiatives. University and higher education programmes in journalism must also be supported, on the condition that they are independent.
Finland (5th) is recognised worldwide for its media education, with media literacy programmes starting in primary school, contributing to greater resilience against disinformation.
11. Encourage nations to join and implement international initiatives, such as the Partnership for Information and Democracy The International Partnership for Information and Democracy, which promotes a global communication and information space that is free, pluralistic and reliable, already counts more than fifty signatory countries.
RSF stresses that journalism is a vital common good at a time when democracies are faltering.
This New Deal is a call to collectively rebuild the foundations of a free, trustworthy, and pluralistic public space.
Republished by Pacific Media Watch in collaboration with Reporters Without Borders.
We’re humbled to introduce our Canary writer, Alaa Shamali from Palestine – but currently a refugee in Oman. We will be publishing him in Arabic – but if you right click on the screen the menu that appears should give you the option to translate the article to English. If you are reading on mobile, this will be in the burger menu (the three dots) of your browser.
في الثالث من مايو من كل عام، يتبادل العالم التهاني والتصريحات احتفاءً بحرية الصحافة. تُعقد المؤتمرات، تُنشر التقارير، وتُرفع الشعارات حول “صون الكلمة” و”حماية الصحفيين”. لكن خلف هذا المشهد المثالي، هناك مكان يُدعى غزة، يدفع فيه الصحفي حياته ثمنًا للحقيقة، في ظل صمتٍ دولي يُطبِق على الكاميرا كما يطبِق الحصار على المدينة.
في غزة، لا تتعلق الصحافة بحرية التعبير فحسب، بل بالبقاء. مهنة محفوفة بالموت، تُمارَس تحت خطر القصف لا الرقابة، ويُعامل صاحبها كخصمٍ في ساحة حرب. الكلمة تُلاحَق بصاروخ، والكاميرا تُصنَّف خطرًا أمنيًا، والميكروفون يُستهدف كما لو كان بندقية.
الصحافة في غزة .. مهنة تُؤدَّى على خط النار
خلال 18 شهرًا فقط من الحرب الإسرائيلية المستمرة على قطاع غزة، ارتكب الاحتلال أرقامًا صادمة بحق الجسم الصحفي: 212 صحفيًا استشهدوا، و48 آخرون اعتُقلوا، فيما دُمرت منازل 44 صحفيًا، وقُضي على 28 عائلة إعلامية بالكامل.
إلى جانب الأرواح، دمّر الاحتلال البنية التحتية الإعلامية: أكثر من 143 مؤسسة إعلامية سُوّيت بالأرض، وبلغت الخسائر المادية للقطاع الإعلامي حوالي 400 مليون دولار، في محاولة واضحة لتكميم الصورة وكسر الصوت.
الصحفي هدف مباشر لا “خسائر جانبية”
لم تكن تلك الضربات نتيجة “أخطاء عسكرية” أو “أضرار غير مقصودة”، بل جاءت كاستهداف مباشر وممنهج للصحفيين، الذين تحوّلوا إلى أهداف عسكرية معلنة. بعضهم استُهدف داخل بيته، آخرون أثناء تغطيتهم للمجازر، وآخرون احترقوا على الهواء أمام ملايين الشاشات.
أسماء لامعة في الإعلام الفلسطيني والعربي باتت اليوم في عداد الشهداء، وجوههم التي كانت تبث الأمل والحقيقة أصبحت معلقة في صور تأبينية، وميكروفوناتهم التي كانت تصدح بالصوت، أصبحت رمادًا على قارعة طريق.
تدمير المؤسسات… وقتل الذاكرة
العدوان لم يكتفِ بالصحفيين الأفراد، بل طال مؤسساتهم. محطات تلفزة وإذاعة وصحف أُبيدت، ومكاتب بثّ دُمّرت، وأرشيفات تحتوي ذاكرة عقدين من الزمن تحولت إلى رماد. في غزة، لا تُستهدف فقط اللحظة، بل التاريخ، حتى لا يتبقى شيء للذاكرة الجمعية يروي ما جرى.
حتى البيوت الخاصة للصحفيين لم تسلم من القصف، إذ استُهدفت كجزء من محاولة واضحة لتفكيك الحاضنة الأسرية والدعم المعنوي. لم يعد هناك ما يُسمى “مكان آمن” للصحفي، فهو ملاحَق أينما اختبأ، سواء كان في الاستديو أو غرفة نومه.
الصحافة الغزية .. التوثيق كمقاومة
ورغم هذا المشهد المأساوي، لا تزال الصحافة الغزية حيّة. يحمل الصحفيون في غزة كاميراتهم كما لو كانت دروعًا، يجوبون بها بين أنقاض البيوت، يوثقون الشهداء، يصورون الخسائر، ويعبرون عن معاناة الناس الذين لا صوت لهم.
ليست هذه ممارسة مهنية فقط، بل فعل مقاومة. فكل صورة تُنشر، وكل شهادة تُوثق، وكل تقرير يُبثّ، هو مواجهة لآلة الطمس، وتحدٍ لمنظومةٍ ترى في الحقيقة خطرًا أكبر من الصواريخ.
يكتفي بالبيانات
في المقابل، يكتفي المجتمع الدولي، في يوم الصحافة، بإصدار بيانات القلق والدعوة إلى احترام حقوق الصحفيين. لكن غزة لا تنتظر بيانًا جديدًا بقدر ما تحتاج إلى فعل. فالمجزرة لا تُوقفها التوصيات، ولا تحمي الصحفي سترات عليها شعارات الأمم المتحدة، بل تحميه مسؤولية حقيقية من العالم الحر.
صحافة لا تموت
في غزة، لا يُحتفل بحرية الصحافة. بل يُحزَن عليها، وتُحمَل على الأكتاف، وتُكتَب على شواهد القبور. لكن رغم ذلك، تبقى الصحافة الفلسطينية شوكة في وجه النسيان. تستمر في عملها، وتواجه الرعب، وتؤكد للعالم أن الحقيقة قد تُستهدف، لكنها لا تموت.
Reform UK have won their first parliamentary by-election, taking Runcorn and Helsby from Labour by only six votes. This comes amidst reports of Labour voters feeling betrayed.
Ellie Reeves: “We know we need to do more…”
Naga Munchetty: “When you say you need to do more, one thing that Labour candidates have been hearing from Lab voters on the doorstep is [they] feel betrayed. When you say you need to do more, will there be further betrayals?” pic.twitter.com/mF37ELHAzI
Across the UK, local elections have taken place to contest 1,600 seats in 23 councils. Additionally, six mayoral positions were up for grabs.
Runcorn and Helsby: the bigger picture
As reported by the BBC, Reform also had their first mayor elected in Greater Lincolnshire. Dame Andrea Jenkyns – Former Tory MP, won 42% of the vote. The Tory candidate got a mere 26% of the vote.
Labour managed to hold onto three mayoral contests, but in North Tyneside it was a close contest. Labour held the majority by only 444 votes.
It was just as tight in Doncaster where Labour were victorious over Reform by only 698 votes.
Labour also won the West of England mayoral contest with a 5,949 majority, with Reform’s Arron Banks coming in second.
Overall, Labour has seen a huge drop in the vote share.
But is there any wonder, when they’re claiming to ‘know the public’ and then systematically destroying the public services which that very same public relies on?
“We know the public” that is where it all goes wrong – these arrogant MP’s create a divide between themselves as being “superior” beings and the people who vote for them.
Whilst not all of the results are in, so far, Labour have already lost 23 seats. Additionally, the Tories have lost 82 seats with Reform making huge gains. So far, they have gained 101 seats.
The Labour right have abandoned Labour values, they sold themselves out, attacked their core base for short term gain, we can’t out reform, reform a lurch to the right is not the answer. https://t.co/BK3UWqRazH
It’s shocking to think that going hard on scapegoating marginalised communities for social problems caused by capitalism would lose Labour its voter base. You’d think the Tories tanking after their racist, anti-migrant, and punch down on the poorest platform might have served as a cautionary tale. But clearly not. Starmer’s government has been a tribute act to the last fourteen years of Tory austerity.
Local elections results aren’t a surprise. It’s a pushback at Labour parties heinous policies targeting pensioners/disabled and not give one damn about kids in poverty. The excuses are coming thick and fast from Labour MP/supporters. Take a bow, you did this, gave rise to Reform. pic.twitter.com/rwnt16UERp
Cuts to the winter fuel payment and disability benefit cost Labour seats.
And in next year’s local elections, they will face another threat: Greens & Independents in places like Birmingham, Bradford, Hackney, Islington, Lambeth
Kirklees, Oldham,
Bolton, Newham & Tower Hamlets.
As previously reported by the Canary, voters are fleeing the party:
Top reasons 2024 Labour voters are abandoning the party:
1) Cuts to winter fuel payment
2) Not reduced cost of living
3) Not improved public services
4) Broken too many promises
5) Not stood up to the rich and powerful
But it should have been obvious that Labour’s vile racism wasn’t going to outperform Reform’s. It’s appalling that the party has even tried this to win votes. Anti-migrant voters weren’t going to go for the party in power, that they perceive as failing to “stop the boats”, when the Farage fan club says it’s going to go even further on fascist border force.
However, Reform’s rise is only one part of the picture. Labour’s overall nosedive is a product of a public betrayed again and again. Pensioners picking up the pieces after the winter fuel payment cut, and the WASPI women abandoned. Chronically ill and disabled people facing vicious cuts. Public sector workers – like those in the NHS – seeing state-sanctioned mass redundancies. There’s hardly a soul among Labour’s traditional voters that the Labour right hasn’t screwed over at this point – and it’s rightly biting the big business sell-out shell of a party in the ass.
Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy challenged Keir Starmer on skyrocketing rents at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs):
Rent in my constituency is becoming exceedingly unaffordable with the ONS’s most recent data estimating that the average price of rents have risen by over 10% in the last year whilst average wages haven’t risen at the same level. And I know several metro mayors are calling for the power to control rents in their region to help tackle the issue… The steps in the Renters’ Rights Bill to cap market rents at the market rate are positive. But as landlords are the ones setting the market rates, renters in my constituency are fearful that this won’t be enough to protect them from rising rents so can the prime minister tell me what steps this government is taking to bring down rental prices
Indeed, the Renters’ Rights Bill contains a gift to landlords in that it doesn’t cap rent, but only caps rent increases at the market rate. This means rents can keep rising year upon year. Yet people in the UK are already spending 42% of their income on rent with that figure rising to 72% in London areas like Ribeiro-Addy’s constituency of Clapham and Brixton Hill.
That means a high proportion of people’s incomes is stagnating in landlord’s bank accounts – money that less well off people would spend in their local economy. This would increase demand for products and services, stimulating local business.
She’s absolutely right to raise this important issue. Communities across the country are facing the consequences of the utter failure of the party opposite to build enough homes. Our Renters’ Right Bill improves the system for 11 million private renters, blocking demands for multiple months of rent in advance and finally abolishing no fault evictions: something they said they’d do over and over again and as usual never got round to doing. Mr Speaker that’s backed up by major planning reforms, our new homes accelerator and 600 million pound to deliver 300,000 homes in London part of our 1.5 million homes we’ll build across the country, that are desperately needed.
It’s true that the Renters’ Rights Bill contains some positives like the end to Section 21 arbitrary evictions. But it’s only progress because the bar is currently so low. For instance, the bill extends the ‘Decent Homes Standard’ to privately rented properties – meaning they must have basic conditions such as functioning roofs and kitchens.
On top of that, Labour has pledged that just 1.2% of the 1.5m houses the Labour government plans to oversee the construction of this parliament will actually be affordable. And the government hasn’t said how many of them will even be social.
Common Wealth has warned that Labour’s 1.5m new homes risk domination from private equity in the Build to Rent sector. Build to Rent properties in the UK have gone up to 20% of all new builds in recent years – and 27% in London.
That’s despite Resolution Foundation analysis that shows the current housing system has plunged 1.1 million children into poverty, 690,000 of which are renting from the private sector. Starmer makes noise on reducing child poverty, but isn’t tackling the issue of excessive landlordism.
The government spends 88% of its housing budget on subsidising landlord’s rents through people’s benefits. This chimes with the amount of private rented households in the UK almost tripling from 1999 to 5.6 million in 2021. It followed the introduction of parasitic (when compared to providing housing at cost price for a non-bubble value) buy-to-rent mortgages in 1996.
Labour should end the artificially inflated housing market and provide modern shelter at cost-price for citizens. Homes: not assets.
Amnesty International’s latest report on human rights around the globe makes for damning reading for Israel, the US, and the UK. While mainstream media is likely to receive the report with typical Western bias that paints Global South countries as backwards, there’s a reason to compare the standards in three nations that form the bedrock of both historical and modern day colonialism.
Amnesty on Israel
As the prime example of a modern-day settler colonial state, Amnesty’s assessment of human rights in Israel is damning – to say the least. The report writers paint a much more accurate picture than either current administration in the US or UK (including prior conservative and liberal governments) have done thus far. They write:
Israel committed genocide in Gaza, including by causing some of the highest known death tolls among children, journalists, and health and humanitarian workers of any recent con ict in the world, and deliberately in inflicting on Palestinians conditions calculated to bring about their physical destruction.
Charities and organisations have been increasingly likely to call Israel’s actions what they are: genocidal. Amnesty is also careful to point out that Israel’s actions amount to apartheid:
Israel committed the crime of apartheid, including through the forcible transfer and displacement of Palestinians both in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territory…Thousands of Palestinians were subjected to arbitrary detention and to ill-treatment, amounting to torture in many cases.
What mainstream media routinely ignores in its reporting on Palestine is that Israel is acting with brazen impunity:
The International Court of Justice’s instructions to avert genocide and end illegal occupation were ignored. Freedom of expression and peaceful assembly came under attack.
The organisation documents how Israel has deliberately and purposely damaged infrastructure vital to the continuation of life for Palestinians. In great detail, the report lays out that:
The high civilian death toll was a result of direct, disproportionate, or indiscriminate attack.
A shocking 90% of Gaza’s population have been displaced, with most people displaced multiple times. Amnesty found that:
All humanitarian organizations reported excessive Israeli restrictions and delays on approvals of aid transfers.
The report details the sheer number of journalists and healthcare workers Israel have targeted. It also notes that “more than 10,000 Palestinians” have been subject to “enforced disappearance or incommunicado detention.” Alarmingly, “all” Palestinian detention facilities have seen reports of sexual assault and rape.
Choice of pearl clutching
However, that wasn’t what mainstream media led with when reporting on Amnesty’s findings, if they reported on them at all. The Guardian ran with a headline about Trump leading the charge on repression, whilst the BBC managed a report on a different Amnesty investigation on the death penalty. Whilst the former did include a sentence about Israel’s war crimes, the choices of these mainstream British outlets says a lot about their priorities. They’ll breathlessly run liveblogs on Israeli hostages, but a comprehensive condemnation of Israel’s apartheid doesn’t warrant much attention.
What the Guardian did mention, however, was the following:
Women, girls and LGBTQ+ people faced intensifying attacks in a number of countries including Afghanistan and Iran, while LGBTQ+ rights were targeted in Uganda, Georgia and Bulgaria.
Now, that’s accurate – those countries did target queer people. However, it’s a suspect choice of countries to highlight. Unsurprisingly for any queer people in the UK and the US, Amnesty pulled up both countries on degrading queer rights. However, there’s a colonial narrative that determines which countries are considered to be wholly backwards, and which countries’ degradation of human rights doesn’t even warrant a mention. Those countries can easily be separated into the Global North and the Global South. Or, if that’s too tricky a dulux colour chart on human skin will do the job.
Whilst Trump is undoubtedly to blame for a terrifying rollback of rights, he’s currently been in power for just over a hundred days. And, the rest of Amnesty’s assessment on the US was no less damning.
Additional barriers
Amnesty found that abortion bans “severely impacted” rights. As is often the case, the report found that when it came to reproductive rights:
Additional barriers existed for many people, including Black and other racialized people, Indigenous Peoples, undocumented immigrants, transgender people, rural residents and people living in poverty.
They also found that anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric rocketed as:
Authorities expanded the system of arbitrary mass immigration detention, surveillance and electronic monitoring.
The continued detention of Muslim men at US facility, Guantanamo Bay, was called a “violation of international law.” The US is accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings around the world, and of withholding information from investigations into those killings.
They noted that campus protests against Israeli genocide were met with stiff violence. Black people were disproportionately targeted by police violence:
According to media sources, police shot and killed 1,133 people in 2024. Black people
were disproportionately impacted by the use of lethal force, comprising nearly 22% of deaths from police use of firearms, despite representing 13% of the population.
And:
Discrimination and violence against LGBTI people were widespread and anti-LGBTI legislation persisted.
Transgender people of colour in particular faced horrific violence:
According to the Human Rights Campaign, 84% of transgender people killed were people of colour and 50% were Black transgender women.
Then, in a representation of the contemporary colonial powers sticking together, it is of course the US supplying weapons to Israel that makes up a significant part of their denigration of human rights. Amnesty found that:
US-made bombs and components were identified by Amnesty International in unlawful deadly air strikes by the Israeli military on residential homes and a makeshift camp for displaced people in the occupied Gaza Strip in January, April, and May. The continued supply of munitions to Israel violated US laws and policies regarding the transfer and sale of arms, intended to prevent arms transfers that risk contributing to civilian harm and violations of human rights or international humanitarian law.
Amnesty: highlighting support of genocide
The US has been central to Israel’s genocide in Palestine. But, another nation that has also provided support for the apartheid has been the UK. Amnesty strongly rebuked the UK, citing “irresponsible arms transfers”:
In June, UN special experts called on states to end all transfers of military equipment to Israel to avoid the risk of responsibility for human rights violations. In September, the new government partially suspended export licences, citing a “clear risk” of breaches of international humanitarian law by the Israeli military. However, the UK contribution to the F-35 fighter jet, a crucial element in Israeli military activity, was excluded from this suspension.
On top of that, Amnesty judged the government to have had “a chilling effect” in its crackdown on freedom of speech in relation to peaceful Palestine and environmental protests. They also referred to the race riots of 2024 as further evidence of:
anti-asylum seeker rhetoric from figures in politics and the media.
The report cites the Windrush scandal as something that “confirmed the racism at the heart of government policy” and noted that:
Children from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds were disproportionately impacted by the high level of child poverty…The statistics demonstrated a disproportionate impact on children from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds, of whom 47% were living in poverty, compared with 24% of white children.
Social security allowances were found to be “less than the cost of common essentials for a single person.” On top of that, the report also referenced the UK failing to meet its obligations towards disabled people.
Shithole countries
It’s no coincidence that the unifying factor amongst these three countries is a deep and abiding commitment to Israel’s genocide and apartheid in Palestine. Israel is a central cog in the contemporary colonial manifestations of the UK and US in the modern age. And, it’s no accident that it’s the most marginalised in society – poor people, trans people, disabled people, and those multiply marginalised – who are facing the brunt of a rolling back of rights.
Trump famously referred to Haiti and El Salvador as “shithole countries.” Whilst those countries – like any country on Earth – will have problems with human rights and discrimination, it is undeniable that the litany of heinous impacts detailed above are a result of a colonial military industrial complex that hoards power built on the bones and blood of the colonised. It’s down to capitalist rot which means that such vast inequalities can exist in the UK and US. If the sheer amount of human rights abuses detailed above were describing a Global South country, you can imagine the rush of headlines peddling colonialist garbage. But, because it’s the UK and US propping up Israel, they’ll go unnoticed by mainstream media.
Teals and Greens are under political attack from a new pro-fossil fuel, pro-Israel astroturfing group, adding to the onslaught by far-right lobbyists Advance Australia for Australian federal election tomorrow — World Press Freedom Day. Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon investigate.
SPECIAL REPORT: By Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon
On February 12 this year, former prime minister Scott Morrison’s principal private secretary Yaron Finkelstein, and former Labor NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal, met in the plush 50 Bridge St offices in the heart of Sydney’s CBD.
The powerbrokers were there to discuss election strategies for the astroturfing campaign group Better Australia 2025 Inc.
Finkelstein now runs his own discreet advisory firm Society Advisory, while also a director of the Liberal Party’s primary think-tank Menzies Research Centre. Previously, he worked as head of global campaigns for the conservative lobby firm Crosby Textor (CT), before working for Morrison and as Special Counsel to former NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet.
Roozendaal earned a reputation as a top fundraiser during his term as general secretary of NSW Labor and a later stint for the Yuhu property developer. He is now a co-convenor of Labor Friends of Israel.
The two strategists have previously served together on the executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, where Finkelstein was vice-president (2010-2019) and Roozendaal was later the chair of public affairs (2019-2020).
Better for whom? Better Australia chairperson Sophie Calland, a software engineer and active member of the Alexandria Branch of the Labor party attended the meeting. She is a director of Better Australia and carries formal responsibility for electoral campaigns (and partner of Israel agitator Ofir Birenbaum).
Also present at the meeting was Better Australia 2025 member Alex Polson, a former staffer to retiring Senator Simon Birmingham and CEO of firm DBK Advisory. Other members present included another director, Charline Samuell, and her husband, psychiatrist Dr Doron Samuell.
Last week, Dr Samuell attracted negative publicity when Liberal campaigners in the electorate of Reid leaked Whatsapp messages where he insisted on referring to Greens as Nazis. “Nazis at Chiswick wharf,” Samuell wrote, alongside a photograph of two Greens volunteers.
The Better Australia group already have experience as astroturfers. Their “Put The Greens Last” campaign was previously directed by Calland and Polson under the entity Better Council Inc. in the NSW Local government elections in September 2024.
The Greens lost three councillors in Sydney’s East but maintained five seats on the Inner West Council.
But the group had developed bigger electoral plans. They also registered the name Better NSW in mid-2024. By the time the group met for the first time this year on January 8, their plans to play a role in the Federal election were already well advanced.
They voted to change the name Better NSW Inc. to Better Australia 2025 Inc.
Calland and Birenbaum Group member Ofir Birenbaum joined the January meeting to discuss “potential campaign fundraising materials” and a “pool of national volunteers”. Birenbaum is Calland’s husband and member of the Rosebery Branch of the Labor Party.
But by the time the group met with Finkelstein and Roozendaal in February, Birenbaum was missing. The day before the meeting, Birenbaum’s role in the #UndercoverJew stunt at Cairo Takeaway cafe was sprung.
This incident focused attention on Birenbaum’s track record as an agitator at Pro-Palestine events and as a “close friend” of the extreme-right Australian Jewish Association. The former Instagram influencer has since closed his social media accounts and disappeared from public view.
The minutes of the February meeting lodged with NSW Fair Trading mention a “discussion of potential campaign management candidates; an in-depth presentation and discussion of strategy; a review and amendments of draft campaign fundraising materials”. All of this suggests that consultants had been hired and work was well underway.
The group also voted to change Better Council’s business address and register a national association with ASIC so they could legally campaign at a national level.
On March 4, Calland registered Better Australia as a “significant third party” with the Australian Electoral Commission. This is required for organisations that expect their campaign to cost more than $250,000.
Three weeks later, Prime Minister Albanese called the election, and Better Australia’s federal campaign was off to the races.
Labor or Liberal, it doesn’t matter… According to its website, Better Australia’s stated goals are non-partisan: they want a majority government, “regardless of which major party is in office”.
“In Australia, past minority governments have seen stalled reforms, frequent leadership changes, and uncertainty that paralysed effective governance.”
No evidence has been provided by either Better Australia’s website or campaigning materials for these statements. In fact, in its short lifetime, the Gillard Labor minority government passed legislation at a record pace.
Instead, it is all about creating fear. A stream of campaigning videos, posts, flyers and placards carrying simple messages tapping into fear, insecurity, distrust and disappointment have appeared on social media and the streets of Sydney in recent weeks.
Wentworth independent Allegra Spender wasted no time posting her own video telling voters she was unfazed, and for her electorate to make their own voting choices rather than fall for a crude scare campaign.
Spender is accused of supporting anti-Israel terrorism by voting to reinstate funding for the United Nations aid agency UNRWA. Better Australia warns that billionaires and dark money fund the Teal campaign, alleging average voters will lose their money if Teals are reelected.
It doesn’t matter that most Teal MPs have policies in favour of increasing accountability in government or that no information is provided about who is backing Better Australia.
Anti-Green, too The anti-Greens angle of Better Australia’s campaign sends a broad message to all electorates to “Put the Greens Last”. It aims to starve the Greens of preferences. The campaign message is simple: the Greens are “antisemitic, support terrorism, and have abandoned their environmental roots”.
It does not matter that calls unite the peaceful Palestine protests for a ceasefire, or that the Greens have never stopped campaigning for the environment and against new fossil fuel projects.
Better Australia promotes itself as a grassroots organisation. In February, Sophie Calland told The Guardian that “Better Australia is led by a broad coalition of Australians who believe that political representation should be based on integrity and action, not extremist or elite activism”.
It has very few members and its operations are marked by secrecy, and voters will have to wait a full year before the AEC registry of political donations reveals Better Australia’s backers.
It fits into a patchwork of organisations aiming to influence voters towards a framework of right-wing values, including
“support for the Israel Defence Force, fossil fuel industries, nationalism and anti-immigration and anti-transgender issues.”
Advance Australia (not so fair)
Advance is the lead organisation in this space. It campaigns in its own right and also supports other organisations, including Minority Impact Coalition, Queensland Jewish Collective and J-United.
Advance claims to have raised $5 million to smash the Greens and a supporter base of more than 245,000. It has received donations up to $500,000 from the Victorian Liberal Party’s holding company, Cormack Foundation.
In Melbourne, ex-Labor member for Macnamara, Michael Danby, directs and authorises “Macnamara Voters Against Extremism”, which pushes voters to preference either Liberals or Labor first, and the Greens last. Danby has spoken alongside Birenbaum at Together With Israel rallies.
Together With Israel: Michael Danby (from left), activist Ofir Birenbaum, unionist Michael Easson OAM, and Rabbi Ben Elton. Image: Together With Israel Facebook group/MWM
The message of Better Australia — and Better Council before it — mostly aligns with Advance. These campaigns target women aged 35 to 49, who Advance claims are twice as likely to vote for the Greens as men of the same age.
The scare campaign targets female voters with its fear-mongering and Greens MPS, including Australia’s first Muslim Senator Mehreen Faruqi, and independent female MPS with its loathing.
Meanwhile, Advance is funded by mining billionaires and advocates against renewable energy.
Labor standing by in silence Better Australia is different from Advance, which is targeting Labor because it is an alliance of Zionist Labor and LIberal interests. Calland’s campaign may be effectively contributing to the election of a Dutton government. In the face of what would appear to be betrayal, the NSW Labor Party simply stands by.
The NSW Labor Rules Book (Section A.7c) states that a member may be suspended for “disloyal or unworthy conduct [or] action or conduct contrary to the principles and solidarity of the Party.”
Following MWM’s February exposé of Birenbaum, we sent questions to NSW Labor Head Office, and MPs Tanya Plibersek and Ron Hoenig, without reply. Hoenig is a member of the Parliamentary Friends of Israel and has attended Alexandria Branch meetings with Calland.
MWM asked Plibersek to comment on Birenbaum’s membership of her own Rosebery Branch, and on Birenbaum’s covert filming of Luc Velez, the Greens candidate in Plibersek’s seat of Sydney. Birenbaum shared the video and generated homophobic commentary, but we received no answers to any of our questions.
According to MWM sources, Calland’s involvement in Better Australia and Better Council before that is well known in Inner Sydney Labor circles. Last Tuesday night, she attended an Alexandria Branch meeting that discussed the Federal election. She also attended a meeting of Plibersek’s campaign.
No one raised or asked questions about Calland’s activities. MWM is not aware if NSW Labor has received complaints from any of its members alleging that Calland or Birenbaum has breached the party’s rules.
After all, when top Liberal and Labor strategists walk into a corporate boardroom, there is much to agree on.
It begins with a national campaign to keep the major parties in and independents and Greens out.
MWM has sent questions to Calland, Finkelstein, and Roozendaal, regarding funding and the alliance between Liberal and Labor powerbrokers but we have yet to receive any replies.
Wendy Baconis an investigative journalist who was professor of journalism at UTS. She has worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism. She is not a member of any political party but is a Greens supporter and long-term supporter of peaceful BDS strategies.
Yaakov Aharon is a Jewish-Australian living in Wollongong. He enjoys long walks on Wollongong Beach, unimpeded by Port Kembla smoke fumes and AUKUS submarines. This article was first published by Michael West Media and is republished with permission of the authors.
We’re humbled to introduce our Canary writer, Alaa Shamali from Palestine – but currently a refugee in Oman. We will be publishing him in Arabic – but if you right click on the screen the menu that appears should give you the option to translate the article to English. If you are reading on mobile, this will be in the burger menu (the three dots) of your browser.
في ظل استمرار العدوان الإسرائيلي ضد قطاع غزة، تتزايد التحذيرات من المنظمات الدولية حول الوضع الإنساني في المنطقة، حيث أصبح الملايين من السكان في القطاع عرضة لخطر المجاعة بسبب نقص حاد في الإمدادات الغذائية الأساسية، بالإضافة إلى الأوضاع الصحية المتدهورة. المنظمات الإنسانية العالمية حذرت من أن الوضع قد يزداد سوءًا بشكل كبير مع استمرار إغلاق المعابر وحصار القطاع.
أزمة غذائية خانقة
أكدت المتحدثة باسم برنامج الغذاء العالمي، أن الوضع في قطاع غزة أصبح “صعبًا للغاية”، مشيرة إلى أن مخزون المساعدات الغذائية للبرنامج قد نفد تمامًا.
وأوضحت أن حوالي 700 ألف شخص في غزة كانوا يعتمدون يوميًا على الوجبات المقدمة من برنامج الغذاء العالمي، وأنهم الآن يواجهون أزمة غذائية خانقة بعد انقطاع هذه المساعدات.
وقالت: “نواجه نقصًا شديدًا في الغذاء، والأوضاع تتدهور بسرعة. لدينا شاحنات محملة بالمساعدات الإنسانية عالقة على الحدود ولا يمكنها دخول القطاع بسبب إغلاق المعابر”، محذرة من أن استمرار هذا الوضع قد يؤدي إلى حالات وفاة نتيجة سوء التغذية، خاصة في ظل تدهور الوضع الصحي والمعيشي للسكان.
مجاعة تهدد حياة الأطفال والنساء
منظمة الأونروا، المسؤولة عن تقديم المساعدات الإنسانية لللاجئين الفلسطينيين، أكدت أن الأسر في قطاع غزة باتت مضطرة لتناول أي طعام يمكنها العثور عليه، حتى وإن كان غير آمن أو ملوث. وأشارت التقارير إلى أن العديد من العائلات أصبحت تعتمد على المصادر غير الآمنة من الطعام بسبب نقص الإمدادات الأساسية، وهو ما يزيد من خطر انتشار الأمراض.
وفي السياق ذاته، أفادت بعض العائلات في غزة بأنهم اضطروا إلى استهلاك الطعام الذي قد يتسبب في مشاكل صحية خطيرة، وهو ما يزيد من معاناة الأطفال والحوامل الذين يعانون من نقص حاد في العناصر الغذائية الضرورية لنموهم وصحتهم. وأكدت التقارير الطبية أن الأطفال، خاصةً الرضع، هم الأكثر تضررًا من الأزمة، حيث يعاني 92% من الرضع بين 6 أشهر وسنتين من نقص حاد في الغذاء، مما يهدد حياتهم.
المعابر المغلقة: عائق أمام وصول المساعدات
تواصل المعابر بين قطاع غزة والعالم الخارجي، خصوصًا معبر رفح، إغلاقها بشكل متواصل، مما يزيد من تعقيد الوضع الإنساني في القطاع. المنظمة الدولية لتنسيق الشؤون الإنسانية أكدت أن نقص الوصول إلى المساعدات الإنسانية بسبب إغلاق المعابر يزيد من حجم التدهور في الوضع الإنساني في غزة. وقالت المنظمات الدولية: “إن الأزمة الإنسانية تتزايد بشكل كبير، والأمر يتطلب استجابة عاجلة من المجتمع الدولي للضغط على الأطراف المعنية لفتح المعابر والسماح بدخول المساعدات الحيوية”.
تُظهر التقارير أن نسبة كبيرة من المستشفيات في القطاع تعمل بشكل جزئي فقط بسبب نقص الأدوية والمستلزمات الطبية، مما يعمق من حجم المعاناة.
الحلول والنداءات الدولية
تشير المنظمات الإنسانية الدولية إلى أن الحلول الممكنة تتطلب رفع الحصار عن قطاع غزة وفتح المعابر بشكل منتظم لضمان وصول المساعدات الإنسانية. كما طالبت هذه المنظمات المجتمع الدولي بالتدخل السريع لمنع تفاقم الأزمة، مشيرة إلى أن الوضع الحالي يستدعي توفير الغذاء والماء والأدوية على وجه السرعة.
وأفادت الأمم المتحدة أن أكثر من 2 مليون شخص في غزة يحتاجون إلى مساعدات غذائية وصحية عاجلة. كما أن أعداد النازحين داخل القطاع تتزايد بشكل مستمر، حيث تم تدمير العديد من المنازل والبنية التحتية جراء القصف المستمر، مما يزيد من تعقيد الأوضاع الإنسانية.
ويبقى الوضع في قطاع غزة مرشحًا للتفاقم بشكل كبير في حال استمرت القيود على المعابر وتراجع تدفق المساعدات الإنسانية. المنظمات الدولية تحذر من أن استمرار هذا الوضع قد يؤدي إلى تفشي المجاعة بشكل واسع النطاق، مما يهدد حياة الملايين من الفلسطينيين في القطاع. وتطالب هذه المنظمات المجتمع الدولي بتحمل مسؤولياته والتحرك العاجل لتفادي كارثة إنسانية قد يكون من الصعب معالجتها في المستقبل.
تستمر الأنظار الدولية على غزة، حيث يأمل السكان في استجابة سريعة من المجتمع الدولي لإنقاذ حياتهم قبل فوات الأوان.
Katty King-Coulling (39) from Maidenhead sustained a spinal cord injury that has left her with debilitating chronic pain. Seven years on, she’s struggling with the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) benefits system and the feeling of being “not disabled enough” for help. With the proposed Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)changes to PIP, Katty believes her assessments will only get harder, while her condition and her needs will remain the same.
DWP PIP: ‘not disabled enough’ for support
In 2018, Katty woke up to excruciating pain in her legs, which she described as “immense burning and shocking pain”. She was eventually diagnosed with cauda equina syndrome, a rare and often misdiagnosed condition which leads to spinal cord injury caused by compression of the lower spinal cord.
Katty was working as a healthcare assistant for the NHS when she sustained her injury but has since had to give up work. Since her injury, Katty has gone through three DWP PIP assessments and says she has struggled each time to get people to understand her disability.
On average, it’s estimated that it costs an additional £1,010 a month for a disabled person to have the same standard of living as a non-disabled person. At her latest assessment, Katty was downgraded to the daily living standard rate of £73.90 a week, or £320 a month, and has lost her mobility funding.
As Katty has full use of her arms and core, can walk short distances, and has no visible signs of her disability, she believes people have a harder time understanding her injury and her needs. She says she often feels “not disabled enough” to receive compassion, understanding, and help. She said:
If you can wash your top half, if you can dress your top half, then you’re seen as not that disabled.
But this is far from the reality for Katty, who needs her husband’s support to shower, dress, cook, and clean. She said:
On a bad day, I’m lucky to get out of bed and the only reason why I do get up is because of my daughter. She needs me and I’m prepared to go through more pain if it means that she is looked after the best I possibly can.
No massive sign saying ‘I am disabled’
Like any parent, Katty’s priority is giving her daughter a healthy, happy life and her DWP PIP payments go to her daughter’s childcare. With chronic pain, it’s difficult for Katty to keep up with an active toddler, as lifting, carrying, and chasing after her daughter is all a challenge.
Nursery has become the best solution for the family as her daughter is occupied for most of the day when Katty’s husband is at work, helping to relieve some of the pressure of balancing parenting with maintaining her own care.
Unable to work, DWP PIP has become a lifeline to Katty and her family. But when it comes to PIP assessments, Katty said:
It’s variable on who you have, and it shouldn’t be like that. It’s the anxiety when you go through PIP, you feel like such a fraud because to look at you, there’s nothing there. There’s nothing glaring you in the face. No massive sign saying ‘I am disabled’.
Teresa Skinner, support line coordinator at the charity, said:
Calls regarding benefits, particularly PIP, are a daily enquiry now, mainly because their benefit has stopped. No face-to-face assessments is a big problem: health conditions cannot be assessed over the phone properly. It causes severe hardship, not being able to get out because of loss of cars, not being able to have personal care and help around the home, the list can go on. It is causing severe hardship and further mental health problems.
DWP PIP: scoring 4 points challenging for people with hidden disabilities
Katty said:
Scoring 4 in one PIP category is challenging for those with hidden disabilities, as assessments may not fully capture my condition’s impact. Hidden disabilities often have symptoms that are not visible or easily measurable, leading to an underestimation of needs and we see that even now.
A confirmed diagnosis should validate our condition, rather than relying on a points system. Without changes, more people like us will face less validation and struggle to contribute to society if the government and working environment continue to fail us.
Reflecting on her own experience with DWP PIP, Katty said:
Not everyone’s cauda equina or spinal cord injury is the same. It’s variable. So, I don’t know what disabled box we have to fit in to say yes, we are entitled to PIP or to help.
The support line for the Spinal injuries Association is at 0800 980 0501
Common Wealth has exposed that we are paying privatised gas companies pretty much just for existing. In other words, we are paying rent to them for being ‘on standby’ for supply issues.
Renting gas for its existence, not its supply
In a new report, thinktank notes we have spent £12.5 billion through bill payments to fossil fuel firms for them maintaining their ‘capacity’ in the last ten years.
It points out that a significant portion of these payments went to a private equity fund founded by a foreign billionaire, as well as overseas states. £900m went to plants that Uniper owns (in turn, owned by the German state) and £320m went to plants that Equinor partially owns, which is owned by the Norwegian state. Why are citizens in Norway and Germany financially benefiting from our energy supply, as well as a foreign billionaire?
The thinktank recommends that the Labour Party government nationalise necessary gas power plants while we phase them out and bring in renewables. The thing is, we should go further and deliver the renewables themselves in public ownership as well. This would decrease costs for every person and business across the economy and particularly high energy services like agriculture.
Common Wealth points out that nationalisation of gas would eliminate “profits to quickly lower bills and enhance energy security”, while meeting “policy objectives and operating assets at cost”.
The thinktank further reports that during the transition to renewable energy, gas companies have even more leverage through the ‘standby’ system.
Extreme overcharging from gas companies
The prices gouged to prevent blackouts are ludicrous, as the report shows. VPI Energy charged an “astronomical” £5,750 per megawatt-hour (MWh) during a day in January 2025 when there would’ve been a blackout. In Europe, the market rate for gas was just €45 per MWh. And the so called regulator Ofgem is allowing this. The scam is reflected in our bills, with the average yearly payment rising to £1,849.
And those prices are from the ‘Balancing Mechanism’ alone, to prevent blackouts. That doesn’t include the rent we pay under the ‘Capacity Market’.
To conclude, Common Wealth states:
Transitioning to a publicly-owned strategic reserve of gas-fired power plants is exactly the kind of bold but actionable policy that a government focused on the cost of living and climate action should pursue. Whilst negotiating terms and transferring ownership would take some time, the Government should actively consider its options — and its leverage — as soon as possible, with a view to complete the process ahead of the next general election.
Campaign group EveryDoctor has raised the alarm over the “incredibly concerning” financial links between politicians and private healthcare sector. Notably, off the back of its recently published research, it has continued to expose Labour Party government ministers’ significant connections to lobbyists shilling for big players in private health.
EveryDoctor: Labour and the lobbyists
In April, EveryDoctor put out a new piece of damning research uncovering the scale of private healthcare connected political donations MPs have been raking in. In particular, it pored over donations that the current crop of elected MPs have accepted between 2023 and 2025.
It found that MPs had bagged more than £2.7m in donations from individuals and companies directly or indirectly linked to the private healthcare sector.
And crucially, it was Labour MPs that took more than £2m of those £2.7m donations. It accounted for four times the amount of every other political party combined.
Now, the group is honing in on some of the key offenders in Cabinet. And what’s notable is the sizeable chunk of donations lobbyists linked to privatised health have been pouring into the pockets of key government ministers.
So far, the group has unearthed that lobbyists ploughed £110,000 into MPs’ political donations during 2023 and 2024. And these lobbyists count some of the most prominent private healthcare companies among their clients.
Rachel Reeves in bed with private healthcare lobbyists
Chancellor Rachel Reeves was one such more-than-willing recipient. She accepted a free campaign advisor from political lobbying firm FGS Global between February and May 2024. This amounted to a donation-in-kind worth more than £17,000.
FGS Global also funded a further £12,929 of “logistical costs” for Reeves at the Labour Party conference in October 2024.
Why is this significant? It’s because FGS Global has a link to US private healthcare group United Health.
Specifically, FGS Global went on to lobby the government on behalf of Optum between July and September 2024. This is the UK subsidiary of US private healthcare group United Health.
The firm’s other clients have included Ernst and Young, which has been criticised for billing the NHS more than £2,000 a day for its consultants. Accord Healthcare is another. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) previously fined the UK drug company for overcharging the NHS.
Meanwhile, education secretary Bridget Phillipson and business secretary Jonathan Reynolds also accepted a total of £5,900 in sponsorship from lobbying firm Public First for a
pre-election media reception. Public First’s clients include the Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN), an industry group representing private health firms operating in the UK.
The money moving through Westminster
Ultimately, EveryDoctor says it is:
incredibly concerned at the way that money is moving through Westminster, and the links between our politicians and those with private healthcare interests.
It argues that:
Important questions need to be asked about who is really driving healthcare policy in the UK, and for the benefit of whom? Decisions about the NHS should be solely driven by what is best for patients, and what can be done to support our hardworking staff to do their important work properly.
The campaign group’s incisive research has – quite literally – put the damning scale of the MPs private healthcare donations on the map. EveryDoctor has consistently held politicians of every stripe to account. Now, it’s latest work is no exception – scrutinising Labour with no fear, no favour.
Moreover, the group has said that this is only the start of its research. There’s more to expose where all that came from. Therefore, it’s building a “living map”, and will be adding more data soon.
EveryDoctor founder Dr Julia Grace Patterson has issued a plea for public support:
We are desperately concerned about the welfare of millions of NHS patients and staff, because of what politicians have done to the NHS. We think it’s time to step things up and build a movement to push back, and we need your support to do it!
It’s evidently vital EveryDoctor can continue its work throwing a spotlight on dodgy political donations, because already, it’s clear that private healthcare lobbyist have won the ear of this Labour government.
A parliamentary debate is set to take place over the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) controversial cuts to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for chronically ill and disabled people.
However, given the Labour Party government’s recent response to a viral parliamentary petition calling for it to scrap its plans, it’s unlikely this will result in any meaningful changes to its policy agenda. Nor for that matter, is it probable to include any genuine engagement with chronically ill and disabled people’s valid fears. This is not least because while it is ‘a debate’, it doesn’t really constitute a full parliamentary debate in any sense.
Shunted as it is into a separate room outside the House of Commons main chamber, ultimately there won’t be a vote on any of the proposals. So it’s largely just a glorified soapbox for the government to sell its plans to MPs, with some criticism thrown in from the handful with some integrity that oppose it.
DWP PIP cuts: parliamentary debate incoming
In March, DWP boss Liz Kendall finally laid out the government’s sweeping catalogue of plans to ‘reform’ disability and health-related income-based benefits. It set this out in its Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working green paper.
Broadly, this made for a callous combination of catastrophic cuts that will harm chronically ill and disabled claimants.
The paper included a suite of regressive reforms to make it harder for people to claim disability benefits like PIP. As expected, the changes it’s proposing will target certain claimants in particular, namely young, neurodivergent, learning disabled, and those with mental health disorders.
Moreover, disabled people who need help with things like cutting up food, supervision, prompting, or assistance to wash, dress, or monitor their health condition, will no longer be eligible.
Specifically, it’s increasing the number of points a person will need to score in their DWP PIP assessment to access the daily living component of the benefit. This will now require people to score four points or more in a daily living category to claim it.
The government is now consulting on some of these DWP plans until 30 June. You can respond to this here. Scandalously however, it isn’t consulting on many of its most dangerous proposals. Of course, these are the plans that will hit chronically ill and disabled people hardest.
Now, parliament will be having a debate over these plans. Labour Party MP Diane Abbott will be leading it on 7 May at 2.30pm.
Government petition response has already set the tone
The debate also comes after the government gave a atrocious response to a viral petition railing against the DWP PIP and Universal Credit cuts.
Chronically ill and disabled Leicester West resident Abi Broomfield started the petition and it quickly took off. It demands that the Labour Party government stop the cuts it has set out in its Green Paper. In particular, Broomfield has honed in on some of the worst, most damaging proposals. Notably, these are largely cuts that will leave chronically ill and disabled people unable to work worse off. Or, these will otherwise deny people benefit entitlements entirely.
Currently, the petition has over 16,000 signatures. After hitting 10,000, the government issued an insulting response. First, it stated how:
The Government must urgently tackle the spiralling welfare bill, restore trust and fairness in the system, and protect disabled people. Social security reforms will therefore continue as planned.
Following this, it only doubled down on its cruel and scapegoating rhetoric:
Our welfare system is broken, costing almost a third as much as it does to run the NHS in England while leaving people for years on benefits with no offer of support, no hope of a future in work and no opportunity to improve their standard of living. Working-age adults who are in work are three times less likely to be in poverty than those out of work. We need to act to end the inequality that sees disabled people and people with health conditions trapped out of jobs, despite many wanting to work, and ensure our welfare system is there for people who need it, now and long into the future.
You can read the full response here – but needless to say, it’s dismissive and callous continuity Conservative throughout.
So it’s in the wake of this that parliament will be hosting this debate on the DWP PIP cuts. Of course, it’s likely the government will take much the same dismissive tone at this as well.
Broomfield has therefore reached out to Abbott ahead of it offer input and support:
I have reached out to @HackneyAbbott Team about the petition and to offer any help I can
Westminster Hall debate on Personal Independence Payment and disabled people is scheduled for Wednesday 7 May 2025 at 2:30pm. The debate will be led by Diane Abbott https://t.co/02gbkMfwSa
— Chronically Vexed she/they (@ChronicallyVex) April 30, 2025
Warm words at Westminster? Not good enough
Ultimately, it should be a given that parliament gets to debate government plans that will – at minimum – impact upwards of hundreds of thousands of people.
A recent Freedom of Information (FOI) request showed that the DWP PIP changes could in fact deny 1.3 million people part of, or all of their PIP entitlement. From the start, it has been evident the Labour government hasn’t been upfront or honest about the true scale of its proposals’ impacts.
However, it’s not likely to start changing that now. While an Westminster debate is welcome, too many of its MPs are more than willing to go along with its atrocious plans. So far, reports suggest murmurings from “dozens” MPs opposed to the proposals. It’s not enough.
The forthcoming debate will be a telling moment. It will serve as an indication of how Labour Party MPs are angling themselves at the vote over these plans in June. Chronically ill and disabled PIP claimants will be watching them closely. And it’s safe to say at this point, warm words won’t cut it.
Europe Netball has cancelled its upcoming competition that was set to take place in Cardiff in early May. This comes just days after a coalition of groups and individuals called on the national governing body and ministers in the Welsh government to demand Europe Netball bar Israel from the tournament.
The announcement cited “safeguarding” of “players, coaches, officials, volunteers, and fans” as the reason for the move. In short, it has chosen to cancel the whole competition instead of banning a genocidal apartheid state from participating in the event.
So, rather than taking a principled stand against Israel’s ongoing genocide in Palestine, the European netball body seems to have closed ranks to shield the Israeli team from public scrutiny.
Europe Netball Open: Israel out of international sporting events
The Europe Netball Open tournament was due to be held between 7-11 May at Cardiff City FC venue House of Sports.
However, it came to the attention of local anti-genocide campaigners that the Israeli netball team would be participating. That is, amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in which it has now murdered more than 52,200 Palestinians – including hundreds of Palestinian athletes – Europe Netball was permitting it to play in its international competition.
A coalition of groups therefore responded to this blatant act of sportswashing by Israel. Crucially, members highlighted how the Israeli team included players from illegal settlements. In other words, players come from land Israel has illegally annexed – displacing Palestinians to do so. Moreover, the coalition underscored that some team members will likely even have served in the Israeli forces due to its mandatory military service requirements. This means that they may have been carrying out acts of apartheid and genocide across Gaza and the West Bank.
It wrote to Wales Netball asking that it join with the coalition in making a public statement calling for the Europe Netball competition to bar Israel from the event. Additionally, it demanded that the governing body call on Europe Netball to ban Israel from any potential future competitions.
Additionally, it sent a copy to Welsh government sports minister Jack Sargeant MS. It also addressed one to the chair of the Sports Committee, Delyth Jewell MS. Alongside these, it penned a letter to Sport Wales, and to the venue that was set to host the tournament.
Now, Europe Netball appears to have responded to these demands. However, it did so not by removing Israel from the competition – but by cancelling the entire event altogether.
‘Safeguarding’ concerns: capitulation to Israel by any other name
On Tuesday 29 April, Europe Netball plastered a cancellation announcement across its website and socials. It read that:
At Europe Netball, the safety and wellbeing of everyone involved in our events players, coaches, officials, volunteers and fans – is always our top priority.
It is with regret that we announce the cancellation of our Open Tournament at Cardiff next week.
This decision has not been made lightly but reflects our unwavering commitment to safeguarding our netball family and ensuring a positive experience for all.
All those who have purchased tickets will be contacted individually regarding refunds.
We remain dedicated to creating opportunities for the growth and the enjoyment of netball across our region and we thank you for your understanding and continued support.
#EuropeNetball #NetballCommunity
By its “unwavering commitment to safeguarding”, this evidently means protecting Israel’s reputation. In effect, it’s implying that campaigners peacefully calling out genocide pose a threat to Israeli team’s “wellbeing”.
Reading between the lines, when it says “ensuring a positive experience for all” – it means shielding the Israeli team from public scrutiny over their complicity in their state’s ongoing genocide and war crimes.
Give Europe Netball the red card for failing to stand up for Palestine
She started by calling out Europe Netball’s shameful and feeble decision:
Now, give the red cards to Europe Netball. They’re clearly offside. They are taking no responsibility for their legal obligations in holding Israel to account in relation to global international laws. This would have been an opportunity, would it not, for Europe Netball to make that stand, to join in calling for the boycott of Israel from this particular tournament. Now, calling it safeguarding is a cop-out.They needed to take a stand against Israel Netball and make it known that they would not be welcome as part of this tournament.
She then highlighted the rank double-standards at work:
Can you imagine, for a minute, if it had been Russia taking part in this tournament in Cardiff? It would have been opposite. There would have been outcries from the political class to not allow Russia to take part.
Sayed continued:
But here we have it, that they’re using this safeguarding reason as an excuse to cancel this. We know that Israel were fundraising for security because we were going to protest, peacefully protest. Allegedly, we live in a nation where that’s possible. And, of course, we would have been outside campaigning had the tournament taken place.
So, my gut reaction is, Europe Netball, you missed an opportunity to make a stand, to play your part in history, to condemn genocide, to not allow this team to take place, and are therefore now part of an issue of penalising all the other teams that wanted to take place, wanted to come to Cardiff to play in this tournament. We said plainly that Israel Netball were not welcome due to the fact that they train and work on settlement land, due to the fact that their nation is carrying out genocide at the moment against the Palestinian people.
It would have been a simple matter to remove one team from the tournament. But ultimately, the sporting body has chosen to save face to avoid Zionist backlash. What’s abundantly clear is that Europe Netball’s “unwavering commitment to safeguarding” does not count the Palestinian players that Israel has brutally massacred among its “netball family”. But the literal perpetrators of genocide and abhorrent war crimes? They get a free pass.
A cataract surgery company is facing an NHS inquiry after a series of botched procedures left patients in A&E and even blinded. Community Health Eye Care is one of many firms that delivers private provision of NHS treatment, rather than a standardised, not for profit, in-house service.
Botched cataract surgery shows why NHS privatisation should end
The for-profit nature of these private firms means revenue can be put before patient safety. On top of that, there is – as a matter of fact – a best known way to carry out a procedure. Through the NHS, this can be standardised and delivered throughout the service rather than competing firms delivering differing standards.
Indeed, a leaked Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) briefing stated:
With no minimum standards for commissioning and contracting, or standard approaches to training, quality is variable.
More broadly, the NHS paid out £175m over the last five years in compensation and legal fees. That’s after private providers carried out botched procedures leaving people needing amputation, more surgery, in unnecessary pain, or even dying. As well as the shocking patient outcomes, these fees add further cost to the NHS.
The DHSC briefing warned that the five major private cataract surgeries were poaching money and doctors from the NHS. Again, this is the case for privatisation of NHS services across the board and the very existence of private hospitals. They represent a diversion of resources and staff away from the NHS. This is yet another way privatisation is a disaster.
The DHSC briefing also shows that 235,000 patients attended follow up appointments described as ‘unnecessary’, at a cost of almost £16 million. This is just one example of how firms profiteering from the NHS can fill their pockets further.
The neoliberals tell us privatisation provides efficiency. But the facts tell us the opposite is true. When he campaigned to become Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer pledged to “end” NHS outsourcing. That was a straight up con: he’s only increased it.
A cataract surgery company is facing an NHS inquiry after a series of botched procedures left patients in A&E and even blinded. Community Health Eye Care is one of many firms that delivers private provision of NHS treatment, rather than a standardised, not for profit, in-house service.
Botched cataract surgery shows why NHS privatisation should end
The for-profit nature of these private firms means revenue can be put before patient safety. On top of that, there is – as a matter of fact – a best known way to carry out a procedure. Through the NHS, this can be standardised and delivered throughout the service rather than competing firms delivering differing standards.
Indeed, a leaked Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) briefing stated:
With no minimum standards for commissioning and contracting, or standard approaches to training, quality is variable.
More broadly, the NHS paid out £175m over the last five years in compensation and legal fees. That’s after private providers carried out botched procedures leaving people needing amputation, more surgery, in unnecessary pain, or even dying. As well as the shocking patient outcomes, these fees add further cost to the NHS.
The DHSC briefing warned that the five major private cataract surgeries were poaching money and doctors from the NHS. Again, this is the case for privatisation of NHS services across the board and the very existence of private hospitals. They represent a diversion of resources and staff away from the NHS. This is yet another way privatisation is a disaster.
The DHSC briefing also shows that 235,000 patients attended follow up appointments described as ‘unnecessary’, at a cost of almost £16 million. This is just one example of how firms profiteering from the NHS can fill their pockets further.
The neoliberals tell us privatisation provides efficiency. But the facts tell us the opposite is true. When he campaigned to become Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer pledged to “end” NHS outsourcing. That was a straight up con: he’s only increased it.
And I certainly did not expect Peter Dutton — amid an election campaign, one with citizens heading to the polls on World Press Freedom Day — to come out swinging at the ABC and Guardian Australia, telling his followers to ignore “the hate media”.
I’m not saying Labor is likely to be the great saviour of the free press either.
The ALP has been slow to act on a range of important press freedom issues, including continuing to charge journalism students upwards of $50,000 for the privilege of learning at university how to be a decent watchdog for society.
Labor has increased, slightly, funding for the ABC, and has tried to continue with the Coalition’s plans to force the big tech platforms to pay for news. But that is not enough.
The World Press Freedom Index has been telling us for some time that Australia’s press is in a perilous state. Last year, Australia dropped to 39th out of 190 countries because of what Reporters Without Borders said was a “hyperconcentration of the media combined with growing pressure from the authorities”.
We should know on election day if we’ve fallen even further.
What is happening in America is having a profound impact on journalism (and by extension journalism education) in Australia.
‘Friendly’ influencers
We’ve seen both parties subtly start to sideline the mainstream media by going to “friendly” influencers and podcasters, and avoid the harder questions that come from journalists whose job it is to read and understand the policies being presented.
What Australia really needs — on top of stable and guaranteed funding for independent and reliable public interest journalism, including the ABC and SBS — is a Media Freedom Act.
My colleague Professor Peter Greste has spent years working on the details of such an act, one that would give media in Australia the protection lacking from not having a Bill of Rights safeguarding media and free speech. So far, neither side of government has signed up to publicly support it.
Australia also needs an accompanying Journalism Australia organisation, where ethical and trained journalists committed to the job of watchdog journalism can distinguish themselves from individuals on YouTube and TikTok who may be pushing their own agendas and who aren’t held to the same journalistic code of ethics and standards.
I’m not going to argue that all parts of the Australian news media are working impartially in the best interests of ordinary people. But the good journalists who are need help.
The continuing underfunding of our national broadcasters needs to be resolved. University fees for journalism degrees need to be cut, in recognition of the value of the profession to the fabric of Australian society. We need regulations to force news organisations to disclose when they are using AI to do the job of journalists and broadcasters without human oversight.
And we need more funding for critical news literacy education, not just for school kids but also for adults.
Critical need for public interest journalism
There has never been a more critical need to support public interest journalism. We have all watched in horror as Donald Trump has denied wire services access for minor issues, such as failing to comply with an ungazetted decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
And mere days ago, 60 Minutes chief Bill Owens resigned citing encroachments on his journalistic independence due to pressure from the president.
The Committee to Protect Journalists is so concerned about what’s occurring in America that it has issued a travel advisory for journalists travelling to the US, citing risks under Trump administration policies.
Those of us who cover politically sensitive issues that the US administration may view as critical or hostile may be stopped and questioned by border agents. That can extend to cardigan-wearing academics attending conferences.
While we don’t have the latest Australian figures from the annual Reuters survey, a new Pew Research Centre study shows a growing gap between how much Americans say they value press freedom and how free they think the press actually is. Two-thirds of Americans believe press freedom is critical. But only a third believe the media is truly free to do its job.
If the press isn’t free in the US (where it is guaranteed in their constitution), how are we in Australia expected to be able to keep the powerful honest?
Every single day, journalists put their lives on the line for journalism. It’s not always as dramatic as those who are covering the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, but those in the media in Australia still front up and do the job across a range of news organisations in some fairly poor conditions.
If you care about democracy at all this election, then please consider wisely who you vote for, and perhaps ask their views on supporting press freedom — which is your right to know.
Alexandra Wake is an associate professor in journalism at RMIT University. She came to the academy after a long career as a journalist and broadcaster. She has worked in Australia, Ireland, the Middle East and across the Asia Pacific. Her research, teaching and practice sits at the nexus of journalism practice, journalism education, equality, diversity and mental health.
Ahead of local elections this week where Reform UK is set to win big, the Labour Party is panicking. But a new survey suggests the ruling party should be worrying a lot more about losing voters to the Green Party than to Reform.
Labour’s biggest problem is its abandonment of left-wing economics
Reform helped to take out the Conservatives in 2024, allowing Labour to win with the lowest single-party-government vote share since the Second World War and the second-smallest voter turnout since 1885. But people are now turning away from both the Tories and Labour in large numbers. The vacuous uselessness of Keir Starmer’s government has not only seen Reform lead polls on numerous occasions in recent months, but has even seen Labour place third. The right is dominant, despite being divided. Yet Labour has only pushed left-wingers further away with continued pandering to corporate donors and attacks on people’s wellbeing.
The new survey suggests that’s the wrong approach. Because researchers at Persuasion UK commissioned analysis on “Reform curious Labour voters” and found that it would be a lot riskier to lose left-leaning voters than right-leaning ones. However, it claimed Labour could keep both groups if it changed its strategy.
The vast majority of Reform voters in 2024 had not voted Labour in any recent elections. For those that had, Labour’s disastrous second-referendum position in 2019 clearly made a difference. Overall, though, Labour is much more at risk of losing 2024 voters to the Liberal Democrats and Greens than to Reform, except in Scotland.
It may well be true in some places that right-wing-curious Labour voters are more willing to vote with their feet than left-wing-curious voters. But hypothetically, Persuasion UK points out, “if Labour lost every ‘Reform curious Labour voter’, they would lose 123 seats” while “if Labour lost every ‘Green curious Labour voter’, they would lose 250 seats”.
Labour’s leadership could keep both sets of voters. But that would mean growing a soul, a brain, and a backbone.
Persuasion UK insists that, while Reform-curious Labour voters may be socially conservative – especially on the issue of immigration, “they generally have left-leaning populist views on economics” and are less anti-climate than actual Reform voters. This means that Labour could theoretically “unite its coalition with relatively moderate stance[s] on cultural issues while leaning into progressive positions on economics”. Because of a massive cultural divide between Green-curious and Reform-curious Labour voters, then, the unifying factor is economics.
Reform-curious Labour voters have pretty unfavourable views of big business interests, and want Labour to take action on unscrupulous profiteering as a matter of urgency. They also perceive (correctly) that Labour’s current leadership views working-class and poor people with disdain. Competent policies on immigration matter to them, but so do the winter fuel allowance, cost of living, fair taxation, public services, and wealth inequality. And they view both Starmer and Trump-Musk billionaires unfavourably.
Understanding Reform-curious Labour voters better, Persuasion UK says, shows that Labour could keep both them and Green-curious voters happy if it can “maintain moderate – even if boring – positions on divisive cultural topics like asylum and migration” while shifting “the site of conflict in politics away from cultural issues” and on to “more populist conflict on economic left-right issues”. It should “actively seek and welcome fights on these issues”, the researchers say. A couple of examples they stress are “tax and spend – eg consider proposing a tax on the richest to fund the NHS or schools” and “pick fights with CEOs of unpopular businesses”.
A blueprint for a mass-appeal left-wing movement
It currentlyseemsfair to assume that Labour’s right-wing leadership has no desire to pick a fight with big-business interests. After all, its unprecedented mission from 2015 to 2019 was to destroy the hope surrounding Jeremy Corbyn at all costs. And in that context, the same coalition-building challenge falls on the independent British left, which may soon emerge. This may look like a new party, or may be a coalition of independents, Greens, and other smaller parties coordinating depending on who has the best chance to win in specific constituencies.
There certainly seems to be the will to unite on the left around key policies (wages, climate, housing, wealth tax, public services, and peace) in order to enter the space Labour has abandoned. There also seems to be an awareness on the need to centre the class war, which billionaires are currently winning, in order to challenge Reform and become a true anti-establishment force. And trade unions, of course, must finally dump Labour as well.
But there’s one key lesson for the left from this new survey. While there are big cultural (and regional) differences in the UK, people largely agree on economic issues like public-service funding, wealth inequalities, welfare, and even climate action. So for a movement for national change, we need to understand our differences, meet people where they are, and focus on the areas we can all agree on. That is the only way to create a movement that can defeat the Tory-Labour-Reform axis of corporate plunder and hate.
30 April 1975. Saigon Fell, Vietnam Rose. The story of Vietnam after the US fled the country is not a fairy tale, it is not a one-dimensional parable of resurrection, of liberation from oppression, of joy for all — but there is a great deal to celebrate.
After over a century of brutal colonial oppression by the French, the Japanese, and the Americans and their various minions, the people of Vietnam won victory in one of the great liberation struggles of history.
It became a source of inspiration and of hope for millions of people oppressed by imperial powers in Central & South America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
Civil war – a war among several
The civil war in Vietnam, coterminous with the war against the Western powers, pitted communists and anti-communists in a long and pitiless struggle.
Within that were various strands — North versus South, southern communists and nationalists against pro-Western forces, and so on. As various political economists have pointed out, all wars are in some way class wars too — pitting the elites against ordinary people.
As has happened repeatedly throughout history, once one or more great power becomes involved in a civil war it is subsumed within that colonial war. The South’s President Ngô Đình Diệm, for example, was assassinated on orders of the Americans.
By 1969, US aid accounted for 80 percent of South Vietnam’s government budget; they effectively owned the South and literally called the shots.
Donald Trump declared April 2 “Liberation Day” and imposed some of the heaviest tariffs on Vietnam because they didn’t buy enough U.S. goods! Image: www.solidarity.co.nz
US punishes its victims
This month, 50 years after the Vietnamese achieved independence from their colonial overlords, US President Donald Trump declared April 2 “Liberation Day” and imposed some of the heaviest tariffs on Vietnam because they didn’t buy enough US goods!
As economist Joseph Stiglitz pointed out, they don’t yet have enough aggregate demand for the kind of goods the US produces. That might have something to do with the decades it has taken to rebuild their lives and economy from the Armageddon inflicted on them by the US, Australia, New Zealand and other unindicted war criminals.
Straight after they fled, the US declared themselves the victims of the Vietnamese and imposed punitive sanctions on liberated Vietnam for decades — punishing their victims.
Under Gerald Ford (1974–1977), Jimmy Carter (1977–1981), Ronald Reagan (1981–1989), George H.W. Bush (1989–1993) right up to Bill Clinton (1993–2001), the US enforced the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) of 1917.
The US froze the assets of Vietnam at the very time it was trying to recover from the wholesale devastation of the country.
Tens of millions of much-needed dollars were captured in US banks, enforced by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The US also took advantage of its muscle to veto IMF and World Bank loans to Vietnam.
Countries like Australia and New Zealand, to their eternal shame, took part in both the war, the war crimes, and imposing sanctions and other punitive measures subsequently.
The ‘Boat People’ refugee crisis While millions celebrated the victory in 1975, millions of others were fearful. The period of national unification and economic recovery was painful, typically repressive — when one militarised regime replaces another.
This triggered flight: firstly among urban elites — military officers, government workers, and professionals who were most closely-linked to the US-run regime.
You can blame the Commies for the ensuing refugee crisis but by strangling the Vietnamese economy, refusing to return Vietnamese assets held in the US, imposing an effective blockade on the economy via sanctions, the US deepened the crisis, which saw over two million flee the country between 1975 and the 1980s.
More than 250,000 desperate people died at sea.
Đổi Mới: the move to a socialist-market economy In 1986, to energise the economy, the government moved away from a command economy and launched the đổi mới reforms which created a hybrid socialist-market economy.
They had taken a leaf out of the Chinese playbook, which under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping (1978 –1989), had moved towards a market economy through its “Reform and Opening Up” policies. Vietnam saw the “economic miracle” of its near neighbour and its leaders sought something similar.
Vietnam’s economy boomed and GDP grew from $18.1 billion in 1984 to $469 billion by 2024, with a per capita GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP) of $15,470 (up from about $300 per capita in the 1970s).
After a sluggish start, literacy rates soared to 96.1 percent by 2023, and life expectancy reached 73.7 years, only a few short of the USA. GDP growth is around 7 percent, according to the OECD.
An unequal society Persistent inequality suggests the socialist vision has partially faded. A rural-urban divide and a rich-poor divide underlines ongoing injustices around quality of life and access to services but Vietnam’s Gini coefficient — a measure of income inequality — puts it only slightly more “unequal” as a society than New Zealand or Germany.
Corruption is also an issue in the country.
Press controls and political repression As in China, political power resides with the Party. Freedom of expression — highlighted by press repression — is severely limited in Vietnam and nothing to celebrate.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) rates Vietnam as 174th out of 180 countries for press freedom and regularly excoriates its strongmen as press “predators”. In its country profile, RSF says of Vietnam: “Independent reporters and bloggers are often jailed, making Vietnam the world’s third largest jailer of journalists”.
Vietnam is forging its own destiny What is well worth celebrating, however, is that Vietnam successfully got the imperial powers off its back and out of its country. It is well-placed to play an increasingly prosperous and positive role in the emerging multipolar world.
It is part of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and the ASEAN network, and borders China, giving Vietnam the opportunity to weather any storms coming from the continent of America.
Vietnam today is united and free and millions of ordinary people have achieved security, health, education and prosperity vastly better than their parents and grandparents’ generations were able to.
In the end the honour and glory go to the Vietnamese people.
Ho Chi Minh, the great leader of the Vietnamese people who reached out to the United States, and sought alliance not conflict. Image: www.solidarity.co.nz
I’ll give the last word to Ho Chi Minh, the great leader of the Vietnamese people who reached out to the United States, and sought alliance not conflict. He was rebuffed by the super-power which had a different agenda.
On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi’s Ba Dinh square:
“‘All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’
“This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.
“… A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eight years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent.
“For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, solemnly declare to the world that Vietnam has the right to be a free and independent country — and in fact is so already. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilise all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty.”
And, my god, they did.
To conclude, a short poem attributed to Ho Chi Minh:
“After the rain, good weather.
“In the wink of an eye,
the universe throws off its muddy clothes.”
Eugene Doyle is a community organiser and activist in Wellington, New Zealand. He received an Absolutely Positively Wellingtonian award in 2023 for community service. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam War. This article was first published at his public policy website Solidarity and is republished here with permission.
JUST IN: Israel’s Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich:
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(@ChrisHeHim1) 
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(@mettlesome_teri) 
